How do you see this moment?

Well, the president's choice to stand before the reflecting pool reflected poorly on him.

Everyone associates that monument now with the botched, rushed installation.

It cost the American people some money.

$16 million.

They had to do it again.

And then scapegoating Davey Hearn.

Norm, this is a big setback for Trump's efforts to seemingly try to disenfranchise the voters of California.

He wants

them to do something.

Let's start with Alaska.

The Alaska Supreme Court, the top legal authority in the state, has said that the two Dan Sullivans can cohabit on this ballot.

So the notion that there's any basis for Donald Trump to file a lawsuit in all the terrible civil lawsuits that I've seen from this administration, we've had hundreds of legal matters that democracy defenders fund in action.

That Alaska one is the worst.

There's no cause of action.

Okay, they just updated

He wants

them to do something.

Let's start with Alaska.

The Alaska Supreme Court, the top legal authority in the state, has said that the two Dan Sullivans can cohabit on this ballot.

So the notion that there's any basis for Donald Trump to file a lawsuit in all the terrible civil lawsuits that I've seen from this administration.

We've had hundreds of legal matters that democracy defenders fund in action.

That Alaska one is the worst.

What is the obsession about California voters?

And I also want to know what you say to the argument California could just look up or verify those 20,000 voters and put this to bed.

This is also the judge who decided the voter rolls case that federal government does not have an entitlement to this.

To me, the list that the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the other government agencies have put together is so junky, it's as if there is no list.

And the point is not the accuracy.

The filings in the case show the list is grossly inaccurate.

It's voter intimidation.

California has a very elaborate system, as is its right under the Constitution to deal with allegations of unauthorized voting.

What is the danger to individuals and to our democracy of a president offering a financial incentive to say nothing of a financial incentive of that magnitude for neighbors to turn on neighbors and make the accusation of voter fraud?

So I want to get your reaction to what we heard from the vice president there, though, that he hasn't himself at least seen any trace of corruption.

Well, it was a bald-faced lie.

And the voters will hold not only Donald Trump, but J.D. Vance accountable for that.

In our cases alone at Democracy Defenders Fund and Action Antonia, We've taken on that corruption, whether it's shutting down Donald Trump's $1.776 billion slush fund, stopping his reflecting pools, scapegoating, exposing that it was a botched, rushed renovation.

The Kennedy Center case, where he tried to slap his name on it, we stopped that.

golf course.

He wants to make a monstrous Trump style golf course.

Norm, can he do that?

What kind of an asshole are you? That's crazy talk.

Well, you know why I like coming on this podcast, Michael? Because you make me seem calm.

and neutral and dispassionate.

I think that it is a tremendous the phenomenon that you've identified one example of, the Fox News, Newsmax phenomenon, is a tremendous danger to the health of our democracy.

In a democratic system, and we're now the world's oldest continually functioning democracy in the form of a constitutional republic, of course, you know, you have free speech and free press protections.

So the solution to misstatements of the kind you described is to fight lies with the truth.

Some people are worried.

But Norm, please don't forget 18 U.S.C. 1505 in this conversation.

[laughs]

Uh, so it, it spoke to, um, the deeper problems here.

Uh, you and I worked together in the Obama White House.

I was in, uh, the, uh, press room with you many times.

I would brief Robert Gibbs, our first press secretary, before he would talk to the press.

And, you know, there's a mastery of the issues.

She can't even master her own resume.

It's like minimal, yeah.

What is your reaction to this search of her home? How unusual is this kind of a move in today's day and

age? In an administration that has flouted laws and.

protections for all Americans.

This is another shocking transgression.

It has long been the rule at DOJ that you stay away from anything that could affect political races in the 60 days before an election.

We're well past that 60 day benchmark.

This standard is found in the Department of Justice manual, which guides their activities.

What happens now?

What do you think's at play here?

You know ...

Yeah.

What we've seen so often in this administration is obedience or even anticipatory obedience.

So we're gonna get to the bottom of this, 'cause the case is clearly not going away.

They're trying to turn it into a luxury Trump course, and, you know, I think when we get to the bottom of it we'll see how his desires came into play.

But I'll tell you this: whatever the explanation was, there was no good explanation for it.

We've seen this kind of thing before, where all the construction materials come in, the demolition begins before final approvals have been sought, the Trump team circumventing the rules and, plaintiffs would argue, circumventing the law.

Mm-hmm

... and put his name on it.

We shut that down in court.

He's trying to take a golf course and a, a, a kids' park, parkland in DC, and turn it into a Trump-style, uh, uh, golf course, a monstrosity.

We were in court on that just today 'cause they cut down hundreds of trees.

So we're stopping this behavior.

You have his crypto wealth, where he made over $600 million, part of over a billion dollars in crypto out of his $2 billion his first year in the presidency, while over a million, uh, investors in his crypto coin, uh, lost billions of dollars.

'With you, all roads lead to Putin.'"

But what would keep, um, the, if the Democrats control the House and or the Senate, from subpoenaing every sitting ambassador, um, and trying to understand how many of them are on the take?

Uh, Nicole, uh, th- this will be a field day sh- should, uh, the House, uh, change hands.

There's, because of these corruption scandals and the connection that Americans make, over 80% say the corruption is costing [laughs] them more, uh, it, it, they, they are gonna have a field day with, uh, with this.

And you know, it, it's not just a congressional issue.

In any normal administration, uh, a criminal investigation would be open now, even in this administration given the extraordinary admissions from Mr. Deders, um, implicating himself, by the way.

Um, if there is a quid pro quo, nominees are covered under 18 U.S.C. 201, the statute that, uh, forbids, uh, this kind of thing.

We have to note that Ambassador Guilfoyle and her lawyer deny it, but boy, just those texts alone, I mean, you can smell the stench all the way from Athens.

This happens because a Trump guy outs a Trump gal about a pay-for-play scheme, Norm.

Um, Eisen, uh, Ambassador Eisen, what is your reaction to the, to this reporting? Is any of this, does it sound legal to you?

you?Well, Anderson, [laughs] is one of the worst things that I have ever seen with respect to a US ambassador.

Uh, it stinks to high heaven.

Um, I think that it does raise serious questions about whether or not there was a quid pro quo of, um, a nominee.

And nominees are covered by 18 USC, uh, 201, uh, which, uh, uh, creates a criminal violation.

I'm not saying that there was bribery here.

Bribery is tough to prove.

Does, does it matter that the $100,000 payment to Gilfoile's credit card was apparently never made? W- would that play a difference?

Do you think that the inspectors general will pick up this request? Do you have any confidence in that?

Well, overconfidence in the ability of this administration's own greatly weakened Inspector General Corr, as we write in our complaint with my wonderful co-counsel at the Washington Litigation Group at Steptoe, would be a mistake given the pattern of how the Inspector General Corr has been undermined and hollowed out.

But it's a good faith request.

It is the first of a series of steps that we are considering to make sure there's accountability for the people who did wrong here and that there is justice for Mr. Hearn.

So this doesn't happen to others again.

I mean, it's so extraordinary.

We hammered.

Is he trying to evade any legal scrutiny by trying to take this route now? Or does it somehow reflect to you that the knowledge that what he was doing was improper? And what about the non-reimbursement?

You can't direct a super PAC how to spend its money, right?

Uh, that's right, Pete.

This situation with reaching into your and my pocket, and that of hundreds of millions of taxpayers li- across the country, to pay for political ads is bristling with illegality.

The president has admitted that by saying, "Okay, I'll stop stealing from you taxpayers to pay for my political ads," but he's bumbled into another violation of federal law.

As a federal official, he cannot control a super PAC.

So, uh, he's compounded the many other illegalities.

That includes our Democracy Defenders client, Jamison, the musician, whose track Love Me was illegally stolen to, uh, provide the soundtrack for some of these ads.

So if it happened, and MS- MSNBC Now hasn't confirmed it independently, what red flags does that raise for you?

I'm

Norm Eisen of Democracy Defenders Action, and I'm here to salute these survivors.

I'm here to celebrate these champions of justice.

I'm here because I was inspired by my sister, Katie Banks, to bring my own lawsuits.

These heroes, we won't stop fighting.

We won last week.

They ordered Donald Trump and Tom Lynch to turn over those Trump-Epstein files.

Thank

W- how do you come back from that?

Well, um, there's no coming back.

I mean, Republicans are abandoning strongholds like, uh, Georgia, North Carolina Senate races.

They're giving that up.

We're preparing for a blue tsunami.

Could flip both houses of Congress, impacts around the country.

Uh, people are so disgusted by this.

Talk about it.

What are you thinking about today as this latest deadline is approaching? I mean, you and I were talking about the the potential for this building being torn down and why you're so confident that that won't happen?

The Kennedy Center will never be torn down on Congresswoman Beatty's watch and that of the legal team, democracy defenders Nathaniel Zelensky and the wonderful crew at the Washington Litigation Group.

We got an order.

when it seemed like Donald Trump was gonna pull an east wing.

We got a court order, you must give, this has been litigated in the case, you must give 30 days notice, essentially, if you're gonna attempt to tear down the building.

Ali, I will be in court so fast if so much as a bulldozer enters the parking lot of the Kennedy Center.

So we're on patrol.

But what now?

But go ahead

The Brennan Center, this is their analysis.

It says, "There are few constraints to this presidential power.

Neither Congress nor the courts play a role in deciding what constitutes an obstruction or rebellion, and the law does not limit what actions military forces may take once deployed." Let's not forget Trump supporters urged him to use it to impede the transition of power after the 2020 presidential election.

The law, with all respect to my wonderful colleagues and their legal analysis, the Insurrection Act requires [laughs] an insurrection.

There is no insurrection.

And I'm not guessing.

Right.

Walk us through where we are and also tell us about what your group's been doing.

Well, Ari, we have been fighting at Democracy Defenders Fund and Action for the First Amendment, winning the reinstatement of Karen Atiyah, filing briefs in many of these cases where there's attacks on the White House press corps, litigating over it.

government outlets like the Voice of America, where they're supposed to have statutory independence that the administration has attacked.

And the reason we do that goes to what's going on in the White House, solidarity.

This was another court win for the outlets that were banned, but they're finding a way to cheat on CNN by excluding them partially.

I think it's incumbent on all of the journalists to stand together.

Lest we hang separately.

How about this taxpayer-funded ad?

Walk me through the legal concerns.

Congress does not want your and my and other taxpayers' money being used for political advertisements or other forms of personal or propaganda ads.

And for that reason, it has put into law not one but multiple laws.

You cannot run political ads.

You cannot run propaganda ads.

So these two advertisements are so obviously political coming in campaign season.

One of them is actually a recycle of a political ad.

What do you make of the Trump administration's defense that this is allowed because it's not a presidential election, he's not on the ballot, and they're not explicitly asking viewers to do anything?

How can he do this paid by the U.S. government on a political ad?

You can't, Joe.

This is flagrantly against the law.

The Congress has said you cannot make political ads.

It's called the publicity and propaganda rider.

And in addition to everything else, we had one last week that was clearly a political ad.

And then we now have a second one.

But beyond that, isn't this the job of Congress? Shouldn't there be some other mechanism here that would prevent the president of the United States from doing this?

Now, if you would, for the benefit of my listeners, can you take me through the report in terms of the various laws that you believe were broken by Trump and what the pathway is to prosecution?

I'm glad to, Michael.

I should preface by saying... that our report focuses on the potential risk, and it is substantial risk of prosecution.

We leave the question of whether the laws were broken or not to the prosecutor because, as you know well, we don't have all the evidence.

We identify the areas of greatest risk.

We identify the evidence that creates that substantial risk, and we'll see where the Georgia D.A., Fulton County's Fannie Willis goes with this.

And I'll talk to you about not only the legal aspects, but the kind of procedural and practical ones that lead me to, and my distinguished and bipartisan co-authors, talk about them to the conclusion that there's substantial risk.

Discuss this with me if you would.

The settlement seems to show that's really not going to be possible, or am I going too far here?

You're going a little too far because the blue states had triumphs in NextArtegna, another very important media consolidation in Live Nation Ticketmaster.

If I have to articulate a disappointment, it is with Governor Newsom, who led the political establishment in California.

including both in and outside of government, those who we normally admire and work with, to pull the rug out from under our state AGs, and Labor, who were a part of this case.

That's a pretty tough situation.

I'm not making excuses.

You know I'm a fighter, and it's been reported in the press.

But should every state have laws like this?

How did we get here?

Well, um, uh, our democracy champions, uh, pro-voter groups, um, brought suit to stop, uh, this, um, SAVE database.

Um, it would be better named the SHIT database.

Uh, it's, it's so junky.

Uh, and, uh, the courts below, as is so often the case, um, agreed that, oh, that there, there's no legal basis for this.

It's so unreliable.

For various reasons, the courts below said this should be enjoined.

So what do you expect the Trump administration to try or Republican, uh, governors and state houses to attempt in states across the country to try and limit the rights of Americans to vote?

... it's such an important institution.

Let me say why that's so important, Jim, because we've learned this past year and a half plus, since January 20th, 2025, one of the darkest days in our nation's history, because it marked the advent of a possible authoritarian regime.

We've learned the formula to defeat Donald Trump.

Court of law, yes.

But as we did, we got that order stopping demolitions, stopping re-renaming.

He lost, and he tried a 13 more times to put his name on the building.

Yeah.

We're watching CNN and CBS, or as I call them, CBSN, and there's supposed to be a new independence board of journalists to look over them, but it's appointed by and answerable to the Ellisons' handpicked corporate board of the combined entity.