← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
"Photos that are worth a thousand words"
00:41:11
Ali Velshi, in for Nicolle Wallace, on newly released images from the Jeffrey Epstein estate that offer a glimpse into the world of the deceased sex offender - a world that included the rich, the famous and the powerful.
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- [00:00]
Julie K. Brown
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Congressman Ro Khanna
As President Trump.
- [00:32]
Ali Velshi
Continues implementing his ambitious agenda, follow along with the MSNow newsletter Project 47. You'll get weekly updates sent straight to your inbox with expert analysis on the administration's latest actions and how they're affecting the American people. The American people are basically telling the.
- [00:50]
Margaret Donovan
President that they are not okay with any of this.
- [00:52]
Ali Velshi
Sign up for the Project 47 newsletter at Ms. Now. Project 47. Hi everyone, it's 4 o' clock in New York. I'm Allie Belsheen for Nicole Wallace 19 photos that are Worth a Thousand Words Newly released images from the Epstein estate offer a glimpse into the world of the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a world that included the rich, the famous and the powerful folks like Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and others. The photos have been put out by the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. Donald Trump appears in three of the 19 photos. One was already public. The other two depict Trump with women who are not identified. This one, in black and white, shows Donald Trump standing with six women wearing leis. We don't know where or when these photos were taken. You'll recall that Trump has admitted to being friends with Jeffrey Epstein. Back in 2002, he told New York Magazine that Epstein was a, quote, terrific guy and that, quote, he's a lot of fun to be with. The reasons for their falling out, however, have shifted repeatedly. Other photos show Epstein with filmmaker Woody Allen, Bill Gates, Trump, Trump allies Steve Bannon and Bill Clinton, who, through a spokesperson, has denied knowing anything about Epstein's crimes and has even denied having spoken to him for over a decade before Epstein's death. In fact, all of the men seen in the photos have denied any wrongdoing on their part or any knowledge of Epstein's crimes. The photos released today are part of some 95,000 images that the Epstein estate has hand over to the committee. In other words, it's just the tip of the iceberg. The ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, Democrat Robert Garcia, said this morning that Democrats plan to release more photos in the days and weeks ahead. Here's more from his press conference.
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Congressman Ro Khanna
These pictures Some of these photos are really disturbing, and I know we've put some out today. There are many others. And some of the other photos that we did not put out today are incredibly disturbing.
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Ali Velshi
Garcia then referred to the fact that the Justice Department has to release the Epstein files by December 19th in order to comply with the law passed with near unano support by Congress. That's now just seven days away. Congressman Ro Khanna is going to join us in just a few moments. But first I want to bring in Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown. Her reporting has driven the vast majority of the Epstein coverage over the years. In fact, is really the reason this continues to remain a story that we're following. Julie, great to see you again. Thank you for being back with us. What do you make of this? Julie? There's a lot of information that we already knew. There may be photos that are new to people, but it's information we knew of. As you go through these new tranches of information that come out from time to time, including today, are you discovering things that are new?
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Julie K. Brown
I think just seeing all these people with Epstein, you know, as the cliche goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. I think that you have to wonder when you see these, you know, powerful people, intelligent people, people who are world leaders, sort of smiling and laughing with Epstein. Of course, we don't know the dates that these photos were taken, but at some point, these people had to know what he was doing. I mean, even in some of the photos, the one with Bannon, you could see some photos on his desk. There's one of a partially clad woman sitting right there on his des. I mean, there's no doubt that some of these people that were in his orbit had to know that he was engaging in sex with a lot of different women, and many of them were very young.
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Ali Velshi
Julie, stand by for a second. I want to bring in the Democratic congressman Ro Khanna of California. He's a member of the House Oversight Committee. Congressman, good to see you. Thank you for being with us. Can you give me some context into these documents, these photos that have been released? I know that it's part of a much larger tranche. So these are some of them. Give me a sense of what this is about.
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Congressman Ro Khanna
Well, it's a bombshell revelation. I mean, you have photos of Bill Clinton, of Donald Trump, of Bill Gates, Larry Summers, others at Epstein's properties, at, in some cases, Epstein's Rape Island. And this is just one fourth of the documents that are actually in the Epstein release. And we still are, of course, waiting on December 19 for all of the documents to come out. There are many such pictures, according to the survivors. And this should give us real momentum that we want to see everything.
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Ali Velshi
Julie, what's your sense of if, if lots of documents come out by December 19th or photos? Because I think there's nobody in America who knows more about this, the story than you do. Do you think give me some sort of estimate. Do you think there's me a lot more information that you'll know and that the public will be able to glean to finally put the right meat on the bones on this story and understand it properly?
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Julie K. Brown
Well, it depends on whether the FBI and the Justice Department is forthcoming with these documents, whether they really produce them and they are transparent about it. They don't over redact and they actually do what the law now requires them to do. But if they do that. Yes, I think there's an awful lot here. For example, with the photographs we know from the victims that Maxwell and other assistants that Epstein had were often taking photographs of the women. And even the underage girls were often asked to pose provocatively in little or no clothing, sometimes to take pictures for Epstein as a quote, unquote gift. So there, there's, there's a lot of disturbing, as the representative said earlier, there's probably a lot of disturbing photographs and video material in there.
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Ali Velshi
Congressman, there is some chance, as Julie says, that the Department of Justice will use all sorts of tricks to delay this redactions, the idea that anything having to do with an ongoing investigation can't be released. Tell me about the information that you would like the Justice Department to release versus the information you are getting access to from the, from the estate. Because I don't know if the public understands what's the difference in those two tranches of information?
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Congressman Ro Khanna
Well, first, Ali, let me just say about Julie, I have so much admiration for her journalism. She has been covering this for over a decade at a time where no one cared about these survivors and there are over 1,000 survivors and, and they deserve justice. Now we're getting some of the documents from the Epstein estate. As you know, that happened because I was on Lawrence o' Donnell show. Bradley Edwards gave me a tip, we sent a letter and those documents are coming from Epstein's estate separately. Now you've had three federal judges, a federal judge in Florida and two federal judges in New York say that the Justice Department needs to produce the documents, including what was in the grand jury, including discovery. What do we need? We need information about the photographs that were on Epstein's computers. We need the witness memorandum that the FBI wrote, many of them talking to many different men. We need documents, such as the case that happened in the Virgin Islands and questions that and documents concerning that. The Justice Department has access to them. The Justice Department has access to financial records. Were they loans to Donald Trump or did Donald Trump provide loans to Epstein? Did other people provide loans and money to Epstein? All of that needs to come out. And now three federal judges have said that to comply with the Epstein Transparency act, the Justice Department must release those documents.
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Ali Velshi
Julie, I show the representative's view of you. You are a journalist. Journalist. But talk to me about motivations here. There are some people who are motivated by the fact that they believe there's a conspiracy theory here. And people have been. Things have been. There are others who think that sometimes just by being rich and connected, you get away with things. There are still others who are mostly concerned with this, either on a salacious basis or the fact that perhaps it could lead to the end of Donald Trump. But I would argue, and maybe I'm wrong, I would argue that concern about the survivors is at best a distant fourth. And that's sort of disappointing and sad. And that's something you've talked about and written about.
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Julie K. Brown
Well, that's the reason I took up this story to begin with, because everybody knew about Jeffrey Epstein and everybody had stories before. You know, I wasn't the first reporter to cover this, but I. I just felt like it was a mystery, it was inexplicable to me how he got away with his crimes and especially when there were so many women, young women, underage women who were victimized. So how does that happen? And that's how I started my investigation. I still think that question isn't answered. I still think that should be paramount on everyone's minds. It doesn't matter whether you're Republican or. Or a Democrat or what your political beliefs are. This is a crime and it should be viewed as a crime. And everyone, Republicans, Democrats, should consider this, something that we have to resolve and we have to bring justice for these crimes to these survivors.
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Ali Velshi
Congressman, this is one of the very few things that are bipartisan these days. You've been working in a bipartisan fashion with some of your Republican colleagues. Talk to me about continued avenues. You mentioned that you're on Lawrence's show and you got sort of a hint or a tip about things you can do, and that is led to some of this documentation. What else can happen? Because I think there's no doubt that no matter what exists the Justice Department will slow walk the release of information they have.
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Congressman Ro Khanna
Well, let me first say that for Thomas Massie, myself, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert, the three Republican women who stayed on the discharge petition despite enormous pressure from the White House and Speaker Johnson, it was about the survivors. It was because we heard their stories and the survivors are what moved America. There are two press conferences in front of the Capitol. Someone said to me, who wasn't involved with Epstein's sexual abuse but had just faced sexual assault, that she, this is the first time she felt that the government saw her, that the government did something to validate her. So for us this is personal. We've met now a lot of these survivors. We're going to insist that those federal judge decisions be obeyed. We have requested a meeting with Pam Bondi. Now look, so far the Justice Department has said that they're planning to comply with those decisions. But as Julie pointed out, there's a lot of documents and the question is, what are we going to get? I don't expect we're going to get all of them December 19th, but we'll have a pretty good sense of how difficult it's going to be to get all of them. I certainly am not going to rest until we get all of them with the victims protected.
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Ali Velshi
Julie, let's talk about Ghislaine Maxwell because there's a lot of headlines about her. There's a lot of machination on her part to get a commutation of her sentence. Nobody in the administration has said that's a non starter. But this is a convicted sex offender who already, as a result of a very unorthodox interview with the Deputy Attorney General, seems to have been getting preferential treatment. What's your sense of what Ghis Maxwell's role in this current set of developments can be?
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Julie K. Brown
Well, I think that she's aiming for a pardon. I think that she has, I think she knows a lot of information. She obviously knows who was involved with Epstein, who helped Epstein, and she really can provide a key for exactly how it operated. But of course, during her trial and even after she's claimed she didn't know anything, she, she had no information. So I personally suspect that she's to start if she doesn't seem like she's going to get a pardon. I think she's going to, if she hasn't already started leaking information in order to send a message to some of these important people that she knows where the skeletons are. And I, I just think that she's just Waiting and wondering what's going to come out before she, she starts really moving forward with a pardon or a commutation of her sentence.
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Ali Velshi
And that's one side of the coin, Congressman. The other side is what Donald Trump knew and when he knew it. The Wall Street Journal reporting today that Donald Trump Justice Department told Donald Trump in May that his name is among many in the Epstein files. When Justice Department officials reviewed what Attorney General Paul Bondi called a truckload of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein earlier this year, they discovered that Donald Trump's name appeared multiple times, according to senior administration officials. In May, Bondi and her deputy informed the president at a meeting in the White House that his name was in the Epstein files. The official. Many other high profile figures were also named. Trump was told being mentioned in the records isn't a sign of wrongdoing. And that's a fact. It's not a sign of wrongdoing. But there's an inconsistency here about what Donald Trump says about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Again, this may lead to no wrongdoing whatsoever. But whether you're a conspiracy theorist or you're just somebody who wants to get to the bottom of this or you'd like somebody to get, you're somebody who wants to get justice for the victims. There is an inconsistency with the stories that come from Donald Trump and the White House about their relationship or his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
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Congressman Ro Khanna
Well, Ali, as so often happens in Washington, the COVID up is far worse than the original crime. Many people voted for Donald Trump. They knew that he wasn't a saint. They knew that he had affiliation with people like Epstein. But what they thought is he would expose the system, that there are a bunch of rich and powerful men who have too much control in our government, who intimidated young girls and said, we control the FBI, we control the police, you can't report us. And that he was going to expose this. He was going to expose a group of rich and powerful men who don't share small town American values, who feel the rules don't apply to them. And the reason there's been such outrage is not because he wrote a birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein. It's not because his name is in the files. It's because he's gone back on that fundamental promise to expose this Epstein class. And my view remains, as do some Republicans, that he should just get it out there, both because it's the right thing to do and because it's the politically smart thing to do.
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Ali Velshi
And Julie, that, I guess, becomes the common thread between people who have different motivations for wanting information out of this. And that is just tell me what the truth is. And I remember from your reporting all those years ago, that's all you were trying to get at as a journalist. What actually happened here? Do you sense we're getting closer to this?
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Julie K. Brown
Oh, gosh, it's hard to say. I don't think anybody in the public anyway really understands how big this is. This is a huge global sex trafficking and probably money laundering network. And I, you know, it could take a long time before we really find out exactly how it operated. It was, it was global. There were people in Russia involved all over the world. And so, you know, I'm not sure how much the FBI really did their job in investigating this, quite frankly. In fact, I feel like we're getting more information from his estate through the oversight committee than we probably ever would have gotten out of the government files.
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Ali Velshi
Thanks to both of you, not just for being here to explain this to us, but both of you have taken very active roles in trying to get information out about, about this case and make everybody better informed about it. So we appreciate it. Julie, Kate Brow, thank you for joining me today. And of course, Congressman Ro Khanna, member of the Oversight Committee and co sponsor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. All right, when we come back, Trump upping the pressure on Venezuela and its leader with sanctions and threatening land strikes could be next after seizing an oil tanker off the coast there, leaving everyone wondering what his end game actually is. Plus, a top US General contradicting Donald Trump and his calls for the military to be used against the so called called enemy within. We'll show those remarks to you. And later in the show, beating back an intense White House led pressure campaign, bipartisan lawmakers in Indiana said no thank you to Trump's gerrymandered maps. All those stories more when Deadline White House continues after this. Don't go anywhere.
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Amanda Carpenter
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Margaret Donovan
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Ali Velshi
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Ali Velshi
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Margaret Donovan
One of my favorite pieces of advice.
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Amanda Carpenter
Think big to accomplish big things.
- [17:54]
Margaret Donovan
Have no fear of failure. It really does come down to just trusting yourself.
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Amanda Carpenter
Julia Boorstin HOSTS CNBC Changemakers and power players.
- [18:01]
Julie K. Brown
Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
- [18:07]
Ali Velshi
Donald Trump is pushing his most aggressive military action yet in Venezuela. Land strikes.
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Congressman Ro Khanna
I guess now we're not treating them so good. If you look at the drug traffic.
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Ali Velshi
Drug traffic by sea is down 92%.
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Congressman Ro Khanna
And nobody can figure out who the.
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Ali Velshi
8% is because I have no idea.
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Congressman Ro Khanna
Anybody getting involved in that right now.
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Ali Velshi
Is not doing well.
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Congressman Ro Khanna
And we'll start that on land, too. It's going to be starting on land pretty soon.
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Ali Velshi
Take note of the fact that he's justifying this with drug trafficking. Is going to talk about this in a while. We started what started as the administration calling an effort to help keep harmful narcotics off of American streets has devolved into a potential war with one of the world's most oil rich nations. That threat comes amid new sanctions placed on Venezuela and its leader, Nicolas Maduro, the guy on the right by the Trump administration. The new sanctions target three nephews of the wife of Mr. Maduro and six shipping companies. The administration has also not ruled out additional oil tanker seizures. This is the one that happened a couple of nights ago, maybe it was last night. And since September, two nights ago. And since September 2, there have been at least 22 boat strikes which have killed 87 people. And through all of these actions, the administration has not been accountable to anyone or the law. The administration has yet to publicly release a legal justification or the written orders for the mission, which was due to Congress months ago. I want to bring in the former deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes. And the White House correspondent Laura Baron Lopez joins us as well. Welcome, both of you. Thank you for being with us. Laura, latest information from you from the White House because this situation is remarkably kinetic. We've got the ongoing questions about these attacks on these boats that Pete Hegseth refuses to give sort of consistent information on. And then we've got the seizure of this very large cruel crude oil tanker and the expectation that there might be more of those. And now talk about a land attack. Where are we on this?
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Margaret Donovan
Right.
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Laura Baron Lopez
Well, it appears that things just continue to be escalating, Ali. And as you noted, the justification has kind of varied. Even yesterday in the Oval Office when the president was asked why essentially he said therefor a lot of reasons was the why was the justification, including he even mentioned immigration and seemed to be saying because of the flow of migrants from Venezuela was another reason. And then he mentioned drug trafficking. And so the White House officially has been saying that they seized this oil tanker because it was a part of the larger illicit trade and funding of Venezuela's drug trafficking. But again, there are so many questions that they're not necessarily necessarily answering and that a number of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including even Republicans, are trying to get answers on, which is what is the legal justification? Why did they escalate to seizing an oil tanker in addition to these boat strikes? You know, alone. They're just trying to get justification, legal justification for the boat strikes and get some kind of reckoning there, which they will. A number of lawmakers on the Hill believe that the boat strikes in and of themselves, let alone second strikes or double tap strikes like the one on September 2nd that killed survivors, may be illegal. A number of lawmakers, including Republicans, believe that the whole operation could very well be illegal.
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Ali Velshi
Ben, there's so much here. But let's just start with the fact that we have 14,000 troops in the region. We got F35s. We've got an air carrier strike group there. And then to Laura's point, we got, it could be about drugs. It could be specifically about fentanyl, which Venezuela doesn't make, or cocaine on boats that aren't going to the United States couldn't possibly get to the United States. An admiral involved in this has said very clearly those boats are not going to the United States. Now, maybe it's about immigration. You were in the government. You understand there are rules. They're not that complicated. You have to get permission to do this if you're going to launch strikes. You can't just decide you're in a war on drugs and you can't just decide people are terrorists.
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Ben Rhodes
Yeah, absolutely, Ali. And there's just no legal authorization for this whatsoever. They're not even really pretending there is. There's no act of Congress authorizing these strikes against these boats. It needs to be emphasized Venezuela is not a source of fentanyl coming into the United States. That's precursors from China going through Mexico. Venezuela is not even a particularly leading source of other types of drugs coming to the United States compared to Mexico or Colombia. Right. And so there's just no legal basis to be fighting a war against drug trafficking. Boats. There's no evidence even of the drugs on the boats. That is really being presented in a consistent way. And look, this all feels like it's about a regime change operation against Venezuela. You don't need, even if you are fighting war against drug trafficking, you don't need an aircraft carrier, you don't need over 10,000 US personnel to blow up some boats in the Caribbean. So the massive military force, the seizing of the oil tanker, this all feels like the precursor to an effort to change the regime in Venezuela. And there, too, we'd ask Maduro not a good guy, but he's been there for well over a decade. Why are we doing this now? And Donald Trump has just never given an explanation to Congress or the American people about what we're doing here and what could be like a regime change war.
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Ali Velshi
Yeah, and he tried a version of this in his first administration. But, Laura, that's a big deal regime. I mean, there are lots of regimes in the world that are actually illegitimate. This may be one of them. And are bad and are bad for their own people. There's no popular support generally for major military action, for regime change. But the administration is. They're not making a big secret of the whole thing. They're trying to get rid of Maduro.
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Laura Baron Lopez
No, that's right. I mean, they are essentially making this pretty well known how they feel about the regime, what they want done. The fact that they don't feel really as though they're constrained in any way and they are taking step by step more aggressive action, and they don't really expect much pushback or oversight from Congress, despite the fact that we've seen a few more Republicans become outspoken on this area, be it the boat strikes or be it the escalations on the oil tanker and the potential conversation about some kind of land campaign, they feel as though they can essentially, the president feels as though and those around him as though he can essentially take the actions that he wants, wants to take and that there won't be many repercussions. Now on the issue of a land campaign, I'll just say when we talk about the politics of this a bit, Ali, back in the campaign trail, when I talked to a number of people who were planning to vote for Trump, including young voters, they kept repeating over and over again the idea of forever wars, the idea of more and more wars that the US May get involved in, and the idea of American troops on the ground was something that these young voters, especially young men, did not want to see at all. And that was one of their big reasons for voting for president. And so the fact that now we hear the president toy with the idea of potentially starting some kind of land operation is another thing that could end up not sitting very well with his base.
- [25:15]
Ali Velshi
It's very strange, Ben, when you look at countries that are considered adversaries, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, these are all countries that have one thing that they can sell a lot of to get foreign currency. They need dollars to operate their. Their economy. Venezuela sells its oil at a discount to the world because it's sanct. I would assume if America seizes enough of these boats, these very large crude carriers, that it could have some impact. I mean, I don't know what impact it has on the average Venezuelan because life is very bad economically if you're the average Venezuelan. So I don't know how much worse it gets because of this. But is there a way that this does end up pressuring Maduro to leave? Because the White House is implying that those kinds of discussions are underway.
- [26:01]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, it puts a lot of pressure on Maduro. If it denies him revenue, it definitely puts a squeeze on him. But look, the reality is we've seen this movie before, Ali. I mean, if he leaves, which I don't think is guarantee, I mean, he's a revolutionary type figure, he probably doesn't trust that he'd be safe anywhere outside the country. He may choose to stay and fight. But even if he leaves, you have a deeply corrupt Venezuelan military that has buttressed this authoritarian regime for a long time. Venezuela is a very large country. It's not. How many times do we have to go through this where just replacing the bad guy doesn't necessarily lead overnight to democracy. And the US Is on the ground there in a country with different factions would be fighting it out for natural resources. This could be a big mess. And look, bears repeating on the politics Donald Trump promised end forever wars. He's starting a new one in this hemisphere. Donald Trump promised a focus on affordability. What on earth is this doing to lower costs for Americans? It's just a very peculiar thing that seems to be tied up in his desire to use the military, tied up in his kind of feud with Maduro that goes back to his first term. Tied up in his maybe he wants to get some access to oil for American oil companies. Whatever it is, he's not telling us what this is about. And this could be a very large piece of business. And it seems to fit with his worldview, which is essentially he's the kind of emperor of the Western hemisphere and he wants to start kind of picking leaders. We don't have a very good track record of that in American history.
- [27:32]
Ali Velshi
Yeah, it's also a wildly expensive campaign. This is not a couple of planes flying over and doing a few things. Thanks to both of you, Ben Rhodes, Laura Barone Lopez, we appreciate your time. All right, after the break, there's a new campaign that Donald Trump could see when he attends the Army Navy football game this weekend targeting his political motivated use of the military here at home. We'll talk with one of the people leading that charge after the break.
- [27:56]
Margaret Donovan
What made you confident that you could.
- [27:58]
Julie K. Brown
Do something that hadn't been done before?
- [28:00]
Margaret Donovan
I have no fear of failure.
- [28:02]
Ali Velshi
Trailblazing women, changing the game.
- [28:05]
Margaret Donovan
One of my favorite pieces of advice, think about what your boss's boss needs. Leadership can look in many, many different forms.
- [28:12]
Ali Velshi
It really does come down to just trusting yourself.
- [28:14]
Amanda Carpenter
Life is short and you just gotta think big to accomplish big things. Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players. New episodes every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [28:28]
Ali Velshi
When Donald Trump stood before a room of hundreds of the country's top military officials and suggested US Cities be used as training grounds for the military in order to handle the, quote, enemy from within, it was an incredibly alarming moment and made clear his desires to turn the world's most powerful and lethal military force inward. As to whether or not military officials are on board with Trump's assessment of who the country's enemies are, here's what one general had to say to the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday.
- [28:58]
Congressman Ro Khanna
You were at Quantico when the president addressed the officers?
- [29:01]
Ali Velshi
I was, sir.
- [29:02]
Congressman Ro Khanna
The president essentially indicated that you should be prepared to conduct military operations in the United States against this enemy within.
- [29:12]
Ali Velshi
Are you doing that? Sir?
- [29:15]
Congressman Ro Khanna
I have not been tasked to do anything that reflects what you just said. Do you have any indication of who.
- [29:20]
Ali Velshi
This enemy within is?
- [29:22]
Congressman Ro Khanna
Sir, I do not have any indications of an enemy within.
- [29:28]
Ali Velshi
I do not have any indications of an enemy within. I want to bring in writer and editor for Project Democracy, Amanda Carpenter. Also with us is Margaret Donovan. She served as a captain in the army, serving in the 101st Airborne Division and later in the 5th Special Forces Group. She was a group captain in the JAG Corps and is the former Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut. Thanks to both of you for being with us this afternoon. Captain Donovan, I want to, I want to start with you, please, because this is so alarming just from the get go, right, the concept of an enemy within, but the concept of turning your army against your civilians, that is a well understood thing since Roman times that you don't do.
- [30:08]
Margaret Donovan
Yes, you've hit the nail on the head. There is no enemy within. And I actually am encouraged in some ways by the general's response in his testimony that you just showed. Because notwithstanding the falsehoods that the president is implying that there is some type of unknown or intangible enemy within, or even a tangible one, I do trust that the leaders in the military, the experienced leaders, understand the importance of impressing upon their subordinates that there is no enemy within, if there is any threat within the United States, we have robust law enforcement authorities, the FBI, local law enforcement to deal with danger and crime and things of that nature. The United States military is not designed for that. And that was central actually to the framers of our Constitution. The very Third Amendment prohibited soldiers from quartering with civilians in peacetime. So this was forefront of the framers mind.
- [31:04]
Ali Velshi
Amanda, you've got a campaign that I want to show some video of. The billboards that are going to go up at the Army Navy Game, I got to say, seems benign and obvious, but you know, Mark Kelly's in trouble for saying exactly the same thing that you're saying. Respect the military, respect the mission, deploy troops responsibly. Right. The idea that it is against the law for a service member to obey an illegal order, an order they know to be illegal. Right. If they don't know it's illegal, that's a different story. It's not illegal to tell people about what's legal and what's not legal.
- [31:40]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, absolutely not. And let me be clear. This campaign that we're running is to raise awareness about the role of our military. It is not their mission to be deployed for political reasons against their fellow citizens. And this is something, you know, we're doing at the Army Navy game because these are people that love and support the military and understand that they're really the best among us. Right. People who volunteer to be members of the National Guard, leave their families, they leave their jobs, they leave their communities because they want to help people. They have pledged to protect their fellow Americans from foreign adversaries, to give life saving assistance in the event of national emergencies and should only be deployed to the streets when there are clear cases of severe unrest in rare and extraordinary circumstances. And what we are seeing today is that troops are being deployed to the streets under false pretexts of fake emergencies for politicized reasons. And yes, this is being fought through the courts, but we need to talk to our fellow Americans about why this is not how they should be used. I mean, these are people with precious lives in front of them. And even when they get deployed to some place like Washington D.C. right, they're still being put in harm's way, as we saw when those West Virginians, you know, one has lost her life. I mean, these are real people and this is not a game. When President Trump says, we know we're going to wind them up and send them to the cities for reasons that are really questionable. And so I just, we want to come from this From a place of support. You know, we love the troops. We want to celebrate the Army Navy game. But also loving and supporting our troops means using them in the most respectful way possible and only deploying them when needed.
- [33:22]
Congressman Ro Khanna
Yeah.
- [33:23]
Ali Velshi
One of the posts or the banners you have indicates, you know, it's not a game. Deploying troops to the streets is not a game. Margaret. One of the issues, though, is that I've been in so many natural disasters in this country or events where we've needed the National Guard, and they've been there. They are really people who are there to help their communities or communities around the country. But there's sort of a conflict provocation thing going on here. Right. There's members of the military, members of the National Guard being sent to places sometimes well outside their communities in which there is no discernible problem. I point out Portland or Chicago, there's no problem. You might think it's an immigration issue. That's a different debatable issue. But there's no thing that requires military presence. But there's some sense that, well, you know, if we can provoke somebody into doing something, then it justifies the deployment of the military.
- [34:13]
Margaret Donovan
Yeah, absolutely. And that's a very troubling trend that we have seen. I will say that the federal courts, again, in sort of a note of encouragement, the federal courts have recognized that while the law may say that the president does have the ability to federalize troops in certain scenarios, that needs to be supported by the facts on the ground. And it seems that American courthouses are one of the last places where facts do matter, black and white facts. And so I have been encouraged by to see judges at least recognize that the facts are not supporting these extreme powers and these extraordinary powers that are reserved not for, as you say, everyday occurrences, for protected activity like peaceful protests, but truly extraordinary circumstances. And I do just want to second everything that Ms. Carpenter just said, that on a micro level, leaving your family and leaving your spouse and your kids alone to go pick up trash on the streets or guard a building that is not under threat. This is really disrespectful of the troops and of their time and of the sacrifices that they and their families are making by wearing the uniform.
- [35:25]
Ali Velshi
Yeah. And someone did lose their life. And as a result, those families of everybody deployed has got to be sitting there saying, wow, this feels like a dangerous mission. Now, you know, everybody who's a member of the family, a member of a National Guard person's family is thinking about that. Don't go anywhere. Both of you, please. Stick around. Coming up, the very latest in the drummed up investment investigation into Senator Mark Kelly, a former fighter pilot and astronaut and yet another target of the administration's campaign to punish Trump's perceived political enemies. The Navy sent over a report to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's office that evaluates Senator Mark Kelly's participation in a video urging members of the military to not obey illegal orders. What the report found, if anything, remains unknown, and any potential disciplinary action against Senator Kelly would be up to the Navy Secretary, not Hegseth, who accused the lawmaker, the lawmakers who participated in the video of sedition. We're back with Amanda and Margaret. Margaret, I mean, there's just so many issues here. One is it's sedition. Secondly is I watched that video and I interviewed some of the participants. It struck me more as a civics lesson than anything else. It is very obvious you are not permitted, none of us are permitted to, to undertake things that are knowingly unconstitutional or illegal. Members of the military know that. They know that on day one when you, when you, when you sign up. So talk to me about this because this seems really, really dangerous.
- [36:53]
Margaret Donovan
I agree with you, and I have said repeatedly that there is absolutely nothing wrong with that video. Americans can trust their common sense on this one. It is completely lawful and ordinary to tell soldiers that they are supposed to follow the law. And the only way that you would be offended by that if you were expect would be if you expecting them to not follow the law. So the video itself is completely lawful. The idea that you would pull a retiree, any retiree, back onto active duty in order to discipline them, to court martial them under the ucmj, that's unusual on its face. That does not happen frequently. It certainly has happened. But for it to happen for an instance of speech that would otherwise be protected by the First Amendment is highly unusual. And then to add another layer to this of how extreme, extreme and unwarranted and as you say, dangerous this is. This isn't just any retiree. This is a sitting senator. So this is an example of the executive branch trying to silence and to chill elected representatives from speaking on behalf of and supported by their constituency. So there is a litany of issues with this and many reasons for why this should have never gotten off the ground in the first place. And hopefully it goes no further.
- [38:07]
Ali Velshi
Amanda, I want to go a little deeper into this. New York Times is reporting on this. At issue is a provision of federal law that allows for retired officers to be brought back onto active duty to face disciplinary action in military courts for gross misconduct or criminal actions. Though, as Margaret says, in practice, such proceedings are rare after an officer retires from active duty, a finding of misconduct that took place while the officer was in unison uniform could result in disciplinary action short of court martial, such as demotion to a lower rank. Neither the Navy nor the Pentagon has suggested Mr. Kelly committed misconduct of any kind during his career of more than two decades as a Navy pilot, which included flying combat missions and serving as an astronaut assigned to NASA. Amanda, this is. I mean, this sort of spells it out. This is highly irregular, assuming anything's wrong. And again, I think, as Margaret points out, you can sort of trust your instincts on this one and say how this possibly be wrong. A sitting United Senator telling people who know that they can't follow illegal orders that they can't follow illegal orders.
- [39:13]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, I do think that news report is being careful, but we can call.
- [39:16]
Laura Baron Lopez
It what it is.
- [39:16]
Amanda Carpenter
I mean, this is targeted harassment for speech. And it's even more insulting given the fact that Mark Kelly is a retired officer who faithfully served his country. And they're talking about recalling him back to service to put him in a court martial for exercising his free speech rights, not only as an American, but as a duly elected senator representing people, representing other members of the military and trying his best to exercise some degree of oversight and also protection over those troops who may be asked to follow an unlawful order. And so this is, I mean, it is really gross to see happen. But the bright silver lining here is that Mark Kelly did not back down. He immediately called this for what it was. It is an act of attempted intimidation and it didn't work. Right. He went and did a number of interviews explaining how there was nothing to see here, even as the White House was accusing him, saying there was alleged incidents of misconduct. And he said, I have nothing to hide. I am going to continue to do my job and I'm not scared and I'm not backing down. Which I think has been highly effective and is an important signal to send so that other people who are in the military now don't get similarly intimidated.
- [40:32]
Ali Velshi
And, Margaret, there is some discussion about the killings of the people on the boats in the Caribbean, that if a service member does not know an order to be illegal or unlawful, they have some protections in that case because they can't always make that determination themselves. We're talking about things that are fairly overtly illegal and unlawful.
- [40:51]
Margaret Donovan
Yeah, that's exactly right. Under the ucmj, the Uniform Code of Military justice, orders are presumed lawful. And there's good reason for that. It's the United States military. So you sort of rely on soldiers following orders and not questioning everything that they they're told. However, patently unlawful orders, soldiers are bound to not follow and they can be prosecuted if they have followed a patently unlawful order. So there was some questions when this video first was publicized as to, well, maybe the lawmakers should have said, what are the unlawful orders? Or maybe they're just creating confusion by making this video telling soldiers to act lawfully. Well, with the news of the September 2, the second strike there, we have a very clear example of a patently unlawful order. So to the extent that there are any questions about what the senators or the lawmakers might have been saying, that's your answer. That's a patently unlawful order. And I am glad that there are people like Senator Kelly still playing the role and being a leader to people in uniform.
- [41:55]
Ali Velshi
Thanks to both of you, Amanda Carpenter and Margaret Donovan, we appreciate your time. That. All right, after the break, another push by Trump's Justice Department to fuel his debunked, stolen 2020 election claims. Yeah, that's still going on. We'll tell you about it next. They're really not letting this one go. Trump's Department of Justice is now suing Fulton County, Georgia to obtain the ballots from the 2020 election, as well as an absentee ballot. As absentee ballot, signature envelopes, digital files and other records from that election. That was five years ago. The lawsuit expands DOJ's targets. The DOJ is already suing Colorado, Massachusetts, Hawaii, and Nevada, all states that Donald Trump lost in 2020 for not producing voter registration lists for that election. But as our friends at Democracy docket note, quote, it marks the first time the DOJ has sued to obtain actual ballots from state or local officials as part of its pursuit of a myriad of election conspiracies and quotes. We should note that Fulton county election workers and officials have been cleared of any alleged misconduct by the Georgia State Election Board. When we come back, Republican pushback against Trumpism after the Indiana GOP gives Trump a black eye. The next hour of deadline. White House starts after a push break.
- [43:12]
Margaret Donovan
Home to the Rachel Maddow Show, Morning.
- [43:15]
Amanda Carpenter
Joe, the briefing with Jen Psaki and more.
- [43:17]
Margaret Donovan
Voice you know and trust. Ms. NOW is your source for news, opinion and the world. Learn more at Ms. Now.