existential threat than it has ever been. and what the january 6th committee is doing that we re talking about right now is critical to preventing it from ever happening again, that kind of a thing, or from all of our rights being taken away by an authoritarian figure. so that s why i m wearing the pin in honor of december 7th, 1941. a tribute to history and a thought about living history and the history we may make. appreciate it. i didn t know what the answer would be, but i figured it would be good. jill and michelle, my thanks to both of you. thank you. thank you. absolutely. we ve got a lot coming up. che komen dury back on the beat talking about what he calls a cult of celebrity in the gop. why it s about more than hypocrisy and affects the demise of policy as we know it. another big story. a maga lawmaker leaving congress to go work for trump directly in a company that s now under
democrats all the more worrisome, but you also seem to be pointing to something also known as a prerequisite. doctors have prerequisites. police and military have prerequisites. there is an idea that especially for a president, but even for higher office like the senate, there should be prerequisites. your point here is that the modern republican party doesn t, what, care enough about the difficulty of governing to apply prerequisites to candidates? that s exactly true. i mean, they don t want policy wonks. when is the last time ucould name a republican policy wonk? it s been quite a while since we had any kind of policy wonk type of candidate run for president or gain national office on the republican side. mitch mcconnell doesn t want policy wonks or people who are super knowledgeable about policy. those sorts of people are much harder to wrangle and lead. you know, and cast the votes that mitch mcconnell would like. the reality is that the
i m back with michael hirschhorn, emmy nominated producer of the hbo documentary, and someone who has analyzed the intersection of reality tv, the grift, and our national politics and our future. welcome back, sir. thank you so much. what do you think is important beyond some of the sort of controversy history in this development of someone as powerful as devin nunes, who would have been controlling potentially federal spending if he stayed on that committee and they win power back, to becoming a trump employee literally? well, i think, you know, some of the recent reporting has really shown the degree to which january 6th is a prelude to a kind of broader coup that is going on in this country that s taking place over the next few years. and that i think probably will culminate in 2024. i have been trying to wrap my
business corruption tactics, which are a feature of authoritarian countries in the modern era because if you re on the right side of a putin or one of these strong men or women if you want, dictators, then you re placed in all these other positions, and so it becomes a sort of noncivic way, and even noncapitalist way to insure that as long as you re with the strong person, then you re good. that s right. and i think that, you know, it seems we ll see how this plays out. i was glad to see the s.e.c. went after this new quote/unquote social media start-up. if it gets off the ground, it s a brilliant insidious way to raise a lot of money very quickly. and you know, if trump has been good at anything, it s at kind of big number, big dollar value grifting. and i think some of the mockery