Rachel Maddow on Trump's Downfall, MAGA's Future & What's Next for America

[0:00] Donald Trump and the Republican Party were trying to do something really, really, really radical [0:04] in this country. Like, I really think Trump wants to undo the Constitutional Republic and rule [0:09] indefinitely by fiat, unconstrained by elections. Yikes. You do? I really think that. And the [0:14] Republican Party was all in on all things Trump, building a golden statue of him literally and [0:20] rolling it out at CPAC. And the Democratic Party was the opposition party saying, we don't want [0:25] that. And the American people just sided with the Democratic Party up and down the ballot at [0:30] the state level, at the federal level, with every opportunity they had and said, no, we prefer the [0:35] opposition. I mean, am I the luckiest person on the planet? I get to do a postmortem of these midterms [0:46] with the one and only Rachel Maddow. I am so excited to see you and to talk to you and just [0:53] cavell with you. So you were at UVA for election night? I was at the Center for Politics. How was [0:59] that? It was really, really fun. You know, I went there. It's my alma mater. Jim Acosta is a resident [1:04] scholar. I said, I'm just a former resident. And Larry Sabato, of course, is so fun and spicy and [1:12] sassy. And there were a lot of students there who were manning the election returns. So it was kind [1:18] of cool to have them. You really felt like you were witnessing the future generation of political [1:25] nerds. Yeah. And also what a cool juxtaposition to be with Sabato, who is like this paragon of [1:33] political analysis and prognostication. And then to be with kids who are, you know, maybe voting in [1:40] their first election, certainly going to be living with the policy consequences of this election in a [1:45] way that older people aren't. And that's just that's a very cool. It was cool. And Tara Setmeyer was [1:50] there. And so she had an interesting perspective. And we had a ton of great guests who were beaming [1:57] in, which was very gratifying that they would want to be a part of our little coverage. Yeah. And we [2:03] had almost a million people watching. So it was really, really exciting. Not MSNOW numbers, Rachel, [2:08] but it was still pretty good. All right. What was your reaction? What is it? I mean, are you [2:13] have you processed it? How are you feeling now a week later? I feel like I'm still kind of processing [2:20] it. Like the reason that I know that I'm not into the next stage of understanding what it means is [2:27] because I'm obsessing on the Kansas governor's race. The Kansas governor's race is one of those [2:31] few races that is uncalled yet. As of last night, there were like 7,000 votes between them. The Dems [2:37] ahead. She's claimed victory. The Republican hasn't conceded. It hasn't technically been called by the AP. [2:43] Like, I don't know that the Kansas governor's race is the most important thing in the world, [2:47] but I'm hanging on to it like that cat in the hang in there poster. Like, no, no, we're still counting. [2:54] And of course, Mississippi and Alaska Senate races. Mississippi is the best example of karma being [3:02] a bitch, isn't it? When you look at what can you explain kind of the dynamics of that race? [3:08] Because it's so sweet. Well, it's I mean, Mississippi is Mississippi. Mississippi has not [3:14] had a had a black senator since the Reconstruction era after the Civil War. And Mississippi also has [3:21] the largest vote black voting population of any state in the country, the percentage of African [3:27] American voters. And the idea that the state with the largest proportion of African American voters [3:33] would for more than a century be denied the opportunity to choose a black statewide office [3:39] holder tells you something about the politics of that state. And it's also about the pettiness of [3:46] this campaign because Cologne tried to be a judge, right? Joe Biden, didn't he nominate him to be a [3:54] judge? And then his opponent, Cindy Hyde Smith. Thank you. Basically, in a very sort of shitty, [4:02] petty, vindictive way, would not approve, would not assent to it. Yeah. Senators have like, [4:09] basically, the same senators basically get a veto over some judges. Right. And and and people went to [4:14] her, they pleaded his case, she was completely obstinate about it. Yeah. And I guess he kind of [4:21] showed her. Exactly. And he's like, a decade long prosecutor, right? Law and order guy, moderate, [4:28] like, not somebody this was this was not AOC running for right up for a judgeship in Mississippi. [4:36] But Cindy Hyde Smith, apparently, apparently on partisan grounds, I don't know what she was she was [4:41] thinking. But she she monkey wrenched that. And now he's gonna beat her. And he's gonna oust an [4:48] incumbent senator in Mississippi, which is just astonishing. But this this overall issue, [4:55] though, of the voter rolls being so screwed up of them taking all these people off the voter rolls [5:00] is so offensive to me. Like it just is feel I feel like I don't just I can't just talk about it like a [5:07] normal issue like gives me the feels. And I think that that's true in Mississippi, too. I think there [5:13] was a really impressive organizing campaign around Cologne's candidacy for Democrats, white and black and of [5:20] all stripes, but particularly in the African American community, because they knew he had a real shot. And to see [5:26] these people who have always voted always in the same precinct, never move, never change their names being told no, your vote's not [5:32] gonna count. Like it for me, at least, it just gets my blood hot. Maybe it's because it's [5:39] Mississippi and because of what people how many people died for the right to vote there. [5:42] And ultimately, though, was that what was the impact of that whole thing trying to [5:47] were people denied? Yes. And so he would have won by a much larger margin, perhaps. [5:55] I mean, all sorts of people were were taken off the voter rolls, but it seems to be disproportionately [6:01] Democratic and black voters. Was there any favorite moment that you had on Tuesday night [6:08] where you thought, wow, this is truly amazing? You know, there was a moment after we got off the air, [6:18] I was supposed to, Katie, I will be I will be honest with you, I was supposed to be on until two in the [6:23] morning. At 119. I left the set, I did not make it my full allotted time. You hit the wall, I hit the [6:32] wall, my brain and my mouth disconnected from one another. And I realized, I could no longer trust [6:39] myself to say true things. And so I just tapped out, please, you got to take me out. I had the flu [6:45] the week leading up to the election, I had influenza A, which I do not recommend, in case you're considering [6:51] getting influenza A. I was gonna say, I better get my flu shot. You do. I have, I, when I was growing [6:56] up, like whenever you'd get sick, you'd say like you had the flu. This was the capital T, capital F [7:02] flu, which I have never had before. I was hallucinating. I was passing out. At one point, [7:08] I found myself on the floor of my office having no idea how long I had been there. I mean, I was [7:13] completely wiped. I had to miss my last show that before the election, Sunday night election coverage [7:19] we were supposed to do, I had to miss it. I mean, I was a mess. So election night, 119, [7:24] I'm over. [7:26] You did, you were, you were operating on fumes. [7:29] Yeah. And I hadn't taken enough DayQuil, and I just like hadn't had enough, you know, [7:34] chicken broth or whatever it was I was living on. But I got, having almost passed out on the set, [7:39] I got back to my office, and I was changing out of my clothes, and I was getting ready to go home. [7:43] And I thought, like, it hit me like out of the blue. Oh, my God, Texas is a blue state. What? [7:50] Like, I'm 53 years old. I lived to see, I lived through, you know, Aunt Richards. Like, I lived [7:56] through, you know, Texas is a blue state. And then, wait, Ohio is a blue state. And there's a [8:04] Democrat going to Congress from Utah. And there's a Democrat going to Congress from Montana. And [8:08] those, those sort of big picture revelations. Kansas. Kansas. Yeah. First time since the 1930s. [8:16] Yeah. 1932. Yeah. Exact. To be exact. All right. This is one of your soliloquies that I [8:24] particularly enjoyed. I thought I would play this. As you know, John Ossoff. Yes. But you know what? [8:31] In Georgia, Democrats won every statewide race in Georgia. And it looks like they flipped the Georgia [8:37] State House. Keisha Lance Bottoms is going to be the governor of Georgia. Democrats also won [8:43] Secretary of State, Attorney General, Agriculture Commissioner, Insurance Commissioner, [8:47] School Superintendent, Labor Commissioner, and Public Service Commissioner. And do you mind me [8:51] just stopping here for a second? I said, Democrats in Georgia, yes, they won the Senate race. And yes, [8:58] they won the governor's race. But they also won, what did I just say? Secretary of State, [9:02] Attorney General, Agriculture Commission, Insurance Commissioner, School Superintendent, [9:05] Labor Commissioner, and Public Service Commissioner. I just said, they just won all of those. [9:08] I need to also tell you specifically that it is black women who won every single one of those races in [9:15] Georgia for the Democrats. Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Agriculture Commissioner, [9:20] Insurance Commissioner, School Superintendent, Labor Commissioner, and Public Service Commissioner. [9:25] Hello, Georgia. Hello, Georgia. Black, female, Democratic political talent in Georgia growing over [9:33] the course of this past 15 years in American politics. And this is the fruit of that tree. [9:38] I just love that, Rachel. It almost makes me cry when I watch that. And I think it's so ironic at a time [9:46] when the backlash against DEI and the demonization of those three letters and the weaponization of those [9:56] these three letters was so strong. Americans said, wait a second, we believe in diversity. We love [10:07] diversity. Diversity is our strength. Did that strike you? Not only as you talked about Georgia, [10:13] but as you looked at this, I don't mean to be cheesy and rainbowy, but you look at these candidates [10:19] from, I mean, it was amazing to me. The first Muslim candidate, you know, you have all these scientists [10:27] and doctors, you have women right in record numbers serving in the house. And I mean, to me, it was just [10:34] like such a repudiation of hate. Yeah. That it just felt, I don't know, I felt so joyful. [10:44] I mean, I feel like there was a definitive verdict from the American people along those lines. [10:54] And Keisha Lance Bottoms didn't run saying, elect me to be the first black woman governor in America. [10:59] She ran saying, elect me and I'm going to get all of you who lost your health insurance because of [11:04] these Republican policies. I'm going to let you get your health insurance back. [11:07] That's so true. These candidates didn't lead with their identities. [11:10] No. And, you know, Abdul Al-Sayed in Michigan, he's going to be the first ever Muslim U.S. senator. [11:17] And the way he articulated it by saying, like, you know, people are telling you to be afraid of me [11:21] because of my name, afraid of me because of my religion. But it wasn't my name or my religion [11:25] that made gas go over $5 a gallon. [11:29] Right. [11:29] You know, like, this is, like, I understand, I want to represent this whole state. [11:34] And you can see through the fear-mongering and scapegoating and prejudice that they're trying to lead with. [11:39] And that, I think, was a really consistent, noble strategy among all of these candidates [11:46] who were firsts. You know, we've got a Native American U.S. senator from Minnesota. [11:52] We've got a Native American female governor in New Mexico. [11:55] You have the first gay, openly gay member of Congress, right, in New Hampshire? [12:02] First openly gay man to serve in the U.S. Senate. [12:04] In the U.S. Senate, sorry. [12:05] Chris Pappas from New Hampshire. [12:06] Right. And also, his family invented the chicken tender. [12:11] What? [12:11] Yeah. [12:12] What? Stop. [12:14] His restaurant. [12:15] Tell me this slowly. [12:16] His family's restaurant apparently invented the chicken tender. [12:20] Well, obviously. [12:21] Please double-check that for me. [12:22] Obviously, he should be president. [12:23] Exactly. [12:24] Because if there's one thing that brings Americans together, it is the chicken tender. [12:31] I had no idea. [12:32] I live in New England. [12:33] I should know that. [12:34] Yeah. [12:34] Yeah. [12:35] Get on that, Rachel. [12:36] I'm sorry. [12:36] Give me credit for that if you talk about it. [12:39] You have shamed me, Katie Couric. [12:40] I wonder if you can tell us what you think ultimately motivated voters. [12:47] Do you think it was – do you think if, Rachel, the price of gas and groceries hadn't gone up as a result of the war in Iran and tariffs, do you think we would have seen a different outcome? [12:59] Do you think that people still vote with their pocketbooks, or do you think we witnessed a rejection of something much deeper and more profound? [13:10] I think it was both. [13:12] I think the size of the Democratic wave might not have been as big without the economic disaster that Trump's policies have wrought. [13:21] But I think if you ask voters what they voted on, the number one thing voters cited in saying it was the issue they were thinking about when they went to cast their vote was actually not cost of living. [13:34] It was corruption. [13:35] Yeah. [13:36] And I think that Americans rich and poor and in the middle, I think Americans right wing and left wing and in the middle, I think Americans who care a lot about politics and who don't care about politics, [13:48] I think Americans of every stripe would agree that they do not want their freaking pocket picked. [13:54] And that is what corruption is. [13:56] It is being pickpocketed by people in power. [13:59] It is being robbed by the president and his family while they're taking your tax dollars and putting them in Don Jr. and Eric's latest Kazakhstan mining company. [14:13] You know, I mean, yes, everybody's feeling pain when you go to the gas pump. [14:18] But there is a particular kind of insult that comes with the pain to know that they are ripping you off on purpose. [14:26] When Trump got up there and said, I don't care about the cost of gas. [14:30] They tell me I shouldn't say this. [14:32] But we're making a fortune. [14:34] Look at the oil companies. [14:36] We're making a fortune. [14:37] Was that not insane? [14:39] After he had just invested personally a ton of money in oil stocks as he started the Iran war. [14:45] So, yes, he is making a fortune, but he's making it off the backs of the American people. [14:50] And I think that sort of insult is something that none of us, like, we're just too proud of people to absorb that. [14:57] And I don't think Americans want to be viewed as chumps. [15:01] Exactly. [15:02] Exactly. [15:02] That's what it boils down to. [15:04] We don't want to be victimized. [15:05] We don't want to be viewed as chumps. [15:07] We don't want to be made fools of. [15:09] And I think that's what Trumpism has come to mean. [15:14] And because the Republican Party decided that Trumpism was going to replace everything else in the Republican Party's supposed principles, that was a pretty direct verdict. [15:24] And that they were okay with it. [15:26] You know, which I think time and time again, I'm sure, as you were covering the last year or two, you kept wondering, why aren't the Republicans speaking out? [15:37] Why is no one, except for maybe the people who had been primaried, right, or decided not to run again, why doesn't anybody have the courage to say this is not right? [15:48] Do you think now they're going to, Rachel? [15:51] You know, I've been talking to people about what does this mean for the future of the Republican Party? [15:56] And obviously, I want to talk to you about Democrats, too. [15:59] But do you think they are going to distance themselves from Trump? [16:02] Larry Sabato told me there will be no light between Republicans on Capitol Hill and the President of the United States. [16:08] And I find that really hard to believe, that they are not going to try to reimagine themselves as a party after being so soundly defeated. [16:19] The question is, what are their options for doing that? [16:22] I mean, I think it was just a real mistake, just not a moral mistake, but a politically tactical mistake, to essentially dissolve their party and say, [16:36] remember when they changed the policy platform of the Republican Party ahead of the 2020 election to say that we don't have a policy platform as a party anymore? [16:47] Our platform is just to support Donald Trump. [16:49] I mean, they explicitly denied that they had any principles other than supporting this one man. [16:55] And if that man is Jesus, then maybe that's a good plan for the long run for your party. [17:01] But if that man is even a normally flawed person, it's a tactically unsound decision because you're putting everything you stand for up against the human frailties of an individual. [17:17] And for this particularly flawed individual and particularly self-centered, narcissistic individual to be the receptacle of everything the Republican Party stands for is just a bad move. [17:28] But now that they've done that, what do you ask people to do? [17:34] I mean, do you ask them to just forgive you or do you try to replace Donald Trump with another golden idol? [17:41] Do you drop the Republican Party name and refound yourself as a different thing? [17:46] I think it's going to be really – I think that's the kind of mistake it's just really hard to come back from. [17:51] It'd be one thing if they'd done it for one political cycle and then kind of said, oops. [17:55] But it's been a decade. [17:57] So, I mean, what do you think they'll do? [17:58] I don't know. [18:00] I don't know. [18:00] I think some of them – well, you see it with the Hexf thing, right? [18:06] Some of them joining forces with Thomas Massey. [18:09] Some of them starting to slowly but surely distance themselves from some of Trump's policies, siding with maybe some of the new Democrats who come in when it comes to issues like affordability. [18:23] Yeah. [18:24] You know, I think for their own political survival, they're going to have to start making some moves. [18:30] I just don't see how they won't. [18:33] It's hard to imagine anywhere in the country an elected Republican member of Congress who thinks they have a career beyond right now, who has to think about their next re-election effort, who has to think about 2028 and beyond that. [18:44] It's hard to imagine a Republican elected anywhere saying, the tariffs are awesome or like, I'm really glad we're in this Iran war. [18:52] We need to stick to it, you know, or, yeah, I'm totally comfortable with what Don Jr. and Eric are making off of taxpayer-funded contracts or what, you know, Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, is making from the Gulf monarchies while he's supposedly organizing our foreign policy as relates to the Gulf monarchies that are paying him. [19:15] I mean, like, I just don't, I don't know anywhere in the country where they've made a substantive case for what Trump is offering. [19:24] And so, and I also think like maybe the one issue on which they thought they were substantively going to win was the, you know, abuse and vilification of immigrants. [19:34] But the way that ICE has comported itself since Trump has been in office, it's repulsed even the most conservative states. [19:42] So what is it about Trumpism that any of these guys would stand up for and expect any, like, electoral or political reward for? [19:53] I just, I can't, I can't find the issue. [19:55] So that's why I think there is going to be light. [19:58] I mean, we'll have to see if Larry is right. [20:00] I mean, he said that the Republican Party is so fully ingrained in the MAGA of it all that this is their identity. [20:09] And I just, I just, I disagree with Larry Sabatov. [20:13] Oh, brave. [20:15] But let me just, I mean, let's say Trump was raptured. [20:20] Let's say he was, you know, he resigned. [20:25] Or something happened. [20:28] And I'm not wishing for that in any way. [20:31] But let's say Trump disappeared for some reason today. [20:36] Tomorrow, we would have J.D. Vance as president. [20:39] Do we think the Republican Party would then line up to worship J.D. Vance? [20:45] No. [20:46] And to celebrate J.D. Vance the way they have Trump? [20:49] And so then what would they stand for? [20:52] What would, what would be their organizing idea? [20:55] I think something is going to rise from the ashes that is more Republican in the spirit of Mitt Romney. [21:02] You know, where decency and a different view of sort of a different political philosophy may reign supreme, but it is going to be based on ideas, not on cruelty and crassness and chaos and corruption and all the C words that really characterize Trump 2.0 especially. [21:25] Right. [21:25] So, I don't know. [21:26] You're an optimist. [21:28] I do. [21:28] I don't know. [21:29] I hope so. [21:30] You know, I was talking to a political scientist, a friend of mine, and he was like, you know, you need two healthy parties for a democracy. [21:37] You certainly do. [21:37] And we want to have a strong Republican Party, I think. [21:42] And we want to have a healthy debate in this country. [21:45] So, yes, hope springs eternal for me. 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[22:52] Next question with Katie Couric sent you. [23:00] Were there any Democrats on, as you've watched these elections, Rachel, who you thought, [23:05] wow, this person is really going places? [23:08] Annie Andrews. [23:09] Really? [23:09] Yeah, the Senate candidate from South Carolina who beat Lindsey Graham, the late Lindsey Graham's sister. [23:16] Darlene Graham. [23:17] Darlene Graham. [23:17] Who changed her name to Graham, by the way, during the campaign, right? [23:20] Handy. [23:20] Oh, back to Graham. [23:21] Well, it's hard to explain why she was on the ballot. [23:24] Well, because Donald Trump picked a bunch of losers. [23:26] That's how. [23:27] He really did. [23:28] He had the Midas, the opposite of the Midas touch. [23:30] Right. [23:30] Everybody, I mean, like, he's the reason we got Ken Paxton in Texas. [23:35] Exactly. [23:35] He's the reason we got Lindsey Graham's sister in South Carolina. [23:38] And I saw him say, oh, John Cornyn would have lost, too. [23:41] And I'm not so sure. [23:43] I'm not so sure. [23:44] I mean, I am thrilled about James Tallarico. [23:46] I think he is a singularly talented, fresh, interesting politician. [23:53] And I love the way he uses faith. [23:56] I also, I've interviewed Annie Andrews a few times. [23:59] What did you think about her, just as in terms of her thing? [24:02] Oh, I just thought she was really impressive. [24:04] First of all, like, gutsy. [24:06] Yes. [24:07] Gutsy to run as a Democrat in South Carolina. [24:10] Gutsy to stand up for science, you know, and vaccines. [24:15] Just, I mean, amazing. [24:17] I think if Lindsey Graham hadn't died, she probably would not have won. [24:21] But Darlene Graham was so lame and so weak and couldn't answer any questions and was just [24:27] so underqualified. [24:29] I think even Republicans in South Carolina, there's been a lot of infighting now in the [24:35] wake of this. [24:36] Like, how the hell did we pick this woman? [24:38] And look what happened, right? [24:40] I mean, again, it's nobody wants to be a chump. [24:43] It's an insult to say of everybody in South Carolina, of every Republican in South Carolina, [24:50] of every Republican politico and every Republican in political life in South Carolina, [24:55] the one we should pick to be the United States senator from this state is Lindsey's sister, [25:02] who doesn't actually even want to do it. [25:04] Right. [25:04] That sort of, like... [25:06] Cynicism. [25:07] Cynicism and laziness and arrogance in doing that. [25:11] I think the people of South Carolina rightfully took as an insult, which I think is how it [25:17] was intended. [25:18] But we're now going to have six years of Annie Andrews being that senator. [25:21] And she's just one of these people where I just... [25:25] We had her on right after the election. [25:29] And sometimes you just get a feeling about somebody. [25:32] And it's not that she's, you know, given a 2004 Democratic National Convention, red states, [25:38] blue states speech like Barack Obama, you know, moved the whole country. [25:42] It's not like she's done anything like that. [25:43] It's not like she has the, like, life-changing oratory of a Raphael Warnock or something. [25:49] It's not that. [25:51] But there's something about her that is just steel. [25:54] Right. [25:54] And her background as a pediatrician, her behavior in this campaign, her style of communicating, [26:02] the way that she connected South Carolina voters, the kinds of issues that she ran on, [26:07] and just her presence. [26:10] I just... [26:11] In talking to her, I just got one of those feelings. [26:13] Like, oh, this is somebody who I'm now going to be covering for the rest of my life. [26:17] Yeah. [26:17] Because this is somebody for whom the sky's the limit. [26:19] You're right. [26:20] She has this steely confidence, which is really appealing. [26:22] Well, I've been asking a lot of people I've been talking to, Rachel, about their advice [26:27] for the Democrats. [26:28] And there's all this conversation. [26:30] I don't know if it's died down now. [26:32] But, you know, should there... [26:34] How do you balance accountability? [26:36] People are saying retribution is not the right word. [26:39] It's accountability. [26:40] With providing a vision for the American people who are really suffering and how you kind of [26:46] balance those two goals. [26:48] So, I mean, what advice would you give the Democrats? [26:50] And what can they actually get done in the next two years with this lame duck president? [26:57] Yeah. [26:57] It's a good question. [26:58] I wouldn't give him any advice. [27:00] But I would say that, as we were talking about earlier, the American people said more than [27:09] anything, the thing they were mad about was corruption. [27:11] And to the extent that the last two years have been kind of a crime wave, one of the good [27:19] things to do once you get control of the legislative branch, once you get control of Congress, is [27:24] to stop the crimes that are in progress. [27:27] It's just to stop what's happening in all of these cabinet agencies to say, like, actually, [27:31] you can't do this anymore. [27:32] You can't just give taxpayer money to the president's family. [27:38] You can't have people selling pardons. [27:42] You can't. [27:43] Like, this stuff just needs to stop. [27:45] They seem to be moving away from impeachment and towards sort of investigations. [27:49] Can you just talk about the things that they can do absent of impeaching the president again? [27:55] Which I think a lot of Democrats, the impression I get, are quite nervous about the I word. [28:01] Well, I don't think the impeachment of the president is the, like, front-line issue. [28:07] I think the impeachment of the president's cabinet is happening. [28:11] I think that Pete Hegseth is likely to be impeached. [28:14] I don't know if they'll convict him in the Senate. [28:16] You'd need, like, a dozen Republicans to agree that he should be convicted in a Senate trial. [28:21] But I think that the Pete Hegseth impeachment is the first of probably several. [28:27] I think Todd Blanche will be second. [28:29] And, again, the reason to do that is not to create a spectacle, not to, you know, make an example of them or something. [28:38] It's to stop what they've been doing. [28:40] The last two years in the Defense Department, the last two years in the Justice Department, have seen incredible corruption and criminal behavior by those agencies that must be stopped. [28:53] And if they don't pay any price for what they've done the last two years, they will keep doing it for the next two years. [28:58] So it's just this very practical thing. [29:00] It's not even a backward-looking thing. [29:03] It's about making sure they stop these things going forward. [29:05] Those sorts of actions in the Justice Department, just, you know, selling pardons, that sort of thing, this sort of stuff, I think the American people are demanding must be stopped. [29:19] And the Congress, with their investigatory powers and with the impeachment powers that they have for Senate-confirmed officials, I think they're going to pursue it. [29:29] So how do they address the disgusting level of corruption in the Trump family itself? [29:37] Is the Supreme Court and their immunity decision, is that just, like, give him protection forever on what has happened and how he and his cronies have enriched themselves? [29:50] I mean, how do they address that? [29:52] Well, the Supreme Court immunity decision did not apply to the president's sons. [29:56] And so, like, for example, I think that Don Jr. and Eric are just immensely talented young men. [30:06] But, I mean, obvious. [30:08] But I don't think that they know how to build awesome drones. [30:14] And so when the U.S. Air Force wanted to give, you know, tens of millions of dollars-sized drone development contract, [30:21] there's a lot of good companies in America and around the world that they might have invested in doing that. [30:27] But instead, they invested, they gave that contract to a podunk, totally unproven drone company [30:34] that happened to have Don Jr. and Eric associated with its investors. [30:39] And that is a ripoff of the American people in terms of giving money to the president's family. [30:45] But it's also really bad for the U.S. Air Force in terms of developing the best drone technology, [30:50] which is something that we need, which Iran has really, really proven we need and that we're way behind on. [30:55] And Ukraine and Russia. [30:56] Yeah. [30:56] Yes. [30:57] So there's nothing in the immunity, the odious immunity decision from the Roberts court that applies to the president himself [31:06] that should preclude the investigation of that decision to award that decision at the Air Force. [31:13] And an investigation along, you know, whether it's a bribery investigation, whether it's a corrupt influence investigation, [31:21] the Justice Department and the FBI have shut down their public corruption units. [31:26] The Congress can substitute for that by doing it themselves. [31:30] Also, the IGs are all gone, right? [31:31] Yeah. [31:32] From all the agencies. [31:33] But Trump himself, I think a lot of people, like, really want to see him taken to task for his behavior. [31:41] I think he just got taken to task. [31:44] But I mean, even more so, Rachel. [31:45] Yeah. [31:46] I mean, we'll see. [31:49] But investigation into all this stuff is the right first step in any case because it should all be exposed. [31:56] But is there a danger of focusing so much attention on this that the person at the gas pump or, I mean, obviously, simultaneously affordability has to be addressed, [32:07] housing prices, the war in Iran, tariffs, et cetera, et cetera. [32:11] And I remember someone saying, you know, Congress can walk and chew gum at the same time. [32:16] Yes. [32:17] But they really are going to need to show us how to do that, right? [32:20] But I think they are. [32:21] I mean, I think that you see the oversight committees, the actual government oversight committee, Robert Garcia, the Judiciary Committee, Jamie Raskin. [32:28] You see them talking about, listen, we're going to get to the bottom of a bunch of this stuff. [32:32] We're going to figure out why it is that Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's co-conspirator, was moved to a minimum security prison. [32:39] Like, we're going to, and given a puppy, like, we're going to, we're going to figure this stuff out. [32:43] And simultaneously, they're talking about health care. [32:47] They're talking about the minimum wage. [32:49] I mean, the minimum wage hasn't got up in 20 years. [32:51] It's insane, isn't it? [32:52] And if Democrats in the House and the Senate can pass a rise in the minimum wage, is Donald Trump going to veto that? [32:59] And say, no, no, no, I think you're all fine at $7.25 an hour. [33:02] I'm making a fortune. [33:04] I don't care that you're making $7.25 an hour. [33:06] I mean, that's, that's real stuff that's going to come up real fast. [33:11] Do you think Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer will both be, you know, have their roles in leadership, that Hakeem will be Speaker of the House and Chuck Schumer will be Majority Leader? [33:23] I'm bad at a lot of things. [33:25] But I think the thing that is related to my job that I'm worst at is figuring out what Democrats are going to do. [33:33] I have no idea. [33:34] I just feel like I can't, I don't, I don't have any insight into it at all. [33:38] What do you think is going to happen with him? [33:39] I don't know. [33:40] I think Hakeem is a, is definitely going to be Speaker of the House. [33:45] And, and I hope that he's going to find a little more fire in his belly. [33:50] I think he's a pretty level-headed, kind of monotonous guy. [33:56] Yeah. [33:56] Right. [33:57] And, and the way he addresses things. [34:00] Chuck Schumer, I didn't think, I thought he was not going to be long for this world. [34:04] And boy, people are out for his scalp on social media if you, you know, look at some of the comments. [34:09] But I do think, you know, the proof is in the pudding, right? [34:15] I mean, he did a pretty good job. [34:18] And I think he had something to do with the midterm results, right? [34:23] I mean, ostensibly. [34:24] So I don't know. [34:26] Certainly candidate recruitment and stuff. [34:28] He's a big part of that. [34:29] Yeah. [34:29] But it was interesting. [34:31] You know, we had, we had three independent Senate candidates running in interesting states, [34:36] right? [34:36] Montana places. [34:38] None of the independent Senate candidates won. [34:40] And one of the ways, that was like an interesting experiment in partisan politics. [34:45] In very deep red states, in a state like Montana, can you, or in a state like Nebraska, if you [34:51] don't have a Democratic candidate running, or you don't have a real Democratic candidate [34:55] running, can an independent Senator who explicitly runs on, I don't support Chuck Schumer, I'm [35:01] going to be an independent, I'm not going to be a Democrat, can they compete with Republicans? [35:07] That's Heather and Heather Manchin's whole thing. [35:09] You know, they really want to promote this idea of independent candidates. [35:14] You heard Matthew McConaughey talking about it before the midterms. [35:18] And I just sort of felt like this was not the time for that argument. [35:22] No, and also it's substance free, honestly. [35:24] It's a style argument, not a substance argument. [35:27] This idea that, oh, we're, I just feel like my whole adult life, you've had this group [35:34] of folks who's a very like Michael Bloomberg type group, or maybe a Matthew McConaughey [35:40] type group, I don't know, but they, or Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema did it for a while, [35:45] where they say like, oh, people hate politicians. [35:48] Well, I'll say I hate politicians too, and therefore you should vote for me. [35:52] Like, I just, I've never, unless there's something, you just saying you're not, you're neither of the [35:59] parties doesn't actually tell me anything about who you are. [36:02] And so to see all the independent Senate candidates get rejected with that kind of an argument, [36:07] I think was sort of another sign of, not that I have anything against any of them individually, [36:12] but I think it was another sign of like people kind of knowing what's up. [36:14] Like, Donald Trump and the Republican Party were trying to do something really, really, [36:19] really radical in this country. [36:21] Like, I really think Trump wants to undo the Constitutional Republic and rule indefinitely [36:25] by fiat, unconstrained by elections. [36:27] Yikes. [36:28] You do? [36:28] I really think that. [36:30] And the Republican Party was all in on all things Trump, building a golden statue of him [36:34] literally and rolling it out at CPAC. [36:36] And the Democratic Party was the opposition party saying, we don't want that. [36:41] And the American people just sided with the Democratic Party up and down the ballot, at [36:45] the state level, at the federal level, with every opportunity they had and said, no, we [36:50] prefer the opposition. [36:52] Do you think conversations about an intra-party strife in the Democratic Party has been overstated? [37:00] How concerned are you about sort of, you know, centrists versus progressives, the DSA, you [37:06] know, which was, of course, used as, you know, the communism argument? [37:10] Like the boogeyman. [37:11] Yeah. [37:12] Do you think that's going to be problematic for the Democrats? [37:16] I think it's a very like first world problem for the Democrats right now because there's [37:21] so much attention on DSA and DSA-affiliated candidates. [37:26] I remember seeing all these like scare stories, not only in the right-wing media, but in the [37:31] regular media too. [37:32] Five DSA-associated candidates may be elected to the House. [37:37] Dun, dun, dun. [37:38] Like you can hear the ominous music behind the headlines. [37:41] But at the same time, in the same election, the Blue Dog Caucus, which was gone, which we [37:47] didn't even think existed anymore, which is essentially conservative Democrats, they've [37:51] got more than a dozen candidates who were just elected in this same election. [37:55] And so, yes, you can choose to be terrified of the five DSA candidates. [38:00] You can choose to be terrified of the dozen Blue Dogs. [38:03] But it is a first world problem for a party to have won so many seats, to have won so comprehensively [38:10] in an election like this that every faction of the party won. [38:14] And now they will fight it out. [38:15] But that is a high class problem. [38:17] I'm excited to talk about your book. [38:19] And I just got a 15 minute warning. [38:20] Maybe you can stretch it a little bit longer. [38:22] You can have all the minutes. [38:23] But Rachel, before we talk about your book, and it's fascinating, and it's a look at sort [38:28] of historically at the DOJ and many of the issues we've already discussed that kind of [38:32] are relevant to your book. [38:35] But I have to ask you about Stephen Miller, because I had to laugh at Virginia Fox of North [38:41] Carolina is described as Satan's Meemaw, which makes me laugh so much. [38:47] Is Stephen Miller like Satan's grandbaby? [38:50] I mean, it is so crazy to me that, I mean, nothing is crazy to me at this point, Rachel, [38:58] but that he is going to have the most powerful position in Washington, particularly after there [39:05] was such a repudiation of these draconian immigration policies of ICE. [39:11] And he's like the mastermind. [39:13] He's the guy who made it happen. [39:14] He's like Dr. Evil, behind the scenes, coming up with all this stuff. [39:19] And now he's in charge. [39:20] What? [39:21] Yeah. [39:22] And I don't know how it's going to work out. [39:25] I mean, Donald Trump at this point is still the president, but he seems most engaged and [39:33] sort of only interested in talking about his renovation projects and talking about his remodeling [39:40] stuff. [39:42] And I think he's smart enough to know that that's an embarrassment, but he's also narcissistic [39:50] and simple-minded enough that he can't stop himself. [39:54] And so appointing somebody like Stephen Miller, chief of staff, Stephen Miller absolutely wants [39:59] to run the entire federal government in the White House. [40:02] And I think Donald Trump is sort of, Chris Hayes calls it a sort of, has a sort of feral [40:07] intelligence enough to know when somebody is playing him, to know when somebody is taking [40:14] advantage of him, to know when somebody is being condescending to him. [40:17] And I think that Stephen Miller is not there to empower Donald Trump. [40:20] I think Stephen Miller is there to run things himself. [40:23] And I'm not sure how long Donald Trump will stand that. [40:25] I think Stephen Miller says all the right things, is sycophantic, you know, tells Trump that [40:31] he's, you know, the greatest president in the history of the country and everything, you [40:34] know, the sound you hear is Lincoln spinning in his grave. [40:39] But I think that everybody can see, and I'm assuming even Trump can see, that Miller has [40:44] his own agenda. [40:45] And it doesn't actually have anything to do with Trump. [40:47] It means using the Trump, using Trump's power to do his own thing. [40:51] So you think he's going to be short-lived? [40:53] I kind of do. [40:54] But I don't know. [40:55] I don't know. [40:56] We'll see. [40:56] It's a strange decision for Trump to have made in the first place. [40:59] It's also interesting because Miller's elevation may have been, we'll see, but it's sort of [41:08] emerging that there may have been a real problem with his previous chief of staff, with [41:11] Susie Wiles. [41:13] These very serious allegations have been made by somebody who just left the Health and Human [41:17] Services Department, that Susie Wiles was essentially selling access to the Oval Office. [41:22] Right. [41:23] That you had to pay her family in order to get action or attention from the president, [41:29] that you had to hire her daughter's lobbying firm in order to get an issue on the president's [41:34] desk. [41:34] That's a really serious corruption allegation for the Oval Office. [41:37] And so if he had to pick a new chief of staff because Susie Wiles, the Susie Wiles situation [41:43] was a major scandal, that is a different dynamic than picking Stephen Miller because he wanted [41:49] Stephen. [41:49] It may have just been like, oh no, we got to vacate this position. [41:53] Who's next? [41:54] Okay, we'll pick you. [41:55] Do you think Susie Wiles will be investigated? [41:57] Well, Todd Blanche has already said he definitely won't. [42:02] There's a public integrity section at the Justice Department for a reason. [42:05] We have an element of the government that's supposed to police public corruption at the [42:09] federal level and in the states. [42:11] And Todd Blanche has absolutely abdicated that. [42:13] So I think Congress will have to investigate. [42:20] That is an excellent segue, Rachel, to your new book. [42:23] It is called Department of Fate, The Promise, The Power, and the Collapse of America's Most [42:28] Consequential Institution. [42:30] It's really a history of the DOJ. [42:33] And before we kind of dig into some of the stories that you tell and examples you give, [42:38] why? [42:39] As Brian Gumbel would say, why? [42:42] Why? [42:42] Why? [42:44] At the end of Trump's first term, the way that he was using the Justice Department then, [42:49] which is when he had Bill Barr, remember, as the AG, I and I think a lot of other people [42:57] thought at the end of Trump's first term, okay, he has figured out how to use the Justice [43:01] Department to get what he wants, to go after people he wants to target and to supercharge [43:07] his own false claims, for example, about the election. [43:11] He's figured out how to do it. [43:12] And if he ever gets back in in the second term, he is going to turn the Department of [43:17] Justice into a nuclear weapon. [43:20] Remember, everybody said he would use it as his sword and his shield. [43:23] And that's a very dangerous thing for the president to be able to do. [43:26] I just thought he's going to triple the budget. [43:29] He's going to triple the headcount. [43:30] He's going to turn the Department of Justice into his personal law firm, into, well, into [43:35] a nuclear weapon, into the thing that he's going to use to effectuate all his plans. [43:42] And that's very scary, given the powers of the Justice Department. [43:44] I totally thought he would do that. [43:46] And then he did not do that at all. [43:47] Instead, the Justice Department has shrunk by thousands of people. [43:51] It's just closed whole divisions. [43:53] The National Security Division is basically gone. [43:55] Tax Division, gone. [43:57] Public Integrity Section, gone. [44:00] They closed the public corruption unit at the FBI. [44:03] They didn't supersize it and then use it to go after all the Democrats. [44:07] They closed it. [44:08] And so I was really wrong about that. [44:11] And I thought, well, why was I wrong? [44:12] And in trying to answer that question, I wanted to look at the power of the Justice Department [44:20] over time and how it's been used by presidents, good and bad, and by attorneys general, good [44:25] and bad, to get stuff done. [44:27] And my conclusion and the argument of the book is that the Department of Justice is massively [44:34] consequential. [44:35] What it does, for good or for bad, sets the course of the country more than any other institution [44:40] that we have. [44:41] It sets the course of the country in terms of the economy and in terms of politics and [44:45] in terms of everything. [44:47] And therefore, it is a really powerful tool. [44:51] But that also means that we should appreciate how important it is that it's effectively gone [44:57] under Trump. [44:58] That's a surprising decision for somebody to make when he could have used it as a real [45:02] weapon had he tried to do it, had he put all the best people there. [45:05] And I think the reason that he got rid of it is because, like I said, I think Trump is [45:11] a different kind of cat. [45:12] I think that he wants to undo the Constitutional Republic. [45:15] I think the main and core and honorable function of the Justice Department is to defend the [45:21] Constitution. [45:22] And I think if you're looking to get rid of that Constitution, it is best to not have [45:25] a building full of lawyers there whose job it is to defend it. [45:28] You talk about how powerful the DOJ is, and yet you write that from the beginning, the [45:34] AG was the redheaded stepchild of the cabinet. [45:38] So how do you square those two things? [45:40] So when the Department of Justice was founded, it actually wasn't founded in the 1700s. [45:46] We didn't set up a Justice Department after the Constitution was ratified. [45:50] We just had an attorney general. [45:52] There was just one guy. [45:53] And in fact, the attorney general was kind of a part-time job. [45:56] He would have to take on private lawyer work on the side in order to pay for his keep. [46:02] The attorney general started off as sort of just a general counsel working for the president [46:05] and the cabinet. [46:06] It wasn't until after the Civil War that we got a Justice Department, a whole staff, [46:12] a whole institution of government to work under the AG. [46:17] And the reason that we did that was the constitutional amendments that were passed after the Civil [46:23] War to say that we were going to be a multiracial democracy, that we were going to be a country [46:28] that where you couldn't own other people and where your race did not preclude your citizenship. [46:36] And in order to effectuate that kind of a huge change, they set up this department to go do that. [46:43] And the very first thing the brand new Justice Department did was go fight the Klan in the South. [46:49] This is Amos Ackerman, who you start the book with. [46:52] The very first attorney general, right? [46:55] Was he called attorney general then? [46:56] He was not the first attorney general, but he was the first attorney general who had a Justice Department. [47:01] Got it. [47:01] Because the department came after the AG job. [47:05] And what he did is, yeah, he, Amos Ackerman, who ought to be a household name, [47:09] went to, among other places, York County, South Carolina. [47:13] They suspended habeas corpus. [47:15] They sent in the military. [47:17] And they systematically and in just a massive show of force and constitutionally backed bravery, [47:31] they uprooted the Klan in South Carolina to say, you know what? [47:36] The Constitution says that we have equal protection under the laws no matter who we are. [47:43] And if the Klan is going to run the town government and the banks and all the businesses in town by day [47:49] and then be a terrorist militia murdering people by night, [47:53] then citizens in this county and in this state don't actually have the rights the Constitution say they have. [47:58] And it'll be the federal government in the form of the Justice Department that makes that right. [48:03] And Ackerman proved that it could be done. [48:05] Sadly, it didn't last so, right, Rachel? [48:07] No. [48:07] He was taken out. [48:10] The leadership in Washington lost its appetite for Reconstruction, [48:16] for the efforts to stand up the Constitutional Republic after the Civil War. [48:20] And Ackerman was turfed out. [48:21] How did you choose the people you were profiling in this book? [48:26] Because you also do Richard Olney, J. Edgar Hoover, Edwin Meese, [48:30] who I was really interested in having sort of lived through the Meese Department of Justice, [48:35] and Bill Barr. [48:36] And I was thinking, gosh, I wonder why Rachel didn't talk about RFK. [48:40] You know, because whenever I think about an impartial, independent Department of Justice, [48:47] I always think, like, how did that work out with Bobby Kennedy as AG and his brother as president, right? [48:53] How independent are you from your brother, the president? [48:55] Right? But how did you decide these were the moments in history that you wanted to focus on? [49:02] I wanted to talk about how consequential the Justice Department was. [49:06] So, for example, there's one of the AGs is Harry Doherty, who Boardwalk Empire has a little Harry Doherty, [49:16] and in case people want to think of him as a character they've seen on television. [49:19] But Harry Doherty is important because he was there during a really, really, really corrupt time in Washington. [49:27] And he not only took personal bribes, but he let the corruption slide and didn't investigate any of it. [49:32] And it allowed the corruption in Washington at that time, this is 100 years ago in the 1920s, [49:38] to mushroom to the point where it essentially ate political, it ate partisan politics at the time. [49:44] And Doherty was forced out because of it in scandal. [49:46] He was eventually indicted. [49:48] Like, okay, that's a consequentially bad attorney general in terms of corruption. [49:52] That's helpful for understanding the corrupt period that we're in today. [49:55] Good analogy. [49:57] Richard Olney was a Bill Barr type, a real ideological radical in there. [50:03] And the Congress had passed an antitrust law, the Sherman antitrust law, to try to rein in big business. [50:09] Olney decided that he loved big business, and in fact he was invested in big business. [50:13] And he knew that the Cabinet was all invested in big business, and so he took the anti-big business law [50:18] and he used it to crush the unions, to crush the labor uprising of people who were trying to stand up to big business. [50:27] Like, that was an example of real ideological radicalism of the Justice Department. [50:31] Oh, okay, that's helpful in terms of an analogy to what's going on with ideological radicalism there today. [50:36] So all of these cases kind of are echoing in the present day, right? [50:41] So you're kind of building a case of sort of what was wrong with these various DOJs that led to where we are today? [50:51] And what was right. [50:52] I mean, there's also the example of John Doerr during the Civil Rights era in the 1960s, [50:57] and the example of Amos Ackerman fighting the Klan in the 1870s. [51:00] And those, if you take, I think these, there's basically a half dozen anecdotes or stories in the book. [51:07] And if you take these, you can see how when the Justice Department acts for good to defend the Constitution, [51:14] it can turn the whole country around. [51:17] When the Justice Department acts for bad, like going after people standing up for their rights in unions [51:23] or for enabling corruption, it can turn the whole country in a bad direction, too. [51:30] It's just worth understanding how consequential this one department is. [51:36] And recognizing now, today, not only all those analogies and not only all of those times when it's also been bad before, [51:45] but what we've lost in having the Justice Department effectively shut down right now. [51:50] And what a great opportunity we have to refound it along righteous lines so that it can never go bad again. [51:56] Let's talk about how we can save the DOJ. [51:59] You write, the department is deceased, dead, doornail, dunzo, and that Bill Barr and Trump are to blame, which we've talked about. [52:07] So how do you fix it, Rachel? [52:09] What do you do? [52:10] Can we come back from the abyss? [52:12] I do think that there is an incredible opportunity right now, which is why I wanted to do this. [52:19] I kind of rushed to finish this book because I knew that by the end of Trump's second term, [52:27] we were going to be in a situation where we needed to be thinking about not just rebuilding but refounding this institution. [52:33] And I sort of just wanted to get this on the agenda in terms of how people think about what we need to do to shore up the republic [52:41] so that our democracy is never in danger like this again. [52:44] And I do think we have a real opportunity now because it's essentially been razed, it's been destroyed, [52:50] that when it gets rebuilt, we should make sure that there aren't ideological radicals there again, [52:56] that there aren't people who can't get broad political support who are in leadership roles at this uniquely powerful and important agency. [53:06] Can we reinstate some of these departments that have been shut down or erased when it comes to ethics [53:14] and all these things to help the DOJ police itself? [53:18] And how do you do that? [53:20] Does Congress just say, we want this back into the Department of Justice? [53:24] Congress created the Department of Justice. [53:27] Congress can reform the Department of Justice. [53:29] And so it takes, there's a whole bunch of Senate-confirmed positions at DOJ. [53:35] The Senate could raise its threshold for what level of support you needed to be able to get from the Senate [53:41] to be able to get confirmed to one of these jobs. [53:43] Trump's been, one of the hallmarks of the Trump and Todd Blanch era DOJ [53:47] is that they've been trying to illegally install people who are not officially qualified to be U.S. attorneys all over the place. [53:54] That should not only be precluded by Justice Department rules, [53:57] but we should maybe engage the judiciary where federal judges have more of an explicit role [54:03] in choosing who the U.S. attorneys are around the country. [54:06] They already have a small role in that. [54:08] It should be expanded. [54:09] Yeah. [54:10] And Liz Hoyer, who's the former pardon attorney, and we've become friendly. [54:13] She's great. [54:14] She said, hasn't she done a great job of explaining this to people? [54:18] She's the explainer-in-chief. [54:19] She is. [54:20] She really is the person who makes everything make sense. [54:23] Oh, she'll love hearing that. [54:25] But she wrote to me, she knew we were talking, [54:28] I really appreciate Rachel's perspective that the Justice Department has always been a flawed institution. [54:34] There's currently a lot of nostalgia for the old DOJ, meaning DOJ as it existed pre-Trump. [54:40] My concern is that there will be a push to rebuild it exactly as it once was. [54:44] In my view, that would be a mistake. [54:45] I joined the Justice Department as a pardon attorney after spending most of my career [54:50] litigating against the Justice Department as a public defender. [54:53] When I came in the door, I already had a lot of notes about what could be different and better. [54:57] But typically, people in leadership positions at the department come up through the ranks [55:01] and don't necessarily look critically at how the organization operates. [55:06] It's a pretty insular institution. [55:08] What do you think about the idea, and you kind of mentioned this already, Rachel, [55:11] that a future DOJ needs to bring in more outside perspectives? [55:16] Who do you think should lead the rebuilding of the Justice Department [55:19] when the Trump administration comes to an end? [55:22] Oh, who should lead it? [55:23] That's fascinating. [55:24] And should it be, should they have more outside, should it be less insular? [55:29] I think that the Justice Department needs to be structurally reimagined. [55:33] Absolutely. [55:34] And I think that the Democrats need to take this really seriously in Congress. [55:37] I think this is a job for Congress, which I know everybody in the sound of my voice right now [55:42] is thinking, a job for Congress. [55:44] Wah, wah. [55:45] Don't they have enough to do? [55:47] Well, and also, like, we don't trust them to do anything. [55:49] You know, Congress has been- [55:50] Well, maybe now we do. [55:52] Well, yeah. [55:53] Congress has been so denigrated in the American mind. [55:56] I mean, people hate the very idea of Congress and think of it as totally ineffectual. [56:02] But the founders of our country designed the legislative branch, designed Congress to be [56:07] first among equals. [56:08] It is supposed to be the most powerful branch of our government. [56:12] And the- [56:13] That was before unitary executive theory, right? [56:16] Yeah. [56:17] Which we- [56:17] Yes. [56:18] Which was a mistake and a joke that got reified in the Reagan administration into something [56:24] that they now think is gospel. [56:25] But the whole authoritarian project, like the whole, you know, king-like president project [56:32] is to consolidate all the power in one dude and make all the rest of the government wither [56:38] away. [56:39] It's why they felt so comfortable destroying so much of the federal government with Doge. [56:44] It's why they've- [56:46] They only passed, with complete control of Congress, they really only passed one bill the [56:50] whole time Trump was in office these past two years. [56:53] The reason they attacked judges as if judges are like, you know, YouTube influencers on [56:58] the other side of a- on the other side of a- a- a- a- a cultural debate of some kind, [57:02] you know. [57:03] Um, they really believe that nothing in government should matter except the man at the top, the [57:08] strong man. [57:09] And it's just- it's not the way our government was designed. [57:12] And I'm sorry, even though Congress is unpopular, if you're against that sort of monarchical [57:18] view of undoing our constitutional republic, what it means you do support is the power [57:23] of Congress. [57:24] And Congress can re-imagine the Justice Department. [57:27] And I totally take to heart what Liz Zoyer is pointing out there about how insular it's [57:31] been. [57:32] But it- the Justice Department, we need to rebuild really carefully because, um, I think [57:37] it's ominous that the guy who wants to undo the Constitution, um, also got rid of the Justice [57:43] Department in so doing, when you might have otherwise expected him to make it a big deal so [57:47] that he could use it as a weapon, um, that, if nothing else, should convince us how important [57:53] it is and how pro- how important it is that we properly stand it back up in a way that's [57:58] more resilient. [57:59] Well, I- I just love talking to you. [58:01] What a- what a thrill it is to just kibitz with you, Rachel, about everything. [58:06] We should do this more often! [58:07] I know, I would love it. [58:08] Your book is Department of Fate, The Power- The Promise, The Power, and the Collapse of America's [58:14] Most Consequential Institution. [58:16] I so admire that you are able to, like, write a book as substantive and media. [58:23] I think of you at the stacks somewhere, like, doing all your nerdy research. [58:28] I mean, this was a huge undertaking, Rachel. [58:31] When I die, I'll tell you right now, it is going to be because I am crushed by a toppling [58:36] pile of paper. [58:37] I'm going- either a bookshelf is gonna tip over on top of me, or I'm going to be buried [58:42] by a pile of paper in my office. [58:45] But clearly, you love it, you love it, and we're all the better for that passion. [58:51] Rachel, thank you so, so much. [58:53] Thank you. [58:54] It gave me this much time. [58:56] It's really nice to see you. [58:57] Oh my god, are you crazy? [58:58] You're welcome. [58:59] I'm sorry. [59:00] You're crazy. [59:01] Get out. [59:02] You're crazy. [59:04] I'm sorry. [59:06] You're crazy. [59:07] I appreciate that. [59:08] Let me know in the comments. [59:09] I think I got a little bit more. [59:10] I bet I was gonna guide you in the comments. [59:11] I believe that I might touch it in the comments. [59:12] Okay. [59:13] Bye. [59:14] Bye. [59:14] Bye. [59:15] Bye. [59:16] Bye. [59:17] Bye. [59:18] Bye. [59:18] Bye. [59:19] Bye. [59:19] Bye. [59:19] Bye. [59:20] Bye. [59:21] Bye. [59:21] Bye. [59:22] Bye. [59:22] Bye. [59:23] Bye. [59:23] Bye. [59:24] Bye.