do you think about the cost-benefit analysis here? Well, of course it worries me. It has to.

It has to worry any sensible thinking person to argue for breaching norms that have guided our country

for 250 years. On the other hand, I don't think the democratic self-restraint is what is going to

stop Trump from acting. Back in 2017, I thought that Trump was an aberration, an unusual,

and black swan, if you will. And my thought was that you had to defend the norms of the rule of law,

good governance, and the only way to do that was to maintain them even in the face of his

aberrational behavior. Today, I think we know that Trump is not an aberration. He's a phenomenon. He's a movement. And as such, what we have to do

is recalibrate how we respond to that. And it now strikes me as essential to at least begin to

play to the edge of the field, right? To go as far as the law permits in combating the authoritarian excesses of Trump.

And the way I wrote about in the Atlantic is the pardon power.

A pardon for Hunter Biden, a pardon for Trump's critics would be completely normative breaking.

And it would be out of character, out of historical tradition.

But at this point, I was listening to your earlier broadcast you were talking about,

Kosh Patel.

He's got a list of 60 people he wants to prosecute.

That's a real list.

Will he do all of them?

I don't know.

Will there be resistance at the FBI?

Probably.

But, you know, one of the realities of being investigated is that investigation has a cost, even if you're not

prosecuted in the end. You have to hire a lawyer, the mental cost, the time, the resources.

...