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“Drowning in scandal”
Update: 2024-11-18
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Nicolle Wallace is joined by Paul Rieckhoff, Betsy Woodruff Swan, Claire McCaskill, Ali Vitali, Tim Miller, Jacob Soboroff, Amy McGrath, Eddie Glaude, and Anthony Scaramucci.
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Transcript
00:00:00
MSNBC's Laurence O'Donnell.
00:00:02
I have an obligation to find a way of telling this story that is fresh, that has angles, that haven't been used in the course of the day, to bring my experience working in the Senate,
00:00:15
working in journalism, to try to make sense of what has happened, and help you make sense of what it means to you.
00:00:23
The last word with Laurence O'Donnell, weeknight at 10pm Eastern on MSNBC.
00:00:29
Hi everyone, it's Monday and it's 4 o'clock in New York with a sexual misconduct allegation,
00:00:44
a tattoo that led to or preceded a hasty exit from military service, and a litany of eyebrow raising statements Donald Trump's picked ahead the Department of Defense seems to be drowning in scandal,
00:00:58
and that's before confirmation hearings ever get underway.
00:01:02
On Sunday, an attorney for Pete Hegseth confirmed that Hegseth paid a woman after she accused him of sexual assault, saying this in a statement, quote, "In 2023, Hegseth paid the complaint and as part of a civil confidential settlement agreement and maintains his innocence."
00:01:18
That statement comes up to the Washington Post reported this, quote, "A detailed memo was sent to the Trump transition team this week by a woman who said she is a friend of the accuser."
00:01:29
The memo, a copy of which was obtained by the Post, alleged he raped the then 30-year-old conservative group staffer in his room after drinking at the hotel bar.
00:01:40
And BC News has not obtained the memo sent to the Trump team.
00:01:45
None of this, though, deterring Donald Trump, the New York Times, citing two people briefed on the discussion that he is standing by Hegseth, reports this, quote, "Trump made his view plane to AIDS after a conversation with Hegseth days ago after the team learned that a woman had accused him of assault in 2017."
00:02:03
We're also learning more about an episode that Hegseth has spoken about before, his removal from a mission by the D.C.
00:02:12
National Guard at Joe Biden's inauguration.
00:02:15
So Hegseth described the story on a podcast a few weeks ago.
00:02:20
I was deemed extremist because of a tattoo by my National Guard unit in Washington, D.C.
00:02:28
And my orders were revoked to guard the Biden inauguration.
00:02:32
A Jerusalem Cross tattoo, which is just a Christian semisethics.
00:02:36
This is the one.
00:02:37
This is the tattoo.
00:02:38
This one is what got me disinvited or, I never had orders revoked before.
00:02:45
I mean, listen, it's a standard deal.
00:02:48
The reporting in the Washington Post actually cast doubt on that on Hegseth's version of events there.
00:02:54
The post reports that it was actually not the cross tattoo, but another one of his tattoos that set off alarm bells in military circles the day after the January 6th insurrection.
00:03:05
From that reporting, quote, Travis Akers, then a naval intelligence officer, told the Washington Post that he looked further and spotted a close-up image Hegseth posted of his bicep months earlier that clearly shows the words "dayous vault."
00:03:22
Researching the phrase online, Akers found that it was a Christian battle cry from the first crusade in the Middle Ages.
00:03:29
God wills it.
00:03:30
So the phrase remains in use among some ordinary Christians, especially Catholics.
00:03:35
Akers said his research showed that it had become popular with the proud boys, three percenters and other extremist groups that participated in the siege of the Capitol.
00:03:46
Akers posted the photos to Twitter, which led the DC National Guards head of physical security to warn that Hegseth could be a quote "insider threat,"
00:03:56
the post adding this quote.
00:03:58
As he was about to be deployed, Hegseth received a call from his superior officer, ordering him to stand down, rather than report for duty for the inaugural events.
00:04:09
According to Hegseth, his removal from the mission shaped his views of the military.
00:04:15
Once more from the Washington Post, quote, "He has cited the episode in asserting that the military in which he'd served in two wars abroad and during riots at home following the death of George Floyd had become dangerously woke."
00:04:28
Hegseth did not respond to the Washington Post when they sought comment.
00:04:33
Donald Trump's nominee to leave the Department of Defense bogged down by his past statements and record is where we begin today with some of our favorite reporters and friends.
00:04:42
With me at the table, host of the Independent Americans Podcast and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Paul Reikov is back.
00:04:50
Also, joining us, Politico National Correspondent and MSNBC Contributor Betsy Woodrow-Swann is back and former Democratic Senator MSNBC political analyst Claire McCaskill is here.
00:05:02
Betsy, let me start with you on the body of reporting shaping up.
00:05:08
I think that what people who watch him might have seen was sort of a, maybe if they're an affinity for the affable anti-woke genre.
00:05:22
This reporting seems to at least deepen that caricature and that he's someone who was cast out of service on the day of Joe Biden's inauguration because of a belief that he could be an insider threat.
00:05:37
Take me inside that threat of reporting.
00:05:40
Yeah, what's important to know here, of course, is that the concerns regarding Hegseth came from his fellow soldiers.
00:05:48
It came from the unit that he was part of, the National Guard, organizations, senior enough people above him in the chain of command, believed that this tattoo that he had, again, regardless of the reasons that he got it,
00:05:59
they were convinced that it was a symbol he could pose a threat going into the presidential inauguration.
00:06:06
What's also important to remember here is that none of this is going to have any impact whatsoever on Trump's support for his nominee.
00:06:15
One thing that people argue related to Hegseth, the accusations he's facing, the news that's coming forward that without a doubt is raising concerns more broadly about the way that he would lead the defense department.
00:06:27
None of that is going to shape Trump's view because it very much points to the fact that Hegseth embodies Trump himself and the goals that Trump would have for the military.
00:06:37
The fact that Hegseth has been accused of sexual assault, that's not going to slow down Trump, he himself, of course, faces those same accusations, the fact that Hegseth is accused of playing footsie with extremism,
00:06:48
of supporting extremist rhetoric, either deliberately or inadvertently.
00:06:52
That won't slow down Trump whatsoever, either.
00:06:54
And this story involving Trump and Hegseth is a microcosm of the broader shift that we're seeing going into this second Trump term in comparison to his first time in office.
00:07:05
At this point in time, late 2016 or early 2017, Trump was building out a cabinet that included some people from the national security establishment who were very,
00:07:15
very much seen as normal, typical, respectable.
00:07:18
We're talking about people like Jim Mattis, John Kelly, and shortly after Trump was inaugurated also, H.R.
00:07:24
McMaster, who of course replaced his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who was removed in part because of very troubling connections that he had, troubling activity he was engaged in.
00:07:36
Now it is so, so, so different.
00:07:39
Right from the jump, Trump is filling his cabinet with people who very much channel his instincts, channel his political goals, channel his policy goals, and after his inauguration,
00:07:50
we'll be ready to hit the ground running, doing whatever Trump wants to see done on the part of these department and agencies to advance his goals.
00:07:59
And of course, if Hegseth is confirmed, the number one thing to watch for is how he instructs the defense department to cooperate with Trump's promise of mass deportations.
00:08:07
When Trump is looking at DOD, that's one of the first things he's going to be talking about how he can use the defense department on US soil to help augment law enforcement activity.
00:08:18
And of course, Trump sees Hegseth as a key person in that plan.
00:08:22
I have no doubt that this probably raises his stock in Trump's view, but that's not the issue.
00:08:28
And the military can't function if it turns on itself, and I wonder what the placement of someone like Hegseth, a top DOD, does to the military.
00:08:39
It crushes morale.
00:08:41
It creates consternation, it impacts recruiting and retention, but that's in part what they want to do.
00:08:48
I mean, why?
00:08:49
Pete Hegseth is a culture warrior.
00:08:52
We've talked about this for a very effective culture warrior.
00:08:54
And Trump is sending him to the Pentagon to wage culture war on the Pentagon.
00:08:58
And he said that wokeism is the problem.
00:09:01
Wokeism is not the problem in the military, but military sexual assault is, and extremism is, and even if he has no associations, even if he's innocent, this looks terrible.
00:09:12
And it should be disqualifying.
00:09:14
He's being nominated for a position that used to be occupied by Republicans like Bob Gates and Dick Cheney and Chuck Hagel.
00:09:22
And you imagine if Chuck Hagel had these tattoos and was accused of these things, he would be disqualified.
00:09:26
So I think we're coming into a guard rail moment where moderate Republicans like Mitt Romney and Susan Collins and others are going to have to decide, is this acceptable?
00:09:34
Is this an acceptable level of risk to impose on 2.7 million people who work at the Pentagon and then side defense department?
00:09:40
I mean, I guess my question, I want to press you on the sexual assault allegations.
00:09:46
I mean, you've got, I'm in the reporting in the post in the New York Times, you've got to confirm police report from the Monterey Police, you've got to confirm rape kid result.
00:09:57
You've got a letter sent to the transition team and it's clear that the Trump, like let's just keep this immagiled, it's clear that the Trump, the Trump transition team felt blindsided by this.
00:10:07
What is the implication for the military and for the military's ability to root out and protect men and women in the military from sexual assault?
00:10:17
If the person atop the department isn't accused of assaulting her?
00:10:21
Well, this is the cascading effect of the command climate that Trump himself has created.
00:10:27
We said that these were the things that should disqualify him as commander-in-chief.
00:10:30
The voters thought otherwise.
00:10:31
Now he's in placing people who are going to echo that kind of command climate.
00:10:37
These are all chips off the old block right here.
00:10:39
I mean, that's true across the board and he's also got a very radical pick for VA Secretary.
00:10:44
So they're going to be bookend, culture warriors attacking both the DOD and the VA simultaneously and trying to meet in the middle in a way that satisfies Trump's goals.
00:10:52
But keep in mind, we've got women in combat right now.
00:10:55
They are before deployed in places like Syria and around the world and they have to trust the people who lead them.
00:11:01
And how can they honestly trust a person like this with this many allegations and even more importantly, a person who says he wants them out of combat roles.
00:11:08
We can talk about his personal issues, we can talk about disqualifying, but the policy issues are also very important.
00:11:12
And he wants to remove women from combat roles while they are actively serving in combat roles.
00:11:18
That's something that not only Trump is going to celebrate, our enemies will celebrate.
00:11:21
Vladimir Putin, North Korea.
00:11:22
They love to see this kind of disruption in our military where we're trying to keep things warm and settled around the globe.
00:11:29
Let me show you some of his, again, public broadcasts on January 7th, Claire.
00:11:38
See, these folks on the lawn, and they were more than I'd ever seen.
00:11:41
These are not conspiracy theorists, motivated just by lies.
00:11:45
That's a bunch of nonsense that people want to tell us.
00:11:47
These are people that understand first principles.
00:11:49
They love freedom and they love free markets.
00:11:51
And they see exactly what the anti-American left has done to America, indoctrinating our kids, opening our borders, canceling individuals, totally censoring entire viewpoint, all the double standards that exist in our country right now.
00:12:04
I mean, my first thought was he knew a lot about the insurrectionists on the 7th.
00:12:08
And it took the Department of Justice years to learn all that about the people that were there.
00:12:14
But this idea that insurrection is justifiable because, quote, the anti-American left has done this to America and indoctrinating our kids, opening our borders, canceling individuals,
00:12:24
totally censoring entire viewpoints, all the double standards that exist in our country right now.
00:12:29
Again, I understand what Betsy's saying, what that makes him, you know, maybe better than the actual sons in Trump's view.
00:12:37
But how does that impact the United States military?
00:12:40
Yeah, but we're at this interesting moment where we have somebody who's been elected president who instead of trying to find people who are competent and qualified to run some of the largest and most complex organizations in the world.
00:12:58
Keep in mind, the Department of Defense is almost a trillion dollar budget, three million personnel around the globe, all kinds of complexities that are involved in understanding,
00:13:14
you know, not just whose welcome who isn't woke.
00:13:19
And by the way, taking down DEI does not make anything happen in terms of military readiness.
00:13:26
It doesn't make any difference going forward.
00:13:28
So what Trump has done instead of finding really good, competent people, he's found people who will tear down these institutions, not build them up, not run them,
00:13:39
not make them work for the American people, but he's convinced his voters that the way forward is to tear down the institutions of America that protect them,
00:13:53
the military law enforcement.
00:13:57
That's what he has done.
00:13:59
And that's what this guy says he's going to do.
00:14:01
And by the way, I can't wait until he talks to the Israeli Defense Minister about women in combat.
00:14:06
You know, there's primarily a woman battalion in the Israeli Army that took on Hamas extremists in October of 2023.
00:14:17
These women took out a hundred Hamas militants in battle.
00:14:22
I can't wait for him to lecture Israel about how woke they are where women are required to serve in the military and they've been serving on the front line since Israel was born.
00:14:32
Yeah, I mean, the contradictions, you can almost hear the interview already, well, not those women, just the woke, I mean, I want to follow up with you, Claire, on the allegations of sexual assault.
00:14:44
This is the New York Times reporting about the memo sent to the Trump transition team quote.
00:14:48
The memo said the woman who was referred to as Jane Doe was 30 at the time and was working for the organizers of a conference in California where Hegseth spoke.
00:14:58
It said that Hegseth was with two women at a bar after his speech when Jane received a text from the women saying that Hegseth was getting pushy about taking them upstairs to his room.
00:15:10
Jane went over to try to mitigate the situation.
00:15:12
The memo said that two other women left and from that moment on, the memo said Jane did not remember anything until she was in Hegseth's hotel room.
00:15:22
And she had only hazy memories of being there and then stumbling back to her room.
00:15:27
The next day, she had a quote moment of hazy memory of being raped the night before.
00:15:31
She went to the hospital and was tested with a rape kit which revealed the presence of seam in the memo said.
00:15:37
Hegseth's lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said it was a consensual encounter and gave a very different version of events from the memo sent to the Trump team.
00:15:48
Claire, your thoughts?
00:15:50
Well, my first thought is the fact that he didn't reveal this to the transition team in this process.
00:15:57
That says mountains about his judgment.
00:16:01
How do you be considered for this particular job and not reveal that at the point in time you're being interviewed?
00:16:09
The fact that it's blindsided, the Trump transition team tells you all you need to know about this guy's character.
00:16:15
That's good.
00:16:20
That is not what you expect from someone who is leading a defense department where you're asking men and women to die for their country.
00:16:26
And you can't bother to explore the fact that you paid off someone to stay quiet about a sexual encounter.
00:16:34
And the idea that he is now trying to track this woman, why did he pay her if he'd done nothing wrong?
00:16:42
How did he pay her off?
00:16:46
That makes no sense.
00:16:46
So it is really unfortunate that we are where we are.
00:16:50
Now, I'm with my friend Paul here.
00:16:53
I think there will be especially on the Armed Services Committee.
00:16:56
You've got rounds.
00:16:58
You've got Deb Fisher.
00:16:59
You've got Joni Ernst who served.
00:17:02
You've got Tammy Duckworth who lost her leg and flying a black cop helicopter in combat.
00:17:10
You've got a lot of members on that Armed Services Committee that know this is a bad idea.
00:17:16
So hopefully they will cut this off at the pass, but it tells you a lot they haven't pulled the nomination.
00:17:21
I mean, it is basically interesting to your first points.
00:17:25
I mean, Trump is down with the dirtiest dirt on anybody.
00:17:31
Trump pick gates.
00:17:32
So why would Hegseth have not been up front with them?
00:17:37
And what's interesting about the Hegseth settlement is O'Reilly's career at Fox ends from the settlement.
00:17:43
Hegseth has these settlements and is tapped to run the Pentagon.
00:17:47
It's amazing.
00:17:48
Yeah, what I think we don't know for sure is the extent to which Hegseth and Trump could have possibly discussed this issue.
00:17:56
I don't know.
00:17:57
I don't want to speculate.
00:17:58
But the transition team is a large sprawling organization and it wouldn't necessarily be a surprise that a revelation like this would come as a shock to many people working on that team.
00:18:10
But perhaps would receive a different reception from Trump himself and some of the people immediately surrounding him.
00:18:16
Again, this is not entirely clear to me based on my conversations and some of the reporting that's out there.
00:18:21
Regardless, however, what we also know is that accusations of sexual wrongdoing, sexual misconduct, sexual assault have -- I can't think of any examples of times when they've changed Trump's view or Trump's commitment to the people working for him.
00:18:36
So many of the men who Trump has installed in senior positions or brought to work near him have faced allegations of sexual harassment or other types of sexual wrongdoing and it hasn't proven to be a deterrent for their careers when Trump is the one deciding where they are going to be installed.
00:18:53
Of course, the huge outstanding question is, how does the Senate Republican Conference grapple with all this?
00:19:00
Does the new leader, John Thune, decide that this is a bridge too far or does he put Hegseth in the same category, of course, as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh,
00:19:11
who Senate Republicans agreed and massed that despite allegations of sexual assault, he was confirmable for that lifetime position.
00:19:19
I would, frankly, Hegseth, I think, is more likely to be confirmed than some of the other people that Trump has put forward.
00:19:26
And Senate Republicans, of course, from a fairly mercenary standpoint, are going to be having conversations among themselves regarding which of these numerous, numerous controversial cabinet picks that Trump has brought to them.
00:19:39
Are they going to view as simply a bitter pill to swallow versus which ones are they going to put their foot down regarding?
00:19:46
And I think Hegseth is going to be in the first category.
00:19:50
Rob Porter, I think, is the only person accused by two spouses of special abuse to have parted ways with the Trump White House Betsy on your point about no men, right?
00:20:00
Can you think of anybody else?
00:20:02
Not a talk in my head.
00:20:04
Betsy, we just want to thank you for your reporting on this story and sort of taking us back to the way back machine and we're grateful to have you, Paul and Claire stick around when we come back.
00:20:14
House speaker Mike Johnson working over time to keep the report into his now former colleague Matt Gaetz's secret.
00:20:21
Why?
00:20:22
So reporting to allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use, Speaker Johnson is one of the few who think that should not be disqualifying for America's Attorney General.
00:20:33
And later in the broadcast, Donald Trump showing no sign of backing away from his day one promise to deport millions and millions of immigrants and migrants here in the US.
00:20:43
He says he will do so using the United States military.
00:20:46
How that's being received today and much more when deadline White House continues after quick break.
00:20:51
[MUSIC]
00:20:56
MSNBC's Laurence O'Donnell.
00:20:58
I grew up in the front row of the spectator section in courtrooms.
00:21:02
My father was a Boston cop who became a lawyer and he had me in the courtrooms all the time.
00:21:07
And I was learning literally the rules of evidence when I was in high school.
00:21:10
My first book was about a case that went on for seven years and so everything that happens in courtrooms makes perfect sense to me and my job is to try to make it make sense to an audience.
00:21:20
Last word with Laurence O'Donnell, weeknight at 10 p.m.
00:21:23
Eastern on MSNBC.
00:21:26
What's causing the rise in book banning on my podcast, Velshi Band Book Club.
00:21:30
I speak with authors of band books to try and find out.
00:21:33
I think what they're really objecting to is that a young person has perceived the hypocrisy and corruption of the generation that has created their world.
00:21:43
This book saved me in a lot of ways and then I published it hoping to help people find a blueprint to heal.
00:21:49
Season two of Velshi Band Book Club, all episodes available now.
00:21:56
Hey everyone, it's Chris Hayes.
00:21:57
This week on my podcast, Wise is Happening, Veteran Progressive Organizer, former head of Move On and a Gallant on where we go from here.
00:22:04
I just keep thinking like we're going to be digesting the results of that election for the next four or five, ten years to really fully understand it.
00:22:12
So we should have strong opinions loosely held and make some decisions on them and also not neglect the work of standing up right now to fight back.
00:22:21
Because that actually, if we get too preoccupied and naval gazing into what we just did wrong, we might actually undermine the work of confidently, powerfully standing up and resisting the very scary stuff that's coming at us.
00:22:33
That's this week on Wise is Happening, third for Wise is Happening, we're every listening right now and follow.
00:22:39
Should the House Ethics Committee release that report, Senator?
00:22:43
Absolutely.
00:22:45
And I believe the Senate should have access to that.
00:22:49
I have no doubt that President Trump believes that Matt Gaetz is the right person to do the right job.
00:22:54
But at the same time, the background of Matt Gaetz does matter and what the decisions that the Senate makes has to be within our boundaries of the constitutional authority that we have and we will do or do diligence there.
00:23:10
That was Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullin joining the growing calls for the House Ethics Committee to release its report on its own investigation into former Florida congressman and Donald Trump's pick to be the country's attorney general,
00:23:24
Matt Gaetz.
00:23:25
The Ethics Committee is now set to meet on Wednesday to discuss the Gaetz report.
00:23:29
The former congressman was being investigated for allegations including sexual misconduct involving a 17-year-old girl, illicit drug use and accepting improper gifts.
00:23:39
Gaetz has denied the allegations.
00:23:41
While many Republican members of Congress, including the ranking member of the Senate, Judiciary Committee, John Cornyn, have called for the report to be released.
00:23:51
House Speaker Mike Johnson, despite his notorious socially conservative views, including pushing legislation to walk up abortion providers, calling for gay sex to be criminalized and seeking to ban common forms of birth control,
00:24:05
appeared to draw the line at getting to the bottom of whether or not the potential attorney general of the United States sex trafficked a minor.
00:24:15
Johnson's saying that he would, quote, "strongly request" the committee not release the report.
00:24:21
Turning our conversation, NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ali Vitale, and former R&C spokesman now host of the Bullwork Podcast, MSNBC political analyst Tim Miller, Claire and Paul are still here.
00:24:33
Ali, what's amazing to me is how interested Marjorie Taylor-Green and others were and Hunter Biden's penis and sex life and how totally indifferent they are to Matt Gaetz's.
00:24:45
That is certainly one parallel to draw here.
00:24:48
I think the other is I've been a little surprised by the number of people who are consistent in saying that they don't think this person will be Senate confirmed when the question that I have as we head into the next Congress is is this the battle that Senate Republicans want to have first with the incoming president of the United States from their party.
00:25:08
It's the same people who are crowing about Trump being elected in a landslide and having a mandate who are also then going to try to push forward on key agenda points on the border,
00:25:19
on energy, on taxes, on other issues, but who then might be the people who stand independently to say no, this can't be the attorney general.
00:25:27
I mean, I think that's just what we don't know yet is where the Senate is going to draw the line if they still value so deeply that advise and consent role that they are meant to play.
00:25:39
I had one member of Congress say to me, even in just the last few minutes, that they think Gaetz's nomination is a dead man walking and that even if the ethics committee doesn't put the report out eventually that ethics report is going to make its way publicly anyway,
00:25:52
it's just that I think the thing Republicans have shown us time and again and certainly the thing I think about for this Congress as Trump comes back to Washington is this is a body, this is a party,
00:26:03
this is a Congress that is Republican majority and a Republican majority remade in Trump's image and so I'm just sort of struggling with the dissidents piece here.
00:26:12
Why Republicans would pick this as their fight and are they actually going to be willing to do that?
00:26:18
I mean, Tim Miller, I'm glad you're here because I think we can answer both those questions for those Republicans, Matt Gaetz, come somewhere or another will be the Attorney General.
00:26:28
Like the point is to humiliate the Senate Republicans.
00:26:31
The point is to have them vote for someone.
00:26:34
Let me just, let me just share the fights he's currently engaged in.
00:26:38
Mark Wayne Mullin, Senator from Oklahoma, who we just played.
00:26:43
Gaetz calls him a quote disgrace to the Republican party.
00:26:46
Gaetz mocked Senator-elect John Curtis of Utah as quote Mitt Romney without good hair.
00:26:51
Gaetz called Senator Mitch McConnell dangerous and McFailure and cheered his retirement from Republican leadership.
00:26:57
Gaetz opposed Senator-elect Tim Sheehy and Montana for being McConnell's pick.
00:27:02
Gaetz suggested Tom Tillis had been and I could go on it on, but the point is Trump's point is to make fools out of the Senate Republicans and I actually think strategically they should get the report out so that there's nothing to come out later to make them look more foolish.
00:27:20
I mean he will get this job because, as Allie just said, Trump wants him to and that's always been their only guiding principle.
00:27:26
>> Yeah, that's right.
00:27:28
I think it's very insightful reporting as usual from Allie because she's offering the same questions and I've been wondering.
00:27:35
I mean, do you see these other reports from the Hill that are like anonymously half of the Republican Senators don't want Matt Geetz to be Attorney General.
00:27:44
It's like, okay, well, where are they?
00:27:46
Let's hear from them.
00:27:48
If they're not going to vote for them, there's no better time than the President to help the President-elect move on from his debt on arrival pick.
00:27:57
And so I don't really buy that.
00:28:00
I think that a lot of them don't want to have to vote for them, which is why you saw Rick Scott over the weekend talk about how there will be recess appointments.
00:28:09
I think it's probably if you're putting yourself in the head of these Republicans, which I know many of us hate to do, to kind of get in that cowardly space, but the win-win situation for them is not having to deal with the Matt Geetz thing at all,
00:28:23
not having to vote to put their stamp approval on them, but letting them get through because they don't want to fight with Trump.
00:28:28
I think that's probably the most likely outcome we will see what happens.
00:28:32
And you know, look, I agree with you.
00:28:33
I think that they should get the ethics report out.
00:28:35
I think it will come out, and what I don't really understand, the whole thing, this whole conventional wisdom is so silly.
00:28:44
It's like these people in the hills say Matt Geetz is not going to get through, but Pete Hanksette is.
00:28:51
What's the difference between Matt Geetz and Pete Hanksette?
00:28:54
If anything, Matt Geetz is more qualified than Pete Hanksette for the job.
00:28:58
Pete, they both have private issues, very serious accusations against them in their personal lives, they both are unqualified.
00:29:06
Pete is even less qualified.
00:29:07
He's never been elected to anything.
00:29:09
He was a weekend talk show host until like two minutes ago.
00:29:12
So I, the only rationale is that the people in Hildo like Matt Geetz because he was mean to them.
00:29:18
And Pete Hanksette was really nice to them and softball interviews on Fox and Friends.
00:29:20
I guess that's the only difference, but that's a pretty thin read on which to determine whether or not you're going to confirm someone.
00:29:27
How nice they were to you.
00:29:28
Well, none of this is normal.
00:29:31
None of this is acceptable.
00:29:34
And none of it's inevitable.
00:29:35
I actually think that Trump has made a miscalculation here by nominating so many of them early because somebody like Hanksette, he got nominated a week ago.
00:29:43
It could be two months before he has actual hearings.
00:29:46
And there are plenty of people in the media and in Congress who are going to start to try to hold the line at least I hope for some semblance of ethics and integrity, especially around institutions like the Pentagon were integrity because I guess I take your point and Trump hates bad press,
00:30:03
right?
00:30:03
That's his standard for everything, a war, a nominee policy.
00:30:08
I mean, what is your sense of what it would take to tank either those nominations?
00:30:13
We have no idea what's yet to come.
00:30:16
And I think that's really important.
00:30:17
I mean, it's clear now how many people hate Gates even within his own party.
00:30:21
So Trump is creating a fight that maybe he didn't have to have.
00:30:24
But I think what he's also trying to is just wear everybody out.
00:30:26
I mean, Vannon's talked about flooding the zone.
00:30:28
And plenty of people are defeated and they're still licking their wounds and he's rolling forward while everybody else is trying to figure out how to re-strategize.
00:30:35
So I think it's a test for our democracy, for our press, for Congress, for the Republican Party.
00:30:40
I do believe there are some people in there who still care about ethics, who still care about our institutions, who will put up a stand.
00:30:46
Maybe Mitt Romney, maybe Susan Collins, maybe Mark Wayne Muller.
00:30:50
I don't know who that person is going to be.
00:30:52
But I think especially around the Pentagon, that they understand how serious that is.
00:30:56
I don't think you can throw them all in one big lot.
00:30:58
And recognize that we have two more months to go for them to further disqualify themselves.
00:31:02
And they're trying to wear America out.
00:31:04
That's really what he wants us to do is throw up the white flag and say, "All right, we're okay with Matt Gates.
00:31:08
We're okay with Pete Hanks said, "No, we're not.
00:31:11
This is not acceptable.
00:31:12
This is not normal."
00:31:14
And it's a national security risk.
00:31:15
Let's remind everybody that this is a legitimate national security risk.
00:31:19
If we have a person who's supporting direction, running the Department of Defense.
00:31:22
I agree with you on all the substance.
00:31:24
But I guess on year nine, I've never seen Republicans.
00:31:27
Mitch McConnell went to the well of the Senate and said, "Trump was guilty of everything for which he was impeached and I will do nothing."
00:31:33
Yeah, I mean, they're also, there are plenty of whistleblowers yet to come.
00:31:38
Jane Doe may speak out any day now, right?
00:31:40
We held our breath for people like Mattis and Kelly and so many others to speak out against Trump.
00:31:45
But I think this is a lot more personal.
00:31:47
There are some people that have personal issues with Hanks said that personal issues with Gates and, you know, revenge can be a mother, right?
00:31:54
I mean, there's plenty of people who want a piece of Matt Gates and they want the whole world to see it.
00:31:58
So I'm never underestimating the power of a political party to eat its own.
00:32:01
And that's might be what we see over the next couple of weeks.
00:32:04
That's super interesting.
00:32:05
I'll leave thank you for your reporting.
00:32:08
We want to get Claire in on this.
00:32:09
We're going to seek in a quick break.
00:32:10
We'll all be right back.
00:32:11
We're all back.
00:32:12
Claire, let me share this with you.
00:32:16
This is reporting from NBC News.
00:32:18
Trump transition team is compiling a list of current and former US military officers for possible courts martial.
00:32:24
The Trump transition team compiling a list of senior current and former US military officers who were directly involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan and exploring whether they could be court-martialed for their involvement.
00:32:35
According to a US official and a person familiar with the plan, officials working on the transition are considering creating a commission to investigate the 2020 well-missed role from Afghanistan,
00:32:45
including gathering information about who was directly involved in the decision making for the military.
00:32:50
How it was carried out and whether the military leaders could be eligible for charges as serious as treason.
00:32:56
Two sources said your thoughts.
00:32:58
Well, probably the worst thing we've talked about today, I think.
00:33:04
By the way, though, they can take a shortcut.
00:33:08
They could just go back and read what Trump agreed to.
00:33:13
Trump negotiated this deal.
00:33:15
Trump is the one who said there will be a date certain of withdrawal.
00:33:20
Trump was the one who frankly facilitated the release of many of the Taliban that did the damage during the withdrawal.
00:33:31
I mean, it was Trump.
00:33:34
He did that.
00:33:35
He was the one who dictated the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
00:33:38
That didn't happen under Joe Biden.
00:33:41
So that will be an interesting part of whatever thing they gin up in terms of looking into it.
00:33:48
And, you know, maybe I am still holding on to some kind of sliver of unrealistic hope, but I will tell you this about the confirmation of all these guys.
00:33:59
You know, these Republicans aren't going to say no until they have to.
00:34:04
If this ethics report comes out and it is as damning as it's rumored to be in terms of Republicans saying this is unacceptable, then that gives them cover.
00:34:16
They do not have to oppose Trump's nominee.
00:34:19
The nominee is withdrawn or the nominee decides not to pursue.
00:34:22
So they're not going to come out and say they're voting no on any of these until the process plays out.
00:34:29
Because I think we do know this about them.
00:34:31
They're always looking for political cover from directly confronting Trump.
00:34:36
I don't think though when it comes down to it, that there will be a lack of four or five members to say no, particularly to maggots.
00:34:46
The story about core marshals.
00:34:49
I understand that it is very much on the table.
00:34:54
We know from Esper's book that Trump wanted to do it to General Stanley, McRistle, and Admiral McRaven.
00:35:02
I also understand that the reason Esper writes about it is because there were bulwarks against it.
00:35:09
I understand from all of our conversations that what is radical about Hegseth and Trump 2.0 is that by design, the guardrails are gone.
00:35:19
Just take me inside the state of play and the anxiety inside the Pentagon.
00:35:25
Trump telegraphs his punches.
00:35:27
He tells you what he's going to do and then he usually does it or tries to do it.
00:35:31
And he's telegraphed his punches about removing the guardrails at the Pentagon since he was a candidate talking about Millie.
00:35:38
He said he would fire Millie, he would fire a CQ Brown, he would fire all these people.
00:35:42
Now he's in a position to do that.
00:35:43
So he's telling us what he's going to do and we should take him seriously.
00:35:46
We should respect that that's what he wants to do and he wants to empower people to execute that strategy.
00:35:52
And even if he doesn't, the chilling effect is tremendous.
00:35:55
Right now, there are people in the Pentagon saying, am I going to get fired?
00:35:58
If I get fired, how do I pay my bills?
00:36:00
If I lose my retirement, where am I going to live?
00:36:03
How do I keep my family safe?
00:36:05
This is a very real conversation among senior leaders of the Pentagon.
00:36:08
And if Trump wants to execute it, he's not going to say they're not loyal.
00:36:12
He's going to take something like the Afghanistan withdrawal and try to use that as a lever to identify people that he can then remove the other way.
00:36:19
So it's all exceptionally serious.
00:36:21
And beyond the politics, that's why I've always said he's not just a political issue.
00:36:24
He's a national security issue.
00:36:26
And you know, there's nothing that someone like Putin would love more than to remove an entire crop of senior leadership from the Pentagon at a time when the US is engaged around the world.
00:36:34
How can people protect them?
00:36:36
I think this is an example of where like the citizens are going to have to rally.
00:36:41
If for example, they fire a bunch of people at the Pentagon.
00:36:44
People have to do what Trump supporters have done for war criminals, raise legal funds, create legal defenses, create PR teams, create a political operation to help these people and their families make the case to the American people,
00:36:57
protect their benefits and their jobs.
00:36:59
And if they lose them, they need a place to land, right?
00:37:02
They need a place to get a paycheck to keep their families safe while this political storm continues to turn all around them.
00:37:08
It is a very real possibility to remove people from the Pentagon and they don't have a job.
00:37:11
You've done nothing wrong.
00:37:12
You've done nothing.
00:37:13
An institution whose hallmark is the chain of command.
00:37:16
And if he wants to talk about doing things like court-martialing Macrystal, people who are out, he's also talking about taking their retirement.
00:37:22
Now we know these names like Macrystal and others, but there are plenty of other folks who just serve nobly for 20 years and don't want to lose their retirement.
00:37:29
That's really what we're talking about by threatening to court-martial people.
00:37:33
Not just kick them out, but also take their retirement, their stability, their livelihood.
00:37:36
And that's going to move some people closer to him just because they're going to want to cover their butt.
00:37:40
And that's why this is so troubling.
00:37:43
And so it should be a priority, maybe above all else.
00:37:46
All right.
00:37:47
I need all of you to stick around up next around here.
00:37:51
We didn't see this coming.
00:37:53
President Trump choosing not to listen to his advisors, and it comes to his cabinet picks.
00:37:58
We'll bringing that near reporting next.
00:37:59
Listen, there's always, you know, ideas.
00:38:05
We have lists of people.
00:38:08
We're not just randomly picking a name out of a hat.
00:38:10
We're showing him lists of 10 or 12 people for every position.
00:38:13
So we do have backup plans, but I think we're obviously going with the strongest candidates first.
00:38:17
It is good to know that they are, quote, not just names out of a hat.
00:38:21
But to see sure, according to near reporting and the Washington Post, that seems to be exactly what is unfolding with the number of Donald Trump's most prominent and alarming cabinet picks.
00:38:32
Washington Post reporting this, quote, "Trump won the election with a unified senior team that had brought some order in a decision-making process to that campaign, but the structure eroded in the days after his November 5 victory.
00:38:45
Now, beholden to Trump's whims.
00:38:47
Someone evolved in Trump's decision-making process, telling the Post this, quote, "Names are being thrown out all over the place.
00:38:53
There isn't really a functional process.
00:38:55
It's really whoever he just decides to name.
00:38:58
We're back with Tim Clare-Paul.
00:39:00
I mean, Tim, this is where, this is where it's both and, right?
00:39:05
It is both strategically designed to make folks at the military that Paul's talking about and folks in the media and folks in the Justice Department scared and deba-chilling effect.
00:39:16
And it is chaos for chaos is sake.
00:39:19
What is your sense, both of the phenomenon and the effort to sort of report it?
00:39:25
This was an exquisitely reporting piece.
00:39:27
I think 15 sources quoted in this Washington Post piece.
00:39:29
Yeah, it's a 2017 flashback.
00:39:32
We got the battle days again there with that multiple by-line stories.
00:39:36
But, yeah, I mean, this is like one of the situations where those of us on the outside can sometimes see Trump more clearly, apparently, than the people around him.
00:39:46
The power of rationalization, the power of going to stay around the boss.
00:39:49
I mean, this was how to let Nick the chair of the transition going on with Kaylon Collins the other day saying, "Elon won't be in the government.
00:39:57
RFK won't be at HHS.
00:39:58
Wrong, wrong."
00:39:59
You know, and so these, like the team that is supposed to be in charge of this, can't control it, right?
00:40:05
And when you build everything around the cult of a personality, then you are subject to that leader's whims, if you want to call it that, to that person's whims.
00:40:16
And all these people around him are subject to his whims.
00:40:19
I like the other, the reporting my colleague, Mark Caputo, out of the bull work was that let Nick was on a glide path running treasury secretary.
00:40:26
Then he started annoying Trump.
00:40:27
You know, these are the things you heard about the Biden administration.
00:40:30
So, I didn't get a job because he was too annoying, right?
00:40:32
I was annoying the boss.
00:40:33
The boss wants somebody who's a little bit more fun to hang with in the golf cart, but like that's what you get with Trump.
00:40:38
So, I just wanted the thing to your point, the chilling effect, though.
00:40:41
There are some elements of this that are strategic, and the chilling effect is one.
00:40:45
And he is specifically picking people that he thinks will annoy the the career officials, right?
00:40:53
Like that is, that is, that is a plus in the column when he's looking for people, because he wants people to leave the government voluntarily.
00:41:00
Like this court marshalling story, I'm not saying that's not going to happen, but part of the reason why they're leaking it is because they want people who are worried about that to just leave.
00:41:07
They're going to want people that don't, that aren't willing to go along with whatever macgates wants to do a DOJ to just quit, HHS sane.
00:41:14
And so, I do think it is important for the career officials that are in there right now to stay and to know that that is part of the psychological plan that they are putting forth.
00:41:23
It's such a good point, and on that, I will read this from NBC News.
00:41:31
Multiple current and former senior justice department and FBI officials have begun reaching out to lawyers and anticipation of being criminally investigated by the Trump administration.
00:41:40
That's going to three people with knowledge of their deliberations.
00:41:44
I mean, Claire, this this played out in sort of shocking public view in the in the first term, which the un-successful effort to indict Andy McCabe,
00:41:56
the efforts to investigate Jim Comey, the harassment of a Pete Strock and and Lisa Page.
00:42:02
I mean, this played out in a Trumpian manner in the first term, but it's it's been solidly reported that this will be operationalized in a second term.
00:42:13
Steve Bannon is on his podcast, which yes, we monitor, taunting MSNBC producers.
00:42:19
He's done it a couple of times.
00:42:21
The retribution of the Pentagon is something Paul Reikov has described on an off the air as creating a real sense of deep and abiding fear for anyone who clearly reports up the chain of command being targeted for their roles in renaming bases or in the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
00:42:40
The fear is the point.
00:42:42
I wonder your thoughts on what those, you know, DOJ is the agency in charge of crime in most communities.
00:42:51
Most use attorney's offices are responsible or have a direct tie to all crimes from drug cartels to sex, trafficking, to gang violence.
00:43:00
I mean, Trump needs these agencies to function, and I wonder where or if you think there's any tension between paralyzing these agencies with fear and needing them to function to carry out Trump's agenda.
00:43:13
Yeah, you know, it's it's really easy.
00:43:17
I think in some ways dangerous for me to sit here and say to career employees at DOJ and in the FBI and at the Pentagon stands strong.
00:43:26
Don't be afraid.
00:43:28
Keep your head down.
00:43:29
Do your job.
00:43:30
Have faith that the laws of this country will protect you from what these people might try to do.
00:43:38
Because it's really important that people do that.
00:43:41
Capitulation is not the answer.
00:43:44
You know, walking away in fear from a career that you should be proud of.
00:43:50
And these people have a right to be proud of their careers.
00:43:55
Trump doesn't know these people.
00:43:57
I do.
00:43:57
I know some lifelong employees in the Department of Justice and they are amazing people who don't care about DRR.
00:44:05
They don't care about politics.
00:44:07
They care about the law.
00:44:09
And they care about it being administered fairly.
00:44:12
And so I implore them not to walk away.
00:44:14
And know that if they come after people without merit, there are laws in place to protect them.
00:44:21
And I think there'll be legal funds to protect them also.
00:44:24
All right.
00:44:25
Tim Miller, Claire McCaskill, Paul Reikov.
00:44:27
Thank you all for keeping it real.
00:44:29
Great to see all of you.
00:44:30
Another break for us.
00:44:31
We'll be right back.
00:44:32
Election Denier and two-time loser Kerry Lake settled the year-long defamation case brought against her by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richard.
00:44:46
The lifelong Republican swept into the conspiracy theory surrounding election officials.
00:44:52
His suit claimed she defamed him when she refused to concede her 2022 Arizona gubernatorial defeat and alleged fraud in that election.
00:45:02
Richard sued in his personal capacity seeking a public acknowledgment that many statements against him were untrue as well as damages and attorneys fees.
00:45:11
The details of the settlement are confidential.
00:45:14
But Richard tells the Washington Post to be a tax.
00:45:17
This quote both sides are satisfied with the result.
00:45:21
Lake for her part still has not conceded to Senator-elect Ruben Gallego for the election she lost this time around.
00:45:28
Though she has not contested her loss either.
00:45:30
Instead, she spent her weekend in Florida at a CPAC summit hosted at Mar-a-Lago.
00:45:36
Up next for us, Trump's promise of mass deportations.
00:45:40
That story's next.
00:45:41
MSNBC Films presents The Sing-Syncronicals, a new four-part series from NBC News Studios,
00:45:52
featuring decades of investigative reporting from Dateline producer Dan Slevia that exposes the injustices of wrongful convictions.
00:46:00
"I spent half my life in prison and that's time we can't get back."
00:46:05
The Sing-Syncronicals, first two episodes premiere Saturday at 9 p.m.
00:46:09
Eastern, on MSNBC We are already working on the plan.
00:46:20
I'll be going down to Mar-a-Lago this week to put the final touches on plan.
00:46:23
But yeah, we're going to take the hand call supplies.
00:46:25
I just know what we're looking for.
00:46:26
We have plenty of targets to all of the arrests.
00:46:28
I just know what they are.
00:46:29
So yeah, we're going to take the hand call supplies.
00:46:30
We're going to do the job, secure the country, protect the American communities and rest the bad guys first.
00:46:35
Hi, again, everyone.
00:46:38
It's five o'clock in New York.
00:46:39
According to Donald Trump's incoming borders are, that was Sam Tom Homan, the quote, "final touches on the next administration's mammoth immigration crackdown plan are coming together this week."
00:46:51
Final touches that could include what Trump confirmed on social media in the early morning hours today when he reposted a truth social post, which said his administration is "prepared to declare a national emergency and will use military assets,"
00:47:06
end quote, to carry out his mass deportation program.
00:47:09
His repost included an enthusiastic true with three exclamation points in all caps.
00:47:15
What Trump confirmed there is a very serious departure and escalation in his unprecedented plan to deport the approximately 11 million people who are in our country illegally right now,
00:47:28
to which the Senator-elect of the border state Arizona, Ruben Gallego said this.
00:47:34
Well, look, I don't think Arizona's or Americans in general want to replace the chaos at the border with chaos in our communities and the idea that soldiers are going to be carrying out these types of deportations.
00:47:46
I think number one, it's just not something that we in the United States are used to see.
00:47:51
Number two, you'll actually really diminish the scope and the trust people have for our military forces when they're being used against U.S.
00:48:01
citizens potentially, too.
00:48:03
Let's not forget that we have a lot of mixed families.
00:48:05
During his first term, Donald Trump declared a national emergency to get more funding for his border wall, but President Joe Biden ended that when he came to office.
00:48:16
This time, the incoming administration is bracing for even more legal challenges.
00:48:20
New reporting in Politico finds this, quote, "Trump's team is already thinking about how to craft executive actions aimed to withstand the legal challenges from immigrants' rights groups,
00:48:32
all in hopes of avoiding an early defeat, like the one in 2017 with the travel ban targeting majority Muslim nations when they suffered."
00:48:42
This time, Trump may have friendlier arbiters.
00:48:45
These fights will be refereed by a federal judiciary that he transformed during his first term, including by appointing more than 200 federal judges himself.
00:48:54
And at the very top, the ultimate decider of these questions is the Supreme Court, to which he appointed three conservative justices.
00:49:02
And he has already installed immigration hardliners and key positions willing to carry out his plans.
00:49:08
People like Kristi Nome, as the head of the Department of Homeland Security, Stephen Miller, as Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, and the aforementioned Tom Hoban, the border czar.
00:49:18
The letter, too, being key players in the utterly grueled family separation policy that was enacted and then cancelled, reversed by Donald Trump himself during his first term.
00:49:29
It's where we start the hour with NBC News correspondent Jacob Saurop, joining us by phone, he's the author and executive producer of separated, also joining us, retired US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel,
00:49:40
founder of Democratic Majority Action Pack, Amy McGrath is here, and with me at the table for the hour, distinguished political scholar, and professor at Princeton University,
00:49:50
Eddie Glott is here.
00:49:52
Jacob, let me start with you.
00:49:54
I know this is your expertise in your body of reporting.
00:49:58
Let me just first ask you, if any of this is a surprise to you, or if this is all what has been telegraphed, both at the convention and in Project 2025?
00:50:06
No, Nicole.
00:50:07
I mean, from the moment that I reported live with you from the floor of the Republican Convention, as thousands of people held up those mass deportation now signs,
00:50:17
this is what they have said they would do all along, and just like with family separation, when they said they were going to deliberately take thousands of children away from their parents to harm them in order to scare other people from coming,
00:50:28
I learned to believe this administration.
00:50:30
Yesterday afternoon, you mentioned immigration activists and attorneys and members of civil society that fought back and stopped the family separation policy.
00:50:39
Yesterday afternoon, at a screening as separated out in LA, I was with dozens of them, and this is exactly what they expect to happen, what they've been planning to happen, and they certainly don't relish what they see as a fight coming ahead,
00:50:52
but they are prepared for it.
00:50:53
But what I will tell you is, if the military indeed is going to be involved, as is being intimated by homen and present electrum and others, you know, some of the same concerns that we saw during the family separation policy are going to be front and center,
00:51:07
a lot of these facilities that house children down at the border, and as well as the ice detention facilities that house the adults, are overseen by licensed state regulatory agencies,
00:51:20
and specifically as it relates to children, if they take those facilities and put them on federal land, it takes away the ability to oversee child health and safety regulations and other oversight of that nature that a licensing organization would otherwise do,
00:51:38
and I know that that, you know, is front and center amongst many other concerns about how it ultimately will affect the well-being of these children, and after they had taken them away, torture was the word that positions for human rights, youth, government,
00:51:48
sanctioned, child abuse was how the American Academy of Pediatrics described it, and with, you know, mass deportationism was separated by another name, and this kind of orders of magnitude greater than what we saw during the first term term.
00:52:02
I mean, let me read this reporting to you and ask you if the blowback to family separation has any tangential relation to what we're hearing about ending birthright citizenship,
00:52:16
Jacob.
00:52:17
This is from NBC's reporting in July.
00:52:20
It may have last year Trump released a campaign video renewing his call to end the longstanding constitutional right, saying he would sign an executive order on day one of his presidency,
00:52:30
that would ensure that children born to parents who do not have legal status in the United States will not be considered U.S.
00:52:37
citizens.
00:52:37
Litigation is a certainty, according to Omar Jabwad, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union who was also involved in the travel ban challenge.
00:52:46
Quote, "It is directly in the teeth of the 14th Amendment.
00:52:49
It would essentially be an attempt to tear down one of the core constitutional protections that has been a key part of our country."
00:52:55
You know, you take the promises to start on day one, you take the blowback, the rare reversal, as you pointed out,
00:53:06
to child separation.
00:53:08
Is eliminating birthright citizenship the work around for family separation, Jacob?
00:53:14
I certainly seems to be one of them, and I was with Gene Guerrero, yesterday, the extraordinary journalist who literally wrote the book on Stephen Miller called Haydmonger.
00:53:24
I'd recommend everybody pick it up if you sort of want to understand the thinking of the incoming and former administration that clearly feels newly empowered, and that has long been a project of Stephen Miller,
00:53:35
according to the reporting of Gene Guerrero.
00:53:37
And I do think that family separation was, as you said, Nicole, the rare policy reversal in the first Trump term, because former President Trump, President-elect Trump,
00:53:47
was essentially forced into saying exactly what he said in the Oval Office, and that signing ceremony on June 20, 2018, as Kyrsten Mielsen stood over his shoulder when he reversed the policy after she put it into place at the direction of the White House.
00:54:00
He said, "I didn't like the sight and the feeling of families being separated."
00:54:04
They know, not only the American public reacted in a bipartisan fashion, but basically universally, how people around the world spoke out, as the Trump administration separated little children from their parents at the southern border.
00:54:18
And I think that what they would like to do, forget about what I think.
00:54:21
What they have said that they want to do is institute the largest mass deportation program in the history of the country.
00:54:28
They know what family separation meant to them during the first term and how they had to react to it, how the global public reacted, how the Pope reacted.
00:54:36
And if a birthright citizenship was to be eliminated, they wouldn't have to do what Tom Hohman suggested to Cecilia Vega on 50 minutes, which would be, basically, suggest American citizens and children leave the country with their undocumented parents.
00:54:50
And there are, as many as 20 million people in households with an undocumented family member living in this country that all are in our schools, our homes, our places of work, our churches,
00:55:00
our communities, our neighbors, our friends.
00:55:04
And obviously, this is a very central focus, a large project, and a state of goal of the incoming administration.
00:55:12
Jacob Zoveroff, thank you for joining us by phone and starting us off this hour.
00:55:17
Amy, let me show you what the man in charge of this project, the borders are Tom Hohman said on Fox earlier.
00:55:25
So I've been asked a thousand times.
00:55:28
How many people can you remove the first year?
00:55:31
Well, how many ages do I have?
00:55:32
Can we bring we hard agents back?
00:55:34
The ones that we started bringing back and that we hired them?
00:55:37
How many buses do I have?
00:55:39
How much money do I have for airplanes, right?
00:55:41
Can DOD assist?
00:55:42
Because DOD can take off our plate.
00:55:44
There's a lot of what ifs.
00:55:45
I don't know what the current budget is right now.
00:55:47
I don't have insight in what currently IE since CBPS Rebudget.
00:55:50
How much money can be reprogrammed?
00:55:52
I can tell you this, President Trump's committed to whatever he can to get us the money we need.
00:55:56
Because DOD can take it off our plate.
00:56:01
What does that look like?
00:56:02
And what does that do to the military?
00:56:04
Well, the fact of the matter is there aren't enough border patrol agents to do what Trump wants.
00:56:11
You would have to use the military.
00:56:13
And, you know, this a core tenant of American democracy is that we don't use our military against American civilians.
00:56:23
And, you know, a part of this is if you have, if you're using the US military to go in and take potentially take family members from U.S.
00:56:34
citizens, it's a huge problem.
00:56:37
What happens in a call when there's resistance?
00:56:40
Does the U.S.
00:56:42
military then fire upon our own citizens?
00:56:45
Does the U.S.
00:56:46
military fire upon civilians if there's resistance?
00:56:49
The United States military should never be used as a Gestapo.
00:56:55
And that is where we're headed.
00:56:58
Many of us did some exercises on what Trump would do on the first day.
00:57:03
And it was very, very sobering.
00:57:05
And it will rip the military apart because it's not in our nature to turn our forces.
00:57:13
We're not trained for it.
00:57:15
Our guns should not be turned onto American citizens and those people living here.
00:57:20
I'm just going to ask you to say a little bit more about implementation because I feel like these conversations were hypothetical for a long time.
00:57:31
He's prevailed to Jacob's point.
00:57:35
He's saying what he's going to do out loud.
00:57:38
And to the point of his own repostings, he seems, Donald Trump seems gleeful to in all caps with three exclamation points.
00:57:48
Amplify, yes, this is what we're doing.
00:57:50
In part, historically at least, you're nine of the Trump story to soften and condition the shock of what you're describing, which is members of the United States military who don't beam in here from outer space.
00:58:02
There are sometimes deployed far from home, but sometimes in their own communities, to turn them against American towns and cities and communities is a huge,
00:58:19
it's a moment from which the country and the military will not be able to turn back.
00:58:24
So say more about its impact.
00:58:26
Yeah.
00:58:26
Well, we've never been in this position before in this magnitude.
00:58:31
And it opens up a lot of can of worms here.
00:58:35
What are the rules of engagement for such a maneuver?
00:58:39
What would the president do?
00:58:40
Well, he could use the insurrection act.
00:58:43
He could federalize the national guard.
00:58:45
There's a number of things that the president could do against our own people or people living here.
00:58:52
And it's very concerning.
00:58:54
One of the things that I think a lot of Americans don't know is that we have a number of non-citizens already serving in the U.S.
00:59:04
military.
00:59:05
About 20,000 non-citizens are serving in our United States military.
00:59:10
My own, when I was a fighter pilot in my squadron, the ejection seat mechanic who worked on my ejection seat and made sure that it worked was not a U.S.
00:59:22
citizen.
00:59:23
And we're asking these people who wear the uniform of the United States military to then turn and deport people out of our country.
00:59:34
It's just not what many folks signed up to do.
00:59:38
And it's really going to have an impact on recruiting.
00:59:41
It's going to have an impact on retention.
00:59:44
And it's ultimately long term to call going to have an impact on the legitimacy of the United States military itself among the American people.
00:59:54
I think with the Trump story, and you and I have been having conversations about Donald Trump for nine years now and on various programs on this network.
01:00:03
We always, as analysts and journalists, fail to imagine what he could really be doing.
01:00:10
But listening to Jacob and listening to Amy, it is clear that he knows this by now, right?
01:00:15
Both that moving 11 million people out of the country would be the largest movement of humans in generations.
01:00:24
But turning the military against Americans could destroy it.
01:00:30
He knows all those things.
01:00:32
So, so what is this?
01:00:33
That's the question we have to ask ourselves.
01:00:36
We've been asking how would he execute?
01:00:38
How would he pursue the policy?
01:00:40
But what is he up to is the question, right?
01:00:43
And I think part of it has to do with, you know, Americans, Americans for Americans and Americans only, right?
01:00:50
There is this, there is, what does that mean?
01:00:52
Because this, this is Americans too, sending, is it?
01:00:55
Right.
01:00:55
I think this is, this is at the heart of great replacement.
01:00:58
I think we need to understand, remember what Tom Holman said?
01:01:01
We're going to go after the bad ones first.
01:01:04
That's what he said.
01:01:06
He didn't just say, we're going to go after the bad ones.
01:01:08
We're going to go after the bad ones first.
01:01:10
And so, and then what does birthright citizenship have to do with, right, illegal cross-border crossings, right?
01:01:18
It has everything to do with the nature, the constitution of our, the demographic, the demographics of the nation.
01:01:27
And so, I think we have to get at what's motivating this policy, in order to understand the scope of what he might do.
01:01:34
But the military is the most diverse, I think it's, I know it's the most diverse federal agency in the country.
01:01:39
It's also the most diverse workforce in America.
01:01:42
Right.
01:01:43
And which he will deploy to, to try to achieve these ends.
01:01:48
And so, they're going to be across purposes.
01:01:50
And I think what Amy said is really, it's really important.
01:01:53
It could literally rip the institution apart precisely because of the tensions that will be evident in the orders that will be given to do this.
01:02:02
Amy, you said last week that court-martialing folks like General Milley, General Macrystal, General McRaven would tear apart the military.
01:02:13
We now have, from you and others, this analysis that's deploying the U.S.
01:02:17
military on Americans, which is a view shared by General Kelly.
01:02:21
It's why he speaks out on tape in the days before the election, would rip apart the military.
01:02:26
Are people inside the military asking why Donald Trump wants to rip apart the military?
01:02:31
I think people inside the military are very worried.
01:02:35
I think they just want to do their jobs, they want to protect our country.
01:02:40
And they're very concerned.
01:02:41
I also think that there's still a lot of people that don't believe President Electrom will do these things.
01:02:50
And to me, that's also very scary because he continues to just plow right through with enacting the things that he said he's going to enact.
01:03:03
And I don't think we should have a lack of imagination as to the types of things that he would do.
01:03:09
But yeah, those people in the military that I know are very concerned, if not outraged.
01:03:15
Unfortunately, they can't really speak up for fear.
01:03:19
Which is amazing.
01:03:21
Which is amazing.
01:03:23
Which may be by design as well, right?
01:03:26
That they're not afraid to speak up about what it would do to the military to court-martial the people who spoke up.
01:03:31
No one's going anywhere.
01:03:33
We have so much more to get to.
01:03:35
When we come back, President Joe Biden making a major change in his Ukraine policy.
01:03:39
Now, for the first time ever allowing Ukraine to fire long-range U.S.
01:03:43
made missiles into Russia, the impact of that decision and the looming questions about what happens after Joe Biden leaves office.
01:03:51
Also ahead, former Trump White House communications director, Anthony Scaramochi, no stranger to the churn of Trump world, with the incoming president is trying to do with his flurry of controversial cabinet picks.
01:04:02
He'll be our guest later in the hour.
01:04:04
Deadlin White House continues after a quick break.
01:04:06
Don't go anywhere.
01:04:07
This week will mark 1,000 days of war in Ukraine amid Russia's brutal, unprovoked invasion there.
01:04:18
The latest Russia's largest airstrike on Ukraine in almost three months, unleashing a barrage of missiles yesterday that killed at least seven people and caused severe damage to the power system,
01:04:29
the power grid there.
01:04:31
But Ukraine is about to get a major boost with President Joe Biden easing some long-time restrictions and authorizing Ukraine's military to use U.S.
01:04:40
made long-range missile systems for limited strikes into Russia.
01:04:44
It's a major policy reversal for President Biden in his last few months in office, as Donald Trump has vowed to limit U.S.
01:04:50
support for Ukraine and as Russia, according to the New York Times, prepares to launch a major assault with tens of thousands of soldiers on Ukraine's counter-offensive inside Russia.
01:05:01
That effort is being aided now by North Korean troops deployed in Russia and whose presence by officials have condemned as a possible expansion of the war.
01:05:10
Joining our conversation, former ambassador to Russia, MSNBC International Affairs Analyst, Ambassador Michael McFalls here, Amy and Eddie are with this as well.
01:05:19
Ambassador McFalls, first on the Biden administration's reversal on long-range weapons systems.
01:05:27
Is this something Ukraine has wanted for a long time?
01:05:29
Why now?
01:05:30
Well, first, I'm glad they did it.
01:05:34
They should have done it a long time ago, in my opinion.
01:05:37
In terms of timing, I don't know exactly.
01:05:40
They were fighting a narrative about blaming the Biden administration for dragging us into World War III.
01:05:47
That was always a constraint.
01:05:49
The hint said response is that it is a reaction to the North Koreans.
01:05:56
That was a major escalation, 10,000 soldiers there.
01:06:00
And so the Biden administration now has an alibi and excuse to escalate further now.
01:06:05
And I think the other big reason, obviously, is they want to get this in place before January 20th of next year.
01:06:12
That was my next question.
01:06:14
How much military progress can Ukraine make between now and January 20th?
01:06:19
I mean, and we don't know what Trump is going to do, but if Zelensky wants to anticipate a policy shift from the U.S.
01:06:26
Well, I'm not a military general and don't want to pretend to be one on TV.
01:06:32
We've joked about that before, but I can tell you what the Ukrainians are saying.
01:06:36
The Ukrainians have been preparing for Trump return to the White House for many months, by the way.
01:06:43
They always have to plan for plan B.
01:06:45
They think there's going to be a moment, you know, musical chairs, wherever you're sitting now is the territory you get.
01:06:52
And they're worried about that.
01:06:54
They're going to fight it, but they're preparing for it.
01:06:57
And so they want to hold that territory that they now have inside Russia, the Kursk region.
01:07:04
Putin seems like he has the same calculation.
01:07:07
That's why he's amassing allegedly 50,000 soldiers, including the 10,000 North Koreans, to try to retake that territory before January 20th.
01:07:18
And so President Zelensky believes that these weapons, these attackums will help him keep that territory until they get to the moment where they begin to have pressure to negotiate.
01:07:28
Bessler, what does Zelensky see when he sees Trump's to, I don't know if they were his closest friends, but certainly two world leaders who everyone in the West agrees are brutal autocrats.
01:07:44
But Trump with more compliments for Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un than any Western leader.
01:07:49
What do the Ukrainians have to game out if Trump and Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-un with him, Trump exchanged love letters.
01:08:00
So valuable, he reportedly took them with him.
01:08:02
What is Zelensky's sort of worst case scenario if that alliance holds?
01:08:09
Well, most certainly they don't like any of that.
01:08:14
It's disgusting.
01:08:16
They can't believe that the president of the free world is closely, again, love letters and saying nice things about two of the worst dictators in the world.
01:08:27
But you don't get to choose your interlocutors.
01:08:30
I was ambassador to Russia after all when Vladimir Putin was the president of Russia.
01:08:34
And so they fully soberly understand that they have to deal with President Trump.
01:08:40
I think their worst case scenario is what some people around the president's elector saying is that they're going to end aid to Ukraine.
01:08:48
And I think from their perspective, and I think they're exactly right, that won't end the war in Ukraine, that will embolden Putin.
01:08:56
Think about, can you think of any wars where one side was on the march, the other side lost all their support?
01:09:03
And suddenly they said, okay, let's just quit now.
01:09:05
Let's just stop here.
01:09:06
Putin's not going to do that.
01:09:07
He's going to try to march all the way to downtown Kiev, if that happens.
01:09:11
So they are hoping that they convince President Trump, yes, we should probably do a deal.
01:09:17
Maybe we'll have to.
01:09:19
But let's do it with a stalemate on the battlefield, not with Putin on the march, because if Putin's on the march, he's not going to negotiate.
01:09:27
Amy, let me bring you in and let me pick up on this imagination, sort of way in that we were talking about in the last segment.
01:09:36
These are the people around Trump that we know about.
01:09:39
JD Vance laid out in September what he called Trump's peace plan to let Russia keep parts of Ukraine that are now occupies, and forever bar Ukraine from joining NATO.
01:09:48
Tulsi Gavin says she wants Ukraine to be a neutral country with no NATO alliance on the table.
01:09:54
Marco Rubio voted against U.S.
01:09:56
military and economic aid to Ukraine.
01:09:59
Pete Hegseth has been tapped to lead the Pentagon.
01:10:01
Criticized U.S.
01:10:02
involvement that he doubts Russia would quote, "Go much further than the border of Poland."
01:10:06
Oh, that's reassuring.
01:10:08
I mean, they're telling us what they're going to do, aren't they?
01:10:10
Unfortunately, I think so.
01:10:14
You know, JD Vance basically has peace plan as for Ukraine to give up 25% of its land and assign some sort of deal with Russia that says it will never get in in NATO,
01:10:29
which is basically saying that it's going to forever be vulnerable.
01:10:34
I mean, this is where we're at, unfortunately.
01:10:38
I think the hope maybe is that we have some senators and representatives on the Republican side who won't give up on Ukraine,
01:10:48
so easily and potentially put pressure on the incoming Trump administration to at least keep giving Ukraine some weapons and to keep trying to defend Ukraine.
01:11:04
I think what President Biden's doing here and unleashing the ATACOMS is a good thing tactically, and I agree with what Ambassador McFall just said about what that means.
01:11:15
I will always welcome hope at this table, but I would like to posit something different with you, Eddie.
01:11:22
This was known.
01:11:23
This was before the voters, and one of the sort of pressure points for Tucker Carlson's wildly successful show on Fox News before they parted ways with him was his animosity for Ukraine,
01:11:36
particularly at a time when the brutal war started, and Americans, I think 85% of all Americans at the beginning saw themselves identified with our ally,
01:11:47
fighting this war against Russia so that we would never have to.
01:11:50
That's eroded a little bit, but the vast majority of Americans do support Ukraine, and you have this cadre around Trump, and I'm sure if you keep going, you can find even more anti-NATO,
01:12:03
anti-democracy statements from more of his picks at a moment when North Korea and Russia have joined forces against our ally.
01:12:11
What do you think it says that the electorate having all that information being predisposed to signing with Ukraine voted for Trump?
01:12:19
Well, you know, I think for the most part, the electorate, their eyes weren't on the international scene.
01:12:24
They weren't really concerned about the post-war war two consensus.
01:12:28
According to the autopsy folk were concerned about the kitchen table issues and other issues, so that's that.
01:12:34
I think, but as we ask the question around immigration policy, we need to ask the question around what's motivating the effort to destroy the post-war war two consensus?
01:12:45
What's driving this ideologically?
01:12:47
I don't just think it's just Trump's temperament.
01:12:49
I don't know the particulars.
01:12:51
I'll leave that to Ambassador McFall and the folks who are the experts in this regard, but there's something driving Trump's sensibility with regards to US and NATO and its position on the world stage,
01:13:05
and it's particularly located in regards to Putin's position in regards to all of these things.
01:13:10
So I think we need to start asking some questions that even get behind the actual choices that are being made.
01:13:17
I think the X-Factor, what is not known, is Zelensky himself, Ambassador McFall.
01:13:24
He is a patriot.
01:13:26
He is strong.
01:13:28
There's a lot of things about him that you would think would resonate alone in the room with Donald Trump.
01:13:34
How do you think Zelensky will approach the incoming American president, Donald Trump?
01:13:39
He's going to try to emphasize those things.
01:13:44
Remember, Zelensky is an outsider from television too, that was elected as a populist anti-status quo person back in 2019.
01:13:52
He's going to play on that.
01:13:54
Second, he's going to play on the idea that you hear around the Trump folks.
01:13:58
They always talk about peace through strength, they're quoting Ronald Reagan.
01:14:02
It won't look strong if President Trump just says, Mr.
01:14:07
Putin, just do whatever you want, take whatever you want.
01:14:10
That's called capitulation.
01:14:12
That's called appeasement.
01:14:14
That will embolden Xi Jinping.
01:14:16
Remember, there's a lot of China hawks allegedly in the Trump team.
01:14:19
How can you just capitulate to Xi Jinping's closest ally in the world?
01:14:26
And I think those are the kind of arguments that President Zelensky will be trying to make.
01:14:31
I don't know if he will succeed.
01:14:32
I know he's right about it.
01:14:34
I know he's right about it.
01:14:35
I hope he succeeds.
01:14:36
Ambassador McFall, thank you for being here.
01:14:39
Amy McFall, thank you for starting us off at E-Six around.
01:14:42
When we come back, Anthony Scaremucci joins a conversation.
01:14:45
The one-time Trump White House communications director whose name has become synonymous with the length of time, 11 days.
01:14:52
That's how long he served on Donald Trump.
01:14:54
We'll ask him about his former boss's new cabinet picks and why Trump is having second thoughts about the short list of Treasury Secretary picks.
01:15:03
That's next.
01:15:04
One after another, after another, after another.
01:15:13
There's hardly been time to digest all of it.
01:15:15
One of Donald Trump's cabinet picks is more outrageous than the one before it, which is then the only outdone by the one that comes next.
01:15:23
But in one critical position, this has not been the pattern.
01:15:28
The selection process appears to be going much more slowly for the person who will head the Treasury Department, the next Treasury Secretary.
01:15:37
New York Times reports this.
01:15:38
Trump has had second thoughts about the top two candidates.
01:15:42
Quote, Trump had been expected to pick either Howard Lutnik, the chief executive of the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald, or Scott Bescent, the founder of the investment firm Key Square Capital Management,
01:15:54
and a former money manager for George Soros.
01:15:57
And he had been seen as likely to make the selection late last week.
01:16:01
Now, the Times reports, a pair of new names, former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Worch and Wall Street billionaire Mark Rowan.
01:16:09
Remember, it steps into that post will be responsible for executing and delivering on Trump's economic promises.
01:16:17
Joining our conversation, former Trump White House communications director, host of the open book podcast, Anthony Scaramucci is here.
01:16:24
Eddie is also back.
01:16:26
I want to get into Treasury.
01:16:27
Let me first ask you how you're sort of watching and taking in the transition.
01:16:34
And the way Trump is making these picks, it seems to have had the desire and impact of shocking most people watching.
01:16:43
Yeah, well, let me just start out by saying that whatever the people are thinking about in terms of trying to get the job, they make the mistake of thinking that the president elect is acting or thinking rationally,
01:16:58
either about them or about the position.
01:17:00
And so what ends up happening is you're like, okay, well, I think he must be thinking this because this is what a rational, normal person thinks, and then he does something completely unpredictable.
01:17:11
And so what people need to know that watch your show is that he's reflexively counterintuitive.
01:17:18
And that's not something that I came up with.
01:17:21
That's something that H.R.
01:17:22
McMaster came up with.
01:17:24
So, you know, he could be standing around and somebody like Rex Tillerson could say to him, hey, don't mention anything about us potentially using the military and Venice Whale up because that's obviously not an option for us.
01:17:35
He'll walk outside and say, you know, we're thinking about using the military and Venice Whale.
01:17:40
And so, so that's what he's doing with the cabinet picks.
01:17:43
And so, you know, how can I upset the most amount of people?
01:17:47
How can I get somebody like Gates, who's a big loyalist to me?
01:17:51
So I don't have the Jeff Sessions problem with special prosecutors.
01:17:54
So I'm going to pick Gates, even though he knows now that it's unlikely that Gates could get approved.
01:18:00
You know, Pete Hex has a different situation.
01:18:02
You know, they believe that Fox News and other places that the the military is a woke organization run by woke people and it's all about DEI.
01:18:15
I don't know if you spent any time at the Pentagon, Nicole, but I have because I've been on the business executive's national security for several, now almost 15 years now.
01:18:25
It's not woke there.
01:18:26
And so I don't know exactly what they're trying to achieve.
01:18:30
I'm certain that things need to have reform, but the narrative is not correct.
01:18:36
You know, it's almost as if like the uncle sitting on the couch as an armchair quarterback has now been called in to run the run the game and to be the head coach.
01:18:44
And he's going to bring his buddies with him from the local bar to see if they can figure things out that people in Washington have spent multiple decades working on.
01:18:52
What do you make of the process, which departs from what you've just articulated, which I think is spot on.
01:19:00
And I love that.
01:19:01
What does it counter into a contrarian?
01:19:04
What was it?
01:19:05
Yeah.
01:19:06
No, he's reflexively counterintuitive.
01:19:08
I love that.
01:19:10
So what I mean by that is you want to go one way.
01:19:13
The most rational thing to do is to go that way.
01:19:16
So he'll on purpose go the other way to show you the reason charge and that whatever you think, whatever other conventional people think is not the right way.
01:19:25
Yes, I mean, I'm only thinking of dog and toddler analogies.
01:19:30
I'll keep my mouth shut.
01:19:31
I do want to ask you about the Treasury Secretary pick because this is where the phenomenon you describe so far has not been the case.
01:19:39
What's your sense of what's going on there?
01:19:42
Well, listen, you know, listen, again, he is a, you know, every people think he's not as smart.
01:19:48
A very smart guy's got great political instincts.
01:19:51
He knows that that is a very important pick for him because if he's going to get the tax proposals through or they're going to impose tariffs or he's going to use the weapons of the US Treasury,
01:20:02
which frankly have been successfully used since the George W.
01:20:06
Bush administration.
01:20:08
He's got to get the right person at Treasury.
01:20:11
So so I think what's happened there, frankly, is I think in the case of Mr.
01:20:17
Lutnik, I think he's probably overplayed his hand and was probably too aggressive.
01:20:22
And so another big rule with President elect Trump is that you can out Trump Trump.
01:20:27
So if you're going to the media, that is a really bad thing for you that makes you lose in the court of public opinion.
01:20:34
Like he said something the other night, you know, I'm not super close to Bobby Kennedy, but close enough.
01:20:40
You know, he said the other night at the America First Policy Institute, hey, Bobby, you're getting more famous than me.
01:20:46
That's bad news, Bobby.
01:20:48
Okay.
01:20:48
When he says your president, Bobby, or you're getting more famous than me, not good because there's one person.
01:20:54
It's a one-man show.
01:20:56
The lights are on one person.
01:20:58
There are no accessory actors or no co-stars in the play.
01:21:03
And so when you're raising your profile, you know, that you're with a Reagan.
01:21:08
But then the flip side is somebody like Mr.
01:21:11
Basant is a very knowledgeable, very reasonable guy.
01:21:13
And by the way, I think Lutnik and Basant would both be good choices for treasury given their life experience and giving what I know of them and I know howard personally.
01:21:23
But you know, Mr.
01:21:24
Basant is a little bit less media oriented.
01:21:29
And so, you know, you got to be almost like the mama bear.
01:21:33
You got to be just right on the media, have good hair, Nicole, but then the flip side is going to get it.
01:21:39
He's got the best hair.
01:21:41
Don't outshine the master.
01:21:42
But Kevin's a hawk.
01:21:44
So, you know, when he's being interviewed by Trump, if I were Kevin's life coach, I would say, you got to go a little easy on the inflation containment and the hawkishness that he's written about over the last two decades because Trump wants to drum interest rates down to zero.
01:22:02
And as you know, from his campaign policy, he wants to end the Federal Reserve's independence, which, of course, would be a disaster for the best liquid, most steep, deepest capital markets in the world.
01:22:15
You were knocking doors for Kamal Harris.
01:22:17
You were all in with President Biden and then when it was Harris, you were all in with Harris.
01:22:22
I went and pressed you on what, if any, you've reflected on since election day, I have to sneak in a quick break first.
01:22:28
If you'll stick around and we'll bring Eddie Glott in on it as well.
01:22:30
Anthony, I want to ask you how destructive you think Trump is committed to being because the picks at the Department of Justice and the intelligence agencies seem to erode the fabric of what those agencies are and do.
01:22:52
But your analysis of Treasury seems to suggest that you think he's coming at it in a very different way.
01:22:59
What is your sense on?
01:23:01
And maybe there is no guiding philosophy, right?
01:23:04
Maybe it's all just, you know, barfing out whatever reflexive contrarianism he's feeling.
01:23:10
But what is your sense as to what he's doing?
01:23:13
So we got to go over what his grievances are first.
01:23:17
So he has a grievance against the intelligence community.
01:23:22
There are 51 or so people that signed on to saying that the Hunter Biden laptop wasn't real.
01:23:28
And so that's a grievance.
01:23:29
That's something that comes up a lot on the conservative news.
01:23:32
The second piece of it is the whole Jeff Sessions things with the special prosecutor and the Russian collusion situation with the Mueller report.
01:23:42
Those are things that he feels victimized and aggrieved about.
01:23:46
And so that's why his focus is putting in people that are super, super loyal.
01:23:52
On the Treasury side, like I said, it's super important for him that he gets that right from a policy perspective, Nicole.
01:24:00
Because, you know, if you're going to change the tax code or you're going to apply sanctions to people, you need to get that right.
01:24:08
The Department of Defense, again, is a battle against what he perceives to be wokeness in the culture there.
01:24:15
But if I can, if I just tip 10 more seconds, I bring up the Zelensky thing.
01:24:19
So that's where the rubber meets the road.
01:24:21
That's where the rubber meets the road.
01:24:23
So we'll have to see what happens.
01:24:25
People have to ask Mr.
01:24:26
Trump, why is it okay for Finland to join NATO?
01:24:29
They border Russia.
01:24:31
They're no threat.
01:24:32
Obviously, they join NATO.
01:24:34
Why is the Ukraine threat?
01:24:35
Now, you and I know historically, there's something ancestral there.
01:24:40
But if the president really wants to project power, he'll support Zelensky and he'll support the cause of freedom.
01:24:48
If he wants the role for Vladimir Putin, you know, I think it's going to be a very hard time for us with the Europeans, and it's going to also have a revered rating effect on our economy.
01:25:00
You know, just thinking about the cabinet appointments, Nicole, I think we need to think about them on two levels that are converging.
01:25:06
One is the consolidation of executive power.
01:25:09
We're about to see the imperial presidency on steroids.
01:25:12
And so he wants to put in place folks who will allow that to happen.
01:25:15
And the other thing is the other area that's moving and they're converging.
01:25:18
They're not the same as he's trying to, in some ways, deconstruct the administrative state.
01:25:23
And so he wants to appoint folk who will help gum up government.
01:25:27
So on the one hand, he's trying to bring, you know, collect power in order to do what he wants to do.
01:25:32
On the other hand, he's trying to appoint people who will gum up federal agencies so that they can't do that work.
01:25:39
And then there's the place that he really, the site that he really cares about because he's a money grub and kind of guys a grifter.
01:25:44
Yeah.
01:25:44
So treasurer is a play treasurer is a place that he cares about not only individually, but in terms of the policy delivering.
01:25:50
We have to understand those two things converging into one.
01:25:54
Well, I accept that.
01:25:55
But I mean, I guess this is where I think the notion that there'll be any friction.
01:26:01
I mean, I think the story of the first Trump presidency was about the friction in first with Jim Comete, the FBI when Trump wanted Comete to quote, "see to it to let Mike fling out."
01:26:09
Right.
01:26:10
So his first friction point was with the FBI.
01:26:11
And then it was with intelligence.
01:26:13
He didn't like what they were telling him.
01:26:15
He wouldn't consume the PDB regularly.
01:26:17
And then ultimately it's with the Pentagon when they refuse to, they actually go along with just about everything, including Mark Milley walking around Lafayette Square with Donald Trump.
01:26:26
They don't do the final things.
01:26:27
They don't, they don't seize voting machines or carry out the insurrection or whatever it wants.
01:26:31
What is it about Treasury where he thinks they're going to do all?
01:26:37
I mean, none of these four people seem likely to do all the things Trump once done at Treasury.
01:26:43
But Nicole, honestly, he did all of those grievances that you just listed.
01:26:51
He doesn't have those grievances against Treasury.
01:26:54
You know, he doesn't see that department as an agitent against him.
01:26:58
Remember, you have to, as long as you're looking at the world through his prism and his self-interest.
01:27:04
He's not a grieve by Treasury.
01:27:06
He knows he needs Treasury to promote a policy.
01:27:09
Those other things are like, how did these people impact me?
01:27:13
And so what type of hurt can I put on them now that I'm back in the job?
01:27:17
But, you know, you guys know this and I learned this the hard way in Washington.
01:27:21
Washington is very hard to move and it's very hard to change.
01:27:25
And they're ready for President-elect Trump.
01:27:28
You know, they're going to grind him harder in the second term than they grind at him in the first term.
01:27:34
And they're adaptive.
01:27:35
It's almost like an immunological system that's ready to reject him harder the second time.
01:27:40
Oh, that's so interesting.
01:27:42
I started to ask you about the election.
01:27:45
I do want to have that conversation with you because you were out knocking on doors.
01:27:48
I think that we can be for election day.
01:27:49
I've run out of time today, but please come back.
01:27:52
You can come back for that too, Eddie.
01:27:53
Thank you both for being here today.
01:27:55
Another break for us.
01:27:56
We'll be right back.
01:27:57
President Joe Biden is in Rio de Janeiro today for the G-20 summit.
01:28:05
His last as president, he took the opportunity to call for stronger support for Ukraine during an event on hunger and poverty with world leaders, including Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov,
01:28:16
saying this, quote, "The United States strongly supports Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
01:28:23
Everyone around this table, in my view, showed as well."
01:28:27
Yesterday, he became the first sitting U.S.
01:28:29
president to visit the Amazon and remarks to the press there, he acknowledged the threat the next administration poses to the fight against climate change, saying this, quote, "It's true that some may seek to deny or delay the clean energy revolution that is underway in America,
01:28:45
but nobody.
01:28:45
Nobody can reverse.
01:28:47
Nobody.
01:28:47
The question now is which government will stand in the way and which will seize the enormous economic opportunity."
01:28:55
Speaking in terms he understands.
01:28:57
Another break for us will be right back.
01:28:59
Thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times.
01:29:04
We are grateful.
01:29:05
MSNBC Films presents The Sing Sing Chronicles, a new four-part series from NBC News Studios, featuring decades of investigative reporting from Dateline producer Dan Slevia that exposes the injustices of wrongful convictions.
01:29:22
"I swear I have my life in prison, and that's time we can't get back."
01:29:26
The Sing Sing Chronicles, first two episodes premiere Saturday at 9 p.m.
01:29:31
Eastern on MSNBC.
01:29:35