- 8 minutes ago
Episode 47
Category
📺
TVTranscript
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 got the results
00:11from Georgia, and we're going to go straight to him. Great. I look forward to watching.
00:16And Ali, what do we have? Yeah, let's talk. We've got pretty much all the vote in in Georgia District
00:2114. This is Marjorie Taylor Greene's district that she stepped out of. So this is the race to
00:25replace her for the duration of this year. There will be a normal primary for this district in May.
00:31But right now, with 99 percent of the vote in, the biggest vote getter right now is the Democratic
00:35candidate, the former Brigadier General, retired Brigadier General, Sean Harris, who ran against
00:40Marjorie Taylor Greene last time. He's outperforming his own performance against her. But this is
00:45Georgia. Like most southern states, you have to get 50 percent or more to win. So Sean Harris advances
00:50with Clayton Fuller to the runoff, which will be on April the 7th. Here's the interesting
00:55thing. Clayton Fuller was endorsed by Donald Trump. But Colton Moore, who is the third place
01:01candidate today, is not inventing the runoff. He's sort of the Trumpier of the candidates.
01:05But you're seeing an outperformance by Sean Harris against his own numbers with Marjorie
01:10Taylor Greene the last time around. He was at about 35 and a half percent. He's at 37 and a
01:15half almost. But there are two other Democratic candidates in this race. So when you add their
01:20totals up there at about a percent each, that takes him almost to 40 percent. So now he's at 40
01:24percent versus the collection of Republicans at 60 percent. So again, this is an improvement
01:29over what Democrats have done in this very, very Republican county. I just want to show you where
01:34this is in Georgia. It's the top left corner, the most northwestern part of Georgia. It's also the
01:40Republican part of Georgia. It's mostly rural. It's got Rome in it. It does have a bit of the
01:46Atlanta suburb. 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 by
02:01Sean Harris over his own Democratic performance versus Marjorie Taylor Greene in the last election.
02:06These two will go to a runoff on April the 7th, Lawrence. So, Ali, not a good night for Donald
02:12Trump.
02:12There's nothing in these results tonight from 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 district,
02:29generally speaking. The Democrats have an advantage in Sean Harris. You'll remember at one point,
02:35Marjorie Taylor Greene didn't even have an opponent. Sean Harris has worked really hard in this district.
02:39And he's a former brigadier general. He sort of speaks the language of rural Georgians. So he's
02:46doing well. He's building on his own momentum. Again, the betting markets wouldn't tell you that
02:51he's likely to become the next representative from Georgia 14. But if you look at the example of
02:56special elections across the country where Democrats have been winning by more or losing by less,
03:01this is a perfect example not just of losing by less, but in this particular case tonight,
03:05he's the biggest vote getter in the most conservative district in one of the most conservative districts
03:10in Georgia. Ali Belchie, thank you. My pleasure. Thank you. And now we turn to one of the things
03:17on the minds of those voters today. Donald Trump's war. They don't know what they're talking about.
03:26They started a war of choice, Donald Trump's choice. And now they, in every important sense,
03:32do 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.
03:54The competition for stupidest things said today about Donald Trump's war was won by the guy who
04:01is tied with Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, for the title of most ridiculous person
04:06ever chosen by a president to negotiate peace in the Middle East. 68-year-old Steve Witkoff is a real
04:15estate developer in real life who would not have been chosen by any president of the United States to do
04:21anything, anywhere, until Donald Trump decided to send him into negotiations, not just in the Middle
04:28East, but also in Moscow with Vladimir Putin. Steve Witkoff obviously knew nothing about the
04:34Middle East or Vladimir Putin when Donald Trump chose him. And now that he's met Vladimir Putin,
04:40he still knows nothing about Vladimir Putin as he demonstrated so embarrassingly today
04:48when Carl Quintanilla 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, a new price
05:06created by Donald Trump's war.
05:11Do we think that the Russians have shared intelligence about the location of U.S. military assets and
05:18if they have, why 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, the Russians said that they have not been sharing. That's what they said. So,
05:37you know, we can take them at their word, but they did say that.
05:42We 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 on
06:00American military personnel. That is the single worst thing Vladimir Putin could possibly be doing to the
06:07United 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.
06:29After credible reporting by MSNOW, the New York Times, and the Washington Post that Vladimir Putin
06:34was helping Iran target the American military, which led to the deaths of seven American soldiers
06:42and injuring 140 American soldiers, all Vladimir Putin had to do was tell Donald Trump on the phone
06:49yesterday that he didn't do it. Donald Trump might not actually be so stupid as to actually believe
06:58Vladimir Putin. But it doesn't matter because Donald Trump is deeply perverse enough to publicly claim
07:06to believe Vladimir Putin. And so is Steve Witkoff. Donald Trump's breathtakingly incompetent real
07:15estate developer buddy Steve Witkoff does appear to actually be stupid enough to believe Vladimir Putin
07:23Putin and to say on television that he believes Vladimir Putin. They have no idea what they're talking
07:30about. None of them do. Least of all, Donald Trump, who began his war calling for the, quote,
07:37unconditional surrender, end quote, of Iran. And a day later said, we've already won,
07:44exclamation point. And now three days after that, three days after saying we've already won,
07:50no 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 the end state of those objectives. It's not for me to
08:08posit whether it's the beginning, the middle or the end. He has no idea. He has no idea what he's
08:16talking about. The only defense secretary in history who had to promise to stop drinking
08:20to get confirmed by a Republican Senate has no idea what he is doing. He has no idea whether it's
08:27the
08:27beginning, the middle or the end. That same secretary of defense brought that same ignorance to the
08:32United 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 past briefing
08:52in my 15 years in the Senate. I am left with more questions than answers, especially about the cost of
09:02the war.
09:04And of course, the question of, is this the beginning, the middle or the end?
09:11After the ignorance-filled briefing with Donald Trump's secretary of defense and Donald Trump's
09:16secretary of state, both of whom have repeatedly been caught in public lies
09:20since the beginning of their service in 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
09:34war, the 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,
09:59the American Tomahawk missile that hit a girls' school, killing 175 people,
10:05most of whom were the students at the school, was fired at the school by Iran, to which our first
10:10guest tonight, the former Navy combat pilot and former astronaut Senator Mark Kelly said,
10:15Trump has no idea what he's talking about. No, the Iranians don't have Tomahawk missiles.
10:21Dozens of children are dead. And the investigation into how this happened needs to be fast and
10:26transparent. That's how we keep this from happening again. We don't need these deflections
10:30from 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,
10:46meaning no rules 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 and the price of
11:47gas and the price of everything and girls killed at a girl's school in Iran and the lie that Americans
11:54don't pay his tariffs. Making stuff up is what Donald Trump does. That's why Nancy Cordes of CBS
12:02asked Donald Trump's press secretary today, quote, so is he making this up to justify his decision to go
12:09to war now? To which Donald Trump's press secretary said the president is not making anything up, Nancy.
12:17If Donald Trump is speaking, he is making something up. And making it up is the charitable way to describe
12:26Donald Trump's pathological lying. Donald Trump's press secretary has the same job that Steve
12:33Early had. But Steve Early never lied. She lies every day, every day, like every Trump press secretary
12:41before her. Steve 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 confirmation
13:02on December 7th, 1941 that Pearl Harbor was attacked that morning by the Japanese military
13:09and 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.
15:07He 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
15:20generals signing the act of surrender in which the Japanese were not allowed to negotiate a single word,
15:26just 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
15:45things. Steve Early won a silver star for bravery in combat in World War I before becoming the White
15:52House press secretary, who abolished the custom of reporters being forced to put their questions
15:58to the president in writing and thereby created what is now the modern version of a presidential press
16:06conference. Steve Early opened the door of the Oval Office to let the reporters pour in,
16:12usually a couple of times a week, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt took their questions without
16:18hesitation and without favoritism. FDR held more presidential press conferences than any other
16:23president in history, and he always knew what he was talking about. And if he was asked a question
16:29about an obscure subject that he didn't know about, he would simply admit that, admit that he didn't know,
16:36and Steve Early would get an answer to that question later for that reporter. Americans knew
16:41they could have faith in their president's leadership during World War II. And Americans knew they could
16:48take him at his word. And now Americans know, and White House reporters know, the president makes
16:56stuff up, and he and everyone around him don't know what they're talking about. The only thing,
17:02the only thing that Americans know, as the missiles keep flying and people keep dying,
17:09is that we cannot ever take Donald Trump at his word.
17:18Fitting off our discussion tonight is former Navy pilot and former astronaut Senator Mark Kelly of
17:22Arizona. He'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
17:32Senate colleagues about what this war is about tonight?
17:38Well, Lawrence, thank you for having me on. Not yet. You know, I've been keeping a running list of
17:43about, up to about 12 reasons why we are in this conflict. I haven't heard the president give any kind
17:50of an explanation for how this is good for the American people. I mean, folks are having a hard time
17:56affording, you know, gas is obviously going up and we'll probably continue to do that.
18:02But rent and groceries, you know, how does this benefit everyday Americans? We've got no explanation.
18:10And Donald Trump was just telling people, you won't even have to be patient. The gas prices will be
18:16coming down very, very quickly, which I guess in his mind must be, you know, sometime this week.
18:25Right. I hope that's the case. It doesn't look that way. The Straits of Hormuz now have,
18:31it's publicly reported, have some sea mines there. That's going to be extra discouraging for
18:38ships to pass through there. Twenty percent of the world's crude oil goes through those straits.
18:44I would expect gas prices to go up under the situation we're currently in. Hey, I don't think
18:50this president really anticipated well how this would go. He didn't have a strategic plan. He didn't
18:56even factor Russia into this entire calculation. You were talking about earlier how the Russians are
19:02going to benefit from this. And I can't imagine there was any thought to the war in Ukraine between
19:08Russia because, you know, we have a president that doesn't think strategically and he doesn't
19:15seem to know all that much. You know, 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 press
19:29secretary to echo. Do you believe, as Donald Trump's advisors believe, and apparently Donald Trump
19:37believes, Vladimir Putin, when Vladimir Putin says we did not help Iran target the American military?
19:46Well, you got to assume the worst out of the Russians and I would never take them at their word.
19:54Do 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,
20:05uh, hurts, uh, the U.S. military, uh, and helps them and their ally Iran. So what Steve Wyckoff said
20:14about, you 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
20:27publicly once 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 days
21:07ago is now about oil. Uh, it's been about regime change. It's been about ballistic missiles. It's been
21:12about nuclear weapons. Um, but if he does decide to try to remove some of the uranium, this gets into
21:21a much more challenging conflict. Uh, is it, is it, is there any way to do that without actually
21:28sending troops into Iran? No. I mean, last summer he said, uh, after midnight hammer that the Iranian
21:37nuclear capability was obliterated and myself and others, uh, many others tried to correct him and
21:45say, well, it was damaged. It's not obliterated. That's very hard to do. Lawrence, I've got a lot
21:51of experience, you know, dropping weapons on things, building ships, bridges, you know, tanks. Um, it's,
21:59it's hard, uh, to destroy things entirely with air power. Uh, I, I find it interesting that it's always the
22:06guy who wasn't in the military, who hasn't dropped a bomb, who hasn't tried to destroy a target that
22:13thinks he knows more than everybody else. Um, that capability wasn't obliterated. And for us to
22:20completely eliminate it now, it would take a ground force to do that. It would be a complicated
22:26operation. And I am very confident that the Iranian people would, would, well, the IRGC would fight
22:34against our troops on the ground. Um, I think it's also important to remember,
22:40Lawrence, that we're in this because Donald Trump ripped up a deal, the Iranian nuclear deal that was
22:47actually working pre 2018. Yeah. The, the, the idea that, uh, a president would rip up an agreement,
22:56uh, that Iran was complying with all the evidence indicated they were complying with it, uh, over this
23:02very issue and then go to war, uh, over the issue, uh, after personally ripping up the deal is something
23:08that history has never seen before. No, I mean, he put us in this situation. You know, he tore up
23:15the deal.
23:16It was his decision. They were not enriching uranium beyond the level that they were, uh, held to in the
23:23agreement. After that, they began to enrich uranium further and it's gone up and it's gone down.
23:29Uh, but now we're at the point where this new regime, you know, the son of the Supreme leader,
23:36the new Supreme leader is at some point going to make a decision if it's in the best interest
23:40of Iran to race, to get a nuclear weapon. And I am extremely worried about that. That is a real
23:47risk we face today. And how unstable is the region going to be if the Iranians, if this regime actually
23:55possess a nuclear weapon. So that's the risk here. And there's only one person that put us
24:02into this situation and he's the current occupant of the white house. Senator Mark Haley, thank you
24:08very much for starting off our coverage tonight. Thanks for having me on. And coming up, our next
24:15guest became the first United States Senator in history to be tackled and detained by federal agents.
24:20His offense, trying to ask Kristi Noem a question. California Senator Alex Padilla joins us next.
24:34Carol Linnig and Ken Delaney ends 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 and one
25:11that leaves the nation vulnerable amid heightened terrorism threats due to the Iran war. Our next
25:19guest, Senator Alex Padilla of California, was an early critic of Department of Homeland Security,
25:26Secretary Kristi Noem. Last June, Senator Padilla became the first United States Senator in history to be
25:33be tackled and detained by federal agents forcibly removed from a press conference inside a safe
25:45federal building in Los Angeles for the offense of simply attempting to ask Kristi Noem a question
25:55about ICE operations in Los Angeles at that time. Joining us now is Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of
26:01California. He's the top Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee and a member of the Senate Judiciary
26:08Committee on the Senate Budget Committee. Senator Padilla, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
26:13And remind us, what was the question that you wanted to ask of Secretary Noem that day
26:21with her invasion forces present in Los Angeles? Sir Lawrence, good to be back with you. And I
26:28guess it was a couple of things. Number one, what the straw that broke the camel's back was during
26:34that press conference when Secretary Noem, seemed to be former Secretary Noem, not for the first time,
26:41said that the mission of the Department of Homeland Security in Los Angeles was to liberate the people
26:47of Los Angeles and California from their duly elected mayor and governor. How un-American, number one.
26:55Number two, was 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,
27:44before I could even get a question out, I was removed from that press conference. But we've learned
27:50over the course of the last nine months that everything we suspected has turned out to be true. And the
27:56enforcement activities that started in Los Angeles have only become more cruel, more violent as they
28:02spread across the country. We now have MSNOW's reporting from Carol Linek and Kandelanian, which would be
28:09normally the subject of an investigation in the Senate Judiciary Committee. But that probably will not
28:15happen unless and until the Democrats win the Senate and control that committee. 300 FBI agents worked mostly
28:23on national security matters, preventing terrorism attacks within the United States, all gone from the now
28:30Trump-controlled FBI. How vulnerable do you think that leads us? Look, that's a very valid concern that we had
28:41before this unauthorized war against Iran. But now with the various ways in which Iran and its allies could
28:50potentially try to hit 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 just a
29:03couple of weeks ago, Donald Trump claims the economy is strong when it's anything but. The cost of groceries
29:08is up. The cost of housing continues to go up. The cost of health care is spiking. You know,
29:13they're claiming our communities are safer really when the administration, including the Department of
29:20Justice, is so unprofessional and so misguided that career professionals are choosing to retire and
29:27choosing to leave and to follow this misdirected administration. That should tell you a whole lot.
29:35And so instead of the professional FBI agents, other staff at the Department of Justice focusing on
29:42things like drug trafficking, human trafficking, corruption and white-collar crime, they're being
29:50redirected to, quote, immigration enforcement and really rounding up without judicial warrants
29:59people who are working as essential workers in so many industries and are trying to keep our economy
30:05chugging along. The the Donald Trump has has also said that he wants to shut down the United States
30:15Senate until the Republicans in the Senate pass a voting law that would require people to bring birth
30:24certificates, require people to bring passports with them, people who don't have passports,
30:30people who can't find their birth certificates in order to vote in this country. And other aspects of it
30:37include delivering all sorts of federal vote, all sorts of voting records to Donald Trump's government.
30:45Are the Republicans going to be able to get this through the Senate?
30:50Look, and here's where it all comes together, Lawrence. Their record, not just Trump, but the Republican
30:57majority that's been so complicit. Their record is so bad, not just unpopular, truly damaging to working
31:05families across the country. Their only hope to hold on to power this November is to to change the rules
31:12and the and rig the elections, if you will, before the ballot has the ballot has begun for the general
31:19election. This save act is anything but if it's anything. It's a save Trump's ass act with what their
31:25purpose is. It's not a voter ID bill. It's a voter suppression bill, number one. It would have the
31:32effect of making it harder for eligible people to register to vote, stay registered to vote,
31:37and to actually cast their ballot, to eliminate vote by mail, which is popular amongst both Democrats
31:43and Republicans. And by the way, they continue to say the quiet part out loud. Donald Trump speaking to
31:50the House Republican conference just yesterday or the day before saying, pass this voter ID bill,
31:58and then we will win the November elections. That's their goal. That's their goal, to make sure that
32:03only the, quote, right people are voting to elect, quote, the right leaders. We're not going to stand
32:09for it. I will die on the hill to make sure it doesn't get out of the Senate. I don't
32:13think the votes are
32:13there. Number one, even if we do kill this bill in the Senate, which is my objective, I also
32:19anticipate Donald Trump trying to advance this through executive order or a trumped up state of
32:25emergency. We'll fight it every step of the way. Our voting rights are just too precious. Senator Alex
32:31Padilla, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Thank you, Lawrence. Coming up, Donald Trump's
32:37election interference campaign has arrived in Arizona with federal subpoenas. Arizona's secretary of state
32:43will join us next. Donald Trump has taken his election interference conspiracy to Arizona.
32:52The New York Times reports the FBI has expanded its criminal investigation into purported irregularities
32:58in the 2020 presidential election, issuing a grand jury subpoena for reams of information about voting
33:04results in Maricopa County, Arizona. The subpoena was issued in recent days to the Arizona State
33:11Senate, which oversaw a sprawling but partisan audit of the vote result that was ordered by
33:19Senate Republicans in Maricopa County in the months after Donald J. Trump lost to Joseph R. Biden.
33:26Joining us now is Arizona secretary of state Democrat Adrian Fontes. Thank you very much for joining us
33:32tonight. What is your reading of this subpoena 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
33:46actually thought the state Senate had turned back over to Maricopa County and they should have
33:52after 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 to investigate,
34:25quote unquote, and then grabbing the data on the backside. And if they're doing that and that's what
34:31our investigation, which we're going to be launching fines, 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. Do you have a worst case scenario of what
35:30Donald 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. And
35:43that
35:43is create blacklists, go after folks who are on these lists, since they would have some of that
35:51personal identifying information. But I don't want to alarm anybody just yet. Lawrence, we don't know
35:56exactly what information was handed over to the FBI. I want to be reasonable here in our approach.
36:03We do not know exactly if the voter registration information in these files contains just the
36:10publicly available stuff, which is name and address, party affiliation, things of this nature,
36:14or if it has the more sensitive information that we are trying to protect. And that is
36:20mother's maiden names, for example, a whole or part of social security numbers, driver's license
36:24number, tribal ID numbers, that's sensitive stuff that we don't want to surrender. So we want to be
36:29really clear in our approach. We are going to operate within the law, and we're going to make
36:33sure 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
36:51illegal and unconstitutional tariffs. Our next guest, who brought the case to the Supreme Court that
36:57defeated Donald Trump'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
37:12to refund 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 isn't
37:26able to immediately comply with his order to refund Trump's tariffs. CNBC reports that Judge Eaton said
37:35during a court hearing, Customs knows how to do this. They do it every day. They liquidate entries and make
37:42refunds. Judge Eaton gave Donald Trump 45 days to set up an automated system to process the tariff
37:50refunds, 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.
38:06If the entries are not liquidated before the end of the year, it is further estimated that $10
38:13billion of interest will have accrued. American taxpayers will bear this financial burden.
38:22Judge Eaton told Donald Trump and his lawyers to file a report describing their process to issue the
38:30refunds by this Thursday, just two days from now. And yesterday, two small businesses sued Donald Trump
38:38over his 10 percent tariff policy that he said he was going to implement immediately after the Supreme
38:45Court ruled that his other tariffs were illegal and unconstitutional. The co-founder of one of the
38:50companies said in a statement, quote, sudden global tariffs make it harder for us to operate,
38:55harder for our partners to sell their crops and more expensive for American families. We joined this case
39:02because trade policy shouldn't be made by inventing an economic crisis. Joining us now is Rick
39:07Woldenberg, CEO of Learning Resources, which has been making award-winning educational toys for the
39:14last 40 years. His company was the lead plaintiff in the Trump tariff case in the Supreme Court.
39:21Rick, welcome back to the program. Thank you. Congratulations. First time I get to
39:25congratulate you on this big win in the Supreme Court. And I have to say, when you see a judge
39:31from
39:32the Court of International Trade, where all those judges are actually experts on international trade,
39:36when you see them handling these cases, there's no doubt about the clarity of the situation. There's
39:43Judge Eaton telling Donald Trump's lawyers, of course you know how to do this, and he's ordering
39:49them to automate it. So that sounds like you can start to expect your refund. It's always been my
39:56expectation we would get the refund. I'm gratified by what the judge said. The Supreme Court ruled that the
40:03tariffs were unlawful, which means that the government over collected taxes. I think Judge Eaton is really
40:08just stating what every American expects. When the government collects too much in taxes, they have
40:13to give it back with interest and, you know, let's get moving. And I agree with him. And beginning, as
40:20soon as people start filing their tax returns every year, the United States Treasury engages in a much
40:26bigger tax refund program than this. And it is automated and people get their checks. They know
40:32that the Treasury knows how to do this on the income tax side. And Judge Eaton, who's an expert
40:37on the trade side, is saying they know exactly how to do it on tariffs too. They do. We've received
40:44rebates on overpaid duties and tariffs already through their electronic system. So the system works.
40:50I think that the declaration submitted by customs in that case defines a fairly manual process,
40:59which I think you'd have to describe as worst case. But the judges also pointed out that the
41:04government has a lot of computers and certainly they process refunds to the tune of many millions a
41:10year. I have heard, can't verify that it's over 100 million refunds in total, perhaps nationwide,
41:17to the 340 million people that live in this country. Yes, they can do it and they need to do
41:23it.
41:24I have to say, it is so refreshing to hear a judge who's actually an expert in this
41:30dealing with the Trump lawyers. They don't get away with anything that they try in front of other judges.
41:38Well, I agree with that too. And, you know, there have been various threats of appeals and so on,
41:44but I don't know what the legal basis would be, honestly. The tariff was unlawful, which is an
41:50unlawful tax, which means the taxes were over collected. There's a law on this. It's black
41:55and white. And the judge is right to say to the government, stop horsing around. You have to give
42:00the money back. Rick Wallenberg, you are owed your refund and you're owed a debt of gratitude
42:05from the people of this country for fighting for the Constitution by bringing this case to court.
42:11Thank you very much for joining us tonight. Thank you. We'll be right back.
Comments