Jimmy Kimmel returns to air following suspension backlash

PNC Bank brings you Call of the Wild Money Moves. You hear that? That's an internet troll telling you to put all your money into a single investment. YOLO, YOLO! He wants you to liquidate your emergency fund. YOLO. And buy a digital racehorse named Silicon Steve. YOLO. Stay vigilant. He's very persistent. YOLO! Guard against Wild Money Moves with PNC Bank. Brilliantly boring since 1865. 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. Tonight on All-in. Jimmy Kimmel's coming back to television.

The backlash and the back down. Look, if they can come for Kimmel, they can come for anybody. You're crazy for supporting this. This morning I'm canceling my Disney Plus. Tonight, how the Trump administration's failure to fire Jimmy Kimmel and the pressure campaign that caused it. They'll take a great story and they'll make it bad. See, I think that's really illegal. Then new alarm over Trump's open demand to prosecute political enemies, and Democrats demand the video that Trump's borders are doesn't want you to see. They said that you took $50,000 in cash in a bag from an undercover FBI agent. I did nothing criminal. I did nothing illegal. And just what on earth happened at the UN today? They had a hat. The best-selling hat. Trump was right about everything. And I don't say that in a braggadocious way, but it's true. What all in starts right now. Good evening from New York. I'm Chris Hayes. You know, we talk so much about courage and how you respond to pressure and how courage under pressure matters so much in these very perilous times we live in. And I believe there's a lesson to be learned once again in the story of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. Because just in just a few hours, Jimmy Kim Alive will be back on television on ABC. It's the host's first show since ABC's parent company, Disney, suspended him indefinitely last week. Now, it's unclear exactly why Disney backed down. According to an exclusive report, I reported on Marissa Kavis. Disney was set to announce price increases for its streaming services on Tuesday, which may have hastened the ABC parent company's major decision Monday to bring Jimmy Kimmel's late night talk show back on air. And Disney did in fact announce that long-planned price hike on their Disney Plus and Hulu subscribers today. So Disney already knew they would take a subscriber hit for raising prices, but they did not plan on taking that hit and suffering what was pretty intense and widespread brand damage. Because since Kimball's suspension, there's been some of the most effective broad opposition to Trump overreach that we've seen. See, the government pressuring one of America's biggest corporations to fire a comedian the president hates, it didn't sit well with a lot of people, not even Trump supporting podcasters like Joe Rogan. I definitely don't think that the government should be involved ever in dictating what a comedian can or cannot say in a monologue. That's crazy. It's crazy. Now, the problem is the companies, if they're being pressured by the government, so if that's real, and if people on the right are like, yeah, go get them, oh my God, you're crazy. You're crazy for supporting this because this will be used on you. Trump critics have talked a lot about a kind of epidemic of cowardice among people who are in real position to resist what is this encroaching government tyranny and how individuals in positions of power need to find their courage. It's something that former Vice President Kamala Harris mentioned in her interview with my friend and colleague Rachel Maddo last night. At some point, they've got to stand up for the sake of...

the people who rely on all of these institutions to have integrity and to at some point be the guardrails against a tyrant who is using the federal government to execute his whim and fancy because of a fragile ego. And courage really does matter in key moments. I mean, we saw it around January 6th, remember, in the states and key officials, including Republican officials, who resisted pressure. But that's just part of the story, because at a certain level, whether we make it through this period as an intact democracy is also about the balance of forces, about who can organize those forces to bring effective pressure for change. Look, if they can come for Kimmel, they can come for anybody. This is happening. It's time to act. Figure it out. Find a way. Come together. Push back. And here's the thing. People did push back. There were protests by the actors and the writers union. More than 400 leading artists and celebrities, including Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Jennifer Aniston, Pager Pascal, signed on to an ACLU letter condemning Kimmel's suspension. There were more tangible protests, too. On Sunday night, Disney hosted a big party for the Los Angeles premiere of a documentary about the Lilith Fair Music Festival. They planned a special musical performance by Lilith Fair founder Sarah McLaughlin and former headliner Jewell. Instead, McLaughlin told the audience this. Now, I know you're expecting a performance tonight, and I'm so grateful to all of you for coming, and I apologize if this is disappointing, but we have collectively decided not to perform, but instead to stand in solidarity in support of free speech. So I hope... Thank you. I hope I understand. I want to say something about that. That's not easy to do. Not enough people have practice in responding like that to difficult moments, what Sarah McLaughlin did. And guess what? Sarah McLaughlin is now slated to be Kimmel's musical guest on Tonight Show. And she and Jewel were not the only stars protesting Disney. Olivia Rodrigo took to social media to call Kimmel's suspension blatant censorship. And New York mayoral race frontrunner Zohran Mamdani pulled out of a planned town hall with a local ABC affiliate. That event now back on thanks to Kimmel's reinstatement. And then when it kind of time to do something, many Americans agree with sentiment echoed by radio host Howard Stern. I just know when the government begins to interfere, when the government says, I'm not pleased with you. So we're going to orchestrate a way to silence you. It's the wrong direction for our country. It might sound stupid, but the thing I did, this morning I'm canceling my Disney Plus. I'm trying to say with the pocketbook that I do not support what they're doing with Jimmy. We don't have internal numbers from Disney Plus, but thousands of Americans took to social media to boast. They also canceled their Disney Plus and Hulu subscriptions. They encourage others to follow suit. And that was all before they announced today's price hike.

So you can see why Disney was feeling the squeeze, why apparently they were desperate to get Kimball back on air. Because they were getting pressured from the other side. Really can't emphasize this enough. Right? They were getting pressure from the FCC, from Brendan Carr and the government. And then they were getting pressured on the other side. And people were actually mobilizing against him. And that mattered. Now, it's a small victory. It's far from complete. In fact, the two big Trump-aligned ABC affiliates, Next Star and Sinclair, are still not planning to broadcast Kimmel's show. Maybe, as many have speculated, they're still trying to curry favor of the Trump, so he doesn't block their future business plans, which need approval from the FCC. But they and the Trump administration and Brendan Carr failed to get Kimmel canceled. And what prevented that was a broad-based pressure campaign by regular Americans and by celebrity Americans, acting collectively to exert power. Not moral suasion, not appeals to the better angels, but we can hurt your business. And it worked because power is the language that people in power understand. Fas Shakir is a senior advisor, Senator Bernie Sanders, executive director of more perfect union. Angela Karasone is chairman and president of media matters, and they both joined me. Now, Angela is as a sort of veteran of this space for a very long time, watching how media companies make decisions like this and large corporations. What is your read on what happened over the last three or four days? I think that it's important to consider, you know, when they're making these calculuses, both when they take the initial action and then what happens afterwards, they're not just basing it on the moment. They're making a projection about the future as well. Where does it go? And one of the underlying assumption is, is the advocacy against us going to fizzle out? Is this a one and done? Did we make the right choice by capitulated the government? Or are we at the beginning of something that's going to continue to get worse for us? And in this case, Disney became a proxy fight for all of the authoritarian consolidation impulses that were seeing play out all across the board. And there was this momentum building. So they made a calculus about the future, that this was something that was going to crescendo and that at some point it would become incredibly unsustainable for them from a pure financial perspective. And that's it. They're making a bet. And in this case, the people that were acting... collectively were able to demonstrate that it was a bad bet to capitulate so easily to the government, especially when in this case they didn't really have much leverage over Disney. They just, they just folded without even needing to fight. Yeah, and in so many of these cases fast, I think about the universities as a good example, you know, this is not to sort of excuse the decisions that those university presidents have made, but you've got this sort of unilateral pressure, right? So they're getting pressure from one side. And unless, you know, donors and board of trustees organize and say, we're not going to raise money for you. Like, and professors organize. Like, unless there's pressure on the other side, that decision becomes too easy to make in some ways. You've got to have something pushing on the other side.

Absolutely, and I appreciate how you're focused on this, the power of association. It happens to be a First Amendment right, the freedom of association. Too often we are forgetting how to know your power as a consumer, as a laborer in a workplace, as a nurse, as a doctor, as a tenant, you... together with your colleagues, with your allied supporters can exert influence to change your economic conditions and to change upstream business decisions. That's point number one. And point number two, I think, as a lesson learning for the left of center, too often we have been beat by the right of center who has been focused on being more comfortable challenging business models, whether it's Bud Light or Cracker Barrel or, you know, Disney, by the way, before. Remember Ron DeSantis and the efforts to tackle Disney then? The left of center, I would... want to be more engaged in saying to businesses, when the model doesn't work to serve the values of American society, you will hear from us. And I think the right has done that more often than we have it. I think we're starting to wake up and voice our concerns more loudly. We should note that there has been a remarkably effective collective action leveraged at Target this year after they dropped diversity efforts at that store. That, I mean, that has really shown up. In Disney Plus's case, they don't release Dale. numbers, we have no idea. In Target's cases, like we have seen the quarterly numbers of the sales, it definitely is working, it is putting pressure on them. Now, I want to talk to you, Angela, about Sinclair, because they have been a sort of a long-time player in this space. They are notoriously right-wing. Those are just the politics that the owners have. There's no question of that. It's like saying the nation is a left liberal publication, like Sinclair is that. Where do you see this going for Sinclair next are? So this is the part that's really interesting and why it's going to be a long fight, and this is the other part of the story, because both Sinclair and Nextar want to purchase a third company called Tegna, which has about 64 local stations. And right now, Nextstar won the bid. Sinclair came in and said, we will give you even more money, but ultimately the bid is going to be dependent on the FCC approving the sale. And I think what you're seeing sort of play out here underneath all of it is a hope on the part of Sinclair, then maybe the FCC, if they can carry more favor with the FCC. and the Trump administration that they won't give the deal to Next Star, or they'll put some speed bumps up, or make it a little bit more friction-fueled so that Next Star, that Technist people say, you know what, it's better just to go with Sinclair. And you can see that play out in the statements, right? Because Next Star says, we're not going to broadcast it. We don't think it's in the public interest. Sinclair comes out and says, we're not going to broadcast it until Jimmy Kimmel apologizes and write checks, right, to turning point USA into the family, right? So they're each trying to sort of want up each other a little bit here. So I don't think this is anywhere over, and I don't think that's... going to go away for a while, but ultimately, that just sort of hurts them. I mean, they still have to pay the affiliate fees, and then they're going to have to deal with all the consequences from their own people of not broadcasting something everybody wants. To the point of pressure, I mean, Sinclair, you know, those folks who own it have the politics they have, they've had it for a long time, but they also operate in markets that that's not the majority view of the viewers. I think they own Portland and Seattle, if I'm not mistaken, as well as other places that, you know, have a lot of liberals and a lot of folks who don't like Donald Trump as, and like, That seems like there's some leverage there.

And I want people to understand the business model of what's going on. I mean, if Brendan Carr, the chair, was to approve this merger, he'd have to lift the cap and essentially allow for even greater consolidation in the media. Yes, proactively, allow for more media consolidation, which we already have too much of. And as we're losing economic democracy, what Trump knows, as an authoritarian with authoritarian impulses, he says, hey, as media consolidates, as everything around consolidates, it is easier for me to exert leverage over a Google, over a Facebook, bring them into the... Oval Office, if he has no morals, he's going to say, hey, the government will threaten you to do what I say. This has always been the possibility. When we lose economic democracy, it lends itself to political authoritarianism, because now those businesses can only exist at the whim of the government allowing it to happen or not allowing it, and they become censors of a kind, because their scale is so huge, Chris, that basically they're worried about political relationships more than they're worried about consumers. And what you're challenging us to say is, hey, raise your voice as consumers. Fas Shakir, Angela Carson, thank you gentlemen, both. Coming up. Thank you. The people of Earth gathered today in New York to listen to an American president brag about hat sales, among other things. Donald Trump's truly head-shaking performance at the UN when we come back. Even by the already impossibly degraded standards, the last 48 hours of Donald Trump's pronounceance have been disturbing and dangerous. It started yesterday during a bizarre address about autism, Tylenol, and vaccines. Effective immediately, the FDA will be notifying physicians at the use of, well, let's see how we say that. Acetaminophen. Acetaminophen. Is that okay? Which is basically commonly known as Tylenol. during pregnancy can be associated with a very increased risk of autism. We want no mercury in the vaccine. We want no aluminum in the vaccine. The MMR, I think, should be taken separately. This is based on what I feel. The... mumps, measles, and the three should be taken separately. Don't let them pump your baby up with the largest pile of stuff you've ever seen in your life going into the delicate little body of a baby. This was all nonsense, and that's the most charitable word I could use. I mean, vaccines do not cause autism. This has been established at peer review after peer review after peer review over decades. It's been studied. There is no established link between Tylenol and autism either. Certainly not the very elevated risk that he talked about. But Trump didn't stop there. He absolutely flew off the rails during his speech of the UN today. Admittedly, the day got off to a bad start. The president and the first lady, Dana, have just walked in right on time, I would say. Right on cue. Yeah, there are a couple of minutes ahead of schedule, and, you know, we love that punctuality. Yes. And the first lady also going to address the UN as well as she arrives with her husband, and they go up the escalator this time. I heard a few questions being shouted there, but no responses. Stand by. I don't know if there's audio on that or not. Chuck Schumer.

Okay, I heard the end. That was Chuck Schumer. There's a reason for that. Slight escalator mishap for what it's worth. The UN official told the AP that Trump's own party was responsible for escalator gate. That did not stop the president from grousing about it and many other topics in front of the whole world. All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that on the way up stopped right in the middle. We both stood. And then a teleprompter that didn't work. These are the two things I got from the United Nations, a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter. Many years ago, a very successful real estate developer in New York, known as Donald J. Trump, I bid on the renovation and rebuilding of this very United Nations complex. I remember it so well. I said at the time that I would do it for $500 million, rebuilding everything. It would be beautiful. I used to talk about, I'm going to give you marble floors. They're going to give you Taraza. I'm going to give you the best of everything. You're going to have mahogany walls. They're going to give you plastic. But they decided to go in another direction. You walk on Taraza. Do you notice that? And I'm really good at predicting things, you know. They actually said during the campaign, they had a hat, the best-selling hat. Trump was right about everything. And I don't say that in a braggadocious way, but it's true. I've been right about everything. And I'm telling you that if you don't get away from the green energy scam, your country is going to fail. It's time to end the failed experiment of open borders. You have to end it now. Let's see, I can tell you. I'm really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell. That was just a sample of the hour of ramblings by our 79-year-old president today. Coming up next, Senator Mark Kelly joins me live on set. Don't go away. Hey, everybody. It's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard, I have a podcast. That's called Literally with Roblo. And basically, it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday. So subscribe, please, and listen, wherever you get your podcasts. 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.

Nothing beats tradition, like weekly game nights at Mom's House and Tostitos. Crafted with Massa made the traditional way, starting with whole corn kernels, with flavors worth gathering around, like a hint of lime and Mexican street corn, and no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives. That's the Tostitos way. Bring Tostitos to your next game night, and you'll be winning either way. Tostitos, Tradition Matters. Today, Donald Trump addressed the UN General Assembly. His speech went on for almost an hour, nearly four times what he was allotted. And it was very familiar in many ways, just sort of like his free association riff stuff. It included a very shrewd audition for the Nobel Peace Prize. I ended seven wars. And in all cases, they were raging with countless thousands of people being killed. This includes Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the Congo and Rwanda, a vicious violent war that was, Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, in Armenia and Azerbaijan. Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize for each one of these achievements. What I care about is not winning prizes at saving lives. Senator Mark Kelly is a Democrat of Arizona. He serves on the Armed Services Committee. He's here in New York, turning this young general assembly week. He joins Ben Set. Good to have you here. Good to be here. I mean, at a certain point, you'll run out of adjectives to describe the rhetoric of the President of the United States, but your response to the speech today. Well, he's adding more countries every day. Yeah, I think it's because, you know, he said before the election that he was going to end the war in Ukraine and Gaza on day one. Unrealistic. And it seems like he's insecure. about this, not being able to accomplish what he promised. You know, I think folks have to just stop listening to them. I feel really bad about having to say that. Or maybe we just give them a medal. Remember at the end of the Wizard of Oz? The end of the Wizard of Oz, the Wizard gave the Lion a medal. I think that's the point. I think if you could do a Truman show Nobel Peace Prize sort of thing for him, you would be extremely excited about it. But that point you made, I mean, I want to ask you about these two conflicts. One is today he came out seeming to sort of oscillate back towards Ukraine and maybe they can get all their territory back and now open again to sanctions. Now, again, people talk to this 180, but part of the thing with him is this inconstancy means you never know if that... like whether that's going to last. Where do you see our role in that conflict right now?

Well, I think we still need to support our ally, Ukraine, help them. You know, we used to give them. Now it's done through European nations, selling them the equipment. They need to defend themselves. The war has changed dramatically. I sit on the Armed Services and the Intelligence Committee. In the beginning of that war, it was a lot of artillery, exchange of artillery fire. That's where some ground would be made or loss. That is now FPV, first person drone. warfare, which has really changed what ground combat looks like on, well, certainly in Europe. We have to continue to support them. It's also not realistic, you know, what the president said today. I think he even said something about maybe Ukraine would gain some Russian territory. Yes, he said maybe we'll get, they'll get past their border. Talk about a 180. You're talking about a 180 and then let's go like, you know, 100 yards down the field. This war can end when it gets really uncomfortable for Vladimir Putin, when he is affected financially. If we could stop the purchase of oil by China, India, Brazil, that adds up to a lot of revenue. There's legislation to do that. We could put more pressure on the Russians. It's interesting. I think the tariff rate on Russia right now is 10%. Yeah. Now, we don't buy a lot. Yeah, there's not a lot of commerce. Not a lot of stuff there, but just as a symbolic. you know, measure. We could raise the, you know, tariff on Russia, demonstrate that we, you know, we are serious about this. Ultimately, I think it's going to be financial pressure on Vladimir Putin, on his government, so he can't continue to fund this war machine. He is now, Vladimir Putin has established himself as a war criminal. You know, I hope to one day see him in prison. you know, somewhere every day he is killing more innocent women, children, old people, intentionally. And I have a meeting tomorrow with President Volodymyr Zelensky. You know, hopefully we get some news from him about the meeting he had, you know, with Donald Trump, and maybe we can move this thing in the right direction. You mentioned the two words he said he would. end on day one, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, and Hamas, and Gaza. The latter shows no signs of ending. There's, including ex-hostages who are in New York this week, advocating for some sort of diplomatic end. The Benjamin Netanyahu government seems to be pretty clear they don't want that. And this will just go on. And then after that, maybe the voluntary exodus of two million Gazans after tens of thousands have been killed. European allies are saying they're going to recognize a Palestinian state. as pressure? Should the U.S. do that as well? You know, I have been supportive and still support a two-state solution to this. You're right about President or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He is not taking the necessary steps to see this come to some kind of conclusion. He's actually been making it harder. I've met with him a number of times starting out a week after October 7th. but then on at least one more occasion. And, you know, he says things in private. It's different than he says in public. It's not consistent with the actions he's taking. And because of that, you know, women and children are dying. Kids are starving. We have to do more to support the humanitarian crisis.

That's going on. Just an hour ago, I was with Cindy McCain here in New York talking about the challenges that she faces. She's been very outspoken, too. It is incredibly hard. She needs, she has the last, not in this conversation, but a couple weeks ago I was talking to her, and she says she has about two feeding stations. She needs 200. The prime minister says he's going to help her with that. They don't get the help they need to be able to feed more kids. But she's also dealing with fewer resources. Her budget is down 40%, partly due to the cuts in USAID. We used to send the World Food Program more money. When we cut it, other countries started pulling back. Well, and there was never a vote on that, and then there was a vote in a rescission packet. Right. Which brings me to this question about a shutdown. The president set up a meeting with Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer to talk about... working out of government funding deal. He then canceled it and posted a screed that was sort of indistinguishable from like the UNs, like from all. Typical. Yeah. You know, a lot of people were looking at the Democrats and saying like, how can you do a deal with a this administration that's acting so lawlessly and so destructively towards the basic fabric of the republic? And also. reserving the right to just not listen to what Congress tells them about appropriations. It's a tough spot to be in. I've got to be perfectly honest with you about that. We could make a deal with him. He could renege on the deal. He could rescind more money. And this fight right now, this month, about this shutdown is over how much the American people are going to pay for their health care. That's all this is about. The president is saying no. We're trying to... provide some help because their costs are going to skyrocket here this fall. If people get their health care on the Affordable Care Act Exchange, those premiums are going up dramatically. Folks are going to get kicked off of Medicaid. You know, that's post-26 probably, but you're going to start to see rural hospitals closing. We're fighting to keep those rural hospitals open, keep health care costs down. And the president of the United States is not only saying no, Now he's saying it isn't even want to discuss it. This is the guy who claims he wrote the book, The Art of the Deal. Master negotiator doesn't even want to have the meeting. Senator Mark Kelly, it's great to have you here. Come back anytime. I wish we had more time, but I really appreciate it. Thank you. Donald Trump's border czar had a curious answer when asked about taking $50,000 in a bag from undercover FBI agents. Carol Lennox broke that incredible story. We'll get a reaction next.

Over the weekend, MSNBC had this explosive report that, quote, in an undercover operation last year, the FBI recorded Tom Homan. Now the White House borders are accepting $50,000 in cash after indicating he could help the agents, who are posing his business objectives, win government contracts in a second Trump administration, according to multiple people familiar with the probe and internal documents reviewed by MSNBC. The case indefinitely stalled soon after Donald Trump became president again, and in recent weeks, Trump appointees officially closed the investigation. Asked for comment, the White House, the DOJ, and the FBI dismissed the investigation as politically motivated and baseless. Tom Homan did not reply to request for comment. But last night, Tom Homan showed up on Fox News. And they said that you took $50,000 in cash in a bag from an undercover FBI agent to help them win government contracts in Trump's second term. The DOJ said they concluded there was no criminal wrongdoing, but nevertheless that story is out there, and I imagine you want to respond to that. Absolutely. Look, I did nothing criminal. I did nothing illegal. And this hit piece after hit piece after hit piece. And I'm glad the FBI and DOJ came out and said. And, you know, it said that nothing illegal happened, nothing, you know, no criminal activity. You're talking about a guy spent 34 years enforcing the law. I mean, I left the very successful business that I ran to come back and work for a government again. I'm back on a government paycheck. Now, I have to say, I did not hear him. deny taking $50,000 in cash? Joining me now is one of the reporters who broke that incredible story, Carol Lennox, an investigative reporter for MSNBC and a four-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Carol, first of all, amazing work. I was slightly bummed that it happened on the weekend. I'd have a show that day, but great, great, great reporting. Your response to Holman's response to your story. Chris, I was also slightly bummed that it happened on a weekend, but, you know, news is news and we have to break it when we have it. And when we've carefully vetted it, which we did. Holman's response also surprised me. It came a few hours, not many hours, after White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said that... Holman didn't take $50,000 and she scolded a reporter in the White House briefing who asked her about it and said, you know, try to get your facts right. That was kind of surprising to me because I have looked at a document that's from inside the Justice Department that says the FBI gave him $50,000 and he accepted it in a meeting in September 2024 when these undercover agents were arranging to give him this fund. I was surprised as well after that when Tom Homan basically said, I did nothing criminal. I did nothing wrong. And then started to complain about how little money he makes now working for the government. Yes. I mean, the segue seemed to be like, cut a guy a break. I mean, you know, again, what he was saying was like, look, I've left a business and I don't make a lot of money.

There is the question here, and I don't know if you know this in reporting, but I would suspect that inside the FBI, if you're running an operation where there's $50,000 in a bag, like, that's notated and kept track of pretty closely. Like, that doesn't just fly around. And there is like a little bit of the McGuffin question here, like, where's the money? Do we know where the $50,000 is? Yeah, oh gosh, the question I have gotten every day since this story ran, there are people in my extended family who said, where's the money? Carol, can the taxpayers get the money back from the FBI? You're asking exactly the right question. Did anybody pay any taxes on the money that reportedly was given to Holman? Did he disclose it anywhere on its disclosure form because we can't find it? The FBI has, and I'm so glad you asked, Chris, nobody's asked me this question yet. The FBI has a system called Sentinel. And it's their, basically their huge database where they store all of their information about every criminal investigation they're engaged in. They record what they, every step they took. They record what evidence they have. And this is not something where files get deleted. This is not something where... recordings, whether they be audio or video, whatever the recordings are, this is not something that gets destroyed. It's maintained for a reason, because the FBI doesn't fool around when they begin an undercover investigation. Presumably, those are, you know, those still exist somewhere, those recordings if they exist. There's also just, there's an aspect of this that I thought was worth drawing attention to. I want to get your thoughts on. You know, there's been this drumbeat from Donald Trump and his allies that the Biden department was weaponized. And it was weaponized against political foes and that it was weaponized against the president. And when you first read a story, it says, oh, wow, FBI agents went undercover, you know, to possibly bribe Tom Homan. You could think yourself, oh, you know, that they must have known this guy as a prominent spokesperson for the campaign of Donald Trump. But two things are really striking. One, the detail that the tip came from another investigation. And two. there's a tape of Tom Homan taking a $50,000 satchel of cash that no one knew about during the campaign in 2024. It never leaked. No one said word one. We never read a story. The video never came out. That is pretty notable for an administration that has been accused of essentially using the Justice Department in that way. 1,000 percent. I think from talking to my sources, they're actually quite proud that the Career Justice Department and the political appointees of the Justice Department, nobody ever kind of gave this up like, oh, word to the wise. Tom Homan is on a recording taking this bag of money, and it's not an insignificant amount of money.

I want to emphasize something here that a lot of viewers probably don't appreciate. And that is how tight the universe of people are in a public corruption probe that are briefed on the details. Now, you know, it might be more than two dozen, but it's a really small universe of people that know all of the details about this undercover investigation, who did what? Who were the other possible people under scrutiny? But back to your other point, I don't want to miss that, that thread, Chris, that you brought up, which is in addition to this not leaking, The investigation that started this was in 2023 and had nothing to do with Tom Homan. The FBI in Texas was looking into a wholly different criminal conspiracy they were concerned about. And in the course of that, an intermediary said to them, hey, just so you know, Tom Homan can arrange, you know. an improper influence on future federal contracts for money. And the person said this enough times that the FBI in Texas decided, we got to investigate this. And that's when this undercover probe began. Carol Lenig, fantastic reporting. Thanks for joining us. Come back soon. Ahead. Growing a bipartisan alarm over Donald Trump's brazen public demand to prosecute his political enemies. The latest on that story next. Hey, everybody, it's Rob Lo here. If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Roblo. And basically, it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday. So subscribe, please, and listen wherever you get your podcasts. Summer means firing up the grill, getting together with friends, and making the most of the weekends. Total Wine and More is my first stop. Whether it's Celsius and ready to serve cocktails with a cooler or a good bottle of bourbon. Everything I need is at Total Wine. With the lowest prices, it's easy to stock up for whatever the weekend brings, and I can get everything I need in one stop. Shop Total Wine and More and get ready for your next summer party. Spears are not sold in Virginia or North Carolina. Drink responsibly must be 21. If you're a parent and want to help set up your child for success, then I-Excel is right for your family. As an effective and affordable online learning program, I-X-L covers math.

language arts, science, and social studies using interactive practice problems for kids from pre-K to 12th grade. Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off I-Exel membership when they sign up today at Iexel.com slash 20. Visit Iexel.com slash 20 to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Almost 20 years ago, the George W. Bush administration was rocked by one of its biggest scandals. The Department of Justice, led by then Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, was caught firing U.S. attorneys who were not pursuing basically fictitious voter fraud cases. Gonzalez was intensely criticized for how he handled the firings of federal prosecutors. Some claim they were pushed out for improper political reasons. His answers left many unsatisfied. I don't recall. I don't recall him speaking to me about that, sir. Sir, I don't recall when the decision was made. Members of both parties began calling for him to step down. As you can see, the scandal led to congressional hearings. Politicians from both parties were outraged, and in the end, Gonzalez resigned in disgrace. When that scandal first broke in 2007, it started with local outlets, a few blogs piecing together what looked like random firings. Then reporters started connecting the dots, and the story exploded. There was a sense of shame, or at a minimum, an understanding that firings like that could be illegal, certainly improper. Well, fast forward to now. On Friday, Trump pushed out U.S. attorney Eric Siebert, quote, over his decision not to seek indictments against two of the president's political foes, New York Attorney General Letitia James and James Comey, three people familiar with the matter said. A short time after that, Trump publicly posted what sure did a pre-eater to be a private message, perhaps meant for Attorney General Pam Bondi, quote, Pam. I have reviewed over 30 statements in post saying that essentially same old story as last time, all talk no action, nothing is being done. What about James Comey? Adam Schiff, Letitia James. They're all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done. He even lied to the media and said he quit and that we had no case. No, I fired him. They impeached me twice and indicted me five times. Over nothing. Justice must be served now. Greg Nunziata served his general counsel to Marco Rubio back when he was a senator. He's also Republican counsel, Senate policy, and judiciary committees back then. He's now an executive director at the Society for the Rule of Law, and he joins me now. Greg, even I think by the standards of Trump administration legal malevolence, the idea of pushing out someone who won't indict one of your political foes and installing someone who will seems a new line we've crossed. What do you think? I think absolutely. From the beginning of this administration, there were concerns that this president, from what he was promising on the campaign trail, intended to corrupt the rule of law in this country and to use the resources of the federal government to serve his personal interests and target his enemies. There was evidence of that on day one with the pardons, the early policies, the personnel who were largely his personal defense attorneys leading the Justice Department.

And I think this is the week that this became not just a theory or a concern. It became... of reality. It became undeniable that this is exactly what the president is doing. I think people could reasonably disagree about what happened in the Bush administration that you talked about at the outset. But this is an entirely different universe. The fundamental principle that I think we should all agree on is that the resources of the federal government, particularly the immense prosecutorial powers of the Justice Department, should not be directed towards persecuting unlawfully the personal enemies or critics of the president who happens to sit in the White House. today. One of the things that's striking here is that if you look at all into the details of, for instance, Letitia James's case, which we've covered a little bit, you know, this single document, which was like this power of attorney that she apparently took off the internet. And then the other parts of the loan application, she said it was a second home. So like the idea that you could, you know, you could build a criminal case here. I think Eric Siebert, you know, looked at it and said, no, you just, you can't. Like, there's no case here. He gets fired. The president is now. put into that position, a woman named Lindsey Halligan, who was an assurance attorney that worked for him with the clear mandate to, it doesn't matter if you've never prosecuted a case, which she never has, just do this one thing. The U.S. attorneys across this country and every state in this country are the leadership of federal law enforcement. And this administration is increasingly putting in position through any means possible, avoiding the Senate, people who are distinguished not by their service to the rule of law, their expertise in law, but by their service and loyalty to the president of the United States, by their willingness to put his personal interests above the law. Look, the president's the boss. of the federal executive branch. He's the boss of the Justice Department. He can fire people. He's got a right to having people who are faithful to his lawful policy preferences and his lawful commands. But people in federal service, particularly in the Justice Department, must put the law and the Constitution first. I'm glad you said that because this is one of those cases. We talk about this a lot about the sort of like, you know, people talk about breaking norms and particularly, I think, in the first Trump administration and the idea of the White House and the Department of Justice having this arm's length relationship, which was a post-watergate norm. It was written into some of the regulations inside the Department of Justice, right? And there's some statutory stuff too. But this strikes me as just flatly illegal. I mean, if not even a violation of statute of the U.S. Constitution, the law is equal protection, for instance, among other things.

to have a president order your prosecution against the evidence is just, it's not a norm. That is not lawful in this country. No, I think that's right. I think the president has broad discretion to fire U.S. attorneys, but he doesn't have the right to use the federal government to target individual people. I mean, that is a fundamental assault on all the things we hold dear as Americans, the core rights of our Constitution, including, as you mentioned, equal protection and due process. I mean, every American should be outraged, and Republicans should join in that outrage. This is not about right or left, a big government or small government. This is about right. and wrong and fundamental American rights, and I hope more voices will be raised on it. Finally to you, last 30 seconds here, do you think, why are Republicans not thinking the shoe on the other foot problem with this stuff? Like, do they really want to live in a world where a Democratic president can do this? They should not. I ask my conservative friends this all the time. It's just terribly short-sighted, and we all, as Americans, from left to right, should think about these kind of neutral rules that we want to apply, regardless who's in power. That's the point of our Constitution to allow us to tolerate governance by people we don't agree with. So I hope we can get back to that from both sides. Craig Nunziata. It's great to have you on. Come back. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much. That does it for All In. You can catch us every weeknight at 8 o'clock on MSNBC. Don't forget to like us on Facebook. That's facebook.com slash all in with Chris. Hey, everybody, it's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Roblo. And basically, it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday. So subscribe, please, and listen wherever you get your podcasts.