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00:02Good evening once again. I am Stephanie Ruhl and check the calendar. We are now 276 days away
00:09from the midterms. It is Friday night, which means it's the nightcap and we're going to get
00:13to it in a little bit. But first, there is a lot of news we need to break down. Today,
00:18the Department of Justice released three million pages of the Epstein files, a full six weeks
00:23after the legal deadline. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch says the department collected more
00:28than six million pages, but it's only going to release these three million. Federal agents
00:32arrested Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, two independent journalists who covered the anti-ice protests at a
00:39Minnesota church. And on a day that saw anti-ice protests across the country, the Department of
00:44Justice had a change of heart. They have announced that it will be conducting a civil rights investigation
00:49into the killing of Alex Preddy by federal immigration agents. Let's just take a break.
00:56I know it is a lot. I know it is exhausting. When I woke up this morning to learn about
01:03Don Lemon
01:03and Georgia Fort, I had to pause. Not just because this happened after a week of the president pledging
01:09to de-escalate the tensions in Minnesota. Not just because multiple judges refused to issue a warrant
01:16warrants for these journalists already. Not just because they are journalists doing what journalists
01:21are allowed by law to do and what's needed by society to do. I had to pause and consider all
01:29that happened in just this month. The U.S. military seized the president of Venezuela. The president
01:37threatened to invade Greenland. ICE agents shot and killed Renee Good. The DOJ opened a criminal
01:42investigation of the Fed chair. The president threatened new tariffs against our closest allies.
01:48Border patrol agents shot and killed Alex Preddy. The FBI raided a critical election hub in the state
01:55of Georgia and now the arrest of two journalists. All of this happened in the first month of the year
02:03and the month isn't even over yet. But as the chaos continues, even intensifies, what we cannot do
02:10is take our eye off the ball because all of it is headed to one place nine months from now
02:17when this
02:18administration faces a reckoning in the midterms. But the White House seems less interested in winning
02:24over the American people and right now more interested in dominating the American people.
02:30So instead, we continue to be battered by an onslaught of unprecedented actions with one apparent goal in sight
02:38to defy the Constitution and consolidate power. Let's not take our eye off the ball.
02:46All right, let's get smarter and bring in our lead off panel this evening.
02:49Glenn Thrush joins us. Justice Department reporter for The New York Times, former New York prosecutor and civil rights
02:54attorney, Charles Coleman, Jr., and former U.S. attorney, Joyce Vance, who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor.
03:01Charles, it's going to take days and days to get through the three million Epstein pages.
03:08But given what we've seen so far, and it's only been a few hours, what has stuck out to you?
03:13Well, for me, Stephanie, one of the things that has stuck out is the lack of attention to detail that
03:18has been paid by the DOJ.
03:20Even though they took all this time.
03:22Despite all of this extra time that they were given, there were literally copies of victims' licenses
03:28that were a part of what was turned over in this Epstein file.
03:33Unredacted, which really undercuts the excuse that the DOJ needed all of this time.
03:38And please understand, they're going to go back and they're going to say to a judge, in front of a
03:44judge,
03:44even though they have continuously violated the law with this late production,
03:49hey, we need more time because we have to go through these documents or we should not have to turn
03:53over these additional documents.
03:55And each time that they do that, when they turn these sort of treasure trolls of documents over
04:01and they're poorly redacted and they haven't been going through, it undercuts their credibility yet over and over again.
04:07Joyce, what is the excuse for them being so poorly handled, right?
04:12You think when you're going up against the DOJ, that is the biggest, most well-resourced law firm on the
04:19planet.
04:19What would be the excuse why this is done so shabbily?
04:23Is that a word?
04:24Look, there's absolutely no acceptable excuse.
04:28There's no acceptable excuse for what happened here.
04:32And the reality is we saw the Deputy Attorney General take the podium in a press conference today
04:38to announce, to admit that the Justice Department remains in violation of the Epstein Files Transparency Act,
04:46owning the fact that there were three million more pages that they hadn't yet produced.
04:50That's pretty brazen.
04:52And I think we shouldn't give them a pass for that fundamental failure.
04:56They seem to assume now that they're off the hook because they continue to produce documents.
05:02But as you say, Steph, the production has been just unbelievably shoddy and sloppy.
05:08And this is the sort of thing that DOJ lawyers and staff are trained to do.
05:13You know, DOJ is in the business of these sort of mass productions in civil cases,
05:19sometimes in larger criminal cases, too.
05:22And this is not the sort of sloppiness that you see in these cases on an ongoing basis.
05:30Here it's even more serious because we're talking about protecting victims and witnesses,
05:36something that the Justice Department has legal obligations to do.
05:40And I would not be surprised if at some point we saw some of the victims and survivors band together
05:47and at least make some effort to go to court and ask a federal judge to punish the department
05:53for revealing this sort of personal information and compromising them.
05:58There are real damages that they suffer.
06:01And although the government has a great deal of sovereign immunity for misconduct,
06:06here where it seems that this is so pervasive that it crosses the line from unintentional sloppiness
06:12into almost intentionality given production after production that's been characterized by this sort of relief.
06:20If these folks who are enduring having their public information compromised,
06:25you've said in the past that they're afraid of powerful people who are still out there
06:30are certainly entitled to some sort of a hearing.
06:34Yeah, the powerful people, their names were hidden.
06:37It's the victims licenses who we saw.
06:39Glenn, can we stay on those three million pages?
06:42Does this White House think that because they stood at the podium, right,
06:46like my mother when I was in the fifth grade with a because I said so and said,
06:51yep, there's another three million and we're just not releasing them?
06:54That does not match the law that Congress passed.
06:57Does the White House, does Todd Blanche think him saying you get what you get
07:01and you don't get upset, that's enough?
07:06That's a lot to unpack there.
07:07I think you've got the dynamic right.
07:10But it's hard to tell who's the parent.
07:12That's what it seemed like.
07:13Well, the problem is it's hard to tell who's the parent and who's the kids.
07:16This is more of a Montessori school model where everyone's kind of running around
07:20and throwing lunch at each other.
07:23Look, I think you have a situation here that, and the first thing,
07:28there are two data points we've got to remember here.
07:30Number one, Todd Blanche is the president's criminal defense lawyer.
07:35He views his role.
07:36He's supposed to be running the day-to-day operations of the Justice Department
07:39in an impartial way, according to the justice manual.
07:42He also has this split obligation, which was a big issue when it was that he came up for confirmation
07:49that Republicans on the committee glossed over.
07:52Blanche has this contradiction where he is also advising President Trump
07:57on all kinds of legal and political matters.
08:00And, of course, infamously, he was the guy who went down to Florida and interviewed Jelaine Maxwell
08:07secretly until pressure built, and they released that.
08:11The second issue here is Blanche stood at that podium with a straight face and said,
08:16the president of the United States from day one has been the most consistent about wanting transparency and disclosure.
08:22It was my recollection this entire summer that Mike Johnson kept essentially the House of Representatives
08:31out of session so that they could dodge having to pass this bill, which forced DOJ to do this.
08:39So, like, this is a huge political issue for DOJ.
08:43They didn't want to do it.
08:44And here's – and I will throw in a third bullet point – they don't have the bodies.
08:50They have seen a mass defection of all of these extraordinarily qualified career attorneys
08:56who have been driven out because of the politicization of the department.
08:59So you have this, like, witch's brew of circumstances that has led to this delay.
09:04And, you know, this is why you hear people on the House side, mostly Democrats but some Republicans,
09:09talking about potential impeachment of some of these senior Justice Department officials.
09:15It is a mess.
09:17Aye, aye, aye.
09:18All right, let's talk about Don Lemon and Georgia Fort.
09:21Charles, first, what are they accused of?
09:24What are they being charged with?
09:25So there are two statutes apart of this indictment, Stephanie.
09:28One of them is a statute that comes out of the KKK Act, which is an antiquated law.
09:34And it basically, to say the least, and if it weren't so enraging, it would actually be
09:43utterly hilarious in terms of the irony, in terms of how it's being used in this case.
09:47It is a law and a statute that says that you cannot conspire to threaten, injure, bully,
09:54or harass someone in impeding their constitutional right regarding a place of worship, for example.
10:01And this is in direct contradiction with what we have seen already from the tape of Don Lemon in that
10:08church
10:08and the audio where he says, look, I don't want to harass anyone.
10:11I'm stepping around the order.
10:12I'm stepping out of the way.
10:14You see him say it on camera.
10:16It's very, very clear, Stephanie.
10:18And then the second act is an act which comes out of 1994,
10:21which is essentially an act that is intended to prohibit people from harassing individuals
10:27who are attempting to stop people going into clinics where women are seeking reproductive rights.
10:33And then as the law was passed, as the law was passed, places of worship were added onto it.
10:38So this is very flimsy because in the first act, you need a certain conspiracy between two individuals,
10:44which is loosely made out through the indictment, to say the least.
10:47And in the second case, you need a certain level of physical intimidation and obstruction,
10:54obstructing the passageway through.
10:56And in both cases, if you watch the video, if you listen to the audio,
10:59Don Lemon is extremely clear in saying, I don't want to disrespect anybody.
11:02I don't want to harass anybody.
11:03I'm staying out of the way.
11:05He says this repeatedly.
11:06I'm just here asking questions.
11:08And so the DOJ knows that they don't have the evidence to move forward here.
11:13But let's just cut to the chase.
11:15This is not about a conviction any more than it was about a conviction with James Comey or Letitia James.
11:22It's a scare tactic.
11:23The punishment is the process itself.
11:27It is not only the embarrassment that they seek to impose upon Don Lemon,
11:31but it's also the message that it needs to, that they intend to send throughout the industry,
11:36the chilling effect that they hope to have on other journalists who are doing their job.
11:41Don's not going to be embarrassed, but the chilling effect,
11:43the fear that journalists around the world see.
11:46I mean, most journalists can't say, you know, I can afford a press conference.
11:50I can afford Abby Lowell to be my attorney.
11:52Correct.
11:53Joyce, I want to stick with Charles making the point that this is flimsy at best.
11:58My colleague, Carol Lenig, reports that many career prosecutors refuse to be involved in this case
12:04because they don't believe that the evidence backs it up.
12:06You used to work for the DOJ.
12:08Your reaction to that, and do you agree that there's really a lack of evidence?
12:12Because Charles certainly thinks so.
12:15You know, Charles is dead on point here, as he usually is.
12:19In the Justice Department, you're not supposed to indict a case if you don't believe you have sufficient evidence
12:26to obtain a conviction and to sustain it on appeal.
12:30We've said that a lot throughout the years together, and here that really comes home to roost.
12:35You look at the evidence in this case, and it's extremely unlikely prosecutors could convict
12:41for the reasons Charles has identified.
12:44For the first provision, the Civil Rights Conspiracy Act, which I've indicted a time or two in my life,
12:50you've got to prove that agreement, that there was an agreement to achieve an unlawful act
12:55that your defendant intentionally entered into, that he intentionally wanted to achieve that purpose.
13:01And what we've seen on video with Don Lemon means that it's very unlikely that a jury,
13:07every member of a jury, would unanimously find proof beyond a reasonable doubt
13:12that he had that intent and entered into that agreement.
13:15And the FACE Act, the clinic statute, which I've also used, requires violence or the use of force,
13:22or at least the threat of the use of force.
13:24And there are very specific definitions given to each of those terms in the pattern jury instructions
13:30that judges use, because this is a statute that's meant to provide a criminal sort of a remedy
13:37that can be used against people who try to block access to abortion clinics.
13:42Of course, the place of worship portion of the statute was added in to ensure a sufficient number of conservatives
13:48would support its passage, but the provisions are parallel.
13:52And here it's tough to imagine that the government has evidence of the use of force,
13:57or even an attempt to do that.
14:00When you read the indictment, some of the efforts to do that are almost laughable,
14:05like talking about Don Lemon being so close to the pastor in question that he brushed into his arm.
14:11I mean, this is just, for prosecutors, this is torture.
14:15For people who've dedicated their lives to doing this work,
14:18it's completely understandable that they would decline to participate in this case
14:23and be willing to give up, really, their careers to avoid compromising their principles.
14:29These prosecutors are sending us a message.
14:32The American people need to listen to it.
14:35Glenn, you've experienced it.
14:37The president has been attacking and demeaning the news media for a decade.
14:41But this, what we saw happen today with Don Lemon, this feels like a major escalation.
14:47How did you see this moment?
14:48Well, look, the first thing that the Justice Department did when Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche took over
14:54as they shredded this agreement that we in the media, including lawyers with The New York Times, negotiated,
15:03making it more difficult for federal law enforcement to survey the news media
15:10or to obtain our cell phones or intrude in our news collecting process.
15:16And we saw a couple of weeks ago an extraordinarily chilling episode where in an unrelated national security investigation,
15:23they took this very aggressive action of seizing a Washington Post reporter's cell phone.
15:29We had not seen anything like that, and that really sent a huge chill.
15:33So this is an administration that has become increasingly hostile to the press.
15:39And just to follow up on what Joyce said, if you read this indictment, first of all, really noteworthy.
15:47We've not been able to confirm, by the way, I should say, the MS reporting about the resistance in L
15:53.A.
15:53We have been able to confirm what was going on in the Minnesota office.
15:57But you actually just need to read the names on the indictment.
16:01The first name is Harmeet Dillon, who is the head of the Civil Rights Division.
16:06She is a highly, highly partisan Republican.
16:11She ran for head of the Republican National Committee.
16:13She's not a prosecutor.
16:15And this thing read like a press release.
16:18It read like, frankly, like one of Todd Blanch's defense memos when he was defending Donald Trump.
16:26There is a moment that's supposed to be this extraordinarily damning moment where Don, where they actually say Don Lemon
16:34and a protester approached the pastor.
16:36And they said this language.
16:38They say that these two individuals broadly surrounded the pastor a bit from my.
16:44So they I guess they occupied 180 degrees, but I think the pastor still had 180 to himself.
16:50And then the second thing that that that this indictment says is she accused him.
16:56And I presume that Dylan wrote this, that Lemon then began to aggressively question the pastor and and the the
17:08Justice Department presumes in this indictment that this was because Lemon was a member of the protesters as opposed to
17:14just asking a question as a journalist.
17:15So there's just a lot in this indictment that reads more like a political polemic than an actual legal document.
17:22All right. I'm out of time. But Charles, I don't want you to leave until I ask.
17:25Were you surprised to hear Todd Blanch say that the Department of Justice will now conduct a civil rights investigation
17:32into the killing, the shooting of Alex Freddie?
17:35We've been talking about it all week. Couldn't believe that they weren't.
17:37I wasn't. And I'm so glad you asked that, because it's perhaps one of the most important questions you could
17:42have asked for your audience.
17:43For anyone who's wondering whether it matters for anyone who's wondering whether they're making a difference in terms of their
17:49resistance and their pressure.
17:50Think about how quickly Harmi Dillon, who Glenn just talked about, came out and said that they weren't going to
17:56investigate the shooting of Renee Good immediately.
17:58And think about what the reversal has been from Todd Blanch.
18:03I, as a civil rights attorney, refuse to believe that that was not in some way, shape or form influenced
18:09by the degree of resistance and the amount of protests that we have seen across America to the actions of
18:16ICE in Minnesota.
18:17That's a great point, because here we are six days later.
18:20And for the last five days, they said they were not going to open that investigation.
18:23You believe it's because of the response?
18:25And a great deal, because the response hasn't just been to DHS and to ICE.
18:30The response has put pressure on congressional legislators.
18:33And they've had to actually say, I'm not OK with this. This is going too far.
18:37So that type of resistance has spread in such a way that the DOJ can't ignore it.
18:42So I'm not surprised. I am encouraged.
18:44And I do think it provides a roadmap and a model for people who are watching.
18:47Charles Coleman Jr., you brought it tonight.
18:50Thank you so much.
18:51Glenn Joyce, always great to have you.
18:53Thank you for getting us started. When we return, it is time for our nightcap.
18:57And they are here weighing in on the three big stories of the night and the big ones.
19:01And later, Fed Chair Jay Powell is not leaving his post until May.
19:05But the president has officially announced his pick to replace him.
19:09How it could reshape the world's most influential central bank.
19:12The 11th Hour just getting underway on a nightcap Friday night.
19:21We've got to stay on this story.
19:23Earlier today, Don Lemon was released by a federal judge after his first court appearance.
19:27And outside the L.A. courthouse, he vowed to fight the Trump administration's case against him.
19:32Watch.
19:35I've spent my entire career covering the news.
19:38I will not stop now.
19:41There is no more important time than right now, this very moment, for a free and independent media
19:48that shines a light on the truth and holds those in power accountable.
19:53Sometimes Don joins this nightcap, but not tonight.
19:57Tonight we are talking about him.
19:58So let's bring in the crew.
19:59Peabody and Emmy Award winning journalist Antonia Hilton is here.
20:02She's an MSNOW correspondent and co-host of The Weekend Prime Time.
20:06John Ralston joins us, CEO of the Nevada Independent and an MSNOW political analyst.
20:11And Anthony Fisher, columnist and senior editor here at MSNOW.
20:15John, you came from the farthest, so you get to go first.
20:18A U.S. judge also ordered the release of Georgia Fort, rejecting the government's attempt to keep this journalist detained.
20:25How chilling is all of this?
20:27Well, it's incredibly chilling, Stephanie, and you used the right word in the previous segment.
20:31This is an escalation.
20:32In fact, everything in Trump's second term is an escalation of what he did in his first, calling us fake
20:39news.
20:40I hate even saying that we're now to imprisoning journalists.
20:43The escalation, calling the 2020 election stolen, now going into Fulton County and taking ballots.
20:51Immigration, oh, I'm going to build a wall to sending these marauding thugs onto the streets of America.
20:57This is all of a piece, I think, Stephanie, of what is going on with Trump untethered in a second
21:04term.
21:05Antonia, this is your beat, right?
21:07You regularly report on immigration enforcement nationwide, on location, in these tense environments.
21:15What's your reaction?
21:16Yeah, this is my beat.
21:17And I have, at many times in my career, reported on people who are doing things that are illegal and
21:22expected to be safe and to have my constitutional rights respected in the process and the course of me doing
21:29that reporting.
21:29I had a number of reactions to this today, Steph.
21:32I mean, the first thing when I woke up was I really actually wasn't surprised.
21:37I think a lot of people saw this coming.
21:38In fact, Todd Blanche and others had kind of been signaling this on Fox News and in other hits that,
21:44you know, Don Lemon basically needed to watch out here.
21:47And then there was kind of a deep sadness that came over to me.
21:50I do not believe it is a coincidence that the two journalists who were arrested are both black journalists, both
21:56independent journalists, at a time when so many journalists need to become independent, need to strike out on their own.
22:05So much of the industry is dealing with precarity and uncertainty and at times layoffs coming around the corner.
22:11I think this was not just a shot at these two people, but at sort of the industry broadly and
22:17many of the journalists trying to cover sensitive communities, marginalized communities in it.
22:22And then later, I actually laughed when the indictment came out because there were parts of it that were just
22:26truly so funny to me.
22:27And Glenn, in your last segment, touched on a lot of this.
22:30You know, they really tried to make Don Lemon out to seem incredibly menacing in the course of walking around
22:37with what looked like.
22:37Don Lemon's many, many things.
22:39He's not menacing.
22:39Not exactly menacing.
22:41And I love going around with a little microphone, I guess, frightening people by asking them questions.
22:47I watched a lot of that live stream that day.
22:50And then later, he repeatedly is speaking to people on both sides of the issue, by the way, explaining to
22:56people who he encounters that I'm a journalist.
22:58I'm not part of this protest.
22:59I'm here to ask questions.
23:00I'm trying to understand.
23:01I mean, that's what journalists do at rowdy protests, at all kinds of clashes and incidents, both domestically and abroad.
23:09So, you know, this whole thing is outrageous.
23:12I think it's sent a chill down the spine about every journalist in the country, even journalists who maybe aren't
23:17big fans of Don Lemon, aren't friends with him.
23:19They, I think, see what this move is.
23:21And meanwhile, Pam Bondi is taking full credit for these arrests, saying they happened at her direction.
23:26Yeah, I mean, this is a top-down thing.
23:29And it's, you know, we're speaking about, you know, the threats to journalists.
23:32And obviously, Don Lemon, Georgia Fort, they're, you know, in the crosshairs of the administration.
23:37But I also, when I cut my teeth as a journalist, I was covering criminal justice issues.
23:43I was covering rowdy protests.
23:45I was covering police abuses.
23:47And the people that I think are truly heroic right now, not just the journalists that are putting themselves on
23:52the line there, but just the people.
23:54People holding their phones in Minneapolis and in other places.
23:58Because Alex Petty was holding a phone, you know, like, these are people that are watching the watchers.
24:03They're making sure that there is a record for history of what's happening right now.
24:08Like, if this stopped tomorrow, this is all going to be in the history books.
24:11And it's great that there are people brave enough to put their lives on the line because they actually now
24:17know that they can be killed by agents of the state and that the state will then try to demonize
24:22them after the fact.
24:23And what they're recording couldn't be more.
24:25We have watched this week the administration lie to us about what happened.
24:30Imagine if there wasn't the video, what they'd be saying.
24:33Let's talk about these Epstein files, though, because three million pages released and Todd Blanche looked out at everybody and
24:39said, and there's three million more and you ain't never getting them.
24:42Does this White House think we're all going to be OK with that?
24:45And forget us.
24:46They're happy to demonize the press.
24:48The victims, right?
24:49A hundred women were on the Hill, what was it, three months ago, saying it doesn't matter who we voted
24:54for.
24:55We deserve this.
24:56They're not going away.
24:57Stephanie, I think present company accepted.
25:01Journalists can be obnoxious jerks.
25:02People don't necessarily always love us.
25:05So you said in the previous segment, keep your eye on the ball.
25:08The Epstein survivors and people who are sympathetic to the Epstein survivors and the horror that they went through, this
25:16is going to continue to be a problem.
25:18And they broke the law.
25:19They were supposed to release these files a while ago.
25:21And now they're saying there's half of them they're not even going to release.
25:25Keeping your eye on the ball means Alex Petty and Renee Good and what they're doing in Minneapolis and the
25:31pictures that people will never forget.
25:33I feel terrible for Don Lemon.
25:36It doesn't even matter, as you said, whether you like Don Lemon.
25:39It is chilling for journalists.
25:41But we've got to keep our eye on the ball, too.
25:44It's not about us.
25:45It's not about what's happening to us.
25:47It's what's happening to these women on the streets of America.
25:51Okay.
25:51And so some of these victims today, in being asked about the release of these pages, said it was outrageous
25:58and insulting.
25:59That, yet again, we only get three million pages and it was all supposed to be to protect their identity.
26:06Some of their names were out there, their licenses.
26:08Meanwhile, these men, all of their identities were protected.
26:12Not all of them, many of them.
26:14Yes, Steph.
26:14I mean, I think that says a lot.
26:17Some would say that says it all.
26:19And you know what?
26:20These survivors, we've spoken to many of them.
26:22They often come on our network, talk to us and our colleagues.
26:25They have been counted out and cast aside for decades.
26:29And so if someone thinks that, you know, they're going to give up now, they are very sorely mistaken.
26:36There are, of course, they have a lot of legal support now.
26:39They have just a lot of electoral and communal support across the country.
26:45And so I am sure they are looking at their legal options now for how they can pressure the federal
26:50government to do more for them.
26:52Because they actually have the law on their side.
26:54They do.
26:55There are also a ton of new allegations, some of them so sordid, can't really describe them on air here.
27:00None of them verified.
27:01They're just submitted by people who claim that they were victimized by the president and others.
27:07But we do not know at this time if the federal government has even investigated them.
27:11And so I think there are a number of questions that reporters are going to continue to pressure this DOJ,
27:16this administration and their allies on more broadly.
27:19This story is not giving up.
27:21And if someone is trying to make the calculation that by November, because we've done this and we said this
27:25is all you're going to get, that people are going to forget and move on.
27:28And there can be another outrage cycle or some other scandal or major protest activated in another state.
27:35It is not going to make this story go away.
27:37They are going to miscalculate on that.
27:39Bulwark founder Sarah Longwell put out a social media post that I think sort of encapsulated the day and the
27:46week.
27:46And she said the situation in Minnesota is so bad that they would rather talk about Epstein.
27:53Yeah.
27:53Right.
27:54Isn't that extraordinary?
27:55It is.
27:56And and this seems to be a case of buying time.
27:59Like it's like, oh, here's millions of documents for you to sort through.
28:02A lot of it will be impossible to sort through.
28:04And we're going to keep millions more that you can never see.
28:07What I would like to know is if Thomas Massey and the other Republicans that kind of formed that critical
28:12mass that said you will release these documents, the ones that actually forced the law to be put into effect,
28:18if they're going to actually stand up for themselves right now.
28:20I'm going to tell you, Thomas Massey.
28:22Yes.
28:22But we've already heard from Lauren Boebert.
28:24She already did her work.
28:25She's done doing that.
28:27Nobody's going anywhere.
28:28When we come back, the Senate passes a deal to fund most of the government and negotiate restrictions on ice
28:34as protesters across the country are calling for an end to this immigration crackdown.
28:39Keep it here.
28:40The nightcap has a lot more to cover.
28:46Deja vu all over again.
28:48Welcome to our federal government.
28:50We are just minutes away from a partial government shutdown.
28:53But do not worry.
28:54It is not going to last as long as the last one.
28:56Tonight, the Senate passed five out of six funding bills and the House plans to take them up late Monday.
29:02President Trump is backing the deal to fund much of the government, excluding the Department of Homeland Security through September.
29:09DHS will be funded for two weeks while lawmakers are negotiating that bill.
29:14Good luck.
29:14The agency has obviously become a flashpoint amid outrage over the immigration crackdown in Minnesota and the killing of two
29:21U.S. citizens.
29:22Today, thousands of people were out in the streets in Minneapolis to oppose federal enforcement actions there.
29:28And a massive protest took place across the country with more demonstrations planned this weekend.
29:32The nightcap is still here.
29:34OK, Anthony, did Democrats kind of salvage a win here by sort of separating the DHS funding?
29:40I mean, temporarily, maybe.
29:43I mean, this is not going to like it.
29:44Like what is this really solved?
29:46You know, like I mean, if I even saw, you know, the I believe it was the police chief of
29:52Los Angeles saying that we if there's any rule that says that ICE agents, DHS agents cannot wear masks, we
30:01won't enforce it.
30:02But so really, what was what what leverage did the Democrats actually, you know, what did they pull off here?
30:08OK, but but we you know, Nevada Senator, your home state, Senator Cortez Masto has been outspoken in the past
30:16not to use opening and shutting the government as leverage.
30:20But she said she would vote against the bill if it included DHS funding.
30:24What does that tell you about where Democrats are or responding to their constituents looking at them out in the
30:30streets?
30:31Well, Cortez Masto is pretty ambitious, first of all.
30:34And she got a lot of blowback when she voted against the shutdown.
30:37And so I think that's affecting her and her colleague, Jackie Rosen, has also been very, very outspoken, even more
30:44so than I've ever seen her in her career.
30:46She hasn't been in Congress for that long.
30:48She was first elected in 28, 2018 to the Senate.
30:51So, Stephanie, I think that there's they're feeling a lot of pressure.
30:56And as you mentioned, there is a lot of sentiment in Nevada because of the population makeup of Nevada.
31:03And I think Cortez Masto, who is Hispanic and had gotten a lot of blowback, I think, in Las Vegas
31:09because of what's happened in Minneapolis and because of her vote before.
31:13Now, most people don't know the ins and outs of shutdowns and they don't care that much about that.
31:17But they do know ICE is funded by DHS.
31:20Does it surprise you that you're not seeing these big ICE raids in Nevada, given how many immigrant workers you
31:27have, how big hospitality is there?
31:29Don't give them any ideas, Stephanie.
31:31But the bottom line is, I think, because Joe Lombardo was a Republican governor and has tried to, you know,
31:38placate Trump, suck up to Trump at times.
31:42And he's in a tough reelection, potentially, because of Trump mostly and the Nevada economy not doing so great.
31:49I think that they've stayed out of Nevada.
31:51But if Las Vegas does have a Democratic mayor and a very formerly very partisan member of Congress, Shelley Berkeley,
32:00and, you know, it's a nonpartisan job.
32:03But I think if Lombardo weren't there, I think ICE would already be in Vegas.
32:07OK, then again, doesn't this show, right, when you've got a state like Nevada, when you have a state like
32:12Iowa, where there's all the meat processing plants and you're not seeing ICE raids.
32:16Florida, Texas certainly has way more illegal immigrants than Minnesota does.
32:21Does that not just show that this is hyperpolitical and it is not about a massive immigration crackdown?
32:27It is hyperpolitical.
32:28I mean, we knew that from the choice to target Minnesota in this way, because Minnesota has actually a relatively
32:35small population of undocumented people.
32:37And the Somali community there that has they were sort of the beginning pretext for this whole thing.
32:42Ninety percent of them have legal status or citizenship.
32:45So this idea that they were a community where, you know, it made sense to send federal agents, thousands of
32:52them there to harass people of that particular background, never made sense to journalists, to longtime residents, organizers on the
33:00ground.
33:00But the truth is, this kind of political decision making around immigration has been around for a long time.
33:05I spent the early part of my career during the first Trump administration covering immigration, and I was I spent
33:10a lot of my time in Texas and the rumor.
33:13And it wasn't really a rumor. It was just sort of what everybody knew about the way the state functioned
33:17there was that a lot of powerful businessmen, people in construction, agriculture in Texas had relationships with the White House.
33:23And we're kind of like, hey, please leave us alone. Pick somewhere else to do your raids.
33:28Pick somewhere else to do. I mean, we're happy for you to do your your photo op at the border
33:33and in front of the wall.
33:34But please stay away from, you know, our construction sites. That was a known thing and that it was sort
33:40of flowing through Abbott all the way up to the federal government.
33:43And so this has been going on for a while now, Steph. Minnesota is sort of the the escalation, though,
33:49of a pattern and sort of behind the scenes reality that reporters have known and tried to cover for a
33:55really long time.
33:55And people from that state are saying we're not going to take it. I want to play what Deputy Attorney
34:00General Todd Blanche said today about the civil rights probe into Alex Petty's death today,
34:05because this is an absolutely new development that Charles Coleman just said a few minutes ago.
34:11It's extraordinary because this is coming on the heels of public pressure. Watch this.
34:16I don't want the takeaway to be that there's some massive civil rights investigation that's that's happening.
34:22This is what I would describe as a standard investigation by the FBI when when there's circumstances like what we
34:30saw last Saturday and that that investigation to the extent it needs to involve lawyers at the civil rights division
34:39that will it will involve those.
34:41It would have been standard if they would have done it and announced it last Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
34:48Thursday.
34:49What's not standard is that they're now doing it now.
34:51Yeah, I mean, you can see he can barely get the words out of his mouth. He's so his heart's
34:55so not into it.
34:56But like they initially said, yes, there will be no investigation. And this and it's just completely outrageous.
35:02I mean, even, you know, Trump ally like Rand Paul said this is outrageous.
35:06Like when there's a shooting like this, there should be an independent investigation.
35:09There should be some kind of process where we examine the facts here.
35:14But immediately what we were told was, no, we're going to close the books.
35:17There's no reason to investigate here. And yes, after a certain amount of outrage, now they're at least going to
35:22say, well, there'll be a cursory investigation.
35:24It's no big deal. It's just the FBI. They're not even really clear about why they've changed their minds.
35:29There was something about like, oh, well, there was a gun involved.
35:31So I guess the is Alex Prady's gun civil rights involved here.
35:36But like you said, there's there's there's no real passion behind it.
35:40It's just like, all right, we've got to do this. We took a lot of guff. All right, fine.
35:44But look what happened. Look at look at that. Look at how this has progressed.
35:47Right afterwards, you have he's a domestic terrorist. He's an assassin.
35:51The president said that today. He's an agitator.
35:53But that's what I'm saying is. And then there's a tremendous blowback.
35:56And suddenly Trump is putting out, oh, I had a great call with the governor.
35:59And then I had a great call with the mayor. And we're going to fix this.
36:03And then the video comes out of Prady previously getting into a confrontation.
36:08And suddenly Trump is putting out his stock is going down. He's an insurrectionist.
36:13And tonight he's putting out that Christine Ome is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
36:18Except you didn't let her say one single word in the cabinet meeting yesterday.
36:21Before we go to break, MSNOW is reporting that Ohio could be the next target.
36:26They have a huge Haitian community there.
36:28That comes from our colleagues, Mark Santia and Laura Barron-Lopez.
36:32And this is something that we've heard was likely coming down the pike for a moment.
36:37You know, this is a big deal and a major threat for the community there.
36:41First, there's about 12,000 to 15,000 Haitians who live in the Springfield area just alone.
36:46Legally.
36:47Yes. And they've been there with protected status.
36:50And this protected status goes back to the major earthquake years ago.
36:55It's been renewed and sort of re-protected time and time again under different administrations.
36:59And the logic for the cancellation of their protected status, TPS, really falls apart quite quickly when you just give
37:09it a quick glance.
37:10So the administration, on the one hand, over the summer, Kristi Noem and others started making remarks to the effect
37:14that things have improved enough in Haiti that it's time basically for you all to go back.
37:19She hasn't been to Haiti lately.
37:20She hasn't been to Haiti lately.
37:21And actually, many Americans haven't been to Haiti lately because if you do, the State Department will tell you that
37:26is not a good idea and it is not safe for you to go there.
37:29And in fact, there are roving gangs all over the place that have basically taken over the country.
37:32We have colleagues who have traveled there and to the border with the Dominican Republic, and they have covered exactly
37:37that.
37:37And so, you know, many experts believe that this is basically a death sentence for many of the people who
37:43live in that community and, of course, around the country.
37:46And so Springfield being the next epicenter of this, I mean, it's incredibly heartbreaking.
37:51I think we're going to see heartbreaking circumstances domestically and then heartbreaking stories that happen after the fact if, indeed,
37:56those people are sent back.
37:58All right. We're going to take a quick break.
37:59When we return, Fed Chair Jerome Powell faced a barrage of attacks from Trump for not cutting rates when the
38:05president wanted him to.
38:06So will the president's new pick for the job resist the president's pressure or is he on board from the
38:12get-go?
38:13Kevin Worsh right there. We're going to get into it next.
38:22Tonight, big news in money power politics.
38:24There's officially a new Fed Chair in town.
38:27Well, a nominee at least earlier today, President Trump, announced that he picked Kevin Worsh to lead the Federal Reserve
38:32when Jerome Powell's term as chair expires in May.
38:35OK, the nightcap is still here. OK, Anthony, Kevin Worsh is extraordinarily qualified for the job.
38:41I can tell you he is one of the smartest people when it comes to finance markets I have ever
38:45met.
38:46He wanted the job back in 2017. Trump gave it to Jay Powell.
38:50He has been aggressively auditioning, campaigning for the last year and a half.
38:56As excited as the business community is because they think he'll be independent, can he be?
39:01I mean, he can be. If he is, he will take a lot of guff for it.
39:06Like, Powell hasn't had the best time being independent, even though...
39:09You would never think Trump picked him.
39:11Exactly. But Trump did pick him.
39:13And it's been, you know, he's had, he's been paying for it ever since and to this day.
39:16So I don't know. If the new guy, you know, thinks that he can, you know, please the boss while
39:21also being his own person in the job, what power to him?
39:25But here's the thing. We keep talking about the importance of the independence of the Federal Reserve.
39:31Trump doesn't want them to be independent.
39:34Trump is most likely going to look at Kevin Worsh in this job like another cabinet position.
39:39Yeah, well, that is exactly the kind of pressure he was just exerting on Powell.
39:43And I mean, look, I'm a journalist who gets to interview economists.
39:48My credentials are one introductory econ course in college.
39:52And after that, I was I was set.
39:55But my understanding is that to allow your central bank to be politicized in the way in which this administration,
40:03this president seems intent on undoing, would put us in sort of the company of places like Turkey.
40:10Turkey. Yeah.
40:11And while he may have some short term sort of mirage wins, you know,
40:17low interest rates that make some young people who are desperate to buy homes excited for a moment.
40:23My understanding from all the smart people that I get to talk to is that we will be looking at
40:28like a crazy boom bust cycle and horrible inflation after the fact.
40:32Well, we could. Now, it's very likely that that Kevin Worsh will get confirmed.
40:38We've heard that from I've heard that from a number of Democrats all day.
40:40But Tom Tillis has said he's going to block this nomination until unless they get rid of this criminal investigation
40:47into the Fed chair.
40:49What does that tell you? Well, it tells you that Tom Tillis thinks he has nothing to lose now.
40:52Right. Yeah. And Trump is attacking him, of course.
40:56But, you know, this, I guess, you know, I know a little bit about economics and a little bit about
41:01history.
41:01Isn't this just exactly what Alexander Hamilton had in mind, Stephanie, when he erected the banking system?
41:07Not exactly. Not exactly. Not exactly.
41:09But I mean, Tillis is really just has nothing to lose. He's going to keep doing what he's doing.
41:14You know, it's funny. I was about to say today, well, just look at Kevin Worsh.
41:17Like he looks the part. Trump likes anybody that looks the part.
41:20And I thought it was too petty to say. And then Trump actually wrote it.
41:23When we come back from Kate McAllister in Home Alone to Moira Rose in Schitt's Creek,
41:31Catherine O'Hara became the mother for a generation and a hilarious one at that.
41:36We remember a legend of comedy right after the break.
41:48The last thing before we go tonight, remembering one of my favorites, the great Catherine O'Hara,
41:54the Emmy-winning comedy genius.
41:57She sadly passed away this morning following a brief illness.
42:00O'Hara gave us over 50 years of insanely funny and touching performances,
42:05from her early sketches on SCTV to scene-stealing rules in one of my favorites,
42:10Best in Show, Beetlejuice and, of course, Home Alone,
42:13and everybody's favorite in the last decade where she was Moira Rose on Schitt's Creek.
42:17This woman had her own extraordinary style.
42:20My personal favorite and all-time favorite movie,
42:24her take on community theater star Sheila Albertson in Waiting for Guffman.
42:30Ding dong.
42:32Oh, I wonder who knows I'm vacationing here at the Oasis.
42:38Am I late?
42:39You!
42:40Surprised?
42:41How did you find me?
42:43I have my ways.
42:44Would you like to come in for coffee?
42:47You don't need to answer.
42:51There's no need to speak.
42:55I'll be your belly dancer, prancer.
43:01And I will be your she.
43:05Never in my life did I think I would have the opportunity to air a clip from Waiting for Guffman
43:10on my show.
43:11And I'm happy to get to do it, but sad under these circumstances.
43:15Catherine O'Hara was 71 years old.
43:17We thank her for all of the laughter.
43:19This extraordinary woman will certainly be missed.
43:23All right, gang.
43:25Thank you for being here tonight.
43:27On that note, we wish you all a very good night from all of us here at the network.
43:31Thanks for staying up late.
43:32I'll see you at the end of Monday.
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