Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / Single greatest heist - Trump would rather lose Blanche than give up your money

Transcript

Single greatest heist - Trump would rather lose Blanche than give up your money · THE DAILY BRIEF

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Good evening through New York. I'm Chris Hayes.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: After years of searching, Donald Trump finally found an attorney general
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: who would act as his personal lawyer. Todd Blanche, his
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: actual former personal criminal defense attorney. He's already shielded Trump
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: from the law and brought the law down on Trump's critics.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: But Blanche's confirmation bid appears to be dead in the
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: water tonight, at least as of now, because two Republican
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: senators are withholding their support. That's because the White House
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: and Blant refuse to rule out their most corrupt, unpopular
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: plan yet to steal a whole lot of your money. That,
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: of course, is the one point eight billion dollar weaponization
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: slush fund the dog agreed to create in May when
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: they settled Citizen Trump's lawsuit against President Trump's irs. The
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: plan they concocted was a one point eight billion dollar
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: taxpayer money fund that Trump could distribute to January sixth insurrectionists.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: And of course himself.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Part of that settlement that Blanche signed onto that Blanche negotiated,
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Blanche also gave Trump, his sons and their businesses total
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: immunity from prosecutions or fines or even IRS.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Audits, you may be saying.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: To yourself as I read this all I thought that
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: slush fund plan was dead. It was such a brazen
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: move that it caused a massive backlash among Democrats and Republicans,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: voters and elected officials.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Basically, no one liked it.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Multiple lawsuits sought to stop it, a federal judge blocked
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: it last month, and a hearing Blanche told Congress it
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: was dead, and yet here we are tonight. Two Republican
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: senators on the Jujusui Committee, Tom Tillis, who was retiring
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: and John Cornyn, who lost his re election primary to
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: a Trump endorsed candidate, has said that they'll vote to
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: confirm Blanche's attorney General if and only if he confirms
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: to them in writing what he said in Congress that
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: the slush fund is dead and there's no bringing it
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: back in some other form. It's a laughably simple ask,
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: and yet somehow hasn't done it, so they're blocking a
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: vote on his nomination today. Both senators told reporters that
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: someone higher up in the White House is ruining their
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: efforts to strike a deal on Todd Blanche. Todd Blanche
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: is negotiating in good faith, but it's clear that they
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: approval to get this done is above his pay grade,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: and we just need to get to that pey grade.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: I don't believe it's the president. Have you talked to
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: the President? No? What a call from him?
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Help? Yeah, he could fix this in a minute. But
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know whether who he's listening to or whether
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: he's motivated to do that. Who do you think is
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: the mysterious person in the White House who's got a
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: high pay grade? That isn't Donald Trump that's really invested
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: in the slash fund?
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's Donald Trump.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Less than an hour after those statements, Donald Trump struck
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: back quote Todd Blanche is a star and everyone knows it.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: He posted I have no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd's
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: name if they do not do the right thing, and
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: putting him back after Cornyn until out of office. In
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: other words, fine, we'll just pull his nomination back.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: He'll stay his acting.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: That's how much I care about this slush fund. Now,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: why would Trump threaten that instead of just telling Blanche
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: to write that the slush fund will never happen. Tillis
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: and Cornin seem performatively flum mixed by this very simple question.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: For instance, it makes no sense to me. Till has
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: told another reporter today, this is not popular. The President's
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: not winning on this issue. It is killing some of
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: our candidates because they can't explain it. And now it
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: looks like they weren't being honest when they said the
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: flush fund was slush fund was.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: An operative out. Let's be clear just for a second.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Here, there shouldn't be a single vote in the United
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: States Senate for Todd Blanche's a turn in general, not one.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: The guy has already corruptly abused his power in war
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: ways than you can possibly count, including personally interviewing the
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: only person convicted of aiding notorious sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: and then getting the Bureau of Prisons to waive its
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: own rules to put her in a cushy minimum security prison.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: He oversaw a series of absolutely corrupt and abusive prosecution
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: prosecutions that have been thrown out of court. And then, to
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: top it all off, he was the guy that managed
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: the president's slush fund settlement. It was a move that
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: a federal judge that amounted to quote fraud on the court,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: so egregious she referred him to the New York Bar
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Association for an investics investigation. The guy shouldn't even be
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: a barred lawyer, let alone attorney general. He has already
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: been the most corrupt attorney general in the past half century,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: more worse than John Mitchell, the Watergate guy. Cornin and
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Tellis are still Republicans. They are desperate to get to
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: yes and vote to confirm Blanche because fundamentally, that's what
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Republicans do. You know, they're part of the whole team.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: They're Trump guys, even though they say they aren't. So
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: they simply decided to take a modest stand on the
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: thing that has angered Republicans the most, which is the
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: obviously corrupt slush fund. They're just trying to get Blanche
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: to commit in writing. Just write it down, sign it.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: What he already said to Congress last month.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: We are not moving forward with the fund not moving
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: forward ever. Correct, Oh, there's no more fund then, well,
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: to the extent there was a fund. I remember the
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: fund wasn't set up yet. So if it won't progress
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: after June twelfth, that's great to hear, and we hope
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: to see this in writing.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think there'll be a transcript to
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: what I say here, so that will be writing. That
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: was kind of weird, right, like just put in writing.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Last month, when a federal judge blocked the slush fund
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: and said she'd lift that order if within a week
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: the Justice Department center a declaration filed on her penalty
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: of perjury.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: The fund was dead once and for all.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: She told the court, we just don't have the absolute
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: certainty this fund won't rearsad in another form. What do
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: you think happened there? Blanche did not give her that
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: written guarantee. Grace Meng tried nothing. Federal judge tried nothing.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Instead of acting attorney general, he is actually still approving
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: anti weaponization payouts.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: To writing defendants and convicts.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Most recently, it was a million dollar payment that the
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Justice Department made to an anti abortion activist who was
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: convicted and then pardoned by Trump last year. Why do
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: you think Todd Blanche won't permanently commit in writing to
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: no slush fund?
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Can you figure it out, dear viewer?
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Can you puzzle it through? Tillis and Corny may still
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: be wondering, but I've got a theory.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump wants your money.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: He hatched a plot for what we have called on
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: this program, the single greatest heist in American history, to
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: extract one point eight billion dollars from the federal treasury,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: like backing up it brings truck to Fort Knox and
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: then driving it straight to mar A Lago. And he
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: won't let it go because he's so close to carrying
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: out the heist.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: How much more obvious does it have to be?
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: The plan is to hand it out to people who
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: the law was weaponized against, the people who pulled off
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: January sixth, the people who beat bashed in the heads
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: of cops. But of course, of course he views himself
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: as the biggest victim. The horrific violations of my rights
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: by Crooked Joe Biden's weaponized Department of Injustice are unthinkabout.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Our country is going to hell.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: And then come after Donald Trump weaponizing the Justice Department,
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: weaponizing the FBI, never again will the immense power of
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Something I know something about I don't forget.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: The Bland settlement would also mean that Trump and his
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: sons and businesses, all of them together, never have to
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: face any future scrutiny for any past income or tax
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: returns or possible crimes.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: You think he doesn't want that very badly. Yes, it's crazy.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: From political standpoint, it is one of the least popular
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: things he has pursued. It's part of why he has
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: managed to hit his all time low in three successive
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: polls in just the last three days. Voters keep telling
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: ulsters he breaks his promises, he doesn't have their interests
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: at heart. He got me there, but what is that
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: compared to one point eight billion dollars in your pocket?
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Why do you think the guy tried to become president again?