Updated
Summary
President Biden announced a $33 billion aid package to Ukraine that he is asking Congress to pass; this is the single biggest immediate military aid package for a foreign country by the United States since World War II. Ten years ago this week, two of Washington`s most thoughtful observers and scholars, Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein, wrote the most important column of the year in “The Washington Post” titled, “Let`s just say it: the Republicans are the problem”. Florida Republicans lack legal authority to repeal Disney special tax status. Today President Biden announced an expedited process for seizing and auctioning off Russian yachts.
Transcript
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Good evening Rachel, this raises an untrusting artistic question, and that is what the discussion is cameras in the courtroom has been going on for a while. They`re in almost all courtrooms in America, and the place where they`re not allowed or in federal courts. And because we don`t allow them in federal courts, we still have some court artists left —
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Uh-huh.
O`DONNELL: — who are doing this work, and my worry about cameras in the federal courts is what happens to that body of art? And I have some wonderful pieces from courtrooms from decades ago that I treasure. I don`t know what the future is if, for that, if we don`t have cameras in federal courts.
MADDOW: I was thinking about that today. As a journalist, I want cameras in the courts, because I want more materials. As a civics dork and citizen I`m not sure that I do.
But you`re right about losing that as a job, a thing that people need to be good at in our country. I remember one of the things we actually prepped when we talked about Art Lean today was during the Trump impeachment, it was Art Lean, the courtroom sketch artist, the train guy who actually caught the fact that Senator Richard Burr wasn`t wearing socks during the impeachment proceedings.
And with every camera with all of the traditional impeachment proceedings, you had to take the courtroom sketch artist to notice something that sort of potent and specific. And factor that into the way he was drawing the proceeding.
How are we going to keep people that good an eye on proceedings like this unless we`re turning them up to be young Art Leans?
O`DONNELL: And, please, no one should misunderstand my position to be no cameras in federal courts so that we can have art for federal courts. It`s just that —
MADDOW: Not a bad argument.
O`DONNELL: Well, it`s not a strong enough argument. It`s just one of those things that I`m very fond of that would disappear, I guess.
MADDOW: So, this is a good subliminal — don`t listen, Lawrence. This is a good subliminal message if you know Lawrence personally, and you`re thinking of what to give for the man who has everything, get him courtroom art that you buy from courtroom sketch artists. He`ll love it.
O`DONNELL: I have enough. Thank you, Rachel.
MADDOW: Thank you, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Thank you very much.
Well, one of our first guest tonight, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, wrote this today, Putin has lost his war in Ukraine, he may still win some battles but he has already lost the war. Ambassador McFaul will explain his optimistic assessment in just a moment.
There was a Russian attack in Kyiv today, during a visit by the United Nations secretary to meet with President Zelenskyy. At this hour last night, I asked Cal Perry in Kyiv if there was generally any increasing conference about safety in Kyiv Cal suggested, there was more confidence but there is also an awareness among everyone, that the situation could change at any moment as it did today.
Two buildings were hit by Russian rockets in Kyiv, killing at least one person and wounding ten others. Some people were trapped under the rubble when those buildings were hit.
Before that attack, in Kyiv today, President Biden had an “I told you so” moment of sorts, about how we got to hear.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Long before Russia launched this futile invasion, I made clear how the United States would respond. Predicted they would invade, and they surely did. We said we would not send U.S. troops to fight Russian troops in Ukraine, but we would provide robust military assistance and try to unify the Western world against Russia`s aggression.
I said I would impose powerful sanctions on Russia, and that we would destroy and develop this myth that somehow they could continue to move without the rest of the world acting. That we would deploy additional forces to defend NATO territory, particularly the east along the Russian and Belarus borders.
[22:05:02]
That`s exactly — that`s exactly what we said we would do, and we did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: President Biden announced a $33 billion aid package to Ukraine that he is asking Congress to pass. This is the single biggest immediate military aid package for a foreign country by the United States since World War II.
Today, in Bucha, a forensics team from France was working to identify 412 victims of Vladimir Putin`s massacre there, so that the bodies can be returned to families.
At the White House, President Biden said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: The world must and will hold Russia accountable. Russia continued assault on — is yielding immense human cost. We`ve seen — we`ve seen them leave behind horrifying evidence of their atrocities and war crimes. And the areas they try to control. As long as the assaults and the atrocities continue, we are going to continue to supply military assistance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: The Kremlin has accused the United States and NATO of being, quote, engaged in a war with Russian through a proxy. And Vladimir Putin warned Western nations of what he called a lightning-fast response for intervention in Ukraine. And here`s how President Biden responded to that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: It shows the desperation that Russia is feeling about their abject failure in being able to do with they sent out to do in the first instance. I think it`s a reflection not of the truth but of their failure.
No one should be making idle comments about the use of nuclear weapons or the possibility of the use of that. It`s irresponsible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: “The New York Times” reports that Vladimir Putin`s forces are making slow and uneven progress in fierce fighting in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, but are still struggling to overcome the same supply line problems that hampered their initial offensive, according to a senior Pentagon official. A senior U.S. diplomat in Europe told the times there is evidence Russian soldiers are using torture, in so-called filtration camps, saying, quote, we`re seeing credible reporting that Russia`s forces are rounding up the local civilian populations, detaining them in these camps, and then brutally interrogating them for any supposed links to the Ukrainian government or to independent media.
Today, Ukrainian officials revealed to the international atomic agency that on April 16th, video surveillance recorded a missile flying directly over a nuclear power plant south of Kyiv.
And leading off our discussion now is, MSNBC correspondent Cal Perry in Kyiv. Also with us, Eric Schmitt, senior writer covering national security for “The New York Times”.
Cal, let me begin with the situation in Kyiv. Last night, we talked about how confident people felt about the safety there. You made the point that it could change at any moment. That moment came today.
CAL PERRY, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and we`ve been hearing from Vladimir Putin, he had been saying that he would lash out and that he would target the capital here the more explosions there were in Russia, it was about 24 hours ago when we had a series of with the Ukrainian government was sort of mockingly calling a mysterious explosion. It makes you wonder if there is not a new front opening to this war, where Ukraine is going to attack with more efficiency across the border into Russia.
This strike last night, the timing of it cannot be ignored, according to the prime minister here, he was sitting down having a discussion with the secretary general of the UN to discuss how to bring an end to the war, when those rockets hit.
Before the secretary general even landed here, there was so much skepticism about his visit, Lawrence, he visited Moscow first. He got alienated a lot of government officials here, and there is growing questions about why there are not calls for a cease-fire, and there haven`t been strong enough calls, it doesn`t appear when you talk to government officials for a cease- fire, until the secretary general landed here today.
So, that was happening before the visit, those rockets that were fired while he is I think are going to make people even more skeptical that the UN has a role to play here, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: And, Cal, as we go forward, are more precautions being taken in Kyiv now?
PERRY: Yeah, they`re definitely hardening locations, people are paying more attention to these air raid sirens. I`m actually hearing an aircraft overhead, and it`s the first time I`ve heard aircraft overhead since we`ve been here.
And, people are paying more attention to it, the buildings are hardened, people are paying attention those air raid sirens, there`s an embargo in place at the Ukrainian government asked us to stand by and we do when a target is hit. This was an essential target, they asked the media not to show that location for three hours. If it`s a military targets for 12 hours. They don`t want the Russians to know what they`re hitting, I think it`s an indication that they do expect future strikes, Lawrence.
[22:10:01]
O`DONNELL: And, Cal, is there a time of day that is considered more vulnerable than other times?
PERRY: It has traditionally been the more early morning hours, just as curfews are about to lift when we`ve seen the majority of the strikes. Last night seems to be an outlier, it was 8:00 p.m. here local time. It`s been about ten days since we`ve seen strikes in and around the capital.
But again, the timing seems clear. And the expectation is that we see it on the heels of those visits by those American officials. When you look at the pattern, they took the train, and just two days later, those train lines are hit. We have the visits today by the secretary general, and again, Moscow knew the travel plans of the secretary general. He was in Moscow 48 hours ago, they knew he would be here today and they fired those rockets as he was leaving with the government officials, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Eric Schmitt, you`ve been reporting on the military aid to the Ukraine, from the United States, and your reporting today very interesting details about not all of that equipment is necessarily American made equipment, especially what they`re calling non standard ammunition. What can you tell us about that?
ERIC SCHMITT, SENIOR WRITER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: That`s right, Lawrence. What`s so must of what we`ve been hearing is coming from American stockpiles where you have a lot of artillery shells, ammunition, things like that that are coming from other countries that are basically tailored to the Ukrainian military. The Ukrainian military as a lot of old Soviet design, Soviet made equipment.
So what the Pentagon is doing is hiring a defense contractors to go out and scour eastern European countries to see what kind of stocks they have, to both supply the Ukrainians with that, which they`re familiar with, but also getting them to start transitioning to the standard ammunition at NATO in the United States uses.
O`DONNELL: And this massive amount of — that president is requesting Congress to authorize and deliver, $33 billion, is Ukraine capable of handling that much this soon?
SCHMITT: Well, that`s a good question. Because right now, they`ve been able to absorb right of it from the United States and from other Western countries. Over the last several years, the Ukrainian military has modernized. They become more efficient, in their own capabilities. They`ve also been able to now absorbed months much of this incoming assistance.
The United States and other Western countries don`t have as much visibility where it`s going inside the United States, but Pentagon officials expressed confidence, getting the units that are needed on the front lines.
O`DONNELL: Eric Schmitt, thank you for your reporting, and Cal Perry, thank you once again for your reporting from Kyiv, and please stay safe there.
And joining us now is former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, he`s an MSNBC international affairs analyst.
Ambassador McFaul, I was very pleased to read your optimistic assessment today about this war. You maintain that Vladimir Putin has already lost this war.
MICHAEL MCFAUL, MSNBC INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes, and I use the word war precisely not battle, Lawrence. I think we need to go back to where we were, talking to you two months ago. Remember, on the eve of this war, Putin said he was going to take all of Ukraine because they`re not a real people, they`re just Russians with accents. He was going to swallow it up whole. He failed in that objective.
Number two, he said he`s going to denazify a country. He was going to kill Zelenskyy or chased him out of the country, put in his own puppet regime. He filled with that objective.
Three, destroy the entirely the increasing in military, he failed with that objective.
Four, he lost the battle of Kyiv, and lost the battle for other major cities so far. He failed with that objective.
So, now, he`s down to the fifth and final objective, which is to their defense of Donbas. If you listen to their language, I listen to Russian news every day, including Mr. Putin, they`ve changed their objectives. Now it`s just the special military operation in defense of Donbas.
So maybe they`ll win the battle of Donbas. I`m not prepared to know that I think it will be a very heated battle, because of what you were just talking about in terms of a new military assistance. But the war, I think, overwhelmingly, the Ukrainians have won.
O`DONNELL: If this becomes a battle for Donbas, doesn`t that basically return us to where we were before the Putin administration invasion? Because there was already this conflict there.
MCFAUL: Exactly. And that`s exactly right. Before February 24th, Crimea was already annexed by Russia, Donbas was effectively controlled by Russia, with one exception, Lawrence, the bridge, the corridor between Crimea and Donbas. That`s where Mariupol is, that`s where Kherson, and the rest of the Donbas regions, right?
[22:15:05]
The two regions, Donetsk and Luhansk, they didn`t control them completely. And now that seems to be would Putin`s new objective is, connect them to Crimea and take both of those oblasts, equivalent of states in America language, that`s where the fighting is happening right now.
O`DONNELL: I don`t think the first time that we talked about this invasion, you could have thought at the time, that Vladimir Putin about two months from now, I`ll be seeing Vladimir Putin lost. What is the biggest surprise to you over the course of this war so far?
MCFAUL: Well, when they`re talking about the war ahead of time, and I talked to the administration frequently, I know all the experts on the Russian military in our country, we added up the dollars that the Russians spent versus the dollars that the Ukrainians spent. We counted the tanks versus Russian tanks and Ukrainian tanks.
But we couldn`t count, Lawrence, is will to fight. And I think that part is the unknown that we didn`t know that is the big thing that was not known, incredible will to fight. That`s why they won the battle of Kyiv.
And number two, what you`re talking about today, $20 billion dollars in new military assistance, 33 billion dollars all told, that was not something that we knew was going to happen when Putin invaded. And that will make a difference in the battle of donbas, there is no doubt about it.
We`re sending in the old Soviet equipment which were just talking about, but we`re also training Ukrainians on new long-range artillery. American, NATO kinds of long range artillery, that is something that I would not have predicted we were going to do two months ago.
O`DONNELL: Ambassador Michael McFaul, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Really appreciate it. Thank you.
And coming up, ten years ago, our next guest co-wrote what was then the most important Washington Post op-ed piece of the year. In which he abandoned his career long nonpartisan neutrality in writing about government and said in the headline of his piece, the Republicans are the problem. And that was back when the Republicans were guilty of nasty name- calling and gridlock.
Now, Republicans are being investigated by the January 6 committee for participating in a conspiracy to illegally overturn the presidential election. The chairman of the January 6 committee says Republican hearings will start to ninth. That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:22:04]
O`DONNELL: Ten years ago this week, two of Washington`s most thoughtful observers and scholars, Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein, wrote the most important column of the year in “The Washington Post” titled, “Let`s just say it: the Republicans are the problem”.
They wrote, we have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the publican party. When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country`s challenges.
That was ten years ago, when the dysfunctional problems were a new level of nasty name calling, and gridlock. Ten years later, investigation is telling us that in eight separate incidents and five different states, supporters of Donald Trump have attended to gain unauthorized access to voting machines. “Reuters” reports that all involved — our party activists who have advanced stolen election falsehoods.
And ten years after Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein identified Republicans as the problem, congressional Republicans are being investigated for their involvement in an illegal attempt to overthrow presidential election. In preparation for public hearings which are now scheduled to begin June 9th, the chairman of the January 6 committee Bennie Thompson said today, that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy will be asked once again to testify to the committee.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: And then you said by the end of the week, you would decide whether to ask additional Republican members to come in. McCarthy was going to be asked. Can you give us an update on that?
REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MS): Yeah, we will do that. Before the weeks out.
REPORTER: For McCarthy?
THOMPSON: And the others, too.
REPORTER: And the others, too?
THOMPSON: Yes.
REPORTER: So you`re going to ask all three once again voluntarily, to appear for the committee?
THOMPSON: That`s correct.
REPORTER: Any other members will be asking to come before the committee or do you think the panel is done in terms of considerations about the members?
THOMPSON: Well, some of the other members will be sent letters. And we plan to provide the press copies of the letter.
REPORTER: Folks we don`t already know about?
THOMPSON: That`s correct.
REPORTER: Any senators.
THOMPSON: Yes.
REPORTER: Would I be wrong to say Senator Cruz, Senator Lee?
THOMPSON: Standby.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: According to “Axios”, the January 6th Select Committee has reportedly deposed almost 900 people and collected over 102,000 documents. Chairman Thompson said today that the goal of the hearings is to use the information they have obtained to tell the full and complete story of the January 6th insurrection.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
THOMPSON: Well, we`ll tell the story about what happened.
[22:25:05]
We will use a combination of witnesses, exhibits, things that we have through the tens of thousands of exhibits that we`ve interviewed and looked at, as well as the, you know, hundreds of witnesses we`ve to pose or just talk to in general. So, it will give the public the benefit of one more than a year`s worth of investigation has gone to the committee.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Joining us now, congressional historian Norm Ornstein, he`s in the emeritus scholar of the American Enterprise Institute. Also with us, Tim O`Brien, senior columnist for Bloomberg and author of “Trump Nation”. He is an MSNBC political analyst.
And, Norm, I will never forget that column ten years ago. I was really quite shocked to see you coming out and saying Republicans are the problem. I had felt that but of course I had worked on the Democratic side of the Senate. But you were the first two bring it into the view that we can now see so much more clearly, that these parties are not in any way mirrors of each other with simple policy differences.
NORM ORNSTEIN, CONGRESSIONAL HISTORIAN: You know, Tom and I had worked with Republicans over many years. A whole host of things and we thought long and hard before doing this article and doing the book. But it became clear that it was important and necessary to do so. If we didn`t start, and if others and start calling out what the reality was, with a press corps that was then and still now is frankly unwilling to look at it that way. There you are still both sides-ing way too much. Then we are going to end up in deep trouble.
But, frankly, Lawrence, I didn`t think would be the steep, even though I was in pretty dire at the time.
O`DONNELL: No, no one could`ve anticipated that we`d be here ten years later talking about the Republicans plotting to illegally overthrow presidential election.
And, Tim O`Brien, we`re going to see that investigation on January six committee go into primetime, going to television starting June 9th. In the meantime, they`re going to see what they can do about getting any more Cooperation. But they obviously believe that at this point they have what they need to go forward.
TIM O`BRIEN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: And I hope that they have a sophisticated approach to how this plays out on television. And that they really focus on the narrative that American voters need to hear.
I think they`ve done a lot of hard work, they`ve done it in the face of enormous opposition. But at the end of the day, what are the consequences of these hearings going to be? Because as Norm has flagged so often in his work, as your flooding tonight, Lawrence, the GOP has ceased, if we`re defining a party as a set of shared values made real in policy positions, that is now with the Republican Party is right now.
They are a collection of often in worse form fanatics, where appealing to voters worse instincts to coerce them or convince them into doing things they shouldn`t do. And again, January 6th made that real. It was a coup made real. And there should be consequences for that and I`m not convinced yet that there are going to be consequences for that.
But I do hope that these hearings spell out for average Americans just how dire the political situation is right now.
O`DONNELL: So, Norm, today which is ten years and a day after your article appeared. The new owner of Twitter issued a tweet in which he claimed that the Republican Party and Republicanism has not changed a bit. And that he himself has not changed a bit at all over the period of time and the only thing that isn`t into the political spectrum is that the left has gone farther left.
What does the new owner of Twitter missing?
ORNSTEIN: Missing reality, which would smack him right in the face. And I actually responded to that tweet with a link to my book, that article and another one that got into it a little more detail about the asymmetric nature of this polarization.
[22:29:44]
You know, two things about all of this have stunned me, Lawrence. One is the complete lack of moral character, courage or backbone from Republican officeholders in the face of what Tim and you and have just said.
A violent insurrection against everything about our constitution and our democracy. Attempts to overthrow an election and we`ve gotten almost nothing from it.
The fact that you had a president who try to hold up and blackmail Zelenskyy in a fashion that could`ve meant that what`s happening now would`ve been a hundred times worse and they refused to do anything about it. All of that.
But then the second thing, which gets to what Tim was saying as well is that we have such a large swath of the public, not just Elon Musk but a whole lot of voters, who don`t understand the gravity of the threat that we face. We don`t have two political parties, we have a party and a cult that is willing to throw away the norms in the laws to accomplish its ends and its ends as Tim said, are not to do good public policy to help the country. It`s just to get power.
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Let`s listen to what Republican Adam Kinzinger says about how Republicans have changed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): Well I think it goes to show how lost the Republican Party really is right now. I mean, you know, on the one hand he`s probably more concerned about the far-right being upset that, you know, in essence the week after January six, he was concerned.
I mean we have tried to reinvent history here. We have tried to reinvent the truth. The day after January 6, everybody was — at least most people were quiet. They were trying to figure out where this was going. They were concerned and that`s all changed.
And again, it goes to show not just what time does but what power does. Power is an attractive thing. And unfortunately, that`s where we`re at.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: And Tim O`Brien, Donald Trump still seems to be the center of Republican power. If you want power, you have to be on Donald Trump`s good side.
TIM O`BRIEN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Because Donald Trump has shown Republicans that you can act in the most heinous of ways and as long as you weaponize certain issues that appeal to the pitchfork and torch bearing part of your party, you can get elected.
Donald Trump showed that there was no — there was no cost to be paid for wearing racism on your sleeve or subverting democracy, for weaponizing issues around immigration.
As long as you can appeal to voters` emotions who would come back time and time again, you could do almost anything you want. And so there was a — about a five minute period after January 6th when a collection of leading Republicans said this was wrong, we don`t stand by this, something has to happen here.
And that quickly dissolved. And what`s happened since then now is there is a doubling down on this not only at the policy level and not only at the political level. But at the sort of word (ph) politics, you know, local level where you have people trying to rig votes. And you have people examining how they can rig votes.
We saw that in Arizona. Reuters listed a whole set of swing states where it`s happening right now. It`s no coincidence that is happening in swing states. And I think Republicans, anytime there`s a little bit of division among them about how to respond to Donald Trump it quickly gets tamped down. And what you end up with is all of them marching in lock step in order to acquire power at any cost. And it`s a dangerous place to be.
O`DONNELL: And Norm, we remember a period that doesn`t seem long ago, certainly definitely 20 years ago and possibly ten years ago where virtually every Republican in congress would have seen the attack on the capitol the same way the Democrats to.
ORNSTEIN: Absolutely true. And you know, it was so stunning to imagine that their lives were threatened on that day, those members of Congress. They knew it, many of them expressed it at the time.
That same day after they cleaned up the capitol enough to come back, two- thirds of House Republicans still voted that the election had been stolen and that Joe Biden was not a legitimate president.
It`s just a very, very different world we live in now. And it is an existential threat to our system.
O`DONNELL: Norm Ornstein and Tim O`Brien, thank you both very much for joining our discussion tonight.
ORNSTEIN: Thank you, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: And coming up, I have to make a correction to our reporting on Monday night when we said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had signed a $163 million property tax increase for the counties surrounding Disney World when he signed into law the repeal of Disney`s special tax status in Florida.
[22:34:58]
O`DONNELL: I was wrong. I was way off. It was a billion dollars more than that. If the law to punish Disney goes into effect as scheduled in 2023, Disney will actually be relieved of $163 million in taxes and $1 billion in debt all of which would be shifted to county property tax payers in Florida.
Ron DeSantis is $1 billion stupider than we thought he was. That`s next.
[22:35:28]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: I would like to, as they say in the Senate, revise and extend my remarks. On Monday, I asked you to consider how stupid the new Florida law is that repeals Disney`s special tax status in the state. I would now like to revise and extend those remarks to make the point that it is much, much stupider than I thought.
By Monday, we realized that the repeal of Disney`s special tax and operating status in Florida meant that the tax bill for public services provided in and around Disney properties was going to fall on the two counties in Florida that surround Disney World. That meant that $163 million burden was suddenly going to be shifted from Disney and land on two neighboring counties where the tax collector in one county estimated that property taxes would have to be raised by 25 percent.
It is becoming clear tonight that that will probably never happen because the new profoundly stupid law will never go into effect, because pre- existing Florida law makes it impossible for Florida to repeal Disney`s special status until all of the bond debt of Disney`s Reedy Creek Improvement District has been paid off. And the earliest that could possibly happen is 2029.
The vindictive law, passed by the Republican Florida legislature and signed by Florida`s Republican governor who wants to be president, was passed for no reason other than the publicly admitted fact that the governor does not believe that anyone working at Disney should be allowed to publicly object to anything the Florida government does, including the new law championed by the governor, which prohibits any discussion of human sexuality by public school teachers through grade three.
The repeal of the existence of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which is the entity that Disney runs in order to administer its properties in Florida, will not take place for another year. That`s the way the law is written. It doesn`t take effect for another year.
In that year, Florida`s governor is now hoping that everyone forgets about this profoundly stupid law because the Florida legislature will surely at some point be forced to quietly repeal it if that can be done quietly.
And that`s not just because of it would dramatically increase property taxes around Disney World, it is because the law illegally violates a contractual promises made by the state of Florida in establishing the Reedy Creek Improvement District in 1967 when Disney began building Disney World.
In authorizing Reedy Creek to issue bonds in 1967 the Florida law says, the state of Florida pledges to the holders of any bonds issued by the district that it will not limit or alter the rights of the district until all such bonds, together with interest there on, are fully met and discharged.
Reedy Creek currently has $1 billion in bond debt. That $1 billion in bond debt would also become the burden of the neighboring counties, if the anti- Disney law went into effect.
But the law is unconstitutional both in the state of Florida and in the United States. Florida`s constitution and the United States constitution do not allow governments to enter into contracts that they then simply revoke by passing a new law.
Florida attorney Jacob Schumer writes, “Florida simply cannot promise to prospective bond holders that it won`t interfere with REEDY CREEK, and then dissolve Reedy Creek. So, dissolving Reedy Creek is not just a $163 million tax problem for the neighboring counties, it is also a $1 billion bond debt problem for the neighboring counties.
[22 And the man who signed his name to this symbolic and vindictive law repealing the existence of Reedy Creek did not know that when he signed it. He signed, in effect, the biggest tax increase ever visited upon any state without knowing that that`s what he was doing. Governing does not get stupider than that.
[22:44:47]
O`DONNELL: And everyone working for Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and every Republican working in the state legislature who supported this bill and their staffs, are all $1 billion stupider than I thought they were when this week began.
Jeff Brandes is a Republican state senator from St. Petersburg who opposed this legislative attack on Disney. He said, “This was shock and awe from the governor. Now, it`s time for the governor to be shocked and awed by his $1,163,000,000 tax increase on Florida taxpayers. He will always have it on his record that he wrote such a profoundly stupid tax law, signed it into law.
But the buffoons in the Florida legislature will, at some point next year, have to repeal it. The rank stupidity of it all, by all of them, should never be forgotten.
Coming up, today President Biden announced an expedited process for seizing and auctioning off Russian yachts. This $90 million yacht could be the first one sold.
A former federal prosecutor whose team actually hunted down and seized billionaire yachts for the United States will join us.
[22:46:15]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We`re going to seize their yachts, their luxury homes and other ill-begotten gains. This legislative package strengthens our law enforcement capabilities to seize property linked to Russia`s kleptocracy.
It`s going to create new expedite procedures for forfeiture and seizure of these properties. And it`s going to ensure that when the oligarch`s assets are sold off the funds can be used directly to remedy the harm Russia caused and the help — and help build Ukraine.
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O`DONNELL: That was President Biden with his announcement today about the new procedures for seizing and selling the assets of Russian billionaires.
This could be the first seized Russian super yacht sold by the United States of America, with the proceeds of the sale going to Ukraine. The 254- foot super yacht named Tango is owned by sanctioned Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg and was seized in Spain at the request of the American government in the first week of April.
Today, President Biden announced new legislation that would streamline the seizure and liquidation process for Russian billionaires` assets. The legislation would make it a new crime quote, “to knowingly or intentionally possess proceeds directly obtained from corrupt dealings with the Russian government”.
The proposal would quote, “improve the United States ability to use forfeited oligarchs` funds to remediate harms caused to Ukraine by Russian aggression.
The proposal would also double the statute of limitations from five years to ten years in money laundering prosecutions.
Joining us now is Steven Welk, former federal prosecutor and chief of asset forfeiture for the Central District of California. Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
When we look at that $90 million Russian yacht that could be the first one on the block for the United States. How does that work? Assuming they get to the point where the United States has established to its satisfaction that it has the authority to sell that thing. How do they auction it off?
STEVEN WELK, CHIEF OF ASSET FORFEITURE, CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA: The way they auction off an asset that`s with this kind of value is this pretty much the same way that a commercial seller would sell the yacht. They`ll hire a broker. They`ll advertise it. They`ll put it on the market.
And so it will be sold along those lines and it will generally be sold for about what it`s worth. The question is what it`s going to be worth by the time they get around to that, not only because it`s going to probably be a couple of years or so before they do it. But also because there are so many of these yachts being seized right now that they may, the western nations (INAUDIBLE) they`re flooding the market with super yachts which is really going to limit the prices that they are going to gain when they`re sold.
O`DONNELL: Yes. You can see that but it`s also not a concern of the United States. I mean they`ll be happy if they take $10 million for that thing even though it was a $99 — right. I mean the government doesn`t really care how much they get from it.
WELK: Well, you know, that`s one of the interesting things about the announcement that the president made today because the point of the announcement was not just that he wants to make it easier for the government to forfeit these things. But he wants to take that money and pay it to help Ukraine recover from what has happened during the Russian invasion.
And so, that puts a real emphasis on how much money we`re going to get for these things when they`re sold. The real problem is, it`s a lot more difficult to forfeit these super yachts under the circumstance that we`ve got here than some of the people in the government would suggest.
And that`s because in order to, now they`ve seized it which means they`ve established to a judge`s satisfaction that there`s probable cause to believe the ship is subject to forfeiture.
But in order to forfeit it, they`re going to have to file a civil complaint against that yacht in a U.S. court in Washington D.C.
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WELK: And they`re going to send out a notice and anyone who claims to be the owner of that yacht, which will not be Mr. Vekselberg, it`ll be the company that holds the yacht. They will have to come, appear in that court and defend against the forfeiture.
And that`s going to be like a regular civil case. It can take two or three years or more to do that. In one MDB case when we went after a $250 million yacht, we never even went to trial. And it took three years for that matter to be resolved. So it`s a very time consuming process.
O`DONNELL: And no one gets to use the yacht in the meantime.
Steven Welk, thank you very much for joining us tonight, really appreciate it
WELK: Thank you Lawrence for having me.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
And we`ll be right back.
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O`DONNELL: That is tonight`s LAST WORD.
“THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE” starts now.