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The Last Word with Lawrence ODonnell - Season 13 - Episode 10
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00:00Who never gives up on a lost election, finally got possession of the Nobel Prize, the peace
00:09prize, even though he didn't come close to winning it.
00:13In a visit to the White House today, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gave
00:19her Nobel Peace Prize to Donald Trump, just handed it over, and Donald Trump, who thinks
00:25he is the acting president of Venezuela, took it.
00:29Maria Corina Machado has been publicly insulted by Donald Trump since his attack on Venezuela.
00:36She has been, she has of course been publicly worshipful of Donald Trump, as worshipful as
00:43possible, but it isn't working.
00:47Donald Trump is supporting her enemies now in Venezuela, which means Donald Trump is supporting
00:52the enemies of democracy in Venezuela.
00:54Venezuela and Maria Machado has made the so far losing bet that she can take her place
01:02at the top of a democratically elected government in Venezuela simply by charming Donald Trump.
01:07And so now Donald Trump has her Nobel Peace Prize and she has nothing.
01:14After Donald Trump is out of power or possibly even before that, Maria Machado will spend the
01:21rest of her life explaining that she always knew Donald Trump was an imperialist fool, but
01:30she was just trying to deal with him to save Venezuela from his madness.
01:36She'll be saying that for the rest of his life, for the rest of her life, because Donald Trump is
01:45in, because of his insane pursuit of the Nobel Prize, truly insane pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize, which he
01:55now technically has in his possession.
01:57The Nobel Committee was forced to issue a statement saying, once the Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked,
02:02shared or transferred to others.
02:04The decision is final and stands for all time.
02:08That's what the child in the White House was doing today while Minnesota was wondering if the child in the
02:15White House would send his next invasion force in their direction.
02:21And so it has come to this, a Democratic governor asking Republican Donald Trump directly not to attack his state.
02:34Donald Trump treats states that didn't vote for him as foreign countries.
02:40And he might or might not use the military to invade any one of them at any moment.
02:46And so this morning, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz released a written statement, not a video statement, a written statement to
02:55try to take the temperature down, a direct appeal to Donald Trump.
03:00The governor said, quote, I am making a direct appeal to the president.
03:05Let's turn the temperature down.
03:07Stop this campaign of retribution.
03:08This is not who we are.
03:10And an appeal to Minnesotans.
03:13I know this is scary.
03:14We can, we must speak out loudly, urgently, but also peacefully.
03:19We cannot fan the flames of chaos.
03:22That's what he wants.
03:25That's what he wants.
03:27A governor accurately, honestly saying that a president of the United States wants violence in his state.
03:38Donald Trump has made the foolish mistake many times of thinking what he wants is what America wants.
03:44He made that mistake with his illegal and unconstitutional Trump tariffs that are opposed by most Americans, with most Americans
03:52fully understanding that it is Americans and only Americans who actually pay the Trump tariffs.
03:58And Donald Trump has made the mistake of thinking what he wants to see in Minnesota is what Americans want
04:04to see.
04:05A new CNN poll shows that only 26 percent of Americans say the killing of Renee Good last week by
04:11ICE agent Jonathan Ross was an appropriate use of force.
04:14Only 26 percent think what Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have been telling them to think about that killing.
04:22A substantial majority thinks the killing of Renee Good was an inappropriate use of force.
04:29Fully 56 percent of Americans say that Jonathan Ross's decision to shoot and kill Renee Good was an inappropriate use
04:39of force.
04:40And those 56 percent of Americans are completely right.
04:45They have seen the video and they know what they've seen.
04:48Those 56 percent of Americans believe what they see with their own eyes and not what Donald Trump tells them
04:54to see.
04:5651 percent say that the killing of Renee Good reflects bigger problems with the way that ICE is operating.
05:04A majority of Americans say that ICE enforcement actions are making the country less safe.
05:1151 percent say that ICE enforcement actions are making cities less safe.
05:16And only 31 percent think that ICE enforcement actions are making cities safer.
05:20So Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, with congressional elections approaching, are appealing to 26 percent of voters when they defend
05:29the killing of Renee Good.
05:30Donald Trump, Stephen Miller and the Republicans in the Congress have 31 percent support, as of yesterday anyway, for what
05:41ICE is doing in their invasions of our cities.
05:44The delusional 79-year-old man in the White House who now believes he's the acting president of Venezuela does
05:50not have the support of his own country for the invasion of Venezuela.
05:54And he does not have the support in this country for his invasion of Minneapolis or any other American city.
06:02And so with the current support of 31 percent of Americans, Donald Trump at 8.04 a.m. this morning
06:09wrote lies on social media about Minnesota's governor and other elected officials in Minnesota and wrapped this threat into those
06:17lies.
06:17I will institute the insurrection act, which many presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the
06:24travesty that is taking place in that once great state.
06:28America doesn't want to see Donald Trump send troops to Minnesota.
06:33Donald Trump has only 31 percent support for what he's already done in Minnesota.
06:38And sending the army to Minnesota is going to decrease Donald Trump's very, very low support.
06:45The insurrection act first became law in 1792 and was amended in 1807.
06:51It gives the president the power to deploy the American military within the United States under certain conditions, usually at
06:58the request of a governor.
07:00The insurrection act was last invoked in 1992 when the Republican governor of California, Pete Wilson, asked the Republican president,
07:10George H.W. Bush, for military aid after riots broke out in Los Angeles when Los Angeles police officers were
07:16acquitted in the first trial they faced for the near death beating of Rodney King,
07:21which was the first police misconduct in America captured on a private citizen's video camera.
07:29The Brennan Center for Justice points out, quote,
07:33While there are rare circumstances in which such authority might be necessary, the law, which has not been meaningfully updated
07:38in over 150 years, is dangerously overbroad and ripe for abuse.
07:43Last night, an ICE agent shot a Venezuelan man in the leg while trying to apprehend him in Minneapolis.
07:50The Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said the man, quote, began to resist and violently assault the officer.
07:58The former deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, had this reaction.
08:05They have no credibility in terms of the way that they are talking about and characterizing the people involved in
08:11these events.
08:11They absolutely mischaracterized, deliberately mischaracterized Ms. Good and her partner as terrorists.
08:19They are not terrorists.
08:20They didn't commit any act of terrorism.
08:22They haven't been alleged to have committed a crime with an indictment or anything like that.
08:27So we know that we can't trust what the government is saying about what's happening on the ground.
08:31So now you think about what happened last night, and we essentially know nothing at this point.
08:35So it's really hard to evaluate.
08:40First, he pardoned them, and then did he hire them?
08:47The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Jamie Raskin, is investigating how many of the
08:52January 6th criminal rioters who were pardoned by Donald Trump are now working in the federal
08:57government, and how many of them are working as ICE agents right now, tonight.
09:02The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Jamie Raskin, is asking the Justice Department
09:07and the Department of Homeland Security, quote,
09:10how many pardoned January 6th insurrectionists have been hired by your respective departments?
09:16We know that several participants in the January 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol have been rewarded
09:22with high-ranking positions in the Department of Justice.
09:25However, it remains unclear how many more have been invited to join the ranks of this administration,
09:30including among the masked Department of Homeland Security agents and officers that have dragged,
09:36tackled, beaten, tased, shot, and killed citizens and non-citizens alike in communities across the country.
09:45On January 6th, 2021, Jared Wise, then a former supervisory special agent with the Federal Bureau
09:53of Investigation stormed his way into the Capitol building. As he did so, he taunted and threatened
09:59police officers defending the building and the ones inside screaming,
10:04you guys are disgusting. I'm former law enforcement. You're disgusting. You are the Nazi.
10:11You are the Gestapo. You can't see it. Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on you.
10:17Mr. Wise goaded and cheered on other rioters who were beating police officers, repeatedly chanting,
10:24yeah, F them. Yeah, kill them. Mr. Wise has never expressed remorse or contrition for his criminal
10:30actions. When President Trump issued his blanket pardon on January 6th, rioters, for January 6th
10:36rioters, Mr. Wise escaped accountability for two pending felony charges, civil disorder and assaulting,
10:43resisting, or impeding officers, as well as four other offenses, including unlawfully entering the
10:49Capitol. All these charges were dismissed when President Trump pardoned Mr. Wise and nearly 1,600
10:56other rioters, including hundreds of cop beaters, on his first day in office. Today, Mr. Wise serves as
11:04senior advisor in the office of the Deputy Attorney General, alongside another January 6th participant,
11:12Ed Martin, the U.S. pardon attorney and head of the DOJ weaponizations working group. None of this was
11:22possible in America until Donald Trump became president of the United States. Leading off our
11:31discussion tonight is Andrew Weissman, former FBI general counsel and an MSNOW legal analyst. And Andrew,
11:37I want to begin with exactly where we ended there, what has happened to the Department of Justice,
11:43where you once served. And we now have Congress asking the question, how many pardoned January 6th
11:51rioters are working in the Department of Justice? And we actually know about some already who are there,
11:58like the one Jamie Raskin described. But such an inconceivable question to ever ask
12:05in any prior history of the Department before Donald Trump?
12:11It is inconceivable. That is the world that we are living in. And normally, to work in the federal
12:20government, let alone the Department of Justice, it would help not to have a felony, a recent felony
12:29that included the events on January 6th. And just remember that even if you are pardoned, that does not get
12:40rid of
12:41the facts of what you did. That does not get rid of the case. Judge Tanya Chutkin made that point,
12:50saying that
12:52nothing about the pardoning of everyone on January 6th erased what happened in very wonderful language
13:01that I can't do justice to, the sort of the scar and the stain of that day. Well, those people,
13:07no matter what
13:08the president has said, have still done that. The Department of Justice, of all places, is not where you hire
13:15those particular types of felons. It's not like they did their time and they've expressed remorse
13:21and there's some second chance opportunity. I also don't understand how they could possibly get
13:27clearance to have access to the kinds of information that you have. I mean, just remember how much
13:35awesome power a prosecutor has. You know, you were talking about ICE agents on the ground. Well,
13:43also, you know, prosecutors behind a desk have similar, different but similar power in terms of how it can affect
13:51you. The lack of judgment and the way in which that just it just embodies the corruption that is going
13:59on at all
14:00levels of this government. So one more point about this on Justice Department forms for hiring. There is a variety
14:09of
14:09questions you can ask. You can ask, have you ever been arrested? You can ask, have you ever been convicted
14:13of a
14:13crime? When you're pardoned, you are still someone who has been arrested. If you've been pardoned and you're asked on
14:21a
14:21form, have you been arrested? You have to answer yes. And if these people didn't, they've committed a crime in
14:28filling out that
14:29federal form. Oh, absolutely. And there's no question that this comes up. And there's no question that in any
14:37normal time, you have questions about all sorts of aspects that relate to your conviction. The pardon
14:46doesn't change that. And so you have to remember the president's view that also included a Neil Bovey's
14:54view was that January 6th and all of these prosecutions were a grave injustice that they were ever held to
15:03account for what we all saw with our eyes on January 6th. Andrew, the possibility of troops flooding the
15:13streets of Minneapolis now is very much a possibility. What do you make of the Insurrection Act and how we
15:22might see it used here? You know, Lawrence, you just talked about something that was unthinkable.
15:30Well, I just want to make sure before I give a legal answer, what we're talking about here is a
15:37civilian, a woman in a car was shot to death by an ICE agent and the president of the United
15:45States and
15:46the vice president without any investigation say it's her fault and want to open an investigation into
15:53her and her widow. And they want to have no investigation of the agent. And people are rightfully
16:02upset at that. Why shouldn't they be? And now they're going to or at least they're talking about
16:09invoking the Insurrection Act, which would send in the military into a state of the United States. I mean,
16:18that's what we're talking about, the military going into a blue state in this situation where people
16:25are have every right to expect a independent and thorough investigation. The Insurrection Act is a
16:32statute that gives the president a lot of leeway, not complete leeway, but a lot of leeway to invoke it
16:40based on various thresholds. But it is one where the courts will certainly be involved. But there's
16:49not a lot of flexibility that the courts have if those prerequisites are met. So I really think this
16:58is one where people need to react less in terms of the legality and more in terms of, you know,
17:04good policy. I mean, is this something that we want to see in America?
17:10Andrew, I'd like to squeeze in a quick break here. When we come back, I want to ask you about
17:13the Epstein files, what might happen in court tomorrow. On that, we'll be right back with Andrew
17:17Weissman.
17:21Tomorrow is the deadline for Donald Trump's Justice Department to explain to federal judge Paul
17:25Engelmeyer why they are in violation of the Epstein files Transparency Act, the law that required the
17:33Justice Department to hand over all of the Epstein files to the House of Representatives 26 days ago.
17:39The Trump-controlled Justice Department has handed over less than 1% of the Epstein files in the
17:46Justice Department's custody. But there are more Epstein files that might not be in the Justice
17:51Department's custody. And the top Democrat in the Senate Finance Committee knows where to find them.
17:57The Senate Finance Committee has jurisdiction over the United States Treasury, which gives the
18:01Finance Committee authority to examine Treasury Department files. And that is exactly what the
18:07top Democrat on the Finance Committee, Ron Wyden, has been doing. Senator Wyden will once again become
18:13chairman of the Finance Committee next year if the Democrats win the Senate elections this year.
18:18Today, in a letter to a New York bank, Senator Wyden revealed Democratic and Republican staff of the
18:27Senate Finance Committee conducted an in-camera review of thousands of pages of Treasury Department files
18:35documenting the flow of money through Jeffrey Epstein's accounts. The letter was to Robin Vince,
18:45the chief executive officer of Bank of New York Mellon. Robin Vince joined the bank from Goldman Sachs the year
18:54after Jeffrey Epstein died in prison. So he had nothing to do with the massive transfers of money
19:01by Jeffrey Epstein through the Bank of New York Mellon that he now runs. Here's an example of the
19:08transfers Senator Wyden wants to know about just for the year 2007. 18 transfers of exactly a million
19:18dollars each beginning on January 11th of that year through September 26th of that year. That's just
19:26one year. Senator Wyden's letter says these transactions all occurred within a short period of time and had
19:33patterns indicative of potential money laundering. The Treasury Department and other financial regulators
19:38have regularly put out guidance to banks that large round dollar transactions, repetitive transactions,
19:44and circuitous money movements are highly suspicious. Senator Wyden is now demanding all of the suspicious
19:52activity reports filed by the bank or the or were supposed to be filed by the bank with the Treasury
19:58Department as required by law. Senator Wyden's letter says this raises serious concerns that BNY may have
20:06violated federal anti-money laundering laws that require financial institutions to conduct due diligence on
20:13customer relationships and report suspicious activity to the United States government in a timely fashion.
20:19Epstein was moving enormous sums of money around the globe to traffic women and girls and BNY was well
20:27positioned to blow the whistle. BNY may also have broken the law by waiting years to report Epstein's
20:35suspicious transactions to U.S. Regulators. So it is now up to Bank of New York Mellon CEO Robin Vince
20:44to decide how he wants
20:46to play his part in the Epstein files story. Will he do what Donald Trump would want him to do
20:53and release
20:54no information or one percent of the information the bank has about Jeffrey Epstein? We saw some corporate
21:01courage this week when Donald Trump visited a Ford factory. The courage did not come from the CEO or any
21:09of the high-ranking executives surrounding Donald Trump. The courage came from an auto worker on the
21:15factory floor, T.J. Sabula, who called Donald Trump a pedophile protector as Donald Trump walked by, thereby
21:26provoking the childish rage of Donald Trump and an exhibition of Donald Trump's very small middle
21:35finger aimed at T.J. Sabula. T.J. Sabula told the Washington Post, I don't feel as though fate looks
21:44upon
21:44you often and when it does you better be ready to seize the opportunity and today I think I did
21:51that.
21:51Fate is now looking upon Robin Vince, the CEO of a bank that intentionally or unintentionally
22:00helped Jeffrey Epstein run a billion-dollar sex trafficking conspiracy for decades.
22:06Robin Vince had nothing to do with that, but now he does. Will he turn over his bank's portion of
22:13the
22:13Epstein files or will he live in fear of Donald Trump's middle finger like most corporate executives?
22:23Will the bank CEO have the courage of a factory worker like T.J. Sabula?
22:31Andrew Weissman is still with us. Andrew, this pursuit of this angle on the Epstein files
22:38is something that Senator Wyden at the Finance Committee has been uniquely powered to do and has
22:44been pursuing for years. And when you see that money laid out there, and they obviously have much
22:51more that they've developed. They didn't put it all in that letter. There's really quite a story being
22:57told in that flow of money. Well, absolutely. I mean, I'm not the first to say, you know,
23:02follow the money. And here, there's so many reasons to do that. Yes, there could be the issue
23:10of whether people at a particular bank are complicit. But even if they're not, and just remember, they do
23:19have requirements to know their customer. They're supposed to know basic information about sort of
23:25why a transaction and a suspicious transaction is being conducted. So they're comfortable doing that.
23:30That's the anti-money laundering rules that you referred to. But even if the bank satisfies that,
23:37that's not the only reason to get this. You're trying to find out why is he doing this? And
23:42that leads to other people who are complicit. And this is one where, again, we do not have Congress
23:51acting in a way to actually discover information. We have them pressing for the depositions of former
23:58President Clinton and former Secretary of State Clinton. But the obvious people who could lead us
24:06to that information are not being called. You could call the prosecutors and the agents in the case to
24:11find out what they investigated. You could call Ghislaine Maxwell and put her to an actual,
24:18not just a cozy interview, but to, you know, questioning about those transactions. That's just some of the
24:24things that you could do to get at the truth of what has been done by the Department of Justice,
24:30what has not been done by the Department of Justice. And is there anyone out there who is complicit?
24:36That was the whole point of Congress passing this statute. And that is the reason that there's going to be
24:42this court proceeding before Judge Engelmeyer in New York.
24:46And what what bank officials like this have to know is that the Democrats are less than a year away
24:52now from real subpoena power in the House of Representatives. When they win the House of
24:56Representatives, all of this will be could be immediately put under subpoena there. And if Ron
25:02Wyden becomes chair of the Senate Finance Committee next year, then he has subpoena power there that he
25:08doesn't have as easily exercised now. And so as this goes on and as Democrats gain power in the Congress,
25:16this only gets worse for people out there who are trying to hide anything.
25:21Absolutely. This is one where, yes, it is true that the judge in New York could force
25:29some material to be released. I have some real questions about whether he will, whether that's the right
25:35vehicle for doing this. There's no question that the Department of Justice is violating the statute,
25:41that that's that's a given. I mean, that's there's no dispute about that. It's whether
25:45there really is. This is the right mechanism. I know that sounds very legalistic, but I'm a lawyer
25:51and so is the judge. But this is one where this this is the kind of thing that eventually it
25:58will come
25:59out. And so the people who are sort of hiding it now, there really will be a point where they
26:06will
26:06rue this day and we will be able to see whether and to what extent there is a cover up
26:12of what is
26:13going on and a protection of anyone who is complicit. We'll see what the judge says tomorrow. Andrew
26:19Weissman, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Welcome. Coming up today in pretending to announce
26:27a Trump health care plan. Donald Trump proved that he has no health care plan after he and Republicans
26:33in Congress decided to rip health insurance away from millions of people who obtained their health
26:38insurance through Obamacare. That's next.
26:46Donald Trump, in his strange way, pretended to announce a health care plan today. Now that millions
26:52of Americans have lost health insurance because Donald Trump took away the money provided
26:56by Obamacare to help those people pay their health insurance premiums. Here is the entirety of
27:04Donald Trump's health care plan as released on the White House website. Quote, the government is going
27:12to pay the money directly to you. It goes to you. And then you take the money and buy your
27:18own health
27:18health care. That is what Obamacare tax credits were doing. That was money that was enabling people
27:26to buy their own health insurance. Donald Trump doesn't know this, but a tax credit is money that
27:32is paid directly to you by the United States Treasury. And then you were able to use that money to
27:38help pay
27:39for your low cost Obamacare health insurance. In Donald Trump's announcement of his no plan
27:46health care plan, he also said, you go out and buy your own health care and you'll make a great
27:53deal
27:53and you'll get better health care for less money. So his plan is go out and buy your own health
27:58care.
27:59That's the Trump plan. In another line of the ludicrous statement claiming to be a health care plan,
28:05it says it requires insurers to publish detailed information about how much of your money they're
28:12going to be paying out in claims versus how much they're taking in in profits. Obamacare already did
28:19that. But of course, Donald Trump doesn't know that. And Obamacare didn't just make them publish
28:24how they're spending the money. It controls how much money they are allowed to spend
28:29on administrative costs and wasteful advertising in health insurance companies. The ludicrous non-plan
28:37is an insult to the intelligence of everyone who is not a Republican member of Congress or
28:42working in the Trump White House. Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman wrote,
28:47Trump has repeatedly shown a visceral dislike for policies that serve the public good. He really
28:53hates bipartisanship because it won't allow him to flaunt his dominance and act like America's
28:59supreme leader. As with his performative claim that he would bring down grocery prices on day one,
29:05Trump somehow believes that his bluster and antics will solve his political problems.
29:10Well, voters are in no mood to get fooled again. In fact, the Cook Political Reports says the mood is
29:19this in their analysis of congressional campaigns, saying, quote, shifting 18 ratings in favor of
29:27Democrats. Eight of these shifts are from the likely Democrat column into solid Democrat,
29:33Democrat. As it becomes more obvious that these races are in no danger of becoming competitive in
29:38this environment, an additional 10 races move one step into a more favorable category for Democrats,
29:45leaving Republicans holding 14 out of 18 toss-up seats. Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Mark
29:53Pocan of Wisconsin. He is a member of the House Appropriations Committee. Congressman Pocan,
29:58thank you very much for joining us tonight. You can't even you can't call it a health care plan.
30:04It's it not only is it not written in legislative language, it'll never be written as a bill. There
30:09won't ever be a bill. I hate to break the suspense for you, but there won't ever be a bill
30:14introduced in
30:15the Senate or the House coming from anything that Donald Trump said today. Now, remember in middle school when
30:21you had that assignment for a couple of months and the night before you put something together and
30:26you never read the book? And, you know, that's what Donald Trump tried to do. He didn't quite get
30:31there. He has one page, one site only with a bunch of platitudes, as you showed. And, you know, this
30:37guy's
30:37had 10 years to come up with a health care plan. Instead, they cut health care for 15 million people.
30:43They raised all of our rates in the process. And the best he could do was come up with that.
30:50And,
30:50you know, it's really embarrassing. But I don't know if Donald Trump gets embarrassed anymore.
30:56You know, I certainly liked it a lot better when the Republican position simply was
31:01government shouldn't do this. They used to just say we can't afford it. The government can't afford it.
31:07And we should not be intervening and interfering with the health care market. That's really their
31:12position. They've never wanted to do anything in this arena. Well, there is a sentence or two
31:18on that page that essentially do say that talk about like health savings accounts, right? That
31:23if you're rich enough to afford health care, you should be able to. Well, duh, right? I mean,
31:28the whole idea behind Obamacare, that's why 24 million people got health insurance through it,
31:34is a lot of people were falling through the cracks in the system. And that made sure that those people
31:39had health care. And that's a good thing for society and certainly good for their families.
31:44But Donald Trump, again, you know, while everyone's paying too much for groceries and
31:48durable goods and their utilities and now their health care, he's got a $300 billion ballroom with
31:54lots of gold being built. He's just not connected to people in places like Wisconsin or pretty much
32:00anywhere in the country. And the polling now is showing that the electorate is holding Donald Trump
32:07responsible for what they're going through economically. Well, Trump's tariff taxes are
32:12clearly understood by people. We're paying more for groceries and durable goods directly because
32:18of those tariffs. We put a mailer out recently to a bunch of small businesses. I even had bars
32:24tell me their costs have gone up because of tariffs. Some of the bottles of liquor that they try to
32:30serve
32:31in drinks, much less companies that are manufacturers. And all their input items
32:36have gone up in cost. So people get that. And then the big ugly law, don't forget, raised our utility
32:41rates and our health care rates. And also 15 million people lost their health care through that. So
32:46people really are way smarter than Republicans think they are. We're seeing it in all the elections that
32:51we had, the special elections in the last year. And I think this November, we're going to see a really
32:56beautiful blue wave coming. What the document today, if you can call it that, clearly indicates
33:02is that Donald Trump knows he's in trouble. Republicans are in trouble. He knows he has to
33:07say something. He doesn't realize that what he would really have to do is do something.
33:14Well, today was the last day for filing for the Affordable Care Act. That's why he timed it with that
33:19today. But we know, I think the last I saw, at least 1.4 million fewer people signed up for
33:25it
33:25because of those increased rates, because of what Donald Trump did in the big ugly law.
33:30But I also have employers, part of the ripple effect is insurance raised other people's rates
33:35to make up for the people that are going to go to the emergency room without insurance. So I had
33:40one
33:40employer tell me they got a 41% increase in their group plan for 2026. So that's all the byproduct
33:47of
33:48Donald Trump not giving a damn about people across the country. All he cares about is Donald
33:54Trump and Donald Trump's family. And that's why he wants a Mar-a-Lago in Washington,
33:59because he's got one in Florida, but he doesn't care about you and your family and what you're
34:03going through. Congressman Mark Pocan, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
34:08Sure. Thank you.
34:10And coming up, the Trump Justice Department is harassing even more veterans in Congress
34:15for telling service members they don't have to obey illegal orders. One of those members of
34:21Congress will join us next. Donald Trump's Justice Department continues to amplify the message
34:29that members of the American military are not required to follow illegal orders. That was the
34:36message delivered by members of Congress who are veterans of the intelligence services and the
34:40military in a video last year directed directly to members of the military, reminding them what they
34:48all learned in their training and in their military education. You do not have to follow illegal orders.
34:56The Trump Justice Department is now running childishly fake criminal investigations of
35:03those members of Congress who obviously did nothing illegal by publicly stating the law.
35:09Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, who appeared in the video, said this.
35:16No matter the threats, I'm not backing down. It is sad, telling and downright dangerous that simply
35:24stating a bedrock principle of American law caused the president, our commander in chief,
35:31to threaten violence against me and to weaponize the Department of Justice against me.
35:36I served at the Department of Justice. I know that federal prosecutors have more control over the
35:43life and liberty of the American people than any other peacetime force. I know that when these powers
35:49are used for good, they make us the more perfect union. And I know that when these awesome powers are
35:55abused,
35:56when they are used to punish political opponents, to seek retribution, to do a president's personal
36:03bidding, there's nothing more dangerous in this country. My message is clear. I took an oath to
36:10this Constitution and I intend to keep it. I will never give up the ship.
36:17Carson Cristaluzio of Pennsylvania is a Navy veteran. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy
36:23at Annapolis in 2006 and then served as a surface warfare officer and deployed to Iraq with an Army
36:31Civil Affairs Unit. He appeared in that video last year and is now being investigated by the Trump
36:37Justice Department with federal prosecutors now pretending that the law is not the law and that
36:43the First Amendment does not exist. Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Chris Deluzio of
36:50Pennsylvania. He's a member of the House Armed Services Committee. Congressman, thank you very much for
36:56joining us tonight. I'm sure this was not something you could possibly have imagined when you took your
37:02oath of office in Congress. No, nor could it be something I would have imagined as a plebe at the
37:07Naval Academy when I first took the oath. But I believe, as I did then, this country is worth our
37:12efforts. And no draft dodging president like Donald Trump is going to intimidate me from doing the job
37:17that I was elected to do, period. And he and everyone else in this country, I'd understand that there are
37:23members of Congress like me who understand our oaths and are not going to be bullied or intimidated
37:27by his administration. Was it at Annapolis when you were first taught that you should not follow
37:36illegal orders? Absolutely. And it's something you learn, in my case, at the Naval Academy where I
37:43trained. You learn it in boot camp or officer candidate school or ROTC, and then you train on it during
37:49your
37:49time in uniform. Commanders work with JAG lawyers to train their troops on this. It's a bedrock
37:54principle. And of course, no one can order our troops and compel our troops to follow illegal
37:59orders. Our troops have to follow legal orders. These are basic principles of law. And I'll remind
38:04your viewers, Pete Exeth said the same thing many times. Pam Bondi put it in a legal briefing because
38:10it's the law. It's not a controversial thing that tells you how out of bounds this administration is.
38:16They're willing to target me and other members of Congress who stated the law.
38:21So if you committed a crime by saying something and what you said is on video,
38:27it would seem the investigation would be watch the video and then issue your indictment. What other,
38:34what else could their investigation possibly involve at this point?
38:38Yeah. Who the heck knows? And I think you're getting right to the heart of the fact that
38:42this is an intimidation or harassment campaign by the executive branch against the legislative branch.
38:49It goes to the heart of separation of powers. It goes to this president's desire and those around him
38:55to shut up political rivals like me and others. And we're not going to be intimidated.
38:59You're obviously from Western Pennsylvania. You're around Trump voters all the time. You have friends who
39:05are Trump voters, I'm sure. Is this, is this your sense of what they voted for?
39:12No. And look, I, I'm proud that I went in a tough district in Western Pennsylvania. Folks
39:16who may have voted for the president voted for me. It's how I win election. And I will tell you
39:21people,
39:22things they talk about cost of living, whether they can afford their life and whether the American
39:26dream is still real. If you're my age, I'm 41 or younger, you're now living in America where you don't
39:31expect to be better off than your parents. That is a failure of the American dream.
39:36That's what folks are most focused on, not the insane and crazy rumblings of this president who
39:43seems addicted to power and addicted to the idea that he can use that power to target his rivals.
39:49Have you among your constituents been challenged about this?
39:53I will tell you the overwhelming calls and emails and things coming to my office have been positive and
39:58supportive. I've talked to folks. I had a town hall not too long after this all first came out in
40:05the
40:05news and the president's threats against me and others. Folks are overwhelmingly supportive. And I'm not
40:10just talking about Democrats, independents, Republicans, because I think people understand
40:15this is the law and especially folks who served. They know what we get trained on in uniform. They know
40:20that
40:20we have to follow lawful orders from the most junior person on up and that no one's ever going to
40:26force
40:26our troops or could force our troops to follow the legal ones. Congressman Chris Deluzio, thank you
40:31very much for joining us tonight. Thanks for having me on. We'll be right back.
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