- 14 hours ago
The Last Word with Lawrence ODonnell - Season 13 - Episode 37
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Now it's time for the last word with Lawrence O'Donnell. Good evening, Lawrence.
00:04Should be weird is as good a promo as you could possibly ask for for television.
00:09That that ought to do it. That ought to hook him right there.
00:12Rachel, when I heard you earlier in the program talking about the Trump Justice Department,
00:17you use that phrase Trump Justice Department and just now the Justice Department.
00:21I have been I've adopted Trump Justice Department because since Donald Trump corrupted it,
00:26it feels awkward to simply call it the Justice Department.
00:33And it feels like we need a name for it.
00:36You know, Emily Galvin Almanza was here the other night.
00:40She's got this important new book that's actually right here called The Price of Mercy.
00:45And she makes the point. It's about the what we would call the criminal justice system.
00:51She begs us not to call it that because justice, she says, is not actually what it's about.
00:59And she wants us to just call it the legal system, which makes sense to me.
01:04And I'm struggling to find the term we use for that department that tries to prosecute
01:11and then apparently gives up tonight trying to prosecute six members of Congress for publicly reciting the law.
01:18Calling that the Justice Department for the next three years.
01:23I mean, especially in an institution that by its nature builds on its own precedents.
01:30Right. So things that have happened in the past are sort of implicitly OK to happen again
01:35in the way the Justice Department builds its own internally facing policies
01:38and the way it teaches, you know, new up and coming members of the Justice Department how they're allowed to
01:44behave.
01:44There has to be some way to say that the things that happened in 2025 and 2026 can't be seen
01:53as precedent.
01:53Those were not part of a normal Justice Department.
01:56Those were not in keeping with the ethics, the rules and indeed the values of what the Justice Department is
02:00supposed to stand for.
02:02It's like when you're looking back at, you know, you're looking back into the middle of the previous century
02:09and you're talking about government in France.
02:11Like, it's really important to say whether or not it was the Vichy government or whether it was the Republic.
02:15Yes. Yes. Right.
02:16Yes. Yes.
02:18So the the Trump lawyer department decided not to prosecute six members of the House of Congress for reciting the
02:27law in public.
02:28And Donald Trump's threat to execute them apparently no longer holds that.
02:33I like the idea that it's the Trump lawyer department rather than being the U.S. Justice Department or the
02:40Trump Justice Department.
02:41The lawyer department is actually perfect.
02:43It's like the one thing they actually are.
02:45But, you know, Jeanine Pirro is a lawyer.
02:48It seems like the least important thing about her.
02:50But that is the common theme.
02:52That's pretty good.
02:53The Rachel, the Rachel Lawrence writer's room at work on live TV, the Trump lawyer department.
02:59It is.
03:00Thank you, Rachel.
03:01From here on out.
03:02Thank you, Lawrence.
03:02Appreciate it.
03:03Thank you, Rachel.
03:05A president of the United States calling for the execution of members of Congress because they publicly recited the law
03:13is obviously a reason to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove that president from the from office for extreme mental
03:21incapacity and possible dementia.
03:23But the White House press corps, who would collectively scream at Joe Biden if he misstated a single word, never
03:30mind the law, never mind the Constitution,
03:32take it in stride when Donald Trump spews madness like that.
03:37Imagine what the country would have said about a president who announced he was no longer going to spell the
03:44words Supreme Court with a capital S and a capital C because he's mad at the Supreme Court.
03:54Prior to Donald Trump, that would have been taken as a conclusive indicator of madness and an incapacity to serve
04:01as president.
04:02But at 7.06 a.m. today, Donald Trump posted the Supreme Court will be using lowercase letters for a
04:10while based on a complete lack of respect exclamation point.
04:16If I tried that in the third grade at St. Brendan's Elementary School, I would have gotten in trouble for
04:21conduct beneath the dignity of a third grader.
04:26But the White House press corps accepts it.
04:29They have to accept it because the avalanche of madness is just too big.
04:33It's too big to catch up with every piece of it and react to it the way it should be
04:37reacted to.
04:39But if the next president has a typo in a social media post, you can bet the White House press
04:44corps will jump all over it the way they always used to.
04:49Joe Biden's decision making as president, which is what the job really is.
04:53Because it's decision making, it's not athleticism, was as impressive as any president in history.
05:01And Donald Trump's decision making is the worst.
05:05By far.
05:07Voters seem to recognize that now, with new polls showing that if the Biden versus Trump election were held today,
05:13Donald Trump would lose.
05:14Donald Trump is the only president demented or stupid enough to believe that the president has the unlimited power to
05:21set tariffs.
05:22Every other president knew what the Constitution says about that.
05:25Donald Trump doesn't know what the Constitution is or where to find one, and would be completely flummoxed by the
05:32prose style of the Constitution because it doesn't call America the hottest country in the world.
05:38A favorite Trump expression that does not refer to climate change, but he thinks sounds really cool and positive.
05:46Not a single faithful viewer of this program was even slightly surprised by the Supreme Court's decisive ruling on Friday
05:53that Donald Trump's tariffs are illegal and unconstitutional.
05:56We have been telling you that from this desk at this hour since Donald Trump illegally imposed his first tariff.
06:03Donald Trump is now threatening to impose a worldwide tariff of 15% on imports to the United States from
06:11everywhere in the world, a tariff that will be paid in the United States by Americans, like all Trump tariffs,
06:17and a tariff that is also illegal and unconstitutional.
06:21Former acting Solicitor General in the Obama administration, Neil Katyal, argued the tariff case in the Supreme Court against the
06:30Trump tariffs and won on every single point that he argued to the court.
06:36On page 5 of Chief Justice John Roberts' opinion of the court, the chief quotes Article 1 of the Constitution
06:42saying,
06:43Quote, the Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises.
06:49Duties are, of course, tariffs.
06:51And the chief justice exposed Donald Trump's tariffs for what they are, a sales tax paid by Americans.
06:58The chief wrote, a tariff, after all, is a tax levied on imported goods and services.
07:05The chief justice was forced to write a sentence that no previous Supreme Court justice has ever had to write.
07:11Quote, the United States, after all, is not at war with every nation in the world.
07:19That was the court's response to Donald Trump's claim of a national emergency that would justify his tariffs worldwide.
07:27The chief justice exposed Donald Trump's ludicrous lie that foreign countries pay the Trump illegally imposed tariffs.
07:34The chief wrote, tariffs operate directly on domestic importers to raise revenue for the Treasury.
07:41A domestic importer is a company here in the United States or a person here in the United States who
07:48has to pay the Trump tariffs only when the goods enter the United States.
07:54The opinion of the court could not have been simpler, and for such an important case, it could not have
07:59been shorter, only 21 pages.
08:01That's how simple it was.
08:03The decision was six to three, with a silent Samuel Alito joining losers Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh.
08:11Brett Kavanaugh saw the opinion as an opportunity to file his 63-page application for the job of chief justice.
08:20Brett Kavanaugh's absurdly long and perversely twisted 63-page dissent was a juvenile exercise to impress one person who cannot
08:30read.
08:31Donald Trump, who struggles to read these simple words in big print in his teleprompters,
08:36obviously does not have the mental capacity to attempt to read a single sentence of a Supreme Court opinion or
08:42dissent.
08:43The ambitious Brett Kavanaugh is 61 years old, and if John Roberts retires any time soon,
08:48Brett Kavanaugh would surely raise his hand requesting a promotion to chief justice,
08:53which would then leave the vacancy on the court to be filled by Donald Trump's most reliable judge of all,
08:59Judge Aileen Mercedes Cannon, the inexperienced federal judge in Florida who today ruled that Jack Smith's written report
09:06of his investigation of Donald Trump's illegal possession of classified documents cannot be released to Congress or the public.
09:13Judge Cannon wants that report sealed away from history.
09:17That opinion, written today, is her 15-page application for a Supreme Court seat if 77-year-old Clarence Thomas
09:26decides
09:26he wants to spend the rest of his days living full-time in the vacation luxury provided to him by
09:33Republican billionaires.
09:35The Supreme Court decision means that everyone who paid the tariffs has a claim for a refund.
09:40The United States Treasury is the biggest refunder in the world.
09:45The Treasury knows exactly how to do this and could do it by computer easily.
09:49The Treasury has records of exactly who paid, which tariffs at which port of entry, on which day, in what
09:55amount,
09:56just like the Treasury has precise records of every penny of tax withholding from your paychecks all year long.
10:04And when the Treasury finds that too much money was withheld from your paycheck,
10:09you become one of the 117 million people who gets a tax refund from the Treasury on April 15th.
10:18In a typical year, the Treasury refunds an estimated $300 billion to income tax filers.
10:26The Treasury knows how to do this, but Donald Trump's Treasury wants to keep that illegally collected money
10:31because that is now the official Republican Party position.
10:35If your government illegally takes your money, the government doesn't have to give it back to you.
10:41That's the Republican position.
10:43So Democrats, who already had a strong campaign position in the coming congressional elections,
10:48have a new question for voters to ask Republican candidates.
10:52Where's my refund?
10:54Multiple studies indicate that the average American spends thousands of dollars indirectly paying illegal Trump tariffs.
11:01So that means every voter has a moral right to ask, where's my refund?
11:06Eventually, the companies like the electronic stores and the grocery stores who paid the tariffs
11:11will get their refunds directly from the Treasury,
11:14but they will be under no obligation to pass those refunds along to consumers.
11:19So a Republican president has illegally taken roughly $200 billion from American voters,
11:26and Donald Trump and Republican members of Congress have absolutely no intention of even trying to give that money back.
11:33Every voter should ask every Republican candidate, where's my refund?
11:39And everyone at the next Trump rally should be shouting to their hero, Donald Trump, where's my refund?
11:47The overwhelming majority of Americans know who took their money.
11:5164% disapprove of Donald Trump's tariffs in a Washington Post poll.
11:54And a CNN poll, 63% of Americans disapprove of Donald Trump.
12:00So that is almost two-thirds of Americans who know who took their money and who owes them a refund.
12:0568% say Donald Trump hasn't paid enough attention to the country's most important problems.
12:10Those 68% are watching Donald Trump demolish, literally demolish the White House,
12:15and publicly spend his time concentrating on creating a temple to himself in its place,
12:20a completely unnecessary ballroom.
12:22How could there be a single voter out there who thinks Donald Trump cares more about them
12:27than he cares about his ballroom?
12:3162% oppose Donald Trump's immigration and customs enforcement tactics.
12:36Tonight, another Republican member of the House of Representatives is facing calls to resign from Republicans
12:43after a Texas News website published text messages from Republican Congressman Anthony Gonzalez.
12:50Even some Republicans in the House now are calling for his resignation.
12:54Representative Nancy Mace wrote, Republican Nancy Mace wrote, quote,
12:58These text messages are disgusting and inexcusable.
13:01A member of Congress harassing his own staffer in the middle of the night,
13:06asking for explicit photos, pressing her on sexual positions.
13:10Regina Santos Aviles told him he was going too far.
13:14He did not care.
13:15He kept going.
13:16She is gone now.
13:18Her son is growing up without his mother.
13:20And Tony Gonzalez is campaigning like nothing happened.
13:23We have zero tolerance for those who abuse their power over others.
13:27Zero.
13:27It does not matter what party you are in, what title you hold, or how powerful you think you are.
13:32You do not get a free pass.
13:34Tony Gonzalez should resign immediately and be held fully accountable for what he's done.
13:39She and her family deserve better, and Texans deserve a congressman who does not prey on women.
13:47Anthony Gonzalez has denied the affair.
13:50Regina Santos Aviles took her own life five months ago.
13:56Leading off our discussion tonight is House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
14:00Thank you very much for joining us tonight, Mr. Leader.
14:03I would like to get your reaction to the Supreme Court decision on Donald Trump's illegal tariffs.
14:11Well, the Supreme Court absolutely did the right thing here.
14:14Trump tariffs have been a major cost upon the American people.
14:21We think the average cost is about $1,700 more in additional expense on everyday Americans.
14:28This is an environment where the affordability crisis is already out of control.
14:32And, of course, as you pointed out, Lawrence, Donald Trump had zero authority to do this.
14:38This was unlawful and unconstitutional.
14:41And now the question is, how do we make sure, congressionally, that the businesses and the consumers
14:47and the farmers who are adversely impacted by the Trump tariffs can get their money back?
14:55The Trump administration is saying, well, they'll just have to go to court to try to get their money back.
15:01Well, what the Supreme Court decision said is that the process will be set forth by the lower court.
15:07And so we'll await the lower court decision at the same period of time.
15:10Legislation has been introduced by Democrats in both the House and the Senate
15:14to try to create a mechanism to ensure that refunds are issued and that we can find a way for
15:22some of the harm
15:23that has been done to everyday Americans to be repaired.
15:27So we saw in polling about two-thirds of Americans were opposed to the Trump tariffs
15:33before they knew from the Supreme Court that the tariffs are unconstitutional and illegal,
15:40tariffs that these people have already paid.
15:45Well, I think Donald Trump underestimated the American people.
15:49He promised that he would lower costs on day one.
15:52Of course, costs haven't gone down.
15:54Costs have gone up.
15:55The American people know that Republicans haven't done a damn thing to make their life more affordable
16:01in an environment where far too many people are working hard.
16:05They're playing by the rules, but they're struggling to live paycheck to paycheck, cannot thrive, and can barely survive.
16:12That's an unacceptable situation in the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world.
16:18And so we have—and they know that the Trump tariffs, by way of example, have made things worse
16:24from a president who promised to make things better.
16:28But as Democrats, you know, we're going to continue to focus on driving down the high cost of living,
16:33dealing with a housing crisis, a health care crisis, a child care crisis, a utility bill crisis,
16:39and a grocery bill crisis all at the same time that Donald Trump and Republican policies have made worse.
16:47What would you suggest voters focus on in the State of the Union address tomorrow night?
16:54Well, if Donald Trump was actually being authentic to the American people, and we know that's not going to be
17:00the case,
17:01he would acknowledge that his presidency has been a failure over the last 400-plus days.
17:06He's failed on the economy.
17:07He's failed on health care.
17:09He's failed on immigration.
17:11ICE is completely and totally out of control.
17:13They need to be reined in.
17:15Taxpayer dollars should be spent to make life more affordable for the American people,
17:19not brutalize or kill them, as has been the case, tragically, with Rene Nicole Good and Alex Preddy.
17:25But we know Donald Trump is not going to acknowledge any of this.
17:28In fact, what he's probably going to suggest is that he has solved the affordability crisis.
17:33But this is one of the reasons why we're seeing presidential approval numbers that are at historic lows.
17:40Latinos abandoning Donald Trump in large numbers.
17:43Younger voters doing the same thing.
17:45Independents doing exactly the same thing.
17:47Now, Donald Trump has taken a my-way-or-highway approach from the very beginning,
17:51and that has failed the American people.
17:53We should see whether he comes before the Congress tomorrow and offers to change direction,
17:58but I'm not holding my breath.
18:01The Epstein files obviously is gripping the United Kingdom as much as the United States.
18:08We have seen arrests there.
18:12We're going to talk about that later in this program.
18:14But what should Donald Trump say tomorrow night about the Epstein files, given the country's interest in it?
18:24Well, he should direct his so-called Department of Justice to release all of the files in compliance with the
18:32law that he signed.
18:34The reality is the Department of Justice is withholding about three million documents from the American people.
18:42We're thankful for the bravery and the courage and the strength of the Epstein survivors, many of whom will be
18:49in that chamber tomorrow.
18:51He should promise them the accountability and the transparency that they have fought hard to achieve.
18:58House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, the next Speaker of the House if the Democrats win the congressional elections.
19:04Thank you very much for leading off our discussions tonight.
19:10Coming up, there was another arrest today of someone exposed in the Epstein files.
19:15While all the American men involved with Jeffrey Epstein are sleeping comfortably at home tonight,
19:20the British police continue to investigate and arrest friends of Jeffrey Epstein.
19:26That's next with Epstein survivor, Jess Michaels and Congressman James Walkinshaw.
19:36There was another arrest today based on revelations in the Epstein files, and that arrest was, of course, not in
19:43the United States of America.
19:44It was in the country whose legal system was the model the founders used to create our legal system.
19:51It was in the United Kingdom where the king's little brother was arrested last week.
19:56Today, British police arrested Peter Mendelsohn, the former British ambassador to the United States,
20:02for suspicion of misconduct in public office involving Jeffrey Epstein.
20:07The Associated Press reports both men are suspected of improperly passing UK government information to the disgraced U.S. financier.
20:15Prime Minister Keir Starmer fired Mendelsohn in September after emails were published showing that he maintained a friendship with Epstein
20:24after the financier's 2008 conviction for sex offenses involving a minor.
20:30Peter Mendelsohn has denied any wrongdoing.
20:33Not only is no one being arrested in the United States for involvement with Jeffrey Epstein,
20:39but Donald Trump has been publicly considering a pardon for his old friend, Ghislaine Maxwell,
20:44who was convicted of being Jeffrey Epstein's co-conspirator in sex trafficking.
20:49Our next guest, Congressman James Walkinshaw, said this after Ghislaine Maxwell refused to answer questions in an under oath deposition
20:58with the House Oversight Committee.
21:01What we did get was another episode in her long-running campaign for clemency from President Trump.
21:12And President Trump could end that today.
21:15He could rule out clemency for Ghislaine Maxwell the monster.
21:20He could rule out a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell the monster.
21:24The question for all of us today is why hasn't he done that and why won't he do that?
21:33Congressman Walkinshaw has invited Epstein survivor Jess Michaels to tomorrow night's State of the Union address as his guest.
21:41In a statement, Jess Michaels said, quote,
21:57Joining us now is Epstein survivor Jess Michaels.
22:01She met Jeffrey Epstein when she was 22 years old.
22:04Also with us, Democratic Congressman James Walkinshaw from Virginia.
22:07He's a member of the Oversight and Homeland Security Committees.
22:12Jess Michaels, let me begin with you.
22:15What would you hope to hear in the State of the Union address tomorrow night?
22:21Well, we're still waiting for the full release of the files.
22:25So what I would love, firstly, is to even be acknowledged that survivors exist.
22:31What we haven't heard from this president is that we actually exist.
22:34We've been called a hoax.
22:35I would love to hear that there's a recognition that justice hasn't been served
22:43and that there are going to be immediate sweeping investigations and arrests.
22:50Carson Walkinshaw, what point are you hoping to make by inviting an Epstein survivor like Jess Michaels as a guest,
23:00as other members of the House are doing with other survivors?
23:05Well, Lawrence, I want President Trump and the American people, really, to see the incredible courage that Jess and her
23:14fellow survivors have demonstrated.
23:16I want them to see that courage in Jess's face and her fellow survivors' faces tomorrow night.
23:23And, look, I have said, if my colleagues in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, could show just an ounce of the
23:30courage that Jess and others have shown,
23:33we could get the transparency and accountability that Jess and those survivors deserve.
23:38And I hope that message will come across loud and clear tomorrow by their presence.
23:43Jess Michaels, as we all know, Donald Trump is an obsessive television watcher.
23:48He could be watching this at the moment.
23:50But he will surely know and be told, if he doesn't already know from his television watching,
23:55that Epstein survivors like you are in the audience in front of him.
24:00He will know you're there.
24:02So if he says nothing to you or about you, then that will obviously be a decision he makes.
24:12What would that feel like to you after a year in which the Epstein files have been so central in
24:18Washington?
24:20Well, silence is a message.
24:22And silence is how sexual abuse and trafficking is covered up.
24:27Silence is how the corruption continues.
24:30And so silence speaks volumes.
24:35I want to go to another point with Donald Trump, Jess Michaels, that is he's not quite silent about it.
24:42And this is something that the congressman's been talking about.
24:45And that is the pardon of Ghislaine Maxwell.
24:48He has said in the past, I wish her well.
24:52He has said that about sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
24:56He's never said that about you.
24:58He's never said that about any Epstein survivor.
25:01He's never said, I wish her well.
25:04What did it feel like to you to hear Donald Trump say, I wish her well to Ghislaine Maxwell?
25:13It definitely felt like a betrayal, of course, because she's a convicted sex offender.
25:19But what I call Ghislaine Maxwell in her transfer from the maximum security prison that she's been in into the
25:26minimum security prison that she's in right now is that that's the second sweetheart deal.
25:31And it's happened in plain public sight.
25:36And he has said nothing about even that of her being transferred, which should be illegally, to this minimum security
25:47prison.
25:47So it's it's devastating that predators and powerful people are getting the attention and survivors are being left behind.
25:59Just Michaels, why did you decide to attend the State of the Union to accept accept the congressman's invitation to
26:06attend the State of the Union?
26:08Because I want to be there as a reminder that we still have not seen the files released.
26:16Period.
26:17We haven't seen not only not only have we not seen the remaining files that still have to be released,
26:24but the ones that we've received are inordinately redacted.
26:27Redacted and and important information in victim statements has been covered up and that's it's ridiculous.
26:36It's ridiculous. And that's we're there to remind him that we're not going anywhere.
26:41And the American people are behind us in this.
26:44This is a bipartisan issue. And we we won't be silent and we won't disappear.
26:51And Congressman Morganshoy, as you know, Donald Trump's lawyer department or whatever you might call it, it doesn't seem to
26:58be operating as a Justice Department is in violation of the law every day that it has not turned over
27:06the entirety of the Epstein files.
27:09That's right. They missed the deadline to release the files.
27:12They illegally redacted portions of the files.
27:16And I went to the DOJ and saw some of those illegal redactions.
27:20And as just noted, they continue to cover up millions and millions of files.
27:24We're not going to stop pushing.
27:26As you know, the Oversight Committee also has an active subpoena.
27:30The Department of Justice has to turn over those documents to the Oversight Committee.
27:34We're going to continue to fight to enforce that.
27:37And I know if there happens to be a change in control of the House of Representatives next year,
27:42we're going to fight even harder to enforce that subpoena.
27:45The truth here will come out.
27:47Question is how long it will take and how long survivors like Jess have to endure these indignities from the
27:54Trump administration,
27:55from the so-called Department of Justice.
27:56The truth will get out.
27:58We will not stop until it gets out.
28:00Jess Michaels, as you know, the State of the Union address is a majestic Washington process.
28:07I'll never forget the first one that I went to, but President George H.W. Bush, it goes back that
28:15far.
28:16And there's nothing quite like being in that room, but you'll be in that room for one of the most
28:21unusual circumstances that has ever brought anyone into that room.
28:24How important is it to you that you won't be alone, that there will be other survivors there with you?
28:30Well, that makes all the difference in the world, that we're going there together, that we are not going to
28:38stop.
28:39And we're not going to stop arriving and showing up as a team and as sisters and with Virginia's family.
28:50And we know that the American people are behind us.
28:53I mean, that's the that's what I keep hearing all the time is that we're representing them.
29:03Jess Michaels and Congressman James Walkinshaw, thank you both very much for joining us tonight.
29:08Thank you for having me.
29:10Thank you, Lawrence.
29:11And coming up yesterday, Donald Trump's so-called special envoy, the incompetent real estate developer, Steve Witkoff, publicly said Donald
29:20Trump is a liar.
29:22He didn't say those words, but that is what he proved.
29:26That's next with Congressman Adam Smith.
29:33A new Washington Post poll found that 64 percent of American voters disapprove of Donald Trump's handling of tariffs.
29:39That poll was taken before two thirds of the United States Supreme Court found those tariffs to be unconstitutional and
29:47illegal.
29:48After the Supreme Court ruled, Democratic Congressman Adam Smith said,
29:53As Trump tries to consolidate powers reserved to Congress under Article one of the Constitution,
29:57this decision demonstrates that his authoritarian overreach will not be tolerated in the United States of America.
30:04Donald Trump continues to threaten the possibility of starting a war with Iran without congressional authorization.
30:12Peter Baker of The New York Times reminded us this morning that Donald Trump said on July 19th,
30:19all three nuclear sites in Iran were completely destroyed and or obliterated.
30:25It would take years to bring them back into service.
30:28And Donald Trump's completely inexperienced so-called special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said this yesterday about Iran.
30:37They're probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making materials.
30:43So there's Steve Witkoff calling the Donald Trump of July 19th a liar, something we've all done.
30:53Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Adam Smith of Washington, of the state of Washington.
30:57He is the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
31:01Congressman Smith, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
31:04I wanted to, first of all, get your reaction to the Supreme Court ruling on the tariffs.
31:09I think it's a huge step.
31:10I was perhaps a little bit overly optimistic in my statement there.
31:13I mean, Donald Trump is still ignoring the law and ignoring Congress on a wide range of issues.
31:17But it was the first really dramatic step from the Supreme Court to say, no, President Trump,
31:23it is not true that the only check on your power is your own morality, as President Trump said.
31:28The law and the Constitution still apply.
31:30And that's helpful, but there are so many other areas that he needs to be reined back in.
31:34And we have to understand that that is the central through point in all of Donald Trump's terrible policies.
31:40It is all about consolidating power in his hands and trying to weaken or destroy any other institution that is
31:47supposed to check that power.
31:49So the Supreme Court helps.
31:50But now we have an even bigger test going to war with Iran, clearly something that Congress should have to
31:57approve.
31:57President Trump hasn't even said anything about making.
32:00Well, he hasn't said anything about making his case to the American people, much less to Congress.
32:05So we have to keep on him on this one as well, because there's nothing more important that a president
32:10does than go to war.
32:11And he ought to have to follow the law before he does.
32:15Should he be revealing his thinking on Iran in the State of the Union address?
32:22Absolutely.
32:22I mean, he should be certainly revealing what he thinks the right policy towards Iran is.
32:27I mean, obviously, don't reveal any sort of military plans or anything that's classified.
32:31We reserve that to Secretary Hanks have to reveal classified information.
32:35The president's not supposed to be doing that, but he should make the case to the American people as to
32:40what he's trying to do there.
32:41And this is a really dangerous moment, Lawrence.
32:43And I've been here before.
32:45And the Iranian regime is awful, terrible, brutally oppressive.
32:50They're spreading revolution and all kinds of violence throughout the Middle East, terrorizing their own people.
32:55But the same could be said of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi and the Taliban.
32:59We have to get past the idea that evil can be fixed by applying enough military force.
33:06We should have learned that lesson by now.
33:08And we should be a lot more cautious about launching wars.
33:12War, you never know exactly where they're going, despite what the plans may say in advance.
33:17There appears to be no real Republican resistance in the Congress, in the House or the Senate to Donald Trump
33:24launching a war with Iran at his whim.
33:28Yeah. And that's very, very few Republicans are speaking.
33:31The few that are, like Lindsey Graham, are just, you know, begging for another Middle East conflict and apparently another
33:37endless war.
33:38But that is it is truly shocking that there are so many Republicans that are utterly and completely silent on
33:44this point as we get ready to go to war.
33:47I mean, we've had, as I mentioned, a number of these discussions over the course of the last 25 or
33:5130 years.
33:52Members of Congress speak out one way or the other.
33:55But this, again, speaks to the Republican Party simply allowing Trump to be this all-powerful entity that they don't
34:02think they should question,
34:03even though they are duly elected representatives of this country who have a constitutional obligation to speak up.
34:11I mean, one way or the other, you know, at least state your opinion and hold the president accountable to
34:16the law.
34:18Congressman Adam Smith, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
34:20Thanks, Lawrence.
34:22And coming up, Donald Trump wants to get all of your voter information, all of it.
34:29And Republicans in Congress want to give it to him in the bill that the Republicans have falsely named the
34:37Save America Act.
34:39This is an important one.
34:41And that's next.
34:46Today, Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah urged Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune to bring Donald Trump's voter ID
34:55bill,
34:55now called the Save America Act, to the Senate floor sooner rather than later.
35:05It's not enough to just bring it to the floor.
35:07I think on a bill like this, it's time for us to make filibustering senators speak.
35:12Don't let them sleep.
35:13Don't let them leave while they're getting credit for filibustering.
35:17Just make them speak.
35:18That's what the filibuster is.
35:20That would require changing the rules of the Senate.
35:24The so-called Save America Act requires states to share their voter information with Donald Trump's federal government,
35:31and it requires voters to prove their citizenship with passports or birth certificates.
35:37Joining us now is congressional historian Norm Ornstein.
35:40He is an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
35:43Norm, the thing about Republican legislation is the name is always the opposite.
35:51That big, beautiful bill wasn't beautiful at all.
35:54It was ugly and cruel.
35:55I have a feeling this Save America Act doesn't save America.
36:01It saves Republican asses, Lawrence.
36:04And that's what it's all about.
36:05And what's most important here, as you mentioned earlier, is they're trying to push this as a voter ID bill.
36:13That is the tiniest part of this bill.
36:16It is an utterly pernicious attempt to not just take over the voting system and require all Americans to register
36:26again in person,
36:27bringing this proof of citizenship, a passport, which probably will cost people over $150,
36:34a passport card, $65 plus photos, or a birth certificate, which most people couldn't find or an awful lot couldn't.
36:43But the most pernicious part of this, which they've snuck in and don't want to talk about,
36:48is they would require states to turn over all their sensitive voter information and rules to the Department of Homeland
36:55Security,
36:56which has a program called the SAVE program, which has a 14 percent error rate purging legitimate voters from the
37:05system,
37:05and link it to the Social Security Administration, the same one that Doge compromised with our Social Security numbers.
37:15So the idea that this is simply about a voter ID, which they know is popular, that part of it,
37:20is absolutely wrong, outrageous, and utterly dangerous for America.
37:28The phrase voter ID may be popular, but passport voting is something that would leave out millions upon millions of
37:37voters.
37:39And let's face it, this is a poll tax, if that's what they're going to do.
37:44Now, you know, you want to have a voter ID and you want to provide it to people who have
37:48difficulty getting it.
37:49And remember, if you got that passport and then you went to re-register,
37:54people who are miles or hundreds of miles from a place where they could actually do that
37:59are going to pay not just the poll tax in money, but in time, sweat, and effort.
38:04So it's ridiculous. Give them a passport card for free. Fine.
38:10Require the states to provide birth certificates for free for people who don't have them.
38:14But that's not what they're about. They're about suppressing votes.
38:18Norm, the part that you've identified for us here of the federal government basically seizing the voter rolls
38:27and voter information from all 50 states, this is Donald Trump's,
38:32it sounds like Donald Trump's attempt to federalize elections.
38:36That's exactly what it is. It would take control of elections from the states where they have historically rested.
38:44Congress does have some power. They have the power to regulate the time, manner, and place of elections.
38:49They have never used this power to suppress votes.
38:54Where they've used the power, with the Voting Rights Act, or when we had a voter reform that provided money
39:00for states
39:01to improve their voting machines after the 2000 election debacle,
39:06it has been to help states carry out the process of doing fair elections.
39:12And where we have expanded the franchise to try and make voting available to more Americans.
39:17This is the first time in history that we have the opposite taking place,
39:22federalizing to keep Americans from voting or make it so hard that millions and millions would not be able to
39:30do it.
39:30It is so pernicious, it's breathtaking, and that it hasn't gotten the attention that it deserves
39:36with all these other scandals surrounding us is nerve-wracking, frankly.
39:43Yeah, it's hard to get to it. I mean, you brought it to my attention. That's why we're talking about
39:47it.
39:47I wasn't going to get to it without you bringing it to my attention.
39:50And especially the part, I think most of us are aware of the passport and birth certificate piece of it,
39:57but it's this give us your voter rolls, send it all to Kristi Noem, send everything California has,
40:04all the information Massachusetts has on all of its voters, just give it to Kristi Noem.
40:10And let's face it, Lawrence, this is not just about voting.
40:14If they have all that sensitive information in the hands of Kristi Noem
40:18and the others who are running the Department of Homeland Security,
40:22God knows what other purposes they will use it for, to intimidate people.
40:28And remember, another part of this act, just to circle back a little bit to the voting,
40:32is if you are a local election official and somebody who is a citizen votes
40:37but doesn't provide exactly what this bill requires,
40:41they will prosecute you to the full extent of the law.
40:44So it's an attempt to intimidate voters, to take away voting rights,
40:49to give information for other purposes to the Department of Homeland Security
40:53and the Trump administration, and to basically blow up the entire election system.
40:59People are going to stop being election administrators
41:02if they're stuck in this kind of process.
41:05Norm Ornstein, thank you very much for sounding the alarm on this one.
41:08Thanks for joining us tonight.
41:10Thank you, Lawrence.
Comments