All in With Chris Hayes 7/21/26 | 🅼🆂🅽️🅲 Breaking News Today July 21, 2026

[00:00:00]on all in.

[00:00:01]>> Mr. President, there are no signs that Iran is ready to stop fighting. So, so what is the plan? Is the plan to just keep bombing until they give up?

[00:00:08]>> There are no signs. What? What? You know something that I don't know?

[00:00:12]>> Donald Trump wants more money for his war of choice.

[00:00:17]>> I think your characterization of this incredible effort as a failure is reckless.

[00:00:21]>> You, sir, are the failure, not the men and women who are on that front line.

[00:00:26]Tonight, Senator Chris Van Holland on the contentious HEGTH hearing and the brutal political backlash that just keeps growing.

[00:00:34]>> He promised to keep us out of of endless wars or unsatisfactory wars. Uh, and now he's in one and it's not at all clear how it's going to end.

[00:00:45]Plus, the new playing field for Democrats in Maine take shape. And the nexus of Donald Trump and the Tape brothers amid new reporting on their latest arrest in Miami. We are of course objecting to extradition because Andrew and Tristan are innocent >> and allin starts right now.

[00:01:09]>> Good evening from New York. I'm Chris Hayes. Donald Trump's war with Iran has been disastrous from the beginning, misbegotten, illconceived, and is now reaching a new, much more dangerous face. And today we learn something truly shocking. Something you almost never hear, and it's this. The Pentagon is running out of money. Yes, the best funded military in the history of human civilization is almost broke. Remember, Congress funds the Department of Defense at increasingly higher levels every year, reaching nearly a trillion dollars, $884 billion just last year, and the Trump administration wants way more. It is the agency with the largest discretionary spending by far. Nothing in the government really comes close.

[00:01:49]Think of it this way. The US military running out of money is as improbable as say losing money when you run a casino just shouldn't be possible. But somehow the guy who failed at running a casino, Donald Trump and the strategic geniuses he's chosen to lead our national defense have brought us to this point. And things are looking pretty dire right now. our strategic petroleum reserves, basically our emergency stockpiles of crude oil, are at the lowest level since 1983, which is saying something because remember the uh Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 uh we had to use the SPR, but it's even lower than that down to 1983. And that's in part because the Trump administration began releasing reserves in an attempt to blunt the cost spike brought about by the war's supply disruptions. Also, our stockpile of missile interceptors, those are the ones that go up to stop incoming missiles directed at American or Israeli targets, are so low they cannot stop incoming Iranian ballistic missiles that are, as we've seen over the past 3 or 4 days, killing and injuring American troops.

[00:02:52]According to Alazer, the US held about 2,300 Patriot missile interceptors in stock before the war, but as many as 1,400 have been used.

[00:03:02]That's on a war we didn't need to start.

[00:03:04]It's about half the entire stockpile.

[00:03:07]And that's just one type of missile.

[00:03:08]Stockpers are low all around. Quote, "Replenishing high capability and costly weapons like the ones the US has used in Iran will likely take several years. So, we are running very low on petroleum reserves. We are running low on interceptors. Again, those are pretty important for defending uh the positions of American service members serving in bases and the like. And on top of that, the Department of Defense is running out of money. Washington Post reporting. To bridge the gap until the 2027 fiscal year begins on October 1st, the Pentagon is already moving money around. Military exercises and trainings that help keep units prepared for combat are being limited or cancelled, according to current and former officials. And the budget for equipment and facility and maintenance is also being drained to cover the shortfalls. Now, this is happening as Trump has over the last week or so restarted the war and things continue to escalate. On Saturday, Iranian state media reported the US at critical infrastructure, including an electricity and water desalination plant and tunnels and bridges that impacts the water supply for about 10,000 people.

[00:04:14]Kuwait says Iran also struck its power and water desalinization plant, leading their energy ministry to urge people to ration power during peak hours. Today, Iran attacked a tanker in the street of Hormuz, forcing the crew to abandon ship. That is at least the third attack on a ship in just the last two days.

[00:04:33]Meanwhile, as we saw last night is developing today, there's a new front in the war. The Houthi rebel group in Yemen declared that they were going to begin a blockade of the Red Sea Bob Elmanddev Strait. That's where Saudi linked shipping goes through. Well, today we got reporting that at least two tankers that were full of Saudi crude oil bound for China and India, they were trying to head down and east, were forced to turn around and instead head north and west for the Suez Canal. So, as the war expands with Trump spouting his wild threats that no one even believes anymore, they sound ridiculous and pathetic, honestly. Former Fox Weekend host turned Secretary of Defense Pete Hexath was up on Capitol Hill today with more of the same. His empty boast and his lies about how the US is winning this war. nuclear objective, all while trying to pry billions more for those apparently empty coffers.

[00:05:25]>> You are asking for unlimited money for bombs when people can't feed their families. And I don't know how this administration intends to defend those decisions to the American people.

[00:05:36]>> Um, not unlimited bombs, Senator. I'm asking for the right bombs at the right time to ensure we can deter our adversaries into the future. And that's why this is a generational investment.

[00:05:44]And it was the previous administration that didn't fun this department. The reason why they are so upset with you and this administration is because the words you have used in the past don't add up.

[00:05:56]>> So just to review, you will not answer whether your statement made on the 14th day of the war that Iran's military had been quote destroyed and made combat ineffective was a truthful statement to the American people. as you sit here and ask for tens of billions more.

[00:06:11]>> Senator's time has >> had a historic and effective military campaign against the largest state sponsor of terrorism.

[00:06:17]>> Answer the question. When most people think of winning the war, they think that that means the war is going to come to an end because we've won and the president said back in March that we'd won. So I guess my question to you is how are we going to define winning?

[00:06:37]Reopening the straight of Hormuz is necessary in order for us to win. Right?

[00:06:41]That's just a simple yes or no question.

[00:06:43]>> You asked me what the overarching objective is and I would say ensuring Iran never has a nuclear weapon.

[00:06:48]>> You sir are the failure, not the men and women who are on that front line. You don't have a strategy. You don't have a long-term plan to actually win this war, win the war. The men and women are going to be able to do it, but they need to have leadership. When will you show leadership?

[00:07:04]>> Senator Chris Van Holland, Democrat of Maryland, serves on the Appropriations Committee. You can see he's questioned Secretary Heget today. Uh he joins me now. Senator, I wonder if you were convinced by the case the Secretary of Defense made today.

[00:07:18]Well, Chris, I went into that hearing very worried about the future course of this war and our country, and I came out even more worried because it's very clear the Secretary of Defense and the Trump administration have no idea what they're doing. And this is a very dangerous moment for the country because they've never decided what their true objective is. It changes by the day. As I said at the hearing, you know, Donald Trump told the country back in March that we won. When I asked the secretary about that, he said, "Well, what the president really meant was we were able to hit their military really hard."

[00:07:56]Well, there was never a question about whether the United States military could do a lot of damage to Iran. But that is a long way from winning. And this Secretary of Defense keeps saying we're going to win, but he won't tell us what his real objective is. at the very end it said it was about ending Iran's nuclear program and I pointed out Chris uh that he had told the country just last year and this is almost an exact quote that we had obliterated Iran's ability to produce any nuclear weapons which clearly um would mean that their whole purpose here uh would be meaningless. So the bottom line is this is a very dangerous moment for our country and the American people are paying the price.

[00:08:45]>> The I think the ask in the supplemental or well the the number that was attached to the cost of the war thus far if I'm recalling correctly was like $37.5 billion. I don't think there was necessarily a dollar figure put to the supplemental because again I'm actually I've lost the thread here a little bit about how they're planning to fund the whole thing. They just passed a big thing in the House. But I guess my first question is I I'm not an accountant and I don't have I'm not privy to the numbers, but the 37.5 seems low to me honestly. Uh given how expensive the weapons we've been using are and given the reporting about their depletion. Do you even trust that topline number?

[00:09:25]>> I don't I don't trust it one bit. I think it is a lowball number. And of of course the the cost to the American people is you know well over 100 billion 150 billion if you add up those costs.

[00:09:36]But just to the Pentagon that is a low ball number. The other thing I will say Chris is what they're asking for for the Pentagon uh for the war right now is about $70 billion.

[00:09:51]Now, they have tens of billions of dollars stashed away in other DoD accounts from the so-called >> big beautiful bill.

[00:10:01]>> And actually, if you look at the fine print in their request right now, >> some of that money, for example, is to go to the National Guard in DC or to patrol the southern border, which is not the Defense Department's job. So there are a lot of funny numbers here, but the bottom line is I will not vote for one penny to support their illegal war.

[00:10:22]>> We we we've got this chart which I think um does a pretty good job of just at a glance sort of telling the story of the straighter hormuz obviously the which been the kind of strategic f focal point here. Um, you see it, you know, the war starts, it traffic stops, theou is signed. You can see it sort of ticks up a little bit there, never gets back to the former level and has now plummeted again.

[00:10:43]And we've got gas prices, you know, at the start of the war 292 uh 2 298 and and now back up above $4 a gallon. What do you think the significance of the the addition of this new front and the possibility of the Houthis actually enforcing? I mean, for the first time today, it seemed that they did enforce essentially a blockade for the other route by which Saudi oil might might get off of the peninsula there.

[00:11:10]Yeah, I think this is a significant development and of course the you know the collapse of the ceasefire and the fact that the straight of Hormuz is now effectively closed. If you take those things together, you're going to continue to see a big spike in gas prices. You know, the president was crowing about the fact that they were coming down. That was, of course, during the period of the the ceasefire, but now that the ceasefires collapsed, the straight of Hormuz is effectively closed. And now the, you know, the straight through the Red Sea uh is being threatened by the Houthis. That's why you're seeing, you know, the average price of gasoline in the United States now go up over four bucks. And that's going to keep going up. And of course that drives up prices for groceries and everything else. Uh because you know when you're trucking your you know food supplies obviously that drives up the price throughout the economy. So uh the bottom line is the the the president claimed he wanted to end this war but he is putting more fuel on the fire and Hexath is doing the same thing.

[00:12:16]>> Final question for you. There's an interesting quote from the finance minister in the Israeli government U Smotrich who is a very far-right figure along with Bengavir in that sort of coalition government um saying basically the Israel at this point has no interest in joining the the US's ongoing strikes with Iran. The reason I raise that is I I actually sort of again had lost track of this about whether these operations we've been conducting in this latest round are actually joint operations. It appears they've entirely been the US and entirely focused again on the on the objective which it seems to get the straight of Hormuz open from before and the Israeli farright minister who again who has been very belligerent or or or you know uh aggressive in his feelings about Iran saying like we're out on this one.

[00:13:01]Well, Chris, I think what the finance minister is saying, finance minister smo rich, is that, you know, he's perfectly happy to see the United States fight this war. Um, and this was a war, of course, started by Prime Minister Netanyahu and Donald Trump. And Netanyahu said he'd been waiting 40 years uh to start this war. He finally found a president stupid enough to do it. And now essentially the United States is fighting it on its own. Um it's our forces who are at risk. It's our assets that are at risk. So I think Finance Minister Smok is sort of saying, you know, we've got this just where we want it. The Americans are fighting this war which is very popular in Israel and very unpopular here in the United States.

[00:13:49]>> Yeah, that's true. The polling bears that out. Senator Chris Van Holland, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

[00:13:55]>> Thank you. Coming up, the right-wing media panic as Trump's poll numbers go very, very wobbly ahead of the midterms.

[00:14:02]That's next.

[00:14:06]With just over a 100 days until the midterms, Donald Trump has restarted the war with Iran. At least three American service members are dead, dozens injured. Of course, oil prices are now shooting up once again. And you could literally hear the panic among anyone who's invested in a Republican majority.

[00:14:21]They're not being subtle about it.

[00:14:24]The clock is ticking for President Trump to get out of this war before voters head to the polls. It's making a lot of Republicans nervous. It's already, as we know, unpopular. According to the new new Washington Post Ipsos poll, 69% of Americans disapprove of the handling of this conflict. Republicans cannot let this become an endless distraction, espec especially if they want to win in November. Is there any way to work around Iran? that is to to to pump more to uh to develop more pipelines in the M East to get around the Iranian hump, if you will.

[00:14:59]>> He promised to keep us out of of endless wars or unsatisfactory wars. Uh and now he's in one, and it's not at all clear how it's going to end. So, he's vulnerable on this point. And I was in political terms, he does need to get this over with.

[00:15:16]Joining us now, Alex Wagner, MS Now senior political analyst, host of Crooked Media's Great Runaway Country podcast, and Claire McCascal, former Missouri Senator and MS Now political analyst. Claire, I'll start with you. I the the Laura Green Ingram like let's wrap it up, boys monologue the other night really really sort of exploded through the screen. I mean, she's obviously not wrong. And I think there was a general sense when the the theou got signed, you can sort of feel the kind of palpable relief among a lot of Republicans like, okay, all right. And the ships go through and the oil prices come down down and and if you're them, this is about the worst turn of events politically they could imagine.

[00:15:56]>> Yeah, it doesn't get any worse than this. And a lot of them remember some very important elections. How about LBJ in Vietnam? How about George Bush in Iraq and now it's Donald Trump in Iran?

[00:16:10]And the the double whammy here is not just the endless war that nobody can figure it out. It's a war of choice. We don't know why we did it. Our allies were not consulted. But importantly, it's costing them money at the gas pump.

[00:16:25]Um that wasn't the case with Vietnam.

[00:16:27]That wasn't the case with with the war in Iraq. And so now it is a double whammy because it's hitting them in their pocketbook and they know who to blame.

[00:16:38]>> There there's also just the the sort of structural factors were faced you know sort of on the Democrat side anyway, right? Midterm, first term of a you know unified government. Um, I thought I will say that I thought that the the first round of this war would be a low point for approval for Trump and I'm now thinking that there might actually be some room to fall further. What do you think, Alex?

[00:17:05]>> Yeah, I mean, I think the worst possible case is like probably this situation come September. You look at what's happening in the Red Sea with the Houthis and the fact that they're basically threatening Saudi oil experts.

[00:17:17]Who knows if China wants to tap back into the oil markets? They've had very very repressed demand since the war in Iran began. I mean, there's still a bottom in terms of how bad it could get with gas prices, which means there's I there's still a bottom in terms of overall approval for this war or disapproval. I mean, it's just it is so bad for the president to say nothing of the fact that he's clearly completely out to lunch. It doesn't literally asked a wa a reporter at the White House today, you do you have information I don't have like he there is the plan is no plan. I mean I was watching Hegsath on the Hill ask for $88 billion in supplemental funding in a committee chaired by Susan Collins and you could feel the discomfort as one of the vulnerable Senate incumbents sits there on as the chair of the committee that's going to hand over another 88 billion on top of the 1 trillion the Pentagon already has to mess this whole thing up.

[00:18:12]And I'm glad you mentioned her because that's I mean that vote is a terrible vote for her. Um it's also one that's going to be very hard for her to avoid unlike some other votes. I think she'll probably be on no on Blanch. I think they're going to you know they're going to give her a very long leash as it were to sort of vote independently. We've now got a picture kind of coming together in Maine which again was along with North Carolina seen as one of the sort of top two Democratic pickup opportunities.

[00:18:36]Obviously the Platner situation happened. Troy Jackson is a state legislator, well-known entity, who ran for governor. It looks to be that he has wrapped up enough uh delegates that he'll be the nominee. Um and we've got our first poll of the head-to-head match, which is interesting given, you know, everything that's happened in that state, Claire, that you know, you're back to kind of what I would say would be the sort of like structural conditions of of slight democratic a uh edge. What do you make of it?

[00:19:08]Well, I think it's important to point out that normally this kind of problem in a Democratic primary in a key race would be something that would be sending shivers down all of our spines. But because of Donald Trump, everybody in Maine understands they can't afford not to be unified. Anyone who believes Donald Trump is a disaster to this country knows they have to stay focused on the goal of taking the Senate so that Donald Trump doesn't have his way with Congress the way he has the last two years. I don't care how many times Susan votes against him. It won't make any difference because everybody understands if she's reelected, Donald Trump has his way with the United States Senate.

[00:19:51]Yeah, that's a that's a good point, Claire, because you know, Alex, it was I mean, obviously the the the way the last few weeks of the the Platner candidacy played out were were were sort of brutal in in a in a whole bunch of different ways, but it did look like in the wake of that there was an opportunity for some real sort of nasty internal fighting and bloodletting and how is the Democratic party even going to come up with a process that feels fair? And instead, Troy Jackson kind of wrapped up a lot of delegates. all the other people in the field sort of very quickly endorsed him essentially. I it it does seem like that that period and that process went about as well as you could possibly imagine given what preceded it.

[00:20:31]>> Yeah. Yeah. And what also happened in that interim period is Juan Joan Gore Guerrero a an unarmed legal resident of this country was slaughtered by ICE on the streets of Bifford Maine. And guess who sat at the top of the appropriations committee when the Senate decided to give ICE an extra $70 billion and refused to make any reforms to ICE and the way it operates in the wake of the killings of Alex Prey and Renee Good Susan Collins. I mean you have two things unfolding in Susan Collins backyard. Whether it's high gas prices or the reality of the brutality of the tactics of Trump's death squads marching through the streets of Bitifford Maine Mayers understand the stakes and I think you know because of that Democrats weren't effing around. They figure you know they understand the desperation in that state for change and they also understand a absolutely how vulnerable Susan Collins is in this moment.

[00:21:24]>> Yeah, it's a great we've got some reporting in MS Now that is sort of making the point that you know that the shooting of Mr. Guerrero is instantly replaced the Grand Platner story as the number one story in Maine across the state everywhere. Um because it was so shocking and so upsetting and particularly the revelations that have come out about the allegations against the individual who shot him from multiple exes of his. Um that has really come to dominate the story there. Alex Wagner and Claire McCascal, great to have you both. Thank you.

[00:21:53]Still ahead, the reported connections between the Trump family and two men charged with a a a genuinely horrifying list of crimes. Next, two proudly right-wing self-proclaimed misogynists who become some of the most powerful influencers of the so-called manosphere. Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan were arrested in Miami on Saturday on the way to a bare knuckle boxing event. You see them there in the purple. That's Andrew Tate. They're now awaiting possible extradition to England under what British authorities call pending ongoing legal proceedings. While the men were already both facing charges in England, which they deny, the Crown Prosecution Service announced the following. quote, "Andrew Tate is being charged with seven further counts of rape, three counts of arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation, three counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and 19 additional charges for offenses relating to indecent images of a child and extreme pornography. Tristan Tate is being charged with one count of sexual assault, two counts of rape, and three counts of arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation.

[00:23:05]The brothers have long denied all charges against them in every country investigating them. In a statement, their lawyer said, quote, "The world knows Andrew and Tristan Tate are innocent. They have something of a storied legal history. Early last year, they were effectively kind of living in a kind of exile in Romania. They couldn't leave the country because they were under criminal prosecution. There was an investigation there into multiple allegations against the two men, including human trafficking, coercing women to pornography, and an allegation Andrew had sex with a 15-year-old, beating her with a belt, and choking her until she passed out. That's per the New York Times. The New Yorker reports that one 15-year-old told Romania investigators that during sex, quote, "Even though I asked Andrew to stop, he continued." Again, both brothers deny any criminal activity at all. But as a New York Times also reports, the brothers had cultivated relationships with many people in Trump's inner circle, including his sons Baron and Don Jr., as well as Trump's former personal attorney, Alina Haba, and conservative media personalities like Tucker Carlson, who interviewed the brothers quite favorably. The Times reports that the Trump special envoy, Rick Grenell, also in the Trump circle, even discussed the Tate's case with two Romanian officials in 2024 after Trump won and then early 2025 as he was preparing to take office.

[00:24:23]Now, Grenell denies having a substantive conversation about the tapes, though that would seem to indicate they did talk about it. For the Trump's part, neither Don Jr. nor the White House gave the Times comment on the tape's relationship with Trump's oldest and youngest sons. The White House told the Times it is not involved in anything related to the Tate's legal matters. But here's the thing. The brothers started to get some good news not long after Trump won the 2024 election. They're sitting in Romania. They can't leave.

[00:24:49]Quote, "I had word from the Trump admin that they're on top of things." Andrew Tate wrote to someone close to him in a message reviewed by the New York Times.

[00:24:56]I've been told I'll be free soon, but Trump needs to see me in Miami, he added. And sure enough, soon after in February of 2025, the Romanian government again, which had these sort of pending allegations against them, said actually they're free to go. They can leave the country. And immediately they did. In fact, they came to Florida.

[00:25:13]That's the same state, of course, where a Trump ally once granted a generous deal to another man accused of human trafficking, Jeffrey Epstein. President Trump says he knows nothing about the conditions of the TA travel ban in Romania being lifted. Alina Haba denied any role as well. But what happened was Trump got elected, they got let out of Romania, they came back to the US. But the brothers legal team appears to have borrowed a strategy from Trump world, telling reporters after hearing yesterday that the Tates are facing a witch hunt, that the cases against them in Romania and the UK are essentially a kind of fabrication. Brothers also remain apparently wellconed in some rights wing circles. In fact, just days before their arrest in Miami, the British tabloid, the Daily Mail reported the Tates were spotted around Washington DC as guests of a Trump friend associate, the special envoy Powell Zampoli. The Tates even apparently took a photo, you see there, with Texas Republican Congressman Wesley Hunt. Both the Daily Mail and MS now reached out to Hunt's office and we have not heard back. Megan Tu's investigative reporter for the New York Times where she's extensively covered the tape brothers and she joins me now. Um the legal trail here is complicated because it involves multiple jurisdictions. Um there were there were cases being sort of pursued in the UK and in Romania. But walk us through what happened, what development happened in the UK's possible prosecution to prompt the arrest and the attempt of an extradition.

[00:26:43]>> Yeah. So this week really was a significant turning point um with regards to the Tates and the legal investigations of them. Up until Saturday, up until this weekend, they had been under criminal investigation in Romania. Um and there had been uh several charges of rape and human trafficking authorized by British prosecutors. But there had been this agreement that the prosecutors, you know, that the British prosecutors wouldn't move forward until the Romanians were done with their investigation, with their criminal case, and then the brothers would be extradited from Romania to the to the UK. Now, what clearly has happened in recent weeks is that the British prosecutors have charged them with new crimes, alleged crimes. They are now um you know they had previously charged them with rape and assault and human trafficking and now they've brought additional charges of rape, sex trafficking and significantly those seemingly pornography including a child pornography uh charge. And with those new charges, they have issued an extradition request to the United States because the Trumps have since they were released from Romania been traveling around the world.

[00:28:01]They resumed their jet sort of, you know, their jet setting lifestyle.

[00:28:04]They've been in Dubai. They've been in Turkey and they've been returning to the United States. Notably, they have not gone back to the UK. And so an extradition request came in from the UK to the United States to the Justice Department saying, "We would like we're authorizing these new charges and we would like you guys to issue a warrant for their arrest and extradite them back to the UK." And the federal officials here in the United States complied. So, since their arrest on Saturday that you've seen images of, they have been in federal detention in Miami and uh federal prosecutors have been basically arguing the case for extradition in court there. And uh the Tates are fighting that. Um their lawyers are continuing to say this is all just politically motivated and that they're completely uh innocent of any crimes.

[00:28:54]>> A little context here that I feel like is important for folks that don't know.

[00:28:56]I mean, they they they Andrew Tape particularly developed an enormous following online, particularly with young men. Um, obviously connections to people in Trump's orbit. They became a kind of cause celeb of conservatives. I just saw a video today of the late Charlie Kirk talking about how people should listen to what Andrew Tate says about an overly feminized society. Um, and also I mean this is sort of key context like the whole thing that they marketed and in some ways would charge people for was to learn how to develop tools of psychological manipulation and coercion so as to get women to do sex work for you that you could make money off essentially. Right. I mean that was a huge part of what their whole public profile was.

[00:29:40]>> Yes, it was. I mean what was sort of interesting and remarkable about them is that they basically created a business and helped uh gain followers of young men by bragging about the fact that they had operated an online porn business and by uh saying that they had actually exploited women and coerced them into participating in that porn business and that they would take most of the profits. they sold online courses to that uh extent saying you know we like there was one course that was called the pimping hose degree where they said listen we're going to teach you the kind of tricks of the trade that we've used to exploit women and make money off of them and so that really kind of wo that into their public image as they gained followers not just for these online courses but just a broader online following of young men who were attracted not just to their kind of financial savvy and their brazen in masculinity and misogyny, but you know to some of the broader messages that they were bringing about the need for like men to kind of regain their place in society and to push women down. And as they did this um they were continu they made these very sort of strategic mutually beneficial alliances into the American right um even as criminal allegations of trafficking and rape you know multiplied of against them both in Romania and in the UK. We also learned that they had been under investigation here in the United States by anti-trafficking agents um as well as uh prosecutors in the justice department.

[00:31:17]But in spite of this, the, you know, the their messaging and the way that they connected with particularly a young male demographic that became crucial to Trump's, you know, return to power, they were able to like make strategic alliances with people in the Trump family from Don Jr. to Baron Trump. We were able to show was communicating with uh Andrew Tate by Zoom. Um, as recently as 2024 when the presidential race was going on, they talked about the criminal case. uh against them in Romania at the time and how they both agreed that it wasn't substantial or wasn't legitimate.

[00:31:53]Um there were he also made the Tates have also made alliances into with Trump advisers uh from you know Richard Grenell who you mentioned who was the special diplomatic envoy who discussed the Tates once Trump was back in well after he was reelected and then you know took took entered his second administration. Um, Grenell had conversations with he wasn't just sort of publicly supporting the Tates. He was also having conversations with Romanian political figures about their case. And so it was and and and they also had these, you know, formed these alliances with people like Tucker Carlson as he was leaving Fox and trying to build his new audience um and his new show. He went to Romania and sat down with Tate while he was under, you know, first indicted in Romania and basically, you know, it was a very warm, friendly interview in which they actually misrepresented the criminal charges against him.

[00:32:51]>> Yeah. And we should just, you know, note that um if if folks want to learn more that your great reporting, the New York Times, there's an incredible piece in the New Yorker um as well. and and and just to note that there are again these are allegations andor charges uh they are not proven and the and the two men deny them. There are but there are multiple people um both named and anonymous who accuse them of um rape, violent rape, physical abuse, sexual coercion uh essentially grooming underage uh girls for sex work uh and streaming it. I mean it's a very long list of of accusations here. um if people want to learn more about them.

[00:33:30]This is not something that like came out of nowhere. I think it's it's fair to say at this point even as they were establishing these relationships and getting the friendly interviews with Tucker Carlson, Megan Tui, who's been uh doing amazing reporting on this beat, her work is in the New York Times on the latest twist and turn here. Thank you, Megan. Appreciate it.

[00:33:47]>> Thanks for having me.

[00:33:50]Still to come, uh, Senator