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The Beat with Ari Melber - Season 2025 Episode 247
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00:00Past the deadline, we've covered the illegal cover-up since most documents have not been met by the deadline.
00:07But what we have now are new emails, investigator notes, new witness accounts,
00:11as well as material that goes well beyond some of what was in the DOJ's first release.
00:16Before we get into any of the context and the wider legal ramifications,
00:20let me tell you highlights of what are in these files.
00:23New flight records, newly revealed prosecutor notes,
00:26documentation of Donald Trump traveling with Epstein to a degree that even the people inside the DOJ at the time,
00:35people with knowledge of the case, found to be a, quote, surprise.
00:39More jet travel with Epstein than they knew at the time.
00:43A subpoena that was sent to Mar-a-Lago during the Maxwell probe.
00:48It was seeking records.
00:49That itself is not completely incriminating for Mar-a-Lago, but it's new,
00:53and you can see why they wanted to hide it.
00:55Here's the Washington Post headline on what is now another day of Epstein file dumps.
01:00Quote, second batch of Epstein files with many mentions of Trump.
01:04Here's a conservative paper, the Examiner, that says some of the new files include Trump's name,
01:09which is putting it mildly, or Mediate, which is read widely in East Coast media circles,
01:15the five most shocking Trump mentions in the latest batch of Epstein docs.
01:20This is shaking up D.C.
01:22Overnight, under pressure, the Department of Justice releasing thousands more Jeffrey Epstein files,
01:30the most substantial dump of documents so far,
01:33tips about President Trump's degree of involvement with Jeffrey Epstein.
01:37Then this email mentioning President Trump from a federal prosecutor.
01:40On a flight that Trump and Epstein were on?
01:43A flight that Trump and Epstein were on?
01:44Would be two possible witnesses in a Maxwell case?
01:48In a Maxwell criminal case.
01:49This group includes an awful lot of references to Trump in the paperwork.
01:57Reporters, other people interested, obviously the members of Congress who demanded this by law
02:02have been going through this.
02:03At MSNOW, we had people burning the midnight oil, even though it is, of course, a holiday week
02:07as they went through these files, trying to verify, trying to make sense of it.
02:12Again, we're going to go through these new documents that include that subpoena I mentioned.
02:15It was in 2021, pretty recent, that it was sent to Mar-a-Lago and was part of the open case against Maxwell.
02:23Of course, the investigations of Maxwell have traversed multiple administrations.
02:27There's a photo of Trump with her.
02:29We don't know the context of that, but there it is.
02:32There are emails from a federal prosecutor about Trump flying on the Epstein jet,
02:37writing, Trump traveled on Epstein's private jet many more times than previously has been reported.
02:45That's Jan 2020.
02:47And they note Trump was listed as a passenger on eight flights in the 90s,
02:51including four flights where Maxwell was also present.
02:54They note in a flight in 93, Trump and Epstein were the only two listed passengers.
02:58On another, there were three passengers.
02:59The other individual besides the deceased trafficker Epstein and the current President Trump was a 20-year-old name redacted.
03:08Now, you can see why a politician might not want any of that spilling out.
03:14On the other hand, those pieces of evidence, those references,
03:19do not in themselves implicate Donald Trump in a crime or wrongdoing.
03:24And that's important to note, given all the interest and some of the salacious details here.
03:28The files also have a letter that is purported to have been written by Epstein.
03:33So it's in these files to a serial sex abuser, Larry Nassar.
03:37I want to tell you tonight, Trump's DOJ says that while the letter was in the files, right,
03:42the letters and emails in these files are not obviously automatically true.
03:46And we've had more disclosure than usual in this case.
03:49And one of the things we've mentioned, our guests have mentioned,
03:51is sometimes people think when something is overexposed, that means guilt by association.
03:57That's not always the case.
03:59Now, some of this was reported by 2023 by the AP, but not in the same detail.
04:03This is postmarked three days after Epstein's death, August 2019 there.
04:08MSNOW hasn't confirmed the authenticity.
04:11So what I'm telling you is this is in the files.
04:13You may hear about it, but that doesn't mean that it's a true thing.
04:16Just as we've had past emails from Epstein and others making accusations about Trump.
04:22That is not itself criminal evidence of wrongdoing.
04:25It tells you about what's in some of these files.
04:29It might tell you about threats or blackmail that aren't based on the truth.
04:32And I want you to know the statement here, they've confirmed the alleged letter from Epstein to Nassar,
04:36is, quote, fake, is what DOJ is saying tonight.
04:39Again, this is how transparency is supposed to work.
04:42Let the people see and add context.
04:45Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against Trump, they go on to say, discussing that as unfounded and false.
04:52Now, Trump's DOJ can, of course, add that context.
04:57What has been requested and now mandated under law is more information, not less.
05:01More documents, not hiding documents.
05:04And then you can add context.
05:06The DOJ's handling of this release is peculiar.
05:09Those files posted yesterday were available for hours.
05:11Then they were removed at 8 p.m.
05:13Then they were reposted around midnight, which gives you an idea of what it's like to work at Trump's DOJ in this Christmas week.
05:18The files also reveal an email from an investigator who said they had a photo of Trump with Maxwell while searching Bannon's phone.
05:25Again, that's interesting, to state the least.
05:28Investigator included the photo, but that was redacted.
05:30There was an uproar over the photos removed from the DOJ's website, which were also then restored.
05:35If you see from the headlines and the point here, this has been a bungled operation and at times an illegal cover-up.
05:43That's just the facts tonight.
05:44Now, one of the photos was inside Epstein's home and it had that Trump image as part of a personal collection.
05:49You see it there.
05:51Of all the things that have come out in this Epstein story, what you see the arrow pointing at is not exactly the worst thing for Donald Trump in terms of public embarrassment.
05:58And yet they took it down and then put it back up.
06:02Survivors have been speaking out.
06:03I am no longer supporting this administration.
06:08I am so disgusted with this administration.
06:10I think that Pam Bondi and Kash Patel both need to resign.
06:15And I would love to see number 47 get impeached over this.
06:19We went from, you know, very happy, very excited, where we've reached somewhere to now being very disappointed.
06:26It's come to the point where we can't even trust our government.
06:29Those are the voices of survivors.
06:34They can't trust their government even after they led a actual movement.
06:38I don't know what else you would call it of survivors and their allies and others interested in truth in the story, as well as a bipartisan coalition in Congress.
06:47And that movement went from, hey, you're never going to see anything and get a vote to forcing a vote to forcing the president to sign that law because they already had a veto proof majority.
06:58The voices of the survivors you hear have achieved a lot this year as we end in this odd Christmas week, this Epstein document dump week.
07:07They've achieved a lot, but you can see their work's not done.
07:10They're still pressing because what we're witnessing in real time, as we've been reporting since Friday night, is an illegal cover up in plain sight.
07:18A bungled cover up, problems with posting, taking down, reposting, redactions, putting up slices of material and then adding real time tweets about it as if they haven't had all this time to prepare.
07:32And so what you see there is a DOJ and more widely a Trump administration under pressure.
07:37It doesn't look organized because it's not.
07:39It doesn't look honest because, as we've reported on the evidence in many times and cases, it has not been honest.
07:45And the survivors and the Congress that has pushed this, they've made it clear they are not done with this administration, even if everyone takes a couple of days off at the end of the year.
07:55We've got Molly and Margaret here.
07:57We're back together in 90 seconds.
08:00We're trying to get justice for all of them and all of us.
08:04But it just seems like every time we think we're in the right step in the right direction, the government goes and does something else and lets us down.
08:13And this should have been cut and dry once again.
08:16And it wasn't.
08:17And it's just a circle of abuse.
08:21And I think everyone also forgets that when we're going through this continuously, that this is an emotional and re-traumatizing all the time.
08:30And this is not just re-traumatizing of what happened to us.
08:33We're being re-traumatized by our government.
08:38We have been hearing from many different survivors there.
08:41That was on Lawrence O'Donnell's program.
08:43Important points we wanted to make sure you heard.
08:46I'm joined now by New York Times writer Molly John-Fass and semaphores of Margaret Carlson.
08:51Molly, your thoughts tonight?
08:53Yeah, I was glad that victim talked about being re-traumatized because I think that's a real phenomenon we're seeing happen here.
09:00And the truth is, the federal government should be protecting these women.
09:04They've been failed by five different administrations, nonpartisan.
09:08Both Republicans and Democrats have failed these women.
09:11And it feels—and again, we don't know.
09:13But it certainly looks like the DOJ is spending a lot more time protecting Donald Trump than protecting these women.
09:20And I think that even just that fact is so damning because their job should be to protect these women, to find justice for them, to make sure that the men accountable are prosecuted.
09:35And that's it, period, paragraph.
09:36And I think because this DOJ seems so partisan and so much at the hand of Donald Trump, it really has created a feeling that they are not acting in the best interest of these women.
09:52Understood.
09:53And, Margaret, we've covered many issues where the government may be somewhat secretive.
09:58There are entire committees and reviews about government secrecy.
10:02This, on the evidence, goes farther.
10:07It looks corrupt in the nature of the secrecy.
10:11It's illegal, as I've emphasized, since they blew the Friday deadline.
10:14And also very important, it suggests that they are more interested at the DOJ in helping Donald Trump avoid whatever it may be, embarrassment or worse,
10:26than complying with a federal law that's trying to deliver justice for survivors.
10:31I want to read from the new files because, as I've told viewers, both things are true.
10:35There's an illegal cover-up.
10:36There's also new information.
10:39In the new information, Margaret, we see a reference in 2019 to Epstein's, quote, 10 co-conspirators and their locations, three in Florida, who have been subpoenaed, another in Boston, one in NYC, where, of course, he kept a big townhouse, one in Connecticut.
10:58And, Margaret, we can now square that, which is credible, contemporaneous pursuit of many Epstein co-conspirators, which makes sense from what we already know, to what appear to be misstatements or worse coming from Trump's appointees.
11:15Here's Kash Patel.
11:16Who, if anyone, did Epstein traffic these young women to besides himself?
11:24Himself.
11:24There is no credible information.
11:27None.
11:28If there were, I would bring the case yesterday that he trafficked to other individuals.
11:33And the information we have, again, is limited.
11:35So the answer is no one?
11:37For the information that we have.
11:40In the files?
11:41In the case file.
11:42Fact check, misleading at best, or false.
11:48We don't know exactly what Patel knew.
11:52But we do know that he, Margaret, had access, if he wanted, to this information, because these are DOJ-written records of not one or two, but ten co-conspirators.
12:03If ever there was a time to have a special prosecutor, this is it.
12:09And today, with the latest release, it's even clearer that it's got to get out of the hands of the DOJ.
12:18When I'm reading along sometimes, Ari, I see DOJ and I think, oh, well, good, the cops are here.
12:24No, it's just the opposite.
12:26The DOJ is, that is the cover-up of the crime.
12:32Here, there's both a cover-up and a crime.
12:34So somebody's got to do something.
12:38The White House isn't going to appoint a special prosecutor, so it's only up to Congress.
12:43What are they going to do?
12:44I don't, Senator Kennedy, you just showed us, I don't think the Republican Senate is going to come forward.
12:50If I were a victim, and you're, the clips of those girls, every time you see them, you say, how are they ever going to get justice?
13:02Epstein's suicide was another crime to them because they didn't get to go to court.
13:09There was no time for them to have their day.
13:12And so I read this and I say, we're in a really bad movie where there's, you know, the cops are on the take.
13:23Yeah, and you referred Epstein was found dead in his cell, and that's been corroborated.
13:29The federal government at the time in the Bureau of Prisons was overseen by the Trump administration, which ruled it a suicide.
13:39Brunel, who we're learning, was another sex trafficker who flew on the plane more than previously known, also was found dead in a prison in Europe.
13:47It was ruled a suicide.
13:48So we can report fairly and precisely which government authorities have said what.
13:53But then, Molly, the questions remain because this very Epstein Transparency Act asks for more information about that.
14:01And the questions are how their credibility over the long haul squares with what we're learning.
14:08Then there's the incompetence, which is also part of this story, Molly.
14:11If one was a total conspiracy theorist cynic, which I don't recommend, neither for learning the truth nor is it a fun way to live.
14:19But if you were that, you'd say, well, we're never going to learn anything because of this whole cover-up, right?
14:25The truth is messier.
14:27I alert you, Molly, to headlines today, and we've seen this on social media, Epstein files that were redacted and released within the last few days getting unredacted by people online who have better tech skills than some of the Trump DOJ people.
14:42File redaction can be undone with Photoshop techniques or highlighting text to paste into a word processing file, which gives you the sense, Molly, that there's also some incompetence over there.
14:56Yeah, I think that's a pretty good bet.
14:58And look, the good news about Trump world is that they're very incompetent.
15:03And we've seen this before.
15:04They had files they put up, you know, this group of files that then they took down.
15:11And we've seen a lot, right?
15:12You were talking about that before.
15:14So we've seen certainly a lot of back and forth.
15:17And if you wanted a story to go away, this would absolutely not be the way to do it.
15:22Now, I think the good news, right, is, I mean, they've just the drips and drabs, taking things off, putting them on.
15:28But I think the good news is that Oversight, the ranking member of Oversight, Robert Garcia, Oversight has a ton more photos and videos and stuff.
15:39So they have a lot of information they got from the Epstein estate.
15:42Plus, we have Thomas Fassi and all of the people who did that discharge petition, who and Ro Khanna and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
15:51And they are talking about getting Pam Bondi to testify.
15:55So there are, you know, as much as this feels just so terrible and you feel for these women, there are, you know, public pushback is a powerful thing.
16:06And that's what we've seen with the discharge petition.
16:09And I think that's what we're going to see here.
16:11You know, Todd Blanche said there were more than 1,200 victims.
16:14That is a lot of women.
16:17And these women are very angry as well they should be.
16:20And the public needs to come to their aid and fight for justice for them.
16:26Margaret?
16:28You know, I worry, listening to Pam Bondi's testimony when the Oversight for her nomination, I don't think she was truthful then.
16:40It worries me, relying on Congress, to cross-examine in a way to get to the bottom of what these people have been doing.
16:47I mean, since she, the moment she said, oh, the files are on my desk, and that's months and months and months ago.
16:55And here we are.
16:56And still, somehow, here's the file.
16:58No, that's not the file.
16:59We're giving you the file.
17:00No, we're taking it back.
17:01And we have tech bros who can do it better than our own Justice Department.
17:06And I know when you say tech bro, you mean tech bros and gals.
17:13Oh, I do.
17:14Definitely.
17:14I'm just not one.
17:16I know you.
17:16So I know you do.
17:16I mean, it's like anybody.
17:18But my tech sisters.
17:20Yeah.
17:21Go for it.
17:22Yes, tech sisters.
17:23Well, Margaret, anybody who knows their way around a computer, people have different skill sets.
17:29But the DOJ is supposed to be better than this at it.
17:33And some have pointed out they've lost some of their competent ace people in this year.
17:39Oh, they haven't.
17:40And the FBI is the premier place to go for this.
17:44But when you look at Kash Patel, he's not your guy.
17:48So, you know, we've been taken over.
17:51You know, there's a scene in the movie Witness where the camera goes and the person on the phone is the police captain.
17:59He's the one running the whole thing.
18:01You say, oh, my God, everybody's in on it.
18:05None of the adults are straight.
18:07What are we going to do?
18:08So I'm hoping, as Molly says, we can rely on Thomas Massey and others to organize a set of hearings where the Republicans aren't in charge.
18:20I mean, if if oversight is in charge, we're not going to get anything.
18:24So it's going to have to be a special committee.
18:27Right. You're both speaking to how it's requiring checks and balances, which at times have been under attack by this president.
18:34And this law marks a check.
18:38They're fighting it.
18:39And they clearly think at DOJ that if they can do a couple of days, it's not like what they put up today.
18:44They didn't have on Friday.
18:46They think that they can drag this out and then move on.
18:49And that's going to be a test of whether people, the public, the press and the Congress, all the levers of checks care or not.
18:56There's a lot of signs people are going to care well in the next year.
18:59We'll be on it.
19:00Molly and Margaret, thanks to both of you tonight.
19:02I have Bob Woodward coming up as we look at following the money and learning from people who've done that.
19:07And the revelations on Trump with a reporter who wrote the book on this next.
19:12A new batch of Epstein files out today, which shows again how even the things they are willing to release are hurting the Trump administration.
19:24A long ways from Pam Bondi vowing to release a client list from her desk.
19:30The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients.
19:35Will that really happen?
19:36It's sitting on my desk right now.
19:38Then Bondi backtracked.
19:43She said there was no client list, contradicting herself.
19:46She ruled out the idea that Epstein ever blackmailed people for closing possible investigations in that lane and seemed like they didn't want to pursue anyone.
19:54Trump claimed he didn't know anything about anything.
19:59President, when did you read your name appearing in the Epstein file, never?
20:03No, I was never, never.
20:04Did she tell you at all that your name appeared in the file?
20:08No, no, she's, uh, she's given us just a very quick briefing.
20:15Trump is in the files, though.
20:17And whatever happened at that so-called briefing, his own number one aide recently telling Vanity Fair,
20:23she'd read what she calls the Epstein file.
20:25Trump is in the file.
20:27We know he's in the file.
20:28She just said he wasn't involved in any crimes.
20:30I'm joined now by journalist Barry Levine, the author of The Spider Inside the Tangled Web of Epstein and Maxwell.
20:37Thanks for joining.
20:39Given how long you've worked on these issues, I'm sure some of the new documents are things you would have liked to have earlier on.
20:47What stands out to you about everything we've learned since Friday?
20:51Well, Ari, what stands out to me is the fact that there were many, many missed opportunities to apprehend Jeffrey Epstein going way back.
21:02And when you think at the time when this was going on, Jeffrey Epstein was bringing in at least three minors a day for these sexualized massages.
21:14In essence, he was raping three minors a day.
21:18So you think about the opportunities to have apprehended him.
21:22And that's what has been missing.
21:24And that is what is so upsetting to me in looking at these files.
21:28We see, for instance, the Palm Beach to push you on that, which which files, which new information speaks to that?
21:37Well, what speaks to it, Ari, is the Palm Beach police.
21:40We know from a memo began an investigation in December 2001 when they were alerted that Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's co-conspirator, was paying college girls from the Palm Beach athletic campus $200 a day technically for answering the phone.
22:01Three of the girls that the Palm Beach police apparently talked to at that time said they had been touched inappropriately by Jeffrey Epstein.
22:09Okay, so they were Epstein and Maxwell were on the radar of the Palm Beach police going back to 2001, which is a new revelation.
22:18Right, which we know that the actual I'm just going to I'm just slowing you down.
22:22So we've got a government story, an official story about, oh, what they found in 06.
22:28And the defenders of that, including a former Trump cabinet member, have said, well, that's really as far as we could go, even if you'd like to go further.
22:35Sort of the too big to fail bank defense where we heard from prosecutors, you can't do more.
22:40Sometimes that's true, by the way, in certain legal situations.
22:43Seems false here.
22:44You're saying the docs show they go back to 0-1 in Florida.
22:48The farmer doc, newly revealed Friday, goes back to 96 for the feds.
22:53And we're waiting on, I'm going to put these memos up and let you continue, the co-conspirators memo, which I mentioned tonight, needs more detail.
23:01A corporate prosecutions probe memo.
23:04A discussion of another target.
23:06Go ahead and factor in any of this if you if you care to.
23:11Yeah, let's talk about the report involving the FBI with the Crimes Against Children Human Trafficking Unit from July 9th, 2019, where they named 10 possible co-conspirators.
23:25You know, this is an investigation by the FBI that should have been done in 2008.
23:30Why is it, you know, more than a decade later that they're just listing the names of these 10 possible co-conspirators?
23:38I mean, this is what is so upsetting, is that all of this was hiding in plain sight.
23:45The Palm Beach police could have gotten onto this much earlier.
23:48The FBI were handed this case by the Palm Beach police in 2008.
23:55And he gets, of course, the slap on the wrist non-prosecution agreement.
23:58And then we don't hear anything, for the most part, until 2019, after the Miami Herald series, Perversion of Justice.
24:06And then they began investigating Jeffrey Epstein again.
24:10In fact, it was only a few weeks after that series that they began investigating him.
24:14And all of this evidence was getting pulled.
24:16This goes to something else I want to ask you.
24:18I'm the lawyer, so I keep interrupting.
24:21I apologize.
24:21But I did want to ask you before I lose you.
24:24The Epstein plot was to use and abuse money and connections to pull so many people into his orbit, many of whom we know, according to what we have, weren't present for some of these horrific crimes.
24:37But to pull so many people in that he would be too hard to get.
24:41Now he's dead.
24:43And it seems that some of that still worked in the sense that when Pam Bondi says nobody else to charge, because she's worried that any of this could affect her boss, Trump, or others may have been worried about the Clinton photos, who cares, or any other people involved.
25:00Does it concern you that this plot, in a way, works even past his death to evade all of the prosecutions that a fair process would have yielded?
25:11Yes, I think it does.
25:13And sadly, you know, we lost his main accuser, Virginia Roberts-Juffre, who took her life last April.
25:21She had named in her book, she had referenced 11 individuals that she had been trafficked to.
25:28Of course, prosecutions involving any of those individuals, and that's both men and women, can never take place now because of her passing.
25:37So, you know, valuable time over these decades has gone by, and so many individuals who are still out there, not only the men who took part in the sex trafficking,
25:47but the men who were modeling fixers, who put young girls as young as 11 and 12 years old on planes to Epstein's Island in the Virgin Islands, are getting away with this.
25:58They were paid money.
26:00And so right now, we really need to go through those financial documents that Senator Ron Wyden is going through,
26:06and see if we can pick off any of the men who were receiving money from Jeffrey Epstein for the transportation of these minors.
26:14Yeah, I think those are avenues to pursue.
26:18You mentioned Miami Herald and Julie Brown, who's been on MSNOW, whose reporting was instrumental.
26:23Your reporting we've drawn on, so I appreciate you making time tonight here on a holiday week.
26:27Barry Levine will be coming back to you.
26:29I'm going to finish a break, but when we do return, we're going to hear about the secrets of following the money, in this case from Bob Woodward.
26:35There is new info in the Epstein files, but not anything close of what the law required to be released.
26:46We have not yet seen financial documents, as one expert reminded us tonight, which helps follow the money,
26:52including which banks enabled Epstein, his high-flying lifestyle, and perhaps his crimes.
27:00Iconic journalist Bob Woodward has some thoughts here.
27:03Deep investigative work, interviews, documents, some material that had been under seal,
27:11to show that this big bank, J.P. Morgan, really did look the other way while these crimes were occurring,
27:19and had some of its bankers allegedly involved in some of the very business Epstein was up to,
27:27which is a conflict, if not worse.
27:29I wonder what you think we should do with this kind of reporting, in a time where people...
27:35Well, we should appraise it.
27:36Yeah.
27:37Go ahead.
27:38It's a masterpiece.
27:40I've read it twice, I think, of that kind of in-depth reporting, and it takes a new angle.
27:50J.P. Morgan, what did they know, and when did they know it, and what did they do?
27:55I salute the New York Times, because that clearly took a great deal of effort and investigative chops and experience,
28:10and probably editors, or I'm sure editors, what about this, what about that, go back to so-and-so.
28:17And how is that different from the world we're in, where everyone has an opinion or a conspiracy theory about Epstein,
28:24versus that kind of dogged reporting?
28:26Well, we need more dogged reporting, and, you know, old theme, and I'll repeat,
28:33there's nothing like a firsthand witness, somebody who's a reporter can sit with and say,
28:40what happened, when was it, do you have any notes, are there any documents, what do you think this means?
28:49The last question is always, who else knows about this?
28:54What's their phone number?
28:55How can I get in touch with them?
28:58Have you spoken with them?
29:00And again, the variable in all of this is time.
29:06As somebody who's worked for the Post for over 50 years and done, what, 23 books, I have the luxury of time.
29:17No one says, you have to turn it in now, even a book.
29:23If I say I need new time, more time, the publisher, Jonathan Carpet, my publisher, Simon & Schuster, yes.
29:35I mean, take it, but then you're putting yourself out and say, you know, it's going to be worth waiting for.
29:43You mentioned that you had the president on tape, and that was agreed to, and that was part of the dispute.
29:49I want to pull from some of that, as we've done before, because it's this evidence of how he was thinking then in the White House in the first term.
29:57Some things he was thwarted.
29:59Now he's back, and we've seen what the second term feels like.
30:03Here he was saying, when asked about achievements, what he wanted to do to people in government.
30:08Take a listen.
30:10I will consider this one of my greatest achievements, getting the scum out of government and its scum.
30:16It's the lowest form of human garbage.
30:19These people.
30:21And I don't mean FBI people.
30:22I mean top people in the FBI.
30:25What do you hear there, and is that part of his agenda today?
30:29Well, I mean, it's retribution.
30:32It's vengeance now.
30:34And people who have investigated him or people who have crossed him, he will say things like that and make judgments.
30:43But that's his style, and he thinks it's worked for him.
30:50And is it worse, by which I mean is it testing or crossing legal and governing lines more in the second term than the first, when he did seem held back by some?
31:02Well, people say that, and there's some evidence of that.
31:06I don't know if you can make a full comparison.
31:09But, you know, let's see.
31:13I mean, in the Epstein case, you know, it came up a couple of months ago, and now all of a sudden there is this avalanche of new evidence, including drawings and allegedly Trump's signature.
31:31And a kind of, it's the old boys' club meeting and talking about girls.
31:39And it's the undertow, and on the surface, some of it's pretty racy and sexist.
31:51People are saying, sir, why are you putting your name on so many buildings?
31:56And I say, it's because we had to take it off of so many files.
32:00Epstein.
32:02Redacted.
32:02Check it out.
32:04Trump didn't do nothing bad.
32:07Trump does smash, but not like wrong kind.
32:12The end.
32:14The word is out, even if the Trump folks think they can push this story off.
32:18It was the big punchline to begin Saturday Night Live, because apparently people know there's an Epstein problem and there are games with the redactions.
32:26Trump officials have made promises, backtracked in ways that have enraged their own followers.
32:32We're all on stage demanding the release of the Epstein client list.
32:37The current DOJ under Pam Bondi is covering up crimes, very serious crimes.
32:42Three times I voted for this man.
32:43This is by far the biggest fumble of the administration.
32:47Pam Bondi needs to go.
32:48There is something there, and it's being covered up.
32:52For them to do something like this tears my guts out.
32:55They are mad, and Trump, last year, and his DOJ leader now, and his FBI picks all claimed they would release the files to get to the bottom of it.
33:09Now, Trump says no biggie, and everybody was friendly with the deceased sex trafficker.
33:17Everybody was friendly with this guy, either friendly or not friendly, but, you know, he was around, he was all over Palm Beach and other places.
33:24This whole thing is with Epstein is a way of trying to deflect from the tremendous success that the Republican Party has.
33:30They're asking me questions about Jeffrey Epstein.
33:33I thought that was finished.
33:36It's not finished.
33:37He knows it's not finished.
33:39And if he thinks this is some big effort to distract from his administration's alleged record, he is the one who vowed this would be the year of Epstein transparency.
33:51Funny how those things can work out.
33:53When we come back, we are going to end the year right.
33:56That's next.
34:03We saw Americans stand up at these No Kings protests and often mix their political messages
34:09with some fun and some culture.
34:10This week, we saw Epstein and SCOTUS News pushing back on President Trump trying to seize the authority over troops.
34:18And right now, we want to reflect on what we've learned, on inspiration, on joy, and even artists like Kendrick Lamar, who had a big year.
34:25And the author, who he quoted, is where we begin this positive look through artistic inspiration.
34:33He's using your work, all's my life I had to fight.
34:40Well, I think he's understanding that that is the truth of it, especially for poor people and for people of color.
34:45I was just naive and stupid for not going.
34:50Yeah.
34:51What brings the tears?
34:54It was a hard fight.
34:55It's important to be an artist and to speak truth.
34:59The truth is very rarely positive.
35:01Obama did.
35:03Obama did.
35:03Obama did.
35:04Well, let's start there.
35:06Ari did.
35:07A lot of my favorite lyrics have kind of started as a joke.
35:10Find your way.
35:11It can be done.
35:12You have to remind yourself of the kid on the bedroom floor of the Beatles records.
35:16Wu-Tang Clan.
35:17Ah!
35:18Bunk.
35:19Ari!
35:20We can make a big difference.
35:22I have to speak up if I see any injustices.
35:25You got to taste it.
35:26You got to taste it.
35:27It's the hardest thing to catch a wave.
35:29That's life, man.
35:30That's life.
35:32Delicious.
35:33Yeah.
35:33You have to have a center no matter who you are.
35:36Our whole battle at the beginning was sexuality.
35:39How wonderful this experience is.
35:41One of my favorite channels on the television.
35:44Save the world for humans.
35:46You are part of the natural world.
35:48Earth is in space and we're all on Earth.
35:51Oh my God.
35:52Well, there goes the red wave.
35:54We're in a cold civil war in this country.
35:56I do think that comedy should be criticized.
35:59It's dangerous for me to even step into the political arena.
36:03Poopity scoop.
36:03This is a disaster.
36:07Snoop Doggy.
36:09Life is what you're making.
36:14Girls just want to have fundamental rights.
36:16Music really is you kind of defining who you are.
36:20It'd be accepting more when you rap it than just typing it.
36:23You speak through your art.
36:25Yeah, I speak through my art.
36:26Thank God for the artists who, you know, have the courage to speak truth to power.
36:32I'm going to defer to you and Mr. Cube.
36:41Music is a language.
36:42I'm on the air with Ari.
36:48Heart beating like a Ferrari.
36:51You really got a problem with me.
36:55You can never sit in this Ferrari with me.
36:58On MSNBC.
36:59I got Ari with me.
37:00So where we smoke weed.
37:02Young, wild and free.
37:03Amen.
37:03I will start with Jay-Z.
37:05I hate to quote Jay-Z again.
37:06Just kidding.
37:06I don't.
37:08Maybe that was just Mitt Romney's way of saying, I'm not a businessman.
37:11I'm a businessman.
37:12This entire poem about America's drug war and Jay's own path.
37:17Ari, that was an amazing piece.
37:18When somebody break it down in that way, you know, we all feel seen.
37:22Ari Melber, Rap Genius, Volume 2, Just Jay-Z Quotes.
37:27Jay-Z always says the streets is watching.
37:29The streets is watching.
37:30The street is watching.
37:31Plead the fifth when it comes to the fam.
37:33I'm like a dog.
37:34I never speak, but I understand.
37:37Ari Melber, Rap Genius, will just not f***ing stop.
37:42Young Thug has said.
37:43Of course.
37:44I didn't kill anybody, but I had something to do with that body.
37:50You're one of our most quoted artists here.
37:51Wasn't it Rick Ross who said every day is another opportunity to touch the paper?
37:56Rick Ross, who has a line where he says, shoebox, no shoes in it.
38:02And the implication is there's drugs in the shoebox.
38:09Can you page my automobiles?
38:13Truth hurts.
38:14Would you poof and disappear like some of my friends?
38:17As Drake famously said to his imitators, the big you is like a mini me.
38:24Sometimes you got to go a little crazy.
38:26Wasn't it Pusha T who said, I believe there's a God above me.
38:31I'm just the God of everything else.
38:33I don't like it if it don't bling bling.
38:38That clumsy attempt at hotline bling.
38:41Ripple has been a theme tonight.
38:43Shout out to the Grateful Dead.
38:45Bill Gates don't dangle diamonds in your face when he Microsoft in the place.
38:51Put some respect on my name, as it were.
38:53Who said that, Ari?
38:54Who said that?
38:55Birdman.
38:56Oh, okay.
38:57Who's part of me?
38:57I don't try to be showy.
38:58And if you don't know?
38:59No, you know.
39:00Hip-hop said, do the ladies run this?
39:03Yes, we do.
39:05It's time to fall back.
39:08I think you need to fall back and not give your guests homework before they come on the program.
39:14They just don't build chairmans like they used to.
39:17So he is my boy.
39:19I don't know about it.
39:20I didn't hear it.
39:25I mean, what can you say?
39:30I just want to send this message out to Donald Trump.
39:36I don't always see these in advance.
39:38It's too late, baby.
39:41Yeah, it's too late.
39:44Congratulations on this, man.
39:46I'm super jealous.
39:48When can I meet Rachel Maddow?
39:50Bring this face on the air.
39:52Rainies goes up.
39:54Twitter loves us, man.
39:55Only news show with a lighter.
39:59Only news show with a lighter.
40:01Only news show with a lighter.
40:04Thank you very much, Matthew Manfrey.
40:05You're one of ours, brother.
40:06Kamala Harris is...
40:09Almost done with this interview.
40:12I'm the original beatnik on your show.
40:14I've got another friend, too, Ari.
40:16Don't tell CBS.
40:20Get close to Mike.
40:21Come on.
40:21Come on.
40:22This is ending toxic masculinity right here.
40:28It's like they said, Mero.
40:29Don't worry if I write rhymes.
40:31I write checks.
40:33That's it.
40:34That's it.
40:38What a year.
40:39We can be inspired and uplifted by so many people.
40:42You saw some of the great artists there and others.
40:45Jane Goodall, rest in peace.
40:47Richard Lewis.
40:48Mero there at the end.
40:50So, yes.
40:51Let's all have a big group hug and remember what makes life worth living.
40:55You can connect with us at our new link, ms.now.arri.
41:00The weeknight starts now.
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