Watch The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell Highlights: Oct. 10

Well, Donald Trump has confessed that he confessed this weekend that the case appropriately titled Donald J. Trump v. United States of America took a turn that no television drama writer would ever write about because it is so absurd and no prosecutor would expect it because it has never happened. something like that. Before, in decades of television dramas and movies, we have seen the criminal suspect worn down by clever police interrogations or cross-examinations by the prosecutor to the point where the suspect finally gives up and confesses, well, you know, that doesn't happen much in the real life, but What happened in the Trump case this weekend never happened in real life until now Donald Trump now that Donald Trump is a criminal suspect in a federal investigation of possible violations of the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice the The most dangerous place for Donald Trump is anywhere near a microphone, Donald Trump's lawyers know this, but they also know that they cannot control their client, so yesterday Donald Trump approached a microphone in Arizona to support the candidate which he chose to run against Democratic Senator Mark Kelly.

Senator Kelly now has three votes. point lead in polls Donald Trump gave Arizona voters no real reason to vote for his Senate pick, instead letting Arizona voters be the first people to hear his confession . He had a small amount of boxes stored in March. -A-Lake guarded by the secret service and my people and everyone, I mean it's safe, there's no crime, you know, there's no crime, it's not a crime and they should immediately give me back everything they've taken from me because it's mine, it's mine because it's mine, it's mine. Donald Trump in front of thousands of witnesses yesterday and in front of a couple million Witnesses right now on this program demonstrated beyond a doubt his criminal intent to continue to illegally possess government records, including classified records Donald Trump Trump with that statement left in Of course he had the criminal intent and plan to never return government property to the government.

Even Donald Trump's first line: he had a small number of boxes stored at Mar-A-Lago, is legally problematic for Donald Trump. Defense One of the defenses that was theoretically available to Donald Trump at the beginning of this criminal investigation was that he didn't know the things were there, they were in the basement, and he didn't know we had things in the basement. There I thought we had returned everything that could have created enough Reasonable Doubt in the mind of a jury, but Donald Trump has now formally ripped away that possible line of defense. Donald Trump is saying very clearly that he knew he had boxes stored at Mar-A-Lago, he says he knew about them and you can ignore the part in the middle where Donald Trump says it's not a crime because no matter how many times he tells his fans that It is not a crime that does not change. the written law that says in writing that it is a federal crime, so in Donald Trump's confession he made it clear, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he knew he had boxes stored at Mar-A-Lago and that those boxes contained documents government, including classified documents. documents that were from the government and that he was never going to return those documents to the government he was going to continue committing that crime of illegal possession of those documents every day for the rest of his life because in his

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s they are mine these are the type of public comments that they amount to none other than Donald Trump actually taunting Attorney General Merrick Garland into impeaching him.

Donald Trump is now publicly challenging the attorney general to impeach him. Donald Trump is mocking the very existence of the law that he so clearly violated. Donald Trump Pretends the Law Doesn't Exist Donald Trump Says It's Not a Crime, What Effect Does That Have on Justice Departments and the Attorney General's Determination to Live by the Words Merrick Garland Has Said Repeatedly Since This Case Began ? Nobody is above the law. NBC News broke the news that one of Trump's lawyers met with federal investigators on Friday and answered their questions, according to three NBC News sources familiar with the matter.

Attorney Christina Bob has been represented by her own criminal defense attorney since it became public that she signed. a statement to federal authorities in June that was proven false on June 3 at Mar-A-Lago when FBI agents and a federal prosecutor arrived to collect all government documents at the property, all of which were under subpoena. Christina Bob signed a certification saying that Trump's lawyers were turning over all documents subject to that subpoena, all government documents about the property were being turned over. Christina Bob signed a statement saying that, based on the information provided to me, I am authorized to certify on behalf of the office of Donald J.

Trump, a diligent search of the boxes that were moved from the White House to Florida B. This search was conducted after receipt of the subpoena to locate any and all responsive documents to the subpoena see any and all responsive documents accompanying this certification and D was not withheld no copy, written annotation or reproduction of any kind of any response document. I swear or affirm that the above statements are true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief, that document was written. by another Trump lawyer, Evan Corcoran, and the guardian reports that Christina Bob required language to be added to that document that could now save her from criminal prosecution.

The phrase based on the information that has been provided to me, those

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s were added by Christina Bob and those words could be the magic words that save Christina Bob from being prosecuted for lying to the FBI before Donald Trump returned a single document to the government . The New York Times reports that she came up with a truly Trumpian idea with her staff. She thought of offering the deal to return the boxes in exchange for documents she believed would expose the Russia investigation as a hoax masterminded by the FBI. Trump did not appear to know specifically what he believed the files contained, only that there were elements he wanted from Trump.

Aides acknowledged that such a exchange would be impossible since the government had a clear claim on the material Trump had taken from the White House and Russia-related documents in the archives remained marked classified and they never acted on the idea. I could introduce you as my favorite guest, but the problem is that there have been a lot of guests on the bill, I would be very upset with that, especially those who I told privately were my favorite guests, do you know how you know how that goes? so I won't do it once we're shooting once we're in the air, we'll just do it very formally, like it's as complete a script as we are.

It'll be like, you know, like UB Walter Cronkite, but I said you need no introduction. I think it s true. I think it s true. So I waited until this morning. You know, they sent me things in advance so I could be one of the. great people who listened to ultra on Friday and I said: no, no, I'm going to be with the people who can start on Monday morning, thank you because what they would have told you on Friday was a draft and it happened like six more drafts between Friday and this, okay, so I spent a significant amount of my amateur scholarship in the 1940s, uh, 1944, especially, but 1940 because it's Franklin Roosevelt that's running, he's the first guy that decides to run for a third term.

Well, that's what 1940 is to me and it's the buildup to the World War, our involvement in World War II, which is already underway. World War II is underway, we are not in it yet. I had no idea about anything in this 1940s story you're telling, including this United States senator I'd never heard of, yeah, you know, and there just aren't many of them, you should be able to tell, and he was the worst civilian. plane crash in US history, when did it happen, I mean, not only was it a plane crash that killed a serving US senator and a lot of other interesting people on board the plane, which is part of the episode of what but there has never been a fatal accident. or civil accident before that plane crash and it's totally lost to history and yeah, I didn't know about the plane crash.

The senator goes down in a plane crash and, by the way, there are two FBI agents on board and a federal prosecutor and it could have been a fight and it's impressive is this is this is the story that you start with in the podcast and and and then you're inside you're just in it you know what let's hear I want to hear oh you brought something up I want to hear the way you start this okay because this grabs you and doesn't let you go let's hear the beginning of this today Saturday August 31st , it is Saturday, August 31, 1940.

Senator Lundin arrives early to work that day, even before his secretary arrives, when she enters, she finds him already at his desk, but something is definitely wrong, he is not sitting at his desk As usual, he is slumped there, his head bowed. desk his head is buried in his arms he doesn't seem to be sick although what he appears to be is emotionally distraught crying the secretary asks him what's wrong he doesn't explain he has tears running down his face but all she will tell him is I can't talk about that and I've gone too far to turn back, so you know, I worked in the United States Senate.

Here is a phrase I have never heard from a senator. I've gone too far to turn back, so this is it. 50 seconds into this podcast and Lawrence Ronald Jr has gone too far, so I don't know, I don't move for the rest of that one and then bam, the second one starts immediately, but like I told you at the beginning. At the moment I still don't know why it's called Ultra. I don't have to know if I should wait. There is no experience. Is there an interesting title reveal? Ultra. There may be a second season of Ultra, which is partly why there is. a title that is not very specific to this plot, this is what happens with the second season.

I personally am going to need it to start right away, okay, okay, I can't, I can't do this waiting thing, okay, if I get something mini, it won't continue. It is always a miniseries, there are only eight episodes for the first season, we have already released two and the idea of ​​ultra is that it is a term that is used in other countries more easily than here to refer to ultranationalists. or people who are Ultra Hardline in some way, we don't really use it in politics here, although people have started to do it in the Trump Universe, they are kind of an ultra Maga idea, uh, which started when I think I'm talking about it a little bit, but basically it's the idea that politics is not just extreme, not just radical, but something that is a compound element of the violent will to use violence and, again, it's a concept that is more familiar in other countries .

In other countries, in terms of their political science, it's also sometimes used to talk about football hooligans and radical proto-fascist football hooligan movements in other countries, that's one of the ways it's used and I don't think That it's actually very far from what I'm talking about here is a bit impressionistic, but it's basically about the far right and politics going beyond extreme politics and becoming something where you abandon politics and you're willing to be violent and you have I stepped back and found in the deep forest of our 1940s-era politics a predecessor to the kind of insurrectionary activity that we have been living with and I think it is easy for us, in our current politics driven by personality, look for precedents. in character to look for who Trump was or who John Eastman was or who Michael Flynn was or and you can find those parallels in individual humans.

I think it is more interesting and perhaps more useful for us to find parallel movements, parallel impulses. There were moments of extremism and people willing to abandon the Democratic experiment and we really had it in a way that has a lot of resonance with today, in the late '30s, before the start of World War II, and there was a real crisis around to violence. seditionist movements that were well armed that were planning violent attacks against the US government to install authoritarian dictatorships here and in some cases were supported by Hitler's government there were also members of Congress who were helping and the really interesting parallel is not I know The really interesting moment for me in its history.

The reason I decided this had to be a podcast was and I realized that the involvement of members of Congress in this plot is what effectively thwarted the Department of Justice's abilities to address it. We are very bad at using it. the criminal justice system to hold people with a lot of political power accountable because they use their political power to pressure the justice system; It's not supposed to be that way, but we see it and this is a clear example of the members of Congress who were involved did everything possible to derail the investigation and we should know that history, thejustice department should deal with it, but we need to know, so we're not waiting for the criminal justice system to do everything, it has to be a complete response. and there are a lot of things in the politics of the time that fed into this, including what I think has been lost in the post-World War II era, especially in the post-World War II entertainment industry, about World War II in film, the cinematic world.

The United States was enormously opposed to getting involved in World War II, uh, almost up until the time we did it and that was part of what was being conveyed in this story, yeah, and you have, I mean, we know the America First committee, the America First movement that It's surprising that anyone today uses America First as their slogan given its history, but that was the most prominent industrialist in the country, Henry Ford, the most prominent, the most famous person in the country, who was not President Charles Lindbergh. at most they were some of the country's most prominent celebrities and industrialists, the most powerful media figure in the country, Charles Coughlin, someone whose influence has never been equaled in modern times, all pulling in the isolationist direction, some of them with incredible radicalism and anti-Semitism associated with them and that was the anti-interventionist movement it wasn't a little Splinter it wasn't a little you know some dark corner of American politics they were the The most powerful and prominent people in the country going in that direction and their connections with Hitler's government and its connections with a very dangerous and violent anti-Semitism is something that I don't think has been told well.

Yes, I mean, there was a fight against the war. anti-war sentiment against World War II that arose rationally from World War I, yes, and our experience there and the people who feel very negative about our experience there, that must be distinguished from this virulently anti-Semitic, very pro-Nazi, Charles Lindbergh, the most famous. leader of the kind of American pro-Nazi movement decorated by Hitler himself, all these characters were getting these guys, this picture here, these guys with guns is getting these guys excited, uh, to do what they do in episode two of ultra that I listened to today when Do I get episode three on Monday?

You'll get a new episode every Monday until I'm afraid it's Monday, so you're telling me what I'm supposed to do for the next one. Oh, okay, I'll tell you that you'll be in episode three. I'm going to meet Norma, Senator Lundeen's widow, which is a great story and you'll want to hear it, thank you foreigner.