← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
“Democracy at stake in Tennessee”
00:43:44
Nicolle Wallace covers the protests in Tennessee against a newly proposed, gerrymandered map that would erase a majority African American district and turn it into three majority white and Republican pieces.
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- [00:02]
Melissa Murray
School's almost out and at Abercrombie Kids,
- [00:05]
Nicole Wallace
new warm weather staples are in. It's a one stop shop for everything
- [00:09]
Melissa Murray
on their checklist like tees, shorts and swim, so planning what they'll wear is a breeze.
- [00:14]
Nicole Wallace
For outfits that keep up with them
- [00:16]
Melissa Murray
and easier mornings for you, stop by Abercrombie Kids Shop in the app, online and in stores.
- [00:30]
Chris Hayes
Hey everyone, it's Chris Hayes. I'm here to let you know the very first episode of my special miniseries, why Is this Happening? The AI Endgame is out right now. In this series, I talk to a variety of experts each week about AI and what it actually is, what it means for us. To kick things off, I spoke with journalist Derek Thomson. He's been spending the better part of the last year trying to get his arms around the same question I am just how big a deal is this?
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Mark Elias
These guys don't really know exactly what
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Melissa Murray
it is they're building.
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Mark Elias
They don't know exactly what's behind the
- [00:59]
Carol Lennig
door that they're planning to open open
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Melissa Murray
six months from now.
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Chris Hayes
Why is this happening? The AI Endgame a Special Miniseries Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:12]
Carol Lennig
This is serious. This is gravely serious for people. People fought, died, were tortured for the right to vote. And so for the world needs to be watching this because what is happening today will happen to the rest of the country.
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Nicole Wallace
Hi there everyone. It's now 5 o' clock in New York. Protesters in Tennessee today speaking out as the state legislators there advance a map to carve the state's only majority African American district into three majority white and Republican pieces or districts. It took just over a week for states to take up the Supreme Court's invitation to launch an all out assault on majority black districts after the nation's highest court gave them free reign to unleash race based gerrymanders all across the country. A forensic democracy docket report that South Carolina is not too far behind Tennessee, with South Carolina Republicans preparing to eliminate that state's only Democratic district, which has been held by longtime Congressman Jim Clyburn. It is just the latest in a series of warning signs that our courts may not be enough to protect us against a conservative onslaught against democracy. Late yesterday, a judge ruled against Fulton County, Georgia and its efforts to get the ballots that Donald Trump's FBI seized earlier this year returned. The judge described the events surrounding the Bureau's January raid on an election warehouse in Fulton county where Atlanta is located, as, quote, in many ways unprecedented and called some aspects of the investigation, including its reliance on previously debunked conspiracy theories, quote, troubling, judge wrote, quote, the seizure in this case was certainly not perfect. Trump wrote. The Trump appointed judge, but the county had not shown that its rights were callously disregarded, either through the lack of probable cause or by the manner of the execution of the seizure, he said. Okay, that ruling clears the way for the Justice Department to move forward with this inquiry into Donald Trump's 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, a contest he lost in Georgia by about 12,000 votes. It is unlikely that this will end in Fulton county, though, as Donald Trump attempts to leverage his big lie to undermine free and fair elections all across the country. With the Trump Justice Department launching an investigation into the 2020 election in Arizona and Donald Trump continuing to demand that Republicans help him take federal control of our elections, the warning signs that the courts will not save us from Donald Trump's attempts to undermine democracy is where we begin the hour with voting rights attorney and founder of Democracy docket, Mark Elias. And with me at the table, NYU law professor, our legal analyst, Melissa Murray. Her new book is the US A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide to the Modern Reader. It's out now and we'll talk about it in a little bit. Mark Golias I feel like in a very short period of time, a lot of damage has been done. And I know we talked every day last week and I felt like we were sort of holding the line on the pro democracy side. And in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision, it feels like it's gone the other direction. Tell me what's actually happening.
- [04:26]
Mark Elias
Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, I think that there are three things that happened in the last week. The first is the Clay decision itself, which gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. I think this is actually the most damaging decision to voting rights in my lifetime. So we had that. Then we saw sort of a, a rush by, by Republican controlled legislatures to tried to trample over the rights of black voters in the south, actually all voters in some of these states because in the state of Louisiana, they're essentially tossing out 40,000 plus ballots in their zeal to draw a new map. And then the final thing, which is actually for me was the hardest part is watching the US Supreme Court then see the chaos unfolding and expediting the issuance of a piece of paper that normally doesn't get a lot of attention called the mandate. This is the thing that actually allows opinions to be acted upon, to be, to go into force. And Normally it takes 32 days for that to be issued. But they expedited it because they were asked by Louisiana to be allowed to do more damage more quickly. And the Supreme Court went along with that. And that is in stark contrast, as Melissa will tell you, in stark contrast to how they have treated this in the past when we and others have gone to the Supreme Court and said, look, black voters are at risk here of having unconstitutional or illegal districts for another two years. Can you please allow the lower court's decisions to go into effect to remedy that? And we've been told no. You know, you can't rush these things.
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Nicole Wallace
Melissa, your thoughts on where we find ourselves today?
- [06:11]
Melissa Murray
Mark is exactly right. This is a three pronged attack on democracy. First it came from the court with the Kelly decision. Now we are seeing these state legislatures move with incredible alacrity to get to their preferred outcome, which is the consolidation of Republican power in their states. And they're given a major assist from this court, which, as Mark says, has thrown away its past protocols and have basically eliminated that 32 day delay that typically accompanies a ruling and has allowed this to go into effect right away. Justice Jackson had very sharp words for her colleagues who put this into place. Justice Alito, who wrote the majority opinion in Calais, called her her claims or critiques baseless and insulting. They're not baseless and they're not insulting. This is a court that's basically thrown out the rule book in order to allow the Republican Party to consolidate its advantage across the south and to effectively disenfranchise voters, as Louisiana is doing. 42,000 votes were already cast in that primary election, and now Governor Landry is trying to stop everything, call a new election. On top of that, you have what's going on in Fulton county, where we already saw that raid a few weeks ago on the ballots from. From the 2020 election. Now we're seeing the administration asking for a subpoena with all of the names of the poll workers and election workers who worked during that period. That's meant to destroy and break the infrastructure of democracy. Our democracy works mostly because of volunteers who get up every morning on election day and go out and give their time. If you think you're going to be the subject of a government subpoena from the President of the United States, you're going to think twice about doing that kind of volunteer work. It is meant to break the infrastructure. So we have these decisions from the court, basically changing the law in real time. And then you have what the administration
- [08:00]
Nicole Wallace
is doing not in real time right in, in, in mid election, mid election,
- [08:04]
Melissa Murray
just like on the ground. And then you're having these other changes that are meant to change what the election landscape looks like in real time on the ground, when it actually happens to make it impossible for free and fair elections to happen.
- [08:16]
Nicole Wallace
I mean, Mark, what is the legal strategy when this emanates from a Supreme Court decision?
- [08:22]
Mark Elias
I mean, the legal strategy on our side is really clear. I mean, the legal strategy on our side is that we need to double down and triple down on protecting voting rights with every tool available. And those tools are going to involve, for example, state courts under state laws and under state constitutions where the Supreme Court either can't touch them or can't easily touch them. It's going to mean bringing aggressive litigation in federal court, because you know what, for every case that goes to the US Supreme Court, there are eight or 10 other cases that don't go to the Supreme Court. And it's also going to mean speaking out in public and trying to encourage more, more courage from more actors in this space. You know, the number of law firms and frankly, Supreme Court advocates, the Supreme Court bar, who are quiet today. They are hiding today. They are not calling out what is going on. They are not criticizing what's happening in Fulton County. They are not criticizing what the Suprem Court did. And that is because they are afraid. They're afraid that they will alienate the conservative justices on the court. They're afraid that they will alienate Todd Blanche. They're afraid that their clients won't get favorable treatment in review of their business deals. And how many times, Nicole and you have you and I talked about this? If we do not see more courage coming from more sectors, including the legal community, then we are going to be in real trouble. Because it is fine for Mark Elias and for Melissa to say what the Supreme Court did here is irregular. But where are those voices? Where are those people who know better in speaking out today?
- [10:01]
Nicole Wallace
Well, I don't know if you're comfortable naming names or naming firms, but who, now that you think about that, through a commercial break, but who has spoken out? I mean, what does the Coalition to Save what is Left of Voting Rights in this country look like today, Mark?
- [10:16]
Mark Elias
Look, I think that the people who are speaking out on the Supreme Court are basically people like Melissa. I had Leah Littman on a podcast last night. She spoke out. So we've got, you know, some, some, some really prominent people who are academics or podcasters who are willing to speak out. But, you know, like I Just, you know, you, you can, you can figure out for yourself who the, who the most prominent Supreme Court advocates are and you can Google and see if they've said anything in terms of pro democracy movement. Look, I mean, I think we've got the coalition of the willing, right? We've got, we've got lawyers like me and others in the private sector who are typically not at large law firms who are willing to do it. And we've got a lot of really great nonprofit organizations. Democracy Forward is a great organization I actually helped create years ago. They're fighting the fight. The ACLU is fighting the fight. There are a lot of good nonprofits out there, but, you know, there aren't a lot of private law firms we could list and say they are in this fight.
- [11:14]
Nicole Wallace
Well, I mean, it's a tragedy that we can name them, right? So there's us. I saw Sherrilyn Ifill on John Stewart Monday, Bruce Springsteen story. The tragedy is that we can name them. What is happening? What has happened to the issue? I mean, is it another example of this thing that everyone took for granted?
- [11:33]
Melissa Murray
I think many people have taken for granted what it feels like to be in the crosshairs of the President of the United States. I think, you know, those law firms, you know, many of them stood up, not all of them did, and like, even more bent the knee as we've talked about. And I don't think that they were thinking about what this looked like long term if the entire industry did this, but what it means, and you know, I've talked with you about this, is when you allow the president's interpretation of law to stand, whether it's enunciated in an executive order that says DEI is now impermissible, even though no federal court has ever said that. You're basically giving them license to do it. I mean, it is obeying in advance. And so this is kind of a break glass moment.
- [12:15]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah.
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Melissa Murray
Black people are always the canary in the coal mine. And voting rights, like this is core stuff. I mean, the right to vote is exactly what the framers of the Reconstruction Amendments viewed as being able to hold this nation together, to give people a way to make their voices heard. Everybody a way to make their voices heard in this political community of ours, and it's under attack. And the fact that more people in the legal profession who have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution won't say something about what's going on right now. It is a problem. It is shameful.
- [12:47]
Nicole Wallace
What is the. I mean, if you look at what's worked, Mark Elias. I mean, what's worked has been people in Minneapolis, in Chicago, in Los Angeles, seeing their neighbors attacked and then going out into the streets with bottled water and whistles. I mean, I say bottled water and, like, when it comes to voting, that isn't even allowed everywhere. I mean, what is. It feels like we're at another fulcrum moment. Right. And we've tried very hard in the second term not to light our hair on fire unless it is justified today. Everything both of you are saying suggests that we should, you know, have our hair on fire over this. And I wonder what your instructions are to citizens in terms of how they make their feelings known about this and what can still be done to help it and address it.
- [13:39]
Mark Elias
Yeah. And I want to make a point that Melissa made, because I may not have been clear. I left out, obviously, the traditional civil rights groups for a reason, which is that, of course, they are standing up because black voters who are being targeted. Right. But my question is not why aren't civil rights groups. They are. The question is, where are the rest of us? Like, where are the law firms that, you know, we're happy to give awards and get awards and all of this, you know, when it all felt like really safe and easy, like, where are those allies today when, frankly, you know, black voters are right now being systematically targeted in Louisiana, in Alabama, in Tennessee, in South Carolina? And where are, like, people standing up now when it's. When Joe Biden's not in the White House, you know, and when Donald Trump's in the White House? And so what I think ordinary citizens have to do is you have to realize that, you know, tyranny always starts with some group. Discrimination always starts with some group. Authoritarian always starts by scapegoating, scapegoating some group. And it is not lost on me, and it should not be lost on anybody, that the first state that was singled out by Eric Schmidt, the Republican senator from Missouri, who is a Republican former attorney general, was California. Okay. He didn't actually say, let's, let's single out Alabama, let's single out Louisiana, let's single out South Carolina. He chose California. And Harmeet Dillon, the head of the Civil Rights division, she said, we're on it now. Why is that important? Because you and I talked at length that California redistricted on a partisan basis. They said it was on a partisan basis. The Supreme Court even said it was on a partisan basis. The lower court said it was on a partisan basis. So why did Eric Schmidt single out California? Because he wants to delegitimize all black voters who elect their candidates of choice. He wants to delegitimize all black elected officials, all Latino elected officials. And we need to call this out. We all need to say that they are going to use this as an excuse not just to redistrict in Alabama and Louisiana, but to try to spread in the same way they did, by the way, with the North Carolina and Harvard case. They used it not just around college admissions, but they used it to attack faculty decisions. And so we need ordinary citizens to recognize that this is not going to end with Louisiana. The fact that you may not live in Louisiana doesn't mean that it's not coming to your community. So everybody needs to stand up and call this out for what it is today.
- [16:03]
Nicole Wallace
I've not heard you this angry in a long time. Just share how this scrambles your workload.
- [16:12]
Mark Elias
Like, look, I mean, in the end, here's why I'm angry. In the end, Democrats are still going to take control of the House. Okay? Like, that's the good news, right? In the end, I think Democrats still could win the Senate in the end, like, politics will be politics. But the reason why I am so angry is because the Supreme Court of the United States chose to strike down a law that was passed in 1965 that Congress was in dialogue with the court in the 1970s and 1980s. And for the last 40 years, we have lived under a set of principles that all players have accepted as a fair level playing field. And then a group of white Louisianans decided to challenge a map, and the US Supreme Court ordered the parties to argue a case that none of the parties wanted to argue, which was whether the Section 2 of the Voting Rights act was still in effect under the right test. And then the parties did it, and they chose to issue an opinion in the middle of May while primaries were going on. And then the US Supreme Court thought, you know what? Sure, we let black voters wait two years and vote under illegal maps, but God forbid these white voters have to do the same in Louisiana. That would be a constitutional crisis. And against all of that backdrop, have we learned nothing? I mean, have we learned nothing? Has the broader legal community not learned anything? Have the. Have the. Other than the civil rights groups, have people not learned that when you do this to black voters, it turns out bad for democracy for everybody? So, yeah, I'm angry. I'm angry because of the appalling silence that's going on right now around. Around this case and the aftermath.
- [17:56]
Nicole Wallace
I want you to stay angry. I don't want you to go anywhere. I mean, I don't want you to really stay angry. But hold that thought. I have two things to tell our audience. We're going to get to Melissa's book. We're going to stay with Mark Elias. Whether he stays angry or not is up to him. But we also have something else that we're going to bring you. On the other side of a break, there's breaking news from our colleague Carol Lennig. She has brand new reporting following up on her blockbuster exclusive yesterday about Kash Patel and how he is now. He's able to report today that he's in, quote, panic mode and has ordered polygraphs for dozens of people at the FBI as he looks for leakers on his own staff and tries to save his job. Carol will join us with that new exclusive reporting next deadline. White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
- [18:43]
Carol Lennig
Your phone is your lifeline. Calling your kid to say goodnight, waiting on a job call back or just sending a meme to your best friend when it's been that kind of day. Wherever life takes you, the Text now app keeps you connected for free. Get a real phone number, unlimited talk and text and 5G data for your favorite apps, all for $0 a month. No fixed contracts, no hidden fees, no panic when bills pile up. Just phone service that's there when it matters most. TextNow, we've got your back. Download TextNow in your app store today. Wireless plans require the purchase of a SIM card. Visit textnow.com for terms and conditions.
- [19:13]
Mark Elias
Mississippi now presents the chart topping original podcast, the Best People with Nicole Wallace. This week, political consultant and publisher of the Bulwarks, Sarah Longwell.
- [19:24]
Nicole Wallace
I just think in terms of the
- [19:25]
Melissa Murray
vast majority of Americans have the same problems.
- [19:28]
Nicole Wallace
Talk to Americans, address their concerns. Like that is what politics is supposed
- [19:31]
Carol Lennig
to do the best.
- [19:33]
Mark Elias
People with Nicole Wallace listen now.
- [19:35]
Carol Lennig
For early access ad free listening and bonus content, subscribe to Ms. Now Premium on Apple Podcasts.
- [19:46]
Nicole Wallace
We have some breaking news to tell you about. We are able to report that FBI Director Kash Patel is in, quote, panic mode. We have that brand new reporting breaking moments ago from our colleagues Carol Enig and Kendallanian. It's about the turmoil inside the FBI right now after a string of deeply embarrassing and rather alarming stories about Kash Patel and his tenure as the head of the country's top law enforcement agency. From that new reporting quote, Kash Patel has ordered the polygraphing of more than two dozen former and current members of his security detail and other staff and has been described as in panic mode to save his job and find leakers among his team. That is according to two people briefed on the development. Kash Patel has walled himself off from some senior bureau leaders this week in the wake of multiple media reports that raised red flags about his leadership. What's more, Patel has reportedly avoided meeting with operational leaders at the FBI this week, raising fears that Patel is out of the loop on important investigations and threats. A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment about the polygraph tests, but he denied that Kash Patel was walled off from senior staff at the FBI. I want to bring in senior investigative reporter Carol Lennock, who's bylined on that. Mark and Melissa are still here. Carol Lennig, it doesn't sound like someone who's been defamed, does it?
- [21:06]
Carol Lennig
Well, I'm not a lawyer. I just play one on tv. But as a reporter, Nicole, you know, this is a person hunting for leakers pretty actively. And I think you've raised this point before, which is smart one. How do you claim you're defamed but also hunt for people who released information that you believe maybe is sensitive or is somehow protected? You know, as we reported at msnow a couple of. I can't remember if it was two days ago or a day, but it was basically a finding that Patel had ordered this investigation into the leaks or the sources to an Atlantic magazine piece that described how FBI agents were super, super worried about the leadership of the bureau because of Patel allegedly engaging in drinking to excess on a pretty regular basis and having to reschedule meetings in the mornings after these alcohol fueled events. We also then learned because once you report one story, more people want to tell you more about other things that disturb them. We learned that Patel has ordered the polygraph of all of these agents, a very large group who used to travel with him and who travel with him now to try to find out who may be talking to reporters. This is sending a real chill through the FBI. But even more worrisome to them, Nicole, is the way in which Patel has not agreed to meet with lots and lots of other operational leaders in the Bureau. This worries people because there's a regular sort of line of threats and investigations that the bureau director needs to be briefed on and needs some input on. Of course, there are some decision points that he must be involved in and this is worrying them. I agree that we should emphasize that the FBI spokesperson, Ben Williamson said that Kaj is having meetings with senior leaders, but he wasn't extremely Specific about those he's not meeting with.
- [23:20]
Nicole Wallace
I'm going to do something I don't always do. I would like to read the piece. It is new since I've been on the air, but I think it's important for our viewers to hear what you're reporting right now, exclusively. FBI Director Kash Patel has ordered the polygraphing of more than two dozen former and current members of his security detail and other staff has been described as in panic mode to save his job and find leakers among his team. That's according to two people briefed on that development. Patel has walled himself off, as we've been discussing from some senior bureau leaders this week in the wake of multiple media reports that raised red flags about his leadership. That's according to three people familiar with his recent actions. Two of the people told msnow that the director ordered the polygraphing this week of the former and current security detail members, as well as several information technology staff. I want to stop here and just. We don't focus in on this, but this is a hallmark of the Atlantic reporting as well. This is deeply sourced. Every line has a minimum of two, in some instances, three sources. Just talk about that level of corroboration.
- [24:30]
Carol Lennig
It's nice of you to ask, because I think this highlights something you may not intend to highlight. But think about what it must be like to work in the FBI or in law enforcement and as we have described in our reporting, to feel that the Bureau is in danger because of who is directing it. And think about what it must be like to see colleagues and hear colleagues are being polygraphed or maybe even former colleagues or friends, people who've been fired and then still be willing to talk to me and to Ken. So I'm grateful to the sources who continue to share information with us and actually to other reporters as well. I mean, come to us first. But yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty impressive. I think it's just really pretty impressive that people feel this information needs to get out and. And take some risks to do so. The corroboration is important. I thought the Atlantic's corroboration was really impressive as well. A very deeply reported piece of work. I wasn't involved in it, obviously, but they spent a lot of time and energy and confirmed to their solid view of the threshold, they confirmed something that a lot of reporters, including me, had been hearing about for a while and trying to confirm this idea that he had to be rousted in the morning by agents who were concerned that he might be quite ill or worse as a result of alcohol that he had drunk the night before.
- [26:07]
Nicole Wallace
I want to read a little bit more from the reporting. The FBI director demanded the polygraph examinations to determine if any members of the team that accompanies him on all his travels or staff who have access to sensitive details about his decisions have communicated with reporters, according to the people who asked to speak anonymously due to threat of retribution. Now, there is nothing sensitive in his travels. He actually posts a lot on social media. He had cameras in the locker room when he traveled to the Milan Olympics and guzzled beer in front of him. What is it fear that gets them to even carry out an investigation into at least two reporters, allegedly Ms. Fitzpatrick and the New York Times reporter who wrote about his girlfriend.
- [27:00]
Carol Lennig
Yeah. So as we reported in the case of the investigation opened into the Atlantic reporter. Sorry, I lost my voice there for a second. Agents and sources told my colleague Kendallanian in, you know, pretty sympathetic tone that, you know, we're damned if we do, we're damned if we don't. If we don't open this probe. And I'm paraphrasing a little here, if we don't open this probe, we're. The agents are fearful they're going to be fired. In the case of the New York Times reporter Elizabeth Williamson, a former colleague of mine and a great reporter, it appears from the New York Times, very good reporting, that that was a case where agents were asked to investigate and were able to sort of tamp that down by saying the investigation was not warranted. Apparently we've moved past that place in a very few number of weeks. And if you'll grant me the liberty, Nicole, I want to emphasize one other thing about polygraphing. In the course of reporting this story today, I learned something new that I'd never heard before, which was that Cash Patel, the director, engaged in another mass polygraphing event when there was a report that he had requested a gun. And apparently an agent had mentioned this on a call with other agents and that made him sort of subject number one or suspect number one. I actually don't know the name of that agent, but it led to the polygraphing of dozens of agents to try to figure out who had revealed information from this call.
- [28:40]
Nicole Wallace
Let me just ask you too, to do. To explain the normal use of the poly. I mean, a polygraph is a tool that the FBI sometimes uses at an entry point, but it is not. It is not like re. Upping your IT credits. It is not a tool that any agent is subjected to in a leak investigation by their own organization, just speak about how outside the norm, how sort of North Korea adjacent this practice is at the FBI as an ongoing management tool from its leader.
- [29:16]
Carol Lennig
You know, if there were, I want to be sort of sober about this. If there were a leak of classified information at the Justice Department or at the FBI, and I know of cases like this about which I was reporting at the time, there would be great concern about bringing in the circle of people who had access to this information and asking them in an interview, did you communicate with a reporter about this? It would not on first blush be a polygraph. But, you know, there is a presumption inside the government, in the Justice Department and the FBI that no one is going to lie when asked that question. No one. I don't know what the circumstances are today, but I know about cases I wrote about at the time. And there is a view that if you're brought into that room and you've talked to a reporter, you are going to own up to it. A polygraph is exceptionally rare, but really, really rare in the leak of information as you described, that is not classified. That is about what is the director doing, what is the director ordering in the case of an investigation, of looking at the contacts and sources of a reporter engaged in normal. It is not in any way something that's been used when information is just simply unflattering to a senior leader.
- [30:47]
Nicole Wallace
There was a reporting, Carol, about him looking everywhere for a woman's FBI jacket and some that fit him better for the images. And there's the well publicized image of him guzzling beer in Milan. There's the Atlantic reporting about him drinking too much. And there are these accounts of him using the FBI to investigate people around his own personal press profile. How much is too much for Donald Trump?
- [31:24]
Carol Lennig
I hate to do this, but I would rather not answer that question because that is very much the subject of active reporting. We have written in this story that Donald Trump's been incredibly frustrated. Probably the most frustrated when we were reporting about the videos showing Kash Patel drinking, guzzling beer, tossing alcohol in the air after he had told us, or rather his spokesperson told us he was going to Milan for security meetings and a business trip, that his on the record statement to me was that this was a business trip and that hockey was not the purpose of him going to Milan. The President was livid about this and shared some of his frustration with his aides and with Kash Patel directly. But there have been many instances when Trump and senior White House aides have been discussing the bad press that Patel has generated with his stewardship of FBI resources, his use of a government jet, his creation of a security detail for his girlfriend, his decision to travel on a government jet for a date night to see his girlfriend perform the national anthem. All of these things that are reported by Ms. Now and that you can see in the story that I wrote today.
- [32:49]
Nicole Wallace
All right, we're going to keep going through that with you. We're going to bring Mark and Melissa in on this. We have to sneak in a short break to pay some bills before we do all that, but don't go anywhere.
- [32:58]
Carol Lennig
Well, I'll be right back.
- [33:00]
Chris Hayes
Hey, everyone, it's Chris Hayes. I'm here to let you know the very first episode of my special miniseries, why is this Happening? The AI Endgame is out right now. In this series, I talk to a variety of experts each week about AI and what it actually is, what it means for us. To kick things off, I spoke with journalist Derek Thomson. He's been spending the better part of the last year trying to get his arms around the same question I asked. Just how big a deal is this?
- [33:23]
Mark Elias
These guys don't really know exactly what it is they're building. They don't know exactly what's behind the
- [33:30]
Carol Lennig
door that they're planning to open six months from now.
- [33:33]
Chris Hayes
Why is this happening? The AI Endgame, a special miniseries. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts,
- [33:42]
Nicole Wallace
We are all back covering the breaking news. More breaking news from my colleagues Carol Enig and Kendallanian with the headline, kash Patel ordered polygraphs of more than two dozen members of his team. Sources tell Ms. Now, as we've been discussing, this is another deeply sourced piece of reporting. I mean, Mark Elias, what I learned, and it was yesterday that Caroline had the other blockbuster piece of reporting on this story. So she said a clip of about one a day. And lucky for me, the interval is almost exactly 24 hours. But I've learned to listen to what Carolina isn't saying and. And what she isn't saying explicitly is that all the calls are coming from inside the house because the country's in some deep. You know what, Without a competent present FBI director and whatever you think of this person, his focus is not on the security of the country. It is on polygraphing FBI personnel to see who leaked unflattering things about him.
- [34:43]
Mark Elias
Yeah, a couple of things. First of all, let's remember Cash Patel was never qualified to be the FBI director. Like, he was a odd choice from the beginning. He had written a children's book that praised Donald Trump as a king. He was a character in the children's book. He had put out a book with a list of enemies. You know, Cash Patel was mostly known before becoming FBI director as just someone who was sort of one part conspiracy theorist and one part Trump sycophant, and that was his credentials for becoming the FBI director. And since then, he has become an embarrassment to Donald Trump. So this is not someone who could do this job probably even if he had his full attention on it. But as you point out, he doesn't. But I suspect that when you say the calls are coming from inside the house, and I obviously don't know, I don't have any of the sources that you all have, but I suspect that among the calls coming from inside the house are from the White House that just want the distractions gone. And Donald Trump has a pretty low tolerance for distractions when it comes to things that look bad for him. And he doesn't like alcohol particularly much. So, you know, I don't know. But I suspect that Donald Trump is not happy. And Cash Patel's days are probably not long for being FBI director.
- [35:57]
Nicole Wallace
I think it's also, we look for, I will say I grope for mile markers to try to communicate how low we have sunken and the fact that we are together covering the fourth story about the clear instability of the director of the FBI. This isn't some two bit political consultant stuffed away at the rnc. This is the flipping director of the FBI.
- [36:27]
Melissa Murray
If Kash Patel had a uterus, he would have been gone by now.
- [36:32]
Carol Lennig
Full stop.
- [36:32]
Melissa Murray
Full stop.
- [36:33]
Nicole Wallace
But you, you don't think that Pam Bondi could have been like, let, let me see the picture. See if you could like, imagine Pam Bondi, like, pouring beer all over herself in the locker room.
- [36:43]
Melissa Murray
The Dow.
- [36:46]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah. Like, can you imagine, like Pam. Bonnie did that. Yeah, she would have done that.
- [36:50]
Melissa Murray
Even Kristi Noem. I mean, like, I can't believe. Justice for Kristi Noem, just justice for Pambandi. This, he would. This would not have happened.
- [37:00]
Nicole Wallace
Right.
- [37:01]
Melissa Murray
He wouldn't have been allowed this long leash to continue embarrassing himself and embarrassing the office that he holds. One of the things that is so striking, though, is that not only has he diminished the employment prospects of podcasters everywhere going forward, he's not the only one in this administration that seems to be wholly ill equipped for the position that they hold. Right. So for an administration that continually rails about DEI and insists on merit over everything, this is really nasty work. I mean, like, this isn't I mean, like, when I think of merit, this is not what I imagine. And I imagine this isn't what most of the American people imagine. Certainly not for the FBI director. I mean, we are only 25 years away from 9 11, where the FBI and failures of intelligence literally brought us to the point where we had the most serious attack on American soil. What happens now when the head of the FBI is more concerned about what people are saying about him, about his girlfriend and polygraphing people inside the office rather than letting this division do its work?
- [38:14]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah. I mean, Carol Lanigan, in some ways, talking about his personal paranoia about coverage of his personal conduct takes away from the purges that the offices, the very people that protect the homeland and Americans and our allies from the threat of Iran, the reassignment of the most experienced agents to immigration and deportation. I mean, the gutting of the FBI, whether Kash Patel goes today or tomorrow or in another year is his legacy along with his. Kash Patel branded with the S being a dollar sign. I read in the Atlantic on bottles of bourbon. I mean, it's sort of the terrifying to the ludicrous.
- [38:58]
Carol Lennig
Well, the one thing that we have going for us as a country, according to many of the sources I've known for a long time inside law enforcement, is there are still talented, experienced people inside the building trying to hold it together. I mean, they're distressed, they're demoralized. Their ability to speak freely to power is chilled like never before. And you know how dangerous that is in a national security situation if you're not able to tell the director, hey, I don't think this is a good idea, the way you're handling this because of xyz, and I have experience that you don't. That's very scary. But the one thing we have going for us is that expertise is still. That patriotism. That desire to protect the country from a whole host of threats, foreign and domestic, is still there. It is depleted, it is demoralized. But they're still working. And hats off to them.
- [40:04]
Nicole Wallace
Your description of the agents that are there gave me the feels, gave me the chills. I can't imagine how excruciating those jobs are. They're excruciating when everyone's rowing in the same direction to protect the country, when everyone has the same goals. But when you don't feel that you're aligned with your leader on that mission, I can't even imagine. Carolina, thank you. And thank them. Marc, Elias, thank you for starting us off today. We'll have to pick up where we left off, my friend, because there was so much more to say. When we come back, though, we're going to talk about Melissa's beautiful new book. We'll do that after a very short break. More important in this news cycle than any other. We're back with Melissa, who among all of her jobs and accomplishments, is now also the author of the new book the U.S. constitution, a comprehensive and annotated guide to the modern reader. This is beautiful. Give me your why and then I want to read a little bit from it.
- [40:58]
Melissa Murray
So do you remember when Twitter was awesome?
- [41:00]
Nicole Wallace
Yes, I was talking about that yesterday.
- [41:02]
Melissa Murray
Twitter used to be great. And I was in the Twitter streets all the time. And once I was there, there was someone who's on Twitter, very well known, well known to me from my youth, who was going on about what Joe Biden needed to do. And so he had this list of things Joe Biden needed to do. And I was reading the list with great interest and I realized probably half the things Joe Biden couldn't do because the president isn't authorized to do those things, they either belong to Congress or to mayors or whoever. And so I was like, I don't think this person's ever read the Constitution. I think I said this to my husband. He's like, I don't think anybody's really read the Constitution. And it was like, really? And that hadn't occurred to me. But then I asked my students because I make them read the Constitution, unless it's the first time you've read the Constitution. For a lot of them it was in my class. And so it struck me that this is a document that was purposefully written and written to be relatively short because the framers wanted the people to read it, to engage with it, to grapple with it, to debate it. And here we are in this moment where we're always asking, can they do that? Is that constitutional? And yet none of us know because none of us have read the Constitution. So I put the Constitution in here. I didn't write it. James Madison wrote it. He is the father of the Constitution. He'd probably be very surprised to find me as his collaborator and co author. But here we are. But I did these commentaries. So every section of the Constitution, every article starts with what this article does, an origin story to explain why it's there, and then clause by clause explanations. And they're not for law professors, they're not for lawyers. They're for ordinary people who in this break glass moment need to be get re engaged with the document that scaffolds our government and indirectly our lives.
- [42:35]
Nicole Wallace
I mean, I was thinking of the political sort of overlay of all of this as I flipped through it. And increasingly, you've got Republicans making the argument that the Republican president violates the Constitution. Yeah. Just talk about how this thing that used to be so precious to Republicans is now something that Trump basically put in the shredder.
- [42:55]
Melissa Murray
Well, I think you need to understand what the framers are trying to do about the Constitution. So when they sat down to write this, they were going through it. They were literally weighed down by trauma. The trauma of the colonial period where they had literally the British crown and the British Parliament on their necks, and then the trauma of breaking with Britain and trying to fight this war against the greatest global superpower that the world had ever seen while they were operating this government that was held together by Scotch tape and friendship bracelets. I mean, it was just like a horrible experience. And so they had this intuition, we need to have a government that's strong enough, that works, but not so strong that it can become tyrannical. And so this idea of limited government, government that's efficient, but government that's not so efficient that you can just literally blow over all of the people. That's what we want. So they wanted to strike this really delicate balance. And, you know, Republicans used to talk about that all the time. This idea of limited government, smaller government. And I think when they said smaller, they really meant limited, like a government
- [43:56]
Nicole Wallace
with restraints that only did the stuff we like.
- [43:59]
Melissa Murray
Well, or just like that couldn't do everything. I mean, some of this is like dividing power between the three branches of the federal government and then dividing it again between the federal government and the states. And the idea was that if you did that, you would preserve the people. And then they actually gave the people rights with the Bill of Rights. The Reconstruction Amendments renegotiate that, because they recognize that the states, as much as the federal government, can run roughshod over the people. And now they have this whole question of, where are the people here? They started this document with we the people. And I think that's the question on everyone's minds right now, where are we in this government? And I think this is the answer
- [44:37]
Nicole Wallace
you beautifully dedicated to your parents and your kids.
- [44:39]
Melissa Murray
Yes.
- [44:40]
Nicole Wallace
Right. You see, this world is yours, or.
- [44:42]
Melissa Murray
Well, to my parents, because my parents were immigrants. And in a moment where we say a lot of things about immigrants, I want people to be reminded that immigrants contribute a lot to this country, and they believe fervently in the promise of this country. And for my kids, who are the grandchildren of immigrants and the grandchildren of people who would themselves were the grandchildren of enslaved people, this land is their land, too.
- [45:02]
Nicole Wallace
It's beautiful. That's beautiful. Maybe we'll, maybe we'll start a book club. We'll start filming together. This is our summer project, our summer podcast. Let's do It. The book is the US Constitution, a comprehensive and annotated guide for the modern reader. Melissa Murray, thank you for spending the whole hour with us. There's even more breaking news to tell you about, and it's a blow to Donald Trump's signature economic agenda. We'll have that for you after a very short break. Don't go anywhere. All right. We're drinking from a breaking news fire hose today. And there's more. This time on the centerpiece of Donald Trump's economic policy, taxes on global economic imports. In a major victory for small businesses, the Court of International Trade has just ruled that Donald Trump's 10% global tariffs are illegal and has permanently blocked him from implementing them in the way he did. After the Supreme Court struck down Trump's more sweeping tariffs, he turned to Section 122 tariffs that allow the president to impose a tax of up to 15% for 150 days in order to remedy, quote, large and serious balance of payments deficits. The court today, however, found that that section does not authorize Trump to impose these tariffs under current economic conditions. The ruling will go into effect in five days. It also ordered for all tariffs implemented under section 122 to be refunded. One more break.
- [46:23]
Melissa Murray
We'll be right back.
- [46:28]
Nicole Wallace
It was a bit of a wild ride today, so we thank you for coming on it with us.
- [46:33]
Chris Hayes
Artificial intelligence is moving very, very fast, and it's raising new questions just about every day about what it is, what it isn't. When all is said and done, what is the end game? I'm Chris Hayes, and as part of my podcast, why Is this Happening? I'm speaking with leading experts each week to help ground that conversation.
- [46:48]
Melissa Murray
We're right now in a situation where
- [46:50]
Carol Lennig
it's very difficult to understand what is
- [46:52]
Melissa Murray
real and what's not real.
- [46:53]
Chris Hayes
Why is this Happening? The AI Endgame, a special miniseries from Ms. Now. Start listening today. Wherever you get your podcasts.