Transcription
Uh, we covered this bonkers hearing with Attorney General Pam Bondi as producer. Cole is making some noises over there. Um, [Music] and it was completely off the rails, but similar to, do you remember when we got the photo of Cash Patel's notes during his hearing and it said, "Good fight with Swallwell. Hold the line. Brush off their attacks. Rise above." And it seemed like that first one was him complimenting himself for a fight that he had with Swallwell that while he was still in the fight with Swallwell. Kind of weird, but I love affirmations, self-affirmations even. And I'm sure that was helpful to him.
Well, now we have Pam Bondi's notes. And before I show them to you, just to remind you what took place during this hearing, you of course had her being asked about the Michael Wolf reported photos of Trump with naked, I guess he said like of an unclear age women, girls who were topless and pointing at a stain on Trump's pants and that Epstein had shown those to Michael Wolf and that back and forth concluded with Pam Bondi going, "I'm just going to stare and be silent."
"The question is, did the FBI find those photographs that have been discussed publicly by a witness who claimed Jeffrey Epstein showed them to him? You don't know anything about that?"
"Oh, that wasn't whatever." She ends up just sitting there and staring until he, he reacts. And then I'll show you, he did a correction because she responded during the beginning of his question to his question. Oh, it's been a long show. Oh my gosh, my brain's like, Luke, you need to go to sleep.
"A brain."
"Yeah. By by saying, well, you took money from Reed Hoffman. You sit here and make salacious remarks once again trying to slander President Trump when you're the one who was taking money from one of Epstein's closest confidence. I believe I could be wrong. Correct me. Reed Hoffman."
"Okay, I will correct you. This guy you talk about has never given me a dime. You are making that up. And just by the way, how weird it is that an attorney general coming to the judiciary committee for an oversight hearing prepares oppo research on the senators plus false oppo research plus it's so sloppy that she says it even though it's false. I mean, really, this manga DOJ stuff is getting out of hand."
So, we, we do love, of course, Senator Tik Tok culture. It is getting better and better as the days go on. But that, that's what she said. She was like, "Well, you took a, how am I going to take a lecture from you? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you took money from Reed Hoffen and blah, blah, blah." And I did fact-check him. And from all the records that I could find, he's correct that he actually never accepted money, uh, with that. But then we get this, which is when he says she prepared oppo research, she prepared oppo research, which is a weird thing to do. You go into a hearing, you're the one getting questioned, but you're preparing to like flip it around on them.
Bondi accidentally reveals her burn book for fiery Epstein hearing. You can see some of the photos there. And if we turn our head, you can see a whole page of the file is about Sheldon White House. And she was ready to call him out. And it says, "Epstein, did you take money from Reed Hoffman? Uh, Sheldon White House, you claim to be a social justice warrior, but you're a member of us." And then it cuts off. "You'll, you rail against dark money, but you work with dark money groups." And then she has one crossed off. "What does that say? You talk about corruption, but you push for legislation that would uh," and then it cuts off. "You are a total hypocrite." Oh, you haven't zoomed in. Thank you. I was still bending my head around. "You're a total hypocrite." And she has it underlined. Um, and then she has a tweet, "No government official should be above the law." And then you have circled, "Did you take money from Reed Hoffman?" That's so weird. Why are you preparing? It's so strange. So that she could obfuscate. That's what it is. She knew she was going to get questions about Epstein. Think about that. She knew she was going to get questions about her participation in a cover-up. And so she prepares Epstein-related comebacks to personally attack the senator instead of just answering the damn question.
What was the other? I mean, we did a lot of to home and stuff. We don't have to circle back on that in this segment where she kind of had a boilerplate response and said, "I don't know, ask Cash Patel." But on Epstein, she kept not answering directly questions and it was really disturbing. And instead, she was throwing out those attacks. And she has Jack Smith eight subpoenas. He targeted Republican Congress without any legal basis. It's interesting to get insights into the mind of some of these folks during their hearings, but I mean, nothing, nothing will top Cash Patel's. I wish, I wish Bondi had those. You crushed Sheldon White House, um, on her notes, but on the whole Epstein question, Bondi was completely unable to substantively defend what the Trump administration's been doing there.
And then Adalita Grihalva, the congresswoman-elect, is still out there saying, "I have not been sworn in because I'd be the 200th," she's alleging the 218th vote on this discharge petition. While you watch this, please do click the subscribe button if you appreciate the show. I would appreciate you greatly for that.
"The end. Will I be able to get sworn in? I mean, I think that would be great. My family was ready to go, too. Um, really, the only thing that I can point to, we've had with this speaker three other representatives sworn in on a special in under 24 hours after the date of their election. And I am now on day 14."
"Have you spoken to the speaker?"
"The only thing, this, we have sent a letter. I have called. I really just want to get a date and, um, you know, Arizonans deserve to have representation in Washington. We, I want to be at the table when conversations are being had, co-sponsor legislation. I mean, we, I need to get to work and Speaker Johnson has to do his job before I can do mine."
"You say we."
"True. Uh, true, true. But listen to his story because it does keep shifting. Let's see."
"Um, she was elected in a special election to fill her father's seat. That's a great achievement. We applaud her. I look forward to administering the oath of office to her to make her an official member of the, of the House as soon as we get back to regular session. Right now, Chuck Schumer holds the cards on when that can happen because he is the one that has shut down the government and that is..."
"And Mr. Speaker, you have, uh, there, there were two others that you did, uh, swear in during pro-forma sessions. Why won't you do it this time?"
"Great question. So, this was brought up yesterday. Well, you had these two Flidians who you did in a pro-forma session when not everyone was there. Why wouldn't you do that for Rep. Graalva? Very important question. The simple answer is, those two Flidians had prescheduled a date for their oath of office. So, they had all their family and friends and supporters fly into town. Everybody was here. The House unexpectedly went out of session. And so, as as..."
"So that's his next excuse. It was, his first excuse was the shutdown and then and then we found out, wait, but you had done Republicans where you didn't need all of Congress to be in session even though Congress can be in session but they're not. He sent them, but you're the one who sent them home is the other part of it too. Well, all them aren't here. Uh, well, why'd you send them home then? But then you've also done the pro-forma just a little short. You know what it means. We both know what it means. One of those sessions. And you did Republicans through that. So you could do her the same way. And so then now it's, well, not okay, I guess not the shutdown because I could do that. It's not because people are in their districts because I could do pro-forma. It's not because of. So it's because the Republicans that I swore in had all their family in town and they were planning on it. So then Adelita Rehalva said, 'I'll fly my family in. I'm planning on it, too.' It's so weak. It's flimsy. It's flaccid."
And then this, "This was, uh, two Democratic senators confronting my reop."
"I mean, but this, this just keeps on moving."
"It's not great if you want representation. In that last meeting, there's 750 waitress the me address the answer the question."
"We're happy that she got elected. She's going to her father's seat. That's fantastic. We have a long tradition here and a process of how we administer the oath to a member. You know, you served here for a while. Uh, we're going to..."
"He's going to say a bunch of mumbo jumbo. Wow, he makes librarians look riveting. So riveting. This is actually more riveting though. Michael Lawler, um, let's, I'll, I'll show you Hakeem Jeff clashing with Mike Lawler here in a second. But just to close out on this Ghalva issue and her alleging that this is in part to delay the release of the Epstein Files amid the shutdown, Mike Johnson did his best Hollywood acting and said, 'I'm irritated.'"
"'People are upset. I'm upset. I'm a very patient man, but I am very angry right now because this is a, this is dangerous stuff.' 'I'm, pardon my French, damn upset.'"
And then Jim Jordan, you know, is always kind of, um, you know, you know, like whenever you have a bunch of little puppies. I don't know if you ever had puppies. We had puppies twice, actually. Love it. Loved it. I loved it. It was great. Um, and a bunch of them and they're all running around and it's like you're, you pick up. No, wait. Come. Oh, wait. Go back here. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Right. Or kids. I'm here. They'll run around like that. And it's kind of like, ah, how do I? That's like Jim Jordan, but it's just one guy and it's his, the puppies in that analogy are all of his different thoughts. I don't know. But you, it's like, it's you feel like you're kind of trying to herd a cat or herd a cow or whatever you herd. It's like you're trying to get him boxed in. He's just like, and Caitlyn Collins does a good job of herding the puppies.
"Actually, think about this. If this were the other way around, if Republicans said, if, if Mike Johnson said, you know, I voted for a continuing. Democrats are in control. I voted for a continuing resolution six months ago, but I'm not going to vote for it today because I want to pick the policy. We want tax cuts. We want, we want school choice. We want some other policy. Was in the big, a single policy that we were fighting for that one thing. You guys would lose your mind. You would be like, 'Oh my goodness, you voted for it six months ago, but you won't vote for it now because you want this policy.' And by the way, no one, no one that's not fair or true. We've asked Democrats who have been on, you guys have been on Republicans. I cannot believe we've asked Democrats what changed and they said, 'The one big beautiful bill passed and it changed the eligibility.'"
"'One big beautiful bill made clear.'"
"And it changed the Obamacare subsidies."
"The one big beautiful bill made clear illegal immigrants can't get healthcare and they don't like that."
"Can't get healthcare as you know. It's against federal law."
"No, they all, they all raised their hand and said they were for it. And the bill that they, what happened on the debate stage is not speaker website. Go to, go to Mike Johnson, Speaker Johnson's website, page 57. I think it's section 2041."
"Talking about people with legal status. Trust us, we, I'll send you the interview for everybody to see."
"Dreamers, refugees, as..."
"Illegal because remember, every single Democrat candidate for president said they were for it. That's what they want."
"But people who are here illegally, as you know, don't have access to Medicare, Medicaid, or the Obamacare subsidies. It's federal law. It's been that way for decades. Uh, one question is about the makeup of of House Republicans. You're here."
Okay, so she's gonna get to Ghava. I'm just getting really like ADHD right now and I'm just getting bored when we watch these clips. It's weird, but important. Very important. And I, I do credit Caitlyn Collins with confronting him like that because I, I will probably, I'll try to pull up on tomorrow's show. I forgot to grab it, but they've been posting to prove their point about undocumented immigrants this section because it uses the word aliens like health, something alien. And so like, see, we told you. And then you read it and it all has to do with different versions of lawful status. Lawful alien status. Crazy word, but that's what they use. Um, and what they post again is another example. And they go, "Huh, idiot." And then you read the actual wording on the document they posted. You don't just read the headline that makes it seem like it's talking what they're talking about because of the way they speak about it. It disproves their point again about the federal law. And I don't know why he's waving around his papers so much. All right. Now on to Gravala.
"Capital Hill tonight. A lot of your colleagues are not because you're not in session. And Speaker Johnson has said he's not bringing y'all back until there's an agreement to reopen the government. Is it clear to you why Speaker Johnson has not sworn in the new member, Alto Grahalva, yet?"
"Because we're not in session. It's typically done when we're all there. It's a special thing. The individual gives, gives a, the new member gives a speech in front of Congress, sworn in by the Speaker of the House, introduced by, you know, colleagues from their delegation. That's how, I mean, I've been here what, 19 years. It's always been done that way. So, uh, that's nothing out of the, out of the ordinary. The reason we're not here is because we've, we've done our, our, our work. We've passed the bill that funds the government again at the levels Chuck Schumer agreed to, and now he won't support it because he's again, this debate is Chuck Schumer can pick common sense or he can pick the left and AOC. Right now, he's picking the left and AOC after he picked common sense six months ago, plain and simple. And I think the American people understand that. So you're saying because it's a pro-forma session that's why."
"Yeah. Cuz there's like, there's two people on the floor or, you know, whatever."
"Uh, there's, but normally it's done in front of the full House. That new member in a special election gets, I think in some ways, a kind of a neat experience where they get to talk to the House, their, their first day getting sworn in. And that's happened every single time that I can recall with any new member elected in a special, in in the middle of a congressional, uh, session. But a couple months ago, he swore Jimmy Petronis and Randy Fine in a pro-forma session."
"I, I, I didn't, I, I actually didn't even know that."
"That's what it was all building to. Oh my gosh, Caitlyn. That was EP. Great job. But, but just tell Jim Jordan he talks too much. And you know what my understanding of it was, they bring the family as the family. They give a little speaking and then they go to dinner after dinner party and then they go to the next place. And then Congress is cool that Arizona. It's like, oh my gosh. And then, but I liked because she was kind of leading him into a trap. Oh, so like a pro-forma session, you can't do it then, right? He's like, yeah, I mean, because, you know, because gives us a life story. And then she's like, 'Well, you just swore in people in pro-' and he literally ends up saying, 'I didn't know that.' So your whole big house of quick-talking cards crumbled and we herded the puppy even though you thought we weren't going to. That's today's show. Thank you all so much for watching and listening. I appreciate you. What a time. You can see I'm aging fast, guys. Just the show. Look at what's happened to my face. Just the show. That's American politics in a nutshell right now. But I enjoy it because of you. I don't enjoy some aspects of it, but I, I love the way that we do, we do it up here, then we go down. And I appreciate that. You make it all possible. I love you and I'll talk to you next."