Outrage as Trump Tests Ploy to Loot Taxpayer Funds

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0:41That's where Thumbtack comes in. Just upload a photo or voice note, and it uses AI-powered search to match you with the right top-rated local pro. So instead of guessing, you get clarity and can hire with confidence. For your next home project, try Thumbtack. Hire the right pro today. Welcome to The Beat. I'm Ari Melber, and we're coming on the air here on another election night in America. There's a lot on the line. Voters in six different states will actually be casting ballots. And the one that has the most scrutiny is a key house race in Kentucky. Polls closing there just moments ago, I could tell you, and we have some special coverage planned.

1:16If you watch The Beat or, frankly, a lot of news these days, you've probably heard of the Republican who is now fighting for his job. He defied Trump on the big issue of Epstein and faces a more Trumpified challenger. So I have a special report on that coming up. Ali Velshi is going to be at the big board. We have Che Comanduri here. So it's a big one. We also have reporting on the scandal at Trump's DOJ with the details about over a billion dollars being set aside for a thug fund that is unconstitutional and probably unlawful, according to many experts. Someone who has been fighting on these constitutional issues is Senator Cory Booker.

1:54And he's actually my special guest tonight, live on that. So we're looking forward to hearing from the senator. Thank you for being here. We begin on the election with Ali Velshi, who is, of course, MSNOW's chief data reporter and is at the big board. As promised, what can you tell us? All right. As you said, Ari, there are six states holding elections tonight. Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, Idaho and Oregon. But we're going to start looking at Kentucky, partially because polls are closed in half the state. Kentucky is one of those states that splits between Eastern and Central time zone.

2:27But the particular district we're looking for right now is District 4 in Kentucky. It is closed. It's in the eastern part of the state. And this is where Thomas Massey, the incumbent, is up against Ed Galrain, who is supported by Donald Trump. Thomas Massey is a thorn in the side. He is a gadfly to Donald Trump. He has worked with Democrats to advance a number of bills, including the Epstein Transparency Act. We're going to be looking very closely at a few things. We haven't got results in just yet. We're waiting for them to come in. As you can see, there's zero at the moment, but they're going to count fairly fast.

3:00I'm looking at a few counties that I want to concentrate on tonight. Campbell County up on the top, Kenton County and Boone County. These three counties are three of the most populous counties in the entire state. So when we see the numbers in from there, we're going to see what happens. Pete Hegseth was in Boone County this weekend campaigning for Ed Galrain, the Trump-endorsed candidate. We also have over here Oldham County in the western part of the state. Again, that is one of the four most populous counties in the state. So while we're going to be getting results from all of these counties, those three on top and Oldham County are the ones I'm looking at.

3:37I'm looking at two other counties tonight just to see how things go. Right above, right below that is Shelby County. Shelby County is where Ed Galrain is from. So you're going to expect him to do very, very well there. We'll see very early on whether that's actually happening. And Lewis County over here on the eastern part of the district, that's where Thomas Massey is from. So again, between the four populous counties we're looking for and the two that the candidates are from, we should get a fairly early read as to where this is going. The polling is quite tight. Let me tell you this, Thomas Massey campaigning very clearly on the fact that he is someone who will hold everybody to account in Congress, whether they are Republicans and Democrats.

4:18There's a valid discussion as to whether he has been as tough on Republicans as he has been on Democrats. But the bottom line is Donald Trump wants him out. And Donald Trump and his allies and his cabinet and his MAGA friends have been working to defeat Thomas Massey tonight. If he is defeated, that will be a very big deal. Through the course of the night, Ari, as polls start closing, I'll bring you Kentucky. We'll go to Georgia and we'll go to Pennsylvania as well. We're watching close races in those states. Yeah, Ali, Kentucky, clearly a big referendum on those Trump moves. And then other places where people are watching to sort of pro rata, figure out what it means for the midterms.

4:56You got a busy night. We'll be coming back to you this hour. So thank you, sir. My pleasure. Appreciate it. turning to Donald Trump trying to abuse DOJ powers for his own benefit and take your taxpayer dollars. You have this proposal that's completely unprecedented. They say they're going to do it. Of course, that could still be tested and stopped in court, like so many other things that Trump has tried this second term. But it's over a billion dollars in a thug fund, money that would go to people who've been convicted of crimes or otherwise clash with the government. The DOJ's details that they put out make it even worse than it sounded in those initial reports because they're claiming that this deal, this plan will shut down the IRS so that it won't ever pursue claims it could have against Trump and his family and his companies over unpaid taxes.

5:44Politico reporting on that detail, just to spell that out, that would mean that if there were legitimate open inquiries, not into just Trump, but his family, he suddenly gets a corrupt, nepotistic kind of exemption. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has signed the document. He has now one of the fastest credibility and corruption crisis of anyone who served in that job. The IRS is allegedly, they say, barred from doing these audits or moving forward. Whether another attorney general will retract and erase that or Mr. Blanche might face ethics and other concerns is all up in the air because this is unprecedented.

6:19But this is not the end of the story based on the way our system of government's at least supposed to work. It would be a kind of favoritism for Donald Trump and his family, a kind of spaz. special public admitted nepo baby exemption that practically invites more tax problems for the children you see on your screen, the grown adult children of Donald Trump, if they're getting publicly allowed to have a get out of tax audit free card. This is a scandal. As I've reported since its inception, it looks bigger than Watergate, both in size and scope and in the political crimes it can relate to. The DOJ here is trying to help Trump with his own lawsuit and his own IRS that he oversees.

7:02So all of it is a massive conflict of interest. The references that have been made seem to plan to fund people who, by any other stretch, including what many Republicans have previously said, people should actually be in prison, not people getting your taxpayer dollars. On the layer cake of problems, there's also the fact that Congress didn't appropriate this money. So there's a potential lawsuit and court action there, because if you can take$2 billion, why not$10 or$100 billion? Indeed, if this is a precedent that Trump gets and Republicans allow, there would be the potential of future presidents in other parties with other agendas trying the same trick.

7:39Todd Blanche, who has not yet become the permanent attorney general, Trump dangling the job as he's used other temp positions to try to get even more from him, has, and I say this as someone who's covered and followed the DOJ for some time, disgraced himself more quickly with more lawless claims and talk than any acting attorney general we've seen in this shortest stretch of time. When asked the basic question of whether Mr. Blanche, as acting attorney general, as an attorney, as an American citizen, as someone who could later face ethics sanction or lose his bar license, whether Mr. Blanche would rule out paying people who attacked police and tried to overthrow the U.S.

8:20government and democracy, well, here's the exchange. You moved to create this fund. I didn't move. I did not move. The settlement result, Mr. Attorney General, come on. Simple question. Will individuals who assaulted Capitol Hill police officers be eligible for this fund? Well, as it makes plain, anybody is. And will you commit that none of this money will go to President Trump's campaign donors? I am not committing to anything. You're appointing four of the five members. I am appointing all five members. Is it a coincidence that the General Counsel of the Department of Treasury resigned yesterday?

8:57I don't know if it's a coincidence. Have you looked or checked? Have I checked? Yeah. I have not. Acting Attorney General Blanche ducking the questions. It should not be hard to say when you're the top prosecutor in the United States that you won't be taking taxpayer money and handing it to violent convicts or people who attack police or people who stormed the Capitol. And if they wanted to say that, obviously they could. And if he had any confidence that this fund wouldn't ultimately include those people who Donald Trump, of course, has embraced and freed, well, here we are. Because he expects that he may or will be paying them, he can't rule it out.

9:36And because he can't rule it out, he looks like an anti-police, anti-Blue Lives Attorney General. As for that Treasury reference, a Trump appointee resigned after the fund was announced. The Treasury is involved, of course, in handing out this kind of money if it's not stopped in court. Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman discusses this as the looting of America. Axios talking about a presidential profit machine. This is totally unprecedented, likely unlawful, although we have to technically check in the courts. It certainly hasn't been appropriated by Congress. And even some Republicans are part of a growing chorus of criticism.

10:16It's thoroughly illegal and unconstitutional. Ethics attorneys are saying tonight it's quite astonishing. This is the swampiest thing I could possibly imagine. Well, first, it's probably illegal. People are concerned about making their own ends meet. It's not about putting a slush fund together without a legal precedent. An incredible level of corruption against the U.S. taxpayer. Secondly, it's outrageous. What I want to know is how a fund was created and what its purpose is and the legality of creating a fund that Congress hasn't had anything to say about. There is no judge involved. Neither the courts nor Congress is approving any settlement or overseeing any part of this.

10:54This is just Trump getting a bunch, a ton of taxpayer money to dole out. And finally, it's corrupt. Brilliant thoughts about this Revisation fund from the president Yeah, not a big fan

11:13The top Republican in the Senate, which is the upper body That's the most important Republican in Congress John Thune, saying he's not a fan By the standards of the loyalty And public agreement that Trump demands That actually is something And it shows you that Thune may be trying to At least signal the rest of his caucus that they don't want to go along with this for a variety of reasons, and hopefully, he may think, invite a few more allies to come in on the Republican side. One of Trump's tricks that we've seen on everything from immigration to tariffs is to start really big and bold and shocking and then see what he can get away with.

11:48And when things don't work out, the tariffs were narrowed in court, well, they move on to other topics and hope people don't notice how often this happens. In the business context, we've heard about him chickening out. We are witnessing this here at a very high stakes level, but the fact that he's claiming to have the power that prevents the IRS from ever not only auditing and doing its job on him, but his family members, which doesn't even deny nepotism, it admits it, that he's claiming they can hand out this money doesn't mean he'll ultimately get away with it, especially as we approach midterms and his lame duck era.

12:20As for the fund, it's structured where they're trying to keep secret those who get paid and the amounts they receive. That is a further recipe for corruption and disaster. It also makes you wonder, If Donald Trump is so proud of so much of this and talks about how he can get away with anything, why does he need to hide what he's doing with your money? We're joined by Democratic Senator Cory Booker, who's on the Judiciary Committee. Your reaction to this fund tonight, and can Democrats stop it? I mean, this is literally one of the most brazen, crass, craven, corrupt things that he's done. And it's so obvious that there's just no justification for it.

13:00And anybody who is not speaking up in Congress is complicit in this mass theft from the American people at a time that they're seeing their prices skyrocket. We see a president is finding all nine creative ways to enrich him and the corrupt people around him. The judiciary has oversight, as you know, and I want to emphasize to the audience, part of this is a campaign to make it seem like they have powers they probably don't have. As a journalist, I can't get ahead of what the courts will do. We don't have a ruling yet. But the Wall Street Journal put it plainly and noted, Senator, the settlement, as the Trump administration calls it, is vulnerable to challenge in the courts because, quote, there's no obvious connection between Trump's IRS claims and the people getting payouts.

13:49That it looks more like a smash and grab, Senator. Well, it doesn't look like a smash and grab. This is them smashing any principles of justice and fairness and grabbing hundreds of millions of dollars to dole out to corrupt people who have broken the law, all while also amidst it, doing something that is an assault on one of the most important precedents in our nation, which is that no one is above the law. And so Donald Trump is trying to give himself and his family immunity for doing something that every American does. Pay your taxes. And so, again, where is the Republican Party right now? Who, if Obama did even a fraction of any of this stuff, they would be revolting and marching in the streets.

14:38But their kleptocracy that they're allowing to be created, that is robbing this country, spending taxpayer dollars on ballrooms and unjust wars that are making the Middle East worse. None of them are saying what they should be doing or using their power to check and balance a president that is out of control and deeply, deeply corrupting our system. He is not the only one that is corrupt. The enablers, those who are silent, those who are complicit, they are the ones that are corrupt as well. I mentioned that he backs down sometimes when there is sustained pushback. We saw that in Minnesota. There's news here that an ICE agent now later was charged with the shooting of a Venezuelan immigrant for tactics that, as described, looked quite reckless.

15:30four counts of second degree assault, a felony, one count of falsely reporting a crime, a misdemeanor relating to shooting into a house in a way that didn't seem proportionate and also jeopardized children. Your view of these kind of charges and the import of holding ICE accountable if it goes beyond its purview? Well, that's the word is accountability. Remember, we have said we are not funding an out of control, reckless agency since when Alex Preddy was killed. We know what's happening in our communities. And yet, again, the Congress was formed, if you read Federalist Paper No. 47, to provide a check and a balance on a president or especially to stop a president from overstretching his power for breaching any kind of bonds of propriety or justice.

16:19And so we have a president who has weaponized the Justice Department. Actually, he is using it as his own legal team to pursue his alleged enemies and to enrich himself and his family. He is allowing an immigration pursuit that is violating all of our decency as a country, all of our collective values, that is not popular amongst anybody when it comes to just the general political spectrum of the base of our country. We are in a constitutional crisis, not just because we have a president that is operating in kleptocracy, but because we have a Congress controlled by Republicans who is doing nothing about it.

16:57And a Supreme Court, by the way, that is corrupt in itself as they take unjust riches for billionaires who have matters before the court. Look at all the gifts that they're getting, the vacations that they're getting, the RV that they're getting. This is the worst, most corrupt federal government we have ever seen, and we are doing nothing about it. It is time for the people to understand what's going on and make the Republican Party pay in this election and demand the Democratic Party start stepping up on corruption issues themselves, including stopping Democrats and Republicans from trading stock and letting all this corporate money flow into our system.

17:35the same people that Donald Trump loaded on a plane to China as he invested in NVIDIA stock and then let NVIDIA chips go to China, seeing his self again making unjust riches. Yeah, you're connecting some of those dots. And that's what we see a lot of people in the country upset about in this economy with affordability, what's sometimes called the Epstein class or all these people playing by different rules. You mentioned the court. Final question is what your and your colleagues are doing on voting rights after that ruling that really shreds the law that Martin Luther King helped get passed to defend voting rights of Black Americans and the democracy.

18:13This is such a grievous wound, opening wounds that have not even fully been healed in this country. I'm standing here as just four generations from slavery. My parents, grandparents, great grandparents fought in that post-Reconstruction period amongst terror and violence and killing to try to make this democracy real for everyone by passing the Voting Rights Act. And this corrupt court has now just sent us back to that post-Reconstruction period when Southern state legislators were passing laws to make sure that Black people did not have fair representation. This election is no longer about Democrat versus Republican.

18:54Look at what this president is doing. Look at his foreign policy, his domestic policy. Look at what this court is doing. Everyone needs to know this election is about justice. It is about democracy. It is about protecting a system of government that for 250 years, black folks and immigrants, people fought and died for and not letting ourselves be dragged back to rigged maps by this president who started this midterm, mid-decade redistricting all the way to a Congress that isn't doing their job and needs to be thrown out of office. so we can begin to fight back on all of this corruption, all of this upending our democratic ideals.

19:36Yeah. On more than one topic, Senator Booker, thank you for joining us tonight. I appreciate you. I appreciate you. Thank you for letting me vent. Well, I think some people could relate. Thank you, sir. Our thanks to Cory Booker coming up. We turn back to that race that Gally Velsch and I were discussing just at the top of the hour and how Republicans who stood up to Trump, including on Epstein, are now facing this battle for their jobs. By the end of the hour, a story we haven't hit yet this week, Elon Musk losing big in court. I'll tell you about that. But we're up next in 90 seconds.

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21:59The incumbent Republican worked with Democrats, Congressman Thomas Massey, Republican, and has become basically the Liz Cheney of the GOP and Trump Epstein crisis. In the same way that Cheney stood up to Trump on the insurrection democracy issues, in the second term, we have seen Massey stand up repeatedly and boldly to Donald Trump's Epstein secrecy. and the parallel also matters because Massey, like Cheney, has long been a staunch conservative, the type of person who before Trump was seen as, if anything, a kind of loud, proud, conservative Republican, not someone that they'd call a rhino or moderate on some issues, and yet on this principal issue of Epstein, well, Massey drew the line.

22:50The perpetrators are being protected because they're rich and powerful and political donors to the establishment here in Washington, D.C. I prefer actually it goes straight to the president. I believe he's trying to protect friends and donors. I think we need to give the DOJ a chance to go back through and correct our mistakes. How long do they have to do that? How long do they have to protect these files? They're already breaking the law. This is bigger than Watergate. This cover-up spans decades, and you are responsible for this portion of it. Men need to be perp-walked in handcuffs to the jail.

23:27At some point, somebody got to Pam Bondi and said, it's your job to cover this up. This wasn't just one vote or one speech. As you can see, Massey was a leader. And because the House was narrow in the majority, Massey with a couple other Republicans like MTG broke Trump and once the dam broke it turned out there weren't a lot of Republicans left standing by him and so they had a veto-proof majority to release the Epstein files which thoroughly expose many people including some people in Trump's cabinet their lies about Epstein Island the stories we've been covering a lot of that draws back to Massey and so after bringing the files to light well Trump who had claimed at one point he was fine with all this clearly wasn't.

24:11Acting hurt, angry, and like he still had more to hide, he would go after Massey and show his interest in getting involved in the details of politics. Trump was handpicking a person to run against him where they've raised a lot of money, all of this to send a message to anyone who apparently would stand with the survivors, something Trump claimed to do before breaking that vow for Files' release. This House primary race, as I mentioned, is now the most expensive in history Over$30 million, a lot of that through those big mysterious PAC monies And it's PAC money funds, and it's against Massey in the main So this is how our politics works today Someone does something like this, other Republicans are forced to pretend they agree with Massey But then the system drops tens of millions of dollars on a House primary It's not even a general election yet As Velshi mentioned, the polling is tight and Trump and his allies in doing this much organizing and fundraising and intervention suggests that they still have Epstein living in their mind, that they still are angry about it, worried about it, want to send a message, don't stand up to Trump on Epstein.

25:18So desperate to bury the story, it is, of course, back in the news tonight, and we will see, of course, what the results are, but the fact that a congressman you probably hadn't heard much about a few years ago who is one of over 400 people, is now on par with the president, just shows how big this story and this embarrassment has been for Donald Trump. And remember, he was forced to sign the Epstein into law because of the public pressure and sometimes bipartisan pressure from the Massey-Kana wing. The White House is privately trying to tamp down any support for transparency around the Epstein files, even though that is what an overwhelming majority of Americans, including MAGA voters, want.

26:05President Trump is doing just about everything in his power to quash a story that just will not go away. President Trump says he has signed the bill to release the Epstein files. No surprise that the president didn't sign this bill publicly because the president wants to turn attention away from this whole Epstein files saga. It was a double loss for Trump. An issue that exposed his history, his alleged malfeasance, his handling of the DOJ, his ties to Epstein, even if he was not accused of any criminal wrongdoing in that case. But all of that he wanted to hide and said it was out front and center.