On MSNBC’s Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone explains the role extremists in conservative media are playing in the Trump transition
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From the November 19, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House
NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): At a time when global tensions are high, the war in Ukraine is intensifying, Donald Trump's decision to tap Tulsi Gabbard as his incoming Director of National Intelligence is raising alarms, as you heard there. New reporting uncovers how she has become a favorite among the state media, of one of America's adversaries, Russia.
That's according to The New York Times, which reports, "In Russia, the reaction to her potential appointed has been gleeful, even if Putin's government remains weary of American policies, even under a second Trump administration. 'The CIA and the FBI are trembling,' a Russian newspaper wrote on Friday in a glowing profile of Ms. Gabbard, noting positively, that Ukrainians consider 'an agent of the Russian state.' A state television channel called her a Russian 'comrade' in Mr. Trump's emerging cabinet." The Times goes on to report, "among members from both parties, her tacit support of Russia's war games in Ukraine, and her repetition of Kremlin disinformation have raised doubts about whether she should be given oversight of the intelligence agencies, including the responsibility of preparing the highly classified daily intelligence briefings for the returning president."
Which, we have just learned Trump is now receiving as the President-Elect after having chosen not to receive them while he was a candidate. Trump receiving intelligence briefings is remarkable, for the fact that just last year he was criminally charged for mishandling national defense information and classified information. His already established as disregard for the safety of our nation's secrets makes his cabinet choices, especially those with access to top intelligence, all the more serious.
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WALLACE: Angelo, there's something so impossible to articulate about the MOU that officially commences the landing team's arrival of the national security agencies and green lights this process that we're all talking about.
But the reason it's hard to bring that to life is because it's never really been an issue, even in 2000, where there was a recount, even in 2020 when Trump refused to concede the election, there was a transition. There were teams named, there were government officials to be selected, so that the FBI could back them and you would take an oath and you would swear that your allegiance was to the United States. That is the process that has a been aborted in the Trump transition. And with your expertise in what the plan was all along, just share your thoughts and reflections on where we are.
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): Yeah, the thing that is worth keeping in mind -- we're all pointing out your accurate assessment. And part of it is that they've spent the last four years -- and it started before them, but the last four years -- really entrenching this idea that all of the United States government is the actually enemy, is enemy number one.
So, every time you point out, accurately, that they want to dismantle it, undermine it, that it's going to make us less safe, they say "Yes, yes that is exactly right because that is the enemy number one." And where that starts from, what that originates, who that benefits, those are all real questions, and as has already been discussed, we don't even know necessarily to what extent, in this case, Gabbard's relationship is with foreign entities and whether it is just sympathies or something deeper than that because it is not being investigated. The normal channels and processes of a transition are not even being followed this time, which is a reflection of the fact that it is so deeply internalized that all of these institutions are the enemy and they need to go away or be dismantled or be destroyed.
To just put a wrapper on it, I think there's something unsettling that's hard to articulate, here. And so, the best way that I can sort of illustrate it is to start with, yea there is something unsettling here. And some ways to understand that is, where the news about Tulsi Gabbard's appointment was broken in the first place.
It was broken by Alex Jones on InfoWars. It wasn't broken by a far right-wing outlet or something like that, it was broken there. That's where that news came out first and that's significant. It wasn't by accident, it was by design, that the news of her being put there came first because that is a reflection of where the power is being organized now. It is being organized on what used to be considered the fringes.
And Gabbard is an example of somebody that came in as a Democrat, at least ostensibly, and she validated as a Democrat all of the right-wing narrative that they were telling about these government institutions and in a way, "See, even a Democrat believes all the things that we're saying about the deep state, about the nefarious forces."
And so, not only was she a part of that validation process, but she's also an illustration of what that transition is and how you live and survive and thrive in the right-wing fever swamps. And so, when you pull it all together, she not only helped validate and cultivate that narrative and is clearly a responsive to that audience and landscape, but now she's going to be in a position where when Trump was previously getting from right- wing media -- and we saw that play out in his first term -- is now going to be echoed in whatever the internal intelligence that he receives because the underlying institutions are in fact going to be actively and intentionally dismantled, or at least disrupted. And that's the reality that we're heading into here.
WALLACE: I mean Angelo, let me illustrate that this is Tulsi Gabbard describing the court approved search of Mar-a-Lago to retrieve classified national defense information on Fox News.
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The only people known to have been targeted by all those agencies were Trump's political adversaries. I mean, the complete inverse is what comes out of her mouth, which is, again, whether her sympathies lie with Russia or whether it's something deeper I think is a known unknown, but the tactics are straight out of a Russian disinformation playbook.
CARUSONE: They are, and the thing that I always jump to is not only was she a fixture on Fox News for a while, but she guest hosted -- she used to be a guest host for Tucker Carlson, who as you know, did increasingly more sympathetic Russian content. He did that whole big thing in the supermarket laughing and talking about how great the country is and how what we're being fed is a lie.
And I think that to me is the tie-in here, is that we already know what she's going to do in this role because she's been doing it in the right-wing media for the past few years, which is taking these attacks on American institutions and American credibility -- and I agree with what Frank was saying, we shouldn't always defend reflexively institutions and bureaucracies that need to be adapted, modified, improved, optimized, that should always be something we aspire to.
But that's not what -- that what it sort of sounds like they are talking about to their audiences, but they're talking about something deeper. They've identified an enemy, which is the government and they're acting accordingly. And that is why they're not participating in this process, this transition, because they don't even want to undermine their own argument and their own narrative to the audience that they've been feeding this to. So every action and every day that goes by, they further reinforce the very story that they've been telling as they get one step closer to those official positions.
Citation
From the November 19, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House
NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): Some alarming news to tell you about, of Russia's unprovoked illegal invasion of Ukraine that proves the stakes have perhaps never been higher when it comes to supporting our Democratic ally over Vladimir Putin's Russia. Putin just formally lowered his own threshold for using nuclear weapons, now saying Russia can conduct a nuclear strike is attacked by not only a nuclear power, such as the United States, but also a nation that is backed by a nuclear power, such as Ukraine.
It was a long planned move that Putin first announced back in September after warning that he would do so for years. The Kremlin says the use of nuclear weapons still would be a "last resort measure" but its timing makes it appear to be a clear signal to the West from Vladimir Putin. U.S. Officials telling NBC News that Ukraine fired into Russia overnight, using U.S.-made missiles, the time after Joe Biden gave the Ukraine military the go-ahead over the weekend.
From the New York Times, "the doctrine's publication on Tuesday appeared to be the latest suggestion from the Kremlin that Russia could use nuclear weapons to respond to attacks by Ukraine carried out with American support and that the response could be directed against American facilities as well as Ukraine itself.
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WALLACE: Angelo, the person who authored the most scathing report and indictment of Donald Trump's affinity for, ties to, and questions about Trump and Russia is his incoming Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. When he took over from Richard Burg for the Senate Intelligence Committee. Do you think they know that, do you think they don't care, do you think the chaos is the point in this mishmash of Gabbard and Rubio's Trumpian-mixed messaging? What do you think?
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): Yeah, I think they don't care, and I think ultimately, Rubio is sort of one small piece of it but it's certainly not reflective of the larger administration or their posture. And I think ultimately what has been signaled, both during the campaign and as well as by who he is putting into these places from Pete Hegseth on down, that the affinity for Russia is not just sort of the geopolitical worldview or that they have been fed right from the ground up because they are consumers of the right-wing media, what Russia has been doing with our information landscape for quite a while, and sort of seeing the ground.
But that we should also not lose sight of the fact that there's an affinity there that is born out of there that Russia is an ethno-nationalist state and that is one of the biggest appeals that Tucker sort of pushed into it, which is this idea that like with Mike, that Mike makes right. And that was one of the things that Tucker was advocating for when he was on Fox, when he was holding it up as an exemplary, saying, "Yes, we have to know who our enemies are, Russia's never hurt us, but more importantly look how well their society is because they embraced ethnic nationalism."
And if you put that in the context of other attacks on DEI or all these other issues, it does sort of boil down to this core idea that there is something there in Russia that is if not aspirational for them, at least something that we should take and incorporate into our society. And so Marco Rubio is not going to have a lot of influence or power in the broader administration and I feel like everybody knows that.
Citation
From the November 19, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House
NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): The idea that Trump had nothing to do with Project 2025 -- never read it, had no idea what was in it, never seen these people before -- it was of course never the whole truth, no matter how many times he repeated it during the campaign because it became so unpopular. Well, as if we needed more proof of that, Trump is now welcoming one of the chief architects of Project 2025's 900 page radical, deeply polarizing and unpopular agenda, to potentially play a starring, high-profile role in his new administration.
ABC news is reporting this, "Russ Vought, who authored a chapter on executive office of the president for Project 2025's 'Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise' is under consideration for a cabinet-level position in the next administration and has been vetted by Trump's transition team, sources say." They added this, "Vought not only authored the chapter, but he was also deeply involved in drafting Project 2025's playbook for the first 180 days of the new Trump administration."
He is now one of several Project 2025 alums being considered for crucial high-profile roles in the Trump cabinet. Joining our conversation is the former congressman from Florida, MSNBC political analyst David Jolly. Angelo Carusone is still with us.
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WALLACE: Angelo, the only possible slowing mechanism is it's deeply unpopular. And I want to show you, Fox News' Brit Hume breaking the news, that Donald Trump does not have a mandate. We're going to pull that up. Here's what Brit Hume said on Fox News. "Mandates, real mandates are rare and landslides are even rarer. The president would be wise to ignore the talk from his supporters about what an enormous mandate he has and what a great landslide he won because thinking that can lead to trouble."
Thinking you have a mandate and proceeding with the deeply unpopular Project 2025 feels like a recipe for Trumpian disaster.
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): I would like to think so. What I would just note at the top, and I'm not dismissing that because I think that's a reality that we have to keep reminding over and over again, part of the reason why we even have to point out that the slimness of the outcome is not necessarily a mandate, is because for the past few weeks, what has been happening in right-wing media more broadly and over and over again, is reverberating and echoing this idea that it was this massive mandate.
That the victory was so significant and total that it was a reflection of the popular will of the people. And as a result of that, he has to go full steam ahead with all of these promises and directives. And so, we're already dealing with a landscape and narrative that is deeply setting in, and so now we're working uphill. But we shouldn't lose sight of that.
But as you know, you're right. It is deeply unpopular, it always was. And there's a lot of assumptions that have been played out that he's not going to do many of the things that he said he was going to do which is how some people sort of made those last-minute decisions because they thought "Ah, he's authentic. Yah, he said some things, but he's not going to do those things."
But what I would note, and this is the part that is especially unsettling among all the things we've talked about so far -- all the others, have all sorts of deficiencies and issues and concerns and anxieties. The thing with Russ Vought that scares me a lot is that he has the plan. He didn't just help drive the 900-page document that everybody knows about.
As you noted, he has that 180 day agenda, he was the author of the private document. And it isn't just a step by step guide, one of the things that it includes is least 350 specific documents, draft memos, individual instruction, executive orders, agency notes, all the legal work that has to be done for a series of directives and what he has been crystal clear about from the beginning is that when they come in, they're going to rapidly engage in a mass deportation effort. And part of that is to fulfill that promise and part of that is to elicit a backlash where they can smash-and-grab and shock people into submission.
And then the last thing he said and he's been saying it repeatedly -- not just once or twice -- is that one of the goals here in these initial six months is to end multiculturalism in America. That the era of multiculturalism has to end as well as the independent of these agencies.
And that's where it gets scary, that we are not just going to go to rely on the boomerang effect of not having the popular mandate because they know it is not popular and are baking that into their plans. And we have the advantage now that knowing this is about to happen, and that's where we have to start putting some more antibodies into the system.
Citation
From the November 19, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House
[CLIP BEGINS]
RUSS VOUGHT: If we are not fearless at the point of attack, if we don't have courage, then we will step away from the battle. It will be convenient not to be there, but our view is that that's where the country needs us and we're not going to save our country without a little confrontation.
[CLIP ENDS]
NICOLLE WALLACE: That is Russ Vought.
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Let me actually show you the results, now that most of the counting is done. Donald Trump, ticking just below 50% there David jolly, 49.9%. Vice President Kamala Harris at 48.2%. Obviously Trump's still the winner of the popular vote and in an electoral, not landside, but swept the battleground states.
But this morning from Brit Hume, it was intriguing to me, Angelo, in this regard. Winners also misread their mandates. In '04, I think, when George W. Bush won there was a sense that he had a mandate for comprehensive immigration reform and privatization of social security. There was no comprehensive immigration reform and social security has never been privatized.
I mean, it happens when you lose as well, to David jolly's point, misreading a mandate of defeat that everything was so wildly unpopular, you scrap everything. I mean, this is still -- this is a country almost completely cleaved into two, to your great reporting, consuming totally different information, two totally different sets of facts, two totally different sets of reality, that impacted everything from climate change to the weather, the military to just about everything in American life. What are your thoughts heading into the last stretch here before Trump grabs the levers of power in terms of how sort of fact- based earth one interests are organized and promoted?
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): The dynamics that you just played out, they recognize -- just to bridge this from what we were talking about before with Russel Vought -- he likens this period right now to 1776 or 1860, the Civil War. In fact, when he talks about the policies that he was putting together, the plans, he mentions it internally when he talks about it. That it -- he was drafting them in mind with a country that is reflective of 1860. He's aware of the dynamics at play.
And on the public side, they may talk about "mandate" and "massive landside" and they may build that narrative on a house of cards but internally. when they're really thinking about how they execute and drive an agenda, they are seeing the landscape clear-eyed. That it is a fairly balanced country and that a lot of things that they're going to be pushing through are not going to be popular.
And that's where I think about this moment which is we know what's in front of us, what's about to happen. You have to -- one -- start to name it plainly and clearly to anticipate it, not to be hysterical, not to feed into impotency, not to make people feel so powerless or scared that they disengage, that they retreat, that they duck and cover -- because that's not going to serve anybody well.
What this is a time for is clarity of purpose, stiffening our spines a little bit, and being clear-eyed about what they're saying. Because a lot of what they're going to do is going to hurt people or the people are not going to really like it. And the task for the media, for the public, for all individuals in this moment is to be able to identify when that starts to happen, why it's happening, who it's affecting and where those decisions came from.
And that's going to be the responsibility, as the last election illustrated, that goes beyond the main news media, but it is going to be an individual effort. Not to name and shame individuals for what they voted or what they supported, but to help people understand why the things that are happening in this moment and why they're being driven.
And that's going to be the process that we go through step-by- step. The thing that I think is very important and the most significant thing is not stepping on any bear traps. They are designing an agenda, as I noted, that is anticipating a certain degree of backlash -- that they can implement The Insurrection Act -- that is going to help create and so they can fuel impotency fast and hard.
And for us, that's my horizon point is clarity and purpose but also making sure that anything I do day to day, both in my own personal life and also in my public work, is not fueling that impotency because that is what they are counting on in order to take advantage of the dynamics that they think they ride.
WALLACE: Alright, I think you just articulated our mission for our next segment on these topics.