The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell : MSNBC TRUMPISM 8/27/2024

the stock market hit record highs again today something that the religion called trumpism insists is impossible because in the last presidential campaign Donald Trump promised this if he's elected the stock market will crash trumpism depends on stupidity it has to because Trump is so profoundly stupid himself it is impossible to get stupidity out of trumpism there is once a time when I could tell you that every Republican United States Senator knew Donald Trump was lying when he said that China paid American tariffs American tariffs for the entire history of the American government have been paid by the American people that's how tariffs work they are sales taxes paid by the American people paid by the consumers in America who buy the imported goods but Donald Trump has always insisted to his followers at his rallies that China pays the tariffs that Donald Trump imposed on China now to be fair to the 99% of trump voters who have never gone to a trump rally it does appear that the very stupidest of trump voters attend the rallies and cheer for the breathtakingly stupid statement by Donald Trump about tariffs but I promise you if Joe Biden ever claimed that a foreign country pays American tariffs the New York Times would destroy him in a massive front page headline and begin to debate whether Joe Biden was lying about tariffs or whether this was a sign of neurological decline in Joe Biden who pays tariffs should be a question at the next debate but the debate questioners always Pride themselves on the complexity of their questions that never lead to yes or no answers or Revelations of the shocking ignorance patterns of people like Donald Trump Donald Trump introduced insult Cy to American presidential politics with his nasty nicknames first for the Republican candidates he was running against in 2016 all of whom then proved themselves to be worthy of even nastier nicknames for publicly offering their complete loyalty to Donald Trump after he humiliated them and insulted them and insulted some of their wives and gave out their personal phone numbers things like that Senator Joshua Holly has not been on the receiving end of an insult from Donald Trump because he never ran against Donald Trump but in his Longshot current campaign for the vice presidential nomination Senator Holly today tried to tried his hand at trumpian insult comedy the Holly insult was based on a lie circulating in right-wing media claiming that Joe Biden did not want to have to stand for the 90 minutes of the upcoming CNN debate CNN said that was a lie with a CNN spokesperson saying CNN's proposed format was to have both candidates stand and both sides agreed to the rules when they agreed to debate and remember Joe Biden was the first to agree to debate he was the first to agree to stand for 90 minutes but the lie that Senator Holly used to insult Joe Biden revealed just how much he doesn't know about the country he lives in Senator Holly tweeted he can't stand for 90 minutes but he's 100% able to be president have fun explaining that okay I can explain it in three words Franklin Delano Roosevelt he was our longest serving president elected to four consecutive terms as president of the United States before term limits were established in a constitutional amendment and every day of his 13 years as President Franklin Roosevelt was in a wheelchair the same wheelchair he was in in his two terms as governor of New York Franklin Roosevelt lost the ability to walk when he was struck by polio at age 39 so no standing for 90 minutes is not a presidential job requirement and what did Franklin Roosevelt do in his wheelchair he did more things than any president before him or since including winning World War II Adolf Hitler was a younger healthier man than Franklin Roosevelt but from his wheelchair President Franklin delanor Roosevelt forced a ol Hitler 4,100 mil away in Berlin to commit suicide in his bunker as the Allies commanded by General Dwight Eisenhower were closing in on the German Capital City Hitler could stand for 90 minutes he did it all the time 90 minutes was a short speech for Adolf Hitler Josh Holly would have loved Adolf Hitler if standing for 90 minutes and ranting incoherently is something Josh Holly really admires as president itial Josh Holly knows that it doesn't matter how long a president can stand Josh Holly knows the Republican governor of Arkansas who Republicans believe is the greatest Texas governor in history has been in a wheelchair every single day of his governorship but Wise Guy Josh Holly wants to do his punk joke about standing for 90 minutes so that he can impress the world's worst insult comedian Donald Trump Senator Holly is one of the unindicted participants in Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election Senator Holly was the first member of the Senate to agree to join Republican house members in their plan to challenge the electoral votes won by Joe Biden if only house members challenge the electoral votes those challenges would have been immediately ignored but if the challenge comes from the house and the Senate then both bodies have to vote on The Challenge no Republican senator was willing to step forward to support those challenges that were they knew were coming from the house until Senator Holly cravenly became the first then he was immediately joined by his other comrades like Senator Cruz and others without Senator Holly the Trump criminal conspiracy alleged by special prosecutor Jack Smith would have been incomplete are there friends of Donald Trump were not so lucky as Josh Holly today Boris Epstein became the newest alleged Trump co-conspirator to face arraignment this time in Arizona where he pleaded not guilty to criminal charges for his role in a fake elector conspiracy there Bor Epstein is an utterly incompetent buffoon like most Trump operators who would never have found a position of responsibility of any kind in a serious Republican presidential campaign before Donald Trump orstein is a non-practicing lawyer who knows nothing about the practice of Law and so spent every day of the Trump criminal trial in New York sitting in the front row of The Spectator seats totally ignored by the real lawyers handling Donald Trump's losing defense Boris Epstein was one of the very first and was the very last Trump supporter who appeared as a guest on this program it was during the 2016 presidential campaign and SE appeared then to be the most reasonable of the Trump operator operatives who only lied a little bit not every word but after listening to him on this program I realized it was a disservice to the audience to ever present Liars paid by Donald Trump to come on television and lie for him it is an abuse of Television time to give those people microphones I have never seen a successful interview of a trump operative because they will lie about anything and it is impossible to pursue all of those lies but Boris Epstein is now going to find as a criminal defendant what Donald Trump has found which is that fast talking lying on TV that Trump and his people do just doesn't work in a courtroom where Donald Trump in fact was afraid to even open his mouth when he was on trial as a criminal defendant in Manhattan trumpism has infected the the Supreme Court in ways that were unimaginable before Donald Trump but some of which were actually happening before trump it is inconceivable that Justice Samuel Alo and Justice Clarence Thomas and both of their wives suddenly became rabid right-wing trumpian Republicans only at the emergence of candidate Trump we now know that the financial Corruption of Clarence Thomas the outright selling of his Supreme Court seat or at least what we can all agree is the financial exploitation of his seat on the Supreme Court has been happening for decades Clarence Thomas was just never admitting it Clarence Thomas was violating the rules of financial disclosure for Supreme Court Justices and claiming that as a Supreme Court Justice it was impossible for him to understand these very simple rules that you do not have to go to law school to understand rules that anyone could understand on their first reading Clarence Thomas's defense has been the kind of defense that disqualifies you as a Supreme Court Justice it's the claim that he is just too stupid to understand these very simple ethical rules that would mean he is by his own confession too stupid to be a Supreme Court Justice but Trump is a means never having to say you're sorry for being stupid so everyone in Republican politics accepts Clarence Thomas's defense that I was too stupid to understand the ethics rules that apply to Supreme Court Justices and just when we think we know it all about Justice Thomas there is more the Senate Judiciary Committee released new information revealing that Clarence Thomas took three more flights than previously known on the private jet of Republican Mega donor harlon Crow that's three more flights than the public knew about when data compiled by the Watchdog group fixed the court showed that Clarence Thomas received at least more than $4 million in gifts between 2004 and 2024 in the same two decades no other Justice reported even half a million dollars in gifts or a quarter million dollars in gifts Samuel Leo came in second with roughly $210,000 worth of gifts in that same two decades the records do not show the purpose of Clarence Thomas's trips on that private jet The Washington Post estimated that such flights might have cost between 500,000 and $625,000 as Joe Biden said this weekend in Los Angeles if Donald Trump is elected president he will have at least two Supreme Court seats to fill President Biden didn't specify which seats but it's easy to see how quickly Donald Trump and Rich Republicans would be able to purchase Clarence Thomas' Supreme Court seat from Justice Thomas by providing him with the fabulously wealthy lifestyle that Justice Thomas so openly craves Justice Thomas is 75 years old Donald Trump would make him an offer he couldn't refuse the golden motor home offer the unlimited private jets wherever you want to go offer for the rest of your life multi-million dollar income by sitting on corporate boards making speeches to closed door Republican Gathering and Donald Trump would make Samuel Alo an offer that Samuel Al's wife would not let him refuse according to her recently recorded comments about how much she hates her husband's job Donald Trump would replace at least two supreme court justices in their mid-70s with extreme right-wing Republican lawyers like say 44y old Joshua Holly who could serve on the United States Supreme Court comfortably for another 40 years where he could do much more damage than he tries to do now in the United States Senate