← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
"Donald Trump facing a giant ego bruise"
00:43:07
Nicolle Wallace on a federal judge ruling that Donald Trump's name must come off the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.
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- [01:09]
Nicole Wallace
Hi there, everyone. We made it to Friday. It's four o'clock in New York. We come on the air with an incredible piece of news. Donald Trump is facing a giant ego. Boo.
- [01:19]
Carol Lennig
Boo.
- [01:19]
Nicole Wallace
A federal judge has ruled that Donald Trump's name must be removed from the Kennedy center in Washington, DC. It is a huge setback for his ridiculous effort to take over the institution by brute force. We don't know yet when the letters will actually be removed, but the crowds are growing bigger and bigger by the half hour there in Washington, D.C. as onlookers cheer the effort underway. In the meantime, we start today with another one of Donald Trump's power grabs, the attempted takeover of our elections. Donald Trump finally has everything he always wanted to to achieve that in the Justice Department loyalists who will not just indulge his conspiracy theories and his attacks on our democracy, but the foot soldiers who are ready to put the machinery of the federal government and the Department of Justice behind Trump's conspiracy theories to amplify them and to validate them. Just have to look at what's happening in California in what would be an incredibly unusual move in normal times. Here's how the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, Bill Asale, cast doubt on that state's primary elections while the votes were still being counted.
- [02:31]
John Heilman
We're doing the work. We're doing the best we can in the circumstances. I expect people will be charged. It will be election fraud charges in the.
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Jamie Raskin
In the next. I hate to put timelines on things, but one to two months, I believe we need, we need the, some of
- [02:47]
John Heilman
these results to be certified so we
- [02:48]
Jamie Raskin
can, you know, prove some of the
- [02:50]
John Heilman
allegations
- [02:53]
Nicole Wallace
people will be charged. How do you know that a crime's happened? There's no evidence of any crime. There's no evidence of any fraud. And New York Times reports this. That promise by Assaili, quote, would most likely have been considered a violation of Justice Department policy under decades of past practice. But it's a, quote, vivid example of the Justice Department's approach to voting. Under the Trump administration. The agency is seeking to assert more control over elections and challenge how states conduct them, a shift that could have significant consequences in the midterm elections this year when control of Congress hangs in the balance. Already in Trump's second term, his DOJ has left no stone unturned when it comes to sowing doubt in the integrity of our elections. They have so far, quote, sought voter roll data from most states, sued those that have declined to comply, opened a criminal investigation into 2020 election results in Fulton County, Georgia, a state Trump narrowly lost last year, and demanded ballots from the 2024 race from Wayne County, Michigan. And brand new reporting from my colleague Carol Lennig reveals the latest installation in their throw everything at the wall. To rig the midterm campaign. FBI agents on Thursday raided the Cleveland offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a pro democracy organization that helps register voters in that state. Three people briefed on the search told msnow. According to one board member of the organization, agents approach people with connections to the group, including some who have performed basic canvassing and volunteer work, and press them for information. Donald Trump's Justice Department willing to undermine the bedrock principle of American democracy is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. Senior investigative reporter Carol Lennig is here. She broke that story on the FBI raid in Ohio. Also joining us, former assistant special agent in charge at the FBI and national security and intelligence analyst Michael Feinberg is back. Also back with us, Puck News senior political columnist national affairs analyst John Heilman is at the table for the hour. Carolining, take us through your extraordinary reporting.
- [05:12]
Carol Lennig
Yeah, so, Nicole, last night we started getting tips that FBI agents had raided this Ohio organization that has a lot of pro democracy initiatives. But one of the most important ones is called the Democracy Builders Initiative that tries to register voters who aren't registered but are legally able to vote. And this does seems like a kind of a patriotic, patriotic goal. But FBI agents raided that office yesterday, according to Our sources and according to a board member of the group who confirmed it for us late in the evening. And those FBI agents also did something really unprecedented, which is that they went without warrants, according to the board member, to interview across the state and show up at the doorsteps of of volunteers, canvassers, people who basically just enlisted their own energies to try to register voters. And they were, by insinuation and by the questioning of the FBI agents, it was implied that they had engaged in some sort of wrongdoing. It was to the board members mind, straight up intimidation tactics and a phishing expedition, quote, unquote. These agents, according to witnesses who we spoke to, did not have warrants to do these interviews, if you can call them that. And it is really a break from everything about the way the Department of Justice and the FBI conducts investigations into the possibility of election fraud or any wrongdoing in election registration.
- [06:49]
Nicole Wallace
Let me read from the part of the story that has these incredible quotes from witnesses. You reported this from the board member at Ohio Organizing Collaborative who told Ms. Now Thursday night, quote, they had agents all across the state going to civil rights leaders and community leaders doors, intimidating them, coming and demanding that they talk about literally anything they would ask, adding that agents, quote, ask them if they're committing voter fraud just on their doors in front of their houses with their children and just following them to work or school. Some of the people said the agents approached without warrants, according to the board member Haney. Just straight up intimidation tactics. Carol, is that. Is that legal?
- [07:43]
Carol Lennig
I don't know that an FBI agent could be charged with a crime based on the description that we receive from sources. But the Office of Professional Responsibility and Internal Ethics investigators would have looked at this with real curiosity. I can't imagine that individuals who were engaged in this in a previous administration wouldn't have been referred for an internal investigation of the way they handled this. Very similarly, I mean to the California example that you were describing earlier, Nicole. Those would have been the subject and were the subject of the Office of Professional Responsibility at the Department of Justice investigating prosecutors who said things in the way that Bill Asale did.
- [08:30]
Nicole Wallace
I can't believe I'm going to do this, but I want to illustrate how much worse things are than under the people for whom I would never throw celebratory parades the first term. Jeff Sessions, Bill Barr and I think there were a couple people in the middle. One of them might have been named Whitaker. This is Bill Barr calling claims of election fraud bullshit.
- [08:57]
Michael Feinberg
I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the President was bull and, you know, I didn't want to be a part of it. And that's one of the reasons that went into me deciding to leave. When I did, I observed, I think it was on December 1st that, you know, how can we. You can't live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, unsupported by specific evidence that the election, that there was fraud in the election.
- [09:32]
Nicole Wallace
Michael Feinberg, I appreciate in a way I didn't during the first term that people are inside the Justice Department for a variety of reasons. You made a choice to leave. I think that is principled and moral. I admire it, I applaud it. But I think that today is an inflection point for people who've made a different decision. They have to understand that they are now part of something that Bill Barr, quote, didn't want to be a part of was the reason he decided to leave when he observed, I think it was on December 1st. How you can't live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, unsupported by specific evidence. We know what they're doing because it's the same thing they did last time. And now every FBI agent that participated in, if not illegal questioning, certainly extraordinarily unethical questioning of civil rights leaders, the US Attorneys who think they're going to charge these cases, as the U.S. attorney in California said on television, he's, quote, preparing charges for crimes that haven't been identified or investigated. That's what they're a part of. That is the project of this Justice Department and everybody that is in it.
- [10:44]
Michael Feinberg
Yeah, it's incredibly difficult to descend from that conclusion, which for me personally is just a little heartbreaking, to be honest, because I really assumed that the line level workforce would realize that activities like this are incompatible with their oath of office. Now, I want to be clear. There is nothing illegal about the FBI going to somebody's house to interview them. They do not need a search warrant for that. They do not need any sort of warrant to go have a conversation. And I would hope at the same time, every American citizen, regardless of their political background or leanings, knows you don't have to talk to the FBI when they show up at your door, you can ask them to leave your property. You are under no obligation to answer their questions. And I can't believe we live in an upside down world where somebody with my background is now explaining how to thwart the FBI's efforts, in a sense. But what we're seeing here can't just be taken in isolation as something that happened in Ohio. It has to be compared with and taken as a whole with what happened in Wayne County, Michigan, with what happened in Fulton County, Georgia, with the statements coming out of the central district of California. California. And yes, with the attempt to overturn the election. We saw it in 2020 and 2021 that culminated in the events of January 6th. If I'm an FBI agent and I'm reading the papers and I'm seeing this pattern, I would not be comfortable taking part in any of these operations without some pretty clear guidelines and predication and a theory that was not based on lunatic conspiracies.
- [12:51]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah, I mean, I'm not even comfortable calling them vote fraud investigations. They're not investigations into fraud because as Bill Barr said, he was all too happy to do those. And the findings that there was any is something he's described over and over again as bullshit. So if Bill Barr couldn't find the fraud, you know, there wasn't any. And I think where they found some people on the rolls, they were people that cast votes for Donald Trump. So it's actually not about finding fraud that even they know doesn't exist. It's about intimidating people who would otherwise legally vote.
- [13:30]
John Heilman
That's right. And to Michael's point, when I was listening to the descriptions of this, it is the case he knows more than I do about this. But it's the case that the FBI agent doesn't need a warrant to go and ask somebody questions at their doorstep. That's normal investigations. The problem is that at least in the before times, or on earth one, whatever we want to call it, the notion of the FBI going to somebody's door was premised on good faith that they were, that they were going to someone's door because they were doing an investigation of a potential crime, that people had good faith reasons to think there was potentially a crime there and they were going to ask questions to find out whether a crime had been committed and who might have committed that crime, et cetera, et cetera. In this case, this is a non crime. That is not a non crime because we who don't love Donald Trump think it's a non crime. It's because it's not just Bill Barr. The thing has been investigated ad nauseam, ad infinitum, a lot of people by Republicans and not just by Bill Barr, by, you know, we had countless litigations on this we had courts who heard evidence on this. We've had. And as we know, the administration, when it tried to pursue these claims was shut down, shut out at the legal level in every possible case. So there's no good faith here. That's the point. This question has been asked, it's been investigated and it's been answered. There was no fraud of any appreciable, significant kind in the 2020 presidential election. So all of this is a bad faith effort. It's not an investigation, it's something else. And we are, I think, quite reasonably, we're quite reasonable in our assumption that what it is is an effort to intimidate people. And this is where another point that Michael made. I don't think most Americans at all know that they can tell an FBI agent to get off their lawn. I don't think most of them know that at all. I think they have no idea what their rights are. When someone with an FBI credential shows up and says, Ms. Wallace, I'd like to speak to you about the following thing. I think a lot of people are just what is going on here? And they're worried because they don't know what their rights are and they don't know what their prerogatives are and they don't know what they can say and what they can't say. They feel like if I don't answer this FBI agent's question, I'm going to be in trouble. But I don't also, I'm not sure whether this person has the right to be here. I don't know what they're really investigating. I know how legitimate it is. Is there new evidence? What's going on here?
- [15:57]
Nicole Wallace
Right.
- [15:58]
John Heilman
That is what the intimidation is. That's the point, right? Intimidation in this case, I think is not necessarily to make people kind of worried about. There's different kinds of intimidation, right? And there's some which, like I'm, I'm afraid that the following thing is going to happen to me. There's another form of investigation which is I am just kind of ambiently afraid, confused, distressed.
- [16:24]
Nicole Wallace
It's an extension of the attacks on election workers. It's the other half of the election infrastructure registering people who are young or people who are newly able to vote. That is the other half of attacking the election workers who make the actual elections function.
- [16:39]
John Heilman
Inject uncertainty, right? And fear and a sense of panic and just general freaked out ness right into the atmosphere and do it in a bunch of places and see what that yields and, and, and whether that can be then once you have that atmosphere out there, can you then turn that to your political purposes, your political objectives in the thing? And then we're the important background here. And I'm not Mark Elias either. But, you know, the important background here is the president, you know, has said on a bunch of occasions that he wants to federalize our elections, federalize elections that the Constitution of the United States says are to be left to the states. And there are a lot of ways you can try to go about that. But one of the ways you can try to go about that, which is not really federalization, but it's federalization through intimidation. And we're starting to see the this is the first taking Donald Trump's kind of almost often incoherent inchoate ramblings and rantings about this where he can't even finish a complete sentence in a way that you can parse it. But he's now the bat signal's gone out. And now we're starting to see that operationalized and starting to see the first signs of what the tactics are going to look like to try to achieve the president's strategy.
- [17:51]
Nicole Wallace
All right. No one's going anywhere. There's more news on this front when we come back. Donald Trump, Todd Blanche and the Justice Department are not to be trusted, according to a federal judge today who's giving the Trump administration one week to put in writing that the 1.8 billion billion dollar slush fund for Capitol insurrectionists is actually dead debt. Plus Trump's latest attempt to whitewash history and make himself look better. Congressman Jamie Raskin will be our guest on why Trump's pathetic move on that front won't work and grasping at straws. Those are the words to a judge slamming Trump's desperate 11th hour bid to keep his name where it does not belong atop the Kennedy center for the Performing Arts. We'll have all those stories and much more on Deadland. White House continues after quick break. Don't go anywhere.
- [18:54]
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- [19:29]
Carol Lennig
and more voices joined.
- [19:30]
Nicole Wallace
You know and trust.
- [19:32]
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- [19:34]
Nicole Wallace
opinion and the world.
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Learn more @ms. Now.
- [19:40]
Nicole Wallace
Mr. Attorney General, I want to thank you for verbally committing to not moving forward with the so called anti weaponization fund. I just want to make sure. Are you going to issue a new memo in writing rescinding that May 18 memo?
- [19:56]
Michael Feinberg
I'm not committing to putting anything in writing. I'm going to set it over again. I mean, I don't know what the purpose of putting something in writing. I'm telling you what we're doing. Meaning, like what's the, why do I need to put something in writing if I'm telling you what we're doing?
- [20:11]
Nicole Wallace
Comments like that from Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Donald Trump's public musings about keeping his politically toxic $1.8 billion slush fund alive because it's beautiful. Led to or at least preceded a federal judge today issuing an injunction blocking the fund indefinitely. New York Times reports this, that the judge said her ruling was necessary because, quote, we just don't have the absolute certainty that this fund won't rear its head in another form and that she would only dismiss the case if, quote, the Justice Department sent her a declaration filed under penalty of perjury that the fund was dead once and for all. She told Andrew Block, a department lawyer who appeared in court for the government, that the declaration needed to be signed by Mr. Blanche and Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary. We're back with Carol, Michael and John. I don't play chess, but what's that thing where you're like, stuck? Carol, what are they going to do?
- [21:10]
Carol Lennig
I don't know. But I mean, when you compare acting attorney general's question to a congresswoman, I don't understand. Why do I have to put this in writing? Not normally a DOJ reaction. They love to put things in writing. They love for you to put it in writing and they love to put it in writing. Right. So the answer, he got it from Judge Brinkama, a very seasoned judge in the Eastern District of Virginia today. She doesn't trust him. She doesn't trust him or the Secretary of Treasury, Scott Besant. She doesn't. She also wants a declaration by next Friday from the Associate Attorney General, Stanley Woodward. And she basically said, I'm going to make sure that we don't stop this litigation in case the fund is resurrected by Donald Trump. She didn't use his name, but that's certainly the concern here. And honestly, as a journalist watching Todd Blanche's previous actions, he has had some whiplash in recent times. For example, I know from our reporting here at Ms. Now that he was not aware that this fund was going to be created. He did not, when he learned about it, think it was such a great idea. And yet he was trotted out onto television to tell everybody it was an awesome idea. And now obviously, he feels differently in the wake of the Senate saying Senate Republicans basically declaring over our dead bodies, will you compensate people who beat up cops? Their words might have been a little choicer than mine here on television, but Judge Brinkoma is not playing and she sees that the Department of Justice does need to put things in writing.
- [22:55]
Nicole Wallace
I mean, I think, Michael Feinberg, that there are different lines of sort of closed loop communications because a convicted child molester knew that the fund would be created. Maybe not in the settlement, maybe not in this vehicle, but he told his child sexual molestation victim to stay quiet about the sexual molestation for which he was charged and is now serving time because he was going to get money from Donald Trump as some sort of compensation fund. So there's the official acts of the acting Attorney general, who was very publicly campaigning to be the permanent attorney general, so had to do exactly as Carol said, go on TV and say everything is awesome like the Lego Movie. But there's also either an explicit or implicit line of communication to convicted criminals that they will be paid.
- [23:50]
Michael Feinberg
Yeah, I think there's two points that we should really focus in on. The first is I think we're committing a category error when we refer to Todd Blanche as either the Deputy Attorney General or the acting Attorney General. He's Donald Trump's personal lawyer. He just happens to have an office at the RFK building on Pennsylvania Avenue instead of an office in a high rise on K Street. There has been nothing in the way he has comported himself over the past 18 months that indicates he feels his duty is fundamentally the Constitution and the people of the United States. The second point is I just want to spin off and hammer home something Carol just said. A lot of senators have spoken up against the slush fund, but it would have been really nice had they spoken up before Donald Trump pardoned all these individuals. It would have been really nice if they spoke up during the January 6 committee's investigation. It would have been really nice if they offered rhetorical support to Jack Smith's investigation about the same thing. It would have been nice if, in the wake of a riot, most of them decided to certify the legitimate results of the election. But every single time they have had the opportunity to show integrity. In the aftermath of January 6th, a lot of them have decided not to. So it's a little rich that they found their spine now, and I guess it's better late than never. But perhaps their oath of office is something they might consider thinking about all the time instead of just when the prevailing winds indicate it would be a good thing to publicly support.
- [25:40]
Nicole Wallace
I mean, Heilman, I have an even more cynical view. I don't even think they found their spines. I think Trump's approval on the economy is 22% and he's too politically toxic to ride along with the money for Insurrectionist Plan.
- [25:51]
John Heilman
Yeah, and also, I mean, Michael has not spent very much time in the United States Senate if he thinks the people in the Senate are gonna suddenly start read thinking about their oath every, every day, especially in the Republican Senate,
- [26:03]
Nicole Wallace
at least just on the day of the riot.
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John Heilman
Well, on the Republican Senate under Donald Trump's control, I can think of way more days when they've forgotten their oaths than days when they've remembered their oaths. I sincerely to be wished that that will change in the future. But right now I don't have that prediction because it goes to your point, which is when they do the right thing, it's not because they suddenly remember their oath when they do the right thing, it's because the politics have lined up in a way that makes them, that gives them another choice. And the realities here are that, that Donald Trump's, that you mentioned his standing on the economy, but this particular proposal is also. Is it polls? Terribly. And on top of that, you have some Republican senators now who've created this kind of YOLO middle finger to Donald Trump caucus, who are just not having it anymore. Right. Which we're going to talk about Cornyn later. But you know, between John corn and Mitch McConnell, who's leaving, Thom Tillis, who, who has gone full, has gone full jihad against Trump and, and, and Senator Cassidy, you Republicans, who even beyond paper statements and what they could say, express disapproval, who can actually make votes, and they are, are showing themselves increasingly willing to do that. It's still way too few. But again, none of this is about, about suddenly realizing that their oath of office compels them to do the right thing. All this is about saving their skin or having realized that they no longer have any skin in the game and so they can finally do what's right. Or what. Or stick it to Donald Trump, either one. Whatever the circumstances are, it's a good thing that this, that this slush fund seems to be stopped. And I will answer your question, which is in chess, they call the thing that happens when the king, when the king can no longer move anywhere without being captured, that's called checkmate.
- [27:40]
Nicole Wallace
Checkmate. I thought so. I just didn't want to get it. I didn't want to have all the chess people yell at me if I got.
- [27:44]
John Heilman
No, the judge. And the judge, apparently. Judge, who is very much aware of all the moves of the Trump administration. That's very clear. She's like, I've read up on your guys. Tactics.
- [27:53]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah.
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John Heilman
Here.
- [27:54]
Nicole Wallace
Checkmate. But I think the chess people still attack me for saying that the Trump people play chess. They play like whack a mole or like the axe throwing thing. Like, I don't think they play an elegant game like chess. Sure.
- [28:03]
John Heilman
But the judges play chess.
- [28:05]
Nicole Wallace
The judges play chess and had the checkmate. Right, okay. All right. All right. Chess people. Don't yell at me. I tried. Carol Lennig, thank you for your incredible reporting. Michael Feinberg, thank you so much for helping us make sense of it. Halman sticks around. When we come back, Donald Trump has already been impeached twice, and Democrats in Congress believe she'd be impeached again. We'll tell you about Trump's latest scheme to pretend that none of those impeachments ever happened. We'll be right back. Today, in Donald Trump's desperate and ongoing effort to whitewash his own story and our country's history, burnish his very tarnished image, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Trump and his allies have discussed pushing lawmakers to pass a resolution aimed at voiding his first term impeachment. So that's according to people familiar with the matter. While pretending to undo Trump's record as the only American president to be impeached twice by bipartisan groups of members might serve Trump's ego by way of abusing the federal government. It would carry no legal significance. There's zero precedent or procedure in the Constitution for undoing a past impeachment. As the Wall Street Journal reports, quote, any move to attempt to erase the two impeachments in 2019 and 2021 would open up a debate about Trump's past behavior in office, forcing Republican lawmakers to relitigate charges of abuse of power, obstruction of Congress, and inciting an insurrection. While overnight, Trump called for the expulsion of Congressman Jamie Raskin, lashing out at one of his biggest perceived political en. Thorns in his side over what will almost certainly be Trump's third impeachment next year. Should Democrats take control of the House, I want to bring in that thorn, Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland. He's a ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. I wonder what you make of Trump's obsession with the two impeachments.
- [30:16]
Jamie Raskin
Well, he's certainly having some nightmare flashbacks this week to it. Of course, the easy way to avoid impeachment is to stop engaging in impeachable offenses, stop committing high crimes and misdemeanors. Then you've got nothing to worry about. But look, that has been the organizing theme of his presidency. Outside of money making and profiteering on the backs of the American people. He wants to somehow insinuate into the national consciousness that he won the 2020 presidential election, which he lost by more than 7 million votes to Joe Biden on a vote of 306 to 232. And then therefore, that somehow justified a mass mob violent assault on our police officers on the Capitol, storming of the Capitol, chanting hang Mike Pence, driving us out of the proceeding to constitute the peaceful transfer of power. He's obsessed with it because he knows he's wrong. I mean, there's some deformed core of conscience in there that makes him return to the scene of the crime the way that the criminals always do. So there are, of course, as you say, Nicole, no provision in the Constitution for expunging an impeachment. But if they want to have a resolution saying they disagree with that vote of 232 to 197 that we had, including 10 Republicans who joined all the Democrats, they should go ahead and have a resolution and say they think that Donald Trump won the election. They think that that violent insurrection was justified. They wanted the inside political coup to transpire. And then let's get them all on record and like, enough is enough. But remember, 60 federal and state court judgments ruled against Donald Trump uniformly that there was no electoral fraud and there was no electoral corruption. So all of this is a fantasy on his part. And the question is how deeply this rot has sunk into the consciousness of his MAGA cult members, that they're actually willing to follow him off of the ledge like that.
- [32:25]
Nicole Wallace
Do you think it speaks to any premeditation of what he plans to do in November?
- [32:33]
Jamie Raskin
Well, you know, we have to be on our guard. He continues to try to attack voting rights, attack voting rights organizations like the pro democracy organization in Ohio whose office just got raided. They continue to pass different disenfranchisement and voter suppression laws all over the country. And so, you know, rather than have people remember that he tried to steal that election with things that the January 6th select committee found, like for example, him calling up the Secretary of state of Georgia, Mr. Raffensperger, in saying just fine me 11,780 votes, that's all I want. Instead, people are thinking somehow he was cheated out of, you know, a fantastical majority in his head. But look, they've not laid a finger on a single finding of the January 6th select committee. And there is not one iota of evidence that Donald Trump won that election. He lost that election soundly to Joe Biden. And that was an insurrection, which is why, you know, his desired attorney General is out there trying to withdraw and vacate the charges against Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who were sentenced to jail for decades for engaging in seditious conspiracy, which means a conspiracy to overthrow and put down the government of the United States. But meantime, not only have they pardoned them, they want to make each one of them into a mega millionaire. And you know, we've heard from Enrique Tarrio, the head of the Proud Boys. Well, he doesn't need the anti weaponization fund which has now been blocked by two different federal judges in which the whole country is denouncing. He said he doesn't need that cuz he'll get millions of dollars directly from the judgment fund which was set up long ago, decades ago by Congress to pay for verdicts against the United States. Not a single one of these insurrectionists has won any litigation against the government for false or malicious prosecution. It's all a complete charade and a put on.
- [34:41]
Nicole Wallace
You know, part of the night of testimony that you led for the January 6 select committee was sort of about the relationship between the extremists themselves and Trump's inner circle. And when you, when you talk about what Enrique Tarrio has said publicly about knowing the money will come to him one way or another, what Donald Trump has said about the fund being, quote, beautiful and what the convicted child molester that NPR reported on telling his child sexual molestation victim to be quiet. When I get my money from the compensation fund, I'll give you some of it if you keep quiet about my crimes. I mean, what if Democrats regain control? What part of the money would you want to investigate and how would you do that?
- [35:25]
Jamie Raskin
Well, let's start with that point you just made. There are 97 pardoned, violent and other criminals who were convicted of Crimes on January 6th who've gone on to Reoffend. Ever since Donald Trump granted them their commutation and their pardon. One of them, Andrew Paul Johnson, sexually assaulted a 12 year old boy and a 12 year old girl. And as you say, the months before the public knew anything formal about this was saying, we all are going to get paid off and I'll share my money with you if you don't turn me into the police. That guy is now doing a life sentence for the crimes he committed against those kids whose lives have now been irrevocably altered by virtue of Donald Trump's decision to pardon them and commute their sentences. So we would like to look at what the effect of that mass pardon was. Remember, up until Donald Trump, all the other presidents had looked at them case by case, whether somebody had actually expressed remorse and contrition, whether they constituted a safety risk to the public in letting them out, whether they paid back their fines and whether they'd paid back the money owed to their victims. Donald Trump just wiped the slate clean. He has wiped the slate clean for more than a billion dollars of restitution and fines that were owed through all of the pardons he's offered because a lot of them are also to white collar criminals, fraudsters, convicted fraudsters like himself who still owed lots of money to their victims. So we're going to get into all of that. People need to see what the corruption has been and then what we can do to try to turn it around at the same time that we're focusing on the nation that's been victimized by this corruption, as the president has done nothing to get health care to the people, but rather thrown millions of people off of their health care, done nothing to bring down inflation, but rather driven up the price of gasoline to $4.40 or $4.50 a gallon in a lot of places. So we need that forward policy agenda. At the same time, we need to expose all of the corruption that has been crippling our economy.
- [37:28]
Nicole Wallace
Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you so much for your time today. So much work ahead. We appreciate you. Heilman. Just quickly, on the congressman's point about pardons, like, if you wanted to take just a narrow slice of the bad behavior and a single pool of the bad guys Trump's associated with, you could do what the congressman just said. You could take all the pardoned insurrectionists and really shine a light on the recidivism, the depravity of their crimes. I mean, they talked about one of the Trump insurrectionists, went on to molest two children, is now Serving a life sentence and the money, like how did they know before Todd Blanche did that they were going to get paid for their crimes?
- [38:06]
John Heilman
Yeah, I think that one of the things, I mean, look, this is always a challenge for. Think about this in the political context. Shining a light from the, from in terms of like doing ads or whatever. I think that for a lot of Democrats, the sins that Donald Trump is directly, you're sitting there, you're kind of trying to decide. You have Donald Trump who promised throughout an entire campaign that he was going to lower prices for people and now and care about the economy. And now you have him on tape saying I don't think about people's financial well being, I don't care. And I love the inflation. Right. That's an ad that I think will test quite strongly when it gets put together then ad that focus that shines a light on some of these insurrectionists. It's not that you and I can't make the case for why that reflects badly on Donald Trump. You can, but it's not as direct. Right. These are bad guys. People don't approve of the insurrectionists broadly in the country. But it's a two part argument. Well, here are these people, we're shining a light on these people. And also Donald Trump who's probably not in photographs with any of who he's not praised specifically. It's just a little bit more of a reach when you have this low hanging fruit. We're on the most important issue that people care about. You have so much devastating damaging data and video. I think a lot of people are going to choose to go with that first with the economic argument rather than this other argument. Although I think obviously this argument on the merits, the argument about the insurrectionist is incredibly powerful and damning, but maybe not quite as ad friendly as some of the others that we just when
- [39:35]
Nicole Wallace
you think about how far from anything politically normal we are. Trump pardoned someone who went on to molest two children. I mean, stop the country and it's trash.
- [39:46]
John Heilman
Trump pardoned people who beat police officers with flag poles. Yeah, I mean the recidivism makes it all the more outrageous, galling, morally indefensible. But the initial pardon was indefensible. I mean, and you think about what some. So what the worst. If you shone a light on the worst behavior of the insurrectionists on that day, you don't need to get. The recidivism makes it, you know, compounds the problem. But the initial crime of the pardon, which is to say moral crime of it, it's one of the it continues to this day to be of the things in Trump 2.0 from the moment it happened until today that I find most outrageous and morally disturbing, galling. The thing that makes me angriest is thinking about those pardons. And it was like that when he first issued them. And it still is today.
- [40:34]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah. All right. We're going to sneak in one more break after that. The Trump administration's last ditch effort to keep Trump's name on the Kennedy center is in front of a judge right now. The work to take those letters down has been paused. I'll show it to you and we'll talk about it next.
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Nicole Wallace
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Michael Feinberg
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- [42:03]
Nicole Wallace
As you may know, since we've been on the air, we have been watching an image of scaffolding set up outside the Kennedy center in Washington, D.C. that is because there is a court ordered deadline now for removing Donald Trump's name. A US District judge ruled that Trump's name was slapped onto that building illegally, right above President John F. Kennedy's name. In typical 11th hour public displays of frantic desperation, Donald Trump and his lawyers and lawyers for the Kennedy center, backed by board members handpicked by Trump himself, have requested a stay in the ruling. Judge Cooper denied their request this afternoon. John's still here. Like if you had to think of, like the quintessential Trump story. For us to be sitting here on a Friday watching it's will he or won't he be publicly humiliated by having to pry the D, the O, the N, all the letters of his name off of the building that he illegally put them on? It's like graffiti. But he's president.
- [43:03]
John Heilman
Yes. And it's also makes for a wonderful dyad with our previous story where Trump basically in the previous story we're block, we're talking about can Trump go and basically take the federal record and get some white, get some white out and like but then maybe some gold out in his case. Right. And you know that and that he wants to basically expunge that stuff for the federal record and take you know, wait that and while meanwhile in real life what's getting expunged with the whiteout and the crowbars is his name on the side of that building?
- [43:31]
Nicole Wallace
What do you think this is doing to him?
- [43:35]
John Heilman
Not something that's not good. I don't think he's having a super chipper Friday afternoon.
- [43:41]
Nicole Wallace
I'm just afraid where he's he's gonna take the letters off this building and stick them somewhere else.
- [43:45]
John Heilman
And I just look out for true social tonight. This could be one of those nights, set an alarm, wake up about two in the morning and see what's going on. In truth, social there could be quite
- [43:53]
Nicole Wallace
an expensive I wait till the morning and then read the DailyVee summary of the overnight rantings. Hellman, thank you for spending so much time with us this week at the table. It's a pleasure.
- [44:01]
John Heilman
Namaste.
- [44:02]
Nicole Wallace
Thank you my friend. When we come back, the Justice Department paving the way for the MAGA friendly media giant Paramount to get even bigger. We'll tell you about it. There's some breaking news to tell you about. The Trump Justice Department has cleared the way for media giant Paramount, owned by pro Trump billionaire David Ellison, to acquire another media conglomerate, Warner Bros. Discovery Politico, citing two sources familiar with the News reports that DOJ's antitrust division has approved the merger which would combine CNN, CBS and HBO under one umbrella among many others. It could also mean that MAGA friendly CBS News boss Bari Weiss would take over editorial control of cnn. As Axios reported earlier this week, David Ellison has been engaged in a months long campaign to court Donald Trump and his administration in order to get the deal through. The New York Times reported that in April, Ellison held a lavish dinner for Donald Trump and his administration officials, including acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who of course oversees the DOJ antitrust division that approved the merger. But it isn't just quite over yet. California's attorney general says he has been investigating this merger and could sue to block the deal. We'll keep you updated on that story. Coming up for us, how Donald Trump is trying to use the postal service to wage a war on mail in voting and potentially sow chaos in the midterm elections. We'll bring you that story after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
- [45:53]
John Heilman
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