← The Briefing with Jen Psaki
The Briefing with Jen Psaki
Trump plays dangerous game with 'little Trump' DNI pick
00:41:41
Former CIA director John Brennan discusses what's at stake with Donald Trump's choice of a sycophant with no intelligence experience to be the new director of national intelligence, and why someone who found a way to weaponize mortgage data against people Donald Trump doesn't like is a dangerous person to give access to America's intelligence products.
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- [00:00]
Ali Velshi
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Ali Velshi
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- [00:49]
Ali Velshi
you There is so much crazy stuff happening in the news right now. There is Trump's decision, not unexpected, to nominate his former personal attorney Todd Blanche to be the permanent Attorney General of these United States. There's Trump's choice for America's next Director of National Intelligence. Super important job. Guess who's gonna get it? Maybe a Trump loyalist, a 38 year old real estate nepo baby with zero experience in intelligence gathering whatsoever. And then there's the ongoing Votorama happening in the Senate right now, where a number of Trump's pet proposals are facing pushback, even from Republicans. Those are important stories and we're gonna get to all of them this hour. They're all symptoms of the way in which Trump and his allies have been running this country for the past year and a half. And why? One of the most important questions facing the country right now is will Democrats actually be able to win back enough power in Congress to push back on Donald Trump's agenda? Because for all the attempts to convince Republicans to turn on Trump, for all the attempts to publicly shame this administration and its enablers out of their worst decisions, the only way Donald Trump and his enablers will truly be held accountable, not removed from office, but held accountable, is for Democrats to take control of Congress this November. Those campaigns are well underway and taking control of the Senate, not just the House. The Senate is a big part of the strategy. Democrats need to flip four seats in the United States Senate to take control of that chamber. One of their biggest targets so far is has been the state of Maine, where they're Hoping to finally unseat the long term Senator Susan Collins. Now, for weeks now, the presumptive Democratic nominee in that race has been the first time candidate, Graham Platner. He's running on a populist message of taking on billionaires and career politicians. But throughout his campaign, Platner has faced a series of allegations from his past. There was the discovery that Platner had a Nazi linked tattoo that he got during his time in the military. Now, Platner has since had that tattoo covered up. He denies knowledge of its Nazi affiliations, although several reports have cast doubt on that claim. He again reiterated to Chris Hayes tonight that he did not know of the Nazi associations with the tattoo. Then there were revelations of a series of offensive online posts which Platner admits making, but has since disavowed. Now, despite those allegations, Platner continued to surge in the poll for Maine's Democratic primary, eventually leading his primary opponent, the popular 79 year old governor of Maine, Janet Mills, to suspend her campaign. But over the weekend yet new allegations surfaced against Platner again concerning his personal life. The Wall Street Journal was first to report that earlier this year, Graham Platner's wife told his campaign that the Senate candidate had a history of sending sexually explicit messages to other women while they were married. That prompted Platner's opponent, Janet Mills, to remind everyone that though she suspended her campaign, she did not end her campaign and she will still be on the ballot for Maine's primary, which just happens to be on Tuesday. Now, this past Tuesday, two days ago, Platner went to Washington to meet with Senate Democrats to quell their concerns about his campaign. The Wall Street Journal reports that during that meeting, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders asked Platner if any additional allegations would emerge against the embattled Democratic candidate, according to people familiar with the discussion. Platner said there weren't any. But late this afternoon, the New York Times published a report detailing several new allegations against Graham Platner. The Times spoke with three women who previously dated Platner, all of whom recounted a pattern of heavy drinking. One of those women alleged that Platner had been rough with her, regularly grabbing her by the shoulders and at one point twisting her arm, pushing her into a bedroom and holding the door closed, an act she said hurt but caused no injury. Graham Platner's campaign told the Times he strongly disputes any claims of physical intimidation or altercations. His campaign has also drawn attention to the fact that the woman making those allegations is a conservative who has worked for right leaning groups And Republican campaigns. In just the last hour, Graham Platner responded to those allegations in an exclusive interview with my colleague Chris Hayes.
- [05:20]
Graham Platner
There are some allegations in this piece that I just want to be kind of unequivocal about are simply not true. Anything alleging physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was. These are the statements of someone who's politically motivated in this piece. There's a lot about my struggling not being a good boyfriend, certainly self medicating with alcohol. And I've been very upfront since the beginning of this campaign. That was a pretty dark period of my life after I came back from my combat service. That's what that combat, that's what that kind of life looks like. And so there are things in this that I absolutely will take responsibility for and have been speaking about openly for months now.
- [06:05]
Ali Velshi
All right, it was an extensive interview and I hope you watch all of it. But joining me now is my Ms. Now colleague Chris Hayes, host of all in. Because sometimes Chris, as we process, you had this interview with him. It was an extensive interview. You covered a lot of ground then you had enjoyed some commentary with some of your guests. Where are you now on this?
- [06:24]
Chris Hayes
You know, I think a few things, I mean, I think he was clear on two things that I think were probably the most damaging. And to me, just in sort of the, you know, moral framework, like putting your hands on someone, particularly someone you're dating, is, is to me a pretty hard line. And he said. He denied that flatly?
- [06:46]
Ali Velshi
Yes.
- [06:46]
Chris Hayes
I don't know if he's telling the truth. Obviously she says it happened and, and again, I can't lit. I can't sort of say, but that was like very clear. And then the other thing is about the tattoo and he flatly denied that she's telling the truth about his knowledge of it.
- [07:02]
Ali Velshi
Right. The issue comes down to the knowledge of it. He acknowledges that this on his body.
- [07:06]
Chris Hayes
Yes. In fact, we have pictures of it.
- [07:07]
Ali Velshi
Not a good idea to have that tattoo.
- [07:09]
Chris Hayes
Absolutely.
- [07:09]
Ali Velshi
But, but the issue is when did he know about that and did he know that it was to some a Nazi symbol?
- [07:16]
Chris Hayes
Yeah. And so those were two places where he was unequivocal. I asked a follow up saying that, you know, she texted about this to friends in August, New York Times had access to those texts. So like we know it actually was happened at that time in which she described it that way. And he said, I can't tell, I, I don't know. She didn't text me that. I don't know. I thought, you know, I thought the answers on his marriage and the reporting about the messaging he was doing. He, you know, he sort of tried to ring fence a little bit of privacy around it, which again, I kind of do understand. I mean, I think people, you know, people in marriages kind of get to have their marriages. I think that's largely true. When you're in public life, that changes a bit. But one thing he did say there was like, it stopped when it started. He said basically that he was doing it and he got discovered, and that was the beginning of a reconciliation process that they worked through in their marriage, and that isn't happening anymore. He did leave open the possibility in the conversation that there's texture images floating around out there.
- [08:14]
Ali Velshi
Right.
- [08:15]
Chris Hayes
You did not shut the door on that. So, you know, I think that's something to think about. I mean, the big question to me is just like how this all gets processed by the main voters. And again, I said this on my show, but we live in such strange times. In terms like, I used to have a rubric for how to think about this.
- [08:34]
Senator Alex Padilla
Yes.
- [08:35]
Chris Hayes
For what things were and weren't, like, quote, unquote, this word that we've used to death. Disqualifying.
- [08:40]
Ali Velshi
Yeah.
- [08:40]
Chris Hayes
That word doesn't exist anymore.
- [08:42]
Ali Velshi
Right.
- [08:42]
Chris Hayes
It just simply doesn't. It doesn't exist for a million people.
- [08:44]
Ali Velshi
It used to be a checklist. If you did this, you disqualified.
- [08:46]
Chris Hayes
Right. And it's, it's there, there's a bunch of reasons for that. Right. I just want to be clear here. Like, one of the reasons is a profound, complete transformation of the boundaries of the public and private sphere.
- [09:00]
Senator Alex Padilla
Yeah.
- [09:00]
Chris Hayes
Right. So one of them is all these Reddit posts. Twenty years ago, there were no Reddit posts.
- [09:05]
Ali Velshi
Right.
- [09:05]
Chris Hayes
Increasingly, people speak in public fora the way that you would speak privately. So you might have an article. He used to say this thing.
- [09:14]
Ali Velshi
Right.
- [09:15]
Chris Hayes
But now it's out on the Internet. So, so, so there's that. There's also the fact that, like, people's sex lives increasingly are online.
- [09:21]
Ali Velshi
Right.
- [09:21]
Chris Hayes
And so things that might be private scales are public. So there's, there's a bunch of, like, structural things that have changed. When you think about the Reddit part, when you think about his profile on Kick, you know, which is a site to basically meet people for, you know, sexual contact, whatever. So part of what makes the, the evaluative framework we used to have broken is that things have changed so radically. So that's one thing. Then there's Donald Trump.
- [09:50]
Ali Velshi
Yeah.
- [09:51]
Chris Hayes
And then there's also, let's be clear, the partisan nature of American politics and the. And the Democratic stakes. You know, I've said this to people before. The thing that I respected the most in its own way back in 2016 or with Trump is just like, oh, yeah, the guy's a total pos. But like, it matters that the Republicans are in power.
- [10:08]
Ali Velshi
Right, Right.
- [10:09]
Chris Hayes
That was an honest way to talk about Donald Trump.
- [10:12]
Ali Velshi
Yeah.
- [10:12]
Chris Hayes
Like, bro, I don't care. I care about this instrumental value. People make choices all the time when they're voting for people. About, like, the instrumental value here is what I'm voting for. Other people feel like I want to vote for this person.
- [10:23]
Ali Velshi
Right.
- [10:23]
Chris Hayes
And I should be very clear. The reason he's in this position is so many people in Maine want to vote for him. Not in spite of him, not. They want to vote for him because he is a profound, profoundly talented politician.
- [10:35]
Ali Velshi
Susan Collins is not the most hated politician in America, in fact. But here's the thing. This comes down to two issues. So on Tuesday, you and I were together. We were all together covering the primaries next Tuesday. The plan was not to cover the main primaries the same way. This was going to be a sort of perfunctory thing. I'd be here on the board. You and I would talk during the course of your show. That may all change now because the people of Maine have a decision to make in the next few days. Well, while all of Washington and institutional America can have this discussion, the people of Maine have a discussion to do. Do I believe Graham Platner or do I not?
- [11:08]
Senator Alex Padilla
Right.
- [11:08]
Ali Velshi
And do I care and. Or do I not?
- [11:11]
Chris Hayes
And does that show. And how does that show up in what the voters ultimately say?
- [11:14]
Ali Velshi
Right.
- [11:14]
Chris Hayes
So, I mean, I think that's. Again, and that was something Michael Steele said the other night with. Which is true. And I think the. The whole core essence of democracy is the voters get to say. Yeah, they get to say.
- [11:23]
Ali Velshi
And in this case, they get it to say. They got to say very, very soon.
- [11:27]
Chris Hayes
Yes, very soon. So that's going to be, you know, we're going to be watching that very closely. And then the other thing is, like, there are certain politicians and there's certain ways in which, you know, ebb and flow and things have momentum and sometimes they peter out and there's nothing else. And that sort of is what it is. Sometimes there's other things. All of that's going to matter for the long term. Projections of whatever his candidacy looks like if he, in fact, is the nominee,
- [11:53]
Ali Velshi
because if he wins on Tuesday and he becomes the nominee, he was unequivocal
- [11:56]
Chris Hayes
by the way, never thought about dropping out. We're in it. This has been brutal. But, like, I'm in it.
- [12:00]
Ali Velshi
I was a little surprised that he didn't say, given all of the heat and light on this. I'm giving some thought to it.
- [12:07]
Chris Hayes
Well, and I also said, do you regret it?
- [12:08]
Ali Velshi
At.
- [12:09]
Chris Hayes
He's like, no, we don't regret it.
- [12:11]
Ali Velshi
Which. Which surprised me.
- [12:12]
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- [12:12]
Ali Velshi
As a response.
- [12:13]
Chris Hayes
Yes. I thought that was an interesting. I mean, I think a lot. Look, the reason he's in the position he's in is that he doesn't generally talk like a politician. Yeah, he does talk like himself, whatever that means. And there's a, there is a, there's a, a power that he has channeled in that from the first ad to all the. I had him on my podcast right after that ad drop, before Janet Mills was in the race, just like, well, who's this guy? Like, and, and so he's got some real political talent and he's got a message that I think is very resonant. The last thing I'll also say, having. Talking to people in Maine. Maine's its own place, man. Yeah, like, yeah, like, it's truly a distinct, unique place in this great country of ours. They will tell you that, you know, it's. And so.
- [12:54]
Ali Velshi
And they'll tell you that they're not all that interested in the rest of your. Your opinions also.
- [12:58]
Chris Hayes
True.
- [12:59]
Ali Velshi
They'll make their decision.
- [12:59]
Chris Hayes
And he said that to me, you know, very clearly. He said, look, my constituencies of voters are made. It doesn't matter what the.
- [13:05]
Ali Velshi
You guys say.
- [13:05]
Chris Hayes
It doesn't matter what the pundits say. It matters what the voters say.
- [13:08]
Ali Velshi
It was a necessary, important conversation if we're going to cover this topic, to have actually talked to him about it.
- [13:13]
Chris Hayes
Yeah, I mean, that's the most important thing. Yeah.
- [13:15]
Ali Velshi
And I think we'll. We'll all be digesting that. So I thank you for that, Chris. We appreciate it. Chris Hayes is the host of all in right here on Ms. Now, joining us now from Maine is Emma Davis. She's reporting, she's at the Maine Morning Star, and she's been covering the Senate race in this state. Who knew Emma, this was gonna be this interesting? And I will say, to Chris's point, a lot of people when they first met Graham Plattner, when they first were introduced to him on television, were quite taken by this guy. He's very interesting. And so you knew you had a more interesting race on your hands than you were planning to have. I don't think you were counting on this. Interesting.
- [13:50]
Emma Davis
Certainly not this interesting, but you never know.
- [13:53]
Ali Velshi
Tell me what we've heard from people in Washington. We've heard from Senate colleagues, we've heard from a lot of experts on this. But what really matters here, because there's a primary on Tuesday in Maine in which he continues to be the leading contender. We don't have new polling on it. And Janet Mills has suspended her campaign, but her name is still on that ballot. And she seems to have reminded people of that, yet not said she's reactivating her ballot. What's going on on the ground in Maine?
- [14:17]
Emma Davis
Yeah. So individual conversations with voters, I'd say, are a mixed bag. His supporters are pretty dug in and his skeptics are perhaps even more skeptical. With this looming question, too, of whether there are more skeletons. There is a sense of uneasiness among some Democratic voters who looking for assurances that they can trust him. As you said, we saw our governor, Janet Mills, who suspended her campaign back in April, remind voters over the weekend that she is still on the ballot. I did speak to several of her supporters right after she had suspended her campaign who said they'd still be voting for her in the primary, some even in the general election, too. Several had said that if Platner would have led with some of the things that have surfaced throughout his campaign, they would have been more inclined to give him a shot. But I would say throughout my months of covering this campaign, I have heard time and time again from people of all ages, all across the state who say that Platner's regrettable comments and tattoo may be par for the course if the state wants to elect someone who isn't a calculated career politician. I've also heard many resonate with his campaign's pitch, too, that his story is one of redemption is there.
- [15:30]
Ali Velshi
The Janet Mills stuff is interesting because she is popular in Maine. It's been around for a long time. She did take some strong stands against Donald Trump, and yet she hasn't done anything more than remind people she's on the ballot. Is there any sense, are you hearing any sense of that campaign reactivating for five days or nothing?
- [15:50]
Emma Davis
I am not at this time. I've heard from voters who are still going to support her, but I haven't heard anything official.
- [15:56]
Ali Velshi
All right. On the Graham Platner side, he's gone out. He had this remarkable interview with Chris. Clearly his strategy is to stay in front of this story until Tuesday, at least if he can. Chris did ask him very clearly if he had considered getting out of the race. He said no. There was no equivocation in his voice on that. What does campaigning look like on the ground in Maine these days? I mean, he talks a lot about how he got out there and pretty much talked to everybody in the state of Maine. What happens now?
- [16:27]
Emma Davis
Yeah, yeah, it seems like he's continuing as he has. I mean, I've attended several of his town halls dating back to when he did up in Susan Collins's town hall of Caribou, giving his dump speech and speaking one on one to voters. So it looks a lot like it has all along.
- [16:45]
Ali Velshi
Maine is one of the roads and probably the clearest road, the best roads and the easiest road for a Democrat pickup that would lead Democrats to control the Senate if they could win four seats. There are other ways to get there, but Maine was one of the best ways to get there. Do Maine voters think about that? Do they, do they realize strategically the pickle that this has put Democrats in tonight or is that not anywhere close to the top of concerns for Maine voters whom you've talked to?
- [17:13]
Emma Davis
I would say I'm not entirely sure. I haven't posed that exact question to Maine voters. But I think Maine voters in general are just very independent minded and I think too like the independent vote, speaking of, will also play a big role. We're hearing a lot about Democrats, but independent voters have long been consequential in Maine elections and we saw even two in. Of course, this is before the most recent controversies. But independent polling had Platner up against Collins among this subset of of independence and of course, polls taken with a grain of salt, notably that Collins lost time defied polls when she was up for reelection. But we'll get some insight into the independent voter block in this primary because we have semi open primaries. So I think there's. Yeah. More of a base than we're paying attention to often.
- [18:02]
Ali Velshi
Yeah. And primary polls are notoriously a little bit tough. So it's all guesses as to what happens over the course of the next few days. But thank you for your reporting, Emma. We appreciate it. Emma Davis joining us from Maine. Donald Trump said the quiet admitting why he just named someone with zero relevant experience to be the acting Director of National Intelligence on the same day that he named his former defense attorney to be the permanent Attorney General of these United States Senator Alex Padilla, the Judiciary Committee member, joins us next.
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- [20:14]
Ali Velshi
Today, President Trump said the quiet part out loud. There's been a lot of speculation as to why Donald Trump chose to nominate this guy, Bill Pulte, to be the new acting Director of National Intelligence. Pulte, who currently serves as the head of Trump's Housing Finance Agency, has quite literally zero experience whatsoever in the matters of intelligence. Now, this is not just me saying that. As Republican Senator John Cornyn put it, there is no evidence that Pulte has any of the qualifications for the job. As Republican Senator Bill Cassidy put it, Pulte is not qualified. So why did Trump pick Bill Pulte for the job? Listen, you're naming Bill Pulte as the Acting Director of National Intelligence. There's been a little bit of a pushback from some Senate Republicans.
- [21:03]
Chris Hayes
Why do you think, Mr. President?
- [21:04]
Ali Velshi
He's the best person for the job.
- [21:06]
John Brennan
He's a very smart guy and he
- [21:07]
Ali Velshi
may find out some things about the
- [21:09]
Congressman Gregory Meeks
rigged elections, et cetera, et cetera.
- [21:13]
Ali Velshi
I find out some things about the rigged elections. He's talking about 2020. By the way, Trump says he's appointing anyone to investigate the quote unquote rigged elections. When our fact. The fact is our elections are not rigged. That should be its own entire section of concern. But Bill Pulte is actually not just anyone. There's 340 million Americans you can pick from. He picked this guy. For the past year, Pulte has endeared himself to Trump by using his relatively obscure role as the head of Trump's Housing Finance Agency to gin up partisan investigations into Trump's perceived enemies. And now Trump wants him to be in charge of the nation's intelligence agencies with access to all of the nation's most classified and secretive information so that he can pursue Trump's other partisan hobby horse, the big lie, the idea that the only way that Trump can lose elections is if they're stolen. I'm going to speak to California's former Secretary of State, Senator Alex Padilla, about what that could mean for November's election in just a second. But unfortunately, Pulte isn't the only unbelievable appointment that Donald Trump made this week. Yesterday, Donald Trump announced that he is planning to nominate Todd Blanche, his former personal criminal defense attorney and the current acting Attorney General, to take over the position of Attorney General permanently. Now, while Blanche is in fact, a lawyer and does in fact, have prosecutorial experience, the top qualifying factor here appears to be absolute fealty to Donald Trump. Not only was Blanche Trump's personal defense lawyer in his hush money case and the Mar A Lago classified documents case, and just remember that when once you are somebody's lawyer, you are always that lawyer with respect to attorney client privilege. So he's basically still Donald Trump's lawyer. But in his time as Trump's deputy and acting Attorney General, Blanche has overseen the Trump depth prosecution against Trump's perceived enemies, like the former FBI Director James Comey and the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, he was also a central figure in the Justice Department's creation of the now supposedly dead $1.8 billion slush fund for Trump's political allies. And perhaps most importantly, he played a central role in the Justice Department's handling of the Epstein files. So naturally, Trump wants him to be the nation's top cop permanently. Joining us now, Senator Alex Padilla. He's a Democrat from California, the former California Secretary of State, and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator, good to see you. Thank you for being with us. I got a lot I need to get through with you. One of them, the conversation about Graham Platner that Chris Hayes had with him a little earlier. Your thoughts on this issue? Graham Platner could on Tuesday be the Senate candidate for Maine, a state the Democrats really want to win. Could in November be the senator from Maine. Your thoughts?
- [23:58]
Senator Alex Padilla
Yeah, look, I'm trying to keep up with the headlines coming out of me. Just I'm more importantly trying to keep up with all the work here in the Capitol as we're in this midst of this voterama. But in terms of what we heard, obviously there's a lot that Platner, his wife have to sort out, work through, and that's between them. And there's a lot that the voters of Maine have to consider and decide next Tuesday. So we'll take it from there.
- [24:22]
Ali Velshi
Let me ask you about, about Todd Blanche and Bill Pulte. I'll start with Todd Blanche. This is a guy who has a relationship to Trump. It's not like he was his lawyer one time on some obscure bankruptcy case or, you know, suing some contractor a long time ago. These are cases that were central to the prosecution of Donald Trump as president. He argued, including before the Supreme Court, that Donald Trump should be immune from prosecution. This doesn't feel like the process that many Americans who are frustrated by the brokenness of government are looking for, right?
- [24:56]
Senator Alex Padilla
No, it's beyond troubling. And I'm glad we're taking the conversation about Blanche's nomination and the Pultee selection together because it's a bigger picture here. Right. The selection of Todd Blanche as Attorney General, which will have to go through a confirmation process. But this is somebody who's Trump's personal lawyer and he'll put Trump's interest ahead of the interest of the American people. Number one, want evidence of that. Look at the sweetheart deal to protect Trump and his entire family from IRS audits. Right. That they're still that to be shaken up, but that's the type of agenda they have. He shielded Trump from the Epstein investigation fallout, him and Pam Bondi working in tandem. So these are indicators for what type of Attorney General Todd Blanche would be. But you also bring up Bill Pulte and his forget the lack of qualifications for this job as the Director of National Intelligence, temporary or permanent. In his current role as head of the Housing and Finance Agency, he's weaponized the sensitive information, had access to to go after Trump's perceived enemies.
- [26:03]
Ali Velshi
Just imagine he had information on people's mortgages and he used that to go after people who were perceived enemies. Now that's information on people's mortgages, which is imagine what he would do. That's pretty benign, generally speaking. Information for our country Yeah, I mean, look, the average person, average American may or may not know that, but they probably assume that someone can get information on their mortgage. This is. Can you put, imagine putting this person in charge of 18 intelligence agencies.
- [26:27]
Chris Hayes
Right.
- [26:28]
Senator Alex Padilla
And here's where it all comes together. Ali Trump's obsession with the big lie. We know that he's trying to rig the November elections in a desperate attempt to hold on to power in the first term. He will let attorney Generals go when they wouldn't do his bidding. That won't be the case with Todd Blanchett's his personal lawyer. And when it comes to the office of the Director of National Intelligence, if you like what Tulsi Gabbard did in Fulton County, Georgia, then you're going to love what Bill Pulte will be willing to do. Or if you're like most Americans, including me, and you're concerned by the president that Tulsi Gabbard said in that FBI raid in Fulton county, then you ought to be deathly afraid of what Bill Pulte would do with this position in their attempt to rig this November's election. So we're not going to stand for it. We're going to put up a fight and we're going to do everything we can to block these individuals from serving in these capacities.
- [27:24]
Ali Velshi
Obviously, that fight gets more interesting if you've got more members in the Senate after November. But you've got a few things that are there right. Happening right where you are. There's the up, there's the, obviously the nomination of Bill Pulte and how that's gonna go through hearings. There's the Todd Blanche nominations. There's the vote to renew the surveillance authorizations. There's the $70 billion in funding for ICE and CBP. These are all things that Chuck Schumer and Democrats have said they want to stand in the way of. There are a few more disgr. Senators on the Republican side right now. Cassidy and Cornyn, tell me how this all plays out.
- [28:01]
Senator Alex Padilla
Yeah, I think we're getting glimpses of that in real time as we're in the midst of this voter rama. So on the floor of the Senate as we speak is a purely partisan Republican proposal to give another $70 billion plus for ICE and CBP to continue their out of control immigration enforcement operations. You would think that given the pain that working families across the country are feeling, that we'd be spending time debating how do we lower grocery bills, how do we reduce healthcare costs, how do we reduce the price of gas that people rely on to be able to get to work. Instead, Republicans are once again doing Trump's bidding for an agency that already has $100 billion that they haven't been able to spend from previous allocations. But there's glimmers of hope, whether it's Senator Cassidy, as you mention, Senator Corden, as you've mentioned, or other good conscious Republicans that have voted with Democrats on occasion to rein this in. We're hopeful that we'll be able to keep the ballroom from getting funded, this weaponization slush fund from being created. But we have a lot more work to do.
- [29:09]
Ali Velshi
Senator, good to see you. Thank you for joining us this evening. Senator Alex Padilla of California, up next. Okay, we've started to talk about Bill Pulte and his no intelligence experience. But wait until you hear what kind of experience he does have because he is someone who knows a thing or two about intelligence. The former CIA Director John Brennan joins us when we come back.
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- [31:08]
Ali Velshi
All right, you've already heard Donald Trump describe his choice to oversee 18 national intelligence agencies. Bill Pulte. Let's hear Pulte describe himself in his own words. He's the guy you'll see on the right. I look at his group and we've all kind of come together. It's just been we're a bunch of, well, we like to call ourselves degenerates. I'm the biggest degenerate you'd ever met. The self described biggest degenerate you've ever met is Donald Trump's choice for acting Director of National Intelligence. That clip of Bill Pulte was from not his college days. That was from two and a half years ago, back when he was a bit of a celebrity in an odd corner of the Internet, the online meme stock community. Now, you may remember this, you may have forgotten it. The meme stock community from a few years back. It's a term that came out of the famous stock spikes and falls of companies like gamest, gamestop and amc. The stocks didn't spike because the companies were doing well. They spiked because of viral trends and coordination from large online communities, making them particularly volatile investment gambles. One of those meme stocks was the now defunct retail outlet Bed, Bath and Beyond. And Bill Pulte somehow became a guru of sorts to an online community of Bed, Bath and Beyond investors who believed that he could somehow help bring their now worthless shares back to life. Some of them paid him $500 each to attend an event that he organized, believing that Pulte would somehow recover their lost investments. But as Bulwark reporter Will Sommer puts it, attendees, quote, were left with dildo humor and treated with cases of Coors Light and bottled water. And that's just one weird episode in the career of a guy whose nickname has become Little Trump and who's apparently managed to charm Trump as much as he's charmed his meme stock followers. But as frightening as it is that a guy with zero relevant experience and a demonstrated willingness to be Donald Trump's attack dog is now being put in charge of coordinating all US Intelligence, it's much more frightening to contemplate what he might actually do with that power. Joining me now is the former director under President Barack Obama, CIA Director John Brennan. Director Brennan, nice to see you. Thank you for being with us. So there are a couple of issues here. First of all, when asked a point blank question about why Bill Pulte, who's come under criticism largely for either his activities or his lack of experience, Donald Trump immediately went to the idea that it's about the election results, about the 2020 election. Give me, help me out here. Why is the DNI the person in charge of solving Donald Trump's forever mystery about the 2020 election?
- [33:58]
John Brennan
Well, the Director of National Intelligence obviously has access to such a wide array of very sensitive intelligence of those 18 intelligence agencies. And so it's quite clear, not only is he unqualified for the job, but he's been sent into this position in order to do Donald Trump's bidding, to try to find something that he is likely going to misrepresent or miscast as something dealing with the rigged elections as claimed by Donald Trump, which is very, very worrisome, given this Mr. Pulte's past and background, and I will point out his abuse of authority when he was at the fhafa, in terms of accessing, inappropriately accessing personal records should be disqualifying of a security clearance. It certainly would be during all of the administrations that I served in the past, because it demonstrates that somebody is not trustworthy and they cannot be trusted to have access to such sensitive information. So, as Director of National Intelligence who spoke to have top secret clearances, I don't see how Bill Pulte would qualify, again, according to any objective standards.
- [35:00]
Ali Velshi
So let's just put this into terms that people can understand. He was in charge of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. He then dug around, found mortgage information on people who were Donald Trump's perceived enemies, and got that mortgage information into the hands of people who would then prosecute. James Comey, a Fed governor, the Attorney General of New York. Imagine that. That's mortgage information, which is not the world's most sensitive information. We now have a guy who's literally got access to the most sensitive information when he gets appointed, will be. Will have access to the most sensitive information about pretty much anyone.
- [35:37]
Senator Alex Padilla
Yes.
- [35:37]
John Brennan
The background investigations that take place, again, all the federal employees who have security clearances, all of the information about individuals, finances, other types of things. If he wants to exert that authority, he can request those personnel files and again, use it and misuse it in a way that is designed to support Donald Trump's politicized agenda when it comes to the intelligence community. And the signal this sends to the intelligence community, it shows total disregard for the work of the intelligence professionals, but also to put somebody at the helm of those 18 agencies with not a scintilla of experience and intelligence, but also who I think has a reputation for, again, misusing his positions. It's just, again, it sends a clear signal to the workforce, sends a clear signal to our adversaries as well as allies around the world that Donald Trump is not interested in the intelligence that really keeps this country safe and in fact, is designed to keep peace and security around the globe.
- [36:37]
Ali Velshi
And let's talk about that. We have actual adversaries in the world, China, North Korea, Iran, Russia. Apparently we're about to do something in Cuba which takes their intelligence gathering still as seriously as they did during the Cold War. This is a serious matter. We're in a dangerous world and we've got deals that have to be made and there's information that has to be gleaned around the world. That's just not a priority that Donald Trump or Bill Pulte mentioned.
- [37:02]
John Brennan
No, it's not. And by law, the Director of National Intelligence is the president's principal intelligence advisor. And the Director of National Intelligence oversees the production of the Daily President's Daily Brief, which is the most sensitive intelligence document that is shared with the president, vice president and the rest of the national security team. And if this is the person who has not any background or experience in this and clearly is a political animal, and as somebody who I think has demonstrated fealty to Donald Trump, it's sending a clear signal that there's no seriousness attached to the intelligence profession and that this White House is uninterested in actually having an intelligence community that is going to keep, again, this country safe.
- [37:45]
Ali Velshi
Director Brennan, thank you for joining us. We appreciate your analysis tonight. John Brennan is a former CIA director under Barack Obama. Ok. House Republicans join with Democrats to hand Donald Trump not one, but two major setbacks. The Congressman Gregory Meeks joins us here next. Stay with us. It's betting time. I'm going to take a, I'm going to make a bet that you likely were not surprised to hear that this week Donald Trump's net approval rating hit another, another all time low. Donald Trump is currently 25 points underwater, according to the Economist tracker of you Go Gov polling. Much of that discontent, discontent among American voters has to do with Donald Trump's war of choice with Iran, which has sent prices soaring and further destabilized an already volatile part of the world. We still don't know whether Trump will restart this war. It's in a ceasefire in theory right now. But one of the things we do know is that some congressional Republicans are finally waking up to the reality that voters really don't like what they see. Yesterday, House Democrats finally passed a war powers resolution to end Donald Trump's war with Iran with the help of four Republicans. Despite House Speaker Mike Johnson's repeated efforts to stifle that vote. But this isn't the only vote that Republicans broke with Trump on this week. Tonight, 18 Republicans joined House Democrats to pass a bill that would send additional military aid to Ukraine. So talking. Joining me to talk about this is the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks. Congressman, nice to see you. Good to see you. I invited you on the show. Cause I keep running into you in the streets of New York. So I thought I was gonna be here with you in person. Let me talk about Ukraine. There was a moment, and this was before Donald Trump. There was a moment when support for Ukraine had all but one vote in the United States Congress. This was about as bipartisan an issue as you can get. And it sort of eroded under Donald Trump and his sort of way of looking at Ukraine, telling them they don't have all the cards and trying to cut deals and saying he could end the war on day one. What's happened? I mean, you finally got 18 Republicans to vote with you, but what's happened that Democrats have to lead this charge to protect an allied country against an adversary?
- [40:01]
Congressman Gregory Meeks
Because the Republican Party has become the party of Trump. It's no longer the Republican Party by and large or overwhelmingly, it's the party of Donald Trump. And we see Donald Trump tries to take retribution on various members when he does not. When they do not do what he asked them to do. We see that continuously. You know, he still have his way of being vindictive in that regard. So it is. It did take some brave Republicans to stand up, to finally pass this vote with reference to Ukraine. You know, I also think that Donald Trump has this unique relationship with dictators, particularly Vladimir Putin. We've seen that from the first Trump administration, where he was accepting Putin's and Russia's intelligence over the United States intelligence. We've seen that where he has treated Putin, welcomed him in Alaska on red carpet and berated Zelensky in the White House. We've seen it when he says Putin should do anything he wants. And we've seen it when he said that Ukraine doesn't have the cards. Well, Ukraine has been stepping up themselves with their own ingenuity. And the European countries have been stepping up. And though Putin continues to bomb, they and Ukraine are fighting back. And if we just do our part, part, they can win, which will shorten this war, which will help bring prices down for here in America also.
- [41:40]
Ali Velshi
Yeah, let's talk about the other war. Somebody asked me last night, what does this mean? What does it mean that they passed a war powers resolution. Does that do anything to start? Because Donald Trump said doesn't mean anything to him.
- [41:54]
Congressman Gregory Meeks
Well, Donald Trump doesn't like to abide by the law, we know, but it is a privileged privilege resolution, which means it can be brought up automatically in the Senate. But I'm going to let the Senate decide that. And we want to try to get the Senate to pass the same resolution because once we pass that, then it says it's a concurrent resolution which does not go to the president. He cannot veto it. It becomes the law that's based upon the War Powers act, where the equal but separate branch of government, the only branch of government that is given the right by the Constitution to declare war. And so this is a step in the direction of allowing the American people's voices to be heard because they know that Donald Trump's war of choice is costing them at the gas price pump, it's costing them at the grocery stores, it's costing them in deaths of our soldiers and putting them in the way. And it's not going to close the Strait of Hormuz. So the war has to stop. So this is the first step and we've got to continue to move forward so that Donald Trump cannot continue his war of choice where he had no plan, no way, no talking about ending did not work with any of our allies or our friends. That's why they're not there now. And we're gonna have to have can't bomb our way out. So he's put us in a weaker position even as far as negotiations are concerned. And remember, he's the one that ripped up the JCPOA that Barack Obama had put in that.
- [43:41]
Ali Velshi
And now he's dealing with all the things that he wanted dealt with. It actually had all the answers that he wanted dealt with. Congressman, nice to see you. Thanks for joining us. Congressman Gregory Meese.
- [43:50]
Congressman Gregory Meeks
Nice to be with you.
- [43:50]
Ali Velshi
You. I got one more thing to tell you in just a minute and then Lawrence o' Donnell will be here. Among his guests tonight, Congresswoman Madeline Dean of Pennsylvania and Andrew Weissman. We'll be right back. 250 years ago, in the most ambitious experiment in participate participatory citizenship in human history, America began not perfectly, not even close to perfectly, but it began with a promise that has been tested, broken, rebuilt, and tested again ever since. Our democracy strengthened and sustained because ordinary people did the one thing available to them in the moment that they were in. A soldier wrote a letter, a woman spoke up in a room full of men, a teenager held up a phone as a man's life was snuffed out by an agent of the state. Small acts of courage that changed everything. On June 25th at 7pm I'll join Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and civil rights and constitutional expert Sherilyn Ifill at the Philadelphia Academy of Music to ask ask where we are, what we've done with that original promise, and what we still owe each other. Please join us not to watch, but come to remember what it feels like to be in a room full of people who show up. We the people. America 250 tickets are going fast at Ms. Now. America 250. And one personal note before we go tonight. It's a privilege to fill in for Jen Psaki, one of the sharpest, sharpest thinkers in this business. And as I prepare to take on my own primetime chair, I'm grateful for the time that I've spent in hers. I started my career at this network on a show called the 11th Hour, and now I'm excited to be going back. Starting Monday, June 15th, I'll be hosting the 11th hour weeknights at 11pm Eastern. And I hope you'll stay up real late with me. That does it for me tonight. America is an idea.
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Ali Velshi
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