← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
Nicolle Wallace Discusses Interview with James Comey
00:39:47
MS NOW’s Ari Melber reports on the clash over President Donald Trump’s DOJ making a second bid to build a case against former FBI Director James Comey. Plus, Nicolle Wallace joins to discuss her recent interview with Comey, marking his first interview since being indicted for a second time.
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- [00:00]
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- [00:52]
Ari Melber
Hi Nicole. Very newsworthy interview with James Comey. Of course. Actually, I want to ask you about one part and I want to play it. Actually, I know you just finished it, but Comey says President Trump has finally now found the type of loyalists that he's looking for. I want to just show this part briefly.
- [01:10]
James Comey
He has found the crew that he was looking for.
- [01:14]
Nicole Wallace
What does that mean for the country?
- [01:16]
James Comey
It's bad. You never want time to fly. But it means it's going to be a very difficult two years.
- [01:23]
Ari Melber
Just that part. And anything else that jumped out to you sitting face to face with him, everything he's been through, and now going back down through this.
- [01:31]
Nicole Wallace
So I went back, he'd been on my show after the seashell stuff and I said, what will you do if you are indicted? He said, for what, this? He said, yeah. And he said, I trust that the judiciary will be fair to me, basically, that if things break down so royally that I am actually died after the seashell thing, he trusted the judiciary. So I felt like I had to come back, right. And say, well, so this thing happened that you thought was kind of far fetched. And I went back and looked at the coverage of the first Trump term, which I don't do often enough.
- [02:11]
Emily Bazelon
Right.
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Nicole Wallace
Because you and I are in the. We've literally watched the frog be defrosted and then simmered and then boiled. And so we're staring at the bubbles and we're like, huh, what are we looking at? But Trump first was reported to have wanted to indict Comey. In 2017 or 18, a story in the New York Times headline, trump Tells Justice Department to Indict Clinton Comey. And there was somebody else. And the people who stopped him based on that reporting were Don McGahn, Hank Sessions was the attorney general, Rosenstein was the DAG. And so what was interesting to me is that indicting Comey, it was like Trump's white whale and some combination of McGahn and maybe Kelly, I don't know. I think it was the chief of staff and Sessions and Rosenstein and Barr and even Bondi. Stop it. So the variable in this story and the way we cover it can't be Trump. He's always wanted to indict Comey. It's Blanche. And so when I had less success trying to get him to weigh in on Blanche, but that was the line of questioning that I was trying to pursue, that this is a story not just about Comey and Trump, but about how all those guardrails that have existed since 2017, when Trump is first publicly reported to have wanted to indict Jim Comey or prosecute him, have fallen away. And I think as we try to tell this story to the country, what's different isn't Trump when it comes to Comey. He's wanted to prosecute Comey for almost a decade. It's Blanche now making that fantasy, that dream of Donald Trump's come true. And why is that happening?
- [03:40]
Ari Melber
I think that's so incisive. And you gave him several chances and opportunities to come out. And with some, he said, okay, there's court rules, but to your point, then there's the wider the question of us, whether it's what you said, you're we, the people, sweaters and paraphernalia, the law firms, the bar associations, the universities, the business community, which at times right after Jan.6, said it cared about things. I mean, Comey warned in your interview, get ready for the next two years, those who have resorted to violence before, or as you said, who stood in the way. I mean, we know that Trump wanted the military to seize ballots and people said no. So it would be foolhardy silly to not expect him to try that again and then look around and say, who's gonna stand up?
- [04:24]
Nicole Wallace
Yeah. And I mean, you've had a really sharp focus on his plunging popularity. And there are some people in our audience who don't think that matters, cuz they don't think he'll leave. It is essential that he is so wildly unpopular because it is harder to do things that are illegal or to do things with the military to do things that are unconstitutional if you don't have a lot of political support. But it also boggle the mind that a guy at 32% to 28%, I mean, the polls are collapsing almost weekly and it coincides to the price of gas which seems to be going up weekly. But it boggles the mind that with his brand in free fall, there are still so many enablers. And I think that'll be a story we'll be unpacking for decades.
- [05:07]
Ari Melber
Absolutely. Well, again, it was a very newsworthy interview. I'm sure there'll be clips tonight on this and other channels because it was really striking and he's in it. So, Nicole, thanks again.
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Nicole Wallace
Thank you, my friend. Thanks for covering it.
- [05:19]
Ari Melber
Absolutely. Our thanks to Nicole Wallace. Welcome to THE Beat. Our top story on this program now is this ongoing clash over the Trump DOJ making what is clearly a second and far fetched bid to build some kind of criminal case against this man on your screen who we just discussed, a man who remember, once served a top US Law enforcement. The top two positions, of course, are the attorney general and the FBI director. And the former FBI director here is James Comey. But it's bigger than him. Nicole and I just touched on this and I show you this because we continue to update it and it is important it undercuts this list, the credibility of any single case. When you remember and see just how many people Donald Trump, his doj, some of the enablers inside there that Nicole said are allowing him to get what he couldn't get in the first term at least go after these so called enemies. It is a sprawling list of those probes subpoenaed or in some case prosecuted. And that puts the new second effort to again prosecute Comey in this context because James Comey has a distinguished record when it comes to the law, federal law, carrying it out in the Justice Department. That's really not in doubt. Also, as a longtime public official in Washington, he has taken plenty of criticism for his style, for his remarks, for the way he's weighed in on things. You're watching the news, so I bet you remember some of that. I'm not going to go over it all, but there are few serious people in the whole country who actually believe that Mr. Comey threatened criminal violence against the president with his basically random Seashell post that he took down when some people probably in bad faith for the most part, suggested that the number 86, which is common in restaurants, and a reference to something being gone or out or 86, it was, in fact, something else. Indeed, this post felt more like a kind of grandfatherly social media snapshot than any kind of felony under the law. An image of seashells spelling out those numbers is not nearly enough evidence to be counted legally as a true threat or an encouragement to assassinate. And that is why people posting and selling similar messages, including some with the exact 86 moniker, have not been charged. No one else has been charged for this. That's a point even the current acting attorney general recently had to admit under questioning because he didn't think lying would, I guess, help the cause. And so he admitted, well, they're only going after Comey for this, nobody else. Mr. Comey says he will address most of these issues when he has the opportunity in court, not here on air. But he did discuss how his family is feeling, how he's taking this all in personally in Nicole's new interview.
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James Comey
They've kind of gotten used to the fact that because I've been a critic of Donald Trump, I'm a target. I'm sure John Brennan's family feels that way, Jim Clapper's family, lots of others. There's a cost to speaking up in this strange era, awful error we're now. And I think they accept that. I think they're proud that I act the way I do. I'm not going to be quiet. I'm going to continue to speak about what I believe. But, of course, it's a burden for a family. That, to me, is a part that I regret. But they're strong people.
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Ari Melber
It's a burden, but it's something his family's proud of. Think about how much has changed in America under Donald Trump's lawless agenda here, that a former DOJ prosecutor, he rose to deputy attorney general and former FBI chief, says that in a way, you can have your family proud of you for being indicted. That would only be true, logically, if the indictment is so baseless as to become a kind of badge of courage, of standing up against a despot, which is what it's become here. In that regard, Mr. Comey and his family, as he tells it, have moved from kind of the typical lawman perspective over to something more like civil disobedience or the civil rights organizers who said, of course they're proud. They're not ashamed. They're proud to be targeted or arrested by the bad guys if the bad guys happen to be in office. And that's what Comey saying. And he's not exactly some longtime lefty resistance figure. He was a registered Republican, as I mentioned, he served at DOJ and FBI. And it was only standing up for the law against Trump's demands that turned him, like so many other people, including CIA veterans and military folks and others, into this sort of target, a target that he says his family is proud of. Because what else would you be when you're facing something this baseless from a president who would censor, punish and jail critics if he could? As for that revenge agenda, Comey said this
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James Comey
Donald Trump has a bottomless desire to gain revenge against those who've criticized him. And I'm not going to stop criticizing him, because I think that's required if you care about America. And so it will just keep going. If he gets rid of Blanche, he'll try to find someone else. Look at the bottom of every barrel, there are still apples. And so he will find someone to do what he wants to do.
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Ari Melber
Now. This case against Comey has signs of already backfiring at Trump's doj. Legal experts say it lacks evidence. I just discussed some of the problems and that it looks more like these other cases. You see Comey in the very middle on the right, where you have a bunch of stamps, but like these other cases on the left, where you either got no charges or dismissals because there was no there there. And that could add heat on acting AG Blanche, who faces accusations he's using basically sham cases for his own personal ambition to try to secure this job under Trump. Conservative commentators have also criticized this case. The DOJ faces fallout over going after Comey again in this manner. They have several prosecutors who've departed from the office that brought the first case, some voluntarily decamping or scrambling to find new jobs, fearful they could be asked to work on cases that violate their principles. That's according to DOJ insiders who spoke to the Post. And from Bondi to Blanche. The DOJ keeps losing these cases, hence the need to revive the failed ones. Remember, there's cases they couldn't even get a grand jury to bring, like going after lawmakers, including Democratic Senator Kelly. And so they just go back at it. They failed. But the Pentagon is taking a different route now, saying that Kelly quoting Secretary Hegseth's comments, is some kind of potential classified violation. They haven't gone as far to suggest they will revive the charges, although it's not nothing. When the secretary of Defense says that he's violated his oath and that they're having their own war council review. Kelly replying by posting video of the hegstath comments I mentioned, saying, it's not classified, it's a quote from you. Kelly's service as a veteran has not exactly deterred the Pentagon or DOJ from what looks like a baseless retribution effort, one that couldn't even clear the notoriously low bar of the ham sandwich at the grand jury. Just like Comey's service as a prosecutor and FBI lawman has only brought more anger from Trump and what has now become a lawfare. Doj remember so many of the things they accuse are what they're actually doing. Indeed, I think you can argue on a day like today, when we've just heard from Mr. Comey and all this, that it is precisely the public service, the earned credibility of those two men I mentioned and the credentials of the other targets, which is the big story here. Some of them well known, some lesser known. But the impact and the credentials of these individuals, many of them longtime public servants, is exactly why Trump has tried to silence them. He cannot stand that people who have authority and alternative forms of power, remember, a lot of these people are sitting lawmakers in a co equal branch of government. He can't stand it. And in losing the public battles, whether that's rhetorical or sometimes in government or sometimes in how the branches are supposed to check each other, he turns to abuse his own branch. He is accelerating a revenge plot that really, when you look at this up here tonight, there's a reason we leave this up for everyone to see. This looks almost absurd in its sprawling reach and losses. They are O for 20 and counting, meaning they haven't won a single case that you see on your screen. It would be absurd if the consequences were not so serious. And yet here we are. And there's a challenge with all of this. Whether it's for someone like Mr. Comey, who has to decide when to address this and take this seriously and when to do whatever else he was doing as a person with First Amendment rights to criticize the government, Mr. Kelly, as I mentioned in the Senate, has to decide when to respond. Because if we've learned nothing in this whole era, it's you fight back against bullies and you have to respond. But even doing that, sometimes at a civic and political level, means that he's now fighting on defense about whether or not their baseless accusations matter, rather than the thing they were originally discussing, which could be problems with the war or unlawful orders or the gas crisis. And so that's the balancing act. And yet to let this become normalized for us to pretend in life or the news or anyone who still cares about where our country's headed for us to pretend, oh, here's the list that said 23. Now it's 26, now it's 28. No, they're all going to lose them. So whatever. No, it's a long ways from whatever. We are past the crisis, the boiling frog that Nicole referenced. We are in the question of how do you address this as time goes on? And even if they lose all the cases, what will the accountability be for people like Bondi and Blanche and others who are quite clearly violating their oaths of office while accusing others of the same or worse? We're joined by the New York Times Magazine's Emily Bazelon. Welcome.
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Emily Bazelon
Thank you, Ari.
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Ari Melber
Those are a couple, couple points and questions. Your thoughts?
- [15:43]
Emily Bazelon
Well, I'm glad you started with this question of what Attorney General Blanche is doing here and what his role is. It seems like he is really auditioning hard to stay in this job. Currently, he's the acting attorney general. Trump has not made a decision yet about whether to keep him. And so I think you see the, you know, elevation of these kinds of charges, which in any sort of normal universe would not be happening, tied to Blanche's ambitions. I was also struck that when he was asked to defend this indictment last week, he said, well, we have other evidence against James Comey, but then he gave zero examples of that other evidence. And so it seems like if he has other cards that he's playing here, he owes it to the country and to Comey to say what they are, because otherwise it just seems like he is smearing a defendant without backing up the claims he's making.
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Ari Melber
Well, absolutely. And there can be cases you bring that are minimal. People have heard the reference that you can have a speaking indictment, but sometimes for strategic or legal reasons, you keep it narrow. But when you're talking about accusing someone of this caliber and public service record of the extremely grave offense of trying to have a president assassinated, you need more than a dumb Instagram post. You really do. And so to get there at all, you have to say, obviously, if you had some other secret thing, here's this secret correspondence or alleged confession or whatever. But no, I just don't think legally they've met the bar whatsoever, which makes it likely that Blanche, as you say, may be trading day trading his credibility to get the job. And then when the case falls apart, and Trump would, of course be angry about it, he doesn't care whether that rises to violating his oath. Whether he is knowingly bringing Meloss cases is a question really for the bar association. Sooner or later on the danger to the rule of law. I want to play more from Nicole's interview. Here's what Comey said tonight.
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James Comey
I think it's really, really important that we recognize the danger to the rule of law that comes from this kind of vindictive prosecution. It is what separates us from authoritarian regimes, that our statue of justice, we always depict her with a blindfold holding the scales. And so it's never about getting people. It's about understanding facts and treating people equally so we can achieve justice. We lose that we're not who we think we are.
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Emily Bazelon
Emily, you know, the basic principle of the FBI, or at least it has been. The basic principle is that you pursue the facts without fear or favor. In other words, you start with the allegations and the concerns about criminal activity. You don't start with the person you want to target and then find something to pin on him. And Comey is saying with a lot of backup that that's what happened to him here. And I think that it's really important to keep driving home, what is wrong with that. It's not about James Comey, one particular person. It's about that kind of activity. And especially as you've been laying out, it's really a pattern from this Justice Department and the Trump administration.
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Ari Melber
Yeah, we'll put the enemy's list up again, because, you know, we track this, as, you know, in news, and the Times does this type of work. It's harder to make a graphic like this and keep it current than to skip it. And so I get why not every newspaper or outlet publishes this once a week. But do you think that it's important that the country understand this? Because, you know, you could be talking to whoever your MAGA uncle about any individual case, and they say, well, I don't know, Don Lemon shouldn't have done this. And I never liked when Comey did that. And yet, arrayed together, you have a lot of different jurisdictions where these already failed, which is evidence that shows they couldn't get it going. And you have a lot of flimsy cases that raise the question whether the criminality is actually in Blanche's doj.
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Emily Bazelon
Yeah, absolutely. It's important to have a kind of chorus of voices speaking out, pointing to what's happening to show that there are many cases as you have up on the screen. And, you know, it's also true that in this particular case, there are probably free speech defenses under the First Amendment. It doesn't seem at all clear. The Justice Department told the grand jury about that potential element of this case. And that might explain why the grand jury went along with this particular indictment. Meanwhile, as we've also pointed out, there are prosecutors who are leaving the Justice Department in droves. Up to a quarter of the lawyers in the Justice Department departing because in a lot of cases, they just can't abide by what's happening around them. And that has been especially true in the Eastern District of Virginia, where the original Comey indictment was brought to and some of the other offices that the Trump administration has really twisted to its own ends.
- [20:43]
Ari Melber
Yeah. All important points, Emily, our leadoff guest on Nicole's big interview. Thanks for being here.
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Emily Bazelon
Thanks for having me.
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Ari Melber
Absolutely. We have a lot coming up tonight. By the end of the hour, a hantavirus outbreak update. Republicans worrying that Trump is in a Carter like malaise now. And the kind of a MAGA crash out over Donald Trump's phone, the gold phone never materialized with many saying, all right, dude, where's my money? But next, we bring in one of the most powerful lawmakers in Democratic Washington. Senator Durbin is back with us on some big topics in 90 seconds.
- [21:22]
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James Comey
Donald Trump has a bottomless desire to gain revenge against those who've criticized him. And I'm not going to stop criticizing him. If he gets rid of Blanche, he'll try to find someone else. Look at the bottom of every barrel. There are still apples.
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Ari Melber
James Comey speaking out today on what is his second indictment by this Trump doj. We're joined by Senator Durbin of Illinois, who's the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Welcome.
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Senator Dick Durbin
Good to be with you, Ari.
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Ari Melber
Your response to Mr. Comey's remarks and the Trump DOJ trying to revive another case against him.
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Senator Dick Durbin
Well, let me tell you, to put it in context. It's one of the most serious charges that can be made, attempted assassination of a president. And now look at the reality of it. We see the pattern here. What the MAGA forces are trying to do is to put each of the targets through an exercise. Hire a lawyer, figure out how you're going to pay the lawyer, do a perp walk. We'll try to get it on tv. And then we're going to basically put you through all sorts of allegations and little or no proof. Why do they go through all this? They said as much in the past. They've talked about it. We want that person to suffer the way the poor president suffered when he was indicted and arrested and such. So this is vengeance. It's spite. And I agree with Comey, bottomless, the
- [24:49]
Ari Melber
Judiciary Committee, which you've led, has some role here. What do they do? And if the Democrats were to retake it this election, what will they do to thwart these attacks and these prosecutions when they're found to be meritless or to have consequences?
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Senator Dick Durbin
Well, of course, the first thing we'll do in the majority. And I hope that day comes is take closer look at the nominees that come before us. Can you believe what these people are saying or unwilling to say when they're under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee seeking lifetime appointments to the bench or positions of power as U.S. attorneys? Basically, they won't concede who won the election in 2020. They have no response when it comes to January 6th as to what was happening here. And now Senator Coons has asked the basic question, do you agree that Trump has been elected twice and therefore under the 22nd amendment can't be president for a third term? They won't even answer that. I mean, it's incredible. They're going to play back these tapes someday and say this was the bottom. This is what happens when you reach the bottom in terms of political influence and justice.
- [26:01]
Ari Melber
That's obviously a huge story we've been covering tonight. A lot of Americans concerned about gas prices, as you know, and where this kind of open ended war cease fire goes. Here's the energy secretary on Sunday. Should Americans be prepared for the possibility
- [26:19]
Emily Bazelon
of paying $5 a gallon for gas?
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Brian Tyler Cohen
Look again, I can't predict the price of energy in the short term or
- [26:26]
Ari Melber
even the medium term. I'm shocked to see Democrats come out of the woodwork now somehow not worried about Iran getting nuclear weapons. I know you're saying you can't predict
- [26:35]
Senator Dick Durbin
how high gas price will go, but
- [26:37]
Ari Melber
I don't hear you ruling out the possibility that they could in fact go to $5 a gallon. Well, I'm just avoiding price predictions. Are these high gas prices a product of the Trump economy and the decision to go to war?
- [26:53]
Senator Dick Durbin
Absolutely. Absolutely. And the bottom line is when the Republicans are confronted with this, they won't accept the reality that war in Iran was initiated by this president several months ago without clearly thinking about a stretch of water called the straits of Hormuz. 1500 oil tankers and other chemical tankers lined up trying to get through this area. I thought the president said we'd obliterated the power of the Iranians to threaten us. And you look at it, they found a way now through the Straits of Hormuz to put pressure directly on the consumers of America. So what does the Trump administration do this week? We have two weeks to work. They decide that the highest priority for them to work on is the billionaire ballroom for the president, the vanity ballroom for the president. He should be thinking about the gas prices Americans are paying rather than whether he can put some gilded decoration into a ballroom in the White House.
- [27:51]
Ari Melber
I want to turn as well to immigration. There was reporting that Stephen Miller is seeing some of his influence weighing that the president behind the scenes. They don't admit it in public, but dialed back some visa measures and other things that were more hardline. You've got a new piece where you write, yes, Trump is deporting Dreamers. Here's the quiet part. September 2024, 537,000 people had this active status. People remember this, I think from the Obama era. Now the number's dropped to 32,000. What are you advocating here in this piece?
- [28:24]
Senator Dick Durbin
Here's what's happening. You have people who signed up for DACA under President Obama. Many of them stepped forward and I spoke to them private, said, why would we give all the information about ourselves to the government that can be used against us? We said to them, if you will follow the law as required under the executive order of President Obama, will stand by you. Now they have decided to ignore that responsibility. The Trump administration announced 10 days ago that the standards of DACA protecting people from being deported are no longer applicable. So these people who've gone through criminal background checks every two years who register and pay their fee are vulnerable for deportation. That's an outrage. The courts should decide that DACA is legal. Give these young people who came to the country as teenagers and children a chance to become citizens of the future. They're very important to our future.
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Ari Melber
Yeah. Interesting. And again, one of those issues that hasn't always been front burner. I know you've been working on it. Senator Durbin, thanks for joining us tonight.
- [29:28]
Senator Dick Durbin
Good to be with you, Ari.
- [29:29]
Ari Melber
Absolutely. Appreciate it. Later, we look at another Trump crisis. The gold phone that has customers and MAGA fans revolting. Hey, Trump supporter. Here. This goes out to Don Jr. And Eric.
- [29:45]
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- [29:48]
Ari Melber
I ordered three, no, four gold Trump phones in the summer. We'll explain. Plus, longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove says Republicans have a MAGA meltdown coming in the midterms if they don't change. Stay with us. They called Republican strategist Karl Rove George Bush's brain. He's on Fox, which we know Trump watches to deliver this GOP warning. With the president's approval rating where it is and with the normal malaise that we have, it's hard to believe that the Republican losses are only going to be five or six seats. And five or six seats would be enough to lose the House. Malaise is usually associated in political history with Jimmy Carter and his one term presidency. Rove also talked about the polling, there's new Financial Times numbers that show majority of voters disapprove of Trump on the economy. His negative ratings outweigh the positive. That's underwater. Negative 16 on jobs in the economy. Even worse on inflation and tariffs, as you see here. Then there's consumer sentiment. That's not just one of these political polling things. Economists look at that data for the long term heartbeat of the American economic mood. It's at a new low. One Trump official struggling to keep up. President Trump has sort of taken every problem on earth and got 100% at fixing it. And I think that that can be stressful for people to see so much change going on. Yes, that 100% success is causing stress, which is why everyone's mad at the economy and Trump. Word salad. Trump looks out of touch with all the vanity projects while people suffer. Gas price is over four and a half bucks. Diehard Trump supporters have put a golden statue of Trump at a Florida golf course which might fit their mood, but they're in the distinct minority. It was funded by crypto investors who commissioned Trump's likeness in a promotional push. Guess what? For their meme coin. Because that's how they want to get rich. Not very relevant to most people if you're not in that elite, smug rich right wing circle that is continuing to benefit from the Trump wheeling and dealing. As for the cost estimates for that reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial, well, they're running over budget. $13 million of taxpayer money. The ballroom at a billion Democrats vowing to fight it. We haven't even gotten to the missing gold phones. I have a very special guest who just recently interviewed President Obama and is well in touch with the online heartbeat on all this. Think we have a photo. Brian joins me next. Hey, Trump supporter here. This goes out to Don Jr. And Eric. What a fucking.
- [32:58]
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My phones.
- [33:00]
Ari Melber
I ordered three, no four gold Trump phones in the summer. Now we can't get any updates on them. He's not alone. A bunch of customers and MAGA fans are very angry to find that Donald Trump is breaking his word again that Trump's family business has duped whatever fans it has left. This latest grift involves the Trump family's business failure to deliver promised Trump phones after getting down payments on them from a lot of customers. Now, how many people would actually like to buy a Trump gold phone at this juncture, say in the last year? Well, considering the past rip offs and the fact that no major cell phones are actually produced in the US So this seemed like a long shot. Well, you might think not that many. But the answer is well over 500,000 people each paid $100 deposit to get in on the planned and promised Trump phone. Not a single confirmed customer though has gotten one. This is a report from the ibt. Meanwhile, the website for the so called Trump Mobile, which isn't very mobile, includes a disclaimer. A pre order doesn't guarantee a device will be produced or made available for purchase. I mean, that is just out there. A pre order means not a pre order. We just hold your 100 bucks and we might never make the phone. The so called Trump phone was announced with a lot of fanfare by Trump's sons last year. Today we're here to introduce Trump Mobile making phones in America. It's about time we bring products back to our great country. We're going to be having call centers for Trump Mobile in St. Louis. So we're keeping our data onshore. We plan to build phones in America. All of our customer support is in America. A lot of people are getting ripped off, to say the least because they don't pay attention to our cell phone plans. So I think we can do it better. People are getting ripped off. They're going to do a better job. They're actually doing no job because they haven't shipped any phones. The company's selling point was that this somewhat gilded device would be made in America. You heard that in some of those clips. Now they say it will be proudly American. I guess that's kind of how the phone identifies. It will be designed with American values in mind. Sure, whatever. But that's not how country of origin labeling works. If you're going to make something here or have it abroad, the mother of all tariffs president ought to know that. The phone reportedly now predominantly made in China, but again, that's if it's made so far. The company now says don't assume if you buy one or part of one that it'll ever be produced. So we don't know if it's ever going to be made or where. Now, if it's all familiar, this is not the first time Trump has done this kind of thing. Remember, there's a Trump branded crypto meme coin. The family has made over 200 million on it, but its value has tanked by over 90%. That means obviously if you put in 10 bucks, you'd have about one left while they get rich. Trump has basically been moving through different groups of ultimately disillusioned consumers for decades. You could analogize some of what he does in business to how he's moved through voters, something we've explored in past reports. Because he keeps moving around, moving the goalposts, finding new people to believe the thing. The old people are disillusioned. We all know how many folks have worked for him and then turned on him in business. He licenses a brand but then is not effective and sometimes just not honest about executing the so called brand deal that's left products varying in quality or in whether they exist. Remember, it was a Trump University that later actually cost Trump tens of millions of dollars because so many people had been legally defrauded that they had a court case. Unlike the revenge prosecutions we've been telling you about, they had a case that over the years they finally won. He did return some money. But this is a pattern when it comes to great stakes. I, I've just raised the stakes. My new game is Trump the game, the God bless the USA Bible. Trump University, we teach success. That's what it's all about. It's a smooth vodka. It's a great tasting vodka. The elegance of Trump Vineyard Estates. It just can't be beaten. We were the first plane out this morning. We were the most successful flight this morning. We had more people than anybody else and I think we had better service than anybody else. A lot of branding and a lot of failures. To paraphrase the great poet, most deaf, I don't care what kind of brand you are. I care what kind of man you are, what your principles and standards are. With that in mind, we bring back the aforementioned Brian Tyler Cohen, host of the online show no lie, many YouTube subscribers, recent interview with Obama. And we were asking you about the Trump economy. And this business failure fits into a pattern. Your thoughts tonight?
- [38:09]
Brian Tyler Cohen
It does. And you know, the interesting thing about all of this is when I was growing up, it would have been impossible really to imagine that any young person would really be a Republican. But Trump took advantage of the disillusionment that so many young people felt. And it was a really amazing opportunity for him and Republicans to do what, what they haven't done for my entire lifetime, which is to really exploit a lot of that pain. And instead, Trump gets into office, he has this rare opportunity to deliver for a disillusioned generation of young people, whether it's millennials like myself or Gen Z. And instead he just decides to grift and con them. And whereas he said prices would go down, he started a trade war that sent the price of everything surging. He cut everybody's healthcare, cut everybody's Food assistance and instead started delivering for himself. I mean, you were just covering most of this stuff. A reflecting pool and a ballroom and a Qatari jet, a rose garden, a golden statue of himself. He's doubled his net worth. I mean, if there's anybody who still doubts the fact that Trump ran on one thing and has delivered something completely different, this should put all of that to rest.
- [39:19]
Ari Melber
Hmm. And do you detect something different happening out in the response to the gas crisis and the war as opposed to other so called Trump betrayals?
- [39:30]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Yeah, I think those, those are, are, are especially interesting because these are issues that Republicans exploited, specifically whether it was with regard to Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. I mean, they ran on this idea that you need Trump back because your gas prices are only gonna be low if Donald Trump is in office. You need Trump back because the only way that your kids avoid a draft is if Donald J. Trump is in office. And yet here we are with Trump in office. He's got full control of government, so there's not even any Democrats to blame. You can't point your finger at any Democrats. And gas prices are the highest that they've been in years, nearly at the highest price they've ever been. And now we have a war that's been raging on in the Middle east for two months that's costing God knows how much money every single day. And that would be bad enough unto itself. And it's made even worse given the fact that this is something he campaigned expressly on not doing. And even worse on top of that over the fact that all of that money could have gone to America first priorities, which is what Trump himself ran on. It could have helped people in this country with healthcare and food assistance and making education better funded or infrastructure. I mean, you name it.
- [40:35]
Ari Melber
And then I was curious, your counterparts on the digital right, why do some of them seem either more flexible or others would say more transactional than the old school Republican pundits in D.C. some of who we see on Fox, you've got your counterparts have moved more quickly against Trump lately on Epstein and the war.
- [41:01]
Brian Tyler Cohen
Look, I think that in large part these folks are younger and I don't think that they were, that they showed any allegiance to Trump or the Republican Party. I mean, these aren't lifers, right? These are not people who have been lifelong Republicans. Like I said, I mean, when I was younger, if a lot of these folks were, you know, a lot of these folks were supportive of Barack Obama and we've kind of felt this sense of, okay, well, Democrats aren't delivering where they have control. And so I'll just be a little bit more flexible, give my vote to Republicans and see if, if they can deliver. So these people, these aren't people necessarily who have long term allegiances. And frankly, frankly, I think that the way that Trump has kind of undermined his own promises to these people is so egregious. Like there is no way for any of these right wing influencers to justify or defend Trump. Engaging in a foreign war when he ran on no new wars, cutting health care when you promised to protect health care, starting a trade war when he promised to bring costs down and instead focusing all of these costs on himself and building himself a ballroom, hosting crypto dinners for himself. I mean, this stuff is so aggressively impossible to defend that of course, these right wing influencers, recognizing that Trump's not gonna be around forever, they're skating to where the puck is going, not where it is right now because they want, they want a half life longer than when Trump is in office. And that's only gonna be another couple years.
- [42:26]
Ari Melber
Yeah. And they're seeing that with MAGA online. Brian, thank you. We'll be right back.
- [42:31]
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