Jamie Raskin and Ryan Holiday: Expose All the Corruption All the Way Down

Tim Miller opened by asking Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and ranking member of House Judiciary, whether Democrats were headed for a sweep. Raskin, speaking from Maryland’s 8th District after visiting 27 states, said “landslide conditions” were forming and that Haley Stevens’s late break with her Democratic colleague had motivated Democrats. He acknowledged that Republican Andy Harris could still win, but said Democrat Dan Schwartz was gaining ground in rural areas after extensive grassroots work, including Raskin’s participation in the Democracy Summer Project. Raskin argued Democrats would win rural seats despite having less local infrastructure.

Asked about Donald Trump’s closing message, including his focus on repairing the White House reflecting pool and claiming inflation was solved, Raskin called the pool a “straight of warm ooze” and an illustration of the new swamp. He said Trump changed the water’s hue for the Fourth of July, hired a private contractor through a no-bid arrangement, spent more than $25 million, and left the site fenced off. Raskin argued the administration turns government facilities into political props and government into a profit-making scheme for the Trump family. Miller agreed the choice was both illegal and moronic.

Miller contrasted Trump’s reflecting-pool fixation with Vice President JD Vance repeating a claim that illegal Somali communities were coordinating to flood Ohio polling places. Miller traced the claim to a Laura Loomer post and said Vance appeared to be taking orders from a racist blogger. Raskin argued that Ohio, which Republicans had treated as an authoritarian “mega fiefdom,” could become politically competitive again through Sherrod Brown’s Senate campaign and Amy Acton’s gubernatorial campaign. He also mocked a Republican claim that Democrats would “make Ohio a state,” saying Democrats intended to restore it as part of the United States.

Raskin described a roughly half-hour call with Haley Stevens beginning at 9:42 before her public break, saying many Democrats experienced her action as a rupture and betrayal. He questioned why, if Stevens objected to her colleague Abdul El-Sayed’s Middle East position, she endorsed Republican Mike Rogers, who opposes abortion rights, labor, unions, and environmental protections and supports Trump. Raskin said concerns about antisemitism on the left are legitimate, but insisted it must also be condemned on the right, citing Trump’s relationship with neo-Nazi Nicholas Fuentes, the Charlottesville “very fine people” remark, and Trump’s 2016 ad targeting Lloyd Blankfein, Janet Yellen, and George Soros.

Miller highlighted Texas Democrats Gina Hinojosa and James Talarico, who rallied around Sam Houston’s example: “Do right and risk the consequences.” Raskin praised Talarico’s campaign as flawless and said Texas demographics, particularly young voters and Latino voters, were moving away from Trump-style authoritarian politics. He also named Blake Jendabean in rural New York, Cali Bar in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Janelle Stelson challenging Scott Perry in Pennsylvania, and author Beth Macy in Virginia. Raskin said Jendabean’s more than 100 town halls and the candidates’ community ties could overcome Elon Musk-funded negative advertising.

Raskin explained that Robert Garcia’s Oversight Committee can investigate broadly, while Judiciary will focus on the Justice Department, rule of law, civil rights, civil liberties, the Constitution, and the federal courts. He said Judiciary’s Epstein investigation concerns alleged DOJ suppression of information and refusal to cooperate with state and foreign investigations. Raskin questioned who ordered redactions in released files and said Congress could subpoena employees involved in those decisions. He also asked why then-number-two DOJ official Todd Blanche interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell for two days after DOJ said no further prosecutions were indicated, followed by Maxwell’s transfer to a minimum-security Texas prison.

On whether Jared Kushner could be subpoenaed, Raskin said no ordinary citizen has immunity from congressional testimony; a witness must appear and assert a specific privilege, such as the Fifth Amendment, question by question. He cited Matthew Cole’s book Princes and Thieves, which argues that Kushner’s more than $2 billion from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar may have been arranged while he was still a government employee, rather than only after the administration ended. Raskin characterized Kushner as potentially a billion-dollar “bag man” and said Democrats would investigate government, private, and corporate slush funds.

Miller worried that Democratic leaders’ language about “measured” and “targeted” oversight could mean less aggressive investigations. Raskin said Democrats could pursue both accountability and policy: investigate corruption, consider impeachment of officials such as Pete Hegseth, restore Medicaid and Affordable Care Act tax credits, and reclaim public lands allegedly handed to mining and timber companies. He cited reported government-contract benefits to Trump associates and Donald Trump Jr.’s claimed 1,000% first-year return from a private-equity fund, alongside Trump’s reported personal earnings of more than $2 billion in his first year—over a million dollars an hour. Raskin predicted Democrats would at least triple their margin and possibly gain 15 seats.

At the Painted Porch Bookshop in Bastrop, Ryan Holiday advised anxious election-night listeners to follow Seneca: “He who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary.” Once someone has voted, helped others vote, and done what they can, repeatedly checking the New York Times needle cannot change the result; sleep and preparation remain within one’s control. Holiday warned against expecting a single election to restore normality, noting that even Socrates’s “golden age” Athens included war, defeat, the Thirty Tyrants, and Socrates’s execution. He said politics is a series of battles rather than one decisive cure.

Holiday said the lesson of the Trump era is not to remain silent or bend the knee, but to say what one thinks and refuse to participate in cruelty, corruption, or moral inversion. He argued that Stoicism is not being emotionless or disengaged: its virtues are courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom, and Stoics historically participated in politics. Responding to criticism of his middle-finger photo aimed at Ken Paxton, Holiday said he can regard Paxton as a corrupt “pathetic piece of shit” without being consumed by anger, though he admitted social-media arguments often seem less worthwhile in retrospect. Miller and Holiday joked that Ivanka Trump’s interest in Marcus Aurelius might be an attempt to distance herself from her father, while Holiday allowed that simply not participating would still be better than participating.