Crypto Scams & Voting Rights Exposed. | Ben McKenzie and Sen. Doug Jones

0:06 Welcome to the Jim Acasta Show and we have a special treat for you today.

0:10 Not starting with the big headlines of the day,

0:12 but perhaps the biggest threat to America that nobody is talking about.

0:16 Well, almost nobody.

0:18 Uh, actor Ben McKenzie.

0:19 Yes, from the OC fame.

0:21 Sorry Ben, about that.

0:22 Uh, he is out with a hot new documentary

0:24 that warns that cryptocurrency could sink the US economy.

0:28 I I watched this whole thing last night.

0:30 It is riveting.

0:31 Um, let's discuss.

0:32 Welcome, Ben.

0:33 Great to see you.

0:34 Oh, great to see you, Jim.

0:36 I'm excited to be here.

0:37 I'm excited, too.

0:38 And I I'm a little older than you, but I was a huge fan of the show.

0:42 I I I saw during your documentary,

0:44 you deal with that, and you show all the goofball

0:47 TV anchors who uh go on and on about the show.

0:50 I am not going to do that during this uh segment uh thankfully.

0:53 But I do want to talk about this documentary because I, you know,

0:57 I I think sort of like you approached this subject with a lot of concern.

1:03 I mean, I'm not I'm not sold on this.

1:05 I'm not telling people what to do with their money, but to me,

1:08 I felt like this is a Ponzi scheme,

1:10 and you know, you you are very upfront about this.

1:13 You you call it stupid.

1:15 Um, but let's talk about a little bit.

1:17 Why why did you decide to do it?

1:19 Uh it was the pandemic and you know as an actor

1:22 there really wasn't that much for us to do.

1:24 Um a buddy of mine came to me uh in the throws of it as I was

1:28 kind of tearing my hair out and he said you know you really got to buy Bitcoin.

1:32 And to be honest with you I had not paid attention to cryptocurrency at all.

1:35 Um I think like probably the majority

1:37 of Americans even now it sort of seems intimidating

1:40 but also a little bit scammy and criminal

1:43 and I just hadn't really thought about it much.

1:45 But the celebrities were out there hawking it

1:47 and everyone was talking about at the time.

1:49 My buddy who who suggested I buy Bitcoin had given

1:52 me terrible financial advice before and had encouraged me to invest

1:56 in a in a stock and a company that had supposedly produced

2:00 synthetic blood and it wasn't thereinos but it was some precursor scam.

2:04 Anyway, I'd lost money when I'd invested with Dave before.

2:07 So when Dave came back and said I should buy Bitcoin,

2:09 I was like Dave I am not going to do that but I but I am interested.

2:13 I uh I have a degree in economics from the University of Virginia,

2:15 just an undergraduate degree,

2:17 but um I've always been interested in behavioral economics and I've

2:21 always been fascinated with this thing called money that we made up.

2:26 And my first the first thing I bumped on with crypto was the word currency,

2:30 you know, like so I can buy and sell things with this stuff.

2:35 Yeah.

2:34 And Dave was like, uh I was he's like, well,

2:38 it's more like you put money into it and you hope

2:40 to make money off of it through no work of your own.

2:42 I'm like, "So, that's an investment, Dave.

2:44 That's uh that's something else." Anyway,

2:46 I I became obsessed with it and um uh well,

2:50 long story short, ended up reaching out to a journalist to help me write a book.

2:53 We uh started writing articles to prove our bonafide,

2:56 sold a book proposal, and then in the this this was fall 21,

3:00 in the spring of 2022, we went out into the real world and started um reporting.

3:06 And uh I just decided to turn a camera on.

3:08 I mean, that's really how it started.

3:10 Um, I uh the first day of filming we were at South

3:14 by Southwest and I walked onto the floor of the convention center and I

3:18 saw a guy named Alex Rashensky who company called Celsius and um

3:25 and that guy is now in jail and I have an interview with him.

3:28 So it was a wild ride but um but but a very fun one.

3:34 Yeah.

3:34 And and it's called Everyone Is Lying to You for Money.

3:37 Um, I want to play uh some of the uh the trailer here

3:40 because it's it's really fantastic the way you guys have laid this out.

3:43 Let's play a little bit and talk about on the other side.

3:46 Everyone is lying to you.

3:51 Cryptocurrency.

3:51 It's pretty stupid.

3:54 No balls, right?

3:54 You might recognize Ben McKenzie from the OC.

3:57 He's been a critic of the cryptocurrency industry.

4:00 To understand my journey into cryptocurrency, we have to go back.

4:05 You know what's taking off is Bitcoin.

4:07 What's money?

4:07 It's a It's cryptocurrency.

4:09 Say cryptocurrency.

4:10 I don't know what the mean.

4:11 Wait, what does this like?

4:12 Look.

4:13 I have a degree in economics.

4:14 Surely I can figure out this crypto stuff.

4:18 No banks, no fees.

4:20 Electronic.

4:20 Have a good time with your mortgage.

4:22 Take all your money.

4:23 Buy Bitcoin.

4:25 I had a few questions.

4:27 I can handle the turbulence.

4:29 I don't up against a multi- trillion dollar industry

4:33 shield by every celebrity on the planet.

4:35 I hired a film crew.

4:37 Nice to meet you.

4:38 Did you talk to my agent yet?

4:41 They're building.

4:44 It looks like a normal web of trust.

4:46 They can make the high school do whatever they want.

4:50 What do you say to the people who have been scammed?

4:53 I was crying.

4:54 My wife was upset.

4:55 Shady dudes end up making most of the money.

4:57 How much have you donated to politicians?

5:00 Investors, do you have anything to say?

5:03 I I The cryptocurrency industry represents the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

5:10 Hundreds of millions of people worldwide have been lied to.

5:14 Amazing stuff.

5:15 What is this?

5:17 It's amazing stuff, Ben.

5:18 And and you travel all over the place.

5:19 You go to El Salvador where they were promised this crypto paradise uh via

5:24 Bouetle the the dictator there who says

5:26 he's the coolest dictator and he's definitely not.

5:29 Um you go to Miami, you go to Austin,

5:31 you you come to DC and you expose how politicians are being bought

5:35 and sold with crypto money and I I mean you paint a very dark picture.

5:39 I guess the crypto uh thing hasn't crashed yet.

5:43 We haven't gone into 1929ville.

5:45 We haven't had a a a total collapse of our financial

5:48 markets as a result of this, although we've had some spooky moments.

5:51 Is that what you're worried about about Ben,

5:53 that we're heading in that direction?

5:55 Yeah, very much so.

5:55 So, in the film, the film largely takes place in 2022.

5:59 Um, which there was another crypto crash during 2022.

6:03 The market had peaked in the fall of 21 at the time and it had

6:07 fallen by 50% by the summer or something

6:10 and all these crypto companies started going bankrupt.

6:13 and I caught it right before uh everything went down.

6:17 So that's why I have two guys uh Alex Rashinsky

6:20 and Sam Bakeman Freed on camera uh before their schemes fell apart.

6:25 Um but what happened in the the spring of 23?

6:29 So Sam was arrested in November I want to say of 21 or 22.

6:36 Uh I when I testified to the Senate in December, sorry might have been December.

6:41 Um, when I testified in December of 22, I I said,

6:44 "If we get crypto further into our banking system,

6:47 this is going to be really, really bad.

6:49 There's going to be hell to pay." And, uh,

6:51 sure enough, three months later, three banks went down.

6:54 Uh, Silicon Valley Bank, uh, Silvergate,

6:57 First Republic, they were all tied to crypto.

6:59 They all were had heavy exposure to crypto.

7:01 And that makes sense.

7:02 I mean, if crypto is so volatile and there's not a lot of real

7:05 money backing these overleveraged uh currencies

7:10 that are really more like speculative investments,

7:13 um then it can go up really fast, but it can also come down really fast.

7:17 And when it comes down really fast and players

7:19 need to take their real money off the table,

7:21 you know, sometimes they find that there just isn't anyone on the buying side.

7:26 um everyone's trying to sell and I worry

7:29 that um with what the Trump administration has done,

7:31 we we could be creating an even worse scenario.

7:35 Yeah.

7:35 And there was a quick flash of Eric Trump in there obviously.

7:38 I mean, you know, um a lot of what's happening

7:41 with crypto right now is is going on with the first family.

7:44 I mean, Donald Trump and his family,

7:46 they are cashing in on crypto and and there

7:49 are some some spooky elements to this.

7:51 I mean, I will just run a couple of headlines past you.

7:53 I mean, Forbes just came out with a story.

7:55 I was just, you know, what's the latest in crypto, right?

7:58 And Donald Trump.

7:59 There's a Forbes story on what's going on with Eric Trump.

8:01 And it, the story goes like this.

8:03 Eric Trump jumped on an earnings call in February,

8:05 ready to do what Trump's do best, sell his company, American Bitcoin,

8:09 had debuted just a year earlier and was already trading on the NASDAQ.

8:12 And he says, quote, "We are fast becoming the leader in the Bitcoin world,

8:15 and I truly think we have the greatest brand of all." Eric said,

8:18 "I want to recognize Mike, Asher,

8:20 Matt, and everyone at American Bitcoin." And the article

8:23 goes on to say it was a noteworthy

8:25 closing and everyone at uh American Bitcoin given

8:28 that there is hardly anyone at American Bitcoin.

8:31 I mean, you know, there's I mean,

8:33 what do you think about the first family getting in on this?

8:36 I mean, Donald Trump has done this, too.

8:38 We can talk about that, too.

8:39 What do What do you make of that?

8:40 Well, I mean, sort of the obvious, right,

8:42 which is that Donald Trump um as recently as 2021 called Bitcoin a scam.

8:48 um he hadn't figured out perhaps how to make money

8:51 off of it at the time, but now he has.

8:53 Uh he also realized,

8:55 I think perhaps um perhaps quite prudently that in the summer uh

9:00 of 24 when he pivoted to all of a sudden loving Bitcoin,

9:03 there was a group of getable guys, persuadable guys that might, you know,

9:07 be persuaded to vote for him um if he was more in line with them on on crypto.

9:12 Um but regardless, yeah,

9:13 I mean he's made he and his family have made billions um multiple billions

9:18 it seems like if you look at the reporting um via crypto alone and uh

9:24 um a lot of it looks like you know there he's held

9:27 a dinner for investors in his coin where you know you get

9:31 to have a dinner with the president of the United States you know

9:34 not at the White House but at one of his country clubs um

9:38 that seems awfully similar to pay payment for access.

9:42 Um, and then there are reports that his stable coin company

9:46 received a $500 million investment from a sheic in the UAE.

9:50 And then some months later, Nvidia chips were were given to the UAE.

9:56 And uh, and a guy that had previously plead guilty to moneyaundering,

9:59 Shankpang Xiao of Binance, which is the largest crypto exchange,

10:03 uh, suddenly he got a pardon.

10:05 Shank Peng Xiao lives in in um in the UAE now.

10:08 So yeah,

10:10 it's it's pretty dirty stuff.

10:11 It's pretty dirty stuff.

10:12 It's happening to you, happening right out in the open.

10:14 And you know, if you just remove the word cryptocurrency and put regular money,

10:20 um I guess it'd be even more obvious, but it's pretty obvious what's happening.

10:24 Yeah.

10:24 I mean, just the other day, um an investor,

10:28 a a crypto entrepreneur, I guess, sued uh Trump's uh crypto.

10:34 Yeah.

10:34 And you know, this was being reported, I guess, uh,

10:37 in in the Wall Street Journal that not long after the 2024 election,

10:41 the cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun bought 75

10:45 million in digital coins from World Liberty Financial.

10:48 And now he's he's suing over it

10:49 because he that partnership has apparently imploded.

10:54 But, you know, I kind of wonder where all of this is heading.

10:58 The Trump family being so heavily, you know, while running the country, right?

11:03 heavily invested in crypto and and and in this murky world

11:07 that you unveil in your documentary where there's just there's no oversight.

11:12 There's hardly any oversight, accountability, you know,

11:15 it it just seems to me it's going to lead to a bad place.

11:19 I I I agree.

11:20 And one of the, you know, even more the corruption is is gling,

11:24 but the uh the degree to which they've dismantled what

11:28 the Biden administration had done to try to combat crypto crime.

11:31 You know, there's a crypto crime task force of the DOJ.

11:34 They disbanded that.

11:35 They've gutted the SEC.

11:37 um they are trying to work crypto further into our banking

11:40 system via a bill called the Genius Act that was

11:43 passed last year uh that allows corporations to issue

11:47 their own currencies in the form of cryptocurrencies called stable coins.

11:51 So it's literal corporate money.

11:53 We're now um we because the American people love corporations so much they

11:59 would love them to also have control over our monetary system as well.

12:02 I suppose um the reason that these this that legislation

12:06 got through in my opinion is

12:07 that the crypto lobby has spent an enormous

12:10 amount of money uh on politicians and political campaigns.

12:14 In 2024 they spent $240 million um which

12:18 was 40ome% of all corporate donations in the cycle.

12:21 Um, so it's just a staggering amount of money and they

12:24 use the money both to intimidate the lawmakers but also

12:26 to you know I don't want to say bribe but sort

12:29 of encourage them to support legislation favorable to the industry.

12:33 Um, so I'm I'm you know I'm pretty fired up about it because I I think

12:36 that ironically you know crypto was set up

12:39 as a response to the subprime crisis supposedly.

12:42 Um it was supposedly a reaction to the debacle that was 2007208.

12:48 But I worry that if it gets further into our system and there's another crash,

12:52 we're going to end up bailing these guys out.

12:55 Yeah.

12:54 Just as we did in the subprime crisis.

12:57 And so crypto would have effectively

12:59 recreated the very thing it's supposedly against.

13:02 Um when I say crypto is stupid, that's that's kind of what I mean.

13:05 Yeah.

13:06 And and real people get hurt.

13:07 Uh people who can't afford to dump all their money into crypto,

13:10 they do it and then they get hurt.

13:12 you you talk about this in the movie and one of the things that I was kind

13:16 of interested in is you you did a lot

13:18 of uh media uh surrounding the book and that's

13:22 portrayed in the movie and you you ran into a lot of push back from like

13:26 the talking head crowd on cable news and so

13:29 on the CNBC crowd and and you know let's

13:31 face it on CNBC they basically cheerlead just

13:34 about anything that's going on in the economy there

13:36 isn't a whole lot of thoughtful analysis

13:38 as to the perils of crypto and so on on CNBC

13:41 BC and you kind of found yourself like

13:43 defending your reporting and defending this documentary because you

13:47 were sort of like the talking head community didn't

13:50 really buy what you were what you were reporting.

13:52 Yeah, I guess so.

13:53 Or they weren't really trying.

13:54 I mean, I think you know

13:56 crypto has been unbelievably successful or had been up until

13:59 at least 2022 in penetrating a lot of media organizations.

14:03 they would set up uh desks to cover

14:06 crypto that were of course funded by sponsors,

14:10 corporate sponsors that were in the industry.

14:12 So, you know, I I'll be honest,

14:15 I was a g I have I'm not a reporter by trade, right?

14:18 I had never written an article before starting to work

14:20 with Jacob Silverman who I wrote the book with.

14:22 But um

14:24 but I always assumed naively I guess in retrospect that all

14:28 journalists had some degree of um I don't know uh healthy system common sense.

14:35 I mean I assumed if you're a financial journalist one

14:37 of the things that you should understand is what money is.

14:39 Um I would find it hard to cover money if

14:42 I were a finance journalist if I didn't understand that.

14:44 So, you know, when when we talk about crypto and its private nature

14:48 that it's basically if it's not money from the government, what is it?

14:51 It's money that's issued by uh people,

14:54 Donald Trump and his family or corporations.

14:56 The World Liberty Financial is their corporation.

14:59 Um that's also true of Bitcoin, right?

15:00 Bitcoin, the the Bitcoin that are mined are

15:03 mined the majority are mined by multi-billion dollar corporations.

15:06 So, when we talk about what crypto is, it's really private money.

15:09 That's what we call it in economics as opposed to public money,

15:11 money that's issued by the government.

15:13 Well, crypto talks about how it's the future of money,

15:15 but actually private money is something we've tried before and failed.

15:20 Uh, it was the free banking era of the mid-9th century,

15:24 also called the wildcat banking era,

15:25 and we were trying to expand west and provide credit for an expanding economy.

15:29 And so, banks were allowed to issue their own notes, their own currencies.

15:34 And you were allowed one chapter of your bank.

15:36 And so, you would set it up as far away

15:37 from your depositors as possible where the wild cats roamed.

15:40 once you had their money, what's to stop you from taking off with it.

15:43 So, the system was pretty unstable.

15:45 Uh there was a lot of fraud and ultimately it was

15:48 scrapped and uh that's why we ended up with a central bank.

15:51 So, when crypto talks about being the future of money,

15:54 not only is that wrong, it's exactly wrong.

15:56 It's the exact opposite.

15:57 It's the it's the past of money and a failure that we revisit at our peril.

16:03 And the other thing that I love about the documentary is that you

16:05 expose the lie that is like this crypto paradise that's emerging in El Salvador.

16:10 was, you know, build as emerging in El Salvador.

16:13 And I know the the documentary was basically shot kind of like a few years ago,

16:18 but has anything really changed in El Salvador?

16:20 Because the way it's portrayed, and I I really encourage people to see it

16:23 simply because it exposes Boule as is basically a fraud.

16:27 And he he portrayed himself as like this savior of crypto

16:30 and he's going to bring this country out of um you know,

16:34 sort of third world status, a developing status wi- with cryptocurrency.

16:39 And they sort of bring kids to these cryptomies like you portray that and I

16:43 think at one point you say in the film, not weird at all.

16:46 And it's it's so and you find this guy who

16:48 was supposed to live in Bitcoin City or something like that.

16:52 It's one dude sleeping on a hammock and it just never materialized.

16:56 It's a joke.

16:57 Yeah.

16:57 I mean, crypto is really just a story, right?

17:00 And and you see in all these scams this repetitive theme of a

17:04 some grandiose story that you know they're going to change uh they're going

17:09 to bank the unbanked or they're going to um you know be a be opposition

17:16 to the centralized um quite frankly um accurately described uh uh uh you know

17:24 collection of financial interests in our regulated

17:26 system that people are genuinely upset about.

17:28 They sort of use that as an excuse to um to perpetrate their schemes.

17:32 But with Boullle, um he there's so he was trying

17:37 to build this city in the east of the country, Bitcoin city.

17:39 Nothing is happening there.

17:41 I mean, they've leveled the land to build an airport,

17:43 but there's no they're never going to mine the Bitcoin from this.

17:46 They were going to mine Bitcoin from a volcano.

17:48 A volcano city of gold.

17:51 I mean, it was all just quite frankly absurd.

17:54 Um, in fact, El Salvador's abandoned the Bitcoin experiment.

17:58 Essentially, it's no longer legal tender in El Salvador.

18:01 Bitcoin is no longer legal tender.

18:03 Yeah.

18:03 They try not to talk.

18:04 The whole 60 Minute story, remember?

18:06 I remember they did like a whole they went down there

18:08 and they talked to the people and you exposed that there.

18:11 You go to open market,

18:12 they don't even take Bitcoin or they don't take it in the middle.

18:15 Yeah.

18:15 I mean, the El Salvador, it's a very poor country.

18:18 There's the average Salvadoran only makes about $400

18:20 a month and they dollarized um years ago.

18:24 And so the economy is really conducted in cash.

18:26 I mean at the at the the average Salvadoran level.

18:30 Um and Boullle's pitch was that because so

18:33 much of the economy of Al Salvador is remittances,

18:36 the money that the two to three million people of Salvador and descent

18:39 living in the United States sent home to their friends and family.

18:42 Belli's pitch was, well,

18:43 we'll build a system on top of Bitcoin called Chivbo, which means cool,

18:47 which is the lamest marketing ever,

18:49 but uh that's what you expect, I guess, from Boulli.

18:52 Um, we'll build a system on top of uh Bitcoin and everyone will be able

18:57 to send money home without paying the transaction

19:00 fees that Western Union or Moneygram might charge you.

19:03 And Merbentances are, you know, a quarter of this economy.

19:06 So, um, it was a good pitch, but the system went on and and Bitcoin crashed.

19:10 Nobody used it.

19:11 less than 2% were using it for remittances when I documented when I was uh

19:15 filming and now it's even less than 1%

19:17 because the whole thing is is gone kabooy.

19:21 So it was always it felt like um more

19:24 of a marketing pitch than an actual reality on the ground.

19:28 Yeah.

19:29 Well, Ben, I'm excited about this film.

19:30 I'm excited for people to see it.

19:32 And um I I will say at the very end here that I have a friend

19:36 and I you can't so you can't blame this on me when I say this.

19:39 I have a friend who desperately wants an OC reunion and I

19:44 I'm ashamed of myself for saying this out loud to you.

19:46 So, because I you mock people who do this to you

19:49 in the movie and so I'm I feel bad about myself right now,

19:52 but I a friend is putting me up to this.

19:53 I just want to say I think you you and Ben and Seth Cohen.

19:57 That's right.

19:58 You and Ryan and Seth Cohen could come back as crypto bros maybe.

20:00 And and I'm just introducing a plot line.

20:02 I love it.

20:03 I love it.

20:03 I love it.

20:03 I'll I'll get right on that.

20:05 Um but best of luck with the film.

20:07 It's great stuff and you hit it out of the park, man.

20:09 This is like really Oscar worthy documentary film

20:13 making here and I hope folks see it.

20:14 But Ben, thank you so much for coming on.

20:16 Really appreciate it.

20:17 All right.

20:17 All right.

20:18 Take care.

20:18 Good talking to you.

20:19 Uh that's Ben McKenzie.

20:20 I don't know if he's I don't know if the OC reunion

20:23 thing is going to happen despite me uh putting it out there,

20:25 but uh we'll get let's let's take a more serious turn here and talk.

20:29 I mean, there was some major news today um at the Supreme Court.

20:33 We have to get into that.

20:34 Uh let's bring in a former Alabama Senator, Doug Jones,

20:37 who I believe is standing by uh to talk about this.

20:41 There, Senator Jones, how are you?

20:42 Good to see you, sir.

20:43 Good, Jim.

20:43 Good to thanks for having me.

20:45 I appreciate it.

20:46 Absolutely, as always.

20:47 And I mean, we we just lucked into having you today, so this is terrific.

20:51 Um but we need to talk about um the Voting

20:54 Rights Act and whether it really still stands at this point.

20:58 Um the Associated Press put it this way.

21:00 The Supreme Court struck down Louisiana's second majority black congressional

21:04 district in a decision that could open the door for Republican

21:07 le states to eliminate black and Latino electoral districts that tend

21:11 to favor Democrats and affect the balance of power in Congress.

21:14 It was a 63 623 ruling uh along

21:17 the the partisan or ideological lines of the court.

21:21 Your thoughts on this?

21:22 Where do you think we're going here?

21:24 Oh, look, this didn't open the door to to to remove these.

21:28 This literally removed the door uh essentially just taken down the door,

21:33 let uh Republican le legislators just barrel through it

21:37 to get rid of as many of minority districts as possible.

21:41 This is it really is a devastating blow.

21:44 You know, Jim, it what's disingenuous about this and this is

21:49 typical of this particular m majority in the court.

21:53 I think that's so disingenuous is they didn't

21:56 just essentially say the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional.

22:00 It can't be enforced.

22:01 Whatever.

22:02 They leave it intact and do this convoluted

22:06 test that event it essentially kills it.

22:09 It reminds me of the old you I'm sure you saw the old movie weekend at Bernies.

22:14 Well, you got now you got Justice Alo

22:16 and you got Justice Thomas literally carrying around a dead

22:20 body in the Voting Rights Act because they

22:22 have killed it and it they can't resuscitate that.

22:26 It is going to be very difficult and it is going to be

22:29 a real long road for a lot

22:32 of the black elected officials throughout the country,

22:35 but particularly in the South where we've

22:37 had the history of Voting Rights Act violations.

22:40 So state legislators now in uh ruby red MAGA states can

22:44 just start redrawing their congressional maps and saying aha see we have

22:48 the Supreme Court decision and we're going to uh jerrymander out

22:52 of existence minority uh representation lawmakers

22:58 of color in the United States Congress.

23:00 Is that basically what we're looking at at this point?

23:02 That is the worst case scenario that we will

23:05 take the gerrymandering wars that have already been started

23:10 and um and essentially just double down on them,

23:14 triple down on on these to where some states

23:17 that this was not going to be in their purview.

23:20 They were not going to get involved in this now may take another look and say,

23:26 "Yeah, we can get rid of this one Democrat,

23:29 two Democrats." um and and and put it in a in a way that historically

23:36 and and and again you got to remember the gerrymandering

23:39 and all of this is based on historical data.

23:42 Um but historically um uh a Democrat, an African-American,

23:47 a racial minority cannot get elected in based on historical data data.

23:52 There's nothing to stop any of this since

23:54 we've now started down the path of gerrymandering

23:58 in between uh the census which was really

24:02 unheard of until that is just a recent phenomenon.

24:05 It has just been on steroids since Donald Trump

24:08 said let let's let's go to Texas and do it right.

24:11 Yeah.

24:12 Yeah, I mean he started this then Virginia just recently passed

24:15 their own law redrawing of congressional maps in the in the Commonwealth

24:18 and that would favor Democrats of course and now we're just sort

24:21 of in an an arms race of of gerrymandering and redrawing these maps.

24:26 Florida's about to do it.

24:27 They you know apparently they've they've just done this I think today.

24:31 Uh as a matter of fact um the Florida legislature

24:34 approved a new congressional map intended to maximize Republican advantage.

24:38 And I guess Trump was asked about the Supreme Court decision today.

24:42 Let's play this because he seemed pretty delighted by it.

24:45 If we have, we can play it.

24:46 Yeah.

24:48 Mr.

24:49 President, thank you very much, Mr.

24:50 President.

24:50 I want to go back to the Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act.

24:53 I know you said you haven't seen it.

24:54 When did it come out?

24:55 Just now.

24:55 Um, no.

24:56 It came out this morning.

24:57 Uh, but basically very much narrows the Voting Rights Act,

25:00 which you considered a win for a win for Republicans.

25:02 I love it.

25:03 But my question, this is a very good We can end this news conference, right?

25:07 There you go.

25:08 My question, I mean, that's that's that's how he views it.

25:10 He views it through the prism of partisan politics, not,

25:13 you know, who should vote where and and so on.

25:16 Apparently, he did this with the Artemis astronauts around him.

25:19 But Senator, I, you know, to me,

25:22 it just shows that this is how Trump views this.

25:25 He's just like, can I let me just grab some congressional districts,

25:28 put them in the Republican column because I don't

25:30 want to be held accountable after the midterms are over.

25:32 Yeah.

25:32 You know, and the irony of this, Jim,

25:35 is that the Voting Rights Act was passed with bipartisan support.

25:41 It could not have passed without Republican support.

25:44 I mean, it literally could not.

25:46 Even though President Johnson, a Southerner, uh,

25:50 was leading the Democratic charge on this.

25:52 You also had other Democrats that were more

25:55 segregationist at the time that did not vote.

25:58 They filibustered the Voting Rights Act.

26:00 And it was Everett Dirkson, Republican,

26:03 who gathered enough of his colleagues to pass it.

26:06 And since that time, it got reauthorized, I think twice,

26:10 overwhelmingly, almost unanimous support among Republicans and Democrats.

26:16 And now you've got the entirety of the Republican

26:19 party who don't want to compete for votes anymore.

26:23 They have realized that apparently whatever they say and whatever they've done,

26:28 they're not going to be able to get enough votes from the minority community.

26:32 So rather than trying to compete for those votes,

26:35 they want to do things to where those votes are basically

26:39 uh minimized so that they don't have to compete for those votes,

26:43 but yet their party can stay in power.

26:45 And I think that that's a real problem.

26:47 It's a real shame for America the way this is just an attack

26:51 on on democracy and the minority population

26:54 to where you just steamroll over folks.

26:57 And now in Alabama at some point we will see a gerrymandered uh

27:02 redistricting to where even though Alabama's got

27:06 26 27% of our population is black.

27:10 Ultimately, they are banking on the fact that they can draw districts

27:13 that there will be no uh

27:14 African-Americans on there in our congressional districts.

27:18 Right now, we have two, which mirrors Alabama, okay?

27:22 Which mirrors Alabama, but they're they're they're not satisfied with that.

27:27 It is literally winner take all.

27:30 It's everything us versus them, winners versus losers.

27:34 Uh and right now, they seem to be

27:35 on the side that they think that they're the winners, right?

27:39 And it seems to me the only thing that Democrats

27:41 can do at this point is respond in kind.

27:43 And you know, so that means California, New York, Illinois,

27:46 some of the bigger states with the larger uh Democratic congressional jackpots.

27:51 I suppose they have to jump into the fray, too.

27:54 And the thing that concerns me, Doug,

27:56 is that this thing could get so convoluted,

27:58 it can become such a hot mess that, and I I don't know if this, you know,

28:02 some of these states will do this between now and November,

28:05 but that we could have enough states trying to do

28:07 this between now and November where there are court challenges,

28:09 things are tied up in the courts,

28:11 they try to go to the Supreme Court, maybe it can't get there soon enough,

28:14 and it just turns our midterms into a giant mess.

28:17 And maybe to some extent, that's what Trump and the Republicans want.

28:21 They want it to be such a mess that it can't be sorted out come January.

28:25 I agree with you and and and you you've got to worry

28:28 about now that the arms race has just escalated to a point.

28:32 I mean, the Democrats are going to respond just like they have.

28:36 You don't bring a gun a knife to a gunfight, Jim.

28:40 You've got to you've you know, they've got to respond in kind.

28:43 And that is just this this is not good for the country.

28:46 It's not good for democracy.

28:48 But, you know, the one thing I would say though is that sometimes, you know,

28:53 some of these things can backfire and Democrats will do exactly what

28:58 you say in some of the states where they can do it.

29:01 But in states like Alabama, in states in the South and other states,

29:05 we need to just double and triple our efforts to get the damn

29:08 vote out to make sure that people

29:11 understand the significance and get those statistics.

29:15 Remember, this is based on historical data.

29:18 And in I just give you an Alabama example.

29:21 In governor's races, we don't vote,

29:23 but about half the registered voters at most.

29:27 So, if we get more people out and we reject all

29:30 of this, this could end up changing some other dynamics as well.

29:34 So, the the answer for Democrats is not got to be just in blue states,

29:39 fight fire with fire.

29:40 It's got to be in states like Alabama and others to just double the efforts

29:44 to get on the ground and get people

29:46 out to understand how much their vote matters.

29:50 And um I you know the other thing Trump is

29:52 up to is is going after his perceived political enemies.

29:55 He's gone again after uh James Comey, the former FBI director.

30:00 And the AP put it this way that he made

30:02 his first court appearance in a criminal case against him

30:04 that legal experts say presents significant hurdles for the prosecution

30:08 and likely to be a challenge for the justice department to win.

30:12 Uh this of course is stemming from his social media

30:15 post last year of sea shells arranged in the numbers 8647.

30:20 Uh the DOJ says that that was a threat against Donald Trump, the 47th president.

30:26 um your sense of this case I it's not

30:29 a slam dunk for the prosecution I don't think

30:31 oh that's an understatement if there's anything it could

30:34 be a slam dunk uh for the defense you've

30:37 just got to jump through the hoops and it's

30:39 it's unfortunate you you literally have to prove intent

30:43 and when this was brought when there was some

30:44 backlash Comey took that down immediately because it was never

30:49 you know to think that a former director

30:52 of the FBI un that was a Republican under George W.

30:57 Bush, under uh the uh the attorney general,

31:01 it was a deputy attorney general, then director of the FBI,

31:04 would literally put a photograph out there intending for somebody to go and do

31:09 harm to the president of the United States is absolutely absurd on its face.

31:15 And they know that, Jim.

31:17 I mean, if you look, this has not been a great week for justice uh in America.

31:22 Between the Southern Poverty Law Center indictment

31:26 uh now the indictment of of James Comey, this is pure retribution.

31:30 It is trying to stifle political opposition.

31:33 And the thing is, for those of us who have

31:35 followed and been involved with DOJ for a long time,

31:39 it doesn't make the the indictments themselves just don't make any sense.

31:44 It is not what you would see and expect for the Department of Justice to prove

31:51 in a court of law and to think that they've got proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

31:55 This justice department doesn't care.

31:57 And I think it's in part because

31:59 Todd Blanch is auditioning for the permanent job.

32:03 Yeah.

32:03 And I mean, it was laughable what he was saying yesterday that there was,

32:07 you know, a tremendous amount of work that went into this case and so on.

32:09 Come on.

32:10 Nobody.

32:11 This is Donald Trump telling them to go do this.

32:14 And have you have you indicted him on the sea shell case?

32:17 You know, those seashells are so menacing.

32:19 I mean, you know, Jim, to say that there was a tremendous amount of work.

32:23 There may have been a tremendous amount of hand ringing by saying, "Oh my god,

32:27 how can we please the president on such?" But the photograph speaks for itself.

32:32 Okay.

32:32 Yeah.

32:33 Then you what are they going to do?

32:34 Did do they have evidence?

32:36 Did they tap Comey's phones where he's got, you know,

32:40 word saying, "Oh, yeah, you know, this was this was sinister.

32:43 I did." No, this was just this was

32:46 a photograph taken and when there was backlash,

32:49 it was taken down that this is not a a lot of work.

32:54 This is silly the way that they're doing this.

32:56 But but Jim, I will say as silly as it is

32:59 and as silly as the SPLC is from a purely legal standpoint,

33:04 it's damn near it's frightening too that the Justice Department can do

33:08 this kind of thing just simply because

33:11 the president wants his opposition to suffer.

33:16 And that's the key.

33:17 None of these folks are going to be convicted in my view.

33:20 But they will have to go through the hoops,

33:22 the humiliation of of being a defendant,

33:26 the expense of having to defend these cases.

33:29 And that's what this president wants.

33:31 And I want to remind folks, he has said that before.

33:35 I mean, he has literally said he told Zalinski uh

33:39 in the first um phone call that resulted in the impeachment,

33:44 just start the investigation and I'll take it from there.

33:48 He told Bill Bar the same thing about fraud.

33:51 This is an MO and now the whole justice department has adopted it

33:55 which is so contrary to the teachings of one of the great attorney generals,

33:59 Robert Jackson about the power

34:02 and the the discretion uh among federal prosecutors.

34:06 And you mentioned the Southern Poverty Law Center case.

34:09 We brought it up last week.

34:10 We reported on it.

34:11 Didn't do a whole lot of digging on it,

34:12 but lay out why that case is so important.

34:15 I remember my time as a general assignment correspondent.

34:19 I would occasionally do stories on right-wing extremism and you

34:22 would use the Southern Poverty Law Center as a resource.

34:25 They would have terrific experts there uh

34:27 who people who had gone and investigated,

34:30 you know, white supremacists, those kinds of groups,

34:33 people who um obviously make life pretty miserable uh

34:37 for the the black and minority communities in in the South.

34:41 And that's sort of the tradition it came out of.

34:43 It was a it was something that came out of the civil

34:45 rights movement to sort of have an investigatory investigative arm to look

34:50 into this kind of extremism and now it it seems as though

34:53 the justice department is going after it to try to shut it down.

34:56 Oh, there's no there's no doubt they have had success and it's not just success

35:02 in fighting hate and dismantling the clan

35:05 and uh u right-wing groups and hate groups.

35:10 They've had success in voting rights.

35:13 They've had success in defending communities against

35:16 environmental injustices and bringing uh cases to represent

35:21 folks who can't otherwise afford to hire good lawyers and to bring these things.

35:26 They have they have fought for people in poverty.

35:29 They have fought for people

35:30 that have have suffered those environmental injustices.

35:33 They fought for voting rights and they have fought against hate in a big way.

35:38 And what was so incredulous about um

35:43 the attorney general's statement uh this indictment

35:46 when they were literally paying informants

35:50 uh in these hate groups for information.

35:53 The Justice Department has somehow twisted

35:55 that as saying by by paying informants they

35:59 were literally manufacturing racism that they were

36:02 propping up these hate uh hate groups.

36:05 Well, Jim, if that's the case, I mean,

36:07 this is a this is a a technique a tactic that the Department of Justice

36:13 has used since they were and the FBI has used since they were formed.

36:17 And so, if that's the case, if you follow it to the conclusion,

36:20 then the Justice Department is propping up the mob.

36:25 They're propping up drug cartels.

36:27 They're propping up these extremist organizations

36:30 on the left or the right by paying informants, which they do every day.

36:35 It is it is just it clearly is a way with a taxexempt organization to go

36:40 after them to get rid of that taxexempt

36:43 status and to just knock them out of business.

36:45 And Jim, I'm afraid this is just going to be

36:48 the first of a shoot to fall on some

36:50 of these civil rights organizations that are out there protecting

36:53 those that have a hard time finding people protecting them.

36:58 Yeah, no question about it.

36:59 And you know, have they not seen Good Fellas or you know, you know,

37:02 mobster movies where, you know, the this is the FBI does this kind of stuff?

37:07 And you know, what are they going to do?

37:09 Object to wire, you know, people being wired,

37:11 informants being wired, and so I mean,

37:12 this is just sort of the stock and trade of these kinds of investigations.

37:16 Um, and I guess, you know, Senator, the question that I have in all of this is,

37:21 and and maybe it's sort of a a layman's question,

37:24 not backed by a whole lot of uh expertise on my part,

37:28 but it seems to me that crimes are being committed

37:33 by the executive branch and going after Trump's enemies and like

37:38 weaponizing the Justice Department to go after Jim Comey

37:40 a second time just seems like a crime is being committed.

37:44 I I mean as far as I know are there any laws?

37:47 It doesn't seem like there are any laws against

37:48 this and it they've revealed a vulnerability in our government.

37:53 It seems to me they should not be able to do this.

37:56 Yeah.

37:56 You know, look, our system of criminal justice in large measure

38:00 depends on the integrity of those uh in positions of power,

38:06 the integrity of the prosecutors, the integrity of the agents.

38:09 When you lose that, unfortunately,

38:12 it is not criminal activity unless there are literally things where uh agents

38:19 or prosecutors are under oath making false statements in order to do something.

38:25 That's why I think you saw the Southern Poverty Law Center,

38:29 at least initially, um,

38:31 demand to see the grand jury transcripts of what was said

38:34 in front of that grand jury by witnesses who were under oath.

38:39 Uh, because you want to see whether or not that had been.

38:42 But just for um just for bogus cases, you know, you could get sanctioned.

38:48 Uh there is a provision under the I forget the name

38:52 of the act where a defendant can get their um

38:57 lawyer fees paid for if it is seen as a bogus

39:02 um no real evidence and done for the purpose of harassment.

39:07 You can get uh and it doesn't have any merit to it.

39:11 you can petition the court if it gets thrown out uh for attorney fees

39:16 and that has happened against the justice

39:17 department in selective cases over the years.

39:21 You may see more of that coming up with what

39:23 we're seeing now because it is I think that they are

39:26 stretching the boundaries of prosec

39:29 prosecutorial discretion but unfortunately I don't

39:32 think unless they get under oath and do some things affirmatively.

39:35 It's not it's unfortunately not criminal uh to do that.

39:39 But again it relies on the integrity of the prosecutors and we

39:44 don't seem to be seeing a lot of that right now.

39:46 No, we're not seeing any of it.

39:48 It seems right now.

39:49 Uh, Senator Doug Jones of Alabama.

39:52 Always great to talk to you, sir.

39:53 Thank you so much.

39:53 Hope to see you soon.

39:55 You got it, Jim.

39:55 Thanks for thanks for everything.

39:57 Keep up the good work.

39:58 You as well.

39:58 Thank you, Doug.

39:59 Thank you so much.

40:00 Always great to talk to you.

40:01 Um, and you know, I we really we lucked

40:03 out today having his expertise today and, you know,

40:06 being smart, you know, knowing what you're talking about.

40:08 Um, having some expertise to back up what you're doing and what you're saying.

40:12 You know, it there seems to be a premium for that these days

40:15 because there's not a whole lot of that going around here in DC.

40:18 And I, you know, I wrote a Substack about this today.

40:21 You whether or not we're approaching peak idiocracy in America.

40:26 And I think maybe we haven't quite gotten there yet,

40:28 but it seems like we're we're getting darn close to it.

40:31 You know, you had Kid Rock over at the Pentagon the other day.

40:34 You had the Comey indictment over seashells, uh, for Pete's sake.

40:38 Uh, but you know, one of the things and I I I you know,

40:40 maybe it's just because I I need to get out of the house every once in a while,

40:43 do a little digging, uh, do some shooting on my own, you know,

40:46 get some some video and photos of of what's

40:49 happening in our in our nation's capital.

40:52 I decided to take on yet another shining example of Trump's

40:56 idiocracy uh that he has brought about in this country.

40:59 And and I don't know if you guys have heard this uh,

41:01 but it is happening right now on the National Mall.

41:04 They are they are painting the bottom of the reflecting

41:08 pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial blue.

41:11 So it so it resembles um a swimming pool.

41:15 And I you know I you know I I saw

41:18 this this headline and I thought surely this this can't be true.

41:22 This can't actually be happening.

41:24 Turns out it is.

41:24 They're they're painting the reflecting pool blue as we speak.

41:28 Let's take a look.

41:29 We went out and we did a piece on this.

41:31 Let's let's look what happened.

41:33 So, we came down here to see if the National

41:35 Park Service is actually painting the reflecting pool blue.

41:39 And they're really doing it right now with blue paint.

41:42 So, it looks like a swimming pool.

41:43 Except it doesn't.

41:44 But it's happening and it's so weird and dumb.

41:53 This is sucky and it's tacky and we're

41:55 just going to paint this[ __] in two years.

42:01 So Trump says it's only going to cost $2 million.

42:05 And if you believe that, I have a reflecting pool to sell you.

42:08 But in the meantime,

42:08 this is what he said he wants to see out of the new reflecting pool.

42:12 And I'm going to read this.

42:14 He said, quote, "Like in the Bahamas." He said, "Well, this is Washington, sir.

42:18 We can give you turquoise, but why don't you try like we have a color.

42:22 It's called American flag blue." I said,

42:25 "That's the color I like." That's a quote from Donald Trump.

42:36 It's breathtaking.

42:39 It's so moving.

42:44 And I mean, just when when you look

42:47 at that that footage there and I and we did that today.

42:50 We went down today.

42:51 You can tell we didn't spend a whole lot of time on it, but that's okay.

42:54 That's it's the thought that counts.

42:56 And the bottom of the reflecting pool,

42:58 they've only painted a very small section of it.

43:01 There are these giant bins of blue paint off to the side.

43:05 And it's sort of like the the blue in the sign here.

43:08 It looks like that kind of blue.

43:10 And it it looks as though they're either going to have to go to the Home Depot

43:15 and get some more blue paint because they

43:16 they don't have a lot of blue blue paint.

43:18 It doesn't look like enough blue paint

43:20 to paint the the bottom of the reflecting pool.

43:22 Or they're just going to have to give up.

43:24 they may just have to give up.

43:26 And you know, a couple of thoughts.

43:27 We were talking to some other folks when we were down there and you know,

43:31 it seems to that one of the reasons why they did this, they said, is because oh,

43:34 the the the pool gets so ugly and it gets filled with algae and leaves

43:38 and all this stuff and it turns brown and nasty and the ducks and so on.

43:41 They they poop in it and it it's just a a nasty mix.

43:45 And my thinking is is like, okay,

43:47 so you paint the bottom of the reflecting pool, right?

43:50 paint it blue and it's just going to stay blue.

43:54 The the pool is going to stay blue.

43:57 The leaves aren't still going to fall in it.

43:59 The ducks aren't still going to poop in it.

44:01 The the algae and the the pollen's not going to build up

44:05 in the it's is are we going to have like pool boys down there?

44:09 Are they going to get like the the pool

44:10 thing where you you like comb through the water

44:13 and you the net and you lift the the leaves out and the algae and the junk out?

44:17 Are they going to shoe away the ducks?

44:19 This sounds like it's going to cost more than $2 million.

44:23 And it just strikes me as this is this is I I

44:26 think the epitome of the idiocracy that we're becoming in America right now.

44:31 We are becoming dumb as a country.

44:34 And and thankfully the citizens of America

44:36 are are are smarter than than the government.

44:39 They're not as dumb obviously as the government here in Washington DC,

44:43 especially these days.

44:45 Uh there's there's a new poll in in the Hill

44:47 that says that Democrats have a 50 to 40 advantage.

44:50 This is according to Emerson College did a did a a poll

44:54 on this and and so the midterms are coming and yes,

44:57 you know, you know, like the reflecting pool, it you know,

45:01 some of this get may may get washed away with the tide,

45:03 but I I don't think the reflecting pool is by any means even close to the only

45:10 example of stupidity and and just absolute asinine

45:15 behavior that we're seeing here in the nation's capital.

45:18 Another shining example of that would be the Iran war.

45:22 The war that Donald Trump has still not been able to explain.

45:25 U he still can't persuade the Iranians to open up the Straight

45:28 of Hormuz and allow the free flow of of traffic there.

45:31 He can't get the Iranian regime to either

45:34 give up or give up their nuclear weapons.

45:36 And earlier today, um, no genius himself, the, uh, self-described war secretary,

45:42 Pete Hegsth, was testifying at a hearing, and he was being grilled, I believe,

45:48 by the ranking Democrat on one of the armed

45:50 services committees there up on Capitol Hill,

45:53 and he was being grilled on on the rationale for going to war with Iran,

46:00 that being its nuclear program.

46:01 This is the the one that they put out.

46:03 And watch this clip because Hexath obviously

46:06 has no idea what he's talking about.

46:09 So they haven't so they haven't broken yet.

46:13 Okay, we haven't gotten there yet for all of the

46:15 Well, their nuclear facilities have been obliterated underground.

46:18 They're buried and watching them 24/7.

46:21 So we know where any nuclear material second here.

46:26 We had to start this war you just said 60

46:30 days ago because the nuclear weapon was an imminent threat.

46:35 Now you're saying that it was completely obliterated.

46:38 They had not given up their nuclear ambitions

46:40 and they had a conventional shield of thousands of

46:43 So operation midnight hammer nothing of substance

46:46 and left in the same place we were before.

46:50 So much so their facilities were bombed and obliterated.

46:53 their their ambitions continued and they're building a conventional shield.

46:57 Let me try again.

46:58 It's the North Korea strategy.

47:00 You know this very well.

47:00 The North Korea strategy was use conventional missiles to prevent anybody

47:04 from challenging them so they can walk their way to a weapon.

47:07 You can see he's he's struggling here.

47:09 Pete Hexath is is struggling here.

47:10 He brings up North Korea.

47:11 We have not gone to war with North Korea.

47:13 But he says that the reason he he boils it down to the reason

47:16 why we're at war with Iran right

47:17 now is because they still had nuclear ambitions.

47:21 they still had nuclear ami.

47:22 So, we're at war with Iran because they had nuclear ambitions.

47:24 I I I don't think that's solved the problem because if anything,

47:28 Iran really has nuclear ambitions now.

47:31 Uh we've attacked them.

47:32 We've bombed the crap out of them for weeks on end.

47:35 It seems to me now they really do want a nuclear program.

47:38 But putting that to the side, I mean,

47:40 people who are going to the gas station right now

47:42 and and struggling to fill up the tank of their car, uh,

47:45 people are going to the grocery store right now,

47:47 now the price of groceries and everything you buy

47:49 at the store is going up because transportation costs are going up.

47:52 Diesel, somebody was mentioning to me the other day, diesel, that's true.

47:55 I haven't mentioned diesel.

47:56 Diesel is going through the roof.

47:58 And so the cost of living, everything is going up right now.

48:01 The Federal Reserve did not raise interest

48:03 rates today because they see what's happening.

48:05 Inflation is on the rise in this country.

48:07 and maybe the new uh Fed chairman uh that Donald Trump is installing,

48:12 maybe there's a wink wink behind the scenes and and this guy's going

48:15 to go ahead and do it and start lowering interest rates and that may

48:18 wreak havoc on our on our economy because they're going to lower interest

48:22 rates for political reasons even though inflation is is firing back up again.

48:29 And so you can see where I'm going with this idiocracy theme.

48:32 It's one thing when you paint the reflecting pool blue and it's stupid

48:37 and it's nonsensical and it it makes us look dumb as a country.

48:42 It makes us look like we're run by a mad king in this country, which we are.

48:46 We are to a large extent.

48:47 The Supreme Court and Congress have rolled over for him.

48:50 But there's there's bigger stuff going on.

48:53 The stakes are getting big uh in this country and for the world right now.

48:59 And we have somebody who is in charge who

49:01 is leading us in the direction of an idiocracy,

49:04 leading us in the direction of of of potentially

49:09 a a serious financial and global economic crisis.

49:15 All because Donald Trump fell for it.

49:18 Fell for this idea that the Iranians were somehow going to have

49:22 a nuclear weapon that they could use against us or US allies.

49:26 when you just heard Pete Hexad say during

49:29 this hearing that they really just had nuclear ambitions.

49:33 They just had nuclear ambitions.

49:35 And so I, you know, I I I hope folks were paying attention.

49:38 I hope folks were listening because when I heard that today,

49:41 I almost did a spit take as to how dumb all of this has become.

49:46 And it reminds me of that that that comment that Barack

49:48 Obama made during the Iraq war that he's not against all wars,

49:52 but he is he is against dumb wars.

49:55 And that's what we have right now.

49:56 We have a dumb war that is that is happening because we

50:00 are becoming an idiocracy in America because we have a a commander-in-chief

50:06 who hasn't thought through anything beyond his truth social account and and is

50:12 consumed by stupid things like uh painting the reflecting pool blue.

50:17 That's what he's focused on right now.

50:19 And and Hegath is taking Kid Rock on helicopter rides.

50:23 That's what he's focused on right now.

50:26 While you can't afford the price of gas at the pump,

50:28 while you can't afford the price of groceries at your grocery store,

50:32 and on and on and on.

50:35 Um, I want to thank two smart guys who are on with me today, very smart guys.

50:40 Ben McKenzie, um, and his documentary, the actor of, uh, OC fame.

50:45 Uh, he he he's done a terrific documentary,

50:48 and please go see it in the theaters.

50:50 Everyone is lying to you for money.

50:52 It's in select theaters now.

50:53 It's expanding um as things heat up around the country for that that film.

50:56 It's a terrific film.

50:57 And also Senator Doug Jones, former Senator Doug Jones of Alabama uh laying out

51:02 the consequences of an extremely important Supreme Court case today.

51:05 And thanks to all of you for tuning in.

51:07 Uh I don't say it often enough.

51:09 I'm going to say it here at the end of the show.

51:10 Please uh support independent media.

51:13 You can support independent media by supporting

51:15 this program by becoming a paid subscriber.

51:17 It does make a difference.

51:19 like, share, subscribe, all of those things.

51:21 If you're watching us on uh YouTube,

51:24 uh you can also um contribute to the program.

51:28 You can also hit that subscribe button because it does at the end of the day uh

51:34 force those guys over YouTube uh to support

51:36 this program a little bit more each and every day.

51:38 So whether it's Substack, YouTube, I'm seeing a lot of folks responding

51:42 and and listening to the program again on Apple Podcasts.

51:45 Uh that's we've been in the top

51:48 200 news podcast lately and that's been terrific.

51:51 Um so more to come on that and I will say

51:54 I will say just to throw it a little for all

51:56 of the loyal viewers who are listening and watching to the very

51:59 end of this we may have something in the hopper.

52:02 We may have something cooking not just tomorrow but in the in the next

52:05 several days that I think you're going to be very excited about.

52:08 you're going to want to watch um as we we've got some really

52:11 great cool surprises uh coming up uh

52:14 potentially tomorrow and the next several days.

52:16 We'll we'll keep you posted on that.

52:17 Just a little tease just to wet your appetite, you know.

52:21 You know, it's not like a blue reflecting pool, but it's pretty cool.

52:24 It's pretty cool.

52:25 Uh but in the meantime, still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acasta.

52:28 Thanks for watching.

52:29 I'll see you next time.