John Heilemann

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Helloha, and now I must stay everyone and welcome to him.
Politic with John heilman Ay Puck and Honesty Joint featuring
Lively in depth conversations with the people who cruise the
quarters of power in America, sculpting and shaping the ebb
and flow of our politics and culture. So hey, it's
not going to come as a surprise to any of
our super observant listeners out there, but for the rest

(00:29):
of you, got a bunch of breaking news on the
show today. And I will be honest, it is a
bit of a mixed bag. First summer over Caput, Thenido Sayonara,
I still love easta baby. We are back to school,
back to work, back to the salt mines, back on

(00:50):
the chain game, and so on and so forth. And
that is a bummer. I love summer. You love summer.
We all love summer. But you know what, here's the
silver lining on that dark cloud fall. It's here. The
days are still warm, but the nights are cooling off.
The leaves are starting to turn. Football season the NFL

(01:12):
just kicked off. Also the Premier League US Open Finals
weekend upon US awesome October Baseball. We'll be here before
you know it, and I don't know about you, but
I saw Oasis and Nine Is Nails on back to
back nights earlier this week. Both were incredible. And later

(01:33):
this month we got David Byrne going back on the
road supporting a new record. He's also getting married David Byrne,
congratstee Bee, LCD sound System playing with Pulp the Hollywood Bowl.
Later in September, Paul McCartney doing another little tour of
America to some of the lesser known, lesser played cities
in the country. And Radiohead Radiohead. Radiohead just announced a

(01:56):
series of late fall dates in Europe. So you know,
things are all bad. Things are looking up all right,
you know, like I said, mixed bag, not all the
news I got, because some good news, got some bad news,
like I said, and the worst news maybe you know,
Donald Trump still in office and maybe even worse than that.

(02:18):
Just this week Congress, the United States Congress back in session.
I know what you're thinking, Jesus God, last thing we need,
and judging from the events of the House to send
its first week back, things are going to get ugly fast.
But again, I keep coming back to my theme here
swings around about shoots and ladders. And just as every

(02:41):
rose has its thorn, the opposite is equally true. Now
stay with me here on this. Every rose has its thorn,
which also means that every thorn has its rose. And
in this case, if the fact that Capitol Hill is
up and running again is the nettle, the barb, the bramble,
the brier, then the blossom is the return of my

(03:02):
friend and colleague, the dopest of dope queens of Puck's
Washington d C covers the one and only Leanne called, well,
she's back on the show, so we have a lot
of questions for her. Did the emotional and powerful show
of force by a dozen survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse,
all those women coming out on Capitol Holl this week?
Did that move the needle politically, make life worse, bring

(03:25):
about some potential accountability to Donald J. Trump? What about
the circus the shit show that we saw yesterday in
the Senate Finance Committee around Robert F. Kennedy Junior talking
about a clown and hey, looking forward a little bit.
Are we headed for a government shutdown later this month? Or,

(03:47):
as Leanne wrote about this week in Puck, are John Thune,
and this fellow Republican congressional leader is going to amaze
and astonish and surprise us all with some good old
fashioned throwback leadership. Those of the kinds of questions that
bum you out. I get it, they bum me out too.
But here's the upside again, swings the roundabouts. We all

(04:07):
get to hear Leanne Colball's answers on this all new episode.
I've been politic for John Hoiman. That's coming at you
in three two one.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Good morning.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
My name is Anushka to Georgio, and I stand before
you today as a survivor of both Jeffrey Epstein and
Gilen Maxwell.

Speaker 4 (04:24):
My name is Andi Farmer, and I was sixteen years
old when I was blown to New Mexico to spend
a weekend with Epstein and Maxwell.

Speaker 5 (04:32):
My name is Marina Laserta. I was minor victim one
in federal indictment of Jeffrey Epstein in New York in twenty nineteen.
I was one of a dozen of girls that I
personally know who are forced into Jeffrey's mansion on nine
East seventy one Street in New York City when we
were just kids. Today is the first time that I
ever speak publicly about what happened to me.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
My name is Courtney Wilde.

Speaker 6 (04:57):
I was only fourteen years old when I was introduced
to Jeffrey Epstein by a thirteen year old friend of mine.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
My name is jene Lisa Jones, and I was only
fourteen years old when my friend brought me over to
Jeffrey Epstein's house in Palm Beach in two thousand and three.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Good afternoon. My name is Hailey Robson.

Speaker 7 (05:18):
I was a sixteen year old high school student athlete
who made good grades and had high aspirations for college
when I was recruited and asked by a classmate of mine,
alongside with a twenty year old male, if I wanted
to give an old, rich guy a massage.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
I was just a.

Speaker 7 (05:31):
Sixteen year old little girl who was sexually abused by
a powerful man and an evil man.

Speaker 4 (05:35):
In the year two thousand, I was taken to Jeffrey
Epstein's island while on a photoshoot on a nearby island.
Who I saw and what I experienced there was a
glimpse into a very dark and disturbing world.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
So those were seven of the dozen or so survivors
of Jeffrey Epstein and Juleane Maxwell's child sexual abuse operation.
Those women all appeared on Wednesday on the steps of
the United States Capital.

Speaker 5 (06:10):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
And we are here with my friend and my colleague,
Leanne Caldwell.

Speaker 8 (06:14):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Leanne, you spend a lot of time in and around
Capitol Hill in the course of of your work for
Puck as so lean I I played that sound longer
than we usually played clips on the show because we've
talked a lot about the Epstein victims since this story

(06:36):
re erupted, but we haven't heard from them until Wednesday
in en mass And how are you.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
By the way, You okay, Yeah, I'm good.

Speaker 9 (06:46):
But after listening to that again, it's, uh, it's quite heartbreaking.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, it sure sure is. And and you know, that event,
in its totality, I was, was pretty extraordinary. I mean,
it's not not without any kind of precedent, but it's
certainly not the kind of thing you see very often
on Capitol Hill. And I will say the stories those
women told were moving, I mean devastating. And the women themselves,

(07:18):
you know, I find them utterly compelling on a kind
of purely human emotional level, and I also find them
potentially politically potent, but you know, I'm a dude, and
so I just want to I have all the biases,
you know, inherent in that. So I want to ask you.

(07:41):
Start out by asking you, as both a kind of
a journalist and as a woman, what your reaction was
to what we saw in that event on Wednesday.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah. I was extremely powerful.

Speaker 9 (07:54):
The fact that these women who really have to relive
their trauma every time Jeffrey Epstein is back in the news.
But what seems to be different this time is that
they came together in mass You know, of course, this
isn't even all of the victims. This is just a

(08:14):
percentage of who came together to speak very publicly in person,
and they told their stories, which I kept thinking throughout
the whole time, like, how were so how did so
many of these women.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Want to do this?

Speaker 9 (08:37):
Because you have one or two who will sometimes come forward,
but the fact that there were so many who came
forward is a really telling indictment of what is happening
with this And each story was similar but just but

(08:57):
harrowing in its own unique way. And one thing that
really stook out to me is there was this one
woman who spoke and she said that she was recruited.
She her family was from Brazil. She this is the
first time she was speaking publicly. And she worked for
Epstein from the ages of fourteen to seventeen, hoping to

(09:19):
get kind of like a real job, an important job,
she said, with Epstein until he told her when she
was seventeen that she was too old and he let
her go. And you know, that was a moment that
was just, you know, really eye opening. That really crystallizes

(09:41):
how he thought about these girls and how he completely
you know, groomed them and took advantage of them.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
So Congress comes back into session this week. Everybody's been
home in their districts and their states for the last
six weeks, five weeks, whatever it's been. You know, there
was a hope on the part of the White House
and certainly on the part of Speaker Johnson that sending
them home early as he did to avoid a vote
on the Epstein files would as it often does in

(10:15):
our politics now, which is you know, riddled with amnesia
and short termitis that you know it would go away.
Am I right? Does it feel like down there like
this didn't go away? This still is a problem for
Donald Trump still is a problem for the administration still
is a problem for Republicans who made such a big

(10:36):
deal out of pedophilia and of Jeffrey Epstein for years
and now are like, Eh, nothing to see here.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (10:42):
So I kind of have two answers to that question.
The first is yes, it continues to be a headache
for the administration. You know, before Recess, I thought that
this was going to have some real staying and lasting power.
But this press conference was incredible powerful and incredibly important,

(11:02):
and it got picked up from every single network, every
single major news outlet, And I think that that is
different and that's important.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
But here's what has changed.

Speaker 9 (11:20):
You are not seeing kind of the online maga write
responding as much to this as you did before this
press conference and before they went out on Recess. The
anger and the chatter online seems to have died down
from the Trump base. You even are seeing a shift

(11:45):
in Republican members of Congress, who before Recess were clamoring
and saying that, you know, more needs to be released,
more needs to be done, And now you have of
far fewer who are raising such outrage. You only have

(12:06):
a few Republicans who are now doing that. What has
changed is Donald Trump and his team have gotten to
a lot of people and tried to tamp down on this.
What has also changed does there have been subpoenas from
the House Oversight Committee to release this information. They released

(12:27):
more than thirty thousand pages earlier this week. The top
Democrat on the committee says most of those have already
been released previously, but there is going to be a
continued effort to try to satisfy the demands of the
people who are calling for more information and calling for

(12:47):
the release. But what seems to continue to be happening
so far is that response of transparency is not really transparent.
But can they make it look as transparent and transparent
enough to quell the outrage?

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Right after listening to these women, you and I both
agree powerful, heartbreaking, human humane, hard to watch, but impossible
to look away from. Dald Trump asked about it in
the White House. Here's what he said. This is a
Democrat hoax that never ends.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
You know.

Speaker 10 (13:28):
It reminds me a little of the Kennedy situation. We
gave them everything over and over again, more and more
and more, and nobody's ever satisfied. From what I understand,
I could check, but from what I understand, thousands of
pages of documents have been given, but it's really a
Democrat hoax because they're trying to get people to talk

(13:49):
about something that's totally irrelevant to the success that we've
had as a nation since I've been president.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
So grotesque to to the naked eye galling, I mean
painful in galling to. The women who were asked to
respond to that in real time were like, but I
look like a hoax. I'm not a hoax, right, but
strategic right. Yeah, this is what you're saying is Trump

(14:17):
is basically saying, we're gonna put out a bunch of
We're gonna put out a bunch of we have to
cite the number of pages we put out and say
it will there be enough for them? And it's a
hoax And hope that that play from his playbook works again.

Speaker 11 (14:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (14:31):
Yeah, it has worked repeatedly for him. It didn't work
in July for him, but he is doubling down on
this and we'll see where it goes. You know, the
argument from Republicans who have been defending the President in
this and the Department of Justice is, well, why didn't

(14:53):
the Democrats make an issue of this when Biden was
in office, and you know, I asked senior Justice Department
officials in the Biden administration, why didn't you guys do
anything with this then? And they said, because it's just
it wasn't a priority for us. No one brought it up.

(15:16):
We weren't asked about it, and it wasn't something that
Democrats who were in power, you know, even Republicans, it didn't.
It just did not come up. The Minority Party didn't
bring this up. They were busy investigating Biden. Jeffrey Epstein
was not a priority. So you know, he's trying to
make it very political.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
It's I mean, it's the worst example, one of the
most worst, one of the most insane examples of what
about is in the world. I mean, it wasn't It
wasn't Democrats who made child sex trafficking, uh and exposing
you know, like the supposed globe spanning pedophile rings central
to their political peal. You know, a lot of as

(15:58):
a lot of these mag Republicans did. Wasn't Joe Biden
who campaigned on Jeffrey Epstein. It was Donald Trump, you know,
who made an issue of this in twenty sixteen, and
then again in twenty twenty four. And it wasn't like
Merrit Garland was the one promising to make the Epstein
client list if it existed in the Epstein files public.

(16:18):
That was Cash Pttel and Dan Bongino and Pam Bondi.
Those were the people who said that blowing the lid
off the Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy was going to be central
one of the main big things they were going to
do when they got into office.

Speaker 9 (16:36):
Yeah, they're the ones who wanted it. They were the
ones who were saying that Democrats were the ones who
were hiding because they were trying to protect Democrats like
Bill Clinton and other high profile Democrats. And so now
that that narrative doesn't really work, and so that's why
now it is just a democratic hoax.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
So I hear you on the question of the MAGA
influencers having quite a down on this. We'll see what
happens in the wake of the victims. We'll see. Yeah,
but interesting that Lauren Bobert, Nancy Mace, Marjorie Taylor Green,
in addition to Thomas Massey, who's the leading Republican on
the discharge petition to unleash all to release all of

(17:17):
the on get a vote on releasing all of the
Epstein files, right, which is what these women, the survivors want.
It's what they said they wanted on Wednesday at that event.
And you know, but we just heard what Trump said
in the Old Office. And more to the point, Leanne
the White House put a statement on background on Wednesday

(17:37):
also to NBC News and some other outlets, and that
statement said, quote helping Thomas Massey and liberal Democrats with
their attention seeking while the DOJ is fully supporting a
more comprehensive file release effort from the Oversight Committee, would
be viewed as a very hostile act to the administration.

(18:00):
Being in favor of the discharge petition is considered now openly,
they're saying that that we regard that we and Donald
Trump's administration would regard voting to release all the Epstein
files as a hostile act. And you know, that tells
you everything you need to know about how much this
story continues to be under Donald Trump's skin and how

(18:21):
much he and his administration desperately wanted to go away.
But these four Republicans, three of whom are like the
most some of the most maga Republicans on the House
side of Capitol Hill are like, fuck it, we're gonna
stand with these women. What's that about.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah, So it's so fascinating.

Speaker 9 (18:40):
So Marjorie Taylor Green has just been a really interesting
test like a test case on Congress recently. She's actually
broken with the presidents quite a few times, and she's
been consistent, especially on this Jeffrey Epstein thing. And then
you have Nancy Mace, who has kind of made women's
women's victimhood and women rights a priority and her cause,

(19:05):
her cause that she is championing, championing, so you know,
she is doing it from that perspective. And then I
think that the most interesting person actually is Lauren Bobert,
someone who also who rarely breaks with the president, who
is a huge defender of the president, but she is

(19:28):
the one. She is one who is you know, stand
going against the president in this and calling for more transparency.
And so it is you know, Thomas Massey has been
his own his own being in person for quite some
time now. No love lost between Massey and Trump. But yeah,

(19:48):
it's just a really fascinating example of how these Republicans
are dealing with it.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
Notably, you know, three are.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
Women, So I I agree with you Leanne one hundred
percent about all of the political dynamics you laid out,
the kind of the where this is going and where
the pressures that you know, Trump is kind of hunkered down,
thinks he's got a strategy, thinks he sees a path
through it. Maybe the mag of media people are starting
to back off and that will make that path more
plot more plausible. Here's the twist. The twist on Wednesday

(20:18):
is Lisa Phillips, who is the last speaker at the
end of the Trump Survivor's montage we played at the
top of the show. Here's another thing Lisa Phillips said,
which introduced a new wrinkle in our story.

Speaker 4 (20:29):
We are not asking for pity. We are here demanding
accountability and I'm demanding justice. Congress must choose will you
continue to protect predators or will you finally protect survivors.
And also, I would like to announce here today us

(20:50):
Epstein survivors have been discussing creating.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Our own list.

Speaker 4 (20:54):
We know the names many of us were abused by them. Now,
together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we
all know who regularly and who are regularly in the
Epstein World, and it will be done by survivors, and
for survivors, no one else is involved. Stay tuned for

(21:16):
more details.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
Now the applause you heard there were her fellow survivors,
and if you watch that on video or were there,
they were all like almost gleeful in this notion that hey,
we can make a list, and you think to yourself, well,
that'd be interesting, you know, but there's some problems with that.
You know, they could get sued into oblivion, that they
could get physically get they'd be they're afraid of reprisals already.

(21:41):
But as soon as she says this, here comes Marjorie
Taylor Green up to the microphone, who says the following.

Speaker 6 (21:48):
Is you're questioning, why can't they just name the names?
What you don't realize is they just told their stories
of being raped and being abused, being victimized, being manipulated.
They saw the most powerful people in the world in
his pictures, and they saw him with those people. Can

(22:10):
you imagine how terrifying it would be to name names
like that. These are some of the richest, most powerful
people in the world that could sue these women into
poverty and homelessness. Yeah, it's a scary thing to name names,
but I will tell you I'm not afraid to name names.
And so if they want to give me a list,

(22:31):
I will walk in that capital on the house floor
and I'll say every damn name that abused these.

Speaker 12 (22:38):
Women, So Leanne, I will admit I never thought that
the day would come where I'd be like Margie Taylor Green,
you go girl.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
But there was a kind of rouse. That's a moment
right there. Do you think that's? Yeah? What do you
think it's gonna happen? Could that happen? Is that a
plausable thing? Is that just talk like? And what would
happen if it did happen?

Speaker 9 (23:02):
I mean, so I don't know if it's going to happen.
I have no idea if it were to happen. I mean,
this is exactly what everyone wants, the people who have
been obsessed with this Epstein case for years, this is
what they want. They want the list. Supposedly, there's no

(23:24):
actual list of names that have been compiled. But you know,
these as these women said, they can create their want
their own through their own lived experiences, and you know
it would it would I mean, maybe maybe it would

(23:45):
actually give closure to this entire thing.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
If they were to do.

Speaker 9 (23:49):
That, I will say from a from a from a
from a traumatic perspective, but it will also open and
please new political.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
Oh my god, that's like a political ied going off.

Speaker 9 (24:06):
Likes me is a political reporter Like great story.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
I mean, yes, an incredible story.

Speaker 8 (24:14):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
And and you know I'll close on this topic, uh
Leanne by just noting that my friend Mika Brazinski uh
on Morning Joe this morning said the truest thing that
I heard. She was like, Republicans better look out because
these you know what you saw there on Capitol Hill
with these survivors. You saw a bunch of people who
feel like they have nothing left to lose, and people

(24:35):
they have nothing and people who feel like they have
nothing left to lose are fucking fearless and really dangerous.
And that those women you heard in every one of
those women, they were like, they're done with this game.

Speaker 9 (24:47):
Yeah, yeah, no, that is such a great point. And
that that brings us back to why they were standing there,
the fact that for the first time they were some
of them were telling their stories in person, not their fade,
not behind a screen door.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
So that's it's a really great point.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
All right, we got to take a quick break. But
having dispense now with Wednesday's big riveting news driving event
in Washington, which was on the House side of Capitol Hill.
On Thursday, the action shifted to the Senate side, to
a hearing in the Senate Finance Committee where Robert F.
Kenny Junior got quite a grilling. We'll get to that

(25:25):
when we get back with Lean Coola, the great Lean Clobo.

Speaker 8 (25:28):
After this, do you do.

Speaker 11 (25:38):
You accept the fact that a million Americans died from COVID?

Speaker 8 (25:43):
I don't know how many.

Speaker 11 (25:45):
You're the Secretary of Health and Human Services. You don't
have any idea how many Americans died from COVID.

Speaker 8 (25:52):
I don't think anybody knows because there was so much
data chaos coming out of the c and they were
at and these are models.

Speaker 11 (26:03):
You know, I know the answer of how many Americas
from COVID. This is the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Do you think the vaccine did anything to prevent additional tests?

Speaker 8 (26:14):
Again, I would like to see the data and talk
about the data.

Speaker 11 (26:19):
And you had had this job for eight months and
you don't know the data about whether the vaccine And
the problem is that they.

Speaker 8 (26:26):
Didn't have the data.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
So that was Democratic Senator Mark Warner going after Robert F.
Kenny Junior hammering tongs in one of many fiery exchanges
that took place in that Senate Finance Committee oversight hearing
that I mentioned before the break, and I will I
will say, you know, just in passing, there was another

(26:48):
exchange with Senator Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, senator from Louisiana,
said I think Donald Trump deserves the Nobel Prize for
Operation Warp Speed. Do you agree? Orf Junior said yes,
And yet if he then couldn't say that he thought
that the vaccines that Operation Works we brought to market
had done any good in ending the COVID pandemic or

(27:10):
controlling the colored pandemic, which seems like a mild inconsistency
to me, because like, if he deserves the Nobel Prize
for Operation Works, but you kind of would say, hey,
these were basically pretty good. I don't know, there's so
many contradictions to point to. Whatever rf k Junior opens
his mouth, it's hard to know where to start. But Leanne,
I know you were paying close attention to the hearing,
So what struck you about it and what were your
main takeaways from it?

Speaker 9 (27:32):
Yeah, I mean that Mark Warner exchange was one of
the best ones. It's really interesting listening to Kennedy talk
because the way he frames things, it's really easy to
be like, yeah, I agree, you know, change things up
so that you need you know, better accounting and better

(27:56):
you know, a more holistic look at human health and
prevented and all the things. And it sounds like he's
operating from a place of.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
Science.

Speaker 9 (28:09):
But then you have these senators who are digging in,
asking very specific questions about scientific findings that have already
been you know, that have not been questioned. A million
people dying from COVID has not been questioned other than
from senator from our FK junior.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
And then it's.

Speaker 9 (28:30):
Like, oh, yes, this is this is where he operates
in a reality of his own doing, rather than based
on what the evidence is presented to him. The Cassidy
exchange was super fascinating because, of course we can talk
about the politics with Senator Cassidy. Senator Cassidy is the

(28:51):
reason our FK Junior is sitting in that position right now. Cassidy,
a doctor, did not really want to confirm him, but
Kennedy gave Cassidy guarantees that he would operate from a
place of science, and so Cassidy was pissed during that

(29:12):
hearing and could not believe what he was hearing in
the contradictions that Kennedy was spewing about about vaccines and
operation warp speed.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yes, and and and indeed, you know, Cassidy, you know
people were posting video of him seeming to give our
Oka Junior a friendly greeting when he walked in the room.
But what's the hearing got going? Bill Cassidy made his
displeasure with Kennedy mighty clear. Let's take a listen to that.

(29:45):
You also told.

Speaker 13 (29:47):
Senator Wyden at the outset that you didn't want to
take vaccines away from people. And as I conclude, I
would like to say this because of the conflicting recommendations
made by about COVID. This is from Eric Erickson, good
conservative out of Atlanta, Georgia, occasionally gives me help. My
wife has stage four lung cancer. She is one of

(30:08):
the people that COVID vaccine actually helps. Thanks to the
current invest at HHS, CDs is unable to get her
a vaccine. Secondly, an email from a physician friend of mine. Hey, Bill,
I'm not even sure what I'm asking you, but we're
all confused and concerned about who could get the COVID vaccine.
We are having our attorney try and render an opinion,

(30:29):
but there's no firm guidance and concerned about liability if
vaccines are given to a patient requested but not on
the current CDC list. Pharmacists are requiring of prescription now,
even for patients over sixty five, creating a huge headache.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
I submit these for the record without objection.

Speaker 13 (30:44):
I would say, effectively, we're denying people vaccine.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
I hate Senator Catwill. I hate it wrong. A wrong.

Speaker 9 (30:51):
That was if you didn't play that clip. That was
the clip I was going to talk about. If you
didn't play it, it's so.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Telling because he.

Speaker 9 (31:01):
The CDC literally put out a rule that says that
the COVID vaccine is not available unless you are over
sixty five and have a prescription or have another reason
to get a prescription for it, and making it very
difficult for people who want it to get it, and

(31:23):
Kennedy just disagreed with that. When when Cassidy pointed that out,
Kennedy said, I think you're wrong. He was not able
to per se if anyone could walk into a CVS
and get a COVID vaccine should they want one. You know,
there's a difference here. There's a difference of getting rid
of the mandate right and not forcing people to have

(31:45):
a COVID vaccine in order to you know, go into
a restaurant or go back to your job, or serve
in the military. But there's it's much different from not
allowing people to get the vaccine if they want to.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
Well, there's another difference too, which is if the CDPC
puts out guidance on something, insurance companies react to that
guidance of if insurance companies won't pay for the covid vaccine,
people are not going to be able to get the
covid vaccine. So Bobby Kennedy Junior can say, we haven't
stopped anyone. The COVID vaccine is still out there. You
can get it if you want it to which the
answer is, yeah, I can get it if I want it,

(32:19):
if I meet a certain set of very narrow conditions,
and and I can pay for it out of my pocket,
which is clearly not what Bill Cassidy and others expected.
You know, what he was trying to say was not
just that forgetting about the mandates. He was trying to
say the CDC wasn't going to do anything to make
it appreciably harder for tens of billions of people to
get the COVID vaccine or other vaccines that they wanted them,

(32:40):
which they clearly have done. But you know, I guess
the real question here land, you know where a normal
person is like, so what And I don't mean so
what they made it harder for them to get the vaccines?
I mean like, what is all this what's this hearing
going to lead to? You know, you got Cassidy and
Barrasso and Tillus, the you know, the three Republicans. They're pissed.

(33:00):
Clearly they feel like they've been lied to by by
RFK JR. They have been lied to by RFK JR.
You know, Kennedy is doing exactly what they feared he
would do, exactly what a lot of us feared he
would do. HHS is out of control. You know, there's
all this chaos happening right at the CDC. He's firing

(33:21):
these people willy nilly. There's these questions about the various
vaccine panels. There's places where oversight is there is oversight here.
This is what this is is oversight. Right. But as
a functional matter, is there anything that the Senate Finance
Committee can do to stop RFK Junior from doing what
he wants to do? Because I get the attitude from
r F K Junior, which is, like, I'm getting through

(33:41):
this hearing. In some cases, I'm going to like just
sit quietly. In other cases, I'm just going to assert
things out of nowhere. In other case I'm gonna fight back.
But in the end, as long as I can walk
out the door of this place, you know, I'm just
gonna go back to doing what I'm doing. And these
guys can't really touch me.

Speaker 9 (33:56):
Yeah, that's a great question, and it's really you know,
I don't think that Finance, the Senate Finance Committee could
do very much. What Congress specifically can do is they
can they can direct and control funding very specifically towards
CDC and NIH and Health and Human Services. But that

(34:19):
also is at risk too based on how the administration
thinks about congressionally appropriated funds. Where they are they redirect
funds and are very likely to start canceling funds without
Congressional approval in the future. And so there is a
huge you know, the role of the administrative state has

(34:44):
greatly expanded under the president, and the President has given
Kennedy a lot of power and a lot of leeway
to do whatever what he wants within health and Human services,
and and it doesn't seem like Congress can do much
to stop it. And I will say one other additional

(35:06):
thing is that Congress is also having a lot of
problems getting information from not just Kennedy, but other agencies too.
When they ask questions about what exactly is going on
in these agencies, they're not the agencies aren't responding.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
Do you understand why or do you have as as
asked this question on the basis of your reporting and
people you talk to, do you understand why by Donald J.
Trump continues to give Robert F. Kennedy Junior so much,
so much leeway in effectively undoing what as many people

(35:48):
have said, including in that case Bill Cassidy, and Kennedy
ostensibly agrees with that. When the Trump Presidential Library is built,
there's almost no one in the country who would fight
with Trump's polar rising on almost every front. But if
they open that thing and they had the first wing
of the library dedicated to operation warp speed, even most
liberal Democrats would be like, yeah, you know that, you

(36:10):
know fair, you know, let him have that. That's that's
a real thing that he accomplished. And Trump at various
times has sort of embraced that, and other times he's been,
you know, more half hearted about it. I understand the politics,
the fact that there's an anti vaxx part of the
MAGA base, but the degree to which he's just basically
kind of gone, you know, do your worst. You know, Bobby,
I don't really care about this. It's just striking to

(36:31):
me how much he's how much leeway he has, how
much a free hand he's having, and how much it's
causing Trump to have to essentially implicitly, sometimes explicitly repudiate
what is arguably his greatest, single first orm accomplishment.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (36:45):
I think that I think you said it that he
doesn't care. He doesn't This isn't Health in Human Services
a CDC like these these are not things that Donald
Trump necessarily cares about or understands or wants to know about.
And so of course there's a political transaction that was
made during the campaign, the agreement with RFK Junior, which

(37:07):
helped Trump win win the presidency. So Trump is, you know,
to the extent that he's loyal because he is so transactional.
There's that component too. And another interesting thing that I've
been thinking about a lot is how minuscule of a
mandate RFK Junior has actually been given in what he's

(37:32):
focused on chemical like food dies and fluoride and water
and his vaccine, his anti vax component, when meanwhile, during
the campaign, Trump also said RFK, you could do whatever
the hell you want, just don't touch the oil. Meanwhile,
you have you have the EPA over here, who is

(37:53):
rolling back like every clean air and clean water regulation possible.
But RFK and MAHA doesn't care about like you know,
air quality and water quality and soil quality that's actually
also going to impact HOUTH. It's like such a contradiction,
and I think that this is like a play toy
that Donald Trump doesn't care about and he's letting RFK

(38:17):
have at it.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
All Right, So we've covered the Wednesday news, the Thursday news.
Now we for the for the final block of the show.
We'll take it. We'll take a break, we'll come back
and we'll look a little bit forward. Not long, very
long for it, because you know, the government, according to
what I read Leanne, the government is going to run
out of money in less than a month, right, yeah,
less than twenty six days or something.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
Yeah, it's real news, real news, not fake news. Real news.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
Yeah, seriously, So government shutdown looming. You have a piece.
You have a piece up yesterday in Puck that was
all about the challenges that was gonna the challenge that
was putting before mister John Thune, the Senate majority leader.
We'll talk about that right after this.

Speaker 14 (39:09):
The Senate has taken so far four hundred and ninety
nine votes this year, more than in any Congress at
this point in the last thirty five plus years. In fact,
we've taken more votes in twenty twenty five already in
eight months, than the Senate has taken in a full

(39:29):
twelve months for most all but two of the past
thirty six years. But we have a lot more work
to do, and we're going to get it done. That
starts this week with consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act,
one of the most important pieces of legislation that we
consider every year. That will be followed by continued appropriations

(39:51):
work so that we can get the government funded by
the September thirtieth deadline. And I hope, mister President, that
our Democrat colleagues will resist the call from within for
a shutdown and work with us to fund the government.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
That was set a majority leader John Thune on the
floor of the Senate on Tuesday, expressing his earnest and
sincere hopes about the possibility of diverting a government shutdown
later this month. And Lee and I mentioned that you
wrote about this about Thun in Puck this week, and

(40:27):
I gotta tell you, pocket rocket, it's not a phrase
that I like to associate with John Thune. That was
a headline on your Thune piece, pocket rocket John Thune, No,
thank you, no, thank you God.

Speaker 9 (40:41):
I will say I'm one percent blaming an editor for that.
I usually love Puck headlines, but I gotta I gotta
admit that wasn't my fave.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
I can't imagine the word pocket rocket was like the
thing you were thinking while you're writing that piece. But
I but it did have something to do with pocket recisions.
That's like the justification for it, right, Trump's pocket recisions
So the pocket recisions are important because they have pissed
off a lot of Democrats and have made the atmosphere
confronting both sides of Capitol Hill more agitated than they

(41:17):
would they would already have been, which would have been
pretty agitated as we head into this funding fight. Tell
me about for anybody who doesn't know what a pocket
recision is, what Donald Trump has done, why it's caused
increased agitation, and where you see this story going from
here over the course of the next twenty six days.

Speaker 9 (41:34):
Oh my gosh, I hope it doesn't take me twenty
six days to explain all of that.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
Okay, I hope to blue booket blue booking. No, I know.

Speaker 9 (41:44):
Okay, here we go. Pocket recisions. Okay, So this is
a five the administration sent to Congress five billion dollars
of money that they want clawed back, that they want
to cancel for foreign policy that has already been appropriated.
The reason it's called a pocket decision is because it's

(42:05):
within forty five days of the end of the fiscal year,
and so what happens if Congress does not act, If
they don't do anything, the money is automatically canceled. So
in order for Congress to block this, they would actually
have to vote to block it. They don't have to

(42:26):
approve it, they have to stop it. The reason it
matters is because it is a route around Congress. It's
another instance of the administration taking away congressional authority. I mean, basically,
the only job they have left is to fund the government,
and the administration is trying to, you know, do it

(42:48):
themselves rather than have Congress do it. And so the
reason this matters is because, look, five billion dollars in
a one point eight trillion dollar annual discretionary budget is
not a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
People aren't really pissed about that.

Speaker 9 (43:03):
What they're mad about about the size of it, right,
the size of it, or even.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
About those specific things that's cutting right, because some of
those things are things Republicans agree with right totally.

Speaker 9 (43:13):
So what they're mad about is that the administration is
really testing Congress right now. And this is what Republicans
are predicting to me, that this is what it absolutely
is a test because in the future, the administration is
probably going to try to do this more often, but
without asking Congress to approve or block it, They're just

(43:34):
going to to eliminate Congressional funding for programs that they
don't want or don't like, and it's going to go
to the courts, and it could end up at the
Supreme Court and the administration. If Congress does nothing about it. Now,
the administration could very well use this as evidence in

(43:55):
court that Congress does not care. And so this could
have like very long term implications for the role of Congress,
the balance of power, and if Congress even matters anymore.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
Right, and you in your piece, you talked about Mark Short,
former or chiefest staff to Vice President Pence, saying, you know,
they are looking at impoundment, which is another version of
a pockericision. Essentially, Yeah, these are all attempts. For those
of us who remember school House Rock, we have Article
one created the Congress, and essentially the ultimate constitutional amendment

(44:30):
de facto is what Trump wants, which is essentially to
amend the Constitution to eliminate Article one and essentially fold
just to just forget about the legislative you know, who
are supposed to appropriate, authorize taxing, spending, all that dollar
and cent stuff. Trump's basically just kind of like, I
want to do it all myself. Yeah, And the executive and

(44:51):
a lot of you know, even even Republicans are generally
like Donald Trump, are like, well, what's the point of
me of us if you guys are just gonna be
in charge of everything totally totally.

Speaker 9 (45:02):
I mean, there's some Republicans who are like, good, let
the president do it, because Congress keeps adding to the
deficit and its deficits out of control. But you know,
there's a large number of Republicans who actually are like, eh,
this is not good. But and that's why it's up
to John Thune. Getting back to John Thune, the Majority
leader and his.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
Fuck that. Oh my god.

Speaker 9 (45:27):
He is going to have a really, really difficult time
with this. And there's a there's a midterm component to it, too,
and that is because Susan Collins, who is the chair
of the Appropriations Committee, she is really pissed off right
now and she he needs to keep her happy because

(45:50):
she's also up for reelection, like you just said, and
she hasn't announced that she's going to run again, and
if she is fed up, then she might not. And
if she does, guess what, that seat is turning blue
and that could be very problematic for Republicans and who
are not having the best time politically right now in

(46:10):
the Senate.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
You lose Tom Tillis, you lose Joni Ernst, You maybe
lose Lise Murkowski if she decides around for governor in Alaska.
That's probably good up being a Republican Senate seat no
matter what, but still main very likely Democratic pickup. You
start pissing off enough of your people and they start
all retiring. You know, suddenly that Senate map that looked
really forbidding to Democrats is a little bit more inviting.

(46:34):
I ask you this last question. You know, the government
shutdown got averted last time because really because Chuck Schumer caved,
and he has taken ceaseless, endless infinite amounts of shit
for being kind of out of step with the times,
not being willing to even though kind of playing old
politics in a moment of playing usual politics, in a

(46:57):
moment of unusual stakes and an unusual three to the
whole Democratic enterprise, it feels like to me that Democrats
are in no mood to compromise beyond the quite whatever
Republicans do with their you try to keep their house
in order to deal with these pocket recisions and the
institutional pressures and fun and Johnson. I feel like Democrats

(47:17):
is at attitude. Are we're going to shut this thing
down this time because we're we're feistier now than we
were four months ago, and this is going to end
up being I think the odds are better than are
better than even that we end up with a shutdown.
How do you feel about that?

Speaker 11 (47:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (47:32):
I agree, I agree.

Speaker 9 (47:35):
You know, Schumer is once again in a very difficult position.
There's still the same fears that existed in March that
exists now, which is if the government shut down, then
what does Resvat and Donald Trump do with the federal
government in the federal workforce when it shut down? And
so but I think that you know, whereas last time

(47:59):
Schumer actually protecting his caucus, who many of them did
not actually want to shut down, this time, the mood
is much different. They are so angry and pissed off
at Republicans for just handing the keys to the Capitol
Building to Donald Trump for you know, they're mad that

(48:20):
Trump for a million different things. And so it's going
to be really hard for them to come up with
some sort of deal that Republicans can give them in
order to keep the government open. That justifies keeping the
government open in these times we live in, so I am.
You know, the next three weeks for how Schumer deals

(48:44):
with this is going to be one of the most
interesting stories.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
I got to say, when you're dealing with a president
that's doing pocket recisions and talking about impoundment and the
all the emanations that are coming out. The argument from
those on the Democratic side who look at they can go, Yes,
there are risks what russ Vote and and Donald Trump
will do with the government if we shut it down,
but they're gonna They're finding various ways to do what

(49:09):
they want to do anyway. So what's the you know,
what's the It's not like continuing to fund it, giving
them a clean cr Letting them continue to do this
is gonna stop them. They're gonna do what they're gonna do.
So we might as well go down fighting rather than
go down acquiescing.

Speaker 9 (49:23):
Yeah, exactly, And that's why the Trump administration wants a
clean CR because you know, as Mark Short puts it
to me, he said, they don't care about how Congress
appropriates money because then they're just gonna do what they
want to do with that money anyway.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Man, You're gonna have a fun fall. Are you a
baseball fan? No, not so much, Okay, not too much.
Are you a sports fan at all? Yeah?

Speaker 9 (49:51):
I mean I enjoy them. I just don't they have
to like they're fine. Yeah, they're great sports.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
They is a sports here? Is you're aford to sports
in general? Like they Yeah, the sport, the sport, sport.
It's fine as as far as it goes. Okay, I
got my answer here. You don't really like, you know,
fall fall Baseball is not going to be a thing
that's going to be on like kind of constantly flickering
on the on the coldwell household TV sets.

Speaker 9 (50:15):
No, no, it will not. I my husband and my
son are obsessed with English soccer football. So English football,
so that is what is on in my household all
the time.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Well, and are they fans of a particular club?

Speaker 2 (50:30):
Chelsea?

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Oh okay, we gotta go now.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
Do you want to be my favorite team? Do you
want to hear my favorite team?

Speaker 1 (50:39):
Oh? Sure, yeah, I love you. I didn't know you
had a favorite team. If I knew, I was Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
I know nothing about it. But it is Crystal Palace.
Do you know why?

Speaker 1 (50:48):
No?

Speaker 9 (50:51):
Well I never know because Crystal Palaces Crystal Palace is
the name of the roller skating rink that I went
to my entire childhood, and it brings back such fond memories.
And I just learned that there's a soccer team named
Crystal Palace, and so they're my team.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
I think there was a back in the day of
the peak of the Yankees Red Sox rivalry, there was
a discussion that people talked about the Yankees when they
were great, and that people would say, uh, there's a
mystique and aura surrounding the Yankees, and Kurt Schillings said
something like mystiq aura that those aren't things that surround

(51:31):
the Yankees. Those are the names of two girls at
a strip club. Crystal Crystal Palace is also the name
of potentially someone who works in a in a gentleman's club.

Speaker 9 (51:40):
But I La Vegas, so I grew up in Las Vegas,
so it all makes sense.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
Over here's a Crystal Palace. Over here's the Spearmint Rhino.

Speaker 8 (51:47):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
I will say, uh, Crystal Palace is preferable to rooting
for Chelsea. Obviously speaking thank you, you're on my self
speaking for this household. Over here, we have a one
Liverpool fan and one Arsenal Fan. Oh Chelsea, Chelsea is
the devil in this outside you know of ken't even
tell you anyway. It's great to see you. You're going

(52:10):
to have a hell of a fall. We will keep
in touch.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
Good to see you, Thanks John.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
In Politic with John Haman is a Puck podcast in
partnership with Odyssey. Thanks again to the great Leanne Caldwell
for joining us on the show. If you enjoyed this
episode of In Politic with John Haymond, please follow us,
rate us, share us, review us on the free Odyssey
app or wherever you happen to basket in this splendor
of podcast universe. I am John Hilman, special correspondent for Puck.

(52:43):
To read my stuff, along with the reporting and analysis
of all my fabulous Puck partners, go to puck dot
news slash jhile, j H E I L and subscribe. Please.
Speaking of my colleagues, John Kelly and Ben Landy are
executive producers of Impolitic. Lorie Blackburter is our guest wrangling guru,
and Bob Tabador is our bury own, Rick Rubin, Brian Nino,

(53:04):
Steve Albini and the Bomb Squat all world into one
flaw asleep, producing, editing, mixing and mastering the show, all
by his lonesome, and in no time flat. From all
of us to all of you, a little mashup of
a pair of late grates, my Mom and Bob Marley.
Don't get arrested, don't get dead, and don't give up
the fight.