Transcript of Trump Hopes for Heaven on "60 Minutes" & Stephen Miller Becomes Chief of Staff | Rachel Maddow

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And may we welcome the show!

Hey!

Welcome to The Daily Show.

Let me tell you something. I am so excited you've joined us tonight. My name is John Stewart. Unbelievable show for you tonight. Rachel Maddow is going to be joining us later. John Stewart and Rachel Maddow. Liberal wet dream! I dreamed about that. And you know, a night like this can only happen on Mondays. She and I, we only work Mondays. This is the only night it can happen. Anyway, how's everybody doing? Did you have a nice weekend?

Yeah!

You hear that? You hear it? Still got that? You still feeling that weird thing that what do they call it? Hope? Still on your phone globe scrolling? Are you still doing that? Well, may I be the first to add another compilation to your For You page. It's a short film, I believe the Nelson the Great Nelson months, titled.

Hey!

Can't sugarcoat it. Republicans got spanked.

It was an ass kicking. Weak-ass Republicans.

You just got your asses whipped tonight. You got punished, deservedly so.

None should be spared from blame, starting at the top.

Donald Trump destroyed the Republican Party.

We stood for nothing and got run over. Useless, pathetic, and downright stupid.

Bunch of bullshit.

Guys, guys, guys! Just take a breath. Repeat after me. I am deporting my anger. Deporting my rage. You know, one analysis stood out as to why Donald Trump lost this election. I think it's worth highlighting. It's from former Trump-enabler and noted Putin-sexual Tucker Carlson.

A lot of men who voted for Trump two years ago imagined that this was a masculine, vigorous leader. Wait a second! He kind of seems a little bit more like a bitchy old woman than an alpha male.

Does he? You get him, girl! The only thing we alpha males hate more than running out of zine is a catty bitch. I'm sorry, Tucker. Continue to tell us what real men hate about Trump now. And perhaps if you could punctuate that critique with the most, I don't know, alpha male noise you can muster.

Here's a guy who's vain and venal and indecisive. He's dancing to YMCA.

Wow. That laugh pairs well with any masculine thing you can say.

Honey, take the kids inside. I reckon these fellas might be looking for some trouble.

Meanwhile, while the rest of MAGA is in some kind of Mexican standoff for people who don't like Mexicans, Donald Trump headed over to the newly magnified CBS for a little self-soothing with one of 60 Minutes' new correspondents, a religious conservative by the name of Ross Douthat.

We have created we have created wealth at a level that our country has never seen before.

Including for yourself.

Was that young man, was that sass? Did the new magnified CBS 60 Minutes just deliver sass to Donald Trump? I think you're supposed to yes and, not yes but.

There's a Forbes story that said that your net worth maybe it's changed with the stock market recently, but your net worth went up by $3 billion.

Well, since you've ever.

Since you returned to.

Okay, you ready?

Everyone's my net worth did not go up by $3 billion.

Well done.

I think I'm going to enjoy this. I did not come into this interview thinking, I'm going to enjoy this. But now, as I am watching this, I am thinking to myself, I am going to enjoy this. Let me prepare the table for the feast we are all about to enjoy. As regular viewers of our program know, Donald Trump has a somewhat high regard for his own financial acumen. In fact, not 20 minutes prior, in this very same interview we are watching, Donald Trump said this.

I'm really good at money and finance. It's probably maybe my best thing.

Best? Better than Poole? Poole renovation, finance, and money? He's better at money than Poole. So let's hear from Trump about the intricacies and sage financial acumen that brought him this $3 billion windfall.

I make I have a lot of money, and far more than I ever thought I'd have. And I guess it's gone up. I don't even know.

So when it's global finance, Trump is Keanu Reeves from The Matrix. But when it's his own $3 billion post-election windfall, he's Keanu Reeves from Bill and Ted. Dude, whoa. I don't yo, that's a lot of money. The only promise, like, my frustration with reporters is I wish someone would, like, hammer down on this.

Your son manages or helps manage a cryptocurrency company called World Liberty Financial. You are a co-owner of that company. That's correct. Right? This company is also partially owned by investors connected to the government of the United Arab Emirates. I think if I told you that story, and it was about the Biden family, if I said Joe Biden is the part owner of a company and it has all of these investments from the Middle East, you would say, that sounds corrupt.

I'll have what he's having.

Whoa! Oh, my god! Man, first of all, I love that in the middle of that line of inquiry, Trump is like, which son? Which? Which one of my sons runs this thing you brought? Is it Lanky, Chinless, or new guy? Which? Which one of these? And second of all, I love that Douthat is forcing Trump to compare himself to the Biden crime family.

You would say, that sounds corrupt. Right?

Well, he did have a lot of different.

Sure, but you. But why is it different for you?

Well, here's what I'll tell you why. Because I know nothing about it.

My god. Ross, you beautiful bearded bastard. Do you know what you've just done here? Do you have any idea what you just did here? You have made Donald Trump admit that the difference between him and Joe Biden is that Joe Biden is more aware of his surroundings. That's what he did.

There you go. The difference is I have no idea what happened. And that's when shit got weird.

What do you think happens when you die?

You want Trump to answer one of the great philosophical questions of our existence? He doesn't even know where money comes from. But let him answer.

What do you think happens to Donald Trump when you die?

You mean where I go?

Exactly.

Well, I'm a religious person, so in theory, I go to heaven.

Do you think you're going to heaven?

I hope so. I don't want to go to hell.

You know, you know that's not how hell works, right? It's not you check your preference, like fish or steak, you know, first choice, safety school kind of a thing. I think the whole heaven-helping is connected to behavior and sometimes something saviorish. And the interviewer did his best to see if Trump could even meet the bare minimum of requirements for eternal grace.

Let's say you pass away. You're entering the next life. And all you have to do to enter paradise is feel love and forgiveness for James Comey, Nancy Pelosi, anyone who you have expressed hate for over the years. Do you think you can do it?

My brother. Oh, he said, this is a gimme pot. You just walk right just right in the cup. This one's for eternity, a grain of forgiveness for an ocean of bliss. It's heaven. All places nothing but ballrooms. It's just heaven. It's just all ballrooms as far as the eye can see. And as Trump answers the question, I have to give the greatest congratulations and prompts to the artistic choice 60 Minutes made for when to cut away from the interview and go to commercial for maximum dramatic impact.

So that's why I asked. Can I be honest? I probably cannot do that, no. Because I do hate some of my enemies, and I always will.

Oh, shit. No, they did it. Oh, shit. That is some Ebenezer Scrooge bullshit on that. I hate my enemies. 60 Minutes directed by Bergman now? Is there a sound that is any more of an ominous portent of the fate that awaits Donald Trump?

Do you think immigration hurt you in the midterm? Do you think the crackdown hurt you?

I think it both helped and hurt.

So you think your deportation policy went too far. It was too tough.

I think it might be too tough, yeah.

It may be a few years too late, but it sounds like Trump is ready to find some common ground on immigration, and we should welcome that.

Breaking news. The president just announcing Stephen Miller will be the new White House Chief of Staff.

Very interesting. Before the show, I mentioned to the audience this is true. I said, you know, you're going to see some clips you might not like, and please try not to boo and that. We got some jokes written off all the clips. They couldn't resist. Literally, I and in some ways, I don't blame them. This is entrapment. I don't know what it is. I don't know what the opposite of a honeypot is, but I trapped them.

One of the roles of the chief of staff is to have a relationship with the president where you can tell him the tough news, the hard news, provide constructive criticism.

He's the person who you're trusted to tell you things that you don't want to hear.

I get it. Not a sycophant. You don't want a sycophant. Mr. Miller, is that a role that you're comfortable in?

Thank you, President Trump, for being the greatest president in American history.

This man saved America. He saved the Republican Party from the ash heap of history. And I pledge to you, Mr. President, my absolute loyalty, my unwavering commitment, and my total devotion.

I'm going to put that down as a no. What's the level of feelty that goes beyond sloppy blowjob? And by the way, what kind of Transylvania shit is. I pledge my total devotion and absolute loyalty. Because I do think I've heard the phrase before. I'm loyal to you, master. I'm your slave.

I give you my allegiance, master. I pledge myself to you, body and soul. I swear fealty now and always.

Oh, command me, Lord.

I will do whatever you ask.

Good. I got to say, Trump does look pretty good here. All right. So he's not going to be a hard truths kind of guy. But I'm sure Miller has other qualities that make him a good chief of staff. What else do you need for this job?

If there is calm at the center, if there is steadiness at the center, there's calm that radiates throughout the whole team.

OK, that makes sense. A good chief of staff is emotionally grounded, projects a cool rationality that can calm the ship of state. Mr. Miller, does that sound I'll it. Just roll the tape.

Are you trusting the numbers of the dictatorship to.

I am trusting the fact that Kamala Harris is letting illegal immigrants into this country who are raping and murdering children. Children are dead, and you are wasting my time.

No. They're plotting. They're scheming. They're planning. They rape and pillage and murder, kidnap people, beat them senseless. We are being conquered now. Not a month from now, not a year from now, right now. How many more innocent people have to die in pursuit of an overwhelming agenda?

Calm down a minute. We don't have to yell.

Firewolf, you're interrupting Miller's calm steadiness. You can read all about it in Miller's book, Zen and the Art of The Children Are Dead. All right. Well, right now, I'm not sure Miller has the qualities as much as he has quantities. But surprisingly, you're not out of the running. Can Miller pull this thing out?

Temperament is a huge part of it. These are grounded, sensible people who are comfortable in their own skin.

Ooh, comfortable in his own skin, survey says.

Last Sunday on Face the Nation, Miller appeared to have used spray on hair to hide his bald spot.

Alas. His hairline was the one border crisis he couldn't solve. Talk about the great replacement. But even though Stephen Miller does not seem remotely qualified for this kind of job, he has, in fact, been given this job. And today, Monday, was his first day. For more on Trump's new chief of staff, we go to the White House with our very own senior White House correspondent, Jordan Klepper. Jordan, thanks for joining us. Thanks, Jordan.

John, today was Stephen Miller's first Monday as chief of staff. And it was mostly administrative duties, getting a new picture for his ID badge, changing his email signature, being briefed on his new responsibilities.

I'm sorry, Jordan. I don't want to what is that behind you?

It's the White House, John.

No, no, no, no. There is a giant glowing eye.

Oh. Oh, that.

Yeah.

Not really sure what it is. All I know is if I make eye contact with it, I foresee my own death. Masturbation accident, John. Not pretty.

Doesn't that worry you?

Well, it's not the best way to die, but it's not going to keep me out of the game.

All right. Jordan, I mean the eye.

Ah, oh. I don't know. With staffing changes comes new cosmetic changes. Aside from that, it's just another day at the White House because they really want to hit the ground running this week.

Oh, my God. Jordan, are those monkeys?

Flying monkeys, yeah. But like I was saying, the first week is critical to establishing tone for the chief of staff.

But where did the monkeys come from?

The darkened horizon, John, heralded by a banshee death whale. It appears they have made this realm their own.

Where are they headed?

Oh, John, that's up to them. Now, Miller might be a little bit more interested.

They're gone. They're gone. Jesus. Oh, my God. Thank God they're gone. Oh, what are they carrying? What are they carrying?

Yeah, they're carrying crying children, John. Or maybe they're small adults. I don't want to speculate. Anyway, Miller had a 2 o'clock meeting today.

But where are they taking the children, Jordan?

That's up to the monkeys, John.

Oh, my God.

Now, you know what? A fun, little-known White House tradition is picking out stationery. Every chief of staff gets to do it. And Stephen Miller's been looking for it.

Jordan, is it snowing there now?

Ash, John, volcanic ash. You know, now that I smell it, it could be monkey feces. One of them got me good this morning. Felt like he was really aiming the thing at me.

Jordan, what the hell is that? Are you OK?

Yeah, well, that's some sort of call to prayer, you know, but for demon stuff. All I know is that when it plays, we head towards the reflecting pool and begin speaking in tongues. Anyway, the eternal water is back in me, John. Molaram, sudaram, molaram, sudaram, molaram, sudaram.

Stay safe, Jordan. Jordan Klepper. When we come back, Rachel Maddow will be in the studio. Don't go away.

Welcome to the Daily Show. My guest tonight is the host of MS Now's The Rachel Maddow Show and author of the new book, Department of Fate: The Promise, the Power, and the Collapse of America's Most Consequential Institution. Please welcome to the program, Rachel Maddow.

Thank you.

Wow.

Thanks for having me.

How are you? There is an excitement. There is a feeling of hope. How did you experience I know you were working rarely on a Tuesday.

I know. You know me. Mondays would be.

I thought we were Monday buddies.

Exactly.

And by the way.

Mondays are the best day.

What's right in the books? I thought it was we work on Monday, and then the rest of the week, we feed chipmunks. We do whatever.

I wrote it only on Mondays.

All right. Good. That makes me feel better. How did you experience the night? During the day, were you trepidatious? When was it that you thought, oh, this is going the way that I would like it to go and in a way that is even grander than what I might have imagined?

I think that I didn't have any insider knowledge about how it was going to go. I didn't have any better look at the polls than anybody. But I realized I was in trouble when my cheat stopped working. The way you cheat for preparing for midterm election nights when there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people on the ballot is you don't study everybody. You only study the few dozen races that are going to flip. And that's what everybody does, that everybody has the same cheat. You don't think you're going to need to know the name of the cute gay guy in Indiana in the Trump double-digit district who loves cats.

So they're just throwing you races that no one saw coming, and you're trying to on the fly pick all that stuff up and grab it. So you really there's almost no time to soak in any kind of exhilaration. You really are still working.

Yes. I'm trying to keep my brain and my mouth connected and legal because I've got and my ears too because I also have to hear from the control room when we've got a call. And is it a big enough call that I need to interrupt the person talking and jump in there and say and you have to make sure that you say the right thing, and you have to pronounce stuff right, and you have to remember if you have anything salient to say about the person. It's just a lot. I think it really wasn't until I got off the air that I realized, oh, holy flip, Texas is blue.

You can say here.

I'll turn into just toast instantly, lightning bolt.

You cannot let that go because then you'll go back to work in your real place and go, oh, no, I'm not going to start to do that.

It's true.

It is the kind of thing what time did you get out of there?

I was supposed to be on until 2:00, but at 1:19, my brain and my mouth disconnected, and Christmas took over.

And then you were like, you were done.

I was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get that. Now, what was the most consequential for you? Was it the Senate races? Because as much as the cute guy from Indiana, when the Senate flipped, that really was the night that Democrats could only have dreamed of.

For me, I think a lot of the whole state governments being taken over by Democrats is really important too. I'm really, really hung up on the fact that people are losing their health care, their health insurance by the millions. And it's going to make a really big difference to have Democratic full control in places like Pennsylvania and to have a Democratic governor in someplace like Ohio and to have Democrats taking over state government in so many places. It's going to have a huge difference, going to make a huge difference in terms of people just not losing their health insurance.

Yes. Everybody was waiting to have a Fetterman-proof Senate. But tell me about this. The statehouse thing is so interesting to me because is it that the federal government, by abdicating their responsibility for people who are struggling, does that get shifted? Is that about the block grants that come in there? How can Democratic statehouses make up that difference without really going into the red for themselves just economically? Or is it that they can put more pressure on the federal government for block grants?

It'll matter in terms of what states are doing and where it's working in states now to put pressure upward. But I don't think Donald Trump is going to sign anything that's going to be good for health care for the American people. Had he wanted to do that, he could have done that by now, and he never has. But I do think that in Georgia, the fact that Georgia has been governed by Republicans for so many years means that there are hundreds of thousands of people in Georgia who could be on Medicaid right now, and Republicans are making sure they can't.

Liss had been cold.

Yes. And their Medicaid expansion is something that you can do under state law if you want to. And Republicans stopped them from doing that in Georgia. And now Keisha Lance Bottoms is in there. And it's a huge deal that she's the first Black woman to ever be the governor of a state anywhere. But it's a really, really, really big deal in really short term that this probably means that hundreds of thousands of people who otherwise don't have health insurance in Georgia are now going to get it because of her and because of Democrats.

Tangible effects that'll be felt now. What is for you to because I tend to get pessimistic when I see a certain status quo leadership group in place that has in some ways disappointed in the past. And so I wonder, well, what will be different now? What would you need to see going forward from Democratic leadership in the House and the Senate that would make you feel like, oh, this is different.

I mean, I can give you a list of 30 things.

Give me a list of five things.

I mean, I think that they can act not only to investigate what's been going on with ICE, but to defund what ICE has been doing. I think they can impeach not only Pete Hegseth, but Todd Blanch at the Department of Health. And I think that's important not just to shame those guys, but in some cases, it's essentially to stop a crime wave in progress. Just let them know they can't get away with this stuff anymore and impeach them. I think that they could also do things on health care that would make it really difficult for the president to keep stepping on people's necks in terms of having health insurance.

If I was triaging, that'd probably be my number one. That's the thing that I've seen from people from every straw of American society. Health care and health insurance bills have skyrocketed 30% every year for the last 30 years.

It's insane. For people who have health insurance, it's insane. But there's 4 million kids in America right now who aren't covered by any health insurance. We could have essentially Medicare for all kids, where you know maybe it's not going to be Medicare for all right off the bat. Maybe we're not going to go for that first. But every kid in America should have health insurance. Andy Kim has a bill that would do that. I think Democrats would support it up and down the ballot.

How he would veto something like that, I think, would be an astonishingly difficult move for him.

Yes. I think they can use the power of the purse to stop the Iran war. I mean, I think there's a lot I think there's a lot of stuff that they can do. And I think.

No stock trading? That'd go on the floor first day.

Say stop members of Congress from stock trading. Stop people who are federal contractors from making political donations. If you're getting money from the federal government, don't you can't then turn that money around and pay it to buy use it to buy your politicians?

How much of a problem is the Supreme Court over the last 20 years when you think about the way that they've defined down corruption, the way that they've insulated the executive branch, the way that they have made it so that money is speech and corporations are people? How difficult is that to do legislatively, or is that constitutional is that beyond the scope of what this group can do?

I think that you need to find where the limits are by pushing right up against them. And so, yeah.

Push the limits. Where would they have learned that from? Push the limits. I like it.

I mean, for example, on the federal contractors making political donations. Think about Elon Musk getting billions of dollars in SpaceX contracts from the government and whatever, and then turning around and spending billions of dollars trying to pick his government so they can keep giving him more money. It's a nasty circle. There are federal laws that preclude that or supposed to preclude that, but they're full of loopholes. Close the loopholes and then make the Supreme Court stand up for them if they want to. Just push it. This is the time to do that.

I have to say, what this election showed and I think you've actually done an awful lot on this because you've done it in terms of the way people have pushed back on the government trying to build there was a place in Georgia. It was Social Circle. Am I getting that name right? Social Circle Georgia, super red place. The Trump administration wanted to build a huge detention center there, and they fought it, and they stopped it. Yeah, it turns out the consent of the governed still as little as consent might matter to Donald Trump.

Yes. And it doesn't usually get led by the representatives, the elected representatives of those people. Social Circle stood up for itself. People all over the country where Trump wanted to put these mega prisons, these were huge warehouses to hold people by the thousands. Prisons that would hold 5, 6, 7, 10, 14,000 people all without trial held indefinitely.

For things that are generally considered in our society civil issues. These are not the worst of the worst. These are people who overstayed a student visa or are here on a green card but got a parking ticket. Ticky tack shit that normally would be treated civilly, yes?

Yes. Or they came in legally under TPS, temporary protected status, or something, and then the Trump administration decided to revoke it and suddenly basically illegalize people who had never done anything illegal in their life who are here on legal terms. And I think we talk to each other and we say, oh, that's how they want to treat immigrants. That's what they want to do. We think about it as a special class of behavior by the government that's just for immigrants. And we think, therefore, oh, you either care about immigrants or you don't. No, I'm sorry. With a president like this, if you give him 7 to 10 prisons around the country that hold 10,000 people each where he can hold people without trial, without access to lawyers indefinitely, you think he's only going to leave immigrants in there?

Which brings us to this book, which is sort of charting the DOJ. I think we all have kind of this very high-minded feeling. It's the DOJ. There's independence. This is a great study in actually. But you run through some great examples of where the DOJ has not necessarily been that ideal that we view.

And I wrote the book mostly because I think I was really wrong about something in Trump's first term. By the end of his first term, when Bill Barr was in there and everything, he was using the Justice Department for all sorts of terrible and inappropriate stuff. Remember they going after Peter Struck and Lisa Paide, the FBI?

Yes. Apparently, they had a relationship. And so they had to be arrested.

So they had to put their private text messages give their private text messages out to reporters from the Justice Department, right? And trying to turn the Russia investigation about the investigation of what Russia did in the 2016 election into itself a criminal act. And they pushed out US attorneys who wouldn't prosecute John Kerry and Barack Obama's White House counsels, all this weird stuff that we've kind of forgotten now. But it struck me at that time that if he got back in for a second term, he would super-size the Justice Department.

And there's a lot of folks in there now that refuse if the criterion are not met for indictments. They refuse to indict and then they're fired. And a real estate lawyer from near Mar-a-Lago just steps in and goes, "I'll do it." And then the judge goes like, "This is not actually the Queens. It's just not English."

In DC, just looking at Washington, DC, they brought in to be the top federal prosecutor in DC, the only Fox News host with a less impressive reputation than Pete Hegseth. If Pete Hegseth didn't have a great workplace behavior reputation, there's only one person lower than him on the rank. They put her in charge in Washington. And then remember she had to bring in the dance photographer to be her main prosecutor on some of these cases? The guy whose side hustle was that he was a dance photographer.

And even she can't abide by what he wants because even she's like, "But he didn't vandalize the pool. I can't hold the veteran because he didn't vandalize the pool." And Trump's like, "Duh."

The judge actually makes us prove it. It's awful.

But so this is what you thought would happen didn't because of the incompetence, but not for lack of trying to weaponize it.

The Justice Department, this is about kind of the history of the Justice Department and a lot of the terrible things that it has done in its 150 years. When the Justice Department stood up against the Klan in 1870, when it was first founded, it was incredibly effective against the Klan, and it set the country's course in a way that was really powerful. When it cracked down on organized labor just as hard, it was also just as powerful in terms of.

And they did, you write that they suspended habeas corpus.

And going after the Klan.

To go after the Klan. And we do think of that as, well, that was the right move. But then you think, well, then Roosevelt did that to intern the Japanese. That sometimes we use the might of the federal government and these emergency powers for what we consider to be good, but we have to be very wary of what that power will represent ultimately.

The government and specifically the Justice Department are, I argue, the most consequential institution in the country. They hold the country's fate in their hands. They have incredible power. And given that, I think it's really interesting that Trump decided to essentially destroy it instead of use it to the max that he could. And I think the reason that he did that is because the core function of the Justice Department, for all its faults, for all the terrible things it's done, the core function of the Justice Department is to make sure that the Constitution is in effect in this country. And if you want the Constitution to not be in effect in this country, you do not need that building full of lawyers telling you otherwise.

Well said. How do we view it in the context? Because a lot of what you write about reminds me that presidents often have a real idea of how they want to use the Justice Department. And they use those lawyers to justify that, whether it's John Yu and the torture members or unitary executive power. It seems almost like doctor shopping, where they'll go in and say, "I want to do this," justify it in a memo.

I think so. I think that when we refound it, because it is pretty much Dunzo now. It's like Dornill. When we refound it, I think that it should be treated as a special case. I think that you should have to get, for example.

Outside the executive?

It has to stay within the executive because of the way the Constitution is set up. But you can make it so that you need a super majority in the Senate, for example, to confirm any senior officials. You can make it so that you can't have been the president's personal lawyer if you want to then become the attorney general. I don't know.

Little things.

Little things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Makes sense.

I think there are structural reforms. You could give the inspector general subpoena power and his ability to haul in people who even quit the department and are former officials, which is something that other departments now have that the Justice Department doesn't. So it's a really, I think, almost melodramatically consequential thing. But the fixes are within our power. You don't need a constitutional amendment in order to do it. You could do it with democratic majorities in the House and Senate and with a democratic president in 2028.

Do you believe, given what we've seen over these last few years, that our government still has the ability to investigate itself and bring accountability? That even when you think about the case study is always January 6th, and you think about, well, that's the most egregious thing that in our lifetimes an executive makes Watergate look like child's play. And we were unable, other than for some individuals who faced justice and were then ultimately pardoned, are the mechanisms of accountability broken?

In the Justice Department right now, I think they are. But that is not the only mechanism. Just take one example with Todd Blanche. Todd Blanche goes and takes a personal meeting with the woman who was convicted as Jeffrey Epstein's co-conspirator.

I believe I read about this.

Child sex trafficking ring. He sits down with Ghislaine Maxwell, has this long conversation with her in which he asks her questions about how she feels about the president. And did you ever encounter the president? He didn't do anything bad, did he? And she tells him, "Oh, no, the president is not only super innocent, he's also lovely and handsome."

He's a gentleman.

She just spouts this totally factually uncorroborated pseudo-exonerating nonsense about the president. What happens immediately after? She mysteriously gets moved to a minimum security facility where, among other things, she gets a puppy. Not kidding.

She got a puppy?

She got a puppy. They don't usually let sex offenders train puppies, but she got one because they moved her to.

Apparently, they don't normally move sex offenders.

No, not at all.

To nicer place.

She should not. By the virtue of the category of her offense, does not qualify to be in that sort of prison. But it happened right after Todd Blanche talked to her about Trump. And they said, "Oh, the Bureau of Prisons just did this on their own. We have no idea. It's unconnected." I'm sorry. The relevant committees and the House and the Senate just take that one thing alone can investigate how it is that she got moved to Puppyville. And that alone, I'm sorry, is kind of impeachment-level stuff. And that doesn't even get to not investigating who killed Renee Good or who killed Alex Credy.

For a while, there was no real investigation into any of it.

None of it.

There was no investigation. They said no. And the Minneapolis police weren't even allowed to be a part of it.

Even right now, this weekend, a senior official from the Department of Health and Human Services, think of it what you will right now, but he's left. And he said the reason that he left is because he says Trump's White House Chief of Staff was taking money, was essentially demanding that you pay her family if you wanted to get Trump administration attention and action. That's a really serious claim to make, especially if you've got sort of documents to corroborate that that's what happened, which they kind of have. A Justice Department that had a Public Integrity Division would investigate that.

Well, you bring it up, actually. And you've got to get it because it provides you a roadmap to sort of the different variations that the Department of Justice went through. But the chapters on the Teapot Dome scandal, I mean, talk about history rhyming. It really feels like a very similar just we're open for business.

Yeah. And the attorney general at the time, so Teapot Dome, I know everybody's like, "Err." But it's just one of these scandals where effectively all you need to know is that they stole tens of millions of dollars in 1920s dollars from the American people. And the attorney general at the time was this guy, Harry Doherty. And the phrase that I use in the book to describe the Department of Justice under him is that it was a multi-story bribe department store. You just go to different floors of the Department of Justice to pay different bribes for different services that you wanted. But the worst thing that he did was not investigate, was refuse to look into, refuse to bring criminal charges or criminal investigations against the obvious corruption that was happening in the White House and in the cabinet, which is very much looks like what's happening right now.

No question. And the book, by the way, what I really love about it is it provides you a roadmap of context for where you go. But it doesn't just diagnose. I think you put in here some really interesting and clear-cut remedies, which is unusual. So I appreciate that. I don't appreciate you shaming the Monday night workers' club by doing such a work of scholarship.

I will never write another book. This is it.

Maybe I would do like a 30-page pamphlet, but otherwise, it's fantastic. Thank you for being on.

Thank you, John.

Thank you, John.

All right, everybody, available now, Rachel Maddow Show, Mondays at 9:00 p.m. on MSN. Rachel Maddow, we'll be right back after this. That is our show for tonight. But before we go, we're going to check in with your hosts for the rest of the week, Desi Lydon. Desi! Welcome.

Well, John, the CEO of Nvidia was caught having an affair with a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy.

Yeah, huge, huge story. Major national security risk.

Oh, indeed, John. And it's why I've created a questionnaire for tech bros to make sure your affair partner isn't a foreign asset.

Well, please.

Question number one, do they want to have sex with you? If yes, she is a spy.

That's the whole questionnaire?

Yeah. That's it.

Well, he's not going to I mean, he won't be punished. He's untouchable. I mean, do you think the woman will face punishment?

She had sex with a 63-year-old nerd, John. She's been punished enough. By the way, how old are you?

Desi Lydic, everybody. Here it is, your moment of death.

RFK Jr., the HHS secretary who you're very, very close to, said, "Stephen Miller is the strongest MAHA supporter in the administration. It's time to unleash the Kracken." What do you take that to mean?

What I take it to mean is actually an opening for Republicans and Democrats. Unleash the Kracken means doing things that matter to the American people.