DSR Daily Live September 11 with Leigh McGowan

It is the end of another week. It's September. A lot of things have been happening, and we are very fortunate to have not just my usual daily co-host Riley.

Meena, who's the other co-host, we'll be back next Friday. We alternate on this show. And our really good friend, the wonderful Lee McGowan, who is known by everybody as politics girl, most of you probably don't recognize her without her refrigerator behind her. That's one of your signatures, along with common sense, and a lot of wisdom in sight into what's for God and politics. So highly, welcome.

Thank you for having me. I'm so pleased to be here. I'm just figuring out. Apparently figuring something out, left the stream.

“So she's, well, what I think she's figuring out is how you do this.”

Well, we'll wait a moment or two for her to come back, but for all of you right there, we prepared half a dozen stories from this week that we will go through.

We'll get some comments from Lee, we'll get some comments from Riley, we'll get some comments from you, we encourage you.

You're pretty smooth, Riley. Oh, my God, I'm such a lucky. How does it happen? Yeah, just does touch anything. So there I see. I'm touching nothing. Don't touch nothing. Just sit there. Well, here's how we'll do this.

Riley will read a story, and I'll make a comment, and then I'll ask you to make a comment. How's that? Yeah, that sounds good. I won't touch any buttons. But look, as you see, as the people are coming in so feeble, Gary, Toronto, our enemies in Canada with whom we are.

That is my country, my home nation.

Oh, really. So you're somewhere being subversive here. Yeah. How do you feel about being at war with Canada?

“I think it's absolutely absurd. Can we have break? We're not at war with Canada.”

Trump's at war with his own ego, and he knows he's losing something in the Middle East. So he has to find someone to punch in my face and Canada's the closest. Yeah, that's true. But we love Canada. We love it. It's the best. It's the best. And we have to have a sense of humor. It gets kind of chilly up there. So we're all pretty chill.

Well, I like all the Canadian videos that have come out since, have you seen the ones with like, there's a little beaver in a Royal Canadian Mountie's outfit, and there's a goose that fights back against the eagle. Yeah, do not take on a Canada goose. I thought it was so funny that they had an eagle attacking a goose because I was like, have you met a can to goose those are mean birds.

Those birds will take you out at the knees. They are the least friendly of all Canadian animals. I've all Canadians. Let's be honest. But I've actually been bitten by one. Oh, yeah, they're mean. They are mean.

“Yeah. I'm saying that so we get sympathy from our live audience here.”

Alright, Riley, why don't you start us off so that we can, you know, get into the week and how everything's going great in America and great in the world. Nothing could possibly be better, David. You're so right. President Trump, Mark, to be 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks at a Pentagon ceremony. Listing to the names of victims killed there and recalling the sense of national unity,

following the tragedy, while also fighting to stay awake. Meanwhile, Vice President Vance joined former presidents at the New York observance with other administration officials attending this ceremony in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. During their marks, both Trump and Pete Heggseth explicitly connected the legacy of 9/11 to ongoing US military efforts against Iran. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

I don't know if you saw this, but Trump was sitting there slumped forward. You have his faces kind of, it looks like he's had a stroke. Yeah. I've been on it. Apple's face is slumping to the right. Milani is sitting there, out of going through a shopping list or something. Pay no attention to anybody or anything that's going on.

And of course, Trump did join the other living presidents in New York because he wasn't allowed to give a speech. And when he did give a speech, what he did do is of course tie it to his own thing. Because for 25 years, Donald Trump is wanted to make 9/11 about himself. The minute it happened, he says, well, you know, now my building is the tallest building in Lower Manhattan. And then he's like, well, I was there and then he was, you know, recently they dragged me out of the rubble.

It's all complete bullshit, demonstrably bullshit there. We know where he was at all these times. But he just can't stand anybody or anything, including 3,000 people who are murdered in the city.

Pretty repugnant, but I know you're a big Trump fan, so you go ahead to defend it.

“No, I mean, what kind of garbage person do you have to be to pretend you were heroic on 9/11 when you were not heroic on 9/11?”

I mean, I will tell you, I lived below 14th Street on 9/11 in New York City. I was young, I was living down there. And everyone knows that Trump wasn't in the rubble. He wasn't at ground zero. Everyone knows that he called, you know, a radio station to say, you know, when they built between towers,

it made my building the second tallest, but now that they're gone.

And you're like unbelievable, the man's unbelievable. And the story, as you say, just continues to change. And I feel like if you call yourself a patriot in this nation, there is no way that you can listen to what he says, particularly about 9/11 and not feel some sort of revolution. It's just so incredibly wrong to do such a thing.

And the thing is, it's so incredibly transparent. He keeps changing the story. He says he sent a hundred to 250 of his men down to clear out the rubble in the bodies. There's absolutely no record of that with the FDNY. They're like, nope, no one came down. We were pretty high security down here.

They would have had to sign that many people in. Nope, none of them did.

But Trump's there on September 13th, 2001 being like, my guys are down there.

I'm going down there. And now he's like, these big strong firemen helped me out of the rubble. And you know, they just whisked me away. I don't know what his obsession is with big strong men. I mean, I can make guesses. But this is something that he does all the time.

And the story keeps changing. He saw Muslims cheering and jersey for it going down. How you would know someone was Muslim from across the river. I don't know. You know, the story is just continued to change. And I just feel like I know that we expect very little from this leader.

But it really shouldn't be so jaded that we're not shocked by these stories that he does,

“especially on a day that is this important, I think, to Americans.”

Yeah, I also think, you know, you know,

there's a story in the New York Times today, which kind of triggered me as they sometimes do, which said Trump is like all Americans in moving on from this. And it's like he's moving on. Trump's about Trump all the time. And in fact, one of the things that disturbs me the most about Trump and is worth reflecting on today,

is that the reaction of the United States 2 9/11 was almost universally the wrong reaction from the beginning. We overreacted. We started a war in a country that had nothing to do with it. 6 to 800,000 people died in that war.

We started a war in Afghanistan where we should have gone in. It's been modern gotten out. We were there for 20 years. We spent 6 to 8 trillion dollars on it that we could have spent on ourselves. We reoriented our whole national security apparatus to focus on a global war on terrorism rather than dealing with real threats both external and internal.

As we've learned, the internal threats were in many respects much more previous than that. We promoted Islamophobia. We undermined our position in the Middle East. In the center of mind, our position with our allies. A lot of the decisions made by Republican administrations primarily, but also to some degree by Democrats.

In the 25 years since then have been the wrong decision. So what we should do on a day like this is reflect that. But instead what Trump is doing is saying, you know all that stuff we did that was bad. Well, I'm doing it too. You know, you know, I said no more than this.

Whereas I'm doing one of my own and guess what, I don't know when it's going to end and I have no out plan. You know, your diesel prices and all these other we'll talk about that in a little bit or all going up. And so Trump actually represents the worst instincts of America post 9/11. The obliviousness of America post 9/11. And the errors that we have made in the past 25 years.

“And that's, you know, to me, I hope that's what we are taking away from this.”

Yeah, I mean, look, the Patriot acted itself, which we got after 9/11. It's kind of open the door to what Trump is doing now with the surveillance and with the data centers and with the flock cameras. And we opened that door to losing our own privacy by saying we have to have this just to protect the nation. It wasn't really to protect the nation. It just opened the door to privacy problems in this nation.

You know, you've got Trump being Trump. I mean, I get that. But he said he doesn't know when the war is going to end. He said at the Trump of Palusa that they just had before the midterms to have some sort of rally before the midterms, which is, of course, unheard of. He said it'll end exactly after the election.

The day after the election is going to end the war. You know, and also the gas prices will go down the day after the election, right? So, I mean, either he can end the war right now. And he's just not doing it or he can't end the war at all. And he's pushing it.

Till after the people evoked it.

So I think people really need to understand that truly. And he's got fat events being like talking about that. It was a long time ago stuff.

“You know, and they're like, why is Trump saying now that he was pulled from the rubble?”

And he said, look, it was 25 years ago. He might not remember. I was, I lived in New York on 9/11. I remember everything about it. In fact, it was living in New York post 9/11 that made me want to become an American.

And I've always said that if 9/11 made me want to become an American,

because I was so inspired without the country came together and in our reaction, the fallout from 9/11 is what turned me into a Democrat. And 9/11 affected my whole life. It changed the entire trajectory of my life. So don't tell me it was 25 years ago.

And you can't remember if you were pulled from the rubble or not. I mean. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I really have to tell you about our substak. The DSR network of substak is the absolute best way to follow deep state radio.

“The DSR daily words matter need to know silicaciousness, AI energy and climate”

and the daily blast. Sign up to get notified every time a new episode drops,

and stay up to date on the latest news and expert analysis.

You can also support us by becoming a paid member. Get an ad-free listing experience, select episodes. Two days early, access to live streamed episodes, and 50% off of David's need to know substak. Please consider joining us at DSR network.substack.com. That's DSR network.substack.com.

Thank you and back to the show. No, no, and of course they can't. I heard the plane fly over my head. I could feel the blast through my window. I saw it.

I remember watching it on TV. I had a small company that did an international security related stuff.

In the office next to mine was a guy named Tony Lake who was the former US national security advisor.

It was my partner in the company. In the office next to him was a guy named John Gannon. It was a former deputy director of the CIA. The office next to him was Susan Rice who was the leader of the national security advisor. We watched it.

“I remember when the second plane hit the tower.”

John Gannon leaned over to Tony Lake and said UBL. Which meant this is Osama. Because in the CIA, he was referred to as UBL back in the day. And then we all went to lunch. It was just down the street in Georgetown.

It was a beautiful clear day. There was nobody around. You could hear fighter jets portraying overhead. And I remember Susan Rice saying it's not going to be the same. This is a turning point in our life.

For some people, we learned nothing from it. And that's where we are right now. And I see this point here about Trump stealing the valor. That's all he does. This is the draft Dodger who now wants to be seen as the warrior king of America.

Who post pictures of himself with fighter jets and tanks behind him as if he's leading them into a chart. And of course he's one of the biggest cowards in history. Hence Taco Trump and everything else. He chickens out on everything. He's got no courage whatsoever.

Riley, this is winding us up. There must be some other story out there. I don't know if any of them are going to wind you down. But the US Supreme Court blocked an effort by Missouri Secretary of State and Denny Hoskins to implement a newly drawn GOP congressional map for the upcoming midterm elections.

Leaving the 2022 map in place. The justice is a brief order puts on hold a federal judge's ruling and aligns with a previous decision by the Missouri Supreme Court. Which ruled that voters have the constitutional right to challenge the map of via a referendum. Following the order of Hoskins confirmed his office will direct a local election officials to use the existing 2022 map. Reserving Missouri's six Republican and two Democratic congressional seats.

The small victory. And this must have come as a shock to you. Lee, it isn't it to me. The Supreme Court actually kind of did the right thing. I don't know, maybe there's some statistical thing where they do it wrong a thousand times of right once.

But you know, I mean, it could end up being one more seat for the Democrats. And you know, I would encourage everybody out there listening is saying, oh, we're 53 days or whatever it is away from the election. And it looks good for the Dems that because of redistricting the number of swings seats is only in the 20s.

And you know that little Mike Johnson is going to say, well, these seven, they're contested.

We're not going to recognize those people for a while. So unless it's resounding, we're going to end up in a period of chaos, which will be, which will compound all the chaos that we've got all the time now. Yeah, I mean, I think the people should expect chaos that's already on the agenda. So just expect it to be there. But I also think people need to be thinking really seriously now about making sure they have a plan to vote, not just being like, yep, I'm in a vote. You're like, what's your plan to vote? Because they're going to make it as hard as possible.

If you are someone who votes by mail, maybe you consider being like, okay, I'm going to walk my ballot to a drop box or I'm going to walk it to the Secretary of State office or I'm going to walk it to the register.

You know, instead of putting it in the US, because that thing goes back and forth all the time.

I think what we have to understand is that the Republicans know that people are not happy with what they're doing. They're not happy with the administration.

“Every midterm election is a referendum on the president and the president is not popular as much as that's why he needed a rally, right?”

He was like, it took me a long time to think of this, but like, why don't we do a rally and you're like, oh, to go on, that's your one go to move my friend. But he knows he's not popular, right? And so this scheme with the USPS, which currently has been stopped, but he wants to get to the Supreme Court. Everything he was trying to do to pass the same act, the congressional district's being redrawn, you know, purging voters all over Texas trying to close polling stations. I mean, they're making it quite obvious that they really don't want people to be voting.

And particularly certain people. And I have to, you know, like, if you are so sure of your leadership and what you're doing and everyone so please, you keep saying, this is the best economy ever. We're in a golden age, everyone's so happy, but we're not. And they know that. So they're putting up every single barrier that we possibly can have to vote. But I don't want people to get discouraged because I really do think there are a lot of lawyers, people like Marc Elias, who won that case at the Supreme Court.

That are really preparing for what's going to happen. And I think like you're saying, if we can come out and vote in such extraordinary numbers kind of Hungarian style, where it's like you got or bodies in power for 16 years, you changed the courts, you changed the media, you changed their constitution and still an 80 plus percent turnout. Out to them, didn't even help the JD bands win over there, probably hurt them. But honestly, this is what we need to be thinking of. We need to be like, I'm going to vote, but I'm also going to get all my friends to vote. I'm going to make sure my kid is registered to vote.

I'm going to make sure all his college roommates are registered to vote. Like, this is what we need to be doing right now. We have whatever it is.

“What isn't your kid in college and are you making sure his roommates are voting?”

100% that is our responsibility to make sure that our kids are voting and their friends are voting and they're all getting registered. Yeah, 100% that is our job. Have you ever voted, Riley? Yes, I voted. I couldn't vote in 2016, but I voted since then. Oh, Jesus Christ. Riley Riley is just he's such a it's like so young and fresh faced and I was shocked. My age didn't come up when we were talking about the 9/11 story because how old were you on 9/11? I believe I was too going on three. Oh, I'm going on three. Well, that makes it a little bit better.

You know, as we as we used to say, where I grew up in New Jersey, fuck you.

You're fair. I'll take it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, and if any of you are Riley's age, that's fine. I don't know what against me, but I always against Riley and what is your next story?

“Well, looking at some of the big ones from the week, how could we not talk about Trumpaposa?”

And the unusual two-day Republican. Whatever you say that, I think Trump's a big loser. You say Trumpaposa, but I think Trump's a big loser. It's basically synonymous. Yeah, but you know, it happened in Dallas and President Trump earned supporters to vote as if he were on the ballot, which I don't know if that's please. Please, please do it. Yeah. Good. Thanks, John. But we should run that as an ad. Well, my work, though, is the promise of a $5,000 Trump dividend to adults if Republicans maintain control of Congress throughout the event.

Trump and speakers heavily attack Democrats as extreme while downplaying economic inflation concerns and linking future drops in oil prices to an end to the world with Iran. Trump also let attendees in a pledge of loyalty to himself, which was one of many bizarre moments. Well, Vice President J.D. Vance, a delirity keynote address focused on family and faith offering a potential early preview of his pitch in 2028. Yeah, I mean, everybody's focused on the $5,000 bullshit offer that he made to everybody.

No, you really, you really have got to be a moron to go and fall for that, particularly since he offered you the same bribe with Doge.

“Same drive, bribe with the tariffs, the same bribe with ACA and he never delivers. He never, ever delivers. But to me, when I was yesterday, when he starts doing, he says, I want you all to join me in a pledge.”

Say, I pledge and everybody's like, I pledge. And then he goes, to always be loyal to the greatest president ever in Africa. This is pretty cringe, the greatest president. Okay, so he's going in that direction. But then he keeps going. And these people don't know what they signed on for. So it's kind of a big metaphor for mega. And then he gets to the end and he says, and so if you've got a cheat, cheat, if you've got a, you know, if you've got registered, don't go try and do it. And it's like, wait a minute, the president of the United States just administered an oath to his followers to cheat the pledge of cheating. Oh my god. And yeah, no, that, I mean, listen, that pledge was unbelievable. Like truly, first of all, he starts with the way you're supposed to when I say you repeat right, I pledge, I pledge right. And then it just kept getting longer right to that last paragraph was like eight sentences like as if anyone's allowed to do that.

And like you're saying, part of it was, and if you've got to get out there and vote and you're not registered do it anyway, you know, if you've got a cheat, cheat, and you're like, whoa, projection much because this is why we've heard about for the past two years, the past since 2020, all the cheating that the Democrats do. And yet it is perpetually, uh, projection, right, so it's just, I mean, too, the president of the check is also like, come on, I mean, but I saw someone today online that was like, I don't know about you, but I could really use that $5,000 because all the prices are up.

And my medical bills are up. And I was like, because of the person that we're saying needs to be put in check, right, like the point of voting for Democrats or voting for people that will oppose the Trump administration in the midterms because no matter what Trump says,

he's actually not on the ballot, it's Republican representatives and Democratic representatives who are on the ballot.

But they're the ones that are supposed to be the co-equal branch of the government. They're the ones that are supposed to be the check and balance on the executive branch. And no one is checking him. He's just out there making, you know, laws willy nilly like we make all the laws by executive order. Let's kill all the horses. Let's poison all the water. Hey, let's build the arch to myself, you know, this is what he's allowed to do if no one checks him. And so what we're saying at the midterms is even if you like Trump, you might be like, not he really does need to be checked.

We need to have people there that are okay with standing up against him, even if it's a Thomas Massey type character who is a Republican.

“And I agree with him on very little, but as willing to check the man, no one is willing to do that. And that's what we need to be doing.”

And so when people are like, yeah, but if I get a $5,000 check it'll really help me, you're like, or you vote for the person that will make sure your bills are not. Or your bills aren't higher, that your water's not poisoned, that we're not going into endless wars that are billions of dollars a day. Maybe you do that and you'll actually end up saving more money instead of having him pay you $5,000 with your own taxpayer dollars. Yeah, which by the way, he doesn't have the power to do, which by the way requires the Congress to do, which by the way would cost over a trillion dollars.

The national debt is $40 trillion already. And you know what that's doing? What that's doing is it's leading to a devaluation of the dollar. People are streaming away from U.S. Treasury notes.

“We could have a crisis, which of course Scott Bessent, who's the most odious character that has ever been produced, and it looks like the monopoly guy with a monocle, you know.”

But truly, if the word smug was in the dictionary, it would be Scott's. I'd never see anything like it.

And he's talk. Now I'm the house, and I'm going to win this, and I'm going to do these interventions, and all those interventions aren't working in folks. You know, we're not talking about this, but in the next couple of months, the likelihood of some kind of major financial instability as a result of plummeting interest to U.S. Treasury, selling off Treasury, selling off gold, moving money into other currencies. And on top of that, an AI bubble, is really super high. And so, you know, the 5,000 bucks isn't going to cover the problems.

It barely would have covered the increase cost that are associated with the Iran war that is illegal, and you shouldn't be in any way. But guess what? You're not getting the 5,000 bucks. And it's your money anyway. And it's illegal. So why are we even talking about it? But, you know, the Washington Post called it Trump's pledge to the people. And I was like, "Emeam Jeff Bezos is Washington Post." Yeah, exactly. It's just, every all this stuff is right. The only place you can actually get anything legit is politics girl for DSR.

which they just launched, I think yesterday, which is kind of fascinating. You know, journalists don't really go away.

They sort of rebooted somewhere else. It'll be interesting to see how that goes. And, but that's sort of how the media works right now.

“All right, Riley, do you have something else for us here?”

Yes, we've got another one leaving the Trump orbit, which you may have seen us be happening more and more frequently. Did you get the Jennifer this time? He didn't get the $45,000 in cash that Natalie Arca. No, I can't imagine why he didn't get that, but I can imagine why he had he would have stayed around. I can't imagine why she did, but anyway, go on. Joseph, the Jennifer, a Trump loyalist appointed to lead a south Florida-based, grand conspiracy investigation,

targeting the president's political opponents, abruptly resigned after facing internal pressure and losing the confidence of justice department leadership.

“The probe, which aimed to tie past law enforcement and intelligence inquiries in the president Trump into a single plot,”

had dragged on for months without securing any indictments, despite extensive grand jury subpoenas.

The Jennifer's departure marks the second time a lead prosecutor has stepped down from the inquiry,

highlighting a broader friction within the justice department over the pace of retributive investigations and the lack of actionable evidence. Nobody should mess, Joe, to Jennifer in the US government. It is a bad dude who was doing bad stuff for Trump. What it should tell you though, is that what Todd Blanch wants him to be doing is so illegal that even this guy who was willing to promote stealing the election thinks it's too illegal. And one of the reasons lawyers think that is, they know the law, but another one is that Trump can't,

with a pardon, for example, protect you against violating state laws. And with a pardon, he cannot keep you in the bar and you can be disparate and you can be out of work. And so a lot of the things that, you know, Todd Blanch is willing to do, other people aren't even kind of sleeves bags like Joe, Jennifer, but you know, you may have a different view lately. No, I don't have a different view. I mean, here's the thing that the, I think, you know, the justice department leadership makes me laugh, because there's no leadership of the justice department minutes if they're a,

the hand of the Trump administration, like, as soon as we put Todd Blanch in that role, our, our law and order sort of cease to exist the way we think of it existing, it really is a retaliatory agency at this point. And they want all of their minions to be doing the same thing. I think about like, Janine Perot taking that Olympian to, you know, all the way through a grand jury to trial. She was supposed to do for like him destroying the reflecting pool, which of course he did not do.

“And then they couldn't actually take it to court because she didn't actually have a case and Trump was furious with her, because you can only lie for so long, and then you have to actually present your evidence.”

And if you don't have any evidence, you're in trouble because this particular administration doesn't care if there's evidence. That's not the point. The point is go after by people, lock her up. You're like, we don't have any proof. Who cares? Do it anyway. This is how he rules. And, and so obviously, you know, Florida didn't get it done, and he's a, the door, but I mean, they didn't have said anyone who believes in the rule of law. Well, and Trump believes in the rule of law for rich people. And the rule of law. Everything for rich people. They economy is doing well means for rich people.

You know, everything is great for rich people. It's the golden age for rich people. If you just put that at the end, everything you say, you know, basically true for the rest of us, we are in trouble.

Right. Well, I was actually getting something else, which is if you're rich, you sue people because you've got lots of lawyers and you don't care how much they cost. And what you know is that they don't have lots of lawyers and they do care how much a cost and you can bankrupt them. And so a lot of the suits that he wants to launch, he doesn't know that he's actually got to convict these people. But what he is going to do is destroy the reputation and force them to spend millions of dollars that may bankrupt them.

And we'll make their lives a living hell. And so he is not looking at the justice system as a mechanism for producing justice. He's looking at the justice system as a mechanism for inflicting pain on his enemies and Todd Blanche is perfectly willing to go along with that. And, you know, some day somebody is going to have to hold him accountable because he's well, right. Blanche, Todd Blanche was Trump's personal lawyer. He's been perfectly welcome to go along with it the entire time, the conflict of interest of him being the agey of the United States is ludicrous because this is how Trump has run his entire life.

He would get, you know, a caterer to do his wedding to Marla Maples. And then be like, I'm not going to pay you. You've got free, you know, people your name was in the paper because you did my wedding.

And a lot of small business people really lost their shirts, even just working with Trump way before he was president, right.

“And now you've got Todd Blanche out here. Like, yeah, this is problematic. Like, there is a reason that the system is only working for certain people. I think about the IRS all the time.”

The IRS is like, we don't have enough money to go after the richest people because they're cheating on their taxes, but they have way more lawyers than we do. And one of the things Biden did when he came in that people forget is that he gave the IRS a bunch of money. So they could afford to go after the biggest richest tax cheats because we're leaving trillions of dollars in unpaid taxes on the table every year because the IRS doesn't have the man power or the lawyers to go after the biggest tax cheats in the country.

Well, speaking of Biden because he did a lot of good things and and the economic reforms were a lot of, you know, well intention reforms, but one of the areas where he had a blind spot had to do with the accountability of the Trump regime and keeping Trump out of power.

And that was the merit carlump thing. And I see that somebody here, Darren H says accountability needs to be the priority when Democrats win and Lee, I just wondering what your view is.

Because you know, there's some Democrats were like move on and turn the page. Let's focus on affordability.

“Let's not be divisive anymore and and so forth. And you can tell by my voice I have an opinion on this, but what's your opinion?”

My opinion is those days are over and the Democrats need to get it together because we're not going anywhere without accountability. Not for us in the nation of America and not for us as a nation on both. But barely other. They help people. We are worth trusting again that we will lock up our criminals that we won't just change our minds every four years. You can sign a deal with us as a country and we won't just flip it over four years later when we get a new president, you know, no one trusts us anymore, and part of that comes from accountability.

So yeah, I know a lot of people need to have trials, a lot of people need to be doing that. And any Democrat at this point, I'm not bad about the single Democrat 58 days away from the election, just let them all win because without power and power means holding the house and I would love to flip that Senate with that kind of power. We can't stop Trump, but we could make him the lame duck he actually is. We don't even necessarily have to go right after Trump. You can start in teaching his entire cabinet. You can start in teaching Supreme Court justices. You can make all his enablers.

So he himself was moot and then when we get to 28, then we can have a real election, but it starts with power. So we can, we could be as upset as we want. We can talk about what lobby group does this and who we want to speak or not, but we're not going backwards. So anyone that's like, let's turn the page and move on. No, absolutely not. We need a full accountability and then we need to move forward. So this can never happen again. And we don't do that without making a real spectacle of the people who allowed this to happen.

Yeah, absolutely true. One of our listeners here said, still we can badmouth better men and I agree. He's not a pro-elect. What is he doing? No, I don't like to pick on people who have had a physical. I said about that. I think Democrats, I do not consider Fetterman a Democrat. Yeah, and we're doing more. But just wait, keep a special bottle of something in your bar because the day after the Democrats wait, a one vote majority in the Senate, Fetterman's going to switch. For sure, for sure, but still, I still think we've got a good shot at this. I really do.

I do not think that the Republicans can be counted on for their straight Republican vote that they've always been able to say if Texas is in play, everything's in play. People are unhappy.

People are not pleased if you're thinking about affordability and the Republicans are to be like, what is that? It's a made up word. You're like, it's can we afford things.

“That's what affordability is. We can't afford things. They're upset about tariffs. They're upset about the war. They're upset about the poison food. They're upset about the poison water.”

We are unhappy and it's not just Democrats that are unhappy. We're unhappy with the man in charge and all the people. I already were morons, but the general public in America is suffering and I think that they can't just count on every Republican vote they've ever had coming to them. I think they're actually in trouble with some of those maps that they redrew thinking they would have more democratic votes. I do not think that's in the background. I think that's why they're now trying to mess with mail-in voting while they're trying to close polling stations, why they're taking James Telerego off the late night TV and interviews because they are in trouble.

And we have to keep reminding that. That was pretty heinous. That, right. Turn the FCC against Jimmy Kimmel because he had it.

Telerego's interview on Colbert when up on YouTube as well.

They are afraid. They are afraid.

“It's fascism is what it is and we need to call it. We need to call it by its name.”

Riley perhaps you have one more story for us before we just moved to the ledge where we were. I do, but actually we're teetering. I actually have another one that Lee set up beautifully because with the reflecting pool gate, there was an actually an update right before we went on air.

I didn't have a time to send it over, but New York Times is reporting on some internal documents they got a hold of.

If you look at the contractor for the reflecting full renovation admitted that the liner failed it due to its own application errors and chemical design flaws. And it's a rush to no bid project. So I just wanted to throw that in there because one of my favorite stories of the last year. Well, that's because of the pictures of this did. You know, go google the contractor because this is one weird look in magma catalog of buddy. Yeah, he looks like a Dick Tracy villain.

He really, he really does and a lot of these guys do, but you know, again, you know, with Trump with the reflecting pool with the arch with redoing the White House with contracts for the defense department with contracts with different countries around the world with everything. You may say, oh Donald Trump's crazy Donald Trump's not crazy Donald Trump thinks his job is how to monetize the presidency and to monetize it for himself and to monetize it for his friends. And so, you know, the Latin in Latin in there was a legal principle, which was Quibona, which is who benefits. So you would go and look and say, well, who's actually benefiting from this when I was in journalism school, which I was in briefly before dropping out of.

There was a professor and some people who listened to this. No, I talked about him before and the first class was follow the money with Trump. It's always follow the money.

If you're looking for a motivation, it's Trump gets rich, his family gets rich, his friends get rich, colleagues in the administration get rich, people who paid him off get rich.

“That is the only thing that motivates everything.”

Yeah, it's the only thing that motivates everything for that. And I think that's what the contrast is for people like us, like, they can't understand why you would do work for someone if you didn't get paid, why you would care about races that aren't your own. Why you would be interested in poor people if you're rich, like why, why they don't get it because it's only a tunnel vision of who I am, who I'm friends with, who's like me. And I think that's the thing that makes them not understand us at all is that they can't imagine worrying about it unless it was directly into them. It's a very Republican thing to do.

You know, like Nancy Reagan didn't care until she knew a person, you know, Dick Cheney didn't care about gay people until his daughter came out, like it only matters if it really directly affects them. And I think our side tends to be like it matters because it matters like I care if someone's starving, not because I'm starving, but because no one should be starving. That is the kind of thing that I think really separates the two parties. And I think that we really need to get back to a place where her humanity comes first and right now we're watching a world in which apparently AI is going to kill us all in 10 years. So we really should probably focus on humanity a bit more.

And that's a kind of strange backwards way of looking at things viewing the world as a community, caring about people having decency. You know, it's it's the Canadian, I mean, she can't stop it. Oh, she can't stop being nice. Well, how come if Canadians are nice Canadian geese or me? I don't understand. We have to have something. You got to have a little. There's a little at little edgy there. Yeah, I feel a great affinity with Lee because the first time we were set down and talk to turn out both of us prepared for a lifetime of commentary and politics by working in the theater.

And, you know, that's sort of how we come to understand all of this, but you know, the thing is you can't actually work in the theater be good at it. You don't have empathy. Empathy is what makes acting work. Empathy is what makes storytelling work. You've got to have characters you care about. We have a president who has no empathy. And so I consider that background. I mean, you know, for me, it's a long time ago and I was in the government and all this foreign policy stuff ever since then.

“I often thought I was going to write a book called Everything I Know about Washington. I learned in the theater because, ah, that'd be good. You should do that.”

Well, because this is the thing. I mean, look, like I said, my son just started college and he's studying acting something that me as a college student was not allowed to do. Riley, you probably just finished college yourself for crying a lot, but seriously, Riley, Riley will be finished soon. Don't worry. You'll finish one day soon. I haven't made it every day for this interview. But the thing is, is that like people look down, especially in America, they look down on actors unless we're stars and we're stars.

And the thing about actors is they really are an empathetic group. You have to be aware of humanity in order to play humanity to reflect humanity.

And I do think that the world of the theater is underfunded. So we know how to do that. It's full of a lot of different personalities. You know how to manage that.

“And then on top of that, it's a, it's a world where everyone has a place, but I think that's really a way to second.”

And I don't mean to be revealing any deep dark secrets here. So if I do, well, just delete the whole thing. What's up with that? What's up with that? What's up with that? What's up with that? We'll go after that all these people. But are you, are you sending your son to the same school at Baron Trump goes to? Yeah, I am, but yeah, I mean, how do you feel about that? Again, you need a little getting to your gang, you know, like you need a can of a goose in there. Yeah, well, I guess I guess that's true in Baron Baron is the Canada goose for all of NYU.

Anyway, well, let, before we go, you've got a revived substact now. You've got projects girl. You've got all sorts of stuff going on. Like, what's going on for the party? Yeah, we just rebooted the substact because God is the guy that was there, but non-existent. So we just rebooted it last week. We're doing a weekly newsletter now, which I'm really excited about. So people can go into the weekend informed. If you had a life during the week and you weren't drowning in news like David and I and probably Riley have to do, then you can read it on Fridays and be like, oh, these are the top big stories of anyone's talking about it over the weekend.

I know what's going on now. And it's just called the big picture with Lee McGowan and it's, you know, it's all the top stories. You can go into the weekend informed. And then we do, you know, bi-weekly conversations and we do Q and A's. And I'm actually really excited about it because I've had the podcast for a long time. People know me from the rant. I do all that stuff on CNN where I basically, you know, fight with right wingers. But this is actually really exciting because it goes back to my original goal, which was to keep people informed, educated and inspired and informed and knowing that we can still make change. And it starts with us being engaged in the world that we live in.

You do a great job of it. You always have done a great job of it. Having you there on CNN is among the only things that makes it watchable for me.

As there are a couple other people who stay at Caitlyn Collins is a friend. She stands up for what's right and what's good a lot of the time, but there are other people there who don't, but you do. I try. I strongly encourage everybody to go follow politics, go podcast, follow her. Follow me here on a sub stack. And you know, who knows, maybe could coaxly back on to our podcast sometimes soon. Because it is always fun to talk to you. Riley, it's always above average talking to you. That's what I strive for. Yeah.

I can meet that. It's it's it's pretty horrible. No, I love talking to you. Let's get us right here. We're like generation x y and z. We got the whole thing happening here. I just like, hold on. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you don't get let's not get more specific about it because I'm a little.

“Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Boomer. Did you say boomer or gloomer because I think gloomer is better. I think I think gloomer may be more more proper. I can see that.”

But yeah. No, I hope. I'm actually generation. Jones, you know, the end of the boomers. So I like to say generation. Jones.

I'm into the excess. I'm into the excess. I'm into the excess. No, I'm into the yeah, X generation X. Yeah. That's my wife is always like I'm a millennial.

And I'm like, no, you're you're really at the end of the. No, she's me end of X. Yeah. And she's like, no, no, I'm a millennial. It's like, look, look at the chart. Look at the chart. Can she.

“I don't think I related all to the millennials and I are not. I'm definitely in the I'm hard for the X. I was a kid in the 80s. I was a teenager and college student in the 90s.”

Best time. Sorry, Riley. Best time to be in college and high school. And now I'm living through hell and watching every rights that I thought were, you know, given from the dawn of time, be reversed. And Riley is a teenager here in the 20s. It's something anyway, time to be alive. What a time. Oh, right. We're sorry.

Anyway, yeah, don't blame me. No, you can blame the boomers. So if you're going to blame anybody, blame the boomers, boomers, you know, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush all born in 1946 all in the same year. This is, you know, and this is the boomer generation. Obama was a sort of end of boomer guy. Joe Biden was just a couple of years before the boomers.

This past period of 35, 40 years has not been the best in American leadership. Well, that's my entire life, like literally my entire life. Well, when AOC is president and it'll all change.

Now what the president's doing now, they go in all the money.

“No, not well, yeah, this president does this president does.”

Okay, folks, look, we've got enough fun here. It's Friday. We've gotten through the week. Hopefully this is shed some light on it.

It has been fantastic to have here. Riley, as always, men are we'll be doing this next week.

“And for all of you out there who are Jewish friends.”

It's Russia, shun of this evening. So, shanato va happy new year.

Look, if even if you're not Jewish, we need new beginnings.

This is a new beginning as a Jew. Let me say it, not a very seriously practicing Jew.

“But as a Jew, let me extend to you the opportunity to embrace this new year and say,”

let's start over now because we could take it. And in fact, we here at the DSR network and need to know our substax from now on will celebrate every new year for that reason. Regardless of where it is around the world. And if you don't follow us here, while me and go to YouTube,

subscribe to us on YouTube. That's our fastest growing thing or subscribe to us on podcast. Find us someplace. We will find you and we'll all be back next week. But for now, thank you, Rayleigh. Thank you, everybody, for joining. Bye-bye.