Grabien

RUSH TRANSCRIPT: BAIER: “What about this premise, Mollie, of opening the pandora’s box? Takes us back to 2016, after the election, Trump wins, our late colleague Charles Krauthammer had some comments, conservative commentator at the time, this is in the hill, Charles Krauthammer says president-elect Donald Trump suggestion he would not prosecute Hillary Clinton over her use of an email server is akin to issuing a pardon. President-elect told the “New York Times” during a meeting Tuesday that he did not want to hurt the clintons, suggesting he would not push prosecution. Here he is on the show November 22nd, 2016.” [Clip starts] KRAUTHAMMER: “I think that’s right to do it. You put that behind us, yes, there are probably offenses which are prosecutable, maybe she would be convicted, but that’s not what we want to do. We do not want to see national political opponents putting each other in jail.” [Clip ends] BAIER: “It’s not apples to apples, Mollie but it’s interesting to look back at that.” HEMINGWAY: “Yeah and it’s interesting that that happened in November of 2016, which is before Democrats and people in the media ran the Russia collusion hoax throughout the entire Trump Administration. And then of course when he lost in 2020 began rounding up Republicans and running show trials. We have crossed a rubicon here that is one that most Americans never wanted to cross. America has for hundreds of years had moral authority. When we go and tell tyrants and authoritarians, no, you can’t cancel elections, no, you can’t put your political opponents in jail. No, you can’t run show trials just because you don’t like who you are running against, that meant something. And now, can you imagine America going and telling people these things? After what happened? I get that Democrats are extremely excited and people in New York and D.C. maybe are very excited about what happened in New York yesterday, but the consequences of this are so significant, not just in terms of how it breaks down what has held the country together in terms of a general shared respect for rule of law, but also because of what it does to impact our national security and lose our moral voice worldwide.”

WATTERS: “Donald Trump’s Justice Department was weaponized against him. They had a special counsel investigating him. That’s how ridiculous it was. Judge, my mom is celebrating. She texted me that she was dancing after the verdict, dancing. And then she kept all day sending me 34, 34, 34. Felony counts, Harold, you know exactly what I’m talking about. She’s a grandmother. She’s a grandmother! Get it together, mom. oh my God. So usually when you see a crime, Judge, and you know this better than anybody, violent crime, for instance, people do become happy when there’s someone that’s convicted. Because you think, well, one, that person’s going to be removed from society because then they can’t commit another crime. And you feel a little bit happy for the victim’s family because they have a sense of justice. Who’s the victim here? Why are they celebrating anything? There is no victim. Why are they happy? Who are they happy for? If anything, Donald Trump’s the victim of this case.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: “Good afternoon. I’m George Stephanopoulos at ABC News headquarters in New York. We have breaking news right now, a verdict in the John Edwards trial. Former presidential candidate facing 6 counts of campaign fraud, up to 30 years in prison, but he has been found not guilty on one charge, a hung jury, a deadlocked jury, a mistrial. On the other five charges, he will not be going to jail. This was all in connection with whether he took money from friends and associates to cover up his affair with mistress Rielle Hunter. The jury has decided not guilty.”

BLITZER: “How worried are you that there could be violence emerging from all of this by Trump’s supporters?” Vance: “Oh, not at all. Donald Trump’s supporters are not violent people. You live in a country of 330 million people, of course, some people are going to do some bad things. But, if we want to get back at the New York sham prosecution, my message to every Trump supporter is go to DonaldJTrump.com, volunteer, support him, and vote in November. The only language that these people speak is power. We’ve got to win the presidency, Wolf, and save this country.” BLITZER: “Weren’t Trump’s supporters involved in the January 6th violence at the U.S. Capitol?” Vance: “Wolf, a few people were violent, certainly, but I don’t think the majority of Donald Trump’s supporters are violent because you had a few people get violent on January 6th.” BLITZER: “So, your message to Trump’s supporters in the aftermath of these convictions is what?” Vance: “My message is don’t get angry, don’t get depressed. Get even. Get involved, and let’s win this election because that’s the only way to actually fix this country and to save it for the American people.” BLITZER: “And you want to be his running mate?” Vance: “Wolf, I want to help Donald Trump —“

CONWAY: “If you don’t want to be held liable for rape, like Donald Trump has, don’t grab the woman’s genitalia. If you don’t want to be held liable for defaming the woman that you raped, don’t keep lying about what you did and calling her a nut job. If you don’t want to be indicted for overthrowing the Constitution, don’t start a self-coup. If you don’t want to be indicted for classified — stealing classified documents and obstructing justice, don’t take the classified documents. When the government asked for it back, give them back. If — if you — if the FBI serves you with a search warrant, don’t hide the documents. And don’t — and don’t lie about it, and don’t have your lawyers lie about it. This isn’t that hard. Donald Trump is not the victim here. Donald Trump is — is — does all of these things to himself. And I agree with David. I mean, once upon a time, the Republican Party was the party, not just of anti-hippies, but of personal responsibility and of law and order. What party — where is that party? Here — no one’s willing to hold — in the Republican Party is willing to hold Donald Trump to account for his crimes. Crimes that aren’t really even in dispute. And no one — no one is willing to call him out. Instead, he’s — he’s going to get the nomination. That’s just insane, and it just shows the degree of moral rot we have on the conservative side of politics today.” HUNT: “Scott Jennings, I think this is for you. Where is that party?” JENNINGS: “Well, I disagree with a number of things George said, of course. I mean, he’s talking about these crimes —“ HUNT: “Gee, I’m so surprised.” JENNINGS: “— that were committed that — that — that — I mean, he’s talking about the obvious crimes that were supposedly committed, but that’s the core of what a lot of decidedly non-MAGA Republicans are mad about, is that there is no underlying crime. I looked at the statement from Maine Senator Susan Collins, who I think encapsulated it perfectly. She said this was a partisan prosecutor who promised to get Trump.” CONWAY: “Nonsense.” JENNINGS: “And that’s what he did.” CONWAY: “Absolute nonsense.” JENNINGS: “Not promise to go after the law, but he promised —“ CONWAY: “Pathetic nonsense.” JENNINGS: “— he promised to go after Donald Trump. And so the issue is here, what is the crime? He’s never been indicted for or convicted of the campaign finance theory at the core of this case. And so Republicans are wondering today, you know, what — what do you have to do to build a defense against something you’ve never been convicted of in the first place. I’ll tell you, the mood in the party, if you’re sort of looking for a generalized attitude, is reminds me a little bit about the Kavanaugh period. You go back to the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, 2018. I remember that period being — the MAGA people were mad, the non-MAGA, the anti-Trump, the pro-Trump. Every wing of the party was vibratingly angry about what was being done to Kavanaugh. I feel and sense that the same thing is happening today, which is why I think you’re probably going to see this backfire politically on the Democrats, and they’re going to regret it.” HUNT: “I mean, George, I will say, I have heard from some people who really don’t want to see Trump get elected in the Republican Party, who are concerned that this is just, this particular case is just going to drive additional enthusiasm for the former president. I’m interested in you respond to that. And you’ve got your face in your hands. What have you got to say to Scott?” CONWAY: “I have to say — I mean, look — I mean, you know, Scott’s lying, and that’s the problem with the Republican Party. It is continually addicted to lies.” JENNINGS: “Wait a minute. What are my lies?” CONWAY: “Your lie — you’re lying. You’re lying, Scott. You’re lying about the law. You’re lying about what the jury was charged to find. They don’t have to find an underlying crime. They had to find the intent to cover up an underlying crime. And the underlying crime was pretty obvious.” JENNINGS: “What was the crime?” CONWAY: “You ran for public office, Scott. You — you ran for public office, Scott. You know you can’t take money from somebody and reimburse them for — you know, if it’s a campaign.” JENNINGS: “I’ve never run — I’ve never run for public office.” CONWAY: “OK, fine. Well, you — you’re close enough. You’re involved in politics to know that. OK? So that’s the problem with the Republican Party, is that they are suffused with lies. I don’t know why this network is paying Scott to come in and say those lies.” HUNT: “Whoa, whoa. OK. Let’s — let’s not go there, George, please. Let’s not go there.” JENNINGS: “No, no, no. He should go there.” HUNT: “Scott is — Scott is our colleague, and we’re going to treat him respectfully as such. Continue.” CONWAY: “Well, you shouldn’t lie.” JENNINGS: “Here’s my question. If — if it is — if it is an obvious crime, why did the Department of Justice and the Federal Election Commission take a pass on it?” FRUM: “Well, the Federal Election Commission — the Federal Election Commission — hold a sec.” CONWAY: “They should have prosecuted it. It should have been prosecuted on January 21 — on January 21, 2021.” HUNT: “Let’s look at —“ FRUM: “We all know the Federal Election —“ CONWAY: “This is the thing about Donald Trump —“ JENNINGS: “He’s never been indicted for this.” CONWAY: “Donald Trump has been let off. He should have been indicted for it. And the fact of the matter is —“ HUNT: “Hold on. George and Scott, hold on, please. David.” FRUM: “The Federal Election Commission is a broken and paralyzed institution. It require — it requires a majority. It’s got equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats. It requires a majority to act, and it’s not acted on anything for a decade, because it has been — it is broken. And one of the reasons that things are ending up in the criminal justice system is because the internal political system has been sabotaged by the people who then complain that the criminal justice system is the wrong — is the wrong remedy.”

MCENANY: “You know, Professor Turley, we went through some of the substantive issues that Trump addressed, but he also spent a lot of time on the case. He gave what I would call his own version of his closing argument today in those hour-long remarks. What did you make of it?” TURLEY: “Well, it wasn’t a bad closing argument. The fact is that much of what happened in that courtroom became superfluous because of those instructions. Some of us were hoping for a hung jury because we hoped that the jury might redeem the New York legal system, which is one of the greatest legal systems in the world. And these last, these last few weeks have left many of us shocked as to what we saw in that courtroom. But that was not going to happen after the instructions were finalized. And I wrote a column after I saw the instructions, saying it had the feel of a canned hunt. You know, where you can shoot game in a small space. The space was very small for the defense to maneuver and even smaller, it seemed, for the jury to acquit. So I don’t blame the jury at all. I think that what they heard in that room probably made it seem to many of them that this was a lead pipe cinch of a conviction. You know, they heard over and over again the prosecutors say that there were election violations committed by Donald Trump, that he ordered Cohen to commit the violations he pled guilty to. That totally smashed the instruction that Merchan had given. And Merchan just sat there. There was no response. So, what do you think the jury is going to rule? And then when you tell them, just pick a crime among the three, you know, just — you know, you don’t have to agree. Just pick one of these crimes. If you think that secondary crime was behind all of this, you’re good to go. But to this day, most of us don’t know what the jury decided because we know that they unanimously voted to convict. We don’t know what they convicted him of. They could have disagreed 4-4-4 on what occurred in this case. That’s one of the first things that I think a court will look at for reversal.” MCENANY: “Yeah, without a doubt, a huge constitutional issue. I would argue a Sixth Amendment one.”

VORHIES: “Make no mistake, machine learning fairness is and has always been the real censorship program and it is massive. The goal was to, quote, ‘program the public to align with Google’s corporate values,’ those are their words. This was a 4-step process laid out by the AI ethicist Margaret Mitchell who has since been fired for unethical behavior. Step 1: training data are collected and classified. Step 2: algorithms are programmed. Step 3: media are filtered, ranked, aggregated or generated. And step 4: people like us are programmed. That’s a direct quote from their slides. It wasn’t just in one slide, it was littered throughout the company. This process was repeated in a cycle with step 4 feeding back into step 1. This sounds like something out of a conspiracy theory, but it’s real. Google rewrote their news algorithms specifically trained on mainstream media stories targeting Trump, such as his fight with Comey. Systems like real-time events, real-time boost, and hive mind assigned higher amplification scores to stories related to targeting Trump. Google’s internal documents revealed their stance on, quote, ‘algorithmic unfairness.’ They stated that even factually accurate representations could be considered algorithmically unfair and removed. Let me just quote them: ‘For example, imagine a Google image query for CEOs shows predominantly men. Even if it were a factually accurate representation of the world, it would be algorithmic unfairness. In some cases, it may be appropriate to take no action if the system accurately reflects current reality. Well, in other cases, it may be desirable to consider how we might help society reach a more fair and equitable state via either product intervention or broader corporate social responsibility efforts,’ end quote.”

Trump: “If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone. These are bad people. These are, in many cases, I believe, sick people. When you look at our country, what’s happening, where millions and millions of people are flowing in from all parts of the world, not just South America, from Africa, from Asia, from the Middle East, and they’re coming in from jails and prisons, and they’re coming in from mental institutions and insane asylums, they’re coming in from all over the world into our country, and we have a president and a group of fascists that don’t want to do anything about it. Because they could, right now, today, he could stop it. But he’s not. They’re destroying our country. Our country is in very bad shape.”

UNKNOWN: “People will see that he’s being persecuted. It’s so clear to the average person that he’s being absolutely attacked, vilified. I mean, they’ve been doing it for — since he came down the escalator in what was it, 2015?”

Ocasio-Cortez: “It’s important to note that despite the initial statements trying to politicize this verdict, saying that it was somehow partisan or Democrats or what have you, Donald Trump was convicted by a jury of his peers, his peers that were people here in New York.”

PHILLIP: “What evidence is there of that?” Scott: “Hunting — very clearly, hunting Republicans. Not just everyday Americans, but conservatives — “ PHILLIP: “Okay, so what’s the evidence of that?” Scott: “Example one is when you see a swat team come into a pro-life activist’s home with their weapons drawn. That one situation actually echoed throughout this entire nation. And we saw person after person saying, ‘Wait a second. You mean a person in their own home, not committing a crime, just trying to serve breakfast, finds himself with guns drawn on him?’ You’re talking about — “ PHILLIP: “But what does that have to do, senator, with President Trump — “ Scott: “You asked me to give you an example. I’m giving you an example.” PHILLIP: “I hear that example, but I just want to follow up here — “ Scott: “Example number two — “ PHILLIP: “ — because this is about President Trump being — “ Scott: “Let me give you a second example.” PHILLIP: “Let me just ask you, this is about President Trump.” Scott: “You don‘t really want examples, because this is pervasive through our system.” PHILLIP: “You‘re using Donald Trump as an example of how the — he is a case study in how the ‘justice system’ is going after Republicans. But in this particular case, he was tried, just like any other person, for an allegation, and a jury, not a judge, not a prosecutor, not Joe Biden, not the attorney general, a jury of 12 Americans found him to be guilty. So how is that the justice system not working the way it‘s supposed to?” Scott: “Well, Abby, I appreciate your tone and your tenor. The problem is, of course, that when you have a jury made up of — 96% of Manhattan are Democrats, they‘ve already said most of them don‘t like Donald Trump. So when you find yourself in a justice system where the jury aren‘t people that are actually objective and open-minded, but people who‘ve made up their decisions before the case starts — “ PHILLIP: “They just happen to live in New York, which is where the crime was allegedly committed.” Scott: “They question the results. They question the results of the justice system. Everyday Americans all across this country, even the never-Trumpers, are now calling and joining the team. Donors who sat on the sidelines are now joining the team because November 5th is a day of reckoning and America will be spoken — will be heard. Our voices will be heard loud and clear. And I can guarantee you the American people, we the people, will be on the side of Donald Trump. November 5th is a day of reckoning.”

RUSH TRANSCRIPT: Reverting back to an old game plan. So I‘m telling every single person who will listen that yes, you will have a chance to be heard and to be seen that day is November the fifth senator, Tim Scott, and we appreciate your time. Thank you for joining us tonight yes, ma‘am. >> See you next time and my paddle is back with me jo on over to you. >> Your reaction to that? Yeah. >> You‘re incredibly kind not to comment, but for him to make this about your tone and tenor was sexist and disgusting and speaking of sexism, if there‘s one person I‘m thinking of tonight when we hear this verdict, it‘s my former boss, Hillary Clinton, who warned us over and over again, who was treated like she was the criminal in 2016 when Donald Trump, at that time was engaged in this polonius scheme. I think the history books need to note that absolutely that is so important. I just want to to play a little bit of Hillary Clinton. We actually apparently she was out doing something tonight and she responded to this. Listen thank you so much. >> Anything going on today I mean Joe hiller Donald Trump, by the way. >> I mean, it should be noted candid, lock her up for years and years. I mean, he‘s still does actually now he, is the, one with a criminal conviction. He also has several other trials pending it seems, though, based on what the senator was saying, they‘re Republicans, right now, every time that the outcome is not what they want, it‘s always rigged. Why is that?

SCARBOROUGH: “Again, if you’re Biden, you — you, as Cohn said you like the fact that the hard part’s done. Now you need to bring your voters home.” Heilemann: “Right. And — and again, I hate to give Sam credit for anything, although I don’t know if you caught him this morning on ‘Way too Early’ Joe, his — his questioning related to the problems with the price of orange juice. He was here on the business section on ‘Way too Early’ this morning. Sam was talking about man that that discussion of the alternatives to oranges, other citrus fruits that —“ STEIN: “I thought that was great —“ [crosstalk] Heilemann: “— we could use because there’s a spike in orange juice prices. It was compelling. No, really compelling but even more compelling, even more compelling Sam’s — Sam’s analysis just now, which is something that the Biden campaign knows well. It is not the concern about African American voters, young voters and — and Hispanic voters like these core elements of the Democratic coalition, the concern is not that anybody really thinks they’re going to go flock off to Donald Trump. The concern is that they stay home, that they that — that in a very, very close election in all of those battleground states, you know, if a large chunk of any of those parts of the coalition decide to just say, ‘Screw it, I’m not going to vote,’ that’s a problem for the Biden campaign. The upside there to your point, Joe, is again, you’re not trying to persuade them in a lot of cases to come back to Joe Biden. You’re just trying to persuade them to do what they did in 2020 and to — and to realize the stakes. And what a devastating outcome it would be for their — for their interests, for the interests of young voters, the pocketbook interests, they are focused more on the economy than they are on Gaza. We see that in the polling for African American and Latino voters, that that that Trump presidency — Trump reelection would be terrible for them. So just please do what you did back — from the Biden campaign’s point of view — just do what you did back in 2020. You’re right. That is the easier sell than trying to get older white voters who have drifted away from the Democratic coalition over the last 20 years to come back home. Those guys are sticking with Biden. That’s a big part of why they can be optimistic in those three Midwestern states.”

BREAM: “I want to bring in Professor Jonathan Turley, who has been in the courtroom today. So you’re fresh out of there. Can you give us any of the flavor? Because when we thought that the court was going to break for the day, it seems like President Trump and his team seemed relaxed, that he was smiling. Maybe they thought, OK, this jury is still struggling. They’re going to leave tonight not having made a decision. Then we get word that verdict is coming in. What can you tell us about the mood inside the courthouse?” TURLEY: “It was one of the most bizarre moments I’ve had in a courtroom. And I was just observing. The judge had just said that the jury could not reach a decision and that we would be dismissed for the day. Some reporters actually gathered their stuff and were starting to leave. And then the judge came and basically said, my mistake, we just got a note saying there’s a verdict. Throughout this time, you could feel the building pressure in that courtroom. The one person that didn’t seem to register it was the former president. He had been chatting with counsel. He didn’t show any emotion at all as this mantra of guilty verdicts was read. And there was a great — you know, I think that this is one of those things that is, really embodies the entire Trump era. There were people who clearly were thrilled by the result. And there were people that will be very sad by it. I was saddened to watch it. I disagree with this verdict. I think, as I’ve said before, that this case was legally unfounded. When they were reading those guilty verdicts, the one thing that we didn’t know is really what he was found guilty of. Because if you remember, the judge allowed the jury to find guilt on any one of three secondary crimes. We weren’t told whether the jury found any one of those crimes, whether they found all three of those crimes. I’m not too sure we will know that. That’s one of the many issues that I think presents reversible problems in this case. So what I would say is that this is historic moment. We all have to take a breath. But for those upset by this verdict, remember, this remains a country committed to the rule of law and this is going to go up on appeal. I think it’s going to be reversed in the state or federal systems, but it’s moments like this when you’re on the other side, when you disagree with the verdict, that you have to take a leap of faith in the rule of law. It’s what defines us. Many people feel that this case really embodied the antithesis of that. But as a country as a whole, we have a system in place to review this. For Donald Trump, that’s not going to happen before the election in all likelihood. But let’s keep in mind that this is not the only court. It’s just the first one.”

BARNICLE: “Jen, you’ve been asked — you’ve been asked this question a million times. So this is a million plus one.” PSAKI: “Go ahead. Go ahead.” BARNICLE: “And it’s off of what Symone —“ PSAKI: “Yeah.” BARNICLE: “— just said. Why is it that the Biden Administration and the president himself is now according to some people competing with Donald Trump —“ PSAKI: “Mm-hmm.” BARNICLE: “— for the black vote in the black communities in this country? How can that be the case when he is a lifelong record —“ PSAKI: “Yeah.” BARNICLE: “— and — of — of positive movements for the black community and his administration, certainly last four years has the same.” PSAKI: “It’s also how he became the nominee in —“ BARNICLE: “Yes.” PSAKI: “— in 2020. Look, this bends the mind. I’m just going to acknowledge that to start off with. I think there’s a couple of — I mean, if you talk to the campaign, and pollsters and others, they’ll tell you a couple of things. One is there is still this challenge the Biden campaign is facing that people it hasn’t settled into everyone, that like Donald Trump is the actual other choice. And that’s the alternative and what that would mean for them, that there’s still a fair number of people who aren’t paying attention. That’s part of what they will argue. That’s why they’re eager to get onto the debate stage and actually move past this period with the trial. The other factor is what I’ve just touched on earlier. And you can see this in some of the coverage, which is interesting is things like what Symone was talking about, housing costs, higher interest rates, who do they impact? They impact people who are lower income, who are living paycheck-t- paycheck, they impact some of the demographic groups, young people, communities of color, that the President is struggling with.” BRZEZINSKI: “Yeah.” PSAKI: “That is an area where he has a good story to tell. And I agree with Symone, this is actually quite similar. And I was on President Obama’s campaign back in 2012, of course, the argument he was making was not ‘I have solved every economic problem for you.’ It was, ‘I am the better fighter for you than the other guy.’ That has to be the president’s argument. The last thing I will say that I think is a factor is they’ve started to draw the contrast. Obviously, the president is showing up in places. They have to move on from — from accomplishments and getting credit for accomplishments and make it all about the contrast of what a Biden and Trump presidency would be. You can see them moving into that —“ BARNICLE: “Yeah.” PSAKI: “— stage. But I think there’s a couple of factors —“ BRZEZINSKI: “Mm-hmm.” PSAKI: “— at play here and it’s really about bringing people home to who they pulled the lever for before.” BRZEZINSKI: “Bring them home.”

BRZEZINSKI: “Wow, the Emmy award-winning filmmaker joins us now. He is this year’s recipient of the National Constitution Center’s Liberty Medal for quote, ‘illuminating the nation’s greatest triumphs and tragedies and inspiring all of us to learn about the principles at the heart of the American idea.’ And Ken, great to have you on and I want to start right there with the American idea. I noticed that — well, everything you said, jumped out at me, but I’m going to pull. You said do not be seduced. I think that’s so important in the in the — in the age of the cult of Trump, but even more important, you used the word fragile. And I don’t think people understand just how fragile our democracy is. Can you explain how easily it could be unraveled?” BURNS: “Well, I think all you need to do is go back to say — and good morning, Mika, thank you for having me — you could go back to where in 1932, you’d want to be where everything was great with ideas, in politics, in — in arts, in architecture, in movies, in painting, in music, there’d be no better place on the planet than Berlin. And the next January, not so much. And so what we learned from the study of authoritarianism, what we learned from the study of despots is that these democratic institutions are fragile because the covenant of democracy is a new thing. We invented it. It said, you’re not going to be a subject, you’re going to be a citizen. And that requires some responsibilities. And we’re going to build institutions in which we have to just like driving down the road, we trust people aren’t going to cross the line. We need to trust each other. And the despot —“ BRZEZINSKI: “Yeah.” BURNS: “— is all about othering people and saying there’s them. There’s no them, I tried to say in this. And it’s really not about Joe Biden and — and Donald Trump. It’s really about this tendency for us to other and make it just an argument and not a story. As Jen was saying, Joe needs to tell a story. But we also have a responsibility. We’ve been so focused in the corner of my screen was like we’re waiting for the train wreck of the trial. We used to eight years ago, nine years ago, have an airplane hangar where he was going to arrive and say some bad things that were going to shake us up. We have not allowed — the only place where trickle down works is in media. Marshall McLuhan said the medium is the message. If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, did it make a sound? If Joe Biden has the third greatest legislative accomplishments in the last 100 years after FDR, and — and LBJ, and people don’t know about it, because we’ve been more interested in the argument of guilty or not guilty, or this outrage or that outrage, we’ve missed our responsibility to help. So the other thing I would add to is that in the othering everybody does it. We do it too. We need to reach out to Trump voters. We need to listen to them. We don’t need to other them either. Their guy is doing that. We need — we need to remind them that so many of the things that keep them at the level that they’re at, that paycheck-to-paycheck, are there because of things that Joe Biden and Barack Obama and other people have done for them and not allow them to be completely seduced by the story that despots always tell, that if we get rid of these people or this problem or —“ Right. BURNS: “— that — that things will be better. I — I think it’s all of us to try to speak to each other in a way and tell stories not make arguments.”

TALAMANTES EGGMAN: “Thank you, Mr. President and members. I’d like to say, as a — as a progressive proud member of this body for the last 12 years, I’m done. I’m done with us protecting people who would buy and abuse our children. I’m done. I don’t want to send more black and brown men to prison, I don’t want more people in prison, but I don’t want people buying girls. I don’t want people buying little girls anymore. And I’m tired of saying it’s OK, and that we have to protect the men who do it. As a mental health professional, and as a social worker, I can tell you, I’ve spent my entire career working with people who have been wounded, I’m not going to say beyond repair, but they have been wounded to their core, by the abuse that’s been heaped on them oftentimes by those that they love, and look to protect them. And if their parents won’t do it, then by God, we should. Again, I am not arguing that we opened the gates to flood our prisons with people, but I am arguing that we have a moral responsibility to say enough, enough. We have given away enough on this area and we’ve got to move back into the center or we all look like fools and laughing stocks. And what do we stand for? I ask all of you to watch the documentary that Senator Grove was in, senator from Kern County was just in, that talked about this very place in Sacramento where girls are being bought and sold. Men are being given a slap on the hand or a couple days, and then they’re back out again and they do the same thing. They get caught over and over and over again. And somehow that’s OK. It’s not OK. It is not OK anymore. And no, no more on my watch. And like I said, I’m leaving, but the rest of you we’re gonna be here for a while, let’s get our stuff together and really start focusing on some of the important things. We talked about learning and we talked about being safe. This is like at the core of it. And a lot of these kids can be throw away kids, they are poor kids, they are kids of color, but they shouldn’t have to live a life determined by what happens to them by others at a very young age and by how the Democratic Party of California say it’s OK. It’s not OK. And I’m not doing it anymore. And I hope None of you do too. We have to be able to draw a line and for me, I’m drawing a line. I urge your aye vote.”

Bowman: “I mean, when you look on social media, we are — U.S. weapons are burning infant children alive, and so he has to respond. We cannot send another weapon or another dollar to Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu at this point because they have been moving forward with what the ICJ has called a plausible genocide. And everyone sees it, my district sees it, the country sees it, and we have to stop and we need a permanent ceasefire.” PHILLIP: “I want to show you what Nikki Haley, that former Republican presidential candidate, what she wrote on such bombs as we’ve been discussing. These are bombs that presumptively would be used in Rafah. She signed ‘Finish them’ on the rocket. What’s your response to that?” Bowman: “Nikki Haley is disgusting. She’s a disgusting human being to do that. That’s genocidal language. And it’s a language that has the American people turning against our government. Why do we continue to support not just the consistent attacks in Gaza, but the forever wars? There are people in our country, their entire lives, me included, seems like we’re constantly at war with someone, spending trillions, killing millions, while people are suffering and starving and dying right here in our country,. That is gross. That is disgusting. And Nikki Haley should be ashamed of herself.”

Hannity: “Let’s get your take on the request for instructions by the jury on these four separate items. Pecker’s testimony about the phone conversation with Trump, his testimony about the decision regarding the assignment of the Karen McDougal’s life rights, his testimony about the Trump Tower meeting, and Michael Cohen’s testimony about the Trump Tower meeting. I know we should not read into these things, but I’ve read into it a thousand different ways, I did everything that I know I should not do, but I want to get your thoughts.” TURLEY: “Well, Sean, as you’ve noted, we’re all speculating here, but heck, there’s nothing else to do. I’m surprised that some other networks have said this is really great news, that they sent this out. I have to tell you, as a criminal defense attorney, I would not view this as clearly good news for the prosecution. The only reason why a jury would send out a request to here the instructions again is if there’s a disagreement about what the instructions are. That indicates that there may be a conflict with jurors in that room about what their standard is, how they are supposed to look at the evidence. There’s various reasons why these particular parts of the testimony would be demanded by the jury. Among them is a rather intriguing one. The judge told the jury that if Cohen lied to any material fact, the jury could disregard all of his testimony. Now, he noted that that means that you have to look for corroboration of Cohen because he’s someone who obviously is not just a serial perjurer, but he’s an accomplice. So, they happen to have requested the Trump meeting, which the government cited as corroboration for Cohen, so it may have been that they started logically and say, ‘First of all, can we consider anything that Michael Cohen has said?’ And that would lead them to corroboration, which would lead them to the Trump Tower meetings. It would also lead them to the instruction. Now, is that what’s going on? Not necessarily. That is one possibility. The other possibilities include that they are looking at this evidence and they’re trying to figure out what they can establish as fact, not just to insinuate or assume the facts. So I don’t consider this such a clearly positive thing for the prosecution. As a defense attorney, I would welcome this type of request. They were only in there for a few hours and they asked to hear the instructions again and they asked to hear court testimony. The problem that Trump is having remains those instructions. They are very one-sided, and they have converted this into something of a canned hunt. What Judge Merchan has said is that you could divide 4-4-4. You could have three groups of jurors who view the facts materially differently, they could disagree as to what crime was behind this effort to falsify business records, and Merchan will still treat that as a unanimous verdict. That is pretty chilling for people that believe strongly in the criminal justice system and the very high standard of proof that is required.” Hannity: “Well, let me ask you about that. The judge saying the underlying election charge does not have to be unanimous to me would be a reversible error. And what’s interesting, I did quote two Supreme Court cases, Andres v. The U.S., Ramos v. Louisiana, which, by the way, a fairly recent case, that was a 2020 case, and the Supreme Court held that unanimity in a jury verdict required — is required under the Sixth and Seventh Amendments, and the requirements extends to any and all issues. To find someone guilty, jurors must always agree, without dissent, on every necessary element of the purported crime. Now, that could not be any more clear. Why would he set himself up with such a reversible error?” TURLEY: “Yeah, he’s claiming that, look, they are still unanimous that there was some crime behind all of this. I don’t think that’s adequate. We haven’t seen the jury verdict form or what they will fill out. It’s not clear. I’ve been in that court room, it’s not clear, once they vote, whether we will actually know what was the crime that they found to elevate this dead misdemeanor back into life and convert it into a felony. We haven’t seen those documents in this system. So, do I think this is potential reversible error? Sure. It’s rather a long list now of what I think are reversible errors by this judge. I expected him to do more of an effort to cure it. But the judge also has to look at this transcript when they read it tomorrow. You know, at the very end of the hearing, the judge was questioning the defense who wanted to include in the transcript something I thought was obviously material. The jury wants to here what was said about the Trump Tower meeting. One of the things that defense wants to point out is what was said that was not included in the meeting. Merchan indicated he did not think that is something they needed to here. My jaw dropped. That seams clearly material. So we’ll see if he comes to a different conclusion in the morning.”

Fetterman: “I was putting together my speech, and I started to reflect the way probably you do. And I was reflecting and I was like, well, when was my last graduation? That was literally a quarter century ago, 25 years ago. I was graduation from Harvard University. But — but — but today, but today, I have been profoundly disappointed the way Harvard’s inability to stand up for the Jewish community after October 7. (Cheering and Applause) And for me personally, I do not fundamentally believe that it’s right for me to wear this today.” (Cheering and Applause)

BREAM: “ — had four years to think about the way he performed, now four years of President Biden. But some of them will always now have this vision with President Trump, that these kinds of dramas and things will be just part of his package, part of what comes with him as president.” HABBA: “It’s called extortion. Extortion is something that happens with people when they are powerful, when they are strong-voiced and when people listen to them. It is a natural consequence of being a very effective human being in this unfortunate culture that we have. It is litigious. That is what America has become. And Joe Biden, unfortunately, can’t really do anything in office. So, he’s got to use the same means as somebody who’s just trying to have a quick slip-and-fall and make money. And that is frankly what we’re seeing right now. This is exactly a Biden show because he’s got to distract the American people. Listen —“ BREAM: “But the Biden Administration’s not responsible for this trial.” HABBA: “How can you say the Biden Administration is not responsible for this trial?” BREAM: “It’s a state trial. It’s Alvin Bragg. Whether you think there’s a political motive for him, it’s not connected to the DoJ. I mean —“ HABBA: “Shannon —“ BREAM: “— the feds passed on these election charges.” HABBA: “Shannon, you should look at how many logs they have of state officials — Letitia James, Fani Willis — visiting the White House and then tell me that this is not a Biden trial.” BREAM: “Feds passed on this case, is the point I’m making.” HABBA: “You’re right, the feds passed on this case. Also, DA Cy Vance passed on this case, and frankly —“ BREAM: “Years ago, and then it came back.” HABBA: “And Bragg passed on this case. You know when it came back? When he decided to run for office. So tell me how that’s not an indication that Joe Biden, who just sent his campaign down here with Robert De Niro yesterday, isn’t a part of this? Frankly, any question that we had of that was squashed yesterday. And if you have even more concerns about whether he’s involved in this, look at the fact that he is publicizing, literally publicizing for tonight to have a speech if a verdict comes out. That’s a sad state of affairs. Meanwhile, our country is falling apart. He’s got bigger fish to fry.”

TAPPER: “Hillary Clinton recently gave an interview to The New York Times. She reflected on why some women did not support her in 2016, how Democrats failed to abort — protect abortion rights adequately. She, again, partially blamed you for her defeat for reopening the investigation into her email server, holding the press conference where you called her extremely careless without any formal criminal charges. She told the Times: ‘Once he did that to me, the people, the voters who left me were women. They left me because they just couldn‘t take a risk on me because as a woman, I‘m supposed to be perfect. They were willing to take a risk on Trump — who had a long list of, let‘s call them flaws, to illustrate his imperfection — because he was a man and they could envision a man as president and commander-in-chief.’ What did you think? What was your response?” COMEY: “We were never trying to do anything to either of the candidates in 2016. We regretted being involved. We were just trying to do the right thing given the facts that landed on us.” TAPPER: “And what would you say to Hillary Clinton if she were here right now? I mean, do you feel any regret or you think she‘s the one that made the decisions to do X, Y, Z?” COMEY: “I regret being involved, but I didn‘t put 300,000 of her emails in Anthony Weiner’s laptop that the FBI then had to look at. And so, I hated the situation, but I bear her no ill will and I get the pain she feels, I‘m sure, about 2016. I hope we had nothing to do with the outcome, but we were just trying to do the right thing. And I still think we did the right thing.”

ENTEN: “John, that it began, but apparently, it is 44 days. You crack the numbers, you’ve run the numbers. All right, let’s take a look here. Think Trump did something illegal in the New York hush money case. I’ve been interested in whether or not these numbers will change at all during the course of this trial? Simply put, John, they have not. Pre-opening statements think Trump did something illegal, 46 percent. After the direct examination of Michael Cohen by the prosecution, look at where we are now, 46 percent. The percentage of Americans who think that the charges are very serious in fact, dropped from 40 percent to a little bit more than and 35 percent during the course of this trial. So, yes, perhaps things might have changed with those 12 jurors, but when it comes to the larger American public, there has been no change, at least so far — John.” BERMAN: “Any possible reasons why?” ENTEN: “Yes, I think the question is, what is exactly cooking here? Why hasn’t there been much of a change? Well, folks like you and me, real news junkie might be paying really close attention to what is going on. The fact that most Americans don’t really care that much, so closely following news about economy inflation, that’s number one. It is 65 percent. Look at immigration, 52 percent; election legitimacy, 49 percent; abortion, 47 percent — all the way down on this list of issues tested by the Ipsos Knowledge Panel is Trump’s court cases at 42 percent. Significantly less than economy and inflation. The fact is, John, when we are looking at these numbers, what we see is Americans minds aren’t changing and a big reason why Americans minds aren’t changing is at this particular point, John, they are tuned out of the conversation.”

FAUKLNER: “Well, let me ask you about the three choices. And — and one thing in particular that this judge said that these jurors could do. He just delivered what is being called really the pinnacle of all of this, he said that there is no need to agree on what has occurred. They can disagree on what the crime was among the three choices. Thus, this means that they could split 4-4-4 and the judge would still treat them unanimously. What does that mean?” McCarthy: “Well, it’s really outrageous, because in a normal criminal case every statutory crime has what we call elements of the offense. Like in a bank robbery case, it’s you know, you have to rob, it’s got to be a financial institution, you have to show intent. Those are the things the jury has to agree on unanimously that were — that they were proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Here, what we’re doing is taking the element that actually makes this a felony — because remember, falsification of records is normally a misdemeanor in New York — what makes it a felony is that you’re concealing or committing another crime. And here the judge is telling them, they don’t have to agree about what the other crime is, under circumstances where that not only is what makes this a felony, what makes it a four-year potential prison penalty rather than a year or less, but it’s also what gets us into the courtroom. Because if this had been a misdemeanor, the — the time to bring this case would have lapsed in 2019. So the only reason they’re still able to bring this case is because it’s a felony, allegedly, and yet now the judge is saying, you know, you don’t have to agree on what the felony is.”

HAINES: “Well, Dr. Biden, the first presidential debate is less than a month away. And we’ve debated at this table, there have been people that have thought President Biden shouldn’t even debate President Trump just due to the fact that he — Donald Trump will gaslight. He overtalks.” Biden: “Yeah.” HAINES: “There are no guardrails. So —“ BEHAR: “He stokes.” HAINES: “Yeah. Well, I happen to believe it’s really important more than ever to have a debate with guardrails. What is the strategy that the president has going into this? Any tips you’d have for a debate that we could pull off where we could actually hear our candidates?” Biden: “You know, they build that in where they’re going to turn off those mics so that somebody can’t ramble or scream at somebody — you know, not that my husband would be the one doing that. And so that’s already been negotiated. And you know, I think — but I think the American people deserve a debate, because you need to see your choices. You need to see Trump and you need to see the president, and you need to see the differences. And my husband’s — and you’re going to see how smart he is, and the experience he has. And then you’ll see somebody who like you’re saying, I’m going to use Joy’s words can put a sentence together —“ BEHAR: “Right.” Biden: “— and everything is beautiful, and it’s wonderful.” BEHAR: “Tremendous.” HOSTIN: “Big league.” [crosstalk] Biden: “Yeah. Yeah. Tremendous.” BEHAR: “Tremendous.” Biden: “So, I think you deserve. The American people deserve to see the — the two men who are running for this office, because your choice is going to be clear.” HOSTIN: “Yeah.”