Of arrest and prosecution. But Womens Health advocates are fighting back and they just won a key victory. I will call to order this weeks meeting of the book club. The legendary low of lowry joins me to discuss her classic the giver on another hour of velshi which starts right now. Good morning. It is saturday, may 11th. A particularly tough week in court for donald trump. The Republican Party disgraced and embattled president ial nominee. For about a day and a half, his criminal trial was overshadowed by stormy daniels, the former adult film actress for who he is alleged to have an affair. Her testimony dredged up many salacious details that could hurt him politically but the former president gets a reprieve from all of that this weekend as he gets on the campaign trail. Tonight he will find himself in a more familiar and welcoming setting as he hold a rally in wildwood, new jersey. Since he kicked of his political career nearly a decade ago, trumps rallies have been the centerpiece of his president ial campaigns. He has a particular knack for energizing his base and it was at these rallies that trump set himself up as a populist candidate who understood the average american and working class voter better than any un other politician. He also claimed that because he was a billionaire, his policies could not be influenced by people with money. It turns out, donald trump can be bought. A new report from the w Washington Post this week details a meeting at maralago last month between trump and a number of the countrys top oil and gas executives. The former president had a pitch for them. If they raise A Billion Dollars for his campaign to return to the white house, he would enact policies that would benefit their industry. According to the washington g post, trump quote vowed to medially reverse dozens of president bidens environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted giving a ndbillion dollars. And giving a billy does will bei a deal trump said because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him end quote. Trumps is reversing the biden and menstruation policies on electric vehicles and said he would end the freeze on permits for new Liquefied Natural Gas th experts quote on the first day. And he pledged to auction of n more leases for oil drilling in the gulf of mexico, a priority for several executives at the meeting. In some ways , it is not surprising that trump would be so bold and asking for such a large donation. The cashstrapped former president is facing a litany of very expensive legal problems and has previously reported he is using Campaign Donor money to pay his legal bills. On top of that, he is falling far behind joe bidens Fundraising Operation with the Washington Post story making it clear that trump was never that much different from all the other politicians he claimed were corrupt. As david graham puts in the atlantic, many people took trump s frankness about how the system works to mean he wouldnt act the same way as the politicians he excoriated. With this report, it shows he is no different. Trump was describing transactional is him and not critiquing it. The idea of Ndonald Trump whatever object to transactional is him is absurd end quote. Joined me is david s graham, staff for the atlantic and book writer and presidency of the Watchdog Organization citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington. Thank you for being here. S l me start with you, david and you are really important mp article. As you point out, Donald Trumps meeting and offered to these Executives Is Quote Entirely legal and absolutely corrupt end quote. Lets talk about that. Is this how it has always been . You hinted that the idea that donald trump suggested he was different and cannot be influenced or bought because he is rich. This is saying all the quiet parts completely out loud. Yes. There is this really powerful e moment i recall from 2016 when he was criticized by the republicans and said, of course i did. She came to my wedding. You get what you want this way. He is showing that and that is h exactly what he is doing. I think it is maybe worse than a lot of politicians because he is doing it so openly. He is making it clear what a quid pro quo is without any pretense. Give me money and i will do what do you want to do. One of the things that i think you have been trying to articulate for many years is, the fact is that on the surface, this is entirely legalr and absolutely corrupt and it is part of the system of corruption. Donald trump is hardly broking breaking any new ground on anything. He just does it. He does things that we think good people dont do or dont talk about having done. You talk about this in a post you put on x the other day as being a perfect example of our corrupt system. First of all, i do want to say that we dont know for sure that this is wentirely legal. You can be charged with bribery based even on Campaign Contributions if there is proof of an explicit quid pro quo. If you read the later articles on the meeting, i think there is an effort to backtrack a little aand say he wasnt aski for a direct exchange. It might be hard to prove that. We are not entirely sure that n what he is doing is legal. But the idea that you can get t vast amounts of money and Campaign Contributions not just your campaign but to super pacs and dark money nonprofits from people and huge corporations. And of course they are going to want policies that benefit them in exchange for that money. That is baked into the system. And a system that the Supreme Court supercharged when it allowed all sorts of contributions in Citizens United and subsequent cases. This is sowhat happens. Donald trump goes further and puts it out there more openly then just about anybody else and really highlights the corruption of the system we have. To that point, it would have to be a deep examination into the details of what was said and how it was. Donald trump is masterful at saying things that skirt actual rules and laws. But for there to be a quid pro quo or a deal or bribe or Something Like that, there has i to be some implication that, i will do this if you do this. There are two issues here. One is that donald trump probably will do the stuff he promised to do regardless and this is sort of an encouragement. Or as you detected in your writing, there is an implicit threat. Trump is favorable to fossil fuels. And he mostly looks out for himself. So i think there is oka threat here. If you dont give this money to me, maybe i will keep the law the way it is. Th and eventually, he is showing his mental mess as a president. I think there was a lot of reason for folks in the room to believe that if they dont pony up the money, they would face consequences for it. It is corrupt in both directions. Noah, you have spent a lot of time in mall humans, a word most of us did not even know before. You and groups like yours popularize them. What surprised us was the degree to which there are not laws or guidelines or enough laws whor guidelines preventing this sort of thing from happening and corrupting the government and politics. I dont mean this to sound like a Naove Question on a saturday morning o■tv show but we haven really made great progress in saying, you know what, this stuff happens all the time. What should we actually be doing to fix it . That is right. There was an effort after the Trump Presidency to pass some expansive legislation aimed at Voting Rights which is obviously a different issue. Also had money and politics and having more disclosure and leslie way and that effort came up just a couple votes short in the senate. That was very unfortunate. And again and again, people sort of throw up their hands and say, we have this system with all this corruption. What are you going to do about it . And of course you can do things. You can pass laws. You can change the system and we need to do that. We see that not just with what donald trump is doing in the meeting but also in what these executives are doing. These are the same executives who, in the wake of january 6, said, we are not going to support people who undermine our democracy and there they are a couple years later donald trump, according his support and hearing his demands that they give A Billion Dollars to his campaign. Again just pretending these problems dont exist when they are in fact solvable. It is interesting. Given the profitability of the oil companies, A Billion Dollars, i think they need to tip a Vending Machine over ito deal with that. If there is such a deal on the table, it is a remarkable deal for the oil companies. What is the problem here . Is that Donald Trumps i corruption or the fact that, as noah said, we have forgotten some of these pledges saying, we will not encourage this kind of behavior. I dont think this moves the political needle one bit. K this could turn out to be a b huge scandal and im not sure ge one vote in america will change because of it. I hate to be too optimistic. I think it is helpful to see somebody saying that. Not just because of trumps reputation but because everybody suspects these types of deals are being made. For trump to say so i think shows who he is and how the system works and i hope that that can drive some support for the kind of reforms that noah is talking about. Lets hope so. Ut we have to talk about these things so people know they are happening and hopefully that will lead to some decision making. Thank you for the great ki article. David grammys a writer. Thank you for your continued great work bringing integrity into the system. He is the president and ceo for citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington. Thousands of palestinians right now are being forced to flee what was at one time seen as a safe haven with the ceasefire deal still in limbo. We will go to cairo for the latest. Later in the velshi book club feature, imagine a Perfect Society with no war and atno suffering. No all you have to do is give up all the things that make you human. Would you do it . We will explore The American Classic the giver with the literary legend who wrote it ahead. 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More than 1 Million People are sheltering. There are new Evacuation Orders as israel plans to expand its military operations in the city. This is happening despite repeated earnings from the Biden Administration not to do it. Yesterday the State Department issued a report to congress that it is reasonable to assess that israel has violated International Law in gaza using american supplied weapons. But the u. S. That it does not have verified specific instances that would justify withholding military aid. And the report short of accusing israel of violating terms of the u. S. Weapons agreement. Any hope for a ceasefire deal is being balanced on the edge of a knife for joining us from cairo is our Nbc International correspondent. Lets talk about this. There is something of a timeline developing here in addition to the roughly 35,000 palestinians who are dead. This invasion or attack on rafah, which israel says is necessary to completely annihilate hamas, causes a remarkable and logistical problem because that is where they told everybody to go. Right from the beginning really. Since october, the Israeli Government and military have totally told gazans to go south. We heard the News Conference peers they dropped leaflets. Another was a real sense of panic we are told by Crews Inside Gaza because the Israeli Military has essentially ordered hundreds of thousands of people away from Southern Gaza to a small strip of land off the coast. At the same time, idf airstrikes are increasing. There is also a Land Occupation of parts of gaza that involved tanks including the rafah border area. I mentioned the strip of land. It is not a safe zone in the traditional strictest sense of the term. It is essentially sandy dunes. There is no infrastructure there. No sewage. No water. No electricity. Some aid groups are saying that it does not meet the basic needs of the thousands who are seeking shelter. The idf in the past has indeed targeted the safe zones as well. Thank you for your reporting. We will stay close to you on this issue. Our international correspondent, author of the important book but you dont look arab and other tales of on belonging. Coming up, a significant victory for women living in one of the most extreme antiabortion regions. The only Migraine Medication that helps treat and prevent, all in one. To those with migraine, i see you. For the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura and the preventive treatment of Episodic Migraine in adults. Dont take if allergic to nurtec odt. Allergic reactions can occur, even days after using. Most common side effects were nausea, indigestion, and stomach pain. Its time we all shine. Talk to a Healthcare Provider about nurtec odt from pfizer. Ed gutters. Healthcare provider Call Leaffilter today. 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