Andrew Weissmann: Is Trump Going To Raid Fort Knox Next?

Hello and welcome with the Bullard podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Couldn't be more delighted to welcome back to the show. Professor of Practice of NYU Law School. He served as lead counsel in Bob Mueller's investigation in the 2016 election. He's also been general counsel for the FBI. He's on MS now with me quite often. He's a frequent guest on our own. illegal news podcast with Sarah Longwell, Sarah's stolen him from me. And now he's the author of a new book, Liars Kingdom, How to Stop Trump's Deceit and Save America, which will be released on Tuesday. Go pre-order it right now. Pause the podcast. Go pre-order it. And we're going to give you a good show. It's me and Andrew Weissman. How you doing, Andrew? It is really nice to see you. I mean, you're totally right. I actually, I met you before Sarah. You've been. You've been. You know, I think you've been scooped.

You think so? But it's my loss. We'll see. The illegal news pond is go check it out. They're doing a great job. I listened to this last week's. I got about 30 minutes in before dozing off. So I thought that was pretty good.

You know, I have a lot happening in my life, you know. So it's kind of hard to stay locked in. My good friends say, you know, I listen to you on your podcast because I do this podcast with my record. I'm like, oh, that's great. They go, yeah, when I can't get to sleep, it's really, really nice to listen to. Well, that won't be this podcast because we have a lot of exciting news to discuss. And at the very end, I get the sense that you're a little, are you a little bit of a hypochondriac?

Are you a little? No, not really. No. I'm not. That's surprising. Why do you say that? Well, I don't know. I just give off a hypochondriac energy.

You know, I have a lot of phobias and I have a lot of issues. but I have somehow managed to not have that one. All right, well, we'll learn a little bit more. We'll go a little deeper on that in the end. Wait, are you? You do not see me. No, I'm not. I'm not at all.

No, no, the opposite. No, Sarah gets mad at me for not watching my hands enough. But it might be, it might be something we'll need to do more. That's a little teaser for the very end of the show. There'll be some phenyl implant discussion. We'll just stick around for the end. But first, we have some serious. I'm like really actually genuinely, genuinely fucking piss.

about this story that I want to start with you on. This is ABC News last night, reports that Trump is poised to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. He had this emotional distress about his tax returns being leaked. Every other presidential candidate voluntarily released their tax returns. His got leaked, and this caused him such emotional distress that he felt like he deserved 10 billion of our dollars, taxpayer dollars. Yeah, a billion, bubba. And the report of Queen to ABC is that the settlement between $10,000,000,000,000. Trump and Trump is going to be taking $1.7 billion with a B of our dollars and putting it into a slush fund

that will be given out to allies who were quote unquote targeted by the Biden administration. $1.7 billion of people who are out there working their ass off and giving some of the money to the government, Trump is just going to hand it out to Mike Flynn and the shaman and his kids and whoever he wants, $1.7 billion. So Mike Flynn has already reportedly. gotten his, what is it, 1.2 million, but that's actually just a drop in the bucket. But this means, you know, there's a lawsuit by J-Sixers that, so you can see the writing on

the wall as to what's going to happen there. But what is the difference between this and theft? I mean, want to just go into Fort Knox, take the gold, and give it out. There's no difference, right? Yeah. None. I mean, it's just, it is. So, you know, to put it in a legal frame, when his lawsuit, the judge who oversaw it had a really good point.

She said, before we continue, I don't know that you're properly in court because to have a court battle, there has to be adversity between the plaintiff and the defendant. There has to be what's called a case or controversy. And she said, I need the parties to brief this because I don't see a case or controversy necessarily. here. I need you to tell me why. And I could see the Trump administration going, you know what, we don't even need the case. Like, let's just get rid of it because the judge is not playing ball. And who needs it? We can just settle on our own without ever involving the court, which is just another way of saying, we're just going to write ourselves a check on taxpayer money. In addition to all the money that Trump is going to line his own pockets with, and this is a corruption

at a scale that we've never even contemplated in the country, like forget. Like, I'm sure I'm resigned over like, like, 20 grand in a brown paper bag or something. 1.7 billion. The thing that's so remarkable is I couldn't even think of this as a possibility. In other words, like. To come up with a scheme, right? Like, you couldn't have had a law or regulation to prevent this. Like, you would have thought, like, we need to pass a law through Congress.

You know, somebody in the 1960s, you know, Tip O'Neill and Ronnie Reagan came together in 83 and they're like, you know, we need to make a deal here just to make sure that no future. president can sue the government and then settle with himself and give himself one billion dollars. Like, how would you have even conceived that? Why doesn't he just give the money to his campaign or to his children? I guess it's an emolument, kind of, no? Amoluments. Amoluments are, I mean, to me. And that is a law still.

We don't follow it, but it is a law. Yeah, but we really don't follow it. And it's also something that Congress can improve. I think that it's closer to think of this as theft, that there, because there is no good faith for the dispute and certainly the amount of money, even if there, even if there were good faith for some kind of dispute. Anyway, you know, it's sort of, I think that Jamie Raskin has made this point, which is he's giving himself over a billion dollars to use as he sees fit. You know, who else has had personal information leaked the whole series of Epstein victims who the Department

of Justice, you know, smeared, they're not getting any money? I mean, if you're going to do this, how about people who are actually victims who had their bank account, social security numbers, photos released by the Department of Justice because they were careless, at the very least careless? I know you're the legal guy, and I didn't go to law school here. So just, and I'm Googling this. I'm just being fully transparent with everybody. I'm live Googling this. Yeah.

The domestic emoluments clause, Article 2, Section 1, Clause 7, prohibits the U.S. President for receiving any emolument beyond their fixed salary from the federal government or any state. The president cannot receive any other emolument from the United States, federal government or state government. According to Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 73, this prevents Congress from using financial incentives to corrupt the president's integrity. Is that not this?

Yeah, the problem is, you know, this came up in Trump 1.0 with the post office, and that fizzled as a lawsuit. Maybe we should unfizzle it. Maybe we should fizzle it back up. Yeah, look, I'm sure there will be a lawsuit here, but I can't remember why the post office case fizzled. But one of the things that Congress can do is, In emoluments, they actually have the power to approve it. In other words, even if it were an emolument, I don't know if they have their power to unwind it.

In other words, where they could say about this, this is not going forward. Garnished the funds. Yeah, exactly. Or take it away from something. In other words, like, okay, if you want this, you know, this is a little bit like what Congress did to protect the Federal Reserve in Jerome Powell,

which is they actually have levers to use that they just, you know, rarely, rarely use, but they could do that. They could say, you know what, you want these people approved. You have people you're nominating. You have judges. You have people who are sort of sub-cabinet-level people. We're stopping. You want us to approve funding of things. You like your war in Iran, and you're asking us for, you know, tens of billions of dollars for that. That's a lot of leverage. I want to get dark on this for one second. Do you know Andrew Paul Johnson? Does that name ring a bell for you? No.

This guy pled guilty for Congress. miming into the Capitol through a broken window on January 6th. He had a bullhorn. He was shouting, we have a fucking job to finish. Prosecutors pointed out during his sentence that he called himself an American terrorist and a proud J. Sixer on his social media, he was sentenced to life in prison in March. After he was pardoned by Trump, he reoffended and he repeatedly sexually abused two children. Here's how it ties to the story.

Police reported that Johnson tried to keep the children quiet by telling them that he would share the millions of dollars and restitution money he expected to receive from the Trump administration in connection with the January 6th case. I mean, Matt, just enraging. Okay. So the people, the agents and prosecutors who worked on the case, they're fired and vilified. The people who were charged, tried before a jury, found guilty,

or pleaded guilty, meaning they confessed out of their own amounts after receiving due process, those people are pardoned, including people who assaulted law enforcement. This is the back of the blue party. Again, this falls into the you can't even conceive of the idea that this is going to happen. But I think it's just part of the process of whitewashing history. Like, I am going to tell you what the facts are. Literally, reality is what I tell you it is. And even though we all saw January 6th on our TVs, on our computers, on our phones,

it's like that did not happen. The people who were assaulting are the victims. And the people who are trying to stop them are the bad guys. And that's why we're paying this money. We're going to pay them. Me and you. Yeah. Yeah, listeners. We're all paying guys like this. I mean, not this guy, Andrew Paul Johnson, because he got reconvicted. But other, but his buddies, the people that were breaking down the windows with him that were attacking Phon, they're going to get a payout. This guy could get. I mean, he, it depends how they structure the payouts. Because if it's just going to be for people. The child sex predator could get, could get paid out. And just to be clear, he is not the only person who has reoffended.

Oh my God, no. It's, there's like three dozen. Exactly. And. that's what you would expect. That's just particularly interesting in his case that like the idea that he was using the idea that this money was coming as like a weapon. Yeah, as a weapon. A weapon. To intimidate kids that he was abusing. Horrible.

This is what I don't get. Let's assume you're a MAGA Republican and you are struggling to have ends meet. You're seeing the economy go into the tank. You're seeing us spend billions of dollars on a war that has not been explained to you. And now you learn that they're thinking of giving criminals money. And the President of the United States has given himself over a billion dollars of taxpayer money. Like, at what point do you just say, I've had enough? We're seeing some of it.

And he's at his lowest approval rating that he's ever been. So I think that there is some movement. We should not ignore that. I think a lot of people aren't getting this news, though. You know, and I think that's why the Iran war is so much. important. I mean, it's horrifying and all this, but from a political standpoint, just talking with this from raw politics, like Fox News isn't really going to tell them about the $1.7 billion, you know, or if they do, it's going to be framed up in a way of like, this is needed retribution

for the victims of the Biden, Justice Spartan politicization. You should be happy that they're getting their restitution. They're not going to be like reminding people, this is your money, actually. It's not just the libs that are paying them. It's you. They're not going to do that, right? But with the war, it's like, even if they aren't following the Strait of Hormuz news day to day, they're seeing the gas price. Right. They're seeing the gas prices every day. And I do think that is why that has penetrated somewhat, not as much as I think some of us have

hoped, but that's my take on it. I don't think that they're hearing that much about this, the corruption. Sarah had a point about Alex Pruddy, which is similar, that she said that's one where everyone could just watch it on their phone and make their own judgment. and it could break through because, you know, it was just as horrific as Renee good, but it was sort of simpler to see. All the camera angles, yeah. Right, exactly.

He was down. Right. And so whatever people were telling you, it's like I could go to the videotape. I could see it. And you didn't have the sort of problem of filtered media where, you know, it's like everything's fake news. Well, you know, here you could see it and make a judgment. You're talking about the whitewashing of history. We also have the Voting Rights Act decision.

We've been obviously talking about ad nauseum. This should not dampen anyone's rage or determination for action at all, what I'm about to say. And I should just note, actually, tomorrow is the National Day of Action for voting rights. Right now. Yeah, and there are events in a lot of places, especially in the South. So to take... Selma and Montgomery. But, yes, you can participate and do things everywhere, virtually.

but there is a physical rally in those two cities. And so I hope and expect that there will be a big turnout for that. I do think that just on the pure politics of this, it did happen late enough that I think that a lot of these southern states don't have their shit together in time to do the maximum damage. There was like a moment last week when I was talking about this with Adam Surwer where it looked like, I mean, shit, they might eliminate every majority minority district in the south outside of Georgia

and for this midterm, and that would have impact on the chances the Democrats winning the midterm. There's some horrific things happening. We've discussed Tennessee and Louisiana here a bunch, and there's happening in some other states. But they've hit some political hurdles, I think. There's that it's going to minimize the damage a little bit just for this cycle. But I'm wondering what your kind of take is on the legal side of it, like whether there's any path forward or if the only path forward, it's like maximum race to the bottom. and Democrats trying to count 51 to 1, California, or if there's any legal path forward. So I think there is no legal path forward, given what the Supreme Court did.

And in many ways, they are really doubling down. I mean, they did sort of summarily vacate a case which was not based on the Voting Rights Act, where they said, we're getting rid of your finding of intentional. discrimination based on the 14th Amendment. It is possible that in that district, that the judge maintains what happened in Alabama finding there was intentional discrimination and basing it not on the Voting Rights Act, but as they originally did on the Constitution, meaning the Louisiana versus Kelly decision was horrendous. But if you actually can find intentional discrimination, there is a small window. It's not clear that the Supreme Court was going to

allow that because they could easily say, we disagree with your finding. It's intentional discrimination. We find that it was based on politics, not on race. The Tennessee thing is just like, for example, it's so, it's, how could you not look at that and see intentional discrimination? They divided Memphis evenly into three districts. So they divided the black voters in Memphis evenly into three, like, different districts. But sure. Yeah, look, I agree with you. Samuel Alito has already sort of said his view on this, which is, yeah, that is nothing to do with race. That has to do with Republicans wanting to win. And so even though there's a complete one's a proxy for the other. In other words, it's like a twofer. It's like I get to increase the Republicans' chances and I get to discriminate.

And as far as this Supreme Court seems to be ruling, that doesn't matter. So, I mean, the Voting Rights Act is so completely gutted except for white people who want to sue over what they view as racial discrimination. by trying to rectify past discrimination. I mean, that's the whole theory of this, which is that... It's kind of like how only white South African refugees can get here. Yeah, exactly. So I had a political question for you because I don't... I think that the answer is in voting and having an enormous turnout.

And, I mean, obviously, what's happening is not going to affect the Senate in the same way that it's obviously going to affect the House because that's what's being gerrymandered. But I have a question for you. Do what extent do Republicans have enough time to do this smartly? Because if there are districts now that are purple-ish and you do this where you are separating out, instead of putting all of the Democratic votes in one district, right, solidly Democratic votes there, you separate them out, don't you risk tipping some of those other districts?

This is the dummy-mander question. I think yes the answer yeah the answer to that is is like yes and no right like in the micro that is definitely a risk and specific Republican members I think are going to be more at risk you look at the Tennessee thing for example they're good at this they're not dumb and they carved up the state in such a way that like there's one district that goes from Memphis all the way to exurb in Nashville and there's not really any district that Trump won by less than 20 I don't think maybe 19 or something so they can afford to take so it's That said, you know, and they're like two particularly horrible candidates in Tennessee,

just off the top of my head, Scott Dejolay and Andy Ogles, who like in a wave year, a really bad Republican candidate, you know, like that going from plus 30 or whatever it was before to plus 19, it's in play, and that's possible. I think in Florida in particular, if you look at what Ron DeSantis did, Florida is much bigger state, much more, you know, many more urban areas, right? So it's a little harder to gerrymander than Tennessee where all the votes are in two places. And, you know, I think that the Florida math, to my eye, was Ron DeSantis kind of being like, I don't actually really care that much about Donald Trump's 2026, but I want to maximize future.

You know, like if this is going to be a Democratic wave year, we might let the Democrats take a couple of districts to it's like shore up other. It was more of like a long term play. We're like in a median year where it's not a Democratic wave year, this will be great for us because we moved, we spread everybody around. but in a wave year, it might cost us one or two. That's kind of how I looked at the Florida gerrymander. I will see how it turns out. So, you know, I think it's a mixed bag. I think the reality is, like, they can successfully eliminate Memphis for having a representative, which is bad.

They also might, you know what I mean? Horrible, which is all they also might, you know, cost a couple of their members who would have been in safe districts and they end up getting caught in a blue wave. I think both of those things can happen. I should just think, since we mentioned earlier, the way. website. I forgot the name of the website. It's all roads lead to the south. That's the group that's organizing the day of action on this tomorrow if you want to get involved, if anyone's getting involved. So I don't know. It's pretty rough, though. The Virginia thing, just as a quick legal matter, this is more of an illegal news question, but like, that's done, though, right? Like, they don't

have any, any remedy for appeal. Yeah, well, the governor hasn't she announced that it's sort of like everything's staying with the old maps. Yeah, it's Virginia Supreme Court. Yeah, and the old maps are staying. You mean, just to be clear, there is this application to the Supreme Court. I don't think it's going to go anywhere. But you know, of the governor saying essentially it's all too late. We have a rule that we wouldn't be able to put these maps into place.

It's crazy what's happening. Like, I'm going to have to go vote Louisiana tomorrow. It's the original primary day. Crazy. And like, there will be a house thing on the ballot that is, that's, been nullified. Like, ballots were printed, people had voted. I had somebody messaged me that was like my daughter, a listener to the show,

like my daughter is one of the people who had voted. She got absentee because, I don't know, the email, I forget if she was living overseas or something to that effect, but she'd already voted. Like, vote got nullified by Samuel Alito. No, absolutely. But the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court sort of actively pushed the case out to be as fast as possible. And Samuel Alito, when.

Ketanji Brown Jackson was accusing him of like, what are you doing? This is not the normal rules. You're speeding this along. Why are we taking normal, during the normal course? And the Supreme Court has a case called Purcell, which is all about essentially not doing something too close to an election so that it sort of saves the court prudentially from being appearing to mess with an election and also just not cause the chaos. here it's going to affect during the election.

During. It's like not too close. It's during. So that's sort of the prudential, I think, the ideas that animated this case called Purcell are gone. Yeah. Gone to move on. Let's put back on your FBI General Counsel hat for a little bit.

The current director of the FBI, Kash Patel, a new story from the AP yesterday that But thanks to a FOIA request, they got some emails that indicated that when Cash stopped in Honolulu, he went on a VIP snorkeling trip that was organized by the Navy, the military, so he could see the remains of outside around Pearl Harbor. This is down a trip that's available to the public. Questions were raised because it was like, why is he going to Honolulu? And the FBI had this previous statement was that he wanted to kind of check out how things were going. at H.K., Honolulu HQ.

I noticed it wasn't Fargo HQ. He was interested in seeing what was happening at. He wanted to kind of put his hands on the agents there in Honolulu. And then he also got a VIP snorkeling trip. He also has done the Five Eyes meeting, did a jet skiing sojourn. You know, famously took the plane to go see his girlfriend's country music concert. I guess we called a concert. She sang a couple songs before a wrestling match.

I don't know. I've James Comey on this week. And he was just like, when I was FBI director, it was a 24-7 job. Like, I didn't take vacations. And Cash is doing like make a wish stuff. Yeah, that was my first reaction to. I was thinking about director Robert Mueller. You know, just to say it is to laugh.

Could you imagine seeing Robert Mueller, one, just on vacation. But the two, the idea that it's like, oh, I need to go to Honolulu so I can go snorkeling. that he would be using the private plane for any sort of like personal errands. I mean, he was so driven by the concern that his job was making sure that everybody was safe and not having another 9-11 on his watch. That was the number one thing. So the only positive I could say is that if you are a serious person at, the FBI.

And this is the lot you have, which is this is the guy who's now the director. Probably better if he's snorkeling. Having him out of your hair so that you can do as much work as possible, serious work. I mean, don't be wrong. I'm not saying this is a good thing. It's just that if that's the given, you could see them thinking, let's put a bunch of shiny objects in front of him. And if he wants to be drinking beer at the Olympics,

and, you know, denying various stories in Congress, but then do his snorkeling. At least he's not, you don't have somebody who is immature and inexperienced dealing with adult matters. I guess. And on the other hand, he's fired a lot of people who are in charge of adult matters, which complicates that story quite a bit.

Yeah. No, I'm saying what do you do if you're in this situation like that? Well, you haven't been fired. You're one of the remaining people who's like, I take my job seriously of keeping people safe. Yeah. It would probably be better if he's snorkeling and going to the gentleman's club and whatever. He apparently is just incensed by the idea that somebody could be telling the truth about what's going on and is, you know, has investigations and polygraphing to find out who is actually doing all of this. Like, I was asking James Comey about this, you know, and he was like, I know, I did not drink ever.

You know, I was never intoxicated. you can't drink on the job, it's illegal, actually. He said the only time I ever drank on the plane was when Trump fired me. They said there happened to be a bottle of Pino-No-Noar sitting around. And I had a couple classes. He's like, I figured I'm off the job now. And so, you know, for good reason, obviously. What if there's an emergency?

You want to call the director. And the agents are armed. For them, it's obvious because you cannot have a firearm and be drinking. Right. So I guess my question for you is in that same boat. I assume that as general counsel, if they're doing the polygraph, I assume, like internal polygraphs, I assume that the General Counsel would have been involved.

Is that something that happened? This idea that there are dozens of polygraphs happening seems obviously crazy. But like, is it a tool that was used at all? Every five years within the Bureau, you're supposed to be polygraphed, unless that changed. But those are standard.

That's not being done as part of a sort of specific investigation into something. polygraphs can be used on one-off investigations. It's the security division that does that. The general counsel can obviously be involved. I should say that when I was the general counsel, the use of the plane was so unbelievably buttoned up. We had paperwork for every single time the director used the plane.

What the purpose was, I had to sign off on that. And then we submitted all of that to up to the Department of Justice. You know, with the Bureau, it's like that's the way it rolls. It's like everything is what's the business purpose? When is it being used? If a spouse was going, there was a reimbursement scheme. So that it was not the taxpayer who was footing the bill. You know, remember famously Samuel Alito said, oh, there was a free seat so I could take it.

and so we didn't have that policy. That's interesting. I mean, it makes sense, you know, obviously. But I feel like it's important to kind of just go through like what the actual SOP was just to sort of show the distance from that that we are now. Yeah. Well, you know, I doubt that the plane is going through that same protocol. I don't see how anybody would sign off on it.

Do they even have a general counsel? They have to have a general counsel. What he's doing would be interesting. to know. So you can polygraph, but you have to polygraph for a legitimate good faith investigation. If the information that is being disseminated is not classified information, it's not about some ongoing criminal investigation. What's your authority to do this? And especially if it's true and the only reason you're doing this is because you don't want embarrassing stories to get out. That to me is completely misunderstanding that you, when you work in the government, work for the

public. And the idea is not, I need to make sure that there are no negative stories that get out about me. It would be totally different if what we were talking about was, you know, a leak of classified information or a leak in an ongoing criminal investigation. I'm enough of a sort of former law enforcement person that I would take that very seriously. I would understand why there's an investigation. But this is just self-protection. Speaking of self-protection, you did something that upset me. recently. What I do? Well, as I mentioned, I was listening to the illegal news with Sarah Longwell, and before I fell asleep, you guys were discussing you being in France. And you're in France,

and you're in a monastery, and you were looking out at the sea, you're trying to meditate and separate yourself from the news, and what you claim to have seen, maybe it was kind of like a saintly vision, but what you claimed to have seen is seashells that said 8647 in the sand there on the shores of France. And you thought about taking a picture of that and posting it. But you did not do that. You obeyed in advance. You did not do that because you're worried that that is criminalizing now. And I wanted to say to you, Andrew Weissman, it's time to Balmax a little bit.

Post the picture. Don't let them. Don't obey in it. advance. So that is what this is what I will say. So you know, I'm going to take your comments seriously and say I'm only a little. I'm not actually mad. I know. I think you should post it though. I know. I do think you should post it. Well, it's too late because I didn't take the photo of it. Oh, actually, you don't, you know, I have to check. I might have. You have to come back through customs. Don't delete that picture, Andrew Eisenman. Don't come through customs and delete that picture.

Okay. I will not. Uh, that by the way, you know that that is what's happening. with like all sorts of people, which is when they're being screened for stuff, you have to give all of your sort of socials and your phone. So they could sort of do a proctology exam on you. Not for sort of criminality, but for your views.

Yeah, so if you said something mean about Trump or BB. So on the 8647, just to be clear, I don't think what James Comey did is a crime. I think it's just all preposterous. It came down at the same time of the Southern Robert Law Center case, which I think it's, hard to know which one is more frivolous, but it's still serious because these are criminal

indictments. And my only point is I've had not one, but two executive orders aimed at me. So it's kind of like an easy for you to say, podcaster, all right? Like, I have two executive orders targeting me. Wait, I have two. How many you have, Tim? Yeah, zero. Zero. I'm just out here, eight six, four, seven, left and right. I don't, wondering if Todd Blanche is watching the show. So, Tim, I, you know, come back to me when you have the two executive orders. That's fair. That's pretty good. That's pretty good.

That's fine. I'll give it to you. And I feel like you should have posted it, but I'll give it to you. It's a much stronger, much stronger case once you've had an executive order. It's like guilty with an explanation, right? The other thing that you said in that show really did to cash that piqued my interest was that you had some thoughts about how the Atlantic should handle the civil suit that they are file against him? I wanted to hear the full pitch from Andrew.

You wanted to hear it from the Andrew Weissman horse's mouth. Yeah, like if Jeff Goldberg called you right now, what would you say to him about how to handle it? I'd say this. Look, Jeff, your outside counsel is going to tell you to do the safe thing. And in part, if I were outside counsel, it's like, you know, they have an obligation to tell you the safe thing. And it's a thing that's going to be safest for them, too, which is we're going to file motions to dismiss. We're going to say that it's not adequately pled, that they haven't been able to show that there's what's called actual malice, which is that it was done sort of knowing or in reckless disregard of truth. That we have a variety of ways to get rid of this case on the papers. That's one strategy.

That's the safe strategy. You are a news organization. You have said publicly that you are fully 100% sure that this was well, well sourced. Why don't you call Cash's bluff? He's going to continue doing this. It's a little like you saying, why don't you post the 8-6-4-7. Why don't you call his bluff and just say you want an immediate trial? Or you'll depose him.

he'll depose your reporter, then you'll have an immediate trial. First, let's see if he caves, because if you are right, this is now going to all spill out in the public, and his audience of one, Donald Trump, is going to see all of this, and it's going to be an unbelievable embarrassment, but you will be helping not just the Atlantic, but everyone in the media, as a strategy to deal with this kind of lawsuit that you say is bullshit. So that's my pitch to you, is I know it's not the safest course, but we're not talking about a criminal indictment. We're talking about something that you know it's in Washington, D.C.

Before a reputable judge, you are not going to be found liable if you are right. And so you know that you're right. So let's go. Or even if you had reasonable, belief that you were right, right? Like even if you had sources that said this, right? Like, even if it turns out that one of the elements of the story was not true, but you have documentation that you had two sources that told you it was true.

That's what I... In Britain, that's different. That's what I meant by right. You know, you think that you did not have... They cannot make the showing that they have to show not just that the story was inaccurate, but that you knew it or were reckless as to its inaccuracy. And, you know, that just...

you know, what I see from the Atlantic, that's not possible. I don't think that a jury or this judge is going to believe that. So why not do a huge favor for yourself and the country and also expose Kash Patel for this lawsuit for what it is? It really will help put an end to this tactic. And probably cash, because your point, Trump doesn't want to all these stories about everything that cash is doing. Trump doesn't mind stories about him. You know what I mean? Like, right, but totally. But this is not. So maybe it would get cash out of there, which would be a plus.

And also look at the timing, which is this, you do this now before the midterms and you say you want this trial. I like that suggestion. I concur. One of the legal thing from yesterday, I wanted to just to get your take on really quick, Scotus on Thursday stayed the Fifth Circuit ruling, blocking the mailing and prescribing of MIF of Pristo via telehealth services while the Louisiana, once again my people causing on this damage, Louisiana case against the FDA proceeds. That means

just practically speaking, the drug will continue to be available for the time being. Thomas and Samuel Alito, though, were sharp in dissent. Thomas referred to the drug makers as committing crimes. Samuel Alito called them mail order abortions. So, that's the state of play. I don't know if you have anything on that case. So one is the

irony of Samuel Alito saying, oh, we're not applying the standard for stays. We're not applying that, the law as it's supposed to be applied. This is a guy who's done that, like day in and day out. I mean, the idea that he could put that pen to paper and chastise the majority for the way it's interpreting or kind of loosely interpreting when you get a stay is just shocking. because it's, I mean, does he not look at himself in the mirror and have any sort of view that he has to have some principle or integrity? No, I don't think he does.

Right. Yes, that was exactly. And then Thomas, what you quoted is a little bit of the tip of the iceberg. He basically said, I mean, what he might as well have just said, why are you not indicting these companies because they're criminal active. actors engaging in a criminal scheme under the Comstock Act, which, you know, good luck finding that to be constitutional or not. I thought it was a good sign that he was only one person, one of the justices saying that because it means that I really don't think he's going to have five people saying that the Comstock Act from the 19th century is somehow going to be applicable. But, you know, here's my secret theory on this, Tam, which is, is Donald Trump, one of the only things that has not happened so far from the sort of grand plan that we all heard about.

And Donald Trump was saying, oh, no, no, no, I have nothing to do with that. Don't worry, I'm not going to implement any of that. That's not me. And then he gets into office. And all of these things get implemented, except we have not seen what I would say is overt implementation. of an anti-embortion scheme yet. And I think post-midterms, it's going to be like, you know,

the lids off on that. But I do think that that's one where I think if you were the Trump administration, you wanted this myth of pristine stuff to come up, not now. It's like, exactly. You just don't want anything that's going to cause people to vote.

on that. And so it's for the same reason I think that Samuel Alito and Thomas are not, people are always speculating. Are they stepping down? Are they stepping down? And I'm like, that's not going to happen until like a week after the midterms. If it's going to happen, it's not going to be beforehand. It's a risk, though. It's a risk of the Democrats take back the Senate. Democrats could pull the Merrick Garland rule and just sit on that retirement for two years. It is a risk. You're absolutely right. But at this point, though, I mean, right now, it's like it'd be tricky to sort of rush that all through. Just while we were a couple of guys talking about guys making decisions on behalf of women, I did want to flag one of the thing. This was the managing director of the IMF posted this picture.

And she highlighted, she called this, we'll put up on the screen for YouTube people, a painting of the end of the meritocracy, a meeting of the two largest economies and not one woman at the table. it is a crazy fucking picture. And it is two dozen people. It's not like it was she and his two closest advisors and Trump and whatever, Marco. It's like it's 24 people at this very long table. All dudes, all wearing ill-fitting suits, former weekend talk show co-hosts. And for all of the backlash to Me Too and wokeness and meritocracy and DEI, Like, that's, this is a picture of what they want.

Okay, so we started by talking about racism. And now we're talking about sexism. I mean, like, this is like, you know, let's get the big crayons out as to what we're talking about, which is this is this idea that it's like the 1950s white male America with, you know, not black and brown communities, not women. Nobody from overseas who's come here. We have a Cuban and I don't know. One gay. Scampescent was there. That's it.

That's what we got. So it's, you know, it actually looked worse than my first day, you know, going into the FBI. And you sit down for the morning meeting and you look around the table. And even the FBI was more diverse than that photo. 2026, Andrew Wiseman. It's really something. Let's talk about the book, and then we get back to the fun at the end. The book could be fun too.

I should mention, I should have mentioned the top. We have a discount code for bulwark listeners because you're such a loyal partner with us at the bulwark, and we want everybody. It's getting expensive out there. I don't know if you noticed. Prices are going up. So for bulwark listeners, there is a discount. It's in the show notes.

Book is Liar's Kingdom. Give us the little elevator pitch. So I think, as you know, I was a prosecutor for many, many, many, many years. And I was really thinking about the problem that we or the discordancy that we have because I was thinking, look at all of the people that either I have personally prosecuted or that I supervised prosecutions of who lied. and it could be leaders of Enron. It could be organized crime figures. It could be Roger Stone to Congress,

Paul Manafort to the Department of Justice and to banks. You have all of these ways in which lies in this country are criminalized. And then I started thinking about defamation suits. So Rudy Giuliani was sued for lying about Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss as just one example. So you just have so many ways in which when people, lie, there is civil and or criminal accountability. And then I was thinking about our current precedent. And the, I was thinking about the Washington Post in the first term reported that they'd counted over 30,000 lies, which they did the math, which I don't usually do in public,

but they did it for me, which came to over 20 lies per day. I think Sarah said that seemed a little low. That seems like me, too. Yeah. So, but maybe, you know, Washington Post isn't going to do it anymore for obvious reasons, but maybe in the current administration it would be. Maybe it's doubled. And I just thought, why is it that we do not in the United States, at least at the federal level, have any sanctioned civil or criminal for candidates or politicians who lie to us?

That was sort of the genesis of it. And I was thinking, Because we have free speech, because this is Marica. Because this is America, Andrew. And I can say whatever I want. So most of my book is sort of walking through our free speech doctrines. And then I look at what our states do. I looked at a few other countries to get examples of what they do.

The problem with the argument that, oh, this is, we have free speech in America. And I'm not poo-pooing it. I mean, there's some validity to how it affects this is that's not applied. when Roger Stone lied to Congress and he was convicted for it. It doesn't apply when Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, who were the leaders of Enron, lied about the internal health of the Enron Corporation. Or false marketing laws or whatever. Exactly.

And it doesn't, it didn't prevent Rudy Giuliani being found liable for tens and tens of millions of dollars for the lies he told. and it was found to have told about Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss. So, and it turns out the answer to the sort of like, oh, it's free speech is that false speech is not protected in and of itself. And so it doesn't, it doesn't really, it's not really an answer to say, oh, we just don't do anything with respect to speech at all. We do in lots of different contexts.

And the thing that it was sort of fascinating to me, is not just that France, Brazil, England, deal with this issue in various ways in their country, but so did the states in the United States. So there are various ways that come from New York. There are various ways that New York has laws to deal with politicians who are found to have committed, not just a lie, but free.

or any sort of crime, there are sort of two types of laws they have. One is if you're in office, you were automatically removed like that. And the other, for other types of crimes, is you are, this was a little shocking to me, permanently prohibited for running for office. So just to be clear, there are lots and lots of permutations. I'm not going to bore you with because this is one where it's sort of fraught with lots of issues. There are issues about abuse. But I was trying to figure out how do we get out of a situation where we have so much lying going on?

And the only answer we seem to have is, oh, well, the public will sort of know that and vote correctly. And to go to your point that when we were starting, Tim, as you were saying, well, when you're listening to Fox News, they're not going to tell you that the $1.2 billion is in this sort of collusive settlement. They're not going to point this out. They're not going to point out that the money came from you. And so the media bubbles that we have only exacerbates the concern that it's like, oh, don't worry, it'll all come out in the wash because we have a marketplace of ideas where everyone is exposed to the truth. and it can be, you know, it can be revealed to them, and enough of the people know, will sort of come to reason. Yeah, the Walter Conkite model. Exactly. Yeah.

Maybe it was different 50 years ago. Like, you could lie. You could send out a newsletter that lied, but, you know, the truth would be in the actual news. Now people aren't getting that. That's tough to fix, that part, the information bubbles. We talk about that a lot on here. Exactly. I assume that's not, you know, where your focus is.

So I'm wondering, like, what are the potential legal remedies or things? that could be part of a broader reform package. All this stuff is going to be bounced around, assuming we ever take back power from the fascists. Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting that you say, because I didn't have and I don't have a way of figuring out what to do with the media bubble problem,

and I actually just think it is with us. Not that there can't be some regulation and ways to sort of help it, but you're fighting, you know, fighting, you know, the wind. Well, yeah, it's going to exist. It's an ocean of, you know, or being in an avalanche, any of these nature things where you're just one person trying to shovel the snow out.

And it's like, it's just, you can't control it. There's too much. It reminds me when I'm at law school and we've had these discussions about AI. And, you know, the consensus is like, you don't just sit there and say, like, oh, just prohibit it. It's, people are going to use it. So you have to sort of figure out how you're going to deal with that and how you're going to incorporated into your teaching as opposed to just saying, like, you know, people shouldn't use,

I'm old enough to remember when it's like, people shouldn't use calculators. Right. I mean, it's like, really? Yeah. It's going to happen. So there are various things that can be done. First of all, at the state level, there's a lot fewer things to have to worry about that you can do than at the federal level. but at both the state and federal level,

you can actually criminalize lying. And just to be clear, the current laws for lying, which is, you know, you set a false statement to the Department of Justice or to Congress, we're not talking about a mistake. This is, you have to be able to show beyond a reasonable doubt that you intentionally lied. And so you're not going to be able to say about a politician,

oh, I don't like that they are pro-abortion or anti-abortion. They said that their tax cut will lead to greater revenues because of the laugh or curve. It's like, okay, well, that's not a provable lie. Like, we might know that that's not going to happen, but like, that's not what you're talking about. Exactly. So a provable lie, the one that I use is sort of the, because we're unfortunately in that world, because normally you'd be going, is this really a problem? and my view is it is, is that it's like there was frauded the election in 2020.

And what's crazy is that is a current lie. And that is a current lie that is a required prerequisite to entry into that world. Like, you want to become a federal judge? You cannot under oath respond to Democrats asking you questions saying, you know, there's no provable material fraud in the 2020 election. Nobody says that. You have to tow the line on that lie. And that's one where it's gone to court.

So we have sort of the record that shows that. So one idea is that you can criminalize it. The other is that you could require politicians to certify as part of their filings that they have not made. a material lie. That filing itself is something that can be prosecuted. Sarah asked me about this, which is I think that Donald Trump is keenly aware of the fact of where it is not a crime and where it could be a crime. And my example of that is the impeachment proceedings where he not only did not testify, but he never submitted anything. Like he didn't submit a letter,

he didn't submit a declaration, an affidavit, nothing in that proceeding. A false filing, false testimony is all something that is covered by a criminal statute. And there's an open issue about whether a president can self-pardon. So he has to be thinking, I may not be able to get out of this for all times and purposes. But he was willing to just simply say, which he's been very successful at, is I don't have to worry about the courts. I don't have to worry about the Department Justice if I just do the lying in public because there is no, there's absolutely no way that anyone can do anything about it other

than, you know, politics somehow having it come back and haunt me. But he has solved that, you know, that nut. Was there any particularly fun lies in there that you had to talk about? Or any reflections on lies that you've told in the past that you want to come clean on? Well, while I was writing this, I think I heard this live while I was sitting at my computer, Donald Trump, as an aside, in the White House, said, oh, and I've heard Weissman's all over those Epstein files. Yes, that's true.

I think we've talked about this. You should sue him. You should take your own advice to the Atlantic and bring them to court. So it's to be continued. It is obviously false just in case anyone is sitting there, even though I have friends, she said, hey, Andrew, what was the island like? And I'm like, and I'm like just too soon. It's just like a little Epstein, Weissman, you know.

Living rent. free in that head. There's a lie that's a little personal. Well, we had Congressman Garcia on yesterday's pod, and we were talking about how half of the Epstein files are still yet to come out. So maybe we need to wait for all of them before you can sue. Totally. Just in case you forgot that time that you were added on an email, you know, looped into

an MIT conference email or something, looping in Weissman. This is like something that I should, it's the same. same advice to the Atlantic, which is, I know it's not true. Nothing. I'm not worried about the other half. I'm not worried about it either. By the way, if there were a lawsuit, I would get discovery. Well, I'm sure that we have some listeners who'd be happy to support that fund, the legal fund.

You see, you get the idea, which is, in other words, they would have to say, oh, you know, I'd want to say it's not true. In order to show that, I'd have to see all of the files. I am confident we could scrounge up some scratch for the legal fund for that effort. So to be continued indeed. This podcast is just so useful. I'm making everybody else do things. Jeffrey Goldberg can go after cash. You can go after Trump.

And all I get to do is just sit in my hole and blab. The final person I want to raise is a man named Brian Christine. Now, for reasons that are about to become clear, I was not familiar with this person because no problems there. for me. But maybe others might be familiar with his work. Brian, Christine, is the health official who led the public response to the Hanta virus outbreak. He might expect that it's not, you know, he's not at the top of his game. So that's why I asked at the beginning if you were hypochondriac, because this has led me to be a little more concerned than I was previously about the Hanta virus.

His background was as a penile implant specialist, where he hosted a podcast. where he questioned the 2020 election and compared the Biden administration to Nazi Germany. So, you know, I'm just wondering how that sits with you. That sounds like a wonderful, wonderful educational and work experience to bring to the table for this. By the way, I am giving myself, I was raised by two parents who taught,

told puns nonstop. It was grown, grown, grown. And I am very proud of myself for not jumping in with, there were so many

like penile puns, but I decided I'd keep this at a high level. Let's not. It's Friday podcast. Yeah, I know. Did you have one in particular that you wanted to jump in on?

I was just saying that's a hard act to follow. You know, So let's try to leave it there. It's a grower, not a shower. No, don't leave it there. You have any others? Either way.

So let's, you know, it's so annoying because, you know, this is one where we lived through COVID. This is like, I mean, this is, this fits with the Kash Patel story. It's like you're putting people in place to handle these things that are incredibly serious and they are not serious. It seems to me like Brian was doing more of a public service when he was doing the penile implants. You know, and maybe you should just go back to that. I just, I'd feel much better. I think he was up for that. Yeah.

He went back to his life. It's a great industry. His expertise, you know, where he's providing something for people who need a little bit of a pick-me-up, you know, to help with their confidence. That's important. And that's where we need him over there. not pandemic. There's not a big overlap

between penile implant expertise and pandemic expertise. I don't believe. Because in one you want inflation and in the other in the government, you don't. That's the end of the podcast. Thank you so much to Andrew Weissman.

Go get his book. It's about lying and liars and the liars that tell the lies. It's called Liars Kingdom. How to stop Trump's deceit and save America. Big task. Appreciate you very much. I'm not at all better that you're hanging out with Sarah.

I do hope, though, that the exclusive announcement of the lawsuit against Donald Trump will happen right here on the board podcast. We'll leave it all there. Thanks, everybody. We'll see you on Monday with Bill Crystal. Go by the book. Bye, Andrew.

I mean, and give out my big 10-inch red-up band to plays the blues. Well, band the plays is moves. She just love my big 10-inch. Reck it all the favor of a blue. No, my name. The Borg podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, Associate producer Anzley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz.