Corruption Never Stops

Hello and welcome to this late political GabFest. May 21st, 2026, the Corruption Never Stop edition. I'm David Plotz of Citycast in Washington, D.C., joining from New York City, where he has a substack, John Dickerson. Hello, John. Hi, David. I guess we should note we should mark this moment as the one where you have finally interred your... I interred last week. I interred last week.

Oh, did you? Okay. I capitulated last week. I gave in to that. I displayed myself naked upon the floor and gave myself up for the God last week. This week, it's just like back to Norm. Back to Norm. Where you have a job.

What if next week, John, is? like the next person going to space or something. And then you say that and everyone's going to be like, oh, yeah. He knows there's no danger. I'm not that interesting. John's not going to go to space. He would do so well. He does seem to be like, okay, just like doing nothing, sort of like, just he would read in space.

He would sit there and read. He's not doing nothing. It's true. Oh, I see. Read. Okay. Yeah.

That other voice, of course, is the New York Times Magazine. and Yale University Law Schools and book leaves Emily Baffron. Exactly. I don't actually do. Well, actually, I did work for the times this week. So actually, that's true than usual. Than usual this summer, I mean. Hello, everybody.

This week on the Gab Fest, the $1.8 billion Trump slush fund that caps off a week of breathtaking, breathtaking Trump corruption. Then Trump helps defeat his last few Republican critics in primaries, but is he driving his party toward a November disaster? Then we'll talk to Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, who just indicted an ICE agent for a reckless shooting of an immigrant living in Minneapolis. Plus, we will have cocktail chatter.

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settlement announced by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in a case stemming. I mean, we'll get into the details, but stemmed out of Trump suing his own IRS for $10 billion in damages that he said were caused by damages caused. He said by a contractor releasing his tax returns. and under the terms of the settlement that are made with Todd Blanche made, and the settlement, which is not obviously reviewable by anyone, the attorney general has established a $1.776 billion, note that 1776 billion dollar fund that can be distributed secretly to people who claim they were harmed by the weaponization of government against them. Todd Blanche will appoint the people who make the decisions for who gets the money and Trump can

actually replace whoever he wants there. so he can, if people are making decisions he doesn't like, he can change them. And the fund also runs out in December 2028 before the next president takes office. Also, in addition to this slush fund, the Department of Justice also gave Trump a civil pardon effectively. They permanently barred any audit investigation or punishment for Trump or his family members. Or his businesses. Or his businesses for any taxes they filed in the past, despite like rampant evidence of tax chicanery. by them. It's an amazing one. Emily, let us start just like with a kind of like quick legal

question if you want. How on earth is it legal for Trump's attorney general who is also, A, he's an acting attorney general, never confirmed by the Senate. B, he has been until recently Trump's personal attorney to create a slush fund that can basically secretly reward Trump's friends with government cash, with our tax money without any oversight. It's really incredible. I feel like this plus January 6th are the two things about Donald Trump that the most stand for everything about him. I mean, this is just such an incredible combination of rank corruption and misuse of government power. It's just, it's kind of has it all. Why is it legal? I mean, we'll see. There are U.S. Capitol police officers who were injured on January 6 who are suing. And I'm sure other lawsuits

will emerge and then there'll be questions about standing, really, like who has standing to challenge this. It shouldn't be legal. But, I mean, this is the kind of most galling aspect of the Trump administration and the way Trump governs is that you don't ask for permission. You just, like, drive a truck through whatever loophole there might be. And the reason this is happening is that Trump is effectively settling with himself. It's his lawsuit as an individual against the government that he controls, an attorney general who is clearly bound and determined to do everything he can to stay in power and either remain acting attorney general or try to get confirmed by the Senate and become the attorney general. Trump praised him for doing a fantastic

job this week. And that's kind of all you need to know to understand how this is happening. The political repercussions should prevent it from happening, right? Like there should be enough blowback from this, that that prevents a president from behaving in such a manner. And I'm sure this will be unpopular, right? Like the pardons of the January 6 rioters were unpopular. This is actually, as you said, using our taxpayer dollars to pay them off. And yet there are certain political hits that this administration and president are happy to take. And that seems to just explain the whole thing. John, do you think there is some way in which this could like break through and change that I mean, at least a couple members of Congress who are Republicans said they were going to stop it.

There are two different dynamics. There is what Trump is willing to do and then what his actual political standing is. His political standing is awful. I mean, his disapproval ratings and approval ratings, depending on which you want to look at, are at record highs and lows on the specific thing people are going to care about in the election. He's in the like sub-basement. So in terms of whether he's paying a political price for this. He's paying a huge price among the electorate based on all the polling, and it's consistent across almost every single poll you look at. So in that sense, this kind of stuff is going to make things even worse, right?

So think about what this is. This is focused on something people can, you can see the images of the people attacking the capital. Like more leniency for people attacking the capital is not good. And especially when you have JD Vance, the vice president, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general. by the way, it's better to have somebody acting who wants the job, who will do any old thing for you to get confirmed in the job than someone who's the actual attorney general, because they might suddenly once they get confirmed in the job, or once they're locked in the job, they might start, you know, thinking with their own brain. But you have the speaker of the house. All of them refusing to say that anybody who assaulted a police officer on January 6th would be, you know, wouldn't get any of this money, which is extraordinary. Just as a like an embarrassing. First of all, for a public official to behave that way, but also when you think about what the Republican Party's posture over the years, which has been to be pro-police and on the side of police. So now, you could argue that in fact, President Trump's, the looming disaster in the midterm elections could be what hastens some of these activities, which is he's trying to get it all in before the House changes hands.

You might note that on the 20th, there was a vote, I think, to try to get more clarity on this fund in the House. house and it, uh, and it of course failed along party lines. So I think we'll, we'll have to see whether it plays in the election, but I think it's, um, it certainly adds to the public disappointment with them. With all Trump things, it's like you perform the mental exercise of what if another president did it and then you start laughing wildly and sort of like being like, oh God, that's so funny. Of course, you know, this, we would be in an alternate universe that president would be in prison. But what, Emily, what are the other ways in, it, imagine? Imagine another president who had somehow been harmed by an IRS release of documents that shouldn't have been released.

In what other ways might this have unfolded? How might this have been resolved in another presidency? I think that the one proper way it could have been resolved. So imagine, I mean, first of all, I think this lawsuit is dubious. But imagine that like the $10 billion lawsuit. The $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. Like, yes, this contractor, you know, broke the rules. but it was a contractor and governments have a lot of immunity, etc. Also, it was probably filed too late. So those are

really important caveats. And in fact, the career lawyers of the IRS wanted to defend against the lawsuit on all those grounds. Imagine that there's a legitimate grievance here, right? And then I think the proper thing to do could have been to file the lawsuit and ask for it to be what's called being held in abeyance. Like you just pause it until you're out of office. And so then you're not exercising. undue influence over it as the executive. Of course, that is the opposite of how Trump would handle this. It is, I mean, John, I mean, I think we're all, I'm really almost without word. Can I? Yeah, go ahead. It is, it's gobsmacking. And also, but David, I think of something you said originally was really quite important, which is that like one's capacity for outrage and also to understand the level of the newest outrages because there's so many. And this is, you know, one of the real challenges that

But then I think secondarily, when you have an acting attorney general standing up in front of the seal and you have the party then by party line vote in the House saying we're not going to look into this committee and how it will work, it lends more fuzz and dirt into the air in terms of the January 6th attack on the Capitol to overturn the vote of 81 million people. And it's an ongoing project, right? All this legal battle allows the president to continue saying or pretending that there is. is a legitimate case here, that these people who were convicted by juries were somehow railroaded. It allows the vice president to go up and say, well, we're going to balance the evidence and we're going to look at everything. Meanwhile, he's refusing to say that assaulting a police officer, say, with a poll or a fire extinguisher shouldn't automatically, you know, mean these funds don't go towards you. It's like a long-term misinformation campaign that this allows as well, which is

So part of the obviously larger thorough misinformation campaign that the president is pushed. And the most important thing to him, I think, in the end, right, is disturbing this narrative. It's, it's, you know, creating this lie that an insurrection and his effort to overturn the results of the election did not happen was, in fact, heroic. Like, muddying that, I think it is the most important thing to him. You know, when you think about what he's been willing to take political hits on, it's this and tariffs. And I guess the war, although I sort of feel like that was an accident. He didn't, he blundered into that one. Whereas these other two things, like this is very deliberate. It's a choice. And it's incredible. And I'm going to say one more thing, sorry, which is that I do think one useful thing about it is that it puts the corruption front and center.

Like the corruption, there are so many examples, the stock trading. you know, those charts of how much trading is going on from him and his, like so much. And I feel like we don't quite talk about that enough. So it's helpful. Sorry. I think you have two different categories. I think you have crowd sizes, January 6th, the ballroom. There are things that are like in the marrow of his bones that this is in the category of. And what's amazing is that so many people in his own party are right there, you know, clinging to that femur, right? there with him on these things that are deeply personal. And then in the next category, I would put tariffs, immigration, you know, policy things, but like he'll bend on tariffs a little. He'll,

they'll move ICE out of Minneapolis. But like, he is not going to move ice in Thom Tillis on the, any crowd-sized question or, you know, the unsuccessful attack to overturn 81 million votes. Right. It's right. It's like it versus super ego or something. Yeah. And we've never. And we've never, I don't, I think it's easy, I think it's possible to say we've never seen a presidency that has been so directly wired. It's like some sort of mad max vehicle where the id is directly wired into the presidency in that way. I want to make two points and actually with the pose a question to you, Emily, and the second point. So the one is what is, I think one of the things that that is important about this is, it is also an abuse of the legal system, which is that it begins with this lawsuit, this $10 billion lawsuit. and it's positioned as a lawsuit and the IRS is trying to figure out how to defend itself.

The Department of Justice is trying to defend itself. And then the minute that a judge is about to hold everyone to account, Judge Williams was about to sort of say, is this even a proper lawsuit because it seems like the Department of Justice and the president are on the same side. The minute that happens, the administration then settles it, but uses the fakeness of the lawsuit, uses the fake lawsuit as an excuse to settle. the event. So it's it is manipulating, taking advantage of the existence of a legal system and the, you know, the existence of this, you know, putative wrong alleged to the suit to create a settlement, but with that, then pulling that settlement literally from outside, outside of a legal system. So no, it's not accountable to anyone. So that's point number one I want to make.

But the second question I have for you, Emily, is actually, I wonder whether what Trump is doing and the kind of brazen self-service of it is likely or could prompt the Supreme Court to reconsider some of their expansive jurisprudence about presidential power. Unitary executive theory, which they love so much, this idea that president has to be free to run the government as the presidency's fit does not look so great when the president's unitariness is, I'm going to unite my power to appoint people, unite my power to prevent oversight, unite my power to, grab money and then just line my pockets in those of my supporters. I mean, that is a pretty ugly outcome of a unitary executive theory. And I wonder whether you think that there's a, there's a way in which this would, like, the real world corruption could cause even the Supreme Court to say, huh, maybe not. Yeah, maybe. I mean, what's the vehicle for it? We have two cases this term that are going to go to this. One is about trying to fire Lisa Cook for cause from the

Federal Reserve, that argument already went poorly for the Trump administration. Then there's firing lots of other agency heads, in particular, Rebecca Slaughter, at the Federal Trade Commission. That one is probably going to go in the Trump administration's favor for reasons of this expansive theory of executive power. And I would be really surprised if any of the conservative justices changed their vote were really given pause about an outcome that they've been barreling toward because of this. And then the other thing that I think really is part of the mix is Louisiana versus Calais, the decision about gerrymandering from a couple weeks ago, which is going to mean that it's going to take a wave of election for Democrats to win back the House, like effectively,

or at least moving in that direction. And it's not like the Supreme Court didn't have a lot of tea leaves to read about the danger of straining the democracy in that way at the, moment in particular, and they did not care. Yeah, there's a lot of tea leave missing. Can I just say one more thing about your point earlier, Emily, about corruption? I do think this is of a different kind that is actually more politically potent than the overall corruption. I think the numbness that David started off with so correctly exists when it comes to

crypto and Donald Trump Jr. and is on this board of the betting market and so forth and so on. People get lost in it. But the footage of Trump flag-waving people attacking the Capitol is, you know, seared in people's minds and is easy to run again on, you know, in social media clips. And so this is attached to that. So it's corruption plus incredibly powerful visual central to the office that I think puts this in, this elevates corruption as a possible campaign topic in a way that all the self-dealing and the reporting by Bloomberg this week of the.

the, you know, 3,700 trades or whatever it was that the president engaged in and that made him lots of money and the various other ways in which things he said out loud, promoted companies he's invested in and so forth that might get lost on people. I think this has maybe another way of being actually effective on that topic. To finish up, you guys both seem to assume, and maybe there's good reason for this that I didn't notice, both seem to assume that the payout from the anti-weaponization fund will go to the JAN Sixers. Has that been indicated? Only reason I assume that is nobody will say it won't.

And they're the one celebrating. Yeah, they're the ones celebrating. And he's already pardon them, as Emily pointed out. And, you know, it would be so easy to say anybody who's been convicted of attacking one of our brave, dedicated law enforcement officials, not only does injury to that person, but does injury to the whole rule of law. and we would do nothing with the president's fund that would encourage any lawbreaker like that. Like the boiler parade is written in your head when you run for politics.

And the fact that they couldn't dribble out a few words, you know, and throw a little love towards law enforcement suggests that you're not, people aren't crazy to think that this might let some of the January 6ers off the hook. And the whole, you know, idea that Biden weaponized the Justice Department, they've been absolutely like some of the poster children for not. that. Not the only one. I mean, Kash Patel could the director of the FBI is claimed to be a victim of representation, right? Like, he could apply for money from this fund. It's kind of amazing. Before we close out, can I chase down one part of this? There's been an effort by some conservative comment dictators to say that the Obama administration laid the groundwork for this fund with what are called third party settlements. And I just want to address that for a moment because I really think it is a very different set of facts. So it is true that coming out of the financial

crisis, there were a bunch of lawsuits the government brought against banks for their lending practices. And there were other examples of this involving Native Americans who were wronged by discrimination in which there was a settlement. And as part of the settlement, the banks or the entities that wronged the Native Americans, there was like a settlement fund. created, and some of that money went to nonprofit organizations. And so those are called third-party recipients of settlement funds. They weren't the plaintiffs. They weren't directly harmed. The idea in both cases that you were going to pick nonprofits that had a connection to the community were going to make things better, right? So like in the situation of the banks,

it was neighborhood groups that were working on community development or legal aid for people who'd been harmed by these, you know, abusive or bad mortgages. Similarly, in the Native American situation, like people, entities with roots in Native American communities that were going to help them. So, like, maybe that's a good idea. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's favoring groups the Democrats like. Jeff Sessions put an end to it in 2017 because Republicans, like, absolutely denounce this

as like a form of favoritism. And so the idea, and actually it turns out Pam Bondi also brought back a rule against these settlements. But the point is, those were settlements that were approved by a judge in which the third parties that received money were connected to the harm of the litigation and were supposed to be addressing that harm. This is just like a totally wildly worse thing. And so it's really bothering me that that idea of like, oh, it's all slippery slope and this is really the same thing. Like it's really not the same thing. Yeah. And the transit of property here, because this is a rhetorical trick is to say, is to admit the horrible thing and then say, well, it's merely a stylistic

difference, right? Quiet part out loud. Oh, it's just, he's using a couple of different words, which is a general umbrella used to protect Trump. Like, you know, well, he has his own way of talking. Yes, Sam going to shoot you in the head is indeed an aggressive way of talking. It's also assault, right? Like, it's just ridiculous. But that line that says, well, he said the quiet part out loud, then lets you go, okay, now I'm going to talk about. the other side, sort of engage in what aboutism. And you don't have to make an evidentiary claim that all the stuff you're going to say now is equivalent to the first because you've done this thing where you say, you say the only difference is stylistic.

So it like, it tries to pre-support your argument when the examples you then give, as you say, Emily, are of a totally different kind that the thing you're comparing them to. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. We talk about mental health more openly now, but asking for help can still feel hard. Better Helps, 2026 state of stigma reports surveyed 2,000 Americans and found something interesting. 85% of Americans believe getting support is wise, but 74% say society discourages people from doing that. maybe you're busy, maybe you're worried what others would think, or maybe you're telling yourself, you can handle it alone. But therapy can be a space to slow down, talk through what's been building, and better understand what kind of support might actually help you. BetterHelp is the

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Quince.com slash GabFest. This episode is sponsored by Ground News. I've been fascinated by the reflecting pool story in recent days. Just fascinated. I'm a Washingtonian. And this fight over the reflecting pool and President Trump's renovation of it, or attempted renovation, has just struck a chord with people in Washington and around the country. And there's been a huge amount of news coverage of it. Ground news is one of the most helpful tools you can find to cut through the noise and get down to the facts of important stories.

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Use my link so they know the Gab Fest sent you. The Trump Revenge Tour, as it's been called, proceeds apace. A great week on the Trump Revenge Tour, played a date in Louisiana, where he had campaigned against Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, because Bill Cassidy had voted for. an impeachment and Bill Cassidy was indeed defeated in the primary for the Senate seat there. The tour went through Kentucky where a piece of cardboard shaped like a person that he put up to run against Thomas Massie. Thomas Massie, one of the very few Republican members of Congress who has opposed Trump on various matters. This piece of cardboard won the Republican primary in Kentucky and knocked out Thomas Massie, which who is Trump's

favorite foe. In Georgia, Brad Raffensperger plunged to defeat in the Georgia gubernatorial primary. Brad Raffensperger, of course, had been stood up to Trump during the 2020 election and refused to help Trump sort of cheat in that election. In Texas, Trump has now endorsed Ken Paxton and thrown Senator John John Cornyn under the bus in that Republican primary to face James Talarico in the Senate race in November. everywhere that Trump's Republican opponents could have been set back this week, they were set back. So, John, his popularity, as we have talked about, is dismally low. Why is he doing so well purging the party of the people who are skeptical of him or not fully on board with him? Because his loyalty in the most fervent part of the party that participates in primaries is very, very high.

And he's got to allow money to enforce that loyalty when it waivers. So, you know, the Thomas Massie primary was, I believe this is still true. The most expensive ad spending of any primary ever. House primary. House primary. Thank you. And he so, and you went through that great list.

He's been super successful. More successful than other presidents. I think any president's ever been. FDR tried to bounce a bunch of Democrats who voted against him. And he was spectacularly unsuccessful. And no other president is, as far as I can tell. or think about it, there might be some weird thing I'm forgetting. But Trump has been incredibly successful in his own party.

And he's bucked his own party's senatorial campaign committee on the Texas race and in Louisiana. And that's not always gone well for him when it gets to the general election. Yeah. I mean, is this going to backfire on the party in the midterms? And how do you assess this in light of the recent wave of redistricting, which has eliminated some competitive districts and made them more favorable to Republicans. That increases the appetite for this kind of behavior because it makes the primary race the only race that matters and the primary races are built on, you know, loyalty and fealty to a certain whatever the issues are of the most fervent voters. But I think more broadly, if this is going to be a way of election, this hurts the general election chances of Republicans.

Because now you have Ken Paxton as the anointed one. And then Ken Paxton is a loose canon with all kinds of things like his divorce settlement, which has, you know, salacious details in it that then become a part of in the national conversation and increase the party's bad reputation and steal focus from what the party needs to be focused on, which is people's unhappiness with prices, which they can't fix that anyway. Like gas prices aren't going down. Other parts of inflation aren't going to get better. or so. But I think the question is whether Trump picked Ken Paxton because of what he fears or he thinks might happen in the future rather than like in other words, Ken Paxton will be a loyal ally for what's to come. John Cornyn would not necessarily have been if there's another impeachment or something. So the only one of these races where it feels like there's a possible electoral impact is the

Ken Paxton, Texas race. I mean, Thomas Massie, the Republican is going to win the Thomas Massie seat, whether it was Thomas Massie or the guy who beat him. The Louisiana Senate seat will be a red seat, whether it was Bill Cassidy or somebody who beat him. So for the party, the only one that really matters is Pakistan. And Ken Paxton was probably going to win that primary anyway. I mean, you could argue that Trump hasn't done anything to significantly hurt the electoral chances of the party in November. Yes, except as all political actors calculate how to position themselves, the cost for fibrillating the tiniest bit away from Donald Trump has been made plain. Whether it's on Epstein or redistricting or whatever, nobody's going to waver. And I think stealing that freedom from any candidate anywhere, I think could be costly.

What about the role that Thomas Massie, Bill Cassidy, corner? could still play for the next seven months, right? Like, they're going to be in office. I mean, Bill Cassidy seems to have, like, stiffened his spine just in the last few days. Well, I mean, I don't think he gets credit for stiffening his spine. I think he gets credit for having a gelatinous spine beforehand. You know, now when there's no consequence, or he's already paid the consequence, he's suddenly voting against the war.

So Bill Cassidy votes against the war. John Cornyn might do something like that. there's also a question of the ballroom and whether the president gets he's not going to get his funding because the parliamentarian determined that because of the bird rule and the way they're trying to pass ICE funding through reconciliation, you can't tack on an extra billion dollar for the ballroom. Bill Cassidy's not going to go along with that. And I think other Republicans won't go along with that. So there are still some things that I would put in the category of things that might even be a bridge too far for Republicans who are being so frequently. reminded of how much power Trump has in their own party. It just seems like there's this interesting timing, right? Which is that the next seven months are Trump's best chance of ramming everything through. We were talking about that earlier, right? Because he's facing potential loss of control of Congress or one part of Congress in November.

And at the same time, these like key vote people could be free to vote against him. But he's not really, there's nothing. He doesn't. Yeah. What is he ramming through? Yeah, he just needs this reconciliation to go through. And that could be, you know, that could be a slight problem, but he only needs 50 votes. And I don't know how much freedom Bill Cassidy really has in life because they got to go home and live in the places that just told them they don't want them.

Lamar Alexander has a book out now saying the Republican Party should push back against Trump. But like, I don't know, a little late. And also, he knows what life has been like having to live back home. to you if you tried to do something that was contrary to Donald Trump's wishes. It's not so easy. Yeah, fair. And that'll be really disappointing if that's what constrains them. But there's also the war. There's also the slush fund. Like there are things that you could do if you wanted to stand up. Well, the slush fund and the war in the ballroom are things he does care about. So it's not exactly legislation, but it's, as we talked about earlier, yeah, those are things that he feels deeply.

What do you guys think that all of the successful revenge, the purging of the party, the exiling of even the faintest few critics means for the Republican Party of 2029 when Trump is not there? I mean, is there a cogent party that is left that has some kind of animating principle or is it is, will it just fracture because there won't be Trump to be the center of gravity? and then it will need to reconstitute itself in some way. And is that a reason for hope? Could it reconstitute itself around people who are more principled about how democracy should work? I don't find a line of thought that can support the last point you made. Hope. No hope.

Well, I just think the lane for the reasonable Republican is like as wide. as a bicycle tire. I don't think it's a very wide lane. I do think it means chaos, though, because Donald Trump is chaotic. The only thing that holds Donald Trump together is his assertion against all evidence that there is some cogency. But I mean, I guess what I really mean is what holds him together is his willingness to carry out his grievances against anybody who will buck him, even if there's no logical internal consistency to the positions he holds. Without that, enforcement mechanism. I think candidates in an environment where they're all trying to create differences with each other for the purposes of gaining electoral advantage are going to be

incentivized to find all kinds of fractures differences in the coalition. And Donald Trump will play a role and he'll get a lot of attention and oh my God, the media will lap up everything he says because he will be leagues more interesting than whoever is running for the nomination. And by the way, he continues to flirt as he did in a commencement address this week with the idea that he's going to run again. So I think it fractures and there will be little explosions of people trying to claim that this issue on which I'm so good is the defining issue of the Trump MAGA base, you know, that I am carrying the torch on his behalf. and we'll see that happen about 28,000 times. I'm going to talk just for one second. Maybe we'll end on this.

One of the things that I think is really interesting is when you look, when you, when you, when you survey broadly people who self-identify as conservatives or self-identify as liberals, you find some different character traits. And conservatives tend to measure very strongly on loyalty and on obedience. They value those much more highly than liberals who tend to seek novelty. variety, heterogeneity or things that are more interesting to them. And the libertarian wing of the Republican Party has always been sort of an outlier. The libertarian wing are the people within the Republican movement who are kind of like free thinkers and don't value loyalty and instead

value independence of thought. And I think one of the things that is a bummer about where the country is gone and where the Republican Party has gone is that, like, Trump has weaponized this tendency towards obedience and towards loyalty in the Republican Party. He has made it. He has just really driven it to an extreme. And he's now built a party where that quality is the top quality that people need to have to thrive in it, is obedience and loyalty. And that is, I think obedience and loyalty are great. Like I temperamentally, and I'm an obedient and loyal person who just doesn't happen to be conservative politically. But it is a problem when a party is so extremely there and it takes it, it brings it in dictatorial directions and, and royal directions and in,

in this kind of obedience that the Republican Party is now in the thrall of. And it's, it's just, it's a bummer. And we need them to be a real party. Like, we need a two-party system, like a vibrant, real sense that people have differences of opinion and are thrashing out issues and are trying to represent their constituents, not your leader. Bill Clinton used to say Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love, which is supposed to speak to the kind of crazy temperamental nature of Democrats that you were describing, David. But Trump has created something around loyalty that Bob Dole and George W. Bush never could. And George Herbert Walker Bush certainly never could, which is that he knows how, and you sketched it out beautifully by creating, you know,

creating a false lawsuit in order to use that as leverage to then get something else. Donald Trump knows to an extraordinary degree how to use power leverage in the service of what he needs. And so he will either use that directly or can show launch a protracted racist attack against the first African American president that he wasn't born in America and succeed in his own party by doing so. And when you flex like that, other people in your party get. afraid. And so he has been able to use loyalty in a way. I guess the thing is, the loyalty gene's always been there. He's just found a way to, you know, make it so much more powerful.

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That's UPWRK.com, Upwork.com. Hey, it's Adam Grant from Ted's podcast, Rethinking with Adam Graham. This episode is sponsored by Am Better Health. If you run a business or work with employers on benefits, you know the story. Group health insurance costs keep climbing, and the plans rarely fit everyone's needs. There's a newer model worth knowing about, called an ICRA, which lets employers set a contribution, and employees choose their own health plan based on their doctors, budget, and what actually works for them. Health care isn't a group decision, so why should coverage be? Get coverage you control.

Find out if an ICRA is right for you at ambetterhealth.com. There's been a lot of talk in recent months about the way in which the Trump administration and especially the immigration enforcement agents have acted with impunity, behaving in ways that are outrageous or dangerous and criminal, with the sense that there would be no consequence for that behavior. And this week brought a remarkable example of pushback to that. We're joined by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty. who this week charged ICE agent Christian Castro with felony assault and account of falsely reporting a crime for a January 14th incident during the immigration surge in Minneapolis when Castro shot Julio Sosa Steve Scalise. Moriarty charged Castro after revealing a shocking web of lies told by the federal agent and buttress by higher-ups about Castro's encounter with Sosa-Salise.

So Mary Moriarty joins us. on the Gab Fest, Mary Moriarty, what do you allege that Christian Castro did? Why is it a crime? So what was originally said was that Mr. Sosa-Sales and Mr. El Hornio assaulted the ice agent as he was lying on the ground with a shovel and a broom. And because he was being assaulted and he was fearful for his safety, he fired a shot that hit Mr. Sosa-Salise in the leg. What happened, actually the interesting thing, because the federal government is not cooperating with us at all, and in fact is obstructing us from getting the evidence in the case. But a couple of things happened here. Minneapolis has cameras in many places like many cities. And when people called 911, the dispatcher for Minneapolis was able to turn the camera onto the front yard of the house where Mr. Sosa-Salise was staying.

And so that was extremely helpful. And I believe that is probably what the U.S. Attorney's Office saw because they had charged Mr. Sosa Seles and Mr. El Jorno with a crime of assault. And they still have it up on their website, or at least they had as of Monday, that these two men committed a violent assault on this ICE officer, even though they have acknowledged that two agents, including Mr. Castro, lied about it. And I think that what they realized in seeing the video was that Mr. Sosa-Salise had been standing out on his front lawn or yard, I should say. There was snow here at the time. And Mr. El Jorno was being chased by ice, crashed his car into a snowbank, and ran towards the home, trying to get home.

Mr. Sosa-Salise is seen on the video tossing the shovel. You could see the shovel there the entire time, the struggle. is going on. Mr. Sosa Siles just tries to pull Mr. Al Darno away. Mr. Al Darno had slipped on the ice. The ice agent had kind of fallen on top of him. So the two men get away and they go inside the house. And that is when we see the ice agent stand up and shoot into the house through the door. And so I think the U.S. Attorney's Office saw that video and realized that the two ice agents had not told the truth. and they actually dismissed the charges against both men with prejudice, meaning they can never be charged again. And they specifically said that two ICE agents lied. Even though they've done that,

though, they have not charged the ICE agents with any type of crime. So we have charged Mr. Castro with four counts of second-degree assault. Essentially, that shooting into a house, there were four adults there, causing them fear of harm, that kind of thing. And also lying about a crime. So it's five total counts. And there were kids in the house, too, right? There were kids in the house. So Mr. Castro and his partner and then Mr. El Jorno and his partner and then they're kids. And if all of this wasn't frightening enough, when you look at the path of the bullet, it goes through the front door, through Mr. Sosa-Salise's thigh, through a closet, and it lodges, in the wall of the child's bedroom.

And so the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension was able to remove the bullet because you can see it bulging through in the child's bedroom. You could see a crib in there. So, you know, we're very happy that Mr. Sossis-Salise, that was a through-and-through bullet. I can't imagine the trauma he still struggles with, but it could have even been worse. Can you tell us a little bit about what you mean by the federal government has obstructed investigation, right? I mean, there's ICE, there's the role of the FBI, there's the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minneapolis. What is it like to be the county attorney trying to put together the pieces and understand what happened and dealing with the federal government in this situation?

I think what might be helpful is for people to think about the political assassinations that we had last year of former Speaker of the House, Melissa Hortman and her husband. When that happened, the FBI and our state law enforcement, the BCA, did a joint investigation. And the U.S. Attorney's Office and our office worked together. That is the tradition here in the Twin Cities that we all work together. And so both the BCA and the FBI investigated that case. We got, we the County Attorney's Office got the entire file, including FBI records. And the U.S. Attorney's Office got the entire file, including everything that the BCA did. And then we have charged that case. and the U.S. attorney has charged that case.

That's the way it's supposed to work. That's the way it's always worked. In these cases, and we talk about them in terms of the three cases, they all happened in January. Renee Good was shot and killed on January 7th. Julio Sosa Siles was shot through the leg on January 14th. And then at the end of January, Alex Pretti was shot and killed. So we have two people shot and killed by federal agents and then Mr. Sosa Siles.

And it got progressively worse with those cases. For instance, when Renee Good was shot and killed, I was on the phone with the BCA, the FBI, the U.S. Attorney's Office, and we had all agreed it would be a joint investigation, as it always had been. And then at some point, the BCA was told they were no longer allowed to be part of the investigation. And so that was the first sign that things were going to be different. And then in Mr. Sosa-Salisa's case, there was a plan for a joint investigation. And on the scene, the FBI said, well, we received notice, you know, we have to kick you off. And I will have to say it's not the local FBI. It's not the lying agents or the line U.S. Attorney's Office. This comes directly from Washington, D.C. So then the most egregious example

happened when Mr. Pretty was shot and killed. That was a Saturday morning. We had a prosecutor on the scene. The BCA was there. And federal agents physically obstructed the BCAA from entering the scene to process it, which is what their job, that's what their job is. And you might have remembered the videos from that. They were actually standing with their backs to the scene and they had batons. And we were getting somewhat prepared for this type of obstruction. So we were able to to get a search warrant signed by a judge, and the federal government refused to acknowledge that. They would not allow the BCA to enter into that scene with a judicially signed warrant. Because of that and because we had been preparing for this, we were able to file a lawsuit in federal court.

We asked for a temporary restraining order, asking the judge to order them to preserve and not alter the evidence. and the judge actually granted that Saturday night. So that's the extreme lengths that we have had to go, actually, to get information that would normally be shared with us. And as you know, we filed a lawsuit after making requests or tweet demands of the federal government to give us the evidence in Pretty Good and Social Solis. We didn't even get a response from the Department of Justice. They didn't even respond to us.

We filed that lawsuit. in D.C. And today there will be some news about that. But those are the lengths to which we've had to go to try to get the physical evidence in these cases. You know, we don't even know. Actually, I think what most people don't realize, we don't even have the names of the agents who shot Alex Prattie. We don't have confirmation about Jonathan Ross shooting Renee Good. they're not even sharing the names of the people involved here. They're not sharing, for instance, did they make any statements? Did any agents make any statements?

And the only reason we understand they were wearing body cam is because we've heard that in the media. They haven't shared that either. I'm going to ask a double-parreled question, Mary, hopefully it'll be adjacent. One question is, can you assess the kind of instinct to lie, as you've witnessed it, across these three? these three incidents. In other words, if I'm caught with the hand in the cookie jar, I might fib. But there is also sometimes an entire structure of lying that snaps up into place quickly. Do you see that? Can you place the behavior you've seen in these three cases in terms of obstruction along a continuum? And is that possibly undermining, as you get in this fight,

about what is the state's role and what's the federal role? As I understand, that federal courts have allowed state prosecutions to proceed if there's evidence that the officer acted maliciously or was unreasonable and excessive in the use of force. Does the covering up kind of support that? In other words, they, of course it was excessive because they were trying to cover it up and therefore the state can proceed. I think the tone actually has been set by the administration. If you'll recall, and I think this is still to some extent the case, the administration told these ICE agents, these federal agents, you have absolute immunity. absolute immunity. And we heard Bovino, I think, say, nobody can lay a hand on you. Nobody can touch you.

We also know that many of these people were poorly trained. The recruitment was awful. There wasn't appropriate screening. So you have a combination of people who come here. They're told, you know, be aggressive, it appears from Bovino. You saw what happened there. And I think that, you know, when you were in that situation and the people who are telling you, you, nobody can lay a hand on you. It's maybe easier for you to engage in that kind of conduct. And I think you're right, of course, when people make mistakes, when they do something wrong, it's probably natural human behavior that they try to minimize their role in it. But you have to remember, these agents were under oath.

They filed affidavit. they, you know, it's, and in fact, the statement that was issued by the administration after our charges was nonsensical. It described it as a political stunt, I think. But then went on to say they are investigating. You know, they had to dismiss serious charges here because of lying here. They've had this case and they continue to say they're investigating it. So it's a little odd to say in the same paragraph, what we're doing is a political situation. stunt and also say that this is a serious crime.

But Judge Lying is a serious offense and they're investigating it. So as you pointed out there, we know that when we file charges, we will see a motion to remove to federal court that in combination with a motion to dismiss for what's called Supremacy Clause immunity, which is not absolute immunity. What I had sort of forgotten from law school, I think, is one of the, you know, they have to be able to show that what they were doing was in the scope of their employment and not above and beyond what they were supposed to do. That's simplifying it. But what makes me smile is that there's a specific case that says, were they on a frolic? That is actually

in some of the case law. Were they on a frolic? And so maybe for lay people, it's easier to think about, okay, what were they doing here? Were they actually doing what they were supposed to do as federal agents. And even if they started doing it that way, were they off on a frolic? So all that to come, we do actually have some big news here, too, as you probably know, we charged an ICE agent earlier for kind of a road rage incident. And he is going to turn himself in today so that we can actually start the process. Actually, that leads to my next question, which is about Christian Castro, which is the ICE agent. Is he in custody? Do you expect to be able to take him into custody? He is not in

custody. The issue with many of these people who came here is they were not from here. They were here temporarily and they've gone back to wherever they live or they're working. And that's also a difficult thing. The federal government is not helping us with that either. And so, you know, in the case of Mr. Morgan, who's going to turn himself in this afternoon, a lawyer representing him reached out to us. And we've been having discussions about how to get him back here. So we also have a nationwide warrant for Mr. Castro. And so, you know, one hopes that when you know you have a warrant out there, you will reach out and turn yourself in. So that's our hope. But it does complicate it when we don't even know starting out what the names of people are. In fact,

we only know about Mr. Castro because the BCA was on the scene right away and they heard federal or the FBI talking about the name. And then we were able to subpoena medical records where we were able to confirm that he was the person. The medical records were also helpful, too, because he was saying he was hit in the head many times and they did all these x-rays. And the only injury they saw was some kind of abrasion on his thumb. Mary Moriarty is the Hennepin County attorney. Mary, thanks so much. This is so interesting. And we, are interested to see how it all turns out. Thank you.

Let's go to cocktail chatter. We are actually, the three of us are going to have cocktails tonight together. So we, you could, Emily, you could withhold your chatter or you can say something that you can then repeat when we see each other tonight. So what is your chatter? I'm going to chatter. I'm going to chatter about two books. One I am looking forward to reading, when I am actually already reading.

The one that looks so intriguing to me is a new book called Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young by Zade Ayers-Dorn. And it's about the weatherman. Zade is the son of Bernadine Dorn and Bill Ayers, who were two of the weathermen. He did this amazing podcast called Mother Country Radicals, which I totally recommend. And this book sounds like really interesting as an exploration of risks his parents took, how they think back on this episode of violent radicalism in their lives. And I really like the title. So yeah, dangerous, dirty, violent, and young.

And the book I'm reading with interest is called Crisis of the Common Good. It is by one of my senators. And it's Murphy's attempt to explain what he thinks is wrong with American society right now and how to fix it. And I'm actually going to interview him about this book in New Haven on May 31st. So if you're interested in that, I think there are still tickets available. It's a great op-ed in today's time. It's about private equitization of youth sports and how private equity has taken over youth sports in a way that is ruining the youth sports experience and professionalizing youth sports.

Great piece. That's the first chapter. So, yeah, anyway, if you're around in Connecticut on the 31st, come hang out with us. JD, what's your shadow? My chatter is people who are reading the substack. know that I've started doing a sort of review of the week, which is going on and on and on. But it's great fun for me, and the people seem to like it. And mine, so I'm stealing this from that.

Sorry, gang. I'm cannibalizing. The census of the ocean, which I didn't even know was taken, but CNN had a piece about the census of the ocean where they found, you would think, like, of all the years we've heard these stories about crazy things they find in the ocean. Nevertheless, they have found so many more. They found 1,100 previously unknown species. one of them is 2,600 feet beneath the Pacific Ocean near Japan, and it is glass sponges

which build translucent skeletons out of crystalline silica, which is essentially a chemical component of glass. Inside of these glass sponges are two different kinds of bristle worms, not related at all, just two different bristle worms that have decided to take up life inside of this glass sponge and they provide this super useful. It shields them from predators, obviously, but then in return, the worms clear debris and silt from the sponges delicate channels so that the sponge can breathe and feed. And so this is just one of the, as I say, 1,100 extraordinary things that were found at the bottom of the ocean from this census, which is an attempt to catalog everything that is in

the deep blue sea. I want like the role doll version of what you just said. Like crystal worms, translucent glass. I love it. And there's a thing called a deathball sponge, which is a carnivorous. Yes, deathball that it's 12,000 feet deep. And it's covered in these Velcro-like hooks, which ensnare crustaceans.

And then the sponge envelops and ingests them. It's great. Oh, man. substack town. My chatter is, this is truly my chatter because I've been boring anyone who'll talk to me. My girlfriend who doesn't. I'll be just very brief. There's a most fascinating story in the sports world, in the world of English soccer this week, which is that the most valuable prize in all of professional sports is being moved up from the second division of English soccer to the

the first division of English soccer. Because when you move from the second division of England soccer to the first division, you basically get an enormous financial benefit to get be on the TV deals that the first division is on. And so every year, there's a huge competition because three teams from the top division move to the second division and three teams from the second division moved to the top division. And in particular, there's a final game, like a mini tournament. There's a final game where two teams play and the winner gets to go to the top division and the loser stays in the second division. And this game is by almost any measure the most valuable prize in all of sports. It's worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

And the game was going to be played between a team named Southampton and a team named Hull. But this week, the Southampton team was disqualified. And they were disqualified because they had been spying on their opponents outside of the rules of the Premier League, the rules of soccer. And this is an incredible punishment because this team was one game away, from literally having this hundreds of million dollar prize and they are disqualified. And it's just enthralling. And it really makes you think, like, it is absolutely worth it for teams to spy and cheat because the prize, the reward is so huge.

The reward is so outlandishly large that, of course, they're cheating. And probably there are teams that have cheated and not been caught. And this is an example of a team that's been caught. And this is the first time that a team has ever been punished to this extent. And it's just kind of been gripping to watch. And I think everyone believes this is the correct punishment for this team. But as a soccer fan, it's been very exciting. Can I ask you a question, David?

Professional basketball has undergone such a change in the way that sport is played that some people think, like, it just ain't what it used to be in and ain't that much fun. Baseball is dealing with its own changes. In soccer, do you still feel that as it's become more popular and these kinds of incentives get bounced around, that it has the quality of the game has changed in one way or another. Do you still find that it has that core thing that you've always loved in it? The quality of the game is extraordinary. The quality of the game is incredible.

And it's incredible. And actually, would dispute the people who say about basketball, I think is also true. The quality of basketball, that's a real old man thing to say, John. Like, it was better when we had magic and bird and MJ. Well, maybe it's true.

I mean, maybe it's not. But I think the quality, just what's happened is there's become this global market for talent in soccer and basketball in particular. that there are so many people and now the the the superveness, the excellence of the players that are being recruited in Africa and in Asia and in South America for all these sports is so high that the quality of play is just better than ever. And I think the people who say, oh, it was so much better back when X,

back when whatever it is, are just kidding themselves. So no sport has ever declined. No, there are sports that decline because they, because, you know, But they have bad rule changes. So I think baseball clearly went through a decline because there were different principles about how you play and those principles made people bored. And or because they become relatively less popular. And so actually the talent pool is weaker, which also has happened with baseball, where there are fewer. The number of kids in America, in particular who play baseball has not gone down.

But it's like being drawn, you know, good athletes in America don't play baseball. They play soccer. They play basketball. They play football. And so the quality of baseball, I think, relatively has declined versus these other sports where the global talent pool for basketball and soccer is incredible right now. And other sports are not doing quite as well. I also think this is true of football. Like the global talent pool for football is bigger and better than ever.

And that's one reason why football is bigger and better than ever. That's my take. But you can disagree. It's a good take. It sounded quite informed. I will not be challenging it since I know little. Listeners, thanks so much for your listener chatters. Please keep them coming to us at GabFest at slate.com.

Something that you are chattering about at your cocktail parties. And our listener chatter this week comes from Aaron. Hello, GabFest. This is Aaron Fichtelberg from Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. And my cocktail chatter is an article from Gizmodo entitled, This ridiculously Simple Trick, might stop galls from nabbing your lunch, based on the research of a group of British Bucle. biologists. And what they discovered is if you attach googly eyes to your food boxes at the beach,

seagulls are less likely to approach them and less likely to peck them. Apparently, they have evolved to avoid eyes because they associate eyes with predators. And they say that sensory deterrence are one part of a broader set of measures needed to reduce human gull conflict. So next time you go to the beach, stop at the craft store on the way and pick up some googly eyes to avoid. some of that human goal conflict that they're afraid of. So yeah, thank you very much. And thanks for being my parisocial political buddies for all these years. You might want to listen to another Slate podcast. You're so delighted with this Slate podcast that maybe there's another Slate podcast you want to listen to. And this week, you could listen to Slate Monies. We need to talk about Kevin Warsh

episode. Felix and Elizabeth and Emily talk about the new Fed Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh. And they'll also talk about the AI arms race as well. That is all for our episode this week. We also have a bonus episode in your feed. We're going to talk about the new season of Slow Burn about Justice Gorsuch. That is just for Slate Plus members. Just for you, Slate Plus members. You also get bonus episodes on other Slate podcasts. You get no limits on what you want to read on the Slate site. You never hit the paywall. So if you are a member, thank you. Enjoy it. If you're not a member, become a member right now. subscribe to Slate Plus directly from the Political GabFest show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify or or visit slate.com slash GabFest Plus to get access wherever you listen.

That's our show for today. The Political GabFest is produced by Nina Porzuki. Our researchers, Emily Ditto, our theme music is by They Might Be Giants. Ben Richmond, senior director for podcast, Operations. Mia Lobell, executive producer of Slate podcast, Hillary Fry is editor-in-chief of Slate. Basilan and John Dixon. I'm David Plotz. Thanks for listening. We will see each other tonight, but we will talk to you next week.

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