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The Last Word with Lawrence ODonnell - Season 13 - Episode 13
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00:00For me tonight, the last word with Lawrence O'Donnell starts right now.
00:03Hey, Lawrence.
00:04Hey, Jen. Senator Cassidy disgraced himself in that situation and deserves everything he's
00:09getting politically right now. But Jen, we have breaking news that occurred during your hour.
00:15This is a stunning, stinging defeat for Donald Trump, another defeat for Donald Trump. And that
00:21his favorite fake U.S. attorney, Lindsey Halligan, has been forced out of the Eastern District of
00:29Virginia by the judges who actually run that district from the bench. And it's a Trump judge.
00:37It's a judge named David Novak, a Trump appointee. I'm reading from the New York Times reports of the
00:45breaking news, warned Ms. Halligan that continuing to file court papers in which she is listed as the
00:52U.S. attorney would be, quote, a false statement made in direct defiance of valid court orders,
01:00end quote. And that is a federal crime. So she had to have a federal judge tell her,
01:07you do this again, you are committing a federal crime. In fact, you've already committed a federal
01:11crime. They got her out of there tonight. And so Donald Trump's choice of a completely incompetent
01:17U.S. attorney to try to prosecute James Comey and Letitia James is now finally out of there.
01:23The judges are going to be choosing the U.S. attorney for that district.
01:27Well, that's some good news. Who thought that an attorney with no prosecutorial experience who
01:33would do the bidding that no one else would do, who wasn't even political in the office,
01:37would do, wouldn't last that long. But big news to now. Look forward to watching you talk about it.
01:42Yeah. Total humiliation for Lindsey Halligan. Total humiliation again for Donald Trump.
01:47Yeah. There you go. On year one anniversary. That's that's what it is. Thanks, Jen.
01:54Thanks, Lawrence. Thank you. Well, exactly one year ago today, on the day he took the oath of office,
02:03an oath he doesn't understand for the second time, Donald Trump pardoned every person who committed
02:10crimes for him in the January 6th attack on the Capitol, which led to Donald Trump's own
02:17indictment for conspiracy against the United States of America. 1,600 people who committed crimes for
02:23Donald Trump were pardoned by Donald Trump on his first day in office one year ago, including
02:30the people who beat policemen and tried to beat policemen to death and threatened to kill Mike Pence.
02:36Donald Trump pardoned them all. It was day one of the lawlessness of the Trump presidency.
02:42No one remembers the speech Donald Trump gave one year ago. No one walks around quoting lines from it or
02:48a
02:48single word from it, as people still do for John F. Kennedy's inauguration speech when Donald Trump was
02:5514 years old. I'm sure Donald Trump, even Donald Trump, can remember that famous line, ask not what your
03:01country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. The JFK said when Donald Trump was
03:0714
03:08years old. No one remembers a word Donald Trump said a year ago, but people will forever remember
03:15that that was the day that the president of the United States for the first time in history pardoned
03:21people who committed crimes for him in an attempt to overthrow a presidential election. That will be
03:27what Donald Trump is remembered for. That's what he'll be remembered for doing exactly one year
03:32ago, that first day in his second time in the presidency. Today, Donald Trump stepped up to a
03:39microphone on that one year anniversary of his inauguration. His polling numbers have sunk over
03:46the last year, and he stood before White House reporters with a prop that he literally did not know
03:53how to handle how to handle, and almost injured himself by touching a binder clip as if for the
04:00first time in his life. We saw it appeared to be an exhausted 79-year-old man struggling to pretend
04:07to
04:07be interested in what he was there to do.
04:13Here's the book on accomplishments, and this is something, oh, I'm glad my finger wasn't in that sucker.
04:21They could have done some damage, but you know what? I wouldn't have shown the pain.
04:25I would have gone back. What did you hear that? That was nasty. But I would not have shown the
04:32pain. I would
04:33have acted like nothing happened as my finger fell off. That was nasty. I think somebody did that.
04:39I think it was him. That's right. It was my man. How were you? You didn't do it. I know
04:44you didn't.
04:45I know you didn't. So, um, but here is the, uh, here's the book. These are all things we have.
04:55I'm
04:55going to read a few of the samples, but look at this. These are all, each line is something that
04:59we did.
05:00Nobody did that before. And it's, it's big stuff too. Look, we have the hottest country in the world.
05:11So.
05:16So, the man is not well. He holds up the book that represents all of the accomplishments
05:24as presented to him by his staff at the end of one full year of Trump governance.
05:30And he treats it like a pizza box. He has just personally emptied and throws it on the floor.
05:36On the floor.
05:39Who does that?
05:41He's there to convince the press that this document that he was holding before he threw it away
05:48is a serious document.
05:52And what he's going to read to us from that document is important. That's what he's trying
05:56to convince us of. And he throws it on the floor, just throws it on the floor.
06:02Donald Trump has the weakest mind we've ever seen in the White House. He's the weakest
06:07person ever to live in the White House. He is the crybaby in chief. He is not just America's
06:13biggest crybaby. He is the world's biggest crybaby. When he's criticized by someone
06:18speaking on a television network, he says the entire network should be closed down. What kind
06:24of crybaby is that? The worst kind. The adult kind. When he doesn't get a Nobel Peace Prize,
06:30which he will never get and will never deserve, he insists that the recipient of the Peace Prize
06:36should give it to him. And pathetically, she does. And because he is the weakest,
06:43smallest human being we have ever seen in American politics, he stupidly smiles and accepts it as if
06:51it actually is his own. As if it's real. And that crybaby stood there today telling us that for the
07:02first time in his life, he would be stoic, he would be brave, he wouldn't flinch. If that paper clamp
07:11had hurt his finger, one of those little fingers of his, that's when he would have shown us how brave
07:20he really is for the first time, I guess. I would not have shown the pain, he says. The crybaby
07:28says
07:28that. The crybaby who shows pain whenever he is criticized in any way, whenever he is disagreed
07:34with in any way. What followed at that microphone today was a kind of Trumpian display of ignorance
07:40and lying that we have become accustomed to. But now it's the 79 year old version after a year in
07:48the
07:48White House. And he is tired. He is weary. And he mixes up words. He says Iceland when he means
07:57Greenland, which we've all done at some point. But that's the kind of thing for which Donald Trump
08:04and much of the Washington press corps would have attacked Joe Biden for days if he ever mixed up
08:09those words. Getting a word wrong like that. Donald Trump spent an hour and 45 minutes at that microphone
08:17in the White House. And the word Epstein was never mentioned once in that room. But the word Greenland was,
08:26which is exactly the way Donald Trump wanted it to be today. Imagine if Joe Biden or Barack Obama were
08:33in
08:33the 31st consecutive day of breaking a law that was specifically written to force them to comply with
08:41that law. Imagine Joe Biden for 31 days violating a law passed by Congress requiring him to hand over
08:51documents. That's what Donald Trump is doing. Donald Trump is 31 days into violating the Epstein Files
08:57Transparency Act, which requires him to turn over the Epstein Files to Congress. And he didn't get a
09:03single question about that today because almost every question was about Greenland, exactly as planned
09:12by Donald Trump. By the time Donald Trump took questions from the White House reporters today,
09:18Donald Trump was exhausted and his answers were shorter than usual. The questions were, as usual, bad.
09:27The questions illuminated nothing because again, as usual, this was Donald Trump's favorite answer.
09:38We'll see what happens. So we'll see what happens. But we'll see what happens. We're just gonna have
09:42to see what happens. But, you know, we'll find out. That's not a president. That's a guy in a guessing
09:50game who has no idea what he's doing and has no idea what's going to happen next. The White House
09:55press
09:55corps specializes in weak questions like, how far are you willing to go to acquire Greenland? Why ask a
10:02question when you know there is no chance of getting an answer to that question or anything
10:07like an answer to that question from Donald Trump? So, of course, Donald Trump's wise guy answer was,
10:12you'll find out. And the White House press corps thinks they've got their headline. The you'll find
10:18out headline. Like, that means anything. Like, that matters. Donald Trump used Greenland like a shield
10:25today. An Epstein shield. And the White House press corps completely fell for it. The word Epstein was
10:33not mentioned once. Not a single question about Donald Trump's old friend, the sex trafficker and
10:40rapist Jeffrey Epstein. Not a single question about Donald Trump's old friend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was
10:45convicted of sex trafficking with Jeffrey Epstein. And then was moved to a much more comfortable
10:52facility from the prison she was in because she said nice things about Donald Trump. She said she
10:58never saw Donald Trump do anything that she thought was wrong. She is a convicted sex trafficker.
11:05She didn't see Donald Trump do anything she thought was wrong. That got her a prison switch. Not a single
11:11question about that today. Greenland is the diversion and the press falls for it.
11:20Donald Trump is not going to buy Greenland. Donald Trump is not going to invade Greenland. Donald
11:27Trump is not going to do anything in Greenland that the United States is not already empowered to do.
11:33The United States of America already has an agreement with Greenland that allows them to build several
11:39military bases in Greenland. And the United States now has only one. We used to have many more,
11:45more. But we downsized our presence in Greenland over the decades since World War II. And now we
11:50just have one. There may come a day when Donald Trump announces a larger American military commitment
11:55to Greenland. But that will occur under an already existing agreement with Greenland that has been in
12:01place for decades. And Donald Trump will pretend that's an accomplishment of his. And the White House
12:13reporter indicated today the slightest understanding of what a tariff is or how it works. And so Donald
12:20Trump was allowed to tell his tariff lies uninterrupted by even a glimmer of reality. Donald
12:26Trump said, you know, we have, and by the way, no inflation. So everyone said, oh, tariffs will cause
12:32inflation. We have no inflation. We have very little inflation. Okay. There's a difference between no
12:38inflation and very little inflation and flat. In fact, Donald Trump has more inflation a year
12:43after his inauguration than he did when he was inaugurated. And that inflation is because of
12:49Donald Trump's tariffs, tariffs that have increased the price of coffee alone by 20% along with groceries
12:55generally and every other kind of product we buy at the possibility of the United States Supreme Court
13:01agreeing with the unanimous opinion of the expert judges on the Court of International Trade that the
13:09Trump tariffs are unconstitutional. Donald Trump said this. If we lose that case, it's possible we're
13:19going to have to do the best we can in paying it back. I don't know how that's going to
13:24be done very
13:25easily without hurting a lot of people, but we're waiting for that case anxiously.
13:33That's right. If you have illegally taken money from people, you have to pay it back.
13:38And Donald Trump's tariffs have illegally taken, taken money from any American who has imported
13:44anything hit by the Trump tariff, which is virtually everything imported into this country. Now those
13:49tariffs are paid at the port of entry in this country by the company that is importing those
13:55goods. A representative for a store like say Best Buy is standing there at the dock or at the airport
14:01and pays the tariffs for all those TVs and washing machines and anything else that's coming into the
14:07country, rugs, whatever it is. And then the store builds that tariff into the price tag that you see
14:14in the store, the price tag you see online. And so the store is the technical actual payer of the
14:21tariff
14:21into the United States Treasury, the American store. But you are the actual payer of that tariff,
14:29because that tariff is going to show up inside your price tag. But the refund will not be to you.
14:37It will be to the store that paid that money into the United States Treasury. And so you're stuck
14:44with the higher prices that you've already paid all year because of the Trump tariffs. You'll never get
14:49that back. And there's not a single reporter in the White House who has shown any evidence of
14:56understanding any of that. I hope the Supreme Court does the right thing for our country because if
15:05they don't, it's such a problem. It's just so it would be so sad. We're doing so well because of
15:12tariffs. And the people that are heading up the lawsuit, like this guy named Leonard Leo's
15:23bad guy and people that are very China oriented and foreign car oriented and foreign business
15:30oriented. But in particular, China, they're suing to get rid of tariffs because they don't want tariffs.
15:38That's right. Leonard Leo is now a bad guy. Faithful viewers of this program know,
15:42thanks to the illumination brought to the issue by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, that Leonard Leo is the
15:46guy who has been selecting Donald Trump's Supreme Court justices. It is Leonard Leo's list that Donald
15:53Trump chooses from when a Supreme Court seat opens up. But today, Leonard Leo is a bad guy.
16:01In the middle of Donald Trump's list of accomplishments, there was this.
16:09Secured unprecedented settlements with Brown University, Columbia University and many other
16:15colleges, including the University of Pennsylvania, where I went, the great old Wharton School of Finance
16:21to restore fairness and merit. We're working with Harvard right now. They've been very anti-Semitic,
16:28terrible what they've done. And we'll see what happens. I hear we have a deal, but who the hell
16:34knows with them? They have a lawyer that wants to show how hot he is. Donald Trump does not have
16:40a
16:40deal with Harvard. Donald Trump has been lying about having a deal with Harvard all year. Harvard has
16:46refused to negotiate with Donald Trump and has successfully sued him in federal court. But Donald
16:52Trump has repeatedly tried to pretend that Harvard was somehow getting ready to bend to his will the
16:58way Columbia University did, disgracing itself as an institution. And Donald Trump says that Harvard is
17:07very anti-Semitic. Harvard University has had more Jewish presidents than the United States has.
17:14The United States has had zero Jewish presidents and most of the Harvard presidents of the 21st century
17:21have been Jewish. So according to Trumpian logic, the United States of America really should be entering
17:28some sort of deal with Donald Trump to atone for its anti-Semitism. Donald Trump flunked basic governing
17:38intelligence tests in the press conference when a reporter asked the ridiculous question of whether
17:46Donald Trump could simply send two thousand dollar checks to Americans unilaterally without Congress
17:51passing a bill. The answer to that, as every high school student knows, is no. No White House reporter should
18:00ask a question that stupid. Why not load up your question with truth instead of asking a science fiction
18:08question that invites insanity? Do you think you can do that unilaterally? That was the question.
18:17To which Donald Trump, of course, said, I believe we can do that without Congress. No, it's absolutely
18:23impossible. Imagine if any other president stood up there and told a crazy, demented lie like that.
18:30Imagine what the White House press corps would do. Donald Trump is on his way to Davos tonight,
18:35where he will be once again the stupidest person to ever address the World Economic Forum there.
18:41California Governor Gavin Newsom got to Davos first.
18:46Gavin Newsom, do you have a message for Europeans who are concerned about the
18:49messages from the White House around Greenland this week?
18:53Yeah, it's time to buck up. It's time to get serious and stop being complicit. This guy's playing
19:01folks for fools and it's embarrassing. Europeans think this is diplomacy and this will ultimately work.
19:08This is diplomacy with Donald Trump? He's a T-Rex. You mate with him or he devours you. One or
19:14the other.
19:14I mean, people need to stand, but no, the Europeans could be if they continue down this path and process.
19:20They need to stand tall, stand firm, stand united. Don't want that. Look, this a year ago,
19:26we should have been having this conversation and they didn't. Okay. And now you're paying the price.
19:30That's exactly what anyone objective observer would have anticipated. We'd be where we are today.
19:38And in the British House of Commons, Ed Davies said this.
19:43Madam Deputy Speaker, President Trump is acting like an international gangster. It is time for
19:50the government to change course. We have to finally be clear eyed about the sort of man Trump is and
19:57treat him accordingly. He is a bully. He thinks he can grab whatever he wants using force if necessary.
20:05And he is corrupt. The most corrupt president the United States has ever seen. So there are only
20:14two ways of getting him to back down. Bribing him with a new jet perhaps, or a few billion in
20:21his crypto
20:21account. Or standing up to him like we would with any other bully. Standing together with our European
20:30allies to make him back down. That's the choice. Which one, Foreign Secretary?
20:38The overused, exaggerated term leader of the free world has never applied to Donald Trump. Donald
20:43Trump's governing affections have been showered more on dictators than on the leaders of democracies.
20:48The only love letters Donald Trump has exchanged in the White House are with one of the world's most
20:55murderous dictators, Kim Jong-un. The governments we think of as the major players in the free world
21:01are now all in a trade war with Donald Trump. And those countries today finally found their voice
21:08in a speaker not known for drama or exaggeration. Canada's Prime Minister, Mark Carney. Mark Carney addressed
21:17the World Economic Forum in Davos today and acknowledged humbly that Canada is not, in his view, one of the
21:23world's great powers. Canada is not as powerful as the United States or China. The Prime Minister began his
21:32speech in French and then switched to English to say, quote, the power of the less powerful begins
21:39with honesty, end quote. And the honesty the Prime Minister brought to Davos today was to say the
21:47relationship with the United States. No longer works. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct.
21:59We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises
22:06in finance,
22:08health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently,
22:14great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure
22:22as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot live within the lie of mutual
22:30benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.
22:38The multilateral institutions on which the middle powers have relied, the WTO, the UN, the COP, the
22:46architecture, the very architecture of collective problem solving are under threat.
22:54A rupture, not a transition. The United States most important ally, most important trading part of the
23:00United States most reliable friend and neighbor, the most reliable friend and neighbor a country could
23:05have in this world. Canada now finds itself not in a transition with the United States, but in a rupture.
23:16On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully support
23:22their unique right to determine Greenland's future.
23:27Donald Trump's latest unconstitutional tariff insanity is to threaten to impose tariffs on
23:31Denmark and its European neighbors, including the United Kingdom, until and unless Donald Trump is
23:36allowed to buy Greenland. And Canada says no.
23:44Canada has what the world wants. We are an energy superpower. We hold vast reserves of critical minerals.
23:51We have the most educated population in the world. Our pension funds are amongst the world's largest and
23:58most sophisticated investors. In other words, we have capital talent. We also have a government with immense
24:04fiscal capacity to act decisively. And we have the values to which many others aspire. The powerful have
24:14their power. But we have something too. The capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at
24:23home, and to act together.
24:26That is Canada's path. We choose it openly and confidently, and it is a path wide open to any country
24:36willing to take it with us.
24:38Thank you very much.
24:55Canada can be proud tonight. American presidents used to talk like that. In fact, every president since
25:02Franklin Roosevelt has at times sounded like that, or at least tried to sound like that, clear, strong, determined, honest,
25:09and at the same time, humble.
25:13And now we have someone who publicly threatens Greenland just to hide from questions about his old friend, the sex
25:20trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein,
25:21the man who said, I was Donald's closest friend for 10 years.
25:29Jeffrey Epstein's closest friend for 10 years once again attacked Renee Good today, the woman who was shot and killed
25:37in Minneapolis by Donald Trump's ICE agent,
25:40who Donald Trump instantly absolved and praised. You'll hear what Donald Trump said today about that next,
25:49when Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar joins us after this break.
25:57Today, Donald Trump said that Americans just have to accept it when ICE agents make mistakes and kill them.
26:08ICE is going to be too rough with somebody or, you know, they're dealing with rough people.
26:12Are they going to make a mistake? Sometimes it can happen. We feel terribly.
26:18I felt horribly when I was told that the young woman who was had the tragedy. It's a tragedy. It's
26:27a horrible thing.
26:28Everybody would say it. ICE would say the same thing. But when I learned her parents and her father in
26:36particular is like, I hope he still is, but I don't know,
26:40I was a tremendous Trump fan. He was a tremendous Trump fan. He was all for Trump, loved Trump. And,
26:46you know, it's terrible. I was told that by a lot of people. They said, oh, he loves you. He,
26:53he was a, I hope, I hope he still feels that way. I don't know. It's a hard, hard situation.
26:58But her father was a tremendous, and, and parents were tremendous Trump fans. I'd so say it just happens.
27:0956% of Americans think that it was an inappropriate use of force when ICE killed Renee Goode.
27:18And there is the most perverse mind in American political history, deciding that the only thing worth knowing about Renee
27:26Goode is that her father might have voted for Donald Trump.
27:30Donald Trump is a walking, open sore of narcissism. He always has been, and he's only getting much, much worse
27:42in old age.
27:44Joining us now is Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. She serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate
27:50Commerce Committee.
27:51Senator, what's it like for the people of Minnesota to hear Donald Trump today find the only thing worth talking
27:59about on Renee Goode is, did her father vote for Donald Trump?
28:04I just thought, I just thought, it's only about him. That's all he thinks about when this young woman, a
28:11mom of three kids, a six-year-old, is killed right in our community.
28:18Her last words, of course, I was listening as he said, you know, they deal with rough people.
28:24Her last words were, I'm not mad at you. That's what she said to him.
28:28So, one of the things that's very concerning here, of course, is that we've now learned that the FBI had
28:35opened an investigation into this shooting, and then it was closed down.
28:41And they said they're not doing an investigation. That is just not what happens in these cases.
28:46So, you have that going on. And then the other thing, of course, you have ongoing is that there are
28:53over 3,000 ICE agents, Lawrence, in our communities.
28:58That outnumbers the Minneapolis-St. Paul Police Department. There's only about 1,100 sworn officers there.
29:05It's more than the entire 10 metro area police departments that include Minneapolis and St. Paul.
29:12So, you have legal citizens that are being arrested.
29:16You maybe heard about the Hmong man who, 57 years old, taken out in his underwear when it's zero degrees
29:25outside with nothing but Crocs on his feet
29:28and dragged into this car, driven around for an hour, and then they somehow found out, again, a legal citizen,
29:36that they had the wrong address.
29:38And today, I started my day with police chiefs from suburban areas.
29:44And I think it's important for people to know this Minneapolis-St. Paul police chief were there,
29:49but it also was suburban police chiefs who can't do their jobs because their officers are being called to these
29:57scenes where ICE is
29:58or a car has been abandoned on the street by someone they've stopped or a door has been beaten through.
30:05And they're just trying to do regular police jobs of solving burglaries and making sure that people are taken care
30:13of or sex cases or drug cases,
30:17and they're not able to do that very important work.
30:21So, what we're seeing here and what I hear from so many police chiefs is ICE is not making us
30:27more safe.
30:28They're making us less safe.
30:30And we have reports now from the St. Paul police chief telling us that off-duty police officers in his
30:37department are being grabbed by ICE.
30:40These are citizens.
30:41These are police officers.
30:43But they're off-duty.
30:44They're in their plainclothes.
30:46They're going home maybe from work or to work.
30:49They're being grabbed by ICE.
30:55And I heard that same thing from another police chief.
30:59This is Somali police officers.
31:01These are people that just believe in our country, and they took an oath to put their own lives on
31:08the line for others.
31:09That's what police officers do.
31:11And they're clearly just being stopped.
31:13Of course, they're citizens.
31:14They're police officers.
31:15And they're being stopped because of how they look, because of what their background is.
31:21And those cases, if none of this, if you don't see these videos and you think, is this real?
31:26By the way, many of them are real.
31:28Those stories of the police officers are, of course, heartbreaking.
31:32As we go forward, are there the local police there coming up with any new strategies for dealing with this?
31:43Well, their whole thing is to try to—their officers are getting exhausted.
31:47They're going through all their overtime.
31:49But they're still trying to do their jobs.
31:52And they're trying their best to tell the ICE agents or whoever's in charge in their area
31:58and try to talk to them about what's happening and who someone is and trying to get some coordination.
32:03But you can't just have over 3,000 agents that aren't from your state to send on your state in
32:10the middle of winter
32:11and think they're going to be able to coordinate with them at all.
32:14So that's going on.
32:15And then at the same time today, we found out that our governor, our mayor, our attorney general,
32:23our county attorney received subpoenas.
32:26They're under investigation.
32:27So instead of investigating the Rene Good case, the federal government, the Donald Trump administration,
32:35has decided to investigate them.
32:37And I guess they're in good company right now with Mark Kelly and Alyssa Slotkin and Jerome Powell and Letitia
32:45James.
32:45But that's what they've chosen to do, to send them subpoenas,
32:49instead of to get to the bottom by looking at all the evidence and the videos and the witnesses
32:53of what happened in the shooting of Rene Good.
32:57Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, thank you very much for starting off our discussions tonight.
33:01It's good to be on.
33:03Thanks, Lawrence.
33:05Coming up, Donald Trump now says he loves the Venezuelan regime that is now in power,
33:10even though they were never elected.
33:12And they all supported Nicolas Maduro, who was seized by American forces when Donald Trump ordered an invasion of Venezuela.
33:21The same people in Venezuela are still in charge.
33:25That's next.
33:29Breaking news.
33:30The White House has announced that Air Force One has turned around from its flight path to Switzerland
33:37because of a minor electrical issue, they're calling it.
33:41The Air Force One is going to go back to Joint Base Andrews, land there.
33:46They will switch planes.
33:47There is an identical second version of Air Force One that is always ready to go in situations like this.
33:55They will reboard that plane.
33:57That plane will then take off later tonight.
34:00And so the Trump trip to Switzerland, to Davos, has been delayed because of that minor electrical issue that has
34:10forced Air Force One to turn around,
34:12head back to the airport.
34:14All indications are this is a routine adjustment that they're making because of this minor electrical issue at this point.
34:24Well, it sounds like Donald Trump is very happy with all of Nicolas Maduro's friends who remained in power in
34:33Venezuela running the government there.
35:04I'm loving Venezuela.
35:06And all of the people in Venezuela and we've been doing great.
35:10The oil companies are getting ready to make massive investments there.
35:13They have more oil than even Saudi Arabia.
35:17Maria Machado, who gave Donald Trump her Nobel Peace Prize last Thursday, was on Capitol Hill today meeting with members
35:23of Congress,
35:24including members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
35:27Joining us now is Congressman Ami Barra, Democrat of California.
35:30He's a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the House Intelligence Committee.
35:34He's just returned from a congressional trip to South America.
35:37Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
35:40Does Maria Machado think she's ever getting that Nobel Peace Prize back?
35:45You know, I understand why the people of Venezuela love her.
35:48I mean, she's someone with charisma, someone who is inspiring.
35:52You know, she charmed both Republican and Democratic members of Congress, said all the right things.
35:57I do think if there were an election again, you know, she would be a frontrunner.
36:02Now, that may be a year or two years off, but I think she should be a player in what
36:07comes next for Venezuela.
36:09I know when you on your South American trip, you couldn't go to Venezuela under the current security situation there.
36:16But what did you pick up on that trip about the situation now?
36:20You know, what we found out is if you talk to the countries in the region, you're in Lima, Peru,
36:26met with their leadership, their foreign ministers.
36:28Very matter of fact, that they're happy that Nicolas Maduro is out of power.
36:33He was someone who destabilized the region.
36:36There's 1.7 million Venezuelan refugees in Venezuela.
36:41I'm sorry, in Peru, 2 million plus in Colombia.
36:45So they want to see this succeed.
36:47They'd also like to play a role.
36:50The problem is President Trump has not reached out.
36:52They're not coalescing around whether it's OES or the countries in the region to find out what next.
37:01And there's absolutely no prospect of elections there.
37:05And with Donald Trump saying he loves Venezuela, he means he loves the current regime now.
37:11You know, I think he loves that he gets his hands on their oil.
37:16That oil has to go back if it is sold.
37:19It's got to support the people of Venezuela.
37:21You know, they are in an economic freefall right now.
37:24And that's the biggest risk factor.
37:26We can't let Venezuela collapse.
37:28You know, it does sound like things on the ground are pretty horrific, food shortages, etc.
37:34If you are selling that oil, let's get that revenue, keep the country going, keep their economy going.
37:40You may, in the interim, have to work with the government that's in place.
37:44But long term, the goal should be allowing elections to take place and let the Venezuelan people choose their path
37:52forward.
37:53What does Maria Machado say about how long this regime should be left in place?
37:59I mean, Maria Machado did not put a time frame on that.
38:05What she did say, though, is, you know, I think she said all the right things in terms of her
38:10gratitude towards, you know, the removal of Maduro.
38:14But she was very matter-of-fact that the people of Venezuela, while thankful to President Trump, also are looking
38:20forward to that day where they can have their path forward.
38:24And, you know, they are very fond of America and want to have a good relationship with the United States
38:30of America.
38:32Congressman Ami Barrett, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
38:35Thank you, Lawrence.
38:36Coming up, Donald Trump is not suffering the pain of Trump inflation, since, according to the New York Times and
38:43Bloomberg,
38:44he has inflated his finances in the office of the presidency at a level seen only in the worst dictatorships
38:52in this world.
38:53That's next.
38:58On this one-year anniversary of the Trump inauguration after Donald Trump added $2.25 trillion to the national debt,
39:07the New York Times' lead editorial is titled,
39:10How Trump Has Pocketed $1,408,500,000.
39:15The editorial says a review by the editorial board relying on analyses from news organizations
39:20shows that Mr. Trump has used the office of the presidency to make at least $1.4 billion.
39:25We know this number to be an underestimate because some of his profits remain hidden from public view and they
39:32continue to grow.
39:33Mr. Trump's hunger for wealth is brazen.
39:35Throughout the nation's history, presidents of both parties have taken care to avoid even the appearance of profiting from public
39:41service.
39:41This president gleefully squeezes American corporations, flaunts gifts from foreign governments,
39:47and celebrates the rapid growth of his own fortune.
39:50It is impossible to know how often Mr. Trump makes official decisions in part or entirely because he wants to
39:56be richer.
39:58And that is precisely the problem.
40:00A culture of corruption is pernicious because it is not just a deviation from government in the public interest.
40:06It is also the destruction of the state's democratic legitimacy.
40:11Bloomberg News reported this about Donald Trump's finances today.
40:14As he returned to power on a frigid day in January 2025, Trump had a social media company, a crypto
40:21platform he'd co-founded,
40:22and even a new meme coin bearing his name departures from the real estate projects and brand licensing deals
40:29that were long the main remit of the Trump organization.
40:33One year on, the universe of the Trump family's wealth has expanded even further,
40:37touching industries including firearms, rare earth magnets, artificial intelligence, and prediction markets.
40:43But the most notable change has been the growing concentration of the family's net worth in cryptocurrencies.
40:49The Trumps have generated about $1.4 billion from crypto projects that are new to his second term.
40:56A Bloomberg analysis shows these have gotten a boost from Trump's own policies as he has signed crypto legislation
41:05and appointed regulators who tossed out lawsuits against the industry.
41:10Joining us now is Tom Maloney of Bloomberg News.
41:12He's a co-author of that report on Donald Trump's finances.
41:15Tom, what did you find that surprised you?
41:21I think the size of the crypto assets that you just mentioned, $1.4 billion.
41:26I mean, overall, his net worth hasn't changed all that much from a year ago, $6.8 billion, but the
41:30makeup of it has changed a lot.
41:32We weren't even measuring his crypto assets a year ago, and suddenly, you know, almost out of thin air,
41:38these things are worth at least $1.4 billion, possibly a lot more in the long term.
41:43And of all the things he's dealing with, it seems crypto is the one that would be the hardest to
41:49see through,
41:50to see exactly what's happening, how that money's coming in.
41:55That's right. I mean, by its very nature, it's meant to be, to a certain extent, anonymous.
42:00I mean, even out in the open, there have been issues with people like Justin Sun.
42:04An investigation into him was paused, and he's been a business partner for the Trumps in their crypto businesses.
42:10And Chang-Peng Zhao, the founder of Binance, again, Trump pardoned him.
42:17Zhao is somebody who has put money into Trump's crypto businesses.
42:22So these, you know, essential for conflicts of interest are definitely there.
42:26We don't really know a lot about what goes on behind the scenes in a lot of these businesses.
42:31And this time, they didn't even pretend that Donald Trump was going to remove himself
42:36from business interests while he was president.
42:40Yeah, that's right.
42:41I mean, specifically when it comes to real estate, during his first term,
42:45they didn't pursue any new foreign business ventures.
42:49That's changed in the second term, and we've seen them launch, you know,
42:53a range of new ventures in places like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Vietnam,
42:57all places that are really, you know, geopolitically sensitive.
43:01And they've had no hesitation to sign deals that are potentially worth, you know,
43:05tens of millions, hundreds of millions to the Trump organization going forward.
43:10Tom Maloney, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
43:13My pleasure.
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