Lawrence: Senator says ‘we have a delusional president’ as war continues

0:00That's pure automotive joy. I'm Peter, the owner of Muscle Car Junior. It started as a hobby, then I started posting about it. Before I knew it, I built a business for storing muscle cars on Facebook Marketplace, and the community of car lovers on Instagram. Today, new customers send me what's that message is from all over. Not bad for a hobby. But how meta helps over 35 million American businesses, like Peter's Grow, at meta.com slash community. United Health Group is bringing in-home treatment directly to patients, closing caregabs, identifying risks earlier, and improving patient outcomes. In 2025, patients received over 19 million home visits. Learn more at unitedhealthgroup.com slash commitment. The last word with Lawrence Adonnell starts right now. Hey Lawrence. Hey Jen, we have Senator Mark Kelly and Senator Cory Booker joining us here tonight. And we also have Emily Gregory, who I know you had last night after our big win in Florida.

1:03In that Republican Trump District, so Trump lives in it, we're going to get her thoughts tonight now that she's had 24 hours of the reality of that big win. Because as you've seen today, Democrats are saying, you know, this is the win that really indicates that you could have a huge Democratic result in November. It's 27 flips of state legislative rates seats for Democrats, zero for Republicans. So a big shot in the arm, I think, for a lot of people out there. Yeah, we're going to get right to it. Thanks Jen. Thanks Lawrence. Thank you. Well, great news for Eric Trump today. I mean, great news. There have been a lot of really good days and great days financially for the Trump boys. Including their father, who have all gotten much, much just wildly richer during this term of Donald Trump's presidency. But Donald Trump is living proof that money cannot buy happiness and money cannot buy

2:07honor as every member of the Trump family proves every day. And now Eric Trump is getting a second chance, a second chance at honor thanks to his father and thanks to his father's war in Iran. One of the desperate measures available to the American military when recruitment is not going well is to raise the eligibility age for joining the United States Army. To usually age out of military eligibility when you turn 36. But in desperate times like these, the eligibility age has been raised to 42, which is exactly what Donald Trump has had to do today with his presidency and his war, depressing recruitment in the American military. And with the eligibility today, eligibility age today, now going up to 42, 42 year old

3:12Eric Trump has a chance to completely change the public perception of him pushed by late night comedians. He's the stupid Trump, the unwanted Trump unwanted by his neglectful father. That is the comedic image of Eric Trump, which certainly doesn't mean it's true. And now Eric Trump has a way to prove that that is false. Eric Trump has a way to prove that he is the brave Trump. He can seize that image right now. He is the brave Trump, something we have never seen before, a brave Trump. Building military service in war is a Trump family specialty. The reason the Trumps live in the United States instead of Germany is that the family fled Germany when the family name was still drunk to avoid military service. That's why Donald Trump's grandfather came to the United States to avoid German military

4:15service in 1885. While Trump himself, of course, repeatedly and famously avoided the military draft during the Vietnam War, ultimately getting out of it with a note from his doctor saying that his feet, that he spent the rest of his life playing golf on just could not serve in any capacity in the army, not as a driver, not an office job, just nothing. Mr. Baron Trump celebrated his 20th birthday in lavish style last week as a Trump. He could have marched straight down to a recruiting station and joined the army to fight in his father's war, but he didn't. And so Eric Trump has been left with a wide open opportunity to become the brave Trump, the first and only brave Trump in history.

5:16And so tonight, with the three Trumps available for military service in their father's war, Eric Trump, Tiffany Trump, and Baron Trump. The world waits for the emergence of the first brave Trump. It used to be unthinkable that a president of the United States could lead the country in war while his sons refused to go to war. All four of President Franklin Delarosebelts sons served in the military in World War Two, four of them, and no one considered that heroic. No one considered that brave at the time because it was inconceivable that the president's sons would not serve in the military during World War Two. That would have been a scandal. Just as it is now completely inconceivable that a Trump would ever serve in the military under any circumstances.

6:19Before she became Queen Elizabeth, Princess Elizabeth served in uniform during World War Two while her father was king of England. She drove an ambulance in London when London was being devastated by German bombing raids and no one was surprised that she did that. Does Baron Trump know how to drive? Could he drive an ambulance in the army? Or is he not quite as tough as the 18-year-old Princess Elizabeth was when she joined the war effort? Imagine being more spoiled than an English princess on her way to becoming the Queen Elizabeth Queen of England. That is what it means to be a Trump, more spoiled than the British royal family. There has already been an online movement urging Baron Trump to join the military to fight

7:23his father's war, and now they can include Eric in that campaign. Eric and his older brother, Donald Jr., were of military enlistment age when their hometown was attacked on 9-11, thousands of young American men and women on that day decided to join the United States military, but not the Trumps. As the wars of their era began in Afghanistan, Iraq, Donald Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump followed in the family tradition of silently watching others go off to war. They could have honorably protested those wars as many people did, but they didn't. They did nothing, the most dishonorable choice. Baron Trump and Tiffany Trump and Eric Trump could now honorably protest their father's war and very effectively protest it, or they could join their father's war. But we know enough about Trump's to know that they will do nothing, absolutely nothing,

8:27as the Trumps always do in war. The absurdist White House press secretary today said, quote, if Iran fails to accept the reality of the current moment, if they fail to understand that they have been defeated militarily and will continue to be, President Trump will ensure that they are hit harder than they have ever been hit before. President Trump does not bluff, and he is prepared to unleash hell, unleash Eric, unleash Baron, unleash Tiffany. Of course, Donald Trump does bluff. He bluffs most of the time, and the Iranians appear to know that now, which is why they have rejected Donald Trump's desperate and secret 15 point peace plan that Donald Trump is afraid of making public. The Iranians are now publicly mocking Donald Trump's public desperation in trying to initiate negotiations with them. The price of gas continuing to climb, the chief economist for the oil giant BP said, quote,

9:33we've not seen anything like this. There's been no disruption of this scale in the past. It's every oil analyst's study piece or worst nightmare, one that we never thought would happen. No one for whom Donald Trump is their worst nightmare is surprised that Donald Trump has created the oil industry's worst nightmare in the economy's worst nightmare. After pretending as Donald Trump has done, to be the oil industry's best friend, which he's actually incapable of being, because Donald Trump cannot comprehend the complexities of the oil industry or any other industry. That cannot read. He learned to read. He apparently knows how to read, as we see him struggle with teleprompters from time to time, but he famously hates to read. He doesn't read books, though his first wife claimed that he did keep a copy of Hitler's

10:36speeches on his nightstand. In his first term, as president, it became quickly clear that Donald Trump was incapable of reading the most important document that presidents are given every day. The president's daily brief, which is a secret intelligence assessment of everything that president needs to know that is happening in the world. That brief had to be presented to Donald Trump verbally and as quickly and simply as possible, which meant that it left out more information than other presidents have always received in that brief. And now Donald Trump's war briefings have to be done with video, three current US officials and a former US official, tell NBC News. Each day since the start of the war in Iran, US military officials compiled a video update for president Donald Trump that shows video of the biggest, most successful strikes on Iranian targets. Over the previous 48 hours, the daily montage typically runs for about two minutes, sometimes longer. The official said, one described each daily video as a series of clips of stuff blowing

11:40up. The video briefing is fueling concerns among some of Trump's allies that he may not be receiving or absorbing the complete picture of the war. Now in its fourth week, two of the current officials and former officials said they said the videos are also driving Trump's increasing frustration with news coverage of the war. Trump has pointed to the success depicted in the daily videos to privately question why his administration can't better influence the public narrative, asking ads why the news media doesn't emphasize what he's saying. Donald Trump has been approving the worst information ever released about any war by any American president in the form of idiotic videos created using some of those combat videos that he sees created by incompetent young people working in the Trump White House who are all of eligible age for joining the military, but of course too cowardly to do so.

12:41We have shown you some of those videos on this program that include clips of Hollywood movies and TV shows edited around real video of the impact of missile strikes in Iran, real video of as Trump would put its stuff blowing up. It is war pornography that dishonors the American military who are now in service in that war and around the world. It suggests that Donald Trump is like a meth dealer in breaking bad, like really cool like that. That character appears in one of the videos that historians will be able to use to prove just how utterly insane the Trump White House was. You can't conceive of what I capable of. From the deeply perverse minds of Donald Trump and the people who were working for

14:03him come those utterly insane videos and one of the young clowns working in the White House who is brave enough to create that video, but not brave enough to give his name when talking to political about it said, quote, we're over here just grinding away on banger memes, dude. There's an entertainment factor to what we do. That is what Donald Trump believes that there is an entertainment factor to his war and he doesn't understand why the entertainment factor isn't winning public support with the latest polls showing Donald Trump running the most unpopular American war in history in its first month and the most expensive war in history. Reacting to the news report today of Donald Trump being briefed on the war by watching stuff blowing up videos, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen said this.

15:06We have a delusional president who is getting his information as you say from these short videos and ignoring the other information from U.S. intelligence agencies that for example warned that if you got rid of the top tier of Iranian leadership you're likely to end up with an even more radical group who specifically said that Iran was not about to get a nuclear weapon. We have a delusional president and that is just a fact now. That's an observable fact. Because we have a delusional president that is entirely possible that every single thing he says about his war is a lie. The delusional president has already said that he has won the war and around the officials publicly laugh at him for that. The delusional president said that he could open the straight of her moves as soon as it was shut down and he was lying. We know that now. The delusional president said that American warships would accompany oil tankers through

16:09the straight of her moves and they should do it right away and be brave about it and he was proven to be lying about every word of that. And now the delusional president who started a war desperately wants that war to end and of course the delusional president has no idea how to end his war. Leading off our discussion tonight is former Navy pilot Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. He's a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee. Senator Kelly, what is your assessment of where we are now in the fourth week of this war? Well we haven't made a tremendous amount of progress. In fact we've been set back pretty far here with the closing of the straight of her moves and this president can't seem to find a way out of this and the reason is he went into this with no strategic goal, no plan, no timeline and he's just flailing at this

17:13point. And if it's true that he's watching just this two minute video clip each day, that puts service members at further risk. We need a commander in chief that can process information. Our service members take great risk and for that they deserve to have competent leadership. It's not only the president, secretary of defense and others have no idea what they're doing. You have participated in your time as a military pilot, Navy pilot, in actual combat missions. How do you assess those missions after the fact? What would you want a president to know about those missions and what information would you want a president to get about those missions? And we know Donald Trump is just watching the videos of things blowing up. Yeah, I mean they're racing just to drop as many bombs as they can.

18:14As many targets, whether it's a truck or it's a missile launcher and some of these things are important tactically. What's the strategic importance? And for that you got to have like what is the primary goal? For a while we heard the goal was getting rid of their nuclear capability. We heard regime change. Then it transitioned to ballistic missiles and now it's opening the straight-of-war moves. If that was your goal, well the straight-of-war moves has opened on February 27th before this thing started. So you got to be looking at okay what are we accomplishing each and every day to achieve something? I was in that brief earlier today and they still you know it is a the goal line keeps moving on what this is all about and here's a thing Lawrence, we're about to put possibly six or seven thousand U.S. service members at risk in ground combat and to achieve what? They say it might be to keep the straight-of-war moves open while not even sure that would

19:16work. I mean these targets, the ships, the super tankers are being attacked but they're not necessarily attacked by the shoreline. So how do you even do this? And this has just been at this point in my view has been an absurd fee asco. Is there any way that the American military could open the straight-of-war moves? Well you'd have to you'd have to have the ability to shut down every way that the Iranians can attack a ship and they don't have to attack all the ships right they you know they hit one of them and it catches on fire and the next dozen that are lined up don't want to move across the straight because they know they're at risk. So how do you do that? The Iranians have long-range drones, the Shahed drone that can hit a super tanker.

20:17This isn't what it was like when I was going through there multiple times between 1989 and 1981. This is a new world we're living in and the president and the people around him just doesn't don't seem to get it and getting back to your original question about what should he be looking at. You got to have somebody that can take a look at all of the information. The intelligence that's coming from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA, the National Security Agency, get the assessment of DOD, look at what was accomplished over the last day or the last week and then try to synthesize that into a picture and then have people around him who know what they're doing, who are smart and then he would have to have the ability to listen to them and that's the problem. We have a guy that has a bunch of yes people around him who thinks he's smarter than everybody. Remember in his first term he said he knew more than all the generals because he went

21:20to like military high school. I mean how ridiculous is that? Senator Mark Kelly thank you very much for starting off our coverage today. Thank you for having me on. Thank you. And come ahead we have new information on why Donald Trump was prosecuted for possession of classified documents and why he actually kept those documents after leaving the presidency. Senator Cory Booker will join us next. In 2024 a truck crashed into Cannot and more rescue where I work. 146 of our dogs needed homes fast. We asked for help on Facebook. Our story spread through WhatsApp messages and Instagram reposts, immediately people stepped up and just six hours later every dog was fostered. I'll never forget how our community showed up for us. Learn however 3.5 billion people connect to what matters with meta at meta.com slash community.

22:23Here's a shift worth noting better healthcare is care that meets patients where they are. United health group is bringing it directly to living rooms. This is a win for patients managing chronic conditions and here's the interesting thing by closing those care gaps administering in-home exams and identifying risks earlier. More diseases can be prevented and patient outcomes can improve in 2025 alone United health group patients received over 19 million home visits. Learn more at unitedhealthgroup.com slash commitment. CIDP can make your daily routine feel not so routine. The good news? With a self-injection for chronic inflammatory demyelinating polynoropathy, you have the option to treat at home. Discover more at cidpselfinjection.com and talk to your doctor. That cidpselfinjection.com brought to you by Argenics. New reporting shows former special prosecutor Jack Smith believed that the reason Donald

23:26Trump illegally took classified documents after he left the presidency was to benefit his worldwide business interests. Big surprise. MSNiles, Carol Lennig and Jacqueline LMA, an element report, special counsel Jack Smith gathered evidence that then candidate Donald Trump took many top secret documents that related to his worldwide business interests and investigators considered this a likely motive for Trump concealing them at his Florida club after he left the White House, according to newly released case records. The special prosecutor also had evidence indicating that after leaving office, Trump had shown a classified map to passengers on a private plane, including his future chief of staff Susie Wiles, and took at least one document that was so secret that only six people had authority to review it, according to a memo reviewed by MSNiles. Congressman Jamie Raskin, who has seen some of that memo and that Jack Smith wrote this

24:35letter then to Donald Trump's Attorney General, panel of Bondi, saying, these new disclosures suggest that Donald Trump stole documents so sensitive that only six people in the entire US government had access to them, that the documents President Trump stole pertained to his business interests and that Susie Wiles, then the CEO of Donald Trump's Super PAC witnessed President Trump showing off a classified map to passengers on his private plane. This glimpse into the trove of evidence behind the cover-up reveals a President of the United States who may have sold out our national security to enrich himself. It is now clear that DOJ is in possession of evidence that President Trump has already endangered national security to further the interests of Trump family businesses. It is time for you to stop the cover-up and allow the American people to know what secrets he betrayed and how he may have cashed in on them. Senator Cory Booker asked FBI Director Cassia Patel about Donald Trump's

25:38possession of classified documents at his confirmation hearing. Mr. Patel, did you see the President of the United States declassified the documents that were found at Mar-a-Lago? I witnessed the President of the United States issue a declassification order for documents. That did not answer my question. Did you or did you not see the President of the United States declassified the documents that he was holding the classified documents that were at Mar-a-Lago? I don't know the answer to that question because I don't know what was fully found because the Justice Department hasn't made that public. Jerry Hussin now is Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, his member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee, and he is also now the author of the new book Stand, which is available now. And Senator, I have the book right here with me and I hope we get a minute on this in this discussion. But I want to begin with what you were getting at there

26:45in that confirmation hearing where Cassia Patel had publicly said that he saw this and then it was completely unclear to me what he was trying to say in the confirmation hearing. Well, Cassia Patel was trying to avoid answering questions about those classified documents. He has a lot of knowledge. He was a grand jury witness. He got immunity for his testimony and witnesses and grand juries have no secrecy with holding their ability to say the truth. And he was just trying to avoid the truth because clearly there is much more going on here. What we do know is bad enough. The president of the United States of America left the White House, took classified information, go to the heart of our national security. When he was asked for it back, he denied it. He did not give it back. He lied under the investigation, obstructed the investigation and refused to return it. Now we're learning more that perhaps the purpose of that was to do what he has been doing since he was a real estate man in New York, which is grifting

27:51every chance he got from his real estate shenanigans that were documented by the New York Times all the way to his Trump University, all the way to his charity, which was shut down by New York State for its crimes and its shenanigans. This is a man that every opportunity has. He's built people for money. And this was another example now that where there seems to be a lot more that we don't know that has to do about the documents he kept and how they could help his business interests. And so this new report that we have now is from a memo that apparently the Justice Department handed over to a House committee in a giant trove of documents by mistake. Jamie Raskin got his hands on it and did his interpretation of it. And is this something that if the Democrats were to win the Senate in November that you on the Judiciary Committee then being in the majority

28:52would be able to penetrate with the powers that the majority of that committee would have. Yeah, there's a vastness to things that are not being investigated right now because Congress is just submitting to the president. There's no oversight. There's no accountability. We're providing no checks and balances. Even in this war that we're in right now, we have not had one public hearing to discuss everything from them releasing billions of dollars to Iran or very opponent in this war to even Russia. This is a Congress that is not doing their job. Now Jamie Raskin, I trust if he was in the majority, he's one of those people that would get the truth out there about what Donald Trump knew what he was doing. And again, what I think it would expose, what we already see in plain sight as he's returned to the White House is that he is a grifter. And he is making hundreds of millions of dollars profiting off of this office in a way that we have never before seen in the White House. His crypto scheme alone shows how he does not care

29:55about our national security. Countries with foreign policy interests in the United States are giving him hundreds of millions of dollars for his crypto schemes in order to obtain favor with him and perhaps get better foreign policy consideration. This is a man that is endangering our country. He is self-serving. He's enriching himself. And this is just one chapter in a larger pattern of corruption with this president. Senator, as I was reading your book over the weekend, I was thinking, as you were writing this, you had to know that it was going to land during dark times. It was going to be published during dark times without knowing exactly what the landscape would be. It turns out now that this book, your new book, stand enters while the United States is at war, a war that started by a delusional president who does not know how to get out of that war, hasn't explained why we're in it. And we have plenty of young people in America who've never experienced anything like this, really none of us have. But what are the lessons that you have found

31:01that you've been able to put in this book that can help people find a way through these kinds of dark times? I appreciate the question. I wrote this book because everywhere I went over this last year, people are asking that question, what can I do? How do I fight? There was hurt and fear, but really wanting to know what should we do in this time? I wrote this book, both as inspiration and instruction, telling stories of how people use the best of our virtues, not as niceties, but as strengths and strategies on how to win. And so this is a book if you want to know how to stand up and fight. It actually takes stories from our history. I'm really glad that Doris Kern's Goodwin, John Meacham, Henry Louis Gates historians wrote praise for the book because I wanted to show we have faced these dark times before. And Americans, usually those without office or title were the ones that found a way to fight through and help us to not only overcome, but to win.

32:02Senator Cory Booker, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Senator Booker's new book is stand. It is the perfect graduation present for the upcoming graduation season. And coming up today, four officials from Donald Trump's Homeland Security Department testified to Congress about the partial government shutdown that includes the shutdown of paychecks for TSA, which have created the longest airport security lines in history. Republicans have been given a chance to vote to fully fund TSA 11 times in the United States Senate and they've refused to do it every time Congressman James Walkinshaw joins us next. Instagram Tina Counts default teens into automatic protections for who can contact them and the content they can see. Explore Tina Counts and all of our ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com slash teen accounts. CIDP can make your daily routine feel

33:08not so routine. The good news? With a self-injection for chronic inflammatory demyelinating poly neuropathy, you have the option to treat it home. Discover more at cidpselfinjection.com and talk to your doctor that cidpselfinjection.com brought to you by our genics. If you're a parent and want to help set up your child for success, then ixl is a right for your family. As an effective and affordable online learning program, ixl covers math, language arts, science, and social studies using interactive practice problems for kids from pre-k to 12th grade. Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off ixl membership when they sign up today at ixl.com slash 20. Visit ixl.com slash 20 to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Once again, today Republicans in the Senate blocked a vote on fully

34:09funding TSA. Every day, every single day Senate Democrats tried to vote on fully funding TSA and Republicans in the Senate oppose it every single time. And so it could not be more clear that the reason TSA is not being paid is Republicans and Donald Trump are refusing to pay them. And so Republicans have created the longest TSA lines in history. Today, Senator Patty Murray said for the 11th time, Republicans have blocked Democrats from paying TSA. Republicans have been given 11 chances to send TSA agents their paychecks, but they refuse. And today, the acting TSA administrator said this in a house hearing. This has led to the highest weight times in TSA history with some weight times greater than four and a half hours. We are being forced to consolidate lanes and may have to close smaller airports if we do not have enough officers. It is a fluid,

35:15challenging and unpredictable situation. We understand this is frustrating and disruptive. Many in our workforce have missed bill payments, received eviction notices, had their cars repossessed and utilities shut off, lost their child care, defaulted on loans, damaged their credit line, and drained their retirement savings. Some are sleeping in their cars, selling their blood in plasma, and taking on second jobs to make ends meet, all while being expected to perform at the highest level when in uniform to protect the traveling public. In that hearing, Congressman Luke Korea said this. This is a headline from Monday, New York Times, actually Tuesday. President Trump said on Monday that Republicans should stop negotiating with Democrats to end the partial government shutdown and instead focus on passing his voter legislation. He actually has told Republican senators stop negotiating with Democrats.

36:22We have a disconnect here. Wouldn't you say? Julius Dao is Democratic Congressman James Watkinshop from Virginia. He's a member of the House Homeland Security Committee. Congressman, I have to say, we've had government shutdowns many times over the last 30 years or so. It's a modern phenomenon in our government. And it wasn't always easy to say exactly whose fault it was that the government was still shut down on that day. This is the clearest one I've ever seen. Republicans have had a chance every single day to fully fund TSA. They refuse every single day. Yeah, that's right. You've done a great job of talking through what's happened in the Senate. In the House, we have a discharge petition for our legislation to fund TSA and all of those other DHS agencies with the exception of ICE and CBP and all the Democrats have signed onto that discharge petition. Not one single Republican in the House has signed that discharge petition

37:24to fund TSA, pay our hardworking TSA agents. It is absolutely clear what's taken place here. This is another Trump Republican shutdown. You were in that hearing today. What did you learn in that hearing about the situation? Well, we know that it is a dire situation at TSA, especially. And look, it didn't start with this shutdown. I think this is important to remind folks. The Trump administration has been taking their doge chainsaw to the federal workforce for this entire term, 300,000 job loss at TSA. They were talking about privatizing TSA. Not long ago, Trump administration was stripping those agents of their collective bargaining rights, their union rights that protect their pay and benefits and their safety in the workplace. So this administration and Republicans in Congress have been going after our TSA agents for 15 months. This shutdown is another example of it. This didn't happen for one day during the Biden

38:30presidency, where in matters like this, competence ruled in the White House. You have a White House that whether the president is being accused very credibly of being a delusional president today over his war, obviously delusional about what happens at commercial airports, where he has never had to hold a boarding pass. Yeah, look, if President Trump ever had a fastball, he clearly has lost it. He has bungled this negotiation around DHS. He's obviously bungling the disastrous war that he's gotten us into in Iran. And the American people are paying the price. They're looking at $4, a gallon gas, four hour weight at TSA lines, tariffs driving up prices for the goods that hardworking Americans need. We can't take a lot more. The pocketbooks of the American people can't take too much more Donald Trump's and his delusions.

39:32All right, so James, welcome, Charles. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. Thanks, Lawrence. Coming up, Donald Trump says he cheated when he voted by mail in yesterday's special election in Florida, where Donald Trump's endorsed candidate lost in the Florida district where Donald Trump lives. The candidate who beat Donald Trump and his chosen candidate in that district, Emily Gregory, will join us next. According to Donald Trump, when he votes, he cheats. You know, brought to my attention today that we're the only country that doesn't, that does mail in voting. Mail in voting means mail in cheating. I call it mail in cheating. That's what Donald Trump said on Monday of this week about the way he votes.

40:34And the next day, Tuesday, when Donald Trump's mail in ballot was counted, he lost in a shocking upset victory for our next guest, Democrat Emily Gregory, who was running for Florida State Representative in Donald Trump's district, where Donald Trump voted by mail on March 14. Donald Trump didn't have to vote by mail in his Florida district, where he has been for several days during the early in-person voting period in Florida. And Donald Trump easily could have arranged his schedule to at least begin the day on Tuesday, going from his Florida home to his polling place. But for the past several years, Donald Trump always, always, always votes by mail. And according to him, that means he always cheats. John Maples was the Republican candidate running in what was presumed to be a very safe Trump Republican district, and he was running

41:37almost entirely on his endorsement from Donald Trump. So in a sense, Donald Trump was on the ballot in his home district, and he lost big. The New York Times reports Republicans had been favored in House District 87 in Palm Beach County, which Mr. Trump carried by 11 percentage points in 2024. The previous state representative of Mike Caruso had won by 19 percentage points. Governor Rondescent this last year appointed Mr. Caruso as county clerk, which prompted Tuesday's match-up between Ms. Gregory and John Maples, a financial planner. Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Maples and hosted him at Mar-a-Lago. Ms. Gregory 40 centered her campaign on the Democrats' favorite word in the 2026 cycle of affordability and zeroed in on housing and health care. She also highlighted her background as a mother of three military spouse and small business owner. And now many political analysts are taking Emily Gregory's win to be perhaps the biggest indicator yet of just how big

42:37the Democrats could win in House and Senate elections in November. And joining us now is the winner. Democratic State Representative elect Emily Gregory. She won that special election last night. Thank you very much for joining us here tonight. And I saw you in your first victory moment with Jen Saki last night. What does it feel like 24 hours later? And what lessons are you taking from this election? I can't believe it's only been 24 hours. I feel like I've lived a lifetime since then. It's been so exciting. We believed in this campaign from the beginning, but it was a big uphill climb. It wasn't a small task at all and to have achieved it and to now be representative for District 87 is such an honor. And today I've been doing paperwork to make it official and to go to Tallahassee in a few weeks. So it's a lot, but it's very, very exciting.

43:40So your opponent was running largely on the Trump endorsement. He seemed to think that's all you need. And by the way, most of us would have thought that's all you need. How did you counter the Trump endorsement? Or did you just ignore it? I think it was more of the latter. You know, I really focused on blocking out the noise. There was tons of noise in this campaign. We had to sue Governor DeSantis to get the special election. He left the seat vacant for months after a point in the incumbent Palm Beach County clerk. We knew the legislative session was coming up. So my campaign worked with the ACLU and filed a lawsuit. So from the very beginning, you know, we've been fighting for representation, for democracy, for lowering costs, just for the things that would better all of our lives as as Floridian. So this is just another layer in this in this crazy journey that we've been on. What would you say is the issue that you

44:40focused on that the Republican candidate didn't? The number one issue I heard at the doors and talking to voters was property insurance. And I did not hear my opponent talk about that. I think at the very last couple days, he threw through that out there as potentially an issue. But it is for sure a man-made crisis here on the state. Arvs personally is up over 300 percent. And it's just, you know, out of control. And we need real major reforms to mitigate risk and also to hold insurance companies accountable because people should not be, you know, bearing this cost while corporations profit office. And that's become a big issue in California and other states. It makes perfect sense. And the obliviousness to that issue by Republicans is just astonishing. Thank you very much for joining us tonight, Florida State Representative elect Emily Gregory.

45:44Thank you. Thanks for having me. We'll be right back. The big election winner of the week Emily Gregory gets tonight's last word. Why have we asked our contractor we found on Angie.com to be our kids legal guardian? Because he took such good care when redoing our basement that we knew we could trust him to care for our kids. Ballade of them. Should something happen to us? Are you my dad now? No, sorry, I do basement. Connecting homeowners with skilled pros for over 30 years. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find pros for all your home projects at Angie.com.