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TRANSCRIPT
Jane Coaston: It’s Friday, September 26th, I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that’s a little worried that the Vice President of the United States is laser-focused on calling Pod Save America co-host and my colleague Jon Favreau a quote, “dipshit.” He is not a dipshit, get a hobby. [music break] On today’s show, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly summons top military officers to Virginia for a surprise meeting next week. And President Donald Trump reminisces on when he was in exile? But let’s start with Congress and free speech. We’ve been on quite the journey with our First Amendment guaranteed right to free speech, haven’t we? I mean, this week we had the reinstatement of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live after Kimmel was suspended for making a comment regarding MAGA’s reaction to the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. A suspension promoted by the chairman of the FCC threatening to take action against networks that chose to carry his show. And President Trump is still threatening to sue ABC in response to Kimmel’s return. You know, the President of the United States sure does have a lot of time on his hands to threaten talk show hosts, get his political opponents indicted by the state, and rant about escalators, for some reason. Which is odd, given that we’re staring down the barrel of a government shutdown. If Congress can’t find a path to get the government funded in the next four days, lawmakers can’t keep the lights on. So while the free speech rights of everyone from a late night talk show host to a Turkish PhD student who co-authored an op-ed for their college newspaper get put in the metaphorical wood chipper, we’re facing a government shutdown. One that increasingly, Democrats aren’t willing to fight to stop. So to talk more about the shutdown, our crisis of free speech, lawfare, and whether he’s worried he could become Trump’s next target. I spoke to Maryland Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin. Representative Jamie Raskin, welcome to What a Day!
Jamie Raskin: I’m delighted to be with you.
Jane Coaston: Before Jimmy Kimmel’s show got pulled because of Brendan Carr’s FCC job owning. You called out in a Judiciary Committee hearing what you see as attacks on our constitutional freedoms. Here’s a slice of what you said.
[clip of Representative Jamie Raskin] Our country loves free speech. We fight for free speech, we fought for free speech, and we know it’s in danger when students who are lawfully in the United States are taken off the street and arrested without warrants by masked federal agents in unmarked cars for writing an article or attending a rally that Stephen Miller doesn’t like. Free speech is in danger, when visitors to our country have their social media accounts screened at the border for any criticism of Donald Trump.
Jane Coaston: Now, Kimmel is back on air and roasting Trump, but how would you describe where things stand right now? Because obviously what’s happening isn’t just about efforts to chill the voice of one comedian.
Jamie Raskin: If they don’t like it, then you don’t have the right to engage in it.
Jane Coaston: Right.
Jamie Raskin: Is the bottom line. If they don’t like your speech, it’s not free speech. So it goes from the immigrants who are facing deportation because they went to the wrong rally, to the law firms. Then they go after the colleges and universities. The entire administration is operating in a way to violate the free speech rights of their opponents.
Jane Coaston: I want to get back a little bit to Jimmy Kimmel because I think that there was a sense that his return to television was some sort of victory. But at the same time, you are seeing Trump continue to threaten ABC for his return because he wants to sue everyone. How worried do you think we should be?
Jamie Raskin: Well, first of all, you are correct, Jane, that lawfare is the name of the game. That’s not what they’re fighting. That’s what they are doing on a daily basis. I mean, Trump has sued ABC, CBS, NBC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal um for billions of dollars. Then he uses the government, like the Federal Communications Commission, to shake them down for a settlement. And he’s pocketed millions and millions of dollars for him or for his personal library.
Jane Coaston: Presidential library.
Jamie Raskin: Yeah, um that’s just outrageous in these utterly frivolous, empty lawsuits that normally would get somebody sanctioned in court for bringing this nonsense. Bringing a lawsuit against 60 Minutes because he didn’t like the way they edited an interview with Kamala Harris. I mean, I don’t like that Fox News edits the interviews with Donald Trump to make him look good. I don’t have a cause of action against them. That’s not libel against me. That’s no fraud against me, that’s an exercise of their First Amendment expression to edit their interviews the way that they like. But the rest of the country can see this is like an utterly double system of justice. It’s all organized to give Donald Trump what he wants.
Jane Coaston: I want to turn to another big issue. There’s a government shutdown coming. It seems very clear to me. And I think that, in my view, it seems like the roles are reversed here a little bit. Contrary to how things usually go, it’s Republicans who are pushing for a short-term funding plan to keep the government running while Democrats are holding out over healthcare and a bunch of other issues. But can you explain the Democrats’ position on this? And what do we, what are we doing?
Jamie Raskin: If they need our support, we say, great, let’s do what we’ve always done. Let’s engage in reasonable bipartisan compromise. We want to start with restoring the healthcare of the people. 15 million people would be losing Medicaid health insurance under what they just did with their big, monstrous, terrible bill, right? Um. And we want to protect the Affordable Care Act tax credits that millions of Americans depend on. So let’s talk about that and then we can move forward. Oh, no, they won’t talk about it. Trump literally canceled a meeting.
Jane Coaston: Right.
Jamie Raskin: That he had scheduled with–
Jane Coaston: Yeah, because he was like, oh, these radical leftists.
Jamie Raskin: Yeah.
Jane Coaston: Which I’m like, radical leftists like Hakeem Jeffries?
Jamie Raskin: Well, our leadership um continues to be fighting to restore healthcare to the American people and saying, we’re perfectly happy to bail you out of your situation um if you are willing to save the American people from the wreckage you’re about to impose on them.
Jane Coaston: Are Democrats willing to risk a shutdown, knowing that the White House is going to put out God knows what about how they’re going to you know mass fire even more people, they’re gonna blame Democrats for this.
Jamie Raskin: Yeah.
Jane Coaston: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is probably going to say something ridiculous. Are Democrats willing to risk that shutdown over healthcare subsidies?
Jamie Raskin: The fact that the government shuts down does not give the Trump administration any more rights to fire anybody. The civil service protections that exist still exist right through the weekend and right through a government shutdown. So they don’t get a whole new panoply of powers to do that. So we’re going to stand very strong for the rights of the federal workers and for the rule of law. And also for the American people who ever write to the benefit of the statutory programs that Congress has enacted.
Jane Coaston: So it sounds like you are willing to risk a shutdown.
Jamie Raskin: Oh, I mean, yes, we are willing to risk it for the good of the American people, for the healthcare of the American people because they are savaging it right now. We don’t want to shut the government down. We want the government to be open and we want them to stop dismantling the government. That’s what we’ve been fighting for every day. So I’m not feeling good about the fact that Trump canceled the meeting that was scheduled with Hakeem Jeffries and Senator Schumer, you know, they obviously are the ones who are in control of the House, the Senate, the White House. And they’re the ones who seem to be driving us over the cliff of a shutdown right now.
Jane Coaston: I want to get to something else because I think that it’s always challenging because there’s obviously health care and talking about the economy and talking about how tariffs are screwing people over. But at the same time, we are witnessing the persecution of Trump’s political enemies. You know, the president has been very clear that he’s very upset. The Department of Justice has not filed charges against people like New York attorney general, Letitia James, or former FBI director James Comey. And in fact, Trump just fired the prosecutor who had been handling those cases. Now there’s a new lawyer in charge who has never prosecuted a case. And at the time we are recording this conversation, there’s talk Comey could be indicted any day now. So what do you make of all of this? Because it seems so obvious. And something that really gets me about Trump is that he’s not doing this and you know in secret or you know under the table. He’s posting about it constantly. One, what do make of these efforts to basically use lawfare against his enemies and also is that how he keeps kind of getting away with it with the American people?
Jamie Raskin: Well, he might be getting away with it with some parts of the American people still because they assume just because he’s doing it in public. Well, it must be okay. Well, you can rob a bank in broad daylight. It doesn’t make it legal to rob a bank. Um. So he is trampling the law and committing crimes and committing violations of the Constitution routinely on a daily basis. And no, it does not sanitize it or rehabilitate it just because he’s letting people know. Sometimes he lets people know by accident. It looked like he was sending a message, trying to send a message directly to Bondi saying, we’ve got to go ahead and–
Jane Coaston: Right.
Jamie Raskin: –prosecute Adam Schiff–
Jane Coaston: Because I’ve seen posts.
Jamie Raskin: Yeah.
Jane Coaston: That was the thing like, oh, it’s not based on this evidence. It was like, people are complaining on the internet and now I’m sad too.
Jamie Raskin: Right. Well, but, but he will likely be sabotaging all of these prosecutions because it’s making it very clear that they are vindictive and they are selective prosecutions.
Jane Coaston: I just, I have to know, are you concerned as a vocal opponent of what the president has been doing, what the Trump administration has been doing, are you concerned about lawfare being used against you?
Jamie Raskin: Let me start this way. I am definitely worried about the corruption of the government and um the selective and vindictive and political use of prosecution and investigation against people. And we’re seeing it happen every single day now, including apparently against uh Mr. Comey um and, you know, against my colleagues, Monica McGyver from New Jersey, who’s facing 17 years in prison. Against Adam Schiff, um who managed the first impeachment trial against Donald Trump, I managed the second impeachment trial. So um obviously all of us are concerned, but we can’t operate out of fear. That’s what authoritarians want us to do, to be intimidated, to be cowed and to act in a fearful way. And–
Jane Coaston: To submit in advance.
Jamie Raskin: Yeah. They want us submit in advance and to hide. And uh I just can’t do that. I won’t do that, um you know, I love our country. I love our constitution. I love the people of America. And we deserve a hell of a lot better than this. Everything we believe in is under attack. The rule of law is under attack. Justice is under attack. Democracy is under intact. The constitution’s under attack and we’re in the fight of our lives. And we need everybody to act with as much, as much courage as we can summon up.
Jane Coaston: Congressman Raskin, thank you so much for joining me.
Jamie Raskin: Thanks for having me.
Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Maryland Democratic representative, Jamie Raskin. Just a note here. We talked on Thursday before the department of justice announced the indictment of former FBI director, James Comey for allegedly making false statements and obstruction of Congress. Comey said in response, quote, “my heart is broken for the department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system and I’m innocent.” We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple podcasts, watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]
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Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today.
[sung] Headlines.
[clip of President Donald Trump] But when I was in exile, we were still friends. That’s always a good way to find out, test a friendship. But he’s a highly respected man. He’s respected very much in his country and all throughout Europe and throughout the world where they know him. He’s built a tremendous military, powerful military, uses a lot of our equipment. And it’s an honor to have him at the White House.
Jane Coaston: President Trump met with Turkish President Recep Erdoğan on Thursday. And let’s just stop there for a second, because one, what does Donald Trump think exile is? And two, the whole Erdoğan is loved and respected around the world thing. This is a man who for years has been cited for numerous human rights violations, regularly punished perceived government critics and exerted broad control over the media, the courts and oh, I get it now. The meeting was an opportunity for Erdoğan to receive a warmer welcome after essentially being frozen out of Washington for the last four years.
[clip of President Donald Trump] So this is a tough man. This is a guy who’s highly opinionated. Usually I don’t like opinionated people, but I always like this one. But he’s a tough one. And he does an amazing job in his country.
Jane Coaston: Anyway, as for what was actually discussed in the meeting between the two leaders, Trump asked Turkey to stop buying oil from Russia, at least until Russian President Vladimir Putin stops attacking Ukraine. Remember, as of several days ago, Trump is Team Ukraine now. The pair also spoke about the potential for the U.S. to resume selling advanced military aircraft to Turkey. That’s something that hasn’t happened since 2019, when American officials banned sending the country fighter jets because they were worried about Turkey’s use of Russian technology. Which they believed could be a potential security risk for U.S. Data. Erdoğan, for his part, said that he was, quote, “very pleased to be returning to the White House and hoped to improve the Turkey-U.S relationship.” The Trump administration is preparing to lay off more federal workers if the government loses its funding and shuts down on October 1st, which is next week. Usually, non-essential government workers are furloughed during shutdowns. When the government reopens, they’re normally brought back to work and paid for the weeks they missed. But on Wednesday night, the Office of Management and Budget sent out a memo directing agencies to consider permanently reducing their workforces if a federal spending deal is not reached. The memo told agencies to look at employees and programs, projects or activities that aren’t, quote, “consistent with the president’s priorities” and also have discretionary funding set to lapse on October 1st with no other available sources of funding. These notices would be sent on top of any typical furlough notices related to the shutdown. But if the government doesn’t shut down, those steps won’t be necessary, according to the memo. How kind of them. Even with these threats, Democrats aren’t backing down. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer released a statement calling the memo, quote, “an attempt at intimidation.” And shortly after, House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries had this to say.
[clip of Hakeem Jeffries] The Trump administration has made their intentions clear. They want to continue to fire civil servants who are hardworking American taxpayers because throughout the year they’ve been firing civil servants who are hardworking American taxpayers.
Jane Coaston: According to Politico, Democrats are set to meet today for last minute talks ahead of the potential shutdown next week.
[clip of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s interpreter] I speak to you today after almost two years in which our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip have been facing a war of genocide, destruction, starvation and displacement waged by the Israeli occupation forces.
Jane Coaston: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas spoke through an interpreter over video at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday. He did not physically attend the gathering in New York because the United States denied his visa. In his speech to world leaders, Abbas condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza.
[clip of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s interpreter] It is a war crime and a crime against humanity that is both documented and monitored and it will be recorded in history books and the pages of international conscious as one of the most horrific chapters of humanitarian tragedy in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Jane Coaston: Abbas also said that his people reject the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel and pledged the militant group would have no role in governing the Gaza Strip after the war ends. He also laid out his continued vision for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza alongside Israel and said, quote, “we will not leave our homeland.” Several countries have recently recognized Palestinian statehood, including France, Canada and Australia. But the Israeli government has rejected the creation of a Palestinian state. With some members of that government pushing to annex the occupied West Bank, where Abbas’s authority currently oversees small pockets of territory, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to give his own speech to the UN General Assembly in person today. In a rare and highly unusual move, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reportedly summoned hundreds of top military officers to a base in Northern Virginia for an urgent yet unspecified meeting September 30th. That’s according to the Washington Post based on information from over a dozen people, quote, “familiar with the matter.” So why a sudden meeting and what for? Well, that remains somewhat of a mystery to everyone. The Post reports the summons has sowed confusion and alarm among the ranks, as well as fear that they could be next to lose their jobs in the wake of the Trump administration’s firing of many senior military leaders this year. But Vice President J.D. Vance said in a press conference Thursday that everyone just needs to shellax.
[clip of Vice President J.D. Vance] It’s actually not unusual at all. I think it’s odd that you guys have made it into such a big story.
Jane Coaston: We’re not being weird. You’re being weird, he said weirdly. Some of Hegseth’s opponents are also raising red flags about the safety of bringing approximately 800 top military generals and admirals from all over the world to one meeting. One source told the Post, quote, “people are very concerned.” They have no idea what it means. Another U.S. Official said, quote, “all of it is weird.” But again, the Trump administration would like to emphasize that this is a totally normal and in fact awesome idea.
[clip of President Donald Trump] I think it’s great when generals and top people want to come to the United States to be with our now called Secretary of War. Does everybody like the name? I do.
Jane Coaston: Two things. One, want to? And two, yeah, it’s just you. And that’s the news. [music break]
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Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, read Bloomberg’s reporting on more than 18,000 new emails recovered from Jeffrey Epstein’s email account that show, man, lots of people really sucked up to that asshole and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading and not just about how Epstein had a lot of questions for very important people about how to get out of sex trafficking charges and whether or not he could get into, quote, “re-engineering humans,” like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston and seriously read this piece and think to yourself, what in the entire hell was wrong with these people? [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Fohr. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Megan Larsen, Gina Pollack, and Jonah Eatman. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adriene Hill. We had help today from the Associated Press. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]
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