← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
Receipts: Trump Profiting Off WH
00:41:04
New receipts show President Trump is profiting off the White House. MS NOW's Ari Melber delivers a special report.
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- [00:00]
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- [01:02]
Ari Melber
to the beat, everyone. Happy Monday. I'm Ahri Melber and we are tracking several big stories as we start the week, people coming back from the holidays. A major one is Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, who is facing new allegations of sexual assault tonight detailed by Politico with an accuser on the record. The future of his campaign is in doubt. This is a story that matters, obviously for the substance as well as the potential for reaction within the Democratic campaign community and what the Democrats want to do. So it's an unfolding story. It matters in more than one way. And we have that story in our show tonight that's coming up. We begin with our top story and that is the backlash to the Trump profiteering. The billions coming in for Donald Trump, he makes more as president where allegedly he's doing his work part time, making money. He makes more now than he did as a citizen or a businessman, as he likes to say. And that alone, before you go into any more detail, raises really troubling questions. Like why someone who has a full time government job, who says they're only doing occasional private business stuff as a side job, which no other president has tried to do, why they're making more now and whether that is because of abusing access, abusing insider information or or the kind of corruption that would be illegal if done by any other person in government. New details as well on the losses that Trump's own supporters and investors have been hit with when they lined up to try to join in. And this is a very familiar thing. If you follow Donald Trump's career. You know about the many bankruptcies and the many scams and the many littered projects that failed, leaving other people holding the bag. There are those who call Donald Trump a con man, a confidence man. But as anyone who knows anything about con mans could tell you, you have to find new people. And apparently he did. New people interested in technology or crypto. New younger people who thought maybe this was a way to join Donald Trump, as if he would share in his largesse. But he didn't. Look at this Times reporting that a million investors lost not, you know, a couple bucks here or there, but a whopping total of over $3 billion on Trump's crypto. Simplify this as a kind of transfer of wealth from those people who included his investors and people who believed in him, some MAGA fans, a transfer of wealth from them to him and his family. The financial disclosures that we have now revealed, Trump got over $2 billion in one year alone. Half that roughly from the crypto ventures that we know about. Over 600 million from the crypto coin. A million investors in total lost billions. And the story here tells you a lot about where we are in the kind of unbridled, unapologetic, shameless Trump second term. There are some people who are critical of Trump and they tell you he's always been the worst thing ever, as if he had nowhere else to go or change. On this show, if you ever watch it, you know, we try to follow the evidence, the facts, the numbers, you can add the adjectives, the opinions yourself. And so I will tell you as a factual matter, the scale, the number of projects and self enrichment efforts by Donald Trump in the first term were much smaller than this. And so who's paying for it? Well, to some degree, all of us, the American taxpayer. But some people are paying more than others and they are the Trump believers. One invested half a million dollars into that coin I just mentioned and has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's kind of incredible. It's almost a legal scam, they said in discussing their Trump losses to the New York Times. Now, one of the other problems in our current era is how so many things get put immediately into a kind of partisan polarization machine. So if you talk about something that's just a fact, a sitting president is abusing their power and reach and influence to take money from people who have a lot less. That's just a general fact. I just described, mentioned the reporting. Some people would say, oh, is that an anti Trump thing or an anti Republican thing. No, it might sound bad for Trump, but it's just an old, classic, almost pathetically familiar example of why you need strict rules governing the people in power. That's government. And generally, if you look over history, there's been a belief that you want to find people who also have good ethics so that they won't constantly be testing what they can get away with. And I can name you people in Both parties, John McCain, Barack Obama, who had those kind of ethics. And voters tended to respond positively to that. But this isn't a partisan thing. Take Chris Christie, longtime Republican, also a former prosecutor. So he has a record of, he would say caring about the law. And he says this isn't just bad, this isn't just petty, this isn't just unfortunate for America. He says it's something deeper, left unchecked, that it is a kind of Putin Kremlin style Trump corruption.
- [06:03]
Chris Christie
He and his family believe they are entitled to this. This is an entitlement to them. They believe when they came back and won this election the second time, that that gave them license. Quite frankly, when you look at the scale of this, here's another thing, apparently that Donald Trump learned from Vladimir Putin during his first term. This is Putin esque type of corruption and self enrichment.
- [06:32]
Ari Melber
Putin has corruption and self enrichment. That's a Republican Chris Christie over at Fox, where they often try to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. They also have clearly some level of information about what conservatives and a lot of their viewers think because they're calling it the biggest grift of all time. You can see that headline, scrutiny over Trump business dealings with him and his sons who've been enriched by this. There's also scrutiny on the pardon of this Binance founder. That's one of these firms where he's the richest man in crypto and is a critical business partner to the Trump family's crypto venture. I want to just slow down and tell you what that headline means. Think about this. The person they chose to work with, that firm and some of those tentacles has previously been found guilty. So of all the people you could choose to work with, this isn't someone who just has allegations or smoke and fire, et cetera. No, this is someone who's already run into those kind of problems. That's who they chose. And the pardon hanging over there raises the very real question, a potentially impeachable issue of whether there was an exchange, whether this was a kind of federal government bribe. Now, it's often been said that the Supreme Court gave Trump extra leeway they did. And that the president, if he chooses to, can get away with more of these things than other members of government. And they can. But we are watching a midterm election coming that might have a whole shift of power in Congress. Donald Trump could, and we know it would bother him if it happened, become the only president to be impeached three times. Because there are real questions about potential impeachable offenses. When you talk about the use or abuse of government powers, the huge pardon power, billions of dollars coming into the family and all of it wrapped together. And that's just in what we know before an impeachment committee or a Jan6committee or subpoenas and witnesses and testimony. This is just what we know from the dogged work of the New York Times and other journalists and Ms. Now we've got reporters looking into this as well. This is what we know just from that without subpoenas, we don't have subpoena power here in the news media. Sometimes we wish we did. Trump, however, seems to be bragging about helping those people in crypto, even amidst the headlines that his own fans are losing money.
- [08:47]
Brad
Every time I see a crypto guy that where they dropped an investigation, I said, you're lucky I'm president.
- [08:56]
Ari Melber
That might be true. Those people who in any other independent government system would be under investigation or worse are lucky. But remember, what are they under investigation for? Sometimes abusing and defrauding everybody else. This is the 1% story, the Epstein class story. It's the same thing we've been reporting on and telling you about, except now we have a president who's just so blatant about it. The people who should be investigated are lucky, and everyone else in Trump's telling are unlucky losing money. It goes beyond crypto, which I know can sound like a little bit of a newfangled kind of confusing virtual place, even though the money some people have lost is real. There's also new revelations about this ring that Belgian diamond sellers gave to Donald Trump as a suspicious unusual gift after he waived tariffs for Belgian diamond imports. Remember, bribery is an impeachable offense. It's one of the enumerated impeachable offenses in our constitution. And again, we're talking about real money here, not symbolism. The ring has reportedly over 300 diamonds, over 50 sapphires, over a dozen emeralds and six rubies. You might say it looks a little gaudy or gauche. That's a matter of taste. As a matter of value, it is well above the gift limit that binds all Members of Congress, for example, most public traded company CEOs would be fired on the spot for trying to pocket something like this related to their business. That's payola. What I'm telling you is Donald Trump is falling behind even the lax business standards of American Wall Street. There's also a plaque with a solid gold base from Apple that probably is worth quite a bit less. A Rolex death clock, I should say. And a gold bar from Swiss business leaders. I will remind you there is a senator in prison right now for taking gold bars. Senator Menendez, he happened to be a Democrat. Again, if you care about these issues as an American or as someone who thinks we should have nonpartisan, ethical government, you'd be against gold bars when they go to a Democrat or a Republican. Only one of them, though, Donald Trump is getting away with it right now. And there's the jet. Trump took the gifted plane on his first international voyage to a NATO summit. And he's promised those on board a luxury that nobody's ever seen before. That might be his typical hyperbole political reports, but there's a wood paneled interior, tan leather seats, carpets, big screen TVs. Trump's White House says this is all fine, no problem. And I can just tell you here in the real world of news and facts and journalism, almost nobody believes that. I showed you Fox News trying to hedge their bets a little, saying, well, this might be too far. I've shown you Megyn Kelly, Joe Rogan and other conservatives who aren't bound up in the partisan Republican machine, who, whatever you think of them, have talked about this as a grift, as elitism, as unfair, and the bill may be coming due. There's also the focus on Donald Trump's stock trades, where, as I mentioned, the crypto stuff can seem kind of vague. Here you have the very direct question of whether he is timing his personal enrichment towards things that only he can do and he knows about, like his unilateral trade war. And again, if he is doing that in a manner that abuses government power or is a quid pro quo, that could be impeachable. Notice I didn't say jailable. He's got a lot of immunity for anything that goes near his official duties. Tariffs probably do, but it certainly is the kind of thing people have been removed over. People have been removed for less, quite frankly. There's a disclosure form that shows Trump bought hundreds of stocks, including in tech giants, the day before he then pulled back his tariffs, which he and anyone in Wall street knew would help Juice those stocks. On April 8 last year, Trump bought over 300 stocks in the millions of dollars, including companies directly affected by this international trade war. Nvidia, Amazon, Apple. The next morning he said it's a great time to buy and halted his tariffs.
- [12:52]
News Reporter
The stock market went on another wild ride today. Stocks were mostly sideways until midday when President Trump posted on Truth Social that he was authorizing a 90 day pause on reciprocal tariffs with amazing moves in some tech names. Nvidia up 18%. Amazon up 12%. Apple rallying as well.
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Ari Melber
Those rallies were huge, some of the largest jumps in recent history. The overall top 500 stocks went up about 10%. I'll remind you that's considered a good return for an entire year, let alone a day. And there were larger spikes in the stocks Trump bought, which as I reminded you, are the kind of international trade related stocks that would benefit from the tariff pause. Now let me tell you exactly what the question is. Did Donald Trump abuse inside information to enrich himself? If the answer is yes, again, it's up to Congress to decide whether they view that as an abuse of power, an abuse of office, or whether they view that as one among several abuses of power that enriched himself. Do they view any of this as the quid pro quo of government favors? Were there other people, non presidents, for example, his family, other staff lobbyists, lawyers, ex aides who were involved in this, who could actually be prosecuted? Again, if there is bribery? Those are the questions. Now some people, they dislike Trump so much they say, I'm sure he knew. Well, you could be sure, but you would sound pretty presumptuous because in law you'd have to have the elements of the crime and one of them is the mental state. And I will report for you. The White House says that Trump was not personally involved in the timing of those stock purchases. So if that defense is true, someone else had good timing but didn't benefit from government information, then that would be what we call a defense to that. But the timing is so suspicious and the other activities that Donald Trump is taking have been so blatantly self enriching. And his public statements talk about helping people in crypto in order to get benefits from crypto for his family that any investigator would have to look at all of this in totality. A few months later, Donald Trump discussed corrupt trading in pretty specific detail. So he was thinking about that kind of stuff and yet projecting or accusing a Democrat Pelosi of it to happen by.
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Brad
She knows exactly what's going to happen, what's going to be announced. She buys stock and then the stock goes up after the announcement's made and she ought to be investigated.
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Ari Melber
You know, it's going to be announced. You buy the stock, it goes up. Was he talking about her? Was he talking about a process that he'd already participated in or encouraged others to do so? Those are questions to be investigated. There is, of course, a reason he was discussing it. There's a provision that apparently Trump didn't like that was trying to address some of this. He attacked a Republican who introduced it. Hawley had to go on Fox and basically assure Donald Trump by way of his preferred medium, FOX tv, that any Trump trading would be unaffected.
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Jason Johnson
A number of people who were opposed to banning stock trading had said to the President that he would be covered by the bill. He'd have to sell Mar A Lago and sell assets. Not the case at all. The President and the vice president, all their assets are totally exempt.
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Ari Melber
Ah, so this is an important way to fight corruption, but the president is exempted. Holly wanted everyone to know the bill that ultimately moved forward had that carve out for Trump. I can tell you we're reminding you all this because so much goes on that it would be easy to lose track. But this would go into any impeachment investigation about why there was already such an active discussion of exempting them for a law that ultimately did not pass, and why is it bad if everyone else does it, but okay if Trump does it. So Trump's account was buying those stocks timed towards things that he knew he was about to do, and he fought against a potential law that would ban that very type of activity. I want to bring this all into our orbit tonight because while they want you to think nothing matters and they'll get away with it all, there's a heck of a lot of evidence that the winds are changing, that the conservatives are mad about this and that even Trump was worried that the Congress might then, under Republican control, do something that it would certainly want to do without him exerting influence, which is stop this kind of self dealing while gas prices and everything else is up and people are struggling. That's our special report. We've got special guests when we're back in 90 seconds. We're back with politics professor at Morgan State University, Jason Johnson, MSNow analyst. Jason, we tried to show what's new and there's blowback along with the history that's easy to forget. They want to distract people with wrestling and Trump's feuds and fights, but the history is instructive and A serious Congress could look into this.
- [17:53]
MSNBC Analyst
Right? Not only a serious Congress, but a committed Congress of both Republicans and Democrats. It's a shame when you have some members of the party who are so disgusted with Trump's behavior that they're willing to quit a la Marjorie Taylor Greene. And then you have people like Josh Hawley, who claims that he is vigorously against this sort of double dealing and insider trading, but has to go on groveling on Fox, saying, no, no, no, Donald Trump, it doesn't count you. All of the gifts, Ari. All of the behavior, not just of him, but his entire family, is not only a corrosion of how our government is supposed to work, it is a national security issue. It is an ethics issue. And it's the kind of thing that if and when Donald Trump ever leaves office, if he ever leaves office, the level and the tentacles of this corruption will now run so deep that whoever follows him, if they care, will have to fire and eliminate dozens of people, hire so many new inspectors generals in order to get rid of all the other people who help facilitate this corruption.
- [18:49]
Ari Melber
Yeah, and he's very clear about seeing himself as a booster. If he didn't have all these stocks and all these deals and all these conflicts, he might just be a very pro business president, which is fine. People can decide that Bernie would be seeking more oversight of Wall Street. He might. Trump might boost Wall Street. Fine. The problem is, the more we learn and we're just scratching the surface, the more it looks like conflicts here. He was with Dell. Take a look.
- [19:19]
Brad
Go out and buy a Dell computer. He's not doing it for that, but I'll bet his business, Brad, has gotten even bigger. I have a son that loves their. He loves their laptop, I have to tell you. No, I wonder d. We're going to get him that money back one way or the other,
- [19:37]
Ari Melber
Jason.
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MSNBC Analyst
I mean, if this were a mob movie, this would be the time that all of the federal agents are like, did he just say that? And they're taking their headphones off.
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Chris Christie
Right.
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MSNBC Analyst
The way in which. The way in which Republican members of Congress and even his own supporters. Look, I understand Donald Trump's branding for 20 to 25 years that he is an excellent business person. But the problem is, more often than not, he's putting money into the pockets. People who've paid him, they're not really getting a good return on their investment. The people who do things for Trump, whether it's, you know, the head of ufc, it's like, hey, we lost money doing this Trump thing. The crypto people you know, the people paying his son $500,000 a year to be a member of a club in hopes of possibly getting access to the president. There's not even return on the investment and the graft and the grift. And that's part of what makes this so disgusting. He's not a good business person. He's not giving people anything that they want. But he has turned the United States and all of his agencies into not only his personal piggy bank, but his ATM to the rest of the planet.
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Ari Melber
On the politics, why do you think this has drawn more backlash? It would seem that we have this triumvirate I've mentioned people dislike Trump, have a hundred reasons, but a lot of conservatives or former Trump voters, they only have like three or four. And lately it's been Epstein, Iran, and now this.
- [20:59]
MSNBC Analyst
Well, the reason, Ari, is because you can't have people paying $7 for gas. You can't have massive unemployment. You can't have people dealing with tariffs and then go on television bragging about the diamonds on your wrist, which is essentially what the President's doing all the time. Right? He can't talk about his wealth and, and not look like he is deeply insensitive about how the people who supported him are continuing to suffer. That's where the issue falls in. But for me, my concern is not necessarily with the voters in the fall. It's the lack of sort of oversight by members of Congress. It's the lack of anything being said by government agencies. It's the idea that Cash Patel's girlfriend can be paid to sing songs to Belgium while they give him rings with 300 diamonds in the shape of Superman, while at the same time he's cutting deals to get US Players to play Belgium. I mean, like, it is a conspiracy theorist and corruption investigators dream come true. And yet we don't hear enough about it from members of Congress trying to reel him in.
- [21:57]
Ari Melber
Yeah, and it may be. Look, he remembers the blue wave. He remembers the second two years of his first term. He remembers losing badly and leaving the way he left. He remembers it all. No one can accuse Donald Trump of not having detailed memories of his shame, humiliation, and anyone who dared criticize him. It may be that we're watching someone who is grab, grab, grabbing, knowing that if they do lose the midterms, particularly the Senate, that the next two years might look very different on all of these issues. I'm running out of time because we have this other breaking story. Jason, great to see you.
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MSNBC Analyst
Thanks, Ori. Anytime.
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Ari Melber
Appreciate it. A big Story also rocking Washington. Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner is facing a new reported sexual assault allegation. This is from an incident that allegedly occurred in 2021. Politico reporting that 41 year old Maine resident Jenny Racicot stated that during the course of what was an on and off relationship, Platner entered her home uninvited and deeply intoxicated and that he forced himself on her and that she repeatedly told him to stop. Politico also interviewed another individual who corroborated the story. And the reporters say they reviewed documents and notes from the accuser's therapists. That can be important in piecing together a timeline because Politico reports that this allegation predates Platner's rise. Now as the nominee, Racicot was one of several women who previously spoke to the New York Times in a different article and at the time used the word unsettling to refer to some of Platner's behavior. We should note that he has denied these new allegations and released a video statement which you can see an excerpt of here. Any accusation of non consensual behavior is categorically false. So regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality it will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward. Platner referencing the best path forward there. As I mentioned at the top of the broadcast, this is a big important story. First, obviously for the alleged conduct and the impact on that individual. And second, as a Senate candidate, there is a deadline looming over whether Democrats would stick with him. If he drops out, what would happen? His name on the ballot in a race against Susan Collins. That's been seen as one of the keys to Democrats winning back the Senate. For all of those reasons, this is clearly a major story. I want to bring in New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, an Ms. Now analyst. Welcome, Michelle. Your view first on. Thank you. Your view first on where the allegations and the substance of this is with the Politico story not only advancing what was in the Times story, but including what are legally very serious, a very serious allegation against him.
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Michelle Goldberg
Well, look, the Politico story is utterly devastating. Her story is credible, it's multiply corroborated. And I think that Graham Platner needs to drop out. There's no, you know, there's kind of nothing ambiguous here. His campaign is completely non viable. There is one week left in which Democrats can legally swap out their Senate candidate. And this whole debacle is so shameful. For all of the people that Graham Platner encouraged to put their faith in, you know, all the people that Graham Platner asked told that they should believe in him because, you know, I was in Maine, I've interviewed Platner. He really did tap into this hunger among voters for a new kind of candidate. And people were willing to overlook some, you know, sort of some skeletons in the closet because they thought that there was something fundamentally good and decent and righteous here. And they climbed out on a limb for him all over the state and he had every reason to know that that limb was going be sawn off.
- [26:04]
Ari Melber
Yeah, the Democrats now, as I mentioned, have this deadline. Politically, Maine is a place where a lot of the Senate Democratic leaders viewed it as finally a potential flip with everything that people know about Susan Collins, someone who has claimed to be an independent, but on key issues time and again helped the MAGA agenda and the Supreme Court agenda. Where does that larger prism fit into all this?
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Michelle Goldberg
Well, I think that, I mean, you know, Maine voters, I think, you know, if all the polls are right, Maine voters do not want to reelect Susan Collins. But in order for them to not do that, they need a viable alternative. And it's still time, there's still time in Maine to give them that. Although, again, there is so much kind of blame and fault to go around. The people who recruited Platner reported failed to do much due diligence about him, you know, and sort of didn't do the normal sort of deep dive that you would usually do into a candidate to see what their vulnerabilities are. I also think some blame belongs to Chuck Schumer, who was so determined to clear the field for Janet Mills, the 78 year old governor of Maine, that he and Democrats in Washington encouraged other people not to get into the race who might have, you know, you never know if someone's gonna take off, but could potentially have spoken to this hunger among the electorate for new kinds of candidates. And it's just created an absolute debacle in a state that was in other ways a very favorable terrain for Democrats.
- [27:50]
Ari Melber
Yeah, interesting point there as well, because you're talking about something the Democrats have struggled with a lot, which is when they think they have an electable person, but they push so hard they're undermining the kind of actual grassroots democracy in the state. And in this case, as you say, the party's not, not pleased with the option it has as of tonight. Michelle Goldberg, thank you very much. We're going to finbray. We wanted to hit that big story. And when we come back, Andrew Weissman joins me as we look at the Trump pardons and more impact from Jack Smith warning about Trump in the midterms. We all live through July 4th. The President wanted to mark the 250th birthday with use of his presidential power to pardon. And he pardoned some criminal violators of laws that try to keep the air clean, as well as a major political donor, the Times reporting on that clemency power, undermining environmental laws and helping a political supporter who pleaded guilty in a fraud. This relates to other stories we covered tonight. The question about whether there's even a pretense of using these powers for the American public or reviewing cases in general and saying, hey, here's why this one should have been treated differently rather than just rewarding friends and allies or undercutting environmental laws. A prominent defense attorney has told the Atlantic that with intermediaries and other sort of cutouts for about $2 million these days, you can have a pardon. I'm joined by Andrew Weissman, former FBI general counsel and Mueller prosecutor. We wanted to hit this because corruption has almost sort of become the theme of the week. And there's no, like I said, pretense or defense or cover story even for some of these. It's America's birthday. It's he can do it, so he's going to do it. And is it alarming that pardons are, through a cutout and some euphemisms allegedly for sale?
- [29:58]
Andrew Weissman
So I think the pardon power is such a great example because you can sort of take off the table the legality, because the pardon power in the Constitution is really pretty absolute, with the only open issue being whether the president could pardon himself. So the issue for me is it just is so revelatory of who a president is, because you get to see what they care about. Do they have a process where the most deserving people are the ones who get this beneficence, this, this extraordinary ability to be outside of the legal system, or are you seeing it being used for violations of the Clean Air Act? And by the way, the president has said, oh, these are people who are just trying to get their cars working. No, that's not what was charged. That's not what was proved. These were people who deliberately, over and over again, sold ways to violate the Clean Air act by having kits that would be put into a car so that they would no longer be complying with those regulations. In other words, they'd be polluting in violation of the law. And this was a business that they ran. The complete contrast to, by the way, in prior administrations. I was part of the team that prosecuted the Volkswagen case, which was the antithesis of getting a pardon. They were prosecuted, but the President has also pardoned crypto cyber. The largest healthcare violator at the time, Philippa Farmis was pardoned politicians, fraudsters, and obviously people who are close to the President. Paul Manafort, Roger Stone. So if you want a sense of what a president cares about and who they think is deserving of this kind of largesse, you really can look at the pardons. And that's true for prior presidents as well. But there's nothing like what we have seen with President Trump in his first term and in his second term.
- [32:09]
Ari Melber
Yeah, Jack Smith famously prosecuted this president. He spoke out in his first journalistic interview, which was in demand by all the outlets, print, tv, and I mentioned it was a big deal. Nicole got that. And I think a lot of reviewers have seen maybe parts of it or if they watched the whole program that day last week. But I wanted to underscore what he said about, of course, the Jan6 parts because he was very much leading the effort. With Trump driven from office and seen at one point as unlikely to return, even Republicans, McConnell was talking about how maybe they should convict him. And then to go into this upside down landscape we have now where the worst of the worst, the seditionists, have been pardoned. Take a look.
- [32:54]
Jack Smith
Talk about the pardons of these people convicted for the violence on January 6th. Right. There's all sorts of costs. There's the obvious costs of just recidivism. These are people who committed their crimes in the name and in the interests of Donald Trump. And he's returned the favor. Right. By pardoning them. That sends one message to them.
- [33:16]
Ari Melber
There's actually a lot about that interview I wanted to ask you about. But on that core point, he's saying when you reward this stuff, you will get more of it. Meaning that it is a non conspiracy theory, non fringe concern that this could become a weaponized militia for future crime.
- [33:35]
Andrew Weissman
Absolutely. And you don't even need to get to the slush fund. The idea that these people not only would receive a pardon for engaging in criminality, criminality that in many cases included attacking police officers. I mean, just to be clear, we are not talking about sort of mild trespassing here. We all witnessed it. We are. If you just consider that just the pardons and not the fact that the President wanted to create a fund and still may, where they are financed. Just think of that and the president saying that the prosecution of those people was a grave national injustice. Those are the words of Donald Trump. They are also the same words that have been parroted by Todd Blanche, who has an upcoming confirmation hearing to be the head of the Justice Department. He's the acting head now, but we have somebody who will be installed if he is confirmed, who has described January 6th and what those people did after trial, after being given all due process, that this was a grave national injustice. To me, that is such as you said, sort of like the world put on its head.
- [34:55]
Ari Melber
Yeah. He also spoke very forthrightly about not being intimidated in this time. And you think about what we could take from the holiday we all just celebrated this weekend at a strange time for civic life. And I wanted to get your views on that. So we're going to play Jack Smith, his message to the public about why this is a time to bravely fight and not give in. With Andrew. When we come back,
- [35:24]
Jack Smith
I think we are facing an attack on the rule of law that is different in kind and scope to anything I've seen in my lifetime.
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Ari Melber
Jack Smith speaking out exclusively to Ms. Now is Nicole Wallace. Andrew Weissman's back with us. You know his record. Well, you've spoken to him, as I mentioned. You, you this was his sort of big television journalism interview, but you've also spoken with him in this era. So you have a keen sense of it. And I want to play, as promised, what he said about not being intimidated as well. Take a look.
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Michelle Goldberg
Are you afraid to be speaking out?
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Jack Smith
No, not at all. I'm not. I am not going to be intimidated. And there's no way in the world, if the thought was to go after me so that I wouldn't speak up about the corruption that's happening or speak up to defend these agents and prosecutors, that is a grave miscalculation. There is no way I'm going to be intimidated.
- [36:23]
Ari Melber
What does that mean for everyone who's got a find their own way to decide what to do in this country as we reflect on the best spirit of Independence Day.
- [36:35]
Andrew Weissman
So I think it's great that Jack is speaking out. I did interview him, but I've also known him for a while. We were colleagues in the U.S. attorney's office a lifetime ago in New York in the Brooklyn U.S. attorney's office. And I think one of the great things about his speaking, not just in university settings, but with Nicole in a television setting, is that for so long he was somebody who was known only through what Donald Trump and Donald Trump's acolytes were saying about him, and there wasn't the ability to get to know him as a person and to get a measure of the man. And so I think it's just so terrific that he is speaking. People make their own judgments about him. I do encourage people to listen to the entire interview. It was incredibly well done on Nicole's part. But I think it's to be fair. I mean, he is the subject of the interview, and he spoke, I think, in a way that it's very hard not to see his candor and his passion for the rule of law in this country. And so I think it was. It's just a very, I think, a smart choice.
- [37:57]
Jason Johnson
Yeah.
- [37:58]
Ari Melber
When we think about what is the rule of law in really good times, you don't have to think about it at all. You shouldn't have to. It's tested in crises. It's tested in panic. You know, most people, when they look back at the Nixon era or the McCarthy era, we have a kind of unity about it. I know JD Vance wanted to change that in the next example, but there's a kind of unity. Oh, right. The McCarthyism became conviction by accusation. That's bad. And we want to be more than that. And what we have now, a government that, like Putin's government, routinely investigates and when it can, even with very little evidence, tries to charge multiple members of the opposition party, journalists, others, critics. And so I want to play with that in mind. What he said about the future of the rule of law.
- [38:49]
Nicole Wallace
If you were.
- [38:50]
Michelle Goldberg
If you took the name of our country off it, and you were just examining the state of the rule of law in America, is it dead?
- [38:57]
Jack Smith
I don't think so at all. And for the reasons I said earlier, there are legions of career prosecutors, people just like me, you just don't know their name, who want to do the right thing. They're in the Justice Department. They want to serve. We have a lot of challenges in front of us, and the rehabilitation of the department is not going to be any mean feat. You know, recovering character is a lot harder than gaining it in the first place, but I think we're totally capable of doing that. I'm completely optimistic.
- [39:31]
Ari Melber
Andrew.
- [39:34]
Andrew Weissman
Well, you know, even in Watergate and the McCarthy era, it's worth remembering. It's now you look back on it and you think, oh, there became a unity. But there wasn't at the time. Those were very, very scary times. And democracy is not easy. And there are many people now watching this who know that they know it through what we're living through. They know it through things that they've lived through even before Donald Trump, the civil rights movement. It's true in other countries as well. In other words, you know, this is one where everything's not always handed to you on a silver platter and you are expected to have the courage of your convictions and to act in a way that's in accordance with your principles. And if there's anything that Donald Trump has taught us in the first term and in this term is that we see the ways in which the current rule of law can be not just eroded, but in many ways eradicated. And it is a call to action if that is something you care about. And you know it's not not going to be easy.
- [40:50]
Ari Melber
Yeah, all well put, which is why we wanted to get you on it, even as it's been a couple days since then. But the holiday a fitting time to reflect. Andrew, thank you. We'll be right back.
- [41:03]
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- [41:33]
Jack Smith
What's going on?
- [41:34]
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- [42:39]
Ari Melber
Update on the story we've been covering. Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner faces this new allegation of sexual assault. It comes from a woman on the record who dated him and says he forced her to have sex with him after her objections. Platner is facing growing calls to drop out of this Senate race. Senator Gallego and Congressman Khanna have withdrawn their endorsements, and the main Democratic Party, which of course is where he got the nomination through the primary voting, has now called on Platner to end the campaign. Under Maine law, Democrats can replace Platner on the ballot, meaning voters would get the name of a potential new candidate, but only if he were to withdraw as a nominee by July 13. It's an update on a story we have been tracking and we'll be right back.
- [43:27]
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- [43:42]
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- [44:14]
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- [44:48]
Ari Melber
Appreciate you spending some time and starting your week with us here at the Be with Ari Melberg. That does it for us.
- [44:54]
Mazda Advertiser
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