'Temper tantrum': Reaction to Trump warning Bondi about her firing

[0:00] Joining me now, MSNOW White House reporter Jake Traylor, MSNOW senior investigative reporter [0:05] Carol Lennig, New York Times chief White House correspondent and MSNOW contributor Peter Baker, [0:10] and Eddie Glaude is a Princeton University professor and MSNOW contributor Jake. [0:16] What more can you tell us you've learned about why this is being handled this way? [0:21] One might say, why didn't Trump just fire her? What can you tell us about what's going on? [0:26] Yeah, Chris, that last question is really good. And I'll get to all that as some of [0:28] this reporting is coming in in real time. But MSNOW, as you said, is able to confirm from [0:33] one White House official and also a person familiar with the situation that Bondi, [0:38] the attorney general, has been informed by President Trump that her days are very limited. [0:44] This decision has not been formally announced. And it's also, of course, especially with President [0:48] Trump, subject to change. We've seen him do that before, especially when reports come out [0:53] indicating what he is intending to do. But four sources, including reporting from me [0:58] and my colleagues, have said that there is no way that MSNOW is going to be able to confirm [0:58] what's going on in real time. And I think that's a very important point. And I think it's a very important [0:58] point. And I think it's a very important point. And I think it's a very important point. And I think [0:58] my colleague, Laura Baron-Lopez, say that the ousting of Bondi at this point is imminent. [1:03] I had one White House official tell me, actually, that they can't believe it hasn't already [1:07] happened this week. They expected it even earlier. Many people in Trump's orbit, including some of [1:13] his closest aides and allies, have really had the knives out for Bondi for months. A lot of that [1:18] started, remember, with her handling of the Epstein files. I will say this, the process [1:24] that you asked about of why he would inform her as opposed to just having her demoted as [1:28] we've seen already with Mike Waltz and Kristi Noem in the second administration. One White House [1:33] official told me that, personally, the president still really likes Pam Bondi, and he is hoping to [1:39] help her, quote, help her along. So he wants to help her in some way land softly. So we are seeing [1:44] a bit of a different style here, where typically we've just seen the announcement of a demotion [1:48] or a firing altogether. And in this case, there was some type of back and forth behind the scenes [1:53] that's taking place before the official announcement comes out. MSNOW also can confirm [1:58] as well, Chris, that three people familiar are saying on that short list are Lee Zeldin, [2:03] the current minister of the EPA. So a lot of pieces of the puzzle coming in together in real [2:09] time here. But what is clear is that Bondi is on her way out truly any moment now. [2:15] Carol Lennig, you've been reporting on this as well. And I want to read just one line from the [2:20] MSNOW reporting. Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, has bent the DOJ to the will of the White [2:30] House. Bondi, a former Florida attorney general in modern history, if you do that and you can't keep [2:34] your job, where does that leave anybody who goes to work for this administration? Tell us what you [2:40] know. It's a great question, Chris. And hats off to Jake on his reporting on this, by the way. We've [2:46] been chasing the rumor about Bondi potentially being removed since Monday. And it's really [2:53] important to know that the president has literally informed her. It's no longer White House aides [2:58] chit-chatting or thinking this will happen. [3:01] It's no longer a very serious problem for her. It's a little more of a prerogative of her to [3:07] tell her that she's the right person for her. It's a little more of a booster to her that he's [3:11] considering. But he's told her, basically, you're going to be out soon. And that's not a small thing. [3:16] But on your question, let's zero in on that. Yes, Pam Bondi is an attorney general like no other. [3:23] She basically went to the lectern to welcome Donald Trump soon after his election to the Department [3:29] of Justice's Great Hall. [3:31] And he has given her instructions about specific people he wants charged, prosecuted and imprisoned. [3:38] And that has not been an easy road for her. [3:41] While she has tilted the department to be a tool for exactly that, moving to indict former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, six Democratic lawmakers that the president viewed as critics of his that he wanted basically thrown under a bus. [4:00] Her efforts to, you know, actually push and support the possible prosecution of Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve board chairman who, you know, a federal judge concluded there was no evidence, even the slightest evidence of wrongdoing. [4:17] While she has tried to do this, she's had two big challenges. [4:21] Grand jurors who say, where's the beef? [4:24] And federal judges who have intervened as judge as chief judge in the District of Columbia. [4:30] Did in the Jerome Powell case to say once again, where's the beef? [4:34] There is no evidence. [4:35] And when there is not evidence, those are cases that, you know, lawyers for the Department of Justice may find themselves facing the possibility of losing their bar license if they pursue cases where they don't have a good faith belief that they can sustain a conviction at trial. [4:53] The other side of that, Eddie. [4:56] So you have a president who's upset that his attorney general has been unable to successfully. [5:01] Prosecute people he thinks should face criminal charges. [5:04] But with or without Bondi, as Carol just points out, the issue with the cases, let's say a lack of evidence, don't go away. [5:14] So what is getting rid of Bondi accomplish? [5:17] Well, it's just as first of all, it's great to see you, Chris. [5:20] It's just his temper tantrum. [5:22] You know, he's not getting his way. [5:23] So he's going to go after the first person he thinks he can go after. [5:26] And remember, I mean, there's an image of Donald Trump, a large banner. [5:32] Bearing his image draped across the Department of Justice. [5:36] Pam Bondi has bent the knee. [5:37] She has done everything she could possibly do to demonstrate her loyalty. [5:41] But as Carol just laid out, the law is the law. [5:44] Grand jurors are charged to, you know, to uphold the law. [5:48] And federal judges are charged to judge according to the law. [5:51] So no matter what kind of temper tantrum Donald Trump will throw, whether he fires her or not, the law will remain the law in this instance. [5:59] So I just read it in that way, Chris. [6:02] It's just he's doing what he typically does when he doesn't get his way. [6:06] Well, then you also have the question, Peter, if it's Lee Zeldin, as your paper reports or anyone else, isn't it still Trump's Justice Department? [6:15] So are they in the same pickle, for lack of a more literary word, as Pam Bondi found herself in? [6:24] Yeah, it's not clear that a more effective, more talented, more experienced prosecutor would necessarily have any better results. [6:33] This is as Carol. [6:34] You know, this has been rejected by judges. [6:36] It's been rejected by grand jurors, not because necessarily because of the lawyers, but because there's no there there, at least as according to these people who have reviewed the cases for them. [6:47] The president has been the one who has pushed the Justice Department to go ahead with prosecutions, even when professional and career prosecutors have said there is not a case there. [6:57] Some of them acquit rather than go forward or be part of it because they didn't think it was appropriate to prosecute somebody. [7:03] When there wasn't any evidence of a crime or at least substantial evidence of a crime that can be proven in court, and it's worth stepping back one more moment here because we say, oh, well, she's going to be fired because she wasn't very good at carrying out the president's directives to prosecute his enemies. [7:19] It's worth remembering that that's not a normal thing to do, right, that presidents in the modern era do not direct attorneys general to prosecute their enemies. [7:28] That's not how it has worked, at least since Watergate. [7:31] And this is such an. [7:33] Outside of the norm approach to government, the idea that government is there to be used as a political tool against people you don't like rather than, you know, an impartial Justice Department, you know, weighing facts and law and pursuing cases based on that rather than the personal peak of the president. [7:51] Eddie, he makes such a good point. [7:55] So much of what we talk about these days, whether it's those of us on television or people at home who are observers of. [8:05] The news, Donald Trump has so made the abnormal normal that in many ways it's changed the conversation completely. [8:15] And what's the danger of that? [8:17] Our democracy at the heart of it. [8:21] You know, we've been saying it prior to his winning the election for a second term, that the way in which Donald Trump approached the presidency posed an existential threat to American democracy and the way in which he's bent or he's. [8:36] Imagine the Justice Department as his department, as the attorney general, as his lawyer, to my mind, threatened the rule of law. [8:44] And so the danger, the danger has always been our democracy. [8:49] And it still is. [8:49] And Carol, the issue of the Epstein files, which indeed was a major political liability for Trump. [8:56] We saw that right in the polling. [8:59] Bondi was subpoenaed to testify before the House Oversight Committee. [9:04] Has that weighed into the decision? [9:06] Does that necessarily? [9:07] Mean that she doesn't have to testify? [9:10] What what do we know about what happens now? [9:13] You know, I think that's really important to be asking that, Chris. [9:16] And I have to be very candid with you and say that we don't see indication that that is a reason for what the president is frustrated with now and why this comes at this exact moment, per se. [9:28] But there is an intense frustration because really, Bondi could could basically deflect, as she's shown over and over again in congressional testimony. [9:37] She could avoid. [9:38] She could avoid answering a lot of questions. [9:40] She's got an amazing filibuster mechanism, which is pretty impressive to watch in terms of not answering questions directly. [9:48] But I would say that what we are more hearing, much more hearing from sources, is that her mishandling of the Epstein matter in the view of the president. [9:58] Remember, that doesn't mean he's accurate in his in his rendering of what happened. [10:02] But his frustration, his belief that Bondi, while a loyal ally, while someone he really. [10:08] Values that she had several missteps and perhaps the most important was that there was a view among Trump supporters who are also often conspiracy theorists. [10:21] There was a view that she was hiding information and that she overpromised information. [10:26] That misstep was when she said she had a client list of Jeffrey Epstein's on her desk and she was getting ready. [10:32] She implied she was getting ready to release it. [10:35] Later, she acknowledged she had no such list. [10:38] Which. [10:38] Only sort of stoked that dark fire that people have, that there are a bunch of secrets the government is concealing. [10:45] What MS now has found is that the only secrets that the Justice Department under Pam Bondi appeared to be, you know, keeping under lock and key were additional documents and FBI interviews with individuals who claimed they were abused by both Epstein and by Trump. [11:06] Those were the documents that we and other. [11:08] Other reporters were discovering the DOJ was holding back for a period of time. [11:14] These have not come back. [11:16] These these these developments have really haunted Trump and bothered him. [11:20] And that is far more important to him than whether she's subpoenaed or not.