The GOP aim to shutdown democracy and 'replace it with techno-state dictatorship' warns Rep. Raskin

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Rep. Jamie Raskin joins Jonathan Capehart to discuss how President Trump used his speech at the Justice Department to attack his critics and vow to exact revenge.  For more context and news coverage of the most important stories of our day click here: https://www.msnbc.com/  » Subscribe to MSNBC: https://www.youtube.com/msnbc » Subscribe to MSNBC on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@msnbc  » Subscribe to MSNBC on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/msnbc  Download our new MSNBC app for the latest breaking news and daily headlines at a glance: https://www.msnbc.com/information/download-msnbc-app-n1241692  Follow MSNBC Show Blogs  MaddowBlog: https://www.msnbc.com/maddowblog  MSNBC delivers breaking news, in-depth analysis of political headlines, commentary and informed perspectives. Find video clips and segments from The Rachel Maddow Show, Inside with Jen Psaki, Morning Joe, The Beat, Deadline: White House, All In, The Last Word, The 11th Hour, and more.  Connect with MSNBC Online  Visit msnbc.com: https://www.msnbc.com/  Subscribe to the MSNBC Daily Newsletter: https://link.msnbc.com/join/5ck/msnbc-daily-signup   #gop #donaldtrump #politics

Transcript

00:00President Trump still accuses the Biden administration

00:03of having weaponized the Justice Department against him.

00:06But now he's the one calling on DOJ to go after his opponents.

00:11In a highly political and vitriolic address

00:13at the Justice Department's Great Hall,

00:15the president called out his critics by name,

00:18accused them of breaking the law,

00:20and vowed to exact revenge.

00:24These are people that are bad people, really bad people.

00:29They tried to turn America into a corrupt communist

00:33and third-world country.

00:34As the chief law enforcement officer in our country,

00:38I will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability

00:42for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred.

00:45What a difference a rigged and crooked election

00:47had on our country, when you think about it,

00:49and the people who did this to us should go to jail.

00:54They should go to jail.

00:57Joining me now, Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland.

00:59He's the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee

01:02and held a press conference yesterday

01:04to counter some of the president's claims.

01:07Congressman Raskin, thank you very much

01:09for coming to the Saturday show.

01:10First and foremost, let me get your reaction

01:12to the president's speech,

01:13but also the clip we played there,

01:15where he said these people should go to jail.

01:18They should go to jail.

01:19Yeah, well, first of all,

01:21there's never been anything like this in American history

01:23where the president of the United States

01:24goes to the Department of Justice

01:26and then sets forth an agenda of prosecution

01:29against his political enemies.

01:30We've never seen anything like that before.

01:32All of it was based on the big lie,

01:34which he went back to in that clip that you saw.

01:37He lost that election by more than 7 million votes.

01:40So he considers what he did in 2024 a landslide

01:43with 2.1 million votes.

01:45This was more than 7 million votes

01:47that Joe Biden beat him by,

01:47306 to 232 in the Electoral College.

01:50That was an absolute landslide.

01:51And yet he goes back and asserts the big lie,

01:56which even his own attorney general told him was BS,

01:59a word that Donald Trump used yesterday

02:01to describe the claims against him.

02:03And I said, the last time I heard that word

02:05was out of the mouth of his own attorney general,

02:08William Barr, who told him that all of his fraudulent claims

02:11of electoral corruption were just that.

02:14And yet there's just this trail of bile and viciousness

02:19that we saw yesterday at the Department of Justice.

02:21And it obviously disgraced a department

02:23that was once hallowed and revered.

02:26I was just about to ask you about that.

02:27Talk about why.

02:29I mean, he was the first sitting president

02:31to go to the Department of Justice since President Obama.

02:35Why was it such a disgrace?

02:37Or I think you called it a desecration

02:39of the values of the department.

02:41Explain to viewers why that is.

02:43Well, we've had a tradition

02:45that there's independent criminal law enforcement

02:48and the prosecutors operate based on the facts

02:52of reported federal crimes.

02:56And what the law is.

02:57And then they proceed in their grand jury indictments

02:59and so on.

03:01Donald Trump went over and said,

03:03here's my enemies list, prosecute these people.

03:05That's what we're gonna do.

03:07That is an absolute desecration

03:09of the meaning of the rule of law.

03:11I mean, there was law under King George

03:14and under the monarchs,

03:14but it was all law against the people by the king.

03:17And he wants to go back to that.

03:19The whole idea of the rule of law

03:20is that it's gotta apply against everybody,

03:22including the people who hold public office.

03:25Our framers thought that those of us

03:26who aspire and attain a public office

03:28are nothing but the servants of the people.

03:31And he's acting like an emperor, like a king.

03:33It was absolutely profane what happened yesterday

03:36at the department of justice.

03:37I mean, the department of justice is supposed to be,

03:39I mean, justice is supposed to be blind.

03:41It's supposed to be impartial.

03:43And DOJ, I mean, the way we've been talking about,

03:47the way the president talks about it,

03:49DOJ, he views it as his own personal law firm.

03:53They sacked dozens of prosecutors

03:55simply because they had prosecuted

03:58January 6th insurrectionists.

04:00And Donald Trump now disapproves of it.

04:02Of course, the day after January 6th,

04:03on January 7th, when he was scrambling

04:05to keep his whole political career alive,

04:08he said, these people had nothing to do with him.

04:10They should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law

04:12and so on.

04:13Well, now it serves his purpose to deny all of that.

04:16And he called them yesterday political prisoners

04:19like Alexei Navalny or Alexander Solzhenitsyn

04:22or Nelson Mandela.

04:23It was absolutely obscene.

04:25But he started off the speech by proclaiming his fidelity

04:29to free expression in the First Amendment.

04:31But of course, by the end of it,

04:33you couldn't help noticing that he wanted to go

04:35after all of his political enemies.

04:37And in fact, his entire administration has been geared

04:41at suppressing the freedom of speech of his enemies

04:43or people who just cross him in some ways.

04:45He sued CBS, I think it was, for $200 billion

04:51because he didn't like the way

04:53that his opponent Kamala Harris was portrayed.

04:55He thought it was too positive.

04:56He shook down ABC for $15 million

05:00for equally specious and flimsy charges.

05:03He is using the power of the state

05:05to shake down media institutions in America,

05:09to terrify and intimidate people.

05:11That's authoritarianism.

05:12He's going down the road of Putin in Russia

05:15and Orban in Hungary, which is why we've got to stay united

05:18and focused on defending constitutional democracy

05:21against this authoritarian attack.

05:23I'm glad you say we have to stay united

05:26and focused to push back on this.

05:28And yet just the first two blocks of the show,

05:31we were talking about an instance where the opposition,

05:35Democrats in the House didn't vote for the CR,

05:39but Democrats in the Senate, they voted for it

05:41and now it has passed.

05:43Are Democrats or the opposition,

05:47do they have the wherewithal?

05:49To push back and hold him accountable,

05:51to fight in the way that Americans

05:55would like them to fight?

05:56And certainly the base of the party

05:58would like them to fight.

05:59Well, I strongly opposed that dismal continuing resolution,

06:05which added billions of dollars and more cuts

06:07to Medicaid and healthcare and the things that we needed.

06:10Also retroactively, I think vindicated

06:16all of their fraudulent claims that they're using

06:18to tear down the government.

06:20We don't wanna give them any more license.

06:22But the real critique, so obviously we disagreed

06:25with our friends in the Senate strongly

06:27about that way that it played out.

06:28But the real critique I think belongs to all of us.

06:31The House and Senate Democrats should not act

06:34as if we occupy different galaxies.

06:36We should be working together and working

06:39before these things come up to develop

06:42an organized, coherent democratic response.

06:45So it's not like we're on separate teams.

06:47So I think there's a bit of fault everywhere.

06:50But in any event, none of it compares

06:51to the authoritarian attack on our institutions.

06:54And either way we went on that,

06:56it was going to be struggling to defend ourselves

06:59against a party that wants to shut down American democracy

07:02and replace it with techno state dictatorship.

07:06And Elon Musk is very explicit about that.

07:08I mean, he and his Silicon Valley fascist

07:11juvenile night crew really believe

07:14that democracy is defunct.

07:15They believe we are in a post-constitutional America

07:18and they wanna replace it with dictatorship.

07:21If you look at this interview that Curtis Yarvin,

07:23their guru did a month ago, New York Times,

07:26he said, Americans have got to get over their fear

07:28of dictatorship and the word dictatorship

07:30because that's just what CEOs do in corporations.

07:33And we need the same thing for the US government

07:35which they believe reports just to the CEOs.

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