Rep. LaMonica McIver discusses Trump’s Vindictive Prosecutions

0:00Ben Meiselas:Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for$15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made$15 bills. But it turns out, that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Up-round payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes. May slow when network is busy. See terms.

0:39Ben Meiselas:We've seen peaceful protests like that throughout New Jersey. That one was in Newark, and families were out there peacefully protesting the Palantir database that the Trump regime is creating, that ICE is creating, apparently upon every person who's in this country, trying using AI to track people and to also track migrants and to totally invade people's privacy. We don't know the full extent of that program. And we also saw a large crowd gather outside of the federal courthouse this past week, Congresswoman LaMonica MacGyver, during this government shutdown when she should be helping her constituents, which is what she wants to do.

1:20Ben Meiselas:She had to attend a court appearance based on the Trump regime criminally prosecuting her on a three-count felony indictment in connection with showing up at Delaney Hall and then having ICE agents go after her. And then she was the one who was charged as a vindictive, in my view, a very vindictive prosecution by the Trump regime. She attended her court appearance, criminal court appearance this week. I'll show you the moment where she walked out of the courthouse and she was greeted by supporters and other members of Congress and others in the community who were just livid that the Trump regime is so vindictively going after everybody, including members of Congress.

2:05Ben Meiselas:Here play this clip.

2:17Good afternoon, everyone. First of all, I want to thank all who are here for all of my supporters who are here. My husband, my mom, my family. Thank you so much to my legal team. I'm super grateful to them.

2:28Ben Meiselas:And so while Congresswoman MacGyver was there leaving the courthouse. Just the contrast. Well, she's being targeted by the Trump regime, by people like Tom Homan, the border czar, who we now know took$50 ,000 in cash in a lunch bag, a bag from a Mediterranean restaurant called Cava, which he refuses to even talk about or address. And we saw Pam Bondi say, I'm not even talking about that. Don't you defame Tom Homan. And that's just how he runs his business. He just takes$50 ,000 in cash from Mediterranean lunch bags. That's how we do it in the Trump regime. He's out there issuing these types of threats.

3:10Ben Meiselas:Play Tom Homan at that same time as that press conference in MacGyver, like literally the same time. This is what he was saying. Let's play it. Oh, I mean, illegal aliens, legal term, and they're in the United States. And if they're in the country, they should be afraid. They should be uncomfortable. It's not okay to be in this country legally. It's not okay to enter this country. It's a crime. So she simply, you know, is ignoring what federal statute says. Just think about someone in a government position telling people who are here and contributing to the country, our neighbors, you need to be afraid.

3:41Ben Meiselas:You should be terrified to be here. Be afraid. That's what America is like under the Trump regime. And speaking of which, also on that same Tuesday, this is all happening on the same day. This is what it looked like in the streets of Manhattan. Let's play it.

4:05Ben Meiselas:No, it's out of a dystopian nightmare movie, but it's real. It's happening here in the United States. I want to bring in Congresswoman Monica MacGyver. It's great to see you again. And you were on the Midas Touch Network shortly after that indictment was brought against you. I just want to talk about, I mean, you want to be focused on the work of your constituents and you had to show up and you have to continue to show up at a criminal court appearance where you're facing up to 17 years in prison. That's, that's the stakes of this right now. So just catch us up on what that was, what that experience was like this week.

4:40Well, it's good to see you again, Ben. Thank you so much for having me. Uh, as you laid out, I am currently battling, uh, Trump's department of justice, um, for three counts, one misdemeanor, two felony counts, um, where I can face up to 17 years for simply showing up to do my job for an oversight visit and protecting the people that have elected me to protect them. We went to court to have oral arguments for the motions that we submitted, my legal team submitted to have this case dismissed. Two really key factors to those motions is one of vindictive prosecution, which you mentioned, and then the second is a legislative immunity that we're basically arguing in this case, along with two other motions just about how the Trump administration and DOJ has been operating with putting information out about me that is false, not factual, constantly calling me a member of Antifa, saying that I am the reason ICE officers are being assaulted.

5:39I mean, all types of lies and craziness that has been happening, we put in a motion to make them stop those comments as well. And so that's where we're at. We're waiting for the decision from the judge. And we're, you know, confident that, you know, this case is going to go on in a positive manner. We have faith in the judiciary system. And we were thankful to the judge on that day on Tuesday for listening and, you know, asking a lot of questions. And so looking forward to the next step.

6:07Ben Meiselas:We saw that you were one of the first targets of this vindictive effort to prosecute. We've seen it again, though, over and over again. Other high profile targets. James Comey in the Eastern District of Virginia, kind of similar stuff. people didn't want to prosecute it. Trump gets rid of the whole DOJ team, brings on Lindsey Halligan, like his personal lawyer, beauty pageant contestant turned insurance lawyer with no prosecutorial experience. Now there's issues of if she's even a real prosecutor or not. And so that's being fought there. New York attorney general, Letitia James, same thing. There were memos.

6:48Ben Meiselas:There's no case there. We shouldn't bring this case. Lindsay Halligan apparently just shows up on her own, doesn't even tell others in the DOJ. And what are they even telling? We don't know what's even being said to these people in the grand jury room. But we're seeing it over and over again. So what do you make of what we're seeing with Comey, what we're seeing with Letitia James and what Trump's threatening to do with others, with your prosecution as like a template to go after people who are standing up to this regime? Well, look, I said from day one, Ben, it started with me, right? But it's bigger than me.

7:25It's not just about me. This is about our democracy, about our Constitution, and the power that this president wants to have in his administration. And so, look, me and May, you know, now we see Comey, now we see A.G. James. I mean, literally, constant, instant, you know, situations where this president is overreaching his power and literally using the administration as his personal attackers. That is why when people do not get on board to do what he says, they get rid of them. They move them out of the way and get folks who are going to say yes. That is what it's about. Anyone who is a critic of this administration, who holds them accountable, who is doing their job, literally, he is going to go after you.

8:08And that is what we have to look forward to underneath this cruel president. That is his whole main agenda all the time is to be cruel and to do things that are unethical. And so we're going to see this. Like, it's not going to stop with AG James. It's not going to stop with Comey. Like, we're going to continue to see these types of behaviors coming out of, you know, the White House and coming out of this administration. And it's not going to stop until we get more outrage, right? And we get through other elections to not see this happening anymore.

8:40Ben Meiselas:You know, I think about the Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment. And it feels that this entire regime is just one big walking Eighth Amendment violation because all they want to use government for is to inflict cruel and unusual. It's an interesting word, unusual. But when you think about what the American people are experiencing right now, it is unusual and it's cruel punishment over and over again. And it has nothing to do with governing, which should be about how do we help people access health care? How do we help people get education, keep people safe, not inflict the dangers within the communities that ICE is doing?

9:26Ben Meiselas:How do we help people afford homes? Not what we're seeing with this Trump regime do bulldozing, you know, the White House. It's just it's it's wacky. It's unusual. And it's and it's so harmful. I know that's what you want to be spending your time dealing with, helping constituents, not being caught up in a Trump, you know, dystopian world. Yeah, yeah. You're dealing with a Trump nightmare every hour on the hour underneath this administration. And I would say to Ben that they want to use the government and govern to their own personal benefit. Everything that they do is to their own personal benefit.

10:04it. I never, ever met an elected official, no matter what side of the aisle until Trump that believes that he only governs or serves one section of people in this country. Like screw the millions of others, other people that you are supposed to be the president for. He's just like, I don't care. Like I'm not going to serve them. I'm not doing anything to help their lives. I am fully focused on myself, one, my administration, my family, and the people who are my biggest supporters. And I have never seen that in my life, been an elected official, the president of the United States doing this or believing that they can only serve certain groups of people.

10:46It is disgusting. It is highly alarming. And that's why I tell people, we are in a state of emergency. When you have a leader, the highest leader, you know, doing something like this, operating how he has been operating, it is dangerous for us. And that is why I continue to serve the people that I represent. I continue to not let anything get in the way, not even this bullying and this intimidation of this administration in this current time, get in the way of me serving the people that have elected me, protecting them and standing up for them. And so we all have to continue to do that, even on your platform, speaking truth to power every day.

11:22That's a hard job. And like there are folks getting literally bullied to not do that. And so I give kudos and credit to you as well for you doing this every day, for continuing to speak truth to power, because, you know, to be a truth teller in these times, it's dangerous.

11:37Ben Meiselas:Well, I appreciate that. I think people see you, though. I mean, who now dealing with the ultimate sacrifice for whatever mind people. I mean, you showed up at Delaney Hall, this private system with zero transparency because you as a member of Congress have the right. It's written in law. You can show up and you can inspect the premises and see what's happening. We know that human beings are being disappeared, are going missing. we don't know what's even happening behind these gates. And so upon, this was a bipartisan thing as well. It wasn't just like a Democrat thing. You get to show up, you see, and they've just been saying, nope, you don't get to see what we're doing in here.

12:23Ben Meiselas:Are they torturing people? Are they killing people? Are they sending people to other countries that we don't know about? What are the conditions? We've heard conditions in some of these places as being bug infested and not giving people showers or forcing 50 people to use the same toilet bowl and literally have to do all of that in front of each other. You just said, I'm here. And they said, that's how this started. That's what's so wild about it. What they should have said is, Congresswoman, come right in. We're going to show you. That's the way government should work. Yes, absolutely. Like you said, we went there to do an oversight visit with both of my colleagues in New Jersey, just to simply make sure that this place is running properly, that it's up to par.

13:12And Ben, just of us going there to do this oversight visit, we had some concerns after we finally got the visit, after being delayed and after the situation that happened there. Literally just a couple of weeks later, this same facility had an entire riot there. Folks who are being held there, detainees, literally were upset because they were not getting fed. They were not getting food. They had not had anything to eat in days. And they had a riot because they were upset. And four people broke out of there. They escaped this detention center through a makeshift wall that had not been inspected through the city, did not properly have any permits to do so.

13:53This is the reason why oversight and the job that Congress has over the executive branch is so important. And that is why we showed up there. And just to look a couple of weeks later, look what we witnessed. I mean, it is the main reason why we have to do our jobs and continue to do our jobs, because we know that they are hiding things, that things are not working properly, that there's not proper processes being followed. We know this. We know it. We see it through every day of working in our community and getting letters and notes from people who tell us, hey, we went to court and there was ICE waiting for us in our regular proper court process, Ben.

14:32ICE agents are waiting there, literally for people. Students who are on approved student visas, Ben, are going to school every day, studying, scientists, educators, getting their visas dismissed without any notification, just letting them know, hey, you got to get out of here. We dismissed your visa. These are the things that we're seeing in our communities that are unethical and illegal and violates literally so many different processes and most of all, some of our constitution. So it's just, it's disgusting, right? You know, what we're dealing with. And even right now in the middle of a government shutdown, the things that we are seeing this president do from asking the department of treasury to write him a check for$230 million from building this room that is costing millions of dollars.

15:18Now I saw the new number$300 million for a ballroom. I mean, the audacity of this, me and while we're in the middle of government shutdown, people are not getting paid. Ben, I saw a line wrapped around the corner in a DMV area for the food bank, for federal workers, like not getting paid, not able to feed their families, SNAP benefits running out in a week across this nation. I mean, these are the things that this administration is doing while we have all of this going on. It is, it's disheartening.

15:47Ben Meiselas:And I know one of the reasons they target people like you and Comey and others also is to try to drain you of your resources. It's a battle of attrition also where they said the federal government's going to just throw out all their stuff at you. And I know that gets incredibly expensive. And I also want to remind people, too, about your background. And so if they want to learn more about you and if they just want to help out in any way, let me just tell them where they could find out more information about you. It's LaMonicaForCongress.com. Just everybody, check that out. You could learn more about her.

16:19Ben Meiselas:And it is a very expensive. I know from being a lawyer before doing this how just expensive and how difficult it could be. So it's LaMonicaForCongress.com. Thank you so much, Congressman. We appreciate you. Thank you, Ben. Good to see you. Great seeing you. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million subscribers. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad-free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.

16:53Ben Meiselas:You want to get your backyard summer ready, but you don't want to break the bank? Wayfair gets it. Planning on dining al fresco or relaxing poolside? Wayfair has everything you need to prep your space. Shop now and save up to 70 % off during Wayfair's 4th of July clearance. Score huge deals on outdoor furniture, area rugs, and more. We're talking thousands of products for every style and budget. Plus, surprise flash deals July 6th. Don't wait. Shop Wayfair's 4th of July clearance now through July 6th at Wayfair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. The most effective people at work aren't working harder than everyone else.

17:27Ben Meiselas:They're working smarter inside better systems. Superhuman Go, from the makers of Grammarly, is the AI chat that works inside every tool you already use. Always ready and already aware of what you're working on. It's a teammate whose only job is to help you be better at yours. With Go working with you, you can show off what you do best. See what Superhuman Go can do at superhuman.com. That's superhuman.com.