Good morning. It's Saturday, August the 9th. I'm Ali Velshi, and I cannot overstate this, and I will keep saying it for as long as it needs to be said. We're in the midst of one of the most dangerous moments in modern American history. It will be studied. It will be written about.

It will be remembered long after we are all gone. And when future generations look back, they won't

just wonder what we thought. They will judge us for how we responded, just as we judge those who

came before us. This past week, the Trump White House has been in overdrive,

not to govern, not to serve the American people, but to bury the Epstein scandal that threatens

to swallow the Trump presidency whole. And in Donald Trump's desperation, he's escalating

his campaign of retribution. Here's this week's hit list from the White House of distractions.

He directed the military to go after foreign drug cartels, a threat that by every serious national security assessment

ranks near the bottom of the list. The sudden ousting of the supremely unqualified head of the IRS,

who incidentally was the fifth head of the IRS since the beginning of Donald Trump's second term

six months ago,

deploying the FBI to locate Texas lawmakers who stand in the way of the Republican plan

to control future elections, which is puzzling because no federal law has been broken,

opening an investigation into one of his rivals in the Senate,

issuing a federal subpoena against New York's Attorney General for the crime of doing

her job and investigating Donald Trump's conduct. This isn't governing. This is the federal government

hijacking and repurposed into two things, a damage control machine protecting Donald Trump from

the Epstein fallout and a tool of retribution punishing his perceived enemies.

Let's talk about perhaps the most brazen escalation yet of Trump's revenge spree.

On Friday, the Justice Department opened several investigations into New York Attorney

General Letitia James. The same Letitia James, who nailed Trump with more than half a billion dollars in civil penalties

over the Trump organization's fraudulent business practices.

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