Maddow: Democrats snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (again)

Speaker 1 This episode is presented by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. This year, lawmakers have attacked our rights, stretched the truth, and taken away access to health care.

Speaker 1 Through it all, Planned Parenthood has been on the front lines, providing care, defending patients, fighting back.

Speaker 1 But the Trump administration and Congress passed a law to defund Planned Parenthood, putting care for 1.1 million patients at risk. Planned Parenthood isn't backing down.

Speaker 1 They're still here, protecting access to birth control, cancer screenings, abortion, and more. Visit plannedparenthood.org/slash defend and donate today.

Speaker 2 Are you ready to get spicy? These Doritos Golden Sriracha aren't that spicy. Maybe it's time to turn up the heat.
Or turn it down. It's time for something that's not too spicy.

Speaker 2 Try Dorito's Golden Sriracha. Spicy.
But not too spicy. Thanks you at home for being with us this hour.
Super happy to have you here. Tomorrow is Veterans Day.
Veterans Day is not Memorial Day.

Speaker 2 Memorial Day is the very somber day when we remember and honor people who have sacrificed their lives for this country. Memorial Day happens in the spring.

Speaker 2 Veterans Day is tomorrow, and Veterans Day is celebratory.

Speaker 2 It is a not at all somber day where we celebrate with parades and parties and all different ways to honor American veterans, to celebrate them, to say thank you. So

Speaker 2 happy Veterans Day, Dad.

Speaker 2 Tomorrow, this Veterans Day, there's going to be a ton of protests against the Trump administration under the banner of Vets Say No.

Speaker 2 Tomorrow protests are planned by veterans groups all over the country in at least 25 different states, everywhere from Alabama to Texas to North Carolina to Ohio, all up and down the West Coast, all throughout the Midwest.

Speaker 2 It's protests by both veterans and their supporters. The Veterans Day protest in Washington, D.C.
tomorrow is going to be under the banner say no to war on our cities.

Speaker 2 The veterans groups organizing these protests say they're particularly focused on cities like Washington, D.C., which Trump has threatened with military occupation in one way or another.

Speaker 2 This weekend in Illinois at the Broadview ICE facility in Chicago, a group of mothers engaged in civil disobedience on the street outside that facility, they sat down and were arrested in protest of Trump's immigration agents last week charging into a daycare in their full pseudo-military regalia, charging into a daycare and dragging out a daycare teacher in front of all the little kids at that daycare facility.

Speaker 2 Later this weekend, after the protest by moms, there was a silent protest at that same broad view facility with women dressed from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

Speaker 2 We actually saw the same thing this weekend at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota.
There were protests this weekend in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Speaker 2 People marched to the Waltham District Courthouse, which they they say is one of the courthouses that's effectively being used as a trap by Trump's immigration agents.

Speaker 2 People turn up there because they are compelled to as part of the immigration process or some other legal process, and then Trump's immigration agents lay in wait there to arrest people.

Speaker 2 Protests against Trump and his immigration raids. Also, this weekend at City Hall in Santa Maria, California.
Also in Portland, Oregon, another place where Trump has has tried to send troops.

Speaker 2 This weekend in Portland saw doctors and other medical professionals protesting in their white coats.

Speaker 2 Also this weekend, a hilarious and very Portland protest of people in full 1980s style aerobics gear. They worked out for a full hour in front of the Broadview ICE facility.

Speaker 2 They said they were sweating out the fascists. Fair enough.
You know what fascists hate? Legwarmers. Protests also this weekend in Bend, Oregon, and in Albany, New York, fund snap, not ice.

Speaker 2 In Atlanta, Georgia, protesters marched to the Georgia governor's mansion, telling Governor Brian Kemp to intervene in the shutdown disaster, to use state funds from Georgia to make up the difference in food stamp benefits for Georgia residents while the Trump administration is refusing to fund SNAP.

Speaker 2 And, you know,

Speaker 2 after last week,

Speaker 2 where the Democrats just routed the Republicans everywhere and every way in every state where there were elections on Tuesday last week.

Speaker 2 I got to tell you, I really thought after those election results, I particularly thought that night we were getting off the air after midnight on Tuesday night after like five or six hours of election coverage, which was just relentlessly positive for the Democrats and relentlessly disastrous for the Republicans all night long.

Speaker 2 I really thought getting off the air on Tuesday night and looking ahead to these next few days.

Speaker 2 that we might see something new and truly bananas from Trump in the immediate aftermath of those elections, right?

Speaker 2 Some kind of deliberately bizarre, shocking even for him stunt to try to change the subject, to try to stomp on the tail of this story of total Democratic domination in last week's elections.

Speaker 2 But we saw just kind of the regular amount of craziness from Trump in the next few days.

Speaker 2 We got, you know, Trump appearing to fall asleep multiple times in public, including at a televised event in the Oval Office.

Speaker 2 We got Trump flying out of Washington again at the end of last week to go to yet another weird party at his gold mansion in Florida.

Speaker 2 And this one didn't have the great Gatsby Roaring 20s theme that the last one had, but it did have synchronized swimmers.

Speaker 2 Synchronized swimmers for Donald Trump's amusement dressed in American flag swimsuits, expertly splishing around patriotic music for him.

Speaker 2 While his administration at that moment was rushing to the United States Supreme Court to get the court's help in their quest to not pay for food stamps anymore.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 it's not like Trump in the wake of that election disaster for Republicans last week. It's not like he took great steps to try to repair his image, right?

Speaker 2 In the wake of the election results to the extent that him sort of doing this Marie Antoinette let them eat cake vibe hasn't really been working with him with American voters.

Speaker 2 He's not taking any steps at all to improve that. I mean, Trump's approval ratings are as bad as they've ever been.

Speaker 2 In this latest CNN poll, his disapproval number is worse than where he was in the immediate aftermath of January 6th.

Speaker 2 He's knocking down the White House so he can build himself a gilded ballroom.

Speaker 2 He's putting big golden decorations and like strip mall gift shop style gold cursive lettering all over what's left of the White House, turning it into something just really embarrassing.

Speaker 2 He's hosting these repeated elaborate parties at his private club and going golfing and having the American people send $20 billion to Argentina because he says the Argentinian people are suffering while he's literally fighting to keep food from the American people.

Speaker 2 His FBI director is charging the taxpayers for private jet flights to go visit his girlfriend.

Speaker 2 His defense secretary is bulldozing the military and then kicking generals and admirals out of their military housing so Trump's cabinet officials, like him, Pete Hegseff, can take those houses for themselves.

Speaker 2 Not just destabilizing the U.S. military, but essentially looting it for their own use.

Speaker 2 Trump administration paying ICE agents without interruption so they can keep terrorizing freaking daycares in Chicago while they're refusing to pay air traffic controllers, which has resulted in more than 5,000 flights being canceled over the weekend and another 2,000 canceled just today.

Speaker 2 It's not like they're doing anything to shore up their

Speaker 2 image in the eyes of the American people.

Speaker 2 In the wake of last week's election results, Trump has not seemed to change course at all.

Speaker 2 Even when the polling last week showed that the public was blaming him and the Republicans for the ongoing shutdown disaster, even when the election outcomes in states where Republicans really want to be competitive, states like Virginia and Georgia and New Jersey and Pennsylvania, even upstate New York, election outcomes in all of those places less than a week ago showed Democrats not just winning everywhere, but winning by blowout, unprecedented margins and in every conceivable race, winning seats that they haven't held for decades.

Speaker 2 In some cases, winning seats they haven't held in a century.

Speaker 2 Now, after that electoral rout by Democrats less than a week ago, surprisingly,

Speaker 2 I admit I was wrong, Trump didn't do anything weirder than usual to try to step on the tail of that story, to try to change the subject, to try to make the triumphant Democrats look weak again instead of strong.

Speaker 2 He didn't do anything different.

Speaker 2 Now, the people who really changed course, the people who intervened to change the story, to stomp on the tail of that Democratic victory and make the Democrats look weak and confused and divided and aimless

Speaker 2 were, of course, the Democrats themselves.

Speaker 2 Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer could not hold his caucus together in the Senate. And so less than a week after those Democratic triumphs in that election,

Speaker 2 the worst week of Donald Trump's presidency.

Speaker 2 For some reason, eight Democratic senators decided this was the right time to give up.

Speaker 2 On the Democrats'

Speaker 2 previously sturdy and unified demand that Republicans needed to fix the disaster they just created for the American people in health insurance and in health insurance costs, they just decided to give up.

Speaker 2 And so now we are on track for the 41-day government shutdown to come to an end sometime soon

Speaker 2 because Democrats inexplicably just gave in without any visible concessions from the Republicans at all.

Speaker 2 Certainly without any meaningful concessions.

Speaker 2 And that's the kind of behavior you might expect from a party that was at a low ebb in terms of its power and its standing with the American people.

Speaker 2 Instead, in this case, Democrats just worked their tails off.

Speaker 2 to win these huge election victories all over the country last week, had unprecedented success, probably their best election outcomes in like a decade, right? In terms of across-the-board wins.

Speaker 2 Not to mention the fact that Americans urging Democrats to fight harder.

Speaker 2 Americans urging Democrats to stand up and take an even tougher stance against Trump and the Republicans.

Speaker 2 Americans just held one of the biggest protests in American history, bolstering the Democrats in this fight, telling them to fight harder to not give in.

Speaker 2 The polls and the polling showed they were finally winning both the argument and the elections to prove it. And so

Speaker 2 eight Democratic senators decided to cave in exchange for

Speaker 2 nothing.

Speaker 2 The vote in the Senate to end the shutdown on those terms is happening right now.

Speaker 2 We'll keep an eye on that vote as it unfolds, looking out for any potential surprises, although we don't have any reason to expect any.

Speaker 2 Democratic leader Chuck Schumer did oppose this deal and says he did not want the Democrats to cave, but you know what? Honestly, he may lose his leadership job in the Senate over this anyway.

Speaker 2 I mean, even if he did oppose this himself, he obviously could not hold his Democratic caucus together to keep these eight senators from this bizarre side deal with the Republicans, which is bringing the shutdown to a close.

Speaker 2 with Democrats winning nothing for having done it.

Speaker 2 Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is rip roaring on this issue, as you might imagine. He's going to join us live here from Washington in just a moment.

Speaker 2 We're also going to be joined live here tonight by Liz Oyer. She's a former Justice Department official who had a really important job in the Justice Department before Trump fired her.

Speaker 2 I will also say Liz Oyer happens to be one of those lawyers who can explain things so well. You want her to be

Speaker 2 like

Speaker 2 whatever the adult life equivalent is of your homeroom teacher. Like you want her to be the teacher of everything?

Speaker 2 Honestly, I think if Liz Oyer had been my math teacher, I'd be doing quadratic equations as a party trick to this day. I think that there is,

Speaker 2 she has a real talent for explaining complicated stuff. And I've asked her to be here with us tonight because there's

Speaker 2 a bunch of craziness and what really seems to me like a bunch of crazy failure that is unfolding this week on the legal front.

Speaker 2 Specifically, what appears to be some really bad lawyering inside the Trump administration. A bunch of these things is about to come sort of to a head all at once, all over the course of this week.

Speaker 2 And I want to know what it means and how it might change things going forward. Let me explain.

Speaker 2 Take, for example, Virginia, Eastern District of Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., very important jurisdiction as a U.S. Attorney's Office.
You might remember that they removed the U.S.

Speaker 2 Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia recently, and they instead installed

Speaker 2 a woman named Lindsay Halligan, who is a random Florida insurance lawyer and Trump fan who had never so much as prosecuted a traffic ticket.

Speaker 2 It's under Lindsay Halligan's estimable authority that that U.S.

Speaker 2 Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Virginia brought federal criminal charges against former FBI director James Comey for supposedly lying to Congress and against New York Attorney General Letitia James for supposed irregularities in her mortgage paperwork.

Speaker 2 Now, the reason that I've got eyes on that this week is because,

Speaker 2 I don't know, I'm not a lawyer, but this looks to me like it's about to blow up in their faces.

Speaker 2 And I say this, I don't mean to cast aspersions on the, you know, innate charm and abilities of somebody who's never prosecuted a case, who's suddenly in charge of one of the most important U.S.

Speaker 2 attorney's offices in the country. But

Speaker 2 on Thursday this week, Lindsey Halligan's going to be up against two real lawyers, two really big deal, very accomplished, famous, almost household name lawyers who are representing Tish James and James Comey in those criminal trials.

Speaker 2 The lawyers are Abby Lowell and Patrick Fitzgerald, two very famous lawyers.

Speaker 2 And this week, the two of them are going to be in court challenging the cases against James Comey and Tish James in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Speaker 2 And they're going to be challenging those cases in part on the basis of what the heck does this person Lindsey Halligan do

Speaker 2 have what the heck is this person Lindsey Halligan doing in that office anyway? They're essentially going to be challenging her appointment and her ability to bring these cases.

Speaker 2 If I was betting on Patrick Fitzgerald and Abby Lowell on the one hand and Lindsey Halligan, Florida insurance lawyer on the other, I mean, I know what side of the bet I would take.

Speaker 2 Especially because the judge in the Comey case, at least, has already castigated Lindsey Halligan's handling of this case, has described it as as effectively not just irregular, but buffoonish and wrong.

Speaker 2 And the judge is already calling on that U.S. Attorney's Office to justify their actions in ways that seem very damning for these cases.

Speaker 2 So I think those two cases may blow up, proverbially speaking, this week.

Speaker 2 when that court hearing happens on Thursday. And another reason this is worth watching this week in particular is a mysterious firing that happened last week.

Speaker 2 It didn't get a lot of attention, but this firing may become a lot less mysterious in the next few days. And the firing relates to, most specifically, the case against Tish James.

Speaker 2 So that's the mortgage irregularities case, right?

Speaker 2 You probably remember that that case appears to have originated with an obscure little federal agency that handles mortgage financing, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which nobody has ever had to think about ever before.

Speaker 2 Trump put a very MAGA Trump appointee in charge of that agency.

Speaker 2 And now in running that agency, he appears to have been using the data, the paperwork that that agency has access to to essentially try to find crimes to prosecute against Trump's list of enemies.

Speaker 2 He has tried to do it with California Democratic Senator Adam Schiff and his mortgage and with Fed Governor Lisa Cook and

Speaker 2 her mortgage. and also with New York Democratic Attorney General Tish James and her mortgage.
Well,

Speaker 2 last week, little notice story from Reuters,

Speaker 2 this Trump appointee who runs this obscure mortgage data agency, who seems to have been the source for all of these weird criminal cases against Trump's political enemies, that guy last week fired the inspector general at that agency.

Speaker 2 Why did he fire the inspector general at his agency? We don't know. We have not matched this reporting.

Speaker 2 But Reuters says four sources told them that the inspector general received notice of his termination from the White House after he made efforts to provide key information to prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Speaker 2 Quote, the information he turned over was constitutionally required, said two of the sources, while a third source described it as being potentially relevant in discovery.

Speaker 2 So this mortgage case against Tish James is going to be in court this week in federal court. It's not going to be in the newspapers or in social media or at the White House podium.

Speaker 2 It's going to be in real court with a real judge who gets to decide if that Tish James case and the James Comey case are real cases or not.

Speaker 2 Or instead, are they pernicious abuses of power by people maliciously carrying out the president's personal and political vendettas?

Speaker 2 And if part of that is the inspector general trying to convey legally required information to the court and that inspector general was blocked from doing so and then fired for doing so well

Speaker 2 you might expect that there's going to be hell to pay in that courtroom this week about that

Speaker 2 and so I'm here for it. I am,

Speaker 2 that's going to be happening this week and we're going to have eyes on that.

Speaker 2 And I'm really curious as to what that might mean about the president's continued sort of revenge campaign against his political enemies, but also about the administration more broadly and whether or not they may get in trouble for some of the things they're trying to use the federal courts to do.

Speaker 2 I should say we are seeing similar types of chaos in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C., also a very important U.S.
Attorney's Office where Trump has installed a Fox News host as the U.S.

Speaker 2 Attorney. Her name is Janine Pirot.

Speaker 2 She made a huge deal out of arresting the guy who became a folk hero and D.C. legend when he threw a limp subway sandwich at immigration agents and then ran away.

Speaker 2 Pirot then failed to persuade a grand jury to bring felony charges against that man. She then failed last week to get a jury to convict him on even misdemeanor charges.
He was acquitted.

Speaker 2 Well, now in that same office where Janine Pirot is really leading from the front,

Speaker 2 the New York Times reports that they have fired that veteran prosecutor who led the fraud and public corruption unit in that office. Why did they fire him?

Speaker 2 Again, we don't know, but according to the New York Times, he reportedly pushed back on Janine Pirro's desire to pursue the kinds of cases Donald Trump wants against people like 95-year-old Democratic donor George Soros.

Speaker 2 She reportedly also wants to somehow re-litigate the pro-Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.

Speaker 2 I'm sure Janine Pirow will do great with those, especially given that they're already reportedly having to fire veteran prosecutors who are refusing to go along with whatever it is she's trying to do there.

Speaker 2 Now, tonight, MSNBC reports on chaos in another federal prosecutor's office.

Speaker 2 This one's led by another gung-ho mega appointee in the Southern District of Florida, which is not usually the world's most important U.S. Attorney's Office.

Speaker 2 But we learned over the weekend that that U.S.

Speaker 2 Attorney's Office has sent out a bizarre raft of dozens of subpoenas related to the investigation into Russia's efforts to help Trump's presidential campaign in 2016.

Speaker 2 Subpoenas now related to the Russia investigation from the 2016 campaign.

Speaker 2 Subpoenas now. Let's, I know it's always dangerous to do math on television, but let's do a little.
It's 2025 now. So if you minus and then you carry the one.
Yeah, 2016 is nine years ago.

Speaker 2 Nine years ago. Even if you're counting the whole Mueller investigation, that ended in 2019, which is six years ago.

Speaker 2 Statute of limitations is generally five years.

Speaker 2 So even if they have invented some supposed crimes around the Russia investigation that they want to pursue now, the statute of limitations would have been done and over with in most cases for years.

Speaker 2 So what are they doing in this U.S. Attorney's Office in Florida with these subpoenas?

Speaker 2 People who have received the subpoenas have reportedly said there is no specific crime that is cited in these subpoenas, which is a little irregular.

Speaker 2 Also, why are these subpoenas coming out of a random U.S. attorney's office in South Florida? Did the Russia investigation happen there? No, it happened in Washington.

Speaker 2 It's not at all clear why South Florida would be the relevant jurisdiction here, other than the fact that it's where Donald Trump has his synchronized swimmer in Great Gatsby parties.

Speaker 2 So maybe that's what gives them jurisdiction?

Speaker 2 Tell it to the judge.

Speaker 2 Well, now new reporting from MSNBC tonight. Quote, the U.S.

Speaker 2 Attorney's Office in the Southern District of of Florida called a division-wide meeting this afternoon following the resignations of two prosecutors who were asked to take part in a vast conspiracy investigation into former intelligence and law enforcement officials.

Speaker 2 Among the problems with the at least 30 subpoenas that were sent out from this office on Friday, MSNBC's Vaughan Hilliard and Laura Baron-Lopez report that the subpoenas were not signed by any line prosecutor.

Speaker 2 This is amazing. The subpoenas were reportedly,

Speaker 2 for some reason, instead signed by the guy in that U.S. attorney's office who's in charge of HR and office administration.

Speaker 2 They had the HR guy sign the subpoenas. Huh?

Speaker 2 At least one of the prosecutors who resigned in this office reportedly did so because the prosecutor, quote, felt like there was something they could not take part in because it would violate their ethical responsibilities.

Speaker 2 So things are going great there, too.

Speaker 2 And now, on top of all of that, now Trump has just given brand new pardons to 77

Speaker 2 people.

Speaker 2 who were involved in the fake electors scheme and other schemes to try to overthrow the results of the 2020 election and keep him in power, even though he lost that election to Joe Biden and lost it by a lot.

Speaker 2 New pardons for 77 people, including all the fake electors from multiple states and John Eastman and Kenneth Cheesebrow and Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, the whole

Speaker 2 four seasons total landscaping goon squad that you remember from the January 6th investigation in Congress and

Speaker 2 in some cases from our own reporting here on this show about the fraudulent elector slates that submitted fake paperwork to the National Archives and Congress in order to to try to get their states counted as having voted for Trump, even though their states actually voted for Biden.

Speaker 2 77 pardons.

Speaker 2 This weekend, we learned that one of the guys Trump pardoned from January 6th, the guy who fired off a gun during the attack on the Capitol and then got a pardon from Trump, we learned this weekend that he has just been rearrested.

Speaker 2 This time on charges of kidnapping and sexual assault.

Speaker 2 A few weeks ago, another January 6th guy who was pardoned by Trump was arrested again after threatening to assassinate Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Speaker 2 That came a few weeks after the guy who wore the Kemp Auschwitz sweatshirt on January 6th, who was also pardoned by Trump, came a few weeks after he was arrested again after his fighting dogs attacked four people and put them all in the hospital.

Speaker 2 That came on the heels of another January 6th guy getting convicted on child pornography charges. That came on the heels of another January 6th guy convicted of plotting to kill FBI agents.

Speaker 2 That came on the heels of another January 6th guy convicted in connection with a home invasion. That came on the heels of another January 6th guy who just pled guilty to soliciting a minor for sex.

Speaker 2 That came on the heels of another January 6th guy, a woman, actually, who just got 10 years for killing someone in a DUI.

Speaker 2 That came on the heels of another January 6th convict who was arrested in a string of thefts of industrial copper.

Speaker 2 It came on the heels of another January 6th convict who was shot by a sheriff's deputy while allegedly resisting arrest.

Speaker 2 All of those people, including the Camp Auschwitz guy and the child pornography guy and the soliciting sex from a child guy and the aggravated sexual assault guy, all beneficiaries of pardons from President Donald Trump, and now 77 more added to that list.

Speaker 2 77 more people pardoned, all of whom whom tried to help Donald Trump overthrow the results of an election he lost so he could stay in power anyway.

Speaker 2 I mentioned we have Liz Oyer here tonight on the show. Liz Oyer used to be the pardon attorney in the U.S.
Department of Justice. So Trump had her fired for what by now must be obvious reasons.

Speaker 2 Liz Oyer is going to join us in just a moment to talk about what all of this means, how this may change things moving forward. Plus, we have Senator Bernie Sanders here live.

Speaker 2 The Senate has just passed the bill to end the shutdown. It will now go to the House.
We got lots to get to tonight, including with Senator Sanders. Stay with us.

Speaker 1 This episode is presented by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. This year, lawmakers have attacked our rights, stretched the truth, and taken away access to health care.

Speaker 1 Through it all, Planned Parenthood has been on the front lines, providing care, defending patients, fighting back.

Speaker 1 But the Trump administration and Congress passed a law to defund Planned Parenthood, putting care for 1.1 million patients at risk. Planned Parenthood isn't backing down.

Speaker 1 They're still here, protecting access to birth control, cancer screenings, abortion, and more. Visit plannedparenthood.org slash defend and donate today.

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Speaker 2 Nothing says winning, nothing says confidence or swagger, quite like a California Democrat going to Texas and doing it like this.

Speaker 2 How we doing, Harris County?

Speaker 2 How you feeling?

Speaker 2 Oh, it's good to be in Texas.

Speaker 2 It is good to be in Texas. Eat your heart out, Greg Abbott.

Speaker 2 We have agency. We can shape the future here in Texas.
We can shape the future here all across the South and across the United States of America. You have that power.

Speaker 2 You do.

Speaker 2 Not Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 California vote was so big that Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom went from California to Texas this weekend to rub Republicans facing it.

Speaker 2 This past week, in those elections, in almost every race with apartisan valence, all across the country, Democrats just romped.

Speaker 2 I mean, not just the big redistricting vote in California and the governor's races, but school board seats, state legislative seats, seats on the state utility board, DAs, judges, everything.

Speaker 2 Coming off those resounding wins last week, coming off the huge 7 million strong no-kings protests against Donald Trump last month, one of the largest days of protest in U.S. history,

Speaker 2 Democrats and critics of this president of all stripes, they've got more power and more momentum than they've had at any point since Trump returned to the White House this term, which is why I think it has confounded a lot of people to see at this moment eight senators from the Democratic caucus abandoning their biggest fight in Washington.

Speaker 2 Since the government shutdown began 41 days ago, Democrats and Congress had been united trying to protect Americans from skyrocketing health care costs.

Speaker 2 So why did they do this deal tonight? To end the shutdown without achieving protections along those lines. Democrats didn't get Republicans to reverse the cuts to Medicaid.

Speaker 2 Democrats didn't get a guarantee on subsidies for Obamacare.

Speaker 2 They're apparently going to get some future standalone vote on Obamacare funding that Republicans will definitely vote against, and that'll be it.

Speaker 2 Even the national chairman of the Democratic Party has blasted what moderate Democrats did in the Senate tonight.

Speaker 2 Ken Martin says he stands with the Democrats who refuse to rubber stamp the full-scale Republican assault on Americans' health care.

Speaker 2 Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries says the Democratic senators who cave tonight are, quote, going to have to explain themselves.

Speaker 2 And then there's Chuck Schumer. He is the leader of the Democrats in the Senate.

Speaker 2 Senator Schumer says that this deal was terrible and he himself voted no on it, but he apparently did not have sufficient control of his caucus and the Senate to stop this from happening.

Speaker 2 With Democrats at the height of their power under Trump so far, why cave now?

Speaker 2 The Senate just moments ago passed this bill to end the shutdown with those eight Democratic senators voting in favor. What's happening here?

Speaker 2 Joining us now live from Washington is Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. He is one of the senators who is opposing this deal.
And with an exclamation point, Senator, it's good to see you.

Speaker 2 Thank you for your time.

Speaker 2 My pleasure.

Speaker 2 Let me just get your reaction to this vote tonight and tell us why you think it happened tonight the way it did.

Speaker 2 It is a terrible vote. What it will do, Rachel, is raise health insurance premiums that are already sky high.
It's going to double them, in some cases triple and quadruple them.

Speaker 2 It's going to pave the way

Speaker 2 for 15 million Americans to be thrown off of Medicaid. 15 million people.

Speaker 2 Studies suggest that when you throw low-income and working-class people off of the health care they have, some 50,000 will die unnecessarily every year. 50,000 people will die unnecessarily.

Speaker 2 So this was a terrible, terrible piece of legislation.

Speaker 2 Democrats, as you've just indicated, had the wind at their backs. They came off an extraordinary election.
We came off last month having 7 million people coming out and say no kings in America.

Speaker 2 And what we lost in this vote is not only the suffering that's going to take place with people can't afford health care,

Speaker 2 you're going to have a president who says, see, I always told you, the Democrats are weak. And yes, I'm an authoritarian.
I want more and more power. And you can't stop me.

Speaker 2 That's what this vote was about.

Speaker 2 I think a lot of people who agree with you on the substance here, Senator,

Speaker 2 may be torn tonight between

Speaker 2 sort of righteous anger at the Democrats who chose to give up their point of maximum leverage and to cave, as you said, to reward Trump for what he's done around this shutdown, to reward him for the pain and the cruelty with which he foregrounded his actions in the shutdown.

Speaker 2 But they may be torn between that anger and feeling like Democrats fighting each other right now is the last thing we need.

Speaker 2 We have such a threat to this country, to the existence of our democracy as a country.

Speaker 2 This can't be the time for Democrats to, say, remove their leadership or engage in scorched earth primaries against one another in electoral politics.

Speaker 2 I admit to feeling all of those things myself and to seeing a lot of that today among a lot of different people I respect. How do you feel about those conflicting emotions?

Speaker 2 Look, I think the leadership, this is no

Speaker 2 great secret.

Speaker 2 It is my view that the leadership of the Democratic Party in many respects is way out of touch with where Democrats in general are, where many independents are, where the grassroots of America are.

Speaker 2 The division that we're seeing in the Democratic Party right now are those who get a whole lot of money from wealthy campaign contributors. They hire consultants.

Speaker 2 And I got to tell you, that consultant class is so far removed from reality, it is really quite pathetic. That's one wing of the Democratic Party, and there's the other wing.

Speaker 2 And that is what Mamdadi did in New York. He ran a campaign which says, you know what? We're going to take on the oligarchs.
We're going to create a city that is affordable.

Speaker 2 And he put together an extraordinary grassroots movement, some 90,000 volunteers. Now, needless to say, I happen to agree with the latter approach.

Speaker 2 And I think we need candidates all over this country who understand that it is insane that one person, Elon Musk, owns more wealth than the bottom 52% of American households.

Speaker 2 That it is insane that in the richest country on earth, we are the only major nation not to guarantee health care to all people as a human right.

Speaker 2 That we don't have paid family and medical, the people can't afford housing. Rachel, this is the wealthiest nation in the world.

Speaker 2 And we should not have an economy and a government that works for the people on top while 60% of our people live in paycheck to paycheck.

Speaker 2 Senator, I have to ask you, the activist group Indivisible today announced the largest Democratic primary program since their founding in 2016.

Speaker 2 They say they won't support any Senate primary candidate who doesn't call for Senator Schumer to step down from his leadership role.

Speaker 2 I have to ask you if you support Senator Schumer retaining his leadership role, if you think this kind of a primary campaign is right-minded.

Speaker 2 Well, I think we should have vigorous primaries all over the country. I don't think that should be the criteria.
I would rather say, do you support Medicare for all?

Speaker 2 Do you support an end to Citizens United? Do you support having a wealth tax on billionaires? Look, what you got right now, Chuck Schumer is part of the establishment.

Speaker 2 And I'm sorry to say that many people in the Democratic caucus are part of it. I would say we have eight or nine out of 47 people who I would consider to be progressives.

Speaker 2 So you can argue, and I can make the case that Chuck Schumer has done a lot of bad things, but I think think getting rid of him, who is going to replace him? Who is going to replace him?

Speaker 2 The issue right now is doing primaries, getting people involved in the political process.

Speaker 2 We're going to create a government and an economy that works for everybody who have the guts to take on the oligarchs. So I think we need to take on the democratic establishment all over this country.

Speaker 2 Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, it's a pleasure to have you with us tonight, sir. I know it's a difficult vote for you tonight.
Thanks for being here.

Speaker 2 Thanks very much. Take care.
All right. We'll be right back.

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Speaker 2 Washington Post reports today that in the less than 10 months since Donald Trump has been back in office, thousands of attorneys have left the Justice Department in Washington.

Speaker 2 They've quit or taken a buyout or been fired.

Speaker 2 Justice Connection, an advocacy group that tracks departures from DOJ, puts the total number of Justice Department employees who have left, lawyers and others, at over 5,000.

Speaker 2 And most of those vacancies remain unfilled, in part part because the Trump DOJ is having trouble attracting applicants.

Speaker 2 It's hard to attract top talent to a place that sets its reputation on fire every single day and where employees are regularly purged for ideological sins.

Speaker 2 One of those firings, which at the time just seemed like

Speaker 2 another brick in the wall in terms of what the Trump administration was doing to DOJ, now in retrospect, it's starting to feel like a really important part of how Trump has been changing our country and has been trying to take apart our democracy.

Speaker 2 And that was the firing, the sort of low-profile firing in March of the Justice Department's pardon attorney. Her name was Liz Oyer.

Speaker 2 She said she was fired for, of all things, refusing to recommend restoring the gun rights of right-wing actor Mel Gibson. Gibson had lost those rights after a domestic violence conviction.

Speaker 2 Oyer said she was told by a senior official that Mel Gibson ought to get his gun rights back because he was a personal friend of President Trump, because that was apparently a top Justice Department priority in Trump's first weeks back in office.

Speaker 2 Now, more than ever, I think we have clarity on what Trump is doing with the pardon power, and it seems like a really important part of his overall authoritarian project.

Speaker 2 Trump, of course, pardoned everyone charged with attacking the Capitol on January 6th, including people who were in prison for assaulting police officers.

Speaker 2 He's pardoned pretty much every single Republican congressman convicted of corruption this century. He pardoned a crypto exec who pled guilty to violating anti-money laundering and sanctions laws.

Speaker 2 Trump signed that pardon after his own family reportedly made billions of dollars in a partnership with that crypto executives company.

Speaker 2 And now today, Trump has issued pardons to 77 people who were part of the scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election and keep Trump in power even after he lost to Joe Biden.

Speaker 2 What we are seeing in action here is something that always Before just made sense on paper, but now we're seeing it in life.

Speaker 2 In an authoritarian government, unilateral king-like powers to punish and to protect from punishment is one of the most efficient means for a would-be dictator to cement his power.

Speaker 2 Former Justice Department pardon attorney Liz Oyer joins us live here next.

Speaker 2 Liz Oyer is the former pardon attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Before that, she was a federal public defender.

Speaker 2 I have to tell you, she's on Substack now as Lawyer Oyer, which is very hard to say. But we called Liz Oyer today to be here when we learned of President Trump's latest 77 pardons.

Speaker 2 Pardons to fake electors and others who helped Trump try to overturn the results of the 2020 election to stay in power despite him losing his bid for reelection.

Speaker 2 Liz Oyer, thank you so much for being here. It's a real pleasure to have you with us tonight.

Speaker 7 Thanks for having me, Rachel.

Speaker 2 So first, let me just get your reaction, your top line reaction to these new pardons today from President Trump.

Speaker 7 Donald Trump just issued a blank check to break the law in the name of Donald Trump. He is telling his supporters, do what you have to do in support of Donald Trump.
I've got your back.

Speaker 7 You won't have to suffer the consequences that the law carries. It's really very chilling in this environment to think about what this could license these folks to do in the future.

Speaker 7 We've got midterm elections coming up again in a year. We've got all sorts of threats of political violence in this country.

Speaker 7 And Donald Trump seems to be telling his supporters, do what you have to do in my name, and I will protect you.

Speaker 2 There have been some state-level prosecutions that overlap with or intersect with some of these same issues. There's a sort of paused prosecution in Arizona, sort of potential prosecution in Georgia.

Speaker 2 There's somebody already in jail in Colorado, all under state charges.

Speaker 2 Obviously, a federal pardon, we're used to thinking of that as having absolutely no implication for state charges, but they seem to be in the Trump administration sort of tilting at state prosecutions prosecutions as well,

Speaker 2 at least rhetorically, if not in a technical legal sense. What do you make of that?

Speaker 7 Yeah, one of the few established limitations on the president's pardon power is that it applies only to offenses against the United States.

Speaker 7 That's written in the Constitution, and that means federal crimes, not state law crimes.

Speaker 7 Donald Trump seems to be testing the limits of the president's constitutional authority by pardoning what are really state law offenses.

Speaker 7 All of the individuals who are listed in this pardon proclamation, to the extent they've been charged at all, have been charged with crimes under state law, which the President clearly does not have the authority to pardon under the language of the Constitution.

Speaker 7 But Donald Trump is being egged on by his pardon attorney, a man named Ed Martin, who is a known MAGA loyalist and probably falls within the scope of this pardon, frankly, because he was the leader of the Stop the Steal movement.

Speaker 7 So this pardon broadly purports to forgive any crimes related to the overturning of the 2020 election, whether state state or federal, and that far exceeds the established boundaries of the pardon power under law.

Speaker 2 You're suggesting that Ed Martin may have sort of just written a pardon for himself today?

Speaker 7 It certainly seems like he is one of the folks who would fall within the scope of this pardon.

Speaker 7 It's very broadly worded to apply potentially to hundreds of people who were involved in these types of activities, not just the 77 people who are listed in this document.

Speaker 7 Ed Martin has repeatedly made known that his mantra is no mega left behind.

Speaker 7 In the context of pardons, he believes the pardon power should be used broadly to benefit anyone who is loyal to and supportive of Donald Trump.

Speaker 7 Those who take risks on behalf of Donald Trump, Ed Martin has got their backs as pardon attorney, and that's what this proclamation today seems to reflect.

Speaker 2 Liz Oyer, former Justice Department pardon attorney,

Speaker 2 yeah, the contrast between your service and what Ed Martin's doing could not be more stark. Thank you for helping us understand this tonight.

Speaker 7 Thanks for having me, Rachel.

Speaker 2 All right, we'll be right back. Stay with us.

Speaker 2 The next time you see me in this chair, I will still be me and you will still be you. And this will still be the Rachel Maddow Show, but this network will have a new name.

Speaker 2 As of this time next week, we're going to be the Rachel Maddow Show on MS Now.

Speaker 2 MS Now!

Speaker 2 See, it's urgent. It's our new name.

Speaker 2 Anyway, supposedly the switch to the new MS Now name is going to be seamless, but if you DVR the show, if you record the show or any other MSNBC show, you might want to check to make sure your TV gizmo is still set to record us as usual, even after we changed the name.

Speaker 2 Same mission, new name, nothing else is changing except MSNBC is becoming MS Now. Other than that, you shouldn't notice a thing.
All right, that's going to do it for me for now.

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