Transcription
With Lindsey Graham's passing, we have a brand-new shake-up in the Senate. Gee, I wonder if Trump will try and use this to his advantage. This is just another day.
With this weekend's sudden passing of Senator Lindsey Graham, attention now turns to who will fill his Senate seat. Now, this could be an arduous process that takes a bit of time as there are multiple replacement candidates eyeing the spot.
President posting on Truth Social within the hour saying he recommended to Governor Henry McMaster at quote "Lindsey Graham's wonderful sister Darlene should serve as interim senator from the great state of South Carolina."
Well, that didn't take long. But, that's merely a recommendation. Just because the waiter recommends the specials doesn't mean you have to order them. I think South Carolina's governor is more than capable of showing Americans that he is his own man.
Today, under the law, it's my duty to [snorts] and honor to name someone to serve in the place of this irresistible man, [clears throat] this irreplaceable man, this extraordinary man for the remainder of his term. Lindsey took care of his little sister in years long departed. It's my honor to ask his little sister, Darlene Graham, to finish his work for him now.
All right, so we're just doing this. If you're like me and you're wondering, does Darlene Nordone have any experience in politics or government? The answer would be no, she does not. So, perhaps it would be helpful to reflect upon our recent reflecting pool woes where Donald Trump was also allowed to hand-pick someone to do a job who had zero experience in doing said job. I mean, sure it was a giant but at least with John Cufaro, we got some solid jokes about how he looks like a guy who doesn't know that the Sopranos is off the air and thinks he still has a chance to get cast. With Darlene, she just looks like a nice person. What fun is that?
Donald Trump is framing his recommendation that Graham's sister take a seat as a tribute to his great friend Lindsey. But if there's one person who knows how to honor people, it's Trump. He honors himself on buildings. He honors himself on passports. The man has a golden statue of himself at one of his own golf courses. There are a myriad of ways to pay tribute to a friend, but saying their inexperienced sibling should immediately take over their job as senator does not feel like one of them. And for me, this isn't a partisan issue, it's an occupational one. Frankly, I feel the same way about actors. If the next chapter of Keanu Reeves' John Wick franchise was suddenly led by his sister Kim Reeves, I'd say that was the wrong call, too.
This is not a dig at Lindsey Graham's sister, but just another example of how Donald Trump sees every event in life as a chance to acquire more power for himself. Trump knows that if someone with experience takes over Lindsey's seat, he may suddenly have less control of the political chessboard in front of him, and that can't happen. And if you think I'm being a little callous about Trump making his friend's death all about himself, I invite you to enjoy this morning's phone call he had with the hosts of Fox and Friends where he paid tribute to his dear friend.
He was starting to say terminate the filibuster, otherwise we're going to have you know, these continued ridiculous, crazy, Trump deranged and Trump deranged. These people suffer from a very fine disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome, and he he was saying that.
Mr. President, did you notice in coming a long way on the on the terminating the filibuster, which is the single smartest thing we could do. Cuz then you'd get everything, you know, that's that's the bigger that's bigger, but even if we took the small loaf, and the small loaf is the Save America Act.
Yes, while most people see Lindsey Graham's sudden passing as America losing one of its long-standing public servants, Trump sees it as an opportunity to put some surprisingly favorable words in a dead guy's mouth. He wanted to eliminate the filibuster. He wanted to pass the Save Act. Oh, uh Lindsey also said he wanted me to reinstate my $10 million lawsuit against my own Treasury Department, that my son Don Jr. should get more Defense Department contracts, and that the only thing that he loved more than a taxpayer-funded golden-crusted ballroom was the delicate touch of a sultry woman. But who knows? Maybe Lindsey Graham did say those things, even the thing about the sultry woman. I mean, he's definitely made some surprising statements in the past.
He's a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn't represent my party. He doesn't represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for. I think he's a cook. I think he's crazy. I think he's unfit for office.
Gosh, I really miss that Lindsey Graham. But back to Fox. Just a reminder that the whole reason Trump is on the phone is to pay tribute to his friend. A fact the Fox & Friends host tried to remind him of, too.
But Mr. President, did you notice any Did you notice anything different on millions and millions of balances impossible. Spencer Pratt came up to my office. He said he thought he won. I said, "Why didn't you complain?" He He didn't know who to complain to.
So, Mr. So, Mr. President, real quickly, did you no- notice anything different from Lindsey on the phone?
These These elections are very dishonest, and you can't have a country unless you have an really honest election.
Holy Are we sure that's even a phone call? It might just be a 45-minute message that Trump left on Fox's voicemail while chilling in his bedroom. But this morning wasn't just a chance for Trump to push his agenda through his friend's recently passed body. It was also a chance for him to get in a little dig on his friend now that he's no longer around to defend himself.
Now, he had one bad moment and that was, you know, the January 6th thing when he stood up, "All right, now I've had it. That's it. I can't do it anymore." And then he called me like about 40 minutes later and he said, "Did I really say that? I can't believe it." And he took it back, which So, I give him a 99 instead of a 100.
Damn, 99 out of 100. So close to having a perfect score. Maybe if Lindsey had sexually abused someone or mocked a veteran, he could have really aced the Trump test. But Donald Trump's tribute to Lindsey didn't stop there. No, this afternoon he took another chance to honor his dear friend.
I want to pay my respects to Lindsey, who is our friend. He was a friend of all of us. Uh he was a great guy. He was a great politician, actually. And uh it's hard to believe he's gone. He was a good man. He was very much in favor of the Save America Act. He called me about that. We were talking about that and some other things, but he he just felt tired. And but he felt fine. And then this horrible thing happened just a short time afterwards. So, it was terrible.
You know, I'm no political strategist, but when it comes to promoting your signature piece of legislation, maybe it's best to refrain from mentioning how the guy who talked to you about it got tired and died minutes later. This president simply can't help but insert himself into every life event. Even the post Trump shared to express his sadness over Lindsey's passing was one where Graham was holding up a photo of him. I wouldn't be surprised if at Lindsey's funeral Trump doesn't try to brand the casket. The reality is Trump can frame his Lindsey Graham tributes as him simply thinking about someone else, but time has shown again and again that that is a true impossibility because Donald Trump is incapable of thinking about anyone but himself. Okay, fine. He also spends a little bit of time thinking about women he'd like to have sex with. Wrong one. There you go. And that's what makes all of this more deplorable, that he ran as a populist. The greatest con this man ever pulled was convincing the American public that he actually gave a about them.
[music] They want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedoms. [music] They're not coming after me, they're coming after you, and I just happen to be standing in their way.
Starting on day one, [music] we will defeat inflation quickly, and we will make America affordable again. [music] I will cut your energy costs in half.
It's time for the working man and woman to finally catch a break.
We are going to bring back the American dream bigger, better, [music] and stronger than ever before.
When I'm back in the White House, we will restore world peace, and it [music] will be again peace through strength.
Since being reelected, Trump has made things worse for every single issue he championed during the campaign. He swore prices would go down, they've gone up. He promised to expand healthcare, but millions have lost access. He promised to release the Epstein files, but he actively suppressed them for himself and his rich predatory friends. He promised he wouldn't start new wars, and yet now we've been in a costly unnecessary one for months.
We are not at war. We have no intention of being at war.
Right. Sorry, Mike. I forgot all those fighter jets are over there just to pick up a little extra work towing banners around the skies of Iran. Hey. What do you know? That's a banner for my book that comes out this week, which you can get at the link on the screen and the post description, or at briantylercohen.com/book. If we've learned one thing from Lindsey Graham's passing, it's that there is no bar low enough for Donald Trump. When it comes to the depths he's willing to go to consolidate power for himself, there is no bottom. For as one man put it so eloquently,
He's a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.
Exactly.
[music] Before you go, I'm very excited to announce that I've written a new book titled The Day After: How to Wield Power in a Post-Trump World. The book explores what is, in my opinion, the single most important theme that we're dealing with in politics today and moving forward, power. Specifically, how Republicans abuse it and how Democrats refuse to wield it. This book explains how we got here and more importantly, how we should finally wield power if we're fortunate enough to get it back. It is the blueprint for progressives who want to do far more than just restore the status quo. Please pre-order today by visiting the link in the episode description or go to briantylercohen.com/book. You can grab yours from any of the major retailers like Amazon or Barnes & Noble or find an independent bookstore closest to you. That's also listed on that website. Thanks so much for supporting independent media.