‘Most suspicious evidence yet’: Missing Epstein files include Trump accuser interviews

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Good evening from New York. I'm Chris Hayes. Donald Trump gave the longest state of the union address in American history. He spoke for nearly two hours. It felt like four. And it's even more impressive when you consider he did not have a lot of legislative victories to brag about. I mean, that's normally how these things are supposed to go, particularly when you've got unified governance, right? You tout all the bills, you've signed a law, all the wonderful things you've done. But Trump has overseen one of the least productive Congresses in U.S. history. And that's even though his party controls both houses. And so he only actually mentioned one bill he passed last night, the budget-busting big bill that slashed public services and gave more tax breaks to corporations, billionaires. And he definitely neglected to mention one of the most consequential bills that he signed into law. That is the Epstein Files Transparency Act. That is a Donald Trump law. It has Donald J. Trump's signature right on it. He didn't mention it last night, of course, because he didn't want to pass that law. In fact, Speaker Mike Johnson shut down the House for months last summer and again, the fall in order to avoid delivering the votes to pass it. And then the whole thing was forced on Trump against his will by a near unanimous vote of Congress in both the House and the Senate. Then, once it was signed, the administration went out touting it. This administration released over 3 million pages of documents, over 3 million, and Donald Trump signed that law to release all of those documents. He is the most transparent president in the nation's history. The most transparent president of the nation's history. I want you to put a pin in that one. You see, because his Department of Justice has, of course, fought the lot every time. At every turn, they've slow-rolled the release of the files, they've cherry-picked them for political effect. They've been trying to put the Epstein story behind them because we all know Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were close friends for many years. That's not a secret. It's matter of public record. We've seen the photos of them together. The video from one of their parties in the 1990s in which they're actually looking at women dancing in front of them. Of course, we've seen the birthday letter, which Trump somewhat hilariously denies writing to Epstein, with the gross drawing in the words, Enigmas never age, may every day be another wonderful secret. So every time they act to cover up the Epstein files, they look like they're trying to keep a secret, like they're trying to cover something up. And now here we are with what is probably the most suspicious evidence of that yet. And it's really something. We're going to take a second here. So MS now, along with other outlets, is now confirming that the Department of Justice under Donald Trump withheld some very specific Epstein files from the public. Those files are more than 50 pages of notes and memos related to interviews with a woman. That woman accused Donald Trump of sexually abusing her when she was a minor.

The existence of those missing memos was first reported last week by independent journalist Roger Solenberger in a substack post. He discovered that a released document listed files in that case, and it showed that federal investigators had conducted not one, but four interviews with Trump's accuser in 2019 when he was president. And there were notes and summaries of each of those interviews within the FBI's possession. But as Salenberger found, and MS now confirmed, only one memo and no handwritten notes reflecting such an interview is included on the DOJ Epstein's file site. A source who's viewed the unredacted documents told MS now the woman interviewed by the FBI in July 2019 is the same woman who alleged that Trump forced her to perform oral sex on him 35 years ago when she was 13 or 14 years old and subsequently hit her. She also claimed she was repeatedly raped by Jeffrey Epstein. In fact, according to the sole summary of her first interview, that's one of four, but there's one that we do have, the one that was released that you can read, it's online. The woman's lawyer told investigators during that interview that she was concerned about implicating additional individuals beyond Epstein, specifically any that were well known due to fear of retaliation. What did she tell them after that in those three subsequent interviews? We really don't know because those documents do not exist in the files that Trump's Department of Justice posted. They exist in the FBI. They exist in the Justice Department. We can see that. We know that from the index, but they're not online. Now, yesterday, the DOJ responded in a social media post saying that, quote, nothing has been deleted and all responsive documents have been produced. That, I've got to say, seems pretty clearly false. And in fact, as more outlets, I mean, first, Solenberger and then MS Now and NPR, and now the New York Times have started a report on these missing files. Then the DOJ put out a new statement, noting that documents could have been withheld because of an ongoing federal investigation, which is kind of weird phrasing. Could have been or were. Or is that just a rationalization for not releasing the files that specifically pertained to the man who's in charge of the country? That is not the only thing that did not make it into the DOJ's publicly released Epstein files. The FBI also interviewed a woman known as Jane, who testified under oath at the trial of Epstein accomplished Glenn Maxwell. Jane claimed she was introduced to Trump by Epstein at Mar-a-Lago when she was 14 years old. And has now discovered that the handwritten notes from her interview also are missing from the DOJ's website. Now, Donald Trump has denied any wrongdoing whatsoever, and all of the allegations, specifically the allegation from this one woman in question who had the four interviews, only one we've seen, are unverified, right? All we have is this sort of reporting about the content of what she said and nothing underneath it. We don't know if any of it's corroborated at all. In part, that's because the files about the nature of the allegations are missing. We can't see them. We know Department of Justice have them, but they're not online. And we've been saying all along as we cover this, which has been a challenge, honestly, to do like rigorously and truthfully and fairly in these millions of documents as they come out just because someone's name is in the files doesn't make them guilty of a crime, doesn't even make them guilty of any wrongdoing whatsoever. There are lots of people's names in the files who have not been accused of anything. But here's what we...

Yeah, I mean, you know, there's a document, again, it's on the website that the FBI repaired as part of a sort of PowerPoint presentation, I think in 2025, as they were essentially, you know, calling through all this. It was sort of, I don't know who it was briefed to, that has a bullet point that involves this allegation. It says, you know, it redacts the name. This person said that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her when she was 13. That's what the document says. That's, you know, that's accessible to everyone. That's online. That's in the files that were given. You know, again, that does not mean at all. That allegation is true, that it's verified, corroborate in any way. But it does exist in that FBI file that is online. Like, clearly that is true. I also want to note that if any of these documents exonerated Donald Trump, I guarantee you. The Department of Justice would have released it. Just look at the big banner of Donald Trump's face on the Department of Justice. It is literally a law firm for Donald Trump. It exists to protect Donald Trump. And we're fighting to make sure that they don't do that because they're violating a law right now. Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, you cannot withhold a redact a document of a government official because it embarrasses. or has reputational harm to that government official that is directly in the law, and Pam Bondi is violating it. You wrote that letter with your colleague, Dan Goldman, asking for a special counsel. Now, there have been, it seems, as we documented there, some shifting. responses to Department of Justice, the first sort of, you know, their post on X saying, you know, oversight dem should stop misleading the public. Nothing's been deleted. All responsive documents have been produced unless a document falls within one of the following categories. Duplicates privileged were part of an ongoing federal investigation. So again, there's some couching there, right? Presumably they're saying they could be in those three categories. Today, the Wall Street Journal reporting that the DOJ is going to review whether Epstein files about Trump were improperly withheld, which. I guess Pam Bondi is going to review that? Do you have, you put any credence in that? I don't have a lot of faith in that review. I just note that the New Orleans justice is very clearly violating the law because you cannot redact the document just because it may be embarrassing or caused reputational harm to a government official. And if it's a duplicate document, they need to release it. And. I don't believe there's an investigation because Pam Bondi literally shut down the investigation last July. The Department of Justice issued a letter saying that they have found no evidence for uncharged third parties. And it wasn't until Congress acted that forced the release of these files that has now caused two people to be arrested in Britain and multiple folks who are perpetrators to have resigned. Yeah, it's a good point. I want to ask you about another Department of Justice story that's breaking just now, my colleagues, Ken Delaney and Carol Lenig. Just today, Kash Patel, the FBI has fired at least seven FBI agents and support staff as a result of their role in the classified documents case that involved Donald Trump and the documents at Mar-a-Lago. The people fired are said to have participated in some way in pulling phone records for Kash Patel and then Trump Political Action Committee Chief Susie Wiles during investigation. Presumably, those were, you know, lawful.

warrants that were issued by a judge pursuant to probable cause and now seven FBI agents who were doing their job are fired. So without knowing more about why they were fired, I can't comment very much. I do want to say it does look like an epic cover-up. You have Judge Cannon, who's doing a cover-up by preventing the release of the special counsel's report that's almost unheard of because special counsel reports are traditionally released. And I just want to know this is all going to come out eventually because I am confident wouldn't get a new administration in three years, and that administration is going to provide. All this information and Kash Patel shall also resign for acting like a fruil and using taxpayers' money to go do a big party in the Olympics. On that last point you said, it's all going to come out eventually. Do you have faith about that with these three? I mean, there are now three documents. We know what their index file, you know, what their sort of case file number is. We know broadly what the context of there, their interviews with this individual woman, that the FBI has that we can't see. Are we going to be able to see them? Is there a way to shake them lose? I do believe we will eventually see them. We're going to flip the house. We're going to issue subpoenas. I believe you'll see them then. I believe a new administration is going to come in with a new Department of Justice in three years. We'll see them then as well. And I want to know it's more than just these documents. I went and looked at some of the unredacted documents at the Department of Justice. And even though the DOJ was creepily spying on me, I do want to know that I showed the Department of Justice multiple documents where their original contained redactions. Essentially, there was a pre-redaction. before we could see these redacted documents. So we could even see the original of the original. And so those documents also need to be produced. And the Department of Justice is also right now in violation of the law for not doing that. All right, Congressman Ted Liu. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Coming up, the ramblings of a wannabe dictator, Illinois Governor J.J.B. Pritzker, on Trump's never-ending State of the Union. Next.

Donald Trump's low-energy state of the union has been widely criticized as both wildly racist and largely lacking in substance. One Democratic congressman said the speech was full so many lies, Trump should finally receive his long-awaited Nobel Prize for fiction, while Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia torn to Trump for boasting about taking food assistance away from hungry families. He said he lifted them up from eating food stamps. Not really true. He just kicked him off. But perhaps Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker put it most succinctly when he called the speech, quote, the ramblings of a wannabe dictator outlining his plans to steal our election. And Illinois Governor, J.J.B. Pritzker, joins me now. Good to have you here, Governor. Great to see you, Chris. I'm going to ask what you thought of the speech. Before I do, though, I thought to myself, if you're the governor, do you take two hours to watch a speech like that? I hate to tell you, I did. You did. Oh, my God. And I didn't intend to, but I figured it's kind of like a train wreck. You know, you can't not look. And I was concerned about who he was going to attack, you know, what he was going to say. And I was right, unfortunately, that all the wrong things that he said. And the attacks, of course, are mostly on working people in my state and across the country. So I did watch it. And my wife and I watched it together. And, of course, I put out a statement, but I also recorded something to let people know what I thought. You know, there's one section where he talks about, you know, fraud. He's going to declare this war on fraud. It's very clear that there's many ways in which he wants to use the federal government to go after states that are run by Democrats or vote in Democrats. Do you have any concern about some JD Vance task force sort of putting its target on Illinois? Well, my real concern is they lie. They consistently will, they'll find sort of anything that they can twist into a lie. And they'll wrap sort of a kernel of truth with 17 lies. And then they'll put it out there as if they're catching you doing something. And, of course, the president has, in fact, threatened to jail me. So, yeah, I'm concerned. But at the same time, I, you know, I think my job is to stand up for the people of Illinois. My job is to stand in the way of him harming the people of Illinois. So these days, you know, that's a threat that you've got to take pretty seriously. You know, one of the things he said was he took credit for the what is true. One of the true things he said this year is that last year saw a historic drop in crime, particularly in homicide across the country. So. Points there, that is a true statement as best as we can tell from the data. He wanted to take credit for it. But I thought of you and I thought of a few other folks, Brandon Johnson, the mayor of Chicago, Brandon Scott and Baltimore, people I've interviewed throughout the year who've sort of been at the ground level. And I'm curious your response to that part of the speech for the president seemed to want to kind of take a victory lap for this historic decline in crime.

Well, he wants to take credit for the work that we did in Illinois. And it took us, you know, we made significant. When I took office, let me start with this. When I took office, all of our community violence interruption programs had been defunded by the Republican who preceded me. So when I came in office, we had to rebuild and remember these things, it's not like you can snap your fingers, send a check, and everything works. When these organizations close down, they have to start back up again. And so just providing money isn't enough. You've got to help. organize them and make them work. So we've done that. By the way, Arnie Duncan, the former Secretary of Education, is leading one of the largest ones of these. And so there's, you know, there are organizations out there that you can fund that are ready to go. But we had to work very hard for several years to get these up and running. And those have had probably the biggest impact. I've increased the number of state police in Illinois. And, you know, we've focused on trying to make the system fair and also make sure that we're catching the, you know, worst of the worst the way the president says he wants to. But in the end, it was the work that we did that led to this historic drop in crime. And it's been going on for several years in a row. Here, Donald Trump wants to take credit for something that he had absolutely nothing to do with. You talked about the worst, the worst. Of course, Illinois was the site of so-called Operation Midway Blitz, which happened before this enormous... sort of occupation of Minnesota, which just now seems from the most recent reporting to actually be starting to kind of dissipate a bit, it's still not clear. One of the things I've heard from folks in Minnesota is just there's been tremendous cost of the occupation there. I mean, businesses lost tax revenue, lost business revenue, lost school days. I mean, on and on, on. Did you experience that in Illinois? I mean, was there a tangible cost to having that federal intervention? And is there any recompense for it? Oh my goodness, I mean, the tremendous cost. Let me start with the cost to our economy and businesses, small businesses and communities like Pilsen, Little Village, Englewood. Austin, these are all places where businesses had to either close down or they had to diminish the customers that they were taking. Of course, what's happening in the neighborhoods, the effect of, you know, having tear gas sent into suburban neighborhoods, the fear that that's put into people, that had a real negative impact on our economy. And then add to that, you know, we had, our police ended up having to clean up the damage that CBP and ICE were doing in our nation. I mean, there's like real overtime dollars there, right? That are... Honestly, it real expensive, too. And then add to that the effect on, you know, the U.S. budget, right? I mean, the cost of sending Operation Midway Blitz so far, the tally seems to have been over $60 million. And that was just for that part of it. There's the impact on them calling out the National Guard and federalizing it. And then hoping that, of course, to invade our city.

We fought them in court and we won. But that cost, it costs them and the nation, $21 million just to federalize them and have them sit on a federal base. Well. In pursuit of some kind of federal, you know, payment for what happened, you did send an invoice to the president after the Supreme Court struck down his tariffs as both on lawful and unconstitutional, sort of depending on how you read the opinion, you basically said, I guess it was $8.6 billion in Illinois that you would like to see the federal government payback. Do you really think there's a shot at a refund here? Like. Is it your position that Illinois taxpayers should get a check from the federal government to pay them back? I think Donald Trump doesn't give a darn about working families and the fact that it costs working families $1,700 a piece, and that's how we got to $8.6 billion, the effect on Illinois. But I do know that... by virtue of us raising this issue, it's being talked about in Congress. And they're really the ones who get to decide whether there's going to be a rebate or the courts are going to rule it. So I'm hopeful that the fact that we've raised this issue is one that means that the Congress is going to do something about it. I also think that Democrats everywhere in the country should be running on the issue of what Donald Trump has done that costs working families so much over the last year. Take note of one thing, you know, during his speech last night, he didn't say anything about health care, right? He said absolutely. A little bit. He said he's going to give you direct payment and get rid of insurance companies. Yeah, but that's, I mean, literally like, it's not going to, what he's done to damage the families of Illinois, the families across the country on health care is immense. And people are truly going to suffer. What he's suggesting, first of all. Not going to happen. Second of all, all he's interested in doing is diminishing what people are receiving, not helping them get through, you know, what is a hugely costly part of their budget and also, you know, damaging to people's health. You are from one of the, I would say, most storied families in American, particularly in American business, which comes with its own kind of, I think, privileges and burdens. A cousin of yours has been in the news with regards to the Epstein files, Thomas J.B. Pritzker. He just recently resigned from the board of the Hyatt Company after a bunch of emails and correspondences and associations that he had with Jeffrey Epstein, Glein, Ghislaine Maxwell, after Epstein did prison time in 2008. He apologized for that association. I'm wondering what your reaction that is. Look, I've said from the beginning that anyone that's done something wrong needs to be held accountable. And I really mean anyone. I'm not close to my cousin, but I can tell you that it's very important that people be held to pay the price for whatever it is that they may have done. And I know there are lots of names in there and people, some people just sent a few emails or whatever and had nothing to do with any of the wrongdoing. But...

There's a whole lot of people that have seemingly done something wrong. So once again, they are the ones who should be answering. They should be answering questions. And, you know, as you've seen, you saw, I think Larry Summers has, you know, just resigned from the board of Harvard just recently because of, you know, what seemingly he may have done. So I think we're going to see a lot more of that. And I want to see complete transparency. I think. Everyone that had anything to do with Jeffrey Maxwell, I mean, Jeffrey Heha, Epstein, or Ghislaine Maxwell, I mean, all that information needs to come out and then, you know, we'll sift through, you know, who's actually done something wrong. All right, Governor Bristair, great to have you here. Good to see you, Chris. Still ahead as the U.S. masses its military near Iran. Senator Chris Murphy on what lies ahead. That's next. At DSW, we ask the important questions. Like, what shoes are you going to wear? Whether you're prepping for wedding season, festival season, or just planning the ultimate vacay, the right shoes can make or break an RSVP. So own the moment. You've got big plans and we've got just the shoes at the perfect price, of course. Get ready to get ready with designer shoe warehouse. Head to your DSW store or DSW.com today. And let us surprise you. Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. One thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home. For decades, Angie's helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter. Angie, the one you trust, to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your project at Angie.com. A beauty rest mattress gives you unparalleled motion separation. Isolating movement with our pocketed coil technology. while providing individualized support for every sleeping position. People at their best get their beauty rest for 100 years. The New York Times has published a very helpful map demonstrating the absolutely massive buildup of U.S. military forces surrounding near Iran. All those black squares on there are the cluster of fighter jets and aircraft carriers and spy planes. Trump calls proudly his armada. It is the largest presence of American military forces in the Middle East since the U.S. war in Iraq in 2003. It is also not a cheap endeavor, we should note. As political reports, quote, the added U.S. military capability of the region since late December has already cost about $350 to $370 million, according to an estimate from the former Pentagon controller. Adding, quote, it normally costs about a billion dollars a year to maintain and deploy a carrier strike group, so the cost could add up if the two carriers remain in the region. Boy, yeah, probably will. The Pentagon is spending that money because the White House is very obviously and quite ostentatiously weighing the possibility of a full-scale regime-change war with Iran. Like a war of aggression, we got to set, right? Not a defensive war. Like, just we're going to bomb you. It would be a ridiculous, costly, very dangerous, and I think quite unpopular boondoggle. And the craziest thing about this is the president is barely even trying to sell it to the American people. I mean, save for a few minutes in the longest day of the union address in history, when these sentences brought the entire gallery, including the Democrats, to their feet.

We are in negotiations with them. They want to make a deal, but we haven't heard those secret words. We will never have a nuclear weapon. My preference. My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy. But one thing is certain. I will never allow the world's number one sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon. Can't let that happen. Senator Chris Murphy's a Democrat from Connecticut. He did not stand for that line last night. In fact, he didn't attend the State of the Union at all, and he joins me now. We don't have the wide shot of the audience in that moment, but of course there was all this weird gamesmanship with Donald Trump trying to sort of troll Democrats into standing for things. It was sort of a ridiculous spectacle. But I was a little taken aback, I have to say, that the whole gallery on both sides of aisle more or less got up in that line to applaud. Would you have stood and applauded that line if you were there last night? Democrats should not be standing and applauding war with Iran. We shouldn't be cheering this president dragging us into any overseas conflict because he's going to bungle it and mismanage it as bad as he's bungling and mismanaging the American economy. I mean, you said it in your preface, we have 41% of our naval assets surrounding Iran right now. This is going to be a billion dollar enterprise, even if they don't. fire a shot. And, you know, we didn't really think we needed this because a year ago Donald Trump told us that he had obliterated, that's his word, obliterated Iran's nuclear weapons program only to find out, surprise last weekend that Iran is now just a week away from getting a nuclear weapon. And that stands to reason because a military strike can't obliterate Iran's nuclear program. It can't stop them. from seeking a nuclear weapon because you can't bomb knowledge out of existence. So the diplomatic path has always been the only way to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. A military option just has never been realistic to do anything other than to set back by a matter of months Iran's nuclear program. I mean, this point. I mean, it's like watching, I've covered now this debate for over a decade. And you've lived it as a member of Congress, you know, and both the House and Senate. But, you know, there was a diplomatic deal. That diplomatic deal was reached precisely because these calculations were made. It had this monitoring. It had, you know, external inspections. Donald Trump ripped up that deal.

Then he bombed them and said, we've annihilated it. No one has to worry about the nuclear program anymore. And now he says, well, we want a diplomatic deal. He ripped up the last one. They've already bombed them. That didn't work. It just feels like there's this desire to actually just go to war with Iran as the thing that he wants to do and some of our allies want to do and some Republicans want to do. Yeah, I mean, again, let's just restate the premise here. We had an agreement that had put Iran over a year away from getting a nuclear weapon. We call it breakout time. The moment that they decide to get a nuclear weapon to the moment that they can possess one was over a year. Donald Trump ripped up that agreement, and then he just told the world. this weekend that Iran is now a week away from getting a nuclear weapon. Now, whether that's true or not, that's Donald Trump's doing. He destroyed the agreement that had put them a year out from a nuclear weapon. And yes, he's got lots of warmongers around him. He's got a lot of folks who work in the defense industry who, you know, see big profits in their eyes when they dream of a war against Iran. And he also, you know, wants to keep the Congress. conversation away from Epstein. He seems allergic to working on the American economy. And so Venezuela occupied our political space for a little while. Now Iran occupies our political space. And folks aren't talking about the fact that there's an active cover up to prevent the exposure of the president's connection to a child sex ring. We did talk about this tonight. I have to note that. There's also a strange thing happening here, which is that he doesn't, there's this kind of sense in which they don't feel they need to make an argument. There's reporting from Politico tonight that people around the administration think it would be more convenient politically if Israel struck first, even, and this is really perverse, Israel strikes first and then Iran strikes back at us at some of our assets in the region, so that would create a cause's belly, which seems... profoundly perverse and reckless to me if you're saying you're waiting for Iranians to strike American targets? Those are our service members. You should want to defend them. But even like the sort of lack of argument making here. Like are you struck by the fact that they've put all these assets, there's all these things about, well, he's weighing whether or not you or not, and they can't make an argument for why we should go to war with Iran. Yeah, and obviously, you know, there's an element of this that's saber-rattling in order to get a diplomatic agreement. But, you know, he doesn't have serious people at the table, the kind of people that got us the deal under Obama. And Iran doesn't seem to be offering us any better terms than we had. So even if the result of this hundreds of millions of dollars investment in the Middle East is to get a deal that looked just like the one that Obama had, you know, that's an expensive. proposition. Yeah, I think the one thing Americans definitely don't want is another war in the Middle East. And, you know, you have to really think about an attack serious enough to prompt regime change. On the other side of that is likely the IRGC, the incredibly reactionary conservative, anti-Israel, anti-U.S. military leadership taking control of the country. Now, this is a pretty loathsome group that's running the government today.

it could get even worse and even more militant on the back end of a major military action that causes the fall of this government. That's a very good point. Senator Chris Murphy. Thank you so much. Thanks. The congressman who stood up to Trump, what it means, the Democratic opposition. Next. You know that thing where you get an amazing pair of shoes at a really great price and want to tell everyone about it? Yeah, so do we. Here at Designer Shoe Warehouse, we'll give you something to brag about. Like the latest styles from brands you love, or the trends everyone's obsessing over. Or shoes that make you feel like, well, you. So go ahead, show off a little. Find shoes that get you with prices that get your budget. Head to your DSW store or DSW.com today. DSW. Let us surprise you. Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. From roof repair to emergency plumbing and more. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Angie, the one you trust, to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your project at Angie.com. 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 Simply Safe. Police are on the way. Using AI alerts, U.S.-based live agents help deter break-ins. Simplysafe, no long-term contracts. Save 50% on your new system with professional monitoring at Simplysafe.com slash XXM 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. In an otherwise forgettable and mostly inconsequential state of the union, there's this one indelible image early on. It's that of Congressman Algreen holding up this sign to Donald Trump, just a few feet away from him. Black people aren't apes. Of course, it was in response to the racist video Donald Trump posted on social media earlier this month. It was like a one, two-day story. It was disgusting. Shortly after the congressman held that up, he was escorted out of the chamber, not after several Republican members of Connish tried to snatch it out of his hands. And I mean, the thing about Trump is he's so aberrant and so consistently loathsome that you just need prominent people and elected politicians to just state the plain truth. consistently and just constantly force everyone around them to sit with it and confront it. And I thought Al Green's simple, true declarative sentence on that piece of paper did exactly that. We have a racist president who posts racist videos. Nicole Hannah-Jay Jones, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, staff writer of New York Times, and creator of the 1619 Project, and she joins me now. It's good to have you here. Thank you. What did you think about that image at that moment? I thought that image was so powerful. And in fact, I posted it on my Instagram without comment. And what was so important about it is, as you know, Chris, we have been facing racist imagery, racist talking points from Donald Trump before he even became a president.

And We risk it becoming normalized. So this was, as you said, a one or two day story. And then we move on because we're so used to him doing that. But that is particularly dangerous. We've become like anesthesized to it. And that is dangerous in this moment. So Al Green was born into Jim Crow, this, you know, 80 year old man was born into Jim Crow. And he understands how powerful rhetoric and imagery, racist rhetoric and racist imagery is because racist rhetoric and imagery is. justifies racist behaviors and the stripping of black Americans' rights and their citizenship. So it's not merely just about language or imagery. It's about how that imagery justifies. a president who is basically gutting the civil rights infrastructure of our nation. You know, I thought about that. I was thinking about that today, why that I also found the image really striking and the simplicity of the declarative sentence. And it did remind me of the famous I Am a Man sign that they held at the, you know, famous march on Washington, which again, is just a simple and declarative sentence. Absolutely. And indisputably true, almost tautological, but actually gets to the heart of what is being contested. That's right. And think about, I mean, I have to say I was, I was really bothered by. by these men trying to rip a sign from an elder's hand. Just a disrespect of that. Last year when he protested Trump, verbally, he was removed. This time he does it nonverbally. And all he's doing is saying something that should not be controversial. But it's controversial because this is the president of the United States using racist tropes. So again, the power in that was to say, this is not normal. We're not going to treat this like it's normal. We're not just going to move on from this because Trump has said something else crazy and now we've moved on. I think really challenging the way that we have become used to this type of dehumanizing language and imagery is really critical. I mean, even today, he's, you know, going after Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib Shalib. He's saying they should go back, you know, to where they're from. Ilhan Omar was born in abroad. Rashid Shalib was born in Detroit. Not that it matters either way. Exactly. He calls, he uses this term low IQ always, always in this very pointedly racist way. And you're right that. You know, from my perspective, it's a little bit of a hard thing because it's like you don't want to constantly be introducing the poison back into the discourse.

But then if you don't, then it also does feel like we're all just sort of level setting it. Yeah, I mean, I think we all struggle with that, like not repeating this racist rhetoric. But by not repeating it, it's almost like we assent to it. And I think he also, we know that Trump understands exactly what he's doing. It's not just bluster. It's strategic. And right, keeping us on our heels, we don't know. Actually. Yeah, I mean, I have no doubt. I mean, the thing is we, again, there's so much that has happened. But Trump begins his campaign on a racist birther campaign against Obama, the uses of racist imagery. And he didn't condemn, right? First he, you know, they blamed it on. some lower staffer, but he refused to condemn it. And so we must. We must condemn it because it's easy to laugh it off and say, oh, that's outrageous. But again, this is a president who has gutted the civil rights infrastructure who said that the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the Landmark Act was catastrophic for white people, is hiring kind of open white nationalists in his administration. So it's not merely rhetoric. It's rhetoric that then will normalize us to the behavior, which is the stripping of rights. He took a victory last night for his attack on what he says is diversity, equity, inclusion. One of the things I've been struck by is to the extent that there was a sliver of the population who were brought in by this notion that there were a bunch of like, quote unquote, woke excesses, right, that need to be rolled back. The degree to which... the scope of it is a complete dismantling of 1960s era civil. Is that how you view it? Like the 1960s sort of civil rights era infrastructure of governance? Absolutely. So they would like to make us think that it's about pronouns or about, you know, equity trainings that went too far. But it really is about the integration infrastructure that came out of the civil rights movement. And what I think is really interesting, Chris, is, Many people think that this is just about black folks, but the EEOC just filed suit against Coca-Cola for a program to help women, right? And so I think a lot of people are going to find out that these hard-fought civil rights gains that largely came forth because of black struggle actually protect a whole lot of people who are now finding themselves unprotected as well. That's a really, really good point, Nicole Hannah-Jay Jones. Great to see her. Come back anytime. Always good to see you. You're always welcome. Thank you. Stay tuned because in the next hour, Jen Saki, we'll be talking with California Governor Gavin Newsom. 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 all on with Chris. Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Roof repair? Done well. Kitchen sink install? Done well. Deck upgrades? Done well. Electrical upgrade, done well. Angie's been connecting homeowners with skilled pros for nearly 30 years, so we know the difference between done and done well. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your project at Angie.

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