[0:04]Today, Donald Trump's prosecutors, who have found nothing to pursue in the Epstein files, tried and failed to get indictments against six Democratic members of Congress for saying this.
[0:20]You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution. We know this is hard. And that it's a difficult time to be a public servant.
[0:36]But whether you're serving in the CIA, the Army, our Navy, the Air Force, your vigilance is critical. And know that we have your back. Because now more than ever, the American people need you. We need you to stand up for our laws, our Constitution,
[0:49]and who we are as Americans. The New York Times broke this news tonight, reporting federal prosecutors in Washington sought and failed on Tuesday to secure an indictment against six Democratic lawmakers
[1:05]who posted a video this fall that enraged President Trump by reminding active duty members of the military and intelligence community that they were obligated to refuse illegal orders for people familiar with the matter said. Joining us now is Democratic Senator Adam
[1:19]Schiff of California. He's a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator, this is one of those moments that we have never before seen in the history of this country. Donald Trump getting his so-called Justice Department
[1:39]to try to prosecute members of Congress for publicly reciting the law. Not once in the history of this country has that ever happened. Lawrence, this is a stunning development. It is really hard to overstate the significance of this, the
[1:57]assault, the frontal assault on the rule of law. The Justice Department, under Pam Bondi, no doubt acting under the instructions of the president of the United States, sought to indict six members of Congress for exercising
[2:12]their First Amendment rights, for serving their constituents, for upholding their responsibilities as representatives. They sought to indict six members of Congress. It is just such a shock to see the rule of law so
[2:27]betrayed, so utterly betrayed. If we look at this period in the future and the milestones on the road to dictatorship, this is a big one, to consider how this Justice Department has been misused, how it's been
[2:43]weaponized in such a blatant fashion. And the fact that the grand jury rejected it, of course, is very significant, because that's so unusual. But it shouldn't dissuade us or fail to have us appreciate
[2:59]the lawlessness of what they tried to do. The fact it was unsuccessful, yes, should be applauded. The fact they tried, though, is a five alarm fire. I want to read Senator Mark Kelly's response
[3:12]to this tonight. He said, "This is an outrageous abuse of power by Donald Trump and his lackeys. It wasn't enough for Pete Hegseth to censure me and threaten to demote me. Now it appears they tried to have me charged with a crime,
[3:29]all because of something I said that they didn't like. That's not the way things work in America. Donald Trump wants every American to be too scared to speak out against him. The most patriotic thing any of us can do is not back down."
[3:49]And Senator, it also seems one of the patriotic things we can do is not shirk our duty to serve when called for jury duty. That grand jury in Washington, D.C. stood up for the Constitution.
[4:05]They sure did, and they've done so now time and time again with this lawless administration. But I applaud Mark Kelly for his statement and Alyssa Slotkin and Jason Crowe. Basically, what they're saying, what I'm saying, what all of us are saying that are sort of in the crosshairs of this
[4:22]Department of Injustice is basically, screw you. We're not going to stop for one moment speaking out. We're going to do our job as representatives, no matter what you throw our way. And I think we all have to do this, members of Congress
[4:37]certainly, but universities need to push back. Law firms need to push back. Companies need to push back. While we still have a democracy, none of us can hide. We all have to tell the administration they can buzz off, they can screw off.
[4:51]Screw them. We're not going to give in to this kind of despotism, because this is such a serious threat to our democracy. And I know we've seen a lot of them and we can get numb to it. But what we have just witnessed today is just a full on assault
[5:10]on our free speech rights and the right of Americans to be represented in Congress by their chosen representatives and not to have the administration weaponize the Justice Department to try to remove them from office. Senator Mark Kelly calls the people in the Justice Department
[5:27]who did this Donald Trump's lackeys, that's a kind word for what's happening in that Justice Department, where they are very eager to follow Donald Trump's illegal orders. Going back to your experience working in
[5:41]that Justice Department as a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, what would you have done if they came to you and said, we want you to present this to a grand jury to get an indictment against these members of Congress for reciting
[5:55]the law? I would have said, hell no, I quit. And it's telling that the only person apparently on this indictment willing to submit this is Piero, the U.S. attorney herself.
[6:10]None of the career people evidently wanted their names on this. And they understand that what they've been asked to do in seeking indictment on a fraudulent basis like this is a violation of their code of ethics, is
[6:27]probably a violation of their ethical standards under the Bar Association. It may be worse than that. And they don't want to be tarred by this the way Piero will be tarred forever by this. But Bondi, Blanche, Piero, all of these people in the Justice
[6:46]Department, I know they won't, but they should be completely ashamed of themselves. This is just disgraceful conduct. And I think any prosecutor asked to bring basis cases like this needs to do their civic duty and say, I won't do it and be willing to be fired or to quit.
[7:03]Because we all need to show that courage that the grand jury showed and that others have demonstrated in standing up to this president who wants to be a dictator. And it seems to be the same kind of cowardice that led to that raid on the Fulton County of voting records.
[7:21]The FBI for the first time in history going in and seizing voting records, all those people you see marching in there in their FBI uniforms following those orders, they're also in a position to say no.
[7:34]They are. And we have seen some of the top leadership at the FBI be fired or quit because they're upholding their ethical duty. They're not willing to fire prosecutors who worked on legitimate cases.
[7:49]They're not willing to dismiss or seek the dismissal of valid cases like the case involving the mayor of New York who's charged with corruption. You're seeing prosecutors and FBI agents quit rather than do unethical or unlawful things. You're seeing the head of CDC do the same thing.
[8:06]You're seeing countless examples of courage. And frankly, those examples should inspire all the rest of us. We should look to them, not look to these who are betraying our laws, our institutions. The bondis and the blanches, they're the betrayers.
[8:23]But there are some really courageous people that are saying, no, I'm not going to do that. I would rather quit or be fired than go along with such an egregious abuse of power. Senator Adam Schiff, thank you very much for joining us tonight on This Breaking News.
[8:38]Thanks, Lawrence. This was the scene in London on Friday as British police searched the home of the former UK ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson. You can see they got a whole barrels of files there and information.
[8:53]Mandelson is under criminal investigation by the British police after the latest trove of Epstein files revealed that Epstein not only sent the British politician and his husband tens of thousands of British pounds over the years, but that Mandelson appeared to have
[9:07]leaked sensitive government information to Epstein while he was the UK's business secretary, which is basically the British equivalent of the American position of commerce secretary. And I'm going to get to that guy in just a moment. But among those alleged leaks is one huge, huge, huge one.
[9:25]Because back in 2009, debt had thrown the economy of Greece into a crisis. And because Greece is in the EU and uses euros that put the value of euro itself at risk. So in May of 2010, the finance ministers of the governments of the EU agreed to try to avert the crisis from spreading
[9:42]with a 500 billion euro bailout. That's a big one. But the latest trance of Epstein files appears to show is that Mandelson, who would have been a key figure, of course, in negotiating that deal as their version of the commerce secretary, appears to have tipped Epstein
[9:59]off about not just that the deal was going to happen, but exactly when the deal was going to happen. Because the night before the deal, Epstein emailed Mandelson, "Sources tell me 500 billion euro bailout almost complete." Then someone whose name is redacted but appears
[10:13]to be Mandelson replied, "Should be announced tonight." He said he was just leaving 10 Downing Street, which is, of course, the British equivalent of the White House. And as Mandelson said he was leaving Downing Street, he said he would call Epstein. Now, obviously advanced knowledge of a major government
[10:30]bailout, one that would create huge winners and huge losers in the stock market, is incredibly valuable information. It's the kind of insider trading info that could make someone a fortune. And allegedly revealing that information to Epstein is what
[10:45]Mandelson is now under criminal investigation for. It's why he's been effectively forced to leave the British government altogether. But the thing is, he isn't the only one in hot water over this. This was the cover of the British tabloid The Daily Express today.
[11:02]Resign now, PM on brink, as he calls to go mount. As calls go to go mount. There you go. Okay. You could read it yourself. The prime minister of England, Keir Starmer, is fighting to keep his job over this scandal. Now, to be clear, Starmer has no personal ties to Epstein
[11:16]that we know of at all. The scandal that has the British public so mad at him that they are trying to oust him from his job is simply that Starmer would not have appointed someone with known ties to Epstein to be the British ambassador to the US in the
[11:30]first place, that he should not have. That's enough for the public in England to say the prime minister should go. That's how completely toxic Jeffrey Epstein is in a normal political environment. I mean, even the king of England is now supporting
[11:44]a police investigation into his own brother, the man formerly known as Prince Andrew, over the revelations of his ties to Epstein that have come out in the latest batch of files. Literally, the king of England is supporting
[12:00]a police investigation into his own brother because of how toxic it is to be connected to Jeffrey Epstein in England. Then there is, of course, what is happening here in the United States. I mean, the latest batch of Epstein files also
[12:13]detailed the social and business entanglements Epstein had with Trump Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Now, being associated with Jeffrey Epstein is not a crime. Epstein was a businessman and a creepy version of a socialite. He did business with and socialized with a lot of
[12:28]people, as we now know. But check out how Trump Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick described his relationship to Epstein late last year. I mean, this was Lutnick telling the New York Post about an incident with Epstein who happened to be Lutnick's next door neighbor when he visited
[12:42]his house back in 2005. I say to him, "Massage table in the middle of your house? How often do you have a massage?" And he says, "Every day."
[12:59]And then he gets weirdly close to me and he says, "And the right kind of massage." Now, my wife is standing here, so she looks at me and I look at her and we say, "I'm sorry.
[13:15]We have to go." And we left. And in the six or eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.
[13:35]Okay. That's...he was quite the storyteller there. I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again. That's how Lutnick described his decision to cut ties with Jeffrey Epstein in 2005.
[13:50]I mean, Lutnick even went further telling the New York Post not only that he made the decision to never see Epstein after that, but that he in fact never did see Epstein after that. I was never in the room with him socially, for business
[14:05]or even philanthropy. If that guy was there, I wasn't going because he's gross. Yeah. He is gross. But again, that was Lutnick just four months ago saying that he was never even in a room with Epstein, not socially,
[14:21]not for business, not even philanthropy. Then in this latest batch of Epstein files, well, we got this. This is an email from Howard Lutnick to Jeffrey Epstein from December 19th, 2012. And yes, if you're doing the math, it is seven
[14:35]years after Lutnick claims to have cut Epstein out socially, to have been disgusted by him, to think he's gross, in which Lutnick arranged to have lunch with Epstein on Epstein's private island saying, "Hi, Jeff. We are landing in St.
[14:49]Thomas early Saturday afternoon. Where are you located? What is the exact location for my captain? Does Sunday evening for dinner sound good? I have another couple with me on my boat. Each of us has four children, two 16 year olds, two 14
[15:03]year olds, a 13 year old, a 12 year old, and 11 year old, and a seven year old. Thanks, Howard." Epstein then replied, "Come Saturday or Sunday for lunch?" And gave the exact location of his island. To which Lutnick replied, "Okay.
[15:17]Lunch on Sunday. See you then." Now, I don't know if Howard Lutnick does not include an island as being in the same room as him, but that is quite a stretch. That all seems pretty social to me. Now, when the New York Times confronted Lutnick
[15:31]about the existence of those emails, Lutnick said he could not comment on the island visit because he had not seen the latest Epstein documents. Now, that wasn't exactly the question, was it? I'm guessing anyone would remember taking their family to an island with a known predator, I would think.
[15:48]Lutnick told the Times, "I spent zero time with him," and then Lutnick hung up on the reporter. Now, today, Senator Chris Van Hollen held Lutnick's feet a little closer to the fire, much closer, asking him about the island visit while Lutnick was testifying to the Senate.
[16:03]And this time, Secretary Lutnick seemed to remember a lot more about that trip. Did you in fact make the visit to Jeffrey Epstein's private island? I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going
[16:17]across on a family vacation. My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies. I had another couple with ... They were there as well with their children, and we had lunch
[16:32]on the island. Again, there's a lot to unpack there. Taking your children to the island with Jeffrey Epstein and nannies, lots, but we don't have time for that. But again, it's not a crime to have lunch with someone, no matter how terrible they are.
[16:47]It's not even a crime to lie to the press. But why was Howard Lutnick lying? Why was he so emphatically denying he had any relationship at all with Jeffrey Epstein when he clearly did have a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein? In England, Jeffrey Epstein is so toxic that the literal
[17:05]King of England is telling the police he will help them investigate his own brother. The prime minister is fighting for his job because he appointed someone with Epstein ties to be his ambassador to the United States. That guy, the former ambassador to the US who allegedly used
[17:19]his position as the British equivalent of a commerce secretary to tip off Jeffrey Epstein about major financial deals, that guy is under criminal investigation. That's how England is responding to revelations about their rich and powerful in these new files.
[17:34]Here's how Trump's White House spokesperson, Caroline Levitt, responded to a question about Howard Lutnick today. She was asked simply if there has been any shift in how the White House is viewing Secretary Lutnick after the revelations of his ties to Epstein.
[17:47]Not a hard one. Here was the response. No, Secretary Lutnick remains a very important member of President Trump's team and the president fully supports the secretary. He does?
[18:01]I mean, sometimes saying fully support is a death knell, but I don't think it sounded like that there. The Trump administration is trying to just sweep all of this under the rug. And I don't just mean the mystery of why Howard Lutnick was lying about his ties to Epstein. I mean all of it, the Epstein files altogether.
[18:15]Yesterday, members of Congress finally got to see what the Department of Justice was claiming were the complete unredacted files. Democrat Ro Khanna and Republican Thomas Massey have been some of the members spearheading the fight to release the Epstein files for a while now. And they were some of the first to go down to the Department
[18:32]of Justice themselves to look at those supposedly unredacted files. And here's how Congressman Khanna described that visit. We spent about two hours there and we learned that 70 to 80 percent of the files are still redacted.
[18:52]In fact, there were six wealthy, powerful men that the DOJ hid for no apparent reason. Now after uncovering those six names, Congressman Khanna then used his speech and debate privileges, which protect him from being sued over anything
[19:07]he says on the House floor, to name some names. These men are Salvatore Navora, Zorab Nikoladze, Leopold Leonor, Nicola Caputa, Sultan Ahmed Bin Suleyam, CEO of Dubai
[19:28]Ports World, and billionaire businessman Leslie Wexner, who was labeled as a co-conspirator by the FBI. Now my question is, why did it take Thomas Massey and me going to the Justice Department to get these six men's identities to become public?
[19:45]And if we found six men that they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up for in those three million files. MSNOW is trying to reach all six of the men Congressman Khanna named for a response.
[20:00]So far only Les Wexner's legal representative has replied, saying he was a "source of information about Epstein and was not a target in any respect." So a lot of questions there. As for the other men, we have not heard back. And to be abundantly clear, we at MSNOW have no information
[20:16]to confirm any allegations of wrongdoing by any of them. But as Congressman Khanna pointed out, those were just the six names they found in a few hours, two hours of digging. And Khanna claims there's a lot more digging still to be done. This Epstein scandal is rocking the Trump White House again
[20:34]today, this time featuring confirmed visits to the notorious Epstein Island, where the man you see on your screen, along with the President, Trump's Commerce Chief, visited a confession he made for the first time today, after many
[20:49]years of lying about it. There are several strands to this story we'll get into, but we begin with really something right out of a movie plot. And we've been reporting on this. If it sounds familiar, you may remember the evidence in the timeline that we've been showing you.
[21:06]What you see on the timeline includes Mr. Ludnick, who had said that he cut off all contact with Epstein, all contact, dinners and New York emails, what have you. And you see there later Epstein talked about blackmail.
[21:23]So he was accusing this man he said he'd cut off all contact with of blackmail, something that Pam Bondi and others inside DOJ say still didn't happen. And yet those three million new files that you see on the far right part of our timeline included Ludnick emailing about visiting the island, which
[21:41]put a lot of pressure on his public denials. And today, what we've been tracking here and what so many in Congress, of course, and independent investigators and journalists have been tracking has now blown up in Mr. Ludnick's face in the White House. Mr. Ludnick confessing only now that he's under oath today,
[21:58]faced with the damning emails that we've reported that we told you about that others, including the survivors, demanded be released precisely because they didn't believe people like Mr. Ludnick, who made a big show of both denying any past contact with Epstein having cut off contact, he said,
[22:11]and still talking about him. And I'll show you about some of what he said because it fits into the larger question about how high this goes in the United States government. These are also files and emails that President Trump has tried to hide for years.
[22:26]And so while there might be a kind of dramatic or somewhat even say purient interest in some of this, believe me, honest law enforcement prosecutors to say nothing of the survivors care a lot about why these lies go to the top of the Trump administration.
[22:42]And even today, there's no accountability, apparently. Donald Trump standing by Ludnick, standing by him even as he visited the island and lied about it. There's also reports today that we discussed last night with one of the journalists who broke the story that
[22:57]another part of the file suggests that Trump was telling law enforcement he knew a lot about Epstein's crimes or alleged at the time of what were allegations in Florida. So I'm going to show you more of that tonight. There are different strands of this, as I said, but we've
[23:13]zeroed in on Ludnick precisely because it's a big problem to have these kind of people exercising power when they feel whatever their motivations are that need to lie about their history with Epstein. So he testified now today that he visited the island in 2012.
[23:28]So we know he's been lying about that for years, as mentioned as we showed you on the timeline. Now, what's different? Well, the files are out, putting on the pressure, and lying about it today would have risked committing a perjury crime. Those other lies that I'll show you were in
[23:42]public, not under oath. Bottom line, Ludnick is now retracting something he's lied about for many years, claiming that in 2005, he cut off ties with Epstein. And if you happen to watch this program regularly, you may
[23:55]recall that we discussed this. We discussed what the evidence was amounting to. Last night on this program, I was careful to note that Ludnick had not addressed this or clarified the emails. And so while the emails suggested he went to the island, we weren't even reporting that yet as fact because it had
[24:10]not been fully confirmed. Now Ludnick confesses, Trump White House stands by him. There are many questions remaining, including if it was an innocuous visit with his family, why go to such great lengths to hide it? Senator Van Hollen hammering Ludnick today.
[24:29]Said you were disgusted, would never have any contact with him again. I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on
[24:44]a family vacation to suggest there was anything untoward about that in 2012. I don't, I don't recall why we did it, but Mr. Secretary, again, I, as I said, there's not an indication that you yourself engaged in any
[24:58]wrongdoing with Jeffrey Epstein. It's the fact that you believe that you misled the country and the Congress based on your earlier statements, suggesting that you'd cut off all contact when in fact you had not.
[25:14]You realize that, you know, this, this visit took place after he'd been convicted, right? It went on like that. The Senator sort of trying to address this fairly. No one who cares about the actual facts is trying to
[25:28]do guilt by association. In other words, those emails regard the visit would show that he lied about it, only he knows why he lied about it. But that is completely separate from other material that suggests, like we showed the other day, a DOJ suspect list
[25:43]that suggests people were involved in, for example, the crimes, what was a sex trafficking ring. As the Senator said, and I'll repeat for clarity, Mr. Lutnick's not accused of that kind of thing, but he kept lying about this in an almost dramatic
[25:56]fashion, which I'll show you. So he says he visited the island with his family, with his wife, kids, and nanny. And as you mentioned, as I should say, as Van Hollen mentioned, that's the state of play. But why lie about that if it was just that?
[26:12]And are we getting the whole truth now when the only thing he's admitting to, copping to, is what's caught up in the emails? Are there other meetings? Was there other help? Remember, one of the key points about why this is bigger than just a personal scandal, which people could deal with,
[26:29]is the amount of evidence that suggests Mr. Epstein was given special treatment, which allowed him to continue these crime sprees, which hurt all these people. So now you have someone who's caught lying about this, who's in the Trump cabinet, who's part of this group of
[26:45]people who have ties to Epstein, who were hiding it. And this is the same guy, as I'll show you, who says Epstein was a blackmailer, which, again, the government has not confirmed or charged him for. Now the receipts go a long way. It was 2012, and Lutnick wrote, "Hi, Jeff.
[26:58]We're landing in St. Thomas early Saturday afternoon, planning to head over to St. Barts/Angela on Monday at some point. Exact location for my captain." So this sounds very much like trying to go definitely do the meetup. And Epstein said, "Come Saturday or Sunday lunch.
[27:13]Little Slave James on the map behind Christmas Cove. Lutnick responds, 'Okay, lunch on Sunday. See you then.'" And later, an Epstein assistant sent the message to Lutnick, which included, "Nice seeing you." This is what lawyers would call multiple corroboration
[27:30]contacts that suggest the meeting took place, although it's not like we have a photo or a video or that kind of record. Now that's 2012. Lutnick claimed, very publicly, that the last time he actually saw Epstein was seven years earlier.
[27:48]And nothing about the meeting or today's confession suggests that he got confused and forgot. But rather, this was a kind of brash big lie, a way to say, "Well, I definitely cut it all off." And meanwhile, he and apparently his wife, who's only in this because of him, no one's throwing a lot of stones
[28:04]at her publicly, did go back and see him. How many times? Well, he's admitting two and denying any wrongdoing. And the White House says Trump stands by Lutnick. Of all the people who could continue to play these roles funded by you, the taxpayer, the president wants to keep on
[28:21]board someone who's been caught visiting Epstein Island, even if it was apparently on the records just for lunch. There's also new evidence in the files about Epstein's recording, which relates to something I'm going to quote Lutnick on, these questions about
[28:35]what Epstein was up to. These photos show a camera perched over a suite of bathrooms. Other photos reveal what could be a kind of elaborate long-term surveillance room because the door says, and is it truth and labeling or not, but it says 24-hour surveillance.
[28:54]The files have new details about how Epstein had one of the people in his employ work on small hidden cameras. This was back in 2014, the aide responding, "I'm installing them into Kleenex boxes now." Remember what we've said, these files, millions
[29:08]of them are voluminous. The New York Times tracked this down and did the other corroborative reporting. You can't just necessarily learn something from each random email, but there are many stories in the Times and other papers right now, and we've done our own reporting, as
[29:22]we've told you, pulling on these threats. The new revelations we got first here on the beat last night from Miami Herald journalist Julie K. Brown recorded how in July '06 Trump called the Palm Beach police chief at the time and saying Epstein's
[29:38]activities with teenage girls were well known. Thank goodness you're stopping them. Everyone has known he's been doing this, which as I've mentioned could be a positive if you say that's a person in the community talking to law enforcement in the service of potentially stopping something bad.
[29:54]Of course, it's Trump who has tied back into this in many ways, socially and otherwise. We're learning this because apparently the chief told the FBI this in a 2019 interview, which would have stayed secret except for the files coming out. Trump telling the chief allegedly, or at least according to his account, that he was around
[30:10]Epstein once when teenagers were present, Trump got the hell out of there. Again, that would sound like a good thing, and yet it also contradicts what we've seen. Trump and some of his officials seem to want to do to create
[30:25]distance from Epstein when he became such a public toxic national story. For example, here was Donald Trump in 2019. No, I had no idea. I had no idea.
[30:46]I haven't spoken to him in many, many years, but I didn't have no idea. To deny what was in a controversy, he said he had no idea. This police chief, who again, was talking to the FBI in 2019, would seem to be credible.
[31:00]He knows he has to tell the truth or face legal sanction when you talk to the feds, and was also someone who had credibility because he had tried to go after Epstein and was interfered with by Washington, if you remember the timeline and those problems. This chief says Trump also seemed to know about how
[31:15]it operationally worked. But Maxwell, who at the time might have been seen to outsiders as just a woman at Epstein's orbit, that the chief remembered Trump said she was evil. Or telling the FBI Trump revealed Epstein's associate
[31:29]was the operative, that she was evil. Focus on her, he said. And so again, we're dealt with situations here that can be complex. If a person really was trying to help law enforcement go get Epstein and Maxwell for the right reason, that
[31:43]could be a good thing. But why would that same person go to such lengths to publicly lie about that knowledge? And newly relevant, Trump won't even rule out a pardon for Maxwell, who again, the FBI chief says he knew all the
[31:56]way back then was evil. We've heard that Maxwell is prepared to speak honestly, if only glanted clemency by Trump. She pled the fifth yesterday. Where has Donald Trump ever engaging in sexual activity
[32:16]with an individual introduced to him by you or Jeffrey Epstein? I invoke my Fifth Amendment right to silence. We're leading everybody and everything. This is the greatest period of of anything that we've
[32:31]ever we've ever seen. We had the greatest economy in the history of our country in my first term. We're blowing it away now. I think we have the greatest economy actually ever in history. Really? Greatest for who?
[32:46]Recent American Prospect headline put it this way. We are at a quote, "new low for American workers." The share of all the nation's income going to labor and wages is at its lowest level since measurements began. Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont,
[33:01]ranking member of the Health, Education and Labor Committee, and he joins me now. And Senator, I want to ask you about whether you think it's the greatest economy ever or the greatest everything of ever. But first, just because we have this news and it involves two of your colleagues, Mark Kelly, Alyssa Slotkin and others, your
[33:17]reaction to A, the president's obvious vendetta to try to prosecute members of Congress for a video they put out and their failure to secure even an indictment before a D.C. grand jury? Well, look, Chris, I think the American people understand with
[33:34]what's going on in Minneapolis, Trump's attacks on the media, the university is going after political opponents in a criminal through criminal actions that we are moving into an authoritarian society. And I'm very glad that the courts ruled what they did.
[33:52]Obviously, members of the Senate, the American people have a right to say what they want to say without being prosecuted by the Trump administration. In terms of I got to tell you, though, I've seen that tape you just rolled. You wonder whether Trump is completely crazy and delusional
[34:11]or just the pathological liar. But the idea that anybody would believe that this is a great economy when 60 percent of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, when the cost of the health care is going
[34:26]up, people can't afford housing, people can't afford their basic groceries, child care system is dysfunctional, people can't afford to go to college. And if this is the greatest economy in the history of the world, God help us. Well, I want to show you these two charts because I think
[34:41]it is quite good for some of the people that he hangs out with. This is corporate profits on the left. You see that line going up. That's a percentage of the gross domestic income. It's at an all time high. And on the right, you see labor compensation, basically wages,
[34:56]which is an all time low. There's a sliding scale between those two, and it just seems like one of the things we've seen, we've seen it as a longer term trend, but it is really rocketed up, is that the money really is flowing to the top pretty well. Like the stock market, corporate profits, all that stuff is
[35:12]doing really bang up right now. And people hate this economy because it's not getting to them. Well, Chris, as I understand it, the billionaire class has seen since Trump's second term began an increase in their wealth
[35:29]by over one trillion dollars. Elon Musk himself is moving closer and closer to being a trillionaire. So the guys who sat, the billionaires who sat behind Trump at its inauguration, yeah, the economy is the
[35:45]best ever for them. But for the average working person, not quite the case. And I know that you've, you know, one thing that I've been hearing a lot from Trump's people, they've been very bullish on AI. A big reason, I think, that we saw all those tech oligarchs
[36:00]there in the White House and we saw Sam Altman there, I think on day two of the administration is they don't want any regulation of AI. They want to, you know, there's a sort of simpatico relationship. And one of the things you hear from all sorts of folks is, yeah, this is going to replace a ton of jobs.
[36:17]It's probably going to meet profits and efficiency go up and the job market get worse. And we're just all going to have to kind of take that. That's what's coming down the pipe. Here's what I think, Chris, and it's the reason why I'm going
[36:36]to introduce legislation for a moratorium on data centers and data centers are the infrastructure of AI. I think we have not a clue. We are totally unprepared for what is coming. And what is coming, I think, as you've just indicated, it
[36:55]is not just robots, you know, Bezos at Amazon talking about replacing 400,000 workers and other companies doing similar things. It is impacting entry level jobs for college graduates.
[37:11]There is no profession out there that is not going to be hit. So I think you're going to see massive job loss, and I think also what you are seeing now is literally a cognitive
[37:26]decline among young people in this country. Their attention spans are worse, significantly worse. I worry very much what used to be science fiction that
[37:42]the computers will take over. There is now a legitimate fear that artificial general intelligence will not only become smarter than human beings, they'll be able to communicate
[37:58]with each other independent of humanity and the implications of that. Bottom line is, I'm not a Luddite, and we have got to make sure though that AI and robotics work for working people, not just to make these
[38:13]billionaires even richer. A handful of billionaires, you know, it's Musk and Bezos and Zuckerberg and Altman and Ellison and some others, the richest people in the world, are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into AI and robotics.
[38:29]Do you think they're worried about the implications of that for working people, the middle class? I don't think so. I think we've got to take a deep breath. We've got to slow this thing down. We've got to work on international treaties with China and other countries. But I think people have not a clue about what is coming
[38:47]down the pike with terms of AI. Final question for you. You know, we've been in this economy where people have been very concerned about affordability. Trump has said there's no affordability problem. I brought prices down, which is not true. But one of the other things we're starting to see is that
[39:00]the labor market is clearly getting worse and you've got jobs numbers coming out tomorrow and very clearly they're trying to get out ahead of bad job numbers and revisions. Are you hearing from people that people are more and more worried about just their ability to find a job and to hold a job?
[39:17]We had very low unemployment, but you can kind of feel those storm clouds gathering or a lot of people say they can. I think that's right. I think I'm hearing that from younger college graduates who
[39:33]would normally get decent entry level jobs, move up the ladder. They're having a hard time. And I tell you, Chris, I've talked to a lot of working class audiences. People are very worried about the implication of robotics for their jobs in factories and in warehouses.
[39:50]Senator Sanders, thank you so much for joining us tonight. I really do appreciate it.