Trump Fires Election Officials After Losing Ballot Case

Join me, Cindy Lauper, with Chef Michelle Bernstein and Dr. Panico to talk about psoriasis and psoriotic arthritis, the potential connection and risk of developing permanent joint damage. Cosentic secucinumab is prescribed for adults with moderate to severe plaque psorias as 300 milligram dose and adults with active psoriotic arthritis 150 milligram dose. Don't use if you're allergic to Cosentics. Before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. An increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur, like tuberculosis or other serious bacterial, fungal, or viral infections. Some are fatal. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms like fevers, sweats, chills, muscle eggs, or cough. Had a vaccine or planned to, or if inflammatory bowel disease symptoms develop or worsen, serious allergic reactions and severe eczema-like skin reactions may occur. Learn more at 1844 Cossentics or cossentics.com slash Cindy. Now you can watch Ali Valshi five nights a week in prime time on MS now as he takes command of the 11th hour. The breaking news in the last hour. The 11th hour with Ali Valshie, weeknights at 11 p.m. Eastern on MS now. Welcome to The Beat, everyone. I'm Ari Melbert. And we are following a lot of stories tonight, including some of these legal losses piling up for Trump. We are joined by Trump White House Attorney Ty Cobb, who's become an outspoken critic and a defender of the rule of law. Warning about Trump's tactics. Ty is here. Good to see you. He joins me in a moment. We begin with Trump firing election officials. He's trying to clear out an agency. that is in normal times just one of those things that isn't on the news, not the top story, and doesn't have a lot of hiring and firing controversies. I'm talking about something that I'm going to just keep it real with you. You might have never heard of even if you're a news junkie. Let's find out. It's called the Election Assistance Commission. And it has officials, usually representing both parties that are supposed to do the kind of nonpartisan election work that is independent. And as part of our tradition in this country, we have big... intense political campaign debates in the campaign, but we don't have these commissions and the rules of the road usually corrupted by the people running for office. That's why it's supposed to be fair, but he's pushed out to Democrats, and he got a Republican holdover out to basically resign. Now, this deals with a lot of...

Basic stuff that isn't usually controversial, such as voter registration, information, working with states to protect against what might be multi-pronged interference plots. The states, of course, are the lead in our election system, but there is national coordination, especially in the modern era where you have worries about cyber or international espionage. It has been described as a kind of guardrail for ensuring election security across the country. As I mentioned, when things are working well, you wouldn't even hear about it. It would just do its thing. Same way you might not think about the speed bumps on the road. They're there. They do their thing. They're not national news. Well, Trump is trying to change all that. Remember, he's already tried to force the agency to add the citizenship requirement to federal forms, which is something that you don't do that way. You'd have to actually change the law, maybe even the Constitution if you wanted to go that deep. But Trump just tried to force it through one of these executive orders, which dealt him one of his many losses, which is part of the theme tonight that I'm going to explain is the backdrop for these increasingly desperate measures. Obama vet David Axelrod says the signals are flashing red because these firings are part of a wider problem. The administration also recently sending those threatening letters and saying it would yank funding from states that didn't do what it wants. Some of those threats might be empty and plenty of officials aren't going to just be jaw-boned that way. But again, it shows that he doesn't think he's on a path to winning fair and square. Trump's DOJ sent these other letters that threatened criminal prosecution of election officials if they think ballots were cast by non-citizens. Then there's the election deniers that Trump has tried to put in other parts of the federal government and the return of the zombie postal service plot to try to intervene in, again, elections that are run first by the states where the federal postal service might deliver mail ballots. But other than that, it's not supposed to be, of course, putting a thumb on the scale. The problem here is not that this is working. A lot of this stuff, as I just showed you, has run into roadblocks in court, including the ballot games recently rejected at the Supreme Court. But there is a wider question over whether what we're seeing is a prelude to a version of either Jan 6 or the other plots we've shown you going into the midterms that becomes a test. Now, I could just also tell you I'm not into alarmism. I do think we should be vigilant and factual about this. I don't think, and we're about to hear from Mr. Cobb, I don't think that as of right now, Donald Trump has enough control of the multiple levers of the election system to, for example, overthrow a midterm loss. And if you want to go back in history, in the first term, there was a lot of lying and a lot of games, but when the blue wave hit, you remember, they all went into office. So what I'm telling you in the news tonight is this is something to monitor, but not something to just freak out over. Sometimes they want everyone to be more scared of Trump's moves and threats than the actual results. Now, I mentioned we'll get to Ty Cobb. There's another prominent experience lawyer with a lot of nonpartisan credentials, Jack Smith.

He spoke out first in his first sort of television journalism interview with Nicole Wallace. He now spoke with John Stewart, which as a side note is a little bit interesting to Jack Smith, who is as old school as they come, is looking for different ways to meet people where they are today. John Stewart, a more of a comedy-style show with a lot of serious content and a podcast, is reaching people in a different way than, say, the old school of just doing a newspaper interview or one news interview. And Smith, speaking to Stewart, I should say, is warning. about exactly the kind of abuse I just mentioned and how the guardrails should work. We're in a world right now, John, where if there is corruption at the highest levels of our government, there is nobody to look at it. Nobody. Congress is not going to look at it. The DOJ is not going to look at it. There's not going to be any outside prosecutor to look at it. And so before we even get to bringing a case, there's no one who would be allowed to investigate it. That's Jack Smith, as serious as they come with the headphones so familiar in these podcast settings, talking to John Stewart. Why? because having done his work for a long time in the nonpartisan DOJ, in the corruption unit where he went after Democrats and Republicans alike, he cares about this deeply, he's got the proven record, and having brought the unprecedented case against former President Trump, an indictment that he clearly didn't take lightly, he is now also trying to reach the people where they really are, whether that's watching digital media or podcasts or also the news, and we're also on YouTube and all of that, because he wants to make sure people are ready. That's not to say, that a coup against the midterms is about to happen or about to work. It is to say everyone should be informed about how much power the people still actually have as we go up against these kind of threats. That's my introduction. I want to bring in Ty Cobb, former White House deterring, former DOJ official. He served, as I mentioned, the first Trump administration and has been an advocate for the rule of law. You might put it differently. Anyone who's seen this program knows I don't only book people who might put it the exact way I do. But I see that balance. They really are trying this, but they also want to rattle and scare at a time when people could still come out and show their power and their voice in the midterms. How do you view the balance tonight, Ty? So I think the balance is... is holding. But I don't think that this administration is going to do anything other than be relentless in continuing to attack and try to reposition the regulatory pieces, the enforcement pieces, and the local pieces as best it can in advance of the elections. Then, of course, Once the elections are held, there are issues about certification, who will be seated. I think we're in for a long battle that won't be settled until the next Congress is sworn in. I do think that you can't.

You can't look at the termination of the Election Assistance Commission as anything other than another effort by one side to try to take over part of the referee role for the elections. It's not the most important federal entity, but it is the entity that provided... Fund provides funds, provides training, provides assistance to the state election officials in preparing for federal elections. They also control certain forms that can be required for states to sign in order to authorize federal funds for these elections and also to certify the state elections in connection with federal voting. So it's consequential. But it's part of a deliberate plan. We have to go to 30,000 feet, I think, and look at, you know, how unbalanced things have gotten before we talk about what the balance is now, which is we now have a president who, despite losing by 7 million votes. which is undisputed in 2020, and bringing 63 lawsuits alleging voter fraud in which he lost every single one of them, who had an attorney general who told him that there was no evidence of voter fraud that would justify any investigations or contesting any of the elections. Now trying to use hundreds of millions of dollars to taxpayer money, multiple federal agencies, ICE, the National Guard, and every federal agency that he can get control of with his own people, putting in election deniers, sprinkling him throughout the government to contest these elections and to interfere with them. So when we talk about the balance now, those forces are already on the field. And the other side is relying on the traditional mechanisms that have kept us, you know, throughout our history in combination with the federal courts. And while the federal courts have been formidable inwithstanding the assault on the rule of law posed by this president, I don't think we can be sanguine about the elections because he is stacking every card in the deck that he can get his hands on. Yeah, no, I think you put it very clearly, and that is the issue. You're reminding everyone as bad as Trump is doing, and we've seen that in the approval polls. We've seen that in the defection of very prominent, not random, but pretty prominent MAGA voices like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly. Even amidst all of that, it's a very distorted environment that he's operating it, one where he's used threats to distort what Republicans will say out loud, where... As you said, he's distorting and undercutting the basic election systems and the rule of law, the indictments, which I want to ask you about tonight, and to say nothing of the media, where a bunch of media entities have been cowed, silenced, censored, or bought by his allies and mergers that he oversees. So, you know, you could flip it and say, gosh, how much worse would he be doing if not for all of that?

Join me, Cindy Lauper, with Chef Michelle Bernstein and Dr. Panico to talk about psoriasis and psoriotic arthritis, the potential connection and risk of developing permanent joint damage. Cosentic secucinumab is prescribed for adults with moderate to severe plaque psorias as 300 milligram dose. And adults with active psoriotic arthritis 150 milligram dose. Don't use if you're allergic to cosentics. Before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. An increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur, like tuberculosis or other serious bacterial, fungal, or viral infections. Some were fatal. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms like fevers, sweats, chills, muscle eggs, or cough, had a vaccine or planned to, or if inflammatory bowel disease symptoms develop or worsen. Serious allergic reactions and severe eczema-like skin reactions may occur. Learn more at 1844 Kocentics or Kocentics.com slash Cindy. Now you can watch Ali Valshi five nights a week in prime time on MS now as he takes command of the 11th hour. The breaking news in the last hour. The 11th hour with Ali Valshie, weeknights at 11 p.m. Eastern on MS now.

We're back with Ty Cobb, a longtime lawyer, DOJ veteran, and served in the first Trump term, has been a big advocate for the rule of law. One of the things they do, Steve Bannon, who I've interviewed and you know about him, he would say, we're going to flood the zone with blank. excrement. And it started as a communications and sort of political strategy. I've noticed, curious your view, then the second term, it's definitely become an actual legal strategy that they throw so much out and they do so many things that they know, their lawyers and experts know, are against current law, illegal, and then they see who catches up with them. Now, One of the problems with the courts, as we know, is they can be slow. Here's just recently, the last few weeks, I'm going to put on the screen for everyone to see. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center loss. Carroll, Supreme Court. rejected Trump's effort to get out of paying her, and that relates to a defamation sex abuse case. They went after Washpoe, lost. More ICE oversight, and we've seen literally, and I'm not exaggerating, they had to count thousands, if you count every type of order of situations where they more or less lost, and the courts are struggling to keep up with that. I mentioned before the break, the 2020 case. lost. That subpoena, that effort to use the powers that way was quashed. That was just this week. And the Supreme Court, of course, stopping the ballot case. These are just some, Ty. What is your view of this? That on the one hand, they are stopping things, but it's almost like the Larry David curb your enthusiasm. Larry David joke we showed earlier this week, where he imagines the founders unable. to foresee somebody this venal and relentless in breaking all the rules? Yes, I think that's one of the defects that, and there are few, but one of the major defects in the Constitution that we have now witnessed is it was not written for somebody as evil as Trump. in the absence of a Congress that would uphold their duty to impeach and to contest some of these things, not fund them. And it's very difficult. When you talk about Steve Bannon saying that, yes, he was going to flood the zone, you have disgraced acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who, you know, has admitted now that he violated the Epstein Disclosure Act and also has played a central role in the effort to siphon off $1.8 billion. of taxpayers' money to create the slush fund for the president. And then he went further and immunized Trump and his family from IRS scrutiny despite what appears to be based on reports over $100 million worth of unpaid taxes. You know, he said with regard to the flood the zone issue, which was.

something that I thought was just shocking because the federal agents aren't supposed to be at the polls. They're prohibited from being in there and influence. influencing elections, but he said, why wouldn't people want ICE at the polls? They're trying to season the country to not be as offended once they do take those measures. And I think they're preparing the world for the possibility they will take those measures and that the country should not be sanguine about that possibility, which is why I think now in advance of the elections is the time that people need to speak out. They need to make it plain to their congressmen and their local officials and their election officials. that they want fair elections. They want to do what elections are supposed to do, which is get out as many voters as possible. Get as many Americans to participate in the electoral process as we possibly can. Make sure that we invite people to come vote, not that we exclude people, not that we, not that, you know, by country of origin or ethnicity or minority status, that people aren't. aren't intimidated, that they aren't excluded, that they aren't pushed away, that they aren't fearful. Fear has no place in American politics. We're supposed to be a country unified, moving forward aspirationally. We were once, you know, shining, signing city on the hill for the rest of the world, inclusive for peace, democracy, and the rule of law. We've lost that. And to recapture it, we need to be ready. for the worst, but to try to make sure that people understand it's the best of us that matters and to go vote for the people that you think are the best of us. Not the people who, you know, want to divide the country, not the people who say, you know, hate Democrats, hate Republicans, not people who stand against, you know, anybody for race, ethnicity, or opinion. People who are generous, hardworking. thoughtful and they want to make the country strong again. We can't do that if we're not united. And there are very few unifiers out there. And that's on purpose because. If you look at the rhetoric of this president, the rhetoric he used on the 4th of July when we should have been celebrating one of our greatest days ever, you know, damning Democrats and basically splitting the country right down the middle, you know, I think we've got to combat that. That's not who we were when we were our best. We're not our best now and we need to get back there. Yeah. I appreciate it all. I think you put it plainly. I hope people are listening. Ty Cobb, good to see you, sir. Wonderful to be with you, all right.

Appreciate it. Our thanks to Ty. Up ahead, we turn to the Mitch McConnell mystery. Health questions, hospitalization, and Republicans struggling to provide the basic transparency about a powerful person in their party's health, obviously contradicting a lot of what they demanded in the Biden era. We're going to get into that story with all due seriousness. But coming up, the politics of a lame duck presidency exposed. That's next. Donald Trump has been busy enriching himself with his side jobs. He's obviously spent a lot of energy and time complaining and talking about things, but when it comes to doing the job of president, he is increasingly MIA on things that he's not interested in, which only feeds the very powerless lame duck mode that tends to come after a president's second term midterms that he might fear, but he has refused to even sign the big housing bill that... Congress passed and many Republicans said would be a big good thing that they wanted to tout. The bill automatically becomes law tonight. Trump says he won't sign it, but he's also not going to veto it. If you can think of a more passive way to be president, I'm all ears. But just letting it become law is so odd and so sort of petulant given that he also poured a lot of cold water on the Republican bill, but doesn't appear to think that there's something wrong with it enough to justify vetoing it. It's been a decade since the president did this move where you wouldn't sign or veto a bill. And there's a lot of... effort inside the bill to lower cost, something that Republicans want to run on and that many Democrats joined in in this policy. So Republicans say this is good for families, even if their president doesn't think it's good enough to sign. It also has a cap on how many single family homes big banks can buy, which is one of those sensible policy ideas that Congress used to do more often. In other words, it's not really a left or right thing.

It's not a left or right thing to regulate whether the home market should be tailored towards people who live in homes. people, single people, families, etc. Or big business that wants to make money off that market. So while sometimes there's so many controversies these days, we don't even talk as much about policy coming out of Congress and there hasn't been a ton. Here's an example. We're on a bipartisan basis. There was agreement that putting families first instead of the big banks was a good idea. and that there would be less big bank, big owner speculation in the housing market, which is different than other markets because the Congress said there's an interest in supporting people being able to live in the homes they buy, which is different than the financial Wall Street speculators. Trump, again, can't get behind that idea enough to put his name on it. He has also, of course, shown a lot of disregard in general for how people are struggling right now. I don't know. I think it's so unimportant by compared to the Save America Act. Compared to the Save America Act, just about everything is a big yawn. I don't think about American financial situation. I don't think about any. I don't want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up. He wants to drive housing prices up. There's a funny thing about Donald Trump. And we've all lived with him plenty of time now. He has that voluble kind of cartoonish way. Maureen Dowd famously called him more of a tune than a person. He was a celebrity. And so sometimes his gaffes don't get the attention they might merit or if another person said them because they're Trumpified. But these are not just gaffes. When he says he doesn't care enough to get involved or he thinks housing prices should be higher, he doesn't care about whether you're struggling. It's not just that he means it. That's sort of a personal perspective. It's that his leadership and lack thereof his president has a very real world enactment of that same blasé, elitist, completely out-of-touch attitude towards what people are going through, even as his war surges prices and his Congress struggles to get anything done with him not even signing the little that they do pass. Sounds like a criticism, but sometimes it really is just that bad out there. I want to bring in New York Times columnists and MS Now political analyst Michelle Goldberg, who recently lit up the internet with her observation that Donald Trump would be happier as a first lady based on his design impulses and small, petty sort of obsessions with decorating, no insult to other first ladies. And Mark Leibovish, staff writer for the Atlantic, MS now contributor. Michelle, I'll start with you because for viewers who don't know, you made that point on our air and it went viral, as the kids say, apparently resonated with people. But what about the point here that these aren't just gaffs? He doesn't care. He doesn't even care to sign his name on the thing.

Right. I mean, of course he doesn't care. And I think that there's a connection between the fact that this is a serious bipartisan piece of legislation and the fact that he doesn't care because this legislation might accomplish many things. But one thing it will not accomplish is that it's not going to own any lips, right? There's no culture wardsham that I'm aware of in this legislation. You've already heard a few Republicans. I believe it was Randy Fine. I should have. I believe it was Randy Fine, but it might have been another Republican in the House who said something like, well, if Elizabeth Warren is for it, how good could it be? Right. So he can't kind of write, he might, you, a Republican who wants to run on effective legislating might be able to say here's a step, a serious step that we took to lower housing prices. But Donald Trump cannot use this to get his base even more angry at the Democratic Party. Hmm, yeah. Yeah, Mark. I mean, Michelle makes that point clearly, and that's why people get tired of partisan politics. There's data to show that both parties do it sometimes, but the current MAGA, right wing, no tolerance zone can be more extreme. You could dislike Elizabeth Warren. She could be for chocolate ice cream, and you'd have to be a loony partisan to say it makes you like ice cream less. I mean, where we want to live? Your views on all the above, Mark. I mean, this is actually not partisan politics. I mean, this housing bill is bipartisan politics. It's a rare instance in which, you know, bipartisanship works, you know, Congress works. I mean, this is a, by many accounts, a very solid piece of legislation. And it's not like. President Trump is doing anything to knock this down on the merits of the bill or the legislation or even the issue. I mean, he talked, I guess he wants to raise housing costs or that. But, I mean, this is just petulance. And it's not going to work. I mean, obviously, I mean, he hasn't moved the needle with any voters or any senators on the Save America Act to this point. And this maneuver, it's not so much he's threatening to veto it. It's not. It's just completely passive. I mean, he might veto it. To this point, it's very passive, and it's not going to do a lot anyway. But so, you know, it's very, this seems extremely counterproductive in so much as he cares about his own popularity, but certainly the Republicans going into the midterm. Marcus, it's strange for us to live in a country governed by someone who is so uninterested in core parts of governing. He might like some of the pageantry. which Michelle and I discussed. He clearly likes the war part when he thinks it's going his way, but the governing of the country on a domestic basis doesn't interest him? Yeah, I mean, this is a new level. I mean, it seems we are at a new phase of this because he's not even trying. I mean, he's not even trying to fake it. It seems it's, he is not, I mean, he's not working very hard, but it's just not even, he's not even really trying to sell anyone on the idea that he truly cares because he doesn't. He's explicitly saying he doesn't. And it's almost become a joke to this point. Hmm, Michelle.

Well, I mean, the irony is that there actually was the opportunity for pageantry here, right? I mean, Republicans were really excited. They had invited a bunch of people to the bill signing. They had it all set up when he at the very last minute pulled out, again, as Mark said, just out of kind of sheer petulance over the Save America Act. But I think it is true that, you know, Donald Trump has obviously never thought in terms of policy. And. assuming he doesn't think he's going to run for re-election anymore. He doesn't really have to pretend anymore. Yeah. This was Speaker Johnson. Again, this is one of the only things the Speaker can point to domestically that they've passed. So Trump has definitely undercut him in a way that has no point, as we've all now just elucidated. I guess it's silly for me to say that a more... generous or collaborative person would put that aside and be like, well, you've carried a ton of water for me. I mean, Mike Johnson does everything Trump wants. He dissolved Congress effectively for a few weeks to avoid an Epstein vote. And then Trump, you know, deals him back this way. But Mark, this was him on the point. The president has a lot going on, and I think it's safe to say he's not read through every line of that piece of legislation. It's a lot to it and a lot of great things, and he and I've spoken about it quite a bit. So I hope he does sign it. If he doesn't, it's still law, we'll still celebrate it. But he's trying to make a point, and I think he's making it very effectively. Is he making the point very effectively, Mark, or are we in that word salad phase of Republican answers where it's just words, Trump, something positive about Trump? Yeah, I don't know. Can you even classify what Trump's doing as a word salad? It's more of like a, I don't know, it's more of like a Mishman. It's like chicken side. I don't know what it is. But, I mean, obviously what we're seeing here is, I mean, I think it's a preposterous line. from Speaker Johnson that Trump was going to read every line or even one line of this legislation. And what's also interesting is that Trump seems to be getting off on the idea that not only is this legislation useless, it's boring. I mean, the boringness of it, him personally being bored by it seems to be carrying the day more than, you know, how any real world effect this could have on people's lives and they're affordable, you know, trying to find housing, basically. Yeah, maybe it's a fruit salad, Mark. Yeah, that sounds a little better, maybe. Yeah, I wouldn't think. Or, I don't want to put anyone on the spot, Michelle, but there's a type, there's that Italian dish where it's like a cold thing with like older bread and tomatoes. Does anyone know what that's called? It could be that. Do you know what I'm talking about? Pensanella? Yes, that. It's like a salad, right? Kind of. Yes. Oh. It is a bread salad. Incredible. Yeah. Incredible that you knew. Yeah, bread salad. So Mark, Michelle's knowledgeable. What can we say? The other big thing that's partly serious, of course, but also raises all sorts of Republican hypocrisy questions is this growing mystery about Mitch McConnell after his hospitalization. So our guest stay. We're going to get into that next.

You know, Bill Bryson in his book, The Body, he points out that the human brain shrinks by 20% by the time you're 80 years of age, 20% smaller, just the size of the brain itself. So I basically think people who are 80 and above really should not be running the world or running the country. 79-year-old Mitt Romney discussing a kind of understandable age cap for our leaders, a criticism that would apply to the current President Trump, the last one Biden, who insisted on, of course, governing into those years, and some other politicians in Washington. And tonight we have another example in the news of why this health situation is part of how we are governed and a big problem for the country. Mitch McConnell was, of course, until recently, the number one Republican in the Senate. And he remains a powerful figure in the party. Mitch McConnell, though, is hospitalized, facing huge questions about his health that his office has not been very forthcoming about. I can tell you this is a story that's been brewing over time because in the first days of anyone's hospitalization, even in public life where there can be questions of governance about your health, most people give you a few days. But this was over three weeks ago when medics rushed to his house. There was what was described as an unconscious individual. And since then, he's been hospitalized. Now, the governor of Kentucky, who is a Democrat, has asked for more information now that the weeks have gone on. Republican senators and a former aide have detailed that they spoke to Mitch McConnell, which seems to be a kind of effort to show that he's at least able to talk to people by phone. But the larger question is whether you are the actual president, you have a... VP ready to take your place or you're a senator and there's a much more involved process if you are effectively incapacitated, are we as a country going to deal with what has become a recurring issue in both parties without term limits where people clearly can't be trusted to decide for themselves whether they should just continue on the job until they die, something we've also seen, by the way, on the Supreme Court. The issue has been dominating Washington lately.

No, I have no idea. Do you know that he's alive? I don't. You know, just the things that I've heard and seen from some friends is that he's obviously not doing well, but don't know if he's alive where he's passed away. How twisted is it that for almost a month, no one in Washington has had any idea? What happened to Mitch McConnell? Dear friend of mine worked for him for a long time. We hope that he's in good health and recovering. But listen, he has a taxpayer-funded role. His salary is paid for by all of us. I think that there's an obligation to give us more transparency. There is an obligation. So often in politics, we talk about the people in these jobs, and there's intrigue around that. But this isn't really only about Mitch McConnell. The whole point of public office is he's got a job to do on behalf of his constituents. And there may be a kind of a cynicism here that people have now become accustomed, especially under Donald Trump, to people who are in office and don't even pretend, as we discussed tonight, about every other person that they're supposed to be. governing. The AP reports that under state law, Mitch McConnell, who's not seeking reelection, is involved in a situation where if his seat did become vacant by August 3rd, there'd actually be a special election to pick a replacement. At the very minimum, we need to know, of course, if the seat did become, in that parlance, vacant. The generational issue is huge. Democrats like Feinstein and Biden, Republicans like Mitch McConnell and Trump right now. insisting on governing well past the normal retirement age and then doubling down sometimes by refusing to give basic information about their health and just sort of stonewalling and seeing what they can get away with. The New Yorker memorably cast this in that race. You'll notice Mitch McConnell's on there, as is Trump, Biden, and Nancy Pelosi, who didn't face health transparency questions, but did govern into her 80s. Michelle and Mark are here. Michelle, your thoughts and how big a deal is this when he's that powerful and weeks go by and we know virtually nothing? Well, it's a really big deal, in part because there's different procedures if, you know, if he really is incapacitated and they're just waiting to tell us so as to avoid a special election, then they are subverting, they're subverting the sort of at least the intent of. the law that Kentucky passed to govern precisely these kind of situations. But then, as you said, more broadly, I mean, this kind of problem of gerontocracy is one of the few things I think that it really is a both sides problem, right? That you really do have this.

crisis in both parties of kind of increasingly aging and sporadic leadership. I think the Democrats have taken steps to address it in part because of the trauma of Joe Biden's aborted reelection campaign. They've seen a number, we've seen a number of Democrats die in office and kind of make it easier for Republicans to pass legislation because seats that Democrats should be holding or votes that they should have are just not there. We just recently saw a Republican New Jersey congressman leave. I mean, I don't think this was a function of age, but leave for. weeks, if not months and his office kind of feeling no responsibility to tell people where he was. And so it's a multifaceted problem. I mean, part of it is about a total lack of accountability and sort of contempt for the public and a sense that they're a sense of entitlement and also to just like a structural problem of how we're governed in this country. Hmm, Mark. Yeah, I mean, this is, I mean, I completely agree with Michelle. I mean, this is a very urgent issue. And I think, I mean, if you were to put, say, some kind of ballot measure out nationwide, you know, calling for like a 72-year-old age limit on running for federal office somewhere, I'm guessing it would win overwhelmingly. And I think a test case recently was Janet Mills, the governor of Maine, who's 77 years old, you know, term limited out of the office governor, said she's going to run for Senate. was handpicked pretty much by Chuck Schumer and the Democrat, through Democratic Senate committee in Washington, and she went nowhere. I mean, that's sort of... gave rise to the grand platinum problem to some degree. But I do think that there is a bit of a pocket veto going on here. And, yeah, I mean, Mitch McConnell is the latest in a very long string of pretty sad cases. I mean, it's a little bit less sad because Mitch McConnell, unlike, say, Donald Trump or Joe Biden, doesn't really have that much responsibility these days compared to what he would have a few years ago. He's no longer in leadership. He's not running for reelection. You know, Tom Cain. is running for reelection, which is incredible. But I think this is obviously a issue that could get a lot of traction if someone were to propose a law around it. Right. And you need a law because left of their own devices, as Michelle mentioned, it's bipartisan that these folks continue to think they're the exception or they just have better ideas than everyone younger than them and they should just keep serving longer. And it's a huge problem. Thanks to both of you. I wish you good weekend and we will be right back.

We're following details in the fatal case of ice killing this father in Texas. We've learned that the victim, Lorenzo Salgado Arajo, was not actually the intended target of the initial ice search. You know, Times reports, ICE agents were actually looking for a different person who was driving a white van. There is video of Salgado's van available now today. There's no video of the actual shooting. Surveillance, though, does show the unmarked ice vehicles pursuing that van that you see there. So they were pursuing in pursuit of a different suspect. The unmarked ice vehicle drives up next to the van, which appears to then be a maneuver where they're on possibly the wrong side of that road. And the aftermath video. Along with this surveillance may be the only sort of surrounding new evidence that is possible to review. None of the agents on the scene were actually wearing body cameras. There were witnesses, three other men in the vehicle at the time Salgado was killed, and they say that he did not try to ram the officers with the car. That was, by any measure, a bit of a far-fetched accusation against this... individual with no known violent history or criminal record that he would suddenly pick that kind of lethal battle with ice agents did strain some credibility now we have their testimony against it the officer firing at them almost immediately they say after exiting the vehicle His only crime was that he fit the description of another man that they were looking for him. This has become a pattern where ICE agents claim that they use their vehicle as a deadly weapon, that they tried to run over the agents, and the agent shot a self-defense. But all three of my clients reiterated that at no point was there ever an agent standing in front of the vehicle, nor was an agent ever placed in the line of danger. That is a statement, testimony, by three different people rebutting what is the only claim by the government thus far that might convert this from what it looks like, which is police brutality or a possibly indictable killing, that rebuts that and argues that somehow it was this act of self-defense against a crazed driver. There are echoes of the Minnesota controversy here where independent... Allies and activists in the immigrant community have continuously stressed that you have to have an independent non-Trump government probe to even get to the facts of whether this was justifiable use of force. We'll be right back. Now you can watch Ali Valshi five nights a week in prime time on MS Now as he takes command of the 11th hour. The Justice Department is facing its own legal obstacles over this case. Putting today's stories in perspective. This one is perhaps one of the more interesting surprises. And tomorrow's headlines in focus. Economists are warning that American consumers are soon going to feel the hurt. The 11th hour with Ali Valsh weekn, weeknights at 11 p.m. Eastern on MS Now.

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