Receipts: Trump Profiting Off WH

Instagram teen accounts, automatic protections for teens. Instagram teen accounts have built-in content settings and limits for who can contact teens. Plus, teens under 16 can't change these default safety settings without parental approval. So parents can help teens connect safely. Instagram teen accounts, automatic protections for who can contact teens and the content they can see. Learn more at Instagram.com slash teen accounts. A morning walk, some bird watching. It's another easy Sunday. United Health Group makes these ordinary days possible with partners like the University of Tennessee Health Sciences, helping communities manage their health closer to home. 54% of participants have lowered their blood pressure, meaning fewer heart attacks and more Sundays at the park. This might feel like an ordinary day. To United Health Group, it's the health care system working better for everyone. Learn more at UnitedHealthgroup.com slash commitment. Welcome to the beat everyone. Happy Monday. I'm Ari Melbert. And we are tracking several big stories as we start the week. People coming back from the holidays of Major One. is Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, who is facing new allegations of sexual assault tonight, detailed by Politico, with an accuser on the record. The future of his campaign is in doubt. This is a story that matters, obviously, for the substance, as well as the potential reaction within the Democratic campaign community and what the Democrats want to do. So it's an unfolding story. It matters in more than one way, and we have that story in our show tonight that's coming up. We begin with our top story, and that is the backlash to the Trump profiteering, the billions coming in for Donald Trump. He makes more as president, where allegedly he's doing his work part-time making money. He makes more now than he did as a citizen or a businessman, as he likes to say. And that alone, before you go into any more detail, raises really troubling questions, like why someone who has a full-time government job. who says they're only doing occasional private business stuff as a side job, which no other president has tried to do, why they're making more now. And whether that is because of abusing access, abusing insider information, or the kind of corruption that would be illegal, if done by any other person in government. New details as well on the losses that Trump's own supporters and investors have been hit with when they lined up to try to join in. And this is a very familiar thing. If you follow Donald Trump's career, you know about the many bankruptcies and the many scams and the many littered projects that failed leaving other people holding the bag. There are those who call Donald Trump a con man, a confidence man. But as anyone who knows anything about conmans could tell you, you have to find new people. And apparently he did. New people interested in technology or crypto. New younger people who thought maybe this was a way to join Donald Trump, as if he would share in his largesse.

But he didn't. Look at this Times reporting that a million investors lost not, you know, a couple bucks here or there, but a whopping total of over $3 billion on Trump's crypto coin. You could simplify this as a kind of transfer of wealth from those people who included his investors and people who believed in him, some MAGA fans, a transfer of wealth from them to him and his family. The financial disclosures that we have now revealed Trump got over $2 billion in one year alone, half that roughly from the crypto ventures that we know about, over 600 million from the crypto coin, a million investors in total lost billions. And the story here tells you a lot about where we are in the kind of unbridled, unapologetic, shameless Trump second term. There are some people who are critical of Trump and they tell you he's always been the worst thing ever, as if he had nowhere else to go or change. On this show, if you ever watch it, you know, we try to follow the evidence, the facts, the numbers. You can add the adjectives, the opinions yourself. And so I will tell you as a factual matter, the scale, the number. of projects and self-enrichment efforts by Donald Trump in the first term were much smaller than this. And so who's paying for it? Well, to some degree, all of us, the American taxpayer, but some people are paying more than others, and they are the Trump believers. One invested half a million dollars into that coin, I just mentioned, and has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's kind of incredible. It's almost a legal scam, they said. in discussing their Trump losses to the New York Times. Now, one of the other problems in our current era is how so many things get put immediately into a kind of partisan polarization machine. So if you talk about something that's just a fact, a sitting president is abusing their power and reach and influence to take money from people who have a lot less. That's just a general fact I just described. I mentioned the reporting. Some people would say, oh, is that an anti-Trump thing or an anti-Republican thing? No, it might sound bad for Trump, but it's just an old... classic, almost pathetically familiar example of why you need strict rules governing the people in power. That's government. And generally, if you look over history, there's been a belief that you want to find people who also have good ethics so that they won't constantly be testing what they can get away with. And I can name you people in both parties, John McCain, Barack Obama, who had those kind of ethics. And voters tended to respond positively to that. But this isn't a partisan thing. Take Chris Christie, longtime Republican, also a former prosecutor. So he has a record of he would say caring about the law. And he says this isn't just bad. This isn't just petty. This isn't just unfortunate for America. He says it's something deeper left unchecked, that it is a kind of Vladimir Putin, Kremlin-style Trump corruption. He and his family believe they are entitled.

to this. This is an entitlement to them. They believe when they came back and won this election the second time, that that gave them license. Quite frankly, you know, when you look at the scale of this, here's another thing apparently that Donald Trump learned from Vladimir Putin during his first term. This is Vladimir Putin-esque type of corruption and self-enrichment. Vladimir Putin-esque corruption and self-enrichment. And that's a Republican Chris Christie. Over at Fox, where they often try to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, they also have clearly some level of information about what conservatives and a lot of their viewers think because they're calling it the biggest grift of all time. You can see that headline, scrutiny over Trump business dealings with him and his sons who've been enriched by this. There's also scrutiny on the pardon of this Binance founder. That's one of these firms where he's the richest man in crypto and is a critical business partner to the Trump family's crypto venture. I want to just slow down and tell you what that headline means. Think about this. the person they chose to work with, that firm and some of those tentacles, has previously been found guilty. So of all the people you could choose to work with, this isn't someone who just has allegations or smoke and fire and et cetera. No, this is someone who's already run into those kind of problems. That's who they chose. And the pardon hanging over there raises the very real question, a potentially impeachable issue, of whether there was an exchange, whether this was a kind of federal government bribe. Now, it's often been said that the Supreme Court gave Trump extra leeway. They did. And that the president, if he chooses to, can get away with more of these things than other members of government. And they can't. But we are watching a midterm election coming that might have a whole shift of power in Congress. Donald Trump could, and we know it would bother him if it happened, become the only president to be impeached three times because there are real questions about potential impeachable offenses when you talk about the use or abuse of government powers, the huge pardon power. billions of dollars coming into the family and all of it wrapped together. And that's just in what we know before an impeachment committee or a Jan 6 committee or subpoenas and witnesses and testimony. This is just what we know from the dogged work of the New York Times and other journalists and MS Now. We've got reporters looking into this as well. This is what we know just from that without subpoenas. We don't have subpoena power here in the news media. Sometimes we wish we did. Trump, however, seems to be bragging. about helping those people in crypto, even amidst the headlines that his own fans are losing money. And every time I see a crypto guy that, where they dropped in an investigation, I said, you're lucky I'm president. That might be true. Those people who in any other independent government system would be under investigation or worse are lucky. But remember, what are they under investigation for?

sometimes abusing and defrauding everybody else. This is the 1% story, the Epstein class story. It's the same thing we've been reporting on and telling you about, except now we have a president who's just so blatant about it. The people who should be investigated are lucky and everyone else, and Trump's telling are unlucky, losing money. It goes beyond crypto, which I know can sound like a little bit of a newfangled, kind of confusing virtual's place, even though the money some people have lost is real. There's also new revelations about this ring that Belgian diamond sellers gave to Donald Trump as a suspicious unusual gift after he waived tariffs for Belgian diamond imports. Remember, bribery is an impeachable offense. It's one of the enumerated impeachable offenses in our Constitution. And again, we're talking about real money here, not symbolism. The ring has reportedly over 300 diamonds, over 50 sapphires, over a dozen emeralds, and six rubies. You might say it looks a little gaudy or gauche. That's a matter of taste. As a matter of value, it is well above the gift limit that binds all members of Congress, for example. Most public traded company CEOs would be fired on the spot. for trying to pocket something like this related to their business, that's payola. What I'm telling you is Donald Trump is falling behind even the lax business standards of American Wall Street. There's also a plaque with a solid gold base from Apple that probably is worth quite a bit less, a Rolex desk clock, I should say, and a gold bar from Swiss business leaders. I remind you, there is a senator in prison right now for taking gold bar, Senator Menendez. He happened to be a Democrat. Again, if you care about these issues as an American. Or as someone who thinks we should have nonpartisan ethical government, you'd be against gold bars when they go to a Democrat or a Republican. Only one of them, though, Donald Trump, is getting away with it right now. And there's the jet. Trump took the gifted plane on his first international voyage to a NATO summit. And he's promised those on board a luxury that nobody's ever seen before. That might be his typical hyperbole political reports. But there's a wood paneled interior, tan leather seats, carpets, big screen TVs. Trump's White House says this is all fine, no problem. And I can just tell you here in the real world of news and facts and journalism, almost nobody believes that. I showed you Fox News trying to hedge their bets a little, saying, well, this might be too far. I've shown you Megyn Kelly, Joe Rogan, and other conservatives who aren't bound up in the partisan Republican machine, who whatever you think of them have talked about this as a grift, as elitism, as unfair. And the bill may be coming due. There's also the focus on Donald Trump's stock trades where, as I mentioned, the crypto stuff can seem kind of vague. Here you have the very direct question of whether he is timing his personal enrichment towards things that only he can do and he knows about like his unilateral trade war. And again, if he is doing that in a manner that abuses government power or is a quid pro quo, that could be impeachable. Notice I didn't say jailable. He's got a lot of immunity for anything that goes near his official duties. Tariffs probably do. But it certainly is the kind of thing people have been removed over. People have been removed for less, quite frankly. There's a disclosure form that shows Trump bought hundreds of stocks, including in tech giants, the day before he then pulled back his tariffs, which he and anyone in Wall Street knew.

would help juice those stocks. On April 8th last year, Trump bought over 300 stocks in the millions of dollars, including companies directly affected by this international trade war, Nvidia, Amazon, Apple. The next morning, he said, it's a great time to buy and halted his tariffs. The stock market went on another wild ride today. Stocks were mostly sideways until midday when President Trump posted on Truth Social that he was authorizing a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs. With amazing moves and some tech names, NVIDIA, up 18%, Amazon up 12%, Apple rallying as well. Those rallies were huge. Some of the largest jumps in recent history. The overall top 500 stocks went up about 10%. I'll remind you that's considered a good return for an entire year, let alone a day. And there were larger spikes in the socks Trump bought, which as I reminded you are the kind of international trade-related stocks that would benefit from the tariff pause. Now, let me tell you exactly what the question is. Did Donald Trump... abuse inside information to enrich himself? If the answer is yes, again, it's up to Congress to decide whether they view that as an abuse of power, an abuse of office, or whether they view that as one among several abuses of power that enriched himself. Do they view any of this as the quid pro quo of government favors? Were there other people, non-presidents, for example, his family? other staff, lobbyists, lawyers, ex-aids who were involved in this who could actually be prosecuted. Again, if there is bribery, those are the questions. Now, some people, they dislike Trump so much, they say, I'm sure he knew. Well, you could be sure, but you would sound pretty presumptuous. Because in law, you'd have to have the elements of the crime. And one of them is the mental state. And I will report for you, the White House says, that Trump was not personally involved in the timing of those stock purchases. So if that defense is true, someone else had good timing but didn't benefit from government information, then that would be what we call a defense to that. that the timing is so suspicious and the other activities that Donald Trump has taken have been so blatantly self-enriching. And his public statements talk about helping people in crypto in order to get benefits from crypto for his family that any investigator would have to look at all of this in totality. A few months later, Donald Trump discussed corrupt trading in pretty specific detail. So he was thinking about that kind of stuff and yet projecting or accusing a Democrat Nancy Pelosi of it. It happened by she knows exactly what's going to happen, what's going to be announced you by stock, and then the stock goes up after the announcements made, and she ought to be investigated. You know what's going to be announced you buy the stock, it goes up. Was he talking about her? Was he talking about a process that he'd already participated in or encourage others to do so? Those are questions to be investigated. There is, of course, a reason he was discussing it. There's a provision that apparently Trump didn't like.

that was trying to address some of this. He attacked a Republican who introduced it. Holly had to go on Fox and basically assure Donald Trump by way of his preferred medium Fox TV that any Trump trading would be unaffected. A number of people who were opposed to banning stock trading had said to the president that he would be covered by the bill. He'd have to sell Mar-a-Lago and sell assets. Not the case at all. The president and the vice president, all their assets are totally exempt. Ah, so this is an important way to fight corruption, but the president is exempted. Holly wanted everyone to know. The bill that ultimately moved forward had that carve out for Trump. I can tell you, we're reminding you all of this because so much goes on that it would be easy to lose track, but this would go into any impeachment investigation about why there was already such an active discussion of exempting them for a law that ultimately did not pass. And why is it bad if everyone else does it, but okay if Trump does it? So Trump's account was buying those stocks, time towards things that he knew he was about to do. And he fought against a potential law that would ban that very type of activity. I want to bring this all into our orbit tonight because while they want you to think nothing matters and they'll get away with it all, there's a heck of a lot of evidence that the winds are changing. Conservatives are mad about this and that even Trump was worried that the Congress might then, under Republican control, do something that it would certainly want to do without him exerting influence, which is stop this kind of self-dealing while gas prices and everything else is up and people are struggling. That's our special report. We've got special guests when we're back in 90 seconds.

We're back with politics professor at Borges State University, Jason Johnson, MS now analyst. Jason, we tried to show what's new and there's blowback, along with the history that's easy to forget. They want to distract people with wrestling and Trump's feuds and fights. But the history is instructive and a serious Congress could look into this. Right. Not only a serious Congress, but a committed Congress of both Republicans and Democrats. It's a shame when you have some members of the party who are so disgusted with Trump behavior that they're willing to quit a la Marjorie Taylor Greene. And then you have people like Josh Hawley who claims that he is vigorously against this sort of double dealing and insider trading but has to go on groveling on Fox saying, no, no, no, Donald Trump, it doesn't count you. All of the gifts, Ari. All of the behavior, not just of him, but his entire family, is not only a corrosion of how our government is supposed to work. It is a national security issue. It is an ethics issue. And it's the kind of thing. that if and when Donald Trump ever leaves office, if he ever leaves office, the level and the tentacles of this corruption will now run so deep that whoever follows him, if they care, will have to fire and eliminate dozens of people, hire so many new inspectors generals in order to get rid of all the other people who help facilitate this corruption. Yeah. And he's very clear about seeing himself as a booster. If he didn't have all these stocks and all these deals and all these conflicts, he might just be a very pro-business president, which is fine. People can decide that. Bernie would be seeking more oversight of Wall Street. He might, Trump might boost Wall Street. Fine. The problem is the more we learn, and we're just scratching the surface, the more it looks like conflicts. Here he was with Dell. Take a look. Go out and buy a Dell computer. He's not doing it for that. But I'll bet his business, Brad, has gotten even bigger. I have a son that loves their laptop. I have to tell you, no, I wonder, Dale, we're going to get him that money back one way or the other. Jason? I mean, if this were a mob movie, this would be the time that all of the federal agents are like, did he just say that and they're taking their headphones off, right? The way in which... The way in which Republican members of Congress and even his own supporters, look, I understand Donald Trump's branding for 20 to 25 years that he is an excellent business person. But the problem is, more often than not, he's putting money into the pockets of people who paid him. They're not really getting a good return on their investment. The people who do things for Trump, whether it's, you know, the head of UFC, it's like, hey, we lost money doing this Trump thing. The crypto people, you know, the people paying his son $500,000 a year to be a member of a club in hopes of possible. getting access to the president. There's not even a return on the investment in the graft and the grift. And that's part of what makes this so disgusting. He's not a good business person. He's not giving people anything that they want, but he has turned the United States and all of his agencies into not only his personal piggy bag, but his ATM to the rest of the planet. On the politics, well,

Why do you think this has drawn more backlash? It would seem that we have this triumvirate. I've mentioned people who dislike Trump have 100 reasons. But a lot of conservatives or former Trump voters, they only have like three or four. And lately it's been Epstein, Iran, and now this. Well, the reason, Ari, is because you can't have people paying $7 for gas. You can't have massive unemployment. You can't have people dealing with terrorists and then go on television bragging about the diamonds on your wrist, which is essentially what the president's doing all the time, right? He can't talk about his wealth and not. look like he is deeply insensitive about how the people who supported him are continuing to suffer. That's where the issue falls in. But for me, my concern is not necessarily with the voters in the fall. It's the lack of sort of oversight by members of Congress. It's the lack of anything being said by government agencies. It's the idea that Kash Patel's girlfriend can be paid to sing songs to Belgium while they give him, you know, rings with 300 diamonds in the shape of Superman while at the same time he's cutting deals to get you. U.S. players to play Belgium. I mean, like, it is a conspiracy theory and corruption investigators dream come true, and yet we don't hear enough about it from members of Congress trying to re-limit. Yeah, and it may be, look, he remembers the blue wave. He remembers the second two years of his first term. He remembers losing badly and leaving the way he left. He remembers it all. No one can accuse Donald Trump of not having detailed memories of his shame, humiliation, and anyone who dared criticize him. It may be that we're watching someone who is grab, grab, grabbing, knowing that if they do lose the midterms, particularly the Senate. that the next two years might look very different on all of these issues. I'm running out of time because we have this other breaking story, Jason. Great to see you. Thanks, Ari. Any time. Appreciate it. A big story also rocking Washington. Democratic Senate nominee, Graham Platner, is facing a new reported sexual assault allegation. This is from an incident that allegedly occurred in 2021. Politico reporting, the 41-year-old Maine resident, Jenny Rascott, stated that during the course of what was an on-and-off relationship, Graham Platner entered her home uninvited. and deeply intoxicated, and that he forced himself on her and that she repeatedly told him to stop. Politico also interviewed another individual who corroborated the story, and the reporters say they reviewed documents and notes from the accuser's therapists.

That can be important in piecing together a timeline because Politico reports that this allegation predates Graham Platner's rise now as the nominee. Vascott was one of several women who previously spoke to the New York Times in a different article and at the time used the word unsettling to refer to some of Plattenor's behavior. We should note that he has denied these new allegations and released a video statement, which you can see an excerpt of here. Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically false. So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful of the political reality, it will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward. Platinum referencing the best path forward there. As I mentioned to the top of the broadcast, this is a big important story. First, obviously, for the alleged conduct and the impact on that individual. And second, as a Senate candidate, there is a deadline looming over whether Democrats would stick with him if he drops out, what would happen, his name on the ballot, in a race against Susan Collins that's been seen as one of the keys to Democrats winning back the Senate. For all of those reasons, this is clearly a major story. I want to bring in New York Times colonist Michelle Goldberg, an MS now analysts. Welcome, Michelle. Your view first on, thank you, your view first on where the allegations and the substance of this is with the political story, not only advancing what was in the Times story, but including what are legally very serious, a very serious allegation against him. Well, look, the Politico story is utterly devastating. Her story is credible. It's multibly corroborated. And I think that Graham Platner needs to drop out. There's no, you know, there's kind of nothing ambiguous here. His campaign is completely non-viable. There is one week left in which Democrats can legally swap out their Senate candidate. And. This whole debacle is... so shameful for all of the people that Graham Platner encouraged to put their faith in. You know, all the people that Graham Platner asked, told that they should believe in him. Because, you know, I was in Maine. I've interviewed Graham Platner. He really did tap into this hunger among voters for a new kind of candidate. And people were willing to overlook some, you know, sort of. Some skeletons in the closet because they thought that there was something fundamentally good and decent and righteous here. And they climbed out on a limb for him all over the state. And he had every reason to know that that limb was going to be sawn off.

Yeah. The Democrats now, as I mentioned, have this deadline. Politically, Maine is a place where a lot of the Senate Democratic leaders viewed it as finally a potential flip with everything that people know about Susan Collins, someone who has claimed to be an independent, but on key issues to time and again helped the MAGA agenda and the Supreme Court agenda. Where does that larger prism fit into all this? Well, I think that, I mean, you know, main voters, I think, you know, if all the polls are right, main voters do not want to reelect Susan Collins. But in order for them to not do that, they need a. viable alternative. And it's still time, there's still time in Maine to give them that. Although, again, there's so much kind of blame and fault to go around. The people who recruited Graham Platner reportedly failed to do much due diligence about him, you know, and sort of didn't do the normal sort of deep dive that you would usually do into a candidate to see what their vulnerabilities are. I also think some. Blame belongs to Chuck Schumer, who was so determined to clear the field for Janet Mills, the 78-year-old governor of Maine, that he and the Democrats in Washington encourage other people not to get into the race who might have, you know, you never know if someone's going to take off, but could potentially have spoken to this hunger among the electorate for new kinds of candidates. And it's just created an absolute debacle in a state that was in other ways of very favorable terrain for Democrats. Yeah. Interesting point there as well because you're talking about something the Democrats have struggled with a lot, which is. when they think they have an electable person. But they push so hard, they're undermining the kind of actual grassroots democracy in the state. And in this case, as you say, the party's not pleased with the option it has as of tonight. Michelle Goldberg, thank you very much. We're going to finish break. We wanted to hit that big story. And we come back. Andrew Weissman joins me as we look at the Trump pardons and more impact from Jack Smith warning about Trump in the midterms. Normally in these ads, you expect somebody to ask you to buy something. But this is something different. I'm Julian Barnes, and I'm a reporter for the New York Times. I'm a national security reporter, and that means I'm reporting on military operations. These are fast-paced, quickly-moving situations. What exactly is happening on the ground is often shrouded in mystery. But we turn to trusted sources, satellite imagery, and expertise built up over years in order to ferret out the facts that wouldn't otherwise come to light.

I'm here to ask you to seek out a news source that does firsthand fact-based reporting. If it's your local paper, great. If it's the Times, thank you. Because where you go for your information matters. For me? Claude, you can talk? I've always had the gift of gab, Nancy. But now you can understand. With pretty litter, the odor-neutralizing, long-lasting health indicating kitty litter, that's simply the most luxurious way to bury my poopies and my pee-pies. Pretty litter was developed with veterinarians. It helps me monitor potential health problems just by changing color. Go to pretty litter.com today. Pretty litter. Not just a pretty litter. This is a Monday.com ad. The same Monday.com helping people worldwide getting work done faster and better. The same Monday.com designed for every team and every industry. The same Monday.com with built-in AI. Scaling your work from day one. The same Monday.com that your team will actually love using. The same Monday.com with an easy and intuitive setup. Go to Monday.com and try it for free. Yes, the same Monday.com.

We all lived through July 4th. The president wanted to mark the 250th birthday with use of his presidential power to pardon. And he pardoned some criminal violators of laws that try to keep the air clean. as well as a major political donor, the Times reporting on that, clemency power undermining environmental laws and helping a political supporter who pleaded guilty in a fraud. This relates to other stories we cover tonight, the question about whether there's even a pretense of using these powers for the American public or reviewing cases in general and saying, hey, here's why this one. Should have been treated differently rather than just rewarding friends and allies or undercutting environmental laws. A prominent defense attorney has told the Atlantic that with intermediaries and other sort of cutouts for about $2 million these days, you can have a part. I'm joined by Andrew Weissman, former FBI General Counsel and Mueller prosecutor. We wanted to hit this because corruption has almost sort of become the theme of the week. And there's no... Like I said, pretense or defense or cover story even for some of these. It's America's birthday. It's he can do it. So he's going to do it. And is it alarming that pardons are through a cutout and some euphemisms allegedly for sale? So I think the pardon power is such a great example because you can sort of take off the table the legality because the pardon power in the Constitution is really pretty absolute with the only open issue being whether the president could pardon himself. So the issue... for me is it just is so revelatory of who a president is, because you get to see what they care about. Do they have a process where the most deserving people are the ones who get this beneficence, this extraordinary ability to be outside of the legal system? Or are you seeing it being used for violations of the Clean Air Act. And by the way, the president has said, oh, these are people who are just trying to get their cars working. No, that's not what was charged. That's not what was proved. These were people who deliberately over and over again sold ways to violate the Clean Air Act by having kits that would be put it into a car so that they would. no longer be complying with those regulations. They'd be polluting in violation of the law, and this was a business that they ran. The complete contrast, by the way, in prior administrations, I was part of the team that prosecuted the Volkswagen case, which was the antithesis of getting a pardon. They were prosecuted. But the president has also, pardon, crypto, cyber, the largest health care violator.

at the time, Philippa Farmis was pardoned, politicians, fraudsters, and obviously people who are close to the president, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone. So if you want a sense of what a president cares about and who they think is deserving of this kind of largesse. You really can look at the pardons, and that's true for prior presidents as well. But there's nothing like what we have seen with President Trump in his first term and in his second term. Yeah, Jack Smith famously prosecuted this president. He spoke out in his first journalistic interview, which was in demand by all the outlets, print, TV. And I mentioned it was a big deal. Nicole got that. And I think a lot of reviewers have seen maybe parts of it or if they watched the whole program that day last week. But I wanted to underscore what he said about, of course, the Jan 6 parts because he was very much leading the effort. with Trump driven from office and seen at one point as unlikely to return, even Republicans, Mitch McConnell was talking about how maybe they should convict him. And then to go into this upside-down landscape we have now, where the worst of the worst, the seditionists have been pardoned. Take a look. Talk about the pardons of these people convicted for the violence on January 6th, right? There's all sorts of costs. There's the obvious cost of just recidivism. These are people who committed their crimes in the name and in the interest of Donald Trump, and he's returned their favor, right, by pardoning them. That sends one message to them. There's actually a lot about that interview I wanted to ask you about, but on that... Core point, he's saying when you reward this stuff, you will get more of it, meaning that it is a non-conspiracy theory, non-fringe concern that this could become a weaponized militia for future crime. Absolutely. And you don't even need to get to the slush fund, the idea that these people not only would receive a pardon for engaging in criminality. Criminality that in many cases included attacking police officers. I mean, just to be clear, we are not talking about sort of mild trespassing here. We all witnessed it. We are, if you just consider. that just the pardons and not the fact that the president wanted to create a fund and still may, where they are financed. Just think of that and the president saying that the prosecution of those people was a grave national injustice. Those are the words of Donald Trump. They are also the same words that have been parroted by Todd Blanche, who has an upcoming confirmation hearing, to be the head.

of the Justice Department. He's the acting head now. But we have somebody who will be installed, if he has confirmed, who has described January 6th and what those people did after trial, after being given all due process, that this was a grave national injustice. To me, that is such, as you said, sort of like the world put on its head. Yeah. He also spoke very forthrightly about not being intimidated in this time, and you think about what we could take from the holiday we all just celebrated this weekend at a strange time for civic life. And I wanted to get your views on that. So we're going to play Jack Smith, his message to the public about why this is a time to bravely fight and not give in with Andrew when we come back. I think we are facing an attack on the rule of law that is different in kind and scope to anything I've seen in my lifetime. Jack Smith speaking out exclusively to MS now is Nicole Wallace. Andrew Weissman's back with us. You know his record well. You've spoken to him. As I mentioned, this was this sort of big television journalism interview, but you've also spoken with him in this era, so you have a keen sense of it. I want to play, as promised, what he said about not being intimidated as well. Take a look. Are you afraid to be speaking out? No, not at all. I am not going to be intimidated. And there's no way in the world. If the thought was to go after me so that I wouldn't speak up about the corruption that's happening or speak up to defend these agents and prosecutors, that is a grave miscalculation. There is no way I'm going to be intimidated. What does that mean for everyone who's got to find their own way to decide what to do in this country as we reflect on the best spirit of Independence Day? So I think it's great that Jack is speaking out. I did interview him, but I've also known him for a while. We were colleagues in the U.S. Attorney's Office a lifetime ago in New York, in the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office. I think one of the great things about his speaking, not just in university settings, but with Nicole in a television setting, is that for so long, he was somebody who was known only through what Donald Trump and Donald Trump's acolytes were saying about him.

And there wasn't the ability to get to know him as a person and to get a measure of the man. And so I think it's just so terrific that he is speaking. People make their own judgments about him. I do encourage people to listen to the entire interview. It was incredibly well done on Nicole's part, but I think to be fair, I mean, he is the subject of the interview, and he spoke, I think, in a way that it's very hard not to see his candor and his passion for... the rule of law in this country. And so I think it's just a very, I think, a smart choice. Yeah. When we think about what is the rule of law, in really good times, you don't have to think about it at all. You shouldn't have to. It's tested in crises. It's tested in panic. You know, most people, when they look back at the Nixon era or the McCarthy era, we have a kind of unity about it. I know JD Vance wanted to change that in the next example, but there's a kind of unity. Oh, right. The McCarthyism became conviction by accusation. That's bad. And we want to be more than that. And what we have now, a government that like Vladimir Putin's government routinely investigates and when it can, even with very little evidence, tries to charge. multiple members of the opposition party, journalists, others, critics. And so I want to play with that in mind what he said about the future of the rule of law. If you were, if you took the name of our country off it and you were just examining the state of the rule of law in America, is it dead? I don't think so at all. And for the reasons I said earlier, there are legions of career prosecutors. People just like me. you just don't know their name, who are, want to do the right thing, they're in the Justice Department, they want to serve. We have a lot of challenges in front of us, and the rehabilitation of the department is not going to be any mean feat. You know, recovering character is a lot harder than gaining it in the first place, but I think we're totally capable of doing that. I'm completely optimistic. Andrew? Well, you know, even in Watergate and McCarthy era, it's worth remembering. It's now you look back on it and you think, oh, there became a unity. But there wasn't at the time. Those were very, very scary times. And, you know, democracy is not easy. And there are many people now watching this who know that. They know it through what we're living through. They know it through things that they've lived through even before Donald Trump, the civil rights movement. It's true in other countries as well. In other words, you know, this is one where everything's not always handed to you on a silver Graham Platner and you are expected to have the courage of your convictions and to act in a way that's in accordance with your principles.

If there's anything that Donald Trump has taught us in the first term and in this term is that we see the ways in which the current rule of law can be not just eroded, but in many ways, eradicated. And it is a call to action if that is something you care about. And, you know, it's not going to be easy. Yeah, all well put, which is why we wanted to get you on it, even as it's been a couple days since then, but the holiday, a fitting time to reflect. Andrew, thank you. We'll be right back. This is a Monday.com ad. The same Monday.com designed for every team. The same Monday.com with built-in AI, scaling your work from day one. The same Monday.com with an easy and intuitive setup. Go to Monday.com and try it for free. Ever since I was young, I've watched people working hard, chasing opportunity, making sacrifices, doing everything they can to build a better life. And now, we're shining a light on what matters most. Our economy, our national identity, our democracy, our future. The stakes have never been higher. It's all on the line. On the line with Alicia Menendez. Weekdays at 12 p.m. Eastern on MS Now.

Update on the story we've been covering Democratic Senate nominee, Graham Platner, faces this new allegation of sexual assault. It comes from a woman on the record who dated him and says he forced her to have sex with him after her objections. Graham Platner is facing growing calls to drop out of this Senate race. Senator Gallego and Congressman Ro Khanna have withdrawn their endorsements. And the main Democratic Party, which of course is where he got the nomination through the primary voting, has now called on Graham Platner to end the campaign. Under main law, Democrats can replace Graham Platner on the ballot, meaning voters would get the name of a potential new candidate, but only if he were to withdraw as a nominee by July 13th. It's an update on a story we've been tracking, and we'll be right back. Appreciate you spending some time and starting your week with us here at the B with Ari Melbert. That does it for us. Hey, everyone, it's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast, Why is this happening? What really happened with the border during the Biden administration? Asylum at the border needs to be changed. And that was part of the legislation supported by President Biden. And that's what got killed by Donald Trump because he wanted the crisis to live for political benefit. So what has happened is there are many fewer migrants presenting themselves at the border. The Supreme Court has basically shut that down and allowed the administration to do what it wants. this week on why is this happening? Search for why is this happening wherever you're listening right now and follow.