Eric Holder: Institutions Have Failed Us, the American People Have Not

As President Trump continues implementing his ambitious agenda, follow along with the MSNOW newsletter, Project 47. You'll get weekly updates sent straight to your inbox with expert analysis on the administration's latest actions and how they're affecting the American people. The American people are basically telling the president that they are not okay with any of this. Sign up for the Project 47 newsletter at ms.now slash project 47. You know, Dr. King always said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. But the deal is it doesn't bend on its own. It only bends when people like us, that is average, ordinary, but extraordinary American citizens, put our hands on that arc and pull it towards justice. And that's what each of us has to ask ourselves. What am I going to do to save this democracy and make this nation the exceptional one that it has shown that it can be? Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Best People podcast. We have a real treat for you this week. Someone whose words are really precious in these tumultuous times. Someone I seek out when he's on my colleagues' program. Someone we always invite to be on ours. Someone we feel very, very fortunate to have an hour with today. Without any further ado, because I want you to hear from him, this is the Best People. This is former Attorney General Eric Holder. Thank you for being here. Hey, Nicole. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. So I always like to pull back the curtain and sort of show our listeners my work, our work. And the first thing I said to you was that I'm wrestling with the story we're covering right now, which is about Alex Preddy and the horrific way in which he was killed by Donald Trump's immigration agents. And you had a very profound note for me. So I'd love to pull that out of you again. You think it's important that people see what's happening with their own eyes? Yeah, I do think it's important for people to understand the totality of what happened to an American citizen who was only there demonstrating consistent with his First Amendment rights and to see how he was treated. It is a difficult thing to watch, but it is something that I think we need to see in order to really get a sense of what happened there. And I think back to the 50s and what Mamie Tillis did with regard to her son, Emmett Till, when she made the determination to display to the world his disfigured face after he had been beaten, thrown in a river. And that had a profound impact on the civil rights movement. And I think if America could handle that in the 50s, America can certainly handle it in the 21st century. Now, it's an easy thing for me to say that's not my boy who was lying there on the street. of Minneapolis. And yet, I think the issues are larger, the questions are more profound, and I think a demonstration of what actually happened to that good man, that nurse, that good man needs to be seen in its totality by the American people. His parents had a note to that effect. I mean, when the lies were told about him after he was killed, they wanted the truth to come out about their son with a real echo to what you're talking about. Yeah, and I think that's important. You know, immediately after the incident, the incident, the shooting, potentially the murder, no legal determination has been made. We had Christy Noem, other administration officials describing him as a domestic terrorist or a person who brought a gun to do great harm to people in law enforcement. And we need to know who this, given my age, I can say this, who this young man was, you know, a nurse who cared for our veterans, the things that you all have been showing, the words that he said as a deceased veteran is being taken out of the hospital. I mean, that shows, from my perspective, the compassion, the caring that inhibited this young man. And so I think we need to know who he was so that we can push back on the narrative that the administration would have us believe. Before this shooting, this killing burst into the headlines, we wanted to talk to you about everything, how far from normal the department you led is, the Department of Justice, how vital to the future of our democracy the redistricting fight is. But I have seen your posts about Minneapolis and about the people. And I think that the story of our time is this moment in Minneapolis from ordinary people who have day jobs, who have families, who have seen two innocent people in the streets trying to protect other human beings pay with their life for that. And I wonder how you see the courage of the people in Minneapolis and its import right now. You know, we underestimate the power that we as so-called ordinary citizens have. And what I said was we saw a group of extraordinary, ordinary citizens make a determination that they weren't going to be pushed around. And the impact of their en masse, peaceful demonstrations, as we have seen throughout the civil rights movement through the suffragette movement, resulted in official change. I mean, Greg Bovino got his butt kicked out of Minneapolis, not because they wanted to remove him, not because he wanted to leave, but because the people of Minneapolis made sure that the only tenable thing for the administration to do was to get him out of there. So now they bring in, you know, Tom Moneybag-Holman, and we'll see how, you know, that works out for him. But we can't underestimate the power of an aroused American citizenry. The American people, I've said this often, are slow to arouse. But once we do get to that state, we are, in fact, a mighty force. And you have to understand history to understand that that is so and that we still have that power. We still retain that power. Our institutions have failed us. The executive branch has failed us. Congress has failed us. The Supreme Court has failed us. The only thing that is going to save this nation, that's going to save this democracy, is the American people. An engaged, focused, committed American people. It gives me chills. I agree with your assessment. And I think that seeing things as they are is another hurdle to getting out of it. And I wonder if that clarity permeates the Democratic Party in your view. Do you think they understand that these institutions have failed and we have to go on to plan B, which is to follow the people who are out in mass, not just in Minneapolis, but in cities all across the country? Yeah, where law firms failed us, where universities failed us, where tech bros failed us, the American people have not. What we see in Minneapolis is in some ways the most profound demonstration of that, but we have seen demonstrations of people getting together all around this country, everything from the No Kings March to things that come up in a more spontaneous way. And so I think that the Democratic Party needs to understand that there is, even just from a political sense, there is a well of support to tap into. But beyond that, and more important than that, if we are going to save this democracy, Democrats have to be not an opposition party in normal times, but a defender of democracy. And that's what this is all about. I'm not being hyperbolic. I'm not being alarmist. But unchecked, this administration, when it leaves in 2029, and I'll make that assumption, could have changed in a profound way the nature of the American experiment. And we can't allow that to happen. I agree with you. I think this ends in January of 2029 when a new president is sworn in. But what are the instruments to protect what we have right now? Well, the floor is to vote. But that's not the ceiling. I think it involves or requires civic engagement on the part of the American people. And I think what we have to do is, again, learn from our history. It means getting out there. And, well, you know, if you can't march, and I think you should try to find ways to do that, you know, supporting candidates, becoming engaged with political campaigns, working with organizations that are doing things to try to save our democracy, the League of Women Voters. There's a whole range of organizations that are looking for support. If you are issue-oriented, work with those people, but somehow, someway, get engaged. Now, it won't be an easy thing. We all have busy personal and business lives, but if you devote one, two hours per week to the cause in some form or fashion, you will feel better about yourself and you will help this station. And the thing that you don't want to do is look back 10, 15 years from now when your kids, your grandkids, you're asking yourself, you know, what did I do in this moment of crisis for the nation? You want to be able to answer that question in a substantive way. I have the same conviction that everyone will be judged by the answer to that question. What did you do? It is now so atrocious what they are doing. And I am relieved that the killing of two American citizens has crystallized everyone's attention. But I'm equally horrified and in some ways more afraid for the human beings that they have behind closed doors, that they have in detention, that they have shackled and flown off. And I wonder if you are confident that we will, at a point in time, understand what we've done to human beings in the name of Donald Trump's mass deportation policy. You know, I worry that we will not know the full dimensions of it in the same way that we have never totally come to grips with or understood the totality of their family separation policy. You know, we came up with a number of kids who got separated from their parents. Not all have been reunited. The number that I think that we use is, I think, an estimate. And so the number of people who have been taken off our streets and put in these detention centers, I think we'll get a rough estimate of who they were. But I suspect we will not know where each and every one of those persons ended up. Those who left the country, what country did they go to? Those who remained in the country hopefully will have a better sense of, you know, where they ended up. But I don't think there's any reason to believe, given Trump won, the first Trump administration, or the way in which this more radical second Trump administration is conducting itself, that we're going to get a real good handle on what has happened to all the people who have been a part of this sweep. And I think we need to understand also, you know, the American people, me, I'm for getting rid of people who commit violent crimes and who are here illegally. I mean, you know, we did that during the Obama administration. We used the normal techniques through the courts to do that. And even if you want to focus on people who are just recent arrivals, who don't have community ties, all right, that's something that you can consider as well. But sweeping in, you know, I remember there was a waitress in Illinois, been here for like 20, 25 years, doing nothing other than her job. And yet she gets rounded up ultimately because of community involvement was placed back. But that's not a good use of limited resources that we have. And it certainly is not who we say we are as a nation. You know, because I think one of Trump's triggers, if you will, is the successful immigration practices of President Obama. I mean, I think the numbers that he was aiming for in the first term were to exceed President Obama's. Can you just level set as you just started to what the policies were? what the practices were, why you didn't need to deploy the FBI and DOJ, take them off fighting cyber and fighting national security to do what you were able to do effectively, not just in the administration's view, but in Donald Trump's view. He seems to be chasing that legacy. How was it different? Yeah, I mean, our view was that borders have to mean something. And there are ways in which people can present themselves at the border, make their case for entry into the United States, and we would follow those rules. But for people who were here and who had committed violent crimes, you go again through the processes, through the immigration courts, make your case. And in those cases that we presented, we were overwhelmingly successful in getting people out of the country. And to the extent that you wanted to focus on other people, we focused again on those people who had been here relatively short periods of time, had not established really significant community ties. And again, went through the immigration courts and then had them removed. But we also expanded when I was attorney general what was a legitimate basis to seek entry into the United States to include for instance women who were the subjects of domestic violence in their home country So political asylum domestic violence there were a number of ways in which people could come into the United States But at the end of the day, you know, we still have a broken immigration system. And, you know, we had a proposal by a very conservative Oklahoma senator, Republican Senator Lankford, that was being considered. People on the progressive side, the Democratic side, had to gulp to say that we would support that. But that was at least a way in which we could have normalized, regularized that which we are dealing with now. And what happened? Republicans were for it until Donald Trump told them not to be for it. They want the issue. They don't want the solution. Rubio was one of the co-sponsors in the Senate. I mean, my old boss went through a similar exercise, and he was from Texas. I think he had very liberal views on immigration, Reagan-esque views, if you want to call them liberal. And he had partners in the Senate in Ted Kennedy and John McCain, but his own party torpedoed it during his presidency as well. Do you think that immigration can be solved absent solving what has been a steady decades-long attempt to dehumanize people on the right? You know, it's interesting. I actually think that the excesses that we are seeing now make it a little more likely with a Democratic Congress, a Democratic president, make it a little more likely that we can get to that desired place. I think we've all been appalled by what it is that we have seen, not only in Minneapolis, but to see the breaking of car windows, the shoving of people down on the street, that little five-year-old with the little blue hat with the little white things hanging on. I mean, it breaks your heart. And those are the kinds of images that I think will stick with people. And I think we'll have a political resonance for people on the Republican side of the aisle. It doesn't mean that you get the majority of those folks on the Republican side, although maybe you do. But you get a sufficient number of them such that you can come up with a way in which we finally come to grips with our so-called immigration problem. And I think it's interesting. You said, you talked about, you know, your former boss, good man. You talk about Ronald Reagan as taking kind of liberal positions. You know, I think that they were taking American positions. This is a nation built on immigrants. And unless you are a descendant of the Native people, you are of immigrant stock. If your folks came over here on the damn Mayflower, guess what? That makes you an immigrant. The only question is, when did your people get here? And in my case, how did your people get here? But we're all immigrants except for Native Americans, the indigenous people. But I think the mask is off, right? It isn't about immigration. It's about race. And Donald Trump, in some ways, lets us point to the things he's saying and doing to prove that that's the case. Yeah. Race is still the unsolved problem in this nation. We've never come to grips with the original sin in the United States. slavery, its little brother, segregation, and the impact that it had then, its continuing impact now. And, you know, you look at Donald Trump's history around who he would rent to in his buildings when he was a landlord in New York, what he said about the central, the exonerated Central Park Five when he wanted to execute them. He's got some racial issues, and many of the people who surround them have racial issues. I'm always reluctant to call people racists, but I think there's a negative race consciousness that these folks have that infects the policies that they make. And they're clear about it. You know, we don't want people from certain countries who happen to be brown or darker skinned coming into the country, and yet we'll open our borders to white Afrikaners. I mean, I suspect if you want to come in from Norway or Sweden or Finland, and you'd probably walk in the door and you'd be just fine to have a legitimate reason to try to get to this country. And yet you're from someplace in Africa, someplace in South America, someplace in Asia. You face a whole set of hurdles that a person who is white does not. You know, his effort to erase the history, the actual factual history, feels like this attempt to move the country backward. You know, and he's put this chill, I think, in corporate America, which has illustrated its cowardice or its calculation. Again, I don't know what their motivating force is, but they've capitulated on DEI programs that had made great strides. But the erasure of history is something that is very much ongoing. How do you envision just the level set on reinstating the things he sought to erase structurally, whether it's knocking down the East Room, historically and factually? How do you get that back? Yeah, I mean, I think it'll take a concerted effort. I think there's going to be a lot of damage done. And we have to steel ourselves for that between now and 2029. And then the question becomes, what is it that we do? And when people talk about rebuilding, I think that's not a great term. I think we need to be thinking about reimagining and to come up with ways in which we make better the system than certainly we get left with, but even better than the one that Donald Trump inherited. And so it's going to mean making people focus on issues that are painful to confront. Race may be chief among them. You know, I gave a speech back in, I guess, 2015 when I was first attorney general. I said this was, America was, when it came to race, a nation of cowards. And what I meant by that is that we are afraid. On the African-American side, Hispanic side, the white side, we're afraid, for whatever reason, reluctant to confront issues of race. And if we want to make real racial progress, we have to be prepared to ask ourselves some difficult questions and face some hard truths. The erasure that these folks are engaged in means you just sweep to the side questions, issues that ultimately we're going to have to deal with. People got to remember, this is a nation that by, I think, 2043 now, where whites will be a numeric minority in this country. Our diversity can be a strength for this nation, make us better, stronger than more homogenous nations, or it can be something that is used as a political tool to divide us. And it's clear what this administration has decided to do. I'm hoping that a successor administration, Republican or Democrat, will look to the ways in which we strengthen our nation and embrace not only our heritage, but also our reality. Yeah, the facts. I wonder, too, I mean, you look at how he's historically unpopular. Donald Trump is right now more unpopular than he was during COVID. Think about that. Right. Think about that one, OK? What does it say? I think it means that, you know, it's funny. When I was coming down here, I was thinking to myself, what are all the reasons why this guy's having such problems? All right. Justice Department, weaponization, HHS, we are less healthy. measles, you know, measles outbreaks, trying to somehow denigrate the use of vaccines, DHS, citizen violence, NATO, the destruction of that which has kept the nation secure and led to unparalleled prosperity over the last 80 years, the economy, tariffs, the impact there, the wholesale corruption. And so that litany of things that I have just laid out, and let's not forget Epstein, I think is the reason why you've seen the cratering of his support. We're going to take a quick break here when we're back much, much more with former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Stay with us. Start your day with the MSNOW Daily Newsletter. Sharp insights from voices you trust. Standout moments from your favorite shows. And fresh perspectives from experts shaping the news. Sign up at MS.now. Let's go through them one by one. You ran the department that, in my view, comes the closest to explaining a lot of the cowardice, right? So Trump has taken over the Department of Justice. Even if you understand it's toxic to your brand to capitulate to Donald Trump, he's made clear that he'll criminally investigate and try to prosecute you with his Department of Justice. How did it fall so completely so quickly? Well, you had to have a president who was determined to make it happen. And then you had to have a bunch of people who were spineless, not committed to the rule of law, give in to that which the president said. You know, when I was attorney general, you get to put up four portraits of your predecessors. And one of the people I had up there in my conference room was Elliot Richardson. And he was there to remind me that if I got an order from the White House that I couldn't agree with, I would say I wouldn't do it. Maybe I'd get fired or I would resign. And that's the kind of view that an attorney general has to have about the job that he or she has. And that is not the case with regards to Pam Bondi, to Todd Blanche. They are simply people who are surrogates for the president. I mean, you might as well call Donald Trump, you know, the president and the attorney general, you know, because that is, in fact, the reality. And that distinction, that notion that you keep the Justice Department separate from the White House is not something that was unique to the Obama administration, not something unique to a Democratic administration. You saw that as well with regard to Republican AGs, Republican presidents as well. And the only time the Justice Department and attorneys general got into trouble was when that line got blurred. One quick example. I made the determination that we weren't going to support the Defense of Marriage Act. Consequential decision could have political ramifications, but I thought that was something that should be decided in the White House. President Obama didn't know about that determination, and I didn't tell him about the decision that I had made until I was at a Super Bowl party at the White House. I guess we were announcing on Tuesday, this was the Sunday before. And he said to me, boy, I'm really glad that that's what you decided because that's where I wanted us to be. But I didn't think it was appropriate for me to share with you what my views were. Now, that, I think, shows a healthy relationship between a White House and a Justice Department, one that clearly does not exist between the so-called Justice Department that we have now and the White House. Well, it's an interesting example because it shows how far from anything normal or you use the word regular we are, right? Like you were friends also, but the function of your job had nothing to do with checking in with the White House. And, you know, I think the inversion is helpful. It's not just that they defer to him, it's that he runs them and they allow him to. You know, we're talking about what the next three years portend. You know, they've already in year one tried to indict and prosecute Jim Comey. They've gone before a grand jury three or four times for Tish James. Are you afraid? I mean, are you afraid they'll try to manufacture something against you or your former colleagues? Sure. Anybody who is a critic of this administration has to think in the front of his or her mind, the back of his or her mind, that they're going to look at something, some part of your life and somehow construct out of whole cloth a case against you. But that can't stop you. Because as Jim Coney said, you know, he had great faith in the system. I've got great faith in the people of this country, whether they serve on grand juries, whether they serve on trial juries, such that if they come at me, I'll get through it. I haven't done anything wrong. It's like when they were going to try to investigate the mayor of Minneapolis and the governor of Minnesota. And I said, well, what's the charge? Felony disagreement? Right. What are you going to charge them with? You know, the threat of it is, I think, the thing that they really rely on more to try to get people to cower, to capitulate, and to accept that which is imposed upon them. And we got to push through that. I mean, this country took on the mightiest empire in the world to establish the United States of America. And there were times, I'm sure, when our forefathers thought, can we really pull this off? as Dr. King really thought, can I really pull this off, rip down a system of American apartheid? The same strength that they showed, the same strength that they showed in pushing through their doubts is that which we have to exhibit and embrace in our time. You're getting at something that I've heard in my own interviews with people on the streets in Minneapolis. It is not the absence of fear. It's what is the alternative, right? You called it an arousal, but do you feel like people seem to have to get over this reality that they're not going to be unafraid because of the reasons we're talking about? Trump has shown he's willing to fabricate a case and use the extraordinary powers of the Department of Justice to investigate and try to prosecute you. But do you feel like people are getting beyond the fear in numbers? I've seen more people in the sports world come out in the last five, six days than I had in the last year. And, you know, I was disappointed. I wanted everyone to jump in and protect democracy from day one And they didn but they there now And I wonder what you think explains that I think you starting to see people organizations getting courage from the courage that people on the streets have shown To see the NBA Players Association issuing a powerful statement, to seeing Victor Wembenyana say something extremely powerful. And to say the PR people don't want me to do this, but I'm going to do it anyway. Like speaking about the barrier to entry in his own organization was incredible. Exactly. And I think I thought, sensitively saying, look, I'm not a citizen of this country, but let me make this observation. I think you're going to start to see more and more of that. And I think there's going to be a consequence paid by those who do not take these steps. Because there's going to be a look back at some point. But even before that, people are going to make economic decisions. You know, are you going to go to grocery store A or grocery store chain A who stands with Trump and has supported, I don't know, you know, his inauguration and is still in lockstep with him when you can get the same product from grocery store chain B that has stayed true to what it said after George Floyd with regard to DEI that has done things to support its employees who are in protest to the policies of this administration? Yeah, there's going to be a bottom line, and you've seen it already, bottom line impacts with regard to, you know, certain big stores. And I think, you know, I look at the law firms. Let's talk about the law firms. What is the deal? This is on page one of On Tyranny. The first page is about obeying in advance. Why does Brad Carp at Paul Weiss put this in motion where, and not all of them capitulate, but some of the ones most closely associated with prestigious democratic causes capitulate early? Why? That, for me, is still a mystery because the reality was if the profession, if the law firms had stayed together and as a group said no, we would have won. The notion that you can tell lawyers that you can't come into federal buildings. Really? I mean, that's ridiculous. I mean, they came after us because we represent Jack Smith and we basically gave them the Heisman, my firm. And you won, right? And we won. Yeah. And we are getting huge numbers of young people who want to work with us. I suspect Paul Weiss is not. We have not lost any clients. When I was in Copenhagen and in Stockholm, I guess the early part of 2025, potential clients there were asking me, well, if law firms won't stand up for themselves, why should I expect them to stand up for us if we are facing the government and we've had clients switch to us? There's a long-term negative impact on the reputation of these firms and belies that which they said they were all about. And then beyond that, when you're a part of a thing that says, well, you know, if you settle a lawsuit, pay us $16 million, whatever it is, we won't bring an action against you. A specious lawsuit. I could not be a part of that kind of transaction, you know, to say, wait a minute, you're not going to fight this thing, not only because you're going to win, but also because of the example that it's going to set. And yet, you know, many lawyers, many businesses have decided that they're going to do that which they think is good for them in the short term. And it may be, but life is long and memories are long and people are going to remember where you stood in 2025, 2026, 27 and 28. I never spent a lot of time in the private sector, so I know not of what I speak here. But what business is not thinking beyond a two-year horizon? What is the plan for 2029 for a company that has helped knock down the East Wing, which I find just grotesque? Why was Tim Cook in a tuxedo in the White House the day after Alex Preddy was killed? Yeah, well, I'm not, you know, a business type. I think I'm a pretty good lawyer. But I do think that what you say is exactly right. Your profits might take some hits in the short term, but you will long term benefit from taking principled stands. It matters to people. It matters to consumers where you are on particular issues. McKinsey has done a series of studies that show that, you know, those companies that stay true to their DEI ideals, if you look at other companies that have moved away in the same sector, the companies that stay true to those ideals have a better, healthier bottom line. So there's an economic case that can be made for all of these things in addition to the moral one. Well, it seems batshit crazy to me for companies to fold to Trump. It makes it look shallow and meaningless in the first place. Why did you have a program if you didn't believe it was part of creating a good culture that also made your company profitable and sound? And to your point, what young person wants to go work somewhere that is regressing to like a 1950s sort of cultural nod out of respect for Donald Trump? And that's the deal about MAGA. You know, make America great again. And I always wonder, all right, well, when did you think America was great? And for whom? Make America great again. Yeah. And I think that you're right. It is kind of a 1950s, leave it to beaver. I'm not betraying my age here now, but leave it to beaver, June Cleaver. Yeah. You know, vacuuming and high heels and pearls. No black people anyplace. All women are staying at home. You know, that's a vision of 1950s America that we saw on television, but was not consistent with discrimination that African-Americans had to endure, the way in which women were kept in their place. Forget about people in the LGBTQ community. That is, I think, kind of what Trump and his folks think is an American ideal and is not consistent with what America actually was like in the 1950s. And so, you know, focusing on where we are now and where we want to be is, I think, good for the country. It's also good business planning. You know, you should be thinking ahead. How do I get ahead five years from now, 10 years from now, instead of thinking about only what's the quarterly profits? Well, I mean, and let me deal with the elephant in the room. I mean, media companies are part of this, too. I mean, it's a trust calculation. What do you make of media companies who seem to be kind of lining up to capitulate and do these short-sighted deals? You can't do it. I mean, reputation for a media company is everything. Right. And if you are seen as being timid in your reporting, people will find other places to get what they consider to be neutral observations of the news. And I understand it's difficult. You know, you don't want to seem partisan. But if you just report the news as it is, report the facts as they are, you're going to probably subject yourselves to partisan charges by components of the Republican Party. But I think you just have to withstand that. I mean, it's all a question about what's the truth, you know? What is the truth? Where do the facts lie? And then push that out to the American people. There'll be respect for that. And I think there's a real value in having the major networks seen as purveyors of truth. There is something to be said for the nation getting in front of a television. It maybe doesn't happen to the degree that it once did, but if you had trust in the networks and between the three major ones, Fox as well, there is something to be said for the nation trying to get at least some agreement as to what the facts are. And then from there, we have the policy debates. The vigorous debates. Would you trust CBS News just generally? Not as much as I did before. You know, Barry Weiss's history is not one that gives me great confidence. You know, the deals that they had to strike to do the kinds of things that they wanted to do with the administration also make me wonder whether or not they're going to, you know, kind of cut things in such a way that will be acceptable to the administration but inconsistent with the facts. This isn't Walter Cronkite, Eric Severide, Charles Collingsworth. You know, that was my go-to 6.30, 7 o'clock in East Elmhurst in Queens while we're eating dinner. That's what we were watching for that half hour. That's not that network anymore. And I think Americans feel that way, too. I think fewer people are watching under the new leadership there. I want to ask you about the Republican MAGA effort, not just to rig the midterms, but to take away the right to vote. And I remember when there was an opportunity to do something on voting rights and the White House and the Democrats, they tried, they made different choices, they had other priorities. I mean, do you look at that as a sliding doors moment? Do you look back and wish that there had been more of a focus on voting rights legislation when Democrats were in control? Yeah, Democrats blew it. Yeah. You know, we had trifecta control. We had the White House, both houses of Congress, and we could have passed legislation, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, another bill, and another bill that would have dealt with almost all the issues that we're dealing with now. This mid-cycle redistricting would not have been allowed. And the reality is that certain senators did not want to have a carve-out from the filibuster. Nancy Pelosi very adroitly got the bills through the House, but we couldn't get, call it as it is, couldn't get Senators Sinema and Manchin to agree to a carve out of the filibuster that would have allowed for the passage of those bills. If there is a Democratic trifecta in 2029, this should be, as Nancy Pelosi made it, HR1. We have to fix our system. We have to put in place things that would ban partisan gerrymandering, put in place mechanisms that would ensure that the lines that are drawn after the next census are done in a way that's fair. Don't favor Democrats. Don't favor Republicans. Americans simply are drawn in a fair way so that the people choose who their elected representatives are, as opposed to politicians choosing who their voters are. That's something I've been working on through the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. But there are lots of people, I think, now focusing on this issue as a result of what President Trump did with Texas. You know, I've been trying to raise people's consciousness about the negative impacts of gerrymandering, and he has raised this issue in a way that I was incapable of doing. And now people are focused on this issue. We have a Supreme Court case coming up dealing with the Voting Rights Act and Section 2 and whether or not that remaining piece of the Voting Rights Act will continue to be a viable thing that those of us who are trying to protect voting rights will still have that to use as a tool. There's a lot in our democratic infrastructure that I think is at risk and that has to be strengthened. And if Democrats, as I said, have trifecta control come 2029, this has got to be a priority. We'll pause right here, but my conversation with former Attorney General Eric Holder continues after the break. We'll be right back. main justice, and more. Plus new episodes of all your favorite MS Now shows ad-free, and ad-free listening to all of Rachel Maddow's original series, including Rachel Maddow Presents Burn Order. Subscribe to MS Now Premium on Apple Podcasts. I think that for people who've been watching the Republicans or who are ex-Republicans, it was almost like the kid in the sixth sense, right? You're dead, you just don't know it. And it's a hard issue if you haven't worked on campaigns or you haven't been in government. It's hard to understand what the Republicans were doing and how sinister it was. If you could just sort of talk about how they weaponized the big lie about even people that we held up as heroically, refusing to kowtow to Trump's lie that he somehow won 2020. I mean, Georgia puts in place the first voter suppression law predicated on the big lie that they fought. And then they back and signed legislation predicated on the lie that there was fraud in Georgia. Yeah, I mean, they put in place all of these measures designed to stop voter fraud, when in fact, voter fraud in any consequential way simply does not exist. The state systems that run our elections do so pretty damn well, Whether they are Republicans or Democrats, independents, regular citizens, you know, volunteering their time, there is simply not the voter fraud there that allows them to put in place, you know, a whole range of things from, you know, photo ID. I don't think it's necessary. No, voter ID. I think that's fine, but not photo ID. That's not necessarily a good thing. And explain why, right? Because that's a barrier to people that don't drive. Right. Or in Texas, you know, if you didn't have a driver's license, well, you could go get photo ID, but you had to pay $22 to get it. And as I said well that a poll tax I mean you know you got to pay money to vote That not the way we supposed to do this And so you also have you know the purging of voter rolls again because supposedly they filled with dead people Doesn't show that to be true. The Shelby County versus Holder decision, unfortunately has my name on from 2013, took away from the Justice Department's ability to be clear changes that certain states that were covered by the act would try to put in place. Closing polling places, you know? I mean, if you look at the election, this was in 2020, and you look at Atlanta from, I guess, five o'clock on. If you were in a white part of Atlanta, it took you about seven minutes to vote. If you were in a black part of Atlanta, it took you about two, three hours to vote. You know, and that's only because of the way in which the polling places were located, which ones were closed, and all of that stuff was allowed. So I've seen now that North Carolina They're trying to close a polling place at the largest HBCU in North Carolina, North Carolina A&T, something we fought for before. And I guess we'll have to fight for again. I mean, this is basically un-American. Let's make voting easier. And if you make it easier, it's not going to make it any less reputable. And let's have as many people be engaged in the process and have a government that reflects the will of the American people as opposed to a government that represents the special interests. It's all upside down and backwards. And the only person who tried to steal an election or cheat an election was Donald Trump. I found the testimony of Jack Smith almost tragic in that this was, there was such a high bar for whatever reason. Merrick Garland didn't seem moved by what happened on television. There seemed to be a lot of hand-wringing and reluctance. I don't know if you share that assessment. Well, you know, I've known Merrick for a bunch of years. He's a good man. I don't know all that went on in the Justice Department and how they were, you know, considering things, but I'd like to think if I were there that I would have pushed as hard as I possibly could have. I think once Jack Smith was appointed, you saw the department moving at a pace that it had not done before. And so maybe Jack Smith himself or somebody like Jack Smith should have been appointed before. Or the notion that you could look at the January 6th, you know, insurrection and try to think of it as an ordinary criminal case and you work from the bottom up to the top. That, for me, was clearly not the case. You had to bifurcate that. What happened to the folks on January the 6th? And then what about the people who were behind what happened on January the 6th? So, you know, it'll take some time. You know, five, ten years, we'll look back and get a better sense of what happened within DOJ. But at the end of the day, it's also interesting for all the criticism that Merrick has gotten, some of which I think is unwarranted, given what the Supreme Court said with regard to the presidential immunity, it is not at all clear to me that if they moved any faster, that we'd be in a different place. Because Trump would have been able to claim they were official acts, and that was a sweeping enough decision, the immunity decision. Right, yeah. The indictments would have come. They would have appealed them to the Supreme Court, and maybe on the shadow docket, and In some other way, the court would have said that these are not valid indictments and they would have been dismissed. Merrick Garland is a good man. I think that's beyond dispute. And anyone that looks at the sweep of his career can agree with that. I don't think that's a controversial or partisan statement. But he wasn't the right person for the moment. Robert Mueller, I worked with him, and his integrity, I think, is beyond dispute. But both Mueller and Merrick Garland seemed outmatched by the moment, by the ferocity of the MAGA movement's lies and gaslighting and projection. We're just talking about voting rights. The people threatening the right to vote are holding all the levers of power. And I wonder your thoughts on sort of the limitations of the past ways of doing things, even for good men and women with integrity. I think that we need people in these positions of power, you know, come 2029, who have some edges, some sharp edges to them. It's a good way to put it, yeah. Who are unafraid to push back. You know, I think for too long, Democrats and progressives have been uncomfortable with the acquisition and use of power. And I think we've got to get over that. It doesn't mean that you get power and then use it inappropriately. But if you have power, you've got to use it in ways that will benefit the American people. You know, Roosevelt was unafraid of acquiring and using power. Johnson, unafraid of acquiring and using power. And I think that's what Democrats have got to get back to. You know, there's a process. You put out your positions. You try to support them as best you can. Listen to the other side. But there's a use of power that I think we've got to become more comfortable with in the way that, you know, Mitch McConnell. He got power and used it and slept, you know, every night like a baby. He didn't care what people were saying on the other side. And we got a Supreme Court now that we have to deal with because of the way in which he used the power that he had to keep Merrick Garland off the court and to get Amy Coney Barrett on the court in ways that are inconsistent with the rule that is supposed to apply. Why do you think Democrats who have such an advantage in the court of public opinion on the issue of the Supreme Court, Supreme Court is issuing ruling after ruling that is wildly out of step with the mainstream of American thought and ideology on abortion, on money in politics, on environmental questions. Why are Democrats challenged in using that issue politically? I don't know. I don't get this. I've talked to the caucuses up on the Hill and said, you know, it's not an inappropriate thing to run against this court, given all that they have done from Citizens United overturning Roe v. Wade, keeping partisan gerrymandering cases out of the federal courts. There's a whole range of things that they have done to our democracy, the immunity decision for the president. So, yeah, you run against the court for what it has done. You run against the court for the way in which it was composed. And then you have to be prepared to ask some fundamental questions and be unafraid. If the Democrats hear the words, oh, you're packing the court. Whoa, oh, oh, can't do that. Yeah. Well, Mitch McConnell packed the court. And I promised Donald Trump would if the tables were turned. If he got there and the court was a liberal majority, we would be talking about it in the past tense. The court was packed. And I mean, I understand, you know, we are traditionalists and we are kind of rule followers. But that doesn't mean, again, with the acquisition and use of power, that we don't put in place institutions that are going to work for us in the 21st century. The last time that the court was expanded, it was to make sure that there was one justice for each federal circuit. If you did that now, you would have 13 justices. You wouldn't have nine. So that's at least one marker. Again, look at what happened with Amy Coney Barrett and what happened with Merrick Garland. That's another place in which you could say, oh, that's two justices. And so asking those kinds of questions, putting in place an ethics code, having Congress, which has the ability to overrule Supreme Court decisions that are not deemed constitutional in nature, use that power. And don't be reluctant. You know, we kind of place the Supreme Court in a special place and it deserves, you know, some degree. It has to be removed from politics. But they're not the oracles of Delphi. You know, the gods are not speaking to them and telling them what the truths are. They are regular men and women who get checks that say United States government on them, just like I did when I was a GS-14 young lawyer at the Justice Department. You know, they're fallible. I think the thing, and I feel this way about ICE, I feel this way about the Supreme Court, they are not served by operating with impunity. No. The Supreme Court would be more popular if there was more scrutiny of them. the Supreme Court would benefit from an ethics code. We would benefit. The whole, you know, upside down and backward nature of all the people who want to operate with impunity, having impunity and then being historically unpopular because of it or with it or as a result, feels like one of these break glass moments for a civic society. No, I think that's right. You know, the last thing that we need is to have our Supreme Court, our federal court system more broadly to be seen as political in nature. But I think, you know, we have to draw a distinction between the district courts and the federal courts of appeals who have actually done a pretty good job. Yeah. Whether they are Republicans, Democrats, Trump appointees or not. Pretty good job. I will disagree with some. You know, Eileen Cannon, that's just to forget about her. But the Supreme Court has done things that you really have to kind of scratch your head. And I don't think they're necessarily partisan in nature as much as they are ideological in nature. They're not following precedent and principle. They're following the other P, which is personnel. You know, we've got the power now to do those things, which have been fever dreams for people on that part of the ideological spectrum for years. And you see that time after time after time. And the overruling of precedents, you have to take into account that people order their lives on the basis of that which they think the law exists. Chief example of that being Roe versus Wade. Women made decisions on how they're going to conduct their lives with that thought as to how our society was ordered. And then suddenly, boom, it was gone. And now we have a bifurcated nation in which you do have reproductive rights for women in some states and not many reproductive rights for women in other states. And the criminalizing of healthcare providers. My last question is about your scenario. You're sort of Not best case scenario, but in your view, most likely scenario for the way out of this. I think it's going to take a series of defeats and shattering defeats, perhaps, of Republicans for them to get away from MAGA and from the Trump echoes. I think if the election is fair in 26, the midterms, and that's a big if, we have to deal with, you know, the mid-cycle of gerrymandering. We have to deal with voter suppression. We have to deal with potentially the deployment of American troops in areas that might have could have an impact on the turnout in certain Democratic areas. But if we have a fair election in 26, I think you're going to see the start of that comeback. And then I think you have to see what happens in 28, both with regard to the presidency as well as federal elections. But importantly, what happens in the states? Too often we get all really focused on who's running for president as we should. and we don't pay as much attention to who are state legislators who are serving at the local level. And I think you're starting to see with the work that we've tried to do with our allies, you know, an unwinding of a lot of these gerrymanders and we'll have more fair elections. And I actually think that we're going to be okay come 2029. But between now and then, there's going to be a lot of damage done. There's going to be a lot of fighting that needs to be done to protect and to try to minimize the destruction that we're going to have to endure. You know, Dr. King always said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. But the deal is it doesn't bend on its own. It only bends when people like us, that is average, ordinary, but extraordinary American citizens put our hands on that arc and pull it towards justice. And that's what each of us has to ask ourselves. What am I going to do? What am I going to do to save this democracy and make this nation the exceptional one that it has shown that it can be? It's an honor. I had another three hours in me of questions for you. I hope you'll come back and do this again. Sure. Anytime. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. It's a privilege. Thank you so much for listening to The Best People. you can continue to subscribe to our premium service on Apple Podcasts to get this and other MSNOW podcasts ad-free. You'll also get early access and exclusive bonus content. And if you subscribe before the end of the month, you'll get three months for free. All episodes of this podcast are also available on YouTube. Visit MSNOW slash The Best People to watch. The Best People is produced by Vicki Vergolina. Our associate producer is Rana Shabazi. with additional production support from Marcy Santiago and Delia Hayes. Our audio engineers are Greg Devins II and Hazik Bin Ahmad Farad. Katie Lau is our senior manager of audio production. Pat Berkey is the senior executive producer of Deadline White House. Brad Gold is the executive producer of Content Strategy. Aisha Turner is the executive producer of audio. And Madeline Herringer is the senior vice president in charge of audio, digital, and long form. Search for the best people wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to follow the series. The U.S. military deployed on the streets of America. Whole communities targeted for removal. There was tremendous anxiety as they saw neighbors and friends being taken. And when accountability finally came knocking, the burn order to cover it all up. I never believed that America would be doing this. A stain on this country, one that we said we would never repeat. Rachel Maddow presents Burn Order. All episodes available now.