Good evening and welcome to Joe Scarborough presents. As we move closer to the primaries, donald trump remains the dominant frontrunner, according to the Morning Consult tracker. He is nearly 40 points ahead of his closest rival, Florida Governor ron desantis. And there is real apprehension about what a second trump term might look like. This morning, the New York Times published a frightening article that gives us the best look at how far donald trump may go with his obsession with authoritarians and personal political loyalty. According to the times, trump and his enablers plan to, quote, alter the Balance Of Power by increasing the president s authority over every part of the federal government. If trump wins, they plan on stacking the government with trump loyalists, regardless of their personal or professional limitations. Its going to look a lot more like 2019 than 2017. They will bring independent agencies like the fcc and the ftc, quote, under direct president ial control. The times reports the ex president wants to revive the practice of impounding funds, a nixonian practice of refusing to spend Money Congress has appropriated for programs the president doesnt like. Kind of like not giving ukraine weapons after Congress Authorizes it. And trump intends to strip Employment Protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to fire them if they are deemed obstacles to the trump agenda. Its a move that could undermine confidence in the Civil Service system while consolidating power in the white house in a way weve never seen. For more on this frightening development, we are joined by the host of inside with jen psaki, jen psaki. Princeton University Professor eddie cloud junior, and Special Correspondent for vanity fair, molly eddie, let me start with you. There was a time when i was a republican that we would say, the government, the governs least governs best. What we have here is a convergence, isnt . It a time where actually authoritarians are coming together under the brand, the Republican Party brandt. Because even, joe, when republicans were saying governments that governs least governs best, and they were still putting the argument for an imperial presidency, when we think about next, and the scope of Executive Power that informed not only not simply about breaking into the opponents headquarters, its also about the scope of what the president can do. What about bush 41 . Bush 41s bill barr, supposed to be a safe pick. He comes in and he believes in the imperial presidency. Trump believes in the imperial presidency. Suddenly its okay for donald trump. He starts thinking to arrest joe biden two weeks before the election and he orders barr to do it. Unchecked president ial power. Unchecked Executive Power. That, i think, informs this interesting moment of conversion, as you rightly described. Well, actually you told me before the show, but yes please, give me the credit. Its not just about trump about a bad actor, someone not committed to the norms that govern our society. Its also that corporate interests, about deregulation. Its about deconstructing the administrative state. Even folks who think hes a grift or, even folks who understand him to be a bad actor will support him because here we have these you are talking about the convergence, its not just trump. I want to talk about how this is also money for trump. But first, lets talk about another republican. You look at the top two republicans right, now the two republican leaders, lets throw a bit in there as well. You have these people, these authoritarian impulses. We would also say conservatives, the government that is closest to the people, that is the best government. Suddenly, you have abbott and other republican governor saying, we will actually stop local control. Its in conflict with what the central state does, no, we are against that. If you look at the socalled free state of florida, they have a i have a very good friend ive known for years that has worked for the florida Republican Party that said to me this past weekend, the free state of florida . What is free about it . If you are the tampa bay rays, a baseball team, and you tweet sympathy about children gunned down in uvalde, ron desantis says he will use the state to punish you. If you are disney, the largest employer in the state, ron m going to punish you because you want to celebrate diversity. If you are a cruise line and you go, actually, i dont know, you want to keep your business open, so you want to have safeguards during the height of the pandemic, ron desantis says no. If you are a Small Business owner, the republicans, when i was republicans we were supposed to like Small Business owners, he wouldnt let Small Business owners past safety mandates during the height of covid. I mean, this guy is a top down centralized state authoritarian. Its what trump is talking about being. Shock of all shocks, these republicans are hypocrites. It is not the free state of florida. It is not the first date of trump. It is just the opposite. Its top down, centralized government. Exactly. Also rhonda scent is has given an entire speech and talked openly on the trail about how he wants to go past article two and expand president ial power beyond what its ever happened in the past. He was almost for that on the Campaign Trail before trump was for it. But to your point that you started with, republicans have historically been for smaller government, less role of government in peoples lives. And it is the opposite right now. What we are talking about right now is centralizing power in a way that will allow them to have greater control over everybodys lives. By the way, again, for people who have not followed closely in the past, when i get the congress, we all said, lets take as much money, power, and authority down to the local level as possible. That was an obsession. It is just the opposite now. I, mean Anne Applebaum with her book about the death of democracy, the twilight of democracy, described this. This is happening in hungary with orban. Its exactly what donald trump is talking about. Just on the finances piece, this is an obsession of mine, donald trump, you think ftc, fcc, you mentioned this in the opening, people may think that doesnt matter, what is of concern is he can pardon himself. That is definitely of concern. But also what he is talking about here and what that article outlined in a frightening way, donald trump could have control over regulating companies, making it better for some companies and harder for others. He can have political yes. He can target people he doesnt like politically. He can also target companies to hurt them for his own financial benefit. Do you, know molly, ceos in the state of florida are horrified, horrified that ron desantis is going to come after them. If they do anything that comes close to being inclusive. Like chickfila, and they are even going after chickfila now, i dont know if you guys saw this segment, it was basically like we will be nice to people. We are going to want we want everybody to feel welcome if they work for chickfila or come to chickfila. Certain suddenly, they are on the hit list. This is the legacy of trumpism, right . Its this crony capitalism. This lack of belief in real free markets. You see it again and again. Trump put his finger on the scale all the time. And also, you are seeing the lack of regulation play out. I mean, you are seeing it concretely. We are seeing trained or ailments. We really have seen this happen. Nobody cares about regulation until there are accidents and spills. I think it is really important to remind viewers about that. That is really a big deal. You are so right. This is crony capitalism. The rich are getting richer. I, mean the monopolies. I always said this story about during covid i had a friend who called me up who has a lot more money than i do, he goes, you need to invest in the stock market. I said, i dont do that, im dumb, i lose money, i put it under my bed. I go, but what stocks would you invest in . He goes, invest in the monopolies. I go, the monopolies . He was dead serious. The monopolies. Google, microsoft, apple, facebook. He went down the line. Like, they dont regulate monopolies. They love the richest people in america not pay taxes. The richest multinational corporations. This has nothing to do with free markets. This has nothing to do with giving Small Businesses starting entrepreneurs a fair and free chance. Its about helping the richest 0. 001 . The donor class. You saw this in wisconsin with ron johnson. He had this massive reelection and was working on these tax benefits for wisconsin. Weve seen this everywhere. It is really quid pro quo. Its totally disgusting. Also, if we will talk about this, we should talk about how members of congress and members of the senate should not be trading stocks. Because that is such a conflict. And i dont know, i dont know, called meal fashion, but if you are sitting on the Supreme Court of the United States of america, you should at least report hanging out with billionaires and have cases that come before the Supreme Court. Really quickly, you said something really fascinating before we went on the year. You said trump world was thrilled with its horrifying times piece. Why . I think they like strength. I think it makes them look strong. I think there are people, they just want him to win. Again, it is like this adam piece. The cruelty is the point, right . They dont care about the legislative priorities. And they are not policy people. And they just want to win. If their guy feels like he is powerful and he wants to win, i think that is what they respond to. There is such a disconnect here. He lost in 2017. 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. They are still losing in 2023. You look at wisconsin, i really think that the two greatest political earthquakes over the past couple years have been kansas and wisconsin. The Supreme Court race there, it was supposed to be neck and neck and its not like conservatives werent saying this is the most important race in wisconsin in years. And they get crushed. Heres where i think sometimes we lose the threat. Trump is not running because he cares about policy. He is running because he wants to prevent himself from going to jail and pardoning himself, potentially. Hes also running to maybe pad his pockets. That is why he is running, it seems. Hes not deeply steeped in policy. He is not showing a real desire and passion about policy issues. And then there is just a team of people going along with. When this New York Times story pointed out the fact that what we saw in areas of the trump turn, what weve seen in the campaign so far is people who are following along to get along, going along to get along. They are not going to stop him from abusing power, from expanding power, from using the fcc to manipulate help companies, hurt others, et cetera. Hold it right there. You brought up something i want us to get into. We will go to you next because you talked about what is happening in georgia before we came on the air. It is so obvious. Donald trump understands, i mean, even people that have been like kissing up to him for years have said that if he is guilty on one count, thats basically a Life Sentence, right . So hes got to win the next election. He is all in. When he wins, hes got to consolidate power, the authoritarian, or else. And we will talk about that also. We will also be talking about whats happening in georgia, what may be happening in new jersey as we are talking about indictments when we return. Ah, these bills are crazy. She has no idea shes sitting on a goldmine. Well she doesnt know that if she owns a Life Insurance policy of 100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. Even a term policy. Even a term policy . Even a term policy find out if youre sitting on a goldmine. Call Coventry Direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect. Com. Sleepovers just arent what they used to be. A house full of screens . Basically no hiccups . You guys have no idea how good youve got it. How old are you . Like, 80 . Back in my day, it was scary stories and flashlights. We dont get scared. Oh, really . Mom can see your search history. Thats what i thought. Introducing The Next Generation 10g network. Only from xfinity. I know theres about dupuytrens contracture. I thought i couldnt get treatment yet . Well, people may think that their contracture has to be severe to be treated, but it doesnt. If you cant lay your hand flat on the table, talk to a Hand Specialist. But what if i dont want surgery . Well, then you should find a Hand Specialist certified to offer nonsurgical treatments. Whats The Next Step . I will appoint a real visit findahandspecialist. Com today to get started. Special prosecutor, after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of america, joe biden. [applause] and the entire lock him up named special counsel. The most corrupt president in the history of the United States, who could that be . Who could that be . There is donald trump last month in a speech following his 37 count federal indictment Special Prosecutor to go after joe biden and his family . Doesnt make sense. We are back with msnbc host jen psaki, also and vanity fairs eddie, the most corrupt president in history, this is not even close. You look at all the people indicted in the Trump Administration and who were charged. You look at the documents case where, again, one count, forget the 37, one count is a Life Sentence for him. You look at a possible new jersey case which would be even more dangerous for donald trump when it comes to freedom. You look at the January 6th Case and you know its coming. But right now, looks like what is next, georgia. And you say, donald trump and those around him should be a very nervous. Wonderful piece in the Wall Street Journal i dont want to hear you say that. Written by cameron mick warner. I think jen wulf. Really a profile of fani willis. In some ways, it describes her as a no nonsense prosecutor, a workaholic. She didnt go into the specifics of the case. Lets just say this. She was clear that shes coming with everything. All the receipts. And for the Wall Street Journal to end this piece by saying, Donald Trumps people should be aware of who she is and they should be concerned. There are so many reasons to be concerned, molly, right . Its a state case. Donald trump tried to pardon himself, we dont know if he will be able to do that or not if he gets back in the white house. I doubt he will be able to. But even if he could, cant do it in a state case like georgia. He also has new york state. He also has all of these the e. Jean carroll case. He has a lot of legal problems, which is why he is running for president. Remember, he declared early because he thought it might prevent him from getting prosecuted. I do wonder for him, you know, i wonder if he will keep going with this. What is interesting to me about him on bidens he is saying the same things about biden he said about hillary clinton. Right. Right . Like, he led chants about lock her up about hillary clinton. It is just beyond you know who else did . General michael flynn. What happened to him . Lying to the fbi. I mean, its incredible, isnt it . As highlands a, its either confession or projection. That seems to be exactly whats happening with donald trump. You look at hillary clinton, they always said lock her up, lock her up, lock her up. They are saying that about biden, the socalled biden crime family. Theyve got nothing on anybody. They never have. Like we always say on the show, if hunter has done something wrong, charge him send him to jail. Right. The trump appointed prosecutor. But again, speaking of trump prosecutors, donald trump was president from 2017 to 2021. He didnt bring any charges against hillary clinton, did he . That was his Justice Department that kept saying, there is nothing there. Yeah. If i were sitting on the trump team right now doing communications, lets say, the thing that would also make me nervous is, remember in the weeks leading up to the maralago indictment, and we were all talking about how horrible it is to mistreat classified information, weve seen the reporting. And then the indictment came out and it was shockingly worse. It was so much worse it was so much worse. Nuclear secrets nuclear secrets. 31 specific code clearances, et cetera. The legal process, we will see what happens in the georgia case and what jack smith has on january 6th, has been working as it should. Meaning, yes, there is excellent reporting. But most of it is not leaking out of these prosecutors offices. So if they move forward, we learned a great deal more than we do before. I had interviewed jamie raskin last week and he said, im interested in hearing what jack smith has about these highlevel conversations because we didnt have time to get to that level of detail. And they did a lot of the january 6th committee. My point is, indictments, if they are coming, are going to have a lot more detail, they will give us a lot more information. And in all likelihood, the past president of the last two or examples. Isnt it fascinating we have the mueller report, the two impeachments, the people went away from it going, hillary gets away with it, it never turns out what it was advertised. It seems with these prosecutors, thes