← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
Amid War and Gas Crunch, Trump Pushes Vanity Projects
00:41:24
Donald Trump was confronted about whether he is dangerously pre-occupied with vanity projects and self-glorification at a time of war. MS NOW’s Ari Melber reports and is joined by Chai Komanduri, Michelle Goldberg, Joyce Vance and Eugene Robinson.
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- [00:00]
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- [00:50]
Ari Melber
It is Friday. Thanks to everyone at home for joining us on the Beat. We begin with a president confronted, sometimes to his actual face, about if he has now become preoccupied with his vanity projects, these sort of late stage anti democracy, pseudo autocratic style and self glorification efforts when we are quite clearly in an economic gas crisis of his making and an ongoing war. Even though many hope that the ceasefire holds, Donald Trump now demanding the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool be painted a color of his choosing. Now the point here is not which color it should be, he says Blue is better than what it was. The point is whether this type of thing is anywhere near the literal top 20 or 30 things a president should be worried about given the problems facing our country and real people. The ballroom cost is now a billion dollars. Veterans groups suing over this proposal to focus on building a massive arch. And while other presidents, to be fair, have been involved in certain what we might call symbolic building projects and efforts around Washington D.C. and we do have this anniversary. A lot of this just feels completely off base. Americans are concerned about the war. We just saw the ceasefire tested with that fire missile firefight last night. Trump visiting the reflecting pool because of all the things he could do on a workday and mind you, he's not working full days that we can measure. But on the days where he is in Washington actually presidenting, this is what he's spending his time on.
- [02:26]
Michelle Goldberg
It's the backdrop of war in Iran. Why focus on all these projects right now?
- [02:31]
Donald Trump
You know why? Because I want to keep our country beautiful and safe. Beautiful also this Place was a disgusting place. Such a stupid question you asked. We're fixing up the reflecting pond to the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and you say, why are you fixing it up?
- [02:55]
Ari Melber
This is not the sound of a great communicator summoning public works projects or finding a way to argue for unity or again, perhaps mentioning the anniversary. No, this is someone who seems to have lost the plot. According to many critics. It's what they call in our business a split screen moment. You saw we split one way to look at it, but the public doesn't need a reminder of a headline about how expensive gas is. That's what most people are struggling with every day. We reported on people going into credit card debt to pay for what are the Trump tax gas prices. He also has this idea to take that building that you've seen. If you ever watch inauguration and other events where you go on a wider shot, broader than the White House, Trump just sort of to the left of the main front of the White House is the building you see here. If you've ever held meetings or done stuff in D.C. it's a known building. It's called the Eisenhower Executive Building and it's part of the White House complex in the sense that way more people end up holding meetings and working there than in the smaller White House. So the President, having thought about this now, I guess over the course of two terms, wants to paint it white so that it visually matches the White House. More to be clear, it was deliberately painted this color because the White House is supposed to stand out and not dilute sort of that visual cue. But again, I don't want to be doing interior decorating and external aesthetics in the news. We have bigger fish to fry. But this is what the President is fixated on, leading to headlines that are just kind of straightforward. Trump bored with the war he started. That cites reporting from some in his inner circle. The war, though boring or not to the president, grinds on. As mentioned, the US had to fire on those Iranian flagged oil tankers, raising questions about how durable this sort of stalemate, ceasefire position is. Because every day that things are going down is a risk to holding it. The Post reports confidential CIA analysis has found Iran can outlast Trump's blockade for three to four months before they face what to them would be severe economic hardship. And I don't minimize what Americans are facing on gas prices. But if you look at the history of the Middle east, we have face down countries and their of course dictatorial leaders before who are willing to subject their people to a lot of hardship, which means the equities may not pay off for Trump's bad bet. The finding, the Post notes, raises questions about Trump's optimism on ending the war. We also have US adversaries who now view America as kind of a giant. We can still bomb these countries in a way most others cannot. That's true. That's the giant part. But the Times says other superpowers like China do see us now under Trump as a giant with a limp. And their analysts believe the war has done more than deplete U.S. munitions stockpiles. That's sort of the hard power piece, they say. Something that goes to what, you know, these days the kids call aura. The Times reports that according to China, Trump has managed to shatter America's aura of dominance. In the Washington Post, one conservative writing that Trump now risks snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in Iran, while another longtime conservative who also has a pretty MAGA audience these days online, Megyn Kelly says this.
- [06:13]
Megyn Kelly
I have no idea whether there's a 14 point deal or not. None whatsoever. I don't trust a word President Trump says about this anymore. He's told us 31 times that the Iran war is over, okay, Only to then tweet about how we're going to bomb them into oblivion.
- [06:28]
Ari Melber
If this is what his media friends sound like, imagine what independent and objective analysts, military experts, veterans, communities see and hear when he lies this much about the war and its end and the plans. And then you can just go out again to the general public where some people really thought and hoped that Trump would do what he said, that he talked a lot about bringing prices down, that he was talking about Biden gas prices and inflation. And so he'd come in and do something about it. The only thing he's done is made it worse. Gas prices over 450. That's up A$40 from just last year. The grinding war, the rising prices, the concerns about, again, real world problems. If you watch this program, I try to keep it very clear. I don't need to make it too fancy. Some things are very simple. Reality is the biggest problem in politics. And when you have economic realities or other big realities. We all remember the pandemic which helped sink Trump in his first term and his failure to lead the government in a clear way to protect the American people. Reality is the hardest thing to spin in politics. Very different than debating about symbolism or even sports and bathrooms and some of the tertiary issues we've seen campaigned on. I mention that because state officials say in New Jersey residents may have been exposed and infected with this deadly hantavirus. There was an outbreak on a cruise ship from the Netherlands and three passengers are dead there. American officials are monitoring people in six states now. We're not here to exaggerate anything. We all lived through a pandemic, and this could give you a kind of ptsd. If you remember the cruise ship stories early then, the top international group on this, the World Health Organization, still says that they view the risk to the wider public as low. Not medium, not high, low. The Times, though, also reports that if you're looking to that group to help do international collaboration to avoid that risk getting any higher. Remember, Trump was the rare president who withdrew the United States from that group. So we don't even now get updated, regularized information about these emerging health threats from them, although we can read about it, of course, in public accounts. The administration also closed those research centers focused on preventing pandemics that study pathogens like this hantavirus. And the Trump administration's sluggish response and lack of communication suggest the US if the risk got higher, would be ill prepared for a larger health crisis. Now, you're watching the news tonight. It's Friday. Maybe you were hoping for news that doesn't give you deja vu of COVID We are not telling you, based on the information we have tonight, that this is another Covid. And for folks who were hoping for the worst or think this could bedevil Donald Trump because he did fail, by many accounts, the last pandemic. That's not my point. We all hope for the best, but Donald Trump has, in policy, set the U.S. back to deal with what is even still considered a low risk but serious thing to monitor. Here he is.
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Donald Trump
It's very much, we hope, under control. It was the ship. It should be fine. We hope. I hope not. I mean, I hope not. We'll do the best we can.
- [09:47]
Ari Melber
Hope is not enough. When you're talking about a gas crunch and a war you started, hope is not enough to fix a tenuous ceasefire or reopen a strait that has been open until Trump started a war. As for how the government runs, you could add a hantavirus briefing to one of the many things Donald Trump could have done late this week other than attend to his vanity construction projects. I'm going to bring in Che Komodori, veteran of several presidential campaigns, including Obama's and New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, an analyst for us. Welcome to you both, Che. There are a lot of problems. Everyone hopes the virus is not Another one that affects even more people, although there's been loss of life. But is it fair and is it an actual reality problem if Donald Trump seems this distracted from the things affecting people's lives in this country?
- [10:45]
Che Komodori
Yeah, it's an actual, real problem. As Harry Truman said, the buck stops here. People expect their president to take responsibility of the problems and concerns that they have about their lives, and they also expect them to take responsibility for the military conflicts and wars that they have started. You know, there was a saying in Italy when Silvio Berlusconi was in charge, that to all the problems in Italy, Berlusconi's answer was simply more Berlusconi. That is doubly true of Trump. For every problem, Donald Trump's answer is more Trump. The problem is that more Trump does not reassure Americans when they are trying to fight prices at the pump, when they are worried about their men and women overseas fighting in a theater of war, when they are worried about a hantavirus outbreak. And the president says, I hope it's going to be better. You know, like a passenger in the backseat of a car as opposed to the guy actually driving it.
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Ari Melber
Yeah. And you said more Trump, more Berlusconi. I thought you were getting close to a more Cowbell Saturday Night Live reference.
- [11:51]
Che Komodori
Che, Right? Yeah. I don't think, you know, well, that song that they were parodying was Fear the Reaper. I think, unfortunately for all of us, the reaper seems a lot closer and a lot scarier to so many Americans today than it did even a few months ago.
- [12:12]
Ari Melber
Fair and Michelle. I defy anyone in America to find another person who could name the cowbell song. Off top, Jay is a man of all kinds of knowledge. Michelle, I put the same question to you. I might sound like I'm being obvious, but, like, this is the obvious question, isn't it? We have real problems. Ideology is one thing. Donald Trump's ideology is very unpopular. We've covered that. But we also are in a competence crisis, are we not?
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Michelle Goldberg
Absolutely. I mean, you know, and look, I. I obviously know epidemiologists. All the epidemiologists that I have read and followed say that. Chances of a hantavirus pandemic are extreme.
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Ari Melber
I'm losing Michelle. Che, can you hear Michelle? Or we lost her a little bit.
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Che Komodori
I can't hear Michelle either.
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Ari Melber
So unfortunately. All right, so we'll try to get Michelle back. Talk about the COVID era. This brings back all the early zoom glitches we used to deal with, but we want Michelle in the conversation. So I know we're going to work on that. Let me play a little bit of how some of this is even playing on flat Fox. This is a FOX business
- [13:30]
Megyn Kelly
to ignore the way that people feel right now about gasoline prices and mortgage rates. They're pissed off and they have every right to be upset. And as that quote from the CEO of Hines yesterday, Kraft Heinz consumers are literally running out of money.
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Ari Melber
Jay?
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Che Komodori
Yeah, it's interesting, the disconnect I feel between actual Trump voters we saw in Indiana. You know, six out of eight Indiana state senators were easily defeated by Donald Trump for voting against his redistricting plans. The loyalty that so many elected officials seem to continue to have with Trump, and then sort of the disloyalty, the dissension you see on right wing media. You just played Megyn Kelly as well earlier, in addition to that clip from Fox. The way I think of it is, you know, when Patrick Mahomes throws a football, he throws a football to where the receiver is going to be as opposed to the where the receiver is. Right wing media has to think about where the audience is going to be, where the future audience is, where young conservatives are as opposed to elected officials and MAGA voters who are simply concerned about where Trump is right now. Hmm.
- [14:53]
Ari Melber
Michelle, we got you back. Tell us what you were saying.
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Michelle Goldberg
Yes. Oh, I was just gonna say, and I'm not sure where I got cut off, but that although I think it's pretty clear at least extremely unlikely that hantavirus is going to be a pandemic, the part that gives me PTSD is not the, not the idea that this is happening again, but that if this does happen again, you know, if there is a pandemic sometime in the next two and a half years, we have seen systematically destroyed whatever infrastructure, the already insufficient infrastructure that we had to manage such a pandemic. And you know, the pandemic in the first administration, in the first Trump administration should have given us all a very clear picture of how Donald Trump handles crises that are not self created. Right. Donald Trump is kind of good at creating a crisis, fixing it or at least abandoning his terrible idea, declaring victory and saying, and then like kind of laughing at everybody who freaked out about. But whenever the crisis wasn't kind of created by him in a way that he can change it just by changing his mind, we see utter flailing, you know, kind of death, despair and humiliation. We saw it with COVID we're now seeing it with the Iran war. And we still have over two years to see kind of what new disasters Unfold.
- [16:16]
Ari Melber
Yeah. And you're reminding folks it's popular to beat up on government for many reasons, but a part of the federal government is just insurance. It's experts and prep and plans for things you hope don't happen. And to your point, Michelle, your colleagues in the Times reported on this article. Hanna virus responses shows Trump cuts have compromised US Preparedness. Deep staffing cuts the Trump administration made at the CDC and other health agencies. The government has fewer people to respond to outbreaks. We're living very quickly through some. Some stress tests here.
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Michelle Goldberg
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, and, you know, I say for Trump himself, you know, I'm kind of torn between when. When we see him, you know, spending time on his gilded ballroom or the golden idol that was recently installed at one of his golf courses or painting the reflecting pool. And on the one hand, he's defacing our capital on the other, in some ways, this is the least destructive way that he could be spending his time. But what the people under him have done is so thoroughly. I mean, if you think about Doge and you think about these emails, you know, what did you do in the last week to kind of justify your existence? The people that they cut were kind of, by and large, the nonpartisan professionals that make government function, especially that make it function in times of. In times of emergency and distress. And so that safety net that a lot of us could ignore when there wasn't a catastrophe, it's just now become, you know, exponentially more threadbare.
- [17:58]
Ari Melber
Yeah, well put, Che. We. We had one of our reporters out talking to folks, and I just kind of want to share what, what we're hearing, actual real world view about how people are doing under this phase of, of the second Trump term.
- [18:15]
Field Reporter
Is there any way in which your life has gotten better during this second Trump administration?
- [18:21]
Michelle Goldberg
No.
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Field Reporter
In what ways has he made your life better in the second term?
- [18:25]
Che Komodori
I don't know how to answer that.
- [18:27]
Ari Melber
1.
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Field Reporter
Can you name one way in which your life has gotten better since he was elected for the second term?
- [18:33]
Michelle Goldberg
No, absolutely not.
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Field Reporter
Have you seen any way in which your life has gotten better during this second Trump presidency?
- [18:41]
Ari Melber
No, not at all. In any aspect? No. Che?
- [18:50]
Joyce Vance
Yeah.
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Che Komodori
I mean, one thing I would add is one person whose life has definitely gotten better in the second Trump term is Donald Trump. The New Yorker did that story in January where they said he has enriched himself to the tune of 4 billion. I have seen estimates going up to 6 to 7 billion for the entire family. When the story is told about all the corruption and all the Money that has been made by Donald Trump, his life has gotten better. The problem is, for the American people, there's a whole lot of buyer's remorse in a sense, that their lives have not gotten better. That is an important American story that needs to be told.
- [19:30]
Ari Melber
Very fair, Michelle. That relates to the last thing I wanted to ask you, which is we have a whole larger question about inequality in this country. People see how most folks are struggling. It's against a backdrop where the US Stock market is hitting literally record highs, including in the concentrated tech space. There's a lot of reasons. One is that they basically think the war will get wrapped up. So to them, three months is like now, unless they're wrong. But the tech optimism continues. And under the current system and rules, it benefits a very, very tiny group who have power and are saying, hey, maybe it's going okay. So I want to remind folks, and again, here on the political channels, we're not, you know, we don't do the day trading. We don't have a ticker up every day, Michelle. But five tech stock stocks, Alphabet, Nvidia, Amazon, Broadcom, and Apple, account for more than half of the gains of what is basically the top 500 index. And that changes a period when investors had actually seen broadening returns. So translation, Michelle, it's getting more concentrated again, which could be a bubble, and it's making the very rich richer while everyone else suffers under gas prices. Where do you think that fits in to Trump's problems in the midterm?
- [20:40]
Michelle Goldberg
Well, and meanwhile, we see a lot of these kind of AI tech titans crowing about how their creations are going to destroy jobs in this country and put, you know, large parts of the country out of work. It's why you see this really bipartisan revolt against data centers and sort of people want to do anything that they can to slow down this leviathan. I think in the first Trump term, you know, you saw working class people think that Trump was basically a class traitor, that although he was this extremely gaudy billionaire, they saw him as somebody who would be, you know, kind of he promised because he came out of that world, he knew how to contain it. And what I think everybody can see now, maybe except for the most blinkered, Die Hard MAGA fans, is that Donald Trump wanted nothing more than entree into that class. He wanted to be a kind of billionaire in good standing. And now he is, and those are the people that he, that he cares about.
- [21:43]
Ari Melber
Michelle and Che, thank you very much. We kind of covered a lot of ground there. Appreciate it. Have a good weekend. I have a 90 second break and then I'm back with Joyce Vance on how some companies are now fighting for free speech.
- [21:58]
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- [22:26]
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- [23:00]
Ari Melber
Turning to the censorship and free speech wars under Trump, abc, which under Disney had initially wavered but then stood by Jimmy Kimmel, is now going farther, perhaps buoyed by public support, they're fighting back against the Trump FCC and saying they're violating First Amendment rights and abusing their position as regulators to punish political content they disagree with. This is from a brand new filing. This builds on, of course, what was the past Kimmel skirmish where the fcc, they say, has created this harmful ambiguity in an area where none previously existed, that there's a chilling effect on First Amendment protected speech. That's because the FCC is trying to go after the View for its anti Trump criticism and pushing some sort of theory that there are old rules where they have to grant equal time. Now, talk shows have long been exempt from that and very few people think this is on the level like that it's about equal time. Most think that it's another way that while they've often failed, the Trump FCC folks have tried to dial up pressure on Kimmel, on comics, now on talk shows for using their First Amendment rights to criticize Trump. And we know that does happen on the View.
- [24:08]
Media Analyst
When you look at the lineup of guests that have typically been on the View, I think it's an uphill climb for Disney to make the case that they're just a straight news program. If you're fake news, you're not going to qualify for the bonafide news exception. And again, the FCC walked away from this for years.
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Ari Melber
That's just the View piece. There's also Trump's attacks on comedians. He's revived that online. He wants to sort of decide who's on tv, which has proven unpopular. There's that huge backlash when he tried and failed to get Jimmy Kimmel canceled. He's also, of course, celebrated that the Stephen Colbert show, once it came under the ownership of a company much friendlier to Trump's politics, canceled the show. As we've noted, they've said publicly that it was a financial decision, not bowing to government pressure. But this is the environment we're in. I want to bring in former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance. Good to have you. I noticed the contrast when Disney and ABC initially faced the Trump attack on Kimmel. There were days where they had suspended him and people thought they might fold completely. Now, having won that fight over time, do you see a bit of a different legal strategy in how they're defending the View?
- [25:21]
Joyce Vance
Yeah, absolutely here. Because one of the lessons of Trump's second term in office has been that it does no good to prematurely bend the knee when your First Amendment rights are on the line. And that doesn't matter if it's a university, if it's a law firm, or even more recently, this criminal prosecution against the Southern Poverty Law Center. You know, the, the through line in all of those events, Ari, is this effort to suppress any sort of criticism of this administration. So I think it's interesting to see ABC pushing back here. You know, this is. This issue just involves one station in Houston that was sort of being challenged for the View, which has had this long term exemption, I think, since the early 2000s, which recognizes that the equal time doctrine doesn't cover straight up news, but it also doesn't cover news interview shows. And so they have brought in Paul Clement of former Solicitor General during the Bush administration, which signifies how serious they are about joining those that have stood up, pushed back in court. This is a petition in front of the FCC for now, but they are, I think, trying to demand that their First Amendment rights be honored.
- [26:36]
Ari Melber
Yeah. And the Kimmel standoff was so fascinating because unlike Colbert, where there was some contested reality and he did stay on Air Force many months to fill out the contract, so it just didn't feel quite as a core live event with Kimmel. You had the country weighing in and you had Disney going, whoa, people are really mad if we just turn and cave, like you said. And although for a few days I remind everyone he was off the air. You know, this guy who's hosted the Oscars, and everybody pretty much knows him, if you follow media at all. So he had that real voice. I want to play some of what we heard from him. This was April 27 here after the recent firing call.
- [27:17]
Jimmy Kimmel
It was a pretend roast. I said, our first lady, Melania is here. Look at her, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow. He's almost 80, and she's younger than I am. It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination. And they know that Donald Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants to say. As are you and as am I. As are all of us. Because under the First Amendment, we have, as Americans, a right to free speech.
- [27:43]
Ari Melber
But with that said, Do you think if this does wind its way through the courts, that it helps when you have someone who's actually known? In theory, we all, as he said, have our First Amendment rights. But does it help that Jimmy Kimmel is obviously an American who tells jokes, so it's very hard to make him out to be something else in court.
- [28:09]
Joyce Vance
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a very important point, Ari, because when you're talking about the First Amendment and you're talking about these sorts of issues, there are fine line distinctions that are drawn between different kinds of speech. And, of course, joking, making fun of our politicians, even in a very abrasive fashion. That's a hardcore part of the American consensus about speech that the First Amendment protects. And so Kimmel's stature, the fact that people understand what his shtick is, the fact that he himself came out and explained what he was doing and postured it precisely as he did, will make this a much more attractive case as it goes through the courts.
- [28:51]
Ari Melber
And with. With Paul Clement, they're saying what they have a heavy hitter who also has some conservative cred.
- [28:58]
Joyce Vance
I think that that's right. And you know, the reality here. And of course, in. In Kimmel, he is still on the air. He has not been fired. If he is fired, I would expect he would have a similar sort of a heavy hitter sort of a situation. You know, this is a situation that's very serious, where the view is not only under investigation by the fcc, but there have been calls for early renewal of licenses as well, which is a relatively serious step and a challenge to whether or not the View is entitled to maintain its exemption. And so bringing in a former Solicitor General always signifies to the courts and to the government that you're very serious about a case. I think it's a way of saying to the fcc, we all know that what you're doing here is wrong. Don't mess with us. We intend to come out with guns blazing.
- [29:50]
Ari Melber
Yeah. Joyce Vance, thank you for the legal primer. Always great. Have a good weekend. I'll tell folks coming up there are new UFO files that have been released, including visuals. We're going to explain them, including what you see right there. And Democrats girding for the midterms and the redistricting wars on Obama vet Eric Holder speaking out now, we'll tell you what he's saying. Donald Trump and Republicans are down in this midterm race if it were held today. But it's hella November and there's still changes afoot. Virginia's court striking down a congressional map that Democrats believe might have gotten them four more House seats. The map was approved by voters. It was a response to how other Republican states have been trying to distort maps. It's something both parties do recently. Republicans under Donald Trump's style have pursued this more aggressively. And in different years, Democrats fighting fire with fire that's accelerated. Southern red states capitalizing as well on a new Supreme Court decision that gutted the Voting Rights act and basically made it easier to discriminate on the basis of race and against black voters and districts that represent black communities. You have to understand we are talking about a Supreme Court that is no longer independent or nonpartisan. Justice Alito is an inconsistent, self contradicting MAGA justice. He indeed, in this ruling says a bunch of stuff that contradicts things he wrote on the court within the last decade simply because now he has the votes to try to get Republicans more seats, even if that includes allowing the kind of racial discrimination that he used to say, among others, was wrong. Here's Rachel Maddow's warning.
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Rachel Maddow
As soon as the court said they would take up that case, people started mapping the worst case scenario for what Trump and the Republicans would do, particularly in the South. And now all around the country, where everywhere Republicans are in charge, they are scrambling to make sure that black public officials can no longer hold office to get rid of the multiracial democracy that our Constitution is supposed to prot.
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Ari Melber
And here are the facts. Tennessee Republicans passing a map that breaks up the single House seat there that was controlled by Democrats, which, overlapping with some of the politics of that state, included the majority black. Memphis, Louisiana, facing confusion where 80,000 ballots might be in limbo because they suspended primary voting because they're in such A rush to redraw their map. Again, they don't have to do that. They're just seizing on this opportunity, which is what Rachel documented. Trump reportedly wants South Carolina leaders to redrop their map. There's only one district there that is what we call this minority majority district, and that's the one they want to go after. South Carolina and Louisiana have some of the largest share of eligible black voters. You know, in a lot of parts of the country, it's about 12% or less there. When you look at who votes, it's a lot of black Americans and they are now, from the top down, seizing on this partisan decision to try to undercut the voting power of those black Americans. Now, everybody knows these days that overlaps with the Democratic Party. And so some civil rights groups who are concerned about voting and some Democratic groups who are looking at, of course, the House count midterms, like I told you, are working on this. Here's former Attorney General Eric Holder.
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Eric Holder
We underestimate the power that we have as so called ordinary American citizens. The great social movements that this nation has put together and the changed this nation was as a result of the people. If each of us is prepared to commit ourselves to that cause, we can be as successful as other generations have been in the protection and the enhancement of our democracy.
- [33:42]
Ari Melber
Holder, Obama's attorney general, knows all about the inside game, being at the DOJ or the White House, filing the court papers and all that. He's talking about the outside game and that when things get this bad and the problems are coming from the courts, you need broader social movements. There are plenty of people looking at this as a partisan war. It is Democrats finally fighting more fire with fire. That's one thing. The deeper thing, the even more important thing for our democracy and our history is that we have a court that within the last two weeks here announced they want to make it easier to discriminate based on race, to dilute or undercut the black voting power in this country, which of course, we all live through a generational fight to try to change and redeem the sordid sins of our ancestors here. So Holder is right about one thing. It will take a mass social movement. It cares a lot more about just these midterms to try to address what we're now facing. But it is something that is addressable. We have our friend, the Pulitzer Prize winning thinker, writer, journalist Gene Robinson on this next.
- [34:53]
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- [35:23]
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- [35:57]
Ari Melber
We're back with Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and MSNow analyst Gene Robinson. Your thoughts on the redistricting wars and the racial history I mentioned.
- [36:07]
Gene Robinson
Well, on the racial history you mentioned, you know, the Voting Rights act of 1965 has essentially been nullified by this Supreme Court. And it's not just Samuel Alito. This has been John Roberts Project from the beginning. And by chunk, he has essentially neutered the, the, the relevant portions of the Voting Rights act. To the, to the point of it's just kind of a shell at this point. It doesn't do what it was set out to do, which was to keep, you know, in the, in the, in the sort of framework of the times, it was to keep racist Southern whites from disenfranchising black voters. That's what the Voting Rights act was supposed to be. And you look at some of these maps that are now being drawn, especially in Southern states, and what you see, Southern white officials disenfranchising black voters. So it looks like we have to fight this fight again. And that's ridiculous, as if we have learned nothing in the last 60 years. But I agree with Eric Holder. It's we have to fight it again. We'll fight it again. And we will also keep in mind since according to the Supreme Court, we're talking Republicans, Democrats here. We're not talking whites and blacks. This is partisan. Well, 45% of American adults consider themselves independent, neither Republicans nor Democrats. And so that may be the battleground on which we have to wage this fight and Democrats have to wage this fight, at least in the much shorter term. I'm not at all convinced that these four seats that Democrats thought they were going to get in Virginia and now may not get. I'm not convinced that that sort of tips the balance of power in the House come this fall. I think Democrats enter this election with an overwhelming edge and with a probability of taking control of the House. Nonetheless, you see these maps that are being drawn and this sets up a fight not just for this election, but for future elections as well.
- [38:44]
Ari Melber
Absolutely. We both mentioned Holder. Here's a little more from Obama's attorney general.
- [38:51]
Eric Holder
We have to deal with this crisis that they have presented us with and make sure that we win in this crisis so that ultimately we can heal our democracy. And healing the democracy I think ultimately is going to call is going to mean that we're going to have to pass federal legislation to ban partisan and racial gerrymandering. But to get to that point, we have to make sure that we save our democracy so that we have the capacity to do that.
- [39:17]
Ari Melber
As for the famous Obama related idea of going high when others are low, the Democrats have a tougher time because in some states they tried to go high and put independent commissions to avoid the very gerrymandering that now is being overly used on the right.
- [39:33]
Gene Robinson
Right, right, absolutely. And I think most Democrats in Virginia, for example, I think will still Democrats liked having a nonpartisan commission that would fairly draw lines. But faced with what was going on in Texas and in other states that were sort of were not fairly drawing lines, Democrats did decide and it was by a fairly narrow margin, but the state did vote to not bring a briefing book to a knife fight and, and instead to, to fight fire with fire. And, and you know there's going to have to be more fighting fire with fire. I think other Democratic states will now take another look at the possibility if there is one of redistricting before the 26th midterms. You know, there's a controversy in Maryland over redistricting and it hadn't gone anywhere. It'll be interesting to see if moves forward now.
- [40:41]
Ari Melber
Right. Because it's open season. Gene Robinson. Thank you, sir. We appreciate the perspective. Take a look at the new NASA images which are from these UFO files. That's next. Turning to new UFO files released by the federal government. The Pentagon has been releasing more of these UFO files. That's what the Times calls them. There's various nomenclature, but they are images often murky that have been sort of put in this category of questions about the possibility of unidentified objects in space, aerial developments, other things that could represent some sort of object action or even extraterrestrial life. That's the questions People ask now they don't resolve this question. Some of the photos are drawing a lot of attention. There are those taken from the moon. So it's not every day you get a shot from the moon. Here. Astronauts from the Apollo 12 mission have this image which does show, as evidenced here, a kind of descending blue light. And this was seen while their perspective is, of course, including astronauts on the surface of the moon. Another image from a few years later is similar. We've again just highlighted it. Your upper right corner in the box are three dots that appear. This was during the Apollo 17 mission. The files also have some reactions from astronauts. NASA transcripts reveal an astronaut saying, we've got a few very bright particles or fragments or something that are going by, drifting as we maneuver. Another saying, there's a whole bunch of big ones on my window down there, just bright. It looks like the fourth of July. That's the type of real time reaction they had to what they could see. Of course, the naked eye view of these talented astronauts is extra context compared to just these images. Another, as you see, says they're very jagged angular fragments that are tumbling. It is certainly interesting and when we talk about government transparency, one of the reasons that past administrations have revealed less information is that they don't want people to overreact or misinterpret. But transparency involves our right to look and make sense of it ourselves. So it is good and interesting that the government has finally released some more material. Whatever their reasons, former President Obama did weigh in with all of the knowledge he has and all the national security information he's consumed during that new interview this week.
- [43:15]
Barack Obama
One of the things you learn as president, yes.
- [43:17]
Ari Melber
Is
- [43:20]
Barack Obama
government is terrible at keeping secrets. This idea of conspiracy theories. If there were aliens or alien spaceships or anything under the control of the United States government that we knew about, seen photographs, what have you. I promise you, some guy guarding the installation would have taken a selfie with one of the aliens and sent it to his girlfriend.
- [43:48]
Ari Melber
A selfie test. You know, it's interesting in the news, we deal a lot with sources, information, corroboration. It does really boil down to two questions. Is there anybody out there and have any of us ever met or seen them? Obama is saying no, as far as he knows, to number two. As to number one. Well, we really don't know. We'll be right back.
- [44:16]
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