There's a kind of brutal honesty to President Trump.

He swore to seek retribution against his political adversaries before he was re-elected.

He swore it openly, and now he's delivering on his promise.

No subterfuge, no soft pedaling, no Watergate style cover up just straight up hardball payback.

The indictment of former FBI Director James Comey represents an important Rubicon frost.

Never in modern history has the president used the tools of state power so blatantly to punish his foes.

Tonight, what all of this means for the future of American democracy.

Next.

this is Washington Week with the Atlantic.

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Thank you Once again, from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, editor in chief of The Atlantic and Moderator Jeffrey Goldberg.

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

We have a lot to talk about tonight, starting with the indictment of James Comey and the wholesale takeover of the Justice Department by the Trump political apparatus, but we'll also talk about his pursuit of another foe, the late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel.

We'll talk about Trump's views on Tylenol and Ukraine, and much more.

Joining me tonight at the table, Stephen Hayes, the editor of the Dispatch.

Karen Tumulty is the chief political correspondent at The Washington Post.

Ali Vitale is the host of Way Too Early and the chief congressional correspondent for the network currently known as MSNBC.

And Nancy Yousef is a national security correspondent at The Atlantic.

I'm sorry, I just have to make the MSM's joke every time.

Look, if you have to do what you got to do it.

I is what it is for right now.

It's like the Karen.

let's start with, with you.

Give us the latest on the Comey indictment and more importantly, what does it mean for democracy Well, we saw a real rapid fire series of events this week.

Trump's own appointed US attorney in the in the Eastern District of Virginia, essentially refused to do this indictment after the president specifically called for it, so he was removed, a new acting US attorney, Lindsay Halloran was Halligan was put in.

This is a woman who had been part of Trump's personal legal team had been a White House aide whose mission had been removing what the what the administration deemed to be improper ideology.

The Smithsonian, but she has, she was going to be the woke inspector of this.

She was, she was, but now she finds herself as the acting US attorney in Virginia who carried this indictment out.

It's all of a page and a half.

It's very quick grade.

The charges against James Comey are among allegedly lying to Congress.

These are charges that are very rarely prosecuted unless they are, you know, connected to other charges and potentially could, you know, put him in prison for 10 years, right?

I want you all to listen to Ty Cobb, the president's former attorney who has become a critic.

Listen to what he had to say about the the meaning here.

I don't think this can be reported as, you know, 1 or 2 degrees of standard deviation from the norm.

This is a wholesale 180 from the norms of what uh what made America different from third world dictatorships, um, authoritarian regimes and tyranny.

Steve, understatement, overstatement, correct?

No, I think he's basically got it right.

I mean, the troubling thing the indictment itself will learn more about the case.

We'll learn what they're going to argue.

in the coming days and weeks, but I think it's the stuff that preceded the indictment that is the most troubling.

It's the fact pattern that Karen laid out, the firing of the previous firing of the previous prosecutors, the reporting widespread, credible, I believe that all of these prosecutors didn't think there was enough to bring a case.

Um, the, the sort of the sequence of events that led up to this moment and in particular, Donald Trump tweeting at his Attorney General to go get this guy because I don't like him.

In effect, Um, that, that is new.

We don't see that very often, and it's not new for Donald Trump because he campaigned on retribution.

He told us, he told voters, this is what I'm going to do.

These are the people I don't like.

I'm going to get them back, but seeing him do it in this manner is so unlike the kinds of things that we've seen before, and I think that is in part what's alarming, and it should be said, this is the first.

I mean, nobody thinks this ends with James Comey.

He's got a long list.

Trump today said it will not end.

Yes, I want to, I think this is a good opportunity for me to do my dramatic reading of the Pam Bondi Truth Social.

I'll try to limit the drama, but you'll get the point this is one of the most extraordinary statements Donald Trump has ever made, I think.

Pam, it's almost a dread, it's almost as if it was a direct message to her that got out.

Pam, I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that essentially open same old story as last time.

I'll talk, no action.

Nothing is being done.

What about Comey, Adam Shifty Schiff, a US senator, by the way.

Leticia mark question mark question mark.

That's the prosecutor, the state attorney general in New York.

They're all guilty as he ll but nothing is going to be done.

Then we almost put in a Democrat-supported US attorney in Virginia with a really bad Republican past.

They woke rhino who is never going to do his job, and then he goes on, Lindsay Halligan is a really good lawyer and likes you a lot.

We can't delay any longer.

It's killing our reputation and credibility.

They impeached me twice and indicted me 5 times and then all caps over nothing, justice must be served now.

President DJT, so I don't, I don't know what this actually compares to in American history.

It's it's as if almost as if President Nixon, all analogies are imperfect.

This one will be imperfect, but it's President Nixon went into the press room and said the Democratic National Committee is my enemy, and so I really think that the FBI needs to go right now and get all their documents at the Watergate and then give them to me so that we can manufacture a case against them.

I mean, it's as if it's as if Watergate is in a uh the oddir of Watergate is in a true social post.

I mean, maybe I'm exaggerating, but it doesn't seem like much of an exaggeration, Nancy.

Well, and then on the Saturday massacre, right, when you see um the firing, the attempted firing of Archibald Cox and that the Attorney General wouldn't do it and the deputy wouldn't do it and the solicitor general ends up doing it, Robert Bork, Robert Bork, yes, but the difference then was that led to the impeachment, that led to that caused the impeachment.

That's right, whereas in this case we're not hearing Congress say we're going to look into this even as you note, the president has listed people who will be charged next, Senator Schiff, Letitia James, among others.

And so I think that's the real deviation that's happening here is that this is not leading to consequence, but actually appears to be sort of um uh condoned in some ways, but with the absence of any action.

I should note when Archibald Cox um is brought forward, he says whether ours shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men now for Congress and ultimately ultimately the American people to decide.

We're at this inflection point again potentially with a different answer, right where that was the inflection point that led to the redeviation or deviation back to the to the norm, but you cover Congress.

You're talking to these people all the time.

Again, I'm trying to sound rational and logical and reasoned, but this is unprecedented and in ordinary times this would provoke a seismic reaction on the part of a co-equal branch of government that is supposed to monitor.

the other branches of government and has not really had much of an appetite to do so, whether it be through oversight or even just the simple appropriation of funds, which is literally Congress's constitutional job, right?

They've seemed to really be willing to farm that out and we'll watch how that ends up playing out next week on the shutdown dynamics, which are not anywhere close to where we are here, but I think that's the thing that I think is so striking here is that Congress has at every turn seen controversial nominees who are loyal to the president and really that's their only qualification, and they have put aside their concerns to just go along with the president, and I knew, we all knew that this Congress was going to look different because it's been remade in the MAGA image, but Trump has benefited from that at every single turn.

The only thing I think about here, two things.

The first is when he talks about not having a role in these prosecutions, it takes me back to the day that they got a raid on John Bolton's house, and Trump said, Well, actually I'm the chief law enforcement officer of this country, but no, no, no, I had nothing to do with it, and Bondi and others will brief me when appropriate.

OK, so if he's the chief law enforcement officer of this country.

and he's saying the names Comey, Letitia James, all of these other people.

Let's take that into a courtroom and it's why legal experts actually think that there's a chance that this case could get thrown out before it even begins.

I didn't, I didn't go to law prejudicing a case ahead of time because it's prejudicing a case ahead of time, and the idea of a vindictive or selective prosecution, which is typically something that's very hard to prove.

And again, I did not go to law school, but we talked to lawyers all the time.

Comey could have something there, and it's only exacerbated by the fact that the prosecutor now prosecuting this case actually has never done it before, right?

By the way, thank you for playing a lawyer on TV.

I really try so hard, it was the drama it was excellent.

It was Nancy had a little drama in her presentation too, I noticed, but so this is, this is what's that's interesting and you really hit on something after Watergate, this is our Watergate special obviously, after Watergate, all kinds of protections were put in place around the Justice Department, almost like moats for Doug and walls were built to protect the Justice Department.

from political interference.

So the question is, are, do any of them remain today When you have the President of the United States publicly telling the Attorney General.

who to prosecute I think the answer is no.

Is there anything in the building itself, uh, can they do anything other than quit in protest?

Is there any which they have been doing right.

Nothing.

The careers have been quitting, but part of the, part of the challenge here is that Donald Trump has stocked the Justice Department with people who are loyal to him.

I mean, last month, the chief of staff at the Justice Department gave an interview to Ruth Marcus, The New Yorker, and in effect said, there's no difference between serving the chief executive, and Donald Trump.

We're working for him, and it's just such a departure from the way that people have approached the job, for one thing, but certainly talked about it for another, and that again is unprecedented.

I need your expertise as a shrink here for a minute, not for me, by the way, but for constituency that you understand the conservative voting constituency that you've covered for a long time.

Uh, why is there such acquiescence to the destruction of a not obscure norm.

This is not, we're not talking as a highly technical USDA rules that are changing slightly from administration to administration.

We're talking about the defense of the idea that justice is blind and that the people who have the ability to change people's lives forever.

The indictment, prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment.

have no have no connection to the dispassionate and impartiality that we've always held up to the rest of the world as a gift, right, as a as a symbol of our American advancement.

Well, I, I said that the way that they talk about it is unprecedented.

And I said it that way for a reason.

I do think there is precedent for these kinds of political prosecutions and targeting of political opponents.

Robert F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy went after radi used the IRS and the FCC to go after the rising radio right, which is what historian Paul Matko calls these people.

Uh, it was sort of the precursor to talk radio, and they said in an Oval Office conversation, in effect, go get them.

Use the government to go get them.

We saw during Barack Obama's administration, the IRS targeting conservative groups, you'd hear from MAGA people that Joe Biden went after uh Donald Trump previously.

I don't they're I think supporting evidence is is weak in that regard, but I would, I think that the prosecution in New York was a stretch.

A lot of people who weren't surprised to Donald Donald Trump, the one that led to the 34 that led to the 34.

So what you'll hear from MAGA voters is this is the way that Washington always works.

You're so naive that you, you're so precious that you think this is new and different.

This is the way that it always works, and it's about time that we're getting right.

What is your answer to them?

It's not, it's not new and different.

I mean, to a certain extent, you know, it's, it's like the, you know, shocked to find that they're gambling here.

Of course, people use the levers of government to go after their political enemies for the reasons I just suggested.

What I think makes this different is that he's so bold and aggressive and unapologetic about it.

He's just announcing it in public.

I'm going after these people.

People will say, I can't paint on going after these people.

He's got a list.

Kash Patel, the director of the FBI, literally published a list of 60 some odd people that they were going to go after if they took power, and now it appears that that's exactly what they're doing because when I talk with MAGA voters, they all have a list of people.

OK, but what about Michael Cohen?

I mean, even just on the lying to Congress charge, right?

You've got Michael Cohen as a prime example of that.

There were others who were who they, they went after on these similar kinds of charges.

The central difference though is that in many cases those charges were paired with something else, something more grave.

The other piece of this though is that President Biden and other presidents were not out there saying this is the list of people and addressing Merrick Collin and giving a public statement about it.

Merrick Garland, to much criticism, tried to stay as far away from the politics as if it wasn't inextricably linked with his job as attorney general at that point as he possibly could, but all illusion of that is absolutely gone, right?

And so the expectation, so go ahead, but the other argument they make is that Trump was so persecuted.

You know, that he was, he was indicted multiple times, he was impeached twice and essentially they see this is payback time.

I know, but what's so interesting about that is let's take just one of the Trump cases that's no longer relevant legally relevant, but they, they, they, they sequestering of classified documents in in Mar a Lago.

That's not a weak case from what we can tell.

That's a very strong case.

So yeah, I mean you know this is a national security correspondent very well, and that's, you know, there's a persecution complex, but many of the charges have, have sent many of the former Chargers have salient, no?

well, uh, not so much anymore, especially since the Supreme Court has ruledents in terms of their truth, not in terms of their legal relevance, right?

And but again, I mean it was very much a part of the image that Trump projected while he was running for re-election was that he has been persecuted.

Let me talk about another enemy on Trump's list, uh, Jimmy Kimmel.

You never would have put James Comey and Jimmy Kimmel in the same same bucket, but Kimmel's back on TV this week and, and defiant, and this seems to be a case in which maybe the Trump administration overreached a bit.

I just want you to listen to what Senator John Thune, who hasn't said much about the um the hollowing out of the Justice Department, but listen to what he said about the First Amendment.

Oh yeah, no, I'm sorry.

We're gonna, we're gonna I'm just gonna read this to you.

Um, but this is what he said.

My view is when it comes to the FCC, when it comes to governing authorities and governmental power, it shouldn't be used in a coercive way when it comes to the First Amendment.

So what's going on here?

Did Brendan Carr go too far?

Brendan Carr being the chairman of the FCC who on a podcast sounded very tough guy.

Easy way or we can do this the hard way did the tough guy thing, yeah.

Well, look, it's funny that um Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel are sort of canaries in the coal mine about threats to the First Amendment, and I think in this case, because of what he cited and the sort of ambiguity in terms of what uh about it demanded taking him off the air, something so present in everybody's house that you can watch Jimmy Kimmel any time.

I think made it something both palatable in terms of what people could understand, and also it was all out in the open.

He said that that that they should face repercussions for it, and I think a lot of people in the American public saw this as an attack on the First Amendment, and so they could speak up in a way that actually had financial impact.

They could cancel their Hulu membership.

They could cancel the Disney membership to sort of force a change of events, and I think so that the totality of it, it's somebody they know, it's, it had financial repercussions and you had Brendon Carr really tying the future of that show to the Disney Company taking specific action, I think made it all sort of come to the American public's uh uh awareness in a way that other cases might not, Steve Brennan Carr on his back foot.

It's hard to tell, honestly.

I mean, you had criticism like you've just read from John Thune, you had Ted Cruz comparing him to Mafioso.

Um, so that was pretty bold and aggressive for people who aren't typically bold and aggressive in their criticism from of Donald Trump and his administration.

But once Donald Trump came out, remember Donald Trump initially the MAG explanation was, oh, he's not really threatening them.

This isn't what it seems.

And then Donald Trump came out and said this is exactly what we're doing.

This is exactly what it seems.

And after Donald Trump spoke again, the criticism of the administration from Republicans went silent.

They didn't continue to criticize and it's an interesting sort of moment that they withheld their their judgment after that and it was a bit of a bank shop because the where the FCC has its leverage.

It's not against the networks directly.

It's against the local affiliates.

So while Jimmy Kimmel came back on the air this week, we saw that two of the big affiliate companies, Nexstar and Sinclair didn't put him back.

Now, now they will Nancy, I want to talk about another uh another event that seems to be brewing next week in addition to potential government shutdown, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, has called to Quantico, to Virginia, um, hundreds of generals and admirals, um it's not clear what the purpose of this fairly unprecedented meeting is.

What's your best understanding based on your reporting about what's going on here.

I mean, it really is unprecedented now we started to see reports that this was sort of a rallying meeting to tell people about the Warrior ethos that he speaks so frequently about.

I think it's hard for some people to reconcile that because put aside the fact that, you know, when generals are called back to Washington in this way, and they don't know the reason.

It's usually to be fired and so the just the approach of it sort of creates a little angst within the rank and file.

And on top of that to have them put in this room where you have hundreds of people from all over the world pulled off of key battles and front lines um to, to be in the same room.

It poses a huge security risk.

I think while they're saying this is about sort of um sending a message to the troops, telling them about their way forward.

I think it's reasonable to ask if it's really it really stops there or whether this is part of a broader effort to let them know the sort of expectations of them going forward under this administration.

Is it linked in some way to what's going on with press freedom within the Pentagon, and I think that's an open question, right?

Like we actually don't know what this meeting is about, and kudos to Jimmy Kimmel, right, because in that night that he came back on the air, he pointed out the kinds of press infringement that places like the Pentagon are doing, press corps that Nancy is a part of, that all of us participate in in various ways, and I think that that is the larger question over this week.

You're seeing a crackdown not just on critics of Trump in terms of Comey, you're seeing crackdowns that we've seen in the education space, in the legal space, now trickle to the comedy space.

I actually think that the way Kimmel ended up handling it, I thought his tone was spot on in recognizing the comments that he initially made around Charlie Kirk's assassination that landed him in a controversial place to begin with, but then the way that he was able to leverage this larger message of freedom of speech while also I think making the administration look small for going after him because they can't take a joke.

I think all of that was packed in, but yes, I mean when you look at what's happening with the Pentagon this week, if journalists can't ask questions about it, which is exactly what they're trying to get the Pentagon press corps to sign on and do.

How are you ever to know what these kinds of massive unprecedented meetings are about.

So it's right now hundreds of generals are planning to come to Washington and they don't know if they're coming to a pep rally or the red wedding, and we'll see how many are still generals when they leave that that's another question I want to get to this.

Well, there's so much to talk about.

We can't get to, to everything, but I want you to watch uh President Trump talking about Tylenol this week, as if the week wasn't busy enough.

There was the president as a healthcare provider to America's women.

Listen to this.

Taking Tylenol, is uh not good.

Alright, I'll say it.

It's not good.

For this reason, they are strongly recommending that women limit Tylenol use during pregnancy unless medically necessary.

That's uh, for instance, in cases of extremely high fever that you feel you can't tough it out, you can't do it, I guess there's that.

What's going on here?

I think that there is once again just a striking difference between the way that Trump talked about that, saying Don't take Tylenol.

It's very bad, and he said it because I feel it to be true.

And the reason he says he feels it to be true is because the science behind it is not actually as firm or as hard as he is making it sound.

Even his own FDA, when they put this out, they allowed that there is, and this is a quote that it that it carried significance including a causal relationship has not been established between acetaminophen, which is the central thing in Tylenol when you're talking about that, and pregnant women taking this and it's spurring autism or other things like it.

Even the vice president told women, I would tell them to talk to their doctors.

Every doctor that I've spoken to has said this is not backed in science.

You should just talk to your doctor, Steve, very, very quickly.

Is he doing this he's doing it to please Robert F. Kennedy, or does he believe in himself?

I mean, I don't know, we don't know what he believes, but he's never been shy about embracing conspiracies, right?

Well it's a very busy week.

It's going to be a busy week next week with the looming shutdown, and we'll talk about that next week, but we're going to have to leave it there for now.

I want to thank our guests for joining me and thank you at home for watching us.

You can read more of Nancy's reporting on Secretary Hegseth by visiting theatlantic.com.

And before we sign off, we want to take note of the passing of two people close to the program.

Mary Francesirani, who served for decades as the associate director of Washington Week, and Robert Barnett, the legendary Washington attorney and a good friend of this show, NOWETA.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.

Good night from Washington.

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