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tv   Alex Wagner Tonight  MSNBC  March 1, 2024 1:00am-2:00am PST

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we need deconfliction to work. when we say our office, our warehouse, our distributions have been in a certain place, then we need those places to not be targeted. >> have they've been targeted? >> not targeted, but they certainly has been collateral damage. we had an office in rafah that was hit a few weeks ago, collateral damage. people had to move, we had to evacuate, et cetera. and that is happening all the time. the deconfliction is not working. so airdrops are nice and it is creative, it is a distraction, it's not effective, and it's not safe. >> of those saves children, thank you so much. >> that's all in on this thursday night. alex wagner starts right now. good evening alex. alex wagner starts right now. good evening alex. president trump is asking the court to schedule one of his federal criminal trials before the november election. specifically trump is requesting the mar-a-lago classified
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documents case to begin on august 12th. that is correct. donald trump asked for that trial tosk start just three mons before the presidential election. except that request may not exactly by what it sounds like. it could very well be a game of 3-d chess. but, yeah, doesn't sound like something donald trump plays all that often. but bear with me here. trump pitching that august date could be ahi way to block that other federal criminal case, the specialra counsel's much more serious federal election interference case before going to trial before the election. yesterday we got that massive news the supreme court has agreed to hear trump's argument that those criminal trials in the d.c. case could should be thrown out because of presidentialse immunity.
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the court didn't schedule to hear that case until the week of april nt22nd. because of that delay even if the supreme court decides that case incredibly quickly, this election interference case could not start until late july. we know from forms sent to potential jurors last year that once that case starts, the court expects it will last approximately three months,l which means that the window the d.c. election interference case could take place and conclude before the november election, that n window is very, very sma. it is basically some time between mid-july and mid-august. so donald trump asking for the judge in anotherki case, the mar-a-lagoin classified documen case, to put that trial on the calender in mid-august seems like some 3-d chess. okay, maybe just chess. right now it really doesn't seem like there's enough room in the calender to have both of these trials take placeot and conclud
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before the presidential election. jack smith's team thinks the mar-a-lago trial will last four to six w weeks. trump's legal team thinks it will last 8 to 10 weeks. whether it's 4 weeks or 10 weeks, it could effectively block the judge in the federal election interference case from scheduling her trial in order to get a verdict before the november election. or in other words it could ice her. ice her. hat is what a person familiar with trump's style strategy told cnn earlier this week. nbc news has not independently verified that reporting, but earlier this week that same person told cnn as far as scheduling the mar-a-lago classified documents mtrial, t thing trump isfi really thinkin about is blocking the d.c. federallo election case. theti idea is to make it impossible for the judge in that case, tanyatuate kn to jm that trial down by using things out of control. trump's team believes the mar-a-lago case if it's moved to
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july could box out judge chutkan fromut putting the federal election subversion case on the schedule. looks like that trump's strategy. at the endt ofum the day this classic delay strategy with a few more bells and whistles. what confused me today was special counsel jack smith's strategy. smith asked for the classified documents case to start on july 8th. i don't know about you, but that feels uncomfortably close to which the small window the special counsel's federal electionsp interference case cod finish before the election. what is the special counsel thinking here? are there any special legal avenues to expedite any of this, something that would allow both of these cases to go to trial before november? well, i have the perfect person to ask. joining me now is andrew weissmann, legal analyst and
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general counsel. literally several times this evening i said we just need to ask weissmann. first, i guess let's start with the special counsel. i'm finding -- my heart sort of sank when i saw they were requesting a july 8th trial date for mar-a-lago because that just seems to foreclose the summer, right? do you read it that way? >> i feel like we need to have a chessboard right here. >> how aboutrd checkers? that's more my speed these days. >> i read it as jack smith reading the tea leaves with respect to the supreme court what they did just yesterday, so we're kind of in warp speed so he had to react. so this is like dog years, everything is moving so quickly. and i think he realized that the odds of his getting a trial date ina the d.c. case before
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september, and it would take the star and the moon and the earth and everything to align for that case to start in september and there's a chance it's much longer than that, it's a never. i think this waser a reality of you know what let's try to grab a bird in the hand. so i think that was his thinking. >> before that that is -- i think there are a lot of people after the news yesterday that are thinking, okay, but if -- can something be donebu here. but to have what feels like an admission on the part of the special counsel it's probably not going to happen and even if it does happen let's say in september, if they think it's going to happenpt in three mont, it's not going to conclude before the election. >> i do think he has the ability
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to slim it down. standard procedure you wantit t do that as a prosecutor and just put on what you need. we saw that, by the way, in the trump organization trial they reallytr kept it tight. that's why i was really impressed. it's a good team, what they need in and out, got a conviction. i could see jack smith trying to do that. just remember he's got to be thinking it's the start date i'm concerned about, and if you just -- i don't do math in public, but i tried to add 88 to the various perm uitations. it's just not looking good. and that's all assuming that the supreme court doesn't do things tosu delay the case further andt could. >> i'm operating best case scenario. >> he's got analysis odds, not
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best case scenario, so he's thinking, you h know what, i ha a very strong case in the classified documentsg case. i mean he's got to be thinking this has jury appeal. it's not just the retention of the classified documents, it's twoas forms of obstruction. by all accounts it looks like a incredibly strong case. wecr still have not heard any defense from the former president that passes the straight face test. obviously we'll see what happens at trial. he has to be thinking, okay, let's see if we can get that. it'se still an uphill battle because he's before judge cannon, and there are many ways that that case can be delayed, but this was an issue of his request. so in terms of what he's asking for,he this seems do-able. the case has been pending for a long time. the classified documents issue is the only issue that would cause this to slow down, that has largely been resolved, and so i think he's right to do
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this -- >> start moving. >> right, exactly. >> let's talk about donald trump's strategy here because thep' reporting is donald trump- it almost sounds like he thinks he has a willing audience in judge cannon. >> he does. almost. >> and almost because he does. >> i'm giving you my opinion. >> yoyes, i understand that. the request from trump's team sort of begins with all the reasons why judge cannon really shouldn't even schedule this before november but only if she has to, how about mid-august? >> right. >> they give her a lot of runway to say you could say the presidential immunityw claim that we've launched in the mar-a-lago case, by don't you wait until the supreme court w figures tha all out and not do kwg until then? >> it's important to note he's saying i still don't want the trial in 2024, but she had ordered they give a trial date.
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this is his ace in the hole. i think it's not so much sort of like i don't want it in 2024, or okay plan "b" is august. he's made an immunity argument, the same argument that's made in d.c. just one minor difference. he wasn't president. but his argument is but i took the documents while he was president. i've said that is like a bank robber a saying, you know, i legally got the gun that i used to rob the bank. >> toright, right. i was a customer of the bank when i went in and took the money. >> it's just such irrelevancy. the question is judge cannon will sit on that, whether she'll grant itat or denies it and say it's not a frivolous argument, meaning all these delays of appeal wave seen in the d.c. case, donald trump is going to try that, of course. >> same road. >> it'sam much harder, factual
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argument. but that's not the issue. i mean just remember he's sitting here ordering he can order s.e.a.l. team 6 to kill an opponent and we're going it's absolutelyng laughable. >> novel defense as the supreme court. we need to weighse in on that. >> eiexactly. ways even ifs many he were to get that august date to later move it along, push it aside. >> do you -- given the over under on how optimistic you are about judge cannon, i mean we sit here now, and it's like -- you know, the possibilities for holding trump accountable seem to betr sclipging by the day. there's the alvin bragg case which seems like that's full steam ahead but everything -- >> can i stop you there? >> please stop me. >> there's the alvin bragg case. i'mgg not optimistic on the d.c case in light of what happened yesterday. ien wish i were, but i really a
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not. i'm notll optimistic in florida even though that one, if you look at it rationally, that should be able to go before the election. it's thee biggest open issue there is judge cannon. we will have more data on this tomorrow because the parties are going b to be heard by judge cannon,d and she either will s aei date or she will get some inclination as to s what she's thinking. >> thewh reality is also -- i mn there's so many reasons for delay here. even if you get to the point of actually scheduling the trial, finding an impartial jury in this is not going to be without its challenges. there's already debates over the jury questionnaire, do you believe the election was stolen. understandably trump's team is going to fight him tooth and nail every step ofig the way. >> i have picked juries in high profile matters. nothing as high profile as this. yes, it's a challenge but it can
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happen.ng you know, you're notan looking r and the law does not require somebody who's never heard of the case. it's also completely inconsistent with our history when we had to go much smaller and peopleo knew people who we participants in the trial. so it's just required that somebody is going to be able to say you know what, i'm going to take my oath of office as a juror seriously. i'm going to decide this case based on theec facts and the la. theac biggest issue i see in th is the jury who wants on the jury. usually people don't go i can't wait today to get on the jury. most people are like how do i get off the jury? >> yeah, it's a good thing neither of these cases really stir public emotion.
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everybody's very levelheaded about all of it. andrew weissmann, i'm going to say thenn harbinger of not grea news but still a great guest to have on thell show and legal minded. we have a lot more ahead tonight. president biden went to the border today and so did president trump. we'll get into s those dueling trips and alternate realities. but first trump is trying creative and probably highly illegalro strategies to avoid paying his bills? is any of it going to work, that's next. f it going to work, that's next.
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there were a lot of warning signs, plenty of reasons why getting into business with donald trump was never going to end well for them. but there was one moment where they should have walked away with their dignity intact and kept their distance from donald trump forever it was probably this one. >> andy, you're just being pounded on. you're being outdebated. i just don't want somebody running one of my companies that's going to get beaten up so badly. you're fired. and i just have to do this. i have no choice. wess, you're fired also. >> contestants on season 2 of
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"the apprentice," both were fired by trump the dramatic boardroom scenes with dramatic music and a whole lot of action shots. but they did not learn their lesson. years later after trump became a twice impeached former president who tried to steal an election they decided to go into business with him. and, boy, do they seem to regret it. these two former "apprentice" contestants helped trump build his right-wing twitter knock off social media company truth social. but now they are suing trump claiming he's essentially trying to cheat them out of their share of that company. i mean who could have seen that coming? your lawsuit isn't your typical where are they now story. the lawsuit from those two former "apprentice" stars is now getting in the way of trump's latest attempt to escape accountability. right now trump is on the hook
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for more than half a billion dollars for civil fraud and defamation lawsuits. at the same time, trump is in the middle of a big deal to try and effectively sell that twitter knock off for billions of dollars. the company that andy letinski and wes moss helped create. that way he could avoid having to sell-off his precious real estate holdings and get truth social's investors to cover the costs of his misdeeds. but now "the washington post" reports that the lawsuit from those two former "apprentice" stars is throwing a wrench in the deal. it's delaying trump's access to those funds. which could be a real problem for donald trump who sure seems these days like he does not have the money to pay the millions and millions in penalties that he owes. last week trump tried to get the courts to delay his $83 million
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payment in the e. jean carroll lawsuit. today carroll's attorney responded to that request for delay saying he simply asks the court to trust me and offers the court filing equivalent of a paper napkin signed by the least trustworth ate of borrowers. trump is also trying to delay paying his new york civil fraud payment. this week trump and his lawyers asked the judge to allow him to pay only 100 million of the $450 million he owes in that case. yesterday the judge denied that request. in a two-line statement he told trump's attorneys you have failed to explain much less justify any basis for delaying the payment, end scene. in the course of that back and forth yesterday, though, we learned about another possible attempt by trump to avoid paying the piper. and it is a real doozy. in the legal filing yesterday new york attorney general letitia james accused trump of quietly trying to move his
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assets to florida to avoid having them seized by the state of new york. according from the new york attorney general's office. after the court issued its order defendants announced for the first time various trump organization entities operating in new york are allegedly now located in florida. two of the companies that were part of that lawsuit, djt holdings llc, and djt holdings managing member llc have already been relocated to florida. now, as of the year 2023 both of those companies were still located in new york. so did trump move those companies to florida after the attorney general brought a lawsuit against trump and those companies? that would be one creative way to get out of paying any penalties in the case. and it sounds like the court was concerned that trump would do something exactly like that, which is why at the very beginning of this case the judge here barred trump from moving
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his assets out of the state. now, donald trump is doing everything in his power to avoid accountability in the civil and criminal trials, and yes, in some case it is working. yesterday he managed to get the conservative majority on the supreme court to delay his case in the d.c. election interference trial well into the future. georgia election interference cases have been successfully stalled as well. we don't know what's happening in the mar-a-lago, but the civil cases against trump, the ones from the new york attorney general and writer e. jean carroll, those have been the only cases so far where trump has really had to face justice. now he'smy making these last ditch efforts to avoid having to pay up, and the question is will trump be able to escape accountability here as well? we're going to talk about that coming right up. talk about that coming right up.
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okay, here's a quote from the new york attorney general's latest filing in trump's civil fraud case. contrary to defendant's argument there's substantial risk defendants will attempt to evade enforcement of the judgment or make enforcement more difficult following appeal. defendants have already during this action surreptitiously transferred $40 million from their accounts without disclosing the transfer to the monitor in violation of supreme court's orders. the new york attorney general notes that donald trump secretly moved $40 million out of his accounts right in the middle of
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his civil fraud trial, and now she's accusing trump of secretly moving his companies to florida to avoid accountability. is donald trump trying to hide his assets to avoid paying what he owes? if he is, who will stop him? joining me now is kristi green wrg, former federal prosecutor who served a decade. i have to put my eyes back in my head. the idea two of companies named in this civil fraud lawsuit, trump has suddenly moved to the state of florida. first of all, isn't there someone who's like overseeing the trump organization right now? and should she not have been aware or been made aware this kind of thing was happening? >> right, so under the court's orders he has to notify the independent monitor, former judge barbara jones, of any movement of assets or any changes to those entities,
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certainly changing the address, she needs to be tracking all of that. the fact he -- they put this in a letter. >> no, you didn't tell the new york a.g., you didn't tell your monitor who's supposed to be your baby-sitter making sure you're dotting your i's and crossing your t's. you didn't disclose any of it. it's shady. they're clearly trying to make some moves here where they can move money and have the monitor not be able to track it. >> i want to bring in we now have his hot the up the author of the daily beast story that broke a lot of this. jose, the political investigations reporter for the daily beast. thank you for joining me. if you could could you explain the indications we have right now and the timing about whether
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in fact donald trump is trying to move organizations subject of this fraud trial out-of-state. >> sure, like we said all we know now they have these changes of addresses. and person who should be forced to know would be barbara jones, that former federal judge haz been monitoring the company. she's been baby-sitting the company over a year now. justice engoron, the trial judge, knew this kind of thing could happen. that's why over a year ago she ordered this monitor to be put in place so trump could not move assets out of the state, which was a concern from the beginning. with this change of address, we're sort of seeing hints at that. we knew donald trump feared having to pay this amount of money, and especially when he's going through such a big cash crunch now. let's remember that the $83 million he has to pay up very quickly to e. jean carroll for losing the rape defamation case in january, it's coming due.
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and this is a really bad storm for him. so the fact they've changed these addresses is certainly suspicious. the fact they only alerted the court in a letter saying, oh, by the way, these addresses are incorrect, that's sort of a back doorway to get into this, and it's why the a.g. in new york is calling them out on this. what's interesting is going to be how far this goes. because at this point trump's legal team has to answer some serious questions from the judge and the appellate court isn't going to play this game either. they already issued a temporary stay so they can be fought on appeal, but they chose not to hit the pause button on him paying this money. so at this point he's not in a position he's supposed to be moving assets. he's actually in a position he needs to pay up real soon. we'll get answers real soon, but the fact they did it this way, this hour after they were told to pay is certainly raising rd
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flags. >> legally speaking if djt holdings, donald j. trump holdings moves to florida and doesn't want to pay the bills so to speak, what are the legal implications? what can be done? does ron desantis have to step in? i'm kidding. >> again, these assets if you can trace them, if you know where the money is, you can look to seize them. there are mechanisms in place for the new york a.g. to try to do that. the issue is once it moves to florida where else does it go? is it now going overseas, is it changing entities once again? once you start layering here, and again we don't know he's doing that but once you start moving it makes it easier for those transactions to happen and be harder to trace the money and seize it if you need to. >> jose, the a.g. can say don't do this, the judge can stay don't do this, but if donald trump is going to do it anyway what legal recourse exists? what happens now if in fact he is moving his businesses
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out-of-state to avoid having to pay penalties? >> this could be a very juicy conversation because the fact of the matter is the deadline is around the corner. ask to basically seize property. trump tower isn't moving. it is stuck right in manhattan. so she can go ahead and start seizing that. there are -- someone brought this up to me the other day, there are poundage fees that would be due if she has to get, for example, the sheriff involved. we never talk about the sheriff in new york city, but the sheriff would become involved, and they can take up to 5% of the total. what's 5% of half a billion dollars with increasing interest every single day? i mean there's no way he can truly escape this, and he also -- i mean it's a question as to whether or not he wants to suffer the embarrassment of something somebody put a padlock on that tower. but realistically, though, he is running for president right now. he's under intense scrutiny.
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he's having to file disclosure forms with the federal government about what he owns and where it is. and so when we did this story, one of the first things i looked at is, wait a minute, when did those addresses change. i looked up disclosure files and those two entities always said they were in new york until some time last year in august they no longer listed the address, only the assets. he is under scrutiny. he's going to have to report it to the federal government anyway if he's running for office. wall street in lower manhattan is not going to move either. it's a matter of time. what's interesting about the timing here is this is all going to happen in mid-march and recall this is when the d.a.'s office in manhattan is going to drag him into court for the start of his criminal trial, the
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first one ever involving a former president. so he's got his hands full. he doesn't really have the time or even the resources or even the legal team to be playing these kinds of games at this juncture. >> kristy, when we talk about the bills being paid here jose makes a quite obvious but i didn't think of it myself is you can't move 40 wall street. a.g. james can seize 40 wall street if it comes down to it, if his bad behavior, but i do wonder he can push off his liquid assets as sort of plan "d" in all this. there's this potential deal with his social media company that could come through and afford him maybe as much as $4 billion. that doesn't happen until march 22nd i think at the earliest. the bill is due i believe march 16th, and the bill is now $550 billion. what is -- does he get a grace
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period in any of this if he's -- and if he does how much does bad behavior like moving assets to florida cut in on that grace period? >> right now he's got 30 days which brings us into mid-march and this is just so he's able to appeal. all we're look at right now is whether he needs to pay the money in order to file his appeal. and there is no wiggle room there in the law. there is no, well, i get a grace period. well, i can give you part of it. i can pay you 25 cents on the dollar. no, you have to pay the full amount. you actually have to pay more than the full amount. so, yeah, there's no way for him to get out of this. if he wants to appeal, this is the deadline. he's got to meet it. >> do you think the attempt to stave off payment in the e. jean carroll case -- first of all, robbie kaplan, e. jean carroll's lawyer had a field day calling him the least trustworthy -- this like a paper napkin signed
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yours truly, donald trump, i'm going to pay it. no judge is going to take that? is this a delay tactic? i'm having a hard time understanding. >> in that case he didn't put forth any evidence to secure it at all. i'm asking for a stay, i'm not going to put up anything, and by the way i'm not going to provide any information where my assets are, what debt i have, any information when he was just convict of financial fraud. >> he doesn't mention the $500 million penathy he has pay in his statement of conditions. >> robbie cap:made sure to mention that. >> the obfuscation and the tantrums, and yet sometimes it works for him. we'll see what happens. thank you so much for your time. really appreciate you. still ahead this evening, it was a tale of two cities, two border visits, and two starkly different visions for this
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country, but which one will prevail in november? and what will it mean for democracy? that's ahead. stay with us. mocracy? that's ahead stay with us
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biden on thursday a cynical, sick, political stunt by the president and frankly beyond disgraceful. we will be at the border with president trump on thursday merchandise. >> that was fox's sean hannity earlier this week describing donald trump and president
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biden's dueling border visits today. sean hannity is right. one of those visits really was a cynical political stunt. but it wasn't president biden's. this afternoon trump toured the city of eagle pass, texas, and he was led by the texas national guard. meanwhile, at almost the exact same time president biden toured brownsville, texas, accompanied by customs or border patrol agents or cbp. customs and border patrol is actually in charge of border security. the texas national guard, on the other hand, is not. so trump is effectively just cosplaying here. when it came to their actual speeches, trump and biden could not have been more different. president biden talked about the need for more immigration judges to clear the asylum backlog. he proposed more overtime for cbp officers, more machines to
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detect fentanyl, and more bipartisan compromise. he talked about real tangible policy. he offered possible solutions. and then there was donald trump. >> now the united states is being overrun by the biden migrant crime. it's a new form of vicious violation to our country. it's migrant crime. we call it biden migrant crime. >> now i should stop to say the united states is not in fact being overrun by migrant crime. migrants are actually much less likely to commit crimes than u.s. citizens are. but if you watch fox news these days or if you listen to republicans, you would not know that. you would probably think quite the opposite. and not only does the right not seem to be worried about the impact this kind of scapegoating has on migrants, as it turns out conservatives don't actually want to fix anything when it comes to the border. remember back in january just two months ago when republican
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speaker of the house mike johnson and 60 of his republican colleagues made their own trek down to eagle pass, remember that? they claimed there were there demand action on stricter border policies, and just one month later they tanked that legislation all by themselves. they specifically killed their own bipartisan bill because donald trump asked them to, because donald trump does not actually want the immigration system fixed. he wants it to be broken so that he can run on it. >> here's what i would say to mr. trump. instead of telling members of congress to block this legislation, join me or i'll join you in telling the congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill. we can do it together. you know and i know it's the toughest, most efficient, most effective border security bill this country has ever seen.
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instead of playing politicwise the issue why don't we get together and get it done? >> we're going to talk about what is actually happening at the border and what this all means for the november election right after this break. ll means for the november election right after this break he has something called osteoarthritis pain. it's joint pain that hurts him all the time. come on, scout. now, there's librela. the first and only once-monthly injection to control your dog's oa pain. veterinary professionals administering librela who are pregnant, trying to conceive, or breast feeding, should take extreme care to avoid self-injection, which could cause allergic reactions like anaphylaxis. this is the best day of my life!
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they're being let into our country. now the united states is being overrun by the biden migrant crime. it's a new form of vicious violation to our country. it's migrant crime. >> that was trump today in the border city of eagle pass, texas, trying out a new catchphrase, biden migrant crime. trump is doubling down on his efforts to tie president biden to a purported migrant crime wave. a recent nbc news review of 2024 crime data from cities targeted by texas' operation lone star, the program that transports migrants from the border to major cities across the country, a review of that data showed that overall crime levels actually dropped in the cities that have received the most migrants. that would be cities like philadelphia, chicago, denver, new york, and los angeles. trump may call it a vicious
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violation to our country, but none of that appears to be true. don't expect him to stop saying it, though. joining me now to discuss this is senator catherine cortez masto, democrat from the great state of nevada. senator, it's great to see you. thanks for joining the program on this really important, you know, day, this pivotal moment as we talk about immigration in this country. i've first got to ask you what you think of the phrase biden migrant crime. >> well, it's just ridiculous. it's typical what former president trump has always done. even in 2016 to make up information, lies, talk about what's happening at the border when it's really not. and, alex, i think that's why it's important for people to really know the facts. and it was important for me for that reason to go down to the border. i went to the tucson region. i was at the station, lukeville, to talk to the border patrol agents and customs agents, the same thing president biden has
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just done. if you actually sit and talk to the agents on the border, you will learn they need more resources. they're underwhelmed, right, and understaffed, overwhelmed. there's so much happening there. and for that reason i supported that bipartisan legislation you talked about, the border security act because it all the information in there, the resources we needed to secure the border, and it's why president biden worked and his administration worked with the senators both republican, independent, and democrats to come to that compromise for that strong border security. it was tough, it was fair, it was really what our border security wanted and needed at that border. that's why the border patrol association, the union supports it. that's why so many came out and said, yeah, this is what we need. on the other side of it, you have the president, former president trump who's all about
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misinformation, and as you pointed out doesn't really want to solve the problem but exploit it for his political gain that's typical for his m. o. that's how he's operated and how he'll continue to operate. >> i do wonder, though, if you think trump has managed to move the goal posts a little bit and entreated democrats to join him in effectively if not outright vilifying migrants but it seems in all the talk of locking down the border, there's been something lost in terms of understanding the humanity of these people. i mean there are headlines about children sheltering in porta potties down at the border. they're suffering from hypothermia, they're hungry. i think starvation is being used in some cases. these are human beings who are a vital part of the american economy, and i wonder if you think democrats are forcefully enough advocating on their mere presence in the united states understanding that the system by which they come is broken but
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not to lose sight of the fact they are important to this country and they are our fellow humans. >> alex, you're right. a couple of things here, we want to secure the border. there's fentanyl coming across the border, illicit drugs we need to stop, human trafficking that's happening. but, yes, we also need a fair and orderly process for immigrants coming to the border. and now we're seeing these surges of immigrants, and we need to make sure we're addressing that and what their needs are and actually processing them much faster. that's why we need more resources, more immigration judges, more asylum officers. we want to process them faster to see if there is a credible fear, allegation whether that's true or not. are there really migrants coming for an opportunity to succeed? and i will say this, what you have seen and the data has shown that most of the migrants we have seen coming across the
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border are just looking for an opportunity for the american dream or being persecuted in their country with their lives, there's concerns for families. that's why they're making that trip thousands of miles and paying these cartels to try to get to a better life for their families. we can't lose sight of that. but we also have to make sure we secure that border because there is a lot of illicit drugs and human trafficking and things that are happening. but we can do both. we can still have our values and principles and have a fair and orderly process at the border. that is something that i am proud as an american, that's what this is about. but there's a role for congress to play in this along with the administration, and we have to be a part of it. unfortunately, my republican colleagues don't want to be a part of it, right? some of them are just listening to former president trump and doing his bidding and not solving this problem. >> yeah, i guess respectfully i
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hear a lot more from both sides about fentanyl and human trafficking than i do the stustatistic crime levels are dropping in cities that receive the most migrants in texas. i think that, you know, if we talk about the long-term effects here, 57% of americans believe the large number of migrants seeking to enter the country is going to lead to more crime. setting aside, you know, the importance of correcting that, that is also very politically advantageous for republicans, for the american public to believe that. i wonder do democrats have a plan on pushing back on that narrative? >> let me just say that's the fear mongering that is out there. there's so much of it that the republicans and particularly former president trump, that's what they -- it's emotional fear mongering, right? they'd rather get people to the polls based on their emotion than the truth, so they don't care what they say. and it is important for democrats to take the data and the truth and push it out there and make sure we're talking about and educating our voters.
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that's what i have done in the state of nevada. there is a way to talk about the border and say we want to secure the border and make sure we're making our communities safe. at the same time we still have dreamers in this community, my community and the families that should be on a pathway to citizenship. we still have tps recipients who want to work in this country. they are not criminals. they are hardworking, they want to be a part of this american treme, so we should be working on their behalf as well. >> senator cortez masto from nevada, appreciate your time tonight. that is our show for this evening. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. so here's what i would say to mr. trump, set a planned policy position. instead of telling members of congress to block this legislation, join me or i'll join you in telling the congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill. we can do it together. you know a i

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