Lying to congress, obstruction and witness tampering. In an interview thursday he said he preferred a commutation to a pardon to give, quote, an opportunity to clear my name. You might remember last year steve bannon called him an access point to wikileaks before the sites publication of Hillary Clintons leaked emails. He was set to surrender and begin his prison sentence on tuesday. Now, roger stone, if hes anything, hes a convicted fel n felon. Hes also a lifelong republican henchman. Hes got a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back. Roger stone isnt some abhorrent trumpera figure. He has been intwined in the Republican Party for decades. It is the party of roger stone and donald trump. You know, the United States has the worst Coronavirus Response in the world right now. We have the most cases, over three million, and the most deaths, over 130,000. Thats not just because we have one of the worst president s in the countrys history, but also because we have one of the worst Political Parties in power in the entire democratic world. The Republican Party, the party of roger stone and donald trump by a bunch of metrics is off on an island all of its own. It is further right than most. It is further right than parties considered to be extreme in europe. For example, for years, it had been the lone Major Conservative Party across the democratic world to deny the science of climate change. But now on this evening in which the president has pardoned his criminal association, now all of the Republican Partys most dangerous pathology has come to fruition with donald trump amidst this pandemic because it is not just donald trump. It is a mistake to put it solely on donald trump. Look at what the entire party from top to bottom is doing during this crisis. Now, to be clear, it is a very difficult problem. We say it every night. It is a difficult governing problem for everyone. There has been officials who have made truly massive mistakes. Mayor bill de blasio waited too long to close down new york city and it cost lives. And there have been republicans who have done a pretty good job. Charlie baker, mike dewine. But on the whole, as an entity, the Republican Party, the party of roger stone and donald trump, is an ir redeemable disaster. Look at their governors. Doug ducey blocked local officials from mandating masks. And now arizona has one of the worst outbreaks in the country. The governor is getting called out in the front page of the local newspaper for his lack of action. Texas, Governor Greg Abbott did much of the same thing. He said local officials could not punish people for not Wearing Masks and he rushed to reopen and now texas is dealing with a massive outbreak and Governor Abbott is taking the heat. Now his state is dealing with a mess. Their Health System is overburdened and governor reeves finally just ordered a mask mandate after a sixth of the state legislators contracted the virus because the heavily republican body insisted on working without masks. Thats just a small portion of whats going on. While the country is in the midst of a once in a lifetime calamity, the republican senators representing their constituents in washington are pretending like theyre fulltime twitters or right wing talk radio hosts or some dude with a cool podcast or working to make life harder for people and make things easier for the virus. In the state of missouri, where they set a record for new cases and had a huge coronavirus outbreak in a summer camp, you may wonder what the new young senator is up to amidst this once in a century calamity. Ill tell you. Hes fighting with the nba, sending a strongly worded letter to commissioner adam silver about how theyre kowtowing to china with new rules about player jerseys. Senator josh holly also took the time today to blow up an espn reporter who sent him a rude email in response to that letter. In texas, a state that has hit a record with coronavirus deaths topping 3,000, texas senator ted kroo cruz is busy hosting his own podcast, tweeting about foods and fighting with a harvard law professor on twitter because he didnt like the way he talked about the White House Press secretary. All the while, his constituents right now are dying in their homes in Record Numbers because the ambulances cant get to them fast enough. And then there is this fellow texas congressman, also a new young rising star on the right, a month ago he was telling police complaining about fear mongering from a local county official who was warning of the coming disaster. The congressman said we have enormous Hospital Capacity. We can do this. Thats whats happening in their state. Thats how republicans in that state are reacting. And then there is senator chuck grassley, widely seen as a kind of republican elder statesman, he is wisely planning to skip the covid Party Donald Trump is still planning to throw in jacksonville, florida next month. But yesterday he was whining about the big 10s decision to limit traveling and packing thousands of people into stadiums. And as all this is happening, the president and this party continue their insane fight against masks at the grass roots and cultural level. It sees the whole party and political movements as maybe the biggest impediment to Public Health. Like last week when Texas Governor greg an baboutface, h told texans they have to wear masks in a last desperate attempt to save the states economy, Hospital System and most importantly save texan lives, now greg abbott is dealing with a fullfledged revolt. As county after county parties pass formal resolutions condemning the president s response to the pandemic. Thats the same party you may remember that until the mayor canceled it earlier this week was insisting on holding their own in houston in the midst of the worst outbreak the city has seen. This is the Republican Party, the party of donald trump and ted cruz and josh holly and roger stone. This party is entirely unable to meet the moment. It has now given us, lets be clear, two successive presidencies that have brought the country to its knees. It is so corroded, so desiccated, so dangerous it will revolt against one of its own members when they do something right to fight the plague to save lives. It is becoming a procovid party before our eyes. And, remember, it is more than donald trump. It is the entire party. Some day soon, the time of trump will pass. This circus of incompetence, corruption and cruelty will end. When it does, the men and women in trumps Republican Party will come to you, telling you they can repair the damage hes done. They will beg you to forgive their votes to exonerate trump from his crimes, ask you to forgive their silence, their cowardess and their betrayals as trump wrecked this nation. Then almost on clue, Lindsey Graham, who said that donald trump is a cook, he was a race u. S. And now hes Donald Trumps golfing buddy, today he tweeted donald trump should pardon roger stone. That would be okay with him because hes a man in his 70s, a nonviolence first offense. That doesnt apply to the thousands of other federal prisoners that fit in that category because there is no difference. Its all the same. For more on the broken, ir redeemable Republican Party, im joined by former republican strategist Steve Schmidt. This news of roger stones commutation strikes me as the most perfect embodiment of the thesis here that the raw here is total and complete. Well, chris, you used the word ir redeemable. Thats the correct word. Its become a threat to americas institutions, to small liberalism. It is an authoritarianish party, not so different than the parties that we see in hungary and poland. It is no longer fideltist to the american system or constitution. Really what it is is an organized conspiracy to maintain power. Now, the good news is tonight when you look out across the senate races, joni ernst in iowa has fallen behind. Mcsally is almost certain to lose. When you talk about Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, hes running against a black american, Jaime Harrison. And Jaime Harrison has a real chance to win in South Carolina because voters understand what a fraud Lindsey Graham is and that people, generally speaking, in this country dont like it when their politicians take them for fools, look them in the eye and lie to them the way lindsay gram has. They dont appreciate his betrayal of his former best friend, his embrace of his new best friend. So wherever we look, we see a party that has been an agent, that has been collaborationist, along with donald trump, in wreaking the damage we see in this country. We will have 200,000 dead americans by the time we make it to the election. We have a shattered economy with 40 million americans out of work. We see the wholesale corruption of the loan process where so many Small Businesses couldnt access the money but so many cronies of President Trump could. And, again, we have seen just for years now this assault on our institutions, on Government Employees like fiona hill, on our service members. And lastly, chris, if i could just say, how dare josh holly put his letter out there talking about the United States military when hes yet to say a word about a president of the United States who has left the military defenseless as the russian president puts bounties on their head. It is truly a dispickable moment. These parties are two of the great institutions in the country and the world for the advancement of human freedom and dignity. And the collapse of the Republican Party, its dissent into the cesspool is a real traj for the country. And we see it playing out now every day. You know, you have mentioned the politics at the beginning of this. I am so struck by this moment. So roger stone has been pardoned. No one in their right mind who is a political adviser to the president of any ideological stripe would advise him to do this right now. The politics of it are terrible. But the logic here, i mean, the president is going to do what he wants and he doesnt like people to snitch and the guy kept quiet for him, but there is also this logic of jumping everyone into the gang. Like everybody increasingly has to say absurd things and they have to count increasingly terrible and antisocial behavior from the president because then theyre stuck to him. So now they will all go out and say, its fine that roger stone was pardoned for what he did. And it will be a tightening of the loyalty oath that has bound everyone to the president. This is a call to personality, and we should treat it as much. And im reminded of the great phrase by the late, great democratic senator Daniel Patrick moynihan who talked about defining decency down. We have seen that, that these senators will explicate donald trump on any issue. We saw being asked a question about how donald trump is doing on the Coronavirus Response and her absurd answer was i think the president is stepping forward, intimating that hes somehow doing a good job. And of course its all theater of the absurd. None of this stuff is possibly justified. His conduct is abhorrent. Hes desecrated his office. But more than that, hes literally, without exception, hes the worst leader in the history of the United States in a moment of crisis who was ever charged with any responsibility. And for all of these years, there is no action by trump to any of these senators could find it in their hearts to condemn. What theyre outraged about is they all bought their ticket and theyre about to take a ride from groups like the Lincoln Project that spent a lot of money telling the truth on them and their records to their voters and theyre outraged about that. They finally summoned their outrage. Its also just striking to me. I mean, just to watch josh holly and ted cruz in particular. If you look at these two people, they have sterling resumes. They are both Supreme Court clerks, one of the most sought after brass rings that you can grab as a sort of young and promising legal thinker. They are relatively young as senators. There is a once in a century challenge. There are morgues that are filling up in texas. Theyre going to hit Hospital Capacity. There is record cases in missouri. These guys are talking about the nba and china and lawrence tribes tone. I mean, go be a gloger. Go start a podcast. Get out of the u. S. Senate if thats what you want to talk about. There is serious things to be done. I think there is no premise more offensive than that these republican senators are somehow hostages to the trump regime and to donald trump. Theyre vested with significant constitutional power, significant institutional power. And in the case of holly and cruz, not only are they demagogues and silly people, theyre just empty people. Theyre the type of soulless men and women we see in this age that care nothing for the ideas and ideals of the country. What they care about is their privilege, their power, their position. They would be comfortable in my authoritarian regime to forward. Theyre not in it to defend any high principal. Theyre not in it to advance any great cause. Theyre not in it to make the country better. Theyre small and silly men at a serious hour. And thats the crisis we have in the country. It is a crisis of unseriousness, the crisis of cowardess. Were a long way from the rusks, men and women of conviction and character. Think of the guts and courage of a rosa parks compared to these people who are actually vested with Political Leadership and responsibility in this country. It is just an appalling, appalling moment. And hopefully as the tide rises up, because we have about 33 of the country that approves of the president s conduct, roughly 65 , 70 of us are get him out of here because the country has no chance of recovering from any of this until hes removed from power. But their rage and their anger is rising like a righteous pie. It will sweep all these people out of office. The Republican Party is going to be more resembling a smouldering ash heap than a Political Party and everyone will sit around scratching their heads saying, how did this happen. It became an authoritarian party headed by a con man who desecrated and defaced our institutions now for years, and the American People are going to fire him because of it. Lets hope we make it to november. Thank you so much for your time tonight. For more on the president s decision to commute roger stones sentence, joining me now a former prosecutor. First, this was not unexpected. The president has been teasing it like it was the Season Finale of a reality show for a while. But your reaction to him actually doing it . I think it is one more piece of the obstruction of justice puzzle. This is a guy who is bragging, basically, that he didnt he didnt tell the truth about the president. And what he wanted in return was not to go to jail and hes not going to have to. At some point we will have to make a decision that future President Biden will have to make a decision about what hes going to do about it. Are they going to prosecute trump beginning with comey and forcing mcgahn to lie and paying off porn stars and tax fraud . They will have to make a decision are they going to prosecute trump on the obstruction of justice, or are they going to deal with the other huge problems that you have cataloged tonight . We have hundreds of thousands of people dying. We have the aca, which is under assault. We have a Justice Department that is participating in destroying health care for americans in the middle of a pandemic. We have the Civil Rights Division that is no longer basically functioning because they have been just squashed. And all of these things are going to have to happen at once in january and President Biden is just going to have to make a decision where they will put their political will behind them. Yeah. I mean, one step at a time. We are in july and things can change fast, i just have to stay. But it strikes me too i worked for due caucus, so i know. Look at the picture now thats complete with roger stone. Paul manafort refused to roll on the president. He was convicted by a jury of his peers, and he has been granted release by the bureau of prison ns because of coronavirus. Michael flynn pleaded guilty and the department of justice withdrew the conviction. Theyre now tied up in appeals over whether they could even do that, whether it is proper what they did. But Michael Flynn is not going to prison. Michael flynn is supposed to report next week. And Michael Cohen, the one who did roll on the president , he is released from prison, is now back in there. And Jeffrey Berman who oversaw the investigation into trump ink and Michael Cohen, that guy got fired by the president. Like, you know, there is not it is not too hard to connect the dots here. No, its not very hard to connect the dots. And you could assume that at some point in november that manafort is pardoned as well, and you can assume that flynn will be on the campaign trail. There is nothing but outrage and corruption going on at the department of justice, and its its so enraging and depressing and at the same time i feel like, you know, if you and Steve Schmidt are right and the Republican Party is reduced to an ash heap in november, we can start fresh, and thats what were going to have to do. Yeah. Right. But the politics of this are utterly insane, right . Everything you said about manafort, you only do this now because you think you can get away with it and youre not thinking about, you know, what the voter wants. Thats the lesson of impeach, i can get whatever i want. Even though Susan Collins thought he learned something else, she was dreadfully wrong. By the way, roger stone is not going to go to jail. Michael flynn is going the case is going to be dismissed ultimately. Manafort is out of jail and Michael Cohen is in jail. So in some level trump is getting away with it right now. Come november, are the voters going to show up, and are we going to really have this landslide that many people expect . Then how will we come together as a country and rebuild the department of justice . Right now it is a disaster, and i would expect in the next couple of days when this stone commutation comes, we will begin to start to see people quitting. Yeah. That was going to be my next question. There have been so many moments of too much. And we saw that with the stone case itself. I mean, the stone case when they withdrew the sentencing recommendation, they overroad it and you had career prosecutors taking their names off the brief. One of them actually testifying before congress about the political pressure put on them. I mean, you know, this is yet another moment where the lines crossed. Right. Some people are going to leave. But they recognize that the trump people go after people who dont play ball and who quit. Look at vindman. This is a guy who served his country so well, beautifully and has done so many grave things for the country, and hes run out of the defense department. So, i mean, i think people are afraid. And it is a reasonable back and forth to think. If you are a career prosecutor in the Civil Rights Division and you are committed to trying to make some forward change and you see that even though trump is completely corrupt and barr is assisting in his corruption, do you hold your nose for the last five months or six months and hope for the best in that which he get a really rock star attorney general or do you say, ive got to make a stand and i need to quit and make a big stink . I think you could go either way and either way is honorable. Yeah. But im sure these are the thoughts of people going through the people in the Justice Department. A lot of people are not able to do because of this corruption attorney general and president. Thank you so much for helping us sort through this news. More on this coming up. Meanwhile, the disaster unfolding across the nation. Because the president s negligence continues, more people are dying. Were going to cover that story next. Y next they will, but with accident forgiveness allstate wont raise your rates just because of an accident, even if its your fault. Cut sonny. Was that good . Line the desert never lies. Isnt that what i said . No you were talking about allstate and insurance. I just. When i. Lets try again. Everybody back to one. Accident forgiveness from allstate. Click or call for a quote today. Fund taxes matter too. Every time a fund manager sells a stock it triggers a Tax Liability for you. And the higher the turnover the more you have to pay in taxes every year. And heres the worst part, because of high turnover, you actually might have to pay taxes even if the fund itself loses money. Thats why you want to own low turnover funds whenever possible. 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Over the last several weeks as new coronavirus cases have skyrocketed around the country, there has been this question about why deaths have still declining. And when you look at this chart, new cases are very clearly rising, and they have been for about a month. But at the same time, fatalities in this country have been declining at a steady rate. It seemed like there were two possible explanations for this. One could be that something changed, treatment or younger healthier people getting the virus or, two, deaths are just a lagging indicator that take a few weeks to catch up to the cases. Well, based on the last few days, it is probably more of the latter because deaths are increasing. Texas, florida and california all saw a Record Number of fatalities yesterday. Arizona hit a record on tuesday. Most worrisome are these front line stories which sound like the front line stories from new york city, most notely multiple localities running out of places for their led. In texas, the medical Examiners Office said they are not receiving the bodies of people who died from coronavirus and need a fema morgue trailer. This was the mayor of phoenix, arizona on this channel earlier today. Our county Public Health agency Just Announced that they are going to be getting refrigerated trucks because the Health Care System has run out of morgue beds. It is very scarey out here. We saw this in new york. Morgues filling up, refrigerated trucks, the dead put in trailers. There seems to be an iron law with this pandemic. Fatalities go up when hospitals get squeezed. We saw that in new york. We saw it in wuhan. In new york, a bunch of people died waiting in the er rooms because they couldnt get care in time. When the hospitals are melting down and overwhelmed, the death rate rises. People die who otherwise would not because doctors cannot get to them. Right now the Hospital Capacity in a state like texas is looking very, very light. Joining me now on the state of those hospitals, charlie, tell us about what your reporting says about the Hospital Capacity in houston right now. Yeah, chris. I think any way you look at it the Hospital Capacity in houston and the surrounding area is incredibly strapped. You see the number of hospitals and the amount of time they were telling ambulances that are telling ems agencies they cant accept ambulances is going up in july. They said they were saturated three times more often than they did so over the same period last year. You see hundreds of patients that are being kept in Emergency Rooms unable to be transferred to an inpatient unit for the icu because they are strapped. They have no beds to transfer them to. You see a number of patients in a hospital in icu beds from covid increasing. On june the 9th there were 373 patients in the houston region who had covid in an icu bed. Today that number is 1,044. Overall, the houston region has about 2,200 icu beds. As of today, 2,165 are full. This is an icu system. This is a Hospital System that is stretched to capacity. Jeremy wallace of the Houston Chronicle said this. Not to scare everyone, but we have doubled hospitalizations every two weeks since midjune. We are at 10,000 today with only 10,000 available beds. Thats statewide. We literally cant have this double again without creating more beds. The current trajectory is going to topple the Health Care System if it continues. I dont think there is a question about that, right . The Hospital System says they are adding beds. But the problem is that they are struggling to get the staff and the resources and the equipment to staff those beds. So if they have those beds, you wouldnt be boarding these patients in the emergency room. And thats exactly whats happening. They cant get the patients to a bed, so theyre having to keep them in the emergency room. Some hospitals have dozens of patients in the emergency room. The other thing thats happen, chris, is there is an increase in the response times by units, by fire units because when they come to the hospital theyre unable to unload their patient. So they have to wait there with the patients and cant get back out in the field. The other thing were seeing is a steep increase in patients dying at home from cardiac arrest. You reported on this. I want to zoom in on that for a second because it is really important and very worrisome for what it means. You had this piece i think on wednesday as coronavirus surges, houston confronts its hidden toll, people dying at home and you used publically available data to show this spike in people dying at home. We think a lot of it attributable to covid. But it is not just spiking now. It had been elevated for months. If you look at the cdc death data in houston, there seem to be a lot of excess deaths in the houston area in may and june that suggests, actually, there has been a high level of the virus and its been brewreaking havoc for a while. We know that deaths at home from cardiac arrest are up 45 from february to june. They increased from about 200 to 300. 300, the amount of deaths at home from cardiac arrest in june was the highest number of any month in more than three years. That includes a really bad flu season a couple of years ago. So this is not by chance. This is not the seasonal variation that you would expect. Were seeing something happen that hasnt happened in recent memory. And youre right, the number was high in may. It is higher in june. And there is indications theyre seeing even more people in the month of july. July 3rd was the highest day this year as far as responses. This is when a crew comes to the house in response to a 911 call of a suspected cardiac arrest. And by the time they arrive, the person is dead. So that is really concerning. And in some of these cases, the medical examiner is examining the body or running tests and determining that it is covid. The numbers for that are up as well. But there could be a number of other factors as well. It could be people nervous about accessing the Health Care System so theyre not going into the hospital. But what we do know is this is very unusual. All of these factors point to something in play that very closely and very disturbingly mirrors what we saw in new york. Yeah. And one of the things that i find so that makes my blood run cold as im listening to you and im reading the reporting and talking to people out of houston is just the resonance with what we saw in new york, the hardest hit place. One in every 400 workers in new york city died. This all sounds extremely familiar. It is extremely worrying. Charles has been doing fantastic reporting on this. Thank you for your time tonight. Thanks, chris. Weve got much more about the unfolding Coronavirus Crisis and the president s commutation of his criminal associates sentence, roger stone. Dont go anywhere. If youve had the coronavirus, youve got a lot of fight in you. And youre in a special position to help us fight back. The plasma in your blood can literally save lives. But we need to act fast. Please donate plasma now. Please donate. Donate. Donate. Donate now. You fought for your life. Now lets take the fight to covid19. Go to the fight is in us dot org to find out how to donate. Its velveeta shells cheese versus the other guys. Clearly, velveeta melts creamier. The u. S. Is currently staring down the biggest mass fore closure and eviction event since the great depression. It could be that bad. It could be worse. Is already looking worse than the last big recession. About 10 Million People over a period of years were displaced from their homes following the foreclosure crisis in 2008. Were looking at 20 million to 28 Million People in this moment between now and september facing eviction. Two to three times as many people who lost their homes during the entire 2008 financial crisis could lose their homes over just the next two months. And, again, it sounds partisan to say it, but heres the fact. There is Just One Party calling for extended relief to try and fix this right now, the democratic party, which has an agenda around this and increasingly a yunfired agenda around another rescue package. Former obama housing and urban Development Secretary and former candidate for president , julian castro. I want to start first by saying that your brother tweeted about your stepmothers passing away due to covid, and i just wanted to offer my condolences on that. It must be very difficult and ask if you wanted to offer a remembrance of who she was. Thank you very much. Yes, we lost our stepmother alice. My mother and my stepmother alice were married for 31 years. She was a wonderful woman, always very warm and loving, wonderful mother, a wonderful wife. You know, words cant express the sorrow that you feel, especially under the circumstances because she passed away from covid19 by herself, alone without my father, without her family. Right now, you know, my father himself has covid19, and so hes not able to be around other people as he grieves the loss of his wife and as we grieve for him. So you just basically, you know, we got a very personal look at the tragedy of this disease, and my heart goes out to her children and the rest of her family and also to all of those families who have lost loved ones by this illness. Take it seriously. This is something that people should take very, very seriously. I didnt know about your father. And of course i really hope he gets better. You have been very focussed on the peril that so many are facing on the housing front. You were secretary of hudd and we look like were heading to a cataclysm for housing in america between the data we have on missed mortgage payments and missed rental payments. We have never seen anything like it. What has to be done in your mind to avoid that cataclysm . Look, there is a lot. Just very quickly taking a step back, we knew that before this pandemic we were facing an affordability crisis out there. By some estimates up to 40 of the 44 million renters in america were already cost burden. In other words, they were spending more than a third of their income every month on rent, sometimes 50 , 60 , 70 . Thats before all of this. Now, by one estimate, as you mentioned, more than 20 Million People in the next eight weeks could face eviction. This is a full blown crisis. What has to happen is immediately Mitch Mcconnell and his republican buddies need to at least pass the heroes act which has 100 billion of direct rental assistance and also expand eviction moratoriums and mortgage protections so that people dont get thrown out on the street. In the longer term, though, you know, vice President Biden has come up with a great plan of how we could address this affordability issue, making sure that we address supply. Hes called for spending 640 billion over the next ten years in creating more housing supply out there, also demand. One of the great things hes called for is make the Housing Choice Voucher Program universal so that you would be able, if you make less than a certain percentage of the area Median Income where you live, you would be able to go out with a housing choice voucher and get a place to live. And here is the state, chris. Just in case people are wondering, okay, we hear a lot about we got to spend money on this, we got to do this. Look, study after study tells us that having a safe, decent place to live is the most stabilizing force in somebodys life. Your prospects for a good education, your prospects for a good job, for your health, all of those things are influenced by whether you have a stable place to live. So, you know, there is concrete things that we can do right now to avert a disaster like we have never seen in this country that will make this pandemic even worse for so many families. You were references Vice President s biden. It was quite ambitious during the primary, particularly making section eight sort of a universal and not capped program, right, if people qualify. It is interesting. You and senator bernie sanders, Elizabeth Warren have all been on the show this week. You were all participants in that rigorous, crowded democratic field. I have to say, obviously, i think it is not surprising for democrats to rally around the nominee. But it does strike me that the stakes in this moment, i mean, as i talk to you tonight with texas breaking records, the president pardoning his longtime associate, that there is just a palpable sense i get from the democrats i talk to of how important this is, how life or death it seems to them. Do you feel that way . Absolutely. Because theyre hearing it from their constituents. And to those republicans that, you know, are sitting on their hands not doing anything, when i was hudd secretary, i traveled to a hundred different communities in 39 states, big cities, small towns. It doesnt matter whether somebody is republican, democrat, conservative or liberal. This housing crisis and the eviction crisis thats looming affects everybody. You know, small towns, big cities, congressional districts across the country. So every single representative and every single senator, if they Start Talking to people out there, you know, they will get a fire lit under them, i think, to do something about this or at least they should. But the Republican Party has gotten so far divorced from, you know, the concerns of every day people in this country that, you know, i dont have much confidence in that these days. Well, i have been talking about your home state senators about one of them, ted cruz and also john cornan to a certain extent, it just seems so striking to me. When the pandemic was hitting the new york metro area, it was just republican, democrat, it was obviously the Central Point of focus. It was an all hands on deck emergency and had to be encountered as much. To watch ted cruz tweeting about whether people are boycotting, im struck by the disconnect. You just lost your stepmother today. Your father has it. Texas is setting records. It seems like the Political Leadership of this state would be more urgent and on the ball about this right now. Yeah. They have taken this embrace of right wing ideology over science and the Public Health, and they have this see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil approach to everything these days. Thats why i think in places like texas, look, you know, this is a Public Health emergency that needs to be dealt with. Whoever is willing to deal with it, we need to be willing to work with them, right . At the same time, i think the political repercussions for this party, for the Republican Party, especially in places like texas, florida, arizona where abbott, desantos and ducey have all done the same thing with this trump play book of pretend its not happening when we know, people know in their own families that it is, i cant tell you except to say that i think they will pay a real price for this in november and for very good reason. They have failed to serve the constituents they are supposed to serve. Julian castro, thank you so much for your time tonight. Again, my condolences for your stepmother. Hopefully you can come back soon and tell us about his recovery. Okay . Thanks, chris. Thank you. When we come back, more on the breaking news tonight. The president commuting the sentence for his confidant and bag man roger stone. Ben whittis joins me to talk about it right after this. guy check it out. Safe drivers save 40 safe drivers save 40 safe drivers save 40 thats safe drivers save 40 . It is, thats safe drivers save 40 . Hes right there. Its him hes here. Hes right here. Hi hi. Hey thats totally him. Its him thats totally the guy. Safe drivers do save 40 . Click or call for a quote today. I felt i couldnt be at my. Best for my family. In only 8 weeks with mavyret. I was cured. I faced reminders of my hep c every day. I worried about my hep c. But in only 8 weeks with mavyret. I was cured. 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So we collaborate ocean spray works with nature every day to farm in a Sustainable Way hour ago, in a friday night news dump, President Donald Trump commuted the prison sentence of his longtime friend, associate, political ally, roger stone. Stone was more than just the president s confidante. He was essentially the bag man. At his trial, Steven Bannon called him an access continuity to wikileaks. And in the newly unredacted sections of the Mueller Report, which you have gotten in the last few weeks, we got a glimpse into roger stones role. From him telling donald trump about communications with Wikileaks Julian assange, to discussing the written answers to the special counsel before they were submitted. Here with me now is someone who understands the legal system, who has been following this case very closely, as well as the mueller investigation, from the very beginning. Benjamin wittes, senior fellow in governance studies at the brookings institution. Ben, first, your your reaction to this not unexpected news but, still, quite remarkable, all the same. You know, as you say, it is not unexpected. It is disgusting. But it is disgusting, in exactly the way one would have expected it to go down. And so, i have to say i i think it is interesting that he chose to commute the sentence, rather than to pardon roger stone. Which leaves the conviction on the books. That is some kind of, i suppose, a recognition that, you know, what he is accused of doing is not laudible but it is, you know, a windfall for the guilty. One thing that i think its worth going through, if you dont mind, are the things that weve learned over the last several weeks on this story. And particularly, about roger stones role, because parts of the Mueller Report that had been redacted because they pertained to an ongoing matter, roger stones prosecution, were unredacted. Were unreleased. And, you know, my top line of it is like roger stone was what he lik looked like. A gobetween, between the Trump Campaign and wikileaks. And then, he lied about it, which is what he was convicted for. In the end, right, i mean, is that a fair like he he did what we thought he did. Yes. So, number one, it is important to to so the material that was unredacted from the Mueller Report is new in the Mueller Report, but it isnt new. Because in the period in which from the time the redacted Mueller Report was released, until now, the stone trial happened. And all of this evidence or not quite all but most of it was presented in the trial against roger stone. What was not presented was a few coherent paragraphs that lay it all out and tell the story, which is what mueller did. And so, it still reads a little bit shocking, you know, that the president is in his limousine. And he takes a call from roger stone. And then, he tells his Deputy Campaign manager, theres going to be more wikileaks stuff coming. You know, and so, look. There has always been a question about to what extent roger stone was really in touch with wikileaks and julian assange. And to what extent he was kind of running people to be his gobetweens. And to what extent he was kind of full of luster. But, yeah, the full story, when you actually see it written down, remains a pretty shocking one. And for the president to say, nah, not worth any jail time. I dont care what a jury, i dont care what a judge, i dont care what the Justice Department, even under bill barr, by the way, is you know, is a remarkable statement for a guy who is ten points down to his competitor in the polls. There theres also the the the the sort of corruptness of the act, itself. And its sort of worth, i think, theres two sort of pieces of evidence here. And i dont know if we have this ready because were in a breakingnews situation. But Howard Fineman did an interview with roger stone today. And i am paraphrasing it but here it is. He says i just had a long talk with roger stone. He says he doesnt want a pardon, which implies guilt, but a commutation, and he thinks trump will give it to him. And then quoting, he knows i was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably, but i didnt. I mean, he is saying i deserve the pardon because i didnt rat. Like, right there, hes coming out and saying it. And look and and the corruption of the way the president has used pardons and commutations, in the context of the mueller investigation, is very on the surface. I mean, you know, when when Michael Cohen was still on board, the president dangled pardons in front of him. And kind of both publicly and privately. And when he turned, the president called him a rat and said he deserved a long prison sentence. Roger stone and paul manafort, the president praised them both. And, you know, specifically, led them to publiclymade statements that implied that a that a pardon or, in roger stones case, a commutation, was was a possibility if they stayed loyal. And so, for roger stone to take that message away and tell it to Howard Fineman, as you say he did, is actually a perfectly reasonable reading of what the president communicated to him. And yes, i do think that is a highly corrupt use of the clemency power. Web should, also, note that william barr who sort of famously wrote a memo unsolicited basically saying that mueller entire theory of obstruction was ridiculous. Even he admitted, in that memo and then again in testimony i think before the senate, that it would be criminal and obstruction of justice to trade a pardon for noncooperation with a witness. I mean, so even even by william barr, like an explicit quid pro quo of that nature, he thought was obstruction and criminal. Although, this one is presumably an implicit quid pro quo because there, presumably, is no conversation in which the president says to roger stone, if you stay loyal, i will commute your sentence. Instead, theres just a kind of nudge, nudge, wink, wink, in that direction in public. And, you know, who knows what happened in private. And then, roger stone says, you know, i i stayed loyal. So, here i am. Commute me. And he gets it. Yeah. Ben wittes, who has been following this so closely, for so long. Thank you for joining us on short notice tonight. I really, really appreciate it. That is all in on from friday night. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now and i am going to go watch the Rachel Maddow show on a night like tonight. Good evening, rachel. Good evening, chris. Thank you, my friend. You are free to go about your business, and not watch if need be. But i am almost literally on fire as we speak. So i know what youre talking about. Thanks, my friend. And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. If it is, you know, late on a friday night in the late stages of the donald trum