Bulwark Takes - Todd Blanche Broke His Promise to the Senate

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Will Saletan takes on Todd Blanche’s Sunday show appearances, where Trump’s former lawyer—now running the Justice Department—defends mass deportations, self-issued warrants, foreign money flowing to Trump, and openly political prosecutions, despite promising the Senate none of this would happen.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey, it's Will Salatan from the Bullwork. So every week, some poor Flunky and the Trump administration gets sent out on the Sunday talk shows to lie about whatever is the latest corrupt thing Trump has done. So today, that flunky is Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general. Blanche was literally Donald Trump's lawyer in the criminal cases against Trump. And so Trump, who was now a convicted criminal, rewarded Blanche by putting him in charge of the Justice Department. And now Blanche is on TV doing what he's always done, which is to lie on Trump's behalf.

So I'm going to show you two interviews Blanche did today. The first one was on ABC. Let's start with a question from the host, George Stephanopoulos, about Trump's rounding up and deported. illegal immigrants who have no criminal records. President said he was going to prioritize those who had criminal records, but about 70 percent, at least, of those who have been detained, don't have criminal records. Well, just, hang on.

The fact that they're here illegally is a crime. And so when you say they don't have criminal records, they are, by their presence being here without status, having come into this country illegally or overstayed illegally, that is a crime. Huh. So when Trump ran for president, He said, don't worry, we're not going to go after people who came here 15, 20 years ago, and they've been, you know, living and working in the community.

No, Trump said, we're just going to go after the dangerous criminals. And then when it turns out that Trump lied and that the vast majority of the people he's rounding up are not dangerous criminals, Blanche changes the story and says, they're all criminals because they're all here illegally. So Trump lied, and now Blanche is changing the definition to pretend that Trump didn't lie. Okay, next, here is Stephanopoulos asking about a little boy, not a criminal, a little boy who got picked up and hauled away by ICE. We have some video right now showing Leon Ramos, that five-year-old boy who was detained by ICE in Minnesota being released today.

He's on his way back home to Minnesota after a judge ordered him released. And it was a pretty blistering order from the judge. And then Stephanopoulos reads from the judge's order, which pointed out that the Trump administration, instead of getting court warrants to go and arrest people, was issuing warrants to itself. Civics lesson to the government. Administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster.

This is called the Fox Guarding the Henhouse. The Constitution requires an independent judicial officer. What's your response? Well, look, that's an act of litigation, so I'm limited, but I will say this. The immigration law, the body of immigration law, is much different than our typical criminal process because of the administrative nature of what we do every day. Oh, right.

So, according to Blanche, it's fine for the administration to bypass the courts and issue its own warrant. because immigration law is administrative, which is basically a way of saying, we don't have to listen to the courts. We just assert that all the law here is administrative. So the administration can do whatever it wants. Okay. So now Stephanopoulos moves on to Trump's deliberate prosecutions of people Trump doesn't like.

First, Stephanopoulos plays video of Blanche at his confirmation hearing a year ago, promising that Trump would not do this. I've got your commitment. There will not even be a whiff of an investigation that appears to have a political motivation to it. I commit to that. Then Stephanopoulos points out that Trump has been doing exactly what Blanche promised he wouldn't do. Since then, as you know, a number of targets of President Trump, we've been publicly targeted by President Trump, have been prosecuted or investigated. I want to show that right now. It includes the former FBI director James Comey, New York Attorney General, Leticia James, the Fed chair Jerome Powell, Senators Adam Schiff, Mark Kelly, and Alyssa Slotkin, Governor Tim Walsh, and Mayor Jacob Fry. So how do we respond to those who say you've broken your commitment?

And here's how Blanche answered that question. You just showed a handful of investigations or in grand jury indictments that have been brought. We are investigating tens of thousands of individuals in cases every single day. They are not political and base. The fact that you cherry-picked a handful that some people in the media have said, oh, those must be political, is absurd and not fair. Oh, you're just cherry-picking. I mean, look at all the people we prosecuted who weren't Trump's political targets.

look over there. Don't look at these prosecutions that are obviously political. And then, listen to this. These are the next words that came out of Blanche's mouth. I mean, don't forget, George, when I walk into the Oval Office right now, I look around, and oftentimes every single person in that room was heavily attacked and gone after by the last Biden administration. And so when I said to Congress, and when I say to you right now, that there's not a whiff of political partisanship, what we're doing, I mean that. He's basically admitting it. Blanche says Trump and a bunch of the people around Trump were all investigated.

They're all pissed off. They want revenge. And that is exactly what Trump is doing with all of these prosecutions of his political enemies. And don't take it from me. Take it from Trump. Stephanopoulos points out that Trump told the Justice Department to indict all these people. Those indictments of James Comey and Letitia James came after the president explicitly said they're guilty as hell and justice must be served right now. They came after career attorneys refused to bring the indictments and both cases have been dismissed.

And here's how Blanche defends that order from Trump. If you're a prosecutor in the Department of Justice, you are expected to effectuate this administration's priorities. But if you're going to work in this department, you're going to execute on the president's priorities and that's what we do. Priorities, right. The priorities were to go after Trump's enemies. And Stephanopoulos calls him on it. You just actually made my point right there. You said it's the president's priorities.

The president calls for them publicly to be prosecuted, says they're guilty as hell, and then they're prosecuted. No, that's not the president's priorities. That's a truth that he sent out. The president's priorities are executing on making America safe again. You're reading a small part of a truth. The truth said a lot of other things, too. Oh, you're just reading a small part of what Trump wrote.

Okay. So let's read the whole thing. September 20th, four months ago, Trump posted a message on truth social. He addressed it explicitly to the Attorney General, Pam Bondi. It says, Pam, Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Schiff, Letitia? They're all guilty as hell.

Trump says the U.S. attorney decided, quote, We had no case. So I fired him. Trump literally says, I fired him. He says, we can't delay any longer. Justice must be served now. And Trump specifically tells Bondi to put another personal lawyer for Trump, Lindsay Halligan, in charge of getting the indictments, which is exactly what Halligan did five days after Trump wrote that message. Priorities, says Blanche. So then Stephanopoulos asked, about a new report that Trump personally profited from a deal with a foreign government official.

I want to ask you about a report breaking in the Wall Street Journal overnight. I want to show the headline right now. It's the headline saying the spy sheik bought secret stake in Trump company, $500 million investment for 49% of World Liberty came months before UAE won access to tightly guarded American AI chips. It's referring to the National Security Advisor to the UAE, Sheikh Tanun, and he made this investment just before President Trump was inaugurated. And here's how Blanche defended the deal. There's nothing unprecedented about the Trump organization going out

and trying to make investments that basically all will come back to the American people and jobs in this country. Wait a minute. The investments will all come back to the American people, according to Blanche. This is money that went directly to Trump and his family. It's their company. And the deputy attorney general has the gall to sit there and tell ordinary Americans that money paid to the Trump family by a foreign government official is okay because any money that goes to Trump benefits America. That is absolute bullshit and it is absolutely corrupt.

Two more topics. First, Don Lemon. So you probably heard Lemon, a former CNN anchor, got arrested for following anti-ice protesters into a church and interviewing people during the protest inside the church. Now, personally, I don't like anybody going into a church to protest. But the Trump administration went way beyond that. They accused Lemon of participating in the protest and they arrested him. So here's the question from Stephanopoulos. The chief federal district judge Patrick Schultz wrote that there was no evidence that Mr. Lemon engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so.

So when do you believe that Mr. Lemon crossed the line from reporting on what was going on to criminal activity? And here's how Blanche responded about Lemon. He can raise defenses in court to the extent he wants to, but nobody in this country should feel comfortable storming into a church while it's ongoing and disresolved. that church service and thinking that we're just going to stand by and let that happen, because there is a statute that does not allow that to happen. It doesn't matter if you happen to be a former CNN journalist. Storming? He's saying Lemon stormed into that church.

Okay, here's the video of Lemon going in. And I'm just going to walk in, see what's happening. Okay. Again, I don't like people going into a church for a protest, but that is not storming. And if you watch the videos from inside the church, you'll see that Blanche is just lying. And actually, Blanche got asked about the same thing on CNN today. Here is Dana Bash asking him about the administration arresting Lemon. Was this really about what you just described, or was it about trying to make a,

an example out of somebody who the president has sparred with. I don't even know that the president's even ever thought of Don Lemon. I don't know whether that's true or not. Oh, my God. You must be joking. Okay, here is Trump in 2022 calling Lemon the dumbest man on television. You can read it right there. And then here is Trump a year later calling Lemon a loser.

Okay? There's another one. And then here is Trump a week and a half. half ago on January 22nd posting a video of a guy graphically insulting Lemon. Unlemon is the dingleberry hanging off the ass of American journalism. Okay. And let me tell you, when CNN got rid of him, they didn't wipe hard enough. That was seven days, seven days before Trump's agents arrested Lemon. And Blanche sits there and pretends that he doesn't know whether Trump ever thought about Lemon.

Last topic. On CNN, Blanche was asked about a new operation by Trump's FBI to dig up evidence that Trump was cheated in the 2020 election. Here is the question.

Earlier this week, the FBI went into the elections office in Fulton County, Georgia to seize 2020 ballots, voter rolls, scanner images. Why was the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, present at

an FBI raid? First of all, it wasn't an FBI raid. It was a search warrant being executed by FBI agents. Oh, it wasn't a raid. It was just a search. Really? Let's check out what Todd Blanche said two years ago when he was just Trump's lawyer

about the FBI search of Mara Lago to recover the classified documents that Trump stole. from our government. Here's the brief filed by Blanche. You can see his name here on the last page. And here's what he wrote on the first page.

President Trump's motion for relief relating to the Mar-a-Lago raid and unlawful piercing of attorney-client privilege. The word raid appears 20 times in this brief. So when the FBI goes in to get documents against Trump, it's a raid. But when the FBI goes in to get documents to help Trump with his political vendetta, it's just a search. Todd Blanche is what he's always been. When Trump committed crimes, Blanche defended him as his lawyer. And now, now that Trump is doing more crimes as president,

Blanche is still lying and inventing excuses. The only difference, the only difference is that now Blanche and Trump are using our government to do their dirty work. See you next time.