← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
“The office of the Presidency? Or a piggy bank?”
00:42:25
Ayman Mohyeldin is in for Nicolle Wallace. Ayman covers how Trump is barely hiding his desire to extract taxpayer dollars from the American government to fulfill his whims.
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- [00:00]
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- [00:50]
Tim O'Brien
Download Today this is a corruption story, plain and simple. Trump administration's a corruption story. It's the great grift and it's taking shape on a daily basis in every way, shape, form. We're talking about the kind of corruption at scale we've never seen in our lifetime, including what Wyckoff family's doing, what the Kushner family's doing. This is happening at a scale we've never experienced in our lifetime. And he's just winding up.
- [01:18]
Ayman Mohidin
Hi everyone. It is five o'clock in New York. I'm Ayman Mohidin in for Nicole Wallace. Today. It is outstanding even in Trump's adjusted terms. Donald Trump's attempt to turn the office of the presidency into his own personal gold leaf covered piggy bank for him, his friends, his family. And Donald Trump doesn't even bother to hide his desire anymore to extract taxpayer dollars from the American government. As the New York Times puts it, quote, it is hard to imagine that any previous president would have thought that he could engage in such an audacious act of self dealing with sue the government that he runs, then settle the lawsuit with himself by barring the Internal Revenue Service from auditing his past returns and as part of that deal, hand over $1.8 billion of taxpayer money to his allies. President Trump has used the federal government to advance his own personal interests and those of his family and allies more expansively and openly than any past occupant of the White House. Any review of history would suggest that it is not even close. But as Mr. Trump, the only convicted felon ever elected president, heads deeper into his second term, he seems even less inhibited by the rules, written or unwritten, that governed his predecessors. While deeply unpopular with the general public, he has demonstrated as recently as this week that he remains the undisputed master of his own party and therefore appears to feel that he can do as he likes to without fear of Congress standing in his way. That IRS deal in particular, has shocked experts. Politico reports this quote Tax pros describe the agreement as breathtaking in scope. It nixes any audits even of returns filed years before Trump became president, and it extends those protections to Trump's sister, parent, family or other filing jointly, as well as trusts, related companies, affiliates or even subsidiaries. It rules out examinations of any currently pending matters, including returns filed before the agreement's May 19 date. And Democrats worry that an additional clause banning examinations arising from lawfare and or weaponization could be interpreted to preclude any future audits as well and allow Trump to simply ignore the IRS from now on. It is hard to see how he ever meaningfully participates in our taxation system again, said Massachusetts Governor Richard Neal, the ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee. The Trump family's seemingly limitless appetite for grift is where we begin this hour. Donald Sherman is the president, CEO of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or as it is also known, cru, which has led multiple lawsuits against the Trump administration. Also with us, New York Times investigative reporter Russ Buettner, who has who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2019 along with his Times colleagues for their reporting into Donald Trump's finances. Plus, senior executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion political analyst Tim o' Brien is with us as well. It's great to have all three of you with us. Russ, talk to us about how extraordinary this deal is. Just try to put it in perspective for us. I don't think most Americans can wrap their head around what this deal does and does not do.
- [04:38]
Russ Buettner
Yeah, I'm afraid there is no perspective, there is no context to put this in. We've used the word unprecedented for Trump's presidencies for both of them repeatedly. But he constantly shocks us with something more brazen on a much grander scale. What you have here is the president, United States, saying, I don't like the way this thing turned out. I got investigated for bringing documents home, classified documents to Mar A Lago. I got investigated for January 6th. All these my tax returns were leaked to the New York Times, a Project I worked on, I was violated there. And I think the government owes me $10 billion for that. And he gives his two underlings the privilege of working that out between themselves. And this is what we have. This is the kind of thing, if we'd ever seen it before, I think it would have been of a smaller scale. It would have been hidden from public view because it was so shameful and it probably would have been unearthed by an investigation or a reporter years later and there would be a cover up. They seem to believe in presidency. Anything they do in the light of day, wide open is okay, but this really is not, not like anything we've ever seen before where the President's going to have $1.8 billion of taxpayer money to do with largely as he sees fit, with no review, no public disclosure of it at all. And they've added on this addendum that does away with some very major audits that I've written about and looked into that would have cost him at least $100 million as of several more by now that he's been fighting for 15 years. And as you said, any other audit that might be done on returns that he's filed up to this date, I think it creates this perverse incentive for them to have, if they knew this was coming, rammed in a bunch of tax returns before the signing deadline with audacious claims believing they would be inoculated from any, any problems from that.
- [06:33]
Ayman Mohidin
Yeah, and let me just dig in on that point that you were talking about about the audits. Your colleagues at the Times as well as you reported this, that his self granted writ of immunity from IRS audits amounts to a get out of audits free card, essentially the equivalent of pardoning himself for any past offenses and forgiving any tax, debt or penalties. While the status of any now short circuited audits is not publicly known, his action could theoretically save him from paying $100 million or more based on past estimates of what his liability might have been under an unfavorable IRS decision. I know, you know we were talking about this just a second ago, but how much of a win is this for Donald Trump if he can ram this through without any kind of objections or any attempt to stop it?
- [07:20]
Russ Buettner
It's hard to measure at this point. We do know about the two matters that were under audit. It related to him declaring his, his investments in his casinos and in his Chicago tower to be worthless, claiming a 73 million dollar refund which was all the income tax he had paid for three years. Really the only Three years. He had paid income taxes in the earlier part of this century. And, and then that went immediately under audit in about 2011, and it's been dragging on since. And they fought it tooth and nail. They've talked about it repeatedly. That goes away. So what value do you place on $100 million or more, not to mention the legal fees he would have encountered trying to deal with that. And also, you can't measure the audits that we don't know about, though. He's always, throughout his career, taken audacious tax positions, going back to one we wrote about when he took control of his father's assets through a trust where they greatly undervalued his father's assets, escaped millions of dollars in taxes because of that. Now he may want to pass on his assets to his children if he set up a trust fund for them that the IRS would typically challenge. And the valuations and those sorts of things are almost always challenged by the irs. If that's already been done, according to this, it's beyond review by the irs. How do you measure the value of that? It's unknowable because we don't know what there is, and we're not likely to know what there is there.
- [08:51]
Ayman Mohidin
Yeah. I mean, I don't even know if the word brazendonald is the right word to describe what we are seeing, but just give me your sense on how brazen this is. I mean, so much of what has governed this type of behavior from past presidents was perhaps norms or respect for rule of law or certain guardrails. But it seems he has just blown right through all of those.
- [09:12]
Donald Sherman
He's blown through any guardrails that did exist, to the point where now even members of Congress from his own party have found their spine and are pushing back. But this action, which is without precedent in American history, confirms exactly what President Trump blurted out last week, which is that regardless of the economic pain facing everyday Americans, regardless of the national security crisis facing our nation, this president's first priority continues to be finding ways to enrich himself and to enrich his family. And for the better part of the second term, he's enriched himself by opening up his business to influence and allowing and soliciting foreign. Foreign governments and businesses to fund his pet projects. But now this deal is the president putting taxpayer money into. In the pockets of his allies. And not only will his. Not only will it enrich his allies, but it will embolden the violent insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol on January 6th and could potentially lead to future Political violence.
- [10:35]
Ayman Mohidin
So I guess, you know, part of the question that I have, Donald, as a follow up is most Americans are probably wondering how, how could this have happened? How do we not have any rules, any laws on the books that would prevent the President from being able to do something like that? And why, in the 250 year history of this republic, have we never thought about shoring that up, making sure that this precise moment is not something we should be finding ourselves in?
- [10:59]
Donald Sherman
Well, because for far too long in our history, we've relied on the cooperation and the judgment and the humility of our presidents. And, and so there aren't laws, for example, that prevent the President from having a conflict of interest. The president illegally has bypassed Congress by colluding with his own government to enter into a settlement before the court could intervene, as they suggested that they might, because the President and the Department of Justice were not adverse parties. And so, really, it's incumbent upon Congress to step up, not just to change the law, which obviously takes some time and could require the President's signature, but to demand answers right now, to demand oversight if necessary, to hold up the appropriations process, hold up the nominations process. Congress has to be the first mover here because they're the ones that have the most power and political leverage if they aren't too afraid to use it.
- [12:08]
Ayman Mohidin
Tim, let me bring you into this conversation. You have tracked Trump's businesses and political corruption for years. As somebody who knows his dealings intimately well, how do you characterize what we're seeing today?
- [12:23]
Tim O'Brien
I don't think we should be surprised by any of it, Eamon. Donald Trump has been doing variations of this for, you know, 60 of the 80 years he's been on the planet. He learned how to manipulate his books and how to find ways to hide money or get money from others and not pay them back from his father. He did it throughout his career as a real estate developer. He did it throughout his career in the casino business. And he took that mentality into the White House. And we got glimmers of it in his first term, whether it was the Trump International Hotel in Washington and some of the conflicts of interest that were presented by that property or deals he was doing with Gulf developments in the Gulf states that was there then. And I think he was, you know, his first term, he was testing the limits of what a president can get away with, and not just around grift and corruption. He tested it around how far he could push the courts, how far he could push Congress, what he could do independently overseas. And now that he's in, in his second term. He realizes he has an open door because he wasn't effectively stopped in his first term, and there is nothing stopping him now. And part of that is inherent in the experiment of the Constitution in American democracy. The framers didn't want to have as many conflict of interest laws encumbering the president because they wanted the president to be a free operator. And as time went on in American history and the American economy matured, it became clear that we needed more, particularly in the Watergate era. But even in the wake of the Watergate reforms and the things that, you know, the corruption allegations and the things that emerged in the, in the Nixon years were a Tea Party compared to what Donald Trump is doing now. But even then, most of the conflict of interest laws that were put in place affected other members of the federal government and Congress. But the president was still given the latitude to call it as he or she saw it. And that presumes then that you have someone occupying the Oval Office who has a moral core and a sense of duty, the country and the responsibilities of the office, regardless of what party they belong to or their ideology. Because none of this is about partisan politics or ideological observations. It's about good government, and it's about an honest and cleanly operating government. And Trump sees the White House and the federal government as a piggy bank, as his children do, and so do some of the people, other people in his administration. And he came in the door in this second term, I think, wanting to get rid of some of the debts he had on properties that had been stressed out in urban areas during COVID and he wanted to get those off the books. He then saw obvious and easy ways to add billions to his family's net worth through things like crypto, a speculative asset class that he criticized and then empowered once he came into office and his family has business franchises that touch in crypto. And then each step of the way, rather than Congress pushing back on this and considering maybe we need to revisit the strictures around the Oval Office and the executive branch, given this man's behavior, the Supreme Court, none of the institutions have stood up and said, we actually need a recounting, because if the wrong kind of person comes into this office, they can smear the office, they can take money away from taxpayers, and they can grift. And he's doing all three of these things. And I think the lesson from this sort of think about, in this is as it is in many of the things that Trump does, whether he's prosecuting a war or to hoarding immigrants from the city streets at the points of guns or grifting while he's in the Oval Office is we could see these things coming. But what does it say about our institutions, our voters and ourselves that we don't have a stronger response to it? And how do we create a response that ensures clean and honest government and keeps people out of the White House who essentially turn it into a Walmart?
- [16:40]
Ayman Mohidin
Yeah, I mean, it's a very important question about what can be done to rein this in. At this moment of his presidency, no one's going anywhere. There's much more to get to, including how voters are responding to all of this corruption. We're going to talk about that and more. Also ahead for us, Donald Trump is saying that he may start bombing Iran any day now. Yet again, it comes as gas prices continue to rise and more Americans are increasingly turning out against the president's war. And today is Stephen Colbert's last day as CBS pulls the plug on the Late Show. What Bruce Springsteen told Colbert about that move and what it says about the president who has been pushing for it later in the hour, Deadline White House continues after this. Don't go anywhere.
- [17:27]
Podcast Promoter
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- [18:00]
Ayman Mohidin
Do you think that's fair that the
- [18:03]
Dominic Patton
president is being shielded, is shielding himself from the irs?
- [18:09]
Ayman Mohidin
No.
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Audience Member Arthur
He represents the country. But this guy is so full of corruption, I don't even know how he sleeps at night. His skin is real thin. I don't understand that he wants this money and then turn around and give it to others. It just makes no sense to me. People who, as he claimed, have been loyal to him, come out of your own pocket, pay him. Don't take taxpayers money and pay them. I mean, he is setting himself up for craziness. We already are divided in certain ways and he's just going to divide us even more with this craziness. How do you do that? How do you sleep at night? How does he sleep at night?
- [18:59]
Ayman Mohidin
We are back with Donald, Russ and Tim. Tim, let me ask you about this kind of like split screen that we're seeing in the in the country and certainly within the Republican Party at the moment. On one hand, the president's numbers are tanking. People are frustrated with him. As we heard from that gentleman right there. There is a growing sense of disillusionment with his corruption. Yet at the same time, as we just saw in some of these political races, whether it was in Louisiana or in Kentucky or in Indiana, he still has almost this kind of command over a part of the Republican Party, an important part of the Republican Party. And it seems that the corruption has not trickled down to those people, or if it has trickled down to those people, they simply don't care about it.
- [19:43]
Tim O'Brien
Well, I think it's not just corruption that hasn't trickled down to that core maga. I think almost cultist base of support that Trump enjoys 25% or so of the GOP, but it certainly has caused defections within the Republican base. More people identify now as independents. There are Republicans who have less enthusiasm about showing up for votes. And Trump is winning these little battles in primary season, but may very well lose the war come the midterms. And there's damage being done to, I think, the Republican Party long term in terms of how it's considered as a vessel of traditional conservatism and respect for the rule of law and a hawkish foreign policy. Trump has turned all those things on his head while grifting. And I don't think, you know, as he famously said, you know, before he entered the White House the first time, I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and nobody would care. He's had a realization of that for quite some time. And I think it's true for a certain cohort of voters. But that doesn't mean that there won't be political consequences for the party. I don't think he cares about the political consequences for himself because I don't think he's thinking about his own political legacy long term or the party's viability long term. He wants to grab everything he can out of the White House right now while he has his hand in the till. I think the other issue this raises is then, and we talked about in the first segment about what's the institutional response to Trump's corruption. I think it will be very interesting and important to watch how Democrats message around this in a way that convinces voters that they should be the steward of power in Washington and that they'd be more honest and constructive in going about it.
- [21:43]
Ayman Mohidin
Yeah, that's such an important point. That brings me to what I wanted to ask You, Donald, which is, as an organization that is trying to fight corruption and make government more ethical and more responsible. Does this backlash make it easier for you as you try to hold Donald Trump accountable? Are you finding it easier to hold him accountable in terms of mobilization, or is it harder because of his grip on power and the fact that it doesn't seem to trickle down to a core part of his base?
- [22:09]
Donald Sherman
Well, I think what you saw in that clip and what we're seeing around the country is that as everyday folks are struggling with the price of gas, struggling with the price of groceries, and the president is using his public office to have the best year of his life financially and to enrich his family and now use taxpayer money to enrich his friends, people are saying enough is enough. And so, you know, I think the other thing about the brazenness of the president's corruption is you don't need to be an expert in ethics to understand it. You know, you don't need to have studied the conflict of interest laws. You don't need to be familiar with the domestic emoluments clause to get it. The president is demonstrating time and time again that he is using his office to enrich himself. And now he has his hands in the pockets of the American taxpayer. And they are feeling that every time they leave their house, every time they go to the grocery store, and it's starting to resonate. And so I think, hopefully we're seeing some movement on the Hill that is going to match the movement in the public so that there is more accountability for the president, and we're going to keep beating the drum about it.
- [23:27]
Ayman Mohidin
Russ, what do you think voters like Arthur, who we heard there, what should voters like Arthur know? Just about how much Trump had rigged this system in his favor, if at
- [23:37]
Russ Buettner
all, through the course of this agreement on this lawsuit. I think the important part is that, first of all, he's setting himself apart from everyone else, right? He is shown that he believes he's above the law, that anything questioning him is almost by definition illegal. He's going to define what law is and what it isn't, and that he's going to enrich himself from your taxpayer dollars. He's going to use your taxpayer dollars to reward people who he feels support him, and he feels we're treated wrong solely for supporting him. That's really putting his supporters, his closest allies above the common American citizen and all of his family, much like royalty, above any kind of review and being bound in any way by the legality, by being a law based Society. I also think that something Donald said earlier is a really important outcome of this, and that's that the law enforcement people talk about the message that their work sends, that we live in a law based society, and that if you cross the line, you're held to account. And if you don't and you're wrongly charged, you have some path to get that addressed. What we've seen through this process is that Donald Trump has taken people who broke the law and called January 6th a day of love. He's pardoned all of them and now he's funded them. I think the top line message he sent to them is, you know, you are a deputized militia and I am funding you to go forth. And the next election, if I don't like it, is going to be because it's stolen. And the one after that, the same. And whatever you do to try to stop that, break into the Capitol, commit acts of violence, try to stop the normal course of democracy. If I'm reelected and you help me, you will be forgiven of all those sins and crimes and possibly rewarded again financially. So this really puts us in a much more dangerous era, as Donald mentioned, than we've been in the past in terms of this is all out in the front now. It's not just January 6th where he's saying, come, it's going to be wild. He has shown the path that this can go.
- [25:46]
Ayman Mohidin
Yeah. I mean, to Russ's point, Donald, future presidents can see this loophole that Donald Trump has exploited. And it can be a precedent setting form of behavior, which is if a future president just comes in and promises, I will pardon you, I will get you a slush fund, I will raise money to your legal defense, I will rewrite the narrative about what you do, so long as you do it in the service of your leader. We don't have any way of reining this in unless Congress steps in. And there's no. It doesn't seem like there's any willingness at this moment for Congress to do just that.
- [26:20]
Donald Sherman
I think that's the question every member of Congress needs to be asked because the president's corruption has reached a level where he is using taxpayer funds to make clear to his supporters that if you engage in violence in support of my political movement, not only will you be pardoned, but you will be made financially whole. That is a threat that potentially can't be undone. And so Congress needs to step up, needs to assert all of its powers, appropriations, power, appointments, power to stop this debt in its tracks. And they should be asked about it every day.
- [27:02]
Ayman Mohidin
All right, Donald Sherman, Russ Buettner, Tim o', Brien. Really appreciate the three of you joining me this hour. Thank you so much for your insights. When we return, more and more Americans say they are against Donald Trump's war in Iran, but that is not stopping Trump for making new threats to restart the bombing while ramping up the military pressure on yet another country. Those new developments and more after a short break.
- [27:27]
Donald Sherman
Simone Sanders Townsend and I have known each other for more than a decade, tussling over politics and policy when she
- [27:33]
Ayman Mohidin
worked in the White House and I reported on it. And now we're friends and colleagues. And on our podcast, Clock it, we
- [27:40]
Commercial Announcer
are positioning ourselves at the intersection of culture and politics.
- [27:43]
Donald Sherman
Clock it is where we talk about
- [27:45]
Ayman Mohidin
what we see and hear in the news.
- [27:47]
Donald Sherman
So you can start to clock it, too.
- [27:49]
Podcast Promoter
Clock it with Simone and Eugene. All episodes available now.
- [27:59]
Ayman Mohidin
All right. Happening now on Capitol Hill, the House is preparing to vote on a war powers resolution to try and force Donald Trump to withdraw from his increasingly unpopular war in Iran, with Democrats hopeful that enough Republicans are will defect and join them. The resolution was approved by the Senate yesterday, with three Republican senators absent. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who, as you may remember, lost his primary over the weekend, joining Democrats. Still, it is largely symbolic because Donald Trump won't sign it. Instead, he is threatening new attacks this week against Iran, despite growing concerns about the war's impact on affordability and global tensions. Trump says, quote, we'll see what happens. We may have to hit Iran even harder, but maybe not, whatever that means. Joining me now, retired U.S. marine Corps Lt. Col. Amy McGrath and former Undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs during the Obama administration. Political analyst Rick Stengel is with me here at the table. It's good to have both of you with us. Amy, I'll start with you. What should we be expecting from this vote, if anything?
- [29:00]
Amy McGrath
Well, you said it yourself, it is largely symbolic, but it's really important, too. Why? Because this president has taken the nation to war. And whatever you think of that, the fact is that the objectives of this war were not ever debated in Congress, not once. And you can say, well, this has become the norm, but it is still unacceptable and unconstitutional. The framers did not want any one man to be able to take the nation to war by himself. And unless there's an imminent threat to the nation. And finally, Congress is stepping up and doing something about it. Obviously, if they had not Republicans that were constantly doing whatever the president wanted, we could step up even More. But I think the question now is whether Congress can stop this president from dragging the United States continuing into this. Another dangerous foreign military intervention here.
- [30:07]
Ayman Mohidin
So, Rick, I mean, gallon at record high, $4.56 a gallon. Polling suggests 60%. In this new Fox poll, opposition to the Iran war that is up 55%. Nobody wants this freaking war that Donald Trump insists on continuing with. And it just doesn't make any sense why Republicans will not stand up to the president and say, nobody wants this. It's not good for us. It's not advancing our interests. You've obliterated the nuclear program. Nobody wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon. They don't have a nuclear weapon. After this war, why do you still insist on continuing with this war?
- [30:47]
Rick Stengel
Yes, that's what they should be saying. And more of them are saying it. You know, the War Powers act may actually pass, and I think it's not going to pass because Congress feels like we have the responsibility to declare war, as the Constitution says. But they're thinking, like, my folks back home don't like this war. You know, maybe I need to pivot a little bit and change my position on it. You know, the War Powers act, in a way, is one of these. Was one of these post Watergate reforms was passed in 1973 to kind of limit the president's power, both for the kind of constitutional reasons Amy said, like a president shouldn't be able to go to war on his own. And the framers didn't want that. We're going to go through a whole post Trump era of legal reform to kind of compensate for all the things
- [31:31]
Ayman Mohidin
if our country survives it, if our democracy survives it.
- [31:34]
Rick Stengel
Well, I think it will. And I mean, and the fact that they're voting on this, that Congress is still voting, it shows that the system is working, if only belatedly and too little.
- [31:46]
Ayman Mohidin
I mean, I just worry that, like, by the time we just did a whole segment in the last blog where we were talking about how he has broken every norm that we had, and he's now trying to make this deal with the IRS that prevents him potentially from being audited in the future. So I just worry that this Congress is going through this symbolically just to be able to go back in the midterms and say some of us oppose it. I mean, you look at what just happened in Kentucky, for example, you had a guy, Tom Massie, who opposed the war and ran on a campaign of opposing the war and lost.
- [32:16]
Rick Stengel
Well, that's a whole other issue. And when we discuss polling it seems to me it's irrelevant to talk about national polls across party lines. The only relevant number is what percentage of Republicans still support Trump and will support Trump on this war. But I do think that your point about norms, one of the things that Trump has done is he's pushed these norms. There's no law in the Constitution that says the president cannot order the Justice Department to prosecute someone. That's a flaw in the law. And the fact that he's exposing these things means that Congress hopefully in a better day can come and amend that.
- [32:50]
Ayman Mohidin
Yeah, let's certainly hope so. Amy. Trump has been claiming that for months he's close to ending this war in Iran and now he's threatening more attention attacks on Iran. What leverage does Trump have left from a military perspective to achieve a political and knowing that prices will continue to rise and his popularity keeps shrinking?
- [33:09]
Amy McGrath
Well, I don't think much the there there's no military answer to this fight in Iran to open up. If the objective now. Amen. Is to open up the Strait of Hormuz bombing Iran even more at this point, how is that going to achieve the objective? We've made the regime even stronger in my belief. And so a lot of people are looking at this and saying what are we going to do, just bomb their power plants? What is Iran going to do? They're going to now strike the power plants, desalination plants and oil infrastructure of all of their neighbors and it will cause a catastrophic energy crisis the world has never seen. And so there's not a whole lot of we have to come up with a negotiated settlement. I just don't have a whole lot of belief that this administration has surrounded itself with a lot of diplomats that know what the heck they're doing here.
- [34:09]
Ayman Mohidin
You mean you don't have confidence in Steve Woodkoff and Jared Kushner, Amy?
- [34:14]
Amy McGrath
I mean the president's golf buddy and his son in law. And meanwhile, they fired all these diplomats in the State Department. I mean, this is where we're Amy
- [34:24]
Ayman Mohidin
McGrath, thank you so much for spending time with us. Really appreciate it as always, Rick, please stick around. We've got a lot more to talk to you about. When we return, Stephen Colbert and the late night comedy hosts have done more to get under Donald Trump's skin than just about anyone. Colbert's run comes to an end tonight and his guests include some very outspoken Trump critics, including Bruce Springsteen. What the Boss told Colbert last night about Trump after a short break.
- [34:54]
Jimmy Kimmel
Thank you, Stephen. I am here in support tonight with Stephen because you're the first guy in America who's lost his show because we got a president who can't take a joke
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Dominic Patton
and
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Jimmy Kimmel
because, because Larry and David Ellison feel they need to kiss his to get what they want. So these are any. Anyway, Stephen, he's a small minded people. They got no idea what the freedoms of this beautiful country are supposed to be about. This is for you.
- [35:34]
Ayman Mohidin
Bruce Springsteen not holding back there rebuking Donald Trump and the heads of CBS's parent company last night on the second to last episode of the Late show with Stephen Colbert. The episode was packed with star power in support of Colbert, who became a frequent target of Donald Trump and his administration. Here was actor Robert De Niro last night as well.
- [35:57]
Dominic Patton
Okay, what number were you thinking of?
- [36:00]
Ayman Mohidin
It's three.
- [36:01]
Ken Burns
That's the number. That's the number I was thinking of.
- [36:05]
Rick Stengel
Yeah.
- [36:05]
Ayman Mohidin
Yeah.
- [36:06]
Donald Sherman
Okay.
- [36:07]
Ayman Mohidin
Yeah, because I thought it would have
- [36:11]
Tim O'Brien
been 2,000,000.5 or 2 and a half million. That's the number of Epstein files Trump still hasn't released.
- [36:26]
Ayman Mohidin
Tonight, Paramount and CBS will broadcast the show's episode. After decades as a staple of late night, more than 10 years with Colbert and before that almost 22 years with David Letterman. I want to bring into the conversation executive editor of Deadline.com, dominic Patton. Rick is still with me. Dominic, it's good to have you join the conversation. First off, your reaction to what we heard there on Colbert from both Bruce Springsteen and Robert Denir and your thoughts going into tonight?
- [36:52]
Dominic Patton
Well, I think there's a couple of things. I mean, I think, you know the Boss and the great actor they're playing to brand, they've been on board with this for a long time. If there was a collection of artists against Maga, they would certainly be the leaders of it along with Colbert. So I think that's very true. But what's interesting, especially about Bruce Springsteen, who in the last year or so has changed his political approach from being uplifting, which he's been for many years, to now being very focused and direct about an evil he sees emerging in our country and an evil which he sees as having killed Americans, having thrown Americans in jail, having shown the worst aspects of our country with a cruelty and a small mindedness. And I think he and Colbert have been very much in sync about that to that what was surprising about Bruce Springsteen was there's the shot across the bow at the, at the Ellisons, the owners of Paramount, the who soon hope to own Warner Brothers Discovery, of course, which is the parent company of cnn. Another major thorn in Donald Trump's paw, thin skin paw, I might add. So I think in ways the Bruce Bruce is leaning forward to what could become next. The Colbert could have been just a training ground for where we're going with their, their approach to media and how media in America is taking a knee.
- [38:07]
Ayman Mohidin
Yeah, you bring up a really important point. And there was this new Washington Post analysis that found that hosts are telling more jokes about Donald Trump despite threats from Trump and his FCC chair Brandon Carr to try and get them fired. Let me show you what Jimmy Kimmel said last night about the end of Colbert's show. I think you know how I feel
- [38:27]
Audience Member Arthur
about the fact that they are being pushed out.
- [38:30]
Ayman Mohidin
I hope the people who did the pushing feel ashamed of themselves tonight, although I know they probably won't.
- [38:35]
Jimmy Kimmel
I hope that those of you who watch our show or are also tune
- [38:39]
Donald Sherman
in to CBS for the last time, don't ever watch it again, but watch tomorrow night to wish Stephen and our
- [38:46]
Ayman Mohidin
friends at the Late show off on farewell. So, okay, now let's talk about the who forced them off the air. What do you think of that reaction, Dominic?
- [38:57]
Dominic Patton
Well, look, I think Jimmy's being Jimmy and I think he's being supportive to her, to a friend that he's been supportive ever since, well, long before Stephen got kicked off the air by cbs. But I think also too, they're brothers in arms about this. I mean, Jimmy Kimmel himself last fall found himself pulled off the air on ABC because of pressure Disney was receiving from affiliate owning stations who were receiving pressure of deals that they have going before the Trump administration. Politics and culture have always been connected. You can go back to the first cave drawing to find that. But certainly under this era of Trump, we've seen a very, very focused attempt at not being able to take a joke, to quote the Boss. I will say this, though. As Colbert and other late night hosts have pointed out, Donald Trump's done more for late night than anybody else in recent years. I mean, this was a dying art form in terms of numbers. He's gotten those numbers and viewers way up because it turns out that's what he likes to watch and people like to, if he wants to hate, watch, people want to hate him by watching back. So there's a cycle here in a way that's going on. Be interesting to see where Stephen Colbert takes this next because he's flying the flag at this point. We know he's going to write a Lord of the Rings script with his son, but is he going to show up, say, on Broadway? Is there going to be a Netflix late night special or even a late night show on streamers. That's all tbd.
- [40:14]
Ayman Mohidin
So lots of tbd, as Dominic was saying there. But there's no doubt that the administration, you know, did spend and still does spend an unbelievable amount of time attacking journalists, media organizations, comedians, actors, late night show. And it seems like it's created a culture of, for now, under this administration, a sense of fear that the culture is shifting a little bit. Do you see it that way or no?
- [40:44]
Rick Stengel
I don't quite see it that way. I mean, I see this, the revolt of the humorists as being an example of civil society working. And I also see what they're doing as an example of they have no understanding of free speech. Free speech means to them the speech they like, the speech that praises me. I want to make two points about what we saw. First, I always love it when Bruce Springsteen and progressives talk about how beautiful the country is. Progressives need to do that more. It is a beautiful country and that's why we're fighting to preserve it.
- [41:16]
Ayman Mohidin
The other thing is. What was the other thing?
- [41:19]
Rick Stengel
I was going to say
- [41:21]
Ayman Mohidin
that, that.
- [41:23]
Rick Stengel
And we were talking about this in the break. Colbert's example is an example for the American people of someone who can go through some, something terrible happening to him, something unfair and doing it with grace.
- [41:35]
Ayman Mohidin
Right.
- [41:35]
Rick Stengel
Doing it with maturity. It is a way men can behave. It is exactly the opposite of the way Donald Trump would behave in that same circumstance. And it's a great example. It's a great example of the kind of leadership that America should have, not the kind of leadership America does have.
- [41:50]
Ayman Mohidin
Rick, we're going to have you as a standing guest to bring the optimism. Anytime there is something that makes us want to feel a little less optimistic but really appreciate that makes things happen
- [42:00]
Rick Stengel
in a better way.
- [42:01]
Ayman Mohidin
Absolutely. I'm going to try to take a page of that. Really appreciate Rick Stengel, Dominic Patton, thank you both for joining us. When we return, it is the question we all want the answer to. And Nicole put it to Ken Burns. We're going to show you his answer after this break. Stay with us. On this week's episode of the Best People podcast, Nicole got to ask the legendary filmmaker Ken Burns the question we've all been wondering, are we going to make it? Take a listen.
- [42:31]
Russ Buettner
Are we going to make it?
- [42:32]
Amy McGrath
Yes.
- [42:39]
Russ Buettner
I'm going to need your evidence based response.
- [42:42]
Ken Burns
Yeah. So we were, I mean, first of all, we have three great crises after the creation of the United States, the Civil War, the depression and the Second World War. In those instances, free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power and the independence of the judiciary were never in question. There are a lot of things that are unique to this moment with this character that are terrifying, but we were more divided during our revolution, which was not just a revolution, the most consequential in the history of the world, but an incredibly bloody civil war, particularly on this island, particularly in New Jersey, particularly in South Carolina. Way more divided during our civil war where we murdered, we now think, well over 700,000 of our own people. And way more divided, I would say, during the period after the Civil War called reconstruction and its collapse, its terrible collapse that created the Jim Crow system that we seem to be teasing or testing to go back into today. And way more divided during the Vietnam period.
- [43:57]
Ayman Mohidin
So that episode, you do not want to miss it. It is out now. Make sure to scan that QR code on your screen to hear the rest of and download it wherever you get your podcasts. We're going to have a quick break and we'll be right back. Thank you for being with us on this Thursday afternoon. Nicole will be back here tomorrow.
- [44:17]
Podcast Promoter
Sunday, June 14, from Washington, D.C. a special live taping of Ms. Now's hit podcast the Blueprint with Jen Psaki. Join her as she talks with actor and author Billy Eichner. They'll explore the power of humor in the face of adversity and Eichner's new audio memoir, Billy on Billy the Blueprint with Jen Psaki live with Billy Eichner. Get your tickets today at 6th and I dot org.