Nicolle Wallace Discusses Interview with James Comey

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0:37Remember to ask a team member about their selection of award-winning Helix Sleep mattresses. Eligible items are in stock and available for free local delivery. That's helixsleep.com to find the store nearest you and ask about Helix Sleep. With Helix and Steinhoffels, better sleep starts now. why have i asked my electrician i found on angie.com to bury my pet hamster i was so moved by how carefully he buried my electrical wires i knew i could trust him to bury my sweet nibbles after his untimely end this is very strange angie the one you trust to find the ones you trust find pros for all your home projects at angie.com hi nicole very newsworthy interview with james comey of course i actually i want to ask you about one part uh and i want to play it actually I know you just finished it, but Comey says President Trump has finally now found the type of loyalists that he's looking for.

1:25I want to just show this part briefly. He has found the crew that he was looking for. What does that mean for the country? It's bad. You never want time to fly, but it means it's going to be a very difficult two years. just that part and anything else that uh that jumped out to you sitting face to face with him everything he's been through and now going back down through this so i went back he'd been on my show after the seashell stuff and i said what will you do if you are indicted he said for what this i said yeah um and and he said you know i i trust that the the judiciary will be fair to me basically that if things break down so royally that I am actually indicted for the seashell thing, you trusted the judiciary.

2:17So I felt like I had to come back, right? And say, well, so this thing happened that you thought was kind of far-fetched. And I went back and looked at the coverage of the first Trump term, which I don't do often enough, right? Because you and I are in the, we've literally watched the frog be defrosted and then simmered and then boiled. And so we're staring at the bubbles and we're like, huh, what are we looking at? But Trump first was reported to have wanted to indict Comey in 2017 or 18. Story in the New York Times headline, Trump tells Justice Department to indict Clinton Comey and there was somebody else.

2:50And the people who stopped him based on that reporting were Don McGahn. I think Sessions was the attorney general. Rosenstein was the dag. And so what was interesting to me is that indicting Comey was like Trump's white whale And some combination of McGahn and maybe Kelly, I don't know, I think it was the chief of staff and Sessions and Rosenstein and Barr and even Bondi stop it. So the variable in this story and the way we cover it can't be Trump. He's always wanted to indict Comey. It's Blanche. And so when I had less success trying to get him to weigh in on Blanche, but that was the line of questioning that I was trying to pursue, that this is a story not just about Comey and Trump, but about how all those guardrails that have existed since 2017, when Trump is first publicly reported to have wanted to indict Jim Comey or prosecute him, have fallen away.

3:42And I think as we try to tell this story to the country, what's different isn't Trump when it comes to Comey. He's wanted to prosecute Comey for almost a decade. It's Blanche now making that fantasy, that dream of Donald Trump's come true. And why is that happening? I think that's so incisive. And yeah, you gave him several chances and opportunities to come out. And with some, he said, OK, there's court rules. But to your point, then there's the wider the question of us, whether it's what you said. You're we the people, sweaters and paraphernalia, the law firms, the bar associations, the universities, the business community, which at times right after Jan 6 said it cared about things.

4:24I mean, Comey warned in your interview, get ready for the next two years. Those who have resorted to violence before or, as you said, who stood in the way? I mean, we know that Trump wanted the military to seize ballots and people said no. So it would be foolhardy, silly to not expect him to try that again and then look around and say who's going to who's going to stand up. Yeah. And I mean, you you've had a really sharp focus on his plunging popularity. And there are some people in our audience who don't think that matters because they don't think he'll leave. It is essential that he is so wildly unpopular because it is harder to do things that are illegal or to do things with the military, to do things that are unconstitutional if you don't have a lot of political support.

5:05But it also boggles the mind that a guy at 32 percent to 28 percent. I mean, the polls are collapsing almost weekly and it coincides to the price of gas, which seems to be going up weekly. But it boggles the mind that with his brand in free fall, there are still so many enablers. And I think that'll be a story we'll be unpacking for decades. Absolutely. Well, again, it was a very newsworthy interview. I'm sure there'll be clips tonight on this and other channels because it was really striking and he's in it. So, Nicole, thanks again. Thank you, my friend. Thanks for covering it. Absolutely. Our thanks to Nicole Walls.

5:40Welcome to The Beat. Our top story on this program now is this ongoing clash over the Trump DOJ making what is clearly a second and farfetched bid to build some kind of criminal case against this man. on your screen who we just discussed, a man who, remember, once served a top U.S. law enforcement. The top two positions, of course, are the attorney general and the FBI director. And the former FBI director here is James Comey. But it's bigger than him. Nicole and I just touched on this, and I show you this because we continue to update it, and it is important. It undercuts this list, the credibility of any single case when you remember and see just how many people, Donald Trump, his DOJ, some of the enablers inside there that Nicole said are allowing him to get what he couldn't get in the first term, at least go after these so-called enemies.

6:28It is a sprawling list of those probed, subpoenaed, or in some cases prosecuted. And that puts the new second effort to again prosecute Comey in this context, because James Comey has a distinguished record when it comes to the law, federal law, carrying it out in the Justice Department. That's really not in doubt. Also, as a longtime public official in Washington, he has taken plenty of criticism for his style, for his remarks, for the way he's weighed in on things. You're watching the news, so I bet you remember some of that. I'm not going to go over it all. But there are few serious people in the whole country who actually believed that Mr.

7:13Comey threatened criminal violence against the president with his basically random seashell post that he took down when some people, probably in bad faith, for the most part, suggested that the number 86, which is common in restaurants and a reference to something being gone or out or 86 it, was in fact something else. Indeed, this post felt more like a kind of grandfatherly social media snapshot than any kind of felony. Under the law, an image of seashells spelling out those numbers is not nearly enough evidence to be counted legally as a true threat or an encouragement to assassinate. And that is why people posting and selling similar messages, including some with the exact 86 moniker, have not been charged.

8:06No one else has been charged for this That's a point even the current Acting Attorney General recently had to admit Under questioning because He didn't think lying would, I guess, help the cause And so he admitted, well, they're only going after Comey for this, nobody else Mr. Comey says He will address most of these issues When he has the opportunity in court Not here on air But he did discuss how his family Is feeling, how he's taking this all in Personally in Nicole's new interview They've kind of gotten used to the fact that because I've been a critic of Donald Trump, I'm a target. I'm sure John Brennan's family feels that way, Jim Clapper's family, lots of others.

8:46There's a cost to speaking up in this strange era, awful era we're in now. And I think they accept that. I think they're proud that I act the way I do. I'm not going to be quiet. I'm going to continue to speak about what I believe. But of course, it's a burden for a family. That to me is a part that I regret, but they're strong people. it's a burden, but it's something his family's proud of. Think about how much has changed in America under Donald Trump's lawless agenda here, that a former DOJ prosecutor, he rose to Deputy Attorney General, and former FBI chief says that in a way you can have your family proud of you for being indicted.

9:28That would only be true logically if the indictment is so baseless as to become a kind of badge of courage of standing up against a despot, which is what it's become here. In that regard, Mr. Comey and his family, as he tells it, have moved from kind of the typical lawman perspective over to something more like civil disobedience or the civil rights organizers who said, of course, they're proud. They're not ashamed. They're proud to be targeted or arrested by the bad guys if the bad guys happen to be in office. And that's what Comey's saying. And he's not exactly some longtime lefty resistance figure.

10:10He was a registered Republican. As I mentioned, he served at DOJ and FBI, and it was only standing up for the law against Trump's demands that turned him, like so many other people, including CIA veterans and military folks and others, into this sort of target, a target that he says his family is proud of. Because what else would you be when you're facing something this baseless from a president who would censor, punish, and jail critics if he could? As for that revenge agenda, Comey said this.

10:43Donald Trump has a bottomless desire to gain revenge against those who've criticized him, and I'm not going to stop criticizing him because I think that's required if you care about America, and so it will just keep going. If he gets rid of Blanche, he'll try to find someone else. Look at the bottom of every barrel, there are still apples and so he will find someone to do what he wants to do. Now, this case against Comey has signs of already backfiring at Trump's DOJ. Legal experts say it lacks evidence. I just discussed some of the problems and that it looks more like these other cases. You see Comey in the very middle on the right where you have a bunch of stamps, but like these other cases on the left where you either got no charges or dismissals because there was no there there.

11:26And that could add heat on acting A.G. Blanche, who faces accusations. He's using basically sham cases for his own personal ambition to try to secure this job under Trump. Conservative commentators have also criticized this case. The DOJ faces fallout over going after Comey again in this manner. They have several prosecutors who've departed from the office that brought the first case, some voluntarily decamping or scrambling to find new jobs. Fearful they could be asked to work on cases that violate their principles. That's according to DOJ insiders who spoke to the Post. And from Bondi to Blanche, the DOJ keeps losing these cases, hence the need to revive the failed ones.

12:08Remember, there's cases they couldn't even get a grand jury to bring, like going after lawmakers, including Democratic Senator Kelly. And so they just go back at it. they failed, but the Pentagon is taking a different route, now saying that Kelly quoting Secretary Hegseth's comments is some kind of potential classified violation. They haven't gone as far to suggest they will revive the charges, although it's not nothing when the Secretary of Defense says that he's violated his oath and that they're having their own War Council review. Kelly replying by posting video of the Hegseth comments I mentioned, saying it's not classified, it's a quote from you.

12:48Kelly's service as a veteran has not exactly deterred the Pentagon or DOJ from what looks like a baseless retribution effort, one that couldn't even clear the notoriously low bar of the ham sandwich at the grand jury. Just like Comey's service as a prosecutor and FBI lawman has only brought more anger from Trump and what has now become a lawfare DOJ. Remember, so many of the things they accuse are what they're actually doing. indeed I think you can argue on a day like today when we've just heard from Mr. Comey and all this that it is precisely the public service the earned credibility of those two men I mentioned and the credentials of the other targets which is the big story here some of them well known some lesser known but the impact and the credentials of these individuals many of them longtime public servants is exactly why Trump has tried to silence them.

13:41He cannot stand that people who have authority and alternative forms of power, remember a lot of these people are sitting lawmakers in a co-equal branch of government, he can't stand it. And in losing the public battles, whether that's rhetorical or sometimes in government or sometimes in how the branches are supposed to check each other, he turns to abuse his own branch. He is accelerating a revenge plot that really when you look at this up here tonight? There's a reason we leave this up for everyone to see. This looks almost absurd in its sprawling reach and losses. They are 0 for 20 and counting, meaning they haven't won a single case that you see on your screen.

14:21It would be absurd if the consequences were not so serious. And yet here we are. And there's a challenge with all of this, whether it's for someone like Mr. Comey, who has to decide when to address this and take this seriously and when to do whatever else he was doing as a person with First Amendment rights to criticize the government. Mr. Kelly, as I mentioned in the Senate, has to decide when to respond because you, if we've learned nothing in this whole era, it's you fight back against bullies and you have to respond. But even doing that sometimes at a civic and political level means that he's now fighting on defense about whether or not their baseless accusations matter rather than the thing they were originally discussing, which could be problems with the war or unlawful orders or the gas crisis.

15:08And so that's the balancing act. And yet to let this become normalized for us to pretend in life or the news or anyone who still cares about where our country's headed, for us to pretend, oh, here's the list. It said 23. Now it's 26. Now it's 28. They're all going to lose them. So whatever. No, it's a long ways from whatever. We are past the crisis, the boiling frog that Nicole referenced, we are in the question of how do you address this as time goes on? And even if they lose all the cases, what will the accountability be for people like Bondi and Blanche and others who are quite clearly violating their oaths of office while accusing others of the same or worse?

15:52We're joined by The New York Times Magazine's Emily Bazelon. Welcome. Thank you, Ari. Those are a couple points and questions. Your thoughts? Well, I'm glad you started with this question of what Attorney General Blanche is doing here and what his role is. It seems like he is really auditioning hard to stay in this job. Currently, he's the acting attorney general. Trump has not made a decision yet about whether to keep him. And so I think you see the, you know, elevation of these kinds of charges, which in any sort of normal universe would not be happening, tied to Blanche's ambitions. I was also struck that when he was asked to defend this indictment last week, he said, well, we have other evidence against James Comey.

16:40But then he gave zero examples of that other evidence. And so it seems like if he has other cards that he's playing here, he owes it to the country and to Comey to say what they are, because otherwise it just seems like he is smearing a defendant without backing up the claims he's making. Well, absolutely. And there can be cases you bring that are minimal. People have heard the reference that you can have a speaking indictment, but sometimes for strategic or legal reasons, you keep it narrow. But when you're talking about accusing someone of this caliber and public service record of the extremely grave offense of trying to have a president assassinated, you need more than a dumb Instagram post.

17:25You really do. And so to get there at all, you have to say, obviously, if you had some other secret thing, here's this secret correspondence or alleged confession or whatever. But no, I just don't think legally they've met the bar whatsoever, which makes it likely that Blanche, as you say, may be trading, day trading his credibility to get the job. And then when the case falls apart and Trump would, of course, be angry about it, he doesn't care. Whether that rises to violating his oath, whether he is knowingly bringing meritless cases is a question really for the Bar Association sooner or later.

18:00On the danger to the rule of law, I want to play more from Nicole's interview. Here's what Comey said tonight. I think it's really, really important that we recognize the danger to the rule of law that comes from this kind of vindictive prosecution. It is what separates us from authoritarian regimes that are statute of justice. We always depict her with a blindfold holding the scales. And so it's never about getting people. It's about understanding facts and treating people equally so we can achieve justice. We lose that. We're not who we think we are. Emily? You know, the basic principle of the FBI, or at least it has been the basic principle, is that you pursue the facts without fear or favor.

18:42In other words, you start with the allegations and the concerns about criminal activity. You don't start with the person you want to target and then find something to pin on him. And Comey is saying with a lot of backup that that's what happened to him here. And I think that it's really important to keep driving home what is wrong with that. It's not about James Comey, one particular person. It's about that kind of activity. And especially as you've been laying out, it's really a pattern from this Justice Department and the Trump administration. Yeah, we'll put the enemies list up again because, you know, we track this, as you know, in news and The Times does this type of work.

19:22It's harder to make a graphic like this and keep it current than to skip it. And so I get why not every newspaper or outlet publishes this once a week. But do you think that it's important that the country understand this? Because, you know, you could be talking to whoever, your MAGA uncle, about any individual case. And they say, well, I don't know. Don Lemon shouldn't have done this. And I never liked when Comey did that. And yet arrayed together, you have a lot of different jurisdictions where these already failed, which is evidence that shows they couldn't get it going. And you have a lot of flimsy cases that raise the question whether the criminality is actually in Blanche's DOJ.

20:04Yeah, absolutely. It's important to have a kind of chorus of voices speaking out, pointing to what's happening to show that there are many cases, as you have up on the screen. And, you know, it's also true that in this particular case, there are probably free speech defenses under the First Amendment. It doesn't seem at all clear the Justice Department told the grand jury about that potential element of this case, and that might explain why the grand jury went along with this particular indictment. Meanwhile, as we've also pointed out, there are prosecutors who are leaving the Justice Department in droves up to a quarter of the lawyers in the Justice Department departing because in a lot of cases, they just can't abide by what's happening around them.

20:50And that has been especially true in the Eastern District of Virginia, where the original Comey indictment was brought and some of the other offices that the Trump administration has really twisted to its own ends. Yeah. All important points, Emily, our leadoff guest on Nicole's big interview. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. We have a lot coming up tonight by the end of the hour. A hantavirus outbreak update. Republicans worrying that Trump is in a Carter-like malaise now. And a kind of a MAGA crash out over Donald Trump's phone. The gold phone never materialized, with many saying, all right, dude, where's my money?

21:31But next, we bring in one of the most powerful lawmakers in Democratic Washington. Senator Durbin is back with us on some big topics in 90 seconds.

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23:42Donald Trump has a bottomless desire to gain revenge against those who've criticized him. And I'm not going to stop criticizing him. If he gets rid of Blanche, he'll try to find someone else. Look at the bottom of every barrel. There are still apples. James Comey speaking out today on what is his second indictment by this Trump DOJ. We're joined by Senator Durbin of Illinois, who's the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Welcome. Good to be with you, Ari. Your response to Mr. Comey's remarks and the Trump DOJ trying to revive another case against him. Well, let me tell you, put it in context.

24:18It's one of the most serious charges that can be made. attempted assassination of a president. And now look at the reality of it. We see the pattern here. What the MAGA forces are trying to do is to put each of the targets through an exercise. Hire a lawyer. Figure out how you're going to pay the lawyer. Do a perp walk. We'll try to get it on TV. And then we're going to basically put you through all sorts of allegations and little or no proof. Why do they go through all this? They've said as much in the past. They've talked about it. We want that person to suffer the way the poor president suffered when he was indicted and arrested and such.

24:58So this is vengeance. It's spite. And I agree with Comey bottomless. The Judiciary Committee, which you've led, has some role here. What do they do? And if the Democrats were to retake this election, what will they do to thwart these attacks and these prosecutions when they're found to be meritless or to have consequences? Well, of course, the first thing we'll do in the majority, and I hope that day comes, is take a closer look at the nominees that come before us. Can you believe what these people are saying or are unwilling to say when they're under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee seeking lifetime appointments to the bench or positions of power as U.S.

25:44attorneys. Basically, they won't concede who won the election in 2020. They have no response when it comes to January 6th as to what was happening here. And now Senator Coons has asked the basic question, do you agree that Trump has been elected twice and therefore under the 22nd Amendment can't be president for a third term? They won't even answer that. I mean, it's incredible. They're going to play back these tapes someday and say this was the bottom. This is what happens when you reach the bottom in terms of political influence and justice. That's obviously a huge story we've been covering tonight.

26:20A lot of Americans concerned about gas prices, as you know, and where this kind of open-ended war ceasefire goes. Here's the energy secretary on Sunday. Should Americans be prepared for the possibility of paying$5 a gallon for gas? Look, again, I can't predict the price of energy in the short term or even the medium term. I'm shocked to see Democrats come out of the woodwork now somehow not worried about Iran getting nuclear weapons. I know you're saying you can't predict how high gas prices will go, but I don't hear you ruling out the possibility that they could, in fact, go to$5 a gallon. Well, I'm just avoiding price predictions.

27:01Are these high gas prices a product of the Trump economy and the decision to go to war? Absolutely. Absolutely. And the bottom line is, when the Republicans are confronted with this, they won't accept the reality that war in Iran was initiated by this president several months ago without clearly thinking about a stretch of water called the Straits of Hormuz. 1 ,500 oil tankers and other chemical tankers lined up trying to get through this area. I thought the president said we'd obliterated the power of the Iranians to threaten us. And you look at it, they found a way now through the Straits of Hormuz to put pressure directly on the consumers of America.