 I have worked with him time and time again, brought many wealthy clients to him, brought many issues in front of him, never has there been any hint of impropriety, never has he hinted about a payback or anything like that. So I'm having a very hard time reconciling the evidence I saw shown on TV with the Bob Menendez I have known for almost 30 years. This is personally hard for me. But you know, when I saw all the evidence, I'm shaking, I'm hoping against hope that there is some sort of logical explanation. You just watched Anna Navarro's reaction to news that her longtime friend, New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, has been charged with bribery. And even though she does to her credit, admit that it doesn't look good, her mental gymnastics, there are still hilarious to watch considering the overwhelming evidence and the fact that he was literally charged with corruption before. And to be clear, she knows this. She mentions it. But I also Bob, no Bob Menendez, and no Bob Menendez is not going to resign. He beat this once. He's, you know, he's thinking, I'm, you know, I can fight this, I'm going to fight this. He's not, I don't think he's going to resign. I think he's going to go to trial on this. This looks ugly. This looks bad. This is hard to explain. I can't come up with an explanation. Then don't. It's that simple. But she was referring to the last time he was charged with corruption. 18 counts to be clear. But that was declared a mistrial due to a split jury with 10 of the 12 jurors finding him not guilty. And as Politico explains, the US Department of Justice had charged Menendez with doing official favors for his friend and co-defendant Solomon Melgan, a Florida eye doctor in exchange for expensive hotel stays, private jets, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. But here we are again, six years later. And you know, something tells me that the jurors in that case got it wrong or perhaps the prosecution didn't present enough evidence. But I mean, either way, it's pretty clear that whether there's smoke, there's fire, especially when it comes to corruption charges of a US senator. And we all know he did that shit allegedly. But we're going to come back to Ana Navarro in a moment because after grappling with the reality that her friend is facing corruption charges again for the second time in a decade, she did offer a soft defense for him that I do want to get to because I do think it's really gross. But before we get to that, I do want to talk about the charges currently because they are indeed bad as she insinuates. The New York Times explains, the three-count federal indictment depicted a brazen plan hatched during furtive dinners in text messages and on encrypted calls, much of it aimed at increasing US assistance to Egypt and aiding businessmen in New Jersey. Mr. Menendez's wife, Nadine Menendez, is accused of acting as a go-between passing messages to an American-Egyptian businessman, Wael Hannah, who maintained close connections with Egyptian military and intelligence officials the indictment set. Mr. Menendez is also accused of meddling in an investigation by the New Jersey attorney general's office, using advice and pressure in an attempt to persuade a senior prosecutor to go easy in the case of two associates of a man who gave Ms. Menendez a Mercedes-Benz convertible. The prosecutor considered Mr. Menendez's actions inappropriate and did not agree to intervene according to the indictment. In exchange for all those actions, the indictment said, the senator and his wife accepted cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, the luxury car and other valuable things. The day after a trip to Egypt in 2021, the indictment said Mr. Menendez asked in an internet query, how much is one kilo of gold worth? He was very brazen and also text messages from Hannah, the person he was in contact with, basically said, oh, Menendez, he's our guy or he's our man or something to that effect. So I mean, they've got him dead to rights here and we're talking about textbook corruption, quid pro quos, abuse of power and the DOJ lays out all the evidence with photographs and you can see that I mean, they kind of have his balls pinned to the wall and since the charges were announced, he did send a letter to Chuck Schumer announcing that he's resigning from his position as chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, but he has remained defiant amid calls for him to resign from Congress, which is bad because if you are caught in this corruption scandal and you're literally being charged, then you also should not be in that position of power because yes, you are entitled to the presumption of innocence under the law, mind you. Still, this is a distraction and if you cared about the Democratic Party and Democrats retaining that seat in 2024, then you shouldn't be in this position currently, you should resign and the calls for him to resign, I wouldn't say that they're overwhelming, but there have been significant people who have made that call. That includes the Democratic governor of his state of New Jersey, that includes Senators Sherrod Brown and John Federman and also Representative Summer Lee and AOC, but calls are growing and I expect more people to join in. The problem is that at the time that I record this video at least, it doesn't seem like Democratic Party leadership is also stepping in to call for him to resign. The Washington Post reports, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer said in a statement Friday that Menendez, quote, has a right to due process and a fair trial. Embarrassing, that is absolutely embarrassing because nobody's saying that he doesn't get due process or a fair trial if he resigns from the Senate. That's just saying this is very serious and as a party we're taking this seriously, but they're not apparently. Democratic Party leadership is willing to give him a pass. And if they don't actually call on him to resign then they really should never criticize Republican corruption ever again because if you're willing to excuse corruption when your party does it, you don't actually care about corruption, you're just a partisan hack. So nobody is denying that he should ever write to a fair trial, of course that's the case, but Democrats need to let Americans know that they take corruption and these charges very seriously, especially in an environment where their opponents are fascists who have no regard for the rule of law. But what's even worse than the hypocrisy in my opinion is the fact that he is still expected to seek reelection officially in 2024. Meaning that the entire party's chances of keeping that seat, which is crucial, is now in jeopardy because why would voters want to vote for somebody who's been charged with corruption? So you're just gonna hand it over to a Republican potentially because you don't wanna resign because you're greedy and you're power hungry. It's ridiculous. Even if Democratic Party leadership thinks that he's innocent, which they should not. But even if they do think he is innocent, just out of self-interest for the party and country, they should call on him to resign because I mean, that one seat is absolutely crucial. And just as a matter of principle, somebody who's corrupt shouldn't be in that position of power. But I mean, as if the story wasn't already insane enough, Menendez's defense was so goddamn bad that it almost felt like I was watching a parody when he gave his press conference. For example, listen to his explanation for the bribes that they found in cash in his home. For 30 years, I have withdrawn thousands of dollars in cash from my personal savings account, which I have kept for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba. Now this may seem old-fashioned, but these were monies drawn from my personal savings account based on the income that I have lawfully derived over those 30 years. I look forward to addressing other issues at trial. Bitch, come on. We're not talking about a couple of hundred dollars that you keep in your wallet in the event that your debit card malfunctions or is declined at the grocery store. We're talking about $480,000 in cash hidden in clothing, in closets, in his safe. I mean, that much money in cash is not necessary unless you're doing or did something very, very illegal. But he's saying, oh no, you know what? I just, I keep that money there in case of a rainy day. You were so fucking full of shit. I could smell it from here, man. But I mean, at the same press conference when he made it clear that he's not stepping down, he used the Trump playbook to defend himself. Now he didn't say exactly what Trump says to defend himself, but I mean, if you read between the lines, we're getting some Trumpian vibes here. The court of public opinion is no substitute for our revered justice system. We cannot set aside the presumption of innocence for political expediency when the harm is irrevocable. To those who have rushed to judgment, you have done so based on a limited set of facts framed by the prosecution to be as salacious as possible. Remember, prosecutors get it wrong sometimes. Sadly, I know that. Instead of waiting for all the facts to be presented, others have rushed to judgment because they see a political opportunity for themselves or those around them. I did everything right and they indicted me. He's trying so hard to not call this a witch hunt. But I mean, this should be a lesson to all the Republicans who claim that the Department of Justice is being weaponized against Republicans because we are talking about a Democratic senator here. If it were weaponized against Republicans, then this would not be possible, right? The Justice Department, it acts with autonomy and they did a lot of evidence digging to bring up these charges. They wouldn't bring charges against a US senator unless they had a sufficient amount of evidence, right? So if the Justice Department were actually being weaponized against Republicans in particular, this indictment wouldn't have happened, right? But that's kind of a side point. Now you might have missed it, but he kind of glossed over it. He said that prosecutors get it wrong sometimes. Sadly, I know that. Now I believe that is a reference to his previous charges, which again, he got off, was not convicted. It was a mistrial, but still. Now that these charges are brought up again less than a decade later, seems like, that situation was maybe not justice, right? Justice was not served in that instance. Or at least we can speculate that that is indeed the case. But I do wanna go back to Anna Navarro since we're now familiar with the current charges because she did try to defend him and it wasn't an explicit or overt defense. It was more of a soft defense using deflection and what aboutism. But I have to show this because I have a two-word rebuttal and I wanna point out why what she's saying is indeed gross, but let's listen. I do think that there is a bigger problem here than Bob Menendez. The problem here is, Bob Menendez's wife cashing in on his name or Joe Biden's son cashing in on his name or Jared Kushner cashing in on that or Clarence Thomas. Clarence Thomas was having his mama's house paid for as well by a billionaire. A lot of trips. Okay, so there's gotta be some consistency and at some point, Congress needs to get a hold of this swampiness going on and they have got to deal with the idea that they can't just have their stupid family members making money off their own name. Hey, Anna, both bad. The person in power abusing power is bad but simultaneously the family member using her proximity to power to cash in is also bad. Both things are obviously simultaneously bad and we don't have to pretend as if one is worse than the other because that would conveniently benefit your friend and make him look less bad somehow. And I mean, it is bizarre that she thinks that his wife cashing in on his corruption and his power is somehow a bigger problem than his corruption. I mean, he's the person with the power here. The buck stops with him and he's also a willing participant here. It's not like he was being taken advantage of. His wife was the go-between, right? So yes, Hunter Biden and Jared Kushner, these are also instances of corrupt sons and family members of people in power using their position of power to cash in, right? And that's bad. We should address the systemic corruption in DC but it feels like she's bringing all of this up just to deflect from the attention that her friend is getting. And that to me feels gross. I think that if you're gonna be against corruption, you should be against corruption because corruption is obviously bad. Not just all of a sudden call out the swamp in DC because your friend for a second time conspicuously is getting charged with corruption. So I mean, the moral of the story is that people need to stop fucking being hacks, right? Party affiliation should not determine our response to corruption charges. Ethics should. And if your first instinct is to defend someone accused of wrongdoing because they're on your team or in your tribe, then you need to fight that urge. And we can extrapolate and apply this to the Russell Brand story or any stories with celebrities where they're accused of wrongdoing if you're a fan of them, right? Objectivity is really important. And Democrats not calling for his resignation. It makes their condemnation of Trump and his crimes and corruption look really hollow and superficial and that's bad. So even though I'm picking on Anna Navarro a little bit here, I think that ultimately it's more embarrassing that the Democratic Party isn't unified in calling for him to resign. I think that that's really disgusting and a mishandling of this situation. And while Menendez is indeed entitled to the presumption of innocence under the law, let me be clear, he is not entitled to the presumption of innocence in the court of public opinion. And as someone with absolutely no horse in this race allow me to say that he almost certainly did that shit allegedly.