← The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Lawrence: We are clearly seeing madness pouring from the darkness of Donald Trump's mind
00:42:34
Tonight on The Last Word: Trump Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick calls Jeffrey Epstein “the greatest blackmailer ever.” Also, early voting is underway as the government shutdown upends the Virginia governor’s race. And Donald Trump’s USAID cuts have devastating effects in Africa. Sen. Adam Schiff, Abigail Spanberger, and Nick Kristof join Lawrence O’Donnell.
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A
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B
Download Today well, the New York Times is lost. The New York Times is still the greatest newspaper in America by far and one of the greatest newspapers in the world. But tonight the New York Times is lost. The New York Times has no idea how to cover the madness of Donald Trump and so the New York Times ignores it, just as the madness of King George III had to be ignored by the London Times in 1789. The Washington Press corps is lost along with the New York Times. There is no one working at the New York Times tonight who, when they were editing their high school newspapers and dreaming about one day working at the New York Times, ever imagined they would have to cover a President of the United States who uses the official social media communications tools of the White House. Government communication paid for by the taxpayer to post fake news videos of the first black minority leader of the United States House of Representatives and the first Jewish minority leader of the United States Senate. When they were working on their high school newspapers, they had no idea there would be a President of the United States who would post videos on a government operated social media account that put fake words into Chuck Schumer's mouth, which AI makes sound exactly like Chuck Schumer. And that fake language in that video would be filled with Donald Trump style profanity. Language Chuck Schumer would never use in public, but language that the current President of the United States has shocked the world with repeatedly. Donald Trump is the first President of the United States who has been heard publicly and deliberately using profanity repeatedly. Words that I can but I will not use on this program because as every adult is supposed to know, there are places where profanity is not appropriate. No one taught Donald Trump that. Who's going to bother to stop to talk about Donald Trump's use of profanity when he is sending troops into American cities, that he lies about being a war zone? I agree that it's just too small an item in the daily transgressions of Donald Trump. But remember, don't ever forget that the American news media almost unanimously agrees that Hillary Clinton lost her presidential campaign because she used the word deplorable once to describe some Trump voters, some of whom proved themselves willing to behave deplorably and violently for Donald Trump on January 6, when they became the only people in American history to attack the Capitol of the United States on behalf of their presidential candidates. Candidate, there are people working at the New York Times today who will insist to you that Hillary Clinton's use of the word deplorable was in and of itself, deplorable. Those same people have nothing to say about Donald Trump's use of language. Absolutely nothing. Those people believed that you cannot possibly be elected president in this country if you use the word deplorable to describe any voters in America. Donald Trump calls us vermin. Donald Trump got elected president calling American voters vermin if they didn't vote for him. Hitler's word vermin. Donald Trump is now using fake AI Sound of Chuck Schumer saying that all Democrats are pieces of crap. And of course he doesn't use the word crap. I just cleaned that up. But all Democrats, all those wise pundits who've been telling you for years that Hillary Clinton couldn't possibly be elected in this country if she's going to use a word like deplorable in a political campaign referring to voters on the other side can only make that argument now by completely ignoring every single thing Donald Trump has said publicly about voters who do not vote for him. Every single thing he said. When Hillary Clinton used the word deplorable, it was in a private fundraiser. She did not intend for it to be heard outside of that room. Sure, she was way too relaxed in that fundraiser. It's not the kind of thing she would have said publicly, but Donald Trump says deliberately and clearly into microphones for all the world to hear that all Democrats are lunatics. That's his word, lunatics. Donald Trump thinks 75 million Americans are lunatics for voting for Kamala Harris. Donald Trump has said the ugliest things about American voters that any American politician has ever said. And Donald Trump went on to win the Electoral College after saying those things. And the New York Times simply doesn't know how to handle what Donald Trump says and does. I don't know how to handle it either. I feel my way through the Trump mud every day. I don't confidently know what to ignore or what not to ignore. But I do know I have to think about it. I have to think about it all the time. I have to think about it every day. I have to face all of it. And I have to decide what aspects of the Trump poison we should examine in this hour that we have on this program tonight. The New York Times and the Washington press corps are drowning in the deviancy and perversity of Donald Trump and his White House, all of whom everyone working in that White House supports. This deeply perverse use of government operated social media to put out poisons and what is clearly raw insanity from the darkness of Donald Trump's mind. And the White House press corps has just drowned in it. They're lost in it. They have internalized it. They have fully accepted it. That is what the New York Times and the Washington media have done so far this week. They have accepted it to the point that when the New York Times wrote its big editorial about the government shutdown, everything it wanted to say about it, titled the Real Stakes of the Shutdown, they didn't mention what Donald Trump did instead of negotiating a way out of the shutdown. They didn't mention what he has done on social media, putting a sombrero on Hakeem Jeffrey's head, putting fake words in Chuck Schumer's mouth, profane, awful, stupid Trump words. They didn't even mention it. The real stakes of the shutdown are insanity versus sanity. And the press corps does not know how to face that. The New York Times refuses to confront and identify the insanity, refuses to even describe it. The Times editorial about the shutdown is a very well reasoned and clear, solid editorial all the way. It says what the two parties are fighting about is whether Americans should have access to affordable health care. President Trump is seeking to deprive millions of Americans of their health insurance and Senate Democrats are refusing to acquiesce. That is a clear presentation of the stakes in the shutdown prior to the outburst of public Trump insanity. The editorial ends in the classic style that everyone working at the New York Times mastered in their high school newspapers. And it reads like something from the 20th century. It reads like something long before the existence of Trump madness in our government. It reads like something you could have written about Bill Clinton in the White House and Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House. It says it is incumbent on the president and Congress to reopen the government as soon as possible and commit to preventing Americans from having to pay too much for health insurance next year. The only way forward is to negotiate a compromise. It's time to start talking. How lost is that? What century are they in? What fantasy world do they live in that would allow them to type those sentences? They could have written that line in any editorial about any government shutdown during any other presidency. But when you read it now, you see how lost the Times is. It's time to start talking to a man who refuses to talk to you and only posts social media video lying about you and ridiculing you. Talk to him. No one in the history of governing in the United States of America has ever had to talk to a person that crazy about anything, ever. And the time says it's time to start talking. The entire editorial does not find the space to make a single reference to the madness of Donald Trump as even a factor in the government shutdown or in the way out of the government shutdown. And here, I guess, is its reference to Donald Trump's insane social media posting. He mixed bombastic social media blasts and threats to fire thousands of federal workers if Democrats did not provide the votes for his plan to keep the government open. Bombastic social media blasts. That's what they are. How very polite. No, they're not bombastic. They are insane. Democratic Congresswoman Madeline Dean approached the Republican speaker of the House to talk about the Trump madness, and he appeared to offer nodding agreement that Donald Trump is unwell.
- [11:31]
C
The president is unhinged. He is unwell.
- [11:34]
B
What are you doing? The points on your side are, too. I don't control. He could have said, no, the president is not unwell. Maybe he meant to say that, but he didn't. It was taken as a given in the conversation. He nods when he hears the president is unwell, and his response as he's nodding is, a lot of folks on your side are too. The word too there indicates similarity to what was just said, meaning similarity to Trump. The plain language of that is the speaker, in effect, agreeing that Trump is unwell and simply saying that other people are unwell. That's the Speaker's defense of Trump being unwell. He's not the only one. Of course he is, but okay. The Republican speaker of the House has to be shocked by what Donald Trump has done on social media. We know he is shocked, but like all Republicans in Washington, he processes the shock instantly and knows he will never dare publicly say a negative word about it, because he spends every working moment of his life as a coward. He has taken, in effect, an oath of cowardice to Donald Trump. He's not the speaker of the House. He's the speaker of Trump in the House. Now, if I were running the New York Times, which I'm incompetent to do, couldn't do it. I don't know that I could deal with this situation any better than they have done. I really don't. Instead, I just have an hour of television where I can say whatever I want. That's a much easier responsibility than editing the New York Times. And I had never presumed that I can do a better job than the New York Times. I never presumed that I could do a better job than anyone who's at Batten Yankee Stadium out there, who strikes out. And so it's not with some sense of superiority that I find the New York Times has struck out in the face of the madness of Donald Trump this week, which has reached new extremes that we haven't seen before, even from Donald Trump. The White House staffers who live with Donald Trump's insanity up close have obviously decided it cannot be defended. And the only thing to do is pretend there's nothing crazy about it. That's what Donald Trump's favorite faithful vice president tried to do yesterday. And now the White House says they will continue to post that video at government expense on official White House communications and make the sombrero bigger every day. That's what the children in the White House are going to do. This is the first president and the first White House that has decided, as JD Vance did yesterday, that a shutdown is funny. They've decided it's funny. J.D. vance thinks the shutdown is an opportunity for jokes, and that sombrero stuff is funny. He didn't explain what's funny about it. Prior to the existence of the Trump White House, whenever the disaster of a shutdown would occur, everyone in the White House took the situation very, very seriously. They didn't have to suppress jokes. They weren't making jokes about it, no matter who the President was. And so the crisis of this week's publicly flaring madness from the White House is made all the worse by the crisis of the New York Times and the Washington press corps taking it all as business as usual. They have internalized Trump madness in their coverage. They have lost their ability to react to it. But their outrage will be fully revived if a Democratic candidate for president or if a Democratic President ever says a single negative thing about any kind of American voters ever, anywhere. The Washington press corps outrage mechanism is sleeping tonight, but it will be fully operative again once they have a Democrat to aim it at. That's not a partisan statement on my partisan. It is simply an observable fact. You all saw it. We've all seen it. They cannot pretend this isn't true. We all saw them scream endlessly at Karine Jean Pierre, Joe Biden's press secretary. We all saw them scream directly at Joe Biden in his face when asking him questions. And we all see that they do not dare ever do anything like that in the Trump White House. They can never, ever, ever deny again that they do indeed have a double standard. And the double standard of coverage favors Trump madness. It accepts Trump madness. And if a Democratic president gets one word wrong in a sentence, he doesn't get a chance to correct it. He's immediately judged to be too old for the job. The double standard is there, and it's going to be operating for the next three years of this White House coverage. They're lost. We can only hope that they find their way. There is a stupidest member of the Trump Cabinet. It's not Robert Kennedy Jr. Who has never had a smart day in his life. He was a heroin addict every day of high school, college and law school, and so learned nothing and is a functional ignoramus on what he claims to be an expert about. Robert Kennedy Jr. Is the most dangerous Cabinet member in the history of the Cabinet. He's gotten himself into a position to, in effect, kill more Americans than any Cabinet member in history. But the stupidest member of the Cabinet, the most clownish member of the Cabinet, is someone who actually supported Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. And then in a clear measure of just how much integrity he does have, he immediately switched to support Donald Trump as soon as Donald Trump won the presidency. The stupidest Commerce Secretary in history, Howard Lutnick, has public indication about him indicates that he is a graduate of Haverford College, where he majored in economics. And he said this in a recent interview with the New York Post that was posted yesterday.
- [17:54]
E
And then I went on the campaign trail with him, and I think the most important thing we did is we designed his tariff policy together. We talked through. He taught me, I tell you what, he taught me everything about tariffs. We designed the tariff policy together. And did you believe in economic policy? I didn't really understand tariffs before I met Donald Trump. I mean, you know, you're a New York businessman. It's not really your world.
- [18:19]
B
Right.
- [18:20]
E
And then once I started talking to him about it, I understood it.
- [18:25]
B
I've never known a high school government student who didn't understand tariffs. I've never known an economic student who didn't understand tariffs. It's one of the simplest things that exist in economic policy. And all economists understand that all tariffs are taxes. They are sales taxes. But there is the stupidest commerce Secretary in history telling you that he learned about tariffs from the person who had already publicly said the stupidest things ever said about tariffs. What Lutnick always shows in every public comment is how much he slavishly sucks up to Donald Trump. He beats everyone in the sucking up to Trump game. No one comes close. He also cannot fail to reveal himself to be a child who doesn't belong in a governing room with adults.
- [19:12]
E
So, like, he lets me stay for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Come in. This is, like, the coolest thing ever.
- [19:17]
B
Coolest thing ever. Like, me began that interview in the stupidest way I've ever seen anyone begin an interview, especially with a job like his, by literally revealing his home address in New York City, the specific street and number, and pointing out that the person who used to live next door to him was Donald Trump's close friend, Jeffrey Epstein, the sex trafficker and raper of children. And it turns out Lutnick, at least now is claiming that he had very good instincts about Jeffrey Epstein and a very different reaction to Jeffrey Epstein than his friend Donald Trump had.
- [19:55]
E
We move in in 2005. Okay. Jeffrey Epstein is arrested in, like, 08, I think something. Right, Right. So knock on the door. His assistant on like A Saturday says, Mr. Epstein, your neighbor would like to invite you over for coffee. So my wife and I go next door. You know, we walk the seven steps. Yes, right. To the next house for. For coffee. We share a wall. Right, Right. So it's in New York City. So he invites us in, we have coffee in this, and he says, do you want a tour? He said, great.
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C
Interesting.
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E
He's got really big house.
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C
Every room you went into, he's got.
- [20:33]
E
He's got. Well, I'll tell you. So his house is, like, super big, really wide. And so he gives me a tour in the living room. Big living room. And then across from it is double doors. I assume it's the dining room.
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B
Yeah.
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E
And he opens the doors, and there's a massage table in the middle of the room and candles all around and stuff. So I ask very insightful, cutting questions. I say to him, massage table in the middle of your house, how often you have a massage? And he says, every day. And then he, like, gets, like, weirdly close to me.
- [21:12]
B
Oh.
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E
And he says, and the right kind of massage. Now my wife is standing here. So she looks at me and I look at her and we say, I'm sorry, we have to go. And we left. And in the six or eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again. So I was never in the room with him socially for business or even philanthropy. If that guy was there, I wasn't going because he's gross.
- [21:59]
B
Will never be in the room with that disgusting person. That seems like a perfectly reasonable room. Reaction to Jeffrey Epstein. But Donald Trump had the opposite reaction to Jeffrey Epstein. Donald Trump wanted to dance with Jeffrey Epstein literally at parties as much as he could. We've all seen that video. But the feeling Howard Lutnick had for Jeffrey Epstein is the feeling that most rich New Yorkers had for Donald Trump. They wanted nothing to do with that vulgarian. They thought he was gross, to use the Lutnick word. So a question that the White House press corps will never get to ask of Donald Trump is, if Howard Lutnick thought Jeffrey Epstein was gross the minute he met him, why were you his closest friend for 10 years? We will never hear that question from a White House press corps member or anyone else to whom Donald Trump grants an interview, because Donald Trump only chooses people who will not ask questions like that. Howard Lutnick, who didn't have to talk about any of this, stupidly had much more to say about Jeffrey Epstein.
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C
All these other people could hang around him and not see what you saw, or did they see it and ignore it?
- [23:18]
E
Or no, they participated. Right? That's what his M.O. was. You know, get a massage. Get a massage. And what happened in that massage room, I assume was on video. This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever. Blackmailed people. That's how he had money. So.
- [23:34]
C
So what happened to those videos? Why is there now such a dearth of information when, you know, Donald Trump's people are running the FBI and the doj?
- [23:43]
E
I assume way back when, they traded those videos in exchange for him getting that 18 month sentence which allowed him to have visits and be out of jail. I mean, he's a serial sex offender. How could he get 18 months and be able to go to his office during the day and have visitors and stuff? Must have been a trade. So my assumption, I Have no knowledge. But my assumption is there was a trade for the videos because there were people on those videos.
- [24:17]
C
And if you talked to Donald Trump about this and shared your theory.
- [24:21]
E
No. I mean, he knows the story. Right. But like my story that, you know, I was the one and done with the guy. He knows that story, but that's it.
- [24:30]
C
He would have been interested in that story.
- [24:33]
E
I don't know. It was just. It's a story. It's just a one and done. That guy.
- [24:38]
C
And does Trump feel. Did Trump feel the same way about him?
- [24:42]
E
I don't speak to him about. Yeah, these kind of. That's. These are just distractions. Right, Right.
- [24:52]
B
They're just distractions. You can see Lutnick realizing how stupid he was to go that far into the Jeffrey Epstein discussion. Once she starts asking him, did Donald Trump agree with you? That's when he realizes the size of the mistake he made. So Howard Blutnick, who lived next door to Jeffrey Epstein, has never talked to Donald Trump about Jeffrey Epstein. The foolish question Lutnick was asked by the New York Post reporter was, did Trump feel the same way about him? To which Lutnick said, I don't speak to him about that. The New York Post reporter apparently had not read a single article about Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. She hasn't seen the video of Donald Trump dancing with Jeffrey Epstein, expressing how he feels about Jeffrey Epstein. Right there in that video, hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein, hugging Jeffrey Epstein. We know that Donald Trump did not react to Jeffrey Epstein the way Howard Lutnick claims he reacted to Jeffrey Epstein. How Lutnick's stupidity has created a problem for Donald Trump trying to put out the Jeffrey Epstein fire that continues to burn every day, despite all of the dramatic distractions Donald Trump tries to put up to put out the Jeffrey Epstein fire. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee now want to get testimony from Howard Lutnick about what he knew about Jeffrey Epstein and what he saw in Jeffrey Epstein's home. There is no public evidence that Jeffrey Epstein made or traded blackmail videos in exchange for a light sentence. But could that evidence be in the Epstein files? Howard Lutnick seems to think so. The Cabinet member who tries to suck up to Donald Trump more vigorously than any other Cabinet member has just made Donald Trump's worst problem worse. California Senator Adam Schiff, who Donald Trump wants to prosecute for nothing, will join us next. It sounds like Donald Trump's stupidest Cabinet member, who used to live next door to Jeffrey Epstein, has important information that he should be sharing with the Congressional Committees investigating Donald Trump's old friend, the sex trafficker and raper of children, Jeffrey Epstein.
- [27:17]
E
That's what his M.O. was. You know, get a massage. Get a massage. And what happened in that massage room, I assume was on video. This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever, blackmailed people. That's how he had money.
- [27:30]
C
So, so what happened to those videos? Why is there now such a dearth of information when, you know, Donald Trump's people are running the FBI and the.
- [27:39]
E
Doj, I assume way back when, they traded those videos in exchange for him getting that 18 month sentence which allowed him to have visits and be out of jail. I mean, he's a serial sex offender. How could he get 18 months and be able to go to his office during the day and have visitors and stuff? Must have been a trade.
- [28:06]
B
Leading off our discussion tonight is Democratic Senator Adam Shiv of California. He's a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he's one of the people who Donald Trump has ordered his Justice Department to prosecution prosecute for nothing. Senator, there's Howard Lutnick saying about Epstein, this guy was the greatest blackmailer ever blackmailed people. That's how he made. He had money. So Lutnick seems to know an awful lot about how things worked for Jeffrey Epstein.
- [28:37]
D
Well, he certainly seems to, and I think he should come and testify before the Congress. What was so striking to me about that, Lawrence, is when Cash Patel, the FBI director, testified recently, he insisted that there was no evidence that Jeffrey Epstein had trafficked women to anyone other than Jeffrey Epstein. Apparently, Trump's own cabinet doesn't believe the FBI director. And so we're led to believe by the director that the only person on Epstein's list was Epstein. Lutnick doesn't believe that. I think we should hear his testimony. And what's more, they keep blaming the original investigation Alan Acosta led in Florida for their own failure to release the Epstein files. Whatever Acosta did, and I think it's pretty clear he did a terrible job, doesn't excuse the Trump administration from interviewing witnesses, from getting to the truth, from finding out who Epstein trafficked women to who was on that massage table that the secretary discussed so disgustingly. It doesn't prevent them from doing the investigation that they're criticizing a previous administration for not doing. And it, you know, certainly smacks of a continuing cover up.
- [29:54]
B
And, Senator, this is talk about the stakes in the shutdown, which we did, the stakes in the congressional election. If Democrats win the House or if Democrats win the Senate, you will then be committee chair Chairman, you will then have the subpoena power to actually investigate this?
- [30:12]
D
Well, that's right. We will have the power to do the oversight that the Republicans refuse to. Right now we're doing a lot of shadow hearings which we can only do with witnesses who are willing to step forward and cooperate. And many of them have shown great courage. But art, with a subpoena power, we can compel the production of materials. We can compel witnesses to come forward. We can bring in, for example, prosecutors who have quit rather than do unethical things. We can bring in people from the CDC who have been given unethical and immoral edicts. We can do that throughout the federal government. And we can also find out, for example, about the investigation into Tom HOLMAN and the 50,000 in cash that he was offered in a Cava restaurant bag, which the Trump administration made go away as soon as they took office. So there is a lot of work to be done. And, you know, the Trump administration people ought to understand that whatever actions they're taking now that transgress the law are going to be brought to the, to the surface during a subsequent Democratic Congress.
- [31:20]
B
Senator Adam Schiff, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
- [31:24]
D
Thank you.
- [31:25]
B
Coming up, the Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, will join us. Donald Trump's shutdown is now the number one issue in the campaign for governor of Virginia. That's next.
- [31:40]
C
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- [33:13]
B
Donald Trump has now made himself an even bigger factor in the campaign for governor of Virginia, which will be the single most important election in the country this year. Virginia governor campaigns always occur during the first year of a presidency and are always considered the most important indication of the year about the strength of the two parties. Early voting is already underway. With more than 475,000 federal employees and active duty military personnel living in Virginia, the Trump shutdown has now become the top issue in the campaign. Here is Democratic nominee for governor of Virginia, former Democratic Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, who will join us in a moment.
- [33:55]
G
Donald Trump has spent the entire year attacking Virginia, Virginia jobs, Virginia's economy, Virginia's public servants, Virginia's health care, and now in the government shutdown, we are seeing the OMB head say that there are going to be further mass layoffs of Virginia's federal workforce. This is outrageous. The Trump administration, administration has already fired so many Virginians across our commonwealth. And to use the government shutdown as a reason to continue firing Virginians is just adding to the difficult times that so many Virginians are already facing. These potential mass firings are going to be devastating to Virginia. And we need a governor who will stand up for Virginians, for their jobs and for our economy.
- [34:42]
B
And here's what the Republican nominee for governor, Winsome Earl Sears, told NBC's Peter Alexander about the shutdown. You recognize that obviously the president was getting rid of federal worker jobs even.
- [34:55]
D
Before the shutdown conversation existed.
- [34:57]
B
So just very quickly, yes or no, and then I'll move on.
- [35:00]
D
Would you tell President just man, let me interrupt quickly.
- [35:03]
B
Would you tell President Trump not to fire any more federal workers?
- [35:08]
C
When is Senators Kaine and Warner going to stand up and say they agree with what you said then they shouldn't fire any federal workers.
- [35:16]
B
And as I made clear, the job firing started even before the situation we're in now. Joining us now is former CIA officer and former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger running for governor in Virginia. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. The Trump shutdown in a state like Virginia has to be obviously the biggest thing that could possibly happen in a governor campaign there. What is it going to mean in these closing weeks of the campaign?
- [35:43]
G
Well, right now, my thoughts and my concerns really are with the Virginians who are impacted by this shutdown. We know that across Virginia, families are worried about what comes next. Families who, for so many of whom have spared, spent the beginning of the year worried they may get fired because of the Doge effort, only to find themselves in this moment hearing threats coming out of OMB with, you know, rumored firings to begin as early as tomorrow. The reality of this moment is that across the Commonwealth of Virginia, more Virginians are fearful of losing their jobs. In community members across the, across the board, small business owners, restaurant owners, government contractors know that they too will be impacted. It is a challenging moment in time for Virginians, for our economy. And at this moment, I think it is clear that we need a governor who will stand up for Virginians and make clear that these continued attacks month after month after month on the public servants and government contractors who call Virginia home are not only detrimental to the livelihoods of those individuals, but they are, are devastating to communities across Virginia.
- [37:01]
B
The political impact of this shutdown on a campaign like this is one of the reasons that we've avoided many shutdowns in the past is that the political pressures on the president and on the other players in it are such that they take, they recognize what's going on in Virginia and they think, well, we don't want to push the campaign away from us by doing this. But Donald Trump obviously couldn't care less about what happens in this governor's race in Virginia.
- [37:33]
G
I would say he certainly couldn't care less about the impact that these mass firings, again, beginning in the earliest stages and days of Doge, the impact that these firings have had on Virginians, on our economy, on our communities, and to now utilize the government shutdown as a reason, as an excuse to continue mass firings of Virginians. And to be clear, the impact is, yes, on the Virginians, on the community members, on the businesses that are impacted. But people across the country rely on the services, the support and the engagement that they are getting from so many of the federal workforce members who might be facing yet another round of firings as a result of the OMB head's aggressive efforts. And frankly, the president not being concerned with the impact that another round of firings will have on people and on the very function of the day to day workings of the government. It's an outrage. And you heard my opponent, the current Lieutenant governor, not only has she defended Doge from the earliest days of the initial Doge efforts, but she has time and time again refused to stand up for Virginians, for our economy. She's excused. Doge she said that, you know, these things happened, that it's not a big issue. It's been outrageous. And once you couple this with the very real facts that we are seeing housing prices go up and energy prices go up as well as, of course, health care prices go up because of the so called one big beautiful bill across Virginia, people are impacted by rising costs and the loss, mass loss of jobs is only adding dire insult to injury. And it's not what we need here in Virginia. And certainly I am running to serve Virginians, to stand up for Virginians, to lower costs for Virginians and to push back against an aggressive administration that is seeking to wreak havoc on the lives of Virginians and our economy. Those who might want to join our efforts, Our website's Abigail Spanberger.com and you.
- [39:45]
B
Know, before the age of Trump, candidates for governor around the country in both parties would disagree with the president of their party whenever it conflicted with the interests of their state. Easily. But in the Trump Party, I guess that's not allowed. Abigail Spanberger, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
- [40:02]
G
Thank you for having me.
- [40:04]
B
And coming up, Nicholas Kristoff has just returned from Africa once again where he saw the cruelty of Donald Trump's cuts to the United States Agency for International Development and the pain that it has inflicted there. Nicholas Kristof will join us next.
- [40:22]
C
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A
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- [41:09]
F
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- [41:26]
B
When Elon Musk with Donald Trump's approval and Secretary of State Marco Rubio's approval cut funding for famine for the delivery of life saving medicines. In Africa. Bill Gates said, quote, the picture of the world's richest man killing the world's poorest children is not a pretty one. Recently Marco Rubio said this. I think anybody who tells you that somehow it's the United States, if we cut a dollar, somehow we're responsible for some horrific thing that's going on in the world is just not true. New York Times columnist Nick Kristof has done what Marco Rubio has not done this year. He's gone to Africa multiple times now and seen the horrific damage that Marco Rubio refuses to see. Nick Kristof reports. As medical care evaporates, it is moms who die in childbirth. As food disappears and babies cry from hunger, some overwhelmed husbands abandon their wives and children. As social order unravels, it is mostly girls who are raped the and then are scorned for having been raped. And when times are desperate, it is girls like Alice Ugesha who are married off against their will. I cried when my dad told me to get married. Alice told me, but when the food aid got cut off, he said I had to marry. So three weeks before I arrived, she married. Alice didn't know her birthday, but thought she might be 17 or 15. Joining us now is Nicholas Kristof, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for the New York Times. His book Chasing Hope has just been released in paperback. Nick, in your most recent report, you concentrate on the impact this has on women and girls.
- [43:14]
H
Yeah, I mean, look, boys and men are obviously affected or dying as well, but it's disproportionately women and girls, partly because a lot of traditional mores favor boys. And so, you know, if you can't afford to send your kids to school, maybe you still send your son, but not your daughter. If your son is sick, you send him to the hospital. If your daughter is sick, you, you know, you feel your forehead, as one person told me, and then say, well, let's see how you are tomorrow. And the upshot is that girls and women disproportionately pay the price. And compounded on top of that, the administration has really gone after reproductive health in a big way. And obvious that mostly affects women. And it's, you know, it's not just abortion or abortion related things, it's not just family planning, it's things like dealing with cervical cancer which kills several hundred thousand women a year around the world. And, and Lawrence, I mean, it's just maddening because you, you know, like in reproductive health, I visited a warehouse where it was full of us purchased supplies that taxpayers had bought but the administration simply wasn't distributing. And so women were suffering and in some cases dying as these things sat in a warehouse, as we were paying storage fees for them.
- [44:40]
B
Yes. And you've reported on, on the food supply just being wasted in warehouses and rotting away. And it was, it was stuff we didn't need, it was stuff we'd already delivered. It was already there, but they kept it in a warehouse and, and let people go hungry.
- [44:57]
H
You know, one of the things I will never forget is this little six month old child named Fred who was dying of starvation near the Uganda Congo border. And there's this miracle substance, plumpy nut, that saves these kids lives. But he should have been getting two sachets a day and instead they only had enough to give him half of one sachet, a quarter of what he needed. And meanwhile the US has all this plumping out that we have purchased that we owned. And the State department is paying $10,000 a day in storage costs to keep it in the warehouse rather than to ship it out to save kids lives like Fred.
- [45:39]
B
Nicholas Kristof, your reporting has been and continues to be invaluable in this area. Thank you very, very much for joining us tonight.
- [45:47]
H
Thank you Lawrence, for shining a light on this.
- [45:49]
B
Thank you. We'll be right back. The invaluable Nicholas Kristof gets tonight's last word.
- [45:57]
A
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A
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