205. The Secret Message in Todd Blanche’s Senate Hearing

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The Rest Is Politics: US 34 min 2 speakers 4 chapters transcribed 2 months ago
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Katty Kay 0:08
Hello and welcome to The Rest Is Politics US with me, Cathy Kay, feeling kind of despondent after the very sad England loss. But I'm glad that you have brought the appropriate T-shirt, Anthony Scaramucci. I think that's a little on the nose, actually. I actually think you could have been a little bit more empathetic today.
Anthony Scaramucci 0:27
For those listening, it says the British blew a 13 colony lead and there's George Washington with his sunglasses on.
Katty Kay 0:32
I think that's a little harsh today.
Anthony Scaramucci 0:34
I was cheering for the Three Lions yesterday. I was disappointed to see that. But I will say this, Katty, as somebody who's vertically challenged, there was a bunch of 5'7 people running around playing against a group of giants, and they were beating up on them. And so for all of you people that are built close to the ground like me, there's hope for all of us, I guess I would say.
Katty Kay 0:58
So Anthony Scaramucci, Lionel Messi, in the same bracket is what we're saying. That is good. It's a delusion of grandeur.
Anthony Scaramucci 1:07
We are roughly the same height, okay? Although I'm sure that we don't have the same body fat composition, but we are roughly the same height. But listen, to quote Tony Pastor, who's one of the founders here at Gallhanger, you can't defend against a lion like that. You're going to end up getting clawed. But anyway, listen, it was a phenomenal World Cup run for the English team.
Katty Kay 1:30
And everybody should tune in to Gary Lineker and co on The Rest Is Football on Netflix because they're doing a great job of analyzing how that match went down. Those of you who need a bit of therapy, like in my house, tune in there. Okay, for us... It's been a very busy few days on Capitol Hill. There have been two extremely heated confirmation hearings, and we're going to discuss the grillings of both the acting Attorney General, Todd Blanch, who wants to become the Attorney General and take over from Pam Bondi, and Trump's pick for Director of National Intelligence, of course, to take over from Tulsi Gabbard, Jay Clayton. These hearings were kind of exercises in how much loyalty can I show to Donald Trump?
Katty Kay 2:11
In the second half of the show, we are going to talk about the new waiver strikes on Iran. Blockades have been reinstated on the Strait of Hormuz. I have been told that global oil supplies really have no buffer zone and we're close to running on empty. What does that mean for the global economy? But also, how on earth could this whole process have been run so incompetently? So we'll talk about that in the second half. But let's start, Antony, with those hearings. I watched the hearing several hours each between Todd Blanch and the senators and Jay Clayton and the senators. And my takeaway was that this was a big loyalty test, that loyalty to Donald Trump was being tested in public. And both of these men, Jay Clayton and Todd Blanch, who are respected figures otherwise,
Katty Kay 3:03
and well-known in Washington. These are not the kind of Bill Pulte, Kash Patel sort of fringe joke figures as those guys are seen in Washington. These guys have a long history and long reputation and they are respected. And yet over the course of those hearings, both men in separate ways chose to show that they were gonna put their loyalty to Donald Trump and their fear of Donald Trump over any expression of candor. I think what we saw on Capitol Hill recently was American democracy and the elections process being tested. I'm not sure it holds up because both of these guys, in separate ways, show that they are not prepared to say to Donald Trump, Joe Biden won the 2020 election, our elections were free and fair in the case of Jay Clayton.
Katty Kay 3:58
And in the case of Todd Blanch, they are not prepared to say, we are going to make sure that a deal that gives Donald Trump immunity from tax prosecutions or investigations is completely ripped up because that is what the president wants. He wants that immunity. I mean, it was, again, it was in the kind of, you know, shocking but not surprising categories to hear these two men fall over themselves in the way that they did.

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