Pam Bondi OUT as attorney general

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Good evening from New York. I'm Antonia Hilton in tonight for Chris Hayes. Today we saw the Trump doctrine in full effect, both domestically and abroad. Here at home, Donald Trump fired his Attorney General Pam Bondi via social media post. He said Pam Bondi will, quote, be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector to be announced at a date in the near future. For now, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has been elevated to acting AG. MS now reports that there's already a short list to replace Pam Bondi in the long term, including current EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, former Fox News personality and current U.S. attorney, Janine Piro, Senator Eric Schmidt of Missouri, and Trump's former personal lawyer, Alina Habba, who is currently on the job market after an appeals court disqualified her from serving as the U.S. attorney for New Jersey. Now, to be clear, Trump did not fire Pam Bondi for any of the obvious reasons you might be thinking about at home. For example, he did not fire her for dismissing Epstein survivors, refusing to look them in the eye, or for public outbursts during congressional hearings. How many of Epstein's co-conspirators have you indicted? How many perpetrators are you even investigating? First.

You showed it. I find it. How many have you indicted? Excuse me. I'm going to answer the question. I answer my question. No, I'm going to answer the question the way I want to answer the question. No, you're going to answer the question the way I asked it. Chairman Jim Jordan, I'm not going to get in the gutter with these people. Pam Bondi is also not on the outs for her weaponization of the Justice Department for political ends. You may recall last year when Trump accidentally posted on social media of what seemed to be a private message to Pam Bondi, directly pressuring her to launch investigations into his political opponents, including James Comey, Senator Adam Schiff, and New York AG Letitia James. All three were indeed investigated. James Comey and James were even indicted, although those cases eventually fell apart at the seams. And ultimately, That is why Trump fired her, because she failed, because she was unable to wield the DOJ as a weapon against Trump's perceived enemies. As the Wall Street Journal reported back in January, quote, chief among Trump's grievances is what he sees as Pam Bondi's failure to quickly and effectively prosecute the investigators who had pursued him for years. It seems Trump wants an attorney general who will execute his agenda, facts and rule of law be damned, one who will prosecute anyone. He says he wants prosecuted, and who will successfully withhold the Epstein files in defiance of federal law and somehow accomplish all of that without creating a PR problem, turning it into his Achilles heel. That is really the core of the Trump doctrine. He kind of wants to govern like a king, and he needs someone who will wield the Justice Department like a sword. He did joke he might be a dictator on day one. The thing is, This is also how Trump conducts his foreign policy. It was the logic behind his decision, for example, to snatch the leader of a sovereign country, Venezuela, and throw him in a jail cell in Brooklyn, because he wanted more control of this hemisphere. It was that mission that Trump seems to be trying to emulate with his war now with Iran. Unilateral strikes, without permission from Congress, without consulting the UN or our NATO allies, in order to topple a foreign government and with zero regard for the rules of engagement. Rules, his defense secretary, of course, has been disregarding as woke. Often the only rules that Trump recognizes are the ones that he's set for himself. It is why, as we saw last night, he is still unable to clearly define the reasons we entered this war in the first place, apart from unsubstantiated claims about their imminent nuclear capabilities. It's also why he's unable to tell us a clear end game here. So the war is just dragging on for a few more weeks at least, but maybe even longer. Thirteen Americans have died, 3,500 Iranians, and about 1,500 others throughout the Middle East.

but they did it by many accounts badly. And they redacted things that shouldn't have been redacted, and they held back documents related to Donald Trump. They released the names of some victims and some victim information. And so a growing number of even Republicans in Congress were dissatisfied with her handling of the Epstein files. And that laid the groundwork for Donald Trump to fulfill his dissatisfaction with her handling of these prosecutions of his enemies. Ken Delanian, always good to have you. Thank you. Congressman Eric Swalwell, he's a Democrat from California. He serves on the Judiciary Committee and is a candidate for governor. He joins me now. Congressman, good to see you. As I'm sure you saw, Shelby Talcott from Semaphore was on with me earlier today, and she's been reporting that part of the reason Pam Bondi was fired is that Trump suspects that Pam Bondi leaked some information to you about an effort by the administration to release files from a 10-year-old closed investigation into your relationship with an alleged Chinese spy. Did Pam Bondi, or anyone in her orbit, leak information to you, Congressman? No, the Attorney General did not tip us off. No one in her orbit tipped us off. It was FBI agents who tipped off the Washington Post because they saw this effort by Kash Patel and Donald Trump to try and interfere in a California governor's race that I have been leading. And so, you know, what this shows, though, and what is quite concerning is that... Donald Trump is seeing ghosts. He's certainly gunning for us. And he wants an attorney general who's willing to break the law and weaponize the Department of Justice against his political enemies. That is what has to be intolerable. Not just for Pam Bondi, and I don't know the reasons why she was let go, but it has to be intolerable for anybody who sits in that chair and carries out what we hope to be the rule of law and a system of justice. So you say you don't know the reason that she was fired, but you know that it wasn't you. I have no idea. I'm curious, though. I'm curious though. But I'm in Donald Trump's head. And he's tweeting at me at 4.45 in the morning. Hey, I cannot get into Donald Trump's head. I would never ask that of you. But when you look at the facts at what we do know, at what my colleague, Kandelan, just laid out there, do you see this as a case that's more likely about... her failure to successfully go after his perceived enemies, like yourself, like Adam Schiff, like Letitia James, although they're trying another route to go after her right now. Or do you see this as an Epstein-related PR problem? It concerns me that it looks like it's the former, that she won't go after enough enemies. And by the way, most of them, I don't know many Americans who are saying, I need Donald Trump to go after more of his political enemies. They're already seeing him come for.

Adam Schiff, Letitia James, Lisa Cook, myself, the six members of Congress who spoke out about what the military can and cannot do. This is not what people want the president to prioritize. And I can't speak for... every American, but I can speak for Californians. And Californians want him to just focus on being a president who lowers the costs on day one. He hasn't lowered the costs on day one. He's been a dictator since day one. That's the only promise that he's kept. But people want him to just lower the costs. Do Democrats have much to celebrate? I've seen some of your colleagues putting out statements. I know they're certainly not shedding a tear for Pam Bondi today. We have now Todd Blanche, who some of the survivors that our team has spoken to, in some cases, they actually see him as even more responsible because he flew down, met with Ghislaine Maxwell. After that interaction, she, of course, got into better digs in this sort of prison camp. And he's sort of been side by side with her throughout that entire process. Then we know that Lee Zeldin is interested in the job. Janine Piro, I mean, is there a scenario in which, from the Democratic perspective, What comes next is even worse. That's right. This is not something to celebrate because we know Donald Trump's instincts here seem to be that he wants somebody to exercise maximum corruption against his political enemies. And what the deputy attorney general, an acting attorney general, should know is that Democrats are going to win the Congress this coming fall. Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia are going to have gavels, and they're going to have the subpoena power, and they're going to have the power of oversight and the power of the purse, Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, to fund Congress. It's all coming out. It always has in the history of our country, from J. Edgar Hoover to Watergate and Richard Nixon, to the last time Donald Trump was elected and acted so corruptly. It is all coming out. And by the way, we are at war. Fast prices are soaring. Iran seeks to attack us on the homeland, and the surveillance powers that the FBI uses expire on April 20. Democrats are telling me, over a hundred of them have told me that they will not reauthorize this if this is what they are doing with their law enforcement powers, that they will not give them those powers to protect the homeland if it's just going to be used to go after their political enemies. The stakes are high, and the consequences, though, for abuses of power come... This time next year will be even higher. Speaking of oversight, what do you think the chances are that she actually comes forward and goes before lawmakers and testifies under oath as she was supposed to do in just a matter of days? That should still happen. And this, you know, the Epstein, you know, debacle and the promises that the president made, you know, it's not going away. There's more questions now than, you know, have been answered from the multiple witnesses who have come forward and the lack of, I would say, compliance that the administration has shown on releasing the files. And Democrats are Democrats going to do if she simply does not?

I mean, our colleague, Michael Schnell, she spoke with staff for Chairman Comer. And it sounds like the suggestion seemed to be if she's not AG anymore, why would we have her show up? So what are Democrats going to do if she tries to wiggle out of this? Well, Democrats have on this issue been able to find Republican co-sponsors. You know, there are people like Thomas Massie and others who have worked with us to find justice for these victims. And the margins in Congress are so thin right now that you don't need to find too many. And that's, again, why I am telegraphing that when Democrats are in the majority, next year. It's all coming out. And so the brave FBI agents who came forward to, you know, make it clear what abuses were occurring against us in this governor's race last week. Come forward now. If you continue these abuses, you will be before Congress. Reputationally, you won't get through this. If you come forward, though, and you say no to these abuses and you tell the Congress and the whistleblower protections that you have, you will be protected. It's that clear right now. And, you know, the stakes of not coming forward for our democracy are so consequential and could end this 250-year experiment of freedom. All right, Congressman Eric Swalwell, good to see you. Thank you. You too. My pleasure. Coming up, what's Pam Bondi's replacement going to do that she could not? The sliding scale of Trump's Attorney General picks. That's next after this break.

Pam Bondi is out, but our saga is just the latest in a long downward spiral when it comes to Donald Trump's picks for Attorney General. You may recall his very first Attorney General back in 2017, Jeff Sessions, a name I haven't said in a while, recused himself from the DOJ's Russia investigation into Trump, and the president, he was big mad. The Attorney General says, I'm going to recuse myself. And I said, Why the hell didn't he tell me that before I put him in? How do you recuse yourself? When Donald Trump fired Jeff Sessions, he was ultimately replaced by William Barr, who had written a whole treatise on how to defend the president from the Mueller probe. But Barr would eventually resign, too, under pressure, after telling reporters that contrary to Trump's version of events, there was no significant fraud in the 2020 election. Trump's first AG choice for his second term? remember, was none other than Matt Bill Gates, who didn't even make it to a Senate vote. And so then Pam Bondi took the baton. until she apparently irked the president by mismanaging the Epstein case and her prosecutions of Trump's perceived enemies got stalled. So now we get Todd Blanche as acting attorney general. The president's former criminal defense attorney who moved Epstein accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, to a cushier prison after a conversation in which Maxwell made sure to emphasize that she never saw the president doing anything illegal. Donald Trump has run through a long list of maga loyalists in search of an attorney general who will do his complete bidding. And it raises the question, what exactly will Todd Blanche or his eventual successor do for Trump that Pam Bondi wouldn't or couldn't? Barbara McQuaid is a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan and the author of The Fix, Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-style government. Paul Butler is a former federal prosecutor specializing in public corruption and a Washington Post-contributing calmness. They both join me now. Great to have you guys. Barbara, I'll start with you and basically ask you the question that I just posed there. What is Todd Blanche going to be able to do? that Pam Bondi wasn't able to accomplish. And that's not to take up for her, but especially on the side of going after Trump's enemies. If the facts just aren't there, there's really no way to invent them. How is Todd Blanche or anyone else going to be able to work with that same reality but get a different result? Yeah, I'd be very surprised if Ty Todd Blanche were able to get a different result. I think maybe what Donald Trump is accomplishing by making the switch are a couple of things. One is he's received so much criticism from his base about the Epstein files.

he can perhaps hope to sweep it all away by blaming it all on Pam Bondi and putting someone else in the spot. This is just an acting spot, so it may be that Todd Blanche does not stay through the duration, but he has proven his bona fides to Donald Trump. As you say, he represented Donald Trump in his criminal cases, representing him not only in the hush money case in Manhattan, but also the federal cases involving the documents at Moralago and the election interference case. So Donald Trump, no doubt, has consequences. in him and his loyalty, which seems to be more important than anything else. But Todd Blanche is somebody who has, you know, declared war on the judiciary. He is someone who bragged to CPAC most recently about cleaning house and ridding the department of the people at the FBI and the prosecutors at DOJ who prosecuted those cases as well as the January 6 cases. But as you said, it wasn't for lack of trying that Pam Bondi was unable to convict Donald Trump's enemies. We saw her make efforts to charge James Comey and Letitia James, Jerome Powell at the Federal Reserve. Tim Walz and Jacob Frey in Minnesota and even members of Congress who did nothing more than record a video accurately reciting the law. But there are safeguards in the criminal justice system, in the grand jury and in judges and in the jury system. And I don't think Todd Blanche is going to have any more luck than Pam Bondi did in getting those guardrails to fail. Paul, moments ago, I asked Congressman Eric Swalwell about Democrats who have been waiting for weeks and weeks to get Pam Bondi in front of them to testify under oath. Now there seem to be some signals that some Republicans may, or some Republicans may try to help her get out of that now that it's, I guess, no longer her job. Do you think that Todd Blanche is a good substitute that they have a way to make sure she still shows up for a subpoena in her name? What do you think they have at their disposal to still make something happen here? Congress has the ability to subpoena anybody who's under the jurisdiction of the United States. Steve Bannon got to criminal trouble when he refused to obey a subpoena from Congress. And so, yes, she's being asked to testify about her response or lack thereof to the Epstein Files Transparency Act. She's got to come. She wasn't subpoenaed as the Attorney General. She was subpoenaed as Pam Bondi. And Antonio, I have to say, Congressman Eric Swalwell was a lot calmer than I would be based on today's news because we know that the president has been gunning for him. And if Pam Bondi was fired because she wasn't partisan enough, she wasn't willing to go.

all the way and do all the things to weaponize the Justice Department, then surely he is now looking for someone who will do that. So Eric Swalwell, Alvin Bragg, there are a number of people who've got to be concerned about today's developments, not because there's any evidence that they committed a crime, but that no longer is a barrier to being investigated and prosecuted by the Trump administration. Barbara, if Pam Bondi can be pushed out despite the fact that she has been so loyal, that she at least gave all these prosecutions a go, and there are still many in the works. I mean, they're coming back after Letitia James. First, it was mortgage fraud. Now they're trying to go the insurance fraud route. You know, if she, after doing all of that, still gets pushed out of the inner circle, what does this tell you about what's happening inside of the DOJ right now? I mean, particularly at a time when there are real domestic threats to Americans because of this war that the president has dragged us into. Are you worried about what's going on inside the department below, just whoever is the head of it? Oh, absolutely. And I have been for some time. The Justice Department has, you know, since Watergate, been an independent agency that works to protect the public safety and American interests. It represents not the president, but the people of the United States. And instead, what we've seen in the Trump administration... is an effort to use the Justice Department as his own personal law firm, right? I mean, he went to the Great Hall and announced that he was going to be himself, the chief law enforcement officer. His face hangs from a banner outside the building. All of those things suggest that it is not the kind of job that most of us held when we were there, but is instead a political job. Now, there are still some very good people within the Justice Department, and I'm grateful. that they continue to do their work. But it has to be disheartening to see the misplaced priorities of evening scores with President Trump's political enemies instead of focusing on the real threats. And as you say, we're at war with Iran. They are a state sponsor of terrorism. And we have purged a number of national security agents and prosecutors at the very moment when we should be on high alert for those kinds of threats. And so I do worry about the capability and the priorities of the department at this moment. Paul, quickly before we have to go, what options are ahead of survivors here? Many of them have been, I'm not even sure patient quite describes the way that they have. held it together through this entire process. Some of them spoke to our colleague Lisa Rubin earlier and even in their statements to her seem to suggest that they were going to leave the door open for the possibility of change here that maybe Todd Blanche or Lee Zeldin, whoever it might be, would take a different approach with them, that they would be open to having a different kind of relationship with whoever's going to be there than the one that they had with Pam Bondi.

If you were advising Epstein survivors about the kinds of moves, options ahead of them right now, what would you tell them? I would tell them that I've got some bad news. They don't have a lot of great options. They might have some civil remedies, but they should not expect any help from this administration or this Department of Justice. So Pam Bondi was fired reportedly because Trump was mad about how she handled the Epstein files, not because she reportedly didn't respect the Congress law and did congressional law, the Transparency Act, and not because She reportedly didn't hand over everything that she was required to hand over. Trump was mad because she didn't protect him enough. She embarrassed him. And so he will find an attorney general who will not make that mistake. So there's no reason that the Epstein survivors should have any hope in top lance. He was a very good defense attorney for Donald Trump. He did. lose that one case with Brad got his client convicted of 34 felons, but he had a good reputation as a defense attorney, Antonia, and he's still been acting like Trump's defense attorney while he's been at the Department of Justice. So you don't think there's much hope for the survivors to build a different relationship with this DOJ. Paul Butler, thank you, Barbara McQuade. Thank you so much. Still ahead. As Donald Trump tries to gain control of the midterm elections, Stacey Abrams joins me next on what's about to happen.

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. Traditional home security only alerts you after a break-in, and that's too late. SimplySafe is changing that. Stop. This is SimplySafe. Police are on the way. We don't just alert. We stop crime before it starts. SimplySafe, plans starting around a dollar a day. Save 50% on your new system with professional monitoring at Simplysafe.com slash SXM or with promo code SXM. Outdoor deterrence requires a Simplysafe Active Guard outdoor protection plan starting at 4999 a month. Visit Simplysafe.com slash licenses for alarm license information, Tennessee 2012. 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. As the Trump administration has been sending ICE agents into airports, they've also spoken publicly about deploying ICE agents to the polls in November. The idea has been floated by Trump's former strategist, Steve Bannon, addressed by his new DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, and referenced by his personal attorney who just became the new acting attorney general. Why is their objection to sending ICE officers to polling places? Allegals can't vote. It doesn't make any sense. That question seems to telegraph what's ahead in Trump's multi-pronged effort to interfere in state-run elections. Just this week, Trump signed an executive order that would allow the federal government to take over mail-in voting, basically allowing Trump officials to decide who gets to vote. Stacey Abrams is the founder of Fair Fight Action and lead organizer of the Ten Steps campaign against the rise of authoritarianism in the U.S. Today, they launched an initiative to end. ICE family detention, and she joins me now. Stacey, it's so good to see you. So with this executive order targeting mail-in ballots, what would the implications be if DHS were to have the ability to create and control a verified voters list?

So we have to remember that this is all of a piece. These are administrative attempts to shave points. Every election for the last decade has been decided on the margins. We are no longer having landslides. And so their attempt is to limit who gets counted and how many votes can go to the other side. And so we can't look at these as isolated. Pieces, they are all of a piece. It's the sum of the part. So you use the mail-in voting restrictions so you can limit senior citizens, rural folks, students, people of color, the disabled, and you stop them participating. Then you move over to the challenge of building a voting database that has been proven in every state that has tried this. It has been proven to be flawed in Texas, in Kansas, in Missouri. the number of people who are falsely denied the right to vote went as high as 35% in Missouri. It was about 14% error rate in Texas and just one county. And in Kansas, I think it was almost 30,000 people who were falsely accused of not being entitled to vote, although they'd gone through a naturalization service. And so we know that these attempts are designed. to marry together all of the greatest hits of voter suppression so that they can eke out wins wherever they face losses. You know, Stacey, one of the things that I've been surprised Democrats haven't been speaking out about more clearly is the extent to which the Trump administration has tried to tie election administration. to the future of immigration policy in this country. You know, for example, the way that they very explicitly tried to tie the fates of the SAVE Act, which you hear a lot of people describe as a voter ID law when really it is a show me your citizenship papers in order to be able to vote law. And they tried to tie that in with the DHS funding fight. And I think it tells a very clear story of some of what you're saying there that sort of speaks to sort of this broader concept of who belongs and how they can shave and reshape this country. But why do you think so few people are seeing these things as linked? Because we're so trained in this moment by this regime to focus on the crisis in front of us instead of seeing how they've laddered up to this moment. At the very top of this story, you had Todd Blanche saying, oh, why would anyone be concerned about ICE? Well, in 1981, the Republican National Committee had what they called their national ballot security task force. in New Jersey. And they were so egregious. They wore arm bands. These were off-duty officers who wore armbands and patrolled polling places with black and brown voters. And it was so effective that the Republican won by, I think, more like around 1,800 votes. It was that narrow. And it was so egregious that a federal court forced a consent decree where Republicans agreed not to have election security forces for 30 years. When did it get lifted?

2018 under Donald Trump. It's because they know that it works. They know that if they can scare black and brown folks who under the Supreme Court right now can be pulled out of line by ice based on skin color. language and accent. You don't have to be not a citizen. You simply have to look like someone they don't think should be a citizen. And to your point, Antonia, it's all coming together. We are talking about it, but we have to talk about that and talk about Iran and talk about the detention of thousands of children in this country in prison camps. And so I think part of the challenge is not that Democrats aren't talking about it. It's that we have to hold the public attention. when the chaos is so profound and so profuse that it's hard to get people to focus. But that's the reason we have the Ten Steps campaign. And that's the reason we're doing this work. Is that why you've traveled to Dilley, Texas? Tell me why you're there and what you've learned about our system. As a children's book author, I've been privileged to write three children's books. And one of my books is about... different cultures and different communities. Another one is about the importance of speaking up, even if it feels like you may not win. And when I was reading the ProPublica stories about what was happening in Dilley and what's happening around the country and what will get worse with the massive purchase of ice facilities around this country, they are designed not to hold criminals, but to hold families. And that is why it is time now for us to start this conversation. Read Them Home is about... raising public awareness that we have children, we have babies who are in detention facilities right now, being fed moldy food, being denied access to health care. These are babies who are being told that their mental distress is just due rigor. That's wrong and it is immoral, but it's to your point, part of a larger narrative. about who we believe belongs. It's why the birthright citizenship case was in front of the Supreme Court. But what we're trying to do is help focus not only the mind but the hearts. If Americans can't remember that children do not deserve to be incarcerated and tortured, then our democracy is already lost. And so we're asking everyone to join us in reading them home. We spent today 12 hours with extraordinary people. reading stories to children in abstincia. But we're asking every American of good conscience to read a book, to go to readthemhome.org, record yourself reading a children's story, post it online, use the hashtag, read them home. If millions of us do this, we can start to remind ourselves of who we are and who we say we want to be. That's the important moment that we're facing right now. Stacey Abrams, thank you so much for putting all these threads, these pieces together and for your advocacy for children, someone who's reported on Dilley and other facilities like it. I know how hard it is for those kids to get their stories out there, for their families to feel heard, seen, and respected. So thank you. Thanks for the work you're doing.

Still to come, Donald Trump's address caused stocks to fall and oil prices to rise. So what happens next in his war on Iran after this? In the U.S., there's a break-in every 26 seconds. But when intruders step near, Simply Safe home security steps up. Stop. This is SimplySafe. Police are on the way. Using AI alerts, U.S.-based live agents help deter breakins. SimplySaf, no long-term contracts. Save 50% on your new system with professional monitoring at Simplysafe.com slash SXM or with promo code SXM. Outdoor deterrence requires a SimplySafe Active Guard outdoor protection plan starting at $49.99 a month. Visit Simplysave.com slash licenses for alarm licensed information, Tennessee 2012. Monday AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com. So they see the full picture. My work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff, knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Yo, it's Jay Uso from WWE. And I'm Jimmy Uso. Chumba Casina and WWE are hyped for the biggest event of the summer. SummerSlan. I know I can't wait. There's nothing better to do while we're waiting than playing Chumba Casino. Sign up today and you could win a VIP experience. With Chumba Casino and with WWE for SummerSlam. So what are you waiting for? Play Chumbo Casino and enter for your chance to win. Let's Chumble. Only available in permitted states. No purchase necessary. See terms and conditions for details. VGW Group would be prohibited by law 21 plus sponsored by Chumba Casino. Finally, to the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong. If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously. When Donald Trump launched his war in Iran, he sold it in large part as a project of regime change. On that very first day of strikes, you saw it there a moment ago, he encouraged Iranians to rise up and take over their government.

But now we're one month in, and he's talking about bombing the Iranian people into the Stone Age, destroying the infrastructure that the civilian population needs to live. You heard him threatened to strike power plants last night. He's also threatened to blow up oil refineries and desalination plants. And today on social media, he posted video of a bridge being blown up, saying, quote, the biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down. never to be used again much more to follow. It's almost as if he does not care about the Iranian people or their struggles on the ground at all. Patrick Murphy served as Undersecretary of the Army and was the first Iraq war veteran elected to Congress from Pennsylvania. Treata Parsi is the co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute. They both join me now. Great to have you guys. Patrick, I'll start with you. We've now... had about 24 hours to digest Trump's speech from last night. Do you feel, I guess I can kind of see your reaction in your facial expressions there, but do you feel like he gave you any sense, any piece of information about how this story ends?

Unfortunately, Antonio, not. And I'm a proud American. I'm a proud former soldier, Iraq veteran, but this was a war of choice. And the clear strategy around this war is murky. And that's just not former Secretary Patrick Mervitania. That's Trump's own former Secretary of Defense saying that. And Mad Dog Mattis. For those of us who are warriors that pull for brothers and sisters currently serving, it is not good and it was not reassuring last night and the actions today, which I'm sure we'll talk about, also give us great pause. Trita, it was sad while I was listening to the speech, honestly, to hear the part about regime change. The president said, we never said regime change, but regime change has occurred because all of their original leaders are dead. The regime, though, is very much not dead. Some would say even more hardliners are now in its place. And the core, the philosophy, the spirit of that regime is very much intact. I'm curious, how are Iranians in America, in the rest of the diaspora, processing all of this right now? We had many of them on our air in the lead up to this war, saying that they had hopes. They had a belief that President Trump was actually going to free them to attempt to bring democracy to truly topple this government. Do people feel burned at this point? Certainly. And I think it's also important to point out that the people who were favoring military action for the purpose of regime change were never the majority in the Iranian-American community. And a recent poll came out just a day or so ago from the National Iranian-American Council that showed that two-thirds of the Iranian-American community is opposed to this war. For those who were trying to convince themselves, or the others in the Iranian-American community that this would lead to the fall of the regime and that Donald Trump and Israel would actually bring that about. I think it was at best a level of criminal naivete. Criminal naivete, I also need to ask you about this news tonight, Pete Hegseth, removing the Army's top general, Army Chief of Staff, General Randy, George, Patrick, what does this signal to you in the middle of a chaotic war? We do not understand what the end game here is, what the objectives are. There have been a few. And, of course, with the looming prospect of boots on the ground. to have this person removed from his post. Yeah, you know, Antonio, they say history doesn't repeat, but it sure as heck rhymes. And this is exactly what then President Bush did before the Iraq war with then cheapest staff of the Army, Eric Shenzheki. Why? Because this general Shenzheki went to Congress said, hey, if we go into Iraq, we need 700,000 troops. The very next day...

The deputy secretary of defense, Polo Fulitz, they said, ah, but general, he's wildly off the mark. Let's be clear, Antonio, the military, we have civilian leadership over the military for a reason. Absolutely. But those who, like people like General George, those in the military take a blood oath to our Constitution. They don't go on. Ben Ney, the political leaders, they support and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign domestic, and they give their best military advice. And that military advice, as those of us who have served, folks like me who've taught at West Point, we understand that when you're trying to do regime change and to put boots in the ground, we already have 50,000 troops in that region, we'll put another 7,000 Marines, my former unit, the 82nd Airborne Division, to send them in the harm's way for a war of choice. When we've already lost 13 American troops, over 300 American troops wounded in action, thousands of Iranians killed. When does this end when you don't have the clear strategy to begin with? And no political solution in sight. Trita, how are the Iranians preparing? And how did they read the president's speech last night? I mean, in one breath, the sort of victory is already mine. In the next breath, things are going to be sorted out in the next two to three weeks.

So the Iranians at this point are reading everything Trump says with... a tremendous amount of suspicion, because at the end of the day, they were bombed twice in the middle of negotiations. So they don't seem to buy the idea that he's actually pulling out. They think that that speech yesterday was there to confuse people in order for him to launch a land invasion of some islands in the Persian Gulf in the next couple of days or so. Whether that's true or not, of course, it's a different story, but that's essentially what they're expecting him to do. They're expecting the apps. worse than what they see, of course, is what the rest of us see, is someone who doesn't seem to have a plan. And that actually, in some ways, makes it more desperate and dangerous. Treated Parsi, Secretary Patrick Murphy, thank you both so much. And stay tuned. Congressman Ro Khanna, member of the Oversight Committee, joins the briefing for more on Pam Bondi's firing. We're going to be right back.

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