Inside the DNC’s 2024 Election Report Quagmire, and the Pushback against the DOJ’s ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’

Summary

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"Inside the DNC’s 2024 Election Report Quagmire, and the Pushback against the DOJ’s ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’"

Here's the Scoop – NBC News
Host: Yasmin Vossoughian
Date: May 21, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into two politically charged stories:

• The delayed and controversial release of the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) 2024 election "autopsy" report after historic losses.
• The uproar around President Trump’s new “anti-weaponization fund,” which could provide payouts to January 6th defendants and is sparking bipartisan criticism and legal pushback. Also included: A dispatch from the Ed Sullivan Theater about Stephen Colbert’s final night on "The Late Show," with nostalgic reflections from NBC entertainment reporter Chloe Melas.

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Segment 1: DNC 2024 Election Autopsy — Delays, Tensions, and Lessons

[00:12–09:33]

The Stakes and the Story

• Host Yasmin Vossoughian introduces the highly anticipated DNC autopsy: a 200-page internal review led by strategist Paul Rivera, examining why Democrats lost the Presidency, Senate, and failed to retake the House in 2024.
• Democrats, especially Kamala Harris, had pressed for its release, but DNC Chair Ken Martin delayed for months before reluctantly releasing it and issuing an apology, saying:

  "It…does not meet my standards." (Yasmin paraphrasing, [01:30])

Key Discussion Points

• Process Drama:

  • The controversy started when Ken Martin, initially a transparency advocate, reversed course after 2025’s gubernatorial wins — arguing releasing the report would "be too much of a distraction."
  • Ironically, the delay became a distraction, damaging party unity and raising leadership questions.
  • Quote:

    "The attempt to avoid distraction became a bigger distraction."
    (Ben Kamasar, [04:32])

• Core Report Findings:

  • No “smoking gun” — mostly confirms what insiders already knew.
  • Documented failures:
    • Unconvincing economic messaging from the Harris campaign
    • Poor coordination between the campaign, super PAC, and DNC
    • Weak Democratic "ground game"
    • Troubles with men and voters of color
    • Overreliance on the hope Republicans would nominate "deeply flawed candidates"
    • Declines in voter registration and state party underfunding
  • Quote:

    "It's the things that we've been talking about for the past year plus…which to a large extent is kind of puzzling, why they didn't just bite the bullet and release this sooner because there isn’t any smoking gun."
    (Ben Kamasar, [05:04])

• Money, Media & Missed Moments:

  • Despite raising massive sums, Democrats’ fundraising edge didn’t translate into electoral wins; the party now faces pressure to invest more in ground operations.
  • Crucial events — like President Biden stepping aside in July — get only a cursory mention in the report.
  • Quote:

    "How to, you know, the president deciding in July of all months to step down. That was…a very important and central piece to why the Democrats lost. And if you’re not engaging with that on a deeper level, it’s kind of hard to really fully feel like you’ve answered that question."
    (Ben Kamasar, [07:21])

• Leadership Fallout:

  • Fundraising woes continue: DNC has $14M on hand vs. the RNC’s $100M+ ([07:56])
  • After months of negative headlines, there’s rising chatter about Ken Martin’s future.
  • Quote:

    "There are gonna be a lot of people…that called on the party to release this autopsy…are the power players in the party. How are they gonna do this? Do they say, okay, great, we did it, let's move on, or are they looking for a scalp?"
    (Ben Kamasar, [08:51])

• Lessons for 2026:

  • Main takeaway: Democrats must move beyond anti-Trump messaging and articulate a bold, positive agenda.
  • Quote:

    "The big one that the report hammers on constantly is not just to make the negative case, but to make the positive case."
    (Ben Kamasar, [09:16])

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Segment 2: Trump’s $1.8 Billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” — Controversy & Consequences

[11:22–21:40]

The Fund’s Origins and Controversies

• Backdrop:
  • President Trump drops a $10 billion suit against the IRS.
  • In exchange, the DOJ agrees to create a $1.8 billion fund for those “targeted by government overreach,” and drop remaining tax claims against Trump, his family, and his businesses.
• Deep bipartisan unease:
  • January 6th police officers are suing, warning the fund could "reward" Capitol rioters.
  • Even Republicans in Congress are frustrated, stalling votes over the issue.
  • Quote:

    "Democrats are accusing the president of turning the DOJ into a, quote, personal protection racket."
    (Yasmin, [12:34])

Key Insights from Justice Reporter Ryan J. Reilly

• Eligibility and Symbolism:

  • The fund’s finalized amount is $1.776B—evoking the year 1776, a reference deliberately chosen and controversial because “1776” was a rallying cry on January 6.
  • Quote:

    "That was something that was really in the minds of a lot of these people who stormed the Capitol who saw this sort of as a second American revolution…That has raised a lot of concerns."
    (Ryan J. Reilly, [14:16])

• Who Can Apply?

  • Anyone can apply, including January 6 defendants; the attorney general evades direct answers on this:
    • Quote:

      "Anybody in this country is eligible to apply."
      (Ryan J. Reilly paraphrasing DOJ, [13:34])

  • Trump and immediate family are excluded from payouts but not all Trump-linked entities.

• Origins and Republican Strategy:

  • According to Reilly’s reporting, DOJ’s Ed Martin was a major advocate for such a fund, previously backing January 6 defendants and discussing a similar concept as early as Trump’s first term, originally as a $40 million initiative.
  • Potentially, each of the 1,600 January 6 defendants could receive over $1 million.

• The DOJ Settlement:

  • Settlement includes DOJ permanently dropping all pending tax claims against Trump and core family—details clarified only in a post hoc, addendum filing.
  • While not labeled a direct payout, NYT estimates Trump is spared $100M via dropped investigations ([18:59]).

• Legal Hurdles & Congressional Power:

  • Trump administration compares fund to Obama-era discrimination settlements, but critics note this fund lacks clear qualifications or restrictions.
  • Congress could in theory block the fund, but in practice, the DOJ claims authority to use the existing "judgment fund" program.

• Are These Reparations for Jan. 6?

  • Quote:

    "That’s the way that they’ve been described. They sort of adopted that term…potential reparations for January 6th rioters, that is not off the table.”
    (Yasmin & Ryan, [21:30]–[21:38])

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Segment 3: Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” Finale — Reflections from the Ed Sullivan Theater

[23:35–25:47]

• NBC's Chloe Melas, a former Colbert intern, shares behind-the-scenes memories.
  • On Colbert's advice to her as a young intern:

    "The harder I work, the luckier I get."
    (Colbert to Chloe Melas, [24:31])

• Colbert leaves with a close-knit crew, uncertain next steps, and the possibility of a sentimental final episode.

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Key Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The attempt to avoid distraction became a bigger distraction.”
  (Ben Kamasar on DNC report delay, [04:32])
• “How to… the president deciding in July… to step down. That was…a very important and central piece to why the Democrats lost. And if you’re not engaging with that on a deeper level, it’s kind of hard to really fully feel like you’ve answered that question.”
  (Ben Kamasar, [07:21])
• “Anyone in this country is eligible to apply.”
  (Acting AG Todd Blanche via Ryan J. Reilly, [13:34])
• “1776 was something that you heard shouted a lot during the Capitol attack…That has raised a lot of concerns.”
  (Ryan J. Reilly, [14:16])
• "The harder I work, the luckier I get."
  (Stephen Colbert as remembered by Chloe Melas, [24:31])

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:12–09:38: DNC autopsy report and party leadership fallout
• 11:22–21:40: Trump’s anti-weaponization fund — legal battles, DOJ settlement, and who benefits
• 23:35–25:47: Stephen Colbert’s last night on "The Late Show"

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Tone and Language

• Conversational, brisk, occasionally sardonic or exasperated:
  Yasmin keeps things moving, frequently seeking clarity from correspondents. The episode's tone is analytical when probing political mishaps, incredulous when dissecting the anti-weaponization fund, and finally, warm and nostalgic during the showbiz send-off.

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

• This episode is essential listening for understanding not just what’s in the DNC’s 2024 postmortem, but why its release became a drama unto itself — and what that means for Democratic leadership.
• The coverage of the DOJ “anti-weaponization fund” shows how legal maneuvers intersect with political calculations, and highlights bipartisan unease about government payouts linked to January 6th.
• Finally, the segment about Stephen Colbert provides a bittersweet, uplifting contrast and a look at American pop culture moments in parallel with messy politics.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Ben Kamasar]

It's the things that we've been talking about for the past year plus, which to a large extent is kind of puzzling, why they didn't just bite the bullet and release this sooner.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

Hey, everybody, and welcome to here's the Scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Bissugin. So it is finally here. The Democrats have released the long awaited autopsy report reviewing what went wrong for the DNC in the 2024 election. So what is in it and why did this take so long? Plus, we have two police officers who defended the U.S. capitol on January 6th who are suing the Trump administration over a new nearly $1.8 billion anti weaponization fund, which they say could lead to payouts for January 6th. Rioters and more are angry about that as well. And it's Stephen Colbert's last day. NBC News entertainment reporter Chloe Meloss is joining us on that. So we have been waiting for this thing and now we have got it. The Democrats autopsy report from the 2024 election when they lost control of the White House, they lost control of the Senate, and they failed to win back the House. This is a 200 page internal analysis that was led by Democratic strategist Paul Rivera, and it includes missteps made by then presidential candidate Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party as a whole. Now, Democrats, including Kamala Harris had been calling for the release of this thing for months, but Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin had been holding it back. Today amidst mounting pressure, he simultaneously released the report and he released an apology saying it, quote, does not meet my standards. So what does this report actually say about where Democrats went wrong with voters? And, and does the report say anything about the future of party leadership and what they need to do to win back control of the House and potentially the Senate come November? For that, I'm gonna bring in NBC News national political reporter Ben Kamasar, who has been pouring through this thing. I mean, it's long, Ben, it's meaty. They spend the first 10 pages or so essentially dissecting why it is important to have an autopsy report like this one and giving you the history of politics here in the United States. So you gotta get through that first to get to the answers. And again, I think it's important to note this was written by a Democratic strategist that was appointed by the chair of the dnc. The DNC released it, but does not endorse it and has annotations all throughout it as well. What have been your biggest takeaways so far as you have poured Yourself into this thing?

[Ben Kamasar]

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I think of it in two separate tracks. One is the takeaways of what's actually in the report, which I'll get to after. Because I think that the bigger thing here is just the process and the push and pull and the just sort of agenda that this has all sparked in the party that ended at this point. I mean, not to do my own history lesson, it won't be as long as the 50 page history lesson in the beginning of this book, I promise. But when Ken Martin was running to be the chair, there were a bunch of people running and they were all in agreement that the party needed to look back, the party need to figure out what went wrong. Cause it was shocking to a lot of people. Yes, there were a lot of obvious problems. Yes, it was difficult to run a campaign that Joe Biden decides to step down from at the tail end with just 100 plus days. All of that aside, I think Democrats thought that they could beat Donald Trump and they couldn't again. So everyone talked about how important that was. Ken Martin promised to release it and criticize the party for not releasing past autopsies, arguing that sunlight's the best disinfectant. So all of that happens, then there's he goes dark, they're working on the autopsy and then this December, all of a sudden they declare they will not be releasing this autopsy.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

Why?

[Ben Kamasar]

So the argument was, you know, we don't wanna look backwards that this was right after the coming from a guy

[Yasmin Bissugin]

that said we should have autopsies.

[Ben Kamasar]

Yes, the argument at that all of a sudden was a change. It was actually the Democrats just won in November of 2025 in all of those governors races and things are looking good. So yes, we are going to look at this autopsy and we're going to look forward and work on instituting the things that it highlights, but we're not going to release it publicly, cuz that's gonna be too much of a distraction. This is what ended up happening is the attempt to avoid distraction became a bigger distraction. Right. And we spent five months doing this. And that to me is the bigger takeaway.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

So the attempt to avoid it basically became the distraction. And now whether or not there's actually good stuff in it that the Democrats could take from and use in the midterm elections is really in question. So what did they actually learn from this autopsy report? Are there meaty things that they can take from it?

[Ben Kamasar]

Some, I think I would say that it's things that people Don't. It wouldn't be surprising to people. Right. It's that the economic message was not convincing from the Harris campaign as they were trying to sort of walk the two step of responding to voters concerns on the economy but not breaking with the party in power who a lot of voters thought was responsible for the economy. They were talking about the lack of alignment between the super PAC and the campaign. They talked about concerns about the Democratic ground game, concerns about with men, with voters of color. You know, it's the things that we've been talking about for the past year plus, which to a large extent is kind of puzzling, why they didn't just bite the bullet and release this sooner because there isn't any smoking gun, any big solution here.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

So let's talk about some of the missteps, specifically some of which you just mentioned. Underfunding state parties, Democratic declines in voter registration, Democrats relying too heavily on Republicans to quote, unquote, nominate deeply flawed candidates. This is some of what was outlined in this report. As to the missteps the Democrats took in the 2024 election. What else do you see as being major kind of missteps, mistakes outlined by this author?

[Ben Kamasar]

Yeah, I think those are the ones important ones, I think particularly the Democratic registration disadvantage. Right. There's been a lot made about that, a lot of people leaving the Democratic Party as President Trump's approval rating continues to slide. It's not that the Democratic approval rating is getting much better. Right. So I think as Democrats are looking towards the midterms, they're concerned about their party's brand. And this sort of addresses, to your point, some of that other pieces of this I think are worth noting. There was a lot of discussion about the party and the super PAC and the campaign and the dnc. They all raised more money than God, but that wasn't enough. So I think one of the questions that there's a big debate over which this report touches on is what to do, how to deal with that money, how to be more responsible with that money, maybe invest more in ground game was one of the things that they talked about. Modernize your media message, things like that, that were important too. But I think ultimately there is probably is a little bit of discussion. But frankly, what I think is notable is there isn't really any discussion about what happened in that June, July period. It's relatively brief.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

Are you talking about the decision to bring on Kamala Harris as the candidate and how that went down?

[Ben Kamasar]

Yeah. How to, you know, the president deciding in July of all months to Step down. That was very clearly a very important and central piece to why the Democrats lost. And if you're not engaging with that on a deeper level, it's kind of hard to really fully feel like you've answered that question.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

So considering that the biggest takeaways are, yes, some of the missteps, but also the fact that they didn't want to release this report in the first place, and now they're feeling like their hands are being forced to do it instead. Is there now a question of Ken Martin's leadership at the dnc?

[Ben Kamasar]

I think we're gonna have to wait and see. Right. This is not the first time the DNC has been on defense in the Martin regime. Right. You had this early clash with David Hogg, who was the vice chair of the party. And then there's the fundraising issues that the DNC, I believe, ended their April with about $14 million in the bank. The Republican National Committee had 100/plus million dollars in the bank. So there have about fundraising, too. And so as Democrats have been doing well in elections recently, in these special elections and in the 2025 elections, there have been these moments and these big concerns for the DNC and its leadership. And it's important to view this in the context of all of that, both the good for them, which is the election results, and the bad for them, which has been the constant barrage of negative headlines. And to your original question, I think it's going to be worth seeing what the party does here. Right. There are gonna be a lot of people with a lot of mouth, you know, a lot of the same people that called on the party to release this autopsy are the power players in the party. How are they gonna do this? Do they say, okay, great, we did it, let's move on, or are they looking for a scalp?

[Yasmin Bissugin]

Well, that leads me to my last question, which is what are the lessons that they have learned or can learn from this autopsy report that they can apply for the midterm elections?

[Ben Kamasar]

I think the big one that the report hammers on constantly is not just to make the negative case, but to make the positive case. Right. And I think that's gonna be really interesting in these midterms, which, yes, our repudiation or Democrats want to be repudiation of Trump. They want this to be a referendum on a president whose approval rating continues to sag.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

Ben Kamasar, thanks for digging into it. We appreciate you. Thank you, Ben.

[Ben Kamasar]

Of course.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

By the way, NBC News has reached out to Paul Rivera, the Democratic strategist, and has not Heard back. All right. We are going to take a very quick break. And when we are back, President Trump is looking to set up his $1.8 billion anti weaponization fund could pardoned January 6 rioters get a government payout. That is next. And hey, while you're listening to the ads, why not go ahead and just push that subscribe button, you know you want to, or share this episode with your friends. We would love the support.

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[Kate Snow]

Hi, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor, host of the podcast the Drink. This month I'm grabbing a matcha latte with comedian Taylor Tomlinson. The drink is always about someone's journey to the top. And Taylor's story is remarkable. She tells us all about her unlikely path from performing in churches all the way to headlining her own Netflix specials like her latest Prodigal Daughter. And she opens up about her religious upbringing, what drew her to stand up and how she feels when she gets on that stage. Hope you'll listen and follow the Drink wherever you get your podcasts.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

And we are back with here's the scoop from NBC News. So this week, President Donald Trump dropped his lawsuit against the IRS, a $10 billion lawsuit for leaked tax returns. Now, in exchange, the president did that for the creation of a nearly $1.8 billion anti weaponization fund to reimburse people who say they have been targeted by government overreach. And in addition, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche agreed the US Would drop any pending tax claims against the president, his family or his businesses. Now, both parts of this deal have been met with a lot of criticism. Some of the police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6th are now suing. And they're saying the fund could actually be used to award rioters from January 6th. Democrats are accusing the president of turning the DOJ into a, quote, personal protection racket. But even members of the Republican Party have raised issues with this deal. You have senators who have left Washington, D.C. today for the holiday weekend without voting on funding, ICE or Border Patrol. And you have two GOP leadership sources telling NBC News that the delay was actually due to frustrations over this, the so called Anti Weaponization Fund. So is this fund a done deal? And who stands to benefit the most from this money? For that, I wanna bring in Ryan J. Reilly, justice reporter for NBC News. Hey, Ryan.

[Ryan J. Reilly]

Hey, there. Thanks so much for having me.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

Let's talk about this, because I mentioned there are two parts to it, both of which it seems are controversial. Right. I wanna talk about the first part, though. $1.8 billion entitled the Anti Weaponization Fund. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was on Capitol Hill, and here is what Senator Chris Van Hollen asked him.

[Senator Chris Van Hollen]

Mr. Attorney General, this is an outrageous, unprecedented slush fund that you set up. Simple question. Will eligible individuals who assaulted Capitol Hill police officers be eligible for this fund? Well, as it makes plain anybody just let me know if they're eligible for the fund.

[Ryan J. Reilly]

As, as, as was made plain yesterday, anybody in this country is eligible to apply.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

He was not forthcoming in that answer at all. What do we know about this fund and what do we know about the eligibility of these folks that attacked the Capitol in getting money from it?

[Ryan J. Reilly]

Yeah, I mean, it really is unprecedented, as even the acting attorney general acknowledged. And his sort of retort to that was that this entire situation is unprecedented. And in his view, it was unprecedented the way that, you know, there was this quote, unquote, weaponization against supporters of the president. Essentially, you're talking about five commissioners here for this fund. And I think 1.8 is pretty much the round number. But one really symbolic choice that they made here was to make it 1.776 billion, aka it's a reference to the founding, 1776. Yeah. So that's sort of one of the things that just along with the existence of this fund has raised a lot of concerns and sort of pushback from Democrats and critics of this deal, sort of associating the notion of the country's founding with potentially January Sixers. Right. Because 1776 was something that you heard shouted a lot during the Capitol attack. And so that's something that was really in the minds of a lot of these people who stormed the Capitol who saw this sort of as a second American Revolution. And so that's really definitely raised a lot of concerns. And just, you know, they were facing this deadline of the court in Florida asking questions about this underlying deal because, or just underlying case, because the Justice Department actually never entered an appearance, meaning that no lawyer said, hey, I'm taking up this case. They never really actually formally responded to this lawsuit filed by private attorneys for the president. And because of that, there's this phrase no case or controversy. Right. And so there wasn't necessarily an issue or some sort of disagreement here between two parties. And that's why the judge had to eventually move to dismiss it, because DOJ had never entered that appearance, and the plaintiff were able to say they were just voluntarily dropping this lawsuit, at which point the judge no longer had jurisdiction.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

So are there restrictions as to whether or not the president and his family could receive money from this fund, considering the president has repeatedly said he believes the government has been weaponized against him?

[Ryan J. Reilly]

Yeah, they won't. They will receive an apology, but according to the terms of the deal, they won't receive any direct payments. But you remember that that applies explicitly to the president, to his sons, and to Trump llc. Other entities could potentially apply that aren't explicitly banned from receiving this money. And I think that the question would be how closely related to Trump. Would it just be Trump allies or what potential entities that might have some connection to him that are explicitly spelled out in the deal could potentially get get settlements down the line.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

You have some exclusive reporting in which you talk about a meeting that took place a while ago between a DOJ official, Ed Martin, and your Republican operative, and in which they talked about establishing a fund like this one. What came out of that meeting that could, in a way, predict what we are talking about now?

[Ryan J. Reilly]

Yeah, so Ed Martin, I mean, I think he would certainly have the mantle of the biggest supporter of January six defendants within the Trump administration. And there's, you know, that's a lot of competition between them. But he was someone who, before he was appointed to actually the top federal prosecutor in D.C. at the beginning of Trump's term, he was someone who was a direct advocate for a lot of these January 6th defendants. He was on the board of this organization that hosted fundraisers at Donald Trump's property in New Jersey. And so he formed this, you know, closer relationship with Donald Trump and eventually got moved into that position. And he had been advocating for this for a while. He had been the head of this weaponization working group. But also, as we reported, he had this meeting with the former Republican in Senator Norm Coleman at a hotel in D.C. which we happen to have a couple of people who were able to hear that conversation. And that was what they were talking about was this multimillion dollar fund. The number that they had heard was was $40 million. And obviously, you know, you're talking about a much larger fund than that. Of course, this massive fund isn't explicitly for January 6th defendants, but that's I think, the largest pot of people who could be eligible for this because you're talking about 1,600 defendants. And so, you know, if you just do the math, it could be potentially over a million dollars per defendant if they were to use that, the entirety of that allotted amount of money.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

I do want to note here that Norm Conlan, though the operative said that your sources, quote, must have taken part of a conversation totally out of context. And then a DOJ spokesperson said that Martin, quote, did not make these remarks. So we have this in one bucket. And then there's a second part to this fund, Ryan. And I want to talk about that because the DOJ has agreed to permanently drop any tax claims against the President, his family and his companies as part of the settlement. What are the details of that agreement?

[Ryan J. Reilly]

Well, what's interesting and I think speaks to sort of the hairy nature of this ahead of the court deadlines is that that language was not in the original agreement that was publicly post on DOJ's website. That was only subsequently added as afterwards and it's signed by a different official. So the first deal is signed by one Justice Department official and then this add on was signed by the acting Attorney General. What the Justice Department has said is that it doesn't apply necessarily to future investigations. It's backward looking is essentially what it has. But those pending investigations, the New York Times had come up with this estimate that potentially if there was an adjustment to be had there, that that could, according to the New Times, cost Donald Trump $100 million. And so that's not nothing. Right. They have said that the Trump administration, or rather Trump, is not getting any direct monetary benefit from that. But at least according to the New York Times reporting there, that would substantially be a benefit that he is receiving from this.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

Ryan, I think there are people out there that look at the establishment of this fund and say, how are they able to do this? How are they able to move this money into this bucket using taxpayer money? And I'm wondering if there are potential roadblocks in the way. And I ask this because the New York Times has reported that the establishment appears to go against a policy under former Attorney General Pam Bondi that would limit these types of third party payments. Could that actually lead to roadblocks in putting this fund into effect and the distribution of this money?

[Ryan J. Reilly]

Yeah, I think Congress, if they were willing to, would have the best ability to stop this from happening because they control the purse strings. But there is something that the Justice Department can point to and tie this to. There is this judgment fund, which is authorized by Congress, which isn't really capped, but it's typically been used to settle individual claims against the government in the past. There's a comparator that the Trump administration has tried to make here to something that happened during the Obama era that involved discrimination, claims of discrimination involving Native American farmers. And that was something that was overseen by a judge. And there was this fund established, but it also had very specific parameters for who qualified for that, which this new fund definitely lacks.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

Are these reparations, Ryan?

[Ryan J. Reilly]

That's the way that they've been described. You know, they sort of adopted that term.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

So to be clear, potential reparations for January 6th rioters, that is not off the table. Just to be clear here.

[Ryan J. Reilly]

No, that's not off the table.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

Ryan Reilly, thank you.

[Ryan J. Reilly]

Thanks so much.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

All right. We're going to take a quick break. And when we are back, one last dispatch from the Ed Sullivan Theater. Stay with.

[Willie Geist]

Foreign.

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[Yasmin Bissugin]

And we are back with here's the scoop from NBC News. Tonight is the last show of the Late show with Stephen Colbert on cbs and he is leaving with a bang. NBC News correspondent Chloe Melas is standing outside of the Ed Sullivan Theater. And Chloe is you Were actually an intern for Stephen way back when. What was your best memory of your time there?

[Chloe Melas]

The amount of cereal that I had to buy for the writers. They were basically in pajamas all the time. We had to keep the cereal fully stocked. I mean, I got to deal with meeting people from all over the country who came and would line up in the afternoons to go to a taping, just like today, where they're here for the finale, and we would load them in. I did a lot of research. I worked with the writers, and Stephen, you know, gosh, on my very last day, I got to ask him, is it hard work or luck that got you to where you are? And he gave me a quote that is not his, but he said it's one of his favorite quotes, and now it's been one of mine for 17 years. He said, the harder I work, the luckier I get.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

Life lessons from Chloe Molass via Stephen Colbert, who's on tonight for this last show.

[Chloe Melas]

Girl, your guest is as good as mine. It is top secret, but I don't think that these secrets will keep for very long. I also think, you know, a lot of people are joking that maybe it's Pope Leo, because Colbert, that would be his, like, all time favorite guest. I think that if. I think if Pope Leo were in Europe, York City, we would so know. Look, Steven has a dedicated team of over 200 people that make the show happen. And he talks about it a lot. A lot of these people worked at the Colbert Report and followed him, and they have a long relationship with him. And so I think he's most concerned right now not about his next step. It's about theirs. So I could see him bringing out the entire cast and crew or, you know, like the entire team of people that make the show happen. And at the very end, maybe his children, his wife, everybody come out there at the end.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

Chloe Melas, you have the best assignment as of today outside of Ed Sullivan Theatre. Thank you, my friend.

[Chloe Melas]

It's full circle. Thanks for having me.

[Yasmin Bissugin]

All right, that is gonna do it for us. Here's the scoop from NBC News. I'm Yazen Basugin. We'll be back tomorrow with whatever the day may bring. And if you like what you heard, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And you can also subscribe to our daily newsletter, the Inside scoop. It is a deeper dive on the main stories of the day that comes out every weeknight straight to your inbox. You can sign up for the Inside scoop as part of our paid [e-mail] we'll see you tomorrow.

[Willie Geist]

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