← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
Trump Ramps up Attacks on Elections
00:41:43
Former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb joins MS NOW’s Ari Melber on "The Beat" to discuss his concerns about Trump’s cognitive fitness. The White House has defended Trump’s health, and Trump has recently dismissed Cobb as a disgruntled former staffer whom he says he fired.
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Ari Melber
Hi. Welcome in.
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Ari Melber
Welcome to the Beat. I'm Ari Melber. We are ending the week with a whole range of news. Tonight, there's newly revealed video of one of Epstein's convicted associates, the most well known, Ghislaine Maxwell, in her new deposition. This is a story that continues to have twists and turns even as Donald Trump tried to end pictures and videos like this, subpoenas and depositions like this earlier last year. We have more on that later in the program. Our top story right now is Democrats sounding the alarm over exactly the things so many people are concerned about. President Trump returning to something he was already busted doing before, something he was memorably indicted for but never went to trial. His efforts to steal elections, to subvert American democracy and to expand power or end democracy potentially through election interference, voter suppression or outright stealing votes. There are different strands to this, different pieces to it. We are going to go through some of them. Remember, for those who say, oh well, how dispiriting, or it shouldn't be like this, or haven't we had enough fights over democracy to just agree that as a nation, we citizens, elites, businesses, journalists, will all stay committed to our democracy? Well, under Donald Trump, of course, the Republican party, big swaths of business community have not held that line. That's part of why we got here. And yet it is exposure, transparency, sunlight, pressure that defeated the last insurrection attempt. And it is pressure some Democrats are now putting on. Senator Warner saying this, it appears there may be a coordinated effort to try.
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Ty Cobb
To interfere in the 26 midterms. They may even start to interfere prior to in the primaries or in a state like mine.
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Ari Melber
The headline is reports that The Trump administration's multiple law enforcement arms are already prepping these coordinated discussions or calls about the midterms. And in a different era, with a different president, maybe that would not stoke concern about election stealing. But Donald Trump has admitted his desire for a third term and then walked it back. He's admitted that he wants to relitigate his loss in 2020, which is legally over and done. Obviously, the man who defeated him, former President Biden, already served that full term. That election was resolved. The conservative Supreme Court didn't even see a case worth hearing, let alone overturning anything. And yet he had FBI agents just this last week storming to collect ballots in all 50 states. Local election officials are hearing from the FBI about this so called conference call scheduled for later this month. The email obtained by msnow, is hosted by, quote, your election partners at FBI, DOJ and DHS discussing preparations for the midterms. Now, those agencies can do law enforcement. They can respond like the FBI normally does to specific reports, tips, claims that they investigate on a case by case basis. But the idea that this far out, this FBI, which has been completely compromised under Trump on everything from Epstein to revenge prosecutions, that this FBI is now ramping up to be involved or try to get intel info or partnership with local election authorities, is, according to many experts, unusual. And according to some law enforcement veterans, as well as officials on the ground and some of the senators you just heard from, suspicious. The DOJ's involvement also comes in the context of a federal judge ruling they cannot be trusted with voter roll data. That is a stinging rebuke from judges who don't usually put it that starkly. And there's the election scandal I mentioned, where you had an intelligence chief, Tulsi Gabbard, under Trump, who should be involved in international matters, joining the FBI in person to physically raid an election office in Georgia, taking ballots, data and other information. Trump is clearly concerned that he could lose the midterms. He's urged Republicans to pass a new law that could disenfranchise voters they think are against them. Meanwhile, one of his most controversial and powerful aides, the number two person in the White House, Stephen Miller, his wife, who's also very politically active, and of course, they both have every right to speak and use their First Amendment rights. She's of course a Trump ally, but she's talking about in public how maybe her husband's boss and someone she's advocated for can ignore the law or the Constitution.
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Gretchen Carlson
There is nothing I'd like to see more than the President Trump, Kamala Harris, rematch of 2028.
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Ari Melber
Only one of those people is eligible under law, under the Constitution to run again. Donald Trump cannot. And I mentioned First Amendment rights because you can say, gosh, I'd love to see a president back in office who's legally barred. There may be people who feel that way right now about a whole bunch of presidents they would prefer than the current one. So you can say, oh, wouldn't it be nice if Obama could run again, if that's your opinion, or if Trump could run again. I mentioned two people who've done two terms. But when you have people inside the White House also agitating to break the law, it's more concerning. Trump insists that he could also try to illegally nationalize elections.
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Gretchen Carlson
A president who continues to be absolutely lawless.
- [06:27]
Ari Melber
The Republicans should say, we want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least many 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. He's delegitimizing the process. He's undermining trust.
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Ty Cobb
We're going to have ice surround the polls come November.
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Ari Melber
What Donald Trump wants is a one party MAGA dictatorship.
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Ty Cobb
The federal government should get involved.
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Ari Melber
Our Constitution itself is at stake in this fight. What are we witnessing in plain sight? It's reminiscent of what we heard in the run up to January 6th. There was dismissive talk of, well, just deal with Donald Trump's unusual bluster and this will work itself out or this will fade. That was not true. Some people might have said that naively or hopefully. Others might have said it to try to buy time. And we know Trump has a lot of people around him that are enablers. The difference now is he is a lame duck running into the end of this term. This midterm election is the last time he would lawfully be in office during an election. As we go towards 28, any election, meddling or insurrection planning would be only lawfully around an election where he's not on the ballot. So there are some differences this time, but he has demonstrated a refusal to leave peacefully last time. And over at the Wall Street Journal, owned by a MAGA ally, Murdoch, they're writing that the call to nationalize elections is a mistake for Republicans. The Constitution gives Trump little power over the midterms. That could be a Republican wipeout. The mischief won't save him in November. The Journal making two related points. One, when you're behind an election and you tell the country, maybe I'll steal your vote, that's not usually a helpful message to rebound. And two, they seem optimistic that the law, the system, the local controlled elections will hold meaning if the people vote one way and they think it'll be against Republicans, that that will be carried out. The news tonight is that Donald Trump in message, in bluster, but also in tactical steps like going into voting offices, he's trying to have it the other way. Now, there are all sorts of people we could turn to on a story like this, I'm thrilled to tell you. Our leadoff guest is Ty Cobb, a former White House attorney during the first Trump administration who has great knowledge, also a background in federal law enforcement, understands what the president is doing, and has spoken out in favor of the baseline of democracy and the rule of law. Welcome back, Ty.
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Ty Cobb
Good to be with you, Ari. Thank you for inviting me.
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Ari Melber
Absolutely. We've had these discussions. As I mentioned, you are both a subject matter expert and an insider. And so I'm curious how you advise us to make sense of these disparate threads. As I mentioned, Steve Bannon might just be talking. He does that sometimes. And yet the government is also acting. How should we view it?
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Ty Cobb
Well, I think you have to remember that Steve Bannon is Trump's friend and pet felon when it comes to these stalking. He's the one that continuously talks about Trump seeking a third term. And now he's made plain, just as Trump is saying we need to nationalize the elections, Bannon has made plain how they intend to do that, which is to surround the polling places with ICE agents. I think that is their intention. It's up to the rest of us and the courts to try to see to it that that doesn't happen. As you pointed out, the federal government has no role in the elections. States alone control that prov. And when and when, you know, the FBI tries to arrange a 50 state call or meeting, and the message is your, your partners in elections, the FBI, doj, et cetera, et cetera. None of those entities have anything to do with elections. They're not partners. They want to be partners because they want to control it, but they're not partners.
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Ari Melber
Yeah. So important there because you're saying, well, we know there is bluster. You take that stuff very seriously. And that is more of an operational stalking horse than just a podcaster. The Justice Department is asking for these secret agreements to purge voter rolls. One of the experts on this NYU law is Brennan center, which, full disclosure, I worked there many years ago. But they're saying these agreements show the DOJ has asked the states to make these memos in connection with handing over full voter Files. The DOJ plans to conduct its analysis of the voter files. And then they, the Trump folks would, would try to say they have new powers to tell the states to remove specific voters. That's, again, against the backdrop of what we saw in Georgia. Here's some of that body cam footage from Georgia on the ballot raid. So did anybody get a physical copy of the search for him? No. When did they get here?
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Ty Cobb
About 12:30.
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Ari Melber
Just unannounced. Unannounced. I show that to give people the physicality in the first term. It wasn't until really after Trump lost in November that we saw anything like the physical range of activities that we're now seeing in the beginning of year two. Does that show, in your view, a decline of the guardrails, a problem for us? How do you view that?
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Ty Cobb
Well, I think there's so many issues raised by the Fulton county raid, it's almost impossible to do it in less than two and a half hours. But let's start with how the warrant was secured. Keep in mind, they shut out the Atlanta judges. They shut out the Atlanta U.S. attorney's office. They fired the special agent in charge of the FBI in Atlanta the week before, quite likely because he would refuse to do this. They got it from, you know, an election denying judge in Missouri with, with. From. With us, with a US Attorney who was Eric Schmidt's deputy when Eric Schmidt was the MAGA Attorney General of Missouri who's now running these election probes. All of that should make people, you know, very concerned. But, yes, you know, this is a vast expansion of what Trump was denied in 2020 when he tried to rewrite history and prevent the peaceful transfer of power. Keep in mind, he went 0 for 63 in election fraud cases in 2020. 0 for 63. And Rudy made all those claims that ultimately bankrupted Rudy that were lies, and we had nothing but lies. Bill Barr told them that he'd lost. Lindsey Graham told him that he lost. He's now going to try to prove to the world and gimmick up some, you know, thing that suggests that he actually won, which everybody knows is not real. And it's 2026.
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Gretchen Carlson
Let's.
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Ty Cobb
We have real problems in the world.
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Ari Melber
Yeah, we do. Let's slow down on the strategy because again, you worked in that White House. You're suggesting that he's already laying the groundwork so that he can say, oh, we actually won the midterms, not lost, is your view. That would be propaganda, which is already a problem and potentially illegal when you're doing it. Out of government resources or beyond propaganda, that then he would have a step two to try to actually change who is seated in Congress.
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Ty Cobb
Oh, yes, I think it's step two. I think he. I don't think he intends. You know, keep in mind that, you know, Donald Trump thrives, you know, when he can pretend to be all powerful and, you know, when he's got tools like Mike Johnson and others who refuse to honor their constitutional oaths and, and take the steps that are necessary to reel in an evil president, and he has no, no interest at all and no intention at all of letting that power go.
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Ari Melber
Yeah. We have an issue that we've discussed before, and that is when will anyone draw a line on the graft? Some of what Donald Trump has done in enriching himself would land any member of Congress in prison. There are members of both parties who've gone to prison for the proverbial stack of cash in the freezer, the gold bars. In times that are of working order, the presidency is partly not regulated the same way because, as you know, and I'll remind viewers, the founders basically thought that that was so unlikely, an anathema, that they did include bribery and emoluments in the Constitution as a last resort the Congress could deal with, but they didn't envision a president who would be constantly enriching themselves. This is not a side hustle. It's like a major part of the time they're spending. Here's a longtime Republican, I bet, you know, Ken Griffin, speaking out on this. And I think that this administration has definitely made missteps in choosing decisions or courses that have been very, very enriching to the families of those, the administration. And that calls into question is the public interest being served? Ty.
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Ty Cobb
So I think it's important to put very enriching in context. The New York Times reported last week that very enriching in the Trump family in the last year is $4 billion. $4 billion. We know that the bribe from the UAE was half a billion dollars in connection with which they received our most sensitive AI chips that the Biden administration had declined to provide because of concerns about, you know, Chinese acquiring our technology. Now they have that technology. I mean, so they are. They have access to it. So, you know, there's nothing that Trump won't do or sell, you know, to. To bring himself money. I mean, whether it's pardons or whether it's deals with foreign governments or their families. You know, I spent a career in the Foreign Corrupt Practices act area flying around the world. You know, managing bribery and corruption cases. I've never seen anything ever. I mean, I was in a case once where really $100 million bribe once, but I've never seen anything on the scale of half a billion dollars in, in these terms. It's, it's shocking. So when he says very enriched, I.
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Ari Melber
Just want to underscore you're, you have this FCPA experience again. In normal times, this is taken seriously. You're saying this is the biggest type of size of graft you've ever seen ever, ever.
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Ty Cobb
I mean, I, or read about or heard of now, I mean, Putin, you know, in terms of nationalizing industries and whatever, you know, financing is going to him and his family, you know, he may beat Trump. I'm sure if Trump believes that, he'll try to do even more because he wants to be number one.
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Ari Melber
Yeah. And again, this is just one of many things that get occluded these days. And the old playbook of if you imagine any other president, if you imagine, oh, what would they do with Obama if he was pocketing this kind of money? Right. You'd have whole committees, special counsel, impeachment, everything. Ty, you've agreed to stay with us here. And on Fridays, I like it. We get a little more time. I wanted to ask you both about the very serious rebukes of Donald Trump for blatant racism, a big story here and his mental state. And so I'm going to get into those issues with Ty when We're back in 90 seconds. We've been the trusted experts since 1960 because nobody knows tires better than we do. And with over 90 tire brands, we have an abundance of options in stock for your vehicle. Vehicle buy and Drive today@discounttire.com Let's get you taken care of, guys. It's no use putting it off.
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Ty Cobb
How a person of faith can vote for a Democrat.
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Ari Melber
I really don't. And I know we have some here today and I don't know why they're here.
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Ty Cobb
I had to win it.
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Ari Melber
Had to win it. I needed it for my own ego. I would have had a bad ego for the rest of the month.
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Ty Cobb
Scriptures always tell us that blessed are.
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Ari Melber
The pure in heart.
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Ty Cobb
I don't know if that applies to me necessarily.
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Ari Melber
I'm not so sure. Donald Trump, rambling, perhaps disinhibited, discussing that he doesn't have a good heart by his own admission there. I'm back with White House vet Ty Cobb. That raises again a recurring issue that you and others have spoken out about that foreign allies have discussed whether he is operating in a way that gives confidence and credibility to the United States or not. And that comes amidst a series of late night posts and other things that he's done, many in bad taste. The White House official account has posted these racist images they call memes about Keem Jeffries and others, but he took it up a whole nother notch in a post that was blatantly racist that we're not showing on air, but blatantly racist about the Obamas. It's since been deleted headlines which include Republicans saying that what Trump posted, which we're not showing was quote, the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House. Which means Tim Scott, a Republican apparently is aware of or tracks multiple racist things and says this is the worst. Boston Globe Trump's racist post about Obama's deleted after backlash. The White House had, they note, earlier defended it. Axios Republicans condemned appalling Obama video posted by Trump Ty, I raised both these issues for your response.
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Ty Cobb
Well, thank you Ari. I do think if we could start with the National Prayer Breakfast, the excerpts that you showed. A National Prayer Breakfast historically was a place where humility and love of country and love of fellow man and safety net and caring for each other was the theme. This time with Trump, it's all spectacle. It's self aggrandizement. It's talking about his own greatness, making up lies about his own greatness, ending however many wars and Bringing peace to places that are far from peaceful. And then you add on to that the meme, the racist meme today. It's not the first racist meme, as you may recall, that he's used with Obama. He had a meme of Obama being arrested on his knees in the Oval Office in July. So it's just, it's, it's stunning the way he has drained 250 years of dignity out of the office with acts like this.
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Ari Melber
And do you view this as all related, sort of, how he acts at night, whether he's able to lead?
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Ty Cobb
Oh, yes. I mean, you know, the, the late night memes, the, the late night screeds, the, you know, the lies that, you know, get out unmonitored because at that hour there's nobody, you know, even if, even if there was somebody he listened to, there's really nobody there to say. You might want to rethink this. Yeah, no, that's all related and it's all part of his cognitive decline. I mean, there's so many physicians and psychiatrists around the country and certainly around the world now have, you know, commented on the frontal lobe issues that he has. The, you know, the way that his dementia has aggravated his narcissistic personality disorder, which, you know, I mean, a sixth grader could diagnose if they had the DSM 5 in front of them. So, yeah, no, it's, it's, it is related. The White House tries to, you know, prevent him from being perceived as other than whimsical on these things, but he's not, I mean, it's, he's, he's, he's gone. And, you know, while these uncontrolled messages sometimes get in the way of the execution of the Stephen Miller, Stephen Vaught, you know, dismantling of democracy that's going on and they have to deal with them. You know, they, they, they, they achieve one of the goals in helping them do that, which is, you know, the terror that people live with every day that, you know, this, this man with serious cognitive decline has the nuclear codes.
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Ari Melber
Right? Yeah. I mean, that's the situation within all this. And you've worked with him, you know him personally, you're speaking as someone who's observed him in private and public settings, just as former President Biden was sort of assessed and reviewed in public by people who knew him or explained what they saw over time. And it's clearly a live issue. Ty Cobb, as always, thank you on more than one topic tonight. We appreciate it. I'll tell folks coming up There is pushback to ICE coming from around the country and culture. We have that by the end of the hour, the tech CEO is not only bowing to Trump, but sometimes trying to reshape the media. You see, even as citizens and employees take a stand. I have an important piece on that coming up. And the Monopoly man protesting in Washington. You know, we love getting a point across with a little bit of fun. Also, who hasn't grown up on Monopoly? We'll explain that. But first, the very serious topic and the new revelations that are rocking the Trump White House. They couldn't stop this. They couldn't get Republicans to stop. They couldn't even stop the files coming out. We're still going through the many millions of new ones. And now the new deposition from an Epstein convict. Next.
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Ari Melber
Hi. Welcome in.
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Ari Melber
We're tracking new footage tonight of this image. Here we are seeing something you don't usually see. The convicted Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell in another way that we have seen the law working late, delayed slowly as I've told you in our special reports and yet ultimately working now. What we're seeing is Epstein being discussed from a 2016 deposition. As far as I'm aware, a Professional.
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Ty Cobb
Masseuse showed up for a massage. There is nothing inappropriate or incorrect about that. And your mischaracterization of it, I think, is how many teenagers did he have.
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Ari Melber
That were professional masseuses that worked in his home?
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Ty Cobb
Objective form and foundation. Herman, first of all, I'm not aware of teenagers who worked in his home.
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Ari Melber
At that time. She was defending him. The DOJ had this material. And we have reported on how the new files show not only how Epstein built his web, but how often he was able to corrupt elite power centers, sometimes in both parties to evade the long arm of the law. Drawing on the new files and new evidence we've only just gotten in the last few days, let's look deeper at the timeline. In 2007, prosecutors internally said they had the goods, that they had enough material, evidence, testimony on Epstein for an actual sex trafficking case of not one or two, but actually a dozen teenage girls. And they wrote, and this is new that we've Learned this, a 56 page draft indictment. So back then, some inside government were ready to charge Epstein for that whole terrible alleged conspiracy. But here's what I want to show you tonight. And this is newly revealed. That was the draft indictment, but it was discarded. The Bush DOJ never allowed it to be filed. And that was the big case. Instead, the top prosecutor later a notorious name Trump official, Alex Acosta at the time, he let Epstein off the hook with that controversial secret deal and that meant just one year in prison for the lesser count of soliciting prostitution. Acosta and others have argued that this was basically the case they had, that these things are complicated. Well, it's taken all this time, but I can report for you tonight that now the new Epstein files release from Friday shows that's false, that there was a whole written draft indictment of the bigger case and they just discarded it. So what happened? Some prosecutors had that case written up, ready to go. We've now seen it. But their bosses, this later Trump ally Acosta, or perhaps bosses in Washington, discarded it. The DOJ since then, I should mention, has only indicted one person related to what's been documented as this sprawling conspiracy. And so I'm going to get into this because we are learning new things. For the first time, the new Friday files show the DOJ was eyeing other suspects. It's a mob style chart and the feds made this of Epstein's inner circle. So let's take a look at this right now as part of our special report. I just can tell you this is a rare view inside a normally secret Federal probe. You almost never see this type of thing before, during, or after a case. And the federal laws protect that. What's different here, of course, is Congress changed the laws for this particular mess of Epstein and the secrecy. So we have questions stoked here about why the feds under first Trump and then the Biden doj did not apparently pursue and indict most of these men or the others who knew or partook in what the government also calls a broad sex trafficking ring. Which is it? A giant sex trafficking ring with someone at the center and other men involved in crimes knowing and otherwise or not. And if it's not, then what were the feds doing with their chart and their leads? What are the feds doing? Who has gotten off the hook? And how is this pressure building in ways that have completely come out of control of elite institutions? We've seen people ousted, sidelined, even fired just in the last week. We turn to a very special guest who knows this world as well as reporting on the survivor's demands. Gretchen Carlson joins us next. With heat rising from these Epstein files releases that we're still going through. We're joined by Gretchen Carlson, a veteran journalist, advocate, and expert on these issues, co founder of Lift Our Voices. Welcome back.
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Gretchen Carlson
Hey, great to see you, Ari.
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Ari Melber
Great to have you. I showed some of the reporting we've done and to let audiences in on how it works. If you get 30 documents, you go through them, you get 100 documents, you might lean more on a print outlet's coverage and you go through them. When you get 3 million documents, everything then becomes this deluge. And I'll put our timeline back up. This was new reporting we've done, but also leaning on the documents and other materials where I showed before the break that draft sex trafficking indictment is newly detailed, although there were reports about how much they backed off. Then these new emails from Trump officials like Lutnick and Musk are revealed as of Friday, and we go on through that timeline. I wonder what you think about this overdue reckoning as people learn what's really in the files.
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Gretchen Carlson
Yeah, I think two things. I think that this was pre. Me too. And so I think that it was easy to pass this off, you know, much more so than it would be post metoo to be able to get away with that. So that's my first thought. My second thought is that this is affecting both sides of the aisle. And so there was a reason to try to quash it, no matter who was the president at that particular time.
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Ari Melber
It's such an important point you raised that while we don't need to only sift it politically, we are in a two party system where the DOJ and these powerful forces are usually under one of the parties. And to your point, Epstein cultivated both parties. He had a top Obama, Biden era lawyer, Kathy Rummler, which we reported on. He had outreach to others. Alan Dershowitz is a complex figure, but he did spend many decades sort of on the center left of law, of course, later representing Trump. And so again, to your point, when you look back at what he was doing 20 years ago, it was cultivating those figures, as well as Ken Starr, Alex Acosta and these others. As someone who's been at the intersection of law and journalism, does it bum you out? Is it depressing that he was, that it worked for so long? And what does that teach us about fixing it now?
- [34:09]
Gretchen Carlson
It teaches us that power rules and sex rules. I mean, unfortunately, when I read through these documents now as well, it's just, it's completely disheartening to know that sex has always ruled. Right. I mean, it doesn't matter what political party you're in. When somebody wants to treat you poorly, they don't ask you, are you a Republican, an Independent or a Democrat? I mean, we're finding that out when we look at this. And I think that honestly, the MeToo movement has changed all of this, because this would never have happened post 2016. He would not have gotten that sweetheart deal back in 2008. And no administration. Well, I shouldn't say that maybe some administrations, but for the most part, most administrations would not allow this to be covered up. I think one of the most important things, though, that we should be talking about tonight is that members of this House committee are going to get a chance to go in and see these unredacted files next week. And so much of the criticism since they started releasing this on a Friday, a week ago, was that they redacted a lot of names of these powerful potential men. Well, now you're going to have members of Congress who are going to be able to go in there and they're going to be able to see this and they're going to be able to come out and say what they saw. And they're also going to be having potentially public hearings. So I don't think this story is over, Ari. You know, I think that they tried to come out a week ago and say that, okay, we've released everything and that's it and nobody asks any more questions.
- [35:51]
Ari Melber
You know, what do you think? Yeah. Do you think as part of the oversight, Congress and the Democrats could do it themselves, should hold more hearings. I mean, they couldn't do the January 6th model. You can hold primetime hearings. You go through this, people sometimes forget that effective hearings, effective congressional oversight usually is built on a bunch of research. This was a research bonanza. It took years, it was overdue. But now there's more material than you normally have for any hearing.
- [36:17]
Gretchen Carlson
Yeah, well, the people that you show in your timeline, Congress has said that they're going to subpoena them for these hearings. So, I mean, one of those, one of the men committed suicide in a prison in France, but the other people who are there, they are going to subpoena them. Bill Clinton tonight, former president, has said, let's do this public hearing. Let's do it on camera. And so, you know, I think that this, as much as we tried to say that a week ago, or at least the Trump administration has tried to say that a week ago this was a document dump on a Friday afternoon. And, you know, let's be done with, with this and that he attacks female reporters who continue to ask him about this, legitimate questions about this. I think the story is far from over, Ari, because if they have these public hearings, these members of Congress will have seen these unredacted files and they're going to tell, I think they're going to tell the American public the truth.
- [37:15]
Ari Melber
Really striking. Gretchen, we've come to you on these stories before. Look forward to having you back. Made some important points tonight, I feel. Gretchen Carlson, thank you very much. We're going to finish a break. When we come back, the way that the Internet, the tech titans are now trying to control the journalism you see and what you can do about it. The most valuable companies in the world are tech companies. Largest share of the stock market there, those top 10 companies, most of them are tech, which has profound implications for our economy. But that's not where it stops. Some of the biggest tech companies aren't content to just be the biggest. They now want to buy up other things which are comparatively smaller. And that means they want to affect what you see even when you are off your proverbial phone. Take Jeff Bezos, who of course has massive power with Amazon and his space company. He also bought the newspaper the Washington Post and this week completely gutted it. Amazon spending $75 million for that Melania film while he's fired a third of the staff. A top executive editor there who worked with Bezos slamming the layoffs as part of the Trump cave. Critics Also say the new maga, owner of cbs, the Ellisons, backed by David Ellison and his father, are trying to appease Trump with their coverage and also get more power and get involved in more deals by giving Trump the coverage he wants. Now, there's been a lot of talk about who's going to get a hold of Warner Brothers, an empire that can include CNN or not, depending on how they do the deal. Larry Ellison and his son David Ellison, the Trump allies, are also pursuing that. They're competing against the lead bidder, which is basically Netflix, that has put up $83 billion. You think about what these tech companies have, 83 billion to get the whole empire. That deal, if approved, would then spin out CNN separately and create a kind of entertainment Goliath, combining Netflix with Warner, their library, HBO and so on. Now all of this gets regulatory review in more than one country. A Netflix CEO was testifying in Washington just this week about the merger. There was this demonstrator we mentioned, the Monopoly man there, trying to use that favorite video board game, excuse me, that great favorite board game, to protest this kind of monopoly power. Lawmakers, indeed from both parties pressed Netflix about any dealings with Trump. The CEO saying he believed politics wouldn't influence whether the Trump administration blessed the purchase. Now, all of this is a big deal in Hollywood as well as in journalism for the reasons I mentioned. And we have just heard from Hollywood power player Ari Emanuel about a whole bunch of things. We talked to him about his podcast, but he also said something you're going to see on TV for the first time tonight, making a little news when we asked about this potential merger, which could reshape everything from movies, entertainments to podcasts to journalism. Ari, there is so much interest and controversy around the media consolidation, media mergers. You're also, of course, a player in the space in many ways. Do you think there is a concern about Monopoly or concentration when you look at a Netflix, Warner or whoever gets it? How do you view this from the standpoint of the artists and the creators and people you work with, as well as what might be good, if we can say that, good for the creative community? Well, from my perspective, you know, I'm in business with all of them. I would like to have a kind of robust marketplace as a representative. So I think there's going to be issues surrounding, in Europe and in the United States with market share on the Netflix bid. And so I think those are the issues. Price and market share are the issues, one for the government and two for the shareholders. And you're going to see if Netflix changes its bid and moves off the stock price of Netflix, which is now below the the collar, which then will move up the process probably till February, March, that those are the two considerations and we'll see what happens. I have a great relationship with people at Netflix. I have a great relationship with David Zaslav and with David Allison. But I think people are underestimating Europe and market share and regs for approval processes. So we'll see. I want a more robust. I want more bidders in the market. There is a lot going on. There are many issues with the Trump administration. But we have begun this year with a clear national clash over ice. Donald Trump's immigration seeing its highest opposition ever in his two terms in office because ICE has mass agents patrolling the streets. Federal agents have now killed two Americans, menaced and hurt others. And the movement built around this is bipartisan and broad and growing. There's an American paradox here, though, because while one side maga, which did win an election on some of these issues and has gone even farther, not only with these ICE patrolling, but a kind of anti immigrant, anti Latin agenda, they're pretty open about it. We discussed racism early in the broadcast is up against what is also now the clearly the year of Bad Bunny. An American pop star who sings in Spanish, who won the top Grammy. You can get album of the year, first time a Spanish language album has ever won that award, who was also tapped for something so big, I don't have to explain why the largest stage in the country, the super bowl halftime show and the Puerto Rican star tops the charts. All of this has angered Donald Trump and his allies. Their desire to control everything, including culture, is running up against the fact that they are being rejected not just by, you know, the cool young hip kids who like Bad Bunny, but by all the people who run the NFL and major companies and super bowl halftime show. And what's more American than the NFL? Commissioner Goodell continues to tout the performance expected this Sunday. And the Grammy wins by the artist, which again shows another type of embrace. A Grammys that had a lot of different diverse people saying, hey, whatever, your politics are fine, but let's not have ICE agents killing people. That's well beyond political differences. Goodell says this is now a time for unity, not division. Bad Benny was, is and I think that was demonstrated last night. One of the great artists in the world, and that's one of the reasons we chose him. This platform is used to unite people and to be able to bring people together. I think Bad Bunny understands it. And I think he'll have a great performance. There you have it. And he's not some liberal crusader, to state the obvious. I want to mention what Bad Bunny said from the stage, accepting that award because he dedicated it to a very American idea, being a nation of immigrants. And he shouted out, and I'm quoting, all the people that had to leave their homeland to follow their dreams. And a tribute for all the people, he said, who have lost a loved one and even so have had to continue with great strength. This award, he told them, is for you. Again, that's not about politics, it's about humanity. It's about coming together. And we will all be watching to see how he uses this next great stage.
- [45:26]
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