Trump orders ‘less shackled’ new spy chief to GUT intelligence agencies

Watch Disclosure Day at Home Now with exclusive bonus features. If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you? Would that frighten you? Well, now the truth belongs to 7 billion people in an original event film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Kep starring Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Coleman Domingo. Find Disclosure Day on major digital platforms now with no subscription required, also in theaters. 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. Tonight on All-In. There are some allegations in this piece that I just want to be kind of unequivocal about are simply not true. The primary allegations shaking up the midterms. There are things in this that I absolutely will take responsibility for. Tonight is Graham Platner carries on the unbelievable stakes of this Senate race and the reaction on the ground in Maine. The biggest difference between the Graham Platner situation and the Donald Trump situation, one person says, yeah, that's wrong. I need to do better. The other person is like, what are you talking about? And the president says the quiet part out loud about Bill Pulte's promotion. He's a very smart guy, and you may find out some things about the rigged elections. And why the threat of Trump family corruption is igniting protests across Albania. I'm working on an incredible project with my husband in the Mediterranean. It's massive in scale. When all ends, starts right now.

Good evening from New York. I'm Chris Hayes. We begin tonight with some election news out of California, where the AP now projects that former HHS Secretary and Attorney General Javier Brousera has advanced to the general election for governor. It's a big deal. On the other side of the country, you are looking live at a Graham Platner rally in Bar Harbor, Maine. Congressman Ro Khanna of California is stumping with the Democratic Senate candidate you see there tonight. In front of a large crowd, we should say Graham Platner received a standing ovation. He thanked Maine voters for having his back. And this, of course, his first big public rally with the primary on Tuesday, since the New York Times reported that three of Graham Platner's ex-girlfriends found his behavior unsettling. It included allegations by a woman named that could not be corroborated by the Times, a woman named Lindsay Fifeield. who has spent much of her life as a professional conservative operative living in the BC area. Fivefield said Graham Platner was rough with her. On two occasions, specifically, an allegation he yanked her out of a cab by her wrist, an allegation he twisted her arm, shoved her in a bedroom, and closed the door from the other side. She says it hurt. She said she was not injured. They never punched or hit her. During tonight's remarks, Graham Platner decried what he said are politically motivated and false allegations. Of course, last night, we had Plater on this very program for an exclusive interview where he unequivocally denied those claims. There are some allegations in this piece that I just want to be kind of unequivocal about are simply not true. Anything alleging physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was, these are the statements of someone who's politically motivated. In this piece, there's a lot about my struggling, not being a good boyfriend, certainly self-medicating with alcohol. And I've been very upfront since the beginning of this campaign. That was a pretty dark period of my life after I came back from my combat service. And that's what that kind of life looks like. And so there are things in this that I absolutely will take responsibility for and have been speaking about openly for months now. As I said, I just want to be clear, Fifield says that Clatner never hit or punched her. There were three other ex-girlfriends who also spoke to Times, who described Graham Platner a supportive boyfriend, a gentle giant. Graham Platner has been very open about his past struggles with both alcoholism and PTSD after multiple combat tours. And in fact, the story of his redemption arc, as he presents it, his transformation, is kind of at the core of his campaign message to Maine voters. which is what popped up when MS Now correspondent Kevin Fry went actually to Ellsworth in Maine to talk to voters. That's what I... genuinely appreciate about Graham Platner is this story of reclamation of who he was 15 years ago sent into a war that we asked him to do horrific things and he saw horrific things and he became a really broken hard person at that time and that's not who he is now so people are bringing up stuff from 15 years ago

We did that to him. And he has healed from that, in large part, from what I see, with his wife, Amy, helping him through. So if the stories that are horrific that people are bringing up are from 15 years ago, they're not relevant. That, to me, is the biggest difference between the Graham Platner situation and the Donald Trump situation. One person says, yeah, that's wrong. I need to do better. The other person is like... What are you talking about? That's not that bad. Does he have a problematic past? Yes. But I would rather have a redemption story than somebody telling you how wonderful they are, how much research they do, and yet they still make the wrong decision for the people of Maine. I desperately don't want to have Susan Collins as my senator. I feel that she is... She says that she cares about Maine, yet she's shutting down our rural hospitals. She voted for the war in Iran. People here have to drive incredible distances because it's Maine, and they're paying a fortune for gas. That last woman, I think, really gets to the heart of the choice for Maine voters. A lot of them have reservations about Graham Platner's past as character. They think he's probably done and said some pretty bad things. A lot of them also really do not want to send Susan Collins back to the Senate. And I think voters are increasingly aware of the fact that Susan Collins is really a party line Republican. She has been a rubber stamp for the Trump agenda during both terms. I also think Senate Republicans realize she's in trouble, right? I mean, this is a state that Donald Trump has lost three times. She managed to win in 2020. But she's got a real tough road ahead of her. So yesterday, this is important to understand how this goes. So Senate controls a majority, right? They're doing this reconciliation bill where they've got a bunch of votes. And yesterday, the Senate majority basically staged a sham vote intentionally, like a show, like a little play, where she and a couple of other Republicans also up for re-election got to cast meaningless votes against Donald Trump's $1.8 billion slush fund for insurrectionists. Everyone knew that it was doomed to fail from the beginning. They weren't actually going to vote it down because Republicans don't actually want to cross the leader of their party. And which is weird because on this particular thing, the slush fund, the Trump administration says it's not going forward. So it should be easy to. put in legislation that says it can't happen, right? We're all in agreement. But they don't actually want to borrow your money from being stolen from the government to pay off cop beaters and seditionists. And so what they do is Susan Collins gets to pretend to be independent when the states don't actually matter. But this is the other part of this. When everything is on the line, well then, Susan Collins is a reliable vote. She's demonstrated she was always stand with Trump, of course, voting for the big, ugly bill that that woman mentioned that has led to hospital closures. And also, after all, she was the key vote, the key vote to get Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court.

Which is why we are here where we are. Which is why the eyes of the country are on a state of about 1.4 million people. Because if Susan Collins is reelected, remember this. She will continue to rubber stamp the Trump agenda. And all that means, and mark my words, there will be more chances for her to install right-wing justices in the court. to help cement conservative control of that institution for another generation. Samuel Alito is 76 years old. He is all but confirmed he's retiring soon. Clarence Thomas is 77. He's already threatened to quit at least once. If Republicans hold the Senate, it seems essentially assured that both men will announce their retirement. Donald Trump will replace them with ideological zealots four decades their junior. And Susan Collins will Hammond Hall about how she concerned she is, and then she will vote to confirm them anyway, as she did with Brett Kavanaugh. So that is what the stakes are in the Senate race. Grand Plattenor will almost certainly win his primary on Tuesday. Janet Mills, who was running against him, suspended her campaign. He will be set up to run against Susan Collins in the fall, barring some big change. And that's why the eyes of the country are on Maine tonight. Melissa Murray is a professor at NYU Law School, co-host of the strict scrutiny podcast, along with Leah Litman and my wife Kate Shaw, Max Rose, former Democratic Congressman from here in New York, and they joined me now. Man, it is wild, Melissa, to watch that. I had not watched that Susan Collins tape in a while. It's really... So this is what I'll say. As you know, I testified against Brett Kavanaugh when he was a nominee for the Supreme Court. I testified before the allegation. On his legal record and his professional. On his legal record around reproductive rights, which by itself was enough to, I think, raise real concerns about his fidelity to precedent and his antipathy for Roe versus Wade. And I remember being asked if I would make myself available to speak to key senators. And it was obvious that... I was to speak to Susan Collins. Right. She would agree. We never got that chance to speak. She didn't agree. But I just remember, like, the whole testimony was set up for her. It was an audience of one. Again, truly an audience of when everyone knew she was a pivotal vote that she had to be convinced she had concerns. But somehow in the face of the evidence I presented of his record as a judge on the D.C. Circuit, her concerns were assuaged. And then later, when Christine Blasey Ford raised her quite significant concerns. It seemed to be of no moment. And as you saw, she happily flanked by her few female Republican colleagues was happy to go along with this. And you're right. She will be another vote when the Supreme Court is in a position to gain new members. You've been in Congress and you know what this, this sort of, I mean, you were in the House and not the Senate, but it works similarly there. And you sort of catch and release, right, when they're doing the whip count of like, we have enough to pass this. You guys can go vote your conscience.

You know, this is the classic sort of sham thing. And I think what it hammers home, which is that who controls the majority? It's really, particularly in our age, is the defining feature. It's the whole game in town right now. And look, there aren't a lot of Senate seats up for grabs. Right. I'm not willing to talk about anything but beating Susan Collins. So, you know, like, I'm done. I'm just going to say you are in line with, I think, where a lot of Democratic voters are. We're a new show, so we talk about a lot of things, but continue. But we're all just done with this, okay? We're not going to be distracted. We're not going to be divided. Susan Collins, you rightfully highlighted, has been a rubber stamp for not just Donald Trump, but for all of Donald Trump's enablers. Donald Trump has consistently been able to say, well, the supposed moderate, Susan Collins stands up for me. And it's not just the votes. It's also her abject inability over the course of more than a decade to hold him a count, to practice any degree of oversight. The guy is the most corrupt. president in the history of this country. She's concerned. She's been doing, you know, research. So we're not talking about anything else. We're not going to get distracted or divided. It is about beating her and taking back the Senate. Well, and that, I mean, I think that's why, to your point, right? Like, the thing that is stirring the nightmares of Democrats, I think, in Maine, who really want to beat Susan Collins is like, Will it end up being not about Susan Collins, right? Because I think fundamentally in that state, if you look at the polling on Donald Trump, you look at what it is like to be a multi-term incumbent right now. It is not a favorable atmosphere. That said, Susan Collins, with the whole like hand-wringing concern thing, is a very adept politician who has kind of Houdini herself out of, you know, sort of similar to how Mansion did in West Virginia, like election after election. No, this is exactly right. I mean, Graham Platner is the obstacle that Republicans have to remove. And I think that helps explain why there is so much attention on him, why there's going to be so much attention on this race. The Republicans need to keep the Senate in order for this party to continue its expansive vision. of executive power to continue controlling the courts up to make this conservative supermajority a super super majority. And right now, the fact of the Democrats perhaps getting control of both houses of Congress is a massive impediment to that. And they're trying to neutralize this. And in any way they can. Susan Collins, I think she definitely wants to do her Houdiniak. She has done it before. I think if I were on Graham Platner's team, I would be playing that tape from the Senate over and over and over again. If this court midwifed the end of reproductive rights, then Susan Collins midwifed this court. You know, that's a great point. It's also the case that, you know, they have done an interesting job. You know, one of the things about Trump is he's totally undisciplined, but there's been one way he's been very disciplined. And I think in an interesting fashion, which is somewhere in that kind of, I think, corroding brain of his is.

Abortion is the hot stove, don't touch it. So think about how forward-facing they've been on everything. Anything they can get do, they can get away with. They haven't. They won't touch it. They won't touch it. The third rail for them. They know that American women, they don't. I mean, the only reason, like, they were able to deal with it in the 2024 election is that there were all of those. And there are all those direct democracy initiatives at the state level where Republican women could vote for abortion rights and then push the ticket for cheaper eggs or whatever they were. doing. Right. That's a really good point. So I think there's also this, you know, as we move into the sort of national environment, that this is, this also is. on an issue area that Democrats have an enormous advantage, right? Like, even right now, if you're going to run in Staten Island again, like you would have that on your side, even in a plus 30 Trump district. It's a politically salient issue, but it still matters who's on the ballot, right? And nominating, the Democrats nominate like a Susan Collins light. Right. It doesn't work. Okay? That's interesting. It's a midterm. We tried it. It doesn't work. Right. It's a midterm election. You win midterm elections with base exuberance, right? You turn out more people than the other side and their people stay home. Let's just talk about political power here. This guy just forced a sitting governor to say, I don't even want to stand for the primary election. 1.4 million people. The governor probably knows everybody. Probably did a favor for half of them. I mean, it's a very, very small type of place. It's like two Staten Island's, right? She knows everybody, and she dropped out. Right. That's real political power here, right? And we shouldn't. We shouldn't scoff at it at all. I think this is an important point because I've been talking to people about this, you know, over the course of this. And, you know, one of the things when you talk to people in Maine, They will tell you, the reason this has broken the way it is is because he did 10 events a day, four weeks, and people were showing up and getting so jazzed about his. And it was like, that was it. And you can't, there's all this like Sunday, Monday morning quarterbacking of like, well, this person should have run this. Like, those people didn't run. Like, that guy ran, Janet Mills ran, and then didn't run a very good campaign. It's also the populist energy right now. I mean, people are genuinely hurting. This is a guy who's, like, very unabashed working class roots. He's an oyster man. He did tours of duty in the military. He had issues that he overcame. I mean, I think those are things that the electorate finds resonant right now in a time when a lot of people are really hurting and want hope. Yeah. And I do, I also wonder, one of the things I think is going to be really interesting to see. We'll see this play out in Texas with Tel Rico and Ken Paxton is.

The degree to which you have a kind of broader kind of anti-income, anti-establishment dynamic, you know, the sort of, I think, conventionalism in Texas is a Ken Paxton's a worst candidate than John Cornyn, and I think there's a lot to that. There's also part of me it's like, maybe better not to be a sitting senator. Right? In that, like, Ken Paxton can be like, well, I'm going to go, you know, I'm going to go charge the hill too in a way that, you know, Susan Collins can't. credibly do that or husted in Ohio, like being a sitting senator, I think is going to be a tough position to be in. Melissa Murray, Max Rose. Great to have you both here. Thanks for coming. Nice next to gear. Coming up, the disturbing public instruction from Donald Trump to his new acting intel chief. Next. Today, the president announced he's putting his unqualified stooge of a henchman in charge of our national intelligence apparatus so that he can conduct an ideological purge of the intelligence community. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal today, Donald Trump said he expects Bill Pulte, his newly installed acting director of national intelligence, to begin firing people. As the acting director, Bill Pulte would be, quote, less shackled, according to Trump. He'll have more power. Power to gut the intelligence community to do what it seems Tulsi Gabbard would not. And it's an acting position. It's not a permanent. He's not going to be permanent because, you know, I don't think he'd want to be permanent. But he's a very smart guy. And you may find out some things about the rigged elections, et cetera, et cetera. Oh, oh, you hear that part? The rigged elections? Donald Trump's favorite pastime next to ballroom construction and home renovations is trying to meddle in U.S. elections unlawfully. John Brennan's an MS now senior national security intelligence analyst served as director of CIA under President Barack Obama. He joins me now. First is someone who spent his entire life in the U.S. intelligence community. Your reaction when you first saw the news about Bill Pulte as the acting director of national intelligence. I thought it was a parody account. I didn't think it was real because not only is Bill Pulte unqualified, he has no experience whatsoever in the intelligence of national security realm. Also, his tenure at the Federal Housing and Finance Authority, I think demonstrated that he doesn't, in fact, deserve to get security clearances because he abused his authority and his access to personal records there for partisan purposes. And certainly, in all previous administrations, if he applied for a security clearance, he would have been turned down for it because it demonstrates he is not trustworthy and he cannot be trusted with this nation's most important national security secrets. So again, I don't think Donald Trump wants somebody qualified in there who actually values the importance of intelligence because clearly Donald Trump totally disregards any intelligence input that he gets. But he also wants somebody who is unprincipled. and lacks any integrity so that Donald Trump can direct him to do whatever he wants him to do. And as you pointed out, looking for things that would try to buttress the false claims about rigged elections in 2020 or stolen elections in 2020.

He can take intelligence products, and he can selectively redact or release things to misrepresent the facts. And we've seen this happen before with Tulsi Gabbard and even John Rancliffe when he was DNI. So it is a very, very sort of dangerous nomination or appointment because, again, Bill Pulte does not have any of the credentials, capabilities, and I think most importantly, the integrity that is needed. to be at the top of our 18 intelligence agencies. You talked about clearance and the idea that he was, you know, abusing his access to mortgage documents, which it clearly seems like he did, to sort of gin up these pretextual referrals for, for prosecution. But it also strikes me. This is someone who, I'm not sure he could pass a vet, like, just on just his... background. This seems a little dangerous to have this person as the person who's at the top of this agency as a person who I don't know what's in his past. He's done some weird stuff in his past. He was like running some kind of scheme on Twitter where he was like DM me and I'll give you money and he was boosting meme stocks. And all of that seems like a real dangerous thing to have as a person who's the head of the national intelligence operatives. Well, it is, and it's certainly very much on brand because Donald Trump has appointed a number of individuals who are not just unqualified, but also equally unprincipled or untrustworthy. And the signal it sends to the workforce, the intelligence community, is that Donald Trump doesn't care about their work, their profession, and the importance of national security. And the signal it sends... to our allies and partners overseas is that the intelligence community under the Trump administration is something that is not going to be valued. It's not going to be supported. And the signal it sends to, you know, Mr. Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un, other individuals, and Iran is that the intelligence process is not going to be robust. It's not going to be strong. It's not going to be capable under a Bill Pulte. who, again, as an acting director of national intelligence, has enormous authority and enormous power and can access this country's most sensitive secrets. You know, this idea about firing people, it was very, in some ways, useful for Trump to speak about this so openly in this interview with the Wall Street Journal and then today. So Trump told the journal he wants Pulsi to approach a job similarly to the way Education Secretary Linda McMahon has managed her agency, which has been essentially with a mandate to disband it. That's her mandate. In fact, they talked about getting rid of the Department of Education. Odia and I should maybe even be terminated. We'll make that decision. And he's also talking about he will have latitude to fire people. What do you understand is the agenda here when he says the point is to go in and fire a lot of people? It is to neutralize the intelligence community and its capabilities. And clearly, again, this is so similar to what other authoritarian around the world. Yeah.

have done in terms of an authoritarian playbook. Gain, gain control of the intelligence security services, get them, get rid of anybody who poses a threat to you, just like he's doing in the media through his cronies, just like he is doing with the courts and the Department of Justice. He is trying to control the instruments of power, and he's using every tool that he has. to go after his enemies and to control these institutions of governance that really have been the pillars of our democracy in our republic for generations. So again, the damage he can do and the damage that Bill Pulte can do in 210 days in terms of the length of his potential tenure is enormous, especially when we're at war with Iran. And we have challenges with Russia and Ukraine and China and other things. John Brennan, who is director of CIA under President Barack Obama. It's always great to hear your thoughts on this. Thank you so much. Thanks, Chris. Still ahead. The Trump Family Development igniting international backlash. People in the streets. That's next. Have you ever wanted to share your opinions with MS Now about our TV programs, podcasts, live events, and more? Now's your chance to have your voice heard. Join the MSNow Insights community at MS. Now slash insights. I want to take you for a minute to a truly beautiful place, place I just learned about, in fact. It's called Sazon. It's a small island off the coast of Albania, covering about two square miles. On a nice day, you can even see it from the heel in Italy's boot. And it is a sight. Clear blue water, sandy beaches, rocky cliffs, rainforest, even a few majestic peaks, and 40 miles of hiking trails. The island's location and climate make it quite unique. It explodes with a diversity of animal and plant life that you simply cannot find anywhere else. It's almost untouched by people. And to keep it that way, Albania designated the beaches and the waters around Cazan as a maritime national park in 2010. The mainland coast across from the island is one of the last wild river deltas in all of Europe. It's also protected under law. Now, a small number of mostly local tourists travel out to see the flamingos and the pelicans, their loggerhead turtles and monk seals, and dozens more endangered species, according to local naturalists. Back in 2021, Cezan Island was discovered by a pair of seafaring explorers who would ultimately claim it as their own. I'm working on an incredible project with my husband in the Mediterranean. It's massive in scale. I think that's an understatement. Can you explain? There's no power on this island. You're building everything from scratch. It's an unbelievable, beautiful 1,400 hectare private island in the middle of the Mediterranean. We were on a friend's boat.

And we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that's how we found it. We swam to the islands. We went on a hike barefoot all the way up to the top. And we were just captivated. And it stayed with us ever since. Over the course of many years, we developed the opportunity to help realize its potential and transform it, but with a lot of restraint and care, because the land is so beautiful, that really the architecture has to be fully integrated into it, almost rise from it. You know, it's not even a business for me, despite the scale of it. Not only the island, but we have five. miles of beachfront directly across from the island, this beautiful peninsula with a lagoon on one side, the ocean on the other, beautiful white sand beaches. For me, this is, it feels more like a challenge than anything else, the culmination of all of my experience in real estate, all of my travel. It's just, it's so beautiful, isn't it? Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka discovered that island. She fell in love with it. She's not the only one. Her husband, Jared Kushner, told the Guardian last year that he too was left speechless when he first saw Sazon, quote, I was just very surprised that something like that existed in the middle of Mediterranean and hadn't been developed. So the billionaire members of Donald Trump's family thought, why shouldn't we develop it? Tastefully, of course. So these are actually just internal early rendering. So we're in the process of doing the master planning now. This is beautiful. Yeah, this is an aside of a mountain. Yeah. It's going to be extraordinary. Here is that extraordinary vision in action, according to it videos posted by local activists. Bulldozers, dump trucks, and razor wire are already ripping up the mainline coastline. And it is government-protected land. Again, it is against the law to develop there, unless the Albanian government changed its mind for some reason. Well, just a few weeks after Donald Trump won the 2024 election, the government of Albania overrode its own environmental laws and greenlit the Kushners to develop the coastline and a chunk of Zazan Island with hotels, apartments, visas, and a marina. Jared Kushner's firm has said the plan is to build a five-star eco-resort community on the island and to be, quote, and I quote here, faithful and considerate of the environment. The whole project is through Jared Kushner's private equity company, which is, of course, flush with billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and other Middle East sovereign wealth funds, money that was invested with him after he left the White House the first time. Do you remember those are ones he was soliciting while also advising the president of Middle East diplomacy? On Thursday, Albania's prime minister defended the deal in Trump-like terms. There is not such a thing like a Trump family Ireland. There is not such a thing like the family of the American president taking over protected areas where flamingos will be killed by them. The project is not yet there. The environmental impact is being wet.

You understand? And let me finish. End. Yeah, go ahead. Let me finish. What is this? What's wrong with you? Let me finish. There's no need to be disrespect. I'm asking you go ahead, Prime Minister. Finish your thought. Please let me finish because you brought political and you said there is anti-corruption investigation. It's fake news. Endemic corruption is fake news in Albania, says the Albanian Prime Minister. His office has also said the country should be proud that such a renowned American entrepreneur shows his interest in investing in Albania. Many Albanians disagree. For almost a week now, thousands of people have been gathering the streets across Albania clashing with police to protest this giveaway to the Trumps, to Jared Ivanka, by one of the poorest countries in Europe. To them, it's more of the kind of cronyism that people in the post-communist bloc have been fighting for decades. But now instead of Moscow, the stench of that corruption is wafting in from the inner circle of the president that has already profited off his position to the tune of billions of dollars. And this isn't a mere crypto scam or an AI bubble investment. It is a land grab. It is a physical theft of a place that's so brazen and entitled, it could only be done by colonial conquistadors. or by the family of Donald Trump. 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.

As we approach the weekend after another incomprehensibly long week in our nation's political life, I just, I got to take a moment to play you this clip from a press conference yesterday in the Oval Office. You will see the EPA chief, Lee Zeldin, speaking to reporters while standing beside Donald Trump in the Oval Office. So many Americans, clean, beautiful coal is their source of heat, of energy, of warmth, of a job, an economy, a community, a family. And for too long, you saw a Democrat. PA, for example, was regulation after regulation after regulation, trying to strangulate out of existence, coal, to destroy it. Enter extreme. Who want to have affordable access to energy? The Democrats were running for power to sit at this desk and to leverage that power to destroy these communities. Philip Bump is senior data editor and columnist for C.T. Insider, Lisa Rubens, and MS Now Senior Legal Reporter. They both join me now. I saw that yesterday and I do feel like we are getting so acclimated to the absurdity of this man falling asleep. in public, in front of everyone, and then his eye shooting up the way that my dogs does when I startle her coming down the stairs. And I really think, like, I feel like I'm losing my mind. It's like, that is not, how is that the President of the United States, Philip, standing in, sitting in front of one, this is now a daily thing. Look, look, he's asleep. The man is asleep. He's not resting his eyes. Yeah, I mean, it's, it not only is it bizarre, I don't understand why he keeps doing this, right? Like, he, this is constantly something that's drawing attention to himself. I just stand up. This is one recommendation I might offer him. But it's also sort of fascinating to see the extent to which this has become a litmus test, right? It is impossible for his supporters to say anything other than no, no, no, you're wrong. He's not looking tired at all, which, but, you know, it's, yeah, Orwellian is overblown, but it very much is you have to deny the evidence of your eyes. Like, Dude's fallen asleep and maybe he should not put himself in that position. Yes, I have to say appearing to fall asleep. He's appearing to fall asleep. I want to ask you about a few legal things that are going on. Okay. Because I have you here. You had some reporting today about, as we just at the top of the show, we talked about the AP has said that Javier Brasser is going to go on to the general election, and now we're waiting to see who else will be there, Hilton and Tom Steyer. We know that California counts slowly. We've gone through this whole rigumeral. Ballots come in. There has been an effort in right-wing websites to sort of gin up conspiracy theories, identical to what we saw in 2020, what we seen, right? What happened today with the Department of Justice in Los Angeles? Well, the Department of Justice sent an AUSA, an assistant United States attorney, to go to the ballot processing center and take a tour and be an observer. And theoretically,

That is one step toward opening an investigation. And in fact, the guy who is acting as, he's not even the acting U.S. attorney right now, but the man who is functionally filling that job right now, Billis Daly, has held a press conference saying they're opening investigations into multiple irregularities into the California elections. What I thought was really interesting is after this happened, two other things happened. One, California Attorney General Rob Bonta's office said, look, we have feet on the ground too. We are watching this. In other words, they're not in tandem. with the DOJ. They are watching the DOJ. It's a monitor of the monitor, right? Totally. But the other thing that I think is interesting is that the Los Angeles County Republican Party issued a tweet. This is interesting. They had said in their first paragraph, we all understand that counting the votes in California takes time. We have been through this. When the Republican Party of California is saying we get that this is a process that takes time, that's essentially saying to Billis Daley, hey, back off. This is not what you think it is. Stop trying to make this 2020 redux. Now, we should say the DOJ showing up there is completely, that never happens. There's no official role for them. Like, this is completely a Trumpian thing. And I also want to point out one other thing. The AUSA, who was there on scene captured by Fox News, joined the Department of Justice in March of this year. Now, he is an experienced lawyer. He was a partner in a law firm for 15 plus years. But he is not a person who exactly has. this portfolio of election-related experience, right? No. You have to question why a person of that experience is showing up at the ballot processing center in Los Angeles County today. And of course, I mean, what we now have seen to, Trump, I mean, because Trump is sort of always screaming into his pillow, which is truth social, like, you don't get the kind of the uninterrupted stream of insanity that used to when everyone was on Twitter. But, like, he's just been posting about this constantly. There's an entire, like, right-wing ecosystem of people. you know, completely baselessly talking about this. But you've now got the Department of Justice there. You got the announcement of Todd Blanche, which became official today, and he wants Bill Pulte as the Director of National Intelligence. He says, again, I'm quoting him here, to find out about the rigged election. Like, it seems clear to me as day that it doesn't mean they're going to be successful, that they are putting together the pieces so that they can try to do something when the midterms come. No, I think that that is a fair assumption. I think it's also important to note that even before we started seeing the vote counting in California, just last week, maybe the week before, there actually was an arrest that was made of someone who, I believe, had paid people to sign, to register to vote because they were a paid signature gather and they were trying to get people to register to vote. And that became a big thing on the right. That became a big thing. Maria Bartoromo on Fox News, Fox Business, was saying, oh, look at this. This proves the fraud. John Solomon, who is a reporter who now was going to work at the White House, was talking all about how this shows the fraud in California. That predated the election. So now they're building on that. They've already germinated this idea that California is not trustworthy. It is impossible to believe, given all the pieces that you just outlined, that there is not intentionality here, particularly given. the fact that California just redrew all of its house districts. If they're able to, on election night, say, hey, we got to shut this whole thing down and deal with the election day totals, maybe they can scrape some of those house seats back despite what the voters actually wanted. Yes, that is, I mean, you articulated what I think is the worst case scenario, right? And the one that seems like the most obvious. And again, remember Trump did this in 2020. The whole rigged election was like these dumps came in late. There's another big legal development today on the slush fund.

Which I think is very interesting. Now, quite notably, the Senate Republicans declined to put anything in writing to bar the Sush Fund. In fact, went through great pains to engineer a set of sham votes that would avoid it going into the law, going into their law to ban it because they could. They could easily have done that. And, you know, Trump would have to sign it or he wouldn't. You'd veto it. Today, the Department of Justice was before the judge on the slush fund, and they said what? They submitted actually two briefs today in two different cases regarding the slush fund, and they essentially say both of the cases are moot. That's their principal argument. These cases are dead because Todd Blanche stood in front of a House Appropriation Subcommittee earlier this week, and when asked by Congresswoman Grace Meng, is the slush fund, in fact, something that you're dropping? He confirmed, we are dropping the slush fund. Will you put that in writing, Mr. Todd Blanche was for a follow-up question, and he refused to commit to doing anything. He literally said, I'm not putting anything in writing, if I'm recalling. correctly. Yeah, I don't remember what the exact words he used are, and I don't want to misrepresent them, but at the very least, it was declining to commit to put anything in writing. And now they're saying it's moot. That's basically the legal equivalent of saying this case is over because you should just trust my verbal representations. I've never seen a court declare mootness on that basis before, nor do I think it's going to do so now. It seems to me, Philip, there's a real tell in the machinations of the Senate that we reviewed earlier in the hour to not actually kill this dead. And I just, again, there's a world of which like post midterms that's like, whoops, it's back. Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, I mean, but part of this is that very famous post-2020 election quote from the Republican strategist. Look, nothing's going to happen. Let's just humor him for a little bit, right? That has been sort of the standard operating procedure for, what, a decade, 11 years now? That is, it seems to the play here. Senate Republicans, Republicans broadly understand this is poison. This is the last thing they need before the midterm elections. But they also realize we don't want to make Donald Trump and his base mad before the midterm elections. The standing mode of the GOP right now is. how can I not make everyone mad at me, right? And so what they're doing here on a lot of these issues is doing just enough to keep the voters happy and just enough to keep Donald Trump from getting mad. And we end up in this position of stasis. And you're exactly right. Come to the beginning of the year, we'll see what happens. Philip up. Mr. Rubin, thank you both. We'll be right back.

That does it for All In. You can catch us every weeknight at 8 o'clock on MS now. Don't forget to like us on Facebook. That's facebook.com slash on with Chris. Can I just quickly say hello to you? For me, being a part of this place has always been about the people, not about the politics. Why are you holding this sign? You ever been to a protest before? Be safe. People that we cover who allow us to enter their lives. How's everybody doing? Everybody doing okay? How long has been in line? I love human beings. To spend time connecting with them is the biggest blessing that I could ask for. From the field to the studio, Jacob is finding the heart of the story. Connect with Jacob Soberoff. Weekends at 10 a.m. Eastern on MS. now.