← The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Lawrence: Donald Trump doesn't want us to talk about Jeffrey Epstein's emails. So we will.
00:39:11
Tonight on The Last Word: New emails reveal the extent of the Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell partnership. Also, a federal appeals court rules against Donald Trump in his effort to oust Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook ahead of its meeting this week. Plus, the CBO finds unemployment and inflation will be worse this year than projected. And a Los Angeles honor student talks to MSNBC after being deported to Guatemala with her mother. Jason Leopold, Andrew Weissmann, Sen. Jacky Rosen, and Jacob Soboroff join Lawrence O’Donnell.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Lender approval well, as I just said, this hour will not be what Donald Trump wants it to be. It will not be a discussion of Donald Trump's pathological lie that liberals are to blame for the murder of Charlie Cook. Donald Trump knows that's a lie and he is pushing that lie in the hope that programs like this will be filled with anguished complaint about this Trump Mass Libel of Half of America Donald Trump is the only President of the United States who has ever blamed a murder on millions of voters who did not vote for him. Donald Trump knows that the 22 year old Utah man accused of the murder grew up in a family of registered Republican parents who Donald Trump has now praised repeatedly. Today, Donald Trump said that the accused murderer's parents did everything right. Parents who can think, of course, that they've done everything right are not parents I've met. Parents whose kids end up facing murder charges surely can wonder from time to time what they might have gotten wrong. And so Donald Trump insults the intelligence of the entire country, including his own supporters, when he launches this mass libel of half the country. The 20 year old man in Pennsylvania who shot at Donald Trump was a registered Republican. And the 22 year old Utah man accused of murdering Charlie Cook has never voted. The single most murderous American political assassin was a registered Republican and he is the only American political assassin who murdered more than one person. Timothy McVeigh was a veteran of the United States army who at 26 years old in an instant murdered 168 people in the federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In 1995, registered Republican Timothy McVeigh attacked the federal building specifically to assassinate Federal workers for his twisted right wing political reasons. Registered Republican Timothy McVeigh came to hate the government in whose army he served. Timothy McVeigh murdered 19 children in the daycare center of that federal building in an instant by blowing up that building with a truck bomb. Registered Republican Timothy McVeigh's assassination target that they was all the federal workers in that building. And he didn't care who else would have to die in the process. That's how far Timothy McVeigh's insane right wing ideology drove him. And Donald Trump had nothing to say about that. In 1995, Donald Trump could pick up the phone and get himself quoted in the New York tabloid newspapers whenever he wanted to. He could get himself booked on TV chat shows and say whatever he wanted to say. He could take out full page ads in the New York Times and condemn people as he had already done at that time, demanding the death penalty in one case for people who he wrongly believed were guilty of raping a woman in Central Park. There was no full page ad by Donald Trump about Timothy McVeigh. Donald Trump didn't blame the Republican Party for what Timothy McVeigh did. No one blamed Republicans for what Timothy McVeigh did. There was no Internet to blame yet no social media to blame for poisoning Timothy McVeigh's mind. And it never crossed any politician's mind to blame millions of people who never met Timothy McVeigh. That is Donald Trump's uniquely perverse contribution to the aftermath of a public murder. What Donald Trump wants is, is agreement from his supporters and outrage from the millions of people he is libelously accusing of inciting murder. Because that means that we will not be covering the very bad news that continues to mount for Donald Trump, including headlines like this one in today's Wall Street Journal. Right there. Putin, Netanyahu march on with Trump on the sidelines. That is a very, very important headline for the world and a very bad headline for Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu proving every day how irrelevant Donald Trump is to their calculations about what they will do next. Remember Donald Trump's pointless trip to Alaska to welcome Vladimir Putin into the United States? Donald Trump said he would give Vladimir Putin two weeks after that to reach a peace agreement with Ukraine. And Vladimir Putin has continued his savage attacks on Ukraine and humiliated Donald Trump even more than he was before by sending Russian drones into NATO territory in Poland. And Donald Trump says nothing. Donald Trump just says libelous things about other people being to blame for the murder of Charlie Kirk. Donald Trump just wants to get Half the country outraged at the other half of this country. And Donald Trump doesn't want anyone in this country to be outraged at Vladimir Putin. The other bad news for Donald Trump includes a federal court tonight finding his attempt to fire a member of the Federal Reserve Board to be completely and obviously illegal. And so Lisa Cook will show up for tomorrow's meeting at the Federal Reserve because she's still a member and she knows that. And Donald Trump really doesn't want you to know what's in the emails in the Epstein files. Our first guest tonight has been studying the emails in the Epstein files. Jason Leopold at Bloomberg reports. The emails, part of a cache of more than 18,000 obtained by Bloomberg News, show that Maxwell and Epstein were closer in many respects than than either publicly admitted. Maxwell opened at least one foreign bank account using one of his addresses, was a name director on one of Epstein's main revenue generating companies, and traded stock in a company they were both invested in. Details that haven't been previously reported. The details in these emails show Ghislaine Maxwell lied to federal agents who which is the criminal equivalent of perjury when Donald Trump's former criminal defense lawyer, now Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, went to Florida last month to have a friendly chat with Ghislaine Maxwell on the recorded portion of their conversation. And we don't know how much was said when the recording wasn't on. But on the recorded portion of the conversation which has been made public, Todd Blanche warned Ghislaine Maxwell that would be a crime for her to lie to them in that conversation, but she did lie to them anyway. And Donald Trump doesn't want you to know that. Donald Trump did her the immediate favor of moving her to an easy, relaxed camp from the federal prison that she was in. And so Donald Trump doesn't want you to see the evidence of her perjury in these emails tonight that Bloomberg has obtained. Donald Trump wants to think about the possibility of releasing her from prison someday. And so he doesn't want any of this information out there. And Donald Trump is not going to prosecute her for the perjury that she committed in her conversation with Todd Blanche. And it is Donald Trump who decides who gets prosecuted by the Trump Justice Department. Bloomberg reports that Jeffrey Epstein and Glenn Maxwell, quote, discussed undergoing a shared fertility procedure long after Maxwell claims she largely disassociated from him. They corresponded about discrediting women who raised allegations against them, including in one exchange where Maxwell said she planned to circulate compromising information on one of Epstein's sexual abuse victims. Maxwell has maintained she was kept in the dark about details of Epstein's initial sexual abuse case in the mid-2000s. Yet the emails demonstrate her deep knowledge of the legal jeopardy he faced and show how she helped him strategize over even the most consequential details. Ghislaine Maxwell advised Jeffrey Epstein on the plea deal that he made in 2008 that instead of imprisoning Jeffrey Epstein as a sex trafficker and rapier of children, allowed Jeffrey Epstein to continue to roam free and rape more children, Bloomberg reports. Epstein wrote to Maxwell on May 23, 2008 which one do you prefer? Lewd and lascivious conduct or procuring minors for prostitution? At the time, he and his star studded team of defense lawyers were closing in on a generous plea deal with federal and state officials in Florida, an Epstein was trying to negotiate the state charges to which he'd plead guilty. Maxwell's response was matter of fact, I suppose lewd and lascivious conduct. I would prefer lewd and lascivious conduct with a prostitute if possible. That is the sex trafficking convicted criminal Ghislaine Maxwell advising Jeffrey Epstein about how to deal with his first round of criminal charges before she herself was convicted of sex trafficking and sentenced to 20 years in prison, which Donald Trump has now made a much lighter sentence by moving her to a much more pleasant surrounding and no doubt planning to release her from prison as a reward after the next presidential election, when Donald Trump's pardon spree will surely be something to behold. The federal prosecutor who knows more about Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell than any other prosecutor in history was fired by Donald Trump and his Justice Department. Today that fired prosecutor Maureen Comey sued Donald Trump for the illegal firing, saying in her lawsuits against Donald Trump, defendants have not provided any explanation whatsoever for terminating Ms. Comey. In truth, there is no legitimate explanation. Rather, defendants fired Ms. Comey solely or substantially because her father is former FBI director James Comey, or because of her persuaded perceive political affiliation and beliefs, or both. The politically motivated termination of Ms. Comey, ostensibly under Article 2 of the Constitution, upends bedrock principles of our democracy and justice system. In her lawsuit, Maureen Comey said she was asked to join the prosecution team of a major public corruption case on July 15. So obviously she was a prosecutor in good standing in the Justice Department on July 15th. But the next day, July 16th, she was fired. And the next the day after that, July 17, the Wall Street Journal broke the story about the Epstein birthday book that includes a birthday letter from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein with Donald Trump's signature on the letter. And it appears to be exactly the same one word Donald signature that I got on the one note that I ever received from Donald Trump in 2016. Today, more than 20 Epstein and Maxwell survivors, including many who spoke publicly at the Capitol two weeks ago, are urging members of the Republican Women's Caucus to, quote, stand up against abuse of power and to take action to end the silence and speculation. In a letter obtained by ABC News to the caucus chairs, Republican Congresswoman Kat Kamek and Senator Katie Britt, the survivors requested a meeting with the Republican Women's Caucus. Their letter to the Republican women says, we are mothers, daughters, sisters, friends and wives. We have sought justice for decades to no avail. We have denied the basic rights that should be afforded to every American citizen time and time again. The fact that it took this long for anyone to care about us is a true American tragedy. We stand together in pain and resilience, and we are asking for your help. We have a right to feel safe in this country. We have a right to know why a serial sexual predator was treated with more humanity than we have ever experienced from our own government. Remind us that America is a country that we thought it was when we were little girls before we were let down repeatedly by our own government. Leading off our discussion tonight is Jason Leopold, senior investigative reporter at Bloomberg. He is also the author of FOIA Files newsletter. Also with us, Andrew Weissman, former chief of the Criminal Division of the Eastern District of New York, former FBI general counsel and MSNBC legal analyst. And Jason Leopold, I want to go to the Epstein emails you have poured. You studied a massive, massive collection of them. What are some of the, the highlights that you found?
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Jason Leopold
Well, Lawrence, first, thank you for having me on. You really hit on those highlights in your, in your monologue. Look, these emails are, are fascinating one, because it really does undercut Lane Maxwell's statements, public statements, including ones that she made recently during our interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in saying that.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Her role.
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Jason Leopold
In Epstein's world was largely diminished after he was charged. And we have seen dozens and dozens of emails between the two where, as you noted, they're discussing a shared fertility treatment. She's weighing in on what charges he should plead guilty to. You know, there are dozens of emails about discussions about gifts that they should be handing out. It's, it's. And then you see a set of emails. So first I want to just kind of set the stage for you is that there are 650 emails in total that we have. That we've seen between them. I also do want to make a point that some emails may have been deleted from, from his inbox. But of these emails, there were 203 that they exchanged during the first six months of 2008. And that's where they're discussing, you know, this shared fertility treatment, his, his legal case. And then the, you know, right before he reports for prison, you know, she's weighing in on her personal feelings about it. In fact, you know, right before he is sent off to prison or reports to prison, she says, take Metamucil. You know, I don't want you to be. I'm paraphrasing here. I don't want you to be any unhappier than you need to be. Notably. Let's Fast forward to 2015. There's a set of emails in there where this is my take. There's a sort of panicked tone in some of the emails from Maxwell to Epstein because she had been named as a co conspirator in a victim's right lawsuit that was filed in Florida. And, you know, Virginia, Jeffrey was one of the Jane does in that law. And after the British newspaper had reported on this, she immediately sends an email to Jeffrey Epstein and says, can you have your lawyers send me all the files that you have on Virginia? And these files are sealed juvenile records within these files. And so you start to see how she is going on the offensive and going on the offensive by essentially leaking that to the media.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Andrew, she just. When you see these emails, it's very clear she told lie after lie after lie to Todd Blanche to his face after he gave her that lecture at the beginning of, you know, you can't lie to me. But another thing she was doing constantly in that interview, on the recorded portion of it, I have no idea what was said on the part that wasn't recorded. She kept saying how weak her memory is, how weak her memory is. And then she would offer something after she said how weak her memory is. Do all of those protestations about her weak memory save her from perjury charges in situations like this?
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Andrew Weissmann
Well, let's start with the fact that this administration is not going to bring those charges. So that's sort of like, you know, that hypothetical is great, but it's never.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Going to have limitations.
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Andrew Weissmann
Well, it's five years.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Yeah.
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Andrew Weissmann
So it is potentially possible. There is no question that if you truly have a weak memory and you make it clear and that you then say, this is what I remember, but I'm not sure that's Fine. That is not a deliberately false statement. You may have gotten it wrong. But if you feign it and it can be shown, that's not a defense. I mean, in fact, it just makes it worse. And so you really have to look at it as a whole just how much that really is true. I have to say the whole thing smacks of the following if you are going to and I look at this less from her perspective than more from Todd Blanche's perspective, because I think that's the more insidious part. Colleen Maxwell's convict, she has been found to have done terrible things, including lying. That's not me. That's a court that has said that. And so that's not really, you know, it could be expected that she would go in and lie to save her skin and to try and get a pardon and to be in a camp. The real issue is the Department of Justice and the White House being complicit. But what this really shows is before you do this, make sure you know the facts because this looks like Todd Blanche went in to try and get an exculpatory sort of inter without knowing all of the facts. And now he is being in the polite term, is hoisted by his own petard. And so that's what it really looks like, that this is sort of just an elaborate charade that is going to be disproved by these emails that Jason just talked about and probably many, many others that we're waiting to see discussed.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Jason Leopold, thank you very much for your reporting and thank you so much for joining us on this important story tonight.
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Jason Leopold
Thank you, Lawrence. I appreciate it.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Thank you. And Andrew's going to stay with us for the next segment where we will discuss Donald Trump losing again and in a very big one in an appeals court tonight. That's next.
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- [23:08]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Big Loss for Donald Trump in Court Tonight On a big one tonight, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. has ruled against against Donald Trump's attempt to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook. Donald Trump has claimed that Lisa Cook falsified information on mortgage applications for a second home. Lisa Cook continued to report to work, and Donald Trump's Justice Department asked the courts to force her out of her job, force her out of the workplace. In denying the Trump request in a 2 to 1 decision, appeals court judges Bradley Garcia and J. Michelle Childs said the Supreme Court and this court have repeatedly held that a public official with for cause protection from removal has a constitutionally protected property interest in her position. Cook has been serving in her position continuously despite the president's purported termination. Given these unique circumstances and Cook's strong likelihood of success on at least her due process claim, the government's request for relief is rightly denied. And new bank documents obtained by major news networks also appear to contradict Donald Trump's allegation that Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook committed mortgage fraud by claiming two homes as her primary residence, the Wall Street Journal reports. The documents highlight for the first time evidence that Cook's lender and others may have been aware that the condo wasn't intended to be used as her primary residence. Describing a property as a primary residence can sometimes help secure a lower mortgage rate. Cook's financial disclosure forms indicate she obtained an interest rate of 3.25% on the Atlanta property, which was slightly higher than the prevailing market rates at the time. One document, a letter from the Bank Fund Staff Federal Credit Union that is dated May 28, 2021, details the estimated costs associated with obtaining a mortgage for the purchase of the of an Atlanta condominium. The property use field is listed as vacation home on a preliminary loan estimate. Andrew Weissman is back with us. And Andrew, appeals court saying it looks like Lisa Cook is going to prevail and then we're seeing the actual evidence in the case collapsing.
- [25:54]
Andrew Weissmann
Absolutely. So this to me reminds me so much of the 9, 0 immigration case that twice the Supreme Court said due process been denied to the people who've been extracted with no hearing. What the appeals court is saying is statutorily Congress has said that you can remove this person only if there is cause. And there looks like a substantial factual issue that you have just gone over as to whether any of the sort of so called allegations are true or not. And here's the the court saying she has a right to be heard. She is, this is what happens in this country. You have a right to actually be able to go to court and face any sort of allegations. So that is sort of fundamental due process. The court didn't even have to get to sort of other legal issues and just said she has a right to be heard on that. And yes, you're right. There seems to be a substantial case. You see why she is fighting. Let's leave aside that this is all a ruse to just get her out of there. But it seems like there isn't sort of for cause here. And the bigger picture that is really worth remembering is this is the president of the United States basically saying I don't have to pay attention to a congressional statute. I mean that is the sort of critical factor here is this sort of separation of powers is just being run roughshod in this situation. And Congress, if it had any sort of backbone or looked at itself in the mirror would be saying, you know what, we're not going to confirm new members of the Federal Reserve. We're not going to do any of that until you respect what we have done here. Of course that has not happened. They've in fact, you know, they confirmed yet another board member today, actually this evening. But that is sort of the real tension here is that you don't have Congress standing up to the president.
- [27:47]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Republicans in Congress and prior to Trump, Republicans in Congress would have been outraged by all of this.
- [27:52]
Andrew Weissmann
Exactly.
- [27:53]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Andrew Weisman, thank you very much for joining us tonight. And coming up with the illegal and unconstitutional Trump tariffs, poisoning the economy, raising prices and angering Canadians, the mayor of Las Vegas has taken to begging Canadians to come down to Las Vegas to save the tourist economy of Nevada's biggest city. Nevada Senator Jackie Rosen joins us next.
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- [29:54]
Lawrence O'Donnell
The Special Federal Court of International Trade has unanimously found Donald Trump's tariffs to be illegal and unconstitutional, not to mention how bad they are for the economy. It's pretty simple. Tariffs are sales taxes and sales taxes increase prices and so tariffs directly cause inflation. The non partisan Congressional Budget Office is now reporting they expect the unemployment rate to hit 4.5% this year and they expect inflation to hit 3.1%. The Congressional Budget Office says the net effects of the 2025 reconciliation act. That's the Trump bill. Higher tariffs and lower net immigration on aggregate demand. On aggregate demand and the labor supply drive most of the changes in the agency's forecast. The Washington Post reports today more than one in four workers without jobs have been unemployed for at least half a year. New data show the number is a post pandemic high and a level typically only seen during periods of Economic turmoil. In all, more than 1.9 million Americans had been unemployed long term in August, meaning they have been out of work for 27 weeks or more. A critical cliff when it comes to finding a job. That's nearly double the 1 million people who were in a similar position in early 2023. Donald Trump's idea of what to do about all this is to tell corporations to stop reporting what's actually happening. Donald Trump posted on social media at 8:05am his idea that instead of corporations reporting their financial data on a quarterly basis, they should only do it every six months. Just do it half as much. The New York Times reports, quote, in recent earnings reports, companies revealed that they had increased prices or planned to do so to offset the cost of tariffs, which for some has run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. And in Las Vegas, all eyes are now turned north. Last week, the mayor of Las Vegas, Shelley Berkeley, said, quote, as the mayor of Las Vegas, I'm telling everybody in Canada, please come, we love you, we need you and we miss you. Joining us now is Democratic Senator Jackie Rosen of Nevada. She's a member of the Senate Commerce Committee and the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. Senator Rosen, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Las Vegas is such a crossroads of tourism, epicenter of tourism in this country. And we are seeing the effects of Trump antagonizing an entire country within a very short travel distance from Las Vegas.
- [32:52]
Senator Jackie Rosen
Well, I can tell you, first of all, Lawrence, thank you for having me. And thank you for quoting Mayor Berkley, because she's exactly right. I'm the former chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce for Tourism, Trade and Export Promotion, Tourism and Trade, the top economic drivers in every state in this nation. And when you put on those reckless tariffs, as you've rightly said, they are a national sales tax. Everybody pays for them. Most of all, hard working families. Look, the billionaires, the billionaire buddies in his cabinet, they don't care. They'll pay anything. They've got plenty of money. But hardworking families are seeing it in every way. Don't believe me, just go to the market. And tourism. Now, when businesses think that there's a lot of uncertainty, when people aren't sure about their job or rising costs, do you think they're going to plan a vacation? No, they're probably not. They're going to save that money because the chaos and uncertainty, the anxiety people are feeling, it is real. So we're the canary in the coal mine. Individuals aren't coming. Business travel is down, conventions start Going down. And Las Vegas, when we see that happen, prices up, uncertainty up, anxiety up, tourism is down. It is coming to a city or a town near you. Trust me, we have the current, current highest unemployment in the nation. We saw this during COVID And this trickles back not just from the Las Vegas strip and downtown, but then they don't have the money to go back into the neighborhoods, so those small businesses suffer as well. So you're going to see a cavalcade. It'll cascade down into small businesses in every community, not just the tourist corridors. And it's not just your bartenders or waitresses. It is everyone in this industry. Our airlines, our rent a cars, our buses, you name it, a marketing organization, it matters. And Donald Trump is reckless. He is a bully. He is the least transparent president we've ever had. How dare he tell companies that they shouldn't be transparent about their earnings. He wants to rig the system for himself and his billionaires in order to take away health care for regular families.
- [34:58]
Lawrence O'Donnell
So on the day CBO is out telling us, as every other economic analysis has told us, that the tariff are increasing inflation. Donald Trump's idea is, I don't like getting four bad report cards a year from corporate America in their quarterly earnings statements. Let's just have two. That's his idea. That's his solution.
- [35:20]
Senator Jackie Rosen
Well, his solution to everything is hide, hide, hide. He doesn't want to release the Epstein file. He doesn't want businesses to report their earnings. These are public companies, investors. The country needs to understand what's going on with them. This is the way they should be doing business. How dare he put his finger on that. He's trying to like your prior segment. Illegally firing folks at independent agencies because he doesn't like what they're doing or what they have to say. Because their analysis doesn't agree with his worldview, which is only about him, pleasing him, serving him, and loyalty. And whatever his idea of the moment, cruel idea of the moment, whatever whim he has, that's what he wants people to go down to. We can't go down that path. We have to stay strong and transparent and get our tourism back, get our economy back on track for regular people.
- [36:20]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Nevada Senator Jackie Rosen, thank you very much for joining us.
- [36:23]
Senator Jackie Rosen
Thank you for having me.
- [36:24]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Thank you. You just heard Senator Rosen refer to whatever cruel idea he has in the moment. Donald Trump has had so many cruel ideas. And next we will see how following the rules can cost you your life. After Donald Trump changes the rules. That's a 45 year old woman is dead tonight because she tried to do everything according to the rules. And then Donald Trump changed the rules. She showed up for her court date in an immigration court with her immigration lawyer and her high school daughter in Los Angeles in June. And instead of having a hearing on the progress of her case, she was taken into custody by ICE agents at the courthouse who also took her daughter into custody. They were held in custody in Los Angeles that day, where there was plenty of time for the ICE agents who now control this woman's life to allow her family to bring her life saving medication to her in custody. And then they were held for two days in Texas, where again, ICE agents had plenty of time to allow her family to send her her life saving medication. Mother and daughter were then deported to Guatemala. One of the girl's high school teachers, Darcy White, was outraged when she found out. She told MSNBC's Jacob Soboroff, she's just sweet. She embodies joy and love. We wish we could clone students like her. When I found out she was back In Guatemala on the 4th of July, I posted just how not proud of this country I was. I told all my friends across the country because I know teachers everywhere. This is real. This happened to my student and it's not right. White, who teaches government principles of democracy and economics, said she believes due process failed them. I think both her mom's and her rights were violated because it is not a matter of being a citizen of the United States. People who live here are protected by the Constitution. People who visit here are protected by the Constitution. And I teach this every day. Jacob Souvaroff has reported this story from Los Angeles and Guatemala, where he interviewed Nori Ramos.
- [38:58]
Jacob Soboroff
In Los Angeles. Nori had a promising future. She was an honor student, a star athlete in track and cross country, and a high school senior just steps away from going to college. Tell me about your life in la. You were going to high school at Miguel Contreras?
- [39:14]
Nori Ramos
Yes.
- [39:15]
Jacob Soboroff
You were on the track team?
- [39:16]
Nori Ramos
Yes.
- [39:17]
Jacob Soboroff
You were a really good student. Everybody keeps telling me.
- [39:19]
Nori Ramos
Yes. Well, my life there was really good. I wanted, like to just be there and to just achieve all my goals. I just wanted to make my mom proud. I wanted to be like a fashion designer.
- [39:31]
Jacob Soboroff
That was what you. You wanted to be after you graduated school?
- [39:33]
Nori Ramos
Yes, and it was my first year of, like, cross country too.
- [39:37]
Jacob Soboroff
Are you a pretty fast runner?
- [39:39]
Nori Ramos
I would say I think so.
- [39:41]
Jacob Soboroff
Don't be modest.
- [39:43]
Nori Ramos
I would say yeah, it's really hard for me to like, tuck a body.
- [39:57]
Andrew Weissmann
Was it one of Your favorite things to do?
- [39:58]
Nori Ramos
Yes. And I was also doing taekwondo, so I was like, oh, I'm gonna do taekwondo as well and go for, like, a lot of tournaments. So it's really hard for, like, leave it all behind just coming back here.
- [40:14]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Joining us now is Jacob Souvaroff, MSNBC senior political and national correspondent. And, Jacob, since you first, since I read your first reporting on this, her mother died. Not since she did not have her blood pressure medication, other medications she needed in Guatemala. Tell us about what the situation is now.
- [40:38]
Jacob Soboroff
First of all, Lawrence, thank you so much for sharing Nori's story. And she's just desperate to get back to the United States. They were desperate to get back to the United States before Estella passed away because she didn't have her medication. Now, the money they were going to use for the. The appeal of their case that they had raised went towards the funeral of Norrie's mother. Norrie literally wore the same sweatshirt she was deported in. Barely had any clothes when I met her just a couple of weeks ago in Guatemala, beyond what they had been deported in to the funeral of her mother. And while she was wailing, draped her body itself over the casket. But also draped over the casket were the flags of Guatemala and the United States of America, because despite the fact that that they were not American citizens, this was their home. Los Angeles, where I am, was their home. And she is distraught. It's why they have a GoFundMe right now to raise money for her to again, not only pay for the funeral expenses, but try to find her way back here. I think that the important thing for people to understand about this story is when we talk about who the Trump administration is deporting and whether or not they're the worst of the worst. They're the Norys, they are the Estelas who was so scared to go back to the country from which she originally fled because she thought she would die from the same gangs that made her flee in the first place. It turns out that it was the stress and the fear and the deportation itself, according to her partner, a boyfriend here in Los Angeles, that ultimately took her life.
- [42:05]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Yeah. Jacob, your report about this has just been so powerful all the way through the story and for it to reach this point where the mother died after following her lawyer's advice and going to court that day.
- [42:24]
Jacob Soboroff
I think, Lawrence, that's also something that people need to understand what's happening in the United States of America. It's not just workers being picked up at Home Depots, which is bad enough it's not just workers at fruit stands or at taco stands throughout Los Angeles just want to make a good living. It's not just day laborers. It's people in courthouses from LA to New York, all across the country who are not able to actually show up and do the right thing the right way like they're trying to do. Thank you so much for emphasizing Jacob.
- [42:53]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Souborough, thank you for your reporting. Thanks for joining us tonight.
- [42:56]
Jacob Soboroff
Thanks, Lawrence.
- [42:59]
Lawrence O'Donnell
That is tonight's last word.
- [43:01]
On Deck Representative
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