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The Last Word with Lawrence ODonnell - Season 13 - Episode 29
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00:00We have another Trump retreat, and I mean a complete retreat by Donald Trump.
00:07Tonight, there is not a single member of the National Guard illegally deployed
00:13by Donald Trump on the streets of America. Not one.
00:18Under the headline, National Guard troops were quietly withdrawn from some U.S. cities,
00:23the Washington Post reports, the Trump administration has withdrawn all
00:26federalized National Guard troops from U.S. cities after its repeated attempts
00:30to surge forces into Democratic-run states encountered judicial roadblocks.
00:36They're all gone. The Trump retreat of National Guard troops is complete.
00:43The Constitution won, and Donald Trump lost. And now, Donald Trump is losing to Joe Biden
00:51in three polls that say Joe Biden did a better job as president than Donald Trump.
00:57And one of those polls includes the Rasmussen poll, which is always considered to be tilted
01:02in favor of Republicans. Rasmussen is Donald Trump's favorite poll.
01:06And now, the Rasmussen pollster says, quote,
01:10if an election were held today between Trump and Biden, Biden would win.
01:17The first amendment of the Constitution won when the vice president of the United Auto Workers
01:22reported in a speech in Washington this week that the auto worker at the Ford plant,
01:27who called Donald Trump a pedophile protector, is happily back at his job and hasn't been disciplined
01:34in any way. T.J. Sabula, the 40-year-old auto worker, says he has no regrets for calling
01:41Donald Trump a pedophile protector. The Detroit News reports, quote,
01:45Trump responded by flashing his middle finger and twice-mouthing F.U. at Sabula.
01:52The president also mouthed the popular catchphrase from his days on reality television,
01:57you're fired. The United Auto Workers vice president, Laura Dickerson, said in her speech
02:03on Monday, quote, in that moment, we saw what the president really thinks about working people.
02:08As UAW members, we speak truth to power. We don't just protect rights. We exercise them.
02:14And the label pedophile protector took on new meaning yesterday for Donald Trump
02:21when someone he protected with a pardon was found guilty of multiple child sexual abuse charges.
02:30Andrew Paul Johnson is seen here on January 6th when he participated in the attack on the Capitol
02:36to try to overturn the presidential election for Donald Trump. He pleaded guilty to federal charges
02:41for his participation in the attack on the Capitol. And on his first day in office, Donald Trump
02:47pardoned Andrew Paul Johnson, who is now facing the possibility of life in prison in Florida
02:53for molesting an 11-year-old boy. Johnson used Donald Trump's pardon to try to keep the boy silent,
03:02saying that Donald Trump was going to give him $10 million. Donald Trump has publicly discussed
03:08compensating the people who committed crimes for him on January 6th. And Andrew Paul Johnson
03:13used that, saying that he would put the 11-year-old boy in his will after Donald Trump gave him
03:22$10 million. Though there's a pedophile who Donald Trump protected with a pardon,
03:28a pedophile who has proudly called himself an American terrorist. And he really is.
03:36And he is a proud recipient of a Donald Trump pardon.
03:42Today, it was Attorney General Pamela Bondi's turn to play her role in the pedophile protector scheme
03:47that Donald Trump's Justice Department has been running by violating the law that requires the release
03:53to Congress of all of the Epstein files with redactions only for any identifying information
04:00about the victims and survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's international sex trafficking and rape conspiracy.
04:07We've had exactly two attorneys general in the history of the United States convicted of crimes,
04:14both of them Republican attorneys general, both of them in service to the criminal Republican
04:20President Richard Nixon. Neither one of those attorneys general ever testified to Congress
04:28while blatantly and publicly violating the law, which is what Pamela Bondi did today.
04:35The law required the attorney general to hand over all of the Epstein files 54 days ago,
04:42and she still has not done that. And so she is breaking the law every day and was breaking the
04:48law
04:48every minute in that hearing room today. We've never seen an attorney general willing to do that
04:54publicly. And because her position is completely indefensible, she had her staff provide her with a
05:02three ring binder with idiotic attacks that she could try to launch on every Democratic member of the
05:09House Judiciary Committee today instead of answering any of their questions. We've never seen this
05:16before the Trump cabinet began doing this just this year. This is not what Donald Trump's cabinet did
05:22in congressional testimony during the first Trump presidency. This is brand new. And this is the
05:27end of the congressional hearing as we knew it involving cabinet members. What we saw today was not a
05:34hearing. It was not anything that the most honorable members of Congress in our history would recognize.
05:40It was Pamela Bondi, with the help of the worst writers in Washington, trying to turn a hearing
05:47into a roast. She did the lamest possible impression of Comedy Central roast master and chief Jeff Ross with
05:56the stupidest material ever provided to an attorney general of the United States to speak in public. And she
06:03was stupid enough to do it. She was literally laughed at when refusing to answer a question about the
06:12Epstein files. She tried to change the subject to the stock market. And she said the Dow is over $5
06:20,000.
06:21Those were her words. She apparently doesn't know what stock market numbers mean. And when people laughed at
06:29her for saying the Dow Jones industrial average is over $50,000, she double underlined her ignorance by
06:37saying, I don't know why you're laughing. Congressman Eric Swalwell presented clear and convincing proof
06:44beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump's FBI director Kashyap Patel lied under oath and did it on video.
06:53Madam attorney general, you acknowledged earlier to Mr. Johnson that
06:58President Trump was mentioned and the release countless times, you said, in the Epstein files.
07:04I just want to play a video, though, for you that I think speaks to the frustration that
07:08many of these victims have. At times, Trump's name appears in the files,
07:14so it could at least be a thousand times. Is that right? The number is a total misleading
07:20factor. We have not released anyone's name. We have not released anyone's name in the Epstein
07:25files that has not been credible. Director, could it at least be a thousand times? We have released
07:28every piece of legally permissible information. Okay. You can characterize the numbers however you
07:34want it. Explain me my time, director. It sounds like if you don't know the number, it could at least
07:38be a thousand times. It's not. It's not.
07:41Is it at least 500 times? No. Is it at least 100 times? No. Then what's the number? I don't
07:46know the
07:46number. We now know that the number is over a million times. Yes, a million. Donald Trump's name
07:55is in the Epstein files over a million times, according to Congressman Jamie Raskin, who has seen
07:59the so-called unredacted version of the files. And Kashyap Patel is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of lying
08:07under oath about that. And during every presidency in the history of the FBI, except the Trump
08:13presidency, the FBI director would be forced to immediately resign once he was proved to have
08:18lied under oath and he would be prosecuted. The Trump administration is now a governmental
08:23crime spree from top to bottom with the masked agents Donald Trump has sent to Minneapolis, literally
08:30murdering people, which we have all seen on video. And the attorney general feigned outrage
08:37today when she was accused by Congressman Ted Lieu of lying under oath. Congressman Lieu said,
08:42I believe you just lied under oath. And Pamela Bondi said, don't you ever accuse me of a crime.
08:50Everyone in America has a first amendment right to accuse Pamela Bondi of crimes. Everyone in America
08:57has a first amendment right in their factories or anywhere else to call Pamela Bondi a pedophile protector.
09:04Everyone in America has every right to believe Pamela Bondi is doing everything she can to protect
09:11any and all possible pedophiles whose names appear in the Epstein files. Pamela Bondi refused to answer
09:18questions about why the names of men listed as co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein's in the Epstein
09:25files were redacted. Republican Thomas Massey asked her how that happened and she simply refused to answer.
09:34She insulted the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein who were in the hearing room today by refusing to even
09:40look at them when repeatedly asked to do so by Democratic members of the committee.
09:45Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal asked Pamela Bondi, the human being, to apologize to the survivors for having
09:53failed to redact their personal information, including their names, while she made sure that the
09:59co-conspirators names were redacted. And that is when we saw that a human being didn't show up to
10:07testify to that hearing today. Just a Trumpian robot whose handling of the Epstein files has earned her the
10:15suspicion of being a pedophile protector and her refusal to acknowledge the survivors in the room today in
10:22any way. Established her Trumpian level of heartless, soulless depravity.
10:32Nine year old victims, wow. Yes, nine years old. Nine year old victims, wow, were the words of a Wyoming
10:44grandmother reacting to what she just learned about the Epstein files. That Wyoming grandmother is a
10:50Republican and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Washington Coal Club.
10:57She is also the junior senator from Wyoming. The Hill reports that Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis
11:04now says, I see what the big deal is about the Epstein files. Nine year old victims, wow. Well,
11:11initially my reaction to all this was, I don't care. I don't know what the big deal is. But now
11:16I see what
11:16the big deal is. And it was worth investigating. And the members of Congress that have been pushing
11:20this were not wrong. Here's Congressman Jamie Raskin after his first look at what were supposed to be
11:27the unredacted Epstein files this week. When you read through these files and you read about 15 year
11:36old girls, 14 year old girls, 10 year old girls, I saw mention of a nine year old girl today.
11:42I mean,
11:43this is just preposterous and scandalous. A nine year old girl, 14 wasn't good enough for Senator
11:54Cynthia Lummis. She knew that Jeffrey Epstein sought out and raped 14 year olds, but she didn't see what
12:00the big deal was about that. The Epstein files that Donald Trump has been trying to hide for over a
12:06year
12:08revealed a nine year old victim. Howard Lutnik is the cabinet member who makes other Trump cabinet
12:15members feel better about themselves. Howard Lutnik is the cabinet member. Other Trump cabinet
12:19members can make fun of and look down on because no one bows lower at the feet of Donald Trump
12:25than
12:26the publicly pathetic Howard Lutnik, who has now revealed himself to be a pathological liar.
12:32Howard Lutnik's pathology as a public liar fills him with the same kind of energy and joy about
12:39lying that you see in Donald Trump and the same stupidity. In testimony to a subcommittee of the
12:46Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday, Howard Lutnik said that he did what everybody did when the
12:53Epstein files came out. He searched for his name. I didn't. I didn't search for my name.
13:00Everybody didn't search for their names. But Howard Lutnik does think everybody searched for their
13:05names. Howard Lutnik searched for his name because he knew he would be in there. But last year,
13:13he knew he'd be in the Epstein files when he told an entirely Trumpian lie on video on October 1st
13:21of
13:22last year about his very first encounter with his next door neighbor, Jeffrey Epstein.
13:28So he gives me a tour in the living room, big living room. And then across from it is
13:33double doors. I assume it's the dining room. And he opens the doors and there's a massage table
13:37in the middle of the room and candles all around and stuff. So I ask very insightful,
13:45cutting questions. I say to him, massage table in the middle of your house?
13:52How often do you have a massage? And he says, every day. And then he like gets like weirdly close
14:00to me.
14:00And he says, and the right kind of massage. Now my wife is standing here. So she looks at me.
14:10And I look at her.
14:11And we say, I'm sorry. We have to go. And we left. And in the six or eight steps it
14:23takes to get from
14:24his house to my house. My wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that
14:31disgusting person
14:33ever again. So I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy. If
14:42that guy was there, I wasn't going because he's gross.
14:48Laughing his way through that story about his first and only encounter with Jeffrey Epstein,
14:55which was, of course, a lie. Now the Epstein files show that Howard Lutnick was lying
15:03about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Of course he was lying. Howard Lutnick has not been
15:08accused of any criminal wrongdoing yet, but he has absolutely lied, pathologically lied,
15:16about his long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, including going to Jeffrey Epstein's island.
15:22The New York Times reading of the Epstein files says that Howard Lutnick, quote,
15:27interacted with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein regularly over at least 13 years is why they
15:32lived next door to one another on Manhattan's Upper East Side. They invested in the same privately
15:37held company together, dealt with one another on neighborhood and philanthropic issues and appear
15:43to have socialized in New York and the Caribbean. The records show Mr. Epstein at one point sought to
15:49meet with Mr. Lutnick's nanny. Mr. Lutnick's name appeared in more than 250 documents in the Epstein
15:55files released by the Justice Department, a review by the New York Times found.
16:01You led people to believe that you had cut off all contact with Jeffrey Epstein after the 2005
16:12encounter you and your wife had in his apartment. But as I'm sure you know, the Epstein files show a
16:20very different record of interaction. Why did the Epstein files show you coordinating a meeting and planning a
16:29visit with Jeffrey Epstein on his private island in December 2012?
16:37Thank you for the question. I'm glad to be here to make it clear that I met Jeffrey Epstein when
16:45he
16:45moved, when I moved to a house next door to him in New York, right? And I met him then.
16:52Over the next 14
16:53years, I met him two other times that I can recall. Two times. And that is none for six years.
17:01So six
17:01years later, I met him. And then a year and a half after that, I met him and never again.
17:08Probably the
17:09total, and you've seen all of these documents, of these millions and millions of documents, there may
17:15be 10 emails connecting me with him, probably about 10 emails connecting me with him over a 14 year period.
17:24I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with that person. Okay.
17:36Okay. But the question was, why did you plan to visit with Jeffrey Epstein on his private island in
17:44December 2012? And Howard Lutnick did not answer that question. The thing about pathological liars is
17:51that when they get caught in their lie, they don't then immediately switch to the truth.
17:58Did you in fact make the visit to Jeffrey Epstein's private island?
18:03I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation. My wife
18:10was with me,
18:11as were my four children and nannies. I had another couple with, they were there as well with their
18:19children. And we had lunch on the island. That is true for an hour. And we left with all of
18:26my
18:27children, with my nannies and my wife all together. We were on family vacation. We were not apart.
18:33To suggest there was anything untoward about that in 2012, I don't, I don't recall why we did it, but
18:44I don't recall why we did it. He has a very vivid memory of line for line dialogue of his
18:53encounter
18:53with Jeffrey Epstein that he was so proud of last year. And now he can't even recall why he turned
19:00his boat, had his captain turn his boat to Jeffrey Epstein's island. The complications of getting from
19:08the, that boat, that yacht to the island, launches had to be used to get them to the Jeffrey Epstein
19:14dock. Can't remember any reason why he did all of that. Why did he bring his children to lunch
19:22with the man on his rape island, the man who Howard Lutnick said he found so gross?
19:32When you visited the private island, did you see anything inappropriate during that visit?
19:41The only thing I saw with my wife and my children and the other couple and their children was staff
19:50who worked for Mr. Epstein on that island. And you realize that, you know, this, this visit took place
19:59after he'd been convicted, right? I mean, you made a very big point of saying that you sensed that this
20:06was a bad person in 2005. And then of course, in 2008, he was convicted of soliciting prostitution of
20:18a minor. And, and yet you went and had this trip and other interactions.
20:23So after Jeffrey Epstein was convicted of sex crimes, Howard Lutnick decided to bring his children
20:30and their nannies to have lunch with Jeffrey Epstein on Epstein Island. Howard Lutnick knew
20:40exactly what he was looking for in the Epstein files.
20:44There was, look, I, I looked through the millions of documents for my name, just like everybody else.
20:54No, not like everybody else.
20:57Just the friends of Jeffrey Epstein, like the lying Lutnick.
21:05There's also a reference to the fact that Epstein had expressed an interest in meeting your nanny.
21:12Do you know whether Jeffrey Epstein ever met with your nanny?
21:18No, I saw that. I had no idea what that was about. It had nothing to do with me.
21:22No interaction involved with him on that?
21:23No. As far as I know, no.
21:24Would you, Mr. Secretary, be willing to ensure that the file is complete to share with this
21:30committee and the Congress, your own records, any records you have that relate to Jeffrey Epstein?
21:38I will surely talk about that. I hadn't thought about that. I have nothing to hide. Absolutely nothing.
21:46Howard Lutnick does have something to hide, and he hid it in that testimony. He wouldn't even say
21:50why he went to the island. Howard Lutnick is not going to turn over any of his records
21:56relating to Jeffrey Epstein. He's going to hide those records.
22:03What questions do you have about Lutnick's ties to Epstein, and should he come before
22:08Congress and testify?
22:11No, he should just resign. I mean, there are three people in Great Britain that have resigned in
22:16politics. The ambassador from Great Britain to the United States, the prince lost his title for
22:21less than what we've seen Howard Lutnick lie about.
22:26Congressman Ro Khanna revealed the names of very wealthy men that were redacted in the Epstein files
22:32for no legal reason other than to protect them. One of those men, Congressman Conner named, is Sultan
22:41Ahmed bin Sulayah, who has a particularly horrific entry in the Epstein files in an email in which
22:50Jeffrey Epstein tells him, quote, I loved the torture video.
22:57Donald Trump was in business with Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayah in 2007 to build a hotel in Dubai,
23:06a project that has recently been revived by Donald Trump and his sons. Have they seen the torture video?
23:15An association with such a person would be impossible for anyone in the American government until Donald
23:21Trump came along and created what the dean of American conservative columnists, George Will, has called,
23:30quote, a sickening moral slum of an administration. That sickening moral slum was on display in the
23:40House Judiciary Committee today with an attorney general preening with juvenile pride at the violations
23:47of law she has committed for the sickening moral slum lord, Donald Trump. Senator Mark Kelly will join us next.
24:02Yesterday, a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., refused a request by Donald Trump's Justice
24:07Justice Department to indict six members of Congress for saying publicly exactly what everyone in the
24:12American military has taught, that no one in the military should follow illegal orders.
24:20Yesterday, we saw the great lengths that Donald Trump and his administration will go to to abuse power
24:29in order to silence and intimidate anyone who disagrees with them. We learned through the media
24:39that federal prosecutors tried and failed to get an indictment of us from a grand jury.
24:49This is outrageous. They tried to have us charged and thrown into jail
24:56the law. Because we said something that they didn't like. Because we repeated what the law actually is.
25:09This happened here. This is straight from the authoritarian playbook from the very beginning of our nation.
25:18It has depended on the willingness of patriotic Americans to fight for it. Senator Slocken and I, we did not
25:28ask for this.
25:30We're just the first through the breach. But you'll be damn sure that we are not going to back down.
25:39We've been in war zones for this country. We fought our country's enemies. This doesn't intimidate us.
25:49And we know that this is much bigger than the two of us. The most patriotic thing that any American
25:58can do right now
25:59is to continue exercising our rights, continue speaking truth to power, and not backing down.
26:14Senator S. Dow is former astronaut, former Navy pilot, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona,
26:18a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee.
26:21Senator, where were you when you got the news, when you read this news that they tried to do this
26:27yesterday? What did you feel when you read that? Well, Lawrence, we had a little bit of a heads up.
26:33We heard something was going to happen that they might try to impanel a grand jury and try to
26:39indict us and send us to jail or prison. That's President and Pam Bondi and Janine Pirro's goal
26:47here. I was just pulling up in front of my place last night and I was on the phone with
26:53my chief of
26:53staff when she got the word from our attorney that they tried to do this. But a handful, a couple
27:01dozen
27:02of U.S. citizens seem to understand the Constitution much better than anybody in this administration
27:09does and refuse to indict us. Yeah, that's what was standing between
27:17panel of Bondi and your indictment is just citizens reporting for jury duty.
27:25Yeah, this time we'll see if they, you know, keep pressing here. They've got a reputation. You know,
27:37I've made a habit of it lately, especially as he uses his justice system as a weapon against people
27:45that he disagrees with. Hey, you know, Alyssa Slocken and I and the four House members, we said
27:51something the president didn't like. He started out with hanging us. He wanted us hanged, then he said
27:57executed. Now we're in the prosecutorial phase of this. I also have a case with the Navy. They're trying to
28:03demote me and take away some of my pension after 25 years. But like we said in that press conference
28:09today, you know, this isn't about just the two of us. This is about 350 million Americans who this
28:16president will go after and try to silence if he doesn't like what comes out of their mouths. And
28:22this is wrong and it's un-American. So, you know, for that reason, you know, we're in it to the
28:27end.
28:29Every news network has shown the video where you all say this, where you all tell us all and members
28:36of the military that they should not follow illegal orders. Many of us with programs like this have
28:42repeated multiple times what you actually said. And so in the theory of what they were doing yesterday,
28:49you could prosecute every one of these networks and every one of us who's presented this news.
28:58Yeah, I suppose, or all of my colleagues who have repeated it over and over again,
29:03or maybe even Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, who in 2016, when Donald Trump was running
29:08for office and apparently 2016 Pete Hegseth didn't like some of the stuff that Donald Trump was saying,
29:16like killing the family members of terrorists, meaning women and children. You know,
29:22that Pete Hegseth said exactly what we said, you know, in the video that members of the military
29:29are not going to follow and should not follow unlawful or illegal orders. You know, so that guy seemed to
29:36get it. And obviously people understand that members of the military are trained on this.
29:43This just means follow the law. But Donald Trump and people around him don't like when somebody
29:50presents something that, you know, that that he doesn't agree with. He thinks he should be allowed to do
29:56and give whatever order he wants because he's a wannabe dictator.
30:03Senator, it seems that you have left a marker here for historians
30:06of just how far Donald Trump is willing to go in abusing the Constitution against anyone.
30:14Senator Mark Kelly, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
30:18Thank you for having me on, Lawrence.
30:20Thank you. Andrew Weissman will join us next.
30:27Joining us now is Andrew Weissman, former FBI general counsel and an MSNOW legal analyst.
30:33And Andrew, we are seeing two things that were inconceivable in your career in the Justice
30:39Department, an attorney general going to a Judiciary Committee hearing and trying to turn it into a scene
30:45of Trumpian chaos filled with juvenile insults. And at the same time, ripping up the Constitution
30:54to charge six members of Congress for with a crime for simply reciting the law.
31:03The these things are are remarkable. But it seems like this is where we are now. This is the new
31:11Trump Justice Department.
31:15Yes. And I think it even goes further than that. And it's it's hard to imagine. So one of the
31:21things
31:21I noticed in connection with her testimony today is that she seemed to pretty ostentatiously show
31:29notes that were handed to her by a staffer that indicated that the Department of Justice was
31:36monitoring what the members of Congress were looking at when they were allowed to see the at least
31:44partially unredacted Epstein files. And she had a list of what one of the members of Congress had
31:51actually looked at. So clearly sending a message to people that they have their eyes on them. And
31:57this is the same people who were upset that Jack Smith got a court order to look at near telephone
32:05records. So that's what they're saying. If you come see the Epstein files, we're going to look and
32:10monitor what you're doing with connection with the interview you just had. I want to make sure people
32:16understand this is not just denigrating Senator McCain and his legacy. This is not just shouting
32:22in 2016, lock her up. This is actually pure authoritarianism. This is trying to go after
32:32for a non crime, your political adversaries. Not only did they not commit a crime,
32:39their activities are protected by the first amendment of the Constitution. This is, I mean,
32:47for people who are thinking, oh, this is hyperbole. We're not where we are. This is straight out of an
32:54authoritarian playbook. But for the grand jurors, that is exactly where we are.
33:01Well, what about that grand jury? Is that the end of it?
33:07No, unfortunately, it is not. You are allowed to go to other grand juries and keep doing this.
33:15How do we know that? One, it's the law. And two, we know that this administration has done that.
33:20They did that with Letitia James. Quite notably, it did not work because the reports are that not just
33:28one, but two separate grand jurors had said, no, we're not going to indict her. So that is what it's
33:37come to. That tells you the kind of lackeys that we have in the Justice Department who are willing to
33:44violate their oaths of office. And here, just remember, it is people where there's not only no
33:49crime. It is it is First Amendment protected activity by people who served this country and
33:59put their lives on the line for us who are now being they try to indict these political adversaries
34:08for simply speaking the truth as is their constitutional right.
34:14And when the Democrats control the House of Representatives a year from now, they will
34:19have the power to subpoena testimony about this from inside the Justice Department. The next
34:27Democratic attorney general, possibly three years from now, will be able to go in and study everything
34:33that they have done in trying to bring this prosecution. And Jason Crow, one of the congressmen
34:40who was they were trying to indict, has lawyers telling the Justice Department, we will come after
34:46you for what you've done. Yes, that is something that could happen in terms of if the midterms result
34:56in one or both of the House is switching. There will be those efforts. I would remind people that during
35:02the first Trump administration, there was enormous contempt for the powers of Congress and simply
35:09not responding to those subpoenas. And so I expect that will go on again. Just to be clear,
35:17that itself is a separate crowd. So if the presidency changes, there can be obviously a lot more that's
35:26done in that regard. But I think it's going to take that. And then we also have to worry about
35:31whether
35:32they will destroy documents or use signal or other means to make it very, very hard to follow the
35:39evidence here. But certainly, I think one of the lessons I have learned is you can't just say, oh,
35:45let's bygones be bygones and look forward. If there are serious crimes, you have to. You have to take
35:53actions to have a deterrent effect going forward. Andrew Weissman, thank you very much for joining us
35:59tonight. You're welcome. And coming up breaking news tonight, the House of Representatives voted
36:05against Donald Trump's tariffs tonight with Republicans joining Democrats in a crushing vote for Donald Trump.
36:12That's next. Donald Trump threatened Republicans about voting against his tariffs tonight, but the Trump
36:22threat did not work. On this vote, the yeas are 219 and the nays are 211. The joint resolution is
36:32passed.
36:32Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.
36:42It was a revolution in the House with six Republicans defying Donald Trump
36:47after Donald Trump threatened them with these words. Any Republican in the House or the Senate
36:54that votes against tariffs will seriously suffer the consequences come election time,
36:58and that includes primaries. Before Donald Trump became president, Republicans were the anti-tariff
37:04party. Republicans were the free trade party. But Donald Trump threatened them into a complete
37:09reversal on tariffs. Every one of them, which are simply and the tariffs, of course, are simply sales
37:15taxes paid by Americans and only by Americans, which is why Republicans used to oppose them. But tonight,
37:21Republicans have begun to find their way back to opposing sales taxes. Joining us now is Democratic
37:30Congressman Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania. He's the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee and
37:33a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over tariffs. The president
37:38does not. Congressman Boyle, you got the Democrats plus six Republicans and Donald Trump lost a big one
37:45time. Yeah. And you know, Lawrence, this is now by my count, the fifth major vote in the House of
37:52Representatives that Donald Trump has lost over the last three months. In fact, in the minority, Democrats have
37:58passed more major pieces of legislation over the last few months than Republicans have, even though they are
38:05ostensibly in the majority. So it's just one more sign that Donald Trump's power grip on this House Republican caucus
38:13is
38:14slowly but surely slipping. What does it mean that a majority of the House now has come out against
38:22the Trump tariffs? It seems as though there's a majority, including Republicans, who understand
38:28these really are sales taxes on Americans. Yeah, you're exactly right. And of course, one other group
38:35that believes that as well, the American people, by a pretty overwhelming margin in all the polls that I've
38:42seen on this issue, literally more than two to one, the American people oppose these tariffs because
38:47they're the ones who are paying the price. They know that on average, according to the budget lab,
38:53the average American household has paid $1,700 more in the past year for the cost of goods,
39:01specifically because of Trump's tariffs. Let's not forget what the head of the Federal Reserve,
39:06a Republican appointed by Donald Trump has said the reason why we see interest rates higher than what
39:14they otherwise should be is because of the damage that tariffs have done. And they are entirely the
39:20fault of Donald Trump. And the Republicans who are moving on this are simply moving back to what their
39:27positions were before Donald Trump. Yeah, that's exactly right. Now, I mean, it really is interesting.
39:33The first half of the 20th century, the Republican Party is basically an isolationist and even pro-tariff
39:41party. But from the Eisenhower years on up until Donald Trump, it was a free trade party and very much
39:48an internationalist party. Donald Trump has returned us to the Republican Party of 100 years ago, which was
39:55deeply anti-immigrant and nativist for tariffs and isolationist, all things that Donald Trump has brought the
40:03Republican Party to. What happened the first time in that story, 100 years ago, we had the Great
40:08Depression, we had World War II, and we saw a massive Democratic majority in the 1930s through the 1960s.
40:17This defiance of Donald Trump, it's exactly like the Epstein files vote defiance. Donald Trump was
40:24threatening every Republican not to vote for release of the Epstein files until it just became overwhelming and
40:31Donald Trump had to surrender. By the way, I talked about the five major votes now that have happened
40:36the last few months in the House in which Donald Trump has lost. The Epstein discharge petition was
40:42the first of those. What I think you and I talked about at the time is this could become a
40:47leading
40:47indicator that this was going to be repeated more and more. And sure enough, we have seen that happen.
40:53And I will also predict that over the next eight to nine months, we will see it more
40:57and more as we get closer to the November elections. Congressman Brendan Boyle, thank you very much
41:03for joining us tonight. Thank you. We'll be right back.
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