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Etsy.com. The

1:00

President of the United States has committed,

1:02

but when we start talking about things that look like

1:05

evidence, they want to act like they blind.

1:07

They don't know what this is. These are our national

1:09

secrets,

1:10

looks like in the shitter to me.

1:14

This looks like more

1:16

evidence of our national secrets, say

1:19

on a stage at Mar-a-Lago. When

1:21

we're talking about somebody that's committed high

1:23

crimes, it's at least indictments. Let's

1:25

say 32 counts related to unauthorized

1:28

retention of national security secrets, seven

1:30

counts related to obstructing the investigation,

1:32

three false statements, one count of conspiracy

1:35

to defraud the United States, falsifying business

1:37

records conspiracy to defraud the United

1:39

States, two counts related to efforts to

1:42

obstruct the vote certification proceedings,

1:44

one count of conspiracy to violate

1:46

civil rights, 23 counts related

1:48

to forgery or false document statements, eight

1:50

counts related to soliciting, and I could go

1:52

on because he's got 91 counts pending right

1:55

now, but I will tell you what the President

1:57

has been guilty of. He has unfortunately

1:59

been guilty of

1:59

of loving his child unconditionally,

2:02

and that is the only evidence that they have brought forward.

2:04

And honestly, I hope and pray that

2:07

my parents love me half as much as

2:09

he loves his child. Until they find

2:11

some evidence, we need to get back to the people's work,

2:14

which means keeping this government open so

2:16

that

2:16

people don't go hungry in the streets

2:18

of the United States, and I will

2:21

heal. Our

2:29

opening clip was Congressman Jasmine Croppett

2:32

of Texas, speaking truth

2:34

to the Kremlin caucus show trial

2:36

in the house. And

2:39

I'm Andrea Chalupa, a journalist and filmmaker,

2:42

the writer and producer of the journalistic

2:45

thriller, Mr. Jones, the

2:47

film that the Kremlin

2:50

and its lobbyists in Congress

2:52

don't want you to see. So be sure to watch

2:55

it. A reminder, we're going to

2:57

attempt a bonus livestream

2:59

at 4 p.m. Eastern on Thursday,

3:01

October 5th for our Patreon

3:03

community. I'm going to be sharing

3:06

some fun Fox News

3:08

stuff

3:09

that I heard from a former insider. It's

3:11

stuff we already know, but it's just, when you

3:14

hear it from the horse's mouth, we got to talk

3:16

about it. So I'm going to share it livestream

3:18

for our Patreon community, as well as on Instagram,

3:20

because I'm trying desperately to wean

3:23

us all off of the

3:26

cesspool of Twitter, which a European

3:29

Union report called the largest outlet

3:31

for Russian disinformation is having

3:34

a real-world effect on elections

3:36

in Europe. If you look at what happened in Slovakia

3:38

with a pro-Komlin party coming to power in Slovakia,

3:41

there's rampant disinformation in countries

3:43

like that. It's not just hitting us here in the U.S., and

3:46

there's wonderful reporting, which we'll share in the show

3:48

notes for this week's episode, by NBC

3:50

News, by the wonderful Ben Collins, who's

3:52

one of the best reporters on the authoritarian

3:55

beat in the U.S., looking at the grand

3:57

master plan of Elon Musk.

4:00

destroying Twitter because that's where we

4:02

had our power. I said that from the jump

4:04

before the deal went through. I said if Peter

4:07

Thiel, the far-right

4:10

libertarian PayPal Mafia

4:13

dystopian tech bond villain,

4:16

wanted to tank us just like

4:18

he had tanked Gawker and

4:20

we had to go. We were having too much fun

4:23

and having too much power and Twitter's

4:25

just become a nightmare. And

4:28

the latest, of course, Zelensky

4:30

being mocked viciously when he

4:32

is the world leader that refused

4:34

to abandon his people. He

4:37

had a ride out of Ukraine. He could have

4:39

gotten himself and his family out

4:41

and just let Ukraine fall. This was

4:43

a moment of such terror and uncertainty

4:46

and yet Zelensky stayed. He did not

4:48

have to stay but he chose to stay. This

4:51

was a war, I promise you, the West

4:53

did not want. They were preparing Ukraine

4:56

to fall and to be supplied

4:58

with support for guerrilla warfare.

5:01

They were preparing for an occupation, another

5:03

Afghanistan disaster and

5:05

Zelensky staying changed

5:08

everything and that is why Ukraine

5:10

survives today and continues to fight

5:12

this existential genocide.

5:15

And Twitter, apartheid Barbie,

5:18

Elon Musk, the child of degenerates

5:21

who has like a string of babies

5:23

out there because he's got some sick fantasy of populating

5:26

the world with his fascist

5:28

super sperm. He

5:31

mocks Zelensky at a time

5:34

of continued crisis for Ukraine because

5:36

the disinformation war waged by Russia

5:38

being amplified by the fashionable

5:41

fascists on the far left and the

5:43

far right is working. Ukraine

5:45

fatigue is everywhere. Kremlin

5:47

has absolutely entrenched

5:49

itself in the US Congress. That's

5:52

what we've seen here with Matt

5:54

Gaetz's whole January 6th

5:56

Redux movement and trying to oust

5:58

McCarthy and holding up ATU. Ukraine

6:00

and making it the secretive deal and Zelensky's

6:03

Ponzi scheme billions is all a bunch of bullshit. That's

6:06

how far gone we are. Remember my last episode, hyper

6:08

normalization, this, none of this is normal. This is

6:10

a crisis. This is World War Three, being

6:13

fought by the Russians on US soil. The Nazis are

6:15

back, the Nazis are homegrown. They've

6:18

taken over some of our favorite places. And

6:20

so what am I getting at? I'm getting out, we're going to attempt

6:22

a live stream on Instagram.

6:24

So I'm going to just blast some information out

6:26

there about Fox News sharing some insights there

6:28

that I that I've heard recently that I think are

6:31

worth chatting about. I'll try to answer

6:33

whatever questions I can I then need to rush

6:35

into a car and make my way home and

6:37

see my family because I'm dealing with a family

6:40

situation. I will stream for as long as

6:42

I can on Thursday at 4pm Eastern.

6:45

And that will be part of this week's bonus show

6:47

for Patreon supporters who keep our show going.

6:49

If you want to never miss an episode of Gaslight Nation,

6:52

get all of our shows ad free invites,

6:55

exclusive events and more. Make sure to

6:57

subscribe at patreon.com

6:59

forward slash gaslit. That's patreon.com

7:02

forward slash gaslit. Thank you to everyone

7:04

who keeps our show going. As a thank you to

7:06

our community. We're giving out

7:09

a signed copy of the Gaslight

7:11

Nation graphic novel dictatorship.

7:14

It's easier than you think a wild

7:17

romp into the inner workings

7:19

of how to become and try to stay a dictator

7:21

and how to overthrow one. So the thank

7:23

you gift to our Patreon community this month the book

7:26

is going out to Ann last

7:28

two initials EL. Congratulations,

7:30

Ann, you know who you are because you

7:33

reached out to me saying give me a book and I'm giving

7:35

you a book. That's how easy going

7:37

I am. Okay, you want a book ask me for a book. I'll give you one

7:39

as a thank you if you're on Patreon for our community.

7:42

So you get a book and you're the winner

7:44

for this month. I may have

7:46

already given out two books already. I don't know for

7:48

this month, but whatever you get one. Thank you.

7:50

Thank you. Thank you. And they're signed by both me

7:53

and Sarah and back by

7:55

popular demand my popular demand the

7:58

Gaslight Nation Halloween radio. play

8:00

contest

8:07

send us your submission to gaslightnation

8:10

at gmail dot com by

8:12

thursday october eighteenth

8:15

to get your radio play produced

8:18

and played on gaslightnation let

8:20

your freak flag of creativity

8:22

fly make art take back

8:24

your mind don't let these assholes win be

8:27

creative in the face of all their destruction

8:29

and nonsense and just celebrate

8:31

yourself celebrate all the little things

8:34

all the little urges all the little voices all the fun

8:36

intuition and insights in you channel

8:39

it all in your art send

8:41

us a spicy beautiful weird

8:43

fun ridiculous subtle not so subtle

8:46

radio play by october eighteenth

8:49

to gaslightnation at gmail dot com

8:52

the one rule is keep it five pages

8:54

max since these are pretty intense

8:56

to produce there's a lot of detail that goes into it and

8:59

if you have submitted a play in the past we've

9:01

read them all so we're gonna go back through and

9:04

look at some ones from last year and the year before

9:06

and we'll reach out to you if you're the winner

9:08

we'll be selecting one winner and you'll get produced

9:11

and performed on

9:14

gaslightnation thank you to everyone who makes

9:16

art and thank you to everyone who fights for

9:18

your mind because that's what they're trying to do they're

9:20

trying to demoralize us and get us

9:22

to give up and instead we're going to

9:24

be

9:25

hope defiant that is how

9:27

we win it is an endurance race

9:30

every single right

9:31

that we enjoy today is

9:33

the product of an endurance race

9:36

it is our turn now to run the endurance

9:38

race and we are going to win we

9:41

are going to outlast and outbuild these nazis

9:44

all right speaking of we're having

9:47

a super fun phone bank for

9:49

virginia because posh nazi

9:51

posh trump glenn yunken

9:53

wants to take over

9:56

the state government of virginia so

9:58

he can ban abortion Do that,

10:00

you know, a 15 week ban, which is

10:02

essentially an abortion ban. Youngkin is

10:04

a disaster. He's been rolling

10:07

back environmental policy in Virginia.

10:11

He's been building a groundswell of

10:13

far right support, which possibly puts

10:15

the state at risk for a Republican

10:17

pickup in Littrell College in 2024. So

10:20

to build our own grassroots protection

10:22

to fight back against that, we're getting out

10:24

the vote for the upcoming Virginia elections

10:26

this November. Join me at a phone

10:28

bank on Thursday, October

10:31

26th, a Gaslit Nation phone bank

10:33

with our friends at Sister District, Thursday,

10:36

October 26th at 6 to 8 p.m. Eastern. I'm

10:40

going to be giving away three signed

10:42

copies of the Gaslit Nation

10:45

dictatorship graphic novel to folks

10:47

that join me at this phone bank to get out the vote

10:49

and make calls to the all important

10:51

race, the local state races in Virginia.

10:54

So much is on the line. It's not just

10:56

quality of life issues and environmental

10:59

protections and environmental regulations

11:02

and a big influential state like

11:04

Virginia using all of its power

11:07

to take bold action in the climate crisis. Important

11:10

stuff that Glenn Youngkin is trying to roll

11:12

back now because he's mobbed up with big oil and coal.

11:15

It's also the Littrell College in 2024. We

11:17

secure Virginia now in these all important state

11:19

elections. That allows us

11:21

to breathe a little bit easier heading into 2024. So

11:25

join me again Thursday, October

11:27

26th at 6 p.m. Eastern.

11:29

There'll be details in the show notes

11:31

for this week's episode. I'll be glaring on about this all

11:34

month long. All right. So let's get

11:36

to Matt Gaetz, who looks like he

11:38

carries rupees and a Pez dispenser.

11:41

Matt Gaetz, who should be in prison, not

11:43

holding up much needed aid for Ukraine,

11:46

which is, of course, fighting off a genocide.

11:49

He's making us look like an unreliable ally. Russian

11:52

state TV cannot get enough of Matt Gaetz. They

11:54

are gloating about this. Matt

11:56

Gaetz is a proud January

11:59

6th insurrectionist. He's told Steve Bannon on his podcast

12:01

that they're really proud of the work they did in

12:03

trying to violently overthrow our government. January 6th,

12:06

he should not be in Congress. He

12:08

should be in prison. He had

12:10

that close friend, that wingman, Joel

12:13

Greenberg, who has been sentenced

12:15

to 11 years in prison for

12:18

sex trafficking. Right. Gates

12:20

was part of that investigation. He was accused

12:22

of having sex with an underage girl. He

12:25

showed nude photos on the floor of Congress. He

12:27

was accused of being part of a sex trafficking operation.

12:30

I mean, just look at him. Look at that face.

12:33

It says it all. That Gates looks like a date rapist,

12:35

so I believe all those charges. Why did

12:37

the DOJ let him go? Because it's Merrick Garland's

12:40

DOJ. So that's reason number one. And

12:42

as part of that, the excuse that was given

12:44

in reporting by CNN was that the

12:46

DOJ, the prosecutors didn't feel that

12:49

their witnesses in that case were reliable,

12:51

which is bullshit. I think Gates was

12:54

a snitch that helped land Greenberg.

12:56

But it's very much in

12:59

the overall culture of Merrick Garland's

13:01

DOJ, where the big

13:03

fish, like the members of Congress, like

13:06

the other coup plotters, like Steve Bannon, are

13:08

allowed to walk around free. And

13:10

it's the people around them that are suffering.

13:13

It's all by design, right? It's Merrick

13:15

Garland's DOJ. He wants

13:18

proximity to power. He's somebody

13:20

that doesn't want to upset the hornets in us. He's

13:23

as corrupt as they come. He's one of them.

13:26

Steve Bannon just did this rant on

13:28

his podcast where he was threatening putting

13:30

Merrick Garland in prison when Bannon

13:32

and Trump supposedly come back in

13:35

power in 2024. He's like, we're going to come get you. We'll

13:37

play a clip of that now.

13:38

Your day's coming, dude, after

13:40

January of 2025, when

13:43

we go back over this whole illegitimate regime

13:47

and we get into the receipts,

13:50

he should be in prison for the rest of his life.

13:53

And my God, if we do our job after

13:55

we win, he will be in prison for the rest of

13:57

his life.

13:58

to Merrick Garland.

14:01

Let's say Trump does come back into power. Merrick Garland

14:03

is going to enjoy a cushy retirement giving

14:05

speeches to the Federal Society. He's fine.

14:08

He's done his work letting Gates

14:11

and the rest of the two plotters off the hook.

14:14

The stormtroopers, a thousand or so

14:16

insurrectionists are going to be freed and

14:18

walk free. We could point to any person

14:21

around him and be like, this is why Merrick Garland is corrupt.

14:23

This is whose payroll he's on. No,

14:26

Merrick Garland is continuing in a long

14:28

tradition of the DOJ letting

14:31

criminals, letting elite impunity

14:33

run rampant. The DOJ did this

14:36

when Wall Street executives

14:38

crashed our global economy.

14:41

They let them all off the hook. No one got arrested

14:43

except for like one minor person for some minor

14:45

issue down the line. And then Wall Street got

14:47

a socialist bailout from

14:49

the American taxpayer after wiping

14:52

out fortunes, after wiping out retirement,

14:54

after wiping out savings accounts

14:57

and all those Wall Street executives ran free,

14:59

right? Ran rampant and they're doing all again. That's

15:02

who Merrick Garland represents, that proud

15:05

tradition of elite criminal

15:08

impunity. He's on 60 Minutes

15:10

preaching about protecting democracy when

15:12

not actually practicing it. And

15:15

now here we are with Matt Gates being

15:17

allowed to hold up much needed aid

15:20

for Ukraine that is fighting

15:22

for survival, where children are being

15:24

raped in front of their parents. Tens

15:26

and tens of thousands of kids have been kidnapped into

15:28

Russia. The real QAnon

15:31

conspiracy is going on there. Republicans

15:33

are fine with it because they are ultimately the party

15:35

of the real QAnon. It's all projection

15:37

with their accusations. Hey

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What needs to be done now if we had a real

17:17

DOJ, we would have

17:19

Gates and others being investigated

17:22

for being on the payroll of dark

17:24

Russian money. If Clarence Thomas

17:26

who's in a ruling from the Supreme Court like he was a

17:29

Kept Man and it turns out he was of Nazi

17:31

memorabilia enthusiast Harlan Crowe funneling

17:33

all this money to him when he had cases going before Clarence

17:36

Thomas it's obvious Gates

17:38

and these others in Congress aren't doing this for

17:40

free. They are too cynical to

17:42

work for free. They are not interns of the

17:44

Kremlin. They are clearly on some Russian dark

17:47

money. They need to be investigated for

17:49

that and that's probably why

17:51

Trump is now suing Christopher

17:53

Steele the former MI6 officer

17:56

who investigated Trump's Kremlin ties

17:58

and produced what's now known as

18:00

the infamous

18:52

war

18:59

on Ukraine. I

19:01

promise you as a person that warned everyone in

19:04

a piece for time ideas in December 2013

19:08

that the revolution in Ukraine was going

19:10

to lead to war in Ukraine

19:13

and that the statues going up to Stalin

19:15

were a sign that Russian fascism was back.

19:17

Reporters in the 1930s

19:20

that were covering Stalin's Russia and

19:22

Hitler's Germany said it was basically

19:24

the same dystopia. There's no,

19:26

it's just hate old fascism, it's just dystopia.

19:29

So that is what they're going to bring back

19:32

and they're not going to stop at Ukraine. I promise

19:34

you they're not going to stop at Ukraine. So this whole

19:36

operation by Trump to sue

19:38

Christopher Steele is a chilling

19:41

warning intimidation tactic to

19:43

all the would-be investigators out

19:45

there saying you don't touch us or we will

19:47

try to destroy you or we'll destroy you, right? That's

19:50

what they want. That's an invitation everyone now

19:52

to please investigate them now, go

19:54

after them because they're trying to turn you away with

19:57

this Christopher Steele lawsuit. Don't be intimidated by

19:59

it. All the pro publica's out there, all

20:02

the journalists, all the independent investigators,

20:04

all the activists, the citizen journalists, to dig

20:06

in to these Kremlin

20:09

lobbyists in Congress because Clarence

20:12

Thomas is on payroll, Matt Gaetz and others

20:14

are certainly on some dark money payroll. That

20:16

is my opinion on the matter. The

20:19

signs are all there. If it quacks like a trader, it's

20:21

a paid trader. Remember the New York

20:23

FBI, Charles McGonagall, right?

20:26

Remember in 2016 when the New York FBI

20:28

was acting weird, shady,

20:31

and Giuliani was cackling on Fox

20:33

News saying they had some cards they're going to play to really

20:36

nail Hillary. He had already won the election

20:39

even though all the polls were against them. New

20:41

York FBI reopens the email, investigation

20:44

of Hillary days before the election. Then

20:46

that New York Times article comes out days

20:48

before the 2016 election saying the

20:51

FBI sees no connection between Trump and Russia.

20:53

Who was their source likely for that? The

20:56

New York FBI, where it turns out,

20:59

as we believed our eyes and ears back in 2016, we

21:01

didn't need this confirmation but it's nice to have it. It

21:04

turns out one of the top agents at

21:06

the New York FBI was on Kremlin

21:08

payroll. Again, if

21:11

it quacks like a trader, it's a trader. There's

21:13

money motivation here. The Koch political

21:16

dark money network that props up the Republican

21:18

Party, they want to drop sanctions

21:21

against Russia. They want to go back to

21:23

business as usual with Russia. There's

21:26

this massive Silicon Valley

21:28

Koch political dark money network that

21:31

we're under assault by right now. If

21:33

you feel like your head is spinning, it's

21:35

because it's all deliberate. They're trying

21:37

to demoralize us. They're trying to beat us down. Unfortunately,

21:41

we have a DOJ that is continuing

21:43

in its proud tradition of

21:45

elite criminal impunity. It's

21:48

up to us to fight back and that's what

21:50

we're going to do together. We have no choice now.

21:52

We've got 399 days until the election

21:55

and we just need to stay vigilant. We have to

21:57

stay strong within

21:58

ourselves.

21:59

need to be defiant now in

22:02

the face of real fascism because

22:04

the threats are real and We cannot

22:06

give up and we have to fight like hell now

22:08

just like generations before us came and fought

22:11

and now We just can't go back.

22:13

There's no going back. We're only going to go forward and

22:16

that brings us to Diane

22:18

Feinstein who passed away at

22:20

the age of 90. She was a trailblazer of

22:22

women in Congress she navigated

22:25

during a difficult time of course of the

22:27

Harvey Milk assassination and she

22:30

unfortunately tarnished her legacy

22:33

by not stepping down

22:35

at a time that would have been more dignified

22:37

for her and her family and also

22:39

for our country she put our democracy

22:42

at risk and I want to just personally

22:45

blast her staff Diane

22:47

Feinstein's congressional staff that

22:49

kept up this charade of

22:51

allowing her to stay in Congress

22:54

as long as she did why

22:56

was that so dangerous to all of us? And

22:58

why is that why are we talking about that even

23:00

though we people might say leave it alone She

23:03

was a trailblazer in many ways have some respect.

23:06

No, this was shameful what

23:08

went on. It was absolutely shameful Let me just

23:10

explain I'm gonna start with

23:12

big tobacco. That's we're gonna start with how

23:15

did the American public finally

23:17

get protections against big Tobacco

23:21

it was the courts. It was the lawsuits

23:23

brought to the courts It was our legal system

23:25

that finally brought big tobacco to heel

23:28

That is a model for taking on the NRA

23:31

and for the climate crisis So we need

23:33

the courts to be strong and transparent especially

23:36

as Congress remains

23:38

gridlocked

23:39

Unfortunately Trump and

23:41

McConnell packed 30% of

23:44

our courts with far-right ideologues

23:47

Feinstein staying in office

23:50

Slowed down Biden's ability to

23:52

appoint judges and that's according to Dick

23:54

Durbin the chair of the Senate

23:56

Judiciary Committee You may have

23:58

heard it on online memes going

24:01

out there that Biden appointed

24:03

more judges

24:04

since JFK.

24:06

That was true way back in

24:08

August, 2022. Right

24:10

now, Biden's at around 140 judges

24:14

with around a year left in his presidency.

24:16

When Trump left office, he

24:19

had appointed a hundred more judges

24:21

than that. So Biden needs to speed it up in the time

24:24

that he has left. And Trump, of course,

24:26

famously, as we all don't need to be reminded, got

24:28

three on the Supreme Court. That have made our

24:30

lives miserable ever since. So if

24:33

Merrick Garland ever gets around to opening

24:35

a federal ethics investigation, the Clarence

24:37

Thomas, right, as Democrats have

24:39

demanded, maybe Biden might

24:42

have another judge to a point,

24:44

but Barrett Garland would have to actually do his job in

24:46

order for that to happen. Judges are

24:48

everything. It's why Hitler and

24:50

the Nazis attacked the legal system as soon

24:52

as they came to power, purging

24:55

and installing loyalists, turning Germany

24:58

into a dictatorship. In six months,

25:01

the far right has her eyes set on the

25:03

exact same thing. Leonard

25:05

Leo, co-chair of the,

25:08

of the nonsense fascist society,

25:10

the federalist society and the architect

25:13

of Trump McConnell's court

25:15

packing. He wants to come back. He

25:17

wants the white house back. All right. And

25:20

all of the staffers, the congressional

25:22

staffers that kept up with Dianne Feinstein's

25:25

charade, you should all be investigated

25:27

as well for maybe taking some

25:30

bribes or other favors for

25:32

keeping her in power as long as you did.

25:34

That was shameful. And it had

25:37

real world consequences on us

25:39

as Americans. It slowed down Biden's

25:42

ability for months,

25:43

for months

25:44

to appoint judges. Shame on you. Just

25:47

to end this news recap, Trump

25:49

and his two idiot sons faced New

25:52

York state AG Tish James

25:54

in court for her civil lawsuit, accusing

25:56

Trump, a career criminal and chronic liar of

25:59

fraud. including inflating his wealth

26:01

by a lot to get loans. And if found

26:04

guilty, the Trumps could have to pay $250

26:06

million and be barred from

26:09

practicing business in New York State. In

26:12

addition to that civil lawsuit, Trump faces

26:14

four criminal lawsuits, including the

26:16

New York case of hush money payments

26:19

to Stormy Daniels, the Florida case

26:21

of stealing our national secrets and

26:23

keeping them, including nuclear secrets lying

26:26

around Mar-a-Lago, knowing Vipers

26:28

Den of foreign spies, but knowing Trump,

26:31

like he had his agents like

26:33

the Kushners just selling that stuff straight up to

26:35

the Saudis and the Russians in China.

26:38

And then of course, there's the Georgia case

26:40

and Jack Smith in DC case all

26:43

for trying to overthrow our democracy. So

26:46

he's very busy at the moment,

26:48

all while running for president and to

26:50

help us make sense of the times

26:53

we're in. We have on the show this

26:55

week, historian Heather Cox

26:57

Richardson, author of the widely

27:00

popular sub-stack Letters

27:02

from an American and the new must-read

27:04

book Democracy Awakening,

27:07

Notes on the State of America. She's

27:10

on the show joining me and cushing

27:12

over

27:12

our boyfriend, Ulysses S.

27:15

Grant. First

27:24

things first, Heather, Ulysses

27:27

S. Grant, go.

27:29

Well, I'm a big fan of Grant

27:32

and

27:32

people tend to remember him only because

27:34

of what he did in the American

27:37

Civil War. But he was actually an

27:39

extraordinarily bright man. Not only was

27:41

he a brilliant military strategist,

27:44

but he was also an extraordinarily

27:46

good politician, a very principled man.

27:49

And he was also, of course,

27:51

the person who really started the realist movement

27:54

in American literature with his memoirs, which

27:56

are simply brilliant. They are simply brilliant

27:58

as a writer.

28:00

He is misremembered

28:02

a lot because there was

28:04

a political hit that was done on him

28:06

before the 1872 election and historians

28:09

and people who study that period tend

28:11

to focus on the newspapers and what

28:13

the newspapers said about him, but that was all

28:15

part of the attempt of a group of newspapermen

28:17

to bring him down. The actual accusations

28:21

they were making were not substantiated

28:23

ever in the court of law, which is sort of illuminating

28:25

for this moment. But all that said, here

28:27

are the things that I like best about Grant,

28:29

aside from the memoirs and aside from the fact

28:31

he won the Civil War and the sense from the fact he tried

28:34

to protect black Americans

28:36

in the South is that

28:38

he was a really ordinary

28:40

guy in person. He

28:43

did have a drinking problem when he was bored.

28:46

If he was on campaign, he didn't drink. But

28:48

when he was off campaign,

28:50

he did drink too much. He

28:52

adored his wife, absolutely adored

28:55

his wife, Julia Dent Grant. And my

28:57

favorite story about that is the pictures that we have

28:59

of Julia are side two because

29:02

she didn't like to be photographed straight on because

29:04

she had a lazy eye that

29:07

she thought made her look unattractive. And

29:09

it could have been corrected by surgery. But of course,

29:11

in those days, they that could also involve

29:13

losing an eye because they didn't understand about

29:16

germs or anything. So when he

29:18

started to get famous, she wrote to him

29:20

and said she was going to have the surgery done

29:22

so that she would look better to be with him. He's quite a handsome

29:25

man. And he wrote back this passionate

29:27

letter in which he said, don't do

29:29

anything to change your appearance. I

29:31

love you the way you are. And

29:33

I don't care what other people think.

29:36

So don't you think about doing something you're afraid of? Because

29:39

of what other people think because I adore

29:41

you. And he also

29:44

the other stories I love about Grant are that

29:47

if you look at the pictures of him from the war, he's very,

29:49

very slight. He's thin. And his

29:51

men worried a great deal about him because he essentially

29:54

lived on coffee and pastries

29:56

during the war. The pictures that

29:58

you see on the currency, for example, he's very, very, very thin. or

30:00

in later years when he's president, he's huge.

30:03

And people don't realize that that's a space of

30:05

a very few years. And the difference there

30:08

is that once the war was over, he started to

30:10

eat again. But until he died

30:12

in that day and age, they believed you needed to

30:14

eat meat. So they always put meat in front of

30:16

him, but he couldn't eat meat unless it

30:18

had been cooked so entirely thoroughly

30:21

that there was no juice in it at all.

30:23

Because if he saw the juices from

30:25

meat on a plate, it reminded him of the battlefield.

30:28

He cared a great deal about what had happened to his

30:30

men. And the other piece that I really

30:32

love about him is that he

30:35

was just doing his job. He was a brilliant

30:37

man, obviously. But my favorite

30:40

story of all about him is

30:42

that the morning of the surrender at the Appomattox

30:44

courthouse, he had had a migraine all night and

30:46

hadn't been able to sleep. And so

30:49

when he woke up in the morning, and I just love

30:51

this because how many of us have those days

30:53

when you just think you cannot get out of bed because

30:56

you've got a migraine or because you were up

30:58

all night or because you can't face

31:00

what's coming at work or because you're fighting

31:03

with your significant other or whatever. And

31:05

he hadn't slept all night. He'd been

31:08

wrapped in mustard plasters, which irritate

31:10

your skin to try and make his headache better. And

31:13

so he gets out of bed, and he reaches to the floor,

31:15

and he picks up the clothes that are on the floor, which,

31:17

again, sorry,

31:18

but how many of us have done that? And

31:21

he just gets up, and he goes to work because

31:23

he has to. And that's the day

31:25

that Lee recognizes

31:28

that he can no longer protect his army of

31:30

Northern Virginia, and he

31:32

surrenders. And I just love that

31:34

moment of like, it's not pomp and circumstance.

31:37

It's not, my god, I'm going to win today. It's

31:39

dragging yourself out of bed with a

31:41

migraine, which, if you've ever had a migraine,

31:43

this is a whole new pedal of fish from headaches.

31:47

And he just gets up, and

31:49

he does the best because

31:52

it's his duty and his job

31:54

to do the best he can. And that, to me, just

31:56

encapsulates him more

31:58

than.

31:59

any of the victories or the presidency

32:02

or anything else. He just kept doing his job.

32:05

I was getting tears in my eyes listening

32:07

to talking about Grant. I always

32:09

say on the show, he's my boyfriend because

32:12

he is. He's one of my mentors that's helping

32:14

me through his time. I call Grant the original

32:17

Nazi hunter because that's what he

32:19

was doing, the confederates back

32:21

then

32:21

that would go on, you know,

32:23

with the Deep South, with Jim Crow, literally

32:26

informing the Nazis

32:29

how to create this legal structure

32:31

of genocide in Germany. Grant was

32:33

Nazi hunting before. It

32:36

was cool. He's extraordinary. He's

32:39

not perfect because none of us are. I think

32:41

the circumstances of how that memoir

32:44

came to be, the fact that he lost his

32:46

fortune in a Ponzi scheme,

32:49

he was a huge celebrity. I'm telling

32:51

our audience this, I know I'm not telling you this Heather, but

32:54

he was a huge celebrity in his day, global

32:56

celebrity,

32:57

and someone took advantage of him,

33:00

the hot shots of Wall Street at the time, and

33:03

he lost everything. His girlfriend,

33:06

most clean, convinced him to write a memoir

33:08

and helped him with it, helped him get a publisher to

33:10

bring in meaning so that his wife

33:13

and kids would have something after

33:15

he passed. As he's dying, he

33:17

reloves

33:18

his great legacy, and he's doing that

33:20

not because of his ego, not to set

33:23

any records straight, but literally to rebuild

33:25

after he had so much taken from him and to leave

33:28

his family with something. So

33:30

how did you fall in love with Grant?

33:32

Well, first off, how do you not fall in love with Grant?

33:34

But it was the... This is going

33:37

to be like the whole episode of I'm just letting everyone

33:39

know. So I

33:41

watched Fisher Stevens, who was

33:44

one of the producers of the... and Leonardo DiCaprio,

33:46

I believe, was one of the producers of that great

33:48

three-part series, I believe, that it was

33:51

on Grant. It was a dramatized series,

33:53

and the British actor that played Grant

33:55

was fabulous. My sister, Alexander

33:58

Chalupa, whose story we've told... time from

34:00

the show, she watched it first and

34:02

she's the one that's saying its praises. And

34:04

then I watched it and really clung to it during

34:06

the hellfire of 2020. And in fact, when Sarah and I

34:10

announced our pre-COO

34:13

January 6th special, because we saw the COO

34:15

coming, we're warning about the COO all through 2020 on

34:17

this show. And as

34:20

the COO was ramping up, we announced

34:22

a special on it. We're like, come back here

34:24

after January 6th, because we're going to talk

34:26

about the COO that's about to happen.

34:28

And in that episode, I think

34:30

we called it Traders and Patriots.

34:33

And I ended our destination special,

34:36

announcing the COO before it happened. I ended

34:39

that episode reading from Grant's own words,

34:41

how we're living in a time of Traders and Patriots. And

34:44

he just captured the moment perfectly

34:47

for us. And it's been really interesting how these

34:49

heroes of history have come back, how

34:51

they've been resurrected. I really do believe

34:54

as an artist, as a filmmaker, that

34:56

there is something higher out there

34:58

that chooses you as a creator

35:01

to

35:01

bring the story out into the world when people

35:03

need it. I felt possessed by the Gareth

35:05

Jones story. I felt like there's some hand to

35:08

God that was forcing me to tell. Like I had no choice.

35:10

I was like, Job in the Bible, trying to run away from

35:12

it for so long, but it kept pulling me back in.

35:14

And it survived to be told. And

35:17

people don't understand how many

35:19

miracles, how many, we were just

35:21

saved, left and right, to get that story

35:24

out. It has been shown around the world right

35:26

before Russian launches a second genocide

35:29

on Ukraine. I'm telling you, there's something there

35:31

that brought that story out through me and many

35:33

others. We were the coalition's

35:35

fullmates, the Mr. Jones team. And it goes

35:37

that way with Alexander

35:39

Hamilton, how Lin-Manuel

35:41

also felt like possessed and taken over to tell

35:43

this thing. He was a boring, wonky founding

35:46

father who cared

35:46

about this Treasury guy, right? But it turns out

35:48

there's so much more there. And

35:50

he came at a moment where

35:53

we really had to understand the

35:55

promises of our country, the revolution,

35:58

the enlightenment that our nation,

35:59

our imperfect nation was born in and how

36:02

these individuals had to sacrifice so much to

36:04

try to reach the greater promises

36:06

and how we're part of the story of fighting for those

36:08

greater promises. I'm telling you, I was

36:10

in the Society of Cincinnati in

36:12

Washington, DC in November, 2016, when

36:16

Trump had just come to power with the Kremlin's

36:18

help. And I'm listening to the Hamilton soundtrack

36:21

in my ears in an institute

36:23

that was founded to help revolutionary war

36:26

veterans. And I'm looking at these oil paintings of

36:28

Alexander Hamilton and her founding fathers. And

36:30

I'm at this event, an office event with

36:32

me,

36:33

our Kremlin agent, GRU

36:35

agent, including one who was in the

36:37

June, 2016 Trump Tower meeting, a

36:40

Don Jr., Kushner, and

36:43

Paul Manafort. I'm just thinking, this is

36:45

why Hamilton had it come back right now.

36:48

So we understand America is worth fighting

36:50

for. Nobody's meant perfect. Yes,

36:52

it was built on genocide, but we're trying to restore

36:55

justice and healing that is preserved and protected

36:57

from the truth and fight for equality

36:59

and make this country safe, not just for

37:01

us as Americans, but for the whole world.

37:04

That must've been an amazing meeting to

37:06

be at.

37:06

One last thing about Grant,

37:09

before we go forward with all the other modern

37:11

stuff,

37:11

the house where

37:14

he wrote that memoir

37:15

still stands in New York. And

37:18

somebody took me to it, I don't know

37:20

where anything is, I have no sense

37:21

of direction. It's still there and you can

37:23

see the porch. It's now, of course, in the middle of the city.

37:25

At the time, it was a farm at the edge of the city

37:28

and you can stand and the porch is the

37:30

same pretty much. At least that's how

37:32

I remember it. And it's really, really

37:34

weird to think of those pictures because

37:37

there were so many pictures of him. He was

37:39

dying of cancer and he's wrapped

37:42

in blankets. So he's literally writing

37:44

this out by hand. And to sit there

37:46

and it's like, that's where he's at. That's

37:48

in the pictures. It's pretty powerful.

37:52

And now here we are all these years later and

37:55

you're at a meeting with Russian agents.

37:58

Such as life now in America.

37:59

So let me ask you this, how did

38:02

we get to this moment of crisis in America?

38:04

We're on the brink of autocracy and of

38:06

course in many states it's already

38:08

there. Certainly for non-white people,

38:11

LGBTQ plus people and

38:13

those who are pregnant, there's real

38:15

fascism

38:15

in some of these so-called red states

38:17

and even in parts of

38:19

so-called blue states, so-called purple states,

38:22

groups of us are living under

38:24

real threat on a daily level. And

38:27

how did we reach this point?

38:29

It's a reflection I think of

38:32

a period, you know, from 1933 with the arrival of the

38:34

Democrats' policies

38:38

under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that

38:40

implemented the New Deal through 1981

38:43

when Reagan takes office to dismantle that

38:45

system. We have been since

38:48

then on a trajectory that tries

38:50

to tear apart the period from 1933 to 1981 and

38:53

in that period Americans from all

38:56

political stripes embraced the idea

38:58

that the government was supposed to regulate

39:01

business, protect the basic social safety

39:03

net, promote infrastructure and

39:05

defend civil rights in the states. That

39:08

idea that the federal government has a role to play

39:10

in all those areas was

39:13

called the liberal consensus and people embraced

39:15

it as I say across all parties. But

39:17

the rise of the liberal

39:19

consensus was popular enough that

39:22

people stopped defending it. They

39:24

stopped talking about democracy. They stopped talking about the importance

39:27

of inclusion in American society

39:29

for all people. And what

39:31

that did is it opened the way for

39:34

a small group of elites

39:36

who were, not necessarily elites,

39:38

a small group of people who were eager to dismantle

39:41

the regulation of business and the protection of civil

39:43

rights primarily, including the

39:45

idea of women taking roles outside the home,

39:48

the traditional religious conservatives,

39:50

especially southern conservatives didn't like. A

39:52

small group of people tried to destroy that

39:55

liberal consensus and they did so by telling

39:57

a story and it was a story about

39:59

little guys that

40:02

were

40:02

endangered by an empire, if

40:04

you will, a government that was crushing

40:07

their individuality, and that in order

40:09

to really make America great again,

40:11

which by the way, was pioneered not by

40:13

Donald Trump, but by Ronald Reagan, you

40:16

had to dismantle this state. And

40:18

if you were going to do that, you had to identify

40:20

the enemies who were creating the state and supporting

40:23

this state. And they were all the people that

40:25

you're talking about. So that narrative,

40:27

which really took off in the 1950s, and

40:29

you can see it in things like the popularity

40:32

of Rawhide and Bonanza

40:34

and the Lone Ranger and all the westerns that

40:36

are on television in the 1950s and the 1960s, that narrative

40:38

became in the 1960s, especially under

40:46

President Richard Nixon, a narrative

40:48

of us, good guys, the silent

40:51

majority, the white middle class

40:53

against them. And

40:55

them became anybody who was looking for

40:57

those things that I'm talking about, the regulation of business,

41:00

the social safety net infrastructure,

41:02

or the protection of civil rights. And from

41:04

that, of course, we got a government

41:06

under Reagan that went and gutted the middle

41:09

class, pushed through a number of

41:11

laws and tax cuts that really moved wealth

41:13

upward dramatically and made the rest

41:16

of the country really fall backward. And

41:18

with that, it created a population that was eager

41:20

to demonize that other group of people, those

41:23

others. And from that, and

41:25

this is really obviously a drive by history

41:28

here, but we get Trump in 2016

41:31

holding up a mirror to those disaffected people

41:34

and saying, look,

41:35

I can give you what you want. I'm racist,

41:37

I'm sexist, and I'm going to

41:39

make your

41:40

health care better. People forget this. But

41:42

he talked about health care, he talked about solar

41:43

taxes, talked about bringing back manufacturing,

41:46

he talked about infrastructure. I'm going to

41:48

give you all those things that

41:50

you have been primed to want since 1981

41:53

and to some degree before

41:55

that. And from that, of course,

41:57

we get Trump in office and his real

42:00

attacks on our institutions

42:03

and in the institutions that are so important

42:06

for protecting democracy because they are

42:08

staffed by people who are

42:10

nonpartisan and at least

42:12

in their professional lives and simply want

42:15

to protect the guardrails of a democratic

42:17

system. Those guardrails are

42:19

in real trouble now. At the federal

42:21

level, certainly if the Republicans

42:24

continue to grow in power at the national

42:26

level, you look at the 2025 project

42:28

and you ought to break out in hives because

42:31

it is a blueprint for authoritarianism.

42:33

But certainly at the state level and at the state

42:35

level where Trump was so effective at

42:37

packing Republican Party

42:40

officials with his own people. We have

42:42

things like you're talking about the 14 states

42:44

that have imposed really draconian

42:47

restrictions on abortion and on LGBTQ

42:50

rights even though a poll

42:52

that was taken just the week that you and I are recording

42:54

this says that only 9 percent, 9

42:58

percent of Americans believe that abortion

43:00

should be illegal in all cases whatsoever.

43:03

You can't get 9 percent of people to agree on you

43:05

know what time to have lunch. The idea

43:07

that

43:08

somehow they are representing the

43:09

majority is just

43:11

you know a fantasy. But we've

43:14

ended up now in a place where because

43:16

of that I think that story and

43:19

the fact that a lot of people weren't paying attention

43:21

because the guardrails seemed as if maybe

43:24

it's not a president you like but how much

43:26

damage can he really do. Now

43:29

we've lost those guardrails and we have a much

43:31

better sense of how much damage could he really

43:34

do and the answer is all of it.

43:36

Yep absolutely. And so in

43:38

terms of democracy awakening

43:41

and your brilliant

43:43

sub-stack and wherever you appear to

43:46

watch your YouTube videos it's so fun

43:48

hanging

43:48

out with you through the power of

43:50

YouTube.

43:50

What are your lessons

43:52

from history

43:54

on how we protect ourselves now and

43:57

how we build a

43:59

livable future?

43:59

I think people are seeing

44:02

authoritarianism as this smash-grab

44:04

for power of population control,

44:07

population, cooling,

44:09

in order

44:11

to fight for survival in this

44:13

Mad Max wasteland as the climate

44:16

crisis asteroid hits. And we live

44:18

in this totally inhospitable,

44:22

lawless, and governable world. And

44:25

I'm using that, of course, from the Pentagon, America's

44:27

own national security reports of where we're headed. So

44:31

what lessons do you have for us in this

44:33

moment of time? Like, what can we look back

44:35

on in history in terms of how to protect ourselves now and

44:37

build a livable future?

44:39

So one of the things I think is really important to

44:41

do is to remember

44:44

to keep things in the correct lanes. That

44:46

is, it's really easy to feel overwhelmed

44:49

if you think about it all, and you think

44:51

you have to fix all of it. And

44:53

so one of the things that I try and

44:56

focus on is what part of this I

44:58

can affect. And so I have a

45:00

dear friend whose big concern is

45:03

fresh water. And she says, you know, if we

45:05

could just make sure everybody in the world has drinkable

45:07

water, we could fix so

45:09

many things. Because if you don't drinkable water,

45:12

you're susceptible to all these diseases, and you have

45:14

high mortality rates, and on and on and on. She said, I don't

45:16

understand why everybody doesn't care about getting

45:19

people fresh water. That should be everybody's top

45:21

priority. And I said to her, well, actually,

45:23

my top priority is getting

45:25

people elected who care

45:28

about getting fresh water to everybody. So

45:31

one of the things to do is to figure out what your

45:33

lane is. She's really

45:36

working hard on getting people fresh water. I'm

45:38

not working on that at all because she's working

45:40

on that. I'm working on getting people elected

45:42

who will make that a priority or make those

45:44

sorts of policies a priority. So the first thing

45:46

to do, I think, is to make

45:49

sure you're not trying to fix everything at once because

45:53

fixing the issue of climate change,

45:55

and it's really dire, is

45:58

a question of... Making

46:00

sure we have the people in place

46:02

who will make that a priority

46:05

because if we get rid of the Governments

46:07

that are making it a priority because

46:09

we're upset about the entire system It's

46:12

not a win the idea of replacing

46:15

the institutions that are working on

46:17

those issues very imperfectly But working

46:20

on them. I mean the Biden administration has invested far

46:22

more in climate science It's a historic

46:25

investment in climate science and anybody has before

46:27

and it feels to me like we're in one of those zeitgeist

46:29

moments that you were just identifying for Hamilton

46:33

for example that everybody

46:35

recognizes now that something has

46:37

to be done But it's going to take

46:39

more push to make sure enough

46:41

gets done because we're certainly not there yet But

46:44

tearing down those who are working imperfectly

46:47

is not an answer because what we're going to get

46:49

is the people who simply

46:51

want to continue to rake in as much

46:54

money as they possibly can from fossil fuels

46:56

and That's not going to take us

46:58

in any way near where we need to go But

47:00

I think that from history the story

47:02

that we don't call enough and that is so crucial

47:05

in this moment is That what

47:07

really creates change is first of

47:09

all changing the way people think about things By

47:12

telling the right stories, but also

47:14

by creating communities that act

47:17

on those stories So one of the

47:19

things that really jumps out to me and I'm 60

47:22

and I don't feel like this has been the story of my Life,

47:24

I feel like this has really started coming to the fore

47:26

in the 1990s and the 2000 aughts is people saying to me I'm

47:31

only one person. What can I do? And The

47:34

answer to that is find another person

47:37

Because the reality

47:39

is we would not be in the place We

47:41

are in the United States today with an

47:43

attempt of a small minority and they are

47:46

a small minority to take power

47:48

by manipulating the system and by

47:51

Creating violence against the rest of us if

47:54

they were a majority that by definition

47:56

if you're a majority You don't need

47:58

to

47:58

suppress anything

47:59

Because you know you can rely on

48:02

voters, for example, to keep you in power. One of

48:04

the reasons that Democrats want to keep making sure a lot of people

48:06

can vote is they know what they want to do is very

48:08

popular. So recognizing

48:11

that the reason the minority, the

48:13

political minority, is trying so hard

48:16

to manipulate the system is because they know

48:19

that if, in fact, we recognize

48:22

our strong majority, they won't

48:24

have a leg to stand on. So the

48:27

idea of finding someone else

48:29

is incredibly important. And there's a number of organizations

48:31

that do that, that help you figure out

48:34

who else in your ruby red area

48:36

is actually thinking the way you are. But

48:39

also then recognizing that what has always

48:41

created change in the United States

48:44

is two things. One is an economic

48:46

system that's fair. And that sounds like a really funny thing for me to

48:48

say. But if you look at any

48:50

of our civil rights movements, they come in times of

48:53

economic prosperity in which

48:55

there's not a huge gap between the

48:57

people at the bottom and the people at the top. So

48:59

one of the reasons I'm always focusing on tax

49:01

policy, which sounds like, what, you care

49:03

about climate change, you're focused on tax policy? If

49:06

people feel like they've got enough to eat, they're

49:08

willing to share with other people. That's the bottom line.

49:11

So that is always a predicate

49:14

to making sure we get positive change in

49:16

this country. The other one, though,

49:18

is transparency. That is,

49:21

if you think about the civil rights movement, and people tend

49:23

to focus on Rosa Parks, for example, not

49:25

being willing to go to the back of the bus. But

49:28

what really made Rosa Parks is

49:30

she was the secretary for the NAACP,

49:32

the National Advancement Association

49:34

for the Advancement of Colored People, which is formed in 1909. And

49:38

it's a biracial coalition, a multi-religious

49:40

coalition, a multi-political

49:43

coalition designed to make

49:46

this country a democracy once and for all. And

49:48

they're very clear about organizing in 1909

49:51

as a reflection of the fact they're trying to mirror Lincoln's

49:53

birth 100 years before they organized,

49:56

not technically, but they say they organized

49:58

on his birthday.

49:59

And what they do is they

50:02

don't simply work in the courts

50:04

for the expansion of civil rights, although they

50:06

do do that as well. They

50:09

always talk in public, in

50:11

very public ways, about things that are

50:13

not fair, about atrocities,

50:16

about people being killed, about rapes,

50:18

about the ways in which the

50:20

laws as they existed at the time, especially

50:23

in the American South, the Jim Crow laws,

50:25

were themselves a perversion of American

50:28

democracy and were actively

50:30

creating circumstances in

50:32

which white men largely could

50:35

enact atrocities, could hurt people,

50:37

could rape people, could murder people, could put

50:39

their eyes out, could do all sorts of things

50:42

that white Americans didn't want to look

50:44

at. They insisted on keeping those front

50:46

and center. And at the end of the day, once

50:49

people understood what was happening

50:51

through a community that was highlighting

50:53

those things, they did the right thing.

50:56

We get the civil rights movement. First

50:58

of all, we get the Reconstruction, but

51:00

we also get the civil rights movement from

51:03

white men who are the ones who are voting

51:05

in that period, which people tend to forget.

51:07

But how did they get to a place like that? They

51:10

got to a place because they looked at the things

51:12

that the community that was inherent in the

51:14

NAACP was highlighting

51:17

and refusing to let them look away from any

51:19

longer. So the idea

51:21

that we can't change things is

51:23

just not borne out by our

51:25

history, even in the face of extraordinary

51:28

disadvantages. Our

51:37

discussion continues and you can get access to

51:39

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