"Multi-front assault on activities long protected by the First Amendment"

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Deadline: White House

Episode: “Multi-front assault on activities long protected by the First Amendment”
Date: February 14, 2026
Host: Nicolle Wallace
Key Guests: Angelo Carusone (Media Matters), John Heilemann (Puck News), Michael Feinberg (Lawfare/FBI), Georgia Ford (Journalist), Danny Bensky (Epstein survivor), Lisa Rubin (Legal Reporter)

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Overview

This episode explores the Trump administration’s escalating attacks on First Amendment activities—especially press freedom and civil protest—marking what guests and the host describe as a historic, multi-front assault on American constitutional norms. The show focuses on the indictment of journalist Don Lemon and others for covering a protest at a Minnesota church, analyzes the unprecedented weaponization of the Justice Department against journalists and lawmakers, and examines a broader landscape of intimidation aimed at silencing dissent. The conversation widens to demand accountability for figures connected with Jeffrey Epstein and probes the crisis of rule of law and institutional integrity under the Trump administration.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Don Lemon Indictment & Constitutional Crisis

• Don Lemon, along with eight others, is indicted on conspiracy against the right of religious freedom after reporting on a church protest in St. Paul.
  • Legal experts claim the case is unusually flimsy and Constitutionally suspect; such a charge has never been used like this by DOJ before ([02:07]).
  • Host Nicolle Wallace:
    “The process is the punishment...they’re hoping to intimidate Don Lemon and other members of the press...They’re hoping to raise the cost of speaking out to the point where fewer and fewer people actually do it.” ([02:13])
• Senator Cory Booker warns of broad weaponization of police powers:
  • “We are now in this constitutional crisis where we have a Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security...using their police powers in ways that I think most Americans never would imagine.” ([04:27])

2. Operationalizing Intimidation: Smearing & Government Targeting

• Angelo Carusone (Media Matters):

  • Describes how Trump 2.0 actively plans to use DOJ to attack critics and how process itself—massive legal fees, drawn-out cases—serves as the intended punishment ([06:51]).
  • “They didn’t just have an intention to go after journalists. They had a plan...at a foundational level, changing over and breaking norms at the Department of Justice and getting rid of the people that would even try to uphold those norms so you could start to do these kinds of things.”

• Right-wing punditry is pipelined into DOJ action, with TV and social media calls sometimes mapped directly to legal charges ([09:07]–[10:20]).

• Michael Feinberg (Lawfare/FBI):

  • “Even if you win a case...it is an incredibly expensive, time consuming, and emotionally draining process just to go through.” ([10:33])

3. Criminalizing Journalism & Shrinking Civil Liberties

• Both independent and legacy journalists—Don Lemon, Georgia Ford, Pentagon reporters—face criminal charges and federal raids for reporting or protest coverage.
• Georgia Ford:
  “Attacking the press is not simply just attacking journalists, it’s attacking the public’s right to know.” ([13:18])
• John Heilemann:
  “Trump 1.0 railed against the press...Trump 2.0 [has] systematization and weaponization in a much more formal way. That’s one big difference.” ([14:34])
  He also notes the chilling escalation from civil to criminal proceedings: “The big Rubicon that’s being crossed here...is going after independent journalists criminally...Criminal stakes...are about the individual freedom of the journalists...and that takes this into a totally different place.” ([17:43])

4. Consequences for Press, Lawmakers, and the Public

• Host and guests underline how DOJ purges, grand jury rejections of flimsy indictments, and judges’ pushback signal both a broken system and pockets of resistance ([25:37]–[28:39]).
• Wallace: “The system is broken when grand juries who hear one side of a criminal case do not believe federal prosecutors.” ([25:37])

5. Judicial Pushback and Partisanship

• Federal Judge Patrick Schultz’s Letter:
  “The government lumps all eight protesters together...Two of the five protesters were not protesters at all. Instead, they were a journalist and his producer. There is no evidence that those two engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so.” ([28:39])
• The panel notes that while lower federal courts have pushed back against Trump, the Supreme Court remains highly partisan ([30:36]).

6. Epstein Files Fallout & Accountability Double Standards

• Survivors and advocates press for accountability for all involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s network, but note a lack of consequences inside the Trump Cabinet despite mounting evidence and resignations elsewhere.
• Joe Rogan (clip):
  “It looks terrible for Trump when he was saying that none of this was real. This is not a hoax...If you got redacted people’s names and these people aren’t victims, you’re not protecting the victim. So what are you doing?” ([35:35])
• Danny Bensky (Epstein survivor):
  “We want co-conspirators to be held to account...stripping of titles is like the bare minimum.” ([42:30])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Don Lemon (post-arraignment):
  “The process is the punishment with them...I will not be intimidated. I will not back down. I will fight these baseless charges and I will not be silenced.” ([01:51])

• Sen. Cory Booker:
  “All of us should be alarmed by what is happening to our rights and to the Constitution...It is, to me, a constitutional crisis.” ([04:27])

• Georgia Ford (on journalism as crime):
  “Journalism is not a crime...attacking the press is not simply just attacking journalists, it’s attacking the public’s right to know.” ([13:18])

• Michael Feinberg (on DOJ purges):
  “We are now seeing [indictments getting dismissed] regularly for the first time in our nation’s 250-year history.” ([12:05])

• Angelo Carusone (on systemic intimidation):
  “They are willing to do these extraordinary things because they recognize the process itself is the punishment.” ([06:51])

• Judge Patrick Schultz’s rebuke:
  “There is no evidence that those two engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so.” ([28:39])

• Joe Rogan (on Epstein files):
  “This is not a hoax...If you got redacted people’s names and these people aren’t victims, you’re not protecting the victim. So what are you doing?” ([35:35])

• Lisa Rubin (on Trump’s mentions in files):
  “...A lot of the Trump mentions are because Jeffrey was obsessed with him...when people talk about, oh, there are so many mentions of Trump, that includes the word fragment D-o-n, which also could be found in the word don’t.” ([39:40])

• Danny Bensky (on accountability):
  “To me...Les Wexner is like the entry point into the broader network...when the earth shakes, you see the leaves fall, and eventually maybe the tree comes down.” ([43:15])

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Key Segment Timestamps

• Don Lemon’s Statement & Indictment Details: [01:34]–[04:27]
• Sen. Cory Booker on Weaponization of DOJ: [04:27]–[05:34]
• Angelo Carusone on the ‘Process as Punishment’: [06:51]–[08:44]
• Media-Pundit Pipeline to DOJ Prosecution: [09:07]–[10:33]
• Michael Feinberg on DOJ Norms & Systemic Risks: [10:33]–[12:31]
• Georgia Ford on Dangers to Press Freedom: [12:51]–[14:30]
• Heilemann on Authoritarian Escalation & Civil vs Criminal: [14:34]–[18:17]
• Discussion on Systemic Repair & Agency Culpability: [23:12]–[28:39]
• Judge Schultz’s Letter & Judicial Resistance: [28:39]–[30:36]
• Epstein Files Fallout & Trump Ties: [33:26]–[41:15]
• Danny Bensky on Rings of Accountability: [41:50]–[44:30]

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Tone and Takeaways

• Urgent, somber, sometimes incredulous: The conversation is forthright about the constitutional stakes and emotional toll of institutional decline, but also hopeful for ongoing resistance in the courts and among advocates.
• Repeated warnings: Against normalization of DOJ abuses and criminalization of civil freedoms, coupled with calls to “keep fighting” and demanding accountability.

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For Listeners Who Haven't Tuned In:

This episode provides a grave and detailed look into how the Trump administration's weaponization of federal institutions, especially DOJ, is not just a threat to journalists or activists—but to the bedrock constitutional rights of every American. It spotlights chilling real-world cases and expert analysis, blending urgent reporting with eyewitness testimony, and highlights a crisis many Americans may not even realize is underway. The episode ends with continued calls for accountability, both systemic and personal.

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Transcript

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[Host Nicole]

Hi there everyone. Happy Friday. It's four o'clock in New York. A new chapter today in what is a test case for the Trump administration and its multi front assault on activities long protected by our First Amendment. Journalist Don Lemon pleaded not guilty in court to two counts. They include conspiracy against right of religious freedom. He was charged after covering a protest at a Church in St. Paul, Minnesota last month. Here's what he had to say after his arraignment today.

[Narrator/Announcer]

The power and protection of the First.

[Commercial Voice]

Amendment has been the underpinning of my work. The First Amendment, the freedom of the press, the bedrock of our democracy, the.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Events before my arrest and what's happened since so that people are finally realizing.

[Commercial Voice]

What this administration is all about.

[Narrator/Announcer]

The process is the punishment with them. And like all of you here in.

[Commercial Voice]

Minnesota, the great people of Minnesota, I.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Will not be intimidated. I will not back down. I will fight these baseless charges and.

[Commercial Voice]

I will not be silenced.

[Host Nicole]

Don Lemon faces, in effect, a civil rights case, and one so flimsy that many attorneys who used to work at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division believe it will ultimately be dismissed. Legal experts telling CBS News this, quote, the indictment against journalist Don Lemon and eight others will likely be dismissed because it hinges on a charge that is viewed as so constitutionally flawed that the Justice Department Civil Rights Division has never attempted to use it to prosecute interference in a house of worship. That novel theory of the law comes on top of a set of alternative facts presented in the actual indictment by the Justice Department. On that, the Washington Post reports this, quote, the January 29th indictment calls the nine defendants agitators and says they, quote, entered the church in a Coordinated takeover style attack. In multiple instances, it describes the alleged conduct of the two journalists and the protesters collectively. Experts said that if Lemon was operating as a journalist during the January 8 protest at City's Church in St. Paul rather than as a participant, the that could undermine accusations that he was part of a conspiracy or that he intended to interfere with protected rights. During the approximately 45 minutes that Lemon live streamed at the church, he conducted interviews and repeatedly identified himself as a reporter while also voicing sympathy for the protesters cause. But the facts of the case and the law underpinning the case are of course, secondary to what Donald Trump is trying to achieve here. As Don Lemon himself puts it, quote, the process is the punishment. So whatever happens in this case, the Trump administration is doing what Don Lemon said they're doing. They're hoping to intimidate Don Lemon and other members of the press as well as anyone who dares to cover the truth or point out the truth or criticize Donald Trump. They're hoping to raise the cost of speaking out to the point where fewer and fewer people actually do it. As Senator Lissa Slotkin said about the case the Justice Department tried to bring against her and failed to do, the intimidation was the point to get other people beyond us to think twice about speaking out. The case today is also part and parcel of a war against institutions we're seeing waged all over the country. Here's how Senator Cory Booker puts it.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Well, I'm seeing an abuse of the rule of law, abuse of the power of the justice system in ways that are stunning. And it didn't start with this incident. They arrested the mayor of my city. The judge laughed it out of court, but they put him in handcuffs, they detained him for hours. We see them attacking members of the media with the arrest of Don Lemon in a way that we have never seen before. So we are now in this constitutional crisis where we have a Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security that are using their police powers in ways that I think most Americans never would imagine that they would be seeing. Even in the United States Senate, where I've seen Alex Padilla thrown to the ground and put in handcuff. Adam Schiff has trumped up charges where they're focusing on even the head of the Fed suddenly found himself under criminal investigation by the FBI. All of us should be alarmed by what is happening to our rights and to the Constitution. They're going after senators, they're going after people in our communities. It is, to me, a constitutional crisis.

[Host Nicole]

Charges against journalist Don Lemon marking a new Stage in the Trump administration's war on the press is where we of media matters for America. Angelo Carazone is here. Also joining us, Puck News senior political columnist, national affairs analyst John Heilman is back. And former assistant special agent in charge at the FBI. National security and intelligence analyst Michael Feinberg is also back. He's also a fellow at Lawfare. Angelo, I want to start with you, and I don't want to put you on the spot here, but I know your organization has been targeted. Don Lemon has long been someone who got under Donald Trump's skin. Donald Trump at least believes that he's part of the reason that Don Lemon is no longer at cnn. I'm not sure that's rooted in too much truth. Donald Trump's attacks against the press are legendary. They're incessant. And what is different, I suppose, is that in 2.0, he has the free rein to use the Justice Department to intimidate, threaten, cause journalists and media organizations to incur massive legal fees. And I just wonder if you can speak to this moment in this part of the Trump story, which is a little opaque to people not experiencing this.

[Angelo Carusone]

Yeah, I mean, there's something you said during your intro really resonated. Obviously, the process is the punishment. But there was another part that stuck out to me, which is that experts say that the government is unlikely to succeed in these prosecutions. Sure. But it's still extraordinarily painful. Experts have been saying that about my situation for a couple years now, and I'm still knee deep in it every day. And, you know, and I have confidence in those experts assessments. But that doesn't change the calculus here. They are willing to do these extraordinary things because they recognize that the process itself is the punishment. And the intention is to stop, you know, opponents or those they view as opposition from doing that work so that they then can get even fast, they can even execute their plans and their intentions faster, stronger, longer, be more effective. So that, I mean, it's a real thing. And, you know, it has lots of reverberations and broader consequences. And underneath all of that is that they didn't just have an intention to go after journalists. They had a plan. They did have a plan. And that plan was everything from, you know, at a foundational level, changing over and breaking norms at the Department of Justice and getting rid of the people that would even try to uphold those norms so that then you could start to do these kinds of things. You know, this prosecution effort is one, is one step in their larger assaults against journalists. But They've done a whole bunch of other stuff, too. They've made it easier to subpoena records to get all kinds of investigations into journalists. They rescinded a whole bunch of rules and protections at the DOJ when it came to sniffing around what journalists were doing. All that's gone. And so the exposure is there, and the tools are there for them to use that exposure to then attack and go after opponents. And day in, day out, we see sort of people folding. I mean, broadly speaking. But then there are fighters, and that's the important thing. We shouldn't lose sight of people like Don Lemon and others that didn't just immediately cop a deal, that are out there making advocacy work, you know, Media Matters and others. And that's what we have to do. We have to just continue to fight ahead.

[Host Nicole]

Let me unpack each of those points that Angela makes. There's the sort of they've operationalized the smear the target, and then turning the government on the targets in the press. This is sort of what that pipeline looks like. These are right wing media figures calling for Don Lemon's arrest.

[Commercial Voice]

And so this is, you know, hopefully just the beginning.

[Narrator/Announcer]

And as we know, Don Lemon needs to be the next to fall.

[Host Nicole]

On top of that, I would throw.

[Michael Feinberg]

In trespass, disorderly conduct, disturbing a religious.

[Host Nicole]

Meeting, which were normally state crimes. Look, Don Lemon could be prosecuted as a willing participant.

[Narrator/Announcer]

He committed trespass.

[Host Nicole]

He appears, as you and I discussed last night, to have embedded himself in the mob. If I were the federal prosecutor, I would charge, yes, the Face Act, I would charge civil rights. I would charge conspiracy. I would charge obstruction of free exercise of religion. I would charge federal trespass, harassment, a whole host of things. And on the state level, child endangerment, too. Michael Feinberg, Those are pundits on tv, and we are all pundits on tv. So, no, no, no hate at pundits. But never before has there been an administration that governs and takes their lead from pundits on tv. And so just to illustrate this pipelining of the smear, the seed, they know Donald Trump is always watching television, and they have a Justice Department now that operationalizes these political vendettas. Just talk about not how far from normal that is, but how dangerous that is for people that don't have access to all of the platforms that Don Lemon does.

[Michael Feinberg]

It's incredibly dangerous, simply because I don't know that the average citizen who's not enmeshed in this world realizes. But even if you win a case against the Justice Department, whether it's a civil trial or you're found not guilty in a criminal trial. It is an incredibly expensive, time consuming, and emotionally draining process just to go through. And that's normally why before an indictment or a lawsuit is ever brought in the first place, DOJ would normally have a whole system of differently ranked people who would appre. Who would need to approve the charging document or the complaint. But what we've seen happen over the past year is the overwhelming majority of those ranks have been either fired or Quentin discussed. So the only ones left are the ones that tend to watch the pundits we just watched. And, you know, at the, at the risk of getting glib, in any group or class of people or professions, there's going to be a bell curve of intelligence. And I'd humbly suggest that the pundits we just watched are probably at the left tail of that particular bell curve and not the ones that the Justice Department should be relying on for legal analysis.

[Host Nicole]

Well, so where does it put the people at the Justice Department on that bell curve if they follow them?

[Michael Feinberg]

I would simply note that for almost the entirety of the Justice Department's existence, it was incredibly rare for them to ever see an indictment get dismissed or to not be able to get a true bill out of a grand jury. And we are now seeing that occur regularly for the first time in our nation's 250 year history.

[Host Nicole]

Yeah. Don Heilman, Don Lemon was not the only journalist who was targeted by the Justice Department in this effort. I want to show you what Georgia Fort said with my colleague Rachel Maddow about her experience of also being targeted and arrested by the Trump administration.

[Georgia Ford]

There's been a series of things that have happened, right, like the Pentagon reporters who were not going to comply with the new policies that were put in place. Kimmel being pulled off air. The segment on 60 minutes not running when it was supposed to and probably only running because of the outcry from the public. Right. And so there's been a strategic attack on the free press for quite some time, but recently it is intensifying. And I would say that the arrest of myself and Don Lemon is a new level to threaten taking someone's freedom away. For them simply doing their job to try and criminalize journalism. Journalism is not a crime. And for me, when I think about the attack that we're currently seeing on the press, I really want American people to understand attacking the press is not simply just attacking journalists, it's attacking the public's right to know.

[Host Nicole]

I love where she ends that it is. And I think that we all struggle with how and when to cover media stories because it feels, it can feel navel gazing. Right. It isn't about us. Right. We are simply conduits. And there's so many choices. You could get all your information on substack. Lots of people do. But attacking the journalists, especially independent journalists, is about attacking the public's access to real information and real facts. And that feels like the most important part of the story. Heilman.

[Commercial Voice]

Well, sure. And also, Nicole, one of the most obviously blatantly authoritarian autocratic impulses or tactics that we've seen. It's like, you know, the, the attack on the public right to know. The attack on truth itself is essential to propping up dictatorial, authoritarian, autocratic regimes. I would, I would say, you know, a couple, a few quick things. There are a couple, like, kind of categorical dichotomies I'd like to talk about. One of them is the difference between Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0 is something we talk about a lot on this show. Here's a really good example of it. Trump 1.0. Trump railed against the press all the time, attacked a variety of journalists, including Don Lemon, with great frequency, said things that really disturbed all of us when he said that the press were the enemy, the people declared us to be that. But what happened in Trump 2.0, as you've been talking about here, the systematization and the, the weaponization in a much more formal way, where the four years that he was out of office, as in so many other areas, gave them time to plan and to strategize and to operationalize. That's one big difference. The second thing is, relates to Georgia Ford and Don Lemon, who are both clearly people with journalistic credit credibility and, and with resumes that run back into legacy media now doing work in independent media. And, but, but it's an important distinction, right? Because it's, it's, it is what you hear from those pundits that you played. And what runs through a lot of this discourse is that everybody who's in independent media now is going to be attacked as being an activist. A lot of people in mainstream media are attacked as being activists, but they're going to. Part of what the legal reasoning here is is that these aren't reporters, these are participants, these are activists. These are not really people who deserve the protections of the First Amendment. And then the third thing I'd say, and it's just a very simple thing, but in all of the things that We've seen in Trump 2.0 where Trump has gone after the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CBS News, repeatedly, ABC News. It's always been with civil cases. He's, he's sued people in order to intimidate them. This is all working towards the same end, which is to silence and control information. But he stayed on the civil side. Why is he stayed on the civil side? Because there's nobody who really disputes that. The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CBS News, ABC News, are, are, are traditionally seen as being part of the fourth estate. He has now moved into the criminal realm. Right. These two arrests are not what Trump has done before, where he's just sued people for outrageous sums, made them go through the motions. The New York Times stood up to him and he backed down. You know, the Wall Street Journal stood up to him. The ABC News and CBS News capitulated and wrote him checks. But all of those things were civil, were played out in the civil arena. The big Rubicon that's being crossed here. And I think it has a lot to do with the fact that these are independent journals without the kind of, of history or the kind of resources that those other big institutions. I named these, going after those people criminally. And I think that is what's so disconcerting about this, because you're not talking here about making people money. Is, is, is, is a big deal. Time is a big deal. Hassle is a big deal in the civil court. But criminal stakes, even if the cases are blatantly ridiculous, the stakes are so high because they are about the individual freedom of the, of the journalists who are working. And that takes this into a totally different place. And we must, we should be all the more disconcerted than we already are about what's going on because of that Rubicon being crossed.

[Host Nicole]

Yeah, I mean, and that was the story we led with yesterday, that Rubicon crossed in the effort, the failed effort to indict six lawmakers for exercising their First Amendment rights and simply telling men and women of the military not to follow illegal orders. I want to press all of you on what a year ago wouldn't have even felt like a statement that had to be made. Journalism isn't a crime. You could say peaceful protest isn't a crime. You could say following a crime. Judge's order isn't a crime. You could say following the military handbook isn't a crime. Donald Trump trying to criminalize all those things. We'll talk about that on the other side. Also ahead for us, another round of accountability coming for individuals who had extensive ties to Jeffrey Epstein. And again, that accountability does not include anyone in Donald Trump's cabinet or White House. We'll play for you what Joe Rogan had to say about that. Plus, from Fulton County, Georgia, now to Maricopa County, Arizona, Kristi Noem is spreading lies far and wide today about our election system, sending a chill among democracy watchers and protectors about the integrity of the upcoming midterms. And later in the broadcast, despite a drawdown of ICE agents in the state of Minnesota, there's still an alarming number of children detained as a result of Donald Trump's mass deportation policies. We'll bring you all that reporting and much more when Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

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[Georgia Ford]

I wanted to alert the public that agents are at my door right now. This is all stemming from the Fact that I filmed a protest as a member of the media. It's hard to understand how we have a constant, a Constitution, constitutional rights, when you can just be arrested for being a member of the press. And we've seen all these violations. All right, you guys, I gotta go. They're knocking.

[Host Nicole]

Yep, she's coming right now. For folks who have been informing us about the specific ways that we're sliding into autocracy, I think it was hard before Trump returned to the White House to really imagine what that looks like and sounds like and feels like. But that video, if there's ever a museum to chronicle the heroes who stood up in this moment, will include videos like that. These are scenes that did not happen in the United States of America. They're at my door right now, knocking. That was journalist Georgia Ford, live streaming the very moment the federal agents appeared at her door. That warrant for her arrest. You could hear some people in her house upset. She wasn't. She was steely. She was one of the two journalists, the other being Don Lemon, who we've been talking about, who covered a protest at that church in St. Paul. Michael Feinberg, the use of the Department of Justice and the FBI as an agency to terrorize people for exercising their First Amendment rights. What is the repair on the other side of this moment?

[Michael Feinberg]

Long and difficult because there's a lot of unpleasant things or unsavory things, I guess might be a better word, that we would have to commit to doing before we can start to rebuild. First, we would have to admit that what happened was very problematic, and a large part of the country voted for this to happen. This game plan was not secret. Project 2025 was published. Trump's campaign speeches spoke to what was going to happen. Stephen Miller's America First Legal Institute was preparing litigation for this. Like, this isn't an accident. This is a well executed plan, and we need to look that in the face, admit it. And people who supported it are going to need to acknowledge that it was wrong. That's problem number one. Problem number two is there have been some people, thankfully not as many as possible, but there have been some career executives in all these various departments who, instead of resigning in protest or quitting or saying no and being fired, have decided to stay. And maybe they've decided it's better for their career prospects to go along. Maybe they've decided they don't want to lose the income, but they've become complicit in doing what we now see on our news stations every single night. And the United States has never had to deal with either authoritarians or people who are willing to take part in authoritarianism. And we're going to have to have an accounting and we're going to have to have a reckoning. And doing that in a manner that still observes rule of law, still observes our Constitution, two things I think both of us still very much believe in is going to be time consuming, it's going to be draining, it's going to be difficult, it's going to be intellectually challenging, and it's going to take a lot of effort. But I do think if our republic is going to survive in the way we've always known it for another 250 years, we're going to have to do that hard work.

[Host Nicole]

Yeah. I mean, Angelo, I can almost feel you groaning through the screen. And I know that there's a lot more crap to get through before we get there. But what Trump has done is he's broken these agencies. He has broken the Justice Department, he has broken the FBI. There's some pockets still functioning, thank God. I am thankful that there are some parts of these agencies still functioning. But the fact that, and people don't understand the significance, I think right away of the fact that DOJ prosecutors who sort of bat a thousand are going before grand juries who are basically telling them to get out of here like a crummy stand up act, get out of here. I'm not indicting that person. I don't believe you. The system is broken when grand juries who hear one side of a criminal case do not believe federal prosecutors. And I want to sort of illustrate that with the fact that Don Lemon is represented by an attorney, by a former federal Prosecutor from the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota, that Donald Trump and his cronies at DOJ ostensibly wanted to prosecute him. Instead, they left. And now that prosecutor's defending Don Lemon.

[Angelo Carusone]

Yeah, I mean, and that was kind of the point, you know, in the intro to the segment, you were talking about how before Trump got reelected, it was sort of hard to paint that picture or for people to fully internalize it. And the thing that I was thinking about as we were talking about it is, you know, is what Steve Bannon was saying in 2023 and 2024, because he gives us a keyhole view into sort of the underbelly of maga. What does this actually? What does this look like when it gets really dark? Because he had been talking about prosecutions. It wasn't something that they were doing in secret rooms, you know, and Even in Project 2025, they talk about retaliation. You know, there's. They weren't that explicit. I mean, they were explicit, but not that much. Bannon really painted the picture. I mean, the scene that you. That you played at the beginning, that would come out of the narrative that he was spinning back in 2024, which then would have seemed fantastic hyperbole, but actually he was distilling down a world that they are trying to make. And so the breaking is an important part of it. And, you know, we have this weird thing. We have to sort of do two things at once. We have to sort of rely on parts of the old system that are being dismantled to preserve ourselves and protect ourselves and to get to the other side, while also acknowledging that it's broken and the goal is not to go back or prop up needlessly a system that is broken. And the bright spot is, you know, as you were talking about all the other stuff, you know, the judges blocking these retaliation efforts against the senators, and just yesterday, another judge blocking the Department of Defense's effort against Mark Kelly, I think about our own work because our case was cited, our lawsuit against Ken Paxton, the one that Stephen Miller ginned up against us, the investigation that we blocked, that new case law, that precedent was cited in the decision to sort of stop the retaliation against Kelly. And so we have to prop up. We have to use some of the tools in the toolkit. Well, not losing sight of when this is all over, there does need to be a reckoning and accountability, and we just have to keep our senses clear.

[Host Nicole]

Part of that record will be Heilman. The decisions and rulings by federal judges who have really been the bulwark from the earliest days, from probably January 21st of last year. This is a letter from Federal Judge Patrick Schultz to the Justice Department about this case. Quote, the government lumps all eight protesters together and says things that are true of some, but not all of them. Two of the five protesters were not protesters at all. Instead, they were a journalist and his producer. There is no evidence that those two engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so. The New York Times describes this judge, wait for it, as, quote, a staunch Republican appointed by President George W. Bush. So you've got sort of the peer, and Trump's down to 36%. So I want to be clear that he's still, you know, grandpa's still got his hands on the wheel and he gets to drive the car for three more years, but he's got a smaller and smaller number of people behind him as he careens down the highway down to, I think, 36%, 35% in some of the polls that have had him higher than that. So, you know, 60. I'm not great at math. What is that? 63% of Americans oppose all of this. But this idea that there is not a partisan divide in terms of the obliteration of the rule of law in these cases, attacking individuals, exercising their First Amendment rights.

[Commercial Voice]

Well, I think there is, Nicole. I don't want to. I don't want paper over the fact there still is, I think, a partisan divide in the sense that even as Donald Trump gets more and more unpopular, a third of the country, which is still a majority of the Republican Party, is still all for it. So let's not kid ourselves here.

[Host Nicole]

Oh, I meant among the judges. I'm sorry. I, I agree with you. I'm in among the judges who, who's appointed the federal judges for rebuking him. Yes.

[Commercial Voice]

Right. Well, and, and I, the only, the only exception to that. And I think that is true. Was true in 2020. It was true in 2024. It's been true throughout. There have been a lot of Republican judges who stood up to Trump at the federal and the district level and the lower courts. The problem that we face is the fact that the members of the United States Supreme Court, which is, I don't think we like to call it the highest court in the land anymore, given the way it's been behaving, but those judges continue to behave in ways that suggest a kind of, a much more naked kind of partisanship that a lot of us who idealize the court for a long time and used to fight with people who would say, well, you know, the court's basically just partisan, and whoever gets to pick them can tilt the court this way or that way. And we would all point to people like, like Warren Berger and Earl Warren, who changed over time. The Supreme Court is still a giant problem, and it's a topic for another day, but we're still dealing with the fact that they are acting in a way more partisan way than most of the federal district courts or the appellate courts or even lower courts down the line.

[Host Nicole]

That's true. And that is a conversation for another day. This felt like today in Autocracy News. Let's do this again, maybe every Friday. Angela, Michael and Heilman, thank you so much for starting us off. When we come back, an influential podcaster slamming Donald Trump and his administration's disastrous and dangerous handling of the release of the Epstein files. We'll show it to you next.

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[Host Nicole]

The calls for accountability over what has been released in the Epstein files are having a lot of successes. That accountability, though, seems to be happening everywhere except inside the Trump cabinet. The top lawyer at Goldman Sachs, Kathy Rummler, announced that she will resign in the wake of emails that were released that reveal her close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. On that, the New York Times reports this that Runler, quote, advised him on how to respond to tough questions about his sex crimes, discussed her dating life, advised him on how to avoid unflattering media scrutiny, and addressed him as sweetie and Uncle Jeffrey. Ruendler now claims she regrets ever knowing the deceased sex offender. Hollywood mogul a talent agent named Casey Wasserman is losing a flood of high profile superstar clients from his talent agency. They include our friend soccer superstar Abby Wambach and Grammy Award winner Chapel Roan over his flirtatious emails with Ghislaine Maxwell that were released in the files overseas. The consequences for figures with connections to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell have been swift. The former prime minister of Norway was charged this week with gross corruption over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, and as we've been covering all week, the fallout in the UK is ongoing. But when it comes to calls for consequences for people within the Trump administration, including Donald Trump for having contact or ties or friendships or relationships or visiting him on his island or calls for any accountability over Pam Bondi or the Department of Justice's handling of the release of the files or the redactions within the files. There's an all out effort by Trump administration officials to bluster, attack and then move on from talking about the heinous child sex trafficking crimes committed by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Here's what Joe Rogan, though, a podcaster who we don't cover him because we necessarily care. We cover him because he's influential enough in the center and on the right with men that he helped Donald Trump win. He's part of the reason Donald Trump is president. He's also the biggest podcaster in the world. Here's what he had to say about all this.

[Narrator/Announcer]

This is not good. None of this is good for this administration. It looks terrible. It looks terrible. It looks terrible for Trump when he was saying that none of this was real. This is all a hoax. This is not a hoax. Like, did you not know? Maybe he didn't know. If you want to be charitable, but this is definitely not a hoax. And if you got redacted people's names and these people aren't victims, you're not protecting the victim. So what are you doing?

[Angelo Carusone]

Right?

[Narrator/Announcer]

And how come all this is not released?

[Host Nicole]

We agree with you. Joining us now, Danny Bensky's back. She is one of the Epstein survivors who's been sharing her story bravely and advocating for transparency from the Trump administration. Also joining us, senior legal reporter Lisa Rubens here. You've been in D.C. this week and I just want to ask you how that went.

[Danny Bensky]

Yeah, I mean, roller coaster always. But we just expected a little more humanity than what we got. I think, you know, we knew that there were whispers going into the hearing that Republicans would not ask about really anything Epstein related at all, except for Thomas Massie. So we kind of already knew going into it that we weren't going to see a ton from that side. I will say that we were surprised that Chip Roy from Texas did. He used that last minute for questioning, which was felt like such a win in its own way. So that felt really good. But just the fact that Bondi would not even turn around and see us as people, you know, I mean, what a dehumanizing moment for survivors and for all of us who have been, I mean, not only did we go through the abuse itself, but then to be outed in all of the paperwork that was released and then to Continue to have to fight this fight every day. And basically, you know, all of this has taken over our lives. We're meeting with congressional leaders all the time. We're talking on programs like this. And to not even see women and to not give us even a moment of not. She didn't even have to apologize, really. I think she just could have acknowledged the presence, and she had three opportunities, and she didn't take a single one.

[Host Nicole]

Can you just tell me what you would have said to her if she'd taken. Right. Like she stood at a fork in the road and no matter how scared she is of Donald Trump, she is, you know, a person, as far as we know, with agency. If she'd stood up, she'd taken sort of the other fork in the road and turned around and walked up to you guys before or after, what would you have said to her? I think, why.

[Danny Bensky]

Why would you release this? With their actions being what they were? Why are you covering up perpetrators? And why aren't you protecting the women of this nation? And not just women, you know, I mean, we know that there are survivors who are boys. Right. But for. As it pertains to these files right now, these women. Right. Why didn't you protect us? Yeah, I think just the question of why is always looming over our heads.

[Host Nicole]

We've come on the RV day this week with fallout.

[Georgia Ford]

Right.

[Host Nicole]

The fallout in the UK where the Prime Minister is not in the files, but he appointed an ambassador to the United States who is, and his prime ministership is on the line. The general counsel at one of the biggest banks in the country, certainly in New York. A big job. Somebody who had big jobs in politics is out of work. The former head of Paul Weiss is no longer the head of Paul Weiss because of his emails where he seemed to be offering Jeffrey Epstein strategy on how to. How to delegitimize the claims of survivors and victims. How sustainable is it to not have any consequences or laws of gravity apply to Trump's cabinet?

[Lisa Rubin]

I don't know, but I think one of the reasons that he can't allow for there to be any consequences is because it obviously shifts our focus to.

[Host Nicole]

Him, directed him like Lutnick went to the island with whatever, five nannies and three kids. But Trump's in there 38,000 times.

[Lisa Rubin]

Correct. And to be fair, a lot of the Trump mentions are because Jeffrey was obsessed with him.

[Georgia Ford]

Right.

[Lisa Rubin]

He collected news stories about him. The mentions, when people talk about, oh, there are so many mentions of Trump, that includes the word fragment D o n, which also could be found in the word don't. So I wanted people to take that with a grain of salt. But your point about Lutnick don't being.

[Host Nicole]

In there is not why Trump refused to release them, correct?

[Lisa Rubin]

No, that's of course not why Trump refused to release them. And if we put the focus on somebody like Howard Lutnick, who publicly said that he and his wife vowed in 2005 never to be in Jeffrey Epstein's home, which was next door to theirs, ever again, and yet the files show that they went to his island once for a lunch. If we are that focused on a single lunch, imagine what would happen if Howard Lutnick were to suffer consequences because our eyes would automatically turn back to the person who has demonstrably much more extensive ties with Jeffrey Epstein, who is quoted in a near canon like article about Jeffrey Epstein from 2002 saying, as we've all quoted on air multiple times, Jeffrey likes beautiful women. He likes them almost as much as I do. And on the younger side, and now we have that 302 document, the FBI's manner of memorializing an interview with Michael Ryder, who was the chief of police in Palm beach in 2006, who is telling Southern District of New York prosecutors in 2019. I spoke to Donald Trump and Donald Trump told me, thank goodness you've caught this guy. Everybody knew what he was doing. It was disgusting. And Ghislaine Maxwell is evil. If Howard Lutnick falls, what does that say about Trump?

[Host Nicole]

Yeah, I want to. I have a million more questions for both of you. I'm going to ask you to stick around. We'll be back on the other side of a short break.

[Narrator/Announcer]

You are beginning to hear from some Republicans, and I've heard these privately, that they're very concerned about the amount of folks in the White House orbit that are either involved in this cover up or where more information continues to come out. And this I think Howard Lutnick example is one of them. And there's a lot more to come. There'll be a lot more information that's going to come out. And I think to me it's pretty startling how much of it is around Trump's circle.

[Host Nicole]

We're back. Danny, I want to ask you if as survivors there are sort of rings of offense, and what I think is important is that the associations are facing consequences. Yeah. But I think that what is probably more important to the survivors is that the people that engaged in criminal activity face consequences. And I wonder if you can just sort of speak to how big each category is. And how you see accountability playing out in those two rings of people like Kathy Rummler, who had associations, Lutnick, who we're talking about, who clearly had associations, and the men who were being protected, who engaged in the heinous criminal acts against you and the other survivors.

[Danny Bensky]

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think accountability looks really different across the board. Right. And I think that we want co conspirators to be held to account. And I think first we need to know the depth of their crimes before we can say, you know, this is. You need to go to jail, or this is pulling a name off of a scholarship fund or a statute. Right. It depends. There are varying degrees here, but I think that, like, we're starting to see. See accountability across the. In the uk and we're starting to see it in Norway, and we're starting to see sort of all these things fall. And the stripping of titles, I think, is like the bare minimum. So I think we're starting to see that.

[Host Nicole]

Do you feel like they've released more people, though, in that ring of associations than the men that actually engaged in the potential criminal conduct?

[Danny Bensky]

I do, yeah.

[Host Nicole]

I mean, from the outside, that's what.

[Danny Bensky]

It looks like for sure, yes. But we need more of that. And I think, like, you know, something that we saw while we were at the Bondi hearing, something that we found through Massie was he had said that Les Wexner was redacted in the file. And so they, you know, the list of co conspirators, they pulled back the redaction and there's Les Wexner. And I think that it was only for a little while that that was the redaction that was in place. But I think people like, you know, Les Wexner is like. To me, and I don't know if all survivors agree, but like the entry point into the broader network. Right. So, like, I have no idea why Indyke and Khan are not behind bars. I have no idea why Leslie Groff is not behind bars. And that's just within the inner workings of the Epstein world. Obviously, we know that that branches out. So I hope that Lauren Hirsch from World Without Exploitation likes to say, the earth is shaking. When the earth shakes, you see the leaves fall, and eventually maybe the tree comes down. So I think that that's what we're hoping for at this point.

[Host Nicole]

It's a beautiful way to put it. And thank you for being here to help us cover the leaves.

[Danny Bensky]

Thank you for having us.

[Host Nicole]

Thank you for helping us make sense of all of it after the break, how the political battle over ICE could affect everything from air travel to hurricane funding. We'll bring you that story next. The Department of Homeland Security appears poised to shut down at midnight tonight. For weeks, the White House and Democratic leaders have been negotiating on guardrails for ICE in the wake of the government's immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis, which led to the killing of two Minneapolis residents, Renee Nicole Goode and Alex Preddy at the hands of immigration enforcement agents as a result of Donald Trump's domestic spending bill passed last year. ICE and immigration enforcement agents are fully funded regardless of the shutdown. However, agencies like FEMA and the Coast Guard and TSA will be impacted. With just seven hours left to go, members of Congress have left Capitol Hill for a week long holiday recess. So it is unclear at this hour how long the shutdown could last. And on the eve of her agency shutting down, where's Kristi Noem? Where in the world is Kristi Noem? Well, today she was out pushing new voter suppression laws ahead of this year's midterms, as one does the next hour of deadline. White House starts after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

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