Sen. Chris Murphy

It's literally just a million dollars for a corporate pardon.

And that now happens, you know, within weeks or months.

It's put Eric Trump on your board, the lawsuit or the enforcement action is dropped, right?

It's just so nakedly quick and transactional that it's hard to hide.

And again,

it's that same problem.

It's so public, it's so transactional that to some people, it doesn't look like they're, you know, bread and butter corruption, but the story is just a lot easier to tell.

It doesn't make it any...

any less forgivable, the slow sort of building of influence in Democratic and Republican administrations is still unacceptable, but in some ways the way they're doing it makes it easy for us to explain.

Yes.

I listen.

Trump takes over at a moment when a lot of Americans were seriously contemplating giving up on democracy.

Right.

And while that conversation may not be sort of on the surface of kitchen table talk,

talks in our country, it's right below the surface.

People just don't think that their voice matters any longer.

They, for a long time, have believed that the elites get whatever they want out of the system.

And the way in which Trump has chosen to do this so transparently

I think, is an effort to permanently shatter people's faith in the entire enterprise, so as to transition the country to a kleptocratic oligarchy.

And so, yes, I think this is a particularly vulnerable moment for the country in which a lot of Americans are unfortunately ready to just say,