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The Briefing with Jen Psaki Season Episode 95 englishsubtitle fullfilm❗️❗️
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00:00OK, as I was just saying to Jacob, and I'm just going to remind you again,
00:03Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is going to be with us tonight.
00:07She's going to join me here in just a moment.
00:09And we have a ton to talk about.
00:11We will talk about all of it.
00:12But I have to start tonight with something I really, I honestly, I never thought I would say.
00:18And that is, I agree with J.D. Vance.
00:22If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story.
00:28OK, J.D., that was J.D. Vance at the Nixon Library yesterday,
00:33making what I would say is a very good point that I don't think he intended to make.
00:39Stay with me here.
00:40While bizarrely trying to downplay the seriousness of the Watergate scandal,
00:44Vance basically made the very astute point in the process
00:48that the Trump administration does stuff like Watergate all the time.
00:54I mean, there's the obvious stuff like how Trump tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election,
00:59how he encouraged a violent mob to march to the Capitol and stop the election from being certified,
01:04a mob that actively tried to hang his own vice president.
01:09All of that definitely feels worse than Watergate.
01:13But I actually think the point J.D. Vance accidentally made is more fine-tuned than that.
01:17Because what is really so unbelievable about the Trump administration this time around,
01:22in Trump's second term, is how Trump does Watergate-level impeachment-worthy stuff so often
01:28that we can hardly process it before we have to move on to the next thing.
01:32It seems like every month we learn about a new perceived Trump enemy
01:36that the Justice Department is targeting with sham investigations.
01:40But, like a frog in a slowly boiling pot, that almost feels normal now.
01:45And it's hard to focus on because there's just so much else going on.
01:49There's the fact that Trump's son-in-law has reportedly been soliciting billions of dollars
01:53for his investment firm from countries in the Middle East,
01:55while acting as one of Trump's top negotiators and advisors in that very same region,
02:01which he swears is ethical.
02:03I mean, there's the fact that companies with ties to Trump adult sons
02:08keep landing major government contracts, which they say is okay
02:12because the president isn't involved.
02:16Or that foreign countries keep enriching the Trump family
02:18to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars,
02:21while Trump makes decisions as president that affect those same countries
02:25and laughably insists there's no conflict there.
02:28Then there's the whole list of people who Trump pardoned or commuted the sentence of,
02:32which the White House insists has nothing to do with the donations or other favors
02:36those very same people have made.
02:38Then there was Trump's sham lawsuit and so-called settlement
02:40with his former personal lawyer that attempted to create a slush fund
02:44to reward people who had committed crimes in his name.
02:47And the deal Trump made with his own IRS to block them from auditing him
02:51or his family or their businesses.
02:53I could go on here.
02:55I mean, any of those scandals could easily be another Watergate.
02:59There's a lot we don't even know about all of those scandals at this point.
03:03Like the militarized horrors Trump has ordered on the streets of American cities,
03:07the innocent Americans who have been killed by federal agents,
03:10the thousands of innocent immigrants who have been rounded up and thrown into prisons.
03:14So, yeah, J.D., can I call you J.D.?
03:17I'm going to.
03:18I agree.
03:19Given the sheer quantity of Trump's scandals,
03:22yeah, I think Watergate probably would be just a 12-hour story these days.
03:26Probably would be.
03:27I mean, on Tuesday, just this last Tuesday,
03:31Trump publicly blurted out that he pressured a U.S. attorney
03:35to launch an election fraud investigation in California without any real evidence.
03:40That was Tuesday.
03:42Do you even remember that story?
03:44That's what I'm talking about here.
03:45I mean, in a normal world, any of the scandals I just mentioned
03:48would be worthy of an impeachment inquiry
03:50and possibly even criminal investigation.
03:54Richard Nixon resigned the presidency over far less.
03:56But back then, he, and this is a key part,
04:00the Republican Party had some capacity to actually feel shame
04:04and some incentive to actually do the honorable thing.
04:09In contrast, the Republican Party of today is just a cult of personality.
04:14The Republican Party doesn't have any real internal policy debates anymore.
04:19You're either with Trump or against him.
04:21And if you're against him, you have no place in the party.
04:23We've seen that in the primaries.
04:25In the Democratic Party, there are plenty of disagreements.
04:28There are centrist Democrats and progressive Democrats
04:30and Democratic socialists and independents that caucus with Democrats.
04:34And that is healthy.
04:36That is what a democracy is supposed to look like.
04:39I mean, just this Tuesday, we saw those debates within the Democratic Party
04:42play out in primaries in multiple states.
04:44In New York, we saw a big slate of progressive candidates sweep the primaries.
04:49That was a big deal.
04:50And outside New York, we saw lots of other factions of the Democratic Party win.
04:54But for whatever reason, when Democrats have actual internal political debate,
04:59when our democracy actually looks democratic and like a competition of ideas,
05:04the political world and a lot of headlines say Democrats are in complete disarray.
05:11Look, I'm not saying that getting the big tent that is the Democratic Party these days
05:15to come to agreements won't be difficult, but that is how a democracy is supposed to work.
05:20Members are supposed to be pushed by their constituents who vote for them.
05:23Then members are supposed to push to make policy better.
05:26They're supposed to debate it.
05:27It's actually very, very healthy.
05:29The unfailing unity around a cult leader we are seeing from the Republican Party these days is not.
05:35But rather than look within at just how unhealthy their own party is right now,
05:41conservatives have spent the past week fear-mongering about the new Democratic nominees.
05:47The socialists, the Marxists, have nominated some of the most radical candidates to ever run for office,
05:52and they're running for Congress.
05:54Don't let your friends play with commies, and certainly don't ever be governed by them.
05:59These people are going to steal from us.
06:03These people want to hurt us.
06:06This isn't like your regular Democrat.
06:09They are now, in many cases, the enemy of the United States.
06:11People whose goal it is to destroy America are trying to get elected to Congress.
06:17This is war without soldiers.
06:19This is the most serious threat to our country since its existence, in my opinion, 250 years ago.
06:27But this is a major threat to our country.
06:30Talk about the pot call and the kettle black.
06:32We're on that one.
06:33And, of course, this isn't the first time we have seen this exact dynamic, or version of it, at least.
06:39Eight years ago tonight, actually, which I don't know that she remembers it was tonight,
06:42a young progressive politician named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won her first primary election,
06:48ousting a longtime incumbent, somebody who was thought to be a potential successor to Nancy Pelosi at the time,
06:54just to give you a sense.
06:55And the New York Post front page the next morning said simply, red alert.
07:00I'm showing it to you right on the screen there because we thought it was so crazy.
07:04And guess what happened?
07:05That November, Democrats won 40 seats back in the House.
07:08Joining me now is Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
07:13Congressman, thank you for being here with me tonight.
07:15Thank you for having me.
07:16Let me start by just a lot of people, not just in New York, but across the country,
07:21there have been a lot of takes, shall we say, are trying to make sense of what the elections meant,
07:26what they mean for the Democratic Party.
07:29What do you think they mean?
07:30You know, I think that these elections mean, of course, they are reflections of the constituencies
07:36and communities that elected them and that rendered them.
07:39And I can say absolutely, at least in the city of New York, voters are just really ready for a
07:50Democratic Party
07:51that stands for something and has a very strong agenda to make our lives easier,
07:58to tackle corruption, to lower costs, to make health care a right for every American,
08:05to raise wages, to make unionizing easier in the workplace.
08:10And they want to make a forceful statement in how badly they want to see us fight for that.
08:17And I think that in any robust year for Democrats, I believe you're going to see an expansion of a
08:27party
08:27and a deepening of our commitment.
08:30And so I actually think that these results are a very good sign for November.
08:36To your point, when I was elected in 2018, an election like mine,
08:41where voters were willing to really, you know, trade in someone that was supposed to be the presumptive next Speaker
08:51of the House
08:51in my predecessor and trade that in for also a Democratic Socialist, a new organizer at that time,
09:03I think that that is actually an indicator of places in other parts of the country willing to elect Democrats
09:11even if the politics are not the same, even if those communities don't align with those same exact agendas.
09:20They are willing to take a chance for a better future.
09:24And so I don't think that people should be seeing this as a zero-sum game.
09:28I think they should be seeing it as encouraging for November.
09:31It's interesting because even in the state of New York, and you alluded to this,
09:35I mean, Michael Lasher, you probably don't share every opinion or position with him.
09:40You definitely don't share every position, I don't think, with Richie Torres on a number of things.
09:46Both of them won in primaries that night.
09:48I mean, Michael Lasher in a very competitive one.
09:50Do you think this is because, and I just played some of what people on the right wing are saying
09:56on television,
09:57that this is an over-torquing of the rise of democratic socialism
10:01and not enough of a focus on the broad people who won?
10:04Or how do you see that? Because you're a democratic socialist yourself.
10:07I mean, I think that the one thing that we know is that the Republican Party's brand is fear.
10:14And they have to constantly churn what they want people to be afraid of.
10:20To be afraid of socialists, to be afraid of immigrants, to be afraid of women, to be afraid of...
10:26They constantly want Americans in fear of somebody.
10:32Because if you are not afraid of someone who is your neighbor,
10:37you're going to realize who's actually pickpocketing you.
10:41And that is the large corporations that are engaged in profiteering and jacking up your prices for no good reason.
10:52It's going to be in this administration that is engaged in record levels of swindling, thefts, tariffs, your housing.
11:00And so this is kind of their new thing of the day.
11:04But I think that people are feared out.
11:08I think that everyone's nerves are shot in constantly being taught and told of what country, person, community to be
11:17afraid of.
11:18And they just want a solution.
11:20They want their groceries to be more affordable.
11:22They want to figure out how we're going to get health care.
11:24They want our housing to get under control.
11:27And I think that we're ready for an affirmative vision.
11:31And we're ready for an affirmative agenda.
11:34You've talked about this week kind of how the fear-mongering, you had deja vu, I think is how you
11:39described it.
11:40And you just alluded to that and what you just said now.
11:42Now, what advice are you giving or would you have for these new members who are coming in and are
11:48already being painted in a certain way?
11:51And I want to talk about them, too.
11:52But what advice do you have for them about how to get things done while still shaking up the system
11:56at the same time?
11:58Yeah.
11:58You know, I think new and incoming members have no shortage of advice that's being given to them.
12:06Well, but you lived it.
12:08Yes.
12:08You lived it in a very different way.
12:10Yes.
12:11And I mean, I'll get to them, but I actually think the more important advice that I would give would
12:17be to my incumbent colleagues, which is you will create a self-fulfilling prophecy by deciding who these young women
12:28are before you've met them.
12:30And if you are already panicking and sending little messages in your group chats about how these people need to
12:38be reined in and tamped down and shown their place, you are creating the antagonistic dynamic that we do not
12:50need.
12:50These are two young, talented, intelligent women that got elected against all odds, against millions of dollars.
13:03Perhaps there is something we can learn from them.
13:07The people chose them.
13:09And democracy and the Democratic Party is about what the people pick.
13:13It is not about any elected official or any leader.
13:16And I believe that.
13:18Do you I mean, there are and I want to ask you about this because I think they are being
13:23painted in a certain way.
13:24And Daria Liza specifically, who is going to be a member of Congress, I think people should recognize they are
13:31going to win in these districts.
13:33She has said a couple of things.
13:35And I think for people who are watching right now, I just want to remind them of that.
13:38She attended a pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square the day after Hamas attacked Israel.
13:44She said she was worried about an outsized reaction that cost thousands of people their lives.
13:48She has not backed away from attending that rally.
13:51She also she deleted a Twitter account that had a number of posts that called for the abolishment of police
13:56and prisons.
13:57According to CNN in 2021, this is what there's a reference to.
14:00She posted a world without borders, just like a world without prisons or police is possible and necessary.
14:05And the only moral way forward.
14:07She's again has said those posts don't reflect who she is today.
14:11You do not speak for her.
14:13You speak for yourself.
14:14And I know she's tried to distance herself.
14:16She's probably under a greater level of scrutiny.
14:18She's ever been in her life.
14:19But does any of that give you pause?
14:22I think that, as you said, she has indicated that she has regret over the way that she made issued
14:33those statements.
14:34And I genuinely believe that the gravity and the responsibility of this role has a way of inhabiting you.
14:46And it it I genuinely believe that we have to give people the opportunity to occupy their beliefs within the
15:02gravity of becoming a duly elected member of Congress.
15:05And I think that in the process of running for election, in the process of getting to know your constituents,
15:12it's very different than when you're only speaking as an activist or years ago or whatever that may be.
15:22But I think where we are right now is that the people of New York's 13th district have elected her
15:27and she has she is responsible and has absolutely, I think, expressed a sense of responsibility in how she wants
15:39to lead.
15:39And so, again, I would say, I think it's important to not issue a verdict before these folks arrive.
15:51And, you know, I I I went through the same thing.
15:55I will never forget.
15:57I had this moment.
15:58There's you know, everyone sees the floor of the United States House of Representatives on C-SPAN or whatever.
16:03We're casting our votes.
16:04But there are these little rooms attached to that floor and it's known as a cloakroom.
16:10And in the cloakroom is where members can rest in between votes or if you need to get a snack
16:15or something.
16:16And they have televisions there.
16:18And I remember my first term, I was sitting down on one of the couches and there was this big
16:24television screen.
16:25And they're going on and on about, you know, the way that they were clipping something that I said out
16:32of context to look extreme and to look far more inflammatory than what it was and most importantly, who I
16:39am.
16:39And I remember sitting next to a congressman, my colleague, a Democrat, sitting next to me on the same couch.
16:49And he was looking up at that television screen in disgust and just shaking his head.
16:56And I was sitting there right next to him.
16:59He had never once struck up a conversation with me, but he had made a judgment and determination of who
17:07I was.
17:07And it was incredibly dehumanizing.
17:11I was met with so much hostility and cruelty by the Democratic caucus when I was first elected.
17:17And I think that it created so much more antagonism than what was necessary in that time.
17:27And so I think that both ends of this relationship require work, right?
17:33Both ends require a stepping up and a certain magnanimity for us all to get what we want done.
17:41I'm an unabashed progressive and I want to guarantee health care to every American.
17:47That's my agenda.
17:49That's why I'm in this business.
17:50And there are other Democrats that don't agree with me.
17:53And that's all right.
17:55They know what I'm after.
17:57And I know where they're at.
17:59But what I'm not going to do is allow my humanity to be erased.
18:04And I don't think that these newly elected officials should have theirs erased either.
18:10I think what you're saying, what I'm hearing you say, is you think people should give these people a chance
18:14and see what they do when they govern.
18:17And the challenge seems to be that you, as a leader of this movement, as one of the leaders, are
18:21going to have to make sure this doesn't define what the movement is about, I think.
18:26Well, also, listen to what they're saying now.
18:29Everyone's talking about pulling statements and things from years ago.
18:33But they just ran an election.
18:35Listen to what they've been saying now.
18:38Listen to what they ran on now.
18:41And the mandate and the message that they gave their voters, because that is their voters' expectation of them.
18:49And so I would say for everyone, for every one statement from years ago that someone wants to pull up,
18:57please pull up five of what she's been discussing in her debates.
19:01Yes. I want to talk about where things go from here, because I think there are so many hopes probably
19:07from every person watching people.
19:09Anybody out there who's concerned about what they're seeing from Grandpa in the Oval Office to happen right now about
19:15what Democrats will get done.
19:17And I know you've said in the past you would support Hakeem Jeffries for speaker.
19:21And you can tell me again if that remains the case.
19:23Senator Slotkin, who I would say is one of the Democrats that you may agree with on a lot, you
19:28may not agree with on everything, I suspect.
19:30She had this to say.
19:32She said, we need significant new leadership.
19:34If people can't recognize that the game has fundamentally changed and can't adapt, then they need to make room for
19:39others who can.
19:41And she was referring to Jeffries, and she's, of course, in the Senate, to Schumer as well.
19:46Do you think, what do you think about that?
19:48And what do you think Jeffries needs to do to prove that, if you think he needs to do anything
19:52to prove that?
19:53Well, I think that anyone who says and issues a statement like this, I think it's important for them to
20:02get prescriptive about the changes that they want to see.
20:08I've been pretty clear about where I think the country should go.
20:13I think that we need to move forcefully to guarantee health care to every American.
20:18I think we need to move forcefully towards raising wages and taking on corporate corruption and profiteering.
20:26But there are a lot of folks who talk about change in leadership that don't necessarily articulate what their direction
20:37is.
20:37And so I would say that it's important that when we talk about change, we talk pretty specifically about the
20:45kind of changes that we want, because there are a lot of people in this country and there are a
20:49lot of forces and lobbyists that want the Democratic Party to become even more pro-corporate than it is.
20:58And so not everyone talking about change is talking about the same thing.
21:03And so when I talk about change, I talk about orienting the Democratic Party to be unabashedly working class and
21:13to orient itself, again, around working class Americans.
21:19And I think that that part of the conversation, because it's kind of in vogue to be talking about change,
21:26when people aren't prescriptive about what those changes need to be, I think we need to be asking further questions.
21:34I read just a part of what you said.
21:36I take your point.
21:37Do you still feel, though, if Democrats went back to the House, that Hakeem Jeffries is the right person to
21:42lead?
21:42You know, I've engaged in in many conversations with Leader Jeffries.
21:47And for me, one and we have a broad caucus.
21:52Right. For me, I have made very clear that one of my priorities in in determining and in a leader
22:01determination is securing public housing financing for New York City.
22:06And Leader Jeffries has made his prioritization for the residents of public housing very clear.
22:12And for that reason, I will be supporting Hakeem Jeffries for leader.
22:16You know how this works.
22:18We have to take a very quick break.
22:19You've been so generous with your time.
22:21We're going to stick around.
22:22First, I just want to play you something quite telling.
22:24You may have seen this, but it's been a busy day in case people haven't seen it at home.
22:28That Speaker Johnson told a room full of Christian conservatives at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's annual summit today.
22:34It's quite something.
22:37If we were to lose the midterms, heaven forbid, these Democrats, y'all, impeachment is not even the big concern.
22:43They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body.
22:45And they'll go after the president's family, the cabinet, his donors and friends.
22:49Half of you in this room will be targeted.
22:51I run the protection program.
22:52I'll take care of you.
22:53OK?
22:54I'm going to get your thoughts on that when we come back.
23:07We're back with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
23:10OK, before the break, I played a clip of little Mike Johnson, as I like to call him, laying out
23:16how a Democratic majority in Congress would investigate the president, the cabinet, donors and friends.
23:22It all sounds, I think, probably to a lot of people watching and a lot of people out there who
23:25were infuriated by the level of corruption, pretty good.
23:28But you've also talked about a lot of things you deeply care about.
23:31Health care, affordable housing.
23:33I know there are many other things.
23:34What do you see as the right priorities, balance of things, especially as it relates to investigations and accountability?
23:40Where does that fall and how much time should be spent on that?
23:43I mean, I, of course, I spent many years on the oversight, on the Oversight Committee in Congress, which is
23:49in charge of investigations.
23:51During the first Trump administration, I helped, you know, I helped on the investigation of Michael Cohen at the time,
23:59which led to a record settlement from Attorney General Tish James.
24:04But I think that it really is a, it genuinely is a situation of we can walk and chew gum
24:12at the same time.
24:13There are certain committees that I think will be spearheading real investigations into this administration.
24:19There has to be accountability and it has to be because we cannot allow this level of corruption to consume
24:29our public service and our government ever again.
24:34And the only way that you allow that or the only way that you set that precedent is by aggressive
24:41investigation and consequence.
24:43And oftentimes, some of the things that do come out in congressional investigations sometimes yield to either state pursuits, et
24:55cetera.
24:56And, you know, Mike Johnson paints this as though it's some partisan witch hunt.
25:03But if you don't want to be prosecuted for crimes, don't do crimes.
25:09And he's talking about running a protection racket.
25:15And we are already seeing that this Trump administration has run what some have called one of the largest pedophile
25:22protection programs in American history in the cover up of the Epstein files.
25:26They violated the law when Congress mandated that they release the Epstein files.
25:31They're still hiding Epstein files, protecting, protecting some of the most gruesome behavior that is shocking to the human conscience.
25:41And so when Mike Johnson tells a group of wealthy donors.
25:46I'm the only thing standing between you and a consequence.
25:50That.
25:52Should rattle at the conscience of every American.
25:57What he wants to do is create and rather not even create because it's already been created, but protect a
26:06class of impunity in America that say you can commit whatever crime.
26:12And so long as you pay a check to us, we will protect you.
26:17And that is a model of extortion in American politics.
26:22And you know what?
26:24That's their pitch.
26:26That's their pitch.
26:28Um, but at the end of the day, like, like I've always said, they have money, but we've got people.
26:38And that's why our pitch needs to be focused on making the lives of everyday Americans better, because they're sure
26:45as hell going to be making the lives of billionaires better and better and better every year.
26:49Our job is to make the lives of single mothers and working families and students trying to waitress through school
26:56and, and, you know, mechanics trying to keep the business afloat.
27:01That needs to be our focus.
27:03And that's the only way that we're going to be able, I think, to turn the ship around is through
27:10tackling on the extreme levels of inequality and corruption that persist in America.
27:17We're here, of course, in Washington, D.C., tonight.
27:21And J.D. Vance, I played this at the top of the show.
27:24Did you see what he had to say about Nixon and Watergate?
27:27I just have to ask you about this, because I started the show talking about how I think he was
27:32telling on himself or themselves a little bit.
27:35I mean, the notion that if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story is quite
27:40a statement to make.
27:41Obviously, he was down playing Watergate, which is insane to begin with.
27:44But what do you make of that, that statement?
27:48What is he trying to do there?
27:49What do you think about that?
27:50You know, I think it's, I think the statement is fascinating.
27:54And there are many different ways to say why it's interesting.
27:59Some of it is that it's true, right?
28:01But I think what it reveals more is about what J.D. Vance's vision for America is, is that he
28:09wants more of the same.
28:11He doesn't want anything to change in this country.
28:14He wants to continue the reality that corruption is, you know, banal, normal.
28:23And he loves the way that the country is being governed right now.
28:28He loves that you can start an illegal war and make tons of people rich and, you know, send Americans
28:40into harm's way.
28:42And that it'll barely be a blip in, on people's radar.
28:46He loves that we can engage in record levels of corruption and get away with it.
28:50And so in that statement, it's less about the acknowledgement of the reality, but it's that his vision for the
28:55future is exactly the same.
28:58And that your life won't change if so long as he's in charge.
29:03You are very well aware that you're on so many lists for all sorts of things.
29:08New York Senate, president, all of these things.
29:11I know you're not going to make news here tonight on this show.
29:13You're focused on the midterm elections.
29:15But what do you think this moment requires of leaders that might be different from when you came in to
29:22office eight years ago?
29:24I think that when I first came in, it was during the first Trump administration.
29:31And what so many people wanted was to stop the chaos and to bring us back to where we were.
29:38And I think that, you know, that was a huge part of what unified the country in electing President Biden
29:50is this idea of restoring the soul of America.
29:56I think we're now in a new time.
29:59And I think there is greater recognition of the brokenness that led to President Trump in the first place, which
30:08is that this growing inequality yields to authoritarianism and that economic instability and the collapse of democracy are intertwined.
30:21And I think back then, a lot of what I was maligned for and told was extreme is now almost
30:34seen as quite common wisdom.
30:39You know, these billionaires like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk and all of these folks that have been supercharging the
30:48corruption of this administration, dismantling the very foundations of democracy have proven that you cannot have extreme levels of income
30:59inequality and a functioning, thriving democracy at once.
31:03We have to choose.
31:04And the good news in that is that making the lives of working class Americans better means that our democracy
31:13gets stronger.
31:14And I think that is what our focus needs to be.
31:19But I do think that that will require a choice in a system that is controlled by big money and
31:26dominated by large donors.
31:28I think that many people will have to make a difficult decision to walk away from and limit and rein
31:39in the excesses of a campaign finance system that wants to purchase Congress.
31:45Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, I think nothing has reminded us of all of what you've said than the corruption that
31:52we have seen in this administration more.
31:55Thank you so much for being here tonight.
31:58Okay, coming up, I have been thinking all day about the gut-wrenching story Pete Buttigieg shared earlier, and I'm
32:04going to share some thoughts of my own on that story when we come back.
32:14I work closely enough with Pete Buttigieg to know he is a very calm guy, generally, and a pretty private
32:20person who deeply loves his family, but doesn't talk all the time publicly about his private life unless he feels
32:27it's necessary.
32:28So it was even more powerful when this afternoon Pete Buttigieg posted online a heart-wrenching account of a recent
32:36attack on his family.
32:38And I have to say, and I'm going to read you some big chunks of this because I think that
32:43tells you so much about who he is.
32:45So let me start with reading some of the chunks of it through right now.
32:48I'm just going to get, okay, a few days ago, a police officer and a child protective services worker showed
32:54up at our house.
32:55They explained that there had been an allegation against me and it concerned our four-year-old twins and that
33:01a forensic interview had been arranged for the children the following day.
33:05I could not be present at the children's interview, nor could any family member sit in.
33:10I was bewildered and troubled but tried to stay calm.
33:14Then the CPS worker told me something that made my stomach turn.
33:18I was not to be alone around the children, at least until the interview took place the next day.
33:23We agreed that the kids would stay at their grandparents' house.
33:2724 hours until they returned are among the darkest hours of my life.
33:32I have been denounced, yelled at, protested, threatened, and heckled.
33:37I've been through political attacks in office, death threats in public life, and rocket attacks in war.
33:42But this is the ugliest thing that has happened to me since my career in service began.
33:48After spending a sleepless night wondering what the hell was going on,
33:51the appointment time for my interview finally came.
33:54Then the officer explained what the allegation actually was.
33:58An anonymous caller had contacted CPS.
34:01The caller said that he had spoken to a woman who claimed to have met me at a conference several
34:07years ago in Alabama where she said,
34:09I told her that I had committed unspeakable violent crimes and the caller believed my children were still at risk.
34:15That was all.
34:17The officer asked if I had been to the town where the woman claimed she had met me, and I
34:21have not.
34:22Then the officer made clear that he believed this was politically motivated.
34:26Nothing in the forensic interview with the children led to concerns.
34:30I'm a reasonable man.
34:31I try to keep as calm and low-key as possible.
34:34But I cannot describe the mix of rage and sadness that I feel the idea that someone brought our children
34:41into this.
34:41They're four years old, four.
34:43They do not know or care what a Democrat or Republican is.
34:47They should be worrying about what kind of ice cream they're getting this afternoon,
34:50not why they're being brought into a meeting with a grown-up asking strange questions
34:54or why their papa is suddenly unavailable to read them a bedtime story.
34:58For God's sake, they are kids.
35:01They are just kids.
35:02We don't know who was behind this attack on Pete Buttigieg and his family.
35:06We do know, and that is outrageous on its own.
35:09We do know that MAGA voices have spent years attacking Buttigieg simply for having a family.
35:14And because of that, two innocent kids are now subject to harassment and abuse by strangers they have never met.
35:22And no matter what your politics are, no matter what your capacity for selective outrage and hypocrisy are,
35:28shouldn't some things be off limits?
35:30Surely we can all agree that no family and no child deserves what Pete Chaston and their family have been
35:36through this week.
35:45As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, coming up next week,
35:49Donald Trump's great American state affair on the National Mall here in D.C.
35:53looks to be, well, getting off to quite a rocky start.
35:56The Washington Post described it as a bumpy beginning, which included power outages that led to ride delays and melted
36:04ice cream.
36:04A writer for the Washingtonian had more critical words, calling the fair bleaker than expected and sparsely attended and shockingly
36:12boring.
36:13Take a burn there.
36:14Now, that was all from yesterday's opening.
36:16As for today, well, one of our producers headed down there this afternoon to check things out.
36:22And as for crowd size during that time, I'll let you judge for yourself.
36:25There's a photo right there.
36:27But like any fair worth its salt, there is a Ferris wheel and it was working.
36:31Trump's fair also has this, a miniature version of his planned vanity arch.
36:36That certainly is something.
36:38Now, this fair isn't the only thing experiencing some hiccups on the National Mall.
36:42There are also the ongoing issues with his costly renovations to the reflecting pool.
36:47Tonight, the New York Times has new reporting that the reflecting pool, churning green, probably didn't have anything to do
36:53with vandals.
36:54What do you think?
36:55It likely had something to do with Trump's UFC birthday party.
36:59The Times, citing two people briefed on the situation, reports that the Trump administration ordered a contractor to temporarily remove
37:06devices called nanobubblers, which were keeping algae at bay.
37:10And according to the Times, the Park Service did not provide a reason for the removal, but it coincided exactly
37:16with a June 12th promotional event, which drew crowds to the reflecting pool.
37:20And by the time the purification systems were reinstalled 36 hours later, enormous algae blooms were starting to spread unchecked,
37:28turning the water green.
37:30Joining me now is David Farenthold.
37:32He is a New York Times journalist who contributed to that reporting.
37:36OK, so the saga of the reflecting pool, I'm sure you feel this way, feels like it could finally be
37:42coming to an end.
37:43Do you think we now have the definitive answer of what caused the algae?
37:47And is it is it finally being dealt with?
37:49What do we know?
37:51Well, yeah, I think we have a couple of causes that seem pretty plausible.
37:54One is that they filled the pool with city tap water, which is actually full of stuff called phosphates that
37:59are supposed to design to stop corrosion in pipes, but also to feed algae.
38:02And also that they turned off the filters for 36 hours to have a better backdrop for this UFC fight.
38:07So, yeah, I think that's a pretty good explanation of why we saw that bright green algae bloom that really
38:12mucked up the pool for several days.
38:14I still want to know more about why the bottom of the pool is coming off, though.
38:17Remember, we spent millions and millions of dollars to put blue coating on the bottom of the pool.
38:22And after a few days, it started peeling off and floating to the top.
38:25They're going to have to drain the pool again to fix that.
38:27And I'd really like to know what went wrong that allowed that to happen so quickly.
38:32Yeah. I mean, there have been you're talking about the peeling paint liner, of course.
38:36There have been lots of stories.
38:37I mean, President Trump blamed it on vandalism.
38:40What what do we know?
38:42I mean, what are the big questions you have about it?
38:44What what what do we what do we really know about it at this point?
38:47Well, the thing to start with here, Jen, is that this was a no bid contract, right?
38:51The government gave away a contract to this company that had never really done any project like this before,
38:56never done any government contract before without doing the things that make government contracting work.
39:01Usually looking around for other bids, seeing if they could find people who could do the job better or more
39:05cheaply.
39:05They just chose these people and handed them this money in this contract.
39:08And along the way, there were warning signs.
39:11People within the Interior Department warned that their paint job had bubbles, it had holes, it had blisters.
39:16There were concerns that it wouldn't really work.
39:18And so once they fill the pool with water and it starts peeling up,
39:21then there's millions of dollars spent on this job that didn't even last a month.
39:26The reflecting pool is hardly Trump's only focus, shall I call it, in terms of renovation projects.
39:34Are there any other aspects of Trump's commemoration of America's 250th anniversary raising red flags for you,
39:41where you really have additional questions you're digging into now that we should all watch out for in the coming
39:45weeks?
39:46Well, so many of these things are no bid contracts, right?
39:49The filtration system on the reflecting pool is a no bid contract to a company owned by a guy who
39:54lives near Mar-a-Lago.
39:56There's no bid contracts to renovate the fountains in front of the White House in Lafayette Park.
40:00That went to the same company that's building Trump's ballroom.
40:03There's no bid contracts to put gold leaf on some statues near the Lincoln Memorial.
40:08So much of this stuff was done outside the regular procedures.
40:11And what you see often, and this is a pattern, I think, that repeats across the Trump presidency,
40:15the things Trump wants done the most are often the things that are done the least well,
40:19because everybody falls all over themselves to be a yes man and doesn't ask the questions that it would allow
40:23the job to actually be done right.
40:26David Farenthold, I'm not sure you thought with all of the incredible award-winning investigative reporting you've done
40:31that your beat would currently be reflecting pools, the national park projects.
40:37But I'm just going to reiterate, having worked a lot in government, how important this is,
40:41because no bid contracts means they're not going through the proper process.
40:45Money could be used in not a way that makes sense.
40:48It's over budget.
40:49So thank you for your reporting.
40:51Thank you for being here with me.
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