- 9 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00MILES O' President Trump held another televised Cabinet meeting.
00:05The meetings have become noteworthy for the amount of flattery lavished upon the president.
00:10You are a great American.
00:11The greatest president ever.
00:13Thank you, sir.
00:14You have given an incredible Christmas gift to Americans.
00:18MILES O' They're also notable for their extended length, lasting around three hours.
00:23MILES O' Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale about how these guys kiss ass.
00:31Vomiting up compliments while he sleeps and passes gas.
00:35First mate is a couch humper.
00:38This guy's a criminal of war.
00:40All of them will pucker up for this three-hour boar.
00:45A three-hour boar.
00:47This guy is Trump's little bitch.
00:50This one's redacting files.
00:52This lady just shot her dog.
00:54And this guy ate the dog that she shot.
00:59It's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
01:04Tonight, Breaking Snooze.
01:07Plus, Stephen welcomes Rachel Maddow.
01:13And musical guest, Drive-By Truckers with Jason Isbell.
01:19Featuring Louis Cato and the Late Show fans.
01:24And now, live on tape from the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City, it's Stephen Colbert.
01:34I'm the character of the Late Show on the show.
01:39And now, live on tape from the late show.
01:43Hello!
01:44Hello!
01:45Hello!
01:46Hello!
01:47Hello!
01:48Right there.
01:49I can't get down.
01:50Whoo!
01:51I like that!
01:52Oh!
01:53I appreciate it!
01:54I can't get all right!
01:55Welcome everybody!
01:56Welcome one and all to The Late Show!
01:57Ladies and gentlemen, well, holidays are upon us.
02:02It is December, December 2nd, the year is almost over,
02:06and 2025 has, it's been a rough one.
02:10And, I mean, obviously, there's no one to blame for that,
02:12other than Donald, other than Donald Trump.
02:15And, and a lot of people are.
02:19In the new Gallup poll, his approval rating is down to 36%
02:23with 60% disapproval.
02:29Yeah, which is why Trump has started to wear a new hat,
02:32more popular than syphilis.
02:35By that much, just by that much.
02:39Penicillin won't help with him.
02:40Now, so Trump's underwater in every category.
02:44According to a new YouGov, no, YouGov poll,
02:49he's very unpopular overall as president,
02:52unpopular on the economy, on health care,
02:56on the Epstein investigation, on education,
02:59and on the environment.
03:01Donald Trump, I just found that Donald Trump
03:03is also the most hated Zootopia character,
03:07the lowest-rated mid-sized sedan,
03:09and the least popular Oreo flavor,
03:13double-stuffed cankle.
03:14Now, the thing I said, unpopular.
03:19Now, the thing hurting Trump the most is cost of living
03:23for the average American.
03:24He has been trying everything he can think of,
03:27which is not much.
03:30And to appease voters, he started reminding them
03:33that his big, beautiful bill takes effect on January 1st,
03:36but that's actually gonna cause a problem,
03:38because IRS agents will be required to watch OnlyFans videos
03:43to determine if they fit the bill's
03:46no-tax-on-tips criteria.
03:50They're gonna have to watch every OnlyFans video.
03:54They're gonna need to bring in some part-time help.
03:56Billy?
03:57Billy, what are you doing in there?
03:59Don't come in, Mom.
04:00I'm-I'm running an audit.
04:03Now, today...
04:06Today, Trump held one of his weird, uh,
04:09televised cabinet meetings,
04:11and, uh, somewhere in that three hours,
04:13he addressed the affordability crisis head-on.
04:16The word affordability is a con job by the Democrats.
04:20It's one of the many con job words
04:22made up by the Democrats.
04:25Like, democracy, dementia, and...
04:30De-Epstein files.
04:33All made up.
04:36Am I leaning?
04:38I feel like I'm listing a little bit to starboard here.
04:41Now, one of the reasons you're paying
04:43exactly as much as you want for everything
04:45is Trump's tariffs,
04:47and it turns out you like those, too.
04:50We're gonna be giving back refunds out of the tariffs
04:52because we've taken in literally trillions of dollars,
04:55and I believe that at some point in the not-too-distant future,
04:59you won't even have income tax to pay
05:02because the money we're taking in is so great,
05:04it's so enormous,
05:05that you're not gonna have income tax to pay.
05:08Whether you get rid of it or just keep it around for fun...
05:11Yes.
05:13I don't know why people suspect that he's never paid taxes.
05:22He knows, like we all do, that taxes are fun.
05:25That's why the longest line at Disneyland
05:27is to get on Accountants of the Caribbean.
05:30Then, uh, the president of the United States
05:33bragged about slimming down the price of Ozempic.
05:36We're paying, as an example, for the...
05:38Let's call it the fat drug.
05:40The fat drug.
05:41F-A-T, for fat people.
05:43Fat people, it's for fat people.
05:45F-A-T, fat people.
05:47People, P-E-E-P-P.
05:53E-P-L, cognitive.
05:55Cognitive, which is spelled M-R-I.
05:59Cognitive.
06:01I think that's how you spell it.
06:03Now, the later, again, I'm listening slightly.
06:06I'm right over here, we gotta get the ballast back in the...
06:09Later in the meeting, uh, we heard from Marco Rubio.
06:12Now, if you watch this footage very closely,
06:15eagle-eyed viewers might notice that Trump is dozing off.
06:18This war is going on, and the president is trying to end it,
06:21not because, listen, we got a million things to focus on
06:23in the world as a country, but he's the only leader
06:26in the world that can help end it.
06:27Okay.
06:30Let's be fair.
06:31Maybe he's so old that he fell asleep
06:34in an afternoon meeting, or maybe he just closed his eyes
06:37to better concentrate on filling his adult diaper.
06:40Then...
06:45Then he fell asleep.
06:51Hmm.
06:52Toasty.
06:54The administration...
06:58The administration is also scrambling to defend the actions
07:01of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, seen here finding out
07:04they don't serve booze at the American Girl Doll Cafe.
07:07Hegseth, he's in deep water over what he ordered, uh,
07:12to be done in deep water.
07:14Specifically, an attack on an alleged drug-smuggling boat
07:18in which the Navy launched a secondary strike
07:20on the defenseless survivors, which may or may definitely
07:25be a war crime.
07:26The United...
07:27The White House is insisting that Hegseth's orders
07:30were totally legal, but also that it wasn't actually Hegseth.
07:34They say the strikes were conducted by Special Operations
07:37Commander and four-star cage-free egg, Admiral Mitch Bradley.
07:41Hegseth has made it clear that he is 100% behind Admiral Bradley,
07:47who was the one who actually did the bad thing, which was actually
07:49a good thing that Hegseth didn't even do.
07:53Yesterday, he tweeted,
07:54Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero,
07:56a true professional, and has my 100% support.
08:00I stand by him and the combat decision he has made.
08:06Adding, I hope that his flight to The Hague is on time
08:10and his chair at the tribunal is comfy.
08:14At today's cabinet meeting, Hegseth explained what happened
08:18the day of the strike, and he took full responsibility
08:21for finding out what somebody else who is not him did.
08:25I watched that first strike line.
08:27Uh, as you can imagine, at the Department of War,
08:28we got a lot of things to do, so I didn't stick around
08:31for the hour and two hours, so I moved on to my next meeting.
08:34A couple of hours later, I learned that that commander
08:36had made the, which he had the complete authority to do,
08:40and by the way, Admiral Bradley made the correct decision
08:43to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat.
08:46As President Trump always has our back,
08:48we always have the back of our commanders.
08:50We always have their backs,
08:51because that's where the good stab and meat is.
08:55But what, get a kidney, maybe.
08:57But while...
09:04But while Hegseth, uh, did not make the decision
09:08for the perfectly fine possible murder,
09:10he did double down on his war-fighting warrior ethos
09:14of war-warring war.
09:16We've only just begun striking narco boats
09:20and putting narco terrorists, uh, at the bottom of the ocean.
09:23Joe Biden tried to approach it with kid gloves,
09:26and President Trump said,
09:27no, we're taking the gloves off.
09:29President Trump, please don't take the gloves off.
09:33Because the stuff under there is a human rights violation.
09:37One person who's not buying the story
09:39is Arizona senator and cage-free astronaut egg.
09:46That's the local president.
09:49Mark Kelly, see, a couple weeks ago,
09:51Kelly and some other Democratic veterans in Congress
09:54put out a video where they reminded service members
09:57that they can refuse illegal orders.
10:00And we were all like, ha, ha, why are they even saying that?
10:02That's not something you have to say.
10:04Well, it turns out you have to say that.
10:06And Senator Kelly held a press conference
10:09to drive home just how dangerous
10:10and unqualified Pete Hegseth is.
10:13He runs around on a stage talking about lethality
10:18and warrior ethos and killing people.
10:22He runs around on a stage like he's a 12-year-old
10:26to play an army.
10:27Uh, I don't know about that.
10:29Those 12-year-olds are probably sober.
10:33Most of them.
10:34Most of them.
10:38Now, thank you, Mark.
10:40Trump's unpopularity comes at a tough time
10:42for the rest of the GOP,
10:44because it's election night in America.
10:47Roll it!
10:48Election night in America.
10:51Well, just in Tennessee,
10:53and actually just a little sliver of it!
10:58Am I done?
10:58Do you guys validate parking?
11:01Lately, Republican congressmen
11:03have been quitting in droves,
11:04and as a result, there is a special election today
11:08to represent Tennessee's 7th district,
11:10the fighting 7th.
11:11Now, this contest pits Trump-backed Republican
11:16Matt Van Epps against Democratic state rep
11:20and junior jumble clue Afton Bain.
11:24And, because this district includes portions of Nashville,
11:27you can't rule out the dark horse candidate
11:29pink cowboy boot a bachelorette threw up in.
11:34Back in 2024, Trump won the 7th by 22 points,
11:38but going into election night, the most recent poll
11:40shows a statistical dead heat.
11:42Now, that's a bad sign for the House GOP majority,
11:46which is so razor thin,
11:48that Representative Tim Burchett said at a rally last night,
11:51folks, we are one flu season away
11:53from losing the majority.
11:56Sir...
12:03Congressman, our health secretary is RFK Jr.
12:07We are one flu season away from losing the species.
12:12This weekend, another House Republican announced
12:14he won't be seeking re-election.
12:16Texas Representative Troy Nails, seen here saying,
12:19Tell the Batman my boys will be waiting for him.
12:23Nails isn't alone.
12:25Five other Republicans from Texas have already announced
12:27they won't seek re-election in 2026.
12:30They are...
12:31That's a lot.
12:32Five just in Texas, so that's six, including Nails?
12:36They're fleeing the GOP's sinking ship,
12:38which is smart, because Hegseth is about to order
12:40for a second strike on it.
12:43Nails is a Trump true believer who voted to overturn
12:47the 2020 election and is a member of the Anti-Woke Caucus,
12:51though we all know who is the leader of the Anti-Woke Caucus.
12:56We've got a great show for you tonight.
12:58My guest is Rachel Maddow.
13:01And when we come back, the latest exciting news
13:04from Hollywood.
13:05Stick around.
13:07I want to see you tonight on a show.
13:11I want to see you tonight.
13:13I want to see you tonight on a show.
13:14I want to see you tonight on P.A.
13:16GIVE IT UP FOR LEWIS CATO AND THE BAND, EVERYBODY.
13:36FOLKS, HOW LONG ARE WE DOING THE SHOW?
13:42TEN-PLUS YEARS, TEN-PLUS YEARS, AND OVER THOSE TEN-PLUS YEARS,
13:46WE TALKED ABOUT THE NEWS A LOT HERE ON THE LATE SHOW,
13:48BUT AFTER TEN YEARS OF TALKING ABOUT IT, THE NEWS HAS ME A LITTLE...
13:52HOW DO I PUT THIS?
13:54WANTING TO PUT MY HEAD IN AN INDUSTRIAL JUICING MACHINE.
13:58SO TONIGHT, WE TURN TO THE MIND-CLEANSING SHININESS
14:02OF ENTERTAINMENT NEWS, WITH ITS STORIES ABOUT THE RICH CELEBRITIES
14:06AND THE FEW REMAINING REALITY STARS THAT ARE NOT SERVING IN THE
14:09FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
14:11JOIN ME NOW AS WE TAKE A LITTLE BREAK FROM THINKING AND TREAT
14:14OURSELVES TO SOME SHOWBIZ NEWS.
14:16IT'S TIME FOR...
14:20INSIDE ENTERTAINWOOD, ACCESS DENIED.
14:24HEY, EVERYBODY, WELCOME TO INSIDE ENTERTAINWOOD, ACCESS DENIED.
14:29I'M STEPHEN COLBERT.
14:30I'VE BLEACHED MY TEETH, MY WHOLE, AND MY BRAIN TO BRING YOU
14:34THE BIGGEST STORIES WITH THE SMALLEST IMPACT ON YOUR LIFE.
14:38FIRST UP...
14:39CELEBRITY TRANSPORTATION NEWS.
14:42SUPERSTAR HARRISON FORD WAS SPOTTED RIDING THE NEW YORK CITY
14:45SUBWAY.
14:46RUMORS ARE THAT HE WAS RESEARCHING AN UPCOMING ROLE WHERE HE WILL
14:49PLAY A NORTHBOUND 7 TRAIN.
14:52AND NOW IT'S TIME FOR SOME HOT UNFOUNDED GOSSIP.
14:59HOT UNFOUNDED GOSSIP.
15:01OKAY, YOU DIDN'T HEAR THIS FROM ME, BUT I KNOW A GUY WHO KNOWS A
15:05GUY WHOSE COUSIN TELLS ME THAT THE WEEKEND DONATED THE MISSING E
15:09FROM HIS NAME TO MEGHAN THE STALLION.
15:15AND NOW, AND NOW, SHE WANTS TO GIVE IT BACK BECAUSE SHE CAN'T FIND
15:19THAT SPELLING ON ANY GIFT SHOP KEYCHEINS.
15:23BUT AGAIN, YOU DIDN'T HEAR IT FROM ME.
15:34IN DEVASTATING NEWS, THE JOURNALISTS AT US WEEKLY HAVE
15:37UNCOVERED THE TRAGIC STORY THAT JENNIFER GARNER CAN'T STOP WEARING
15:41COZY GRADE CARDIGANS.
15:43MY HEART GOES OUT TO JENNIFER AND ALL THOSE OUT THERE
15:46STRUGGLING WITH THE DEPENDENCE ON COZY GRADE CARDIGANS.
15:49BUT I WANT TO TELL MY DEAR FRIEND GENGAR THAT THERE IS HOPE,
15:52AND I SAY THAT AS SOMEONE WHO ONCE HAD A $200 A DAY ADDICTION
15:55TO THIRSTY FLEECE VESTS.
15:59NOW, IN MADE-UP NEWS ABOUT FICTIONAL PEOPLE, SADLY,
16:03THE CHARACTER FONZY HAS PASSED AWAY.
16:06HE REPORTEDLY JUMPED HIS MOTORCYCLE OFF A RAMP SO TALL THAT IT
16:09SENT HIM INTO NEAR-EARTH ORBIT WHERE HE FATALLY COLIDED WITH
16:12THE FROZEN SPACE CHIM.
16:14HE IS SURVIVED BY HIS COUSIN CHACHE AND HIS CARTOON DOG
16:17MR. COOL.
16:19HE WAS 107 YEARS OLD.
16:22NOW IT'S TIME FOR CELEBRITY NAMES THAT ARE ALSO BIRD CALLS.
16:27EVEN AFTER IT, IT'S NOT EveryEM, A
16:34PERSON, J umBrick WEEK.
16:37KETIE COOKOS器, KETIE COOKOS器, KETIE COOKSO.
16:42FINALLY...
16:45THIS IS THE FIRST TIME WE'VE DONE THIS SEGMENT.
16:51We all love to watch them, but did you know someone has to make them?
16:54So it's time to peek backstage and hear actors tell the wildest stories from the sets of their hottest projects.
17:00This is...
17:02Inside Entertainwood.
17:04Access denied.
17:07All access tales from the set.
17:10People always ask me why I like to work so much with Marty Scorsese.
17:15Well, the truth is, he carries these little cookies in his pocket.
17:19And if you do a scene real well, then he kind of just gives you one.
17:26It's gratifying.
17:29Well, that's all for this edition of Inside Entertainwood, Access Denied.
17:34I want to thank my best friend, Robert De Niro.
17:37See you at the launch party for our caffeinated pasta sauce, Bob.
17:40We'll be right back with Rachel Maddow.
17:49Hey, welcome back.
18:05We tried.
18:06Welcome back, everybody.
18:08Ladies and gentlemen, my guest tonight is the Emmy-winning journalist who hosts the Rachel Maddow Show.
18:12Please welcome back to The Late Show, Rachel Maddow.
18:15Look at that.
18:44The folks that love, they're Rachel Maddow.
18:46Good to see you again, Rachel.
18:47Let's just call it right here.
18:47I feel like we peaked.
18:48We may have.
18:49This is it.
18:50We peaked.
18:50We may have peaked.
18:51Yeah.
18:52Listen, you know, as I said earlier, I always love to have you on.
18:56Not only because you lay things out, like parts on a lawn, and put the news back together for us in a way we can understand,
19:01where the machine runs for the brains in a way we understand,
19:03but also I know you like a cocktail, and the news has been stressful lately,
19:08and so I suggested, oh, ask Rachel if she wants me to, like, make her a drink.
19:12I hear she likes a Manhattan, and then I found out that you like them so much that you don't think I should make them.
19:16You think you should make them, because you don't trust somebody else to make a Manhattan for you.
19:22I'm controlling.
19:23You are?
19:24Yes.
19:25Well, I am, whoa.
19:29There you go.
19:29Hold on.
19:30It's perfectly fine.
19:31It's fine.
19:31It's all in one piece.
19:32It's made of metal.
19:32There you go.
19:33Very good.
19:33So you make the Manhattan, and I'll ask the questions.
19:36Okay.
19:36All right.
19:37Here we go.
19:37I can probably talk while doing this.
19:39All right.
19:40And I'll peel the lemon.
19:42Yeah.
19:42Tell me about the new name change over there.
19:44It was MSNBC for forever.
19:46Now it's MSN...
19:47MSNOW.
19:48MSNOW.
19:49You have to say, like, now.
19:50MSNOW.
19:51Is that just for now?
19:52Is later it going to be a different name?
19:54MSNOW.
19:56For a minute, I thought it was just, like, a real homage to second-wave feminism.
19:59We're both MSNOW, which is like, but I don't think that's it.
20:04That's very nice.
20:04I'll take these away as you proceed.
20:06There you go.
20:06The only thing for sure that I know is now all my old MSNBC swag is worth a lot more on eBay.
20:13Because now it's vintage.
20:15Yeah, but other than that, we're just the same.
20:17Now, let me ask you, while the president is talking today, he said that affordability
20:24affordability is a fraud.
20:27The word affordability...
20:28A democratic con job.
20:29It's a democratic con job.
20:31Yeah.
20:31What?
20:32Is it all lies that Americans want to afford groceries?
20:35Does that want to give the man his due?
20:39My favorite thing about this is that this is one you can fact-check at home.
20:42Like, you don't need to count on the professionals to do this.
20:46When you go to the grocery store and you get your bill, you know, and they tell you how
20:50much it's going to be, you can just say, Donald Trump says I can afford this.
20:55And just see if it works.
20:57I mean, you may not have the money, but if Trump says it's a hoax, then check it yourself
21:01at home.
21:01I feel like this is going to be the vindication of all fact-checkers, because now everybody
21:05can do it themselves.
21:06Also, if it's a hoax, shouldn't he be able to fix it?
21:09He doesn't have to fix it, because it doesn't exist.
21:13Yes.
21:13This reminds me of the problem that Biden had, which is his folks would go out there and
21:18say the right thing, like, we understand inflation's a problem, but we're working on
21:20it.
21:21And then Biden would go out there and go, what are you talking about?
21:23It's the greatest economy of all time.
21:25And he got a lot of for that for a good reason.
21:27And isn't Trump walking into the same kind of trap, because people can just say, I don't
21:31like you lying to me about my experience.
21:33Yeah, the problem when politicians do stuff like that is that everybody else has to live
21:37in the real world.
21:38So when they're saying things that they believe are from the real world and palpably are not,
21:43ultimately, it comes back and bites them in the butt.
21:45So I think that Trump trying to pretend.
21:49Do you put ice in there or do you not put ice in there?
21:51We'll put a little bit of ice in there once we've made sure that we have exactly the same
21:54amount.
21:55Oh, wow.
21:56Because I'm a liberal, and so I want everything to be equal.
22:00Yes.
22:00There you go.
22:01Exactly.
22:05Exactly.
22:06There you go.
22:07I believe they're changing the name of this cocktail to the Momdani.
22:10Exactly.
22:11A little lemon oil there.
22:12There you go.
22:13There you go.
22:14A little twist.
22:14Nice job with the twists.
22:16Well, thanks, man.
22:17Yeah.
22:17I was a bartender.
22:18Seriously.
22:19Cheers.
22:19Cheers.
22:20God bless you.
22:20To MS Now.
22:24Oh.
22:25Oh.
22:25Good.
22:26Oh, my goodness.
22:27Yeah.
22:28You have got an excellent fallback position if this whole journalism thing doesn't work
22:31out.
22:32Thank you very much.
22:33Okay.
22:33Let's talk about the...
22:35Let's talk about the biggest story of the last couple of days.
22:41People on both sides of the aisle, and I imagine in every part of the world, are upset about
22:47the revelations first in the Washington Post over the weekend that Hegseth said, kill them
22:52all in all in these boat strikes, and now the administration is trying to backpedal like mad and blame the admiral for this, but the admiral sent in a second strike based upon the directive of Hegseth, and that is being called either a war crime or murder or both.
23:16Yes.
23:17Okay, so what do our allies think of this?
23:20Do we know how this is being perceived overseas?
23:22That's a really interesting part of it, actually, because our best intelligence alliance is called the Five Eyes.
23:27It's us, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.
23:32And the Five Eyes...
23:33If you had left out Canada, you have gotten such a polite letter from them.
23:36Oh, I know.
23:37My mom's Canadian, too.
23:39Oh, wow.
23:39That'd be the end of birthdays for me.
23:41Yes.
23:43But so, the UK has particular intelligence expertise in the Caribbean, and they came out and said, you know what?
23:49We're part of the Five Eyes.
23:51We all share everything.
23:52We've been sharing everything since World War II.
23:54We are going to stop sharing intelligence with you in the Caribbean, because what you are doing with that intelligence, we believe, is putting our personnel on the hook for maybe being charged with murder or war crimes.
24:07And so, as a country, we can no longer do this with you.
24:09And so, they've effectively pulled out of the Five Eyes, the most important intelligence alliance in the world, which we have had since World War II, because we are so obviously breaking the law, they're afraid they'll go to jail for having anything to do with us.
24:23That's bad.
24:24That's like when your friends say, I can't hang out with you anymore.
24:27I'm on probation.
24:29We have to take a quick break, but be right back with more Rachel Maddow, everybody.
24:33Stick around.
24:36Hey, everybody.
24:40We're back with Rachel Maddow.
24:43Now, a couple of weeks ago, 10 days ago, several members of Congress, all veterans, put out a video saying, just a reminder that the Uniform Code of Military Justice says that you not only can disobey a illegal order, but that you should disobey.
25:05You must.
25:05That's what that's taught in Officer Training Corps.
25:07Yes.
25:08The president's response to that was to call it seditious behavior, if I'm paraphrasing here.
25:16No, seditious behavior, punishable by all caps, death.
25:19Do you know of any precedent in American history where the president called for the execution of sitting members of Congress?
25:28I do not.
25:29It's not just bad about the Trump administration.
25:31It's also a tragedy for members of the military who are being put in between a rock and a hard place because members of the military will follow the orders of civilian leadership.
25:41It's a really important part of who we are as a country.
25:46But when those orders are illegal, they're put in the position of having to parse what to do.
25:52And there's no good answer.
25:54What the military tells them to do is to not obey illegal orders.
25:58But here's the secretary of defense and the president effectively saying, well, if I said it, it's not illegal.
26:03It just puts Admiral Bradley in special operations, it puts everybody involved in those strikes in a disastrous position where they may be charged with war crimes or with murder for doing something that Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth told them to do.
26:18And that's not fair to our members of the military.
26:21I agree.
26:22I guess the only justification that's put forth for all of these boats is that they are drugs generally, full of drugs generally, sometimes specifically labeled for fentanyl, even though Venezuela is not really involved in the fentanyl trade.
26:39Yeah.
26:39But at the same time, while this sort of narco-terrorism justification has been put out there, convicted drug trafficker and former Honduran president Juan Hernandez was released from prison today after receiving a pardon from Trump, even though he was found guilty by an American jury sentenced to something like 45 years in jail.
27:03And it was for aiding and aiding and smuggling of 400 tons of cocaine that he said, and I'm paraphrasing here, we will force the powder up the gringo's nose.
27:19Yes.
27:20And Trump pardoned him.
27:21Pardoned him.
27:22Is there any, obviously that flies in the face of fighting narco-terrorism.
27:26Has the White House put forth any rationale for this?
27:30No, not at all.
27:31I mean, why are we going to go to war with Venezuela?
27:34Anybody?
27:35Like, has anybody heard an argument?
27:37That's very, also another thing, they haven't put forth any rationale for that.
27:39They haven't put forth, the only rationale they've put forth is that we're stopping drug trafficking of fentanyl, which doesn't come from Venezuela.
27:47Okay.
27:47And if there is a drug trafficking rationale for a war, which is a pretty dubious idea in the first place, since drug trafficking is a crime, so why make it a war?
27:55However, to have just pardoned the most prolific convicted drug smuggler in the history of the United States and set him free makes absolutely no sense.
28:09And so...
28:10Can you think of why it is?
28:11He just doesn't like the idea of a president going to jail for anything?
28:14No, it's weird.
28:15Well, I think that's a serious, that's a serious question, because he doesn't like Jair Bolsonaro.
28:20Yeah.
28:20You know, that seems related to me.
28:22I mean, it should be noted that this particular drug, um, drug trafficking former Honduran president did hire a Republican lobbying firm a few years ago and paid them a lot of money.
28:35Okay.
28:36In order to get him in this kind of position.
28:38Okay.
28:38And so there seems to be a money trail here in terms of the corruption that's behind a lot of Trump's pardons.
28:43But, I mean, the bigger question, I think, for us as Americans is if it's not drug trafficking, if that's not what's driving what's going on with Venezuela, what is it?
28:52And if we really are just going to go start a war with Venezuela for the optics, because they like those videos of blowing up the boats and they think it makes them look tough on TikTok,
29:00or because we're going to go steal the oil from that country, which is also a war crime,
29:06um, I think that the whole America first idea, the whole idea that Trump was going to get us out of stupid wars should maybe be revisited.
29:13We're going to take another break here.
29:15We'll be right back with more.
29:16Rachel Maddow, everybody.
29:22Hey, everybody.
29:27Don't go.
29:27You've got to stay.
29:28You've got to stay.
29:29We've got a lot more.
29:30You're not going to believe how much more talking there is.
29:32Oh, wow.
29:33We're back with the host of the podcast Burn Order, Rachel Maddow.
29:37Speaking of wars, Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner are presently in Russia for peace talks, for the Ukraine-Russia peace talks,
29:47which I don't think Ukraine was invited to.
29:49Correct.
29:50And recently, a leaked phone call made by Whitkoff really sounds like he's chummy with the Kremlin.
29:58Am I accurate in characterizing it as Whitkoff is advising the Kremlin on how to handle Trump?
30:05Yes.
30:05Okay, so some would say that's treason.
30:12The White House calls it strategy.
30:16What's...
30:17What?
30:18First of all, who's Steve Whitkoff?
30:22He's the president's golfing friend.
30:24Yeah, is he...
30:25He's a real estate guy.
30:26Real estate guy.
30:27Florida real estate guy.
30:27Yeah.
30:28And they've decided that the way that we're going to solve all the intractable problems of the world is by letting him hang out at the Kremlin a lot.
30:36And so this is, I mean, maybe...
30:37Probably nice in there.
30:38It's probably...
30:39I mean, they probably keep it at just the right temperature, just the right amount of gold.
30:41But it's like his sixth trip or something, and every time he goes to the Kremlin, he has like these three-hour, four-hour meetings with Vladimir Putin, who is a KGB officer who's really good at, like, flipping people.
30:53But Steve Whitkoff plays golf, so I bet he knows his way around a negotiating table with the KGB guy.
31:00In any case, what we've ended up with is the White House plan, the peace plan for Russia and Ukraine, which appears quite literally to have been written in the Kremlin, and then given to Steve Whitkoff, who then advised the Kremlin on how best to sell it to Trump.
31:18I mean, it really just feels like the whole Putin and Trump thing that was so weird for all those years, which a lot of us reported on a lot at the time and got a lot of hassle for it.
31:29I'm just saying, it kind of seems like that's now paid off with the Kremlin actually running U.S. foreign policy through the president's doofus golf friend.
31:38And it's hilarious, except for the fact that we're now years into this deadly war in Ukraine, where they used to think we were their ally, and we were helping them stand up against this tyranny, and now we apparently have been captured by the Kremlin and work for Vladimir Putin.
31:54Some European allies have stopped giving us Ukraine intelligence as well, because they're afraid that we're going to give it to Russia.
32:00It goes right to Russia.
32:00I mean, literally, they wrote the plan for what they want Ukraine to do, and the White House put it on its letterhead and said, here it is.
32:07You better do it.
32:08And, you know, Russia is a podunk country.
32:11They're a huge landmass, largest physical country in the world.
32:15They've got an economy like the size of Italy, right?
32:18They've got a kleptocratic, sclerotic government run by a guy who's never going to leave until he dies.
32:26The idea that we work for him, that we work for them, is so humiliating and is such an abject failure on the part of Trump in terms of his weakness.
32:36I don't know what Putin has on him, but he works for Putin, and it's an embarrassment to this country.
32:47Sorry.
32:48Oh, I...
32:49I'm very happy.
32:54Okay.
32:54Yeah.
32:56You have a new podcast.
32:57I do.
32:58All right.
32:58Burn Order.
32:59It's about the Japanese internment in the U.S. in the 1940s.
33:04You've said that history is here to help in times of crisis.
33:09What is the story of Burn Order, and how does that history help us now?
33:13So, when we went to war with Japan in World War II, there were zero Japanese Americans who worked as spies for Japan.
33:22There were zero Japanese Americans who participated in any sabotage or helped Japan in the war against us in any way.
33:30There were some people in this country who were spying for Japan, but they were generally white, homegrown American fascists who liked Japan for the same reason they liked Germany and Italy.
33:40Like, they're really... Japanese Americans were not implicated in any bad stuff at all.
33:45And military intelligence knew it, and the DOJ knew it, and the FBI knew it.
33:50And nevertheless, we locked up 120,000 Americans.
33:54I mean, elderly people, men, women, children, they went and got babies out of orphanages if they thought those babies might have some Japanese blood.
34:03They went and got kids out of foster homes because they thought they might have some Japanese lineage.
34:08And we had internal domestic prison camps and locked people up for years for no reason.
34:14And it turns out that the people who did it, it wasn't inevitable, the people who got this done knew it was wrong when they were doing it.
34:23And so, they covered it up.
34:24They covered up the reason why they were doing it, and they covered up how they got it done.
34:29And that story is kind of a thriller because they ordered all the evidence of what they did literally burned.
34:35They ordered all the evidence incinerated.
34:38And it was these intrepid Japanese Americans, when nobody else was standing up for them, they had to do it themselves, who uncovered what really happened, exposed it all, made the U.S. government apologize, overturned all of the court cases that made it possible, and ultimately got reparations for what they did.
34:56The bad guys...
34:57Is anyone brought to justice?
35:01The bad guys spent their entire lives denying they'd had anything to do it, lying about it, and pretending like they weren't involved.
35:10And their families have since spent the multiple generations since pretending like those people aren't members of their family.
35:17So, history has remembered them in the appropriate way.
35:20But, for me, this is really useful because we've had really racist, terrible, awful, pointless policies in the past.
35:27And fighting it is worthy.
35:30You don't know when you're necessarily going to win.
35:32It may take a long time.
35:34But if you stick with it, ultimately, history will reward the people who are righteous in these moments, and they will chase the bad guys to the ends of their days.
35:44I certainly hope you're right.
35:46Thank you, Rachel.
35:47Thank you, Stephen.
35:48Her podcast, Rachel Maddow Presents Burn Order, is available now wherever you get your podcasts.
35:54Rachel Maddow, everybody.
35:57With a performance by Drive-By Truckers, featuring Jason Isbell.
36:08Performing Hell No, I Ain't Happy from the definitive Decoration Day box set, ladies and gentlemen, Drive-By Truckers, featuring Jason Isbell.
36:16There's a lot of bad wood underneath the veneer.
36:41She's an important pivot.
36:42She's one of the nicest
37:07If I would call, hell no, I ain't happy
37:12Hell no, I ain't happy
37:16Hell no, I ain't happy
37:24If you put a little gas out the bus window
37:31By these cities down, there ain't nothing left to go
37:38We got 12 crammed in, we ain't never alone
37:46And I'm always homesick cause the road's my home
37:54Check my mail if you would please, Jen
37:58Let my fangs when I'm in town again
38:02Hell no, I ain't happy
38:04Hell no, I ain't happy
38:09Hell no, I ain't happy
38:13But I get a little closer every day
38:17At the end of the world, we'll take your way
38:26It's ain't just how much I can stand
38:35It's ain't just how much I can stand
38:51And I can't afford my health insurance
38:54And I can't afford my adventure
38:58Till I never fly by, I'm in a state town
39:04Streetport, Lenore, at 7am
39:107am, 7am, 7am
39:14And I keep it all together for the sake of the kids
39:17To smile and step back of my list
39:21Hell no, I ain't happy
39:24Hell no, I ain't happy
39:27Hell no, I ain't happy
39:29Hell no, I ain't happy
39:32But I ain't too crappy, too crappy at all
39:36Yeah, yeah
39:37Hell no, I ain't happy
39:39Hungry, girl
40:17Ladies and gentlemen, side by truckers
40:20and Jason Isbell, everybody.
40:21Good night.
Be the first to comment