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

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Now he's the author of a new book, Liars Kingdom, How to Stop Trump's Deceit and Save America, which will be released on Tuesday. Go pre-order it right now. Pause the podcast. Go pre-order it. We're going to give you a good show. It's me and Andrew Weissman. How are you doing, Andrew? It is really nice to see you. You're totally right. I actually, I met you before Sarah. You've been beat. I think you've been. You think so? But it's my loss. We'll see. The illegal news pod is go check it out. They're doing a great job. I listened to this last week. I got about 30 minutes in before dozing off. I thought that was pretty good. I have a lot happening in my life. It's going to be hard to stay locked in. My good friends say, I listened to you on your podcast because I did this podcast with Ben Court. I'm like, oh, that's great. They go, yeah, when I can't get to sleep, it's really, really nice to listen to. Well, that won't be this podcast because we have a lot of exciting news to discuss. And at the very end, I get the sense that you're a little, are you a little bit of a hypochondriac? Are you a little, are you a little, no, not really. No, no, I'm not. That's surprising. Why, why do you say that? Well, I don't know. I just give off hypochondriac energy. You know, I have a lot of phobias and I have a lot of issues, but I have somehow managed to not have that one. All right. We'll learn a little bit more. We'll go a little deeper on that in the end. Wait, are you? You do not see my... No, I'm not. I'm not at all. No, no, the opposite. No, Sarah gets mad at me for not washing my hands enough, but it might be, it might be something we'll need to do more. That's a little teaser for the very end of the show. There'll be some phenyl implant discussion. We'll just stick around for the end. But first we have some serious... I'm like really actually genuinely, genuinely fucking pissed about this story that I want to start with you on. This is ABC News last night, reports that Trump is poised to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. You know, he had this emotional distress about his tax returns being leaked. Every other presidential candidate voluntarily released their tax returns. His got leaked and this caused him such emotional distress that he felt like he deserved $10 billion of our dollars. Yeah, with a B. Yeah, billion, bubba. And the report of Queen of ABC is that the settlement between Trump and Trump is going to be taking $1.7 billion with a B of our dollars and putting it into a slush fund that will be given out to allies who were quote unquote targeted by the Biden administration. $1.7 billion of people who are out there working their ass off and giving some of the money to the government. Trump is just going to hand it out to Mike Flynn and the shaman and his kids and whoever he wants. $1.7 billion. So Mike Flynn has already reportedly gotten his, what is it, $1.2 million, but that's actually just a drop in the bucket. Right. But this means, you know, there's a lawsuit by J Sixers that, so you can see the writing on the wall as to what's going to happen there. But what is the difference between this and theft? I mean, why not just go into Fort Knox, take the gold and give it out? There's no difference. Right. Yeah, none. I mean, it's just, it is unbelievable. So, you know, to put it in a legal frame, when his lawsuit, the judge who oversaw it, had a really good point. She said, before we continue, I don't know that you're properly in court because to have a court battle, there has to be adversity between the plaintiff and the defendant. There has to be what's called the case or controversy. And she said, I need the parties to brief this because I don't see a case or controversy necessarily here. I need you to tell me why. And I could see the Trump administration going, you know what, we don't even need the case. Like, let's just get rid of it, because the judge is not playing ball. And who needs it? We can just settle on our own without ever involving the court, which is just another way of saying, we're just going to write ourselves a check on taxpayer money. In addition to all the money that Trump is into lying his own pockets with, and this is a corruption at a scale that we've never even contemplated in the country. Like, forget, like, I'm sure I've been resigned over like 20 grand in a brown paper bag or something. 1.7 billion. The thing that's so remarkable is I couldn't even think of this as a possibility. In other words, like to come up with a scheme, like you couldn't have had a law or regulation to prevent this. Like, you would have thought like, we need to pass a law through Congress, you know, that somebody in the 19, you know, Tip O'Neill and Ronnie Reagan came together in 83 and are like, you know, we need to make a deal here just to make sure that no future president can sue the government and then settle with himself and give himself 1 billion dollars. Like, how would you have even conceived that? What? Why doesn't he just give the money to his campaign or to his children? I guess it's an emolument kind of, no? Emoluments. Emoluments are, I mean, to me, I... And that is a law, still. We don't follow it, but it is a law. Yeah, but we really don't follow it. And it's also something that Congress can improve. And I think that is closer to think of this as theft, that there, because there is no good faith for the dispute and certainly the amount of money, even if there, even if there were good faith for, some kind of dispute. Anyway, you know, it's sort of, I think that Jamie Raskin has made this point, which is he's giving himself over a billion dollars to use as he sees fit. You know, who else has had personal information leaked? The whole series of Epstein victims who the Department of Justice, you know, smeared, they're not getting any money? I mean, if you're going to do this, how about people who are actually victims who had their bank account, social security numbers, photos released by the Department of Justice because they were careless, at the very least careless? I know you're the legal guy and I didn't go to law school here. So just, and I'm googling this, I'm just being fully transparent with everybody. I'm live googling this. Yeah, the domestic emoluments clause, Article 2, Section 1, Clause 7 prohibits US president from receiving any emolument beyond their fixed salary from the federal government or any state. The president cannot receive any other emolument from the United States federal government or state government, according to Alexander Hamilton, federal is 73. This prevents Congress from using financial incentives to corrupt the president's integrity. Is that not this? Yeah, the problem is, you know, this came up in Trump 1.0 with a post office and that fizzled as a lawsuit. Maybe we should unfizzle it. Maybe we should fizzy it back up. Yeah, look, I'm sure there will be a lawsuit here, but I can't remember why the post office case fizzled. But one of the things that Congress can do is in emoluments, they actually have the power to approve it. In other words, even if it were an emolument, I don't know if they have the power to unwind it. In other words, where they could say about this, this is not going forward. Garnishing the funds. Yeah, exactly. Or take it away from something. In other words, if you want this, this is a little bit like what Congress did to protect the Federal Reserve in Trump power, which is they actually have levers to use that they just rarely, rarely use, but they could do that. They could say, you know what, you want these people approved. You have people you're nominating, you have judges, you have people who are sort of sub cabinet level people. We're stopping. You want us to approve funding of things. You like your war in Iran, and you're asking us for, you know, 10s of billions of dollars for that. That's a lot of leverage. I want to get dark on this for one second. Now, do you know Andrew Paul Johnson? Does that name ring a bell for you? No. This guy pled guilty for climbing into the Capitol through a broken window on January 6th. He had a bullhorn. He was shouting, we have a fucking job to finish. Prosecutors pointed out during his sentence that he called himself an American terrorist and a proud J6er. On his social media, he was sentenced to life in prison in March after he was pardoned by Trump. He reoffended and he repeatedly sexually abused two children. Here's how it ties to the story. Police reported that Johnson tried to keep the children quiet by telling them that he would share the millions of dollars in restitution money he expected to receive from the Trump administration in connection with the January 6th case. I mean, Matt, just enraging. Okay. So the people, the agents and prosecutors who worked on the case, they're fired and vilified. The people who were charged, tried before a jury, found guilty or pleaded guilty, meaning they confessed out of their own amuse after receiving due process, those people are pardoned, including people who assaulted law enforcement. This is the back of the blue party. Again, this falls into the, you can't even conceive of the idea that this is going to happen. But I think it's just part of the process of whitewashing history. You're like, I am going to tell you what the facts are. Literally, reality is what I tell you it is. And even though we all saw January 6th on our TVs, on our computers, on our phones, it's like that did not happen. The people who were assaulting are the victims and the people who are trying to stop them are the bad guys. And that's why we're paying this money. We're going to pay them. Me and you. Yeah. Yeah. Listeners. We're all paying guys like this. I mean, not this guy, Andrew Paul Johnson, because he got reconvicted, but other, but his buddies, the people that were breaking down the windows with him that were attacking Fanon, they're going to, they're going to get a payout. This guy could get, I mean, he, it depends how they structure the payouts. That's true. Because it's just going to be for people. The child sex predator could get, could get a payout. Yeah. And just to be clear, he is not the only person who has reoffended. Oh my God, no. It's like three dozen. Exactly. And that's what you would expect. It's just particularly interesting in his case, like the that he was using the idea that this money was coming as like a weapon. He has a weapon, a weapon to intimidate kids. He was abusing. Horrible. This is what I don't get. Let's assume you're a Maga Republican and you are struggling to have ends meet. You're seeing the economy go into the tank. You're seeing us spend billions of dollars on a war that has not been explained to you. And now you learn that they're thinking of giving criminals money and the president of the United States has given himself over a billion dollars of taxpayer money. Like at what point do you just say, I've had enough. We're seeing some of it. And he said his lowest approval rating that he's ever been. So I think that there is some movement. We should not ignore that. I think a lot of people aren't getting this news though. And I think that's what the Iran war is so, is so important. I mean, it's horrifying and all this, but from a political standpoint, just talking to this from raw politics, like Fox News isn't really going to tell them about the 1.7 billion, you know, or if they do, it's going to be framed up in a way of like, this is needed retribution for the victims of the Biden Justice Department politicization. You should be happy that they're getting their restitution. They're not going to be like reminding people, this is your money actually. It's not just the Libs that are paying them. It's you. They're not going to do that. But with the war, it's like, even if they aren't following the straight of Hormuz news day to day, they're seeing the gas price. Right. They're seeing the gas prices every day. And I do think that is why that has penetrated somewhat, not as much as I think some of us have hoped, but that's my take on it. I don't think that they're hearing that much about this, the corruption. Sarah had a point about Alex Pretty, which is similar that she said, it's that's one where everyone could just watch it on their phone and make their own judgment. And it could break through because it was just as horrific as Renee Good, but it was sort of simpler to see. All the camera angles. Yeah. Right. Exactly. He was down. Right. And so whatever people were telling you, it's like, I could go to the videotape. I could see it. And you didn't have the sort of problem of filtered media where it's like, everything's fake news. Well, you know what? Here you could see it and make a judgment. This episode of the Bullard podcast is brought to you by Wild Green. Wild Green is the first bake from frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, artisanal pastries and fresh pastas. Unlike many store-bought options, Wild Green uses simple ingredients you can pronounce in a slow fermentation process that can be easier on your belly and return nutrients and antioxidants. 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We also have the Voting Rights Act decision that we've been obviously talking about ad nauseum. This should not dampen anyone's rage or determination for action at all. What am I about to say? And I should just note actually tomorrow is the National Day of Action for voting rights. Yeah. And there are events in a lot of places, especially in the south. So to take. Summer and Montgomery, but yes, you can participate and do things everywhere virtually. But there is a physical rally in those two cities. And so I hope and expect that there'll be a big turnout for that. I do think that like just on the pure politics of this, it did happen late enough that I think that a lot of these Southern states like don't have their shit together in time to do the maximum damage. There was like a moment last week when I was talking about this with Adam Surwer, where it looked like, I mean, shit, they might eliminate every majority minority district in the south outside of Georgia. And for this midterm, and that would have impact on the chances of the Democrats winning the midterm. There's some horrific things happening. We've discussed Tennessee and Louisiana here a bunch, and there's happening in some other states. But they've hit some political hurdles, I think there's that it's going to minimize the damage a little bit just for this cycle. But I'm wondering what your kind of take is on the legal side of it, like whether there's any path forward or if the only path forward is like maximum race to the bottom and Democrats trying to count 51 to 1 California, or if there's any legal path forward. So I think there is no legal path forward given what the Supreme Court did. And in many ways, they are really doubling down. I mean, they did sort of summarily vacate a case which was not based on the Voting Rights Act, where they said, we're getting rid of your finding of intentional discrimination based on the 14th Amendment. It is possible that in that district that the judge maintains what happened in Alabama finding there was intentional discrimination and basing it not on the Voting Rights Act, but as they originally did on the Constitution. Meaning the Louisiana versus Calais decision was horrendous. But if you actually can find intentional discrimination, there is a small window. It's not clear that the Supreme Court was going to allow that because they could easily say, we disagree with your finding it's intentional discrimination. We find that it was based on politics, not on race. And the Tennessee thing is just like, for example, so how could you not look at that and see intentional discrimination? They divided Memphis evenly into three districts. They divided the Black voters in Memphis evenly into three different districts, but that's sure. Yeah, look, I agree with you. Alito has already sort of said his view on this, which is, yeah, that has nothing to do with race. That has to do with Republicans wanting to win. And so even though there is a complete one's a proxy for the other, in other words, it's like a twofer. It's like, I get to increase the Republicans chances and I get to discriminate. And as far as this Supreme Court seems to be ruling, that doesn't matter. So I mean, the Voting Rights Act is so completely gutted, except for white people who want to sue over what they view as racial discrimination by trying to rectify past discrimination. I mean, that's the whole theory of this, which is that it's kind of like how only white South African refugees can get here. Exactly. So I had a political question for you because I don't I think that the the answer is in in voting and having an enormous turnout. And I mean, obviously, what's happening is not going to affect the Senate is in the same way that it's obviously going to affect the House because that's what's being gerrymandered. But I have a question for you. Do what extent do Republicans have enough time to do this smartly? Because if there are districts now that are purple ish, and you do this where you set you are separating out, instead of putting all of the Democratic votes in one district, right, solidly Democratic votes there, you separate them out. Don't you risk tipping some of those other districts? This is the dummy mander question. I think yes. The answer. Yeah, the answer to that is yes and no. Right. Like in the micro, that is definitely a risk in specific Republican members, I think are going to be more at risk. I can look at the Tennessee thing, for example, they're good at this. They're not dumb. And they carved up the state in such a way that like there's one district that goes from Memphis all the way to Exorbiton, Nashville, and there's not really any district that Trump won by less than 20. I don't think maybe 19 or something. So they can afford to do it. So they can afford to do it. Right. That said, you know, and there are like two particularly horrible candidates in Tennessee just off the top of my head, Scott Dejerle and Andy Ogles, who like in a wave year, a really bad Republican candidate, you know, like that going from plus 30 or whatever it was before to plus 19, it's in play and that's possible. I think in Florida in particular, if you look at what DeSantis did, Florida is much bigger state, much more, you know, many more urban areas, right? So it's a little harder to gerrymanders than Tennessee, where all the votes are in two places. And, you know, I think that the Florida math to my eye was Ron DeSantis kind of being like, I don't actually really care that much about Donald Trump's 2026, but I want to maximize future. You know, like if this is going to be a Democratic wave year, we might let the Democrats take a couple of districts to like shore up other days, more of like a long term play where like in a median year where it's not a Democratic wave year, this will be great for us because we moved, we spread everybody around, but in a wave year, it might cost us one or two. That's kind of how I looked at the Florida gerrymander. I will see how it turns out. So, you know, I think it's a mixed bag. I think the reality is like, they can successfully eliminate Memphis for having a representative, which is bad. They also might, you know what I mean, horrible, which is all, they also might, you know, cost a couple of their members who would have been in safe districts and they end up getting caught in the blue way. I think both of those things can happen. I should just say, since we mentioned earlier, the website, I forgot the name of the website, but it's all roads lead to the south. That's the group that's organizing the day of action on this tomorrow, if you want to get involved, so I don't know. It's pretty rough though. The Virginia thing, just as a quick legal matter, this is more of an illegal news question, but like that's done though, right? Like there's, they don't have any, any remedy for, for appeal. Yeah. Well, the governor hasn't she announced that it's sort of like everything's staying with the old maps. Yeah. And the old maps are staying. You mean just to be clear, there, there is this application to the Supreme Court. I don't think it's going to go anywhere, but you know, of the governor saying essentially, it's all too late. We have a rule that we wouldn't be able to put these maps into place. It's crazy. It's happening. Like I'm going to have to go vote Louisiana tomorrow. It's our, it's our, the original primary day. Crazy. And like there, there will be a house thing on the ballot that is, that's been nullified. Like the ballots were printed, people had voted. I had somebody messaged me that was like, my daughter, uh, listen to the show, like my daughter is one of the people who had voted. She got absentee because I don't know, I forget if she was living overseas or something of that effect, but she'd already voted. Like vote got nullified by Samuel Alito. No, absolutely. Um, and, but the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court sort of actively pushed the case out to be as fast as possible. And Justice Alito, when, uh, Justice Jackson was accusing him of like, what are you doing? This is not the normal rules. You're speeding this along. Why are we taking normal, uh, doing the normal course? And the Supreme Court has a case called Purcell, which is all about essentially not doing something too close to an election. Um, so that it, it sort of saves the court, potentially from being appearing, uh, to mess with an election and also just not cause the chaos. Here it's going to affect during the election. During during not, it's like not too close. It's during. So that's sort of the, to the prudential, I think the, the ideas that animated this case called Purcell are gone. Yeah. Gone. Yeah. It's hard to concentrate when you're worried about your health. It can feel like there's a wall between you and the rest of the world, like you can't be fully present. Hello, AXA Health. How can I help? At AXA Health Insurance, we build our teams with people who care. So when you need us, we're here to support you for cover that cares, search AXA Health Insurance. Pre-existing conditions are not covered. At Little, there's always more to value, like switching from Azda to Little and saving 30 pounds on this week's big shop at little.co.uk slash you save, which means a stocked up fridge of big brands, award-winning old brands, and your fresh value of a day with extra helpings encouraged. Little, more to value. Price is checked 11 to the fifth, 26 Azda also sell other products online for more details. I want to move on. Uh, let's put back on your FBI general counsel hat for a little bit. The current director of the FBI, Cash Patel, a new story from the AP yesterday that, uh, thanks to a FOIA request, uh, they got some emails that indicated that when Cash stopped in Honolulu, he went on a VIP snorkeling trip that was organized by the Navy, the military, uh, so he could see the remains of, uh, outs around Pearl Harbor. This is not a trip that's available to the public. Questions were raised because it was like, why is he going to Honolulu? And the FBI, this previous statement was that he wanted to kind of check out how things were going at HQ, Honolulu HQ. He was like, I noticed he wasn't Fargo HQ. He was interested in seeing what was happening at, uh, because he wanted to kind of put his hands on the agents there in Honolulu. And then he also got a VIP snorkeling trip. Um, he also has done the Five Eyes meeting, did a jet skiing sojourn, you know, famously took the plane to go see his girlfriend's country music concert. I guess we call it a concert. She sang a couple songs before a wrestling match. I don't know. I'd come on this week and he was just like, when I was FBI director, it was a 24 seven job. Like I didn't take vacations and, and Cash is doing like make a wish, make a wish stuff. Yeah. That was my first reaction to, I was thinking about director Robert Mueller, you know, just to say it is to laugh. Could you imagine seeing Robert Mueller at one, just on vacation, but the two, the idea that it's like, Oh, I need to go to Honolulu so I can go snorkeling, um, that he would be using the private plane for any sort of like personal errands. I mean, he was, he was so driven by the concern that his job was making sure that everybody was safe and not having another 9 11 on his watch. That was the number one thing. So the only positive I could say is that if you are a serious person at the FBI, um, and this is the lot you have, which is this is the guy who's now the director, probably better if he snorkeling having him out of your hair so that you can do as much work as possible serious work. I mean, it is, don't be wrong. I'm not saying this is a good thing. It's just that if that's the given, you could see them thinking, let's put a bunch of shiny objects in front of him. And if he wants to be drinking beer, um, at the Olympics and, you know, denying various stories in Congress, but then do snorkeling, it's least at least he's not, you don't have somebody who is immature and inexperienced dealing with adult matters. I guess. And on the other hand, he's fired a lot of people who are in charge of adult matters, which complicates that story quite a bit. Um, yeah. No, I'm, I'm saying what, what do we, what do you do if you're in this situation like that? Well, you have a bit fired. You're one of the remaining people who's like, I'm taking my job seriously of keeping people safe. Uh, it would probably be better if he snorkeling and going to the gentleman's club and whatever. He apparently is just incensed by the idea that somebody could be telling the truth about what's going on and is, you know, has investigations and polygraphing to find out who is actually doing all of this. Like I was asking Comey about this, you know, and he was like, I know I, I did not drink ever. You know, I was never intoxicated. You can't drink on the job. It's illegal. Actually. So the only time I ever drank on the plane was when they fought, when Trump fired me and he said there happened to be a bottle of Pino Noir sitting around and I had a couple of glasses. He's like, I figured I'm off the job now. And so, you know, for good reason, obviously, like, what if there's an emergency? You want to call the director and the agents are armed for them. It's obvious because you cannot have a firearm and be drinking. Right. So I guess my question for you isn't that same boat. I assume that as general counsel, if they're doing the polygraph, I assume like internal polygraphs, I assume that the general counsel would have been involved. And I guess that's something that happened. And this idea that there are dozens of polygraphs happening, like seems obviously crazy, but like, was it a tool that was used at all? Every five years within the bureau, you're supposed to be polygraphed, unless that change. But those are standard. That's not being done as part of a sort of specific investigation into something. Polygraphs can be used on one off investigations at the security division that does that. The general counsel can obviously be involved. I should say that when I was the general counsel, the use of the plane was so unbelievably buttoned up. We had paperwork for every single time the director used the plane, what the purpose was. I had to sign off on that. And then we submitted all of that to up to the Department of Justice. You know, the bureau, it's like, that's, that's the way it rolls is like, everything is what's the business purpose? When is it being used? If a spouse was going, there was a reimbursement scheme. So that was not the taxpayer who was footing the bill. Remember famously, Justice Salido said, Oh, there was a free seat so I could take it. And so we didn't have that policy. That's interesting. I mean, it makes sense, you know, obviously. But I feel like it's important to kind of just go through like what the actual SOP was just to sort of show the distance from that that we are now. Yeah, well, you know, I doubt that the plane is going through that same protocol. I don't see how anybody would sign off on it. They even have a general counsel. They have to have a general counsel. What what he's doing would be interesting to know. So you can polygraph, but you have to polygraph for a legitimate good faith investigation. If the information that is being disseminated is not classified information, it's not about some ongoing criminal investigation. What's your authority to do this? And especially if it's true and the only reason you're doing this is because you don't want embarrassing stories to get out. That to me is completely misunderstanding that you when you work in the government work for the public. And the idea is not I need to make sure that there are no negative stories that get out about me. It would be totally different if what we were talking about was a leak of classified information or a leak in an ongoing criminal investigation. I'm enough of a sort of former law enforcement person that I would take that very seriously. I would understand why there's an investigation, but this is just self protection. It's hard to concentrate when you're worried about your health. It can feel like there's a wall between you and the rest of the world. Like you can't be fully present. Hello, AXA Health. How can I help? At AXA Health Insurance, we build our teams with people who care. So when you need us, we're here to support you. For cover that cares, search AXA Health Insurance. Pre-existing conditions are not covered. Therapy Clinic, one of Europe's leading aesthetic clinics, has arrived in Cheltenham. With over 100,000 five star reviews and more than 10 million treatments performed, therapy are industry leaders in laser hair removal, cosmetic injections and advanced skin treatments. With over 85 clinics globally and a team of more than 200 doctors, therapy deliver safe doctor led treatments at accessible prices. For verification, head to therapyclinic.com or visit therapy clinic Cheltenham today, located on the high street. Speaking of self-protection, you did something that upset me recently. What I do? Well, as I mentioned, I was listening to the illegal news of Sarah Longwell before I fell asleep. You guys were discussing you being in France and you were in France and you're in a monastery and you were looking out at the sea. You're trying to meditate and separate yourself from the news and what you claimed to have seen, maybe it was kind of like a saintly vision, but what you claimed to have seen is the seashells that said 8-6-4-7 in the sand there on the shores of France. You thought about taking a picture of that and posting it, but you did not do that. You obeyed in advance. You did not do that because you are worried that that is criminalizing now. I wanted to say to you, Andrew Weisman, it's time to ball max a little bit. Post the picture. Don't let them be in advance. This is what I will say. I'm going to take your comments seriously. I'm only a little. I'm not actually mad, but I think you should post it though. Well, it's too late because I didn't take the photo. Actually, I have to check. I might have. You have to come back through customs. Don't delete that picture, Andrew Weisman. Don't come through customs and delete that picture. By the way, you know that that is what's happening with all sorts of people, which is when they're being screened for stuff, you have to give all of your socials and your phone so they could do a proctology exam on you, not for criminality, but for your views. Did you say something mean about Trump or BB? Of the 8.647, just to be clear, I don't think what James Comey did is a crime. I think it's just all preposterous. It came down at the same time in the Southern Robbery Law Center case, which I think it's hard to know which one is more frivolous, but it's still serious because these are criminal indictments. My only point is I've had not one, but two executive orders aimed at me. It's kind of like an easy for you to say, podcaster. All right. I have two executive orders targeting me. Wait, I have two. How many do you have, Tim? Yeah, zero. I'm just out here. 8.647, nothing right. I don't. I'm wondering if Todd Blanche is watching the show. So, Tim, come back to me when you have the two executive orders. That's pretty good. That's fine. I'll give it to you. And I still think you should have posted it, but I'll give it to you. It's a much stronger case once you've had an executive order. It's guilty with an explanation. The other thing that you said in that show related to cash that piqued my interest was that you had some thoughts about how the Atlantic should handle the civil suit that they are filing against them. I wanted to hear the full pitch from Andrew. You wanted to hear it from the Andrew Weisman horse's mouth. If Jeff Goldberg called you right now, what would you say to him about how to handle it? I'd say this. Look, Jeff, your outside counsel is going to tell you to do the safe thing. And in part, if I were outside counsel, it's like they have an obligation to tell you the safe thing and it's a thing that's going to be safest for them, too, which is we're going to file motions to dismiss. We're going to say that it's not adequately pled that they haven't been able to show that there's what's called actual malice, which is that it was done sort of knowing or in reckless disregard of the truth. We have a variety of ways to get rid of this case on the papers. That's one strategy. That's the safe strategy. You are a news organization. You have said publicly that you are fully 100% sure that like this was well, well sourced. Why don't you call Cash, Cash's bluff. He's going to continue doing this. It's a little like you saying, why don't you post the 8647? Why don't you call his bluff and just say you want an immediate trial? Or you'll depose him. He'll depose your reporter. Then you'll have an immediate trial. First, let's see if he caves because if you are right, this is now going to all spill out in the public. And his audience of one, Donald Trump is going to see all of this and it's going to be an unbelievable embarrassment. But you will be helping not just the Atlantic, but everyone in the media as a strategy to deal with this kind of lawsuit that you say is bullshit. That's my pitch to you is, I know it's not the safest course, but we're not talking about a criminal indictment. We're talking about something that you know it's in Washington DC before a reputable judge. You are not going to be found liable if you're right. And so you know that you're right. So let's go. Or even if you had reasonable belief that you were right. Right? Like even if you had sources that said this, right? Like even if it turns out that one of the elements of the story was not true, but you have documentation that you had two sources that told you it was true. That's what I, in Britain, that's different. That's what I meant by right. You know, you think that you did not have, they cannot make the showing that they have to show not just that the story was inaccurate, but that you knew it or were reckless as to its inaccuracy. And that's just what I see from the Atlantic. That's not possible. I don't think that a jury or this judge is going to believe that. So why not do a huge favor for yourself and the country and also expose cash patel and this lawsuit for what it is? It really will help put an end to this tactic. And probably cash because your point, Trump doesn't want all these stories about everything that cash is doing. Trump doesn't mind stories about him. You know what I mean? Totally. But this is not, so maybe it would get cash out of there, which would be a plus. And also look at the timing, which is this, you do this now before the midterms and you say you want this trial. I like that suggestion. I concur. One other legal thing from yesterday, I wanted to just get your take on really quick. Scotis on Thursday stayed the Fifth Circuit ruling blocking the mailing and prescribing of Mipha Pristone via telehealth services while the Louisiana, once again, my people causing all this damage, Louisiana case against the FDA proceeds. That means just practically speaking, the drug will continue to be available for the time being. Thomas and Alito though were sharp in dissent. Thomas referred to the drug makers as committing crimes. Alito called them mail order abortions. So that's the state of play. I don't know what, if you have anything on that case. So the one is the irony of Justice Alito saying, oh, we're not applying the standard for stays. We're not applying that the law as it's supposed to be applied. This is a guy who's done that like day in and day out. I mean, the idea that he could put that pen to paper and chastise the majority for the way it's interpreting or kind of loosely interpreting when you get a stay is just shocking because it's, I mean, does he not look at himself in the mirror and have any sort of view that he has to have some principle or integrity? No, I don't think he does. Right. Yes. That was exactly. And then the Thomas, what you quoted is a little bit of the tip of the iceberg. He basically said, well, he might as well have just said, why are you not indicting these companies because they're criminal actors engaging in a criminal scheme under the Comstock Act, which good luck finding that to be constitutional or not. It's, I thought it was a good sign that he was only one person, one of the justices saying that because it means that I really don't think he's going to have five people saying that the Comstock Act from the 19th century is somehow going to be applicable. But here's my secret theory on this, Tam, which is Donald Trump, one of the only things that has not happened so far from the sort of grand plan that we all heard about and Donald Trump was saying, oh, no, no, no, I have nothing to do with that. Don't worry. I'm not going to implement any of that. That's not me. And then he gets into office and all of these things get implemented, except we have not seen what I would say is overt implementation of an anti-emortion scheme yet. And I think post midterms, it's going to be like the lids off on that. But I do think that that's one where I think if you were the Trump administration, you wanted this Mefropristian stuff to come up not now. It's like, exactly. You just don't want anything that's going to cause people to vote on that. And so it's for the same reason I think that Alito and Thomas are not, people are always speculating, are they stepping down? Are they stepping down? And I'm like, that's not going to happen until like a week after the midterms. If it's going to happen, it's not going to be beforehand. It's a risk though. It's a risk of the Democrats take back the Senate. Democrats could pull the Merrick Garland rule and just sit on that retirement for two years. It is a risk. You're absolutely right. But at this point though, I mean, right now, it's like, it'd be tricky to sort of rush that all through. Just while we're a couple of guys talking about guys making decisions on behalf of women, I did want to flag one other thing. This was the managing director of the IMF posted this picture and she highlighted, she called this, we'll put it on the screen for you two people, a painting of the end of the meritocracy, a meeting of the two largest economies and not one woman at the table. It is a crazy fucking picture and it is two dozen people. It's not like it was she and his two, you know, causes advisors and Trump and whatever, Marco. It's like, it's 24 people at this very long table, all dudes, all wearing ill-fitting suits, former weekend talk show co-hosts and for all of the backlash to me too and wokeness and meritocracy and DEI, this is a picture of what they want. Okay. So we started by talking about racism and now we're talking about sexism. I mean, this is like, let's get the big crayons out as to what we're talking about, which is, this is this idea that it's like the 1950s white male America with, you know, not black and brown communities, not women, nobody from overseas who's come here. Move a Cuban and I don't know, one gay. Scott Bassett was there. That's it. That's what we got. So it's, you know, it actually looked worse than my first day, you know, going into the FBI and you sit for the, down for the morning meeting and you look around the table and even the FBI was more diverse than that photo. 2026, Andrew Wiseman. It's really, it's really something. Let's talk about the book and then we'll get back to the fun at the end. The book could be fun too. I should mention, I should have mentioned at the top, we have a discount code for Bull Work listeners because, you know, you're such a loyal partner with us at the Bull Work and we want everybody, it's getting expensive out there. I don't know if you noticed prices are going up. So for Bull Work listeners, there is a discount. It's in the show notes. Book is Liars Kingdom. Give us the little elevator pitch. So I think as you know, I've was a prosecutor for many, many, many, many years and I was really thinking about the problem that we, or the discordancy that we have because I was thinking, look at all of the people that either I have personally prosecuted or that I supervise prosecutions of who lied and it could be leaders of Enron. It could be organized crime figures. It could be Roger Stone to Congress, Paul Manafort to the Department of Justice and to Banks. You have all of these ways in which lies in this country are criminalized. And then I started thinking about defamation suits. So Rudy Giuliani was sued for lying about Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss as just one example. So you just have so many ways in which when people lie, there is civil and or criminal accountability. And then I was thinking about our current precedent and the, I was thinking about like the Washington Post in the first term reported that they'd counted over 30,000 lies, which they did the math, which I don't usually do in public, but they did it for me, which came to over 20 lies per day. I think Sarah said that seemed a little low. That seems like me too. Yeah. So, but maybe, you know, Washington Post isn't going to do it anymore for obvious reasons, but maybe in the current administration, it would be doubled. And I just thought, why is it that we do not in the United States, at least at the federal level, have any sanctioned civil or criminal for candidates or politicians who lie to us? That was sort of the genesis of it. And I was thinking, because we have free speech, because this is Marika, because this is Marika Andrew, and I can't say whatever I want. So most of my book is sort of walking through our free speech doctrines. And then I look at what our states do. I looked at a few other countries to get examples of what they do. The problem with the argument that, oh, this is, we have free speech in America, and I'm not poo-pooing it. And there's some validity to how it affects this is that's not applied when Roger Stone lied to Congress and he was convicted for it. It doesn't apply when Ken Le and Jeff Skilling, who were the leaders of Enron, lied about the internal health of the Enron Corporation. They were false marketing laws or whatever. Exactly. And it didn't prevent Rudy Giuliani being found libel for tens and tens of millions of dollars for the lies he told, and it was found to have told about Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss. And it turns out the answer to the sort of like, oh, it's free speech is that false speech is not protected in and of itself. And so it doesn't really, it's not really an answer to say, oh, we just don't do anything with respect to speech at all. We do in lots of different contexts. And the thing that it was sort of fascinating to me is not just that France, Brazil, England deal with this issue in various ways in their country, but so did the states in the United States. So there are various ways that come from New York. There are various ways that New York has laws to deal with politicians who are found to have committed not just a lie, but fraud or any sort of crime. There are sort of two types of laws they have. One is if you're in office, you were automatically removed like that. And the other for other types of crimes is you are, this was a little shocking to me, permanently prohibited for running for office. So just to be clear, there are lots and lots of permutations I'm not going to bore you with because this is one where it's sort of fraught with lots of issues. There are issues about abuse, but I was trying to figure out how do we get out of a situation where we have so much lying going on? And the only answer we seem to have is, oh, well, the public will sort of know that and vote correctly. And to go to your point that when we were starting, Tim, as you were saying, well, when you're listening to Fox News, they're not going to tell you that the $1.2 billion is in this sort of collusive settlement. They're not going to point this out. They're not going to point out that the money came from you. And so the media bubbles that we have only exacerbates the concern that it's like, oh, don't worry, it'll all come out in the wash because we have a marketplace of ideas where everyone is exposed to the truth and it can be revealed to them and enough of the people know will sort of come to reason. Yeah, the Walter Cone type model. Exactly. Maybe it was different 50 years ago. Like you could lie. You could send out a newsletter that lied, but the truth would be in the actual news. Now people aren't getting that. That's tough to fix that part, the information bubbles. We talk about that a lot on here. I assume that's not where your focus is. So I'm wondering what are the potential legal remedies or things that could be part of a broader reform package? All the stuff is going to be bounced around if assuming we ever take back power from the fascists. Yeah. So it's interesting that you say, because I didn't have and I don't have a way of figuring out what to do with the media bubble problem. And I actually just think it is with us. Not that there can't be some regulation and ways to sort of help it, but you're fighting the wind. Yeah, it's like it's an ocean of being an avalanche, any of these nature things where you're just one person trying to shovel the snow out. And it's like, you can't control it. There's too much. It reminds me when I'm at law school and we've had these discussions about AI. And the consensus is like, you don't just sit there and say, like, oh, just prohibit it. People are going to use it. So you have to sort of figure out how you're going to deal with that and how you're going to incorporate it into your teaching, as opposed to saying, I'm old enough to remember when it's like, people shouldn't use calculators. It's like, really? It's going to happen. So there are various things that can be done. First of all, at the state level, there's a lot fewer things to have to worry about that you can do than at the federal level. But at both the state and federal level, you can actually criminalize lying. And just to be clear, the current laws for lying, which is, you know, you said a false statement to the Department of Justice or to Congress, we're not talking about a mistake. This is, you have to be able to show beyond a reasonable doubt that you intentionally lied. And so you're not going to be able to say about a politician, oh, I don't like that they are pro-abortion or anti-abortion. Or they said that their tax cuts will lead to greater revenues because of the Laffer Curve. It's like, okay, well, that's not a provable lie. We might know that that's not going to happen, but that's not what you're talking about. Exactly. So a provable lie, the one that I use is sort of the, because we're unfortunately in that world, because normally you'd be going, is this really a problem? And my view is it is, is that it's like there was fraud at the election in 2020. And it is, what's crazy is that is a current lie. And that is a current lie that is a required prerequisite to entry into that world. Like you want to become a federal judge, you cannot under oath respond to Democrats asking you questions saying, you know, there's no provable material fraud in the 2020 election. Nobody says that. Like you have to toe the line on that lie. And that's one where it's gone to court. So we have sort of the record that shows that. So one idea is that you can criminalize it. The other is that you could require politicians to certify as part of their filings that they have not made a material lie. That filing itself is something that can be prosecuted. Sarah asked me about this, which is that I think that Donald Trump is keenly aware of the fact of where it is not a crime and where it could be a crime. And my example of that is the impeachment proceedings where he not only did not testify, but he never submitted anything like it. He didn't submit a letter. He didn't submit a declaration in affidavit, nothing in that proceeding. A false filing, false testimony is all something that is covered by a criminal statute. And there's an open issue about whether a president can self pardon. So he has to be thinking, I may not be able to get out of this for all, for all times and purposes. But he was willing to just simply say, which he's been very successful at is, I don't have to worry about the courts. I don't have to worry about the Department of Justice if I just do the lying in public because there is no, there's absolutely no way that anyone can do anything about it other than politics somehow having it come back and haunt me. But he has solved that nut. Was there any particularly fun lies in there that you had to talk about? Or any reflections on lies that you've told in the past that you want to come clean on? Well, while I was writing this, I was, I think I heard this live while I was sitting at my computer, Donald Trump, as an aside in the White House said, oh, and I've heard Weissmans all over those Epstein files. Yes, that's true. I think we've talked about this. You should sue him. You should take your own advice to the Atlantic and bring him to court. So it's to be continued. It's obviously false, just in case anyone is sitting there, even though I have friends who said, hey, Andrew, what was the island like? And I'm like, and I'm like, just too soon. It's like a little Epstein Weissman, living rent free in that head. So that's a, there's a lie that's a little personal. Well, we had Congressman Garcia on yesterday's pod. And we were talking about how half of the Epstein files are still yet to come out. So maybe we need to wait for all of them before you can sue just in case you forgot that time that you were added on an email, looped into an MIT conference email or something, looping an Weissman. This is like something that I should, it's the same advice to the Atlantic, which is I know it's not true. I'm not worried about the other half. I'm not worried about it. By the way, if there were a lawsuit, I would get discovery. Well, I'm sure that we have some listeners who'd be happy to support that fund, the legal fund. You see, you see, you get the idea, which is, in other words, they would have to say, oh, you know, I want to say it's not true. In order to show that, I'd have to see all of the files. I am confident we could scrounge up some scratch for the legal fund for that effort. So to be continued indeed. This, this, this podcast is so useful. I'm making everybody else do things. Jeffrey Goldberg can go after cash. You can go after Trump. And all I get to do is just sit in my hole and blab. The final person I want to raise is a man named Brian Christine. Now, for reasons that are about to become clear, I was not familiar with this person because no problems there for me, but maybe others might be familiar with his work. Brian Christine is the health official who led the public response to the Hantavirus outbreak. You might expect that it's not, you know, he's not at the top of his game. So that's why I asked at the beginning, if you were a hypochondriac, because this has led me to be a little more concerned than I was previously about the Hantavirus. His background was as a penile implant specialist, where he hosted a podcast where he questioned the 2020 election and compared the Biden administration to Nazi Germany. So, you know, I'm just wondering how that, how that sits with you. That sounds like a wonderful, wonderful educational and work experience to bring to the table for this. By the way, I am giving myself, I was raised by two parents who told puns nonstop. It was a grown, grown, grown. And I am very proud of myself for not jumping in with, there were so many like, penile puns, but I decided I'd keep this at a high level. Let's not. It's Friday, five times. Do you have one in particular that you wanted to jump in on? Yeah, I was, I was just saying that's a hard act to follow. You know, let's try to leave it there. To grow or not a show or no, don't leave it there. Do you have any others? Either way. So, it's so annoying because, you know, this is one where we lived through COVID. I mean, this fits with the Cash Patel story. It's like you're putting people in place to handle these things that are incredibly serious and they are not serious. It seems to me like Brian was doing more of a public service when he was doing the penile implants. You know, and maybe you should just go back to that. I just, I'd feel much better. I think he was up for that. Yeah. He went back to his life. It's a great industry. Yeah, his expertise, you know, where he's providing something for people who need a little bit of a pick me up, you know, to help with their confidence. That's important. And that's where we need him over there, not pandemic. I don't, there's not a big overlap between penile implant expertise and pandemic expertise. I don't believe. Because in one, you want inflation and in the other in the government, you don't. That's the end of the podcast. Thank you so much, Andrew Weisman. Go get his book. It's about lying and liars and the liars that tell the lies. It's called Liars Kingdom. How to stop Trump's deceit and save America. Big task. Appreciate you very much. I'm not at all better that you're hanging out with Sarah. I do hope though, that the exclusive announcement of the lawsuit against Donald Trump will happen right here on the board podcast. We'll leave it all there. Thanks everybody. We'll see you on Monday with Bill Kristol. Go buy the book. Bye, Andrew. The board podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer, Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.