Sedition Special with Andrew Torrez and Allison Gill

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:00 Thomas: Record whenever. Yeah, just hit record. Yeah.

0:00:01 Andrew: Recording in two one, yeah.

0:00:03 Thomas: Okay. We are, we are recording audio simultaneously because of course we want to get this out on the podcast feed. Hello, everybody. How's it going? How are you doing, Andrew?

0:00:03 Andrew: I I, for the first time ever, I lack words. Um, it, it, there has never been, I think you said, historically, somebody said that, uh, you know, uh, the capital was stormed during the War of 1812. Um, and and being that I'm just under 208 years of age, I think I can safely say, uh, there has never been a day like this. Yeah.

0:00:35 Thomas: Yeah. That's a little pre-Ali McBeal. Yeah. Credit to Andrew for the background idea. Credit where credit's due. Yeah. He just saw that Mike Pence, this is real, Mike Pence not on his VP account, but on his his personal account that has 6.1 million followers or something. So he put that picture on his account. That's real. You can look it up right now.

0:00:40 Andrew: Um, Yeah. This is, yeah. And that was, I got that from our chat here, so yeah. It

0:00:59 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's incredible. So we really wanted to just spend some time with our audience today. Like I really, you know, this wasn't planned. But first off, you knows, we were both over the moon, over the news, and I was planning on recording a very happy, jubilant SIO. And, you now, I assumed we'd do do our thing tomorrow on our usual day. But seeing this stuff happen, I mean, this is just appalling, Andrew. I mean I truly – this is the kind of crap that Glenn Beck would cry crocodile tears over but actually really happening. I mean this is – it's sad. This is incredibly sad.

0:01:35 Andrew: It, as much as anything ever, right? Like, we've spent the last four years while, uh, Trump supporters have done the things that they envisioned that that that Barack Obama was supposed to do, right? You know, engaging in, you know, authoritarian, unitary executive actions to consolidate power in the executive branch and the idea. So what we have here today, I mean, let's let me talk about this right out of the gate, because I really want all of our listeners to know this. Okay. OK, what you are seeing is the combination of the extreme stupidity and the extreme conspiracy theory behavior and mindset of Trump supporters.

0:01:51 Thomas: Yeah.

0:02:31 Andrew: Right. They are.

0:02:32 Thomas: This is the bad guy in the disaster movie who thinks he can control the space alien for his own capitalist purposes or something, and then the alien turns around and kills it. Like, they think they could control it. All the Ted Cruz, Hawley, all these people, they think they can cynically just use this force of nature, this just completely out of their mind in conspiracy theory force. They think they Can use that and there won't be any consequences. Well, there, there are consequences to it. It catches up to you.

0:02:42 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, to respond to that, I mean, you and I have already talked about this, but like the the idea that Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz think they're gonna pick up the the the Donald Trump block in 2024 and become the presidential nominee is laughable. That's gonna be Donald Trump Jr. or Ivanka Trump, right? If you haven't learned that the only people Donald Trump cares about have the surname Trump or are married to people with the surname Trump, then you haven't been paying attention. Um, that it,

0:03:31 Thomas: If Trump's not in prison, he would have to run, you know, Trump Jr. Would have to Run against Trump. I don't think that'll happen. If Trump's not in Prison, he will try to make a run, but I, I don't think I don't Well, anyway, we're off topic, but I've said several times, I just feel like between now the Georgia stuff that we have to cover and the potential violations there, which we have to talk about, and the New York stuff, God, I mean, what are the odds that he is available to run in 2024?

0:03:36 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.

0:03:56 Andrew: Something, something like that. But yeah, let me go back to my original thought before I lose it. And that is these idiots, because they are all the QAnon, Alex Jones, David Icke, the lizard people, congregate in the basement at Comet Ping Pong, right? Because of that, they think that stopping, stopping temporarily delaying the ministerial opening of the electoral votes is going to keep Donald Trump in office. It will not. Already, uh, my TV's in the background and I'm, I'm, you know, looking around from time to time to make, to, to, to see what happens. Uh, DC has put a six o'clock curfew, uh, into, into, into effect, um, that crowd will be cleared out.

0:04:03 Thomas: Sure.

0:04:48 Andrew: And, and boy, Thomas, I imagine, imagine you and I both have some thoughts on, uh, the police, their response to, uh, the white active sedition today versus, uh, how the Capitol Police cleared out, uh, BLM protests six months ago.

0:05:01 Thomas: Yeah. Well, there is so much to talk About. First off, somebody is trying, people are trying to tell me that that's Pence and his wife or something.

0:05:07 Andrew: There's so much on that I could be. I mean, look, we, we saw it.

0:05:15 Thomas: Look at his head. That's not, that's not Pence. Really? Is it? Well, somebody try to verify that.

0:05:18 Andrew: Doesn't it, it it seems plausible to me. Yeah.

0:05:21 Thomas: Yeah, I guess it could be. But that's wow.

0:05:22 Andrew: Try and try and verify for us. We, you know, we, we saw it in our chat here and tried to run with it, um, yeah.

0:05:26 Thomas: Yeah. It was just for fun. Yeah that does not a lot rides on the whether or not Pence actually is doing something like that. But anyway, nothing rides on it.

0:05:30 Andrew: Right, not, not just not a lot. Nothing rides on that. Yeah.

0:05:37 Thomas: Yeah, I don't. And by the way, that's something that I wanted to say. There's so much, it's overwhelming. But one thing I want to say is we can't, this, like, with all this Trump stuff and this, this era, we can't forget about who, who enabled this. It's not, there's a lot, you see a lot of people now trying to, well, violence, oh, violence. Who, whoa, whoa. Okay. And, and they're trying to wash their hands of it. That's, that's not okay. Like, there, I'll tell you, there is one Republican who I accept that from, and that's Mitt Romney. Not that I'm the biggest Mitt Romney fan, but Mitt Romney did more than any other Republican who was in power to oppose the president. First Republican, first person ever to vote to convict a president of their own party.

0:06:26 Thomas: So that's the only Republican who can say this is not his fault. This is all their faults and it should not be forgotten.

0:06:33 Andrew: Yep. Yep, I could, could not agree more. Um, it, you know, I want to talk about some of the institutional stuff, right? So our reading into...

0:06:48 Thomas: McCain is dead, so no, I'm not talking about whether or not McCain can be held accountable for this. Anyway, sorry, I shouldn't respond to the chat in the middle of your thought. I apologize.

0:06:49 Andrew: Yeah, you know, no, no. That is totally fine. We're doing a live. But here's my thought on that. I want to talk about institutions. I wanna talk about today. I want you and I to talk about Mitch McConnell's speech. Right. And and how we weigh, you know, what is I mean, I texted you during McConnell's speech and I said, look, this is the embodiment of Yodel Mountain. It's ridiculous that it's happening now. Right, that it took until I

0:07:01 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you said that. OK, did you say that Georgia was that or what were you saying was that specifically?

0:07:31 Andrew: Was saying that in my mind, I was saying that that was Mitch McConnell speech. Speech, right? Mitch McConnell going to the floor of the Senate and saying, I value the rule of law more than I value what's in the Republican self-interest. Oh, and by the way, here's why it's not in our self-interest to continue to cater to this person, right, like, let's, we don't need to, you know, bend over backwards, pretending that Mitch McConnell isn't evil. He's plenty evil. But but but what we saw is that if you make it difficult to overturn norms, then that that helps that gives people enough roadblocks where you can get them to, you know, to stop and stand up and say, all right, that's that's a bridge too far even for me. Right. And we saw not just McConnell do that today, but but prominent arch conservative Republicans about whom we would never have a good word to say.

0:07:36 Thomas: OK,

0:08:31 Andrew: Right. Shelley Moore Capito in in West Virginia. Mike Lee in Utah, who's a garbage monster. Right. Like I Would, you know, I would proverbially, you know, I wouldn't cross the street to piss on Mike Lee if he were on fire, right? Like, he's terrible, um, and and these are people who are terrible but without either the ambition and or stupidity to think that they need to uh try and cater to the the the Trump block, um, and that's all it takes, right? Um, but uh, you know, we saw that it we at least had that, um,

0:08:38 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:09:08 Thomas: Yeah, well, mind you, no one gets any credit. Again, Mitt Romney, I give a tiny bit of credit. None of them get credit. Did you? I tweeted this. I wonder if you agree with it. If they could have overturned the election via this process, they would. Would. I think they would. This is very clearly a calculation by McConnell and probably Pence that since this isn't a real avenue for actually overturning the results, they get to pretend that they're all, I'm all about the constitution. I care about the will of the people. They don't care. They would do it if they could, but they can't. So they're going to pretend they're high minded. That's how I read it.

0:09:13 Andrew: Oh, yeah. I think that's right. And remember, part of Yodel Mountain that was baked into it was always a question of self-interest, right? Was at what point do Republican senators realize that they face a greater risk of losing in the general election? Uh, and I and I really thought that when you had a president openly committing crimes, um, that that that that would be the apex, and it turns out that it wasn't, um, because of the the, what I hope, again, what I can only hope is just the the uh unique phenomenon, terrifying phenomenon, uh, of of Donald Trump. I mean, that would be, the optimist would say, you know, once Trump is gone, efforts to, you know, to be Trump 2.0, are bound to fail. I think there was some precedent for that. But I don't know. I I that's

0:09:54 Thomas: Yeah.

0:10:03 Thomas: And you as an optimist prime thought that would be in about a a year, yeah.

0:10:51 Andrew: Just, that's optimist prime. That's wishful thinking. I want to share, there's so much I want share with you. I just got a text from a A friend of mine at the Department of Justice, this person will have to stay anonymous, who says many people are asking seriously how they could be deputized as assistant U.S. attorneys in D.C. so that they could prosecute these criminals.

0:10:57 Thomas: Yeah. Wow.

0:11:18 Andrew: If you're in DOJ, and I said, can you do that? And this person said, well, you know, if you're into DOJ you could theoretically become a special AUSA. USA. But look, then this person said, realistically, there are enough people on the ground in D.C. dying to take on these cases that they're not going to need to deputize outsiders. But I thought, you know, as we're talking about institutions, I've said this a lot, those are people inside the DOJ saying, yeah, wind me up and point me in that direction, because I'd love to prosecute, you know, terrorist number 2374 in line here, right?

0:11:26 Thomas: Yeah.

0:11:57 Thomas: So Yeah. Let's talk about let's talk about the law here, um, for there's so much, uh, what What is your read? And I've seen you retweet some of the stuff, so I assume you're you're aware of it, but there there seems to be video suggesting that police opened up the barricades. I mean, to what extent there's also the uh stuff floating around about but DOD and the fact that, like, Trump didn't allow or somebody didn't allow the National Guard to come in soon enough. What's your read on all that?

0:12:02 Andrew: Yeah. Yep.

0:12:28 Andrew: So a couple of things. The first is I saw the same notice that you did that the Department of Defense failed to authorize or refused authorization for the D.C. National Guard to be brought in to quell the insurrection, Which is, you know, the purpose of having a National Guard in the District of Columbia. And a lot of people speculating that, look, you know, we saw Trump dismiss out top folks over at the Department of Defense over the past couple of weeks.

0:13:02 Andrew: I don't want to say that that's implausible, because nothing with this president is implausable.

0:13:06 Thomas: Well, it struck me as thinking a little too far ahead for Trump. But, well,

0:13:09 Andrew: Yeah, yeah, I think I think that's right. And, and, and I would add that we then saw conflicting reports that the entire D.C. National Guard has now been called up, right? And that seems to be that has been corroborated by the AP. So, yeah, it

0:13:24 Thomas: And talk about the fact, the unique situation of D.C. and why this matters. I mean, it's not a state, so it's in a weird situation, right?

0:13:31 Andrew: Is, and let me say it like this because I saw the question came up in the chat. Due to the Home Rule Act of of 1968, right? The District of Columbia is not a state. It is a semi-autonomous city under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Its budget is set via line item in the omnibus budget act that just passed. And so it has some local autonomy, but that's why it was called home rule, uh but not it's not a state and what that means however bizarrely is that state law crimes that are committed within the jurisdiction of the of the District of Columbia are federal crimes for purposes of pardoning. In other words, the mayor, ordinarily in a municipality, right, either the mayor or the governor of that state would have the ability to pardon state law crime crimes.

0:14:27 Andrew: The Home Rule Act of 1968 explicitly says that the president of the United States has the exclusive power to pardon criminal offenses committed in the boundaries, the jurisdictional boundaries of the District of Columbia. So, yes, that means Donald Trump could issue a blanket pardon for everyone that would follow sort of the Jimmy Carter draft dodger pardon, right, uh, that says anybody who was in the District of Columbia on January 6, 2021 has a full and complete pardon for any and all criminal offenses committed, you know, within three blocks of uh the Capitol building, right? Um, he could do that, that is within his power. And if you ask, what if it's treason? I would point you to Federalist number 74, um, in in when

0:14:47 Thomas: For everyone. Jesus.

0:15:18 Andrew: You just type it into Google, it it kind of, it, what it says is, so so it's, this was uh Alexander Hamilton uh responding to questions about how to limit the presidential pardon power and um it says uh he he then argues against saying the president shouldn't have the ability to pardon people for treason and then proceeds to make the argument that, yes, he should. And so I point that out not because Hamilton was the end-all and be-all of font of wisdom or whatever, but because when you ask, as a matter of historical understanding of the pardon power, it is 100% clear, it is clear as Kushner that the president has the ability to pardon those who commit treason.

0:15:18 Thomas: That says anything the fuck goes? Is that what it says, Andrew? Andrew?

0:16:15 Andrew: Why a president would do that unless they were themselves treasonous, you know, I don't know. But yes, nobody could make an argument that, oh,

0:16:28 Thomas: God, I didn't even think about the fact that Trump could pardon all that. I mean, what what do we do? I do not want to hear a word about not prosecuting this fucking piece of shit. Prosecute him at every possible angle. What do you make of any of the do you think that the Republicans will agree to do any sort of impeachment, 25th Amendment, anything right I mean, things are getting pretty now. It definitely, you know, affects our perception. The fact that that Twitter thing about Mike Pence is a hoax. And, you Know, our apologies for that. Well, it seems to be the consensus here. That was just a bit of fun, but it did kind of make me think differently about Mike pence. I did. It sounds like he's, you know, not going that far. But do you recommend the Democrats just impeach him again right now? I mean assuming they can get back in the building.

0:17:02 Andrew: Is it, have we, a hundred percent, right? And there are several reasons to do that. Let's leave the practical reasons behind, because there may be practical reasons. But assume that it breaks down exactly the same as the Ukrainian impeachment. Impeachment, right? I would want to impeach him for the same reason I wanted to impeatch over the Ukrainian misconduct, right, over the crimes committed in extorting a friendly foreign power at the mercy of being occupied by a hostile foreign power, conditioned to that ally generating fake news to the benefit of the president and the detriment of his political opponent. We should stamp that in the history books. And by God, we should stamp this in the history books and I don't care that, you know, you've only got two

0:17:24 Thomas: Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. And

0:18:16 Andrew: Weeks.

0:18:16 Thomas: It doesn't cost anything. What does it cost? I mean, I this applied to me, you know, or I think this was my opinion even before all this. I think it doesn't cost anything to impeach him for the Georgia phone call. The only thing would be like, OK, you need to be working on checks or whatever. But like it takes five seconds. You know, it doesn't take a lot of time. It doesn't cost anything to impeach him for this terrible Georgia phone call that we're to talk about. And now that that equally applies. This is outrageous. And I don't care if, you know, with all the elections are over for now, for the for the until whatever the next special election will be like where there's no other downside. Side, just fucking do it. Impeach him and see, again, make Republicans go on the record again about this. There's huge benefit to that, I think.

0:18:17 Andrew: Correct. It did nothing.

0:19:04 Andrew: Yeah, I, I agree. And that, and that gets into sort of the, the practical calculations, which is I bet that, for example, you would probably have more than one Republican defect this time around, right? I do not Feel confident that they would be able to orchestrate the same idiotic procedural maneuver and say, "Oh, well, yeah, we're not going to hear witnesses. We're just going to move straight to a vote on this issue." Right. I think you have the potential, you know, that if if if you have just and let me make the argument to you, if you have just made the cynical argument regarding Mitch McConnell, right? If you've said, which I think is correct, you Mitch McConnell is not the Grinch, his heart did not grow three sizes today, he's he's still he's to the grunge from page one sticking

0:19:27 Thomas: I would hope.

0:20:08 Thomas: Yeah.

0:20:09 Andrew: The antler on Max, right, like he's horrible and terrible and awful and so if the only thing that explains his actions are political expediency of which way the wind is blowing, that suggests really powerful wind, right, that suggests that you might be able to to get a Mitch McConnell, you know, on record as voting for the inquiry into the impeachment of Donald Trump, or perhaps voting to convict Donald Trump. I don't know. But I think if you think that that that solidarity would outweigh, I think we have a really, really strong bit of evidence from today, before the violence happened, that that no, it doesn't. Yeah.

0:20:23 Thomas: Yeah, God, I'm overwhelmed by this. I mean, the thought that our elected representatives now, obviously, I do not care about some of our elected members of Congress and I'm not a huge fan, but still, um, the idea that they're in danger and in fear for their own lives today is truly should make you sad as an American. I mean, that is that is just it, it's it's it's so depressing, it's it's hard to not get emotional about like this, if you gave a shit about this country ever, and we know that these people did not and never have, um, this should truly sadden you, what's happening. I I just can't believe it. I mean, you said at the top of the show, I was going to ask you, like, has this ever happened? Have they ever had to evacuate the Capitol? Somebody said that the only time they've had to do that, or the last time they're had to, this is in the War of 1812.

0:21:05 Andrew: Yeah.

0:21:43 Thomas: Like, this is not normal. I don't know. Not normal.

0:21:44 Andrew: It It let And and uh and I say this also to to um to help contextualize as we're all getting various media reports right now and are trying to sift through everything, um, the last time I had access to uh information, I've told this story on a Q&A before, was on 9/11, right? And there was not a formal evacuation of the Capitol in that Congress was not presently like in a joint session, right, so, but members of Congress were contacted on private back channels and sent to safe houses, and a very good friend of mine, one still still my best friends today, was his uncle was a member of Congress.

And so we were getting, and he was then passing along, you know, I don't know if it violates some national security protocols, it probably does, but we were giving regular updates as the rest of us were walking down Pennsylvania Avenue, which is where my Covington offices were, to Wisconsin Avenue to then walk up Wisconsin Avenue outside of the District of Columbia, where we then got met by my wife, who was there with a minivan to, you know, take us all into the suburbs.

0:22:26 Thomas: Yeah.

0:23:11 Andrew: And the reason we walked those five miles is because there was a rumor that there was a sarin gas attack in the metro, right, in the D.C. subway. The roads were shut down, obviously, on 9-11. There was, yep, yep.

0:23:27 Thomas: Yeah, well, if we're talking about 9-11, yes, okay. But there are pictures and I'm not going to share them because they're Getty Images and you just told me that they're... People are looting the fucking building. There's an asshole, a Trump asshole carrying away the podium. I'm not talking about like, oh, there's a threat and it was evacuated. Yeah, okay, that maybe has happened before. There are intruders.

0:23:39 Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. The storming, yeah?

0:23:52 Thomas: Yeah, they are taking things. This is a joke.

0:23:55 Andrew: Yeah, it is. And there, I want to read, I shared this out on Twitter, Twitter, and this is the conversation I want to throw back to you. But it is very obvious to me, if you've ever been to the Capitol, there are choke points to enter the building, right? And those choke points occur, right, where the metal detectors are located, where The Ramps are located. It is incredibly easy to prevent thousands of people from getting into the Capitol with like like five guys, right? And particularly if you had five guys in body armor with tear gas and a judicious trigger finger. And you and I both posted separately about comparing how these protesters were treated, violent protesters, versus the nonviolent BLM protesters protesters that were just brutalized six months ago by the very same Capitol Police. And this is TJ Usian on Twitter.

0:23:56 Thomas: God. Yeah.

0:25:07 Andrew: And I just thought this was put so well that I was an African-American. And they write, just to be completely clear, today, pointed questions like "Where is the tear gas?" Or "Why don't we see more choke slams?" Are not demands for police brutality. They are rhetorical questions meant to highlight the fact that the police do know how to avoid police brutality, um, and and you know I

0:25:26 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, that resonated, especially with the video. We were talking about a lot of different things, and there's video of them potentially being let in. There's also video of then starting to get in, and a cop keeps backing away. Way, like one of the Capitol police, I think is like, stay there back away. And like, you know, they, they, don't listen to him. And it's amazing to me, all the, all of dialogue, all, I know it's a separate topic, but all the worrying by people on a certain side about how well, could being cop is a dangerous job and they might think anyone has a gun. And so it's okay that this guy just got off, by the way, for shooting someone in the back seven times, just happened. What, yesterday? Can't even remember. Um, apparently you don't have to be that worried. Like, apparently that isn't the only way to do it. And I agree with the sentiment of that tweet. I'm not, I'm not entirely certain

0:25:30 Andrew: Yeah yeah yeah and

0:26:12 Thomas: Of what level of force should be, should have been used here. I think you can make an argument that maybe this did warrant a certain level of course, but it certainly does make the point that that, that doesn't seem to be inevitable. It does seem that all of sudden, certain situations, police know how to, to not just shoot randomly, like just right away at a hair trigger. Hmm.

0:26:33 Andrew: And, and look, I have no military or police training, everything I'm about to say is something that I have read, but but it makes sense. And again, so I'm open to be corrected, you know, we we own up to our mistakes on the show, hence the wood paneling background that's now in the in the background on the screen. Um, the way in which I have been told that tear gas is supposed to operate is you tear gas the area that the group, uh, the insurrectionist terrorists, whatever, whatever you want to call them, is about to occupy, right. And then that puts up a big cloud, and then they turn and run the other way, right?

0:27:13 Andrew: That's the appropriate use of tear gas. And this, right, as you, you see them, nobody was running. I mean, you know, the average BMI here was, you know, over 50. So nobody was doing any running in this group. They were, you know, sauntering towards the Capitol. And as you see that happening, you back up and you use a canister of tear gas to prevent them from occupying that small space. That's what I meant by, there are a number of choke points, right? And part, part of what the bottlenecks, I suppose, we're talking about police brutality, I suppose I should be clear, bottlenecks. And that was part of what made the use of tear gas so horrifying back in July, was it was being thrown into the middle of crowds where that does not disperse crowds, that just hurts people, right? That is just an implement of torture. So again, I am by no means an expert on how to disperse crowds. Uh, I I

0:27:09 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah no the point is, again, I'm not saying how it should or shouldn't be done. Actually, this is, this is a good, this is an interesting, uh, quote here, I'll put it on the screen. Yeah, the ones that shoot don't fear for the lives, the man backing up did. That's interesting, I mean, kind of, yeah. Like, I, I'm not saying he necessarily should have shot, by the way, he was alone for a minute and then he backs up the stairs until there's, he's with other people and they still don't do anything, other officers, but I'm not saying how they should act, I'm just saying, dang, it seems as though this shows that there are cops who know how to act a certain way and they aren't inevitably just going to shoot anyone who looks like they could be armed because we know these people are armed. Should we bring in our good friend AG here who

0:28:14 Andrew: Yeah yeah yeah yeah that'll

0:28:51 Thomas: Is kind enough to stop by? Okay, there is so much to talk about. Let's bring AG on. How's this going to look? There we go. That works. Hey, AG, how are doing?

0:28:52 Andrew: Be great hey

0:29:00 Allison: Uh, interesting day today.

0:29:03 Thomas: Yeah. All right. Well, that was nice talking to you. That's all you have to... No, I'm just kidding.

0:29:11 Allison: Um, I, I've been, uh, kind of in the backstage area, the staging area, the green room, the virtual green room, listening to what you, what you all are saying, and I, I couldn't agree more. I don't think that the answer is to shoot these protesters, protesters, I think the answer is to not shoot the other ones.

0:29:26 Thomas: Yeah.

0:29:27 Andrew: And yet here we are. And, you know, you're talking about these, these pictures and these videos that I'm seeing of the police just sort of letting people in. And and there needs to be a full investigation of the Police response to this insurrection today. Here, here, here. Heather Loveridge notes in the comments that the insurrectionists were respecting, protecting the velvet ropes. Right. Like, that's true. We've seen the video of that. Yes. At one point, you know, they step over them like they're cutting in the line at Disneyland. But like, you know, this is not an organized rush of, you know, thousands of folks that you can't handle. This could have been handled and we need answers. Yeah, I agree 100%.

0:30:13 Thomas: You know, I wanted to follow up. I was asking Andrew some legal questions and I'm sure, A.G., you might have one or two. But but who can be held accountable for what in terms of the politicians, Andrew? Is it nobody? Is there any chance of like, you know, inciting violence? Is THERE ANY CHANCE OF TRUMP BEING ABLE TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE AND FORGET ABOUT PARDON EVERYTHING? I MEAN, JUST, YOU KNOW, AT LEAST INITIALLY BEFORE BEING PARDoned AND LET OFF FREE.

0:30:13 Andrew: Yeah.

0:30:37 Andrew: Specifically, the video of Rudy Giuliani with the crowd, this crowd, before they all marched on the Capitol saying, we need a trial by combat. And I don't know why he is not in handcuffs right now for inciting that. Yeah, he said that. And he was hitting the podium and the crowd was going wild. And how is that not? It is criminal behavior. I don't have the statutes in front of me. But the classic set of cases, right, the absolute apex of free speech with the late 60s, early 70s war in court and cases like Brandenburg versus Ohio, Ohio, which narrowly confined the idea of criminalizable conduct of inciting to riot versus protected free speech.

0:31:32 Andrew: And the standard is imminent lawless action, right? And this very clearly seems to meet that standard. You're there with these guys, you rile them up, and then 10 minutes later they are breaking windows, you know, stealing the Declaration of Independence, uh, posing in the chair in the well of the Senate, um, I mean, just, you know, it

0:32:00 Thomas: You're stealing the Declaration of Independence joke isn't even that much of a joke, it's not, it's like barely an exaggeration

0:32:01 Andrew: No right no although these dummies probably don't realize it's across the street at the National Archive. But yeah you know, we have somebody in Nancy Pelosi's office with his feet up on the desk, leaving a note of saying "we will not back down" on a manila folder. I don't understand why there aren't hundreds and hundreds of arrests today. Uh, I, I'm not, I I, it needs to be investigated. I just don't understand how this was allowed to happen. And I really don't get how the DC police didn't see it coming. Uh, it, let me, so let me take both of those, uh, AG. I don't know if you, uh, were hearing time to one of my contacts at the DOJ sort of back channeled me and said, the energy is off the charts at DOJ for prosecuting each and every person involved in this. So if you're asking about our institutions from the inside, career prosecutors want to be pointed in this direction and sort of given every, given all the ammunition to do so.

0:32:10 Thomas: Yeah I

0:33:06 Allison: So, yeah. Yeah. And I think Biden's deliberate language of calling it an insurrection, bordering on sedition, opens the door and gives the green light to that, although he's not going to be getting involved. He's going to remain independent from Department of Justice. But I just got a report and I can't confirm this. I just want to say I can't confirm this, but that apparently Chris Miller at the Pentagon has confirmed that it was Vice President Pence that

0:33:29 Thomas: Was gonna ask about that too I

0:33:31 Allison: Asked to activate the National Guard, not Trump. Trump? Has anyone heard anything? You've heard about that, Thomas?

0:33:37 Thomas: Have, yeah, I saw your tweet and I think Andrew, I want to say Andrew's seen that as well, because I think he retweeted, I'm not sure, but anyway, yeah, what, what could possibly, how could that even happen? I don't understand it, he's either the, vice, you know, know, either the president or not. Like, is he still the president then? Or is Trump?

0:33:53 Andrew: I will say this. The vice president does not have the authority to authorize calling up the National Guard. But I mean, would it surprise you to learn that Donald Trump has barricaded himself in a toilet somewhere and is just sitting there tweeting and not answering questions and not, who does have the authority to activate the National Guard in D.C.? The president. Only the president? As far as I know, only the president. Which kind of makes you wonder, if this is a confirmed story, if Pence wasn't invoking some sort of 25th, or some kind of, hey, in the absence of any real president, I'm here to tell you, you should do this.

Can the Pentagon activate National Guard on their own? So I don't know the answer to that, right. Uh, in other words, uh, you know, could, uh, the the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issue an order? Um, that that strikes me as plausible. Um, and because that would be then subject to it, still be in the chain of command to the commander-in-chief. Um, but ultimately, right, like the, the military answers to, uh, the, uh, the president. We've got, we've got Thomas put up a statement here, so, um,

0:34:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:35:12 Thomas: Well, I put up a comment

0:35:13 Andrew: Yeah

0:35:13 Thomas: From the chat who said that the DOD statement says they consulted with basically everyone but Trump. I, you know, again, this is, I hate that we have to do the cable news thing of like, it's not normally, the whole reason we do our podcast is to not do the like, "oh, this isn't confirmed." But yeah, I mean, this Is a kind of an emergency stream. So, yes, the second of course yeah

0:35:34 Allison: And that's why I want to make sure I, you know, I've

0:35:30 Andrew: Yeah yeah Put those caveats out there, but yeah, yeah, I'm just wondering the, the, the legality, or, the you know, if it's, if it's national emergency, which this is, uh, can this the president somehow be circumvented? Um, and you know, like you said, Andrew, if joint chiefs or if, uh, sec def says it's okay and they've consulted with everybody but Trump, is it, I'd love to see that statement from the Department of Defense. I, I believe me, we're going to be looking that up, uh, as soon as the, the live stream is over. Um, the, here's, here's the answer. The answer, you cited the 25th Amendment earlier, which, which specifies president, it's the presidential succession amendment.

0:36:23 Andrew: Usually if a president is under anesthesia getting an operation or, you know. And so there are two, broadly speaking, two camps about what the 25th Amendment did. In one camp is the idea that the 25th Amendment, again, remember, when you're amending the text of the Constitution, there was no higher authority than that document, right? Right. Like we don't have a super constitution to ask if constitutional amendments are super constitutional. Right. Like it, once you change the words, that that's, that's the law. That's the highest principle, the highest document of the land. Right. So one group believes that the 25th Amendment was designed to clarify and provide procedures that sit on top of sort of the inchoate rights of the vice president to assume the duties of the president when the president is not, is incapacitated.

0:37:17 Andrew: And that group would then say, so you don't need to formally invoke the notice procedures of the 25th Amendment in an example of where, and they would give an example of like, you know, there's an army storming through the Oval Office and you see the president get beheaded and, you turn around and you're now the vice president And you know, you don't get somebody doesn't have to send a sternly worded letter before you get to act as commander in chief. Right. The founding fathers and common sense would want you to be able to act in an emergency situation. Exactly right. I think that's probably the better view. The other view is that the 25th Amendment supersedes and occupies, you know occupies the field with respect to emergency powers.

0:38:08 Andrew: And so if you are not delegated emergency powers, you don't have them. And that controversy sort of came to a head in 1983, two, one, I don't know, early 1980s, after Ronald Reagan was shot. And there was, there was like three days in which Al Haig announced that he was in charge on the basis of no authority whatsoever, so ever. So, so these are, these are live and unsettled questions. But, you know, again, well, I do think the 25th Amendment is not enough here, even if they went with it. I think impeachment is the answer. We need to make sure he can't run again. And I don't think the 25th Amendment makes that guarantee.

0:38:57 Andrew: It definitely does not. So amplify that. I was going to say the same thing, but um, amplify from, from your perspective, on the, uh, the remedies under impeachment, what do you mean? Um, oh, why, why, yeah, yeah, well, you impeach a president, now we, we've impeached him already once, but he wasn't convicted, and it isn't until upon conviction that you can vote again to make sure that that person cannot run for office again. And uh, if I'm hoping, and again, we talked about this earlier, Andrew, internal optimism that the Republicans withdraw their objections to the Electoral College, but that there could be a meeting between Pelosi and the leader, former leader McConnell, he's currently still the leader, the majority leader, that, hey, if we impeach him, will you remove him? And can we make it so he can't run again? I have to believe that that conversation has at least taken place. I, I, I think that's right. I, I want to, somebody mentioned in the chat that that Trump's latest tweet was bonkers, um,

0:39:45 Thomas: Yeah.

0:40:07 Thomas: It's I can read it if you want it.

0:40:07 Andrew: Yeah. Go ahead.

0:40:09 Thomas: Just, Says, These, These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love and in peace. Remember this day forever. I will, I'll never, I will never get it over the fact that they're doing a civil war for this fucking guy, like they're gonna do a civil war for the Celebrity Apprentice guy. It's Of course.

0:40:10 Andrew: Read. It. Yeah, what? Is it, what?

0:40:29 Andrew: Well.

0:40:38 Allison: They'll try. They'll lose miserably. I mean, this has been oh, this has always been my this has almost been my argument, uh, for gun reform. It's like, you, what do you think you and your AR-15 are going to overthrow the fucking, excuse me, the government? You aren't going to be able to do that. They have the National Guard. They have, you know, what do you think? You know, maybe you'll be able to sit in Nancy Pelosi's chair for a minute like a jackass, or maybe you will be able to walk out with a podium. But why do you think that you would be able to overthrow, actually complete a coup or an insurrection, direction? This is an attempted one and it will fail, it is failing. I think things are

0:40:41 Thomas: Yeah. A certain amount of them no, That's fine. This is a explicit uh, broadcast, they've they've

0:41:22 Allison: A little more

0:41:22 Thomas: Cleared yeah they've locked down, I'm seeing that they've actually cleared out the Capital or whatever and it's, uh, the Capital secure after pro-Trump mob breached. Yeah, so that's good. Do you think they uh will try to resume

0:41:27 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. That took by the way, just, just for comparison, that took 12 minutes. That the curfew went into effect at 6 p.m., it took 12 minute

0:41:37 Thomas: What took 12 minutes, oh, okay they weren't working to clear it before, I mean they would have been trying to secure it the whole time, I think, but do

0:41:45 Andrew: To clear yeah I'm sure it was the the curfew that did it, right, that's, I, it, I mean you saw people like walk away as the Capitol police came up and we're like, okay, you know, it's, a it's after your bedtime, uh, we're gonna start arresting people, um, and they weren't arrested before, why, you, I, yeah.

0:42:02 Thomas: You Think, uh, so I was gonna ask though, do you think, um, they will, the Senate will try to finish up tonight or will they put it off? I think that, okay, yeah.

0:42:11 Allison: They will they will, at least there's a bunch of senators tweeting we'll get this done and it has to be done today. Uh, anyway, so I'm, a I'm like I said, I, and I think Andrew and I talked about this earlier, uh, they've got to withdraw these dumb objections, they have to just stop and just certify the effing vote. And then, I mean they're, they're in there huddled under desks, putting on gas masks, there you go, Matt Gaetz, you can finally use your gas mask because they're tear gas being deployed in the rotunda of the Capitol building and it's, it's, um, it's still sinking in, you know, I'm a veteran and I am, am watching our house be tried, excuse me, attempted to, to, to a coup to take over the Capitol building. These are domestic enemies. These are the ones that I swore an oath to protect the United States.

0:43:08 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:09 Allison: And I can't imagine that the senators, especially after watching McConnell's little alligator crocodile tears speech on the, on the Senate floor, saying this is dumb. It was, you know, he won, Biden clearly won, we have to stop this, this is stupid. And he knows that because he's, basically, if he lets this go on, the Republicans are just going to argue with themselves, divide themselves, and then sit and trash the Electoral College, which is the only thing that exists that is, helps them stay in power. And so McConnell's like, please don't get mad at the Ele doctoral College because you'll never win again. He did basically say that, um, I hope

0:43:09 Thomas: So,

0:43:55 Andrew: You don't, I, I want to, I want to amplify, um, what you just said, uh, AG, uh, that, because again, I'm, I've spent four years sort of swatting away insane conspiracy legal theories, and so I've, I've started to like understand the mindset, you know, the kind of national treasure. Like, oh, well, see, if they don't say the right number by the stroke of midnight on January 6th, then that means Trump is president forever. Doesn't mean that. The operative law, you can look it up, it's 3 USC 15. You type it into Twitter. It is a long run-on paragraph. It really kind of hard to read if you not a lawyer. But it directs that this count begin on January 6th.

0:44:43 Andrew: And then it describes the procedures for how to deal with objections to a slate of electors. And boy, we haven't even talked about how everything today is inappropriate, right? Right. Like there aren't multiple slates of electors. And so therefore, I think and I was really hoping that there would just be a rule from Mike Pence as the chair that says your objection is valid, but there's no competing slate to compare. So there's no work for the Senate or House to do. He could have done that. He did not. So you might now. Well, you know, let's see. But then it says, when the two houses have voted, they shall immediately again meet and the presiding officer shall then announce the decision of the questions submitted.

0:45:29 Andrew: No votes or papers from any other states shall be acted upon until the objections previously made to the votes or papers from any states shall have been finally disposed of. So, in other words, there is no requirement that this all take place on January 6th, that they go late into the night tonight, or even if they adjourn and meet again tomorrow to resume. If they had 10 senators and 10 congressmen to object to 10 states, it would be 40 hours of debate and process. And so that would put you into the next day.

And then also, when you have something that happens like, oh, I don't know, an insurrection at the Capitol building, they can probably do a little quick vote and make a Senate rule that says we'll adjourn and be allowed to finish this another time. But I think they'll finish it tonight. And like I said, I'm really hoping they stop with these dumb objections, although it wouldn't be the worst thing for me in my life to sit around and eat popcorn while the GOP eats itself and and and trashes the Electoral College and makes our own arguments for us to abolish it. Like, cool, man, bro. Hey, have at at it, you know. Knock yourselves out, literally.

0:46:45 Andrew: Well, Oh, No, no, you go ahead, Thomas.

0:46:45 Thomas: I'm Oh, God, yeah, no. I was going to change topics, so if you want to figure that out, or if you want to finish that up, go ahead. Yeah.

0:46:48 Andrew: Yeah. No, We're, I I think we're, get the the bottom line there is there is no kind of, you know, it's only sovereign citizen logic that thinks that this this has done anything other than uh gotten a woman killed, right? Because as far as I can tell, I saw the the and again Yeah, we're doing the cable news thing, but uh looks like she's she's died. Yeah.

0:47:10 Thomas: She's dead. Everybody's reporting that Yeah, that

0:47:16 Andrew: So Um, so congratulations, uh, you know, the the yeah, the the your death toll now exceeds Antifa's. Um, good, good work. Um, and uh, uh the official, of which I am general counsel for Antifa Inc, as we know. Um, Oh, is that a tweet that you just read a minute ago about, go home and remember this day, Twitter has labeled it as a risk of violence. So

0:47:16 Thomas: Seems pretty solid. Josh, Oh, Yeah, of course, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Heroes.

0:47:48 Andrew: You can't reply it or like it, but they're keeping it up. Well,

0:47:53 Thomas: Fucking heroes is Twitter. Um, So, what I I, I, uh, I think this was before he came on, AG, but we had talked a little bit about the fact that Trump could just pardon everybody involved in this right now, and I hadn't even considered considered that level of evil. But I wonder if he even has the wherewithal or cares enough to do that. But I'm wondering, when it comes to the politicians, or Trump himself, is there a way, because I've this last four years has required us to always be thinking about how can you get him, uh, you know, there's always, oh, state crime, can't pardon that. Um, is therea timing thing we can do? Like, if, if we don't, you know, if the investigation doesn't take place or whatever until after he's out, I mean, is there any way to to be able to get him for anything like this, for starting a fucking insurrection, or.

0:48:38 Allison: That's another reason I want to impeach him is so that he can't pardon himself.

0:48:41 Thomas: Yeah.

0:48:43 Andrew: And then we won't, I mean, I think that that pardon should be challenged anyway, but then you don't even have to ask the Department of Justice to challenge that pardon by prosecuting him with this crime. And nobody will cite my arguments in court as to why it's valid. So I feel so dirty about that, but I gotta call him like I see him. But yeah, I wonder today, I mean, part of why we thought the Pence background tweet was plausible is they had to evacuate the vice president to a safe house today day because Trump supporters were ready to tear him limb from limb for not overthrowing the country. Yeah, and uh, I get it, and again, I believe, me, even if Pence were just, were to stand, well, what what I mean is I'm preemptively saying that, you know, Mike Pence has has been the enabler in chief for four years, right? He he he deserves, even if he stands up to Trump here in the 11th hour, um, you know, that he's not off the hook. Yeah, he's not off-the-hook, that's a great way of putting it.

Um, but whereas I thought a deal from Trump to Pence, like, like the Nixon Ford deal, right, hey, I'll resign but you pardon me for everything, uh, I would feel like Pence would have honored that a hundred percent uh a week ago. And yeah, I'm wondering if the odds on that didn't drop precipitously. His life was in danger. They were going after him and Pelosi and anybody who was going to go forward.

0:50:19 Andrew: And basically anybody who wasn't objecting to the Electoral College results, by the way, objecting with no, for no good reason, not not in the spirit of the law that was written that allows them to object. So it's he he endangered Pence. And I bet you mother is pissed. Mother was mad when, when he, you know, remember we we had reported that once Pence and Trump won, that mother was like, well, I hope you're happy because she hates Trump, she hates him. Um, I hope you got what you wanted, like she's mad, you know, that's probably why he calls her mother.

But uh, I I imagine that she's got Pence's ear right now saying you need to do something about this. And and and now there is, because of Mitch McConnell's speech today on the floor, there is now a division in the Republican Party of people who accept this election and people who are Trump supporters, or you know, old school Republicans, and Trump, Trumplicans, and that division in the party, and Mitch knows it, is is going to make it so that they can't win any elections anytime soon. Well, I hope, I hope you're right that you, out, optimist, optimists here, so uh, well, every single Republican, uh, election is going, gonna have a Trump primary and a and a

0:51:45 Andrew: Regular Republican guy or lady, or whatever.

0:51:45 Thomas: Yeah, I am just I mean, it's part of the good news shows that we were all planning on doing, I'm sure, tomorrow or whatever. But I am so glad that we've won in Georgia. I think that that really for so many reasons, for so many reasons, but I also think that it could be just that little nudge that Republicans need to not to try to take back their party from Trump for the next four years.

I mean, I don't know that they would have had much incentive had it gone the other way. I think they would've thought they can still just win elections on this bullshit, but I don't know. That's what I keep thinking at the 30,000 foot level of like, conceptually, what's gone on here is through Fox News and all those shitty sources and stoked by people who knew better, and some people didn't, they have unleashed just a wave, believe the actual Kraken, of just people who are not responsive to the world. People are not responsive tothe facts of the planet that we live on. And they thought they could control it and they thoughtthey could use it. And I think that that's that's further and further showing that they can't. They've lost control of it when they're when theyre yelling at Mitt Romney, when they re yelling at Pence, when they are yelling at Bill Barr. My God, when when they Bill Barr has lost them. I mean, somebody who did more in service to Trump than almost anybody.

0:52:34 Andrew: If

0:53:04 Thomas: I mean.

0:53:03 Andrew: They aren't smart enough to to make that connection.

0:53:06 Thomas: No, no. But that's just the point. I mean, maybe what will it take for the cynical actors at Fox News, who I think bears more responsibility for this than maybe any of these politicians. But I mean, they also back each other up and stuff. So but like, what will take for them to say, like, maybe this is a dangerous fucking thing we're doing, you know, like maybe.

0:53:25 Andrew: Maybe today, maybe today.

0:53:27 Thomas: Maybe.

0:53:27 Andrew: If today didn't do it, nothing will. But, you know, we've been saying that collectively for the last four years. Well, if this doesn't do it, then nothing will, but I can't think of anything that tops a coup attempt, an insurrection at the Capitol building. I can think of what could possibly top that.

0:53:29 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, as long as they were winning elections, they had no incentive. They thought they could just do this forever as long as they're winning elections. But now that they've lost and this has happened, you got to hope that this does something.

0:53:53 Andrew: Well, and let's amplify that. It is a coup attempt, and there is at least one person who is dead. It's still the stupidest coup attempt in the history of humanity, right? Like, you cannot find a dumber effort to say, we're going to make Donald Trump president forever than we're going to interfere with an administrative counting process for a couple of hours um yeah that's that's the brave state right that's that's you know uh it's gonna be hard to do the William Wallace speech, we bravely broke open the windows and posed next to this velvet rope for three hours and 12 minutes That's, yeah.

0:54:33 Thomas: Yeah I mean it's it's not as though any of us here thought they were going to succeed, but somebody did die and and you know there was a fucking plan to kidnap the governor of Michigan. Again. There was like, and I mean that it's, it's one thing to like chuckle at how incompetent they are, but like, it doesn't take that many tries to do something horrible.

0:54:39 Andrew: Yeah. And execute. It would be like if Inigo Montoya stormed castle, found the six-fingered man, and says, I just have a message from my dead father, and then left. Like, what are you, why are you storming the castle to crash a conference call? It makes no sense. It is stupid, but it is dangerous. There are consequences. Consequences. And I think that we are going to be unraveling this for a long time to come. I think That's absolutely right.

0:55:02 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:55:24 Allison: All right. Well, I gotta I gotta run and give give Dana a call. We need to record our our Daily Beans episode for tomorrow.

0:55:24 Thomas: Wow. Oh, sure.

0:55:35 Allison: Andrew, you'll be appearing on that as well, from an interview you and I did earlier. And it's, it's an unreal day. It is one of the one of the darkest yet brightest days in our democracy. We, we have the people have spoken and the elections worked and we did our jobs. And but yet we have this, this failed coup attempt. And it's, it's disheartening, it's heartbreaking to watch, especially as a, especially as veteran, but any American has got to be absolutely globally embarrassed by this. Well.

0:56:07 Thomas: Yeah I mean, absolutely. Thanks for your time. Thanks Thanks for coming on. And I'm not a veteran. I'm Not somebody who typically, you know, is like super patriotic. But if if patriotism in the country means fucking anything, it should mean being appalled by our Congress running for their lives as a bunch of fucking maniacs loot the Capitol building. I mean, come on. If the country needs anything, if the it's mean that being appalling to you. I just I cannot understand it.

0:56:20 Andrew: Yeah.

0:56:35 Allison: Yeah, well, swearing, swearing looks good on you guys.

0:56:39 Andrew: Well, said. Thanks. As always.

0:56:39 Thomas: We've been swearing on these streams for a while. We had to give ourselves some outlet. All right. Thanks so much, AG. We're all looking forward to the new show, of course, on the 20th. And sadly, it is the, you know, it's my second favorite thing I'm looking forward to on the 30th, but, you Know, a close second. So we'll all tune into that. All right, thanks so much for coming on.

0:56:45 Allison: Sounds good.

0:57:01 Allison: Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Uh.

0:57:05 Andrew: Yeah.

0:57:06 Thomas: Oh, God. Well, it has already been almost an hour. What are your closing thoughts or what do you think we should do here, Andrew?

0:57:09 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, see if there's a top. I'm sort of looking in the chat if, if there's a major area, because you know we we did this unscripted. Yeah, um, but but, but, but I do want, as, as I'm buying time for that, I want to emphasize we're recording the show tomorrow and we are recording two incredibly optimistic episodes of the show. Right. The first is going to talk about the amazing victory we had last night.

0:57:20 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Any questions?

0:57:40 Thomas: Well, hold on, I'm not ready to commit. There may be another coup in between now, who knows, man. All right, what's gonna happen to, okay, as of now, we're planning on, to, sorry, as of now.

0:57:49 Andrew: As of now Yeah. Um, yeah, the plan is, no, you're, you're right, look, like we could be, we could be thrown off by that, um, but, but, uh, we had a historic moment yesterday, and not just a historic moment, but a historic moment that the people watching right now helped make happen. Um, and we're going to go into that, we're going to tell story, like I was compiling them, I was in tears of joy last night, um, uh, and I can't wait to share those, those stories with you, and then, uh, pushing off to Tuesday, um, more, more of the, the schadenfreude, uh, uh, good news, um, I, I think, and I'll tell you here first, and you heard it, um, uh, you heard it here first, I, I, I'm gonna try and get Thomas to the title Tuesday's show, Donald Trump is going to prison. I think

0:57:53 Thomas: Yeah. Yep. Oh. Absolutely. Yeah, I think you said Donald Trump is going to prison in Georgia, okay, you stick into that

0:58:52 Andrew: That in Georgia, I think it is super clear to me that what Trump did is, and I don't know why more legal analysts haven't kind of jumped on board with identifying the specific elements of the crime, how easy it will be to to prove Trump's criminal intent, right? Like that's always the hardest part of these. It's amazingly easy with respect to this call. I think it is just like listening to an hour of Trump doing his deranged idiotic mafia boss wannabe throw down, and I like the comment you put up, but it's still not gonna derail me, uh, is is like, is just wearying, right? Like I think that, you know, uh, journalists and lawyers and people just like kind of get sick of listening to the guy and are like, oh, well, this would be super hard to prove. It's not hard to proof, right?

Like he, he called up a Secretary of State and said, I want you to file false voting numbers because I want to win the state, and by the way, if you don't do that, here are the two separate threats that I'm issuing to you, uh, and and it is just clear as Kushner, so, um, you know, so that's what we've got coming up, that there's, we're gonna get this shit back on track guys, we, we really are, although today, I mean, I'm, you know, my, my lunch was in my chest all day today, right?

Like it was, it still is, um, you, you know, you, you don't want, want to see this, but you also at the same time want, want to, to see the aftermath, you want to see that our institutions survive, so

0:59:39 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah, I listened to that call, and boy, I had some feelings about it, that you described it well, yeah, what did we, what do we say, geez, any closing thoughts in the chat, everybody? I think people don't want us to leave, but it's, this is, I'm amazed at how many people are watching, just, you know, on a short notice thing, I think it just goes to show that, but what a fucking day this was, everybody. I mean, I know you kind of said it. I spent last night and this morning in a fantastic, I'm happiest I've been in a long time. I mean, it genuinely, the Georgia news is just so good. It is like honestly, like I've been over the moon about it. I mean, you guys know me, you know, I've been, I've been a bit negative, but you've probably known me in a really bad four years of the country.

1:00:43 Andrew: Yeah.

1:01:03 Andrew: I

1:01:28 Thomas: You know, this is truly just magnificent what what happened in Georgia. And I'm so happy. And then, you know, we had to have this absolute atrocious bullshit to harsh my, you know, to harsh, my, my good mood. And it's, it's very sad and I, it sucks that I, you know, I was going to ask you, what do you think? Do you think this would have been much different regardless of what happened in Georgia? I feel like this was already going to happen because of the bullshit coup attempt on the, on the January 6th proceedings anyway, right?

1:02:00 Andrew: I think this was going to happen regardless, right? I think that the, the Georgia situation was just ready for Trump to spin as a win either way, right, um, because if they won, it was, well, it was because I went down and rallied, and you know, they were all the Trump that, but they better get in line, right, and if they lost, it's because, you know, the election is rigged, and uh, you know, there are all corrupt and everything else, so, um, I, I think, I think this was going to happen regardless of what happened in Georgia, but, but I, I do think, um, I was saying this to you last night as the returns were coming in, uh, when the Republican Party loses two special election runoff races in Georgia, um, that will cause some, some a day of reckoning, right? Like that has it

1:02:05 Thomas: Do

1:02:51 Andrew: Has never before happened in the modern era, right, in, in since Georgica implemented its, its runoff versus um, and and

1:02:56 Thomas: It's so amazing. I hadn't dared. I hadn't dare dream. I'm still happy. Truth be told, I'm still happy

1:03:02 Andrew: Look, when the final numbers come in, it looks as though, also, Ossoff might be outside the mandatory recount margin, right, which is half a percent. And again, there has never been. I've read a shit ton of recount cases.

1:03:10 Thomas: Yeah, looks like it.

1:03:20 Andrew: The most I've ever seen a recount change votes by is like 600 or 700 votes, right? You do not recount and gain thousands of votes, and there has ever been a case. I feel confident saying this, in which a recount at any level, mandatory or discretionary, and again, like, you know, Loeffler's got a billion dollars. She can request recounts till the cows come home. There's never been a case in which which a recount has overturned 10,000 votes, right? And so those races are in and done and safe, and we did it. It is, I have floated, I'd curious your thoughts on this. I would, if she wants the job, I would certainly offer DNC chair to Stacey Abrams.

1:03:27 Thomas: Yeah They don't really do much Yeah.

1:04:07 Thomas: No, she's running for governor and when's the term up? Is it 2022?

1:04:12 Andrew: Kemp's term, well, let's see, she got screwed out of it in 2018. So That would be 2022. 22, yeah.

1:04:14 Thomas: In 2018 Yes, I believe from what I've heard, I've hear that's what she wants to do. But who knows Do both?

1:04:21 Andrew: You could Uh, you could You could do Both jobs. Yeah. She, she could certainly take the job from 2021, right?

1:04:23 Thomas: Okay Alright. You know, I wonder who wants to be the governor given that it's it's uh it's all it's all downsides, you just get to be the punching bag for every leftist idiot who thinks that the DNC is ruining everything, so yeah.

1:04:28 Andrew: Um, uh You do, but but again, the model for that, um, and and I retweeted out a a Howard Dean tweet in which uh he he called Josh Holly, he was like uh, you know, don't don't don't pretend like you know, because Josh Hawley posted some bullshit like, oh well, you know, don't engage in violence, blah blah blah, and uh and Howard Dean was like, yeah.

1:04:57 Thomas: Oh no Please stop, don't, yeah, whatever.

1:05:00 Andrew: Yeah, right, exactly, uh and however Dean said, uh, you did this, um, so uh uh you know, I I then retweeted it, said, look, uh, I've I've always been a big uh Howard Dean fan, um, and uh I've never been been more proud of that. Howard Dean, you may not recall, after losing in the Democratic primaries in 2004, ran and orchestrated as an outsider to become chair of the DNC and was probably the best DNC chair that we've had in modern history, instituted a 50-state strategy that was designed to take advantage of the downside of gerrymandering. Right? And we've talked about this on the show, but I'll say it again. Gerrymandering is designed to give Congress safe districts without wasting it, right?

That is 7% to 8%. What that means is when you have a wave year in which everybody hates the incumbent, all of those seats become become vulnerable, but you have to have infrastructure, right? If, if, if you've been used to treating, you know, so-and-so's race as, oh yeah, look, this is an R plus eight district. The only people that ever run against the incumbent are, you know, lunatic perennial candidates, Lyndon LaRouche, uh, and you know uh, uh people with no money and no organization and no driver, then you don't win even in wave years, and and so you know, what uh what Howard Dean said was, let's let's spend money in Utah, in Montana, in Alabama, in deep red states and deep red districts so that we

1:05:06 Thomas: Yeah yeah mm-hmm it

1:06:54 Andrew: Can take advantage of those opportunities when they came up, and that was accompanied by Democrats winning big in red areas in 2006. So, yeah, you

1:07:05 Thomas: Took Democrats way too long because this is what what's his fuck did in '94. sorry, I'm bad at names when I need to, when I'm on the spot, you you know, former speaker, right? What's his name?

1:07:19 Andrew: Mean Newt Gingrich?

1:07:19 Thomas: Yes, Newt Gingrich. I mean, it took too long for Democrats to realize that was what Newt Gingerich did in 94, which was compete everywhere. And then as you say, I mean that that's what we do need to do. I hope, you know this is part of part of talking about going forward after Georgia. I really hope we can maintain the energy. I really hope it's going to be our job. We have such a big job, I think, Andrew.

1:07:20 Andrew: Yeah. Yep.

1:07:45 Thomas: I letting the Democratic Party lose to fascists again, because it will happen very soon. If we don't if we don't stop it, it will happened in two years. I mean, it'll happen in two years or four years. We have to be ready for the bad faith bullshit. We have to blame everything that should probably be put on the shoulders of, you know, Joe Manchin or by the way, just not having more Democrats in the Senate. You know, that'll be blamed on on every Democratic senator and Biden for not doing enough. You know, it's going to be our job to decode what's going on and, you know, criticize where necessary, but not lose focus of what's really going on. I mean, if if the Senate isn't left enough for you, you could sit, which it isn't for me.

You could sit there and be mad at Joe Manchin or you can realize that Joe Manchien is occupying a seat that would be more red if he weren't in it. And also, if we were able to elect more Democrats in other places, then we wouldn't have this problem. And, also, not to mention the fact that the Senate, in general, is just unbelievably favorable toward Republicans because of the states. So, you know, putting blame where it's due and not letting criticism of the party get to an extent that is unhealthy, not helpful, depresses turnout. And then, wouldn't you know it, we let fascists back in and a bunch of people don't seem to remember. It'll be our job to keep that memory alive, I think, of what happens.

1:07:56 Andrew: Yeah, me neither. I could not agree more with all of that. I would add, you left sort of unsaid, but like, yeah. Instead of being mad at Joe Manchin, go primary Dianne Feinstein, right? Right. Like that's that's the kind of place where, you know.

1:09:27 Thomas: I voted for her primary opponent. I guess that was already two years ago. I thought it was this year, but the time has flown.

1:09:29 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. So but agreed 100 percent. And let's be slightly more explicit. Mitch McConnell and his super PACs are teeing up the ads already that are going to take rhetoric from Harris and Biden in 2020 and say, say, remember when you elected Democrats and they promised, and then they're to say, you know, X, Y, Z, did they deliver on any of that? No, vote them out and vote for monsters instead.

1:10:06 Andrew: Right. Like, and, and look like it will work unless we are there sort of at every step of the way, you know to hold all the sides accountable. And that's, you now, that's what we try and do on our show. A couple of people in the chat have mentioned a few things that we may or may not get to on the show, but I think are worth talking about here.

1:09:59 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, And it will work yeah

1:10:33 Andrew: Yes, really important news to me. It's on the whiteboard, but it's probably going to get dropped down for time. In one of the Georgia election cases, the judge issued a seven and a a half page order denying relief. And in the last paragraph said, by the way, when this case is closed, I want briefing from both parties as to whether to refer the case to the Office of Bar Counsel, right, and the Attorney Grievance Commission. That's where you get disbarred, right? I want to tell you, I have never, ever seen a judge say that before, right? Usually, when lawyers misbehave in a courtroom, the judge, because her power is plenary to hold you in contempt or issue sanctions, will say, Mr. Torres, if you come in here playing the opening arguments theme song again, I'm going to hold you in contempt and sanction you $10,000. And she can do that, right?

1:10:40 Thomas: Yeah.

1:11:34 Andrew: I'm still going to play the song, though, opening arguments power. Yeah, Yeah, because it is. But I've never seen at the end of this, I want the parties to brief whether Mr. Torres should be disbarred. So, you know, one of the long running questions that you guys have had, right? Can Larry Klayman be dismarred? Can Sidney Powell be disfarred? We may see that and the tide may be turning. So that's kind of point one. Related to that on lawyers, I am not going going to give up on banging on Foley and Lardner. Foley and Lhardner is a Covington and Burling style, mega big law firm, Amlaw 100. They put out that sort of mealy mouth statement of we're investigating into what Cleta Mitchell was doing. They have not fully answered that. They're still on the hook.

1:11:37 Thomas: Because it rocks yeah yeah yeah

1:12:25 Andrew: Sorry, talking for 90 minutes straight. And, you know, the fact that Cleta Mitchel resigned, that does does nothing for me in my book, right, um, it, it, we need to know, did she go to Donald Trump and say, oh, yes, you were hiring me, Cleta Mitchell, as an attorney? If she did, she should be disbarred, not just resigned from this case. Disbarred, that is a disbarable offense in

1:12:26 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Wow.

1:12:51 Thomas: Just sorry to clarify, as you disbarable in her actions for the case, or the fact that she, like, took another job against her, yeah, what's exactly

1:13:04 Andrew: In the fact that she is, no, no, it's really good, I'm glad you asked it, she is a senior partner at Foley and Lardner. Foley and Lardner, if their press release is to be believed, had their partnership voted and made a decision in November that they would not represent any party to any election lawsuit. And then the mealy-mouthed second half of the statement was like, but, you know, our lawyers could get involved in civic voter protection efforts so long, quote, quote, so long as they were involved as in a personal and not a legal capacity, right?

1:13:05 Thomas: Yeah

1:13:43 Andrew: When Cleta Mitchell went to Donald Trump, she did not say, hey, I'm here as a friend. She went there as a lawyer. Unless she is even dumber than she looks, and I suppose it's possible, she got a fucking retainer, right, because we know Donald Trump doesn't pay his So he wrote her a check, which means that she gave him a retainer agreement. And that retainer agreement would say, you are hiring Cleta Mitchell and or Foley and Lardner and would specify the terms of the engagement. So I want to see

1:13:48 Thomas: Yeah right right to clarify, is this

1:14:19 Andrew: That document.

1:14:19 Thomas: The woman during the phone call that tried to chime in, and Trump was like, I don't really want to hear from you, is that her

1:14:24 Andrew: Yes, was introduced as his lawyer at the beginning uh and then and then he was like

1:14:26 Thomas: Okay yeah yeah because they're no it's hilarious there's an interaction where he says, can anyone on the call tell me whether or not you're looking into some bullshit, you know, can anyone on the, the call, and nobody talks. And so Cleta, is that her name? Cleta.

1:14:30 Andrew: Yeah Cleta Mitchell, yes, yeah.

1:14:42 Thomas: Cleta is like, okay, well, I'll answer that, you know, and then Trump is like I don't want to hear from you. I don't have any sympathy for the devil, but it was pretty funny to be like anyone and then, you know, she chimes in and Trump is not you, anyone but you.

1:14:48 Andrew: Yes, um, yeah not yet anyone but you, so, and, and here's what makes that disbarable, um, she represents, and her action, she is a partner at a law firm, her actions bind her other partners, right, it is a limited liability partnership, um, and, uh, when she says, yes, uh, Foley and Lardner will represent you in this matter, um, that, that is acting beyond the scope of her authority, uh, as a lawyer, uh, to bind, to, to fraudulently bind, uh, her firm, to whom she owes the highest fiduciary duty, right, like she's, she's a partner. She's supposed to act in the best interest of the firm. And usually you don't see it in these kinds of cases.

1:15:47 Andrew: Like, usually what you see, again, it always comes back to money, where you see partners get disbarred for this kind of behavior. But it's 100% analogous, is, I'm a partner at Foley and Lardner, let's say, right, at a big firm. And all of a sudden, a client comes up to me and says, hey, I really, really want to engage you for your expertise, um, and, uh, and it's a contingency fee case, uh, and, you know, you'll get 40 percent of a billion dollars. And I say, how about we sign a separate agreement that just says Torres and doesn't say Foley and Lardner, so that I get the 40, you know, 400 million dollars, and not, uh, Foley and Larner, of which, you know, they'll they'll gladly take the 400 million, but then, you know, I'll get like a $5 million bonus or whatever.

1:16:37 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

1:16:38 Andrew: So I try and cheat my partners out of the windfall. But you can see that this is 100% the same behavior, right? It is either fraudulently holding yourself out as a representative of a firm for which you do not have authorization, or cutting out the firm for which you work in order to take the credit for yourself.

1:17:01 Thomas: It goes with what we've learned about the bar, uh, in general, is that, um, do anything completely batshit crazy legally, uh, make it the worst arguments in the world, waste everybody's time, undermine democracy, fine, do anything to, um, jeopardize the money that lawyers make in some way, you're out of here, bucko, that's the opinion of one Thomas Smith, I do not represent, uh, Opening Arguments or Andrew Torrez in this matter.

1:17:22 Andrew: Look, it no look like it. I like I mean, if you I had a friend at Covington and Burling, sadly, since departed, who was the district. He was a truly great guy. His name is David Isbell. And he was the country's preeminent expert in attorney ethics law. And he was one of the only lawyers, and he and I talked at great length about this, who was willing to serve as an expert witness on behalf of attorney grievance commission inquiries, right? There are lots of lawyers out there who are attorney ethics lawyers who are happy to represent other lawyers, right, and to argue, oh, your conduct is not unethical.

Um, and you know, it was kind of like a thin blue line kind of, kind of thing, right, and he was like, look, um, the fact that I was a partner at Covington and Burling is what let me do this practice, right, like, because you couldn't just dismiss me as a crackpot, like, everybody knew I was a damn good lawyer, uh, and, and I think lawyers should be held accountable like everybody else, um, and, and, and I will say this, um, that, that so that view that there's kind of a thin, thin blue line, and that attorneys sort of circle the wagons and prevent you from going after attorneys for incompetence and malfeasance and bad faith arguments, I think there's some validity to that, and I would love to see public pressure around that change, right? And so I love it. So keep, you know, you're going to keep calling me out no matter what, but but the

1:19:12 Thomas: You, I won't call you out. I'm calling the bar people out. Fuck them.

1:19:17 Andrew: Profession, but, but I'm a hundred percent with you, right? Like it's embarrassing to me that Sidney Powell has the same job that I do. Right. It is. It's embarrassing to me that Rudy Giuliani gets to call him. So yeah, well, I want

1:19:17 Thomas: God. Yeah. Yeah. It's embarrassing to me that Dave Rubin has the same job I do, but I guess we don't, we don't have a podcaster association that we can expel people from yet.

1:19:36 Andrew: To answer one more question from, from Beth, where we've been sort of engaging.

1:19:38 Thomas: Sure. Well, let me, let me acknowledge the millions of tweets. For one, I got to get you that green screen just so So we stop hearing the same comments about the wall over and over and over. We, we get it about the law.

1:19:40 Andrew: Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah, build the wall.

1:19:49 Thomas: Everybody. Yeah. Bill, the green screen. The other thing is, yeah, they did delete Trump's tweets and I looked around and it wasn't just Trump deleting them. I clicked on one of them and it said that it violated Twitter or something or other bullshit. So yeah, Twitter is a lot of people have commented on that in the chat. So yeah. Twitter has deleted. Congratulations, Twitter. You deleted a couple of tweets. I think just the latest two, they still have, you know, I'm still seeing plenty of other stuff. So just wanted to uh chime in with that. Hmm.

1:19:49 Andrew: Wall no not different wall yeah it says yeah this this Tweet is no longer available. Interesting. Um yeah And and that is, there's a Presidential Records Act question there, so you know, maybe we'll uh, maybe we'll hit that on the show. Um, so on to Beth's last question, which uh, was about um, uh, Cleta Mitchell, who says uh, she may have been doing it on behalf of another client, though. Uh, go back, read the transcript, and listen to the audio. She is very clearly introduced as, although not attorney of record, one of Trump's lawyers.

So I think that's 100% clear to me from that transcript that they at least held her out as one of Trump's layers. And again, if they knew, if there was some sort of behind-the-scenes shenanigans, this is why you want that investigation to be in the public, right? Right. Why you are not satisfied. And I am not satisfied with, oh, she's now resigned from Foley and, you know, already went off on her private Twitter account today and groused about how, you know, it was leftists who made her, you know, guilty as charged. You shouldn't have a job and you're a horrible

1:20:37 Thomas: I'm such

1:21:22 Andrew: Human being.

1:21:22 Thomas: A bleeding heart leftist who cares about not having a coup in our country, god fucking hippie oh god, all right, well, we will be back at it tomorrow on the regularly scheduled time to uh, to do a good news episode. We just wanted to, you know, jump on and talk about the the horrible coup, yeah.

1:21:24 Andrew: Yeah. So, yeah. Right. So there is so much. Remember that? Yeah.

1:21:43 Thomas: Well, and I'm glad we did this. So like you, like you said, you know, I can't remember if this was before we went on, but we get to do more, a happy news episode tomorrow because we've covered this horrible bullshit today a little bit. So there you go. I'm excited. There's so much to be genuinely happy about, folks. And that's me saying that. So, you Know, it's, I'm yeah, it really, oh, I'm so happy.

1:22:01 Andrew: And And, and, and Negatron, Negatrion agrees. Yeah. It,

1:22:07 Thomas: Um, yeah, good.

1:22:08 Andrew: It, it Look, yeah, it. I think Thomas, you and I felt the same way, which was today is a high anxiety day. It's day unlike any other. And I think we wanted to go back and engage with this community and be able to share it with, you know, 1200 people here, uh, who, um, were feeling that same sense of uncertainty and, and and you know and rightfully so it's it hasn't happened in 208 years so uh I'm I'm really glad we got to to to do that and uh and spend some time with you guys tonight oh

1:22:42 Thomas: Absolutely. I think I might try to sneak onto my stream and play some some original Zelda so that, you know, I can unwind. So check that out at fine stream stores everywhere. And we'll see you guys tomorrow on the regularly scheduled show.

1:22:47 Andrew: Bye-bye.

1:22:56 Thomas: Adios. Yeah. I got to assemble the Triforce, man. It's the only way to cope. Good stuff.

1:23:06 Andrew: All right, away I'm gonna call this

1:23:11 Thomas: Wow. What a, what a crowd.

1:23:11 Andrew: OA sedition live show live

1:23:13 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know, No, I'm real.

1:23:14 Andrew: Stream, yeah, wow, 12 you know.