4:00

to cover up the depth of the

4:02

scandal. But the damage

4:04

had been done. The train

4:06

had left the station, as

4:08

they say. A concerted breakdown

4:10

of trust between conservatives, right-wing

4:12

media, and our institutions, especially

4:14

the Department of Justice, was

4:16

set in motion. The end

4:18

result, all these years later,

4:20

a convicted felon, presumptive

4:22

Republican Party nominee, running

4:25

openly on going to war

4:27

with the Department of Justice on day one if he

4:30

prevails in November. It is through

4:32

this wider lens, this longer view of

4:34

modern political history, that we examine Trump's

4:36

near daily and escalating attacks on the

4:39

rule of law with our next guest.

4:41

Joining our conversation, former Attorney General Eric

4:43

Holder is here. Thank you so much

4:45

for making time for us today. Thanks

4:48

for having me, Nicole. Didn't want to

4:50

necessarily review Fast and Furious, but that's

4:52

probably a good place to start this

4:55

conversation. Well, and I

4:57

went back and read about it myself. I've

4:59

never said this on TV, but I first read

5:01

in when I had written a novel, and Chris

5:03

Wallace was a friend of mine. He invited me

5:05

to come on the program as a panelist to

5:07

mention the book. And he said, we're talking about

5:09

Fast and Furious. And I said, what's that? He

5:11

said, oh, read in. Our audience

5:14

is really fired up

5:16

about it. And I remember Googling and reading

5:18

it. And it's as good an example

5:20

as any of

5:23

the injection of politics, pulling

5:25

the levers of congressional allies to

5:27

do something that had never been

5:29

done before, and then softening the

5:31

terrain with conservative media and conservative

5:33

activists. And I wonder what you

5:35

make of what Trump's

5:37

promising to do in a

5:39

second term to the department that

5:41

you once led. Yeah,

5:45

to a department that I once led and that I

5:47

loved dearly. I spent nearly 20 years of my career

5:49

at the Justice Department, starting out as just a line

5:51

lawyer in the Justice Department, coming

5:54

out straight out of law school. And there's a

5:56

tradition in the department that regardless

6:00

of who is in charge politically, the

6:03

department uses its power in

6:06

an apolitical way. And I'm very concerned

6:08

about what the former

6:10

president says he's gonna do, Steve Bannon says

6:12

what he's going to do. And

6:14

I take them at their word. And I

6:16

think they've learned from the first term,

6:18

they will appoint a compliant attorney general,

6:21

but beyond that, they now understand that

6:23

they will have a compliant deputy attorney

6:25

general, they will have compliant United States

6:27

attorneys, and they will give these compliant

6:29

US attorneys hiring power. So

6:31

they can appoint a compliant assistant United

6:33

States attorneys. And they will do the things

6:35

that they have said that they're gonna do.

6:38

Open investigations against political opponents,

6:41

use the law in ways that is

6:43

inconsistent with the neutral way

6:46

in which the justice department is supposed

6:48

to operate. This is something

6:50

that should be, I think a prime campaign

6:52

issue. We're talking about the rule of law

6:54

in this country, which really serves as the

6:57

basis, the foundation for all that we hold

6:59

near and dear in America.

7:03

It is the area where

7:05

Trump's current advisors has spent

7:07

the most time and energy

7:09

on the architecture of dismantling

7:11

and reassembling as a political

7:13

weapon. And one of the

7:15

things I know from my time in government

7:17

is that other than the military, the people

7:19

like yourself who've served in the Department of

7:21

Justice have zero appetite for politics. And

7:24

I agree with you, this should

7:26

be a front, a first, second, third issue for

7:28

the voters. But how do you sort of bridge

7:30

that gap between a department where the

7:33

very essence of pushing back against Trumpism

7:35

is to not be political, but the

7:37

most effective way to reject what Trump

7:40

wants to do to the department is

7:42

a political solution of not voting for

7:44

him. How do you bridge that gap?

7:48

Yeah, I don't think there necessarily is a gap.

7:51

I mean, to say that, you know, you're

7:53

for a neutral Justice Department, that you are

7:55

for a democracy, that you are for the

7:57

rule of law, those

7:59

to me. They seem to be, you

8:01

know, apolitical things that can

8:03

be injected into the political sphere to

8:06

say, well, you know, we have

8:08

one candidate who will stand for

8:10

those non-political, apolitical, pro-democracy

8:13

measures. And we have on the other side a

8:15

candidate who was bound and determined to

8:18

subvert the system to his will, subvert

8:20

the system so that his supporters and

8:22

himself as well are not subject to

8:25

the rules in the way

8:27

that other American citizens are. You

8:29

know, I think that, you know, people who

8:32

oppose the former president have got

8:34

to really kind of get over it and

8:36

understand the battlefield on which we are

8:39

now operating, the terrain on which we

8:41

are now operating. The normal rules in

8:43

a lot of ways simply don't apply.

8:46

And it means that we're going to have to be

8:48

more upfront. We're going to have to be more forceful.

8:51

Doesn't mean that we have to, you know, duplicate

8:53

that which they say they're going to do or use the

8:56

tactics that they're going to use. I

8:59

think being just, as I said, more forceful,

9:02

more open about what the dangers are.

9:05

You know, fear is a big motivator. In

9:07

2008, Barack Obama used

9:09

hope and change as a thing that galvanized

9:11

huge numbers of people. I

9:13

think that fear used appropriately is something

9:16

that can be employed here

9:18

because the fear is of losing

9:20

our democracy. The fear is of

9:22

losing our freedoms. The fear is

9:24

losing our ability, women's

9:27

ability to make reproductive decisions.

9:30

That's a fear that I think should be

9:32

legitimately used by those who oppose the former

9:34

president. He's certainly using fear, you

9:37

know, illegitimate fears to try to

9:39

galvanize his supporters. I

9:42

couldn't agree with you more. I mean, I think

9:44

that is the frame around which the campaign must

9:47

be waged. Right. I mean, we can

9:49

we can I think Liz Cheney articulates as we

9:51

can go back to having policy fights after after

9:53

the threat of Trump and the fear of what

9:55

he'd do to our democracy has abated. I

9:58

wonder where you. where

10:00

you would sort of put all of

10:02

the revelations. I mean, the thing that

10:05

is different this time around, we were

10:07

so dependent on investigative journalists in 16

10:10

to break stories about Trump's trespasses and

10:12

norm busting. It's now all on a

10:14

website. I mean, it's all spilling out

10:16

of his mouth, someone incoherently. How

10:19

do you break through to people who

10:21

aren't paying attention or look

10:23

at it as, wow, both sides do it?

10:25

You know, how do you sort of jolt

10:28

people into understanding the threat that he poses

10:30

to our democracy? Well,

10:32

you know, I think that we have to use

10:35

tangible examples. And it means that if it doesn't

10:37

break through the first time you say it, or

10:39

the second time, or the third time, you say

10:41

it a fourth time. And

10:43

tangible examples. And make people, in

10:46

the most digestible way possible, familiar with

10:48

what the charges are in the pending

10:50

cases. Make people familiar with what the

10:52

results were of the case that was

10:55

ultimately tried in New York

10:57

City when it comes to reproductive rights.

10:59

As you've done on this show, I

11:02

think very compellingly. Have women come on

11:04

and tell their stories. Have

11:06

people come on and talk about how it's

11:08

more difficult to vote in certain parts of

11:11

the country. Again,

11:13

having real people talk about how

11:16

the things that they have done and

11:18

will do will have an impact on

11:20

their lives. Contextualize this in a way

11:23

that makes it real for the American voter. One

11:27

of the places where I think people in my

11:29

line of work have fallen down is the assault

11:31

on voting rights. Historically,

11:34

it's been predicated on all sorts

11:36

of ugly things. In the

11:38

last four years, it's been predicated on a

11:40

lie. Something Bill Barr calls bullshit, just to

11:42

quote Bill Barr. How

11:44

do you assess the progress they made

11:47

in voter suppression legislation enacted

11:49

at the state level, even

11:53

by Republicans who pushed back. I mean,

11:55

in Georgia, voter suppression law

11:58

is so odious to major league base.

12:00

that they moved the All-Star game to

12:02

another state. And now people sort of

12:04

just shrug and it's what had to

12:06

be, even though the Georgia Republican official,

12:08

Secretary of State and Governor, said there

12:10

was no fraud there. How do we,

12:12

one, do a better job? And, two,

12:14

stop that erosion of

12:17

voting rights? Yeah,

12:19

I mean, that's a genie that in

12:21

some ways is out of the bottle and it's gonna be

12:23

hard to get back, at least that first part. There

12:26

is this feeling. It is

12:28

totally unfounded that there is widespread

12:31

voter fraud. Forget about even the 2020 election and

12:33

whether or not that was stolen. There is this fear

12:36

that somehow, some way, substantial numbers of

12:38

people who shouldn't have the ability to vote

12:40

are in fact voting, that voting is count,

12:42

miscounted in a way that

12:44

favors one party or the other. That's

12:46

gotta be pushed back again with statistical

12:48

evidence, with public officials who are

12:50

willing to stand up and say that in fact

12:52

is not true. The Brennan Center

12:54

has done great work in that regard. And

12:58

again, these are things that are not necessarily

13:00

as attractive as the lies are, but it

13:02

means that there has to be discipline on

13:04

the side of those people who are standing

13:06

for democracy and then pushing it out there

13:08

again and again and again and

13:10

reassuring the American people that our system

13:13

works well in the way in which

13:15

it is presently constituted. We,

13:18

at the National Democratic Redistricting Committee that

13:20

I head up, we got 5,000 poll workers

13:24

for recruited 5,000 poll

13:26

workers for the 2020 election. And

13:29

we're gonna try to double that for the election in 2024. All

13:33

in an attempt to get

13:35

Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Conservatives, Progressives

13:37

engaged in our civic system.

13:40

And so, it's gonna take examples

13:43

like that, efforts like that,

13:45

message discipline in the way

13:47

that I have described. It's

13:49

gonna be hard, but I think it can

13:51

ultimately be done. And again, that

13:54

fear notion, if you don't

13:56

vote, if you don't trust in the system, you

13:59

are... leading this nation down

14:01

an authoritarian path from which we might

14:03

never recover. That has to be a

14:06

component of the message. What

14:09

do you make of the sort of

14:11

silence among the business community?

14:14

We've been trying to cover this question

14:16

of autocracy in America. The idea that

14:18

it could happen here six months ago,

14:20

it seems sort of far-fetched. Now everyone

14:22

is, it seems kind of keyed into

14:24

the possibility. I feel like yourself who

14:26

watch it closely at a policy level

14:28

and know all of the metrics and

14:31

what's ticking up, understood

14:33

at an intuitive level. But

14:35

even amid the public who are consuming news,

14:37

understand it is a very real threat and

14:40

it's what Trump's running on. But what do

14:42

you make of the silence in the business

14:44

community? Their indifference to America turning into something

14:47

that more closely resembles Orban's

14:49

Hungary. Yeah,

14:51

it's interesting because I think the business community

14:53

I see in two ways. One, there are

14:55

those who think that the election of Trump

14:58

is going to do something positive for them

15:00

financially, either personally financially or

15:03

their companies are going to

15:05

benefit from a Trump

15:07

presidency. That's one.

15:09

There's another part of the business community,

15:11

and I think it's probably the majority,

15:14

who don't want to get involved in

15:16

political things at all and they stay

15:18

silent. They don't understand

15:20

necessarily the power that they have and

15:22

that I think should be used in

15:24

defense of democracy and also don't understand

15:26

that if you give Trump this power,

15:29

he then has the ability to pick

15:31

winners and losers in the economic sphere

15:34

and he'll decide or his Justice Department will

15:36

decide who gets prosecuted

15:38

for what kinds of crimes, what mergers

15:40

go through, what mergers are opposed by

15:42

the antitrust division. The

15:45

rule of law and the neutrality of the

15:47

Justice Department is something that ought to matter

15:49

to the business community. Again, there are

15:51

going to be those who are going to make a

15:54

real bargain with the devil with the hope that,

15:56

with a thought that they're

15:58

going to do better economically. And

16:01

that's a hell of a price to pay for

16:03

our democracy, to

16:06

put your economic advantage above

16:09

that which has defined this nation at

16:11

its best. It's just

16:13

an amazing failure of imagination. I mean, we've

16:16

now, we know Trump, we've watched him, some

16:18

CEO's daughter could tweet an unflattering picture of

16:20

Trump, he could decide to sabotage a company's

16:22

stock price. It just feels like on year

16:25

nine, this is an important

16:27

part of the country that shouldn't stay silent.

16:29

I wanna ask you about the Supreme Court

16:31

and I wanna ask you how you're thinking

16:34

about this period where we are waiting for

16:36

the extraordinary, for something that

16:38

people told us we wouldn't have to worry

16:40

about. We're waiting for the Supreme Court's opinion

16:42

on immunity. And Trump has actually argued before

16:45

the Supreme Court and based on the questioning,

16:47

has some receptive audience members to the idea

16:49

that a president should be immune from prosecution.

16:51

How are you thinking about this period and

16:54

do you have any predictions? Well,

16:57

I gotta tell you this, anything less than a decision

16:59

by the Supreme Court that says a president

17:01

should be held to the laws

17:04

just like any other American citizen should

17:06

be, anything other than that is absurd.

17:08

The notion, for instance, that apparently some

17:10

justices are fooling around with it. Well,

17:12

if the president violated the criminal law

17:14

but was doing so in his official

17:16

capacity, there may be some basis to

17:19

say that that's okay. We need to

17:21

step back and think about that. Wait

17:24

a minute, a president can violate the

17:26

American criminal law if he

17:29

or she is doing something in

17:31

their official capacity. That is an

17:33

absurd and dangerous conclusion. And

17:35

I'm worried given the length of time that

17:38

it has taken for the Supreme Court to

17:40

decide this case, that something along those lines

17:42

might come out of the Supreme Court. You

17:45

know, the federal appellate court gave

17:47

that argument short shrift and wrote, I

17:49

think, a very compelling opinion. It's

17:52

hard for me to understand why the court even

17:54

took this case. I'm worried when Justice Kavanaugh says

17:56

things like, we have to write for the ages.

17:58

No, you don't. to decide the case

18:00

just in front of you on the basis of the facts

18:03

and the law that has been presented to you. And if

18:05

you do that, we'll reach the

18:07

same conclusion as the appellate court, that

18:10

a president needs to be held accountable in

18:12

the same way that any other American would

18:15

be. Any result other than that is,

18:18

I think, both absurd and

18:20

extremely, extremely dangerous. I'm

18:24

going to stick a pin in this and ask you to come

18:26

back when we have an opinion from them. I

18:28

cannot let you go without... I don't know if I can

18:30

read your tweet about Willie Mays without crying, but I'll try

18:32

to get through it. Willie Mays means so much to... I'm

18:35

a little league mom, and Willie Mays means everything

18:37

to my son. He meant so much to

18:40

you, though, and I want to read this. You

18:42

tweeted, I'm heartbroken by the news

18:44

that Willie Mays has passed away. He was

18:46

my first sports hero and is a connection

18:49

in my life to a better time where

18:51

humility, decency, and real accomplishment were the ultimate

18:53

positive defining characteristics. Many times

18:55

you meet your heroes and are disappointed by the

18:57

encounter. Such was not the case with

18:59

Mr. Mays. He was as warm and engaging when we

19:01

met as I could have hoped. In

19:03

the video, I'm placing my hands on

19:05

his shoulders as I explained to him

19:08

that I stood on those very shoulders.

19:10

I told him that his sacrifices and

19:12

accomplishments made my life possible. He

19:14

teared up, as I did

19:16

upon hearing about his passing. He's the greatest

19:18

baseball player of all time. That is clear.

19:21

But in his way, he was also the

19:23

epitome of grace and class. Willie

19:25

Mays enriched all our lives. He shaped

19:27

mine. May he rest and earned

19:29

peace. So beautiful. Say

19:32

more about Willie Mays. You

19:36

know, as a young guy growing up in New York, even

19:38

now, you know, talking about it, I get a little emotional

19:40

about this. But

19:42

as a young kid growing up in

19:44

Queens, New York, he was my first

19:46

athletic hero. I

19:49

used to look at the New York Times every

19:51

Sunday. They would list out all the ball

19:53

players, the American League and the National League, and they would

19:55

list who had the highest batting error, which I would always

19:57

look down to see where was Willie

19:59

Mays. How many home runs did he have? How many

20:01

RBIs? The way he carried

20:03

himself as a black man, the

20:06

things that he had to endure in

20:09

order to succeed, the class that he

20:11

always showed, and his unbelievable

20:15

abilities. He was,

20:17

to me, it brings

20:19

me back to what I think

20:21

in some ways was for me a simpler

20:23

time, brings me back to my dad, to

20:26

those times in Queens. He

20:29

was a great ballplayer, but he was also

20:31

just a great man. I had the ability

20:33

to meet him,

20:35

my first athletic hero. As

20:38

I said in that tweet, I was

20:40

not disappointed. He was as

20:42

gracious and kind and

20:45

as humble as you might

20:47

ever want your hero to

20:49

be. He was a great man.

20:51

He's the best ballplayer of all time. About that, there is no

20:53

doubt. No doubt. I

20:57

want to point people to understand that he was truly,

20:59

truly a great

21:01

and endearing man. I'm going

21:03

to miss him. I'm just going to totally miss him. I

21:06

just loved your tweet. I

21:08

love what it evokes for you, the simpler time.

21:11

His life wasn't always simple, and that's captured, too,

21:13

in his humility and his grace. You just captured

21:15

it all right there. Thank you for letting us

21:17

ask you about that. Attorney

21:19

General Eric Holder, we've already tried

21:22

to ensnare you in another appearance when we have this

21:24

opinion. We hope to see you again very soon. Thank

21:26

you for all your time today. I'll

21:29

promise. I'll come back after that decision. I'd like to

21:31

talk about it. We look forward

21:33

to it. We look forward to it. Consider it a date.

21:36

Thank you so much, sir. Thanks for having me. When

21:39

we come back, it turns out Donald

21:41

Trump was never actually good

21:43

at business. He was never a mogul

21:46

at all. He just played one on

21:48

TV. The making of the myth

21:50

of Donald Trump and what a series of interviews

21:52

after his defeat in 2020 reveal

21:54

about the ex-president's state of mind right now to

21:56

the interviewer. We'll bring you that story next,

21:58

plus two of the world's most notorious

22:00

and brutal dictators deepen their ties to

22:02

one another, raising alarm bells in the

22:05

US and across the Western world. We'll

22:07

talk about what Putin and Kim Jong

22:09

Un's meeting means for the US as

22:11

we head into a presidential election with

22:13

our standing in the world on the

22:15

line. And later in the

22:17

broadcast, stunning new audio reveals what Team

22:20

Trump has in store already for the

22:22

2024 election and beyond. A

22:25

plan that involves armies of lawyers aiming to

22:27

gum up the works of our democracy. All

22:30

those stories and more when Deadland White House continues

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Ashley for the love of home. My

23:38

name's Donald Trump and I'm the largest real estate

23:40

developer in New York. I

23:42

own buildings all over the place. I used

23:45

my brain. I used my negotiating skills and

23:47

I worked it all out. Now

23:49

my company's bigger than it ever was. It's stronger

23:51

than it ever was and I'm having more fun

23:53

than I ever had. Brains,

23:57

negotiating skills and as his...

23:59

His recent civil fraud trial

24:01

revealed a lot of creative

24:03

accounting. That was Donald Trump

24:06

in the pilot episode of The Apprentice

24:08

bragging about being a self-made business star,

24:10

according to a brand new book, Apprentice

24:12

in Wonderland, by one of our next

24:15

guests, Ramin Siddhutte. That

24:18

image of a self-made businessman was all smoke

24:20

and mirrors from the start. It was a

24:22

vehicle to help Trump get what he craves

24:24

most. Attention. Now,

24:27

the book was written, it was done

24:30

through six interviews. And

24:32

Trump has been interviewed for this book more

24:34

than any other, than anyone

24:36

else, since his post-presidency. And

24:40

the book says this, on the set

24:42

of The Apprentice, Trump was notable not

24:44

as a brilliant businessman, but as an

24:46

insecure actor. He sulked when he wasn't

24:48

the center of attention. He

24:51

leered at attractive women. He hijacked

24:53

the production with his own ego

24:55

and inability to read a teleprompter.

24:57

He didn't take direction, and he

24:59

surrounded himself with a team tasked

25:01

with making him look good. He

25:03

wasn't interested in reading briefs about

25:05

what had happened that day. Instead,

25:07

he was purely focused on maximizing

25:09

his screen time. It was

25:11

in the hunt for audience attention that Trump discovered

25:13

the formula that would take him to the White

25:16

House. It became clear in

25:18

our first post-presidency meeting that there

25:20

is no way to reasonably interview

25:22

Trump as a politician. He's not

25:24

a politician. There's no way

25:26

to ask him about governing. He's not able

25:29

to govern. There's no point

25:31

in trying to pin him down on his

25:33

hopes for another term. He doesn't

25:35

care about the specifics of the plot

25:37

during his time in the White House.

25:40

He just wants to get renewed for another

25:42

season. Wow. Joining

25:44

our conversation, co-editor-in-chief, a

25:47

variety author of the new book

25:49

Apprentice in Wonderland, How Donald Trump

25:51

and Mark Burnett Took America Through

25:53

the Looking Glass, Rameen Satute is

25:56

here with us. Also

25:58

joining us, host of the on-brand

26:00

Donny Deutsch is here. Ramin, congratulations.

26:02

I've followed your interviews. I'm reading

26:04

the book. It

26:07

is the most important

26:10

analysis and set of interviews with Trump that we have to work

26:12

with. And

26:15

I just want you to say more about the interviews

26:17

with him. Thank you

26:19

so much, Nicole. I went

26:21

about reporting this book since 2021. I

26:25

spent a lot of time with Donald Trump. We

26:27

sat down together over the years We

26:30

did six interviews total. We spent time

26:32

in Trump Tower. I went to Mar-a-Lago

26:34

and visited him. And in the first

26:36

interview I did with him, this was in May 2021, he was in

26:39

Trump Tower. He

26:41

was a deflated man. He was very unhappy about the

26:44

fact that he was no longer in the White House.

26:46

And as we started talking about The Apprentice

26:48

because this book is about the skeleton key

26:51

that made Donald Trump, the mirage that was

26:53

created by Mark Burnett, this image that was

26:55

projected on millions of American people that Donald

26:57

Trump was a smart, strong, thoughtful business leader.

27:00

And as we were talking, this was during

27:02

the early still days of COVID. And Donald

27:04

Trump was celebrating over the fact that in

27:06

India people were dying and they were suffering.

27:08

And he was happy over the fact that

27:10

India finally was catching up to the United

27:12

States and that people criticized him as president

27:14

for not doing enough during COVID. And now

27:17

that people were dying in India, he felt

27:19

better because their numbers were now bad and

27:21

our numbers were not as bad. And it

27:23

was proof to him that he'd done a

27:25

good job during COVID. And that was a

27:27

very alarming moment in our interview. And there

27:29

are so many like that during our conversations.

27:31

This book really peels back the curtain on

27:33

who Donald Trump is, his state of

27:36

mind, and what he's thinking and what he wants to do

27:38

if he returns to the White House. Ramin,

27:42

he slips. You talk about it sort of as

27:44

a mask coming off moment and tells you that

27:47

he lost. He does. In one

27:49

of our conversations, we were watching actual clips of

27:51

The Apprentice. And I showed him a clip of

27:53

Geraldo Rivera, who was a contestant in one

27:56

of the seasons of The Celebrity Apprentice. And

27:58

he got very worked up over. they were falling

28:00

out in the feud that they had. And

28:03

he said, when I lost the election. And

28:06

that was a really revealing moment to

28:08

me. And it proved something that I'd

28:10

been thinking about in our conversations, which

28:12

is, Donald Trump is playing a character.

28:14

He's a reality show character that projects

28:16

this image that people want to see.

28:19

And I think truthfully, if we really, really were

28:21

able to get inside his head and find the

28:23

truth, he would admit that he

28:25

lost election because he said it to me. You

28:29

also track during your

28:31

six conversations, some

28:33

interesting things about his ability to

28:35

recall talking to you those six

28:38

times. Tell us about that. So

28:40

between our first and second conversation, which was

28:42

only months apart, he had spent a significant

28:44

time with me in Trump Tower that

28:47

first day. He really had a great time. He

28:49

told Jason Miller, one of his advisors, who was

28:51

in the meeting, how much he appreciated talking to

28:54

me, how happy it made him to talk about

28:56

The Apprentice. And then when I returned to his

28:58

office, he had no recollection of our conversation at

29:00

all. He had a blank expression on his face.

29:02

He seemed confused. And we started

29:05

the conversation really from square one. And he

29:07

told me the same stories over again. He

29:09

couldn't remember what he had said, what he had not

29:11

said. But more broadly, it was interesting because

29:13

I think he remembered things that happened 20

29:15

years ago a lot more clearly than he

29:17

remembers things that happened more recently. He's

29:20

very confused by the chronology of events. And

29:22

his time in the White House was actually

29:24

blurry. One thing that he

29:26

couldn't remember was the day NBC called

29:28

him and told him that he would

29:30

never again host The Apprentice. This was

29:32

in the early days of the campaign

29:34

when he made disparaging comments about immigrants

29:36

from Mexico and racist comments on the

29:38

campaign trail. And NBC finally separated themselves

29:41

from him. And he had no memory of that. He

29:43

said, well, it's all about ratings. You can be the

29:45

worst person in the world. You can still get ratings.

29:48

So if he thought in his head that he

29:50

could go back on TV, he also thought the

29:52

reason NBC covers him so critically is that they're

29:54

very upset that he's no longer hosted The Apprentice.

29:59

You described Trump. Howard's Grey Gardens

30:01

without the cats. That

30:03

also is a myth busted. Say more.

30:06

There was equality about being with Donald Trump, where it

30:08

felt like, as the editor-in-chief of Variety, I spent a

30:11

lot of time interviewing actors, and

30:13

it felt like an actor who had no

30:15

longer been getting roles, who had no longer

30:17

been getting cast or getting calls, and this

30:19

was shortly after he left the White House.

30:22

There was issues of Trump

30:24

magazine, a publication that no longer

30:26

comes out. There were

30:29

not very many people around him. He

30:34

had questions, a lot of questions about who was

30:36

loyal, who was not loyal, but he was looking

30:38

back. There was no forward momentum

30:40

in the person of Donald Trump. There was

30:42

no reflection about the incredible power he had

30:44

as president and the incredible legacy that one

30:46

would have as president of the United States.

30:48

It was all about vendettas, feuds, and how

30:51

people wronged him. Ramin,

30:54

it's so important. I'm

30:57

gonna ask you to stick around through break. I want to

30:59

bring Donny Deutschen on this, who knows Trump sort of before

31:01

and after as well, which is sneaking a break and ask

31:03

both of you to stick around, and we'll all be right

31:05

back. Thank you very much. The

31:11

author of the upcoming book, "'Apprentice

31:13

and Wonderland'," said in a new

31:15

interview that former President Trump has,

31:18

quote, severe memory issues. Same here,

31:20

said undecided voters. I

31:22

love how Trump didn't remember who the author was, but still

31:25

talked to him for 10 hours. He

31:27

loves talking about himself so much,

31:29

he made time to do an interview for a

31:31

book about the apprentice. I feel like you could

31:33

get him to host the apprentice right now if

31:36

you pitched him a reality show where he picks

31:38

his running mate apprentice style. For the right amount

31:41

of money, he would 100% do it. Ramin

31:46

and Donny are back with us. Donny,

31:48

Ramin has written about the

31:51

view, a long arc of history of the view, but

31:53

including my time on it, I can attest to his

31:56

caliber as a journalist who gets all

31:59

his sources to talk. that Trump has

32:01

become a punchline for, you know, I

32:03

feel like I watched that and I picture Trump

32:06

somewhere in Trump Tower still talking like Ramin's still

32:08

sitting there, is what you've been

32:10

talking about for nine years. You know, he hates to

32:12

be laughed at. And here we go.

32:16

First of all, true confessions, and I have to live

32:18

with this. They did three seasons of

32:20

The Apprentice up at my ad agency. They did

32:22

tests. So I mean, we were on The Apprentice,

32:24

the Deutsche advertising, they came up and I remember

32:27

Trump walking through the office and he

32:29

was just looking, he was actually just looking at

32:31

women is what he was doing when he was walking through the

32:33

office. And I guess, I'm

32:37

listening to everything Ramin saying, congratulations, and

32:40

I'm just bringing it back to your

32:42

Eric Holder segment and what's

32:45

wrong with us that this man, that

32:47

half his country, if you

32:49

just watched 25 minutes of this

32:51

show, you would go, this is

32:54

a despicable human being. Forget anything

32:56

else. And yet

32:58

somehow, large

33:02

swath of this country is okay with it. What

33:04

does it say about us? I'm running out of

33:06

things to denigrate Donald Trump about. I'm running out

33:08

of things to talk about what a bad human

33:10

being is. You could just talk for

33:13

nine hours. I'm not even gonna list it. And

33:15

I'm just, what's wrong with us?

33:18

What is wrong with us, Nicole? How did we get

33:20

here? I know I'm drifting off

33:22

a little bit. I'm just getting worked up as I'm

33:24

listening to this, just the way he was on The

33:26

Apprentice. I love it. It's

33:28

just a little slice of such

33:31

an indecent, vulgar human being every

33:33

way. And you and I both

33:35

know smart, educated people that are

33:37

kind of thumbs up with this.

33:39

And it's just, what the hell

33:41

happened to us? I

33:44

mean, I think it's the right question. I mean, Ramin,

33:46

I'll let you try to answer it. I mean, to

33:48

me, he's laughing all the

33:51

way to the next campaign rally,

33:53

because you make clear that even

33:55

in his own mind, he's playing

33:57

a role. This

34:00

is a convergence, I think, between what's

34:02

happened in our culture where politics and

34:04

celebrity have come together. And

34:06

it happened, I think, beginning with President Obama.

34:08

People called him kind of a movie star

34:10

president, even though he wasn't. Obviously Ronald Reagan

34:13

was from Hollywood. And then Sarah

34:15

Palin also was kind of the celebrity of

34:17

the Republican Party. And Donald Trump was the

34:19

first reality TV president. And I

34:21

think what's happened is there's so much information

34:24

out there. People are tuning things out. They're

34:26

not educating themselves. They're not paying attention. And

34:29

they just like this character that Donald Trump played on

34:31

The Apprentice. And I think the way in which we

34:33

can ensure that Donald Trump is not reelected is

34:36

by studying the

34:38

way in which he operates, studying what he

34:40

does, how he manipulates the media, how he

34:43

confuses people, the crazy things he

34:45

says, which people find funny. This

34:48

is a really serious time. There's obviously going to

34:50

be a very important decision in November. And I

34:52

think we, the Democrats need to focus on the

34:54

fact that Donald Trump is a reality star. The

34:57

only way in which they'll defeat him in November. I

35:00

mean, Donnie, I don't want to give short shrift

35:02

to your point and your question, because this is

35:04

my inner monologue, you know, the other 22 hours

35:07

of the day, right? I

35:09

think, though, the great news is

35:12

here we go, right? Here we go to

35:14

the point where people other than us start

35:16

paying attention to politics. I mean, I think

35:18

it's our obligation and our duty to tell

35:20

the story every day, in an election year,

35:22

not an election year. But

35:25

it is a voter's job to

35:27

pay attention in as much

35:29

time as they think they need to make an

35:31

informed choice in November. And so that is for

35:34

the most sort of earnest voters, that hasn't

35:36

even started yet. Maybe it'll start next Thursday.

35:39

And I want to try to answer your question without,

35:41

you know, spinning you, which used to

35:44

be my old job. I

35:46

think Rameen's book is a really

35:48

serious and important piece of the

35:50

story that I hope voters

35:53

have. And it's not coming from a political

35:55

actor. It's not coming from a political journalist. It's

35:58

coming from someone in Trump's world. who Trump

36:00

sat with six times, for hours and hours and

36:02

hours. And I really do have this mental

36:04

image of him, you know, for me, and another

36:06

thing. And I'll give you the last word

36:08

I mean, I imagine, I imagine,

36:12

Donny, that this is Trump's

36:14

worst nightmare, that Seth and

36:16

Jimmy are laughing at him. It

36:21

is, and also Donny, he mentioned you. He

36:24

remembers you. He's upset that when you talk about

36:26

him, you don't speak about him in glowing terms.

36:28

He's upset that Deborah Messing doesn't like him. He's

36:30

upset that Bette Midler doesn't like him. He's upset

36:33

that Taylor Swift doesn't like him. The thing that

36:35

bothers him most is that celebrities don't like him.

36:37

And this is the weapon in which the Democrats

36:39

need to understand in going up against him. This

36:41

is a man who is driven by fame and

36:43

wanting to be famous. And the

36:46

only way to defeat Donald Trump is to channel

36:48

that force against him. Donny,

36:50

what does that look like over the next

36:53

five months operationalized? I

36:55

think you just said it best. I think, here

36:57

we go. We're starting with next Thursday and it's

36:59

on the voters. I mean, it's just,

37:01

you know, Nicole, you do your job, you do

37:04

your job, Raveen. I can't wait to read that

37:06

book. It sounds fantastic. And shame on us

37:08

if we don't get this one right. Because if we don't get this

37:10

one right, we ain't gonna get you

37:12

another shot. It is that dire. It is,

37:14

like I say to people, you gotta vote.

37:17

Because it may be your last one that

37:19

counts. And that's not a hyperbolic statement.

37:21

That's not an overstatement. That is an absolute,

37:23

absolute Bette company. But

37:25

there is a chance that we might not get it right.

37:28

That's what's so scary. Because we have a reality star running

37:30

for president of the United States. There's a real chance we

37:32

might not get it right. And Donald Trump, and all the

37:34

time I spent with him, in our last interview at Mar-a-Lago

37:36

in November when we were face to face, and

37:39

there were so many things happening in his life. And his son

37:42

on that day was testifying in New York City. He

37:44

was thrilled that he was back in the news. His

37:46

polls were good. And he had a chance

37:49

to become president of the United States. And that was very

37:51

alarming for me. You

37:53

know what we're gonna do? We will deal

37:56

with the six interviews in

37:58

six subsequent conversations. because I,

38:00

again, you've had the most access to him

38:02

out of anyone I've had on this show.

38:05

I don't know anyone, and I may be wrong, I'm gonna have

38:07

to go check this, but I don't know anyone else who's sat

38:09

with him six times since he lost. So

38:12

why don't we do that together, Donnie, you

38:14

and me and Romaine. We'll make it Wednesdays

38:16

with Donnie and Romaine. And I'd like to

38:18

sort of go through all six of these

38:20

conversations and do our

38:22

part to make sure people know at least

38:24

what you learn from in these sound

38:28

like very expansive conversations. Romaine, congratulations.

38:30

Again, I know firsthand how good

38:32

you are at your job. Congratulations

38:34

on this. Donnie, you

38:37

and me, we have a lot of work to

38:39

do, but we're gonna do our part. My thanks to

38:41

both of you for this conversation. Thank you, Nicole. Romaine's

38:44

book is called Apprentice in Wonderland, how Donald

38:47

Trump and Mark Burnett took America through the

38:49

looking glass. It's out right now. I ordered

38:51

it on Amazon this morning. You don't wanna

38:53

miss it. After the break, two key members

38:56

of a global axis of autocracy, deepening their

38:58

ties to one another. We'll talk about what

39:00

that means for us in the US. Next.

39:10

In a move raising alarm bells here

39:12

at home in the US among national

39:15

security experts, two of the presumptive Republican

39:17

presidential nominees, favorite dictators, Vladimir Putin and

39:19

Kim Jong-un joined forces today in North

39:22

Korea. They signed a mutual defense pledge

39:24

vowing to come to one another's aid

39:26

in the event of aggression against either

39:29

of their nations. The pact paves the

39:31

way for North Korea to send more

39:33

weapons to Moscow to aid Russia

39:36

and its illegal war of

39:38

Ukraine. According to reporting by

39:40

NBC News, the Biden administration

39:42

is worried that this intensifying

39:44

alliance could, quote, "'vastly expand

39:46

Pyongyang's nuclear capabilities.'" Joining our

39:48

conversations, staff writer for The

39:51

Atlantic, and Applebaum is with us. And

39:53

we had Courtney Kuebe on yesterday who has

39:55

some reporting about concerns among US

39:58

intelligence officials. I imagine the concern

40:00

are being echoed around the world.

40:03

Tell me how you view this intensifying

40:05

alliance. So

40:07

you have to look at it as part of

40:09

a bigger story. In real life, it's not just

40:12

Putin and Xi. I mean, sorry, it's not just

40:14

Putin and Kim. It's really Putin

40:16

and Kim and Xi. North

40:18

Korea has a very intense long-term relationship

40:21

with China. China is really the dominant

40:23

power in North Korea. This

40:25

meeting with Putin couldn't have happened

40:27

without Chinese agreement and Chinese knowledge.

40:30

So what you're really seeing is

40:32

the birth of a network of

40:34

autocracies, both in Eurasia and

40:37

around the world. And I

40:40

was listening to your last segment on

40:42

Donald Trump, and some of this is

40:44

happening precisely because those autocracies understand that

40:46

the United States is in a weaker

40:49

position than it once was, that it

40:52

might elect somebody irresponsible to the

40:54

presidency. There are

40:56

attempts by both Russia and China and others to

40:59

intervene in our election, to shape

41:02

the narrative and shape the conversation, perhaps

41:05

even to launch some kind of October surprise,

41:07

some kind of trick or game that will

41:09

throw the election one way or the other.

41:14

Although this is something that's happening abroad,

41:16

I think it has an important American

41:18

domestic context as well. And

41:21

how do they view people

41:24

that are sort of watching the next election?

41:28

What is sort of the degree of interest and

41:30

concern? So

41:33

if you mean US allies, there's an enormous

41:35

amount of interest and concern. Actually, just before

41:37

I was speaking

41:39

to you, I was on the phone with some

41:42

colleagues in Europe who were asking, it was

41:44

late at night their time, I'm in Washington

41:46

now, late at night their time, and they

41:48

were sort of sitting around talking about what

41:50

was going to happen next. And they called

41:52

me to say, who's going to win?

41:55

What were the polls looking

41:57

like? And that's because

42:00

the... The decision about who America

42:02

chooses next will affect

42:04

all kinds of political alliances and

42:06

arrangements. A Trump

42:08

victory will encourage the

42:11

Putin, Xi, Kim, you

42:13

know, Venezuelan, Belarusian alliance.

42:16

A Biden victory will mean that the

42:18

United States is still the leader of

42:20

the democratic world, is still committed to

42:22

supporting Ukraine and other democracies. It's

42:25

an enormous, it has an enormous impact on

42:27

the entire world. And of course,

42:30

you know, nobody else has a vote except for

42:32

Americans. And that's very frustrating.

42:35

And that, you know, it's also the fact that it's

42:37

so close. I couldn't

42:39

tell them who will win. It's as far as I can see, it's

42:41

50-50. It depends on a few

42:43

thousand people in a few swing states. And

42:46

it's a frustrating moment for U.S. allies.

42:50

I want to ask you about that, the

42:52

closeness of it. I get probably a sliver

42:54

of the kind of queries you get,

42:56

but I want to press you on that. Great to sneak in

42:58

a quick break first. Can we ask you to stick around? Sure.

43:02

We'll be right back. We're

43:06

back with Ann Applebaum. And I wonder what

43:08

you say when people ask about

43:11

Americans' disinterest, about the low rates

43:13

of voting and the susceptibility to

43:15

disinformation and foreign election interference. How

43:17

do you sort of explain what's

43:20

going on here to folks around

43:22

the world? It's

43:24

not actually as hard to explain as

43:26

you would think, given that the kind

43:29

of authoritarian propaganda that we see in

43:31

the United States now exists

43:33

pretty much everywhere. Over

43:36

the last decade, Russia and

43:38

China and others have perfected a

43:40

set of narratives about how autocracy

43:42

is safe and secure, how

43:45

traditional societies have been undermined and

43:47

traditional relationships and marriage and so

43:49

on. And

43:52

democracy, by contrast, is chaotic

43:54

and disruptive. I don't

43:56

know, progressive values are leading people into

43:58

degeneracy. and so on. And we see

44:00

those that kind of language in the

44:02

US, you also see it in Europe,

44:04

some of it is directly sponsored by

44:06

the Russians, they invented they they create

44:08

fake profiles, we know that from the

44:10

2016 election, they have new and more,

44:13

more sophisticated ways of doing it now. And

44:16

they see it, of course, coming from inside

44:18

their own society. So the, this, the, the

44:23

decline of the conversation in the United

44:25

States has its echo in

44:27

other places as well. Mm

44:29

hmm. Yeah, it's so interesting. You see

44:31

that so clearly. I feel

44:34

like people here don't always understand that it's it's

44:36

part of a war within lots of lots of

44:39

other places and Applebaum, thank you very much for

44:41

spending time with us on this. Coming

44:43

up in the next hour of Deadline

44:46

White House, a key Trump ally was

44:48

caught on tape saying that Team Trump

44:50

is on a quote, offensive footing, with

44:52

plans to inject chaos into the election

44:54

process in 2024. We'll bring you that

44:56

story next. Don't go anywhere. I'll

45:05

tell you the same. That's all

45:07

here. We're working on it. We're working

45:09

on it. Lawyers, judges, technology, governors, some

45:12

but there aren't many letting go. We got to use

45:14

every lever we can. We are doing that. Hi,

45:20

again, everyone. It's five o'clock in the east. Lawyers,

45:23

judges, technology. Those are three words

45:25

that encapsulate just how Donald Trump

45:27

and his team plan to steal

45:29

the next presidential election in their

45:31

own words. The man you heard

45:33

on tape in his own words

45:35

is Trump ally and pardoned criminal

45:37

Roger Stone. He was speaking at

45:39

a Catholic event in March at

45:41

Mar-a-Lago, where Roger Stone was the

45:43

keynote speaker. He made those comments,

45:46

thinking he was talking to a fan when

45:48

he was actually speaking to progressive activist

45:50

Lauren Windsor. She's the same woman

45:52

who obtained recordings of Supreme Court

45:54

Justice Samuel Alito that we played

45:56

on this program last week. The

45:58

recordings have started. Stone are just

46:01

as alarming, if not more so,

46:03

because he speaks about direct actions

46:06

in the works, plans that have been

46:08

drawn up on the part of Trump

46:10

and his allies, the plan they have

46:12

to take to contest the next election

46:14

results based on the false claim of

46:16

voter fraud. Listen to his

46:18

conversation with Lauren Windsor's colleague, who was

46:20

posing as a fan of Stone's earlier

46:23

that same night. What

46:26

stops them from just like, looking at like,

46:28

the outcomes? In

46:31

some states it would be easier

46:33

to stop them, but at least

46:35

this time, when they do it,

46:37

you have a lawyer and a

46:39

judge, and they're not standing

46:41

by so you can stop them. We

46:44

did, who made no preparations last time? No.

46:47

Well, I would have to have a court of duty

46:49

to take this out. I'm prepared to go back. That

46:53

made an effort, that made an effort.

46:56

There are technical legal steps

46:58

that we have to take

47:00

to try to overcome action.

47:04

There you go. There are things that can be

47:06

done. I like that. It's

47:09

a long conversation. I know

47:11

people that change, changes instead, changes as

47:13

they long, real time, voting as we

47:20

just did, who challenged

47:22

and voted us. That's

47:25

just not smart. We

47:28

challenged, we went into court, sue

47:30

and Richard over a year of

47:33

the ballots, which we

47:35

sued after a dozen calls. We're

47:37

a different family now, and it's

47:39

funny. What

47:42

Windsor and her colleague uncover here is

47:45

a plan that's already in place by

47:47

Trump's key lieutenant to use

47:49

judges in their home phone numbers and

47:52

the legal system to get the election result

47:54

they want. It's

47:56

a politicization of the rule of law

47:58

and undermining of American democracy. And

48:00

it happens while the highest court in the

48:02

land is still deciding whether a president has

48:05

full immunity for his actions, a decision that

48:07

could come as soon as tomorrow. Roger

48:10

Stone's response to Rolling Stone, which first

48:12

published the recordings, was this, quote, "...all

48:14

of the election integrity provisions I suggested are

48:17

perfectly legal and should be part of

48:19

any ballot security effort," end quote. There

48:22

was another part of his conversation that's

48:24

also raising alarms. He spoke

48:26

about the many criminal trials the

48:28

ex-president currently faces, talked about how

48:30

the tactics to delay those until

48:32

after the November election, a majority

48:35

of which had been successful so far, are so

48:38

vital politically. Watch. The

48:41

president's trial in Georgia's fallen

48:44

call. I think

48:46

the judges are the birds of dismissing

48:48

the target against a foreign. They're

48:52

delayed in New York City and

48:54

they're now delayed in Washington. So

48:57

it's not good that they

48:59

have a trial before the election, which

49:01

is the absolute key to be able

49:03

to convince people that the reason we

49:06

lost was because the trial. Right now

49:08

if they steal the people's rights, I'm

49:10

sure the court is leading it all

49:12

the way. They

49:15

want to try and suck up

49:17

his money, suck up his time,

49:19

and create a reason why their

49:21

death is plausible, believable. You

49:24

see? You

49:28

see? That's where we

49:30

start today with executive producer and creator

49:32

of The Undercurrent. The aforementioned Lauren Windsor

49:34

is here with us. Thank

49:37

you so much for being here. I

49:39

want to get into how you do what you do,

49:42

how you personally deal with,

49:45

I saw some of the threats,

49:47

Roger Stone made against you to

49:49

sue you today, but I want

49:51

to start with what you've revealed.

49:53

And I want to thank you

49:55

for what you're revealing about institutions

49:57

and organizations and people that are

49:59

at best. opaque to the

50:01

public and the American people. Tell

50:04

me about this conversation that you and

50:06

your colleague have with Roger Stone. Thanks

50:09

for having me, Nicole. So this

50:11

wasn't the first conversation that I had with Roger

50:13

Stone. I spoke with him

50:15

last summer at an event for Florida

50:19

teenage Republicans. The

50:21

goal of talking to him was

50:23

really to understand what

50:25

was afoot with the 2024 election. And

50:28

so the initial question I'd ask him was, how

50:32

are you gonna keep Democrats

50:34

from stealing the election again?

50:37

What he told me last summer was, we

50:39

have a plan, it's legal, it's technical,

50:41

the RNC should have done it last

50:43

time. So because

50:45

in that particular circumstance, I

50:48

couldn't really have an

50:50

extended conversation with him. I wanted to see

50:52

if I could get more information on that.

50:55

So Allie and I went to Mora Lago

50:57

in March to this Catholics

50:59

for Catholics event and tried to get more

51:02

information on this plan from him. So

51:04

that's really the genesis of this tape.

51:08

Is it hard to get into an event like that

51:10

at Mora Lago? Well,

51:13

we bought tickets and we walked in. They

51:16

checked our names when we came in the door. So

51:18

you have to pay

51:21

the fee. I forget exactly how

51:23

much money that particular event costs. I believe

51:25

it was $500. Tell

51:29

me about this, what

51:32

you heard when he talked about having

51:34

judges' home phone numbers. Well,

51:37

so that wasn't a conversation with Allie,

51:39

but when I heard the audio from

51:42

that conversation, it was

51:44

definitely alarming because to me, Roger

51:49

Stone pretty much embraces

51:53

his reputation as a dirty trickster,

51:55

the dapper don of dirty deeds, right? So,

52:00

When he says that he's

52:02

innocent in this, it's innocent preparation for

52:04

2024, should

52:07

we take him at his word? He's

52:09

the dapper don of dirty deeds. He's

52:12

a convicted felon. He's discussed

52:15

assassinating members of Congress, which

52:19

he's currently under investigation for, or I should

52:21

say has been under investigation for. I don't

52:23

know the status of that investigation. So

52:26

it was alarming to me to hear that he

52:29

might have phone numbers of judges. And it really led

52:31

me to wonder, who

52:34

is he reaching out to? Is

52:37

he reaching out to judges

52:39

about ballot integrity, voter fraud?

52:42

Is he reaching out to judges who are connected

52:44

to any of the cases against Donald Trump? I

52:47

don't know. And I just

52:49

think that they are questions worth

52:51

asking. Yeah, I

52:53

mean, the last piece of

52:55

tape we played is Roger

52:57

Stone's view on the success of the

53:00

delay strategy. How did you hear that?

53:04

Well, it was clear to me because the

53:06

first thing that he went

53:08

to when he said, we're

53:11

beating them right now, Ali

53:13

says, how so? He's

53:15

not saying we're beating them,

53:18

we're beating Democrats in the polls, we're

53:21

beating them in voter registrations, we're beating

53:23

them in any number of voter outreach

53:25

metrics. He goes directly to the status

53:28

of all the cases. So

53:30

that to me said that the courts really are

53:32

a focal point to their strategy to win. In

53:36

neither conversation with me nor Ali, did he

53:38

say anything about positive

53:40

voter outreach and organizing? What

53:45

sort of, I mean, you obviously

53:48

are filling in a huge

53:50

space. This is a blind spot. Those of

53:52

us covering the race have no idea what Roger

53:54

Stone says to people he thinks are sort

53:57

of allies or in... in

54:00

the trenches with him. Tell me

54:02

how you decide, you know, who to

54:04

try to pursue this unburnished truth from.

54:08

Well, so for me, really first

54:10

and foremost, for any

54:12

operation, it's undercover because I

54:15

do employ other methodologies.

54:17

I have done online

54:19

research, produced the website Project

54:21

Veritas Exposed, for example. I

54:24

have bird-dogged members

54:26

of Congress on the hill at events

54:29

around the country. And when I say

54:31

bird-dogging, I mean just showing up with a

54:33

microphone and a camera. And so it's really,

54:35

you know, a pretty transparent process. I am

54:37

a member of the press. I'm asking you

54:39

a question directly to your face. But

54:42

for undercover operations, I really feel

54:44

like there has to be a reason

54:47

why I'm going undercover that I couldn't

54:49

normally go undercover. You know, what is

54:51

it? And to me,

54:53

if you're planning to overturn an

54:56

election, that, you know, most

54:58

people aren't going to openly talk about

55:00

that. And so I've been — if

55:02

you look at my career since 2012,

55:06

when I launched the Undercurrent with the Young

55:08

Turks Network, you can

55:10

see that I've had some undercover work in

55:12

there. But it really didn't become a substantive

55:14

part of my work

55:16

until after 2020 with the Georgia

55:19

runoffs. I went to

55:21

Georgia for these two historic runoffs. And

55:24

all of the events that I went to, I

55:26

could see that these surrogates

55:28

that were in the state to stump

55:30

for Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue were

55:32

openly talking about still fighting

55:34

for President Trump, urging voters

55:36

in Georgia to still fight for President Trump. And

55:39

this was the middle of December. So

55:41

I've really been kind of on a —

55:44

I don't want to say a crusade, but I guess it

55:46

is a crusade, a quest to make

55:48

sure that we don't have a replication

55:50

of January 6th, because I really do

55:52

see January 6th as an on-par

55:56

event with 9-11. I witnessed 9-11 on

55:59

the ground. living in New York City, and

56:01

it was deeply, deeply,

56:06

I guess, politically

56:08

formative in moving me

56:10

to be more politically

56:12

engaged. And so when January 6th

56:15

happened, I really just felt obligated as

56:17

a patriot out of love

56:19

for this country to make sure that we could

56:22

maintain the tradition of secular democracy.

56:26

I mean, I also find there's a chicken

56:28

and an egg piece to the

56:30

importance of your work, and we've lifted it

56:33

up every time that we've seen it. I

56:35

mean, Trump branded the press the enemy of

56:37

the people, and therefore one of the tactics

56:39

that I think became necessary was

56:43

being viewed as one of them to obtain this

56:45

information. If there was a press corps that could

56:47

reveal what you revealed about Alito, I would be

56:49

the happiest human being, the happiest cable host on

56:51

the planet. Sadly, there isn't.

56:53

I want to play some of what you put

56:56

into the public arena from Supreme

56:58

Court Justice Alito and ask you about this.

57:03

I don't know that we can negotiate with

57:05

the left in the way that all it

57:07

needs to happen for the polarization to end.

57:10

I think that it's a matter of winning.

57:16

I think you're probably right. One

57:19

side or the other. One side or the other is

57:21

going to win. I

57:23

don't know. There

57:25

can be a

57:32

way of living together peacefully, but

57:35

it's difficult because there are

57:37

differences on fundamental

57:39

things that really can't be compromised.

57:45

It's not like we're going to split the difference. One

57:49

of the nine human beings who sits

57:52

on the Supreme Court thinks that you

57:54

can't split the difference, that we can't

57:56

really live side by side. That is

57:58

unbleeping believable. And we know that because-

58:00

And I should say that you have

58:03

John Roberts, Chief Justice John Roberts on

58:05

tape, he doesn't say anything scandalous at

58:07

all. It really is an Alito problem.

58:09

Tell me your sort of feelings about

58:11

what you've revealed about Justice San Alito.

58:15

Well, I should just put it out there for

58:17

the record. I never thought going into this that

58:20

I was gonna be able to get

58:22

something newsworthy from San Alito. The

58:25

discretion level of the justices, this

58:27

is one of the highest

58:29

held positions in, I

58:33

mean, he's not the Chief Justice, Chief

58:36

Justice Roberts, but as

58:38

a sitting justice, I would imagine that

58:40

he would be the height of discretion,

58:42

particularly as he's come under attack for

58:44

the political flag waving

58:47

in his yard. You would think

58:49

that his guard would be up more. So I didn't

58:51

go in thinking, oh, I'm gonna get him. Particularly

58:53

when I talked to him in 2023, he

58:57

gave an answer that was not

58:59

newsworthy. I didn't publish it. But

59:01

I did feel that in the intervening year,

59:04

he's probably gonna be more aggrieved. He was already aggrieved when

59:07

I talked to him in 2023. And

59:10

the ProPublica reporting about him hadn't even come

59:12

out yet. So fast forward

59:14

a year, and it

59:16

just really felt like, okay,

59:19

if I approach this from a religious

59:22

and moral standpoint, and it's

59:24

not, Biden

59:27

or Trump or Democrats or Republicans, but

59:29

it's really about a religious

59:32

lens, a moral lens, that he would

59:34

be more prone to

59:37

giving me a response that would

59:39

be different and be more substantive.

59:42

So he could have very well answered how

59:44

he did in 2023. He

59:46

had that capability, but he didn't. He

59:49

could have answered how Justice Roberts answered. He

59:51

didn't do that either. So for people who say

59:53

that this is a nothing burger, or, oh, he

59:55

was just agreeing with you to

59:58

placate you, I don't really understand the placation because- Because

1:00:00

the prior year, he gave a totally different answer. Yeah.

1:00:04

I agree with your analysis of this. I

1:00:06

want to play Mrs. Alito as

1:00:08

well, because this to me was,

1:00:11

I think, editorially even more newsworthy

1:00:13

that the cider on the flags

1:00:15

isn't Mrs. Alito at all. You

1:00:20

know what I want? I want a sacred

1:00:22

heart of Jesus flag, because I have to

1:00:24

look across the lagoon at the pride flag

1:00:26

for the next month. Exactly. He's

1:00:29

like, oh, please don't put up a flag.

1:00:31

I said, I won't do it because I'm

1:00:33

deferring to you. But when you are free

1:00:35

of this nonsense, I'm putting it up, and

1:00:37

I'm going to send them a message every

1:00:39

day. Maybe every week I'll be changing the

1:00:41

flags. There'll be all kinds of... I made

1:00:43

a flag in my head. This is how

1:00:45

I satisfy myself. I made a flag. It's

1:00:47

white, and it's yellow and orange flames around

1:00:49

it. And in the middle is

1:00:51

the word, vagonia. Vagonia in

1:00:53

Italian means shame. Having

1:00:57

the homophobia and the deferring to

1:00:59

her husband on the flags just

1:01:01

felt like news whoppers. Tell me

1:01:03

how you heard that. In

1:01:07

the moment, it was pretty shocking.

1:01:09

She was pretty emphatic about shaming

1:01:12

her neighbors, which to

1:01:15

me is certainly not a very

1:01:17

Christian outlook to have. So

1:01:20

aside from the fact that she's the wife of

1:01:22

a Supreme Court justice, who again

1:01:24

was under an immense amount

1:01:27

of scrutiny for those actions. So yeah, I

1:01:29

was shocked by that. And

1:01:32

she seems to say that she doesn't do what she

1:01:34

wants on the flag front. She says in her words,

1:01:36

she quote, defers to him. That's

1:01:38

her husband, right? Yes. And

1:01:42

she went further to say that, but when

1:01:44

he's done with this nonsense, I'll fly whatever

1:01:46

flag I want, which if

1:01:49

she's referring to nonsense as the

1:01:52

Supreme Court, I think that's obviously

1:01:54

pretty galling and shocking in

1:01:56

its own right. to

1:02:00

stick around. I have some more

1:02:02

questions for you. When we come back, we're also

1:02:04

going to be joined by Andrew Weissman. We're going

1:02:06

to cover later in the broadcast

1:02:09

what Judge Aylin Cannon is planning this

1:02:11

week and what could be, as Roger

1:02:13

Stone said in those tapes, an attempt

1:02:15

to dismiss the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case

1:02:17

entirely. I'll bring Andrew in for that.

1:02:19

Also ahead, today is Juneteenth. The day

1:02:22

marks the end of slavery in America.

1:02:24

President Joe Biden made it a federal

1:02:26

holiday three years ago. But

1:02:28

today, right now, as we convene,

1:02:30

Black history remains under attack in

1:02:33

red states all across the country. We'll

1:02:35

check in with a friend of the

1:02:37

broadcast, a retired educator who's doing his

1:02:39

part to make sure African American history

1:02:41

is never forgotten. J. Lynn Whitehouse continues

1:02:43

after a quick break. Don't go anywhere

1:02:45

today. 40,000.

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up at greenlight.com/podcast. The

1:03:51

president's trial gorgeous fall in the

1:03:53

fall. I

1:03:55

think the judges are emerging, dismissing

1:03:57

the charges against the employer. They're

1:04:00

delayed in New York City

1:04:04

and they're now delayed in Washington.

1:04:06

So it's not good that they

1:04:08

have a trial before the election,

1:04:10

which is the absolute key to

1:04:12

be able to convince people that

1:04:14

the reason we lost was because

1:04:16

the trial. Right now if

1:04:18

they steal the People's Civil Arts, I'm sure

1:04:20

the Trump is leading it all the way.

1:04:23

They want to try and suck

1:04:26

up his money, suck up his

1:04:28

time, and create the reason why

1:04:30

their death is plausible. You

1:04:33

see? I've

1:04:37

played it twice, I think I

1:04:39

understand, Roger Stone. And on

1:04:41

Friday, JoJalene Cannon, in the classified docs

1:04:43

case, will hear a motion brought by

1:04:46

the ex-president that the appointment of special

1:04:48

counsel Jack Smith was unlawful to begin

1:04:50

with. An argument, our own

1:04:52

Jordan Rubin from our Deadline legal blog

1:04:54

calls far-fetched and quote, the sort of

1:04:57

claim that other judges have rejected at

1:04:59

hand. But Judge Cannon

1:05:01

has entertained other motions and requests from

1:05:03

the ex-president as well that she'll hear

1:05:05

next week, dragging out this case and

1:05:07

all but ensuring that a trial will

1:05:09

not take place before voters go to

1:05:11

the poll. As she continues

1:05:13

to prolong the process, keep in mind what

1:05:16

you heard Roger Stone thinks of it, that

1:05:18

she is quote, Roger Stone's words,

1:05:20

on the verge of dismissing the charges, end

1:05:22

quote. We're back with Lauren

1:05:25

Windsor joining our conversation, former top official at

1:05:27

the Department of Justice, MSNBC legal analyst Andrew

1:05:29

Weissman is here. Andrew Weissman,

1:05:32

first, Roger Stone's view of

1:05:34

the cases is an

1:05:37

interesting window into how Trump views the

1:05:39

cases. There are evidence of any wrongdoing

1:05:41

on anyone's part, and we're not saying

1:05:43

that. But to the degree that

1:05:45

what it looks like from the outside

1:05:48

is what's being experienced inside Trump world,

1:05:50

it does feel like there is some

1:05:52

connectivity. How do you see this? Well,

1:05:56

let's first

1:05:58

remind people. that Roger

1:06:01

Stone, leaving aside his history

1:06:03

of sort of gainsmanship in

1:06:05

terms of how he helped

1:06:09

political candidates, leave all of

1:06:11

that aside, he went to

1:06:13

trial and was convicted of

1:06:15

multiple felonies by a jury

1:06:17

beyond a reasonable doubt. And

1:06:21

if you then take that to what

1:06:23

he is saying in terms of denigrating

1:06:27

the effort of various prosecutors here,

1:06:30

the reason it is useful to

1:06:32

think about who he is and

1:06:34

the fact that he went to

1:06:36

trial is he knows something that

1:06:38

he is not saying, which is

1:06:40

facts matter. The

1:06:42

reason that he was convicted

1:06:44

is because facts were presented

1:06:46

that proved all of

1:06:49

the felonies he was charged with beyond

1:06:51

a reasonable doubt. He was convicted of

1:06:53

all of those crimes. It makes no

1:06:55

sense to say these prosecutors are just

1:06:57

doing this to delay

1:07:00

things for political purposes. You know

1:07:02

what they need in order to

1:07:04

bring those cases? Facts. Facts that

1:07:06

will prove a case beyond a

1:07:08

reasonable doubt. And we know because

1:07:10

the New York cases happened that

1:07:12

they actually had the goods. If

1:07:15

Donald Trump wanted to show that this

1:07:17

was all a witch hunt, he could

1:07:19

go to trial. You

1:07:21

could compare what he is saying

1:07:23

is going on to what happened

1:07:25

under his own presidency,

1:07:28

which was John Durham. So we've

1:07:30

seen a sort of

1:07:32

Trump prosecutor who brings

1:07:35

cases where there is unanimous

1:07:37

verdicts of acquittals by

1:07:40

a jury and cases where there

1:07:42

are unanimous verdicts of guilt. And

1:07:44

that is because facts matter.

1:07:46

So when Roger Stone is

1:07:48

saying this is all gangsmanship,

1:07:51

those are interesting adjectives. They're

1:07:53

adverbs, but it ignores the

1:07:55

fact that in

1:07:57

Earth One, facts matter.

1:08:00

That's what happens in court, and Roger

1:08:02

Stone knows it, because he actually went

1:08:05

to trial, was accorded all

1:08:07

of the rights of a defendant and lost.

1:08:11

Andrew Weissman, do we view it as

1:08:13

an utterance from Earth One or Earth

1:08:15

Two that Roger Stone is telling someone

1:08:17

he perceives to be a political ally,

1:08:20

that he has, quote, judges' home phone

1:08:22

numbers this time around? I

1:08:26

have to say that was the piece

1:08:28

that was the most chilling for me.

1:08:30

Because with Roger Stone, you don't know

1:08:33

how much is bluster and how much

1:08:35

is not. The fact that he is

1:08:37

even speaking for Donald Trump speaks volumes.

1:08:40

I mean, he is a convicted felon,

1:08:43

and he shouldn't be in

1:08:45

that position. Any reputable candidate

1:08:48

that's assuming facts, not

1:08:51

in evidence, would not have him speaking

1:08:53

for them. But I have

1:08:55

to say, if that is true, if

1:08:57

that is not just his bluster, that

1:09:00

is something that, as

1:09:03

you know, Nicole from having talked to

1:09:05

judges who

1:09:07

have been threatened

1:09:09

and subject to harassment

1:09:13

and actual violence and

1:09:16

covered a lot of that, the

1:09:18

fact that there would be home

1:09:20

phone numbers in the possession of

1:09:22

someone like Roger Stone or his

1:09:25

acolytes is something

1:09:27

that must be causing the

1:09:29

United States Marshall's considerable concern.

1:09:33

Yeah, Lauren, let me bring you back

1:09:35

in on that. I mean, what do

1:09:37

we not see? What happens to you

1:09:40

and your team and your colleagues after

1:09:42

a tape is made public? Well,

1:09:45

I've gotten a lot of threats from Roger

1:09:48

today. He's threatened to sue me. You can

1:09:50

see that on Twitter. But I get death

1:09:52

threats to my office

1:09:55

line. I get death threats

1:09:57

and harassing emails to my

1:09:59

website. DM's

1:10:02

via various social media sites.

1:10:05

So people are definitely threatening

1:10:07

me, but my experience

1:10:09

has been that most of it's bluster. Outside

1:10:13

of the threats that

1:10:15

occur online and really

1:10:18

I haven't witnessed anything,

1:10:20

I haven't experienced anything that was in

1:10:22

person, but I don't put it past

1:10:24

someone, so it's in the back of

1:10:27

my mind for sure. Andrew

1:10:30

Weisman, I'm just sort of connecting all the dots

1:10:32

of the conversations I've had today and

1:10:35

what Lauren illuminated about Mr.

1:10:37

and Mrs. Alito, what

1:10:40

Eric Holder said at the beginning of this program when

1:10:43

he pledged to come back after

1:10:45

the immunity decision. That

1:10:47

were even where we are. Where are we right

1:10:49

now? We're all waiting to see when a decision

1:10:52

comes down on immunity from the Supreme Court. We

1:10:54

thought it might be last Thursday, it wasn't. It

1:10:56

could be this Thursday. There's now talk that it

1:10:58

might be next Thursday, the day of the debate. That

1:11:01

we're even here is the scandal, is

1:11:03

the moment. Just talk about how we

1:11:06

should view this moment in light

1:11:08

of what we understand Alito believes

1:11:11

because of his comments to Lauren,

1:11:13

his candid comments that he really

1:11:15

can't fathom, that we can

1:11:17

reconcile our differences. Well,

1:11:20

I think one way to back

1:11:23

up and think about this is to go

1:11:26

back to something, that comment Liz

1:11:28

Cheney made about the court systems.

1:11:30

And she was talking about the

1:11:33

lower courts and she made the

1:11:35

comment that they really have

1:11:37

held up well. And

1:11:39

when you think about the 60 judges

1:11:41

and court cases where

1:11:43

Donald Trump and his allies were saying there

1:11:46

was fraud in the election, they lost all

1:11:48

of this. And

1:11:50

so that is really the last

1:11:52

frontier. Of course, if

1:11:55

Roger Stern is planning on

1:11:57

having legitimate claims in court.

1:12:00

and seeking to do this through a court

1:12:02

process and not through a tax on the

1:12:05

Capitol. That's how our system works. There's nothing

1:12:07

wrong with that. But

1:12:09

we're putting a lot of eggs

1:12:11

in the basket of the good faith

1:12:13

and the oaths of office of

1:12:16

judicial officers. And the

1:12:18

connectivity is that we saw

1:12:20

that working last time, but

1:12:25

when you see Judge

1:12:27

Cannon and what she is

1:12:29

doing, when you see Justice

1:12:31

Alito and what he is doing,

1:12:34

there is ample reason to

1:12:37

be concerned that

1:12:39

that bulwark of

1:12:42

democracy will not hold. That

1:12:46

you are, there's so many reasons

1:12:48

to think that this sort of

1:12:50

might makes right view

1:12:53

of the law, meaning the antithetical view

1:12:55

of what the law is supposed to

1:12:57

be, that this is a

1:12:59

nation of laws, not of men and women,

1:13:03

is something that is

1:13:05

precarious when you

1:13:07

see judges who by

1:13:09

all accounts are not routinely

1:13:12

adhering to their oaths of office. As

1:13:14

you said, because we are in a

1:13:16

place where we just should not be,

1:13:20

that the idea that we're waiting for a

1:13:22

decision that was so

1:13:24

obvious and could have

1:13:26

been decided, six months ago

1:13:29

when Jack Smith first raised the immunity

1:13:32

decision to the Supreme Court of the

1:13:34

United States. So in many ways, we

1:13:36

think, oh, there might be

1:13:38

something good coming, but there's, what has

1:13:41

happened has already happened. We

1:13:43

just don't really fully understand it,

1:13:45

which is the delay is everything,

1:13:47

because that's why there will not

1:13:49

be a January 6th DC case,

1:13:53

before the election

1:13:55

in November. Lauren

1:13:58

Rizzo, I'll give you the last one. I want to

1:14:00

come back to something you said about September

1:14:03

11th and January 6th and how they

1:14:06

sort of shaped you and raised

1:14:09

all of your internal alarms. What

1:14:11

institutions are you most worried about? Is

1:14:14

it the court? Is it the

1:14:16

sort of Trump-infected Republican Party? I

1:14:18

mean, where is your greatest alarm

1:14:20

personally? Well,

1:14:23

I do think the court is

1:14:25

hugely at risk this

1:14:28

election. If Trump

1:14:30

is elected again, I anticipate

1:14:32

that Justice Isolido and Thomas

1:14:34

will retire and it will

1:14:36

really lock in this religious

1:14:40

extremist majority for

1:14:43

much longer than it could be

1:14:45

otherwise. When you

1:14:47

look at the

1:14:49

video transcript with Martha Ann

1:14:51

Alito, she makes a couple references to

1:14:54

Time Horizons that seem to

1:14:56

indicate that they're really eyeing Justice

1:14:59

Alito's retirement. She talked

1:15:01

about suing media companies because of

1:15:03

the five-year statute of limitations. She

1:15:06

talked about when you're done with

1:15:08

this nonsense. Because

1:15:11

he is the ideological warrior that he

1:15:13

is, I don't anticipate that in

1:15:15

the next five years he would step down if Biden

1:15:18

won. He would continue to hold that

1:15:20

seat on the Supreme Court. It

1:15:24

seems to me that they're anticipating

1:15:26

a Trump presidency and so beyond

1:15:28

just the ideological stakes with the

1:15:30

Supreme Court for Justice Alito, there's

1:15:32

also the personal stake of his

1:15:34

own retirement. That

1:15:36

to me is very worrisome when we think

1:15:38

about the cases, the immunity

1:15:40

case being chief among them that

1:15:43

could possibly throw the election to Donald

1:15:45

Trump. decisions

1:16:00

tomorrow, you can sign up right now

1:16:02

for the deadline legal newsletter. Just scan

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1:16:11

Friday and on any other

1:16:13

day with big breaking legal news. When

1:16:15

we come back on this day, Juneteenth,

1:16:18

the day that marks the emancipation of

1:16:20

enslaved people in the United States of

1:16:22

America, African-American history remains

1:16:24

something very much under assault in

1:16:26

red states all across our country.

1:16:29

Our friend, Professor Marvin Dunn, has been working

1:16:31

to make sure students are learning black history

1:16:33

in his home state of Florida. He'll be

1:16:35

our guest again after a short break. Don't

1:16:37

go anywhere. This

1:16:45

Juneteenth, we celebrate as a nation the

1:16:47

official end of slavery in the United

1:16:50

States. It is the newest federal holiday

1:16:52

declared so three years ago by President

1:16:55

Joe Biden. But in Galveston, Texas,

1:16:57

they've been commemorating this day for more than

1:16:59

a century and a half. It was there

1:17:02

on June 19th, 1865, when the last enslaved

1:17:05

black people in the United States were

1:17:07

told they were finally free two years

1:17:10

after the Emancipation Proclamation. It's a

1:17:12

celebration and a reminder about the

1:17:14

hard-fought freedoms and rights and progress

1:17:17

very much at stake, still 159

1:17:20

years later, at a time when

1:17:22

diversity and inclusion and the teaching

1:17:24

of African-American history and voting rights

1:17:27

are all under constant assault.

1:17:30

Much of it fueled by an

1:17:32

ex-president and presumptive Republican nominee who

1:17:35

today makes disparaging comments about predominantly

1:17:37

black cities, hosts what President Joe

1:17:39

Biden calls quote fraudulent black voter

1:17:41

outreach events, and stokes hatred and

1:17:44

bigotry and division at every campaign

1:17:46

stop. Joining our coverage is Marvin

1:17:48

Dunn, Professor Emeritus at Florida International

1:17:51

University, author of the book A

1:17:53

History of Florida Through Black Eyes,

1:17:55

also joining us former assistant U.S.

1:17:58

Attorney, President as a leadership conference

1:18:00

on civil and human rights. Maya

1:18:02

Wiley's here. Marvin,

1:18:05

thank you for coming back to talk to us.

1:18:07

We spent a lot of time focused on Florida

1:18:09

and you were one of our favorite voices in

1:18:11

that coverage. And I just wondered where your head

1:18:13

is today and where your thoughts

1:18:15

are today. As we sort of get

1:18:18

ready as a country, if there's a debate next Thursday,

1:18:20

to focus on a general election

1:18:22

contest, it seems at this point

1:18:25

to be really taking place in

1:18:27

the shadow of so much disinformation that

1:18:30

I wonder how you're looking at it. Actually,

1:18:34

I'm focused on Juneteenth

1:18:36

right now. Okay.

1:18:39

Because I don't see the point of it.

1:18:42

I don't see the point of the celebration. I

1:18:45

think emancipation is a myth. Emancipation

1:18:48

didn't change the lives of enslaved

1:18:51

Americans. If you were

1:18:53

an enslaved person when the proclamation was

1:18:56

announced, if you were enslaved in Kentucky,

1:18:59

even after the proclamation, you were

1:19:01

still legally enslaved. Same thing in

1:19:03

Missouri. The proclamation had

1:19:06

no impact on the

1:19:08

average enslaved person. The point

1:19:10

I want to make Nicole is that

1:19:12

emancipation without land was meaningless.

1:19:15

So what if you free the slaves? How are

1:19:18

they going to take care of themselves? How will they care

1:19:20

for themselves? The great betrayal,

1:19:23

the great betrayal was that

1:19:25

black people who had been enslaved

1:19:27

wanted land. Lincoln

1:19:29

sent Stanton, his secretary

1:19:31

of war to Savannah as the war

1:19:34

was winding down to meet with 20

1:19:36

black ministers. Lincoln wanted to know

1:19:38

what do the former slaves want when the war

1:19:40

is over. In the code, they

1:19:42

all spoke with the same voice. We

1:19:44

want land. Give us land

1:19:46

that we can farm and take care of ourselves

1:19:48

and we'll pay you back for it. What

1:19:51

happened? The whole 40 acres are an immune thing.

1:19:53

A few black people got a few acres, then

1:19:55

Andrew Jackson stopped it. Andrew Johnson stopped

1:19:57

it and gave the land to the

1:19:59

slaves. slave owners, gave the land

1:20:01

back to the plantation owners. And without

1:20:04

land, black people were absolutely

1:20:07

at a loss as to take care of

1:20:09

themselves. So I don't see the need to

1:20:12

recognize the Emancipation Proclamation. It didn't free all

1:20:14

the black people, only the ones who were

1:20:16

in states that were in rebellion. And

1:20:18

even then, it didn't make

1:20:20

any difference that Lincoln issued that

1:20:23

proclamation. So I'm underwhelmed by

1:20:25

Juneteenth. I'm more concerned about the

1:20:28

great betrayal when black men

1:20:30

fought and died for the union,

1:20:32

then went home and the land was given to

1:20:35

their former owners. What a betrayal of black

1:20:38

people in this country. So I'm not having

1:20:40

any great celebration at Emerald, but by the

1:20:43

Jack Nias and watch sports. I

1:20:46

mean, I think you're getting at a

1:20:49

specific and a systemic

1:20:52

indictment of the whole

1:20:54

conversation, right? It's not a

1:20:56

celebration, but at the root

1:20:59

of it is something that's happening in

1:21:01

cities in every state in this country.

1:21:03

And that's the desire to teach even

1:21:05

less, right? Part of it is

1:21:07

a wash in our own ignorance, mine included.

1:21:10

The other part of it is the shallowness of it. How

1:21:13

do we get at the root of both those things? I

1:21:18

think we do that by hitting the truth real

1:21:20

hard. I think we do that by taking people,

1:21:23

particularly black people who lived the American

1:21:27

experience, whose ancestors were enslaved,

1:21:29

who lived through Jim Crow.

1:21:31

I think we need to take people back to

1:21:33

history, back to places where we live through segregation,

1:21:37

lynching, violence, and have this

1:21:39

current generation understand that it

1:21:41

was hard. It

1:21:44

was difficult for us to get where we are today. And

1:21:47

the fact that we are still a landless people

1:21:49

and we're still poor compared to white people

1:21:51

goes back to that great betrayal. We

1:21:53

were not, when we were not

1:21:56

given land along with emancipation. I'm

1:21:58

still back at that. But let me just fast

1:22:00

forward for a second. You're right. I

1:22:04

live in a state where the

1:22:07

suppression of black history is criminal. What

1:22:10

our governor has done, is doing, will continue to

1:22:12

do, is to destroy

1:22:14

our history by denying the facts of

1:22:16

our history, by denying access

1:22:18

to the truth for our students.

1:22:20

Not allowing our teachers to teach

1:22:22

the truth. So Florida is

1:22:24

a bill where that's for the country in

1:22:27

terms of the suppression of black history

1:22:29

and the whitewashing of black history. We

1:22:31

are leading the country in that. When

1:22:36

you try to sort of get in front

1:22:38

of people, the stakes

1:22:40

to not learning our history and

1:22:43

the peril, and it's not

1:22:45

equal peril, right? It's not the same

1:22:47

danger for everybody. They're greater stakes for

1:22:49

the people whose history is forgotten and

1:22:51

in your words whitewashed. What is

1:22:53

in your experience, I mean, you're

1:22:57

teaching this so it isn't lost

1:22:59

to the next generation. What gives you

1:23:01

hope if anything in

1:23:04

teaching this history? That's

1:23:07

an excellent question. I've taken white

1:23:09

and black kids and their parents all

1:23:12

over Florida, where terrible things happen. We've

1:23:14

gone to graves, we've gone to the lynching sites.

1:23:16

We stood over the graves

1:23:19

of people who were killed. Why didn't

1:23:21

black people together? The thing

1:23:23

that is so encouraging to me is

1:23:25

that when I ask people over these graves, are

1:23:27

you angry at white people for this lynching? Are

1:23:29

you angry at people today because

1:23:32

what happened 100 years ago? Nicole

1:23:34

consistently out here know Dr. Dunn, we're not

1:23:37

angry that these things happen.

1:23:39

We're angry because we weren't told, because

1:23:41

our history was kept from us. That's

1:23:43

still happening. So you get

1:23:46

on point of we are not being allowed

1:23:48

to learn and teach our history in Florida

1:23:50

and that's spreading across the country. Well,

1:23:53

and I think it is incumbent upon

1:23:55

the states where why

1:23:57

doesn't California make it part of the

1:24:00

curriculum? to take every 10th

1:24:02

grader to the lynching museum and on

1:24:04

a tour. I mean, this whole question

1:24:06

of forgetting our history

1:24:08

doesn't have an equal stakeholder.

1:24:12

I want to continue to press both of you on this

1:24:14

question of learning our history, not repeating our mistakes. I have

1:24:16

to sneak in a quick break first and then we'll bring

1:24:18

Maya into the conversation on the other side. Thank you so

1:24:20

much. We'll all be right back. Thank you. We're

1:24:27

back with Marvin and Maya. Maya, jump

1:24:29

in on the opportunity to grab

1:24:32

this next generation, deepen their understanding

1:24:34

and make them better actors, better

1:24:37

activists than some of us even.

1:24:41

Well, one thing I think we know

1:24:43

about this upcoming generation, particularly Gen Z,

1:24:45

they know exactly how to be activists.

1:24:47

We're seeing that whether it was Black

1:24:50

Lives Matter protests through

1:24:52

to voting rights, abortion

1:24:55

rights. This is an active

1:24:57

activist generation. But

1:24:59

I do want to go back to something

1:25:01

Professor Dunn said that's so important. One

1:25:03

of the things we're seeing removed,

1:25:06

for example, from the AP History,

1:25:08

African-American History course that the College

1:25:11

Board created was

1:25:13

contemporary issues of activism.

1:25:16

Professor Kimberly Crenshaw, who is a

1:25:19

well revered legal academic

1:25:21

and friend removed because

1:25:24

she was one of the proponents

1:25:27

of critical race theory, which was

1:25:29

simply understanding the history of racism

1:25:31

and its present day effects, removing

1:25:34

issues about being Black and queer,

1:25:36

about incarceration, all the things that

1:25:38

are the inheritances of slavery, including

1:25:41

the way in which we've seen

1:25:43

a lack of accountability for police

1:25:45

misconduct. We can't understand

1:25:47

the present without understanding the past.

1:25:50

And all of the active tons

1:25:53

of money, Leonard Leo, who

1:25:55

is the same person who helped create

1:25:57

the list that would create a Supreme

1:26:00

Court. that would continue to erode the

1:26:02

civil rights gains. We as

1:26:04

a people and the leadership conferences,

1:26:06

a coalition has spent decades fighting

1:26:09

for, and winning by the way,

1:26:11

winning, had to stack

1:26:13

in gerrymandering supreme court to start to take

1:26:16

them away. But this is exactly the same

1:26:18

forces that have $1.6 billion

1:26:20

to get a minority of

1:26:23

the country to essentially try

1:26:25

to whitewash white supremacy, wash

1:26:28

out black history, take

1:26:31

black books off of library

1:26:33

bookshelves and school bookshelves, because

1:26:35

knowledge and information is dangerous.

1:26:37

But we know, and thanks

1:26:39

to President Joe Biden for

1:26:42

making Juneteenth a federal holiday,

1:26:44

now 90% of people's surveys

1:26:47

actually knows what Juneteenth is,

1:26:49

what it represents. That's not

1:26:51

enough, as Professor Dunn has said, but that's

1:26:53

a heck of a lot more than we

1:26:55

had three years ago. And

1:26:57

the more we insist on

1:27:00

our rights, the more we remind people

1:27:02

of our history and the power we

1:27:04

have brought, whether it's to the polls,

1:27:07

at the ballot box fighting for our voting

1:27:09

rights, which we still have to fight for

1:27:11

today, we will continue

1:27:13

to see the forces of you try

1:27:16

to dominate the majority. And that is

1:27:18

an issue for all of us, because

1:27:20

we can't have a plural

1:27:22

democracy if we are seeing

1:27:24

our people, including people who are white,

1:27:28

who are being indoctrinated about our past, our

1:27:30

present, and our future. Maya,

1:27:32

how do you, oh, go ahead. Go

1:27:35

ahead, go ahead, Professor, go ahead. I want to circle back

1:27:38

to the point that you're making about

1:27:40

the danger of not teaching the truth, not

1:27:43

teaching history. For example, my governor, the

1:27:45

scientist, does not want school kids in

1:27:47

Florida to be taught that

1:27:50

before Florida became a state, white

1:27:53

male heads of households with six acres

1:27:55

of land free in Florida, just to

1:27:57

farm it. No black male heads

1:27:59

of households. households got free land in Florida.

1:28:02

That was the beginning of imbalance in

1:28:05

wealth in Florida. So we need

1:28:07

to teach that fact. Suppose black men had

1:28:09

gotten under six acres as well as white

1:28:11

men. Would wealth differences be quite as great

1:28:13

as they are now? Of course

1:28:15

not. We need to teach that. We need

1:28:17

to have people understand why poor people, why

1:28:20

black people are more likely to be poor

1:28:22

than white people. Go back to who got

1:28:24

land. I keep going back to that issue.

1:28:26

Without land, there was no wealth building. There

1:28:28

was no growth. There was no freedom

1:28:31

without land. Maya,

1:28:34

I was gonna ask you quickly how

1:28:36

we do both, right? Cause it seems

1:28:38

like swatting back the white supremacy that

1:28:41

rears its head all the time. It

1:28:43

feels like almost every political news cycle

1:28:47

is sort of the shallow work that reminds

1:28:49

me of Whack-A-Mole. But deepening our understanding of

1:28:51

history and getting at the root causes of

1:28:53

inequality requires time

1:28:56

and effort and an equal amount

1:28:58

of tenacity. How do you sort

1:29:00

of do the shallow political combat

1:29:03

and then the deeper work? Well,

1:29:06

let me give you an example of where

1:29:08

we can bring both together. And this is

1:29:10

something that we're calling for at the Leadership

1:29:12

Conference. We know that a majority of Americans

1:29:14

actually think democracy is on the ballot. That

1:29:17

means education, learning our history, civil

1:29:19

rights laws, voting rights. We

1:29:21

need the questions to come

1:29:24

from those who are going to be

1:29:27

asking the questions at the presidential debate

1:29:29

about their positions on teaching history, about

1:29:31

their positions on book bands. What will

1:29:33

they do as president

1:29:36

around the very important issues of

1:29:39

having a diverse, equitable and inclusive

1:29:41

society, which is under attack right

1:29:43

now? Marvindad,

1:29:46

Miley. Go

1:29:49

ahead. I just want to say,

1:29:51

I don't think that what we see now

1:29:53

happening with Trumpism and the extreme, that's

1:29:56

not American, that's not us. This

1:29:58

is a thing we're going through. You watch. what happens

1:30:01

in November. Americans are going to stand up

1:30:03

and say, we want freedom to mean freedom,

1:30:05

and we don't want right-wing

1:30:07

dictatorships telling us

1:30:09

what we can and cannot teach our children.

1:30:12

Watch what happens in November. America will stand

1:30:14

up for what's right. I believe that. I

1:30:17

love ending on an optimistic note. I was going to

1:30:19

just ask that this could be continued. It's really a

1:30:22

privilege and a pleasure to talk to both of you.

1:30:24

Professor Marvin Dunn, Maya Wiley, thank you so much for

1:30:26

spending time with us today. We're going to sneak in

1:30:28

one more break. We'll be right back. An

1:30:35

update to a story we brought you

1:30:37

yesterday. Virginia Congressman Bob Good, who drew

1:30:39

Donald Trump's ire for not being Trumpy

1:30:41

enough, for supporting Ron DeSantis for about

1:30:43

15 minutes, is locked in

1:30:46

a dead heat with his Trump-backed

1:30:48

primary challenger, trailing state Senator John

1:30:50

Maguire by just over 340 votes.

1:30:53

The fate of Bob Good in

1:30:55

that race now, ironically, hinges on

1:30:57

the counting of mail-in ballots, which

1:30:59

he spent the 2020 election casting

1:31:01

doubt on. Maguire is already declaring

1:31:03

victory, but NBC News has not

1:31:05

made a prediction in the contest.

1:31:08

Elsewhere, former national security official

1:31:10

Eugene Vindman, whose actions as

1:31:12

a whistleblower led to Trump's

1:31:14

first impeachment, won his primary

1:31:16

race in Virginia. Another

1:31:18

break for us. We'll be right back. Thank

1:31:23

you so much for letting us into your

1:31:25

homes during these truly extraordinary times. We're grateful.