0:00

Time for a quick break to talk about

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McDonald's. Mornings are for mixing and matching at

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McDonald's. For just $3, mix and match two

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of your favorite breakfast items, including a

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sausage McMuffin. Tonight

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Arizona Supreme Court upholds a one

0:29

hundred and sixty year old abortion

0:31

ban. The impact on women's health

0:33

care in the state and the

0:35

November election then is Corporate America

0:38

in denial? A lot of second

0:40

Trump term they may like deregulation.

0:42

What about Democracy Plus new reporting

0:44

on Jared Kushner as investment fund

0:47

and possible conflicts of interest in

0:49

his father in Law read: takes

0:51

the White House as the eleventh

0:54

hour gets underway on this. Tuesday

0:56

night. Good

1:04

evening. Once again, I'm seventy role

1:06

live from Thirty Rockefeller Center and

1:08

we are now two hundred and

1:10

ten days away from the election.

1:12

Today, Arizona Supreme Court decided to

1:14

take the state back to eighteen

1:17

Sixty Four. It ruled that a

1:19

century and a half old abortion

1:21

law can come back into effect.

1:23

It bans all abortions except ones

1:25

that would say the life of

1:27

the mother, but those rules are

1:29

a little bit hazy. The decision

1:32

comes just one day. After Donald

1:34

Trump proclaimed that the abortion law should

1:36

be up to the states and it

1:38

puts the issue front and center in

1:40

a battleground state that could decide control

1:43

of the Senate and the White House,

1:45

here's my colleague Laura Jarrett with more.

1:48

Tonight, a legal fight over

1:50

abortion, any critical battleground state

1:52

fanning the flames of a

1:54

political fire gaining ground towards

1:57

November Arizona's highest court. Today

1:59

back law. The band's nearly all

2:01

the boar since and carries up to

2:03

five years in prison for doctors who

2:05

perform one, the conservative majority on the

2:07

court reviving, and eighteen Sixty Four loss

2:09

that lay dormant for decades under Roe

2:11

V Wade. Are you kidding me? I'm

2:13

an atheist. Sixty four hours before women

2:15

even have the right to vote, We

2:17

are totally going backwards as he leaves

2:20

your old Arizona resident of men were

2:22

all men are fighting back tears on

2:24

forever. Say that. I

2:26

didn't think that they would say that as I really

2:28

do. They get the state democratic. Attorney General

2:30

on the see won't enforce

2:33

the law. It as one

2:35

of the worst decisions in

2:37

the history of the Arizona

2:39

Supreme Court. No woman or

2:41

doctor will be prosecuted under

2:43

this draconian law. I will

2:45

fight like hell. It does

2:47

give me comfort, I mean

2:49

on reassuring in a time

2:52

of uncertainty. Lawyer Doctor Dave

2:54

real good Read on Rothys

2:56

practice in the state for

2:58

over two decades. I don't

3:00

know. What? The law will be.

3:02

it is so early to know. How

3:04

that's gonna play out a today's

3:06

decision? A win for your side

3:09

it is. The advocacy group Alliance

3:11

Defending Freedom says the existing sixteen

3:13

with law doesn't go far enough

3:15

and even if the state a

3:17

D won't enforce stricter than other

3:20

prosecutors still can. Is our position

3:22

that county attorney's have the authority

3:24

to enforce this law? This leaders

3:26

court fight over abortion only raising

3:29

the political sakes in an election

3:31

year Arizona long a republican strongholds

3:33

now the latest stay on track

3:36

to get a constitutional amendment on

3:38

the November ballot creating a fundamental

3:40

right to abortion is it passes

3:43

the vice president. Also. Home to

3:45

travel to the see for this friday

3:47

looking state. As a state where they're

3:49

passing these abortion bans and the majority

3:52

the legislators to and are men. Yelling

3:54

women want to do with their body. And. a

3:56

kind of can i had it with that while

3:58

the former president and many GOP lawmakers

4:01

continued to avoid talk

4:03

of a national abortion

4:05

ban, instead backing state-level

4:07

restrictions. Some states are taking

4:09

conservative views and some are less than conservative, but

4:11

it's back with the states, it's back with the

4:13

people. Supreme Court has turned it back over to

4:15

voters. We've got to let voters sort through this.

4:21

With that, let's get smarter with the

4:23

help of our lead-off panel this evening,

4:25

NBC Capitol Hill correspondent Ali Vitale. Simone

4:27

Sanders Townsend, co-host of the MSNBC morning

4:30

show The Weeknd. She's also the former

4:32

chief spokesperson for Vice President Harris. And

4:34

Reid Galen joins us, co-founder of the

4:37

Lincoln Project. He has worked on a

4:39

number of GOP campaigns, including John McCain,

4:41

Arnold Schwarzenegger, and George W. Bush. Simone,

4:44

Trump said, leave it up to the

4:46

states. This

4:49

is what that looks like, a

4:51

civil war era law now

4:53

back into effect. How

4:56

poorly thought out was

4:58

this position he put out

5:00

yesterday, especially now? Well,

5:03

I will just say this. I think that

5:06

Donald Trump is doing and saying whatever he

5:08

thinks can get him elected. He has no

5:10

principle. There is no ground for him to

5:12

stand on because the ground shifts and moves

5:14

according to what he thinks will get him

5:16

what he wants. In the statement that he

5:19

put out yesterday in the video and whatnot,

5:21

he talked about you have to do, you

5:23

have to understand what's on people's hearts but

5:25

you, it's about winning. Essentially, he said

5:27

it's about winning. That's what he's focused on. So how

5:29

is this a winning strategy? This is not a

5:32

winning strategy here. This is insane. Women

5:34

in Arizona right now, now there's a 14

5:37

day stay on this decision,

5:39

but in 14 days, you

5:42

can't get an abortion if you need

5:44

one in Arizona. The video that the

5:47

Biden campaign put out this week featured

5:49

Amanda Zorowski. Amanda Zorowski had a miscarriage.

5:51

And because she was having a miscarriage, and

5:53

I'm sorry to be graphic here, but all

5:56

the things in that path, she needed an

5:58

abortion. She could

6:00

not poison its poison. It's rotting in your body.

6:02

And that poison rotted in Amanda Zorowski's body to

6:04

the point where now she and her husband, she

6:06

almost died from sepsis twice, and now she and

6:09

her husband may not be able to have children

6:11

again. That is not only the reality of Amanda

6:13

Zorowski or women in Texas, that is the reality

6:15

of women all across the South. And it will

6:17

be the reality of women all across America if

6:19

Donald Trump is reelected president. But Simone, I close

6:21

my eyes and I think Donald Trump makes this

6:24

argument, and all sorts of people do. They

6:26

say, leave it to the states, right? The small government

6:28

people that say, let the states decide. Yeah, but

6:30

black women, I'm very concerned about this. Let

6:32

the states decide. Let the states decide. But

6:35

is this what the state of

6:37

Arizona wants? A law that

6:39

was put in place at a time

6:41

when slavery was still legal? Before

6:44

Arizona was a state and at a

6:46

time when women could not vote, when

6:48

women were essentially property. Okay, and

6:50

is that what the people in Arizona want today? Well,

6:52

you know what? The people in Arizona can make their

6:54

voices heard at the ballot box. Two of the four

6:56

justices that voted to uphold this

6:59

abortion ban, they are on the ballot for

7:01

reelection. In Arizona, Supreme Court

7:03

justices are appointed by the governor and then

7:05

after a couple years, they are then elected.

7:08

I suggest that the people of Arizona, when they

7:10

go out to check their ballot box, they not

7:12

only check the top of the ticket and down

7:14

ballot for senators and Congress folks

7:16

and their state legislative folks, but they look

7:18

at that ballot amendment that will likely be

7:20

on the ballot in Arizona to protect abortion

7:22

rights. And also take a look at those

7:24

Supreme Court justices because your vote

7:27

can make a difference. Reed, Trump

7:29

is acting like he doesn't want to get

7:31

involved and let's let the states decide, but

7:33

none of this would be happening if

7:35

he did not set the stage for Roe

7:37

to be overturned. He did that. Right.

7:42

Well, let the states decide is what Dobbs

7:44

is, right? That's the Dobbs decision is to

7:46

let states decide. And we've seen how many

7:48

states have decided. Let me just say for

7:50

so many of, you know, if we have

7:52

erstwhile Republicans like myself watching out there, remember,

7:54

this is the thing that we used to

7:56

hate. Unelected judges, so

7:58

to speak. appointed judges legislating

8:01

from the bench. We used

8:03

to hate that. We used to hate the idea

8:05

of the long arm of government coming into our

8:07

homes and telling us what we could and couldn't

8:09

do. And then we should

8:12

just say this for history's sake. It's

8:14

the anniversary of Robert E. Lee surrendering

8:16

to General Ulysses S. Grant. This

8:19

law was passed before that event

8:21

took place. Think about that. Think

8:24

about how long ago this was. So this

8:26

isn't even originalist. This is like pre-original. It's

8:28

just like big bang legal theory at this

8:30

point. Ali, did

8:32

down-ballot Republicans want abortion to be

8:34

this high profile of an issue?

8:39

No. And when Reid makes

8:41

the point about what Republicans are saying

8:44

right now, if Republicans liked this, they

8:46

would be talking about it. Instead,

8:48

in Congress today, I heard a

8:50

lot of Republicans in frontline districts,

8:52

for example, like Congress and Juan Siscomone,

8:54

saying that this was not a good

8:57

ruling and that it was in some

8:59

ways dangerous for women and that he

9:01

preferred the 15-week thing. For a lot

9:03

of these lawmakers, this is a problem

9:05

for them, especially in a swing state

9:08

like Arizona. We all know lawmakers. If

9:10

they liked it, they'd be talking about

9:12

it aggressively. They're trying

9:14

to pick distance between themselves and this. I also

9:16

think that someone who covered Trump back in 2015

9:19

and 2016, I was there when he said

9:22

that women should be punished

9:24

for seeking abortion care. He then had to

9:27

walk that back. But I think what Siscomone

9:29

is saying is right. For Trump, abortion

9:31

as an issue has never been

9:33

a political motivator for him. It's not

9:36

something that he himself seems to have any

9:38

deeply held values on, unlike, for example, the

9:40

person who was his running mate in 2016

9:42

and 2020, Meg Pence. Instead,

9:46

for Trump, abortion is a

9:48

means to a political end and a political

9:50

victory. It's while we're watching his campaign team

9:52

put out the statements that they are saying

9:54

this is a safe issue. Here's the thing

9:56

about making it a state's issue when you

9:58

have a patchwork of rules across the country,

10:00

you're watching the states where abortion

10:02

is accessible. I'm thinking states like

10:04

Colorado, for example, where you're seeing

10:07

an influx of people traveling into

10:09

the state trying to seek care.

10:11

It's why you're going to end

10:13

up seeing later term abortions, which

10:15

are the thing that Republicans are now trying

10:17

to attack Democrats for. Later term abortions, if

10:19

you're talking about up until, as

10:22

Republicans like to say, the moment of birth,

10:24

that doesn't happen. Late term abortions are about

10:26

1% of abortions that

10:28

you have. And those are largely

10:30

done in the case of the

10:32

life of the mother being in

10:34

danger or fetal inviability. That's not

10:36

the question here. When you have

10:38

the patchwork, you're going to see later term

10:41

abortions because people have to travel further. There

10:43

are more barriers to their care. It sort

10:45

of gets towards the reality that Republicans are

10:47

saying they don't want. And again, as a

10:49

political issue, women can vote now. And we've

10:51

seen what they do with that. But

10:54

read this argument that this isn't

10:56

Trump's true views. It's just about

10:59

political victory and political strategy. How

11:01

is this a political victory beyond

11:03

the primaries? The majority of the

11:06

country is vehemently opposed to this.

11:10

Well, and look, I think this is a really

11:12

important point, Stephanie, and the one that Ali just

11:15

made too, is that this is where Trump is

11:17

stuck between a rock and a hard place on

11:19

this issue, which is he tried to weasel out.

11:21

And believe me, yesterday was just weasel words, trying

11:23

to figure out something to say

11:25

that was going to appease enough of his

11:27

evangelical base. But now you've got Kerry Lake,

11:29

right? Not exactly a moderate saying, you know,

11:32

she's against this ruling in Arizona. So you

11:34

know what Ruben Gallego's campaign is going to

11:36

do? They're going to have her saying we

11:38

should go by the 1864 law.

11:41

No, we shouldn't. And now Republicans are flip

11:43

floppers on abortion. And you know who stays

11:45

home when that happens? Christian

11:47

evangelicals, right? This is their issue. It's all they

11:50

care about. It's how they see the rest of

11:52

the world on the way to their weird dominionism.

11:54

And so what I would say is this is

11:56

that for Trump, he has been trying to get

11:59

out of this this thing for weeks, months

12:01

now. But again, how many more videos do

12:03

we have to have of him saying, I

12:05

killed Roe, I killed Roe, I killed Roe,

12:07

I killed Roe. And now here you have

12:09

it, right? We're literally back to the Civil

12:11

War. Simone, this

12:14

is the state of Arizona. How

12:16

much does this issue pull from

12:18

the focus, which is immigration, immigration,

12:20

immigration? Look, I think for any

12:22

of the border states, and now not even just

12:25

the border states, if you live in Chicago, Denver,

12:27

New York, Washington, D.C., places across the country, immigration,

12:30

I think is still top of mind,

12:32

particularly what is happening at the border.

12:34

But I think this is just as equally

12:37

as important. When you poll folks, poll after

12:39

poll, you sit in focus groups, you

12:42

hear people reacting to this kind of

12:44

news, whether we're talking about the Alabama

12:46

IVF ruling or this ruling coming out

12:48

of Arizona, people are

12:50

concerned. They're concerned about their rights and their

12:53

freedoms and what this means for them practically.

12:55

We talk often about the exceptions. You heard

12:57

Donald Trump really leaning on the exceptions the

12:59

other day. Now I want to pause and

13:01

say, Joe Biden has been very clear

13:04

on this issue. Joe Biden is going to protect a

13:06

woman's right to make decisions about her own body. And

13:08

he has said, if a Congress sends him a bill

13:10

to codify Roe into law, he will do that. The

13:13

only way that is happening, if you reelect Joe Biden

13:15

and Kamala Harris, if Democrats hold

13:17

the Senate, okay, and Democrats got to

13:19

take the House. So this is a

13:21

down ballad strategy to protect reproductive

13:23

freedom across the country. But to be

13:26

very clear, these exceptions for life of

13:28

a mother, health of a mother, they're

13:30

really bad, though. But this is it.

13:32

They're really, exactly. They're very vague. And

13:34

who decides who decides that the exception

13:37

matters? Is it the doctor? Because for

13:39

Amanda Zirocki, the doctor wasn't enough

13:41

for Kate Cox. The doctors weren't enough. The

13:43

doctor said these women needed abortions and they

13:45

could not get them because the state said

13:47

they could not. My goodness, I

13:49

want to go back to talking about Carrie

13:51

Lake, obviously Republican there. She

13:53

is now saying that she opposes

13:56

this ruling. But guess

13:58

what? We're just going to turn to the. tape

14:00

because I want to share what she

14:03

said exactly two years ago about

14:05

this very law. Watch this. Obviously,

14:08

I think Roe v. Wade should be overturned

14:10

and I think the Supreme Court, I have a good

14:13

feeling that they're going to do the right thing this time.

14:16

And again, I'll echo what Steve just said. We

14:18

have a great law on the books right now.

14:20

If that happens, we will be a state where

14:23

we will not be taking the lives of

14:25

our unborn anymore. Ali,

14:28

I'm not voicing an opinion here. Why

14:32

would voters take either Kerry Lake

14:35

or Donald Trump at their current

14:37

word on an abortion, a

14:39

life or death issue when they've got a

14:41

track record of changing their stance? And

14:46

look, certainly tagging Republicans as flip-floppers on

14:49

this is going to be a central

14:51

strategy. I think that Wade is right when

14:53

you forecast that that's something that Ruben Diago

14:55

is going to be doing in this Senate

14:57

race. And of course, it's something that the

14:59

Biden campaign has already proven is going to

15:01

continue to tag Donald Trump with. Just the

15:03

fact that they have him on pace

15:06

being able to take credit for overturning

15:08

Roe allows them to do several

15:10

ads of what they already did with

15:13

Amanda's ad this morning, showing women who

15:15

have been negatively impacted by abortion restrictions

15:17

and then tying it directly to Donald

15:19

Trump in his own words. The

15:22

question, though, is better asked when you think

15:24

about what you said, which is, is it

15:26

immigration or is it abortion that voters are

15:28

deciding on in Arizona or across the country?

15:31

And that's when this becomes an issue that it's

15:33

too early to tell if it's going to be

15:35

the decider. That being said, and I've

15:37

said this before and I'll say it again, angry women who

15:39

are full of

15:41

rage tend to channel that into something.

15:44

We have seen it in red states

15:46

across the country like Kentucky and Ohio. And

15:48

I do think that if that's the track

15:50

record that we're seeing, it's a limited set

15:52

of data that we're talking about. But it

15:55

is one that is being consistently borne out

15:57

in the post-Roe era. Biden

16:00

ads and his war chest of

16:02

campaign dollars are going to be

16:04

needed to jog people's memory. Susan

16:07

Glasser writes in The New Yorker

16:09

that this election will come down

16:11

to Trump's amnesia advantage. The fact

16:13

that people so easily seem to

16:15

forget what he did, what he

16:18

said as president, and the impact

16:20

it's having today. How do Democrats

16:22

combat that amnesia? Just

16:24

power through with ads day in and day

16:27

out? Well,

16:29

I think it has to be holistic, but I think that's a part

16:31

of it. And listen, he

16:33

hasn't been better since he left office. He's

16:35

been worse since he left office. And we

16:38

should never forget how he left office or

16:40

almost didn't leave office. So I think the

16:42

rapid response team on the Biden campaign is

16:44

just terrific. They are pushing this stuff out

16:46

all day, every day, especially four years ago,

16:48

the craziness that Trump

16:50

was saying from the briefing room at the

16:52

White House. And so I think that this

16:54

is not just that there's a Trump amnesia

16:56

thing, although they do need everybody to forget,

16:58

frankly, that he was ever president, because he's an

17:01

insider now, right? No matter what you

17:03

want, you're a former president, you're an insider. But I would

17:05

also say this is that people largely

17:07

aren't yet paying attention. Those swing voters

17:09

who are ultimately going to make the

17:11

decision, something like Arizona, they'll pay attention

17:14

to. Trump four years ago, you know,

17:16

will they pay as much attention as

17:18

they should? Not yet. But

17:20

I'll say this, the one thing I've seen, especially

17:22

amongst my Democratic friends, is that they don't tend

17:24

to start acting until they panic. And

17:26

so I would say that panic will be induced sometime

17:28

in the next six to eight weeks, when

17:31

surveys are still close, which they will be. There's

17:34

no question about that. And then what will happen

17:36

is the Biden campaign will turn everything

17:38

on. In July, we're going to have

17:40

Trump's convention. That's going to

17:42

be banana phones crazy, the likes of which none

17:45

of us have yet seen. And it's not going

17:47

to get better between now and November. And so,

17:49

yeah, this is the strategy of

17:51

the Trump campaign, but it's not going to last.

17:54

All right, then. Ali, Simone Reed. Thank you all

17:56

so much. We come back. Sometimes there's

17:58

a lot of things that. CEOs seem

18:00

to like to hear, but have

18:03

they really thought about

18:05

what it would look like if Trump

18:07

regained power? Deregulation doesn't

18:09

mean much if you don't

18:11

have a democracy. And later,

18:13

new reporting putting a microscope on Jared

18:15

Kushner's foreign business dealings. We're going to

18:18

look at the growing conflicts of interest

18:20

and why he says they don't matter.

18:22

The 11th hour just getting underway on

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a Tuesday night. The

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angie.com. That's A-N-G-I, or

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download the app today. The

19:08

outcome of the 2024 election will

19:10

have wide-ranging consequences, and the business

19:12

sector is preparing for all of

19:14

them. But it's corporate America in denial

19:17

about the dangers of losing our

19:19

democracy and the potential of that

19:21

happening in Donald Trump's second term.

19:24

For more, I want to welcome Rick

19:26

Newman, Yahoo Finance columnist, and Dr. Rachel

19:29

Klinefeld, an advisor at Unite to Protect

19:31

Democracy, an expert on democracy and the

19:33

rule of law globally. Rachel,

19:35

you have studied the impact of populism

19:37

on business. What do we need to

19:40

know? So

19:42

all over the world, business knows that

19:44

left-wing populism is a problem for them.

19:47

Left-wing populists overheat their economies. They

19:49

give away government money to

19:51

win elections, and then they

19:54

spark inflation, and the growth

19:56

crashes. So you get a small uptick, and

19:58

then a big crash, and a lot more.

20:00

volatility. What they don't seem

20:02

to know is that right-wing authoritarians or

20:04

right-wing populists do precisely the same thing.

20:07

The ideology, right

20:09

or left, doesn't really apply to

20:11

populists. Populists care about power. And

20:14

so what we see in modern

20:16

day populism is whether you're talking

20:18

about Venezuela or Nicaragua, or Hungary

20:20

or India, whether it's left or

20:22

right, we see the same set

20:24

of activities, personalization of power, centralization

20:26

of power, and because you've got

20:28

a personalized, centralized power, really

20:31

whimsical decision making that causes

20:33

a lot of volatility, more stock

20:35

market crashes, more risk, and really

20:37

unpredictable behavior. Rick, when I

20:39

talk to Fortune 500 CEOs, they

20:42

talk about Trump being unpredictable,

20:44

they don't like his crazy,

20:46

but they sure do like the tax cuts

20:49

and the deregulation. And when I bring up

20:51

the risk of losing our democracy, they

20:54

seem to think it's not a big

20:56

deal, it's not going to happen, our

20:58

institutions will hold. What are you hearing?

21:01

Yeah, well, yeah, of course, and,

21:03

you know, taxes are going to be a big

21:05

deal during the next presidency, no matter who wins.

21:08

We've got the individual income taxes, it's

21:10

firing, by the way, that's the top

21:12

rate for a lot of these CEOs,

21:15

they know that there's a chance that

21:17

Biden will raise their personal taxes. And

21:19

they do like the deregulation under Trump,

21:21

you know, the counterweight, that stuff is

21:24

they hate Trump's trade wars. I mean,

21:26

they really dislike that and Trump is

21:28

promising more of that. And you know

21:30

what, I think of corporate America

21:33

as basically being amoral. And

21:35

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

21:37

I mean, corporate America does not

21:40

swing elections in the United States for the most

21:42

part, I mean, they give a lot of money

21:44

to both sides. I mean, if you want to

21:46

hate the corporate sector, just go

21:48

back and you know, there's this watchdog group called

21:50

CRU that has been tracking corporate

21:53

contributions to the so called sedition, sedition

21:56

caucus in the Congress, the

21:58

147 members of Congress. Congress

22:00

who voted not to certify Joe Biden as

22:02

the president in 2021. A

22:06

lot of companies gave money to those members

22:08

of Congress. They stopped for a while and

22:10

then they started giving money to them again.

22:12

And the reason they do that, we all

22:14

know this, is because those members of Congress

22:16

hold key committee posts. They can influence legislation

22:18

that affects these companies. So I think these

22:20

companies are basically amoral. If anything,

22:22

I detect a little bit of more passivity

22:24

this time around. They're just really sitting on

22:26

the fence and they, at the end of

22:28

the day, they want to be on the

22:30

winning side. I mean, Steve Schwarzman, the CEO

22:32

of Blackstone, is a good example. He supported

22:34

Trump in 2020. He gave

22:36

a lot of money and he says he's sitting this

22:38

one out. He's not supporting Trump this

22:40

time around. We heard the same thing from the billionaire.

22:43

In the same interview that he said, he

22:45

just said the same thing. In the same

22:48

interview that Steve Schwarzman said he's sitting this

22:50

one out, he said that our borders are

22:52

wide open. So we'll just take a pause

22:54

on Steve Schwarzman's latest comments. Rachel,

22:56

you're quoted in that New York

22:58

Times analysis of another Trump term

23:01

saying the business community here does

23:03

not understand what is about to

23:05

hit them. What could

23:07

we see? It's amazing. That's right. If

23:10

you're a CEO, your number one job,

23:12

it doesn't even matter what your company

23:14

specializes in is to be a

23:16

risk manager. And the fact that they are

23:19

not assessing this risk is astounding. That's

23:22

exactly right. I think a lot of businesses,

23:24

just as Rick says, they're looking out

23:26

for their own income tax, they're cooperating

23:28

on their personal, they're hoping for some

23:31

deregulation, and they think it's going to be business

23:33

as usual. Because the first

23:35

term was frankly, fairly business as usual other

23:37

than the terrorist uptick

23:39

until Trump's disastrous handling of

23:41

COVID, of course, when everything

23:43

crashed. But what

23:45

they don't understand is that populists, when

23:47

they come back to power like

23:50

Hungary and Orban act

23:52

differently, they're much more confident. They

23:55

have a different group of people behind them.

23:57

And Trump's first term, he had

23:59

all of the normal Republicans who come

24:01

to government every time there's

24:03

another Republican administration, many

24:05

of them very close to business. But

24:08

now, just as what we see overseas,

24:11

when you have populists come back and people

24:13

know how they govern and they know that

24:15

they don't really respect the rule of law,

24:17

people who do respect the rule of law tend to

24:19

not want to serve in those administrations that are worried

24:21

about what might happen to them. And so

24:23

what you get is a very different kind of

24:25

loyalist, people who are willing to

24:27

bend the rules because what these

24:30

populists do, again, looking globally, is

24:32

they tend to bend the rules for themselves. You

24:34

get a lot more crony of them. You get

24:36

a lot more corruption generally within the family, the

24:39

kinds of things Jared Kushner has been doing during

24:41

the first term, get much more flamboyant.

24:44

In a second term, in Hungary under Orban,

24:46

businesses think they're on top of the world

24:48

and then suddenly they're forced to sell to

24:51

a crony or they're forced to sell to

24:53

a family member because the government tweaks the

24:55

regulations, puts a cap on their money

24:57

that they can make by capping prices and

25:00

forces them to take an offer they can't

25:02

refuse. So a second term for populists looks

25:04

a lot different than the first. And I

25:06

think we can probably expect that here. I

25:09

think about all the companies, all the investors who

25:11

never will take Russian money. They don't ever want

25:13

to do business with a country where they can't

25:15

trust the rule of law. And

25:18

of course, Vladimir Putin, the world leader

25:20

of choice for Donald Trump. Rick, before we

25:22

go, I've got to get your

25:24

latest take on Donald Trump's new

25:26

publicly traded company, Truth Social. What's

25:29

your take on where things stand right now? I

25:31

talked to one CEO about this last week

25:33

and he said, it's not a business. You

25:35

can't have $58 million in losses in a

25:37

year and only $4 million in revenue. I

25:39

mean, for a publicly traded company, $4 million

25:42

in revenue is only a little

25:44

bit better than zero. So

25:47

this is a binary bet for people who want to

25:49

buy this stock on whether Donald Trump is going to

25:51

win the presidency. If he does win, DJT,

25:55

as the ticker symbol for this company is known,

25:58

it might have a future if he loses. It's

26:00

toast. And Steph,

26:02

I know you yourself have pointed out that it's

26:04

very hard to do short trading in this stock

26:06

because there aren't enough shares, which means the

26:09

market purchase that would normally be there

26:11

to drive this stock down is not

26:13

there. So we could see a little

26:15

bump in this stock in the foreseeable

26:17

future. But I think as we

26:19

get closer to the election, my best guess is

26:21

this company is going to tank because people are

26:23

just not going to be willing to hold. I

26:25

mean, this is a great phrase I saw on

26:28

a Reddit thread. MAGA

26:30

bag holders. Who wants to

26:32

be the MAGA bag holder

26:34

holding DJT stock long if

26:36

Trump loses? I'm

26:39

not putting my money in it. If viewers want to put

26:41

their money in and bet on a Trump win, so be

26:43

it. Those focusing on this

26:46

company more than anyone, more than Wall Street

26:48

analysts, it's the SEC. Rick, thank

26:50

you for being here, Rachel, as well. When we

26:52

return, Jared Kushner cashing in

26:54

big time on the relationships he built

26:56

while Trump and Jared himself were in

26:59

the White House. We're going to take

27:01

a look at the unusual dependence on

27:03

foreign sources he has and what

27:06

could happen. Not much. The

27:08

Trump to be elected again. The eleventh

27:10

hour continues. Let's

27:19

take a deep breath on this one. Ready? Jared

27:24

Kushner's multi-billion dollar, multi-billion

27:26

dollar, he had no

27:29

experience investing a single dollar

27:31

until after Trump

27:34

left office. But Donald, Jared Kushner's

27:36

multi-billion dollar investment firm could be

27:38

facing serious conflicts of interest if

27:40

his father-in-law retakes the White House.

27:43

The New York Times reports that

27:45

99% of the money placed with

27:47

him by investors has

27:49

come from foreign sources. That includes

27:52

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab

27:54

Emirates, all of whom he

27:56

worked directly with during his time in

27:58

the Trump White House. My

28:00

friend Tim O'Brien joins me. He's a senior

28:03

executive editor at Bloomberg Opinion and of course

28:05

a Trump biographer. He's also one

28:07

of the only people who has actually

28:09

seen Donald Trump's tax returns. Plus he

28:11

wrote the book, Trump Nation, the art

28:14

of being the Donald. Tim

28:16

Jared Kushner, he now says

28:18

he is confident

28:20

that if Donald Trump is

28:22

reelected, all decisions his father-in-law

28:24

made would be based on

28:27

what is best for the

28:29

country and not family business

28:31

interests. Is he

28:33

laughing at us saying that? Let's start with

28:35

the beginning of the Trump administration when

28:38

his sister went to Asia and

28:40

showed an org chart with her brother's

28:42

face on it and the White House as

28:45

she was pitching real estate business and

28:47

why you should move to the U.S.

28:49

because you could get a visa here

28:51

or the end of the Trump administration

28:54

while Trump was leading into January 6

28:56

when Jared was in the Middle East

28:58

with Steve Mnuchin raising money for their

29:00

next ventures. Is he laughing in our

29:02

face trying to say something like this?

29:06

I think it's even worse than him

29:08

laughing in our face, Steph. I think

29:11

he just assumes that everyone is

29:13

stupid and everyone isn't

29:15

paying attention. And if you

29:17

just pick through a number of

29:19

things, the arc of his own career

29:21

prior to being in the White House and then

29:23

what happened while he was in the White House, it

29:26

just knocks the foundations

29:28

out of this

29:30

ridiculous explanation he gives

29:32

for something that is nothing more

29:35

than influence peddling and raw financial

29:37

conflicts of interest. He

29:39

famously got into Harvard after his father

29:41

made a $2.5 million donation to Harvard.

29:45

He came out of Harvard fully

29:48

armed with consultancy and buzzwords

29:50

about business and being a

29:52

can-do young man, etc., etc.,

29:54

with again having very little

29:56

to show for it other

29:58

than his families. own

30:00

wealth is this enormous cushion that got

30:02

him launched into the world, which by

30:05

the way, is very similar to Donald

30:07

Trump's own trajectory. But here's the problem.

30:09

He buys the New York of... Yeah.

30:12

Here's the problem. He

30:14

is now a very rich man. Since

30:16

he left the Trump White House, he did

30:18

get $2 billion from MBS. So

30:21

we might be stupid. We are paying

30:24

attention, but we might actually be stupid.

30:26

Because if these conflicts of interest that

30:28

he clearly has are

30:30

not illegal, if they're

30:33

merely frowned upon, he's

30:35

going to keep on trucking and laugh his

30:37

way all the way to the bank, which

30:39

he has done over the last three years.

30:43

As did Trump. And the problem with this

30:45

is that we do not have... Even

30:49

if we are fully aware of what's going

30:51

on and it's deeply baked into our consciousness,

30:55

that all they are doing is

30:57

feathering their wallet based on White

30:59

House access or the ability to

31:01

shape national policy. The reason it

31:03

goes on is because the executive

31:05

branch in the US government is

31:07

not subject to a rigorous slate

31:09

of conflict of interest rules, as

31:11

many other parts of the government

31:13

are. By the way, the

31:15

Supreme Court is exempt from a lot of these

31:18

rules and we've seen the problems that emerge there.

31:20

That's one of the lessons we've learned from

31:22

the Trump era in a

31:24

number of ways, is that we don't

31:26

have the structures around this office to

31:29

rein in this kind of behavior. We've seen

31:31

it. We just have to address

31:33

it. Congress needs to address it and

31:36

the regulatory structure needs to address it.

31:39

And until we do, they're going to

31:41

keep doing this. I think what is

31:43

the most aggravating about Jared Kushner is

31:45

this tabulum that comes out of his

31:48

mouth to explain it. In the Time

31:50

Story today, where he acknowledges that the

31:53

business interests he's enjoying now came directly

31:56

out of his experience in the White

31:58

House, he simply, yeah. He's presenting

32:00

it as if it's anodyne and it's just

32:02

a fact of existence, when in fact it's

32:05

a grotesque problem. It's

32:07

a grotesque problem that our current government

32:09

has done almost nothing to solve for.

32:12

During the Trump administration, when we saw all

32:14

of this grotesque business, you and I talked

32:16

about it all the time, right? The

32:19

Biden administration and Democrats said, we need

32:21

to get this man out of the

32:23

White House because we need to change

32:25

the rules so this never happens again.

32:27

The rules were vague because there was

32:29

never someone in office like a Donald

32:31

Trump who would abuse power the way

32:33

he did. Well, he lost and

32:35

then none of the rules were changed. And

32:40

on top of it, we don't call this for

32:42

what it is. It's not an investment by the

32:45

Saudis, it's a bribe. They're

32:47

giving an untested person who has

32:49

absolutely no track record as an

32:52

investor a lush mountain

32:54

of money that he's allowed to

32:56

glean huge fees from. And the only

32:58

reason he's getting that money is his

33:00

proximity to a past president who

33:03

may be a future president. And

33:05

it's a hedge by foreign governments that

33:07

they can influence policy through Jared Kushner.

33:10

Even if we call it what it

33:12

is, guess what? Jared can

33:14

just turn the news off. He can throw

33:16

the newspaper out. There

33:19

are no consequences for this

33:21

behavior. So

33:24

where are the fools here? Well,

33:27

I mean, I think the entire Trump era

33:29

though, Steph, is a lesson in why we

33:31

have to quickly and robustly

33:33

change these rules. And that's not going

33:35

to happen until you get a change

33:37

of a controlling Congress and

33:40

you get people that actually look at

33:42

everything that's happened in the Trump administration

33:44

and every single loophole that he and

33:46

his family members have walked through, including

33:49

Jared Kushner and his former Treasury Secretary,

33:51

Steve Mnuchin. Both of them

33:53

are reaping business out of their proximity to

33:55

the White House. Well, here's what I can

33:57

tell you, Tim. At this very moment... A

34:00

current sitting member of Congress just said to me,

34:03

in my remaining time in Congress,

34:05

I am rolling out big bipartisan

34:07

legislation on influence peddling that would

34:09

address this very thing. So guess

34:11

what? Congress is watching, maybe they're

34:13

listening, maybe something will get done,

34:15

my friend. Thank you so much

34:17

for joining us. Thanks, Steph. When

34:20

we come back, a

34:22

very, very serious conversation. Losing

34:24

a child is never, it's not

34:27

just not easy, it's your

34:29

worst nightmare. Our

34:32

very special next guest opens up after

34:34

the most tragic loss of his daughter. He

34:37

talks about the memories and the grief left

34:39

behind, and a new

34:41

four-legged friend, an unexpected one. We're

34:43

gonna bring a friend to the show when we come back. You

34:49

can start your day off right when

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you find a professional on Angie to get

34:54

your plumbing right first. Connect

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with skilled professionals to get all your

35:00

home projects done well. Visit angie.com. You

35:02

can do this when you Angie that.

35:05

You know David Frum from his political analysis

35:08

in the Atlantic and on this network, but

35:10

right now, he's what

35:12

no one should ever, ever be. A

35:14

grieving father. In February, his

35:17

beautiful daughter, Amanda, excuse me,

35:19

Miranda died suddenly, leaving him,

35:21

as he puts it, with grief, memories,

35:24

and her beloved, Ringo, loyal

35:27

Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. And

35:30

David has written some extraordinary words

35:33

about this devastating time, and

35:35

I'm honored to have him join us right now. David

35:39

is a staff writer for the Atlantic and

35:41

former speech writer for President George W. Bush.

35:44

David, I am so terribly sorry

35:47

for your loss. It's extraordinary to

35:49

me that in this time, you

35:52

decided to share your grief, to

35:54

write about your Miranda with the world.

35:57

Tell us about her and why you've...

36:00

This path. it's amazing. Well.

36:04

I'm I couldn't not. I'm

36:07

about. To his you weeks

36:09

after Miranda died. I woke

36:11

up at four in the morning. I wake up at four in

36:13

the morning. Just what. Every morning the stairs and I had this

36:15

idea in my head about. To write about

36:17

my relationship with her dog Gringo from

36:20

my wife and your own I bought

36:22

for her and twenty eighteen and with

36:24

now inherited and and live with and

36:26

Ringo is I'm a challenging towns beast

36:28

on he's very small essentially what ten

36:30

inches high but he as a will

36:32

alliance and it was a way to

36:34

talk about something. In.

36:36

A way that was trying to be more

36:38

universal I mean is a very personal loss.

36:40

Is a world full of losses. No one

36:42

person's can command the attention of the planets.

36:45

But if you can make your store universal

36:47

and it is, it takes me with as

36:49

big as small as a Cavalier King Charles

36:51

Spaniel than people can absorb it. Share it

36:53

and and maybe the.something and then that. You

36:55

also feel. The

36:57

same way that most mornings now at four

36:59

am. What? Happens an.

37:03

Arm you have a lot of. With

37:06

his last second guessing I'm Miranda was

37:08

diagnosed with a brain tumor and twenty

37:10

attempts and ah the tumor. It was

37:12

very complicated and dangerous tumor. It was

37:15

operated on and the operation seem to

37:17

great success on but it left behind

37:19

a lot of damage to our immune

37:22

systems and she had to take very

37:24

special very delicate care of herself and

37:26

she was someone who advice and she

37:28

was a fashion model. see where I

37:31

went to War zone sashimi she was

37:33

a writer. Seats and she's a risk taker.

37:35

Arms you someone who's a convivial person. She

37:37

didn't want to live like an invalid and

37:39

so I'm couldn't. Do It. She

37:41

moved to Palm Springs and with on beaches for

37:44

the rest of her life. Maybe things could have

37:46

been a little different at least on that day.

37:48

As lesser you wake up at four in the

37:50

morning with his his regret might have been friends.

37:52

I think recovery com experience with people have lost

37:55

somebody. What if you could travel back in time

37:57

and change one thing? Could you make things different?

38:00

And those aren't rational thoughts, but those are the thoughts that crowd

38:02

the brain at four in the morning. Regina

38:04

King lost her son two years

38:06

ago, and she recently described grief

38:09

as love with nowhere to go.

38:12

Is that how you feel? Yeah, it's very

38:16

nice. That is very nice. And

38:19

I would put it another way, it's grief that perseveres,

38:22

grief that doesn't give up. And

38:25

I'm sorry, love that doesn't give up, love

38:27

that perseveres, and love that maybe won't take

38:29

no for an answer, because you

38:32

don't get a reverberation back. I

38:35

think, but it has

38:37

somewhere to go, and I think that's why I

38:40

told the story of this little dog, is

38:43

that love has

38:45

to go somewhere. You can't just put it

38:47

in the ground. You

38:49

can't just spend your life suffering,

38:51

although you will suffer forever. You have

38:54

to find some way to take the

38:56

love that you felt for someone and

38:58

direct it, make things beautiful, care for

39:00

things, care for things that were important

39:02

to her. And nothing was more important

39:04

to her than this difficult, barking dog.

39:07

You could describe him as

39:09

Miranda's last gift to

39:11

you. You said he was her

39:14

very best friend, but he basically

39:16

terrorized everyone else. What

39:19

is it like for you to now be with

39:21

Ringo day in and day out? Well,

39:25

our family joke was that Ringo would always

39:27

bark at me to do things for him.

39:29

And I said to Miranda, this dog

39:32

treats me like an

39:34

assistant. And she said,

39:36

don't flatter yourself. He's a Hollywood

39:38

dog. She lived in Los Angeles. You're not

39:40

his first assistant. You're his second assistant. You're

39:42

assistant number two. And that became my family

39:44

nickname. And so I'm

39:46

living through life as assistant number

39:48

two to this spaniel. What

39:51

I tried to do in the article, and

39:54

the reason it sort of seized me and wouldn't let

39:56

go, I wrote the first draft of the piece in

39:58

about five hours, was We've

40:01

been so surrounded by kindness and

40:04

I wanted to talk back to

40:06

people. One of the things I've heard from so

40:08

many people now who have been in these situations

40:10

and one of the things I'm really struck by

40:13

is how many people who have an intimate loss

40:15

like this describe afterwards a feeling of loneliness because

40:17

grief, if you're not the grieving person,

40:19

grief is very hard to deal with.

40:22

People are so frightened of saying the wrong things. They

40:24

say nothing. They make

40:27

the grieving person, they can treat them like

40:29

something of a pariah. We're very

40:31

thickly embedded in social networks of all kinds. We

40:33

have many good friends. I'm talking to

40:35

you on television. I will hear from people who will be kind

40:38

in almost every case. I think

40:40

of all the many, many people who are alone

40:42

in their grief and I try to give them

40:44

something back by giving them a language. Words

40:46

are my trade. It's not everybody's trade but words

40:48

are what we need. Words are all we have.

40:50

People say there are no words but if there

40:52

are no words, what is there? We have to

40:54

find some kind of word to say

40:57

some kind of something. David,

40:59

you're experiencing every

41:02

parent, every family member's

41:04

worst nightmare and

41:06

I keep thinking you then go back to

41:08

your day job which is

41:10

covering the brutal political cycle that

41:13

we are in. People

41:15

at their worst, attacking

41:17

one another, behaving in the pettiest

41:19

of ways. That

41:21

is our polarized nation right now.

41:24

How difficult is it for you to just

41:27

go back to work? Has your perspective

41:29

changed? What do you want people to

41:31

understand about what's important in this world?

41:35

Well, I haven't quite gone back because after I

41:38

finished this article about this dog, I sort of

41:40

fell silent. I mean, I find it very hard to

41:42

write about anything. I can talk to people. But you're

41:44

even reading the news. I can do a

41:48

little. Not as closely as I should. It's full

41:50

of surprises to me. You

41:53

feel like you're in a different room, in a baffled

41:55

room and that events come to you from a great

41:58

distance. The

42:00

way you pull yourself out of it, and I hope

42:03

I will pull myself out of it, is I remember

42:06

my daughter was a person of

42:08

great fierceness of belief. She had

42:10

strong beliefs, and there are things I know that

42:12

she would want me to stand up for. She

42:15

wasn't a super political person, but

42:17

she believed in the country, she believed in the

42:20

democratic ideal, she cared deeply about Israel

42:22

where she lived and nearly stayed. And

42:27

I know what she would want me to do, so I have to

42:29

find the strength to do that. She

42:31

did believe in dictators. She loved Ringo. David.

42:38

He's less of a dictator, more of a very

42:41

demanding client. Oh, I see. He's a

42:43

diva. David, thank you so, so much

42:45

for being here. Miranda is in our thoughts

42:47

tonight. And I'm so sorry for your loss.

42:49

We'll be right back. We

42:53

are all out of time, so no last thing

42:55

tonight. We get an extra special one

42:57

for you tomorrow, but for now, I

42:59

wish you a very good night. From

43:02

all of our colleagues across the networks of NBC News,

43:04

thanks for staying up late with me. I'll

43:06

see you at the

43:14

end of tonight.

43:17

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