This was the former president's top campaign lawyer spewing some
of these conspiracy theories. But as Joe was just
saying, what a moment for this individual who used
to be America's mayor. Yes, if you step
back, just with that historical sweep, this is
a real American Shakespearean drama, right? America's mayor
, former US attorney, one of the top sort
of prosecutors in the country in the southern district of
New York. But also remember he was the leading
candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2008 at
one point by far and away, seen as possibly
the next president United States, we all know what
happened President Obama became president. Uh but then he
attached himself to Donald Trump and it's been a real
decline since then, espousing these conspiracy theories about the
election defaming these poll workers. It really was a
textbook defamation case and now left of almost a destitute
, he's been suspended from practicing law in New York
. He's fighting disbarment proceedings in the district of Columbia
. He doesn't have anywhere near$148 million. And
his lawyer says this is really the civil case equivalent
of the death penalty. How about that? 148
$million million that he does not have. Right.
What's he going to do? Yeah. I mean
, it's a real question. He does have a
radio show that gives him some income podcast. You
know, some of these right wing on the upper
East side and a$6 million apartment on the upper
east side that's been for sale for a number of
months and not selling, not having any takers.
You know, a number of these uh these right
wing figures and probably some Western ones as well in
American life are able to monetize that by podcast.
We see George Santos being disgraced in Congress and turning
it around to a successful career on cameo selling short
videos of himself. So who knows what the next
chapter of this American life is? But this chapter
seems to be coming to a pretty compelling and sad
end as someone who's been around the radio business for
a while, unless he's selling his own commercials,
which it might come to. I'd love to know
how much he is really making this about selling your
show. Yes, we'll talk about that later.
Not the only story we're discussing at the table today
. The house has gone. As we told you
yesterday, the Senate is going to stay around a
while. But there are big questions whether anything can
happen between now and the end of the year on
the matter of the border which brings us to Ukraine
and Israel. The supplemental funding request that President Biden
put forth. I talked about that earlier today with
Jim Gilmore, the former Governor of Virginia and former
ambassador to the Organization for Security and co-operation in Europe
. He's speaking in a very concerned manner about what's
happening in Ukraine and as a former chair of the
Republican Governors Association has strong feelings about the border.
Here's what he told us, my view is that
the border issue is legitimate. It's something that ought
to be taken up. There's a consensus in the
United States that it ought to have to be addressed
. But I don't think we ought to lose sight
of the reality here that the real strategic threat to
the United States rests in Ukraine. Ukraine is the
pivot on which the future is going to turn.
If the Russians are able to conquer Ukraine and absorb
them into the Russian Empire by force violence and atrocity
, they change the entire rules of the game.
Megyn Scully, the former ambassador, former governor was
obviously concerned about the situation at the border, but
he sounded more concerned about Ukraine and he's frustrated that
not all members of his party feel that way the
border is going to have to come first. Can
anything happen in the next week? Well, as
you said, the house is gone, likely until
January 9th. Yes. So the Senate is really
the only game in town right now, they're negotiating
with the White House trying to strike some kind of
a deal that they hope to pass the Senate,
but it can't become law until it actually passes the
House. The hope is that if they get on
the board with a compromise that can pass, that
includes both border and Ukraine, that they can get
the House to go along with us. Early in
January, the House, of course, has been
incredibly resistant to any Ukraine funding and they're really putting
a hard line out there on immigration. One that
, that even though Democrats are more willing to negotiate
on this than in years past some of the things
on the table, just go a bridge too far
for Democrats. Majority leader, Senator Schumer says they
can actually have a vote next week. Do you
really foresee a vote or just an agreement in principle
between Republicans and Democrats? Well, they need something
to vote on before they can have a vote.
So I think that we're certainly towards the end of
this week, the negotiations have picked up the White
House came on board with an offer that was met
with some skepticism from Republicans, but it was at
least a step in the right direction. I think
it is certainly a reach goal to get a vote
before the end of next week. But as we've
seen on debt ceiling, as we've seen on government
shutdowns, Congress can move quickly when they are when
they feel the urgency to do so. And they
are certainly feeling it on Ukraine. The minority leader
, Senator mcconnell is one of the biggest boosters of
Ukraine. And there are Republicans such as Senator Thune
and others in the Senate that want to see this
done in addition to Democrats. It's interesting that we
keep hearing Chuck Schumer talk about the supplemental, the
original request from the White House, which has already
been diced up by the House. And Speaker Johnson
says they won't take that bill, but we're going
to go for it anyway. Remembering that's also Taiwan
, that's also Israel. I wonder Gregory, you've
been steeped in campaign coverage for months. Now,
the extent to which this might resonate on the campaign
trail, which is focused so much on inflation on
the economy on Joe Biden's age. Are voters watching
this? Yes, I mean, generally speaking,
voters do not vote on foreign policy unless the United
States is actively engaged in a shooting war somewhere.
And that's not the case here. I think Israel
obviously has a lot of support across party lines and
a lot of different places in the country, but
it's really the border issue that's animating this for most
voters and especially Republican voters who want to see something
done on the southern border. And for President Biden
, the issues in Ukraine and Israel are important and
he's got to deal with them as president, but
a distraction politically and there's nobody who would rather get
this supplemental behind him and be able to pivot back
to those economic issues that you're talking about than Joe
Biden because it's really been a drag among even key
parts of his constituency who believe that he is spending
too much time on foreign affairs and not on domestic --> .