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00:00Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Glenn Ivey from the 4th District in Maryland.
00:03Great to have you with us once again.
00:04I'm going to rip up the script here.
00:05We're going to get to Iran in just a moment.
00:07But I know that you served in the task force on the attempted assassination of Donald J. Trump.
00:12And with that experience, I wanted to ask you to comment on what we saw outside the White House yesterday.
00:17Somebody who tried to get in, fired a weapon, was shot dead by Secret Service as a result of that.
00:23What do you make of that occurrence in complement to what we saw less than a month ago
00:27at the White House Correspondents Association dinner?
00:30The fact that the president is a target here, reporters are a target as well.
00:34How is your focus shaped by the work that you did on that task force?
00:41You know, there was a scenario yesterday where really the guy wasn't any place near the president
00:46or any intended target, apparently.
00:49And I think he'd had two prior incidents like that.
00:53He seemed to be somewhat trying to make a statement more so than actually, you know,
00:57trying to get to the president.
01:00Butler was a whole different scenario.
01:02So that was one where, you know, another inch slightly to the right, you know, he would have been killed.
01:09And so, you know, I think the Secret Service has learned a lot from the mistakes that were made at
01:16Butler
01:16and made improvements and adjustments.
01:18But, you know, when the president's out, especially at campaign events or open events like that,
01:23those are going to be much different scenarios than when he's in the White House
01:27or safely ensconced inside a building with an extended perimeter around it.
01:34After that incident, the president did, I would say, tweet, but it's not.
01:38It's a true social saying that, you know, presidents need a safe and secure place,
01:44inferring, I think, that this is justification, again, for the ballroom.
01:48You're on appropriations.
01:49Do you think the president is going to get that funding?
01:52And do you think that's something that's needed?
01:56Well, no, I don't think that it's needed.
01:58I mean, let's, for example, if you built the ballroom, I guess the suggestion he's making
02:05is that every event he would do publicly would be in the ballroom, which, of course, is preposterous.
02:10The president has to go around and, you know, do events out about the country and overseas.
02:16So building the ballroom doesn't fix the issues that we saw at Butler,
02:19unless he wants to cloister himself in the White House for the rest of his term.
02:23And I know that he doesn't.
02:25The other part of that, too, is when people are running for president and they haven't been elected yet,
02:30we're still going to have the same issues about them campaigning outside of the White House
02:34because they can't do it in the White House to start with.
02:36That's government property, and you can't do a campaign on government property.
02:40So it's a total red herring from that perspective.
02:43Whether he gets the funding or not, I think even the Senate Republicans were balking at the amount
02:50and the change in the ask.
02:52I think initially when he floated this, all the money was going to come from the private sector,
02:57which I think is still inappropriate because of potential influence.
03:00But, you know, now it's a billion dollars from taxpayer money.
03:03I just – I don't see why we would want to do that.
03:06I love that shade from the House appropriations.
03:08Even the Senate appropriators were balking at that amount.
03:12Let me ask you to respond to what we heard from the president yesterday,
03:15sort of how you're thinking about the prospects of a deal here.
03:17Yes, you sit on appropriations.
03:18Your remit isn't strictly in foreign affairs.
03:20But you're thinking, I'm sure, about the cost of this war, the widening cost and remit of this war.
03:25Where do you think we are in these negotiations?
03:27Are you satisfied that Congress at least has enough blanket awareness of what's going on in these negotiations?
03:34No.
03:34I think we've been totally marginalized.
03:36I know there's, you know, the – there's lead House members and Senate members on foreign affairs and intelligence and
03:43the like.
03:44And the leaders are supposed to get additional information, and maybe they are.
03:48But I don't – I haven't been hearing exactly what that is.
03:51And I think they've been frustrated as well.
03:53So the other problem, too, is, you know, there's no other way to say it.
03:58But, you know, the administration lies all the time about the status of these negotiations.
04:02He's been saying they're close to a deal now for week after week, and nothing seems to happen.
04:08And the one time where they did actually float specifics, you know, I think the things that Iran had proposed
04:14were totally unacceptable.
04:16I'm hoping we can at least get back to a place where we were as well off as we were
04:20under the Obama treaty.
04:21At this point, please, just reopen the Strait of Hormuz first and foremost.
04:28The talk about doing something with respect to the nuclear piece, I don't know that he can get there from
04:33where he is.
04:34And even then, you know, he lied about – I guess he said in June, I thought he'd obliterated all
04:39of their nuclear capability.
04:40And here we are again.
04:41So it's really hard to know what you can believe from the administration or not.
04:46But at a minimum, he needs to include Congress, you know, leadership from the House and the Senate from both
04:53parties.
04:53Let's work together and see if we can get out of the mess that he's created.
04:57Well, speaking of working together, there was a surprising amount of backlash from your Republican colleagues in both chambers last
05:05night responding to even the outlines of this potential deal saying it didn't go far enough.
05:10It left us in a worse place than the U.S. and the region were before this conflict started.
05:17Watching people like Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, stalwart allies of the president come out openly on Twitter, on X, and
05:25post that this is a bad idea, do you think that helps any kind of coalescence for some of the
05:31things that Democrats have been trying to get done, and that is to curtail some of this Pentagon funding or
05:35to actually pass a War Powers Resolution?
05:39I think we're going to get the War Powers Resolution eventually.
05:41You know, I think it's going to be hard for the Republicans to sustain the position that the war should
05:47keep going when it's putting so much pain and financial pain on the American people.
05:53You know, I just filled up my gas tank yesterday in the car, and it was like over $80, and
05:58I'm not driving a big SUV.
06:00You know, gas costs $1.50 more than it did just a few months ago.
06:04You know, every American's feeling that, and they're gritting their teeth at the Trump administration every time they have to
06:09pay for that tank of gas.
06:12So I think that's unsustainable.
06:14The problem is he's painted himself into a corner, though.
06:17You know, he made big, you know, statements about what he was going to get out of this, and it's
06:22not clear that he can get there.
06:23And he's put, especially Senate Republicans, but many of my House Republican colleagues as well, in a really tough situation.
06:31On the one hand, they want to get out of this war because of the gas prices and the impact
06:36and the total unpopularity of it.
06:39On the other hand, you know, if he gets out but doesn't, you know, achieve any of the goals that
06:44he put out there at the front end, he can't save face.
06:48He looks like he failed.
06:49I think he's going to have to swallow this hard and try and move forward from there because I'm not
06:55seeing an easy path forward.
06:56And Iran has successfully stalemated us, you know, on the ground on this.
07:01So I don't know how he's going to get out of this situation.
07:04I don't see an exit ramp that's easy for him, but he's going to have to do something.
07:09He's going to have to do it fast.
07:11I want to get the perspective of Glenn Ivey, former assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia,
07:15on this anti-weaponization fund that was announced this week, $1.8 billion here for those who have grievances
07:21against the Justice Department, against the federal government.
07:25What do you make of that as a former federal prosecutor?
07:28And what power does Congress have to constrain this or preclude it from happening?
07:34Christina mentioned just a moment ago that the blowback the president has gotten from his party
07:37on the prospects of this Iran deal.
07:40I should say there was a lot of blowback from members of his own party about the creation of this
07:43fund as well.
07:45Absolutely.
07:46I mean, you know, frankly, I was shocked.
07:48I didn't really believe it at first.
07:50But, you know, once it was confirmed, I mean, I was disgusted.
07:55And, you know, former DOJ prosecutors, people who are still there are shocked.
08:00And I think you're seeing that across the board, even with Senate and the House Republicans.
08:04They just, you know, it's just a shocking thing to do.
08:07And it looks like he was targeting the J-6 defendants that, well, insurrectionists, actually,
08:13who had been convicted, I think over 1,500 of them.
08:16He pardoned all of them.
08:18That eliminated their requirement to pay restitution to the people that they hurt.
08:22And now he's going to say, OK, we're going to use $1.8 billion in American taxpayers' money
08:28to pay these guys and other, you know, former convicted felons at the same time.
08:34I mean, it's disgusting.
08:36And the structure of the deal, you know, with the IRS and the Department of Justice,
08:41both of whom serve at his pleasure, you know, you didn't actually have any kind of objectivity in there.
08:47And the only, to the extent you did, it was the judge.
08:51And she expressed real concern about the lack of objectivity and neutrality
08:55and adverse, you know, parties in the scenario.
08:58But I think the politics of this are going to demand some kind of fix.
09:02I know there's a real effort to do something legislative.
09:06There's a couple options on the table.
09:07I'm not sure which one will play out.
09:09But I think at the end of the day, none of this money is going to be used to pay
09:13off people like that.
09:15You're sure of that.
09:16And this fund should be liquidated entirely.
09:19That's because acting AG, Todd Blanche, did an interview with our colleague over at CNN
09:24and was asked, in the smaller realm, you know, the viability and legality and ethics of this fund aside.
09:31Other than the play, Mrs. Lincoln.
09:33Yeah.
09:34Other than the play, Mrs. Lincoln.
09:35How did you do the play?
09:36Thanks, David.
09:37If it does go forward, is there a preclusion for giving money to people who assaulted police officers?
09:44And Blanche's response was, well, that'll have to be litigated or decided by this amorphous and defined committee members
09:51who are distributing this money.
09:52If you can't stop it, would you at least want to see something that precludes people who have been convicted
09:57of felonies
09:58or violent acts during January 6th or other incidents being disqualified?
10:03Well, you know, certainly.
10:05But depending on who else they line up and the names I've heard, it's just been a real rogues gallery.
10:11Michael Flynn, for example, you know, just names that have faded from public view, thankfully.
10:16And here they are again.
10:18Rudy Giuliani, folks like that.
10:20It's like, you know, please give me a break.
10:23But, you know, I think it's tax dollars that, you know, they keep saying, for example,
10:27he just said a little while ago he didn't care about what's going on with the American public.
10:32As far as, you know, the impact and their financial difficulties, we can use that $1.8 billion to do
10:38other things,
10:38like extend the health care tax credits, for example, or extend SNAP benefits, for example.
10:44But, you know, he's focused on paying off people who, you know, have really false claims against the United States
10:52and shouldn't be getting a dime.
10:53In fact, they should be paying the United States the restitution that they owe.
10:57So I think this is going to be defeated one way or the other.
11:00It might be a clawback.
11:02It might be a challenge to the structure of this board or whatever,
11:07because it certainly wasn't established by Congress.
11:09I mean, what exactly is it?
11:11And, you know, there's no authorization for the use of the funds from the Appropriations Committees either.
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