← The Briefing with Jen Psaki
The Briefing with Jen Psaki
Trump's power play is backfiring as betrayed Republicans go rogue
00:41:02
Jen Psaki points out that Republicans in Congress are increasingly losing their motivation to follow Donald Trump through his wildly unpopular vanity projects and destructive policies that are hurting Americans. On top of that are the number of lame duck legislators who ran afoul of Trump and lost primaries because of him and not have the rest of their term to exact payback as members of the "Yolo Caucus."
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Narrator/Announcer
America is an idea. For 250 years, that idea has helped expand our rights and our freedoms. But progress isn't guaranteed.
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Jen Psaki
Today.
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Narrator/Announcer
Those founding principles are being challenged by efforts to mix religion and government. The Freedom from Religion foundation is working to protect the Constitution and keep power where it belongs, with we the people. Visit FFRF US MSNOW or text MSNOW to 511-511-Text MSNOW to 511-51-511 and keep state and church separate. Text fees may apply.
- [00:30]
Tom Hanks (voiceover for WWII documentary)
The is the largest event in human history.
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Narrator for WWII documentary
A 20 part documentary series with Tom Hanks.
- [00:38]
Tom Hanks (voiceover for WWII documentary)
No part of the globe was untouched, no life unchanged.
- [00:43]
Commercial Announcer
Experience.
- [00:44]
Narrator for WWII documentary
The ultimate account of World War II.
- [00:46]
Tom Hanks (voiceover for WWII documentary)
Every single person had a story. These are the stories that make us who we are.
- [00:54]
Narrator for WWII documentary
World War II with Tom Hanks premieres Memorial Day at 8. Part of history honors 250 only on the history Channel.
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Jen Psaki
Okay, let me just acknowledge that what I'm about to say is going to seem like a very weird place to start this show, but I promise you it is relevant to one of the biggest stories of the day. Okay. This is Jackie Heinrich. She is a White House reporter over at the Fox News Network. You may have seen her years ago questioning me from the briefing room. And last year, Fox News reporter again, you see her right there on your screen. Jackie Heinrich got engaged to this guy on screen, Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. And that's the moment after he popped the qu. They're in a lavender field in France. It's all very adorable. Now, why am I telling you all of this? You're like, what is happening right now? Because today that Fox News reporter tried to ask the President of the United States a pretty straightforward question and this is how he responded. Do you have a problem with Prime Minister Netanyahu?
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Donald Trump
When her husband votes against me all the time.
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Jen Psaki
Can you imagine?
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Donald Trump
I don't know what's with him. You better ask him what's with him. Her husband. She's married to a certain congressman. He likes voting against Trump. You know what happens with that? Doesn't work out well. I don't know why he does.
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Jen Psaki
Okay, first off, as far as I know, Congressman Fitzpatrick is not quite Jackie Heinrich's husband yet. They're getting married later this spring. But that's beside the point. The point here is this. Donald Trump is making not so veiled threats aimed at members of his own party who have the audacity to vote against his agenda. Now, inside Trump's mind palace, you could call it. He clearly believes he's riding high after he ousted Republican Congressman Thomas Massie last night after he ousted Republican Senator Bill Cassidy last week, and after he ousted several Republican state legislators in Indiana earlier this month. He clearly feels great about all of the members of his own party he has managed to take out in the past month. I note it took $33 million to take out Massie, most expensive race in congressional history. And now he's expanding the battlefield of his Republican civil war. Though I would note threatening not just Republicans in ruby red districts who will be replaced by other Republicans, but Republicans like Brian Fitzpatrick, who represents a crucial swing district. Republicans are trying desperately to hold onto this November. To put a fine point on it, I think you all get this. But if Trump takes out Brian Fitzpatrick, a Democrat takes that seat, not a Republican. So how did Brian Fitzpatrick take Trump's not so veiled threat? Did he cower in fear from a President who is bragging about the foes he's taken out from his own party? Well, here was Brian Fitzpatrick just a few hours later when he was asked about Trump's new slush fund for Capitol rioters, AKA the so called anti weaponization fund.
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
What do you make of this $1.7 billion fund for bad news?
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Brian Fitzpatrick
Bad news?
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Narrator/Announcer
Bad news.
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Brian Fitzpatrick
We're trying to kill it.
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
You're going to try and kill it.
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Jeff Bezos
Wow.
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Okay. And how.
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Brian Fitzpatrick
Well, we're considering legisl options. We're going to run a letter to the AG to start, but we're considering a legislative option.
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Okay.
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Brian Fitzpatrick
We're trying to unpack. Exactly, you know, what the legal machinations are, but can't do that.
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Right. Have you ever heard of any other Americans, like, other than Trump as an associates? I haven't. Who are unauditable by the irs?
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Brian Fitzpatrick
I've never heard that before.
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Okay, so would that be part of the legislative.
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Brian Fitzpatrick
Of course. Of course. Yeah. You can't do that.
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Jen Psaki
Yeah, you can't do that. Pretty clear that's what I've been saying. That's what a lot of people have been saying. But Brian Fitzpatrick does not sound at all scared of Trump's threats. That was not a fearful guy. But before you give him any sort of profile and courage award, you should know that Brian Fitzpatrick represents a district that Joe Biden won by three and a half points. He knows that no matter how much Trump thumps his chest, no matter how many times he threatens him, the people who he really has to fear are, are the general election voters in his district. Those are the people who have the power to take him from congressman to unemployed husband of a much younger Fox News reporter. That's almost certainly why today, Congressman Fitzpatrick sent a letter to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche demanding answers about Trump's new slush fund for Capitol rioters. And Congressman Fitzpatrick isn't just some random member of Congress trying to pick a fight with Trump. He sits on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which has oversight over the irs. So he will have ample opportunity potentially to demand more answers about this fund. And the thing is, Brian Fitzpatrick isn't the only Republican who doesn't seem scared by Trump's threats. Today. Republicans are preparing to strip the taxpayer money for Trump's very unpopular ballroom project out of their latest funding bill. Trump had pressured Senate Majority Leader John Thune to take drastic measures to force that funding through Congress. He even pressured Thune to fire the Senate parliamentarian so they could override the rules of Congress, all to get his precious ballroom money. But Jon Tun didn't fire the parliamentarian, and even if he had, the funding for the ballroom would probably not have made it into the package because Trump still apparently doesn't have enough support from members of his own party to pass the bill with that included. Republican Senator John Kennedy even told reporters, quote, this one is not the parliamentarian's fault. The votes aren't there, plainly and simply. So aside from the fact that it feels like a politically insane thing to vote for, why aren't Republicans falling in line with Trump's ballroom project? Well, according to Politico, the mood over Trump's ballroom soured Tuesday amid anger over Trump's decision to endorse Ken Paxton over incumbent Senator John Cornyn in the upcoming Republican primary runoff in Texas. So here's the thing. Trump's attempts to assert power over his party seem to be backfiring with his slush fund with his ballroom, even with this war. I mean, just two days after Trump ousted Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana in his primary, Cassidy broke ranks and cast the deciding vote to move forward with a resolution to rein in Trump's war in Iran. That measure now appears likely to pass the Senate. It's going to be sent over to the House. These are all want one offs. They're a part of a pattern of Trump's attempts at retribution against people in his own party. Backfiring. And no one but Trump and his closest sycophants think he is operating from a real position of power. As one anonymous senior operative for Senate Republicans told Politico, those so called victories over the last couple weeks are just a mirage. They are self owns. We're not actually beating Democrats and we're not actually advancing legislation. Instead, gas is up 45% due to our actions and the president's decision to go to war with Iran. He's focused on the ballroom. He's announced a $1.8 billion restitution fund with zero details or congressional authority to do so. It just is crazy. Trump is acting like he's all powerful within his party at a time when he's actually quite toxic. I mean, a new Quinnipiac poll out today finds Trump's approval rating at just 34%, the lowest he's received in that poll during his second term. That's on par with right around where he was right after January 6th, just to give you a sense. And just 33% approve of his handling of the economy, another record low for that poll. A new Fox News poll out tonight also finds a record number of voters now disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy, with disapproval from Republicans jumping seven points in just the past month. Now, none of this has led to a big fever breaking moment when Republicans in Congress suddenly abandoned Trump en masse. That's not what I'm saying. But it has created several new strains within the Republican Party. Strains of Republicans who are more willing than ever, seemingly, to break with Donald Trump. They're the group I'm going to call, the survivors. People like Senator Susan Collins of Maine, Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, who I just talked about, who face tough reelection campaigns and are just trying to hang onto their jobs. Then there's what we're going to start calling the YOLO caucus, as in you only live once. Republicans who either chose to retire or were forced into retirement by Donald Trump, and who now have zero Fs to give. People like Thomas Massie, Senator Bill Cassidy, Thom Tillis, and if he loses next week's Texas Senate primary and subsequently grows his spine, maybe John Cornyn will join him. I'm not going to hold my breath, but we can watch that. A growing number of elected Republicans are increasingly unhappy with Trump's unhinged behavior. The voters are increasingly unhappy with Trump's unhinged behavior. So who is happy about all of this? Well, I mean, there's Trump himself. Obviously, he feels very good about himself. Trump doesn't seem to care who he alienates in his priority as long as he's able to line his own pockets. And the New York Times reports that Trump's new slush fund settlement with the IRS could erase as much as $100 million from his own tax bill. So Trump has no reason to complain. Even as members of his party start pulling their hair out over how bad this all looks for them. Likewise, Trump's rogue gallery of insurrectionists and election deniers are equally thrilled with the windfalls that may be coming their way. Disgraced MyPillow CEO and election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell told CNN he expects to receive Wade for it at least $400 million from the fund. The right wing news outlet One America News is reportedly also considering seeking money from the fund after they were sued for defamation for spreading false election conspiracies. Remember, this is the same administration that stripped funding from nonpartisan outlets like PBS and npr, claiming ending taxpayer subsidies for biased media. Now, they may end up using your tax dollars to fund an explicitly biased right wing outlet. And according to the New York Times, many of the January 6th writers have started to muse about what they might do with their settlement money. Everything from new cars to new houses to funding new political campaigns. Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the neo fascist Proud Boys movement, told Reuters he wants between 2 and $5 million, adding, quote, I'm not greedy. But amazingly, there are some Capitol rioters who have decided that $1.8 billion isn't enough money. They actually think they deserve more. Jacob Chancellor, aka the QAnon Shaman, told CNN that he isn't going to participate in the fund because he's still suing the government for $40 trillion, which is about 10 times the annual budget of the entire US government, just to put it in perspective. Now, another Capitol writer reportedly said they didn't think $1.8 billion was enough once you divided among all the insurrectionists, he told the Times, quote, even when Trump divorced Marla Maples and he was getting interviewed on it, he admitted that a million dollars isn't a lot of money. Look, handing over any amount of money, a dollar, to these people isn't just immoral and insane, it's political suicide. The backlash against this is growing by the day. Even Republicans are starting to understand how bad this looks for them. The question now is, is there enough outrage and momentum for Congress to actually stop it? Joining me now is Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. He sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate. Yeah, he is never holds back. He is always speaking his mind. I'm so glad that you can be here with me. There's so much to talk about. I just want to start with this because this happened in the last hour, in just the last hour or so. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy. He's in the YOLO caucus, as I'm calling it, ripped the president's slush fund on Twitter. And if there needs to be a settlement, the administration should bring it to Congress to decide. I wonder if. I'm sure you'd love that, but I wonder if you think he has pissed off enough Republicans that that could actually happen.
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Not quite. I think that there's still some primaries out there that give Trump leverage. And I think the collapse of his presidency and his way of thinking and the economic pain that he's inflicted on regular American families, all of those things are building up to what I call the Blazing Saddles moment where the governor says to all the cronies around him, boys, it's time we looked out for our own phony baloney jobs. And I do think that looking out for their own phony baloney jobs is going to start to become very real for a lot of Republicans who until now have had spines of foam.
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Jen Psaki
Yeah, we're starting to see that to some degree. You know, even with. I like to think they did it for the moral reasons, but even in some Republican senators flipping on the war powers vote, I'm not naive to think it was all for moral reasons. There were some political reasons there for sure. We saw what Brian Fitzpatrick said in the hallway today on the slush fund. You know, I'm not saying this is going to happen tomorrow, but let's say it built up to there being a point where there was support among enough Republicans to do something. What would that look like to stop it?
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
At this point, it's hard to tell because they've been so supine for so long that there's not really a portfolio of resistance options on the Republican side. I think the closest you come is Matt Gaetz for Attorney General.
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Dan Goldman
Right.
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Which blew up because a whole lot of Republicans quietly called the White House and Susie Wiles said, no, no, no, stop this, this is really, really stupid and we gotta kill it. But since then, they've just been rolled and rolled and rolled and rolled and rolled for probably the worst cabinet ever, all confirmed. And these appalling decisions like the billion dollar Ballroom and the billion eight dollar cop beaters slush fund and this crazy war in Iran that has no end. So the pressure is really, really building hard against them. But it is hard to figure out how it's going to, I think bit by bit you're going to see more and more people, whether to protect their own phony billing jobs or because they've had a late come crisis of conscience, begin to push back a little bit.
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Jen Psaki
Go figure. They don't think an IRS slush fund is going to be really good in their campaign ads. Political geniuses. Let me ask you about the ballroom. This feels a little bit different or you tell me, because it seems to be at this moment that the funding is not currently in the bill, in the Senate bill, or that's what the reporting suggests. There's a range of report suggesting as to why, you know, some of it is unhappiness around the Paxton endorsement. It seems like it's obviously a politically stupid thing for anyone to be forced to support. Give us a sense of why it was stripped out. Do you think it stays out? Is there any path forward for Republicans to push it forward?
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Yeah, I think in the Senate there is not interest in getting this ballroom done. They hate the idea. They wish it would go away. It is terrible optics as they go into the election and people are worried about grocery prices and fuel prices.
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Dan Goldman
So.
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
And it's really a huge burden on Republicans right now trying to stagger their way towards the November election. But it followed relatively normal process. They used reconciliation. We've used reconciliation before. They tried to come to Congress. They came to Congress before the kind of general funding rules of the Congress were being followed. You move over to this, you've got a fund that's set up with what money? Nothing appropriated for it. How was it decided? Who were the adverse parties in the litigation in Trump vs Trump? Who was Blanche representing when he alone signed the so called settlement document? What makes it a settlement when you didn't have adverse parties in the first place? And then right behind all that just awful stuff come all these thugs who attacked the Capitol, who beat our Capitol police officers and they're all like saying the quiet part out loud. Yeah, this is for us. This is our cop beaters slush fund. And that makes it really hard, I think for the Republicans, it's one step worse on procedure. And these January 6th thugs just celebrating this so visibly, so publicly, it totally quiet part out loud.
- [17:22]
Jen Psaki
I mean, I just read only a sampling of it, but it is, and this is not even that old. It is so horrifying to kind of hear. I mean, we've talked about corruption in this administration. It's mind blowing and sometimes it can be. And you do this for a living, among many other things. Hard to wrap your head around. I hear this from a lot of people. When you're out there talking to your constituents or explaining to people the case for why the corruption happening in this administration is impacting their lives, give us a sense of how you make the political argument.
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Well, the Political argument is really simple. People are suffering economically. Their costs have gone way up, whether it's groceries or home insurance or the gas at the pump. And they have a president who came into office promising that costs would go down right away, that he was there to bust things up and make things better for them against a rigged system. And now they're seeing that he's playing the rigged system for himself. He's got the kids with the billion dollar crypto deals. He's got pardons for sale everywhere you turn. The donors for the Billion Dollar Ballroom and now this $1.8 billion comp beaters slush fund. All of that is super visible and it's totally not looking out for me. And it's that lack of regard and interest for regular people that his really unbelievable comment captured, that he doesn't give a thought about Americans financial situations. That just, I mean, the wincing on the Republican side when that comment went up on the TV was just like that hurt.
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Jen Psaki
And JD Vance said it was out of context. We know the truth there. And Trump, he's become the swamp monster, essentially sitting on top of the rigged system he created. Okay, you've been so generous. We're gonna have you wait, stay here. We've got to do a commercial. You know how this works when we get back. And I just want, I want to ask you about one man who you've talked about in the past. His name is Jeff Bezos. I don't know if you saw his CNBC interview this morning. You may have seen it.
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
I've read the excerpts from it.
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Jen Psaki
Well, stunning in case anybody watching has. I just want to play one clip of that. We'll take a break and we'll talk about that when we come back.
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Jeff Bezos
I think he is a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term. Trump has lots of good ideas and he's done a lot of. He's been right about a lot of things. You have to give him credit where credit is due.
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Tom Hanks (voiceover for WWII documentary)
The Second World War is the largest event in human history.
- [20:04]
Narrator for WWII documentary
A 20 part document series with Tom Hanks.
- [20:07]
Tom Hanks (voiceover for WWII documentary)
No part of the globe was untouched. No life unchanged.
- [20:12]
Narrator for WWII documentary
Experience. The ultimate account of World War II.
- [20:16]
Tom Hanks (voiceover for WWII documentary)
Every single person had a story. These are the stories that make us who we are.
- [20:24]
Narrator for WWII documentary
World War II with Tom Hanks premieres Memorial Day at 8. Part of history honors 250 only on the History Channel.
- [20:30]
Commercial Announcer
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- [21:00]
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- [22:07]
Jen Psaki
Today, the fourth richest person in the world, Jeff Bezos, sat down with CNBC for an hour long interview in his rocket factory. That is a real thing that happened. And despite the fact that the multi billionaire himself is in many ways a symbol of that very wealth inequality, he tried to garner some goodwill by addressing the unfairness of the US Tax system for the average Joe.
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Jeff Bezos
I started thinking about this and doing some research. A nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year pays more than $12,000 a year in taxes. Does that really make sense? The bottom half of income earners in this country pay only 3% of the tax taxes. It's only 3%. We can find 3%. You know, we shouldn't be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington. They should be sending her an apology.
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Jen Psaki
Okay, that in a vacuum sounds pretty good. Jeff Bezos. But then he was asked if he and other billionaires should pay higher taxes to make up for that revenue loss. And that's when he said, well, the most telling thing of all,
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Jeff Bezos
if people want me to pay more billions, right then let's have that debate. But don't pretend you know that this, that that's going to solve the problem, you could. You could double the taxes I pay. And it's not going to help that teacher in Queens, I promise you,
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Jen Psaki
considering there are years he paid no taxes at all. He may be right that doubling his taxes are not going to solve the problem at all. But maybe we should give it a shot. Other years, anyway. Okay, back with me now is Senator Sheldon Whitehous. Okay. As I mentioned this, I mean, a few years ago, and you track this so closely, a few years ago, ProPublica published an investigation showing how in 2007 and 2011, Jeff Bezos did not pay a single penny in federal income taxes. Other billionaires also do the same. He's not a one off. You've raised this issue many times. What is the solution? And how central do you think an argument about this is right now in our political space?
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Well, I think it's really important because part of the anger that people feel out there is the feeling the system is rigged. And that same study that you referenced showed, if I recall correctly, that Jeff Bezos paid a 1% tax rate over many years. And so you're right. If you double 1% to 2%, is that going to save everything?
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Commercial Announcer
No.
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
But if you move to a world in which billionaires pay the same tax rates as the teacher in Queens, as the plumber, then suddenly parks get better and schools get better and you can have a more robust world for people at the lower end of the spectrum. And so the idea that a billionaire thinks that it's about him and him paying more in taxes, when what it's really about is America. And what kind of an America do we have when the people who have the most, for whom their last marginal dollar has literally zero value, they don't even know where it is, and they avoid the tax system, don't pay taxes, duck out on their responsibilities to fund the government, and then everybody else has to pick up the slack. And that's wrong from a tax perspective, but it's really wrong from a democracy and morality perspective. And I think that helps explain why people are so darned angry. And by the way, it's not every billionaire Tom Stiers out there working his tail off to become governor of California to fight the fossil fuel industry and fix the climate havoc we have coming at us? But this attitude is not for real.
- [25:52]
Jen Psaki
Before the break, I played another clip from the CNBC interview, a soundbite of Bezos saying, and I just want to get this right, he called Trump, quote, a more mature, more disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term. Trump has lots of good ideas. He's been right about a lot of things. You have to give him credit where credit is due. What do you think about that?
- [26:12]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
He doesn't see the Donald Trump that I see. I don't know what Donald Trump he's seeing, but the one with the billionaire ballroom, the one with the cop beater slush fund, the one with the side deals for his family, the one who just gave himself tax amnesty for himself, his family and all of his companies. There's nothing normal about that that's not stable. In fact, it's downright evil.
- [26:41]
Jen Psaki
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, thank you for being here with me today.
- [26:43]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Thank you.
- [26:44]
Jen Psaki
Okay, coming up, we dug up some old video today that blows another huge hole in the bogus lawsuit Trump filed against his own irs. We're going to show it to you and talk about it with Congressman and former prosecutor Dan Goldman after a very quick break.
- [27:02]
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- [29:07]
Jen Psaki
We all know the creation of a $1.8 billion slush fund for Donald Trump's allies was the product of an unprecedented, frivolous and highly suspicious sketchy lawsuit filed by Trump against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns. Now, rather than fight the suit, Trump's Justice Department led by his former personal lawyer. He doesn't like to be called that, but that's a fact. Todd Blanche negotiated a so called settlement to keep the case from going before a skeptical judge who seemed inclined to dismiss it. It has all the hallmarks of a backroom deal. And tonight there's even more evidence to suggest that Trump's lawsuit would have been laughed out of court had the DOJ actually stood up for the American taxpayers who are now footing the bill. Remember, Donald Trump filed his lawsuit against the IRS earlier this year back on January 29th. And keep that date in because in his lawsuit, Trump claimed that he first discovered that his taxes had been improperly accessed exactly two years earlier than that very same day, January 29th of 2024. So why is that date important? Well, it's important because the law governing the unauthorized inspection or disclosure of taxpayer information has a statute of limitations of two years, meaning you can only sue within two years after discovering that your private tax information has been breached. So given that two year deadline, it's pretty incredible that Trump filed his suit just under the wire exactly two years to the day before that statute of limitations would have run out. Pretty convenient, right? Except new evidence is now emerging that suggests that Trump knew his tax returns had been improperly accessed months earlier than he claimed in that lawsuit. You see when the IRS contractor charged with improperly accessing and leaking his returns pleaded guilty back in October of 2023. Trump's personal lawyer, Alina Haba, remember her, was at the courthouse and here's what she had to say.
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Alina Haba
When you see how differently people are treated, it's wrong and there's no place for it. One felony count for releasing a sitting president's and candidates tax returns months before an election to the New York Times. We just learned that inside. And then releasing thousands of other people's taxes, tax returns a year later. There's no place for that. And this guy has one felony charge.
- [31:23]
Jen Psaki
That was Donald Trump's own lawyer, Lena Haba, publicly acknowledging that her client was a victim of the IRS contractor who leaked his taxes. She said that in October of 2023, that's when that video was from, three and a half months before the date that Trump now claims he first learned about it. And that, of course, would mean the statute of limitation should have expired long before Trump actually filed his lawsuit against the IRS in January. So the fact of the matter is as ridiculous as Trump's new slush fund is, as offensive as it is as crazy as the reactions from all the rioters are. The pretext that the Justice Department used to create it was just as BS full of it. Joining me now is New York Congressman and former federal prosecutor Dan Goldman. Okay, there is a lot to say about this slush fund, but I just want to start with this very specific detail. It feels like there is clear evidence here that it was outside of the statute of limitations. I mean, we just showed the Alina Haba video there. This is something that was in a letter Congress also sent. Democrats in Congress also sent making this point. Now that there is a settlement, though legally, is there anything that can be done about that fact?
- [32:32]
Dan Goldman
Well, the interesting thing about the settlement is that it was not. It's not, it's not really a settlement of the lawsuit. What they did is because they realized that two days later the judge was going to dismiss the case because the parties were not adverse to each other. Donald Trump, under his own theory of being king, controls the IRS and the Department of Justice and is the plaintiff. So the judge was about to throw it out as you can't have have a lawsuit between the same people, same person. So that's one reason. And so what they did is rather than settle the lawsuit as part of the case, which the judge would have had to have approved, they withdrew the case altogether. And then they had a separate settlement that looks like a settlement of the lawsuit, but is not anything related to the lawsuit. And so they obviously did that because this was all a ruse to begin with. It was all a manufactured mechanism to try to justify the creation of a slush fund or, and now we know the ability for Donald Trump to exempt himself from any IRS audits just to create the. The pretext or the ruse of having a reason for a settlement. So now the statute of limitations is an Additional reason why the Department of Justice committed malpractice by not defending this case and not aggressively defending it, and instead agreed to a $1.8 billion slush fund of American taxpayer money for a case that they would have won in any which different way it is.
- [34:28]
Jen Psaki
That is a very helpful explanation. I want to go to your law school. But it is unbelievable. It's still an unbelievable ruse they pulled here. Let me ask you. There was this lawsuit filed by former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges. I think I've watched some footage of them. One of our producers rewatched some of the footage of them testifying before the January 6th committee, and just what's going through their head is just completely heartbreaking when they watch this. What impact could that have? And do you think there could be other lawsuits that could bring this whole thing back into kind of the legal system somehow?
- [35:03]
Dan Goldman
Yeah, I think that that is a different way. And, you know, I've gotten to know the two of them as well as Sergeant Gunnell and Michael Fanon over the years, and you can just imagine the constant ripping off of the band aid for them as Trump pardons all of the people that assaulted them and almost killed Michael Fanon and has now rendered Sergeant Gunnell unable to work. He pardons them then he calls them martyrs then. Now he's creating a slush fund to give them money. Sergeant Gunnell, as an example, isn't even getting disability, and he was beaten so bad that he cannot work now for the Capitol Police. So you have these guys who actually are victims of a crime, and that Donald Trump is so intentionally whitewashing and brainwashing people into think believing him. When we saw the opposite, it's incredibly, incredibly disheartening for them. I think that this lawsuit is interesting. They're gonna have a hurdle to get through standing. But there are many other avenues, I think, that are more directly attacking legal avenues. Yeah, I mean, it's a violation of the Constitution in a number of different ways. It is, you know, effectively an emolument. Right. He now has given himself something of value with the IRS stuff. It is structured in a flawed way, and ultimately, it's a complete abdication of the obligations of the Department of Justice. So I think there are lots of different angles that this can go back into court, and I expect that it will.
- [36:56]
Jen Psaki
Congressman Dan Goldman. I know you're a very active member of Congress, but I'm very grateful for your legal background, always. Thank you for being here with me.
- [37:04]
Dan Goldman
Thanks.
- [37:04]
Jen Psaki
Okay. Coming up, Marco Rubio just criticized the leaders of another country for plundering its nation's wealth. And I actually think the irony may have been lost on him, but we will remind him of it. Ben Rhodes is the former deputy National Security Advisor to Barack Obama and he joins me next. So today, Trump's Secretary of State, Marco Rubio released a video of himself speaking directly to the people of Cuba. And in that video, Rubio told the people of Cuba that the reason they don't have electricity or fuel or food is because the leaders of their country have plundered the nation's wealth. Now, I'm not going to defend decades of leadership of the Castro regime. That's not what I'm suggesting. But isn't that just a bit ironic as a message from the Secretary of State, given his boss, Donald Trump, has just established a slush fund to pay his political allies with American taxpayer dollars. And it is also quite a statement given it is the US Military that has functionally blockaded the country at Trump's direction for the last four months. The US has had an embargo on Cuba since the 1960s, but since the beginning of the year, Trump has radically escalated that embargo into a full blown blockade with only one oil tanker reaching the island since February. So Trump and Rubio are far from the outraged observers that Rubio performatively presented them as during that video. They're a big part of the reason things have gotten worse in just the last few months. Rubio also included his message to the Cuban people by telling them that the only thing standing in the way of a better future for their country are the country's current leaders, which. Which certainly sounds a lot like he's pushing for regime change, doesn't it? Now, today is Cuban Independence Day, so posting that today would only be slightly concerning. It would be concerning if it was the only news we got out of the Trump administration on Cuba today. But of course it's not. Because today the Southern Command of the US Military announced that four US Ships, including the largest aircraft carrier in the world, are now stationed in the Caribbean. That's the first US Aircraft carrier in the region since just after the US Military captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Which brings me to the biggest news on Cuba we got today. Today, Trump's former personal lawyer turned acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, announced criminal charges against the 94 year old former President of Cuba, Raul Castro, for killing four people when Cuba downed two planes more than 30 years ago. Now, if the Justice Department indicting a foreign leader is giving you Quite a sense of deja vu. That is likely because that was the pretext that the Trump administration used earlier this year to justify sending the military to cap President Maduro in Venezuela and attempt regime change there. So is all this news from the Trump administration about Cuba just happening today because today is Cuban Independence Day, or are we seeing the administration laying the groundwork for yet another military action, a military action that today's indictment could very well be the pretext for?
- [40:10]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
This isn't a show indictment. This is an indictment because we expect that there was a warrant issued for his arrest.
- [40:17]
Jen Psaki
So we.
- [40:18]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
We expect that he will show up here by his own will or by another way and go to prison. Next question.
- [40:31]
Jen Psaki
Joining me now is Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Advisor and speechwriter for President Obama and the author of the upcoming book, all we the Battle for American a history in 15 speeches. Okay, I just want to start with the video that Secretary of State Marco Rubio put out today in Spanish. It was a Spanish language message. What do you think? Who is the audience? What is he trying to achieve for this video? What did you make of it?
- [41:01]
Ben Rhodes
Well, Jen, as you remember, I negotiated the normalization of relations with Cuba, including with Raul Castro, directly traveled to Havana with you and President Obama in 2016. So I've thought a lot about this. That video was extraordinary in its hubris, tone deafness, and hypocrisy. I think the audience for that video was not the Cuban people, most of whom probably won't even see it. The audience was kind of Rubio's own political base, the more hardline Cuban Americans, mainly in South Florida, who have wanted there to be a regime change since the Bay of Pigs invasion, when this was last attempted in the Kennedy administration. And just, just very quickly to go through it. The absurdity of it. Look, I'm not here to defend the Cuban government, but the reality is the scarcity in Cuba is not because its leaders stole some money from the people. It's because there's been an embargo for decades that denies basic goods and denies Cuba access to the international financial system. And because there's been a full blockade on Cuba for months, which has denied them fuel, which has led to power shortages, which has killed people, because if you cut off power to hospitals, people die and children are malnourished. Second, the absurdity of him talking about the corruption of billions of dollars being stolen at the same time that Donald Trump, his family and his cronies have been looting, literally the American treasury or leveraging American power to get billions of dollars in crypto companies. Nobody believes that this is some earnest anti corruption agenda. And then lastly, do we really think these people are credible in delivering messages about human rights and democracy as they dismantle human rights and democracy at home? No. So this is about power. This is about treating the Western hemisphere like our empire. And it's about something that no Americans, other than that small political base of Rubio's is interested in, which is yet another regime change operation.
- [42:56]
Jen Psaki
Yeah, I mean, as I just outlined. But you again, as you just mentioned, I should have mentioned in the introduction, you did negotiate the deal, deal with Cuba back a little over 10 years ago. And what we saw, it all reminds, I think a lot of people out there, including me, of what we saw with Maduro. It feels a little bit like deja vu, right? There's a indictment and then there's this concern we don't know what's going to happen, that this could mean another attempt at regime change, more military action. Is that how you see it? And if that happens, what message does that send, I guess to the region and the rest of the world. What concerns you there?
- [43:31]
Ben Rhodes
That's clearly what this is about. And here's what's even stranger about this, Jen. Like look, with Iran, you could at least point to some national security threat, you know, a nuclear program. With Venezuela, they pointed to this threat of drug cartels which really didn't feature that prominently in Venezuela. And we learned after the fact it was about oil. Cuba poses no national security threat to the United States. You know, there's no nuclear program, there's no support for terrorism. There's not drug trafficking through Cuba. They're actually quite tough on drug trafficking. What is it really about? It's about settling a score with the Castro family for something that happened in the late 1950s. And actually bluntly, it's also about real estate. You know, it's about who's going to be able to develop, you know, beachfront property in Cuba or Miami. Cubans that want to get claims of land that they owned in the 1950s before the Cuban revolution. And the question is, do we really want to risk what could go on with the military conflict in terms of loss of life here and in Cuba. Do we really want to risk risk or spend billions of dollars to have aircraft carriers and other military assets participate in this? The absurdity of indicting a 94 year old man for something that happened more than 30 years ago, is that tough to go send some Delta Force guys to grab a 94 year old man who's not even the president of Cuba anymore. Like what is going on here? And as in Venezuela, the Cuban regime is deep. It's not one man, it's an ideology. It's a military. And so they're playing empire in the hemisphere. That's what this is about. It makes Donald Trump feel powerful. I think what should concern people beyond the humanitarian and moral outrage of starving children in Cuba is where does this end? Cuz Cuba won't be the last stop. We've had Venezuela, Iran and now potentially Cuba all this year is Greenland, next Panama, Canada. I mean, this is what happens when an autocrat gets the kind of war bug and it never ends well.
- [45:25]
Jen Psaki
We don't even have time to talk about Florida politics and Marco Rubio's aspirations, but that surely is a part of it. Ben Rhodes, you'll come back, we'll talk about it. Your new book, Always say the Battle for American a history in 15 speeches comes out next week. You can pre order it now everywhere where you buy books. Gotta take a quick break, but Lawrence has Senator John Ossoff standing by. We'll be right back. That does it for me tonight. You can catch the show Tuesday through Friday at 9pm Eastern on Ms. Now. And don't forget to follow the show on Blue sky, Instagram and TikTok.
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