Bank Ties Trump's Org to Money Laundering Concern for "First Time"

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0:30Ty Cobb:Welcome to The Beat, everyone. I'm Ari Melbourne. We begin with what has become a rolling backlash to the failed Trump power graphs. On many different fronts, he is losing, and losing even worse if you kind of grade it per capita, meaning he has the White House, he has a sympathetic Supreme Court, he has both houses of Congress. And yet, on some very key items, he's not getting where he wants to go. His new attorney general, for example, came in at the cost of sacrificing and compromising on their anti-police plot to fund convicts. Todd Blanche did, after that compromise, get into office. Most of the president's cabinet members are usually ultimately confirmed when you control the Senate.

1:13Ty Cobb:He did lose some Senate votes, and we can tell you that he's giving his first address, his remarks as now permanent or non-acting attorney general. And what's notable, again, is how having made a lot of noise and lost some early battles, he was trying to sound measured today. There are reports calling it a basic turnabout when you think of how much lawless, heated rhetoric and sometimes outright pro-MAGA convict language we've heard from the president and him. He tried to shore up his career staff. This is after the firings and the disparagement of that same DOJ workforce by his boss, President Trump.

1:52That's how the Post put it today.

1:55Ty Cobb:Blanche's remarks also sparked backlash for how words are cheap when you are in power. for people who don't wield vast power, right? When we talk politics, that might be as far as it goes. You don't say when you're having an argument with a friend about politics, well, that's not what you did when you were president or when you were at DOJ. Words are kind of as far as it goes for some. But of course, here, this individual was acting AG. He already tried to give your money out to convicts. He failed at that. But in many other ways, we know where he stands on transparency, on Epstein, on the soft on crime agenda of this government when it comes to at least all of the type of crime that they find too similar to their own activities to punish.

2:38Ty Cobb:And I have more on that tonight, but take a look at some of what Blanche said. We will always back the blue and back our federal law enforcement partners without apology. And what that means at the federal level is that anytime somebody assaults a federal law enforcement officer, we will prosecute them to the best of our ability. Fact check, false. It tells you just how extreme and lawless Donald Trump's positions, his actual work and stances are that his newly appointed, newly confirmed attorney general still has to pretend otherwise, pretend the opposite. As we've reported, and this is just the policy record, this is the most anti-police DOJ and administration in modern history.

3:32Ty Cobb:And no other president has given out as many pardons to individuals convicted for trespassing areas that the police were protecting on January 6th, for battering and attacking police, and of course, most seriously for trying to commit sedition against the United States, which required, in the case of the Proud Boys and others, attacking and violently going after police. No other administration has gone this far. Those are just the facts. And so compare what he's claiming now, that he wants to say they back the blue or will go after people who hurt officers, which they don't, which they didn't, which they pardoned, which they wanted to fund, compared to what he said about the MAGA Crime Fund, whose payouts would have gone to convicts and potentially, according to Trump, what he wanted, didn't get, including those convicts who attacked police on January 6th.

4:27The president feels very strongly, as do I, that there were people who were victims of a Department of Justice that was absolutely weaponized. And he feels very strongly that he would want to make them whole, as do I. But it will not be through the Anti-Weaponization Fund which, again, was never set up, and nothing has happened with it.

4:57Multiple capital injuries! Multiple capital injuries! Get him! Go! Go!

5:10Ty Cobb:Attorney General Blanche is not telling the truth. He is not being accurate about the DOJ that he runs. And there's a lot of Orwellian word games, which maybe people have gotten used to, which in a sense can be good. If you've heard enough of this type of crap, you know how to kind of sift through it. it was the MAGA convicts who, of course, victimized police. They were not victims of a system that we all live by, and they got all the rights afforded to them, including a jury of their peers, but those convicted were convicted in our system. Legally, many have been pardoned, but they're not victims of the system.

5:50Ty Cobb:And the so-called weaponization, this term weapon, of course, also Orwellian, it was the MAGA convicts that Donald Trump summoned to be in D.C. January 6th, many of whom had weapons and used material as weapons against police. To say they're the victims of weaponization is again another Orwellian twist. And Trump pardoned them. We also know that Blanche had to compromise, as I mentioned, which is important because while some of this is bad news for democracy and the rule of law, there are aspects of this that were beaten back legally. He compromised under pressure. They ended the fund, as you heard him say there.

6:24Ty Cobb:And now, Now, suspiciously, he and Trump still talk about trying to route around that in some way. But pressure works. And second, Trump is still going to try to fund his private militia. He said that out loud. Donald Trump, of course, has been caught in many lies, but also, especially in the second term, he blurts things out, even to his own detriment. because many of the things he kept saying about how clearly he wanted this fund to go forward is part of why Blanche got cornered by those Republican senators. Trump had sort of given the game away and some senators decided to get it stopped in writing.

7:00Ty Cobb:Trump has used more power on behalf of convicts against police than any other president. If you've heard me say that more than once, it's because A, it is important enough to repeat and B, they keep lying about it. So sometimes our job in the news and the facts community is to put the facts back up before you, before anyone who cares about facts and reporting and evidence, which is separate from ideological debates at the DOJ, which happened, of course, across many administrations. So Blanche's speech today came from a position of weakness, of some level of acknowledgement that to say the full truth would be too much for the people who work at DOJ.

7:39Ty Cobb:To admit that they actually are an anti-police institution on these key issues would be too much. So he went the other way. I want to bring in a DOJ veteran who's also served in the Trump White House in the first term, Ty Cobb, who has been a big advocate for the rule of law and spoken out clearly against many of these issues. Ty, I'm always interested in how you put it, which which might be different than than some of the evidence that we drew on. But but your thought about Blanche, not just sidestepping this, but trying to rewrite the history of where he and the president stand on the so-called blue lives.

8:15Sure. I think there are several points to be made on that already. and yours were cogent and precise as always. But this is not a turnabout. This is for media consumption. I've spoken to three senior DOJ people who were in that room, all of whom in some way or another clearly revealed that morale at the department has never been lower. The pride that people used to take before going into court and saying, I'm here on behalf of the United States, you know, has ebbed considerably. You know, the rule of regularity, the presumption of regularity attendant to DOJ representations before federal judges has been eroded.

9:03It's virtually disappeared, meaning that the courts no longer take at face value what prosecutors say. They insist that it be proven. That alone shows you the retreat in the rule of law that has happened in the last 18, 19 months. But Blanche, in terms of backing the blue, your points are clear that, you know, they've pardoned people who assaulted police officers, almost killed police officers. And not just those people, but major drug dealers, you know, authoritarian figures from around the globe in prison for bringing in tons and tons of cocaine into the United States and other drugs, you know, have gotten pardons under circumstances that are still under investigation, but clearly suggest that, you know, money was exchanged.

9:53You know, the denigration of the rule of law under, you know, Bondi and then Blanche has been tragic. Now, when Blanche says they back the blue, the only two instances that I can see where that has happened in this administration is the murderers of Renee Good and Alex Predig, for whom no justice has been forthcoming and actually no investigation is underway. So I don't think we have anything to hang our hat on to suggest that justice is coming back. In fact, justice seems to be in full retreat. People who handled national security matters, civil rights matters, major crimes have been redirected into immigration cases, which proliferate and dominate federal court now in a way that they never have historically.

10:47They're not making us safer. And many, many of the talented, longtime civil servants who had great reputations with the judiciary, were trusted by judges, they've been fired. And when Blanche says, you know, he's looking for, you know, people to disagree with him. Well, we know what's happened to people who disagreed with him. You know, the prosecutors in Virginia who said that the Comey case and the James cases were not worthy. They got fired. You know, people who object to what Blanche does, criticize what Blanche does, criticize what Blondie did, they're gone. So there was no truth to that.

11:29Just like Blanche practiced deceit in the Great Hall, expanding on the stain that Pam Bondi created when she assembled the Justice Department in the Great Hall to declare her fealty to Trump over the Constitution. You know, the stain that Blanche perpetuated today with this deceitful presentation was continued in a courtroom in D.C. today in front of Judge Sullivan, where in connection with the Epstein, the failed disclosures in the Epstein case, the outing of victims and the protecting of pedophiles, you know, Blanche basically, you know, took out, well, gee, that's beyond my control. Well, if it's beyond his control, you know, whose control is it in?

12:10The Justice Department is under orders to disclose this information. And he basically used deceit all day long in that courtroom to beg for delay. They can't afford to have those disclosures come out before the midterms. And so he's doing everything he can to prevent it. He's not moving forward in any way. He suggested the statute doesn't have a deadline. So there's really nothing that can be done to force him to come forward. These are things that should be very, very troubling. to Americans, and certainly to Americans who are concerned about the propriety of the way their government enforces the rule of law where no person is supposed to be above the law.

12:48Ty Cobb:Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, you lay it out. I want to show him today versus past remarks when you talk about the whole role of the DOJ, why it's supposed to be different than other agencies, its special role, the rule of law and the judiciary. Take a look. we will always respect the role of the judiciary. We will not engage in or stand for any sort of performative attacks that undermine the institutions that we are sworn to uphold. We are routinely getting stays and getting reversals because of local judges just not following the law full stop. It's a war, man. The system is not set up for efficiency when it comes to rogue activist judges.

13:36Ty? So I think there it is, already starkly for us, the level of hypocrisy. We know what he truly believes. He truly believes that the president will not tolerate any resistance. He will not tolerate courts trying to make him follow the law. And Blanche is there to move the law out of the way for the president and facilitate whatever he needs. They Blanche has attacked judges. He did. He attacked judges just in that clip. And there are judges, you know, whose whose lives are being threatened every day. There are judges who who serve the public at great, great danger, doing very important work.

14:17You know, dedicated public servants who could be making a fortune in private practice, but they chose to serve the country and the rule of law. And he has denigrated them repeatedly. So what we see is hypocrisy and deceit that coming from the attorney general. It's a it's a tragic time in American history and people need to be paying attention.

14:38Ty Cobb:Yeah, I want you to stay with me, Ty. You've agreed to stay over. We have our shortest break, 90 seconds, where we look at how this pushback is working. We'll be right back.

14:51Ty Cobb:This would be a reimbursement for the pain that they suffer. A lot of people like it. If they don't approve that, I put it back on the table. A lot of people like it. A lot of big supporters of Trump like it. Donald Trump sort of speaking, Ty, if I may, tautologically, if you give convicts free money taken from someone else, they like it. And unlike other people who might have scruples, I think convicts, you know, no shade, but don't think about whether it's a fair use of the tax dollars. So to say tautologically, oh, they like they like that. Who cares? It's kind of missing the point, obviously.

15:29Ty Cobb:And I'm curious where you think this all goes, because there I don't want to give out too much credit to the low bar, but the senators did get this in writing. You and I know in litigation that helps as opposed to the government, if they try to restart it, as opposed to the government saying, well, we interpret it differently. It was pretty clearly ended, at least that version of the fund. And so what's going to happen, do you believe, in the next couple of years? And if they do find other loopholes, then the same groups are going to be suing over it. Is this thing really DOA in court? No, it's not DOA at all.

16:05In fact, what Blanche put in writing has the functional legal effect of a press release. You know, that the document that he purported to modify specifically says that it cannot be modified without the written signature of all the parties. Right. That didn't happen. So that, you know, the ability to enforce even the existing agreement remains extant. And they've made plain, you know, they're going to find a way. I mean, Blanche didn't say, you know, we're not going to not take care of these people. He said, we will take care of these people, but we're just not going to do it this way. Who knows how they're going to try to do this?

16:42And yeah, of course, if you're a violent insurrectionist, you're going to appreciate any money you can get paid for that. But if that's the audience that Trump's talking about when he says many people like it, you know, that's not the audience that Americans should be catering to. Americans should be catering to people who are aspirational about inclusiveness, integrity, the rule of law, and moving forward in a way where we're secure in our homes and secure in our borders. Secure in our borders in a way that our national security is protected. We don't have that anymore. It's disappeared in the last 18 months because the talent and expertise and people who saw to that have been dismissed, fired, or reassigned to other tasks.

17:33Other tasks consistent with the president's desires, the revenge prosecutions and and other things, including the development of his militia, ICE, which I fear greatly we will see at the polls in November, as Steve Bannon has promised. And Blanche has said, you know, he doesn't see a problem with.

17:52Ty Cobb:So I think I think it's let me turn you to that tie as the final question, because you you've been around Donald Trump. One of the ways people underestimate him is they confuse his bluster in public lives with his entire plan. Having covered him and the people around him, I have found that he has attention to detail, what some might call guile and is quite clear on what some of the facts are. So he evinced knowledge that he wasn't doing that well in 2020. They started preparing for that. And you could see that especially after the loss with the lead up to to what was basically a failed coup. And today, for all the bluster, he seems very aware that his approval is cratered and that he could lose this midterms as he lost the first midterms of his first term in a blue wave.

18:42Ty Cobb:And so you just mentioned what do you see as important for the rule of law and people who support the outcomes? I support, of course, as a journalist, whatever the outcome is. If the Republicans were to win fair and square, great. But what do you see as important at a time when it appears Trump knows they could really lose badly in November? Well, I think he's getting desperate. His approval rankings are in the low 30s. He's installed Blanche, his personal lawyer, who, as you pointed out, has shown his willingness to loot the Treasury to the tune of$1.8 billion for the president. as attorney general.

19:19He's installed Will Sharft as White House counsel, an election denier who ran for attorney general in Missouri in 2024, kept referring to the 2020 election as having been stolen. He's got Bannon out there assuring us that ICE will be at the polls. ICE goes unregulated. We've got murders on tape and nobody's being prosecuted for them or even investigated. And you've got Mike Johnson who may or may not seat a democratically elected House. And I think that with the illegal apparatus being organized in a way to protect the Republican desires and with the possibility of seizure of election machines and ballots, which Bill Barr refused to do, but Todd Blanche will not refuse, I think we're in for a very dangerous time.

20:15I think it's going to take a great deal of preparation and resistance and courtroom time to ensure that we get fair and free elections and that the results of those elections are honored by the government.

20:28Ty Cobb:Understood. And we really appreciate not only your expertise, but your clarity at a time when we need it. Thank you, Ty. Thank you. Appreciate it. By the end of the hour, we turn to the pressure on Pete Hegseth, military families demanding answers. That's exclusive MS Now reporting. Also, this story is a real barn burn, a top bank, canceling over 300 of Trump-affiliated bank accounts after a money laundering review. We get into that with Ruth Ben-Ghiat. But next, Democrats say the midterms aren't just going to take back the House, but could be a full blue wave. and Trump cratering while Mondani approval surges.

21:12Ty Cobb:All that coming up.

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21:33Ty Cobb:It's the summer. People are chilling. People look away from news sometimes and politics. I get that, although you're here with us, so you're probably still paying attention like we are. And this was actually another week where we learned new things. If you ever watch The Beat, even occasionally, you know that I would tell you, you don't need most of the polls. You don't need most of the hype. You certainly can screen out some of the misleading stuff on social media. But when we have primaries, as we did this week, we learn what voters actually think. And so we got the primary. We got new results.

22:03Ty Cobb:We got some shifting towards the Democrats in Wisconsin, for example. And then you have other states where every week that goes by, we are learning how it's going. In Texas, there are clear indicators that Democrats are doing better than usual. And the Trump intervention in that campaign has hurt the Republicans because he took out a famous, long-serving Texas Republican incumbent. And we all know incumbents are more likely to win than anybody else. That has been true since democracy ever began. And it makes sense. They have an advantage. People know them. They've run before. He got the incumbent out, of course, Cornyn, put in Ken Paxton, a scandal-plagued MAGA-style candidate.

22:46Ty Cobb:And he's on a conservative TV network getting grilled about what has become, as we learn more, this increasingly tough GOP landscape in Texas. So I think once we expose him for who he really is, the radical leftist views that he has, I think there's no way that Texas can elect him. With all due respect to A.G. Paxton, I mean, when are you going to expose James Tallarico, though, in terms of his many claims? Because we have around 80 days until election day, and at the time, the clock's ticking. Many are worried that this might be resulting in the Senate going to the Democrats. Yeah. Now, that is coming from conservative Newsmax as he faced questions about his checkered history and his voting and his honesty, as well as the wider mood music of whether Texas has gotten close or even an uphill battle for Republicans, which tells you something about how unpopular Trump is in the position where.

23:46Ty Cobb:And that's different than just the polls. The polls form part of the larger picture, and so candidates respond to them. I mentioned Wisconsin just showed the limits of polls, particularly in primaries. But when you have what the candidates are doing, how they're acting, and the early enthusiasm gap, there are ways to see how it's going. And so when you look at other southern states, Georgia and Texas, Democrats have done better there, but they have the incumbent Senator Ossoff, who, according to those polls, is up. North Carolina, not exactly the most liberal place in the world, but the Democrats have their former governor, Cooper, running for Senate.