← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
Maxwell Pleads the Fifth To Congress
00:41:43
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s convicted associate, invoked the Fifth Amendment during a closed-door deposition before the House Oversight Committee. Julie K. Brown, investigative journalist with the Miami Herald, joins.
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A
Welcome to the beat. I'm Ahri Melbourne. We are starting the week I smiled at Nicole. We will be smiling again by the end of the hour based on some special stuff that we have cooking, including the delegate from Puerto Rico on what we all lived through last night. So that could be pretty interesting when you think about the super bowl and the cultural moment we're in. That's by the end of the hour. We begin, though, with a serious important story about accountability and updates in the Epstein scandal. The Miami Herald, which broke this story wide open, we've shown you that before. We credit the Miami Herald with reopening that case. On our timeline. There's top journalist on this story, Julie K. Brown reporting that Trump may have had a lot more knowledge about Epstein than what was known at the time. You can see the headline here with serious sourcing. And we'll update that as we get into this story. While the top update out of Washington is that Ghislaine Maxwell, of course, the convicted associate of Epstein, has now formally pled the Fifth during her deposition before Congress. And lawmakers spoke out about that. As expected, Ghislaine Maxwell took the Fifth and refused to answer any questions. This obviously is very disappointing.
- [02:11]
B
She was not at all remorseful about.
- [02:14]
A
Pleading the Fifth today. What we did not get were any substantive answers to the questions that were asked that would advance our investigation. I don't think she had the legal right to plead the Fifth Amendment.
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B
I'll just say that.
- [02:28]
A
But she did.
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C
The fact that this woman is continuing to invoke the Fifth Amendment tells us exactly what my colleagues have already stated.
- [02:35]
A
She is a monster. She does not care. You can hear it there. And that includes, of course, members of both parties agreeing that this was wrong. Of course, only one party currently, the Republicans, have a DOJ that granted her leniency in her prison upgrade and a very unusual setting where she did talk. The Times reporting that she refused to answer these questions. Her lawyer said she would, quote, speak fully and honestly if she got clemency. Now, Maxwell spoke to Trump's former criminal defense lawyer who's now the number two at DOJ last summer. And at that period, she answered questions, questions, not for half an hour, an hour or clarifying. It was actually nine hours. And I want to remind everyone that her attorney said she answered every question. This went over two days. And best as we understand it, although the DOJ has not exactly been fully transparent along the way, but best as we know, she got a kind of limited treatment, a limited immunity in order to engage over there, which raises questions about why she would be willing to tell the DOJ one thing and Congress nothing. That's when she got the upgrade I mentioned, moved to a better prison, raising questions about whether that was a reward. Now, in journalism, we can tell you that circumstantially, it looks like a reward. That's circumstantial evidence that she did something and then doj, which controls the Bureau of Prison, did something for her. But there is not, for example, some smoking gun exposition yet on exactly why someone who was serving a sentence here, the only person we know of in the US Serving a sentence with Epstein's crimes, getting better treatment. Pretty wild. Lawmakers also building on the pressure and the loss they dealt Trump in the Epstein law, because now they're looking at Epstein files that even we in the public and journalists haven't seen even since that release because they've got the unredacted files. One key Democrat who runs that committee, the minority side of that committee, Jamie Raskin, responding. I believe that there were tons of completely unnecessary redactions in addition to the, the failure to redact the names of victims. I think that the Department of Justice has been in a cover up mode for many months. There are certainly lots of names of other people who were enablers and cooperators.
- [05:01]
B
With Jeffrey Epstein that were just blanked out for no apparent reason.
- [05:06]
A
Blanked out for no reason. That is A description. So if Raskin's telling the truth, that's a problem for doj. And if it was habitual, if it's pattern behavior, defending or protecting people who are not supposed to be redacted under the law. Remember, this isn't just a dispute. That would be a violation of the law. Why does that matter? Well, it doesn't mean that someone at DOJ is going to be hauled off to prison immediately. That's not the kind of law this is. But just as the law ultimately got so many of these documents out, violations of that law that are provable based on the material and going to court could get those unredacted documents ultimately out as well. People are still, of course, going through the 3 million documents. Among the files is new footage of Maxwell's 2016 deposition where she's asked about the scheme to traffic underage girls.
- [05:53]
C
Did Jeffrey Epstein have esteem to recruit underage girls to use them for sexual massages?
- [05:58]
A
Objective format Foundation. Can I ask it a different way?
- [06:05]
C
Did Jeffrey Epstein have a scheme to recruit underage girls for sexual massages?
- [06:11]
A
Objective Forms Foundation.
- [06:13]
C
If you know. So I don't know what you're talking about.
- [06:20]
A
To be clear, I don't know what you're talking about isn't even. No, it's just sort of. I can't deal with this question. The lawyer obviously doing their job to make objections for the record, but this was the pressure that was originally building up civilly. As we know, the difference from then to now is she's been criminally convicted. Now there are more calls for accountability at these people who've popped up in the files. And we've been charting this on our timeline. As mentioned, we've charted how a current Cabinet member, Secretary Lutnick, had claimed in public. He didn't have to, but he went out of his way to claim in public that he'd cut off contact with Epstein. That big, sweeping televised denial is now undercut by what you see there. Him and Musk emailing about visiting the island. He's facing calls to resign or be fired. The House Oversight Chair says they could subpoena him. And again, this is still sometimes on some issues, bipartisan. Here's a Republican on the matter. Howard Lutnick clearly went to the island. If we believe what's in these files, he's got a lot to answer for. But really, he should make life easier on the President, frankly, and just resign. If this were Great Britain, he'd already be gone. That's a Republican's view about the level of scandal. And as we've been careful to point out, being named in files or being embarrassed or showing poor judgment is not the same as the criminal standard. And no one is alleging that most of the names we've mentioned, for example, tonight, were proven to be involved in the actual sex crimes that Maxwell, for example, was convicted of. But at the level of judgment and the problems the Trump White House has had, including in delaying denying releasing these files even after they pass a law requiring it, you would think that the White House wouldn't want to just stand by someone who is now busted in their own writing, requesting to visit the island. And yet the White House is standing by. Lutnick. There's also a new revelation site that I mentioned, Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown reporting that in July 2006, Trump actually called the then Palm beach police chief, telling him Epstein's activities with teenage girls were well known. That he was described or remembered to have as having said, thank goodness you're stopping him. Everyone has known he's been doing this. That is According to a 2019 FBI interview with the police chief, which has now been revealed in these files. So again, the written records, the things that some have tried to hide, are still coming out. Apparently, Trump had told the police chief, according to this account, that he was around Epstein once when teenagers were present, and Trump got the hell out of there. The journalist who broke that news story, who has been so instrumental in this call for accountability, Julia K. Brown, joins us along with civil rights attorney Nancy Erica Smith. We'll be back in 90 seconds. It's tax season, and at LifeLock, we know you're tired of numbers, but here's.
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- [10:41]
A
I think we need to give the DOJ a chance to go back through and correct our mistakes.
- [10:45]
C
How long do they have? How long do they have to adapt these files?
- [10:51]
A
They're already breaking the law. Look, they're way past the deadline. And the reason they gave for taking so much time is so they wouldn't release victims information. But in fact, they've released all kinds of victims information. Lawmakers speaking out after looking over these redacted files and the unredacted versions, I'm joined by Nancy Erica Smith, a civil rights attorney who's represented victims of sexual harassment and assault, and Julie K. Brown, investigative journalist at Miami Herald, an expert on this through her reporting. Her book is Perversion of Justice, the Jeffrey Epstein story. And your piece says that basically Trump seemed to have more knowledge at the time, at least according to those accounts, as memorialized. Tell us about your reporting.
- [11:37]
C
Well, it seems that the police that were investigating, or I should say the FBI that were investigating in the wake of Epstein's 2019 arrest went to interview the police chief again, who gave him an accounting, basic accounting of the investigation. But he also included in that account a conversation that he had with, you know, Donald Trump, who was not president at the time, this was back in 2006. And he to essentially had called the police chief, Michael Ryder and said to him, thank God, goodness words to the effect, thank goodness that you stopped him because everybody knew what he was doing. And in fact, he even elaborated about Maxwell, saying that she was sort of the operative that was helping him and that she was evil. And so, you know, in his mind, this was the reason why he at the time he said that he had kicked Epstein out of his club, he was no longer a member and that he was just sort of telling the police chief that he was glad that he was now going to be arrested.
- [12:50]
A
So how does that line up with this long history? There are those who say, oh well, Trump knew things and he says he created distance. But on the other hand, they weren't just people in the same social circle or the club. You know, you could say, oh, he's got a lot of members of the club. In fairness, who knows? They were seen on video socializing at parties. They were on the plane repeatedly.
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C
Yeah. It stands in contrast to the comments that the President has made in public. He's insisted in the past that he didn't have any knowledge of Epstein's crimes at all. And this suggests that he did know that he was doing this and that he. He also knew certain things about this operation, so to speak. He knew, for example, that Maxwell was involved and that, you know, we also have that together with the email that was released last month by his. By Epstein's estate that said that, you know, was an email from Epstein that said, of course he knew about the girls because he asked Maxwell to stop. So that fits together with exactly what, you know, the chief told the FBI here.
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A
Nancy.
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D
Well, if. If we add that now there's a document that Congressman Raskin found that says, in fact, Trump did not ask Epstein to leave Mar? A Lago, and that there's. There's so much evidence that Trump was so involved. Look at the birthday card and the secrets it describes. I mean, in context, possibly Trump was trying to protect himself by saying, we knew about it. And then I had nothing to do with him since. But, you know, he's. He's a pathological liar. In his first term, the Washington Post found 30,000 lies. So it's hard to discern what he thought he was doing, but I do. Of course he knew about it. There's tons of evidence that he knew about it and liked it. The birthday card being one example of his interest in young women. His modeling agency, his teen beauty pageant, where he bragged about watching them be undressed. His weird comments about young girls all the time. Is civilly convicted rapist. He brags about sexually assaulting women, so. And he lies repeatedly about his connections to Jeffrey Epstein. And now we know it's a web. There are 30 people in his regime connected to Epstein. DeVos is helping sex offenders by changing the rules of how you prove that you're a victim. Whatnik was lied. He was on the island. And Bannon. How about Bannon comes out in a lot of the most recent. Well, now I have to.
- [15:43]
A
I have to jump in. And, you know, if it weren't so serious, I'd say I'm just being annoying, but I'll just be precise. There are big questions facing Mr. Lutnick, including his own words being Contradicted by the emails. What we have are, at least publicly now, are emails of him emailing to request going to the island and circumstantially another person suggesting that there was a meeting. I don't believe we have from the emails of him admitting he went. So whether he went there or not, I think is an investigative question. You mentioned the civil ruling in New York, which many people have said is one of the many concerning things about Donald Trump as found through the legal process. Civil liability for a sexual assault. The term of art in New York, of course, is precise. And Nancy and I both, you know, we could do that if we wanted to go full law school. But the larger sweep of events you're referring to, Nancy, are that we're not just in a criminal standard, which is very high, and everyone's presumed innocent. We are also talking about people wielding power, a cabinet secretary, a president, whether the people in charge of the DOJ have been honest about this. And so at what point do those questions, at the obviously lower standard than presumed innocent, but the taxpaying citizens of this country, what the survivors have asked for, what Ms. Brown and others have reported on, at what point does our system say, yeah, part of accountability would be taking people who are tied to the files in ways that they can't account for, that they have apparently been caught misleading about and saying maybe they shouldn't be paid by the taxpayers and trusted with power tomorrow.
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D
Well, maybe the DOJ shouldn't be covering this up. Maybe the doj, the Department of Justice, should have followed the law. Maybe the deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanch, as you pointed out, Ari Trump's personal lawy, shouldn't have given a little fun little interview to Maxwell before she was moved to a low security prison in violation of corrections rules and given a puppy. I mean, the DOJ is so deep in this cover up, it's really scary for the American people. Really, what we have now is you and Julie K. Brown in journalism because the DOJ doesn't work for us anymore. It's the Trump law firm, which should scare everybody.
- [18:02]
A
Well, then if you gotta bet on someone, bet on Julie, not me. You know, I'm tired. I'm kidding. I'm not tired. We're gonna keep working, Julie. Let's turn to the actual violation as described by Republican member Massie of this doj. They violated the law on the deadline. And he says, and we have a lot of accounting of this today, new today, that one positive. People are understandably skeptical. They say, how's this all work? At least the lawmakers are going in and they're looking under those now infamous redactions and they're saying some of them are wrong and they better fix them. Where does that fit into getting to the bottom of this? What do you see happening on that process?
- [18:39]
C
Well, it's good that they are aggressively looking at what these redactions are about. But I still think that larger problem is that this case, there's no evidence that we have seen, or the victims for that matter have, have seen that indicate that the DOJ has investigated some of these allegations that are contained in there. And this isn't just about these anonymous tipsters. There are allegations throughout these files that we're seeing that are from, that have people's women's names attached to them. They're redacted thankfully in, in these, some of these places or hopefully most of them. But there are allegations here and there aren't any documents to support whether they were ever interviewed. And I know of at least one victim who reported her abuse in 2021 and she mentioned that she was never, there was never a follow up. There was an intake taken an intake form, but nobody ever reached out to her afterward and said, tell me about what happened to you. And that was in 2021. And so there's questions to be raised. And it isn't just a Republican or a Democrat issue. It is, you know, there were problems with this DOJ throughout this past decade, at least where they, it doesn't appear that they took these, this case seriously.
- [20:07]
A
Right. Yeah. And that goes again to why and we've seen this even across both parties when in control of the doj, the resistance to get into this because of how it reflects on people inside the DOJ and the history, rather than saying whatever's there needs to be dealt with given the mistakes that are now publicly exposed. So again, the files continue to lead to new reporting, including what we learned today. So, Julie K. Brown, Nancy, Erica Smith, my thanks to both of you.
- [20:35]
C
Thank you.
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D
You're aware.
- [20:37]
A
Absolutely. Again, I want viewers to understand we've been reporting all of this out. As I mentioned, in response to what a guest said, the legalities and its details matter. In New York, Donald Trump was found civilly liable in a case regarding allegations of sexual abuse. It did not state in that case that he was a, quote, convicted rapist. Again, as I mentioned before in the back and forth, but I want to make sure it is clear as we are trying to be as Precise as possible. Mr. Lutnick does have emails that he sent that inquired about visiting the island, as I stated there. And want to be clear, we don't have flight records or documentation that has ever confirmed whether or not he did in fact visit the island. And he's welcome to speak on this program or elsewhere about those details. Details. All right. That is a lot here for the beginning of the hour. I want to tell you what's coming up. Everyone's talking about the Super Bowl. We have the reaction, we have the ratings, and we have some thoughts on Bad Bunny by the end of the hour. There's also why Donald Trump says he wants to own this economy, which has prices going up, an interesting political problem that Republicans say they would like to move away from as they head towards the midterms and the profiteering, the crypto, who's got your back in the government? Have a special look at that coming up. Plus, longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon saying this. You have a massive lack of enthusiasm among the base because they're sitting there.
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B
Going, I'm just not feeling it right now.
- [22:15]
A
Republicans are nervous about the midterms for many different reasons. But we know that the president and Republicans in Congress agree on one thing. We know they are worried they will be punished for the economy. We know that for many reasons, including that Donald Trump has gone out of his way to put two members of the Fed under investigation, fighting it all the way to the Supreme Court in an effort to get the Fed to do things to help him on the economy. And yet here's Donald Trump on the economy. At what point are we in the Trump economy? Oh, I'd say we're there now. I'm very proud of it. We're there and he's proud of it. Americans aren't proud. They're concerned. Indeed, almost 60% disapprove of this economy. And that's before you get into the fact that the president and his family are spending a lot of time on side hustles to enrich themselves. The Times estimating they've pocketed over a billion dollars in one year, 500 million coming in from the UAE to a Trump crypto business with allegations of potential backroom deals or even the type of bribery conduct that is banned by the Constitution. Here is a longtime conservative lawyer and former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy writing, you know what the difference is between the Biden family business and the Trump family business? You'd have to add two digits to the sum of what he calls Biden's abuses of power and foreign entanglements and corruption alleged in the report to get near what Trump has raked in from just one country. Now, whether that type of argument in the conservative National Review, targeted at people who are critical of the Bidens is the only way to cut it, or whether taking this much money dwarfs all past presidential scandals combined, either way, it's a big problem in plain sight. Bannon also concerned. You have a massive lack of enthusiasm among the base. Cause they're sitting there going, I'm just.
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B
Not feeling it right now.
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A
I want to bring in Jason Johnson. Feeling it, feeling the high that you get from the low. I don't have to tell you twice. An Ms. Now analyst, a Professor Bannon's not feeling it. Reality has a strange way of reoccurring, even in a, in a field full of propaganda. Your thoughts on this one.
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B
Here's the thing. Trump's been in office now for over a year, and he's been saying, you know, it's mine, it's mine, it's mine. Okay, so whose world is this? The world is yours. This is your world. This is your economy. You're taking full credit for it. And people are unhappy. And, Ari, the issue here is that most of the things that people are unhappy with, when voters are unhappy about the economy, it's usually unemployment, it's usually wages. Gasolina. Right, those sorts of things. But people are upset about, like, food prices right now. They're upset about things like housing prices right now, like fundamental elements of the economy that you can't just fix with legislation. And I don't think Trump has a way out of it.
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A
Now, for Eagle eared viewers, was the World Is Yours a NAS reference or a Scarface reference or both?
- [25:24]
B
You could pick either one. You could pick either one.
- [25:27]
A
See, people, people don't know how Jason does it. I mean, it works on one level, but if you're listening really close, there's these extra. The kids call them Easter eggs, or at least the kids used to. Those kids are probably in their mid-30s now. I want to play you another official, Kevin Hassan, about jobs. There's a chance that job creation lags, productivity skyrockets, profits skyrocket, GDP skyrocket. But then all of a sudden, like, you were making 20, and you can make 20 widgets with a fewer person. And then that person has to find a new job. I think that that kind of transition could happen. It's a Trump official, and they can't stop everything. The question is, are they trying? We had these terrible January jobs numbers. You have layoffs. And they're referring to macroeconomic factors which, frankly, no single politician may be in control of, but in the time the President has to go meet with Congress or come up with, you know, AI proofing, fund or tax those tech companies, so if they need a bailout later, they've prepaid for it, or any number of the ideas that are out there, instead of doing that work, they are literally busy enriching themselves. And they, they gave those AI chips abroad because, according to some critics, they were taking money. As I showed in the intro from uae.
- [26:52]
B
Yeah, Ari, the issue here is that people will be willing to suffer through their own economic pain if they think it's universal. But now you've got a situation where it's very clear that the Trump administration is enriching itself. You've got Trump and his billions, you've got the crypto schemes. And here's the thing, Ari, and you saw it even say, comparing yesterday's super bowl commercials to a couple years ago. Crypto is less popular now. Right. Crypto used to be something that the average person thought, hey, I can get into this, et cetera, et cetera. Now it seems like something for rich tech guys to get into. So even the kinds of programs that this administration is promoting for people, buy this coin, buy that coin, it's not resonating with regular people. There are fixes to this. Trump could do something about his tariffs. Trump could do something about his foreign aggression, which, again, like I said, affects things like gas prices, but they're not doing any of those things. And that's what really frustrates people, because he doesn't seem to have a plan for how to fix things.
- [27:44]
A
Yeah. And on the UAE front, you know, we have learned over time from various mechanisms that investment, which is in Trump's company, what some call a bribery scream, a quid pro quo, was secret for over a year, the Atlantic reports, until the Journal first ferreted it out, having been caught red handed. They write, Trump's trying to pretend to have freely disclosed it. And I'm just curious, do you think there is any ceiling here? He's gotten away with this over time. And the question that Bannon and others are asking as well, if people are mad about their own economic situation, they might not, at least on the right, look as much away from how he's clearly self dealing.
- [28:32]
B
Yeah, people aren't looking away. They're. They're looking at it. And again, all right, this is what's interesting if you compare it to say, you know, Hunter Biden in the past, I think the American people have a general level of tolerance for like, Family making money off of your name, but they don't like you making money off of your name. And, you know, it used to be we would have conversations about the emoluments clause that Trump should have sort of vacated or separated himself from all of these businesses before he got into office, but he hasn't. So no matter what level you understand this at, whether it's the crypto, whether it's the UAE, whether it's Melania getting $40 million to make a documentary that almost nobody watched that dropped by 67% after the first weekend in viewership, people are seeing money flowing into this White House, but they're not seeing it flow back out into their pockets. And that's a real issue.
- [29:19]
A
Yeah. And in comparison to the first term, for whatever reason it might have been getting the hang of it, might have been worried about a future election he was claiming and trying to sort of limit the foreign government money going into his hotels. And while there was plenty of criticism, I will say in all fairness, they put out a report and they gave some of the money to the side. And then people said, was it enough? Now hundreds of millions of dollars tied to foreign governments and their sovereign wealth funds. I mean, put it aside. He's welcoming it in. And maybe it's a sad, greedy way to, to try to cash in, in what is a last term, but it breaks all the promises he made, including telling his faithful that because he was, quote, already rich, he wouldn't have to worry about money. Now, I'm over on time, but I'll give you a pop quiz. Jason, you haven't seen our rundown, right? You don't know what the later segments are.
- [30:05]
B
I have a clue that the later segments are going to be talking about a super fantastic performance from last night. I've heard this. I'm not sure.
- [30:11]
A
I'm guessing you enjoy. That's right, you heard that. Even if you're not in the rundown, you heard the teaser. Jason, as one of our part time music scholars yourself, we are excited to tell you and the viewers we got that coming up. I'm hoping to enjoy a little nostalgia from last night. Good to see you, sir. Great. As mentioned, bad bunny going on offense at the Super Bowl. It was fun. We're gonna relive a little part of it and I'm give you my breakdown on what matters here. From the politics to the music.
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- [32:06]
A
VGW Group Void we're prohibited by law CTNC's 21 plus sponsored by Chumba Casino at Sunday super bowl the football was often slow, but the fireworks came when singer Bad Bunny went on offense in that lively halftime performance. The Puerto Rican superstar topped the charts in 2025. So many people already know and love his music, clearly, but the halftime show brings the largest audience of the year, so there were certainly some people introduced just now to why Bad Bunny is so beloved in so many countries. This performance showed his dance skills, vocal range, a penchant for celebrating others, from those salutes to the traditions of grandparents and family, wholesome picnics to the raucous street parties, and even a moment where he handed off that new Grammy Award he just won to a child. Benito was fun and inclusive, yet still pretty cool and at times edgy, celebrating his native Puerto Rico and its customs and its iconography while challenging the great power oppression across colonial history. Bad Bunny performed, as you see there, in his native Spanish, just as so many other American acts perform around the world in their native English. Many saw this as a love letter to Puerto Rico at a time of well documented political negativity and even hate towards that island and Latin people, whether they be legally settled in the US or not, or coming and living from somewhere else. There were plenty of nods to economics and colonialism here. The show opened in a sugar cane field that so many people have toiled in, a reference to the territories centuries long colonization. As a time review notes, it's a parallel to how U.S. grocery stores and restaurants also still rely on people toiling in the fields. Some are legal residents, some are not. But that of course continues in the fields today, something that is the backbone of America's food supply chain.
- [34:37]
C
Now.
- [34:37]
A
This choreography and pageantry wasn't just art imitating life. Many moments actually involved real life. There was a real Puerto Rican icon, Tonita, who actually runs one of the last remaining Caribbean social clubs in Brooklyn to this day, as Rolling Stone noted. And that came during the song Nu Avayol, which celebrates the contributions of Puerto Ricans in New York, just as so many appreciate Little Italy in New York or Italians contributions across American life. The show highlighted dancers and Benito himself at one point climbing up a kind of sparking power line pole as he sang El Apagon, a protest song that is quite specifically about the island's well known infrastructure failures and blackouts. Puerto Rico has had very serious electrical power problems. They've been worsened by the Trump administration cuts to hurricane relief funding. And the performance really brought those songs to life. Music fans taking in the symbolism.
- [35:45]
D
The.
- [35:45]
C
Power line workers, that part right there was so beautiful because he's reminding people, yo, el apagong means the blackout. You know how many times families have to deal with not having electricity, like the privilege of having electricity that works and how it's affected the island over and over and over.
- [36:05]
B
And by the way.
- [36:08]
A
That is something to mark, to note, and yet still to dance or sing to. As so many musical traditions like the blues in America deal with reality as it is, the sad, the difficult, and yet still find uplift across that Bad Bunny brought a lot of that together while also brandishing that gigantic Puerto Rican flag, which we should note was actually banned on the island for almost a decade, partly because that particular one is more associated with the political independence movement, which again goes to how America has treated this island and its people. It's a performance we saw that was political and joyful, that celebrated Bad Bunny's home, but also was generous of spirit in basically reminding people we all come from somewhere and there's a lot of movement in a. In this hemisphere. Some don't like that and I guess as with others watching the super bowl, they just have to take their l. Music journalist Noah Schachman, the former editor of the Rolling Stone magazine, writing in the Times, said This was the cultural equivalent of raging about the end of the eight track tape, referring to the Trumpian Maga complaints. The change has already happened and this sort of celebration of Puerto Rico on its own terms by such a favorite son comes of course, after decades of well known US government interference across Latin America. So, well, beyond this island and the older colonial history, you have a lot of governments in the United States that have outright meddled or oppressed other countries in all of wider Latin America. Those are the precursors to what we just started the year with Donald Trump basically extracting or kidnapping the current president of Venezuela, which is one of the countries that Bad Bunny shouted out. In the end, he had a message of love and unity, of a type of representation where he talked not just about America or a certain vision of Americans, but all the Americas. God bless America. Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua.
- [38:27]
E
El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico.
- [38:34]
A
United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Segimaki spiking of football that says together we are America. What a different vision than what we are sometimes sold and told. Is it resonating? Yes, to record breaking levels. We can tell you tonight this is on track to be the most watched halftime show ever, topping 130 million viewers. That's in the moment, basically. And we checked tonight, the halftime show itself, that's people interested in what Bad Bunny did separate from the whole game, has already passed 30 million views on YouTube, where it is rising. Bad Bunny has mainstream hits, melodies that viewers might recognize from their kids or cars driving by. And when you take it all in and you listen, some of those might have been familiar, like I say, others were deeper cuts. That includes his 2020 dance song Yo Pere o Sola, which is an anthem about respecting women and their rights. On one level, it's a song that proclaims people simply have the right to dance, even if they're dancing alone. In other words, est accancion celebra el respeto mutio y la independencia te bailar sola. If it's okay to use both languages sometimes. But I want to tell you tonight, on another level, like so much music and culture, there are other levels to that song. It invokes dancing as a parallel for the human spirit, for each person's independence and their value and how respecting individuality is essential. But it can also be done, I believe, and I think the song gestures at this. It can be done together. How fitting then that he performed I dance alone, surrounded by hundreds of dancers, as tens of thousands swayed in that crowd. And we now know over 100 million watching around the world because it's possible to be yourself, as he said at the opening, to believe in yourself beyond your wildest imaginations. Possible to dance alone and together. A touching moment of community that maybe we all needed.
- [41:17]
E
Did I understand what Bad Bunny was saying in Spanish?
- [41:20]
A
Absolutely not.
- [41:21]
E
Did I enjoy the show?
- [41:22]
A
I did.
- [41:25]
C
Actually simulated the problems with our power grid in Puerto Rico.
- [41:30]
B
On a stage built to sell beer.
- [41:31]
A
Trucks and empire, he put a sugarcane plantation as a reminder that this country's wealth was harvested off of brown and black backs.
- [41:39]
E
After watching that performance, I feel like I've been adopted by Puerto Ricans.
- [41:43]
A
Reactions pouring in in these first 24 hours since what is now a record breaking halftime performance. Over 150 million people cumulatively saw it. And we have a special guest and a fitting one for this. Joining us from San Juan, Puerto Rico, is Resident Commissioner Pablo Jose Hernandez, Puerto Rico's representative in Congress. Welcome.
- [42:01]
E
Hi, nice to be with you. Greetings from the warm tropical climate of Puerto Rico.
- [42:06]
A
Hey. Hey. Tell us what the show meant to you. And of course, the island you represent. And perhaps anything that stood out that not everyone might have noticed.
- [42:17]
E
It was a source of incredible pride.
- [42:20]
A
A.
- [42:22]
E
Fountain of optimism in an island where we've struggled with pessimism over the past few decades. Everybody feels very patriotic today, very proud to be Puerto Rican, which is something that coexists with being an American and very proud of being an American as well in the broader sense. The implication that America is not just the United States of America, but that America goes from the northwestern most point of Alaska to the southeastern most point of Argentina. And it's a sense of unity, of purpose and of collective joy that we haven't felt in a long time.
- [43:02]
A
You know, the. The NFL, the show, the ads. There's so much there that is materialism and trying to get people to spend money. I think that's well known. What did you think of something that Bad Bunny's done in his album imagery in his residency, but was clearly on display here for a larger audience. Taking the ordinary and making it exalted and special. Things that are affordable or accessible to most, right down to those. The white plastic chairs that any family might gather on the street scenes. What did you think of that touch?
- [43:37]
E
His attention to detail is very striking. You know, my wife and I were commenting this morning at the brief moment where he wakes up a little boy who's asleep in two chairs at a wedding. If you go to any wedding in Puerto Rico, you'll always find the kids sleeping in two chairs around the dancing area. It's so typical of the island and the little house, the way it's furnished, the way it's built, the old men playing dominoes, the snow cones. I will say the snow cones were round, the Puerto Rico that are triangular. But you could tell that he put a lot of effort into making sure every detail was right. And that's very moving. It also evokes a lot of nostalgia and feelings for Latinos. You know, I was viewing this from Puerto Rico, but many Latinos in the States are viewing this from the States in the cold, reminiscing about their life back home and their family back home and their countries of origin. And it brings back those memories. So it brings a lot of people together.
- [44:43]
A
40 seconds left. What does it mean that he's also affirmatively telling this story? Not just on the back heel of the political debates or when the island has needed help, as other parts of our country have needed help in disasters, but in a positive sense.
- [44:57]
E
The island benefits from disability and what he did with the electric poles was highly significant. And it's something that I hope will draw attention to our energy crisis and trigger action from the Congress and the President's administration.
- [45:11]
A
Understood. Pablo Jose Hernandez, we thought of you. I don't know who you would say represents Puerto Rico more, you or Bad Bunny. It might be close though you officially, but he popularly.
- [45:25]
E
I really hope you don't put it up for a vote.
- [45:28]
A
Right. Well, but you both represent it officially and so we thought to turn to you on a night like this. Thanks so much. I hope you come back.
- [45:36]
E
Thank you.
- [45:37]
A
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B
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A
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- [45:59]
A
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