Lawrence: Federal judge publicly calls out Trump Justice Dept. out for its Epstein case 'diversion'

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell

Episode: Federal judge publicly calls out Trump Justice Dept. out for its Epstein case 'diversion'
Date: August 21, 2025
Host: Lawrence O'Donnell
Key Guests: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld

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Overview

In this episode, Lawrence O'Donnell delves into the controversy surrounding the Trump Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files, highlighting a federal judge's public rebuke of the administration’s attempts to distract from the bigger issues. The discussion extends to the Department of Justice’s alleged politicization under Attorney General Pam Bondi, the misuse of federal law enforcement for political theater, Donald Trump’s posturing on foreign policy—specifically the war in Ukraine—and unprecedented interference in private enterprise. O'Donnell is joined by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, and Yale Business School Dean Jeffrey Sonnenfeld for in-depth analysis.

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Key Topics & Insights

1. Trump Justice Dept. and the Epstein Files: The Diversion Tactic

• Lawrence’s Monologue on Distraction and Judicial Rebuke
  • Trump’s only public event was a brief ambassador swearing-in, with no evidence of coherent public statements from him ([02:23]).
  • Union Station was used as a backdrop for a political stunt: troops deployed under the pretense of a security threat, with J.D. Vance bringing burgers to soldiers ([03:00]).
  • The diversion is contrasted with the real threat to children: gun violence in schools, highlighting selective Republican concern.
• Epstein Materials vs. Grand Jury Transcripts
  • Trump’s DOJ, after promising public release, reversed decision on Epstein files ([07:35]).
  • Trump called for grand jury transcripts to be released—a maneuver a federal judge called a "diversion" ([08:50]).
    • Quoting Judge Berman:

      "The government is the logical party to make comprehensive disclosure to the public of the Epstein files. By comparison, the grand jury motion appears to be a diversion from the breadth and scope of the Epstein files in the government's possession." ([09:35])

Notable Moment & Quote

• Judge Berman’s scathing written opinion is detailed: the DOJ’s motion to unseal grand jury materials was a "mere snippet" compared to thousands of pages the DOJ itself holds—and therefore a public relations distraction ([10:30]).

[14:51] Senator Whitehouse on the Union Station Diversion

• “They’re essentially props... It’s kind of a double sham. First, it’s purely a prop that’s being used. And second, by standing around there doing nothing, they’re actually not being helpful in the cause of improving law enforcement in the district when they could be made useful.”
  • Whitehouse also notes DOJ is getting slammed by federal judges for such diversions.

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2. Federal Judges Condemn DOJ Tactics

• Multiple judges, across political spectrums, are now openly calling Trump DOJ's actions "obstructive and contemptuous," creating a groundswell of judicial pushback ([18:51]).
• Whitehouse:

  “As more and more judges hear each other critiquing the administration in ways that really no previous Department of Justice has ever been critiqued… I think it’s going to get worse rather than better for them in front of these United States district judges.” ([19:47])

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3. How Pam Bondi Runs Trump’s Justice Department

[22:11] O’Donnell on Ruth Marcus’s New Yorker Reporting

• Pam Bondi’s DOJ described as "a frantic scramble to appease Trump and the MAGA movement."
• Criticism, even from senior GOP legal officials, over Bondi’s "ferociously sycophantic rhetoric" and turning DOJ into a White House arm.
• Chad Meisel (Bondi’s Chief of Staff) quote:

  “We actually get to do everything the president wants us to do. Everything that Pam wants us to do.” ([23:24])

[24:03] Senator Whitehouse: On DOJ’s Duty and Dysfunction

• DOJ must distinguish between a president’s political or personal interests and his official role.
• “The way the whole department runs now, it’s kind of equal parts, you know, gangster and Gong show with that thug Emil Bo, who headed for the Third Circuit as the true gangster and Weaponization dude Martin as the Gong show guy, literally showing up in, like, trench coats playing, you know, Special Agent man in front of people’s homes.”
• Whitehouse lambasts the DOJ for lack of real oversight by Bondi, allowing "MAGA types" to run rampant and damage departmental credibility ([27:00]).

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4. Trump, Ukraine, and Foreign Policy Theater

[30:03] O’Donnell’s Analysis of Trump’s Inaction on Ukraine

• After Trump’s public campaign promise to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, he spends days doing nothing ([30:03]).
• Russian escalation: 60 drones launched into Ukraine, injuring civilians and a baby—while Trump posts Fox News clips praising his supposed influence ([30:25]).
• O'Donnell points out the absurdity of claims that Trump is uniquely positioned to broker peace, noting Macron and others have, in reality, talked to both Putin and Zelensky ([32:19]).

[34:50] Lieutenant General Mark Hertling: Putin is Not to be Trusted

• “To trust [Putin] in any negotiation … is to play poker with a man who … cheats even when he’s winning.”
• Details historical Russian aggression and stresses that Putin’s word is worthless ([35:04]).
• European leaders’ intervention in D.C. was to counter Trump’s naivete and lack of understanding of European and Ukrainian history ([37:06]).
• The episode underscores, again, Trump’s penchant for distractions rather than policy.

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5. Corporate Control: MAGA Goes ‘Marxist and Maoist’

[39:36] O’Donnell and Yale Dean Jeffrey Sonnenfeld on Trump’s Economic Authoritarianism

• Sonnenfeld:

  “Unlike any leader of any free market economy around the world, President Trump has seized control of private enterprises, strategic decision making and investment policies…” ([40:05])

• Trump takes direct hand in business—deciding who can merge, tells companies what to put in products (Coca-Cola), and expects CEOs to curry personal favor ([41:04], [43:20]).
• Corporate America’s passivity: CEOs and Business Roundtable are “missing in action” to collective Trump bullying ([45:58]).
• O’Donnell:

  “Prior to Trump, there were very, very clear lines across which government did not attempt to reach. It did never attempt to tell a corporation who is worthy of being employed within a corporation.” ([45:09])

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Notable Quotes

• Judge Berman ([09:35]):
  “The government is the logical party… to make comprehensive disclosure to the public of the Epstein files… the grand jury motion appears to be a diversion…”
• Senator Whitehouse ([14:51]):
  “They’re essentially props... It’s kind of a double sham.”
• Lawrence O’Donnell ([02:23]):
  “The long Labor Day weekend cannot come fast enough for Donald Trump… so today he took the day off.”
• Lt. Gen. Hertling ([34:50]):
  “To trust [Putin]… is to play poker with a man who… cheats even when he’s winning.”
• Jeffrey Sonnenfeld ([40:05]):
  “Rather than pursue standard laissez faire conservative economic policies, MAGA has gone Marxist and even increasingly Maoist.”

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Key Timestamps

• [02:23] Trump’s public absence and the "diversion" at Union Station
• [07:35] DOJ backs off releasing Epstein files
• [09:35] Judge Berman’s written condemnation of DOJ's diversion
• [14:51] Senator Whitehouse on misuse of National Guard and DOJ
• [18:51] The erosion of judicial patience with DOJ stunts
• [22:11] Ruth Marcus reporting on Bondi’s DOJ
• [24:03] Senator Whitehouse: DOJ's failure to police Trump/Bondi personal and political aims
• [30:03] Trump’s inaction on Ukraine; Putin’s escalation
• [34:50] Lt. Gen. Hertling: Putin cannot be trusted
• [39:36] Sonnenfeld: Trump as economic central planner and threat to free enterprise

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Summary

The episode presents a sweeping indictment of the current Trump administration's legal, political, and economic maneuvers. With participation from expert guests, it details:

• A federal judge's rare and blistering rebuke of the Trump DOJ’s attempt to distract the public from the Epstein files by fixating on grand jury transcripts.
• The troubling deployment of National Guard troops as political props at D.C.'s Union Station.
• The unprecedented politicization and erosion of independence in the DOJ under Attorney General Pam Bondi, as compared by senior officials past and present.
• Trump’s continued foreign policy theater and inaction on the war in Ukraine, shown as distractions from domestic scandal.
• Alarming interventions in private enterprise normally associated with socialist or authoritarian regimes, in direct contradiction to Trump’s professed pro-business stance.

The guests reinforce that these trends are dangerous for transparency, the rule of law, democratic norms, and American capitalism itself—leaving listeners with a sense that resistance to Trump’s overreaches is mounting, but so too is the urgency of the moment.

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Transcript

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Hey, everybody, it's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe. And basically it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday, so subscribe, please, and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Senator Sheldon Whitehouse]

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[Commercial Announcer]

The Last Word with Lawrence O' Donnell starts right now. Hello, Lawrence.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Hey, Alicia. I will not see you tomorrow because I'm not going to be here because I have something very important to do. I'm going to be across the street, actually, at Radio City Music hall, where Penn and Teller are having their 50th anniversary show. The longest running partnership in show business history appears at Radio City Music hall tomorrow night. 50 years. I've known both of them for 30 of those years. I guess maybe.

[Commercial Announcer]

Vaughn, are you gonna be a part of one of the acts?

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

No, no, no, I can't. You know, magicians can't do that. They can't use people they know in the tricks. You know, that's out of the question. I will be hiding in the audience, marveling at what they do, as I always have. And while we're at it, Alicia, I'm not going to be here next week either. I'm going to get another week of vacation, my final week of summer vacation next week. But then I will be coming back with the House of Representatives, with Congress, the day after Labor Day, when all sorts of big things are going to start to happen. Washington again.

[Commercial Announcer]

Big things indeed.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Thanks, Alicia. Thank you. Well, the long Labor Day weekend that we are all looking forward to cannot come fast enough for Donald Trump. And so today he took the day off. Donald Trump did nothing today. He wasn't publicly seen anywhere today. Perhaps because his 79 year old swollen ankles are bothering him. Or maybe he just couldn't really.

[Senator Sheldon Whitehouse]

Walk.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Or stand up very long. Today, something like that? Who knows? We don't know. Maybe he couldn't speak coherently today. Maybe it was one of those days. Actually, we do know about that. Donald Trump has never had a single day in his life as a politician when he could speak coherently about anything. That is a cognitive test that Donald Trump began publicly failing 14 years ago at age 65 in 2011, when he started lying about President Obama's birth certificate. The only thing on Donald Trump's public schedule today, which is to say the schedule that was made public, was a 4pm thing in the Oval Office. So Donald Trump's workday was officially scheduled to begin at 4pm today, and it was scheduled to last for only a few minutes because the event on Donald Trump's schedule at 4pm today was the swearing in of the Trump ambassador to the European Union, who is of course an unqualified rich guy who used to run fast food chains. At 4pm a 4pm start to the workday is something you might schedule for a 79 year old still recovering from jet lag after crossing four time zones back and forth to Alaska on Friday. After Donald Trump spent the week last week saying publicly that he thought he was going to Russia. At 6:32pm today, the White House released this proof of life photograph that appears to be Donald Trump standing deep in the background there, doing absolutely nothing while Secretary of State Marco Rubio swears in the new ambassador. And so we have no evidence today that Donald Trump was even capable of speaking. The Vice President of the United States got a speaking role today in the Trump presidency, but he had to share his speaking role with a member of the Cabinet, which is not so unusual. There have been some events in the past where a vice president speaks and the Secretary of Defense speaks with the Vice president, of course, getting to speak the longest. But in their opening remarks today, the vice President and the Secretary of Defense had to share microphone time with someone with a job title who has never been given a speaking role in any previous presidency, a deputy White House Chief of staff. In the history of that job title, no Deputy White House Chief of Staff has ever had a speaking role at a public event where the Vice President was speaking. But today, Donald Trump humiliated his vice president by pulling the puppet strings and making sure that his Deputy White House Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, spoke longer than the Vice President did in their opening remarks when they all made a clownish visit to Union station in Washington, D.C. the iconic Amtrak railroad station through whose glass doors Jimmy Stewart first saw the Capitol dome when he arrived in Washington. In Frank Capra's classic film, Mr. Smith goes to Washington, There were no soldiers in the shot when Jimmy Stewart's character, the newly appointed Senator Jefferson Smith, arrived at Union Station. And there have never been troops at Union Station. In the decades of both the 20th and 21st century that I've been arriving at and departing from Union station in Washington D.C. i've never once seen a crime committed there. I've never once felt even slightly at risk there. I don't know anyone who has. Before jet travel, most United States Senators arrived in Washington at Union Station and departed from Washington at Union Station. One United States Senator whose career crossed from the 20th century into the 21st century passed through Union Station to and from work every Senate workday of his 36 year career as a senator, Senator Joe Biden was in a position to have security at Union Station strengthened if he thought it was necessary. For 36 years, Senator Joe Biden walked through Union Station alone to and from the Amtrak train that delivered him home to his children in Delaware every night. That Amtrak station is one of the jewels of the Amtrak system. It is the home of 56 stores and restaurants, including the Eyeglass Shop, Warby Parker, where I got these, and other shopping mall chains. It now has a Shake Shack, the fast food chain that has been surging in the Northeast in recent years. Companies like Warby Parker and Shake Shack do not locate their stores in high crime areas. They prefer to locate their stores in zero crime areas like shopping malls. And Union Station is basically a shopping mall with train tracks. Union Station is safer than the elementary schools of this country where our children go to school every day. It's safer than the high schools of this country where our children go to schools every day and where children are subjected to the assault weapon fire of mass murderers every year in our schools with body counts. That should be a call to action for anyone working in government. But not one Republican elected official in Washington has ever tried to stop mass murderers in our elementary schools and our high schools and colleges. They've never said let's get the troops in there. Not one of them cares about that kind of mass murder enough to ever try to do anything about it. But J.D. vance took his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination to Union Station today to bring Shake Shack burgers to the National Guard troops who are foolishly now deployed to Union Station to do absolutely nothing to stand there with the most humiliating assignment ever given to American soldiers in uniform in this country. That was the stunt of the day. That was today's attempt to distract from the Epstein files and how many times and in what ways Donald Trump's name appears in the Epstein files. Donald Trump's Attorney General promised to release the Epstein files before she went to the White House to tell Donald Trump how many times his name appears in the Epstein files and in what ways his name appears in the Epstein files. And then suddenly the Attorney General and the Trump FBI director changed their minds about releasing the Epstein files. Last night on this program, Congressman Robert Garcia made news by revealing that in the secret testimony Monday to the House Oversight Committee, former Trump Attorney General William Barr said it is fully within the power of the current Attorney General to release every word of the Epstein files. He indicated that the current Attorney General, Penn Bondi, has it within her power to release those files right now. And so we're once again saying she should release the entire files. And this idea that she's gonna roll out some of it on Friday and then continue this kind of planned stage rollout is not acceptable. And today, a federal judge pointed to the Epstein files when the judge rejected the Trump Justice Department request to release the grand jury transcripts in the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. The judge made that the grand jury transcripts do not include any witnesses other than an FBI agent who summarized the information that they had obtained from witnesses and documents in their investigation of the case. That was enough to get an indictment of Jeffrey Epstein for his sex trafficking and raping children Today. In his decision, Judge Richard Berman wrote, A significant and compelling reason to reject the government's position in this litigation is that the government has already undertaken a comprehensive investigation into the Epstein case and not surprisingly, has assembled a trove of Epstein documents, interviews and exhibits. And the government committed that it would share its Epstein investigation materials with the public. The government's 100,000 pages of Epstein files and materials dwarf the 70 odd pages of Epstein grand jury materials. The government is the logical party to make comprehensive disclosure to the public of the Epstein files. By comparison, the grand jury motion appears to be a diversion from the breadth and scope of the Epstein files in the government's possession. And so there is a federal judge saying in writing today that the legal maneuver that Donald Trump personally announced on social media of asking for the release of the grand jury testimony was nothing but, in the judge's words, a diversion from the breadth and scope of the Epstein files. That's what we said it was on this program the night Donald Trump said that they should release the grand jury transcripts. We said that was just a Trump diversion. Tonight, a federal judge has found that Donald Trump and his Attorney General were just playing their diversion game by asking for the grand jury transcripts. That is exactly how we labeled that request for the grand jury transcripts that very night when Donald Trump announced it, the judge wrote. In February 2025, the government, as noted, was prepared to release their Epstein files to the public. But then on July 6, 2025, the government announced it would not make the files available to the public. The information contained in the Epstein grand jury transcripts pales in comparison to the Epstein investigation. Information and materials in the hands of the Department of Justice. The judge wrote about something that Donald Trump and the Attorney General obviously care nothing about, because the Justice Department made no effort to even consult with Jeffrey Epstein's victims before requesting the release of the grand jury transcripts. And it is required by law that they consult with those victims before asking to release the grand jury transcripts. And Donald Trump's Justice Department did not do that, the judge wrote. There is another compelling reason not to unseal the Epstein grand jury materials at this time, namely possible threats to victims safety and privacy. The court received a very compelling letter dated August 5, 2025, from three leading victims rights attorneys who have stated any disclosure of grand jury material, especially material that could expose or help identify victims, in any way directly affects the fairness, privacy, conferral, and protection guarantees. Leading off our discussion tonight is Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He's also a member of the Senate Finance Committee and Senate Budget Committee. He's the top ranking Democrat on the Senate Environment Public Works Committee. Senator, thank you very much for joining us tonight. I want you to feel free to comment on, first of all, today's diversion game at Union Station, as well as the judge officially finding tonight in writing that the request for the grand jury transcripts in the Epstein case was just a diversion from the. The administration's previous promise to release the Epstein files.

[Senator Sheldon Whitehouse]

Yeah, well, first as to Union Station, you know, I'm sure those soldiers, those guardsmen, are fine people, but they have no business doing law enforcement. They're not trained for it. They're not sworn for it. They're not authorized to do it. They're essentially props. And I think, frankly, if they were there to support D.C. law enforcement, they wouldn't be sitting out in front of Union Station like props. They'd be back at police headquarters trying to figure out what they could do useful typing up forms, driving vehicles around, getting files organized. The kind of stuff that people who aren't law enforcement professionals could do to help with a busy police department. So it's kind of a double sham. First, it's purely a prop that's being used. And second of all, by standing around there doing nothing, they're actually not being helpful in the cause of improving law enforcement in the district when they could be made useful. So, yes to diversion there. With respect to the judge, as you'll recall, Lawrence, this is actually the second judge, we call this a diversion. And the earlier judge said that the reason you might want to actually release the grand jury material is because there was so little of it that it would potentially support the public understanding that the request to unseal the grand jury was not for the intention of transparency, but was for the intention of obfuscation and diversion. So, I mean, they've really taken a beating in court on this subject. The judge today said that the grand jury material, as you pointed out on your show, was a mere snippet of the vast file that the Department of Justice clearly has and is at liberty to disclose whenever it wishes to. So it's been a bad day at blackrock for the Trump folks. The only other point I'd add is that obviously Pam Bondi and Kash Patel knew when they came up with this dumb idea of trying to distract everybody with a request for grand jury materials that this was going nowhere. They're either the worst lawyers in the world or they know that this was a tiny, mere snippet of information that wasn't going to help with anything and that it was the most protected piece of information in the entire vast files that they actually control because it's protected by grand jury secrecy, Rule 6E. So when they went ahead knowing that this was going to fail just for purposes of humoring Trump and diverting a public that may not know what grand jury materials look like or how, how and why they're protected, or that the grand jury presentation is a tiny micro snippet of the entire file.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Yeah. We speculated. Had informed speculation on this program the night Donald Trump announced his plan to try to get the grand jury transcripts, that they would not be released for exactly the reasons that the judges have refused to release them. And therefore, it would amount to Donald Trump trying to buy a couple of weeks of time, a couple of months, if he was lucky, from these judges in the time it would take for them to decide it. And in the desperation that we're seeing in the diversion attempts that seemed to be good enough for Donald Trump, he would take whatever he could get, a couple of weeks in August maybe, of judges having to decide this issue. But it seems like when the House of Representatives comes back after Labor Day, when the Senate comes back after Labor Day, this issue is still going to be going strong.

[Senator Sheldon Whitehouse]

Yeah. And other judges are noticing the idea that the United States government would use the courts of the United States to create a public relations diversion. That's a pretty harsh judgment. And for judges to use that terminology indicates that they're pretty fed up. And it adds to the litany of federal judges of all different political backgrounds condemning the Trump Department of Justice for misbehavior using terms like obstructive and contempt. I mean, they are really taking a continuing beating. And as more and more judges hear each other critiquing the administration in ways that really no previous Department of Justice has ever been critiqued by federal judges before, that begins to create, I think, more of a groundswell of judges understanding that it's not just in their courtroom that these shenanigans are going on. It's everywhere these Trump lawyers turn up. And so I think it's going to get worse rather than better for them in front of these United States district judges who are not used to being lied to, who are used to being treated with respect and not tweaked and played games with, particularly not diversion games for purposes of confusing the public.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Senator, please stay with us. We have to squeeze in a commercial break right here. And when we come back, we want to go about talk about more of what's happening inside the Trump Justice Department and how Pam Bondi is running it. We'll be right back with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

[Scott Aukerman]

This is Comedy Bang Bang, the podcast, the promo. And in 30 seconds, I'm going to tell you why. You should check out the show. I, the host, Scott Aukerman, have a light hearted conversation with famous celebrities like Jon Hamm, Allison Williams, Phoebe Bridgers, Jason Alexander, Natasha Lyonne, Bob Odenkirk, just to name a few things. Go a little off the rails when different eccentric characters and oddballs drop by to be interviewed as well. Each week is a blend of conversations and character work from your favorite comedians, as well as some new hilarious voices. Comedy Bang Bang the Podcast Listen every Monday wherever you get your podcasts need.

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[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Donald Trump now has the Attorney General he has always wanted. That is the sub headline of the New Yorker article by Ruth Marcus titled Pam Bondi's Power Play. The article describes Attorney General Bondi's handling of the Epstein files crisis as, quote, a frantic scramble to appease Trump and the mega movement. Ruth Marcus reports Bondi's performance has produced almost universal outrage from Democrats. And in private at least, the unhappiness crosses party lines. I spoke to officials who have served at senior levels in every Republican Justice Department since Ronald Reagan's, including some who support much of Trump's agenda. They shared criticism of Bondi that ranged from troubled to appalled, worrying about everything from what one former senior official called Bondi's ferociously sycophantic rhetoric about the president to the purges of career staff. Bondi, many have concluded, has turned the Justice Department into a mere arm of the White House. The Attorney General's chief of staff, Chad Meisel, actually told Ruth Marcus, quote, we actually get to do everything that the president wants us to do. Everything that Pam wants us to do. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is back with us. And Senator, that last statement by this Chad Meisel, we actually get to do everything that the president wants us to do. And everything that Pam wants us to do is specifically what all previous administrations refused to allow to occur in the Justice Department.

[Senator Sheldon Whitehouse]

Yeah, I think pretty much everybody. You don't even have to be a lawyer to understand that there are several dimensions to being president. One is that you are the president of the United States. The other is that you are the political head of your party and have a political aspect to your life. And the third is that you have your personal and your business life and that's your other Persona. And what the Department of Justice is supposed to respond to is the president acting as the president and the fact that this Department of Justice doesn't parse out, that when it's billionaire Trump and his business interests that are talking, they really shouldn't be listening. When it's political Trump and his political agenda that's being pursued, they shouldn't be listening. When he's acting as president, yeah, that's when you should be listening. But the fact that they don't recognize this division of the aspects of a president's life and fence off the stuff where they should not be his operatives, it's pretty telling. And the way the whole department runs now, it's kind of equal parts, you know, gangster and Gong show with that thug Emil Bo, who headed for the Third Circuit as the true gangster and weaponization dude Martin as the Gong show guy, literally showing up in, like, trench coats playing, you know, Special Agent man in front of people's homes. And then who knows what Todd Blanche was up to? Was he suborning perjury when he went to go see Ghislaine Maxwell? Was he running a political errand for Trump? Was it just clownishly bad judgment on his part? But I don't think you have to be a very experienced prosecutor to know that this is a Department of justice is way, way, way off the rails. And as I said in the first segment, the last people in the world that they want to notice that are noticing that, and that is the federal judges have to appear in front of day in and day out.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

And everything that you just described, from the weirdo in the trench coat in 88 degrees in a new York City sidewalk, patrolling or something outside of the New York Attorney General's home, all this stuff, the going to Ghislaine Maxwell in Florida to interview her, all of that's happening theoretically under the supervision of Attorney General Pam Bondi. But one also gets the feeling that people like Todd Blanche are working on direct orders from his previous criminal client, Donald Trump, who Todd Blanche represented in court as a criminal defendant. All of this is happening under the roof that's supposed to be controlled by Pam Bonding.

[Senator Sheldon Whitehouse]

Yeah. At the end of the day, she is the Attorney General of the United States, and it is her responsibility to manage the affairs of the Department of Justice. And when she's letting all this nonsense happen and not knocking heads together when this nonsense happens, that's a sign that she is, frankly, not in real of the department, that it's all these MAGA types charging around, just trying to be as enthusiastically MAGA as possible for Donald Trump, but damaging their own reputations and damaging the department's reputation and again, most importantly, damaging the credibility of the department with the district judges of the Federal bench.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, thank you very much for starting off our discussions tonight.

[Senator Sheldon Whitehouse]

Thank you.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Coming up Today, Donald Trump did nothing and he did nothing to stop the war in Ukraine after he was caught on a hot mic on Monday saying that Vladimir Putin wants to do a deal to end his war in Ukraine just as a favor to Donald Trump. But today, Vladimir Putin, he did something. He launched 60 drones attacking Ukraine, injuring people, including children. That's next.

[Scott Aukerman]

This is Comedy Bang Bang the Podcast, the promo and in 30 seconds I'm going to tell you why. You should check out the show. I, the host Scott Aukerman have a light hearted conversation with famous celebrities like Jon Hamm, Alison Williams, Phoebe Bridgers, Jason Alexander, Natasha Lyonne, Bob Odenkirk, just to name a few. Things go a little off the rails, but when different eccentric characters and oddballs drop by to be interviewed as well, each week is a blend of conversations and character work from your favorite comedians as well as some new hilarious voices. Comedy Bang Bang the Podcast Listen every Monday wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Lawrence O'Donnell]

And now it's all over. After Donald Trump's excellent adventure to Alaska on Friday to hang with Vladimir Putin and agree with him as much as he possibly could. And after the intervention run by European leaders at the White House on Monday led by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to prevent Donald Trump from doing Something crazy with Vladimir Putin. After all of that, now it's all over. It's just all over. Donald Trump did nothing today. Donald Trump, who made the goofy campaign promise to end Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine in 24 hours, spent another 24 hours today doing absolutely nothing about Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine. And what did Vladimir Putin do? He sent 60 more Russian drones overnight across Ukraine, injuring at least 17 people so far in the reports, including children. One of the injured is a five month old baby. That's what Vladimir Putin did today while Donald Trump was doing nothing. Donald Trump did issue three social media posts today about Ukraine and they were each videos from yesterday's Fox propaganda channel, one of which included the single most ridiculous statement ever made by a Secretary of the treasury, with Donald Trump's treasury secretary embarrassing himself once again by saying, quote, donald Trump is the only person in the world, the only person in the world who can stop this conflict, end quote. Another Fox video posted by Donald Trump about Ukraine had Marco Rubio, who is now campaigning for president, or at least to be J.D. vance's vice presidential running mate, saying the only leader in the world who can talk to both Putin and Zelensky is Donald Trump. But that isn't true, of course. President Macron of France has spoken to both Vladimir Putin and President Zelensky during this war, but Donald Trump is the only person who can switch sides depending on who he's talking to about the war. Vladimir Putin's Marco Rubio. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has never been the victim of an insulting nickname like Little Marco, said this about the European leaders successfully conducting an intervention with Donald Trump on Monday. Reuters reports Lavrov accused the European leaders who met Trump and Zelensky of carrying out a fairly aggressive escalation of the situation, rather clumsy and in general unethical attempts to change the position of the Trump administration and the President of the United States personally change the position. So there's Vladimir Putin's Marco Rubio. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying in effect that Donald Trump must have told Vladimir Putin that he was on Putin's side on Friday. What else could change the position of the President of the United States personally mean the European leaders and President Zelensky were trying to get Donald Trump on their side, which the Russian foreign minister has said publicly today would be a change in position for Donald Trump, apparently a change in position for what Donald Trump secretly told Vladimir Putin on Friday. Our next guest writes, the notion that Putin can be trusted in any peace deal is A fantasy. President Zelensky knows it. And it was obvious that all the European leaders who came to Washington this week to support him know it as well. They've seen it. Every truce with Putin is temporary. Every handshake comes with fingers crossed behind the back. Every concession is pocketed and used to prepare the next aggression. Putin has changed his methods, but he has never changed his nature, and he never will. The sooner the free world accepts that fact, the better chance we have of defending ourselves and contributing to the defense of our partner, Ukraine. One would think that a man who once owned a casino would know not to allow a known cheater into the House. It is worth noting that Donald Trump ran a casino into bankruptcy. Joining us now is Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, retired commander of the US army in Europe. General Hertling, it seems that after a couple of days of Donald Trump publicly paying attention to the situation in Ukraine, that that's all over now.

[Lieutenant General Mark Hertling]

It seems that way, at least for the moment, Lawrence, and it's really distressing. Good evening to you. And what I have to say is that I've been following this for a very long time as the commander in Europe and in holding other positions in Europe from 2006 to 2013. Today, I listed the number of things that Vladimir Putin did during the period I was there, which continued on. Mr. Putin has shown the world again and again that his word is worthless. He breaks treaties, he violates borders, he murders opponents, and he weaponizes everything from cyberspace to natural gas. To trust him in any negotiation, not only just him, but all of his minions, like Lavrov, is to play poker with a man who, as you just quoted me saying, cheats even when he's winning.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

As we look at what unfolded from Friday through to today, where now Donald Trump is reduced to simply posting on social media video from Fox from yesterday with his administration talking about this, it does seem as though now, pretty clearly there was nothing going on for Donald Trump personally at least, other than an attempt to divert attention away from what was really troubling him, which was the Epstein files. And that worked for those few days.

[Lieutenant General Mark Hertling]

Yeah. Indeed. But I gotta give the President a little bit of credit. On Monday, Lawrence. You remember he said when meeting with Putin in the. Or, excuse me, when meeting with Zelensky in the OVA office, he said, hey, this peace deal is a whole lot harder than I thought it was when I said I could do it in one day. Yeah. And what I'd like to say is, no kidding, welcome to the real world of conflict, Mr. President.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Yes, and he's also said that he's surprised at that and that everyone should be surprised that this is actually a difficult problem to solve. Every other person talking about this, other than Donald Trump, has always said how difficult this one is to solve.

[Lieutenant General Mark Hertling]

Yeah. And when you go back to Minister Lavrov's comments talking about how the Europeans were trying to disrupt this and take it backwards, it's fascinating to me that I think what those European leaders were doing now I take that back. I know what they were doing in supporting Zelensky was to try and inform Mr. Trump in terms of the things he knows little about, in terms of the European culture, the dynamics of Ukraine and Russia, how it has been an ongoing fight for years, how Russia has tried to disestablish Ukraine all the way, going back to the 1930s when they conducted the halamador where they tried to starve 30 million Ukrainian people, when later on in that period of time they banned the Ukrainian language from Ukraine and forced them to learn Russia. And so if you look at the history and the culture of Ukraine, which I've had the fortunate opportunity to do during my time in Europe when I was working with the Ukrainian army, you see how the culture and peoples of Ukraine are very different than the cultures and the people of Russia. And I think by the usurpation of Ukrainian population by Mr. Putin, he's trying to destroy that once again, as the Russian Federation has done, as the Soviet Union has done many times in their history.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Retired Lieutenant General Mark Kirtland, thank you very much for joining us tonight with your invaluable perspective.

[Lieutenant General Mark Hertling]

Thank you, Lawrence.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Coming up, who is the most extreme anti free enterprise socialist in elective office today in America? We will answer that question with Yale Business School Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld after this. Commercial break but here's a hint. The most anti free enterprise politician in America is also the stupidest politician in America. That's next. Donald Trump happily labels every democratic politician in America opponents of free enterprise and socialists.

[Senator Sheldon Whitehouse]

Tonight, we renew our resolve that America.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Will never be a socialist country. But our next guest, Yale Management School Senior Associate Dean Jeffrey Sullenfeld, writes in Fortune magazine. Unlike any leader of any free market economy around the world, President Trump has seized control of private enterprises, strategic decision making and investment policies while invading corporate boardrooms so that he may dictate leadership staffing, punish corporate critics and demand public compliance with his political agenda. This is far more dangerous to capitalism than a city run grocery store. Rather than pursue standard laissez faire conservative economic policies, Maga has gone Marxist and even increasingly Maoist. Joining us now is Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean at the Yale School of Management and a CNBC contributor. Jeff, this, this is the piece I've been waiting for. You know, I've been watching Donald Trump's interference with businesses directly hand on interference with private enterprise. Haven't gotten to it in all the things we've had to cover here, but you have covered it so thoroughly for Fortune. Give us the, the highlights. These are things we've never seen before in American government. Some of the things he's done, it's.

[Jeffrey Sonnenfeld]

Unparalleled and it is exactly the shrieking irony that you point out as he projects so many things onto others, which is of course psychologically what he's doing himself. This does it right from the top. I should point out that several CEOs, real titans of industry that joined me in co authoring this piece, John Pepper, the former CEO of Procter and Gamble, chairman and former chairman of Disney and Ann Mulcahy who has turned around Xerox and great boards like Citigroup and others that she's been on Johnson and Johnson, Bill George Medtronic, Goldman Sachs and Exxon. And he's been on Laura Tyson, the great economist is that they're all stunned. And we've heard from tidal wave of current CEOs saying they've been waiting for somebody to call this out. The ideological inconsistencies just like you said, whether or not it's Adam Smith or Hayek, Frederick Hyatt or, or Ayn Rand or Paul or you know, whoever, Milton Friedman, whoever people love to wave around as their cult like celebration of the separation of sectors. This violates all that. And then the corporate shakedowns as we've seen with intel and others in video and AMD taking demanding a stake in these businesses, their competitors aren't so happy. That means if you're Broadcom or you know, if you're, if you're Qualcomm and you actually have a larger percent of your business coming out of China, the government's working against you, you're competing against your own government. That weird shakedown and they sometimes will turn to TARP as an example. That was a handful of companies, they were facing bankruptcy, they were backbone companies and they had a short term termination. It was all going to be paid out with profits within five years. So not parallel at all. Now weirdly, Trump, who you like to point out is nowhere near the great dealmaker and genius he thinks he is. He paid out twice as Much as Bush did in the TARP bailout during COVID And he didn't take any ownership stakes in anything then why now is it so obvious?

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

But now he's reaching into these individual companies in ways we've never seen before any president attempt to do, telling them where they can do business, how they can do business, and in effect threatening them. Companies want a merger, they have to come to Donald Trump. If a company wants to merger, they literally in one case had to pay Donald Trump in order to conduct perform a merger.

[Jeffrey Sonnenfeld]

It's a shakedown. It's a form of extortion for sure. To be told at Coca Cola what kind of ingredients they need to put in their drinks based on what Donald Trump says, not based on the science is ludicrous. They complied at Coca Cola, but it's just, it's crazy. We're seeing that across the board. What technological investments, what parts of the world to go in. And who's he to call these shots? He's certainly not been a great businessman himself, as you point out in those four bankruptcies he's taken himself through. Is that. Yeah, we've never seen anything like this. It blurs the sectors. It undermines the whole idea of the free market system leading to incentives for innovation and creates this large central planning combat type group. It's ridiculous.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

And that's all before we get to tariffs, which is also an astonishing level of interference with American business and the way they do business.

[Jeffrey Sonnenfeld]

It's not arbitrary too. If it has to do with wanting to free his friend Bolsonaro from being under investigation, of course, in Brazil, that has nothing to do with economic issues. It has to do with his own political settling of scores. And frankly the ca, the fcc, in terms of putting in a thought police to figure out what CBS is allowed to say on air, or even the antitrust authorities. People that used to complain about the Federal Trade Commission under Lina Khan, the predecessor, well, there's just as intrusive now, only it's driven by ideological purposes. If they don't like your position on HR practices, they presume you're only getting away with it because you must have a monopoly. There's no logic or evidence to back that up. But they're going after companies based on ideology and not based on the economics of competition.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

Yeah, prior to Trump, there were very, very clear lines across which government did not attempt to reach. It did never attempted to tell a corporation who is worthy of being employed within a corporation.

[Jeffrey Sonnenfeld]

No, we've just seen an Axios last week. It came out as I'm sure you saw and I think was underreported that they even have a naughty and nice list of, you know, companies that are supported the administration and those that aren't. Like, it's like a Nixon enemies list that deserves a lot more attention. We've never seen that. Even this Richard Nixon never would have even thought of these kinds of antics.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

No. And then we see the corporate response to it, which in most cases is some attempt to basically buy favor with Donald Trump in various ways, including Tim Cook going into the Oval Office and has to present them with a gift right there for the world to see.

[Jeffrey Sonnenfeld]

It's shameful to see if you recognize their responsibility heavily as to their shareholders. Shareholders and other constituents to keep their enterprises whole. You wonder why isn't business doing more well to take down a bully? Because he doesn't like nafta, he didn't like NATO, he doesn't like collective action of any sorts. The Business Roundtable is a group he wouldn't like, so they placate him by fracturing. So when you see CEOs that do go to him, it's a retailers will go as a group, pharma will go as a group, bankers as a group. But where the heck is the Business Roundtable? They're missing in action. The only reason they exist is for collective action because they can't get taken down.

[Lawrence O'Donnell]

The Business Roundtable in Washington was always complaining about any attempt to regulate business in any way. But Donald Trump gets to do it. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, thank you very much for joining us tonight. We'll be right back. Yale's Jeff Sonnenfeld gets tonight's last word.

[Scott Aukerman]

Hey, everybody. Conan o' Brien here with an ad about my podcast. Conan o' Brien needs a friend. I've had so many fantastic conversations with people I truly admire. People like Michelle Obama, Bruce Springsteen, Maya Rudolph, Tom Hanks. New episodes are out every Monday and we have a really good time. So subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcasts.