MS NOW’s Jen Psaki accused Katie Zacharia of playing the “blame game” after her brief stint as White House press secretary ended earlier this month. Psaki, who held the same post under President Joe Biden, said Zacharia’s media tour showed a “real lack of self-awareness.”

Following her exit from the White House after just five days on the job, the now-former Trump official hit the interview circuit, sitting down with Newsmax and far-right influencer Jack Posobiec.

Psaki gave Zacharia “props to her for holding her head high,” but said her choice of interviewers suggested she wasn’t ready to face tough questions. “I’m not going to call them hard-hitting journalists, because they’re not,” she said.

In those interviews, Zacharia explained why she believed her time in the Trump administration was cut short, blaming “fake news and the mainstream media.” She said “the press” wanted her “to be completely distracted” and make it “very difficult” for her to do the job she set out to do, “which is to amplify the wins and historic record-setting precedent that President Trump has set.”

Psaki said Zacharia’s comments reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of the press secretary’s role.

“She seemed to think the job was standing at the podium and just spitting out talking points about what the White House had done, and certainly, part of it is selling the accomplishments or the work of the White House,” she explained. “But a big, big, big part of it is being a person who’s answering tough questions from the press and addressing questions they have about any range of issues happening in the country or around the world.”

“I’m pretty sure that asking questions — and she only got one substantive question in her short tenure as press secretary — is not a distraction,” the host of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki” said. “That’s exactly what should be happening.”

She also responded to an anecdote Zacharia shared about her son. According to the former Trump official, he told her that despite her firing, he was still “so proud” of her, “because not only did you get a job that no other mom could get in this country, but you were able to withstand a lot of hate.”

Psaki called the story “cute” but took issue with the suggestion that the job was one “no other mom in the country could get.”

“No other mom except for Karoline Leavitt, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Karine Jean Pierre and me, of course,” she said. “I was a mom. My kids were 2 and 5 when I became the White House press secretary. They all had kids also when they became the White House press secretary — and served, many of them for extended periods of time.”

“Lots of moms do this job and do it quite well,” Psaki added.

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You can watch Psaki’s full commentary in the clip above.

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Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, urged every American to read what he called an “extraordinary” new report on Donald Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Raskin told MS NOW’s Nicolle Wallace that he and his fellow Democrats were demanding an independent special counsel to investigate the pair’s decadeslong relationship.

The 50-page report, released Monday by House Judiciary Committee Democrats, drew on interviews with the committee, survivor accounts, FBI records and documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Democrats allege in the report that a “growing body of evidence demonstrates that Donald Trump was an active participant in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of young women,” and they accuse the Justice Department and the FBI of “doing everything they can to keep the American people in the dark about it.”

In response to the report, a White House spokesperson said, “None of these allegations are true,” and said Trump had been “fully exonerated of anything related to Epstein.” And in a statement to MS NOW, a DOJ spokesperson called the report “nothing more than a last-ditch effort by House Judiciary Democrats to mislead the public.”

Trump and Epstein’s relationship, spanning from the 1980s to the early 2000s, is well-documented. Trump has said their friendship ended around 2004 and that he knew nothing about Epstein’s crimes. He has denied that he engaged in any sexual misconduct with any woman connected to Epstein.

Raskin said the Justice Department’s refusal to thoroughly investigate Epstein’s “enablers” and possible co-conspirators “forced Democrats’” hand. “The idea that you run a billion-dollar global human trafficking ring, and only two people are guilty of crimes, and one of them happens to be deceased,” was hard to believe, he said.

The Maryland Democrat also accused the Justice Department and Attorney General Todd Blanche of failing to cooperate with other investigations into Epstein and his associates. “With foreign governments that are asking for information from the DOJ, Todd Blanche is not helping,” Raskin said. “Same with states that are engaged in doing state-level investigations and prosecutions related to potential crimes that were committed in their states.”

“We’re demanding an independent special counsel to take this over from the Department of Justice, with the hopes that the truth will come out and justice will be done for hundreds and hundreds of victims,” Raskin said.

He urged viewers to “read the report,” saying, “The detail is extraordinary. But we’re not even trying to make the case here. We’re not prosecutors. But we’re saying the Department of Justice has completely abdicated their responsibility.”

“And why?” Raskin asked. “We cannot understand any reason other than they’re trying to protect Donald Trump.”

You can watch Raskin’s full interview in the clip at the top of the page.

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The parents of Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse fatally shot by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis in January, accused the Trump administration of withholding information about the investigation into their son’s killing. On Wednesday’s “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough slammed the government’s inaction and said America “is not going to forget” Pretti.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Michael and Susan Pretti said that in the nine months since their son’s death, neither the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota nor the Justice Department had provided their family with the “basic information the law affords,” including the identities of the officers involved.

Alex Pretti, 37, was filming federal agents during an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis when he intervened after an officer pushed a woman to the ground. Video of the encounter shows agents tackling him, removing his gun and shooting him multiple times. In the aftermath of the shooting, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti posed a threat to federal agents and accused him of domestic terrorism.

The shooting prompted federal and state investigations. However, state and local officials have said federal authorities stopped sharing evidence after initially turning some over. Hennepin County has sued the federal government for access to evidence.

In a statement, the Justice Department said investigators were following “standard practice,” adding: “Communications with family members, if any, come at a later stage of a case, such as indictment, initial appearance, plea, trial, or sentencing. Those communications do not typically occur during an investigation.”

But Scarborough wasn’t buying it. He accused the federal government of stonewalling and said officials should “stop trying to subvert justice and stop trying to protect the killer.”

“Everybody should know the killer’s name in America,” he continued. “The person who killed Alex Pretti, execution style, everybody should know his name, and everybody should know all the evidence.”

Scarborough said that despite its best efforts, the Justice Department would not be able to “wipe it all away” and “make everybody forget this.”

“The parents aren’t going to forget it,” he said, “and America is not going to forget it either.”

The MS NOW host compared the situation to the 1988 film “Mississippi Burning,” which is loosely based on the abduction and murder of three civil rights workers during Freedom Summer in 1964. “Except we are substituting bigoted Mississippi sheriffs who are trying to cover up evidence of slain civil rights workers” with “DOJ officials,” he said.

“Now it’s the Trump administration that’s literally trying to sweep a killer — a killer’s execution-style killing in the streets of America — under the carpet,” Scarborough continued. “It’s not going to happen.”

You can watch Scarborough’s full commentary in the clip at the top of the page.

The post ‘Stop trying to protect the killer’: Scarborough blasts DOJ’s handling of Pretti case appeared first on MS NOW.

Ohio Democratic gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton hit back at Republican Vivek Ramaswamy over his controversial ad featuring her estranged mother, telling MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” there is “no low” her opponent won’t “sink to.” With Election Day just over a week away, Acton framed the race as a choice about the kind of politics that Ohio — and the country — are willing to accept.

“Decency is on the ballot,” she said.

The 60-second ad, which ignited a firestorm and garnered national backlash when it was released last week, features Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, accusing her daughter of lying about her childhood, including her account of growing up in poverty and living in a tent. Ramaswamy’s campaign has defended the ad as evidence that Acton has misrepresented her past.

However, Acton has said she has not spoken to her mother in nearly five decades. She and her brother were removed from Arthur’s custody in 1978 after their stepfather was arrested and indicted for raping Acton when she was 12 years old.

“It isn’t an easy story,” Acton told “Morning Joe” on Monday. “It’s a sad story. It is my story.”

Acton called the ad part of an “era of cruelty and distraction” in politics. She said people are tired of the hostility and want leaders focused on solving problems and noted that all five living Ohio governors, three Republicans and two Democrats, have publicly condemned the ad.

“Everyone is exhausted of living this way,” she said. “They’re tired of the hate and the chaos and vitriol. They want public servants again who actually solve problems instead of making them. And kindness is not weakness.”

Acton said the country needs “good public servants on both sides of the aisle, back in office again, who want to do the hard work of making life better.”

The physician, who served as Ohio’s top public health official, told MS NOW that her difficult childhood shaped her commitment to improving people’s lives and made her a “fighter for the things that we all hold dear.”

“I know what it feels like to be left behind,” she said. “I know what it feels like to be hungry, or not have the heat on, or be just struggling.”

Acton said voters have shared their own experiences with her on the campaign trail.

“I’ve been on the road now, and people are hearing my story; I’m not ever the only one who’s been through a thing or two in their childhood,” she said. “Half our kids are living in poverty in my state, up to 70% in some pockets. While these folks are capitalizing and enriching things for themselves, the people of my state are going backwards on every single measure, and that’s why I’m here.”

The Democrat said the ad reinforced her view that “there’s no low my opponent won’t sink to,” and she accused Ramaswamy of being “just out for himself.”

With Election Day approaching, Acton said “decency is on the ballot” and urged Ohioans to “help us push back on this” and bring more humanity back to politics.

“Let’s not give into this and let’s not give up on one another,” she said. “I see a new day dawning right now.”

You can watch Acton’s full interview in the clip at the top of the page.

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MS NOW’s Michael Steele slammed Donald Trump’s “11th-hour move” ahead of the midterm election, as the Department of Justice sued Alaska, seeking to delay certification of the state’s Senate election in the event the Republican incumbent loses.

On Thursday, the department asked a federal court to block certification of the results if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses by fewer votes than another candidate, Daniel J. Sullivan, receives. Alaska courts have allowed the other Sullivan to remain on the ballot. The Justice Department is arguing that voters could confuse the two candidates, and that such confusion could potentially affect the outcome of what is expected to be a close race against Democratic nominee Mary Peltola.

“Every step this administration is taking, all the lies that they have told the American people about their sense of making sure elections are fair and free, have just all led to this,” Steele said Friday, shortly after the lawsuit became public.

“The Weeknight” co-host called Attorney General Todd Blanche “the worst of the worst” and said the Justice Department was doing the president’s bidding. Steele argued that the Constitution leaves election administration to the states and that “the federal government and the Department of Justice have absolutely zero role here.”

Trump has previously criticized Alaska’s “crazy voting system.” The state uses a ranked-choice system, in which voters list their candidates in order of preference. If no one wins a majority of first-choice votes, the last-place candidate is eliminated and those votes go to voters’ next choices until one candidate wins.

Steele said the lawsuit shows that Republicans are “afraid” because they have “done jack to give the voters a reason to vote for them.”

“So now, in the 11th hour, they’re going to go and try to manipulate an outcome that’s already foretold by the voters who started early voting, who are already in the game,” he added.

Steele predicted that voters would see through Republican efforts and that the party would get “their you-know-what’s handed to them” on Election Day.

“They have sown and built mistrust in the system that’s coming back to bite them, because we do not trust them. We do not trust their word. We know you’re lying to us,” he said. “And now you’re going to have to reap what you sowed.”

You can watch Steele’s comments in the clip at the top of the page.

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MS NOW’s Joe Scarborough called it a “devastating week” for Republicans, whom he said keep dealing themselves “one self-inflicted wound after another” by embracing the “personality cult” around President Donald Trump despite his sinking poll numbers.

On Thursday evening in Sioux City, Iowa, Republican congressional candidate Joe Mitchell presented Trump with a self-created “Man of the Century Award.” Mitchell, who is locked in a tight race for Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, told the crowd that Trump had done “more for humanity and for America than any other president ever.”

“They’ve never given you the Nobel Peace Prize, by the way, which is a disgrace. So what I came up with, Mr. President, is a new award. It’s called the Man of the Century award,” Mitchell said before handing Trump a gold-framed certificate.

On Friday’s “Morning Joe,” Scarborough questioned why a Republican who is facing a competitive election would tie himself to a president as voters struggle with the cost of living.

“Gas prices, just at a level now that most Americans can’t afford to pay,” he said. “Diesel prices over $6: it’s just absolutely crushing truck drivers, crushing farmers, crushing working Americans, crushing all Americans. Rent, too high — Americans can’t afford it. Interest rates continue to skyrocket. Economic indicators, all being radically adjusted downward. Groceries costing more than ever before.”

Scarborough said the “personality cult” around Trump has “evolved to such a point” that, even with the party’s future at stake, many Republicans are “still trying to kiss up to a guy with a 31% approval rating.”

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Instead of addressing voters’ concerns, Republicans are catering to the president’s ego, Scarborough said. He pointed to Americans “who can’t afford their groceries, who can’t afford gas to fill up their their gas tanks to get to work” and “who are getting crushed by tariffs, who are getting crushed by cuts in health care.”

“I say none of this with any glee,” he continued, warning that Republicans’ loyalty to Trump is producing “one self-inflicted wound after another” as voters struggle with prices, healthcare and the economy.

You can watch Scarborough’s full comments in the clip above.

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