The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell - June 8 — Audio Only

[0:00] Well, Paul Ryan shocked Washington when he became a congressional retiree at the ripe [0:06] old age of 48 years old. [0:09] He was by far the youngest Speaker of the House that any of us had ever seen before, [0:14] and he was the first Speaker of the House who had to deal with Donald Trump in the White [0:19] House. [0:20] During Donald Trump's first presidential campaign, I was often amused at Donald Trump's [0:24] craziest proposals and thought, wouldn't it be funny to see him get to the presidency [0:28] and discover that the Speaker of the House is more powerful than he is, that the Republican [0:34] Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, can kill every one of those crazy Trump ideas. [0:39] I didn't expect Donald Trump to make it to the White House, and I really didn't expect [0:45] Paul Ryan to suddenly turn into the first cowardly Speaker of the House that we'd ever seen. [0:55] Paul Ryan was on his way to a Republican nomination for president in the next election until Donald [1:03] Trump won the Electoral College. [1:06] Paul Ryan knew right away it was not his Republican Party that elected Donald Trump, and he obviously [1:13] hated working with the most ignorant person who has ever occupied the White House. [1:17] And so, just 15 months into Donald Trump's presidency, Paul Ryan announced that he would not run for [1:25] reelection to Congress. [1:28] The Speaker of the House announced he was quitting, not just the House, but it turns out he was [1:35] quitting American politics, giving up, surrendering to Trumpism, and quitting. [1:43] Paul Ryan was as willing to twist facts to his advantage as anyone else in politics, but supporting [1:50] Donald Trump's relentless, pathological lying became impossible for him. [1:56] And so, he quit that whole life. [2:01] And now Donald Trump has a Republican Speaker of the House who has lied publicly more than [2:06] any other Speaker of the House in history because Donald Trump's Republican Speaker of the House [2:11] House has never disagrees with Donald Trump, who was tracked by the Washington Post telling [2:16] more than 30,000 public lies during his first presidency. [2:21] And today, Republican Speaker Mike Johnson joined Donald Trump's lie that last week's election [2:27] in California was what Donald Trump calls a rigged election. [2:32] But what evidence is there to prove that there was a rigged? [2:41] Some of these efforts are so diavolic and so far upstream that it's impossible to prove. [2:45] Impossible to prove, but he believes it. [2:51] That's the kind of thing Paul Ryan would not have been able to say for Donald Trump. [2:56] That's the kind of lie Paul Ryan couldn't tell. [2:59] Mike Johnson is the first Speaker of the House to believe in election crimes that are happening [3:05] on the other side of the country that are, quote, impossible to prove. [3:11] His words, impossible to prove. [3:13] What else does he believe in? [3:15] Does he believe in the tooth fairy? [3:17] What else does he believe in that is impossible to prove? [3:22] It is, of course, most likely that Mike Johnson doesn't believe anything that he says or Donald [3:28] Trump says about the California election. [3:31] He's just lying for Donald Trump because he thinks that's his job. [3:37] And as we explained to you last week, the day after the election in California, the Democrats [3:41] won the governorship and the mayor of Los Angeles on election night. [3:47] If you can do the math, it was right there in front of us. [3:49] Enough votes had been counted that it was impossible for the Republican candidate to win the governorship [3:55] or mayor of Los Angeles. [3:57] And now, as the largest mail-in vote total in the country is being counted in the slow, [4:03] careful process of individuals opening envelopes and, with the human eye, matching ballot signatures [4:10] to registered vote signatures, the vote totals have changed in ways that change nothing at all [4:18] for the possibility of a Republican doing the impossible in California and winning one of those offices. [4:25] The first-place winner in the primary for mayor of Los Angeles has not been in doubt since election night. [4:33] Karen Bass has been holding steady with 34 percent of the vote. [4:36] And now with 93 percent of the vote counted, Democrat Nithya Rahman has increased her lead in what had been a very close race for second place [4:46] with Donald Trump's chosen candidate, the utterly incompetent Spencer Pratt. [4:53] Democrat Nithya Rahman is now officially projected to be the second-place winner, [4:59] which means the November election for mayor of Los Angeles will be Democrat Karen Bass versus Democrat Nithya Rahman. [5:08] The national news media, not understanding the basic arithmetic of California elections and Los Angeles elections, [5:16] has made the mistake of thinking that Donald Trump's candidate for mayor, a former reality TV clown, ever had a chance. [5:27] Us Weekly went so far as to embarrass itself with this magazine cover, [5:35] which was that I saw on sale at Los Angeles newsstands last week, [5:41] where everyone in Los Angeles knew from the start that Spencer Pratt's destiny was loser. [5:52] The mail-in ballots that are still being counted heavily skew toward Democrats, [5:58] largely because Donald Trump has spent his entire political career telling Republicans not to vote by mail. [6:03] And it used to be that there was no real distinction between Democrats and Republicans voting by mail in California. [6:09] In fact, there was usually a slightly larger percentage of Republicans voting by mail in California until Donald Trump condemned that practice. [6:18] Voting in the new electronic voting machines in California on Election Day gets your vote counted fast within the first 24 hours. [6:27] Voting by mail means your vote is going to take much longer to count, and everyone knows that, and only Donald Trump lies about that. [6:37] Not one Republican in California has ever tried to tell that same lie. [6:41] Counting all the votes in Arnold Schwarzenegger's Republican victory in his governor's campaign took five weeks. [6:51] And oh, by the way, counting all the votes in Mike Johnson's state of Louisiana also takes five weeks. [7:02] That's how long it takes to count all the votes. [7:05] And in Mike Johnson's state of Louisiana in the last presidential election, they had to open a grand total of 119,000 envelopes for mail-in ballots. [7:19] 119,000 in the entire state of Louisiana. [7:25] At the same time that California was opening 13 million envelopes to count the mail-in ballots. [7:38] 13 million. [7:40] As long as he can breathe. [7:43] Donald Trump will lie about elections, as he did in this weekend's taped Meet the Press interview, [7:49] which led to him pulling off his microphone and lumbering out of the interview after Kristen Welker told him there was no evidence of a rigged election in California, explaining, quote, [8:02] quote, that's how they vote, that's how they count votes in California. [8:06] To which Donald Trump, uncouth, vulgarian that he is, said, you're either crooked or you're stupid. [8:13] Everyone watching that interview knows that she is neither and he is both. [8:23] And so the crooked, stupid man who couldn't stop lying stalked out of the interview, which was the only way Donald Trump's lying about elections was going to stop in that kind of situation. [8:37] He lied about the people who attacked the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, to try to overturn a presidential election in a conspiracy against the United States of America for Donald Trump. [8:49] And he refused to say if the people who tried to kill police officers that day should be paid for their crimes by American taxpayers. [9:04] Anyone who attacked police officers on January 6th should get taxpayer money? [9:11] I wouldn't be inclined to say so, but I have to see it. [9:15] Oh, he has to see it. [9:18] It's a simple no. [9:20] For any politician, for any sane person, that question is a simple no. [9:27] Do you think anyone who attacked police officers on January 6th should get taxpayer money? [9:33] What other answer is there except no? [9:36] And Donald Trump says, I have to see it. [9:38] So Donald Trump would, I guess, sit in the Oval Office or in a golf cart somewhere and look at a video of these people trying to kill this police officer [9:53] and decide which of those violent criminals should be given taxpayer money. [10:03] And he might decide that all of them who were trying to kill that police officer for Donald Trump deserve taxpayer money. [10:12] He did decide that all of them deserved to be pardoned. [10:16] Every single person who tried to kill that police officer has been pardoned by Donald Trump. Everyone. [10:23] And once again, Donald Trump proved that the only way he knows how to talk about his war is to lie. [10:35] What changed? Because you insisted no new wars. [10:38] Look, I didn't guarantee no war. [10:42] Here is the lying Donald Trump on election night in 2024. [10:53] They said, he will start a war. I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars. [10:56] Donald Trump failed the simplest cognitive test in that interview, which was the question, what is a war? [11:09] Is the United States at war with Iran? [11:11] Well, they've been largely decapitated. [11:14] And I call it a military exercise because people would rather have it called that. [11:18] It's not a big war for us. It's not. [11:21] I don't consider that a war. But if you want to define it as such, I guess you can. [11:25] Well, how do you define it? [11:26] I don't define it at all. I don't think about it. [11:28] Doesn't think about it. Doesn't define it. Doesn't know what a war is. [11:35] And then Donald Trump repeatedly referred to his war in Iran as a war. [11:42] After saying it's not a war, he kept saying it was a war and he kept comparing it to other American wars. [11:49] We've lost 13 people here and that's a lot, 13 people too many. [11:55] But if you look at Vietnam where hundreds of thousands of people were killed. [12:00] What? An abject ignoramus. That is so painful. [12:07] Donald Trump obviously has no idea how many Americans were killed in the war in Vietnam that he managed to avoid [12:17] by getting a doctor's letter saying that the feet that he spent the rest of his life playing golf on [12:24] just weren't capable of ever wearing combat boots. [12:28] Donald Trump thinks hundreds of thousands of Americans were killed in Vietnam. [12:33] It's a horrible number, the real number, because their deaths accomplished nothing. [12:41] And Vietnam won its war against the United States of America, won that war unconditionally. [12:49] And we lost. We also lost 58,220 Americans who were killed in Vietnam. [13:01] 58,220 American families attended those funerals. [13:07] I attended one of those funerals when I was in high school and I learned then, I knew then, [13:14] that the United States of America could not win every war and should never fight a war like that again. [13:20] But Donald Trump obviously learned nothing, including how many Americans were killed in Vietnam. [13:31] He lied repeatedly about what has been accomplished by his war and what he hopes to accomplish. [13:37] He claims he's hoping to accomplish something that has never been accomplished before, [13:43] when in fact President Obama did exactly what Donald Trump is desperately hoping to do now. [13:52] They've conceded the fact that they will not have nuclear weapons. [13:58] We had a clause in there that we will not develop nuclear weapons. [14:03] And everybody was very happy with it except me. [14:05] And I said, well, what happens if they not develop, but they go out and purchase? [14:12] They acquire. [14:13] I want to put the word if they buy or purchase or acquire, you know, [14:18] you've got to have that in there too, because that's not developing. [14:21] So they don't have the right to develop or purchase, acquire or buy. [14:25] Acquire. [14:28] Wow. [14:29] Okay. [14:30] Acquire. [14:31] That's a good thing to add. [14:32] He said it three times. [14:35] As I have read to you many times on this program now, in the detailed written agreement [14:40] negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry with President Obama's guidance, [14:45] and in partnership with five other countries who were in the negotiation, [14:49] the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, and China, [14:52] Iran agreed to this statement in writing, [14:58] which appears more than once in the document, including on page three of the agreement. [15:06] Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop, [15:13] or acquire any nuclear weapons. [15:18] And there's Donald Trump claiming that he's the genius who thought up the idea to say [15:25] they cannot develop or acquire, acquire nuclear weapons from some other country. [15:32] He thought that up. [15:34] Those words are taken from the Obama agreement with Iran, which says, I repeat, [15:43] Iran will never, quote, ever seek, develop, or acquire any nuclear weapons. [15:51] That is the exact language Donald Trump now says he has not yet been able to negotiate with Iran. [15:59] So Donald Trump's publicly admitting now, I cannot get Iran to agree to the sentence [16:05] that John Kerry and President Obama got Iran to agree to. [16:09] The John Kerry negotiated agreement included specific and intense, relentless, [16:16] and unconditional inspections all over Iran of any facilities in the country [16:23] that might be able to enrich uranium or in any way help develop nuclear weapons. [16:29] It was the strictest inspections regime ever imposed on another country, [16:35] and it was working. It was working. [16:38] The United States and the other countries seeking to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon [16:45] did not trust Iran. [16:46] So they got Iran's promise in writing, and then they got Iran's agreement [16:52] that those countries could enforce that promise by sending their own inspectors into Iran [16:58] wherever they wanted to go. [17:00] Donald Trump has no chance, no chance at all, of getting an agreement with Iran that is as good [17:07] as the agreement Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama got in writing with Iran. [17:13] But he has a plan for his failure to do that. [17:15] It's the same plan Donald Trump has for his failure in the elections in California [17:20] where his endorsed candidate for mayor has already earned the status of loser, [17:25] and that is to lie. [17:29] That's Donald Trump's strategy. [17:31] Donald Trump will never stop lying about American elections, [17:34] and he will never stop lying about his war in Iran, [17:38] which as of tonight in its 101st day has accomplished nothing. [17:44] And every day Donald Trump continues to find new ways to demonstrate that he is both crooked and stupid. [17:54] Leading off our discussion tonight is Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey. [17:59] Senator, there's Donald Trump pretending that John Kerry and President Obama [18:06] didn't already negotiate exactly the words that he is hoping to get a grant to agree to, [18:12] which he hasn't been able to get them to agree to yet. [18:15] John Kerry and Barack Obama ensured that the International Atomic Energy Agency [18:24] would be able to go anywhere they needed to go in order to determine [18:29] whether or not the Iranians were violating the nuclear agreement. [18:34] And there was no evidence that they were doing so. [18:38] And in fact, the Iranians were at least a year away from getting a nuclear weapon [18:43] because of that full scope safeguards program which John Kerry and Barack Obama negotiated. [18:50] And so when Donald Trump pulled out of that agreement in 2017, [18:55] he was triggering something that would ultimately result in Donald Trump himself in 2025 [19:03] saying that he was going to go in to obliterate the nuclear program. [19:09] And this year, once again, reinstigated an attack against Iran, [19:15] all to put us back to where John Kerry and Barack Obama had us in, [19:19] in the first place, but with no regime change, [19:22] and the Iranians controlling all of the oil going through the Straits of Hormuz [19:27] with no likelihood for the rest of our, for the rest of our lifetimes, [19:31] that they are going to give up that control. [19:33] And we're already seeing $1.50 a gallon gasoline prices increase all across our country. [19:40] And so, yes, John Kerry and Ernie Moniz, our secretary of energy and Barack Obama, [19:46] they deserve a Nobel Prize for what they did [19:49] because they had truly brought peace to that region. [19:52] Senator, I've never had the slightest hint that Donald Trump ever read a word [19:59] of the agreement that Secretary Kerry negotiated. [20:03] And when he goes into that interview saying things like he said, [20:08] it seems very clear. [20:10] He has no idea what was in the agreement that he ripped up. [20:14] He made a campaign promise, and he fulfilled it by destroying not just the Iran nuclear agreement, [20:25] but also the Paris climate agreement. [20:28] These were just pandering promises to his MAGA base. [20:33] And in implementing those promises, he's endangered our planet from the threat of climate change, [20:41] and he has also made the Middle East a volatile, bubbling, boiling cauldron [20:48] that is much more dangerous than it was before Donald Trump was inaugurated as president in 2017. [20:56] And it's even further accelerated now after his second inauguration last year. [21:02] And there is no likelihood of there being an ability to put this genie back in the bottle again. [21:10] We are going to be living with the consequences of this from a national security and economic perspective [21:15] for the next almost impossible to determine infinity sign duration in the future. [21:22] Senator, thank you for reminding us of the environmental agreement that Donald Trump destroyed. [21:30] There's just so much to keep track of here that I, for one, can't do it all. [21:35] So I really appreciate you adding that element to it. [21:38] Senator Ed Markey, thank you very much for joining us tonight. [21:40] Great to be with you. Thank you. [21:43] And coming up, Andrew Weissman will join us to consider the next violations of law [21:49] Donald Trump plans to do publicly at the White House. That's next. [21:53] Here's what one UFC fighter thinks about Donald Trump holding a big money sporting event at the White House. [22:08] What I think personally is that our government is desecrating its role in society by entertaining sports. [22:19] Our government is to protect and serve the people and really should be as minimal as possible. [22:25] And when you're doing all of this stuff, hosting sporting events, it's really outside of what the goal of the government was intended to be, [22:34] because our tax dollars and resources are funding this operation. [22:38] That is Bryce Mitchell showing more respect for the law and the White House than Donald Trump ever has. [22:47] And a new lawsuit is attempting to block the commercial event from taking place on the White House South Lawn. [22:53] The New York Times reports that the lawsuit is, quote, challenging what it called the night of cage fights that President Trump planned to hold at the White House as part of the celebration of the country's 250th anniversary. [23:07] The case was filed just over a week before the event, which is scheduled for June 14th and is being organized by the Mixed Martial Arts Promotion Ultimate Fighting Championship. [23:18] The lawsuit argues that the transformation of the grounds was never authorized by Congress and that the event will serve as an extraordinary use of government space to benefit both the chief executive of UFC, Dana White, and Mr. Trump, who is an investor in UFC's parent company. [23:36] The lawsuit reads, this plan is deeply corrupt, the president giving Dana White and his company what none have enjoyed before, unfettered access to the White House and Lincoln Memorial to stage a private, for-profit sports event with all the promotional and branding opportunities that accompany such access. [23:59] The UFC's broadcast partner, Paramount Skydance, which is run by two other Trump allies, Larry and David Ellison, has decided that no American will be able to take in this celebration of America without first paying $8.99 plus tax for a Paramount Plus streaming subscription. [24:19] Joining us now is Andrew Weissman, former FBI general counsel and an MS Now legal analyst. [24:25] He's author of the new book, Liar's Kingdom, How to Stop Trump's Deceit and Save America, which is now number one on the New York Times bestseller list. [24:34] Andrew, can this be stopped? [24:38] It can be stopped, but I have to say that I think this is not the strongest lawsuit, and for two reasons. [24:50] One, there is a legal doctrine called standing, which is that you cannot have just a taxpayer, an everyday citizen bring a lawsuit in this country. [25:03] There needs to be some unique harm to the person bringing the lawsuit. [25:08] I know for a lot of people listening to this, they may go, that seems very unfair. [25:12] I'm not here to argue with that. [25:14] I'm here to just say that is what's required. [25:17] And so I think there's a real issue in this lawsuit about standing. [25:21] There also is an issue about whether they will succeed on the particular legal claim. [25:27] And so you have this oddity that everything you read seems pretty well supported as the allegations that the plaintiff's bringing seem quite true in terms of the sort of profit motive, what they're doing to the White House. [25:46] But the particular claim here is one that they have to show that this event is really a birthday celebration for the president of the United States and not a 250th anniversary of this country. [26:00] And the reason is there's a congressional loophole that says that this can be done, it appears, if it is really about the 250th anniversary of this country. [26:11] And so that is, of course, what the White House has been saying. [26:15] Whether it's true or not is another matter. [26:18] But I think it would be very hard for a judge, especially in this short time, to get to that point. [26:24] Andrew, we're going to have to squeeze in a commercial break here. [26:28] On the other side of it, I want to ask you about Donald Trump now being investigated by a federal judge for possibly perpetrating a fraud on the court. [26:38] We're going to be right back with Andrew Weissman. [26:40] Donald Trump has been ordered to take his name off of the Kennedy Center. [26:51] Federal Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name and only Congress can change it. [26:58] The judge gave Donald Trump until Friday to remove his name from the outside of the Kennedy Center building. [27:05] Friday is also the deadline given to Donald Trump from a federal judge in Florida to show in writing why his deal with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that prevents the Internal Revenue Service from investigating some of Donald Trump's tax returns does not amount to a fraud on the court. [27:29] Back with us is Andrew Weissman. [27:32] Andrew, this federal judge investigating a possible fraud on the court looks like it could be seriously dangerous for Donald Trump. [27:40] Absolutely. [27:42] Now, this, unlike the topic we were just talking about, is a very serious matter. [27:47] This could be very serious, both for the president and for his nominee, Todd Blanche, to be the attorney general for people thinking, well, how could this go forward? [27:59] Because the slush fund has been stopped, in other words, that Todd Blanche has said under oath that this is not going to go forward. [28:07] But as you pointed out, there's another part of the deal, which is this broad civil release that Todd Blanche and only Todd Blanche signed for the president, as well as the fact that even if all of it was to go away, there was what the judge is looking at is an attempted fraud on the court. [28:25] And so this is very serious and something worth keeping an eye out for. [28:33] So as we go forward, what are the powers the judge has in a situation like this? [28:40] Well, for Todd Blanche, it could be quite serious. [28:44] Although Todd Blanche has filed papers in Washington, D.C., saying that ethics associations, bar associations shouldn't have any power over the Department of Justice, that is not the law. [28:57] And that, in my view, is not going to be the law no matter what Todd Blanche thinks. [29:02] And so she can actually refer his actions here and what he did as a violation of his professional obligations. [29:12] That could lead all the way up to disbarment. [29:15] That is why Todd Blanche is so intent, it appears, to eliminate bar associations having any oversight over him or anybody else at the Department of Justice. [29:26] And she could also have further discovery to look into whether there was actual negotiation, true negotiation between the plaintiff and the defendant where they were on opposite sides, because that seems palpably not to be the case. [29:43] As even Donald Trump said, he was on the plaintiff's side and the defense side. [29:48] And so this looks a lot like a collusive lawsuit. [29:51] So serious allegations here for the judge to look into. [29:56] Andrew Weissman, thank you very much for joining us tonight. [29:58] You're welcome. [30:00] Coming up, our next guest says, quote, [30:04] Ira Shapiro has had a distinguished career in Washington on the staff of the United States Senate and the White House and will join us next. [30:16] On March 31st, 2025, just 70 days into Donald Trump's second term, our next guest, Ira Shapiro, wrote on Substack, [30:36] Seen Enough, Impeach and Remove. [30:39] That was after 70 days. [30:41] Ira Shapiro, a former universally respected senior staffer in the United States Senate and a Clinton administration international trade ambassador, writes, [30:52] The search for precedents in our country's history reveal none. [30:57] A corrupt, overreaching president trampling the constitutional order is the crisis that our founders feared during their debates nearly 250 years ago. [31:07] We can have our contentious, flawed, vibrant democracy, which made us the world's leading country. [31:13] Or we can have Donald Trump as president, but we can't have both. [31:17] It is up to all of us as citizens to respond with individual and collective action. [31:23] And now Ira Shapiro and the Common Sense Coalition, a nonpartisan group of former government officials, military officers and scholars, [31:32] are out with a new book titled Betrayed. [31:35] America didn't vote for this. [31:37] A damage assessment. [31:39] They write this about Donald Trump's war in Iran. [31:43] It will be many months before the results and repercussions of this decision can be assessed reliably, [31:49] but it is already clear that the decision reflected many of the traits that characterize Trump's foreign policy decision making. [31:56] Impulsiveness. [31:57] An obsession with lethality. [31:59] Contempt for the rule of law. [32:01] Domestic, international, and constitutional. [32:03] Indifference to the concerns and interests of allies. [32:06] And an inability to make reasonable decisions based on an informed analysis of possible impacts. [32:16] And joining us now is Ira Shapiro, who served four decades in senior staff positions in the United States Senate and in the Clinton administration. [32:24] Ira Shapiro is the author and co-editor of the new book Betrayed. [32:28] America didn't vote for this. [32:30] A damage assessment. [32:32] Ira, you've done in this book something that we try to do on a nightly basis and find we can't quite fully keep up with, [32:39] and that is a damage assessment. [32:41] I've been trying to do it on a daily basis. [32:43] What have you found in being able to stay back and try to assess it all as we've seen it so far? [32:51] Lawrence, I think you do a remarkable job on a daily basis, but we did think it was necessary to try to step back. [32:58] We were going to cover the damage done in the first year, but the damage kept on going, and so it took us a little longer. [33:07] What we found is that the damage is deep, wide, continuing, and in some areas, accelerating. [33:17] And that the Trump presidency is different than any presidency that we've had in our 250 years. [33:27] That's the reason the group came together and the reason that we are so working so hard to stop the damage and to ask others to join, [33:37] as many opponents already have, in making efforts to stop this damage. [33:43] What did you learn about the government that you didn't know because of Donald Trump? [33:48] I mean, I learned, I discovered that a bunch of things that I thought were laws were just traditions and were easily violated. [33:56] Well, we did discover that. But we also discovered, I think, that laws can be disregarded, as this president has. [34:06] The connecting thread for everything that Donald Trump does is contempt for the law. [34:12] And so we saw Congress being ignored so that things were done unilaterally. [34:19] USAID abolished without Congress being involved. [34:24] NIH research funds being slashed without Congress being involved. [34:30] The president has done things that no president has done before. [34:35] And I suspect when we read Project 2025, we would have thought, well, those are some substantially radical ideas, but they're going to have to pass Congress. [34:46] Yes, exactly. [34:47] That wasn't the plan, though. [34:49] Right. So with all your experience in Congress and working especially on the Senate side, [34:54] I really think it's important every once in a while because we have viewers out there 25 years old and they have no experience really with a presidency before this Trump madness. [35:05] But to point out just how impossible this was in the United States Senate that you used to work in. [35:14] Well, it was impossible in the Senate I used to work in and it was impossible in the one that you worked in. [35:20] Those senators regarded their responsibility as working with presidents when they could, checking them when not, clashing with them, making compromises, working together on a bipartisan basis. [35:37] They understood the legislative process. They understood their responsibility. [35:42] Those were senators that we knew that would be standing up very strongly against this president. [35:50] Now, there are Democratic senators doing that. And there were seven Republican senators who had the courage to vote against him in his second impeachment trial. [36:02] But for the most part, the Senate has been shameful in its failure to step up to this authoritarian blitz. [36:09] Yeah, that's one of the biggest surprises for me was that both House and Senate Republicans just couldn't bring themselves to oppose Donald Trump almost in any way. [36:22] The book is Betrayed. America Didn't Vote for This. Ira Shapiro, this is important. Thank you very much for this. [36:30] It's also an act of optimism. There is hope in this book. That's the thing I love about it. [36:34] Well, there is hope. And the title that America didn't vote for this is because I think that many of the Trump voters voted for certain things, but not the presidency that they see. [36:46] Right. Right. [36:47] They've been betrayed. [36:49] Ira, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Really appreciate it. [36:52] Thank you, Lawrence. [36:53] My friend Ira Shapiro gets tonight's last word. His important new book is Betrayed. America Didn't Vote for This.