Clip: Trump delivers on promise of retribution against political adversaries

Jeffrey Goldberg: We have a lot to talk about tonight, starting with the indictment of James Comey and the wholesale takeover of the Justice Department by the Trump political apparatus. But we'll also talk about his pursuit of another foe, the late night comedian, Jimmy Kimmel. We'll talk about Trump's views on Tylenol and Ukraine and much more.

Joining me tonight at the table, Stephen Hayes, the editor of the Dispatch, Karen Tumulty is the chief political correspondent at The Washington Post, Ali Vitali is the host of Way Too Early and the chief Congressional correspondent for the network currently known as MSNBC, and Nancy Youssef is a national security correspondent at The Atlantic.

I'm sorry, I just have to make the MSNBC's joke every time.

Ali Vitali, Host, MSNBC's Way Too Early: Look, if you have to do it --

Jeffrey Goldberg: I got to do it. I got to do it.

Ali Vitali: Her name is what it is for right now.

Jeffrey Goldberg: It's like clear for me. I'm sorry.

The -- Karen, let's start with you. Give us the latest on the Comey indictment, and more importantly what does it mean for democracy?

Karen Tumulty, Chief Political Correspondent, The Washington Post: Well, we saw a real rapid fire series of events this week. Trump's own appointed U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia essentially refused to do this indictment after the president specifically called for it. So, he was removed. A new acting U.S. attorney, Lindsey Halligan, was put in.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Karen Tumulty: This is a woman who had been part of Trump's personal legal team, had been a White House aide whose mission had been removing what the administration deemed to be improper ideology of the Smithsonian. But she has --

Jeffrey Goldberg: She was going to be the woke inspector of this Smithsonian.

Karen Tumulty: She was. She was. But now she finds herself as the acting U.S. attorney in Virginia who carried this indictment out. It's all of a page and a half. It's a very quick read.

The charges against James Comey are among allegedly lying to Congress. These are charges that are very rarely prosecuted unless they are, you know, connected to other charges.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

KAREN TUMULTY: And potentially could, you know, put him in prison for ten years.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. I wanted you to all to listen to Ty Cobb, the president's former attorney who has become a critic. Listen to what he had to say about the meaning here.

Ty Cobb, Former Trump White House Attorney: I don't think this can be reported as, you know, one or two degrees of standard deviation from the norm. This is a wholesale 180 from the norms of what made America different from third world dictatorships, authoritarian regimes and tyranny.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Steve, understatement, overstatement, correct?

Stephen Hayes, Editor, The Dispatch: No. I think he's basically got it right. I mean, the troubling thing -- the indictment itself, we will learn more about the case. We'll learn what they're going to argue in the coming days and weeks, but I think it's the stuff that preceded the indictment that is the most troubling. It's the fact pattern that Karen laid out.

Jeffrey Goldberg: The firing of the previous --

Stephen Hayes: The firings of previous prosecutors, the reporting widespread credible, I believe, that all of these prosecutors didn't think there was enough to bring a case, the sort of the sequence of events that led up to this moment, and in particular Donald Trump tweeting at his attorney general to go get this guy because I don't like him, in effect.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Stephen Hayes: That is new. We don't see that very often. And it's not new for Donald Trump because he campaigned on retribution. He told us, he told voters, this is what I'm going to do. These are the people I don't like. I'm going to get them back.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Stephen Hayes: But seeing him do it in this manner is so unlike the kinds of things that we've seen before, and I think that is in part what's alarming. And it should be said, this is the first. I mean, nobody thinks this ends with James Comey. He's got a long list.

Karen Tumulty: In fact, Trump today said it will not end with James.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Stephen Hayes: Yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I want to -- I think this is a good opportunity for me to do my dramatic reading of the Pam Bondi Truth Social. I'll try to limit the drama, but you'll get the point. This is one of the most extraordinary statements Donald Trump has ever made, I think.

Pam -- it's almost as if it was a direct message to her that got out. Pam, I have reviewed over 30 statements in posts saying that essentially, open quote, same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam Shifty Schiff, a U.S. Senator, by the way, Letitia, question mark, question mark, question mark, question, that's the prosecutor -- the state attorney general in New York. They're all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done. Then we almost put in a Democrat-supported U.S. attorney in Virginia with a really bad Republican past, a woke RINO who is never going to do his job.

And then he goes on, Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer and likes you a lot. We can't delay any longer. It's killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice and indicted me five times, exclamation point, and then all caps, over nothing. Justice must be served now. President DJT.

So, I don't know what this actually compares to in American history. It's as if almost as if President Nixon, all analogies are imperfect, this one will be imperfect, but it's President Nixon went into the press room and said, the Democratic National Committee is my enemy, and so I really think that the FBI needs to go right now and get all their documents at the Watergate and then give them to me so that we can manufacture a case against them.

I mean, it's as if Watergate is in a -- the entirety of Watergate is in a Truth Social post. I mean, maybe I'm exaggerating, but it doesn't seem like much of an exaggeration, Nancy.

Nancy Youssef, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: Well, and then on the Saturday Massacre, right, when you see the firing -- the attempted firing of Archibald Cox and that the Attorney General wouldn't do it and the deputy wouldn't do it, and the solicitor general ends up doing it, Robert Bork.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Robert Bork, yes.

Nancy Youssef: But the difference would then was that led to the impeachment. That led to people --

Jeffrey Goldberg: That caused the impeachment.

Nancy Youssef: That's right. Whereas in this case, we're not hearing Congress say we're going to look into this, even as you note, the president has listed people who will be charged next, Senator Schiff with Letitia James among others. And so I think that's the real deviation that's happening here is that this is not leading to consequence, but actually appears to be sort of condoned in some ways, but with the absence of any action.

And I should note, when Archibald Cox is brought forward, he says whether our shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men now for Congress and ultimately the American people to decide, we're at this inflection point again potentially with a different answer.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. We're -- that was the inflection point that led to the re-deviation or deviation back to the norm. But you cover Congress. You're talking to these people all the time. Again, I'm trying to sound rational and logical and reasoned, but this is unprecedented. And in ordinary times, this would provoke a seismic reaction on the part of a coequal branch of government that is supposed to monitor the other branches of government.

Ali Vitali: And has not really had much of an appetite to do so, whether it be through oversight or even just the simple appropriation of funds, which is literally Congress's constitutional job.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Ali Vitali: They've seemed to really be willing to farm that out. And we'll watch how that ends up playing out next week on the shutdown dynamics, which are not anywhere close to where we are here.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Ali Vitali: But I think that's the thing that I think is so striking here, is that Congress has at every turn seen controversial nominees who are loyal to the president, and, really, that's their only qualification, and they have put aside their concerns to just go along with the president. I knew, we all knew, that this Congress was going to look different because it's been remade in the MAGA image, but Trump has benefited from that at every single turn.

The only thing I think about here, two things. The first is when he talks about not having a role in these prosecutions, it takes me back to the day that they got a raid on John Bolton's house, and Trump said, well, actually, I'm the chief law enforcement officer of this country, but, no, no, I had nothing to do with it, and Bondi and others will brief me when appropriate. Okay, so if he's the chief law enforcement officer of this country and he's saying the names, Comey, Letitia James, all of these other people, let's take that into a courtroom. And it's why legal experts actually think that there's a chance that this case could get thrown out before it even begins. I didn't go to law school.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Because it's prejudicing a case ahead of time?

Ali Vitali: Because it's prejudicing a case ahead of time. And the idea of a vindictive or selective prosecution, which is typically something that's very hard to prove. And again, I did not go to law school, but we talk to lawyers all the time.

Comey could have something there. And it's only exacerbated by the fact that the prosecutor now prosecuting this case actually has never done it before.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. By the way, thank you for playing a lawyer on T.V.

Ali Vitali I really try so hard.

Jeffrey Goldberg: No, it was excellent.

Ali Vitali: You brought the drama.

Jeffrey Goldberg: No, it was excellent. Nancy had a little drama in her presentation too, I note.

But -- so, this is what's, that's interesting. And you really hit on something after Watergate -- this is our Watergate special, obviously. After Watergate, all kinds of protections were put in place around the Justice Department, almost like moats were dug and walls were built to protect the Justice Department from political interference.

So, the question is, do any of them remain today?

Karen Tumulty: When you have the president of the United States publicly telling the attorney general who to prosecute, I think the answer is no.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Is there anything in the building itself? Can they do anything other than quit and protest? Is there any --

Karen Tumulty: And which they have been doing.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Nothing?

Stephen Hayes: The careers have been quitting. But part of the challenge here is that Donald Trump has stocked the Justice Department with people who are loyal to him. I mean, last month, the chief of staff at the Justice Department gave an interview to Ruth Marcus, the New Yorker, and in fact said, there's no difference between serving the chief executive and Donald Trump. We're working for him.

And it's just such a departure from the way that people have approached the job for one thing, but certainly talked about it for another. And that, again, is unprecedented.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I need your expertise as a shrink here for a minute, not for me, by the way, but for constituency that you understand, the conservative voting constituency that you've covered for a long time. Why is there such acquiescence to the destruction of a not obscure norm? This is not -- we're not talking as a highly technical USDA rules that are changing slightly from administration to administration. We're talking about the defense of the idea that justice is blind and that the people who have the ability to change people's lives forever, their indictment, prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment, have no connection to the dispassion and impartiality that we've always held up to the rest of the world as a gift, as a symbol of our American advancement.

Stephen Hayes: Well, I said that the way that they talk about it is unprecedented. And I said it that way for a reason. I do think there is precedent for these kinds of political prosecutions and targeting of political opponents. Robert F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy went after radio -- used the IRS and the FCC to go after the rising Radio Right, which is what historian Paul Matzko calls these people. It was sort of the precursor to talk radio. And they said in an Oval Office conversation, in effect, go get them. Use the government to go get them. We saw during Barack Obama's administration, the IRS targeting conservative groups. You'd hear from a MAGA people that Joe Biden went after Donald Trump previously. I don't there are -- I'd say, supporting evidence is weak in that regard. But I would -- I think the prosecution in New York was a stretch, a lot of people who weren't --

Jeffrey Goldberg: The prosecution for Donald Trump, the one that led to the 34 convictions.

Stephen Hayes: That led to the 34.

So, what you'll hear from MAGA voters is this is the way that Washington always works. You're so naive that you're so precious that you think this is new and different. This is the way that it always works, and it's about time that we're getting --

Jeffrey Goldberg: All right. What is your answer to them?

Stephen Hayes: It's not. It's not new and different. I mean, to a certain extent, you know, it's like the, you know, shock to find that they're gambling here.

Of course, people use the levers of government to go after their political enemies for the reasons I just suggested. What I think makes this different is that he's so bold and aggressive and unapologetic about it. He's just announcing it in public, I'm going after these people. He will say, I campaigned on going after these people. He's got a list. Kash Patel, the director of the FBI, literally published a list of 60-some odd people that they were going to go after if they took power. And now it appears that that's exactly what they're doing.

Ali Vitali: Because when I talk with MAGA voters, they all have a list of people. Okay, but what about Michael Cohen? I mean, even just on the lying to Congress charge, right, you've got Michael Cohen as a prime example of that. There were others who they went after on these similar kinds of charges. The central difference though, is that, in many cases, those charges were paired with something else, something more grave. The other piece of this, though, is that President Biden and other presidents were not out there saying, this is the list of people and addressing Merrick, colon, and giving a public statement about it. Merrick Garland, too much criticism, tried to stay as far away from the politics as if it wasn't inextricably linked with his job as attorney general at that point, as he possibly could. But all illusion of that is absolutely gone.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. And so the expectation -- so go ahead.

Karen Tumulty: But the other argument they make is that Trump was so persecuted, you know, that he was indicted multiple times. He was impeached twice. And, essentially, they see this is payback time.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I know, but what's so interesting about that is let's take just one of the Trump cases that's no longer relevant, legally relevant, but the sequestering of classified documents in Mar-a-Lago. That's not a weak case from what we can tell. That's a very strong case. So, yes, I mean, you know this as a national security correspondent very well, and that's -- you know, there's a persecution complex. But many of the charges have -- many of the former charges have salience, no?

Karen Tumulty: Well, not so much anymore, especially since the Supreme Court has ruled that --

Jeffrey Goldberg: Salience in terms of their truth, not in terms of their legal relevance.

Karen Tumulty: Right. And -- but, again, I mean, it was very much a part of the image that Trump projected while he was running for reelection, was that he has been persecuted.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Let me talk about another enemy on Trump's list, Jimmy Kimmel. You never would've put James Comey and Jimmy Kimmel in the same bucket, but Kimmel's back on T.V. this week and Defiant. And this seems to be a case in which maybe the Trump administration overreached a bit. I just want you to listen to what Senator John Thune, who hasn't said much about the hollowing out of the Justice Department, but listen to what he said about the First Amendment.

Oh, yes, no, I'm sorry. We're going to -- I'm just going to read this to you. My -- this is what he said. My view is when it comes to the FCC, when it comes to governing authorities and governmental power, it shouldn't be used in a coercive way when it comes to the First Amendment.

So, what's going on here? Did Brendan Carr go too far, Brendan Carr being the chairman of the FCC, who, on a podcast, sounded very tough guy?

Nancy Youssef: We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes, he did a tough guy thing. Yes.

Nancy Youssef: Well, look, it's funny that Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel were sort of canaries in the coal mine about threats to the First Amendment. And I think in this case, because of what he cited and the sort of ambiguity in terms of what about it demanded taking him off the air, something so present in everybody's house, you can watch Jimmy Kimmel any time, I think made it something both palatable in terms of what people could understand. And also it was all out in the open. He said that they should face repercussions for it.

And I think a lot of people in the American public saw this as an attack on the First Amendment. And so they could speak up in a way that actually had financial impact. They could cancel their Hulu membership, they could cancel their Disney membership to sort of force a change of events. And I think so the totality of it, it's somebody they know, it had financial repercussions. And you had Brendan Carr really tying the future of that show to the Disney company taking specific action, I think made it all sort of, come to the American public's awareness in a way that other cases might not.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Steve, Brendan Carr on his back foot?

Stephen Hayes: It's hard to tell, honestly. I mean, you had criticism, like you just read from John Thune. You had Ted Cruz comparing him to Mafioso. So, that was pretty bold and aggressive from people who aren't typically bold and aggressive in their criticism from of Donald Trump and his administration.

But once Donald Trump came out, remember Donald Trump -- initially, the MAGA explanation was, oh, he's not really threatening them. This isn't what it seems. And then Donald Trump came out and said, this is exactly what we're doing, this is exactly what it seems. And after Donald Trump spoke again, the criticism of the administration from Republicans went silent. They didn't continue to criticize. And it's an interesting, sort of moment that they withheld their judgment after that.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Karen Tumulty: And it was a bit of a bank shot because the -- where the FCC has its leverage is not against the networks directly. It's against the local affiliates.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Karen Tumulty: So, while Jimmy Kimmel came back on the air this week, we saw that two of the big affiliate companies, Nexstar and Sinclair, didn't put him back. Now they will.