Peter, let me ask you a question that goes to what Susan was saying earlier about this whole constellation of things that could potentially be scandalous.

Yes.

Is there any part of Donald Trump that actually enjoys this being the scandal as opposed to any of the other number of things that could be even more devastating perhaps and directed his way.

I don't know if he enjoys it.

I think that, but it is true that this has obscured to some extent other stories that might be in other times, pretty big controversies.

Let's just talk about this week.

Just yesterday, the FCC appointed by Donald Trump approved $8 billion merger with Paramount.

that just 23 days after Paramount agreed to give Trump $16 million for his presidential library.

That's extraordinary.

Just think about that.

The president filed a private lawsuit against uh Paramount, which owns CBS because he was upset about the interview that 60 Minutes did with Kamala Harris.

That by itself, by the way, the idea that he gets to decide how an interview gets edited.

It's pretty extraordinary for anybody who cares about the first minute, but put that aside for a second.

Paramount settled this lawsuit with him, gave him $16 million which he gets to use as he wants.

For this library.

And then strangely enough, 23 days later, his appointees approved their $8 billion merger and reporting has shown that the Paramount people were concerned that the government wouldn't, that is the Trump administration, wouldn't approve their merger unless they gave him the money.

And the SEC chairman approves it.

Basically suggesting they got assurances on what the editorial policies would be by CBS going forward.

The president using in effect what it appears to be the power of government, right?

To tell a media company how it should be reporting A and B, pocketing a little bit of money at the same time for his library.

And among the other very scandalous things that have come out this week is his response to the scandal itself, Susan, what one of the time tested methods that he uses is distraction, and the form of Distraction that he's deployed this week is not just forcing Coke to reintroduce sugar into its drinks is that he had Tulsi Gabbard come out and essentially declare a coup that took place in 2016.

I want to listen to uh Gabard from earlier this week.

When you look at the intent behind creating a fake manufactured intelligence document that directly contradicts multiple assessments that were created by the intelligence community.

The expressed intent and what followed afterward can only be described as a year long coup and a treasonous conspiracy against the American people, our republic, and an attempt to undermine President Trump's administration.

I'm old enough to remember when Russia, Russia, Russia was a hoax, but now it's apparently what they want to talk about all the time.

Could you just parse and explain the sleight of hand that she was engaged in.

Well, let's stipulate on the front end that none of this is true, OK?

So I think that's important to state for people, not only that, but we have the really shocking in any other context, uh.

Image of the director of National Intelligence, not only going and and spreading lies, she, she's directly called the former president of the United States, Barack Obama, essentially guilty of treason, referred him to the Justice Department for a criminal prosecution again on the basis of a fantasy, a fiction, uh, a lie, and In that clip that you played, for example, she says it is the basis of a years long coup, OK?

That is an allegation that's ongoing that not only at base, she says that what Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, the former leaders of the intelligence community, all of them implicated in her view in basically putting out an intelligence finding that she says wasn't true that Russia intervened in the 2016 election on Donald Trump's behalf.

Now, that the investigation by Robert Mueller, the conclusions of the US intelligence community.

It even ignores the years-long bipartisan investigation of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time led by Republicans who was a senior member of that committee, Marco Rubio, the current of the activist as well as national security adviser and Secretary of State.

So not only is there no basis to this, but, but Imagine the recklessness of saying that the former president is guilty of treason.

The years-long coup is, is, is a new aspect to this conspiracy theory that I think is really quite remarkable.

It it speaks again to the hunger of this political movement in our society for grand unification conspiracy theories because the allegation here is that the original SIM, quote unquote coup in 2016 of saying that Russia was trying to elect Trump when it wasn't.

actually was the precursor event, according to Tulsi Gabbard, for efforts to rig the 2020 and 2024 elections as well, and that is the ongoing coup.

She even in an appearance with Charlie Cook, uh sorry, Charlie Kirk, uh, a well-known MAGA figure claimed that it was actually this.

False statement about the 2016 campaign was the reason for the FBI raid on Mar a Lago to recover the illegally taken classified documents that Donald Trump brought with him from the White House.

I mean, again, it's, it's lies upon absurdities upon lies.

What's being unleashed here, John, but I mean you use the right phrase, sleight of hand, because if you actually look at what she said.

She did present some documents, and it was that the intelligence community secret assessment was that Russia did not manipulate voting machines in America and change the vote and and rig the election.

Um, well, guess what?

That was never alleged.

Barack Obama actually said at a press conference it might have been his last press conference in December December of, of, of, of 2016 that there is no evidence whatsoever of vote rigging and that was actually part of the very assessment the CIA assessment that Gabbard was saying was a scandal.

It said no, there were no votes were.

changed, Russia tried to manipulate a public opinion in America by hacking into Hillary Clinton's emails and through a series of other steps, but it was never the allegation.

So it was a very strange thing because you have the director of national intelligence, acting like she was presenting this smoking gun and what she was actually Presenting was nothing of the kind.

Eugene is such a patently obvious, uh, ploy to distract.

Does the distraction actually work with his base?

No, because they still want the files, right?

When you talk to the, the folks who are part of the base, they still want the files.

They don't see these things as connected.

They also already believe that Barack Obama was some evil mastermind, right?

So you're not presenting them with anything new to distract them.

That's the problem with this.

And I think, you know, it is really important.

to, like, it's very serious to accuse anyone of treason.

It is very serious to accuse the former president and his team of treason and trying to steal the election from Donald Trump, because it's not, it is, it is the government saying that that's happening, but also the people who are crazy and will may act on those kinds of conspiracy theories and they see that it's not it's worth remembering the video that the president posted and artificially intelligence fake video of Barack Obama being Handcuffed in the Oval Office and taken into prison.

This is something we've now just kind of brushed off because we're so used to this kind of wild and crazy kind of kind of politics, but no president ever would have done that in the past, and I, it's, it's, it's, it would have been another time but a shocking breach of etiquette and, and, and I think, uh, you know, a corruption of the judicial system to have a president of the United States say that his predecessor should be locked up and put a video out there to celebrate the idea of it and manipulated video.

video, which goes to what you were talking about at the beginning that we're in, we're trapped in this prison of conspiracy and manipulation in those two things are deeply connected.

Can I just admit that I actually was shocked and horrified even to be living in this news cycle that we were.

I, I actually, I, I found that, uh, video that Donald Trump circulated on social media of Barack Obama being debased and humiliated in the Oval Office to to to really make me feel nauseous.

again, you know, this is something that all Americans should be condemning, and I think it also speaks to our debasement as a political culture.

I went back and I looked, you know, in, in, in the first Trump administration you would get at least the bleats of concern from Republican members of his party from people around the country, not a word, not one word.

You know, these are people who've lost their souls, and, you know, Ultimately, it's for a political power that may or may not last more than, you know, 2 or 4 years, and you got to ask, uh, you know, was it really worth it for them?

And Peter, I want to just pause further on the accusation of treason, because it is so extreme and I think also it's something that is, you know, in terms of its magnitude outweighs anything having to do with the Epstein case and it wasn't something that was necessarily leading the news story leading the news or on the front page of newspapers.

And it is not an isolated incident.

It's reflective of a trend in his rhetoric, and you wrote about this the other week, and I want to quote from it.

Uh, you wrote, evil is a word getting a lot of airtime in the 2nd Trump turn.

Anyone viewed as critical of the president or insufficiently deferential is wicked.

The Trump administration's efforts to achieve its policy goals are not just an exercise in governance, but a holy mission against forces of darkness.

Yeah, yeah, and it's so much easier if you're at your arrival, your competitor isn't just somebody you disagree with, isn't just somebody who has bad policy ideas maybe, but it's somebody who is wicked or evil because then you justify all kinds of things that come up, right?

And the reason why I wrote that article was because the president was asked at one point about Ali Mayara, who is the Secretary of Homeland Security under Biden and somebody said, should he be locked up because the border was so bad.

And he says, yeah, that's something we should look at.

Christian Nomi says to his own Secretary of Homeland Security, you should look at that.

So we put Morins in prison because of the border.

That's not accusing him of a criminal act.

He's simply saying I, I don't like his policy.

Therefore, I would go ahead and prison.

Guess what?

No way paid attention to that because in fact, we hear him say things like this so much and I know a lot of Republicans, a lot of Trump people say, well, you know, the Biden people weaponized government by going after Donald Trump.

OK, I understand that concerned by a lot of people.

He was pursued by prosecutors.

You never heard President Biden say, hey, this guy is guilty of treason.

He never put a video on there showing Trump being locked up.

He recognized it was his job as president to stand back and let the justice system.

handle this as the justice system should.

It wasn't his job to try to demonize or vilify his enemies.

Now he said a lot of bad things about Donald Trump.

Fair enough.

I've heard that from Trump people since I wrote that article, but, um, but it just doesn't come close to what, what Donald Trump does.

It's a departure, right?

This is, this is not, I'm not just from past precedent, but this is actually a different version of Donald Trump.

I think that Susan hit on one of the, the biggest difference here is, is that he now has total command of the Republican Party.

So there's nobody, and he also has a, a, a, an administration and a staff that is based entirely on loyalty.

So you don't hear any dissent either within the administration or within the Republican.

Uh, rank and file or leadership in Congress.

You heard some of that whether it mattered in the first term, maybe it didn't at the end, um, but, but, but that's gone.

I will say one thing in terms of the question to Eugene about will this ultimately really hurt his base, him with his base.

I think that the way Democrats have jumped onto the Epstein story, uh, I, I think you now have a little bit of a rallying rallying around, uh, Trump on this.