‘Rolled over’: Hayes rips Cornyn, Tillis for caving on Blanche

A morning walk, some bird watching. It's another easy Sunday. United Health Group makes these ordinary days possible with partners like the University of Tennessee Health Sciences, helping communities manage their health closer to home. 54% of participants have lowered their blood pressure, meaning fewer heart attacks and more Sundays at the park. This might feel like an ordinary day. To United Health Group, it's the healthcare system working better for everyone. Learn more at UnitedHealthgroup.com slash commitment. You know those tiny back-to-school emergencies that somehow become your problem? That's why I love Uber Eats. You can order school supplies, snacks, and lunchbox essentials for $5 or less. So when your kid casually drops, I don't like peanut butter anymore. Or I need five green highlighters for a project due tomorrow. Uber Eats has you covered. Get everything you need for back to school today from your favorite brands like Albion Staples on Uber Eats. Order now. Ends 97. $5 or less before taxes and fees. Select items only. Availability varies. See app for details. Tonight on All-in. I view that fund is a positive and a lot of Republicans do too. Slush Fund Theater in the Oval Office. Mr. President, Mr. President, did he signed off on Todd Blanche. I didn't look at it. All I know is that Todd Blanche is great. Tonight, Jamie Raskin on the Trump Slush Fund and the fate of Todd Blanche. Then. If I had assaulted her, would she had offered a cook meat dinner six days later? Why is the White House still supporting Max Miller as some Republicans begin to break ranks? Then. Really disappointed with Jeanine Burr. She folded like an umbrella. Is Donald Trump about to fire his Fox News prosecutor over the reflecting pool fiasco? And Senator Bernie Sanders on the massive national implications of the big vote in Michigan, but all in starts right now.

$1 million, how would you like to have a million dollars from the government out of nowhere, to an anti-abortion access activist who was convicted of conspiring to prevent access to a clinic but was pardoned by Trump last year. Now, there's also the matter of Trump's immunity deal, right? There's two parts of this deal. And that, the immunity deal for Trump and ascends, it lives on. Donald Trump, Donald Trump's sons, his umbrella corporation, get tax immunity. They can just skip last year's tax bill altogether. Remember, last week when Thom Tillis and John Cornyn were demanding written insurances that were better than these, they said someone at the White House was holding things up, someone who apparently didn't want anything changed in that settlement. I guess we'll never find out who it was. Mr. President, did you sign off on Todd Blanche? I didn't look at it. All I know is that Todd Blanche is great. He's going to do a great job. Everybody knows it. And I understand there's been a sign-off. But I don't know what they agreed. I think Todd Blanche agreed to reconfirm things that he's already said. And what he said was okay. Again, he sounds pretty happy, but why wouldn't he be, right? He gets his own personal attorney, permanently installed at justice, or at least, you know, actually confirmed. He gets the Republican Senate's affirmative stamp of approval on him. Let's be clear, essentially, and I don't think there's a better way to say this, like robbing the American taxpayer of hundreds of millions in personal and corporate tax liabilities that are hanging over his head. Remember, he's been obsessed with this from the beginning. And he can still pay off some of his weaponization victims out of the Department of Justice Till, slush fund or none. In exchange, Tillison John Cornyn finally got what they really wanted. And this is really the key thing to understand about the story and understand about those two men you see there and the character of those two men and who they are. They just wanted a fig leaf to share with all the other Republicans, particularly facing re-election in this cycle, to say, see, we fought the toxic, corrupt self-dealing with taxpayer funds that nobody likes, or at least we fought the most outrageous thing that Trump has come up with, which was to use your money to pay off people that bashed in the heads of cops. And at the center of all this is a man who's already demonstrated himself manifestly in fit to be attorney general in the United States. I mean, it's not even a question, right? This guy fails in every possible way. He bent over backwards for Trump when it came to soft peddling the Epstein files. In fact, a federal judge appears to believe that they're still in violation of the law signed as of now. He was the one that put together the sweetheart deal with the lone person ever being convicted of being an accomplice to Jeffrey Epstein, who was Ghislaine Maxwell, right? Who was helping him traffic the girls that he abused. and then got out of the prison she was in to go to a lower security prison because Todd Blanche wanted her there. He's overseen prosecutions of Trump's perceived political critics, many of them, often under obviously ridiculous circumstances. He's currently facing ethics complaints and a really stirring condemnation from a federal judge over the role in the IRS settlement, which he was the point guy for.

Should this guy be the top law enforcement officer in the country is a very easy question. There should not be a single vote for him. But the thing is, Thom Tillis and John Cornyn, well, they caved, even though they've literally nothing to lose, right? They're both on their way out of Washington a few months. But the lesson of all this is that they cave because they're Republicans and they like Donald Trump and want to enable him. At the national level, there really aren't any good Republicans under Donald Trump. I'm sorry, but at the national level, and there are some exceptions on particular issues. Thomas Massie's been good on war, and he's good on the Epstein files here and there. But you always have to remember, whatever they say, whenever they express their disquiet, whether in public or in background to a reporter, which they love to do, here is a reality. The modern Republican Party is Donald Trump's party, and it is a party that affirmatively supports Donald Trump. They want to see, believe in, are glad that Donald Trump is using our government in the way he's using it. They work every day to facilitate that so that he can use it for self-enrichment, mass deportation, enormous tax cuts for wealthy interests, deregulation for those same wealthy interests, and wars in the Middle East. I've been covering Republican politics for decades. It's the agenda of the Republican Party. It just is. It's not just Trump. The whole party is rotten. Congressman Jamie Raskin, Democrat County, Maryland is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and he joins me now. I don't think either of us in this conversation are particularly surprised. This is where John Cornyn and... Thom Tillis ended up. In fact, they kept saying the phrase we want to get to yes. Like, please just give us a fig leaf. Just put this in writing. To argue against myself and play devil advocate, is there anything to the paper issued by Todd Blanche today that you think is binding? No, I think it's worse even than what you're saying, Chris, because it's an attempt to deceive the public that somehow there's been a solution. And in fact, there's nothing to it. For one thing, Donald Trump can bring a lawsuit on the settlement to enforce it because they refuse to rescind and dissolve the settlement. So he's got a legally binding agreement. that he can sue on. Also, if you look at the language of it and you look at Todd Blanche's language, it's all there is no fund. It's all present tense. There is no fund now and so on. Nothing about there will be no fund. But in any event, even if they signed that, something saying there will be no anti-weaponization fund. As you observed, they didn't say anything about just using the judgment fund of the United States or any other fund. If you're a proud boy, an oathkeeper, another convicted January 6th. felon who beat up a police officer. You don't care what the check is drawn on. You don't care which government fund is ripping off the taxpayers. You just want to be a megamillionaire, right? That's what you want. And so they have already written a number of checks out of the judgment fund, the general fund that is there for actual verdicts against the United States. So his disgraced former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, got a check for $1.25 million, which apparently is the going rate. Carter.

Page got $1.25 million. The family of Ashley Babbitt got $5 million, despite the fact that two different federal probes determined that her killing, however tragic it was, and it was tragic, was nonetheless justified because of the mob violence and the people chanting hang Mike Pence in the attempt to storm the House and the Senate chambers. And, you know, Michael Flynn had just lost his case. And then Todd Blanche's department of just settled with him. claims he had just lost, which the Department of Justice won. So it's very clear where they're going. Donald Trump keeps saying these are, you know, the most abused and wronged people in American history, which is an obscenity in itself. If he feels so bad about it, why doesn't he put half of the money he made over the last year to pay his own foot soldiers in his private militia? Why should the rest of us be paying? He should put the money up. Yes, and he has made, as many people have reported and based on public filings, like billions of dollars. I just want to come back to this thing you said, because I do think this is like, it's a little too clever by half on the fund. Just the full Todd Blanche memo, it says, that the order is rescinded and shall have no force of effect, right? But for the avoidance of doubt, nothing in this order is intended to contradict or otherwise be contrary to prior representations by the Department of Justice that the fund is not operative. Again, on this day, August 2nd, 2026. No, members were appointed in the past tense. Well, that's true. No funds were transferred. No process for receiving claims was established. No claims were paid. That is all true. That is a description of the history of the world that we live in. This order establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that there is no fund. There is nothing there prospectively. There is nothing saying they won't make it. It's all in the present tense or in the past tense. No, I mean, you know, John Cornyn and Thom Tillis basically got no consideration. You know, if that were a contract, it would be immediately declared void because there was no consideration. They didn't get anything out of it. And then when you look at the other half of it, which is obviously even more important to Donald Trump, the immunity for prosecution for tax fraud or any other. criminal fraud or civil fraud or any criminal or civil offenses at all committed up until this point, they just reaffirmed that he has won that through this totally fraudulent agreement, essentially between Donald Trump. And Donald Trump, because Donald Trump insists upon the idea and the courts are now going with it that the president is unilaterally in control of the entire executive branch. So if he negotiates with the head of the IRS or the Treasury Secretary or the attorney general and they come to an agreement, that's just an agreement between Trump and Trump and Trump is going to win that every time. And that means the people lose. And yet that is still completely viable and valid. So I guess what you're saying.

is right, which is that this is just Republicans circling the wagons around Donald Trump again, which is why his poll numbers have plummeted to the lowest level of any second term president, basically since Richard Nixon, or maybe since polling began in the 1940s. I was thinking about my friend Sarah Chase, who wrote a really interesting book about corruption, and she said, these are just political and financial networks of corruption. That's how mafia states work. And we have been driven to the point where the government of the United States of America is operating like a mafia state. On this final point, I mean, you're a constitutional law, constitutional scholar before you enter Congress. My wife is a constitutional scholar. I am but a humble cable news host with a bachelor's degree in philosophy. But it seems to me that I'm not sure it's within the scope of the powers of a civil settlement to bar criminal prosecution and investigation by the state. Like, I just don't think. You can do that. I don't think you say, like, well, we've settled. And so now the law doesn't apply, like the criminal law doesn't apply to you. Like, no, where do you get off? Like, you rip it up the second that there's a new president, right? Well, Todd Blanche keeps coming back to the idea that oftentimes when people settle with the government, if there's like a tax fraud prosecution, somebody will plead guilty to X and Y and they drop the charges on Z. Okay, that's true. That's a matter of fact. But look at what happened here. Donald Trump brought a suit that was brought by hundreds or thousands of other people about a leak of taxpayer information. The courts have determined and the Department of Justice has been adamant in every other case except for Trump's. that there's no private right of action against the U.S. government when a third-party government contractor leaks your information. That guy, Charles Little John, is in jail for what he did, but nobody has recovered a dollar from him. And yet, Trump, who sued for $10 billion somehow has been granted this $1.8 billion slush fund. And then, in addition, they threw on immunity from all of these other... offenses, either real or being investigated now, the agreement says, that have absolutely nothing to do with what Charles Littlejohn did. I mean, they're just completely logically unrelated, totally detached. So in that sense, you're right. I'm not sure it wouldn't hold up. It might not hold up. In any event, it is absolute highway robbery. We have a bill. And now every Democrat in the House has signed their name to a discharge petition to get it to the floor. And if you've got a Republican rep or senator who's been saying that they're opposed to this fraud against the court and fraud.

against the public, as Judge Williams said down in Florida, then you've got to get them to sign the discharge petition so we can permanently block it. Otherwise, Donald Trump gets away with the entire scam. Yes, although see prior commentary from yours truly about the odds of that. But we'll see. Never stop trying. Congressman Jamie Raskin. We'll see. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. We'll see. Thank you, Chris. Coming up, Senator Bernie Sanders on Michigan's big election and the wild new Trump plan to cut Medicare, specifically subsidies for drugs for seniors. That's next. Summer routines live or die by how easy they are. And honestly, if something takes too much effort, I'm out. And that's why Grooons is my go-to. It's one daily pack of gummies covering my greens, vitamins, and minerals. Plus, it has six grams of prebiotic fiber, which is more than two cups of broccoli. No mixing powders, no giant pills, no hassle. I just rip open the pack and I'm done. They taste good and make it easy to stay on top of my health, even when life gets busy. Save up to 52% off with code podcast at grooms.co. That's code podcast at gr-un-s.co. And now, the next chapter of the Serta counting sheep. Hey, Uncle Number One, why aren't we counted anymore? Let me tell you a story. Long ago, Serta invented the perfect sleeper mattress. Oh, no. Oh, yes. It says the all-new Serta Perfect Sleaper with the Q4 support system has four and one perfectly interlinked coils that help relieve aches and back pain for perfect sleep night after night. We'll never get counted again. Uh, nope. Serta, we make the world's best mattress. Hi, it's Sierra Miller. I can't wait for you to check out my new collection of shoes and accessories at Designer Shoe Warehouse. If you love shoes as much as I do, then trust me, I got you. From cute sneak arenas to the perfect flip-flops to stunning heels. These shoes are all style, no drama. It's a girls' girl's summer, and DSW has just the shoes. Shop the Sierra Miller collection right now at your DSW store or DSW.com.

Sometimes it seems like Donald Trump is trying to win some sort of bet about how much he can hurt Republicans' political chances in the midterms. Polls show him underwater on issues where he's been historically very strong, like the economy and immigration. Everyone across the board hates his war with Iran, which, by the way, continues today even though there was promises that there were some deal. Of course not. But he's also doing nothing to try to turn those things around. Instead, just the opposite. Get this. His administration is now planning to end a Medicare subsidy. That will mean higher drug costs for seniors, one of the biggest voting blocks, and also in a midterm year. That's given Democrats the chance to resurface this video of a closed press event in April, the White House briefly posted by mistake. It's not possible for us to take care of daycare. Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing. Military protection. We have to guard the country. Senator Bernie Sanders is an independent of Vermont. He's a ranking member of the Health, Education, and Labor Committee, and he joins me now. Today, also in the sort of ongoing theme here, you highlighted a colleague of yours from Alabama calling Social Security a scam, which also seems like a strange closing message for midterm elections. Yeah, it does. Look, bottom line is, I think the American people are catching on. Big time that Donald Trump is not only an oligarch concerned about his own family's wealth and the wealth of his fellow oligarchs, he's really at war against the working class of this country. The idea that at a time when prescription drug prices are so high, you would cut Medicare Part D subsidies and raise prescription drug rates by up to 50% is really quite cruel. and unbelievable from a political sense. In terms of Social Security, again, it is no great secret. Republicans have never liked Social Security. What they essentially want to do is make massive cuts, raising the retirement age, cutting back on COLA's, and a variety of other approaches. But the bottom line is that we have got to save Social Security. We've got to expand Social Security benefits, and we can do that, Chris, by simply lifting the cap on taxable income so that the very wealthiest people stop paying their fair share. Right now, you make $20 million a year. You contribute the same amount into Social Security as somebody who makes $187,000. Lift that cap. We can make Social Security solvent for 75 years and increased benefits. That's what we've got to do. Tomorrow is a primary day in a few different states. We're going to be doing special coverage here. I know that you have been on the road and you've endorsed some of the candidates, including Abdul El-Sayed, who right now polling average shows is leading his opponent, Hallie Stevens, congresswoman in Michigan by quite a bit.

Here's an argument I've seen people make. I'm just going to show you this polling average. Now, I want to be clear here that none of this is written and shown, and I don't even think these are enormous differences. But there has been a trend to show, to suggest that possibly Haley Stevens would be a stronger general election nominee and candidate against Mike Rogers, who's going to be the Republican candidate than Abdul El-Sayed. And I'm curious, obviously you agree with Abdul El-Sayed on the merits, right? But I'm curious your response to the argument that... There's a risk here on the electability front in a state that is very close in that Donald Trump carried against a pretty strong candidate in Mike Rogers. Here's my response, and it's twofold. Number one, I believe that when you have a candidate like Abdul El-Sayed, talking about the issues that are relevant to working-class people, whether they're Democrats, independents, or Republicans, you will win over people who previously voted for Trump. Independence and Republicans in Michigan cannot afford health care. They know the current system is broken. They support concepts like universal health care and Medicare for all. Republicans' independence in Michigan do not believe we should give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the 1% and throw 15 million people off of health care. They think, in fact, that the billionaires who stop paying their fair share of taxes. That is what Abdul believes in. Republicans, independents, Democrats understand that we have a campaign finance system that is absolutely corrupt billionaires by elections. Abdul tomorrow. And this is really quite incredible. If he wins, he is going to have to overcome a nine-to-one spending ratio in terms of ads. They're spending nine times more than he is, because it's a corrupt campaign finance system. The billionaires want Haley Stevens to win. Second point, what Democratic establishment people look at the voter electorate as a fixed number, we don't. When Zohran Mamdani won in New York City, he had 100,000 volunteers out on the street, he expanded the voter universe, brought new people, young people, primarily working class people into the process. Right now, Abdul has thousands of volunteers working. So I think what you will see is any increased voter turnout, and many of the new people who are participating in the general election will be younger people who traditionally don't vote. working-class people who have been disenchanted with the Democratic Party. That is how and why El-Sayed will win the general election.

We'll see tomorrow night. I mean, obviously, we're not there yet. And polls have been wrong. So this is not at all a done deal. And as you said, there's been an enormous difference in the money spent because of super packed money on the other side supporting Stephen. So I don't want to get ahead of us there. There's also, there's a few other primaries, including there's one in Wisconsin. There's going to be one in Minnesota. Wisconsin one is a week from now. Can I ask you a question that I'm almost positive you have never been asked on television? All right. Let me hear it. All right. Here it is. The Democratic Socialist America were founded by Michael Harrington. Now, you and Michael Harrington had a bit of a history, and you kind of ran in similar milieus. And Michael Harrington and you had opposite theories of the case about left liberal politics and the two-party system. Your theory of the case was that the Democratic Party had to be abandoned. You needed new parties and you had to strike out on your own. Michael Harrington's case, which has sort of come to fruition, is that you needed to work within the Democratic Party, which was the kind of founding conceited the Democratic Social America, the left wing of the possible. You guys disagreed on this. Now here we are all these years later. Michael, of course, passed quite a while ago. And that vision... kind of coming to fruition within the Democratic Party. And I wonder if you think, if you want to say to Michael, wherever he may be now, if he was on the right side of that argument. Michael didn't know him terribly well. What was a wonderful, wonderful man? He was involved with the Catholic worker program, as you may recall. Look, the reality right now, is that it is very difficult to start a third party, a successful third party. It just requires all kinds of money and overcoming all kind of state restrictions, et cetera. So I think right now what we are doing and doing very well is... running candidates within the Democratic Party. I ran for president twice, within the Democratic primary. And what you are saying all across this country right now, Chris, is that people understand that the economy is rigged, the campaign finance system is corrupt. We are the only major country not to guarantee health care of all as a human right. People want change. And that is what progressives, what democratic socialists are talking about from coast to coast. We're winning elections and with a little bit of luck. We can win tomorrow in Michigan and a week from now in Minnesota with Peggy Flanagan. So we are taking on everybody. We're taking on the billionaires and their superbacks. We're taking on the democratic establishment. But I honestly believe that people now understand that status quo politics and tweaking around the edges is no longer good enough. We need bold solutions to the crises facing the working families of this country. All right, Senator Bernie Sanders. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Be sure to tune in tomorrow at 8 p.m. Eastern for full team coverage on Michigan and beyond. I'll be there, Rachel Maddo, the rest of the crew, including Ali Velci, who will be at the big board and more. Still ahead. She folded like an umbrella, Donald Trump publicly trashing Janine Piro over his latest reflecting pool fail. That's next. Summer routines live or die by how easy they are, and honestly, if something takes too much effort, I'm out. That's why Grooons is my go-to. It's one daily pack of gummies covering my greens, vitamins, and minerals. Plus, it has six grams of prebiotic fiber, which is more than two cups of broccoli. No mixing powders, no giant pills, no hassle. I just rip open the pack, and I'm done. They taste good and make it easy to stay on top of my health. even when life gets busy. Save up to 52% off with code podcast at grooms.co. That's code podcast at g-r-un-s.com. Let's check in on the Serta counting sheep. Why aren't we counted anymore? Well, the all-new Serta Perfect Sleeper has the Q-4 support system that helps relieve aches and back pain. We'll never get counted again. Uh, nope. Serta, we make the world's best mattress. 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. When it comes to Donald Trump, the fact that something isn't true has never stopped him from lying about it. We saw it in 2020 when Trump lost the election and he spread the lie that he had in fact defeated Joe Biden. The thing is, once his lawyers took those crazy lies to court, his claims immediately disintegrated. They lost over 60 cases. So Trump can spew lies, but there is still a minimal standard in court of law to prove your claim. And we're seeing it all over again with the story that we've been covering on this show, his reflecting pool. Earlier this summer, the Department of Justice indicted 67-year-old Olympian David Hearn, accusing him of damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool by supposedly pulling up sealant that had been installed in Trump's renovation project. Hearn, who was on our program, along with his lawyer Norm Eisen, faced a sentence of up to 10 years if he were convicted of the felony he was charged with. He denies, he vandalized this pool. The charges tracked with Trump's recurring claims that people were damaging the reflecting pool with box cutters or knives or razors. And just like Trump's 2020 election lies, these charges were flimsy and lacked any evidence. Now, that did not stop former Fox host turned U.S. Attorney for D.C., Janine Piro, from taking them on and giving hours of coverage on Trump's favorite propaganda outlet. I hope Democrats enjoyed their little pool party because Judge Janine just shut it down. A lot of people, when this first happened with the pool, didn't believe the president that there was vandalism. That's not the case. Yeah. It's not the case at all. In fact, I was at the reflecting pool yesterday. There not only is a vandalism that is reflected in today's indictment, but there is a...

cutting of the liner of the pool at the base of the pool for several yards across the pool. And someone was intent on doing incredible damage to the pool. Trump says somebody cut the lining they'd put on the bottom of this reflecting pool. And that's the cause of this. Now they embrace algae. They embrace vandalism. The vandalism is very real, despite what Tim Walz wants to say, it's an imaginary problem. No, it is not. Turns out that suspect? is the Olympian. Five individuals are under investigation, and I'm waiting to see the video evidence of it. Or they botched the redo. Well, Jesse, it turns out they did botched the redo. On Friday, Piro's office dropped its case against Olympian David Hearn, saying new information had emerged showing the problems that have plagued Trump's pool was caused by, and I quote, botched installation, not vandalism. See, that's the thing about the court of law. There is a standard one has to meet. You cannot just completely lie your way through it. But while Piro's shameless pursuit ended in humiliation for her, Trump is still alleging foul play with no evidence. He posted on social media, quote, I disagree 100% when you need Piro on the reflecting pool. I don't know what she was thinking to me. It was a pure case of vandalism. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by vandals. Today, Trump went even further when asked if he's reconsidering Piero's role. Frankly, I think she choked because the judge was really vicious. Instead of going after the people that did it, the judge went after her and went after her department. And I guess she choked. I don't know what the hell happened. Are you reconsidering her role? I don't know what. You're fake news. Don't have a talk again. I was disappointed with Jeanette Pirore. Really disappointed with Jeanette Pirore. She folded like an umbrella. Since that tirade, multiple outlets have reported that Trump is considering removing Puro from her post over the reflecting pool debacle. MS now is not confirmed that reporting we can confirm that Puro is seen leaving the White House this evening, wheeling a briefcase, and a white box behind her after being there for a little more than an hour. Think about that. This is someone who has been close friends with Trump since the 1980s. This is someone who during her time at Fox was one of Trump's most loyal defenders and was a central figure in Dominion voting systems lawsuit against Fox. After she was found by the court who made false statements regarding the 2020 election, that lawsuit cost her former network over $780 million. But if Piro is now surprised that Trump might chuck her overboard because she won't back up his brain's lies, well, I really don't know what to tell her. Just another Trump lackey who signs up to do anything Trump demands and then finds out almost in spite of themselves that, huh, there are some lines, even they won't cross. The controversy surrounding Ohio Republican Congressman Max Miller is growing. His ex-wife, Emily Moreno, daughter of Ohio Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, accused Mr. Miller of domestic violence against her and potentially their two-year-old daughter.

As an ongoing legal battle for custody of Miller's daughter has now become public, multiple outlets have surfaced allegations of years of violent behavior, misogyny, and verbal abuse against multiple women. Miller has denied it all while railing against his ex-wife. As a New York Times puts it, Miller's recent context has become a source of frustration in the president's circle. Many of them view his political problems as ones of his own making and his to fix. It looks like Miller understood those lines in the Times article as a message from the White House to fight back even more strenuously and publicly. Because Trump has notoriously expressed his support for male politicians facing misconduct allegations from women, some of them horrible, if they fight back. From Brett Kavanaugh to Pete Hegseth to Roy Moore in Alabama. Trump sees him as warriors and winners and fighters. Well, this time, Congressman Miller seems to have understood exactly what he thinks he needed to do to get back in Trump's favor. So he released what I got to say is a kind of unhinged social media video blaming his ex-wife for everything. For his part, Senator Moreno responded to that video with this post, quote, and this is the first time he's sort of publicly commented. Max Miller needs serious psychological help. He is a danger to my daughter. And I hold my breath every minute. He has custody of my granddaughter. If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them. He should not serve in the House of Representatives. Michelle Goldberg is an opinion columnist with The New York Times. She detailed the Democratic response to abuse and rape accusations by then Maine Senate candidate, Graham Platner. Adam Servor is a staff writer at The Atlantic. His latest piece is titled The Masculinity Scam, the Manospheres campaign strategy, and they both join me now. This, um, uh, Michelle really blew up over the weekend. It's sort of long simmering the things that are alleged, and particularly in police reports. So these are sort of documents. And again, I want to be clear here, there's an ugly custody battle happening. We do not know what happened. We're reporting on what the allegations are. He denies it. There are some documents like police reports and things like that that we're drawing on. But what do you make of the developments now after this was sort of simmering for a while and now it's no longer simmering? Well, I mean, I think even the fact that it was simmering for so long shows how radically different the standards in the two parties are, right? Because the very, there was, you know, for a long time, there's a whole bunch of Republicans who have, you know, these sort of really shady, at least allegations against them. There is, you know, another. Republican from Florida, who has also been accused of domestic violence, revenge porn. There is a guy running as a Republican in Texas who has said, you know, about this isn't abusive, but it is kind of wildly misogynist, has said about kind of moms who get involved politically. He said,

Just because you let somebody cream pie you doesn't mean I have to give a, and I won't say the obscenity about your political opinions. So, I mean, the fact is there are so many of these guys in the Republican Party that in some sense they fade into the background. Now with this coming to the fore, the fact that there is a police report, the fact that there is finally the father-in-law who's a Republican senator speaking out about it, and the fact that the deadline is just days away if they're going to replace them, I think, again, shows that this is extraordinarily serious. You cannot. Imagine a situation in which a Democrat with this set of facts would find any support in the party, but the Republican Party is pretty dedicated to impunity for these sorts of men. Adam, I want to play you the Miller video because there's two things going on. One, I just think, to Michelle's point, like, this snippet of it says to me that there's, it's not just him, but there's zero self-awareness and no one around him that can tell him how this sounds, which itself seems to be to be part of the problem. Take a listen to what he said. If I had assaulted her, would she had offered to cook me dinner six days later? Would she have invited me to spend an afternoon at the playground with her and our daughter? Would she have written that we were in a friendlier place? No, she wouldn't have, ladies and gentlemen. Adam, what does it say to you that he recorded that video and put that out thinking there that that was going to be a strong rebuttal? Yeah, I think that any woman who was afraid of her spouse would have done all of those things. And I think anybody who's ever had to deal personally with a situation like that would recognize, you know, just how weird it is that he is presenting that as some kind of exoneration. you know, as sort of proving that he didn't do the things that he's accused of doing. And to be clear, if he did those things, he's not just not fit for office, he's fit for going to prison. I mean, some of the things that are being described here are actual crimes, not just sort of, you know, abusive behavior. But the reality is that the Republican Party particularly at the upper echelons, is a party that believes that men are people and women are things. And their way of enforcing conformity with this ideology is to make men feel insecure if they're not hurting and exploiting people who are weaker than them. And so if a man abuses his spouse, you know, someone like Donald Trump is going to view it as weakness if you're not like, well, that's my right.

or I'm allowed to do that, or something like that, or even in this case, simply denying the allegations in such a way that makes it clear that, you know, they might actually be true. Because the underlying principle being reaffirmed here is that it should not be, you know, you should not be ejected from public life just because you do horrible things to your spouse or your children. Yeah, and let me stay with you for a second, Adam. Then I'll come back to you, Michelle. But that, you know, Trump was asked. And of course, he was like, he expressed essentially empathy for Max Miller. And, and Tim Miller made this joke about, like, the only empathy you ever see from him, like, come out is when it's about a man being accused of a terrible thing that he did for women is like, the only register where he ever could be like, I feel for that person is literally in that circumstance. And it just. You can set your clock to it. And this is a case in which Stephanie Grisham, who worked for him, says she told Donald Trump and Melania that this individual had abused her. And here we are. Well, again, you know, as an ideological principle, Donald Trump does not believe that abusing women should force you out of public life. He thinks it should be okay to do those things. And that is a consistent ideological principle that you have pointed out. He has expressed before, but also in a bipartisan way, even when Democrats are accused of horrible behavior, even when their whole party is throwing them under the bus, you know, you can always get a sympathetic quote from Donald Trump about, well, maybe he can do it or, you know, they're treating him horribly. Yeah, he turned around on Plattenor and was like, well, he's in a tough spot as soon as the allegations got bad enough. On your point, Michelle, about what is tolerated. There's an ethics report today about Chuck Edwards. And I got to say, this is really, could I just show this one? Did you see this one that one of the things is that he invited? A staffer to a date by sending her a puzzle that she had to then put together, which then on the puzzle she had completed was a handwritten note inviting her to go to an Adam Sandler show. My track record with you for comedy is not very good. Perhaps this will help me redeem myself. He will be at the Lenovo Center. I'd like to catch up. And I just got to say, in the annals of inappropriate, I shouldn't laugh. But in the annals of sexual harassment by bosses, making the person you're hitting on who's your staffer put a puzzle together to decode a message in which you're asking them out has to be some new record. I mean, yes, and you could just like imagine the sinking feeling that you're getting as you sort of fit into peace into that.

Yeah, and again, I mean, you know, and yes, I mean, I'm very glad that there was at least an ethics committee investigation. But I think, you know, it's worth noting that Graham Platner is a household name in this country for sort of anybody who pays attention to politics. You know, Cory Mills and Max Miller and Brendan Herrera, these guys just are not. There's a very different ecosystem. Yes, an extremely different ecosystem. I think that has changed a little bit with the Max Miller story, but you're right. Cory Mills also deserves some scrutiny. We should stay on that, actually. There's some wild stuff happening in that race as well. Michelle Goldberg and Adam, sir. We're great to have you both. Thank you. Stay tuned in just a few minutes. Rachel Matt will be speaking with Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico. We'll be right back. As we mentioned, tomorrow, there are important primary elections in five states, Kansas, Virginia, Washington, Missouri, and, of course, that big Senate primary in Michigan. I'll be right here with Rachel Maddo, Ali Velci, and our whole team breaking down the results as they come in. It's going to be a really interesting night. I'm truly curious to see how things shake out. Our coverage starts tomorrow at 8 p.m. Eastern right here on MS Now. Do not miss it. That does it for All In. You can catch us every weeknight at 8 o'clock on MS Now. Don't forget to like us on Facebook. That's facebook.com slash on with Chris. 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.