Trump Faces Final Warning as Time Runs Out

Ellie Yingmastal, brilliant legal mind and writer. New peace in the nation that just dropped yesterday. It's entitled, we have two weeks to stop Trump from committing new atrocities. And within it, he provides a very clear roadmap for Congress to impeach, convict, and remove. And the two-week window is this... bullshit two-week ceasefire timeframe. But look, if we just stand on the sidelines and wring our hands and not do anything ourselves, then we will be complicit. Because according to Ellie, we have the power and we have the obligation to do something about it. Take a listen. And in a long overdue reunion, it's Ellie Ying Mistal. Ellie, my brother. It's been a while. How are you? How are you, Katie? Nice to talk to you again. Always. I kind of feel like it is fitting, though, that you and I at the end of a week of genocidal threats should hang out together, right? I mean, it just kind of makes sense. It's kind of our thing, right? Like, oh, so we're still alive. Great. Let's talk about it. Let's hang out, right? Yeah. So, you know, one of the things I've always been incredibly jealous of about you is your incredible writing skills. It has obviously led to some spectacular books. And it also lends itself to regular missives that you deliver for the nation. And your latest one that just came out yesterday really captured my attention for obvious reasons. And it's entitled, We Have Two Weeks to Stop Trump. from committing new atrocities. I have to appreciate the accuracy of the adjective new because the commission of atrocities is a day ending in why for Trump and his regime. But kind of get to the to the meat of it, Ellie, why you feel like we only have this two-week window to stop Trump. Yeah, so one of the things that really struck me as we went through this week was the way that the world was simply waiting around to see if a genocide would commence at 8 p.m. on schedule. We felt trapped into a situation that was beyond our control. And that really struck me kind of negatively, not just because obviously I don't want to see a genocide happen. I don't want to see a nuclear war happen. But the idea that we could do nothing about it struck me as fundamentally wrong. given that we live in the United States of America, which is still nominally a democracy. We, in fact, can do something to stop this madman in the White House. We have a myriad of legal tools in our system of government meant to stop exactly this kind of atrocity from happening. And this is something that I tried to highlight in my piece. That makes us lucky, actually, Katie. That gives us an opportunity that people in the past didn't have, right?

When Hitler is invading Poland, there isn't a lot the German people can do to be like, I don't, I don't think we should do that. Oh, Mr. Fuert. Like they don't have that option in their system of government at that time. When Stalin is is murdering his own people in Stalin grad, the Russian people don't have the option of being like, you know, Joe, I think you might have gone a little bit off the pale here. We have that option. And so when Trump backs down, when Trump. tacos out, thankfully, tacos out of his civilization-ending threat, he gave all of us Americans, he gave all of us living here the opportunity to stop him. He has committed war crimes. We've seen it in Venezuela. We've seen it in the Caribbean. We've seen it in Iran. He has committed war crimes. He is threatening to commit more, possibly with the worst weapons ever known to man. We can stop him. And the way to stop him obviously is impeachment. I talk a lot about the 25th Amendment. I talk a lot about impeachment. We can go through the legal ramifications of either option. But the point is we have the option to stop him. The leaders in Congress have an option to stop him. The American people have an option to stop him. And here's the critical point, Katie. If we don't stop him... history will judge us poorly. History will not just say, oh, it was only the racist MAGA people that did these crimes. No, they will say all of us are collectively responsible for Trump's crimes because we live in a system of government where he could have been stopped. So this is, again, this is our opportunity, but it's also our burden. We have to stop him so that we are not complicit. And again, the global atrocity that he has threatened to commit. I was waiting for you to use that word complicit because I do think that is the word of the day. I, or frankly, every day. I will say, Ellie. You know, I wrote a piece on my substack about Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, and I noticed you did do some analysis in your piece, and I was grateful for it. You know, the 25th Amendment has gained steam in large part also because there have been some big defectors in Maga World, like Alex Jay Jones, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and others that have been calling for the 25th Amendment. And I wanted people to understand that there's a mechanism that is in place to be able to do it, but it's not the escape. valve, as you mentioned in your piece as well. But I've also said, heck, we don't have to, these things don't have to be mutually exclusive, you know, impeachment and section four of the 24th Amendment are available. But let's focus on impeachment. It's a word that I also want to make sure is clear. I'm talking impeachment and conviction. They've tried it twice with him, as in convicted felon Donald Trump. And they failed in achieving the conviction part of impeachment. But. If you were to tee up an impeachment article right now, or multiple articles of impeachment, would you just put forth the war crimes? Like, what else would you put on this buffet of high crimes and misdemeanors? Yeah, so for impeachment, I'm always like, pick a crime.

is the only accountability that Trump is legally allowed to face. That is completely different than the circumstances for his first to impeachment. I think that might matter. The second thing that's different is that Trump this time around would be a lame duck president. Now, I understand in the January 6th impeachment, he was almost out of office. I understand that not a lot of people thought. that he would run again, but it was still a possibility. The specter of Trump, of continued Trump, still hung over those entire proceedings. That would be different this time. He is a lame duck president. Trump is on his way out the door. There are already people in the Republican Party both vying to be his successor and vying to take up different segments of the MAGA vote, right? there are Republicans who are trying to retake their party away from MAGA. And those Republicans would have an opportunity through impeachment, conviction, and removal to put a finality on the Trump era, like to use a Trump phrase, the likes of which we have never seen before, right? Like this would end Trump in a way that the first two impeachments potentially could not have. Right. So I think that both the legal and the political change. at least gives it a chance that third times a charm, at least gives it a chance that the third impeachment is different than the first two to say nothing of we're talking about stopping a genocide this time as opposed to punishing him for his attacks on the Capitol, which could be important to a moral person at least. So what do you say, though, to people that may respond with the following? I am not a duly elected member of Congress. I am just an average Jane living my life in horror at the atrocities that have been perpetrated by convicted felon, Donald Trump. So when you speak of these things called impeachment, conviction, and removal, Ellie, they sound... not only legally possible, but even morally and politically, you know, in the political calculus possible. But how would I be able to influence a member of Congress to be able to do the right thing vis-a-vis impeachment? Yeah. So I address this a little bit of my piece in the nation. And I come from a real sense of futility. I often think about how ineffectual I am. in terms of resisting the true evil of our time. I have a limited set of skills. I can write. I can talk. I can argue. Those are my skills. And so I, all I can think of to do is to use my skills towards. character towards morality towards resistance right there are other skills I don't have I'm not I'm not really good at fighting turns out right I'm not a good shot turns out I don't have like guerrilla military tactics you know like I'm bad at guerrilla military tactics right so there are things that I can not also just while we're here I'm not particularly good at marching and protesting I like walking Katie like I'm those are not my skills

My skills are on a keyboard and behind a podium. So I try to use my skills towards peace, towards an anti-war, towards an anti-genocide message. That normal Jane, that regular Joe, they also have skills. Maybe those skills aren't my skills. Maybe those skills aren't Chuck Schumer's skills, but they also have skills. And I implore people to use whatever skills you have. towards the cause of righteousness and justice, right? Maybe you're normal, Jane. Maybe you're very good at talking people on the phone. Right? Talk to people on the phone. A phone bank, call, help activists spread their message out. Maybe you're good at raising money. Raise money for anti-war efforts. I said, maybe you're in the right-wing manosphere and all you're really good at is playing video games and smack talking on the forums, on the video game forums. Smack talk on the video game forums for peace. Right. Use those video game skills to interact with your fellow gamers and be like, hey, guys, this is, you know, I was with whatever, but this genocide stuff, like, that's got to be, that's got to stop. That can't be, that can't be happening, right? Use your influence platforms wherever they are to be an advocate for justice, to be an advocate for rationality, right? Don't, don't shrink away from the argument. Lean into the argument. Try to. if you convince one person that genocide is bad and this person must and trump must be stopped then then that's a good day's work i would love to be able to convince a person a day like i would i would sign up for that right um so whatever skills you have Those are skills that could be useful, that could be turned to usefulness. And just start there, just focus on that. You don't have to be a person who can go on TV and argue. You don't have to be a person who can organize a million person protest. You don't have to be a congressperson. You don't have to be a senator. You just have to do whatever it is you do. towards righteousness. And that's the distinction, right? Don't just sit there, listen to the news, watch the YouTube and be like, oh my God, it's so horrible. What can one do against such reckless hate? And have that be the end of your engagement. Don't have the end of your engagement be, you know, retweeting something on blue sky to be like, oh, I also think genocide and then just go back to whatever. leaned further in than that. But nobody would be, it would be stupid for anybody to ask a person to use skills that they don't have or to develop new skills that they don't have. Use your skills. You have them. Use your skills towards justice.

It's incredibly fitting that you address that in your piece, Ellie, because just yesterday I had a great conversation with Ezra Levin, the co-founder of Indivisible. And we were saying, you know, we're coming off the success of No Kings Day 3.0 with 9 million people across 3,300 locations in every state and every continent in the world. And we were saying, to your point, Because it echoes what you were just saying, you know, for people, I always call for people to be activated and engaged. And not everybody wants to march on the street with a sign, right? Some people would be more comfortable running a coffee club. Some people might be comfortable doing the postcards. And I've always said, you know, it's, you should never be judged for your level of activism. You should never be judged for your level of engagement because even just one small act cumulatively is moving the needle. I think in this instance, the thing that I kind of. you know, because you and are very good friends and I haven't had a chance to talk to you about this since Tuesday night. You know, for me, what really baffled me was, are people truly capable of waking up Wednesday morning and then pretending like it's business as usual? Like, how do you wake up after being on the brink and the precipice of genocide and of the possible use of, you don't even needed to use a nuclear warhead? Just... just huge munitions, right? Or ordinances that would literally blow people into oblivion. How was it possible that people were able to just wake up on a Wednesday and say, well, that's what he does? Well, that happened. And then you just move on, you know? I don't know. I didn't know. Like, I was... I said on Monday because my editors were like, okay, what are you going to write this week? And I used the Ghostbusters line of, I'm sorry, I am too paralyzed with fear for rational thought. Like I just, the, the, look, this got cut from my piece. So you're getting the, you're getting the, right? Right. But I pointed out that like, look, Trump is not the first. military white man to threaten to destroy Persia. Like this is not... Touche. Tush. The Persians have seen this before, and they usually come out on top. This is a historical level. This is a thing that has been repeated in history many times of four. And again, what I focused on was what's different this time is that regular people have a way. to voice their objections and to grind it to a halt, right? Like, there wasn't a lot like your average, you know, Greek citizen could do. Alexander, I don't think we should do that. Like, no, that wasn't happening, right? Four thousand years ago. It's something that can happen now. And so I was trying to frame it around looking for the opportunities as opposed to giving into the despair. And that is, I think, for a lot of people,

an important shift to make because the news can be overwhelming and depressing and despairing and to instead look for where we have an opportunity to do something as opposed to simply looking at all of the hurdles arrayed against us. I think that is helpful. But to your larger point, I think that One of the things that I said offline, you know, to friends who I think I also felt were perhaps not as terrified or worried about this situation as perhaps they should be. One of the ways that I got at least a couple of them to kind of lock in was you might think this is happening halfway across the world. You might think that this is all, the only people are going to die are going to be in a desert that you don't know about. But buddy, you live in New York City. Where do you think the counterattack's coming? Yeah. You live in DC. Yeah. Where do you think the countertack is coming? These mega freaks who are out there in Kansas, you know, they'll probably be okay. But it's going to be Penn Station that gets hit with the dirty bomb. It's going to be Union Station that gets hit with the IED. Like it's going to be your, it's going to be you, your family, your spouses, your children that have to worry about the inevitable. counterattack because the idea that you can just bomb a people, again, this is what I'm saying, it's pretty hard to take over Persia. The idea that you can just bomb a people in the submission and they're going to be like, oh, okay, you win, you win, Don. Oops. No, like that is not what happens. What happens is a counterattack. What happens is a counter response. Who do you think is going to pay the price for that? And so even if you can't, extend the empathy to the Iranian people, even if you are such a stunted person, that you cannot extend the empathy to an Iranian parent trying to drop their kids off to a school that gets bombed as they're walking away. Even if you can't understand that, which... at least understand that these illegal immoral actions put you and yours in danger as well. And maybe hop on a call, maybe hop on the streets, maybe do a resistance at a self-preservation if empathy is lost upon you. I will say it was an interesting read because you usually are a little bit more doom and gloom. And I do think for you, it was one of the more encouraging reads I've actually said.

for you in that you really did give that push in the piece to be able to tell people you do have the power. Putting aside, it's your responsibility, duty, and obligation, because absent that, you're going to be complicit in what happens. I do think you gave a sense of agency to people to understand that this is a part of being a part of a democracy. is being hands-on and how it moves forward, regardless of you feeling like it's ineffective or the hand-ringing only leads you so far. If people want to be able to read this piece, where should they go? In addition, where should they go to be able to read your books and to be able to follow a little bit more on what you've been doing and what you continue to write about? Thanks, Katie. Yeah, so I write for the nation. I write at least... twice a week for the nation.com. It's a website. I know the kids are like, what? It's not TikTok. No, it's actually a website. You have to. read some stuff um and then i'm on blue sky i am technically still on twitter mainly because i don't want somebody else to steal my account same i don't want somebody to take and squat on my handle yeah right because i can't really engage with apartheid x just it's it's because look i like i like getting into debates like i hate people who are just like oh blue sky is an echo chamber like not if you're me man because i'm spending a lot of time you know, fighting Democrats and fighting liberals about, you know, sometimes I'm on the, I'm on the more moderate side, sometimes I'm on the more left side, but I get into it with like-minded people on Blue Sky. What I can't really do on Twitter is like if I write a piece or I make a comment and all the responses I get is, shut up, you, that N-word. N-word, yes. What am I doing with? Like, that's not engagement. that just makes me angry and like who i have enough things to be angry about right so i'm not really on twitter i am on blue sky where i refuse to be an echo chamber um and like i said i write twice a week for the nation And where can they get your books? Anywhere they still allow black books to be sold. Which is a whole different problem. That's another tusha. I was going to say, honey, that's a whole other episode of Katie Fang News. The rollback of civil rights by the United States Supreme Court with Ellie and Katie. We'd be here for 40 years and 40 nights, would we not? And just wait. I mean, we didn't even get to talk about birthright citizenship, which happened last two weeks ago, which I think we're actually going to win. I concur. I do think I heard 7-2 for upholding birthright citizenship. But the other issue there, one of my friends Jay Willis on Balls and Strikes has been writing about how this is actually the start of the right wing crusade against birthright, not the end. If you look at what they did with Roe, they lost Roe, but then it.

spawned an entire movement, a generational movement that not only eventually defeated Roe, but helped the right wing take over the Supreme Court. Since they defeat at Roe, they're looking for another one. And Jay writes that it really could be both right that we, this is the... conservative cause celeb for the next 20, 30 years. So that's terrifying. But yeah. They're- They just, that that is their, that is the flavor d'jeure is anti-immigrant sentiment in every way, shape, and form. Policy, law, culture, everything, right? I mean, any way that they can package it and bottle it. That's what they're doing. So, yeah, the Supreme Court, even in, so. That's why even if the birthright wins, it's going to be very interesting to see how the win is written. Because you can write the win in a way that gives conservatives hope that they might overturn it in the future. Or you can write in a way that's like, no, this is stupid, right? Like a Brett Kavanaugh joke during the hearing, it seems like the simplest thing we could do is just say affirmed. And the decision could be, you know, one page long. The simplest thing would have been, the simplest thing would have been, let's not take the case in the first place. You know you know so why did the who were the four votes that want to take the case at all I assume Samuel Alito and Thomas I assume Brett Kavanaugh I don't know who the fourth one is Maybe John Roberts, maybe John Roberts, maybe John Roberts wanted to fix the asterisk a little bit on his chief. Maybe he wanted to, you know, fix that asterisk a little bit. You never heard. I had a theory for that, that part of it is like they took a straw man. You know, the courts get so much blowback for being corrupt, so much blowback for being in Trump's pocket. I had a theory that perhaps John Roberts wanted to take the case so he could beat Trump. so he could be seen as standing up to Trump on what is fundamentally an easy case. Again, there's no law. It's a layup. It's a layup. And then, hey, when we got the Voting Rights Act, don't pay attention. In Calais. Yeah, well, we'll see. Look, Ellie, any time, anytime you are welcome to come and hang out here. It really has been overdue. My best to everybody and especially to your mom, Ellie Ying Mistal. It's always so good to see you, my friend. Nice to see you too. And I'm sure we'll be back together in May and June as the decisions start rolling out. Yes, I need a reprieve just a tiny bit so I can go battle genocide. That's why I need to read. It's good to see you. Thanks. Katie Fang here. We launched the Katie Fang News channel in partnership with the Midas Touch Network so we could bring you the latest in legal and political news. Straight, no chaser. So if you're a fellow truth teller, hit that subscribe button and share the word about this channel so we can build a high information America together.