Felony counts doing everything he can to get the case against him then out of courts. There are big developments in beth of those stories, and were going to get to all of them this hour. But if theres one person that embodies the dual crysies facing the gop right now, the dual crises of chaos and Lul Criminality it is this guy, congressman George Santos, a Serial Fabulist who remains in the house despite being charged with 13 counts of fraud, Money Lawderring and theft. That staffer admitted to having made up Fake Campaign donations for Santos Campaign and that Conspiracy Charge is part of the broader case against her boss, George Santos, whos been accused of crimes from defrauding voters to falsifying official paperwork to lying to the government in order to get pandemic aid. So the fact this san toegs Campaign Official is now admitting to that ledge scheme that is bad news for congressman santos. And yet he remains in Good Standing with the house. I mean if anything George Santos is
theirselves as republicans and conservatives, and who are really, really bothered by this. in these states bothered by the last election, people like liz cheney were going out there you have to vote so you can fix yourselves as republicans. to nick s point, where does the fix come from? how does it happen when places like the michigan republican party actually elect an election denier who didn t do well in the last election, who lost to their state chairmanship? well, that s a great question. nobody has an answer to it. nobody has found an answer to it, because you have both a leadership problem and a followership problem, right? with the republican party, it may start with donald trump at the top, but you re also seeing this grassroots transformation. and so, you know, nick ran through a list of the heavyweights in michigan. and if the betsy devoses of the world can t fix it, it s hard to imagine who will. and i think they simply have to wait until the crazy burns
but he has he come out and denounced trump, who always denounces him and said he should not be the nominee? i will fight against him? no. who was derelict of duty when the capitol was being attacked? should still be commander in chief again some day? no. he hasn t said that because it hasn t been in his political interests yet. so until he does that, joy, you said these are hard questions. these are not hard questions. they re not. they re craziness is that people treat them as they are. oh, no, if you re ron desantis and asked who is right, mike pence or donald trump, that s a hard question. it s a hard question for you. well, it s a really hard question because you know now that if you don t embrace the coup, if you don t embrace the insurrection, if you don t embrace the lies, you re going to be a pariah. so donald trump does not make it easy. but david makes a few important points. the republican party does not have a leadership problem. it has a followership proble
biden wins wisconsin again by 20,000 votes, what would happen? do you think that the next time around a republican-dominated legislature in a republican governor might actually do the unthinkable and overturn the result and i am not confident whatsoever that they would not do that. so, i mean, when you say this is about 2024, you re exactly right. what is the point of the audits other than to discredit the election system, to plant doubt? and you re seeing this from the grassroots, but you re seeing it from the top. you have a leadership problem. you have a followership problem. donald trump goes to iowa and instead of talking about substantive issues that affect the american people, he is doubling down, tripling down, quadrupling down on the big lie, and nobody is pushing back against him. so, what s interesting is you have a lot of cynical republicans who have gone along with the audit because, why not? you don t want to get the tweets. but they re being pushed by the crazies all the
the common assumption is that elites are always hiding something, those people at the top are nowhere near as smart or as wonderful, as pure as all-knowing me. he ends with i don t know if america has a leadership problem. it certainly has a followership problem. i will let you respond but i also want to bring in one of the examples used is occupy wall street. that s an example of the incredibly self-important crowd, not partaking in the political system and fundamentally, this mistrust of institutions has not created better institutions because people aren t buying in. it s not because the people at the top aren t doing very well but because of the followership problem. occupy wall street is interesting to me because i always felt there were two stories going on there. one was the actual physical movement itself, the people who were camped out and some of them who are still active in that movement. i think it connected with something much broader than that. it s people who would n