Trump BUSTED in bogus ballroom claim by Obama era secret

really happy to have you here. I took piano lessons when I was a kid. I was terrible because my hands don't work great, which is a prerequisite for being good at playing piano. That said, I was kind of comparatively okay at reading music, basically because I treated it like a word puzzle, and word puzzles are the things that I'm best at in life. So when you're reading music on the treble clef, there are five lines for five different notes, and from bottom to top, they are E, G, B, D, F. And the reason that I was always able to remember that, even to this day, now that I am very old, is that I remembered that with a mnemonic device, a mnemonic acronym. E, G, B, D, F. Every good boy does fine. Still to this day, it has been like 50 years since I took piano lessons, but every good boy does fine. I remember the way those notes go up the treble clef, up the staff there. On the bass clef, similarly, there are five lines for five different notes. Those ones are G, B, D, F, A. Basically impossible to remember unless you create a mnemonic device. Good bikes don't fall apart. G, B, D, F, A. And either your brain works that way or it doesn't. Mine works that way. I love a mnemonic device. Probably the most famous mnemonic acronym like that is the one for the rainbow, which to this day is the only way I can remember the order of the colors in the rainbow. Roy G. Biv. Why can I remember Roy G. Biv? I don't know, but that helps me with red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Roy G. Biv. There's also a really famous one for the Great Lakes. And with the Great Lakes one, it puts the lakes in no particular order, you can remember the name of each of the five Great Lakes if you can just remember the mnemonic acronym HOMES. H-O-M-E-S. HOMES. That's all you got to remember. And you'll very easily get to like Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior. H-O-M-E-S. HOMES. And, you know, maybe your brain doesn't work that way. That's the way my brain works. But I will say I am not the first person to point this out. I'm not the first person to point this out. But if President Donald J. Trump is really going to insist on calling Lake Ontario Lake America now, that, of course, will mean that everybody's mnemonic acronym for remembering the names of the Great Lakes, everybody's HOMES acronym for remembering the names of the Great Lakes, will no longer work, right? If you're going to build yourself a mnemonic for remembering the Donald Trump version of the Great Lakes now, it can't be HOMES, anymore. Because you have to drop the O and instead replace it with an A. And what possible acronym, what possible memorable word acronym can you come up with for, let's see, Superior, Huron, America, Michigan, Erie? We can no longer use the HOMES mnemonic. It now has to be SHAME. SHAME is the new acronym for the Donald Trump era. Great Lakes mnemonic device, which seems about right. And, you know, I mean, the best mnemonic devices operate at a couple different levels, right? And I feel like that's a really handy device for thinking about this time in the Donald Trump era in governance. I mean, Lake America, really? But broadly speaking, like, whether you voted for him at one point, whether you liked him, at one point, or whether you never voted for him and never liked him, I think a very, very broad swath of Americans would agree that what he is doing now in office falls pretty clearly into the category of just shameful behavior, right? Making the country just do dishonorable or at least embarrassing things. Take, for example, the Trump administration contract flight that took off this weekend from Perot Field, Fort Worth Alliance in Tarrant County, Texas, on Friday night. The New York Times reported, that that flight took about 70 people—70 shackled and chained people—to a random country in Africa that's in the middle of a civil war. A country for which the State Department advises that any American who's going to travel there should have their DNA sampled and put on file before their trip so their body can eventually be identified if and when they turn up dead because they traveled to this war-torn, violent place. Okay? The United States government, under the leadership of Donald Trump, this weekend sent dozens of shackled people to that country, to the Central African Republic, on Friday night. None of those people are known to have had any ties to that country whatsoever. We don't know that any of those people had any criminal history whatsoever, nor do we believe that any of them consented to be brought to that country and left there with nothing. But we do know that about 10 of the people on that flight Friday night were from Afghanistan. Including a 24-year-old man named Khalil, who had been in the United States specifically and explicitly because his family helped the U.S. military in Afghanistan during our war there. And the U.S. military promised that in return for that help, the U.S. would protect that family and keep them safe from reprisals by the Taliban. Well, Khalil's family were in fact threatened by the Taliban because of their work for the U.S. military, and because of that, because the U.S. had promised to protect them, Khalil and his family were given legal permission to be in the United States. Well now, as of this weekend, Donald Trump has decided to honor that sacred commitment by flying Khalil shackled across the world to dump him in the Central African Republic with nothing. CNN reports that others who have been sent there have reportedly been told that they only have three months permission to stay in the Central African Republic now that they've been dumped there. They only have three months permission to stay in that country if they can survive that long, and then at the end of three months they will have to be deported somewhere else, which presumably could mean back to their country of origin, which in Khalil's case would mean back to the Taliban, from whom we as a nation explicitly promised to protect him as part of the deal, as thank you, and as a sacred contract, in return for his family helping our military while we were at war there. Ryan Goodman at Just Security posted this remarkable statement from an active duty U.S. Marine colonel. You'll see him here in just a moment. He is not wearing his uniform, he is speaking out of uniform, he's speaking in his private personal capacity, not speaking on behalf of the Department of Defense, but here he is as an active duty U.S. Marine colonel asking for help for Khalil, for that guy. Because even if the United States government is now dishonorably and shamefully breaking that promise we made to Khalil and his family, this Marine colonel personally was one of the Marines who made that promise on behalf of our country, in person, in Afghanistan. And he's now saying if this government, if this government under Donald Trump now has decided it's going to break that promise, he at least, will try to keep it, keep that promise himself. Watch. Hi, my name is Colonel Zach Schmidt. I'm an active duty Marine speaking in my private capacity. I'm not representing the Marine Corps, the Department of the Navy, or the Department of War. In 2009, I deployed as a military advisor to the Afghan National Army. Part of my duties included overseeing a small Afghan software company developing a personnel system for the Afghan National Security Forces. I personally saw the text messages and handwritten threats made against those men and their families by the Taliban. Despite those threats, those guys came to work every day to use their skills to help their country become a better place. Part of the deal was the United States said it would take care of them and their families. One of those family members is a young man named Khalil. My understanding is that Friday night, he was removed to the Central African Republic after seeking asylum in the United States. I worked with Khalil's older brother in 2009. I know the risks he took to help the United States. I owe it to Khalil's brother and their family to help share this story and advocate for Khalil's asylum in the U.S. Simply put, I wanted to help the United States honor its commitments to the Afghan civilians and their families who helped U.S. forces for so many years. I'm not here today in uniform. I just want to share my own thoughts. I'm here to say that I had a personal part in promises made to our Afghan friends and their families. I want to do my part to help keep that promise. I want to help the United States honor its commitments. Imagine the bravery and the honor it takes on the part of that Marine colonel to say, "You know, I was speaking for the United States of America when I made that promise." Imagine the bravery and the honor it takes on the part of that Marine colonel to say, "You know, I was speaking for the United States of America when I made that promise." In uniform, in wartime, to protect these people who were helping us. Now the country, the president is breaking that promise that I made on the country's behalf. But he's saying, but I can't, I can't break the promise that I made. I have to speak out personally while he's still in the Marine Corps, right? Still an active duty Marine. In addition to the Afghans who were on that flight, it's also reported that some of the other people on board that same flight were from Iran. You know, you might remember, it was only about six months ago when Donald Trump started a war with Iran and he announced that the United States would have the back of the Iranian people. He told the Iranian people that they should rise up against their government and the U.S. would back them if they did. Even today, online today, he's still crowing about how terrible the Iranian government is to its own people, particularly their own people who protest against the government or who dissent from the regime. Well, while he's saying that publicly, meanwhile, this weekend, Donald Trump just sent a whole bunch of Iranians who had come to this country seeking safety, seeking protection. He sent them shackled and chained on that same plane to the Central African Republic, which again is in the middle of a civil war and which reportedly will only allow these people to stay for three months if they can survive that long. And then they'll be deported again, presumably to their country of origin, which means back to the Iranian regime. A lawsuit by the National Iranian American Council recently turned up Trump administration communications, apparently showing that the Trump administration has been working with the Iranian government, letting them, letting the Iranian regime handpick the people, the individual people who the Trump administration will send back to Iran. People came here saying they had to flee Iran because the government there was coming for them. The Trump administration then apparently went back to the Iranian government and offered the Iranian government information and individual names of these people who had fled Iran, and then let Iran pick which of those people the U.S. would force back, force back to them. All the while Trump publicly proclaiming how much he supports the Iranian people and how terrible the Iranian regime is. There is a word for this, which also happens to be a mnemonic for Trump's humiliating. Humiliating unilateral renaming of the Great Lakes. And while we're on the subject of shame and Iran, today in Asheville, North Carolina, the U.S. government hosted a meeting of the G20 finance ministers. So this is the G20 country's 20 biggest economies. This is their finance ministers or, you know, treasury secretaries or the equivalent. And our treasury secretary, Scott Besant, as the host of this meeting, announced that the theme of this meeting would be cracking down on countries supporting Iran. Right? Since the United States is at war with Iran, Scott Besant has apparently been put in charge of trying to make it into an economic war against Iran. So Scott Besant announced that's what this G20 meeting would be about. It would be all about punishing countries for supporting Iran. Now, the other countries don't necessarily agree that that's the best use of a G20 meeting like this, but that's what he says on behalf of the U.S. government, on behalf of the Trump administration. While simultaneously today, surprise, the Trump administration decided to surprise everyone when the finance minister from Russia walked into the meeting. What is he doing there? Apparently, the White House unilaterally extended an invitation to Russia, to be there at this meeting today, to send their finance minister to this meeting today, even though Russia hasn't been allowed into these things for years since they invaded Ukraine. But the White House invited him, and so he was there. So talk about shame, right? Talk about humiliation. Talk about embarrassment. There's U.S. Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant, out there publicly proclaiming that this meeting is going to be all about cracking down on any country that supports Iran. And then Trump makes him roll out the proverbial red carpet, makes him extend a big unilateral warm welcome to the finance minister from Russia, to be there, against everybody else's wishes. But the Russian finance minister is there today because the White House insisted on it. The Russian finance minister was there today literally the day before Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to meet with the President-in-Chief. But the White House insisted on it. The Russian finance minister was there literally the day before Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to meet with the President-in-Chief. Because Russia absolutely supports Iran, not only economically, but with weapons and explosives and specific military intelligence for the Iranians to use in the war against us, including targeting U.S. troops. So that's who gets the special invitation from the U.S. government to the meeting that Scott Besant is all about cracking down on countries who support him. You know, if your country, if your government, if your president is behaving shamefully, is being, you know, wildly hypocritical, is bringing what you believe to be dishonor on your country, ultimately it reflects on you as a citizen of that country, right? I mean, at least it does if your country is a democracy. Because if you, in a democracy, have political freedoms, if you have the freedom to dissent, to protest, to vote no, to say you reject what your government is doing, then living in a democracy sort of bestows upon you the responsibility to do those things, to say no, to dissent, if you don't want that shame and dishonor from your government to land on you and your family as citizens of this country. And so you see that. Operationally, with this active-duty Marine colonel saying, you know what, I, I have a responsibility to maintain my own honor here, to try to keep that promise on behalf of our country, even as our government breaks it. You've also seen that operationally in the past few days in Red State, Louisiana, where a new interfaith group of clergy and local authorities have been formed. And Central Louisiana is standing up a new effort to oppose the Trump administration building a big new Trump prison camp for kids in Alexandria, Louisiana. They've already, in Alexandria, got the country's largest hub for deportation flights. Now they want to add a huge new Trump prison camp for children and families adjacent to that site. And Central Louisiana is saying no. Louisiana's inter-church conference. It's trying to get the local airport authority to cancel its contracts with ICE to reject the construction of this big new Trump children's prison camp. People from all over Louisiana packed into the local board meeting Thursday night to plead their case. This is the local board in charge of approving these contracts. They say they're going to schedule a new special session that wasn't already on the books for September 8th, which is next Tuesday, day after Labor Day. To discuss. But they just what's described in the local press as as mounting public concerns over family and children detention at that site. They scheduled a new session to discuss those concerns because of this outpouring of concern from people all over Louisiana, including locally in Central Louisiana near Alexandria. This stuff in Central Louisiana follows another red state showing up and saying no to this kind of thing in rural southern Nebraska, Red Willow County, Nebraska. The state has been operating one of these immigrant prisons on Trump's behalf. You'll remember the most famous one was Alligator Alcatraz in Red State, Florida. Such a moral and financial and logistical disaster. They had to close it. It is already gone and has been completely dismantled. Well, Nebraska's Republican governor apparently wanted in on that mess, even as Ron DeSantis was getting out of it. Talk about something you'll never live down. Nebraska's Republican Governor Jim Pellen opened up this what they called the. Cornhusker Clink. And now on the one year anniversary of that facility opening up, we just saw Nebraskans flood into Red Red Willow County and McCook, Nebraska, where the facility is located to protest against that site. Hundreds of Indiana, excuse me, hundreds of Nebraska residents turned out. And it's not just Louisiana and it's not just Nebraska all over Red State, Indiana. This weekend, there were protests more than 55. Different locations all over Indiana, people calling for the Indiana governor to shut down what the Trump administration calls the Speedway Slammer Immigrant Prison near Kokomo, Indiana. That's the the real name. There is the Miami Correctional Facility. Protesters from all over Indiana in dozens of locations where protests were held this weekend want that facility shut down. There were prayer services and marches in every corner of the state of Indiana Friday, Saturday and Sunday this weekend. People calling. for an end to ICE prisons in the state full stop and an improved movement in the conditions there in the meantime. There were also spontaneous protests this weekend in Memphis, Tennessee, and in Danbury, Connecticut, in response to ice raids in those cities. After the voting rights protest in Washington, D.C. on Friday, that was a big, significant march and rally, thousands of people from all over the country rallying and marching in Washington on Friday. In that spirit, here's something to watch locally, really, where the rubber hits the road on those kinds of issues. This is something to watch for tomorrow, Tuesday, in Tarrant County, Texas, which, incidentally, is that same county where the flights to Africa have been taking off with all those chained and shackled people on board. In Tarrant County, Texas, which is Fort Worth, the Republican county commissioners there are trying to close down dozens of voting locations ahead of this year's midterm elections. And Texas, of course, has incredibly high-stakes elections this year. They've not just got their whole state legislature on the line and all those congressional seats. I mean, Texas has Democrat James Tallarico versus Republican Ken Paxton in that huge Senate race, a race in which Tallarico is consistently ahead in the polls now. They've got Democrat Gina Hinojosa running a really strong campaign against incumbent Republican Governor Greg Abbott. Hinojosa is really some of the most important person in the country. He's got a lot of people in the country. He's got some of the most important people in the country. He's got shockingly close to Greg Abbott in these polls. Texas has these incredibly high-stakes elections with so much on the line. And in Tarrant County of Fort Worth, the Republican county officials there are trying to shut down voting locations on college campuses specifically and dozens more locations all over that county before the voting in November. But you know what? Tarrant County is not going along with it. This is what happened last month when those same county commissioners announced that they were going to try to close down voting locations on college campuses. And this is what happened last month when those same county commissioners announced that they were going to try to shut down over 100 voting locations in Tarrant County. People turned out in huge numbers and I think basically totally overwhelmed the Tarrant County commissioners. And so when they did this last month, August 4th, the commissioners backed off and they didn't do it. But now tomorrow, Tuesday in Tarrant County in Fort Worth, they're going to try to do it again. Those same Republican county commissioners this time are going to try to shut down 92 voting locations in Tarrant County. Texas Democrats are calling on Tarrant County residents to once again flood that Tarrant County commission meeting tomorrow to say no, to tell them no, to tell them the county is not having it. So, I mean, we're talking Texas, Tennessee, Indiana, Nebraska, Louisiana. This is not liberal America, you know, standing up and saying, no, you can't do this in our name. This is just America. This is America, including red state America, all saying no, saying, yeah, you can try the stuff, but we are going to fight you every step of the way because this is our legacy too. When a country's government, when a country's president tries to do something shameful, something that dishonors us as a country, the shame honestly accrues to all of us if we don't fight back and we don't say no. But if we do fight back and we do say no, that shame accrues to him alone, just to him and his helpers. Some of that hard, hard pushback against Trump right now is coming from the reddest parts of the country, including from the state that polls say is the single most pro-Trump state in the entire country. And we've got that story for you here next. Stay with us. Polls say that right now the most pro-Trump state in the country is Wyoming. In the last presidential election, Trump won the state of Wyoming by more than he won any other state in the country. Trump won Wyoming by a margin of 45 points. Even as Trump's approval rating craters nationally right now, polling consistently shows that the state with the least unfavorable view of Donald Trump is Wyoming. The cowboy state. He just loves the bleach-blonde, makeup-wearing, thrice-married real estate developer's son from Queens. Because of course they do. Go figure. But that is why the political headlines in Wyoming this summer are a warning sign for this White House and for hardline Republicans everywhere. First, there was the Wyoming Republican primary this month. Not only did Trump's preferred candidate lose the primary for governor, but in the state legislature, the Obama-Bagga Freedom Caucus just got their butts handed to them. In the Wyoming state Senate, there were six members of the Freedom Caucus, incumbents, who lost their seats. In the state House, there were 13 members of the Freedom Caucus, incumbent lawmakers in the state House, 13 who lost their seats. And then there was the news after the election, real heads-up everywhere for everyone as the general election approaches in November. Last week, after that primary election in Wyoming, Republican Governor Mark Gordon announced that he was really mad about the monitors that had been sent by Trump's Justice Department to monitor the polling places in his state. Wyoming Republican Governor Mark Gordon saying, quote, It was aggressive, unexpected, disruptive, certainly didn't seem to show respect for the state. The county clerk in Laramie agreed, saying, Observers, quote, Showed complete disregard for our Wyoming state laws and said the monitors asked questions that were, quote, Outside the scope of federal voting rights laws. The governor says he has now asked the state attorney general to look into it, to look into what these Trump administration DOJ monitors did in the state of Wyoming. From the Wyoming governor, quote, I'm not saying anything went wrong or anything else, and I certainly think the conduct of this election was phenomenal. He said, quote, I feel very strongly about federal government coming in and taking our guns. I don't like that. And I don't like federal government coming in and taking our votes, either. Joining us now is Maggie Mullen, a fifth-generation Wyoming resident. She's now covering state government and politics at the independent news outlet, Y.O. File. Maggie, thanks very much for joining us. I really appreciate you being here tonight. Yeah, well, thanks for having me, Rachel. Help me understand why. Officials in the state government, including the governor, in this very outspoken way, why they were so upset about these DOJ monitors. Yeah, I think for a lot of these local and state officials, including the governor, what really upset them the most was the fact that these two monitors showed up unannounced, right? The governor's office wasn't aware this was going to happen. The Wyoming Office of Homeland Security, the Wyoming attorney general, and the Laramie County clerk, who, who oversees elections in Cheyenne, Wyoming's most populous city. And, you know, this is also, you know, you just sort of illustrated this point with that quote from the governor. But Wyoming is very much a state's right state. And I think something like this upsets a lot of voters. And for officials, I think they were upset to be caught by surprise by these monitors. The thing that I think. From outside the state is surprising is the sort of national partisan lens that we put on something like this. I'm happy to hear you describe, like, you know, this is this is the state's rights. This is about, you know, sort of any federal government. It's about Wyoming's independence. And that maybe is the better lens to see this through. But because it is a national election year, because we do have the midterms, because sort of in the Trump era, I feel like all Republican politics is sort of Trump inflected. How unusual is it for Governor Gordon to come out so forcefully? Against the Trump administration and against a real, like, marquee Trump administration action like this? It's not the first time that Governor Gordon has broken with the president. But it it is in sharp contrast to in 2025 when Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray made Wyoming the first state to hand over sensitive voter data to the federal government. And the governor really hasn't waited. In on that. Meanwhile, county clerks say that voters were were very upset about that. Right. County clerks are the face of elections in Wyoming. And they're the the officials that deal with voters. And they come to the county clerk's desk. And also that decision by the secretary of state is being challenged in court right now. But the governor really hasn't weighed in on that. So it's not the first time that he's come out against Trump. But it is a little bit unusual, you know, in this. Particular with this particular issue. And briefly, Maggie, the governor did say that he wanted the attorney general to to investigate this matter. Do we know if there's any sort of AG investigation at this point? Yeah. So the governor's office is holding off, at least appears to. They don't want to call it an investigation at this point. But the governor has said that he's asked Attorney General Keith Kautz to, he said, look into the nature of this visit. And so we're waiting to see if we hear more about that. But that's what we know right now. Maggie Mullen, a reporter from Wyoming. biophile. Thank you very much for helping us understand this tonight. Wyoming politics is always interesting. It's particularly fascinating right now. We'd love to have you back to talk more in the future. Thanks so much for being with us. Thanks, Rachel. All right. You know, it is interesting. People ask me all the time about, you know, what I expect to happen or what we think is going to happen or whether the country is prepared for Trump trying to do something really nefarious with the elections, you know, stealing votes, meaning like, you know, taking voting boxes, seizing voting machines, seizing voting, seizing ballots. And I don't know what Trump's going to do, but I do know that there are antibodies in every state in this country against a president trying to do something like that, against a federal government trying to do something like that, even literally in the most pro-Trump state in the country. And that's what that Wyoming story shows. Fascinating to watch. Much more ahead here tonight. Stay with us. I was 16 years ago, 2010. A mysterious hole opened up in front of the White House in Washington. The hole was several stories deep. Reporters and just passersby could see cranes lowering really big concrete blocks into the hole. You could see trucks carting in huge steel beams. Construction workers filing for bail. And I was 16 years ago, 2010. You could see trucks carting in huge in and out like a giant ant farm. It was crazy. Parts of the White House itself were also concealed behind a big fence for months. What was going on? Well, the Obama White House said at the time that that big construction project just sort of seemed bigger than it was. They said it was an overdue upgrade of underground utilities. They were replacing water and sewer lines and electrical wiring and heating systems and air conditioning systems, basically all the guts of the operation for a big campus like the White House. Underground utilities. That said, it did seem like kind of a big project even for that. As the Associated Press noted at the time, quote, inevitably, the work has fueled speculation that what's really being built is some secret new underground lair. Ha ha ha. Well, decade and a half later, thanks to new reporting from the Washington Post, we now know they were in fact building a secret new underground lair. They were building a bunker. It wasn't upgrading the utilities. They were building a whole new thing. According to two former officials who spoke to the Washington Post, quote, the facility, which was secretly completed during the Obama administration, can house dozens of people for up to multiple weeks. Quote, it's buried more than 60 feet underneath the White House complex and built to withstand a nuclear blast, ensuring the president and his team have a secure command center to run the country in times of extreme duress. So that is interesting reporting even at normal times, right? Wow, this thing that everybody joked must be a new underground lair 15, 16 years ago actually was. But that reporting has arrived not at normal times. It has arrived now in this summer of 2026, while President Donald Trump and his administration are arguing in court that they must be allowed to build his gigantic new dictator-chic ballroom on the White House grounds because it's a national security necessity, because that ballroom will include a nuclear-proof bunker, which is what Trump needs to be able to run the country during a national security crisis. Well, now we know, though, Trump already has a nuclear-proof bunker, and it's not even that old. It was the one that was built under President Obama and kept secret until the Washington Post revealed its existence. Now, nevertheless, today, the United States Supreme Court allowed construction of Trump's ballroom to continue indefinitely. Interestingly, though, the ruling was five to four. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberal justices in a dissent, saying, quote, that construction is likely unlawful. The Supreme Court today, with its chief justice in dissent, letting Trump continue with that ballroom construction, despite the fact that the main national security justification for it has been debunked. Trump, of course, is pursuing multiple weird dictator-chic vanity projects in D.C. He wants to build a giant arch in his own honor. He has tried to rename and is now threatening to demolish the Kennedy Center. He's insisting on a tacky and likely destructive paint job for the Eisenhower executive office building. And even as he, outright ignores the law in his pursuit of these projects, his administration is in the process of trying to gut the law that protects all of America's cultural and historic sites across the country, which could put at risk not just the places Trump is already targeting in D.C., but more than a million sites across the U.S. The White House is going to have a fight on its hands with that one, though. More than 600 historic preservation groups, architectural buildings, and more than $1.5 billion worth of land in the United States, including some of the largest cities in the United States. The White House has formed a new coalition to stop the Trump administration from gutting this law. They have a plan to get Congress to pay attention and to actually assert its authority on these matters. They've got an open letter sent to every member of Congress. In it, the coalition members point out that these at-risk sites are in every congressional district in the country. They highlight certain ones that hold special significance for key lawmakers. They're asking people to meet with their members of Congress to urge them to block the White House. It's like a district meeting playbook to help constituents tell their representatives why these historic preservation laws are important in their communities. Joining us now is Greg Workheiser. He's co-founder of Cultural Heritage Partners, which is a law firm that assembled this coalition of organizations. Mr. Workheiser, thanks very much for being here. I appreciate it. GREG WORKHEISER, CO-FOUNDER, CULTURAL HERITAGE PARTNERS: Thank you, Rachel. Good evening. Let me ask, what sorts of projects, what sorts of either existing actions by the Trump administration or potential actions by the Trump administration is this coalition intending to oppose? GREG WORKHEISER, CO-FOUNDER, CULTURAL HERITAGE PARTNERS: Well, we are seeing threats to America's National Historic Preservation Act from three different parts of the government. First, the president himself, through his pet projects, is attempting to establish precedent that gives the executive extraordinary power, in some cases to defy Congress, but certainly to act outside of the rules that apply to everyone else when you're developing a project that might impact historic resources. And, secondly, you've got the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation, which is a federal agency now stacked with Trump loyalists, that are attempting, in short, to gut the National Historic Preservation Act, which has been operational and functional and doing well, quite frankly, for 60 years. And I can give you some examples of what I mean by gutting. I wish I were exaggerating. I'm not. And then, thirdly, Congress itself has been listening to the lobbying talking points of big industry that tell them that this process of looking before you destroy historic sites while you're permitting projects slows down projects. But, in fact, Congress hasn't asked for any evidence, nor have they received any factual evidence to back up that assertion. AMY GOODMAN: I mean, this president clearly feels like he should be able to tear down anything and build anything at public expense simply because he's the president. I don't feel surprised anymore, and I don't feel very much ambiguity in terms of understanding the president's own mindset about these things. That said, I do find it harder to get into the mindset of the Supreme Court in terms of how they feel like the president's actions might be lawful, given their supreme role in policing those sorts of things. Can I just get your reaction to the Supreme Court ruling today, letting Trump continue, at least for now, constructing this ballroom? DAVID BROOKS: Sure. What was interesting to me about the decision is, the majority did not say that the president's actions were lawful. In fact, they expressly declined to opine on the legality. They had a narrower decision, which was about whether or not the plaintiff representative of the National Trust for Historic Preservation had standing. And so, in non-lawyer speak, that means, could they get through the courthouse door? Were they appropriate to bring this lawsuit? And by a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court said that the aesthetic harm that that plaintiff suffered was not enough, in their opinion. But as you mentioned earlier, Chief Justice Roberts writing the dissent went a little bit further and said that the president's actions likely are illegal. And do violate the provision that Congress gave itself to oversee, or at least authorize, major projects in the District of Columbia and the nation's capital. So, it will be interesting to see how this rolls out. Each of these cases that you mentioned earlier, the Arch, the EOB, the Kennedy Center, the Reflecting Pool, the list goes on and on, each of them have their own distinct profile, distinct plaintiffs, legal theories, and questions of standing. So, they'll certainly be perceived as a setback, the Supreme Court's decision today. It really leaves open the question, Rachel, if Americans cannot sue, can to enforce laws that protect property that belongs to Americans and not to a president who can sue. Yeah, exactly. Standing indeed. Greg Workheiser is co-founder of the law firm Cultural Heritage Partners, has put together this national coalition to protect and strengthen Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. Mr. Workheiser, thanks very much for being with us. We'd love to have you back as these cases advance. I appreciate it. Thank you, Rachel. Have a good evening. I continue to think that somebody could put together a pretty strong political platform just by saying, you know what? Day one, as soon as he's gone and new leadership has taken over in Washington, we're going to unpave the Rose Garden and we're going to pry all of the super glued gold fittings off of the Oval Office walls and we're going to put the East Wing back up and we're going to take down all the amusement park style statues that he's sold. Stuck all over the White House grounds. We're just going to put everything back to the way it was and get back to not being embarrassed about what the nation's capital looks like. I don't know. It seems to me like that might be a good political platform for somebody, but we're not there yet. We'll be right back. Stay with us. One of the things we'll look back and remember about the Donald Trump era in U.S. governance is cyclospora, the disgusting, explosive, diarrhea parasite that has been sweeping the nation in Donald Trump's second term in office. According to the CDC right now, there are over 17,000 lab-confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis across the country. And those are just the cases that we know about. We're currently dealing with multiple outbreaks of cyclospora, the biggest one being the outbreak that was linked back to iceberg lettuce. Last week, Trump's FDA announced that recalled lettuce related to this outbreak was linked back to iceberg lettuce. So, we're going to have to wait and see how long that outbreak should no longer be available in stores or restaurants. Keyword there being "should." While it is increasingly clear that we need more resources to track and contain cyclospora and other dangerous foodborne illnesses, we are seeing the opposite unfold in Trump's second term. We've known since last year that Trump scaled back a monitoring system that specifically tracked cyclospora outbreaks for decades. That move has effectively shut off the alarm system for cyclospora outbreaks. So, we're going to have to wait and see if we can get more information out of the FDA on that. But Politico has new details on just how much the Trump administration has screwed up the cyclospora response and has effectively cratered our ability to handle this crisis moving forward. "USDA cyclospora research projects shelved amid funding cuts and relocations. The Trump administration is shuttering research projects key to the federal government's fight against cyclospora. The Foodborne Parasites Project is the only one that's going to stop cyclospora. The Foodborne Parasites sickening thousands of Americans this summer. Two of the three projects that represent nearly all of the USDA's study of the parasite were defunded earlier this year. The third is slated to move from Maryland to Iowa this fall. Even though that project still has money, every scientist working on the parasite has declined to participate in that relocation. According to people familiar with the plans and documents shared with Politico, quote, the hollowing out of all three projects, which has not been previously reported, is expected to hinder vital food safety research at a time when Americans are increasingly worried that they can't trust the food supply. We knew already they had shut off the monitors. Now we know they have also shut off the research about how to stop these things. Bon appetit! Watch this space. All right, that's going to do it for me tonight.