Two employees of a bar in Dayton, Ohio, are beaten to death, and on the case is Detective Doyle Burke, who investigates a series of bizarre clues, including a citywide KKK rally and a mysterious confession letter from the Devil postmarked from hell.
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00:00All right. That's going to do it for me for now, but I will see you again tomorrow night. Now it's time for the last word with the great Lawrence O'Donnell. Good evening, Lawrence.
00:08Good evening, Rachel. We are running a little bit behind and preparing for this show. So I wasn't in this chair like about, I don't know, seven seconds ago. So here we are. We're going to try to.
00:23Do you want me to tap dance a little bit, give you a chance to like find your highlighter and like settle in?
00:28You know, you might have, you might have, you might have had to, if I, if I didn't run when I was told to run. But, but here we are. And now everything's fine. Ready to go.
00:39Of the two of us, I am the one who is always late and you are the one who never is. And I have never seen you.
00:46I know. I know.
00:47So I know this is kind of a serious, like, this is a wrinkle in the force. I get it.
00:52Yeah. It leaves me completely disoriented. I just, but we'll see how it goes.
00:55Well, maybe, you know, could be better, could be worse. We'll find out.
00:59This little interregnum here, you're, I can hear you. I can, I can see you like settling out, like everything's getting to be normal.
01:06It's a regular toss. We're just about to have a regular night. Here you go, Lawrence.
01:11So helpful as only you can be at this moment, Rachel. Thank you very much.
01:17Thank you, my friend. You got this.
01:19Thank you. Thank you.
01:22Well, once again today, Donald Trump backed down.
01:26Once again today, the man who always pretends he never backs down, never backed down big time.
01:37Donald Trump said repeatedly today, and it seemed desperately, quote,
01:43So I have no intention of firing him. And he was not talking about his unqualified and incompetent secretary of defense who shared battle plans with his wife and others,
01:56the same secretary of defense who promised to stop drinking if he became secretary of defense.
02:03Donald Trump said nothing, nothing today about secretary of defense Pete Hegseth.
02:09He did not defend Pete Hegseth today. He did not attempt to deny any of the reporting from the New York Times and NBC News about the ways that his secretary of defense shared battle plans.
02:25In fact, no one in the Trump administration, including Pete Hegseth himself, to this day, to this hour, to this minute, has ever attempted in any way at all to explain, defend or deny specifically what Pete Hegseth has been accused of doing in sharing battle plans.
02:53Hegseth has insisted the information, the details of battle plans were not classified.
03:05There was a time when a secretary of defense getting caught leaking sensitive information could have, among other things, rocked the stock market and sent it into a downward spiral.
03:16But the stock market has no time to worry about an unqualified and incompetent secretary of defense who may or may not have stopped drinking when Donald Trump is directly destroying the stock market in bursts of economic policy dementia
03:31that have created the most uncertainty that have created the most uncertainty the American economy has ever seen.
03:37And I mean, ever seen, because the uncertainty is based entirely on what will one person's whims be tomorrow or the next day or the next week or the next month or the next year.
03:55A year is the minimum planning horizon for economic planning and economic decisions in business or in our personal lives.
04:05And after destroying the stock market with tariffs that are actually illegal because Donald Trump has imposed them in violation of laws that control the president's use of tariffs,
04:17Donald Trump decided that now would be a good time to attack the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell,
04:24who became the chairman of the Federal Reserve when Donald Trump appointed him in Donald Trump's first term.
04:30President Biden then reappointed Jerome Powell.
04:33And on Monday, in the middle of the morning trading session on Wall Street,
04:39Donald Trump decided to attack Republican chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell,
04:46in a social media post that left the stock market reeling under the expectation that Donald Trump was going to fire the chair of the Federal Reserve or at least try to.
04:57And on Monday, Donald Trump said, quote, there can be a slowing of the economy unless Mr.
05:04Too Late, a major loser, lowers interest rates now.
05:10So there was the president of the United States doing two things that no president has ever been stupid enough to do before.
05:16One, predict a recession.
05:18And two, blame it on the chairman of the Federal Reserve, who he was publicly insulting.
05:24The trouble for Donald Trump is everyone on Wall Street thinks Jerome Powell is good at his job.
05:31And everyone on Wall Street now realizes that Donald Trump is much worse at his job than they ever expected him to be.
05:40Donald Trump's tariff dementia was bad enough.
05:42But then came the trading day yesterday that the Wall Street Journal labeled the fire Jerome Powell market route.
05:52That was the Wall Street Journal headline on Monday night.
05:55Donald Trump was in relatively polite language under the circumstances,
06:00basically being accused by the Journal and others of being a dangerous fool.
06:06And the Wall Street News media for attacking Jerome Powell.
06:11And so today, the day after a disastrous day in the stock market,
06:15attributed 100 percent to a statement that Donald Trump made in the morning.
06:23Donald Trump, the man who made a living on TV saying you're fired.
06:27Donald Trump, the president who has fired more cabinet members and more White House chiefs of staff
06:31than any other president in history, Donald Trump, who has fired people, he is not legally allowed to fire.
06:38That same Donald Trump pretended that everyone at the Wall Street Journal was just crazy
06:44to think he would ever try to fire someone he's not legally allowed to fire.
06:51To clarify, you have no intention of firing Jerome Powell,
06:54because your economic advisor, Kevin Hassett, a few days ago said that
06:57you and people in the White House were studying this idea of possibly doing it before his term ends.
07:02Do you have any plans on doing that?
07:03None whatsoever.
07:05Never did.
07:06The press runs away with things.
07:08Now, I have no intention of firing him.
07:10I would like to see him be a little more active in terms of his idea to lower interest rates.
07:18This is a perfect time to lower interest rates.
07:21If he doesn't, is it the end?
07:22No, it's not.
07:24But it would be good timing.
07:25It would be, it would, she could have taken place earlier, but no, I have no intention to fire him.
07:32I have no intention to fire him.
07:34I have no intention of, to fire him.
07:36Saying it as many, as many times as he could say it.
07:39He could have said, I have no legal authority to fire him because he doesn't.
07:47And Jerome Powell knows that, which is why Jerome Powell has said publicly that he knows he cannot be fired and would not leave if Donald Trump ever tried to illegally fire him.
07:59So there is one person in America more powerful than Donald Trump tonight, and that is Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
08:06And Donald Trump knows it.
08:09Any Federal Reserve chair would be more powerful than any president on matters involving the workings of the Federal Reserve and the setting of interest rates.
08:20Every president before Donald Trump has always known that they have no power over any of that.
08:28And so now, the humiliated clown Donald Trump, who has been the subject of some of the finest economic editorial writing the Wall Street Journal has ever done,
08:40has decided that it's time to back down and desperately assure Wall Street.
08:47I have no intention of firing him.
08:49Assure Wall Street of exactly one thing.
08:53That's the only thing he wants to assure them of, and that is that he will not fire Jerome Powell, who he now implicitly acknowledges is more powerful than he is.
09:03Unfortunately for Donald Trump, the country and the world, that's not enough to stabilize the stock market and stabilize the American economy,
09:13which was already sliding toward an increased chance of recession before Donald Trump threatened Jerome Powell.
09:22Well, it's been doing that every day, thanks entirely to Donald Trump's illegal and unpredictable tariffs.
09:29Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary, who obviously does not have enough or possibly any influence over Donald Trump,
09:37thereby making him the least effective Treasury Secretary in history,
09:42admitted today that the Trump tariffs are a complete disaster.
09:47Disaster disaster is not the word he used in a private setting with ultra-rich investors hosted by JPMorgan Chase.
09:56So understand that the richest people in the world were given access to the Treasury Secretary's thoughts today,
10:05while no one in America who has already lost a job to Donald Trump's tariffs is allowed to know anything about what the Treasury Secretary might be thinking about any of this.
10:19Treasury Secretary Scott Besant told the ultra-rich investors who spend their day trying to figure out how to get richer,
10:28quote,
10:28no one thinks the current status quo is sustainable.
10:34The current status quo he was talking about is the Trump worldwide tariff regime.
10:40No one thinks the current status quo is sustainable.
10:46That's the way a guy who looks like this says,
10:50this is crazy and out of control and has to be stopped.
10:53The desperate players on Wall Street were thrilled by CNBC's reporting today of that leaked quote from the Treasury Secretary.
11:05But the Wall Street Journal would like to hear more.
11:08In tonight's Wall Street Journal editorial titled Up the Down Trump Tariff Escalator,
11:14the journal writes,
11:15If Mr. Besant knows what Mr. Trump's real China and trade strategies are,
11:20everyone would love to hear it because so far it looks like ad hoc improvisation.
11:27If Mr. Besant can move markets merely with comments that a trade truce is coming,
11:33imagine how they'd respond if Mr. Trump simply called the whole tariff thing off.
11:40The journal pointed out the job losses,
11:44just some of the job losses that are already happening because of the Trump tariffs here in the United States.
11:49The 800 or so Volvo employees at three different U.S. plants that will be laid off in the next 90 days.
12:00The International Monetary Fund slashed its U.S. and global economic forecasts,
12:06warning that tariffs were ushering in a new era of slower growth.
12:10Goldman Sachs, Chief Executive David Solomon, said uncertainty was too high,
12:15holding back corporate decision making and keeping asset prices under pressure.
12:20And the IIF, a finance industry trade group, said the U.S. faced a likely recession later this year.
12:28A likely recession thanks entirely to the idiotic whims of a president with economic dementia.
12:38Elon Musk is one of Wall Street's biggest losers these days thanks to his public support of Donald Trump's policies
12:46and thanks to Donald Trump's tariffs which hurt all automobile companies, including Tesla.
12:53After the stock market closed today, Tesla released an earnings report that came in much lower than expected.
13:01The Wall Street Journal reports that Tesla's income, quote,
13:05slid 71% in the first quarter as the company struggled to overcome competitive pressure overseas
13:13and a reputational hit from Chief Elon Musk's polarizing role in the Trump administration.
13:22Tesla, as a company, actually blamed Donald Trump for its troubles.
13:30Wall Street Journal reports Tesla said that shifting trade policies exacerbated by the administration's tariff regime
13:37are stressing supply chains while adding to the automaker's costs.
13:43Tesla sales are down around the world thanks largely to what one analyst has called the brand destruction
13:52that Elon Musk has delivered to Tesla by his association with and support of Donald Trump.
13:59A CNBC poll showed how that brand destruction in the United States has hurt Tesla's ability
14:04to sell to sell to the very people who were the most enthusiastic customers for electric cars and Teslas.
14:14Liberal Democrats were the buyers, especially in California,
14:19that made Tesla a successful business and pushed the Tesla stock price up to the point
14:26where Elon Musk became the richest person in the world thanks to the buying power of liberals
14:33who are now trading in their Teslas, selling their Teslas, and in many cases just giving them away,
14:42as Sheryl Crow did in donating her Tesla to NPR for them to turn into cash
14:48to support the truth-telling mission of National Public Radio.
14:5247% of Americans have a negative view of Tesla.
14:56Only 27% have a positive view of Tesla.
15:0052% have a negative view of Elon Musk, with only 36% holding a positive view.
15:06The poll shows that a majority of Republicans have a positive view of Tesla,
15:12which is not very helpful to Tesla because most of them would never even consider buying any electric car.
15:19While the overwhelming, almost unanimous feeling among Democrats is now negative on Tesla,
15:26but positive on electric vehicles, which seems to indicate that liberal Democrats
15:32who want to continue buying electric vehicles will be buying their electric vehicles
15:38from Tesla's competitors, competitors that are now gaining increasing share of the market against Tesla,
15:47which could be why Elon Musk promised Wall Street today to start paying more attention to Tesla
15:54and less attention to destroying the American government as we know it.
15:59With Elon Musk strengthening his public association with Tesla, if that's possible,
16:05that could result, maybe, in even fewer sales of Teslas among enthusiastic electric car market buyers,
16:14which in this country is dominated by Democrats.
16:20It must come as a big surprise to Donald Trump and Elon Musk tonight that their sales event
16:25in the driveway on the south side of the White House for Tesla,
16:31the most revolting commercialization of the White House in history
16:35by the two most extreme Bulgarians ever to stand in that driveway was a complete and utter failure.
16:46And so tonight, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are now the prohibitive frontrunners
16:53for the worst car salesman of the year award this year.
17:00Leading off our discussion tonight is Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.
17:04She's a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Rules Committee, and the Commerce Committee.
17:09And she is the top Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee.
17:13And Senator Klobuchar, as I rattle off your committee affiliations, I was trying to think of one.
17:17Is there one that doesn't have an interest in these tariffs,
17:23including even the Judiciary Committee's interest in whether or not they're legal?
17:27Every member of the Senate is hearing about these tariffs, as I have, over the last few weeks.
17:37And as I was listening to your description of all the havoc that's been wrought
17:43and the fact that, by the way, the Dow is on target in April to have its worst year since 1932,
17:51in the middle of the Great Depression,
17:52I kept thinking of the fact that the woman I met, Noah Tana, named Beth Beinecke,
17:58who runs a little company called Busy Baby that was Minnesota's small business of the year in 2025,
18:04she's not at that investor conference.
18:07She wasn't invited by J.P. Morgan.
18:10She was not—she didn't have the phone number of the president like Tim Cook of Apple did.
18:14And I'm—you know, all these people can have their insider information,
18:18but her business is going down the tubes because of this, because she relies on imports.
18:23Or the soybean farmer, who told me that his margins are so slim because of the last thing Donald Trump did
18:30that greatly reduced their market.
18:32Their business went to—other countries were buying soybeans from Brazil,
18:37and now they're going to lose the last part of it and aren't going to be able to make it.
18:41These are people that aren't in those Wall Street rooms.
18:44And it just goes to show it is the small businesses, it's the small consumers,
18:49it is the small farmers that are just getting completely screwed by this right now.
18:54And it is not legal, that's right, but they are going to be roadkill on the way
18:59unless he immediately reverses his policies, as my Democratic colleagues and I have called on him to do.
19:05You know, I doubt that you will be able to be running against the Trump tariffs
19:13in the present tense next year in the Senate campaigns,
19:18because just as a matter of political survival for the Republican Party,
19:24he's going to have to completely back down on the whole regime
19:28in order for them to even begin to hope to survive the campaign season next year.
19:36Lawrence, who knows what he's going to do.
19:38And the problem with this is even if he reverses them,
19:42which, of course, many of us have been advocating for,
19:45bringing up bills, winning votes in the U.S. Senate on the Canadian tariff front because it was illegal.
19:52But despite all that, people are losing market now.
19:56I was just up in Two Harbors, Minnesota.
19:58They are down visitors from Canada.
20:00If you look at the national statistics,
20:0370 percent of the vacations from Canada have been canceled because they're pissed off.
20:09They don't want to be called the 51st state.
20:11They're taking American products off their shelves.
20:14This has to end.
20:16So the problem is, even if he reversed them, the havoc it's wrought,
20:20the $4,000 tax on every family, including $200 for groceries, will not end.
20:26And then you've got the other problem.
20:28He's taken—they have taken their eye off the ball of what the American people want.
20:32They want us to be working on bringing down costs on housing and expanding housing opportunities.
20:38They want us to bring down the costs on child care, health care.
20:41They are doing the opposite with the chaos that they've created.
20:45And every time he threatens to fire Jerome Powell, which, as you so well point out,
20:49he can't do because it has to be for a cause, which has been defined as criminal conduct or malfeasance by the courts,
20:56every time he does stuff like that, he just eats away again at the safety net
21:02that has made this country so strong and our economy so strong.
21:05So I don't see any sign they're reversing ground, but I see a lot of signs that people who were supportive of him
21:14or thought, maybe I'm going to get a change, maybe he's going to do something at cost,
21:18are looking at this going, this is not what I bought into, this is not what I want.
21:23And they're starting to show up, some of them in very quiet ways, behind closed doors and saying,
21:29wait a minute, this is wrong, I don't want to see this.
21:32That's what's going to matter in the midterms.
21:34We're going to look at a Senate campaign in Michigan at the end of this hour
21:38that is a Democrat running straight against the Trump tariffs because, as Elon Musk has discovered
21:45and probably knew ahead of time, even American car manufacturers will be forced into very significant price increases
21:54because so many of the parts they use are imported in building American cars right here in this country and in Michigan.
22:03And that it is a Democrat running straight against the Trump tariffs because, as Elon Musk has discovered
22:14and probably knew ahead of time, even American car manufacturers will be forced into very significant price increases
22:22because so many of the parts they use are imported in building American cars right here in this country and in Michigan.
22:31And that this is going to be harmful for the American auto industry.
22:38It is. And that's why you saw, for instance, the Steelworkers Union against the Canadian tariff thing that he smashed them with because of the fact that all of these supply chains are interrelated.
22:53And he has not looked at this as, say, let's do some targeted tariffs, let's go back into the USMCA, a trade agreement that he actually initiated
23:04and start negotiating on dairy or some of the other things that could be negotiated to help American dairy farmers.
23:11That's not what he came out with. He went all with his shock and awe across the board tariffs and everyone is roadkill.
23:17When you look at what's happening to small businesses and farmers and, yes, automakers and most importantly,
23:23the people that work at those companies who are now starting to lose their jobs like you just talked about, Lawrence,
23:30when it came to Volvo and some of the other auto manufacturers from other countries that have decided to set up shop in America.
23:38They did that because we're in an international trade situation and people are going to start losing their jobs.
23:45Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, thank you very much for starting off our discussions tonight.
23:50Thanks. It was great to be on. Thanks, Lawrence.
23:53Thank you. And coming up, the secretary of defense who promised to quit drinking if he became secretary of defense
23:59has not denied the new reports accusing him of deliberately leaking battle plans, including to his wife.
24:08Mikey Sherrill would have been court-martialed when she was a Navy helicopter pilot if she did that.
24:14Now she's a member of the House Armed Services Committee and she will join us next.
24:18We have new important reporting tonight from NBC News on Donald Trump's thoroughly unqualified and incompetent and immature defense secretary Pete Hegseth.
24:36NBC News reports, minutes before U.S. fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month,
24:47Army General Michael Eric Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
25:03The material Kurilla sent included details about when U.S. fighters would take off and when they would hit their targets.
25:11Details that could, if they fell into the wrong hands, put the pilots of those fighters in grave danger.
25:18But he was doing exactly what he was supposed to, providing Hegseth, his superior, with information he needed to know
25:25and using a system specifically designed to safely transmit sensitive and classified information.
25:31But then Hegseth used his personal phone to send some of the same information Kurilla had given him to at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app.
25:45Three U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the exchanges told NBC News the sequence of events, which has not been previously reported,
25:56could raise new questions about Hegseth's handling of the information which he and the government have denied was classified.
26:05Pete Hegseth included his wife in that group chat.
26:10Sharing classified information that way can be a serious criminal offense.
26:16Pete Hegseth has not denied that he did share that information on these group chats.
26:23But the Secretary of Defense has claimed that the detailed information about when the fighter jets would take off and exactly what they would do was not classified.
26:37That information has always been classified since even before fighter jets were invented.
26:46The New York Times is reporting tonight, quote,
26:49Mr. Hegseth's inner circle of close advisors, military veterans who, like him, had little experience running large, complex organizations, is in shambles.
27:00The discord, according to current and former defense officials, includes screaming matches in his inner office among aides,
27:08a growing distrust of the thousands of military and civilian personnel who staff the building,
27:14and bureaucratic log jams that have slowed down progress on some of President Trump's key priorities, such as an Iron Dome for America missile defense shield.
27:26The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal business.
27:31Pete Hegseth did an interview at his last workplace this morning where he got the introduction that he did not want,
27:40but might soon be accurate.
27:45Here to set the record straight himself, the current Secretary of State, Pete Hegseth, former host right here on Fox & Friends.
27:53Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Mikey Sherrill of New Jersey.
27:58She's a member of the House Armed Services Committee and a candidate for governor of New Jersey.
28:03Thank you very much for joining us tonight. And let me begin with what would have happened to you if you had shared battle plans, attack plans like this when you were a pilot?
28:17Well, Lawrence, like everyone else, except Pete Hegseth evidently, I would have been court-martialed and drummed out of the military.
28:24This is absolutely ridiculous. And, you know, there's two things that are problematic here in my mind.
28:30One is the complete incompetence that Pete Hegseth has shown and continues to show.
28:36And we're seeing all the reporting coming out of the DOD right now.
28:40But the second piece that's so concerning is this complete lack of accountability in the military.
28:47We inculcate this sense of accountability and responsibility because you're responsible for people's lives.
28:53In fact, when you're a plebe at the Naval Academy, you learn the five basic responses, one of which is no excuse, sir.
29:00This sense that you have to take responsibility for your actions.
29:04And what we see here again and again and again is Pete Hegseth trying to avoid any sense of accountability.
29:11But he should be fired. So he needs to man up and actually resign right now because he can no longer protect our national security.
29:20Let's listen to what Republican Congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska said about this.
29:25He is a military veteran himself.
29:29I wouldn't tolerate it. I would hold him accountable and I'd fire him.
29:34You can't put classified information. And I guarantee it.
29:39If you're talking about when you're launching aircraft to attack Yemen and you do that two hours before the missions, that is classified.
29:47We would fire a second lieutenant for doing this.
29:50And so as a military guy, this is not a Republican view or a Democrat view.
29:54I think it's an American view.
29:56So in his military experience and his experience on the Hill, he does not accept this claim.
30:06If you can even call it a defense, that that material was not classified.
30:13In everyone's military experience, that information is classified.
30:17I mean, that is why CENTCOM sent it over classified channels and use the appropriate equipment to transmit it.
30:24So to then put it out on a signal chat with the national defense infrastructure and to have all of them chatting about it on a signal chat is breaking and breaching the rules.
30:35But then to go a step further and somehow send it out your brother and your your girlfriend or your wife.
30:41I mean, I really it's like this kind of, you know, sense of this this kid playing it, being in charge of our national security and then showing off to his wife.
30:52Hey, look what I'm doing. I mean, this is really, really imperiling our national security, not just because it put those pilots at risk, but because right now you have countries across the world making decisions on whether or not they're going to share information with the United States.
31:10And with this type of callous disregard for classified information, you know, they are making the decision not to share classified information with the United States.
31:22Let me just ask you your gut reaction when you first learned about this. How did it make you feel?
31:30Well, you know, Lawrence, I'm sitting here as someone who went to the Naval Academy.
31:36I graduated in that first class of women who were able to serve on combatant ships and aircraft.
31:44And I trace that and the opportunities that I and and other people had in our military.
31:50I trace that to the fact that I'm in Congress now and Elaine Luria was able to enter Congress with me.
31:56I trace that to the fact that one of my classmates was the first commanding officer of an aircraft carrier.
32:01And the CNO, the highest ranking uniformed officer in the Navy, was a woman.
32:06And I trace that to the fact that the superintendent is a woman woman of the Naval Academy.
32:10Because we allowed women into key roles in our military, they thrived and they achieved the highest ranks.
32:18And then they were fired. Some of them, people like our chief of naval operations fired basically because she was a woman.
32:25And someone like Pete Hegseth saying these derisive comments about the service of people of color and women that he just wants a meritocracy.
32:33Because according to him, I guess, doing 100 pushups shows that you can run the Pentagon.
32:37Well, no surprise to all of us who've served our country, who have worked incredibly hard for the people of this country to protect them,
32:45who take our oath to the Constitution seriously. There's a little bit more to leadership than that.
32:50And to denigrate the service of others. And to dismiss the service of so many people who've served so well.
32:57And to suggest that somehow they didn't achieve the rules they did because that we weren't a meritocracy.
33:04And then to show the fact that he is so incompetent that the blatant hypocrisy, the lack of accountability.
33:14That's what offends me the most as I see the service denigrated by so many people who've served so well and suggesting that they shouldn't have a role in our military.
33:24And then he somehow thinks that he is his modeling what this should look like.
33:31That's offensive to me.
33:34Congressman Mikey Sherrill, now candidate for governor in New Jersey.
33:37Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
33:41Thanks so much for having me.
33:44And coming up, three federal prosecutors resigned today, saying they refused to, quote,
33:49abdicate our legal and ethical obligations.
33:53Andrew Weissman joins us next.
33:59Today, three of the Manhattan federal prosecutors who worked on the criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams resigned.
34:07The prosecutors Celia Cohen, Andrew Roebark and Derek Wickstrom had been placed on administrative leave in February after they, along with the then acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, would not follow the Trump Justice Department's order to dismiss the federal bribery case against Mayor Eric Adams.
34:29In their emailed resignation today addressed to the deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, who has also served as Donald Trump's criminal defense lawyer.
34:39The prosecutors wrote, it is now clear that one of the preconditions you have placed on our returning to the office is that we must express regret and admit some wrongdoing by by by our office in connection with the refusal to move to dismiss the case.
34:56We will not confess wrongdoing when there was none.
35:01The prosecutors who worked in the Justice Department under Democrat and Republican presidents said this.
35:07Now the department has decided that obedience supersedes all else, requiring us to abdicate our legal and ethical obligations in favor of directions from Washington.
35:17That is wrong.
35:18That is wrong.
35:19Serving in the Southern District of New York has been an honor.
35:21There is no greater privilege than to work for an institution whose mandate is to do the right thing the right way for the right reasons.
35:29We will not abandon this principle to keep our jobs.
35:32We resign.
35:33Joining us now is Andrew Weissman, former FBI general counsel and former chief of the criminal division in the Eastern District of New York.
35:40He's also an MSNBC legal analyst.
35:43And Andrew, the Trump era has certainly led to some very important additions to the collection of noble resignation letters.
35:55Absolutely.
35:56So just the Eric Adams case alone has led to 10 prosecutors, career people resigning.
36:08Even one resigning in these circumstances would be extraordinary.
36:14It just does not happen.
36:16What we saw sort of at the end of the Trump first term is something that we're now seeing over and over and over again.
36:26It's a perfect sort of indication benchmark for the difference between the first administration and the second.
36:35And it's a sign of the lawlessness and the callousness.
36:40I would note the deputy attorney general defended his actions by saying that there's nothing unlawful or unethical with moving to dismiss this case.
36:50And what I would say to him is if that was so proper, why is it not just 10 career people resigned?
36:59But the federal judge overseeing this rejected the government's request, their motion to dismiss this case without prejudice, to keep a leash on Eric Adams, saying that that was improper.
37:14So it's not just the career prosecutors.
37:16It is also the federal judge saying that what you are proposing to do here is outlandish and he was not going to tolerate it.
37:25Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking about is that is that there's a judicial finding here that they really had set up a quid pro quo.
37:34Yeah, the judge did not actually have to go that far to say that, but he clearly thought that that was the risk here, that that was the way in which the government here was seeking to use criminal cases.
37:53As I said, if the judge had actually not done what he did, it would have just if you think what's happening now is bad, it would have handed a loaded gun to the deputy attorney general and the attorney general in terms of using the criminal law to coerce people to bend to their will to carry out any and all things that they wanted.
38:17And so that was why the judge rejected it.
38:20That is why you have so many people resigning.
38:23It is it really is a real benchmark of where we are.
38:27If you if in case you needed it, in case the Albrego Garcia case, in case the unanimous Supreme Court decisions, rejecting what the administration wants to do is not signal enough for what is going on.
38:41Andrew Weissman, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
38:45You're welcome.
38:46Coming up, Donald Trump stupidly thought or may have thought that his tariffs would help the American automobile industry.
38:56But in fact, they are hurting every American car manufacturer.
39:02And our next guest, Congresswoman Haley Stevens, is now running for Senate in Michigan by running against Donald Trump's tariffs.
39:12You're going to want to see the video that launched her campaign today.
39:16That's next with Congresswoman Haley Stevens.
39:19The Trump tariffs could be the key to Democrats winning back control of the United States Senate next year.
39:28Our next guest, Michigan Congresswoman Haley Stevens, launched her Senate campaign today by running against the Trump tariffs in the state that built the American automobile industry.
39:41I remember being handed the keys to my first car.
39:45I'm Haley Stevens, and I bet you do, too.
39:48That used Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, it meant more to me than just freedom.
39:53It meant I had a piece of Michigan.
39:55You know, the Michigan that helped build this country, the Michigan that shaped me.
39:59It's not just what I sound like.
40:01It's who I am.
40:02My dad was a teacher and my mom ran a small business.
40:05And when the Great Recession hit and the American car industry faced extinction, I wanted to step up and do something for my state.
40:12As chief of staff to President Obama's auto rescue, we helped save over 200,000 Michigan jobs and stabilize our economy.
40:20The U.S. auto industry turnaround is undeniable.
40:23And Haley Stevens, by the way, she was there.
40:26She was a critical part of my team that helped the American auto industry come roaring back.
40:31But Donald Trump has a much different plan for Michigan.
40:35His chaos and reckless tariffs are putting tens of thousands of Michigan jobs at risk.
40:40Donald Trump says he couldn't care less if auto prices rise.
40:44Well, as someone who spent my time in Congress fighting for Michigan jobs, Michigan families, and Michigan workers, I couldn't care more.
40:51Across the state, I know we're all feeling the hit of higher prices.
40:55The same groceries cost more each month.
40:58Housing's more expensive than ever.
41:00But all we're getting is more chaos.
41:02What the heck are they doing?
41:04I'm Haley Stevens, and I'm running for Senate.
41:07Because just like that day I got these keys to that old cut list, we have the power to chart our own path.
41:14I'm proud of Michigan, and I'll never get tired of saying it.
41:18It would be my honor to fight for you in the Senate.
41:22Joining us now is Democratic Congresswoman Haley Stevens of Michigan.
41:26She's now a candidate for United States Senate.
41:28Thank you very much for joining us on this first night of your Senate campaign.
41:33I don't think voters really necessarily understood that the tariffs that Donald Trump was trying to use to protect the American automobile industry are actually harmful to it.
41:48Well, look, Lawrence, this is a really serious moment in Michigan.
41:53And I will tell you, everywhere I go, I'm hearing from Michiganders who are concerned about those costs that continue to go up.
42:01If it's for those big ticket items like housing and certainly the automobile, which Donald Trump said he could care less if it costs more.
42:11And, you know, we're also facing a whole lot of uncertainty because of these reckless shoot-by-the-hip, change-by-the-minute tariffs.
42:20And our small businesses, our automotive supply chain, our workers, they're just in the thick of it.
42:27And they're living through this grave uncertainty.
42:30And it reminds me of when I put up my hand to serve as the chief of staff on President Obama's U.S. auto rescue that, yes, save General Motors and Chrysler and 200,000 Michigan jobs.
42:44But it was also a job where I took those phone calls from worried Michiganders.
42:49And now we're seeing that same level of worry again.
42:53And it is definitely about the rising costs, the uncertainty coming from the Trump-Musk chaos agenda.
43:00I'm running for U.S. Senate, Lawrence, because I want Michiganders to know I have their back.
43:05I have always fought for Michigan.
43:07And if you don't mind, sir, for anyone watching tonight at home, please go to my website, Haley4MI.com.
43:15I'd love to have you join the team.
43:18Congressman Haley Stevens, I'm so sorry to say we're out of time for tonight.
43:22I really wanted to get you here on your first night on the campaign.
43:25We're going to need to hear more.
43:26Please come back when you can.