The Rachel Maddow Show

00:00 Home to The Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, The Briefing with Jen Psaki, and more voices you know and trust. MS Now is your source for news, opinion, and the world. 00:12 Learn more at ms.now. 00:15 Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Really good to have you here as well. So in Star Wars... 00:21 They blow up the Death Star, right? It's the good guys. It's the Rebel Alliance against the evil Galactic Empire. And against all odds, the good guys, the Rebel Alliance, succeeds in blowing up the Empire's most terrifying weapon, this gigantic Death Star, this weapon they can use to, you know, blow up whole planets. 00:45 So at the end of Star Wars, we're basically, you know, Good Guys 1, Empire 0. That's Star Wars. 00:53 Then three years later, we get the next movie. We get The Empire Strikes Back. And as the name implies... 01:01 The Empire is not taking it well that they got spanked in the first movie. They had their Death Star destroyed, and so now they are striking back at the Rebel Alliance. The evil Galactic Empire is on the offensive, and they are coming for our heroes. The Empire Strikes Back is just as exciting as the first Star Wars movie, but it is darker. It is definitely darker. 01:27 Our heroes aren't just plucky underdogs like they were in the first movie. It really feels like they are losing. 01:35 Throughout much of The Empire Strikes Back. I mean, Empire Strikes Back is where we get, I am your father, right? The bad guy Darth Vader telling our hero Luke Skywalker that he's Luke's dad. Talk about unwelcome news, right? And he says that to him after he cuts off Luke's hand. I mean, it's dark. It's dark. The whole vibe of The Empire Strikes Back is this, you know, the dark dread of this tyrannical force having the upper hand seeming like it's winning. 02:09 And whether or not you've seen Star Wars ever... 02:13 or whether, like me, you haven't seen any of the movies, like you haven't seen Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back since they came out when I was not yet 10 years old. I haven't seen them since. But still, I'm willing to bet that for you, like me, This sound from The Empire Strikes Back still takes you right back to it. Still puts you right back in that fear and dread of the terrible, evil Galactic Empire. 02:46 John Williams' imperial march from The Empire Strikes Back. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. It's iconic, instant American pop culture shorthand for, you're looking at tyranny, right? You're looking at a despot flexing his power to intimidate innocent people. We viscerally know that's what you're looking at when you hear that sound. 03:13 But in that video that I just showed, the reason the visuals aren't from any of the Star Wars movies, the reason the visuals seem different is because this video, this TikTok, was shot by a local guy who lives in Washington, D.C. And this is his recording of him playing the Imperial March from Empire Strikes Back out loud on his iPhone as Trump's deployment of the National Guard has armed troops in uniform patrolling his neighborhood. 03:43 He did not get in the way of the National Guard patrol. He did not try to block what this National Guard patrol was doing. He just played that iconic song from The Umpire Strikes Back on his phone as he walked around after them, conveying satirically and through music exactly what this National Guard deployment is. 04:05 When he did that, a National Guardsman summoned the D.C. police to arrest him for it. And they put him in handcuffs for having done that, for having played that song. 04:21 But now he just got paid. He has just received a $50,000 payment as a settlement for for the cops handcuffing him, essentially as punishment for him playing the song from The Empire Strikes Back. His lawsuit against the National Guard is still pending, so there may yet be more to come. 04:43 Trump's National Guard patrols are still there as of today in D.C. In an interview with The Washington Post today, the guy who played the Imperial March as he walked behind the National Guard patrol, he notes to The Washington Post today that he does still go out and do this, only now he doesn't just do it with his iPhone. Now he does it louder with a portable speaker. 05:04 And now he's just been paid $50,000 for the way they overreached and handcuffed and tried to lock him up for doing it. 05:13 You know who else got paid today? Or who learned today that she's going to get paid? 05:19 E. Jean Carroll. 05:20 In the 1990s, E. Jean Carroll was a very successful, very well-known magazine writer and columnist. She wrote for Saturday Night Live. She was an editor at New York Magazine and Esquire Magazine. She was Playboy's first female contributing editor. And in her New York glam media celebrity... 05:42 E. Jean Carroll was a sort of distant acquaintance of Donald Trump. 05:48 And she says that in the mid 1990s, she met up with Trump by happenstance at a department store in New York. And she says he essentially boxed her in in a dressing room and raped her. 06:01 She filed a civil lawsuit against him. A jury in that case found him liable for sexually abusing her, but not for rape. 06:08 Also found him liable for defaming her. The jury ordered Trump to pay her $5 million. Trump refused and appealed. But today, the United States Supreme Court decided they would not save Donald Trump from that verdict. And so now E. Jean Carroll will be paid. 06:25 E. Jean Carroll will be paid millions of dollars by Donald Trump personally. 06:31 potentially with tens of millions more to come in the future, if the other verdict she obtained against him also turns out this way. But regardless of any future potential payments from Donald Trump to E. Jean Carroll as of today, he must pay her $5 million. That case has gone as far as it can go. It is settled. It is done. He must pay her. 06:55 Today, the Trump administration lost in federal court in New Hampshire. 07:00 Trump has been trying to force that state to hand over its voter rolls to the federal government. The Trump administration has not only demanded that states hand over their voter rolls, it has sued the states to try to force them to comply. Trump administration has sued more than two dozen states to try to force their voter rolls out of them. 07:19 Well, as of today, there have been verdicts in 11 of those cases. And as of today, the Trump administration is 0 for 11 in those cases. 07:30 With today's loss in New Hampshire, that means they have lost 11 straight. They have lost all of them thus far. And that means the states will not be forced to hand over their voters' information to a president who says he doesn't believe that American election results are real. 07:48 Reporter Tim Murphy at Mother Jones just had a look at the way Democrats are contesting this year's elections, which might have something to say about the desperation Trump is showing to try to throttle the election so they don't go off as normal. Murphy writes that for the first time ever, Democrats are running candidates in every single state legislature race in the state of Minnesota. No uncontested races. Democrats are running in every single race in the House and in the Senate. Same thing in Texas, where Democrats this year are also, for the first time in decades, fielding a Democratic candidate for every single House seat and every single Senate seat in the whole state of Texas. 08:29 Same thing in South Carolina. Democrats in South Carolina are running for every single seat in the legislature— Same thing in Arizona. Democrats are fielding a candidate for every single seat in the legislature. In Kansas, there are 18 seats where Republicans ran unopposed last time. This time, all 18 of those seats have a Democrat running. 08:52 In North Carolina, Democrats are fielding a candidate in all but two seats in the entire state. 08:58 In New Hampshire, where the state legislature is massive, it's basically impossible for a party to field Senate and House candidates for all 424 seats in the New Hampshire state legislature. But Democrats have candidates running in 57 more races in New Hampshire than the Republicans do. 09:19 This sort of Democratic recruitment bonanza, Democrats absolutely filling the ballot in all of these states where for years, maybe forever, they've never even thought it was worth contesting these races. This is born of deliberate strategy on the part of Democrats, right? In a country where the president has a negative 50-point approval rating from independents, literally any group of voters anywhere in the country might conceivably vote against the party of a president who's that roundly hated by this country. 09:50 So it's born of strategy, and it's good strategy in a year like this for Democrats to cover all the bases. Run someone everywhere. 09:59 You never know where you might pick up a seat or two. 10:03 But it's also born, I think, of personal confidence among these candidates that it's worth the time and effort to try. Even in a long-shot district, it's worth it. In fact, it's something you'll be proud of. 10:19 It's worth it. Standing up for your country, raising your hand and saying, hey, me, pick me. I'm willing to do it. I'm willing to go up against what these people are doing to the country. 10:28 I think it's born in some ways of personal confidence that running is something worth doing right now, no matter how it comes out. 10:38 And you're seeing it all over the country. 10:41 The Washington Post today profiles the prospects for the African-American vote specifically in Southern Democratic parties. 10:49 The numbers are eye-popping. This is a headline. Resisting Trump has galvanized black Democrats as the midterms approach. High primary turnout among black voters in the South has given some in the party hope for upset wins in the region, in the South. 11:06 And indeed, South Carolina is one of those states where Democrats are running candidates in every state legislature race, every congressional race, every statewide race on the ballot. Democrats in South Carolina will fill the entire ballot this fall in a way they have not done before. 11:23 And there's reason for them to be hopeful about that kind of a strategy. When South Carolina Republicans moved like the other southern states after the Supreme Court ended the Voting Rights Act this year, when South Carolina Republicans moved to break up black voters into different districts to dilute black voters' power so a candidate black voters' support could never win in South Carolina again, when South Carolina Republicans did that this year, You want to know how much voter turnout jumped in the one black congressional district in the state? 11:56 The congressional district represented by Democrat Jim Clyburn. You want to know how much voter turnout jumped there? In that primary, voter turnout in that district jumped by 50%. So, yeah, of course, Republicans are panicked. 12:13 Of course, Trump is trying to figure out a workaround, trying to take over the election somehow. 12:21 Today, after losing 11 state, 11 straight state cases where he's tried to force states into handing over their voting rolls. Today, Trump also lost at the U.S. Supreme Court on voting. Trump lost bluntly on one of the huge swings he and Republicans have been taking this year against the elections. This is the headline in the New York Times, quote, Supreme Court mail ballot ruling deals new blow to Trump's election plans. Quote, President Trump's wide-reaching campaign to change election laws suffered another setback today, on Monday, when the Supreme Court blocked a crucial pathway to restricting mail-in voting practices. 13:04 Quote, the Supreme Court ruling upheld a Mississippi law allowing mail-in ballots to be received up to five days after Election Day. Today's ruling follows another federal court decision last week to strike down key parts of a Trump executive order that sought in part to empower the U.S. Postal Service to regulate voting by mail. 13:24 As Trump has tried to seize control of the mechanisms of voting, quote, time and again, Mr. Trump has run into barriers in the Constitution, which grants no authority over elections to the executive branch. 13:40 Ah, yes, the pesky, pesky Constitution and its barriers to what Trump wants to do, to what Trump insists he's going to do, to what Trump is trying to do. 13:53 Even as the Supreme Court today effectively told Trump he has to pay E. Jean Carroll for sexually abusing her. 14:00 Even as the Supreme Court today told Trump to back off trying to mess with people voting by mail. Even as the Supreme Court today restricted the government, the police, from grabbing your cell phone data with no warrant and no probable cause just because of where you physically were when you had your phone on you. 14:18 Even as the court today told Trump to back off trying to fire Lisa Cook from the Fed Board of Governors. 14:27 Today, nevertheless, is going to be remembered at the court for what it told Trump he can do. 14:35 In dissent, Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor called today's ruling, quote, profoundly destabilizing. She said the majority ruling in the slaughter case today, quote, gives the president a power unknown even to the English crown against which the founders revolted, elevating him above his once co-equal branches. 14:58 There's a whole bunch of agencies inside the U.S. federal government that were set up by Congress to be repositories of expertise, of technical skill and experience, and therefore to be insulated from political pressure, from having its whole staff turn over every time a new president is elected— Think like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or the Consumer Product Safety Commission. These are not necessarily the most exciting agencies in the world. They're not agencies that make a ton of news. 15:29 But you know what they do, right? 15:32 And they're agencies that you want to have expertise. You want them to know what they're doing. 15:38 The Consumer Product Safety Commission is exactly what it sounds like. That's the agency that makes sure you can't... 15:44 You know, sell a toaster that's guaranteed to set your kitchen on fire or a baby toy that's going to poke your kid's eye out. Consumer Product Safety Commission. 15:55 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Also, exactly what it sounds like. 15:59 They oversee, for example, the safety of nuclear reactors. So we don't have a Chernobyl in Kansas or a Fukushima in Virginia. 16:10 How enthused are you by the idea that Donald Trump is now free to fire everyone at agencies like that for no reason at all other than the fact that he feels like it? 16:22 Even though there are laws saying people should only be fired from agencies like that for cause, the Supreme Court said today that Donald Trump can fire everybody at those agencies for no reason at all. 16:34 What that means is that Trump is free to fire all of the nuclear regulatory experts, right? And the people who make sure we're not buying toasters that are also flamethrowers, right? Trump is now free to fire all of those people who have expertise in matters like that. And he's free to replace them with, I don't know, who might he replace them with? Maybe the people who manufacture the proverbial flamethrower toasters? 17:06 who also, hypothetically speaking, bought his crypto coin and joined Mar-a-Lago and gave Eric, the blonde son, a bunch of stock and put him on the board. Yeah, you'll now be in charge of toasters and their safety. I mean, this is the National Labor Relations Board, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Mine Safety Commission. 17:36 The National Transportation Safety Board, that's the people who investigate plane crashes. 17:41 OSHA, the Postal Service Board of Governors, and, and, and, a gazillion agencies like this. The Supreme Court today said, forget all of our previous precedent, forget generations of federal law that says those agencies are independent authorities and presidents don't get to fire people there for nothing. 17:59 Today, the Supreme Court said for Donald Trump, for Donald Trump in his infinite wisdom, we're going to give him the power to fire every single person at all of those agencies and fill them in with, you know, his children, his donors. 18:17 Who do you think he's going to put in charge of chemical safety and hazard investigation? 18:23 That we're going to end up with some real fine scientists there, some real experts? 18:29 I mean, there's the theoretical kind of academic concern here about the separation of powers and a president effectively being given license to ignore laws, to ignore the laws that are supposed to govern this part of the government. 18:46 But, you know, the fact that they are so radically expanding presidential power— right now, for this president in particular, in full cognizance of what exactly this particular president wants to do with his presidential power, it's just really eye-opening in terms of what the right, including the right on the court, wants for this country. I mean, talk about an imperial march. I mean, with the power that he had before today's ruling, what the court did today, I mean... 19:22 What the court did today, they did knowing what he's already done with his time in power, right? 19:29 I mean, here's a guy who dumps, you know, tens of millions of dollars into a Trump family cryptocurrency firm. The Securities and Exchange Commission then mysteriously halts its fraud investigation and settles with the guy who just gave the Trump family all the money. That's how the SEC is operating under Donald Trump. 19:48 Here's the tobacco company giving Trump's political committee $5 million. One week later, Trump's FDA decides it's no longer at all concerned that fruit-flavored nicotine vapes might possibly be designed to hook kids. That's already the way that Trump's FDA is operating. I mean, here's Trump's sons taking a financial stake in a mining company because, sure, they have lots of mining expertise, right? 20:15 And then wouldn't you know it, that mining company they just took a stake in suddenly finds itself getting up to $1.6 billion from the U.S. Commerce Department for an overseas mining project in Kazakhstan. 20:29 The White House says that decision has nothing at all to do with the Trump family's connections to that deal. But honestly, that's how the Commerce Department is already operating under Donald Trump. 20:41 I mean, here's Trump's Secretary of State taking an official State Department meeting with the President of the United Arab Emirates. 20:49 Seated immediately beside him, seated right beside the U.S. Secretary of State for some reason, is a random young man who does not work for the U.S. government, but who is married to Donald Trump's daughter, Tiffany. 21:02 What's he doing at a meeting with a foreign head of state, sitting alongside the U.S. Secretary of State? Is that what the U.S. State Department is for? No? 21:12 Making invitations for Trump family sons-in-law? 21:16 I should tell you, for his part, Marco Rubio says that he's friends with this particular Trump son-in-law, and the two of them just happen to be in Abu Dhabi at the same time. It was a chance for them to catch up. He literally said a chance to catch up. 21:32 And so he brought him to the meeting with the head of state. 21:35 That's how the State Department works under Donald Trump. 21:39 I mean, here's another Donald Trump son-in-law negotiating foreign policy in the Middle East, while this Donald Trump son-in-law, Jared, is simultaneously on the payroll of Saudi Arabia to the tune of about $2 billion. $2 billion. Billion. 21:56 And while he is simultaneously seeking additional billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia while he is making American foreign policy towards Saudi Arabia. 22:07 That's how American diplomacy works under Donald Trump already. 22:15 So when the Supreme Court, when the conservative justices on the Supreme Court do something like they did today, these Supreme Court justices are not expanding presidential power in the abstract, right? 22:28 They're expanding presidential power radically. 22:32 for this president in the middle of this term, when he is already showing what he thinks is the right and proper use of the power and agencies of the U.S. government. 22:42 I mean, this is a guy who's already basically robbing the National Park Service blind in order to pay for a new granite walkway that he says he paid for himself, but he didn't. 22:53 I mean, this is the guy who you want to have more personalized, unfettered, unreviewable control over every element of the federal government of the United States of America? 23:04 You know what he's already doing with every agency and department of the federal government of the United States of America, right? 23:13 Imperial March. 23:16 We're going to get some expert help tonight in understanding what happened today in the court, what it means going forward for the rest of Trump's term. We're going to speak with Georgia U.S. Senator John Ossoff, who has done, to my mind at least, more than any other Democrat on the campaign trail, to make clear how much Trump and his family are stealing from the American people and why Trump's corruption is a good reason to vote against him and a good reason to vote against Republicans who enable him. 23:45 So we're going to get to Senator Ossoff in just a moment. But before we do, I will just leave you with this one last note. 23:51 As unbelievable as decisions like this court decision today might be, as hard as it might be to wrap your head around a court giving a president who is already this obviously corrupt, totally new, unprecedented, unfettered power to corrupt even more of the government at will. 24:10 It is also important to know that the corruption of this president is also wildly unpopular. 24:16 And so you see protest against him that is personal and relentless and stubborn and very funny and ultimately vindicated, even in the courts. 24:30 You see protest against him that is also large. 24:35 You know, you've seen all the coverage this weekend about the total failure of Trump's Great American State Fair thing on the National Mall, which had really sparse attendance and power failures and all the entertainers pulling out and pools of melted ice cream. Even TMZ has been covering how the Trump administration has been bragging about how great the crowds are when there's literally nobody there. 24:58 Well, while that Trump failure was unfolding on the National Mall over the weekend, it would appear that the crowds, as it were, on the National Mall were absolutely dwarfed this weekend by the actual crowds of people protesting against Trump in the All of Us 250 protests against Trump's attempted hijacking of the nation's 250th anniversary. 25:21 Nobody showed up to Trump's thing, but everybody's willing to show up against him. 25:27 And in a democracy and a constitutional republic, which is what we still are, that is where the real power lies at the end of the day. 25:36 We've got a lot to get to tonight. Stay with us. Georgia Senator John Ossoff is here next. 25:44 Home to The Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, The Briefing with Jen Psaki, and more voices you know and trust. MS Now is your source for news, opinion, and the world. Learn more at ms.now. 26:01 It's one thing to listen to a cable TV host go through the long, long and getting longer list of corruption stories that are piling up around the Trump White House, like little gold curlicues waiting to be super glued to the wallpaper above the Oval Office fireplace. 26:17 It's one thing to make sense of all of these corruption stories and turn them into news. 26:24 Turning them into politics is a whole other matter. But that is what Democratic Senator John Ossoff has been doing expertly this year as he runs for reelection in Georgia. Here, for example, here is John Ossoff speaking this weekend in Savannah, Georgia. 26:42 There's this beautiful little island... 26:44 off the Albanian coast called Cezanne. 26:49 And Jared Kushner wants it. 26:52 So he took his Saudi billions, and he decided he and Ivanka would buy the island and build a luxury resort. And then, like clockwork, just a few weeks after Trump wins a second term in the White House, Albania's prime minister grants Jared's company strategic investor status. 27:11 So permitting and approvals are expedited to help the American prince develop his new island. Now, do you think Jared Kushner would get special island-buying privileges if he weren't the president's son-in-law? No! And it's not just Jared. Listen to this. The son of the other Middle East envoy is raising billions from the Emirates for the president's crypto business while the president grants the Emirates the rights to our most sensitive technology. Yes! 27:41 Your tax dollars are backing a Trump family tungsten mine in Kazakhstan. If you're involved in any of this, next year you'll be raising your right hand and swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God, in front of the United States Congress. 28:10 Joining us now is Senator John Ossoff, Democrat of Georgia, who is running for reelection this year. Senator, thank you very much for being here tonight. I know it's a really busy time for you. 28:20 Thank you so much, Rachel. Great to be with you. 28:23 I think that you stand alone among your Democratic colleagues at being able to articulate in very simple, very stark terms the importance and the cost of corruption to the average voter. 28:40 How did you arrive at that as a strategy and as something that you felt like was worth devoting a lot of time to talking with your constituents about? 28:50 Well, Rachel, what really resonates is, okay, you've got the American government controlled by Donald Trump. 28:59 backing a Trump family tungsten mine in Kazakhstan with a billion plus dollars of federal commitments at the very same time that they are cutting health care, defunding hospitals and nursing homes, and doubling health insurance premiums for more than a million Georgians. We've seen 300,000 Georgians lose health coverage in the last six months because they couldn't find room in the budget. for health insurance, but they've got room in the budget for a tungsten mine overseas controlled in part by Prince Don and Prince Eric. 29:39 And I think what we're seeing and feeling at these rallies in Georgia is that Georgia voters are starting to see with the election just a few months away that their moment is at hand to use their power as citizens to rebuke these abuses and this corruption and to restore checks and balances. But folks, my opponent, Congressman Mike Collins, who is President Trump's hand-picked candidate, he launched his campaign this week. 30:06 with a claim that Donald Trump had won the 2020 election. And Donald Trump launched his attack on voting rights with the Fulton County ballot raid. And we're going to need massive resources to get out the vote and protect voting rights in Georgia. Tomorrow is the most important deadline yet of this election. And I'm asking folks right now to get your phone, get your laptop, go to electjohn.com and help us win this race decisively. 30:37 You talked about the health care costs that have skyrocketed. People's health care premium costs were made to skyrocket by the actions of Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress with their big, beautiful bill. 30:54 The day after tomorrow on Wednesday, we're about to see a whole bunch of people in a whole lot of new economic hurdles. when the provisions of that bill related to student loans go into effect. Starting Wednesday this week, people are going to see their student loan repayment bills skyrocket the same way their health insurance has skyrocketed, not because of some natural factor happening in the economy, but specifically because of Trump and Republicans' legislation that deliberately made those things get more expensive. As that kind of pinch rises, applies more and more to more and more of your constituents. 31:30 And I think it'll get worse, particularly with inflation between now and November. 31:36 What are you expecting in terms of blame from the other side? The Republicans are going to have to have some explanation for what they've done to health care, for what they've done to student loan costs, for what they've done around inflation, for what they've done around gas prices. Where do you think they're going to put the blame? 31:53 Well, this is why it's not just Democrats and independents who have turned against this president. It's his own supporters. Because the president who promised to drain the swamp and lower prices is instead obviously and undeniably more concerned with self-enrichment and building a monument to himself and vanity projects than he is with addressing the deep economic pain of the American people with gas, gas, groceries, rent, health care, all near all-time highs in just the last few months. 32:29 I want to get your reaction to the Supreme Court's decision today, effectively to allow the president to fire without cause, just on a whim, just because he wants to, the heads of any independent agency other than the Federal Reserve. I see this as essentially turbocharging the opportunities the president will have to self-deal and to further the kind of corruption schemes that you've been talking about on the campaign trail. 32:53 Do you think this decision is going to have an effect on the way Trump can use the federal government to benefit himself and his family and his donors? 33:02 Handing an out-of-control executive even more unfettered power just makes it even more vital that we restore checks and balances and constrain this president using our power as citizens, as voters, as in these midterm elections. And this Senate race in Georgia will be decisive in determining whether or not we have the power to restore checks and balances in the United States Senate. And again, I'm up against Donald Trump's handpicked opponent, a bigot congressman who's only a congressman because his daddy was a congressman, but who has the full weight of Donald Trump and the White House behind him, an election denier, an apologist for Jan 6th, insurrectionists who's pro-war, pro-tariffs, and pro-cutting your health care. 33:51 And I'm asking folks again with the most important deadline of the year tomorrow, tomorrow, please log on to electjohn.com and help us show the strength and have the strength that we need to get out the vote like never before and to defend voting rights in the crucial battleground state here in Georgia. 34:11 Senator John Ossoff, thanks very much for being with us tonight. I appreciate your time, sir. 34:16 Thanks so much. 34:17 All right. We got more news ahead here tonight. Stay with us. 34:22 Ever since I was young, I've watched people working hard, chasing opportunity, making sacrifices, doing everything they can to build a better life. And now we're shining a light on what matters most, our economy, our national identity, our democracy, our future. The stakes have never been higher. It's all on the line. 34:41 On the Line with Alicia Menendez, weekdays at 12 p.m. Eastern on MS Now. 34:56 The idea of an agency like the Federal Trade Commission is that it's independent, so it can do a good job for you, the consumer, without pressure to serve any other interest. 35:06 And same goes for the Federal Reserve, actually. It's independent, so it can make good faith, best effort decisions affecting the economy we all live in without facing any political pressure to do anything else. Both of them supposed to be independent. Both of them supposed to be independent for the same reason. 35:25 But today, the Supreme Court said the president isn't free to fire a governor at the Federal Reserve, but he is free to fire members of the Federal Trade Commission or any other agency like it. 35:36 As the New York Times netted it up today, quote, Today, one of the FTC commissioners who was fired by Trump put it even more bluntly here on MS Now. Former Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya said today that the court is, quote, making clear that the Wall Street bankers, the central bankers, they deserve an independent above the fray regulator, while the rest of us schmucks get stuck with the loyalists. 36:11 Joining us now is Alvaro Bedoya. He's a former commissioner for the Federal Trade Commission. Mr. Bedoya, thanks very much for being here. I know this has been a long, pretty intense day. 36:19 That's OK. I'm still just a schmuck stuck with the loyalists just like you. So I'm all right. 36:24 Just like all of us. Well, can you just expand on that idea a little bit? I think people who are lawyers or legally minded are struck by the contrast between these two decisions. But I think you're hitting at something in terms of what this really practically means for regular American people. 36:41 Yeah, look, so when the Fed was created, it was a year before the FTC, 1913, 1914. They had protections so that the oligarchs of their days, the John D. Rockefellers, Andrew Carnegie's of the world, couldn't pressure the presidents of those eras to make those institutions bend to their will in favor of their rich friends. And so going into today, you had two institutions that basically were playing off the same playbook. 37:12 The main difference is that one of them, the Fed, primarily does things that central bankers and Wall Street bankers love, which is keep things nice and steady. The FTC, you know, my old agency, they're the guys who banned Martin Shkreli for life from the pharmaceutical industry. They were suing Jeff Bezos for ripping off small business owners who are forced to sell on the site. They're the ones who kept a pharma company from cornering the market on these key cancer tests. 37:43 The FTC and so many other agencies like it are the ones that protect regular people from who are trying to make rent, pay groceries, pay their health insurance and make payroll. And yet now we see this two tiered system of justice where the bankers get there that above the fray regulator and the rest of us get stuck with loyalists who can be fired at any time for no reason. 38:09 And when I think loyalists in the abstract in general, right, I think about people who are part of the president's general ideological men, right? I think of people who might have been part of the campaign. I think about people who are sort of fellow travelers, no matter where the president is on the ideological number line. But when it comes to Donald Trump, I think of loyalists as people who are there to serve Trump and the Trump family's financial interests and potentially political interests. And so, I mean, loyalism within the MAGA movement is really personal. 38:43 What could that mean at the FTC and at other agencies to have people there who really are only there because they want to help Ivanka make money or whatever? 38:57 Look at the inauguration. Let's go back to that crazy image of Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg over the president's shoulder at the inauguration, along with Jeff Bezos. OK, so who's going to get hurt? It's the people who those guys are hurting. So I mentioned Amazon. You know, they're a monopolist. If you are a mom and pop business, you have to be on Amazon. And Amazon squeezes you for 50 cents on every dollar. And when you offer a lower price off of Amazon, we allege at FTC, they punish you. 39:30 Look at a buy taking you out of that preferred buy box where most people just click and they buy there. Look at Mark Zuckerberg. Reuters reported, I think it was a year ago, that Meta was letting their chatbots have, quote, and I quote, sensual conversations with children. This is years at the 2013s, 2014s, where we saw what social media did to our children. In the 2020s, Mark Zuckerberg is doing these things. The FTC was bringing an action against Zuckerberg and his company for violating kids' privacy, making all sorts of promises he didn't live up to. 40:08 Look at Sam Altman. He was thinking about rolling out erotica on his chatbots. There was New York Times reported a public investigation into how he was consolidating power. And so If you have a kid who's struggling online, spending time in places he or she shouldn't, if you are a small business owner, if you're a consumer who can't figure out how to get out of prime, you know, if you're just one of those regular people who's getting screwed over by these massive corporations, The FTC were the ones who help you. 40:39 And now the concern is it's not going to matter who is in the right. What's going to matter is who has given the president and how much have they given to the president. And let me just add here that this is par for the course for the Supreme Court. You know, I think sometimes on the left, we know the presidents can be crooked. We know the Congress can be crooked, but we kind of still put the Supreme Court on a hill. We need to wake up to the fact these are the folks who said that corporations are people so they can spend as much as they want in their elections. 41:12 That corporations can deny real people their day in court. And now the latest thing is that if a CEO of one of these corporations loads up on President Trump's crypto coin or decides to donate to his weird golden ballroom, President Trump is immune from accusations of bribery. So I think this decision today should just be added to that list. And we need to recognize the fact this thing has become a billionaire's fan club. 41:37 Alvaro Bedoya, former commissioner at the FTC. I really thank you for making time to be with us tonight. Again, I know it's been a busy and intense day. I really appreciate it. All right, we'll be right back. Stay with us. 41:53 As you may know, InfoWars, the right-wing conspiracy theory empire, has been bought and taken over by the legendary satire site The Onion. And when The Onion took over InfoWars, because The Onion has a very keen sense of what's funny and what makes their haters' heads explode with frustration, the very first thing The Onion did when they took over InfoWars is they changed the InfoWars logo into a rainbow! 42:19 Because they knew doing so would drive the Infowars guys insane with rage, particularly Infowars-addled founder Alex Jones. Ta-da! Alex, you're a rainbow. 42:32 The Onion was able to pick up Infowars when Alex Jones's assets were put up for auction to try to cover some of the $1.5 billion a court ordered him to pay. to the parents of kids who were killed at the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012. He was ordered to pay them as essentially compensation for the toxic lies he spread through InfoWars that that shooting had been some sort of hoax. 42:57 For the last couple of months, The Onion has been selling Rainbow InfoWars merch. 43:03 Again, in part to make Alex Jones's head explode, but already they've sold enough of that rainbow merch that they were able to write a substantial check to the Sandy Hook families. The $100,000 from those merchandise sales is actually the first money that the families have received because Alex Jones has thus far successfully evaded paying anything to those families that he brutalized. Despite that court order, he hasn't paid them anything. Only The Onion has. 43:33 The Onion says that check is the first of many that they intend to go to the Sandy Hook families. 43:40 But now I'm here to tell you that this week, this Thursday, The Onion is launching its new parody version of the InfoWars show at theonion.info. They say there's going to be two new satirical shows, some comedy shorts and some surprises. But the Onion takeover of InfoWars takes off this week. It all premieres 8 p.m. Eastern Thursday this week. 44:04 It's very exciting. 44:05 Watch that space. 44:10 All right, that's going to do it for me for now, but I will see you again Friday night, unusually. Friday at 9 p.m. Eastern, we're going to air the live event that we did in Philly last week. It was me and Ali Velshi and Jen Psaki with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, constitutional scholar Sherilyn Ifill. I got to tell you, Ali did an America 250th thing that will absolutely blow you away. 44:34 But the whole night was great. Again, it's going to air this Friday, 9 p.m. Eastern, so I will see you there. 44:41 Home to The Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, The Briefing with Jen Psaki, and more voices you know and trust. MS Now is your source for news, opinion, and the world. Learn more at ms.now.