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The Last Word with Lawrence ODonnell - Season 13 - Episode 34
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00:00The most powerful crime syndicate in history, that is what we are living under now in the United States of
00:08America, according to Donald Trump's hometown newspaper.
00:13That is the single most important fact of life in America, and it is the force that must be overcome
00:21if the United States of America is to have a future as a democracy.
00:25The United States Constitution, which is the first law of the land, was written by men and only men who
00:32believed it would then be entrusted forever to men and only men just like them.
00:39They saw themselves, despite many of them being slave owners, as honorable men, gentlemen, people who this country and the
00:47world could trust to do the right thing.
00:50They did not try to write a constitution in anticipation of criminals holding constitutional offices.
00:59They did not write a constitution strong enough to withstand criminal intent on the part of presidents and political parties
01:08in Congress.
01:10But that constitution is now the only shield we have against the most powerful criminal syndicate in history.
01:19That's the way Donald Trump's hometown newspaper describes his current operations.
01:24Quote, the most powerful crime syndicate in history.
01:28The crime syndicate lost one today when Donald Trump was forced by a federal judge to deliver $127 million in
01:35overdue funding for the from the federal government for the New Jersey, New York, New Jersey gateway tunnel project.
01:42The new and very necessary tunnel under the Hudson River, strengthening the Northeast Corridor, the most important transportation corridor in
01:51the United States historically and in today's economy.
01:55Harvard University continues to defeat the crime syndicate in court, much to Donald Trump's expressed irritation today.
02:25The yes sir people in that room who are oh so comfortable are showing just how comfortable they would all
02:33be.
02:33Saying yes sir to any dictator Donald Trump and his clownish lawyers will continue to be crushed in court by
02:42the 390 year old Harvard University, which will live long after Donald Trump and his courtroom flunkies are long gone.
02:50John Adams and other Harvard graduates were there at the birth of this country designing the Massachusetts Constitution, which became
02:57a model for the United States Constitution, which Harvard University now uses.
03:02John Adams uses to defeat the crime syndicate consistently.
03:09The New York Daily News, which now calls the Trump administration the most powerful crime syndicate in history, has always
03:15had strong reader support in the Queens neighborhood in New York where Donald Trump grew up.
03:21The New York Daily News says, quote, it is time to acknowledge what has become tragically obvious.
03:29The Trump administration is essentially acting as a massive criminal enterprise.
03:32It lies, steals, extorts and murders all while cloaked in the awesome authority of the state.
03:40It is on a crime spree that puts Al Capone to shame.
03:44This administration has murdered Renee Good and Alex Petty, slandered them as domestic terrorists and assassins and allowed their killers
03:52to walk free.
03:54Unleashed thousands of minimally trained ICE agents recruited with explicitly white supremacist messaging to inflict terror on people of color.
04:02Repeatedly violated the constitutional rights of citizens and non-citizens by arresting them for First Amendment protected speech.
04:08Raiding their homes without judicial warrants and imprisoning them without due process and killed dozens of civilians on the high
04:16seas solely on the unsubstantiated claim that they were drug runners, not that being drug runners would justify their summary
04:24executions without due process anyway.
04:27Released hundreds of imprisoned felons who brutally beat Capitol police officers on January 6th, converted the once independent Department of
04:36Justice into an instrument of personal retribution via the prosecution of cooked up lawsuits against the president's enemies, threatened to
04:44seize the territory of a sovereign nation, a NATO ally no less,
04:48and declared that legislators should be executed for reminding military personnel of their duty to disobey illegal orders.
04:56It is difficult to comprehend the level of state-sponsored criminality we are witnessing because our country has never experienced
05:03anything like it.
05:06And the Daily News did not even include in its description of the most powerful crime syndicate in history,
05:13all of Donald Trump's violations of the emoluments clause to enrich himself, including accepting the gift of a 747 aircraft
05:22from the Middle Eastern dictatorship of Qatar and the billions of dollars Donald Trump is making in cryptocurrency ventures and
05:30other rackets that he is running during his presidency.
05:33Donald Trump knows that all of that apparent corruption could be effectively investigated by congressional committees if and only if
05:42Democrats win the House of Representatives this year or win the Senate this year.
05:47And to prevent that, Donald Trump has come up with, not come up with a new campaign message for Republicans.
05:54He has not come up with a new economic policy.
05:56He has not reversed his economically crushing illegal and unconstitutional tariffs.
06:01Instead, he has seized the voting records of Atlanta voters in Fulton County, Georgia to set the precedent that he
06:08can send the FBI anywhere he wants to seize any voting records, including ballots, at any time.
06:14Donald Trump is the first president in history who wants to take the administration of elections away from states
06:21and, in effect, and in effect count all American ballots cast in every election inside the Trump White House.
06:28Donald Trump publicly appears to be planning an election crime spree even worse than the conspiracy he was indicted for
06:38running to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
06:42And that is the most important story of this year.
06:47Will Donald Trump commit election crimes all over the country to try to crush democracy?
06:55That is not an alarmist question.
06:57That is the question of the year.
06:59Will Donald Trump commit election crimes all over the country to try to crush democracy?
07:05As of tonight, the most powerful force we have in this country to defeat the most powerful crime syndicate in
07:12history remains
07:13the voters of the United States of America who are turning against Donald Trump in numbers large enough to defeat
07:21any criminal intent Donald Trump might bring to the elections in November.
07:26And nothing has separated voters from Donald Trump more effectively than the perception that Donald Trump is covering up for
07:34his old friend Jeffrey Epstein and himself
07:36by spending the year refusing to release the Epstein files and then making sure that three million pages of the
07:44Epstein files have not been released as they were required to be released by law.
07:49A clear majority of Americans, 53 percent, now believe Donald Trump is trying to cover up his friend Jeffrey Epstein's
07:56crimes.
07:57Republicans who control the House Oversight Committee were forced by the Democrats on the committee, with some cooperation by Republicans,
08:04to investigate the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein.
08:06But most Republicans on the committee have also tried to help Donald Trump in whatever way they can.
08:11And one way they decided they could help Donald Trump is by sending a subpoena to a wife of a
08:16president who never met Jeffrey Epstein.
08:20There is only one first lady in American history who we know met Jeffrey Epstein, and that is Donald Trump's
08:29third and current wife.
08:31Why did the Republicans on the committee seek to subpoena Hillary Clinton, who says she never met Jeffrey Epstein and
08:39not subpoena?
08:40Melania Trump.
08:41The first question under oath the committee should ask to Melania Trump is, who introduced you to Jeffrey Epstein?
08:50Did Donald Trump introduce you to Jeffrey Epstein?
08:54Or did Jeffrey Epstein introduce you to Donald Trump?
09:02The committee will never ask those questions of Melania Trump.
09:06And Hillary Clinton believes she has been subpoenaed as a distraction that the Republicans hope will somehow help Donald Trump.
09:15And that Hillary Clinton subpoena is just another indication that Donald Trump really, really does have something to hide.
09:25There's something about this administration's attitude toward this, which I think really leads us to conclude they have something to
09:35hide.
09:35We don't.
09:36We have been willing to say whatever we know.
09:41We've even done it under oath.
09:43But they want us to testify.
09:46Not everyone else who's mentioned many, many times, hundreds of thousands of times in these files.
09:54So we've said, fine, let us do it in public and we will appear in public and we'll answer all
09:59your questions.
10:01And, of course, the Republican chairman of the committee does not want Bill and Hillary Clinton's testimony to be given
10:06publicly because Republicans are afraid that that testimony might not produce anything that they really want.
10:15Why did they want to pull us into this?
10:18To divert attention from President Trump.
10:20This is not complicated.
10:21This is so obvious.
10:23And they keep trying to divert.
10:26Look at this shiny object.
10:28We're going to have the Clintons, even Hillary Clinton, who never met the guy.
10:31We're going to have her there.
10:34In that BBC interview, Hillary Clinton said something that Donald Trump has never, ever said.
10:41Get the files out.
10:45We have called for the full release of these files repeatedly.
10:50We think sunlight is the best disinfectant.
10:52Get the files out.
10:56And Hillary Clinton has this prediction about Republican reaction and Donald Trump's reaction to her testimony.
11:06If I have to do it behind closed doors, they're not going to like what I have to say, because
11:10I have very strong opinions about what it is they're hiding and who they are protecting.
11:16And here is the Democrats' reaction to the testimony today in a deposition in Ohio of billionaire Leslie Wexner, who
11:23is the man who made Jeffrey Epstein rich enough to run an international sex trafficking conspiracy.
11:31We should be very clear that there would be no Epstein island, there would be no Epstein plane, there would
11:39be no money to traffic women and girls.
11:42Mr. Epstein would not be the wealthy man he was without the support of Les Wexner.
11:49Les Wexner gave Epstein credibility and gave him the ability to commit some of the crimes that he did.
11:58The more this deposition goes on, the less Les Wexner knows about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
12:10There was a deep trust between these two men.
12:14There was a deep friendship there, not only in a business sense, but but Les Wexner gave Epstein the ability
12:22to handle his children's and his family's money.
12:26So at least that part of it, that part of it makes it hard to believe Les Wexner's testimony thus
12:36far.
12:37One thing that was remembered for sure was when asked about Donald Trump, Donald Trump and Epstein and whether or
12:46not they had been in the same room and what that looked like.
12:49He didn't quite remember, but he imagined that, yes, that possibly happened because he did remember that Donald Trump also
12:57would like to show up to the Victoria's Secret runway shows.
13:01Now, that was a little odd to him, he said, because Donald Trump was not engaged in fashion whatsoever.
13:09But he does recall that.
13:11Les Wexner handed his power of attorney to Jeffrey Epstein.
13:16He allowed Jeffrey Epstein to live in his homes, to have hundreds of millions of his dollars, to use his
13:23yachts and his planes.
13:24This was obviously a very, very close relationship, and so far what we have seen is a denial of that
13:31relationship.
13:33In a written statement to the committee released publicly this morning, Leslie Wexner claimed that he cut off all ties
13:40with Jeffrey Epstein in 2007, the year after Jeffrey Epstein was first arrested in Palm Beach, Florida.
13:46But Bloomberg reported on an email a year later from Leslie Wexner to Jeffrey Epstein on June 26, 2008, four
13:58days before Jeffrey Epstein began his sentence for soliciting prostitution with a girl who was 14 years old at the
14:09time.
14:09And remember, Jeffrey Epstein's sentence was really just sleep away camp.
14:14He just slept at a facility and he was released during the day, could spend the whole day at his
14:20office doing what Jeffrey Epstein liked to do.
14:25Leslie Wexner, who claimed he cut off all contact with Jeffrey Epstein a year before this email, wrote a sympathetic
14:37note to Jeffrey Epstein after Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to a state charge of solicitation.
14:44He was soliciting prostitution soliciting prostitution from a minor.
14:47This is what Leslie Wexner wrote to him.
14:50Abigail, Abigail is his wife.
14:52Abigail told me the result.
14:54All I can say is, I feel sorry.
14:57You violated your own number one rule.
15:01Always be careful.
15:05Not you did something horrible.
15:09Not you are a convicted sex predator of children.
15:14No objection at all from Leslie Wexner in his email to what Jeffrey Epstein actually did.
15:24Just sympathy for Jeffrey Epstein.
15:31In his written statement released today, Leslie Wexner claimed that he was, quote, duped by a world class con man.
15:41And, quote, I never saw or heard about Epstein being in the company of a minor girl.
15:47To the contrary, he led me to believe he was in serious and long-term relationships with two women, Dr.
15:53Anderson and later Ghislaine Maxwell, both of whom he said he contemplated marrying.
15:57But Leslie Wexner knew that Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a 14-year-old girl.
16:09He knew that.
16:11And Leslie Wexner's entry in the Epstein birthday book, like Donald Trump's page in that book, includes a drawing to
16:23please and amuse his dear friend, the sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein.
16:30It appears to be a billionaire's attempt to draw what he considers the most attractive or, for him, possibly the
16:38only attractive thing about women.
16:44Leading off our discussion tonight is Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California.
16:48He's a member of the House Oversight Committee.
16:51Congressman Khanna, this was a long-awaited deposition.
16:54There seems to have emerged some, to put it mildly, conflicts in this testimony.
17:02Here is the central takeaway.
17:04The FBI and the Department of Justice have never questioned Leslie Wexner.
17:10They have never investigated him.
17:13That is shocking malpractice.
17:16And it shows how much the Department of Justice is covering up and disregarding people who are allegedly implicated.
17:24The second thing is two things can be true at the same time.
17:27It could be true that Epstein ripped Wexner off of money, as he kept claiming.
17:33It could also be true that Wexner was aware of Epstein's abuse of young girls.
17:40There is allegations that he knew as early as 1997 that Epstein was recruiting young girls for Victoria's Secret, which
17:49he ran, promising modeling careers, and that he knew allegedly of those girls being assaulted as early as early 1990s.
17:56It's just because Epstein may have ripped him off doesn't absolve him of potential guilt in the abuse of those
18:03girls.
18:05And the explanation that he has in his written statement about why he hands over all of his finances to
18:12Jeffrey Epstein, here's a guy who's made all this money.
18:15And he basically says in writing, I had no idea how to handle money.
18:18I had to get somebody to do that for me.
18:20So I got someone who no one else was using for that purpose.
18:27Lawrence, you know as many rich people as I do.
18:32I represent Silicon Valley filled with believers.
18:34You know what? I don't think I do.
18:35I think you have me beat on that particular comment.
18:39Fair enough.
18:40But let me tell you something about rich people.
18:43They manage every penny of their dollar and they have access to the best financial firms possible.
18:52No one would trust someone like Jeffrey Epstein to do this.
18:57So there's something else there.
18:59And the reality is that we need to know what that is.
19:04And the fact is that the FBI and DOJ are not investigating it.
19:08And there was there is a reference in the Epstein files to Wexner being a co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein's.
19:18Was that probed in today's deposition?
19:23He denied it.
19:25It was probed.
19:26Of course, as you know, that is what Congressman Massey and I discovered that the Department of Justice was covering
19:32up by redacting this document
19:35where it says that Leslie Wexner was a potential co-conspirator.
19:39They're saying, oh, Wexner's name was all over the other files.
19:41Yeah, but you're covering up the central document that said he may have been a co-conspirator.
19:46Wexner denies it.
19:47Now, how do we usually resolve these things?
19:50We don't take my word for it or Wexner's word for it.
19:53We investigate.
19:54And the point here is, even when you have the United Nations human rights experts saying there were potential crimes
20:00against humanity,
20:01when you have France prosecuting, other countries prosecuting, you have the United States of America's Department of Justice saying, let's
20:08just move on.
20:09Let's not investigate.
20:10I find that so offensive.
20:12And you know who else finds it offensive?
20:15Survivors.
20:15They are texting me.
20:16They're texting Congressman Massey saying, why isn't anything happening?
20:21It's not just about releasing files.
20:22They want investigations and prosecutions.
20:26You spend time in courtrooms and you see witnesses like this cross-examined.
20:30And when they go into their testimony saying, I cut off all communication with him on X date in 2007.
20:37And then there's an email produced in 2008 where he's expressing sympathy for the guy having to suddenly serve his
20:45easy sentence.
20:46That's the kind of crack in testimony that absolutely destroys credibility in court.
20:54Are we going to see this transcript of this deposition?
21:00We on our side are going to push that the transcript be made public.
21:04I mean, it shows that not one Republican showed up for this.
21:08My guess is they're all going to show up for Secretary Clinton's deposition, but they didn't think that they were
21:13going to actually show up with someone who was a potential co-conspirator.
21:16It shows how political they're being.
21:18We're going to push to release it.
21:20But your point is absolutely right.
21:21Leslie Wexler can only get away with these kind of alleged lies because he's not under oath and because he's
21:27doing it to a committee not under oath under the DOJ.
21:32Yeah.
21:33Congressman Ro Khanna, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
21:39And coming up, we have breaking news from Minneapolis as the county attorney, the local prosecutor there, is demanding that
21:45the Trump team hand over evidence in the killing of Alex Preddy, county attorney Mary Moriarty, the prosecutor in these
21:55homicide cases, will join us next.
22:02Today in Minneapolis, the Hennepin County attorney issued new demands to obtain records and evidence from the Trump Justice Department
22:11about the killing of Alex Preddy and the nonfatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa Salas by Donald Trump's invasion forces.
22:19The Minnesota Star Tribune reports, quote, this was the second time in three weeks that Moriarty's office has issued TUI
22:26letters to the federal government.
22:28They had set a February 17th deadline on the request for evidence related to Renee Goods' killing and never heard
22:35back.
22:35Our next guest, Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty, said this today.
22:41I think we're in good shape to be able to make a decision on these cases.
22:48I can't say what that will be and certainly would be much easier if the federal government were not hiding
22:55evidence from us and obstructing our ability to do the investigation.
23:00Joining our coverage now is Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty.
23:04Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
23:06I want to go to this procedural point of the so-called TUI letter.
23:11That's a procedural requirement for you in pursuing this evidence.
23:16What stage are you at with that?
23:20So if we were trying to get records from a state agency, we would simply subpoena them.
23:26But you can't do that for a federal agency.
23:28You have to go through a process, which is called the TUI process or make a TUI demand.
23:34And so, as you noted, we did do that a couple of weeks ago in the killing of Renee Good.
23:39Yesterday, we filed demands in the Alex Petty killing.
23:44And then today, we filed demands in Julio Sosa-Solis' case.
23:50And so there's a period.
23:52Is there a fixed period where that you wait for a reply there?
23:56Apparently, you never got one in the Renee Good case.
23:59Correct.
24:00We've not heard from the Department of Justice.
24:02And interestingly, there are no guidelines and internal guidelines, apparently, or statutory guidelines.
24:09So we asked for a response within two weeks.
24:12We did not get that in the good case.
24:14And we have set a deadline for both Petty and Sosa-Solis of March 3rd.
24:21And so if you get no response, that does that do you have no more alternatives in trying to get
24:27that evidence from the federal government?
24:30We absolutely do.
24:31And we're preparing for litigation on those points right now.
24:36But the thing that struck me that you said today that seemed so interesting is you said you're in good
24:41shape to be able to make a decision in these cases,
24:43which is to say there's an awful lot of evidence that is not in possession of the federal government, including
24:49all of the video evidence,
24:52which seems to me to be extraordinarily helpful evidence in this case.
24:57It is.
24:58And I also mentioned today that we received over 1,000 submissions from community members.
25:06And I know that we got evidence through those portals videos that we would not have received otherwise.
25:12And so our team has been looking through those.
25:14And when we see video or something that we think would be useful, especially video,
25:19the BCA would connect with the person that sent it to us to actually get that video from the cell
25:24phone.
25:24So although the federal government is not giving us whatever evidence they have,
25:29and we kind of know what some of it is, but we don't know what we don't know, too.
25:33But we also have substantial evidence from those portals, from the BCA interviewing witnesses at the scene.
25:41So that's what I meant when I said I think we're in good shape at some point here to make
25:46a decision.
25:46Obviously, we want as much information as we could get, and it would certainly seem to be appropriate for the
25:52federal government.
25:53I don't know why you would not share information, because it certainly makes it look like you have something to
25:58hide.
25:58You have been, on this program and in your public comments, confident about what you could achieve as a prosecutor
26:08in these homicide investigations,
26:10even without cooperation from the federal government.
26:13And you sound confident tonight about your ability to proceed, even if you don't get cooperation from the federal government.
26:22I do feel confident about that.
26:25Now, I won't mistake that for confidence in the ultimate result, should we decide to charge.
26:31And I think I've gone through this before on this program about the fact that if we do charge,
26:36we expect a motion to remove to federal court.
26:39We then expect a motion to dismiss for immunity.
26:43I will emphasize again, there is no such thing as absolute immunity, but supremacy clause, you know, qualified immunity can
26:52be a defense in federal court.
26:54And if we were to charge, we have to overcome that to be able to make it to a jury.
27:00So I do feel good about our ability to ultimately make a decision on all three of these cases.
27:06What the result is after that, we'll have to see.
27:11County Attorney Mary Moriarty, thank you very much for joining our coverage tonight.
27:15Of course.
27:17And coming up this week, we heard from President Obama, who was inspired by the people of Minneapolis,
27:24including what he saw in some powerful videos of people there standing up to the Trumpian cruelty shown to him
27:33by his good friend,
27:35Michelle Norris, who will join us next.
27:43On today's episode of the New Republic's Daily Blast with Greg Sargent, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry said this about the
27:52toll of Donald Trump's operations and invasions in Minneapolis.
27:58The economic impact has, of course, been devastating.
28:02The impact on people's lives, on, you know, the mental health of our kids.
28:08Yeah, obviously, big impact.
28:12But I don't like to use the kind of wounded victim narrative here because the people here are tough as
28:19hell.
28:19I mean, we get knocked down seven times and we get back up eight.
28:24President Obama discussed the resilience of the people of Minneapolis in a podcast interview with Brian Tyler Cohen.
28:33A friend of mine, Michelle Norris, is from Minnesota, and she was up there and she was going around talking
28:39to neighbors and people she had known for a long time as they were mobilizing protests and activities around us.
28:46And she showed me a clip of this street band that was performing every night after all these activities had
29:01been taking place and protests, etc.
29:03And they were just out there and they were playing music and I'm trying to figure out how they were
29:09playing, you know, horns and drums, etc.
29:13In like zero degree weather because I would not have been able to put my lips on a trumpet.
29:20And people were celebrating what they had accomplished and it was an embodiment of the values that make us care
29:35about other people.
29:38And that, I think, is a spirit that when Democrats tap into that spirit, then we win.
29:49Here is some of the video that Michelle Norris showed to President Obama.
30:13Here is some of the video that Michelle Norris showed to President Obama.
30:33And joining us now is MSNOW Senior Contributing Editor, Michelle Norris.
30:37Michelle, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
30:40And as soon as I heard President Obama say that about that video, I said, when can we get Michelle
30:46on the show?
30:48Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
30:51Tell us about that.
30:52Tell us about, first of all, seeing that, being out there where this kind of spirit was so alive.
31:01Well, I was surprised to hear that he mentioned that.
31:05I didn't know that was coming.
31:06And I was pleased not because he talked about, you know, the friendship or anything, but he talked about the
31:10spirit of the people of Minnesota.
31:12And I think it's important for people to see that and to see how they've responded to that and the
31:18joy in resistance.
31:20That video is of a group.
31:22They call themselves Brass Solidarity.
31:24They are sort of a loosely formed group of musicians that formed in the wake of the George Floyd protests.
31:30And as Metro Surge descended on the state of Minnesota, they started performing at first once a week.
31:36But after Renee Good was killed, then they started to perform more often.
31:40And then after Alex Preddy was killed, they started to perform almost daily as a way to keep people, keep
31:47their spirits up,
31:48as a way to create community where people can come together in these memorials, as a way to help people
31:53fight exhaustion.
31:54Because this has been going on for weeks where people are walking kids to school or people are monitoring their
32:01communities.
32:01And it's clear that Minnesotans are not going to back down.
32:04They've showed this.
32:05And you heard Mayor Frey say, you know, they're tough.
32:08They're fierce.
32:08Minnesota Nice has been replaced by Minnesota Fierce, I guess you could say.
32:12But exhaustion is real.
32:14And one of the ways that they counteract that is by figuring out how to inject the resistance movement with
32:20joy.
32:21And what you saw there were a group of people.
32:22We should just note where they are.
32:23They're standing on a lake, on a frozen lake.
32:26That's a couple hundred people standing on a frozen lake singing, hold on, we're going to make it.
32:32And what they were doing that night is creating a sign on the lake using luminaries and candles that said,
32:40ice out.
32:42And that lake is on the pathway.
32:44The planes fly over that lake on the way to the international airport.
32:47So they were also sending up a signal to the planes coming in and out of the city.
32:51And the video you see there is the blast solidarity earlier this week on Monday.
32:55I think largely because of the mention from President Obama, their numbers have been growing.
33:00And what you're seeing there is there were 78 people that were out that day at George Floyd Square, which
33:05is not long, not far from where Renee Good was killed.
33:08And they had orchestra members.
33:10They had kids show up from high school bands.
33:12They had showmen show up with a kazoo.
33:14They had someone with a guitar who brought a folding chair because he wasn't able to stand, but he wanted
33:18to play his guitar and be a part of it.
33:19And when you hear Donald Trump talk about paid agitators and the way that they talk about people who are
33:25engaged in constitutionally protected activity, that image does not comport with that description.
33:31You know, what you're seeing there are people who are standing up for their beliefs and trying to hold the
33:37line and make sure that America is protected in some way and protecting individuals, but also the notion of the
33:43rule and law and thriving and functioning democracy.
33:47Michelle Norris, thank you very much for bringing it to President Obama's attention so that he could tell them that
33:54he's watching.
33:55And that looks like the Obama concert that's out there now, that larger number.
34:01And thank you very, very much for joining us tonight.
34:03Thanks for having me, Lawrence.
34:04My best to you.
34:07And coming up, was the Trump invasion of Venezuela a rehearsal for Cuba?
34:13Congressman Jim Himes, who just returned from the Munich Security Conference, will join us next.
34:23Cuba has always been the big prize.
34:26Was Venezuela just the rehearsal?
34:31Cuba is right now a failed nation.
34:33They don't even have jet fuel to get for airplanes to take off.
34:38They're clogging up their runway.
34:39Anyway, we're talking to Cuba right now, and Marco Rubio talking to Cuba right now, and they should absolutely make
34:47a deal.
34:47We'll see how it all turns out, but Cuba and us, we are talking.
34:51In the meantime, there's an embargo.
34:54There's no oil.
34:55There's no money.
34:56There's no anything.
34:58Cutting off oil to Cuba was what the Venezuelan invasion was probably really all about.
35:04Axios reports, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been holding secret talks with the grandson and caretaker of Cuba's aging
35:11de facto dictator, Raul Castro, as the U.S. puts unprecedented pressure on Havana's regime, three sources tell Axios.
35:19The talks between Rubio and Raul Guillermo Rodrigo Castro are bypassing official Cuban government channels.
35:26They show that the Trump administration sees the 94-year-old revolutionary as the communist island's true decision maker.
35:33At the Munich Security Conference, which was held this past weekend, Donald Trump was identified as the greatest threat to
35:40international order.
35:41Quote, the world has entered a period of wrecking ball politics, sweeping destruction rather than careful reforms and policy corrections
35:49is the order of the day.
35:50The most prominent of those who promise to free their country from the existing order's constraints and rebuild a stronger,
35:58more prosperous nation is the current U.S. administration.
36:01As a result, more than 80 years after construction began, the U.S.-led post-1945 international order is now under
36:12destruction.
36:13The most powerful of those who take the axe to existing rules and institutions is U.S. President Donald Trump.
36:22For his supporters, Washington's bulldozer politics promises to break institutional inertia and compel problem-solving on challenges marked by gridlock.
36:32Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut.
36:35He's a top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
36:38Just back from the Munich conference.
36:43On the Cuba point, no oil from Venezuela, Marco Rubio in negotiations.
36:52What's next?
36:54Yeah, well, there's so much to say on this topic.
36:57I don't think that Venezuela was only about Cuba.
37:01It was also about the president saying, look, I'm doing something about drugs.
37:06No, he's doing something about cocaine.
37:07He's not doing anything about fentanyl, which is, you know, the drug that kills most Americans.
37:13But Cuba is a nice byproduct.
37:15And, you know, Marco Rubio is ascendant in the administration.
37:19Marco Rubio is a Miami born and bred, second generation Cuban-American.
37:24So if you're Marco Rubio, you say, oh, my gosh, look at what we just did.
37:26We took down a really bad communist in Caracas and we could do this in Cuba.
37:31The problem is that this is all performative stuff, right?
37:34There's no regime change in Venezuela.
37:36Regime change is complicated.
37:38Regime change means you put a lot of guys with guns on the ground and some of them get killed.
37:42And so as in Cuba and as in Iran, could we break a lot of things?
37:49Absolutely.
37:50Absolutely.
37:50The military is second to none.
37:52But, you know, what do you actually change?
37:55We're negotiating with somebody in Venezuela who is the number two.
37:58You know, the Maduro, the Chavista communist regime is still in place.
38:03It's just scared and therefore willing to negotiate with the Trump administration.
38:09For now.
38:10For now.
38:11Who knows what happens next?
38:12Iran.
38:13Donald Trump is saber rattling, to put it mildly.
38:16It looks like Donald Trump could be launching his own war with Iran by the weekend.
38:21Yeah.
38:23Yeah.
38:24Again, we need to really zone in on what we're talking about here, right?
38:28You know, we will soon have two aircraft carriers in the region.
38:31That's an immense amount of combat power.
38:33We could break a lot of things.
38:35We could sink the entire Iranian Navy.
38:37We could blow up lots of stuff.
38:39But is that going to change the regime?
38:42Remember, the regime in Iran, just as in the regime in Cuba and the regime in Venezuela,
38:46is comprised of a lot of guys with a whole lot of guns, probably a whole lot of Swiss bank
38:52accounts
38:52and a whole lot of interest in not being tried by the next regime.
38:56So, you know, both Cuba and Iran right now are, quote, unquote, talking, right?
39:02Of course they're talking.
39:04We got aircraft carriers.
39:06The question is, is there going to be a fundamental change?
39:10I would argue that the only way you're making fundamental change is with troops on the ground,
39:14which means troops getting killed, unfortunately, as we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan.
39:18And I'm not sure Trump's going to go there.
39:20What could be, what would be the invoked legal justification for an attack on Iran?
39:26Oh, there, I mean, how quaint, Lawrence, right?
39:31You know, look, it's a politically complicated thing.
39:34Maduro was a very, very bad guy, right?
39:37And so if you're me and you say, hey, our constitution says that we ought to be consulted
39:41and maybe approve military action, or, you know, this is obviously a violation of the
39:46U.N. charter, the Trump administration says, well, we took out a very bad guy.
39:51And not only do half of Americans agree with that, but actually a fair number of regimes
39:55and others in Latin America say, yeah.
39:58So, you know, if we're talking about legality here, that horse left the barn long ago.
40:03And Congress would have no ability, certainly Republican-controlled Congress would take
40:09no steps whatsoever to try to control this.
40:12Yeah, there is no Congress.
40:13I mean, there is no Congress.
40:15What Congress?
40:16You know, what's interesting about-
40:17You know, I don't normally feel naive on this show.
40:20That's not my thing here.
40:22But here we are.
40:24Now, look, in defense of American politics, you're starting to see a return of the Congress,
40:30when we in the House voted against tariffs against Canada, we actually got seven Republicans.
40:35When we voted to maintain the Affordable Care Act subsidies, we got a bunch of Republicans.
40:41So you're starting to see, as the president loses political popularity, you're starting
40:45to see a few Republicans, a few of them, just raise their hands and say, well, maybe I'm
40:49a little uncomfortable.
40:50But we're a long way from Congress finally saying the Constitution to which we take an
40:55oath demands our approval for military action.
40:58We are a long way from that.
40:59And I don't say that with any joy.
41:01And in terms of distraction from the Epstein files, a couple of aircraft carriers launching
41:06attacks on Iran will do the job for Donald Trump for at least a weekend.
41:10Yeah, no, that's right.
41:11That's right.
41:11And I mean, it's not a single thing, right?
41:13You know, it's one of the byproducts of Venezuela is the Cuba field squeeze.
41:18By the way, we haven't talked about this.
41:20One of the possible outcomes in Cuba is a devastating humanitarian situation.
41:24Yes.
41:25Don't think that no resources getting in is a unadulterated good thing.
41:30There could be Cubans starving.
41:31There could be a humanitarian crisis.
41:33And that complicates the calculus.
41:36Yeah.
41:36And life is rough in Cuba before any of this.
41:39Exactly.
41:39Already.
41:39Congressman Jim Himes, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
41:43Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
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