Trump has a meeting and everybody cheers, then he decides to oppose his own administration's policies and everybody gets depressed again. Meanwhile, Right and Left are going bonkers over Russia, collusion, and the testimony of the oppo-research firm Fusion GPS. With these topics, we give you an hour of hot podcast content featuring me and Noah Rothman and Abe Greenwald and Sohrab Ahmari. Give a listen.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Some regions
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Welcome to the commentary magazine. Progress today is the eleventh of January
twenty eighteen, I'm John PA. The editor of commentary, the seventy three old monthly of intellectual analysis, bullet probity and cold,
criticism from a conservative respective join as a commentary magazine that com where, as you know, you get a few from reeds and then we
subscribe, one thousand nine hundred and ninety five for digital subscription, two thousand nine hundred and ninety five get to an all access subscription, including a beautiful monthly magazine in your mailbox eleven times a year with me, is always a green. While they're seeing your other hello wave, hello, John
That's when our associated hello, Noah John, I was trying to speak really quickly like Walter Winchell in them, I am clearly not Walter, agile and you guys don't even a halter, which lies
and saw the worry or Senor writer, high syrup and hygiene
so, who
Winchell would have said good morning good at good evening. Mr Mrs all, the ships and see, let's go to press oppressor. Let's go to Press Donald Trump. This week,
a good Tuesday, followed by an awful Thursday, this being Thursday so Tuesday,
after the Michael Wolf book raised all these questions about his twenty fifth amendment fitness for office. He decides
the press in his by partisan negotiation over the deferred.
That is for children of the illegal, whatever Maggie's Dhaka and die. He had the Democrats and Republicans
there was a room of the White House and Press was let stand there for an hour and tape it and he and
We call them a genius we're having done it said, Lizzie Gram, who now calls trumpet genius just for being able to breathe
out, apparently call them a genius. Even Jeff lay call them.
Yes, very smooth Hollywood Jesus got good reviews for his performance, which I think was grating
which will get too and then
This morning this morning, up
months and months of a very difficult republican. Spade work to get a deal to re, authorize thee.
For an intelligent surveillance, advisory courts.
The more Pfizer coming up for a vote to
Ay, I believe by
announcing that face, it was bad because it was used against him in the in the terrible rush investigation and should now
b. We authorized. You have no idea how much work has
an end to this effort to really surprised this by the
Illustration, various officials going lobbying Democrats on the hill negotiate
jobs, will see, remembers the hill going on over the Christmas vacation, less ruining some of the Christmas vacations of people, and he because,
politicians. Our friend, the judge from New Jersey, said something directly to the camera foxen friends this morning at six. Forty about how bad Pfizer is because and an apology,
there was a lunatic libertarian. Basically,
had the president sort of take this work, a crumpled up and thrown into the trash, and then it was backed off
mighty. Second, ninety minutes, later by a true by a tweet, were trump acknowledge a guess. He would actually still like this thing to be passed so
no did he undue all the good that he did or was the good that he did on Tuesday and something that will you now
the people who work follow gradually politics by I'm, an errand airbases on twitter will, even though this thing with a face, a court happened yet
I mean that is the way that is true did very much a minute, a minute thing and you have to be deeply invested in this process to even know that happen, but it is part of a much broader,
vision with those present and I'm gonna, call it a condition because he doesn't ring
We seem to know what his administrations positions are. The
something being just example: number thirty. Six of this condition in which the President, Nicole
it's against himself. Having this immigration meeting was not a genius maneuver, not I mean it was genius in so far as it showed it gave the press acts
The press is always enamoured with access in their marveled by their own access and they find it remarked.
Let this guy who they have a very low opinion of didn't dissolve into a puddle over the course of this our. But he demonstrated no command of the facts, no command of policy, and he again was negotiating against himself. He entertained compromises that he would have no interest in actually signing if he were in invested in
his base. Wants and Democrats similarly were
going to find out that the compromises they had entertained in that meeting were not
amenable to their base. Odors. One thing I know they're. So, let's pull away from Paul this by the way is why you spring policy on the house in the two minutes before you're gonna vote on it, because nobody wants you to actually signs compromise legislative okay. So if we pull away from policy for a second the whole, the optics, as we now say, of the meeting,
I think he didn't some tremendous good in one very particular area, which is that you talk about
low bar. This was this one,
to establish that he is so
fish gently mentally competent and mean that was that was the talk.
Up until that meaning it was like. It was like a psych intake exam. You know, like you know, he strong sense is together. He knew
people's names that that was set
Finally, what what what he was trying to get across
he was right and he was sociable right. He was pleasant. He established
a personal contact with the people in the room, so there's been there
you know portrait of him over the course of the last year, really established, despite liberal rage at the New York Times for some reason or other for the New York Times not being sufficiently hard on trumpet, I think clearly was the
pieces early in February and March about Trump walking around this bathrobe raging, and you know, eating did eating cheeseburgers, and
m yelling and everybody in watching tv and being alone in being dismantled, and you know this staff as that damned resonance
of of Tufts University says like a staff talking about him like he's a toddler, and then this compounding with Michael Wolf Book, to create the impression that there was a literal case to be made that he should be room. He should be removed at least temporarily from office under the provisions of the twenty fifth amendment. So ah, this is always it struck me. A ludicrous care.
Sure that you know Trump is trampling Trump, is the same person that he was during the campaign. He was capable in one
One sessions on tv and that sort of thing of seeming, like plausible human being and then would act like
take taken debates him in his speeches and things like that in those tweeting, but but that that you could then claim that this is clearly an act like this was his his. He chooses to appear to be the person that people on the left him not just people. Unless
people who serve believe in normal presidential behaviour look at and say well, no one could possibly choose to behave this way. Therefore, he is being driven by mental DNA. Deformities of some form or other than that require has removed
from office. So we all know you and you, and I and new dear listener, know that
its president's first immigration order, can't just be it
straight up. Amnesty deal for doc emigrants. He needs to get something and they want us. They want to say that a wall but Donald Trump
doesnt seem to really have commander that in that seem to be what I that was what I took away from this meeting, that he was entertaining the prospect of
some sort of compromise on Dhaka with security, whatever. That means his administration put out and asked, but he didn't seem to know that the parameters of the ask that his administration put out and then after the fact the White House puts out a state
and saying what we want to do Dhaka. But we also need an interchange, migration and we need the giant wall across everywhere and when this that, in the other thing that he didn't ask our in the meeting, they said you gotta do chain migration, it's terrible che migration ceremony didn't say that for Dhaka he felt as part of comprehensive immigration. Now he said, as they were talking, he said you guys you some J migration,
the guy on the West Side Highway, who ploughed his car into people in and you didn't just kill people that good people
lost their limbs and all this, and then he was he got in this country by chain migration. That proves we have to do something like I
We need a wall we there. While we do also, he did so
in the meeting he did as part of the comprehensive immigration report that France or the bag to comprehensive immigration reform was something he did on the side as a result of a question about it. Where so, what's it to you before doing comprehensive,
Billy was ass was at that we didn't do that. So all this is part of a broader tram. The trend is that the president doesn't seem to know what his administration wants. It has to do with that, not sick policy where he gave that speech about National Security document which only bear at the slightest relation to the actual national security document was talking about yesterday. He had them a Prescott
with the norwegian Prime Minister in which he was again talking about how great it would be
cooperate with Russia and he likes Russia, and you wish we had a working relationship with Russia. Meanwhile, his administration has extremely confrontational relationship with Moscow, much more so than Brok Obama, which he doesn't seem to be aware of and doesn't seem to know the strategy behind the only or and sorrow gloomy. Let me get you or
are we seeing a strategy here of some weird sword in which
since he wants to be unpredictable. Since
how his administration wants the credit for the fact that his unpredictability tour
North Korea has pushed the North Korea in the South Koreans into a wonder
negotiation which they want to seem to take credit for that. North Korea might be feeling a team at the south korean Olympics next month, which does not seem to be like a very high bar when North Korea is actually firing intercontinental missiles,
the testing intercom they'll missiles again hit the United States. I don't know why we care all that much whether or not they go to the Olympics. Let's does not seem to really be in our national
rest or not, but I
the trump peons could say. Will you see he puts out the national security statement, which is a conventional national security strategy statement, but then he gives the speed.
Each that says otherwise, and so you don't really know where we stand on. The world needs villain and he lives of less flexibility speaks to base it well
make it out. I think
if there is a strategy to it or if there is a benefit? Let me put it this way: it's gonna sound, devious, but that he
pursuing a more or less traditional conventional republic and foreign policy and domestic policy emphasising corporate tax cuts and eighty
international order upheld by american might and confrontation.
With revenge is powers like Moscow all this
after a Rubio or whoever advised by Anne Elliot COIN or whoever would pursue, but he's
but as far as its basis concerned that he still the guy that they elected, and so he speaks with two to audiences
and we have to learn, I think I'll, get to how ludicrous the sounds, but we all have to learn when trumpet
just mouthing off when he is speaking to his base?
not to the rest of a sort of Washington establishment in the press and when he's talking
the press, which is different than when he talks any sort of there,
Please it's it's! You know he there used to be and when they talked about Islamists that they had the double discourse of
our ground maiden where they, you know, he would say,
one way when he spoke with french
fishing audiences,
are there. When he spoke with Arabic, language, audiences and they d, never the TWAIN should have mattered met. This is something like that may be right.
Look. I think you need to divide these two things: rights of Dhaka, so immigration was the one
two or three centrepieces of his campaign and his position on immigration was. We should throw people out,
should build a wall. We should have a door in the wall, but we need to build a wall, and you know people shouldn't come here. We ve just been allowing Wha
worlds refuge sort of to come here, particularly from Mexico. We need you, no merit based immigration, as opposed to
family based immigration, all that he caught him reflected that in the meeting where he differs, is that he clearly
isn't this is this scam that he pulled on the anti immigration? A lunatic right, in my view- and I say lunatic advisedly, because thinking that you can deport twelve million people is lunatic.
That he gulled them into believing that he was with them emotionally and he probably isn't really with them emotionally. That is the truth. The truth, as he doesn't want to see a lot of people deported, he doesn't mind,
promulgating policies that seem to suggest like last week's decision, that two hundred thousand salvadorans are gonna have to go home by the middle of twenty nineteen, which of course, will somehow be massage. To make sure that doesn't happen is my guess. His ease perfectly willing to promulgate things like let that happen or let Jeff session
kill Dhaka, but then to revise it because he wants love, dockers about love and policy is about
bill of love. Here, it's a bill of love. It you know, he's be spent life employing illegal waste shipments. But here's my but because my question is: does this
ever dawn, does that reality ever set in among the lunatic right and then, if so
To what extent does the double game, the trend that sort of just described fail in its day
on an culture I mean she's outright.
Opposing the administration and another sort of hard right like em like talk, radioed types as well. A couple
I think I think the answer is. I think has said this once before, but like around two thousand six, two thousand seven, when I was blogging on the corner at national, you, I got into an interesting tussle with
then Corner Rights, John Darby, sure and marks thine all about Bush and how Bush wasn't doing this and Bush wasn't doing. Then Bush will wasn't doing the other thing on foreign policy, but it wasn't being hard enough in all listen. My line there was. This is the best that you're gonna get
you, think that you're going to get somebody who is going to just let go in and like go to war with IRAN and killed a hundred thousand ray and like set up an Impi
will you now an imperial palace in Baghdad to run Iraq and
the wall. The sudanese and all like this is not going to happen. Bush
is a hard line, as you were, gonna get, and I think you could make the case to the Trump voter that Trump
ever Trump is Trump is the best that you're gonna get? He is the guy
who was willing not to go at you when you support
it's real marchers. You know he is the guy who will
Lincoln, not at you and say that your belief about immigration is just
viable and respectable? Even if the policies as he is gonna promulgated, be different, and I think that is unquestioning.
The case that no matter what he is, he
pays obeisance to the views of people that a lot of other people find noxious
that's as good as you're gonna get, and maybe that was enough to
take some of these kind of toxic energies that had been building upward at a large chunk of the common country of save a third of voters felt like they weren't being listen
two I mean I look, it's
all sorts of downsized Trump administration, but just to be sure
isn't there something to be said to two like someone whom whom
mirrors and amplify some of those anxieties puts him in.
Action in these kind of awkward ways and then eventually it turns out to be some order,
they never is quite implemented. The age has takes sixteen months and then it's you know me:
a fine and no one ever hears about it again. Bodies at least he's done something. Well, that's why I mean I'm five said this a million times before I'm gonna say it again. That's the whole essence of the term presidency. There are very few and cultures who really really care about restrictions, immigration policy,
There are a lot more trump voters who just want to send a message to the people. They think hate them.
And who they hate? In turn its all about posture, it's all over
sending some sort of a message, a big middle finger to lead him
and it doesn't matter whether
the policy gets implemented as long as the guy has a posture that baby. I think that the public this week last indicates and has to be said to indicate that we know that Trump has thirty five percent of the country behind him for this and that he doesn't have anybody else. Taxable path.
Three weeks ago. There's all this good NEWS with all these companies sending bonuses and raising their minimum
minimum wages latest one is Walmart China, which is the largest employer in the United States, paying bonuses of a thousand dollars to place of work there, twenty years more, raising their initial minimum but payment to eleven dollars an hour stuff like that. So we now have a couple million people who are get who have been or are being rewarded by companies, because the tax cuts and the word about the task of the fact that eighty percent of people a country will get a tax cuts.
To that end is Polly, hasn't changed the spit now. Maybe the fact that the net effective at over the course of twenty a team will be helpful to him if the economy really
does grow faster if people are feeling better and more confident, but in this Quinnapin pull this week, you see data that says. Sixty six percent of the people think are feeling optimistic about the country economically and he has a thirty six percent approval rating, and fifty nine percent of the country gives him at the F or a d. If you great him fifth
nine percent, so I think, he's send the message to the people that he wanted.
Send the message to the problem is that that message sent his of obnoxious
and noxious to sixty five percent of the american people in one
form or other and remember she needs to get ten eleven twelve. Thirteen percent of the back
he's going to win re election, which is the weirdest part, because, as I've said, I don't think they're that thirty five percent is Tethrd any sort of material gains. I think they like Trump in there very personally invested in Trump, and I think because they've got that message now and they are personally in
tromp and because of sunk costs. Fallacy they're not going anywhere so Donald from could do whatever he wants. He could
back to the centre. He could do it. Every could make a very concerted effort to be quiet as much as
possible, which is the only reason why he's where he's out, because he talks with recently
superior? Let's talk, you would probably be doing better in the polls. Ok. So let's talk about this question of negotiation cause. We have two things going on. He said in that thing. On Tuesday he said we want to go for very, very big infrastructure, but we want to do this if we want to do it now right now, infrastructure is exactly
you're talking about that is potentially a pivot to the centre,
Yeah and comprehensive immigration were ok but right, but so that's cool
appeared to the centre in the sense that you have a giant public spending programme? Public works as a violation of the interests of the Freedom caucus in the tea party that were responsible for the renewed energy of the Republican Party after the Obama victory and you now and.
The question is: will Democrats actually want to negotiate with him on anything?
into twenty tee. My view was now, and then you have because the costs
of their negotiating is too high. They don't want a hand of a victory. They would prefer to not have an infrastructure bill rather than have have a political victory. Then- and this is where we go to the immigration point and the specific
so what happened on Tuesday? He says he wants Dhaka. The Democrats want Dhaka. He says he wants,
an end to chain migration and eighteen to thirty billion dollars for border security and the wall. Democrats don't want eighty, two thirty billion knowledge about securing the wall he's already given up Dhaka to them. They have an agreement in principle on
doing something about Dhaka. Why are they gonna negotiate with him in hand them? A wall
or handsome chain migration. Here's where maybe I'm nothing they ve got there is this
Why, on the right that he's got the more he wants them, because there's a march with deadline that they have to that they that they need to do to. You know too good
over Jeff sessions is ending of dock on March Fifth, but there
agreement on this thing. He's got
negotiating grounds if he, if he wants it just because they wanted for there
stitch once he has already said in the Republicans in the room of already said they wanted to so he's such a great deal maker,
This is one of the worst negotiating postures. I think I've ever seen than just need to hold firm. I think, unless the his
craziness can be used.
To Peru, then in fact he will want heap. He is capable of walking back his affection for the dock dreamers or
ever and that he's perfectly willing to have them enough frog, marched out of the country and put on planes, and that means the delegation would be the demo
That's. Would then because they're so sensitive to darker would look bad if they did.
If they were also cold blooded along with him, nothing, but they wouldn T think they would get the blame for that. They wouldn t you he would in turn they might
In a way, I we ve seen we seen some some democratic protests of democratic members, democratic senators who didn't decree
I want to make a big stand over darker in December, when Nancy Pelosi threatened to shut down the government over Dhaka, which was a bad move. It was when they couldn't follow through on politically untenable, to shut down the government for illegal immigrants and as such, they had a bad a backlash from, but from, and they read Donald Trump to sign this and Donald Trump isn't
If a political line, he does have to get something out of this deal. You have exhort. You said he wants Dhaka, so he can. If he walks away from the thing he wants. Five,
He should have kept his powder dry and said that he was perfectly willing to see Dhaka end and you know let it end.
That's how you to cushion the things of adding majority. We already see told the card dealer that he wants to buy the car, the vast majority, the blame. If this thing expires- and everybody goes back into the shadows, the vast majority of limbo fallen Republicans and the present right. Yes, the Democrats
we'll get some blame as well. Not enough to that, not not enough to make people vote republican men epidemic
it's an discuss, not none, eight amazing, but enough to today
and then a little bit of enthuse anyway, and that is after this we are the deal I'm just sorry. I never heads of Yugoslavia with him because- and I could have gotten a department of Drum Tower for eleven dollars of this is the way he may go. She it.
His aren't going to say, but you know what you need to negotiate, sometimes with your spouse with your family. Where is your
vacation, you gotta, negotiate one of those, and so I'm happy
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Slash commentary today that
t r. I p p, I Angie dot com, slashed commentary, tripping dot com, slash commentary, ok, Noah,
you expressed this morning a great deal
prostration rage, upset and annoyance at the way in which
both sides of the political divide have gone totally bat blank crazy when it
to the issue of the notorious dossier, cream
by my six except my six agent Christopher Steel under the auspices of the
notorious fusion gps, apple research and investigations. Company
in Washington that is run by, I must say my former intern Glenn Simpson,
Glenn Simpson an internet incite magazine three decades ago and a long time acquaintance of minor cinnamon and many years with a lovely wife. They marry, whom I was very fond of saying that just to make the point that I think that what fusion has done, particularly in its efforts to overturn the magnets key act, thee.
Twenty twelve piece of legislation also that the Obama administration than like pub imposing sanctions on Russian find
actual institutions that seem to be in collusion with elements that allowed function extra legally in pursuing vengeance against whistle blowers in their midst likes area, magnets guy, who was murdered in Russia, I think that's a disgraceful thing that they did, that they work for them and adds terrifying cell. But let's talk about these two different plot lie:
it's okay cuz. We have the left plot line and the right plot line, the right plot line has become well before we even get into that. I'm going to prime the audience to let you know that I and there's no polite way to say this, both sides of the fringe, who are
obsessed to a point of mania with
fusion GPS story and the notion that it has some sort of broader conspiracy are incomprehensible. I'm speaking directly to you, what you are saying doesn't make sense to any one, but you we can't follow.
Your plot line- it is crazy, but
gonna get through those bloodlines, both left and right. You have both invested a lot of Vigo in the notion that this thing is a giant big conspiracy that that fulfils your wildest fantasies about you
your adversaries in government is not ok, so the centrepiece of both of these plot lines involving fusion GPS, is the June sixth meeting.
In Trump Tower, with the russian lawyer vessel
skier and a crew of people, including Donald Trump Junior, who else Pollyanna format afford Kirshner jar questioner in about a couple of other people meeting set up by a very peculiar, guided by Robert Goldstone, best known for
dancing and singing and depending on the video, if you can find it who had worked with a russian rockstar but New Donald Trump, russian rockstar, who is a friend of vessel nets, guys who knew down from June? Ok. So they have this meeting. Ok, so thee
left wing plot line? Is this meeting as the hinge moment of the collusion in conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign run?
interfere with the choice of the election to get Hilary elected ripe, and now we have the other plot line which
the right wing plan and with that was advanced by the release
unilateral? Really?
without any ground laid for it by Senator Diane Feinstein of the
testimony bygone Simpson before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding Gps- is
hey you're in twenty sixteen, what they did in how they did so the right wing plot wine. As I can boil it,
and so the ultimate goal of had it been the old man can be resolved. Remit, ok for the ultimate thirty thousand there, because the people who advocate for this are very quiet about
but they are your statement that yak is there in the weeds and are using all these little bits of details which are impossible to follow as you began. Is that
The meeting at Trump Tower was a honey trap. It was intended
by the Hilary campaign which had hired fusion GPS to get Donald Trump in proximity to vessel that sky and the?
actions so that she could offer them up the idea that she could tilled the election in their direction. They would lap this up.
And a conspiracy would be created classic entrapment, so that, in fact, the entire idea of trumps collusion in conspiracy with the Russians was a Hilary fusion, GPS, conspiracy, honey,
crap entrapment. That do I know if you think I have that. I mean that's one of the lines that I think is promulgated by a lot of these, but I mean the only the very few people who are as direct about it. Does that but an isolated. Why tat is our say: you're lying people on the hill that is Chuck rashly and then a couple of Jim Jordan, Remsen, Jim Jordan and Representative Mark meadows to the leading figures in the prosperity caught. Were
freedom from Cox's. We are now saying there should be rational investigations into this because they have
The idea that, in fact, the conspiracy, the russian conspiracy in twenty six team was led by
Democrats, not Republicans. It is also an idea that preoccupies Foxen friends which, by the way preoccupied
the President of the United States and the US are good
the institutions like the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. This has had these areas have very broad purchase were ok, so basically the idea
there. Are these two possible conspiracies the russian conspiracy that we ve been hearing about for a year from liberals and which is being in a investigated by Mahler? Is that has these various data points? Clearly what
He leaks, which is a lot of us believe as a russian intelligence operation with the Euro as the front for goose effort to point out, which is a russian intelligence operation masquerading as a free speech operation that they tilted toward Trump toward the Emily administration, particularly in the release of the Dnc Democratic national committees, emails which, of course, led to the dismissal of the Democratic National Committee chairman on me on the eve of the Democratic Convention and where there were, by emails, being released every day that were freaking out the leadership of the Hilary camp.
And distracting them and making it impossible for them to their job cuz. I didn't know what was going to come out that they had written since the entirety of the Democrat of the Dnc's emails was exposed and the emails of campaign Chairman John Podesta had been exposed and were being released slowly like in a chinese water, torture, drip system,
right? So we know that that happened, and they were put
humiliating right, but that was
extended right little. We know that happens so that an m m. So we can therefore infer that it had,
the decision of russian intelligence in some fashion, rather to try to
be mischievous as possible towards Hilary theoretically to get Trump elected. Ok, the questions
at our Trump and the Trump people produce
painted in any way shape or form had any knowledge of it or participate in any way right? That's the conspiracy in the collusion, and so we have the data point.
This June sixth meeting, which, according to everybody in the meeting, was a pointless meeting right. So mad efforts.
Boring Jared, say stop paying attention Dalton.
Junior said it was ridiculous and vessel
this guy herself said the meeting was of no purpose and that she only came. She wanted to talk about the magnets key act and they weren't interested, which that the last point,
the vessel skies take on the meeting.
Is the is one element of the debunking of the right wing. Can spare
about it. Right I mean we don't have
put invest too much and in the Kremlin cutouts impression of this meeting bureaucratic but she's right. But I think we should come back to that because we're gonna get caught
It was so I'm just saying I saw the vessel Netscape, so the meeting
according to the left, this theory or the motley anti trump theory
The release of the emails to disrupt the Hilary can
pain is the sort of the meat of the case that Russia was tilted toward Trump.
Then? The question is again what the trump
people knew when they knew it and what they did. So we have this meeting June. So why did they take it and what happened.
So the idea is the meaning was nothing. Nothing happened.
Two things happened to muddy that one
Donald Trump Junior testify
before I don't remember, which congressional committee and when
asked about the meeting and what happen afterwards announced that he was in vote
executive privilege in in saying what he said.
Or didn't save his father about what had happened,
This was madness and had this been a democratic way,
in committee. He
but be in jail. Now, because there is
I'll claim of executive privilege about events that happened before Donald Trump was elected. President number, one number two Donald Trump
Junior cannot claim executive privilege as
Like Jared cushions and vodka trump, he is not an employee of the federal government. He hasn't
privileged claim. So that's a weird deep
right, that's weird, that he would tried that he would say that, because it suggests that he did in fact say things to his father or something happened. Why would he then claim is echoed a privilege that he doesn't possess and then the other?
Steve Ban and saying in the Michael Wolf Book the late, Steve Balin.
Saying that Michael Book, that
It was incredibly idiotic thing that they did to have this meeting. They should have had it in a hotel room in Manchester New Hampshire and that
Donald Trump Junior would be hauled before Congress and cracked open like an egg, because this is really
as the end of the administration, the minute that they have this meeting well before the administration happened. So that is the liberal.
Case that there was collusion, and then you have other stuff out my ears and then you have Carter page and endorse what would we dispense carcass Carter
agent, George Papadopoulos, so Carter pay
goes to Carter pay J
pay em
Mr Associate of the term campaign, goes to Russia goes around mouthing and tries to make deals. That's one and number two George
apple is another unpaid member of a Trump Foreign Policy Advisory committee pleads guilty to one charge of misleading Congress, or something like that
The New York Times story. Has it to your time
There is one says the Carter page was trying to make deals on behalf of the Trump campaign with Russia
and the other says, the George Papadopoulos, when
to London bragged.
To the australian ambassador, who was not named in the peace. But we found it later that the trunk
Hey had the goods, I'm Hillary Clinton from the Russians
The israeli ambassador calls the australian and ahead of us really intelligence, who then contacts american intelligence to say this is what he had heard. He was very long
So we have these data point. I kind of overlaps with the right conspiracy theory to how, because the rights conspiracy theory now we're gonna start
we gotta debunk that one first but we're gonna go spill over into the bung. Homesick is its these minor data points.
It's private, olives wasn't working for Trump card or page wasn't working for Trump George Papa
This is clearly a fool and a lunatic doesn't always talking about, and nobody would
trust him was secrets he might have been. They might have been trying to recruit him on the grounds that they recruit anybody they can, but that doesn't mean that they have the goods or that anyone had the goods were that here.
May position to work for the term campaign as a russian spy, so the rights conspiracy theories include that you touched on that
It was the FBI that and not only not in commission this report, but financed it or cost.
We pay, for. We don't know the answers for that, yet that it was instrumental in
reigniting the investigation into the Trump campaign resulting
the surveillance of the trunk campaign that it was that the FBI has behaved grotesquely
in the conduct of this investigation, and that has been very loose, conveying facts to people who don T deserve it, including
GPS members and that those facts made their way into the yard and the press
and notably, that we discussed that that this,
investigation was,
result of this fusion gps thing. The fusion gps thing was a
in entrapment effort on the part of Democrats and Russians working together. That's that
one of the far out ones. But there are some outstanding questions that Republicans are right to ask to the extent
Drawing conclusions about them and again this is very hard to follow. Understand if you're having trust him following it decided to write, but to the extent that it
asking questions is fine to the extent that drawing conclusions about them is manic, so it seems clear that the FBI that there were two different things going on in the FBI or in the Justice Department or in the where everyone, a slice of that
as that James call me served tailor its interests in July of twenty sixteen. By announcing that he was not going to indict her for mishandling classified information,
and then serve trumps interest on October twenty Eightth? By announcing he was reopening the investigation in light of the fact that Anthony Wieners computer had classified email on it from his wife, whom abandoned her. Her will
his chief aid, so the F b? I call me them running and running the investigation. Weird stuff was happening with the FBI.
One thing benefits Hilary another thing benefits trump than we had this word that the FBI
New York Office was Trump central and was leaking all sorts
things talking to Rudy Giuliani about how, after that, terrible things are killers doing there
we hear that the FBI's chief leadership in Washington was in Hilary S pocket because that number
two person, their number three percent adjusts garments. Wife was ready for office in Virginia and
a lot of money from the demo.
At a party- and so was in Thrall to Hilary campaign. So Andrew
caves, wife was so admirably cave was in the pay of the Hillary Clinton campaigner. One number two: we now have evidence that Robert Mueller had to cashier two or three people,
working on the investigation that he started in June of twenty seventeen when he discovered that they were they had been exchanged.
Emails and behaving one of them had exchanged emailed the two of them. One understands emails hostile to Hilary.
That the other had a wife work for fusion GPS. One
the guy's wife of work for fusion GPS is like career has been ruined like he'd, like he's lost every with
piece of seniority ever had and the other guy's not to not great shape either. So that was supposed to India,
it that there was an FBI plot against Trump.
However, since smaller cashier
these people once he found out about it so hard to
the case that day in July, in July, in July, like like, like a month after, he started its little hard to make the case of mothers. Investigation was wildly influenced by these
herbal Hilary rump people in the FBI. Now indicative of how this is to generally against
Theory among the paranoid is that
errors in Glenn, Simpsons testimony and
Those errors are being inflated into malice.
Notable among them are his contention that there was a f b I walk in there and that their efforts,
I walk in, who alerted that this or that have walk in from the train. The tram pain someone
came to the FBI by himself from the trunk, give aid to say bad stuff
what's going on with this is the claim in the Glen Samson testimony bats
what's going on and that he knows that the F b I had this walk in September of twenty sixty bright cell.
There there was an error there and that needs to be corrected. We don't know whether another's truth involved.
In the notion that somebody was killed as a result of the release of this dossier. The publication of this dossier by Buzzfeed that something and Simpson testified to
and then there's another one. Word Glenn Simpson said that he only had one russian speaker on staff and that he had hired another one. Who is a top DJ official are too
the wife of a top d, o J official, these these things seem like them.
A really big deal in isolation. But if you are invested in the idea that this is a giant conspiracy against the president, then it becomes all
part of a broader puzzle that only you understand, okay, so the story about the walk back of the fusion GPS claim.
Means that lends hymns and said it wasn't. Just steel wasn't just the dossier that he had put, but that there would the f b I had another source of information and- and we see news, as can the lady and reported that sources in the firmware correcting steal that there had been no walk, walk and, however,
The F B, I haven't said whether there was a walk in or not, and we don't know whose right about what and just be, as can the Lamy and said there was no walkin, doesn't mean that there was no walkin. Just as Glenn sums and saying there was a walking doesn't mean that there was a walk in. The claim is that that
some have confused George pop, adopt illicit testimony, the FBI with the walk in, but I write so we're down in the weeds. Let's say I'll tell you learn in housing. Let us send a thirty thousand feet, a
what is your impression of what really happened with
add to this a fusion gps story and the FBI investigation well,
The first thing is that
You can see on both sides, the sort of colonel of truth.
To each, which is to say that
Average person can look at the trunk campaign,
at the meeting with with with
vessels, skier and trumps success of praise
Putin and so on and say that something unplaced
unsettling about that. It's it's weird disturbing indian, even says
issues. On the other hand, the b the case against
The campaign to to dislodge him is overheated, is, is vision
Is it to undermine him is is constant as well
what strikes me. Is that my
Is that you have in Christopher Steel,
someone who had delusions of grandeur to some action.
Let me not undermine clinically, but I mean I think he thought he was onto something so huge that had to be brought.
Ordered and in fact, kind of fizzle
when they got into the into the hands of of american officials end and that's kind of that and then,
how can a satisfying either side. I, if I can just say in in in in support of your case again steel,
I've known people, both domestic and foreign intelligence for decades, and they are
Slippery character, I'm not saying there slippery characters in the sense that their morally Wu Wu, corrupt or that day
often end up with a world view that is paranoid and lunatic and end in a belief,
There is no Sir Philip K Dick like that. There is a reality behind the reality that well being manipulated by unseen forces and all that maybe there
who knows, but we know we can function that way, and so, but they case they. I dont believe
that: their ride and they they tend to this view and the ultimate apotheosis.
This was James. Jesus angle tend the great counter entail
since by master at the CIA, who spent the last ten years of his life obsessing over the existence,
a mole inside the sea at a very high level who was given
All of our secrets to the Russians and he behaved and his this
Belief really made him go crazy over time and he were tortured Russian,
yeah. We tortured Russian, now dissidents who had come the hours or come in to russian buddy.
Factor defectors. Thank you.
And you know it basically, polygraph every by the whole play the holster became a sort of hornets nest of power
Lloyd, conspiracy, delusion that was you know the Russians,
couldn't have hoped for anything better and that that is a real
thing and Christopher Steel may have participated in the dossier as far as we ve seen it remember is
mostly single sourced. Why,
old allegations about horrible disgusting things, a trump didn't hotel room and twenty thirteen to which, even
people who say who gave the deed
else to steal, say they were not eye witnesses to so that,
why was so shocking that it was ever published its not that the allegations were collected but that, because they were totally unconfirmed and still
had no way of confirming them. You know it.
Just trash it's just sort of like you know you can say anything about anybody that could get published. Let me make one point as an
at the risk of sounding a bit pollyanna. They there is.
A serious thing that is happening with respect to Russia,
Russia is a genuinely adversarial power that seeks to dislodge the U S from various places around the globe. It wants to return as a
power competitor to american prestige to American led world order
and among the things it does, and we know it because it does it so well in its
Its own periphery and in small eastern european central asian countries is to interfere with the election.
Two so distress than political systems to compromise leaders and so forth at an
Apparently it is the the Indo S.
At our consensus of the? U S, intelligence community, that did Putin in the Kremlin sought to do the same thing to Americans.
Twenty sixteen- and that is a very serious issue, and whether or not people in the Trump or Cook Clinton campaigns cooperated with that. Such an effort is a serious crime,
and I just wish the various partisans would slow down chill out. Let the let the investigations which are parallel. There's one in Congress. There's mothers, let those proceed,
at an end and that the full truth come out rather than and this sort of insane tweets and count
trees, which I get into a new than theirs,
oh drawn into their own world that, if you're at all a sort of sceptic or you're looking at it from a certain distance, you just think they're both sides, a kind of mad,
now. I say that knowing that everyone will say yeah well, thanks for the lecture
you know and put the finger on me because we,
Surely this is a political.
Fight at the moment that no one's gonna say. Ok, thanks are Albemarle yeah, we're gonna we're going to conduct ourselves differently, but you know
since there are people in Congress who can be more responsible
the people in the media, who can be more responsible and not be drawn into this world of conspiracy theories and counter conspiracy theories.
It would be very good for the nation. Is that the threat is real, both Republicans is absolutely right, and both Republicans and Democrats are are behaving in a political manner and acting as though the
these investigations is the
cloud hanging over the administration is, is preventing it from doing its work? I see no evidence of that. In fact, anybody whose
ain't interested in seeing a hawkish policy towards
Russia interested in containing an expansionist power. You should be taken quite a lot of solace and what this administration is doing. They have purged your marginalized anybody who is interested in a recent very early on in the administration. The implemented new sanctions early in the administration, not including the sanctions that were administered, arrange, implement
by contrast, which does president signed, albeit reluctantly. They have allow Ukraine to access lethal aid.
They have sought, sanctioned many members of those trump out the rather than the Putin
a sphere
under the magnets key act. The very act that
This guy was lobbying the campaign to undermine precluding Randy Idear Ogresses Chechen, strong man, whose very close to Putin I made they have done some, some pretty good work that we should all
breathing a sigh of relief right, so the key here is to
one of which is if they were, if the right wing or the pro trump.
I'm were true and that vessel its guy of meeting was a honey trap. Then
Hilary should have used it.
We didn't find out about it
twenty seven teens out they got the meeting in order to make them
in order to establish a connection between Putin and Trump, they should have used that they didn't use which suggests that it wasn't what they. What what their peddling
similarly a fusion and the FBI, everybody
colluding and conspiring against Trump. Why is
president, there also powerful in the deep state is so powerful and Hilary controls everything gets her indictments, quashed,
has two hundred seventy five trillion dollars coming into the Clinton Foundation trumps.
Be president, but he is similarly in reverse the
he Trumpery, who are saying that this case is proved have to contend with the fact that the
Illustration- has tilted away from Russia not towards it, and no one at this table would have believed
If that was gonna be possible when he was elected,
We assumed as a matter of course,
The policy of the Trump Administration was going to be
new russian reset that name.
We come under fire that you know that
would be this trade war with China and effort to set China, Russia against each other
we were that we would
deed, Syria to Russia,.
We would see their rights or Russia, some of it happening again, its complex yeah. I mean I'm just saying that that that what you need
to be able to start, doesn't seem very interested in any of us. He if you like him, I don't want you still talks about a reset, but he doesn't seem to be run and I'm not gonna be. The whole point is that if you there there too
things. Yes, there needs to be evidence that you want to commit a conspiracy for be conspiracy, but the true
evidence that a conspiracy happens is that it pays off that the conspirators get what they want.
Truth Trump gets to be president and is being black.
We held by Russia. It's not exactly as though a guy who is being blackmailed by Russia should be
but to levy new sanctions on Russia without Russia, giving you know exposing the blackmail one other thing that is consistent with both sides of this fringe:
Conspiracy, theory, albeit fringes with a lot of insolence as they are convinced the FBI is working against them personally. Yet
so I think in the end. What is interesting is that not only have these people been pushed to, the extra
and people. You are seeing people that you know that new you may not have known, but some people at I've known
who seem literally on social media to have gone,
crazy and I mean literally no, but I mean literally crazy, like in need of hospitalization and thorazine em. I mean some
I know and distributed whom I have known for years? Who is a person I'm not gonna name but sorted out, became famous in part as a result of all this and who, I think
is clinically insane now and her husband and family should should deuce should intervene because
she's crazy, and this is really day. You know. She's got children and needs to be gay, get help,
You know, that's we're being able is,
Abe list,
as I have been trying to be sympathetic without you know, without being you know anyway, so that you know,
There's that and then you have this kind of world in which people are being rewarded by getting
thousands of twitter followers, because they do these two hundred and fifty tweet stream their obscure
professors in the northeast and some kind of idiot consult, and you never heard a before and they create
he's gonna gossamer attached lunatic
conspiracy theories that are bolstered by the fact that their strong over three hundred and fifty tweets and there
Where did they get this instant feedback by getting three hundred
Fifty thousand people following them, because everybody who doesn't like Trump wants him to be removed from office by any means possible if its and twenty four of the member, that would be fine. If it's that Mahler, you know, says,
is Ballard says that he did it and the had and he's convicted impeachment fine. If
the marshal of the Supreme Court, somehow barges into the white house- and you know shoots him-
I've come to fall and take some off to get more than
be fine too, because the that they don't
but the means of their own actually even care about what the story is. They assume everything bad and they just
I am gone and they'll believe anything that teaches us that, and that is the highly problematic nature.
Social media is that it encourages the creation of these rights
large, like shockingly large ramps of opinion, simply be
because they are offering
he'll be a support for a law, larger ideological purposes or reasons, and it's it's bad. You know
There's nothing to be done about it exactly, but you know
weird for me to be in the position having
aid fund of this my entire career and having edited peace by David, Brooks in the ninety nine these at the at the weekly standard called beyond ISM, which was all about
our people need. Our people are always congratulate themselves because their beyond left and right. They they they they don't they. They don't really hugely either because they're just there beyond it
Just then they pick and choose on issues and they go at issues in one way or the other. But I think in this position, one
is beyond left and right when it comes to the Russia continues and left and right. This is about what is its avatar anti. That's evidence based approaches to
information that you receive as yours,
yeah, but without attaching rightly conception to accept you know if there are very
few cases in these cases in which people are not a huge,
into the view that corresponds to their ideological or partisan biases. In fact, I think it's fair to say that the anti
The fusion is a Hilary conspiracy to data
when the election Raillery against Trump Line,
is a manufactured lie. Not though I think that people don't believe it, but that it exists and the reason that it is being pushed so hard is to provide a counter. Narrative
to the russian conspiracy narrative that will allow people who don't want to talk about the russian conspiracy narrative in the terms that the anti trappers want to talk about it to talk,
about it, but say ah ha not only isn't Mahler on the right track. But this whole thing is a scare and the whole thing actually goes
in the other direction,
and that's very convenient because it gives fox and friends- and you know Lord Ingram, and I don't know who else material
Sean have material so that they can.
Talk about this without talking about it and
that is also bad cause. It's factitious Senate's! It's you now in some ways it simply demagogic
The other side are allowed yourself reinforcing loop right of
conspiracies. Always have that. So the details that support your kids
Piracy exists, the details that that don't have armed.
Based on the grounds that they don't that they are
they exist in order to throw off the scent,
so the FAO, the date they been manufacture.
You're throwing off the sand
anyway, so I hope we aren't gonna- have to talk about this again, because my head of spending it took us an hour to just kind of like sorts
these threads enough after to talk- and you know we have- we don't have an hour despair because
we have to bring. You joyful happy information about the wonders of America every and we don't get to do it. So it's very sad, but sorry of course thinks that we can just all let the process work and no one will talk about. People should just stop talking that until we get all the aviation
yeah well, gentlemen. I think we have come to the end of a uniquely on, and you know I hope people
some students from this. If you could make any sense of what we have before us,
It was morose, though right crusher. We we ve been kind of cheerful ass couple, now we're back to crushing veracity, I'm just making Tucker face
Tucker face you yeah you're, doing you're doing like somebody once said it was like
go back to radio, but you know one of the weirdest things that ever happen. A radio was when EDGAR Bergen, the ventriloquist became a big radio star being ventriloquist on the radio.
He was on the radio and he was a ventriloquist speaking to his dummy, Charlie Mccarthy, on the radio
ok just so. You really wonder if, in the studio did he hides
mouth moving, or did you just move his mouth when it was doing it? So that's Noah doing Tucker face here,
I would Tucker faces just Google Tumblr Paulsen face again:
the one in that ones, and we
We will talk about the go baby talked about last. Ok, forget it go globes, fine! We're done!
we ve been here an hour?
a great halt. Thank you rotten. Thank you sergeant.
I thank you and everybody else keep the gamble. Burning.
Transcript generated on 2019-12-12.