In ironic twist, Epstein files apparently cost Bondi her job even as she shielded Epstein associates

Summary

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The Briefing with Jen Psaki

Episode Theme:
Pam Bondi’s Firing: The Epstein Files, Trump Administration Loyalty, and the Unraveling of Justice
Release Date: April 3, 2026
Host: Jen Psaki (MS NOW)
Major Contributors: Ali Velshi, Jesse Watters, Ben Rhodes, Rep. Ro Khanna, Rep. Joe Neguse, Sen. Chris Van Hollen

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Overview

This episode explores the stunning fall of Attorney General Pam Bondi following her controversial handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, situating her ouster amid Donald Trump’s latest Cabinet loyalty purge. The panel breaks down how the Epstein scandal spiraled out of the administration’s control, the impossible “loyalty trap” of serving Trump, and the compounding ethical and legal crises now facing the Justice Department, all while tying in Trump’s deepening war in Iran and its political fallout.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Pam Bondi’s Downfall: Epstein Files and Failed Deflections

(00:50 – 08:00)

• Bondi's dismissal: Trump officially removed Pam Bondi as Attorney General, citing both fallout from the Epstein scandal and her perceived loyalty failures.

• Memorable congressional testimony: Bondi infamously evaded congressional questions about prosecuting Epstein’s associates by pivoting to unrelated economic bragging:

  • Pam Bondi at Congress (01:27):
    “This administration released over 3 million pages of documents... Donald Trump signed that law to release all of those documents. He is the most transparent president in the nation's history... The Dow right now is over $50,000. I don't know why you're laughing.”
    • This absurd deflection spawned a viral meme and countless remixes online.
    • Ali Velshi (02:11):
      “Pam Bondi's attempt to Dodge questions about Epstein by screaming about the stock market immediately turned her into a laughing stock.”

• Bondi’s credibility collapse: Early in Trump’s second term, she dangled the Epstein client list to the MAGA base (“It's sitting on my desk right now to review,” 04:19). Months later, she walked it back, claiming no such list existed—“a self-inflicted wound that never healed.”

• Why Trump pulled the plug: Bondi’s inability to both shield the administration (and Trump himself, whose name appeared in the files) and satisfy the demand for transparency alienated all stakeholders, leaving her “useless to Donald Trump.”

2. The “Loyalty Trap” in Trump’s Cabinet

(06:37–09:22)

• Trump’s pattern: Cabinet officials firing for either not being loyal enough (first term) or for embarrassing failures while executing extreme loyalty (second term).
• Comparison to other Trump loyalists: The episode draws parallels to Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino, who became “cartoon villains” by overzealously implementing Trump’s demands, ultimately making themselves expendable.
• Ali Velshi (07:57):
  “Their zealous loyalty to Trump's agenda is what made them less useful to Trump and more expendable.”
• Tulsi Gabbard’s similar predicament as DNI, potentially facing dismissal for embarrassing loyalty.

3. Todd Blanche: The New Acting Attorney General

(09:22–10:48)

• Trump’s personal lawyers run DOJ: Bondi’s replacement, Todd Blanche, is another Trump loyalist—formerly Trump’s private defense attorney—who openly admitted his ongoing attorney-client relationship with Trump while leading the DOJ:
  • Todd Blanche (09:42):
    “My attorney client relationship with President Trump remains yes.”
• Blanche’s tangled interests: He too faces the same contradictions as Bondi, unable to credibly investigate Epstein or persecute Trump’s enemies without a conflict of interest.
• Controversial Ghislaine Maxwell prison interview: Blanche’s questioning of Maxwell before her transfer to a comfortable prison further undermines institutional credibility.

4. Cover-ups and Chaos: The Fate of the Epstein Files

(10:48–14:17)

• Structural DOJ compromise: The show notes President Trump’s practice of appointing loyal attorneys to the DOJ fundamentally undermines public trust.
• Rep. Ro Khanna (11:28): “It's all about the Epstein files and the cover-up… Pam Bondi said there were no more files… it turned out that some of the most rich and powerful people, not just in the US but around the world, were in these files with serious accusations. She fought tooth and nail not to release these files and then she insulted Congress instead of complying with the law.”
• Demands for full release/prosecution: Ro Khanna and others insist the next Attorney General must fully disclose Epstein files and investigate, or meet Bondi’s fate.

5. Impending Impeachment and Congressional Response

(15:10–17:53)

• Trump allegedly seeks an AG who can shield him from further impeachment as his war in Iran and various scandals deepen.
• Ro Khanna (15:45):
  “Absolutely. He should be impeached now. I mean, he's taken us into a disastrous war, threatening war crimes in Iran… The Democrats will impeach him once we take back the House and should impeach him for all the things he's done.”
• Khanna suggests only the Epstein issue has truly unified Trump voters and Democrats alike in calling for transparency.

6. The AG Shortlist: Extreme Loyalty, No Independence

(19:48–21:33)

• Candidates rumored for permanent AG include hyper-partisans Lee Zeldin, Jeanine Pirro, Eric Schmidt, and Trump lawyer Alina Habba—each praised for their “unyielding devotion to Donald Trump.”
• Eric Schmidt (21:11):
  “We will not fall to Rogue judges. We will not fall to people trying to be political when they should just be doing their job, respecting the president.”
• Rep. Joe Neguse (21:59): “The connective tissue with each of those individuals... is really the unbridled fealty and loyalty to President Trump.”
• Neguse frames Bondi as historically unqualified and corrupt, invokes Watergate, and urges the Senate to block nomination of another “MAGA sycophant.”

7. DOJ Corruption and Systemic Breakdown

(24:41–26:37)

• Congressional hearings: Neguse references recent hearings exposing Bondi and Noem’s corruption and the DOJ’s hollowing under Trump appointees, including abolition of key anti-corruption and crypto enforcement units.
• Neguse (25:03): “Corruption has become the rule, unfortunately, tragically, in our nation's capital rather than the exception, and that is by design of this president and the sycophants that he's put into his Cabinet.”

8. Trump’s Iran War: Civilian Targets, Escalation, and Public Backlash

(29:05–38:36)

• Possible war crimes: Trump allegedly posted video evidence of a US strike on a major Iranian civilian bridge; the administration claims military necessity, but may have violated laws of war.
• Ben Rhodes (32:17): “When he threatens to blow up energy and electricity generation, that is a war crime… And it shows that he has no strategy.”
• No coherent plan: Rhodes and Velshi highlight the administration’s lack of strategy and reliance on false justifications—inflating a non-existent Iranian nuclear missile threat—while US gas prices and global instability soar.
• Ben Rhodes (36:22): “There were nowhere near having a ballistic missile that could hit the United States… He’s looking and groping for these… shifting justifications so he can claim some victory. But there is no victory to be won here because there’s no point to this war.”

9. Domestic Consequences: War Funding and Cutbacks at Home

(39:27–44:56)

• Trump ties war funding to domestic program cuts: In a leaked stream, Trump declares,
  • “We can't take care of daycare… We have to take care of one thing, military protection.” (39:27)
• Sen. Chris Van Hollen (40:37): “He is, along with Prime Minister Netanyahu, started a foreign war. Prices are going up. And now he says, well, we've got to pay for this war in Iran by cutting back on federal investments... So at the end of the day, he is screwing the American people and doing exactly what he said he was going to avoid.”
• War costs & backlash: With war costs spiraling ($65–$200 billion), bipartisan frustration grows, especially as Trump justifies the war by imaginary threats (“we're not going to have a country throwing a nuclear weapon at us in six months” – 43:01).
  • Van Hollen (43:35): “It was a complete and total lie, Ali... This war should never have started. We should end it now. Donald Trump is talking about asking for another $200 billion. And I can tell you, Ali, I won't vote for one more dime for this illegal war of choice.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Pam Bondi’s viral defense:
  • (01:27) “The Dow right now is over $50,000. I don't know why you're laughing.” – Pam Bondi
  • (02:14) “That's why she couldn't prosecute any of the co-conspirators in Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking crimes, because the Dow was just too damn high.” – Ali Velshi
• On the loyalty paradox:
  • (07:57) “Their zealous loyalty to Trump’s agenda is what made them less useful… and more expendable.” – Ali Velshi
• On DOJ’s deep compromise:
  • (10:48) “The problem here has never been about Pam Bondi. The Justice Department itself has been structurally compromised by a pattern of appointing the President's personal lawyers to lead it.” – Jesse Watters
• War & cost comments:
  • (43:01) “[Gas is] $4? Yeah. And we have a country that's not going to be throwing a nuclear weapon at us in six months.” – Donald Trump
  • (44:56) “I can tell you, Ali, I won't vote for one more dime for this illegal war of choice.” – Sen. Chris Van Hollen

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:27 | Pam Bondi’s congressional testimony & viral Dow comment | | 04:09–04:23 | Bondi suggests she has the Epstein client list; later walks it back | | 07:57 | The “loyalty trap” and comparisons to other Trump officials | | 09:42 | Todd Blanche confirms ongoing attorney-client relationship with Trump| | 11:28 | Ro Khanna on Congress forcing release of Epstein files | | 14:17 | Congressional scrutiny of Bondi’s actions/redactions | | 15:45 | Ro Khanna: “He should be impeached now…” | | 19:48 | Shortlist for new AG—pure Trump loyalists | | 21:59 | Joe Neguse on the Senate’s responsibility for AG confirmation | | 25:03 | DOJ collapse, corruption, dismantling Public Integrity Section | | 29:05 | Trump posts potential war crime footage; panel with Ben Rhodes | | 36:22 | Trump’s shifting Iran war justifications—“a complete fabrication” | | 39:27 | Trump on sacrificing daycare for military spending | | 43:35 | Van Hollen: “It was a complete and total lie, Ali.” |

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Conclusions & Big Takeaways

• Pam Bondi’s firing is an emblem: Her attempt to shield Trump and downplay the Epstein files while maintaining loyalty exemplifies both the dysfunction and the escalating demands placed on Trump’s appointees.
• The Epstein scandal won’t disappear: Public and bipartisan demands for transparency and justice over Epstein are uniquely undermining Trump’s base and Cabinet.
• “Loyalty trap”: In today’s Trump administration, being “too loyal” can paradoxically result in ouster for both incompetence and embarrassment.
• Justice Department credibility crisis: The pattern of appointing personal loyalists—rather than independent leaders—has hollowed out trust and enabled cover-ups.
• Iran war heightens chaos: Trump’s war is increasingly seen as unjustified, ruinously expensive, and now threatens domestic spending, fueling bipartisan anger.
• Surging political fallout: The intertwining Epstein, DOJ, and Iran crises have fueled impeachment talk and left the administration facing widespread institutional breakdown.

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For listeners seeking trenchant political analysis, this episode delivers biting wit, sharp institutional critique, and deep context on the intertwining crises rattling the Trump administration.

Transcript

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[Ali Velshi]

And of course, as you've been hearing, if you've been watching TV this evening, it's official. Pam Bondi is out as Attorney General. Trump announced today that she'll be transitioning

[Jesse Watters]

to a new job in the private sector.

[Ali Velshi]

In other words, she's been canned. And there were a lot of reasons to fire Pam Bondi.

[Jesse Watters]

There were plenty of moments from her

[Ali Velshi]

ignominious career tenure as Attorney General that you could choose from.

[Jesse Watters]

But there was one moment that I

[Ali Velshi]

couldn't stop thinking about.

[Jesse Watters]

Today happened back in February when Bondi

[Ali Velshi]

was asked in Congress why she had

[Jesse Watters]

not prosecuted any of Jeffrey Epstein's co conspirators.

[Ali Velshi]

And, and she said this.

[Pam Bondi]

This administration released over 3 million pages of documents. Over 3 million. And Donald Trump signed that law to release all of those documents. He is the most transparent president in the nation's history. And none of them, none of them ask Merrick Garland. Over the last four years, one word of about Jeffrey Epstein. How ironic is that? You know why? Because Donald Trump, the Dow, the Dow right now is over. The dow is over $50,000. I don't know why you're laughing.

[Ali Velshi]

Yeah, that, that Dow was in her burn book. She needed to get that comment out.

[Jesse Watters]

The dow is over 50,000.

[Ali Velshi]

That's why she couldn't prosecute any of the co conspirators in Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking crimes because the Dow was just too damn high. Ironically, the Dow Jones Industrial average dropped below 50,000 points the following day and never broke that threshold again. It's currently down about 3,600 points from that high point thanks to Trump's war of choice in Iran. But I digress. Pam Bondi's attempt to Dodge questions about Epstein by screaming about the stock market immediately turned her into a laughing stock.

[Jesse Watters]

That moment spawned a thousand memes across

[Ali Velshi]

the Internet, all mocking the absurdity of Bondi's failed attempt to change the subject. It even got its own viral remix.

[Ben Rhodes]

How many of Epstein's co conspirators have you indicted? How many perpetrators are you? Even the Dow.

[Pam Bondi]

The Dow right now is over 50,000. I don't know why you're laughing. That's what we should be talking about.

[Ben Rhodes]

The Dow.

[Pam Bondi]

The Dow right now as a key and on the seventh House. The American people need to know this, need to know how it's been down.

[Monday.com Announcer]

Let me address the survivors because that's

[Pam Bondi]

how it's been down.

[Jesse Watters]

Pretty catchy, right?

[Ali Velshi]

And the absurdity of that moment became a perfect encapsulation of the impossible situation

[Jesse Watters]

that Pam Bondi found herself in. Trump hated the Epstein files were getting

[Ali Velshi]

so much attention, he called the whole thing a hoax.

[Jesse Watters]

He wanted it just to go away. So Bondi was trying to downplay the issue out of loyalty to Donald Trump. The problem was that she had already lost all credibility on the issue because at the start of Donald Trump's second term, Bondi teased the MAGA base by telling them that she had obtained a list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients.

[Senator Chris Van Hollen]

One of the things that you alluded

[Jesse Watters]

to, and this is something Donald Trump has talked about, the DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients.

[Ali Velshi]

Will that really happen?

[Pam Bondi]

It's sitting on my desk right now to review.

[Ali Velshi]

It's sitting on my desk right now to review. Then five months later, Bondi walked that

[Jesse Watters]

statement back saying that actually there was

[Ali Velshi]

no Epstein client list and no files would be released. That self inflicted wound never healed.

[Jesse Watters]

We later learned from the Wall Street Journal that Bondi had already informed the

[Ali Velshi]

President that his name was all over the Epstein files. And it was right around that time

[Jesse Watters]

that Trump started publicly referring to the whole Epstein issue as a hoax. Now by that time, Bondi was already facing backlash from a skeptical MAGA base and she was running out of options. She couldn't release files that might implicate her boss. She couldn't credibly cover it up, and she couldn't satisfy a political base that demanded transparency. And so the Epstein files scandal spiraled out of the administration's control. The public outcry was so overwhelming, Trump was effectively forced to sign a law mandating the release of the files. That's not what she called Donald Trump

[Ali Velshi]

being the most transparent president ever.

[Jesse Watters]

He was forced to do that. Pam Bondi was forced to, at least to pretend that she was complying with that order, even as her office delayed the release of the files, and then got caught over and over again, holding back key documents that should have been released, including documents containing stunning, though unsubstantiated accusations that Donald Trump sexually assaulted a minority. And while the Epstein files were clearly a big part of why Trump became frustrated with Pam Bondi, they were not the only reason. Trump publicly demanded that Bondi bring baseless charges against his rivals, and Bondi dutifully complied. Her Justice Department tried to bring charges against the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, against Senator Adam Schiff, against the former FBI director, James Comey, against the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell. But one by one, those prosecutions fell apart under the weight of their own stupidity. Judges and grand jury saw how weak

[Ali Velshi]

the cases actually were and recognized the political motives behind them.

[Jesse Watters]

Bondi's failure to prosecute Trump's enemies and her failure to make the Epstein files go away all made her the victim of a new Trump era phenomenon. She was fired for being too loyal to the president. Because, you see, in Donald Trump's first term, he fired or effectively pushed out all sorts of people, including two attorneys general, when he deemed them to be insufficiently loyal. And so in Trump's second term, all of his Cabinet members have worked overtime. I don't know if you've ever watched

[Ali Velshi]

one of these Cabinet meetings. It's fascinating.

[Jesse Watters]

They've worked overtime to prove their loyalty by trying to carry out whatever Trump wants, no matter how absurd or how outrageous or how illegal. But in the case of Pam Bondi, her effort to remain loyal at any cost destroyed what little credibility she did have, which made her so ineffective that she was eventually useless to Donald Trump. In many ways, it's similar to what happened with Trump's Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, or the Border Patrol Commander, Greg Bovino, both of whom tried to prove their loyalty by aggressively carrying out Donald Trump's cruel deportation agenda at any cost. But in doing so, they became cartoon villains, ridiculed by late night comics and in viral memes. Ultimately, their zealous loyalty to Trump's agenda

[Ali Velshi]

is what made them less useful to

[Jesse Watters]

Trump and more expendable. We've seen the same thing from Trump's Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who's embarrassed herself through her efforts to prove Donald Trump's baseless election lies. For from 2020, we're still litigating that. And by abandoning her opposition to war with Iran in order to serve Donald Trump's interests. The Guardian reported today that Trump is polling his advisors about whether Gabbard should be fired as well. That's according to two people who are familiar with those discussions. And just before we came on the air, the Atlantic reported that Trump is considering firing a spate of other officials, including loyalists like FBI Director Kash Patel and the labor leader Laurie Chavez Durmer. That's according to several people familiar with the matter. So what exactly is happening here? Absolute loyalty was supposed to be the thing that prevented Donald Trump's officials from getting fired, but it's become something of a trap. And that's not a problem just for Trump's Cabinet. It's a problem for Trump himself. Trump has done nothing to solve his Epstein problems by firing Pam Bondi. And while his personal vendettas have corrupted the do, he hasn't actually gotten closer to actually locking any of his political enemies up. The person who will now succeed Pam Bondi as acting Attorney General is her deputy, Todd Blanche. Now, Todd Blanche is interesting.

[Ali Velshi]

Like Bondi, Blanche is a Trump loyalist.

[Jesse Watters]

He was Donald Trump's personal attorney who defended Trump in his criminal cases.

[Ali Velshi]

And Blanche has made it clear that

[Jesse Watters]

even though he now works for the

[Ali Velshi]

Justice Department, he, he still thinks of himself as Trump's personal attorney.

[Thumbtack Announcer]

Are you still Donald Trump's lawyer?

[Todd Blanche]

I mean, yes. My attorney client relationship with President Trump remains yes.

[Jesse Watters]

Todd Blanche is just as committed to

[Ali Velshi]

protecting Donald Trump as Pam Bondi was.

[Jesse Watters]

He also has the same credibility problem

[Ali Velshi]

when it comes to the Epstein case.

[Jesse Watters]

Todd Blanche is the guy who interviewed

[Ali Velshi]

Epstein co conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell for hours just before she got transferred to a cushy prison camp with puppies and reality TV stars. And given Blanche's attorney client relationship with the sitting president, his public comments about Epstein's possible co conspirators are questionable, to say the least.

[Jesse Watters]

Is the public going to learn the identities of the men who abused the girls?

[Todd Blanche]

Is the public going to learn about men that abused these girls? What does that mean? I don't understand what that means. As you know, it is not a crime to party with Mr. Epstein.

[Ali Velshi]

Todd Blanche has all the same problems

[Jesse Watters]

that Pam Bondi had.

[Ali Velshi]

He can't release files that embarrass his boss and client. He can't withhold them without political blowback.

[Jesse Watters]

The problem here has never been about Pam Bondi. The Justice Department itself has been structurally compromised by a pattern of appointing the

[Ali Velshi]

President's personal lawyers to lead it.

[Jesse Watters]

And someone should let Donald Trump know that no amount of personnel changes at the top are going to stop the

[Ali Velshi]

public's demand for answers. Joining me now is a Democratic congressman and member of the House Oversight Committee, Ro Khanna. Congressman, good to see you. Thank you for being with us.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Good to see you tonight.

[Ali Velshi]

Ali, let's try and make sense of this. How much of this has to do with the Epstein files? Because the more it's got to do with the Epstein files, the more this problem doesn't go away. By firing Pam Bondi, it's all about

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

the Epstein files and the COVID up. It shows that Congress doesn't have to be a doormat. I mean, Thomas Massie and I basically forced Donald Trump to fire his own Attorney General and forced the release of 3 million files. But we know from Susie Wiles that Trump has been upset about this whole thing since the winter. Pam Bondi said that there were no more files to be seen. She basically lied. And then it turned out that some of the most rich and powerful people, not just in the United States but around the world were in these files with serious accusations of raping and abusing young girls. She fought tooth and nail not to release these files and then she insulted Congress instead of complying with the law. And this is a fate. And what this should give us confidence for is the Senate needs to demand that the next Attorney General release the remaining files and have the prosecutions and investigations that these survivors deserve.

[Ali Velshi]

The incoming Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was asked about the Epstein files tonight on Fox. Let's listen to what he had to say.

[Jesse Watters]

Now, the Epstein files, you'd agree, not handled well.

[Todd Blanche]

And I don't. First of all, I have never heard President Trump say that the Attorney General was that anything that happened to her had anything to do with the Epstein files. And so look, the Epstein files has been a saga that's lasted for the entirefor the past year. And what happened when the President signed the Transparency act is Department of justice has now released all the files with respect to the Epstein saga.

[Ali Velshi]

He said a lot in one answer. The Department of Justice has released all the files related to the Epstein saga. You're closer to this issue than I am. I don't believe that to be true.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Well, they haven't released half the files even by his own admissions. But when you have Jesse Waters at Fox News saying it hasn't been handled well, you know it hasn't been handled well. And that's the problem, that Trump's own base has turned on him, that Trump's own base sees him as protecting pedophiles. And we know that Susie Walls interviewed with the Vanity Fair saying that Pam Bondi whiffed and totally botched this. Here's the problem for the next attorney general. They're going to be asked questions under oath under the Senate confirmation. They're going to be asked, are you going to release the rest of the files? Are you going to investigate the rich and powerful people like Les Wexner and Leon Black and others who have very serious allegations of abuse? Are you going prosecute where it's appropriate? And ordinarily, you can say what you need to say to the senators and then turn around and do something else. But if the next attorney general does that, they will face the same fate as Pam Bondi, because the American people expect the release of these files and prosecutions. And the next attorney general should learn the lesson of Pam Bondi and actually do that.

[Ali Velshi]

What about Comer now suggesting that because she's not the Attorney general, that you don't need to continue to investigate what she has said and done?

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Isn't that rich from a guy who chased down Hillary Clinton to be deposed? I mean, certainly Pam Bondi has far more to offer this investigation than Hillary Clinton ever did. I've been in touch with Nancy Mace. There are Republicans who are still going to want Pam Bondi to come in. She has a lot to answer for. Why did she cover up so many of the documents? Why are they redactions of the men who actually abused these girls? Why has there not been a single investigation that has come out of these files? Why is she not meeting with survivors who are telling you which people raped them or abused them and should be investigated? So she should absolutely come, and she's frankly freer to tell the truth.

[Ali Velshi]

Let me ask you about Donald Trump has said we have recordings of him saying that Republicans have to pay pass the SAVE act or the Save America act, because without it, there's no way they'll win the midterms. And if they don't win the midterms, they'll impeach Donald Trump again. So part of what Donald Trump needs out of his attorney general is some shield, some. Some protection from impeachment. I'm not quite sure mechanically how that actually works, but if Democrats win the House and possibly the Senate in November, there's a better than even chance Donald Trump gets impeached again.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Absolutely. He should be impeached now. I mean, he's taken us into a disastrous war, threatening war crimes in Iran in terms of knocking out plants and knocking out Electricity. And the Democrats will impeach him once we take back the House and should impeach him for all the things he's done. And depending on the Senate, he may face conviction if we get to 60, especially if his numbers keep going down. And the Epstein issue continues to be a vulnerability. So he understands that he's facing perhaps the beginning of the end of his presidency and people are starting to look beyond it. And it's an administration in chaos. Kristi Noem gone. Pam Bondi gone, as you reported. Tulsi Gabbard in trouble. Hegseth in trouble. We know that they are cracking and finally the American people are turning on them.

[Ali Velshi]

However, if Donald Trump needs a loyalist because he's got to either be protected from impeachment or he wants. He didn't think Pam Bondi was sufficient in going against his, his what he deems to be his political opponents. What can Americans expect? Is there any hope that you have that the incoming, the next Attorney general, whether it's Todd Blanche or not, he may just be there in an acting role. Is going to be better for, for the pursuit of justice in America?

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

No. I mean, look, I mean, they work for Donald Trump. So the idea of justice taking place under Trump's direction, I don't have that much high hopes, especially given that what he's shown in terms of retribution, going after my colleague Eric Swalwell, because Eric Swalwell is doing well in the governor's race, going after people like Adam Schiff, I mean, they've turned the Justice Department into a political football. But the one issue we have where we have actually worked with Trump voters is Epstein, because even the Trump voters are not giving Trump or the Justice Department a pass on Epstein. And that is why we need to continue to hammer that issue. And Trump knows that he can appoint a loyalist to make that go away. Cuz his own base is saying that's not acceptable.

[Ali Velshi]

Congressman, good to have you here tonight. Thanks for taking time for us. Congressman Ro Khanna is a Democrat of California. He's a member of the House Oversight Committee. All right, coming up, we now have a short list of the people that Donald Trump is considering to replace Pam Bondi on a person. Person on a permanent basis. How do I say this? That list is as crazy as you might think it is. Congressman Joe Negus is a member of the House Judiciary Committee. He's standing by to talk to me about it. On the other side of the br,

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[Ali Velshi]

With Pam Bondi out, the deputy attorney general and Trump defense attorney Todd Blanch is in, at least for the time being. But today Ms. Now learned that Trump is considering a number of other permanent replacements. The EPA had Lee Zeldin, the former Fox Host and current U.S. attorney for Washington D.C. jeanine Pirro, the Missouri senator, and Maga diehard Eric Schmidt, a uniquely far right fella who says all the quiet parts out loud. And even Another one of Trump's former personal attorneys, the disqualified acting U.S. attorney in New York, I'm sorry, in New Jersey, Elena Haba. Now you might be thinking that this list is kind of all over the place, but it's actually not. All of the people on that list share one thing in common, complete and unyielding devotion to Donald Trump.

[Todd Blanche]

President Trump, for the first time in modern history, has said, I am the president and if you work in the executive branch, you work for me.

[Prolon Announcer]

Are you President Trump personally?

[Jesse Watters]

Well, I am for whatever President Trump is advocating for.

[Eric Schmidt]

Here's what the president's going to do. He's going to make a difference. We're going to change the laws. We've got liberal judges, we've got liberal laws. Everything is going to happen.

[Pam Bondi]

What are you going to do about

[Jesse Watters]

Clapper Comey Brennan in particular?

[Ali Velshi]

I think this is the route forward

[Jesse Watters]

and I think there should be indictments.

[Eric Schmidt]

We will not fall to Rogue judges. We will not fall to people trying to be political when they should just be doing their job, respecting the president.

[Ali Velshi]

Doing a job and respecting the president. Joining me now is a Democratic Congressman, Joe Negus of Colorado. He's a member of the House Judiciary Committee. Congressman, great to have you here. Thank you for being with us.

[Congressman Joe Neguse]

Good to be with you, Ali.

[Ali Velshi]

It's a bit of a loyalty trap. There's no one who has suggested that Pam Bondi was disloyal to the president. There's no one who suggested that Kristi Noem was disloyal to the president. I'm not even sure what more you have to do. She was loyal. You just can't. You can't win this battle. It looks like Trump's prepared to replace one loyalist with another that's yet more loyal. But I don't know what this is actually how this plays out.

[Congressman Joe Neguse]

Yeah, a couple things I'd say. Ali, I certainly agree with your assessment. The connective tissue with each of those individuals that you referenced, they're all, of course, sycophants to the president, but it's really the unbridled fealty and loyalty to President Trump. Right. That is their. Their common trait. All that being said, I still think that today was an important day for the rule of law and for accountability. And here's why. I mean, at the end of the day, as you know, and you articulated this at the top of your program, Pam Bondi was clearly unfit to be the Attorney General of the United States. I think you have to go back 50 years to the days of Watergate to find an Attorney General with a more reprehensible record than hers. John Mitchell, who is, you know, ended up in prison as a result of Watergate. All that being said, the difference here, of course, given her termination, is that the next individual that is appointed Attorney General of the United States will have to be confirmed. And I think that the Senate is now going to have to use the tools that the Constitution bestows upon it to ensure that a MAGA sycophant is not confirmed. As you know, Senator Tillis did precisely that Republican Senator just four or five months ago when he effectively stopped the nomination of Ed Martin, as you might recall, for U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. One would hope that the senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee ultimately step up and refuse to capitulate to this president and ensure that the next Attorney General is not as corrupt and incompetent as the one that President Trump installed and has served for the better part of the last 14 months.

[Ali Velshi]

Well, Tillis came to this a little late. You know, he had a lot of things where he said, if I had known earlier what I. If I knew then what I knew now. We all knew then the same stuff that we know now. Nothing about Donald Trump's Cabinet is a surprise to anyone.

[Congressman Joe Neguse]

Yeah, there's certainly no doubt about that. I mean, obviously, we all knew that this attorney general would be engaged in the kind of subversion of the rule of law, that. That she was. The targeting of her political opponents, all of the. The parade of horribles that you described. I will say this, Ali. You know, we had two hearings in the Judiciary Committee in the last 35 days where Secretary Noem and Attorney General Bondi both testified. And what's clear to me is that when faced with the bright lights of real congressional oversight, it becomes abundantly clear to the American people that these individuals are not ready for prime time and are not fit to be serving in the roles that they were appointed to. And ultimately, I think there's a risk of us assuming that our public institutions are impervious to public opinion. President Trump, you know, clearly, and his administration decided that continuing with Pambani in that role was a risk for his administration. And I think, at the end of the day, we're gonna have to continue to pursue accountability across the rest of his Cabinet.

[Ali Velshi]

You mentioned the hearings that you've held in the Judiciary Committee's contentious hearing in February with Pam Bondi. You pointed out ways in which the Department of Justice was gutted under her leadership, including doing away with the Public Integrity Section and the national cryptocurrency Enforcement Team. Talk to me about those two things and why you.

[Monday.com Announcer 2]

You.

[Jesse Watters]

You focused on them.

[Congressman Joe Neguse]

Yeah, I think a couple of reasons, Ali. First and foremost, the corruption that has become endemic in Washington, D.C. really pervasive, I think, has been the untold story of the last 15 months of the Trump administration. You are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars, ultimately going into the hands of political allies of the president, his own family, folks connected to the Cabinet. And you saw that, of course, on full display with respect to former Secretary Noem, and, as we now know, with respect to the dismantling of the Department of Justice under Attorney General Bondi. It is clear that corruption has become the rule, unfortunately, tragically, in our nation's capital rather than the exception, and that is by design of this president and the sycophants that he's put into his Cabinet. So that's why I spotlighted that during the Judiciary Committee. And I'm hopeful that the Senate Judiciary Committee will do the same during the course of the confirmation hearings of whomever Donald Trump decides to appoint.

[Ali Velshi]

So there are lots of reasons why these people who we've just named and there may be other people on the list who we don't know of yet might not be qualified for their job. Eric Schmidt grabs my attention a lot. And he wants to, by the way, it's not by surprise. It's not secret things that he says. He really does say the quiet parts out loud. He's got this nationalist view of the world, generally speaking, doesn't like immigrants. He makes a unique exception for German immigrants cuz he's extracted of German immigrants to the United States. But it's all those things that we wonder about the new MAGA Republican Party. Eric Schmidt is part of that operation.

[Congressman Joe Neguse]

Well, and I would just add to that, Ali, the strain that connects him to these other individuals that are rumored to be potential replacements is ultimately their fealty towards the effort to subvert the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power. You'll recall that Senator Schmidt was the attorney general, state attorney general of the state of Missouri way back when, in the days, in the weeks leading up to January 6, and was one of the titular leaders of the movement within a variety of different states to try to subvert the electoral certification. So it all at the end of the day goes back to the same falsehoods that Donald Trump of course parroted and was propagating across the country to ultimately subvert the electoral outcome on January 6th, five years ago.

[Ali Velshi]

Congressman, good to see you. Thanks for joining us tonight. Congressman Joe Neguse is a Democrat of Colorado. He's a member of the House Judiciary Committee. All right, coming up, is it possible that Donald Trump posted evidence of a war crime on social media? I'm going to ask the former deputy national security adviser for President Obama, Ben Rhodes, when we come back.

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[Ali Velshi]

Today around lunchtime, the President of the United States took to social media to post gleefully about what could be a war crime. Trump posted this video showing one of two strikes that the US Reportedly carried out today to destroy one of the biggest bridges in the Middle East, a civilian bridge outside of Tehran. Now Iranian state run News reports that eight people were killed in those strikes and another 95 were wounded. Mississippi now has not verified those claims. The reason why I say these strikes could be a war crime is because if you look closely at the video, you'll notice construction cranes surrounding the bridge. US Officials told Axios today they believe the bridge was opened in January. But Iran's foreign minister says the bridge had not yet opened for use and that it was still under construction. Whether or not that bridge was opened is a key detail because it is a war crime to purposefully target civilian infrastructure. But if you can prove that something like a civilian bridge was actually dual use, if you can prove that it was being used by both civilians and the military, arguably it could be a fair target. So far, the closest thing we've gotten to a justification for the bombing of this bridge is that U.S. defense officials anonymously tell Axios that the strikes were conducted to prevent the Iranian armed forces from moving weapons across the bridge. So it's now the position of the United States that it can bomb any civilian target that could hypothetically be used by the military in the future. That is some Orwellian logic. That would be the US Using the

[Jesse Watters]

logic of thought crimes.

[Ali Velshi]

By that logic, the US could conceivably strike all civilian infrastructure in Iran. Every power plant could in theory be used by the military. Every road could conceive conceivably be used by military vehicles. Now what makes this all so alarming is the fact that Donald Trump is already claiming that this bridge won't be the last piece of civilian infrastructure that the US Purposefully targets. On Monday, Trump threatened to completely obliterate Iran's electrical plants and water desalination plants. Last night, in his address to the country, he doubled down on those threats, saying the strikes would leave Iranians without, quote, even a small chance of survival or rebuilding. And when he posted the video of today's strikes on the bridge, he wrote,

[Jesse Watters]

quote, much more to follow.

[Ali Velshi]

Joining me now is Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security adviser for President Obama. Ben, good to see you putting aside for the moment the legality of attacking civilian infrastructure. In the early days of the war, when there were those images of a refinery in Tehran that had been hit and was burning, the skies of Tehran were lit up. People posted things like, well, that's not the best way to win the heart and minds of Iranians, many of whom would like to see the. The regime toppled.

[Congressman Joe Neguse]

Yeah.

[Ben Rhodes]

I mean, Ali, what is the point of this? Does it have anything to do with the nuclear program rolling up a bridge? Does it have anything to do with helping the Iranian people rise up and claim democracy as Trump, which is what

[Ali Velshi]

Donald Trump said he wanted to do. Right. That was his whole point to this whole thing.

[Ben Rhodes]

Exactly. And so that's my point at the beginning. This is about the nuclear program or it was about helping Iranians rise up. That's not happening.

[Donald Trump]

Right.

[Ben Rhodes]

There's not going to be some quick regime change to a democratic Iran. That's clearly not happening, which is very predictable by anybody who paid attention to Iran at all. And Trump seems to not be surrounded by anybody who knows anything about Iran based on how he's acting. We are now just lashing out. And we should be very clear. When he threatens to blow up energy and electricity generation, that is a war crime. He's threatening war crimes. When Vladimir Putin does that in Ukraine, people get really upset about it. That's what he's threatening to do in Iran. And it shows that he has no strategy. What is accomplished by blowing up civilian infrastructure other than making the Iranian regime dig in even more and lash out even more at similar civilian targets across the Middle East? When you start committing war crimes or going on a slippery slope to hitting civilian infrastructure, you have a race to the bottom. And I worry that between what Israel is doing in Lebanon and Iran, what the United States is now doing, and, you know, what Trump is threatening to do more of and what Iran is doing in response, we see what happens when there are no laws of war and the people who are caught in the Middle are the ones who suffer, who are largely innocent civilians.

[Ali Velshi]

You bring up an interesting topic, though. Having been on the National Security, national security adviser, you don't have to read big thick books about the history of Iran to have understood how this was going to unfold. A pamphlet would have done a Google Maps look at Iran and the Strait of Hormuz would have told someone, hey,

[Jesse Watters]

this is kind of interesting.

[Ali Velshi]

You know, this country kind of seems to control this, the movement of ships through this little narrow strategic waterway. Have we got a plan for this? It does seem that this whole thing is absent a plan. And last night, Donald Trump had an opportunity. I wasn't holding my breath. That address from the White House was gonna be meaningful and it wasn't. There's still no plan.

[Ben Rhodes]

I have less of an idea about what we're doing in Iran after that speech than I did before. And that is saying something, given how incoherent this policy has been. And to your point, a three page bullet point intelligence community summary about Iran would tell you that, number one, this is not Venezuela. You're not just going to assassinate the leader and find some other compliant leaders going to do what you want. This is a deep regime and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is the strongest force inside the country. And so if you decapitate the political leadership, as Israel has done with American support, you're going to empower even more hardline people that have, you know, if you count the Basij militia and the military, you get to millions of people under arms. But a core of the IRGC that has been preparing for this for a very long time. And you would also know that their when threatened with existential destruction, which is what Trump is doing, threatening regime change or threatening all his civilian infrastructure, they're going to close the Strait of Hormuz and they are now running the strait. 20% of the world's fossil fuel energy is on a toll road controlled by the irgc. That is the outcome of what Trump has done in Iran. We are worse off, much, much worse off than we were a month ago. The IRGC is arguably more powerful because they've shown the world that they currently control 20% of the world's fossil fuel energy. And there's no end game in sight that solves those problems.

[Ali Velshi]

To your point about a, you know, three page bullet point list might have addressed this in response to a reporter's question in the Oval Office the other day who said, people are getting upset about, you know, $4 a gallon gas. It's now higher than $4 a gallon. And Donald Trump said, but they're going to be very happy that we can't be hit with nuclear missiles from Iran. Now, as a result of this, there were no nuclear missiles in Iran and there were certainly no missiles at all capable of hitting the United States. That was a completely invented premise that, that, oh, don't worry about your $4 gallon gas, because now you're, you're free of being hit from. By Iranian nuclear missiles. There were no Iranian nuclear missiles that were going to hit the United States. He brought this up during the State of the Union. Didn't make sense that night either, but it makes less sense now.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, they were nowhere near having a ballistic missile that could hit the United States. I mean, we're talking like at least 10 years if they hit the gas pedal on that program. They did not have a nuclear weapons capability. They didn't have enough nuclear material for a nuclear bomb. That was not true. And so now you see these shifting justifications, and you see Marco Rubio and now Trump in that speech talking about, well, we're going to destroy the Iranian air force. Was anybody in the United States thinking five weeks ago that, like, we sent out faced a threat from the Iranian air Force that required us to go to war, kill thousands of people, and derail the global economy and drive up the price of energy? No. And so these kind of. He's finding, he's looking and groping for these search, you know, shifting justifications so he can claim some victory. But, but there is no victory to be won here because there's no point to this war. There's not going to be regime change in Iran, or if there is, it's going to be an implosion and an even more chaotic situation. He's not dealing with the nuclear program in any rational way because the only way you can actually deal with the nuclear program is through a diplomatic agreement that verifies that that program is under.

[Ali Velshi]

Imagine if we had such a thing.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah. And please don't get me started, but yes. I mean, I heard him say, you know, when he was trashing the nuclear deal last night. He also has been saying recently that, well, maybe we can monitor the nuclear material from satellites and stuff. No, you know what you had in a negotiated agreement, they shipped the nuclear fuel out of the country. There were inspectors in the country. There were cameras in the nuclear facilities. That's what you can do through diplomacy with air power. You can bomb things, but you don't know what's going on on the ground. You can't control what's going on on the ground. You can't open the Strait of Hormuz by bombing bridges inside of Iran. It's completely incoherent. And you know, who knows that? The IRGC knows that. Everybody else in the region knows that. And he's, you know, threatening NATO and telling them to go down and deal with it. It would take NATO months to assemble some force. We don't have months to have. They weren't looking for fighting energy offline.

[Ali Velshi]

They weren't looking for this fight. Weirdly, the administration has started to refer to the president of Iran as the regime change president. Last I checked, he's the same president who's been there for some time, but that's another story for another night. Ben, good to see you as always. Thank you for joining us.

[Ben Rhodes]

Thanks, Alec.

[Ali Velshi]

Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser to President Obama and co host of Pod Save the World. All right, coming up, Donald Trump just said something about the cost of his war with Iran. The democr ad makers literally could not have scripted any better. We'll show you what he said and ask Senator Chris Van Hollen about it when we come back. Before I play you this next very instructive clip, I want to note that the only reason we have it is because the White House seemingly accidentally posted a live stream of it, which they then tried to delete, but not before the Internet saved it. And just for context, Donald Trump starts by referring to the head of the Office of Management and Budget, the Christian nationalist, Author of Project 2025. Russell Vote we can't take care of daycare.

[Donald Trump]

We're a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We're fighting wars. We can't take care of daycare. You got to let a state take care of daycare. And they should pay for it, too. They should pay. They have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it. We have to take care of one thing, military protection. We have to guard the country.

[Ali Velshi]

All right. All these little scams that have taken place, like that little scam daycare. Joining me now is Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, member of the Foreign Relations Committee. Senator, good to see you. Thank you for being with us. Let me throw some numbers out at you. Apparently, the Penn Wharton budget model says this war has cost $65 billion so far. The White House is asking for $200 billion for it. The Tomahawk missiles alone are $3 billion. They take a year to two to build per missile. We've spent $3 billion on them. This is in A country where we had Doge ripping apart the government last year. We had people not getting their food stamps, we have people not getting their, their Obamacare subsidies. But we're spending somewhere between 65 billion and $200 billion on a war that no one is able to explain.

[Senator Chris Van Hollen]

Well, Ali, that's right. And we should all remember that during the campaign, candidate Donald Trump promised that he would keep us out of foreign wars and focus instead on trying to make things better right here at home. Instead, he is, along with Prime Minister Netanyahu, started a foreign war. Prices are going up. And now he says, well, we've got to pay for this war in Iran by cutting back on federal investments. You played the clip with childcare. But there are also other points in that speech where he talks about cutting Medicaid, cutting Medicare. So the bottom line is the President, who said he wouldn't start a war, now wants to pay for it by cutting deeply into American healthcare programs and other programs that help American families here at home.

[Ali Velshi]

But that's not that surprising, is it, Senator? I mean, you go back to the history of wars that America has started, one group tends to benefit from this very well, either oil producers or munitions makers. I mean, that's just, that's the nature of the game. It becomes too much money that we have to pay for a war. So you're going to have to cut it from the people who can least afford it.

[Senator Chris Van Hollen]

Well, that's, that's exactly right. I mean, you've got defense contractors who are going to be raking it in, and other folks who are close to the President are going to be raking it in, but the American people will suffer. And of course, this comes on top of what Donald Trump and Republicans in Washington did last year, right? They passed their so called big beautiful bill, which was beautiful if you're a billionaire. You got really big tax cuts, but to partially pay for that, they cut Medicaid, they cut food nutrition programs. So now comes this year and Donald Trump goes off and starts a war and says, well, we're gonna have to cut back on Medicare, we're gonna have to cut back on Medicaid, we're gonna have to cut back on our efforts to make childcare more affordable. So at the end of the day, he is screwing the American people and doing exactly what he said he was going to avoid. He said he was gonna focus on things here at home, keep us out of foreign wars. He's done exactly the opposite.

[Ali Velshi]

I was talking to Ben Rhodes about this a minute ago. I wanna Play it for you. Something that he said about gas prices in the Oval Office.

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

Let's listen.

[Eric Schmidt]

Gas prices Today, they hit $4.

[Donald Trump]

$4? Yeah. And we have a country that's not

[Congressman Ro Khanna]

going to be throwing a nuclear weapon

[Donald Trump]

at us in six months.

[Pam Bondi]

But Americans are feeling the effects in

[Donald Trump]

the interim, and they're also feeling a lot safer.

[Monday.com Announcer]

What is the plan to bring them back down?

[Donald Trump]

All I have to do is leave Iran, and we'll be doing that very soon, and they'll become tumbling down.

[Jesse Watters]

We're not going to have a country

[Ali Velshi]

that's going to be throwing a nuclear weapon at us in six months. That's just nonsensical talk. I mean, you know these things. You're on serious committees in the Senate. There was no discussion about Iran throwing a nuclear weapon at America in six months or six years.

[Senator Chris Van Hollen]

It was a complete and total lie, Ali. And, you know, the president himself, you know, told the country last year that he had destitute, obliterated it. Iran's nuclear richness program obliterated it. And then his dni, Tulsi Gabbard, testified publicly the other day that Iran has made no effort to try to reconstitute that nuclear enrichment program. And so that was just a complete and total lie. And as you and Bed Rhodes discussed, I mean, they're nowhere near any kind of ballistic missile that can reach the United States. So this was all a fabrication by the President of the United States to try to justify his actions while Americans are hurting here at home. We've lost 13 of our service members, hundreds wounded, as you discussed, thousands of civilians killed in the region. And we're paying $2 billion a day, we the American taxpayers, while gas prices are going up. And now Donald Trump says, well, you know, we've got to cut back on other investments that are important to the American people. This war should never have started. We should end it now. Donald Trump is talking about asking for another $200 billion. And I can tell you, Ali, I won't vote for one more dime for this illegal war of choice.

[Ali Velshi]

I think we're gonna find a lot of people on both sides of the aisle who are gonna say no one has given us an explanation as to why we need to be spending another dime on this war. Senator, good to see you as always. Thank you for joining us.

[Senator Chris Van Hollen]

Good to be with you.

[Ali Velshi]

All right, that does it for me tonight.

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