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1:00

This is Words Matter with

1:02

Norm Ornstein. We've

1:04

got the votes and screw the rest

1:07

of you. And Dr. Kavita Patel. These

1:10

might be some of the smaller moments, you

1:12

know, with all the bombshells. Didn't catch people's eyes. Hello

1:14

and welcome to the podcast. This is

1:16

Words Matter and I'm not Dr. Kavita Patel.

1:19

I'm David Rothkopf and I'm here

1:21

filling in, doing an excellent, no,

1:24

doing a lousy impression of Dr. Kavita Patel. But

1:27

because Norm Ornstein is here, you

1:31

will get the usual quality that you get from a regular

1:33

podcast. You will

1:35

get the usual quality that you get from a regular

1:37

podcast. But because Norm

1:40

Ornstein is here,

1:42

you will get the usual quality that

1:44

you get with Words Matter. And

1:46

I will try to stay the heck

1:48

out of the way.

1:50

Morning, Norm. Good morning, David.

1:52

It is so good to be with you. And that

1:54

looks like a very warm and inviting

1:57

room that you are in right now.

1:59

the as bright as where i hide out

2:02

norm it's a big day it's a big day for

2:04

america it's a great day it's very positive

2:07

i know you're often known as norm

2:09

of sunnybrook farm duty or positive

2:12

sunny disposition ah

2:15

ah but we do have one thing

2:17

to celebrate before we get all the other horrible

2:19

shit that's going on in that is rupert

2:21

murdoch has resigned and

2:24

i just wanna know if you concur with

2:26

my view that no one has done

2:28

more damage american democracy

2:31

british democracy possibly australian

2:33

democracy and the intellectual

2:36

and moral standing of

2:38

those countries over the past

2:40

half century than rupert murdoch

2:42

i could not agree more ah

2:45

and i do think that when the cast

2:47

of global villains is

2:50

set in stone if we ever

2:52

have it for the past

2:54

twenty five years rupert

2:57

murdoch is at or

2:59

very near the top of that list

3:01

the bad news is

3:04

it doesn't appear that laughlin murdoch

3:06

his successor is any

3:08

better

3:09

ah there

3:11

are other members of the murdoch family

3:13

who pretty much divorce themselves

3:15

from the destructive capabilities

3:18

of the other murdoch's

3:21

but they're going to continue to

3:23

foment a very bad

3:25

things out there and

3:28

even with rupert

3:30

leaving the scene so it's

3:34

both good news and not so good

3:36

news

3:37

well we can have an enlightened in

3:39

a politically as a kind of tucker carlson

3:42

guy out there for vile

3:44

but on the other hand

3:47

he's not as good a businessman is

3:49

reprinted and perhaps oh scrub the components

3:52

well that would be good and you

3:54

know we have more lawsuits to com

3:56

a at fox

6:00

enforcing with the idea that they

6:02

were the victims in the society.

6:04

And it actually goes back to Mitt

6:08

Romney,

6:09

you know,

6:11

wonderful that he has done some nice things

6:13

now. But you'll remember in his presidential

6:17

campaign where we had that video

6:20

of him, private session

6:23

with donors, talking about

6:25

the makers and the takers.

6:28

And the billionaire class view themselves

6:30

as the makers. Most of them, of course, have

6:32

made nothing

6:34

except manipulating money to make

6:37

billions.

6:38

And destroying companies often

6:40

and economic product

6:42

along the way. But they see themselves

6:45

as the saviors of

6:48

society and the economy. And

6:50

they are only under attack and

6:52

vilified by all of the takers

6:55

who are leeching off

6:58

of what they've done to build the economy.

7:01

And I think they use that frame as

7:03

a rationale for the destructive

7:05

things that they do and the policies

7:08

they pursue. And believe that

7:10

the way to keep them making is

7:12

to keep their tax rates low so

7:15

that the takers can't get any more

7:17

out of them. That

7:21

is truly frightening, especially now

7:23

because in the aftermath of the Citizens

7:26

United decision and so many others in

7:28

the Supreme Court, that those

7:30

billions can be used for truly

7:33

pernicious things and to promote

7:35

truly pernicious people.

7:38

Yeah, excellent point.

7:42

I would only add

7:45

that two years before her book on this

7:47

came out, there was another excellent

7:49

book called Superclass, which tracked

7:53

the 6,000 richest, most powerful people in the

7:55

world that I wrote. And

7:58

it's not that hers was entirely. derivative

8:00

of mine, there were a few new ideas in it,

8:03

but I don't want superclass

8:06

to pass under the radar. Now having

8:08

said that, my book, having

8:11

said that about, no I wasn't as tough

8:13

on them as I should have been and she was, although

8:16

I made up for it in a later book called

8:19

Power A. But in your

8:24

book, things can,

8:27

what is the title, things are worse than

8:29

they are? It's even worse than it looks.

8:32

Even worse than it looks. Yeah, how come you

8:34

were so optimistic because it's worse than

8:37

that? I mean, you know, there you were

8:39

back then and you had no idea it would get this

8:41

bad. No, I didn't and

8:43

the reason that I didn't, although you know,

8:47

I saw the Republican

8:50

Party

8:52

turning into a cult and the cult was

8:54

there before Trump came along.

8:57

But frankly, where I was off

8:59

was believing that there were some

9:01

Republicans in office

9:04

who had at least a scintilla

9:07

of moral integrity. And

9:10

what we've learned is

9:12

that the moral cowardice is

9:15

everywhere. You know,

9:18

you have a handful of people

9:20

who've stood up

9:22

and, but I mean literally a handful.

9:24

That's it. Liz

9:27

Cheney,

9:28

Adam Kinsinger,

9:29

you know, you have some others who knew full

9:32

well and then basically just decided

9:34

to bail. You've got Romney

9:39

who at least in some instances stood

9:41

up to Trump, although

9:44

he also reported a lot of

9:46

pernicious policies and people. Every

9:49

one of these horrific judges

9:52

and justices and

9:55

blowing up the norms. But

9:57

I didn't think that we would lose

10:00

almost entirely the

10:03

kind of dikes of protection

10:05

to keep this from going completely

10:08

off the rails.

10:10

Well, yeah, I mean, let's

10:13

be honest here. The

10:16

rock-ribbed

10:19

bastions of republicanism,

10:23

like the Bushes, failed

10:25

the country. They sat

10:27

on their hands. They covered their

10:29

mouths. They were absolutely

10:32

silent as all of this happened, and

10:34

they have remained silent. Yeah, I've

10:37

been stunned at

10:39

that, and that George

10:42

W. Bush

10:43

especially has

10:47

not intervened in the slightest

10:49

way against

10:52

what's happening, and his brother Jeb

10:54

is worse.

10:57

But, you know, nobody,

11:00

now we're getting Bush

11:02

in a modest way trying

11:05

to protect the one greatest

11:08

legacy of his presidency,

11:10

PEPFAR, which

11:12

is under assault from the

11:15

core of the Republican Party and Congress.

11:18

But it's not like he is doing

11:21

what any reasonable

11:24

person would do, and

11:26

nothing from opinion leaders to

11:29

try and protect or restore

11:31

in any fashion the integrity of a party

11:34

that's gone completely off

11:36

the rails.

11:37

And a measure of how completely

11:39

off the rails it has gone is

11:41

that this Republican Party wants

11:44

to turn its back on precisely

11:47

that greatest achievement of the Republican

11:49

Party in the past 23 years, which

11:52

is PEPFAR, which has saved millions

11:54

and millions of lives in Africa. It

11:56

is a genuinely good thing, universally

11:59

embraced. across the political

12:01

spectrum

12:02

and they want to be in the authorization

12:04

is up and they don't want to reauthorize

12:07

you know it gets me back

12:09

to one of my real hobby

12:11

horses here. These are people

12:14

who have been going to themselves as pro

12:16

life. They

12:18

are not pro life they

12:21

are anti sex they

12:23

use the abortion issue. Try

12:27

and promote a

12:29

set of social structures that

12:32

are antiquated and absurd

12:35

and sadistic.

12:37

But they don't care about

12:40

the lives of others and that includes

12:43

the lives of women who

12:45

are

12:46

going to. Die not

12:48

because they are having abortions

12:51

but because of miscarriages they

12:53

are going to destroy the lives of many

12:55

women because the physicians

12:58

in these. Horrific states

13:01

like alabama and mississippi

13:04

and louisiana are fleeing

13:07

and there will be nobody to take care

13:09

of the women's health in

13:12

a direct fashion they're destroying

13:14

planned parenthood. Which provides

13:17

fundamental services including against

13:20

cancer for women

13:22

and you look at

13:24

pet far they don't give a damn

13:26

whether people die as a consequence

13:29

of that it's a disgrace.

13:32

What and and look let's

13:34

not forget because i don't want anybody

13:36

ever to forget. Even

13:38

though the congress of the united states and

13:41

frankly the media of the united states decided

13:43

they just don't care. What hundreds

13:45

of thousands of americans died

13:47

during covid because of bad policies

13:51

miss management in any other

13:53

time in any kind of just world it

13:55

would have been a scandal and you would have been

13:57

prosecuting trump and these other people.

14:00

for malfeasance before

14:02

we got to any of these other cases, because

14:05

hundreds of thousands of people

14:07

died. And, you know, it's

14:09

just like, oh, yeah, that, well, that just happened.

14:12

You know, the mass murder, and

14:14

we're dealing with people who are at minimum

14:17

accessories to mass murder,

14:19

is coming back.

14:21

Look at Ron DeSantis now

14:24

and his quack Surgeon General

14:27

as we see this new variant of COVID

14:30

emerging. And they

14:32

are trashing this new

14:36

vaccine booster designed

14:38

to help with the new variant and

14:41

also minimize the damage from

14:43

previous variants. They are

14:47

physically going

14:49

after people using masks under

14:52

any circumstance, and

14:54

we're going to see more people die. And it's a

14:56

completely cynical

14:59

effort to build political

15:01

support with the radical right. And

15:04

we're going to have even more deaths.

15:09

Yeah, we are. You know, we

15:11

did get an interesting insight into

15:13

the origin of the mass hatred

15:16

of the Republican Party. But

15:19

just the past few hours, as information

15:21

is coming out about Cassidy Hutchison's

15:24

new book, Cassidy Hutchison,

15:26

of course, being one

15:29

of the key witnesses in the January 6th

15:31

hearings. And what

15:34

she apparently reports in the new book is

15:37

that Donald Trump did not like

15:39

wearing a mask because his

15:42

makeup rubbed off onto

15:44

the ear, the straps of the mask.

15:46

And so when he would take the mask off, it

15:48

would be covered in bronzer and he thought it

15:50

was a bad look for him.

15:53

Well, of course, that's

15:55

not the only revelation that we've seen

15:57

in the book. We see even more. about

16:01

Rudy Giuliani, who is

16:04

clearly one of the most vile people

16:06

to emerge in the United States of America

16:09

in the 20th and into the 21st century.

16:15

And we just have to hope that there will

16:17

be some justice here,

16:20

not only, of course,

16:22

Giuliani emerging

16:25

as a pig, even

16:27

more as a pig, but also

16:29

now being sued by his

16:32

former lawyer for failure

16:34

to pay $1.3 million in fees. He

16:39

has got a huge judgment after

16:41

he slimed and destroyed the lives

16:43

of these two wonderful poll

16:46

workers in Georgia.

16:50

Just a

16:52

disgrace. Now,

16:55

the other thing that I find interesting, though,

16:57

is

16:58

that we have Sidney Powell,

17:00

who was, of

17:02

course, in the forefront of trying

17:05

to promote the stolen election, now

17:08

turning on Donald Trump because

17:10

he won't pay any of her legal fees. In

17:13

Wood, another one of these crazy

17:16

lawyers who promoted these crazy

17:18

theories, emerging as

17:21

a prosecution witness in Georgia,

17:24

and it's like the mob is breaking

17:26

up and people are turning on each other.

17:29

And so we can have at least a little bit of schadenfreude

17:33

today as we

17:36

think about the bad things happening.

17:38

And one of the other things we ought to talk about a little

17:40

bit is the emerging

17:43

government shutdown and the chaos that

17:45

that's going to bring to us probably for

17:47

an extended period of time.

17:50

Yeah, no, no, I definitely want to get to that,

17:52

although I do want to say that schadenfreude is

17:54

the breakfast of champions. I have it every morning.

17:58

And I think that's a great question. You know

18:01

one of the people that has also turned on Trump

18:03

in the past Couple of days it turns

18:06

out is his secretary from Mar-a-Lago

18:10

Who you know at the end of the day?

18:13

Decided that you know getting handwritten

18:15

notes on classified documents made

18:17

her a little uncomfortable and

18:20

has Become a I

18:23

think an important witness for Jack Smith

18:26

It was also interesting to me

18:29

of yesterday that Peter

18:33

Navarro for some reason appeared on the Ari

18:35

Melber show they have some

18:37

kind of a thing going and You

18:41

know while while being questioned by Ari

18:43

is a good questioner Navarro

18:46

said he didn't think Trump was gonna make

18:48

it through the Jack Smith case in other words He

18:50

said he thought that Jack Smith was

18:53

gonna convict Trump

18:56

Which is you know?

18:57

Note noteworthy

18:59

because Navarro is and out of

19:01

his mind nut Pro

19:04

Trump right you know it's a very

19:07

interesting Even judge

19:10

cannon

19:11

may not be able to save

19:13

Trump from this but one

19:16

of the things another one of my pet peeves

19:19

ABC did a Story

19:22

where the headline this was about

19:26

Trump's secretary who had helped move

19:28

the boxes and Trump said to

19:30

her as the feds were closing in

19:33

You don't know anything about the boxes

19:36

and the ABC headline was

19:39

Trump says this we don't know

19:41

what he meant by that I

19:45

Mean come on the

19:47

media is so rich talking ridiculous

19:49

this morning I was like doom

19:51

scrolling on Twitter and there

19:54

was a semaphore piece semaphore

19:56

being one of the many You

19:59

know green shoes of journalism in Washington

20:01

recently. And it said, the headline

20:03

was Donald Trump hands

20:06

out boxes of pizza in Iowa.

20:08

Joe Biden struggles with

20:11

issues about his age. And I was

20:13

like, what the fuck? You

20:16

know, Trump is, you

20:18

know, Mr. Happy Pizza Handler,

20:20

that's the best Trump story you can come out

20:22

with. And, and,

20:24

and, well, I will, I will get you first

20:27

of all, that Trump ordered

20:29

pizza from a pizza place and then stiffed

20:31

the pizza place, just as we

20:34

did down in Florida. But

20:36

one thing we know about our media is

20:39

that they are going to have the

20:41

same amount of bandwidth to

20:44

criticize Joe Biden, as

20:47

they will use to criticize Republicans

20:50

because they want to appear even handed.

20:53

And they've now and that's, you know, it

20:55

takes us back to the tan suit

20:59

fiasco with Barack

21:01

Obama. You don't have real scandals.

21:04

So you make one up so that you can show

21:06

you are even handed. And

21:08

now the big story over and

21:10

over again is going to be about

21:13

Joe Biden's age and

21:15

infirmity. And we saw this play out

21:17

when he emerged from his whirlwind

21:20

trip to Asia and having

21:22

been up for close

21:25

to 72 hours through a whirlwind set of

21:27

meetings, does a little press

21:29

conference and then says, I'm going to bed.

21:32

Any of us have, who have been to

21:34

Europe or been to Asia and suffered

21:37

jet lag know that

21:39

there's

21:39

going to come a time when

21:42

you have to crash. I've had to sit through

21:44

meetings where I could barely keep my

21:46

eyes open. And

21:48

what they should have been doing is marveling

21:51

at the fact that he had such stamina.

21:53

Instead, it was all about sad

21:56

old Joe Biden. And,

21:58

you know,

21:59

You know, as much damage as Rupert

22:02

Murdoch has done, our

22:04

mainstream media are

22:07

on a path

22:08

with no learning curve,

22:11

no willingness to self-examine

22:14

or change, to destroy

22:16

our democracy, to act as

22:19

useful

22:21

for the autocrats and dictators

22:24

who are

22:25

using them for their own

22:27

purposes. We know, you

22:29

know, Politico did an interview with

22:32

a Republican operative

22:34

who said that,

22:36

look, we're using the impeachment and

22:38

the Hunter Biden story because

22:41

we know the media are going to help us so

22:43

that we can get voters to say, hey,

22:45

Joe Biden is corrupt, Donald

22:48

Trump is corrupt, there's no real difference

22:50

there. They're being used

22:52

to achieve

22:54

the ends of the most pernicious

22:57

people we have in our society and

22:59

they either don't recognize it or

23:02

are unwilling to do anything about it.

23:05

Yeah, and, you know, I mean, you can see

23:07

how this is going to end up, you know, the New York Times

23:10

headline in January 2025,

23:12

which will be something like five

23:15

reasons why the end of democracy is

23:17

good for the average American, you

23:19

know, and, you know,

23:21

we interviewed so and so and he said, well, I get back

23:23

my election days and I don't have to make

23:26

as many decisions about my life now that

23:28

Donald Trump is making them all. But

23:30

you know, it's harrowing. We

23:32

saw it with the Kristen Welker interview. We've

23:35

seen it with a lot of other things. And

23:37

it doesn't, you know, it tries

23:39

to both sides things to such a point that,

23:42

you know, the insanity,

23:44

which you referred to earlier, of the

23:47

Republican Congress

23:49

doesn't get reported as insanity.

23:52

And we are now essentially

23:55

certainly going to have a government shutdown.

23:58

Key services will not be available.

23:59

to people.

24:01

It could go on for a considerable long

24:03

period of time. It's happening

24:05

because the far right nutcases

24:08

in the Republican Party have made

24:10

it impossible for them to pass

24:12

a clean continuing resolution.

24:17

And I'm

24:19

not going to even go on, although maybe we'll get

24:21

to it in the last bit of the

24:23

podcast, to what

24:25

I heard yesterday listening to the House

24:28

Judiciary Committee and

24:31

its examination

24:33

of Merrick Garland, which was harrowing.

24:36

But talk about the government shutdown and

24:41

what you think that may

24:44

mean

24:45

for the country, but also potentially

24:47

political. Well, we know

24:50

that shutdowns, which

24:53

almost always happen because

24:55

of obdurate Republicans,

24:59

tend to work against them, sometimes

25:01

very badly against them. That was the

25:03

case with the Newt Gingrich shutdown in

25:07

the Bill Clinton years. But

25:10

if you're the incumbent president and

25:12

there's an extended shutdown that

25:14

could help to trigger a recession, it's

25:17

not going to be good for you either. Now,

25:19

why are we having this shutdown? There

25:22

are a couple of reasons. Certainly

25:24

the major reason is that the Republican

25:27

majority in the House is dominated

25:30

by and driven by the most

25:32

extreme lunatic fringe

25:35

faction of that party. And

25:38

Kevin McCarthy, who is the weakest,

25:41

most morally corrupt speaker

25:43

that we have seen, I get a lot

25:45

of people saying, what about Dennis Hastert? Well,

25:48

Dennis Hastert's moral corruption

25:51

mostly occurred before he was speaker

25:54

and after he was speaker, although he

25:56

was a corrupt speaker.

25:59

McCarthy is

25:59

worth.

26:00

McCarthy knows

26:03

that they could avoid a shutdown

26:06

or minimize a shutdown by

26:08

getting a package that fits

26:11

the agreement that they had over

26:13

spending levels that averted

26:16

a debt-sealing crisis

26:18

just months back,

26:20

which he has now abandoned

26:23

by having a bill come up on the floor

26:26

that would have more Democrats

26:28

than Republicans, but it would have sufficient

26:30

Republicans to be able to avert this

26:33

catastrophe. He can't do

26:35

it because it would mean the end of his speakership.

26:38

Now, I don't see his speakership surviving

26:41

for the most part anyhow.

26:43

We are headed to a shutdown

26:46

almost certainly on October

26:48

1st,

26:49

and we know that the Freedom Caucus

26:52

extremists

26:53

are eager to see this happen

26:56

because they believe that

26:59

once people realize that it

27:01

doesn't mean very much to them, they'll be

27:04

perfectly happy to eliminate a lot of

27:06

government programs. They'll feel the

27:08

freedom that comes without these oppressive

27:11

government programs. That,

27:13

of course, is not the way it works. I am

27:15

hoping that the Biden White

27:17

House is as adept

27:19

as the Clinton White House was in

27:22

making sure that when things

27:24

are shut down, that these red

27:26

state Republicans feel

27:29

it and understand

27:32

what is missing when we don't

27:34

have government in place.

27:36

But this is going to be extended for

27:39

a significant period of time. Then

27:41

at some point,

27:44

the Republicans,

27:46

especially those in the House who

27:48

are in

27:50

serious jeopardy, are

27:52

going to want to bring up a bill that

27:55

will get us past this. If

27:57

McCarthy does it and puts

27:59

it on

27:59

the floor

28:01

and it will end up with

28:03

more Democrats than Republicans,

28:06

then Matt Gaetz will

28:08

certainly invoke

28:11

this ability

28:13

which McCarthy had to agree to when

28:16

they went through their 15 votes to

28:18

choose a speaker,

28:20

where any one member can bring up

28:22

a motion to vacate the speakership.

28:25

And

28:26

it's not clear how that entirely

28:29

will play out,

28:30

but I would guess that he is going to be wounded

28:32

and will not survive. But the big problem

28:35

is that the train is

28:37

being, the runaway train is being

28:39

driven by the Matt Gaetz's and Marjorie

28:42

Taylor Greene's and Lauren Boebert's and

28:44

Scott Perry's and Paul Gosar's

28:47

of the world

28:48

and they are taking us into

28:51

disastrous territory.

28:54

Yeah, no question about that. And I want to come

28:56

back because it's being run by somebody else and

28:58

we need to talk about him too. But

29:01

this is the point in each of these podcasts

29:03

where we take a break and we say if you're not

29:05

a member, you should go become one because the

29:08

rest of the content in this podcast is available

29:10

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29:13

good. So go to the DSRnetwork.com,

29:16

click on membership, become a member. It's $5

29:18

a month. We're doing so many podcasts that

29:20

that's a lot of extra bonus content. It's

29:23

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29:25

it's super bargain. So go

29:27

now and do that. If

29:29

you're not a member, however, until you do that, you're

29:31

not going to be able to continue with us. So

29:33

bye bye. If you are a member, stand

29:36

by. We'll be right

29:37

back.