A revealing segment on MSNOW’s Alex Witt show unpacked the Supreme Court’s emphatic 6–3 decision striking down Donald Trump’s tariff regime. While many court watchers expected the legal challenge to succeed, the real suspense centered on whether this particular Court—dominated by six conservatives, three of them Trump appointees—would side with the law or bend toward the former president. Critics have long accused the current majority of showing deference to Trump in key disputes, an accusation the justices themselves have publicly bristled at.
#BREAKING: Leah Litman: “…the fact that they [SCOTUS] ruled against him on this issue [tariffs] and may also rule against him in his efforts to try to fire a governor of the federal reserve ISN’T an indication that this court understands the systemic and brazen nature of the… pic.twitter.com/Dw86SZmaaU
The 6–3 ruling against Trump’s tariffs was decisive. On its face, it appeared to be a clear rebuke of executive overreach and a sign that even this Court has limits. Naturally, the conversation turned to whether the decision signals a broader willingness by the so-called Roberts Court to check Trump’s more aggressive assertions of presidential power going forward.
Guest Leah Litman offered a far more skeptical take. She cautioned viewers against interpreting the ruling as any meaningful shift in posture. In her view, nothing fundamental has changed. Litman argued that the Court’s conservative majority is willing to rule against Trump only when his brand of authoritarianism collides with interests that matter directly to them—particularly economic interests. Put bluntly, she suggested the justices are far less inclined to tolerate executive overreach when it threatens financial stability or, more cynically, their own bottom lines.
Litman went further, predicting a similar outcome in the forthcoming case over Trump’s asserted authority to fire Federal Reserve Bank governors at will. If the Court sees an unchecked power grab as destabilizing to markets or the broader financial system, she implied, that is when it is most likely to step in. The legal merits may matter, but under her theory, the practical economic consequences carry equal—if not greater—weight.
Whether Litman’s provocative framework proves accurate remains to be seen. As the Court prepares to weigh additional cases testing the limits of presidential authority, observers will be watching closely for patterns. If future rulings align with her prediction, the tariff decision may come to be seen not as a principled stand against authoritarianism, but as a narrow defense of institutional and economic self-interest.
As the fallout from the release of the Epstein Files continues to unfold, a familiar and deeply troubling pattern is coming into focus. In the United States, powerful elites who once minimized, dismissed, or obscured their ties to Jeffrey Epstein are largely skating past meaningful consequences, even as newly released emails shed light on just how close and sustained some of those associations were. Titles may be adjusted, statements may be issued, but real accountability remains elusive. Very few figures have truly relinquished power, prestige, or access as a result of what has been revealed.
#BREAKING: Lisa Rubin: “…accountability also means people losing their positions of power. You know, today as we sit here, Brad Karp is no longer the chairman of Paul Weiss, but one thing that people aren’t noticing enough, Brad Karp REMAINS A PARTNER there, and I wonder why it… pic.twitter.com/Gum7U8wEJA
MSNOW’s Lisa Rubin captured this dynamic perfectly in her recent segment, using the Paul Weiss situation as a textbook example of cosmetic accountability masquerading as reform. Rubin rightly pointed out the absurdity of portraying Alex Karp’s removal as chairman as a serious sanction while the firm simultaneously retains him as a partner in good standing. In any meaningful sense, this is not punishment at all. It preserves his status, income, and institutional legitimacy, while allowing the firm to claim it has “taken action.” As Rubin emphasized, accountability that leaves power and privilege fundamentally untouched is not accountability—it’s reputation management.
What makes this moment especially jarring is how often these gestures are presented as sufficient in elite American circles. The message, implicit but unmistakable, is that association with Epstein may cost you a title, but not your standing. Not your access. Not your seat at the table. That pattern repeats across industries, from law to finance to politics, reinforcing the idea that consequences in the United States are calibrated not to wrongdoing, but to optics.
Adding to the unease is the manner in which the Epstein Files themselves have been released. Numerous emails detailing communications with Epstein on deeply disturbing topics have surfaced with the senders’ names conspicuously redacted. This stands in direct tension with the stated goals of transparency and has fueled the perception that the Department of Justice is selectively shielding certain powerful individuals. Whether intentional or not, the effect is the same: the public is left with the sense that there remains a protected class for whom full exposure, let alone accountability, is off-limits.
The contrast with Europe is striking. While not perfect and hardly immune to elite self-protection, several European governments have moved more decisively when Epstein-related connections came into view. In the United Kingdom and France, authorities have reopened or expanded investigations into citizens tied to Epstein’s network, with public figures stepping aside pending review rather than clinging to their roles. In other cases, individuals have issued unequivocal apologies and withdrawn from public or professional life altogether, acknowledging that proximity to Epstein—regardless of criminal liability—raises serious ethical questions incompatible with positions of trust. This approach reflects a broader European norm: that the appearance of impropriety itself can warrant real consequences, not just symbolic ones.
That difference matters. Accountability is not only about legal culpability; it is about institutional integrity. When firms and governments act swiftly and decisively, they signal that power does not exempt anyone from scrutiny. When they stall, deflect, or offer half-measures, they send the opposite message—that elite networks will always protect their own.
Whether the accountability emerging in Europe will eventually pressure American institutions to follow suit remains an open question. But Lisa Rubin is undeniably right to call out the hollowness of moves like the one at Paul Weiss. If major firms in the United States want to be taken seriously in the post-Epstein era, they must move beyond cosmetic fixes and confront the uncomfortable truth that real accountability requires real sacrifice. Until that happens, the gap between rhetoric and reality will continue to grow, and public trust will continue to erode.
MSNBC’s Legal Analyst Lisa Rubin appeared on the 09/19/25 edition of Deadline White House show where she made a compelling argument as to how Congress can and should go about getting Jeffrey Epstein-related information from former U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta.
#BREAKING: Lisa Rubin re #AlexAcosta: "There are a BUNCH of documents that Alex Acosta saw, and or was involved in creating, that could be released by DOJ tomorrow, but also, some of them might still be in Alex Acosta's own possession. I just want to detail THREE of them…[1]… pic.twitter.com/lZgmUL9X8i
Rubin said that there are a bunch of Epstein-related documents that Acosta either saw, or was involved in creating. This, she argued, meant the said documents were either currently in the possession of the Department of Justice, or even by Acosta himself.
The first question Congress needs to ask Acosta is about the 60-count federal indictment drafted by prosecutor Ann Marie Villafaña in 2007. DOJ definitely has this document, and the allegations therein, may shed a lot of light as to Epstein’s illicit operation, and potentially, the actions of his his co-conspirators, most of who were later granted immunity.
The second question regards the lengthy prosecution memo that aforementioned Villafaña wrote regarding the federal case re Epstein. Rubin says this can shed a lot of light as to the evidence the feds had against Epstein to support the 60-count indictment
Finally, Rubin says Congress should ask Acosta about his own interview transcript from the office of professional responsibility investigation that was conducted at DOJ in 2020. That was an investigation started at the instigation of Republican Senator Ben Sasse. Rubin argues that Acosta must have that transcript in his possession because he and his lawyers were given an opportunity to review it and suggest any corrections.
Long story short, the lingering questions about Jeffrey Epstein and his child sex trafficking operation must be answered, and key players like Acosta must not be allowed to come before Congress and just gaslight the public. These crucial documents are currently in the possession of the DOJ and/or Acosta, and the public deserves to see them.
An alternative route would be to have Ann Marie Villafaña testify before Congress. Who knows, she might have “kept receipts”.
As the Jeffrey Epstein scandal continues to heat up, new questions are being raised about the infamous 2008 sweetheart plea deal he received from then U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, who later joined the Trump administration as Labor Secretary in 2017
#BREAKING: 🔥Kristy: "A week later after #Epstein is arrested, Acosta resigns and Trump gave a statement saying how great Acosta was…even when he found out that Acosta was connected with this kind of sweetheart deal, he didn't seem to care."🤦♀️ pic.twitter.com/X00jq28KEK
The running narrative thus far, has been that after details of the sweetheart plea deal started getting a lot of media coverage, the Trump administration was forced to cut ties with Acosta—he became a liability, if you will.
However according to Kristy Greenberg, herself a former federal prosecutor, President Trump might have known all along about Alex Acosta’s shady Epstein deal when he made him his labor secretary. As Greenberg further put it, “he [President Trump] didn’t seem to care.”
If Greenberg’s account holds up, it would reflect very poorly on the president as America’s moral leader. Republicans have for decades, put a premium on moral values, so it will be interesting to see how they navigate this Trump-Acosta relationship.
A bombshell segment on MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight show (04/30/24) delved into a recent interview Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had with Time Magazine. As host Alex Wagner correctly pointed out, the biggest bombshell from the Time interview was Trump’s admission that if elected president again, he would be open to a draconian immigration policy that mirrors former President Eisenhower’s infamous “Operation Wetback.”
Time Magazine’s Eric Cortellessa(2:35): “You’ve said you’re gonna do this massive deportation operation. I want to know specifically how you plan to do that.”
Trump: “So, if you look back to the 1950s, [President] Dwight Eisenhower was very big on illegal immigration not coming to our country. And he did a massive deportation of people.”
Any reasonable person presented with Trump’s response would conclude, as host Alex Wagner did, that if elected president again, Trump intends to craft a draconian immigration policy that mirrors Eisenhower’s “Operation Wetback”.
It will be interesting to see how Hispanics, who Trump has successfully peeled off from the “reliable Democrats” tent, will react to this bombshell revelation. As host Wagner correctly pointed out, a lot of U.S. citizens of Mexican descent also got swept up in Eisenhower’s militarized “Operation Wetback” raids, and got deported illegally to Mexico.
Will a potential “Operation Wetback 2.0” be a game-changer with MAGA Hispanics in 2024, making them pull the lever for Biden? Hmm, as Trump famously says, “We’ll see what happens.”
I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the fact that in the interview, Trump also appeared eager to expand law enforcement’s “qualified immunity” to a point where it is practically “absolute immunity”. This would dramatically roll back progress that has been made–and there has been progress–in the fight against police brutality, especially as it pertains to Black and Brown communities. Will this be a game-changer for the so-called BlacksForTrump? Hmm, we shall see.
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An interesting segment on MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight (01/1624) show delved into the strange daliance between Evangelical Christians(predominantly White), and the politics of former President Donald Trump, often referred to as Trumpism, or MAGA Trumpism. The alliance between these two strange bedfellows has led many to question whether MAGA Trumpism has become some sort of political/civil religion.
The MSNBC segment came against the backdrop of Trump’s massive win in the Iowa Republican presidential primary, and specifically, his command of the White Evangelical vote, which polls placed at 53%. Back in 2016, when Trump first ran for president, he only received 21% of the White Evangelical vote in Iowa, a clear sign that he has now consolidated the White Evangelical vote in Iowa, and arguably nationwide.
#BREAKING:🔥Alex: "In the eight years between those two #IowaCaucuses, Donald Trump has not only more than doubled his support from #Evangelicals, he has also REDEFINED what it means to be one."
Host Alex Wagner posed this question to her guest, Author Tim Alberta, who’s also a staff writer at The Atlantic (2:07): “I wonder in your estimation, what it means to be an Evangelical in this country, at this moment?” Tim Alberta responded in relevant part: “We are beginning to flirt with this territory where definitionally speaking, Evangelicalism has far more to do, at least in the perception of the greater public, with political engagement, partisan political identification, than it does with any particular theology or any real religious conviction, and if you take it a step further, if you look at the exit polling, if you look at some of the social science around this, if you look at the fact that during Donald Trump’s presidency, more and more of Donald Trump’s supporters were self-identifying as Evangelicals even though they were simultaneously attending Church less and less often, I think one might reach the uncomfortable conclusion that perhaps the best definition now for what it means to be an Evangelical, is to be a conservative White Republican Trump supporter, and that is a tragedy on any number of different levels, but I think most profoundly, it’s a tragedy for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Host Alex Wagner then interjected with this profound question (3:50): “If the Gospel is no longer part of the equation, what is it replaced by…do you think MAGA-ism has become a placeholder for a certain kind of religion?”
Tim Alberta: “Yes…I don’t want to paint with too broad a brush, the Evangelical community is large, it’s huge, and it’s complicated…but…we are reaching a place where we are being confronted with some uncomfortable realities about what it means to be a part of the Evangelical movement and frankly, where the line blurs between sort of religious identity and political identity, and is there a merging of the two, and frankly I think that there’s always a danger in politics…of sort of turning political conviction into religious conviction, or worshipping at a certain altar that is not an altar to God, but is an altar to political idolatry or to political identity. That is a danger that has always been there, but it is I think uniquely dangerous in this moment, and to be clear…we have examples from the not so distant past, of a sort of political religion, or at least a civil religion, supplanting, competing with actual religion, and I don’t think that we’re all that far removed from that in this country now, looking at just what happened…in Iowa.”
To conclude the segment, Tim Alberta floated this interesting scenario, which gets right to the fallacy of the Evangelical-MAGA Trumpism alliance. He said (8:19): “If during Barack Obama’s presidency, or while he was running for president, if you had heard him talking with, or promoting a video saying that he was a shepherd to all of mankind, the Evangelical movement would have been up in arms [and rightly so], I mean this is heretical, this is blasphemous and yet, Donald Trump seems to get a pass time and time again for doing these things that no other politician, Republican or Democrat frankly, would get a pass for doing, and we should ask ourselves why. If the answer does not at least start to flirt with this terrain of civil religion, or political religion, then I think that we’re not being honest with ourselves, and if we are being honest with ourselves, if we are willing to engage with the very uncomfortable topic around what happens when Trumpism becomes civil religion in this country for millions of millions of people, and what that might imply moving forward, then we are doing a disservice to our prularistic democracy.”
Bottom line folks, we’ve always operated on the separation of church and state doctrine, and have for decades, shunned foreign theocracies like the ones in Afghanistan and Iran. Author Tim Alberta is absolutely correct when he says, we need to be honest with ourselves, and admit that there is no difference between the Evangelical-MAGA dalliance in the American political scene, and the theocracies in Iran and Afghanistan. Simply put, we need to make a decision as to whether we want to continue with the separation of church and state doctrine, or whether, that time-honored tradition has also been sacrificed at the altar of MAGA Trumpism.
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Interesting segment on MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight show (01/19/24) delved into the conspiracy theories currently being spewed out there by right wing activists about the yet unsolved mystery surrounding the January 6th pipe bomb. Apparently, even sitting U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) is now pertaking in this conspiracy theory, per his recent social media post which Wagner cited.
Host Alex Wagner then dropped a bombshell on “constitutional conservative” Senator Lee’s strange fawning over former President Trump, including his latest endorsement of the former president for the upcoming 2024 election, saying it may all be about Senator Lee’s ambitions for the United States Supreme Court. Yeah, you read that right. Senator Lee may be angling for a Supreme Court seat.
You’ll remember that Senator Lee was also intricately involved in efforts by then outgoing President Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 election using the fake elector scheme.
Host Alex Wagner(2:49): “Senator Lee joins 25 of his Republican colleagues in the Senate, who have endorsed Donald Trump as of this evening, but his special distinction is that he was twice on Trump’s short list to be a Supreme Court justice. In 2018 Senator Lee interviewed for the seat that eventually went to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and with Justice Clarence Thomas approaching 80, and Justice Samuel Alito hitting 74 this year, who knows, if Donald Trump is re-elected in November, the man who believes January 6th was an inside job could just get another crack at a seat on the highest court in the land.”
Bottom line folks, as much as I have been critical of “constitutional conservative” Senator Lee over his strange support of Trump despite his authoritarian tendencies, I readily admit that this Supreme Court ambition theory makes me ease up on him a little bit. I’m not saying I condone his strange support for authoritarian Trump, but that at least, it makes me understand why he’s doing it.
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Terry Strada, the National Chair of 9/11 Families United On MSNBC’s Alex Witt Reports(07/30/22)
MSNBC’s Liz McLaughlin reported on Alex Witt Reports show(07/30/22) that outraged families of the victims of the September 11th attacks(2001) are protesting the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Tournament currently being held at former President Trump’s Bedminster Golf Club in New Jersey. The protesters are essentially accusing former President Trump and the participating golfers, of “sports washing” Saudi Arabia’s role in the horrific 9/11 attacks, and their atrocious human rights record generally.
Asked by host Alex Witt, how the families were responding to the tournament, Liz McLaughlin responded (video at 0:31):“The families say they are disgusted, disappointed, that it feels like a gut punch after losing a loved one in that horrible act, to see a former President of the United States, who by the way, has the presidential seal emblazoned on golf carts, embroidered in golf towels at this tournament, which is less than 50 miles from ground zero, to have him take what they call blood money. LIV is bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, investing an estimated 2 billion in LIV Golf so far, and this new pro golf circuit is set to try to dethrone the PGA, but it has come with a lot of controversy, and Trump is set to host another one of these, later in the year.”
Trump has defended his actions saying, “nobody has gotten to the bottom of 9/11 unfortunately, and they should have”–essentially arguing that it’s unfair/inaccurate to place the 9/11 blame on Saudi Arabia. He also added that all the proceeds from the golf tournament will be going to charity, so he was not profiting from it.
As Liz McLaughlin correctly pointed out however, even though the U.S. government has never singled out Saudi Arabia as the masterminds of the 9/11 attacks, it is a fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were from the Kingdom, and the mastermind of the attacks, Osama bin Laden, was also born there. It has also been established that a lot of the funding for bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network, came from Saudi nationals. So any reasonable person would suspect that the Saudis were behind the 9/11 attacks. And even if one gives Saudi Arabia a pass over 9/11, it is impossible to ignore the Kingdom’s atrocious human rights record, which includes the brutal murder of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Terry Strada, the National Chair of 9/11 Families United, slammed Trump’s assertion that nobody has gotten to the bottom of the 9/11 attacks, telling host Alex Witt(3:02): “He sounds foolish saying anything like that. He met with the families. He met with me in the White House and we went there for the sole purpose of asking him to declassify FBI documents that were the investigative reports into this…so he sounds completely foolish when he says that nobody has looked into it. We asked him to look into it. It was his job as President to look into it. He failed us miserably back then.”
Bottom line folks, the pundits on Fox News recently made a big deal out of President Biden’s fist bump with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman(MBS) on his official visit to Saudi Arabia. It will be interesting to see if the same pundits also make a big deal out of former President Trump’s “sports washing” of Saudi’s atrocious human rights record and involvement in the 9/11 attacks.
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