BONUS: Trump slush fund and Democracy talk with Andrew Weissmann and Maya Wiley

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0:44Listeners can get an exclusive 20 % off IXL membership when they sign up today at IXL.com slash 20. Visit ixl.com slash 20 to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Donald Trump is trying to seize your taxpayer dollars for a thug fund, that's what I call it, to basically further reward violent criminals, seditionists, and others potentially from the January 6th insurrection. It's a huge deal. It's already starting to get some attention and some Republican pushback. This is a breakdown video where I'm going to talk about why this is worse than other scandals, poses a real threat to the future of democracy, and there are things that can be done about it.

1:22In fact, coming up, I'll have Andrew Weissman, who was in the Mueller probe, a DOJ vet, to talk about it. But let's go through what this is and what it isn't. Even some critics of this news, it first broke in an ABC report, and I do the news here in MS Now, and we were covering it as a leak, and then it became officialized. But even critics have called this an IRS settlement or something for Trump to help people who face problems with the government. that's the cover story that's not what this is I mean that's really kind of propaganda this is a fund for violent thugs and it's to try to continue to rebuild the architecture of Trump's failed insurrection and coup from last time and that's really bad and when you look at why Trump wants a thug fund it's not to help people with money I mean this is someone who famously stiffed his own lawyers and employees we covered covered this and you have Michael Cohen and others who've said out loud, hey, he was completely stiffing me.

2:19So this isn't someone who's, even if it's not his money, say it's taxpayer money, who wants to help people that way. This is about the fact that last time he lost a presidential election, Donald Trump in 21, tried these different plots. And I'm not going to do all of them in this breakdown, but you might recall, they filed lawsuits. They wanted the vice president to say that the election wasn't certified, so that that would create some extra controversy. They hoped that might be like a bank shot. They asked state legislators to overrule the votes in states where Trump lost, which no politician was going to do.

2:51Republicans stood up to him on that. They asked DOJ to make fraud claims. There was a bunch of things. In the end, when a lot of those failed, they turned to the mob that Trump gathered in Washington that turned violent. And so now to not only pardon those people, which Trump did, but to fund them, is a huge attack on the rule of law that poses danger for future elections. Hey, it's Arian 50. Don't forget to subscribe. And now I am joined by Andrew Weissman, of course, a very seasoned lawyer who's been a prosecutor. He's been a DOJ. He worked with Bob Mueller. What are the ways to actually stop this if it is as unconstitutional and potentially unlawful as experts say?

3:33So it's interesting because you have me on as a lawyer. But one of the ways to stop this is just politically. Yeah. Because there's so many people pushing back. And at some point, if the administration realizes that is going to be a hit, they do not want to take. One of the things I've been talking about is another thing that I'm not sure Donald Trump realizes, which is they not sure they figured out what are the tax consequences to him? because there's a good argument that the$1.8 billion is income to him. The fact that he chooses to spend it on a fund is kind of irrelevant from a tax perspective.

4:10Because they, and this is a ploy, so it may all be bullshit, but they claim that this is for his suit as a plaintiff. And your point is that then if that were even true, then this would be his benefit as a plaintiff. Exactly. So if the whole sort of construct is it's a settlement. Now, you and I might be like, that's ridiculous. Yeah, construct is a very diplomatic term, but you're a classy guy. Yeah. So, right. I was with you on, I think, what was that? Bullshit? Yeah. I mean, it's like a law school term. So, you know, that's yet another sort of this is all sort of what I'll call the non-legal route.

4:50This is all sort of things that might lead politically the administration to be like, you know, we're going to back off. In the same way that, you know what, this happened with the Federal Reserve, where there were lots of things that were happening outside of court, not just in court, that protected the Federal Reserve. And you say non-legal. If this were a law school class, it could also go under the separation of powers section. Absolutely. But just to take it now into my lane. Sure. So one of the things that you could see is you could see people who are victims of this administration's weaponization.

5:27I think I might categorize myself in that. Yeah, you and other government veterans have faced baseless probes and attacks on the president. Right. I have an executive order that a federal judge struck down that saying it violated my personal First Amendment rights. So if you end up seeing that this fund is used to pay out money to people who've been convicted of crimes, including attacking police officers, but – and I'll take myself out of it so I can just report on this. but it's not given to, let's say, Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve or the six members of Congress who they sought to indict for their free speech rights, then the courts are going to get involved and say that that is a violation.

6:13But there also already is one lawsuit that you're going to see, I think, a lot more challenging this. It's also to go to your separation of powers argument. Congress, if they were not so somnambulant, could actually do something because guess who has the power of the purse? Congress. And so they can say, what do you mean you're spending$1.8 billion of taxpayer money on a frivolous lawsuit? I think there's a reason the IRS general counsel resigned, which is that the IRS is fighting these same kinds of arguments. The plaintiffs who brought the same kinds of cases day in and day out. And suddenly for Donald Trump, it's this sort of pretextual settlement.

7:04Well, and if they're just using that as a lie to seize a billion, you could seize 10 billion or 100 billion. And so Congress, that's the thing that was in the Constitution to begin with, because the big concerns from the founding document was that you're going to use government powers for tyranny, right? That's why habeas corpus. And whether you have the right to protest and object to your custodial interrogation, to your being held, to your being executed even, right? Those were all things that they were worried about with the king. But the money was the other one. Also, some nabulant means sleepy.

7:36Yeah, I like that. Okay. I like that. because it was right on the line. You got to ask sometimes. I was accused when I first started. Somebody introduced me and they said that Andrew Weissman's our guest and take out your thesaurus. I'm not sure. And since we're casual, we're here with YouTube. We have the extra time I don't have on television. The thesaurus issue is only a problem if it's the exact same meaning and then it feels like a fancy word. If the other word adds something, I'm here for it. Yeah. Okay, I'm glad for that. So I don't know how you feel. Yeah, it's funny. So nabulant probably is, I think, it adds something more than just tired.

8:17Tell us what more it adds. Not a lot. Okay, I was trying to set him up. You were trying to help me out, but it's just a big worry. Well, because sometimes I hear with our Congress, people will say sclerotic, which doesn't just mean old, nothing wrong with being old. It means to be so old as to be infirm or unable to do the thing. But sometimes words, it's like, what is it, onomatopoeia? It's like there's another big word. Shout out onomatopoeia, yeah. Because, no, there were words that just the sound of it gives you more. Yeah, I agree. All right, so finish the point you were making. Okay, another point, which is, okay, we saw what happened with our own eyes on January 6th.

8:55We then witnessed mass pardons of those people. So you have people who have been convicted. Which I was discussing. Then you have mass pardons. Big problem, yeah. Now add in the following. These people now don't have to worry about criminal prosecution because they have a pardon and they have a president who's saying, I have your back. It's more than that. They now can be thinking, not only do I not have to worry about criminal prosecution, but I actually might get paid for doing someone's bidding. Right, and that's why we reported that Congressman Raskin calls it funding a militia and a private lawless militia.

9:33And so if you have a past pardon, you get a blanket pardon for the future and you have money. Right. That's what it looks like. And the fact that this is going to these thugs when, as I've pointed out, Donald Trump never cared about paying his own lawyers and employees. It's not like he's just randomly trying to compensate. This looks illicit. So my final question to you, and then I'll plug your book, is the civil lawsuits are the standard thing we hear about. Police are already doing it. I think there are folks withstanding. We'll see. Would you expect not only the courts, but the Supreme Court to say, well, yeah, obviously this has to have court review because the Trump position is they found a trick to evade any review?

10:11OK, so here's something that's not good in the law and that gives lawyers a bad name, which is even though I think every single taxpayer in this country is a victim of what is going on, there is no such thing in the law as taxpayer standing. So I can't be like, you know what, I'm a taxpayer. I've been victimized. I have the ability standing is that I have enough of a stake. To get into court. Exactly. But police and members of Congress. So members of Congress would, but not just one or two. So in an emoluments case, one of the courts said, you know what, just having a few congressmen is not enough.

10:53Not enough. Because otherwise their view, and this would be above the bar, but their view to play it out is, well, then the courts would be flooded with this because there's 400 plus members of Congress and everyone would be suing over everything. Exactly. So they'd look for a majority. So if people out there think this is outrageous, good reason to vote. To vote and to also contact your member of Congress because right now you had, we've tracked one House Republican saying they're going to try to kill it. Senator Thune, kind of toothless, but saying he doesn't like it. So, yeah, you could be in a place where, again, I don't tell people what to do, but people sometimes ask, do these things work?

11:29Well, we've seen protests work. We've seen calling Congress works. This is a live issue. With a minute to go, you have a book, Liar's Kingdom. We have a lot of folks here who you can always like and subscribe on our YouTube. I know folks are interested in learning about the law. The real question, the tough question is, they see you on the news, get to hear you for free, basically. Why should someone spend their hard-earned cash on your new book? Tell us. I love that. So you know what? This is a much more sustained argument. So I can give like, you know, what's called the elevator speech. But I would say two things.

12:03One, there is a real legal argument here about a structural change to hold political leaders who lie to us to account. The other, which Nicole was saying to me, is I really don't like on air talking about things personally. because I feel like I'm here to give a diagnosis of something. And it is a very personal book. Because in ways that you didn't choose, although you've dealt with the sacrifice, which I do think is respectable in the same way people who volunteer to be police or military, there's heat that comes on you, and lately it's been more. And so I think that's a great answer. People, again, make up your own mind, but you know I rely on Andrew for a lot, legal knowledge and more.

12:46It's very nice. This is the book. I'll close with a Rick Ross quote. 20 million in cash. I know you want to look. Print and paper, boy. I even wrote a book. It's so funny. I was going to say. He was. What has happened to the United States and our legal system under Donald Trump in the second term? Well, you probably know a little bit of this if you're following the news. I'm Ari Melber, news anchor, lawyer, MS Now. I'm about to be joined by Maya Wiley. And I want to just set up our conversation today to say, big picture, to pull back from our daily news stories. We're now a country where journalists get indicted.

13:24The opposition party is threatened with indictment. Current and former members of the president's circle are under investigation if they, through constitutional duties or rights, say anything that he disagrees with. That's happened fast. In fact, there are some studies that show the decline on that, what we call rule of law values, has happened now faster in Trump's second term, a year plus, than it did in Russia under Putin. So you might say, are we cooked? Is it over? Should you just go watch another video and enjoy yourself? Because what can we even do? Or are there things we can do? And is there another side of this story when you remember that most of these Trump efforts, which are bad and a problem, people should care about them, are also failing.

14:06Indeed, you can count up the revenge probes we did in our show and found there's over 20 of them. Not a single one, zero, have led to a conviction to date. I want to bring in Maya Wiley. So many of you know, if you watch MSNOW or are interested in news and politics or New York residents know her as a former mayoral candidate, thanks for coming in. Hey, good to see you. Do you feel like we're cooked and things are terrible, or do you have hope? And we have a little more time than on air, so let it rip. I feel black in America, and I mean that, right? We have a history of tyranny in this country.

14:40It's actually not new. What is new is that it is very much targeted against anyone who dissents, not just black people or not just Latinos. But we're not cooked. We're cooking. OK, they're trying to put us in the frying pan. Temperature's rising. Temperature's rising. But at the same time, and we know this is happening this Saturday, the No Kings rally. I mean, we are watching people, even after Renee Good, even after Alex Preddy, we're watching people refusing to not get involved, refusing to stay silent, refusing not to demonstrate that they will peacefully resist. That matters. We're seeing some of the law firms capitulated.

15:22Some law firms did not. We're actively going to court and suing no matter the threats. You know, and we have MS Now, which has not gone silent, not actually stopped reporting and reporting accurately and factually. So we are not we could be down. We're not out. And you cut to the heart of it when you say there's nothing new about this kind of government abuse, government sponsored violence and terrorism. And there's some, you know, research where they talk or scholarship. They talk about the dual state. They talk about in the early periods of other tyrannical societies, you would have new rules for some.

16:02So in Germany, the Jews can't own property anymore, but a lot of other people can. So maybe it doesn't concern you if you're Jewish. And there's famous poems and speeches to that effect. How important do you think it is in fighting this for these movements or lawyers who are supposed to be committed to the rule of law? I know lawyers sometimes get a bad rap, but we have obligations when we're in court to be aware of this. Some of us. Well, some of us. How important is it to have that front and center? Because it may also teach us how to stand up. I think it's critical because, you know, one of the things that we often say in the civil rights movement is we were made for these times.

16:42They're not new to us. They're bad. They're not new. But one of the things that's also not new is coalition building, is understanding we don't have to agree on everything. We do not have to all have the same experiences to say, but we all have an invested interest in not letting this go this way. Because at the end of the day, it's going to impact everyone. And we know that because of Nazi Germany. We know that because we're watching the rise in anti-Semitism. We know that because we're watching ICE now, not only is it violating rights, We're having a debate about whether there should be basic accountability for people with guns who are literally killing people.

17:25Those are things that we all have an interest in, whether we agree with mass deportation policy or not. We all have an interest in ensuring that government works for us and not against us. And I think that is part of that history, understanding it, knowing we've come through it, and knowing we also have the tools we need to continue to move through it. I'm curious what you think as a movement leader. And, you know, I've known, gotten to know Maya for a long time now. We're very young. Yeah, we're young. But I've seen you in different roles. You've seen me with darker hair. Well, and longtime viewers will know that we really do respect you, hold you in such high esteem because we've called on you on so many different stories.

18:08And no shade. There are some people who are like, they're good at this one thing and that's it. And so I ask you this because not just as a lawyer and someone, as I mentioned, as a candidate, but also someone who's part of movement leading in the best sense. What do you think you've learned or what's working differently in the second term than the first? I'll give a quick observation as I've talked to you guys about this on YouTube and on my show and in my writing, my reporting. The first term, because Trump was seen as such an aberration and there were parts of the establishment that were like, we're going to stop this and get through this.

18:39There was actually more elite help, if you just want to put it simply. And the second term, in some ways, is more bleak. And you could pick examples. I mean, Jeff Bezos may not be a movement hero. But in the first term, he and rich people like him were saying, we're going to fund this to do journalism. And you were like, maybe you're wary, but interesting. Second term, he's like, actually, we're going to end this type of journalism at The Washington Post, right? And there's a lot of other folks I could mention. So I'm curious, do you see a difference in how the movements are dealing with that and any lessons learned?

19:16Yeah, I mean, absolutely. Because to your point, Ari, there were still rules to the road. And there were people inside the Trump administration saying, yeah, no, you can't do that. Right. And the lesson learned was— Frequently. And we've learned and we learned through the January 6th committee a lot in some cases. But at the same time, that was the lesson learned from Donald Trump in his camp, loyalty oaths. But that's what now has us in what we would call competitive authoritarianism. That is much worse place to be where you say we still have competitive elections, but we have a government acting as if it is more than an elected government.

19:56That is much different. And I think the lessons learned, particularly after 2025, is, oh, yeah, there really is no bottom. There are no rules. Except everything we do matters. Everything we do matters. Every lawsuit filed, every protest, every person who pulls out the phone and starts videotaping saying, you don't have a warrant. What are you doing? Identify yourself. Those are things that demonstrate that we think they're rules, even if they're ignoring them. And as you said, we have courts. We just have Judge Bozberg say, I'm not letting you persecute people with your prosecutorial powers where you have no evidence.

20:41We have judges who literally are facing threats of violence and death, and yet they're still doing the job. Some of them were even appointed by Donald Trump. Every last one of those things matter. And it's going to matter even more that we continue to remember, for those of us who were just in Selma remembering Bloody Sunday, that it's not commemoration, it's commitment. And the commitment is we know that our power is real. And when they start resorting to violence and to threats, that's when we have to use it even more. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's, I mean, that's powerful, and it is. It's that people have two minds about it.

21:22We've also seen in other measures in, you mentioned No Kings, the level of activism. And we see it even in other ways that there's been this spike of engagement and interest, even as the narrative sometimes is more depressing. This is the B-side, which is different than the show or the single off the album, you know? So I always like to do a little other stuff, which is, I'm curious, what have you... Uh-oh. What have you, as a candidate or someone who's now on TV a lot, what's been something uplifting or fun or interesting to you? I'll tell you one that I got this weekend, which is someone came up to me and they said, my mother, Mildred, is 101.

22:03She watches all the time. Can you make her a video? Of course we did. And I just thought, wow, like, what do I even have to teach someone who's more than double my age? Think about what she's seen and lived. and Mildred is still tapped into the news, obviously. So things like that, actually, I don't know, it gives me kind of like a jolt. And I'm just curious if you have something like that, whether it's from being a candidate in New York or walking around. You know, there's so many, and I have to say the privilege of being a candidate is people feel like they know you and they talk to you, and there's actually nothing better.

22:38I mean, people come and say, Maya! And I'm like, you know, you have that moment where you're like, did I forget who you are? I'm so embarrassed. And they go, no, no, no, no, you don't know me. And then you get a big hug. And it's the most wonderful thing. And then it's the reminder, like, we are not out here alone. We are loving, caring people. There are a lot of people out here who just want to do good. And it's the most uplifting thing. It is the most uplifting thing. And even when you're, I will be at No Kings. I've been at every No Kings. People have joy in the march. there is a way to have joy in the black community we have had song all through the dark days and into the bright ones and so it all matters it's all wonderful i love it right because the fact that you're facing something that you might find discouraging or dark doesn't mean that then you have to echo that darkness you're talking about the joy the humanity i love that uh we would keep going except we got to turn it around and do the show So no more singing.

23:39No more singing, yeah. Now you guys see a little bit of how fun Maya is, even in the casual times.

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