MS NOW Highlights - August 3

[0:00] We weren't necessarily thrilled with the contractor, but they did a job and they were fixing any problems. [0:09] But then it got carried away because the judge was extremely unfriendly to Janine. [0:15] And frankly, I think she choked because the judge was really vicious. [0:20] Instead of going after the people that did it, the judge went after her and went after her department. [0:27] And I guess she choked. I don't know what the hell happened. [0:30] Are you reconsidering her role? [0:32] I don't know what you don't. You're fake news. Don't don't ever talk again. [0:36] You're fake news. I think we touched a nerve there. [0:43] Donald Trump lashing out at our colleague. [0:45] And that's now Jake Traylor in the Oval Office today. [0:48] Traylor pressing about the simple fact pattern from Donald Trump. [0:53] Attorney the District of Columbia, Trump's buddy Janine Pirro dropping the charges of vandalism. [0:59] Her office had filed against former Olympian David Hearn less than one month ago. [1:03] While Pirro promised that her office would prove the charges of vandalizing the reflecting pool beyond a reasonable doubt, [1:09] her office found that despite Trump's claims that, quote, I'm a really good builder, [1:14] it was his shoddy contractors, not vandalism at all, responsible for the lining coming apart in pieces. [1:22] We're back with Glenn, Liz and Andrew. [1:24] Andrew, let me read you what Heather Cox Richardson wrote just to sort of elevate this story to the real danger that it represents [1:34] and the real window into what's rotten at the Department of Justice. [1:37] She writes Friday's dismissal of the Department of Justice case against David Hearn for vandalism of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool came days after Hearn's lawyers asked for transcripts of the grand jury proceedings that led to the indictment. [1:51] The lawyers noted that the government's only witness testified that the pool was already damaged before Hearn went near it [1:56] and that the witness could not quantify the cost of any damage Hearn might have done over and above the cost of repairing the existing damage. [2:04] The lawyers told the court that there were irregularities in the government's presentation of the evidence to the grand jury to call into question whether the grand jury was misled. [2:12] The Department of Justice has been caught repeatedly misleading grand juries or committing misconduct in getting indictments. [2:19] Hearn's lawyers were suggesting that the Department of Justice engaged in the same misconduct in the indictment of David Hearn for damaging the bottom of the reflecting pool. [2:27] So we talk a lot. [2:29] I have endeavored since the show began with your help, with all of your help to cover the rule of law in America. [2:36] It is clear that the Justice Department is now committed to a project of destroying it. [2:43] And I asked your former colleague, I asked Jack Smith if it's broken, and he said no, because the judiciary and the judges. [2:54] But it would appear that the Justice Department is actively working at breaking it if they are actively misleading grand juries. [3:00] Just talk about what a tripwire has been passed. [3:04] Well, the filing that was made by Jeanine Pirro's office is so devastating because in black and white, you can see so many things. [3:15] And as I have said about the reflecting pool case, it is truly a reflection of the Justice Department and the Trump administration in sort of every way. [3:27] It points out that what Donald Trump has been saying repeatedly about these being vandals is false. [3:34] It lays it out in black and white. [3:38] It also makes clear that they wrongly charged an individual and they did so at the speed of light without waiting to see the evidence and getting the evidence. [3:49] The filing seems to think it's an excuse that they did not have all the evidence from the agency involved. [3:57] But that's the Department of Justice's job, as Liz will tell you. [4:02] That is what you do before you indict, not after. [4:07] It is not an excuse if you would hear from anybody, like a beginning AUSA, you know, federal prosecutor to a seasoned one to say, well, I didn't get all the proof before I charged. [4:19] But that's what it makes clear they did here. [4:22] And there's only one reason to call that they would do that, which was to indict because that's what Donald Trump wanted, because he wanted to say they were vandals. [4:33] And so they picked a scapegoat and they charged him. [4:36] And it is now in black and white that that is what happened. [4:39] And just to tie it back to this is happening while Tad Blanch, the head of the Justice Department, is awaiting confirmation in any normal world, heads would roll for this. [4:55] But that's not the world we're in, because the real issue now is Donald Trump saying, why did you stop prosecuting? [5:03] I'm angry that you told the truth about what's going on. [5:09] Yeah, I mean, Glenn, this is sort of back to the last conversation. [5:12] Threats to judges. [5:14] The judge didn't do anything irregular. [5:18] The irregularities are from the Justice Department. [5:20] And then here's, you know, to our last conversation, Republican senators in on the joke. [5:26] Here's Kennedy saying that, of course, none of this was based in reality or truth. [5:31] The whole thing is a multiple vehicle pileup. [5:36] Let me start with the president. [5:38] The president says it was caused by vandals. [5:41] I don't know whether he really believes that or it's part of his political messaging or he's just thinking out loud. [5:49] You and I both know the president well. [5:51] He exists loudly and he grows anxious when he has an unexpressed thought. [5:58] I'm not saying he doesn't really believe it. [6:00] I just don't know. [6:00] Again, if you're talking about a kid in trouble again for saying things that turn out not to be true, that's a perfectly acceptable description. [6:14] You're talking about the president of the United States and he is one of the president's cheerleaders in sort of shrugging his shoulders when Trump says crazy shit that doesn't hold up in a grand jury. [6:26] What is the temperature of all this sort of sleepwalking as the Justice Department's credibility is called out by judge after judge after judge after judge? [6:34] Well, I want to step out of the frame for two seconds. [6:38] The thing that's interesting about this is how silly it is. [6:44] Can I just like we are talking about the lining of a reflecting pool. [6:49] We are a nation at war. [6:50] But Mr. Hearn, they tried to criminally prosecute Mr. Hearn. [6:54] No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, yeah, exactly. [6:57] But, you know, we are in a situation where the president of the United States over the weekend denied a credible report that Iranians were hacking water systems. [7:08] Yeah. [7:09] That is it is that appears to be on its face a significant a significant threat to national security. [7:16] He is not talking about that. [7:18] He is talking about the reflecting pool. [7:21] So so I think the threshold onto this is why are we talking about reflecting pools? [7:25] Because Donald Trump wants to talk about reflecting pools. [7:28] And I think inside the Justice Department, it is entropic. [7:32] You have a situation in which people are essentially pursuing the president's interests, but also within that frame, pursuing their own interests. [7:43] Blanche is a perfect example. [7:45] Blanche wants to be an officially confirmed attorney general. [7:49] There's a lot of people, a lot of people inside the department who want to know why the hell he would want that job. [7:55] Right. [7:56] But he really wants that. [7:57] That's the crown of his career. [7:59] Piro similarly, as I think Andrew alluded to, I think Piro is acutely conscious that she could be facing professional discipline or prosecutors under her could be facing professional discipline if we start surfacing these grand jury transcripts. [8:15] So she it is in her self-interest to have documented her withdrawal from this case in minute detail. [8:21] And that, of course, has now put her in on a collision course with Trump. [8:24] So it's like you have you have Trump acting in his interest. [8:27] Other people abiding by that. [8:30] And then everyone else is iterative of him acting to a certain extent like many Trumps in their own self-interest. [8:36] Sometimes it seems like Donald Trump is trying to win some sort of bet about how much he can hurt Republicans' political chances in the midterms. [8:45] Polls show him underwater on issues where he's been historically very strong, like the economy and immigration. [8:50] Everyone across the board hates his war with Iran, which, by the way, continues today, even though there was promises that there was some deal. [8:58] Of course not. [8:59] But he's also doing nothing to try to turn those things around. [9:02] Instead, just the opposite. [9:03] Get this. [9:03] His administration is now planning to end a Medicare subsidy that will mean higher drug costs for seniors, one of the biggest voting blocks, and also in a midterm year. [9:12] That's given Democrats the chance to resurface this video of a closed press event in April of the White House, briefly posted by mistake. [9:20] It's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. [9:29] They can do it on a state basis. [9:30] You can't do it on a federal. [9:32] We have to take care of one thing, military protection. [9:35] We have to guard the country. [9:38] Senator Bernie Sanders is an independent of Vermont. [9:40] He's a ranking member of the Health, Education and Labor Committee, and he joins me now today. [9:46] Also, in the sort of ongoing theme here, you highlighted your colleague of yours from Alabama calling Social Security a scam, which also seems like a strange closing message for midterm elections. [10:00] Yeah, it does. [10:01] Look, bottom line is, I think the American people are catching on big time that Donald Trump is not only an oligarch concerned about his own family's wealth and the wealth of his fellow oligarchs, he's really at war against the working class of this country. [10:18] The idea that at a time when prescription drug prices are so high, you would cut Medicare Part D subsidies and raise prescription drug rates by up to 50 percent is really quite cruel and unbelievable from a political sense. [10:37] In terms of Social Security, again, it is no great secret. [10:42] The Republicans have never liked Social Security. [10:45] What they essentially want to do is make massive cuts, raising the retirement age, cutting back on colas and a variety of other approaches. [10:57] But the bottom line is that we have got to save Social Security. [11:02] We've got to expand Social Security benefits. [11:05] And we can do that, Chris, by simply lifting the cap on taxable income so that the very wealthiest people stop paying their fair share. [11:13] Right now, you make $20 million a year. [11:16] You contribute the same amount into Social Security as somebody who makes $187,000. [11:23] Lift that cap. [11:24] We can make Social Security solvent for 75 years and increase benefits. [11:29] That's what we've got to do. [11:32] Tomorrow is a primary day in a few different states. [11:34] We're going to be doing special coverage here. [11:36] I know that you have been on the road and you've endorsed some of the candidates, including Abdul El-Sayed, [11:40] who right now polling average shows is leading his opponent, Haley Stevens, congresswoman in Michigan, by quite a bit. [11:48] Here's an argument I've seen people make. [11:50] I'm going to show you this polling average. [11:51] Now, I want to be clear here that none of this is written in stone. [11:54] And I don't even think these are enormous differences. [11:56] But there has been a trend to show to suggest that possibly Haley Stevens would be a stronger general election nominee and candidate against Mike Rogers, [12:05] who's going to be the Republican candidate, than Abdul El-Sayed. [12:08] And I'm curious. [12:09] Obviously, you agree with Abdul El-Sayed on the merits, right? [12:13] But I'm curious your response to the argument that there's a risk here on the electability front in a state that is very close in that Donald Trump carried against a pretty strong candidate in Mike Rogers. [12:27] Here's my response. [12:28] And it's twofold. [12:29] Number one, I believe that when you have a candidate like Abdul El-Sayed talking about the issues that are relevant to working class people, [12:40] whether they're Democrats, independents or Republicans, you will win over people who previously voted for Trump. [12:49] Independents and Republicans in Michigan cannot afford health care. [12:54] They know the current system is broken. [12:56] They support concepts like universal health care and Medicare for all. [13:02] Republicans, independents in Michigan do not believe we should give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the 1% and throw 15 million people off of health care. [13:12] They think, in fact, that the billionaires should stop paying their fair share of taxes. [13:17] That is what Abdul believes in. [13:19] Republicans, independents, Democrats understand that we have a campaign finance system that is absolutely corrupt. [13:26] Billionaires buy elections. [13:28] Abdul tomorrow. [13:29] And this is really quite incredible. [13:31] If he wins, he is going to have to overcome a nine to one spending ratio in terms of ads. [13:39] They're spending nine times more than he is because it's a corrupt campaign finance system. [13:44] The billionaires want Haley Stevens to win. [13:47] Second point, what Democratic establishment people look at the voter electorate as a fixed number. [13:55] We don't. [13:55] When Mamdani won in New York City, he had 100,000 volunteers out on the street. [14:02] He expanded the voter universe, brought new people, young people primarily, working class people into the process. [14:09] Right now, Abdul has thousands of volunteers working. [14:13] So I think what you will see is any increased voter turnout. [14:18] And many of the new people who are participating in the general election will be younger people who traditionally don't vote, working class people who have been disenchanted with the Democratic Party. [14:28] That is how and why El-Sayed will win the general election. [14:34] We'll see tomorrow night. [14:35] I mean, obviously, we're not there yet. [14:36] And polls have been wrong. [14:37] So this is not at all a done deal. [14:39] And as you said, there's been an enormous difference in the money spent because the super PAC money on the other side supporting Stevens. [14:44] So I don't want to get ahead of us there. [14:45] There's there's also there's a few other primaries, including there's there's one in Wisconsin. [14:51] There's going to be one in Minnesota. [14:53] Wisconsin one is a week from now. [14:54] Can I can I ask you a question that I'm almost positive you have never been asked on television? [14:59] All right. [15:00] Let me hear it. [15:01] All right. [15:02] Here it is. [15:03] The Democratic Socialist America were founded by Michael Harrington. [15:07] Now, you and Michael Harrington had a bit of a history and you kind of ran in similar milieus. [15:11] And Michael Harrington and you had opposite theories of the case about left liberal politics and the two party system. [15:19] Your theory of the case was that the Democratic Party had to be abandoned. [15:23] You needed new parties and you had to strike out on your own. [15:26] Michael Harrington's case, which has sort of come to fruition, is that you needed to work within the Democratic Party, [15:31] which was the kind of founding conceit of the Democratic Socialist America, the left wing of the possible. [15:36] You guys disagreed on this. [15:38] Now, here we are all these years later. [15:39] Michael, of course, passed quite a while ago and that vision kind of coming to fruition within the Democratic Party. [15:46] And I wonder if you think if you want to say to Michael, wherever he may be now, if he was on the right side of that argument. [15:54] Michael didn't know him terribly well. [15:57] What was a wonderful, wonderful man? [16:00] He was involved with the Catholic Worker Program, as you may recall. [16:02] Look, the reality right now is that it is very difficult to start a third party, a successful third party. [16:15] It just requires all kinds of money and overcoming all kind of state restrictions, etc. [16:20] So I think right now what we are doing and doing very well is running candidates within the Democratic Party. [16:30] I ran for president twice within the Democratic primary. [16:33] And what you are saying all across this country right now, Chris, is that people understand that the economy is rigged. [16:41] The campaign finance system is corrupt. [16:44] We are the only major country not to guarantee health care at all is a human right. [16:48] People want change. [16:50] And that is what progressives, what Democratic socialists are talking about from coast to coast. [16:55] We're winning elections. [16:57] And with a little bit of luck, we can win tomorrow in Michigan and a week from now in Minnesota with Peggy Flanagan. [17:03] So we are taking on everybody. [17:05] We're taking on the billionaires and their super PACs. [17:07] We're taking on the Democratic establishment. [17:09] But I honestly believe that people now understand that status quo politics and tweaking around the edges is no longer good enough. [17:17] We need bold solutions for the crises facing the working families of this country. [17:24] All right, Senator Bernie Sanders. [17:25] Thanks so much. [17:26] Appreciate it. [17:26] Donald Trump's attorney general nominee, Todd Blanche, has now said he has officially rescinded Trump's controversial slush fund. [17:36] The move seems designed to placate GOP Senators John Cornyn and Tom Tillis, [17:42] who said they would not vote to confirm Blanche without written assurances that the fund was dead. [17:48] Now, with these assurances duly issued, the committee vote to advance Todd Blanche's nomination to the full Senate will happen tomorrow. [17:56] Now, what exactly were these assurances that got Blanche's nomination back on track? [18:02] Blanche released a pair of written statements. [18:04] The first statement, which was a signed memorandum from Blanche, reassured Republican holdouts Cornyn and Tillis that the $1.8 billion so-called weaponization fund will not go forward. [18:18] The other statement, which was unsigned and issued by the Justice Department, clarifies the limits of Trump's immunity deal with the IRS. [18:27] Cornyn and Tillis released a joint statement saying, in part, quote, [18:33] we are pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund, addressing concerns that multiple of our Republican colleagues share. [18:42] But they may have spoken too soon. [18:47] The New York Times is now reporting that these statements issued are full of, quote, loopholes. [18:54] According to the Times, quote, [18:56] the original terms of the documents creating the fund said it may be modified only with the written agreement of the parties. [19:05] A reference to Donald Trump, his sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., the Trump Organization and specific government agencies. [19:13] Mr. Blanche's orders, however, is a government document signed only by him. [19:22] The apparent deal between Blanche, Cornyn and Tillis comes just hours after the president doubled down on the fund, [19:29] telling reporters on Air Force One that he'd be open to bringing it back. [19:33] Take a listen. [19:36] Reimbursement. A lot of big supporters of Trump. [19:50] And just hours ago, Trump was asked about the deal that Blanche had struck. [19:54] And he made it clear that he didn't know what exactly Todd Blanche had agreed to. [20:00] Listen up. [20:02] Mr. President, did you sign off on Todd Blanche? [20:05] I didn't look at it. [20:06] All I know is that Todd Blanche is great. [20:09] He's going to do a great job. [20:11] Everybody knows it. [20:12] And I understand there's been a sign off. [20:15] But I don't know what they agreed. [20:17] I think Todd Blanche agreed to reconfirm things that he's already said. [20:22] And what he said was OK. [20:26] Well, Blanche had previously and infamously refused to say that he would put the end of the fund in writing. [20:33] Take a listen. [20:36] But we are not moving forward with the fund, period. [20:39] Not moving forward ever. [20:41] Correct. [20:41] Notwithstanding what we do in those litigations and defending our rights and making sure our rights are protected, [20:47] we're not moving forward with the fund. [20:48] Every time he was asked about formally killing the fund, Todd Blanche hedged. [20:56] And that frustrated Cornyn and Tillis. [20:59] But now they are prepared to take Todd Blanche at his word and vote to advance his nomination to the full Senate. [21:07] All of this despite the fact that all along, the Justice Department, before and during Todd Blanche's stint as acting attorney general, [21:16] has been quietly making payouts to Trump allies. [21:20] There have been millions of dollars in settlements that were paid to an anti-abortion activist convicted of violating the federal law [21:27] that protects patient access to clinics, payouts to former Trump administration and campaign officials, [21:34] as well as payouts to the family of January 6th rioter Ashley Babbitt. [21:39] To be very clear, these payouts occurred outside of the $1.8 billion fund that Todd Blanche has now agreed to end. [21:49] All of this suggests that his DOJ may be prepared to continue using taxpayer money to compensate the president's allies, [21:59] even without the formal framework of the anti-weaponization fund. [22:04] Joining me now to break it all down is Maya Wiley, former SDNY civil prosecutor and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. [22:13] Also with us is David Litt, former Obama speechwriter, author of the Word Salad Substack, and a best-selling author. [22:22] So, Maya, I'll start with you. [22:23] What is your reaction to the senators who were so upset about the fund now being OK with these assurances that the fund is dead, dead, dead? [22:32] Well, I will say I am sadly unsurprised because having sat in a hearing room for some of Todd Blanche's nomination hearing, [22:41] it was very clear they were looking, particularly Senator Tillis, was looking for the way out. [22:46] Because remember, these are senators that at one time had said, in writing means legislation from Congress, [22:52] so that the executive branch just can't reignite a weaponization fund, [22:58] and not to mention whatever is happening with Trump and his family having immunity forever and ever and ever. [23:04] So I say this because what should be shocking to all of us is that what is in writing is nothing short of Todd Blanche's commitment on an implementing document, [23:16] not on something that says the parties to the settlement have now relinquished whatever their rights might be to claim breach of contract. [23:24] I only say that we don't know what will happen, but Donald Trump hasn't signed a thing. [23:27] Congress hasn't signed a thing. [23:29] And to your point, the settlements can roll on. [23:32] All right. [23:33] So let's leave aside the question of whether or not these are legally binding documents. [23:37] David, what do you make of the fact that Tillis and Cornyn, both of whom have nothing to lose? [23:43] They are not coming back to the Senate. [23:45] They have, again, nothing to do with this president going forward. [23:49] Why won't they stand firm on this and truly end the fund in real terms? [23:53] Well, let me start by saying I feel like I'm here with two very accomplished lawyers. [23:58] I am not a lawyer. [23:59] So, you know, I have thoughts about like analogies and prepositions and stuff. [24:04] But I will also say I do have familiarity as a human being who has done embarrassing things from time to time. [24:11] Yeah. [24:11] And Tom Tillis and John Cornyn should be deeply embarrassed about this. [24:15] I mean, Trump saw through these two people. [24:18] I mean, he saw through a lot of people in the Republican Party. [24:20] But I think one of the things that he understood well before other Republican senators or Congress members understood it was the combination that these senators, they're extreme, but they're also weak. [24:31] They were supposed to, as you said, have nothing to lose. [24:33] Trump ended their political careers. [24:35] This was their chance to get some revenge, to put one over on him. [24:39] And the best they could do is a basically meaningless doctor. [24:42] These are not Virgos. [24:43] I do. [24:43] I'm a Virgo. [24:44] So I don't know what that means. [24:46] So is it good to be a Virgo or bad? [24:48] We are a very vengeful people, I think. [24:50] Oh, agreed. [24:51] Yes, absolutely. [24:52] Well, I'm a Capricorn. [24:53] I don't know where that fits in here. [24:54] But I will say this. [24:56] It's worse than that because it wasn't just about vengeance. [24:59] They actually believed what they were saying when they said it was bad, when they said we should not have it, when Congress should act and prevent any sitting president from doing what Senator Tillis himself this weekend called the payout pot for punks. [25:14] That wasn't soft talk. [25:17] That was what he meant. [25:18] What he what he caved on and what Cornyn caved on were their actual principles. [25:22] That's worse. [25:23] So under prior questioning by Senator John Cornyn, Todd Blanch actually admitted that Trump could try and enforce the terms of this settlement. [25:32] So let's take a listen to that. [25:35] You said that the weaponization fund is a moot issue. [25:39] Is that your position? [25:41] Yes, it is a moot issue. [25:44] I suppose if President Trump's counsel sought to enforce it, they potentially could. [25:51] Including the weaponization fund. [25:53] Well, they could try to enforce the contract. [25:58] Maya, you're a lawyer. [26:00] Does this document that Todd Blanch issued change anything about the possibility of the president resurrecting this fund in some way? [26:10] Are these legally binding promises or are there loopholes here that will allow this to come back well after Todd Blanch has gotten what he wanted? [26:20] Well, as I said, it's an implementing order. [26:24] What that means is he's like, I'm not going to do this. [26:27] So what does that have to do with a settlement that he entered into and with the parties themselves, including Donald Trump, not having said we agree? [26:39] And plus, he's the president of the United States. [26:41] What we've already seen in the settlements themselves become a back back door to making sure they can pay people. [26:48] So there are a lot of interesting things here. [26:50] So, one, these are settlements between the various agencies and these different principles, the Trump, the Trump, Donald Trump himself, the Trump sons, and then the Trump organization. [26:58] And none of these people have had anything to say about this, quote, unquote, implementing document. [27:03] Going back to the whole question of this being a settlement, this was actually coming from a lawsuit. [27:09] Is there any legal recourse here that the court could take or that any of the people involved here in the legal challenge could bring? [27:17] Well, look, we already have a very angry judge in this case, because the judge already said, I think this is sanctionable. [27:24] We had 38 former judges say this smells and there should be disciplinary action potentially taken here. [27:31] This is one of the reasons why some of us have also argued that Todd Blanche is unfit to actually serve as the nation's top lawyer. [27:39] But I say that because, yes, I mean, we could see a continuation of a judge saying, first of all, this was this was something that did not fall within the realm of something the court would have approved in terms of jettisoning the cases in the first place. [27:54] But look, this is all unknown territory because none of this is normal. [27:58] Yeah. And I think the most important thing to say, this is so abnormal that every American should be deeply concerned and upset that this is supposed to be the department of the people. [28:07] And it's now just the department of just Trump. [28:11] Well, David, to that point, is there any evidence that this is registering with ordinary Americans, that this is a fund that could be resurrected at any time? [28:20] It's really at the pleasure of the president, at the pleasure of the attorney general, who seems to be the president's personal lawyer in much of this. [28:27] Do people care that their tax dollars are being used in this way? [28:32] I think people care at a moment when it seems like every day there are 20 Watergate level scandals and even J.D. Vance is out there saying, oh, Watergate would be fine now. [28:42] Sometimes things do break through. And this broke through when it first was announced. [28:46] And it's one of the reasons. I mean, it's nice to think that, you know, everybody stuck to their guns and was deeply principled to say we don't want this. [28:53] I think the reason or a big reason they didn't want it was that they got caught and that they realized that particularly at a moment, by the way, when Americans are struggling to buy groceries, Americans are wondering what's going to happen to their energy bills. [29:06] You know, every time we do something new and stupid in Iran, fuel, fuel costs go up, gas goes up. [29:11] And so what is the president focused on? He's focused on spending one point eight billion dollars of your tax money, money you earned to a bunch of insurrectionists because they supported him. [29:22] That is not very hard to message. And I think to your point, I don't remember every word in the alliteration filled quote from Tom Tillis. [29:29] But you could tell that when he was saying that he felt really good, he was like, oh, this is what it feels like to be making a point that people agree with. [29:36] And now he's kind of shrinking away from that. [29:40] Once a senator, always a senator. That is tonight's lesson in American politics. [29:47] After a day of commentators bewildered and wondering why Republican senators John Cornyn and Tom Tillis in their last months as United States senators are caving to Donald Trump after pretending that they would not vote for Todd Blanche's confirmation as attorney general, [30:06] unless the Trump slush fund created by Todd Blanche, along with a tax amnesty for Donald Trump and his family, were eliminated in writing, writing that somehow would carry the force of law. [30:18] The standoff ended at 11.09 p.m. last night when Todd Blanche posted on social media copies of two new pieces of paper, one signed by Todd Blanche and another signed by absolutely no one. [30:36] Neither of these pieces of paper have any force of law and are in no way binding on Todd Blanche or anyone else involved in the scheme. [30:43] The two pieces of paper that Todd Blanche produced publicly do not prevent Todd Blanche from simply reinstituting everything about the slush fund in its entirety after he is confirmed as attorney general. [30:58] And this morning, right on schedule, Senators Cornyn and Tillis issued a joint statement saying they're completely satisfied with the unenforceable pieces of paper that Todd Blanche released. [31:11] And now they are happily ready to vote for Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general, saying, quote, [31:18] We look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon. [31:24] And with that written statement and their complete public surrender to Donald Trump after Donald Trump attacked them both this weekend on social media, [31:38] Senator Cornyn and Senator Tillis have both preserved their futures as Washington lobbyists. [31:47] Sadly, in the 21st century, the most common post-Senate occupation for former United States Senators is Washington lobbyists. [32:00] It wasn't always this way. The lobbying afterlife of Senators started in the 20th century. [32:06] When the senator I worked for, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, retired from the Senate in January of 2001, [32:11] the day Hillary Clinton took the oath of office to serve in his place in the Senate, [32:16] Senator Moynihan went back to his previous life in academia. [32:21] He was a Harvard professor when he ran for Senate and won in 1976. [32:25] And after the Senate, he joined the faculty of Syracuse University. [32:29] That was already a rare choice by that time in our politics, [32:34] when former senators have become worth millions upon millions of dollars as lobbyists in Washington. [32:42] Senators have lifetime floor privileges. [32:47] That means that a United States Senator, after leaving office for the rest of his or her life, [32:54] can just walk onto the Senate floor with all of the freedom of a serving United States Senator. [33:02] No mere lobbyist who was not a Senator is even allowed to ride in the Senator's only elevators in the Senate buildings. [33:11] With the hordes of lobbyists in Washington trying to get appointments with Senators, [33:16] it helps a lot when the lobbyist used to sit beside that Senator in committee hearings or on the Senate floor. [33:26] Nothing helps more than that. [33:28] That's what makes Senators so valuable as lobbyists. [33:32] Former Senators are worth more money as lobbyists when their party is in power, of course, [33:38] but they are worth zero money forever if they are shunned by their party. [33:44] John Cornyn and Tom Tillis had a right to fear that if they voted against Donald Trump's former criminal defense lawyer [33:53] becoming Donald Trump's Attorney General, [33:54] they might never be able to get an appointment in a Republican Senator's office again to lobby for anything, [34:02] to ask for anything, including just getting their passports renewed quickly. [34:09] John Cornyn and Tom Tillis might not become lobbyists, [34:13] but they will still want or need some kind of favors at some time from Republican Senators, [34:23] including jobs for family and friends. [34:26] And that is why you saw Tom Tillis being so timid in his language about this situation last week, [34:33] so apologetic for even hinting at getting in the way. [34:37] And I pointed out Tom Tillis's timidity last week, [34:41] using that word about him here on this program when covering this standoff. [34:46] I never once expressed the slightest confidence that John Cornyn or Tom Tillis [34:52] would actually find the courage to vote against Todd Blanche's confirmation. [34:59] And it doesn't take courage to vote against the acting Attorney General who created a slush fund [35:05] that you, Tom Tillis and John Cornyn, found to be unethical and improper. [35:11] Just the creation of that slush fund and the tax amnesty for Donald Trump and his family, [35:16] that's reason enough to vote against Todd Blanche [35:18] if you just base your vote on the common standards used for Senate confirmation [35:23] for the lifetimes of those senators. [35:26] Todd Blanche has many other transgressions in his time at the Trump Justice Department [35:31] that require a vote against his confirmation, [35:34] such as trying to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey [35:37] for posting a photograph of seashells. [35:39] Todd Blanche has many more disqualifying ethical strikes against him [35:44] beyond just the slush fund and the tax amnesty for Donald Trump. [35:48] So it doesn't take courage to vote against Todd Blanche. [35:50] It takes common decency. [35:53] There is absolutely no way a Republican nominee for Attorney General in the 20th century [36:01] with Todd Blanche's unethical record could possibly have won support of Republicans [36:07] in the United States Senate. [36:10] That's the way it used to be. [36:12] But Donald Trump has corrupted every single Republican senator to some degree. [36:18] And Donald Trump has corrupted most Republican senators completely, [36:23] just completely bent them to his will on everything. [36:28] The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Jamie Raskin, [36:31] who will be chairman of the House Judiciary Committee next year, [36:35] where he will have jurisdiction over Todd Blanche and the Justice Department [36:39] if the Democrats win control of the House of Representatives, [36:42] issued a statement today saying that Todd Blanche has, in fact, left his, quote, [36:49] corrupt scheme fully intact, including the unprecedented superpardon shielding the Trump [36:56] family businesses from legal accountability for their efforts to bilk the tax system [37:00] and profit from the presidency. [37:02] Blanche has made clear that he is using his office as the country's chief law enforcement [37:07] officer to create structural roadblocks to prevent the Trump family and their businesses [37:13] from ever being held accountable for any of their corruption or lawlessness, [37:18] including a torrent of suspiciously timed stock trades, shady no-bid government contracts [37:24] handed to companies the Trump family is invested in, [37:27] or even allegations of sexual assault by Trump revealed in the Epstein files. [37:33] MS Now's Jake Traylor asked Donald Trump today, [37:37] about the deal that preserves Donald Trump's tax amnesty [37:42] and wins him a Senate-confirmed attorney general. [37:45] Mr. President, did you sign off on Todd Blanche rescinding the anti-weaponization fund? [37:53] And also, there are Democrats right now who say there's essentially two tax codes. [37:57] There's the Trump family tax code and a normal people tax code. [38:00] Why do you think that your family deserves some level of special exemption [38:04] when it comes to the auditing of taxes? [38:07] Well, I'll go into that. [38:08] First of all, I had a 10-year case that was settled until I announced I was running for office. [38:14] It was a settled deal like I've been doing all my life. [38:17] I've been audited every year for my entire life, [38:20] which I have a lot of wealthy friends who were never audited. [38:23] To this day, they were never audited. [38:24] I was audited. [38:25] And my deal was settled. [38:27] In writing, it was settled. [38:29] Subject to final approval. [38:31] Then I announced I was running for president. [38:33] And all they did was haunt me with it. [38:35] They ended the settlement. [38:37] And they went after it. [38:38] And they went after me illegally. [38:40] He's lying about a lot there. [38:44] First of all, it's worth noting that every president prior to Donald Trump [38:48] automatically had their tax returns audited while they were serving as president of the United [38:56] States. [38:56] That became standard procedure for the IRS. [39:01] Donald Trump was never investigated illegally in a tax audit, as he claimed. [39:06] Donald Trump claimed that he was the subject of a tax audit before he even began running [39:12] for president in 2015. [39:13] He told us that in 2015, before he started his campaign. [39:17] He couldn't release his tax returns because he was being audited. [39:19] Never mind that every previous president had released their tax returns, even when they [39:24] were being audited by the IRS. [39:28] That audit is one of the audits that we know had been going on for a significant amount of [39:32] time due to the complexity of Donald Trump's tax returns before he became a political candidate. [39:38] Donald Trump rambled on without answering the question, [39:41] did you sign off on the deal? [39:44] And so I am proud to say MS Now's Jake Traylor did what a White House correspondent is supposed [39:52] to do. [39:53] He asked the question again. [39:57] Mr. President, did you sign off on Todd Blanche? [40:00] I didn't look at it. [40:01] All I know is that Todd Blanche is great. [40:04] He's going to do a great job. [40:06] Everybody knows it. [40:07] And I understand there's been a sign off. [40:10] But I don't know what they agreed. [40:12] I think Todd Blanche agreed to reconfirm things that he's already said. [40:17] And what he said was OK. [40:19] Please go ahead. [40:20] Are there other avenues you have supporters get paid potentially if it's not the answer [40:24] to the compensation fund? [40:25] Is there another? [40:25] Who are you with? [40:26] I'm with MS Now. [40:27] You who? [40:28] MS Now. [40:29] MS Now? [40:30] Yes, sir. [40:31] What a terrible show. [40:33] They have the worst people on that show. [40:35] Are there other avenues you want to see people? [40:37] No, there's no other avenues that I know about. [40:39] Go ahead. [40:39] And then Donald Trump got the subject change he was hoping for from another reporter who [40:45] asked him about the Strait of Hormuz, to which Donald Trump hallucinated about the possibility [40:52] of the United States of America charging a fee for ships to pass through the Strait of [40:58] Hormuz, something that could never be done and will never be done. [41:03] And oh, by the way, would be a crime against international law and laws of the seas. [41:10] And there's only one person in the world who could even say something as insane as that [41:16] out loud. [41:17] And that is the pathological liar sitting in the Oval Office today who claimed he didn't [41:22] know anything about the deal that gives him and his family tax amnesty and that he could [41:27] painfully discover is unenforceable if the next attorney general of the United States is [41:33] chosen by a Democratic president in 2029.