Trump's "Retribution Tour" Expands

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0:49Watch college ball your way? Sling lets you do that. Learn more at sling.com. Hi, Nicole. I hope you'll stay with me for a sec. I was just watching your broadcast. These are the times that shouldn't be normalized. This is a sort of five-car alarm fire or whatever words people want to use. And so I just want to play, actually, we don't usually do this, but you had a newsworthy interview. I want to play a little more of what, of course, Brennan said to you and ask you about it. Let's take a look. The women and men of the CIA deserve stronger, better, apolitical, nonpartisan leadership at such a challenging time of our national security globally with everything that's going on.

1:33And it's clear that Mr. Ratcliffe decided that he was going to initiate this, I think, again, to try to satisfy the interest, the urge of Donald Trump, who continues to claim that the that the assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 election was a hoax. It was not. We are back to that debate, apparently, allegedly, because the president demands it, even if it violates rules, abuses power. As you know, depending on how far these people doing the investigation go, they might open themselves up to liability if there's ever justice. I'm curious what you took from that newsworthy interview and being in a country today where there's multiple open probes, allegedly improper, into people who were serving the country?

2:21Well, look, I so appreciate your approach to this and even your choice of words. I mean, I think this is when it becomes about all of us. An election was had, Donald Trump prevailed, but the government isn't his, it's ours. It's our money that pays the salaries of men and women like John Ratcliffe and Kash Patel and Dan Bongino. So, you know, it's a line from Maren Zorgan, right, from the American president, Michael J. Fox, you know, you work for me, you know, you answer to me. And I think that's why we get to ask these questions. What I think is interesting on this story is that I have Trump people in my life, I'm sure you do, too.

3:01And you're always thinking about how can I puncture their information system? So I read the reporting in The Atlantic, which was really detailed and specific. And it cites the contradictions in the Ratcliffe note to the Marco Rubio led Senate Intelligence Committee. So I went back and read. I'm one of the only losers who probably read the whole thing because it's the most scathing indictment of Donald Trump's campaign's ties to Russia. It's brutal. It goes much farther than Mueller ever did. And then it also mentions in that Atlantic piece, the Durham probe. And that Durham, Brendan told me today, I don't know that I knew this.

3:37He spent eight hours with Durham. He wasn't with Durham's investigators. He was face to face in a room with John Durham for eight hours. And I played some sound. I mean, you remember, you covered it. Fox News held Durham up, not just as the answer to Mueller or the antidote to Mueller, but as justice for all. That was their graphic when they covered the Durham probe. Durham found nothing. He spent$6.7 million and he examined John Brennan. He face to face interviewed John Brennan for eight hours. and he found nothing. So what did Ratcliffe have access to that Bill Barr directed, John Durham didn't?

4:10The answer is nothing. And so I think it's really important when we cover these, they are public servants. They may not act that way, but their salaries are paid for by us. They're not Trump org employees. They are people who work for the American people. And we have a right to assume that they will deal in facts, that they will be accountable if they don't, and that they will at least hew to the prior leading men and women of MAGA world, which include Marco Rubio and John Durham, who found the opposite of what Ratcliffe alleges. Well, absolutely. And you put it so clearly, as you often do. They are alleging a potential criminal standard, which is the only legal valid justification for this kind of criminal probe.

4:53And so they talked a lot about a Jeffrey Epstein list. Then suddenly when they caught the car, there's no list. They're talking about Russia level criminal conduct, which they already cleared. In other words, what you just said, what's the evidentiary standard? Trump AG Bill Barr, who was the most loyal of any of the AGs who served in the first term, as you're reminding everyone, ordered this probe, oversaw it. They finished it and found nothing. So just like the Epstein list that didn't exist, the Russia crimes didn't exist. And so that takes us to part two, which, of course, I'll be covering when I finally let you go.

5:27You already did a lot of work today, but we're going to cover this tonight with with Andrew Weissman, who, of course, memorably was, among other things, a general counsel to the FBI director. So knows all about what it takes to get reach that standard. If they didn't reach that standard, then what are we dealing with? Well, that's the actual alleged abuse of power that the Russia thing is a pretext to go after your enemies and that we're living in a country like that. And so I thought it was very interesting. You know, it's the usual thing of who has a certain approach or even, dare I say, a class that in the conversation with you, Mr.

6:01Brennan, and you've spoken to Mr. Comey before. You're getting a lot of these interviews, Nicole. They seem calm with you, my friend. But they seem calm amidst what looks like targeting your final thought that I will let you go. Well, two things. I don't think it's insignificant what you said about Epstein and this leak, which was carefully orchestrated. I mean, they are a lot of things, but incapable of careful right wing media orchestration is one of them. They are very capable of that. So the White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt, goes on Fox News and says John Brennan and Jim Comey should be prosecuted.

6:35And when does she do it? She does it the day after. The Epstein conspiracy blows up in their faces spectacularly, leading to coverage all across not just our shows, but the MAGA media corners. to Alex Jones weeping. Yeah. So that happens today. They're calm because they're from an era where facts prevailed in the context of criminal justice. And that is what they're counting on ruling the day. And that, I think, to your question and my skepticism, that's where we're going to be tested as a country. Yeah, we're going to be tested. And again, people can debate the right amount of coverage, language, or reaction to what is now a very old story.

7:19The president likes to talk about what he calls old news, what he doesn't want to talk about. Relitigating 2016, or if I want to be technical, re-relitigating it at Trump's behest. You can debate it all you want. There are people who want to debate the Nixon era. You can have that freewheeling debate. What you can't do, and what I don't think the Supreme Court should allow, even if they gave away the store on immunity, is have the highest levers of power in the government to investigate, to arrest, to interrogate. The tailing of James Comey, we're reading about in The Times today, because of a political approach.

7:58And again, I want to follow the evidence, but depending on how it's done, that itself could end up being the crime. We'll stay on it tonight. Thank you for being generous with your time, Nicole. Thank you. I'm going to go watch you. Okay, appreciate it. Nicole Wallace joining us after her Newsworthy interview and staying over into the hour here. This is The Beat. We begin with the confirmed now account of the Justice Department blatantly opening what are described as criminal probes into two individuals without, at least as of tonight, any clear justification for this. and coming after the news cycle Nicole Wallace just mentioned, and after Donald Trump's calls to threaten, arrest, jail these individuals, it looks very suspicious.

8:40We're talking about two Obama-era intelligence and law enforcement officials who have been, based on their experience, critical, exercising their First Amendment rights, of course, of Donald Trump and his administration. The reporting began on Fox. Fox News Digital coming up with this story. NBC and other outlets have confirmed that the DOJ has criminal probes open into the CIA director, John Brennan, and the FBI director, James Comey. That itself is significant. Indeed, you cannot think of another time in the modern era since the Nixon era where two such senior officials who ran the FBI and CIA were both under investigation at the same time.

9:18and that it was announced at the same time and farmed out in an announcement to a outlet that, at the very least, can be described as highly friendly with the current administration, indeed intertwined when you look at staffing. The FBI is not commenting. A lawyer for James Comey had no public comment. Brennan has spoken out. Many former officials, as you know if you follow the news, speak out. Sometimes they do interviews. Sometimes they do enough interviews that they are tied to a given outlet. In this case, we should note Brennan is an MSNBC contributor. And I want to play more of what was a newsworthy interview that he spoke to Nicole Wallace today.

9:55I think this is, unfortunately, a very sad and tragic example of the continued politicization of the intelligence community, of the national security process. And quite frankly, I'm really shocked that, you know, individuals who are willing to sacrifice their reputations, their credibility, their decency to continue to do Donald Trump's bidding on something that clearly is just politically based. politically based. His criticism there for the president, who he clearly views as responsible for what may be selective prosecution, the kind of thing that people are sanctioned for. People sometimes lose their jobs over.

10:33In rare cases, sometimes they themselves can be investigated for. Now, these investigations, as I mentioned, have come out at a curious time, announced in a big way to Fox, but very little is known. Indeed, the Comey case, according to the Fox initial report and NBC News follow-on does not state the reason. So it could be or might not be related to some of the other ways he's been in the news recently. Brennan, however, has a source where a person who was briefed indicated, as Brennan discussed, and Nicole Walsh and I were just discussing, that there's an indication that Trump's CIA director, Mr.

11:10Radcliffe, made this criminal referral to the DOJ about Brennan. Now, either there's some brand new smoking gun evidence, and if that emerges, we'll report it, or you have what looks like someone who took the new job under Trump going after the guy who had the old job. And that is not a cycle that you wanna play out, especially when our nation's secrets, intelligence, and the CIA are involved. There was allegedly an internal CIA review as recently as last week, which itself is suspicious given how old the issues are, criticizing the same old Russia thing that Brennan handled, the 2017 intelligence assessment regarding Putin meddling in the 2016 election in a manner that required a criminal referral.

11:52Now, even if you give them the benefit of the doubt and say some of those issues look differently now, there are very few experts, let alone lawyers or judges, who think it would be good for American national security to treat every difference of conclusion about our intelligence as a criminal matter for DOJ to investigate or prosecute. The reports and the criticisms are that this is none of the above, that it's not really about Russia or new facts, but rather an alleged abuse of power by Trump officials to continue to go after his perceived critics and opponents in the United States. A lot of evidence for that when you remember that we don't know if this is linked to the original Comey probe, but they made a big deal out of a beach seashell post he did on Instagram.

12:37You have other Democrats, as you see on your screen, targeted or investigated, and you have on the upper left a less famous but current lawmaker who is awaiting trial at the hands of this same DOJ for a brief incident outside an ICE facility. We are joined by Andrew Weissman. He is tied to this story as other former officials would be because he was, of course, a key prosecutor in the Mueller probe. As I mentioned, Andrew, to Nicole and reminding viewers, you also held the job of FBI general counsel, which goes right to the heart of how these issues are supposed to be resolved legally. Lee. I have a lot of questions for you.

13:15First, welcome. Thanks for joining me on this news night. Yep. Nice to be here. This is certainly concerning, very concerning allegations. Yeah. So let's start first with the most basic law. Then I want to broaden out to the context because we are not going to close our eyes like Lady Justice is supposed to. We're journalists. our eyes are open. But first, have you ever seen a legitimate probe opened in the Brennan matter regarding what is described as some disagreement or differing views about an intelligence assessment? Is that normal or on the level? So if we don't know, and I think it's really important for people to understand, we don't really know what the government has.

14:02And so So that you're raising could be, you know, what is at the heart of this, which is just one person concludes X and one of the other person concludes Y. They just have a difference. I don't even think that's what's going on. And from what we know, the idea that you're going to criticize John Brennan and many other people for simply thinking that it's important to investigate whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election, that is not an open, factual issue. Right. Right. Russia interfered in the 2016 election. It is in black and white. And would there be a crime? Would there be an you need a predicate if you're following the law?

14:52Is there any factual basis for a crime there? There's there's none that I can think of at all. I mean, the only thing that I see so far, and again, we don't know what the government has, is what you raised, which is actually the actions of John Radcliffe. That is the only thing that I'm seeing that appears to be improper here. Because the idea that you would open an investigation, A, it's been leaked. That's sort of red flag number one. That's not what you do if you've got a criminal investigation. The Department of Justice is supposed to keep that under wraps. So there's a violation of DOJ rules.

15:34And that seems to be because they want the story out there. That's not what the CIA should be doing. To the issue of re-litigating 2016, as Nicole sort of went through, that has been decided over and over and over and over and over again. It is in black and white in two indictments. It was decided in a Senate report that Marco Rubio signed onto and said was the most thorough report that he had seen. I mean, this this is one where it's just not debatable. all. And so let me move you. I'm only I'm only going to move you along because I think that's established. Then there is a larger question over whether this is potentially abusive power and illicit prosecution, which is the kind of thing that if substantiated is, I should note, a potentially impeachable offense for people keeping track of the Constitution's limits here.

16:32That's separate from the, of course, criminal immunity that the Supreme Court gave Trump. But this is the context. I'm going to play something that some people might say, we got to hear this again. But if we were in court, yeah, this is the context for the government going after these two individuals. Take a listen to Donald Trump. I think they're very dishonest people. I think they're crooked as hell. And maybe they have to pay a price for that. Criticizing James Comey, calling the former FBI director cowardly. He's a showboat. He's a grandstander. The FBI has been in turmoil he did was horrible.

17:12Should he be locked up? Let somebody make a determination. Mr. Trump doubled down, attacking Brennan on Twitter, calling him the worst director in history. I've never respected him. I've never had a lot of respect. The question is whether the DOJ is being politicized to take potentially action against the rules because of those calls by the president over the times you just saw. Andrew, I want to get your response. We're back with Andrew in 90 seconds. Most ice cream is good, but not Jenny's. Jenny's ice cream is more like an obsession. What you get from over two decades of tasting and tweaking and throwing it out and starting over, chasing flavors until they feel alive.

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19:11We're back with veteran prosecutor Andrew Weitzman. Your response to what we just saw here on this program. So three quick points. One, you heard a lot of adjectives and adverbs. Those are not facts. Calling somebody names, that's not even an argument. But there are no facts to substantiate an open criminal investigation of anybody, let alone the two people that we're talking about. It's really notable when you're thinking about the sort of politicization and a real red flag to me is you've been talking about, oh, gee, look, they're relitigating something from 2016. But for a criminal case, there is, under normal circumstances, just a five-year statute of limitations, meaning you have to bring the criminal case within five years.

20:04That doesn't mean you can start investigating within five years. You actually have to charge within five years. But we're already eight and a half years past the events at issue. So it's hard for me to see how this is a credible leak of information about a real criminal case, because it's hard to see how there's anything that is within that statute of limitations. And finally, I just want to make sure people know that if they want to know the facts, they can go to a Senate intel report. They can go to the CIA report that was just done. they can go to the Mueller. The deeper point you're raising is that if it is, as lawyers say, pretextual or a lie, then they don't care that they couldn't bring that case because it is for other harassment.

20:53And if you do that bad enough, we have to follow the facts. That itself can be the new violation. And that goes to how they're using these powers. You were the general counsel of the FBI, making hard calls in secret about where the lines were. We have this time story that just crossed, which is why I'm moving forward. it. Viewers will notice I'm speaking faster than usual, but this just crosses. We're coming on air, Andrew, that when they did the investigation into James Comey's social media posts, they went farther. The Secret Service, according to the Times, had Comey followed in unmarked cars and street clothes tracking the location of his cell.

21:28They were viewing this as an active threat to assassinate the president. He, of course, deleted the post and spoke about it very quickly. Comey and his wife Patrice, tailed by the authorities as they drove that day from the North Carolina coast where they've been vacationing through Virginia to their home in the Washington area. How do you view that level of investigative resources against someone who had been cleared of other probes, obviously, and used to run the FBI? That is a waste of resources when we're dealing with serious threats in this country. There are serious threats that relate to attempted assassinations.

22:09This obviously was not one of them. This is time for grownups to be in the room. You should not be wasting the time of people where they really should be doing something a lot more important. There are real threats to investigate. Wasting this and politicizing this by having them go after something for show is it's not just sort of dangerous because it's politicizing it. It's that you are taking people away from doing their job on something real. Nobody in their right mind could think that Jim Comey was engaged in an assassination plot with respect to the president and was going to do so by tweeting about it.

22:50So to me, this is just a level of immaturity and a dangerous one. Um, that's how I see it. I appreciate your, your coverage and your analysis there. And that if posting criticism of a government official without anything else, um, can merit that response while we have the national guard in the street, while we have Marines being tested, all of this amounts to, um, what, what may be the abuse of these federal powers. And sooner or later, if they go farther, someone's going to get hurt or worse, um, for their free speech. And that's why I mentioned that people in government have to decide how they follow those lines, something you've counseled people on.

23:30Andrew Weissman across two blocks tonight. Thank you for being our leadoff guest. Later in the program, MAGA allies upset over the Epstein fallout. The current DOJ under Pambandi is covering up crimes, very serious crimes. That is the climate this week, which the Trump administration clearly wants to try to change the topic any way they can. And you remember the 90 trade deals we were promised? Well, the administration is failing on that. And we have a special guest tonight who knows all about economics, politics and talent like it is. Our friend Dylan Radigan returns to the beat. Coming up.

24:13we've got 90 deals in 90 days possibly pending here and we're going to get this done for the american people fact check false today is actually the 90th day we count so you don't have to they have failed on the vast majority of what would be the 90 deals 88 failures 2 partial 0 full Dylan Rattigan is here the journalist and author who's anchored shows on MSNBC and CNBC he's CEO of Euphoria Sneakers and owner of Reservations.com and he joins us on the intersection of economics something you know about and covered for a long time and they're still involved in yes sir politics something you hate and lying something that we see all over the world Why are there not 90 trade deals or some progress towards that?

25:05Where are we going and should people care about it? The entire tariff discussion ended in the middle of April. Everything since then is theatrics and nothing more. Trump is not wrong to want to deal with the trade imbalances in this country and the dysfunction that has been created for decades as a result of the labor market. And I think we actually all do ourselves a disservice by obsessing about Trump's behavior relative to the tariffs rather than focusing on America and helping Trump, who is. Let me jump in. Let me jump in. Listen, his behavior is called his job because he seems, according to the Post, we have the Post report here, 90 deals in 90 days.

25:44There was a lot of talk about this failure. His behavior, his leadership has failed to get the deals. Doesn't that matter when the other people's jobs are affected by this? It does absolutely matter. However, the reality of the tariffs is this. The bond market flipped over in April and called everybody's bluff, including the president's. And ever since then, the only tariffs that are ever going to happen are five to 10 percent on everybody. He doesn't need the deals. Will you explain what it means when you say the bond market called his bluff? What does that mean? So the bond market, the U.S. bond market is the cost of borrowing money for the United States and really the world.

26:19When it became immediately apparent that Trump was going to go down this crazy path of these extreme tariffs, the bond market changed the cost of borrowing money to the United States to such an extreme level. Imagine if I jacked up the interest rates on your house to 10 percent on your mortgage because you're behaving like a lunatic. and imagine if the interest rates of your house could vary based on your behavior. Well, with the bond market, the rates do change based on your behavior. It's not a fixed rate mortgage. And so the Trump behavior triggered a spike in the bond market, a spike in interest rates in the bond market, which immediately corrected the entire situation and then has led to basically a compensation, a PR compensation by the Trump administration as they try to get to the appearance of a victory.

27:01But that victory will ultimately end up being more or less what we have, which is 5 % to 10 % reciprocal tariffs with basically everyone. All right, now I'm going to ask a question, and you're going to take a breath, because we've known each other. How long have we known each other? 15 years. Some time. Yeah. A while. You say that, and you say it's theater. Does that mean, then, that there will be no other trade breakthrough, and whether Trump, as president, does this for months or years, to you, it's largely noise? Yes. So how do we deal with that as a society? The same way the stock market's dealing with it by rendering it irrelevant.