S2 Ep1037: Katie Phang and Greg Casar: Trump & Co Are the Real Flag Burners
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Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Before we get to our guests, a couple of notes. Number one,

We had quite the storm here in New Orleans during this podcast. So for the YouTube viewers, you're going to see me popping around from the studio down to my guest room, all over the place to try to get this to work. But we made it work for you. Appreciate Katie Fang for sticking around and dealing with my technical difficulties. But more importantly than that, I want to talk about some ads that ran on this podcast yesterday. The Department of Homeland Security

is running these grotesque self-deportation ads featuring Kristi Noem. They ran a couple of them, it sounds like, on this podcast yesterday. The only good news about audio Noem ads is you don't have to see the Uncanny Valley nip-tuck makeover she's undergone. But the rest of it is pretty much bad news. And the question people had is like, why are they running these ads on the Never Trump blowtorch?

The answer is I don't really know. Maybe they think we have undocumented listeners. Maybe they're confused by the former Republican thing and think they're reaching MAGA's with their propaganda. Maybe they're trying to trigger Janie from the Upper West Side. Maybe they're ignoramuses. They're flinging their diarrhea everywhere with no concern for how they spend taxpayer dollars. Maybe a little bit of all of that. I don't know. But as far as I'm concerned, if they want to waste DHS resources paying us, I'll take it. Better here than in a place that's going to scare vulnerable people.

Better they spend money on this than, I don't know, playing fair to El Salvador. So that's my view on it. A brief aside for people who care about how the ad process works. I don't control the programmatic ads, only the ones that I endorse with my made-for-print vocal tones here. So, you know, when you hear me talking about whatever, that's...

That's an ad I'm aware of. We can reject those, but the rest of them are just some AI automated system up there. So your guess is as good as mine for why Kristi Noem and DHS and Tricia have picked us. But if you don't want to hear ads at all, we offer an ad-free version. You can go to thebolwerk.com slash subscribe. We'd love to have you. But because they advertised on the pod, I did want to address them directly. I do have a message for Kristi Noem and the sadists online.

behind those ads and it's this there's one thing that's unique about america it's a place where those fleeing torture and persecution and discrimination could come to find refuge it's the place where those people would have an opportunity to achieve a dream a dream we once called the american dream they could do it no matter their bloodline or what patch of soil they grew up on

And unless Kristi Noem happens to be fully descended from slaves or Native Americans, and who's to know since she's completely reconstructed her face, it's thanks to that tradition that she now has the opportunity to have this sacred position of protecting our homeland. With these ads, Kristi and all those who work for her are defiling their birthright as Americans. They are the flag burners. They are the criminals.

They're kidnapping people and sending them to a foreign torture prison with no due process. That is what monsters and fascists do. And I do hope that one day in this world or the next, they're going to be held to account for their criminal behavior. The ads that they're running now calling for people to self-deport

What they're trying to do, let's just be honest, is intimidate people who are not criminals. They want you to think they're going after the gangbangers and the rapists with the cantaloupe thighs. But what they're doing is they're bullying people who are law-abiding, who do not have criminal record. They're trying to bully them into making an impossible choice about whether they should stay here, stay in this place where they came looking for a better life,

alongside their family and friends that are here legally, whether they should stay in this place where they go to church and work and pay taxes. They're trying to push them out to achieve some, I don't know, material for their un-American propaganda. Because the people who listen to an ad and are like, you know, maybe I should self-deport.

It's the folks that are trying to go through this process the right way. There are a lot of people that came here illegally but have been trying to apply all the way back to the Obama administration. Maybe they're dreamers. Maybe they're people that came looking for asylum and haven't been granted it. There are so many different examples. I knew these folks. I knew people in this community. In Oakland, I did a lot of work with the Guatemalans who had come here as asylees. And a lot of them were mixed families because the rules kept changing. And some of them came here illegally.

when the asylum rules were more welcoming and other members of their family came after or were unable to come in time. And so you have mixed families that are here, they're working, they're contributing, they're doing what every other generation of Americans have done. And our Secretary of Homeland Security is trying to fucking scare them. And she's trying to scare the ones that are here legally as well as the ones who aren't. It is a campaign of terror and it is fucking sick.

And so, hey, in a free country, these folks can advertise wherever they want. But these ads only fill me and I assume the listeners of this podcast with more contempt for the people that are executing this despicable deportation campaign. And it is only going to invigorate us to continue to oppose their vile, un-American agenda. So, eat a dick, Kristi Noem. Not in a good way. Up next, Katie Fang and Congressman Greg Kazar. She

She's a legal analyst, independent journalist, and trial lawyer. Her substack is law and disorder. It is Katie Fang. What is going on, Katie? Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. It's been very mellow, right? No news. No news about me.

You know, nothing at all. I want to hear a little bit about the news about you. You left MSNBC recently. But before that, for listeners, I think probably especially for listeners who came to know you watching MSNBC, but for those who aren't familiar with you as well, maybe they had an experience that I did.

which was around maybe during the pandemic. But I was like, who is this Katie Fang? She is cooking on TV. And I had no idea where you came from. I did not know your backstory. So could you just give us a little TLDR? How did you just kind of emerge from the ether into dropping bombs on TV all the time?

Listen, I was always there, but I was silent like a ninja. So I've been doing legal analysis. And some people know this. I was actually doing legal analysis on Fox News for a number of years pre-November 2016 before everybody jumped the shark there and went totally nuts. Oh, my gosh.

But I was on Fox and Fox Business. And then I came over right after the November 2016 election in December. Interestingly, I came over with Megyn Kelly and Greta Van Susteren, if you can believe it. Oh, yeah, the power trio. There was a trifecta exodus of us from Fox. And we came over to MSNBC and Greta left very quickly thereafter. And Megyn unceremoniously left as well, maybe about a year later. But I

I have always been a legal analyst. Now you and Megan are back to being competitors again in the independent media space. Going to give Megan Kelly a run for her money, although she has extensions and I don't. But anyway, neither here nor there.

But I was always a full-time trial lawyer running my own law firm. I was working for other firms and then I had my own firm and doing legal analysis for MSNBC. But it was always kind of a tough thing, right, Tim? Because I felt like by bread and butter, paying the mortgage was my legal, right? And then I felt like I was cheating myself because I really loved doing the TV analysis.

But then when I did the TV analysis, I'm like, well, crap, I still have to be there front and center for my priority, which are my clients. And so for years, it's kind of walking that tightrope. And then out of the blue in November of 2021, I was approached by MSNBC and they were like, look, we would love for you to have your own show, which was...

I mean, kind of wild, right? So that's what started my journey of three plus years of having the Katie Fang Show on MSNBC. What kind of legaling were you doing? What kind of lawyering were you doing? Oh, I was, for lack of a better way of putting it, I was a hired mercenary. I would parachute in and try cases because that was kind of my thing. But I was doing a lot of business torts, business litigation. I was doing a lot of employment litigation. And then I was doing a lot of crisis comms. And I always used to say, if I'm doing my job well, you have no idea what I'm doing. Right?

And then I did some high net worth family law cases. So I represented some very interesting people in their family law issues. So now we've got your transition and your career. You're offered the show. Now you're an independent person. Obviously, I'm an MSNBC political analyst. So, you know, full disclosure, they are spinning off into a spin co and you got spun out. So give us the breakdown.

Listen, I had a completely amicable departure from the network. In fact, you'll see me back as a guest doing legal analysis here or there. But I will say the independent media space is fantastic. There is a kind of Katie Unleashed that I've been able to be doing. Some of it is expressed in profanity. But you know what, though, Tim? I like to say that. What's your favorite cuss word? What's your favorite cuss word? We cuss here.

I say shit a lot because shit works, right? Shit can be great. Shit can be bad. But lately, everything is a shit storm or a shit show that kind of covers the waterfront, I think. But I will say this, you know, all kidding aside, you have to meet the urgency of the moment with the urgency of the message. And I've always been big about being authentically me. And yes, so maybe you didn't hear profanity, but you kind of heard the urgency of what I thought people needed to know when I did the show on mainstream. And now that I'm on TV,

independent and digital. It's just a different, you know, ballgame wholesale. All right. Well, folks, check out your subtext. Do you need to let loose a little bit right now? Do you want to take your hair out of the bun or kind of shake it out? No, no. It's a little too unruly. I mean, we are unleashed now. Okay. The options are on the table here on the BorgPod. I love it. I want to talk about, we have a bunch of different cases. Last night, SCOTUS confirmed the

the Trump administration's efforts to ban trans soldiers from the military on a 6-3 vote. So talk about that, then we'll get to some of the other SCOTUS stuff. So, Tim, let me just set the table for a second here, because I think this is really important context for people who are tuning in to consider. You've got a naval aviator for 19 years.

Well, in more than 60 combat missions, including Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States Navy has spent more than $20 million on the training for this pilot.

This is Commander Schilling. And Commander Schilling is one of the plaintiffs in the case that SCOTUS has now basically said, at this point, we're going to allow you, Commander Emily Schilling, to be booted out of the United States Navy, despite all of the work that you have done and all of the money that has been spent, simply because you decided that you were going to transition in 2021. I mean, Tim, this is why this is a particularly outrageous moment, because the

The other federal courts that have been deciding this and the reason why it made it to SCOTUS, they said, look, these are completely nefarious bans. These are completely nefarious executive orders by Donald Trump. There's no legitimate reason to discriminate against trans military service members. And yet, unfortunately, you have this decision. And it was an order that basically said the following, Tim. It basically said, look,

If the Trump administration wants to file what we call a petition for writ of certiorari, meaning that they want us, as in SCOTUS, to be able to decide the case on its merits, then, okay, we may take this case and we may listen to this case. And if we do, this kind of, you know, ability for the Trump ban to keep on going and this complete evacuation of all trans military service members is going to be allowed to happen until we render our judgment. But

But if we decide we're not going to take up this case, then automatically this stay is going to be terminated. But it's outrageous because, you know, Tim, there's only 4,240 members, only 0.2% of more than 2 million military service members that identify as trans. And so it's very disappointing to see that we have this type of decision that came out of SCOTUS.

It doesn't mean it's the final say, but you know what? It's this type of stuff that's making a lot of us say, who is really making the decisions at SCOTUS right now?

It is so sick. And I think that the heavens have weighed in because I don't know if people could hear that, but the thunder in New Orleans is raining down, as you explained in detail. This woman who volunteered to serve in our military, who went there, who was in good standing. There are no issues, who sacrificed to serve the country. The idea that we're going to discriminate, I kind of

Regardless of what your opinion is on kind of edge trans cases, and like, I do think there are a lot of complex issues when it comes to trans folks while respecting their dignity. This is not complex. These trans soldiers and sailors and airmen, they're serving the military, they're serving the country at risk to themselves, putting themselves at risk, and they're being kicked out for no reason. There's been, there's no, they haven't even presented any, any like legitimate reason to do it.

There's no evidence. There's no evidence that being a trans military service member means that you are dishonoring the uniform, dishonoring your commitment that you're making. And to your point, I'm not in the military. I don't have the balls to go and do what they are doing. I mean, this commander is just one of, like I said, just a few, only 0.2% of our active military. And yet...

She should be elevated and lionized and admired and respected for what she has done, because that type of sacrifice, not everybody is willing to do. And so it just kind of fits, though, Tim, right, with the idea that Trump shits on the military. Trump does not respect it. There's a reason why he's never served. Not only could he do it, but he certainly doesn't have the respect that the military deserves. And so I just wonder why you have all of

you know, the other fellow service members not up in arms about this, no pun intended, right? Not up in arms about the idea that there's going to be a total purge for absolutely no legitimate reason of trans military service members. And so, you know, you get these type of decisions and Tim, you got to lick your wounds and kind of hope that the right is done. But in the meantime, it doesn't stop the purging. And that's the most disappointing thing about this decision.

Yeah, no, it's going to affect people. Like while this stuff, you know, keeps moving along, it's going to affect people that are serving. They've got to make decisions for their lives. You know, look, most of the news you're subjected to 24-7 is bad or downright depressing about the future, especially when you have JVL on the podcast. And so it was so much out of control.

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You said something kind of provocative there at the end of the previous answer that I want to get to about who is calling the shots at the court. What is your biggest, like, give us your kind of just biggest picture view of what we've seen so far from SCOTUS. Obviously, we've not even had a full term yet of SCOTUS because it feels like Trump 2.0 has been going on for a lifetime now, but it's not. We haven't even made it to the SCOTUS term, the formal SCOTUS term yet.

But in these kind of preliminary rulings, what have you seen so far? What have you made of it? Because it's been kind of mixed, I would say. I don't know. What do you think? I think it's been the surprise people like Amy Coney Barrett coming forward and ruling on the side of the quote-unquote liberal justices. I mean, there's the predictable decisions that are made in terms of the splits.

of the votes. I don't think you've seen anything too outrageous, but we've seen people like Amy Coney Barrett step up and say, you know what? Not on my watch. You have to ask yourself, Tim, really. It's like, these are all human beings, right? So you've got your Clarence Thomases and you know what motivates him and you know what he's all about.

But these are lifetime appointments. And I feel like somebody like Amy Coney Barrett probably went to SCOTUS and said, look, I've got like 20 children. And for me, abortion is a big deal. And so Dobbs was a big deal. And that's maybe like, you know, we talk about one issue voters. Maybe there's one issue SCOTUS justices. I don't know. But everything that Trump does violates any traditional norms of abortion.

So even if you look at the you look at it from a strict constructionist or an originalist perspective for any of these people on SCOTUS, you have to ask yourself, you and I both know that somebody like even Brett Kavanaugh, even though I just the guy kind of skeeves me out. But I don't think that dude's breaking bread really with Donald Trump on a social basis. Right. You're not inviting him over to hang out with you. He's.

And so everything that Trump stands for flies in the face of what they, as in the conservative justices, are supposed to be standing for. But they are the textbook example of kind of greed and avarice and grift and that type of energy. Not all of them, but, you know, the majority of them when it comes to the uber conservative, I guess, majority side of SCOTUS. That's one way to look at it, right? I think there's a way to assess that as like, these are political creatures, right? And

and even roberts himself but they're not supposed to be though i know they're not supposed to be but i'm trying to analyze what we think is happening over there because and we'll know more at the end of the at the end of the term but but maybe they're thinking okay we've got to manage this we don't want a full-on war with the white house right now we're gonna pick spots like in obrego garcia etc we're gonna give them ones where it's more gray like you

Do you think that, I mean, at some level, I know that's not what they're supposed to be, and that is terrible. But like, it's better than the worst case scenario that you hear from some folks in progressive circles, which is basically like, they're just going to roll over for everything Trump wants to do. And we have, and the checks are gone. You know what I mean? So like, how do you assess it?

But look what happened with Obrego Garcia, right? You have this 9-0 decision that comes out and Donald Trump stands there and he lies to the American public and he's like, well, that's not what my people told me. Well, you and I both know that's bullshit because I don't think that people are telling him something different. He knows exactly what the truth is when it comes to that decision. But now, if you have a lifetime appointment, Tim, why are you not

preserving your lifetime appointment job? Why are you not holding the line when it comes to the rule of law and telling Trump to go shove it? Because he's not listening to what you're saying. And I do think there's got to be some buyer's remorse about allowing Trump to think that he is a king.

I think this idea of presidential immunity, I think it literally has gone to his head. And I think it was so short-sighted because maybe SCOTUS thought that Americans weren't stupid enough to put Trump back into office and that that decision would just kind of stand in perpetuity and just be a stain on SCOTUS. But...

He did. You know, he snookered a whole bunch of damn people to put him back into the office. And now he is. And now he's like, well, I don't really have to listen because unitary theory allows me to do whatever the fuck I want to do because I'm the executive. Well, no, that's not really unitary theory, you dumbass. And so, again, critical thinking is important.

people and education is even better. It is a three for all in Trump 2.0. And I can say, though, you know, again, this decision on the trans military service members is one of the most disappointing because you didn't have to do that. You didn't have on an emergency application from the Trump administration. Then you didn't have to say, you know what, we're going to stay that injunction.

What's the harm? So, I don't know. It was just incredibly disappointing. Unleashed Katie is out. Dumbass. Okay, what do we got coming down the pike here? We've got birthright citizenship. I think it's the next real big one. So, let's talk about that. Yeah, really quickly. So, May 15th, and this is rare. So, remember we just talked about an emergency application done by the Trump administration. Trump

Trump administration vis-a-vis the trans—I called him chump before on national television. I thought it was a Freudian's—I thought it was a tramp administration. That was an emergency application for the Trans Military Service member ban by the Trump administration. Now, yet another emergency application by the Trump administration concerning nationwide injunctions that were entered that are blocking Trump's executive order that pretty much would overturn the 14th Amendment birthright citizenship guarantee.

And so you have federal judges in three different straits across the country that have entered preliminary injunctions nationwide that say that Trump's executive order cannot be implemented while cases are pending. Now, people seem to think that on May 15th, the Supreme Court of the United States is going to decide whether the 14th Amendment is valid.

poof, gone and not applicable anymore. That's not the case. It's a very narrow issue in front of SCOTUS on May 15th. It's whether or not a nationwide injunction can be applied to everyone and anyone versus just the specific plaintiffs that have sued for relief

in those particular cases. You want to know why that shit is not ridiculously ironic now? So when the Trump administration likes their nationwide injunctions, they're fine with that. But when they don't like the nationwide injunctions, they want to bitch and moan and they want to run to the Supreme Court to get something done about it. Now, I will say that there are sitting justices on the Supreme Court that don't really love this idea of a nationwide injunction. They're very keen on the idea that you must be a plaintiff that has sustained some type of injury to go to court and get

this temporary relief, et cetera. But in this instance, that is the only issue that is going to be heard on May 15th. And so I caution people, I say knowledge is power. You need to know that there's not gonna be a ruling from SCOTUS, but I will add this caveat to him.

If the Supreme Court says that they are not going to allow a nationwide injunction to be applied while something is pending on birthright citizenship, then you and I both know that the practical effect would be that only the plaintiffs would get the protection versus other people who would then be

kick the hell out of the United States, which is a Trump administration specialty. So we got to watch this case very carefully, even though it's kind of a technical issue. It's still a very important issue for all Americans at this point. Yeah, no, a lot of people get screwed in the meantime. We're already seeing this like about like the it'll give them credit. And once people are deported, getting them back, you know, becomes a much more challenging issue.

prospect, you know, than if there's an injunction here. The other thing is, just because the 14th Amendment is so clear, just because this birthright citizenship case is so clear, SCOTUS stopping the nationwide injunction on this, even if they end up ruling the right way on it eventually, like, basically would totally neuter these

lower courts from being able to issue these types of injunctions, right? Because if they're not going to uphold it on birthright citizenship, they're certainly not going to uphold it on more gray types of cases, right? And that would be another ramification. And think about this. Matt Kaczmarek, who is in Texas, and he's the king of Republican forum shopping cases, right? Everybody wants to run to him in Texas and

He's the one who entered the nationwide ban on Mifepristone, and that ended up winding its way to the Supreme Court, right? I mean, Biden and his administration, he listened to what the judges say, you know? I mean, these are the things that I'm saying is the hypocrisy of the GOP right now. I'm always troubled, too, because I don't know about you, but I feel like you always have a lot of former lawyers or lawyers who become politicians. I feel like that's the case. It's kind of the trend. And so if you're

a lawyer, you know, you have to abide by laws. You have to abide by orders. You have to abide by these things, Tim. And you have these GOP senators and House members that just sit there silently while everything in terms of institutions and norms and the rule of law just gets decimated along the way.

So in light of that, I mean, I'm kind of wondering why we're not hearing more from our Republican members of Congress when they're seeing all of this bad stuff taking place, like the noncompliance by the administration when it comes to the Supreme Court's ruling on Kilmar, Abrego, Garcia, etc. We're not seeing enough screaming from the rafters about noncompliance from the GOP right now.

So that's the deal with SCOTUS. Much more to come. We'll have to check back in with that one during the actual session. But I want to ask you about another issue. So obviously, Trump's been targeting a lot of folks with removal of security clearances,

Demanding the DOJ investigate. We've talked a lot about Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor here and the threats they're under. And I know that I think Mark Zide has now sued the administration over this. So talk to us about what the situation is in those cases and what kind of recourse these folks have at this point.

It's two words. It's political retribution. Three words. Illegal political retribution is what it is. So yeah, kudos to Mark Saeed. He is being represented by Abby Lowell, who we know left his firm to be able to go out on his own to be able to represent people that are being targeted by the Trump administration. He's also working with Norm Eisen, whom I've joined up.

with a state democracy defenders fund to be able to litigate this case. Yeah, Mark is suing the Trump administration, the executive and I think four or five federal agencies. Why? Because he and 15 other people basically got their security clearances revoked for no reason whatsoever. But there is a reason. The reason being that Trump doesn't like Mark and others because they actually have the balls to go up against this administration.

It's pretty wild, though. I gave this analogy the other day when I was talking about with Norm Eisen and Jen Rubin. I said, consider the fact if you were working and you needed you were a craftsman and you needed your toolkit. And one day Trump came along and said, you know what? Fuck it. I'm taking your toolkit.

Why? Because I don't like the way you look or I don't like what you said about me or whatever. And then you literally don't have your tools to be able to do your job. Mark needs his tools to do his job. He can't represent his clients. He's been told by ODNI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, he can't even access a classified complaint against one of his clients right now because he doesn't have a classified clearance. This is a type of retributive conduct that is of a petty malice.

Man child. The problem is it has huge repercussions for people like Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor and others where it's not just I can't do my job. It's now transcended it to I'm now getting death threats and people want to come and kill me. I mean, so Chris had to leave his job. Yeah. So think about it. Right. It's not just that. And, you know, we grow up with bullies. Right.

We have bullies in our lives, all of our lives. We have people and maybe as we get older, we are able to manage bullies a little bit better. But when Trump uses his bully pulpit literally as a bully, we have a serious problem. And that is why it's so important to shine a light on these lawsuits and shine a light on this, because candidly, it is not it is not melodramatic to say that you could be next.

You, any American could be targeted, whether you're being targeted by Doge and the stupidity of Doge and the cruelty and the recklessness and the destruction of Doge or Trump decides that he doesn't like you standing up one day and saying what you're saying or, you know, he decides I'm going to declare martial law because you took to the streets and you decided you wanted to protest for your rights. I mean, you literally could be next. Any American could be targeted. And so it's important to shine a light on on this type of atrocities of what's happening.

All right. We have a lot of other legal topics to get to, probably more important ones than this, but I can't help myself. I was on your sub stack and I see that you've been covering the Diddy trial. I know nothing about the Diddy trial. It is like, I just, I only have so much room in my brain. I have to do only Trump stuff, only what's happening in politics and basketball. Like that's, I don't have room in my brain for other trials. So I know nothing. So you're talking to somebody who's like come from another planet and

tell me what's happening in the Diddy trial. Is he going to go to jail? Are there any fun anecdotes from it? He's been in jail since last year when he was arrested. He was not able to post a bond because he wasn't given the chance to post a bond, which makes sense because he's basically looking at life in prison right now. He has a five-count federal indictment that's being prosecuted by the Southern District of New York. And because of that and the nature of the charges, he is facing this jury trial. Now they're in the process of jury selection, Tim. And

A lot of people are like, why should we care about P. Diddy? Because a lot of people don't care about P. Diddy. I tell people you should care because this is somebody, and of course it's allegedly, but I've looked at the indictment, I've looked at this evidence, somebody who used his celebrity status to abuse and traffic.

And there are a lot of victims. The indictment has four specific victims, one of whom is Cassie Ventura, who was a girlfriend and a protege of Sean Combs. And he was seen in a video from 2016 that was released last year beating the hell out of Cassie Ventura and then dragging her back to this party's called Freak Ops, which...

were male prostitutes and other men having sex with young women that were trafficked from across state lines to be able to participate in these freak-offs that were intimidated and coerced to not go forward and come forward to law enforcement and to tell their stories.

And so that's why you should care. It is along the lines of the Bill Cosby, R. Kelly, Harvey Weinstein. It's of that particular ilk. Do I know any of the victims? Was Bieber a victim? I've seen some Bieber memes. I'm like an old, like a boomer. I don't know truth from reality. I'm like a boomer who's on, who's getting this information via Facebook memes. No.

Oh, God, you're getting it from Facebook of all places? No, I mean, at that level. I'm not actually on Facebook, but I have a Facebook meme level knowledge. So not Bieber. So no, it's not Justin Bieber. But what I appreciate about that question, though, Tim, is think about all the celebrities that surrounded him. How many

people were complicit? How many people knew? How many people were also kind of cowed into submission, intimidated or scared that if they spoke up about P. Diddy, bad boy for life, Sean Combs, that maybe something would happen to them? He has prior incidents of violence that have been documented and he's been arrested before. Do you remember that shooting with J-Lo in a nightclub? I mean, there's a lot of stuff that's surrounding him. And the kind of overarching question is,

Can you separate yourself from your public persona, from who you are? His claim is from his defense. It was completely consensual with all of these victims. And I'm a swinger, so you can't judge me for my lifestyle. But when you push forward into the public and their consumption is of you being some gangster rapper kind of guy, is a jury going to be able to say, you know what, I'm going to disengage from that idea of what you are publicly and believe what you're telling me in court. So was it all women, though? Was it all women? All the victims are women. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Well, not all of them, but the ones in the indictment, the ones in the indictment. Okay. Bad boy in prison for life. Katie Fang, congrats on your new endeavor. Let's stay in touch. We're in the sub-stack world together. We'll be doing live sub-stacks and I appreciate you. Appreciate you. And everybody else, stick around for Congressman Greg Kazar. Thank you.

All right, we are back. He's a Democratic congressman from Texas. He represents parts of Austin and San Antonio. He's the new chairman of the House Progressive Caucus. It's Congressman Greg Kazar. How are you doing, man? I'm doing good. Great to meet you, Tim. Thanks for having me. Good to meet you, too. You had to be suited. You took your jacket off, you know, wearing podcast bra. The manosphere is where it's all at these days, okay? You're supposed to just wear a big necklace. Yeah, I saw the chill pinto beans back

background and the necklace. Yeah, I know. Yeah, you got to wear one of those big Mark Zuckerberg necklaces now that you're kind of in middle age. And you know, it's just that's what's happening. That's what's happening out there. Maybe that's how we get the votes back. We'll talk about that at the end. I want to talk about the new administration first. Okay. And there's just so much shit happening, obviously. And so I kind of just want to do open ended. Like what is the thing that is alarming you the most as you're watching this day in day out?

It's really hard to pick just one thing. It feels like the news from yesterday, I want to come on to your podcast and rail about it. And then there's worse news today. And that's just how it's been for over 100 days. But what I've been telling folks, there was a group of fired federal workers sitting on the House steps yesterday as I came out of voting next to a group of high schoolers. And people cuddled up and asked me kind of a similar question.

And I think what is alarming and at root of so much of this and where they're, and what I think they're making worse is like this baseline cynicism that nothing we ever do together can ever work. And what I've really learned, I'm relatively new to Congress. I've only been here two and a half years.

What I've really seen is how deliberate the extreme right-wing strategy is to break stuff and then complain about it and then campaign about how it's broken and then break it more.

That kind of works alongside the law of entropy, that it's easier to break stuff than to make it. A two-year-old can go and shatter that microphone in front of you, but it's pretty complicated and takes a lot of people to put it together. And if people stop believing that we can make things better, then you just turn against each other and you kind of undo the entire democratic project of working alongside one another.

And so what's alarming to me is how hard it might be, even if we figure out and we should need to figure out how to take this thing back, take our government back into the hands of people that want to make things, just how much stuff is broken and how much of an opening they've created for people to keep cynically breaking things, campaigning and winning power that way.

Man, you put it that way and you're like, boy, this is a bigger challenge than you even think, right? It's like, it's going to be one thing. That's part of what I learned every day around here is that actually it can get worse. Yeah. It's one thing to say, it's like, oh, let's beat these guys in the midterms. And that, that is an achievable goal. Right. And that is kind of a really a negative goal. Honestly, like in some ways you guys are the D triple C, not the progressive caucus per se, but the D triple C just has to prove that they've broken things and hurt and hurt people. Right. But then what?

You know, I do think that that creates a big challenge. Then what? And I hate here at the top of the podcast to be the doom and gloom guy. This is a doomer pod, man. That's great. Welcome. That's no part of the doom scroll. For me, one of the tracks that I think we might be on, you know, in the multiverse here, which, which world I think we might be in is one where we can win the midterms and provide some check on Trump in a year and a half, which of course is critical and we've got to do.

But then if we go, okay, as long as we just point out that they break stuff and then we win the midterm election, which in the midterms is much more voters that read the news.

And we just go and win it back that way that we kind of pat ourselves on the back, clean our hands and say, hey, we're good for the next presidential. And then we go get our lunch eaten by J.D. Vance or somebody else like that for eight years after that. And so if 100 days of this was rough, like 12 years of it to me is unacceptable. And we've got to be thinking much bigger than just winning in the next year and a half. It's like, what does it take to beat the cynicism that's at the heart of what we're dealing with right now?

All right. Well, I was going to get into Democratic stuff second, but we'll just flip it now. No, no, we can do this stuff first.

Because, man, I've been watching your stuff. You had a Politico piece, a New York Times piece. I kind of wanted to have you on and talk about it. And there is a move. As I mentioned, you're in the Progressive Caucus. Were you officially a squad member or were you squad adjacent? I never got the official pin or whatever secret. There was no pin? Okay.

I think it's mostly a creature of the media. All right. So we're going to call you kind of in the SWAT extended cinematic universe. And, you know, you're at you've done some town halls and red districts was great. Done some events with Bernie and AOC. And, you know, there's this there's this view out there that like the path back for Democrats to winning working class voters is to really lean in on economic populism.

And I don't necessarily disagree with that, even if all those policies probably aren't my preferred priors. But what I do wonder is if that's even true. And I do wonder if these voters, the working class voters that Democrats have lost are like cross pressured. And while they they might, you know, be interested in and whatever, free child care, bigger minimum wage, all those economic populist issues.

that what is holding them back is cultural issues, right? Feeling like Democrats are out of touch for their concerns about whatever it is, crime, immigration, you pick whatever it is. And I wonder how you think about that.

that. It's a relief, to be honest, to be able to be on a podcast like this where we can really flesh those hard questions out. Because a lot of times, you get a minute on these TV shows and you got to just go right in. But I think you're asking a real question that should keep folks up at night. And I think first, I want to give you a brief anecdote about campaigning for Kamala Harris in Nevada, in Sparks, Nevada, talking to Latino construction workers. And then sort of

pivot that into a question about your question. So I campaigned all over Texas, but then specifically went to Nevada for Harris's campaign and pretty much knew we were toast. I didn't know, but really felt we were toast talking with groups of Latino voters, both in Vegas and North of Vegas and across the state. But there was one time where we got together with about

three, four dozen Latino, mostly workers in the trades, be it folks doing HVAC maintenance or in the building and construction trades. And I remember a really clear conversation with one guy. It was a bunch of folks who said that they voted for Obama, voted for Hillary, voted for Joe, but just weren't going to be able to vote for Kamala this time. And he said, well, I just feel like you're so much more focused. When I asked the guy, well, what changed your mind this time? You voted for

Biden here is just recently, he voted for Hillary. And he said to me, I just feel like even though Trump is terrible in so many ways, I feel like the Democratic Party is focused on not my stuff. I go and work seven days a week. I pull seven 12s and then suddenly building and construction goes down for a couple months.

And that's just my life. I'm trying to figure out how to put my kid through school. And I feel like y'all are focused on other stuff other than my daily life. And I, and I push him, like I push lots of guys, identity stuff. I push him just like, I'm pushing guys like what other stuff? And he's like, you know, other stuff. And I was like, do you mean, for example, issues with the gay communities? Like, yeah, that's, you know, that's, that's what was, that was my guess. It might, maybe it could have been something else, but that's why it was my guess. And he said, yes.

And I think the question we've got to ask ourselves is, why is it that President Joe Biden was like the building stuff president? I mean, the infrastructure law and frankly, a lot of the construction coming out of the Inflation Reduction Act were like some of his biggest achievements.

How is it that Republicans were able to raise the salience so much on those cultural issues? And what does the Democratic Party need to change that it doesn't seem like to people that our leading number one issue is one where a lot of our base voters are cross-pressured on, like you said. And what I said to him was, look, my views on LGBTQ issues are clear. I'm

Pro-equality, I think that we should end discrimination against all forms of discrimination against all forms of people. But my main stuff that I work on is making sure you get actually paid overtime for the extra hours you work, that there's enough construction that you aren't out of work for multiple months, and that your employer shouldn't be allowed to...

screw people over and sometimes not even pay them after doing weeks or months of work. And so even if we might disagree on some of those issues, if you knew that this was really our main thing and that today's Republicans are trying to get rid of overtime pay and trying to do all of these other things that I know you talk about a lot on your podcast, he was like, yeah, I would totally vote for that. I mean, that's easy. And so

To me, I think the core question is, why aren't those economic messages breaking through if indeed oftentimes it's what we're working on? And part of what economic populism does is it draws a sharp enough contrast with Republicans where we don't just seem kind of in between or Republican light, where we can really say, no, there is a real difference about what we're offering on the economy. So that's something like trans collegiate sports.

Trump can't go and make that a major issue in our politics for people. And I want to get back to you here in one second. The last thing I'll mention on it is I'm about to go to a hearing on Transfencing. I'm on the Doge committee. Marjorie Taylor Greene chairs it.

The hearing is on trans fencing. Like sword fighting or like building fences? Oh, yeah. Sword fighting. Okay, got it. There are too many trans people sword fighting. That's a big problem. I see how that's an issue for her. Yeah. You know, according to the NCAA. In Rome, Georgia, where her district is. Do they have a single fencer? Do they have a cis fencer in Rome, Georgia? That's a good question. But there are 10 trans collegiate athletes in the NCAA. Okay.

Right now, you know, there are like 30 members of our damn committee. And so it's not 10,000, 10. So of course, discrimination against LGBTQ people, real issue. But, you know, like our committee shouldn't be

doing this work, determining who it can and can't across a variety of sports, go and participate at the collegiate or elite level. Like, come on. But the hard question Democrats have to answer for ourselves is how can we let that kind of an issue become something that a daily guy living his life in Nevada is asking me about when I sit down with him as a member of Congress, he traveled across the country to talk to him.

How is it, you know, I understand what the Republican tactics are, but how is it the Democratic Party needs to change our tactics so that there isn't a vacuum that Republican officials can fill on issues like this? And in my view, economic populism is our best response, which is we should be saying,

things that are actually interesting and controversial enough and different enough that people actually really hear us instead of just saying defend social security which polls at like 90 but nobody hears you why don't we say that it's crazy that the mark zuckerbergs and jeff bezos's of the world don't really pay into social security they pay in like one day but

The tax rate for social security is way higher for you or me and way higher for a school teacher and for a sanitation worker and a custodian and HVAC maintenance guy than it is on those guys. We can save it, but maybe we can expand it and make your social security check higher and pull every senior in this country out of poverty. Literally, if we just say those big guys have to just literally pay the same rate that we pay, that's not

The message, I don't think anybody could argue that that was how people felt that the Harris campaign's core message was, was those guys are making you work more hours. They think you're working those hours to make them rich. And they're screwing you over, not just on the job, but they're screwing you over in the government. I think that

would stand out to people a lot more than kind of where we stand right now. I hear the embers of like a view working with the moderate types, because I'm like, can we also means test? So Mark Zuckerberg isn't taking social security. He's not only not paying it enough, but he's taking it, which I don't get. Anyway, let's try to hash out there, because sometimes I do feel like people who have a more moderate temperament like me and progressives, like we talk past each other where there are a lot of various agreement. Here's one area of agreement that we have.

The Democrats need to be much better about making economic issues the main thing. And I think doing more aggressive communications that create contrast with the oligarchs, like I'm for all that. That all makes sense to me. I go back to the Carville thing. Voters only know three things about a candidate. One of those three things should be you're going to be fighting for them and not the rich people if you're a Democrat, right? And I don't think that was true for Kamala or really probably or Biden or Hillary for that matter. Here's my issue, though.

Let's say we agree on that. We got a Senate race coming up next year in Texas. You're in a red state. If a Democrat is going to win that Senate race and beat John Cornyn or God, God love him, maybe Ken Paxton. If we agree that that Democrat should make some kind of fighting the oligarchy, like the number one issue that they have, the key issue, let's just put that on the table. We agree. And that's the one thing we want voters to know about that Democrat.

Can they win though, if they're still seen as a just down the line Democrat on all the social issues? Like, don't they also have to demonstrate some distance from the national party on cultural issues if they're going to succeed in Texas? I'm chairman of the progressive caucus, right? I know. And that's a hard question. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm chairman of the progressive caucus and it is very important.

or there to be some number, some part of our party that adheres to our longstanding tradition

of being willing to stand for vulnerable people and causes that may not be popular yet. You know, it was progressives and the progressive caucus that were out there on gay marriage before it was a popular issue. It's progressive caucus members that are going to be first out there to say if somebody's escaping from war and getting killed, that we've got to figure out that our country actually helps support people in that situation and doesn't

repeat our mistakes from World War II, where we turned away entire ships of Jewish refugees just to go back to the Holocaust camps. Somebody's got to do that. And I think that that's a key part of progressives' role. And progressives need to recognize what issues we are completely on the front foot about, because actually our ideas are more popular than the Democratic Party brand, and on which issues we're still doing persuasion.

And so I'm here to admit on your podcast, on your show, that I understand that the mainline Democratic Party view and to flip a red state, people that are campaigning to flip a red state are likely going to have views on some of these social issues that are not as progressive as mine. Like, okay, let's

That's fine. You know what I mean? Like, OK, but are they not going to get attacked? I mean, look, I think that there have been a lot of Democrats who've been kind of afraid to run in red states. I look, I'm in Louisiana, right? I just saw a tweet yesterday about John Bel Edwards. They're floating him running for Senate. I think that's really big, long shot, more of a long shot than Texas. But let's just say he's pro-life.

And then I saw a tweet of people replying to him. It was like, the Democrats can't have a pro-life candidate. And it's like, well, why even run in Louisiana then? Like, why even try to compete? You know, I don't know. Like, can they have the room to do that?

Yeah, look, I don't think anybody should run their campaign based on their Twitter replies. Well, no, of course not. Of course not. Yeah, but here's what I think. I don't think that it is just so cut and dry. Like, here's where a poll is. Here's what you should just say, etc. Sure. I do understand. I mean, and Kamala Harris, for example, ran a campaign with immigration views that were significantly more to the center than, for example, my preferred immigration platform.

fine. The question is, how do you calibrate your policy in a way that still speaks to your values and still speaks to your base and is still where most voters are? And I know that that would be, of course, a really hard question for somebody to answer that's trying to flip Louisiana or flip Texas. But here's where I think I have something to really add, which is the beginning point of your question. Even as somebody sorts that out, and as they should sort that out, if

on those economic issues, we don't contrast enough, make them simple enough and make them bold and big enough, then the immigration conversation or whatever other social issue conversation can then just dominate the field. And we can't allow it to dominate the field because at the end of the day, even somebody more conservative on those social issues is not going to be murderous on those issues, right? No matter how tough you are on it,

Democrats aren't going to be for freaking sending people to foreign prison camps in El Salvador without due process. Democrats are going to be for bullying people

a trans kid and denying them healthcare and telling their parents they got to get on a plane to save their kid's life. So at the end of the day, part of our work needs to be to say, sure, of course, we need a big tent. Of course, we can't have purity tests for who can and can't be in our party in a way where we're really exclusive and exclusionary. And I think the progressive movement needs to learn from and think about how we need to add more people to our tent. So I

So I think that maybe goes to answering that part of your question. But what we can't forget, and this is where maybe

People once think of it as progressive, but fine. If people want to call this moderate or old school or whatever, I don't think we can have our economic ideas continue to be so incremental, so hard to understand that it just isn't going to make much of a difference to people. Like you might get this specific kind of help if you got two kids and you make more or less than this. I just think we've got to get to a place where we say that we're going to pull every senior and kid in this country together.

out of poverty. No, we're going to raise wages for millions of people. Yeah, we're going to crack down on corporate price gouging in a huge way. We're going to tax the billionaires and stock trading by members of Congress and fight for you.

That's economically populist. You want to call it progressive or do you want to call it what a lot more moderate members are out there fighting for? I care less about what it's called. I think that we just have not drawn that level of contrast. And I think that that only leaves us with trying to like lightly calibrate on some of these social issues. And that ain't working on its own.

All right. Last thing. I know you have this important fencing hearing to get to, but we do have one big agreement on what you just said in there. And that is on disappearing people and sending them to El Salvador. That's happening from Texas, from your state. Just, we're just reading the big story about Nary Alvarado. He's the guy with the autism awareness tattoo and he's Dallas, other part of the state from you, but still,

Are there more things Democrats can be doing about this? Should people be doing more about this? How can people pressure the administration? Because I don't know, man, if Joe Rogan, who's there and who might be in your district, actually, in Austin, if Joe Rogan can be against this, I feel like Democrats can actually be on the front foot on this. So just talk about that real quick. It's really important for us to not just think that on immigration issues, we're on the back foot and on the defense forever. We have to go on the offense because what the Trump administration is doing is

is not just abhorrent, it is deeply unpopular and seen as wrong by a large number of people that voted for Donald Trump. And we have to go and talk to those folks and people understand that eroding due process for everyday people in this country is dangerous for everyone in this country. And we can remember that it was just seven years ago where

the people, Democrats, but actually people all across the country, were actually on offense on immigration vis-a-vis Donald Trump. People said, these kids being put in cages is wrong. Moms being separated from their kids is wrong. So we can't just go...

be on defense on this issue. We have to go out there and say, look, most of the people that they're arresting in some of these raids have no criminal history whatsoever. Law enforcement resources are being taken away from going after drug trafficking and gun trafficking, and it's being turned

towards arresting somebody with an autism awareness tattoo. And then though they're taking our taxpayer money to pay a foreign dictator to put somebody in a prison camp. And then the Supreme Court is saying, bring them back. And Trump is saying, no, I mean, that's like, we can't be scared to go on offense on those sorts of issues. And I think that as progressives, I'm willing to, again, say here on your podcast that we've got to

Think about communicating those issues in a way that doesn't just energize their existing people, but adds and brings people in. Because I'll admit seven or eight years ago, I think a lot of folks treated Trump as a one-time aberration instead of this is actually a longstanding real challenge, which means we've got to bring more people into our tent to be able to win democratically against somebody that would like to see our country not run that way.

Amen, brother. All right, to be continued. Much more. Thanks for coming on the pod. I know you've got this really important work. I'm really important work. Who knows how we might need to do a nut check on fencers. And so we can't get to the rest of the pod. It's really sad that I but I do think that it begs the real question, man, as I head over there, it begs the real question of why.

you know, how sick is it? Then you go and pick on folks that are already discriminated against, already having trouble. It's the oldest trick in the tyranny book and we've got to find a better way to fight it. So I appreciate it. Amen, man. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you. If you're my life in the devil's workshop And evil doing is your field

And trouble and mister is all you live for. You know damn well that you'll go to hell. Oh, you'll go to hell. So you're living high and mighty and rid of the bad.

Just don't dispose of your natural soul, cause you know damn well that you're going to hit the road. You're going to roll over. Tell where you paid for your sin.

Keep your children from doing willin' Cause you know damn well that they'll go to hell Oh, they'll go to hell Man and woman were created To live for eternity So you know damn well that they'll

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