In short
The episode centers on leaked private audio from Texas Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, obtained by The New York Times, in which Paxton tells donors that Donald Trump’s Texas midterm convention was a “drag” because “the numbers didn’t take” and “everybody’s getting me gone,” implying Trump’s event hurt GOP performance. The host links this to broader Republican anxiety about losing in red states and to Trump’s optics-driven decision to mock Paxton at the convention. Paxton’s team disputes the interpretation.
Guests
Molly Jong-Fast (NYT columnist; former adviser/author; political background includes reporting and campaign work) and Mondaire Jones (former Democratic U.S. Representative from New York; served in Congress). They argue Paxton is uniquely vulnerable due to corruption baggage and that Trump’s unpopularity (“radioactive”) worsens the risk of a Democratic “blue wave.” They also discuss Speaker Mike Johnson’s “oversight” framing, alleged misuse of taxpayer funds for Trump propaganda, and ICE “quiet” arrests rising despite claims of targeting criminals.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VORepublican Struggles and Trump’s Influence
0:00 to 0:15
Ari discusses Republican struggles and Trump's controversial influence on candidates.
“In the U.S., there's a break-in every 26 seconds, but when intruders step near, SimpliSafe Home Security steps up.”
Republican Struggles and Trump’s Influence
1:06 to 3:12
Ari discusses Republican struggles and Trump's controversial influence on candidates.
“because of their inability to tangle with a skilled litigator and former prosecutor Jack Smith.”
Ken Paxton's Controversial Remarks
3:13 to 6:48
Ari reveals leaked audio of Ken Paxton criticizing Trump's convention impact.
“Ken Paxton is that Texas Senate candidate who's got a lot of baggage and who was pushed into this race by Trump over what was seen as the longer serving and kind of more electable incumbent Republican senator.”
Election Climate and Trump's Popularity
6:49 to 7:19
Discussion on the electoral climate for Republicans and Trump's declining popularity.
“which just tells you how toxic the incumbent president is.”
Analysis of Political Dynamics
7:20 to 11:28
Guests Molly Jong-Fast and Mondaire Jones analyze the political landscape and implications of Paxton's comments.
“You've been on the ticket, you've run for office, you know how that is.”
Analyzing Republican Strategy in Elections
14:00 to 15:38
The discussion focuses on the electoral strategies of Republicans and the impact of Trump on their elections.
“Well, I think that the president and his team, as they look at the electoral map, are figuring out where they think he can make the biggest difference.”
Speaker Johnson's Nightmare Scenario
16:19 to 19:50
Exploration of Speaker Johnson's warnings about Democratic oversight if they gain control.
“Chumba Casino lets you play for free with daily login rewards and a cheeky little welcome bonus when you sign up.”
Corruption and Accountability in Governance
19:50 to 22:57
Discussion on perceived corruption within the government and the public's desire for accountability.
“And that goes to another corruption related story, Molly, because there's so many with this administration.”
Jack Smith's Testimony and Republican Missteps
22:57 to 24:16
Analysis of Jack Smith's recent testimony and the fallout for Republicans following an embarrassing moment.
“They understand who's at fault and they watch Republicans vote to keep this thing going every chance they get.”
Media Reaction and Public Interest in Prosecutions
24:16 to 28:04
Exploring the media's coverage of significant political testimonies and public interest in legal accountability.
“There is fallout after Jack Smith, the former Trump prosecutor, testified yesterday.”
Show all 15 chapters
Jack Smith's Testimony and Its Implications
28:04 to 30:50
Explore Jack Smith's impactful testimony and its significance for the Justice Department.
“And Jack Smith, of course, still had the bully pulpit, so to speak.”
Melissa Murray's Analysis of the Hearing
30:50 to 36:35
Melissa Murray shares insights on the implications of Jack Smith's hearing and public perception of prosecutors.
“We're back with Melissa Murray, NYU law professor after Jack Smith addressed that Congress really dominated the room against some of those attacks I mentioned and reminded people why this matters.”
ICE's Ongoing Operations and Public Opinion
37:21 to 42:00
Discuss the recent increases in ICE arrests and the reactions from affected communities.
“Stories, information, updates about what Donald Trump's ICE program has been doing seem to ebb and flow.”
Immigration Policies and Ethical Concerns
42:00 to 44:46
Discussion on the ethical implications of enforcing immigration laws, particularly concerning young children.
“That is the first time in my career that I've had to sit there with a five-year-old.”
Upcoming Guest Announcement
44:46 to 46:00
Announcement of the next day's guest on the show, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
“We're going to fit in a break and then I'll be right back with you.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00In the U.S., there's a break-in every 26 seconds, but when intruders step near, SimpliSafe Home Security steps up. Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way. Using AI alerts, U.S.-based live agents help deter break-ins. SimpliSafe, no long-term contracts. Save 50 % on your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com slash sxm or with promo code sxm. Outdoor deterrence requires a SimpliSafe Active Guard outdoor protection plan starting at$49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com slash licenses for alarm license information. Tennessee 2012. This is a Monday.com ad. TheSameMonday.com helping people worldwide getting work done faster and better.
0:37TheSameMonday.com designed for every team and every industry. TheSameMonday.com with built-in AI, scaling your work from day one. TheSameMonday.com that your team will actually love using. TheSameMonday.com with an easy and intuitive setup. Go to Monday.com and try it for free. Yes, TheSameMonday.com. Welcome to The Beat. I'm Ari Melber, and we have a lot coming down the pike tonight. I want to tell you the humiliation that Republicans were subjected to and largely contributed to, to be fair, because of their inability to tangle with a skilled litigator and former prosecutor Jack Smith. During that testimony yesterday, we covered it for you.
1:21There's a lot of interest, obviously. there's more fallout after the Republican Senator Schmidt basically airballed and worse and is getting grilled, filleted, some would say even cooked for the way he mishandled what was a serious hearing. And he's tied to a president who, of course, pardoned people convicted of sedition who attacked police. There is both substance and egg on the face in that story. And I have more on that coming up tonight. So that's a big one. But we begin with a revelation, leaked audio of a controversial Republican Senate candidate saying true or opinionatedly possibly true things about why Donald Trump's political meddling in Texas has been unhelpful.
2:03On top of that, this particular candidate was helped by Trump. So it's really a bigger problem for the Republicans, a kind of a messy thing spilling out of the public. The core of the issue is something you might remember. Trump insisted on something that's not usually a real thing, a midterm convention, although there's no actual delegates or convention to be had, and many Republicans felt it complicated what has been an uphill battle in the midterms. This is now kind of a glimpse into what Republican elites, or at least some candidates, actually feel about Trump making the midterms about himself.
2:37It also reveals that these worries about losing, or losing bad, or even losing to a giant blue wave, are becoming a kind of conventional wisdom among Republicans, even in places like Red Texas. And as I've told you before, that doesn't mean we know what's going to happen in the election, who's going to vote. Indeed, if everyone thinks there's some giant blue wave, that itself could distort how people turn out. So I'm not here on the news tonight telling you what's going to happen or whether you should sit this one out or not. I'm just telling you Republicans are worried about losing. Now, To dive into the details, you might remember the name.
3:14Ken Paxton is that Texas Senate candidate who's got a lot of baggage and who was pushed into this race by Trump over what was seen as the longer serving and kind of more electable incumbent Republican senator. It's in that big race that you also probably heard about where Democrat James Tallarico has been surging and making the rounds from Joe Rogan to Jimmy Kimmel to that big Colbert interview to that YouTube smash hit, Tallarico picking up steam. If you look at the polls, he's up. that doesn't mean he's going to win again. But even being up in a state that Democrats haven't taken since 88 in the Senate, it's a big deal.
3:51That's the context for what I told you was revealed today. A tape obtained by the New York Times where that Trump handpicked candidate, Paxton, is thinking that he's speaking in private to donors and sort of lobbyist supporters, and he says what he thinks about a convention that was definitely widely panned. Paxson has asked, do you feel like he's a little bit of a drag? Now, to be clear, this is the audio, so you can make of it what you make of it, but we can't tell exactly who the questioner might be referring to, but here's the audio. A little drag? So, to be honest with you, the numbers didn't take, so when we did that on convention, we'll drop our numbers, everybody's getting me gone.
4:37By now, yeah, not a good idea. Not good, says this Republican in Texas. So you hear the very clear point that is expressed when he doesn't think the cameras are on or the audio is going out, that Trump's convention was bad. This is not good. Everybody's numbers on their side went down. Now, I'll report for you so you know what everyone's saying on both sides of this. The Paxton team disputes that he sees Trump as a drag. The Republicans, of course, held that convention, and we all saw it with our own eyes. It did not rate well on TV, something that Trump obsesses over. Visually, you could see kind of sparse crowds if you compare that to, say, normal presidential election conventions, which are, of course, a thing.
5:21So there's a precedent for them and people come, etc. It didn't look like that. And then it was also memorable because, although Donald Trump did help Paxton win the primary over, as I mentioned, the more electable long-term Republican incumbent, he did seem to come down to his home state and mock Ken Paxton. He may not dress right. He may not talk exactly perfectly. And he may not be the best looking guy I've ever seen. I am very sorry, Ted. I said, I don't like the way Ken dresses. I said, I don't really like the way he looks. I don't like it. I don't like anything. But you know what I do like?
6:03He was the greatest attorney general in the history of Texas. Is this a midterm convention or like a Netflix roast? You have Trump there. Again, people say this is his style. And maybe when times were better and gas wasn't so expensive and he didn't start in a wrong war, maybe some of at least people on his side found that funny or endearing. But Paxton now today is leaked being heard saying this was not helpful. And yeah, I think if you even are a Republican in Texas and you do listen to Donald Trump and he comes all the way down to Texas talk to you and then does kind of an Eddie Murphy bit.
6:38You ugly, you ugly. Why are you so ugly? It may not be that helpful. We're 34 days out. There is not time for a lot of mistakes if you are pulling behind. The Times, looking at nine key Senate races, says five Republicans will commit to campaigning with Trump, which just tells you how toxic the incumbent president is. Other polls show Dems up, plus 12, plus 11, plus 8 in the Journal, but they're all finding a similar smattering within a same kind of band of up by double digits. Republicans in trouble. Donald Trump went to Texas to call Paxton ugly. And Paxton, when he thinks no one is listening, says that wasn't helpful.
7:18I want to bring in our guests, Molly Jong-Fast from the New York Times and Mondaire Jones, who served as a Democratic congressman in New York. Welcome to both of you. Thanks for having me. You've been on the ticket, you've run for office, you know how that is. It is true that back in the day when Trump was riding high, at least in Texas, some people thought this was a funny shtick or okay. Doesn't seem like Paxton likes it or it's helping him now. Yeah. One of the challenges is that Paxton is already a uniquely vulnerable Republican candidate for office. I mean, he is cartoonishly corrupt and Republicans understand it.
7:57They want nothing to do with him. It was already extraordinary that the president couldn't help himself but to intervene in that primary and endorse him and deliver him a nomination over the the constantly more electable John Cornyn. Let's say his name. And despite the fact that Cornyn had been, you know, voting with Trump and doing everything that Trump would want a Republican senator to do, it wasn't enough. But then and more importantly, you've got all this stuff happening in the environment, right? You've got gas prices sky high. You've got this war that the president started but had no plan to win and that we are actively losing as we have this conversation as the United States.
8:36You've got all these broken promises with respect to bringing down the cost of living. He's done the exact opposite. And then you've got at least the perception of corruption that is widespread among both Republicans and Democrats. and let's throw in the all-important independence as well in that conversation. And you've just got a recipe for disaster in the form, for Republicans anyway, in the form of a blue wave. Yeah, and that's not only you speaking as a former Democratic lawmaker, right? You're in at that side, but that's what Republicans are worried about. And the numbers have just fallen out for Trump.
9:07I want to show, Molly, our colleague Rachel was talking on one of the late night shows about this. Take a look. He's not just unpopular. He is the least popular president. at this point in his presidency of any president in modern history. Yeah. He is not just like poorly reviewed. He is radioactive. Yeah. Like he is he's monstrously unpopular, historically unprecedented hate for this president among the American people. Yeah, I mean, she's totally right. There is no historical precedent for that. And if you look at other unpopular incumbents, even and none of them are as unpopular as Trump, right, because Trump is historically unpopular.
9:48But even if you look at, say, like with the Biden White House or even Obama or Clinton, they all said or W. They all said you can you can push against us. You can run away from us. You don't have to defend us. And what we're seeing here is sort of the opposite. Right. We see Byron Donald's. You know, there was a story that he had erased the Trump mentions from his Web site. Now Trump is going to campaign with him. Right. Right. This was not a Republican Party that wanted to have more Trump on them, especially the way that they were polling. And so Trump did a midterm convention. And Trump is using taxpayer dollars to run ads that feature Donald Trump.
10:30Yeah. And Mondares, you know, so much in politics involves the spinning and both parties do it. I mean, Trump is caught lying more than any person in public life. So it's not false equivalence. He does it more. But we see that when you have a debate and both sides start, you know, trying to spin it. what's striking about the Paxton audio, and I'm just going to play it again so people can hear, we're actually getting a little earful, a window into what he tells his own side. And so you don't always get that in politics, as you know. I want to play that just so people can, again, register it. Good job.
11:01So, to be honest with you, the numbers, when we did that on a convention, I built jobs on numbers. Everybody's getting me job. By now, yeah, Yeah, not good. And so that's sort of their view in Texas, which is supposed to be red, which wasn't supposed to be a year ago. Dems weren't spending any money in there. They're starting to spend a little online. They're not yet buying a bunch of TV ads. Tallarico, I should mention, still might be historically outspent. And there's a lot of extra outside dark money these days. So it's not like such an even field. But when Paxton's saying that to his donors, as someone who's been in certain rooms, what's he doing?
11:39Is it a cry for help? Is he saying if you don't help me, I might lose? Yeah, look, it was undisciplined because when you're in these fundraisers, you always have to assume that somebody has a recording. And someone like Ken Paxton should know that. But if he had restraint, he wouldn't have all the scandals that he had. As Molly would say, Streets is watching. That's right. I'm known to say that. Are you known to say that? No. All right. Cool. I knew you really. That's right. All right. All right. Listen, he is more, the only thing people know Donald Trump for having done at that convention in Texas is criticize Ken Paxton.
12:15The purpose of his going down there was to rehabilitate Ken Paxton with the base. And instead he piled on. And if you were Donald Trump, let's face it, Donald Trump, to what you said in your intro, cares a lot about optics sometimes. One thing he cares about is the perception. How it looks. And specifically the perception that other Republicans are trying to distance themselves from him or otherwise being critical of him, because the only thing he has is this control over the Republican Party. I mean, that that has been a constant since his foray into into electoral politics. Right. And and for someone who he has done so much to support, at least get to get him the nomination to now say that he's a drag.
12:59that's that's going to be somewhat he has to be seething and i wonder what he's going to do with all that super pack money he was planning on spending on the uh for kim paxton i appreciate you mentioning the intro sometimes that really can set the tone for the album that's true no correct right you're right yeah and it could be acapella sometimes there's a little something on there it's not it's not a full song doesn't have a pre-chorus but the intro does it tells you where you might be going. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah. John Thune. Yes. On the Senate side of the Republican leadership there is saying, hey, yeah, we all see that Trump is in red states, which in politics means you're playing defense.
13:38This was his explanation for that.
13:43President is traveling to Republican strongholds, to red areas, not to battlegrounds. How is that helpful for Republicans' chances of keeping the majority? Is he coming? What does he come again? Question? He's traveling to red states, to red areas, places where he's going to get a friendly reception. He's not going to battleground areas. How is that helpful? Well, I think that the president and his team, as they look at the electoral map, are figuring out where they think he can make the biggest difference. Where he can make the biggest difference. I mean, I think it's important to remember a lot of these Republicans have gone along with things that they would not have got.
14:19You know, over the last decade, they have voted for things that they would have considered to be appalling. Right. Right. So the tariffs, I mean, they've basically gone against almost all of their beliefs to support a guy who they thought could win elections. And now that guy is a drag on the ticket. And I think it puts them in a very interesting situation. But the other thing I would add is like we are seeing polls from places like the famous swing state of South Dakota, right, and Nebraska. Those are not supposed to be swing states where the Democrat is like in contention. And that this is why Republicans are really freaked out.
14:57Yeah. Then you have what could happen if Democrats win. And Republicans are now trying to sort of erect a vision of that, which is interesting because that's a big contrast. And Speaker Johnson sort of made his own version of political news on that. I want to play that and get both of your takes on that. So we're going to hear Speaker Johnson, the nightmare scenario when we're back in 90 seconds.
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16:53We are back with Molly and Mondaire Jones, former Democratic congressman. I mentioned this news from the speaker. or I want to play right here what he says will happen if the Democrats win. The nightmare scenario. Heaven forbid the Democrats take control of the House. They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body. They will do nothing all day, every day, every hour of the day, but go after the president, his family, his cabinet, you know, donors in the party, big figures in business and industry. So is it true, because it's partly true some of those things will happen, may not be the only thing.
17:28So is that true? And what does it tell you that this is his message right now? Well, when I was in Congress, we called that oversight. That is the constitutional prerogative of the most important branch of government. That's why Congress is in Article One of the Constitution. And there has been precious little oversight under the current Republican majority. And so it's why you see the presumptive chairs of various House committees in the next Congress already sending out letters to individuals at corporations and even Trump family members asking for documents, requesting that they preserve documents and information, and really previewing both in those letters and in interviews and other public statements, you know, what the themes will be.
18:14And those themes, as I think about them, are two main buckets. One is corruption and or the perception of corruption, and the other is cost of living. So you're just going to see a whole bunch of investigative activity, whether it's crypto, prediction markets, private equity. I mean, you name it. Yeah. And wasn't there kind of just as fleshed this out. You say it's oversight. There's almost a tell in the way Johnson talked about it, as if this would be obviously some waste or problem, a waste of time. But anyone who looks at how Republicans used to talk about law and order, well, you put a cop on the corner, maybe you prevent the crime.
18:52Right. Well, right now we've got There's record-breaking corruption in the White House. You mentioned cost of living. That doesn't help people's affordability. You got the president and people around him lining their pockets, enriching themselves, taking the plane. You got Pentagon contracts going to Trump family-linked folks. Wouldn't we as an American public have the hope of less of that, less money wasted, less corruption if Congress, as you said, was doing its job? I think when you when you look at the polling, people do rank their perception of corruption pretty high on the list of things that are motivating them, that and the cost of living.
19:29And so it is not surprising that Democrats would stick with these themes, particularly as they eventually pivot to a 2028 presidential campaign and a desire to presumptively by then hold on to the House and maybe even the Senate if they succeed, as they are increasingly likely to do over in that chamber of flipping the upper chamber as well. And that goes to another corruption related story, Molly, because there's so many with this administration. I'm sure you remember to Jackson featuring Mac Miller. Yes. I know you like to watch me because I'm on that HD. Yes. I know you remember that one. Of course.
20:07And shout out to that song. Trump loves to be on TV. Yes. He's had trouble with that, partly because the press van blew up in his face, caused problems with the pool. He's not getting what the politicos call the earned media that he used to get. So now he's swiping taxpayer dollars to run these videos. Some of them might be illegal ads. So I want to show you guys some of this. Even in MAGA, this has become a concern. A Trump official, though, kind of taunting everyone, saying it's just the beginning. The AP reporting, the administration, is actually taking, potentially illegally stealing, $20 million from Homeland Security, that's what's supposed to protect Americans, to pay for more of this government propaganda or possibly illegal ads.
20:48Depends on whether courts rule. The White House says, well, they don't look at them as campaign ads, but on the left is one of these. On the right is a campaign ad. They're not even hiding using the exact same video. On the left, as you can see, paid for by the U.S. government, a.k.a. your tax dollars. Molly, is this an outrage in plain sight? Yes, and it's also something that they're just trying to push as long as they can. Like, they probably know this is illegal, right? I mean, this is just absolutely, you know, look, here's the thing. And you see it with Mike Johnson. Donald Trump has become the principal of this government.
21:27And all of these people, like the Speaker of the House now, really just exist to serve Donald Trump. And so when you hear him before, he's trying to scare people. And he thinks that the way to scare them is the idea that Donald Trump will be investigated. And most people actually want that. They want checks and balances. So I think it's a really good example of how far afield this Trump government has gotten. And in a sense, they all connect because, you know, you hear a lot of people, including independents and Republicans who aren't just completely diehard magus say, well, wait, how do we just barrel into this war?
22:01Right. Like, how did that happen? And how can you just take a billion dollars in crypto or a plane? Right. Like, people actually thought, Mondaire, there were perhaps more guardrails than there have been lately. People watched Republicans cut Medicaid. Yeah. About a year ago. Yeah. At this point. and throw millions of Americans off their health insurance plans, which is something that will take place over the next several years, for an amount of money that has now been outpaced, really, by the cost of the failed Iran war. And they've also watched as billionaires have gotten tax breaks that they have not needed as all of this has taken place.
22:44and they're watching the gas go up pretty much every single week as this war drags on. And so it just it the American people are not stupid. Yeah. They see all this happening. They understand who's at fault and they watch Republicans vote to keep this thing going every chance they get. Well, yeah. I mean, on a serious note, you're saying, oh, people people might claim on a budget level, oh, how can we afford even all this this health care spending? and you say, well, actually, it's as much as you wasted in Iran. Yeah. On a lighter note, you came by the beat, your first time on set. Yeah. And you got a lighter.
23:19I did get a lighter. He got a lighter. That's right. I don't know when I'm going to use it. Are you going to show the people? Yeah, show the lighter. Are you going to show the people? Maybe to burn some incense. Incense is great. There we go. That's right. The only news show with a lighter. And pens. No, a lot of news shows have pens. All right. Lighter and pens. But you have to go together. Lighter and pens. Okay, sure. All right. I mean, you know what? We'll take that slogan under advisement. And rap lyrics. And rap lyrics. My man. Appreciate you, Molly. Always great to see you both. I'm going to fit in a break, but tell you what's coming up.
23:50Damning revelations about how ICE enforcement is up, but they've tried to shift the PR. We are on the story. And the Republican senator who lost his stare down with Jack Smith, I have more on how that is reverberating. And the rule of law, Professor Melissa Murray, joins me next.
Read the full transcript
24:15We learned a lot when Jack Smith stood up, not only to a president who has lied about him and threatened him and threatened to abuse power against him, but to Republicans, some of whom showed total malpractice when it came to conducting a serious hearing about, of course, an attack on the very Capitol where they worked, accountability for that. There is fallout after Jack Smith, the former Trump prosecutor, testified yesterday. It was a gaffe kind of heard all around the country for those who follow this sort of thing. A Republican senator, Eric Schmidt, going on a big kind of dramatic moment he wanted to create.
24:52He got his moment. But what he wanted to do with material that he and his team gathered and Senate staffs have dozens and dozens of people in the Washington office alone, plenty of folks who can do the work and check the work. They have lawyers on staff. Well, they all got together. They had a big plan to argue that somehow Jack Smith was not only mistaken about something, but that he lied. Lying under oath can be, of course, a crime. And while there are those who viewed this as just anything goes on the attack, the whole thing blew up in the Republicans' face. And even Fox had to note it was a blunder.
25:27What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a Warrior Hawks game on February 3rd, 2024, the day after Willis and Wade announced their affair? I recall going to a University of Maryland basketball game right around that time, and the Marshal Service was there with me. You could check if that was the exact date. It was Maryland playing Iowa. Could it then be that University of Iowa's the Hawkeyes? I got to ask, man, what happened in there? About what? You did a great job. So got to give you some flowers here, sir. How did that mistake happen?
26:03There's not a mistake. I asked him if he was in Atlanta. Who knew Jack Smith was a Caitlin Clark fan? It doesn't look like Eric Schmidt was well informed on that. So look, he got nailed on that. So that wasn't like an embarrassing moment or something from where you're standing. No, ask questions. He's basically disgraced himself and identified himself with this ridiculous little stunt. Oh, Eric, what a schmidhead you are. He wanted a moment. He got a moment. Republicans have struggled to sort of rebound from that. And that has left, of course, the other side of the hearing, which is what Jack Smith actually testified about.
26:37We covered last night the case against Trump, the Trump pardons strengthening whether or not a jury might have found that Trump had criminal intent. Today, Republican Senator Blackburn filed a new suit against Jack Smith. this is again over their complaints about his investigative tactics. Republicans basically tried to use this hearing to say, one, maybe Smith said something false about which game he went to, and they ended up being the ones saying false things, and now you just saw getting in trouble for it. And two, suddenly suggesting that the government and prosecutors can't peacefully gather court-supervised evidence, which they can and do.
27:17And if this is the only case that they don't like that in because it involved themselves. Well, it's not the best argument to make to the public because it looks like kind of congressional nimbyism, not in my backyard. Democratic lawmakers rebuked Republicans for the approach. They've attacked you because they don't want to address the facts. They don't want to talk about this. They would rather attack you. I am so sorry that they're attempting to put investigators on trial while ignoring the extraordinary conduct, they are duty-bound to really investigate. Democrats fighting back hard on that point, using their time and power to do so.
27:59Some of the criticism sometimes of Democrats in the Trump era is that they don't join these fights when they happen. Well, you can see how that played out. And Jack Smith, of course, still had the bully pulpit, so to speak. Americans watched that live. They watched it online. If you follow the TV ratings, it was a highly rated evening last night, playing some of the highlights and clips from it. So in every way we can measure within a day, Smith was heard. People were interested. And it's not for politics. It's not even for the midterms, which are a big issue we cover here all the time. It's for the fact that there is still a reckoning by someone who's kind of the ultimate nonpartisan prosecutor out of central casting who did what he had to do against great threats and attacks on behalf of the actual rule of law of the Justice Department of the United States and defending that Capitol, where, of course, he testified, it was pointed out, part of the crime scene in places where lawmakers took refuge from violent, convicted, later convicted thugs that Donald Trump later pardoned, leaving no doubt about his stance against police and against security.
29:03Smith was able to still testify about those important matters, including the DOJ purge and the issues facing the nation. If you fire people who have the expertise to conduct investigations properly and to represent the United States in court properly, you are making our country less safe. The institutions we rely on for justice, for protecting our country, those institutions are weakened. We have seen this with courts across the country losing credibility in the department. Jack Smith, warning that Donald Trump's leadership of this Justice Department and this administration is making us less safe.
29:47Smith has discussed the corruption of the DOJ, a theme across multiple agencies under Trump. And as for the loyalists that Trump has tried to install at the DOJ, there are people who really would never hold high office in any other Republican administration and under Trump. They got in there and people said, what's going to happen? We still have some other guardrails, oversight, perhaps grand juries, etc. But one DOJ official, an election denier who actually was associated with efforts to steal the 2020 results is out. He'd been working on what they called the grand conspiracy probe, which increasingly looks more like a conspiracy theory.
30:25It doesn't have charges, but it has a trail of failures. Another allied official on that probe also recently left, suggesting that having hired loyalists who publicly said they would try to do anything for Trump, turns out they couldn't do anything, even within a DOJ that Jack Smith has warned has already crossed some lines. Melissa Murray is here on this and why some guardrails are holding. Next.
30:59We're back with Melissa Murray, NYU law professor after Jack Smith addressed that Congress really dominated the room against some of those attacks I mentioned and reminded people why this matters. Your thoughts. There's a lot going on in this hearing. I love that Jack Smith stood 10 toes down on being a prosecutor, what it means to be a federal prosecutor, the importance of the Department of Justice and its independence. I didn't realize that I was actually going to know more about sports than a sitting Missouri senator. That was interesting to me. First of all, when Senator Schmidt came out, I think he first confused the game in question as an Atlanta Falcons game versus an Atlantic Hawks game.
31:38Those are two different sports teams, right? Like football versus basketball. So even I knew that, which was surprising to me. I also knew apparently more about women's sports than he did. So there was that. But honestly, confusing the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Atlanta Hawks is a little bit like confusing Lena Kahn for Chaka Khan. So very, very surprising in my view. There was so much in this hearing, just genuinely. But to me, the most striking part was the part where Jack Smith conceded that maybe he had been too much of an old school prosecutor, prosecutor, that he was about showing his work in court, talking to juries when this particular task was so sensitive and so consequential that he probably needed to be communicating with the American public on a more regular basis than he had.
32:29And so to me, that was sort of an admission that we are in a space where law and politics are perhaps converging in a really interesting way. And the old school norms that used to govern our public servants may not hold in the same way. And this is becoming more of a publicity-driven, publicly-minded kind of enterprise than what we are perhaps used to. Yeah, it's a fair point. It's reminiscent of what some people around Mueller said as well. So there is that feeling of like how many times do people have to learn this lesson? And some of these institutions are deliberately protected, which can be good, but it also can make them quite bubbled.
33:07And so there's that balance. The second is you don't even have to use the words publicity. A former president who oversaw national security and classification rules, who is a mixed question of what the congressional safety rules are when he does exercise lawful authority, but might have been also helping a coup. That certainly falls outside of the rules that govern most defendants. As an unprecedented case, we know, I mean, I had Ken Starr at this table. He's now deceased. But he, of course, had a very maximalist view of how to run a similar office. There's more than one way to do it. No, there are lots of different ways to do this.
33:47Again, I know that he was sort of conceding maybe he had done some things differently. I don't know that he could have done it much more differently. I mean, it was such a sensitive prosecution, so public, so highly visible, that I think this idea that you could communicate with the American public about it at various points might have given the impression of things that, you know, the Republican senators were arguing that maybe there was something partisan. And I think he really had no choice but to play it straight down the middle. But isn't that, to press you on that, it's a debatable thing because it's pretty unprecedented.
34:19Isn't that what happens anyway? In other words, Republicans say everything's terribly partisan and it's terrible that you got records and investigations. That's happening anyway. That's the noise. That's the background noise, period. I think it's more than just background noise. I mean, I genuinely think it, and in this case, I think it's likely true that every accusation is an admission. I mean, like, you're partisan, Jack Smith. Well, I mean, this is a partisan thing. I mean, we have John Kennedy standing up, literally a poster boy, holding up a poster that Jack Smith can't see that allegedly connects Jack Smith and Fannie Willis and like some kind of collusion that's going on when in fact the man is at an entirely different game and not in the city of Atlanta as prescribed.
34:57Yes. And that he ultimately did, at least at the level of how this hearing went, he checkmated them in the hearing. The wider ambit is that Donald Trump was reelected and we have rules that everyone heard about, which is you don't have a system to federally prosecute the sitting president. That's a rule we're aware of. And I wish more of the Democrats had emphasized that the reason we don't have a system anymore for challenging the president, prosecuting the president when he does things like he was alleged to have done in the circumstance is because the Supreme Court has basically immunized the president for almost anything that he might do while in office.
35:34That's a major law. In fairness, though, it says in that ruling, as long as the president's Republican. I'm kidding. It's a legal joke. It does not say that. DMX asks, where the hood at? And tonight the answer is over your blazer. It's right here. like him respect respect dap it up oh a double dap respect professor murray great to have you when we come back ice change its pr but not its tactics and expose we're bringing you next hey i've got the campaign brief ready built from last quarter's data and the competitive landscape approved oh agents where would we be without you somewhere with a lot more tabs open Create your first Monday agent in minutes at Monday.com.
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37:25Stories, information, updates about what Donald Trump's ICE program has been doing seem to ebb and flow. But one problem we're finding, according to investigative accounts, is that while the administration did back off under criticism and after some bad and lethal incidents and under political pressure, a lot of that was messaging. The crackdown continues in what might be called a quieter format. The Times noting that the summer of 26 actually was a record high time for ICE arrests, 50 ,000 a month in August. It's a surge that they're calling a quieter project. It's very different from those initial high-profile raids, which seem to be designed as partly programming, which is, of course, similar to a lot of what Trump does, but also brought with it thousands of protesters in Chicago, Los Angeles, and memorably Minneapolis, the Times notes.
38:17But ICE continues to infiltrate all corners of American life, many without any criminal records. They're at laundromats, people arriving home from getting groceries. Reports are that the agency will hire another 5 ,000 personnel this year alone, after, of course, ramping up under Trump. Latino voters, though, seem to be well done with it. Trump did increase his support there in the last election, but that's over. MSNOW has documented that, for example, in Texas. This is just a horrible time in history. And I hope it I hope once things change, I hope, you know. Whoever's at fault pays for what they've done.
39:07So who's at fault? I think it's the MAGA Republicans. How are your Republican friends going to vote this time? I think they're either not voting or they're just voting third party or Democrat. Some of them are voting Democrat. Probably just despite the other. Yeah. In spite, probably. We're joined now by Veronica Cardenas. She was ICE Assistant Chief Counsel, working all the way until 2023. She also litigates for immigrants. Welcome. You've served under both parties. Yes. Looking at what are supposed to be the legal lines at ICE and during a time of tremendous intensity and change. Start by explaining to us what the Times article finds, that even if we're hearing less about at least those high profile raids, the arrests are actually still going up.
39:55Right. Right. And it is true. It's the silent approach to arresting. Like you saw in that video for the laundromat, ICE officers are just coming in. Nobody does anything. Everybody's just scared to do something. And so we're seeing a lot of that. The Times article also stated that they were they're calling it ICE is calling it a targeted approach, right? A targeted investigation. But when you look at who's being arrested, there's there's nothing except racial profiling, which the Kavanaugh stops in the Supreme Court stated. You view this as racial profiling. You're saying the evidence supports this as racial profiling.
40:26And to be clear, just because there's so many people to keep track of, you did serve in the first Trump administration, but you think that's what the evidence shows. Yes, because targeted investigation used to mean that they would investigate a certain person and they would look for that certain person at home or at, you know, a workplace and they would arrest that person. What they're doing now is that they're arresting people in groups. So let's say they stop a car because they see the license plate is registered to someone who doesn't have status. Everybody in that car is going to get questioned whether or not they're the target.
41:01And everybody in that car is going to get arrested if they cannot produce a lawful permanent resident card or U.S. citizen status. There's a lot of words to get thrown around. And Trump campaigned on going after the criminals, people with criminal records. As you know, that's something that Obama and Biden also said you should do, starting in their view with violent criminals. That's not what's happening. This account says agents appear during everyday routines, as you just mentioned, at soccer, at church, nightclubs, outside even polling locations sometimes. And if you look at the bottom, what I'm reading there, those arrested were accused of violating civil immigration laws most had not been charged with, let alone convicted, quote, of a crime.
41:45What does that tell you about who they're going after and whether they may have run out of the people that Trump said were the focus? And they definitely have run out and they ran out a long time ago. Like we've seen the statistics, the majority of people have no crimes. Today, I was sitting in a mega master of children. I represented a child of five. That is the first time in my career that I've had to sit there with a five-year-old. So, yes, they're running out of people. And their position is where the five-year-old came into this country. Unlawfully. And so they want to detain them. Yeah. Detain and deport.
42:19And that's what their goal is. And it doesn't matter who it is. It's a stat. Yeah. Here's Secretary Mullen. As I mentioned, you've been inside. You've done the legal work here in these type of agencies. They say they're already using this controversial database. Take a listen. We're going through every single one of these names. We have partnerships with other agencies where we're cross-referencing each one. We're looking at a pattern or a history of individuals that may have voted illegally, may have frauded the system. Because of our great partnership with Todd Blanche and DOJ, we're working cohesively as a group.
43:05Are they hyping this or you think it's really true that their DHS is focused on what would typically be a very small number of voting infractions? Right. I think it goes two ways. I think that the systems that we have, like we saw in New Jersey, people sign up for licenses and they get automatically registered to vote. They're not physically trying to vote. They just get registered. We have seen an uptick in prosecutions for that registration alone that will affect their status. So it's whether the intent is there for immigration law doesn't really matter. So I don't think that this is actually true.
43:43I think it's just to get more, you know, eyes on the election and the results to perhaps later use that for their advantage. I've got just about a minute left. You did the first term. Doesn't seem like you're interested in working in the second term term. Why is that? Because of the dehumanizing policies. I went to law school to follow the law and I never viewed my job to deport. It was to enforce immigration laws. And so if I were to be seated across the table from a five-year-old and have to prosecute that five-year-old, that is something that I cannot morally do and justify. And so I have no interest in returning or doing any of that work.
44:26Yeah. As I mentioned, you have legal expertise and you have a lot of background in multiple administrations here. There's a lot of noise around this topic, this issue. But having done a lot of the work, we thought it was important to get your views and particularly what you're saying about where you say the evidence shows they've gone completely off track, potentially illegally. Pretty striking. Veronica Cardenas, thanks for being here. Thank you. Appreciate it. We're going to fit in a break and then I'll be right back with you.
44:57A White House release declaring the announcements are very clearly not campaign ads. President Trump is not on the ballot and there is no call to action. Right, right. It can't be a campaign ad because Trump is not even on the ballot. It's just I feel like I heard someone say something different. So I'm asking you to pretend that I'm on the ballot. Pretend he's on the ballot and maybe pretend that he's following the law. That's just a note from The Daily Show. I want to share with you that tomorrow on The Beat, we will have Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. He is one of the candidates that is key in the Democrats' pursuit of flipping the Senate map.
45:37This will be his first appearance on The Beat. So we invite you to join us for that newsworthy interview tomorrow. Traditional home security only alerts you after a break-in, and that's too late. SimpliSafe is changing that. Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way. We don't just alert. We stop crime before it starts. SimpliSafe, plans starting around$1 a day. Save 50 % on your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com slash sxm or with promo code sxm. Outdoor deterrence requires a SimpliSafe Active Guard outdoor protection plan starting at$49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com slash licenses for alarm license information.
46:12Tennessee 2012.
From the publisher
September 30, 2026; Leaked audio obtained by The New York Times reveals Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton apparently insulting President Trump’s convention. Paxton’s team disputes the claim that Paxton sees Trump as a drag. The New York Times' Molly Jong-Fast and former Democratic Congressman Mondaire Jones join. Plus, new fallout from former DOJ vet Jack Smith's hearing. NYU's Melissa Murray also joins.
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