Skip to main content

tv   Alex Wagner Tonight  MSNBC  May 19, 2023 1:00am-2:00am PDT

1:00 am
garbage out. i don't think it actually understand. >> garbage and, garbage out i think is a good description of the current elon musk method. aric toler, great reporting, thank you for joining us. >> sure thing. >> that is all in on this thursday night. alex wagner tonight starts right now, good evening alex. i'm up as you can use the name elon musk in the word method. in a sentence. >> well, it is what it is. i think i said this and someone earlier today, it's a donald trump method. we're whatever vile nonsense appears in your replies, is the fact of the matter. earlier it's the donald trump method. whatever vile nonsense appears in your replies is a good fact of the matter. >> whatever phrase ebegins whatever vile method you know you're onto a winner.
1:01 am
it's that time of year when yearbooks come out and everyone gets to pour over pictures of their classmates and quietly judge their haircuts and senior quotes. you get to look back and remember when certain classmates seem so nbt and others seem so awkward and look what has happened since. mullets are back in style. who could have known? well, there was a unique sort of class photo taken in washington this week. it was for a very small group of people the men and women who have been speaker of the house. that is speaker kevin mccarthy posing with almost all of his living predecessors. there is newt gingrich, of course, who was speaker of the house from 1995 to 1999. there's nancy pelosi who was speaker 2007 to 2011 and again from 2019 to this year. there is john boehner speaker 20 # 1 to 2515.
1:02 am
and then there's kevin mccarthy the current speaker of the house. if you're wondering about the years 19991 and 2007 that is when dennis has rt is speaker of house. and he's very much alive but he stopped getting invited to these photo-ops after he was convicted of a serial child molester. just like a lot of other class photos this one offers insight into the passage of time. it started back in 1995 when newt gingrich became the first republican speaker of the house in 34 years. the republican presidencies of eisenhower and nixon and ford and reagan and george h.w. bush,
1:03 am
they all had divided governments with democrats controlling at least one chamber of congress. and while there were policy fights throughout those eras, none of them kind of shenanigans and brawls we see today. but in 1995 republicans took back control of the house for the first time since 1955, and their leader newt gingrich implemented a new style of house politics one that prioritized conflict with the white house and with democrats. gingrich was once quoted as saying one of the great problems we have in the republican party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty. to which i say just you wait, mr. gingrich, just you wait. anyway, during that time the republican party was able to extract big concessions from democrats. they got spending cuts and work requirements and cuts to the social safety net. and then what could be termed nasty era one culminated in the
1:04 am
first impeachment of a u.s. president in modern times, the impeachment of bill clinton, which by the way turned the public against republicans and lost them seats in the house. despite that loss, the gingrich model, the nasty model, that stuck. and things became even more extreme under the speakership of john boehner. it was under speaker boehner the tea party and its extremists first decided to put a gun to the head of the american economy. that standoff ultimately resulted in the downgrading of the u.s. credit for the very first time in history, which house republicans seem to view as a success because they did not change their tactics after that. they got even more extreme and they forced speaker boehner into resignation. things got even worse under the short-lived speakership of paul ryan who also resigned in frustration. do you see a pattern here? things get nastier and the speakership gets sort of
1:05 am
resignier, which brings us to speaker mccarthy and his situation, the one we're all in now. right now speaker mccarthy is trying to survive his historically weak speakership by appeasing an increasingly rebellious conference. so he's holding the american economy hostage once again. at the same time his members are suggesting no concession may ever be enough. after all this is not newt gingrich's nasty era one. this is mccarthy's nasty era 2. for example, yesterday the speaker casually suggested congressman adam schiff shouldn't be serving in the house anymore. it's hard to do that kind of thing casually but somehow he did it, and within seconds a right-wing member of congress had introduced a bill to expel adam schiff. nasty era 2 republicans are not
1:06 am
casual expelling democrats. she cap off her impeachment blitz today by bringing articles of impeachment against the president of the united states because she doesn't like the way biden has handled the flow of migrants at the southern border. >> the constitution outlines a very simple process to fire the corrupt official serving in the federal government -- impeachment. matthew graves, christopher wray, merrick garland, alejandro mayorkas and joe biden are all corrupt and unfit to hold office, and they all must be impeached. this concludes impeachment week. >> this concludes impeachment week. now they have to impeach nearly the whole cabinet, too, which makes this particularly odious for speaker mccarthy, particularly bonkers for his
1:07 am
conference because marjorie taylor greene is not some fringe lunatic, not anymore anyway. the congresswoman who has aligned herself with january 6th insurrectionists, she's now also considered an ally of the speaker of the house. the two of them have cemented the path between what is left between the republican house establishment and the party's radical right-wing. so this is the party, this is the gop, this is who they are now. newt gingrich would be proud. joining us now is california democratic congressman ro khanna. thank you so much for being here, congressman. it was a sort of short trip down memory lane i think treated -- is that the word -- our audience to. >> that's correctch. >> i think one of the things we should talk about in terms of of what is happening right now in the house is not the likelihood joe biden is being impeached but if you impeach everybody all the time, you make impeachment meaningless, and it feels like that's what's happening here. on the heels of donald trump
1:08 am
being impeached twice in the house on ukraine and on january 6th, this is the comeuppance the democrats get. do you read it that same way? >> i do, alisyn. look, they didn't campaign on tat. now they're doing that because of the extreme right wing. this is terrible politics for them. there's absolutely nothing to impeach president biden on, and they are just making this up out of retribution. there are hundreds of actual reasonable republicans who know it's terrible politics but they can't do anything. >> isn't it somewhat sly as neutralizing impeachment as an actual punishment? if you keep saying it and doing it all the time it renders it meaningless and effectively useless, and do you think we're at risk of impeachment becoming meaningless because of what's happening with the republican conference? >> i do think that's part of their goal, which is to say we're going to do to president biden to diminish the actual
1:09 am
crimes, the actual serious wrongdoing that president trump had. that was not an easy vote for many of us with donald trump. in fact, if you remember speaker pelosi held out for the longest time. we did not want to do it, but it was such compelling overwhelming evidence we felt we had to do it. and there's no comparison between that and ordinary republicans. i would never have said let's impeach ronald reagan or bush sr. they're just trying to muddy the waters and say everyone does it does it, but everyone knows the truth. they know president biden is a decent human being who's dedicated his life to public service. >> they always invoked the specter of potentially hunter biden and his laptop, but somehow the sentence always ended wait until democrats are in office and we impeach him or her, so to some degree we could see this coming. i myself, and i wonder what you think of this, i'm surprised by
1:10 am
the eye for an eye strategy they're employing. george santos, 13 criminals charges against him, members of his own new york delegation who are republicans saying you've got to get this guy out of here, and yet the republican conference at large is unwilling to admit that this person has no place in congress, and instead the same week that santos is up for expulsion says adam schiff, that's who we're going to kick out. i am shocked that no term doesn't deserve another in terms of republicans seeking ret tribution for anything and everything. >> this has become their modus operandi. that's why it's so scary donald trump could be their nominee. his second term would just be vengeance, and you have no norms. this is what we criticize in other countries that people keep putting their prime ministers in jail or jailing their opposition leaders. here we had norms, we had have a
1:11 am
rule of law. we said we had a process, and what has happened is we had a president, donald trump, who broke all those norms, broke all those rules. and instead of saying we're going to hold him accountable and move on, instead of having mcconnell convict trump, instead of having mccarthy stand up against him, mccarthy, these people thought trump would just go away. they just thought he'd go away. they didn't have the guts when he was at 30% in the polls to actually convict them. and now he's come back, and now they're beholden to him because mccarthy needed his intervention to get the votes. >> i think what's surprising in desantis' example it's not about trump. it's the grievance central that live long past whatever power trump has. that is now central to republican ideology. george santos is not donald trump's ally. he's a necessary congressional vote for kevin mccarthy who will literally do anything to keep that speaker's gavel. but he's also become a talisman
1:12 am
for republican grievance. they need to have another victim if george santos is going to be taken out of congress. i do have to ask because we're looking at the bonkers nature of the republican conference how you're looking at these debt ceiling negotiations, because i think a lot of people say this conference is so whacko and so uninterested in actual governance, why should the president of the united states be bargaining with their representative kevin mccarthy directly? why should he make any concessions to people who do not have the interests of american voters at heart? why doesn't he use the 14th amendment, why doesn't he use anything, something, but don't negotiate with the terrorists. >> let me say why in a very simple way. we should not be negotiating in this country about whether we pay our debts. america should pay our debts. this is not the congress against the president. this is the congress trying to overrule what past congresses
1:13 am
have already told the president to spend. and so he has every authority to say, congress, you told me to spend this money, i'm not going to default on america's debts. we're a patriotic nation. it's patriotic to pay our bills, and i'm going to pay the bills. let them sue. let them sue and take it to the court. last time they did these shenanigans the stock market dropped 15% in 2011. >> but they thought it was a hostage worth taking. in the eyes of mitch mcconnell they thought it was all worth it. >> because you were so eloquent in your history, when president clinton stood up for bad politics for them. i think the president biden says i'm going to do the patriotic duty, in america we pay our debts, challenge me in the courts i don't think they're going to win on that argument. separately we can discuss how to reduce our deficits. we have plans for that's.
1:14 am
let's repeal the trump tax cuts. let's make sure we have prescription drug negotiation. the deficits are reagan, bush, trump that have created a lot of the deficits. i'm not saying we haven't done some of it, but more of the deficit had been republican run. >> i have to ask you as we're talking about who is in congress and who is not, diane feinstein, senator from california, there's new reporting from "the new york times" about the degree of illness she has suffered while she's been out with shingles. the reporting isn't that she has been disoriented and really questionably serving in congress for some time now. what needs to happen here? >> first let me say i admire her career and she's had an extraordinary career, but it's sad for anyone to see and her own colleagues to see. i'm hopeful people close to her can talk to her and say, look, end your service with dignity, step aside, let the governor appoint someone.
1:15 am
it's a painfully obvious to people. i went out and i said something that many people are thinking. >> do you think that's going to happen? >> i hope so. i mean i -- i think for her own dignity, for her own career, for her own legacy it would be good. it would be good for california. it's sort of we all have seen an athlete that plays one or twoe more seasons. now it's painful. it's painful to watch, and my hope is i know there are people close to her, i don't think it should be forceful. i think they should have a loving conversation about it being time. >> california democratic congressman ro khanna. we have a lot more tonight including three self-described whistle blowers on an government hearing on anti-conservative bias in the fbi. yes, you heard that correctly anti-conservative bias in the fbi. but first gun violence is the number one public health
1:16 am
concern in america. senator rafael warnock joins me live to talk about when and all how all this killing ends. that's right after the break. ak
1:17 am
1:18 am
1:19 am
1:20 am
last thursday it happened in chicago, a shooter killed two people and injured three others. that was one of three mass
1:21 am
shootings all on the same day in chicago and philadelphia and indianapolis. the next day on friday it happened near a restaurant in maryland, a shooter injured four. on saturday it happened in six different places, six mass shootings in one day including at a graduation party in manchester, new hampshire. on sunday, on mother's day there were four mass shootings in pennsylvania, indiana, alabama, and louisiana. this week on monday it happened in farmington, new mexico. an 18-year-old opened fire at random with at least three guns. he shot nine people killing three of them. the victims were all women over the age of 70, and among them were a mother and her daughter. on tuesday it happened in san antonio and then again today in san antonio. two mass shootings in the same city in less than 48 hours. in the past seven days there have been 17 mass shootings in
1:22 am
america. according to a new axios ipsos poll gun violence is now the top public health concern among americans, more than covid, more than cancer, more than smoking, more than fentanyl. gun violence the number one health concern in the entire country, period. and what is congress focused on? policing trans girls participation in school sports, or at least that is the priority for house republicans who passed a bill last month to block trans women and girls from women's sports. and wrashia, if you squint your eyes hard enough all hope is not lost. today senator rafael warnock along some in the senate and house held a press conference demanding action. >> we can't wait another 30 years for congress to pass meaningful common sense gun safety legislation. and we can't wait for the next
1:23 am
headline, the next tragic flash point because there is a profound way in which these tragedies are happening every single day. >> joining us now is senator rafael warnock of georgia. senator warnock, thank you for being here this evening. i was not aware of this statistic and i wonder what you think of it. gun owners more likely identify as republicans. they are white, they are male, and they live in rural areas. almost half of white men in this country, 48% say they own a gun. we talk a lot about the intransgns over gun safety reform being in the nra, but it seems to me until the actual demographics of gun ownership changes you'll keep running into roadblocks. do you think that has anything to do with this?
1:24 am
>> good to be with you, alex. and as we were pointing out in the press conference we have a critical issue around gun violence, and i began to raise this issue in the congress most recently a couple of weeks ago because as we were witnessing all of the kind of carnage you just described day after day and terrible flash points like what we saw in nashville, tennessee, there was reticence and radio silence in congress. and i'm afraid that we have normalized this kind of carnage happening every single day in america. the good news is that most americans, red, yellow, white, brown, and black, everybody on both sides of the aisle, nearly 90% of americans feel that we need to pass universal background checks. there's a path to get -- witnessing a kind of impasse in congress that quite frankly doesn't reflect what's going on in the country. >> do you think -- i mean the
1:25 am
base of the republican party -- a lot of the reason nothing gets done in congress is this does not seem to be an issue of utmost importance for republicans. and when you look at who owns guns, it's white male republicans in rural areas. that's a core part of the republican base. do you think that there's a connection between those two things? >> i think there is a lot of misinformation around this whole -- this year we have seen mass shooting in 38 states and the district of columbia. so those are red states and blue states and rural communities and urban centers. we've seen mass shootings that create these kinds of flash points, but every single day in urban areas, black and brown communities witness a kind of carnage which cumeletatively it is a mass shooting every single
1:26 am
day. and so what we've got to do is we've got to remember the covenant we have with one another. and if we can't keep our own children safe, what in the world are we doing? so what i'm focused on right now on doing is trying to bring together my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. we passed bipartisan gun safety legislation last summer. it was modest but meaningful. it emphasized mental health care, expanding or supporting background checks, but it's not nearly enough. and what we've got is do is think about what is it we can do to build on that progress. we can't wait another single day. we certainly can't wait 30 years to get some more legislation passed. >> yeah, that modest but meaningful reform you talked about came after the shooting in uvalde, texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed. it seems like the slaughter of children is often an inflection
1:27 am
point for indignation and sometimes very occasionally actual legislation, but i mean when you think about what's changed the most in and around these school shootings it isn't that we've passed gun safety reform measures but now all our children have to do active shooter drill. i as a parent, and i know you're a parent, too, we both have 6-year-olds, i find it abhorrent that's the change we made as a culture is get them used to the idea someone may come into teir classroom and shoot them to death. >> i'm the father of a 6-year-old and 4-year-old and ironically as i was pushing my own colleagues to step up and do more, i left the office and an hour later there was an active shooting situation in atlanta which left my own children in a lockdown. and folks are saying that this is about freedom. it's a strange freedom that leaves our children on any random day in a lockdown.
1:28 am
mass shootings every single day is not the cost of freedom. it's the cost of blind obstinance. it's the cost of demagogueraphy. it's the cost of greed. and we have to do better than this. dr. king said we become silent on the things that matter, and we are literally dying physically and spiritually as we normalize this kind of carnage in every day american life. and the fact we can't get movement in the congress on something of which there's 90% agreement among americans means we have a democracy problem. the voices of the people are being squeezed out of their democracy, which is why i ran in the first place, and i'm doing the best i can on this and other issues for people to get their voices back. if we can do that, we can get reasonable, common sense gun laws passed. >> i've got to ask you as someone who knows well the inside of a church and has spent
1:29 am
a lot of time there longer than you have inside the halls of congress, i think you understand part of the force that animates american life. and you used the word normalize a couple of times in this interview. and i agree with you. i think the violence is being normalized in american culture. i don't usually compare the united states to serbia, but three weeks ago there were mass shootings in serbia, and three weeks ago literally tens of thousands of people came out and protested and handed in 6,000 guns. people gave up their arms because they would not and could not abide the violence that was starting to blossom in their country. that is an unthinkable thing to happen in the united states of america. why do we hold onto these guns knowing what they are doing to our children, to our society? >> it's a very good question. again, there is much more agreement among americans on
1:30 am
universal background checks, on banning assault weapons, on a whole range of things. and we see reflected in the legislation that's getting passed in congress and we have a problem. and what they're able to get done in the government is growing wider and wider. and that's what we've got to address. we've got to address this issue, this kind of brokenness in our democracy where the people's voices are squeezed out. think about it as divided as we are, and we are, there's differences. there's nearly 90% agreement among americans according to a fox news poll, we should have universal background checks. and we still can't get it, so this is the work that i'm trying to get my colleagues to get
1:31 am
focused on. we passed bipartisan gun safety legislation last summer. i'm not about to give up. we can build on that work and get something done for our children. >> it is noble work, senator. let it not be fruitless. good luck in the fight. thank you for your time tonight, senator raphael warnock of georgia, appreciate it. >> keep the faith. coming up republicans on the house republicans. republicans on republicans. republicans are laser focused on woke libs inside the fbi. is that actually a thing? that is next. actually a thing that is next
1:32 am
1:33 am
1:34 am
(wheezing) asthma isn't pretty. it's the moment when you realize that a good day... is about to become a bad one. but then, i remembered that the world is so much bigger than that, with trelegy. because one dose a day helps keep my asthma symptoms under control. and with 3 medicines in 1 inhaler, trelegy helps improve lung function so i can breathe easier for a full 24 hours. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. trelegy contains a medicine that increases risk of hospitalizations and death from asthma problems when used alone. when this medicine is used with an inhaled corticosteroid, like in trelegy, there is not a significant increased risk of these events. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase risk of thrush and infections. get emergency care for serious allergic reactions. see your doctor if your asthma does not improve or gets worse. ♪ what a wonderful world. ♪ ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy for asthma -
1:35 am
because breathing should be beautiful.
1:36 am
today republican congressman jim jordan's so-called select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government, that committee held a hearing at which congressman jordan aimed to expose how the fbi is secretly a liberal cabal. congressman jordan's evidence of this anti-conservative deep state agenda inside the fbi, his evidence was these guys, men whom jordan called whistle-blowers. okay, here's one of those so-called whistle blowers, former fbi s.w.a.t. team member steven friend explaining why he believes the fbi suspended him. >> my suspension document that i
1:37 am
got from the fbi's human resource division listed a few things one of which being my refusal to participate in lawful arrests, which was the january 6th, which, again, i didn't refuse, i said i had only a conflict of interest, conscientious objection. >> before i get into the substance of what mr. friend is saying here, it is important to take a moment to acknowledge mr. friend is saying this on the russian state propaganda network rt, and this clip is from december which was nearly a year into russia's war of aggression in ukraine, and this is mr. friend's network of choice. anyway, let us look at the arrest in which mr. friend claims he was a conscientious objector. "the new york times" claims he declined to take part in the arrests for a man named tyler bench. here is what mr. bench wore from
1:38 am
january 6th at the u.s. capitol, a tactical vest, goggles and a gas mask. he carried a chemical irritant on the front of his vest. the justice department alleges mr. bench is a self-described supporter of the far-right militia group the 3%ers. you can see him with the other alleged three%ers here allegedly heave-hoing with the crowd to push past police. the justice department further alleges he used his chemical irritant to spray the face of a quote a member of the crowd even though that person posed no threat to him. congressman jordan's whistle-blower number two is this guy, suspended fbi staff operations marcus allen. allen had his top security clearance evoked not only because espoused january 6th or
1:39 am
he'd raised sufficient concerns about his allegiance to the united states, in addition to those things they revoked his security clearance because of an incident allen had been assigned to determine whether a person the fbi had been investigating had been involved in any criminal activity on january 6th. now, mr. allen reported he didn't find anything on this person, but when another agent looked into the matter that agent found the person they'd been investigating had physically assaulted u.s. capitol police officers on january 6th. so those were the first two of jim jordan's black buster whistle blowers. and here is number three, suspended fbi agent garret o o'boyle. he's a prolific covid-19 conspiracy theorist. he's compared mandates to the nazi regime and of course he's an election denier. but if you're chairman jim
1:40 am
jordan these are but details. after the hearing today jordan tweeted, quote, god bless our brave whistle blowers. these so-called three whistle blowers were at the center of jordan's hearing today but the rest of it was also a circus, and we're going to get into all of it coming up next. it comingt
1:41 am
1:42 am
♪♪ whenever heartburn strikes, get fast relief with tums. its time to love food back. ♪tum, tum tum tum, tums♪
1:43 am
1:44 am
less than two months ago former president trump facing mounting investigations into his many alleged crimes declared that, quote, republicans in
1:45 am
congress should defund the doj and the fbi until they can come to their senses, and we all know that when trump says jump republicans in the house say how high. >> that was stacey plaskett, ranking democrat on the house weaponization subcommittee where republicans are trying to make the case that the fbi has become a hotbed of deep state liberalism intent of purging the agency of patriots and real conservatives. joining us now is former fbi agent peter struck and mary mccord, former acting assistant attorney general for national security at the doj. she's also a co-host of the msnbc podcast "prosecuting donald trump." thank you both for being here. peter, as a former fbi agent, i must ask you about this idea that the fbi is a hotbed of deep state liberalism. true or false? >> alex, absolutely false. look, i spent more than 20 years in the organization.
1:46 am
it is absolutely a conservative organization whether that's politically, whether it's in terms of its view of law and order, whether it's in terms of sort of broadly in a stoital sense. the culture is one that is generally conservative, but it's not -- people don't sit there having political zgs over the lunch table, but to assert in any way, shape, or form that it is a hotbed of liberalism is absolutely absurd and nothing could be further from the truth. >> nbc had reporting not only was the fbi not a hotbed of hippy liberalism. in fact, an unnamed fbi official warned last year i believe -- sorry, before the january 6th attack we learned of this last year that an fbi official warned at best there's a sizable percentage of the employee population of the fbi that felt sympathetic to the group that stormed the capitol.
1:47 am
i'm getting my timing wrong all over the place, here, but just to repeat this reporting there was a warning that a sizable portion of the fbi employee population was sympathetic to the january 6th insurrection. that does not smack of liberalism. that smacks of something entirely different. can you elaborate on that? >> you know, that's been troublesome reporting ever since it came out. and i think there's still a big difference between maybe there's some people in the fbi who think, okay, there are people who believe there was fraud in the election, some of those people got swept up in this. there's a difference between some who might think that and others you were speaking about before the break who were testifying today on capitol hill who actually it appears from the reporting and from what's being reported about the letter that the fbi sent to jim jordan about why their security clearances were revoked, that reporting
1:48 am
suggests far more than sympathy. sympathy is concerning, but it actually suggests that active measures were taken to try to suppress investigations into january 6th attackers and also to not cooperate with the arrest of someone for whom there was an arrest warrant. and so those types of things are very, very concerning. i hope and i believe that's not the predominant view among the fbi. as pete said it's a conservative organization generally, and i think the belief it's a hotbed of liberalism is quite the opposite it is. but i do hope the views we heard today are quite the minority. >> on that hope it's not that these men -- their security clearances are being revoked. there are punitive measures taken against these so-called
1:49 am
whistle blowers, but in the same turn jim jordan who's the chair of the oversight committee is lauding them as brave americans and heroes. these are people who potentially did not investigate insurrectionists, who objected to their arrests, who hid investigative activity. i mean that is deeply problematic for the fbi. what did you make of the way in which those problematic behaviors were flipped on their head entirely by the chair of the congressional oversight committee today? >> yeah, well, it is concerning. look, the last thing the fbi needs is some hyper-partisan congressman trying to take the fbi's action, the fbi employees and trying to make it into a one side versus the other sort of organization. you know, look in defense of the fbi the fact of the matter is really complex investigations and prosecutions of the oath keepers, of the proud boys have taken place with fbi investigators working the doj and have been successfully prosecuted involving investigations all across the united states. so by and large the vast majority of the fbi is doing
1:50 am
their job without fear or favor and just pursuing the facts wherever they lie. the problem is the fbi is a large organization, and with 35,000 people you're going to find people on both extremes. and so when you get people like congressman jordan who selects these people who are on the far right with really outrageous behaviors, that to lose your clearance, to have it revoked -- not suspended but revoked, gone forever, you have to really engage in some rather extraordinarily dangerous behavior. and for jim jordan to take those people, to take that behavior and somehow try and champion that as what is to be expected or should be expected is really sending the wrong message to the american people, and it's absolutely nothing i'm sure that the fbi wants to hear from them. >> and peter, the second part of that is he's using them as a cudgel against the fbi, and it appears to be working at least if you listen to right-wing media. laura ingram yesterday said i
1:51 am
don't know anyone who trusts the fbi anymore. this is coming on the heel of the durham report which reportedly was an explosive expose on how the investigators investigating shouldn't have been investigating. i just wonder what you think the end game is here given we're talking about the fbi and there's legitimately a phrase out there people are repeating and it goes defund the fbi. >> the end game is try to neuter any sort of investigations to trump. but other things related to trump whether it's the special counsel or the mar-a-lago documents process, all the january 6th activity, the goal is to undermine support of the fbi so that they cannot effectively pursue any sort of investigation of donald trump. it's not going to work. now, the problem of course is these fbi agents -- ex-fbi
1:52 am
agents we saw have some extreme views and the question is where did they hear them? the answer is in many cases they heard them from places like fox news. you get this echo chamber where fox are promulgating these crazy theories, agents are listening to them or believing them and turning up on these same shows to further amplify and bounce back into that ecosystem. it's a dangerous system but at the end of the day the goal is to make it harder for the fbi to pursue any investigations or violations of the law surrounding donald trump. >> yeah, mary, i wonder what you think about that because we know from some reporting in "the washington post" there was a disagreement between fbi field agents and doj prosecutors over the search of donald trump's property down at mar-a-lago. do you think this new narrative emerging about the fbi being somehow anti-conservative will affect its ability or its desire to investigate all corners of trump's potential criminal wrongdoings? >> i really don't because, you know, i agree with pete here.
1:53 am
it's a huge organization. i think most of the agents -- i worked with fbi for more than 20 years in my career at the department of justice, and i can say we didn't have political conversations. i never felt that anyone was making any decision -- now, granted i wasn't investigating the former president of the united states, but i was involved in some pretty sensitive investigations. and i guess i shouldn't say i wasn't investigating the former president of the united states because pete and i both were involved in the russia investigation while we were still in government. but my point is i never saw anything that suggested to me that politics was infecting their work. and i think to the extent that there are disagreements and sometimes there are, often there are within the fbi, within the department of justice and between the department of justice and the fbi about tactics and strategies with respect to investigative measures that will be taken in the case, those things happen, and they happen even in uncontroversial cases.
1:54 am
but ultimately the buck stops if it has to go all the way to the attorney general, that's where the buck stops and decisions get made. and if an agent can't do their job, that agent would get removed from the case. but i think that -- i think most of the agents will be, you know, doing exactly -- their working with the prosecutors, they're working the investigations, and i feel confident in their ability to get the job done. >> peter struck and mary mccord, thank you guys both for joining me tonight. really appreciate it. we have one more story for you coming up. ron desantis took his culture war to disney world, and he is getting the ride of a lifetime. stay with us.
1:55 am
1:56 am
1:57 am
1:58 am
it was supposed to be located right here in the beautiful region in orlando, florida, a massive business development project that would redefine the retail experience in the region. and in the middle of all those shops and galleries and gardens, in the middle of all of it the plan was to erect a 1.8 million
1:59 am
square foot corporate campus for florida's biggest taxpayer, disney. not anymore. today disney announced due to changing business conditions in florida the company will not move forward with the construction of its campus. this is a huge hit to florida's economy. the project was valued at nearly $1 billion and expected to bring more than 2,000 new jobs to the state of florida, white collar jobs, many of them relocated from california. california with its average yearly salaries of $120,000. while disney didn't name governor ron desantis as the reason it decided to pull the plug, the announcement does come amid an escalating feud between the florida governor and disney over the company's opposition to the state's education law known as don't say gay, which restricts in-class discussion of gender and sexual orientation in florida public schools. despite desantis promoting and pushing for and signing that
2:00 am
law, today he blamed all of the things except himself. given disney's financial straights, he said, falling market cap and declining stock price, it is unsurprising that they would restructure their business operations. the reality here desant has likely cost his own state more than 2,000 high paying jobs, jobs that would be appreciated elsewhere like say california. governor gavin newsom today said turns out bigoted policies have consequences. that's 2,000 plus jobs that will be welcomed back with open arms to the golden state. and desantis' presidential announcement is expected next week. that is our show for tonight. i'll see you again tomorrow. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. this morning a debt ceiling deal seems to be on the right path. house speaker kevin mccarthy had an optimistic tone yesterday

78 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on