For Blanche to get this job, he's had to disqualify himself as a 'serious person': Cottle

[0:00] Joining us now, MSNOW senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin, Hofstra University law professor James [0:05] Sample, who focuses on constitutional law and democracy, New York Times reporter who covers [0:11] the Justice Department Glenn Thrush, and New York Times opinion writer covering national politics, [0:16] Michelle Cottle. Glenn, I'm going to begin with you on this. What made Donald Trump want to move [0:22] ahead and drop the acting title for Todd Blanche? Who knows? But look, I think it had a lot to do [0:30] with the fact that Trump is somebody who doesn't like to be on the defensive, right? So he's really [0:35] taken a wallop over this weaponization fund. The fallout is currently happening on the floor of [0:41] the Senate right now. He is likely to face some kind of a consensus on some amendment shooting [0:47] this thing down, down permanently. So what does Trump do whenever he's cornered? He does something [0:52] to put himself on the offensive. And putting Blanche forward is just very much in keeping [0:57] with the Trump playbook. It allows Trump to sort of lean into all the decisions and say, [1:03] this is my guy. He followed my instructions. And it saddles Republicans with the dilemma that they [1:09] always have to face. If they oppose him, will he have the power to come after them? This is just one [1:15] of those are you with me or against me dilemmas that he always puts them in whenever they decide to [1:21] show a little backbone. Let me play a little bit of Tom Tillis and Bill Cassidy talking about [1:26] the weaponization fund and we'll extrapolate from there. Do you take the acting attorney general [1:34] at his word that the fund is dead for now? Or do you want to pass a bill to specifically outlaw [1:39] it in the future? I want to make sure it's not mostly dead. I want to make sure it's completely dead. [1:43] I just think it's bad. It's bad optics for the president. It's bad optics for Republicans in [1:48] its current form. We got either eliminate it, streamline it, guardrail it. It can't go in its [1:54] current form. And if that's the only choice we should have, we should eradicate it. [1:58] You know, I'm going to I'm going to try hard not to talk about the bolo tie, which just seems to get [2:02] bigger and bigger by the day. Let's talk about the substance of what he was saying. If you have Tom [2:08] Tillis and Bill Cassidy, Lisa, both saying that they don't trust this attorney general enough to take [2:16] him at his word. What does I mean? I guess what should that tell you about him as a confirmed [2:24] attorney general? Well, there's this tension, Katie, right between the Todd Blanch, who has done [2:30] everything necessary to win Donald Trump's trust to be his nominee and the Senate, which wants to see [2:37] that Todd Blanch has maintained some independence that we expect from any attorney general. And I want [2:42] to say, don't sleep on John Cornyn. Hell hath no fury like a senator scorned. And John Cornyn this [2:48] morning telling Punchbowl News, I'm going to read to you the quote. The problem with the office of [2:52] the attorney general is that there's basically, well, you are a member of the president's cabinet, [2:55] but you're also the chief law enforcement officer for the country and you're not the president's [2:59] lawyer. So I'll be asking some questions, getting some commitments on that. And I suspect that if [3:05] John Cornyn does not get the commitments that he wants to get unambiguously, he has a larger [3:10] problem than just Bill Cassidy and Tom Tillis. That's a Cornyn problem. And as you mentioned, [3:14] that could bleed into problems with both Murkowski and Collins too. But Todd Blanch will be acting as [3:21] the attorney general, not only for a 210 day period that started on April 2nd, but once the president [3:27] submits his nomination, he can be the acting attorney general until the Senate acts on that nomination [3:34] or it expires. So at least through the very end of the year, Todd Blanch will be the acting attorney [3:40] general. And that's something I think folks are going to have to reckon with too, in addition [3:44] to the politics surrounding his nomination. One of the things that I didn't even get to [3:48] in that list that I laid out, that very short list, was the accusation from Pam Bondi that Blanch was [3:54] the one in charge of the redactions in the Epstein files and basically blaming him for all the problems [4:00] with those redactions, including the survivors who were revealed within it. [4:06] Michelle, is this going to be a Republican breaking point? Should we expect it or should we [4:12] expect what we always see, which is, you know, they're always finding a way to go back to Trump? [4:20] So I prefer to look at it not as breaking points, but I think the analogy that I've liked is the [4:26] off ramp. So they're always, he's always giving them more opportunities for a few of them to get [4:31] off on an off ramp and find their spine or whatever. And you've got these YOLO Republicans. I mean, [4:37] Tom Tillis, Bill Cassidy, John Cornyn. Why wouldn't they, you know, it's the Bobby McGee lyrics. [4:43] Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. And that's where they are. So if you have [4:49] enough of these guys who are like, you know, we're done, we don't have to worry about him. [4:54] This is their opportunity to take that off ramp. Now, I don't like to predict anything with this [4:59] group. It's just, you never know what they're going to do, but this really should be a moment for them. [5:05] All right. So let's talk about what happens if he does get attorney general as the title and doesn't [5:11] have to keep doing acting until his time runs out. What are you watching for, James? [5:16] Well, I mean, I have never met Todd Blanche. I didn't, his career was respected before he became [5:23] the deputy attorney general. And look, his work for Donald Trump as his personal defense lawyer is [5:29] something for which I have immense respect. Even if you are not a fan of Donald Trump, the worst people in [5:34] the world deserve great representation. That's an easy thing. But what is difficult here with Todd [5:41] Blanche is the dual role. And the dual role is one that he doesn't seem to want to askew at all. In [5:47] fact, he keeps leaning into it. The attorney general is not the attorney general for the president of the [5:52] United States. The attorney general is the president for the people of the United States. Now, does the [5:58] president have a lot of influence? Should the president have a lot of influence in terms of who he [6:02] chooses, who gets confirmed? Absolutely. But Todd Blanche has leaned in to the former role while in [6:08] the current role. And that will be a significant point of contention in any confirmation hearing. [6:14] Yeah. So Glenn, talk about that. I mean, he's definitely moved the goalposts. He was Donald [6:19] Trump's personal attorney and arguably is very much still acting in that capacity. What are the open [6:25] feuds that Donald Trump is still has still are still left for Donald Trump to fight? [6:33] Well, if you got an hour, we can articulate them. I've got two, my friend. [6:38] I would throw one more thing onto this pile of stuff that Blanche has done and which is might be the [6:44] biggest of all, which is he was accused by a judge in the Abrego Garcia case of tainting [6:50] the entire prosecution by speaking about it in public and making statements that turned out not [6:56] to be buttressed by evidence. And I'll add one more element. There's a little known podcast that [7:02] Blanche did with Sean Hannity a couple of days ago, in which he remarkably confirms on the record, [7:14] a grand jury activity on the so-called grand conspiracy in Florida. Blanche is out there [7:19] just talking about ongoing cases, which totally flouts the norms of the department. This is [7:23] something that attorneys general tiptoed in the past around, you know, Comey got in trouble for [7:30] discussing ongoing investigations in a much less detailed way. Blanche is just talking about the [7:36] people that he's going after as if he assumes that they're criminals. So he has, I think, accepted [7:42] the politicization of the office that Trump has imposed upon him. And he just has this track record [7:50] of statements that he's made over the past year, including like saying that if he got fired, he would [7:55] tell Donald Trump that he loves him. That just doesn't really speak to any degree of independence. [8:01] And then you mentioned the seashells thing inside the department. And I'm not just talking about [8:07] career officials. I'm talking about political appointees. That was seen as so transparent and [8:13] outrageous by people who were appointed by the Trump administration, that they thought that that was [8:18] the watershed moment in which Todd Blanche shed any circumspection or any degree of mild moderation he [8:24] may have had in the first year for just going for this job. So to a certain extent, I think the [8:29] view of a lot of people on the inside is that what what Blanche had to do to get the job has [8:35] fundamentally disqualified him from being able to do it in an independent way. Well, let's see if there [8:40] are enough Republicans to say it is disqualifying and to keep him out of the job. The question then is [8:44] what happens after that and who does the president try to nominate and would they be any better or would [8:49] they be worse? Let me play Todd Blanche in that moment you just called up, Gled. [8:57] As to whether or not I want this job, I did not ask for this job. I love working for President Trump. [9:03] It's the greatest honor of a lifetime. And if President Trump chooses to keep me as acting, [9:09] that's an honor. If he chooses to nominate me, that's an honor. If he chooses to nominate somebody [9:14] else and I go back to being the DAG, that's an honor. If he chooses to nominate somebody else and [9:18] asks me to go do something else, I will say thank you very much. I love you, sir. [9:25] Michelle, it's a lot. These these people around Donald Trump and the lengths that they are willing [9:31] to go to, you know, kiss him and bow down to him. It is it is astounding even still after all this time. [9:42] So I'm sorry. I'm going to have to take a minute because I'm still a little nauseated from that. [9:47] That was like the most impressive display of like thrown licking I've seen in quite some time. [9:56] But as Glenn has pointed out and others have, that's what it takes. I mean, you don't get offered [10:03] the job or nominated from the job unless you have proved yourself utterly and completely willing to [10:11] debase yourself and abandon all of your independence. I mean, he's basically been on a two month long job [10:19] interview to show just how obsequious and he can be and how much he'll toe the line, whether you're [10:25] talking about the embarrassing slush fund he's defended or standing up and pursuing these political [10:33] prosecutions. So, I mean, the guy's in a tough spot. He really, really wants this merit badge and gets to [10:40] show off that he's been the age. And but in order to even get here, he's had to basically disqualify [10:46] himself as a serious person.