← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
"Trump's attempted weaponization"
00:45:49
Nicolle Wallace on the new details in an ousting in Trump's Department of Justice and Andrew Ross Sorkin's newest book.
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- [00:00]
Rachel Maddow
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- [01:05]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
A short tenure for the now former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia last night, Todd Gilbert announcing his intention to step down from the prestigious post. It came as quite a shock to many last night when he stepped down from that position. Since Gilbert's resignation at 5 o' clock Wednesday evening, he has made no public comment about his decision or reasoning, other than this post of a meme on his ex account of Ron Burgundy from the movie Anchorman saying boy, that escalated quickly.
- [01:37]
Nicole Wallace
If you feel like you're in the Twilight Zone, we'll explain. Hi again everybody. It's five o' clock in New York. Boy that escalated quickly. Put a pin in that. It's important now. At the time of this individual Todd Gilbert's resignation as a U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia this summer, we didn't really know a lot about him or why. But now, thanks to brand new revealing reporting in the New York Times, we are learning the backstory about why he left his post just one month in. Interestingly, his story is eerily similar to that of his counterpart, Eric Siebert, who was the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and whose resignation we also covered recently. Both of these men refused to succumb to pressure from Donald Trump, even though they were appointed by him and his Justice Department. They refused to ignore actual facts and the rule of law. Siebert, as we came to learn, refused to criminally charge Donald Trump's perceived political enemies Jim Comey and Tish James because after looking at their cases, he concluded that there wasn't enough evidence. There was no there there. Similarly, Gilbert also found That a request from Donald Trump's Department of Justice did not have enough evidence. There wasn't enough there there to make a case. His case had to do with another aspect, another obsession of Donald Trump's revenge fantasies. The Russia, Russia, Russia investigation. New York Times reporting finds this, quote, shortly after Mr. Gilbert took over as U.S. attorney, Senior Justice Department officials instructed him to open an investigation into the handling of secret documents related to Russian intelligence reports. People said after Reviewing the evidence, Mr. Gilbert told his superiors he did not believe there was sufficient evidence to justify a grand jury investigation. These people said Gilbert was then, quote, forced to resign in August because he refused to sideline a high ranking career prosecutor who found the evidence flimsy. The Times goes on to report that now, two months later, quote, the investigation appears to have petered out, at least for the moment. Gilbert is important, though, because he's another example of pushback coming from inside the house, from inside Trump's own picks from the DOJ to run U.S. attorney's office. And they're pushing back against Trump's attempt at weaponizing the Department of Justice as he tries to use the department to go after people he thinks wronged him. It is an alarming pattern. We're seeing that former special counsel Jack Smith has now called it out in his first public comments.
- [04:20]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
When I started out, if I had told my boss at the DA's office, hey, I've got this case and I was going to bring it, but, you know, I just found out that the guy is a friend of the da, so maybe we could find a way not to bring it. Or if I said, hey, I wasn't going to bring this case because it's not a legitimate case on the facts and law, but I saw that he was an enemy of the DA and maybe we shouldn't bring it. My boss, my first boss, he would have tossed me out a window, right? Tossed me out a window. When I was the chief of the Public Integrity Section, we were doing the highest profile corruption cases around the country. I had no idea of the politics of people who work for me because it was entirely irrelevant to our work.
- [05:02]
Nicole Wallace
Just talk of windows and people falling out of them makes me sweat. In this moment, there's new reporting on more though of Donald Trump's revenge campaign. The efforts to do that in another U.S. attorney's office is where we begin the hour. Some of our favorite reporters and friends with us at the table, New York Times investigative reporter Mike Schmidt. He's bylined on that reporting we just read to you. Also joining us Former criminal division deputy chief at SDNY, MSNBC legal analyst, host of a new YouTube show, Courtside. Christy Greenberg's back looking for us. My friend and colleague, MSNBC senior political analyst and contributing host to Pod Save America, Alex Wagner is here at the table. Mike, take me through what you're reporting about who this person is, how he came on your radar.
- [05:47]
Mike Schmidt
Well, look, this was a Trump political appointee, someone that was a prominent Republican in Virginia, someone who wanted to have a political future in Virginia and had gotten the big job of being the U.S. attorney in the Western District of the state. And when word on high in the department comes down to do this investigation, he's not moving quickly enough. He wasn't using the grand jury enough. And this, you have to remember, is this investigation that is based on a theory that the FBI was destroying documents as recently as 2024 to try to continue the COVID up for James Comey and John Brennan. And the unusual thing about the documents that, that the defense lawyers that were representing the witnesses in this case found is that the documents were all backed up on computers. So why was it that there was such an issue that after documents had been printed out that they were trying to put them in burn bags to get rid of them? So look, most defense lawyers don't think there's much to any investigation, but in our reporting, we found that these lawyers were kind of like, these witnesses went out and hired some really high end white collar defense lawyers. And they were like, what the heck is this? Why are they doing this? And the most interesting detail that we've learned in the whole body of reporting is that when one of the witnesses, these are people that were working at the FBI in the final days of the Wray administration or when Ray was in charge. What we found out through our reporting is that when one of the witnesses was approached earlier this year, they were told the investigation was being done at the behest of the FBI director. And that's just like a. Not, I realize we're way beyond the norms and all the sort of pre, post Watergate, the whole, whatever. That's just not how FBI investigations are usually done.
- [07:45]
Nicole Wallace
Let me back up. So this is a theory from Mr. Patel that John Durham also covered this up because didn't John Durham look at.
- [07:55]
Mike Schmidt
All of the documents? John Durham looked at it. And some of these documents may have been printed out during the Durham investigation and they may have been collected in this room to ultimately be destroyed. We're told that this all ties back to a tweet that Kash Patel had put out shortly after he became director when he said they had discovered this really terrible thing, and it was this really big deal. But I think the larger point about these investigations is that just because career prosecutors didn't think there's a case here doesn't mean that this thing is dead at all.
- [08:33]
Nicole Wallace
But I'm trying to understand what they think is there. I worked in the White House, and burn bags weren't destroying anything. It was just sometimes getting rid of paper for things that existed on classified and unclassified systems. Is there a tradition in the FBI of anything existing only on paper?
- [08:46]
Mike Schmidt
Yeah, well, look. No. Our understanding is that everything that was in these bags was things that is electronically backed up, and that the FBI actually, when we were getting into the weeds of this may not have itself a place to incinerate documents, so they have to collect the burn bags so they can be brought out. Because typically at other intelligence or law enforcement places, there's a place where you can drop the burn bag and it can be disposed of. But I'm not sure that we're dealing that the facts are what drives this here. It doesn't seem like the facts are what drove the Comey case or the James case in both instances in which career prosecutors didn't want to go along with it. So I'm not sure that we're at the end of a story here. We may just be in the middle of it.
- [09:34]
Nicole Wallace
Well, what's interesting is Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Siebert and frankly, all of the people that we have covered who may be the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Right. We just know about them because they were either high enough up or someone told their stories. They have nothing in common except what Mike just articulated. They refuse to deviate from facts and evidence. And so if the inverse is what's left, you have a Justice Department now completely untethered to facts and evidence.
- [10:05]
Alex Wagner
Yeah. And that's what I took away from the incredible reporting is just the U.S. attorney's office in turmoil. Right. That there are these seasoned professionals who are looking at the facts and saying there's no there, there. And they're summarily either pressured to resign or choose to resign. They're replaced by people who are seen as allies of the administration who will do, presumably, the bidding of the administration. Which raises huge questions about who's actually populating the Justice Department and what's on the horizon. I mean, you mentioned in the piece, you know, the investigations into John Bolton, the investigations into Adam schiff. Those are U.S. attorney's offices in Philadelphia that are looking into OB Obama era investigations and ones in Baltimore looking into Schiff and Bolton. I mean, what is your sense from the reporting, Mike, that this scenario is playing out across the country?
- [10:56]
Mike Schmidt
Well, this is what we know about. And obviously I usually say when we find something, there's usually a lot that we don't find because we don't have badges and guns and the power of subpoena. We're just out with our notebooks trying to understand what's going on. So my guess is that, look, the other thing is you have to look at what they say. They say a lot of this stuff, this is like a lot of this stuff is out in the open. There's not a lot of, there is mystery to this, there is intrigue, there is what's going on inside these U.S. attorney's offices. But they've been as clear as day about what they're going to do. They've said it out loud and they continue to say it out loud. And I think that what I think we'll have to see is that what happens with these prosecutions. So they've got two prosecutions that are post indictment at this point. How do they progress? How successful are they? How much do they care about winning? How much do they care about losing? What do the judges say? And then what does that mean for the other investigations? We are in the early, early stages of a brand new world in the way that prosecutions are operating in this country. And we're going to have to learn how to cover them and explain them and demystify them to people. The first place to start is to look at what they're saying out loud.
- [12:12]
Nicole Wallace
I mean, Christy, let me bring you in on this. It seems like, you know, Mike is sort of describing the pebble that has now been thrown in and the ripples could be massive. And once you make clear that people are being prosecuted because they are enemies of Donald Trump. Here's what Donald Trump just said since we've been on the air. He said this because coverage of Andrew Weissman's interview of Jack Smith. There's a lot of it here. It must be other places. I'm not sure how much MSNBC he watches, but this is what Donald Trump said about that interview. Quote, I think it was the worst weaponization. This is Jack Smith's indictments against him against a political opponent in the world, let alone in the history of this country. I'm the one that had to suffer through it and ultimately win. But what they did was criminal Deranged. Jack Smith was a criminal. And I noticed his interviewer, I think that was Weissman. And I hope they're going to look into Weissman, too. Weissman's a bad guy and he had somebody in Lisa, I assume that's Monaco, who was his puppet, who really worked as the top person. And she should be looked at very strongly. Tremendous criminal activity. Now, there's no evidence that any of those three people committed any crimes. None of those three people have ever been under any cloud of criminality because of their conduct. But what Donald Trump is saying and doing is saying, well, I'm going to move that cloud there because I'm the weatherman now. And the weather I can create as the country's top law enforcement officer is the specter of criminality. What exists in the system to protect against that.
- [13:51]
Christy Greenberg
Competent people with independent judgment. And unfortunately, those people are leaving in droves. We see it. And by the way, you know, as you pointed out, the number of these people that are leaving because they won't be puppets of this president, they're Republicans. I think that is worth stressing that these are not, this is not just deep state, you know, that they're, or at least their allegations that these are deep state Democrats and liberals. These are Republicans. These are people Donald Trump appointed who are leaving and saying these are bogus cases. If they weren't bogus cases and if these were really close calls and there was something there and it could go either way, I'm guessing they wouldn't resign, you know, rather than at least try the case. So these cases have to have nothing to them for people to take that drastic a step. And unfortunately, when the competent people that have that independent judgment leave, who's replacing them, these incompetent puppets? Again, Lindsey Halligan, an insurance lawyer who has no prosecutorial experience. Ed Martin, a wannabe Colombo detective who roams around targets houses and trench coats. I mean, you have Bill Pulte, who, you know, again, is not a lawyer, but making criminal referrals like, these are the people that Donald Trump is listening to. And so what you're going to get is these political investigations and prosecutions. They will continue to be brought not because they're worthy, but because Donald Trump is demanding it. And if you don't, you're going to lose your job. And I don't think winning is the point here, because even Pam Bondi, you know, according to the reporting yesterday from, you know, from Glenn Thrush, that he said, she said, as to the Letitia James case, that she didn't think they could obtain a conviction, and yet it's proceeding. Seems like the point here is intimidation and harassment to anybody who opposes Trump and a larger undermining of the faith in our justice system.
- [15:52]
Missy Ryan
Right.
- [15:53]
Christy Greenberg
If you just think it's mutual lawfare and it's both sides, which the Wall Street Journal had an op ed recently. Well, it's mutual lawfare. As to Tish James, then it kind of undermines this fact that, oh, Donald Trump is a convicted felon. It undermines that. That means anything. It seems like that's what he's trying to do. Oh, I was accused of mishandling classified documents. I had classified documents, my bathroom. Let's charge John Bolton with the same thing, mortgage fraud. I was found liable for 500 million in fraudulent misrepresentations to get better terms on my loans. Let's throw mortgage fraud at Tish James, even though it's 18,000 and that would never be a federal case. I'm convicted of falsifying business records and lying. Great. Let's come up with lies. Charging Jim Covey with lies. I mean, it's, you know, it's this idea of making the justice system seem as though, oh, it's both sides, everything is bad in both. And unfortunately, what you're going to find, I think, is a real chilling effect for legitimate public corruption investigations of prosecutions, a chilling effect on people joining public service for the right reasons to do good. And unless there are real consequences in terms of discipline or sanctions, fines, losing law, license to the lawyers who bring frivolous cases, they're going to continue playing politics because then it can lead to getting these plum positions in the administration. It's, we're in a dire place right now.
- [17:23]
Nicole Wallace
I am told that Trump's attack today against Lisa, who he describes as a, quote, puppet, is not Lisa Monaco, who he's been attacking on social media relentlessly in the last 48 hours. But it's a reference to Lisa Page, who he's also attacked and smeared for years, relentlessly.
- [17:41]
Alex Wagner
That's the point, is just to get their names in the press, to get people talking about them, cast aspersions on their character. And as Chrissy points out, and as Mike points out, we don't even know if there's really going to be anything at the end of this wild goose chase. It's just about terrorizing people in a way and making their lives difficult. And I would also say, having never had to burn anything in a bag in any of my jobs, if national security is the essence of the Concern here, from your reporting, Mike, and Devlin's reporting, it sounds like there are legitimate national security concerns about, about these investigations. Right? Like these witnesses are being interviewed in their lawyers offices. The investigations themselves are spread across multiple offices, as opposed to being headquartered in one. Presumably this is information you want to keep pretty locked up. I mean, how unusual is it to have that kind of sort of porous membrane around information that presumably is classified or important for national security?
- [18:43]
Mike Schmidt
Well, I think this is part of a larger political gamble that Trump's engaged in that I think is, you know, I think looks at least risky from where I sit. And that is they're taking federal law enforcement agencies and they're using them, at least publicly, for essentially two things. They're using them on immigration and they're using them on retribution. And they seem to be very focused on those two things, if not essentially a whole of government approach to them. That's their bet. What happens when something goes wrong? Because the first thing that people are going to say is, they're going to say, well, where were. And it doesn't have to be something at the terrorism level. It could be a company that, a major company that defrauds people. It could be a scam, it could be a counterintelligence thing. It could be, you can get the law enforcement folks to give you all sorts of examples. So they're essentially saying like, we're gonna bet on these two things, cuz we're really interested in them. And there's a real big post 911 history about how the FBI's resources are structured and how terrorism is the most important thing, counterintelligence is the second. And you know, white collar crime and so on down the line. So if something's gonna go wrong, the first thing folks in the press are gonna say is they're gonna say, well, where were you staffed on this?
- [20:11]
Nicole Wallace
Exactly.
- [20:11]
Mike Schmidt
And you see different an reporting about FBI agents and law enforcement agents being detailed off to some of these law enforcement floods into different parts of cities and such. And I think that's politically risky. I just think that that from a political perspective is risky. I realize the laws of political physics don't apply in many cases to them, but I think it's a risk.
- [20:34]
Nicole Wallace
Well, and it's not like it's paying. It's not showing up in the polls as a bonanza. He says between 36 and 41%. That's not high. And to your point, point nothing, you know, knock on wood, I hope nothing does. But nothing has gone wrong in those areas. As of yet. Thank you for the reporting and for being here. Christy, thank you for being here with us again. Alex is stuck here for the hour. When we come back, today's economy under Donald Trump is beginning to show cracks as well, as well as some scary parallels to what our country went through in the run up to the stock market crash of 1929. Here to make that case with facts and history and to make sense of this moment is our friend and colleague Andrew Ross Sorkin. His new book tells the story of the greatest crash in history. He'll be our guest next. Also, had we just passed that deadline, we've been covering for reporters at the Pentagon to turn in their press credentials after Defense Secretary Pete Pegseth implemented a new policy barring journalists from reporting on anything that the Defense Department doesn't say they can report on. And as we reported last year, dozens of reporters are turning in their badges right now and walking out. We'll bring you the latest on that with a Pentagon correspondent later in the hour. Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
- [21:47]
Rachel Maddow
From executive producer Rachel Maddow, MSNBC Films presents Andrew the Dirty Work I will call for Andrew Young, that dedicated leader. The inside story of Martin Luther King's trusted friend and advisor.
- [22:00]
Nicole Wallace
If I had to take a few kicks and licks to get a civil rights act, I'd do it any day of the week.
- [22:05]
Rachel Maddow
And how he carried the dream forward onto the world stage.
- [22:08]
Nicole Wallace
We had to take the movement into politics.
- [22:10]
Rachel Maddow
Andrew Young, the Dirty work Friday at 9pm Eastern on MSNBC. Start your day with the MSNBC Daily Newsletter. Sharp insights from voices you trust, standout moments from your favorite shows, and fresh perspectives from experts shaping the news. Sign up now@msnbc.com subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts for early access, ad free listening and bonus content to all of MSNBC's original podcasts, including the chart topping series the Best People with Nicole Wallace, why is this Happening? Main justice and more. Plus new episodes of all your favorite MSNBC shows. Ad free and ad free listening to all of Rachel Mattows original series, Ultra Bagman and Deja News. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts.
- [23:03]
Nicole Wallace
When the name of the game is historic comparisons for our increasingly painful economy, there are pretty much two different years you just don't ever want to hear invoked. 2008 is one of them. Housing related financial crisis from which many people still bear the scars, the Great Recession and the other 1929 that sparks the spark of an excruciating worldwide Economic collapse, what we call the Great Depression. Fast forward to right now 2025, and one has to ask, is it possible that history could repeat itself? Here at the table, co anchor of Squawk Box, CNBC's signature morning program, and New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin. His new book, 1929 Inside the Greatest Crash in History and How It Shattered a Nation, tells the story of the most pivotal market collapse of all times. Alex is with us as well. Alex, read the whole thing. I'm just kidding. We did get through the whole thing. But you're here to tell us, to tell us. First of all, tell us about the book and how and when you took on a project like this.
- [24:05]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
So the truth is, about eight years ago, I went on a journey to try to get underneath this story. I think we all have heard that 1929, something very bad happened and there was a depression. But when you talk to most people, including, by the way, and I'm in this space, I didn't know the true details. I didn't know who the people were. I didn't know what they were saying to each other in the moment, what their motivations were, what their incentives were, what were all of the policy mistakes along the way. And so I always wanted to read a book about this period in truth that read like a film or, you know, Barbarians at the Gate or one of these sort of great tiktoks that Bob Woodward or somebody would be putting together. And it just. I couldn't find it. And so I decided I needed to go off and figure this out myself. And I lived in the archives of libraries all over the country trying to piece together transcripts and memos and letters and all sorts of things. I got the Federal Reserve in New York to give me the minutes of their meetings for the first time in about 100 years. They had never disclosed them before. And so you can really feel like you're there. And as I was working on it, even though I thought I was writing about history and I think it's what you're referring to, all of these things that were happening in the news that I was covering every day, all of a sudden seemed to be so pertinent in terms of what was actually happening, the tariffs that we put in place. I was writing about the Smoot hauling tariffs in 1930. And what happened after 1930? Well, global trade dropped by 60%. And what happened at that point? Back then, every banker and CEO and economist was going to Hoover, begging Hoover not to do these, to do the tariffs, but he had run on it, actually. He had pledged to do this because he was trying to get farmers to vote for him. Same thing happened. Here we go all over again. We have a big debate about the independence of the Federal Reserve right now. Right. That's the issue. President Trump, is he impacting the. Is he going to make it political? Well, why did we have a financial crisis? One of the reasons we had a financial crisis is that the Federal Reserve back in 1929 was sitting on their hands. Why were they sitting on their hands? Why were they scared to do anything? They were scared because of politics. So they were actually very concerned. It was a very new institution. It was built in 1913. They thought they were going to be hauled in front of Congress if they did something and. And not just hold in front of Congress, they might eliminate the entire institution. And then after the crash actually happened, instead of injecting money into the system, which is what you would have wanted to do, but that was politically unpalatable. So we did that in 2008, by the way. A lot of people screamed about it. But one of the great lessons is you need an independent reserve, because you're going to have to make some very politically unpopular decisions, and if it's run by people who are complete politicians, you are going to have a problem. So it just. There were so many things along the way, and then I'll throw the last one at you, which is there were no guardrails in 1929. Like, zero guardrails, no SEC, insider trading. All of this was legal. People were doing crazy things. I mean, it was wild. Today, you look at what's going on with crypto, you look what's happening with private equity and venture capital. We did the President Trump just changed the law so the crypto can get into your retirement fund. They're taking the guardrails off of the system literally as we speak. And so as I'm writing this, and I try actually not to allude to it, hopefully you're in this as a thriller almost. But as you're reading it, you're going to go, oh, that guy. That's like Elizabeth Warren there. And that guy is Elon Musk. And. Oh, I see what's happening here.
- [27:49]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah, let me. So Rachel was just on with her new doc, and I know that she dives into our history and the history of white supremacy in this country, and Andrew Young, the history of the civil rights movement, and is able to, like, root a lot of her coverage of this moment in these lessons from History. Has writing this book changed how you.
- [28:09]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Cover this moment 100%, because I think I now that I understand what the real implications of the tariff system are, it's clear to me as we're watching these debates play out with China, even in the past, call it 72 hours, you know, China does something, Trump does something, the markets do something. There's this debate about the trumping, the taco trade. So much of that is what was happening then. And the truth is, you ultimately, we're going to have. We have to find a way out of this. And if we don't, I'm not suggesting we're going to go towards 1929. I really don't want to tell people that you had asked when I walked in here. That's not what I'm saying. I think there are so many lessons, though, from this period that we need to hold on to and not to forget. The truth is, by the way, even in 2008, when we had a financial crisis, Ben Bernanke was our Fed chair. He had done his PhD thesis at Princeton on the Great Depression, and he had, I think, learned a lot of lessons and used those to keep us from going totally off a cliff. I know it felt like a cliff, but there's a difference between 25% unemployment in this country, which is what happened in 1932, and a brief moment touched the plastic or the wood here of a little over 10%.
- [29:27]
Nicole Wallace
I want to press you, though, on what is the same and what is the same is the lack of guardrails. I have to sneak in a quick break, but we'll have that conversation on the other side.
- [29:36]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Thanks.
- [29:36]
Nicole Wallace
Okay, we'll be right back.
- [29:40]
Rachel Maddow
MSNBC presents the chart topping original podcast, the Best People with Nicole Wallace. This week, she sits down with former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci.
- [29:52]
Nicole Wallace
We are a beautiful, colorful mosaic of people, and we are exactly what Lincoln said, the last best hope for mankind.
- [30:00]
Rachel Maddow
The best people with Nicole Wallace. Listen now. For early access and free listening and bonus content, subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts.
- [30:12]
Nicole Wallace
We're back with Andrew and Alex. I mean, Alex, I want to bring you in and sort of broaden this. I mean, we are sort of covering Trump under the umbrella of the greatest political betrayal, I think, of either of our careers. Right? So he wins, we are told, because people express to pollsters and to neighbors and to their politicians real anger at the price of everything.
- [30:37]
Alex Wagner
Totally.
- [30:38]
Nicole Wallace
Everything is more expensive now. Everything is more expensive now. Here's Donald Trump, just again, not me. These are his promises in his work.
- [30:47]
Rachel Maddow
A Vote for Trump means your groceries will be cheaper. It's such an old fashioned term, but a beautiful term. Groceries. It sort of says a bag with different things in it.
- [30:57]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
The groceries, they mean every single item of grocery.
- [31:00]
Rachel Maddow
When you buy apples, when you buy.
- [31:02]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Bacon, when you buy eggs, where the.
- [31:05]
Rachel Maddow
Price of bacon, the price of lettuce, the price of tomatoes.
- [31:08]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Bacon, lettuce, tomatoes.
- [31:10]
Rachel Maddow
I have more complaints on grocery. The word grocery, you know, it's sort of simple word, but it sort of means like everything you eat.
- [31:19]
Nicole Wallace
I'll leave it there. But whether he felt it or not, he clearly does not. But he responded to it, right? The public's anxiety about the cost of everything, and it extended beyond groceries. You know, everything you have to buy for your kids, for sports or for school or for clothing, kids grow. And so you're buying shoes like every four weeks. It feels like, I mean, everything is more expensive now. And if it's. Tariffs are a big piece of it. But it's also economic uncertainty. It feels, though, like we have a hard time because of the volume of chaos he creates. Focusing in on this one thing which just in a political context is the biggest betrayal of a campaign promise in my lifetime.
- [31:56]
Alex Wagner
Absolutely. 120,000%. You didn't include the clip of him standing next to the table of like melting meat. Yeah. Bacon sweating in the semester.
- [32:07]
Nicole Wallace
Semester, yeah.
- [32:10]
Alex Wagner
The Wall Street Journal is reporting on people not buying prime rib and buying ground chuck because they can't afford the beef prices. You know, people having to go to alternative supply chains to find the eggs that they want or the dairy that they want. I mean, this is the nuts and bolts of presumably why Trump won the election. And it's a disaster and it's going to get worse. Right. We look at the tariff environment, we look at the cost of goods, we look at actually who's supporting this economy right now. It's the top 20%. The vast majority of Americans are feeling pain. And I know we may not be able to pay the attention it is due because there's so many existential concerns here, but you know who's paying attention is the American public when they go to the grocery store or when they get the notice during open enrollment that their health care costs are going up at the same time that their grocery prices are going up. This is the kind of stuff that will devastate a party, which is why you are seeing a concurrent parallel effort to steal the 2026 election through redistricting and with help from the Supreme Court, especially on a day like today. I mean, they know they are in trouble. It is a real problem. And the other thing that we haven't talked about that, Andrew, it seems like a plank, a parallel between then and now is the massive bifurcation of American society that happened then and that is happening now. The rural have nots versus the urban haves. And the fact that we have lost touch with the reality of what the sort of real American consumer is experiencing and what is happening on Wall street with corporations and with the wealthy and powerful. That was true then and it is absolutely true now. When we look at the sort of picture of the economy and the stock market and the AI bubble, the reality is that people are struggling out there and they're struggling more than where they were before Trump was elected.
- [33:52]
Nicole Wallace
And I guess the tie back to the book and to what you cover every day is it feels like the fact that we can have this conversation, that there is anything similar in the weather around our economy to 1929 is a four alarm fire. And our structures and our bifurcation of media that you're covering these things. And you have to look at the markets which are totally depressing, divorced from people's day to day lives. They're doing great. And so when we look at the dashboard, we have so few tools for seeing economic pain and anxiety, which is why it seems like our politics keep hitting us on the side of the head.
- [34:29]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Well, the thing that I can't figure out now, and maybe you guys have a better sense of it, is clearly the economy, especially this sort of bifurcated economy, there is one side that's hurting and the question is, is it going to hurt in the polls? You know, I think one of the things that really hurt Biden in his campaign, of course, was people would say constantly that they felt that the economy, they felt the inflation. And you couldn't jawbone your way out of the inflation. Right. By the way, Hoover tried to jawbone his way out of the depression, he used to tell people it was a psychological problem, that we just had to get over it. And what I can't tell right now is you hear President Trump saying these things about groceries and the like. And what I don't know is, is that going to show up in the polls? Meaning are people really going to say that they feel that there's a problem or is he a more successful salesman? I ask because I'm watching all of this play out and it's fascinating to me. The other piece of it is our economy right now is bifurcated in two other ways, which is you have this sort of AI boom going on over here and it is trickling into the real economy. But it may be artificial, it may be a sugar rush, it may not be a gold rush. And so it's possible in a year or two or three, all of a sudden we're going to be looking around and going there's a problem here. I'd also suggest if the AI boom is successful, we also may have a problem on the other side because we could have an employment problem. Meaning if it's actually if it creates the productivity that it needs to by default, if it's going to be productive, it's going to be taking cost out. What does that mean? It's a euphemism oftentimes for taking jobs. So we're in this sort of very unusual time right now.
- [36:08]
Alex Wagner
And I shouldn't buy gold. You're laying all this.
- [36:10]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
There's a lot of people who are buying gold. Well and the reason they're buying gold, just to be 100% clear, is they're buying gold because of the amount of debt. Talk about leverage. If every financial crisis is a function of leverage in the system which it historically has been, debt, debt is a problem. There wasn't actually unusually a lot of the country didn't have a lot of debt in 1929, but people did. People had taken on extraordinary amounts of debt because they were buying stocks and gambling.
- [36:34]
Nicole Wallace
Don't people have a lot of personal debt right now? Medical debt?
- [36:37]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
And they have medical debt. They're using these buy now, pay later programs. The student debt issue is, you know, that's been an economic bomb that's been waiting to go off for a very, very long time. So yes, you know, if you do get into a true crisis, there are less levers to pull in the future. And again if it, if you have not in folks who are independent to make some of those decisions, it gets more complicated.
- [37:04]
Nicole Wallace
Well, congratulations on the book.
- [37:05]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Thank you.
- [37:06]
Nicole Wallace
I know it's years and years of hard work but we'll continue to dive through. Thank you so much for being here to talk about.
- [37:11]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Thanks for having me.
- [37:12]
Nicole Wallace
The book is called 1929 the Inside Story of the greatest crash in Wall street history. Andrew S. Sorkin is difficult to get. We're happy to be on your dance card. Thank you. When we come back we'll go back to the breaking story we brought you in the last hour with Rachel dozens of Pentagon correspondent staging a walkout in response to Defense Secretary Pete Hegsest brand new policy on what the press can Cover. We'll be joined by a Pentagon reporter after a quick break. Since we've been on the air over the last two hours, dozens of journalists turned in their Pentagon press badges after nearly every single news outlet refused to comply with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's highly restrictive new press policy. In a statement, the Pentagon Press association writing this quote, today, the Defense Department confiscated the badges of the Pentagon reporters from virtually every major media organization in America. It did this because reporters would not sign onto a new media policy over its implicit threat of criminalizing national security reporting and exposing those who sign it to potential prosecution. The Pentagon Press Association's members are still committed to reporting on the US military. But make no mistake, today, October 15, 2025 is a dark day for press freedom. That raises concerns about a weakening US Commitment to transparency and governance, to public accountability at the Pentagon, and free speech for all. Only the far, far right network One America News, which has deep ties to the Trump administration, agreed to sign on to the Pentagon's new media rules. Joining our coverage, Missy Ryan, she's staff writer at the Atlantic covering national security. Alex is still here. Missy, just talk about this piece. What seemed really explicit from the Pentagon policy is that it wasn't just about classified information, which there are already laws to deal with, disclosures of classified information, which it's not clear the Trump administration has much regard for. But it also was unclassified information that they wanted to crack down on simply because they didn't want it covered. Just talk about how that flies in the face of journalism as a whole.
- [39:28]
Missy Ryan
Sure. So it was, you know, this very monumental and emotional day for a lot of us at the Pentagon. I first started covering the Pentagon in 2010. Many of us have done this for decades. It's a press corps that has, is very dedicated to the issues and you know, because of the complexity of the military enterprise, you know, it's something that really lends itself to people sticking around.
- [39:54]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
For a long time.
- [39:55]
Missy Ryan
So, you know, we thought that there might be something coming from the Trump administration. There have been suggestions from Pete Hegseth and the people around him that there would be new roles coming out. When we actually got a look at them, we saw that we would never be able to sign them because they seek to prohibit or would impede us from doing our job, which is ask questions, solicit information, try to bring transparency to the American people about what is happening in their taxpayer funded military. And really it does have importance that even covering other agencies don't have in that this is a $1 trillion enterprise that is funded by American taxpayers. And most importantly, it involves the lives of the young men and women that American families provide to the military, the 1.3 million members of the military. And so this impedes our ability to do that. But, you know, don't be any. No one should be confused about the fact that the press corps will continue to report on these issues. It's going to be more difficult in some ways because we won't have this access that we've had. We're all very determined to keep reporting on these crucial issues of national security.
- [41:14]
Nicole Wallace
Alex, it cannot be overstated just how much Donald Trump has strained the military. It started with the purges of anyone who was viewed as an ally to Mark Milley. It extended to anyone that they could smear with the idea meritless that that person had been elevated because of dei. They removed a big number of the lawyers that make sure that men and women of the military follow the law and only follow lawful orders. It has extended to putting troops on the streets in American cities and moving National Guard troops around to other states. It is sort of the epicenter of the looming crisis. And now the press is gone.
- [42:08]
Alex Wagner
Yeah. I mean, Trump's obsession with the military extends well past his bone spurs as a youth.
- [42:15]
Mike Schmidt
Right.
- [42:15]
Alex Wagner
He is obsessed with having a sort of paramilitary extrajudicial core to do his bidding, whether it's insurrectionists from January 6th that he pardoned that will stand back and stand by for whatever the looming crisis is to actually usurping control. I mean, he is the commander in chief, but really populating the ranks of the Department of Defense with lackeys who will do his bidd and are doing his bidding. I mean, I think the idea that we're losing transparency over the DoD I refuse to call it the Department of War, is terrifying, not just for the present, but also given the past. You know, if we look at what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, there was such dissonance between what was being said at the highest levels of the DoD and what was actually happening on the ground. Right. It's one of those areas in our sprawling federal bureaucracy where transparency, investigation, truth and sunshine is so needed. These are American lives we're talking about. They're lives of people on the ground in the regions where we're fighting battles. We need a robust reporting corps to be covering what America is doing in the citizens, in the names of the American citizens, and to see Fox News didn't sign on to this.
- [43:27]
Nicole Wallace
How bad is it? It's.
- [43:28]
Missy Ryan
That's how bad it Is Nicole.
- [43:30]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah, Missy. I mean, I don't want to distracted from the big story that I imagine you're all covering. I mean, these strikes on alleged drug traffickers being blown out of the water without evidence being provided to the press corps seems to be the kind of thing that it would benefit the country to understand the facts, to see the evidence, to see the targeting, to know if any civilians were injured, to see whatever proof they had that there were indeed drugs on these, to understand the law that makes those attacks and strikes lawful. How will you go about doing that kind of reporting?
- [44:11]
Missy Ryan
Absolutely. No, it's such a good point. And it's not just the narco boat strikes. It's also the fact that the United States has the potential to resume conflict with Iran after the nuclear strikes in June. The United States has tens of thousands of troops supporting operations in Ukraine. You know, there's any number. We do freedom of navigation operations in waters off of China. You know, there's so many issues, even if we're not at the kind of height of the global war on terror, that, you know, that the American people need to know about. And we're going to continue to report on those. What we'll do is, you know, rely on our sources, just like other reporters do in other environments. You know, I've been covering the military for a long time. You know, we, we talked to people who, you know, started out, we'd met them as a lieutenant, and now they're, you know, a colonel or a general. We will continue to go to the places where the US Military operates. We will provide the analysis and context and information that we've, many of us have gained over many years of covering these issues. But, you know, I mean, I think the saddest thing for me is that for many years, I was proud of the transparency that the US Military provided, not just here in Washington, at the Pentagon, but also variety embeds. When I worked in Iraq, for example, in Afghanistan, the US Military had this number one sense of setting an example, that this kind of transparency mattered as a principle, but also that the US Military and its operations could withstand scrutiny. And that set an example for allies and partners who don't really come from that same tradition. And it concerns me that. And we're backing away from that positive example that we've had in the world and also making it harder for Americans to get information about what's occurring in their name.
- [45:58]
Nicole Wallace
Alex, you've been bearing witness with me for the whole hour. The assault on the rule of law, the betrayal of Trump's own voters and the argument about making groceries cheaper and the assault on a free press here at the Pentagon. It's a pretty dire moment.
- [46:13]
Missy Ryan
Yeah.
- [46:13]
Alex Wagner
I mean, hats off to Missy for doing the hard work, right? Nobody's given up. They're going to continue to do the important and essential work of reporting. But this is a red line. I mean, this marks a change. The fact that again, organizations like Newsmax and Fox wouldn't sign on to this is significant. This is not how we have conducted ourselves as a country. This is not how the Department of Defense has been run. This is an assault on the fourth estate. You look at it in conjunction with what Trump is doing to universities. He is trying to police Trump truth and information that is the hallmark of an authoritarian, a dictator. This is what you see in Russia. He's targeting his enemies like Putin did in Russia. I mean, make no mistake about where we are on the trajectory. We are not sliding. We are there.
- [46:58]
Nicole Wallace
Well, see. Ryan, thank you for joining us. We'll continue to check in with you. Alex Wagner, thank you for spending the hour with us. We'll continue to call you to the table. A quick break for us. We'll be right back. When an ex president says anything about a sitting president, whether it's a joke or a serious critique, it does make you sit up and take notice. And we're talking any ex president, even fictional ones.
- [47:26]
Mike Schmidt
So the big guy in the White House, if he would take some personal advice, you've got to realize, sir, that you are the biggest nothing in the world.
- [47:36]
Nicole Wallace
And.
- [47:39]
Mike Schmidt
And, and sir, you stop there.
- [47:42]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
You stop listening to all these people around you, these sycophants who are encouraging you to be your non human self.
- [47:51]
Mike Schmidt
Get in touch with that humanity.
- [47:53]
Nicole Wallace
Stop fussing with your hair.
- [47:54]
Mike Schmidt
Don't worry about your tie and stand.
- [47:57]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
Up straight and speak clearly.
- [47:59]
Mike Schmidt
Not from your throat, speak from your heart. And start being human.
- [48:03]
Andrew Ross Sorkin
That's what you were made for, not golf.
- [48:07]
Mike Schmidt
So There you are, Mr. President. With all due respect, sir.
- [48:14]
Nicole Wallace
The one and only President Jed Bartlett, otherwise known as Martin Sheen. He lit up the room at the MSNBC Live event over the weekend. Martin Sheen is my guest on this week's the Best People podcast. Scan the QR code on your screen to watch the whole thing on YouTube or, or download this week's episode. Wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for letting us into your homes today. We are grateful.