← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
"Institutions are only as strong as the people who work in them"
00:42:11
Nicolle Wallace on new reporting from two Pulitzer Prize winning journalists - Carol Leonnig and Aaron Davis - on the gutting of the Department of Justice workforce under the second Trump administration.
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- [00:00]
Nicole Sganga
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Mark Elias
The Department of Justice in the US The FBI are filled with people like this. And these are people who are not self promoters. They do not like to tell their own story. They cannot start a sentence with I. They start that with we. These are team players who don't want anything but to do good in the world. They're not interested in politics. And I get very concerned when I see how easy it is to demonize these people for political lens when these are the very sort of people I think we should be celebrating.
- [01:09]
Ali Velshi
Hi again everyone. It's now five o'clock in New York. Institutions are only ever as strong and good and decent as the people who work inside of them. And that fact is no truer than at the United States Department of Justice, a bedrock of American democracy since the beginning, a place where the law used to be held above high ideals, above everything else. In the 10 months of the Trump administration so far, DOJ has seen its workforce gutted and purged, a purge of career officials by the Trump administration solely because they had worked on cases that somehow touched or investigated Donald Trump himself or his supporters. We just saw the suspension of two prosecutors who referenced January 6th and what it actually was in a court filing of a rioter on unrelated chargers. And Trump last week called out for the prosecution of Special Counsel Jack Smith and along with other former Justice Department officials for their work on investigating his efforts to overturn his defeat in 2020. New analysis in the New York Times reflects on how Jack Smith is ready to take on Donald Trump. Quote, Smith appears eager to publicly challenge a foundational pillar of MAGA cannon that the president was a sinned upon innocent who did nothing to deserve scrutiny, much less two prosecutions. Smith has told people in his orbit that he welcomes the opportunity to present the public case against Trump denied to him by the Supreme Court decision asserting broad presidential immunity from prosecution and adverse rulings from a Trump appointed judge on the federal bench of Florida. The appointment of that judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, is one of the flashpoints, detailed in a brand new book by our friend and colleague Carol Leonig, along with her former colleague at the Washington Post, Erin Davis. Injustice is big and amazing and you have to read the whole thing. It chronicles how DOJ has had to reckon with Donald Trump as a man atop the executive branch who's now putting himself and his interests and his vulnerabilities ahead of the rule of law. When Judge Aileen Cannon was assigned his case, quote, Prosecutor J. Bratt poked his head into Jack Smith's office. This is really not good, he said. We'll see, we'll see. Jack Smith replied, quote, we don't know yet. Give her a chance. Smith recognized the seismic shift in the case, however, and the need to do some hand holding, which was far from his natural mode. That Friday, the special counsel went from office to office, giving one on one pep talks to the worried members of the CDI team, some of them despondent. He told them not to forget all the hard work that they had put in to gather the evidence and that now they needed to present their best case. Quote, we've got to keep our focus and hope for the best, smith told. Before Jack Smith was even appointed special counsel, the FBI search at Mar a Lago had turned up incriminating findings. More from the new book Injustice Quote Late that night, preliminary results from the search were, in Bratz description, quote, extraordinary. Beforehand, some of the Justice Department had rightly feared the consequences if they descended on Trump's residence, and agents ultimately found no classified documents. Instead, they had found hundreds of pages of secret records. What's more, the sensitivity of the material they found was terrifyingly high, with top secret documents nearly spilling out of boxes in Trump's personal office, his residence, and even a bathroom shower. Matthew Olson convened a late evening conference call with his far flung national security prosecutors, including two who had been on site for the search, to go over the findings. Olson, a veteran terror prosecutor who had little hands on experience investigating mishandled classified documents, asked his experts this, quote, what else do we need to do? Julie Edelstein, the Justice Department's living library and classified document cases, replied dryly, knowingly. Taking classified documents outside of a secure government facility was a crime, plain and simple. Adelstein said she knew how the department had responded to such clear evidence of a crime in dozens of cases before. But with Trump, all bets were off. Quote, if it was anybody else, she said, we would arrest him tomorrow. And in just the last few minutes we learned. According to NBC News reporting, at least four more FBI officials who were tied to investigations into Donald Trump have been fired since we were last on the air. Having this conversation with Carol Lennig on Friday. Efforts by the Department of Justice to rein in a man working to undermine its very work is where we begin the hour with MSNBC senior investigative reporter Carol Lenn. Also joining us, Washington Post investigative reporter Erin Davis. Together they are the authors of the book How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department. Congratulations on the book. We've been living off some of the advance scoops that have come out, but I want to dive right into Jack Smith. From the outside, it seems so obvious that the minute Aileen Cannon had the case, he would probably die. She seemed to reveal herself. It wasn't really any suspicion of hidden politics, but her public conduct in the case. Why did they let that happen?
- [06:37]
Carol Leonnig
Jack Smith really felt strongly, based on the legal analysis, that it was the most fair and legally appropriate thing to do to go and bring these charges in Florida. Right. Most of the activity that Trump was accused of obstructing this investigation, of concealing these classified records had happened in Florida. That's what he thought the legal best case was, and that there was a danger of being overturned. His team also calculated that they had a one in six chance of getting Cannon. So let's take that risk. Later they learned it was a one in three chance. But ultimately, Jack wanted to do the thing that was legally appropriate. He didn't want to play any games. He was an institutionalist, like many of the ones you know yourself. And the problem was he had been forewarned. He had been warned by the Department of Justice national Security prosecutor David Newman, who told him in a meeting, you know, if Kanan gets this case, it's dead. And that is exactly what happened. It collapsed.
- [07:40]
Ali Velshi
It seems that the act of taking the documents obviously happened at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. There had to have been a scenario where it was charged in the District.
- [07:51]
Nicole Sganga
There was, in fact, for many months before even Jack Smith came in as the special counsel, and after that, they had gone to the grand jury sitting in D.C. and had presented evidence there. A lot of the people working in Jack Smith's office who had, you know, got started in that back in 2022, really thought that it was going to be in D.C. so much so that there's this point we recount in the book where prosecutor David Raskin is learning for the first time that it's going to be not brought in D.C. but Florida. And he uses an expletive. Are you effing serious? That's where it's going to be. He thought that D.C. you had to start in D.C. you know, ultimately, yes, you had a chance of getting overturned in Florida, but you had to first get the prosecution for the things that they knew had done wrong.
- [08:43]
Ali Velshi
And was there ever a scenario that they talked about of charging the mishandling of national Defense information in D.C. in the obstruction case in Florida?
- [08:53]
Nicole Sganga
Caroly, you looked at that a little bit.
- [08:55]
Carol Leonnig
You know, there were a lot of things they discussed, but overwhelmingly they thought, we have to make a choice, one or the other, and they'd have to drop one of the charges, false statements, if they brought the case in D.C. of course, you know this. The experienced judges who really understand classified records and have handled scads of those cases are in D.C. the fear in Jack Smith's orbit, his inner circle, was we could be overturned. The fear for Merrick Garland, the Attorney General who ultimately tacitly approved this move, was the appearance of shopping for a better jury in D.C. you know, D.C. had indicted every single Capitol rioter and definitely was much more anti Trump.
- [09:46]
Ali Velshi
Well, Merrick Garland comes across as someone for whom a time capsule is required. His judgment and his pace of decision making feel like the most dangerous thing at the Biden era Justice Department. Is that a fair extrapolation of your body of reporting on Merrick Garland's conduct?
- [10:05]
Carol Leonnig
You know, this is an extremely respected jurist, somebody that I covered.
- [10:09]
Ali Velshi
Judge.
- [10:09]
Carol Leonnig
Yes. Forgive me. A very, very respected judge who had that job for 24 years and somebody I covered way, way, way back when I was, you know, a youngster. Broad support for him as a judge, as an Attorney general. People felt that he was hearkening back to a post Watergate playbook that no longer played. He was living in a world in which it would be okay to turn the page. But it turns out that not looking at the evidence that was very public starting we learned in December 2020 there pushing for an investigation based on evidence that they didn't actually open until a year and a month later, same evidence, right. December 2020. And they didn't open this investigation until January 30, 2022.
- [11:01]
Ali Velshi
So Barr's still there in December of 2020, when Bill Barr was still Attorney.
- [11:04]
Carol Leonnig
General, they were looking interestingly, it actually weeks after the horrible showdown between Bill Barr and President Trump, because Bill Barr says, look, I'm not going to pretend there's fraud. And Trump throws the plate of ketchup at the wall and says, I'd like your resignation. So Barr has already walked out of the building by this point. But what we learned, and we had never known this when we were reporting in real time, is that a little known investigator in the National Archives is seeing that there's coordination, is seeing that these fake electoral certificates look bogus and also look like they're organized by the Trump campaign and asks the U.S. attorney's office in D.C. to open a case or consider it in December of 2020, and is ultimately turned down on January 8, 2021.
- [12:00]
Ali Velshi
So what happens to the investigation between that December 2020 date and Jack Smith picking up the case?
- [12:08]
Nicole Sganga
Well, there's a lot that's a long time. But the, you know, just for a second to go back, Merrick Garland, one of the things that I was struck by in the reporting was that he had actually helped write, as a very young Justice Department employee, the very part of the federal principles of prosecution about separation between the White House and the Department of Justice. And so, you know, he had, as a younger kid, slept outside of the Supreme Court to watch some of the Watergate hearings. He really did come in. And our reporting shows that he spoke to people in the days after January 6th saying he really felt like a bubble had burst, that this Trump fever had burst, and that, you know, the country was ready to, to move on from everything that happened in the first Trump.
- [12:49]
Ali Velshi
I mean, just. Can I stop you? That's insane. I mean, people had just done for Trump what they hadn't done for anyone ever. They had just assaulted police officers with sticks and canes and spears. Why did he think that?
- [13:00]
Nicole Sganga
You know, it is hard to go back and think about those days.
- [13:03]
Ali Velshi
I mean, but why did he think that at the time?
- [13:07]
Nicole Sganga
I think he was so struck by the images of January 6th that no one could, you know, support this. You know, in the first day or two, there were some Republicans who stood.
- [13:17]
Carol Leonnig
Up and said, lindsey Graham.
- [13:18]
Nicole Sganga
Lindsey Graham.
- [13:19]
Ali Velshi
But the insurrectionists in court are yelling, you know, long live maga. Long live Trump. They're not showing any remorse. Did he really think it was working?
- [13:27]
Nicole Sganga
This has been one of the things that we would really try to triangulate as much as possible because of. To your question, what happens from December 20 to when Jack Smith comes in? You know, there is a time period even before Garrett Garland is there, when the first interim people that Biden appoints to temporarily take care of the Justice Department, you know, they're like, whoa, wait, we don't want to do anything to investigate Donald Trump right now. We just want to start with the rioters, we don't want to put Merrick Garland on the hook for doing anything that could be a political investigation. Let him decide that later. And then Garland comes in, and we're told by our reporting that he tells senior staff. That was the right call. We don't go straight at Donald Trump. We want to start with the rioters, build our way. And it was a long process, Right. And they set up a lot of hurdles, a lot of roadblocks to even get to the point of understanding what Trump had done. First. They wanted to look at the folks who were oath keepers and proud boys. And was there a seditious conspiracy? And that whole body of decision making took months and really slowed things down.
- [14:29]
Carol Leonnig
And you can't really underestimate how to your question, Nicole, how much wariness, and we use the word fear, but wariness, reluctance, anxiety inside the FBI. The FBI agents had seen careers decimated in the first Trump presidency. And one thing Aaron and I learned was, okay, we all covered that in real time. What that was like when Trump, you know, mimicked the orgasm of an FBI deputy counsel on national television. The way he personalized his attacks on individual agents who had investigated him in the Mueller investigation. And that scarring was deep, and FBI agents were resisting. Also investigating this evidence. We have a Washington field office chief for the FBI who, when approached multiple times, kills efforts by prosecutors to investigate evidence linking Trump's orbit to, you know, an illegal. Both a federal law violation and a state law violation to interfere in an election.
- [15:39]
Ali Velshi
So what is the conclusion? I mean, and listen, being resistant to investigating a political figure is a healthy antibody in the system, right? But when the crime plays out on national television and the lie under it starts ushering in voter suppression laws all across the country, Merrick Garland can't think that anything has burst, can he?
- [16:00]
Nicole Sganga
That was one of the fascinating parts about all this, was that having done it all out in the open, said everything he said, tweeted everything he tweeted. It was really hard for agents to get their head around initially. What is the crime here? Usually it's so much of deception, and you knew you were doing something wrong. He says that out in the open, I'm doing this. And, you know, there was a problem for some, the agents of seeing that, you know, what he did is kind of the circle of things doesn't fit in this square box. You know, we also, Carol and I wrote some stories a couple years ago about how slow this investigation was starting. And one of the folks inside the.
- [16:35]
Ali Velshi
Gap right it's about the gap because.
- [16:38]
Nicole Sganga
There'S January 6th and then there's 15 months later. You have really the opening of the investigation of the January 6 regarding the people, the fake electors, the people close to Trump. But somebody said you have to understand how bad it was, what had happened in the first Trump term. And so really, the first chapters you look at in our book, it's all about how did things get so bad in that first Trump term? What was the condition of the Justice Department when the sun came up on January 6th? And you realize it was a very hollowed out that really did not have its bearings. And that really does tell a part of the story of what happened in the months and years after.
- [17:11]
Ali Velshi
I want to there's so much in here. We could do this. We could do this every day for a month and not get through all of it. But I want to ask you really quickly, before we take our first break, what propels Garland to finally act if it is what it appeared from the outside to be? Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, the fearless Democrats on that committee who were publicly displaying to the American people all the evidence of Donald Trump's role in January 6th?
- [17:37]
Carol Leonnig
You know what it is? It's a little bit of embarrassment because while Merrick Garland and Lisa Monaco, the deputy attorney general, kept saying, we're going to follow the facts, where they lead, we're going to go from the riot and see how it might connect to people higher and higher up. When news begins to leak out of the House Select Committee's investigation, that the fake electors, that they're finding evidence that that was coordinated, that Rudy Giuliani, Trump's campaign adviser, is at the center of that, when that news starts to le becomes a very big story and it becomes very embarrassing. And within a matter of hours, the one lone prosecutor they've assigned in the federal government to look at whether or not there's a link between Trump and the riot, contacts a lowly National Archives investigator and says, we're going to open an investigation now and it has nothing to do with evidence gained through the riot. It's not building up. It's, oops, here we are.
- [18:36]
Ali Velshi
Does the Justice Department have any conversations with Cassidy Hutchinson before the congressional committee does?
- [18:42]
Carol Leonnig
No, but I'm going to let Erin tell that story.
- [18:45]
Nicole Sganga
Well, that's a whole lot of sub drama inside the book in those months. But no, in fact, she had sat three times with the committee and then really had this kind of opening and told her full account to the committee.
- [18:59]
Ali Velshi
Switches lawyers and stops, switches lawyers no.
- [19:02]
Nicole Sganga
Longer has one that's being paid for by the Trump Organization. And then she kind of spills everything that she wants to tell to the committee. And there's a lot of resistance inside that committee. We haven't vetted her. We haven't done everything we've done with all these other witnesses. They ultimately do. Liz Cheney brings her forward on the stand, fearing that the MAGA crew is going to come after her and we need to get her out there in public before anything changes. And so they do bring out Cassidy Hutchinson. And we all remember that testimony. It's seared into those months of understanding what the riot was all about and standing in the attorney general's suite. And is Merrick Garland watching some of this and saying, did we know about this? And he turns to folks inside the room and one has to say, no, sir, we didn't.
- [19:50]
Ali Velshi
Unbelievable. That single anecdote, that single piece of reporting I think tells the story of the entire Garland tenure at doj. There's so much more we have to sneak in a quick break to get to. We'll have much more with Carol and Aaron on their really important new book, Injustice. Also ahead in the hour, Democrats have been searching for a pro democracy message that sticks to everything else swirling around us. It looks like they may have found it just in time for tomorrow's elections. We'll have that conversation with our friends Marc Elias and Eddie Glad later in the hour. The White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere today.
- [20:26]
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- [21:57]
Ali Velshi
I wanted to look back because I feel like having this information is so important. And I know both of you get asked about the flurry of news of the day and there's plenty. There's plenty today and we'll try to get to that too. But I do want to ask you what this portrait of Jack Smith tells you about what he will do with the evidence that only he and his team know about in terms of sharing with the American people what it was deprived of in the form of a trial in either case.
- [22:27]
Carol Leonnig
Well, I think you see right now Jack Smith, the special counsel repeatedly saying, come on, bring me on, I'll testify, I'll go before Congress and say what I what information we gained. And I think he really wants to tell that story because his second volume has never been published and his evidence, as he kind of hinted in his interview with Andrew Weissman, was overwhelming, especially on the classified documents case. Aaron makes a good point. The election interference case, unprecedented, not easily put in a box. Not a lot of predecessors for that one, but classified documents. Jack Smith knows that people have been court martialed and imprisoned for so much.
- [23:10]
Ali Velshi
Less covering him now and writing a book about him. Do you think that he looks at the Mueller 23 month Mueller probe and I mean I want to ask if he learned from their mistakes that he made one by leaving the case in Florida. I mean, what do you think he thinks about the fact that all the people that work for him have either lost their jobs, had their reputation smeared or slandered to the point where it will be difficult to get jobs outside of the government. What do you think he's going to do for his sort of troops who? The book paints a portrait of a lot of collegiality and professional intimacy and care about the mission. And you can read it in the filings. I mean they spoke much more loudly through their filings than the Mueller team ever did through theirs. What are they going to do now?
- [23:53]
Nicole Sganga
Well, I mean, we're seeing how much trouble they're all having finding a job anywhere in Washington right now? They certainly have been. And how many law firms are not willing to go toe to toe with Donald Trump right now and his administration? Some have just started their own firm in the last few days. But, you know, there is a very human moment towards the end of the book where, you know, Jack realizes it's all over and, you know, he's with his prosecutors and says, I have a wonderful wife and kids and that's what really matters in this world. And I urge you to find what matters for you and to hold onto that. Because everything they'd been working on was over everything that they'd really poured night and day into. We do have a little bit of a window just to go back to what we don't know and what might yet come out in the book. We go through how, after there was the ruling in the election interference case by the Supreme Court and allowed this huge immunity, you know, table for Trump, that they did have a 100 page trial plan already sketched out for what events they were going to present and what it looked like and what was. And there was some new stuff there. There's stuff there that the American public never heard and never will because, you know, everything was put in this huge bubble of official acts for the president. And one of those was that there was a meeting in March of 2020 before the pandemic, just in like the days before the pandemic is coming in. And in that the Homeland Security officials tell Trump, these are all the things we've done to improve election security. And it's going to be so much better than four years ago. And Trump says, great, let's tell the American public, let's have a press conference and tell them that, you know, election security is going to be great. And obviously the next few days, everything shuts down. There's Covid. And then Trump, as he realizes, you know, his numbers are not looking good, takes a very different tune about election security in 2020. So we don't know the kind of internal episodes that might yet come out on the classified docket side.
- [25:49]
Ali Velshi
Do you think that the substance of the two investigations, the evidence gathered, will eventually make their way into the public arena?
- [26:01]
Carol Leonnig
I think there is going to be a dam bursting at some point. And I say that not as a prediction, like, here's my odds on this. I'm saying that because Justice Department officials have spent lifetime careers not talking to the press, not sharing information. That's starting to change. Right? The people who used to run away from me at Christmas parties. That's not happening anymore. Because why? Because they are, to use your phrase, crying from inside the house. They're also crying from outside the house. And they're all speaking to each other about how they cannot let this stand. I would predict we're going to learn more. I really would.
- [26:41]
Ali Velshi
Nicole, what do you do with the dynamic where. And my sense of working with some of these folks is that they're all willing to sacrifice personally, but will jump in front of a colleague that is more junior, maybe doesn't have financial security, maybe hasn't been in and out of government and up to have the ability to not get a paycheck, not pay a mortgage. What is your sense of whether a dam will break at the top and people like Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco go defend their decisions and their direction of the department?
- [27:16]
Carol Leonnig
I would think Lisa Monaco and Merrick Garland will be unlikely to be the individual.
- [27:23]
Ali Velshi
They'll never talk.
- [27:23]
Carol Leonnig
I didn't say that. I said I would just say I think it would be unlikely for either of them to come forward. First of all, Merrick Garland could not have been more clear when he was the attorney general that he did not want anyone speaking. We have a moment in the book that's never been reported before where he was livid. When then about to be. Former U.S. attorney Mike Sherwin went on 60 Minutes to explain the evidence in the riot investigation and how he believed you could charge these people with seditious conspiracy, those who had helped arrange the riot, those who came with riot gear and, you know, special and zip ties, but also the radio communications, the sort of front phalanx, if you will. And he went on air and made this series of comments about how he really thought seditious conspiracy was the way these charges were trending. He'd made that recommendation to Merrick Garland privately, and now Merrick Garland was hearing it on national television. And the end result of that was they recommended referring Mike Sherwin for disbarment in two states where he held a.
- [28:36]
Ali Velshi
Law license for discussing what the crimes were that they would try to build cases for.
- [28:42]
Carol Leonnig
Yes.
- [28:42]
Ali Velshi
So they were going to be disbarred. And now everyone that worked under Merrick Garland's direction and decision to appoint a special counsel, Jack Smith, to investigate Donald Trump's crime of mishandling classified documents and interfering with the election has been fired, purged and canceled, and they're going to do nothing.
- [28:59]
Carol Leonnig
It's a great question that we won't be able to answer for them. I'm just telling you if past is prologue, I do not see them coming forward for this.
- [29:07]
Ali Velshi
Stunning. And Chris Wray.
- [29:11]
Carol Leonnig
Silent so far.
- [29:12]
Nicole Sganga
Also quiet so far.
- [29:14]
Ali Velshi
Well, I hope they read every page of the book and I hope that everyone reading it understands that everything that the public servants that you cover as brilliantly as anyone has ever done that they don't. They're not rogue actors. When you work in the government, just the White House, you do not have any authority unless it's granted to you from the person above you in a chain of command.
- [29:35]
Carol Leonnig
I thought one of the most moving things that Jack Smith had to say was when he began to tear up talking about the firing of Walt Giardina. I mean, a guy we have written about and he was one of the agents saying we need to investigate and get the financial records of Donald Trump's bank accounts because we are now getting a couple referral from the CIA indicating that Donald Trump may have taken a $10 million bribe from the president of Egypt. Walt Giardino was the one. And we write about it in the book saying we've got to get those records. It doesn't matter. Without fear or favor, we have to get these financial records. It's what we do. In any other case. Why are we not doing it here?
- [30:19]
Ali Velshi
And that's the red line he draws from Mueller in an interview with the New York Times saying my business records would be the red line. Congratulations on the book. Super important. I think everyone will read it. We'll try to get through more of it here with both of your help. It's an honor to have you here. It's an honor to have you as a colleague. Thank you. And you're welcome to come anytime soon. It's an honor to have you here.
- [30:37]
Carol Leonnig
It is an honor to have you read it so closely.
- [30:39]
Ali Velshi
Thank you, Nicole. Thank you. So important. The name of the book is How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department, Carolina and Aaron Davis are its authors. When we come back ahead of tomorrow night's elections, Democrats may have found the pro democracy message we've all been looking for. Our dear friends Mark Elias and Eddie Glide will be our guests. Don't go anywhere.
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- [32:38]
Ali Velshi
Donald Trump is clearly urging Republicans from coast to coast to do his bidding and get to work in the business of rigging the game. Rigging the map ahead of the 2026 midterm election, he has them racing to redraw congressional maps to give themselves a leg up. But on the eve of another consequential Election Day, Democrats are the ones finding their message to fight back against all of that. Here's California governor Gavin Newsom on the national impact of tomorrow's vote on his redistricting effort.
- [33:08]
Gavin Newsom
I feel like we're on the precipice of a remarkable moment on November 4, and not only where I'm confident we're going to win here with Property Opposition 50, but you're going to have two new, remarkable governors in Virginia and New Jersey. We're seeing overwhelming understanding and recognition of what's at stake. And remember, it's Prop 50 because this impacts everyone watching in all 50 states. As I said a moment ago, Donald Trump is an historic president. Historically unpopular, he's been very open and honest, including right outside the White House just last week, saying, hey, incumbents are likely to lose the midterms. He is not screwing around. He's changing the rules. He's rigging the game because he knows he'll lose if all things are equal. He did not expect California to fight fire with fire.
- [33:55]
Ali Velshi
Joining our conversation, voting rights attorney, founder of Democracy Docket Mark Elias is here and Princeton University professor MSNBC contributor Eddie Glad is here. Gavin Newsom has met this moment both politically and in representing his state when ICE first arrived there. What do you make of whether he has brought his state's constituents, his voters, along with him ahead of tomorrow's vote? Mark?
- [34:27]
Mark Elias
Look, I think that's what's most important, is that there was a lot of concern and a lot of thought that Democratic voters would not want to, to take steps to fight Donald Trump's redistricting gambit with equal force. And what Gavin Newsom has shown is that when you litigate this out in public, when you air the arguments on both sides, because there are billionaires on the other side of this, of this debate funding the no campaign, that when you litigate this out, that what the people care about are the results, the process is fine, the process is not unimportant. But what matters to people are the results and what Gavin Newsom is prepared to deliver there, what in my home state of Virginia, now the legislature is going to do there is offset these efforts by Republicans to try to rig the elections, to try to steal democracy from under, under our feet. And so kudos to Gavin Newsom, kudos to the folks in Virginia and to all the other blue states where Democrats are stepping up.
- [35:29]
Ali Velshi
I want to play someone who always meets the moment but weighing in and one of the earliest and most prominent voices to weigh in on getting voters to do what Gavin Newsom wanted them to do. And that's President Barack Obama. Here he is.
- [35:45]
Nicole Sganga
Trump.
- [35:46]
Mark Elias
The Republicans, they want you to think it's part of their story that things only happen from the top down, that a few people in power make decisions.
- [35:57]
Ali Velshi
And the rest of us have to.
- [35:58]
Mark Elias
Live with the consequences. But real change has always come from the bottom up, from ordinary folks who look around and say we can do better and then join together to make change happen. So it's up to us as citizens to stand up for the values we hold dear.
- [36:23]
Ali Velshi
The simple act, Eddie, of the president saying we still have power, it's up to us feels like it's seeking to deprive Trump of his cheapest and most effective weapon, which people's despair and people's sense that everything he's doing is inevitable. What do you think? These sort of closing messages, how are they rattling around out there with people in their busy lives?
- [36:44]
Eddie Glaude
Well, I think they're landing in a particular sort of way because they're landing right on top of the hard lived reality that people are experiencing right now. So, you know, democracy lives and dies with us. It doesn't, you know, with us. We, as I've written, we are the leaders we've been looking for. And President Obama hit that hard. Right. I mean, there's, there's, we can't outsource, force this work to anyone. We have to save this thing. And Donald Trump has banked on. He hasn't been in office for a year of all the trains running and a sense of helplessness because we're, you know, everything is coming at us at once. But here we have a moment at the ballot where we can at least do something to try to stem the tide, to mix my metaphors in some ways. And I think it's important for Democrats to say, you have the power. It's the government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Let's keep reminding folk of that.
- [37:35]
Ali Velshi
Yeah. And I wonder, Mark, if the confluence of people feeling absolutely terrible about their personal economies, absolutely terrified about the cost of health care, and maybe atmospherically deeply concerned about everything they see Trump doing, whether it's bulldozing the East Wing or disappearing people and masked agents all over the country, no place seems safe from that conduct. What do you sort of feel in your gut on this election eve?
- [38:02]
Mark Elias
I think they're all connected. I mean, you and I talked about this right after the election in the context of watching corporations bow down to Donald Trump. And one of the points that I made then was that, you know what, free and fair elections are good for capitalism. You know, rule of law is really important to people who want to make a lot of money. You know, having there be norms and having a workforce that is not hiding and being, being, you know, dragged out and disappeared is not good for the bottom line. And so it's no surprise that as people see these terrible things, they connect them to hardship that Donald Trump is creating. The tariffs he is creating are not unconnected to his mistreatment of migrants and US Citizens in our cities. And those are not disconnected from the threats to democracy, because those folks are in those cities, in part, I believe, in the lead up to 2026. So, you know, one of the things that in this country we got very used to was a strong democratic ethos, a strong rule of law ethos and institutions that would be independent checks on executive power and benefited everyone, including the very rich, including the capitalists, and including people who were working every day. And we've seen all of those things break down together.
- [39:24]
Ali Velshi
I want to show some of you, I want to show all of you what some of this looks like because you write about this in sort of the vein of capitulation and obeying in advance, which is I think one of the questions I'll have Wednesday morning. How much of all this was on voters minds based on what they say in exit polls. I have to sneak in a quick break first. We'll have that conversation next. Marg Elias, because you always tell the inconvenient truths, I'm going to read what you've written about the CBS interview with Donald Trump here in Democracy. Docket, quote. When I read the full transcript of the interview, I realized there had been no pushback, no corrections, no challenging follow ups. The entire interview had been an open ended opportunity for Trump to tell rambling lies only to have them clean, cleaned up into a more polished product. I do not believe that anyone at CBS News management told Norah o' Donnell to go easy on Donald Trump. I'm not suggesting that the producers and editors were pressured into making the decisions they did. The problem is that no one had to explain.
- [40:28]
Mark Elias
Yeah, look, I mean this CBS interview of Donald Trump was a classic example of obeying in advance. I don't believe that anyone sat around around CBS and said, Norah o', Donnell, I need you to really, you know, pull your punches on Donald Trump. The fact is though, everyone who works at CBS knows what, what the Ellison is the new owners want. Everyone knows what Barry Weiss, the new editor in chief who had the free press that she started purchased reportedly for $150 million. Everybody knows what their preference was. And everybody knows that if at the end of that interview, if at the end of Donald Trump's sit down he started posting on social media hate towards CBS News and Norah o', Donnell, there'd be hell to pay. And so they didn't have to be told anything. They didn't even have to purposely do anything. They just knew what the plan was. They knew what the direction was. They knew that they needed to obey in advance. And it's a perfectly human emotion but it is one that we need to recognize because CBS News started this, this journey by paying $16 million to settle a nonsensical bogus lawsuit so that it could get a merger done. Now it wants to buy a Warner Brothers and get another merger done. So there's that. Now you have Barry Weiss there and there's that. And now you have the Ellison who want to buy TikTok and there's that. And all of this is against a backdrop in which there are layoffs at CBS News. So it's understandable at a human level, at an emotional but it is a reason why Nicole, I come on your show as every opportunity I have because you don't pull punches, you don't obey in advance. In fact, you do the opposite of that. You find ways to tell the truth even when it's inconvenient for your soon to be former parent company.
- [42:14]
Ali Velshi
Well, and time will tell that's a wise strategy or not. So we're not making any recommendations, but here's what I think. I think the public susses this out, Eddie, and I think in and the public corrects for this. The most oversaturated part of the media ecosystem right now is this Trump adjacent. You can get it all over the manosphere. Most of the sort of ascendant male podcasters are the shows that Barron told his dad, Donald Trump to go on. If you want this content, Fox News has a very polished and refined product and lots of people go there. What is becoming a question to me is, is that a good brand?
- [43:01]
Eddie Glaude
I'm not sure it is not as.
- [43:04]
Nicole Sganga
Good as it was.
- [43:06]
Ali Velshi
33% on the equity, 36 on inflation, 37 overall. Like everyone betting on that is interesting to me.
- [43:13]
Eddie Glaude
We're so segmented and that segmentation and fragmentation evidences itself in politics over the has evidenced itself in politics over the last 10 years in such a way that I'm hesitant to draw certain kinds of conclus because there are all of these other variables motivating people that aren't made explicit in how they talk and how they, how they act and what they consume. You know, we just have to wait and see.
- [43:36]
Nicole Sganga
I think.
- [43:36]
Ali Velshi
What are you feeling ahead of tomorrow?
- [43:39]
Eddie Glaude
I am uncertain. My gut is turned inside out. And that's because at the end of the day, we have elected this guy twice. And I don't say I don't trust us, I'm just worried about us.
- [43:53]
Ali Velshi
Yeah. I've got more questions than answers and I did not ask you if you're optimistic. Right. I've stopped doing that. Right. We're here in like year nine of sharing these stories together, but I've got a lot of questions that I don't know. What are you feeling in your gut?
- [44:09]
Mark Elias
I think Democrats win Virginia, they win New Jersey, they obviously win New York City. We win big in the ballot initiative in California and in the main ballot initiative, we defeat the right wing effort to impose voter id. So I'm going to predict a clean sweep.
- [44:26]
Ali Velshi
I'm going to play that clip tomorrow. And we'll all be back to talk about it. You're usually right. I think I did this in. I think you made a clean sweep of predictions in, what was it, 22 and 18. So you're batting about a thousand on your prediction. So we'll roll the tape tomorrow. Mark and Eddie, thank you so much. One more break for us. We'll be right back. At a time when it feels like the voices willing to stand up to power in this country are dropping like flies, one comedic legend has confirmed that he is not going anywhere. Jon Stewart will continue to host Comedy Central's the Daily show every Monday through December 2026, keeping the iconic voice in politics and comedy in the show's anchor chair through next year's midterm elections. Stuart returned ahead of the 2024 presidential election to host the program one night a week, which she hosted full time for over a decade and a half. We'll look forward to Mondays. Now even more. Jon Stewart and Rachel, another break for us. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes today. We're grateful. We hope you'll join all of us tomorrow night for our special election night coverage.
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