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The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Trump DHS challenged on possible imminent deportations
00:42:39
Tonight on The Last Word: Donald Trump mocks Sen. Chris Van Hollen for meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Also, voters flood town halls with fears and frustrations. Plus, Trump suggests removing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. And the North Carolina Supreme Court race remains undecided after legal challenges. Lisa Rubin, Garry Kasparov, Rep. James Clyburn, Robert Reich, and Justice Allison Riggs join Ali Velshi.
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- [00:01]
Ali Velshi
Now it's time for the Last Word with Ali Velshi. Good evening, Ali. I'm taking notes. Speckled Blob. Because for the longest time I referred to it as a barcode. Cause I'm a man of a certain age and people started texting me and says, it's not a barcode. The barcode is this thing in the grocery store. It's a QR code.
- [00:16]
Lisa Rubin
Speckled Blob, I think, is what.
- [00:17]
Ali Velshi
Speckled Blob is what the kids say. Everybody who's watching understood exactly what you meant. And I bet you there's been a whole lot of subscription to the newsletter, which is great, by the way. And I love how Steve Bennon's mind works because he's able to do everything I write turns out like an ess. And it's really long and really detailed and, you know, okay, maybe. And Steve just, boom, he just gives you a point and moves on. It's pretty impressive.
- [00:41]
Lisa Rubin
He's straight to the point. And the thing, I've known Steve for decades now. He has never forgotten a single thing.
- [00:47]
Ali Velshi
In all of the decades I have known him.
- [00:49]
Lisa Rubin
His mind is a steel trap.
- [00:51]
Ali Velshi
So if this is like a thing.
- [00:52]
Lisa Rubin
That happened in 1987, he'll know he's got it. Instant recall.
- [00:56]
Ali Velshi
And it's right there. Well, the newsletter's worth it. Thank you, my friend. You have a great weekend. See you next week.
- [01:00]
Lisa Rubin
You too.
- [01:01]
Ali Velshi
All right. We begin with the breaking news that we have been reporting all night on out of Texas. NBC News reports the Department of Homeland Security appeared on Friday to be preparing to send a new group of Venezuelan men from the United States to El Salvador and its notorious Secot Prison, even as lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union scrambled in the courts to stop the administration from moving forward. On Friday afternoon, a charter bus rolled up to the Blue Bonnet Detention center in Anson, Texas. It's a town of about 200 miles west of Dallas where the men are being held. U.S. district Court Judge James Boasberg, who's been hearing a case related to the flights to El Salvador, scheduled an emergency hearing for Friday evening. Tonight, not long before the emergency hearing was scheduled to begin, ACLU attorneys also asked the Supreme Court to step in. The hearing ended earlier Tonight, just before 8pm Here to tell us what has happened and where we are is MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin. Lisa, this is. Everybody in the country is following it, but it's complicated. It's got a bunch of judges and courts involved, some contradictory decisions by the courts, but not as important as the Fact that the government continues to find remarkably effective ways to evade doing something, including not sending more people to El Salvador.
- [02:24]
Lisa Rubin
That's absolutely true. And, Ali, when I think about the Abrego Garcia case, that's captivated a lot of attention. There's a ton of emphasis on the word facilitate.
- [02:32]
Ali Velshi
Yes.
- [02:32]
Lisa Rubin
With different people taking different interpretations of what that word means.
- [02:36]
Ali Velshi
Right.
- [02:37]
Lisa Rubin
The case before us tonight, this is the alien enemies case that's been litigated before Judge James Boasberg and has since been moved into other courts due to a Supreme Court decision. What we are debating tonight really, is the meaning of the word reasonable. And here's why. The Supreme Court decided on April 7 that if you were going to challenge what was happening on March 15 when the President issued his proclamation that members of Trend Aragua could be deported because they were subject to the Alien Enemies act, when he made that decision, the Supreme Court said, look, if you want to challenge that, you have to do it in a particular way and you have to do it in particular places. Specifically, you have to bring a form of relief known as a habeas petition, and you have to bring it in the places where people are detained. That meant that they vacated Judge Boasberg's orders, but they said you have to give people in the future reasonable notice and an opportunity to be heard.
- [03:40]
Ali Velshi
Right.
- [03:40]
Lisa Rubin
And it's that lack of reasonable notice and an opportunity to be heard that sent the ACLU back to Judge Boasberg tonight asking for an order saying that Reasonable notice is 30 days notice.
- [03:52]
Ali Velshi
Got it. The absence of reasonable notice, for those of us who get our legal training from law and order, is that people are just disappearing. I mean, that's the concept, that people are disappeared. Judge Boasberg, Judge Zinnis and others have said if the government has cases against these people, make the case in court, they are increasingly, I don't want to use the term dodging the courts. They're working their way around these court judgments, and they're playing this out in the media, in social media. Right. You're hearing everything. You're hearing about Abrego Garcia in the media. If there's a case, if the government says this guy's that dangerous and he's a terrorist and he's a member of a gang and he's this and that and the other thing, take it to court and get his protection from being deported taken away.
- [04:40]
Lisa Rubin
That's absolutely true. The government is trying to avoid, you know, the government doesn't have an affirmative responsibility to bring a court case. We're used to immigration proceedings where somebody is subject to a proceeding started by the government and then they get to contest an order of removal. That's not how things work under the Alien Enemies Act. And that's why the Supreme Court said, before you take these people, deport them out of the country, you have to give them reasonable notice and an opportunity to be heard. If I can. Ali I want to share with your viewers part of what the Supreme Court Court said on April 7 because it sets the groundwork for what happened today. They are saying the detainees are entitled to notice, an opportunity to be heard appropriate to the nature of the case in this context. Alien Enemies act detainees must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the act. The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time. And here's the key language and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief and the proper venue before such removal occurs. And let me then take you back to the aclu because they are receiving notifications that clients of theirs or other people across the country have gotten notices served on them in detention facilities that says, you're getting a notice that we believe you to be a member of Trenderoagua. We're going to deport you. This is a notice that you will be deported. And then it says, if you choose to make a phone call, we'll let you make a phone call. But never does it say, you have the right to contest this. You have an opportunity to contest this. You have this much time to call a lawyer. None of that is present. The problem tonight is Judge Bozberg said, I sympathize with all the arguments you're making about the unreasonability of this notice. And yet my hands are tied because on April 7, the Supreme Court said, this doesn't belong in front of me. Nobody is detained here in Washington, D.C. therefore, I have no more jurisdiction. And that's why Legalernt and his colleagues are waiting tonight to see if the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. court of Appeals or the United States Supreme Court is going to intervene and prevent the deportation of these people before the US Government can spirit them away. We got a representation from the government lawyer today that he understands there will be no flights tonight. But as for tomorrow, he said this, the government has no plans for flights tomorrow, that they reserve the right to take flights consistent with what they understand the Supreme Court ruling to be.
- [07:05]
Ali Velshi
And we don't know with two hours to go till midnight whether the fifth Circuit or the Supreme Court will respond to the aclu.
- [07:11]
Lisa Rubin
No, I kept hitting refresh right before we went to air. No notice from either of them.
- [07:15]
Ali Velshi
Thank you for your explanations, my friend. Good to see you. Good to see you. Lisa Rubin. All right. Staying with the controversy of deportation to El salvador. It's been 18 days since the Trump administration first acknowledged that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was, quote, removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error. The government said this to the court. Since then, the White House has done everything it can do to paint Abrego Garcia as anything but a father of three living in Maryland who had protected legal status in the United States. I repeat, protected legal status in the United States. You may not like this guy. You may think he's a bad guy, but the court said he could stay in the United States. It was Senator Chris Van Hollen's meeting with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador that we learned about just over 24 hours ago that really struck a nerve with a lot of people. Last night, the president of El Salvador mocked that meeting, saying, quote, kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the death camps and torture, now sipping margaritas with Senator Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador, end quote. Today, Senator Van Hollen addressed that comment upon his return to the United States from El Salvador, accusing the Salvadoran government of trying to make it look like Alberrego Garcia had been living comfortably, even trying to stage their meeting by the pool at the hotel where they met.
- [08:39]
Chris Van Hollen
When I first sat down with Kilmar, we just had glasses of water on the table, I think maybe some coffee. And as we were talking, one of the government people came over and deposited two other glasses on the table with ice. And I don't know if it was salt or sugar around the top, but they look like margaritas. Nobody drank any margaritas or sugar water or whatever it is. But this is a lesson into the lengths that President Bukele will do to deceive people about what's going on. And it also shows the lengths that the Trump administration, the president, will go to, because when he was asked about a reporter about this, he just went along for the ride. They actually wanted to have the meeting by the side of the pool in the hotel just right. I mean, this is a guy who's been in seekot. This is a guy who's been detained. They want to create this appearance that life was just lovely for Kilmar, which, of course, is a big.
- [09:48]
Ali Velshi
Hours before Senator Van Hollen arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport, Donald Trump reacted to the meeting with his own social media post saying, quote, senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland looked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador, begging for attention from the fake news media or anyone grandstander. All right, not to be outdone, the White House official social media account posted its own tweet, editing a New York Times headline. Take a look at this. This is an official communication from the United States government. The White House managing to mock both Van Hollen's meeting with the supreme and the Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously that the Trump administration must facilitate, as we just discussed, the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Joined by the family of Abrego Garcia today, Senator Van Hollen said this.
- [10:34]
Chris Van Hollen
This case is not just about one man. It's about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America. If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you threaten the constitutional rights and due process for everyone else in America. The fourth Circuit put it very clearly in its strong opinion yesterday, and I quote, it is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter, but in this case, it is not hard at all. The government, in this case, the Trump administration, is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims, in essence, that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from the courthouses still hold dear.
- [11:53]
Ali Velshi
The threat to constitutional rights and due process by Donald Trump is giving immigrants who fled authoritarian countries deja vu. The Washington Post reports, quote, carlos Cortez witnessed the charismatic Hugo Chavez test the limits of Venezuela's institutions after winning the presidency in 1998, the legislative branch became a rubber stamp and the press co opted or shut down. What followed, Cortez said, was the once unthinkable disintegration of of one of Latin America's oldest democracies. You don't wake up one day and suddenly there's no democracy, he said. We had elections, we had institutions, we had laws. And then, little by little, everything changed, end quote. In 1999, Hugo Chavez pushed for a special assembly to rewrite the constitution. It stretched presidential terms to six years and allowed two consecutive terms. A decade later, he handily won a referendum on erasing term limits altogether. When Carlos Cortez arrived in the United States in 2016, he, quote, saw uncomfortable signs of Chavez in Trump who was starting his first term. Our next guest is an advocate for democracy in Russia and around the world, frankly, and a former world chess champion. Garry Kasparov has a message for Americans on how America can avoid becoming Russia. Garry Kasparov writes in the Atlantic article, quote, exactly 20 years ago, I retired from professional chess to help Russia resist Putin's budding dictatorship. People were slow to grasp what was happening there too. Putin's bad, but surely he'll stop short of. And he can fill in the blank with a dozen things he did to destroy Russia's fragile democracy and civil society. Attacking the press as fake news and the enemy of the state. Check. Delegitimizing the judiciary. The last constitutional break when the legislature is co opted and feckless. Check. Expanding influence over the economy by threatening businesses and using tariffs to introduce a crisis and spoil system. Check. Creating a culture of fear by persecuting unpopular individuals and groups. Been there, done all of that. America is hurtling toward the loss of its democratic institutions and the establishment of an authoritarian state where there will be no civil discussion of these issues at all. That's what a principled opposition must fight with all its might. When fighting for democracy, you never know if there will be another day. Fight everywhere. You can always end quote. Joining me now, Garry Kasparov, the chair of the Renew Democracy Initiative and the author of the the Next Move with Garry Kasparov. Gary, nice to see you. Thank you for being with us. You know, when we talk about oligarchy, we talk about dictatorship, we talk about authoritarianism. To some people, those remain abstractions. And very much like in Germany in the 1930s or in Russia, as you described, there are people who hope it won't go any farther than it goes. And then suddenly it does. What we've just been talking about on this show is people being disappeared, people being snatched up off the street, moved to other jurisdictions, in a couple of cases, other countries, and then the government saying, well, we don't know where they are, we can't get them back. This is the beginning of the stuff you're talking about.
- [15:11]
Garry Kasparov
Absolutely. Of course, American democracy is much more solid than Russian democracy or Venezuelan democracy, but it's not immune from being turned into something different. And I believe that it's, it's my duty to share my experience or experience. Many other dissidents who actually saw it and many of the actions of the current administrations reminded us of what happened in our native countries. You just talked about this case of a person being shifted to foreign prison. And I can remind the administration that some of the grievances of the declaration of independence 250 years ago reminded about this threat. So it's depriving us of the benefits of a trial by jury or transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses. So it seems that the Founding Fathers could feel this potential danger coming from the Executive Office. And I think that if you look at the combined effect of many of Trump's actions, clearly he's leading this way. And it's in my two articles in the Atlantic. That was the second one. When I described the potential Putinization of America.
- [16:28]
Ali Velshi
Yes.
- [16:28]
Garry Kasparov
I found parallels, many parallels. And the key one is privatizing the levers of power and basically destroying the state and replacing it by the power of those who have proximity to power but do not have legal rights to carry the operation, or not just legal.
- [16:49]
Ali Velshi
Rights who are not able to be held to account in the same way. So if you take Elon Musk, for example, doing all sorts of things, and yet I can't hold him to account. He's an independent American citizen, businessman.
- [17:01]
Garry Kasparov
Yes, but that tells us that we should stop arguing about policies. I don't want us to waste time. Whether Musk cut this or that, try to close one agency or another. That's very important. But we should start with the fact that Doge is unconstitutional, period. So Doge basically assumes powers that vested by Constitution in the Congress. I'm not aware about Congress giving this power to Elon Musk or the Senate having any confirmation hearings. And I think this is the key message. We have many differences, people who despise Trump and his actions, but we should stop arguing about policies now and concentrate just to put all our efforts in this thrust to defend constitution. Next year's 25th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the Republic is in real danger. And I can tell you that in 2026, the Democrats have very good chance of taking back the House. Senate is probably unlikely if it's a free and fair election. And Trump was already testing the will of people to fight back. When he talks about the third term, don't laugh at him.
- [18:16]
Ali Velshi
Someone asked you about this, Gary, because you used to have rules like this in Russia. And that's why Putin, in the last 25 years, spent a few years not as president of Russia. Right. But Steve Bannon went on and said that on January 20th of 2029, Donald Trump will be inaugurated for his third term as President of the United States. And it becomes easy for some of us who think that's ridiculous, that's unconstitutional that's not allowed. We're not gonna pay any attention to that. To not pay any attention to that because somebody's working on this.
- [18:50]
Garry Kasparov
You must pay attention because it's. Many of the things that were presented in the so called 2025 project were not taken seriously. Of course he would not go this way. It's too far. He will not cross this bridge or another. He will. The dictators and would be authoritarian leaders, they never ask why. It's always why not? And they're looking for any flaw or a gap in constitutional order in American laws. And unfortunately, many of the things that we took for granted, they are not codified, but simply kind of a tradition. Nobody ever did it before. Trump will do absolutely everything.
- [19:32]
Ali Velshi
We didn't know that. And so one of the things I want to read something that you wrote in your article, which I thought was remarkable, you said, to fight this onslaught means to stay focused. Skip the culture wars where the ground can easily tilt to favor the MAGA faithful. Concentrate instead on defending American rights and values against billionaires and autocrats who want to take them away. Just because you can't compete with Trump on populism doesn't mean you can't be popular. Polls already suggest that the public believes the president should obey court orders and give Ukraine more aid. This is a fact. The polls are not with him.
- [20:08]
Garry Kasparov
Yeah, exactly. That's the whole idea of this new substack. The next move that I launched with my organization Review Democracy Initiative, it's about the strategy, how we should create a big tent again for time being to forget about differences. You know, just not fighting culture, cultural wars, but concentrating on defending Constitution. Because many people who voted for Trump, they are really concerned about the threat Trump is posing to the constitutional order. We need to expand the coalition. We have to put more pressure on Republicans in the House and in the Senate to feel heat by being part of this Trump Jagger now that is aimed at destroying American republic.
- [20:49]
Ali Velshi
Gary, good to see you. Thank you as always for joining us. Garry Kasparov is the head of the Renew Democracy initiative. He's the author of the substech the Next Move with Garry Kasparov. All right, coming up, voters are showing up to town halls across the country to hold Republicans accountable for policies that are threatening the lives of all Americans, whether elected Republicans themselves show up or not. Our next guest has been a civil rights activist his entire life, and he's not going to remain silent against Trump's dismantling of democracy. The Democratic congressman, James Clyburn standing by. He joins me next. This weekend and all next week across the country, voters will keep showing up at town halls angry, frustrated and in some cases, afraid. Democrats are showing up in their own districts and in the districts where Republicans won't to listen to voters who are afraid of Donald Trump's tariffs and what those tariffs are doing to their small businesses, their ability to buy everyday essentials and their ability to keep saving for retirement. Voters who are also afraid of what Republican backed cuts to critical safety nets programs like Medicare will mean for their families. At the same time, many voters say they're also concerned about something even bigger, what this moment means for the future of American democracy. Last night at a town hall in South Carolina, the Democratic Congressman James Clyburn gave this warning about where we are and where we could be headed if we're not careful.
- [22:13]
James Clyburn
So all we can do is share with you what we are doing and ask for your prayers that this country will not allow itself to go the way of Germany. In the 1930s when people stood by, people gonna have to speak out because we don't have 218 votes in the House. We need 218. We don't have 60 votes in the Senate. We need 60 votes.
- [22:51]
Ali Velshi
That's not just political frustration. That's a stark historical warning. Joining us now is the former assistant Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina, who many know as a civil rights leader, as a, as a member of Congress. But I know because he comes on my show a lot on the weekends as a teacher, a history student. He you study history. And the 1930s Germany thing is really, really, really important to remember because Germany in the 1930s was one of the most advanced scientifically, artistically, culturally, educationally, one of the most advanced countries on earth by a long shot. And most people in Germany would have been, it would have been reasonable to say one man can't destroy this. It's too much, we're too strong, we're too stable. And yet one man and those who supported him did destroy it and made it into dust, essentially.
- [23:50]
James Clyburn
Absolutely, you're so right about that. Thank you so much. Also last night I put up on the screen for everybody in that auditorium to see that poem, that statement made about Pastor Naber, who put out the litany of events, starting with first they came for the communists. And it went right down through the litany of things, the trade unionists, the Jews. And as he concluded, finally, they came from me. And by that time nobody was left to speak up. I put that up last night so that my audience could see what the similarities are, doing away with trade unions, doing away with the media. And then I also put up for them the statement from the Birmingham City jail, that letter from the that jail by Martin Luther King Jr. When he wrote that we are going to be made to repent in this generation, not just for the vitriolic words and deeds of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of good people. King warned us in that letter that the people of ill will were making a much better use of time than the people of goodwill. And that seems to be what's taking place today. You know, I got started in my activism reading Martin Luther King Jr. S first book, which A Stride Towards Freedom, I keep near Me, his last book, Where Do We Go From Here, Chaos or community? And I think that foretells exactly where we are today. Are we going to settle for chaos or will we build a community? And that's what I tried to share with my attendees last night, and it was a great meeting.
- [26:02]
Ali Velshi
Congressman, there are a lot of there are a lot of brave people around the country who are doing remarkable things, some in Congress, some out there in the community this weekend. Tomorrow we're going to possibly 400 events around the country. You know, in the beginning, after this election, there are people who said it didn't the protest movement didn't have the energy that it did after the 2016 election of Donald Trump. But it's different. It's a little more focused. It's about accountability. There are valid criticisms out there about the fact that there is not a cohesive message coming from the Democratic Party. What's your take on that?
- [26:36]
James Clyburn
Well, I think the message that comes from the Democratic Party is a good message. The problem we've got is that we have to depend upon the media to deliver it. If we have the Washington Post, for instance, caving to this wannabe dictator, and we've got other media entities that seem to rather push a narrative that will bring eyes to their newspapers or to their television sets and not really give a fair hearing or reporting to what we're doing. I'm going to be doing three town halls next week. Two of them will not be in my district. I'll be up in Spartanburg, South Carolina. I'll be in Greenville. I'm going to be down in Beaufort. These places are not in my congressional district. And I would hope that there are people outside of the audience checking in what we're saying, because my message is going to be very, very coherent. It's going to be very, a little bit alarming, but it's going to be a message that I think everybody will understand if they were to hear it. And I have to rely upon people like yourself. You do a great job of this. That's why I like coming on your shows on the weekends, because you do a real good substantive reporting of what the issues are around us. But when you've got people saying we're not going to fact check, we're not going to worry about whether or not you're telling the truth and just let the reports go out there, that's what's killing us as Democrats because we don't have a stomach for just lying.
- [28:24]
Ali Velshi
Well, you and I both have work to do. Thank you for doing your part of it, sir. We'll talk to you soon. As always, we always appreciate your time. Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina. All right, coming up, it has not even been 100 days of the Trump administration, a honeymoon period typically used by presidents to get big things done. But its first 89 days has been marked by one policy error after another, and they're the type that could cost us our prosperity. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich joins me next. You can't blame the money man for bad economic policy, but of course, that seems to be what Donald Trump is trying to do with Jerome Powell. Trump attacked the Federal Reserve chair yesterday again for refusing to raise interest rates, claiming to reduce interest rates, claiming that his termination can't come fast enough after Jerome Powell essentially just told the truth about the impact of Donald Trump's tariffs. But Federal Reserve is not the reason for all the recent chaos in the stock market today. The Wall Street Journal editorial board put it this way, quote, if the president wants faster growth and less market turmoil, he can help by ending his tariff campaign. The main lesson from Trump versus Powell is that the central bank can't make up for the economic policy errors of politicians, end quote. That's an important note. It goes on, quote, he can help by ending his tariff campaign. There are unanswered legal questions surrounding whether Trump can fire Jerome Powell. Most people think he can't. The Atlantic points out, quote, if Trump bullies the Fed into a new policy decision by firing Powell and installing a crony in the central bank, investors around the world will dump even more American assets and flee to the relative safety of the euro, raising domestic borrowing costs as the central bank scrambles to shore up the financial system and tries to bring interest rates down. It would be chaos, with costs extending into the trillions of dollars and ramifications felt for decades. End quote. People close to Donald Trump tell the New York Times today that, quote, Mr. Trump's advisers have repeatedly told him that firing Mr. Powell is both legally and financially fraught and that the uncertainty could cause a significant downturn in financial markets. Mr. Trump, at least for the moment, has seemed persuaded, the people said. When asked about firing Jerome Powell today, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told reporters the Trump administration will continue to study the matter. Joining us now is Robert Reich, who served as Secretary of Labor under the President Bill Clinton. He's a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley. He's the co founder of Inequality Media, which means he's sort of a important August fellow. And I don't normally drag him into the pigsty with me. But you're coming into the pigsty with me right now, Bob, because the Wall Street Journal has just written something which I find very funny. It talks about the fact that on April 9, as markets were melting down, the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant and the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick took advantage of the fact that Peter Navarro, who seems to be the mastermind behind these tariffs, was at a meeting with Kevin Hasson. So he was away from the Oval Office for a few minutes and they went in and caused him to write this truth social post and paused the tariffs. I mean, ridiculous if true. Quite possibly true. But you got this guy, Peter Navarro, an economist, they got off of Amazon literally, who is dictating these policies. You got Howard Lutlik. No credit to him because anything Donald Trump wants, he goes on TV and parrots. While the global economy is in danger of melting down.
- [32:00]
Robert Reich
Ali, you're getting at something that is really, I think historians looking back on this period will highlight and that is that the chaos is self induced. The chaos is not chaos. That really comes from something like, you know, a pandemic, right? The chaos is right there inside Donald Trump's White House. It's in this Trump regime. They can't get their act together. They are, I mean, the kinds of, you know, I have been in White Houses, I have seen government up close, I've seen presidents up close. You don't have this kind of crime craziness. And it itself creates market uncertainty. If you are a CEO, if you are somebody who is contemplating making major investments in a new factory or whatever, you're not gonna do it with this kind of uncertainty, this kind of chaos, this kind of, you know, just everybody inside the White House looking for the moment that they can actually get Trump alone.
- [32:59]
Ali Velshi
When you look at stable Modern democracies, some of the, maybe the OECD type of countries. Look at Canada, Japan, Switzerland, the eu, they have central banks. And basically all the central banks operate in a very similar way in that there is some degree of independence between the person who runs the central bank and the governors of it and the prime minister or the president or somebody like that. We have enjoyed that in the United States. Typically. The idea is that presidents who almost always want interest rates to be lowered, which might or might not be the right idea at any given time, don't have that sort of sway over Fed chairs, this thing, this pressure campaign Donald Trump's got on Jay Powell to quit or lower interest rates. Most people don't think about this on a daily basis. It's really bad.
- [33:44]
Robert Reich
It's really bad. And it creates even more uncertainty. I mean, if you are, again, if you're an investor, if you're somebody who is looking at making a major investment in the United States or whatever you're trying to do in the economy, if you don't know that you can trust the central bank, if you think that maybe there will be political power applied to the Fed and that interest rates will not therefore control inflation, what are you gonna do? You don't have any trust that inflation is gonna be controlled. So you're gonna pull your money out of dollars, you're gonna pull your money out of treasury bills. You're going to do all sorts of things that are antithetical to what we need in the United States. You're going to actually make the situation so far worse. We need. The Fed has got to be an independent cop on the beat in terms of controlling inflation. If it doesn't do that, if it is politically controlled, then it has no.
- [34:51]
Ali Velshi
So this is an important point. Again, things that, for good reason, regular people don't have to think about on a regular basis. The Fed controls inflation by raising interest rates, and they try to do it in a manageable way. It's more art than science. And they. They get out of recessions by lowering interest rates. Essentially, if you are in a recession, which we might get ourselves into, and we still have high interest, and we add those tariffs which make higher inflation, and we have tariffs that make it higher. That's an economic, almost an impossibility to get out of that. You can get trapped in this. This thing for Japan was trapped in it for a decade.
- [35:29]
Robert Reich
We were trapped in it in the 1970s. Remember, it's called stagflation. When you get into this kind of stagflation, trap. The Fed cannot raise interest rates because you might therefore push the economy into further recession, but it can't lower interest rates because you have the problem of inflation and you are therefore you don't have any monetary policy that works.
- [35:52]
Ali Velshi
Bob, good to talk to you. Thank you, my friend. I appreciate it. Robert Reich is a professor, former labor secretary and to President Clinton, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, co founder of Inequality Media. All right, coming up, five months after election Day in North Carolina, one race remains uncertified despite one candidate getting more voters. Democratic state Supreme Court Justice Alison Riggs is fighting to keep her seat and deeply worried that the courts are trying to overturn the will of the people. Alison Riggs is standing by. She joins me next. Despite the fact that it's April, the November election is still not over, at least not in North Carolina, where more than five months after Election Day, a race for the state Supreme Court has still not been certified. That contest features the Democratic incumbent Alison Riggs and her Republican challenger, Jefferson Griffin. After all the ballots were counted and recounted and recounted again, Riggs led by the razor thin margin of 734 votes. Now, once upon a time, that would have been more than enough to earn her the victory. But alas, we now live in the Donald Trump era of American politics. And that was just the beginning of a months long legal battle. Her Republican opponent, the Republican Jefferson Griffin, has tried to get more than 65,000 ballots thrown out over claims of incomplete voter registration, largely targeting mail in ballots and military voters. But in recent weeks, the Democrat Alison Riggs has scored some major victories in court. All of those thousands of contested after all of those thousands of contested ballots, the race now hinges on 1,675 ballots, all in Guilford County, North Carolina. They include military voters and voters whose state residency status has been the subject of both political and legal debate. NBC's Charlotte affiliate WCNC also notes that Guilford county leads Democratic, which means that the Republican candidate faces an uphill battle to find the votes to be declared the winner of the campaign. Regardless of whatever the final outcome of this race is, there are serious concerns over the effect of this prolonged saga in North Carolina. Riggs recently told the Atlantic, quote, the longer this drags out, the more voters are like, I'm just a pawn in their games and what difference does it make if I vote? Because if the other person wins, they'll just challenge my vote, end quote, adding every single day as this goes on, it does real and lasting damage to our democracy and People's faith in it. Joining us now is Allison Riggs, North Carolina State Supreme Court Justice. Justice Riggs, good to see you again. Jack Smith wrote in his indictment of Donald Trump, his fourth and final point. It's on the last page of the indictment, he said. The undermining of the faith of the American citizen in their vote, the importance of their vote and the right of their vote to be counted is a remarkably serious thing to do. We trust that our votes are important and are counted regardless of whether our candidate wins or loses.
- [38:55]
Alison Riggs
It's true. That is the core of what we're fighting for here in North Carolina is at the end of the day, voters speak. And we need people in power who are willing to acknowledge that accountability, concede election losses when they take one, and are willing to support the democratic process no matter who wins. My opponent has been challenging as many as 68,000 voters that, that he perceives, I suppose, to be leaning Democratic or leaning in support of me. It cannot be the rule in a democracy that continues to exist that you can challenge the rules of an election after the outcome, if you don't like who wins, if you can toss some votes in hopes of changing it. I'm fighting every day in federal court right now to make sure this process in North Carolina of, quote, unquote, curing ballots doesn't proceed because it sets an incredibly dangerous precedent. A North Carolina problem today is an Arizona or a Michigan or a Georgia problem tomorrow.
- [40:03]
Ali Velshi
And there's part of this. It's such a complicated story. You and I have talked many times, but if you're not from North Carolina, it's complicated. And I worry that for some people in North Carolina, it's complicated. You're just supposed to vote for someone on election day and you hope that the person you vote for wins and that the system will work and they'll count it. The inconsistency of this between the courts and, and your opponent is remarkable. They are challenging some votes in some places for some reasons, but not consistently and across the board.
- [40:32]
Alison Riggs
That's right. They've in particular, my opponent is, is currently focused on tossing military and overseas absentee ballots in four counties. We have 100 counties here in North Carolina. He's focused on the four, four of the most Democratic. There's an argument right now about whether that'll just be limited to one of those, Guilford County. But regardless, we have to be approaching this threat, big picture and brass tacks. So we have to fight in a federal court because we know that this is about more than one race. It's about whether voters get to decide elections, not politicians, not courts. And then if this cure process happens, we know we have to get in touch with some of the hardest to get in touch with voters in the whole state of North Carolina, these deployed military voters who we're going to have.
- [41:27]
Ali Velshi
To chase to give them instructions on how to cure their ballot. So whether it's 15 days or 30 days that they get, you're talking to people in April who don't think there's an election. They think they voted in November. And now you're going to have to find them and say you have to do A, B, C and D in order to your for your vote to be counted.
- [41:45]
Lisa Rubin
Yes.
- [41:46]
Alison Riggs
Six months later. And ali, these voters did exactly as they were instructed. Did exactly.
- [41:52]
Ali Velshi
There was no, there was nothing that they did at the time that they cast their vote that was improper because rules got changed thereafter.
- [42:00]
Alison Riggs
That's right. It's only been since the election.
- [42:03]
Ali Velshi
Yes.
- [42:03]
Alison Riggs
That state courts have ruled that state law means something different than everyone was told and everyone thought. And a voter has to have confidence when they go into the voting booth that if they followed all the rules, their vote will count.
- [42:18]
Ali Velshi
That's the bottom line. Justice Allison Riggs, good to see you again. Thank you. I mean, we always enjoy talking to you. I'm kind of hoping the day will come where I don't have to when somebody says Allison Riggs is on the show and I'm going to say why we have nothing to talk about.
- [42:32]
Alison Riggs
When we save democracy, we'll get.
- [42:35]
Ali Velshi
Then we'll talk less. Allison Riggs is a North Carolina Supreme Court justice.