Trump Eyes Personal lawyer to Run DOJ

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Donald Trump has tried to get everyone, including the Senate that has the final word here, get everyone used to the idea that this is all just going to be a personal, corrupt, kleptocratic system. And yet the pushback we've seen on the issue that's related, which I mentioned, that Trump tried to use Todd Blanche and the DOJ to settle his own case that he sued himself for and then move or launder taxpayer money over potentially to criminals. That whole thing is blown up in their face. That's exactly the kind of stuff that is a bigger problem if you don't have independence of the DOJ. And Todd Blanche has been very clear where he stands. I love working for President Trump. It's an honor to be part of this administration. We have a man who's doing a great job, I'll tell you. I knew it because he kept me out of jail for years. Acting Attorney General Tard Todd Blanche. I just operate every day on doing everything that I need to do to execute the president's agenda and priorities. Article 2 says the executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America. It does not say that the attorney general stands off to the side. It was a rigged election. Everybody now knows that. There's a ton of evidence that the election was rigged. If he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say thank you very much. I love you, sir.

The former attorney general who was fired, Pam Bondi, had pushed more baseless and reversed revenge cases than any time in history. And it wasn't enough. We've been following this. We even have an update on one of these cases tonight, but many of these originated during her tenure, and it wasn't enough because Trump wanted even more, and apparently is getting more out of Todd Blanche. There is a new indictment, I should say, about Trump critic and former FBI director James Comey, recent indictment. And you look at that issue over basically something that fizzled under Pam Bondi and under Todd Blanche's acting role. They've revived a version of it. You have cases against the former CIA director. You have Todd Blanche also securing what many people think is a losing case, a weak effort to say that because the Southern Poverty Law Center did surveillance and had informants in targeted hate groups, what they call hate groups, that somehow they were pro-hate group. Well, even that centers critics don't really think they're for those hate groups or militias. Again, I'm not trying to get into the terminology, but just to say, the case doesn't really make sense. But Todd Blanche rushed that out. It came out during his tenure, not Bondys, which is a sign of how Trump's look looks at this. Todd Blanche handling of the Epstein files, of course, got a lot of backlash, meaning... A lot of people who voted for Trump and a lot of the Magapodotus podcasts and other groups, they were against this. But Trump apparently liked it because of the mishandling may have redounded to his benefit. Moving on to other issues, you have what I mentioned, the criminal fund, the support and minimization of the terrible crimes of Jan 6. They, of course, have gone beyond the pardons and tried to minimize sedition charges, establishing the criminal fund. A new agreement that claims that Trump would have ongoing immunity and his family from any IRS probes. Of course, that's only worth the paper that the acting attorney general signed it on. A new attorney general and a future administration in either party might revoke that just as obviously not valid, but that's on paper for now. I want to bring in Jason Johnson, politics professor at Morgan State University. Jason, we could talk about many aspects of this, and I have a senator coming up on... whether there's a confirmation route. But I think the Epstein contrast is telling Republicans, Megyn Kelly, Joe Rogan, very critical of the way Todd Blanche, they say mishandled. The Epstein files certainly wasn't transparent, blew up in their face. Eventually, we all know, the law was passed, forced more files out. And yet Trump took away from that he liked it. Not because it served transparency to the public interest, but it served the one thing that he stays focused on, apparently, which is the DOJ, should serve him and not the public.

Yeah, I mean, I think what everyone needs to understand and the danger here and what the Senate is concerned about, Todd Blanche, he's not a new bestie. He's a true bestie, right? Like he was Trump's lawyer. His entire reason for being in this job. is to protect this president because he agrees with him ideologically, because he sees a kindred spirit with him morally, and because he sees his job as not serving the country, but serving Trump. So whether it's the Epstein files, whether it's the sit-down two-day meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell, whether it's not releasing all the information that was asked for when the law was asked for, that is how Todd Blanche is going to operate. And unfortunately, you know, I wish that would be enough to keep him from being confirmed, but it may not be. It may be his position on the slush fund in January 6th that keeps this man from being in a position of the most important attorney in the United States of America. What do you think of the sort of one-sided politics here? Republicans made hay when Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch had what appeared to be a spontaneous run-in with Bill Clinton. I mean, former officials, let alone the president, talked to people. And they made a lot of hay out of that. And they got sort of the serious people watching worried about that when it appeared to be a social interaction. And here, of course, the levels of this, the personal lawyer being the attorney general, it melts it all down as a farce. Right. I mean, most of the attacks on Bill Clinton or Barack Obama all, I mean, there were always bad faith at the time, but they're even worse now. I mean, this was Trump's. personal attorney. He's doing podcast with Sean Hannity. He's he's trying to create a slush fund for the President of the United States. He's said, hey, we should send ICE agents to polls. He says that his job is to serve this president as opposed to the people. So there is no comparison. I think that's so important for people to understand. Not Ler Lent, not, not, you know, anyone that Barack Obama had. We have never had. an act the attorney and possibly full attorney general who has made it so nakedly obvious that his goal was to be the personal consigniary lawyer of the president as opposed to even serving the DOJ. Yeah. I want to play something we've actually played before but matters tonight because. Todd Blanche tried to walk back this criminal fund this week. That's how much he got. And then Trump in his way said, well, he still likes the idea. So that's where that sits. And I want to show, because we talk about normalizing or sanewashing, I just want to show how much. we've fallen. And as a society, I mean that quite literally. We have to decide the rest of us whether we're going to treat this as normal or okay or not, because it's a huge breach. It's a conflict for the DOJ. Criminals are criminals. Yes, they were legally pardoned, so that's a process. But they still did what they did. And we have to mark that. And look at how they sound now defending, paying those people, Trump saying, oh, he still likes the idea, versus what we saw that day in the following day. Take a look.

These are people that have been decimated. These are people that lost their lives over nonsense where the FBI said, go in, go in, police, go in, go in, go into the... And they were supposed to serve five years, ten years in jail? We know what actually happened. We know that on Jan 7th, he even said, and I've reminded people of this, that those people would pay if they did violence. And now we have... how far we've gotten. And that means that it could get worse by January 6th after the next election, the next presidential. Clearly. And the other thing to remember is that Todd Blanche was completely behind this fund. Todd Blanche was going to be the person basically making the payoffs to this sort of privatized army affront once they have. And hopefully, like I said, we got Thom Tillis, you know, he's a Republican, North Carolina. Thom Tillis at least has come forward and said, hey, look, it is highly unlikely that this guy is going to get my vote for confirmation. Can we trust that the Republicans won't do it? I don't know. I mean, they confirmed him last year as deputy attorney general, but maybe some of them have turned a new leaf now. But clearly these are individuals, and this is an individual who has no problem activating violence, whether that's legal violence, whether that's potential vigilantes getting paid off to act against the American people as long as is what Trump wants. Yeah. Jason Johnson, we wanted your clarity tonight. We appreciate it. Coming up on the show, we have more on the CBS MAGA fallout. We are going to look at the ways people are fighting back against some of these AI MAGA allied tech companies. Important story. May have heard less about. I have that coming up by the end of the hour. But in 90 seconds, Senator Warner on exactly what the Senate is thinking about this new nomination.

Trump thinks that Bill Pulte can be both director of the mortgage regulators and director of national intelligence. And I beg my Republicans that just if half of you who have said this is outrageous would vote with me, you know, we'll get this stopped. I think we got three or four. And the reports are that you interceded with John Thune asking him to push the White House to back off this. Trump saying today, well, it's not permanent. He's not going to be permanent. It's not a permanent position. We're interviewing people right now by Trump standards. That's him sort of softening on this as he's feeling a lot of pressure. Can you tell us anything about what you've tried to do through John Thune? Well, I've asked phone. I've talked to other members in the administration that I've got good connections with still. But remember, he dropped this load on us in the very week that we have to reauthorize what's called FISA 702. Now, this is the most important tool in the intelligence community. 70% of all the information that goes in the presidential daily brief. is sourced by this information. It's about foreigners talking to foreigners abroad, not in America. And Democrats support it, Republicans support it. It was still going to be tough to get enough Democrats with Trump, but the idea that we could now support this extension with Bill Pulte in charge, that's going to be a big, big mountain to climb. And I think the more rational Republicans who actually care about national security understand that. I wonder whether Trump threw this whatever into the punch bowl, you know, 10 days before the bill, the law expires, maybe he didn't want it to pass. I don't know. It is not rational. You mentioned that Republicans aren't living up to their criticism. We see that a lot. They say something, but they don't actually want to take the hard votes. But do you also see a shift? I mean, I did rattle off several things where we've seen pushback. I understand some of those folks are retiring, but we showed the Santillis saying, hey, if Todd Blanche is anti-police, that's the end of it. He doesn't get his vote. So A, do you see any small shift? And B, Do you think that knock on Todd Blanche could hurt his confirmation vote? Well, again, remember my understanding Mr. Todd Blanche was his skill was being Donald Trump's personal lawyer. In any prior administration, I'm not sure that would put you as attorney general material, maybe Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and John Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but with the relationship there. But it's mind-blowing. And I do, I have seen a slight shift. But I tell you, the first year and a half of this administration.

I thought on national security issues where we sit in a classified room and, you know, we don't talk about his Ds and ours, I've been constantly astonished that more of my friends, and I do have friends on the other side, haven't been willing to stand up. We're seeing a little break now. Of course, it took putting Trump into the 30s in terms of his approval rating, but you always got to hope for more or this job can get pretty daunting. And does everyone kind of have the same view of the midterms? I mean, your Republican colleagues privately kind of feel like if they were held a day, they'd lose? I believe so. I mean, there was clearly, you know, at the beginning of this year, it was a bit of a pipe dream to think we could take the Senate. Now I think that people are thinking it's 50-50. We got totally taken advantage of in Virginia after we had spent. after millions of Virginia voters have gone to the poll where our polls where our state overturned our redistricting plan. So we lost some pickup opportunities there, but we still have three very valid seats that we could win in. So we're just going to double down, win the House, I believe as well, win the Senate. And that'll bring finally some responsibility back. We'll still have to get 60 votes in the majority on a lot of bills. But I think there'll be many more Republicans willing to help us. A lot going on, Senator Warner, appreciate you making time for us. Again, you've been in the center of that intel fight. We'll keep an eye on it. Thanks for your time. By the end of the hour, we look at how progressives are stepping up with their own plan to take on Big Tech. The time has come to reclaim what was stolen from us. Since AI is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity. And new CBS owners, the MAGA allies, really, as the big guns come out.

Listen to your favorite MS Now shows anytime as a podcast. Enjoying new episodes of Morning Joe, Deadline White House, and the Rachel Maddo Show. Every small D. Democratic muscle that we have is flexing. Plus the last word with Lawrence O'Donnell, the beat with Ari Melburgh, the weeknight, and more. On the go, wherever you get your podcasts. For ad-free listening to all of your favorite shows, subscribe to MS Now Premium on Apple Podcasts. We're turning now to a story that has become a roiling crisis at CBS and cuts to the heart of really the situation that we are in as a country. 60 Minutes is the most venerated and most watched television news show, period. And it has been successful on both editorial grounds and reaching an audience. So it is not in a position where you would expect that any logical, independent, objective executive would look at something that's working. and try to destroy it. That itself is suspicious. Indeed, it's a little different than the debates over another show on CBS that recently ended, Stephen Colbert, where there was a political argument against it to be sure, but there were some valid economic arguments against it and at least reforming it. Here, the new MAGA bosses of CBS don't really have that kind of logical or business defense. And according to some of the most respected, independent, nonpartisan CBS veterans, This is a political hatchet job to curry favor with the government. Also a contrast because Stephen Colbert and his classiness didn't even say all that. What you're looking at here is one of those journalists now speaking out. Steve Croft is highly respected. There he was interviewing a president. He's reported around the world. He's tangled with both parties. And he's weighing in on the crisis we've been covering, saying basically 60 minutes as the audience has known it, no longer exists. The firings are too substantial, he said, referring to what these new MAGA owners are doing. It seems almost impossible. he adds, to imagine what kind of show they can put on in September. Now, Mr. Croft, like the other CBS veterans, is drawing on a whole multi-decade career of credibility. I understand when you look at stories like this, people rush to say, well, what's the angle or disgruntled or political? We're talking about people who, in the best sense, have retired out of a great, strong career. Their legacy's intact, their money's been made, however you want to look at it. You can't really infune Mr. Croft here. He is clearly, best we understand, saying what he really thinks about what he views as an attack on journalism in the name of trying to win over the government, what we would call a type of soft corruption if you buy his theory, and Croft is not alone. I think it's been disastrous for the show, you know, for the audience.

People from Paramount are coming in. Harry Bari Weiss coming in and saying, you guys suck. You love it. We have to make changes. I don't know where Scott Pelly will land. Frankly, I hope he lands right here. And I hope that everybody in journalism and everybody who values a free press figures out ways to outmaneuver the people who are trying to take the free press from us. I think that pushing a news organization in a certain political, ideological direction. is anachma to journalists. I think that this is journalistic interference. It makes no business sense whatsoever. The show is still doing very well. It's the highest rated news program on television, and it has been that way for more than 50 years. Facts. You know, it sometimes is a bit... of a side point for journalists to come around and talk about who's the most watched or not. And in theory, you could say, well, other television shows are competitors. But we're talking about facts. 60 minutes is that. I mentioned in our reporting this week. Sometimes the top 10 Nielsen ratings are a bunch of NFL games and 60 minutes. And that matters for the substance of this story because any executive claiming, well, this is a business thing doesn't have any business ground to stand on. That was, I guess, the best thing they could come up with. and Mr. Pelley and Mr. Croft and others have some credibility here. So what's next? The Post reports, many expect, insiders expect, that it could deteriorate and degrade further. The show has three top remaining correspondents, Leslie Saul, who are considering resigning a kind of a potential Saturday night massacre protest, the media version, against a kind of a MAGA kneecapping. The post reports that. CBS News, I should mention, denies, as I've said, accusations of bias. And the incoming EP, who's only been on the job for a few days, has emphasized that what he wants to do is make a business case for 60 minutes to change and reach people digitally. That he is not, he says, trying to carry out some MAGA agenda. Mr. Pelly was leaving the show in a very different way than one would have expected. CBS was in no way ever signaling that they viewed him as fireable or fireable for cause. He was really one of their longest serving stars, as his record attests. How would you say your mental focus is? Oh, it's focused. I think it's, I haven't, look, when that man stood up. Yes. And said, we have a problem in this country and it's Muslims. You let that pass, and I wonder what that tells us about you. Well, he said much more than that. Well, you told the Congress they don't do their work as well as your daughters do their homework. Well, what I said was that they procrastinate, and that is absolutely true. The war has not gone the way you had hoped it would, and they wonder whether it's just crushing on your spirit. Quite the contrary, my spirits are strong. Those are just a few moments. You could go to YouTube and watch a lot more of Pelley's work.

The point here when you see all that is he was operating at a level where every president in both parties during his tenure dealt with him. So this isn't one of those things about red and blue left and right. This is about how things have been when the center holds in our system, however imperfect, and when you have, at least allegedly, according to these critics, and I've quoted them, the allegation of a governmental media type of corruption, what in other countries they call state media. It's a problem if you buy that theory of the case. Trump wants to use government power and abuse the levers of power he holds to undercut the First Amendment itself. Whatever you think of, say, George Bush, who I showed there, he was not reported to or accused of doing this level of First Amendment. violence. And the founders made it the First Amendment for a reason. Because without that, our ability to talk to each other, without fear or favor from the government actually taking over or turning off this mechanism or the internet or. The newspapers, we know Trump's suing the journal, Times, et cetera. Without those measures, then you don't have a free flow of ideas and facts, and you don't really have a democracy, even if there's technically voting. I don't mean to be so severe with it, but that's what it is. Trump openly said, that he wanted to abuse governmental power to yank the broadcast license of CBS, a move he's also used, by the way, against ABC. He's targeted, as I mentioned, I'll show you the rest of the journalist, TV networks, and newspapers they've gone after. They are taking control his MAGA allies of CBS already and CNN next. If Trump approves the merger, which all of this public stuff shows how this company wants to show him how it would look.

But CNN, in particular, CNN does such false reporting. But now they have new ownership, so maybe it'll straighten it out. I doubt it. But it's hard to straighten garbage out. This is not a drill. We will keep covering this story. Not looking at it as a TV story or a competitor's story, but I promise you looking at it as a democracy story. I'm going to fit in a break when we come back. Is there good news? You ever say, all right? When do we get to the good news? We have some on the labor fight against AI before it's too late. Next. Saturday, September 26th, join MS now live in Texas for our biggest event yet with Rachel Maddo, Chen Saki, Michael Steele, and more for a day of powerful conversations and timely insights in a crucial state for the midterms. Democracies heal and advance themselves by engaging everybody where they are. Plus exclusive community experiences. MS now live together in Texas. September 26th. Get tickets today at MS. dot now slash together. Turning now to one of the most consequential stories really of our time. And before I tell you all the new details, just consider a situation like this. A new groundbreaking tool. allows a company to use the creations of millions of people even without payment or credit. Think of the 1990s when new websites were taking movies and music from creators, playing them online for users. Sites like Napster, remember them, they were just borrowing, they said. And they said it was okay because they weren't seizing physical copies of those things I mentioned, of say, a movie tape. But the creators said this was sealing. You're taking our work, cutting into the livelihoods of all those people. It took a few years to resolve that clash over copyrighted material, and that was just in a few industries. Today, we have tools that are actually doing that to pretty much all human creations ever, from books and articles and videos to the billions of pages of techs that humanity has ever produced online. We are a long ways from the tech companies that were creating new products, if you remember the... the iPod and iPhone ads that I've got on the screen, that's like a new thing that you could use. This ain't that. And so by now you can probably tell, okay, Ari, I get it. What am I talking about? I'm reporting on these leaps in artificial intelligence where these new tech disruptors aren't selling products. They're taking everything humans have ever created that they can get. anything they can scrape and pick up. They don't ask, they just do it. And now, having spent some years developing their models, they spit it back out through these AI systems. You may have heard of some of the examples. Like ChatGPT or Claude. If you don't happen to use those, think of that as like when Google launched. You had Google and Yahoo and Ask Jeeves. These are just different modules of that. These companies reaping billions. Some of them are preparing what we are told will be the largest stock offerings ever.

in the coming months. And they have deregulatory allies in the Trump administration, tech leaders who can operate now largely without much government or legal oversight, even as their core products take, swipe, pilfer at a level that makes Napster look modest. Now, when you ask these AI models a question, they don't usually create a new answer. I'm simplifying. I'm not a prompt engineer, but if we just think about it simply, even if you've never tried one, and I'm about to show you some video of people talking about them, what they do if you type in a question is at very, very tiny levels down to the word or even the letter, what they're basically doing is quoting, sampling, remixing, and plagiarizing from other prior human creations. And they usually do it without credit, let alone payment. Right now, many AI companies train on creative work they haven't paid for or even asked permission to use. The models that make this art don't just do it out of thin air. They've learned to mimic styles, even specific artists. The models ingest millions, sometimes billions of images scraped from websites all around the web. The AI community had taken most of my novels without permission. I... Truly felt like someone had backed up a truck to my imagination and stolen everything I'd ever created. When we talk about art hikes, typically we're talking about one painting being taken from a museum, two, three. They stole billions and billions of images. How about that? Now, if you want to be technically legal, remember, stealing is about value. It's not about whether you physically broke into a museum. If you manage to use virtual tools to take money out of an account, right, to wire it out, you could still be in trouble for stealing. And I can give you all these tech examples. So, of course, you might say, all right, Ari, I get it. Is this even legal? Well, some of these top news outlets argue no. They've taken these AI companies to court for what they call stealing. Now, that's a court case issue. The judges will review it. Other companies have taken a different approach, trying to broker a kind of profitable truce. The Associated Press and Disney, for example, striking licensing deals for how AI uses their work and to get some compensation. But those different approaches have something in common. Notice that both examples suggest there's got to be a limit that the AI shouldn't be able to just take all this material. that either they license it, which means it's not already theirs. That's why they're paying a licensing fee, or as the New York Times says, they might be stopped from doing it. And yet they're already doing it. And remember, 99% of creators living or, of course, dead don't have a standing company and a bunch of lawyers to go wage these battles over time. They're material, the online posts, your personal data, past writings. It's all just scraped up. And so it's a problem that impacts billions of people, which means it might need a broader system than just you going to court. This would be a classic example where the government could come in. I mentioned that Napster case, Congress did step up, passing new laws and protections after artists and companies pressed for them, testifying and the rest. Now, that led to systems that actually got creators paid. This one, this problem here with the AI, is much more vast. Now, one proposal would be to actually value all of the public contributions, that includes you, by having the U.S. government actually use its power

to transfer a stake of any of the companies that have taken from you the people and give that stake, basically credit the people. So you value the past intellectual property through a sort of a one-time tax or a sovereign wealth fund. I will introduce the American AI sovereign wealth fund act. It would give the American people a direct role in determining the future of this technology. The time has come to reclaim what was stolen from us. Since AI is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity. This is really happening. This is a real idea. And if you think about all the stuff Trump's getting away with that is so extreme outside of the norms, well, while this would be a big, different approach to tech and money, power in this country than we might be used to, is it any more radical than some of what's already passing for daily norms in Washington right now? Bernie Sanders also cites tax experts like Professor Bearer Friend, who stresses that this original material. was, of course, rightfully the public's property before it was already scraped from the Internet. Now, all this new technology can feel dizzyingly complicated. But it does kind of boil down to the discourse we've been having for a few years now about what's real versus fake tricks online. To paraphrase a great poet, Jay Cole, question, how many fake in these streams? getting their plays from machines. I can see behind the smoke of mirrors. Some ain't really as big as they seem. I never say anything. Everybody got their thing. Some want to make millions. Others just make memes. Never was one for the bragging boasts, and I guess I was hoping the music, or in this case any of your work, would speak for itself, but the people want everything else. I want to bring in... The expert we just cited, Professor Jeremy Bear of Friend, George Washington University expert on tax, among other policies. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's terrific to be here. Great to have you. Explain why this is fair. So my colleague, Professor Sarah Polts and I have this article sharing the algorithm. And there we make the case that systemically important AI firms should pay a tax. That's not a hard case to make. I think everyone thinks AI should pay taxes. But we argue they should pay a tax with stock rather than cash. And the gist of it is that we are all entitled to a share in these companies quite literally. And that's because their value is built on what we already contributed to them. Some taxes you say, well, it's like a big macro thing. You said you've worked with Senator Warren. She used to say, oh, well, those roads, you benefit. But that's kind of a pretty theoretical version, right? This seems very tangible that they've scraped it all. So they really already took something.

Right. This harm has already happened, and it's part of why we need to do something sooner rather than later. Because it's not just about we're going to lose jobs later, we're going to lose revenue later. This harm has already happened. This scraping of all of our data has happened. And really, anyone who has left a trace anywhere on the internet. So a post you left on a... you know, a sibling's web page, that's in there. That's now part of it. And you're not really going to be able to follow up and try to file a lawsuit and get repaid. Right. It's just in the machine. So I mentioned the legal history. When they used to first post movies online, people would say, well, we're just sharing it, right? Sharing economy. And eventually it was established that that was stealing. Do you have a view? Because here they argue, the AI companies argue, well, they take such tiny bits of everything. They never took the whole book. They just took every seventh Hemingway word. Do you have a view? Is it fair to say right now that this is stolen or do we not know yet? I'm comfortable saying stolen in my written work with Professor Polts. We've used the word stolen. Of course, it's a huge trove of material. So there could be specific cases within there. And we have a private law system. We have lawsuits and they are going on. It's not like we don't think there should be lawsuits. It's just there's no possible way that the system that has been built actually anticipated the scale of theft that's happened. And so we need a different tool to address something at this level. What would the average American get or benefit out of this if we actually had the imagination or the leadership in Congress to do this? Right. So a tax paid with stock rather than cash that was applied to, let's say, just the largest AI firms, even if that tax was only at 10%, it would raise over a trillion dollars. within a fiscal quarter. So it would lower people's taxes or they would get a one time. Well, they could, yeah, and then then the fund can decide, Congress can decide how they want to distribute that. It could just be a check in the mail. Yeah. If they wanted to. Do you think the J. Cole Bar is applied? Well, it's funny. I'm sure he probably has a lawsuit in the mix right now, too, but I think he would support this, you know, this proposal. I hope so. Look, I cannot speak for him. Oh, yeah. But he voices something that, again, depending on your reference point, we all have felt one way or the other, which is, well, plagiarism is just the softest way to put it. As you say, if it's stolen, if it's fake. then why should these companies be valued at trillions of dollars? Because without this stuff, they would be what? Nothing. And tax is the tool we use to share what we have as a society. And that is principally what tax policy is. It's about sharing. And I think that's the challenge right here. We have some tech billionaires. Do they want to share? And a lot of what they've taken is already ours anyway. And tax is a tool that could, you know, share it with the public. Yeah. Well, you've been really inside this.

Of course, Senators citing you because of the work you and your colleagues have done, so we wanted to hear from an expert. Thank you, Jeremy Bearer, friend. Appreciate it. Quick break. There's still counting votes in California, and we have that and a midterms update. Next. There's been primaries and midterm news this week. They're still counting ballots in California. And now we have developments in the race for Maine's Senate. The Democratic candidate, Graham Platner, has now faced this reporting from the New York Times of several women who dated Graham Platner. Three described him as volatile and unsettling in the context of these relationships. The Times reporting, one said he regularly grabbed her by the shoulders, hard enough to leave marks. and on one occasion yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument and she wanted to stay in the cab. The Times notes that she is a conservative activist. She asserts that her political views have nothing to do with her choice to come forward. During one argument, she tells the paper, he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom, and held the door close from the other side so she couldn't get out. She alleges that Graham Platner knew when they were dating years ago that his tattoo was a Nazi symbol. Graham Platner has denied knowing that the tattoo had that association. And in response to the story, he says he was, quote, self-medicated with alcohol and was far from a perfect boyfriend, not a total denial of the other allegations apart from the tattoo. He also says that he takes responsibility for any characterization though beyond that is false and I believe politically motivated. Maine's primary election is next Tuesday, and we should know Graham Platner will be on MS now at 8 p.m. Eastern tonight for an interview with our colleague Chris Hayes. We'll be right back.

We end tonight with a question for you. Do you think creators, regular people, anyone who's ever posted online, should be credited and compensated for that if other companies are making not only tens of billions, but maybe even a trillion dollars? You can tell me online. I am at different social media, whatever one you like. We got Blue Sky, which is new school. We got the old school ones there at Ari Melburgh. That's my name, at Ari Melburgh. Tell me your answer. You can also always connect with me by typing in Ari Melbert.com into your browser, Ari Melbaugh. I've heard from some of you in each of these ways, whatever works, but also if you're like, hey, I'd rather stay offline. That's cool, too. I'll meet you back here at 6 p.m. Eastern tomorrow. We can always connect that way. Thanks for watching. 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. just basically shut that down and allowed the administration to do what it wants. That's this week on Why Is This Happening? Search for Why Is This Happening wherever you're listening right now and follow.