← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
“Who stands to pay the price”
00:43:26
Nicolle Wallace on the Trump administration’s ongoing acts of retribution against perceived political foes, this time coming for staffers at FEMA.
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- [00:00]
Nicole Wallace
Saturday, October 11th. From New York City, it's MSNBC Live 25. Join your favorite MSNBC hosts, Rachel Maddow, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Nicole Wallace, Ari Melber, Alicia Menendez, Simone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele, Chris Haynes, jen Psaki, Lawrence O', Donnell, Stephanie Ruhl and more. Visit msnbc.comlive25 to buy your tickets today. 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 top story here at 6 o'. Clock.
- [00:49]
Miles Taylor
Federal funds are on the way to help three southern Oregon counties recover from devastating floods earlier this year.
- [00:55]
Eddie Glaude
In addition to this pounding lake effect snow are these whipping winds that just.
- [00:59]
John Heilman
Make the conditions here brutal.
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Mark Elias
Hurricane Helene right now, a powerful Category 3 storm shaping up to be one.
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John Heilman
Of the biggest to ever hit the Gulf Coast.
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Eddie Glaude
We've seen homeowners still on this street and they are trying to put out the fire with hoses. But at this point, this, the smoke is so thick, I think we're going.
- [01:22]
John Heilman
To have to fall back.
- [01:25]
Eddie Glaude
Yeah, let's head back.
- [01:28]
Nicole Wallace
Hi there, everyone. It's now five o' clock in the east. It was maybe one of the last things we still agreed on as a country, the importance of the federal government's ability to help people impacted by natural disasters like those. Well, that may be the latest target in Donald Trump's promised public retribution campaign because his administration just placed more than 30 employees at FEMA, that's the federal Emergency Management Agency, on leave. Why did they do that, you ask? Well, the Washington Post reports this, quote, they signed an open letter of dissent about the agency's leadership. According to people familiar with the situation and and documents reviewed by the Washington Post, about one hundred and eighty current and former FEMA staffers sent a letter on Monday to members of Congress and other officials arguing that the current leader's inexperience and approach harm FEMA's mission and could result in a disaster on the level of Hurricane Katrina. About three dozen people had signed their names. The majority of signatories were anonymous. Same thing happened at the Environmental Protection Agency last month. One hundred and thirty nine people were put on leave there following their own letter of dissent. In both cases, the crime or the sin in the eyes of the Trump administration was simply telling the truth in defiance of the Trump party line. That was also the recent experience of Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Krause, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He was fired seemingly because he dared to provide an accurate assessment of the Iran strike that didn't sync up with Donald Trump's own appraisal of the impact of that strike. Trump, of course, claimed that the operation resulted in, quote, total obliteration of Iran's nuclear facilities. When the now former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics was so bold as to report as accurately as possible the data before her, the monthly jobs numbers, Donald Trump fired her, too, because he didn't like the numbers, didn't think they were good enough. Law firms, universities, news organizations, cultural institutions, we could go on and on and on, have already been on the receiving end. They're saturated, frankly, with Donald Trump's revenge and retribution. So two are some of the people who have criticized him. The most recent example being John Bolton, a frequent critic, a national security expert. His helm of was searched by the FBI late last week. So run down the list, storms. The environment, US national security, intelligence, the economy, American institutions, cultural and other people exercising their First Amendment rights. Ask yourself, who stands to pay the price for Donald Trump's acts of political retribution? It isn't just the people. We named all of us, 340 million people who live in this country who are, with each new act of capricious revenge on the part of Donald Trump, worse off. It's where we start the hour with some of our favorite reporters in France, former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security during Donald Trump's first term. Myles Taylor's back. Also joining us, Puck News chief political columnist, MSNBC national affairs analyst John Heilman is back. And Princeton University professor, MSNBC political analyst, our friend Eddie Glaud is back. Miles, I will be honest. I have been thinking about you every second since I woke up Friday morning and learned about John Bolton's home and office being searched. And I wonder how you and your family are doing.
- [05:09]
Miles Taylor
I appreciate it, Nicole. You know, look, we had the same reaction, I think you did in watching it, which is this is happening now. This part of the story that I think you knew was coming and I knew was coming and a lot of us knew was coming, is that he was going to take federal law enforcement officers and send them into the homes of his enemies. And it's something that we are preparing for personally and we feel the same way as you do in terms of how you let off this segment, Nicole, is it's not so much about us if we're on that list to be hit next. This is about how it affects everyday Americans. I mean, they don't need to worry about John Bolton and Miles Taylor and Jim Comey and these other folks, I mean, we appreciate the sympathy and support. We do. But those same tactics that are being used against people on the president's enemies list are those tactics that you just noted are reshaping all of the services and institutions that Americans depend on. I mean, I think about my friends over at FEMA who've just been laid off and the ones who signed that letter anonymously, who are probably being hunted and investigated. They've got families to feed, they've got homes to protect. A lot of them are the sole income earners in their household. And they too will be on the receiving end of presidential revenge. But then worse, the American people who depend on that aid and support from FEMA know that they might not get it because the president months ago said he's going to start making those decisions about who gets FEMA aid personally from the office of the President. He's not gonna let a nonpartisan organization decide. He wants to decide if you get that aid or not. So did you like that tweet or Instagram post that was critical of Donald Trump? Well, now do you have to worry whether you'll get federal support when something goes wrong? That's the level of this revenge tour. It's gone into every community in this country.
- [07:08]
Nicole Wallace
I think there's something that people don't appreciate about the difference between Trump's first term and the second term. And I wonder if you can just sort of pull this thread for me. Miles. In the first term, Trump had all the same impulses. He wanted to do all the same things. And it's been borne out in all the great reporting since he left. And frankly, I went back and read your first op ed as Anonymous and looked at your book. I mean, the warnings were there throughout Trump's first term, but there was friction. There was friction points with Jim Mattis at the Pentagon and Mark Esper at the Pentagon and Mark Milley at the Pentagon, and with, in my view, not enough friction points. But with some of the folks at doj, with Sessions, or the fact that there were people in there that had served Democratic and Republican presidents and simply upheld the rule of law. There were friction points at dhs, and again, not enough for a lot of people who oppose the policies. But there are no friction points. And I wonder if you can just explain what that means for the country and these institutions. Miles.
- [08:18]
Miles Taylor
Yeah, look, I don't want to puff myself up or build up other people into heroes when we weren't heroes. I mean, as I've said before, there were no heroes in the first Trump administration. There were only survivors. But we at least counted on those people who survived the chaos in there to speak truth to power, to tell the president not to do things that were wrong and especially not to do things that were illegal and unconstitutional. And I know for a number of years it got nauseating for people to hear, okay, you know, all of these, this axis of adults, they told Trump not to do illegal things, whoop de do. Well, now you are seeing what happens when that layer of government is gone. And this isn't about Democrats or Republicans. In every administration, we should want people who have enough guts to at least say to a President, hey, Mr. President, that's illegal. Don't do it. We're not talking about defying the lawful orders of the commander in chief. We're telling. We're talking about telling the commander in chief when something violates the Constitution of the United States, and apparently those people aren't there anymore. And that means that the things Trump has fantasized about doing, which are dictatorial in nature, as you noted earlier that John Kelly warned about, they are coming to fruition. And I look at things like the crackdown in US Cities. This is not a countercrime offensive. The president is running a counterinsurgency campaign, but a counterinsurgency campaign against his political enemies. And look no further than what Stephen Miller said this week when he called the Democrat Party a domestic extremist organization. They are in real time painting the political opposition like terrorists and they're using the counterterrorism tools of the federal government to go after them. It can't get more dramatic than that.
- [10:06]
Nicole Wallace
How does it end?
- [10:08]
Miles Taylor
Well, look, I mean, there's one of two ways. We either cede that the United States of America is no longer a democracy and we let it slide into quasi authoritarianism, into full blown authoritarianism, or we mobilize. And that mobilization has to be nonviolent, but it has to be massive. And it's got to be going out there and shining a light on all of these actions, but also actively resisting those actions. I mean, the cities that Donald Trump might deploy to shouldn't just wait for it to happen. They should be mobilizing now. We should see people absolutely blocking the sidewalks of Chicago and saying, hell no, we do not want you here. It's going to take that. And if you want any indicator of what that looks like, you can go look at East European governments throughout the decades and see the level of mass mobilization that's needed to prevent that kind of backsliding I haven't seen it yet here in the United States, but if we want to stop this, we're going to have to.
- [11:09]
Nicole Wallace
John Halman, I think you and I were on the air together when this happened live, so I want to play it again. This is Donald Trump's own branding for his presidential campaign about retribution.
- [11:26]
Eddie Glaude
In 2016, I declared, I am your voice.
- [11:30]
John Heilman
Today, I add, I am your warrior.
- [11:33]
Eddie Glaude
I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution.
- [11:46]
Nicole Wallace
It was amazing at the time, I think the first campaign rally was in Waco with all of its iconography and echoes to history, frankly. John Kelly wasn't the only one warning about troops in the streets. Kamala Harris warned about it, too, repeatedly. We were warned. I just had a debate with Sam Stein, who said, you know, Trump's on some solid political ground here when it comes to crime. And I push back aggressively because to Trump, this isn't about crime. If it were about crime, Trump wouldn't have ordered the cuts at DOJ that take crime prevention programs off the street and say, you're just a hardcore extreme Republican. I worked for a bunch of them. I worked for Dan Lundgren when he ran for governor of California. The hardcore conservative Republican position on crime has to do with cops, prosecutions and stuff like, three strikes, you're out has nothing to do with, with soldiers on the streets of American cities. So I wonder where you feel we are in what Miles just described and what Ann Applebaum described earlier this week as a clear. It's not even a slide. It's a hop, skip and a jump into blatantly authoritarian practices and patterns here.
- [13:05]
Eddie Glaude
So.
- [13:08]
John Heilman
I think there's a reasonable debate to be had, and it's happening right now in various quarters, including these, about, are we already there? Are we already in authoritarianism, or are we on the brink of authoritarianism? Where is that Rubicon? It's not like there's a bright red line painted on the ground. We don't have any experience with this in the United States, Nicole. So it's hard to precisely pinpoint, but, boy, if we're not already there or real close. And in some respects, probably the answer, as in a lot of cases, is that we are in some areas, we are over the line. In other areas, we are just on the right side of the line. You know, we can talk about how the courts have done a pretty good job in Trump's two term, the first seven months of Trump's second term of continuing to behave like the courts. I would say one of the things that has been the most troubling all along goes to a thing that I heard you say with Sam and I heard you just say it. Now you got to work on your verb tenses because the Republican position on crime is, is no longer correct. The Republican position when you were a Republican was that they weren't for troops on the streets and was in favor of getting rid of having mandatory minimums or having three strikes laws or getting rid of, even of getting rid of cashless bail. Those were the Republican positions when the Republican Party you worked for still existed. It does not exist anymore. The Republican Party of today is the MAGA cult, right? That's what we've seen. And the fact that there's no resistance to it in the second branch of government, meaning there's some resistance in the courts. There's been some standing up on the legislative side. There is no resistance. There's only capitulation. There's only giving Trump what he wants. And obviously we know what the executive is about. So I don't know, does it, does having one of the three branches of government still functioning like it used to, does that mean that we're still on the right side of authoritarianism, or does it mean 2 out of 3 means we've crossed over to the other side? But I do just want to keep saying we don't know today. I disagree with both in some sense, with both you and Sam, because Trump is redefining what crime is and redefining the uses of, of how he's applying policies that have nothing to do with crime and putting them underneath the rubric of crime. And because his coalition is a new Republican coalition, I don't think we know the question right now of whether Trump is on solid or unsolid ground when it comes to what he's doing with the Republicans right now. I'm certain he's not on solid ground with Americans. I'm certain there's not a majority in the country, anything close to a majority in the country that wants to see federalized, militarized, domestic law enforcement with troops like they are in Washington, D.C. like we saw in Los Angeles, like we might see in Chicago, like we might see in Baltimore and other places. I'm certain there's not a majority of Americans who want that. In terms of what the Republican Party of today is in favor of, I don't know the answer and I'm not sure we really know yet. This is all very new and so I just withhold judgment on that. But, man, we are close to that line for sure.
- [16:26]
Nicole Wallace
I stand corrected. I agree with you. I want to bring Eddie into this. And here's what I want to put to you, Eddie. What we can take to the bank is what they think. And we know that they think what John thinks, which is that the majority of Americans think this is, you know, survey says no, thank you. Because if they didn't know that, they wouldn't be changing all the maps in the middle of the decade to cheat in the midterms if they thought they were really going to create a white hot economy, if they thought, as Trump said when he stood before melting meat at Bedminster, that the prices of the grocery will come down if and only if you vote for Trump. If they thought that he was actually going to be able to do that, they wouldn't be rigging all of the maps to a point that is so extreme. I wrestle with this question. How extreme is it? It's so extreme that the Indiana Republicans are like thumbs down. So we know that they know that the things they are doing stink politically and that is why they are trying to rig the maps ahead of the midterms.
- [17:28]
Eddie Glaude
Right? So if we know that, first of all, it's great to see you and it's such a difficult day to have this conversation when babies have been killed. And so we always got to keep that in mind in some ways in this moment. So if we know that, Nicole, then we have to understand that this isn't politics as usual. This is just simply pure and simple power play, Right? This is just the exercise of power, the pursuit of power. And John has made a really interesting point, right, because he's saying that there is that the Trump administration, the MAGA folk, are using language that align with traditional Republican stuff, but the content of it isn't the same. So when Republicans hear law and order and crime, they immediately go back to what was, when what's actually being signaled by that language is something radically different. So it matters when Joe Scarborough, our good friend, invokes a particular set of positions that align with what he held in the 90s. But when they are invoking that same language, that's not what they mean. That's not what they're doing. It's really important for us to see that. And so then I want to widen the aperture again. If this is just pure power, we see a, the deconstruction of the state shading into the imperial presidency. There is that we got to break everything because he alone can fix it. And if he alone can Fix it. No one can challenge him. So then fear becomes the absolute cudgel to beat out, to beat up consent. So you have to in effect a race. So we're, we're not. I think John is. I think we're already crossed the Rubicon because he's make there. These steps are not just simply the pettiness of, of Donald Trump or just him exacting revenge. It seems to be to me.
- [19:20]
Nicole Wallace
Right.
- [19:21]
Eddie Glaude
The very steps that we've seen elsewhere for authoritarianism, for fascism and the like. And he's pursuing it in a very methodical way. And if, when we think, Nicole, that we're playing politics as usual, oh, we've won something in Iowa, or he's invoking language. Right. That, that bears a resemblance to previous moments. We fall for the Okie doke when they're doing something dramatically different and dangerous.
- [19:50]
Nicole Wallace
You've all made my head, my brain grow. As a punishment slash reward, I'm going to make all of you stick around. We'll have much more on not just what he's doing, but where we are as a country and what we do next. And we'll keep talking this through until we get it right. We'll also show you what is being felt and experienced by numerous targets of Donald Trump's retribution and ire. Also had Donald Trump turns up the heat on those Indiana Republicans to change their congressional maps or else. And Republicans in Texas who just capitulated seemingly gleefully and approved a new map of their own are facing lawsuits accusing them of engaging in racial gerrymandering. We'll bring you in on the latest law legal fight for congressional seats ahead of the midterms deadline. White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. Today.
- [20:49]
MSNBC presents the chart topping original podcast, the Best People with Nicole Wallace. Each week, Nicole speaks with some of the people who inspire her the most. This week, she sits down with writer producer Phil Rosenthal.
- [21:04]
Miles Taylor
I'm only using food and my stupid sense of humor to get you that real message, which is, I think the world would be better if we all could experience a little bit of other people's experiences.
- [21:14]
Nicole Wallace
The best people with Nicole Wallace. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [21:19]
Miles Taylor
Hey, everyone, it's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast, why is this Happening? Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben.
- [21:24]
Mark Elias
There is one big good thing happening in the midst of all the big bad things that are happening on our.
- [21:31]
Miles Taylor
Planet, and it is going so far largely unnoticed.
- [21:36]
Mark Elias
That's the explosion of renewable energy finally taking its place.
- [21:42]
John Heilman
Solar power is not just the biggest.
- [21:45]
Mark Elias
New source of energy right now, it's the biggest new source of energy ever.
- [21:49]
Miles Taylor
That's this week on why Is this Happening? Search for why Is this Happening? Wherever you're listening right now and follow.
- [21:55]
Nicole Wallace
Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts for early access, ad free listening and bonus content to all of MSNBC's original podcast, 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 Maddows original series, Ultra Bagman and Deja News. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts.
- [22:27]
We're back with Miles, John and Eddie. Miles, I want to read you this new reporting in today's New York Times about the retribution efforts around the FBI and DOJ when it came to the investigation into Russia's attack on our 2016 election. Times reporting this, quote, a new inquiry seeks to determine if senior FBI officials spent years, years working to cover up the supposed misdeeds of James Comey, the FBI director at the time of the Russia investigation, and John Brennan, who was then the CIA director after the two men left government by squirreling away potentially damaging classified documents. So just you were in the government. I mean, Comey's gone by January of 2017. Brennan's gone before that. Didn't they spend all of the first term trying to, quote, determine if there was a cover up of the supposed misdeeds of Jim Comey and John Brennan? Isn't that what Bill Barr traveled to Italy with John Durham to figure out and Marco Rubio, who said it was, quote, the most exhaustive inquiry of the Russia attack on the I mean, didn't they do this already?
- [23:36]
Miles Taylor
They've done this multiple times, Nicole. And they did this with the Justice Department. They did this with a special counsel. They did this with congressional investigations. This has been done. And so I think, as this New York Times story shows, it's not really about any of that. None of it is about the substance. It's a fishing expedition. They're going back through the files on a fishing expedition to find something, to find anything that they can hold against those two men or the people that supported them or anyone who's on Trump's target list. It's like what we're seeing with the raid on John Bolton's home, which, again, you know, you covered this exceptionally well. Normally a raid like that is the culmination of an investigation, but we had the vice president of the United States Essentially suggest it was the beginning of an investigation. Why? Because they appear to be going on a fishing expedition to try to find a way to punish their enemies. That's the inverse of the justice process. You don't start with the conviction of a crime and then go find the evidence. You start with the evidence and the predicate and you build towards a possible conviction. But we are seeing this time and time again of them inverting the justice system, and it's going to have a generational impact on. On the rule of law in this country, without question.
- [24:55]
Nicole Wallace
And I guess what makes the Epstein story so fascinating is that they don't seem to be able to go through the files or the burn bags when it comes to that, despite the fact that there are real child victims of sexual predators who sit in jail. In the case of Ghislaine Maxwell, John Heilman.
- [25:16]
John Heilman
Well, right, because what Miles just said was to ladder back to our earlier conversation, we heard Trump say first in 2016, I am your voice. In 2024, I am your retribution. He's also basically, I am your predicate. I mean, that's the predicate now, in terms of investigating is if Trump wants it investigated, that's the predicate. Trump has a conviction in the same way that he often talks about people who are facing some kind of. He wades into these criminal matters all the time in a way that we previously would have thought any president was wildly inappropriate for them. He could declare his people guilty before they've been charged, let alone been tried or convicted. Right. He has instincts. He's convinced about certain things. He's convinced that the Russia hoax was a hoax, and he's convinced that certain people are out to get him. He's convinced people conspired against him. And the fact his convictions now.
- [26:12]
Mark Elias
Are.
- [26:12]
John Heilman
The substitute for evidence. What Miles talked about a second ago, previously, you would investigate on the basis of an evidentiary predicate. Now, in Trump's government, in 2.0, Trump's hunches, instincts, whims, desires, wants and dictates are the predicate. Donald Trump is if you work in the government. And the thing that you were talking about, I don't want to be too much of a deadline White House groupie here, but yesterday Tim was on and was making a very important and very subtle point, which is that what happens in a culture like that, and we see this not just in government, but we see this in corporate settings all the time, is that when the CEO, the boss, the president, el Jefe, becomes the predicate for action, people Stop at a certain point. You don't wait for the boss to ask or demand or tell. You start to anticipate what the boss might want or what might please him. And now you have minions running around these agencies who are in an anticipatory way trying to get ahead of Trump and give him what they think he is going to want, what he is going to smile upon, what will make him pat them on the head and give them a promotion or give them a nice mention on truth, social or whatever it is they're looking for. But that becomes a self reinforcing system that exists entirely outside the legal structure and the structure of legal political accountability that America has and the American executive branch has been built on until now.
- [27:40]
Nicole Wallace
And the danger, I mean, when we get back to why this matters, Eddie, and I'll own my piece in the failure to explain this or to pull this thread tightly enough, why does this matter? Why does it matter that Comey's fired because he, quote, refuses to see to it, to let Mike Flynn go? Let Mike Flynn go? Why, why does it matter that Andy McCabe is, is fired from the deputy director of the FBI? Why does it matter that Trump spends years attacking Pete Strzok and Lisa Page? Why does it matter that he is now, nine years after Russia's interference in the 2016 election, trying to rewrite history, trying to erase history on this story and many other chapters of American history? It matters because if the person who tells the truth about intelligence and the person who tells the truth about a threat from, from Russia is afraid to tell Donald Trump that Russia threatens us, then how are we to protect ourselves from Russia or anyone else that threatens us? So the reason it matters is because like it or not, Trump's the chief policymaker. He's the commander in chief, he's the person, he's the client of the intelligence agencies. And if they're what John just described, that matters because if the people that have to put the facts and the threats and the real scary stuff in front of Donald Trump, we're scared to do it, we're all at risk, right?
- [29:05]
Eddie Glaude
So we try to describe that as a threat to democracy, but we think that's too abstract a way of kind of getting at that reality. We know that what is happening very clearly is that Donald Trump is trying to destroy any space agency institution that cultivates a critical capacity that allows for him to be held to account, that he can be free to do anything he wants because he's the president? I think that might be a paraphrase of a quote. Right. And so I think part of what we're describing here, and we've tried to do it over the course of and you've been trying to pull the through line and we were trying to use democracy as the way to do it. But perhaps because we're so broken as a society, we're so selfish as a society that what we have to do is just talk about, speak to self interest. Your life is in danger because of all of this, that you're not safe because of all of this. And maybe that will strike a chord because the broader issue around democracy itself doesn't seem to be getting enough traction. Maybe it's like your very way of living is in danger because of all of the stuff that's falling apart because Donald Trump thinks he alone should rule and govern the country.
- [30:27]
Nicole Wallace
Miles, you get the last word on this?
- [30:30]
Miles Taylor
Well, look, I'll say there's nowhere where that's more relevant than getting to make your own decisions or letting someone else. And Donald Trump wants to keep making your decisions for you. And you mentioned it with gerrymandering, Nicole, but it goes beyond that. We just got news that they've installed a head of election security at DHS who's going to use the powers of DHS to try to rig the 2026 election in Donald Trump's favor. He wants to keep making your decisions for you. And we know what Republicans would call this if it was happening to them in the party I came from. If troops were deployed on their streets, if their vote was being taken away from them, they would call it civil war. That's how serious they would treat it. Now, we shouldn't say that in response. We don't want an armed response to Donald Trump's takeover, but we need to treat it with that level of seriousness because that's what Republicans would call it. The presidential revenge has gone to places this country has never seen before. And we need to mount a nonviolent response that's never been seen before.
- [31:30]
Nicole Wallace
Miles Taylor, thank you for joining us today. John and Eddie, stick around. When we come back, Democratic state lawmakers in Indiana are fired up and calling out their Republican counterparts. They met with Donald Trump yesterday to discuss passing new gerrymandered congressional maps. Our friend and voting rights attorney Mark Elias joins us on the expanding redistricting fights going on across the country. That's next.
- [31:59]
Saturday, October 11th. From New York City, it's MSNBC Live 25. Join your favorite MSNBC hosts, Rachel Maddow, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Nicole Wallace, Ari Melber, Alicia Menendez, Simone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele, Chris Haynes, jen Psaki, Lawrence O', Donnell, Stephanie Ruhle and more. Visit msnbc.comlive25 to buy your tickets today.
- [32:31]
I guess seven out of the nine congressional seats wasn't enough. I guess 20 years of Republican rule wasn't enough because cheaters don't stop at enough. They want it all. This isn't redistricting. This is rigging. This is cheating. And this is throwing Hoosier voters into the garbage. Let's call it what it is. It's authoritarianism right here in Indiana. Democratic lawmakers in Indiana communicating expressing outrage following their Republican colleagues meeting with Donald Trump yesterday at the White House. The meeting was Trump's latest attempt to get state lawmakers to pass gerrymandered maps mid decade after his successful push to get the Texas Republicans to do so. The Washington Post reports that although some Republicans in the legislature remain skeptical, others are falling into line succumbing to Donald Trump's pressure campaign. Quote, State Representative Jim Lucas, a Republican, told the Indianapolis Star that he he was more open to redistricting after hearing from J.D. vance a sharp turn in rhetoric from just weeks ago when he questioned on X whether it was worth putting many good state elected officials at risk because of a political redistricting stunt. It's quite an about face. All this despite the broad unpopularity among voters of Donald Trump's attempts to rig congressional maps in Republicans favorite ahead of the midterms. And unfortunately, it doesn't end with Indiana. CBS News is reporting that Florida is next. Quote, a select committee on congressional redistricting will hold its first meetings as early as the week of October 6th. The expectation among Florida lawmakers and GOP operatives in the state is that further debate and potential passage of new congressional map would be added onto the docket for the Florida legislative session that begins January 2026. Joining our conversation, voting rights attorney and founder of Democracy Docket, Mark Elias is here. John and Eddie are still with us. Mark, let's do Indiana first. Your thoughts?
- [34:45]
Mark Elias
Look, I mean Indiana was going to cave from the moment Donald Trump asked them. You know, there is I am tired of this theater in which we treat the request by Donald Trump and the initial questioning by Republicans about whether it's a good idea as actually anything other than than a speed bump. I mean in the end they always cave. You know, maybe Taco is true that Trump always chickens out abroad, but Republicans always chicken out when it comes to standing up to Donald Trump domestically. And so Indiana is going to cave, they'll pass a new map. And by the way, I can promise them they're going to get sued. Then Florida will pass a new map and they are definitely going to get sued and they're going to lose. And Missouri is going to pass a new map and they're going to get sued and they may lose. I give it 50, 50 whether Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire stands by her proposition that she won't, that she won't pass a new map. Because here's the thing. The only thing there is in the Republican Party today is proud MAGA and scared maga. And the proud MAGA lead the parade to do what Donald Trump wants. That's the Abbott's, that's the DeSantis. But the scared MAGA wind up doing the same thing. They're just scared maga. And that's Indiana. Maybe that'll be New Hampshire. Maybe it'll be some other places. But anyone who is banking on Republicans doing the right thing, anything that everyone is banking on Republicans acting in good faith to saving democracy, has not learned the lesson of the last several years and certainly not of the last seven months.
- [36:13]
Nicole Wallace
So let's turn to the legal mark. Take me through the two important developments today on that front.
- [36:19]
Mark Elias
Yeah, so there are two breaking news developments, both of which democracy docket if didn't break was among the first to cover. The first is in the state of California where Republicans have tried to block that ballot initiative. The state Supreme Court has rejected that. So this is now the second effort by Republicans in California to try to slow Gavin Newsom's ballot initiative. They have now failed on both cases. And importantly in both instances, their arguments were so weak that the California Supreme Court did not even wait to get responsive briefs. The bigger news and the really ominous news, and something I know Eddie is going to care a lot about comes out of the state of Louisiana where that state has now done an about face and it says it will no longer defend the map it drew, the map it passed through its legislature that created two rather than one black opportunity districts. Instead, it is now going to side with the Trump Justice Department and take the position that Section 2 is unconstitutional and therefore the map they drew should be struck down. And so it's going to be the burden of carrying this argument going forward in this case. And unfortunately, I suspect in all of them is going to rest on those of us in the pro democracy movement because Republican states are no longer going to even stand by the maps they draw in the face of this Department of Justice's effort to dismantle the Voting Rights Act.
- [37:43]
Nicole Wallace
I mean, what does that mean legally? Like, who stands up for the Louisiana map in court?
- [37:49]
Mark Elias
Yeah. So it's going to be the private parties. It's going to be the folks, you know, my law firm. And. And the NAACP brought the original challenge to the original Louisiana map. We won. The state of Louisiana drew a new map that complied with that court order. And now you have the state of Louisiana saying in the Supreme Court today that it's not going to stand by that it agrees that Section 2 of the Voting Rights act is unconstitutional. Agrees, by the way, with the Trump administration, not with us. And so it's going to be left to the private parties to brief and argue and defend this map. But, look, this is something we are seeing all around the country, Nicole. We are. I have a case that I'll be arguing in December, a campaign finance case, where the Department of Justice has walked away from a campaign finance law that has been on the books since 1974. The Department of Justice, under Democrats and Republicans, have defended this campaign finance limitation, and now they've reversed course. And so it is left again to lawyers like me to defend that. This is something that was a. It was unheard of in past administrations. The idea that a state would back away and not defend its laws, the idea that a federal government would not defend a federal statute, was something that simply did not happen. But in the. In the era of Trump, it is now happening all the time.
- [39:13]
Nicole Wallace
John Holman just made the point that if we're looking for institutions that haven't buckled, the courts are one of them. Do you have faith that the courts will side with you, Mark?
- [39:24]
Mark Elias
Look, I am realistic about the courts. I'm realistic about the Supreme Court. But the fact is that the only branch of government that is holding at all, that is holding Donald Trump to account is the judiciary. And the fact is that it is imperfect. It is slow. Donald Trump has shown a contempt for it and a willingness to try to evade it. But the fact is he wants us to give up on the court. So every. Everyone out there who's watching who says Mark is just, you know, happy talking, you're doing Donald Trump's bidding. He wants us to believe that the courts are rigged against us and that there is no hope. He wants us to believe that we don't get a fair hearing in the Supreme Court on defending the Voting Rights Act. Why? Because that makes it easier for him. It makes it easier for people who want to overturn these voting rights laws. We have to Stand up and say we expect the courts to follow the law, to enforce it and to follow the Constitution and to do their job. And we cannot yield ground to the naysayers and the cynics because Donald Trump wants the naysayers and the cynics to prevail over the good people.
- [40:27]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah. Despair is free. I mean, and you have a Trump appointed judge who actually ruled against the Trump administration when they sought to throw out the entire Maryland bench. I want to bring John Heilman and Eddie Glad into this desperately. I have to sneak in a quick break first. Don't go anywhere. We'll all be right back. Foreign we're back with Mark, John and Eddie. Eddie, your thoughts?
- [40:53]
Eddie Glaude
I'm trying to keep, I'm trying to gather them. You know, you think about what Mark laid out. There's an all out assault on the Voting Rights Act. There are two, two things happening at once here. Of course, there's the pure power grab, Nicole, that we're, that we're witnessing on the part of the Trump administration and the Republican Party. And you could talk about that pure power grab without talking about the racial dimension. And then there's the racialized stuff happening. If they got the Voting Rights Act Section 2. Right. If the court which has decided to take on the case, and Marcus just gave us some really ominous news, that means Texas can't be held to account in so many ways. Texas. What? Because Texas, to my mind, is in clear violation, Mark can correct me, but is in clear violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. In fact, NAACP and Mark, they're suing based on that in some ways. Right. So, and I keep thinking to myself in my gut, Nicole, 1870, the 15th amendment, not six years, six years under assault under Jim Crow, taking away coups all throughout the south in order to keep us from voting. 1965, Voting Rights Act. Right. And as soon as that happens, there's an effort to take it away.
- [42:12]
Mark Elias
Right.
- [42:12]
Eddie Glaude
And here we are in the 250th year of the nation and we're still dealing with this shit. And I just, and I keep trying to find better language to describe the personal anger I feel because the nation, let me put it even more succinctly, I'm tired of freedom snatchers. I'm tired of these folk who believe that they possess freedom, to give it and to take it away. And it seems like we're always in this damn cycle. And so there's the power grab, there's the politics of it all, and then there's the personal Reality, the history and the present that I'm trying to process in this moment, if that makes sense. I'm sorry.
- [43:01]
Nicole Wallace
Don't ever apologize. Do you want to say more?
- [43:06]
Eddie Glaude
No, I just, to be honest with you.
- [43:10]
Nicole Wallace
Okay.
- [43:11]
Eddie Glaude
The deepest part.
- [43:12]
Miles Taylor
Let me just say this really quickly.
- [43:13]
Eddie Glaude
Let me just say this really quickly. What hurts more than anything, because I know it, I should know better, is that the nation is letting it happen.
- [43:24]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Heilman, that's what I was. That was a baton I was going to hand to you. Some of this is, you know, hatched in the deep recesses of, I don't know, Stephen Miller's minds. A lot of it was on paper ahead of the election. What do you think about that?
- [43:47]
John Heilman
I think that all that matters is what happens next. And I think understanding history is important and reinterpreting what happened in the 2024 election, it's fine. But I want to go to what Mark was talking about. I made this point about the courts earlier. I was not remotely. And I know Mark wasn't suggesting this, but I wasn't saying, hey, everything's fine. The courts will save us. I was saying, as of now, the only thing that has saved us from tipping over directly into authoritarianism has been the courts. They are imperfect. They have always been imperfect. To be honest, they have take too long. They have always been politicized in various ways, but by and large, by and large, not perfectly, but by and large, they continue to be the one remaining bulwark. So people must not, as Mark said, people must not give up on that. But also, we have a midterm election 14 months from now. The way to start to put the brakes on all of this is to recapture half of the legislative branch. It's right there. It's 14 months away, and people hate this president's policies. The door is open. Democrats do their work and do it the right way and figure out the right messages and mobilize. It's right there within their grasp. They could take back both houses if they really get it together.
- [45:00]
Nicole Wallace
And we'll deal another day with what it means when John Heilman is our full dose of hope, change and optimism. Thank you for that, my friend. I needed that today. Mark Elias, John Heilman, Eddie Glad. I love you all. Thank you. One more break. We'll be right back. We have an update for you on our top story. The shooting at a mass at a Catholic school in Minneapolis that left two young children dead. An area hospital, Children's Minnesota, reports that four of the survivors have thankfully been discharged. Already three children remain in their care. Officials had said in a press conference in the last hour that all of those who have been injured are expected to survive. As for the Annunciation School, where the shooting occurred, in a statement, they say that they will release information soon on when classes will return. The church's pastor vowing to, quote, rebuild our future filled with hope together. One more break. We'll be right back. An important reminder, the great Phil Rosenthal of Somebody Feed Phil Fame is my guest this week on the Best People podcast. I hope you'll listen to the conversation and text me on Blue sky or Instagram to tell me what you think of it. From our part, thank you so much for letting us into your homes on a day like today. We are so grateful.