'Troubled' candidates burden GOP already saddled with Trump's baggage
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Really happy to have you here. We are watching a number of developing stories tonight. Mass evacuations are underway in eastern Washington state, where more than 700 buildings have burned already in Spokane. More than 65,000 people have been forced to evacuate already as three totally uncontained wildfires close in on that city, zero containment of those fires thus far. Washington's Democratic governor, Bob Ferguson, is asking for help from the federal government. Under this administration, it's not only unclear how much federal help will go to Washington state, but it's also, sadly, unclear whether or not help to Washington state might be called off from Washington or might be impeded by the president, specifically because Washington is a state that did not vote for Donald Trump to be president.
This administration has admitted that it has denied federal support to states purely on that political basis in the past. But this is Washington state's real time of need right now. Spare a thought for those tens of thousands of your fellow Americans who are evacuating ahead of those terrifying out of control fires. We're watching those fires and those evacuations tonight after what has been just a terrible day in eastern Washington state. in seven different states today. Local water systems now know they have been hacked into in a mass cyber attack that is being attributed to Iran. Now, you may recall that the Trump administration dismantled or radically scaled back cybersecurity capabilities within the federal government, including inexplicably firing the head of cyber command in the US military,
Well, now local water supplies, again, in seven states, have been hacked into by what appears to have been a foreign adversary. This is not a drill. This is something that is happening right now and in real life. President Trump initially tried to blame the state of Minnesota and its Democratic governor for this attack, now that it is at least seven states. And so definitely, by definition, it is not Minnesota's fault. We are left both with the president's sort of strange inability to process this kind of information, to even seemingly understand this kind of attack, and we're left with no real sense of whether the United States right now is even capable of mounting a defense and a response to this kind of attack because of the way Trump deliberately degraded our cyber capabilities.
Tomorrow morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote on the confirmation of Todd Blanch as Attorney General of the United States. Two Republican senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Tom Tillis of North Carolina, they both dropped their opposition to Todd Blanch after Blanch gave them a legally meaningless and easily reversible written assurance that President Trump wouldn't get a $1.8 billion taxpayer slush fund to dispense to whomever he wants. I feel compelled to point out, though, that at the same time, Blanche is still overtly insisting that he as attorney general, as acting attorney general, has somehow conveyed upon President Trump and his family and his family business total immunity for all tax crimes.
What breaking domestic crises open the episode and set the political context?
I feel like it's getting lost in the sauce a little bit, but Blanche is at least saying the slush fund won't be given to Trump. But he's also saying at the same time that Trump and his adult sons and his business, which has already been convicted of tax fraud, are all magically immune from audit or investigation by the IRS. You'll recall that the CFO of Trump's family business until recently resided at Rikers Island after pleading guilty to a 15 count tax fraud scheme at Trump's company.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:52
2
What breaking domestic crises open the episode and set the political context?
3:52–12:23
3
How did recent cyberattacks and federal response failures get described?
12:23–19:12
4
Which controversial Trump administration confirmations and ethics stories are highlighted?
19:12–31:58
5
Which troubled Republican candidates and scandals are discussed in key swing states?
31:58–42:19
6
Why is the Texas Senate race framed as winnable and who is James Talarico?
42:19–45:30
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from The Rachel Maddow Show
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