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Jane Coaston: It’s Thursday, September 4th, I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show celebrating Newsmax for its lawsuit against Fox News. Because Fox News is dominating the quote, “right-leaning pay TV news market.” Yes, Newsmax, please spend lots of money on a lawsuit against FOX News, because there can only be one winner in the right-leaning Pay TV News Market. Have fun! [music break] On today’s show, Florida’s Surgeon General very proudly announces that the state is working to end vaccine mandates. And rumors are swirling about the possibility of the Trump administration offering New York City Mayor Eric Adams a job to get him out of the mayoral race. But let’s start with Congress. Remember Congress? Well, like school, autumn, and the Backstreet Boys, Congress is back in session, and there’s a lot to do. Let’s start with the potential for a government shutdown. If Congress doesn’t fund the government by midnight on September 30th, the government will close up shop. Democrats have demanded meetings with president Donald Trump and the GOP to create a bipartisan spending bill. That’s because the Republicans need the Democrats, at least seven of them in the Senate, to pass something. But Trump and GOP don’t seem inclined to do any deal making, even if that means the government shuts down. And House Speaker Mike Johnson made his thoughts clear on that possibility Wednesday. 

[clip of House Speaker Mike Johnson] If the government shuts down, it will be because Congressional Democrats rejected common-sense solutions to fund the government and instead caved to their far-left base. 

Jane Coaston: That’s right. Sure, the GOP has the majority in the House and Senate, but really, it’s the fault of Democrats for everything. But preventing a shutdown isn’t the only task ahead of Congress. On Wednesday, survivors of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein spoke on Capitol Hill, demanding answers and more information on his crimes. We’ll talk more about that press conference later in the show. It came a day after the House Oversight Committee released over 33,000 documents related to the Epstein investigation, though most of those files had already been made public. Kentucky Republican Representative Thomas Massie also filed his discharge petition on Tuesday, in his efforts to get more Epstein information released, despite the GOP trying to stop him by any means necessary. And if you think it sure is weird that the GOP is fighting tooth and nail against a Republican to stop more Epstein details from being made public, me too. So for more on Epstein, a potential shutdown, and what Democrats do now, I spoke to Maryland’s Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen. Senator Van Hollen, welcome back to What a Day. 

Chris Van Hollen: It’s good to be with you. Thanks, Jane. 

Jane Coaston: So there’s a lot to talk about, but let’s just get this out of the way. Where are we with a vote to release more documents in the Jeffrey Epstein case? 

Chris Van Hollen: Well, I’ve been pushing for that for some time. In the Senate, we asked for our Republican colleagues to join us um through what’s called unanimous consent to ask for them. They were blocked um, in the House, as you know, there’s an ongoing effort for what’s called a discharge petition to force a vote. But you know what? Really, we shouldn’t need a vote, right? I mean, the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, has told us for years that these documents should be released. So just release the damn files. 

Jane Coaston: I think that that’s what gets me about this, is that we heard from members of, current members of the Trump administration, people who are some of Trump’s biggest backers, talking about how when Trump comes into office, he’s going to release every detail. And this is all, you know, the storm is coming and this is all going to happen. And then Trump pulled a complete 180 and started calling it a hoax, as he did on Wednesday. And as you know victims of Epstein’s held a press conference Wednesday, imploring lawmakers to do something. But is this as weird to you as it is to me? 

Chris Van Hollen: It’s very weird because we know how much harm was done to these victims and um we’ve heard their stories and for Donald Trump and Pam Bondi to go from saying that we absolutely need to disclose these files to saying this is a democratic hoax. You would hope that this is a bridge too far for his supporters because his supporters have believed for a very long time that Donald Trump was gonna go in and go after the deep state, and the deep state had been burying these Epstein files. And now they’re not letting them be released. So that’s why it’s important that we keep this front and center. Um. The main reason we have to keep it right front and center is because the victims of these horrible crimes really need to be given some kind of justice. Uh. They’ll never–

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Chris Van Hollen: –be fully compensated for their harm, but they should get some kind of justice through transparency and accountability. 

Jane Coaston: Absolutely. And I really hate when people talk about this being a distraction. Like, it’s not a distraction for them. It’s not an distraction for the people who were victimized by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. It’s just it’s just not. But to get on to other congressional matters, because we’re always having fun in Congress, we are looking at a possible government shutdown at the end of the month. The last time we were in this position back in March, which feels like it was years ago. Senator Chuck Schumer said Democrats would oppose the Republican spending bill, but then ultimately got behind a stopgap measure to avoid a shutdown. Now at the time there were real worries and I think understandable worries about what would happen with Elon Musk and DOGE if the government was closed. But what other options are there right now? Like on the one hand, yes. Trump could do a lot without Congress being available. But on the other hand, he’s doing a lot with Congress being available. So I’m curious as to what you’re thinking right now on a potential shutdown. 

Chris Van Hollen: Well, what we’re witnessing right now is the President of the United States is shutting down programs that he doesn’t like on his own will, right? So he wants to freeze funding for certain national institutes of health programs. He just does so. I guess the point I’m making, and you’re also making, is that the president’s already engaged in a shutdown in the sense that he’s shutting down things that he doesn’t like and he keeps up and running things that he does like. So that will clearly be a major factor um in whatever Congress does going forward. But you can’t have a system where the president gets to you know decide what he wants to do and rejects everything that was done on a bipartisan basis. It’s not an a la carte menu. 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Chris Van Hollen: When it comes to the budget we pass. 

Jane Coaston: So what’s your move? What are you thinking? 

Chris Van Hollen: Well, my view is that if we can get a bipartisan budget process and we can include in that legislation restrictions on President Trump’s ability to move funds from one account to another, that that would be something that we could support. But the big asterisks there, the big but is that does not seem to be the direction that Trump, and certainly not the direction that House Republicans are going. And the lesson we’ve learned around here is at the end of the day, Republicans all fold and do what Donald Trump says. It becomes, yes dear leader, uh at the of the end the day. And so while I would prefer a bipartisan process that funds the priorities of the American people in the way it’s supposed to work in Congress. It seems that President Trump does not want to do that. So again, we won’t know that for 100% certain for a little while longer, but that seems to be the direction he’s headed. And obviously we’re not gonna be complicit in what is would be essentially a one-sided Trump budget. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, you were saying that if we could get this bipartisan bill and I’m like, well, you know, Maryland football could compete for a national championship, but you know. 

Chris Van Hollen: Like I’ve said, you know, sometimes it feels like Charlie Brown and the football here, and I’ve been very clear that the chances of actually getting the Republicans to work with us on a bipartisan basis um is right now very close to zero. Again, people hear what they want to hear, and people hear senators like Susan Collins and you know Lisa Murkowski, and they think, oh well maybe in the end of the day we’ll have a bipartisan process. But the person to keep it, you know, just be listening to is what is what is Donald Trump saying? Because at the end of the day, virtually every Republican in the House and in the Senate, almost to a person, just falls in line. 

Jane Coaston: You just got back from a trip to Israel and the West Bank, where you checked in on the aid situation in Gaza. And based on your tweets from last week, your take is bleak. What’s on the agenda for Congress to attempt to address this issue this session? 

Chris Van Hollen: Well, I wish I could say that Congress had a plan to address the terrible situation in Gaza. I went to a town on the Egyptian-Gaza border that I visited in January 2024, and when you looked over into the town of Rafah, it’s called, in Gaza, a town that was there a year and a half ago is just gone, reduced to rubble. And The United States is complicit um in what’s happening there in terms of the starvation, in terms of the scale of destruction. That’s why so many of us have said that we shouldn’t be providing you know more military assistance to the Netanyahu government when it’s engaged um in a war not only against Hamas, but really aimed at the collective punishment of Palestinian people. Unfortunately, we don’t have close to a majority um in the Senate to do anything like that. Um. We recently um had just over half the Senate Democratic Caucus vote to prevent the transfer of certain weapons. I wish we would see everybody supporting that position. That’s the position that I think is not only the moral position, but the only position consistent with American and international law. 

Jane Coaston: I was curious if there’s anything you can tell us about the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the US-backed non-profit that’s supposed to be delivering food and other aid to Palestinians there. From what you could tell from your visit, how active and engaged was this group or was that something you were able to see? 

Chris Van Hollen: Well, we actually visited um this place called Kerem Shalom, which is one of the two crossing points right now from Israel into Gaza. While we were there, we met with representatives from the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. And this was a foundation that, in my view, was designed to fail. Why do I say designed to fail? You’ve got two million Palestinians, many of them starving, and you have a system that sets up just four distribution centers, all of them in the southern part of Gaza. And you open these after there had been a complete blockade by the Netanyahu government, by Israel, on any food coming into Gaza for about two and a half months. They may disagree with that analysis, but the reality is that the Netnyahu government tried to set this up as an alternative to the international humanitarian organizations like the World Food Program. There’s no substitute for those international organizations. That distribution system served about 400 delivery sites compared to four. And even that was not great. So GHF, in my view, is something that the United States government should not be supporting, funding. The Trump administration is funding it. We should put all our efforts into the UN distribution system and most importantly demand that the Netanyahu government open up more crossing points into Gaza and stop the many, many restrictions that has been placed on food and other supplies getting into Gaza. That’s the crux of the problem. This, in my view, is a very deliberate strategy to use food as a weapon of war. 

Jane Coaston: Senator Chris Van Hollen, thank you so much for joining me. 

Chris Van Hollen: It’s great to be with you. Thanks a lot.

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple podcasts, watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines.

[clip of Joseph Ladapo] The Florida Department of Health, in partnership with the governor, is going to be working to end all vaccine mandates in Florida law. All of them. All of them.

Jane Coaston: Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo got fired up Wednesday talking about vaccine mandates. 

[clip of Joseph Ladapo] Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and and slavery. 

Jane Coaston: I’ve done a fair amount of research on the history of slavery in the United States, and your kid has to be vaccinated against tetanus was not involved. Ladapo, who was handpicked for the role by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, is a prominent anti-vaxxer who previously claimed that vaccines can contaminate human DNA. Not true. Are dangerous for young men. Not true, and cause cancer, also not true. Anyway, thanks to him and DeSantis, Florida children may no longer have to get vaccinated for anything. Not measles, mumps, chicken pox, polio, the list goes on. DeSantis joined in to yell about masks, yes, he’s still doing that, and announced the creation of a Florida Make America Healthy Again commission, chaired by his wife, Casey DeSantis, and Florida’s Lieutenant Governor. 

[clip of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis] You know, they say make America healthy again, the MAHA. We were doing that before anyone was even talking about it in Florida, and that’s that’s just the truth. 

Jane Coaston: Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, the Democratic governors of Oregon, Washington, and California announced the creation of their own commission, a new alliance to protect their health policies from the MAHA movement. The governor said in a joint statement, quote, “the CDC has become a political tool that increasingly pedals ideology instead of science, ideology that will lead to severe health consequences.” 

[clip of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene] Yeah. It’s a scary thing to name names, but I will tell you I’m not afraid to name names. And so if they want to give me a list, I will walk in that Capitol on the House floor and I’ll say every damn name that abused these women. 

Jane Coaston: You know things are not going great when Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene says something and we agree? Like a hundred percent? The [?] stood outside the Capitol on Wednesday for a press conference with several of the women who survived abuse by Jeffrey Epstein. Since the Trump administration won’t release the rumored Epstein list of people involved with the convicted sex trafficker, their survivors and their lawyer, Bradley Edwards, said they’re reaching out to fellow victims to build their own list. The survivors, some of whom spoke out publicly for the first time are also asking lawmakers to vote for a bill that would force the government to release all of the files to the public. Trump’s stance on the issue doesn’t appear to be changing, however. He told reporters while meeting with Poland’s president Wednesday that the Epstein debacle is a quote, “democratic hoax that never ends.” And that quote, “is totally irrelevant.” To which Representative Greene responded on a right wing podcast Wednesday: 

[clip of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene] It’s not a hoax because Jeffrey Epstein is a convicted pedophile. 

Jane Coaston: Well, yeah. In a win for Democrats, the House rejected a resolution to censure Democratic Representative LaMonica McIver of New Jersey. The censure effort was sponsored by Republican Representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana. But Democrats unanimously voted to table that resolution on Wednesday. They were joined by five GOP lawmakers. Two Republicans voted present. So as McIver put it: 

[clip of Representative LaMonica McIver] Rep Higgins didn’t get his way and get me kicked off of my committee and have me censured for doing my job. 

Jane Coaston: Republicans wanted to punish McIver, who faces federal charges stemming from a physical altercation between lawmakers and federal officers. The incident happened during a congressional oversight visit to a New Jersey immigration detention facility earlier this year. Republicans also wanted to remove her from the House Homeland Security Committee. She pleaded not guilty to charges accusing her of assaulting and interfering with immigration officers outside the facility. The censure measure said her alleged actions did not reflect credibly on the house. And that her continued service on the committee was a significant conflict of interest. McIver, however, says now that the resolution is tabled, she’s carrying on. 

[clip of Representative LaMonica McIver] It’s unfortunate that this to this process had to play out, but at the end of the day, I’m looking forward to continue working. There’s a lot of work to do for the American people, and I don’t have time to play with Republicans for trying to punish me for doing my job. 

Jane Coaston: McIver’s case is still pending in the courts and a trial is scheduled for November. We know Trump wants very badly to stop 33-year-old Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani from becoming New York City’s next mayor. So badly that Trump’s advisers have reportedly discussed giving current New York city mayor Eric Adams a position in the administration if he drops out of the race. That’s according to anonymous sources who spoke to the New York Times. They’re betting that once Adams is out of way, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo could sweep in and win the remaining votes. The advisors are also considering offering a position to Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa for the same reason. Might as well kill two weird birds with one stone. Mamdani held an emergency press conference on Wednesday in response to the report. 

[clip of Zohran Mamdani] This is, however, about an affront to our democracy. An affront to what makes so many of us proud to be Americans. That we choose our own leaders. Not that they get to pick themselves. Not that get to be picked by the president of the United States. 

Jane Coaston: Mamdani won a stunning victory over Cuomo in the June Democratic primary. Cuomo is now running in the general election as an independent. Adams is also running as an Independent after he opted out of the Democratic primary when his increasingly cozy relationship with Trump made it clear he had no chance. We’re not sure Trump’s blessing guarantees a win for Cuomo, but the former governor sure is thirsty for it. In August, he told the crowd at a Hamptons fundraiser, quote, “I feel good about that.” I don’t. And that’s the news. 

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review. Thrill at Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping contemplating how they could live forever with the help of organ transplants and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how a microphone caught a conversation between Putin and Xi at a military parade in Beijing, as they discussed how in the future, quote, “human organs can be constantly transplanted so that people can live younger and younger and even become immortal!” Like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston and I do not like where that conversation is going. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Fohr. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Gina Pollack, and Laura Newcomb. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adriene Hill. We had help with the headlines from the Associated Press. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break] 

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