Trump's Tenth Try

you know, I'm not basically above threatening jail time. And here's my thing. Can we just stop with the fucking threats and just get to the doing. And if you're gonna say that, holding Donald Trump in prison would be a logistical nightmare because of the Secret Service, because of this. Because of that, then I have another idea. Maybe you start finding Donald Trump in a way that is actually fucking painful and on par with however much money he

lies about having in the bank. So we know that the appeals judge in his you know, other fraud trial with in terms of how he ballooned the costs of his real estate properties, he was supposed to pay out half a billion dollars and there wasn't going to be a bank that was going to give him that money. And then, of course an appeals court comes back and they lower it and then he's able to pay it off. My thing is start making it actually fucking hurt, and

then maybe Donald Trump will shut the fuck up. So if for every time that he violates the court's gag order, it is going to cost him one hundred thousand dollars, and we know that that is going to happen on a weekly basis, then you're talking about by the end of the month him racking up somewhere between four hundred and five hundred thousand dollars. That to me makes fucking sense. But if you're just gonna roll out and say, oh, well, I'm gonna find you one thousand dollars. What the fuck

Donald Trump spends that at McDonald's for lunch. So I'm just like, I'm tired of the consistent finger wagging at Donald Trump and the empty threats that are never going to, you know, measure up to anything, or like the moments that we think that the justice system has finally caught up to him, only to make an entire u turn and start the erase over again. I'm just fucking over it because you all know that if it were any of us that were on trial, we would have been

in jail. Oh I don't know. Nine times ago people are thrown in contempt of court folks for showing up late to their trial by a few minutes. Do you know what I'm saying, in order to teach them a lesson. So if you want to teach Donald Trump a lesson and it's too much of an obstacle to throw him in jail, then I I say that you start making it financially painful for him to shut the fuck up. Like I you know it, just like in so many ways, everything is just beyond exhaustion. I don't know what we

go beyond exhaustion. Is it burnout, is it a coma? I have no fucking idea, But I do know that I'm completely and totally over every single one of these lawsuits that are never going to see any outcome before twenty twenty four, the election. And the fact is that I continue to say that the only thing that is going to hold Donald Trump accountable are the American people voting to end his political career, to end the political party. Finally,

that's it. You know, After that, then the justice system will be clear to actually treat Donald Trump the way that he should be treated, because you won't be running for a political office and won't be able to say that this is some type of political witch hunt. It'll just be another fucking old, privileged white dude on trial for shit that shit caught up to him four decades ago.

I digress, folks. Coming up next, I'm gonna be in conversation once again with friend of the show, and you know someone who I think provides a great deal of clarity to us, which is Sky Perriman, who is the CEO of Democracy Forward, is going to join me to discuss you know, where we are right now, in this moment, as we make the slow march to the election, and what they think is necessary to make the American people aware that this election is not the most consequential, it

is going to be the last election of the United States, if in fact people decide to either sit out or vote for Donald Trump. That conversation is coming up next, folks. I am so excited to welcome back to ook f Daily, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, Sky Perryman, to give us kind of you know, Sky, Democracy Forward. What is it's kind of like Democracy Forward? Question mark. I feel like you need you need to add to the to the organization website and branding. But I don't know

what's happening. I don't you know, you tell me because between right now, following the Supreme Court, following h Donald Trump's cases before the Supreme Court in Manhattan, you know, and and following what is happening with the Biden campaign, It's just it's a lot. So I want to start off with asking you what are you all keeping track of?

What do we need to be you know, honestly paying attention to because as of the time of this recording, we are are less than two hundred days away from election day, which every day I'm not going to provide my audience with a countdown because I don't want them to lose their mind. But it's wild where we are, So talk to me. Where is democracy forward and where are you? Well?

promis of democracy. That our country has changed a lot since it was founded, and that there are a lot more people that look like you, there are a lot more people that look like me, There are a lot more people that look like all of our friends and neighbors. And that we are a real multi race, multi generational,

diverse society. And that there is a movement to seek to push us back to a time where that was not the case, or where power structures sought to undermine the ability of so many people to be able to determine who governs them, to be able to determine their lives and their futures. And so that's what we're fighting for. So just yesterday I was at the Supreme Court where the Court heard a case concerning access to abortion in emergency situations, with people who literally go into an emergency

room with life and health threatening conditions. This extremism has gone so far extreme that we are having to basically beg at the Supreme Court as women to be treated as fully human to be able to approach an emergency room like everyone else in this country and be given the care that we need in emergent situations. And that we saw that on display yesterday at the Supreme Court.

There was literally a debate about how many organs a woman has that needs to be threatened before she can obtain an IDAHO, for instance, the care that she needs. We have women in this country being life flighted out of hospitals because they cannot get the care to save

their health and their life or even their fertility. And that was yesterday at the Court, and then today at the Court we have seen questioning that suggests that there is a movement in this country that believes that a person who has held political office can engage in all sorts of unlawful activity and it's just their prerogative. And that is really not what a democracy is. So we are watching a lot. We're watching what's in the courts,

we're watching what is in communities across the country. But we're also watching, you know, the hope that we can have in this moment, if we all use our lives and if we all do what we can in this moment to say that this narrow, rigid, back words vision for the country does not represent you, it doesn't represent me, and it doesn't represent the vast majority of people in this country. And we need to use all the tools

we have to fight back. So I'll start maybe I'll just start with that, that's a lot.

and it's hard. I think it's hard even for us whose job it is right to pay attention to all of the things that are happening and to try and make them digestible, to try and encourage people to engage that for lay people to understand and keep track, right, it's nearly impossible I want to go to the Idaho case and lift that up that you were just discussing, because I have to tell you that listening to the five men on the Supreme Court, particularly Justice Alito, just

glossing over the health, the safety and well being of women and pregnant people is wild to me. And I honestly think you know, and I you know this is me saying this and not you, that cruelty really is the point, right, Because if a group of doctors recently sent an open letter to the Supreme Court saying, how many seces of blood does a woman have to lose before we can proceed with an abortion? How much oxygen right to your point, how many organs need to be

in failure? Right? How far along does the sepsist need to be? These are people that went to law school, they didn't go to medical school. They didn't swear an oath to do no harm, because all they're doing is harm. So I wonder when we're thinking about how we move democracy forward sky and democracy not only does it it's

not stuck, it's being rolled backwards. What does it look like in the next you know, less than two hundred days to galvanize people to the severity of the situation that we're in.

and there's real harm. But to your question about galvanization of people, I think we need to be able to look at this reality in the face and to not blink. And so it's telling stories about what we saw yesterday and not trying to make people feel better about it. I was in the courts in the courtroom watching this exchange about how severe something needs to be. Are people looking down at their papers on the dais when when Justice Sodomayor was reading the accounts that have been filed

with the court. And we need to be able to sit in this reality and not really. In twenty twenty one, the United States was added to a list of backsliding democracies in the world, and we're the only country that's not part of the Global South, and that was not a former USSR affiliate country that is on that list. We are a complete outlier for that list. And that was the state of democracy in twenty twenty one before we started looking at the threats and seeing the threats

we have today. One of the things we need to galvanize around that. If your listeners are tuning in, please go google it, learn about it, talk about it is something called Project twenty twenty five YEP, which is a project that has been put out. It is nine hundred pages. I have read it, so I'm happy to come on and talk about that at some point in more detail.

But it is a man asserted effort, a manifesto, a concerted effort of a society that they want a society where we are not prioritizing our climate, we're not prioritizing our workers in our workforce. We're criminalizing women's health on a national basis, as opposed to now where we have a lot of states that are seeking to criminalize women's health.

And all I could think about yesterday in the courtroom, that's how powerful it was that the United States was who was there, represented by our Solicitor General was there, and they were there on the side of the federal government, and they were there on the side of women who need emergency care. And that doesn't happen right if we're

looking at Project twenty twenty five. We don't have that Solicitor General, and we don't have the United States government, at least the federal government putting its full full force behind some of these issues. And so I think the stakes are really high. But for galvanizing, we've got to be able to sit in this reality. We've got to be able to have these conversations and talk to people

about it. And if it makes you uncomfortable, it should, and that discomfort should get you motivated to do anything you can do at this moment in our country.

that we are living in. With the argument that the Trump lawyers are putting forward basically, the president of the United States could kill the first lady in the White House and nothing would happen to them, could order the Secret Service protection to kill the first lady in the White House and in less according to the Trump attorneys, they were convicted under impeachment, and then it went to a lower court and a court isci you know, it would basically be okay, your thoughts.

seeing this extremism. So, you know, I think this is definitely something to pay attention to. But I want to make sure your listeners because we've been talking with a lot of media and you know, everybody's very they're following this, They're following the trial in Manhattan. That's very important and it symbolizes where we are in the country. But you know, last year we had over four thousand fans and communities

throughout the country. We have access to healthcare issues. There are still people that are making such low wages that they can't put food on their table, and the price

of food is where it is. And so I just want to also ground us in not falling for thinking about the very tip of the headline and not really looking at how we can be part of a change and holding people accountable to the American people, not just on one or two issues, but on all the issues that are so critical and so intertwined and under attack at this moment. So that's one thing I'll say. But I do think you know, the other thing we know from history is that when democracies fall, you can go

look at it. They often fall because people take for granted they think, well, that could never happen here. And so I really want your listeners to just and I think you do a good job of it on your show.

Oh but we've got to come to the reality. This is what was happening in the Supreme Court today, this is what people are suggesting, and we had questioning from the justices suggesting that you know, if you hold the president accountable to the laws, well then the president may not we may not want to like move on from a peaceful transition of power. That is, you know that this is the kind of situation that we're seeing, which is just an extremism from from some of the justices

as well as from Council in that case. And so we have power in this country. We don't have to stick with courts that are rigged. We don't have to stick with a rig gain. We don't have to coordinate our leaders as kings and queens, and we need to be thinking about in using all the tools our democracy provides. It's voting, but it's being informed, it's advocating. We're going to be in court, you know, arguing for the right things, but it's we need to be using all of those tools at this time.

this show. Yep, you know, to raise the alarm and say it's not something that they're doing behind closed doors, like it's on their website. You can download it, it's free, and so I just wonder do you think Americans are paying attention. Do you think that they recognize that this election really is the most consequential election or have we been saying that for too long that it doesn't resonate anymore.

in the country. The Project twenty twenty five early represents this highly coordinated far right movement that is finding common cause with other interests and that seeking to normalize this five alarm fire. I mean, I'm going to say, you know, the democracy has been under threat for many years for their entire existence for many people who aren't included in our nation's founding, and it has been an urgent matter

that needs to be addressed, and it remains urgent. But what we're seeing now is just on on a wider scale. Were even even rights of people who have enjoyed more privileged throughout the country, even rights of people those are now being threatened, and we're now seeing even you know, this is just a much It's a much more extreme version of a lot of a lot of the fights. And so I think that paying attention really matters. But educating and making sure that we all understand how this

affects our lives. Dobbs has been devastating. One of the things that it did, though, was it has forced people to come to grips in many ways with what this really means, as the harrowing accounts that Justice Sotomayor and others were referring to yesterday at the argument. And so I think we really need to be able to connect for people where the threats to our democracy are coming from. And then what tools we have to push back.

for democracy, and they're serious about it. They say they can't stomach it. What do you say, Well, look.

going to take all of us. And we have seen in prior times where people thought, well, it couldn't get that, you know, it couldn't get worse. I mean, we saw you know before it was always well everyone was saying Roby Wade is under threat, and it was like, well, that's really not going to happen. Well, you know it has, and we're now having debates at the US Supreme Court about how many women have to die and how many organs women have to lose in order to get healthcare.

And so I think that we know that these are matters that concern the well being of people in communities, and there should you know, we can't be apathetic and maybe that there's something that motivates you. There's a lot of ways that people can get involved, and not everybody needs to be Not everybody's an activist. Not everybody's going to show up to a rally or hold a sign. Not everybody wants to run for office. Not everybody wants to be a lawyer, not everybody wants to be a journalist.

But there are things that we can do in our individual lives. Libraries are under attack, schools are under attack, public servants are under attack. You know, find a way in your community, in your localized setting to get involved and get involved civically and to see the people in communities that are at stake, and then we have to

use our power to try to make things better. And one of those powers is obviously getting involved in making sure that we're voting and that we're showing up for democracy. But there's a lot of other things as well. So I would just say, you know, I couldn't do my job if I didn't have hope. And what gives me hope is seeing the people yesterday. I mean, we had doctors from across the country, patients from across the country at the Supreme Court demanding more. We see this in

schools across the country. Is people that are saying, you know, democracy is not going to fall on my watch, and I'm going to do what I can in this moment. I had a cab driver the other day that said to me he was a former civil servant. He's retired, he drives in retirement, and he wanted to talk. We drove past the Washington Monument. He wanted to talk about our country, and he said, you know, now is the time that good people need to come to the aid

of their country. And that was a when he was when he was in civil service in the civil rights movement. This was something and in the Vietnam War that people said, and he said that it was a good saying for today, and I think it is now is the time that good people need to come to the aid of their country. And so thanks for having me on, and we all got our hat to hold on to that home.