← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
“How much will the MAGA coalition tolerate?”
00:43:11
Alicia Menendez is in for Nicolle Wallace. Alicia covers the infighting within the MAGA Republicans over the war in Iran, with members like Sen. Lindsey Graham cheering the war on while other members like Rep. Anna Paulina Luna criticizing the Trump administration and Graham for “acting as if [our troops] are expendable cattle.”
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C
I trust DOD we got two Marine Expeditionary units sailing to this island. We did. Iwo Jima. We can do this. The Marines. My money is always on the Marines. I don't know if you take the island or you blockade the island, but I know this. The day we control that island, this regime, this terrorist regime has been weakened. It will die in a vine.
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D
Hi again Everybody. It is five o' clock now. In Washington, D.C. i'm Alicia Menendez in today for Nicole Wallace. For the sake of a purely political conversation, think of it kind of like a stress test, an unprecedented experiment into just how much the MAGA coalition will tolerate before whatever binds it together weakens or perhaps breaks altogether. Because what is going on in Iran right now, a war initiated by someone who promised he would keep us out of them, is increasingly exposing some pretty serious cracks. Donald Trump's political allies. We showed you some of that interview with Senator Lindsey Graham last hour, but consider now the backlash the American people observed as a result of those comments invoking Iwo Jima, an operation that resulted in the deaths of nearly 7,000American troops. To advocate for a similar strategy in Iran, Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, a card carrying member of Trump's MAGA coalition, said she was deeply upset at the lack of respect for life, suggesting Senator Graham was, quote, acting as if our troops are expendable cattle. Her Republican colleague, Congresswoman Nancy Mace, seemed to agree, insisting Graham, quote, has one foreign policy send someone else's kid to war. Those weren't the only such responses either. Indeed, the America first corner of Donald Trump's support, even those who granted Trump latitude in the dawn days of this Iran conflict are starting to reckon with the possibility that Trump might follow the advice of another corner of support, one advocating for boots on the ground and billions upon billions of dollars in war funding. Remember Joe Kent, the now former director of the National Counterterrorism center under Donald Trump resigned from that position in protest over the war. Well, in an interview with the Washington Post, Kent described why he's been so public with multiple outlets invoicing opposition from the Post. Quote, it's a concerted effort, Kent said, to rally members of the president's Make America Great Again movement and ensure he hears dissenting voices on an issue that has divided Republicans. While some Trump supporters are inclined to use military might to influence global affairs, others like Kent, say they chose to support him in part because he voiced scorn for America's earlier wars. A widening rift inside Donald Trump's political coalition is where we begin this hour. Political analyst former Senator Claire McCaskill is here. Also with us, political analyst and host of the Bulwark podcast, Tim Miller is here for the hour. Plus, retired U.S. marine Corps Lt. Col. Amy McGrath. She is a candidate for the open Senate seat in Kentucky. It is good to see you all. Amy, I want to read just a little bit to you from the Washington Post on Joe Kent. They say Kent declined to disclose what the administration may be planning, but said Trump appears to have some really key decisions to make in the next couple of weeks. The potential deployment of US Ground troops makes me very nervous, he added, citing recent reporting that the president is considered seizing Kharg Island, Iran's main hub for oil exports. I just think that would be a disaster, kent said of deploying U.S. troops there. It would essentially be giving Iran a bunch of hostages on an island that they could barrage with drones and missiles. Amy, your thoughts?
- [04:40]
E
Sure. I mean, look, Carg island is not the golden key for unlocking the Strait of Hormuz. You can't control the island without boots on the ground. Bombing it from above does not mean you control the dirt there. And so they know that you would have to seize it. And you have a problem of logistics. I mean, when Lindsey Graham's talking about, well, I trust the Marines, we're bringing 5,000 Marines in there and it'll just be like Iwo Jima. I mean, that is crazy. In Iwo Jima, as you mentioned, we lost 7,000 marines. This is ridiculous. Marine expeditionary units hold about 2,500 marines and they can hold land for, you know, 10 to 15 days. But then they become targets for drone cruise ballistic missile attacks. Then the ship would have to go through the Strait of Hormuz, which is still closed. We don't have any element of surprise right now. So they know we're coming. That is also a factor. So you know, this is not going to be easy. And ultimately it comes down to the fact that this is a war. Yes. It's a war that the President chose to start that the American people don't want. And how he's going to achieve the political objectives, nobody knows.
- [06:02]
D
Nobody knows. Claire, you have new CBS YouGov polling. And I just want to say, to echo the point that Amy made there, the American public sees this as a war of choice. 60% say it is a war of choice. 60% disapprove of the war. That is an up from earlier this month. 57% say it is going badly. If you are Democrats and you see those numbers, what do you do with them?
- [06:26]
B
Well, obviously, I think especially when you start putting it in context in terms of how much money we're spending, he's asked for $200 billion and that's not counting what we would be spending if we actually started putting boots on the ground either in Carg island or in Iran itself. So when Democrats start comparing, for example, this is the kind of money that would restore everyone's cuts to Obamacare. This is the kind of money that would be helpful to people that are trying to figure out how to buy a home for the first time. This would be really helpful to students who are now facing really difficult decisions as they have to repay lots of student loans. So this is a lot of money to be spending. And I think it all ties up with the economic case that Democrats are going to make. You're not better off than you were before Donald Trump was elected. You can't afford to fill up your gas tank. You can't afford to go to the grocery store. You can't afford to get the health care you need. It all ties back to affordability. And if Democrats are smart, they will tie it up in that package because I think that's the one that voters are going to respond to most.
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D
Oh, it's what we already hear. To your point, Claire, voters responding to. Tim, you had Trump's UN Ambassador Mike Walz presented with those polling numbers. Tim. Here is how he responded.
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A
I could quote a whole slew of polls that show, for example, self described MAGA Republicans give the president a 100% approval rating. A majority say the number one job of the Commander in Chief is to keep Americans safe. I can point here to an NBC poll, 90% of Republicans, broader Republicans, support Trump's effort to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities. And I have to point out no one should be surprised here. President Trump has said Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. 2016 campaign, 2020 campaign. Since 2024, he's said it 74 times out in the public space.
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D
But if he's going to commit any kind of ground troops or boots on the ground, don't you think he needs to persuade the majority of American people, not just his base?
- [08:42]
A
I think the president will keep all options on the table to secure these objectives.
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D
All right, Tim, two things I want to pull apart there. One, the polling. I mean, you're not the president of maga. You're the president of the United States. It should be relevant to you how the American populace feels about the fact that you have taken us to war. And then this idea that no one should be surprised that a president who ran as though he was going to be America first, that he wasn't going to get involved in anyone else's business, is suddenly well, involved in other people's business. The fact that there are 50,000 U.S. troops already stationed in the region. Tim, the answer is nonsensical.
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F
It is. And I think that's why Mike Waltz, who had already been fired from one job, was out there delivering it and not the vice president, who has been very happy to go and defend Trump up until today or up until this war or Marco Rubio even, who started to fade a little bit more into the background. I don't think they want to have to be out there spinning nonsense and spinning when you know that the president might pull the rug out from under you at any minute of what you say. And it was on was just 48 hours ago that he was going to obliterate all of Iran and obliterate their nuclear program or, excuse me, and obliterate their power plants and their energy infrastructure. And then now they have five days to figure it out. He's all over the place. He's changed his messaging minute by minute. So put some guy like Mike Waltz there in a very challenging situation. And he didn't handle it very well. The polling, look, I think it's better than it's going to get. It usually takes a little while for things to seep into the polling. People that have seen gas prices go up, for example, for one week, if they're MAGA and is maybe a little annoying at the pump for one week, you get called and you're still kind of wearing your team Jersey and saying you're supportive of the President a month later, two months later, when you're really feeling a crunch on your family budget over this, when Trump hasn't explained what the objectives are, when he hasn't really explained what a win would be. I mean, when we started this, we were gonna get complete surrender from Iran and the regime was gonna be toppled. And now they talk about their objectives as if it's like, well, if we degrade their naval capabilities, then it's really a win. It's like, I don't think that most Americans, even MAGA Americans, are on board with degrading the number of ships Iran has in exchange for paying more in gasoline, paying more in groceries, as Claire laid out, having their tax dollars be spent on that rather than on things that they need. So I think at some level here, the polling is the lagging indicator. And if I were the Democrats, I'd be putting my pedal to the metal on this and just really be screaming from the rooftops about how Trump should end this war now and they should be opposing the war on every front.
- [11:42]
D
Well, and Amy, I think everything that Tim just laid out is particularly true when you have an administration that is not able to articulate clearly what the objective of this war is. You had Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican, suggesting that it's still unclear and that that's a real problem. Watch
- [12:02]
C
here.
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F
You know, I thought the initial bombing raid a while back was very successful. I could see why we needed to finish some of the work and go back in and, and maybe have a week or two back in there, really degrading their capabilities. Now, it's very, it's ambiguous. I don't know what our long term strategic goals are, but we're going to need to generally support what the President's doing in Iran. But if we're going to get anything close to the $200 billion supplemental request, we got to get 60 votes, and we're going to have to figure out how to accomplish that.
- [12:41]
D
Amy, they need to have. I'm sorry, you go ahead, but they need to have a political opposition that is growing up in part to this question of the fact that they have not made it clear to Congress, much less to the American people, what their objective is here. They cannot currently define success.
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E
Yeah, you just made the point that I was just going to try to make. Here's a United States Senator whose job it is to follow this, to know about this matters of war and peace. He has a top secret clearance, and he's sitting there saying, I don't know what we are doing. Everybody on the street, people here in Kentucky, they tell me every day, and many are very conservative, have voted for Trump for three times. People do not know what we are doing there, why we are there. They're seeing gas prices go up. They're seeing a president and Republicans that follow him, not focused on the things that matter to everyday Americans. They're seeing rising cost of everything in their lives. And they're seeing this president just making it worse with an almost unwinnable war. Another one in the Middle East. You know, and Claire talked about it earlier, the Affordable Care act, for example. The credits that we could give people just for health care, for what they want for this war. We could fund that for six years. I mean, this is crazy.
- [14:03]
D
It is crazy. And that is, Claire, why you have Americans looking to Congress for action here. The Washington Post reporting that Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has voted to take up two war powers resolutions that would force Trump to cease hostilities with Iran, both of which had failed on procedural grounds. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said sending in ground troops would take the war to a completely different level than what had been advertised to us as members of Congress when we first went into Iran. Quote, congress deserves and should demand greater engagement with the administration on the plans. Murkowski told reporter Sunday. We haven't received that. I mean, Claire, they gave away all their power and now they're wondering where their power went. This is the moment. If they will not do it for boots on the Ground, if they will not do it in the face of a 50 billion doll dollar supplemental that flies in the face of the President's own campaign promises, then when will they do a clear.
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B
Well, here's the thing everybody needs to remember, first and foremost, Democrats don't have enough votes in the U.S. senate or in the House of Representatives to do what needs to be done. So let's underline that elections matter.
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D
Oh, yeah, I'm talking Rand Paul and Murkowski, I agree with you.
- [15:21]
B
So now we're talking about the Republicans. Just focus on this for a second. Roger Wicker is chairman of the Armed Services Committee of the United States Senate. He has failed to call a hearing on a war that we are in. Not one hearing, not one public hearing. What are they afraid of? What is it that's going to be said at a hearing when the TV cameras are on and the American public is listening? What is going to be said that they don't want America to hear? I have never seen anything like this. I mean, all through history, the Armed Services committees of the two houses of Congress would always have hearings on any kind of conflict, much less one where they're being asked to fund it to the tune of $200 billion. It is, as Amy says, it is crazy. And it shows the cowardice that has seeped into the bloodstream of Republicans that are elected to Congress under Donald Trump. And I think that voters in November, I mean, Lindsey Graham's up for election in November. Pay attention, folks. This is crazy. And the only way to really fix it is at the ballot box.
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D
Well, and I think it is interesting to Miller, that the people who are calling out the absurdity, the recklessness of what they are hearing are people like Representative Anna Paulina, Lina, who in many other ways is in lockstep with this administration. The fact that it is Nancy Mace, I wonder what you make as a sort of student of the MAGA movement and who chooses when to be in alignment and when about the specific fractures we are seeing in this moment.
- [17:04]
F
Yeah, a couple thoughts, Alicia. I mean, one, just going back to the last question you asked about where they're kind of bragging about the poll of MAGA Americans and what they think about Trump's war. I think the actions of the MAGA politicians betray that. They know what the reality is with the voters, which is that, you know, I think that there are a lot of people out there who self identify as maga, who want to support Trump, who want to say that they're on the team. And if a stranger calls them on the phone and they're going to say that they back Trump because they don't want to feel like they've betrayed their team or whatever. This is not healthy behavior. It's cultish behavior. But I think that that is what, you know, what happens when these people are getting pulled. I think that a lot of them are saying other things when they're talking to their members of Congress, when they are commenting on their members of Congress's social media posts, when they're watching MAGA media. And just look at the, if you look at the podcasting charts, it's like anti Trump MAGA folks, or, excuse me, anti war MAGA folks like Tucker and Joe Rogan and others are, Megyn Kelly are dominating. Right. So those people, they're somewhere. It's not, it's not all Democrats listening to that. Right. Like the people are tuning into that because they're. That message is resonating. So I do think that MAGA voters are souring over this. And just one more thing. If I may, a point of privilege on Thom Tillis watching that video. You guys, you and Amy covered a lot of the craziness. But just like the notion that he said that I'm generally supportive of what the president is doing in Iran in one sentence and then the next sentence is I don't know what the strategic objectives is. I mean, that is insane. Like that, that is like, that's, that's the position of a madman, that they're just like, you know, I do like bombing the ayatollah. Like that's good. I'm for that. I don't know why we're doing it, what we're going to get out of it, how we're going to get out of it, what's going to come after it, what the plan is. But I'm still kind of okay with it. That's basically the position of the non MAGA Republicans in Congress and the people like Roger Wicker that Claire mentioned there. And to me, that's even crazier than the MAGA position
- [19:12]
D
when you thought the bar could not be dropped any lower. Claire McCaskill, Amy McGrath, thank you both so much for starting us off. Tim, you are sticking with me. When we return what the Supreme Court might be thinking today after hearing arguments in a case brought by Republicans to severely cut back mail in voting and potentially upend elections in this country. That is our next story. Also ahead for us, new reporting that sheds light on how Jeffrey Epstein may have been able to avoid scrutiny for his horrific crimes for so long and what happened just after his death at a New York jail and later sinking to a new low, even for him. Donald Trump's reaction to the death of a patriotic American, former FBI dress director and special counsel Robert Mueller. Deadline 1 House continues after quick break. Stay with us. Not sure how to tackle your taxes? Are you sweating the small print? You may be experiencing FOMO, the fear of messing up the answer. Using TurboTax on Intuit credit Karma. They help you get your biggest refund and then we help you do more with it with a personalized plan designed
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- [22:02]
D
Supreme Court appears ready to overturn a mail in voting law in Mississippi, and if they do, it could end up upend voting in time for this year's midterm elections. The conservative justices expressed skepticism over the existing state law that validates ballots postmarked by Election Day and received up to five business days later. That law is being challenged by the Republican National Committee, and a ruling in its favor in this case would make voting harder in this year's elections and all Future elections in 14 states, three territories, as well as our nation's capital. The justices did raise concerns today about the practical implications of changing the law so close to the midterms and how it would hurt overseas and military voting. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson also pushed back on the suggestion by the RNC's lawyer that we should worry about a loser not accepting the results if late ballots decide an election or that post Election Day deadlines are a new thing.
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A
Listen, there's just no way the loser is going, whoever it is, is going to accept that outcome and the supporters aren't going to accept the outcome. And so that's something I just don't think is implicated by early voting. Thank you, Justice Jackson.
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D
Except people accepted the possibility of that outcome for 100 plus because this idea of the votes being cast by Election Day and counted after Election Day has been around, right? I mean, it's not like we're talking about a brand new thing from Mississippi from the standpoint of no one ever had a post Election Day ballot deadline before. Want to bring in Ari Berman. He is the national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones. Also joining us, Ankush Ghadori. He is a senior writer at Political Magazine and the author of Rules of Law column. His latest piece is about the reconstruction that will need to take place at the DOJ once Donald Trump is gone. Tim Miller is still with us. All right, Ari, you write today that, quote, trump wants to end mail voting and the Supreme Court's conservative justices appear eager to assist. Talk about the Republicans arguing on each side today and the skepticism we heard very early here from conservative justices.
- [24:15]
A
It was very disturbing because so many of the arguments that Trump has made falsely against mail in voting were echoed by members of the Supreme Court. Talking about late arriving ballots somehow fraudulently fixing election outcomes, talking about the vote dumps that Trump talked about in 2020. Justice Alito bemoaning the fact that Election Day has become Election Month, suggesting that mail balloting more broadly undermines people's faith in the voting process. These are all the things that, that Trump talked about in 2020 that he was, that he eventually was rebuffed on by 60 courts. But nonetheless, now it's back up for the Supreme Court. And of course, you can't divorce this from what is happening in Congress right now with Trump trying to ban mail voting in the SAVE act. That is the most unpopular part of the Save America act is what Trump wants to do with mail balloting. And this could unleash chaos at the midterms if they change these mail deadline laws. You could have hundreds of thousands of voters who could potentially be disenfranchised in a very hotly contested election across the country.
- [25:26]
D
What do you see as the stakes here?
- [25:28]
G
The stakes are very significant both on this narrow issue and the broader issue. So on the narrow issue that is before the court today, we have this question about the disenfranchisement, which is a very, very serious concern and problem. There's also going to be a bunch of uncertainty, legal uncertainty, both in the run up to the midterms and presumably even after in the period running up. You're going to, I would expect a bunch of these states will attempt to make some sort of contingency plan, put something in place, implement new sorts of rules, maybe even have public messaging campaigns so the people in their states know that things have changed in a certain way. But they're going to have to figure out ways to implement whatever the Supreme Court issues, probably in the summer, without any particular guidance on the granular details. So that means there could be then disputes arising from the state's efforts to comply with the Supreme Court's order. So it's going to prolong all of this and disenfranchise people and increase uncertainty all around. I think the broader point that. Well, the broader point that Ari made is an important one. So much of this is actually just driven by the president and his grievance based on his false claims about the 2020 election. All the politics, all the political machinations, the fact that this is in play and that it's this particular issue because he hates mail in voting, because he thinks that cost in the 2020 election is a remarkable thing. More broadly, this is a Supreme Court that whatever they may do in a tariff decision or an upcoming birthright citizenship case where Trump is hopefully going to lose. This is a court that, with six Republican appointees and three appointees from Trump, still largely favors Republican priorities, in particular in areas of sort of the rules of democracy and voting. Of course, there's this parallel dispute for a decade on the Voting Rights Act. These things are not accidents.
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D
Right. And Tim Miller, you heard that today in most of the questioning from conservative justices. I also think the exchange between the RNC attorney and Justice Kasanji Brown Jackson that we played before we came into the segment was pretty wild and worth a mention, right? The attorney saying, well, anyone, anyone in their right mind would question these results. And then Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson saying, well, this is how it's been for the past hundred years. What might make this moment, Tim Miller, fundamentally different?
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F
Yeah, a couple of things with this. The thing that makes this moment different, obviously, is Donald Trump's attempt to steal the election in 2020 and his commitment to advancing a bunch of lies about our voting system that he fabricated and friends of his fabricated in order to rationalize his temper tantrum and his effort to overturn the election. And so this is all just an outgrowth of that. We would not be talking about this had whatever Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton been presidents for the last decade. We're only talking about it because Donald Trump did. And what is undergirding their attacks on mail in balloting is also a lie. There is no fraud at any scale or any meaningful amount of fraud in mail in balloting. In Colorado, where I grew up, it's almost all mail in balloting.
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D
Now.
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F
The elections have been perfectly free and fair for quite some time. I will Say this is a point of personal privilege on this particular issue of the counting the ballots days after. I think it would be wise, like for blue states in particular, like California. Not this time. So in the middle of the election season, and they should not try to mess with this in the middle of the election season. But going forward, looking at 2028 and beyond, to try not to have a system where it takes seven days to count the vote. I do think that in a advanced democracy in the year 2025, 2026, we should be able to count votes on Election Day. And I think that they are creating an opportunity for troublemaking on the right. And this is one of those pieces of troublemaking that they're engaging in.
- [29:18]
G
Can I just toss one point out, which I think is also kind of a little lost in this? Okay. If we're going to implement a requirement that requires the ballots to be in hand and potentially even counted, Election Day, people who are mailing in are going to have to do so increasingly early. Okay. Prior to the election day, things actually happen run up to the election day, and some people want as much information as possible to make their decisions. So it's not, you know, we need to be sort of careful about, like, you know, suggestions which are going to emerge quickly, if not already. Well, just have them mail in the ballots two weeks prior. What's the big deal? Well, I don't know. Things happen actually in the days leading up to an election.
- [29:54]
D
Right. People actually change their mind. Ari, you have the New York Times reporting that more than 900,000 voters cast their ballots overseas in 2024. At least 30 states allow military ballots to arrive after Election Day. What does this mean for our armed forces?
- [30:11]
A
It means that you could have people that fought for their country and sacrifice their lives disenfranchised based on Trump's big lie. And the impact of this is much broader than just states allowing you to have a few extra days to cast your ballots. It could upend laws for mail voting for overseas and military voters in nearly 30 states. It could also open the door to pushing back more broadly on cutting voting access. The president and a lot of his top allies want one day of voting in this country, which means no early voting, which means no mail in voting. It means you have to show up on a Tuesday in November and cast your ballot. That is extremely unpopular. That is out of step with how 47 states run their elections. That is something that a lot of Republicans would object to. But nonetheless, that is a larger goal here. The larger goal is not to change one law in Mississippi that gives people a few extra days to vote. It's about a much broader push to try to cut back on voting access, which we've seen with the Save America act, which we've seen with the Supreme Court over many years repeatedly weakening the Voting Rights act, upholding new voter suppression laws. So this case is just the latest manifestation of a much broader war on voting that honestly predated Trump, but has dramatically accelerated under Trump, and which we're
- [31:33]
D
also watching play out here on Capitol Hill. Ari Berman, Ankush Kadori, thank you both so much for joining us today. When we return, there is new reporting about how Jeffrey Epstein dodged accountability for his crimes for so long. We're gonna have that after a short break. Hi, I'm Michael from the Warren Treaty.
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now back to
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your regularly scheduled listening. One of the most pressing questions about Jeffrey Epstein's crimes is how he was able to evade accountability for so long. New reporting in Bloomberg sheds light on the answer to that question, at least when it comes to Epstein's 2008 sweetheart deal, when a female prosecutor was rebuffed by her male supervisors. According to documents and emails reviewed by Bloomberg, quote Marie Vilafanier, a federal sex crimes prosecutor in South Florida who spent a year listening to teen girls detail how Jeffrey Epstein had recruited and paid them for sex acts at his Palm beach mansion. He was a danger to children, she told her bosses in May of 2007 and begged them to urgently seek his arrest by the FBI. She proposed a 60 count indictment that charged Epstein and some of his assistants with sex trafficking and other crimes. Now here's where it gets interesting. Her supervisors, Alex Acosta, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and his criminal chief, Matthew Menschel, didn't act when she pressed her case again two weeks later, Menshell told her, quote, I'm having trouble understanding, given how long this case has been pending, but the rushes. I want to bring in former acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the Justice Department, Mary McCord. Tim Miller is still with us. Help us understand sort of how these teams work and the dynamics of one of the attorneys on the team making the argument, this is big, we have to do this, we have to do this now. And having her supervisor say, what's the big rush?
- [35:01]
C
Yeah. So, you know, I think we've talked before in other shows that I prosecuted sex crimes as a federal prosecutor myself up here, and, you know, there's so much I would like to ask this former AUSA about the circumstances here because, you know, I don't know whether she also had the backing of others in, in whatever division of the office might have been doing the investigation with her. Was she out on her own? Like, were there supervisors between her and the criminal division Chief and the U.S. attorney, and what was their position? Because, you know, to sit there, as she says, and listen to teenage victims telling her what happened to them, that's a very compelling case. On the other hand, teenage victims, you know, sometimes don't tell the truth. So now that would be one thing, if it's one teenage victim, but if it sounds like there are many. Right. So you can start to corroborate when you hear many people telling the same type of stories, right. The same modus operandi that he had of recruiting, paying them, then that adds credibility to each individual teenager's stories.
- [36:05]
D
Right?
- [36:06]
C
So I don't know whether Acosta and the Crim chief were doubtful about the veracity of these young victims. I don't know what their relationships was between themselves and this particular prosecutor, whether she had the backing of her colleagues and supervisors, but somebody really dropped a ball here. And she was absolutely right that Jeffrey Epstein is a danger to children, to
- [36:29]
D
young women, to Miller. Mary and I were doing some back of the envelope math here. So Maria Farmer is 1996. Vilafanier is having these conversations in 2007. So when Acosta is saying to her, well, it's a long time ago at that point point, it's 11 years. You fast forward it is now 18 years later. This sense of a crime that happened a long time ago. The timeline just keeps growing because there was not action taken at any of these inflection points. How different of a conversation would we have been having if Alex Acosta had taken what his subordinate had to say to Harsh.
- [37:13]
F
Yeah, it's a tragedy, really, because I thought the back of the envelope map you were going to math you were going to do is the scale of the that could have been stopped about the number of victims that could have been stopped. Right. I mean, Jeffrey Epstein continued to have underage girls as victims for years after this conversation happened in 2007. And so the crimes continued and you end up, what, 12 years later, that's when he ends up dead in custody during the Trump 1.0 administration. So, look, it was obviously a huge oversight by Acosta, maybe worse than that. I mean, this is something that Julie Brown at the Miami Herald and others have been covering for a long time is just. It's not as if this was something in the moment that whatever, there wasn't enough information and it slipped through the cracks. This is just another data point upon a bunch of other data points where people at the time when he got the sweetheart deal for Acosta were saying, why didn't they go in for more? And I think there continue to be a lot of questions about this. And I think that if the Democrats take back Congress next year, it's going to be incumbent upon the oversight committees to take a close look at it.
- [38:37]
D
Nicole spoke to Julie K. Brown, who you just referenced, the intrepid Miami Herald reporter about the Epstein case. For this week's the Best People podcast, I want to show you both what Julie K. Brown had to say about why she thinks so many investigative threads were just not followed in this case. Take a listen.
- [38:54]
C
Is it as simple as they didn't
- [38:57]
B
believe the women, or was there something else going on?
- [39:00]
D
I think that was part of it. I think especially early on in the case, they didn't find them credible and they thought they were really, you know, prostituting themselves, which was ridiculous because they were 13, 14 years old. So it's absurd. But even I think as the years went by, I think, you know, there's a lot of men in our government, and I do think there was absolutely a bias not only on the part of failing to recognize how serious this crime was, but also the female prosecutors in this case were also treated poorly, I think, and their male counterparts weren't really, I think, listening to them. Let me read you just to that point a little bit more from the reporting from Bloomberg. In nearly 20 instances, Vilafania felt pressured, intimidated, threatened, coerced, or wrongly influenced to take a position or action she disagreed with. She wrote in 2019, from her point of view, her bosses had allowed Epstein's legal team to undermine the case she was building. That's the other dynamic that's at play.
- [40:07]
C
Yeah, well, you know, that's an office that I never worked in and am not familiar with, but it sounds like it was not a very hospitable environment. And that's something that, you know, no U.S. attorney's office should be that way. I will tell you personally, spending 20 years in the U.S. attorney's office in D.C. we took sex crimes very, very seriously. Every U.S. attorney I worked for, man or woman, took them seriously. We had supervisors of that division. In fact, I was one at one, women, but also men, and took it very seriously. And this sounds like there's some dysfunction in that office, which makes you wonder, does it go beyond sex crimes and into other areas as well, or potentially the treatment of females in that particular office?
- [40:51]
D
There was the office, but there's also the fact that they were getting steamrolled by Epstein's legal team.
- [40:55]
C
Yes, yes. Which also makes us wonder things about other new reporting about a personal attorney for decades who apparently testified he knew nothing about this. Now, his legal team doing his criminal defense would of course, be a different legal team, but there were a lot of lawyers, a lot of business people close to Jeffrey Epstein for a lot of years. And given the just sheer sort of volume of what we now see in terms of his activities with young women, it seems nearly impossible that anyone who worked closely for him for any amount of time would not have been aware of. But, you know, you can get a powerful defense team with, you know, you know, potentially connections, but even not connections to the U.S. attorney, even just if it's some folks that have a lot of sway and a lot of ability to put pressure, sometimes you can see things go awry like this.
- [41:51]
D
Okay, a reminder. You can listen to Nicole's entire conversation about the Epstein files with Miami Herald journalist Julie K. Brown, whose reporting has driven so much of the Epstein coverage over the years. Just scan the QR code on your screen to download this week's episode of the Best People podcasts when we return. Just when you think you have seen the bottom, Donald Trump manages to go even lower. We're going to explain after a short break. Former FBI director and special counsel Robert Mueller, a true dedicated public servant, died on Friday at the age of 81. Mueller was the second longest serving FBI director transforming the bureau in the wake of 9 11. He was also a war hero. Mueller received both a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart after serving in the Marines in the Vietnam War. He is of course known more recently for his work investigating Russia's efforts to meddle in the 2016 election in Trump's favor. Never one to pass up an opportunity to disparage his perceived enemies, here is what Donald Trump posted just minutes after Mueller's passing was announced. Quote, robert Mueller just died. Good. I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people. Now, in normal times, celebrating the death of an American citizen would be far beneath the sitting President of the United States. So very few Republican lawmakers have criticized Trump's post celebrating Mueller's death. GOP Congressman Don Bacon telling Politico, quote, it is clearly wrong, an unchristian behavior. The vast majority of Americans want better. We are back with Tim and with Mary. I didn't want to Donald Trump to be able to define this moment. So from you, who was Robert Mueller and why does his service matter?
- [43:31]
C
So Robert Mueller is the epitome of public service. I mean, this is a man who, from his original, you know, entry into the Marine Corps, it was after that that he went to law school, right? He worked his way into public service early on. And when I started in the U.S. attorney's office in D.C. in 1994, around that same time, he came to that office after he had already been a presidentially appointed Senate confirmed U.S. attorney in Boston, after he had already held high level positions at the main justice, after he had been a partner at a law firm. He's like, D.C. has a homicide problem. Remember early 90s, it was the homicide capital of the world. I want to come prosecute homicides not even in federal court, but in Superior court here in the District of Columbia. And that is what he did. He went out, he met with, with victims, families and prosecuted homicides in Superior Court. That's the bustling courthouse right where all of the street crimes and murders and rapes and things like that are happening rather than the more stayed, you know, federal court. And he went on many times to serve his country. I mean, served 12 years as the FBI director. These are 10 year terms but he was so instrumental to that, to reshaping the FBI, that President Obama asked, would you stay two more years? And Congress blessed that. And then even when he finally took what should have been a well earned retirement, and he didn't fully retire, he went to a law firm, but I think was never totally happy there when, you know, he got the call from Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney General, early in 2017 in Donald Trump's first term, would you come be special counsel now, he already knows. He's watched Donald Trump fire James Comey. He knows this is likely to be a thankless task. Right. Because the president is going to completely, you know, jump all over him and criticize him and, you know, say all kinds of things. Yet he took that. He took that challenge. He went in, he brought together a team of experienced prosecutors, many of whom I know very well. I myself was interviewed by that team because of my former role in national security. And he did what needed to be done. So it's, it's a huge loss for the country. And certainly he deserves better than what the president had to say about him.
- [45:46]
D
Well, Tim Miller, I've got about 60 seconds left. But that would be because that type of service is anathema to this president.
- [45:53]
F
It is. And because he's a depraved human. I wish you just say it. It's good that he's dead. I'm glad that he's dead. And it's the kind of thing you would never say about even your enemy if you're a person that has any honor and dignity. So, look, I think in addition to everything that Mary lied out, they're patriotism was contrasted nicely by Bob Mueller's service. And he served in Vietnam voluntarily. He had an actual injury, a real injury, and he had to delay a year. He could have gotten out of Vietnam, but he went back and served again while Donald Trump made up a fake injury to avoid service. And I think that tells you about all you need to know.
- [46:29]
D
Tim Miller, Mary McCord, thank you both so much for joining us today. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. Some BOMBSHELL Reporting from ProPublica today revealing the extent of the cruelty of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. An exclusive data analysis found that the administration has detained the parents of more than 11,000 children who are US citizens. Their analysis showed ICE arrests of parents doubled in the first seven months of Donald Trump's second term compared with the Biden administration. They also found that the impacts were more pronounced this administration has deported moms of US citizens at four times the rate of the Biden administration. And they even went as far as to change the guidelines from ProPublica. QUOTE a document once known as the Parental Interest Directive has been given a new name under the Detained Parents Directive. And its preamble, which once instructed agents to handle immigrant parents in a way that was humane, has been stripped of that word. As our friend Jacob Soboroff often reminds us, it is all family separation by a different name. Another break for us. We'll be right back. Thank you for spending part of this Monday with us.
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