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- [00:00]
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- [00:30]
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- [01:07]
Alicia Menendez
Hi, everyone. It's 4 o' clock here in New York. I'm Alicia Menendez, in for Nicole Wallace. Day 21 of the war in Iran, and here's where things stand. Iranian attacks on oil and gas facilities means that the oil supply crisis shows no signs of letting up. Gas Prices today are $0.30 higher than they were a week before, and a prediction by Saudi Arabia is raising fears of a recession. As for Donald Trump, he is lashing out at NATO allies for not helping the US in the war he started without consulting them. And an additional deployment of U.S. marines to the region is leading everyone to ask, are boots on the ground? Next? The Wall Street Journal was the first to report that 2,200 to 2,500 Marines are being sent from California. That is the second time in a week that the Pentagon has sent Marines to the region. Already, 50,000 troops have been deployed. Donald Trump said he would not put troops on the ground, but hedged immediately, telling a reporter, quote, if I were, I certainly wouldn't tell you. Four sources with knowledge of the issue tell Axios that the Trump administration is considering plans to seize Kharg island, which sits 15 miles off the shore of Iran. It handles 90% of Iran's oil exports. The goal? To pressure Iran to let ships carrying oil go through the Strait of Hormuz and ease the energy crisis. Axios warns that, quote, there's no guarantee that taking it would convince Tehran to make peace on Trump's terms. Of course, what Trump's terms are, well, that's still unclear. It's not even clear if Trump wants to end the war. In a brand new interview, Trump told our colleague Stephanie Rule, quote, I think I could leave right now and it would take them 10 years to rebuild, but I don't think that's an acceptable situation. Trump also shied away from an original stated goal of regime change, saying that the, quote, major thing is that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Shortly after that, Trump seemed to suggest that peace talks are not even possible. We want to talk to them, and
- [03:11]
Angela Corazon
there's nobody to talk to.
- [03:13]
Alicia Menendez
We have nobody to talk to. And you know what?
- [03:15]
Angelo
We like it that way.
- [03:18]
Alicia Menendez
Fears of an escalation in Trump's war with Iran with no clear endgame is where we start today. Staff writer for the Atlantic, Missy Ryan is here. Also with US President of Media Matters for America, Angela Corazon. Plus, Patrick Murphy is here. He served as acting secretary as well as under Secretary of the army and is a former US Congressman for the great state of Pennsylvania. Missy, let's start with you. The deployment of Marines, what would they usually be used for? What would it be for something like seizing Kharg Island?
- [03:48]
Missy Ryan
It could be the muse. The Marines come with a full suite of aircraft, amphibious capabilities. They could be used for a number of things, certainly going ashore at Khark island or other parts of Iran. However, that would be extremely risky. This is still a very hot fight. The Iranian regime is weakened, it's battered, but it still possesses some really potent drone capability, some missile capability. And you have to remember, if there were American forces on the ground, there would always be the potential for the kind of asymmetric attacks that US Forces encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I think we've seen so far that President Trump really doesn't want to see a lot of American casualties in this operation. So I do think it's more likely that the Marines are there either as a force projection measure or potentially for involvement in the evacuation of Americans or American diplomatic facilities, which are coming under a significant attack during this war. The Trump administration may need to end up putting troops on the ground if they are going to seize the highly enriched uranium that Iran has. But that seems unlikely in the near term, at least immediately.
- [05:09]
Alicia Menendez
Secretary, do you agree with Missy's analysis about why the Marines are there?
- [05:14]
Patrick Murphy
Well, I think, unfortunately, I think we're hedging our bet. I mean, we are promised no new wars. And clearly the audio does not match the video here because, you know, obviously we sent and did offensive operations in Venezuela, did offensive air power here in Iran, and it's hard to do Regime change and Iran would just be a air power, if that's what our strategic goal is. And then, you know, obviously the. The word, the drum of war are now beaten against Cuba. But the reality is this is that we are violating what we know. The lesson learned from Vietnam, which was the POW doctrine, where you have a clear mission, use overwhelming force to accomplish that mission and a clear exit strategy. I think there's a lot of folks, a lot of Americans, in fact, the majority of Americans who don't see what the clear mission is here.
- [06:02]
Alicia Menendez
Majority of Americans who don't see what a clear mission is also. Secretary? Majority of Americans who do believe that this president will put boots on the ground. Talk to me. Understanding that this may not be the primary idea that is on the table, but the fact that it is being floated, this idea of seizing Iranian territory, this administration seems to think it might bring us closer to an end to the war. But how can the war end if it's not clear what the goals of this war even are?
- [06:30]
Patrick Murphy
Exactly. And that's why we needed Congress to act, because it's only Congress that declare war. And they keep punting their responsibility time and time again, especially this Congress, to this president. And so you're looking at the maga, frankly, teammates, fracturing here. You see Joe Kent from dni, combat veteran himself, who just resigned. You see Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson. You're seeing the majority of Americans saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, we did not sign up for this. And so, you know, I don't lose sleep over, you know, the fact that we hit Iran. And I'm not a big fan of the regime, but I lose sleep when I look at the Congress just kowtowing to the president with no clear strategy here. And, you know, they're not gonna be able to do the regime change from just air power.
- [07:27]
Alicia Menendez
Well, Angela, let's talk about that. Both the fracturing we're seeing within Magaverse and also what we are seeing from Republicans in Congress. There was this reporting today from the New York Times. Nearly three weeks after the first strikes on Tehran, GOP lawmakers are resisting the idea of calling top administration officials before Congress to give a public accounting for an escalating war with uncertain a rising price tag and no clear exit strategy. You don't want to show that kind of division to your enemy when you're in the midst of a war, said Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin. I don't have a problem with the administration avoiding showing our enemy that they don't have 100% support of Congress. I Mean, what are they there for, Angelo, if they are not going to provide oversight on a war that their own base does not support and that the President is going to ask another $50 billion foreign funding?
- [08:21]
Patrick Murphy
Yeah.
- [08:21]
Angela Corazon
They're not even going to go so far as to vote on it. Right. Or to take any sort of official action to stop it or to slow it down or to rein it in. They're not even going to talk about it now. They're not even going to get, you know, get more information. They're not even going to do, as you noted, their oversight function. And that's a big tell as to where we go from here, because they're not just giving him a blank check, they're giving Trump clear Runway to essentially execute on however he's feeling. And that's where this all comes together. Because Trump basically lives in like, doesn't think in reality. He thinks in 1990s action movie montages. And, you know, I mean, when he was running for president, you know, aside from prom, while he was promising no news wars, I would also note that he would have this giant opening scene from the Patent movie. I mean, this is an irresistible temptation for him. And part of what's happening with respect to the fracturing is, you know, before we got to this most recent development about boots on the ground, the fracturing was between sort of the new MAGA coalition, these cultural figures that came in parts of the New right, sort of the white nationalist Grupo crowd, the isolationists like the Nick Fuentes and the Tuckers of the world, and then the sort of the traditional right wing media. But you're beginning to see some cracks emerge within the traditional right wing media. But instead of criticizing Trump, they're mostly just being quiet about boots on the ground. And even the soft people, you know, what they're doing is they're saying, look, carg island, but you have to stop there because it's technically not Iran proper. It's not actually in Iran, it's an island. So he can get away with only Carg island and nothing more. So they're beginning to say, well, we want support all the way in, but we will support this. And it's the exactly what the first few days of when we started to, before the strikes happened, started to feel like that there was a little, tiny little cracks before they fully broke wide open. But what's the point of it if Republicans have already said they're not going to do anything with their official power?
- [10:11]
Alicia Menendez
It is quite the distinction without a difference. As great as it was to listen to you paraphrase Fox News. Let's hear it from them themselves. Let's play the sound. You grab carg island, you grab the
- [10:22]
Reverend Al Sharpton
others and you say, hey, this is
- [10:24]
Alicia Menendez
ours until that strait's open. One attack on a bar, we take them.
- [10:28]
Angela Corazon
So this is a little of the tactics rather than the raw strength.
- [10:32]
Alicia Menendez
Does that mean boots on the ground? Well, it would be boots on the
- [10:35]
Angela Corazon
ground kind of goes around it.
- [10:36]
Alicia Menendez
If you're on an island, you're not really in Iran. Secretary, is that how it works?
- [10:43]
Patrick Murphy
It is not. You know, the most sacred and solemn duty of our government is to center men and women in harm's way. I think, you know, I served in invasion in Iraq. I lost 19 of my brothers over there, which, like most veterans, I was independent at the time, but came back and ran for Congress and won here in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It breaks my heart to see that Congress is just missing an action here, that they've been directing their duties by the Constitution, and they do it time and time again, whether it's tariffs or now about war. But this is their most solemn duty and they cannot be missing in action any longer. This president has started this, this war. Iran has now went back and attacked six of our allies, hitting obviously not just oil fields, not just lng, liquefied natural gas, against an energy superpower that is now driving up prices for the whole world, including here in the United States.
- [11:42]
Alicia Menendez
Missy, it is not blossoming, especially given what the secretary just said, that we're having this conversation on the 23rd anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war. And while we can talk about prices and we can talk what it means for us at the gas pump and at the supermarket, the cost of human life is certainly the most important metric we can possibly use when assessing the cost of action like this. There's new reporting in the Washington Post today on a rift between the two countries that launched the war with Iran. There is that differential. There's also been reporting about folks inside Trump's own inner circle who have warned about the casualties that could be inflicted on our servicemember. Do you have reporting? Do you have a sense of what they are saying behind closed doors about the casualty risk should they pursue boots on the ground?
- [12:38]
Missy Ryan
We do know that there's an array of ideologies that the Trump administration has, and that's sort of his bringing together this big tent Republican coalition that's been, you know, his winning formula and certainly was in 2024. But we know that Vice President Vance urged caution or expressed some reservations. We don't know what Secretary Hegseth or Secretary Rubio counseled. I think it's, it's, it is a reasonable question to ask whether his top advisers even are censoring themselves or at least second guessing any sort of risk analysis or notes of caution that they're providing to the President because he has proven himself not to respond well to attempts to constrain him. We saw that with his secretaries of defense in the first administration. And so that that environment and that setup around him doesn't, is not conducive for active debate and more sober, thorough analysis of the risks going into this kind of operation. And you know, as Patrick was saying, the fact that Congress was not given a say is really significant. Congress really has not been as active as it should have been in the last 15 years. And we may see some debate as the administration goes forward and tries to get this extra $200 billion for refurbishing some of the munitions that have been expended in Iran. But really a more clear public examination of what we're trying to do here other than just hit back at this problem actor in region, I think is really merited. And that's something we're sorely missing at this moment.
- [14:26]
Alicia Menendez
Angela, I want to pick up on something that Missy pointed out, which is which inputs the President is getting at this point. Let's pull up some of the polling that we referenced earlier, but we didn't get to look at in full. This was released yesterday. 65% of Americans think Trump will order a large scale invasion. Just 7% of Americans support that. Just 34% support deploying small scale special forces. Your sense is that factoring into their thinking and if that is not factoring in, then what is?
- [14:59]
Angela Corazon
I think what is factoring into Trump's thinking is Fox News and that's it. The people that he has paid attention to for a really long time. So, you know, the lens through which he sees the world, they are really coloring this. Not the advisors around him. As much as they may make some noise in the room, the truth is really, it's all a stage. And he really cares about how this stuff plays out in the, in the shows he watches. And what he's seeing is the usual suspects criticizing him. And I think the fact that he's willing to engage uniquely in ways that he hasn't in the past is sort of a tell here that he thinks he has some room to move things or that at least he has to do some damage control to backstop it. But in the places that he pays the most attention to the things that's factored into his thinking. He's not being told that he needs to stop. He's being told that gas prices are starting to go up a little bit, but that's the price of freedom, that this is worth it, full steam ahead. Backing down is going to look weak, that there's a way for him to put boots on the ground, but not violate any of his promises and also achieve success. And he has his own long arc here, which is that he never sort of retreats from these positions. He always stakes out more leverage, more extreme posture. He doesn't really care about anybody else in the room. At the end of the day, he cares about the story. And the story in his mind is this is ending a 47 year war and he gets to put another notch in his belt if he just shows some strength and some muscle. And when this all first started, he literally said people are going to die. Oh well, we're going to do this. So I don't think there's that is going to be a factor for him in this moment. The moment is on the stage. He's watching. It's playing out really well. And I think that's the single lens. Much like in the lead up to January 6th. Ironically, only Fox News could really change the course of this ship, and they're not.
- [16:44]
Alicia Menendez
Missy Ryan, Patrick Murphy, thank you both so much for starting us off. Angela, you are sticking with us. When we come back, Donald Trump's economy was already on shaky ground even before Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz. The cracks are growing as his war overseas drags on. Plus, Donald Trump's favorite tool working overtime, the Department of Justice investigating deployed against just about everyone who's angered him. Later in the show. With 2026 now well underway, Democrats are getting serious about Trump and the GOP's plot to subvert the midterm elections. Going to get to all those stories and more when Deadline White House continues after this.
- [17:21]
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- [18:18]
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- [18:47]
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- [19:19]
Alicia Menendez
The spike of oil prices as a result of Donald Trump's war of choice with Iran has made life more financially challenging for nearly all Americans. Now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the world's largest exporter of oil, Saudi Arabia, has issued a stark warning that oil could spike to as much as $180 a barrel should the war in Iran continue through April. From their reporting, while that would sound like a bonanza for a kingdom still heavily leveraged oil revenue, it is deeply concerning. Prices that high could push consumers into habits that slash their oil use potentially for the long term, or trigger a recession that also hurts demand. I want to bring in former senior adviser to President Biden and former national economic adviser to Presidents Obama and Clinton, Gene Sperling. Angelo is still with me. Gene Sperling, what's going to be the economic impact for American consumers and if oil prices continue to rise to the level that the Saudis are predicting there?
- [20:14]
Angelo
It's frightening. I mean, right now you have a situation where Triple A says on average we've gone up pretty much a dollar in just a month. And, you know, oil prices are still, you know, between 100 and 115 going back and forth. If it goes up to 180, you know, it's not just the price at the pump. You're going to see, you're going to see all sorts of ways that people are double Hurt. If you look at, you know, one of your people, Catherine Rampel was talking about farmers who've been hurt terribly by tariffs and now are paying higher fertilizer costs because of the closure of the Straits of Hormuz for shipping nitrogen fertilizers. There's another article in the Washington Post that talks about the small business people who got decimated by the tariffs are now facing huge amounts of cost in oil in higher oil and gas prices. And what we know is that at first the prices just hit overall inflation. They hit just the oil or food or some other things. But the longer it goes on and the higher it goes, the more those higher oil prices prices creep into all sorts of different products that in some way rely on oil for their production. And that means that you get sweeping inflation, more structural, that's going to handcuff the Federal Reserve. People are going to be spending less on other things. The economy will be getting worse. And at the same time, inflation will be going up. Not just overall inflation, but core inflation, because oil will start raising, raising the price higher. $180 a barrel. Oil will start raising prices and production throughout the economy.
- [22:11]
Alicia Menendez
So, Angela, meanwhile, Trump, his allies, they're insisting Americans just deal with these rising prices. They tell them it's a small price to pay for a war, that they can't decide whether it isn't about uranium or about regime change. Let's just listen to the way they have been spinning in the past few days.
- [22:32]
Angelo
People can handle the gas prices.
- [22:34]
Angela Corazon
We're hardly ever called on to sacrifice anything anymore.
- [22:37]
Alicia Menendez
Freedom is not free.
- [22:38]
Brendan Belew
Americans are going to have to make some sacrifices.
- [22:41]
Alicia Menendez
For gas prices to go up a
- [22:42]
Patrick Murphy
little bit is suddenly raising so much concern. Think of how much worse it was
- [22:47]
Alicia Menendez
in World War II than what we're facing now. You are using World War II as your bar for how bad things could be. Angelo, you know that you are not in a great spot. You have pointed out to me many times the fact that promises often, yeah, prices are gonna go up, but then they're gonna come way down. And I would even posit, Angelo, that Americans would be willing to pay a little bit more if they understood what it was they were paying more for. But to ask them to sacrifice in the name of question mark seems a little antithetical.
- [23:25]
Angela Corazon
It's a big jump. I mean, and you know, they can say, and one of their repeated refrains these days is, you know, short term pain for long term gain. They're at least acknowledgin there's going to be some pain now, but they're still pushing this notion that there's a pot of gold on the other end of this and you just have to sort of ride with Trump because it's going to be great on the end. And, you know, the WWE was a comparison, but there's another one too. You know, if you look at what's happening in industry, press and the energy sector, you know, in those reportings, what they're saying is that this so far is worse than the initial disruption during COVID and that if it continues for at least another two to three weeks, we're looking at a global recession, if not a depression. And this ties into what Gene was talking about earlier. I mean, the long tail of this will be substantial. And I don't know how they're going to be able to reconcile that or spin that for their people because there's a lot of Trump and his allies that are getting a lot richer and all their people sort of know that and they're willing to go along with it. But to your point, they haven't really been told why. They just been told this is essential, that it's existential, that is a good thing, it's supposed to benefit them, but they literally don't have a reason. And I think that's going to be a tension point that will brew up some point over the summer. And I don't think he'll ever be able to spin that around. Maybe he'll just ignore it like he's ignored the Epstein stuff and other things. But it is a real gap that they haven't quite figured out how they're going to navigate. And just to put a bow on it, to compare, in the first two weeks of the Russia invasion of Ukraine, Fox News talked about energy security, energy independence 329 times. I mean, they just went hair on fire about this, that it's all going to unravel. Look at what Biden's done. He hasn't done enough to protect gas prices. Everything's going to go away. In the first two weeks of this crisis that Trump created, they talked, they mentioned it scantly 12 times. And most of the times they mention it is in the context of Trump is doing a great thing for our energy independence. So they weaponized it against Democrats and made it such an issue. Now they barely talk about it.
- [25:18]
Alicia Menendez
Gene, there were a few words that Angelo used there. He said essential, existential. He's also trying the President to convince voters that this is gonna be short term and short lived. It is not exactly clear that that is correct. Are you watching them do anything to begin to consider the possibility that they're gonna need to mitigate rising costs? Because most of the things the President has even casually put on the table vis a vis contending with rising gas prices either require Congress have over 100 day delay. Is there anything they are doing substantively to begin to hedge here?
- [25:57]
Angelo
Well, first of all, I know what it's like to be in a White House where you're facing higher gas prices and you do what you can, you use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But I think, think that for something that is as severe a disruption as this, the things the President can do are relatively small. And one thing people are learning which is related to how you open this with Saudi Arabia. You know, this is not something where you can just get OPEC or Saudi Arabia to just try to release, produce more oil when you have the Straits of Hormuz closed, which was so predictable that this is what Iran would do to inflict pain on the United States and the rest of the world. When you have that, first of all, the Strategic Petroleum reserves, even all of the world's Strategic Petroleum reserves put together help you for a number of weeks, not a number of months. And in the Mid east, those producers, they not only can't produce more because once they fill the tankers, they're full, they have to shut down production. So you're shutting down production, which will take longer to start up. And then you've seen the United States go to war with Israel who has now started a process of destroying energy infrastructure which could take months, years to replace. So you know, there have been a lot of times where people have said things look reckless like they did with Doge, and they just seem to do whatever they want. And, and boy, maybe you don't worry about it as much, but this is something where the average person is paying the cost of their incompetence. Even if there is a security justification for this type of military action, you've seen no type of planning or thought or coordination that in any way seem to be dealing with what could be a devastating rise in costs that will not just anger people at the pump, but, but as was just said, could threaten the overall strength of the economy. And again, you know, we don't want to overuse the word stagflation because people tend to think of it like in the, in the, in the late 70s. But the, the direction of stagflation, when you see inflation going up and up at the same time, the economy is getting weaker and weaker, that handcuffs the Fed that makes fiscal policy respons very difficult because you're dealing with both weakness in the economy in an economy that already hadn't created a job since Liberation day, and now you also are seeing people in the market projecting inflation as high as 5% already. This is a very difficult situation. If I was in that White house, I'd be Mr. President, project off ramp. That's all we need to get an off ramp quick because the longer this goes on, I think the more the economic pain is going to spread and the and the harder and longer it's going to be to reverse.
- [29:12]
Alicia Menendez
We will see if that person exists and if they have his ear. Gene Sperling, Angela Corazon, thank you both so much for being with us. After the break. The Trump Justice Department's case against James Comey is being overseen by a familiar name to those who follow the criminal cases against him, a certain federal judge from the state of Florida. We're going to tell you about that next.
- [29:34]
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- [30:05]
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- [30:35]
Angela Corazon
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- [31:07]
Alicia Menendez
As federal prosecutors scramble and often flop in court, Donald Trump keeps adding pressure and new names to his demands for retribution of his perceived enemies, big and small, starting with his desperate efforts to push out Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell with an investigation derailed by a federal judge. But Trump's apparent interest in appealing could soon backfire and keep Powell around. Powell now says he has no intention of stepping down until it's all over. Then there's Trump's struggle to go after the First Amendment rights of citizens who have openly protested his policies, who Trump calls national security threats, a claim prosecutors are having a hard time proving in court. There's also the new subpoena dragging former FBI Director James Comey into the Trump administration's wide ranging so called grand conspiracy case. As Democracy Docket puts it, it's a probe being directed by a DOJ led by Trump's former personal attorneys, stemming from the president's campaign of retribution against anyone who has stood in his way. I want to bring in former federal Prosecutor and former January 6th prosecutor Brendan Belew. He is the founder of the Public Integrity Project. And with me at the table, host of Politics Nation and president of the National Action Network, Reverend Al Sharpton. Brendan, your reaction to these continued desperate efforts from Trump? While the limits of, of that desperation are being displayed over and over and over again in the court of law,
- [32:34]
Brendan Belew
it seems like their efforts are getting less and less professional and more and more extreme. So, you know, take Jim Comey, for instance. You know, they have tried to indict him in the Eastern District of Virginia, failed over and over again on about a half dozen procedural different reasons. It seems like having struggled in the Eastern District of Virginia, they're now moving to the subject Southern District of Florida, where a prosecution would be even more tenuous for jurisdictional reasons, for statute of limitation reasons, for vindictive prosecution reasons. And so it seems like they are going to ever further lengths to try to figure out a way to go after perceived political enemies. But, you know, that goes to, for instance, the prosecutions that you're seeing against protesters in Chicago, in Minnesota, in Los Angeles, by and large, completely fall apart. You know, I was looking at one statistic suggesting that in one roundup, over 90 protesters were arrested. Of those, I believe about 74 people were never charged. And then 13 of the cases were eventually dismissed, leaving just five remaining. So it all just suggests that as the administration gets more and more aggressive against their enemies, both big and small, they're also getting less good at it.
- [33:46]
Alicia Menendez
They're Getting less good. And I also think you're seeing that the rule of law is holding despite their efforts to the contrary. Contrary.
- [33:53]
Reverend Al Sharpton
The good news is that the rule of law is holding. The bad news, though, is that it costs people a lot of money. Some people that does not find themselves in a position to afford it, that they have to go through all of this to defend themselves against bogus charges or engaged in bogus investigations. And in the broader sense, the American public shouldn't be standing for having a judiciary system or justice system set up on revenge and retribution for political reasons having nothing to do with crimes, have nothing to do with the fact that someone had a right to protest or had a right to tell the truth. In Comey's case, they're being prosecuted because you spoke against the government that is in power now, and that is everything this country was supposed to be fighting against when they formed the Declaration of Independence in the first place. I mean, we are living in an area now, in a country now where they feel like you can't question the king, and if you do, you are punished. And to break the law, the law is don't offend. He that sits high and looks down from above in the name of Donald Trump. And that is scary for all Americans.
- [35:17]
Alicia Menendez
Well, Brent, and that's one of the rules. One of the other rules is that, like the vibes on the Internet can somehow lead to legal action of this new subpoena of James Comey. This is what the New York Times reports in November on this grand conspiracy theory, unsupported by the evidence about Democrats working to destroy Trump. Quote, a narrative which has been promoted in general terms by Trump and taken root online. I mean, the more you read about it, it's truly nuts, right? This idea that there was a deep state cabal, and if you put all of these pieces together, then all of a sudden, this grand conspiracy emerges. How does that go from something that is being talked about in the depths of the Internet into a massive federal investigation where you have more than 136 subpoenas?
- [36:07]
Brendan Belew
You only get there when there's a complete collapse between the distinction between the Department of Justice, which is supposed to be apolitical, and the White House, which is inherently political. You know, these are the sorts of conspiracy theories that prosecutors wouldn't even really be aware of, let alone contemplate investigating and prosecuting. So it really suggests that the folks that are leading the Department of Justice have really given in completely to any sort of idea of, you know, know, prosecutorial independence. I also think that, you know, this sort of thing is going to continue until there are there's some level of professional consequence for the prosecutors and especially the top level leaders at the Department of Justice that are pursuing these things. And in particular, what I'm thinking about is, you know, these seem to be fairly clear violations of the justice manual, which is the internal guideline for how, how prosecutors are supposed to act. It's also likely a violation of Rule 3.8 of the Rules of Professional Conduct, which require that prosecutors not, quote, unquote, invidiously discriminate against potential targets. And so until there's some sort of professional sanction for these actions, I think that these sorts of conspiracy theories are just going to become more and more prevalent within the Department of Justice.
- [37:22]
Alicia Menendez
I love when you lawyers can name these rules down to the decimal point. It reminds me why I should not have become a lawyer myself. Right. No one is going anywhere. After the break how two fired FBI agents who say they were victims of political retribution are fighting back. We're going to get to that next. We are back with Brendan Ballou and Reverend Al. I just got to talk for a second about the Eileen Cannon of this. All right. It's like a Season one character that continues to reemerge season after season until you finally realize that she's a season regular. Because they know she's their girl. They can bring this Comey piece before her and she'll keep it moving.
- [38:03]
Reverend Al Sharpton
They know that they can bring Comey or anything else before this is the one that did the Jack Smith wouldn't release the rest of Jack Smith. And to think that we are now in a period in American history where judges do the bidding of political players rather than deal with the law. I mean, there was a time that you would say, well, if we could just get it up to the higher courts that this will be something fair and equal for everyone. Now you have to fear who has been placed in the higher courts. And if this woman ever got to the Supreme Court, we'll look at the court. Now we're looking at voting rights, we're looking at immigration rights. We're looking at all kinds of things, things that are at stake with people that are politically biased and put there as political fixers that are put in charge of the judiciary, which is scary when you look at the fact that people are just raising with Vice, Alicia, that we want them to just take off their face masks. I was talking to a federal prosecutor today who said, we don't know who's behind the mask. How do we know these are the, not some of the proud boys. How do we know these are not some of the people that were pardoned in January 6th? When you wear a mask, we don't know who we're dealing with. And no one is raising this in the context of this is about protecting everyone. This is not about whether you're right or left or woke or not. This is about what are we doing to the justice system as we have come to know it.
- [39:38]
Alicia Menendez
Brenda Belew, I want you to weigh in on how this sweeping so called conspiracy case ends up in Florida and whether or not there is both a jurisdiction and a venue issue there. But I also want to bring you this story. It's the latest legal response to Trump's revenge campaign. Two former FBI agents say they were illegally fired for working on an investigation that led to Trump's indictment in the 2020 election interference case. The FBI is not commenting on the lawsuit which alleges Kash Patel and Pam Bondi retaliated against them for being politically disloyal to President Trump. It just all becomes part of a whole. Brendan Bell.
- [40:14]
Brendan Belew
Yeah, well, let's start with that and work backwards. So on that lawsuit, I think that this is incredibly important for two reasons. One is just at a practical, personal level, which is, you know, at this point, any number of DOJ attorneys and FBI agents have been fired because of the cases that they worked on or because they were perceived to be enemies of the president. You know, it's a lot harder for the FBI agents than it is for the prosecutors. It's relatively straightforward, I should say, or at least comparatively for a lawyer to find a job in private practice. The skills that FBI agents have, you know, don't readily transfer to a lot of jobs in, in the, in the private sector. And so it's really important for these agents specifically, and agents generally to be able to get some measure of justice here and hopefully hold the administration practically and financially accountable for what's happened here. Going backwards to Judge Cannon, you know, we've been talking about this jurisdictional issue. As I understand it, the idea about how to get this grand conspiracy investigation in Florida was the idea that somehow it was connected to the search of President Trump's Mar? A Lago residence. That seems like an awful big stretch, I will say, if there's any, I wouldn't say glimmer of hope, but, you know, something to give your viewers that, that cautions us a little bit is that at a practical level, judges aren't particularly involved in investigations day to day. Day, you know, grand jury subpoenas are issued by the individual line prosecutor. And ordinarily, search warrants are signed off by what's called a magistrate judge, which is a lower step than a district court judge, which Judge Cannon is. It'll be interesting to see, however, if Judge Cannon decides to take on those sorts of responsibilities in issuing or signing off on search warrants for herself, and that'll give us a sense about how excited she is is for this investigation.
- [42:10]
Alicia Menendez
You know, rev. When I lay my head on the pillow at night and the final dregs of anxiety seep in, it is for me over and over again the sort of Humpty Dumpty element of this administration, which is it is very easy to break things. It is very easy to go doge on the federal government. It is very easy to fire FBI agents. Putting that all back together, rebuilding these institutions, regaining public trust, even in a post Trump era, will become the great work, the great project of a next administration. And they will spend so much time doing that rather than being able to focus on building and imagining a future.
- [42:56]
Reverend Al Sharpton
That is the real dilemma that we're going to have as a nation as the next administration. Administration is going to have to figure out how to take all these broken pieces of this government and try to make them piece back together somehow without being blamed for the breakage. I mean, we have normalized such unprecedented things like knocking down a White House and building a ballroom all the way to we're talking about law and forgiveness beginning. We have a man convicted of 34 felonies in the White House choosing the prosecutors and the judges and the cases, a convicted felon. So if you have someone like me, a minister or speaker that goes and tell kids, do the right thing. Do what right thing? If I'm a felon, I can still go to the White House.
- [43:47]
Alicia Menendez
Well, those rules don't apply to them, rev.
- [43:49]
Reverend Al Sharpton
Of course not. But you've got to explain that to them. And what I'm saying is that we have got got to really recapture where this country's center is when this administration is no longer there.
- [44:01]
Alicia Menendez
Brendan Ballou, as always, thank you for talking with us for making things so plain and so simple. Reverend Al Sharpton, he's coming back in the next hour. And when we come back, officials in Georgia criminalizing a woman taking care of her own health. We're going to explain that next. A heart horrifying first, according to reproductive rights advocates, a woman in Georgia has been charged with felony murder after police say she took abortion pills at home and went to the emergency room for stomach pain. In the arrest warrant, police say her pregnancy was well beyond six weeks. It is the first time someone has been charged under Georgia's six week ban, which was passed back in 2019. Americans largely do not support criminally charging women who have abortion, with 54% disapproving in a 2022 poll. But the advocacy group Pregnancy justice found that in the first two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, prosecutors initiated at least 412 cases charging pregnant people with crimes related to pregnancy, pregnancy loss or birth. The Georgia woman in this case is currently being held in jail. Gonna stay on her case after the break. The lies the Trump administration tells us about their plot to take over the election elections deadline. White House continues after a quick break. Stay with us.
- [45:20]
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