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Alex Wagner: Hi everyone. As of this week, Donald Trump is officially in emperor mode. After filing an utterly garbage lawsuit earlier this year against the IRS for $10 billion in damages over the leak of his tax returns and the federal search of Mar-a-Lago, on Monday, Trump dropped his suit. It was never going to go anywhere in court, of course, but that didn’t stop Trump’s Justice Department from offering the president a sweet, sweet deal in exchange. Specifically, the Justice Department is creating a $1.776 billion fund to settle claims by people who feel they were targeted by federal prosecution. Trump is calling it the Anti-Weaponization Fund, but we might more accurately call it the Insurrectionist Slush Fund. Because you know who’s tops on the list to claim these billions in reparations? The people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

[news clip]: People are trying to breach and get to the Capitol. [overlapping chatter]

Alex Wagner: The insurrectionists who obstructed the certification of the 2020 election by smashing windows and trashing the Capitol. They had mace and firearms and explosives. Hundreds of police officers tried to hold the line defending the building. Over 170 of them were assaulted and injured during the fighting. One died in a hospital the following day. Four more died by suicide in the months that followed. Nevertheless, Trump promised to pardon the, quote, “patriots” who stormed the Capitol, and he wasted no time doing that on his very first day in office.

[clip of reporter]: Yes, sir. First, we have a list of pardons and commutations relating to events that occurred on January 6, 2021.

[clip of Donald Trump]: Okay, and how many people is this?

[clip of reporter]: I think this order will apply to approximately 1,500 people.

[clip of Donald Trump]: So this is January 6th, and these are the hostages. Approximately 1,500 for a pardon. Full pardon.

Alex Wagner: I remember that night in January very well. I was standing outside the D.C. Jail where many of those January 6th convicts were being held, and I was talking to their families and to the inmates as they were released. Do you think now that he’s pardoned everybody, he can count on this group of people again?

[clip of Trump supporter]: Oh, absolutely. I would die for the man. I would have died for him that day.

Alex Wagner: And if these convicted offenders love Trump then, just imagine their feelings about him now. The Anti-Weaponization Fund could make many of the January 6th insurrectionists very, very rich. But who gets the money and why will be up to the commissioners of this fund, whose decisions will not necessarily be made public. And those five commissioners will be appointed by the Acting Attorney General, Trump’s former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche. The commissioners can be dismissed by the president at any time, for any reason. The fund did not require judicial approval, and the White House believes it does not require congressional approval. Nor does any of this necessarily have the approval of the American public, despite whatever President Trump is now saying.

[clip of Donald Trump]: It’s been very well received, I have to tell you. I know very little about it. I wasn’t involved in the whole creation of it and the negotiation, but this is reimbursing people that were horribly treated.

Alex Wagner: So who exactly will get the funds? We know that President Trump himself can’t technically access the money, but that doesn’t mean that his family members can’t. Moreover, on Tuesday, we learned that as part of this deal, the IRS has pledged that it will no longer pursue any claims it may have against Trump or his family member and his companies over unpaid taxes. According to the New York Times, that could save Donald Trump up to $100 million in potential tax penalties. As Americans are suffering under rising inflation, exploding healthcare costs, skyrocketing fuel costs, and giving the president an abominable 28% approval rating on cost of living, the Justice Department is helping Trump evade taxes and has forked over settlements of $1 million each. To former Trump officials Michael Flynn and Carter Page. And now it is ready to spend more, hundreds of millions of dollars more on any other allies who feel somehow wronged. The outrageous deal between the Department of Justice and the president may be the most extreme example we have yet of the corruption of this White House and the ways in which the executive has decided to crown himself emperor. I’m Alex Wagner, and this week on Runaway Country, what does it mean for America when the U.S. taxpayer is forced to pay out the very people who try to upend democracy? And can anything be done to stop the Trump train from steamrolling what used to be our system of checks and balances? I’ll be talking to the brilliant Andrew Weissmann, attorney, professor, and author of the new book, Liar’s Kingdom. Andrew was of course one of the lead prosecutors in the Mueller investigation. He also led the fraud section at the DOJ. So we will be getting into the nitty-gritty and whether any of this holds up in court or in the halls of Congress. But first, what is it like to watch the creation of a reparations fund for insurrectionists? As someone who nearly died defending the Capitol. Well, to get a firsthand perspective, I am now talking to Michael Fanone, the now retired officer who was serving with the Metropolitan Police Department when the Capitol was stormed. Michael was called a traitor to the country. He was attacked and tased, and he was eventually beaten unconscious. What does he think about President Trump’s hero worship and potential payouts to the same people who beat him? Here’s our conversation. Michael, for people who have forgotten, including and especially this administration, can you remind us of what happened to you on January 6th?

Michael Fanone: Yeah, so first, um, little background on my law enforcement career. I began my career with the United States Capitol police, uh, immediately after 9/11, like many Americans, I was inspired to serve. I served with U.S. capitol police for one year from 2001 to 2002. I loved the career, hated the job. So I left and went to the more traditional law enforcement agency here in Washington, DC. Which is the Metropolitan Police Department, where I served for the next 19 years. I worked primarily in special mission units, small units, focusing on violent crime and narcotics trafficking. And on January 6th, 2021, my day was supposed to entail an undercover drug buy as part of a heroin investigation that my office was involved in. The furthest thing from my mind or my area of responsibility was what was taking place at the ellipse in the stop the steal rally hosted by Donald Trump and his supporters. But obviously history had something different in store for me. So yeah, I responded to the Capitol on January 6th, I self deployed. I heard the distress calls coming out from dozens upon dozens of officers and officials at the Capitol who had been overrun and were being violently assaulted by Donald Trump supporters who were fueled by his lies that the election had been stolen. And as a result, I was pulled from a police line. I was dragged down into the crowd. I was restrained, violently beaten, and struck several times on the neck with a Taser device. Ultimately, I was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and a heart attack. And, you know, for all intents and purposes, that spelled the end of my law enforcement career. And not so much because of the physical injuries, but obviously I’ve become a very outspoken truth teller, if you will, about the reality of January 6th and where we are as a country and the threat that this administration poses to our democracy. And that did not mesh well with being a police officer in Washington D.C. And so after returning to full duty in November of 2021, I quit after about a month and left the department and I have not been back since.

Alex Wagner: I’m, first of all, just so sorry. It’s every time, you know, I’ve talked to you before and every time you tell me the story, first of, it’s just a gut punch every time. And I’m so sorry that you had to go through that. And I am also so grateful that you’re speaking. Openly and honestly about how you understand that moment and what you think the whitewashing of that moment has done to us as a society. I was outside DC jail on the night that Trump pardoned all the insurrectionists from January 6th. And I know how I felt sort of watching that happen, but how did you feel when the president made good on a campaign promise to let them all go?

Michael Fanone: I mean, I was angry, but, um, I was not surprised. I, and in fact, I was more angry at the people that were surprised than I was with Donald Trump himself for doing it. Um, you know, I watched when Donald Trump announced his candidacy in Waco, Texas, the scene of a violent confrontation between American law enforcement officers and right wing extremists, uh, that resulted in of many law enforcement officers. And so when he promised to pardon the great patriots, as he called them, and the heroes of January 6th, I knew that if he was elected, that he was going to carry out that promise.

Alex Wagner: So yeah, I think it’s probably natural to be frustrated with people who are incredulous about something that Trump promised explicitly on the campaign trail and made no bones about, but the—

Michael Fanone: Also, I had been traveling the country for the better part of four years at that point, trying to educate people about January 6th and the reality of that day, but it was an insurmountable task. I mean, I was going up against a media empire in Fox News and all of these right wing uh, extremist media networks that were pumping Americans full of lies and a false reality. And so I knew just from having taken the temperature of the country that one, the vast majority of Americans didn’t give a shit about January 6th because it didn’t affect them. And two, a huge swath of the American people thought that the people that stormed the Capitol that day were justified in doing so.

Alex Wagner: Okay, so to that end, Trump at the end of last week and the beginning of the week, we really get information about what is being called the anti-weaponization fund, which I think would be better termed an insurrectionist slush fund. But what did you think when you first heard about this thing? Like, what was your immediate reaction? Because this wasn’t something he had talked about on the campaign trail.

Michael Fanone: Well, first I was glad that I filed an extension on my taxes and I’ll make the decision in, you know, come October as to whether I’m paying into this bullshit.

Alex Wagner: Yeah, I mean, I can imagine.

Michael Fanone: I mean, listen, it’s outrageous. At some point, I think that it’s not productive to continue to blame the administration for doing things that the administration has said it was going to do all along and focusing on defeating the administration and defeating those Americans that would support this type of unconstitutional lawless and I think most importantly, inhumane and cruel behavior. I’ll be honest with you, recently my focus has been on Democrats who are just not doing enough to stand in the breach and fight back. Because to me, we only have one legitimate political party left in this country. And while I might not be ideologically aligned with each and every one of them, to me they’re the only political tool that we have to try to defeat this without violence. And so, you know, once we lose a political solution, what do we have left?

Alex Wagner: Yeah, well, yeah, violence. Why do you think the president wanted to do this now?

Michael Fanone: Personally, I think that it has to do with, you know, it’s coming on the heels of the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act.

Alex Wagner: Yeah.

Michael Fanone: And I think it’s basically thumbing their nose or laughing at people of color in this country who have been pushing for reparations for literally hundreds of years. You know, quite frankly, deservedly so. But it’s saying that, you know, we, we made this argument for decades that it couldn’t be done. And then in the stroke of a pen and a day, Donald Trump sets aside, you know, $1.776 billion to pay a bunch of angry white dudes that stormed the Capitol on January 6th. And so I think that’s the, you know, in their mind, like that’s the joke, the joke of it all.

Alex Wagner: Well, it also is a signal to anybody who wants to disrupt an election that you’ll get pardoned and paid.

Michael Fanone: Yes. I mean, as if pardoning them wasn’t enough, I’ve told everyone that, you know, anytime you try to engage with like a Scott Jennings type who wants to argue that, you know this both sides, the left is more responsible for normalizing political violence in this country or advocating for it. No, that’s insane. That’s absurd. Donald Trump supports, advocates for political violence actively. Not in overt or subvert terms or, you know, in veiled messaging. He says it overtly. And then he acts on it by absolving those individuals of criminal culpability. And then, you now, as if to add insult to injury or throwing salt on the wound, he goes a step further and sets up a fund to pay those individuals for having committed crimes on his behalf.

Alex Wagner: That you’re gonna pay for. Like that’s probably the most galling thing when you say, I haven’t paid my taxes.

Michael Fanone: I’m not going to tell you whether I pay for it or not.

Alex Wagner: Right, in theory. [laughter[ But in theory, you, Michael Fanone, are supposed to be paying the people that beat and tased you on January 6th.

Michael Fanone: Yeah.

Alex Wagner: And this is to be rectifying an injustice? It is textbook injustice itself.

Michael Fanone: Alex, the really injustice is that more Americans aren’t outraged by this administration and it’s unconstitutional and inhumane behavior. It’s hard to complain about a slush fund being set up when you have, you know, vulnerable communities in this country, constantly being targeted by the administration and having them roll back rights that were literally fought, bled, and, you, know, lives sacrificed for. It was disgusting to me that, you know, that the Independence Bridge should have fallen under the weight of the amount of Americans that participated in that march. There should have been millions. Every fucking Democrat member of Congress should have be down there marching because this is a national disgrace and an outrage. But you know, it’s gonna it’s going to continue in this country until Americans wake up and realize that they’re going to have to be uncomfortable and they’re gonna have to ante up and kick in. They’re gonna to have prioritize civil engagement and they are probably going to end up having to prioritize civil disobedience.

Alex Wagner: Let me ask you one more thing. The anti-weaponization fund, the slush fund, the sort of rules governing the disbursement of funds are pretty hazy, but it sounds like, you know, they’re saying it’s distinctly non-partisan, it’s non-political. Like, you could theoretically, I mean, given the harassment and the, well, the physical pain that you’ve endured, the mental anguish, the professional, you know harm that you you’ve had to whether, I mean, you could apply for the slush fund money and arguably would deserve some, has it ever crossed your mind?˜

Michael Fanone: No, I don’t want anything from this administration. And quite frankly, I didn’t want anything from our government period. I wouldn’t take any money if Joe Biden was the president. I certainly wouldn’t, uh, waste my time trying to apply. And that, you know, listen, I applaud Harry Dunn and Danny Hodges. Those two are, uh real fighters and I will always consider them to be, you know brothers in arms, so to speak. I don’t have any faith in the court system in this country. I think it’s corrupted, I think it’s corroded, and I think its beyond repair. And so I’m not going to waste my time with a frivolous effort. At least that’s how I view it. But I do, I think everybody needs to be doing everything. And if that’s the way that they want to pursue justice, then I’m all for it. I think once it gets to the Supreme Court, it’ll be dismantled, shot down. Trump will be allowed to pay these people. I mean, the other thing too, is like watching members of Congress. I mean there’s a few that are appropriately outraged, but for the vast majority, certainly on the Republican side, but from the vast majority, treating it as though, like you said, it was some type of a bipartisan effort. Are you insane? Like are these people actually insane? We have Donald Trump’s personal attorney cosplaying as the attorney general of the United States who says that this is going to be a an impartial review board set up, they pardoned 1,500 violent criminals with a stroke of a pen without so much as reviewing a single solitary case. I remember vividly on Air Force One when the reporter, I forget his name, asked Donald Trump about my case in which Daniel Rodriguez drove a stun gun into my neck multiple times on January 6th. And whether or not that individual deserved to be pardoned. And Donald Trump responded, we’ll look into it. That was after he had already pardoned them. There was no looking into shit. Donald Trump didn’t care. He did exactly what you implied, which was he pardoned these people and now he’s creating this fund because he wants them to engage in violence around the midterm elections, because they can’t lose. They can’t loose. If they lose the midterm elections, then they could be subjected to oversight, real oversight, and accountability. And they all know they’ve committed crimes. Everyone in Donald Trump’s orbit knows they’ve committed crimes, Steve Bannon admitted it. If we lose the midterm elections. A lot of us in this room are going to go to prison. Now, listen, I, the Democrats don’t have the greatest track record when it comes to holding Donald Trump accountable, but they’re all we got. They’re all we’ve got. So, you know, fingers crossed. But… I think they’re going to throw absolutely everything that they can at us, the American people, to try to prevent us from voting them out of office. And it’s already begun.

Alex Wagner: Well, Michael Fanone, I have to say your rage or your anger or your frustration, I should say, is palpable and completely understandable. And I think you speak for a lot of us in your indignation. But certainly your specific history on this makes you so compelling. And I’m so grateful for you sharing your thoughts and being so honest about your feelings on this.

Michael Fanone: Appreciate that. I just was to get to say I hope nobody came into this interview expecting like sunshine’s rainbows and unicorns.

Alex Wagner: We knew we booked Michael Fanone.

Michael Fanone: I’m the doom and gloom guy.

Alex Wagner: No, you’re just a lightning bolt. [laughter] I’m looking forward to the day.

Michael Fanone: I’m the ghost of Christmas yet to come.

Alex Wagner: I look forward to the day when it’s sunshine and rainbows. I don’t know when that’s going to be, but I look forward to that day.

Michael Fanone: Me too.

Alex Wagner: Michael, thank you so much. Thank you for being one of the very few who were there that day to speak out so passionately and vociferously and compellingly. I’m really grateful for your time.

Michael Fanone: Thank you very much.

Alex Wagner: After the break, we will put this all into context with lawyer and thinker, Andrew Weissmann.

[AD BREAK]

Alex Wagner: There are a couple of people that you can hear from all the time and still it’s never enough. And Andrew Weissmann is one of those people. And on this topic in particular, there’s literally nobody else I wanna talk to other than Michael Fanone, but we’re talking to him too. Andrew, thank you for joining Runaway Country again. I think you may be the first repeat guest we’ve had.

Andrew Weissmann: Really? So you really meant it when you said—

Alex Wagner: I really did. I really did. That was not just the usual bullshit. That was legit. Speaking, however, of bullshit.

Andrew Weissmann: Well, wait, I wanted to say something. I loved coming on your show and there is nobody who I loved more being there in person and live because I want to make sure people understand. There was an actual conversation. You were actually, what is it, like actively listening? Because sometimes, you know, somebody prepares and they have like, they’re gonna ask you five questions. And kind of no matter what you say, the next question is like question two and then question three, which is fine. I mean, it looks like they have things they wanna get through. So I’m not really denigrating it, but it’s so great when it’s just real life and you’re just, anyway.

Alex Wagner: Talking to someone.

Andrew Weissmann: It’s great. Yeah.

Alex Wagner: Well, like I really do mean, I really did want to talk to you about all of this because I, you know, I think all of our eyeballs have been popped out of our heads for a quite some time in the Trump years. But really, I had to pick mine up from off of the ground when I read about this slush fund. And the more detail we’ve gotten about the agreement that Trump made with the Department of Justice, which should be renamed, honestly, like the Department of Justice, it doesn’t seem sufficient.

Andrew Weissmann: And it’s hard to also think of the language as, oh, it’s a settlement agreement. It’s an agreement. Can I just give you my take on this? It’s theft. It’s just theft, and it’s theft of public money, period, the end. And then, as you said, this sort of chef’s kiss of all of it is the president can’t pardon civil offenses, right? He can only pardon criminal offenses. So you just know that somebody was thinking, okay, how do we get around that problem? Oh, wait, we’re just gonna have the Department of Justice issue general civil liability releases. So, oh, they wanna look at us for a tax liability, a stroke of a pen, that’s gone. Oh, wait, they wanted to look at my family members tax liability. Stroke of a pen that’s gone because he doesn’t have the pardon power for that. So he’s like, oh, I have a way around that. This is corruption squared. It’s crazy.

Alex Wagner: Well, I used to call him the mad king, but it’s really some Napoleonic, I am the emperor. I will take what I want. This is not a democracy. This is my fiefdom, and I will take what I want. And there will be no hiding it. I mean, there will no hiding. It’s amazing to me that this stuff, these agreements have been posted on the DOJ website, that they’re not even trying to hide what is so clearly theft.

Andrew Weissmann: Although they are apparently still going to hide who’s going to get the money.

Alex Wagner: Well, right.

Andrew Weissmann: We don’t know that for sure, but it’s certainly not required that they do this all out in the public. But to your point about it’s all sort of mine, and this French king of it all, which is the [unknown] which was like Louis XIV, it was like the state is me. I was thinking back to the Mar-a-Lago case, and I think both of us were old enough to remember that case. And the whole. Defense in that case was, what are you talking about? I didn’t take government documents because I am the government, they’re mine.

Alex Wagner: They’re my documents.

Andrew Weissmann: In the same way, it’s like he could have just taken the painting of George Washington off of the White House and been like, I’m hanging it in Mar-a-Lago because wait, it was all mine. And that’s why I really think of this as theft. It’s like, it isn’t all his, it is public fisc—money but it’s like he went to Fort Knox took out the gold and was like who wants them because I’m going to I’m going to create a commission I’m gonna say it’s um it is an objective commission I’m, going to appoint the five people and by the way if they don’t do if they don’t, do what I want I can also replace them and like off wait to continue the—

Alex Wagner: I was just saying [both speaking] off with their head, they’re out. Yeah, perhaps off. I don’t know the beheading, who knows, but beheadings are not on offer, but certainly these people can be dismissed or fall through a hole in the ground, as soon as Trump decides that their time is up. Okay, let’s start at the beginning of this because this starts with this farkakteh, that’s an official legal term, legal.

Andrew Weissmann: God, it’s like you went to law school.

Alex Wagner: It did. I went to TV law school. Trump files a lawsuit basically with himself, with the DOJ alleging wrongdoing, damages, seeking $10 billion in damages for both the leak of his tax returns and funny you should bring up Mar-a-Lago, but the federal search at Mar-A-Logo looking for documents that they did, in fact, procure that he did not legally have, was not legally entitled to.

Andrew Weissmann: And it was a court-authorized search.

Alex Wagner: Search, exactly. There was a search warrant.

Andrew Weissmann: Even Judge Cannon couldn’t find that that was improper.

Alex Wagner: Even Aileen.

Andrew Weissmann: That tells you a lot.

Alex Wagner: It does. That’s the lowest bar there is in the federal judiciary. The judge in that lawsuit case sounded skeptical that the parties were actually adversarial because they weren’t. And it sounded like she was about to toss out the lawsuit. All of a sudden there’s this agreement where Trump drops a lawsuit in exchange for the slush fund and the promise that the IRS is never going to investigate Trump on his taxes or his family members on their taxes. Is that the timing? Is it basically that Trump’s lawyers were like, you’re about to lose this case. If you want to get anything out of it, you better make an agreement now with the DOJ.

Andrew Weissmann: What I would say is what he lost when the judge made it clear that she was not playing ball. And she was like, you know, there’s no adversity here. The plaintiffs and the defendants are on the same side. So look, this is one and the same. And she had cited all these cases for it. And good for her for sort of pointing that out. Is that if she then said I’m dismissing this because, you know, that the plaintiff is Donald Trump and the defendant is Donald Trump and so this is all one in the same, is they lose the fig leaf of saying to the public, oh, this is a settlement agreement. Now, what’s crazy is it’s not a settlement agreements. So during that, that you have the timing completely right. But while the judge was saying, I want you to brief this issue about adversity, she received various filings, including by sort of what’s called amicus friends of the court. And I’m not gonna get too wonky, but here is the one amicus brief that I thought it was just tells you how pretextual, like how much this is a fig leaf. And it was a filing by former IRS and DOJ tax people. And they pointed out that the IRS and the DOJ are currently fighting claims just like Donald Trump’s, including based on the same leaker, the same contractor who had leaked information. And they pointed out that the IRS is fighting that because their position is this is entirely bogus. For Donald Trumps claim, here’s like just one quick defense that was given up, that we the public have. Donald Trump, even if this was a meritorious claim, he was supposed to file his claim within two years of the leak. Well, he missed that by a mile. And so that means he’s out. And so as I’ve been joking, like my sort of famous line is I don’t do math in public, but this is the math that I will do in public. Zero dollars is less than 1.776 billion.

Alex Wagner: Yeah.

Andrew Weissmann: I’m going out on a limb there. But that tells you what is going on, that this was a pretext that they needed this fig leaf of, oh, I’m settling this. And even that is crazy. Let’s assume that Donald Trump could get through all of these legal hurdles. Let’s just assume that he even was injured a little bit, which he hasn’t shown by some leak of tax returns. And let’s assume all of that happened though, and let’s give him that he’s owed $100,000. Like, what does that have to do with $1.776 billion and being released from ever being liable for your own civil tax liability? So let’s assume he has committed tax fraud to the tune of $100 million. Let’s just take…

Alex Wagner: Oh yes, and the New York Times reports that this gets Trump off the hook, potentially, for as much as $100 million.

Andrew Weissmann: Right. But it makes you realize that there’s no relationship to, oh, somebody leaked information who is an employee of a contractor. And because of that, you can’t look at me for any civil tax liability I ever committed or my family committed or my business is committed. There’s no connection between that. It is just.

Alex Wagner: Well, they both have the word tax in them.

Andrew Weissmann: Oh, that is such a.

Alex Wagner: That’s it.

Andrew Weissmann: It’s, yeah, that is.

Alex Wagner: They both, those both use the word tax and therefore in Trump’s mind, they’re connected.

Andrew Weissmann: So you try and put a rational grid on this and you try, and sort of like, you know, my world is like explaining, oh, here’s how to like legally what’s going on. It is just theft. And it is done with the complicity of Todd Blanche, who, and I know everyone says, oh, he’s acting as Donald Trump’s personal attorney, but he really is. And one thing I’ve been pointing out to people is when I was a defense lawyer, I mean, everyone knows me as a prosecutor, but I also was a defense lawyer for 10 years. I have a continuing duty of loyalty to each and every one of my clients. The fact that your representation ends sort of like, I’m not going to go to court for them or something like that doesn’t end the relationship and your duty ethically. This is by the way, this is like a given that you have these duties. So. This is why there’s been public reporting that the head of the ethics office at the justice department had said to Todd Blanche and others what they can do and what they can’t do and not taking on in Todd’s case cases that relate to the president. And guess what happened to that guy.

Alex Wagner: No longer there. Well, and I will say the other thing that happened, which got sort of buried in all of this as we talk about the hollowing out and the be-clowning of the Justice Department is Brian Morrissey, who is the top treasury lawyer, resigned on Monday. Like it’s other agencies realize the error in all of this and I think that there is, you know, on one level it’s so understandable the quiet indignation, right? Like you don’t want to stick your neck out if you’re still quietly trying to preserve what’s left of the guardrails. But at a certain point… You know, reasonable people look at this and they’re like, this is criminal, this is theft, we gotta go.

Andrew Weissmann: Yeah, I mean, everyone has their line. It’s obvious that’s what happened here because the fact that he left without any notice only after seven months and he didn’t issue any sort of statement, that’s the statement. I mean you know exactly why he left. And that’s because he is defending the IRS cases that are just like Donald Trump’s where he’s saying they’re meritless. And so suddenly they turn around and say, oh, I want you to now say, this one’s okay, and give up all of these legal arguments. Even he had to be like, well, I can’t do that. I mean, this is what the rule of law means that likes are treated alike. I mean, that’s that is like—

Alex Wagner: That’s what the word rule is. It’s applicable to multiple cases. I’m just pointing out small vocabulary, just like words, some of them have meaning.

Andrew Weissmann: Totally, totally. But I think that’s Aristotle, who like, you know, his thing was like, need to be treated alike as the sort of bedrock of the rule of law. And so this is just the antithesis. And that’s why he’s like, I can’t do this. This is just theft. And again, my my view of what’s going on.

Alex Wagner: I was stunned by the wording of the DOJ’s enforcement order of this slush fund, which says the following for people who haven’t read it. Once the funds, that would be $1.776 billion, are deposited into the designated account, the United States, as in DOJ, has no liability whatsoever for the protection or safeguarding of those funds, regardless of bank failure, fraudulent transfers, or any other fraud or misuse of the funds. That’s like a legalese for we wash our hands of this. Is that what is happening there?

Andrew Weissmann: Can I just say, like, you can write that, but that’s not the way the law works. I mean, you don’t get to say. So, you know, I’ve got, I wrote on a piece of paper that I’m going to kill you, but I just want to write down that I have no legal liability for that. It doesn’t work that way. And by the way, I actually think the sort of general release, you know this sort of idea that, oh, you can’t ever sue him for any civil liability. I don’t think that’s going to work. I think that is the kind of thing that the next administration, if we have a sort of normal administration, Republican or Democratic, but normal. Um, that piece of paper is not going to be worth the paper it’s printed on. I mean, someone’s going to go, it’s completely collusive. A judge is going to have the most complete record in the world to show that. I mean there’s no, for all the reasons we talked about, I mean I’m not going to continue to get triggered over this. It’s like, this is. You know, a document that is just, it’s as if Donald Trump wrote it himself to say, I just, you know want the world and no one could ever sue me. Well, I know he doesn’t wanna be sued. I know doesn’t want to be liable, but this is not the pardon power. This is not something in the constitution that he has unilateral ability and right to do. This is something that a judge will be able to second guess and a new administration will be be able to second guess.

Alex Wagner: I mean, Todd Blanche is a lawyer, like that’s coming out of the DOJ. These enforcement orders and the parts of the agreement that you’re talking about, the releasing Trump from any tax liabilities, is stuff that’s come out of a DOJ, like lawyers wrote that. So what are they doing?

Andrew Weissmann: So this would not be the first thing where you’re, as you said, you’re like, in my case, I’d say that my jaw was clattering to the ground. So I think that’s two things. One, if you’re Todd Blanche and assuming the acumen, I’m not gonna be catty, but assuming he’s got the right acumen to sort of assess that these are issues, it’s sort of like, well, what’s the harm? What’s the arm of asking for the sun and the moon? And here’s the benefit. I get to, as a performative thing, get to say, look what I gave you, boss. Like, here’s this piece of paper, you know, down the road.

Alex Wagner: You can kill someone and you can’t be prosecuted for it.

Andrew Weissmann: You know, when it down the road, it, you know, it gets thrown out. That’s like well after I’ve gotten the brass ring of the attorney general slot. But, you, this is one where, you know, he’s got to know better.

Alex Wagner: I mean, it’s insane. It’s not in the constitution. They’re just making up. I mean it is like Napoleon crowning himself emperor.

Andrew Weissmann: But it’s very similar to sort of Stephen Miller. I sort of view this as, we’re just gonna do whatever we’re gonna do and who’s gonna stop us and we’re going to do it until we actually have to stop because of either politics or the Supreme Court has said it, and that’s one of the last sort of third rails that, that, you know, they are not going to sort of directly violate. And so it’s very much, we need some fig leaves, because we’re not just going to up and publicly say, we’re violating your order, like we’re not gonna say we’re violating the law, they need some crazy fig leaf, even though it’s, but it, but I think it all comes from that we’re going to do whatever the hell we want. Until someone stops us.

Alex Wagner: More of my conversation with author and lawyer, Andrew Weissmann, right after this short break.

[AD BREAK]

Alex Wagner: When you talk about who could stop this, right? There’s obviously the question of another administration. There’s the question of what happens after the midterms of Democrats regain control of Congress, which actually has the power of the purse, not the president, as he would like to think. Two former officers who were involved in the January 6th insurrection, Harry Dunn from the US Capitol Police and Daniel Hodges of the DC police have filed a lawsuit against the fund, the slush fund. They say that the Trump administration, and this is from their filing, has created a slush-fund to finance the insurrectionists and paramilitary groups that commit violence in his name. It names the lawsuit as defendants Donald Trump, Todd Blanche, and the Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent. What do you think of the lawsuit? What’s the likelihood that it goes anywhere?

Andrew Weissmann: The issue in the lawsuit is this is now sort of technical stuff, which is standing.

Alex Wagner: Right.

Andrew Weissmann: It’s like who can complain? And this is, this is something that’s going to innervate non-lawyers, which is all of us are harmed by what’s going on. Every single taxpayer is harmed, but there’s no such thing as taxpayer standing. In other words, No, you can’t just have any taxpayer in the country saying, well, this harms me because I don’t want my money spent on that, or there’s no really good reason to have my money spent on X. No, it’s not just a policy decision. It’s like you violated the law in how you were spending my money. And as you said, the people who both could change the law are Congress, but also Congress can sue. But it’s not just one or two members of Congress. It’s a little bit like the same idea of not any taxpayer. You need to have the majority, you need to it be an action of Congress, and so it is a good reason to go out and vote if you think that this is outrageous, because it’s just that the law could be changed, but they’re actually then is standing to sue.

Alex Wagner: And if you don’t think it’s outrageous, maybe stay home and don’t vote. Just kidding. Just kidding. [laughs]

Andrew Weissmann: Yeah, no, I’m big on that everyone should vote and do their thing, okay.

Alex Wagner: Fine, fine. Sure, sure. Yeah, I know. I get it. You’re right.

Andrew Weissmann: But there may be people, there are a lot of inventive lawyers out there, and there may be people who come up with interesting, creative ways to think about standing. And I’ll give you one. And it’s both serious and half joking. And I should have disclosed this earlier to Alex. So I want to just apologize to you that I didn’t disclose. One reason that I think what Trump is doing may be personally terrific. So I was the subject of two presidential executive orders. And let’s just say they were not flattering. And one of them was directed at Jenner & Block. And one the main sins of Jenner & Block was that they did something really, truly outrageous, which is they hired me. And that led to it being one of several law firms that were the subject of executive orders. But you’ll remember, those came out in the beginning of Trump 2.0, and there were four law firms that were subject to four separate executive orders, and each of them challenged it. There were four separate decisions within, I think, one week. In front of judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans. And each and every one was struck down as unconstitutional, a violation of the First Amendment. And the one that where I was named, Judge Bates, a federal judge, a Republican federal judge highly respected. And I’m saying this not just because of the decision that he gave, but he said that I was a victim of the executive order because, that my personal First Amendment rights were violated. So I am going to take that decision, which establishes that I am a victim of weaponization of the Trump administration. And it seems like I have a pretty darn good claim. Now, that-

Alex Wagner: For this slush fund.

Andrew Weissmann: Yeah, exactly. Now, I wanna, the reason I’m raising this is not just to be sort of funny, although it is funny. If I don’t say so myself—

Alex Wagner: It’s ironic. It’s quite ironic. Although I do think, Andrew, correct me if I’m wrong, the funds are only available to people persecuted under the Biden administration.

Andrew Weissmann: No. So Todd Blanche when he testified the other day, said anyone in the United States can apply and it’s for any weaponization and it is not political. So yes, that falls into a sure.

Alex Wagner: Next time I talk to you, you’re going to have your own podcasting studio paid for by the American public.

Andrew Weissmann: Oh, yeah, I’ll be like, I’d be like talk to my publicist. And, you know, it’s just exactly he has no time. He’s like jetting off to anyway. So this is my point that to get to something serious about how what a creative lawsuit could be. And I expect we will see this is if you have this five member board appointed by Donald Trump and his amanuensis, Todd Blanche, and by the way, if they don’t do the right thing, as we talked about, off with their heads. So if they are only giving it to the really worthy people who were convicted on January 6, the sort of people like, you know, this sort of Mike Flynn’s of the world who already has received over a million dollars, even though he said and was found guilty based on his own guilty plea, before he then said, no, I didn’t mean it when I said I was guilty, so I want my plea back. I mean, that’s just sort of what happened in this case. So he got over a million dollars already. So we sort of know where this money is gonna go. But when this gets adjudicated where you have this board giving money only to sort of J6ers, but… The sort of Jerome Powell’s, Letitia James, James Comey’s of the world who don’t, who put in claims to see is there a problem in how this is being done, they will have a claim. And there are all sorts of ways to bring that lawsuit and that will go to court.

Alex Wagner: Wait, can I interrupt you, Andrew? I mean, you talked, you mentioned this before and it’s unclear based on what the acting attorney general has said. Are we gonna know who even, we’ll know who doesn’t get their claims approved, but are we gonna who does get their claim approved? I mean if that information is withheld.

Andrew Weissmann: I think we will. So there’s a statute called the Freedom of Information Act. And people like our colleagues, MS Now, The New York Times, all sorts of people are going to be filing for that. Congress is entitled to know. This is public money. I mean, just to be like, this is coming from the public. I mean I have, by the way, one point on that I’d like to make, which is great. But I think, we will know that. And also. If you are suing to say, well, I didn’t get this and I think it’s because of reason X, you are gonna be able to say I want discovery to show this disparity. Okay, I wanna just say something about the 1.8 billion and it’s, this isn’t rock solid and it depends on how a judge rules on this, but. This is supposed to be money under Donald Trump’s theory. In other words, take this as a given. I think it’s all BS in my view, but this is his theory. I am getting $1.8 billion as a settlement of my claim. And this is money that’s due to me and the other plaintiffs, my children. And so that’s why we’re getting it. I then am saying I want this money to be used for purpose acts, as if it’s like, you know, I’m going to go buy a house, I’m gonna do this. But he’s saying, no, I am going to set up a weaponization fund. But that’s sort of secondary. The first reason that’s called a settlement agreement, because it’s a settlement of Donald Trump’s personal claim against the IRS. Is he going to declare the $1.8 billion, sorry to round up. Let’s even say, is he going declare $1,700,000,000 as income?

Alex Wagner: Interesting because just because it’s not getting paid to him doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have to claim it. And thus, the IRS can never investigate Donald Trump. I mean, is that why there’s that second provision that we learned about?

Andrew Weissmann: It could be, but that, as I said, I think that provision is not going to hold up. I really think that is just one where a judge can be like that’s not, that really is not worth the paper it’s printed on. I mean, that’s just like you writing your own release. A release has to come from somebody who’s adverse where there’s something at stake, who gave up something for something else. And this is one where the record is gonna look so bad. You know who would be one of my first witnesses would be the general counsel of the IRS who resigned.

Alex Wagner: Right.

Andrew Weissmann: To say, like, Let’s go through the facts that led you to resign.

Alex Wagner: Blanche brings up, they love pointing to things that were done under Obama or Biden as the predicates for all of this. And he keeps referencing a fund under the Obama White House, which was called the Keepseagle case. Do you know about that? I actually don’t know about that. And I wonder if there’s, other than the word case, is there any common thread binding what Trump is doing to what Obama did?

Andrew Weissmann: Their short answer is no, but there is one way that it is related and there’s an irony there. But this is why it’s total bullshit to that’s like another technical term you learn in law school, to why this is just nonsense. There’s nothing wrong when there’s a real case with a real harm. Where there’s real liability to having a settlement. That is what happens. The problem here is that there is no real case and there is no real settlement and you have the same. Donald Trump has said himself that he is on both sides of this case. I mean, when we brought the case, he said, it’s just funny, I’m suing myself. I mean he was quite aware of that issue. And that is just not you can’t then point to a real case. So what what Todd Blanch was saying is, well, I’m pointing to a different aspect of that case. And he said I’m pointing to the aspect that not all the money in that case eventually made it to the plaintiffs because it was some of it was given to sort of causes that would help plaintiffs and and people who have the same sort of interests as plaintiffs. Now there is, it wasn’t sort of a direct. Okay, these people were harmed, they get the money. And that piece is similar to what’s going on here. But again, it’s sort of irrelevant, except for this little irony. When Attorney General Sessions, the first Attorney General under Donald Trump became the Attorney General. One of the first things he did, it’s a September 2017 memo, is he said, no more. We’re not doing those settlements. We do not wanna see settlements being used to benefit causes or people who are not these sort of actual plaintiffs or direct victims. And so he was like, we can’t, we’re doing this anymore. So the irony of Todd Blanche then saying, oh, we’re looking back to a case that we publicly denigrated.

Alex Wagner: Yeah.

Andrew Weissmann: Because it was essentially the concern was, oh, it’s creating sort of a slush fund, and you’re using this to help these people. So—

Alex Wagner: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, who now lives in a grandfather clock down at Mar-a-Lago. We miss ya. I can’t believe I’m even saying that. Well, I’m not. But wow, the irony.

[AD BREAK]

Alex Wagner: Okay, I have one more question before we talk about your book, Liar’s Kingdom. The timing on all this remains unclear. There are lawsuits being filed. There’s an election in November. The numbers that we got this week in terms of Trump’s approval rating and Democrats’ advantage on a generic ballot are equally eyeball-dropping on the floor, jaw-shattering.

Andrew Weissmann: Yeah.

Alex Wagner: If Congress is held with the power in both houses, let’s just say both for the sake of argument, by Democrats, they can stop this, right?

Andrew Weissmann: Absolutely. They can have hearings, they can make things public. So they can bring a lawsuit on this. I mean, that’s the number one thing. And one of the advantages of that is they can have a court that exposes this. They could also actually pass a law, which I think Congress right now views what’s going on as an actual violation of what’s called the Anti-Deficiency Act. As you said Congress has the power of the purse, the government has to use the money as directed by Congress. Obviously, there was no pot of money directed to paying out this 1.776 billion dollars in this way. But they also, if there was any question, can pass a law that says no. And this is the kind of thing, again, I’m a lawyer, not a political analyst, but to me, the more attention that’s paid to something like this, the better. And that’s something where I think one of the things that the Republicans are very good at is being dogs with a bone. And so it’s like, you know, Hillary’s emails, Hillary emails, no matter what’s going on in the world. It’s like the answer to every question that you asked me Alex is Hillary’s emails.

Alex Wagner: Totally.

Andrew Weissmann: And so they’re just very good at keeping people focused on the issue that they think is important. And by the way, I did think there was an issue with Hillary’s emails, but it all looks so ridiculously quaint right now, you know, given that not only is it going on, you know, up one side and down the other people in the White House, we’re seeing so much, so much worse. But I digress. So if the House and the Senate changes, there are real remedies that can be can be brought to bear so that this does not go on. I mean, this is so antithetical to the rule of law.

Alex Wagner: And it’s politically, I think, disastrous, which gets it, which is a nice, as we talk about politics and the art of political deceit, let us talk about Liar’s Kingdom, which has the best and most inspiring subhead ever how to stop Trump’s deceit and save America. If you’re not reading this, this is a good week to start everyone. The alarm bells are ringing. In fact, the alarm bells may have broken the sound barrier. There it is.

Andrew Weissmann: There it is. It’s really interesting. I know that you were writing a book too. And I’m actually, folks should know. I’m not going to, we’ll do this again, but it’s so good.

Alex Wagner: Oh, God bless you. It’s available for pre-order now. It’s called The Steal. Four right-wing hardliners, one Republican presidency, and the raid on America’s courts. Okay, let’s talk about your book, though.

Andrew Weissmann: Okay. One of the things, and a friend of mine sort of reminded me and said, Andrew. Just remember the core of what is going on with the slush fund is to continue and to perpetrate the whitewashing of January 6th.

Alex Wagner: Yes.

Andrew Weissmann: That they claim that they are, the quote from the president and from the Department of Justice is that was a grave national injustice.

Alex Wagner: Yes.

Andrew Weissmann: These are people, do you remember where you were? I would ask people.

Alex Wagner: Uh-huh.

Andrew Weissmann: I mean I remember turning on my TV and it sort of rocked me to my core to see the defiling of our democracy. It was so upsetting and then it continued and continued and continued. And that was not even at a time when I saw and knew what was happening to the police, the Capitol police who were trying to stop it. And I know you’re gonna talk to people who like we’re the true victims here. But that is one of the things that I really am trying to deal with here, which is core foundational lies by politicians, whether they’re candidates or they’re in office, and why it is that we treat those lies so differently than we treat so many other lies. So in my former life as a prosecutor, I was involved in prosecuting the leaders of the Enron Corporation, Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay and others. And they lied about the internal state of affairs at Enron. And that was viewed as a lie to the shareholders. And so they were held criminally liable, and they were helped civilly liable. And that’s lying about stock. If you lie like Rudy Giuliani was found to have lied about Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman, the Georgia election workers. Defamation law can lead to paying tens of millions of dollars. E. Jean Carroll the same thing with respect to our sitting president. Roger Stone lied to Congress, was found by a jury. Paul Manafort admitted he lied to DOJ. He lied to FBI agents. He lied to banks. I mean, again, all out of his mouth. But those are- all ways in which we deal with lies. Or if anyone here has a prescription and has ever gotten some medication, you can’t just say this cures cancer.

Alex Wagner: No.

Andrew Weissmann: There are limitations on what you can say because you can limit false speech, not opinions, but false speech is something that we limit. And what I was thinking about, it was, Why is it, when it comes to an actual lie about the ballot box, something core, we’re not talking about, oh, I did really well at the University of Pennsylvania, or the crowd size was big. I mean, let’s say you’re to take a core foundational, there was material fraud in the 2020 election. No, there wasn’t. There is no evidence of that. Why is that we don’t do anything in that area and we just say, Oh, let it come out in the wash. You know, the answer to false speech is truthful speech. Well, that’s not what we do when it comes to just a share of stock. And so why are we treating those two differently? That was sort of the genesis of my thinking about how do we build a better mousetrap? It’s our 250th anniversary of this country.

Alex Wagner: It’s semi-ciscontinial, yes.

Andrew Weissmann: And we, we need to, I’m glad you said that and not me. [laughter] Anyway, that is my stump speech in terms of like, that’s what I was trying to focus on.

Alex Wagner: And I will say, you know, the Trump years have exposed the holes and the flaws in our democratic institutions, even the slush fund. Nobody’s tried to do this before, but like, Trump has exposed a great weakness here, both, you, know, a kind of existential weakness in the Republican party, a real question about separation of powers, like, why does the legislative branch exist if the president can just appropriate funds as he sees fit? And then also the ways in which he’s just manifestly destroyed the independence of the Department of Justice. And I think that it’s a terrible moment for the country, but it’s also a learning moment. And the hatches need to be battened down once Trump is out of office.

Andrew Weissmann: Yeah, I mean, I think what he has exposed is the fissures, the things that that are the framers of the Constitution. I’m not faulting them. It’s like the world has changed and moved on.

Alex Wagner: Yeah, don’t tell, don’t tell John Roberts that though.

Andrew Weissmann: Yes. [laughs] Exactly. And so it is one gift that we are given, which is that we can see all of the ways in which our system works now based on norms and not based on enforceable laws and structures. That is sort of the key thing I’ve been thinking about. It sort of helps that, you know, I’m a lawyer, I’m an institutionalist, I think about structures. I know they’re not always the, they’re full proof and it’s never gonna be the answer because people are in those structures. But we do need to figure out ways to sort of harden the target, so that we’re less susceptible because Trump is eventually be gone, but there are gonna be sort of a zillion mini-me’s because they’re gonna emulate a formula that they see the worked. And so this, we cannot. Put our heads in the sand, if we, let’s assume that a normal administration comes in, Democratic or Republican, like just a normal rule of law administration, we cannot fool ourselves into thinking, oh, let’s just pretend this never happened.

Alex Wagner: Yeah.

Andrew Weissmann: And so this is trying to sort of face the reality—

Alex Wagner: You mean the Merrick Garland playbook. I’m sorry, that’s mean.

Andrew Weissmann: Yes. No, you know that I have said the same thing, which is the Merrick Garland, Joe Biden playbook. And you know what, they tried it, it did not work.

Alex Wagner: No.

Andrew Weissmann: And I did not think that was the right call at the time, but I can understand that. But you cannot sit there and say, let’s look forward, let’s not look backwards. Let’s just sort of show people that institutions work. What we see is that there are structural failings. And so one of the things, God knows, this is not the only answer, but I was like, why are we allowing? People to lie to us about something so fundamental. And so one quick thing in case you think this is sort of just so unrealistic or pie in the sky is I looked around the globe, which by the way, I’m a big fan of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and she was a huge fan of looking at other countries. I know what you’re gonna say, but let’s just focus on her in terms of her jurisprudence. And she was like, you know, I’m not saying that you take whole hog what’s happening in other countries and transplant it. But you can learn from them, and you can learn what to do and what might work, and you could also learn what doesn’t work. And so I looked around the globe for other models. England, if you lie about a political opponent, their law for decades is you can’t hold that office. You’re pulled out. In Brazil, Bolsonaro, who I have to tell you, I’ll tell you quick anecdote, I’m writing this chapter on Brazil. And sort of the foreign models. And as that’s going on, what happens, and I see on the news, is that Donald Trump is attacking the judges who found that Bolsonaro had engaged in an insurrection and had the other people know about the engaging and insurrection criminal offense. Before that trial, he had already been found to have lied about fraud in the election. Sound familiar?

Alex Wagner: Yeah.

Andrew Weissmann: And you know what the remedy is under Brazilian law, if you lie about the election? Barred from office.

Alex Wagner: Boom.

Andrew Weissmann: New York law, the states in the United States, the many, many states in our union deal with this. In New York, one of the funnier statutes is a statute that says there are two reasons that if you are holding public office and you, there are two ways in which you are automatically removed. One is death. And I was like, I don’t really think you needed a statute to do that because…

Alex Wagner: No weekend at Bernie’s in Albany.

Andrew Weissmann: Right. I was like, I think someone else took care of removing you from office in that situation. I’m not really sure you needed the law also. But in any event, the law says that if you die, you’re out of office and a whole lot of other places. And the other is if you’re convicted of a felony, automatic removal. Done. Out. And so I was sort of looking at this going, Why are we not sort of protecting ourselves from intentional falsehoods?

Alex Wagner: We need to, quite obviously. I mean, maybe it took this crisis of this administration to prove that point.

Andrew Weissmann: Yeah. And, you know, I think I’m enough of a lawyer to know. And I do address sort of risks of what I’m saying and downsides of what I’m seeing. It’s like any, this is by the way, in any good organization, any policy person does that you’re thinking about what are the pluses and minuses. And but I do think that this is one where if it, even if people sort of say, I disagree with you, I don’t think this is a good idea. I hope people take from this, that we need to have. Sort of big, bold ideas. I mean, we really have to think our way out of this, you know? And again, I do think the fact that it’s the 250th anniversary, the best way to sort of, you know, if you love your country and you want to see it exist for 250 more years, like this is the moment that we sort of owe it to our heritage and also to our children to figure our way out of this.

Alex Wagner: I think that’s really moving. Other people think that the best way to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America is by having an indie drag race through the streets of Washington, D.C and a UFC fight on the South Lawn. But potato, potato, Andrew, potato, potato. Well, we’re looking forward to volume two of Liar’s Kingdom [laughter] because the kingdom and the lies both continue. Andrew, congratulations on the book.

Andrew Weissmann: Thank you.

Alex Wagner: Thank you for being such a wealth of information on all of this. And I don’t know, even when you’re talking about alarming developments, I find myself very soothed when you break it down and offer a potential legal recourse at the end of the rainbow. So I’m always grateful to you. Thank you for being our first two-time guest on Runaway Country.

Andrew Weissmann: I love it.

Alex Wagner: There’s a commemorative sweatshirt coming your way at some point once we make them. [laughter] And good luck. Good luck.

Andrew Weissmann: Deal, deal.

Alex Wagner: You will smash the New York Times bestseller list. I look forward to seeing it in the paper on Sunday.

Andrew Weissmann: Sounds good, thank you so much. [music plays]

Alex Wagner: That is our show for this week. Please do not forget to check out the show and our rapid response videos on our YouTube channel, Runaway Country with Alex Wagner. And if you’re not sick of me yet, you can pre-order my new book, The Steal, Four Right-Wing Hardliners, One Republican Presidency, and The Raid on America’s Courts, which is coming out this September. There’s also always my Substack, How the Hell with Alex Wagner, I encourage you to subscribe. Last but not least, if you’ve been impacted directly by the Trump administration and its policies, please send us an email or a one-minute voice note at runawaycountry@crooked.com, and we may be in touch to feature your story. Huge thank you to everyone who’s written in already. Runaway Country is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Alyona Minkovski. Our producer is Emma Illick-Frank. Production support from Megan Larson and Lacy Roberts. The show is mixed and edited by Charlotte Landes. Ben Hethcoat is our video producer and Matt DeGroot is our head of production. Audio support comes from Kyle Seglin. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Adriene Hill is our Head of News and Politics. Katie Long is our Executive Producer of Development. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writer’s Guild of America East.