MS NOW Highlights - Nov. 29

Trump's intensifying retribution campaign against a list of targets that continues to grow. Listen to this y'all. Reuters reports that at least 470 targets, 470, have faced retaliation under the president's leadership. While some of those efforts have been derailed, like the dismissal of criminal charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, that's not stopping the president from going on the war path to punish his perceived political enemies.

This week, Trump's DOJ and FBI began investigating the six Democratic lawmakers he accused of, quote, seditious behavior after they urged military personnel to refuse illegal orders. The Pentagon is also investigating whether Senator Mark Kelly, a former Navy pilot,

breached military law by participating in the lawmaker's message to service members. Despite the investigation against him, Senator Kelly is making it clear he's not backing it down. Here's what he told Jimmy Kimmel this week.

He's trying to get some fear out there. And fear can be contagious. But what also can be contagious is courage and patriotism. Every one of us has First Amendment speech rights, and I think the president is infringing on those. And he is sending a pretty strong message.

You do not want to cross him, and your loyalty should be to him. It should not. It should always be to the Constitution.

We are going to be doing that. We are going to be doing that.

We've got to clap it over here. Meanwhile, Trump is once again going after his predecessor, announcing on social media that he's canceling all executive orders signed by Joe Biden using an auto-pin. Among other things, Trump could potentially try

to reverse pardons issued by President Biden, but legal experts point out there is no mechanism to undo clemency after it is granted. Joining us now, conservative lawyer George Conway. He's also president of Society for the Rule of Law and political magazine senior writer, Anka Shkodor.

He's also a former federal prosecutor. I want to start right. And which is President Trump saying that he's going every executive order and apparently pardon anything signed with the auto pen by Joe Biden. He's declaring gone executive orders are one thing. Right. This is why know, folks say executive orders are not the way you want to govern because they can go away every time there's a new president in office. But please remind the people there is no legal avenue to

get rid of pardons in this country. There is no legal avenue to get rid of pardons. By the way, the whole thing is sort of bizarre. There's no legal requirement that the pardons even be signed by the president. So whether there's an auto pen or not is beside the point. That's apparently consuming Trump's mind for much of his presidency because he did the whole thing where he put the auto pen on the White House wall

and everything, but no, this just appears to be sort of more nonsense.

But if we saw Trump decide, or the Justice Department

decide to prosecute someone who Joe Biden had pardoned

What would be the backstop there? They would assert that the defendant would cert the pardon as the defense in the proceeding and the case

They were dismissed really really quickly

I want to read though the pardon clause in the Constitution article 2 section 2 Clause 1 the president shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States except in cases of impeachment That's all it says it doesn't say it has to be signed like you said. It doesn't say that anything else has to happen that the

president say I grant you a pardon. Go free kid. Not only that I mean it doesn't have to be signed but there is well-established Justice Department legal advice that says that basically the president can sign things however he wants. He can want to use a thumbprint, he can use a thumbprint. If he wants to use someone else to sign for him, he can do that. If he wants to use a machine or a stamp, he can do that. And there's nothing illegal about those pardons. And he, you know, they will be successfully invoked by

defendants in court. Now executive orders are a different thing because it doesn't matter It doesn't matter how they were signed Trump can just undo executive orders He could just say I'm undoing all sleepy Joe's Executive orders regardless of whether they signed by an auto pen and you know, so be it

That's what he's he's entitled to do that. Well to your point George fact check org Put something out. This is March of this year. Trump's baseless auto pen claims about Biden's pardons. Legal experts say there is nothing to President Donald Trump's claim

that several of former President Joe Biden's pardons are void because they were signed by an auto pen. White House lawyers during the George W. Bush administration said the use of an auto pen is perfectly legal. And constitutional scholars say that nothing in the Constitution even requires

Pardons to be signed anyway as has been brought up three times at this table. Go ahead

I'm one other thing I mean, there's only one person who's ever admitted live on camera that he did not know who the person was who he parted Oh, yeah, who was that? That is Donald Trump regarding Chang-Peng Zhao, head of Binance, who was pardoned, I don't remember, a month, a couple months ago. He was asked about it, he said he didn't know who that was.

That to me is way more significant. It's either true, that he doesn't know who it was and some staff member put him up to it, or he's lying.

And both are terrible. Correct.

That's just me. It's like we've seen this movie before. Either he's telling the truth, which is awful, or he's lying. Which is bad, but it's still bad.

It seems to be an ongoing theme here.

Can we get to the Venezuela of it all? The Washington Post, we went through this article earlier, but just a reminder, viewers, has this very damning article about the Defense Department's orders to kill two people who were on a boat off of Venezuelan waters off of the Venezuelan coast who were not killed in an initial drone strike. It's almost like Mark Kelly and the the rest of those Democratic senators actually might have known what

they were talking about or potentially already knew about this report coming out, but there are former military lawyers people who have actually advised Special Operations forces in the past who believe that this order amounts to a war crime, which is

That they called it an essence to an essence in order to show

no quarter it actually isn't a war crime because there is no war it's worse than a war crime because first of all the bombings in the first place were illegal because these there is no war right and these were not combatants but even if these were they are we still to this day do not okay they weren't are. Okay, they weren't, you know, they weren't naval. It wasn't a naval vessel. It wasn't... there is no war between us and Venezuela.

And these people were not sailors or soldiers fighting with weapons against us. So, that... the law of war doesn't... you don't even get to the law of war. But even if it were... even if these guys were a naval ship armed to the teeth and the ship was blown up and these guys were in the water, firing against them would be an act, would be a violation of the laws of war. No matter how you look at this, you can apply civilian law, military law, the Uniform Court

of Military Justice, international law, foreign law, domestic law, federal law, state law. No matter what legal regime you apply to the second strike, it's murder. Period. It's not even, there's not even an argument. That's how outrageous this is.

George, you named a lot of laws there just a moment ago.

No matter what the legal framework is, it's murder.

Right. And so I want to switch gears just a tiny bit because the President of the United States

is awake and less than a half hour ago...

That's reassuring.

Wait, wait, wait, no, George, you probably don't know this. Here it is. To all airlines, pilots, drug dealers and human traffickers, please consider the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela to be closed in its entirety. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump."

Okay, Ankush? He is the President of the United States, not Venezuela, so does he have the legal authority

to declare another nation's airspace off limits?

By Truth Social.

By Truth Social.

No, he doesn't. I actually think it's a little bit worse than that. If what he is saying is true and it's not walked back and he intends to follow through on his message there, he's saying that the country is about to, our country is about to launch an illegal war.

We're going to call it the war on Epstein how likely is it that a next administration a potentially Democratic administration would actually prosecute

the people carrying out these orders okay so this is a very very interesting and important question yeah Trump can eliminate everyone's liability if he pardons everyone out the door okay right if he pardons everyone who's involved in these strikes he can eliminate their liability under federal law If he does not issue a pardon Then I think a lot of people are going to be pointing to

LLC guidance that supposedly supports these strikes that's the classified memo that correct that these folks won't get facing Exactly, which so far as I can tell is a completely baseless as a legal analytic matter That memo might help people lower down the food chain I don't see how it can help the people at the very top Based on the reporting that the legal advice itself has been gamed by the people in the Pentagon and the Department of Defense You cannot invoke a legal opinion in your defense If you have orchestrated the opinion to work in your favor and to reach a predetermined conclusion. So that would be like the Hegseths of the world and

the most senior military commanders. Last but not least, even if we're in that federal pardon scenario and nobody in the U.S. can do it, I think these people in office, particularly the most senior people, Hegseth and all, are really betting a lot that there will be no effort to enforce domestic laws by the South American countries whose citizens are being killed or international law by international bodies. Those bets may be correct over the long haul but those are

real legal risks that these people are running. Absolutely. Incredible. God.

When you look at, because in my intro I talked about Letitia James, and I talked about Comey, their things getting thrown out. But 470 people and entities who are being attacked, you know, there's been a retribution by the President of the United States. We never, and I know we talk about this a lot, but I've never seen anything like this.

And I think, you know, we knew there was a lot, but having the reporting that gives us a number that went month 10, what is it? Month 11, month 10 of this administration, we're at 470 different iterations of retribution against his perceived

political enemies or universities or whatever.

Yeah. Tricky Dick Nixon was a piker compared to this. I mean, we've never seen anything like it. The list is going to grow. And basically, it's anybody who he thinks crosses him or that his minions think cross him, because they will do this to ease him. And then, oddly, there's very much a focus on people who he thinks can't fight back or who thinks they won't fight back. He picks. He's a very much a focus on people who he thinks can't fight back or who thinks they

won't fight back. He picks, you know, he's a bully. He picks targets that he thinks are most vulnerable and who are going to cave. And then sometimes there are people who he just leaves alone. And it but this is all designed not just to actually achieve retribution over these 470 and growing individuals,

it's designed to intimidate others. And that's where it actually is the most effective because a lot of these cases like the Leticia James case and the Comey case, they've been thrown out. They have zero chance of ultimate success But people don't want to tangle with that. They don't want to go through that process They don't want to go through even an investigative process and that is one of the ways that you know

Authoritarians like Trump try to achieve try to suppress dissent

We just go back to the Ed Martin of it all where he said in front of a camera That at the end of the day if we can't charge them or put them in jail, we're going to shame them.

It's about the process of this, like you said.

I'm joined now by April Ryan and Jim Acosta. April is the Washington Bureau chief and White House Correspondent for Black Press USA, as well as the host of The T, with April Ryan on Substack, and now an MSNOW contributor, as well as Jim Acosta,

long-time White House Correspondent and host of The Jim Acosta Show, available on Substack, YouTube, and Apple Podcast. You know, Jim, it is not necessarily every day that you see someone try and defend the notion of piggy as a term of endearment.

But here, White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt had an interesting defense of the quiet piggy comment made by the president. Let's listen to some of what she had to say.

Look, the president is very frank and honest with everyone in this room. You've all seen it yourself. You've all experienced it yourselves. The president being frank and open and honest to your faces rather than hiding behind your backs is frankly, a lot more respectful than what you saw in the last administration, where you had a president

who lied to your face and then didn't speak to you for weeks and hid upstairs and didn't take your questions. So I think everyone in this room should appreciate the frankness and the openness that you get from President Trump on a near daily basis.

Quiet piggy, frank, open and honest. Jim, what do you make of the press secretary's response to the president's comments?

Well, let me be frank and honest, Charles. I think that the president, I mean, we've seen this for a long time now. April and I dealt with it when we were at the White House. I mean, when you're close to the target, he starts to go off on reporters. He'll call them all sorts of names and so on. But I think this is less about how he handles the press and more about how he deals with women. Imagine, you know, the boss in your office talking

to a female reporter in that way. It wouldn't be tolerated. That boss would be fired. At any company, that boss would be fired. And imagine if this were your daughter or your sister or your mother being spoken to in this fashion. And that's why I you know I strongly believe and there are people who disagree with me on this that

other folks in the press in the room should speak up in that moment and say Mr. President that is not appropriate. And you know and double down on the questions that were asked. Why didn't you answer that question. Why are you resorting to personal attacks. Why can't you take the heat. What's going on here. And you know to me I think the only solution to all of this is collective action. We need to see the networks get together perhaps with some of the major newspapers send a letter to the White House Senate to Caroline Leavitt and say listen if the president does not stop these attacks, we're not coming into your Oval Office praise. We're not going to ride with you on Air Force One. You can have Fox and all these

other sycophantic outlets covering you, but we're just not going to do it. We're going to take a break for a while until you clean up your act. That's what I think they should do.

You know, Jim, you raise a very interesting point about the fact that many of these targets happen to be women. And we've seen how that has played out, not just with the press, but also with people like Letitia James, with people like Fannie Willis, in terms of the manner in which she discusses them. But April, I want to talk to you about this longstanding history of attacking women, particularly in journalism. Back in 2011, New York Times contributor Gayle Collins wrote about the insult that she received

from Trump, saying, quote, during one down period, I referred to him in print as a financially embattled thousandaire, and he sent me a copy of the column with my picture circled and the face of a dog written over it. In 2018, he insulted ABC News reporter Cecilia Vega, unprompted, he said, quote, "'You're not thinking, you never do.'"

It certainly seems that there is a different type of vitriol that goes out toward women. Is that an easy read or is there something deeper here?

I think it's something deeper, Charles. He objectifies women. If they're not appealing to his eyes or his senses, he wants to attack. And also, think about this. He sends these targeted negative attacks

to people who I believe in his mind, he thinks that are lesser women as well as minorities. Let's put that extra layer on it. But here's the thing. The president has said this. This president has said this over and over again. He said it on some media reports that he tries to intimidate and discredit people because he doesn't want people believing what they say.

The women that he's attacked have been very strong in reporting without fear or favor of this president, and he doesn't like it. He has attacked men to include our colleague, Jim Acosta, but he does it more so on women. He's done it to me and his minions will do it.

I mean, from the press secretaries on down to other staffers. And that Piggy comment, Lynn Patton, who was then working at HUD, she's now at the White House, she called me Ms. Piggy.

So this is something that's been in their Trump style book for many years. So I report without fear of favor and all of these women are reporting their truth and the truth as we know it. And he wants to keep throwing these daggers at us to make the American public think that we're not right. But something's wrong here. You're seeing a constant drum beat against women who are reporting the truth.

Now, April, I'm going to double click there. Is there a legitimate concern in your mind as a journalist that these personal insults, despite how distasteful and inappropriate they are from a professional standpoint, is there a concern that this will damage the credibility or delegitimize the press and their reporting in the minds of people who are sort of watching

this play out?

Charles, it has done its damage. The word fake has already, we already had some distrust in the media, but for a president of the United States to have that blue pulpit, to have the largest microphone, to scream out fake, he has damaged the industry.

And now in the second term, it is worse. There is a co-opting of media with this president, as well as we're seeing so many of our fellow journalists lose their jobs for giving facts and truth. And that's one thing that people are not talking enough about. This president has damaged the industry and he has created a vacuum where those

truth tellers, in fact, reporters are having trouble keeping jobs or finding jobs. So, yes, there is damage by this president.

And speaking to that damage, Jim, the White House has just announced a new media bias page on his website. This bias page names a number of news outlets that it considers misleading or biased. What do you make of this and how do you think

it could potentially impact

the business of news going forward?

Yeah, I mean, I think April is exactly right. I've said this before on my show that I think Donald Trump has cracked the code in how to hurt the press in this country with these lawsuits that have been settled and so on. It's done terrible damage to the industry. I think by and large, when he puts that kind of stuff up on the White House White House Web site what they're basically trying to do is just sort of feed red meat to the base. If you look at his poll numbers he is down in what the mid 30s right now according to the latest public approval polls. I mean that says to me that you know he's about as popular as

you know basically the base and Republicans view him at this point. The rest of the country has sort of written him off. And the other thing that I think he does when he's lashing out in this fashion, I will say I think it's gotten worse. This is worse than what I saw during the first administration in terms of the way he's ramping up these attacks.

And it may have something to do with just a state of decline on his part. It seems to me to be kind of a symptom of the cognitive decline. If you saw what took place the other night on Thanksgiving night when he was lashing out at those reporters, you know, he was lashing out at Somalia. He was talking about how Somalia is somehow a part

of what took place when those guard members got shot. I mean, that just doesn't make any sense. And so I do think to some extent, he is lashing out in these moments because he just may be a bit lost and he doesn't know how to respond to some of these questions from these reporters.

And so his gut instinct is to just fly off the handle.

Now, both of you all have platforms on independent sort of platforms. April, you have the T, Jim, you have the Jim Acosta Show. Is this something that we should expect from more journalists to see sort of independent arms extend out for more reporting on nontraditional platforms? And is that, Jim, a way of sort of ensuring

your independence and being able to fight back against this attack on the press?

I think so. You know, and April, I'm sure, has seen this frustration over the last couple of days. I have gotten so many messages on social media from people across the country who are absolutely outraged, absolutely outraged that members of the press are not standing up for one another

when Trump goes out and attacks people like this. And it is part of the reason why. And you know what the folks do at MSNOW is terrific. But it's part of the reason why there are so many Americans across the country who are saying you know what let's take a look at independent media. What's going on on Substack. Let's see what's going on with YouTube. Let's see what's happening with April Ryan show. The T brought to you by The Contrarian, the fine folks over there. And so the universe of media choices is expanding, I think, in part, Charles, because people are getting frustrated with what they are getting from,

and forgive me for saying this, corporate media, legacy media, and so on, because I think they just want us to stand up for one another. They want us to stand up for decency. Charles, can you imagine imagine what we're going to do send millions of many me Donald Trump's into the workforce and have them abuse verbally abuse their employees and their co-workers in this fashion. What are we doing to this country. This is not who we are. This is not America. We're decent. I

think deep down we're decent people. And there's a little voice in all of us, whether you're Republican or Democrat, Independent, that says, you know, when he talks about reporters and calls them piggy and ugly, that's just wrong. And I don't want a country full of young men going into the workforce behaving like a little mini me, Donald Trump.

It's just not right.

April, really quickly, I got about 30 seconds. Can you just talk very briefly about the importance of particularly black journalists in this moment and having the spaces to tell the stories

that need to be told?

Let me say this. We are losing our jobs in a lot of these mainstream organizations. We are a part of the independent free press that the founding fathers put in place for checks and balances

if checks and balances don't work in the three branches. And now because we are that texture that gives that extra piece, we are losing our jobs or we are being told to co-op. This is a critical crisis moment for black journalists in this golden era of Donald Trump, who has attacked us before and now attacking

us again. And, Charles, if they would have taken care of dealing with the situation when Jim, myself, Yamiche and Abby Phillips were the target of his ire, we would not be here talking about this today.

New today, another House Republican is quitting Congress. Trump ally, Texas Representative Troy Nell, says that he will not seek re-election and plans to retire at the end of this legislative session. It comes amid speculation that President Trump could be losing his tight grip on Capitol Hill's narrowing Republican majority. And joining me is our friend Hayes Brown, MSNOW writer and editor and author of this opinion piece, Trump's chokehold on the House has some GOP members frustrated.

Welcome, we've got a couple things to get to you about here, my friend, but here we go. Because there are several reports that a Republican mass exodus, right, from Congress that it's really on the horizon there. From what you're hearing, is it likely,

and is it something that would affect

the balance of power in Congress?

Because there'd be re-elections. Yeah right I think it is I think it's likely depends on the timing how much it affects the balance of power. With Marjorie Taylor Greene exiting in January her seat is a very solidly red Republican seat. When they do have a special election to fill it it will be likely filled with a Republican. The question is what happens if you have several members exiting at the same time and having that gap where before special election to be held you have fewer Republicans sitting

in the House. One of the biggest problems that the GOP has had since reclaiming majority is how narrow that majority is. So if you have a lot of lawmakers who feel frustrated like Marjorie Taylor Green is, about how little can be done, or also the other lawmakers we've seen, Punchbowl News had an extended quote from one who they said was a senior lawmaker, who feels like, what are we doing here if all we're going to be doing is voting on censures against each other or being caught at glance?

I read that.

It was a great quote that I think shows a deep, almost irony to me though. Given how happy you would expect Republicans to be in the House if they have the presidency and they're just getting to sit back and let Trump handle everything

and just sort of rubber stamp, the fact that people there are saying, no, we want to work at least enough to be reelected and that they're not even getting that, it was really interesting to

me. Well, it's interesting because you write some lawmakers are worried the White House's arrogance could cost them the House next year, if not sooner. Has this been a concern for a while? Did the MTG resignation only exacerbate the concerns?

I think the concern of the White House's arrogance have been there for a long time. You have an OMB director who says that we don't really need to follow appropriations laws. You have a White House that sort of doesn't really bother going to Congress for most things at this point and just says we can do it on our own. So there's that feeling of inability to actually get anything done. With Greene's exit, I think that opened the door

to if enough leave to deny Mike Johnson a majority, even temporarily, that would be chaotic and unprecedented in a way we haven't seen. Because what does happen if enough Republican lawmakers leave that you do have a situation where you we see like with Kevin McCarthy where the speaker is removed from power and the Democrats are the ones with a technical majority enough to put Hakeem Jeffrey in the seat. What does that even look like? How does that work? And the fact that we're even considering it shows how sort of fragile the Republican majority really is.

Yeah, another unprecedented scenario. Let me ask you about the scathing Truth Social post in which the president wrote blasting a New York Times reporter, accusing him of showing signs of aging and fatigue. Let's go over some of the highlights. Here they go. He called the article a hit piece, said everything the New York Times writes about him is purposely negative, referred to the publication as an enemy of the people,

and called the writer of that article a third-rate reporter who is ugly both inside and out. I think it's pretty safe to say he was not very happy with that piece, right, and that reporter. But you say all this does is prove the point.

How so?

I think that if you are pushing 80 and unwilling to admit, yes, I am aging, yes, I am slowing down, yes, some things may take me longer, but I'm doing the best I can, that I think, and just pretending it's not happening, that is a hit to your credibility.

Like, I know that the mythos that he's putting out there, this aura of invincibility, that he is eternal, that he is so powerful, so strong, the utmost of masculinity, I know that that is what he puts out there to his base. That's the image he wants to project,

and that aging undercuts that. So he wants to try to ignore it. But the problem is, aging is a reality. Like, I feel like in this country, especially, we fetishize youth, and aging is a taboo. And so in the emphasis of the former, and vitality,

and strength, we want to not even look at the latter. So in trying to deny the fact that he is getting older, Trump is, I feel like, drawing more attention to those moments where it's obvious. Like, it's almost like the Streisand effect, you know what I'm saying?

Like, where in trying to deny a story and put something down, you're drawing more attention to it.

Okay. Well, let's just say you and I haven't seen each other in person for like a year, so I do not want to hear if I look one year older than the last time I saw you. Anyway, thanks.

It's good to see you.

Congress is set to return from the holiday break next week. And after Marjorie Taylor Greene's shocking resignation announcement, House Republicans are reportedly preparing for more to come. A senior House Republican told Punchbowl News this week, quote, more explosive early resignations are coming. It's a tinderbox.

Morale has never been lower. Mike Johnson will be stripped of his gavel, and they will lose the majority before this term is out. Even former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agrees with this sentiment. During an appearance on Fox News this week

He issued a stern warning about the future of the Republican Party

And I found Marjorie to be very effective But she's almost like a canary in a coal mine and this is something inside Congress

They better wake up because they're gonna get a lot of people retiring and they got to focus.

What he has to say is good.

George Conway is back with us along with Rina Shah, geopolitical advisor and strategist and senior advisor for our Republican legacy. I'm George.

You've been here.

Hi, Rina.

Welcome. Welcome.

Hi.

George has moved in.

George has moved in. George has moved in. So, so, Rena, is the former House Speaker correct? Like, there's danger, Will Robinson, that's an old dated reference, the old folks, so

now you get it, you get it. They may have dated a remake. Rena, is the former House Speaker correct?

There's danger ahead for for Speaker Johnson's caucus.

For Johnson?

Look, they've rallied around him really well for a while. I think his latest comments are a little tricky. I think the position he's been put in this fall, definitely he's in the hottest water he's been in. But I don't think he's fully in danger of losing the gavel. That's just because people know that, again,

the chaos right before midterms will not bode well for the party. They've got a number of other issues, topmost being economy. Trump is in the tank on those approval numbers in deep red places, coast to coast.

So why would they want to get rid of another dear leader?

Well, but Reena, I'm also thinking about the numbers. Now, you got a special election in Tennessee. Was it Tennessee, the 7th Congressional District, where Trump won it by double digits, but the Democrat, Afton Bain, she's within striking distance.

When you factor in the margin of error, it's a tied race. She could win. So just in terms of numbers in the caucus, couldn't he lose his?

The numbers have always been dicey though This isn't different. I mean the math is of course ever-changing, but I don't really believe McCarthy He didn't even see his own demise coming. I'm sorry. This is a guy

I mean some of this, anytime that I hear, I think that we see Kevin McCarthy talking about Mike Johnson,

there is some jealousy and anger there, right?

Well, of course.

Yeah, just a little bit. Because Mike Johnson has a completely different relationship with the folks, the Republican folks.

He has a relationship with them.

He had his finger on the pole of this caucus

in a way McCarthy did not. And that was the difference. The people that hated McCarthy hated him for personal reasons and myriad reasons. It was all over the place. And one of the things that I think is really interesting, though, is that the resignations that could be coming, everyone's warning about these resignations, but at the end of the day, they're less about Johnson and all about Trump. Right, Conway? Like, there doesn't seem to be, like, people aren't leaving because they're just, like, so upset,

but Mike Johnson is leaving because of Trump.

This is sort of a different but extended version of things we saw during Trump won, where all the decent representatives, the ones who really weren't Trumpy, started just dropping like flies and leaving because they couldn't deal with having to face a general electorate and having to make

promises to a crazy base. And now you're seeing you know a lot of these same fishers have always been there. The fisher, the fact that you have Trump doing his best to help his rich buddies, whereas the people, the working class people who are basically tricked into voting for Trump, you know, are tricked into thinking that he's working for them when he clearly is not

and he couldn't give a damn about them. And now you have the Fisher, it's getting worse in a sense, it is that the margin is moving. You have people who have been MAGA, who are in districts where the base is just whittling down to its hard core base, so they're even more rabid

than before, and then the rest of the electorate is completely pissed off at Trump, including some Trump voters, and so they're in between this rock and a hard place caused by Trump.

Because no matter how MAGA someone is, they care more about their money and what they're spending and the prices, right? That is what Joe Biden learned and learned a little bit too late, is that you cannot trick people into thinking

eggs are a different price than what they see when they go to

the grocery store. And Trump is like, OK, what's Trump doing? He's fussing with his huge ballroom with his architects. He's getting a 747 from the Qataris. Oh, you 747. OK, you 747 from the Qataris.

Yeah, let's say that.

So I do want to argue with the premise of your question a little bit, which is you said this is not about Mike Johnson, this is about Trump. But I do think at this point in time, they are essentially the same people. I mean, I always think back to that Wall Street Journal quote where Steve Bannon says that Congress is basically the Duma. And Trump told lawmakers or told someone behind closed doors that he was the speaker. Right. And if Mike Johnson was like previous iterations of speakers, I'll even give Kevin McCarthy just a little bit of credit here.

But someone like Paul Ryan, who represented the actual interests of the House, understood how the Office of Legislative Affairs worked, tried to implement more of a process instead of letting himself be a pawn, things might be a little different now. We wouldn't see, I think, this rush to just leave Congress or at least this reaction to the polling to now completely distance themselves and become completely exasperated with the

institution. I mean... They finally pulled that thread. Yeah. This is the one moment this fall that stuck out to me with Marjorie Taylor Greene's resignation announcement. I heard the tones of America first. So if there's going to be Yeah, there is this is the one moment this fall that stuck out to me with Marjorie Taylor Greene's resignation announcement I heard the tones of America first So if there's gonna be real any split really any split that's where they're looking because don't forget America first screams follow the money They used to be conspiracy theorists. They still are a lot of them and they're saying where is our money going abroad at home?

They are calling it out at every level So I'm just saying don't think this is an actual divorce within the Republican Party, but you're seeing this new sort of energy and with Marjorie saying she's leaving, there will be a couple people who pull that again. Thomas Massie will be one of them, but it may start to get into the psyche of Johnson and other leaders in the House GOP conference because they really feel that hate to hold

on to these people and to deal in in places where Democrats are closing the gap with Republicans and don't forget Democrats actually running some really good candidates this this year, I'm already seeing them emerge in places where I would not have guessed and so the one thing I will remind would not have guessed and so the one thing I will remind

viewers so Republicans always fall in line real well. Yeah. Despite what I just said, look for that