Loyalty Fee: The Rule of Law Vs. the Rule of Trump

The Briefing with Jen Psaki

NBC News

News, Politics

4.5 • 664 Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2024

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In light of Christopher Wray's intent to resign as FBI Director, Jen Psaki explains Trump's strategy of nominating unqualified people to serve in his cabinet -- ensuring absolute fealty from those who otherwise would be relative unknowns. Jen is joined by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse to discuss the dangers of the loyalty Trump engenders. Next, Jen is joined by author Tim Weiner to his concerns about Kash Patel potentially leading the FBI, explaining why his nomination represents a "disastrous rise of misplaced power." Later, Jen is joined by Representative Ro Khanna to discuss Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's DOGE plan to reform the government and how he plans to work with the subcommittee on certain issues. Finally, Jen sounds the alarm on RFK Jr's association with radical anti-vaccine figures, including one ally, Aaron Siri, who helped try to revoke the approval of the polio vaccine. Jen is joined by The New York Times reporter, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, who broke the story on Siri to discuss her reporting.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Well, Chris Ray is on the way out and Kasht Patel is on the way in. And the story of how we got here
0:07.2	should be a big warning sign about what's to come at the FBI and beyond. Senator Sheldon White
0:13.3	House is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and he's coming up first. Plus, tech billionaires
0:19.3	line up to kiss the ring as they try to play catch-up to Elon Musk.
0:23.6	Congressman Rokana represents Silicon Valley. He has unique insight into how these guys operate,
0:28.8	and he joins me live in just a few minutes. And later, is making polio great again really what we're
0:34.5	doing now? Brand new reporting about RFK Jr.'s top confidant who once petitioned the FDA to revoke
0:40.7	approval of the polio vaccine.
0:43.3	The New York Times reporter who broke that story is standing by here in studio to talk about
0:47.7	what she found.
1:09.6	Okay. With the news this week that Christopher Ray plans to resign as FBI director, it felt like it was kind of worth revisiting why Ray was even in that job in the first place, because it's all a reminder of a lot of things.
1:11.7	So that story starts in earnest in July of 2016, when the FBI under James Comey, opens its investigation into Russian interference
1:18.3	in the 2016 election. Now, after Trump won the election, Comey and other intelligence officials
1:23.7	traveled to Trump Tower to brief him on their findings so far. That was actually the very
1:28.5	first time Comey ever even met Trump. And after that first meeting, Trump clearly thought this was a
1:34.7	guy he needed to keep close to him. Because just three weeks later, Comey says he was summoned to the White
1:40.2	House for a one-on-one dinner with Trump. Here's how Comey described that dinner in his book.
1:45.7	Trump said, quote, I need loyalty.
1:48.0	I expect loyalty.
1:49.8	To my mind, the demand was like Sammy the Bulls'
1:52.6	Kosanostra induction ceremony, with Trump in the role of the family boss,
1:57.6	asking me if I have what it takes to be a made man. I did not and would never. I was determined
	...

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