← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
“An incredible shift”
00:46:44
The Senate agrees to pass the bill to release the Epstein files with a veto-proof majority while a court blocks Texas’ redistricting scheme and Nicolle Wallace discusses Trump’s meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman.
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- [00:00]
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Nick Corsonidi
Not sure where to start.
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Nick Corsonidi
You can hire top rated pros, see.
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Mark Elias
The bottom line is that these folks are trying to cheat. They are concerned that the record that they have to run on is not one that is going to garner a lot of votes in 2026. And so the White House says Donald Trump says, you know, I'm entitled to get me five seats Texas. And Greg Abbott says, you know how high sir? And you know, goes and gets him, you know, tries to get him five seats but he may not be getting him five seats.
- [01:26]
Nicole Wallace
Indeed. Hi again everybody is now five o' clock in New York. Donald Trump might not be getting those five house after all. There is breaking news today out of the state that lit the match in this entire national redistricting fight. In a stunning setback for Donald Trump and the Republican Party, a panel of three judges ruled 2 to 1 that Texas cannot use its new gerrymandered map in the 2026 midterms, finding that the state has to use the map it drew in 2021. In a 160 page opinion, Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointed judge, writes this quote, the public perception of this case is is that it's about politics. To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 map, but it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 map. Judge Brown also derided the Justice Department's efforts to get Texas to target several districts with non white majorities. He writes, quote, the map ultimately passed by the legislature and signed by the governor. The 2025 map achieved all but one of the racial objectives that DOJ demanded the Legislature dis and left unrecognizable not only all the districts DOJ identified, but also several other coalition districts around the state. For these and other reasons, the plaintiff groups are likely to prove at trial that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 map. Democratic lawmakers in the state are celebrating the ruling with the Texas House minority leader saying in a statement, this, quote, a federal court just stopped one of the most brazen attempts to steal our democracy that Texas has ever seen. Greg Abbott and his Republican cronies tried to silence Texans v to placate Donald Trump, but now have delivered him absolutely nothing. The ruling is expected to be appealed, but if the 2021 map stays, it will likely allow Democrats to hold on to the five seats Trump wanted in next year's elections. It's an incredible shift in the redistricting fight. As the New York Times reports, quote, at the outset of this year's sudden and unusual push to redraw congressional maps in the middle of the decade, it appeared that Trump and Republicans had the upper hand with their party in control of the mapmaking process in more states. But since Texas Democrats have countered with gerrymanders of their own in states like California, with Virginia likely to follow. Should the federal court decision in Texas hold, Democrats could find themselves ahead in the redistricting battle. That is where we begin the hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. Voting rights attorney, founder of Democracy Docket, Mark Elias is here. It was his case that the panel ruled on today. So he is the one who is the winning lawyer in this fight. Also joining us, New York Times political reporter Nick Corsanidi, who has covered this effort extensively. And with me at the table, host of Politics Nation, president of the National Action Network, the Reverend Al Sharpton. Mark Elias. Tell me about what happened today and what happens next.
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Mark Elias
Yeah, so look, this is a great day for democracy, and it's an example of why we can't give up on the courts. Right? I mean, the fact is that the courts are not going to save democracy, but they do serve as a backstop, an important check on what we see Republicans trying to do around this country and what Donald Trump is trying to do to free and fair elections. When the state of Texas decided to draw this new map, it did so at the instigation of the Department of Justice that basically told Texas that its prior map was a racial gerrymander. The problem is that its prior map was not a racial gerrymander. In fact, Republicans in the state said they drew it without refer to race at all. So when the state of Texas then went about using race to deconstruct what was not a racial gerrymander. It effectively engaged in racial gerrymandering. And that is what a, that is what a federal, what the federal three judge panel found today. It's an opinion 160 pages long, very well reasoned, frankly, approaches the issue from a judicial conservative standpoint and written by an appointee of Donald Trump's. So the fight here is not over. I am incredibly proud of the work that my, that the team at my law firm did in this, in this case and our plaintiffs, 13 black and Latino voters who put their names on a complaint, you know, taking on the most powerful governor in one of the most powerful governors in the country and certainly the most powerful man and Donald Trump. And so we are going to continue to fight and not just in Texas. You know, we have filed lawsuits in, in North Carolina. There's a hearing tomorrow, I'm sorry, on Wednesday against that state's map. We are suing Missouri over their gerrymander and we are defending the California map and the Virginia process that's unfolding. So it's a very busy for voting and democracy in court. And you know, I'm thrilled to be here today to share some good news on this case.
- [06:21]
Nicole Wallace
Specifically, how do they appeal when this judge, as you said, from a conservative legal, you know, arguing position just totally cuts their legs out from under them. Like, what does their appeal sound like and to whom do they appeal?
- [06:37]
Mark Elias
So they'll file an initial emergency stay petition with, with Justice Thomas. It'll get referred to the court. There will a period of briefing on, on both sides. And you know, this will be heard on the emergency docket, what is colloquially sometimes referred to as the shadow docket. Look, I think their arguments are going to be really hard because the judges made findings of fact here that as to why the Texas legislature acted the way it did. They made findings of fact, for example, about what motivated the map jar to draw the map the way they did. And so Texas is not going to be able to walk away from that. Texas is not going to be able to say that facts are other than as the court found them. And you know, the argument here, just so that everyone out there hears this loud and clear, the argument that we and the other plaintiffs, and there were a number of plaintiff groups with excellent lawyers that the arguments we made were that this was the impermissible use of race in drawing districts. Well, that is precisely what conservative attorneys general throughout the Deep south are arguing right now in other cases. So it's a very difficult position to put conservative on the Supreme Court to somehow now come to the rescue of Texas when you know, fundamentally they are being told by a conservative judge that Texas just racially gerrymandered.
- [08:01]
Nicole Wallace
And then you're defending the California and Virginia processes. Just explain how, how your defense of California and Virginia is different from their defense of Texas.
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Mark Elias
Yeah, so look, the California situation is entirely different. California passed a ballot initiative and there have already been four lawsuits, by the way, challenging the Californ California map and all of them have lost. So this is. The Republicans are on their fifth effort in California and you know, they are arguing that it is a racial gerrymander. But to do that, they have to somehow say that when Gavin Newsom was, was, was moving forward and when the voters of California were moving forward, that what they were really trying to do was pass maps with a racial, a certain racial composition that violates the Voting Rights act or, or the Constitution when the announced purpose of it was partisan. I mean, you know, like, like it or not, California was very clear as to why they were doing what they were doing, which was to offset a five seat partisan gain that Texas has made. So I don't think they're going to get very far in, in California, in Virginia, they are literally out searching in the woods for, you know, for gold, you know, with, with nothing but a pickaxe and a shovel and a bucket. Because like Virginia is amending their state constitution. And the claims they have made so far in state court, where my law firm has successfully prevented this, have not been hard to defeat. They are essentially arguing that it's not fair that the state legislature is doing what they're doing and they shouldn't be allowed to do it. And honestly, that's not a legal claim. That's something, you know, you go to the principal in elementary school and complain about.
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Nicole Wallace
Mark, let me read you a little bit from the ruling itself. The judge writing this. On July 7, Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the Civil Rights division at the Department of Justice, sent a letter to the Governor and Attorney General of Texas making the legally incorrect assertion that four congressional districts in Texas were, quote, unconstitutional because they were coalition districts, majority non white districts in which no single racial group constituted a 50% majority. In the letter, DOJ threatened legal action if Texas didn't immediately dismantle and redraw these districts. A threat based entirely on their racial makeup. Notably, the DOJ letter targeted only majority non white districts. Any mention of majority white Democrat districts, which DOJ presumably would have also targeted if its aims were partisan rather than racial was conspicuously absent. What are they calling out there?
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Mark Elias
So this is perhaps one of the most incompetent acts that this Department of Justice has committed so far. And this is a Department of justice that has done a lot of incompetent things, but essentially Texas drew a map in 2021 that was, you know, both race, race based and also partisan. Right. It had elements of trying to harm minority voters and it had elements that were trying to help Republicans. There was a trial that literally was just concluding in July in which the Republican map drawer said that a certain set of districts in the map had been, had been drawn without any regard to race at all. In fact, they had not even had race available race data available to them when they drew this section of the map. And so it was an avowedly partisan in the testimony of the Republican mapjar. Well, in comes Harmeet Dhillon and the crackerjack team at the Trump Department of Justice sends the state of Texas a letter that says, those districts you drew, those were racial gerrymandered districts. They were coalition districts where you purposely took black and Hispanic and white voters and put them together. And that's illegal to do that. Well, once that letter got sent, the State of Texas had a choice. It could either say, you people who work at the Department of Justice are just bad, crazy. Okay? You don't know what you're talking about. You don't, you know anything about the law.
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Nicole Wallace
But instead Greg Abbott's like, yes.
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Mark Elias
Instead it said, Greg Abbott's like, oh, yes, well, we will fix that right now. So what happened is the state of Texas, in drawing this new map map, then went about dismantling districts, basically sorting people based on race, sorting black and Latino and white voters away from each other, even though they had not, even though they had been put in a district originally not based on racial grounds. So the net effect was that this new map was a racial gerrymander. They were sorting people apart based solely on race or based predominantly based on race. And it is. This all came to a head because of this letter that was sent by the Department of Justice. And that's what the court was relying on.
- [12:42]
Nicole Wallace
Rev. As Mark said, we can't count out the importance of the last sort of remaining guardrail, the judiciary. But 12 hours ago, I feel like this was a jump ball in our assessment about how this would go. And certainly people have a lot of confidence in Mark Elias's legal skills, but this is Donald Trump's big play. What is the significance in Your view of one of his own appointees striking.
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Reverend Al Sharpton
At the heart of this mammoth. Because not only is it clear that there was no racial gerrymandering in the original map, they used racial gerrymandering to fight against what was originally there to try to get these four or five seats that Trump wanted. And they said, wait a minute, you're the one practicing racism. This is wrong, we're not going to have it. And an appointee of Donald Trump wrote it. Now, now you can go to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court now has to rule in a way that either way, given their instincts around race and the use of race, how do you now come and undo what you've been doing in other cases before you and have to do in the future? So they've really put the Supreme Court in a box. And I think that this ruling was something that no one could have predicted. But I mean, we ought to be thanking Mark and his team because it is huge. It will probably decide where we go in terms of a democracy and probably determine who the majority of the House next year. But I think that the key factor that Mark raises, that we can't have let it be lost here. Race was not an issue in Texas till they made it an issue. And that is what unraveled. And by unraveling their use of race, they give the Supreme Court. Now the people that are asking about dei, well, were you going to do DEI on the negative in Texas? Cuz that's what their new map was doing. The original map had nothing to do with race. And I think this puts them in a real pickle.
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Nicole Wallace
It's mind bending to see them sort of failing, you know, playing their trick. I mean, is it overreach? I have a hard time grasping how we got to this moment, Mark.
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Mark Elias
We got to this moment because Donald Trump is an autocrat and we can never forget this. You know, Nicole, like he's an autocrat who does not care about anything. He doesn't care about the law, he doesn't care about the facts. He just wants power. And he is, he is surrounded by sycophants, you know, a Justice Department that even had Jeff Sessions, I cannot believe I'm saying that even had Jeff Sessions as the Attorney general would not have sent the letter that they sent a, a, a conservative governor who had, you know, two ounces of common sense and listened to lawyers would not have then called a special session and engaged in what the reverend is 100% correct about. 100% correct about this was them injecting race into A map that they wanted to redraw. And like, that is just what we see from this administration all over the place. I mean, we see it in the city streets, streets in which they are, they are grabbing people off the streets who are U.S. citizens and, you know, disappearing them in vans. They are, they are, they are ignoring court orders all around the country. And this is the reason why they keep losing in court. You know, you and I have talked before about how many cases they are losing in, in, you know, these cases involving the deployment of the military, the National Guard or, or immigration. Like, they're losing a lot of cases because they are utterly contemptuous of the law and don't even try to follow it. And then when they wind up, you know, hopefully they get, you know, they run against, run up against good lawyering.
- [16:44]
Nicole Wallace
Nick, is this a sort of death knell for their efforts in Indiana and other places where they were trying to sort of grab after Texas?
- [16:56]
Nick Corsonidi
I don't think so at all. In fact, I think we're going to see like a renewed push from the White House on Friday when Roderick Bray, the Senate president in Indiana and a Republican and a big supporter of President Trump, said the, said we're not going to redistrict. The votes aren't there. He spent all weekend getting hammered on Truth Social by the president by name. You know, he was harassed, you know, House got swatted. And so there's been a lot of pressure on Republicans to keep pushing. And, you know, Greg Abbott said in his statement today, we're going to appeal. This is going to keep going. And I think it's important to remember this is a fight that the President picked, and he's not necessarily one who's going to back down even when he's losing. So I think we're going to see a renewed push. There's states that still haven't moved yet that certainly could. Florida is a big one, so Indiana could get pushed again. There's Republicans in Kansas who could get pushed to redistrict. Nebraska has even discussed it. There's a lot of states that could still come. And also, don't forget the Supreme Court is still going to hear whether the Voting Rights act survives or not. And if, as oral arguments kind of indicated, they're looking to possibly weaken, if not completely strike down Section two, that opens up the map completely to a whole new set of new drawings, new redistricting that could really benefit Republicans.
- [18:17]
Nicole Wallace
Mark, you get the last word.
- [18:19]
Mark Elias
Yeah. So I, look, I think, I think Nick's exactly right. I mean, like this fight is not over. We are, we are in the, we are still in the early innings of this. And that's why it's important that everybody have, you know, have steel in their spine because the fight for democracy is not going to be won or lost in one court case. I know we live and die by each one of these, but it's going to be fought in courtroom after courtroom around the country. It is going to be fought in peaceful protest after peaceful protest of people showing up in the streets. It's going to be fought by people blowing whistles and protecting their neighbors in cities. And so we all have to do our part. And we can't just think like there's this one watershed moment in a movie and then it's all over. It's going to be a long slog. But, hey, today was a good day for the good guys. It was a good day for democracy, and it was a terrible day for Donald Trump.
- [19:12]
Nicole Wallace
Elias, thank you for making time to start us off this hour. Nick and Rev stick around. Much more on the ruling today blocking Texas from redrawing its congressional mats to help Donald Trump in the midterms. We're also keeping an eye on Capitol Hill right now, where at this moment, survivors of Jeffrey Epstein have gathered for a bipartisan vigil with the House Democratic Women's Caucus after the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to release the Epstein files. Also ahead for us, another day and another opportunity for Donald Trump to focus on something, anything, other than the affordability crisis in America. Today, he's defending Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman MBS at the White House seven years after the crown prince approved an operation to murder Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. We'll get to Trump's deeply disturbing reaction to questions about that later in the hour. Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
- [20:09]
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- [20:26]
Nicole Wallace
The American people are basically telling the president that they are not okay with any of this.
- [20:30]
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- [20:40]
Nicole Wallace
We're back with Nick and the Rev. Rev, let me show you the sound bite from Eric Holder about the role that public awareness played in all this.
- [20:50]
Mark Elias
Gerrymandering and redistricting was not really getting people and I think we made a lot of progress, but I think it got really Supercharged by what happened here in Texas. Now people get it. People understand, wait a minute, wait. Why five seats mid cycle? How are you doing this? And so now I think everybody understands how unfair the process is, the negative consequences of it. And so now when I speak to audiences and it's gotten better, but especially after Texas, people are like, yeah, what is it that we can do?
- [21:25]
Nicole Wallace
I remember, I think, telling Chris Hayes, you know, I lead with redistricting every chance I get. And he was like, you do. And it used to be this thing that would make people's eyes glaze over. And now you had people in California with Prop 50 standing in line for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours two Tuesdays ago to vote for this idea of making things fair. I mean, people really understand that Donald Trump and the Republicans are trying to cheat.
- [21:49]
Reverend Al Sharpton
I think that because of the blatant way that President Trump operates it, it feeds into the reaction that you couldn't normally get without that. Because if they had said, let's do quietly two seats or three seats and not be, you know, and not let the world know I'm doing this from.
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Nicole Wallace
The overall, it's like the gluttony of it.
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Reverend Al Sharpton
Yeah, he wanted to do it. It's me. I'm doing this, and we're going to take the majority. I think that abrasive kind of behavior is what drove a lot of public awareness to saying, what? No, we're not for that. And I think that that is what's happening. One of the things I learned growing up, being trained by guys that were with Dr. King and the civil rights movement, and we did in our own time and still are, is that you want your enemy to be brazen. You want your opponent to do things so there's no about what you're out there for. And I think that that is what Texas represented. Texas made it clear this is not about districting. This is not about race. This is about we want five seats. Because the guy on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington called and told us that, and they put it out there. And I think that they fell right into their own trap because of their own arrogance. It undid them.
- [23:09]
Nicole Wallace
I mean, Nick, some of this gets at how this could backfire. I mean, this now is politically unpopular, is Trump's handling of the economy. So is Trump's suppression of the Epstein files. So are the tariffs. So is military intervention in the Caribbean and the Pacific and everywhere where he's bombing boats. I mean, at what point is a gerrymander for political gain a gerrymander for political peril.
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Nick Corsonidi
I mean, gerrymandering has always been really unpopular. And I was kind of chuckling to myself when you said that you thought people's eyes might roll over when you led all the time with your district.
- [23:44]
Nicole Wallace
Well, you've been in these conversations with me. It was favorite way to start an hour with you and Mark Elias talking about gerrymandering. And sometimes people are like, okay, it's.
- [23:54]
Nick Corsonidi
Just the word redistricting doesn't grab you. Right. But I think it's such an unpopular thing amongst voters across all parties. You know, no matter what, voters want to feel like they have a fair say and they want to win. They want their sides to win, but they still want to feel like they're on a level playing field. So anytime, you know, we tested or any polling tested, whether voters were in favor of partisan gerrymandering or racial gerrymandering was almost universally hated. So anytime you push your luck with this, you're really risking your political support, and you're also risking your political success. You know, I think we were talking last week, if you try and gerrymander too much while your popularity is sagging like the president's is right now, and there's a Democratic wave in 2026, and as the 2025 results in Virginia and New Jersey showed us, some of those, those 24 gains that President Trump had gotten might have been more temporary than permanent or part of a trend. Then you could see those seats that you've just gerrymandered into, say, Republican plus 10 seats, all of a sudden become competitive. So it could quickly become an almost perfect storm for the president of sagging popularity at a time when he needs it to be stable, as he makes some of these seats a little bit more competitive in a way to try and gain them all all, you could end up losing them all.
- [25:09]
Nicole Wallace
Explain that. Explain how that works, that if you take from a few districts, you're lowering the margin of his favorability in all of them. Just explain that.
- [25:19]
Nick Corsonidi
Yeah. So there's a finite amount of voters in each state. Right. So in this case, there'll be a finite amount of Republican voters. And if there's four congressional districts and three of them are all, you know, 60, 40 Republican at the Trump plus 20 seat, those all feel very safe.
- [25:34]
David Frum
Safe.
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Nick Corsonidi
But if you wanted to make that fourth seat that Democrats had been winning a Republican seat, you would need to take from all of those state, all of those seats that had been 60, 40. So now all of a sudden, they're either 5545 or 53, 47, they're still on the safer side for Republicans. But in order to make that Democratic seat a Republican one, you had to take from everyone. So in doing that, you can sometimes dilute the entire safety of a lot of these seats. Seats and lose in an election that doesn't go your way. And if we look again as to what happened just a few weeks ago in New Jersey and Virginia, the Democratic enthusiasm outperformed polls. It outperformed anyone's expectations, especially in New Jersey, where people thought it was a three to five point race, ended up being a 12 point race. That kind of Democratic enthusiasm and that kind of Democratic turnout could easily put some of these assumably safe Republican seats in play. And so with these gerrymanders and as they're trying to kind of carve out as many seats as they can, they're going to risk possibly losing some of those by just getting a little too aggressive. Not to mention, it might have annoyed the voters in those districts, the independent voters in those districts who are annoyed that they either got moved or felt like their vote was being taken away.
- [26:53]
Nicole Wallace
I mean, this, to me, is the political sort of thin ice that Trump is on. He is transformational in all the wrong ways, but he is obviously still a powerful figure in his own party, the most powerful. However, all of the things he's doing are suppressive to that power. Right. Immigration is now an issue on which he's underwater. The economy is an issue on which he's underwater. Foreign policy is an issue on which he is underwater. And gerrymandering is always been in and of itself more unpopular than it is popular. Trump is a guy that only knows how to press the gas with his lead foot or press the gas harder with his lead foot. What do you think he's going to do?
- [27:38]
Reverend Al Sharpton
I think he's going to continue to press because that's the only way he knows. And I think that is what is going to lead to his defeat in a lot of these areas and could lead to the defeat of his party because he doesn't know any other way way he feels he's right. He's the ultimate narcissist. The whole world is wrong, including members of his own party. And he will take this defeat today personally and tell them everybody, just go full steam ahead, otherwise he'll want them out of here. And I think that the way you, you know, I used to be a big boxing fan. The way you fight Trump and I fought him for many years, is the rope a dope? You Lay on the ropes and let him punch himself out, out. Then you knock him out. Don't fight him while he's swinging. Let him punch himself out. And in Texas, he's starting to gasp for breath. And at the right time, just score and you'll see him on the mat. But what you don't want is to go fisticuff for fisticuff, because sometimes the electorate will get confused on who is the one acting aggressively wrong. Let him be Trump, and that will defeat him more than any strategy on the other side. Let him be Trump.
- [28:50]
Nicole Wallace
Let him be Trump is also the thing we can count on, right? We have some breaking news to tell you about from Capitol Hill. The bill to release the Epstein files has passed by unanimous consent in the United States Senate. It now heads to Donald Trump's desk. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer made the request to pass the bill by consent, and it did. Ali Vitale is available to us by phone. She's been covering this story all day long for us. Ali, what are you hearing?
- [29:19]
Ali Vitale
Nicole? The one moment that I thought the Senate might take its time with this, and ultimately they did the exact opposite. We understood that Senator Chuck Schumer had a plan to ask unanimous consent to either deem this bill passed or to deem that they should hold a vote on it. You know the Senate so well. If all 100 of them agree to anything, they can speed up or slow down the process as much as they want. In this instance, Schumer just went to the floor in the last few minutes, asked them to deem unanimously that this had passed the Senate without any further action, and he got it. There were no objections. The motion was ordered. And now at this point, it is basically considered passed. The House still has yet to send the bill over. There's that, of course, transmission between the chambers. But once the House does that, there is no more action expected on this bill. It will go to Trump's death. After being sent by the House, after being transmitted, committed an overwhelming day of bipartisanship on an issue that has proven to be one of the thorniest, most complex, most bitter issues that this chamber has grappled with over the course of the last few months. Finally, and quite quickly, I think stunning all of us, the Senate dealing with this issue, now sending it to President Trump, who I think realized in the last 48 hours that this train was leaving the station. He either had to get on board or risk getting run over. So he has said now that he's going to sign that.
- [30:41]
Nicole Wallace
And does that mean that the files will be released? Or does that mean that Trump will invoke the ongoing investigation excuse?
- [30:49]
Ali Vitale
See, I think that that is the open question. Right? I've had multiple conversations with people like Thomas Massey and Ro Khanna today who say that that is one of their concerns. The idea that Trump is now showing new interest in Kam Bondi and others into opening new investigations. And of course, that's why this kind of transparency couldn't be demanded during the Biden issue years. Because when these investigations are open, you don't have the ability to just openly ask for full transparency and full release. And so that is one of the concerns that these members have. The other piece of this that I think is interesting is the way that the speaker of the House himself was trying to compel the Senate to do some kind of amendment when it came to transparency and the kind of information that is released. Basically further redactions of names, more privacy. That's something that Matthew Khanna, Marjorie Taylor Greene and others who support this bill as it's written say is not necessary and worries them because it's not the kind of transparency that they or frankly the survivors have been pushing for. But there's a few different pitfalls that people were concerned about. That was one of them. And of course, the way that the Trump administration might say that they're being transparent but then quietly behind the scenes try to move for non transparency moves like opening investigations that would make releasing these files into the difficult, if not impossible. That is very much still on the table. The thing taken off the table is that the Senate is apparently not going to do any amendments on it, thusly leaving it as written and not listening to the speaker who was really desiring those kinds of changes.
- [32:20]
Nicole Wallace
Rev, this is a massive political defeat for Donald Trump. And again, the box he's in is if he continues now to defy the will of the people. 81% of all Americans think that Donald Trump is hiding something and not releasing the files. If he defies the will of the House and the Senate and says it's an ongoing investigation, I can't release it like he has done with his taxes for years and years and years by saying he's under audit, the political pressure and baggage just piles up for him. And if he releases them, we already know he's been briefed by his own Justice Department that his own name is in them. Which path? He's at the fork in the road. Which path do you think he chooses?
- [33:05]
Reverend Al Sharpton
I think either way he chooses is perilous for him. But I have no way of guessing how somebody like him thinks. But I think that he's definitely in a real pickle because if he tries the defense of these ongoing investigations. Yes. Investigations you ordered, I mean, let's not forget these investigations. He, he doesn't know how to whisper and do things in the cloak of night. He publicly called on these investigations. So now we can't do what the Senate and the House has asked us to do because I asked for an investigation with no evidence that I'm presenting on why these investigations are needed after I didn't do this when I was president four years before. And he campaigned on, I'm going to release the files. Biden wouldn't do it. He made everybody forget. He didn't do it before Biden. Biden wouldn't do it. I'll release the files. So now the public is saying, wait a minute, this is part of what the MAGA loyalists wanted. Release the files. You told us it was big Democrats. Now you don't want to release the files. Now you're going to tell us about investigations that were not there when you came in. It will backfire, I think, either way. But we don't know what's in the files. So it's a matter of him maybe saying, I'd rather risk this than that because he knows what we don't know.
- [34:29]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah. I mean, Ali, what is the, you know, what are you hearing from your sources on the Senate side about the politics of this vote?
- [34:39]
Ali Vitale
I think you can read the politics when you see how quickly they dispensed of this issue. I mean, they had it for less than two hours sitting in front of them. And the House hasn't even transmitted the bill yet. And so I think that tells you everything about the politics here. The one thing that I was thinking about is the fact that Democrats had been going back and forth about whether or not they wanted to force Senate Democrats to put their name on a vote that was done through a roll call, as opposed to doing it this way, which is just. Does anyone object? No. Okay, it's Pat. Ultimately, they decided that the pressure on the White House House was better to do as quickly as they could rather than forcing Republican senators to take a vote where after a 427 person vote in the House, with everyone save for Clay Higgins of Louisiana voting to compel the release of these files, I think senators on the Democratic side realized that Republicans were likely to go along with this. I will say the game that I was playing a few days ago before the White House sort of of paved the way for something that was already going to happen and said that they would sign it if it came to their desk. The thing that I was thinking about was the senators that we've heard from on the Republican side that have pushed for the release of these files. The first person whose name came to mind was John Kennedy of Louisiana, who, when Cash Patel was in front of the Judiciary Committee, when Pam Bondi was in front of the Judiciary Committee, all in the last few weeks, asked them pretty tough lines of questioning about why they haven't been more transparent on this issue and told them in no uncertain terms, I think you're going to have to do more on this. People have really valid questions. And so just because the Senate wasn't in the spotlight on this issue, at least not yet, and they certainly didn't spend much time there at all today, the other piece of this is that's not to say they weren't asking, and that's not to say there weren't a handful of them who still wanted to compel the release of this. But again, the way that they dispensed of it and the speed with which they did not put their names on it and just said, yep, no objections, we're going to put this out the door, put it right on the president's date, I think tells us everything about the way that Republicans are reading the politics of this moment.
- [36:45]
Nicole Wallace
I want to bring into our coverage David Frum. He's a staff writer for the Atlantic and the host of the video podcast the David Frum Show. So, David, releasing the Epstein files is monumentally more popular than Donald Trump, which doesn't mean that the Republicans found their spines today. It just means that they understand that the politics of the moment have shifted dramatically. And I wonder how you see that playing forward or this. This is isolated and specific.
- [37:14]
David Frum
So when they're, when the crowd, the town rises up to ride you out of town on a rail, grab, grab a majorette stick and announce you're the marshal of the parade. That's, that's what's going on here. There's a parade happening, and now Donald Trump is in front of it, and he's hoping to direct it. And he's turned what could have been a real event into a pseudo event. Daniel Boorstin, the great American historian, described a pseudo event, something that exists only for cameras, not in real life. If Trump wanted to release the Epstein files, he'd release the Epstein files. If Attorney General Pam Bondi, remember who did that fake event at the White House in February with 15 right wing influencers and the blank binders of so called Epstein materials. If she wanted to release the Epstein files, she'd do it. What they're doing now is creating a process where they're going to have a fake investigation of Larry Summers and other Democrats and are going to use the fake investigation to say thank you all for your votes. We're now unanimous. Every Republican is protected on the Epstein files. You've all got your, you've all voted. But now there's an ongoing investigation so we still can't release anything and we're protecting the President. That remains the mission. Protect a president who seems to feel like these files are really dangerous to him.
- [38:21]
Nicole Wallace
What happens though, amid the public who has now gotten to know all of these victims, who's now heard this issue, has now seen what looks like a vote to release the files pass nearly unanimously.
- [38:33]
David Frum
I think the public sees a smarter and better cover up that Trump reacted at first in his trademark way, with defiance, truculence, nothing to see here. It's all fake. Now he's going to be okay. I'm running a real investigation. You all know this will take time and we have all these, we have to go investigate Larry Summers. And so that means anything that's in here that's about me can't be released because it'll get in the way of the all important Larry Summers investigation.
- [38:58]
Nicole Wallace
We've all been covering Trump too long. I know, you're right. Incredible, incredible developments though. Ms. Now senior Capitol Hill correspondent Ali Vitelli. We want to thank you for hopping on the phone with your reporting. Nick course Needy and the Reverend Al Sharpton, thank you for multitasking for us today. David Frum sticks around when we come back. On the other side of a quick break. Donald Trump is increasingly dealing with the affordability crisis in America by denying a crisis exists. Which might explain why he's spending another day not focused on bringing down the costs for Americans and instead defending the leader of a regime who personally approved the murder of a journalist. We'll have that conversation next.
- [39:39]
MSNBC Announcer
Ms. Now presents season two of the Blueprint, hosted by Jen Psaki. In each episode, she talks to leading Democrats about how they plan to win again, including Texas Congressman Greg Cassar, who chairs the Progressive caucus, Congresswoman Sarah McBride of Delaware, the first openly trans person elected to Congress and more who are helping to shape the future of the party. The Blueprint with Jen Psaki Season 2, all episodes available now. As President Trump continues implementing his ambitious agenda, follow along with MSNBC's newest newsletter, Project 47. You'll get weekly updates sent straight to your inbox with expert analysis on the administration's latest actions and how they're affecting the American people.
- [40:27]
Nicole Wallace
The American people are basically telling the president that they are not okay with any of this.
- [40:31]
MSNBC Announcer
Sign up for the Project 47 newsletter at msnbc.com project47. Start your day with the MSNBC daily Newsletter. Each morning, read sharp insights from the voices you trust. Catch standout moments from your favorite shows.
- [40:49]
Nicole Wallace
The second Trump administration has gone to unprecedented lengths to radically transform America.
- [40:54]
MSNBC Announcer
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- [41:11]
Nicole Wallace
Donald Trump is continuing his streak from his first term. He is once again sided with a brutal dictator over his own intelligence agency during a meeting today with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who US Intelligence concluded approved the murder and dismemberment of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Donald Trump reamed out a journalist here in America for asking questions. Take a look. Is it appropriate, Mr. President, for your family to be doing business in Saudi Arabia while you're president? Is that a conflict of interest? And your Royal highness, the US Intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist. 911 families are furious that you are here in the Oval Office. Why should Americans trust you? And the same to you, Mr. President.
- [41:54]
Mark Elias
Now, who are you with?
- [41:55]
Nicole Wallace
I'm with ABC News, sir.
- [41:56]
Mark Elias
You're with who?
- [41:57]
Nicole Wallace
ABC News, sir.
- [41:58]
Mark Elias
Fake news.
- [41:58]
Nicole Wallace
ABC Fake news.
- [41:59]
Mark Elias
What are the worst news? One of the worst in the business. But I'll answer your question.
- [42:02]
Nicole Wallace
Thank you.
- [42:03]
Mark Elias
I have nothing to do with the family business. You're mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn't like, like that gentleman that you're talking about. Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen. But he knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that. You don't have to embarrass our guest.
- [42:21]
Nicole Wallace
Yes, heaven forbid you embarrass the guy who ordered the murder and dismemberment of a US Citizen with a bone saw. That meeting comes as Donald Trump plans to sell F35 fighter jets to the Saudis over the objections of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence. I want to bring in staff writer for the Atlantic, author of Autocracy, Inc. And Applebaum. David Frum is still here. Ann, your thoughts on what transpired inside the Oval Office today? Rather remarkable.
- [42:50]
Anne Applebaum
I think the question that needs to be asked is what is Donald Trump's interest both in defending the leader of Saudi Arabia and in selling him F35s given the, the amazing deep and profound contacts between his family company which whatever he says about not have anything to do with it, it has his name on it between his company and the Saudis. Look, there's a Saudi backed golf tournament was played at his golf club a few months ago at that tournament. The head of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund was there. That wealth fund has also invested. That's $925 billion for fund. It's invested in Jared Kushner's company. His private equity company, the Trump company is also building buildings in Jeddah and they're together with Saudi partners, they're building other facilities and projects in Dubai, in Oman, Qatar, and just yesterday they announced the construction of a luxury resort in the Maldives. So this is a very intense personal relationship. When the Saudi king comes to the United States, he's not, not just meeting the President United States, he's meeting his business partner. And I think that should lead all Americans to ask whose interests are being discussed in the Oval Office? Is it our interests as Americans? Is our relationship with Saudi Arabia designed to benefit us and our security and safety or is the relationship between America and Saudi Arabia now designed to benefit Donald Trump or his sons or his son in law? And, and it's not a question that's ever been asked in that way directly before in American history. So it's really a, we're really at a turning point. There hasn't been a president who had these kinds of extensive business interests while in office with a foreign government. And one of the most important governments that he's involved with is Saudi Arabia.
- [44:47]
Nicole Wallace
And it's also sort of past the point where defying or denying the reality as articulated by his own intelligence agencies while he's president. President is a bug. It is now a feature. But I will just read the report from the office of the Director of National Intelligence that found that MBS bin Salman ordered the killing of Khashoggi. This is from that office while Donald Trump was president. The first time, quote, we assess that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. We base this assessment on the Crown Prince's control of decision making in the kingdom of the direct involvement of a key advisor and members of Mohammed bin Salman's protective detail in the operation and the Crown Prince's support for using violent measures to silence Dissidents abroad, including Khashoggi. The team who killed Khashoggi also included seven members of Mohammed bin Salman's elite personal protective detail who answer only to him and had directly participated in earlier dissident suppression operations in the kingdom and abroad at the Crown Prince's direction. Again, not a product of. Of the deep state under President Obama or President Biden, but his own intelligence agencies. What does it mean as Americans that the head of state denies the realities articulated by his own intelligence agency?
- [46:11]
Anne Applebaum
What Trump is trying to do is create an alternative reality. You note that he used in that interview you showed, in that clip you showed, he used the word to describe ABC News news as fake news. And actually it's he who's seeking to create a fake world in which maybe this guy was bad, by which he means Khashoggi, the man who was murdered. Maybe somehow he deserved it. Maybe it didn't really happen. He doesn't really deny it in a clear way. Instead, he reshapes the argument so that the way it will be reported is him attacking a journalist once again. So he's trying to create a different world in which that doesn't matter. It's a secondary issue issue. And what really matters is supposedly America's relationship with Saudi Arabia, but in fact, it's his own relationship with Saudi Arabia. And this is his method. This is what he does with almost everything.
- [47:01]
Mark Elias
He.
- [47:02]
Anne Applebaum
He doesn't deal with the real issue. He avoids it, attacks the journalist who mentions it, you know, undermines the institutions that speak about it, you know, by, you know, calling the American intelligence agencies deep state, which is, by the way, it's a phrase that's caught on. I mean, we're all using it now, is a way of discrediting reality and discrediting organizations that we rely on to produce facts about the world.
- [47:30]
Nicole Wallace
David Fram.
- [47:32]
David Frum
What'S going through the Saudi Crown Prince's mind as he sits in that room with President Trump? I think what he's thinking is, I own him. Saudi Arabia is a client state of the United States. It is weak. It is militarily dependent. It brings very little to the party. It's got tremendous oil reserves, but it can't protect them itself. It doesn't have a capable military. It's no Ukraine, it's no Israel. It has no ability to defend itself. It depends entirely on the American security guarantee, which it now wants to be more explicit. And how are they getting it? They've just bought the President of the United States. I think a lot about that scene, a few days ago where the Swiss came in, Swiss delegation came to visit the President Trump and they brought him a kilogram of gold worth $130,000. That's not a gesture of respect. That's a gesture of contempt attempt. We think you're, we think you're a crook. We think you can be bought with a shiny brick. We think you're not here for the United States. We think you're here for yourself. We've taken your measure. We don't respect you. We give you a bauble. Now, the Saudi crown prince has given more than just a brick worth 130,000. As Anne said, he's given a vast fortune to Trump's children. But there are a lot of people in the world who want to build hotels. Trump is by no means the world's most regarded hotel brand. They've just bought a president and the president shouldn't be for sale.
- [48:47]
Nicole Wallace
It's incredible. Incredible. Thank you both for crystallizing it for us and Applebaum and David Fromm. One more break. We'll be right back. This week's episode of the Best People speaks to everything we've been covering today. My guest, Heather Cox Richardson, historian and author and much beloved substack Letters from an American Author lays out the fight ahead for all of us Americans as we find face a distinct choice. You can scan the QR code on your screen to listen to the entire conversation. Thanks to everyone who already has. I've seen all your nice notes. She is amazing as always. Let me know what you think on Instagram or Blue Sky. We're going to sneak in one more break and we'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes. We are grateful.
- [49:36]
MSNBC Announcer
Ms. Now presents season two of the Blueprint, hosted by Jen Psaki. In each episode, she talks to leading the Democrats about how they plan to win again, including Texas Congressman Greg Cassar, who chairs the Progressive caucus, Congresswoman Sarah McBride of Delaware, the first openly trans person elected to Congress, and more who are helping to shape the future of the party. The Blueprint with Jen Psaki Season 2 All episodes available now.