6/17/25: Glenn Greenwald On Media's Iraq 2.0 Coverage, MN Assassin Last Text Revealed, California AG On Trump Troop's In LA
43:52 Share

This is an iHeart Podcast.

For NBC News. For NBC News. For NBC News. I'm Tom Yamas. That's what we do every night. NBC Nightly News with Tom Yamas. Evenings on NBC.

And here we have a specimen from the early 2000s, a legacy investing platform. Please don't touch the exhibit, folks. It could crash. Ready to step out of the financial history museum? At public.com, you can invest in almost everything, stocks, bonds, options, and more. You could even put your cash to work at an industry-leading 4.1% APY. Leave your clunky, outdated platform behind. Go to public.com and fund your account in five minutes or less.

Paid for by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA, and SIPC. Full disclosures at public.com slash disclosures. This is Jenny Garth from I Do Part 2. Can't afford Ozempic? Try Wagovi from Future Health. Just $199 and FDA approved for weight loss. No insurance or tricky syringes needed. Just results. Visit futurehealth.com. That's future without the E. And start losing weight this week. Future Health Weight Loss.

Data based on independent studies sponsored by Future Health. Future Health is not a healthcare services provider. Meds are prescribed at provider's discretion. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to

to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. - We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com. - Very excited now to be joined by friend of the show, Glenn Greenwald, to talk about the media environment and how it may resemble the war in Iraq. Glenn, of course, was one of the people fighting against the administration and exposing the truth there at the time, and so can see a lot of these parallels.

Glenn, one of the things we wanted to start with here is your observation about how the different U.S. media organizations are used as tools of Israel and the U.S. intelligence community. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. As you know, we have two side-by-side stories yesterday.

One is Iran is eager to negotiate with the U.S. and Israel to end the war, but CNN says Iran refuses to negotiate while under attack until its retaliation against Israel is completed. As you say, disinformation is always a weapon of war, and it lets people believe what they want. So given your experience now covering so much of these psyops and others by the intelligence community, by various foreign governments, what can we tell the audience about the warnings for how to navigate this very difficult information environment?

Yeah, I mean, I think usually now people are trained to understand that if they're getting some claim that is laundered through the media from anonymous sources, that it's often necessary to apply skepticism to it. People have learned that lesson well. But when it comes time to war, especially when the governments are selling wars to people, when they're attempting to scare them into supporting a war, it's

Skepticism is almost not even enough. You have to kind of begin by disbelieving what it is that you're being told, knowing how often almost automatically disinformation is deliberately deployed. And so it is a weapon of war. It's something that every government at war does. And we've seen over and over that our corporate media is not just incapable of guarding against it, but eager to participate in its dissemination.

And that's the reason we've been deceived so many times into wars. And so you have to look back at history to get a guide for how to navigate what you're seeing currently. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the number of conflicting reports that come out, I mean, even if you like outside of this administration, the number of reports we got from Barack Ravid about how Biden was super, super mad at Netanyahu and then Trump comes into office and he's also super, super bad at Netanyahu. And, you know, I think to your point,

especially when you have the Trump administration just admitting that they lied to the Iranians, the American people, to the world about their intent to go forward with negotiations as a ruse to create an element of surprise for these Israeli attacks. Whatever credence you were giving them previously has to be completely thrown out the window at this point.

Yeah, you know, even there, I mean, that is what the United States is claiming. That is what Donald Trump is claiming, because I do believe that's what happened. I do believe, at least recently, that the U.S. was negotiating with Iran and leading them to believe that they still wanted a diplomatic solution as a way of getting Iran to believe no attack was coming to let the Israelis in the U.S. attack them with surprise. But it's not. But let's assume that isn't the case. Let's assume that what happened was what they made to look like what happened, which is that the U.S. was saying, no, don't do this.

And then Israel went and did it anyway, meaning defied Trump's orders, humiliated the United States, humiliated Donald Trump by ruining his diplomatic attempts after he told Israel not to do it.

Even then, what would Trump do? He wouldn't stand up and admit that Netanyahu humiliated him. They would probably have an interest, U.S. officials would, in pretending that Trump was in on that plan all along, that he wasn't surprised by it or defied that this was actually Trump's war. And he's been speaking that way all the time. And I think I'm so glad you mentioned Barack Raviv because he's such a perfect example of the kind of

skepticism that we ought to have. This is a person who's an Israeli citizen. He was in the IDF reserves until 2023. He worked in the most notorious intelligence unit. He has become basically the go-to reporter for understanding U.S.-Israeli relations because he just takes whatever he's told to write down from both governments

and goes and prints it completely uncritically. And he won the White House Journalism Award for doing so, which reflects the kind of stenographic function that they continue to see themselves in, especially when it comes to foreign policy and wars. They don't question the government. They're there to publish what they're told and to stand on the side of the government. And that's what makes this combination of politics and media propaganda so potent and so dangerous. Well, it's actually kind of a useful function. If you know that's what he's doing—

It's actually useful. OK, well, this is what they want us to believe. This is what they're trying to sell to the public. But it has to be read through that particular lens. Before we transition to talking about some of the Iraq war parallels and like lessons learned from that era, because some of the similarities are really, really eerie. You talked about President Trump like trying and, you know, people trying to scare us into war. This is scaring me, but not in the direction of war. He posted this long text.

that he got from Mike Huckabee, who is this evangelical end times believer who also happens to be our U.S. ambassador to Israel. And so Trump posted on True Social this, what they describe as a powerful message that he received from Mike Huckabee that reads...

Not since Truman in 1945.

Your thoughts about that?

Well, it's not just alarming that Huckabee wrote that, but that Trump took it and himself published it because Trump clearly believes it to be true. You know, I heard from a lot of people that everybody, I think, assumed that Trump's marching around as some sort of evangelical Christian for most of his political career was a ruse. But I heard from a lot of people who know Trump very well that especially after that assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, which admittedly, you know, was something that I think would transform anybody. Right.

coming that close to death but avoiding it, that he really did become convinced that there was some divine intervention that saved him for a reason. And it's so ironic that we're hearing that the reason Iran is so dangerous is because they're a theocratic regime that doesn't care about anything other than the belief that God is telling them what to do, when that not only obviously affects and shapes Israel's foreign policy, but I think it's shaping Donald Trump's as well. And I think what is really alarming is if you look at what Trump has been saying the last 24 to 48 hours, he's clearly trying to

at least send the signal, whether it's to Iran or Israel or to whomever, that he is about to do something of historic proportions, which is what Bibi Netanyahu thinks about himself as well. They're both people in their mid to late 70s, which is when they start thinking about how they're thought of once they're dead, not what the rest of us have to deal with as a result of their decisions. And I think the kind of mindset that they're in now, as evidenced by Trump posting that Huckabee email, is one that is...

genuinely alarming and dangerous. And I say that as somebody who's not typically alarmist. No, you're absolutely right, Glenn. And you know, what really strikes me with the Bush parallel and Iraq, this is a good transition, is one of the things that really struck me in reading a lot about Bush is he really believed that he had been saved from addiction and like put on this earth and sent to the White House to save the United States during 9-11. And that really was a huge impact on

on why he decided to go into the war in Iraq. And so, you know, bringing this like full circle is not only that, the media aspect here, but what drives me crazy, and I'm sure it must you as well, is we have the same actors in the same, literally the same people who lied us into the war in Iraq now really repeating so many of the same things. We had Ari Fleischer talking about Tucker Carlson, and this is the guy who lied from the White House podium.

about weapons of mass destruction. Glenn Beck, who was on television talking about how America would be greeted as liberators, he apologized in 2014. But you know, Glenn, he's back now to actually saying, actually, this time around, they're going to be greeted as liberators. Let's take a listen to that and we'll get your reaction. Has Israel asked us to fight their war? Answer, no. Is this another Iraq or is it something entirely different?

Well, let me tell you what makes this moment unlike anything else we have faced before. First, this was not a call to war. This was not a land invasion. This is not a campaign to topple a regime and then sit around for 20 years trying to rebuild a culture that doesn't want what we have. Even though Iran, the Iranian people are good people, the Persians are great people, and they do want a life like ours.

But this was targeted. This was surgical. This was preemptive. Not against an idea. Not against a guess. Against the very real, very stated intentions of a regime run by men who do not think like we think. Okay? They do not want what we want.

We choose life. They literally choose death. These are 12ers. They are followers of a branch of Shiite Islam that believes not just in the return of the messianic figure called the Mahadi, but also that his return can and must be, in their words, hastened or accelerated. And the only way to do that is to, quote, using their words, wash the world in blood.

OK, I think I'm out at that. You know, that's my first stop on the train. And I'm like, I'm going to get off here, please. They hate our way of life. They're again, if we they choose. I mean, this is 03. This is the same thing. You could probably copy and paste that. And except this time they're different because they're Persian, which, by the way, is very racist against Arabs. But it's like, what are we doing here, Glenn?

Also, isn't it kind of ironic that we're supposed to be scared of Iran because they have a messianic religious belief and like a third of the Congress wants to arm and support Israel no matter what because of their messianic view that doing so is necessary for the return of Jesus, who's then going to send all Jews and other non-believers to hell. But that's a little detail that Israel doesn't mind because they don't actually believe that and they're happy for the support. But

But, you know, Sagar, the thing is, like the comparison with Iran, with Iraq, rather, despite it not being planned originally as a regime change or a ground invasion is so obvious. Right. Like we're being told the reason we have to start this war, which is a war that the United States and Israel started, not not Iran, is because they were developing extremely dangerous nuclear weapons. And they're so psychotic and dictatorial and insidious.

that we can't allow them to have a nuclear weapon, which is exactly how the war in Iraq was justified. And I honestly did, of course, I knew that from the start, but when you go back and look at the speeches and you see that the exact same people are uttering the exact same phrases, it's not even an attempt to modify the script

a little bit. You know, just as one example, George Bush's big speech in October, in September 7th, rather, in 2002 in Cincinnati was, yes, we can't give you proof that Iraq has nuclear weapons, but you don't want the smoking gun to be in the form of a mushroom cloud over your city. Ted Cruz went on Fox News and said exactly the same thing when asked about proof that Iran has nuclear weapons. And this is what's scary is a week ago, every MAGA person, basically, every person, if you showed them, look, Israel has been saying for,

30 years that Iran is a week away or a month away or a year away from nuclear weapons and it never turned out to be true would say, yeah, we're not going to fall for that again. The bombs start dropping. Trump's involved. Everybody wants to cheer for it. And so you just give them on a silver platter this obviously bullshit excuse, which is that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program, which Tulsi Gabbard herself said three months ago is the consensus of the intelligence community is untrue. And now it's just...

The assumption within every media discussion that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and the only question is do you want to go to war to stop them or do you want to let them have it? It's mind-blowing how propaganda works even if it's identical to the one that 25 years ago we all watched proved to be completely disgraced and debunked. That is absolutely right. And you know another person who was at the scene of the crime last time as well, Bibi Netanyahu. Here's a little flashback to the case he was making at the time. And this is a tyrant who is feverishly trying to acquire nuclear weapons.

And today the United States must destroy the same regime because a nuclear-armed Saddam will place the security of our entire world at risk. It is simply not reflecting the reality to assume that Saddam isn't feverishly working to develop nuclear weapons. If you take out Saddam, Saddam's regime, I guarantee you,

that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region. Principles of real estate, the three L's, location, location, location. The three principles of winning the war on terror are the three W's, winning, winning, and winning. The more victories you amass, the easier the next victory becomes. The first victory in Afghanistan makes a second victory in Iraq

If you take out Saddam, I guarantee you it will have enormous

positive reverberations on the region because he's feverishly working to develop nuclear weapons. You know, I think there's so many interesting parts to that testimony that you showed that even though just those excerpts that I think are self-evident, but you notice at the end too, he said, the more you win, the easier the wins become. So the first one in Afghanistan will make the second one in Iraq.

All the easier. And then he – and of course we didn't win in either. And then he said that second win will make the third win easier still. What did he mean by the third win? Neocons at that point and into 2003 and 2004 were very open about the fact that they didn't want to stop at Baghdad. There was that phrase that was leaked by Karl Rove or somebody like that, Paul Wolfowitz, saying real men go to Tehran. Yep.

The plan always was, was to go topple Saddam and then go get regime change in Iran. And I think that's the other point that we have to be so aware of. Glenn Beck said this time it's not about regime change. Why are they bombing Tehran then? There are no nuclear facilities in Tehran. Why did Trump order 16 million people to evacuate Tehran? Is it they're going to destroy Tehran where there's no nuclear facilities there either? It's because this is a regime change where they want to change the regime of Iran. They want to turn it into...

Syria, where they just have a collapse of the central government, all these factions being backed by the CIA and the Mossad trying to take over Iran, or at the very least, rendering Iran impotent and letting Israel control the entire Middle East and therefore the United States as well. That is the real goal of everything that they're doing. And so maybe it'll end quickly if Trump drops

you know, the biggest bombs we have on every population center, or maybe it'll lead to troops having to be activated if Iran attacks our troops in response, an oil facility. You don't know once you unleash a war like this what the results are going to be. And that was what we learned from Iraq when we were told it would take two weeks to get rid of Saddam. You know, Glenn, this is my final question here.

I think they've won. I think the neocons have won. And I do. I mean, look, I could be totally wrong. There could be some last minute thing. But I do think the U.S. is going to get offensively involved at this point. I have very, very little hope. So I do know that at least something is going to happen. 40th order consequences always do. And the neocons are going to run away from that.

And since we were somehow unsuccessful in holding them to account over the last 25 years, what can we do differently to hold these people to account and actually tie them to their decisions? Or is that just structurally impossible here in Washington, D.C.?

That was the other thing that really struck me, Sagar, as we prepared our own show last night going through these 2002 and 2003 interviews is the people who went on television and just told outright lies and the most assertive authoritative form possible, none of them had their careers even remotely impeded, let alone destroyed. In fact, they all continue to thrive to this very day. They're still the ones making the decisions. They're still the ones in charge. And one of the things that I thought would at least be promising this time was that there's this big section of MAGA that would turn against Trump if he actually got the

the country involved in a major war with Iran on behalf of Israel. And you're already seeing like one of the reasons Trump came out yesterday and publicly scorned and humiliated Tucker Carlson was it was a message to everybody. Look, if you even think about raising your voice against me, you will be out. We're going to exclude you from Baca. You will no longer be welcome at the White House. You'll have no influence. It was a way of keeping them all into line. And you're already seeing many of them

who had been saying, don't go to war with Iran or it's going to ruin your presidency, snapping into line and saying, you know what? I trust President Trump. I'm sure he's going to do the right thing. We need to get rid of this regime. And I don't see any hope of that happening, unfortunately. Charlie Kirk last night goes on and, oh, I trust President Trump. He was made for this moment. I'm sure it's going to all work out great. Yeah.

I mean, and very few people like Tucker has his own, you know, base of support and is independent, whatever. There are very few people in the right wing ecosystem who can exist outside of just like Trump support. So, yeah, they're going to they're going to take that message in. Glenn, thank you so much. You've been doing incredible work here. I also would love for people we were originally booked you to talk about power.

I want to still do that in the future. I got to come back. They still matter. Hey, business is going to boom for them. Okay. All right. All my neighbors here in Virginia, they're all about to get filthy rich. So I guess we can all be. They also sponsored that great military parade over the weekend too. So things are, things are, things are looking good for them and Lockheed Martin and many others. Yep. All right, Glenn. Great to see you. Take care. Great to see you guys. Bye.

And here we have a specimen from the early 2000s, a legacy investing platform. Please don't touch the exhibit, folks. It could crash. Ready to step out of the financial history museum? At public.com, you can invest in almost everything, stocks, bonds, options, and more. You could even put your cash to work at an industry-leading 4.1% APY.

Leave your clunky, outdated platform behind. Go to public.com and fund your account in five minutes or less. Paid for by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA, and SIPC. Full disclosures at public.com slash disclosures. This is Jenny Garth from I Do Part Two. Can't afford Ozempic? Try Wagovi from Future Health. Just $199 and FDA approved.

Proved for weight loss. No insurance or tricky syringes needed. Just results. Visit futurehealth.com. That's future without the E. And start losing weight this week. Future Health Weight Loss. Data based on independent studies sponsored by Future Health. Future Health is not a healthcare services provider. Meds are prescribed at provider's discretion.

It is Ryan here, and I have a question for you. What do you do when you win? Like, are you a fist pumper, a woohooer, a hand clapper, a high fiver? If you want to hone in on those winning moves, check out Chumba Casino. Choose from hundreds of social casino-style games for your chance to redeem serious cash prizes. There are new game releases weekly, plus free daily bonuses. So don't wait. Start having the most fun ever.

ever at ShumbaCasino.com. No purchase necessary. VGW group void where prohibited by law. 21 plus terms and conditions apply.

So we've been covering here outside of the potential war with Iran. There are a couple other stories that we've been covering. One of them is the assassination of this Minnesota state Democratic lawmaker and the attempted assassination of another Minnesota state Democratic lawmaker. The suspect has now been apprehended after a multi-day manhunt. More on that in a moment. I want to go ahead and show you. This is the acting U.S. attorney Thompson detailing some of the events that unfolded

some quite extraordinary information here. Let's go ahead and take a listen. After shooting Senator Hoffman and his wife, Belter traveled to the home of another Minnesota state representative in Maple Grove, Minnesota. Video surveillance showed that Belter rang the doorbell at the state representative's house at approximately 2.24 a.m. on Friday night. Again, he was dressed as a law enforcement officer, wearing a tactical vest and body armor, carrying a handgun and a flashlight.

and wearing that same hyper-realistic silicon mask. Again, the images, as you can see on the screen, are haunting. Now, fortunately, the state representative was not home. She and her family were gone on vacation. And so Belter left. Belter then traveled to the home of a Minnesota state senator who lived in New Hope, Minnesota. He parked in the street in that same black SUV with the police license plate. At about 2:36 a.m. on Friday night,

After learning of the shooting of Senator Hoffman, New Hope Police dispatched an officer to conduct a wellness check on the state senator who lived in New Hope. When the New Hope officer arrived at the scene, she saw Belter's black SUV parked down the block with the lights on. The New Hope police officer believed that Belter was a police officer who had been dispatched to the scene to check on the status of the state senator.

The New Hope police officer pulled up next to Belter in his car, rolled down her window and attempted to speak with him. Belter did not respond. According to the officer, he just sat there and stared straight ahead. So the New Hope police officer who had been dispatched to the scene proceeded to the state senator's home and she waited for other law enforcement to arrive. When they did, by the time they did, Belter had left the scene.

Belcher had tried to kill four different Minnesota state Democratic lawmakers. And at one of them, so the police officer shows up to do a wellness check because this guy's on the loose and they're getting the idea of like always targeting state elected officials. So let's go to all the ones that are in the vicinity. So she shows up.

She sees him parked down the street because he's in this fake cop car, pulls up next to him, thinking this is some law enforcement backup to assist her. He just sits there, stares straight ahead, doesn't say anything. She leaves him alone and goes and performs this check, giving him the opportunity to escape and then go to the next lawmaker's home. And I believe it's that home where he's able to actually shoot and kill someone.

this lawmaker and her husband. At that time, the law enforcement, they go on to say, shows up there at that house where he's able to actually assassinate this lawmaker. They exchange fire with him and he's able to flee on foot, leading to this, again, multi-day manhunt. So I think there are, to put it generously, a lot of questions.

for the way that law enforcement handled all of this and how this was allowed to unfold when they had him right there. And he's able not only to escape, but he's able to go on and commit this murder. And then they have him there and he's able to get away on foot.

The way they were able to capture him, we can put E2 up on the screen. There was a local woman who actually saw him. He was captured very close to his home. And she saw him crawling in the grass around her property,

and alerted law enforcement that she thought this was him. At first, she thought it was actually the cops looking for him. And then she realized, like, no, I think that is actually the guy and alerted law enforcement. They're able to use drones to track him down. They found him crawling through some underbush and some bushes and were able to apprehend him. There are some other really troubling and eyebrow-raising details

details in a Wall Street Journal report as well. I can put this next piece up on the screen. So Belter's wife was actually stopped near a convenience store about 70 miles north of the shootings. She had two guns.

$10,000 in cash and passports for herself and her children in her car, according to federal court records. Apparently, she had received a text and other family members as well from Belter at 6, 8, 18 a.m. saying, quote, Dad went to war last night, according to federal court documents. He also texted his wife to apologize, saying there's going to be some people coming to the house armed and trigger happy. And I don't want you guys around, according to messages quoted in

court filings. And presumably that's what caused her to flee with firearms herself and $10,000 in cash, cash and her kids and the passports Belter had. It was initially described as a manifesto with him, uh, later details that had been revealed. It wasn't so much of like an explanation of what his motives were of, he had a notebook with a list of targets, some 60, uh,

Lawmakers throughout, I think all Democratic lawmakers throughout not only Minnesota, but some of the surrounding states, Tim Walz, Ilhan Omar were the senators. They were all on the list, along with a number of Planned Parenthood, both locations and pro-choice activists. So we don't know, but it seems like one of the motivations may have been or the motivation may have been like anti-abortion zealotry.

The last piece here, there have been a lot of discussion online about what his motivation was. The right decided based on like literally nothing that he must be a left winger. So just so everybody's clear on how the people who know him describe his political affiliation, this is a guy who's described as his best friend and actually roommate. Apparently he lived with his wife in this house but then also had friends.

a roommate situation, another place, and that was where this guy was who still considers him to be his best friend, talking about how he would be offended if people thought he was a Democrat and that he was actually like an Alex Jones InfoWars watcher. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. Well, everyone's calling him a Democrat. He's not a Democrat. He would be offended if people called him a Democrat. Oh, gee. Nancy Pelosi didn't like Jim Walms.

Tim Walz? They like Jim Byron. Tim Walz? What would you say about him? Well, I mean, nothing... I mean, it's just normal. Oh, I don't like that Tim Walz did this. I don't like that he did that. Well, you listen to InfoWars. InfoWars. I kind of told him, said, well...

It's like 50% truth. I was always a Trump supporter. Voted for Trump. Do you like Trump? I like Trump.

So there you go. That's what his roommate had to say, Sagar. And obviously, I mean, the story is important in and of itself and also comes amid a climate of rising political violence. We saw the president himself, you know, attempted assassinations against him. And, you know, there's a concern that this just becomes sort of like part of the background noise of American politics. I mean, the plot of it is nuts. It's also just, I mean, his behavior, obviously, regardless of his political motivation, it's like pretty clear there's a lot of weird shit going on with this.

guy because he's married he has a roommate it's like what's going on he's sending these weird text messages he's gearing up in police gear seems to have had all this crazy stuff going on in Africa had a private security background was also an evangelical minister ministering in Africa as well there's just like check after check of us

psychosis. And then also apparently recent financial distress. Right. So yeah, well, all the ingredients I guess are there. He's been indicted by the feds in terms for political assassination. So I'm sure that a lot more motivation and all of that will come out with him, but obviously it's horrific and it's terrifying. And really what it does is just, it makes people afraid, especially in the public, you know, to go out. A time like this, this is a time possibly of war. This is a

You know, something Tucker and Steve were talking about yesterday is like when it's time of war and you dissent, you're a traitor. And I'm not trying to just link the two, but what I'm trying to say is when the tension and the heat gets turned up all the way and you really – I mean this goes out of the conceptual. And perhaps if it's a pro-life thing, it's analogous in that way. It's like if you believe it's life or death, then some people are going to take it that way. Right? I mean – You think this is literal like genocide of babies. Right, right.

He told his wife, dad went to war. Like he sees himself as a righteous figure in this. Right. And if we're involved, you know, you could see some very similar types of things or, you know, very similar ideology and all that pervades. So let's just stand against it and,

And look, at the very least, you know, the Trump administration, despite early attempts to say he was a right winger or a left winger or whatever, at the least the FBI and the DOJ are throwing the book at him for right now. Yeah. And that's a good sign. Yeah, absolutely. All right. We've got the attorney general of California standing by. Sagar, I still want to appoint him, so I'm going to conduct this interview, but have a lot of questions for him about this lawsuit against the Trump administration with regard to

federalizing the National Guard. Hearings happen today, so let's go ahead and get to that. You know what's great about your investment account with the big guys? It's actually a time machine. Log in and Zoom. Welcome back to 1999.

It's time for an upgrade. At public.com, you can invest in almost everything. Stocks, bonds, options, and more. You could even put your cash to work at an industry-leading 4.1% APY. Leave your clunky, outdated platform behind at public.com. Go to public.com and fund your account in five minutes or less.

Paid for by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA, and SIPC. Full disclosures at public.com slash disclosures. This is Jenny Garth from I Do Part 2. Can't afford Ozempic? Try Wagovi from Future Health. Just $199 and FDA approved for weight loss. No insurance or tricky syringes needed. Just results. Visit futurehealth.com. That's future without the E. And start losing weight this week. Future Health Weight Loss.

Data based on independent studies sponsored by Future Health. Future Health is not a health care services provider. Meds are prescribed at provider's discretion. Taking over the helm of NBC Nightly News, a 75-year-old broadcast. It's a great responsibility. Good evening.

I'm Tom Yamas. You have to go out there to bring people at home closer to the story. Wildfires continue to be a threat. With that massive hurricane comes the massive response. The best reporters in our business know how to listen. And when you listen, you get the truth. For NBC News, I'm Tom Yamas. That's what we do every night. NBC Nightly News with Tom Yamas. Evenings on NBC.

So as I was just mentioning, there are hearings today in the state of California's ongoing lawsuit against the Trump administration over their decision to federalize National Guard troops and also to call up active duty Marines, some several hundred to respond to protest activity in and around L.A. Can go ahead and put this tear sheet up on the screen. Appeals.

court has temporarily blocked the initial federal district court judge's ruling to return control of National Guard to California. And joining us now to discuss, we're very fortunate to have the Attorney General of California, Rob Bonta. Welcome, sir. Thanks for having me. Great to be with you. So if you could just bring our audience a little bit up to speed on this lawsuit and what is the basis for this action?

Absolutely. As we know, last—the week before this past one, we saw National Guard troops be brought into Los Angeles by President Trump.

When they arrived on Sunday morning, it was to quiet streets. We believe that it was inappropriate for him to deploy military to Los Angeles. The governor and the sheriff's department, L.A. police department and mutual aid agencies in the surrounding areas had everything under control. And the president has invoked a statute which requires the presence of a rebellion

or an invasion or the inability to execute the federal law to be able to deploy the National Guard. None of those things exist. And it just defies credulity to suggest that they do. The law also requires the cooperation and consent of the governor to deploy the National Guard. So the circumstances

that are required for the president to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles weren't present. And we brought a lawsuit on the following Monday. We brought a temporary restraining order the following Tuesday. And on that Thursday following, we had an order from the federal district court judge

That said, two things. One, that the president violated the federal law and also violated the U.S. Constitution, violating the state's rights of the great state of California. And he was ordered, the president was ordered to return the control of the National Guard to Governor Newsom. The federal government appealed right away to the Ninth Circuit, the Ninth Circuit, and

issued what's called an administrative stay. It's procedural. While they review the merits, they are going to have a hearing today at noon to consider those merits. It's all on shortened time. It's being done quickly because of the

urgency of the matter and the harm that California faces. So we're hoping for a positive ruling today. We believe we will prevail when we sue the Trump administration. It's because we got the receipts, we got the facts, we got the law. We

And we think we're going to win. And so we're hopeful for a favorable ruling today. Do you expect this ultimately to end up at the Supreme Court? And if so, are you sort of tailoring your arguments to think through how they could appeal to various of the conservative justices in particular?

we always play the long game and um you know understand that the the first decision might not be the last one that we do have a federal uh court system that has an intermediate level of uh appellate review and then on and then ultimately the u.s supreme court most cases don't get to the u.s supreme court but this is one that may be of interest to them obviously the state is watching the the nation is watching the world is watching this this issue of

militarizing an American city when there's no basis for it and doing it over the objections of a governor and the mayor of that city. So this one definitely could get to the U.S. Supreme Court. We make our arguments based on what the facts in law are. We realize that different judges may review the

those arguments and balance them in different ways. But we make the arguments that are appropriate, that are compelling, and we've made them here to the district court judge. We're making them here to the Ninth Circuit, and we think they're going to be compelling at both levels. And if this case gets to the Supreme Court, we think our arguments will be very persuasive and compelling there as well. So I read through the district court's ruling, and you can correct

my details on this if I don't get the legal intricacies precisely right. But one of the questions at hand here is whether there was a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits using the military in most circumstances for domestic law enforcement. If we've

We can put F3 up on the screen. So at the time of that ruling, the judge basically said, like, listen, we don't really have full information yet. We already have enough to say that this is a problem and we need to go ahead and side with the state of California without actually having all of the information with regard to whether or not there was a violation of posse comitatus.

Since then, we've seen this video come out showing what appears to be active duty Marines making an arrest of a civilian here. My understanding is this was a man, a U.S. actually veteran, who took a wrong turn in trying to get to a VA appointment. What is your understanding of

the way that both the National Guard and the Marines have been used on the ground since they have been brought into the city of L.A.? Well, thank you. You know, it's all evolving, and a video like this is showing that evolution. And it's evolving exactly the way we feared and is prohibited by the

The law of the United States since the late 1800s, as you mentioned, the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits and prevents the U.S. military from engaging in civilian law enforcement on American soil. And that means that the military, the Marines here, cannot participate in military

searches and seizures and detentions and arrests. And if that is what it seems to be, the detention and or arrest of a civilian by the Marines, that seems to be squarely in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. So the Posse Comitatus Act is in full effect.

And the National Guard and the Marines are military entities that are not allowed to participate in civilian law enforcement. Are you, outside of this, the incident I just showed, are you aware of other incidents where either the National Guard or the Marines have, you know, have been involved in domestic law enforcement activities or making arrests, those sorts of things?

There are some that we've seen. I've seen other video with some examples. Secretary Hegseth posted on social media what appeared to be Marines, maybe National Guard, out in the field, so to speak, with potentially an ICE agent. It was a little unclear what he was trying to suggest.

But we believe that the mission of both the National Guard and the Marines is to protect federal property, personnel and functions. And that includes

while protecting a federal building or while out in the field with ICE agents engaged in immigration enforcement, them being a necessary part of those operations and taking part in detentions and arrests, searches and seizures. And so you're right that the federal judge, Judge Breyer,

um, punted for the time being on the Posse Comitatus Act because, um, um, facts were not as clear or developed as he may have wanted to see. And he wanted to see what the Marines were going to be doing, what the, um, the National Guard were going to be doing. And we're seeing more of that now. So that record is getting more clear and it's getting clear in a way that is, I think, um,

better for our argument, bad for America because the military is engaged in civilian law enforcement, which is prohibited. Another thing that is a significant point that you raised and I think that all Americans need to be aware of is that the order that President Trump used to federalize the National Guard was not limited either in time or in place.

And in fact, since the federalizing of the National Guard in California and sending them into L.A., he has escalated rhetoric about blue cities in particular. I want to get your reaction, guys. This is F2 to some of his recent comments in that regard. I want them to focus on the cities because the cities are where you really have what's called sanctuary cities. And that's where the people are. I look at New York. I look at Chicago. I

I mean, you got a really bad governor in Chicago and a bad mayor, but the governor is probably the worst in the country, Pritzker. But I look at how that city has been overrun by criminals and, you know, New York and L.A. Look at L.A. L.A., those people weren't from L.A. They weren't from California, most of those people, many of those people. And yeah, that's that's the focus. Biden allowed 21 million people to come into our country.

of that vast numbers of those people were murderers, killers, people from gangs, people from jails. They emptied their jails out into the U.S. Most of those people are in the cities, all blue cities, all Democrat run cities, and they think they're going to use them to vote. It's not going to happen. What is your reaction to his assertions there?

My God, I mean, there's so much in there. You know, it's so shameless, so embarrassing, so divorced from the facts and all just outrageously politicized. And, you know, he just he just makes it up as he talks. And, you know, the the the

The crime rates in California are much lower than many of the red states. And, you know, murder rates way higher in many of the red states, red cities. And, you know, he's trying to portray a fiction and pawn it off on the American people as a truth when it's clearly not. And, you know, to so blatantly attack blue city leaders and blue state leaders, you know, he's not a president for all America. He wants to be president for America.

half or less and wants to attack, um,

transparently and vindictively, um, every, everyone else, uh, in, in the blue cities. He can't stand the fact that he got absolutely thrashed in the election by in California. And, uh, that's too much for apparently for his fragile ego. So he needs to try to target California. Um, it's just so inappropriate. That's not how leaders lead. It's, it's, it's, it's sophomoric and juvenile. Um, it's like a kid, uh, in, in the white house, unfortunately, but, um, you know, so much lack of, of, of truth there. Um,

It's just hard to take the man seriously, unfortunately. But it would be laughable if it wasn't so dangerous. And for him to act on, you know, this political vengeance tour, this lack of facts,

to go after certain cities and states. You're right. The executive order is, it was for 60 days. It wasn't targeted and surgical to an incident or incidents in, in, in LA. And it's nationwide. It's not just for LA. I mean, what, what is the basis for an executive order nationwide based on, you know, a set of incidents that we see, you know, after the Lakers won a championship, you know,

And so it's, you know, he's trying to invoke authority that gives him more power. He wants the power. And when there's invasions or emergencies or rebellions or insurrections, he gets more power. So he says those things exist when they don't exist, clearly don't exist. Yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty clear he's testing the limits.

of what he can do here, what he can get away with, both in terms of like, you know, public support and resistance and in terms of the judicial system. I'm curious if you feel like you've gotten enough support from other Democrats around the country, because to be honest with you, I've been a little bit disappointed in the lack of vocal support and vocal resistance from elected Democrats around the country, especially given the fact, I mean, he's directly threatening all

blue states, all blue cities with rolling out the same playbook wherever and whenever he wants to. We've gotten some really good support on this case and Democrats are speaking up and out across the nation. I know that there was some concern and views shared like yours, especially as Trump took office on January 20th. But I

But I think there's a good rhythm and, you know, a broad, organized group of Democrats that are fighting for the rule of law, for democracy. We had Democratic governors through the Governors Association. Every single governor signed on against this deployment of democracy.

the National Guard. We had Democratic attorneys general write an amicus brief. We had, quite amazingly, retired secretaries of the Army and the Navy, four-star retired admirals and generals who wrote an amicus brief in our favor in support of our position saying that if the military is ever going to be deployed on American soil, it needs to be

rare and serious and legally clear. And they thought that those elements were not present here. So really good support for our case. And I think more broadly speaking, the voice of Democrats is getting louder and louder across the nation. Last question I have for you. Trump stopped short here of invoking the Insurrection Act. And, you know, so the legal grounds, of course, that he invoked is what's in dispute in this particular case.

If he were to invoke the Insurrection Act, do you feel like you would have a case that you could make or would it make all of these issues effectively null and void and he could basically do what he wants?

If he invokes the Insurrection Act, we'll see him in court and confident we can block him. There's no basis for the Insurrection Act. The only reason he's interested in it is because it gives him more power, but the requirements to invoke it are not present. Again, there needs to be an inability to, with the regular forces, the statute says,

execute the laws of the federal government, that's just not present. The federal government can execute all the laws it wants. Or there needs to be a deprivation of rights of individuals in the state where the military is being deployed. And that happened back in the 60s when black Americans were being deprived of their civil rights. That is not present here. So there's no basis for invoking the Insurrection Act. It doesn't mean he won't try because that's what he does. He

gaslights the nation and says a certain set of conditions exist on the ground when they don't because if those conditions actually existed, which they don't, he would be able to have more power, which is what he really wants. So will he try? He very well may. Are we ready? Absolutely. And will we take him to court and block him? We're confident we can and that we will. All right. Well, we're going to be paying close attention to what unfolds in these hearings today. And California Attorney General Rob Bonta, thank you so much for taking some time with us today.

Thanks for having me. Great to be with you. All right, guys, thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for your continued support. We are not going to be able to do the AMA live today, so we're going to push it off to Ryan and Emily. But I know you guys love asking them questions, too. They will also be all over what is unfolding with the potential imminent joining of the U.S. into that war with Iran. So make sure you tune in for that. Until then, have a great day.

And here we have a specimen from the early 2000s, a legacy investing platform. Please don't touch the exhibit, folks. It could crash. Ready to step out of the financial history museum? At public.com, you can invest in almost everything, stocks, bonds, options, and more. You could even put your cash to work at an industry-leading 4.1% APY. Leave your clunky, outdated platform behind.

This is Jenny Garth from I Do Part Two. Can't afford Ozempic? Try Wagovi from Future Health. Just $199 and FDA approved for weight loss. No insurance or tricky syringes needed, just results. Visit futurehealth.com. That's future without the E and start losing weight this week. See you next week.

So...

That's my son. Isn't he terrific? Yeah, a real prodigy. Homes.com. We've done your homework. This is an iHeart Podcast.