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00:01That does it for me tonight on quite a news day. Thanks for being with us. The last word with
00:05Lawrence O'Donnell starts right now. Hey, Lawrence. Hey, Jen. We have Ali Velshi, who's
00:10got the results from Georgia, and we're going to go straight to him. Great. I look forward to
00:15watching. And Ali, what do we have? Yeah, let's talk. We've got pretty much all the vote in in
00:20Georgia District 14. This is Marjorie Taylor Greene's district that she stepped out of.
00:24So this is the race to replace her for the duration of this year. There will be a normal
00:28primary for this district in May. But right now, with 99 percent of the vote in, the biggest vote
00:34getter right now is the Democratic candidate, the former Brigadier General, retired Brigadier General
00:38Sean Harris, who ran against Marjorie Taylor Greene last time. He's outperforming his own
00:43performance against her. But this is Georgia. Like most southern states, you have to get 50 percent
00:48or more to win. So Sean Harris advances with Clayton Fuller to the runoff, which will be on
00:53April the 7th. Here's the interesting thing. Clayton Fuller was endorsed by Donald Trump,
00:57but Colton Moore, who is the third place candidate today, is not inventing the runoff.
01:03He's sort of the Trumpier of the candidates. But you're seeing an outperformance by Sean Harris
01:07against his own numbers with Marjorie Taylor Greene the last time around. He was at about 35 and a half
01:14percent. He's at 37 and a half almost. But there are two other Democratic candidates in this race.
01:19So when you add their totals up there at about a percent each, that takes him almost to 40 percent.
01:23So now he's at 40 percent versus the collection of Republicans at 60 percent. So again, this is an
01:28improvement over what Democrats have done in this very, very Republican county. I just want to show
01:34you where this is in Georgia. It's the top left corner, the most northwestern part of Georgia. It's
01:39also the most Republican part of Georgia. It's mostly rural. It's got Rome in it. It does have a bit
01:46of
01:46the Atlanta suburbs. It's got a little bit of Cobb County over here. These are all, as you know,
01:50fairly blue districts. But it's got a little bit of Cobb County in here where Sean Harris has done
01:55very well. This was where he won last time as well. So all in all, it is an overperformance
02:00by Sean Harris over his own Democratic performance versus Marjorie Taylor Greene
02:05in the last election. These two will go to a runoff on April the 7th, Lawrence.
02:09So, Ali, not a good night for Donald Trump. There's nothing in these results tonight
02:14from which Donald Trump can take encouragement.
02:17That is correct. He has not overperformed versus his own performance in this county, in this district
02:23in the last election. So this is once again, again, it's a very, very, very conservative
02:29district, generally speaking. The Democrats have an advantage in Sean Harris. You'll remember at one
02:34point Marjorie Taylor Greene didn't even have an opponent. Sean Harris has worked really hard in this
02:39district, and he's a former brigadier general. He sort of speaks the language of rural Georgians.
02:45So he's doing well. He's building on his own momentum. Again, the betting markets wouldn't
02:50tell you that he's likely to become the next representative from Georgia 14. But if you look
02:55at the example of special elections across the country where Democrats have been winning by more
02:59or losing by less, this is a perfect example, not just of losing by less, but in this particular case
03:05tonight, he's the biggest vote getter in the most conservative district in one of the most conservative
03:10districts in Georgia. Ali Belchi, thank you. My pleasure. Thank you. And now we turn to one of
03:16the things on the minds of those voters today. Donald Trump's war. They don't know what they're
03:25talking about. They started a war of choice, Donald Trump's choice. And now they, in every important
03:32sense, do not know what they are talking about. Donald Trump and everyone working for him in Washington
03:37on his war continue to demonstrate every day that they are completely lost. And if they don't know
03:45what they are talking about, that means they don't know what they are doing.
03:50They don't know what they are doing in Donald Trump's war. The competition for stupidest things said
03:57today about Donald Trump's war was won by the guy who is tied with Donald Trump's son-in-law,
04:03Jared Kushner, for the title of most ridiculous person ever chosen by a president to negotiate
04:09peace in the Middle East. 68-year-old Steve Witkoff is a real estate developer in real life
04:17who would not have been chosen by any president of the United States to do anything anywhere
04:24until Donald Trump decided to send him into negotiations, not just in the Middle East,
04:28but also in Moscow with Vladimir Putin. Steve Witkoff obviously knew nothing about the Middle East
04:35or Vladimir Putin when Donald Trump chose him. And now that he's met Vladimir Putin,
04:39he still knows nothing about Vladimir Putin as he demonstrated so embarrassingly today when Carl
04:49Quintanilla at CNBC asked him why Donald Trump decided to allow Vladimir Putin to take full
04:57advantage of the explosive increase in the price of oil and profit off of that new price,
05:05a new price created by Donald Trump's war. Do we think that the Russians have shared
05:14intelligence about the location of U.S. military assets? And if they have,
05:19why would we be giving waivers on Russian oil sanctions?
05:25Well, I'm not an intel officer, so I can't tell you. I can tell you that yesterday on the call
05:31with
05:32the president, uh, the Russians said that they have not been sharing. That's, that's what they said.
05:36So, you know, uh, we can, we can take them at their word, but they did say that.
05:43We can take them at their word. He said that. Donald Trump's clown of the day, Steve Witkoff,
05:52says we can take Vladimir Putin's word for it that Russia has not been helping Iran target attacks
05:59on American military personnel. That is the single worst thing Vladimir Putin could possibly be doing
06:06to the United States in this war. And Vladimir Putin knows it. And Vladimir Putin also knows that
06:12Donald Trump has always behaved like Vladimir Putin's trained puppy around the Russian dictator.
06:18Vladimir Putin knows that he has lied to Donald Trump, to his face, and Donald Trump has then
06:24gone out to a microphone to tell the world, I believe Vladimir Putin. After credible reporting
06:31by MSNOW, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, that Vladimir Putin was helping Iran target
06:37the American military, which led to the deaths of seven American soldiers and injuring 140 American
06:44soldiers, all Vladimir Putin had to do was tell Donald Trump on the phone yesterday that he didn't do it.
06:51Donald Trump might not actually be so stupid as to actually believe Vladimir Putin, but it doesn't
07:01matter because Donald Trump is deeply perverse enough to publicly claim to believe Vladimir Putin.
07:09And so is Steve Witkoff. Donald Trump's breathtakingly incompetent real estate developer buddy Steve
07:17Witkoff does appear to actually be stupid enough to believe Vladimir Putin and to say on television
07:24that he believes Vladimir Putin. They have no idea what they're talking about. None of them do.
07:32Least of all Donald Trump, who began his war calling for the, quote, unconditional surrender, end quote, of Iran.
07:40And a day later said, we've already won. Exclamation point. And now three days after that, three days
07:48after saying we've already won, no one working for him has any idea if we have won yet.
07:57From the beginning, from this podium, we haven't stated how long it will take. Our will is endless.
08:02Ultimately, the president gets to determine, uh, the end state of those objectives. It's not for me to
08:08deposit, whether it's the beginning, the middle, or the end.
08:12He has no idea. He has no idea what he's talking about. The only defense secretary in history who had
08:18to promise to stop drinking to get confirmed by a Republican Senate has no idea what he is doing.
08:25He has no idea whether it's the beginning, the middle, or the end. That same secretary of defense
08:30brought that same ignorance to the United States Senate today in a closed door briefing about Donald Trump's war.
08:39I emerged from this briefing as dissatisfied and angry, frankly, as I have from any
08:50past briefing in my 15 years in the Senate. I am
08:56left with more questions than answers, especially about the cost of the war.
09:04And of course, the question of is this the beginning, the middle, or the end? After the
09:12ignorance-filled briefing with Donald Trump's secretary of defense and Donald Trump's secretary
09:16of state, both of whom have repeatedly been caught in public lies since the beginning of their service
09:22in those jobs, Senator Elizabeth Warren said this.
09:26It is still the case that the Trump administration cannot explain the reasons that we entered this war,
09:34the goals we're trying to accomplish, and the methods for doing that. The one part that seems clear
09:41is that while there is no money for 15 million Americans who lost their health care,
09:46there's a billion dollars a day to spend on bombing Iran.
09:53Yesterday, Donald Trump tried to tell the world the absurd lie that the Tomahawk missile, the American
09:59Tomahawk missile that hit a girls' school killing 175 people, most of whom were the students at the
10:06school, was fired at the school by Iran, to which our first guest tonight, the former Navy combat pilot
10:13and former astronaut Senator Mark Kelly said, Trump has no idea what he's talking about. No, the Iranians
10:19don't have Tomahawk missiles. Dozens of children are dead. And the investigation into how this happened
10:24needs to be fast and transparent. That's how we keep this from happening again. We don't need
10:29these deflections from the president or Hegseth running his mouth about, quote, stupid rules of engagement.
10:38That was Pete Hegseth's phrase about this war. He said there are no stupid rules of engagement, meaning no
10:46rules of engagement, meaning we can fire Tomahawk missiles at girls' schools if we want to.
10:53One Republican has shown that he knows how to talk about the innocent casualties of war.
11:00Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said this about the Tomahawk missile attack on the
11:07girls' school, quote, it was terrible. We made a mistake. Other countries do that sort of thing
11:12intentionally, like Russia. We would never do that intentionally. I think the department is
11:17investigating it now, and I'm sorry. I'm just so sorry it happened. It was a mistake.
11:23Donald Trump's press secretary continued her mindless and relentless campaign to insult
11:29America's intelligence today. She actually said, quote, the president is not making anything up, Nancy.
11:38Donald Trump makes things up every day about drapes and ballrooms and Tomahawk missiles
11:45and the price of gas and the price of everything and girls killed at a girl's school in Iran
11:52and the lie that Americans don't pay his tariffs. Making stuff up is what Donald Trump does.
11:59That's why Nancy Cordes of CBS asked Donald Trump's press secretary today, quote,
12:04quote, so is he making this up to justify his decision to go to war now? To which Donald Trump's
12:12press
12:12secretary said the president is not making anything up, Nancy. If Donald Trump is speaking, he is making
12:21something up. And making it up is the charitable way to describe Donald Trump's pathological lying.
12:28Donald Trump's press secretary has the same job that Steve Early had. But Steve Early never lied.
12:36She lies every day, every day, like every Trump press secretary before her.
12:43Steve Early created the modern version of White House press secretary when he went to work
12:48for the newly elected President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. He served in that position for President
12:55Roosevelt every day of World War Two. It was actually Steve Early who gave American news media
13:01confirmation on December 7th, 1941 that Pearl Harbor was attacked that morning by the Japanese military
13:08and the United States was drawn into World War Two. The next day in a five minute speech to Congress,
13:15President Roosevelt asked for a declaration of war against Japan, which Congress passed immediately.
13:21Days later, after Japan's ally Germany declared war in the United States, the president asked for a
13:27second declaration of war against Germany, which the Congress passed immediately. A little over a year
13:33after that, before the United States had made any significant progress in World War Two, President
13:40Roosevelt announced that the only terms he would accept to end the war at a time when there was no
13:47end in
13:47sight and no real progress in sight for the American military, the only terms the President of the
13:54United States would accept was unconditional surrender. His words, unconditional surrender.
14:00And at that point, the world knew exactly how the war was going to end. It was going to end
14:06in
14:06unconditional surrender because the President of the United States said so. No one knew when it would end.
14:12President Roosevelt didn't know when it would end. He didn't know how many years it would take,
14:15but everyone knew what it was going to look like. There would be a signing ceremony. A German
14:21official would sign a formal act of surrender. A Japanese official would sign a formal act of
14:25surrender. And today, four days after Donald Trump called for unconditional surrender,
14:31his White House press secretary confessed that she has no idea what that means.
14:39It goes back to what is that unconditional surrender look like. She doesn't know what it looks like.
14:47Germany was the first to sign the surrender document written by the United States and dictated to Germany.
14:55Germany. Signed by the Supreme Commander of Allied forces in Europe, Dwight D. Eisenhower, he dictated it. He wrote it.
15:06He went on to become President Eisenhower. Three months later, this is what unconditional
15:14surrender looked like in Tokyo Bay. On the American Navy ship, the USS Missouri with the Japanese general signing the
15:21act of surrender in which the Japanese were not allowed to negotiate a single word,
15:27just like the Germans before them. That's what unconditional surrender means. That is what
15:33unconditional surrender looks like. Donald Trump's press secretary doesn't know what unconditional
15:39surrender looks like, and she doesn't know what war looks like. Steve Early understood both of those things.
15:46Steve Early won a silver star for bravery in combat in World War I before becoming the White House press
15:52secretary, who abolished the custom of reporters being forced to put their questions to the president
15:59in writing and thereby created what is now the modern version of a presidential press conference. Steve Early
16:07opened the door of the Oval Office to let the reporters pour in, usually a couple of times a week,
16:14and Franklin Delano Roosevelt took their questions without hesitation and without favoritism.
16:20FDR held more presidential press conferences than any other president in history, and he always knew
16:26what he was talking about. And if he was asked a question about an obscure subject that he didn't know
16:31about, he would simply admit that, admit that he didn't know, and Steve Early would get an answer to that
16:38question later for that reporter. Americans knew they could have faith in their president's leadership
16:44during World War II. And Americans knew they could take him at his word. And now Americans know,
16:52and White House reporters know, the president makes stuff up, and he and everyone around him don't know
16:59what they're talking about. The only thing, the only thing that Americans know, as the missiles keep
17:07flying and people keep dying, is that we cannot ever take Donald Trump at his word.
17:18Hitting off our discussion tonight is former Navy pilot, former astronaut Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona.
17:23He's a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee.
17:28Senator Kelly, have you been able to make any more sense than any of your Senate colleagues about what this
17:35war is about tonight?
17:38Well, Lawrence, thank you for having me on. Not yet. You know, I've been keeping a running list of about,
17:44uh, up to about 12 reasons why we are in this conflict. I haven't heard the president give any kind
17:50of an
17:50explanation, uh, for how this is good for the American people. I mean, folks are having a hard
17:56time affording, you know, gas is, uh, obviously going up and we'll probably continue to do that.
18:01But rent and groceries, you know, how does this benefit everyday Americans? We've got no explanation.
18:09Uh, and Donald Trump was just telling people, uh, you won't even have to be patient. Uh, the gas prices
18:16will be coming down, uh, very, very quickly, which I guess in his mind must be, you know, sometime this
18:22week.
18:25Right. I hope that's the case. It doesn't look that way. Uh, the Straits of Hormuz now have,
18:31it's publicly reported, have some sea mines there. That's going to be, uh, extra discouraging for
18:38ships to pass through there. 20% of the world's crude oil goes through those straits. Um, I would
18:45expect gas prices to go up under the situation we're currently in. Hey, I don't think this president,
18:51uh, really anticipated well how this would go. He didn't have a strategic plan. He didn't even factor
18:57Russia into this entire calculation. You were talking about earlier how the Russians are going
19:02to benefit from this. And I can't imagine there was any thought to the war in Ukraine between Russia
19:08because, you know, we have a president that doesn't, uh, think strategically and he doesn't
19:15seem to know all that much. You know, the, this talk of unconditional surrender, I think you highlighted
19:21how ridiculous it is and sounds because it's a ridiculous statement for him to make and for his
19:28press secretary to echo. Uh, do you believe as Donald Trump's advisors believe, and apparently
19:36Donald Trump believes, uh, Vladimir Putin, when Vladimir Putin says we did not help Iran target
19:43the American military? Well, you got to assume the worst out of the Russians and I would never
19:51take them at their word. Uh, do not trust them in this situation. They're going to do
19:57what is in their best interest. And you have to assume, uh, helping the Iranians hurts us, uh, hurts,
20:06uh, the U S military, uh, and helps them and their ally Iran. So what Steve Wyckoff said about,
20:15you know, trust in the Russians, that's a, uh, again, that is, uh, a thing that makes, uh,
20:20no sense at all. And after Vladimir Putin's phone call with Donald Trump, uh, Vladimir Putin publicly,
20:28once again, proclaimed his absolute loyalty, uh, to the Iranian regime.
20:36Yeah. And that's not surprising. Um, and that is not in our best interest. You know,
20:43we are at war with Iran because this president chose the, you know, this war at this moment
20:49without having a strategic plan, without having a goal, without having a timeline. And I think we
20:55really run some serious risk of this escalating into some sort of ground war. Uh, the president's
21:02rationale for this shifts almost every single day. Uh, you know, I heard just earlier a couple
21:07days ago is now about oil. Uh, it's been about regime change. It's been about ballistic missiles.
21:12It's been about nuclear weapons. Um, but if he does decide to try to remove some of the uranium,
21:19this gets into a much more challenging conflict. Uh, is it, is it, is there any way to do that
21:27without actually sending troops into Iran? No, I mean, last summer he said, uh, after midnight
21:35hammer that the Iranian nuclear capability was obliterated and myself and others, uh, many others
21:44tried to correct him and say, well, it was damaged. It's not obliterated. That's very hard to do.
21:49Lawrence, I've got a lot of experience, you know, dropping weapons on things, building ships,
21:55ships, bridges, you know, tanks. Um, it's, it's hard, uh, to destroy things entirely with air power.
22:03Uh, I, I find it interesting that it's always the guy who wasn't in the military, who hasn't dropped
22:10a bomb, who hasn't tried to destroy a target that thinks he knows more than everybody else. Um,
22:16that capability wasn't obliterated. And for us to completely eliminate it now,
22:21it would take a ground force to do that. It would be a complicated operation. And I am very confident
22:30that the Iranian people would, would, well, the IRGC would fight against our troops on the ground.
22:37Um, I think it's also important to remember, Lawrence, that we're in this because Donald Trump
22:43ripped up a deal, the Iranian nuclear deal that was actually working pre-2018.
22:51Yeah, the, the, the idea that, uh, a president would rip up an agreement, uh, that Iran was complying
22:58with, all the evidence indicated they were complying with it, uh, over this very issue, and then go to
23:03war over the issue, uh, after personally ripping up the deal is something that history has never seen before.
23:11No, I mean, he put us in this situation. You know, he tore up the deal. It was his decision.
23:17They were not enriching uranium beyond the level that they were, uh, held to in the agreement.
23:24After that, they began to enrich uranium further and it's gone up and it's gone down. Uh, but now we're
23:30at the point where this new regime, you know, the son of the Supreme leader, the new Supreme leader
23:37is at some point going to make a decision if it's in the best interest of Iran to race,
23:41to get a nuclear weapon. And I am extremely worried about that. That is a real risk we face today.
23:49And how unstable is the region going to be if the Iranians, if this regime actually possess
23:55a nuclear weapon? So that's the risk here. And there's only one person that put us into this
24:02situation and he's the current occupant of the White House. Senator Mark Hilley,
24:08thank you very much for starting off our coverage tonight. Thanks for having me on.
24:14And coming up, our next guest became the first United States Senator in history to be
24:18tackled and detained by federal agents. His offense, trying to ask Kristi Noem a question.
24:25California Senator Alex Padilla joins us next.
24:34Carol Linnig and Ken Delaney's reporting for MS Now finds that about 300 FBI agents who worked mostly
24:42on national security matters have left the bureau since President Donald Trump began his second term,
24:48including 45 who were fired, according to an internal count by current and former FBI employees.
24:54Most of those agents, hunted terrorists and spies, and at least 50 of them were in leadership roles.
25:03Current and former officials say it's a talent drain without precedent in modern bureau history,
25:10and one that leaves the nation vulnerable amid heightened terrorism threats due to the Iran war.
25:18Our next guest, Senator Alex Padilla of California, was an early critic of
25:24Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Last June, Senator Padilla became the first
25:31United States senator in history to be tackled and detained by federal agents,
25:38forcibly removed from a press conference inside a safe federal building in Los Angeles for the offense of
25:51simply attempting to ask Kristi Noem a question about ICE operations in Los Angeles at that time.
25:59Joining us now is Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California. He's the top Democrat on the Senate
26:04Rules Committee and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Senate Budget Committee.
26:09Senator Padilla, thank you very much for joining us tonight. And remind us, what was the question that
26:16you wanted to ask of Secretary Noem that day with her invasion forces present in Los Angeles?
26:25Sir Lawrence, good to be back with you. And I guess it was a couple of things. Number one,
26:30what the straw that broke the camel's back was during that press conference when Secretary Noem,
26:37seemed to be former Secretary Noem, not for the first time, said that the mission of the Department
26:43of Homeland Security in Los Angeles was to liberate the people of Los Angeles and California from their
26:50duly elected mayor and governor. How un-American, number one. Number two,
26:55was trying to ask her to share data because we had been getting reports in my office of
27:02the people who had been targeted, the people who had been detained, the people who had been arrested
27:08from so many of my constituents claiming these are not the dangerous, violent criminals that this
27:13administration loves to talk so much about. There are people, including legal immigrants with work
27:19visas, even some citizens who had been detained. But yes, undocumented immigrants without violent
27:25criminal conviction history. They were hard workers. They're raising families. They're paying taxes.
27:30People who were deemed essential during the COVID pandemic and deserve to come out of the shadows.
27:35Not this type of abusive treatment from ICE and CBP and others. But as you saw in the video,
27:43before I could even get a question out, I was removed from that press conference. But we've
27:49learned over the course of the last nine months that everything we suspected has turned out to be
27:54true. And the enforcement activities that started in Los Angeles have only become more cruel,
28:01more violent as they spread across the country. We now have MSNOW's reporting from Carol Linnigan-Kandalinian,
28:07which would be normally the subject of an investigation in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
28:13But that probably will not happen unless and until the Democrats win the Senate and control that
28:19committee. 300 FBI agents worked mostly on national security matters, preventing terrorism attacks
28:27within the United States, all gone from the now Trump-controlled FBI. How vulnerable do you think that leads us?
28:36Look, that's a very valid concern that we had before this unauthorized war against Iran.
28:46But now with the various ways in which Iran and its allies could potentially try to
28:50hit the United States back, it's even a higher priority question. But it's par for the course
28:58with this administration. The lie to our face about the economy, right? The State of the Union,
29:02just a couple of weeks ago, Donald Trump claims the economy is strong when it's anything but. The
29:07cost of groceries is up. The cost of housing continues to go up. The cost of health care
29:11is spiking. You know, they're claiming our communities are safer, really, when the administration,
29:19including the Department of Justice, is so unprofessional and so misguided that career
29:25professionals are choosing to retire and choosing to leave and to follow this misdirected administration.
29:33That should tell you a whole lot. And so instead of the professional FBI agents, other staff at the
29:40Department of Justice focusing on things like drug trafficking, human trafficking, corruption and
29:48white collar crime, they're being redirected to, quote, immigration enforcement and really rounding up
29:57without judicial warrants people who are working working as essential workers in so many industries
30:03and are trying to keep our economy chugging along. The the Donald Trump has has also
30:12said that he wants to shut down the United States Senate until the Republicans in the Senate pass
30:19a voting law that would require people to bring birth certificates, require people to bring passports
30:28with them, people who don't have passports, people who can't find their birth certificates,
30:32in order to vote in this country. And other aspects of it include delivering all sorts of federal vote,
30:41all sorts of voting records to Donald Trump's government. Are the Republicans going to be able to get this
30:48through the Senate? Look, and here's where it all comes together, Lawrence. Their record, not just Trump,
30:56but the Republican majority that's been so complicit. Their record is so bad, not just unpopular,
31:03truly damaging to working families across the country. Their only hope to hold on to power this
31:09November is to to change the rules and the and rig the elections, if you will, before the ballot has
31:17the
31:17balloting has begun for the general election. This save act is anything but if it's anything,
31:22it's a save Trump's ass act with what their purpose is. It's not a voter ID bill. It's a voter
31:30suppression
31:30bill, number one. It would have the effect of making it harder for eligible people to register to vote,
31:36stay registered to vote, and to actually cast their ballot, to eliminate vote by mail,
31:41which is popular amongst both Democrats and Republicans. And by the way, they continue to
31:47say the quiet part out loud. Donald Trump speaking to the House Republican conference just yesterday
31:53or the day before, saying, pass this voter ID bill, and then we will win the November elections.
32:00That's their goal. That's their goal, to make sure that only the, quote, right people are voting,
32:06to elect, quote, the right leaders. We're not going to stand for it. I will die on the Hill
32:10to make sure it doesn't get out of the Senate. I don't think the votes are there.
32:14Number one, even if we do kill this bill in the Senate, which is my objective,
32:18I also anticipate Donald Trump trying to advance this through executive order,
32:23or a trumped-up state of emergency. We'll fight it every step of the way. Our voting rights are
32:29just too precious. Senator Alex Padilla, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
32:34Thank you, Lawrence. Coming up, Donald Trump's election interference
32:38campaign has arrived in Arizona with federal subpoenas. Arizona's Secretary of State
32:43will join us next.
32:48Donald Trump has taken his election interference conspiracy to Arizona. The New York Times reports
32:53the FBI has expanded its criminal investigation into purported irregularities in the 2020 presidential
32:59election, issuing a grand jury subpoena for reams of information about voting results in Maricopa County,
33:06Arizona. The subpoena was issued in recent days to the Arizona State Senate, which oversaw a sprawling
33:14but partisan audit of the vote result that was ordered by Senate Republicans in Maricopa County in the
33:22months after Donald J. Trump lost to Joseph R. Biden. Joining us now is Arizona Secretary of State
33:29Democrat. Adrian Fontes, thank you very much for joining us tonight. What is your reading of this
33:36subpoena and what it might be trying to find?
33:40Well, first, thanks for having me. Second, the subpoena is looking for all of the data that we
33:45actually thought the state Senate had turned back over to Maricopa County, and they should have
33:51after the quote-unquote audit was done. But as far as what they're looking for, frankly, Lawrence,
33:58it's a little disturbing. The Department of Justice has been demanding the personal identifying
34:02information from me on all of Arizona's voters. I refuse to give it up. They've sued me. I think
34:09this subpoena is an end around behind the judge's back. Unfortunately, I think they may be committing
34:16some misconduct here, trying to subvert the regular legal process, opening up a case just
34:24to investigate, quote-unquote, and then grabbing the data on the backside. And if they're doing that,
34:30and that's what our investigation, which we're going to be launching, finds, we've got a real problem.
34:37What methods do you have for investigating what Donald Trump is doing?
34:43Well, look, we can make petitions to the court, and we can try to figure out
34:48exactly how it is that these subpoenas were issued. Unfortunately, we don't have the sorts of tools
34:56that might be available to a regular investigating or law enforcement agency. But we've got a great
35:01attorney general here in the name of Chris Mays, who has sued Donald Trump and his administration,
35:07I think 37 times already, and she's going to keep on marching. So we are at the stage right now
35:13of
35:13trying to figure out exactly what our options are. And as we work with the attorney general's office,
35:19we will figure that out and execute appropriately to try to get to the bottom of this and protect
35:23Arizona's voters' sensitive information.
35:26Do you have a worst-case scenario of what Donald Trump's Justice Department could do with these records?
35:36Well, I think what they might try to do is what the Privacy Act of 1974 intends to prevent,
35:43and that is create blacklists, go after folks who are on these lists since they would have
35:51some of that personal identifying information. But I don't want to alarm anybody just yet,
35:55Lawrence. We don't know exactly what information was handed over to the FBI. I want to be
36:01reasonable here in our approach. We do not know exactly if the voter registration information in
36:08these files contains just the publicly available stuff, which is name and address, party affiliation,
36:13things of this nature, or if it has the more sensitive information that we are trying to protect,
36:19and that is mother's maiden names, for example, a whole or part of social security numbers,
36:24driver's license number, tribal ID numbers, that's sensitive stuff that we don't want to surrender.
36:28So we want to be really clear in our approach. We are going to operate within the law,
36:32and we're going to make sure to do everything in our power to continue to protect Arizona's voters.
36:39Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
36:43Thank you for having me.
36:45And coming up, Federal Judge Richard Eaton has given Donald Trump a deadline for refunding his illegal and
36:52unconstitutional tariffs. Our next guest, who brought the case to the Supreme Court that defeated Donald
36:57Trump's tariffs, is owed one of those refunds. That's next.
37:05On Friday, U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Richard Eaton ruled that Donald Trump must begin to
37:13refund tariffs the Supreme Court ruled illegal and unconstitutional. The Trump Justice Department
37:19told Judge Eaton, who is an expert on international trade, that U.S. Customs and Border Protection
37:26isn't able to immediately comply with his order to refund Trump's tariffs. CNBC reports that Judge Eaton
37:35said during a court hearing, customs knows how to do this. They do it every day. They liquidate entries
37:41and make refunds. Judge Eaton gave Donald Trump 45 days to set up an automated system to process the
37:50tariff refunds, saying, quote, these duties must now be refunded with interest and the clock is ticking.
37:58Further interest is accumulating every day, with approximately $650 million accruing per month.
38:07If the entries are not liquidated before the end of the year, it is further estimated that $10 billion
38:14of interest will have accrued. American taxpayers will bear this financial burden. Judge Eaton told
38:23Donald Trump and his lawyers to file a report describing their process to issue the refunds
38:31by this Thursday, just two days from now. And yesterday, two small businesses sued
38:37Donald Trump over his 10 percent tariff policy that he said he was going to implement immediately
38:44after the Supreme Court ruled that his other tariffs were illegal and unconstitutional. The co-founder
38:50of one of the companies said in a statement, quote, sudden global tariffs make it harder for us to
38:55operate, harder for our partners to sell their crops, and more expensive for American families.
39:01We joined this case because trade policy shouldn't be made by inventing an economic crisis. Joining us
39:07now is Rick Waldenberg, CEO of Learning Resources, which has been making award-winning
39:13educational toys for the last 40 years. His company was the lead plaintiff
39:18in the Trump tariff case in the Supreme Court. Rick, welcome back to the program.
39:23Thank you. Congratulations. First time I get to congratulate you on this big win
39:26in the Supreme Court. And I have to say, when you see a judge from the Court of International Trade,
39:33where all those judges are actually experts on international trade, when you see them handling these
39:38cases, there's no doubt about the clarity of the situation. There's Judge Eaton telling Donald Trump's
39:45lawyers, of course you know how to do this, and he's ordering them to automate it. So that sounds
39:51like you can start to expect your refund. It's always been my expectation we would get the refund.
39:58I'm gratified by what the judge said. The Supreme Court ruled that the tariffs were unlawful,
40:04which means that the government over-collected taxes. I think Judge Eaton is really just stating
40:09what every American expects. When the government collects too much in taxes, they have to give it
40:13back with interest and, you know, let's get moving. And I agree with him.
40:18And beginning, as soon as people start filing their tax returns every year,
40:23the United States Treasury engages in a much bigger tax refund program than this. And it is automated,
40:30and people get their checks. They know that the Treasury knows how to do this on the income tax
40:36side. And Judge Eaton, who's an expert on the trade side, is saying they know exactly how to do it
40:41on
40:41tariffs too. They do. We've received rebates on overpaid duties and tariffs already through their
40:48electronic system. So the system works. I think that the declaration submitted by Customs
40:55in that case defines a fairly manual process, which I think you'd have to describe as worst case.
41:01But the judge has also pointed out that the government has a lot of computers and certainly
41:07they process refunds to the tune of many millions a year. I have heard, can't verify that it's over
41:14100 million refunds in total, perhaps nationwide, to the 340 million people that live in this country.
41:20Yes, they can do it, and they need to do it. I have to say, it is so refreshing to
41:27hear a judge
41:28who's actually an expert in this dealing with the Trump lawyers. They don't get away with anything that
41:35they try in front of other judges. Well, I agree with that too. And, you know, there have been various
41:42threats of appeals and so on. But I don't know what the legal basis would be, honestly. The tariff was
41:49unlawful, which is an unlawful tax, which means the taxes were over collected. There's a law on
41:54this. It's black and white. And the judge is right to say to the government, stop horsing around. You
41:59have to give the money back. Rick Wallenberg, you are owed your refund and you're owed a debt of
42:05gratitude from the people of this country for fighting for the Constitution by bringing this case
42:10to court. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. Thank you. We'll be right back.
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