Why the Rule of Law Still Matters (with Katie Phang)

Hey, everybody, Tim Fullerton here.

Welcome back to the Find Out podcast.

This is, I think, episode 12 or 13.

Today's guest is a, we're very excited to have.

I have been a fan for a very long time,

and we've done a few IMs or DMs over Instagram, but never actually gotten to talk before.

So, we want to welcome Katie Fang to the show.

Katie was the former host of the Katie Fang Show on MSNBC,

and she's also just started her own YouTube channel in connection with the Midas group.

And I think everybody also knows that she is an attorney as well.

And so, Katie, welcome to the Find Out podcast.

It's great to have you.

I mean, what a great name for a podcast.

I'm like living in the Find Out space.

Like, and now that I've left mainstream, I can say the fuck around part

as well.

So apologies to your viewers and your listeners that I use profanity, but that is the unleashed part of Katie Fang is some profanity.

I love it.

i love it and uh that is not the first f-bomb that's been thrown on the show by far that is precisely what they're here for actually

like luke it the big reason that people watch luke is for him shouting get fucked as loud as he can so

and i'm in great company then it sounds yes he is our he is our 21 year old college student that joins us so uh he makes me feel uh very old but also like always impressed with what he has to say is because i wouldn't have been able to do it at that age i'm so surprised that he's out of bed to be able to join you guys.

Yeah, well, he and for our listeners slash viewers, both he and Rich were here in New York, and we actually did two tapings.

So you guys will see those one next week and probably one the week after.

And they're both flying back home.

So you're just stuck with the three oldest.

Oh, nope.

Zach is not the third oldest, but two of the oldest.

No.

Rich is older.

Rich is older than me.

I feel like I'm older than all of you guys, though.

So that's got to be part of it.

I think I probably look the oldest, though.

So we're going to go with that.

But

Katie, you had a great subject line for your Substack post today, which was, what the hell is going on?

Well, that's Evergreen, though.

Yeah.

Seems to be.

And one of the things, actually, so my mom's here and she's pretty, she knows a fair amount about politics.

And, you know, she said something today with what I don't know what to believe anymore.

And I think this is.

It's also Evergreen, evergreen, by the way, but going back.

Right, right.

And one of the things we wanted to ask you, since you are a lawyer and a legal expert, is, you know, all of these EOs that keep getting written, like the one yesterday we're recording on Friday, that Trump tried to ban Harvard from admitting international students.

Like

how much, like, is, is anything he is doing legal?

Is it all just insane?

What are we, what, how do we even begin to see like what is right and what is wrong besides listening to your show, which people should do?

Well, I'm glad that you led with the idea that I am a lawyer and legal analyst, because sometimes that gets lost along the way.

People are like, oh, you're a journalist or you're a TV personality, whatever.

And I'm always quick to say, I did not grow up in the journalism space.

I was not

a struggling

correspondent in Boise, right?

Which no offense to the people in Boise, I actually love Idaho.

But

for me,

you bring such a great point because executive orders are not laws.

They're not laws.

So let's just start from the baseline understanding that EOs are not laws.

The real issue is

the kind of rolling over, playing dead, obsequious nature of the cabinet officials and the agency heads that we have in this administration, which is they treat the EOs as if they are laws.

That's where you get into a problem.

Because if you had a, you know, agency head or a cabinet official who was a stalwart defender of the rule of law, they would be quick to say, that just looks like a truth social post that you put on White House kind of like

White House letterhead.

And now you think that this is a legit law and it's not.

The problem becomes when these ass-kissing people take the EO language and then they put it on their agency letterhead.

And now you got a problem.

Because even then, it's still not a law, guys.

It's just a policy.

And when they implement and execute the policy, then they violate the law.

And that's when, for example, a federal judge within hours of Harvard suing the Trump administration this morning because of their stupid revocation of foreign student status, a federal judge is like, yeah, no, no, no.

Temporary restraining order blocking Trump from being able to do that.

So I think it's a bigger critical thinking skill vacuum problem.

And I keep on telling my 10-year-old that she's smarter than a lot of Americans these days because she still uses her critical thinking part of her brain.

And a lot of MAGA, far-right, Trump-loving people said, we don't have to because Trump has shown us that it is actually successful to be stupid and to be cruel.

Because he got to be the president of the United States twice.

And so, you know, that is the internal saga that we have, right?

It's fighting against the stupidity of thinking that you can be rewarded for being like a horrifically stupid asshole.

Right.

And by the way, actually, real quick, Chris, I want to make sure what you said about thinking that these EOs' executive orders are truth social posts.

I think you're right.

I think they literally are truth social posts that they are copy and pasting and sending out, and then everybody's following along.

It's absolutely madness.

Yeah, and somebody cleans it up and makes it look like it's actually, you know, competently written.

And I mean, can we just take a moment to appreciate that for a second?

Like we've become experts on whether it's legitimately something that Trump wrote versus not.

Oh, it's all caps.

If it's all caps, he wrote it.

That's the idea.

Right.

Or like if it's missing punctuation.

Yeah.

Like, I mean, that's just wild that, you know, I don't even pro I probably couldn't speak to my, the, the way that my husband writes, right?

Like to that level of granular detail, but I could tell you immediately within like 10 seconds, not even of reading a Trump post, if he wrote it or if somebody in his, you know, administration wrote a forum, right?

Oh, yeah.

It's like the Biden announcement he made about his cancer.

You could tell he did not write that announcement.

Whereas Melania and I are feeling very sorry for Jeff.

It's like, you wrote zero words of that statement, sir.

Yeah, that's ridiculous.

I'm curious, though.

So, like, one thing I do on my channel is I try to take more complicated things like executive orders and the legality of them and sort of simplify them for the average person to understand.

And I think it's an important topic because EOs are not laws.

How would you, in like a sentence or two, describe for the average person the difference between what an EO is and what a law is, like what an executive order actually is?

Because I think that would be super helpful for you because I think even people on our side know this is true to a certain degree, but they don't understand the functionality of an EO versus an actual law that has been passed through Congress.

So if you had like two sentences only, how would you describe that?

An executive order is simply a declaration.

It has not been passed into law by Congress.

Period.

I mean, that's it.

That's it.

So, would you discuss, would this be accurate to describe it this way?

An executive order is a policy that can be challenged when it goes beyond the bounds of legality.

Is that a fair statement?

So, like, in EO, if it's a policy that doesn't break the law, it's just a policy that they're implementing.

But if it's an EO that breaks the law, which is most of Trump's EOs, then that can be challenged and struck down in the court of law.

Yeah, 100%.

And I actually would challenge you to say, I don't even think it's a policy.

I mean, if you're looking at them, it's just a grievance.

Like, no, no, Joe.

So I guess maybe you could qualify it, Zach, and say, in the Trump administration, an executive order is a written grievance.

Yeah.

It is not a law.

Maybe those are your two sentences, right?

I mean, because that is the truth right there.

It's just a grievance.

It's the,

you know, it's his version of like grievance festivus, right?

It's just like

it's like a grievance palooza is what it is.

And that's what he's doing.

So.

So, Katie, I think that, so I used to watch your show because I'm up early.

He used to be on my show.

So, so I know your, I know your voice.

I, I know the way that you project information

about the law and the standing of the law.

Uh, but I think a lot of our audience probably doesn't wake up as early as I do, probably

may not be MSNBC watchers, so they may be unfamiliar with the way that you present information.

Could you help to disabuse people who have been watching this kind of like hashtag resistance media about the idea that the rule of law is dead?

Like people on our source, on our side, I feel like are starting to give up because of the Roberts court and some really shitty decisions.

They feel like there's no way to fight back.

Can you kind of tell us why that is wrong?

Because of something that just happened within an hour and some change of the four of us hanging out.

As I mentioned just a few minutes ago, a federal judge in Massachusetts said to the Trump administration, you are doing something that is unconstitutional and illegal when it comes to trying to restrict Harvard University from being able to have 7,000 foreign students as a part of its student body.

So I am entering an order that prohibits the Trump administration from moving forward with its declaration that they've revoked the status, this immigration status for Harvard to be able to do what it needs to do.

I mean, I say on my YouTube channel, we have to celebrate the wins where we get them.

I think we need to have a shift in the way that we're looking at things, including the law.

There's a lot of stuff we've taken for granted.

Present company included.

And sometimes I blame it on just my general naivete to believe that certain norms norms and institutions were always going to withstand people, including somebody like Donald Trump.

I think we got a little spoiled even through the first administration of Trump, because we did see either people internally within his administration.

saying this is not going to happen, or we saw obviously people outside of the administration through the courts and otherwise politicians as well saying this is not going to happen.

So now he's leaner and meaner and he's moving with destructive capabilities at a faster rate than I think that we failed to appreciate, despite all of the warning signs, and despite a lot of us, present company included, saying this is going to happen.

When it comes to the law, though, we're also seeing federal judges say, you've violated an order, I'm initiating contempt proceedings, and you see these judges saying there has to be the respect.

You see the American Bar Association, which is an apolitical body of lawyers that never takes a side, coming out and saying you cannot attack judges, you cannot attack the rule of law, you have to respect our institutions.

And then, for what it's worth, it may be John Roberts, but he is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

And even he has said, intimidation of judges, attacking judges, you know, disrespecting the idea that there's an appeals process, for example, should you get a ruling with which you would disagree, that you're ignoring that to try to end run what we're doing.

All of that being said, I don't live in some ivory tower and I don't live in some vacuum of ignorance.

I understand and respect the frustration that a lot of your viewers and listeners have, which is if I went to court and I tried to pull half the shit that the Trump administration has done, my ass would be in jail.

Not only would I not have a lawyer representing me anymore,

unlike what's like happening with the Trump administration, they seem to have just like a legion of lawyers that don't care about their bar licenses or ethics.

But not only would I not have a lawyer, I probably would have my case thrown out if I was was trying to advocate for a case or I put, they'd have my ass in jail.

So I get it.

I get the frustration, but I also think when we don't adjust our expectations and we don't celebrate the wins when we get them, then I think we become so jaded and bitter that that's when we feel defeated and we feel like we're not going to get through this.

And I'm here to remind everybody, these things are happening.

It's just we, everything is so big these days and in our face and flashy and clickbaity and crazy and blah blah blah.

And then like when I tell you, hey, this is a win that happened in Boston, you may look at me like, why am I supposed to give a shit?

And I'm here to tell you because that goes to show that they're not going to let Trump try to steamroll Harvard.

They're not going to let Trump try to steamroll Kilmar Abrego Garcia, even though sadly he's not here in the United States anymore.

So that's what I try to do, Chris, you know, to the extent possible.

I have a question that actually dovetails off of this, because I think a lot of our viewers don't know what the legal legal pulleys that can be used if Trump ignores the Supreme Court.

Because he's kind of already doing it, but I expect him to do it even more.

What just functionally can be done if he flat out goes, No, I'm just not going to do what the Supreme Court says.

Like, what is the system to actually make him enforce what they say?

Yeah, so the interesting thing is, people also need to realize that Trump, as an individual, is not necessarily the person who's doing these things.

So, for example, it's Christy Noam as the, you know, Department of Homeland Security Secretary, right?

Like, she has a role, as does, you know, Marco Rubio as Secretary of State.

So Trump himself is not the guy who's going to see Cotton El Salvador imposing, you know, in a $50,000 watch and in his cosplay shit, right?

That's a Christy Noam special.

So Trump himself

is not going to be the guy that you're going to see brought to court court for the contempt proceeding, right?

He's not the guy, even though you may want it, who's going to be put in jail, right?

If you ever get to that point, which actually

we all kind of fantasized about that,

for a long time, please.

I'm just going to have a little bit.

Let's take a moment.

Katie, could you kind of tell us where you think that contempt proceedings are likely to go in the coming months based on what has just happened?

So I document, I went over this in one of my YouTubes yesterday so there's a judge james boasberg who's the chief judge in the dc um courts he's the one who was the original judge who was so angry when the trump administration refused to turn the planes around you remember this whole thing started right a few months ago so he's actually chasing down that contempt as to why did you not bring the planes back when i told you to right he's also exploring having forcing the government to bring these people back right Then you have another judge, Paula Zinnis.

She's the one who has the Kilmar Obrego-Garcia case.

She's not only allowing discovery, meaning the exchange of information, including depositions, to be done to find out why the government hasn't returned Kilmar Obrego-Garcia to facilitate his return, like the Supreme Court Zach told them that they had to do.

She's not only chasing that down, but she's also trying to figure out a way to get these people back.

Then there's another judge, I think it's Charlotte Sweeney.

She's also ordered the Trump Trump administration to come to explain and to bring these people back, right?

And then you have a judge, Brian Murphy, who was attacked by Caroline Levitt yesterday during the White House press briefing.

He's the one who told the

government,

Why the hell did you let those people go to South Sudan when I told you that you're not supposed to do it?

And he said literally in court

Wednesday, I want names.

Give me the names of the people that were involved.

So again, the ultimate satisfaction is seeing somebody like Trump have to pay the price, but it ends up being, I think, an internal gut check for even the lawyers.

Do I want to go to jail for this?

Do I want to be sanctioned?

Do I want to be referred to the bar and lose my license, which is my livelihood, because of this stupidity?

And then it escalates to the heads of the departments.

Well, let's bring in Pam Bondi and let's put her under oath and have to explain why she gave the middle finger to me.

I just said yesterday the judges have to grow some balls.

And I didn't mean it in a totally derogatory way.

I just meant, where are the enforcement teeth to what you guys are ordering?

Because we are not seeing that, I think, to the extent that America deserves.

Well, and I think that's the big thing, because I think most people just say, well, if Trump defies the orders, so what?

Like, they don't understand the consequences.

And, you know, I mean, I know a little bit about it.

And we do know that there is at least one incredibly stupid person who lost his

law license, which was Rudy Giuliani, going down this road.

So there is a, there is, it can happen, but what are the sort of ranges of consequences if some of these folks are held in contempt?

So I don't think most people really know what that means either.

Obviously, um, what's his face that is now in the White House went to jail for two months for contempt?

Um,

he went to jail.

Um,

what, like, could it just be a fine, a slap on the wrist all the way to prison?

Like, what are these folks looking at if they're held in contempt?

Yeah, and can Trump just pardon anybody who gets

held in contempt?

Well,

the federal stuff, yeah, right.

So the lawyers are likely, so putting aside the Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell-like world, which I'll get to in a second, the lawyers are likely not going to go to jail or be held in contempt.

They will likely be sanctioned by the judge, right?

And then they'll have the referrals to the bar associations and the state bars for their licenses, which is the Rudy Giuliani, whatever.

Giuliani and Sidney Powell and others, Jenna Ellis, for example, remember, they also got indicted for their conduct in their individual capacities, even though they were lawyers for Trump.

And so, if there's individual exposure or liability as a lawyer, you could definitely be going to jail for noncompliance.

But when it comes to just being the lawyer for DHS or something, that's not, or ICE, that's not happening.

The people that are actually like really exposed are the Christy Noams and the Marco Rubios, the Tom Homans, people like that.

The people that are the department heads have the problem.

They're the ones that are, because you have a department that's a part of a lawsuit, right?

And the department has to have a person associated with it.

We call it a humanoid, right?

You have a corporation or a business.

You have to have the humanoid that comes into the court.

That's going to be the Christine Oams of the world.

So she's going to have to go to court and she's going to have to attest under oath as to what she has or has not done in her department.

And again, people would be like, okay, but maybe she's not the one who's pulling the trigger or pulling the lever, but you're not going to sit there and sentence, you know, a thousand thousand employees at DHS to contempt.

It's going to be the one person.

And contempt is an interesting thing.

You know, sometimes you can just be the threat of the contempt that spurs the action, or sometimes you literally have to put somebody in jail and tell them to purge your contempt.

You have to comply with the order.

So I am hoping that the judges with their lifetime appointments who, I mean, they are being intimidated physically and threatened, right?

But I'm hoping that they realize that with their lifetime appointment jobs, it's not like they're going to get fired, right?

So just do something about it.

That's more than just saying, you were bad, like shame on you.

Like, I think that we're past that point, don't you think?

Like,

and we're only, we're only how many months into this term?

Like, we're kind of already past that point of you scolding me and telling me I was a bad kid.

I mean, the challenge, like, it's Chris's question is the thing that comes to mind with like, well, he'll just pardon them.

So like, I think like the challenge for people, our listeners, especially, is that we, we are dying for accountability.

And it feels like the world we live in, it doesn't fully exist.

And even in the places where it does, Trump has his hands on all the levers to make it so it doesn't anymore.

And it's like, is that true?

I guess is my question.

Look, I don't, I don't bullshit people.

I mean, I'm, like I said, I like to manage people's expectations and you have to as a lawyer, right?

As a lawyer, I manage clients' expectations all the time.

I am not going to lie and say that part of the reason why we are in a constitutional and existential crisis is because it's Donald Trump.

I mean, if it was anybody else, we would probably be grumbling maybe about some policy moves, but nothing to this extent.

Does he have the ability to do things that, number one, we wouldn't approve and number two, has never been done before?

Yeah.

I mean, that adjective unprecedented is worn out.

We need a new one.

But I do think that it's almost like giving a kid free access to the candy store.

If they glut themselves the way that we see is happening right now, I mean, and y'all are the find out podcast, right?

I mean, then there's going to be the find out part to it.

It is kind of sad that all of us collectively have to suffer because of the stupidity of the few, but that kind of is the whole point of this, right?

It is you don't stop someone like Donald Trump that even now the Supreme Court, some members of the Supreme Court are kind of like, like Amy Coney Barrett, right?

She's like, whoa,

that seemed like a bad idea now.

So now I'm kind of going to roll it back a little bit.

And And we're all kind of like, we told you this was going to be a bad idea.

But we're kind of stuck.

Right.

So I would like to just kind of move forward in the framework of where can we get a win or where can we kind of end run him?

That's what I'm kind of looking for.

And on the, on the Supreme Court, obviously, uh, five of those justices are not anybody that we would want on the court.

And the three that Donald Trump put in, the last one, which he was actually famously quoted as he was saving for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which is just an awful, terrible thing, is Amy Coney Barrett, who was supposed to be the

Supreme Court like Republican rubber stamp, I suppose.

And we've seen a little bit, I don't want to give her a lot of credit here, but like we've seen her a little bit of, I guess I'll say hope that there are some, at least some areas in which she will side with the liberal justices and maybe with Roberts as well.

Are you surprised by that?

Is that, because to me, I was surprised, but I'm not a legal expert, but I'm just curious about your take with her because it seems like we may have a little bit more

chance with some of these cases because it does seem like there's a few areas where she's she's showing some independence, maybe a little bit.

Um, so no, I actually wasn't surprised, and part of it is if you go back and you look kind of at her body of work before she made it to SCOTIS, she was definitely not as extreme as you would see others like the Kavanaughs of the world.

My

like hot take on Amy Coney Barrett, which has zero, zero evidence, but I'll just share it with you guys.

I feel like Amy Coney Barrett from a personal standpoint is probably,

I mean, I wouldn't know, but I'm just going to hypothesize.

I think she's probably a good wife and a good mom.

And the reason why I say that is I feel like she was like a one-issue justice.

I feel like, I feel like overturning Roe v.

Wade, three Dobbs, was kind of like her jam,

right?

And then because she's super Catholic, you know, she's against abortion.

She's got a lot of kids, right?

I kind of feel like maybe like that is what was her motive.

Oh shit, that was like kind of like her motivating thing.

And then like once she was there, I think she had buyers remorse.

Not, not for, not for Roe, not for Roe, right?

But I think

all of the stuff that has come subsequent thereto, everything that has come out after, including this whole presidential immunity shit and everything else, I kind of feel like she is saying, We

gave the keys to the asylum to the crazy guy.

And I feel like that's her buyer's remorse.

Now, is it ever so profound that we see her decidedly being like, okay, stop the insanity.

Kind of not that loudly or that radically.

But again, when we get her to side and she's, it's more, guys, it's more she's sending a message to other politicians and conservatives and Republicans and to American, you know, conservatives that

this woman who's been deified by being put on SCOTUS and she's one of the only women on SCOTUS when she's deciding a certain way or speaking a certain way.

Sometimes it's not so much towards the litigation.

Sometimes it's just the bigger court of public opinion conversation that's happening from it.

So I'm just kind of wondering if maybe she got what she really wanted, but she has some remorse that now we are where we are.

I honestly too wonder whether they thought that he would win again.

Yeah.

Do you, do you think that maybe this is also a function of maybe her age and gender that she is less impervious to

the

bubble protecting her, I guess, or less likely to have the bubble protect her?

I wonder if, because she's a woman,

because she's so much younger than some of the other conservative justices, if she's actually hearing the feedback.

Whereas like a Thomas, Thomas doesn't listen to anybody except his benefactors.

Like if you're not buying them in RV, he doesn't give a shit what I'm saying.

Exactly.

That's a really fascinating take.

So yes, she's one of the youngest.

And I think that probably does play into it from an age standpoint.

I also think that as women,

And I'm going to include, you know, Katanji Brown Jackson, who's a friend of mine, right?

Like Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Elena Kagan on the bench.

As women, we are always kind of having to fight for our own visibility.

We've had to fight to be heard.

We've had to fight for a seat at the table.

And I think that

even in those type of elevated intellectual kind of circles of the law, it still happens for women.

And I think even for somebody like her, she still had to fight for where she had to be.

Now, all of that being said, you would think it would mean that she would lend herself to maybe being a little bit more towards our side, right, about things.

But I think that for her, I think you're right, Chris.

I think it just makes her maybe a little bit more empathetic.

And isn't that the irony?

The irony is judges are not supposed to bring their biases or their prejudices to the bench.

When they don their black robes, they're supposed to just sit in judgment according to the law, the black letter law.

And that's the hypocrisy of the Clarence Thomases, the Alitos, and others that they bitch about activist leftist judges.

And yet, look what they do day in and day out.

They ignore, you know, strict construction of federal statutes and constitutional amendments to turn around and get what they want.

I think for her, I think she feels betrayed by a lot of what's happening right now.

Because if you really are a true conservative, you could not be a Trump supporter.

It makes no sense.

If you're in the traditional, you know, conservative definition, you are small fucking government.

Like you are not in my vagina that way.

Now, maybe the, you know, maybe the conservative anti-abortion part, yeah, sure, right.

But I mean, the idea that you care this much on such a granular level of what's happening on a state, it's just wild to me.

And so

I mean, maybe that's the case, Chris.

I don't know.

But I'm, again, I'm grateful for whatever, you know, little lift we can get.

I just want to get to the point, guys, where we win.

And where we win so that I don't have to feel like, I'm, thank you, Sarah May.

I have another kind of energy.

Like, I'm sick of that.

Like, I, I, I don't, I don't, I want to win so that I don't have to to be grateful for the small crumbs.

Well, and let's, let's talk about that because obviously everybody has a take on how we win again.

Um, some of the takes are completely patty, in my opinion, and some are really on the money.

Where do you stand on this?

Like, what do we, like, for 2020?

I mean, we've got two elections this year that I think we're in pretty good shape for in New Jersey and Virginia.

But, uh, you know, for 2026, like, what, I mean, Democrats shot themselves in the foot.

in November.

Like, what do we need to do to get back and start winning again?

I'm saying over and over again, we can't, we can't count on DC to do it for us.

There's a handful.

There's a handful of people that are currently elected that are working in DC on behalf of constituents, and then that's it.

Everybody else, I don't know what they're doing.

So we have to do it ourselves.

And I think that means we have to go back to the basics, which is we have to lean into our immediate local communities, which sounds kind of like counterintuitive.

Like, what do you mean, Katie?

Like, why would I be caring about my local community if you're talking about a congressional race that's coming up in the midterms in 2026?

It's because, because

for example i live in florida which is like a red state hellhole and we are out registered as democrats republicans have outregistered us like a million something votes what the

like

so is that a basic i don't know registering voters yeah right you can't get more basic than that so in order to get you to register to vote as a democrat i have to get you to care am i going to get you to care if i'm pointing to something that's happening in DC or whatever?

Yes, but it's how I present it to you.

If I tell you that your Medicare is now being dicked over, or like if your Medicaid is now being cut, or that your SNAP benefits are gone, or that Planned Parenthood is being defunded, and I could go on and on, right?

If I say that to you, then you should hopefully care enough to register as a Democrat to vote.

Now, listen, if you're a registered independent, maybe I'm still going to sway you to want to vote for a Democrat, right?

I just think that we need to start looking kind of to our side, like in laterally, instead of up.

I feel like we put so much stock in what happens on the federal voices and the federal messaging.

And I'm like, okay, I'm not going to give it to Jesus to fix it for me.

No offense, right?

No offense to King Jeffries, but no, I'm not going to give it to Jesus.

I'm not really sure.

I'm speaking my language.

It's like, you know, like, why, why am I supposed to be?

I mean, was I clapping when he, you know, was like, hey, you're not the boss of me, you know, the American public.

Yeah, but okay, now what?

Thank you.

I don't know if that made other people register to vote.

I don't think they did.

So what is it going to take?

Your, your delivery right now, from, from the first sentence in, your delivery is what I want to hear from Democratic politicians.

The consultants have come in and told everybody, like, you need to curse more.

And it sounds so fucking inauthentic.

Yeah.

Like forcing it.

They're like, they'll put in a shit here or a fuck there.

I don't even know if they've ever said fuck, but

their delivery is so fucking inauthentic.

And like, you are coming across as

Katie the lawyer, who's pissed off, like wildly intelligent, has the ammunition and is delivering it where it belongs.

How do we convince Democrats to stop listening to consultants to adjust their language and just be fucking authentic?

authentic.

I think

we can't.

I mean,

and again, I think part of the problem, Chris, is you have a consulting class and you have like a group of pundits, and they're the same damn people you hear from over and over again, including on mainstream media, and they're doing a disservice to the American public.

This consulting class and these pundits, they're all making so much money off of their gigs that they do not want to cede power or space to someone else.

And so you're not hearing the new voices or the new messaging.

You're not hearing it at all.

And so I think, I think the gut check has to happen on a level, which is, why can't I just be authentically me?

If you're a member of Congress, like I'll tell you, like I have a kid.

I care about certain things that impact my kid.

I have an 82-year-old mother.

I care about her Medicare, right?

I care about elderly care benefits.

You know, I am married and I want to make sure that, you know, my rights as a wife or my rights as a sister, a daughter, a mother, like these things mean something to me.

I'm not sure why Democrats in Congress just can't bring their authentic selves.

What are they worried about?

They had constituents that voted them into office.

I just kind of feel like there's no transparency anymore.

I feel like people do like lip, they pay lip service to this idea of transparency.

I will be transparent with you.

You're kind of not being transparent.

I'm with you on that.

I mean, for me, like one of the biggest problems is that Democrats are just in a position where they are just frightened of saying anything wrong.

Like Trump says something wrong every hour of every day.

And that is what actually makes some people like him, is the fact that he just goes out and goes, fuck it, I'm going to say what I want.

If it comes off badly, I'll be fine.

I'll say something else tomorrow.

People will forget about this.

I think these curated Democrats, feeling the way Chris is describing, I think so much of it is focused on the fact they're just terrified to say the wrong thing because they're going to get canceled by themselves, by the right.

It doesn't matter who.

They're just worried to say what they think.

And I think Democrats across the board have to adopt this perspective of we can get past a flub.

It's fine.

Just say how you think, how you think it, and people will like us more.

So I think that's 100% true.

And, you know, for those who don't know, I worked on the first Obama campaign and I was in his administration for five years.

So I've worked in the federal government and I worked in DC for, I don't know, 10, 15 years.

And I think that's part of the problem.

But I think part of the problem is that they literally live in the D.C.

bubble and they look at this from a legislative perspective and they go we don't have the numbers we can't do anything and then they throw their hands up and part of that is that some of that's that's when you bring it because if you don't have anything to lose you

lose so why don't you exactly but here's some crazy examples and like i generally think chuck schumer's okay but like you know he was bragging about sending a strongly worded letter to the president about even whatever what it was it's like You think he even read that?

Like, I, you know, and like,

and I just want to see some fire and some rage of what's going on.

And I think people like AOC and Jasmine Crockett and people like that, I have to say, a lot of it's the women of color who are standing up, which tends to be our thing and we need to change.

But like, you know, like, it's like, that's partially why this.

But that's, but that's how we had to live.

That's how we've had to live.

Right.

Yes.

Right.

Well, and I think there's something abnormal about that.

That's a day ending and why for a woman of color.

Right.

Well, right.

And that's why, like, why, partially why we started this, because people who look like us are not doing enough.

And it's time for us to stand up.

And that's where that's why why I feel it's easier for me to criticize a Chuck Schumer now because I'm just like, guys, like we aren't going to win with like legislative procedural maneuvers.

You need to get angry.

Do what Janet Mills did in Maine, the governor of Maine, which I keep talking about because I'm from Maine.

Bring it on, bitch.

And she won.

They didn't even go to court because they knew they knew they were going to get absolutely destroyed.

So they quote unquote settled, which meant they just dropped it.

Right.

And I just, you you know, and, and she is like, she's not, hasn't doesn't have any inkling, like run, she's not going to run for higher office because she's in her mid-70s or whatever.

Like some of these younger guys, I'm like, what are, why are you not screaming and yelling?

This is a five-aligned alarm fire.

And then the other part, which people don't like to talk about, is that Congress is about 3 million years old across the board.

Oh, yeah, they're just too old.

Well, there's two examples, right?

So the Jerry Connolly, who sadly passed away earlier this week, but like he decided it is his turn to be the

ranking member on oversight and basically pushed AOC aside.

And then four months later, he passes away.

There are currently three Democratic congressional seats that are empty because our members died.

The election was six months ago.

All of these people were older.

And the Trump tax bill just passed 215 to 214.

Those people were alive.

That bill, either they have to strong arm the two no votes and the person who voted present, which probably torpedoes them next year.

The two no votes included the dude that was sleeping, right?

For those of you who don't know, they went all night.

And so one of their like older members like just literally was asleep and missed the vote.

Whatever.

That's ridiculous.

But this is the thing, right?

Like I think we, I think we need to see some fire and rage from people because it is a fire and rage moment.

Like people are getting hurt and people are dying and it just feels like they're kind of asleep.

I don't think it has to be controversial to say that you either, I actually think it's a, it's, it's an example of, of bad judgment, poor judgment, if you don't step aside.

Like, yes, I don't listen to the people around you telling you that you should step aside.

Either you do or you don't, right?

If you don't, and there's a consequence, right?

I just, I don't think that that's a controversial take at all.

On the flip side, I also don't think that we necessarily have to be taking advice from people that are like 18 years old either, right?

Fair.

Like have a little bit of life.

No, I'm dead serious.

Like, do not be, do not be putting shit out there at 18 and be like, this is what's going to save democracy.

No offense.

No offense.

I think it's refreshing that you care at 18 because I swear to God, I had no idea what was going on at 18.

But I'm also kind of like, you got to live a little bit of life too.

Maybe I'm being ageist.

I don't know.

It goes both ways, right?

It goes both ways.

That's my point.

I kind of feel like if you're, again, authentically putting out who you are and what it is, here's another not, this shouldn't be controversial there is fraud waste and abuse in the federal government hello

any administration democratic or republican has fraud waste and abuse but there's a way to go about purging the fraud waste and abuse it is not the elon musk doge way it is not the trump way okay but yes it exists i i think we are we have now shifted and i think this deals with what you just said zach we have now shifted to this land of like uber extremes where you got to be worried that if you take a common sense take or approach that you're going to get canceled for it.

Yes.

100%.

What is so controversial about me saying get rid of fraud, waste, and abuse?

I prosecuted people for fraud.

I prosecuted people for abuse, right?

Like these, I've sued people for same.

Like

you can get rid of these things.

You just have to do it in the legal and appropriate way.

And so I think people need to understand that Congress is a job.

And like most jobs, you shouldn't be rewarded by being able to fail upwards in your job.

That's a big part of it.

And then it should not be where you stay forever.

Bro, you're not making enough money to stay there forever.

Do it and then leave.

Well, with their insider trading, they are.

Maybe they aren't making enough money.

I know, which is, which is why, you know, my hat off to anybody who's saying we should not be able to, you know, do stock training when you're in Congress.

But I mean, it's just, these are things that I maybe I grew up and I was taught.

These are just common sense principles that we should all kind of live and die by.

And I don't know why those common sense principles are now politicized.

I am pro-law enforcement.

I call 911 if something happens.

I appreciate the police when they come and they help me, when they serve and protect.

I think if you're a bad cop, you should be prosecuted.

What is so novel about any of this?

Like, I just don't understand why we live in these extremes where you cannot have a common sense, down the the middle approach without being feared that fearful of being canceled or being criticized for doing that.

That's the fatal flaw of the left right now, at least in my mind, is that anything that's even like touching the corner of something that Trump introduced or, you know, like Doge, for example, I'm completely with you.

Like there's, there's a rationale for Doge, not the way they did it.

It was horrendous, but there's a rationale for it.

But anybody on the left who speaks up and says, I kind of like this, they go, what are you talking about?

It's a Trump idea.

You can't have that idea.

And we need to just be able to go, all right, it may have been a Trump idea.

He's doing it badly.

It's not a terrible idea, though.

We need to be willing to accept that stuff.

Same thing with the police.

Like, I agree with you.

I'm the same way.

Like, I look at the police and obviously as a white man, it's much easier for me to go, I know, I trust the police.

I like the police.

Obviously, there's a bunch of police we want to get rid of and make sure they're not in the force, but that's a fair opinion.

Like, we should be relying on the police to do their job and trust them to do it and not force them into a position where they have a whole separate American flag that's really associated with one side of the aisle and the back the blue stuff.

It's a symptom of the left going, no, no, no, no, unless you're in this silo with us, in this extreme silo, we're going to attack you.

And that's why they're afraid to be authentic too.

People on the left have these perspectives.

They don't want to hear it.

It's just that armchair leftist perspective that really does damage this party.

It's, I mean, it gets into my work, like literally hunting extremists, gathering evidence of extremists.

Like there are people on the left's left, you know, activists and funders who are abolitionists, who want to get rid of law enforcement, period, full stop.

And it's like, okay, so what do you want me to do?

You want me to pick up a firearm to deal with the Nazis?

Because what is my other choice if it's not gathering evidence and providing it to law enforcement?

The fantasy that we can just make law enforcement not a thing anymore is what

it is not inconsequential.

It's not just a fantasy.

It leads to people making policy decisions about funding for nonprofits like my own.

You know, selfishly, I'm saying this, but

it is, you know, proposing that as if it's a real

idea that is within the Overton window of acceptable policy, that we should expect politicians to embrace it

is harmful to ourselves and ultimately leads to more cop, more bad cops being on the street because we're not dealing with the real problem.

We're making up fake solutions.

And to your point, let me be crystal clear.

When I say that I support law enforcement, I support good cops.

Yes.

And I also support a Department of Justice that prosecutes bad cops, that facilitates going after civil rights violations, that has consent decrees and judgments against bad police departments for pattern and practice of abuse of power and

conduct.

Like these are the guardrails that are supposed to exist when you have the right president who has the right attorney general that runs the right department of justice.

This is why the voting matters.

This is why the registration of the voters matters.

This is why I'm saying that we have to go back to the basics because it is a domino effect that ends up being a part of, it touches every part of our lives.

There is nowhere you can go in the United States right now where you are not affected by a Trump policy.

End of story.

Because you cannot sufficiently insulate yourself because of what he has done.

More accurately, the way that he's created a power vacuum in all of the other places.

So there's no independence of thought.

There's no independence of judgment.

Everybody's just kowtowing to what he wants to do.

And so I think that we need to accept that he's not going to change.

Moga's not going to change.

The far right's not going to change.

End of story.

I have abandoned the idea that I am ever going to penetrate that bubble.

They're not going to listen to the, you know,

what was the bat eating chink.

And I'm not even bat eating chink, whatever they want to call me, and, you know, all the other horrific, racist, female sexist things they want to send to me and threaten to kill me and my family.

They're not going to listen to me.

So the people that I want to reach are not only fellow Democrats, but also the independents, the people that said, hmm, for whatever reason, I'm on the fence about this issue or this candidate or this race.

I want to reach them.

And the way I look at it is I now have an opportunity to do it in a full-throated way in independent media.

And again, I just, I'm putting it all out there and I'm inviting people to be in my world.

And it's a little crazy in my world,

but there's also, I think, kernels of sanity that come from just me saying, this is what I have to offer.

Well, Katie, we told you we were going to get you out of here at 45 past the hour.

We failed miserably.

But I think the conversation was great.

And I would say to everybody listening, please go follow Katie on her new YouTube channel and also Substack and literally, I think, pretty much every other social media platform I think you are on the following.

Yeah, but like, look, we're all in this together, and we want to thank Katie for joining us.

This has been great.

We'll have you, we'll have to have you back on again at some point.

And thank you.

And thank you, everyone, for listening.

And we will be back with the next episode.

I just want to, before we end it, I just want to give Katie a chance to say, where do you want people to follow you, Katie?

Where's the most important place for them to follow you?

Good question.

That is such a great question.

I mean, my home, my home is Substack, right?

I mean, that's where I am because I actually write there and I do my lives and stuff.

But I will say the YouTube channel is kind of the biggest thing because I get to post my long form interviews with, I think, really important voices.

And then I get to also just use my own voice.

So I guess they're kind of in a dead tie.

That would be YouTube and Substack, because everything else, I'm there, right?

Everything else, you guys see me no matter what.

But thanks for that question, Chris.

I appreciate it.

So, everybody, follow Katie on Substack, YouTube, everywhere else, and also follow us to everywhere.

Thank you all for listening, and we'll be back very soon with the next episode.

Thanks, guys.