Introducing Runaway Country: Justice Has Left the Building

Alex digs into the destruction of due process and rule of law under the Trump administration. First, she hears from Judge Anam Petit, a recently fired immigration judge who explains how the legal system is being quietly dismantled to prioritize deportations. Then, Alex speaks to Andrew Weissmann, former lead prosecutor in Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office, about whether our system is forever changed, and what it’s like to be in President Trump’s crosshairs. For a transcript of this episode, click here https://crooked.com/podcast/justice-has-left-the-building/. Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025! 3/6/26 – San Francisco 3/7/26 – Los Angeles Learn more: http://crooked.com/events Order your copy of Leah's book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Lawless/Leah-Litman/9781668054628 Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/strictscrutinypodcast/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@strictscrutinypodcast, and Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/strictscrutiny.bsky.social

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Leah Litman?

  Hey, it is Leah, Kate and Melissa here. Each week on Strict Scrutiny, we cover the legal cases and questions shaping all of our lives, but rarely do we get to hear directly from those experiencing the news firsthand.

• 0:11Melissa Murray?

  We're taking a break today, but we wanted to bring you something a little different. We're excited to share a recent episode of Runaway Country with Alex Wagner that sheds light on a conversation that feels especially relevant in today's chaotic political climate. In this episode, Alex digs into the destruction of due process and the rule of law under the Trump administration and speaks with Judge Anam Petit, a recently fired immigration judge, about her personal experiences with ICE and ongoing deportations.

• 0:39Kate Shaw?

  It is a great episode, and you definitely don't want to miss it. We love Alex Wagner. She's one of the most talented journalists working in the business. And this episode really brings you up to speed firsthand on how the immigration legal system is being dismantled. So we sort of know on the streets the outrageous overenforcement of the immigration laws that we are witnessing, but I don't think people really appreciate what is happening inside immigration justice as this administration also takes aim at that aspect of our immigration system. So this is a harrowing listen just to hear Judge Pettit's experience with masked men showing up in her very courtroom. You can feel the direct impact and fear that people face, so it is a must listen.

• 1:17Melissa Murray?

  And if you enjoy this episode and want story-driven, expert-led reporting that goes beyond the headlines, make sure to check out Runaway Country every Thursday on your favorite podcast app or YouTube.

• 1:28Speaker 03

  Hi, everyone. Welcome to my new show, Runaway Country. We are less than a year into the Trump administration, and I don't know about you, but I barely recognize this place. National Guard troops are invading blue cities, citizens are being snatched off the street, and the east wing of the White House is being ripped off and turned into, apparently, a corporate event space. What the hell is happening here? Everything is unfolding at such a rapid clip that it all just bleeds in together into one extended, chaotic moment, and one that you might actually become a little numb to. And when you hear the same voices weigh in on all of this, and when the cycle of outrage is never ending, well, then we miss what's really going on.

• 2:13Speaker 03

  This show is about shaking that up. I'm Alex Wagner. I am a Pod Save America contributor and a senior political analyst at MS Now. And on this show, I'm going to bring you voices you don't often hear from, people whose experiences at the center of these headlines will offer you a way to shake off that numbness and to better understand the seemingly incomprehensible moment we all happen to be living through. And then we're going to pair that storytelling with analysis from some of the smartest people I know in order to put it all in context, all of this, so that we can keep this country within our grasp.

• 2:54Speaker 03

  This week, we wanted to start with a minor development, President Trump's full-blown assault on the Department of Justice and the crumbling authority of rule of law. Between the president's political hit list and ICE agents in courthouse hallways, all of a sudden, it feels like we are in an inverted America where justice has basically left the building. Faith in institutions has been sliding for some time now, but at the end of the day, it seems like most of us, Democrats and Republicans, were operating under the assumption that ours is a country that guarantees due process, a place where the courts and the political motivations of the White House were separate things. Well, not anymore.

• 3:36Speaker 03

  This is Runaway Country. In today's episode, we'll be talking about how Trump is abusing the government, and specifically the Justice Department, to consolidate power, to target his critics, to purge his enemies, and to line his own pockets while he's at it. Here's the latest from CNN.

• 3:55Speaker 04

  The New York Times is reporting this afternoon that President Trump is moving to demand that the Justice Department financially compensate him for the various federal investigations into him. What exactly does he want? Nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. $230 million, to be exact.

• 4:17Speaker 03

  We've seen Trump replace DOJ officials with lackeys and use bogus lawsuits to go after political adversaries like former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. And we've seen him threaten a whole lot of other people just for what they've said about him publicly, including former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissman, who worked on the Mueller report and who we'll be hearing from later on in the show. Andrew shared with us his story about being personally targeted by Trump.

• 4:44Speaker 05

  I hope they're going to look into Weissman, too. Weissman's a bad guy.

• 4:47Speaker 03

  And what it's made him think, not just about his own future, but the future of the justice system and rule of law in America. But even Andrew's story has a lot more visibility than what's happening, much more quietly and much more insidiously every single day. The firing of not just career prosecutors, but the judges themselves, the very people who uphold the rule of law. You almost certainly already know that the immigration court system here is a nightmare. There are masked ICE agents standing outside of courtrooms, terrorizing the people who are just trying to follow the rules. Those wrenching clips have gone viral.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  That was an ICE agent in a New York City immigration court tackling a woman whose husband was essentially stolen from her as he showed up for his scheduled court date. But that drama does not begin and end in courtroom hallways. The Trump administration is working to make the hearings themselves increasingly difficult, if not actually impossible. They're overwhelming judges with thousands and thousands of more immigration cases. And then they're pushing the judges to dismiss the cases so that the migrants can be put into expedited removal hearings. And then they have those ICE agents in the hallways ready to grab those migrants, almost all of whom have no criminal records. So judges see all of this happening, and they are in a bind.

• 6:14Speaker 03

  Most of these undocumented migrants, after all, have no legal representation, and judges are not allowed to give legal advice. If all of that sounds insane, there's also this. The Trump administration is firing these immigration judges at a rapid clip and working to replace them with military lawyers. As of this week, there are only 600 immigration court judges left for a backlog of cases that number somewhere around 3.8 million and is just going up. You can do the math here. The system, as it is now, cannot hold. So to understand what's happening on the front lines of all of this, we're going to

• 6:54Speaker 03

  talk to immigration judge Anam Raman-Petite, who worked for the Executive Office for Immigration Review. That's the agency at the Department of Justice that oversees the immigration courts. Like many others in her line of work, Judge Petit was fired in September, seemingly for no reason, or for no reason having to do with her actual job performance. But obviously, there is a whole lot more to this story. Here's my conversation with Judge Anam Petit. First of all, just based on the videos, it's been wrenching to see what's happening in these courtrooms. So let's start there, I guess, which is, you were up until very recently, an immigration court judge.

• 7:39Speaker 03

  What has this year been like at immigration court?

• 7:43Speaker 06

  It's been a lot. You know, watching a video is one thing. Those are traumatizing enough, just as a bystander, let alone imagining what that person is going through who's being detained, the family members who are crying on the sidelines. I mean, that's the principal person being affected by that, right? But then it widens. There are the immigrants who are appearing in court, who are also watching this happening, which creates a chilling effect, right? It affects people's ability and willingness to come to court, to show up for their hearings. It affects the interpreters who have to interpret really difficult discussions. It affects the attorneys, including the ICE attorneys, who are, they're kind of following

• 8:28Speaker 06

  orders and coordinating with ICE about the detentions. And then, of course, it affects the judge who's presiding over this hearing, which is supposed to be a neutral and fair and just proceeding. But then you have this, like you said, heart-wrenching, traumatizing incident that's occurring and disrupting what is supposed to be happening.

• 8:50Speaker 03

  You're like in there trying to give people due process effectively, right? These are huge life decisions. Do you stay? Do you go? Whatever.

• 8:57Speaker 06

  Right.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  And like, children are screaming, people are sobbing, and you're, it's your courtroom. I mean, what, what is that like on a human-to-human level?

• 9:07Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, it's hard to wear all the hats that you kind of need to as an immigration judge. There's the hat, which is the neutral arbiter, who just needs to stay unbiased and give objective, fair advice and reasoning in a case. But you can't separate that from being a human. And as a human, it's devastating. And I've been a practitioner in this field for a long time. They never did this. There was never a risk of detention when you went to court. You knew that when you go to court, you have your hearing. There's a very low risk of detention, if any. The only people who really had a risk of detention were people who had really serious criminal issues or national security issues.

• 9:51Speaker 06

  But for everyone else, you knew that there was a protection there at the court and for you to just be able to appear for your case. And so it's this new era of immigration court where enforcement is front and center. And what used to be a protected space for justice just isn't that anymore.

• 10:09Speaker 03

  I mean, you talk about other immigrants, even ones who aren't being targeted by ICE. As, you know, they watch people get seized in the hallway and ripped away from their families.

• 10:21Speaker 03

  Can you just describe what those reactions are like from people who were not even centrally involved, but are just part of the same process?

• 10:28Speaker 06

  I mean, I think the primary reaction is fear. When you see that happening, you don't know the difference between that person's case and your case or your family member's case. All you see is the detention, all you see is the crying. And so then when your case gets set for another hearing, that image, that visual is going to be running through your head when you're deciding, do I go back to court? And I think that's an especially difficult decision when people have family members.

• 10:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:54Speaker 06

  In a lot of these cases, there are children who are dependents or riders on a parent's claim. A lot of us judges waive the appearance of these minors so that they can stay in school. They don't have to come to court. The parent can focus on their hearing. So for a mother or a father who has children at home, who's also in that case, it has to run through their head, I could go to court today and I could never come home and see my child.

• 11:19Speaker 03

  I have a question about the ICE agents, you know? So these ICE agents are masked outside of the courtroom. Are they masked inside the courtroom? And did you recognize, I mean, would you recognize them from time to time? Did you, were there familiar faces among them?

• 11:35Speaker 06

  So you would see the same ones occasionally, but there are just so many ICE agents now that you wouldn't necessarily see repetitions. I mean, they just have a flush of money right now and they're hiring ICE agents at such a fast clip. Generally, in my courtroom, if anyone was wearing a hat or a mask or anything, I would ask them to remove it. I think a lot of judges were in that boat as well. But there is this unsettling feeling to have anyone in your courtroom who isn't there for a case and isn't there to support someone on a case, because you don't really know who they are.

• 12:11Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 12:11Speaker 06

  And in these times where there's an increase in political violence, there were times where I was very uneasy and scared because you don't know if they're actually even ICE agents. They can be anyone. And one of the issues at the immigration courts is that there isn't a high level of security. There aren't bailiffs in every courtroom like you have in other courts around the country. So for a lot of these cases, it was just me and the people appearing before me. Oftentimes, I didn't even have a law clerk or a legal assistant. And so you feel quite unprotected in those moments, especially when you kind of hear the commotion in the hallways. Which are quite disruptive to cases, not only to me and to the attorneys and interpreters,

• 12:52Speaker 06

  but also to the respondents who are here testifying about really traumatizing parts of their lives and they can hear someone getting detained right outside the courtroom.

• 13:01Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. Like crying and screaming.

• 13:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:04Speaker 03

  God. I guess I'm wondering if the new dynamic in these courtrooms, you deny someone or you dismiss their case because that's what the law requires, and they walk out unsuspecting and get taken by ICE. Do you have, like, are there moments in that new dynamic that stick out to you?

• 13:23Speaker 06

  So I had one of the first attentions in the country. So this was when people didn't really know that this was happening and that this was going to be a new policy that really defined the Trump administration with enforcement. And so I showed up for a hearing expecting the respondent, the immigrant in the proceedings to appear. And instead, I'm told by the ACC, the ICE prosecutor, that they were just detained. Instead, I have to have a conversation with his sobbing, wailing mother who accompanied him to court. And I'm talking to her through a Spanish interpreter. And again, I have to be quite careful in what I'm saying because

• 14:08Speaker 06

  DOJ and the immigration court isn't a part of that arrest detention process. And, you know, to just be able to answer her questions and say, you know, you can follow up with ICE to find out where he's detained. I really don't have much more information for you. And just think this was a time where this wasn't really happening. So everyone at my court was kind of surprised that this had even happened when a person was just showing up for their final day in court. And it was the last step of the process. It was a case that had been pending for a long time. I had prepared the case. I had reviewed it. I would have almost certainly been able to make a decision that day. Instead, that person was detained. They were sent to the detain docket of the court. And then another judge

• 14:50Speaker 06

  would kind of have to start that process all over again. So in addition to, you know, the detention being what it is in and of itself, it's also just inefficient for a system that has a crushing backlog.

• 15:02Speaker 03

  Can we talk about that backlog? Because you, you are one of many immigration judges who have been fired. The Seattle Times is reporting this week, I think, that the Trump administration has fired more than 83 immigration judges since Trump took office. There are less than 600 immigration judges nationally to hear, I think, roughly 3.8 million pending cases. So you're talking about math that in some parts of the country could look like one judge for 42,000 cases. Do you have any idea why you were fired?

• 15:36Speaker 06

  I have no idea, and no reason was given to me. I was a probationary judge, so they were looking at my performance. I had multiple performance reviews over the two years. I received nothing but glowing feedback. And even after I got fired, I had a conversation with my assistant chief immigration judge, who was my direct supervisor, and he advised me that there was no performance-based reason for my termination. So that kind of leaves the agency needs bucket. And there's no agency need to fire immigration judges. We had a crushing backlog.

• 16:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:12Speaker 06

  We received so much training, and by all accounts, I was a high-performing judge. I had a high number of completions.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  I have a theory on why you were fired. I mean, it just, like, what we know is that in the absence of having enough judges, the Trump administration is calling up military lawyers who haven't been trained in the, you know, the skill set that you were trained in, and the law that you were trained in, to deal with the shortage of immigration judges. I mean, they're decidedly less qualified, the requirements are lower, perhaps they'll be more allegiance to the goals of this administration. And, you know, there's no better way to, you know, creating crisis on the bench allows this administration to come up with a solution that serves their purposes.

• 17:04Speaker 03

  I mean, I just, I guess I wonder if you think overwhelming the system was maybe sort of the point of your dismissal?

• 17:10Speaker 06

  I think you're right. You know, the cynic in me believes that this is all being done very purposefully and that they're trying to break the system so that they're able to implement whatever reforms they see fit, which will be at the expense of due process.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  And it sounds like even when you were on the bench, the directives you were getting from the Department of Justice about how to adjudicate these cases was changing, right?

• 17:38Speaker 06

  Absolutely. So we are completely at the political whim of who is ever in the White House and then who the AG is. There were so many policy memoranda that completely undid what our prior guidance was on a full range of issues. And so we just have to keep up with all of the changes. But literally overnight, a decision could be issued and has been issued that completely upends decades of jurisprudence in asylum law or other areas of immigration law. So there's a lot of legal whiplash within judges and attorneys who have to appear in the system.

• 18:17Speaker 03

  Did you at any point feel pressure to be more hardline because of the directives coming out of the Attorney General's office?

• 18:26Speaker 06

  No one ever explicitly told me, you have to rule on this case in Y way, or if not, you'll suffer A, B, and C consequences. Thankfully, that never happened to me. There is an unspoken pressure to abide by the agenda of this administration. I mean, we are part of DOJ. Pam Bondi's our boss. And you'll, you see the decisions coming out of the Board of Immigration Appeals or from the AG's office that greatly limit certain relief paths to immigrants and are just stricter in general on a lot of procedural issues. You also see the, and feel the unspoken pressure of a lot of the policy memoranda that are issued, which tell us to decide cases in certain ways and identify issues that they see and

• 19:11Speaker 06

  really put a lot of those errors on the backs of the immigration judges and not leadership or directives that kind of control our dockets. But I never was told to decide a certain way. And when I look back on every case I've decided, there isn't one case that I

• 19:30Speaker 06

  That I ruled on because I felt like I had to rule a certain way based on leadership. I always decided every case based on the law and the facts. I felt more stress and anxiety when I had a week where I maybe granted more cases than I had the week before. Or if I didn't get every case done that week because I needed more time for testimony or decision, knowing the emphasis on case completions. So I've put more pressure on myself and I worked my butt off all year just to make sure that my case completions were good. I worked so much more outside of hours than I ever had because I knew I was on probation. And I didn't want to give this administration any reason to fire me. Turns out that didn't matter anyway, but there is that unspoken pressure for sure.

• 20:13Speaker 06

  And a lot of judges are feeling it right now.

• 20:17Speaker 03

  Were you relieved when you got fired?

• 20:19Speaker 06

  There was a slew of emotions, as I'm sure you can imagine. I was devastated. There were a lot of tears the day that I got fired. I was furious and angry at the injustice of it all, like knowing that I was a great judge. And I did walk out of that courthouse with my head held high. But I would be lying if I said that there wasn't a little bit of relief that was tinged into that. Because I lived the last several months with a lot of anxiety, with a heaviness that any day I could be fired. And so I was thinking what that would look like for me and my family. But I did feel some relief. At least I knew, right? At least I knew, okay, I'm fired.

• 21:04Speaker 06

  I need to focus on the next chapter instead of wondering whether that would happen on any given day, which was not a good place to be in.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  What's your assessment of if you're in this country and you're trying to get due process? Like, is that possible? I mean, how much has this administration eroded that?

• 21:24Speaker 06

  Due process still exists. It's getting harder and harder to maintain in a courtroom. Because judges are bound by presidential decisions and directives from the DOJ and leadership.

• 21:41Speaker 06

  And what I worry is that the emphasis in this administration for case completions and the number of cases you get done are going to override those due process protections that every immigrant is entitled to under our constitution.

• 21:58Speaker 03

  And also, maybe don't fire the judges if you want the cases to be completed. It's insane.

• 22:05Speaker 06

  We need judges to get through the backlog and we need qualified judges who have the experience and expertise in immigration law or litigation or administrative law. And they've gotten rid of all those qualifications. They're posting for immigration judge positions right now and they have gotten rid of all of the requirements that have always been required for that position. So I'm a little worried about the folks that they're going to be hiring to replace me.

• 22:32Speaker 03

  I mean, I feel like that's the point, right? I mean, what's your level of confidence about the rule of law in America?

• 22:37Speaker 06

  Any public trust or confidence that people had in the immigration court system and rule of law in general in the United States has greatly eroded. You know, the question I've been asked is, would you become an immigration judge again? And it was a dream job for me, but I would be so reluctant to accept that job again because it used to be such a stable position and now it's just anchored in instability. I don't know if we're ever going to get trust back in that federal sector employment. And then I don't know if we're ever going to get trust back in justice and the rule of law and to know that, you know, all of the checks and balances and the levels of

• 23:20Speaker 06

  review are going to work the way that these democratic institutions are supposed to be working.

• 23:27Speaker 03

  Jeez.

• 23:28Speaker 06

  That's the cynic in me. You know, you caught me at a bad time. I just got fired.

• 23:33Speaker 03

  Judge P. Thank you for answering these questions and sharing your wrenching experience. I started with the word wrenching. I'm ending on the word wrenching. Good luck out there.

• 23:44Speaker 06

  Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  We reached out for comment from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, where Judge Petit worked, but they have not responded as of this recording. And we should note that Defending Our Neighbors Fund is a sponsor of this podcast. When we come back, my conversation with Andrew Weisman.

• 24:07Speaker 03

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• 26:58Speaker 07

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• 27:33Speaker 03

  Andrew Weissmann, it's always a delight to talk to you, even under duress, which is where the country is. And to some degree, maybe you are, given what Trump has been saying, but we'll get to that in a second.

• 27:45Speaker 08

  Okay. Well, it's nice to be here.

• 27:48Speaker 03

  So we just talked to Judge Anam Petit, who is a now fired immigration court judge, who was let go for seemingly no reason at a time when immigration courts are in crisis, literally and figuratively. About 60 other judges have been fired or forced out over the last few months. That leaves, I think roughly 600 judges nationally to deal with a backlog of nearly 4 million cases. In some areas, you're seeing single judges have a caseload of like 42,000 cases. The Trump administration strategy here seems to be. Overwhelm the system and hollow it out at the same time, which I don't know. I don't know anything about war strategy, but I feel like Napoleon probably had this strategy.

• 28:32Speaker 03

  Like it's a full on assault on the justice system. Immigration court is housed at justice. Is it a foregone conclusion that this is all it's going to work, the strategy?

• 28:46Speaker 08

  Well, it, yes, let's start with it's makes no sense whatsoever to sit there and say, we really, really want to get these people out of the country. There's an immigration process and we're actually going to get rid of immigration judges. That's usually when you want to have more immigration judges. So the theory has to be on the, the most optimistic, positive Pollyannaish theory, which obviously you can tell I don't agree with is, is that, you know, the, the judges who they let go of are somehow slow, you know, not doing their job correctly.

• 29:29Speaker 08

  And they're replacing them with just more efficient and better judges. But, you know, that just does not, that does not seem to be the facts on the ground. So that's like the only positive theory. The other theories are you want people in there who are just going to do your bidding and you're going to have the veneer of due process without actual due process. And you're going to stack the courts in some ways, like putting Emil Bovee on the third circuit, in my view, is a way of hollowing out the courts in, in a way. If you, if you think about, there's a three, three parts of the government. So there's, you know, there's like going back to grade school and you have the executive, the judicial, the legislative.

• 30:14Speaker 08

  Well, they've gotten rid of Congress, right? Cause they're just asleep at the switch as they're Republican controlled. And if you're trying to deal with the pushback that we're seeing over and over again by lower court judges, who, whether they were, whether any president has appointed them, including Donald Trump himself. If you're trying to deal with that, one way is to just put in people who are just going to do exactly what they're essentially hired to do. And then the other, so that's one, a terrible theory, right? And then the third theory is that it doesn't really matter if you have a court system because they're not really planning on using it. And that is what we saw. And I, that's actually my, I think it's a combination of two and three because I actually

• 30:58Speaker 08

  think there's just so many times we've seen, as Judge Wilkinson, the very conservative judge in the Fourth Circuit said, is we're just seeing people being extracted. He wouldn't even use the term sort of legally removed, like going through the legal process. He, he was like saying they've been extracted and stashed in a prison because you don't even want to sort of give it the veneer of, of the legal system. And so if you're not really planning on using the legal system, you can go ahead and fire good reputable judges like the person that you just spoke to.

• 31:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, and they're, and they're bringing into, to your, your sort of second point. They're bringing in far less qualified military lawyers to do the work of these judges and to expedite the process. I mean, it's the veneer of due process without the actual practical process itself.

• 31:53Speaker 08

  So, so the one thing I will say about military judges and, and sort of military justice is, and I don't know if it will play out here, but I do want to speak up for JAGs and military courts because sometimes people might think, oh, they just railroaded people and oh, they don't really understand rights. That's not my experience. And I, I do think that they, this could backfire. Like they may be planning to do all that, but you could end up with people who are very much like Mr. Rovini, the attorney who was, you know, fired in that Abrego Garcia

• 32:38Speaker 08

  case because he was not going to call Mr. Abrego Garcia a terrorist without there being evidence of being a terrorist and he was fired for that. And so I think military people are trained in the rule of law. It, it's not exactly the same system as ours, but they may not get what they're thinking they're going to get that they're in the Trump administration.

• 33:00Speaker 03

  But it does get to your broader. Point that, you know, there's a question of whether they're actually that interested in the courts to begin with, right? Because you put all of this together, and I was talking to this judge, and it's like, you don't even have to be one of the people that's on having a hearing. You could just be there in the courtroom and you see what's unfolding, both in terms of the judges being overwhelmed, the length of time it takes to even get there. And then these ICE agents who sit and prey upon people who are trying to work within the system to gain asylum. And, you know, at one point, she says they're, you know, it's incredibly disruptive to the process to literally hear the screaming and crying on the other side of the wall as these families are ripped apart.

• 33:43Speaker 03

  And if you're like debating, do I stay in the system or go outside of it? The system clearly is stacked against you, or it is going to, you're going to end up getting fucked in that system in ways you cannot even imagine. And that then encourages people to just miss their court dates. And then we are left with the reality that we see now, which is people just getting snatched from on the streets, outside of their workplaces, on their way to drop off their kids to school.

• 34:09Speaker 08

  Absolutely. I mean, you know, we've had this situation where courthouses have said, and judges, you know, including chief judges have said, like, that's not happening in the courthouse. Like, there is a legal process here. People should feel like they can come here and, you know, and have their rights adjudicated without having to worry about, you know, being arrested outside. It's going to interfere with not just the peace of mind, but like, can you imagine if you're a witness and, you know? So, so that is something where we are seeing some, some pushback. I'm told the Southern District of New York, or it's a heard that the US attorney there

• 34:53Speaker 08

  has a commitment that those kinds of things won't happen, sort of on his watch while he's the US attorney. We'll see how much that lasts. But for, with immigration.

• 35:07Speaker 08

  I think the administration is banking on the fact that they think that Americans won't care about due process if we're talking about people who they can label as bad people. And that they're not sort of, you know, rich, white Americans. They're people who are more disadvantaged or from black and brown communities. And people will be thinking, well, they say they're bad people and, you know, they don't look like me, that somehow the Americans, you know, won't take it as seriously. I actually, and this is my Pollyanna part, I actually

• 35:47Speaker 08

  think Americans do care about that. I can tell you really, when I started out as a lawyer, I was not a prosecutor. I was just starting out at a law firm and we had a death penalty case. And our client was on death row and we were making this claim in Georgia State Court. And we were trying to get to federal court without unscathed because it's very hard. State court, we thought would be terrible for us. And eventually you go to federal court. And we were

• 36:17Speaker 03

  Oh, we remember the tension between Georgia courts and national courts.

• 36:22Speaker 08

  So this is a really interesting story that might sort of be appropriate for today. So we're in Georgia, the Georgia State Courts, and we have dispositive proof that, and I'm going to use a term that we don't use anymore, but it was the term at the time, so I have to use it, that he was diagnosed, since he was eight years old, as mentally retarded. I know that's not the term we use, but it was the diagnosis that he was given. And even the state had to concede that in fact, he was mentally retarded. But this is what the Georgia State Judge said is, you know what, in Georgia, we are, we protect our communities,

• 37:02Speaker 08

  we care about crime, but we're fair. And the Georgia State Court said it is unconstitutional under the Georgia Constitution to kill somebody who is mentally retarded.

• 37:16Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 37:17Speaker 08

  And, you know, so, meaning that I do, like, there was a sense of fairness. And it somewhat goes to my point about the military tribunals. A friend of mine had a, the first ever cooperator out of Guantanamo in the suite of sort of nine 11 cases. And when he was sentenced, there was an advisory jury of just people from the military. And he described what had happened to him, the first time ever, it was on the front page of the New York Times, described what happened to him on Black Site. And the jury wrote this lengthy letter to the judge saying that this was completely un-American,

• 38:00Speaker 08

  what had happened to him, and recommending that he be given leniency. And it wasn't because they were embracing his acts. They were deploring what had been done to him. And to me, that, I do think that it questions if there are enough people like that.

• 38:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:21Speaker 08

  But I do think that there are people who can, you know, who are principled, who are sitting there going, that's not how we behave.

• 38:28Speaker 03

  It's so, it's so heartening and important to hear about your sort of fundamental belief, which I agree with, that there are good people in the system and that a sort of, the agreement we have about what it means to be in this democracy still holds, even in like corners that are under greatest stress, right?

• 38:47Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 38:47Speaker 03

  There is though, I mean, I guess you, you talk about the, the chasm that separates people who are the victims in a lot of these cases and the rest of the American public. And the thing I worry about is that even if you aren't paying attention to what's happening to undocumented migrants, and you're not particularly engaged in how that's tearing apart communities where there are mixed families or people even who are American citizens, there's this unbelievable effort on the part of the administration.

• 39:16Speaker 03

  To destroy the notion of trust in the justice system as being an impartial one and one that operates with integrity. And I point you no further than that Trump is demanding the Justice Department pay him $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him. I mean, this is literally the dictionary definition of the fox guarding the hen house. I mean, Trump's own lawyers, who now run the DOJ, are the ones that I think have to sign off on this to begin with. And Donald Trump, not known to be a particularly introspective person, recognizes how on its face corrupt this is. This is what he said in the White House. Let's just take a listen to that sound.

• 39:58Speaker 05

  It's awfully strange to make a decision where I'm paying myself. In other words, did you ever have one of those cases where you have to decide how much you're paying yourself in damages? But I was damaged very greatly. And any money that I would get, I would give to charity.

• 40:13Speaker 03

  Even Trump recognizes that it's awfully strange to make a decision where I'm paying myself. First of all, what was your reaction to that?

• 40:21Speaker 08

  Why doesn't he just go rob Fort Knox? That was my reaction. I mean, he could just be like, you know what?

• 40:27Speaker 03

  Go to the Fed.

• 40:28Speaker 08

  I'm the president, it's all mine, right? And I get to decide. So you know what? That was his view in Mar-a-Lago, where the cases, when he had the document there, he was like, well, they're all mine. As a friend of mine said, why doesn't he just take out the portraits from the White House and take them with him? Just say, well, you know what? I just decide they're mine. And this is one where I have to say, I mean, I don't think Todd Blanch and Pam Bondi are going to do it, but they have no business sitting and deciding that. The idea, you know, this happens a lot where people who are the subject of criminal investigations will at some point say, you know, I'm entitled to money because I won.

• 41:09Speaker 08

  Now, he did not win on the merits, so he's not going to be able to claim that. And the standard to be able to do that is not one he's going to meet. But this is where what I actually think should happen, it's not What's going to happen is I think I would be, you want to make these claims. Let's leave aside that the statute of limitations, like the time to make some of these claims is run. But you want to make these claims, let's have a hearing with evidence. So let's, you know, you put off, you didn't want to have the insurrection case. You didn't want to have the Mar-a-Lago case, but now you're the plaintiff and you're saying that you want to get $230 million.

• 41:53Speaker 08

  Let's have a factual hearing to just so that the public can see and a judge can decide what's going to happen. That's what would, that's the kind of thing that would normally happen in these kinds of situations. If you were making sort of a credible claim. But I, I just can't imagine that, I mean, there's, there's so many ways that this should not pass muster. And it's just such a wonderful example for any dispassionate person to understand the finality and the, the corruption that is going on. I mean,

• 42:32Speaker 03

  Right. If the crypto hustle didn't get yet, like this is,

• 42:36Speaker 08

  It's so easy to see. It's like the plane. It is like the plane, but worse.

• 42:40Speaker 03

  I thought the same thing. It's way worse. He's paying him, trying to pay himself.

• 42:44Speaker 08

  Wait, and it's our money. Wait, let's, let's just remember this is our money. The funds that would be used, it's, this is not Qatar giving them any,

• 42:54Speaker 03

  No.

• 42:55Speaker 08

  This is us.

• 42:56Speaker 03

  American taxpayers lining the pockets of the president at precisely the moment that inflation is ticking up. Groceries are more expensive and people's healthcare premiums are about to go up. Great political strategy.

• 43:06Speaker 08

  And there's a shutdown.

• 43:08Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 43:08Speaker 08

  And we just,

• 43:09Speaker 03

  Federal employees not being paid.

• 43:10Speaker 08

  And we, right. So you have career people not getting paid where the president is going to get, and would get an unearned $230 million. And we just had seven, seven million people approximately marching against having a king. And then you have somebody's acting exactly like a king.

• 43:29Speaker 03

  As what a king would, to go into, you know, wherever the, in the castle, they kept the gold bullion and saying, you know what? I think this, I'm entitled to all of this.

• 43:38Speaker 08

  Just to be clear, it with the countries, like if you're thinking about Western countries like England and France, even a king couldn't do that.

• 43:48Speaker 03

  I know. They don't have that much capital at their access. I mean, that is just, Um.

• 43:57Speaker 08

  Surreal, surreal, Alex. I mean, I'm sorry, but like, did anyone have this on their dance card?

• 44:03Speaker 03

  No.

• 44:03Speaker 08

  When it's like, this is what a president of the United States is going to do is be like, it's sort of an extortion artist, but he doesn't even need to do the extortion here because he's the, he's on both sides.

• 44:16Speaker 03

  He's writing a check on, yeah, on our, on our account. I mean, what I don't, I mean, I think the thing I worry about is if you're on the outside of this, like, it's disgusting. It's so Trump. But what does it mean that the Department of Justice would sign off on this, right? This is to the larger question of like, the utter corruption of these institutions at the same time that they're launching political hits on Tish James and Jim Comey and, you know, to some degree, John Bolton. There's a looming one from about Adam Schiff. I mean, can I ask you, as someone that go, just as someone with people who still maintains like a line in, like, how, what's happening in there? Like, what are people saying? How are

• 45:01Speaker 03

  they looking at all of this?

• 45:03Speaker 08

  Well, the, the career, I mean, this is for the career people who are still there, it is the most demoralizing thing ever. And what people need to understand is these are people who have served under Republican and Democratic administrations, and they just put that aside. And people are used to the idea that, you know, elections have consequences, policies change, there are priorities that might change. Sometimes you're, you're going to do more drug cases or more immigration cases or more civil rights cases. You know, that happens. And people are used to implementing the policies within the law and within the

• 45:45Speaker 08

  ethical norms and constraints. But those just are not being followed. You know, one of the things I was thinking about, and if this happened in any other administration, I mean, obviously, this is like a crazy thing because it's like, when would this ever happen? But there would be a professional ethics officer who's, who you go To the Department of Justice, who would say like, okay, these people can't do or recused. They can't decide it. This has to go to an independent person and it'll be handled. You know, in an independent way, it won't be from a former defense lawyer for the president, who's got a continuing duty of loyalty when, you know, because just, you know, when you've represented

• 46:26Speaker 08

  somebody, it's not like it ends. You actually have a continuing duty to your client. And so this is just so beyond the pale. And so for career people, this has to be just, just unimaginable pain. But I would say the same for, you know, I do this podcast with Mary McCord.

• 46:48Speaker 03

  Oh, yes, main justice.

• 46:50Speaker 08

  And, you know, we're, we were, if you collectively, we were like, you know, it's like a gazillion years because both of us are old, at least I am, or I make up for hers not being so old. And, you know, it's incredibly painful to experience. But again, I actually think it's important to not have the story be just about the Department of Justice, because I think the bigger story is the Department of Justice. Yes, it's terrible what's happening, but it's terrible because it affects the rights of people. I mean, there, the people who are being harmed, like in this situation, yes, there's ideals and principles being harmed, but it's, in my view, if it goes forward, it's theft from the American public. I mean, you're creating victims. And, you know,

• 47:35Speaker 08

  we talked about immigration and the issue that's going on with the judges there. Again, the issue is the people who are being affected by it. You're creating a class of victims. And, you know, that's why Abrego Garcia is such a, is a great illustration of the problem of somebody who was extracted against a court order, removed from this country, shoved into a prison, and his rights continue, according to different judges, continue to be violated. And so that is, it's, sometimes you need an example of one to make people understand the systemic, a little like

• 48:15Speaker 08

  you're having on a judge who's been fired, so they can sort of put a face to

• 48:21Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 48:22Speaker 08

  A huge problem.

• 48:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that's one of the things that is most useful in this moment is having a real human being who's at the center of it, explain to you what it's actually like and what it's like to hear those screams, what it's like to deal with families as they, you know, they're being ripped apart, trying to manage a caseload of some 10,000 cases, and like what it means when the system cannot hold, right?

• 48:46Speaker 08

  Right.

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• 51:35Speaker 09

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• 52:18Speaker 09

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• 52:59Speaker 03

  You interviewed Special Counsel Jack Smith in London a few weeks ago. First of all, what amazing, but also, why did he do it? And what were you most surprised by in that conversation?

• 53:13Speaker 08

  So, you know, I don't know exactly why he did it, but I do think it helped that it was an academic institution. It so that, you know, a lot of times it really helps when there's students there and you want to impart to them and model for them normalcy and being upstanding.

• 53:38Speaker 08

  I, I'm not sure, but you know, when I was deciding when I left the department to, and I came to MSNBC, part of the reason was I was like, if I'm going to be vilified, I'd like to be vilified for, based on like who I am. Like, maybe people won't like me, but I'd like it to be based on me.

• 53:59Speaker 03

  People like you.

• 54:00Speaker 08

  And people assess me for who I am and not a caricature. And the reason I thought it was so wonderful, he spoke is that more than any substantive thing he said, and there was a lot, I mean, it was an hour-long conversation, but I thought, I thought the most important thing is that people could get the measure of who he is. And, you know, I, I actually think the department needs to be doing more of that and speaking out even when they're in the department.

• 54:30Speaker 03

  Can they do that, though? I mean,

• 54:31Speaker 08

  Yes, that's like, this is what's so crazy is, so let me just, this is like a little bit of a bugaboo. Obviously, they, they, they should not do the following. And, you know, we see it all the time now, but they should not do the Jim Comey, let me, we're not charging Hillary Clinton, but let me just tell you why she's such a bad person. That. Is violates every the sort of put up or shut up rule, which is like, you don't get to do that. No one, you're not there to give your personal views and opinions. That that is totally wrong. So you can't do that. But remember, Archibald Cox, during the Watergate investigation, gave a very famous press conference that I, you can still watch it, by the way, on YouTube.

• 55:15Speaker 08

  So if people who, people who are not as old as I am and don't remember it, that you can go and listen to it. And again, what was so great is it turns out he wasn't this like horrible figure that was being portrayed. He was this very mild mannered, thoughtful Harvard professor, who was like explaining why the tapes were so important and why he was getting them. But at no point did he say, let me tell you why Richard Nixon's guilty. This is the crimes he committed. Like, that's the line that you shouldn't do. But my example, which I wrote about was, I thought, for instance, that Jack Smith, when he, when the Mar-a-Lago case was indicted and people were talking a lot about is the selective prosecution.

• 56:00Speaker 08

  I thought he could have talked about, you know, I just want to talk to you about what's pub, in the public record, about what the department is justices done in the past. These are the kinds of cases that we have brought that are commensurate with what's been alleged here. Instead, Ryan Goodman and I at NYU did something like that for just security, this legal forum.

• 56:23Speaker 03

  A great forum.

• 56:25Speaker 08

  It's.

• 56:25Speaker 03

  But that's not quite the same thing as Jack Smith. No disrespect.

• 56:30Speaker 08

  No, exactly.

• 56:30Speaker 03

  To just security.

• 56:31Speaker 08

  I mean, we were trying to make that point, but it's like that we don't have the megaphone. And I thought, I thought by having him make that point and then also being himself an exhibit. In other words, having people be able to see him.

• 56:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:47Speaker 08

  Would be useful because all we were getting is one side of the story, which in terms of vilification.

• 56:52Speaker 03

  And Trump wins from the abstraction of the enemy. Right? He just gets to superimpose whatever he likes on that person and says, Jack Smith's a wacko, complete lunatic. He's off the rails. And then when Jack Smith isn't out there showing us that he's quite clearly not off the rails, you know, some part of the American public accepts that.

• 57:09Speaker 08

  By the way, I don't think I answered your question, which is what most surprised me.

• 57:13Speaker 03

  What surprised you the most, other than him saying, sure, Andrew, I'll do it.

• 57:16Speaker 08

  Yeah, I was gonna say that that might have been the

• 57:19Speaker 03

  You're like, here goes nothing. Hey, Jack.

• 57:22Speaker 08

  I think that that probably was the biggest surprise because, you know,

• 57:29Speaker 08

  you know, he's a career DOJ

• 57:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:32Speaker 08

  person to his core. He comes off as an Eagle Scout because I think he is an Eagle Scout. And so I'm not sure I really was surprised by that. I I think I can tell you something that sort of moved me, which was at the end, I was asking him about sort of what it's been like for his team or himself in terms of the sort of the aftermath once he ended. And he choked up when he talked about Walt Jordina, the FBI agent who was fired in spite of the fact that senior people at the FBI pleaded with Cash Patel not to do it because his wife was dying.

• 58:14Speaker 08

  I know Walter, he worked also on the Mueller investigation. I can't, I can't put myself, I can't fathom the cruelty that goes into that kind of determination. I just can't even, I can't, a lot of times you can sort of see, oh, let me try and understand why somebody's doing something. I just can't even begin to understand how you would make that decision consistently.

• 58:42Speaker 03

  I think it's maybe if you can successfully dehumanize other people, right? Like, New York Magazine has a spread of pictures of these immigrants at the courthouse as being ripped from their families. And that to me is the like, the same kind of narrative, like disassociation that you have to do to be like, Walter is, his wife is dying. He has served this country remarkably, but we're gonna fire him because he's not convenient to our, as we've successfully, as a sort of monolith, the Trump administration managed to make our enemies subhuman. And so we can dissociate the wrenching decisions we're making about their futures and their present.

• 59:20Speaker 03

  And be completely cutthroat, I guess. I guess. I don't know. I don't know the particular and twisted psychology of all this.

• 59:26Speaker 08

  Yeah. So the other thing that Jack said, because he was only talking about other people on his team. And, you know, I think I might have said something like, and you, like, trying to, and he just said, well, the one thing I will say is, You really end up learning who your friends are.

• 59:48Speaker 08

  And I could relate to that, this idea of the people who rise to the occasion and surprise you in rising to the occasion, even if they're maybe not people who know you that well and other people who you are surprised the other way. And it's sort of hurts because you always thought they were a different type of person.

• 1:00:13Speaker 03

  I do want to turn to that because you have been singled out by President Trump by name, saying he hoped that you, you know, you would be in the, he hoped, AKA issued a directive that you should be investigated along with Special Counsel Jack Smith. First of all, how'd that feel and how is it going?

• 1:00:33Speaker 08

  Well, so it's interesting. So let me just first say, I generally try not to talk about that. I'm going to answer your question, but let me just tell you why I don't like answering that question is when I decided to work for MSNBC, I'm obviously, you know, I was, I'm not in the media, I wasn't a journalist, but, you know, I took seriously like my role as a legal analyst and trying to be objective and impart to people what I think is going on. And that means you're not the story and you're not part of the story. And I don't want Donald Trump to steal that from me.

• 1:01:13Speaker 08

  And so that's why I've, I've usually just tried to explain that upfront, like as to why that's not sort of front and center of like what I deal with, because I feel like that's taking something from me that he has no right to take. And so that's sort of, and then that thing that, that makes it more.

• 1:01:38Speaker 08

  Get more targeted this time because, you know, he has been saying that with respect to me and frankly, a whole host of people, I'm like extremely good company. And there are lots of people with much more exalted people than than me. But is that you see it in action now. I mean, you know, I, I, I think of the three charges that we've seen in the last, you know, two weeks, the James Comey case in particular strikes me as no there there.

• 1:02:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:09Speaker 08

  And that's why you saw not just every, every single person in the Eastern District of Virginia, every AUSA, every career person is not on this case. I mean, like the people who say that they need to speak up, oh, they've spoken up. If they, if people aren't focusing on this, it's because we're not picking up what they're putting down, which is they are not on this case. They had to staff this case from another district because the career people could all be fired. And by the way, a number of them have been because they're not willing to do this. Even the Trump appointed US attorney resigned under pressure. If you ask the president, he was fired. And so he stepped down rather than do this.

• 1:02:53Speaker 08

  And so, you know, now the targeting becomes a lot more sort of like, you know, who cares? He, you know, he goes off on all sorts of people, but you know, there, there is no facts and there's no law to support it, except, except but see James Comey. But you know what? I still think let's, let's take a deep breath because I, I think that the Comey case is going to implode. I think, I think from a Trump perspective, he wins no matter what because he gets to say, I inflicted pain, I have a chilling effect on people. And if it implodes, he'll just attack the, the judges or juries who rule in Jim.

• 1:03:38Speaker 03

  Another part of the justice system. Yeah.

• 1:03:40Speaker 08

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:03:41Speaker 03

  Well, but I, yeah, I'm so.

• 1:03:47Speaker 03

  Thank you for putting into context why it's difficult or why you're reluctant to talk about your sort of centrality in this. I mean, I've talked to judges who feel the same way, right? They're impartial. They don't want to be the story. I've talked to reporters at the local level who've said, I'm not the story. I'm reporting the story. And the very, the discomfort, and I think the real apprehension that this moment requires people to get over is that like, people who are not in it for themselves, and who don't want to talk about themselves, and who don't want to be in the center of it, are increasingly, for the sake of the larger system, being forced to get personally, um, very honest about and put

• 1:04:31Speaker 03

  themselves i- i- in, in the story. And I think that it's like, it's a, it's an incredibly unfortunate development, right? Like, you shouldn't have to do that. And he is stealing that from you. He's stealing that from the, the journalists in the fourth estate, and he's stealing it from our blind system of justice. But, I mean, hats off to you for saying what you do say, and doing podcasts, and also going out there and being like, I'm gonna interview Jack Smith, knowing full well that that could bring, you know, unwanted attention on you, but that the words that Jack Smith has to share with those students and the world are important enough to warrant that kind of event, you know?

• 1:05:06Speaker 08

  Yeah. And this is where, what I would say is, like, you know, facts matter. So I would say for people who are listening to this, you can go find it on YouTube. The UCL, the University College of London, was the sponsor, as I said, it was an academic event. Go listen to it and see just how, you know, how incendiary it was. I mean, this is an hour that's quite, you, I mean, Alex, you know me well enough to know, like, I'm not, well, it's very, it's a little dry, you know? It's like, I mean, you have two, you know, people who are career DOJ people. Yes, exactly. So it's not exactly, you know, made for TV. Exactly. So it's, you know, in many ways.

• 1:05:50Speaker 03

  But that's the point. It should be boring. All of it should be boring. All of it should be very regimented. There are very clear rules of the road where all of this stuff is concerned, and that's, it should be, in, in many ways, not formulaic, but like, the parameters have been established. This is not a time for coloring outside the lines, or like ripping off the guardrails, as it were.

• 1:06:11Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 1:06:12Speaker 03

  Let me just ask you one more question. Like, What's your level of confidence as we go through, you know, the erosion of due process, as we go through the corruption of the Department of Justice, at least at the top tier of it, as we go through, you know, the acceptance of the president executing on a targeted hit list of enemies? What's your level of confidence about rule of law here in America?

• 1:06:38Speaker 08

  Not good. I, I, let me just tell you the things I'm worried about.

• 1:06:47Speaker 08

  I know that I could be thinking about this from a law point of view, and I know one, one answer deals with like what to expect from the Supreme Court, and etcetera, but I don't really think that's the, the more that this past year I've been on, the less I've, I view, I always come on and talk about like, you know, my, the one expertise I have, which is, you know, the law part, but I feel like that misses the, the bigger picture.

• 1:07:14Speaker 08

  I, I am particularly worried about whether we will ever have a free and fair election again. And whether there will be steps to gerrymander, whether there will be the military called out in

• 1:07:34Speaker 03

  Blue cities.

• 1:07:35Speaker 08

  to depress the vote in, in cities and black and brown communities, whether arrests will be made that are illegal, but by the time they're adjudicated, the damage will have been done because it will be a deterrent for people to show up.

• 1:07:54Speaker 08

  And I'm worried about the Department of Justice seizing ballot boxes, claiming that they're evidence of fraud and the votes don't get counted. And so, by the way, I'm not saying any of this is going to

• 1:08:11Speaker 03

  No, I, I thought the same thing. I thought the same thing.

• 1:08:13Speaker 08

  That for the same reason that I was extremely worried in the past election, that I was thinking, you know what? If Donald Trump doesn't win this, he knows that there's a very, very good chance that he is going to go to jail. In the Manhattan case where he had been convicted.

• 1:08:35Speaker 08

  And understandably, there's an appeal and, you know, he would have every right to say it was an improper conviction. But then he was also going to be, I think, facing not just the DC trial, but I thought the Mar-a-Lago case was clearly going to be resurrected because it was improperly dismissed by Judge Cannon, in my view. So I just thought that he had every incentive to not abide by the law and the rules. And let's remember, he's an adjudicated criminal. I mean, it's like this is, I'm always surprised when people just don't say that, which is, I mean, he is a, at least until he is appeals over, he is currently a convicted felon.

• 1:09:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:19Speaker 08

  And so we're not dealing with the most upstanding person. And again, I'm just basing that on just taking what's been adjudicated. We can add in all of the things that we know, which is, you know, the, what is it, the Washington Post reported, was it 30,000 lies during just his first term?

• 1:09:38Speaker 03

  Oh, I mean, good on them for trying to keep track.

• 1:09:40Speaker 08

  Yeah, exactly. So anyway, that's a long way of saying there's a lot to worry about.

• 1:09:48Speaker 03

  Okay, well, I mean, I think the first step to getting a better solution is to be engaged in it and maybe to worry about it. So that's where we are gonna leave it.

• 1:09:59Speaker 08

  I totally agree. Well, I, this is my big thing to, I'm constantly telling people, stay engaged.

• 1:10:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, do not turn it off.

• 1:10:07Speaker 08

  And I don't think people understand, even if you're in a blue state, there's like, speaking up is really, really important.

• 1:10:14Speaker 03

  Immigration judges we're talking about are in New York City. So it is all happening right at our front doorstep. You're a busy person with a lot going on and I'm so grateful.

• 1:10:25Speaker 08

  You're welcome. It's my pleasure.

• 1:10:27Speaker 03

  You're doing more important things. Thank you for doing this and really good luck out there. It's great to see you.

• 1:10:32Speaker 08

  Take care.

• 1:10:37Speaker 03

  Before we go, I want to hear from you. Have you been impacted directly by the Trump administration and/or its policies? Maybe you've experienced changes to your job, or to your healthcare, or stuff happening at your kid's school. If so, I want to hear it all, whether these policies have impacted you for better or for worse. So, send us an email or a one-minute voice note at [email protected] and we may be in touch to feature your story. Thank you in advance for the help.

• 1:11:17Speaker 03

  Runaway Country is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Alona Minkowski. Our producer is Emma Illich-Frank. Production support from Megan Larson and Lacey Roberts. The show is mixed and edited by Charlotte Landis. Ben Hethcote is our video producer, and Matt DeGroot is our head of production. Audio support comes from Kyle Seglan. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. Katie Long is our executive producer of development. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

• 1:12:04Speaker 10

  Right now, the midterms are the biggest story in American politics. But however they go, the Democratic Party is going to have to do some serious soul searching. Join us, Washington DC, November 5th through 7th, at the Second Annual CrookedCon. It's going to be the positive America hosts and some of the smartest people in politics. We're going to try to answer some big questions. Stuff like, if we won, how did we win? If we lost, how could we possibly have lost? And with 2028 around the corner, where do we go from here? If you believe in democracy, community, and fighting for the future, now's the time to grab your tickets to CrookedCon 2026. Head to crookedcon.com to get your tickets now.

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