- 5 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Tonight, former Prince Andrew is under investigation after British police arrest him, how the fallout
00:06from the Epstein files has spread overseas.
00:09Then the president returns to Georgia and praises his administration for seizing 2020
00:15ballots as the state's election board hires a private investigator, plus the ongoing fight
00:20over ice and border patrol tactics.
00:23One journalist says the culture inside is much worse than you think as the 11th hour
00:28gets underway on this Thursday night.
00:38Good evening once again.
00:40I am Stephanie Ruhle, and we are now 256 days away from the midterms.
00:44Today, the president went down to Georgia.
00:46It was supposed to be part of his mini tour to talk about, you guessed it, affordability.
00:51But the state has been in his administration's crosshairs for very, very different reasons.
00:56Last month, if you recall, the FBI seized ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton County.
01:02The county has taken the DOJ to court over it.
01:05Well, today, the Georgia State Election Board wrapped up a meeting, and one member said it
01:09looks like it's the state board versus Fulton County.
01:13The board decided to hire a private investigator to report them.
01:16But it is not exactly clear what that person is actually going to investigate.
01:21Usually, the person who would look into voting issues is Georgia's Secretary of State, Brad
01:27Raffensperger.
01:28Instead, the board subpoenaed Raffensperger to testify about some of these alleged issues
01:33at its next meeting.
01:35And while Trump's speech in Georgia was advertised as an affordability speech, as I mentioned,
01:40of course, he weighed in on this very issue, the state's elections.
01:46By the way, did you see?
01:47They raided the Fulton County place, storage house.
01:54And now the Democrats have hired a massive team of lawyers.
01:59They have the ballots.
02:00That should be no problem, right?
02:01They have the ballots.
02:02FBI came in and raided.
02:04They found plenty of stuff.
02:05And now they have the ballots.
02:06And the Democrats are fighting like hell, and I think it goes before a judge tomorrow,
02:13to not let anybody see the ballots.
02:16Why don't they want them to see the ballots after all these years?
02:21You know why they don't want?
02:23Because they cheated.
02:25That's why.
02:26They've taken the ballots.
02:27They have them now.
02:28After years, they got an order from the court, signed order from a very respected judge,
02:34and now they're trying to stop anybody from looking.
02:38You know why?
02:38Because they cheated like dogs.
02:43Reminder, there's no evidence for the president's claims that any Democrats cheated.
02:48And by the way, Trump's speech today was in the city of Rome,
02:52which is part of the district Marjorie Taylor Greene used to represent.
02:56Those two had a massive falling out over the release of the Epstein files, I wanted to remind you.
03:01And that takes us to the United Kingdom, where today, former Prince Andrew was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in
03:08public office.
03:09Andrew has long been linked, of course, to Jeffrey Epstein, and his name popped up repeatedly in the newly released
03:15files.
03:16While we do not know exactly what misconduct is being investigated,
03:20we do know that earlier this month, London authorities were investigating claims
03:24that Andrew sent Epstein confidential trade information.
03:27Andrew was the U.K.'s trade envoy from 2001 until 2011.
03:32MS now has reached out to his spokesperson for comment.
03:35He has long denied any wrongdoing in connection with his friendship with Epstein.
03:40The palace released a statement from the king pledging full support for the authorities, quoting,
03:45let me state clearly, the law must take its course.
03:49All right, now let's get smarter with the help of our lead off panel tonight.
03:53Peter Baker joins us, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times.
03:56Mark Leibovitch, staff writer for The Atlantic.
03:58And Greg Blustein, political reporter for The Atlantic Journal, Constitution, and MSNOW political contributor.
04:04All right, Greg, let's obviously start in your home state.
04:07The president's speech today.
04:08You were there.
04:09What stood out?
04:11Yeah, look, I would say this has given me flashbacks to 2020.
04:14But in reality, this has been the through line for Trump every stop he's made in Georgia,
04:20where he can't help but continue his fixation, his obsession with falsely claiming his 2020 defeat was the result of
04:27widespread election fraud.
04:28And this is, of course, coming at a time when Republicans in Georgia are increasingly worried about their chances of
04:35defeating Democratic Senator John Ossoff and keeping the governor's mansion in GOP hands.
04:41So what we saw again today was a return to the same election fraud lies that the president has been
04:47repeating for the last six years every stop in Georgia.
04:50Who are the people in that crowd?
04:53And are they there cheering on what he's saying?
04:55Because theoretically, these are the people literally who voted for Marjorie Taylor Greene.
05:00Yeah, Stephanie, it's interesting because the people in this crowd were there more for Donald Trump than anyone else.
05:05Some of them got there at 5 a.m., 4 a.m. in the morning.
05:08They were waiting in line.
05:10I, you know, interviewed about a dozen or so as they walked through the doors asking them about other races,
05:15governors, Senate, Congress.
05:17And many of them were still undecided.
05:19They were just there to support the president.
05:21So, you know, when it came to the feud with Marjorie Taylor Greene, they overwhelmingly took President Trump's side.
05:28And quickly, I know I'm bombarding you.
05:30The state election board, what is the situation here?
05:33Are the board and Fulton County on opposite sides?
05:37Yeah, what the state election board is doing is it's taking baby steps towards what Democrats and voting rights advocates
05:44have long feared,
05:44which is the state takeover of Georgia's most populous county.
05:48I mean, one of Georgia's biggest left-leaning bastions.
05:51And, you know, they haven't taken a big step towards that yet.
05:54But what they're doing is they're taking baby steps.
05:56And there's a three-member Trump pro-Trump majority on that board.
06:00And two of those members have said pretty explicitly that this takeover is on the radar.
06:06All right, Mark, I want to play for you what the president said specifically about mail-in voting today.
06:12Watch this.
06:15We don't want to have mail-in ballots where they're mailed in from all parts of the place.
06:21Mail-in ballots are crooked as hell.
06:23We're the only country in the world that used this type of mail-in ballot.
06:27The only country in the world.
06:29I'll tell you what, Republicans have to win this one.
06:32We'll never lose a race.
06:34For 50 years, we won't lose a race.
06:37The only country in the world?
06:39Mm-mm.
06:39For fact's sake, more than two dozen other countries use mail-in voting, including Canada and the U.K.
06:46Mark, a lot of Republicans in Congress know this is a very bad idea because a whole lot of their
06:52voters use mail-in voting, including Donald Trump himself.
06:58Yeah, I mean, these are a lot of Republicans everywhere, not just in Congress.
07:02I mean, the layers of things that Republicans, elected Republicans, would be cringing about tonight are pretty long and high
07:12here.
07:12Because, I mean, first of all, the idea that he was going to focus on affordability in a state that
07:16he's obsessed with all kinds of peripheral things and peripheral figures about is kind of laughable.
07:22Especially given, I mean, I think Greg can correct me on this, but didn't he actually do an event in
07:26Rome in 2020 during the Senate runoff where he was going to sort of campaign for, I guess it was
07:33David Perdue and, was it, Kelly Leffler, right?
07:37Yeah, he didn't say a word about them.
07:39He just kept sort of litigating his own dispute of the election.
07:43Anyway, there was that.
07:43And then, like, mail-in, and this is like the mail-in ballot, the mail-in voting hobby horse has
07:50been like an obsession of his.
07:51Also, it's something that so many Republicans have told him to just back off of because all you're going to
07:56do is dissuade your own voters from voting in a way that is extremely popular from people across the spectrum.
08:03So, anyway, destructive on many levels.
08:05You can see why a lot of people would just be shaking their heads in the Republican Party.
08:08Okay, well, I was shaking my head with this one today, Peter.
08:12A huge, huge banner of Trump's face went up, hung right outside the Justice Department.
08:20And this is the same Justice Department that seized 2020 ballots and is looking into Trump's election grievances.
08:27Make sense of this for us.
08:30Yeah, I mean, we've seen these banners on other buildings in Washington.
08:33The Labor Department famously had one for quite a while.
08:36But it's really different to do it at the Justice Department because, for the very reason you're talking about, Justice
08:41Department is not supposed to be a partisan entity.
08:45It's supposed to be a dispenser of neutral justice, right?
08:49And it's not supposed to be the president's personal political instrument.
08:53And yet you put that banner up there, and, of course, that's what it looks like.
08:56You're advertising the Justice Department as if it is an arm of the Trump campaign.
09:01And it's part of his, of course, you know, very widespread spree of self-aggrandizement.
09:08His picture is going up all over the place.
09:09His name is being blazoned on buildings.
09:12He's, you know, renaming a whole class of battleships after himself.
09:16He's trying to strong arm New York and, you know, renaming Penn Station.
09:21He wants Washington to name Dulles Airport after him.
09:23All of this is about power, though.
09:25It's not just about vanity, although, obviously, that's part of it.
09:28This is a president who has admitted that he has narcissistic tendencies.
09:31But it's about power because the more you see his face, the more you see his name, the more you
09:36see him everywhere at all times,
09:39the more power he thinks accrues to him because he is an inescapable force in American life.
09:44All right.
09:45New topic, Peter.
09:46Ex-Prince Andrew, this is a former member of the royal family arrested now seemingly in connection with the Epstein
09:54files.
09:55This seems massive.
09:59It's quite something.
10:00Look, you know, the tentacles of this scandal have been extraordinary, right?
10:04This is a one-stop shopping kind of Me Too movement all in this one batch of e-mails and
10:10texts and documents that have come out.
10:13You know, it's now taken down people from all the way from California all the way to Norway.
10:17You know, professors have lost their jobs.
10:20People have had to force, you know, lose their positions at major companies.
10:26Criminal investigations are being launched everywhere, it seemed like, by the way, except in Washington,
10:31where the president of the United States' name shows up plenty of times, thousands of times in these documents.
10:37And there doesn't seem to be any particular consequence to him.
10:40Mark, we are seeing these massive figures in other countries face serious consequences over Epstein.
10:48Do you think that the powerful people here in the U.S. are getting nervous that this thing is getting
10:53closer and closer and more serious,
10:55that they could face consequences here?
10:57We're seeing a bit, but certainly no members of our government.
11:01Yeah, I mean, they should have been nervous before then.
11:03I assume they have been nervous in some ways.
11:05But what this does when you see it happening, this sort of acutely overseas,
11:11is it really casts into relief how, you know, how no justice is being done here, basically.
11:16There have been no prosecutions from the U.S. Department of Justice.
11:20We know who controls the U.S. Department of Justice.
11:22You know, we know whose face is now draped from the front of the facade of the Department of Justice.
11:30So, look, I mean, this does sort of cast an even sharper relief what's not happening here.
11:35Peter, do you think the administration is feeling more pressure to do more?
11:40Pam Bondi obviously had a disastrous hearing last week.
11:44Howard Lutnick has lost a lot of credibility,
11:47while other countries seem to be taking this a lot more seriously.
11:50And these victims are not going away.
11:54They're not going away.
11:55And there's obviously still a great deal of consternation in Congress,
11:59you know, particularly on the Democratic side, but also on the Republican side.
12:02As you pointed out, Marjorie Taylor Greene just resigned from Congress from protests,
12:06in effect, of what's happening with the Epstein files.
12:08She felt that the president wasn't taking that seriously
12:10and that there was a real scandal that was being, you know, not covered up,
12:14certainly not being fully addressed.
12:17There doesn't seem to be any move on the part of the Justice Department to do anything further.
12:21They've said they're now basically done with what they plan to do.
12:25And, of course, there's a difference between, you know, scandal and crimes, right?
12:29You know, a lot of these people who have been taken down in recent days,
12:32have lost their business or their jobs,
12:34have not necessarily been accused of anything criminal,
12:36but they've been accused of doing things that are kind of scandalous, right?
12:39Why are you friends with this guy?
12:40Why would you do business with this guy?
12:42Why would you, you know, seemingly, you know,
12:45embrace somebody with such a, you know, a terrible record?
12:48That's not illegal, but it's certainly scandalous
12:51and raises a lot of questions about the integrity of the people who are in these files.
12:55It's not illegal, but, Mark,
12:57we're not talking about everyday Americans that have run-of-the-mill average jobs.
13:03Many of the people that were associated with Jeffrey Epstein, right,
13:07I'm thinking back to the chief of legal at Goldman Sachs, who stepped down last week.
13:13Why?
13:14Because she was head of their ethics committee.
13:16She was head of their reputational risk committee.
13:19So it's fine to say there's a difference between criminal activity and unethical behavior,
13:25but a lot of these people have very, very senior positions
13:28where ethics and leadership are sort of considered a core tenant for the roles.
13:35Yeah, I mean, this goes back to kind of like a repeated chestnut we've heard around Trump,
13:40which is that a lot of these people would never survive a job in a public company
13:44or a job that, you know, had, where there was a boss,
13:47where there was some kind of reputational awareness, you know,
13:50within either corporate governance or within an organization that cared about its reputation.
13:55This obviously isn't happening here.
13:58It's sort of part of the larger consequence-free environment that Donald Trump has created
14:02for himself and also for people who are loyal to him.
14:06Greg, take us to Georgia.
14:07I know, obviously, affordability, kitchen table issues,
14:11people just trying to live their lives, get healthier, get their kids a good education.
14:15Are they paying attention?
14:16Are they talking about the Epstein files?
14:18They are.
14:19They are.
14:19I mean, look, there's a lot of reasons for the unraveling of the relationship,
14:22the alliance between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump,
14:25but certainly the Epstein files were a big part of that.
14:28And there's a core of voters, and they're not, of course, they're not just Republicans.
14:31They're certainly not just Democrats who are demanding more transparency,
14:35more disclosure of these files, and, of course, justice involving those who are too closely aligned with Epstein.
14:44Peter, have we heard anything, or do we think we're going to hear anything from the Department of Justice?
14:49This idea to just go quiet or distract, people have the ability to pay attention to other issues,
14:56but interest still remains high.
14:58And while they said they're not releasing the rest of the files, they're supposed to, according to the law.
15:06Well, to be clear, what they're saying is they're saying the rest of the files aren't actually files that are
15:10responsive to the law, right?
15:11They're saying that they made a mistake in giving an overestimate of how many documents actually were, you know,
15:17related to this case and would have been required to be released under the law,
15:20and it's really only the three million, you know, pages or whatever that they've now released, and there's nothing else.
15:26Now, people aren't going to trust that.
15:27That's part of the problem, right?
15:28If you say there's six million pages and you only release three million pages, and it's one of these situations
15:33where people don't trust you to begin with,
15:35and you look like you're redacting things and you're not necessarily being forthcoming without being forced to be,
15:40then people aren't going to necessarily take your word that the other three million pages aren't responsive.
15:46And I think the problem for them is that they, of course, this president and a lot of people around
15:50him stoke these suspicions,
15:52stoke these conspiracies before coming into office and then came into office and said, wait a second, no, actually there's
15:57nothing there.
15:57And that's why you see people on the MAGA right as upset about this as people on the left who
16:03are happy to see Trump take a hit.
16:06Now, the question is, does that last through the fall?
16:09As an electoral matter, I don't know that it helps Democrats, but it may hurt Republicans, right?
16:14The question is, are people who are Republicans who felt this is an important issue disappointed enough in what they
16:19see in terms of their party and say,
16:20I'm not going to, I can't go out again.
16:22This is something that really bothers me.
16:23That's an open question.
16:24It's a long way away.
16:25But it has, this has more legs than I think that people have had thought it would.
16:30Then, Mark, for people who do want to see more of these files, are there any levers left to pull
16:37to force it?
16:38Because to Peter's point, sure, Pam Bondi and the DOJ could say there's nothing else to see.
16:42People don't believe them, rightfully so.
16:46Right.
16:47And, I mean, the levers are basically just more litigation, not litigation, but just sort of political shaming.
16:53I mean, this is going to be a very, very dynamic issue going forward.
16:57People in Congress are going to keep bringing it up.
16:59And meanwhile, you know, you have three million documents out there that are still being processed.
17:04There's a lot of news sort of coming out, you know, every week.
17:07We're only a couple weeks into this.
17:08So, even as this, you know, as this sort of, these other few million files are, or emails, what have
17:17you, are still sort of outstanding, there's going to be a lot of things unfurling around this, a lot of
17:23suspicion around cover-ups, and also the sort of substance of what's uncovered in the process.
17:27All right, gentlemen, thank you for starting us off on this important news evening.
17:32Right after the break, you have got to stick around.
17:34The president says he won affordability.
17:38But is that an economic pitch voters are going to buy?
17:41Because the things that they are buying cost a whole lot of money.
17:45They know how much they're spending, and affordability has not been tackled.
17:49Money Power Politics is next and later.
17:51The president claims immigration agents are on the streets to stop crime in America.
17:56We've got a very special guest.
17:57He says it appears that the agents, they're the ones committing those crimes.
18:02We're going to take a deep dive into his report about the problems within Border Patrol and ICE.
18:07The 11th hour just getting underway on a serious Thursday night.
18:27Look at your watch.
18:28I'm pretty sure you know what time it is.
18:30Money, power, politics.
18:31We mentioned earlier that the president visited the state of Georgia earlier today, where among his many topics, he touted
18:38the economy and affordability, two issues that Americans cannot stop talking about.
18:42Why?
18:43Because they're the biggest issues that plague our daily lives.
18:46But the president, he doesn't seem to think that they are issues at all.
18:50Here are his thoughts.
18:52I have to listen to the fake news talking about affordability.
18:58Affordability.
18:59Do you notice?
19:00What word have you not heard over the last two weeks?
19:04Affordability.
19:05Because I've won.
19:07I've won affordability.
19:09America is back.
19:10Our economy is roaring.
19:12And our country is respected again.
19:15Respected like never, ever before.
19:19We've definitely talked about it in the last two weeks.
19:21Ron Insana is here, and he most certainly has.
19:24He's a veteran financial journalist, publisher of The Message of the Markets on Substack, and a dear, dear friend of
19:29mine.
19:30And Justin Wolfers joins us, professor of economics and public policy at the Big Blue University of Michigan.
19:36Okay, professor, you closely track the economy.
19:40It is what you do for a living.
19:41What do you make of what the president said?
19:44We've won.
19:45Affordability tackled.
19:48Oh, Steph, really?
19:51Yes.
19:54Okay.
19:55No, it's a totally fair question.
19:57I mean, he's the president.
19:58But there was this historic tradition that presidents told the truth.
20:03Affordability, we've won.
20:03Look, prices are rising.
20:04The president came to power promising that he'd get prices down on day one.
20:08He then passed an enormous tariff bill.
20:11He then refused to update the Obamacare subsidies.
20:14He's undermined the Fed.
20:15He's passed a budget that takes from the poor and gives to the rich.
20:20He's done everything he could to undermine affordability.
20:23He claims...
20:24The part that really gets me is when you go to have a look at his big rallies, the campaign
20:31literally, or the White House, prints up signs that say lower prices.
20:36The president has, over the last month, said he's lowered prices 30 times.
20:41I go to the store, you go to the store, we all go to the store.
20:44That's not true.
20:45I run through the statistics.
20:47It's simply false.
20:49Egg prices down.
20:50Eggs.
20:51It's because we no longer have a bird flu.
20:53But almost every other price is up.
20:55The man's lying through his teeth.
20:56If you just say something enough, guess what?
20:59It doesn't change reality.
21:01Your take?
21:02Yes, Sam.
21:03In fact, in the substack that I wrote about today, I showed a chart of prices and all the
21:07things that matter to people, whether it's health care, college education, college education,
21:12private schools, child care, grocery prices, they're all up substantially.
21:16The rate of inflation has slowed, insurance of all kinds.
21:20The rate of inflation has slowed.
21:22I mean, he keeps saying we had the highest rate of inflation under Joe Biden at 9.1%.
21:25That, by the way, was not the highest rate of inflation.
21:28We saw 13% in 1980.
21:30We saw 20% after World War I and World War II.
21:33We saw 30% after the Revolutionary War, by the way, just as a side note.
21:36And it's just the rate of inflation has slowed a little bit under President Trump, which was
21:42already in process.
21:43So he hasn't beaten anything on the affordability front that really matters to the average individual.
21:49Then isn't this politically dangerous?
21:52It could backfire, sure.
21:53I mean, affordability is one of the issues, right?
21:56People could be confused.
21:57They could be worried about AI, but they don't know what the future holds.
22:00They know what their economic reality is.
22:03So those people in Georgia who are there listening to the president, are they walking away?
22:08And yes, the people at that rally are super fans.
22:10But are they saying, yes, he's heard me.
22:12He sees me?
22:13No, they're going to Walmart.
22:14They're going to Costco.
22:15They're going to Aldi.
22:16They're going to all these places that are less expensive.
22:18Yeah, my wife's too.
22:19I mean, all these places that are meaningfully less expensive than some of the former grocery
22:26chains and other stores that we used to think were middle of the road.
22:29And so people are buying down, if you will, to get out of this trap where your dollar doesn't
22:34go as far as it used to.
22:35So I think whether you're in Georgia or whether you're here, you're still feeling it.
22:39I mean, for prices stuff, as you know, for prices to come down or go back towards where
22:43they were in 2019, we would need a big recession, massive deflation.
22:48That's simply not going to happen.
22:50So the rate of inflation has slowed.
22:52That's all that's happened.
22:53And we're certainly not seeing wages rise at any great shake.
22:56So your buying power is limited.
22:58One topic the president could not get enough of is his favorite topic, big business, least
23:03favorite topic, tariffs.
23:05I want to play some of what he said.
23:08Yeah.
23:09Without tariffs, this country would be in such trouble right now.
23:13I have the right to put tariffs on for national security purposes, countries that have been
23:20ripping us off for years.
23:23With our pro-American economic growth and the use of tariffs, we've already secured commitments
23:29for over $18 trillion.
23:33Okay, first of all, it's nowhere near $18 trillion, like not even remotely.
23:37Tariffs and affordability, they'll go hand in hand.
23:40The cost of things like coffee and beef are all driven up by tariffs.
23:45What is your take on these comments?
23:48Look, the president's just got to get out of this tariff thing.
23:51He came to power saying that a big part of this was the trade deficit.
23:54In fact, we just got the latest trade deficit numbers today.
23:58I know this will surprise you, but having just composed the largest tariffs in 90 years,
24:03in order to eliminate the trade deficit, we got the largest trade deficit in 90 years.
24:08I'll tell you one other fact, by the way.
24:10Any economics textbook, including that one over my shoulder there, will tell you if you want
24:13to eliminate a trade deficit, hey, it's a source of truth, mate.
24:17I don't make the rules.
24:18I got you.
24:18But that book says if you want to eliminate a trade deficit, tariffs aren't going to do
24:22it for you.
24:23Every economist has said it.
24:25So I'm going to come back.
24:26I'm going to say, I know we economists get a lot of hate.
24:29I know that we don't have a deep soul or an inner life, and there's so much to dislike
24:33about us.
24:34Except when it comes to these fundamental issues, we're right.
24:37And the president's fundamental problem is he doesn't understand what we teach in our
24:41first year economics classes.
24:43So with the exception of the gifts and prizes and hookups that business leaders, big and
24:52small and foreign leaders have bestowed upon the president to get themselves tariff exemptions,
24:57with the exception of lobbyists who are close to the president or Howard Lutnick, who many
25:03of these companies have been bullied into hiring in order to get a meeting with Lutnick
25:08and the president and get a carve out.
25:10With the exception of those wins, how have the tariffs helped this country?
25:15Because to Justin's point, the trade deficit is where it was before Liberation Day.
25:20Right.
25:21And so prices are higher.
25:22And as we saw from the New York Federal Reserve, and of course, Kevin Hassett, who is the president's
25:26top economic advisor, castigated economists at the New York Federal Reserve for saying that
25:3090 percent of the cost of tariffs are borne by both American businesses and consumers.
25:35He said they should be disciplined for having said that.
25:38It's true.
25:38Not only that, the tariffs have rerouted global trade away from the United States.
25:44Imports have fallen.
25:45The only reason our exports have gone up is we've shipped a lot of gold overseas.
25:48That's not exactly indicative of being a manufacturing powerhouse.
25:52And he's distorting global trade in ways that are not remotely beneficial to the average
25:57American consumer or to the economy, you know, writ large, as Justin was saying.
26:01You know, the trade deficit was 0.002 percent smaller in 20 in 2025 than 2024.
26:08The president said it was 78 percent smaller.
26:11Just factually incorrect.
26:13How about this one, Justin?
26:15New topic.
26:15A lot of attention was given to the Dow hitting 50,000 almost two weeks ago.
26:21Pam Bondi notably said $50,000.
26:23But put the dollars error aside.
26:26To most people, that sounds great.
26:29But put it into perspective for us.
26:31Yeah.
26:32So anytime you hear an economics number, this is the first thing we'll tell you is you've
26:36got to say compared to what.
26:38And so let's compare us to other countries.
26:42And it turns out if you'd invested in the U.S. stock market on the day that Trump became
26:48president through to today, you'd be up 16 percent.
26:50That sounds good.
26:51Great.
26:52It's a little bit like saying when I watched the Super Bowl, I saw the New England Patriots
26:56score 13 points.
26:5813 sounds like a good number of points.
27:00It turns out if you'd invested the same amount of money in other countries, every other country
27:04in the world, you would have gotten a 38 percent return.
27:09So when it comes to thinking about stocks, 16 percent is a good year, but everyone else is
27:14doing better.
27:14In fact, we lose this race 38-16.
27:17Bring it back to the Super Bowl.
27:18Seattle, we got destroyed by a bigger margin than Seattle destroyed the Patriots.
27:27Now, for a footballer, that's pretty good.
27:29And I mean different kind of football.
27:30So this year to date, the S&P 500 is flat just to put a 20, 26 point on it.
27:36The global Dow X the United States is up 8.8 percent.
27:40South Korea is up 34 percent year to date.
27:43Japan's up 14 percent year to date.
27:45Europe is up on average 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 percent while we're flat.
27:49So both since the president started and again this year, we're seeing the same outperformance
27:54globally relative to the United States.
27:56After we were the country that had the fastest, strongest economic recovery post-COVID on President
28:03Biden's watch.
28:04Gentlemen, thank you for joining me when we return.
28:06We've seen the president's aggressive immigration tactics spill out into American streets.
28:11But this next conversation really matters because my next guest says what we cannot see is far,
28:17far worse.
28:18His call for accountability for ICE and Border Patrol right after the break.
28:28OK, so I know I say this often, but for real on this one, turn up the volume.
28:33The Department of Homeland Security shut down.
28:36Well, it seems like it is going to drag on and on as Democrats push oversight amid Trump's
28:41immigration crackdown.
28:42But my next guest is warning that lawmakers may struggle to get accountability unless they
28:47grasp the longstanding issues within ICE and Border Patrol patrol.
28:52Excuse me.
28:52Last month, he explained it to the Illinois Department of Human Rights after Operation Midway Blitz in
28:57Chicago.
28:58Watch this.
29:00The culture of ICE and CBP has meant that the agencies have been what you might call a fascist
29:08secret police in waiting.
29:10Troubled agencies simply waiting for an ambitious would-be authoritarian.
29:14It appears that the crime rate of CBP agents and officers was higher per capita than the
29:22crime rate of undocumented immigrants in the United States.
29:26U.S. law enforcement has never experienced a scandal as big, as far-reaching, destructive,
29:32and as far-lasting as the wave of corruption and criminality that has overtaken CBP and the
29:39Border Patrol since 2005.
29:42This is a serious conversation.
29:44Historian and journalist Garrett Graff joins me now.
29:47He has reported extensively on the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, and Border Patrol.
29:52Garrett, we've been waiting to talk to you for a while.
29:54I'm so grateful that you're here.
29:57A fascist secret police in waiting.
30:00What else do we need to know about what's going on at ICE and CBP?
30:04Yeah, so I think the biggest thing is to understand that this is not a problem that began at noon
30:14on January 20th last year, that CBP, which includes the Border Patrol and ICE separately,
30:21have both been long-troubled agencies.
30:25In fact, CBP and the Border Patrol have long been likely the deadliest, but certainly the most
30:34troubled federal law enforcement agency in the entire country.
30:38I added up for that testimony last month some new statistics from CBP's own discipline reports,
30:44that from 2005 to 2024, which is the most recent year that we have statistics,
30:534,913 CBP officers and Border Patrol agents themselves were arrested.
31:03That would be the fourth largest police department in the entire country.
31:10If you just took the population of Border Patrol officers and CBP agents who had been arrested
31:17for misconduct, crime and corruption over the last 20 years.
31:22Is it because we're seeing more examples of violence in the streets
31:26that it feels like things have escalated?
31:28What is different about this moment compared to years ago?
31:31Because to your point, this didn't start on Trump's inauguration day last year.
31:36No, and I think the biggest change, to say it very frankly, is that Border Patrol is now doing
31:44what it has long done to vulnerable migrants in lonely deserts out of public view,
31:52to white people in major American cities on camera.
31:56That's the only difference in what we are seeing take place.
32:00That Border Patrol has a long and very troubled history of being uniquely callous with human life,
32:08both of American citizens and migrants.
32:12This is an agency whose use of force protocols are far outside the norms of modern law enforcement.
32:21And a CBP advisory board led by NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton during the final year of the Obama administration
32:32actually found that CBP's discipline system for its armed officers is less stringent
32:40than the TSA's discipline system for its unarmed airport screeners.
32:47Holy smokes.
32:48Then what do lawmakers need to do?
32:50Because Democrats might be holding up funding, but both ICE and CBP have access to funding
32:56from Trump's reconciliation bill.
32:58And to your point, this is like a deep cultural issue within these groups.
33:04Yeah, and I think that this is the real challenge, which is the Democrats have an opportunity.
33:09We'll see how far they get.
33:11But they have an opportunity to enact some meaningful reforms around the administrative procedures that ICE
33:21and CBP operate under.
33:23However, I do worry that the only two things that are really going to matter long term are changes in
33:31culture
33:31and leadership, and that that's not anything that we see the Democrats being able to address from Congress right now.
33:39Then what do ICE and Border Patrol have to say about your reporting?
33:45Yeah, I mean, I think the challenge is that there are a lot of agents and officers in both ICE
33:54and CBP
33:55who don't want to be working alongside the agents who are guilty of this misconduct.
34:04I mean, you have to imagine, Stephanie, how demoralizing it is to be someone who signed up after 9-11
34:13to be part of the counterterrorism operation of DHS along the border to be focused on human traffickers and drug
34:24smugglers
34:25and to be working in a culture that is as racist, as misogynist, and as full of misconduct as CBP
34:34is.
34:35So I've had a lot of very deep and searching conversations with Border Patrol agents and CBP officials over the
34:43years
34:43who are just as troubled about what's going on in their agency as outside observers are.
34:49But until the leadership, until a presidential administration comes into office and takes reform seriously,
34:58I don't think we're going to see any change.
35:02You've obviously been covering this for years and years.
35:05Did you think it would be this bad at this time point in history?
35:10I didn't.
35:11And I actually think, you know, this is in many ways, and you've covered Washington for a long time, too,
35:17that part of the challenge of this is that this is a very classic Washington scandal
35:24in that it has unfolded on sort of the back pages of news coverage for decades.
35:32But that until ICE and CBP's tactics of this last year, they're just it is never made the front page.
35:40And scandals in Washington only get sustained attention when they're on the front page.
35:45Well, it's on the front page and it's not moving to the back anytime soon.
35:50Garrett, thank you so much for joining us.
35:52The goal of this show is to help our viewers get better and smarter.
35:54And you certainly did that tonight.
35:56When we return, America's biggest warship has set sail towards the Middle East as tensions rise between the U.S.
36:03and Iran.
36:04What is the endgame if Trump decides to strike?
36:14This matters.
36:15President Trump hosted the first meeting of his Board of Peace today and used his opening remarks to push for
36:20Iran to sign on to a new nuclear deal.
36:25It's not easy to make a meaningful deal with Iran.
36:28We have to make a meaningful deal.
36:30Otherwise, bad things happen.
36:31Now we may have to take it a step further or we may not.
36:34Maybe we're going to make a deal.
36:35You're going to be finding out over the next probably 10 days.
36:40And we are learning more tonight about U.S. forces moving into place for a possible strike on Iran.
36:45Officials tell The New York Times that, quote,
36:47the rapid buildup of U.S. forces in the Middle East has progressed to the point that he has the
36:52option to take military action as soon as this weekend.
36:56MSNOW has confirmed that reporting with a senior administration official.
36:59The Times also says that Trump has given no indication that he has made a decision about how he wants
37:05to proceed.
37:06With us for more, retired four-star U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey, a decorated combat veteran of Vietnam and
37:12a former battlefield commander in the Persian Gulf.
37:15Barry, how about the irony on its face?
37:17In the president's first Board of Peace meeting, he's talking about striking Iran.
37:23If he does decide to make that move, what are the options and what would it look like?
37:30Well, look, it's clear to me that Iran is a criminal outlier in the Middle East.
37:36There's no question.
37:36Their own population rose up against them.
37:39They murdered 7,000 plus of their own people.
37:42Their economy is a wreck.
37:44They sustained Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terror organizations throughout the region.
37:50Trump has a valid reason to try and stop the Iranian nuclear development.
37:55The problem is, the way to get at that, you can bomb them and it will set them back.
38:01If you want to stop a nuclear program, you have to have arms control inspectors on the ground with intrusive
38:08rules of engagement.
38:10And that's not likely to come out of all this.
38:13So what we're seeing now is the U.S. has postured in the region a military force adequate to conduct
38:19a significant strike in the coming weeks, in less than a month.
38:24The key to me was when we started deploying dozens of air-to-air refuelers.
38:30Plus, we have two carrier battle groups.
38:33We put a lot of THAAD and Patriot missile batteries in there to defend the eight major permanent bases with
38:4030,000-some-odd U.S. troops we have there.
38:44So we're right on the verge of a war that has clearly outraged our allies, the Arab regional partners, and
38:53has no support in NATO circles either.
38:58Last June, the strikes against Iran were quick.
39:00How long could an operation like this take?
39:03Well, you know, that one-off strike that so-called obliterated their nuclear capability did a tremendous amount of damage.
39:12But it didn't affect much the ability of the Iranians to reconstitute the deal or to conduct further production, which
39:19has come back online now.
39:21Their missile capability to strike not only Israel, but U.S. military targets in the region.
39:29So I would say that in a very short period of time, if Mr. Trump doesn't get significant concessions from
39:38the Iranians, which I don't personally think are likely,
39:42then we should expect a military operation that has the potential for significant escalation, not just against Israel, but also
39:52U.S. military troops in the region.
39:55Then what do you make of the president putting a timeline on this thing, on his decision, I mean?
40:01Well, Stephanie, to some extent, we're watching government by whim, government by watching TV and responding to situations, government by
40:12personality.
40:13I like you. I don't like you.
40:17So it's hard to know where all this is going to go.
40:21But in the short run, I think the threats probably are helpful, the U.S. diplomatic engagement with the Iranians
40:27to say,
40:28you don't have the support of your population.
40:31Your armed forces are in a shamble.
40:34You ought to come to a deal.
40:35I actually don't think it's going to work.
40:37But it isn't the notion that we're seeing come out of the administration.
40:42What is the likelihood that there could be a diplomatic breakthrough?
40:46To your point, diplomatic talks are ongoing.
40:50Well, I personally don't think it's likely.
40:52Look, the missile program is vital to the Iranians, they think, as a deterrence to Israel in particular,
40:59and to some extent, to making the U.S. Navy stand offshore.
41:05And we're also quite cognizant that the Iranian leadership, this is a kleptocracy, this is a brutal regime.
41:13It murders its internal dissidents.
41:16They don't have much support from their own population who want to be in sync with the European Union.
41:22They want travel.
41:24They're very creative, brilliant people, the Iranians.
41:28So they're just aghast as to what's happened to them.
41:32But a country that will murder 7,000-plus people, to include a lot of college kids, is one that
41:38isn't going to give up easily.
41:40And the Republican Guard, excuse me, the Revolutionary Guard forces, turned on the people, not just the Baji, the militias,
41:50but the elite forces in Iran, are prepared to kill their own citizens.
41:55I don't see why they would give up their missile program and nuke program to Mr. Trump.
42:01All right.
42:01General, thank you for joining us tonight.
42:03I appreciate it.
42:04Good to be here.
42:07That does it for us.
42:08So for now, I am signing off from all of us here at MSNOW.
42:11Thanks for staying up late.
42:12I will see you at the end of tomorrow.
Comments