← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
"An unprecedented combination of callousness, incompetence and surrealness"
00:42:23
In a presidency that is every day summed up by its historically unprecedented combination of callousness, incompetence and surrealness, Donald Trump and his administration have managed to outdo themselves, likely endangering national security, his own staff and the journalists whose job it is to cover them in the process.
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- [00:01]
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- [01:04]
Nicole Wallace
Hi there everyone. It's four o' clock in the East. In covering a presidency that is every single day, summed up by its unprecedented and unparalleled combination of callousness, incompetence and surrealness, Donald Trump and his administration have managed to outdo themselves today, likely endangering national security, his own staff and the journalists whose job it is to cover all of them. In the process, alarming new reporting finds that Donald Trump used his own staff and White House journalists as decoys amid security threats from Iran, having them fly out of Turkey on the old Air Force One while Donald Trump flew out on a separate unmarked aircraft. Donald Trump pulled this off by being smuggled in a catering truck. If you can just let your brain try to picture that to his separate unmarked aircraft. Washington Post who broke this news reports this quote Trump boarded the old Air Force One jumbo jet in view of the television cameras. He was secretly shuttled minutes later to a smaller plane, an Air Force C32A via an airport catering truck typically used to load meals and other supplies pre flight, according to a US Official and corroborating material reviewed by the Post. That made Air Force One a decoy with media and some White House staff aboard. The maneuver meant that Trump's actual location was concealed from the American public and many senior US Officials for hours. Weeks later, it remains unclear how widely the administration has disclosed the operation. The Washington Post found pool footage showing Donald Trump boarding Air Force One. A catering truck then pulls up to the plane and moves over to what we now know was the plane Trump ended up departing Turkey on board. Both planes then landed in the UK And Trump was then secretly moved back onto the old Air Force One to keep up the ruse. He then disembarked in full view of reporters and boarded his Qatari donated Air Force One, the big, fancy one, to return to Washington. At the time, it was reported that Trump would be leaving Turkey on the old Air Force One rather than the Qatari Air Force One due to security threats from Iran. What is new here is that we're now learning for the first time that Trump flew on neither aircraft. In fact, he departed on the third plane. Trump vehemently denied the reporting about the reasons behind the first switch that we knew about at the time. When pressed by reporters on the ride back to Washington, reporters who were unaware they had just been used as decoys by the President of the United States. Watch that with this new information in mind. What was the ticket security concern that
- [03:47]
Caller/Guest
caused us to change flight?
- [03:49]
Donald Trump (quoted)
We sent this one in so that the airport space here was in the same exact line.
- [03:54]
Nicole Wallace
So you're saying there wasn't a security concern.
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Donald Trump (quoted)
Do you know why the hassle was
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Nicole Wallace
trying to go behind flu?
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Donald Trump (quoted)
Well, yeah, because you're, you know, probably in the danger of sweating because of the sleaze bags that we have to deal with. Same thing that Iran was possibly thinking of talking about. I mean, if they asked you to close the windows, probably they would have asked me to close mine, but if they did, I would have done it now. These are sick people. So I could see something like that. I, I didn't know they did that, but I could see something. I'm number one on their list before you. But if I go, you go, right? So perhaps, perhaps somebody want to change professions.
- [04:42]
Nicole Wallace
If I go, you go. When he said it, you knew it wasn't true, Right? He'd just been shuttled off the plane that the press he's talking to right there were on. So when he says, quote, if you go, if I go, you go. He knows he's lying. An elaborate, elaborate fabrication. A lot of unnecessary steps there taken to sustain the lie. In a statement to the New York Times, the White House said, quote, they use every tool at our disposal, including distraction and misdirection, to address threats against the President. Donald Trump engaging in an extraordinary act of deception is the latest proof that he's lost complete control of the war with Iran. Is where we begin today with New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman. She's the author of the bombshell bestseller Regime Change. She confirmed the operation for the Times after the Washington Post first broke this story. She also was one of the journalists who first reported about the security threat and one of the reasons we know about it. Also joining us, Ned Price is here. He served as an official in both the State Department and the CIA. And with me for the hour, former assistant special Agent in Charge at the FBI, national security and intelligence analyst Michael Feinberg's here. Maggie, just untangle this web of perhaps a legitimate security threat. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt. And then a rather unparalleled deception involving White House staff and press and, oh, by the way, subpoenas for five New York Times journalists in the middle of all this. Just unwind and unpack all that for us.
- [06:23]
Maggie Haberman
Let me put it that way. Thank you for having me. And my colleagues and I confirmed what was pretty astonishing reporting from the Washington Post. And we have to tip our hat to them, but yes, you know, what looked like one K at the time, the President taking an older Air Force One, you know, for old times sake. In his words, the press only knew about this. The public only knew about that because he announced that he was doing it. And then they got questions. And then the White House communications director gave that statement about doing everything they can to protect the President, including misdirection and, or distractions and misdirections, which was a little strange. Then it turned out that, you know, within 24 hours of the New York Times is reporting about the fact that there had been a concern by government officials about the President taking the Qatari gifted jet, which does not have the same defensive capabilities as the older Air Force One models. The reporters on the story, my colleagues faced subpoenas, not subpoenas that were delivered through counsel, but FBI showing up at people's homes, which is not normally how this is done. And subpoenas are not supposed to be the very first stop on the road in leak investigations. Those subpoenas don't exist anymore. But what now turns out is that the President wasn't even on that plane. Now our reporting is that there was a credible threat. We don't know what the threat was, Nicole. So, you know, it's hard for me to assess what I don't know. I'm not an intel official. They deemed it credible. And, you know, there is reason to believe that they did. Their behavior indicates that they did. But what then ends up happening is. And they are always going to put the President's safety first. What ends up happening is the Press and some of his own staff end up on the older Air Force One, which does have defensive capabilities, which certainly would be safer than the Qatari jet in that moment. The President could have, in that clip that you showed where he was briefing reporters on the Qatari jet that they got aboard and was flying from the UK base, which was deemed safer than the Ankara airport in Turkey, flying back to the US To Joint Base Andrews, he could have said, we had a concern, we had a threat, I was on a separate plane. He could have told reporters off the record, the White House could have told reporters off the record none of that happened. Instead, there is this gamesmanship where he's sort of taunting and saying, you know, if I go, you go. And that was not the case in that moment. Again, I want to stress, I understand that the federal government is rightly going to be more worried about the President than it is anybody else, but there are trade offs and that was one of them.
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Nicole Wallace
Maggie, I mean, do you now think that the subpoenas were to find out if you guys knew where he really was or if they were to ascertain? I mean, does it make you wonder what the subpoenas were for in the first place?
- [09:14]
Maggie Haberman
It's a good question, and I can't say that I fully understand it. You know, the Times was not the only outlet that reported some of this material at the time. Maybe there were subpoenas to other news outlets and we weren't aware of them. I don't know. But it mostly seemed to be from my understanding. And again, maybe there is more here. Clearly there is always a lot more that we don't know when it, when it comes to this particular government. But they are very good at creating these displays of openness. Jonathan and I wrote about this in Regime Change and in fact, it's, it's just a show. It's a spectacle. They're, they're very good at keeping secrets when they want to, and this was one they tried to. But I don't know if the secret they were attempting to keep was this or, or if they were just generally trying to intimidate from further reporting. In general, we know that this president likes secrecy and does not like information getting out of his government unless he sanctions it. So it could be, you know, answer d all of the above, I don't know.
- [10:10]
Nicole Wallace
And maybe I was on the other side of the relationship, but I can't imagine a situation where you do not level up with the White House pool and the White House press corps that travels with you. Obviously, on September 11th. It was an extraordinary event. And not all the press went on with President Bush. He ended up in Nebraska. But they were not used as a decoy one, and they were made aware of what was happening and why. So both the security threat that the towers had been hit, the Pentagon had been hit, and there was an obvious threat to the president, and the fact that we weren't going to send them up in a plane so that whoever was attacking the country that day thought the president, United States, was on it when he wasn't. I cannot fathom that practice. And I wonder if it makes you rethink or your colleagues rethink the relationship with this White House.
- [11:09]
Maggie Haberman
I think we're pretty clear that this White House doesn't like the press. And beyond that, does not really think much of the public's right to know, and doesn't see the press as anything more than a means to an end for what President Trump personally wants. And I don't think that that is new here. I think that that has been pretty consistent. The who for this presidency. I think in the first term, I think you did have people who at least recognized some, some role of what government is supposed to do, and they do at times have that. I don't want to, you know, suggest that this relates to every single thing. Not everything is, is. Is completely binary. But in this instance, you know, and there have been others, to your point, it's not unheard of that there would be some kind of subterfuge involved to try to keep a president safe. But presidents, to your point, traveled. President Bush traveled with reporters, albeit a slimmed down press pool. After nine, 11 presidents have taken reporters with them, including this president in his first term, into war zones. Reporters end up making an agreement beyond the understanding of good faith with White Houses that we will keep this off the record until we land or until we are in a specific spot and then the public is informed. What this speaks to is this broader idea of secrecy, which is a huge hallmark of this government in a way that personally I have never seen with the federal government or frankly, any other.
- [12:35]
Nicole Wallace
Ned, let me pull you in, because you had a job more recently than I had a job in sort of whether you liked what the press was reporting about your boss or not. When they travel with a principal, you are, I mean, Maggie used the word good faith, but you are bound to sort of return them safely and or at a minimum, be transparent when there are threats. But this putting the second Air Force One into the sky as a decoy, and then the elaborate. I mean, Donald Trump is someone who refused to go to a cemetery when it was raining because he didn't want to mess up his hair. And the thought of him climbing into a catering truck, I mean, suggests that the threat was real. And we don't have any reason to doubt that. And it is also true that if it was that real, that he switched planes twice and climbed into a catering truck. The press and the staff had a right to know about it.
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Ned Price
Absolutely. Nicole. Look, both when I was working at the White House and more recently at the State Department, we would always tell our traveling press corps that, look, there may be tension in this relationship, there may be occasional acrimony, but we're part of the family. You're part of the family. We're responsible for your safety and your security when you're traveling with us, whether that's to cover the President, the Secretary of State or anyone else. And listening to both you and to Maggie talk about what has, what transpired on the way back from that summit. I'm reminded of a sort of set of Russian nesting dolls of lies. It was a lie inside of a lie inside of a lie. Starting with what struck so many of us as odd at the time. The idea that President Trump would fly back on the legacy Air Force One so that the troops in the UK could gaze up at the splendor and majesty of the gift he had just received from the royal family in Qatar. That didn't sound like this president, but so be it. And there were subsequent lies, of course, the threat reporting regarding Iran, the fact that he traveled on this other military jet. But the lie that I cannot get over has been what really amounts to a weeks long deception campaign that has also been targeted at the American people up until last night and even to this very moment, even though they have suggested it after the Washington Post came out with this, the White House has still not said, has not been transparent about how and why the President traveled back from that summit in Turkey. Nicole, you know this well. There is a way to protect the President of the United States, other senior government officials in a way that is consistent with longstanding norms, including the relationship with the press and also our Democratic charter that calls for an informed citizen, citizenry, cognizant of what our senior most officials are up to. You did it on 9 11. You did it when President George W. Bush traveled to Iraq for the first time on Thanksgiving in 2003, just months after the invasion. I was part of it with President Obama when he went to war zones. President biden went to Ukraine, just as Maggie said. You go to extraordinary measures, but what you don't do, you don't lie to the reporters and you don't use them as unwitting pawns to propagate the seception campaign against the American people. That, Nicole, I think, is just unforgivable.
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Nicole Wallace
Well, and Michael Feinberg, you don't then subpoena five journalists who get close. I mean, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the timeline here. So Trump goes back to Air Force One and lies immediately after pulling off what he must have thought was a great scam. Right. And again, I will not impugn the motive behind it. Right. They had to protect him. We'll stipulate that. But then to, to wave to reporters like you were aboard the original Air Force One, and then to go to the back of the plane and say, if I go, you go. Like to put that much effort into telling the lie to reporters who could very easily have been taken off the record and would not have betrayed that confidence is a new piece of information or it looks new. I guess we had that tape at the time. But the second is, why were those five journalists subpoenaed, in your view?
- [16:44]
Michael Feinberg
I honestly don't know. It's very difficult to say. This new information complicates every discussion we've had about the subpoenas since we first learned they were issued. You know, I used to investigate this sort of stuff for a living. I am a bit more forgiving of media subpoenas, I suspect, than anybody else on this panel or anybody else in our audience, quite frankly. But the timing does look suspicious. If there was a legitimate loss of national security information, it would seem that there is a legitimate reason at some point to issue subpoenas and investigation to find out how it was released. But as far as we know, these subpoenas were still issued just because the White House got embarrassed at the New York Times is reporting. We know this because it was reported on Ms. Now that Cash Patel was called back to the White House as he was leaving town to take charge of the leak investigation himself. Now, that was a bad idea six ways from Sundays, which we can get into if you want. But this whole thing, the whole national security apparatus of the United States right now is frankly, a clown show. And I think looking for rational explanations for why any given step is taken is a little bit of a fool's errand. I'm probably the only person on this panel who would defend what the White House did in this particular set of circumstances with the decoy. But that doesn't mean I'm going to defend the ham fisted way in which Trump got in the press pool and started just mouthing off in the narcissistic way he normally does about how he's the center of the universe and anything that happens to him happens to everybody. There's just an element of maturity and sobriety that every other president in the history of the United States has had that he lacks. And we can psychoanalyze why that is. But if I was a reporter in his press pool, I wouldn't be giving any credence to a single word that comes out of his mouth.
- [19:00]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah, I mean, Maggie, do you think this changes the relationship? I mean, I think you're more clear eyed than most. You've been covering him longer than most. But do you think this changes the relationship between the President and the press that travels with him and covers him?
- [19:16]
Maggie Haberman
I think the relationship between the President and the mainstream press in this term is already pretty bad. And it is largely because this president has used a number of different tools to engage in a bullying campaign across industries. Again, something Jonathan and I write about in our book. But one of them is media. And he has used an outside effort which is suing different outlets, and he has used levers of government power to try to impose, you know, some kinds of constraints on various media. We're still seeing that happen. And so I don't think that there is anybody who's especially surprised that President Trump and a lot of his aides don't love the media. They've already taken control of the White House press pool. The way the press pool is made up is very different than it was when you were there, Nicole, or when, when I was there in term one. It just is, it is a fundamentally different thing. But what I do wonder is whether this gives pause in general to outlets that have been excited to be on Air Force One, you know, aren't part of the rotation that often, but are paying to be part of the pool this time because, you know, outlets do have to have to pay. They, they pay the rate to. I just don't know. But I think it is really hard. You hit on the issue that I think is complicated here, or not even complicated, but is the main underscore, which is the credibility gap. You know, there is, if you are, if you are not honest about any of this, if, if you engage in this deception, which, again, as I said earlier, there are trade offs to protect a president. We do understand that. But if you do this and you are not at all candid with the reporters who are traveling aboard. You don't tell them at the beginning. You don't let them know and ask off the record. You don't tell them once you're safe and let them know, then it makes it very hard when you are telling lies about matters big and small to get, you know, any kind of credibility and to have people believe you. The main one that that's happening with right now is the Iran war where the president continues to insist all is going well and the US has plenty of munitions. That's just not true. But again, it goes back to the point of what he thinks the public has a right to know. You know, there are fewer and fewer opportunities to ask him questions, to ask Caroline Levitt questions, to ask the Pentagon questions. And none of that helps an informed public.
- [21:36]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah, I mean, I want to, I have to get a break. But I want to press all of you on what is underneath all I think of the attacks on the press, which is the fear of the truth seeping out. Now, Iran already knows it, but I think Trump thinks he can keep his hardened base of supporters from finding out that most national security officials think we are either losing or have lost the war with Iran. We'll have that conversation next. Also ahead for us, Trump's new attorney general got right to work yesterday using every bit of power he has to shield Donald Trump from accountability from just about anything he does or says on the job. What Blanche's first act would do to keep private and away from congressional scrutiny. We'll bring you that reporting. Plus the same Justice Department hopes to to make life very, very difficult for one American, despite Jeanine Pirro's big box of evidence suggesting that American did nothing wrong. We'll try to explain. And later, more on our top story and that very credible threat to the president's safety and the means that the White House went to to keep it all under wraps. Former CIA Director John Brennan joins our coverage and the Washington Post reporter who was first to report this news last night. We'll get to all that and much more when Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
- [22:54]
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- [22:59]
Maggie Haberman
I thought it was safe.
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- [24:26]
Ned Price
I'd like you to address speculation that you're leaving Ankara, not in the new Air Force One because of security concerns involving Iran. You've spoke, spoken today twice about them possibly assassinating you and possibly being successful. Did that concern have something to do with.
- [24:43]
Donald Trump (quoted)
Well, I speak about it a lot because, you know, the life of a president is very dangerous. It's a very dangerous profession. No, I'm number one on the kill list for Iran. They're lovely people. I'm number one.
- [24:59]
Nicole Wallace
We're back with Maggie Ned and Michael Feinberg. Ned, what's so jarring is the, and I guess people that have covered him forever are accustomed to this, but the weaving of lies with things that are true enough, right? I mean, he is, because of the Salmani hit in his first term, he is targeted by Iran. And because of this war, I'm sure the threats are more acute, but so were Mike Pompeo and Mark Milley and all these other people who he took security away from. It is this dissonance that I think all this reporting has revealed from Trump himself.
- [25:38]
Ned Price
You know, Nicole, one of the many takeaways from this reporting, for me at least, was, is the casual way in which this White House lies to their audiences, including most importantly to the American people, on things both small, minute, trivial, but also very, very big. They have a tortured relationship with the truth across, across the board. Think about this for A second, Nicole. Imagine a world in which the White House just went out and essential, the truth. And they handled a situation like this in a way that their predecessors did. They brought in a small press pool, maybe they confiscated their phones. They say, the President's going to do this. You'll come with them. You can report. When it's all said and done. It might have been a story for a day, but instead they chose to engage in this deceit and this subterfuge, and now they're facing a firestorm. And one of the ironies that I couldn't help but think about is that the reporting from the New York Times that landed them in such hot water with these. With these subpoenas, it was all predicated on a lie. Actually. All these outlets focused on the safety features of the new Air Force One, the gift from the royal family of Qatar. Yeah, because we were all under the impression that the President had to fly Legacy Air Force One because he couldn't fly that Air Force One. And in fact, that wasn't true. So picture this, Earth 2, where the white House had been truthful all along. They would not have had to contend with this with all these stories about the new Air Force One. It would have been a story rate that the President had to engage in these extraordinary security tactics. But I think people would be understanding because we all wouldn't have been victim to the deception campaign ourselves.
- [27:27]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah. Let me read you, Michael Feinberg, especially with your sort of unique perspective on national security issues and not sort of being in the press or having it to be your top priority to protect the press. Let me present this to you from the Washington Post. Because the press was seemingly in the dark about the operation, Garrett Graff, a journalist and historian, said that the event that is probably unprecedented in modern presidential history, that the White House would lie to the press corps in its entirety about where the President is, that is a new Rubicon that's being crossed. The breach was not merely one of journalistic access, according to Graff. Knowing that this was a series of actions that the White House and the military took precisely because of a threat that they were deeply worried about, makes it all the more egregious that the press was kept out of the loop. He added, now, there is a thing that I think people have spent decades trying to understand, and that's this relationship to the press. When you're covering someone who is threatened, sometimes that closeness to the threat outsiders, I think, believe can make you less objective. My point being that it might have benefited the White House and the president, if the press knew just how grave the threat was, they always do the wrong thing times ten. And I wonder your thoughts on this now very public example of not just endangering the White House staff and the White House press by putting them on a decoy plane, but what looks like a very elaborate effort. And we don't even know. I mean, this is really sort of day zero plus 12 hours. We don't even know what they'll do to try to hunt down the source of the story we're talking about now.
- [29:10]
Michael Feinberg
Yeah. So I can actually hypothesize a situation where this all makes sense and through which we could defend what the Trump administration did. And that would be if the way that they got the information about the threat to Air Force One and about the threat to Trump was an ongoing, continuous stream of reporting of some sort that they had to protect long after this flight because of ongoing value to US national security interests. Now, that would justify not briefing the press after the plane had touched down. It would justify not telling them anything off the record. It would be well within the norms of national security work. But the fundamental problem is that, as the other panelists have brought up and as Maggie has documented time and time again, this is an administration and a person who lies as if it is as natural as breathing air. So we can't grant any of them the benefit of the doubt or look at things under the light most favorable to them simply because they've never given us a reason to trust them.
- [30:25]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah, Maggie, quickly, there's a little detail in your reporting that I want to ask you about. You write a pool report noted as the plane took off. Quote, we've been advised to keep our window shades in the press cabin closed. Do you know if that was for security or so that no one would see him in this catering card?
- [30:40]
Maggie Haberman
I believe, based on our reporting, that it was the latter, Nicole. And that night, when that report came in, it really stayed with me. I said something about it publicly that night. I've talked about it with other people. At the time, it seemed like it was an indicator that there was a serious threat, because, as you know, you know, when planes fly into, say, war zones, presidential aircraft, the window shades come down, and it's so that they're not targeted. So if anything, it seemed like it was, you know, underscoring what kind of a threat this might have been, and that might be the case. But I don't believe that that is why the window shades were down. I think the window shades were down. So that the reporters could not see the catering containers moving away. Because if you look at, if you look at that picture that you're showing, the press cabin is at the back. I mean, you know this, I'm not telling you or no. The press cabin is at the back of the plane on the right hand side nearish where that second container is. But it would be very hard for the President to have walked to that container because he would have been seen. So I think this was just to keep anybody from, from peering out the window as this was all taking place.
- [31:47]
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- [31:48]
Nicole Wallace
It's also a lot of luggage and food to load to the front of the plane, which is really just where. Right. Like it just wouldn't go there. And folks that travel with the President know that it would be.
- [31:59]
Maggie Haberman
The kitchen's at the back of the plane.
- [32:01]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah, correct. And the only passengers up there are the pilots and the President. So it's a lot of stuff to put right there. Endlessly interesting. And we're so glad we got to talk to you, Maggie, and to you, Ned. Thank you so much for joining us today. To both of you. Up next for us, Todd Blanche giving Donald Trump the legal cover he's been after for nearly a decade. Issuing a new order allowing Donald Trump to keep his conversations private. What that looks like and whether it'll hold up to legal muster. That's next.
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- [33:04]
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- [33:09]
Maggie Haberman
I thought it was safe.
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- [34:06]
Nicole Wallace
Hours after being sworn in as the country's attorney general, Todd Blanche seemed to do more lawyering for Donald Trump. He crafted a new structure or scheme aimed at giving Donald Trump another form of immunity and potentially an ability to avoid accountability from Congress. Should voters give Democrats control of the House and or Senate. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has issued an opinion that would allow Trump to claim executive privilege over communication between him and private advisers. The opinion also extends to direct advisers communications with outside advisors. Okay. The move is intended to wall off a massive amount of communication and potential evidence from congressional scrutiny. Just 84 days ahead of the midterms, when Democrats are looking increasingly likely to take control of the House and the power of subpoena, the opinion is almost certain to be challenged in court. And yet another stress test for America's justice system, where the Supreme Court could likely be asked to weigh in by the Trump administration. Joining our coverage, former Department of Justice pardon attorney Liz Oyers here. She's now the host of the podcast is this really Legal? Michael Feinberg still here. Liz Oyer, is this legal?
- [35:19]
Caller/Guest
It's a great question, Nicole. This really stretches the boundaries of any prior interpretation of the scope of executive privilege. There are two presidents who have asserted this privilege unsuccessfully in the past. One of them is Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal, and the other one is Donald Trump in 2021 when he was trying to prevent Congress from obtaining records related to the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. So this is not an unlimited privilege. It is, in fact, a narrow privilege that courts have recognized under Article 2 of the Constitution. But it has never been determined to apply to people who work outside the White House as private advisors. To the I think that what, what matters here is not whether this legal interpretation survives. At the end of the day, the administration is really just looking for a way to tie up cases in court when they don't want to turn over documents. It is very likely that this will be litigated and may go all the way up to the Supreme Court. That could take years and that could give the government cover for a couple of years to prevent having to Turnover documents that are potentially embarrassing and detrimental to the interests of the President and his allies.
- [36:38]
Nicole Wallace
Michael Feinberg, what I thought was interesting is that it's clear that even on Earth 2, they know the Democrats are going to take back control of the House and likely the Senate. The other thing that I thought was interesting is that they're acknowledging and putting it into writing how interconnected the President is with the outside advisors, which to me is code for business interests.
- [37:03]
Michael Feinberg
Yeah, I don't think we should discount that this came out of the Office of Legal Counsel, the Office of Legal Counsel. Even when DOJ was operating under its apolitical norms. Up until really the past few years or past year and a half, frankly, the Office of Legal Counsel was always the most ideologically simpatico office within doj with whomever the incumbent of the White House was. They're essentially in house attorneys who give the imprimatur of DOJ on the constitutionality of the President's proposed actions. And they're essentially an in house law firm. And I know there are many alumni of the office that would disagree with me on that. But OLC is notorious for being a rubber stamp for what the President wants to do. And we see now with as malevolent and underhanded an administration as this one is how very dangerous that can be when there aren't any norms left at all.
- [38:12]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah, that's true. The DOJ story is so bleak, it sort of has to be tracked and followed closely to be believed. But that is most certainly true. All right, after the break, there's more. What might be the next step, the next thing that the Trump White House will ask Todd Blanche to do? Well, a blatant abuse of power is really all that's left. We'll explain. The Wall Street Journal has brand new reporting on how Donald Trump and his Justice Department have not yet given up on their attempt to prosecute former US Olympian David Hearn to cover up for the embarrassing fiasco that was the failed renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. According to that new reporting in the Wall Street Journal, White House officials have asked the Justice Department to consider a new prosecution of the man accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, according to people familiar with the discussions. Norm Eisen, co counsel for Hearn, said a new prosecution, quote, would mark a shocking first bringing back from the dead a case that the DOJ lost by its own admission that it lacked the evidence to convict. This would add another bizarre turn to a sad chapter in the DOJ's history and further harass an innocent man. All of this comes ahead of a hearing set to be held next month where the presiding judge in the last case will decide on whether to dismiss Hearn's charges with prejudice, which would mean that the Justice Department could not charge him again for the same alleged conduct. Donald Trump has used posts on Truth Social to call for U.S. attorney Jeanine Pirro to revisit the case. We're back with Liz and Michael. I mean, we saw Liz Jeanine Pirro carry in a white box ostensibly full of something to prove whatever it was, her decision was here and not bringing the case. The lack of evidence was the assumption. Your thoughts on how much is already in the public arena about how there is no evidence of any criminal conduct on the part of David Hearns.
- [40:25]
Caller/Guest
Yeah, it would be very difficult for this case to be brought back with any type of legitimacy. Jeanine Pirro made the case in a very detailed 20 plus page motion to dismiss that the reflecting pole was already badly damaged and that the government could not prove that Mr. Hearn caused additional damage exceeding $1,000, which is the requirement for a felony based on the evidence that exists. It is really quite scary, Nicole, to know that they are even considering going back to this case. Donald Trump's vanity is so great and his need to save face is so great that he has now put one innocent man in the middle of this situation as sort of the scapegoat to go to make good on his promise that vandals were the ones who actually damaged the Reflecting Pool. It is a very scary development for all of us. It's something that every citizen should be worried about. The idea that we could be targeted or scapegoated simply to allow the president to save face without any legal basis. The fact that his appointed U.S. attorney in D.C. has said that the evidence doesn't support this should end the matter right then and there.
- [41:36]
Nicole Wallace
What does it suggest, Michael Feinberg, that for all the attention and focus on known political or perceived political enemies, people like Jerome Powell or Jim Comey or Tish James, here's an ordinary American who happened to be by the Reflecting Pool while Donald Trump botched his attempt to turn it. What was it? American flag blue. What questions should we be asking about what other ordinary Americans are being attacked?
- [42:04]
Michael Feinberg
Well, I think at the risk of sounding like I'm lapsing into hyperbole, what this shows us is that every single American should be afraid of what this administration is trying to do. There has been zero evidence proffered to the public or to courts thus far that shows Davey Hearn did a single thing wrong or took a single action related to what the government originally accused him of. The government itself said in dismissing its complaint that it did not have all the evidence at the time it brought the charge. And when the Department of Interior did put over everything that it knew that there wasn't anything to convict Mr. Hernan, and the president didn't like that outcome. So he ordered DOJ to try again in a misdemeanor court instead. And it's important to note this isn't just the norm of a U.S. attorney's office not re indicting somebody that's being broken. It's the norm. Which is more important, that the president should not get to choose who goes to jail based on his wins. And the fact that this is not just being considered but being argued in public by the president himself shows how far we have backslid as a democracy, frankly, but also how just manifestly unfit the president, his attorney general and his U.S. attorneys are for the offices which they now hold. This is in utter disgrace on the entire history of the department.
- [43:48]
Nicole Wallace
Zoyer, thank you for joining us today. Michael Feinberg, thank you for spending the hour with us today. After a break, Donald Trump claims his tariffs are good for America. The new reporting shows they may be benefiting. Oh, wait him this time in the form of a heavily jeweled ring. We promise we'll explain next. If you own a small business or someone you know and love owns a small business that's been impacted by Trump's tariff obsession and regime, there might be a new solution. You could give Donald Trump an 18 karat gold ring. That's what Belgium did, at least their diamond industry. Just a few weeks later, Trump approved a tariff exemption worth billions of dollars to wait for it. Belgium's diamond industry, according to new reporting from our colleagues David Rhode and Lily Becker, Democrats in Congress say the ring, quote, appears to be a cartoonish bribe. They sent a letter to the Belgian diamond industry's primary trade organization and the jeweler who designed the ring warning that those responsible could face criminal penalties under United States federal bribery laws. When asked for a comment, a White House spokesperson claimed that diamonds are exempt as part of a previous agreement. But our review of that agreement shows that there is no mention of diamonds. Now, if you're wondering just how big and gaudy this ring could be, here's what the head of Belgium's diamond industry went with. It's a ring that's the size of a watch, featuring 321 diamonds, 56 sapphires 13 emeralds and six rubies. Its surface includes a gem encrusted presidential seal and its sides feature diamond encrusted T emblems and the numbers 45 and 47 rendered in a Superman style logo. Remember when he wanted to show us he'd survived Covid by revealing a Superman logo? Turns out they read newspapers around the world, especially in Belgium. And we'll keep you updated on that story after the break. For us, the reporter who brought us this big bombshell reporting we started the hour with Trump's secret trip inside a catering truck and the secret plane and secret flight and elaborate ruse that he and the White House went through went to to keep it all under wraps. The next hour of deadline White House starts after a quick break. Stay with us.
- [46:23]
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