# 118 — The View from Trumpistan
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Summary
Preet Barara is a former US attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. He prosecuted cases involving terrorism, narcotics, arms trafficking, financial and health care fraud, cyber crime, public corruption, gang violence, organized crime, and civil rights violations. He s been featured by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2017 he joined the faculty of NYU Law School. He has his own podcast which is excellent titled, Stay Tuned with Preet: Stay tuned with me, Preet! which is now in its second season. In this episode, I talk to him about his experience as a lawyer and former U.S. attorney, and how he views the Trump presidency, the Russia investigation, and the Mueller investigation. If you re sick of conversations about Trump and the Russia probe, this is not the podcast for you - but otherwise, but otherwise it might well be for you! This is a podcast that is a little beholden to the news cycle - this is about, you guessed it, the Trump/Russia investigation, which is about Donald Trump. . And this is just a brief, by my podcast standards, a brief by my standards, one-hour tour of how a lawyer, a former lawyer, trained in the relevant areas views the topic, views the trump presidency and the maverick investigation, about the Trump-Russia scandal, and why it might be not the one you should be listening to the podcast. The podcast is about Trump & the Russia scandal, which might be the podcast you ve been waiting for? in this episode of Stay tuned to the episode for you. by me, my guest is Preet Pararara Preet Bararara. (Preet is an excellent lawyer, who has been featured in Time Magazine's Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World.") (Time Magazine Magazine). Thank you for coming on the podcast! (Thank you for having me on the pod! ) Stay tuned into the podcast, my dear friend, I hope you enjoy the podcast? (A very special thank you, my good friend, my apologies for not having me in the podcast so much more than you could have a chance to be on the show, I'm looking forward to hearing from me in this one, I'll be back next week with you next week! )
Transcript
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okay this is a podcast that is a little beholden to the news cycle this is about
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trump and the russia investigation this is just a brief by my podcast standards
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one hour tour of how a lawyer and former u.s attorney trained in the relevant areas views
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the trump presidency and the muller investigation my guest today is preet barara preet is as i said
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a former u.s attorney for the southern district of new york from 2009 to 2017 he prosecuted cases
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involving terrorism narcotics arms trafficking financial and health care fraud cyber crime
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public corruption gang violence organized crime civil rights violations he's been featured by
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time magazine as one of the hundred most influential people in the world and in 2017 he joined the
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faculty of nyu law school and he has his own podcast which is excellent titled stay tuned
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with preet so fair warning if you're sick of conversations about trump and the russia
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investigation this is not the podcast for you but otherwise it might well be so now i give you
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i am here with preet barara preet thanks for coming on the podcast thanks for having me on let's just
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summarize your background because you you really have the perfect background for the conversation
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we're about to have please give us your your potted bio and just briefly touch on the kinds of areas
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you you have focused on in in the law wow okay so we can take up the hour with this i was born in
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1969 so i was born in india came to the united states my father is a proud indian immigrant pediatrician
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and hope for his sons to become doctors we disappointed him deeply neither my brother nor i
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became doctors ended up going to law school after law school i worked in private practice
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although my my goal and destination always was really the u.s attorney's office from the time i
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took a trial practice class trial advocacy class and at columbia um but it took me a while to get
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into shape to go to the u.s attorney's office i applied got in after about six years in private
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practice and while i was a line prosecutor i prosecuted all sorts of things as you might imagine
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in manhattan narcotics cases mob cases ultimately i focused more on um uh russian organized crime
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chinese organized crime uh italian la cosa nostra did some terrorism cases uh not too many uh fraud
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cases you name it we did it then i spent four and a half years working as chief counsel to senator
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schumer on the judiciary committee during which time we had multiple supreme court vacancies and i got to
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work on judicial confirmation process and then after barack obama became the president upon the
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recommendation of the senator i was nominated to be the u.s attorney and then i got to serve in that
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position for seven and a half years uh where we did again you name it except i was overseeing the office
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instead of being a line person in that office and you know what i'm proud of during that tenure is
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is you know there are some offices i think that are known for focusing on one or two things
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and i believe that we we didn't disproportionately focus on any one thing sometimes some of the stuff
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we did got disproportionate attention like insider trading cases they were working this hard on on
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cyber security threats on gang cases on securities fraud on terrorism cases on public corruption cases
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also civil fraud cases so i think we did a lot of things in a lot of different areas if you want
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to talk about them we can and i served very uh humbly and appreciatively in that position until
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i was fired by donald trump last march obviously your expertise with russia and russian organized crime
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and financial crime is highly relevant to the conversation we'll have here say a little bit more
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about the firing was there some point of principle you were standing on in order to be fired i seem to
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remember reading that you all the u.s attorneys under president obama were told to resign and you
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refused is that right yeah well it's slightly more complicated than that i had been expecting to leave
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the office when donald trump got elected because that's how it works but usually almost in every case
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and some people get this wrong after a period of transition um you know i got confirmed after
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barack obama became the president in august of 2009 and there was an orderly transition process you know
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people aren't just booted out even when clinton got rid of the holdover u.s attorneys that was over a
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period of time with a built-in transition process so in any event i expected to leave a few months after
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the election but donald trump made the extraordinary move of asking me to stay which is a little bit of a
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story through senator schumer and not only that invited me to trump tower up to the 26th floor where
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i met first because donald trump was busy with steve bannon and jared kushner who kept me company
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until the president could come and meet and it was a it was a lovely meeting in which he was very
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complimentary of how i conducted myself in the position and how the office had done i made a
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little speech about independence and we went on our merry way him with him asking me to stay another term
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so fast forward several months went out of the blue the president called me for reasons that are
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still unclear i thought it was inappropriate that was on march 9th of 2017 i thought for various reasons
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and after consultation with the attorney general's office the chief of staff to jeff sessions that it
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was inappropriate not knowing the subject matter and knowing how it might look to the public if there
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was a conversation you know on the side between a sitting president and a sitting u.s attorney who had
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jurisdiction over various things including uh you know uh him his associates his businesses
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and a lot of other interests that unless we knew what it was about it was the better course
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to not speak directly with the president and 20 hours later i was asked to resign now i don't know if
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they're connected i don't know if they're not connected and so when that happened the first day so
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that was on a friday not to belabor the story but you know i wasn't sure if they meant to include me
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so at the beginning i wasn't thinking to myself i'm going to be defiant and require being fired
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uh i just wanted to know you know given some track record of incompetence and quick decision making
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on the part of people in the white house if they had meant to do that i mean there were two other
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people who were sitting u.s attorneys also who i don't think they meant to ask for their
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resignations that was rod rosenstein who was the nominee to be the deputy attorney general
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and dana benta who was the acting attorney general at that time i think you know given the haste with
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which it was done i was just trying to make sure as an initial matter that it meant to include me
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and then i consulted with folks in my office uh senior staff and i've lived long enough to know
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that you don't know what the reasoning is behind certain things i had in my mind no understanding
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or explanation as to what may have changed between the time that donald trump said please stay
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and orchestrated in a fairly high profile meeting even before he had named a secretary of defense
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before he had named a secretary of state i believe right and i just wanted the record to be clear
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you know for the future um that the person who had personally invited me to come meet with him
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shake my hand look me in the eye ask me for my phone numbers that it would be clear from the record
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that that person also wanted me gone and it wasn't just sort of some you know mass bureaucratic shuffle
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uh and then once i was assured of that then i left okay so if someone has been asleep for the last
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14 months or just arrived from mars i would like to have you walk us through what you think they should
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understand about our current situation i guess this is narrowly focused on the russia investigation
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and what seems to be our kind of the most plausible picture of what has happened there and what is
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happening to uncover more of the facts and the president's behavior through this whole time with
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respect to the investigation can you just start a kind of a narrative as to what has been going on
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and what where we think we are now and where you think this is all going sure um so so i think if
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the alien were you know had a deep understanding of what american history had been like i think the
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alien would think to himself herself or its health things seem a little bit different you have a
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president of the united states uh who has a different background from anyone else who's been
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elected which is not necessarily a terrible thing a person the first time in maybe forever i can't
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remember if this is true but with no political experience no political experience no public service
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experience and no military experience of any kind which is a first which can be a good thing which
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can be you know precedents were made to be broken and the status quo is meant to be uh disrupted and
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that can be a tremendous thing it's important in technology it's important in science it can be
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important in government as well but you don't want to throw out the things that are good and the
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things that make you know the country strong and the institutions that got us to where we are
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so i think you know if you're looking at it from the outside you're thinking to yourself
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how did we get to a point where a president is trashing the press is calling one of the one of
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the great i think protectors of democracy and freedom even though they get it wrong sometimes
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the press is made up of human beings like any other institution is but calling the press the enemy
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of the state uh we've fallen a little bit far if that's you know the current state of affairs
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how you have a president who uh can't say a bad word about certain kinds of people including
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authoritarians like putin and duterte and erdogan while at the same time uh if anyone in the united
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states you know has a temerity to engage in some kind of protest that he doesn't agree with
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he slams them by name he punches down he bullies people uh he doesn't like how judges operate you
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know you you get the sense if you're observing from the outside that thank thank god the framers had
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certain structural protections in place and the places where the constitution has structural
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protection i think we're okay uh you know the president doesn't like a judge's ruling the most
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he can do at this point is holler about it yell about it vent about it tweet about it or do all of
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those things and the judge you know has in the federal system has life tenure and may not like it
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may not like you know being named publicly and it may be difficult to get the hate mail but can just
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continue to do his or her duty under the constitution and that's because the framers made that possible
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i think the same is true with with the institution of the press you can complain about it you can
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call it fake news you can denigrate it you can undermine it but at the end of the day that was
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tending some silly talk about wanting to revamp the libel laws and expressing concern about the first
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amendment the first amendment is pretty much here to stay as well where where i worry about the state
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affairs over the last 14 months is is the president where he has the ability not to you know follow
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tradition where there are no hard laws there are no constitutional provisions uh he can get away
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with a lot of things and we have come to expect uh presidents to behave a certain way uh to release
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their tax returns when they run for office so that there's transparency you have to divest their
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economic interests so there's no conflicts of interest you know not not to surround himself
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with people who are not even able to get a security clearance after 13 or 14 months to have you know
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unpaid around him his his daughter his son-in-law um you know there's a whole variety of things
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that are bad not because they are different necessarily from how prior presidents have done things
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but because they undermine i think people's faith in in democracy and undermine what i think makes us
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strong and when you talk about the particular the particulars of the russia investigation which i don't
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have any personal knowledge of you know it's being conducted by bob muller and a team of people
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who i know personally to some degree uh you know the idea that there has been meddling in the in the
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election by by the russians and the president doesn't seem to care doesn't seem to want to talk
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about it and more importantly doesn't seem to want to do anything about it in part because it maybe
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undermines in his mind the legitimacy of the last election is i think is an abomination and and it's and
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it's not good for the country and it it puts in question the president's slogan that he loves to
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utter which is very simplistic and could you know could resonate if it were true and backed up by action
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america first so you know that's sort of how i'm thinking about how things are going on you raise a few
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points here which on their face should be astounding to people or to anyone who's thinking about this
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through a unbiased lens partisanship aside it is astonishing to have a president who is attacking
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our bipartisan institutions from an apparently personally defensive and quite frankly often
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unhinged place i mean maybe nihilistic even too yeah so he's attacking the press as the enemy of
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the people he's attacking individuals on twitter private citizens he's singling out for abuse he's
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attacking the department of justice the fbi all of our intelligence agencies upon which he has to rely
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to get any information about what's actually going on in the world and as you say what he hasn't done
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is say a single negative word about dictators whose reputations precede them by now decades someone
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like putin i mean it's just there's no way to not criticize putin as an autocrat if you're actually
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speaking about what's happening in the world i mean he likes autocrats i think i think he was i think
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he wishes he could be one i mean the question of some relevance is you know we have we were talking
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about the constitution and and the checks and balances and the structure of you know the various
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branches of government which are bulwarks against this kind of thing but it's an interesting question
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to ask if donald trump had his druthers right and he doesn't but if he had his druthers and he did not
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have limitation is there something in his own mind body soul intellect moral compass that would prevent
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him from doing various things in other words if he had his druthers would he put journalists in jail
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who didn't like if he had his druthers would he completely revamp the libel law to make him able
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to sue anyone who criticized him if he had his druthers you know what kind of a police state would
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he think would be okay if he had his druthers how independent do you think he would allow the justice
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department to be he's you know restrained and curtailed in that respect in a lot of ways but i don't
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know if there has been a president and people point to nixon but i don't really know who if given you
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know unrestricted authority ability power uh would be capable of doing what i believe is in donald
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donald trump's heart and mind to do and and part of that is evidenced by as we've been discussing
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his apparent you know affection for not necessarily the people themselves although maybe he has personal
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affection for putin and others but but he seems to be enamored of what they are able to do
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and how strong they're able to be and how unchallenged and unchecked they can go about
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their business and i think he loves that and i think if he if there's any way possible he could
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be that way he would i think he i think he is unpatriotic in the sense that not only does he
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undermine the institutions he doesn't have respect for them and he wishes i don't hear people asking
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him this like you know in this way and i'm sure he would you know evade and deflect but but i don't
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think he has respect for the institutions that check the president because he doesn't want to
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be checked as you say it's even worse than that because he doesn't even care that the people he's
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praising in this case putin are adversaries of the united states we're dealing with a in the main a
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hostile foreign power that has targeted our democracy in ways that are now well established
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obviously this is believed to be a a mere conspiracy theory by many of trump's defenders
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but the fact that there seems to be no doubt that russia does this not just to the united states but
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to basically every democracy that it cares to pay attention to and it's just amazing that given all
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the evidence of their meddling and given the continuous problem of cyber attacks that emanate not just from
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russia but other countries like north korea and china the fact that he has shown no willingness to
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get to the bottom of this and to defend us against our obvious adversaries and is rather joining the
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people who are claiming this is all a conspiracy theory apart from the fact that it signals that he
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has something to hide it is just a nearly treasonous level of unconcern as president it's just i've never
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heard a defense of that look i think treasonous is a word that's only reserved for democrats who
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don't clap for him during the state of the union that's right yeah i realize it's a big word to even
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in this context to get a lawyer to sign off but i think like i think there are a couple of other
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things going on so i don't know if the reason that you know he's so um supine on these issues
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relating to russian meddling is because you know he has something to hide if uh you know as some
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people love to speculate that putin has you know a lovely file on him and he's behold and trump is
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beholden to putin but there's something else that's going on you know without having to resort to
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conspiracy theory we know something else about the president i'm not trying to play armchair psychology
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you know he's he has a lot of power and he's incredibly insecure and the combination of tremendous
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power which he sort of walked into accidentally combined with tremendous insecurity uh not only about
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sort of you know his wealth uh but about a lot of other things including the legitimacy of having
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won the you know of his election victory combines to create a dynamic in which anything relating to
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russia and anything relating to the future which is not a partisan issue he doesn't like to talk about
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he doesn't like to reflect on he doesn't like to lead on because it threatens to throw into the air
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again this question about what happened in 2016 and did he get elected on his own or did he have aid
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from this other country and i think his insecurity causes him to hate that so much that it blinds him
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to the other responsibilities that he has as a president of the entire country and someone who's
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supposed to be the guarantor of free and fair elections for both parties yeah although if it was just a matter of
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his insecurity and the perception of the legitimacy of the election and there was no collusion or no way
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in which he was beholden to russia you know for you know financial arrangements that predate his campaign
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by probably decades i don't know why he wouldn't just go on offense and say the things you would expect
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an innocent person who was outraged by russian meddling and putin's own history as an autocrat
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would say this is completely unacceptable that if there was any meddling you know obviously i don't
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think it it accounts for my my win in the election but it's it's completely unacceptable and we will get
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to the bottom of it and putin is somebody who has to straighten out he's not a democrat he kills
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journalists this is all well established and we have to deal with him but he doesn't appear to be any
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friend of the united states what would prevent him from saying those obviously sane things if he were
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just concerned about the public's perception i don't disagree with you i think i think a lot i
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think multiple things can be going on at once you know we we often say when we're investigating cases
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and this can be said of the of the white house and certain things that they were doing you know
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nefariousness and incompetence are not mutually exclusive so insecurity and bad and misconduct are
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not mutually exclusive either and in his case at least the way we're talking about it they both
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you know sort of suggest acting in the same direction right they're not in conflict with
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as far as he's concerned i think he likes the the autocratic power those folks have he may have
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something to hide because he's acting like it and he also doesn't like the way it makes him feel
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because he's insecure all all those three factors lead to the same kind of conduct and by the way you
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know it also doesn't necessarily explain you know his affection for and compliments of uh you know
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these other strong arm folks with whom we don't have the same antagonistic relationship with respect
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to the election like erdogan and like duterte i mean duterte in particular given the kind of work
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that i have done and used to do you know the way that duterte talks about fighting the war against drugs
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and the extrajudicial killings the extrajudicial killings that not only have happened but that duterte
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brags about um and claims that he is personally i think he's claimed he's personally killed people
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uh or thrown people from helicopters engaged in all sorts of violence as a populist hero trying
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to eradicate drugs from that country uh you know i don't think trump has specifically advocated any of
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those particular things but he speaks in general terms about the great job that duterte has done
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and you know i don't believe the philippines meddled in our election so there is this other thing going
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on this this this effect yeah for people who have that kind of power because maybe he aspires to it
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right and by the way the other thing we haven't talked about
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going back to our alien coming from mars that i think um imbues all of this with something terrible
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separate and apart from the attacks on institutions and you know something he may be hiding and
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everything else this is a person who does not believe in speaking the truth in any context
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and virtually at any moment and yeah and and that that that is something that that is more dangerous
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than a lot of other things you know casting not just dispersions on people who he disagrees with
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but casting doubt on all truth um and and literally without compunction tweeting out things that are
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demonstrably wrong and false on a regular basis and then you know and then you're you're you're treated
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to this vision of tens of millions of people not caring about that and agreeing with him regardless
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and manufacturing counter theories and and counter conspiracy theories uh that's in some people's
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minds i think the worst thing is that's going on because he has a lot of power and is using the
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bully pulpit in a particular way that no one has used it before but in favor of disbelief in anything
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you hear you know just because you saw it with your own eyes doesn't mean you have to believe it
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and people are starting to subscribe to that you know i had i have a podcast too it's not as um
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i've been around as long as yours and i had gary casper it's a great one thank you um but you know
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gary casper was on who's no you know friend of putin's and and he he said something interesting
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you know the idea behind being a certain kind of autocrat like putin and trump seems to emulate some of
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this is not to say that this that this other person is always wrong it's not to say that this
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other news outlet is always incorrect uh and and not to have every single outlet you know uh lionize
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you and say everything you do is is great it's to it's to cause people to not know what is true and
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what is not true it's to sow confusion about what the truth is so if somebody says you know this person
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was fired for this reason or somebody says uh you know this ruling is okay or not okay
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donald trump can cast enough doubt about it that people have to wonder are we getting the truth from
00:24:20.800
anywhere i mean he he flips on a regular there was a time when he said fox news was terrible
00:24:26.180
because they weren't saying good things about him and then he says fox news is great there are times
00:24:30.400
when he says you know the new york times is terrible the failing new york times then they say
00:24:34.140
something positive and then he calls them up and he sits for an interview and he says that they're
00:24:37.480
they're terrific he he cites sources that he hates when they support him or support a proposition that
00:24:43.000
he espouses and then he does the opposite and so it's it's kind of a confusing merry-go-round
00:24:48.240
of truth untruth that uh that upends people's understanding and i think confidence in in every
00:24:56.660
outlet yeah well that's where we are we're in this place where our epistemology has broken down
00:25:03.720
and everyone is now siloed in their echo chamber and you have people who are taking info wars as a
00:25:10.720
legitimate organ of the news apparently with a totally clear conscience right and and if even
00:25:17.360
if they would bracket that with some question as to the veracity of everything they get there
00:25:23.220
they certainly would compare it favorably with any legitimate organ of of the news whether it's the
00:25:30.160
new york times or the economist or the atlantic and so that already is a is a fairly terrifying
00:25:35.940
destabilization of our public conversation it's one that we should remind people has been
00:25:41.600
explicitly endorsed by the president i mean the president sat down with alex jones and praised him
00:25:47.220
as basically the you know the new uh walter cronkite that kills me the most i mean one of the things
00:25:52.240
it kills me the most in all this is that i don't know that there's more odious outlet figure than
00:25:58.860
alex jones who and every time there is a tragic massacre of of children like we just saw this week
00:26:05.600
when we're taping in florida you know one's mind sometimes goes to alex jones who put the families
00:26:11.120
of people who suffered loss and death and grief unbelievable and sandy hook that that you can have a
00:26:17.680
president of the united states say about that person you're terrific and you're great and sit down with
00:26:22.800
him for an interview and at the same time say that some other outlet like the new york times which you
00:26:28.540
know they make mistakes everyone makes i make mistakes i'm sure you don't make any mistakes but
00:26:32.340
we all make a few and and to basically to his constituency suggest not only that they that you can
00:26:39.120
equate alex jones's disgusting reporting and nonsense and made-up garbage with the new york times but that
00:26:47.100
one is the first is superior to the second in some ways and when people follow you know there's
00:26:52.720
some maybe this is a quaint thought but you know when people have power they have responsibility
00:26:57.620
to to something other than themselves other than to their own self-aggrandizement
00:27:02.620
and donald trump has a lot of power because there are a lot of disaffected people
00:27:06.820
who believe in him and and hated the status quo and it is what it is he has the ability to take
00:27:14.560
them to bad places and he doesn't need to do it i mean maybe he does need to do it to maintain
00:27:19.400
you know the the standing that he has in the in the 30s as far as approval ratings go um but it
00:27:25.680
seems that he takes it farther than other politicians even fairly odious politicians have
00:27:30.460
taken it what do you make of the fact that so few people seem to care if you'd like to continue
00:27:37.460
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