Political and Legal Implications in Washington

It's All Talk on a Monday morning. I'm Kevin Dietz coming to you from the Golden Tower of the Fisher Building. The number is 1-800-8-9-9-57-1800-8-5-9-0-WJR. Give us a call. Give us a text. Be a part of the show. So, this major shakeup inside the Trump administration, Donald Trump, fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, removing the nation's top law enforcement official after months of behind-the-scenes frustration. Publicly, there was praise, privately, concerns about her performance, her handling of the Epstein files and her inability to deliver on key priorities. Join us now is Roshkima, attorney, political strategist, and host of the crisis files. Good morning. How are you? Good morning. Happy Monday, Kevin. Yeah, happy Monday to you as well. Todd Blanche, I guess the former lawyer for the president is going to step in. What do you make of Pam Bondi's exit? You know, it is unfortunate, especially because it comes so closely after the exiting of Secretary Kristi Noem. It just isn't good optics for the president when you have two very high-profile women being shown the door in such succession. I mean, I think most of us would agree that it was a good move on the Kristi Noem part. My sense, though, is there could have been some rehabbing with Pam Bondi before you decided to pull her out. Is it a problem that he's gotten rid of two women? Is there a women problem, or is that not relevant? Well, I don't know that there's a women problem, at least I hope there isn't, but the optics certainly don't look great when you do that, right? And then you replace them with men. And no offense to men, but one of the things that President Trump was so proud of when he first was supporting his nominees for these different secretary roles was how diverse he had gone racially, he had gone sexual orientation, he had gone with gender. So to pull... two women out in this close succession, not a good optical PR story for him. So what do you think this was for him? Do you think it was the Epstein files? Do you think it was her inability to do a good job in front of Congress when she was called in front of them? Well, I don't know if the congressional hearing situation really mattered much to Trump. It matters a lot to the American people. She shouldn't have lost her cool. I just say that as a crisis strategist and a lawyer myself. She should not have lost her cool. However, it's a good narrative for her if it's perceived that she said no to trying to do any kind of lawfare. in her role on behalf of president trump because that's not good for trump it was something biden's white house or justice department was accused of doing for biden so i always applaud an attorney general a u s attorney general who will just do the role of their job and that is to try to carry out justice

My recommendation, and we've talked about this before, I don't think Donald Trump is coachable, but if I were coaching him, I would suggest he just kind of stay out of the way and let some of these... people who he has enrolled, especially in the Justice Department, do their thing, bring their cases. If there's no evidence, you're not going to bring it. If there is evidence, you're going to try to conduct a trial, you know, after a grand jury. So these are just, it's a troubling situation legally for the president, and he would best be served to sort of not say too much right now. Yeah, the Democrats are pushing the idea that Pam Bondi was under pressure to pursue cases against Donald Trump's political enemies, people who went against Donald Trump. I don't know if that's true or not, but I think people are going to be watching Todd Blanche really close. If he comes out in his first big case is some enemy of Donald Trump that Pam Bondi was not willing to prosecute, I think we could have some serious problems. We would definitely have serious problems. My advice to anyone in that role is, look, around you. There are so many legitimate... situations and crime that need to be prosecuted. Let's start with my own state of Minnesota. All of the fraud cases, you know, with so much going on and funds being stolen from the taxpayers of Minnesota and federal taxpayers, there are cases there that they could be doing. There are immigration situations that they should be looking at to make that a smoother thing. There are so many things going on that... have really nothing to do with the enemies of Donald Trump that the Justice Department should and really could be filling all of its time. So I really hope that the lawyers and people that really understand the Constitution will win the day here and we aren't going to see frivolous cases or bad narratives out there over and over again. And maybe this new person is just a nice opportunity to have a clean slate. But you're absolutely right, Kevin. What he does bring initially will get a lot of commentary. Yeah, he's got a close relationship with Donald Trump. That has to raise some concerns. How do they show that he's independent? Well, he's got to show he's independent. He's got to be reasoned. He can't be bombastic. If anything, one of the pieces that I would have coached Pam Bondi on had I been her coach is, look, you came into that office with a lot of fans and a lot of credibility with what you did in Florida as an attorney, as Attorney General. You really needed to come into this federal office and stay reasoned.

tempered and calm. Let other people get emotional or get unnerved. But you need to stay calm. So if this person, whether he's the interim or the full replacement, if he can stay calm and bring faith for the American people to the Justice Department, then that's going to be a win for him. And it's going to be a win for Donald Trump. So bottom line, do you think this strengthens the administration or weakens it or do we have to wait and see what happens next? That's a really great question. I think there's a little bit of they've got to watch their back right now. So if you want to call that week, you can. But it always comes down to messaging. And we've seen in our country the turnaround. Things can change on the dime in a matter of minutes. So if this guy can come out. with a really good language and be tempered and even keeled and almost look like he is advising the president to roll it back and to slow his role, then he's going to have credibility and they can just keep moving forward and they won't take a huge hit. But if they keep on letting bad narratives and even the Democrats take advantage of what's happening right now for Trump and some of the Republicans, then that's going to be a bad day for the president. I'm going to put you on the spot here now. I'm looking at the TV and I'm looking at John James. He's on as a military expert on Fox News talking about Iran. Here in Michigan, he's taking a little heat. I don't know if he deserves heat or not, but he was on vacation and Turks and whatever. He was on vacation with his family and people were giving him a bit of a hard time because the government shut down. And then he posted a picture of him and his kids at Tiger Stadium on opening day. And he said, go Tigers or something like that. in a picture. Well, it turned out the picture was from a previous year. It wasn't current. And they were saying, look, he's trying to look like he's homeworking, home doing things when he's really on vacation. And this is a trust issue. You know, he's not being truthful. I don't think he did anything to lie or anything. But does he, is this a good move to come on as a military expert today and try and change the narrative? Is that a big deal if he took a vacation with his family while there's a shutdown? And is it a big deal? If you posted a picture of your family at Tiger State. even if it's from a previous year and say, go tigers? Yeah, there are a lot of errors in what you just described. Yeah, you don't post it. I mean, we post things instantly. You never pull something from a previous year. You can say go tigers without having a picture of you, or you can put across, you know, some kind of language that says this is from last year. I wish I were there now. I mean, something like that. And then to go on vacation is not a good idea. Always am going to recommend that leaders take that time to refresh. But you've got to also read the room and read the temperature of the world. If you are in the military right now, if you are connected to anything going on with Iran, it is not the time to be showcasing that you are out having fun. Even if your family deserves that time with you, they can go on vacation without you. The American taxpayers need to see you're doing the job of the American military. So lots of foibles here happening when it comes to optics.

and narratives and just the messaging that some of these people are putting out. Yeah, it's really interesting. He's leaving Congress, and he's running for governor of Michigan now, and he's the frontrunner on the Republican side. So he should know that people are going to take shots at them if they can. There's no sense giving him ammunition. Rashidiy Rajkumar, attorney, political strategist, and host of the crisis files. We appreciate the conversation. Thanks, Kevin. All right. All right. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. You're listening to All Talk. I'm Kevin Deetz.