“A supreme betrayal”

Summary

Deadline: White House – Episode Summary: “A Supreme Betrayal”

Release Date: July 16, 2025
Host: Nicolle Wallace, MSNBC

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Introduction

In the episode titled “A Supreme Betrayal,” Nicolle Wallace delves deep into the unraveling dynamics within the MAGA movement, particularly focusing on the fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein client list controversy. Drawing insights from experienced journalists and political analysts, the discussion sheds light on the fractures emerging among Trump’s staunchest supporters and the broader implications for American politics.

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Fracturing the MAGA Movement

Alex Wagner opens the conversation by highlighting unprecedented discord within the MAGA faction. He points out that supporters are now turning against each other, especially after President Donald Trump publicly criticized them for their fixation on Epstein-related conspiracy theories.

“Donald Trump entered the chat and Trump himself stabbed at some of his own supporters, calling them, quote, weaklings, those voters who continue to ask for answers around the Epstein related conspiracy theories.”
— Alex Wagner [00:49]

This internal strife marks a significant departure from previous years, where loyalty to Trump overshadowed dissenting opinions within his base.

Media and Influencers’ Responses

The episode features insights from David Gilbert, a Wired reporter, and Charlie Sykes, an MSNBC columnist. They discuss how prominent right-wing media personalities like Megyn Kelly are refusing to back down from their pursuit of conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein.

“Big online personalities like Megyn Kelly insisting she will not just let it go.”
— Alex Wagner [02:53]

Charlie Sykes asserts the presence of substantial evidence pointing towards corruption, emphasizing the need for unwavering belief in the narrative being presented.

“I can draw the evidence that I'm seeing, and the people who are speaking about it lead me toward this particular conclusion.”
— Charlie Sykes [03:07]

Trump's Waning Narrative Dominance

Chris Hayes and Mark Elias analyze President Trump’s diminishing control over his narrative. Hayes criticizes Trump for failing to set the agenda over the past week, leading to unwanted scrutiny and criticism.

“Every time he opens his mouth, every time he puts out one of these social media media pose, he digs a deeper hole.”
— Chris Hayes [08:00]

Mark Elias echoes these sentiments, highlighting the president's inability to maintain his usual command over media narratives, which now inadvertently spotlight issues he wishes to sidestep.

“This has been built up for years. It is MAGA eating its own.”
— David Gilbert [06:42]

Government Actions: Cuts to Public Broadcasting

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to discussing the Republican-led effort to slash funding for public media outlets like NPR and PBS. This move is portrayed as a direct attack on reliable information sources, especially vital for rural America.

Sarah Longwell, an MSNBC senior contributing editor, explains the dire consequences of these cuts:

“Public radio and TV stations can be among the few sources of local news during storms and floods.”
— Sarah Longwell [35:01]

Michelle Norris, a longtime NPR host, voices concerns over how these reductions will cripple local stations that provide essential services, particularly in disaster-prone areas.

“It's clear that this administration needs to change the subject. They need an enemy.”
— Sarah Longwell [35:13]

Senator Cory Booker on DOJ and Epstein Files

The discussion shifts to Senator Cory Booker, who addresses the implications of President Trump’s nominees to the Department of Justice holding past positions as Trump’s defense lawyers. Booker raises critical questions about potential conflicts of interest and the transparency of the Epstein case.

“Emile Bove’s nomination raises serious concerns about transparency and accountability within the DOJ.”
— Nicole Wallace [51:21]

Booker emphasizes the importance of holding these nominees accountable to preserve the integrity of the Justice Department.

“Donald Trump has made a systemic betrayal by placing loyalists in positions of power, undermining the rule of law.”
— Senator Cory Booker [53:12]

Cracks in the MAGA Coalition

The episode highlights the growing discontent among MAGA supporters as influential figures like Laura Loomer and Joe Rogan begin to distance themselves from Trump’s narrative. This shift signals a potential weakening of Trump’s influence over his base.

“This is like a death by a thousand cuts for Trump.”
— Mark Elias [29:41]

As more right-wing influencers express skepticism or outright opposition to Trump’s stance on the Epstein files, the cohesive unity of the MAGA movement is threatened.

Future Implications and Closing Thoughts

Charlie Sykes warns of the volatile future ahead, suggesting that Trump might escalate his actions to maintain control over the narrative, potentially leading to increased polarization and unrest.

“He is going to have to escalate to something much more dramatic. I think that’s going to be targeting his political opponents for criminal prosecution.”
— Charlie Sykes [34:24]

The episode concludes with a consensus among the panelists that the current turmoil represents a pivotal moment for both Trump and the MAGA movement. The internal betrayals and external pressures could reshape the political landscape in unforeseen ways.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Alex Wagner [00:49]: "Donald Trump entered the chat and Trump himself stabbed at some of his own supporters, calling them, quote, weaklings..."
• Charlie Sykes [03:07]: "I can draw the evidence that I'm seeing, and the people who are speaking about it lead me toward this particular conclusion."
• Chris Hayes [08:00]: "Every time he opens his mouth, every time he puts out one of these social media media pose, he digs a deeper hole."
• Sarah Longwell [35:01]: "Public radio and TV stations can be among the few sources of local news during storms and floods."
• Nicole Wallace [51:21]: "Emile Bove’s nomination raises serious concerns about transparency and accountability within the DOJ."
• Mark Elias [29:41]: "This is like a death by a thousand cuts for Trump."

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Conclusion

“A Supreme Betrayal” serves as a critical examination of the current state of the MAGA movement and President Trump’s faltering influence. Through incisive discussions with key political figures and analysts, the episode uncovers the deep-seated fractures within Trump’s base and the broader repercussions for American democracy. As conspiracy theories lose their hold and internal dissent grows, the future trajectory of the MAGA movement remains uncertain, signaling potential shifts in the American political landscape.

Transcript

[Nicole Wallace]

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[Chris Hayes]

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[Alex Wagner]

Hi there everyone. It's four o' clock in New York. It is rare, but as of this very afternoon we are officially in uncharted territory. Because never before have the American people at large observed such pervasive and disruptive and jagged, such gaping new fault lines rupturing and exploding in spectacular fashion along the MAGA movements powerful landmass. Of course, for the past few days, supporters of Donald Trump have had their spears trained on one another in the aftermath of the Trump administration's conclusion that there is quote, no there there on the so called Jeffrey Epstein client list. But it wasn't until today that Donald Trump entered the chat and Trump himself stabbed at some of his own supporters, calling them, quote, weaklings, those voters who continue to ask for answers around the Epstein related conspiracy theories. Donald Trump even suggested that his supporters, the MAGA faithful are quote, doing the Democrats work for some reason and asserted he didn't want their support anymore anyway. It is a supreme political betrayal for those voters who not only voted for and supported Donald Trump, but stuck with him through grabbing women in the you know where on the Access Hollywood tape, through a deadly insurrection, through two impeachments, all in the name of proving and punishing such conspiracy theories like the Epstein files. People for whom targeting allegedly corrupt elites wasn't just a campaign promise along with, I don't know, whatever else people were into, but a worldview, a platform. Consider the political aftershocks making their way through right wing media right now. Big online personalities like Megyn Kelly insisting she will not just let it go even when talking to other like minded right wing personalities. This is me not having drawn a conclusion. I don't know what the truth is. I've been reporting in a way. I mean I see you've taken aside.

[Charlie Sykes]

That you, you've chosen to believe the.

[Alex Wagner]

Story that's being offered and that's fine. A lot of people have. I'm not there yet. I don't. I don't actively say that there's a pedophile ring. I don't say any of that. I'm just following the facts. And we're not at the place where I can draw that conclusion.

[Charlie Sykes]

Well, no, I can draw the evidence that I'm seeing, and the people who are speaking about it lead me toward this particular conclusion.

[Alex Wagner]

And then there's Joe Rogan. Now, Joe Rogan is different. He holds a special and uniquely powerful place in and adjacent to the MAGA movement, with followers likely as loyal or more loyal to him than they are to Trump. He's repeatedly, though, tapped into these conspiracy theories and others watch what he had to say.

[Nicole Wallace]

They got videotape, and all of a sudden they don't. You know, you had the director of the FBI on the show saying, there's no tape. There was nothing you're looking for is on those tapes.

[Alex Wagner]

Like, what?

[Nicole Wallace]

Why'd they say there was thousands of hours of tapes of people doing horrible. Why'd they say that? Right. Didn't Pam Bondi say that? Are you talking about Epstein or did he?

[Alex Wagner]

Yeah, Epstein. Yeah.

[Nicole Wallace]

She said it literally, I think a week before, you had the FBI director sitting here telling you there was nothing.

[Alex Wagner]

Right.

[Nicole Wallace]

She said something about that there was like thousands of hours of tapes of people doing horrible crimes.

[Alex Wagner]

There is.

[Nicole Wallace]

And didn't the FBI dude say that there was nothing? Kash Patel said, there's nothing you're looking for.

[Alex Wagner]

Oh, okay. Okay. When they mix up the Epstein cover up and the Diddy cover up is when I get really intrigued. Intrigued. We all are. It's where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. Wired reporter David Gilbert is here. Plus MSNBC columnist, author of the newsletter to the Contrary, Charlie Sykes is here. And with me at the table for the hour, MSNBC senior political analyst Alex Wagner is here. Alex, I was thinking about your militia reporter reporting. Do you remember that reporting that you did?

[David Gilbert]

I sure do. I sure do.

[Alex Wagner]

So the way it predated January 6th by months, many months. But I remember watching it, and I think I had you on like seven times, because for me it's like, what are all the things we missed before? Alex Wagner is out interviewing people showing their faces, talking about the armed civil war they're ready to fight on behalf of Donald Trump. And this feels like the same kind of story. What are all the things we missed before we got to Trump's entire movement rupturing in public view spectacularly over what they Believe to be a cover up.

[David Gilbert]

Well, I mean, this sort of like what happened pre January 6 gets at the central sort of conceit of MAGA ism, which is the government is a corrupt cabal. They're lying to you. They're only doing what they're doing for naked self interest. And it's all shrouded in secrecy and mystery. Right. The Epstein thing touches on that central sort of premise, the argument that Trump sold to his people. Only this time he's on the other side. He's in opposition to his supporters and the people that believed in this kind of conceit. It also undermines Trump's fundamental role within the movement, which is he's the no BS guy. He's the guy that's gonna tell the truth. He doesn't act with a filter. Everything is uncensored, sometimes to his own great peril. It puts him in a difficult position, but dammit, this is what he does. And here he is saying, there's nothing to see here, and if you're interested in it, there's something wrong with you. So I think in that way, the break is along, pardon the medical metaphor, but it's along to sort of like bone lines that are really essential to the sort of structural integrity of maga. Right. It's not just. It's not, I promise you, no wars. It's not a foreign policy thing. It's not a domestic, I promised you.

[Alex Wagner]

Cheaper things and I didn't deliver on that either. It's not a policy promise.

[David Gilbert]

This is the sort of emotional core of maga. This is the emotional core of the promise. And now you're seeing a revolution. I don't know which one it is quite yet, but it is MAGA eating its own. It is Megyn Kelly and Charlie Sykes and Benny Johnson and Steve Bannon saying.

[Mark Elias]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[David Gilbert]

It's not Jamie Raskin and Adam Schiff talking about the integrity of our democracy, though that is essentially essential and important. This is a different order of magnitude.

[Alex Wagner]

Charlie Shykes, you got name checked, but I would say you came around to the truth on this a lot, Santa.

[Chris Hayes]

No, no, I think she was referring to Charlie Kirk.

[Sarah Longwell]

And I don't want to be confused with Charlie Kirk.

[Chris Hayes]

I do not want to be confused with Charlie Kirk. But no, no, I mean, Alex is exactly right. I mean, this is the conspiracy theory of maga. This was their justification for going after the evil demonic Democrats. And what is really striking to me is that Donald Trump has lost the plot maybe for the very, very first time. I mean, he has reason to believe that he could shoot somebody in, you know, on Fifth Avenue and not lose anyone. He been very successful in bending reality to his will, to making his base think the way he thinks. He's also keep in mind that he's the executive producer of the Trump show and one of his superpowers has been that he determines what we talk about, what they talk about, and what we don't talk about. The last seven or eight days, he has failed. He has failed to set the agenda. We are now talking about exactly what he does not want to talk about. And every time he opens his mouth, every time he puts out one of these social media media pose, he digs a deeper hole. And this again goes back to that. He's lost the plot. You cannot ask this vast movement to marinate in a certain idea of these pedophile cabals as a justification for so much of what he's done and then suddenly push a button and say, though, there's nothing to see here, none of it's true. I mean, for years the Epstein files have been the files that were gonna blow the lid off the Democr. And now suddenly he's pivoting and saying, no, no, no, it's the Democrats who wrote them. And if you care about something that I have told you to care about for years, you're doing the Democrats bidding. This is not just mind exploding for us because we're used to having our minds explode. It's mind exploding for many of the people in Maga. And you see that playing out. And so I think he's rattled by this. I think you can feel it. When he put out the post over the weekend and he got ratioed on social media platform, I think he sort of felt sort of a rumbling in the, you know, out there in the, in the universe. He heard something that he had not heard before. And these are the kinds of things that he pays attention to and that he's controlled up until now.

[Alex Wagner]

And I think, Charlie, the lesson for people on Earth one or outside of MAGA or who have observed, I guess with distress and some dismay, I'll speak for myself, his power over MAGA is that he is. It's not just he's being eaten by this conspiracy cloud he created. It is as though he told these people they now have to take the COVID shot. I mean, that is the emotional betrayal of telling them, I'm not gonna release the files. I've seen them. I think Comey wrote them. I don't know what he thinks Comey wrote Them between the time he asked him to drop the Flynn case and two weeks later when he fired him. I mean, it's such nonsense. It is. It is revealing how stupid he takes his base to be. Yes, And I think it's stupid. Yeah. And I think today the test for those of us on the outside is just to sit back and watch whether their sacrifice for their dignity or their intelligence or other things that used to be sacred, at least for the Republicans, includes being called stupid. That is the part of the story I'm completely intrigued by.

[Chris Hayes]

No, this was. What he did today was a big middle finger to the vast majority of his own base. Now, I mean, he's insulted a lot of folks over the years, but to go after them for believing what Cash Patel and Pam Bondi and Dan Bongino and others and the Charlie Kirks of the world had been telling them was very, very important. And now to tell them, you guys are suckers. Now. Actually, David French said something in the last hour that was very, very important. And it's hard for, I think, a lot of us to get our heads around it. And the point he made was, you have to understand how hermetically sealed the MAGA world is from a lot of the things that we have been talking about over the last 10 years. And for millions of people in Trump's base, for millions of people. And he prefaced by saying, it's hard to believe. This is the first time that they've actually thought, oh, my goodness, Donald Trump is lying to us. So for the first time, you have millions of MAGA supporters who are now realizing, oh, my gosh, we know, we didn't realize that Donald Trump is a liar. Now, of course, we will say, where have you been the last 10 years? How did you not see this? But for many of them, this is the one issue where suddenly it's like, wait, the Donald Trump that I thought that I was supporting is not that guy. He is now covering up for these elites. He is actually has broken a fundamental promise that we have counted on for much of the last. For the last 10 years. And so that's one of the reasons why it feels so different, why ground feels a little bit shaky for Donald Trump.

[Alex Wagner]

David Gilbert. I think I have some of this David French writing on this that gets us inside the minds of the MAGA faithful. He writes this. Why are they so keen to burn it all down? Well, if you believe your government is populated by people so depraved that they participate in and cover up the systematic sexual abuse of children Then you wouldn't just want them out of office. You'd want them prosecuted, imprisoned, or maybe even executed. And you'd want all the power you'd need to make that happen. And if you believe that the ruling elites would abuse children, then they'd certainly be the kind of people who gin up a Russia hoax or try to steal an election in 2020. People who are that terrible are capable of anything. And if you wonder why MAGA turned on the FBI and the Department of Justice, well, it's not just about the Russia investigation or the FBI search of Trump's home in Mar? A Lago. Maga America also believed the FBI was protecting pedophiles to preserve the status quo. David Wired has had such incredible reporting on really every aspect of the last six months of the second Trump presidency, including this scandal. But take me inside where you see this moment, today's news cycle.

[Mark Elias]

Yeah, I think everything that's been said already is absolutely right. I think, like, I cover the kind of online extremism and disinformation, so spend a lot of time, you know, in fringe parts of the Internet where Trump support is absolute, is complete. There's, there's never a question, and for the first time pretty much ever I've seen this week, questions about what he's doing. It isn't outright revolt. They're not completely abandoning him yet. But their betrayal, I think, is the word that I would use to describe how these people feel. As Charlie was saying, this has been built up for years. I think in 2016, on the campaign trail, Trump said, I will give you everything. He didn't say exactly what that was, but people took that. And whether you believed in the QAnon conspiracies that came along, or you believed in chemtrails, or you believed that vaccines were causing autism or whatever other conspiracy that you believe, you took him at his word that he would expose all of this. He didn't do it in his first term. They came up with some excuses. In the four years he was out of office, he doubled down on Truth Social. He posted every single conspiracy under the sun, and everyone got behind them once again last year as this administration has come into office and in recent months, it's something I've been noticed about, I wrote about it this week, that little pockets of maga, whether it's the anti vax groups or the white supremacists who believe that the, you know, abhorrent hardline immigration scenes we've seen with ICE raids across the country are nowhere near harsh enough and need to be, you know, double, triple, quadrupled, whatever it is. They are angry at him for not being as extreme as they want him to be. And so it's been bubbling up for a while and this Epstein case has just made it absolutely explode. There's been a simmering anger there at the Trump administration not doing, you know, not publicly hanging the deep state traitors that they have heard about for the last four, eight years, not doing that on the day one, not doing what he said he would do in the first few weeks of his second admin. And so to some extent, it's no surprise that this anger now has kind of overflowed when he didn't deliver on what is probably the biggest promise that he, you know, needed to keep in order to keep his base happy.

[Alex Wagner]

And David, I've seen Mike Flynn not breaking with the base that still believes in the conspiracy theory around Epstein. We played you Megyn Kelly saying she hasn't seen enough to look away. Laura Loomer hasn't seen enough. Marjorie Taylor Greene is angry about a whole bunch of things. The Iran strike, support for Ukraine, the Epstein files. I mean, where is there a clear path out of this if Trump decides he has to deal with it? And what example is there of this movement where so much of the energy and heat and the topics are, as you said, sort of, or as Charlie said, her medically sealed and they're all online. Have any of these conspiracies ever just, poof, gone away, as Donald Trump right now seems to think they can and will?

[Mark Elias]

No, they always live on. They change, they metastasize, they become something else. Like QAnon is just a version of a centuries old Jewish blood libel conspiracy. It's nothing really new, it's just new packaging. So the Epstein files conspiracy, or whatever you want to call it, will not go away. The idea that if Trump thinks it will is just ridiculous because the people who are most angry about this have been stewing in this conspiracy for, you know, for at least five years, for probably a bit longer. And this overall conspiracy that the elites are somehow running this pedophile sex ring that's been around for a long time and it's not going to go away. It's interesting to, I think when you mentioned the people who are still kind of toeing the line to an extent, it's going to be interesting to see how that changes because as their base gets angrier and angrier at non answers, they will either subscribe to different people, they will stop watching those people. And so at some point, it's a financial consideration for the people. As much as they love Trump and Trump has been their meal ticket for years now, if their base is no longer subscribing or sending them money via super chats or whatever it is on YouTube, that will potentially push them to make a decision that they have to break with Trump. And so I think ultimately this is not going to go away. And because Trump has backed himself into a corner where there is no escape, he didn't release the files in his first term. He hasn't released him now. He shows no signs of wanting to release them because there is probably nothing there to satisfy his base.

[Alex Wagner]

So.

[Mark Elias]

It'S very, very hard to see a way out of this for Trump.

[Alex Wagner]

And not everyone wants him to find a political way out of this. But I think that the question I have to sneak in a break, but I think the question to put to all of you is where do you begin the process of trying to find the facts? I mean, are there facts to be? I mean, Megyn Kelly's waiting for facts. Is really or is she sort of doing what David's talking about, trying to keep she's got a huge audience online. I mean, I think that the problem with sort of following all them down the rabbit hole is you're disoriented yourself and trying to grab onto what the facts are. We'll have that conversation on the other side of a break. No one goes anywhere. Also ahead for us in the next hour, we'll hear from some actual Trump voters who are feeling a bit of buyer's remorse in light of the Jeffrey Epstein debacle. Sarah Long will be here to talk us through that. Also had Trump and congressional Republicans are looking to finalize a bill that would cut off crucial sources of information for millions of Americans here at home, while at the same time abandoning our allies abroad will explain how one thing can do all that damage. Also ahead, Senator Cory Booker on all of it, including tomorrow's vote on one of Donald Trump's personal defense attorneys, now up for a lifetime appointment as a judge dead set on dismantling the rule of law. All those stories and more when Deadline Whitehouse continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

[Chris Hayes]

MSNBC's Jen Psaki, host of the Briefing.

[Alex Wagner]

We've never experienced a moment like this.

[David Gilbert]

In our country, and it leaves us.

[Alex Wagner]

All with a choice.

[David Gilbert]

Are we going to speak out or.

[Alex Wagner]

Are we going to be pressured into silence? I've worked for presidents. I've seen face the tough questions from the press and even threats from the Kremlin. And if there's one thing I've learned.

[David Gilbert]

Is that you can't cower to bullies.

[Sarah Longwell]

You don't need to be hopeless.

[David Gilbert]

We have our voices and I will continue using mine.

[Nicole Wallace]

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[Chris Hayes]

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[Charlie Sykes]

Hey everyone, it's Chris Hayes.

[Nicole Wallace]

This week on my podcast why Is this Happening?

[Mark Elias]

A special crossover episode with the hosts of the Strict Scrutiny podcast.

[Alex Wagner]

I think the Supreme Court massively misplayed.

[David Gilbert]

This end of term.

[Alex Wagner]

My solution would be more trying to.

[David Gilbert]

Address the underlying structural issues that allow.

[Alex Wagner]

Us to get to a point where.

[Sarah Longwell]

A minority faction that is not committed.

[Alex Wagner]

To and antagonistic to the rule of law can get power.

[David Gilbert]

The bigger fundamental problem is that we have never done the work in this country of actually wrestling with our deep seated antipathy for a multiracial, multifaith pluralist.

[Mark Elias]

That's this week on why Is this Happening? Search for why Is this Happening? Wherever you're listening right now and follow.

[Alex Wagner]

Everybody's back. So, Alex, I want to delve into what we know about the facts, and as I said, Wired has had some incredible reporting. Let me read some of it. The FBI's Jeffrey Epstein prison video had nearly three minutes cut. Newly uncovered metadata reveals that nearly three minutes of footage were cut from what the US Department of Justice and FBI described as full raw surveillance video from the only functioning camera near Jeffrey Epstein's prison cell the night before he was found dead. The video was released last week as part of the Trump administration's commitment to fully investigate. Wired previously reported that the video had been stitched together in Adobe Premiere Pro from two video files, contradicting the Justice Department's claim that it was raw footage. Now, I don't know how to use Adobe Premiere Pro, but I know that the problem lies in the fact that they called something raw data and it isn't.

[David Gilbert]

Yes, I think there's a really important distinction we need to make, because in the previous segment we're talking about kind of pedophile cabals, the drinking of children's blood, the pizzagate conspiracy was a lie. It was not based in reality. Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were doing nothing at Comet Pizza and people were hurt because of that. This is something entirely different.

[Alex Wagner]

It's true. Epstein was a monster.

[David Gilbert]

Epstein was a monster. He was in jail. There is evidence Ghislaine Maxwell is serving, I believe a 20 year sentence on this. There is evidence that very powerful people were in fact involved in these parties, if not worse. And so the sort of fire burning underneath this is much realer to a larger section of the population and I think burns especially hot for the MAGA crowd because of that. Right. And then when you get data like this or you have the sort of floating theory that somehow Jeffrey Epstein may have been an intelligence asset that is being bandied about and discussed by people who are serious people. There are a lot of questions that folks have. I mean, I am not usually one to agree with Megyn Kelly, but I do think that there is a real need for greater transparency about this. Yes, on one hand it was a conspiracy theory that was ginned up to get people sort of angry about the government, angry about COVID ups and allegiant to Trump by and for maga. But it also happens to be a terrible series of events, a scandal, a very, very dark chapter in a man's life and several other men's lives. That happens to be true. Right. So because of that setting, even the MAGA politics of it aside, the criminality deserves more transparency. And that is where Trump, I think is really very much between a rock and rock.

[Alex Wagner]

But explain this to me. I mean, this is a movement that has elevated employees platform global misogynist.

[David Gilbert]

Yes.

[Alex Wagner]

I mean people that are famous world over for their brazen misogyny. Why these sex victims?

[David Gilbert]

Well, because I think it, first of all, it involves Bill Clinton. And I think you hear the word Clinton and that is in some ways there's almost a Pavlovian response in some corners of the right wing. And like I said it before, I think it gets at the central promise of what Trump was going to do once he was back in office, which was reveal all the secrets. And, and I would take issue. I mean, I think he has delivered on some things. RFK is the HHS secretary. It's an open question about what happens with vaccines. A lot of these cockamamie, largely baseless theories he has followed through on. So why not this one? And if, if you know, and if he's lying about this, what else is he lying about? Well, his strategy has also been insane. Nicole.

[Alex Wagner]

Yeah.

[David Gilbert]

Which Makes one wonder, how can this man, who's been so pitch perfect in terms of talking to his base, understanding the emotional tenor of the room, of the movement, how can he be so off?

[Alex Wagner]

And what.

[David Gilbert]

The only thing I can get to is he has a vested interest in not having this information made public. I'm not saying there's. I'm not saying anything beyond that. Well, but I believe this is all at Trump's direction.

[Alex Wagner]

I mean, he's orchestrating his Secretary of Defense's press schedule. I mean, Charlie Sykes, this is a guy who picked Matt Gaetz first to serve in his cabinet, and then Matt Gaetz was so bad he didn't make it. But everyone is a Matt Gaetz in one another. So he didn't pick independent people. He has a bat phone to the FBI. These are not people that were selected because they would preserve the integrity of any of the institutions they lead. These are people who were explicitly selected because they would do, one, what he tells them to do, and two, what he wants them to do. So with that established by the record, what do you think is going on at a fact basis?

[Chris Hayes]

Well, no, I agree with what Alex is saying is, you know, you follow the breadcrumbs, you say, why would, why would he behave this way on this particular case unless there is something to hide, which I think is a rational thing. Look, this is. And Alex made another really great point. You know, unlike Pizzagate, there is a. There, there, there are victims, there is a paper trail, there are flight logs, there are call logs, there are court records there, there are witnesses. There is. Ghislaine Maxwell, by the way, I hope, has really good prison security right now. And so all of these things are there. There is a reality behind it. Even in the FBI report that said there's nothing to see here, they talked about not just hundreds, but maybe more than 1,000 young girls who were victimized by this. That is not going away. And to the point that was made before, I think you need to understand that a lot of these MAGA influencers have had two North Stars, two things that they had to do at the same time. And until about five minutes ago, it was easy. They had to stay in Donald Trump's good graces, and they had to stay in the good graces of their audience. They knew that if Donald Trump broke bad on them, denounced them, that they would be cast into outer darkness, into exile, which we know something about. But also, let's be honest about a lot of these people also are paying very close attention to what their audiences Say there's a lot of audience capture on the left and on the right, particularly on the right, where they, that that audience wants what it wants and they have been fed a steady diet of all of this. So when you saw Donald Trump ratioed, that was a warning sign. It's also interesting to watch some of these other influencers, the Charlie Kirks and others, because they're going to be on blast from their own listeners and readers and the people who they rely upon. And again, right now, I mean, up until now, it's, you know, you, you show for Donald Trump. The audience loves it. You're in good graces with the White House. You're in good graces with your audience. That is what, that's the nexus that's broken. And I think that is absolutely crucial. And so a lot of these guys are now going to be getting text messages, they're going to be getting, you know, comments. They're, they are going to be flooded from below with people who are saying like, wait, now, you know, you know, do we believe you? Have you now become part of the COVID up? So it' their credibility as well as Donald Trump. Not just is Donald Trump lying to you, but are you lying to us? And for a lot of these guys, they'll have to make a decision because long Donald Trump's gonna be gone, they may have 20 or 30 year careers, which again is why this is so potentially damaging and dangerous to Trump world.

[Alex Wagner]

David, take me inside what you may see sort of ahead of us, you know, what is around the corner for this story.

[Mark Elias]

I think that what Charlie was saying is right. We saw this week, I think Charlie Clark was speaking about it a lot. Then he reportedly got a phone call from Trump and said, okay, I'm finished speaking about it. And then the next day, because he got so much backlash, he said, no, I'm not, I didn't mean to say I'm finished speaking, but I'm going to speak about it a lot. I was just taking a break. So he's clearly listening to the win wind and what's happening. You know, he's, he's going in whichever direction he feels will get him to, you know, earn him the most money, you know, have the most viewers. So I think that's going to happen. We're going to see a lot of back and forth as people really try and figure this out. Because if you think about it, most of them, all of them have never gone through this before. We saw with Laura Loomer earlier this year in relation to the plane that Trump accepted from Qatar, where she became hugely critical of Trump for, you know, potentially the first time publicly. And very quickly, she apologized and rolled back because he called her and said, stop doing that. And so she did, because she wanted to stay in his good graces. And most of the MAGA base didn't really seem to care about the plane. They really, really care about the Epstein files. And I think in the coming days, the coming weeks, because I do not see a narrative coming from the Trump administration that's going to satisfy them. We're just going to see this get messier and messier.

[Alex Wagner]

It's interesting, David, that you mentioned Laura Loomer. I mean, you've got Elon Musk, who has a power center of his own, angry at Trump about the big beautiful bill, who put Trump in the Epstein files in a public way, really hadn't been posited by anybody of his stature until he tweeted on his own platform that Trump was in the Epstein files. You've got Laura Loomer upset about the plane, as you said. You've got Joe Rogan upset about targeting people in this country who were at work at their jobs. He said, if I had known it was construction workers and people, you know, doing their landscaping jobs, I didn't sign up for that. You've got other popular comedic podcasters saying, what does he think we're stupid? I mean, if you add them all up, you have a real chunk breaking with Trump at a substantive level.

[Mark Elias]

Yeah, I think as one researcher I was speaking to this week put it, it's kind of like a death by a thousand cuts for Trump. Because, as you say, a lot of these groups that would believe in very specific things or conspiracies are very, you know, want very specific policies enacted. They're alone, they're a pretty small group, but when they come together, taken together, they're a huge number. And when they can come together with one singular goal, which the Epstein files or the Epstein case has given them, they all believe this. This is the one central thing that everyone from anti vaxxers to climate change deniers to white supremacists to everyone wants to see happen. They want to see someone exposed. They want to see that list. They want to see the names on that list that they believe will give them the kind of conclusion to years of believing in this conspiracy, that there is a. An elite running a pedophile ring or something, whatever the conspiracy, specific conspiracy they believe in. And I think, as Alex was saying, what's getting lost in this is that There is a horrific series of crimes behind all this, but that's not really what they care about. What they care about is seeing someone punished and seeing someone strung up that they believe is their enemy. And typically they believe it's a Democrat or someone from Hollywood or an elite. They don't think it's. Or up until now, at least, they don't think it's Donald Trump. You can kind of begin to see that changing.

[Alex Wagner]

Go ahead, Charlie.

[Chris Hayes]

Which is why this is such a dangerous moment. Because as we know, Donald Trump is searching and scraping for a distraction. What can that distraction be? I mean, he's tried, he's bombed Iran, he's tried to do things with the tariffs, floated the idea of firing the Fed chairman. None of that is working. You'll remember that they announced the criminal prosecutions of James Comey and, and Brennan last week. None of that has worked. So the question is, what is he capable of doing to change this narrative? And there's not an easy answer. And so it is a dangerous moment.

[Alex Wagner]

You have all made my head explode. Thank you for that. David Gilbert, Charlie Sykes. Thank you, Alex. You stick around. Ahead for us, another unpopular bill. Donald Trump is insisting Republicans vote for this one. Guts funding for NPR and PBS and the local stations they serve all across the country. The dangerous implications from the GOP's latest round of government cuts is our next story. I can tell you that there has.

[David Gilbert]

Been probably no issue, no single issue.

[Sarah Longwell]

That has drawn out more interest across.

[Alex Wagner]

The state of Alaska than support for public broadcasting. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is there for reason.

[Sarah Longwell]

And I think it has stood the.

[Alex Wagner]

Test of time in every single state, especially in rural parts of the country, like a lot of Alaska, people depend on public media like NPR and PBS and local affiliates for critical and sometimes life saving news and information. It's been that way for decades. That is now on the chopping block. After the Senate narrowly voted to advance a bill cutting more than $1 billion in funding for public media, along with other cuts to foreign aid. Vice President J.D. vance had to be called in for a tie breaking vote after Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell and Susan Collins voted against advancing the bill. Donald Trump has gone after the public outlets for what he says is bias. Yet another example of him going after media he feels is not overly friendly to him or biased toward him. But as the chief of PBS warns in an interview with the Washington Post, quote, the legislative package poses a, quote, existential threat, especially to rural America and kids. And the New York Times editorial board today is urging Congress not to approve the cuts by the Friday deadline they write this quote. As newspapers and television stations across the country fold, public radio and TV stations can be among the few sources of local news during storms and floods. Radio can be the sole source of information when electricity goes out. At its best, public media is a classic public service, something that provides large benefits and that the private sector often fails to provide. Adding that Americans who rely on these news outlets, quote, should not lose valuable public services because of partisan anger. Joining our coverage is MSNBC senior contributing editor Michelle Norris, a longtime beloved NPR host as well. Alex is still here. Michelle, I was going to say let's go through the bill and then tell me how you feel, but let's do that the other way around. This is gutting. As a listener and a viewer, how does this feel with this as your home?

[H]

I'm worried. I'm very worried. To be clear, the mothership, the flagship station, npr, a national media entity, will probably be okay. PBS in the mothership will probably be okay. It's the smaller stations that serve a huge number of people that are really going to be hurt by this. It's 1500 radio and television stations. And when you think about the services that they provide, we've just seen flash flooding across the country in Texas, in the Carolinas, in New York and New Jersey. When they distribute the warning systems, you have to have a delivery system for that locally. And since a lot of local news organizations are now gone, it's public radio and public tv, but public radio in particular, that actually accepts that and then serves as the warning system. If you think about the way that you listen in a big city, you hear news and traffic on the eights or something like that, what we're talking about in big swaths of America is information that's life saving. Whether or not you should go up in the mountains because of an avalanche, fear or not, the ravine is overflowing. You know whether or not there is a flash flood warning and people will not have access to that, it's clear that this administration needs to change the subject. They need an enemy, and they have long picked on PBS and npr. And in going after these stations, they're willing to do this even though they know. And they know because people have been calling their members of Congress and they've been calling the White House. They know what PBS and NPR means to their constituents. They don't care. They're willing to score a political victory even if it means snatching something important from the constituents that they claim to care about.

[Alex Wagner]

I Mean, the attacks on rural America from the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are shocking. And, you know, I don't know if it was folks like Steve Bannon that kept him from directly smashing the sort of few assets that. I mean, Bannon talks all the time about how Medicaid serves a whole lot of MAGA people. The idea of taking away information, sometimes the only information from rural parts of the country. These are direct attacks on large swaths of Trump supporters.

[David Gilbert]

Florida, I believe, gets $25 million from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Texas gets 17 million. Alaska gets 12 million. I mean, these. The states that are going to be affected are rural states, Midwest, Southern states. And I think Michel makes such an essential point about, you know, these are often the first, you know, the first line alert systems for floods and weather events and emergencies. But they're also talk radio. They're also covering local news. And we have seen, you know, it is not a coincidence that we began this show, Nicole, talking about disinformation, paranoid conspiracies. The warfare of the 21st century will follow along different lines. And information and facts is like number one or number two there. And the work of preserving democracy begins with having information that is accurate and making sure it gets to parts of the country that do not have access to it. This is much more than owning the libs by taking away all things considered. This is about trying to keep the American public shrouded in darkness so they are not aware of what is happening to them in a systematic fashion at the hand of this government.

[Alex Wagner]

Yeah, I mean, it is clear that making the truth, the sticky, viral, almost subversive and illicit thing that everybody wants, is the moonshot. It is the mission that determines whether or not the democracy endures. I need both of you to stick around. We'll have that conversation on the other side. Don't go anywhere. This is completely outrageous. Remember, this is money that was already decided on by a Republican House, a Democratic Senate. It was a bipartisan agreement. And if they can just start to go in there and take away these.

[Chris Hayes]

Incredibly important funds, the sky's the limit. So that's my first point to our Republican colleagues.

[Alex Wagner]

What are you doing? I guess you'll just rubber stamp anything Donald Trump wants.

[Chris Hayes]

But the second one is, look at.

[Charlie Sykes]

What this is for.

[Alex Wagner]

Just as we've seen these weather disasters.

[Chris Hayes]

Including horrifically in Texas, but the fires.

[Alex Wagner]

In Arizona and the like in many.

[Chris Hayes]

Remote areas or in states like Florida.

[Alex Wagner]

With hurricane seasoned upon us, they rely on a series of public broadcasting to get alerts out. And when it works well. When you actually have a system set up, it works well. This is not the time to cut back on public radio and public tv. We're back with Michelle and Alex. Michelle, what is your sense of how this is going to go? I mean, there are, there's time. It's not clear that folks are doing their own thinking, but there is, there is time. What do you, what do you think the most persuasive messages are to Republicans who will make this decision?

[H]

I don't know that you can persuade Republicans because they pretty much act as rubber stamp for the president, but I think you can persuade people to rise up and make their voices heard. It's possible that we might see something like, you know, Josh Hawley is talking about changing his mind on Medicaid if he voted for it, to try to, you know, now go back and restore some of that funding. It's possible that that might happen with the cuts to PBS funding if they come to pass. It will be hard to determine how this will affect the system because it is a large system with 1500 member stations with various degrees of funding and different kinds of programming. You're probably going to start by the end of the year if this happens. To see in some of those smaller stations, they will either have to drop the big shows like Morning Edition and All Things Considered that they pay fees for, or they'll have to drop their local coverage. And again, to Alex's point, if you live in an area right now I'm in a community that relies on fishermen all around. There's coverage of the ocean, of the fishing industry here that most people in the world do not care about. But it's very important to the men and the woman who live, who make their living on the water. They get that from a very particular member station that covers these kinds of issues. And that's true if you live in the mountains, and it's true if you live in rural areas. And it's true if you live in the upper regions of Maine where they grow potatoes and most people in the world don't even care about that. And so that kind of coverage will likely go away. The hope is that someone like, you know, when this happened almost two decades ago, Joan Kroc wrote a very big check for $200 million and that kept everything afloat. Most of that money went to the, you know, the, the main NPR entity at that time. Most of it was for npr. But they're hoping maybe someone like Mackenzie Bezos, maybe the listeners will step up. I mean, we're Seeing models now where people are more and more willing to pay for news, that's what the substack.

[Alex Wagner]

Model is all about.

[H]

And so if people really, really care for this, they may have to dig a little bit deeper.

[Alex Wagner]

That's so interesting. I need you guys to stick around one more minute to sneak in one more break. We'll all be right back. So we're back with Michelle and Alex. So, Alex, I mean, it seems that there can be a three and a half year solution and then there needs to be like a 40 year solution, a 50 year solution. And if you talk to folks, they are acutely aware of the threats we face in the immediate.

[David Gilbert]

Yeah, I mean, they're right there on the front doorstep. The fact is we've lost, I think in the last 23 years, 75% of local news journalism and counting. It's like that's a hemorrhaging on a level that really makes you question how a democracy survives. You know, I went to Hungary, right, And it's like there's a natural atrophy that's happening because of the business climate in and around journalism. But then there's like concerted efforts to shutter or take over organizations and, you know, make them partisan outlets or whatever. And that, that smacks a lot more of authoritarianism, the kind we've seen in a place like Hungary. I think when we talk about the solution here, I think Michelle's absolutely right that citizens are going to have to demand more, they're going to probably have to fund more. We're going to have to look to Laureen Powell jobs, and maybe not Jeff Bezos this round, but wealthy philanthropists who believe that freedom of the press and journalism and facts and information are the bulwark against autocracy and fascism. I think there has never been a clearer example of that than now. That's maybe the three and a half year solution. And look, we're in the media, we see what seismic changes it's undergoing. There has to be a way for people to begin to care about it in the long term. A funding structure that will match that and a real reinvestment in connecting ourselves to one another. I mean, that's part of it, to the truth.

[Alex Wagner]

I mean, we started talking about how the right wing media ecosystem is subsumed by this conspiracy theory. And this is sort of the obvious extension of that climate.

[David Gilbert]

This is the harvest.

[Alex Wagner]

All right, to be continued with both of you. Michelle, thank you so much. Alex, thank you for spending the hour with us right here. Coming up for us, Senator Cory Booker will be here. Don't go anywhere. You don't want to miss that.

[Chris Hayes]

MSNBC presents the chart topping original podcast.

[Nicole Wallace]

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[Chris Hayes]

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[Nicole Wallace]

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[Chris Hayes]

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[Alex Wagner]

This is just one big press conference trying to smear Donald Trump, Trying to hurt Donald Trump.

[Nicole Wallace]

If a president has to look over.

[I]

His shoulder or her shoulder every time.

[Nicole Wallace]

He or she has to make a a controversial decision at worry after I leave office, am I going to jail for this? When my political opponents take power, that inevitably dampens the ability of the president. It's not just President Trump has complained about the judge. So have I. I mean there's publicly filed motions about what we believe gave round, gave grounds to the judge's recusal.

[Mark Elias]

So it's not just President Trump who's complained, it's his entire defense team.

[Alex Wagner]

We're all complainers. Hi again everybody. It's five o' clock in New York. So we're, we showed you that because each of those lawyers represented Donald Trump the citizen in various cases. The first, Pam Bondi, was one of Trump's lawyers during his first impeachment trial. That seems like a thousand years ago, but she was there. There she is on your screen the second the voice you heard, that was John Sauer arguing before the Supreme Court in Donald Trump's immunity case, the infamous SEAL Team 6 example. And the third man was Todd Blanche. He defended Donald Trump in his criminal hush money election interference case, New York and lost. The reason we run through that list is that each of these former personal defense lawyers for Donald Trump now work for us. They hold high level positions in the U.S. government in Trump's administration. Bondi is the U.S. attorney general. John Sauer is the Solicitor General of the United States. And Todd Blanche is the US Deputy ag. What Trump has ushered in is a new era, a new system of so called justice, one dominated and operated by his own defense lawyers, people who have already shown loyalty to him. Gone are the days of nominating anyone in DOJ or jurists based on their independence or fealty to the rule of law. The latest of Trump's selections is a man we've been covering around here a whole lot who by tomorrow could be on his way to a lifetime appointment as a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Emile Bove. Bove was Trump's lawyer alongside Blanche during that hush money trial. He has also since fired about two dozen federal prosecutors who brought cases against January 6 rioters. He ordered the dismissal of the criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, which led to mass resignations of attorneys who disagreed with. This afternoon, 900 former Justice Department attorneys wrote a letter to the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee warning them of the danger Bovet would pose to the department if he is confirmed. According to additional memos obtained by cbs, quote, a group of former Justice Department officials are making an 11th hour effort to derail President Trump's nomination of Emile Bove. The effort includes outreach to sway the vote of Senator Thom Tillip, a North Carolina Republican whose objection doomed the nomination of another Trump surrogate earlier this year. The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote on Bovet's nomination tomorrow. If he gets past that, the full Senate will likely vote next week. A member of that committee, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, sent a letter to Bove requesting information about whether he is involved in withholding information related to the Jeffrey Epstein case. Your involvement in the DOJ's review of the Epstein files is a matter of significant public importance, given the contradictory statements by Attorney General Bondi concerning the existence of an Epstein client list and DOJ's stated commitment to transparency. Furthermore, it warrants scrutiny whether the DOJ intentionally withheld evidence related to the trafficking and sexual abuse of minors to protect certain individuals. That is where we start the hour with Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. Senator, thank you for being here.

[Nicole Wallace]

Thank you for having me. Thank you for that thorough reporting as well.

[Alex Wagner]

Well, you're involved in everything, so let's start where we ended. It feels like after nine long years, you might have a taker in trying to do something bipartisan when it comes to the Trump administration. Do you have any behind the scenes communications with any Republicans on your questions about the Jeffrey Epstein case?

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah, we're in active conversation, so I don't want to give too many details, but this can only be two things. Either Bovey and the Justice Department are lying about the Epstein situation, that they didn't have all these client lists and all this damning information about sex trafficking, or they're showing A dangerous lack of transparency that they do have, have this information, but they're not sharing it publicly. Publicly, they're either lying or this is lack of transparency. And Bovey served in a senior position. He was, as they say in the room when it happened, when these discussions and these decisions are being made, he has information that is relevant to either the lying or relevant to the lack of transparency, and he is culpable. He is responsible for either one of those things and he should come forward.

[Alex Wagner]

Well, lack of transparency, transparency, would you call it a cover up?

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, again, if what they said is true and they're not lying, that Pam Bondi had this damning evidence on her desk that she was just going to do, go through, that they went around, multiple members of the Trump administration went around and talked about this damning evidence, whipping people up. If they're not lying about that, then yeah, this is a cover up of very serious allegations and charges.

[Alex Wagner]

Have you seen an instance in six months when any of those individuals have acted in a way that is separate from what Donald Trump either wants or asks them to do?

[Nicole Wallace]

I mean, you really hit it on ahead. And this is why you see even the Federalist Society and the Heritage groups really breaking with Donald Trump, because the, the litmus test for Donald Trump, Trump now, and we've seen this with Hegseth and others, it's not qualifications for the job. Clearly, we've seen Republicans be talking about how unqualified these people are. The litmus test isn't a certain philosophy for him to put somebody on the, on the bench. The litmus test is are you loyal to Dear Leader or not? That is really what we're looking at here. And so you make the point of a lot of these figures that he is choosing because of their willingness to be enthralled with the president and the president's will. That's the problem we have in America right now writ large, is the sense that there are people who are put in positions where they should be independent, like the Justice Department, where they should be offering checks and balances like Republicans in the Senate and in the House. And they are not doing that. They are actually undermining the Constitution and surrendering power to the president. That makes him less of a president and more of an authoritarian leader.

[Alex Wagner]

Do you see an opportunity to speak to his voters in a new and unique way to say you have been betrayed and forget about all the policy opportunities and policy betrayals where Trump wins because he says he's going to lower the price of grocery in front of Melting meats at Bedminster during the campaign that didn't seem to rattle his voters the way that this has. Do you see a political opportunity to talk to his voters and bring them back to the Democratic coalition on matters of transparency?

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah, look, the litany now is long of his betrayals of people that put their trust in him. They're seeing their prices of their crib or car seats going up because of the tariff policy. They're losing their health care by the millions are having their rural hospital closed, their farmers are being hurt in rural areas by his policies. You're seeing even people on his immigration policy. I've seen more and more people coming forward saying I regret my vote because I didn't think he would take my spouse who is nonviolent, who's in this country trying to get her visa. And now through your going into courthouses, you've deported them. The litany is long for reasons of people to feel betrayed. But this, this one, this one which has had such a life in the world of maga, so many people demanding that, that Donald Trump come in and offer transparency with these serious allegations of sex trafficking and Donald Trump whipping this up into a fervor and trying to point fingers at Biden. Now all of a sudden when it's his Justice Department, when he has all the files and all the information, he suddenly saying nothing to see here, move along, move along. Well, that is a betrayal. It's either that he was lying to people or that he is now embodying the lack of transparency for serious allegations and potentially very serious crimes. So Donald Trump, we know you're a liar, so that's a possibility. And we also know that you have been leading and not releasing things, not releasing your tax returns, not releasing your health records. You have been hiding things from people for your entire time that you have been in American politics. One of these is true. Now you are either doubling down on lies, which is not shouldn't be surprising to people, or doubling down on lack of transparency, which shouldn't be surprising people. But I hope that this is an eye openening moment for a lot of people that put their trust revealed feeling what kind of liar and lack of transparency person that he is.

[Alex Wagner]

It also just feels like the earth shifting under him in a way that hasn't happened, frankly in nine years. He's been a political Houdini. He's been able to convince his voters of the power of the conspiracy. Around the 2020 election defeat he suffered to the point where they stormed the Capitol and Republicans went along with it this feels like, and I wonder if you disagree, the first example where the movement is moving in a different direction than its leader.

[Nicole Wallace]

Yeah, well, I just want to, I'm not one of these people that is making giant Donald Trump out to a juggernaut that he has not. He has had two elections president that he won, but he had the majority of people voting against him both times. This time he won with 90, excuse me, with, with 49.7% of the vote to Kamala Harris is 49.3% of the vote. This is not a landslide, it's not a massive mandate. But yes, there were a whole bunch of people in America that when his after the storming of the Capitol, after the vicious beating and ultimately later deaths of police officers, he had a reproval rating well into the tank, no chance of running. And somehow through his lies, somehow through the kind of, of horrific conspiracy theory that they're coming after me. Despite his convictions for criminal counts, he was able to win the presidency again. But now we have seen that peak again of 49.7% of the people. But now everything, even his immigration numbers are underwater and this president has revealed himself to America again. If the president, if the election was held today, he would lose. And he's now losing more support and he's already lost because of his health care policies, because of his policies on the economy, because of the horrific way he's going about taking nonviolent non criminal people and arresting them and throwing them the gulags in violation Supreme Court orders, all of that. But this Epstein case, that is revealing him again as a liar, as not doing what he said he was going to do. It's definitely affecting his support and in this case his base support of some of his most ardent people that have been behind him.

[Alex Wagner]

And I wonder if you think his political weakness will factor into a single Republican's decision on the Beauvais vote.

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, I mean that is going to be the question that's going to determine our democracy. I mean today we're voting on a rescission package that this has not happened like this before. Understand that the only time that when we do hard won negotiations and get a bipartisan budget, a president being able to claw back money that, that the first branch of the government actually put together. This is a very unprecedented day right now. Why is it happening? And by the way, it's very narrow. Some Republicans stood with us. The vice President had to come in and break a tie. It's very narrow. But Republicans time and time again are enthralled or afraid of this man and have been captured capitulating and surrendering Article 1 powers to the executive. But I believe that that is a House that can't stand that eventually we're going to have Republicans are going to get a backbone, and maybe it's going to take a midterm election until they realize they should be more afraid of the people they represent than the president. But it's going to happen. I just hope it happens soon enough for us to be able to start serving people, saving their health care, saving this economy, helping people who've lost food support, helping people that are struggling and suffering right now, and that it's not too late with too much pain when it comes to next year.

[Alex Wagner]

His pattern over nine years, when his political chips are down, has been to be more brutal, especially to people in this country illegally or in a process of trying to address their immigration status. What can you do? What can Democrats do to protect people being denied due process by Trump's mass deportation policies?

[Nicole Wallace]

Well, I just want folks to know, because we are a nation of decency across the political spectrum, we're a nation of decency. And what this president is doing is such a violation of the values of our nation to have people who are masked. Every, every other law enforcement agency in America, from local law enforcement to the FBI, has to show who they are. But this man has folks driving around in unmarked vehicles where you don't even know if they're police or not, coming out masked, with no identification, grabbing people. Where are they grabbing people? At schools, at churches, off construction sites, out of courts, where they're going to try to abide by the law, throwing them in vans, not getting, giving them any kind of due process, and they're disappeared from our streets. This is such a violation of common decency. It's such a violation of constitutional principles. It's such a violation of who we are as a country, and it is so wrong. So, yeah, Donald Trump has a way of trying to change the subject by doing something more outrageous and more egregious in hopes that he gets us to stop talking about who he is and what he's doing to help keep him at the center of our conversation. We cannot allow that. I don't know what he's going to do, but something is coming that's absolutely outrageous. Something's coming that he's going to try to shock us again into talking about that and not this. We as Americans can chew gum and walk at the same time. We can point out the various wrongs that this man is doing and stand up and fight. I am telling you, telling you right now, this man is not the truth of who we are as a country, but who we are as a country is going to define by right now how we stand up and speak the truth, how we stand up to power, how we stand up and fight. And I'm hoping more people will get it, that so much is on the line right now that we need more people off the sidelines and standing strong in this fight for America.

[Alex Wagner]

And we love getting to talk to you about all these things. I had a Little League coach on from the Upper west side of New York who stood up for his players.

[Nicole Wallace]

I saw that story. Unbelievable.

[Alex Wagner]

Unbelievable, right?

[Nicole Wallace]

Courageous man.

[Alex Wagner]

But we'd love to talk to you more often about all this because you've stood up. And I think there's a growing feeling that people can do more than nothing. So I hope it's a conversation we can continue. Senator Cory Booker, thank you for taking time to talk to us today.

[Nicole Wallace]

Thank you. Thank you very much for what you're doing.

[Alex Wagner]

Joining our conversation, voting rights attorney and founder of Democracy Docket, Mark Elias. Mark Elias, does it feel any different to you? Do you feel like more people are starting to stand up?

[I]

I wish more people were standing up. I mean, you know, what's hard to, to gauge is whether fewer people are, are refusing to stand up or it is that there are just fewer people generally in this fight. But do I feel like there are more people willing to stand up? Sure. The baseball coach was willing to stand up. You see people at these outrageous raids willing to stand up. You see ordinary Americans willing to stand up. Are we seeing more law firms stand up?

[Nicole Wallace]

No.

[I]

Are we seeing more business leaders stand up? Now? Are we seeing owners of multibillion dollar media corporations who want to sell them stand up? No. Like the people. What's really interesting, Nicole, and I think you've covered this a lot. What's interesting is that the people who have the most, the people who have the resources stand up the most have actually turned out to be the most timid. And the people who have the most to lose have been the most heroic.

[Alex Wagner]

Yeah. What is it about this moment where Trump's political weaknesses have been laid bare? I mean, today, Donald Trump attacked his own supporters, basically called them, I don't know what the words are. I want to say weak and lame. And if it wasn't weak and lame, it rhymes with weak and lame for focusing on a conspiracy he himself peddled and the people that populate his government peddled for years and years. What does it say to you that he's now going after his own base of supporters?

[I]

Look, I think you got it exactly right in the question you asked Senator Booker. I don't think there has been any time since Donald Trump's first term when he was president that he has completely lost control of his base. He's completely lost control of his narrative. I mean, you could at the same time that he is attacking his supporters in like the same vitriolic language that he uses normally to attack Democrats. At the same time he's doing that, Nicole, he is not moving key parts of the MAGA movement in his direction. Right. You still have Tucker Carlson, I think, set to do a expose on Epstein. You know, as of yesterday, you still had Steve Bannon having a pollster on talking about how Epstein could be Donald Trump's Afghanistan. You still have other right wing figures who are not going along with this. So it's a very, very unusual situation we find ourselves in. But I also think it's a very dangerous situation because I think Donald Trump is going to have to escalate to something much more dramatic. I think that's going to be targeting his political opponents for criminal prosecution and I think that's how he's going to look to turn the narrative around.

[Alex Wagner]

Well, he did that already. I mean, he announced investigations into Comey and Brennan and you still have Megyn Kelly wrestling back the backbone or the cojones, if you will, from one of the other guys, I don't know, I think it was Charlie Kirk. I mean he's tried that and it hasn't worked. Mark?

[I]

Yeah, I agree with you. It's not worked to date. But I am, I am mindful and I hate to say that I watch, you know, Steve Bannon and, and Laura Loomer and, and the right way.

[Charlie Sykes]

What has he done to us ecosystem.

[I]

But, but, but what's interesting is that they are several people in that sphere are talking about that Donald Trump will appoint a special counsel to look into Democrats and that part of that special counsel will also look into the epst. And the reason why that has some plausibility from Donald Trump's standpoint is number one, you see, he's already saying that these, that these documents were created by Democrats, which is an utter lie. But that's, that's where he's going. So it gives him the pretense to say, look, I want them to look into the Russia investigation which was Democratic manufacturer. I want you to look into the 2020 election which was Democrats. And I want you to look into this, which is Democrats. And then he appoints some completely farcical figure to be the special counsel. And it kind of like, like get, he might think gets him out of jail free. All of it would be nonsense. And I don't think it'll work, by the way. Like, I don't think his base would go along with it. But I think that that may be what's coming.

[Alex Wagner]

I mean, farcical figures are in short supply. He's used most of them up. We're going to have you stick around ahead for us. As MAGA tears itself into pieces over the Jeffrey Epstein case files and Donald Trump disavows his own supporters, the cracks in the MAGA coalition are getting bigger and bigger and more notable. We'll talk to a friend of our show, Sarah Longwell, about what she's saying. Deadline White House continues after quick break. Don't go anywhere.

[Charlie Sykes]

Really think that Clinton called the Jeffrey Epigenet? I have no idea.

[Alex Wagner]

I know he was on his plane 27 times and he said he was on the plane four times. But when they checked the plane log, Bill Flint, who was a very good friend of Epstein, he was on the.

[Nicole Wallace]

Plane about 27 or 28 times.

[Alex Wagner]

So why did he say four times? And then the question you have to ask is, did Bill Clinton go to the islands?

[Charlie Sykes]

Because Epstein had an island that was.

[Alex Wagner]

Not a good place, as I understand, because I was never there.

[Nicole Wallace]

So you have to ask, did Bill.

[Alex Wagner]

Clinton go to the island? That's the question.

[Nicole Wallace]

If you find that out, you're going.

[Charlie Sykes]

To know a lot.

[Chris Hayes]

Thank you very much, everybody.

[Alex Wagner]

If you find that out, you're going to know a lot. So what would you do if you wanted to find that out? Might you, I don't know, release the Epstein files? That was then and this is now. Given comments like that, it is no surprise that Trump is being eaten alive. Literally. Since we've been on the air, it's still happening. By his own voters, by his own base of MAGA voters and the most prominent MAGA influencers. Just a few hours ago, our colleague Garrett Hake asked Donald Trump about his Epstein problem.

[Chris Hayes]

When your attorney general was in here, your FBI leadership, do you still have.

[Mark Elias]

Confidence in that team, sir?

[I]

Total, sir, will you.

[Alex Wagner]

I have nothing to do with it. So that wasn't the question, but that was the answer. That was what was on Donald Trump's mind. I had nothing to do with it. And then Donald Trump told journalist John Solomon that he is open to a special prosecutor to look at the Epstein case, but that there's a catch, that the probe could look at his own grievances, like what he calls the Russia hoax and so called stolen 2020 election, as Marco is just predicted. And all that was after he called those who he believed what they were fed by him and his closest allies, including people who now run the DOJ and the FBI, quote, weaklings. And so he doesn't want their support anymore anyway. Take a listen to what one Trump voter said in a focus group held by Sarah Longwell.

[I]

I believe there's a client list.

[Alex Wagner]

They talked about a client list for.

[I]

Years and years and years. We're going to release this client list.

[Alex Wagner]

It's coming out.

[Nicole Wallace]

They're just going to, you know, sweep.

[Mark Elias]

It under the rug.

[I]

We'll mention it on social media, we'll.

[Mark Elias]

Laugh about it, call them liars, but.

[I]

It'S not going anywhere.

[Alex Wagner]

Joining our conversation is the president of Media Matters for America, Angelo Carazone, and publisher of the Bulwark, host of the focus group podcast, spokesperson for Home of the Brave. Sarah Longwell's here. Mark Elias is here as well. Sarah Longwell, let me start with you. This isn't just an old conspiracy. Pam Bondi said in February that she had the Epstein client list quote, on my desk, end quote. How do Trump's supporters feel about being treated, one, as stupid and two, as replaceable and disposable, being called, quote, weaklings by Donald Trump?

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, well, nobody has more contempt for Trump voters than Donald Trump himself. Nobody thinks Trump voters are stupider than Donald Trump does himself. I mean, these are people who are really deep on this conspiracy. They can work out pretty quickly that the timeline doesn't include Joe Biden writing the Epstein files or James Comey writing the Epstein files.

[Alex Wagner]

Donald Trump, I don't know about you guys.

[Sarah Longwell]

Donald Trump seems pretty scared to me. He's acting awfully squirrely. These are some really long truth social posts with a lot of capitals, kind of capital letters, a lot of weird, you know, phrasing structures. He seems panicked now. I want to talk a little bit, though, about who Trump's base is and who cares about the Epstein files, because not everybody does. And I think you're going to start hearing people saying, do people really care about this? I mean, a lot of Trump voters, they just care about the economy. And let me tell you, that is true. True, okay? Sort of normies who are not terminally online, they voted for Trump because they wanted prices lower. That's not happening for them. But the base that we're Talking about here, these are people who either are part of the manosphere, so let's say people who came to Trump a little bit later, they are red pilled, they tend to be more libertarian, anti woke, free speech warriors. These are people who are, who believe that the establishment covers things up and that Trump was going to be a guy who was going to tear down the establishment and show them the things that everybody has been hiding. The other group of people that cares about this a lot is the activist class, the podcast class, right? And these people have already been kind of frustrated with Trump. They don't like the bombing of Iran, they don't like if he's sending weapons to Ukraine. They didn't like the spending on the bbb, the big beautiful bill. And so he's been tweaking some of voters now for a bit. And so on top of that to come in and say nothing to see here on Epstein, which not only did everybody in my cabinet, including the Vice president, including the Attorney General, including the head of the FBI all say was going to be an enormous deal. I mean these people, Cash Patel is in charge of the FBI in part because of Epstein, because he went on every right wing podcast to fan the flames of this particular conspiracy. So they have nobody to blame but themselves, themselves for the fact that they are in this situation. Pam Bondi didn't say, I have explosive material on my desk. When she was out of office, when Biden was running, she was the acting Attorney General. Everybody has a right now to demand answers on this, not because of the Democrats or anybody else, but because of what Trump's own members of their cabinet said while they're in office. And so their voters want answers and you can't blame them them.

[Alex Wagner]

So when I worked on campaigns and would do this, Matt Dowd was the chief of polling and he would sort of win. So I made one of my little data charts, but it has these categories. I think you're talking about the people that voted for him for the economy. And it has a big zero right, because they're getting tariffs and inflation. Things are not cheaper, they're more expensive. Everything from food to things you need for your kids to sporting equipment to people raising prices preemptively and people raising prices because things are more expensive. And then you have the people that want to know war, right? And they're mad about the bombing of Iran, they're mad about funds and weapons for Ukraine. So big x, big nothing, big survey says, eh? And then you have this third category which includes the people that believe the conspiracies about 2020 that believe the conspiracies about COVID shutdowns, they may not be the biggest, but they're certainly the most, most fervent. And they are the ones making all this noise. And that's the group that he seems to be telling to go pound sand, Sarah. That seems like the most politically perilous group to antagonize. Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

And I think in part you've got to sort of understand the layers of influence on this because the people who really care about this make up sort of the, the middle layer of mediation between Trump's, you know, really intense voters who love to get in deep on the conspiracy stuff and Donald Trump himself. So we're talking about Benny Johnson, talking about Megyn Kelly, we're talking about Alex Jones and like the tinfoil hat wearing crowd. But this is an enormous media ecosystem and they have, this is, and this is a thing that I think it's tough for the mainstream media and even Democrats to understand because they don't live in this world. But if you are an observer of this world and you see how, how, how much content got churned out on Steve Bannon's war room, how many times Cash Patel was on there while they just jawboned it up about how deep this conspiracy could go and how they were going to be the people who were going to be the, the voices and the eyes of regular Americans who were going to blow the lid off the, the deep state elite, like the global elite cabal conspiracy. There are a lot of people who think that. And for Trump to say they can't do it and nothing to see here is an enormous betrayal to all of them. And Trump, he really is vulnerable here to an enormous people with megaphones really turning on him.

[Alex Wagner]

All right, no one's going anywhere. We have just started. I have been spending a lot of time in this space. I am dying to pull Angelo in on my favorite thing that we talk about, narrative dominance. On the other side of a quick break. Don't go anywhere. We're back with Angelo, Sarah and Mark. Angelo, Media Matters just came out with this new report and I love seeing this. To Sarah's point, we don't always have a ton of visibility into what's happening, but these are calls into Glenn Beck show, quote, I feel really betrayed and I feel really, really angry. A caller to the Larry Elder show said this, quote, this is a sad, sad day in America. This cemented permanent deep state power, calling it, quote, the ultimate betrayal. A caller to the Chris Steigel show said, quote, I'm concerned about being able to trust Donald Trump to keep his word. Is this the moment where Trump starts to lose his narrative dominance?

[Charlie Sykes]

This is definitely, you know, yes, that's a prediction. Unless he gets it under control, then, yeah, it is, and here's why. A few factors. And Sarah was sort of getting into this when she was talking about before, when she was getting to the people that really care about this. They have the most kinetic energy. And in an atomized landscape, one of the ways that you maintain narrative dominance is that you have a lot of listeners and a lot of viewers that are really engaged, that are keeping the hosts continuing to feed the narrative and story to realize that their bread is buttered with the Trump story than opposed to the Trump story. And when you sort of start to have narrative dominance break a little bit, then everybody else comes in with their own pet project. So. So while this is happening and the audiences are mad about the Epstein stuff, and I'm gonna get back to it in a second, you're also hearing all these other grievances now suddenly getting aired as well. Sean Ryan, a prominent podcaster Trump supporter, is out there criticizing Trump on immigration, something he hasn't done yet, saying it's really bad and it's gonna hurt the economy. Right. You have Marjorie Taylor Greene out there. You have all these other hosts complaining about immigration or another part of the bill of BBB that they passed, Right? So there are now these little grievances that are becoming, becoming secondary stories. And why that matters. That means that they're no longer carrying water for the larger Trump narrative. That's the first thing. The second thing is, and this gets to the core part of the question here as to whether or not this is the beginning of the end here on narrative dominance. And look, there's a long way to go. I want to be clear. Inertia's a lot, but part of one of the pillars, the central part of Trump's narrative dominance, is that there's this establishment. They are bad, bad. And the establishment is the deep state Democrats, the media, all these elites. They're bad and they're bad for all these reasons. They hurt you. They don't care about you. Oh, by the way, they're pedophiles. They're child sex traffickers. And I'm not that I'm gonna break the establishment. And then, you know, he promises to do all this other stuff, Project 2025. But the thing that really excites people is the idea of breaking the establishment. You know, a Lot of the new people that voted for Trump, whether it was the conspiracies or not, the one thing they wanted was something really different, Different. And he promised that and what's happening here. And he really, he did center himself in this. Let's not forget that in his first term in office, he promoted the QAnon conspiracy 300 times on Twitter.

[Chris Hayes]

In.

[Charlie Sykes]

In the two years since he started using Truth Social, his own platform. From April 2022 to April 2024, he promoted the QAnon conspiracy 800 times. The Epstein story is as is a, is a hallmark, is at the center of the larger QAnon theory. It's one of the biggest pieces of evidence that they have and point to that there is this deep state elite cabal out there, child sex trafficking. So here you have Trump now with all the power, saying, I'm going to do everything I can to both protect the establishment and tell you that all the things that you believe are no longer true. And when you're faced with that question, as a listener or as a supporter, say, well, watch. Gosh, this is the one thing I believed about his story, that it drew me to him. And that's not true. What else is not true now and then? All the little things that you've been holding your nose for. And let's, you know, all the polling reflects it. A lot of his supporters hold their nose on things because of the other thing, the thing that he's going to do that's going to change and transform stuff. And here he's saying is, oh, that thing you believed about me, it's a lie. And I'm the one telling you it's a lie. And, you know, people were using the term betrayal when it came to, you know, the big, beautiful building. They're saying, oh, this is a betrayal. His supporters never called it a betrayal, but they're calling this a betrayal because it gets to the very heart of the story that he was telling them about himself and why it mattered for them. And now he's out there pushing back. And the last piece is, you don't just see this in the callers, you see it in the hosts. Charlie Kirk announced at the beginning of the week that he wasn't going to talk about this anymore. And yet he spent most of his show today on defense, complaining that there were so many callers that he has no choice but to talk about this. Steve Bannon's show, which I think is one of the real lighthouses in the ecosystem, it's a really good indicator of where Things are going, it's always on attack back, it's always on offense. I mean, he's literally the flood, the zone guy today he spent the entire show on defense. I can't emphasize to you how weird and different that is. So I don't want people to be excited, feel shadow Freud. There's a lot there, but that's not the thing. We shouldn't assume it's all going to unravel on its own. But there is something really big happening here and it's an illustration of how both the power of narrative dominance, but when it starts to go, it goes fast. And Trump is just not connected to the zeitgeist right now. So he's having a really hard time getting his handle around it. It he thinks by making Fox News stop talking about it, somehow it goes away. And in fact, it's just feeding the beast more well.

[Alex Wagner]

And Fox News, we know from the Dominion lawsuit, preferred in that instance to go along with the conspiracy about the election largely than part with its viewers. We have all the text messages that they sent among themselves, Tucker Carlson called Donald Trump demonic, but went ahead and amplified the lies about voting systems and cost the company millions of dollars. It will be interesting to watch all those figures. I want to bring Mark Elias back in on this. I have to sneak in one more break before I do that. We'll all be right back. Mark Elias, let me read you one more from this Media Matters report of the calls. This is from an Infowars caller who said he, he was, quote, at January 6th and said Donald Trump, quote, saying we need to forget about Epstein, suggests, quote, he is a part of this whole system. He also said Pam Bondi, quote, covered up Epstein. These are folks who went to in this instance, this is a caller who was, quote, in his telling at January 6 but feels betrayed by this, not about the criminal exposure he may have faced for being there that day. That's how big this is in Trump's space.

[I]

Yeah, absolutely. And what we need to recognize is that Donald Trump has already made the biggest concession that he, that he is going to make. And it may be the one that is ultimately going to lead to this completely unraveling for him. And that is he went from a posture of there are no Epstein files. Remember, that is where Pam Bondi was like last week, right? It is. We've released what there is. There was nothing ever on my desk that was something different and like, like there is nothing to see. And on Saturday, something caused him, something happened and I don't know what it is like we could speculate maybe involving Bongino being unhappy, maybe something else, who the hell knows. But something happened that he pivoted to. Oh no, there are Epstein files. It's just the Epstein files were written by Democrats. And ever since then, that is the direction that he has had to go. He has had to admit that there are these files that he has not written releasing. You know, he sort of earlier today said, well, they can release credible evidence but not the made up evidence. Right. So he is, he has now pivoted to this place in which he and his administration has to admit there's stuff they are not releasing. And they have to bank on the fact that they can convince people that the reason why they can't release it is because it was somehow made up and written by a bunch of Democrats. And that is a, you know, a implausible even by implausibility standards. And I think one that his base will not, will not buy. But also I think they'll say, well, but even if they're made up by Democrats, like that's more, that's even more reason why they should be released. And so I think he has trapped himself in this place where he has acknowledged their existence and he has to now try to defend the ground. That's why I think this thing about special counsel is so important. Because if he names a nonsensical person as special counsel, that special counsel can then say, I've taken possession of the files and they can't be released because I'm investigating. And that's a way out and a way in which he then merges the Epstein thing with the elections and the Russia and everything else and maybe tries to put this genie back in a bottle. I would defer to Angelo and, and Sarah whether that will work, but I think that's where we're going.

[Alex Wagner]

Angelo, I mean, they've done that already. Can they run that plague in. Are those adrenal glands totally shot? I mean, they have the Durham probe, they had the Senate Intel Committee, they had, they ran the government, they've investigated all these things already. Is that something that this base that now feels betrayed is going to swallow?

[Charlie Sykes]

They're going to want stuff on Epstein. So they will take a special prosecutor. They probably won't accept that answer, even if it's a special prosecutor like Ed Martin, who. That's been one of the names that's been floating out there to sort of try to appease people. I do think Mark is right and his alarm bell is to going correct. This is where you know, remember in, as Sarah pointed out, a lot of that kinetic energy, it matters. That's how Trump built an organized power. He took the fringes. That's how he. That's how he started. He built an organized power on the fringes. The kinetic energy matters here. So they're going to try to steer that toward this special counsel thing. But again, Bannon's show is a good illustration here, because when he was pushing that, his own guests who've been carrying water here, and our Trump supporters were saying, that's not going to be enough.

[Nicole Wallace]

We're going to want more.

[Charlie Sykes]

And so, look, the bloodlust is scary. We shouldn't, you know, like I said, we should not be too celebratory here on its face can go in a lot of directions. You know, there are. The blunt lust is real, and that is volatile. That volatility is unpredictable and could be very dangerous and very scary. This could be a real moment where he consolidates power and hurts a lot of people as a, as a consequence of that. And his base is still mad, but he also gets to further entrench his own power. So we just need to be really careful. But I don't think that alone is going to be sufficient. They're really going to want to see some stuff, and these people aren't going to buy it.

[Alex Wagner]

Well, sir, I don't think there's anything to celebrate. I mean, I will not. I will. I listened to two hours of Joe Rogan today. I've watched more Megyn Kelly in the last 72 hours than I have since she left Fox News. I mean, you have to understand what's happening in the MAGA media ecosystem to understand what is driving Donald Trump. And I think that may be healthy to understanding maga, but I don't think anyone's celebrating that new reality.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I do think that there is a sense of, hey, maybe this is the thing. I mean, Donald Trump now, for almost a decade, has been in our faces saying, if I shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue, I won't lose any votes. And that increasingly started to feel true. And so I think part of what this is is people saying, wait, is this the thing? I mean, if you live by the Epstein files, do you die by the Epstein files? You know, so I think that there's. It's not celebration so much as it is a sense of, wait, wonder, this the thing, could it be the thing that actually moves the base away from him? And I think, though, the question becomes, is it just something that exists between Donald Trump and the base and the rest of us are all observers, or do we as Americans also say, hey, wait a minute, is the attorney general lying to us or were they all cynically ginning up Americans by telling lies in order to get them to vote for Donald Trump? Trump, we have an interest in this, too. I think that there's a sense from people that because Trump pulls politics into the gutter that everybody should ignore it because, well, that's what the conspiracy theories theorists over there believe. No, this is the attorney general of the United States, the top law enforcement officer. We all have a reason to care about this and we should continue to press for answers, not just the base we as Americans should do.

[Alex Wagner]

Yeah, it was good to hear Senator Booker asking some of those same questions. Angelo, Sarah and Mark, you all stayed longer than I think we'd asked you to. Thank you for doing that. The story is mind blowing if nothing else. One more break for us. We'll be right back. Last month we had a chance to speak to Alejandro Barranco. If you remember, he's the Marine Corps veteran whose father, Narciso, was violently detained by federal age agents while working his landscaping job outside of an IHOP in California. We have an update to that story for you. Narciso has been released from the Immigration Detention center where he has been held for the last three weeks on a $3,000 bond. He is set to have another court proceeding in August as the Barrancos apply for the parole in place program. We'll keep you updated on that story. One more break. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for your incredible response to and support of the Best People podcast. My guest this week is legendary music producer rock and Roll hall of Famer Jimmy Jam. You can watch the entire conversation on YouTube, just scan the QR code on your screen right now or download the episode wherever you listen to your podcast. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes today. We are grateful.