tv The Reid Out MSNBC November 21, 2024 4:00pm-5:00pm PST
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trump transition and reading again from a statement here within the last half hour donald trump saying the partisan department of department of justice has been weapon sniezed against me and other republicans and citing pam bondi as the next attorney general saying she will refocus the doj to the intended purpose, fighting crime, make america safe again. she is smart and tough and america first fighter. there will be much time ahead to continue the vetting process of nominees and see what kind of attorney general she would be. it is a reminder that the justice department figures in centrally to donald trump's plans for what will be his second term. that's the news tonight. thanks for watching "the beat" with ari melber. "the reidout" reid is next. "the reidout" reid is next
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trump announce his relays placement. meanwhile, learning more about pete hegseth and the other trump picks who faced an array of sexual misconducts. plus audio before he went maga. robert f kennedy jr. is heard approving of the comparison of trump to hitler and the descriptions of trump's base. as belligerent idiots. we begin tonight with breaking news. in the last hour, donald trump announced he is nominating former florida attorney general pam bondi to be the nation's
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next attorney general. this comes after former florida congressman matt gaetz ortoday abruptly withdrew his name from consideration after just eight days. writing in a post on x twitter, quote, while the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation as unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the trump/vance transition unquote. that distraction was the fact that he had been under investigation by the house antisemitic for about three years over allegations of sexual misconduct involving a 17-year-old girl. and illicit drug use all of which he repeatedly denied. up to today trump firmly stood by gaetz, apparently even working the phones in his favor. it remains unclear what exactly prompted his withdrawal. it could very well have been motivated by the facts that gaetz wasn't going to get enough support in the senate.
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nbc news reports five republicans said they were a hard no on his confirmation. there was also the possible release of that potentially t damning ethic report not to mention a continuous stream of damaging revelations against him, the latest reported hours ago when nbc news learned that the house ethics committee was told that a 17-year-old girl had two sexual encounters with the then-congressman at a party in 2017. cnn was the first to report on these new allegations and they say gaetz's withdrawal announcement came less than an hour after they reached out to his team for comment. whatever the reasoning may be, this is an abrupt end to the frightening prospect of gaetz leading the department of justice and having access to identifying information about the witnesses who testified against him. and although many democrats, doj officials and even some republicans are likely breathing a sigh of relief at the news,
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remember he is not the only trump nominee with these sorts of issues. joining me is melissa murray, nyu law professor and david jolly, former republican congressman from florida and an msnbc political analyst. he is no longer associated with the republican party. we love to remind folks. and we have not discerned the reason why. i want to start with you, david. you know these players better than the rest of us. what do you make of gaetz's rather abrupt withdrawal and his replacement by pam bondi? >> yeah, on gaetz the votes weren't there among republican senators and i think susie wiles of all people, the president-elect's chief of staff knew that. i think she was part of the decision to now nominate pam bondi. i would say though this as we focus on nominees, that withdrawal of matt gaetz is
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actually a embarrassing moment for donald trump who thought he had a mandate to nominate whoever he wanted, push anybody through. this is a failure. probably the first big failure of donald trump's last two weeks since the election and should be seen as such. it's failure of j.d. vance who lobbied republican colleagues in the senate and not enough came around. the issues with matt gaetz were first as attorney general he would have pursued the enemies list that donald trump wanted him to. secondly, completely professionally unqualified. no experience that justifies him leading the department. third, the questions, the serious allegations of sexual misconduct with minor which constitutes statutory rape or sex trafficking as they convicted a buddy on in the same underlying case. pam bondi started as a relatively jeb bush type republican as attorney general of the state of florida, pursued the opioid crisis.id she was the lead attorney general challenging obamacare, trying to overturn it. all the bread and butter
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republican eaissues. but not somebody with a penchant to say pursue an enemies list like matt gaetz. it would be interesting to see if she pushes back on donald with any of that. joy, she was rumored to be in the running for nomination in 2017 as part of donald trump's first cabinet, but they were not certain she would get confirmed because there was controversial around a donation that donald trump made to pam bondi's campaign. i believe it was determined to be an illegal contribution at the tame when pam bondi as attorney general of florida was considering whether or not to bring state charges related to trump university. so i suspect that will come up, the politics have changed in eight careers, but i would say pam bondi has qualifications that matt gaetz doesn't. she could be the administrator of the department of justice. politics will play out and the question cans around her past consideration of charges against donald trump as well. >> this is the check that was in question that was written from
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donald trump's charity, melissa, which is illegal for a charity to donate to a political campaign. it was made clear according to the daily beast reporting that this was a donation, a $25,000 donation to pam bondi's charity that was made from the trump foundation, which has been, you know, essentially delegitimize the in the state of new york, taken apart by tish james because it was conducting activities illegal in the state of new york. we will come back to that. w three is a pusher of the election lies that donald trump so much loves to have people push for him. i want to -- i don't want to make sure -- i think david mix a good point. before we get to pam bondi. >> i want to stay a little bit with matt tagaetz because here another graphic. we will put it up on the screen. this was the spiderweb traced -- tracing the payments, melissa, that he was allegedly making to young women, some witnesses in
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this case, regarding the 17-year-old girl, a friend of his joel greenberg pled guilty in 2021 to an array of charges, including sex trafficking and agreed to cooperate against matt gaetz. he was later sentenced to 11 years in prison. sop someone serving 11 years in prison for involvement in the same parties that allegedly involved this 17-year-old girl. so could we talk for a moment about what it would have meant to have somebody with that record be the attorney general of the united states? those allegations, i should say. >> well, i will -- this is an all-florida panel talking about an all-florida panel. that's always nice. this is truly a kind of florida mad moment. you said it. those kind of allegations around the nation's top law enforcement officer would form a bridge too far. we saw that for many of those senators, even those who are clearly within the maga caucus. it was a bridge too far. so this is not only i think, a
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humiliation for matt gaetz and a disaster for the president-elect. it is somewhat of a moment of triumph for the senate. the question for us going forward is whether or not they have extended all of their gas on this nomination or whether they have more left in the tank to really stand up to this president-elect as he goes forward pushing these nominees. again the matt gaetz nomination was again so outside of the box that it makes some of these other nominations look a little bit more orthodox. but a lot of them are truly unorthodox. one thing that kind of unites all of them, and pam bondi is no exception, is that they are al really good spokespeople. pam bondi has been a talking head on this network on occasion. also been a guest host on fox. and it seems that at least part of the calculus here is that whatever happens, donald trump wants people who are going to be able to watalk about what this
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administrative -- what these agencies do with clarity in a way that the public can understand. and that may be the top priority, maybe even over the kind prof experience that we traditionally have prioritized. >> well, that and do his bidding. this is from the bulwark, david. this is what matt gaetz was staying is to republican senators yesterday. i am not going to go there and indict liz cheney, have stormtroopers bust through the door at msnbc and arrest anthony fauci in my first week gaetz told some senators according to two people familiar with his remarks. in the last clause, in my first week, that sounded like an ominous disclaimtory some and prompted senators to ask, what happens there after? he was promising to be the same matt gaetz he has been in the house of representatives and apparently for some senators they decided that they would actually like to not live on their knees, taking a knee to donald trump in every nomination
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going forward. >> yeah, that's right.ea he probably would have pursued that because that's what donald trump wants his attorney general to do and matt gaetz really more than anyone over the last eight years showed a willingness to do anything that donald trump asked even when it was very unpopular. it raise as hard question for the senate, for republican senators and for perhaps pam bondi as well. there was a toxic with matt gaetz. i don't know the enemies list disqualified him. it was a lack of experience and then it was the criminal investigation into sexual misconduct. now you bring forward a nominee in pam bondi who has the executive experience, eight years exas attorney general of florida, and she can clearly speak probably to a personal record that speaks to her own personal fitness. it isolates this question about the enemies list. is it disqualifying? what if she says i won't do that in the first year, but in the
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first year we will see if the media needs to be investigated. and what we have seen pam bondi do since leaving office i think she is a softer follower of donald trump. she sees him as the head of the party, so she will follow his lead. obviously, loyal enough to be an impeachment manager, the counsel to some of his current defense funds i believe. so the question now really will be isolated on pam bondi. you are qualified for the job what u is your agenda and what donald trump tells you to pursue an enemies list, what will your answer be? that's a tough confirmation moment. it will be telling how she answers it and how republican senators handle it. >> there are a couple of things that are striking here. matt gaetz was not the only nominee or person that's going to be associated with this new administration that's got allegations of sexual misconduct against them. you could sgo through them allh er. the person for the department -- we will talk more about this. elon musk has some allegations. in pam bondi what you might get
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is the complicity of a past that ofhas the appearance of corruptn in it. f from "the daily beast," in it 2018 case against the trump foundation the new york attorney p general noted how trump broke the law by using his choirty to fund bondi's political group and the charity was ultimately dissolved after a judge found that trump breached his fiduciary duty to the charity in other ways, behavior the a.g.'s office called a shocking pattern of illegality. she was willing to accept this check signed with donald trump's magic marker signature for her political organization as attorney general and apparently walk away from doing the same kind of investigation letitia james was doing in new york. that speaks to her willingness to do things that donald trump desires, yeah? >> i think there is a lot of information s here, and if we g into a confirmation hearing all of this will come out. t she will be asked about her time as an impeachment manager,
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defense counsel during the first impeachment for donald trump.im all of that had come out. but again i just think the fact that the gaetz nomination was literally a shot across the bough, so unorthodox, everything looks kind of normal after that. i mean, that sort of is the danger of a nomination like that. it really has a normalization effect. in other years, in other administrations, someone like pam bondi would have raised a lot of eyebrows, would have raised a lot of questions on capitol hill and at the senate.h now hard to say given how completely unorthodox and what the alternative might have been. and, you know, with the prospect of recess appointments being looming s out here, like somethg that the president might call on the senate to do to absolutely abdicate the advice and consent role that's a fear she looks plausible and if we don't go along we might have the entire role stripped from us at the behest of the president. and so again i think these are
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note normal times. this is not a normal situation. >> and we could have gone into her attempts to influence cassidy hutchinson's testimony, the january 6th situation. there is a lot there. we will be digging into it more. melissa, david, thank you both very much. coming up, turns out maga has its open version of the "me too" movement. when trump said when a star they let you do it, a bunch of republicans he named to the cabinet allegedly said me, too. more on the troubling trend in trump's cabinet picks after the break. when we started feeding bogie the farmer's dog, he lost so much weight. pre-portioned packs makes it really easy to keep him lean and healthy. in the morning, he flies up the stairs and hops up on my bed. in the past, he would not have been able to do any of those things.
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while matt gaetz will not be leading the justice department, that doesn't mean the issue of sexual abuse vanish. it's a very fundamental component of the individual selected to work with donald trump when himself has been cred play accused by nearly two dozen women and found liable for sexual abuse. if everyone is a sexual predator, then no one's history of misdeeds matters or at least no one needs to be held accountable. being accused of sexual harassment, abuse or assault is no longer disqualifying. on the right it has been normalized. it may even be an asset. a as it stands, there are three cabinet picks who have been credibly accused of sexual misconduct. start with pete hegseth. trump's pick for secretary of
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defense. last night the monterey police department released a 22 page police report in response to a public records request related to sexual assault. according to the report a woman told police that hegseth sexually assaulted her in a hotel room after he took her phone, blocked the exit from the hotel room, and refused to let her leave. hegseth told police at the time that the encounter had been consensual and denied any wrongdoing. the woman helped organize the event at which hegseth spoke. she told police that she had witnessed hegseth acting inappropriately towards women and saw him rubbing their thighs. she texted a friend that hegseth was giving off a creeper vibe, according to the report. hegseth's lawyer responded to the report claiming that the police report confirms that the incident was fully investigated and police found the allegation to be false, which is why no charges were filed. the police did not find the
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allegations to be false. in fact, they recommended that the case report be sent to the monterey county d.a.'s office for review. in 2023 hegseth paid the woman to sign a nondisclosure agreement, a common tool to silence victims of sexual abuse. let's move on to robert f. kennedy jr. a serial philanderer who rates his sexual conquests in his direry. in his children's nanny, who was 23 at the time, told "vanity fair" kennedy sexually assaulted her by grabbing her breasts without her consent. he reportedly texted an apology to the nanny and seemingly acknowledged the incident when he was asked about it, saying, i am not a church boy. i have so many skeletons in my closet. he later added, i am to who i am. and then there is linda mcmahon who along with her husband vince is being sued for fostering a
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culture of sexual abuse in the wwe because they ignored alleged abuse by a ringside announcer who sexually assaulted 13 to 15-year-old boys claims they deny. joining me now is frank, former assistant fbi director for counterintelligence and msnbc senior national security analyst. and molly fast, correspondent and msnbc contributor. thank you for being here. i want to start with you here at the table, molly, because it seems this is a pattern. you could add elon musk who faced allegations that there was a sort of atmosphere of sexual harassment at tesla and you could add the now former a.g. pick matt gaetz. it just feels like donald trump is cultivating people around him he nominated brett kavanaugh, credically accused and denied the claims. two-thirds of the majority on
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the supreme court if you include clarence thomas. there is something happening with republicans where all the things that qanon claimed were true, right. they were saying that that was true about democrats. but here we are. what does this stay to women? >> yes. that's a good point. and i think, look, these people are in the highest levels of the law. like attorney general, you are setting the law. and on the federal level. and then you have someone who has numerous allegations and venmo and i think what's the most interesting in a weird way it seems clear at some point trump realized this wouldn't if go through because he had somebody else teed up. >> a woman all teed up. it's clear it was deliberate. he looked for another florida person, this time a woman. >> right. and i think ultimately, look, it's modeling a kind of bad behavior. part of trumpism is giving this permission that you don't have to care about people, right. that you can kind of do whatever you want.
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that owning -- >> your body, my choice. >> right, and a central tenet of this kind of governance. not about governance, but giving these kinds of people permission to do what they want to do all along. >> yeah. and frank, could we talk about from law enforcement point of view, you know, the pete hegseth side are trying to say that because there was not a prosecution that that means the police report exonerates him. that is not what that police report does. i read that police report earlier today in horror. it was horrifying. he definitely denied it to the police as well. that's in the report. but when you have allegations like that from a witness, an alleged victim. >> is it possible to claim one is exonerated simply because no charges were immediately filed? >> short answer, no. this question comes up over and over again in a myriad of ways.
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the answer is that the ending of an investigation, the decision to it decline prosecution is not an exoneration. but, rather, a decision that involves all kinds of variables like, look, everybody was drunk. we don't know how this is going to play in front of a jury. and a check has been written to settle this and we are kind of okay with that. memories have failed. it's, you know, all of that plays into -- and the degree to which a particular district attorney says i have to be 100% certain before i go to trial. some say i will take 90% certainty. so, no, not an exxon rapgs. let's add the well reported issues throughout the pentagon and the u.s. military with the issue of sex assault. and we finally have made progress in how the military handles allegations like that. resting control of that decision-making away from commanders on base and letting
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other sets of eyes look at and adjudicate those allegations. so someone like hegseth would instill fear in all members of the military about whether or not anyone's ever going believe them again regarding sexual assault. i have to add, we are having this conversation, joy, about everybody's backgrounds being a mess because trump is avoiding fib background investigations. he is not submitting his nominees' names for review. you talk about abnormal becoming normal. it's true not only with sexual allegations across everybody, but also with the fact he is blowing off the fbi background investigations that have been done since dwight eisenhower. >> right there was also this al fashion that there was the fbi background investigation into kavanaugh that was scuttled by the white house. so they are absolutely not allowing the fbi to do its job and talking about putting a loyalist, someone like kash patel in that job.
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an fbi background investigation might not mean anything at that point. >> yeah, concerned about the lack of insights that the senate judiciary will have. they are flying blind without the investigations and sully notion that trump is using a private firm to do the background, they are loyal to whoever is paying their invoice. >> exactly right. nancy mace, it is interesting the way they have gotten republican women to go along this sort of culture of just dismissing the ideas of abuse. here is nancy mace, who acknowledged being a sexual assault survivor herself. she was asked about backing trump when george stephanopoulos was interviewing her. >> donald trump found liable for rape by a jury, liable for defaming the victim of it that rape by a jury. it's affirmed by a judge. >> it's not a criminal court number one. number two, i live with shame. and you are asking me a question
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about my political choices trying to shame me as a rape victim. >> clearly for, you know, a majority of white women at least it was not a deal breaker for donald trump to have been accused. i wonder if you talked to republican women who are looking at this just range of people, i mean, where is moms for liberty to talk about mrs. mcmahon? and whether or not she was not protecting children, right? where are moms for liberty? >> well, the hibocracy is amazing. nancy mace is a story because she used to be in a purple state in a purple district. when she was in a purple district she was like i'm pro lgbtq, i'm fine with everything. she got redistricted, has a district that looks a little more like margin of marjorie ta now she says i can't let this new member of congress use the bathroom to protect the women or whatever on television. that was a radical change that
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really happened because of redistricting and we really see the way in which redistricting affects the politicians makes them more outlandish, more crazy and more explosive and only concerned with the very red part of the base. >> and you know who doesn't get impacted by redistricting? senators. they got to get elected by the whole state. five of them said too much. frank and molly, thank you both very much. and coming up a newly unearthed audio, get this, a trump cabinet member is heard praising the comparison of the next president of the united states to adolf hitler. that happened. stay with us.
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♪♪ one important feature of autocracy is that the autocrat tends it to enjoy humiliating critics by making them publicly neil before them. donald trump's case two people bending the knee who once compared him to adolf hitler. there is vice president-elect j.d. vance of course who once called trump america's hitler. and now we are learning that trump's pick for health and human services secretary rfk jr. said something similar back in 2016, likening trump to demagogues like hitler and
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mussolini, exploiting insecurities and sfwleen phobia to amass power. cnn reports during an episode of kennedy's radio show, you can see that every statement that donald trump makes is fear-based. every statement he makes. you know, we have to be in fear of the muslims, have to be in fear of the black people and particularly the big black guy obama who is destroying this company and only one person has the genius and capacity to solve these things. i am not going to tell you how i am going to do it. trust in me, vote for me and everything will be great again. of course, that is like a carnival barker. in another episode kennedy read and applauded a passage written by a writer about trump that compared his followers to nazis and called them belligerent idiots. >> one of the things that you write so beautifully, and your stuff is so fun to read, but you
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write about trump, quote, the way that you build a truly vicious nationalist movement is to wed a relatively small core of bellage rent idiots to much larger group of tune stks and spineless fellow travelers whose primary function is to turn a blind eye to things. we have plenty of cowards and boot lickers. once those start tumbling no the trump camp, the game is up. >> i wonder if he counts himself as one of those cowards, boot lickers as he called them. in a statement to cnn, rfk jr. says he regrets those comments and like j.d. vance did when he referred to trump as hitler, blames the media for tricking him into those beliefs. joining me is charlie sykes, msnbc contributor, and columnist. charlie, the trump is hitler to trump is awesome toniam, explain.
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>> well, you know, this was rchk was this before the brain worms or just before he took the red fill? but as you point out, there is a long list of people who at one point knew what donald trump was, starting with j.d. vance, marco rubio, ted cruz, lindsey graham. all of them at one point looked at donald trump and said, you know, are you kidding me? and they are now bowing the knee. rfk has, obviously, been through a lot of things. you talked about the matt gaetz appointment that was absurd and dangerous of the appointment of robert f. kennedy jr. to this position is not only absurd and dangerous, it's also deadly. and you look at him and where do you start? the conspiracy theories, the disinformation, the sexual assaults, the lies. all of this. if this man's name was not kennedy, you know, we would completely ignore him. he would be the loud guy at the back of the bus that embarrassed everybody.
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but i hope people don't take their focus off of this. or become distracted by the clownishness of this man. this man is going to come in and i think has a very real chance of taking a wrecking ball to much of the health infrastructure of this country that keeps people alive. i know that often sounds like hype and hyperbole. but if you are going to fire vast numbers of employees in, say, the fda, if you are going to attack vaccinations across the board this schools across the country, that makes you a very dangerous person. so rfk i think the focus shifts from matt gaetz to pete hegseth, but we should not sleep on the dangers that robert f. kennedy imposes and in fact at one point he knew exactly who donald trump was and what kind of regime donald trump would bring to america. >> right. i mean, look, when we had dr. fauci, who is a brilliant man,
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because donald trump wouldn'tlis will be to him and lied to the public a million people died. that's why donald trump was fired the first time when his supporters decided to sack the capitol because they couldn't handle the fact that he was fired for botching covid. now somebody who believes in chemical trails and doesn't believe in vaccinations. it's not just because he is a kennedy. he used to be somebody who was very respected for his environmental views, including having called mcdonald's poison. let me show you a picture of him completing his humiliation. not only is he chilling with the man he said is like hitler and mussolini, he is consuming mcdonald's, something he would have never done when his dignity was intact, he has to fully humiliate himself. you have to fully humiliate yourself and repudiate your former views not just that trump is like hitler like he and j.d.
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vance used to say, but also that food that you say is so poisonous shouldn't be eating. he is eating it. >> i would love to see a tape or a recording of the five minutes before that as donald trump pushes that across the table at rfk saying you are one of us now. this is what you have to eat. exactly that you have been describing as poison. you are absolutely right. it is part of this ritual humiliation. what's amazing to me is the willingness of people to go along with the humiliation. are these jobs that important to them? do they need the money, the prestige so much that they are willing to humiliate themselves? obviously, the answer is yes. and donald trump for all of his faults has, i think, decoded the character of so many of these spineless sycophants that he knew how weak they were. you know, the bullying what
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bring them to heel. this is something that a lot of authoritarians understand, that most american politicians haven't taken to this extent. >> to paraphrase george w. bush he looked inside their eyes and saw no souls and decided to manipulate and use them and they are all willing to eat it up. charlie, thank you. coming up, what the failed nomination of matt gaetz tells us about the freedom of press. and its role in the upcoming administration of donald trump. stay with us. ay with us
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new eroxon ed treatment gel. matt gaetz's withdrawal from attorney general consideration came as a result of leaks. leaks to the media about the investigation into allegations of he engaged in sexual misconduct involving a 17-year-old girl. new information about his venmo payments to young women and new information about his alleged encounters. leaks are how some of the biggest scandals in history have been uncovered. the top secret pentagon papers exposed america's disastrous vietnam policy and deep throat's leaks to bob woodward exposed the watergate scandal that took down president nixon. a leak is how we found out that the leonard leo six on the supreme court planned to overturn roe v. wade. donald trump's answer to getting
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to the bottom of that leak was to threaten journalists with prison rape. >> you take the writer and/or the publisher of the paper, a certain paper that you know, and you say, who is the leaker? national security. and they say, we are not going to tell you. they say, that's okay. you are going to jail. and when this person realizes that he is going to be the bride of another prisoner very shortly, he will say, i would very much like to tell you exactly who that leaker was. it was bill jones. i swear he is a leaker. >> yeah, well, that's a rather unsubtle and disgusting way to keep a politician's nastiest secrets secret. since then trump called journalists the enemy of the people. he threatened to revoke the broadcasting licenses of outlets he disagrees with and during his first first material he weaponized the department of
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justice to try to access reporters' phone records. now there is a bipartisan solution to help protect journalists from that type of government spying. it's called the press act. it passed the house unanimously in january. and would prevent the government from forcing journalists to reveal their sources. naturally, trump told senate republicans they must kill this bill. it's a chilling effect designed to make journalists afraid to report things and keep them from exposing what we might encounter in donald trump's return to the white house, things like, i don't know, corruption. and coming up, the international criminal court today issues a landmark arrest warrant for israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and his ex defense minister. how the u.s. and the world are reacting. that's on the other side. may i? (laughs) laser measured floorliners protect carpet in the front and second row. cargo liner protects the rear. the side window deflector offers more protection.
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day 412 in a war where the death toll passed 44,000 and the international criminal court today issued a landmark arrest warrant for israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and former minister of defense yoav gallant along with a now deceased hamas leader. it's the first time the icc has issued arrest warrants against a major u.s. ally. it is worth noting the u.s. and israel are not signatories to the icc. the world's highest criminal court which is up of 124
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countries, including all 27 members of the european union, is now saying that if gallant or netanyahu set foot in the territory of a state party, that state party has an obligation to arrest them and transfer them to the hague. the warrant holds that gallant, along with netanyahu, their responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a methods of warfare. the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane agents as well as the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population. the landmark warrant means the world will be a smaller place for the israeli prime minister and former defense minister with heads of state from canada, france, italy and ireland, to name a few. today reacting by saying they would abide by the ruling. here at home, however, it sets a collision course between the icc and trump's republicans.
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his incoming u.s. national security advisor michael waltz today vowing a strong response to icc's, quote, antisemitic bias. waltz had previously raise the threat of sanctions against the icc. joining me is ayman, host of ayman on msnbc. in short, what does this mean for benjamin netanyahu and his relationship with the eu. >> there are now 124 countries he can't visit including major european allies and makes him a pariah in these countries and on the international stage. his allyship on a bilateral level may not change much, but means that the countries that will bilaterally stand with israel and specifically with this prime minister are now doing so against an indicted war criminal alleged war criminal according to the icc. israel now continues along with
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the united states continues down in isolationist road, defying terrible spf international law and challenging whether or not they will withstand this. >> i am glad you said the united states. that stands out among the western nations saying we reject this, including the biden administration. >> right. >> so if donald trump, for instance, decides to hold a state dinner with bibi netanyahu, what does that do with the united states relationship with the west? >> nobody who watches the relationship with israel is surprised by the fact that the united states continues to shun international legitimacy to stand alongside israel. it's not only when it comes to the icc literally this week, the united states vetoed for the fourth time a u.n. security council resolution that called for a cease-fire and the release of hostages that was supported by 14 countries with the u.s. only country vetoing it. it's the fourth time something like this happened. so the united states continues to bang roll israel, continues to support a genocide in gaza,
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and it's taking israel down this very dark road where both the united states and israel continue to isolate themselves, continue to undermine international rules in international norms, and it's basically not only hurting the international order, but also hurts america's objectives in other places like ukraine where this current president, joe biden, has said he welcomed and supported the icc's indictment and arrest warrants that were issued against vladimir putin. now has to turn and said, no, this same court we praised and recognized for what it's doing vis-a-vis ukraine and russia now we suddenly think doesn't have jurisdiction, is not legitimate and we will do what we can to hinder its work were i recently interviewed the foreign minister from south africa pressing its case against the way the netanyahu government is operating this war in gaza. they are now looking at a potential expansion of the
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united nations security council to include african nations non-voting of course. it feels like there is somewhat of a realignment. the globe has spoken and has been successful against a very powerful opponent, the united states. >> yeah, for several years now this is not new, but for several years the united states has become increasingly alone in the way that it has completely bank rolled israel with this guise that israel can do no wrong. the issue is if you ask american officials what has israel done wrong, they simply will not say that israel has done anything wrong. what is kind of gaslighting the world and the global south is 1-1 hand the u.s. lectures countries with dubious human rights records about accepting human rights and following norms. when evidence is presented that is overwhelming in the eyes of countries like south africa, the cj, icc, and bodies at the u.n. saying there is overwhelming evidence that genocide is taking
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place in gaza, israeli experts have said this, genocide scholars said this and the united states continues to say israel is doing no wrong. when you even see politicians like bernie sanders and others say maybe let's condition our weapon sales to israel, make sure they comply with american law, not international law, american law, it gets shot down. people in the global south are saying this is the height of american hypocrisy. >> and we go on because this impacted the u.s. election in many ways, and it's going to get materially worse down this road with the trump administration. thank you very much. always appreciate your expertise. and watch ayman saturdays and sundays from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. eastern. that is tonight's riedout:follow me on blue sky and instagram and tiktok.
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