Jennifer Welch and Josh Welch react to a reporter's heckle of Donald Trump at a live event, then dig into the week's political fallout. They discuss Trump's threats of investigations against Democrats, Robert Garcia's call for officials under scrutiny to lawyer up, and Todd Blanch's defense of congressional oversight.
The hosts argue that the probes are legitimate, while also calling for Democratic leaders to fight harder and questioning moderate Democrats' credit for recent election results. Listeners get an opinionated take on the Justice Department, oversight powers, and the party's strategy.
Many claims are the hosts' own opinions rather than established facts.
In this episode Jennifer Welch, Josh Welch
This transcript of the episode on Trump's heckling and the Democratic oversight fight was made with HappyScribe technology, the same technology behind the Zoom AI note taker.
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I'd like to welcome all of our new subscribers. This is a channel where every day we bash MAGA. Let's roll. White House reporter proving not all heroes wear capes, and some journalists still really do have some balls. Ask Trump a very painful question. Roll the clip.
Well, and we are talking to a running man. How does it feel being a loser, Mr. President?
How does it feel to be a loser, Mr. President? Josh.
This reminds me of the 2016 clip where the lady's on her bike and she flips off the caravan of Trump.
Yes.
Yeah, so it's the little things that these people do when they stand up and they make a gesture or they make a statement. You notice that Trump, he's so tired he didn't even have the energy to turn around and fight back. He's just like, "Fuck it."
And that, the, it was such a clever question because people who study the psychology of this strongman know that this is what he fears most: losing. He hates losers. He likes winners. He can't stomach that when he was first inaugurated in '16, that Barack Obama's crowd side was so, so much bigger. So he sent out Sean Spicer to gaslight. And Sean Spicer standing there going, "This was the largest inauguration ever." I mean, just completely ruined his entire political career, but the first move was to gaslight the American people.
And I think that we all know Barack Obama's everything, crowd size and all, probably all bigger than Trump's. Moving along, Trump is scared that he is about to be investigated. Pop this up. Breaking. President Trump says Democrats are, quote, "going around threatening a lot of people with impeachment and punishment," calling it "extortion of the highest level." Trump orders the U.S. Department of Justice to, quote, "look into this criminal act."
Josh.
Well, first, in modern-day times, it would, it would seem to be abnormal when the president orders DOJ to do something, historically. But in, in, in today's day, that's a common, normal thing that's accepted. I think it's interesting that he deleted his tweet where he ordered Pam Bondi to investigate multiple bad actors.
Was that the tweet that was like really a DM, but he ended up.
Yes. Yes. And I think he did that because of what he's doing now. You know, he was basically doing the same thing that he's accusing the Democrats of doing, that he thinks is improper. He was ordering an investigation, basically. And he goes back and scrubs that. But I mean, you know, we live in America. We have a First Amendment, right? Also, these are oversight committees that are going to be Democratic majority-driven, and they have a right to investigate. There's no crime here.
All right, here's Robert Garcia, head of oversight, and he doubles down on calling for Trump and the administration and the family to, quote, "lawyer up." Play the clip.
This tweet caused a little bit of a tizzy, not just on Fox News, but also among some of your Democratic colleagues and counterparts. Can you explain to us what you meant by "lawyer up" and who it's directed for?
Absolutely. Look, if you have caused harm to the American public, if you're ripping off the taxpayer, if you're responsible for the cost of gas and groceries going up for the American family, if you're part of the Trump crime family and you're grifting off the American people, if you're Steven Miller and you are out there causing people that are peacefully protesting domestic terrorists, then you need to face consequences and accountability, and you should lawyer up. I think the message that we got from voters across this country is that they want us to focus on bringing costs down, but also to take on the corruption, which is also largely tied to raising costs.
And I think.
And he nails it there. Number one, that's the leader that we deserve. We want a leader that stands there and doesn't gaslight us and delivers the message that the rise of prices is connected to all of this corruption. You cannot fix one without fixing the other. These things go hand in hand. And so, as the journalist there said, some people within the Democratic Party have said, "Your phrasing of lawyer up." This is the chicken shit stuff that Democrats do that pisses me off.
And this is across the spectrum: centrist Democrats, liberal Democrats, progressive, and leftists. In our community, we want Democratic leaders that are fighters, that look to Donald Trump, look at all of the sycophant, losers in his cabinet, to his failed sons and family, and say, "Lawyer up. Quit grifting off the name and the brand of the United States of America." Robert Garcia will go down in history books as one of the best oversight chairmen that we've ever had because he is coming out strong, and this is the exact temperament that the Democrats need.
I agree. And it's almost as if the Democratic establishment is tone-deaf to a certain extent, like they have amnesia of what we went through in '24, in '20, specifically in '24, in '16 for that matter, that the rules have changed. We're fighting a regime that's trying to destroy our democracy. It's different than just the politics of the '80s or the '90s. There's much more at stake. And so they need to remember that Robert Garcia is answering all these questions the way that you want politicians to answer questions direct and to the point.
He's not trying to placate both sides. And he's saying it directly: "Get a lawyer because if you're corrupt, if you did something illegal, you're going to be investigated." That's just a matter of fact.
And I just want to say that to any the Democrats that are critical of Robert Garcia for saying that, my question to them is, are you in the Haley Stevens wing of the Democratic Party? Do you have more in common with fascists than you do with the opposition? Is that why you say that? Because we are opposing fascism. We are opposing state-sanctioned violence and murders. We are opposing stealing from the American taxpayer.
We are opposing things. So why on earth is there anything wrong with what Robert Garcia said unless you are a Haley Stevens Democrat that is more of a fascist collaborator than a leader of the opposition party? But Todd Blanch responds to Garcia. Let's play the clip.
Have you been listening to the rhetoric the past couple of days? You honestly think that all they're doing is talking about their oversight obligations when they're talking about going after basically every member of the cabinet. They're talking about impeachments. They're talking about going after companies, private companies who happen to have made investments in this country over the past couple of years. That is not oversight. I welcome oversight. Oversight is exactly something they should be doing.
So are you saying that you are going to investigate them? And what you just described, is there a crime there?
Well, what I just described depends on what's said. So.
Josh, unpack that for us.
The last question there is very important. Is there a crime there? And that's where he stutters on his words. I mean, the short answer to that is, "Fuck no. There's not a crime there." You know, congressmen and women have immunity. That's number one. Number two, we have a free speech in this country under the Constitution. Number three, there's not a violation of any statute. I mean, this is a typical tactic of theirs where they try to flip the script and say, "We're going to investigate you for investigating us." I mean, it's absurd. It really is absurd.
And Todd Blanch, he doesn't know what he's talking about. He's sent up there. He's so far out of his league in this position, representing the Department of Justice. He's way out of his skis. Like, he does not know what he's doing. He said yes to President Trump to do anything and everything he says and to get on national TV like that and act as if the Democrats have committed a crime simply because they want to investigate the corruption of your administration and you specifically. Todd, too, I think one of the things Mr.
or Congressman Garcia left out is that Mr. Blanch needs to lawyer up, too. I think we left that part out. Mr. Blanch acted as if he's going to lawyer up for anybody in the Trump cabinet. Well, who's going to lawyer up for Mr. Blanch? He's going to need one, too. So maybe they need to go further down the chain.
Yeah, and this is all Republicans have. They have that "listen to the violent rhetoric on the left," which is BS. This is a movement that is made up of white supremacists. Even our own vice president refuses to condemn Nazis. The leader of Turning Point, Andrew Kovet, I think his name is, that's leading the cancellation case against us. He refuses to condemn Nazi group chats. And this is a movement where all they have is owning the libs.
That's all they have is a pressure campaign on owning the libs and taking the Department of Justice and turning it upside down because they want to say, "We don't have to be accountable for anything, but we're going to hold you to a standard that we couldn't even dream of holding ourselves to."
And I think that's Trump's biggest leverage point when he threatens people is that he has weaponized DOJ so badly that he knows that he can call Kash Patel or Todd Blanch and say, "Hey, start an investigation." I mean, it's typical intimidation, fear tactics. And having DOJ to use like that is a huge power. And to abuse it like that, he can create—we've seen him create a lot of havoc for a lot of people in their lives, even though they didn't do anything wrong.
He can create havoc just by sickening his pit bulls on them. However, there will be a day of reckoning for people like Kash Patel and Todd Blanch when this gets examined by a neutral and objective administration and people that can look at this and see what they did wrong. They will need to—Todd Blanch will need to lawyer up. So will Kash Patel. All of these people will.
And this is why I think after this glorious Tuesday that we had, which was utter—it's glorious what the American people did. We turned out and it was too big to rig. And we expect more from our Democratic Party. We expect more than, "Oh, we're not looking forward to—" The American people don't want to get even. We want justice. We want accountability. We want Democratic leaders that fight for us. And that's why Robert Garcia and Jamie Raskin and others are paving the way.
And they completely are untethered to any sort of Venn diagram where they take money from the same fascist collaborators that are funding MAGA. And that's something we have to watch for. And the fundamental difference between our party and MAGA is we're not in a cult. We can call out people within the Democratic Party that aren't fighting hard enough for us because we deserve leaders that fight for the Constitution, fight for democracy, and fight for equality for every single person. Furthermore, the Democrats need to take up the mantle that we are the party of law and order.
We are the party of law and order. There are people committing crimes, and we intend to hold them accountable. There are people using the brand of the United States of America and the taxpayer to grift off of everything that we've gone through as a country for 250 years. These people feel so entitled to it. They feel like it's theirs, and they want to investigate the investigators and, you know, the fake news and all of these things. Final words, Josh.
Well, to me, what stands out are we still have these moderate Democrats that it's almost like they have amnesia and they didn't pay attention to last Tuesday. It's like, what are you watching? Anyone that wants to give Chuck Schumer or Jefferies or anyone else credit for what happened is so misplaced and misguided. It's just a complete lie. And so we have this faction of the party that's completely out of touch with the voters, the people that showed up in mass droves. And so we need to bridge that gap and explain that to them and let the voters explain that to them.
So we want to usher out the era of prostitution politics in the Democratic Party. The voters did that. The voters came out and most of our candidates were uphill. They were massive money spent against them. And their opponents had, you know, all of the corporate money, dark money, Elon Musk money in the world. The era of prostitution politics must end in the Democratic Party. We deserve fighters like Robert Garcia and others.
All right, stick with us. I want to again welcome everybody new to the channel. It's fabulous that Turning Point wants to cancel us and in turn, they're making us bigger. So make sure you're subscribed. Become a member if you can afford it. Subscribe to our Substack. Join us all across anywhere you get your podcast. Make sure you're subscribed there. And get my book. It's appropriately named, "Not Today Fascists," which is exactly what we told all of the fascists on Tuesday. They still want to be told again. Turning Point, particularly, make sure we tell them, "You're not going to have the last say in this."
We'll be back later with more news.
Trump get heckled on live TV and New Dems start their push for justice.
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