tv Deadline White House MSNBC February 16, 2024 1:00pm-3:00pm PST
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million. donald trump is banned from doing business for three years in the state of new york. his sons don junior and eric are banned from doing business in the state of new york for two years. let me just reiterate what he says, what judge engoron says about contrition here. he sums it up. the english poet alexander pope first declared to err is human, to forgive is divine, defendants apparently are of a different mind. they are accused of only inflating asset values to make more money. that they did it over and over again, he says. that is going to do it for me today. thank you to tristan snell who joined us for the hour. it's been a wild one. it's only going to get more interesting on "deadline: white house" which starts right now. hi, everyone. it is 4:00 here in new york. i'm alicia menendez in for nicolle wallace on a very busy
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friday. we begin with new york judge arthur engoron dealing a body blow to the trump business empire. ruling that trump organization must pay more than $350 million in penalties. donald trump don't business in the state of new york for three years, his two adult sons donald trump jr. and eric trump are barred from doing business for two years. now to put this all in context new york attorney general leticia james asked engoron for $370 million in penalties. the judge also extended the use of an independent monitor to oversee the trump organization. in his ruling engoron says, quote, defendants complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological. they're accused only of inflating asset values to make more money. the documents prove this over and over again. defendants did not commit murder or arson. they did not rob a bank at gunpoint. donald trump is not bernard
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madoff. defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways. the support is not constituted to judge morality. in this case applying the law to the facts, the court intends to protect the integrity of the financial marketplace and thus the public as a whole. defendants' refusal to admit error, to continue it, according to the independent monitor, constraints this court to conclude that they will engage in it going forward unless judicially restrained. in a statement the trump organization calls the ruling a, quote, gross miscarriage of justice. that is where we start with legal correspondent lisa rubin, plus "new york times" investigative reporter sue craig and president of the national action network and host of politics nation here on msnbc, reverend al sharpton. also joining us former deputy attorney general and former u.s. attorney harry lipman. i love that you are all on your phones moments before those
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introductions because we are still reading. sue, you have followed this business more closely what does all of this mean for the business? >> to say it's a body blow may be an understatement. this is a massive, seismic decision today for them. when it comes down to it, i think ain't donald trump, the language he speaks is money. this is a lot of money, potentially now on top of what he was facing in the penalty with e. jean carroll in excess of 80 million plus a separate one for $5 million. things going on at the irs where he could face a penalty of $100 million. we don't have a lot of visibility into that. these are just stacking up like fights at the airport. he -- we don't really know how much cash he has on hand. there's been -- at one point he said he had $400 million and documents that have been filed with the court that says he, you know, could have made had in that range at some point. we don't know.
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during the presidency one thing that wasn't talked about was the asset sales he's been undertaking he sold operating licenses he had one at a golf course in new york, another one in a hotel in washington, he got $139 million for that. he's been quietly selling condos and buildings that he owns in new york. he sold a mansion he owned in l.a. he's got another one in the caribbean up for sale. i think when i see it, you see he's selling it not necessarily for this day because he also lost a lot of business when he decided to go into the white house. a lot of the licensing agreements he had went away. but you can imagine that they are just -- they're spinning up there. we don't know if they have it to meet this, but he has been trying to get money, and he has a bunch of money -- he has a bunch of businesses that also lose money and we know we've seen decades of his taxes he's often putting money into those
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businesses just to keep them afloat. >> lisa, let's step back. talk about the factors that go in to this decision, and especially the math, sort of comparing what it was that a.g. james asked for and what it was that engoron ruled. >> with respect to the monetary penalties here, what judge engoron awarded comes really close to what the attorney general asked for. she was essentially asking for money that she said were ill gotten profits in four different buckets. the first bucket was interest that she said that the trump organization and the trumps fraudulently saved by not disclosing their true financial state. the second bucket had to do with the sale of the old post office leased in washington, d.c., where they operated the trump international hotel that's no longer operating under their name. the third bucket has to do with the sale of a lease basically to operate a golf course, municipal golf course here in new york,
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called ferry point. they made $60 million from that. and the fourth bucket was money that they gave to two other defendants here, allen weisselberg, the former cfo and jeffrey mcconnelly, the former controller, given generous severance agreements when they parted ways with the trump organization but the severance agreements were conditioned on their not cooperating with anyone who would have any claim against the trumps, trump organization or anyone really affiliated with their organization. in other words, they were being paid not play, and today in the award, for example, judge engoron claws back from allen weisselberg $1 million of that $2 million severance agreement. >> we're going to talk about weisselberg but first, rev, want to make sure i get you in. we're going to spend a lot of time talking about what this means legally, what this means for trump's business. what does this mean for the trump brand? what does this mean for the
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trump candidacy? >> i think it is devastating for the trump brand. he built his whole brand as this savvy, shrewd, unmatchable businessman. we must remember he didn't grow up in new york politics. he grew up selling he was the great gatsby in real life and that's gone now. i don't care how he sells stuff it and makes the bond to appeal this and it will go through the courts. it's scattered. you have a judge that says yes, you're a fraud, another judge that says yes, you sexually harassed a woman and facing a trial at the end of next month. imagine picking a jury when everybody heard he owes hundreds of millions and he's a fraud, and he has to pick a jury in that climate. i think the brand is gone. now, politically, the maga enthusiasts will get up, this will be something for them to rally around, but i think that they will start being diluted in
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numbers. how do you put a guy like this in the white house again, expanding a base of independent voters. independent voters now seeing this verdict tonight or seeing the order by the judge, many of them that may have been in the gray area will shift over. the guy is a fraud, guilty of sexual harassment, on his way to court about paying off a dancer or whatever we want to call the young lady. still, we may see him on trial in georgia and in washington, d.c. i mean, i think that what this case decision does is it puts cold water in our face to really make everybody wake up and say, this guy is really in trouble. we're talking about almost a half a billion dollars and the judge called him a fraud. this is no longer some by line to get viewers on cable tv.
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this is real. if you don't believe it talk to donald trump tonight. >> want to jump in. >> it stings. this is a lot of money and there's -- you can be a billionaire or not, but it's a lot of money. most people who even are a billionaire, if he is, don't just have $400 million, it's more than that because there's other judgments, just lying around, so he's going to have to figure out a way, if he is going to appeal, put the money up in order to appeal. he's going to have to put cash up or have to have a bond and he's going to have to arrange ta bond with a financial institution that sees all this litigation risk and sees him heading into a criminal trial. it is rough. >> harry lipman, i want to get to your response to today's ruling overall but also pick up where sue left off. where does this go from here? >> let me give my response first. the money is really big, as sue says, and may strain to the point of liquidity. bigger than that or at least as
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big, one loss of brand as the rev was talking about. this is his whole life project is the trump brand and, two, loss of control. so engoron really hammered him in terms of his ability to do business and appointed strengthened the monitor system that was already in place with judge jones. he's not going to be able to write a check or give a tip, it seems to me, unless a monitor approves it. what a come down in what humiliation for a man who all his life has done what he wanted to. where does it go from here? all this goes on appeal and joined with something he had done before engoron which was to strip the sort of certificates of completion, which is another form of a corporate death penalty. it goes to the appellate division that takes a while, and it, you know, some of the -- >> define a while, harry?
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>> okay. 18 months until it's all over, but the money has to be put up first as many people were saying, so the hit remains. the bottom line and as does the control, the monitor. she is in place now. but the actual sort of divestiture of all power, it's going to go through an appellate process and a discretionary process, one level above to the new york court of appeals. >> i want to talk about that monitor but bring in andrew weissmann, former top prosecutor at the department of justice. you have been reading in along with the rest of us. what jumps out to you and also want you to sort of talk us through engoron's argument and logic here. what is it he's laying out? >> sure. i was going to try to tie together something that reverend said, the political side with something that harry said, so first just in terms of the
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appeal, one of the things that is a little in the weeds, but it's something us lawyers focus on, so apologies, is going in to this decision, we all had said, you know, the first cause of action was already found against donald trump and others, and so this case everyone said is really about what's penalty. so we're in the penalty phase. but there were six other causes of action and judge engoron ruled against donald trump and almost everyone else and said that there are an additional five causes of action that he has found against donald trump and his sons, and he has found an additional one, the sort of seventh one with respect to allen weisselberg and jeff mcconnie. it makes it hard to appeal because there are just now there's going to be all of these causes of action that have been found including ones that require the judge to have found
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a specific intent to defraud. even these sort of graver felony counts, it's not a criminal case, but the serious causes of action have been found with respect to this case. the second thing which goes to sort of the political point you were raising with reverend sharpton is, i think there's a political dimension to this case not because this goes directly to the brand which i agree completely with the reverend's comments but what has happened here. a judge after hearing all of this evidence has decided that donald trump cannot be trusted to run a company in new york for three years. he cannot do that. he has to be overseeing like have a babysitter even after that. he cannot run a company in new york for three years, but this is the person who is asking the
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electorate to have him run the country for four years. that is something the judge said you can't run a company in new york for three years and by the way, everything that happens, even after that, you are going to have not one, but two baby sitters, an independent monitor in barbara judge, the former federal judge, and new independent compliance officer. those are not usually the attributes i would think most voters think that's what i want running the country. >> help me understand why there was a timeframe put on how long it is that he cannot practice business in the state of new york? >> sure. i think that judge engoron had a really interesting argument. what he said was, because i am going to impose these, for lack of a better term, referring to sort of baby sitters, people who will oversee everything that's going on, i am going to give you sort of a time-out to continue my metaphor, for three years,
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when you are -- you cannot run something, but because i'm going to have these two independent people overseeing every single thing as harry said, he can't even give a tip without them knowing what's going on, and they can impose additional restrictions on donald trump and the companies during that time, he said, because of that, it is not necessary for me to say you just can't do business at all because i am putting in place these kinds of tight regulations so this is not going to be the free wheeling, as he found, fraud-ridden company that has existed in the past. >> rev, he wants to run the country for four years, but you now have a judge saying he needs a time-out from his business enterprise for three. what message does that send the american voter? >> i think it sends a devastating message. if i were advising the biden
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campaign or anyone, that is opposed to him, that's a commercial. here is a guy in his hometown that cannot be trusted to run a business that he built, named after himself, how can we trust him to run the country? how can we trust him to run the federal budget. how can we trust him to deal with things with medicaid and social security is going to be when he cannot even sign a check in his own business without a baby sitter saying let me see what that is. this is devastating politically if his opponents know how to use it, but on its face, it's devastating. donald trump has been assigned -- the irony of this is, when they talk about biden's age he will be what he talked about biden's age when he gets off of the babysitter if he gets off and doesn't get slapped on the wrist because he tried to do
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something, which i think he will probably will do because he doesn't know how to stay within barriers. it's now in a crib and the babysitter is sitting next to him and we'll give him a rattle, but we won't give him a check sfwlook i appreciate how far you were able to run with that metaphor. talking about moving forward you had anticipated a potential escape hatch that the former president might consider you wrote this on msnbc about how his options are limited that he can't just pick up and move out of new york. without telling the judge the a.g. or court appointed monitor the trump org cannot just play three card monty and move their buildings around so they wind up in new entities outside new york. they have to give engoron, james and jones ahead two weeks to a month trump and his fellow defendants could be further enjoyed. help me understand that. >> today's ruling is the end of a very long saga, and there was
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a preliminary injunction meaning an order preventing the trumps from taking certain action in 2022. under that order as it stands today and before today's ruling, there were already conditions on what they could do because again, retired judge barbara jones has been that monitor since 2022. the restrictions on them included not being able to transfer assets or significant assets outside of the entities that are defendants here without notice to judge jones. they also couldn't refinance their debts. so that coupled with the fact that as part of the relief today, they cannot borrow from any new york registered financial institution, they are stuck. donald trump cannot just collect his monopoly pieces, move them to florida and have a brand new start in a business entity organized under florida law. he still remains under the
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independent monitor's pur view under that preliminary injunction order. even if he stays today's ruling by appealing it and posting the bond that sue was talking about, those other restrictions i referred to in the piece i wrote are still in place. he cannot move money without saying mommy, can i? and he cannot move assets without asking that same permission. it goes back to andrew's point about the continue aigs of the baby sitting service he has had imposed upon him by a judge of the new york supreme court. >> i love we know mom's are always in charge of the family budget. >> he is stuck to pick up on what lisa said. >> i pulled out the language just to go into that and talk about why it's important for the taxpayers of new york. the monitor says shall be responsible for insuring good financial accounting practices and shall establish internal written protocols for financial reporting and shall also approve any financial disclosures to
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third parties in advance of submission. the reason that we want all this running, a lot of reasons, the big one, so the assets retain their value because they may have to be liquidated down the road to meet the penalty because eventually the taxpayers of new york, if this is not overturned on appeal, will be getting a large check from donald trump. >> can i add something there. alicia, one of the things that attorney general did not get or got and judge engoron took back today is the cancellation of business certificates that allows the trump organization to function in new york. one reason he might have done that is to sue's point, it would be very hard for the trump organization to have a fire sale of its assets right now. that would not maximize value for anyone. so instead, what he has done, is simultaneously said, empty out your piggybank and here's your babysitter but the organization, at least for now, remains intact, able to do business in new york, just not under the control of anybody named trump
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for the next three years. >> let's talk about that if we can, andrew weissmann. there were a variety of penalties here, the decision, the penalty for each of the two trump sons, what is the impact of that? >> so they, too, were found libel not just on the first cause of action, but on five others. so to be clear, they are found libel with respect to fraud, including intentional fraud, so that is going to be something that makes it very hard for them to continue to do business in any area where they have to have any sort of oversight. this is one of the reasons that people tend to go into things like real estate, where they can sort of much more freewheeling. it's not overseen by places line the sec. and so there's that function.
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i think as lisa was mentioning or maybe it was sue or both, there is a financial component with respect to both of the sons where they each have to pay $4 million. that's not -- that is not anywhere near the amount of the, you know, sum against donald trump, and i think sue or may be able to tell us whether that was also something that -- i think it is -- it's jointly and separately libel. i'm quickly looking to see if that applies to the children. >> no. >> i don't think it does. >> okay. so -- what jointly and severely libel means for the people that have over $300 million donald trump and then a variety of entities, that means any and all of them could have to pay up, meaning that state is able to go after any of those people to get
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the full amount, so, you know, if donald trump has $300 million the state can go after him. they don't have to choose. with respect to don junior and eric, the -- i think the biggest component is really in some ways the fact that they have now been tagged after a full hearing with being fraudsters. obviously, there is, you know, for any of the normal people it is a substantial amount of money, and there also is with respect to both of them, i think there is also -- there's a shorter and different bar for them. so for two years, both of them are enjoined from being officers or directors of any new york corporation or any other legal entity in new york. essentially that is saying, we're going to protect the new
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york community from you serving in a leadership role of any sort of corporate type entity in this city. i think this is much more of a hit to their brand, that they identify as being part of this trump brand. another devastating decision about what that brand is. one final quick point, the judge notes this, this is a civil case. the trump organization was convicted criminally last year, allen weisselberg pled guilty criminally last year to a major tax fraud that spanned over a decade and this is not sort of a -- just a new result that is divorced from any history of wrongdoing. so this is sort of the latest in
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a sort of devastating blow to donald trump, his children and to sort of the brand of the trump empire. >> sue. >> yeah. to pick up a little bit on an true while we're talking about the children that applies to everybody, all the penalties with prejudgment interests so we're going to immediately see a clock ticking and they're going to go higher. it's -- if this drags on these numbers can really skyrocket. i don't know what the interest rate is that will be applied. i'm sure in time we will learn. but that's a significant factor. >> i think it's 9%. >> ouch. >> if that starts now, really, our banners should be amended because we're not just talking about $355 million. we're talking about significantly more than that. >> i want to say, too, this is something and i looked at particularly, eric, and don junior, each have to pay just
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over $4 million. this is something in my mind, i can imagine in the predays that they maybe might get a bonus for $4 million from the trump organization. you might see these things line up. that is not happening here. they have a monitor over the company. there is not going to be money transferred to them. they did when we saw the president's taxes and a lot of his financial information they were each making roughly $2 million a year. they got a bump when their father went into the white house. i don't know their financial situations now, but when this happens, if this is not overturned on appeal they will be writing a check. >> to pick up on what andrew said, rev, the two sons are now marked as fraudsters, which would be one thing if they were only a part of his business empire. they have been baked in to his political brand. there's even talk about laura trump going and having a leadership role at the rnc. not even just the trump brand, but the actual infrastructure of the republican party.
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there is a corollary here, right? this doesn't stay contained to trump world the business world. this, not just him, but his sons, now it becomes a part of their political story. >> absolutely. and those of us that have known trump and his sons down through the years, because there was a time they tried to play democrat, they would do whatever was transactional in terms of their benefit, know that all of that came from the base of the trump celebrity brand. that is all gone now. why did people want to stay at his hotel. i'm staying at the trump hotel. i'm golfing at the trump place ap all of that is gone now. no matter what happens on appeal and the arguments, no one is going to go on vacation and call home saying mom, i'm staying at the trump hotel or i'm golfing -- that's gone. now you've got to try to work with what is left and try to hold on to that, which they
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don't have control over, as andrew said, because they have a babysitter. the two sons who built their whole, in my opinion, kind of persona around their father, that's gone now. you are going to see people that, if i was a cousin of donald trump's and named myself trump i would be changing my name monday or tuesday when the courts open, because the trump brand has flipped upside down. that is not going to go away on appeal. >> such a good point about the trump brand because it's completely different today. there was a point in time where he could charge a premium because his name was on it. that changed the day he announced he was running for president, and he made disparaging comments about mexicans and i can tell you his phone was ringing off the hook and his licensing deals were flying out the window. he wants so much money because
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of that decision and nbc cut ties with him not just on the apren tice franchise and miss universe. that was devastating. we saw when he entered the white house his cash situation according to documents brought up in the attorney general's case, he was right on the edge. it was not good. just such a good point he is a political brand and toxic to many parts of this country that would never -- if it was live or die they would not stay at his hotel. if they had a choice. >> all of you are staying with me and continuing this conversation. andrew weissmann i'm told i have to let you go. thank you for getting us started. when we come back reaction from trump world no surprise he is fundraising off of this and one of the key witnesses on the stand in this trial who sat face to face against his former boss will be here, michael cohen, live on set with us for his first reaction to the $355 million penalty, the ex-president was hit with. all those stories and more when "deadline: white house" continues after this. continues after this
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mcconney. back now with our continuing coverage of the stunning ruling by new york judge arthur engoron, that donald trump and the trump organization, must pay more than $350 million in damages for a years long pattern of fraud. trump is barred from running a business in the state of new york for three years. trump campaign fundraising off the decision with a text release moments ago calling it, quote, get ready for this, election interference. we are back with our mega panel of lisa, sue, rev, and harry joining us after having read it all msnbc chief legal correspondent ari melber.
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first, let's go to nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard in west florida. what has the response from the trump campaign looked like? >> we've been waiting to see whether donald trump himself would speak to the decision coming out of new york. he does have campaign events tomorrow in the philadelphia area, before holding a rally tomorrow night in michigan, but perhaps of no surprise, donald trump is trying to make of this decision what he is able to and that is more money. through campaign fundraising text in the last few minutes, democrat new york judge just ruled against me. first they raided my home, arrested me took my mugshot now a democrat judge ruled against me in new york. undeniable election interference. donald trump has muddied the waters but combined all of these various trials and cases against him into one effort in which he has made the case this is an effort to undermine his 2024 presidential election. let's be clear, alicia, donald
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trump has not tried to play the path of a martyr. he's tried to build himself as the lion the democrats are trying to control. we saw him go on attack against judge engoron repeatedly ahead of the trial, during the trial, while even on the stand for the three and a half hours of testimony in which the judge told him he would have no choice but to draw a negative inference from his quasi tan jen shall answers, and he had to cut him off, it was donald trump talking about the judge there was a going to have the fate of the trump organization in his hands he called him, quote, ridiculous, vicious, bias, corrupt, political hack, causing grave damage to our justice system in the united states of america. he called him a radical left trump-hating judge, psycho. here on february 16th the judge that received the name calling from donald trump, issued more
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than $350 million fine with serious question marks around donald trump's family business going into the future. >> vaughn hillyard i will let the plane do whatever it is it's doing and come back to you. ari, you've had a chance to read this. how does it stack up to you? >> you mentioned the plane over there in florida. i think the attorney general landed this plane. we have to remember how far this process has gone. there was a big fight over getting the material. there was a fight about going to court. the testiness in court. now you have the results. these are not by some critic of donald trump. these are not some democratic appointee. this is a judge as you have said and great people at the table covering it that says, you're not really running a business. you're running a con. in court, you're, quote, denying reality, basically coming close to lying or committing perjury, and then you're saying, well, if we lie to everyone and nobody got hurt what's the damage? those defenses which we heard were called out and shredded here.
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all sorts of damage if this becomes regular operating procedure if people get away with it. big picture if you get out from the details and i could spend time reading through a bunch of it, i didn't finish all of it in full disclosure, big picket, this is a blow to donald trump's entire identity as this businessman. and i am reminded and rev may have thoughts too, shawn carter said, i'm not a businessman. i'm a businessman. let me handle my business. donald trump believes that he is the trump org business. the business just got rocked by this record-setting level of fraud damages, and he's not going to be allowed to handle his business, not at least for three years. that's a lot of consequence, and he is bound up with the business and so the question isn't politically oh, well his core base care about this and undo his branding. his branding is set with them. this is a financial and real problem for him as someone who is synonymous with his business at a time where he is, of course, separately out of court
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asking the public to, what, put him back in power, because he's good at politics, good t business. there's outside evidence here now in this ruling that he's more of a con man than a businessman, more of a would-be autocrat than a democratically participating candidate. and so no, you never know when it's going to fall apart but another terrible day in court. >> punctuation and matters in the intent of a sentence. something vaughn was saying and tie it together, which was this idea that trump has blasted out a text message to his supporters fundraising off this that is not surprise for any of us who follow him. can those dollars raised go towards any of these penalties? >> yes. and this is an interesting -- we've seen in previous cases his legal fees, some of them are being paid for out of a political action committee, but
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i have to tell you those dollars are going fast and furious down. that's a lot of money he would have to raise in order to meet this. there's just so little left he's going to have to come up with this. he can. the pac can raise, the super pac can. these are the rules i'm not overly familiar with, but that's my reporting on that, shows that. there's no way that he is going to be able to come up with that much money from donors. >> let's not forget, he's still facing four trials he's got to pay lawyers, and he doesn't know how long the trials are going to last. he does not know what is going to be the consequence there. he can raise money. whether he can raise $450 million when i combine these and pay lawyers for four different trials, i mean, you're talking about a lot of money and i don't know that at some point his
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contributors don't get exhausted in terms of this. then he's got to run a campaign. >> even if they don't get exhausted so many people, we just have to give so much money, in a very short period of time. this is going to all have to be put up soon. >> the point i want to make on what ari made, don't forget also, he's a control freak. do you know how it will impact him that he has to go and ask someone to write a check. this will drive him completely nuts. donald trump ran his organization. any of us that ever met with him pro or con, he ran everything. he signed the checks, everything is named after him. he now has to go and say i want to do this but i have to ask somebody, cut this deal, let me get the monitor on the phone. he is a broken person psychologically because now he cannot make any decisions without permission. and he's never had that in his
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life. >> we've talked about all the limitations and you reminded me there's a looming irs audit. >> we don't talk about it often but reported on this audit he is under going on for years. it's going on behind closed doors at the irs. if this audit goes against him it's serious and could cost him in excess of $100 million. i want to say we know about that. there's other things we may not know about that could potentially be draining his cash. >> the focus, ari, on donald trump himself at the core of his business. there were penalties applied to his two oldest sons, the only nonfamily member who penalties were applied, weisselberg. what did you make of the additional penalties? >> you know, they go through and talk about this was a civil trial but the judge is clear eric trump is not truthful and
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dragged out of him and again sometimes i was saying to you in the break, i said it in the break, sometimes we tell people read the supreme court decision. i don't expect everyone without legal training or with a journalistic interest to read this dense thing but if you can control f as we say for the different names and look in the gist of donald trump, eric trump section, you can read that and find out yeah, those people you're asking about, follow the pattern and practice of misleading or lying in how they did business and when called on, misleading and lied, confronted with it, eric and others said i guess that's the case or misled about it. what you get is the pattern and practice that the con is not the exception to the rule and overstatement or over excitement. anyone dealing with new york real estate, which might be everyone at this table, you and i, knows you get realtors saying this and that, this is way beyond that and the sense this is the pattern and practice.
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the cfo was willing to do jail time at rikers rather than fully cooperate. you can get the analysis of why that is. people forget the characters, cohen who did time for election related crimes and donald trump going on trial next month. it feels like the heat is going up and some of them getting caught, i can't tell you what that means. will cover and respect the rule of law, whatever a jury decides. those around the country who say i'm tired, i've heard it before, when is it going to end it begins next month because there's going to be a criminal trial and this stuff takes a long time. most people don't operate the way he does. they don't get caught conning. if they do in my experience in civil cases they usually try to cut a deal. he took this to the end and whether -- whatever you think about it by taking it to the end he hurt himself and played himself and paying out far more
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money. >> can i say something about that. ari's point about the con is a really good one because many who engage in such a con find contrition and so there's a part at the end of the decision where judge engoron is talking about donald trump being no bernie madoff. that's not an accidental aside. that was an issue at closing arguments. he asked the lead lawyer for the attorney general's office how would you compare this scheme to the madoff scheme and paused for a second and thought about it, the scope was so much smaller here, but in terms of the pervasiveness of it, the continuation of it, the commitment to the bit so to speak, they're not all that different, right. and when judge engoron is noting is, yes, he's no bernie madoff in terms of the scale but there was never any contrition and madoff, when he pled guilty had a very extensive and long mea
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culpa. you might be cynical about his reasons for doing so but he said he was sorry that it had ruined his entire life. we will never hear anything like that from donald j. trump. >> a safe prediction to make. you want to talk about weisselberg. >> i want to talk about weisselberg and cohen not only were they -- weisselberg was a defendant in this case. cohen a witness. in the next case we're going into, 38 days from now, the first of the criminal trials, weisselberg and cohen are important witnesses because donald trump doesn't create paper trails. he doesn't text as we know. he doesn't e-mail. he wings and nods. the two people in the room with respect to the arrangement of this deal who can actually place donald trump at its center are michael cohen and allen weisselberg. judge engoron's credibility findings with respect to both of these men are important. weisselberg he found him not to be credible and invasive, found that he intentionally defrauded
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people for years. with respect to michael cohen he made a different finding despite the fact that donald trump's lawyers screamed and yelled about michael cohen percentage jurring himself here, although you could see some inconsistencies, carefully parsed, what michael cohen was saying not that donald trump directly ordered him to reverse engineer his financial statements from some aspirational net value but rather in the mob boss kind of way was basically winking and nodding and saying this is what i want you and allen to do. a less fact finder might not have believed a single word of a convicted perjurerer this does not mean pleading guilty to perjury means you cannot ever tell the truth. michael cohen told the truth. >> we're going to be talking to michael cohen. i'm told i have to let you go. you have a show or something to prep for. >> not only a show but if you keep it locked as i hope you do
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for your show, at 6:00 p.m., the attorney general is expected to give remarks and it's going to be interesting. a long road. she won. there have been people who have fought donald trump and run into more roadblocks for whatever reason hernd her team have won and we're going to carry that live. >> what do you think we'll hear from her? >> she's been careful and limited in her approach and hasn't done a ton of interviews. i would her to remind everyone what a hard road it was, how many steps there were, why these take so long and really explain, in part, the value to the people of new york who she serves. this has many national prepercussions but she's the top law enforcement attorney general of new york so she's going to explain i'm protecting, she's protecting the way that things run here so there can be honest business and people can go back to work and do their thing and not have to worry about all this fraud. the last thing that you can discuss when i'm gone not just that he lied about the
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businesses and the far flung properties and agents and other accountants and these people, you know, here on page 78, you know, his apartment is 11,000 square feet and when he lies about it for his personal enrichment it's not 12 or 13 or 15 or 18 k, it's 30,000 feet they lied about, 30,000 square feet. basically imagine your house and now you've tripled it. most people don't have the gumption even in tax fraud cases to lie like that. >> let me say this. >> last word. >> the attorney general, that you must also stop and think about the kind of threats and malicious kind of venom that was directed toward a state attorney general leticia james and never lost her cool and never responded. she says i'm tough, i'm from brooklyn, never referred to the cases and i think that whatever she says, she should -- she and her staff, should be given
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credit for being tenacious and taking abuse and threats through this that probably will increase and i don't think we should underestimate that. >> ari melber, thank you for joining us. we're going to see you at the beat at 6:00 p.m. later this evening. more from the ruling and what judge has to say about trump as a witness. much more news to come. we'll be right back. news to come we'll be right back. power e*trade's award-winning trading app makes trading easier. with its customizable options chain, easy-to-use tools and paper trading to help sharpen your skills, you can stay on top of the market from wherever you are. e*trade from morgan stanley power e*trade's easy-to-use tools make complex trading less complicated. custom scans help you find new trading opportunities, while an earnings tool helps you plan your trades and stay on top of the market. e*trade from morgan stanley mara, are you sure you don't want -to go bowling with us tonight? -yeah. no. there's my little marzipan! [ laughs ] oh, my daughter gives the best hugs!
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our continuing coverage of judge engoron's decision in the new york civil fraud trial. here's what engoron had to say about trump as a witness from page 37 of the ruling for those of you reading along at home. overall, donald trump rarely responded to the questions asked. he frequently interjected long irrelevant speeches on issues far beyond the scope of the trial. his refusal to answer the questions directly or in some cases at all compromised his credibility. how badly did donald trump actually hurt himself in this case? >> pretty darn badly. the point you made is nothing new. his modus operandi in trial. everyone talked about this, but i see this as ab clobbering him, asset, brand and control. one quick point to this gorgeous baby sitter metaphor i can't improve on, wear not just talking dirty diapers here.
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we have a bad, bad boy who defrauded. it's not simply making sure that they're fed and padded. we're talking about a real record of just violating trust and stealing a bad, bad kid, a juvenile delinquent. that's a special kind of babe sitter being called to try to protect the people of new york. >> that babysitter needs to be paid hazard pay. i have the a.g.'s statement in front. a tweet here, here's my question to you, lisa, which is, they are saying donald trump adult sons and former executives ordered to pay $450 million they fraudulently and illegally obtained. how is she arriving at that. >> i'll credit my corporate lawyer of a husband for bringing this to my attention as we sit
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on set, because of prejudgment interest. judge engoron in those buckets of disgorgement he has awarded settles on a date for three of the big buckets from which you can calculate prejudgment interest which in new york is 9%. as sue noted during the break. anybody who has had a mortgage understand 9 percent per year is quite a lot. one of those buckets the first $168 million, which is the amount that the attorney general proved that trump organization saved in interest by fraudulently misrepresenting their financial statement and getting lower interest rates on a bunch of loans to buy properties, that starts, that prejudgment interest starts march 4th, 2019, nearly five years ago. so that accounts for several tens of millions of dollars as it is. then the next bucket having to do the sale of the old post office, that runs from may of 2022 and the third bucket for
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that $60 million sale of the lease of the golf course here in new york, very point, that starts from june of 2023. so all of those things put together, brings this verdict total to around $450 million. now, alicia, i want to add one more thing, if and when donald trump appeals this ruling as we expect, not only does he have to post the $450 million, legally in new york, you have to post 120% of the judgment, so that's that first $450 million on which that prejudgment interest has been calculated plus another 20%. we're talking really serious sums of money and far in excess of the $400 million he said he had in cash on hand in that april 2023 deposition he gave in the case. >> our all-star panel, sue craig, lisa rubin, reverend, thank you for joining us for this moment. up next, key witness in this
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trial michael cohen is going to join us with his first reaction to this massive penalty against donald trump and his business. stay with us. donald trump and his business. stay with us ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ businesses go further with 5g solutions. that's why they choose t-mobile for business. pga of america and t-mobile are partnering on 5g-powered analytics to help improve player performance. t-mobile's network helps aaa stay connected nationwide... to get their members back on the road. and las vegas grand prix chose t-mobile to help fuel operations for one of the world's largest racing events. now is the time to see what america's largest 5g network can do for your business.
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the economy is simply not working for millions of hard working families. they're working harder than ever and they still can't make enough to get by to afford food and medicine to even keep a roof over their heads. we need to build more housing that's truly affordable. we need to address this terrible epidemic of homelessness. we need to invest in good paying jobs, union jobs and investments in our future. this, this is why i'm running for the us senate. i'm adam schiff and i approve this message. this ad? typical. politicians... "he's bad. i'm good." blah, blah. let's shake things up. with katie porter. porter refuses corporate pac money. and leads the fight to ban congressional stock trading. katie porter. taking on big banks to make housing more affordable. and drug company ceos to stop their price gouging. most politicians just fight each other. while katie porter fights for you.
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for senate - democrat katie porter. i'm katie porter and i approve this message. hi again everyone. i'm alicia menendez in for nicolle wallace. a blockbuster ruling from judge arthur engoron in the trump civil fraud trial. the ex-president is ordered to pay over $350 million, very close to the $370 million that was being sought by new york
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attorney general leticia james. a very sizable financial penalty along with being barred from personally running a business in new york for three years. hitting at the heart of how the ex-president portrays himself as a successful businessman. a.g. james accused donald trump of inflating his net worth to obtain loans and other financial benefits even before the trial took place the judge found trump and his business libel for fraud. what followed was a ten-week trial with over 40 witnesses filled with drama where a gag order was imposed on the former president after he disparaged the judge's clerk. all now coming down to this momentous ruling, one that was judge engoron's decision and his alone since there was no jury in this case. trump is expected to appeal the ruling and called it a, quote, gross miscarriage of justice by contrast the attorney general who said in a statement that, quote, justice has been served. donald trump is finally facing accountability for his lying, cheating, and staggering fraud.
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because no matter how big, rich, or powerful you think you are, no one is above the law. we are expecting to hear remarks from her at the top of the next hour. a seismic blow to the ex-president today barring language from my friend sue craig used in the last hour from a case that had its origins from this statement years ago from someone who knew him closely. >> it was my experience that mr. trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes. such as trying to be listed amongst the wealthiest people in "forbes" and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes. >> and that is where we start this hour with former personal attorney to donald trump michael cohen. the host of mea culpa and political beat down podcast. thank you so much for being here. what did you make of this ruling? >> i think the ruling was just and fair. i think judge engoron lays out everything in this 90-plus page
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decision, especially on page 41 which references me, in the fact that i told the truth. that was something that donald and alina habba and his attorneys wanted to try desperately to do, to discredit me, impugn my credibility in hopes that this decision would not be where it is. i actually thought the amount would be and should be higher, but i defer to judge engoron. >> we're going to talk about the piece referencing your credibility in a minute but first get through your sense of donald trump. what's going to matter more to him, the dollar amount or the fact that he's barred from doing business in new york for three years? >> i think it's the dollar amount. because that's the immediate issue that he has to contend with. where does he come up with $355 million? that's exclusive of the $86
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million or $88.6 million that he owes to e. jean carroll in that civil case. this is a staggering amount of money for virtually anybody. maybe there's a handful of people in the entire country who can afford to write a check for half a billion dollars. donald is not one of them. right now the pressing issue if he's going to appeal, how does he appeal? does he put up a cash bond? where is he getting the cash from? he's not going to find somebody to bond it for him. he couldn't find somebody to bond $5.3 million in the e. jean carroll case. >> okay. there's the dollar amount. what do you think the barring from business for three years, what does that mean? >> that's a big problem for him because so is don junior, so is allen weisselberg and eric trump. who is going to run the business? ivanka? doubtful. she wants to stay as far away from this scenario as she possibly can. they have their own life.
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so what happens to the trump corporation? >> who do you think runs the business, especially given that you have this monitor that's going to continue to baby sit the business? >> you need a monitor to baby sith considering if you read engoron's decision there's a reason why a monitor, a receiver has been appointed to ensure that donald doesn't high poth cate, transfer or incumber these assets further than they are so as not to frustrate the judgment. >> talk me through what it would look like for the business to potentially sell off assets in order to get to place of financial liquidity? >> i don't think it's possible at least not with the new york state assets. so, for example, the thing many people are forgetting, is donald trump's basis in the bulk of his assets is relatively zero. 40 wall street. $1 million. the parking lots that he owns, the restaurants, they were all
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taken as the sponsor when he was developing the properties. so he has zero basis in that. you're going to have capital gains tax on the differential when they get sold. no different than anybody would pay. so chop it by 40% or 50%. so that $40 million asset is $120 million clean but then you have mortgages on it. none of these assets aren't incumbered by a mortgage. so it's very little. all the assets in new york if they were sold, i don't think cover the $355 million. >> just underscore what you're saying. he's stuck. >> that's great way to describe it, and i'm going to use your language. he's stuck. >> what happens to donald trump when he gets stuck? >> o, well, he goes into complete and total panic mode. donald's theory right now, the only out for him financially and
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criminally regarding incarceration if he wins the election. he's not running for the presidency of the united states. to do good for the united states. he wants to do and the only way he can do good for himself is to win the presidency. this is all about running for the purpose of saving himself. >> this ruling is dense, right. it is a lot of numbers. it's a lot of accounting of properties which is perhaps why i was most struck by something that was a little bit more qualitative. i want to read from the ruling that gets to the mindset of your former boss. quote, the english poet alexander po first declared to err is human, to forgiven is divine. defendants are apparently of a different mind. the only error inadvertent they acknowledge is the tripling of the size of the trump tower penthouse. which cannot be gain said. their lack of remorse borders on
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pathological, accused of only inflating asset values to make more money and the documents prove this over and over again. this is a sin not a more tall one. they did not rob a bank. donald trump is not bernard madoff but defendants are incapable of admitting the errors of their way, they adopt a see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil posture that evidence belies. how does this square with the m.o. of the person you used to work for? >> it's spot on. i mean, the difference, though, is when i was working for donald, i was working for the president and ceo of a small myopic real estate development company. it's not the same as working for somebody who's the president of the united states. as a result, donald has never ever been able to admit error.
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he's never admitted error once, not when he was president and ceo of the trump org or president of the united states. he is incapable of error. as a result of that, inability, we end up with this 90 plus page decision. >> but it goes beyond him. there's no one who is a part of the organization willing to step up and say okay, there was some mistakes here. >> i did. i mean, the -- >> actively part of the organization go ahead. >> right. >> that's because they're fearful for their job. if you say the wrong thing, you're term nated the next day. with donald trump, your job, was never secure. you're only as good as what you achieved yesterday and everyone is in competition in order to get credit from him so that you get a thumb's up and a notch in the belt and another day you're there to work. >> you have the two older sons required to pay money. >> $4 million each. >> you have weisselberg, the
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only nonfamily member who is being ordered to pay a fine. >> $1 million. >> why hasn't he flipped? >> allen weisselberg is an unusual guy. he's been working for trump for 50 years. donald inherited him from his father fred when donald asked to borrow money to go into the business. fred didn't trust donald with money and so he gave him his bookkeeper. he has been with donald side by side at the trump organization. they were always known as frick and frack. if allen told you something, i think donald is going to say this to you, you knew it was going to be saying it to you that day because they've discussed it. if you knew you were getting a limited or reduced bonus, allen already knew about it because they went through it. i mean, allen and dom were one. he wasn't going to burn the hand that has fed him for the last 50 years. >> let's go back to you and what this all means for you. you were specifically mentioned in the ruling.
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i want to read from it. this fact finder does not believe that pleading guilty to perjury means that you can never tell the truth. michael cohen told the truth. i just wonder what this journey has been like for you from trump fixer to now testifying and what it means to you to have engoron saying i believe you? >> well, because i was telling the truth. not -- engoron wrote it's almost like -- it's two full pages in this decision from pages 41 to 43. the decision is important for me because what most people don't know is what the perjury, for whatever the reason is, they refuse to keep acknowledging what i lied to congress about. i lied to congress about the number of times that i claimed to have spoken to donald about the failed trump tower moscow real estate project. i stated three times. because that's what donald wanted me to say, die mini muss as it related to russia.
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that was staying on message which was something i was stupid to do but did it anyway. the true answer i spoke to him about it ten times. that's the perjury. that's the perjury. and why people refuse to acknowledge it. then they started to attack me at the trial, alina habba thought she had an iron side moment, a got you, when they asked me if what i told judge pauley the sentencing judge in my case, when they asked me if i had lied to him and i did. i pled to tax evasion and misrepresentation to a bank. throughout my entire documents the sentencing report, all the way on, i stated the same thing, i never committed tax evasion. at most a tax omission. every dollar was deposited in capital one bank at the base of the building i live in. every bank statement given to my cpa. his job to reconcile the bank
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accounts and told me what to pay. i did. it's the way everybody does it. they used it as a let's get michael cohen, donald trump was behind it, no different than they were behind the unconstitutional remand of me back to otisville because i refused to wave my first amendment constitutional right i refused to sign what's called an flm, a federal location monitoring agreement, that didn't even exist. it was a made up document. they basically asked me to sign a document that's not legitimate, it's not real, when i refused to do it, they had the marshal waiting for me and remanded me back to otisville for another 15, 16 days of solitary confinement. >> you have engoron validating your credibility in a civil fraud trial. what does that mean as we look forward to donald trump's criminal cases. >> thank you, judge engoron, it's true. it's a true statement and i do appreciate it, as i appreciate the leticia james credited me for starting this.
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what does it mean going forward for what will be the first criminal case to confront trump? that's march 25th where i am going to be a witness. i've been subpoenaed to testify. otherwise i wouldn't have. without a subpoena i wasn't testifying at all. but what does it do? it validates everything that i've been saying all along, whether it was to the mueller report, to the seven congressional committees i spoke to, to the manhattan district attorney, to the new york attorney general, it validates everything i've been saying all along, that donald trump is a con man, a cheat, and many other things. >> let's talk about the case. it was reported you met with prosecutors in the d.a.'s office this week. did you. >> i did. >> anything you can share? >> i can't. i've been asked not to share anything in regard to the meetings, sum and substance of the meetings. >> as you know, donald trump has said that what happened in the hush money payments wasn't a crime. you went to jail for it.
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i'm sure you see it slightly differently. >> i do and i think the country should see it differently as well. >> do you see it as election interference? >> i do. i think that what we did by stopping stormy daniels from coming forward and doing the nda, i think what it did is did not give the american public all the information to make the decision whether that's the person they wanted for the presidency. >> "rolling stone" calls this the final showdown between you and your former boss. i wonder if you see it as that way. >> i don't. i'm being subpoenaed to come in to testify and i intend to come in and testify and continue to speak truth to power. >> you have donald trump, i'm not sure if you saw, texting his supporters fundraising off of this. it is a message we have heard before that he is being victimized. that is not particularly
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surprising. i guess my question to you is, what do you say to the folks who are still sending in their 5 or $10 to those text message appeals? >> it's time to wake up stupid. right. this a joke. this is a man who has himself come forward and stated that he intends to rewrite the constitution. that he wants to destroy our system of justice. he wants to get rid of the judiciary and the legislature. he wants to confer all power to himself to the executive branch that he's going to use the military s.e.a.l. team 6 to go after critics, wants to execute general mark milley, joint chief of staff. is this who you want top support? you have nothing better to do with your money. give it to charity. but this, he's a billionaire and an doesn't need your charity. don't different it. >> thank you so much for joining us today. big day. when we return, the reported
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death of alexei navalny in a russian prison underscores what today's party doesn't get, vladimir putin is a killer bent on destroying all opposition and the fact that donald trump fawns over him should scare us all. we'll get to that next. hear that sound. it's the sound of the republicans far fetched scheme to impeach president biden going up in smoke. how their top witness someone they called excellent and most credible found himself under arrest for falsifying statements about the biden family. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. [dramaticlly beat] introducing, ned's plaque psoriasis. he thinks his flaky red patches are all people see. otezla is the #1 prescribed pill to treat plaque psoriasis. ned? otezla can help you get clearer skin, and reduce itching and flaking. with no routine blood tests required. doctors have been prescribing otezla
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i'm literally both not surprised and outraged by the news, reported death of alexei navalny. reports of his death, if they're true, i have no reason to believe they're not, russian authorities will tell their own story. make no mistake, make no mistake, putin is responsible for navalny's death. putin is responsible. we have to realize what we're dealing with with putin. all of us should reject the dangerous statements made by the previous president that invited russia to invade our nato allies if they weren't paying up. >> that was president biden today being abundantly clear about which side of history he stands on, directly blaming vladimir putin for the reported death of alexei navalny. russia's and putin's most prominent critic who russian authorities say died in prison. navalny was 47 years old. spent his final years behind bars, his years long
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pro-democracy fight against corruption and putin's government saw him face arrest, prosecution, isolation, poisoning attempt he survived and directly blamed on putin. today navalny's wife yulia spoke before western officials at the munich security conference where she received a standing ovation. >> translator: if it is the truth, i would like putin and all his staff, everybody around him, his government and his friends, i want them to know that they will be punished for what they have done with our country, with my family, and with my husband. they will be brought to justice, and this day will come soon. >> the death of russia's top opposition voice would embolden
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putin. which makes the split screen here in the united states scarier than ever before between the swift outrage from biden, members of both parties global leaders and the silence yet again from donald trump. who this week threatened to invite russia to attack america's nato allies, whose only remaining gop opponent called him out for praising and defending and giving the benefit of the doubt to putin and whose republican party led by a house speaker stubbornly serving as the only roadblock to more aid for ukraine against putin's brutal invasion. joining our conversation former ambassador to russia and msnbc international affairs analyst michael mcfaul and susan glass staff writer for the new yorker and author "the end of revolution." first i am just so sorry, because i know that you are on here to talk about this as an analyst and also the loss of a friend. your reaction to the report of navalny's death and the president saying he's
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contemplating options of consequence for putin. >> my first reaction is shock. i never believed this day would come. i want to tell you i just met with his wife last night. i'm here in munich and talking about alexi living under torturous conditions but as of 24 hours ago she nor anybody else thought he was near death. second i'm really angry. i want to be clear about it. putin killed navalny. i appreciate what the president said but let's be crystal clear about this. we don't need to know the facts. he put him in jail. he tried to poison him before he put him in jail. he put him in jail under horrific circumstances. putin killed navalny. as yulia called on the free world, speaking at the conference i'm at she said he must be held accountable and we need to do that now. it's not time for talking about it and very concretely, as you
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rightly pointed out, some members of congress think it's somehow in america's interest to block aid to ukraine. that is a gift to vladimir putin. let's be crystal clear about it. i just met with some ukrainian warriors today who are fighting without the weapons they need to fight this horrible man and his regime. that is a gift to putin. take that away. number two we are sitting on billions of dollars, the united states and the rest of europe, russian money, putin's money, it is time to give that money to ukraine. i know that that's what alexei navalny would want us to do and then third, eventually in the long term, there must be consequences for putin and his inner circle as yulia so bravely spoke to this conference tonight about. >> what would you want those consequences to look like? >> he's been indicted. he is a terrorist. he needs to serve justice some day. that's easy for me to say on tv
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with you, and i'm anna litly i know when my emotions are not what they are tonight that's a long-term process, but that process begins by defeating his army in ukraine. that was how we brought milosevic to justice. he had to be defeated militarily first and that's what -- we can't go into moscow in an operation and pull putin out and bring him to bruise sells to serve justice. we can't do that. or the hague. but we can pass new aid for warriors to defeat his soldiers in ukraine and we can seize his assets. we've frozen them. seize them and give them to ukraine so that they can defeat mr. putin. that would be the first step to the long step towards justice that that man desperately deserves. >> susan, we are hearing these leaders, navalny's wife, while outraged also questioning the russian report that navalny is dead. i just want your reaction to
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that hesitation and yet the swift response and the readiness, of course, to criticize putin. >> well, look, as you heard president biden say, there's no reason not to believe that that's the case. you know, russia has lied, let's be clear about that, it often does not tell the truth in its official statements, but it's hard to imagine that this report, sadly, is not accurate because only as ambassador mcfaul knows well, there is a very, very long path and trail of dead opponents of the putin government over the last 20 years, so many of the people whom i knew and covered and wrote about who were friends with ambassador mcfaul, they are dead because they were guilty only of the crime of opposing vladimir putin in many ways, this has been a death sentence in abeyance for alexei navalny.
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he survived miraculously a poisoning that german government said was based on the deadly nerve agent novichok. it's a miracle in some ways he was alive the last few years since he was poisoned in august of 2020. he was poisoned by the putin government. so, you know, he's just another of the dead opponents of the government, brave russian dissidents and also the thousands of ukrainians who have died and are dying every day in this war. i think it's important to point that out. >> ambassador, you know, i'm sure you've seen this three years ago during interview for a documentary, navalny said this to viewers, quote, you're not allowed to give up. if they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong. the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. don't be inactive. president biden suggesting navalny isn't the end of the fight. i wonder where you think we go from here?
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>> first of all, thank you for reporting those words. those are very powerful words. i remember when he said that. i think we should all take that as what we need to do. second, embedded in that statement from alexei navalny is something very important, there's this myth in the west that putin is popular, putin is strong, you have people like tucker carlson in russia talking about all the great things he's doing in russia. if he's so strong and people love him so much, why did he have to kill alexei navalny? the only thing this death says, this assassination, this murder says, is that he's weak. is and so we need to stand with those that stand against putin. that is thank you, susan, for saying first and foremost, ukrainian warriors. they are dying to defeat putin. we need to stand with them and give them the ammunition. they don't want our soldiers. they want our ammunition. give them the ammunition they need to defend their country.
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take that money away from mr. putin and third, be in it for the long haul, like yulia navalny will be in it for the long haul, hauer daughter who studies at stanford will be fighting for the rest of her days on this earth against vladimir putin to bring him to justice, we need to do the same too. >> susan, your sense of where the opposition goes from here? >> well, unfortunately, navalny was the most prominent remaining opposition figure inside of russia. there are other people, of course, who are in prison right now for the crime simply of speaking out against putin's war against ukraine, but, you know, as a meaningful sense one of the consequences of putin's decision to invade ukraine was at the same time launching an even bigger crackdown inside russia than had taken place over the last 20 years. putin went from being an
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authoritarian leader of russia to really overseeing a society that was increasingly having aspects of toe tail areaen, a society which thought crimes can land you in jail for two decades. it's notable the sentences for navalny kept going up and up in the fake criminal cases against him. first given three years, nine years and more, and that's the sign essentially of putin government that has gone from authoritarian to dictatorial and that means that that the space for civil society has shrunken along with the crimes of the war. i saw a video today from moscow of incredible bravery, people just walking and placing red roses on a memorial to victims of the gulam in moscow in front of the fsb's eyes. what an act of bravery that is.
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i have to wonder what's going to happen to those people as a result of this, even modest forms of protest are not allowed in putin's russia anymore, unfortunately. >> ambassador, michael mcfaul and susan glasser, thank you so much for spending some time with us. when we return, so much for the house republicans case to drum up dirt on president biden. the former fbi informant they relied on to make their case for impeachment has now been arrested and charged with lying about it. reaction from a house democrat after a quick break. plus, we can now report that donald trump will respond to the ruling today that is coming up at 5:45 eastern. stay with us. with us for the n. -thanks for swinging by, carl. -no problem. so what are all those for? uh, this lets me adjust the base, add more guitar, maybe some drums. -wow. so many choices. -yeah. like schwab. i can get full service wealth management, advice, invest on my own, and trade on thinkorswim. you know carl is the only front man you need. (phone rings) oh, i gotta take this, carl. it's schwab.
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adam schiff for senate. i'm adam schiff, and i approve this message. his is from the fbi's credible one of their highest paid informants in the bureau. the evidence here is pretty overwhelming that joe biden did something for the ceo of burisma. >> both the ranking member and the gentle lady from texas said there was no evidence. it's called the 1023 form that the confidential human source gave to the fbi. >> when you get into burisma you gets to the white house. >> the democrats tried to sabotage this wearing with a whistleblower who are excellent witnesses. using the security and trust in american tax dollars to further the crime family. >> this whole thing is unbelievable. >> it is unbelievable. unbelievable in that none of it is true.
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that confidential informant republicans used to support their clals about president biden and his son -- claims about president biden and his son hunter alexander smirnov has been arrested. smirnov faces two charges making false statements and creating a false or fictitious record and faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted. like the impeachment inquiry, smirnov's claims sparked his motivations appear to have been political. "the new york times" reporting during the 2020 campaign he sent his fbi handler a series of messages expressing bias including texts with typos and misspellings boasting he had information that would put him in jail. at a press conference president biden addressed the news calling for the impeachment inquiry to be dropped. >> he is lying, and it should be dropped. it's just been a -- it's been an outrageous effort from the beginning. >> house oversight chair james comer who we played calling the
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evidence overwhelming, in a statement refused to take responsibility for spreading a politically motivated lie promising instead to continue the impeachment inquiry. in a moment we'll be joined by congressman connelly, democrat of virginia member of the house oversight committee also with us host of the podcast fast politics and special correspondent for "vanity fair," msnbc political analyst and msnbc columnist and contributor charlie psychs. charlie, you want to be surprised and yet not at all surprised, right? >> no, not at all surprised. it is a spectacular -- for the republicans. it's hard to overstate how much they had banked on this one informant who turns out to be bogus. it's hard to overstate how much fox news ran with this particular story, or how central this was to the entire impeachment effort against joe biden and to have it blow up
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this dramatically, is pretty spectacular. not surprising in a busy week. >> i want to go back to congress man connelly. congressman, welcome the show. your reaction to oversight chair comber pushing forward with the impeachment inquiry despite everything we have learned about this confidential informant. >> you know they say the victim in a war is truth and in this case the first victim of comber's investigation was the truth. this is the second major witness who has been indicted for crimes, fabricating evidence. the first one was indicted among other things for trafficking in arms to the chinese. in this case, we have an fbi
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informent of lying for what had been the foundation for the republican claim that the president was somehow implicated in a scheme in the ukraine to defraud the ukrainian government and enrich himself. completely false. and this indictment makes that clear. there was not a shred of what alexander smirnov said that is true. he got the years wrong, he got the -- he made up dollar amounts, made up meetings, and what is so troubling about this is, the warning signs have been available to comber and the republicans for the last several years that they should not rely on this man's testimony. we heard that in impeachment depositions of trump's own ambassador to the european union, the ambassador to ukraine, officials from the ukraine, rudy giuliani's partner lev parnas said that he would
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testify under oath that this was not true, and what did the republicans do, refused to subpoena hymn and have him as a witness. now it's blown up in their face and they look like the gang that really cannot shoot straight. meanwhile, they've done damage to the reputation of an honest man joe biden. >> correct. correct. and that is where we should land because it is about that consequence. i want to understand this. it seems from the indictment, that smirnov's claims they were easily disprovable. it was also contradicted by several witnesses who testified before congress. i just don't understand, help me understand how this went on for so long. >> we just had the example of george santos a member of congress unfortunately for a year who fabricated almost every aspect of his life. in this case, alexander smirnov didn't like joe biden and didn't want him to be president, and he made it up. he made it up knowing that trump
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administration would like to hear this stuff. remember trump got impeached over ukraine trying to find dirt on joe biden and his son hunter which was the genesis of everything that flowed subsequently and, of course, is blown up in their faces. this is truly a despicable moment in the house of representatives, i think it is a huge stain on the reputations of those republicans, including cluck grassley in the senate who said that this testimony, he leaked it, was a substantial is piece of evidence, seriously implicating joe biden personally. not true. not true. and they had to cherry-pick aspects to make it sound like it was true as something big was brewing. sean hannity looks stupid and so does frankly chairman comer of our committee, so does jim jordan, rudy giuliani.
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it is really an extraordinary moment in the history of juris prudence with respect to the united states congress, and its investigative and oversight powers. >> before i let you go i want to get your reaction to judge engoron's decision of finding donald trump and his business over $350 million, barring him from operating a business in new york for three years, is that justice served? >> i think it is. i think we've all suspected for a long time that donald trump and his sons were running a criminal enterprise. that's really what the committee looked at several years ago when we received testimony from a number of officials, including mr. cohen who pled guilty to lying himself but then turned state's evidence which is very common in law. so, donald trump has been revealed for who he is. he's been running a con artist
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shop in new york. he's been fabricating a lower profits and assets for tax purposes and higher profits to get insurance and loans from banks. that's a crime under new york law and in this case, in a civil action, he's been found guilty and has been fined a maximum fine, i mean really extraordinary amount of money, and his two sons cited for fraudulent claims with respect to the company. so i think this is a real moment of truth and it's the first of many to come down the pipe for donald j. trump and a reckoning for him that's been long coming. >> congressman gerry connolly thanks for spending time with us. so maybe new developments against the disgraced ex-president where things go from here after a short break. r.
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♪ ♪ ♪ why would i use kayak to compare we're so glad we got bulkamid. hundreds of travel sites at once? i like to do things myself. i can't trust anything else to do the job right. kayak... aaaaaaaahhhh kayak. search one and done. i will not be voting for former president trump, and you mean, i will submit i find sexual assault to be a line i will not cross. the people i select to be my president, but i also disagree with a number of the character issues the president has demonstrated. >> in a vacuum it is hard to imagine anyone taking exception to a reasonable position, not voting for presidential candidate found libel for sexual
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assault. the fact of the matter is that particular issue doesn't appear to resonate with donald trump's base. neither does the fact that next month he will become the first former president to stand trial on criminal charges in a case having to do with hush money payments to a porn star. today's penalty we can report totals $453.5 million for donald trump, because it includes interest, expect to hear from trump and new york attorney general leticia james at the top of the hour and all of this before he reckon with his attempts to overturn the results of a fair and free election and illegal retention of classified feerl. democratic strategist cornell belcher. one of those weeks where it was hard to keep track of which trial we're talking about in a given moment. >> yeah. i mean it was wild stuff, but i do think trump, that number for the $345 million, that's a lot of money. i think a lot of us thought it
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would be lower. he's going to have to sell a lot of hats. >> there's at dollar amount and the penalty about not being able to practice business in new york for three years. >> and he's going to have to put together a bond if he wants to appeal. all of this is real money. i also think, look, i thought the fani willis testimony was moving and did really, i believed it looked bad for the people who are trying to avoid their case by making a case against her, and i just thought this was not yet another week where it wasn't a great week for trump. >> i mean, here's the thing, someone made the argument earlier on set that here you have a person who is going to make an argument to the american people that he deserves four more years of the presidency, pe a judge in new york saying, you don't even get the next three years of running a business in new york state. the fact that those timelines kind of match is pretty striking. >> that's right. in fact, i tweeted out around
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the same time that he's asking to run the country when he can't run his own business in new york. it's a tough story to sell the american public. i think from a completely political standpoint, i think this makes it harder for him to grow his base of support beyond what that 46% that we see. i thought he was going to have a hard time growing that beyond that as it were. it's not the one thing. it's the drip, drip, drip. it's the sexual assault, it's the fraud, the defamation. it's hard to sell middle america that. more importantly that even trump, think about the house and senate candidates. think about mcconnell, who thinks he's got a pretty good road map here looking at the senate seat this time around. they thought they had a pretty
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good chance last time as well. but trump got in the way of that. i think trump is getting in the way of this as well. i think what you're going to see from house and senate republicans is every day on the campaign trail they're going to have to answer to these mounting legal troubles of trump and talk to the american public on why they're still lockstep with this man who's been found fraudulent or crooked in so many cases. i think that's a tough thing for them to do. >> everything that cornell said makes perfect sense to me, but i want to contrast it with what we saw this week out of republicans on capitol hill. you had them impeaching mayorkas, despite killing a border bill. they left town without passing foreign aid. peak of dysfunction. they seem to be willing to follow him from now through november. >> yeah. they are. but as you point out, they're also showing signs of peak
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dysfunction. this has been an incredible week. a week ago we were all talking about joe biden and his age. since then, we've had the clarification that donald trump is, in fact, a liar, a fraud, an accused felon and a vladimir putin stooge. so think about all the things that have happened in the last seven days. donald trump invites vladimir putin to invade europe, to crush our allies. the republicans blocking aid to ukraine. we had the special election in new york, which was a huge setback for republicans. we have in georgia in addition to the fani willis case, we had a conservative group admit that many of the lies about the election were, in fact, lies. so the big lie had a very, very bad week. we had the fbi informant, who failed so spectacularly. and then we have this ruling out
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of new york, which has just blown a hole in donald trump's entire image as a successful businessman. so this is, again, a reminder that 2024 is going to be like this, where every week is going to feel like an entire year. this may not move the republican base, but it is certainly clarifying about who donald trump is and what the republican party from top to bottom is aligning itself with. >> and any minute we are expecting to hear from tish james. you'll all forgive me if i interrupt you. molly, you had something you wanted to say about what you were expecting to say. >> today on tish james, i think new york is going to be the first case likely, right? they're holding him accountable, which is kind of amazing and a big deal. there's this hush money case that's also coming down very soon. >> which is also about election interference.
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>> right. there's this split screen of trump going against these powerful women, and they are the only ones holding him accountable, fani willis, tish james, e. jean carroll. he's bullying his whole party. you have all of these republicans who are terrified of him. in the house, for example, we're hurtling toward a shutdown yet again. they didn't pass the cr. they didn't pass anything. now they've gone on vacation for a week. you see what's happening. it turns out trump is basically the de facto speaker of the house now, and he's not a very good speaker. >> i think about the fact that you have new york ag tish james taking that number and forcing us to realize it actually is much greater than the initial number as placed on the ruling, because it actually includes
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interest. what do you think she comes out and says about justice, about accountability, about what this means for the people of new york and for the people of this country? >> well, i think for the people of this country it's that no one's above the law. that is supposed to be fundamental to our democracy here, is that no one is above the law no matter how rich and powerful, even if you're the president of the united states of america, you must and will be held accountable. >> there she is. let's stop and listen. new york a.g. tish james. >> good evening. today justice has been served. today we proved that no one is above the law, no matter how rich, powerful or politically connected you are, everyone must play by the same rules. we have a responsibility to protect the integrity of the
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marketplace. for years, donald trump engaged in deceptive business practices and tremendous fraud. donald trump falsely, knowingly inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself, his family and to cheat the system. donald trump may have authored "the art of the deal," but he perfected the art of the steal. this long-running fraud was intentional, egregious, illegal. and he did all of this with the help of the other defendants, his two adult sons and senior executives at the trump organization. so after 11 weeks of trial, we showed the staggering extent of his fraud and exactly how donald trump and the other defendants deceived banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions for their own personal gain.
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we proved just how much donald trump, his family and his company unjustly benefitted from his fraud. today, the court once again ruled in our favor and in favor of every hardworking american who plays by the rules. donald trump and the other defendants were ordered to pay $463.9 million. that represents $363.9 million in disgorgement, plus $100 million in interest, which will continue to increase every single day until it is paid. donald trump, the former chief financial officer of the trump organization alan weisselberg and the former comptroller of the trump organization jeffrey mcconnie are each banned from
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serving as a director or officer of any company in new york for three years. mr. weisselberg and mr. mcconnie are also banned from serving in a financial rule from any new york company. donald trump jr. and eric trump are banned from serving as a director or officer from any new york company for two years. donald trump and his companies are banned from applying for loans from any new york bank or financial institution for three years. a new independent director of compliance will be created at the trump organization to ensure the company establishes internal protocols and meets financial reporting obligations. and a current independent external monitor will continue to oversee the company's financial dealings and ensure this fraud cannot continue. i want to be clear. white collar financial fraud is not a victimless crime.
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when the powerful break the law and take more than their fair share, there are fewer resources available for working people, small businesses and families. and everyday americans cannot lie to a bank about how much money they have in order to get a mortgage to buy a home or a loan to keep their business afloat or to send their child to college. and if they did, our government would throw the book at them. i want to thank the entire incredible and hardworking team in my office that tried this case, because the scale and the scope of donald trump's fraud is staggering and so too is his ego and his belief that the rules do not apply to him. today, we are holding donald
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