Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell, and Alex Wagner discuss Donald Trump's massive civil fraud fine
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this. He is tall, lean, and blonde with dazzling white teeth, and he looks ever so much like Robert Redford. He dates slinky fashion models, belongs to the most elegant clubs, and at only 30 years of age, estimates that he is worth more than $200 million. That is how the New York Times described Donald Trump in 1976. If you ask Donald Trump then and now,

He'd say his most valuable asset was his brand. And for decades, the name Trump has been synonymous with wealth. Trump promoted himself to the world as a business genius. Want to be rich? Be like Trump.

You'll walk down the street sometimes and people will touch you just for the good luck. I've never figured that out. I've never really understood it, but it's something that's been happening. And at first I took great offense at it. Now I almost, I guess I have to consider it a compliment. I don't know what it is, but perhaps they're going into a deal or they're going down to Atlantic City or they're going someplace and they just want to have a little luck.

But the myth of Trump has always been riddled with inconsistencies. In 1987, Trump came out with what would become the cornerstone of his business franchise, the art of the deal. Years later, Trump's ghostwriter, who actually wrote the book, told The New Yorker that he felt like he had put lipstick on a pig. In reality, Trump's businesses have failed over and over again. He bought an airline. It tanked. He bought a football team. The league folded.

And still, Donald Trump managed to sell the public this idea that he was the monopoly man.

Trump's got a new game. Trump's got a new deal. What's your game to own? Trump has a new game. What is it? Is it an airline? A new convention set by Mr. Trump? Is it a casino? Mr. Trump, please. My new game is Trump the game. Trump the game, where you deal for everything you've ever wanted to own. Because it's not whether you win or lose, it's whether you win. Play Trump the game from Milton Bradley. I think you'll like it. Trump even lost money on casinos. Not in them, on them. As an owner.

In the early 90s, three different Trump casinos in Atlantic City filed for bankruptcy. You have to be astoundingly bad at business to not make money as a casino owner. But still, Donald Trump convinced the public he was the epitome of success. I've mastered the art of the deal and have turned the name Trump into the highest quality brand. And as the master, I want to pass along my knowledge to somebody else.

I'm looking for the apprentice. Everywhere you looked, Trump was on TV reminding you how rich he was, how profitable his businesses were, how lucky you were to be associated with him. It's great to be here at Saturday Night Live, but I'll be completely honest. It's even better for Saturday Night Live that I'm here.

Trump stuck his name on everything from golf courses and apartments to vodka and steaks. There was even a Trump urine test, because why not? If Trump was involved, it was good business, even if it was a urine test. So that was the story that launched Trump's political career and ultimately the story that won him the White House.

But again, the myth did not always match up with reality. In 2016, Trump was forced to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit claiming that the university he stuck his name on was defrauding students, bigly. In 2019, New York dissolved Trump's charity and fined him $2 million because as it turns out, Trump had been using it as a charity for Donald Trump.

But still, if you ask the man himself, the Trump name remained Sterling. Probably my most valuable asset. I didn't even include on your statement. And that's the brand. I mean, I became president because of the brand. OK, I became president. I think it's the hottest brand in the world. That was Trump's video deposition from his civil fraud trial in New York City. The case where today the myth of Donald Trump came to an end.

Today, a New York judge, Justice Arthur Ngoron, ordered Trump to pay a colossal penalty, which, with interest, will exceed $450 million. Justice Ngoron also barred Mr. Trump from serving in any leadership roles in any New York company, including the one that bears his name, the Trump Organization, for three years. Now, the reason this penalty is so massive is because the fraud was, too.

As Justice Nguyen put it in his ruling today, the frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience. New York Attorney General Letitia James investigated Trump and his businesses for years.

And what she found was that Trump had been fraudulently inflating his net worth by billions of dollars for a decade. And I don't just mean in the press and on TV ads for Trump urine tests, but in financial statements and loan applications. And that meant not only was Trump tricking the public into thinking he was wildly successful, he was tricking banks and insurance companies into giving him loans and rates that he didn't actually qualify for. He cheated.

He is a cheat. And making sure that no one cheats, that the world of New York business plays by the rules, is central to Judge Angoron's decision today. This court is not constituted to judge morality. It is constituted to find facts and apply the law. In this particular case, in applying the law to the facts, the court intends to protect the integrity of the financial marketplace and thus the public as a whole.

That protection includes penalties for past wrongs and insurance against future ones. So in addition to freezing the Trumps out of their family business for three years, the judge is keeping an independent monitor on watch and he is appointing an independent director of compliance at the Trump organization. And Goran explained that without all of this, the cheating might never end.

Defendants' refusal to admit error, indeed to continue it, constrains this court to conclude that they will engage in it going forward unless judicially restrained. As Donald Trump tells it, people used to touch him for luck when he was walking down the street. Today, it seems like he might be all out of it.

Joining me now to discuss today's ruling are my good friends and colleagues, the hardest bookings in America, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell. Guys, thank you so much for being here on this momentous day. I am honored to have you on this program. Rachel, we haven't heard from you today. Lawrence, we haven't heard from you today. Rachel, I'll just let you get the first word here. But what was your reaction to what feels like a day of reckoning for Donald Trump?

It is a day of reckoning, almost literally, for sure. And it is also one of a number of really important court proceedings that are going to have really important consequences for him. And I feel like, you know, once I read as much as I could of the ruling, a lot of it's dense, but a lot of it just makes sense. Once you understand exactly what he's ordering, once we saw Tish James' explanation of what happened, we saw Trump's reaction to it, I kind of sat back and I realized—

My biggest takeaway from this is that we need to protect the rule of law, that this is a candidate who is promising to basically dismantle the American system of government. He has been raging against the judiciary and judges and juries and lawyers and plaintiffs and the whole system that is starting to hold him to account.

He wants to get back into power, he's fully saying, because he essentially wants to dismantle the whole thing. And for all of the institutions that have failed against Trump,

what Donald Trump is offering as an anti-democratic, small d democratic, essentially authoritarian candidate, the institution that has bent the least, that has stood up the best against his assault is the judicial branch of government, is the rule of law. And we need to protect it. We need to protect Judge N'Goran. We need to protect his clerk. We need to protect his James. We need to protect E. Jean Carroll. We need to protect her lawyers. We need to protect the jurors. We need to protect

Fannie Willis, and we should talk about that because that's happening right now. But we need to protect Jack Smith. We need to protect Judge Cannon and Judge Chuckin. We need to protect the people who are manning the barricades on this one branch of government that's doing its job, despite what has been a really, really, I think, pointed assault from Trump and his supporters that is about to get way more intense.

Yeah. Lawrence, what Rachel makes such an essential point about the branch of government that's holding democracy aloft. I wonder what you thought of the ruling. First of all, on your trip down Trump memory lane, I thought I had nothing to learn. Then came I learned tonight.

About the Trump urine test. Yes, I'm sorry. Which I believe. I apologize. My count is you mentioned them three times. Yeah, well, you know, Trump and urine. I won't go further than that. Well, yeah, I had no idea he was that interested in...

Urine. That. Well, yeah. I'll say it. OK, great. So I just needed to leave that right there. I know I was. I know there were people in the audience who are still processing that. And I wanted to help them with it and move on to this. But so I have spent my entire adult life, professional life in and out of courtrooms, following cases very closely, some cases every single day in the courtroom.

And there are some cases that are predictable. And so when you get to verdict, it doesn't feel quite so momentous or like something's changed because it was the only logical verdict. This Trump verdict today was the most predictable Trump verdict we will ever have because there was no jury. Jury still contains suspense. No jury. One fact finder, the judge. He made it very clear because he's a rational human being as the proceeding was going on.

that all of this was outrageous, that Donald Trump's conduct in the room was outrageous, everything about it was outrageous. And so he returns this verdict that we could have kind of guessed the number within $10 million because it was the number that kept being said. And yet...

And yet it truly is. It landed with me as something truly momentous. But here is this former president, current presidential candidate on his way to the nomination. And he's now very clearly on his way to what could be functional bankruptcy for him. Because the lawsuits that I think people have left too far into the back of mind are

might actually be the most expensive things he's facing, which are the lawsuits by police officers in Washington, D.C., for what happened to them on January 6th. We saw what the defamation verdict was against Rudy Giuliani in Washington, D.C., over $100 million. Donald Trump could get hit with a verdict like this against an individual police officer in Washington, D.C. So he could be facing...

a billion dollars in these kinds of must pay penalties, civil, civil trials, and which raises this other deep threat to the possibility of another Trump presidency, which is how would he how will he pay these things? And the answer is Jared Kushner knows a guy. Well, yes. And the guys in Saudi Arabia. And how many billion do you need? Yeah.

I mean, that raises a really important question, Rachel, which is it is not good for democracy. And Vox raises this point today. It's not good for democracy and transparency and rule of law for Donald Trump to face a really steep bill, not because he shouldn't have to face it, but because, as Lauren says, I mean, this leads you down inevitably the rabbit hole of which country is going to pay this tab effectively.

Yeah, I mean, when I was reading that part of Judge N'Goran's ruling today about how one of the restrictions here is that the Trump Organization can't get loans from any bank that is registered in New York,

Well, in the normal scheme of things, when you cover financial trials and any trials that end up, for example, in SVNY just because there's a financial institution involved, the shorthand that you do when covering these things is like, oh, yeah, all financial institutions are registered to do business in New York. New York is the financial capital of the world, and so that's why they have jurisdiction over everything financial.

But what Lawrence says is exactly right. Yeah, you know, I mean, it was a mysterious Russian bank that funded Marine Le Pen in her pseudo-fascist run at the French presidency, right? And it's inexplicably, it's Saudi Arabia that has given $2 billion to Jared Kushner for his great service in public life, which he now says he's not going to return to. So, I mean...

The financial penalties here have incredible potential consequences in terms of the types of entanglements that Trump will have absolutely no problem dragging into the White House with him if he's reelected.

You know, you bring up, Lawrence, the civil fraud trial and the civil cases against Trump. And I have to ask you, we're going to continue this conversation. I'm just going to say it preemptively before anybody thinks I'm going to let you guys go. But, Lawrence, you bring up the civil cases. And I wonder, you know, there's a huge question mark hanging over law.

whether or not these federal criminal trials actually see the light of day this year before the election. If the American public only is able to hold Donald Trump accountable in a civil fashion, a la Eugene Carroll, a la Letitia James, or the, you know, the first responders and police officers at January 6th, is that sufficient? Is that enough? Well...

First of all, I don't think that's going to be the outcome for a couple of reasons. The first reason being, I don't believe Donald Trump is going to win the presidency. Therefore, with that belief, I don't particularly care when the trials happen.

happen, the federal trials. Everyone is worried about federal trials before election because they're afraid if you don't get those federal trials done before the election, then Donald Trump becomes president and he kills them. Well, under that theory, he kills them anyway because they would be on appeal. If he was convicted, they'd be on appeal.

But I don't believe he's going to be present. I believe you're going to see every one of these cases go all the way to their conclusions. And he will bear whatever criminal burden he has to bear as a convicted defendant in those cases. It's worth noting, none of them involve a mandatory minimum sentence. So the highest likelihood, which is, I know, dissatisfactory to a lot of people,

but it's a version of hell for Trump, would be home confinement. You know, imagine spending the summer in Florida. That would be unbearable for him.

point, my friend. And what if that, you know, the pool floods the server room again? Goodness. Rachel Lawrence, please do not move from your seats. I want to talk to you both about the political implications of today's gargantuan ruling and the sort of ethical and moral implications as well. So please sit tight. We'll have more on all of this coming up next. Oh, man. Have a question or need how-to advice? Just ask Meta AI.

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MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell. I have an obligation to find a way of telling this story that is fresh, that has angles that haven't been used in the course of the day, to bring my experience working in the Senate, working in journalism, to try to make sense of what has happened and help you make sense of what it means to you. The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, weeknights at 10 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC.

These are corrupt people. These are people that shouldn't be allowed to do the things they do. And they're using this as weaponization against a political opponent who's up a lot in the polls and always will be. They're doing everything possible to step in a way, but we're not going to stand for it. Today, a New York judge ruled that Donald Trump and his company must pay more than $450 million, including interest, a huge penalty for his company's years-long pattern of fraud. And remember...

In addition to that truly staggering amount of money, Donald Trump still has to pay a small army of lawyers who are defending him in four criminal cases, one of which officially goes to trial next month on March 25th, right in the middle of presidential primary season. Back with me are my friends and colleagues, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell. Thank you for sticking around, guys. Rachel, I...

I think there's something really important in Judge Angoron's ruling that I'd love to get your thoughts on. It's the notion that he's making this decision not particularly out of, you know, seeking. Obviously, he's punishing the Trump organization and their fraudulent practices, but he's doing it in service of a common good. And I'll just read what he wrote. The court is not constituted to judge morality. It is constituted to find facts and apply the law.

In this particular case, in applying the law to the facts, the court intends to protect the integrity of the financial marketplace and thus the public as a whole. That idea that this is not it's yeah, it's about New York and Wall Street, but really it's about the public good. I wonder if you think that has resonance there.

politically, that that notion, whether or not that is something that resonates with an American public that might in some cases look at this and say, wow, that's a lot of money for him to pay for a crime for which there is no apparent victim.

Right. And that's what Trump and his—indeed, his defense counsel, even, in responding to the ruling today, are banking on, is this idea that, oh, Deutsche Bank is fine. Like, Deutsche Bank is fine. Yes, they didn't get paid many, many, many, many, many millions of dollars. They would have been paid had this fraud not been perpetrated on them. But they don't mind, so the fraud's OK. I mean, it's a kind of a really cynical, real politic approach that they're trying to take forward.

both in the public relations efforts that they're making around this, but also in the courtroom. And I mean, Judge Ngorin today just spelled that out in very blunt terms over and over again throughout the ruling, making clear that it's not flying in the courtroom. I think they are still hoping that it would fly in terms of the way the public perceives this.

But, you know, Alex, you made a really good point at the top of the show. I mean, this is, you know, Trump's—Trump University, which wasn't a university, has been shut down as a fraud. Trump's foundation wasn't really functioning as a charity, has been shut down as a fraud. Trump's business has been criminally convicted of fraud. Trump has been found liable personally for sexual assault.

Trump and his business now have been found liable civilly for having perpetrated a multi-hundreds of millions of dollar fraud on the people of New York and on the people who all use the same market to engage in both financial and real estate transactions. And if you can explain one of those away with a kind of cynical, real estate-specific argument,

you know, I guess more power to you. But ultimately these do, these things do start to seem like a pattern, uh,

And Trump not being trusted legally to run his own company business for three years is a bad predicate to take to the American people for please let me run the free world for four more plus. Yes, absolutely. I mean, the idea that he could run all these businesses, therefore, what was how hard was it going to be to run the American government? I mean, that has been that sort of myth making has been destroyed, Lawrence. But I do wonder, you know, in terms of

What MAGA has become, you know, at the outset of Donald Trump's political career, it was very much built on the sort of the notion that he was a tycoon. And that was, you know, that was the important part of his resume that you needed to pay attention to. I do wonder, though, whether the grievance and the rage of MAGA has eclipsed the sort of aspirational, you know, reaction

monopoly man quality that made Trump so attractive to Republicans. Well, I mean, if you're a mega Republican voter, nothing can shake you from Donald Trump and nothing in a courtroom can shake you from Donald Trump, including, by the way, his very first promise to them as a candidate. His very first promise was, I'm very rich. I don't need anyone's money to run for president.

He paused about a week and then has never spent another day of his life not asking those people for president. And we had them on MSNBC in Iowa with microphones in front of those voters. And they're saying, yeah, I'm voting for Trump because you can't buy him because he doesn't need any campaign contributions the next week. Yeah.

some of those people were sending him campaign contributions. So that is an unshakable bond that is so deeply perverse, we'll never unwind it. But, you know, Trump University was basically civilly prosecuted by the New York Attorney General during Donald Trump's

first presidential campaign. And he was promising his voters, I will never settle. I never settle. I'm too tough to settle. And then he settled for $25 million. They watched that. They voted for him. Here he is now getting hit with

20 times that, you know, in one day through the same office going after him in court. And so, you know, they are unshakable. The question is, you know, what does it mean at that margin that decides the electoral college in Michigan and Pennsylvania, Arizona, places like that? And all you can bet on is that it doesn't help at the margin. Yeah. I do wonder, Rachel,

How you think this impacts kind of the calculations that are being made right now in terms of Donald Trump as the likely nominee for the Republican Party. Right. I mean, as Lawrence outlined in the last segment, I think this ruling to some degree was expected, given that Judge Angoran found the Trump organization civilly liable for fraud at the outset of it. The number is big, but it is the number kind of in that ballpark that had been bandied about.

I mean, do you think it has a meaningful impact on someone like, say, oh, Nikki Haley, who seems to largely be in this race hedging against Donald Trump's, you know, criminal or legal exposure and potentially betting that maybe he doesn't make it to November?

I mean, I think that Nikki Haley kind of owes it to the campaign that she's run thus far to stay in no matter what happens, because who knows what's going to happen with Trump. I mean, it costs money to run a campaign, but in terms of her, like, reclaiming her place in the party, that ship has sailed. The only reason for her to stay in is if Trump gets raptured effectively. But I think the more important thing here for us as a country is—

What's going to happen to the whole Republican Party, the whole infrastructure of the RNC and everybody who mobilizes to elect a Republican president in an election year when Donald Trump is going to be waging war on the rule of law?

as part of his campaign, as the central point of his campaign. I mean, with the $100 million around the E. Jean Carroll stuff, with the $450 million around this stuff, with the four criminal trials still to come, the whole point of his campaign is going to be that the court system and the legal system and judges and court rulings are terrible, and we got to get rid of those things. Is the RNC...

Are all the donors is every Republican member of Congress going to join him in that in trying to destroy the idea of the rule of law in America and the idea that judges rulings are things that we should cover, that we should that we should follow and that court orders are things that are mandatory, that we must follow because we believe in the rule of law. Are the Republicans everywhere who have enabled him?

Also going to enable him now, when he comes after the next prosecutors and the next judges and the next jurors and the next witnesses and the next court clerks and the next freaking bailiffs or whoever else is involved in the next courtroom drama he's involved in, are all the Republicans going to line up in waging war on that branch of government too? That is the central question for the future of the country, regardless of how the election turns out.

Yeah, it's such a great point because it's going to be an unceasing stretch of courtroom trials, presumably until November. Up until this point, Lawrence,

Trump has tried to invoke Biden as the enemy behind all of this. But I think Rachel rightly points out it's not, you know, Biden's not pulling the strings here. This is the American justice system. And you can run a campaign against Joe Biden. But can you run one against the American justice system? Well, you know, the whole the whole Trump operation runs on an audience who is in who are incapable of separating fact from fiction.

So he can give them any fiction he wants and they will accept it. And then the elected officials, Republican elected officials, live not so much in fear of Trump, but they are desperately in fear of those voters who are congregated in their districts who worship Donald Trump. And that's the trap that they are in. And they are all ferocious.

Thoroughly to the bone cowardly about that and unwilling with the you know rare exceptions like Liz Cheney who pop out, you know to in any way stand up against that and so the to the question that Rachel just asked I wish I could come up with a positive answer to it, but

I'm out of it. I don't I don't see how to do that. Well, all I can say optimistically is we will see what happens. Lawrence, I hear that you are going to be hosting. It's a 10 p.m. show. It's a working Friday night. Wow. I'm going to go over to the other studio. First, the 9 p.m. show, then the 10 p.m. show. Let's do this all the time on any other night of the week. Any day you want.

Standing invitation. You know how to reach me. Please, please come back. She said with prayed clasped hands. Have a wonderful show, Lawrence. Rachel Maddow, thank you for spending part of your Friday night with us. We appreciate you.

Indeed. Thanks for having me, Alex. When we come back, the global outcry after the reported death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. His longtime friend joins me later this hour. But first, what multiple fines totaling hundreds of millions of dollars will mean for Donald Trump's bank account. The go to expert on Trump's finances, Suzanne Craig of The New York Times, joins me right after the break.

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell. I have an obligation to find a way of telling this story that is fresh, that has angles that haven't been used in the course of the day, to bring my experience working in the Senate, working in journalism, to try to make sense of what has happened and help you make sense of what it means to you. The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, weeknights at 10 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC.

Well, as far as real estate is concerned, the process I like and the reason I liked it is the creativity. I really would not like the business just to be a buyer and a seller. I like the creativity of building something. And I believe the rest is sort of a means to an end. I enjoy the financial aspects. I enjoy the financings. I enjoy the complications. But the thing I really most like is the creative process.

The thing I really most like is the creative process.

As it turns out, Donald Trump was so creative with the valuation of his assets that he's now on the hook for over $350 million. That is on top of the nearly $90 million he already owes E. Jean Carroll for defamation and sexual abuse. Altogether, these three decisions will cost Trump over $440 million, not including interest. If you add the interest from his civil fraud case, he is in for more than $540 million.

Which leads to one big question here. How is Donald Trump going to pay for all this? Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and New York Times investigative reporter Suzanne Craig joins me now. Suzanne, my mind went immediately to you predicting on this television program that you thought the

The punishment here was going to be, I think, did you say the high 300 millions? I can't remember. Let's go with that. We'll go with that. But I think I did. You knew. You knew this was going to be a big price tag. But, I mean, it does beg the question, I mean, is he even solvent? Does he have this cash?

Does he have the cash is a great question. Sorry, that is the question because he does have, he is solvent to the tune of that, but does he have the cash for that? Yeah, when you hear he's just going to push him into bankruptcy, I'm not seeing that. And cash situations are always really tricky. I covered public corporations for a long time, and I remember sometimes when they're in trouble, they'll say they have $500 million, they have a billion, whatever it is, and then the next day they'll make a withdrawal, but they'll submit a... It's a snapshot in time. Yeah.

And so we can see from the documents that were filed with the Attorney General, there's a lot of paper that went in, a lot of banking information, that he was heading into a difficult cash situation as he was entering the White House. And the reason for that is he lost a ton of money.

of these licensing deals, these one-time cash hits that he was getting that were keeping him going. And he lost them because he made very derogatory remarks about Mexicans, and a lot of his partners didn't like that, and they left. But since then, he's had some asset sales. He's sold the operating licenses to a golf course in New York, to the hotel that he used to own in D.C. He's had other

money that has come in. And he's also been quietly selling. He sold some condos in New York. He sold some land around a golf course that he owned in LA. Some things that haven't gotten as much headline that have brought cash in. But at the same time, he's got now huge financial pressures on him. Today is obviously the biggest one, but we've also written about an IRS audit

that has been going on. That is happening behind closed doors at the IRS. We don't have visibility into it. But the last reporting we did show that if it goes against him, it could cost him more than $100 million. Wow. And who knows what else could be out there. There's just things that you just never know. So can he meet this? I don't think he has probably enough cash if he's going to appeal to put it up. We'll find out. But he could get an appeal bond. But this is devastating. This is...

real number and it's on. What does it mean practically that they have appointed effectively? They've continued the retention of a babysitter, financially speaking. The independent monitor, former Judge Barbara Jones, is going to keep overseeing what's happening at the Trump Organization.

And she, in turn, is going to appoint an independent director of compliance. Like, what does that mean from a practical standpoint in terms of the Trump organization's ability to do business as, you know, fast and furiously as it might want to in a moment like this? That those days are in the rear of you, Mayor. I mean, keep in mind, this is a company. I sat through the trial. It was a criminal tax fraud trial. And they were

the Trump Organization was found guilty, there was a jury. They were, you know, paying people all these perks and cars and apartments and they weren't paying payroll tax on them. I mean, this was a fast and loose operation on that sort of stuff and on the stuff that we're seeing today about the documents that they were submitting to banks and the lies that were embedded in them.

I just, I was stunned reading through some of this filing how much of an amateur sounding operation it was, not just in the valuations, which were extraordinarily overblown, like to an almost comic level, but like, you know, the keeping of spreadsheets and data was in a file called Jeff's Supporting Data that someone named Jeff. And it was in quotation marks. Yeah, literally, like titled Jeff's Supporting Data. There it is. And like,

even when Jeff wasn't working on it and Patrick was and Patrick and Alan were still called Jeff supporting data. I mean, it's like something out of like Beavis and Butthead almost. And and yet they the sense of impunity was.

was just staggering. Yeah, I mean it really and those days are behind them. They not only have a monitor over them who is reporting into the court and there's been a lot of tension. She's had problems with how it's being run, but now they're gonna have this extra level as we go forward. I expect on appeal that the Trumps will ask for a stay of some sort that the children and Donald can still be involved.

in the business, but I don't know if that's going to happen. But this is where we're at is that they've got serious supervision. And one of the reasons that there's supervision is because at the end of the day, there may have to be a major asset sale. He owns the commercial business at Trump Tower, just to give one example.

And that may have to be liquidated. It's in all of our interest that that business is running well for the taxpayers of New York because it may have to be sold. So they want to make sure that there's that there's adults in the room running these businesses now. So Trump Tower, I've seen pictures of it mocked up to look like a spirit Halloween superstore that.

is not necessarily going to happen, but it may not be Trump Tower as we have known it in the future. Suzanne Craig, I know that you're going to you're just we're going to keep you in heavy rotation over the course of the next few days and weeks. Thank you, my friend, for the great essential reporting on all of this. When we come back, the strongman worship of the modern day Republican Party. That is next.

This is a persecution of a political opponent. The persecution of a political opponent. A persecution of a political candidate. This is nothing more than selective persecution of Biden's political opponent. Donald Trump's number one concern on the campaign trail, his bete noire, the thing he says he will not stand for, is when someone in power persecutes their political opponent.

He is, of course, talking about his own imaginary political persecution. But today we saw what the actual persecution of a political opponent looks like. Alexei Navalny, the 47-year-old anti-corruption activist and chief political rival of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has died in a Russian jail. That is according to Russia's prison service.

President Biden quickly condemned Navalny's reported death and said that President Putin is responsible for it. But there have been no words of condemnation from the de facto leader of the Republican Party. There have actually been no words at all.

Donald Trump has said nothing about Navalny or Putin except for his words late last week when he told Russia that it should feel free to go ahead and attack America's NATO allies or in his words, do whatever the hell they want. And now Putin apologia is spreading through the GOP like a cancer.

A week ago, right-wing personality Tucker Carlson sat down for a two-hour interview with Putin, which even Putin himself says was full of softball questions. Carlson has since gone viral in videos where he extols the virtues of life under Putin's authoritarianism. Stuff like, yes, there's no democracy or freedom of expression, but do they lock up their grocery carts so the unhoused can't steal them?

When pressed about Putin's habit of murdering those who oppose him or jailing them in Arctic gulags as he did Alexei Navalny before he died, Carlson said this. Every leader kills people, including my leader. Every leader kills people. Some kill more than others. Leadership requires killing people. Sorry. At a certain point, it's like people can decide whether they think, you know, what countries they think are better, what systems they think are better.

But it is no longer just people like Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson who feel the need to excuse Putin's autocratic behavior. Here was Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville parroting Putin's talking points just this week. You can tell Putin's on top of his game. One thing he said, it really rung a bell, is the propaganda media machine over here, they sell anything they possibly can to go after Russia.

The Republican Party has come to worship strongmen at a time when strongmen around the world are feeling quite emboldened. And now, with what looks like a brazen attempt by Putin to silence his rivals, how should America respond? I'll talk about that with a longtime friend of Alexei Navalny, former Russian ambassador Michael McFaul. Next. Everyone asking me this question, are you afraid? Are you going to come back to Russia? And my job is to not be afraid and go back to Russia.

That was Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020 vowing to return to Moscow just a few months after he was poisoned by a Soviet-era nerve agent for which he directly blamed Vladimir Putin. At that point, Navalny was already well known in Russia as Putin's most prominent critic and as a crusader against government corruption.

In 2021, Navalny returned to Russia knowing that he would be arrested on politically motivated charges. He was detained at the airport and had been under arrest since that day, imprisoned largely in solitary confinement in a penal colony above the Arctic Circle.

Navalny was last seen alive yesterday during a court appearance where he seemed to be in good spirits, even cracking jokes with the judge. Russian authorities claim that Navalny died after collapsing and losing consciousness.

Joining me now is former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. Ambassador McFaul, thank you for being here with us. I know you were friends with Mr. Navalny and as wrenching as this has been for me and I think everybody else who knew of him, I can't imagine what this has been like for someone who actually knew him and was friends with him. How are you grappling with this? It's shocking. I have to tell you honestly, I never thought Putin would kill Navalny.

I just was with his wife last night. I'm here in Munich and we were talking about his health, talking about that video you just showed. He was living under horrendous circumstances, much worse than I even had understood until talking to Julia, who you're showing there right now. But there was no nobody that I was talking with his team. Nobody thought he was on his deathbed.

And I just never thought they would kill him because I thought he was too strong. He was strong physically. He was strong mentally. He was strong emotionally. Obviously, I was wrong about that. And it's a really horrible day for me, for the Navalny family, but for anybody who believes in freedom in this world. Yeah, I do wonder if you think, you know,

The Kremlin understood the political, the global outrage that would follow something like this and the inevitable response that will presumably happen in the coming months and days. Well, first, let's be crystal clear about something that's getting a little bit not between us, but in general and the reporting on this. Putin killed Navalny.

We'll learn maybe, maybe not, depending, because it's Putin's Russia, what exactly happened and the autopsy and that. But let's be crystal clear about that. It wasn't somebody's accident. He put him in jail. He tried to poison him before he was in jail. Putin killed Navalny.

Now, the test will be, will the West respond, as you just said? Presumably, they will. I was very impressed with what President Biden said today. But the proof will be in, will we take real actions to try to punish Putin? And there's some very concrete things we can do today.

The House of Representatives can come off of their vacation and go back in session and pass the aid to Ukraine. What better way to respond to Putin than to reduce the killing that Putin's doing in Ukraine? I know that that's what Alexei Navalny would want.

And two, we've seized Russian assets. We've seized Putin's money, billions of dollars here in Germany, where I am today in Europe and in the United States. There's already legislation of past, by the way, Republican sponsored legislation that has passed. So let's sign that.

into law. Let's get our European allies to do the same. And let's transfer that $360 billion that Putin parked in our banks to Ukraine. I know also that that would be a response that Alex Navalny would welcome.

Yeah, I mean, the timing on this, if Putin does not want to secure, if he wants to prevent the securing of funding for Ukraine, this is not what you do. Kill Alexei Navalny because the outrage in the even in the United in the United States is palpable. Although I have to ask your opinion on the fact that Trump has said nothing. And as Trump goes so often, does the Republican Party.

Well, you know, the last piece I wrote about Alexei for The Washington Post was four years ago when Mr. Trump was president. That was the first time I used the phrase Putin is evil. And I want to remember I was berated by that for being crazy. I stand by that claim. But I also asked, why hasn't Mr. Trump spoken out back then? He was president. And I am shocked that he has not. I applaud his vice president, former Vice President Pence did. Many other Republicans have.

I am shocked that a leading nominee, the presumed nominee of one of the major parties of the greatest democracy in the world is silent on a day like today. I hope Mr. Trump will reconsider that silence. One more for you. Do you think we'll ever find out the truth of how he died? No.

No, because it's Putin's Russia. Tragically, I've had other friends that have been killed by this regime. I think of Boris Nemtsov in 2015, and for years and years and years, there was an alleged investigation into that. I suspect the same will be here. But I want to say it again.

doesn't matter exactly how he was killed. Putin arrested him. He tried to kill him before he arrested him. He put him in horrific gulag-like circumstances, listening to it from Yulia last night, just the way, the incredibly awful, sadistic circumstances under which he had to endure to live. That's what Putin did. And so what the last

straw was, I don't know, but I know for sure that Putin killed this courageous man. Michael McFaul, our condolences to you and indeed to everybody who cares about democracy. This is a tragedy.

That is our show for tonight.