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The Last Word with Lawrence ODonnell - Season 13 - Episode 38
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00:00And so it came to be that a hardworking man of humble origins who always struggled with honesty
00:07rose from the House of Representatives to the United States Senate to two terms as vice president
00:12before being elected to two terms as president of the United States. And in the second year
00:18of his second term as president, his entire life turned on the question that came to frame
00:25his presidency for history. What did the president know and when did he know it?
00:33As investigative reporters Woodward and Bernstein followed by congressional investigations and
00:38criminal investigations closed in on what turned out to be the criminal corruption of Republican
00:43President Richard Nixon. In the second year of his second term, Richard Nixon became consumed by the
00:51question. What did the president know and when did he know it? And tonight in the second year of
00:59Donald Trump's second term, the question is, is the president of the United States under criminal
01:06investigation for assault and battery on and sexual abuse of a child? Now Donald Trump's life turns
01:18on that question. When a presidency is reduced to the answer of a single simple question about a crime,
01:29that presidency is effectively over. Donald Trump's disapproval rating in polls going into his State
01:36of the Union address last night was identical to Richard Nixon's disapproval rating polls before Nixon's
01:44last State of the Union address, which occurred just months after the White House counsel testified to
01:52Congress describing Nixon's participation in crimes that he committed in the Oval Office.
01:59And six months after Richard Nixon's 1974 State of the Union address, he was forced to resign the presidency
02:06and accept a pardon from his vice president, Gerald Ford, after Ford took the oath of office as president
02:12and announced to the country, quote, our long national nightmare is over. Our 21st century long national
02:20nightmare has turned into Donald Trump's worst nightmare tonight after two days of stunning news reports that
02:30began with freelance journalist Roger Sullenberger and now include the reporting of this network and the New York
02:36Times about documents that have been withheld from Congress in violation of the law, documents that relate to criminal
02:44conduct by Donald Trump that includes the rape of a child, a possible rape of a child. And that has
02:52led Congressman Robert
02:54Garcia, the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, to ask the Attorney General of the United States a simple
03:00question to ask if the president is under investigation for assault and sexual abuse of a child.
03:07Congressman Garcia put the question in writing to the Attorney General today with a first sentence unlike
03:12any ever written about a president of the United States. Quote, I write concerning the alarming revelation
03:20that the Department of Justice is withholding materials in the Epstein files relating to alleged sexual abuse of a minor
03:29by Donald Trump. Congressman Garcia's letter describes the alarming revelation this way.
03:36Quote, this week, Roger Sullenberger and NPR each reported that DOJ has withheld more than 50 pages of
03:43interviews conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as notes from conversations with the woman
03:49who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her as a minor after recently revealing unredacted files at DOJ.
03:57I was also able to independently confirm that the department has, in fact, been withholding FBI interviews
04:04with a survivor who accused Trump of sexual abuse and violence. The Epstein materials further show
04:10that the FBI took these allegations seriously, forwarding them to the FBI's headquarters in Washington,
04:17D.C. and interviewing the victim four times. Suspiciously, only the first interview, which does not detail the
04:23allegations against President Trump remains in DOJ's public database. Internal DOJ documents,
04:30which I have personally viewed unredacted, make it clear that the survivor made additional specific
04:37allegations against President Trump, which are not reflected in the records of the first published
04:44interview. Additional reporting by Roger Sullenberger and NPR support this conclusion. In response to these
04:50disturbing revelations, DOJ refused to address the specific reasons for the withholding of these
04:57materials, noting only that it is suppressing documents that are duplicates, privileged, or part
05:02of an ongoing federal investigation. If DOJ is actively investigating allegations of sexual abuse
05:08leveled against President Trump by an Epstein survivor, Congress and the American people have a right to know
05:16immediately. DOJ must specify the exact grounds for the withholding of FBI interviews containing specific
05:24allegations against President Trump, as well as provide an update on the status of any ongoing
05:30investigations into allegations of sexual assault against President Trump. While Congressman Ro Khanna was
05:37trying to convince members of Congress to force a vote on the release of the Epstein files, Donald Trump's
05:44Justice Department was adding to the Epstein files by creating new documents that could conveniently
05:51summarize accusations against Donald Trump and Prince Andrew and Les Wexner and other prominent names.
05:58That was the heading of an FBI PowerPoint, according to NPR, prominent names. And the most prominent of
06:05those names was the first name identified by that PowerPoint, Trump. And the first item in that PowerPoint
06:13is what Congressman Garcia is demanding more information about. NPR reports that the item says,
06:23says, quote,
06:26redacted, states, redacted stated, Epstein introduced her to Trump, who subsequently forced her head down to
06:34his exposed penis, which she subsequently bit. In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her
06:40out. The FBI notes at that time that the girl, quote, according to the FBI notes, quote, would have been
06:5313 to 15
06:54years old.
06:56Donald Trump has not been charged and denies all wrongdoing in relation to the Epstein
07:02investigation. But he has not denied this particular item because he has not been confronted with this particular item.
07:09We await his response to this item, Donald Trump himself, not White House spokespeople who know nothing
07:17about it, who spew their nonsense every time they are approached for a comment. Let's hear from Donald Trump
07:26about that one. There is a behavioral echo in the violence of that unproven accusation, and it comes from the
07:33first
07:34person to publicly accuse Donald Trump of rape, which was his first wife. According to the 1993 book Lost Tycoon
07:42by
07:43Harry Hurt, Donald Trump's first wife, Ivana, accused him of rape while they were still married. When the Daily Beast
07:49revived that accusation in reporting during Donald Trump's first presidential campaign in 2015, it provoked the memorable
07:56idiocy of Donald Trump's lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, saying, quote, you cannot rape your spouse, which of
08:04course is not true. In 2015, the Daily Beast summarized the account by Harry Hurt, which was based on a
08:13deposition
08:14this way. After a painful scalp reduction surgery to remove a bald spot, Donald Trump confronted his
08:20then wife, who had previously used the same plastic surgeon. Your effing doctor has ruined me, Trump cried.
08:26What followed was a violent assault, according to Lost Tycoon. Donald held back Ivana's arms and began to pull
08:33out fistfuls of hair from her scalp as if to mirror the pain he felt from his own operation. He
08:39tore off her
08:40clothes and unzipped his pants. According to versions, she repeats to some of her closest confidants,
08:49he raped me. The book includes a statement by Ivana Trump, which was inserted by the publisher
08:56at the very last minute, saying, during a deposition given by me in connection with my matrimonial case,
09:04I stated that my husband had raped me. I referred to this as a rape, but I do not want
09:10my words to be
09:11interpreted in a literal or criminal sense. That deposition was, of course, given under oath at the
09:19time. And I presented all of that here on this program in 2015. And by that time, Ivana Trump, who
09:27had
09:27reached a divorce settlement, financial settlement, with Donald Trump, said, quote,
09:34I have recently read some comments attributed to me from nearly 30 years ago at a time of very high
09:39tension during my divorce from Donald. The story is totally without merit. Donald and I are the best
09:43of friends and together have raised three children that we love and are very proud of. I have nothing
09:48but fondness for Donald and wish him the best of luck in his campaign. Incidentally, I think he would
09:52make an incredible president. At the time, Donald Trump denied the accusations with these words,
09:59saying, quote, it's totally false. And Ivana said it was false. You can't do better than that.
10:07No lead is off limits. Those are the immortal words of Donald Trump's favorite lawyer, Donald Trump's
10:13criminal defense lawyer, who managed to get him 34 guilty verdicts in a Manhattan courtroom where Donald
10:18Trump was convicted of business fraud, is now Donald Trump's deputy attorney general, the number two
10:24at the Trump Justice Department, which is really the Trump Protection Department.
10:30No lead is off limits. Those are the words, the exact words, that Todd Blanche used to justify
10:38going to Florida to interview Donald Trump's old friend, the convicted sex trafficker, Ghislaine Maxwell.
10:43Todd Blanche conducted an interview that was filled with perjury, filled with perjury from start
10:48to finish. Todd Blanche demonstrated his complete ignorance of the Jeffrey Epstein Ghislaine Maxwell
10:53sex trafficking conspiracy in that interview. And Ghislaine Maxwell was allowed to tell any lie
10:59to Todd Blanche that she felt like telling him, including that she was never aware of any criminal
11:04conduct on the part of Jeffrey Epstein. No lead is off limits. That was Todd Blanche's justification
11:13for the travesty of justice that he conducted in Florida with Ghislaine Maxwell, designed only to find
11:19out if Ghislaine Maxwell would say anything harmful to Donald Trump. And of course she didn't, because she
11:24knows Donald Trump can pardon her. And Donald Trump has repeatedly considered pardoning her, publicly
11:29considers pardoning her. So what is Todd Blanche doing with the lead that is the first item in the prominent
11:38names list in the Epstein files? What is Todd Blanche doing with this lead tonight?
11:49Redacted stated, Epstein introduced her to Trump, who subsequently forced her head down to his exposed
11:55penis, which she subsequently bit. In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out.
12:05No lead is off limits. That is a lead. That is not proof. But that is a lead. That is
12:13where investigations
12:14begin. I felt special. That's what another 14-year-old girl felt when she met Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine
12:25Maxwell. Her father died a year before when she was 13 years old. She was having trouble with her
12:30mother at home. As a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking and raping
12:37of her, she testified under oath at Ghislaine Maxwell's trial, and her testimony was believed by the jury
12:43that convicted Ghislaine Maxwell of sex trafficking who did not deny a word of that victim's testimony
12:51at her trial. Ghislaine Maxwell did not get on the witness stand and say that witness was lying. She did
12:57not get on the
12:57witness stand and say a word. Here is some of that under oath testimony of an Epstein survivor about her
13:05experience
13:05with Donald Trump's good friends, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, when she was 14 years old.
13:14Question. How did you feel at the time about the attention that Epstein and Maxwell were paying to you
13:19when you were in middle school and high school? Answer. How did I feel about the attention?
13:24Question. Yes. Answer. Initially, I felt special. You know, I didn't really have much support or attention
13:31at home, so he was someone who was seemingly looking out for me and caring for me is how it
13:37felt.
13:39And then he raped her.
13:42A year after Jeffrey Epstein attended Donald Trump's second wedding, Jeffrey Epstein raped that 14-year-old girl,
13:52and Jeffrey Epstein introduced her to Donald Trump.
13:56And that moment is reported this way in the Epstein files. Redacted remembered Epstein introduced her to Trump,
14:04saying, this is a good one, huh? And Trump responded, yes. Redacted would have been 14.
14:15Eight years later, when that 14-year-old girl was 22 years old, she could read
14:20what Donald Trump told New York Magazine about his terrific friend, Jeffrey Epstein. I've known Jeff
14:26for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said he likes beautiful
14:31women as
14:31much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it, Jeffrey enjoys his
14:35social
14:36life. And tonight, the question facing the nation is, is the president of the United States under criminal
14:46investigation for assault and rape of a child?
14:54Pursuing that question tonight is Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California.
14:58He's a member of the House Oversight Committee. Congressman Khanna, thank you very much for being here.
15:02And everything I have just said about these victims in the Epstein files, we know because you got the files.
15:10Well, you laid out the stakes very factually and seriously. I mean, people need to understand
15:18what happened here. There was someone who has accused the president of the United States of
15:24assaulting her at 13. And she was interviewed by the FBI not once, not twice, not three times,
15:32four times. That means obviously the FBI took it very seriously. There is no indication that they
15:39think she is mentally unstable. No indication in the notes that there's anything wrong with her.
15:45And the FBI chooses to release one of those interviews where Donald Trump is not mentioned,
15:51but chooses to cover up and not release three of those interviews. And it's only Roger Sellenberg's
15:59excellent reporting that uncovers that they actually produced these four interviews to Maxwell,
16:06but they have not produced them to the American people. It is a huge cover up.
16:12So, and by the way, it's such impressive reporting, the kind of associations you have to do with all
16:17these pages, putting them together to figure out exactly what happened here. And then Congressman
16:21Garcia goes over and takes a look at the files and confirms what everyone thinks is going on here.
16:26So this is a violation of law that they're not releasing these files. These files clearly involve
16:31Donald Trump. And going forward, is there anything possible to extract this information from this
16:42Bondi Justice Department? Yes, there's the legal route. As you remember, Thomas Massey and I asked for
16:48a special master for this very reason. And the judge did not say that that was unreasonable. He just
16:54said, you need to file a lawsuit or survivors need to file a lawsuit. So there is the Southern District
16:59of New York possibility. There is a possibility that Thomas and I are talking to in Congress to
17:05build a bipartisan coalition to say, look, it's not just these three interviews that concern Donald
17:11Trump. There has been now reporting that 90 survivor statements have not been released just by a review
17:19of these files. And we're not even talking about the redactions. They just have not produced these
17:24things. But for viewers who have been watching your show and who know that you were instrumental in all of
17:29this by
17:30introducing me to Bradley Edwards, making sure that we got the survivors. For those who would follow me...
17:34Introducing you on TV. On TV.
17:37I was coming into the studio and someone, one of your co-other anchors at MSNBC didn't know the whole
17:42story.
17:42I said, no, that's that's how we got all the survivors. That's how we got the public pressure to get
17:46this out.
17:47But they should know that you basically have three interview memorandum with someone who's accusing the
17:53president of the United States and those aren't produced. I mean, put aside what you think of the
17:59claims. Why are they hiding it? If there's nothing to it, why aren't they producing it? And with all of
18:05this outrage, why aren't they producing it today? This should be the central issue for anyone who cares
18:11about this case. Produce the three other witness interviews with this accuser and tell us why you're
18:19covering that up. What's also so fascinating about this stage of the reporting and what we're seeing
18:23is we're seeing what they were doing in the Trump Justice Department while you were trying to get the
18:30Epstein files released. You had already launched your campaign to get the Epstein files released.
18:35By the time they created this PowerPoint, they're actually creating, adding to the Epstein files
18:40while you're demanding them. Clearly, with Donald Trump believing this stuff is never going to be
18:46released. Rochon is never going to succeed. We're never going to have to release them.
18:49And you can see that there's a work product there that seems to be the kind of stuff they would
18:54have
18:54brought to the Oval Office to tell Donald Trump, here's your exposure in the Epstein files. And we know
19:00that kind of meeting did happen in the White House. Absolutely. And it's surprising to me they
19:05didn't suppress that internal document. But look, they're honorable people at the FBI.
19:10They're people who do work on child trafficking. It's unclear to me that they were able to suppress
19:16everything. And so that document came out. But what they have been able to suppress is these three
19:23interview memorandum. And let's be very clear. Donald Trump was telling the FBI in March to scrub these
19:28documents. They still have redacted a lot of these statements. And who knows what evidence they have
19:34destroyed. But at this point, this is a huge scandal just on the face of the law, that you're not
19:42complying with the law and the things that you're covering up implicate the president of the United
19:46States. And the attorney general, the FBI director, the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanch, have all
19:52insisted there's absolutely nothing in these files to investigate. There's nothing to investigate.
19:59And we just showed you the lead. That's worth investigating. Well, it's absolutely worth
20:04investigating. It should be investigated in every other country, Lawrence. This is what
20:08so upsets me and Thomas Massey. It was two American congresspeople in the American Congress that released
20:14these files. Yet England is prosecuting. France is. Norway is. And our Justice Department is doing
20:20nothing. Nothing with the president of the United States in terms of investigation. Nothing with any of
20:26the other people who have been mentioned, not even Les Wexner, who has alleged ties. And it's
20:31outrageous. But I think the American people are finally catching on. And to the survivors who showed
20:37up last night at the State of the Union, I just want to thank them for their continued courage. They're
20:41being maligned. My guest is being maligned. And it's outrageous. Take a minute on that. What was it like
20:47to have a guest like that at the State of the Union? And what has been their experience both during
20:54the
20:54speech and after? Haley Robeson is so courageous. She came. You know, these survivors who you
21:00connected us to is the reason we have the Epstein files. They came twice to the Capitol. It takes so
21:04much courage to relive that trauma. I don't mind being attacked. Massey and I, we're used to this.
21:10They have people like Greg Gutfield. I mean, I'll just call him out. And Scott Jennings attacking Haley
21:15Robeson, saying that she was a pimp. That's what she's calling her. This is a person who was sexually
21:20abused at 16. This is a person who was abused by Maxwell and by Epstein and told to get other
21:28girls
21:28to come there so that she wouldn't face abuse. And she's spoken about this publicly. And they are
21:34attacking her character. And she came anyway. And she stood there. And she stood there and looked at
21:40the president of the United States and looked at the American people. I don't care, Lawrence,
21:43if they come after me or Massey. Do not go after these survivors. Do not insult them.
21:47Congressman O'Connor, thank you very much for getting this material. Thank you for joining us
21:51tonight. Thank you. Coming up, Donald Trump's attorney general now faces an accusation of
21:57perjury about the Epstein files. That's next with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
22:05Congressman Dan Goldman and Ted Lieu of the House Judiciary Committee are accusing Donald Trump's
22:10attorney general of perjury. They put the accusation in writing to the Trump Justice Department,
22:16saying, quote, testifying before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on February 11th,
22:202026. Attorney General Bondi emphatically stated there is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed
22:25a crime. Yet a number of the documents from the Epstein files released to date by the Department
22:31of Justice directly contradict her statement. When confronted with her lie, she did not retract her
22:38statement. She doubled down. She stated, don't you ever accuse me of committing a crime.
22:45Joining us now is Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. He's a member of the Senate
22:50Judiciary Committee, the Senate Finance Committee and Senate Budget Committee. He's the top Democrat
22:54on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Senator Whitehouse, that seems like a pretty clear
23:03false statement. I don't know how we define perjury exactly in congressional hearings. But to say
23:10there's no evidence in the Epstein files that Donald Trump has committed a crime simply is not true.
23:18It does not seem to be. I would like to see more investigative work done to really pin that down.
23:27It would seem to me that she's in some trouble based on the broad, clear nature of that statement.
23:40Just to go back to the evidence for one minute, I think your viewers, you know, should know what a
23:45302 is
23:46and should know what a bait stamp is, to put this into context. Whenever an FBI agent conducts an interview,
23:53at the end of that interview, they write a report. And the report is commonly known as a 302.
24:00So this individual, who allegedly was assaulted by Donald Trump as a young teenager,
24:07was interviewed over and over again. So there would be four of these 302s.
24:12And then when large groups of documents are assembled, there's a thing called a bait stamp.
24:19And you stamp it. And each time you stamp it, the little number rolls. And what you're doing is
24:24you're creating your own pagination. So you can go back through a production of a lot of documents
24:31and know exactly which page. It's a very important reference. And what Mr. Sollenberger did was to
24:36figure out that there were gaps in the bait stamps. And so we now have these documents that would fill
24:45the gap in the bait stamps that correspond to the 302s of the interviews of the minor allegedly sexually
24:52assaulted. And we also know that that packet was provided to Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers as discovery
25:00for them to look at to understand the criminal case of the government against her. That packet of
25:06information now belongs to her and her lawyers. And unless she has destroyed that information,
25:13she and her lawyers still have those 302s. So whatever the government might have done with its own copies,
25:19those are potentially still out there unless Ghislaine Maxwell and her lawyers have destroyed
25:25those documents, which takes this whole question of the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, going down
25:33and interviewing her in this bizarre interview down in Tallahassee, Florida by the deputy attorney general.
25:40I mean, those things just don't happen. It puts all that into a whole new context. So not only is
25:46there
25:46quite real chance at this point that the attorney general perjured herself and knew better,
25:54but this could go quite far through the rest of the MAGA Department of Justice.
26:01Let's turn to another word from, you know, evidence, as we know, evidence is not proof. That statement
26:07that they have, that we have read in the Epstein files is not proof, but it sure is evidence. And
26:14it is
26:15absolutely what investigators call a lead. Someone comes in and tells you that when I was 14,
26:23this man raped me, this man raped me, does that qualify as a lead? And does that fit what Todd
26:31Blanche
26:32was talking about when he said no lead is off limits?
26:37It's pretty undoubted that that qualifies as a lead. At best, you could say that this was a crank complaint
26:45that nobody took seriously. And therefore, it was instantly discounted as a real lead. And therefore,
26:53nobody should count it as a lead. That is belied by the fact that the FBI went back over and
27:00over and over
27:01again to continue these interviews. You don't do that with a crank witness with something that has no
27:08merit to it from the very get go. So every part of this looks like it is a lead and
27:16looks like it is
27:17evidence against Donald Trump. And that makes the attorney general statement false.
27:25Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
27:31And coming up, while Donald Trump was lying to the nation last night, his Homeland Security
27:36Department was threatening people in the State of the Union audience in the Capitol,
27:42including Congressman Seth Moulton's guest, who was thrilled to be in the House chamber
27:48until he had to flee. Congressman Moulton joins us next.
27:57The town of Milford, Massachusetts, turned out in spontaneous protest when Donald Trump's ICE
28:03agents arrested high school senior Marcelo Gomez de la Silva on the way to volleyball practice.
28:11A Massachusetts judge ordered his release and he was brought to the State of the Union address last
28:18night by his congressman, Democrat Seth Moulton. But Congressman Moulton's chief of staff, Nisha Suarez,
28:25noticed this tweet from the Department of Homeland Security during the State of the Union address.
28:30Representative Moulton plans to bring illegal alien Marcelo Gomez de la Silva.
28:36Gomez de la Silva is an illegal alien who has no right to be in our nation. We are committed
28:41to
28:42enforcing the law and fighting for the arrest, detention and removal of aliens like him.
28:48The Boston Globe reports, Gomez was escorted out of the chamber by Moulton's chief of staff,
28:54Nisha Suarez. Suarez, who drove Gomez to Washington, was concerned about the heavy
29:00law enforcement presence while the teen was alone in the House gallery without his phone.
29:05Gomez watched the rest of the speech in Moulton's office. Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee
29:12tweeted this.
29:13Marcello is a teenager who's lived in the United States since he was seven. He's a volleyball
29:17standout and beloved by his community. Teens like Marcello are a threat to no one and treating him
29:23like one is disgraceful. Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton of Massachusetts. He's a
29:30member of the House Armed Services Committee. Congressman Moulton, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
29:34I have been following this from the day that first headline broke about this in the Boston Globe.
29:40And to see how it turned last night is is just stunning. This is the the Trump Homeland Security
29:48Department where they said they just wanted to get the criminals and the murderers. They wanted to get
29:52all the bad guys. But they are saying during the State of the Union that they are going after,
29:58quote, aliens like him. This is who they are labeling the threat.
30:04It's unbelievable. But this is why Marcello came, because he wanted to put a human face to ice
30:12this administration, Trump terrorizing blue cities across the country. Because we all know Marcello
30:18because of his tragic immigration story where he was thrown in a detention facility for days on end,
30:24sleeping on a concrete floor, not even given a Bible when he asked. And yet throughout that time,
30:29he insisted on helping others, more focused on translating for other detainees, helping them
30:35contact their families and even his own safety. He wanted to come here and confront not just Donald
30:42Trump at the State of the Union, but his MAGA Republican enablers, who are my colleagues here
30:46in the House of Representatives. And he did that. He put a human face on this immigration tragedy.
30:52And what I think so many colleagues saw is not just an immigrant, but a great American,
30:57a great young American, an amazing patriot, someone whose courage we should all emulate
31:02in these challenging times. Talk about that. There's a photograph,
31:07I think we can get it back up. We just had it up, that the Globe captured of you introducing
31:11him
31:12to one of those MAGA Republicans who's wearing a Donald Trump necktie on the way to the State of
31:18the Union address. That's right. And Marcello just told his story. And after that, Marcello said to
31:25me, you know, it was kind of amazing. I thought he might yell at me or say terrible things. And
31:28he
31:29actually seemed to respect me. Because you can't help but respect his humanity. You can't help but
31:35respect his patriotism. What a great young American he is. And that's what these MAGA
31:42Republicans who are just enabling this policy, even though many of them we know behind the scenes
31:45totally disagree with it, think that it's inhumane, un-American. Remember that they had ancestors who
31:52came here to the United States as immigrants themselves. It puts that human face on it that's
31:57just hard to deny. Yeah. And the Globe reports that that Republican House member told Marcello,
32:03well, you're just exactly who, you know, we want to see succeed here. But during the speech,
32:09Donald Trump's Department of Homeland Security is basically tweeting directly at him as someone
32:14they want to arrest. And look, Marcello sees that as a badge of honor. And I'm so proud of him
32:21for
32:21seeing it that way. He didn't want to leave. But of course, we're concerned about his safety,
32:26because you just can't trust this administration at all. And so that's why we took him back to my office.
32:31But Marcello is someone who's just not going to back down. You know, he wants to stand up and fight.
32:36He's not going to be intimidated by Kristi Noem or the Department of Homeland Security by Donald Trump
32:42and his ICE agents who are acting like the Gestapo across America. He is representing so
32:48many immigrants who are part of our communities, leaders in our communities often. And he's told me
32:54time and again, he said, Seth, I'm not backing down. I'm going to keep fighting.
32:58What is the status of his case now? Is he safely here? Or is that
33:05Department of Homeland Security threat serious? Could they snatch him tomorrow?
33:09So technically, they couldn't snatch him. And I mean, the truth of the matter is,
33:13we actually cleared this visit with the immigration authorities. I kind of hate saying that,
33:17because I don't want to detract, take anything away from his courage and what he's doing.
33:21But we conferred with his lawyer when we got back to the office and she reassured us that they really
33:26don't have any grounds to detain him again. His case is working through the system. He's been
33:30checking in regularly with his immigration authorities and even got permission to come here.
33:36But nonetheless, I mean, look, you just can't trust this administration to follow the law.
33:39We all know that now. And so that's why out of an abundance of caution, we brought him back to
33:45my
33:45office a bit early. Carson, Seth Moulton, thank you for bringing Marcelo. Thank you for bringing that
33:50story to us tonight. Thanks for joining us. You're welcome. And coming up for every day of the history of
33:58the United States government, every federal elected official from George Washington onward
34:06knew who pays tariffs. Last night, Donald Trump got applause from the zombie Republicans in the room
34:14who used to know who pays tariffs when he told a lie that no federal official prior to Donald Trump
34:21would ever tell because they all knew how profoundly stupid that Trump lie is.
34:29That's next with Congressman Brendan Boyle.
34:35Last night, Donald Trump said something that no other president could ever be stupid enough to say
34:40to Congress, that foreign countries pay the Trump tariffs. And the Republicans in the audience flunked that
34:49public intelligence test by clapping for that line, which included the utter Trumpian madness that
34:58tariffs could replace the income tax.
35:04As time goes by, I believe the tariffs paid for by foreign countries will, like in the past,
35:11substantially replace the modern day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the
35:18people that I love. Republicans set a record last night for stupidest standing ovations in the history
35:33of a state of a union address. And they did it right there, right there, clapping for foreign countries
35:41countries pay American tariffs and replacing the income tax with tariffs. Completely impossible.
35:47Foreign countries, of course, do not pay the Trump tariffs. The tariffs are sales taxes paid by Americans
35:54and only by Americans, as the Supreme Court has now put in writing, in its opinion, declaring the Trump tariffs
36:01an unconstitutional and illegal tax on Americans. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman
36:08writes that the Trump speech was a false and completely unpersuasive portrayal of where we are.
36:15In her Democratic response, newly elected Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger left midterm voters
36:21with this very simple question.
36:25So I'll ask again, is the president working to make life more affordable for you and your family?
36:34We all know the answer is no.
36:38Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania. He's the
36:41ranking member of the House Budget Committee and a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.
36:47Congressman Boyle, it is just, you know, he's been saying foreign countries pay the tariffs all over the
36:54place, but not there. He doesn't say it to Congress. I believe this is the very first time he said
37:00that
37:00directly to Congress. And insanely, he got zombie applause from the Republicans.
37:07Yeah, you know, my Republican colleagues determined their ideology in one simple way.
37:14Whatever their dear leader Trump says is what they now view on any given issue. And it's amazing how
37:22much the Republican Party has changed under Donald Trump from the one that you and I have known our
37:27entire lives. The Republican Party is now back to the party that existed over 100 years ago.
37:33And that is a party that is isolationist, protectionist and nativist. And I don't think
37:40that change is going to all of a sudden revert itself once Donald Trump leaves the scene.
37:45So Donald Trump has said he's going to replace his unconstitutional tariffs with other unconstitutional
37:51tariffs. And what he's invoked for doing it, it would be an illegal form of doing it that way.
37:57Sixty three percent opposed Donald Trump trying again to institute more unconstitutional illegal
38:03tariffs. Yeah, that's not surprising. I mean, those poll numbers are overwhelming. Also not surprising
38:09because the American people are the ones who are paying this de facto national sales tax.
38:15And, you know, cumulatively, if you take all of the tariffs that Donald Trump has unilaterally
38:20illegally imposed over the last 13 months, they represent, Lawrence, the largest tax increase
38:28in American history. Didn't happen under any Democratic president. It happened under Donald J.
38:34Trump over this past year. So now, as I go back to Congress, I think the next battle is very
38:39simple.
38:40Will we give this money that was illegally taken from the American people back to the people?
38:46The White House says no. His plutocrat Treasury Secretary Scott Besson scoffs at the notion.
38:52I think 100 percent of Democrats in Congress are the same view on this. It's the American people's money.
38:58They deserve to get it back. Yeah. I mean, the question for any Republican running for Congress
39:05or the Senate is, where's my refund? Where's my refund? I've been paying these Trump tariffs.
39:09Where's my refund? I think it's a pretty powerful and simple message heading into the midterms
39:15that those of us on my side of the aisle will be using. We want to give you your money
39:20back.
39:21Donald Trump illegally took it from you. A six to three conservative Supreme Court
39:27actually overruled him and sided with Democrats on this issue. I don't think three of those six
39:32conservatives on the court suddenly became flaming liberals overnight. They at least, or half of them,
39:38are intellectually honest enough to recognize these tariffs are, of course, unconstitutional.
39:44Let's give the people their money back. Donald Trump and his congressional Republican enablers say no.
39:51The way Governor Spanberger answered her own question of, you know,
39:55is Donald Trump really trying to make things better for us? And the way she said it,
39:59we all know the answer is no, seemed to, was very powerful when I heard it. She just kind of
40:07unified everyone listening to that, saying as if it's unanimous. It's not unanimous, but it is a
40:13majority, a very heavy majority into the 60th percentile who believe Donald Trump is not trying to help.
40:21Yeah. I mean, I think people now a solid majority get it that Donald Trump lied to them over a
40:27year
40:27ago when he campaigned in my state and the other battleground states saying that his number one
40:33priority was going to be lowering costs for the American people and that in his words,
40:38he would do it on day one. Well, we're in the day, what, 400, uh, some odd. He hasn't done
40:44it. In fact,
40:44the situation has gotten worse, not better. And it has gotten worse specifically because of his own
40:51policies. Pennsylvania Congressman Brendan Boyle, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
40:56Thank you. We'll be right back.
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