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Deadline: White House
“A myriad of vanity projects”
00:41:53
June 4, 2026; 5pm: Nicolle Wallace and friends discuss Trump’s myriad of vanity projects while polling shows that Americans are unhappy with the state of the economy, the “weaponization fund,” and the war in Iran.
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- [00:00]
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Ivanka Trump
Courage. I learned it from my adoptive mom.
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Chris Hayes
Hold my hand.
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Trump Presidency Commentator
That's your size compared. So those are compared to. Those are among the tallest buildings in the world, including the Empire State Building, World Trade Center, Sears Tower, Chicago. So if you lay it on its side, you take two or three of them to fill it in because the width is very almost 200ft wide and actually much more than 2,000. Close to including everything. It's about 2,500ft in length to the end. And it's gonna be beautiful.
- [01:28]
Chris Hayes
We have entered the my pond is bigger than your house part of the Trump presidency. I don't even know why those things are on the same piece of paper. Someone should have told him one was a body of water, the other three are buildings. All the same. He's obsessed with the size of things shaped like that. Hi again, Everybody. It's now 5 o' clock in New York. That was real. It was another and a growing chronicle of things I asked my team to vet to make sure it wasn't that that was actually the President, not some stunt guy, that that was actually from the Oval Office, not a Jimmy Kimmel, you know, skit. That that was the president, that that was actually what he was holding, that it wasn't actually a map of something, and that he actually had a board with a body of water next to three buildings and was bragging that the body of water was bigger than the buildings. That happened today. It's part of his obsession with home decorating and renovations of Washington D.C. this is a reflecting pool. He's for some reason measuring it against the length of the pool against the height of skyscrapers makes no sense at all. I'm embarrassed even reading this to you, especially in a moment when Americans are screaming from the rooftops about the price of gas, cost of childcare, cost of health care and the economy, as well as unhappy about the war with Iran. But Trump is obsessed with this stuff. He's done a redo of the South Lawn. That is a live picture of what he's done to what was the once beautiful, beautiful grounds of the White House. This is his cage match thing. It looks like something at a, I don't know, amusement park or something. It's a place where they're going to have a fight. He's demolished large swaths of the people's house to build a ballroom. He's paved the Rose Garden. He put his name on the Kennedy center, which the Washington Post today reports will have to take it down. They have to remove it by Friday. He's done all of these things not on a wave of the public loving his agenda, but he's done them instead of helping even his own voters with the cost of living and the things they're stressed about. As for the war that he began, that war is deeply unpopular, but it's also causing gas prices to surge. On that, he says he's, quote, bored when it comes to the deeply unpopular, Quite possibly illegal, $1.8 billion slush fund to aid his allies. It's a slush fund that even members of his own party object to. He's now contradicted his own acting attorney general and will not assert whether or not it is alive or dead. He calls it, quote, beautiful. The fund's future is so unclear that Congress is now trying to formally kill it. The Senate today voted on a motion that would permanently ban the fund's existence. Republicans killed that legislation not because they want to save the fund, but because of other procedural things. Meanwhile, Trump's approval rating has reached a new low. Amid all this, the latest YouGov economist poll finds Trump's approval rating at 35%. His disapproval is at a whopping 61%. This is the lowest approval rating of any president since the survey existed, started to exist in 2009. Trump, focusing more on himself than the American people is where we begin the hour with Democratic Senator Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan. She's a member of both the Homeland Security and Armed Services Committees. Senator, I'm embarrassed that that was the news that we had to contend with today, but we don't make up the news. What do you make of where we are?
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Senator Alyssa Slotkin
I mean, yeah, that was quite an intro. I mean, I think. Look, I mean, I think what's been interesting is to watch my Republican colleagues, I think, start to get the message a little bit that aligning yourself every moment of every day with Donald Trump is not a path to victory for you, for your legacy, for the country. And I think this weaponization fund vote, you alluded to it, you know, where the President was trying to put $1.8 billion of taxpayer dollars in a special fund that he controlled to decide who should listen to the courts, who has been aggrieved. I think it hit this wall with the Republicans that I think is important and I think. But it fits into a bigger narrative of the president just feeling like he doesn't have to follow the rules, his people don't have to follow the rules. He can do whatever he wants regardless of our tradition and our democracy. And I think, you know, you get absurd introductions, no offense like that when you hit kind of a new low with this, with this level of activity coming from the White House.
- [06:33]
Chris Hayes
I mean, no offense taken, but I do feel like I participated in the sane washing. Right. I said, grab him in the bleep. For years, if we'd said what he really said, I don't know that as many women would have voted for him in 16. And I'll never know. I was one of the first people to stop platforming his live events. I still have a very hard time taking his live events because he lies the whole time. I mean, where do you stand in terms of how much you think people need to know about. Let's just take the corruption. I mean, it started with the Qatari jet. It sort of was ushered in formally with the crypto grift. There is now, as you just articulated, a plan to take 1.8 billion taxpayer dollars and give them to people up to and including violent insurrectionists.
- [07:18]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
Yeah, I mean, I think, look, we've seen around the world that, you know, corruption, eventually, when it seeps down into the meat and people feel it in their own lives, they respond. That was the narrative on what happened in Hungary where they over, you know, they got rid of their, of their president who had been corrupt for 12 years, you know, and it was interesting. Hungary is an interesting example for us to look at because, you know, the deal that Viktor Orban offered the Hungarian people was, look, leave alone my corruption at the high levels, leave alone my threats to democracy if I fire a university leader here or curb the media there, leave it alone, because I'm going to make your economy better. I'm going to put more money in your pocket. That was the trade. And it worked for a while and then it didn't and it didn't, because the corruption seeped so deep that you couldn't build a bridge in rural Hungary without paying someone off. It didn't work when the, you know, the best friends, the eccentric billionaire best friends of the president of Hungary started doing whatever they wanted and treating Hungary as like the cow that they could milk. And it didn't work when he precipitated false threats and tried to bring in the security forces at the very end to prevent him from losing. I think that's a very interesting example. And you see certainly whispers of that same thing going on here in the United States.
- [08:44]
Chris Hayes
Yeah, I mean, that same poll that has his approval rating at a record low, has his approval on the economy even lower. Americans views on the economy, 76% percent say it's poor or fair. Just 20% say it's good or excellent. What are you hearing from your constituents in terms of their economic concerns?
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Senator Alyssa Slotkin
Yeah, I mean, look, a year ago, you know, the president said, I'm going to come in. I'm going to change your life. And he ran on that. And look, I'll give it to him. He shellacked Democrats in 2024 with the very simple message that his priority was putting more money in your pocket. Whether he was ever truthful about that or not, that's what he ran on. And Democrats had too many priorities. We had every priority. And so no one knew what we'd really go to the mats on. And so Trump won my state and he won the country. Fast forward a year later. And frankly, before the war, I would say the only cost in a family's life that had gone down under President Trump had been gas. Price of gas. Right. Not housing, not health care, not groceries, not trips, services. And now every single American is paying the price of this war, of his war, and particularly feeling that, you know, they see the price of gas 20 times when they drive to work. So it could not be more clear that people are suffering, especially in my state. And they're feeling like that being in the middle class is like a dream that their parents got to accomplish, but not them. So I think that even if people are sometimes reluctant to say that they regret their vote or they're switching sides or whatever, that they in their hearts, they can't say with a straight face that they are better off under Donald Trump.
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Chris Hayes
I have to ask you, because of your years of service, your reaction to Bill Pulte being given a third job in the Trump administration? He will, I think, at the end of this month, become the acting director
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Senator Alyssa Slotkin
of National Intelligence Yeah, I have pretty fundamental problems with Bill Pulte becoming the Director of National Intelligence or Acting Director of National Intelligence. As someone who helped start that office, I was one of the first 10 employees when, frankly, under the Bush administration, it was set up. And number one, he has no national security experience. We can't even figure out if he's ever handled classified information, if he has a security clearance whatsoever. So he's never dealt with sensitive issues of national security. But number two, much more importantly is that he has shown in his current job that he has zero qualms taking an order from Trump to go into the personal records of American citizens and dig up false claims. Let's say in this case on mortgage fraud, he's done it against Adam Schiff, Tish James, Lisa Cook. So he has shown not only an interest, but a willingness to actually use his job to manipulate information, to do the bidding of Donald Trump, to weaponize the government against people. So if you take that example, proven, and you overlay that, you take that to the DNI's office with all of the access to classified information, our most sensitive tools, it should send a shiver down the spine of anyone who gives a crap about national security and about the personal privacy of American citizens. And as someone who, you know, the President tried to criminally indict over a 90 second video, you know, I've had the government weaponized against me. The idea of someone like that in charge of all of our, you know, 17 different intelligence agencies is just disturbing. I heard the President backtracking on this because even my Republican colleagues are not on board.
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Chris Hayes
Well, he said he might just be there for a short period, but he said, quote, he might, I think he said something like he might discover some things about rigged elections. I mean, he's clearly being sent there with, with a mission. And let me just follow up, because I was going to ask you about that. I mean, you are one of, I'd say it's more than a handful now. You and five of your colleagues, as well as Jim Comey, Tish James, Lisa Cook. I mean, there are, who are perceived political enemies, I don't even know if you view yourself in that way, who he has sought to weaponize the federal government against because he doesn't like what you've said and how people have responded to it. Imagine all of the intelligence agents. I mean, the thing about the DNI is it isn't just the CIA, it's the nsa. It's signal intelligence, it's the entire, it's the whole soup to nuts. Under the purview of Bill Pulte. I mean, what. What do people need to understand about even a short stint for Mr. Pulte?
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Senator Alyssa Slotkin
Well, yeah, I mean, certainly the President, you're right, said it out of his mouth today that, you know, maybe we won't keep him there a long time, but I want him to, quote, look into the 2020 elections. That's what he's there for. Tulsi Gabbard was doing that for a while. Maybe she didn't do it well enough and she's out, and now he's found the next person who will do his bidding. And I think the.
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Chris Hayes
The.
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Senator Alyssa Slotkin
The thing that people don't understand is that since Watergate, right, where the intelligence community screwed up, there has been just a hard and fast, clear understanding from anyone. I was trained as a young CIA officer. You do not collect intelligence on American citizens. We focus on foreign threats abroad that are trying to threaten the homeland. The idea that someone who believes in kind of just saluting the President, no rules, no understanding of the intelligence community, that they could ever potentially use those tools to focus on domestic missions, domestic issues, actual Americans, private information. Again, it is a real threat. And the President said it aloud. That guy's over there. To look into the elections, not to protect us from a terrorist attack or a nation state.
- [14:24]
Chris Hayes
I mean, it is sort of the hallmark of this presidency that it's all out loud. We don't have to go digging. Some digging has happened since I've been on the air about a Democratic candidate in Maine, Graham Platner. I wonder if you have any thoughts, just given the stakes of the midterm elections.
- [14:41]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
Yeah. As I was walking over here, someone flagged it. I have not read the whole thing. I look forward to the day where I am not answering every single week a question about bad behavior by another dude. I just. I look forward to that day. You and me both on camera, live. I look forward to that. And I haven't read, like, the piece, but what my team told me, like,
- [15:04]
Chris Hayes
look,
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Senator Alyssa Slotkin
first of all, I think about the women who are coming forward. Second of all, I think if there are allegations of violence, I got a real problem with that. And it doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican. If there's violence, that's not okay. So I haven't gone into the details. I'm sure I'll have to get just, like, every week the same briefing from my team on what happened and what.
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Molly Jean Fass
And.
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Senator Alyssa Slotkin
But frankly, I'm sick of it. We got a lot of bigger issues to fry here. And so that's a dream I have for someday.
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Chris Hayes
Yeah, it broke since I've been on the air. I'm in the same boat. I've been reading it in the breaks. But it is a lot of questions that I pose as a host to a lot of people about bad behavior alleged on the part of men. Senator Alyssa Slotkin, thank you very much for joining us. I want to apologize for the intro but that I can defend it. I mean, that was the news. That was Donald Trump and his mom. That's what's happening. That was his chart. That's what's happening. Thank you for always showing up for it. We really appreciate you. When we come back, we will get through that breaking news we just asked the senator up to about breaking in the New York Times about Graham Platner. He is the Democratic front runner in a must win Senate race in the state of Maine. We'll bring in our friends Tim Miller and Molly Jones fast next. Also ahead, massive protests in the streets of the capital city of Albania. People there are demonstrating against a mega resort project being developed by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Ivanka Trump was talking about it, about walking barefoot to the top of the mountain to swim and look around. We'll talk about the reporting and the growing questions about whether this project is being fast tracked as a way to curry favor with Donald Trump. We'll have the reporting on that story later in the hour. Deadline White House continues after quick breaks that don't go anywhere.
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- [17:41]
Chris Hayes (Podcast Intro)
Artificial intelligence is moving very, very fast and it's raising new questions just about every day about what it is, what it is. When all is said and done, what
- [17:49]
Tim Miller
is the end game?
- [17:50]
Chris Hayes (Podcast Intro)
I'm Chris Hayes and as part of my podcast, why Is this Happening? I'm speaking with leading experts each week to help ground that conversation.
- [17:56]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
We're right now in a situation where
- [17:58]
Chris Hayes
it's very difficult to understand what is
- [18:01]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
real and what's not real.
- [18:02]
Chris Hayes (Podcast Intro)
Why is this happening? The AI Endgame, a special miniseries from Ms. Now start listening today wherever you get your podcasts.
- [18:14]
Chris Hayes
As we just asked Senator Alyssa Slotkin, there is brand new reporting. It has broken since I have been on the air. It's in the New York Times, and it is about Maine's Democratic Senate candidate, Graham Platner. He's currently the frontrunner to become the Democratic challenger to Republican Senator Susan Collins in that pivotal midterm race in Maine. After news reports surfaced that he had sent explicit messages to women while he was married, several women came forward to the New York Times about their experiences with Platner. From that new New York Times reporting, quote. In interviews with the New York Times on Wednesday, several women described Mr. Plattner as a fun and caring partner and said they felt safe with him. Some remain friends with him to this day, years after their relationships ended. But in extensive conversations over the past two months, three other women who had been romantically involved with Mr. Platner offered a far more complicated assessment, describing volatile and toxic relationships that were unsettling and at times emotionally wrenching. Mr. Plattner could be charming and charismatic, they recalled in interviews, but also demeaning to women and in at least one case, even physically threatening. He drank heavily and was regularly unfaithful, end quote. It's important to tell you, our viewers, that one of the three is a conservative activist who has worked on Republican campaigns, but she says that she would have spoken out even if Graham Platner was a Republican candidate. She disputes Platner's claim that he did not know that the tattoo on his chest was a Nazi symbol. From that part of this new reporting, quote, Mr. Platner, she said, knew when they were dating years ago that the tattoo was a Nazi symbol and that he called it my Totenkop. The Platner campaign, quote, strongly disputes that claim that he knew about the tattoo and that he told her about it. Graham Platner will be Chris Hayes's guest in his first national interview since his story broke this afternoon. That happens tonight at 8 o' clock on All In. For our coverage, I want to bring in political analyst and host of the Bulwark podcast, Tim Miller. With me at the table as I've been going through this story and this reporting is my friend and colleague, our political analyst, Molly Zhang Fast. She's the host of Fast Politics, a New York Times contributing opinion writer. Tim Miller, I start with you.
- [20:40]
Tim Miller
Look, Nicole, this is a complicated one. It's ongoing and so there's some elements to it. So I'll just kind of walk through what I think are the key parts. Number one, I think Senator Slotkin said, look, any accusations of any type of inappropriate behavior around women should be taken seriously. And the Democrats have shown that they've taken it seriously in the past, whether that be Andrew Cuomo or Al Franken. And I think that the Democrats have credibility on this issue for a reason. In this story, it is only the one woman that was the Republican activist that makes any accusations of him putting his hands on her. The other women don't say that. It's more just about drinking and volatile behavior. And so I think that the question is, what else could possibly come up? And I think that takes us to the political part of this, just to do rank politics here. This is an extremely important Senate race for our democracy. The Democrats need to pick up four Senate seats to take over the Senate and to control Supreme Court nominations, to be able to control the floor for any nominations that Donald Trump wants to put forward for Attorney General or DNI or any important roles in his administration. Like they have to, you know, those Cabinet officials ostensibly will have to be confirmed by the Senate. So taking over the Senate is very important. And winning the Senate, it's pretty hard to do without Maine. And you just look at the map, and North Carolina, Roy Cooper looks very good. A good poll in Ohio for Sherrod Brown. That's two. Then you get into some pretty big red states. Iowa, the Democrats have a good candidate. Texas, Tell Rico. Alaska, they have a good candidate. But those are all states Democrats have won in a long time. Democrats have won Maine the last three cycles. And all Democrats need to do to win Maine is nominate somebody that gets all the Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris voters. And so it seems like kind of a silly place to take a big risk. And I think that is the strongest case against Platner. Whether you're a huge Platner fan or a Platner opponent. I think there's a prudential question of, like, is this Senate race the place to take this type of risk? I do think the last thing I'd say is I get a little bit frustrated with this. And I'm sure some Platner fans do as well. With all of the focus on these things that he's done in the past as compared to what Susan Collins has done as an actual senator and the tattoo thing in particular, I just feel it's incumbent to mention that regardless of what you think about his tattoo, which he covered up, he's not proposing any Nazi policies. And Susan Collins was the chair of the Appropriations Committee when we sent people to a foreign gulag based on their race and based on the tattoos they have. So I'm not here to say that that was a Nazi policy. But it's certainly a heck of a lot closer than anything that Graham Platner is proposing. And so I just do think that is also important to have in the discussion here. Like Susan Collins controlled the power of the purse, allegedly at the Senate. If she was such a moderate, she could have stopped that. She could have said, we're not going to fund this administration as long as they're sending innocent people to a foreign torture prison based on their tattoo. She didn't do that. And so I do get a little bit frustrated when these conversations kind of frame her up as some moderate when she's been totally complicit in some very fascistic behavior, tattoo related behavior by this administration.
- [23:57]
Chris Hayes
I want to thank you for your clarity and your courage and sort of seeing this and being able to shove it through a sieve of the substance of what is accused and the stakes of the election. I mean, I think that's the whole thing. And I guess all I would add is we are not the arbiters of anything.
- [24:16]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
Right.
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Chris Hayes
It is our job to bring forth the reporting. Maine Democrats will decide, I think on Tuesday night do they want to represent them? And then the broader population of Maine will decide do they want to represent them in Congress. But I think Tim just framed up the choices on both those fronts pretty well.
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Molly Jean Fass
Yeah, I mean, I think it's really important to talk about the, this is about what the person will do in the Senate. I did think what Slotkin said was also really important. You know, violence is a no go. And remember, this is a person who will ultimately be in the Senate making judgment calls. And if it's a person who drinks heavily and has personality changes, you know, I'm sober 28 and a half years and I think that if there's a substance issue here, that's a big deal. And we have seen Democrats, I just think releasing the moral high ground. And again, obviously this is up to the voters of Maine and this election is so important. But I do think also what has been good about Democrats is that they've had, they haven't said, well, this guy's really popular. So we're going to let what what Republicans did with Trump. And so I do think it' syou know, it's such ait's a tough moment. But I do agree, like the Senate map is critical and Donald Trump is a president who is totally out of control and Republicans have shown they have no interest in checking his power.
- [25:47]
Chris Hayes
Tim, what do you say to people who look at all of the attention we have justifiably and perhaps belatedly given to the Epstein accusers and want to understand how this story fits into that frame.
- [26:05]
Tim Miller
Well, look, and obviously there's a material difference, which is the Epstein accusers were children, and I guess not in every single case. He also abused adult women. But I think adds a level of gravity to it. But I think that one part of, one way to contextualize that, that I do think is relevant is, look, as a former Republican, am I the best person to say this? But I think a lot of Democrats would say this, particularly Democratic women. You look back at maybe the Bill Clinton era of the presidency, you look back at how Democrats dealt with Epstein prior to the latest revelations. When Trump came in, I think some of them look back and say, hey, maybe we should have taken these accusations more seriously than we did. So that's not to lump Platner in with any of those. Like I said, I think that this New York Times article, you know, there are some serious accusations from one person and then the rest, you know, depending on kind of your definition of serious, but nothing related to violence or nothing related to sexual assault or anything like that. And so, you know, I think that Graham Plattner, obviously tonight will have a chance to kind of explain himself with Chris Hayes. And I think people should hear him out. This is not to say he should be thrown out, but I do think in the context of the Epstein story, you know, a lot of Democrats can maybe learn from lessons and say we should take the accusations seriously, we should look at them, we should consider them and do what's right by people that are victims. And we should also not throw the baby out with the bathwater because there are bad faith attacks against people. That's a challenging tightrope to walk. And I think that's kind of the tightrope that Graham Platner's on right now about which side of that he falls on.
- [27:42]
Chris Hayes
I want to read a little bit from this New York Times story, which I've read carefully through twice, and this feels like it gets it, both the allegations and his sort of political position. The New York Times reports this quote. Graham Platner, 41, a combat veteran, has spoken openly about grappling with his post Traumatic stress disorder, depression and drinking that he said resulted from his time in the military. As revelations about him have surfaced, including his dismissive remarks online about rape and derogatory comments about women, as well as a tattoo he had that is widely recognized as a Nazi symbol. He has said his past behavior does not reflect who he is today. Mainers he has urged should not judge him for, quote, the worst thing I said on the Internet on my worst day 14 years ago. Obviously, some of these allegations are more recent than 14 years if I'm doing my bad on live TV math. But some of this will be how voters and people who cover him, largely in Maine, assess the credibility of his response to this crisis.
- [28:51]
Molly Jean Fass
For sure. And you know, I got sober when I was 19 and there were things I did as a teenager that were not good. And, you know, that is why I got sober. So I do think people can absolutely change. And, you know, he was in a very traumatic experience. What's so complicated about this moment in American life is we have come so far as feminists in this country and then we've had a lot of backlashes, including the second election of someone who has all these allegations of all sorts
- [29:27]
Chris Hayes
of Amy just trying to criminally investigate Eugene Carroll.
- [29:29]
Molly Jean Fass
Right. Exactly. And so and you know, we've seen like Roe v. Wade, which was the law of the land for 50 years, was overturned. So it's a very confusing moment to be a feminist. And it's a very complicated moment with how we as a culture grapple with this kind of thing. And so we've, you know, we've both gotten it right sometimes and we've gotten it wrong other times. And so it's very, it's hard. But the good news is that it's really not for any of us to decide. It's for the people of Maine and
- [29:58]
Chris Hayes
for Democratic leaders like Alyssa Slotkin are going to have to decide what to say and what to do. Both of you stick around. And again, I guess importantly, we'll share the reporting. But you will all decide for your. And to help you do that, Graham Platner will appear on this network with my friend and colleague Chris Hayes at 8pm on All In. When we come back, we'll turn to huge protests in Albania. I think that's the first time I've ever said that they are protesting Jivanka over a mega resort being developed by them, Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka. They're even bigger questions, though, about the deal and whether the government of Albania is using it to curry favor with Donald Trump. It's our next story. Don't go anywhere.
- [30:48]
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- [31:16]
Chris Hayes (Podcast Intro)
on Monday.com Artificial intelligence is moving very, very fast and it's raising new questions just about every day about what it is, what it isn't. When all is said and done, what
- [31:26]
Tim Miller
is the end game?
- [31:27]
Chris Hayes (Podcast Intro)
I'm Chris Hayes and as part of my podcast why Is this Happening? I'm speaking with leading experts each week to help ground that conversation.
- [31:34]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
We're right now in a situation where
- [31:35]
Chris Hayes
it's very difficult to understand what is
- [31:38]
Senator Alyssa Slotkin
real and what's not real.
- [31:39]
Chris Hayes (Podcast Intro)
Why is this happening? The AI Endgame, a special miniseries from Ms. Now. Start listening today wherever you get your podcasts.
- [31:52]
Chris Hayes
When a foreign government puts a Jared and Ivanka backed luxury resort on the fast track over the objection of what looks like the popular opinion of all of its own citizens, it looks like a development project to attract not like a project to attract tourists and juice the economy, but more like an attempt to curry favor with Donald Trump and Jared Ivanka. And that is exactly what appears to be happening in Albania right now. Thousands of Albanians have taken to the streets to protest Kushner's plans to develop luxury properties on an island that is part of a protected landscape on that country's coast. The protests have been dubbed the Flamingo Revolution due to the fact that the proposed resort would potentially destroy the wetland habitat of flamingos. It's not just the everyday citizens wondering how the hell this project was approved. Politico reports this quote Albania's special anti corruption prosecution office confirmed Monday that it had opened an investigation into controversial changes in the area's protected status and land ownership in 2024, which opened the door to tourism development, according to a statement from a PR agency working with Jared Kushner's investment firm, which is largely funded by $2 billion from the Middle East. They are, quote, excited about the opportunity to create a world class destination and make one of the largest private investments in the region's history. We're back with Tim and Molly. So I first saw this story and I'm going to sound like a broken record, thought it was a fake AI video of Ivanka. But let me you will not call me 100 years old for thinking this is AI. This is Ivanka.
- [33:37]
Ivanka Trump
It's an unbelievable, beautiful, 1400 hectare private island in the middle of the Mediterranean we were on a friend's boat and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that's how we found it. We swam to the islands. We went on a hike barefoot all the way up to the top. And we were just captivated. And it stayed with us ever since. And over the course of many years, we developed the opportunity to help realize its potential and transform it, but with a lot of restraint and care because the land is so beautiful.
- [34:14]
Chris Hayes
Bruce, what's a hectare? Do you have to be a billionaire who boats barefoot to know what a hectare is? Do you know what she's talking about, Tim?
- [34:23]
Tim Miller
I. You know, I use the American system of yards and acres. I assume that's a foreign thing now that they're making all their money from foreign governments in Saudi Arabia, maybe she has to start speaking in metric system. I don't know. Doesn't feel very America first, the whole thing. To me, you said AI. I guess to me it felt like an updated. Like Veruca Salt. You remember her from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Of course I do, Daddy. I saw this island and I had to have it. I just had to have it. I love the island. So much.
- [34:53]
Chris Hayes
Gluttony.
- [34:54]
Tim Miller
But I don't know, it's so crazy. The extent of their corruption, I guess, is the important thing that I would say. It's hard to keep track of everything. And there's a whole Albania protest movement happening about the Trump family, you know, going and pillaging one of their islands in a corrupt deal, you know, with their government and with a bunch of other oligarchs throughout the world. And I don't think that people at all understand the skill of this. There are Trump operations being built in Southeast Asia. They're doing deals in Venezuela, the rare earths in Greenland that they were looking into, and we're gonna make Greenland the 51st state. They are just trying to take as much money as possible from people while they can, while they're in charge. And good on the people of Albania for protesting there. And it's pretty sick that this is what the president's family is doing while they're also negotiating our fail deal in Iran, by the way.
- [36:01]
Chris Hayes
Yeah, I mean, Tim used the word pillage. They are literally pillaging the natural habitat of Albania. I mean, they're protesting not just against the corruption, but against the destruction of pristine wildlife. It's called the Flamingo Revolution for that reason. It's also. I mean, they're not even hiding. I mean, this is Ivanka in her own telling. It took us a while to develop the basically it took us a while to buy them off.
- [36:27]
Molly Jean Fass
Yeah, well, and it's also, it's one of the poorest countries in Europe, which I think is important to realize. Donald Trump, this doesn't happen in a vacuum. Remember, Donald Trump has had all these designs on Greenland in a hope of sort of breaking up NATO. We know the Europeans are so mad at us, at Donald Trump, at all of it. So for them to be protesting is not a huge stretch. And then, you know, this island, which is an animal sanctuary, is gonna be developed by the President's son in law who has money from the Middle east and is negotiating or negotiating. Right, sure. Is negotiating a peace deal with the Iranians. I mean, like could he focus on the peace deal and not developing this and killing off this habitat?
- [37:14]
Tim Miller
It's a flamingo sanctuary, Molly.
- [37:16]
Chris Hayes
It's a flamingo sanctuary. It's completely insane. I mean, I think the Tim is there is this body of reporting. I think a lot of it's in the Wall Street Journal about these really eccentric things rich people are doing that I find just fascinating. They're building moats. You know, like we wonder why they don't care about measles, vaccines. It's because they want to go live on islands and build moats. I mean this is absolute insanity.
- [37:45]
Tim Miller
And it also just to, in the last segment to the conversation of platinum, it's also why anti billionaire left populists are popular right now and succeeding just as an analytical. It's like no wonder people are mad. No wonder people are mad and are turning to more anti capitalist type politicians. It's not hard to understand why. You know, when you look at what Elon is doing with the SpaceX IPO and you look at, you know, the President's family enriching themselves hand over fist. I mean, I think that it's giving the Democrats a big political opportunity.
- [38:16]
Chris Hayes
Yeah.
- [38:17]
Tim Miller
But I think that even, I think even mainstream Democrats should, should, should figure out like the pitchforks are out for a reason and there's gotta be a way to claw something back from this kind of international cabal of right wing oligarchs that are doing insane things like taking over islands in Albania while their father in law is the president.
- [38:39]
Chris Hayes
Yeah. And then doing interviews to brag about walking barefoot around the pillaged island. There are Democrats that are working on this. Elsa Slotkin's one of them. But so is our next guest. We'll bring in a leading Democratic voice on how to hold accountable all of this corruption in public in full view. That's on the other side of a short break, Joining our coverage, Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman of New York. He's a member of the House Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees. You join a conversation about corruption underway. And we could sort of close our eyes and play pin the tail on the donkey. In this case. We're talking about Jared and Ivanka in Albania. Your thoughts?
- [39:23]
Congressman Dan Goldman
Yeah, look, I think you could trace corruption investigations all over the Middle east and Eastern Europe as it relates to Jared Kushner when he leaves the White House as the senior most Middle east policy adviser and very shortly after gets $2 billion for an investment fund. Obviously, it doesn't take a 10 year prosecutor to question whether there's something there, there. And now with the Albania thing, the problem, part of the problem that, that he is running into is that once you're tainted with something that looks very fishy, then everything looks fishy. And if it's something is out of the ordinary whatsoever as it is with this Albanian project, then the question becomes why? But I do think, as you say, pin the tail on the donkey, that there are, there's such a litany of corruption that especially just from those who are actually in the White House and those who are directly benefiting from businesses doing business with Donald Trump. You know, there are so, so many avenues to pursue here.
- [40:37]
Chris Hayes
One of them is the $1.8 billion slush fund. And I think in, you know, we've been covering your efforts as a, as a staffer on the first committee to impeach and investigate Donald Trump through your time and your 10 years as a member of Congress. But the idea that something finally has such a stench of corruption that Republicans have said, thank you. No, I mean, where do you put the $1.8 billion slush fund in the continuum?
- [41:05]
Congressman Dan Goldman
It is at the bottom. It's the worst that we see. Right, Exactly. And you know, that only because we finally seem to have hit at least some low spot, I wouldn't say bottom, but some low spot where the Republicans are jumping. And I don't know if they're jumping as much because John Cornyn and Bill Cassidy were removed by Donald Trump endorsed candidates around the same time that the slush fund happened, or if it is actually just too much, or perhaps it is a critical mass of Thom Tillis, of Cassidy, of Cornyn, as well as the others who have Murkowski, et cetera, who have generally been skeptical. But I'm very concerned that about Todd Blanche's testimony yesterday and his refusal to put something in writing that was gratuitously put in writing to begin with. There was no case here. That is a bruise. Just ignore whatever the case was. They created an agreement, a written agreement out of whole cloth that they tried to ram through the American people and the Congress. Then the next day, Todd Blanch adds an addendum to this to absolve Donald Trump, his family and his businesses of all tax liability from here ad infinitum. Now, the fact that he says, no, no, no, we're not going to go forward with it now, but I'm not going to put it in writing is highly, highly suspicious. And it's also very concerning because there are other ways that they could do this through the false claims tort act as one example, that they might just be able to do this through the side door, what they were unable to do through the front door. And the fact that there's no discussion about this IRS tax immunity is very disconcerting with whatever it is that's going on over in the Senate that needs to be included in whatever is the Republican senators are going to insist remain in the reconciliation bill whenever it's finished. That will put and essentially rescind this slush fund. Do not forget that tax immunity.
- [43:26]
Chris Hayes
Well, it's funny, even Enrique Tarria was saying, oh, they'll find a workaround. They'll figure this out to give us our money. Congressman Dan Goldman, thank you for joining us today. Tim Miller, Molly Jean Fass, thank you. I'm always grateful to have you two here, especially today. Thank you so much for being with us. Quick break. We'll be right back. If you are looking for some Nick's adjacent news to sustain your buzz from last night's invite you to listen to the newest episode of the Best People Podcast. My guest this week is the legendary sports broadcaster Bob Costas. He has called so many important and iconic moments in sports history. I had a chance to talk to him about the current state of sports and how sports can be intertwined with our politics whether we like it or not. He also told me about moments in sports that still make him feel nostalgic to listen. Scan the QR code on your screen right now or download the Best People wherever you get your podcast. You can also watch the entire conversation on YouTube. To do that, you scan the QR code on your screen right now. As always, let me know what you think on Bluesky or Instagram. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes tonight. We are grateful.
- [44:39]
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