0:06

Hi there, everyone. It's 4 o'clock in New York. It

0:09

is textbook domestic

0:11

violent radicalization. A figure

0:14

with maximum street cred,

0:16

with extremists, stokes fear

0:18

based on racial stereotypes, accuses

0:21

marginalized populations of being,

0:23

quote, terrorists, fetishizes

0:26

the Second Amendment, and then tosses in

0:29

the lit match of even more incendiary

0:31

rhetorical bombs. And

0:33

we are exactly where we find ourselves

0:36

at this hour today,

0:36

uncharted territory. As

0:39

we have covered extensively on this program,

0:41

there's been a clear escalation in the specificity

0:45

and repetition of Donald Trump's

0:47

violent rhetoric in recent days. Donald

0:49

Trump has called for the country's top military

0:52

official

0:53

to be executed. Donald

0:55

Trump has targeted a court clerk with

0:57

a baseless smear that led to a gag

0:59

order. He has repeatedly gone

1:01

after the prosecutors who have charged him with 91

1:03

felony counts in total. And

1:06

now, now

1:08

there's an attack on migrants that

1:11

has echoes to white supremacist rhetoric.

1:13

On this program, we try our

1:15

hardest not to ever amplify

1:17

his most dangerous comments, but

1:19

we're going to play them for you here today,

1:22

right now, because we believe you should hear

1:24

the comments from the man himself.

1:27

Nobody has any idea

1:29

where these people are coming from. And we know they

1:31

come from prisons. We know they come from mental

1:33

institutions, insane asylums. We know they're

1:36

terrorists. Nobody has

1:38

ever seen anything like we're witnessing right

1:40

now. It is a very sad thing for

1:42

our country. It's poisoning

1:44

the blood of our country. It's

1:47

poisoning the

1:49

blood of our country. So

1:53

much to say, right? But what makes these comments

1:55

even more dangerous is the fact that

1:57

Trump's rhetoric and his ideas.

1:59

we know by now what happens to them. They

2:02

seep into the fabric

2:05

of a large swath of our country, largely

2:07

people who identify as Republicans. Ideas

2:10

that used to be unspeakable and unthinkable

2:13

become acceptable. We've

2:16

been party dogma. New York Times reports

2:18

this quote, the first time Trump talked

2:20

privately about shooting missiles

2:22

into Mexico to take out drug labs

2:25

as far as his former aides can recall was

2:27

early 2020. And the first time those

2:30

comments became public was when

2:32

his second Defense Secretary Mark Esper

2:34

wrote in his memoir that Trump had raised it

2:36

with him and asked if the US

2:39

could make it look as if some other country

2:41

was responsible. Esper

2:43

portrayed the idea as ludicrous. Yet

2:46

instead of condemning the idea, some

2:48

Republicans publicly welcomed word

2:51

that Trump had wanted to use military

2:53

force against the drug cartels on Mexican

2:56

soil and without the consent

2:58

of Mexico's government. Trump's

3:00

notion of a military intervention

3:02

south of the border has swiftly

3:05

evolved from an Oval Office fantasy

3:07

to something approaching Republican Party

3:09

doctrine. And as we all

3:12

know all too well, given the events

3:14

of January 6,

3:16

when a mob of Trump supporters believing

3:18

Trump's lies about the US election

3:20

results storm the Capitol, the

3:23

impact of Trump's rhetoric is

3:25

easily seen on the streets. New York

3:27

Times reports this on anti migrant

3:30

protests that took place in New York City last

3:32

month quote, the loudspeaker on

3:34

a quiet Staten Island street blasted

3:36

demands at 117 decibels louder than

3:40

a dog barking in your ear. Pointed

3:42

at a school that is sheltering some of the 110,000 migrants

3:46

who have arrived in New York City over the last

3:48

year and a half. The message

3:50

cannot have been more unwelcoming quote, immigrants

3:53

are not safe here.

3:55

Signs reading protect our children were

3:57

nailed to utility poles.

3:59

protesters wore shirts emblazoned with

4:02

American flags and images

4:04

of former President Donald Trump's

4:06

face.

4:09

Deeply dangerous racist attack on migrants

4:11

by an ex-president with a history of

4:13

cementing violence in America is

4:15

where we start today. With me at the table,

4:18

former acting assistant attorney general for

4:20

national security at the US Department of Justice,

4:22

Mary McCord is here, plus former top

4:24

state department official during the Obama

4:27

administration, Rick Stengels here, also

4:29

joining us, Princeton University professor

4:31

and distinguished political scholar, our

4:33

friend Eddie Glaude here, and the CEO and

4:35

national director of the Anti-Defamation

4:38

League, Jonathan Greenblatt is back. Jonathan,

4:40

I want to start with you. I want to read you something that

4:43

our friends over at Maddow Blog have reported.

4:45

This is from Laura Barron Lopez,

4:47

a White House correspondent for PBS, who

4:50

told her viewers last night, quote, I checked

4:52

with a historian, Ruth Bangayat,

4:54

and she said that language that he's using

4:57

echoes language used in Nazi propaganda

5:00

by Adolf Hitler when Adolf Hitler actually

5:02

said that Jewish people and migrants

5:04

were, quote, causing a blood poisoning

5:07

of Germany. Are your reaction

5:09

to

5:09

Trump's comments? Well,

5:12

in some ways, it feels like there

5:15

we go, Ken, Nicole. I

5:17

mean, to be frank, I don't know how much

5:20

Donald Trump is a student of history

5:22

or if he even

5:24

reads books and what's on

5:26

his nightstand. But I do know,

5:29

as the reporter said last night on

5:32

PBS NewsHour, that the

5:34

language that he used in that interview

5:37

is the same or intended

5:39

to evoke the kind of language

5:42

that's been used by many who

5:44

hold vicious anti-immigrant, racist,

5:47

anti-Semitic views like Hitler. And

5:49

I'm sure other nativist world leaders

5:52

and the way that phrase was inserted

5:54

into this this sort of

5:56

crazy claim he was making said.

6:00

not totally untrue, leads me

6:02

to believe that someone gave him that line.

6:05

And we have seen over the years how

6:07

Trump uses racist, hateful,

6:09

despicable language, and how it evokes

6:12

violence. Think about 2019

6:14

and the claims about an invasion from Mexico

6:17

that led a man to go to the Walmart in

6:19

El Paso and murder dozens

6:21

of people because they appear to be from Mexico.

6:24

Or think about his evocation, the

6:26

Great Replacement Theory, that led a man in 2018 in

6:28

October through the

6:30

Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and

6:32

murdered Jewish people all they were worshiping.

6:35

Violent rhetoric leads

6:38

to violent actions. And

6:40

so this isn't dangerous, it's

6:43

explosive. And it's like

6:45

lighting a fuse and

6:47

just waiting for the bomb to go off. So

6:49

we at ADL are deeply alarmed

6:52

because whether you're the President of the United States or a member

6:55

of Congress or a pundit, words

6:57

matter. And when you are the de facto

6:59

nominee for one of the two major political parties

7:02

in this country, you have a special

7:04

responsibility and it's long

7:06

overdue for citizen Trump,

7:09

candidate Trump, President Trump to

7:11

stop once and for all before

7:14

more people get hurt.

7:15

Jonathan, do you think there's any chance he will?

7:18

No, I don't. And

7:21

that's the real problem here. So what do

7:23

we do? We need responsible

7:25

parties around the President to

7:27

finally say enough. Like

7:29

how do you put someone in

7:32

place when they're using

7:34

the kind of language that again and

7:36

again and again has gotten people killed?

7:39

I mean, we need a kind of accountability

7:42

among those, you know, the king

7:44

makers, if you will, from the Republican Party to

7:47

just say time out, pull the emergency

7:49

break. We can't go through this again.

7:52

The country can't afford it. Marginalized

7:54

communities can't afford it. None

7:56

of us can.

7:57

I mean, Jonathan, I guess I worry that we...

8:00

are

8:00

failing to imagine that this is his intent.

8:03

I mean, you just said responsible people around Donald Trump.

8:05

Who would that be? I mean, there aren't

8:08

any. And that's by his design. It's a candidate

8:10

for president. He could have

8:12

anyone he wanted around him. And the people that are

8:14

around him are the people he wants around him. I mean, if this

8:17

is the design, then what should we do?

8:20

Look, this is a conundrum. But

8:22

like my job at ADL is to keep people

8:24

safe. So I can't necessarily

8:27

tell the GOP what to do. But

8:29

I'm talking to Jewish people every day. We

8:31

just co-chaired the march on Washington with 155,000

8:33

people, lots of African Americans, whether

8:37

you're an HBCU or a black church or

8:39

a synagogue or a Chinese American

8:41

community center. People

8:44

are afraid. Their anxiety

8:46

levels are reaching a breaking point.

8:49

And so when you ask me who are the responsible people,

8:51

President Obama used to say, we are the

8:54

ones we've been waiting for. So the

8:56

way I see it, we have just got to put

8:58

on the hurricane, put on the storm windows,

9:00

if you will, batten down the hatches,

9:03

because I can't afford to wait in

9:05

some abstract way. I've got to make

9:07

sure I keep people safe right now.

9:08

Any glad? I pressed

9:11

Donald in that way, not because I think there's

9:13

been an answer that

9:15

someone can produce that

9:18

satisfies what

9:20

he accurately describes as really

9:23

a conundrum or a challenge. It's a challenge of our times. But

9:25

because I worry that he's revealed

9:27

himself over and over and over

9:29

again. If he is reelected, he

9:32

will take away this network's media licenses.

9:34

He's gone after Comcast. If he is elected,

9:37

he will prosecute General Mark Milley for treason,

9:39

a crime punishable by death. If

9:42

he's reelected, he will pardon the hundreds

9:44

of insurrectionists who

9:45

have been prosecuted and convicted

9:48

by juries of their peers. If

9:50

he is reelected, he has told us

9:52

what he will do. And my concern today

9:55

is about the rest of us. What should the rest

9:57

of us be doing?

9:59

Well, we have to do

10:02

exactly what you're doing right now, and that is foreground

10:04

what he said. He is who he

10:06

is. We have to—we can't just simply do

10:09

it at—you know, it can't be on page—you know, the fold

10:11

of the—right? It has to be the headline, the

10:13

lead story in this instance. We have

10:16

to tell the truth about what he intends to

10:18

do. And we have to understand that

10:20

what you said in the introduction, Nicole, is

10:22

really important. It has infected

10:24

the Republican Party. And this

10:26

is—and I think there's another element to this, and

10:29

I don't know what you think about this, but because

10:32

Republicans are at the center of gravity

10:34

of our politics, they define

10:36

the frame of the debate, when

10:39

they get infected with this

10:41

stuff,

10:42

we all do.

10:43

And so you see President Biden just announcing,

10:46

right, that they're going to build some wall, right,

10:48

because the terms have shifted, right? And

10:51

so I think it's important for us to

10:53

foreground this as

10:56

deliberately and as effectively

10:58

and every chance

11:01

we get,

11:01

because if we don't, he's going to end up

11:04

in the White House and communities

11:06

are going to be in danger at even a higher level.

11:09

I think that's really important, Eddie. And

11:11

this is this concept that

11:13

I keep grappling with, had it communicated here.

11:16

Some people have done a better job than me about the moving of

11:18

the Overton window. And

11:20

I think it manifests itself in the fact

11:22

that this isn't a story that just happened. This

11:24

happened a couple of days ago. Mehdi Hassan flagged it

11:27

on Twitter, and I saw my friends and colleagues

11:29

at Morning Joe do this before me.

11:31

So some of it is that we're all

11:34

numb

11:35

to the crazy and the

11:37

craven, and we're all – the brain

11:40

in a traumatized state has

11:42

to make adaptations. So we say, well, he

11:44

won't win. There's some good signs

11:46

in the midterm. Here's my concern. If

11:49

he does win, he's told us all the things

11:51

he's going to do. And my

11:53

concern is we're on sort of the eve of a

11:55

presidential cycle, even in

11:57

our conversations about the House Republicans.

11:59

Is it going to be Scalise or Jordan? It doesn't matter.

12:02

Neither one of them voted to certify

12:05

Joe Biden's election. Joe Biden was elected

12:08

on the same ballot that both of their names were on. And

12:10

yet they called knowing falsely,

12:12

knowing it was BS, they claim fraud.

12:15

I mean, I worry that we still

12:17

hear in your eight of the Trump story, don't use

12:19

the right words for what we're really watching Eddie.

12:22

Yeah, yeah. I mean,

12:25

I have the same worry. And, you know, I'm

12:27

not only thinking, you know, I'm thinking about a number of things,

12:30

the rhetoric that he uses, you know,

12:33

it directly appeals to white supremacists, but

12:35

then it appeals to those, we might describe

12:37

them as white nationalist adjacent, those

12:39

folk who hold those views, but who don't express

12:41

them, or those folk who are worried about

12:45

immigration, but don't really have a language to

12:47

describe their worry, gives them a language.

12:50

People that you and I know,

12:53

people that we love,

12:55

who are buying into this stuff. And

12:57

so the levels

12:59

of it, the intimacy of it, right?

13:02

Makes it a very difficult nut to crack.

13:04

But if we don't do

13:07

what you're doing right now, and if we

13:09

don't in our intimate spaces, right?

13:11

Call this out,

13:13

all hell's gonna break loose,

13:15

even in a more intense way, if that makes

13:18

sense.

13:18

Yeah, I mean, Mary, Eddie's getting at this

13:20

dynamic, I think between humans, right?

13:22

Because I think domestic extremism divides

13:26

neighborhoods, divides school communities, it

13:29

showed itself in the nastiness

13:31

around COVID policies, and stay

13:34

home from school, and masks, and

13:36

whatnot. It also infects,

13:40

or that's probably the wrong word, it

13:42

also seems to hamstring law enforcement,

13:44

right? You're navigating an extraordinarily

13:47

important and treasured principle in this country,

13:50

freedom of speech, freedom of association, but

13:52

you have, you know, almost like a tumor

13:54

wrapped around a spine or a blood vessel, you

13:56

have it interconnected now with

13:59

the threat. you do?

14:01

Well, I want to, before getting

14:03

to law enforcement, I want to just comment on a few

14:05

things

14:06

that we've been talking about because

14:07

I think I've been one who for some

14:09

period have, have agreed about not

14:12

elevating his comments. But I think what

14:14

has happened is two things. That means

14:16

there still are plenty of people listening to them

14:18

and without speaking out against it forcefully,

14:21

and you have and we have on the show, but it is

14:23

not headline news every day. Without speaking

14:25

out forcefully, it has become normalized

14:28

and the rest of us are starting to become immune. I

14:30

think we need to be playing his voice, saying

14:32

the things, the violent things, the same kind of things

14:35

that people like Duterte said

14:37

when he ran for election in the Philippines,

14:40

somebody who went on to kill tens and

14:42

thousands of his people, right? I think

14:44

we need to actually start calling it what

14:46

it is. I hope if you disagreed, you

14:48

would still be telling me right now. I'm glad

14:51

you agree, but I hope when there's a day that you disagree. That's

14:53

good to hear. I've looked on this.

14:55

And the other thing is it's not just about

14:58

marginalized communities who clearly

15:00

have been impacted. Everyone's impacted.

15:02

I just came back from, you know, several

15:05

days in Santa Fe with Republican leaders

15:07

in Maricopa County, the County

15:09

Board of Supervisor, the clerk's

15:11

deputy there, right? Republicans are

15:14

being attacked. Republicans are being threatened.

15:17

Republicans have had violence against them. You

15:19

know, Democrats have had violence against them. White

15:22

people, right? We talk about marginalized and marginalized

15:24

have had it worse than anybody, that's for sure.

15:26

But this isn't something that, you know, white people

15:28

could sit there and say, that's somebody else's problem.

15:31

It is every American's problem because

15:33

it's coming after everyone who doesn't

15:35

align with Trump. Anyone who's in

15:37

law enforcement, white, black, Latino,

15:40

doesn't matter. Anyone, frankly, who's

15:42

in the military, look at General Milley.

15:44

And what's really scary this morning, I did an

15:46

interview with On Point for NPR, and

15:49

they played vignettes, tapes

15:51

of people in Iowa saying, yes,

15:54

Milley should already be in front of a firing

15:56

squad for what he did. I mean, that's

15:58

insane. And I just think we're

16:01

at an existential puzzle. What did I think he did? Well,

16:03

that's the question, right? I mean, Trump's

16:06

own social media post was pretty

16:09

vague about it. Media, responsible

16:11

fact-based media, have explained what he did,

16:13

a call to Chinese leadership

16:15

to say, it's okay, we have things under

16:18

control. That was an authorized call by the Secretary

16:20

of Defense. It doesn't matter. They don't listen

16:22

to what it is. They just listen to his

16:24

rhetoric. And I think if we don't start pushing back,

16:27

and I really have slipped on this. I felt like we were

16:29

giving him too much oxygen, that

16:31

it was free publicity. But now I feel like

16:34

everyone needs to be pushing back. And it is shameful

16:36

for people on Capitol Hill, Republicans

16:38

on Capitol Hill, not to be doing so. They've

16:41

got the best voice to do it. And you

16:43

know, I've also, as you know, sometimes been

16:45

hesitant to put party on this, because

16:47

I really feel like, you know, we

16:49

will drive away some Republicans if we put

16:52

party on it. But those on Capitol Hill, their

16:54

silence is complicity. And we are

16:56

getting too close to the election.

16:59

And well, I'm fired up, you can see. No, I

17:01

look, I want to

17:03

come out here and be told I'm wrong,

17:05

right? I want to come out here with what

17:08

I think the danger is and be told,

17:10

oh, he's fine. Nobody

17:13

heard that. I think he's a buffoon. But

17:15

that's not where we are. And my

17:18

anxiety exists on multiple levels.

17:20

But really, I think

17:22

we spent eight years trying to wrestle Trump

17:25

to the ground.

17:26

And it's fruitless. I mean, he's a helium

17:28

balloon with the strings cut off. And he's speaking

17:30

directly to his people. And we already know from

17:32

January 6 what they can do. We know from Paul Pelosi's

17:35

attacker what they can do. And historically,

17:37

we know from Timothy McVeigh's brazen

17:39

attack that it takes one person

17:41

to terrorize an entire nation, one

17:44

aggrieved

17:44

person. He was pissed

17:46

about Waco, OK? The

17:50

historical language echoes rhyme.

17:53

The figures rhyme. And

17:55

the right-left alignment repeats.

17:58

So I'm going to go dark.

18:00

on this. He showed up

18:02

in 30 Rock, optimistic and I ruined your...

18:05

So, fascism is actually

18:07

not that old. It started in the 1930s

18:10

in Italy

18:11

and Germany with the rise of the Nazi

18:13

Party. And violent rhetoric and violence

18:16

is as intrinsic to fascism

18:19

as free speech is to democracy. What

18:21

Mussolini did... Say that again. Say

18:24

that again. That is as intrinsic

18:26

to fascism as

18:29

free speech is to democracy. So

18:31

what Mussolini did and what Hitler

18:33

did was invocations of violent rhetoric.

18:36

They started gangs that were beating up

18:38

immigrants, beating up Jews, beating

18:40

up minorities. It

18:43

infested the entire body

18:45

politics so that violence became a part of

18:47

regular politics. Even the opposition had

18:50

to use violence. And so part of the

18:52

idea is, and this is what we're talking about

18:54

today, of using violent rhetoric is to

18:56

intimidate people from criticizing

18:58

it. So one reason that Republicans

19:01

don't criticize it is that they're afraid that

19:03

it will be turned against them. That's precisely

19:05

why he uses it. That's precisely why fascists

19:08

and authoritarians have used it and that it becomes

19:10

a tool of their politics. That's

19:13

the very, very dark vision that

19:16

we're moving toward. I mean, Jonathan,

19:18

do you look...

19:20

I mean, can you conjure up examples

19:22

where

19:24

it gets this far and there's an off-ramp?

19:26

I mean, are you optimistic?

19:31

Look, you couldn't do this work,

19:33

I would say. And I think Mary,

19:35

who's also one of the best experts in the field, will

19:38

agree. You can't do this work if you're not

19:40

optimistic. But you've got to

19:42

hope for the best and plan for the worst.

19:45

And that's why at ADL we are ferociously

19:48

bipartisan. Right now we're looking

19:50

for people on the other side of the aisle, if

19:52

you will, to step up

19:55

and to speak out and to take a stand

19:57

before it's too late. I mean, would Richard

19:59

just... played out is true and it's terrifying

20:02

how this kind of authoritarianism, this

20:04

kind of sort of intimidation

20:07

is so central to this fascist

20:10

worldview. So a lot of

20:12

us are worried, but we just

20:14

can't hide our heads in the sand.

20:17

We've got to get up and get to work

20:19

because I do think at the end of the day, Nicole, while

20:21

you may have found those people in Iowa who said Millie

20:24

should already be under threat, the

20:26

fact is I believe in this

20:28

country deeply. I'm long

20:31

on America and there are more people

20:33

here of goodwill than there are of

20:35

ill will. You've got to tap that. You've

20:37

got to tap that quintessentially

20:40

American desire to create a more perfect

20:42

union if we hope to change this. So

20:45

the trick is, can we build the coalitions?

20:48

Can we mobilize the movement before

20:50

it's too late? And as we've

20:52

talked about before, Nicole, none of this is preordained.

20:54

You get the republic you deserve, Benjamin Franklin

20:57

said. So we've got to fight like hell if

20:59

we want to keep this.

21:01

It's an amazing test for the country, right?

21:04

Because I want to believe we are a country

21:06

that will reject political violence. And

21:08

it is abundantly clear that the Republican

21:11

Party is now unafraid to stand

21:13

with those who would turn to violence to

21:15

carry out and realize their political aims. I

21:18

need you all to stick around a little bit longer when we come back.

21:20

There's more on today's political climate

21:23

and the very real potential for

21:25

violence will tell you about the terrifying

21:28

day at the Wisconsin State Capitol

21:30

when an armed man

21:31

came not one time but two times

21:34

armed, demanding to see that state's

21:36

governor. Plus, the case removal

21:38

of Kevin McCarthy has paralyzed

21:40

Washington and could put much of the

21:43

country at a standstill legislatively. But

21:45

it's also been seen as a warning sign

21:48

that even wavers things than

21:50

that ahead. Transportation Secretary

21:52

Pete Buttigieg will join us on

21:54

all of that news coming up. And later

21:57

in the show, the Donald Trump kitchen

21:59

sink strategy.

21:59

today a flurry of legal filings

22:02

designed to delay, distract,

22:04

and dismiss just about all of

22:06

the legal threats he faces. We'll bring you

22:08

all those stories and more when Deadland White House continues

22:11

after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

22:17

I'm MSNBC's Ali Velshi. A

22:19

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22:21

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22:24

banned last year alone. Each week on

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my podcast, Velshi Banned Book Club, a

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different author joins me to discuss their

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22:49

A related and deeply disturbing story

22:52

in Wisconsin today, a man has been arrested

22:54

after showing up at the state capitol

22:57

building with a loaded weapon. He

22:58

didn't do it

23:00

one time. He did it two times, demanding

23:02

to see Governor Tony Evers. The

23:04

AP report says, quote, the man

23:06

who was shirtless and had a holstered

23:08

handgun approached the governor's office on

23:10

the first floor of the capitol around 2 p.m.

23:13

Wednesday and was arrested for violating

23:15

gun laws then released on bail. He

23:17

then, quote, returned to the outside of

23:19

the capitol shortly before 9 p.m. with

23:22

a loaded assault-style rifle. He

23:24

again demanded to see the governor and

23:27

was taken into custody. It comes amid

23:29

growing threats of violence against elected

23:31

officials. According to NPR,

23:33

quote, in 2013, there were 38 arrests

23:36

over violent threats to elected officials. Last

23:39

year, there were 74. We're back

23:41

with Mary, Rick, Eddie, and Jonathan.

23:44

Mary.

23:47

So I think we're seeing exactly

23:49

what Trump's rhetoric inspires.

23:52

No, can I draw a line straight from Trump

23:54

to

23:54

this man in Wisconsin? No. But

23:56

this is what we've seen for years, right? Trump

23:59

says something in

23:59

incendiary, some individual or

24:02

group of individuals acts

24:04

on this. We're not seeing the same massive

24:07

violent demonstrations like we saw on January

24:09

6th. I think strategically people are worried

24:11

about going to prison. They've seen more than

24:13

a thousand people prosecuted, but we are seeing

24:16

lone wolf after lone wolf. I mentioned

24:18

I had been out west in New Mexico last

24:20

week. I was finishing a convening on

24:22

political violence, giving the closing remarks,

24:25

and about 30 miles up the road, a

24:27

man who'd been wearing a MAGA hat, who'd posted

24:29

all over his social media that Trump

24:31

had won and a bunch of other rhetoric, pulled

24:34

out a gun and shot someone who

24:36

was protesting about a decision

24:38

to put a statute of a

24:41

Spanish conquistador on

24:43

the city square. Pulled out a gun

24:45

and shot someone. And that's actually the second

24:48

shooting that has happened over

24:50

protests about a statute of the very same Spanish

24:52

conquistador. Kind of crazy. These

24:54

are the kind of things, lone wolf

24:57

actors, this person in Wisconsin who thinks

24:59

it's okay to use a gun for political

25:01

purposes. Dr. Garen

25:03

Wintemute, who actually is a medical

25:06

doctor, has recently put out new research

25:08

that shows one in three people on

25:11

his nationally

25:12

statistically significant survey

25:14

believe that there are times when

25:17

violence for political purposes is

25:20

one in three. And

25:22

at least it's not two in three, but

25:24

that's a huge number, right? That's a huge

25:26

number of people. And those who, and

25:29

I forget his number now, but it was also

25:31

an alarming percentage who thinks they are

25:33

going, if they don't already have a gun, they intend

25:36

to purchase

25:36

one in case they

25:38

need to use it for such purposes.

25:40

So people are inspired

25:42

to use violence. They think it's acceptable because

25:44

he makes it acceptable. And we have a

25:46

term for that. It's stochastic terrorism. Exactly.

25:49

You've written about it, Mary. It's an idea of using violent

25:51

rhetoric in a distant way without

25:54

pointing your finger at a specific person that

25:56

then normalizes the use of violence. And

25:58

then what you have too is... the sort of weaponization

26:01

of the Second Amendment, that it, this violent rhetoric

26:03

tells people that they can use violence to solve problems,

26:06

and that's what they have their guns for. That's

26:09

the trifecta of this that's so, so dangerous.

26:11

I mean, Eddie, I think the test again is

26:13

for the rest of us, right? Trump won in 2016

26:16

by, it's the line out of the American president

26:18

telling people, you know, what to be afraid of and

26:20

who's to blame. He has accelerated

26:23

a rhetoric from 2016 to this

26:25

poisoning the blood rhetoric

26:28

because he knows that the

26:30

violent rhetoric and the arming of

26:32

America and the xenophobia

26:34

is his only pathway to winning. He's also

26:36

told us already that winning is only

26:38

something he wants and needs so he doesn't face

26:41

prison time. I mean, it's all

26:43

laid bare. And I

26:46

wonder what you make of the,

26:48

I don't

26:49

want to call it political moment,

26:51

but it's going to, I mean,

26:54

we live in a system where elections are decided

26:56

through campaigns, candidates' campaign, they

26:58

tell a story to the country. And I

27:00

wonder if you think that the story being

27:02

told to the country matches the moment.

27:06

Yeah, look, Trump

27:08

is who he is. We know

27:10

who he is. And we

27:12

know why he's making these appeals. And

27:15

those appeals have traction, they get traction

27:17

because there are folks out here who believe that

27:20

they're losing hold of the country. You

27:22

know, the irony of Richard's invocation

27:25

in Mussolini and Hitler is that they were

27:28

looking to us when they were just starting. They

27:31

didn't create something that we look to. They

27:33

look to us, for example. When

27:35

we think about the violence in

27:38

Wisconsin, when we think about political violence

27:40

today, that's all we need to do is think about our history in Texas,

27:42

think about our history in North Carolina, think about our history in

27:44

Arkansas. Well, this is who we are, as

27:46

I said over and over again. And part of the problem,

27:49

Nicole, is that Trump is easy

27:51

in our melodramatic framing. He's

27:54

the villain, he's easy. What's difficult

27:57

is that so many of our fellow Americans...

28:00

buy into this and

28:02

the idea of America

28:05

that they have,

28:07

the idea of America that is circulating

28:09

in their minds

28:10

doesn't include people like me.

28:12

It questions folk like Jonathan. It wants

28:14

to keep women in their play. LGB, we can go

28:16

on and on and on. And we haven't provided an

28:19

alternative. We

28:21

keep yearning for something gone nostalgic,

28:24

some older America, some sense of normalcy

28:27

and we refuse to give an alternative

28:29

vision to this nonsense. So

28:32

Trump is easy. The

28:34

hard part is to put forward a

28:37

vision of the country that actually

28:39

responds to what we know

28:41

is circulating

28:43

among the people we love.

28:46

I'm just, I'm sorry, I'm

28:48

trying to wrap my mind around it. And

28:50

it just seems to me that we

28:52

don't want to face what we know we

28:55

should face. And that's the monster

28:57

in the mirror, which is us.

29:00

I mean, you can't stop now, Eddie. I guess what

29:02

I'd ask you to elaborate on is,

29:05

could

29:06

we handle that conversation? Right? Are

29:09

we still a country that can do hard,

29:12

have hard conversations?

29:14

If we can't handle it, Nicole, we're

29:17

going to lose it. If

29:20

we can't handle it, we're going to lose

29:22

it. All of this, we

29:25

have been fighting this battle. We

29:28

left over 600,000 on the battlefield day. We

29:32

fought it in the mid 20th century to

29:34

try to really instantiate

29:37

a democracy that affirms the dignity and

29:39

standing of all of every

29:41

human being, no matter the color of their skin,

29:44

no matter their gender, no matter their zip code,

29:46

no matter who they love, no matter their ability.

29:49

We trust if we don't confront it, we're

29:51

going to lose it. And if we have politicians

29:54

who are still trying to play to this idea

29:58

of the ideal voter, white,

30:00

who's male, you know who I'm talking

30:02

about, who's often Republican

30:05

that they kind of render its interest. If we

30:07

keep doing it and not putting

30:09

forward an alternative vision, Trump

30:11

and Trump is in MAGA. They're

30:14

going to win. I

30:15

understand what Jonathan is saying. They're decent

30:17

people out there, but

30:20

they've always been. They've always been decent people out

30:22

there.

30:24

We have to do something. I'm sorry. Yeah.

30:26

Go ahead, Jonathan. That means so right. Like,

30:29

look, like nothing

30:31

is preordained. This isn't like

30:33

a baseball game where if you don't,

30:36

you know, you're having an unsuccessful at bat, you

30:38

get another one. There's another inning. There's

30:40

another game. There's another season. Democracy

30:44

doesn't work like that. And I think people

30:46

take this for granted. So make

30:48

no mistake. When I say that there are more good people

30:51

out there, you know, Eddie's right. We need

30:53

a call to arms, not literal

30:55

arms, like pick up your weapons. But

30:58

we need like, we need a spiritual

31:01

arms race that evokes and

31:03

leverages that goodwill that's inside

31:05

so many of us. And Eddie's right.

31:08

What we need is leadership. We

31:10

need real leadership. And I'm not

31:12

just saying, oh, this is what President Biden needs to

31:14

say. Leadership is at all levels,

31:17

Nicole, not just the President of the United States, the

31:19

president of the school board, the president

31:21

of the PTA, like all

31:23

of us have to realize we

31:25

are stakeholders, shareholders

31:28

in this thing called democracy. And

31:31

if we don't do our fiduciary

31:33

duty, if you will, it will go bankrupt.

31:36

And look, as the grandson of a Holocaust

31:39

survivor who saw Germany,

31:42

you know, go up in flames, it will

31:44

go bankrupt when fascism reared its head as the

31:46

husband of a political refugee

31:48

from Iran, whose family fled

31:51

when that country has gone up in flames

31:53

because of Islamic fascism. Don't

31:55

think it can't happen here. I mean, that's the book

31:57

that I wrote for goodness sakes. It's above

32:00

my shoulder, it can and it will,

32:02

unless again we fight for what we have.

32:05

Well, I'm going to tap all of you to figure that

32:07

out because it exists on so many

32:09

levels. I mean, this is the real stuff, right? This

32:11

is like,

32:13

this is the gritty, difficult, nuanced

32:15

conversation that much to this chagrin and my producers

32:17

takes 35 minutes to flesh out from

32:20

four brilliant minds. But

32:23

I am fearful

32:24

that we're entering a cycle where a poll will come

32:27

out and an X number of people think Joe Biden's

32:29

old. I mean, we have such BS

32:31

conversations in this country

32:34

when the choice is between living in a democracy

32:37

and moving towards something that Trump is clearly

32:39

running on with echoes of autocracy

32:41

and fascism. It's not,

32:44

and I think Liz Cheney articulated this ahead of

32:46

the midterms, that she can't wait to get back to

32:48

fighting with Jamie Poskin, but

32:50

she went out and campaigned for Republican

32:55

Congress women. Maybe there was a Congress man. But

32:57

I mean, this is an extraordinary moment

33:00

and I'll give you the last word, Eddie, because you've

33:02

stirred something in me. How

33:06

do we do that? How do we elevate

33:08

the whole conversation for the next

33:10

year in a little bit?

33:12

You know, I'm trying to figure

33:15

that out day in and day out, but I do know

33:17

one thing. We have to chuck the old

33:19

blueprint. We have to finally

33:21

shake loose of the 40 years

33:24

of politics that we've been engaged in and try

33:26

to engage in the imaginative work

33:29

that's necessary to bring a new America

33:31

into being. If we keep following

33:33

the old script, right, we're going

33:36

to fall into the same traps. So

33:39

let's be more imaginative in how we begin

33:41

this and how we engage in these conversations.

33:44

That's the first step. And then, of course, we have to do the

33:46

hard work that Jonathan and others have laid out.

33:49

Mary, Eddie, Jonathan, thank you

33:51

so much for having this conversation and for starting

33:53

something. I hope with us, Rick

33:55

sticks around for the hour. Up next, Secretary

33:58

Pete Buttigieg will be here.

33:59

on what we're talking about, the going-to-American

34:02

democracy, the ex-president's attacks

34:05

on the US military, and what comes next

34:08

for governing in this country? He'll

34:10

be here after short breaks, don't go anywhere.

34:18

It has been two long days since the Republican

34:21

revolt on Capitol Hill that has left the

34:23

United States of America without

34:25

a speaker of

34:27

the House for the first time in its history.

34:29

That position is third in line to the

34:31

presidency. And right now, 40 p.m.

34:34

in the east, it's empty, vacant. It's difficult

34:36

to overstate the implications this

34:39

upheaval, this dysfunction has

34:41

for all of us and for American democracy.

34:44

The ouster of McCarthy is not just a symptom

34:47

of this hot civil war going on inside

34:49

the MAGA Republican Party

34:51

as the even fringier MAGA-obsessed

34:55

wing seeks to cement their control over

34:57

the rest of the MAGA-friendly caucus. It

34:59

is also a manifestation of the

35:02

incredible stress and strain that

35:04

American democracy is under because

35:06

of that dynamic right now. For

35:09

some historians and political scientists,

35:11

the paralysis Kevin McCarthy's ouster

35:14

has cast over Capitol Hill is

35:16

a potential warning sign of graver things

35:18

to come. Washington Post quotes a professor

35:20

of government at Harvard University who writes

35:23

this, quote, if you want to know what it

35:25

looks like when democracy is in trouble,

35:27

this is what it looks like.

35:29

It should set off alarm bells that something is not

35:31

right. It's

35:32

disconcerting as the events of the past few

35:34

weeks have been. More worrying is

35:36

what might come next. History has shown

35:38

that government dysfunction can be a prelude

35:41

to the erasure of democracy altogether,

35:44

authoritarianism rising

35:46

in its place. Joining us, U.S.

35:48

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

35:50

Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for being with us. Thanks

35:54

for having me back on.

35:56

So, you from the beginning of

35:58

sort of the national turn of the world,

35:59

your career have been, I think, one of the most

36:02

skilled messengers inside the belly of

36:04

the beast. I've watched all of your appearances

36:07

on Fox News. And

36:09

I wonder if you think that's where this

36:12

message of, hey, guys, you may not agree

36:14

with all of the points of the Biden policy

36:17

agenda, but we are too close to

36:19

the edge of something from which we may not

36:21

recover. Do

36:23

you argue internally to spend more time

36:25

in places where they're the ones pushing us

36:27

over the edge?

36:30

Yeah, I think it's critically important

36:32

to get back to a time and

36:34

place where arguments between

36:37

people from two major political parties

36:39

happen within the framework of a clear,

36:42

obvious shared commitment

36:44

to basic democratic principles.

36:46

When that comes in to question,

36:49

as the president spoke to just a few days

36:51

ago, that spells real trouble for

36:53

our country. There are a lot of things we can do about

36:55

that. Look, not all of the solutions. In

36:57

fact, I would say a minority of the solutions

37:00

really come from Washington. A lot of our

37:02

salvation will come from the local. A

37:04

lot of it will come from civil society, outside

37:07

government and politics. But it

37:09

is also critically important that we

37:11

find ways to better deliver.

37:13

And that's what our focus has been. In the administration,

37:16

our focus is on taking care of the basics, because

37:18

we know the legitimacy of any political

37:21

system, including the legitimacy of

37:23

democracy versus authoritarianism.

37:26

Partly depends on how that system can

37:28

take care of the basics, which is why we're so focused

37:30

on things like roads and bridges, making airports

37:32

better and making sure that we're fixing

37:35

our supply chains. Those are the things we get up in the

37:37

morning in this administration, certainly

37:39

in the Department of Transportation, thinking about

37:41

what and how to do best.

37:44

And obviously, the fringe

37:47

element to the House Republican Conference is

37:49

not making it any easier by tying

37:51

up so many of the instruments in government. But we're

37:53

still coming into work every day seeking

37:55

to get that done, because if we get it right, we

37:57

are not just getting good projects built. We're

38:00

not just making good policy, but

38:02

we're playing a small part in reinforcing

38:05

the trust and legitimacy that

38:07

keeps our whole system working.

38:09

And that's President Biden's bet, right?

38:11

That you can't just say democracy

38:13

is fragile and precious and

38:15

you don't want anything else. It's to show them the fruits

38:18

of it, right? And I think it started with

38:20

making the vaccine available to everyone. And

38:22

it continued obviously with the very politically

38:25

popular infrastructure package. You're

38:27

arguing that one of the best ways to save

38:30

democracy is to continually show the American

38:32

people what they get from it.

38:36

Yeah, part of how we come away from the

38:38

edge of the cliff is for people to

38:40

see day by day, piece by piece, that

38:43

good things are getting done through the

38:46

action of the government that they voted into

38:48

place, right? They send us to Washington to get certain

38:50

things done. They send Congress here to

38:52

get certain things done. Right now, some of those basic

38:54

things like passing a budget haven't happened.

38:56

But other of those things, especially in the last

38:59

Congress under Speaker Pelosi's leadership working

39:01

with the president, we have bipartisan

39:03

work to get that infrastructure law done. That was the

39:05

exact kind of thing that people send

39:07

their elected representatives and their

39:09

administration into those

39:12

halls of government to deal with and to get done. And

39:14

that's what our focus is. And again, we're

39:17

working on it coast to coast. I mean, you know,

39:19

it's just in Nebraska, working on a short

39:22

line railroad there that's going to help move agricultural

39:25

products more safely when we get the

39:27

grant that we put out there to

39:29

deliver safety improvements and railroad infrastructure.

39:32

The next step is in Denver

39:34

reconfiguring the geometry of

39:37

a taxiway to make it actually

39:39

physically impossible for a certain kind

39:41

of runway incursion to happen, which makes their

39:44

travel safer and more convenient. I

39:46

know they're unglamorous and don't always

39:48

sound obvious how they fit into

39:50

the big, almost cosmic picture

39:53

of sustaining the durability of American

39:55

democracy. But I believe and

39:57

the president has talked about how these things really

39:59

are connected. Taking care of the basics helps reinforce

40:02

legitimacy, while on the other side we

40:04

have this fountain of drama and chaos,

40:06

unfortunately, which I think doesn't

40:08

speak to how most Americans

40:11

who happen to be Republicans sitting at home think about these

40:13

things, but does have a grip,

40:17

and earlier this week proved

40:19

to be a death grip, on the House Republican

40:21

Conference.

40:22

You were reconfiguring

40:24

the geometry of a taxiway as the

40:26

most unsurprising thing I could

40:28

ever hear about your hands-on

40:32

approach to your job. I

40:34

want to ask you what it says, though,

40:37

and what the contrast is for the next 12 to 14

40:41

months. The thing that cost Kevin

40:43

McCarthy his job

40:45

after he agreed to impeach President

40:47

Joe Biden absent any evidence, that's

40:49

not me saying it, or you, that's his House Republicans,

40:52

but the thing that cost him his job was keeping the

40:54

government running.

40:55

What does that say about whoever can

40:58

get the job next?

41:01

Yeah, well, what's so

41:04

strange about that is

41:06

that that one thing that he

41:09

did, which was to work

41:11

on a bipartisan basis, by the way, right, Democrats

41:14

willing to work with Republicans to vote to keep the government

41:16

running, was exactly what most Americans

41:18

expect from their leaders. They

41:21

expect and desire bipartisan work. They

41:23

expect at a minimum that the government

41:25

be up and running, and it was those actions

41:28

that were deemed unforgivable

41:31

by the handful of fringe House

41:33

Republicans who seem to be controlling

41:36

events right now. It

41:38

is so ironic that of all the things

41:40

he did, popular and unpopular,

41:43

the thing that is most in line with what most Americans

41:46

would actually expect. I remember many,

41:48

if not most, of the positions that Speaker McCarthy

41:50

took were out of step with a majority

41:52

of Americans, right? The House GOP's

41:55

position on the budget slashing air traffic

41:57

controllers and railway inspections.

42:00

where most Americans are, just like their

42:02

opposition to a $35 cap on

42:04

insulin is not where most Americans are. Their

42:06

position on a question like choice is out of step

42:08

with most Americans. But he finally did something

42:11

most Americans agree with, which is that Democrats

42:13

and Republicans ought to work together, especially when

42:15

it comes to something like making sure the lights are on in the federal

42:17

government. And that, that

42:19

proved to be the unforgivable sin that

42:21

cost him his job.

42:22

It's unbelievable. Mr. Secretary, I'd like

42:25

to ask you to stick around through a break. I want to get your

42:27

thoughts on the ex-president's repeated

42:29

and it would seem escalating attacks on

42:32

the men and women of the U.S. military. We'll be right back.

42:34

Hey,

42:34

everybody. It's Joe Scarborough. That's

42:37

right. You can

42:39

find us in the Morning News live feature every weekday beginning at 6 a.m. See

42:43

you next time. Morning Joe. Morning

42:45

Joe. Morning Joe. Morning Joe. Morning

42:48

Joe. Morning Joe. Morning Joe. Morning

42:51

Joe. Morning Joe. Morning Joe. Morning

42:54

Joe. Morning Joe. Morning

42:56

Joe. Morning Joe. Morning Joe.

42:58

Morning Joe. Morning Joe. Morning

43:00

Joe.

43:01

That's right, it's Morning Joe. It's Morning Joe. We'll

43:03

be right back with more information. See you there. by

43:08

now. Chairman Mark Milley has

43:12

been threatened, accused of treason,

43:14

threatened with death by

43:16

Donald Trump for some

43:19

criticisms. One of the stories he's told has

43:21

seared in my brain forever. A gentleman named

43:24

Luis Avila saying he

43:26

was an amputee and Donald Trump said to Chairman

43:28

Milley, get him out of here. I don't ever want to see him

43:30

again. People don't want to see that. These

43:33

kinds of disparaging remarks about wounded

43:36

veterans, the most heroic among

43:38

us, along with those who have served like yourself

43:41

and people who have lost loved ones

43:43

who served, are now

43:45

known to be people despised by Donald

43:47

Trump from Chairman Milley and

43:49

from his former Chief of Staff John Kelly. Where

43:53

do we go as a country if that

43:55

person who despises wounded

43:58

veterans and those who died serving their country?

43:59

country is the Republican

44:02

Party's front runner.

44:07

Look, it's a really painful

44:09

and tough thing to hear, to read about,

44:11

even as we have learned not to be surprised

44:13

by that sort of thing. You

44:16

know, I think about the people I served

44:18

with who were injured. And

44:22

I think about some people who were injured and then I

44:24

served with them because they came right back to active

44:27

duty as soon as they got the chance. And

44:29

the idea that you would have that kind of disrespect for somebody

44:32

who puts their life on the line,

44:34

puts their body on the line and sacrifices more

44:36

than most of us, even those of us who served,

44:38

most of us can imagine, is just

44:41

unthinkable for, especially

44:43

for somebody who

44:45

has been the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief.

44:49

I guess to me it comes down to this. If

44:52

being around an injured

44:55

or wounded or disabled veteran makes you

44:57

uncomfortable, it should make you

44:59

uncomfortable in the direction of wanting

45:02

to be more like them. It should make you uncomfortable

45:05

in the direction of asking

45:08

whether you have done enough to make your

45:10

life in your community and your country

45:12

worthy of the price that

45:15

was paid in blood to keep that

45:17

country safe. I

45:19

think that's something that all of us, regardless

45:21

of political persuasion, ought to be able to

45:24

come together around. Certainly, even

45:26

at my tender age, I'm old enough to remember when that's

45:28

something that all Republicans

45:30

and Democrats could come together around.

45:33

And we need to get back to that. By the way, that's

45:35

our focus in this administration. The PACT

45:38

Act, obviously,

45:40

not something that I'm claiming

45:42

credit for from the Department of Transportation, the President's

45:45

leadership, Secretary Dennis McDonough's

45:47

leadership in the VA, and a lot of leadership

45:49

in Congress. And by the way, again, bipartisan work, making

45:52

sure that people like the people I served with who

45:54

were exposed to those toxic burn pits are going

45:56

to get the care that they need and deserve. That's

45:58

what it means to actually take the well-being

46:01

of veterans seriously and do right by them. And

46:04

again, if they make you uncomfortable, it should be in

46:06

the direction of wanting to emulate them, not

46:08

wanting them out of your sight.

46:10

Secretary Vitebouge, thank you so

46:12

much for joining us. Rick, you

46:14

get the last word.

46:16

Yes, I would hope that Americans could watch

46:18

that and see a Secretary of Transportation

46:21

and say, we're not ideological.

46:23

We want somebody who is competent,

46:26

because competence used to be the coin of the realm

46:28

in politics. And it's not anymore. But

46:30

I think seeing people like Pete Buttigieg,

46:33

seeing competent people, seeing this administration

46:35

which actually knows how to govern, I hope

46:37

and pray, is the thing that persuades people

46:40

to keep them in power.

46:42

Stengel, thank you for spending the hour with

46:44

us. I know you walked in filling up the mistake,

46:46

am I right? I'm afraid. I'm

46:47

sorry about that. Yes, you destroyed

46:49

it. The news destroyed

46:51

it, not me. After

46:53

the break for us, we will turn

46:55

to Donald Trump's legal

46:58

woes. They're piling up, and today so

47:00

too are his attempts to delay,

47:02

dismiss, and deflect.

47:04

We'll explain.

47:05

Don't go anywhere.

47:14

I'm really rich. I'll show you that next time. And

47:18

by the way, I'm

47:20

not even saying that in a bracket. That's

47:22

the kind of mindset, that's the kind of thinking

47:24

you need for this country. I'm

47:26

a world-class business guy. I built

47:29

an unbelievable company, very,

47:31

very little debt, tremendous number

47:33

of the greatest assets in the world, tremendous

47:36

cash flow. A little

47:39

straight face on the set. Hi again, everyone.

47:41

It's five o'clock in New York. The core of

47:43

Donald Trump's puffed-up, manufactured

47:47

identity lies in what

47:49

he described there, right? The

47:51

grand sense of business acumen,

47:54

the value of his assets, his deal-making

47:57

in his words again as well.

47:59

But the veneer of that persona

48:02

was pierced by New York Judge

48:04

Arthur Ngoron, who found Donald Trump

48:06

liable for fraud in the New York

48:09

Attorney General's civil case against him. And

48:11

now Judge Ngoron took a step to implement

48:14

his decision on Trump's liability, a ruling

48:16

he was able to make before the trial even started.

48:19

As a result of a new order filed

48:21

by that judge today, the Trump

48:24

organization must show the court

48:26

they are complying with the order to cancel

48:29

their business certificates

48:29

in New York and notify

48:32

any movement of assets or creation

48:35

of new entities. Now in plain

48:37

language, sober, lights

48:40

out. Trump cannot do business anymore

48:42

in New York and he cannot move money around

48:45

that could tamper with the case. Now

48:47

coming on a day that has developed into

48:49

a smorgasbord of attempts by the ex-president

48:52

to delay, dismiss, distract

48:55

from the many, many legal problems,

48:57

the many, many trials he faces.

49:00

It started with this New York fraud case. Trump's

49:02

lawyers have announced that they will move for a

49:04

stay pending their appeal of this case that they

49:06

filed yesterday. Over in the Hush

49:08

Money case, Trump's

49:09

attorneys filed a motion to dismiss that

49:11

one attacking Manhattan District Attorney

49:14

Alvin Bragg and saying the charges he

49:16

brought are politically motivated. Then

49:19

there is the federal classified documents

49:21

case sometimes referred to as the Mar-a-Lago case.

49:24

Trump's lawyers in that one have asked federal

49:27

judge Aileen Cannon to postpone

49:29

the trial until mid-November, so after

49:32

the 2024 election. As

49:34

of right now, that trial is set to

49:37

start on May 20th of next year. Now

49:39

one of the reasons Trump's lawyers cited

49:42

in their request to delay is it

49:44

terms busy. He's a very crowded

49:46

legal calendar. The lawyers

49:49

claiming that they, nor Trump, could

49:51

quote, be in two places at once. One

49:54

of the lawyers in the classified documents case,

49:56

Chris Kice, is also the lawyer

49:58

that's representing Trump in the U.S.

49:59

this New York fraud case in New York this

50:02

week. And then there was the other

50:04

federal criminal case against Donald Trump,

50:06

the one looking into his efforts to

50:08

subvert his defeat in 2020 election

50:11

and overturn the result. He's

50:14

trying to get that one dismissed altogether,

50:16

saying something like, efforts

50:19

to ensure election integrity were within

50:21

the scope of his responsibility as president

50:24

and therefore protected under presidential

50:26

immunity.

50:27

Okay, now you're probably dizzy

50:30

trying to make sense of all these legal maneuvers

50:32

all coming today. So to make it simple, know

50:34

this.

50:35

Donald Trump, a man currently on trial

50:38

in New York for fraud and charged with 91 criminal

50:40

case for various other

50:42

alleged crimes, is trying

50:44

everything and anything he can to

50:47

shut down or delay the cases

50:49

against him.

50:50

Trump's countless impiling up legal

50:52

woes are where we start the hour of some of our most favorite

50:54

reporters and friends. Joining the conversation, New

50:57

York Times investigative reporter Suzanne

50:59

Cragg, she was in the courtroom again, plus

51:01

for a public reporter and host of the new

51:03

podcast, We Need to Talk about

51:05

Leonard, Andrea Bernstein this year. She's been

51:08

covering Trump's businesses and Trump for

51:10

years. Also joining us, Donnie Deutsch,

51:12

host of the podcast On Brand and

51:14

the former deputy assistant attorney general

51:16

and former US attorney, Harry Lippmann is with

51:18

us. Sue, we love

51:20

what's in your notebooks. It just tell

51:21

us what you reported today.

51:24

You need a whiteboard. I think

51:26

I'm getting there, right? I've got one

51:28

little case. Yeah, it's a pretty big one.

51:31

But it just

51:32

did one juristic. Yeah, they're

51:34

gonna study it. I got all these pages. They're

51:37

gonna study our brains at the end. But

51:40

so this morning,

51:41

sort of even before we got to court,

51:44

there was an order and this order, to me it was

51:46

interesting because there was the motion for, or

51:49

the judge granted the motion for summary

51:51

judgment and said he's found him liable

51:53

for fraud and we still didn't

51:55

really know the contours of that. I think

51:57

we're still gonna learn more. We knew

51:59

immediately. there would be a receiver and there was

52:01

restrictions on the business. But

52:04

today we found out a little, you know, we're just sort of finding

52:07

out pieces of it, I guess. And this morning, the judge

52:10

had an order that said that if the Trumps

52:12

want to move money, or

52:14

if they create a business,

52:16

they need to report it to the court. And

52:18

it's not just Donald Trump, it's the family

52:20

and its officers of the company. So it was,

52:22

you know, notable

52:25

when we walked in that that had happened. And

52:27

they also need, they're moving to get the

52:29

names of the receivers and the next few

52:31

weeks they have to get a list to the court. And

52:34

then in court, we saw more testimony

52:36

today. Don Bender, an outside accountant,

52:39

was up first thing in the morning and then his testimony

52:42

finished and then another inside accountant was

52:45

in the afternoon. And it really did become

52:47

a bit of a blame. It's just

52:50

the blame game. I mean, Donald Trump is saying, I'm

52:52

not responsible for this. My outside accountant

52:54

is responsible for it. And the outside accountant,

52:57

Don Bender is saying, well, hang on, I got everything

52:59

from the Trump organization. At

53:02

one point yesterday, the testimony

53:05

got quite heated. There was actually

53:08

one of the lawyers stood up and said, you know, let's turn

53:11

it on. Don Bender's not on trial. And Trump's

53:13

lawyers got up and said, well, hang on, he kind of is on trial.

53:15

Right. And they're really trying to

53:18

place the blame at his

53:20

feet today. And then another inside

53:23

accountant got up today and was

53:26

a witness for the government and was showing documents,

53:28

the financial statements that are sort of in question

53:30

where Donald Trump inflated his wealth. And

53:33

there was a note on it, you know, DJT

53:35

to review. And what the government is trying

53:38

to do in this case is just tie everything

53:40

they can back to Donald Trump. And that's

53:42

the sort of thing you're seeing, you

53:45

know, inside the courtroom. And then there

53:47

was then this other motion today where

53:49

Donald Trump's lawyers came in court

53:51

and then they want to have a hearing

53:53

tomorrow to stay the pursuit.

53:56

And it even was unclear what they wanted to stay

53:58

if they just wanted that. the

54:00

summary judgment state or they wanted the whole trial.

54:02

The trial is kind of out of the bag, it started.

54:05

But they were even being cagey about that and then they

54:07

said both and I guess we'll see tomorrow where it

54:09

goes. But there was a lot

54:12

of things and pieces just going

54:14

on. It was a lot of stuff.

54:17

And you're watching this as well. I mean

54:19

it's clear that

54:21

and I'm not, I can't

54:24

compare them to the others because they haven't happened yet, but this

54:26

one definitely gets right up into

54:28

all of his stuff, right? That

54:30

the whole thing was fraud. Well,

54:33

in fact, the judge found that Trump

54:35

did commit repeated and persistent

54:38

fraud under New York law. And you know,

54:40

I sort of questioned now is whether there was a conspiracy

54:42

and to what extent there was intent and how much

54:44

money they have to pay. But this

54:47

is someone who has now been found to have done

54:49

this and you know in his decision last week

54:51

the judge quoted Chico Marx from

54:53

the movie Duck Soup saying who you're gonna believe. Me

54:56

or you're lying eyes. And

54:59

it is sort of that is kind of the model

55:01

and you know Suzanne's covered it. I've covered it. That is what you

55:03

see over and over and over again with Trump is the

55:05

sense of the value was high

55:08

when they need a loan and the value was low

55:10

when they have to pay any taxes to anybody. And you see

55:12

it over and over and over again. And here is Trump

55:14

and I was in the courtroom this week and he's

55:17

tall but he's kind of hunched over so he looks smaller

55:20

and the room feels small and everybody's kind

55:22

of together and he cannot

55:24

talk. He doesn't control the room. He doesn't control

55:27

the discourse. I can't even believe that he made it for

55:29

several days because here he is in

55:31

a situation where somebody else gets to decide what

55:33

is true, what is false and

55:36

who has

55:38

committed you know an act in violation of

55:40

New York law. Trump cannot do that

55:42

and that is counter to his entire way of being

55:44

both as a business person and a president

55:47

and that is what he is facing right now. Well, he

55:49

didn't really make it right. He kept coming out and like

55:51

blurting out his attacks and then going back and that's

55:53

how he

55:54

Yesterday he was very frustrated

55:56

and he was actually the last day that he was in

55:58

court. He was muttering and people could hear him. Well,

56:01

does he matter? I mean, just complaining. And

56:04

the thing that he doesn't have a jury is really bothering

56:06

him even though he didn't have that decided. Yeah,

56:08

he didn't ask for one.

56:10

Although he didn't do well with a New York jury either.

56:12

I mean, look at the Eugene Carroll case. That case came

56:14

down so quickly that all of us were caught off

56:17

guard with that guilty, guilty verdict.

56:19

Also, his company was found guilty

56:22

of felonies in New York. So those were both

56:24

juries and sort of whatever

56:26

he doesn't have is what he wants, but they weren't

56:29

so great for him either. But he

56:30

likes, I think, the idea of it because it's like an

56:32

audience. What do you think the audience

56:34

is?

56:35

Right now, do you think it is? I think

56:37

he thinks it's

56:38

the bait. Us? I think

56:41

he's got a different, he's not the judge. But

56:44

I think his lawyers, they've got

56:46

different, I think, audiences. They're looking at, I think, an important

56:49

one that you're seeing play out every day with

56:51

his legal team is the appellate courts. Right,

56:53

Chris, right? Yeah, they're very much

56:56

laying the ground. And I think now this motion

56:58

today that might be heard tomorrow to stay

57:01

proceedings, whatever it turns out to

57:03

be, it's all set in the ground for

57:05

the appeal. And the appellate court

57:08

is familiar with this case. They've already heard some

57:10

stuff. They've said, no, I can't imagine they're going to stop

57:12

a trial midway through. But this is all where this is

57:15

heading. That's not necessarily Donald Trump's

57:17

audience, but that's an important audience for the lawyers.

57:22

His inability to sort of regulate

57:24

his emotions is on display

57:26

as well. I mean, and I just think of

57:28

the profound lack of fitness that he's displayed

57:31

through all of the threats of violence. But

57:33

he's also shown like a profound

57:35

lack of fitness to be a defendant. I

57:38

mean, he's not helping his case at all.

57:40

We haven't seen fitness really

57:42

do anything on the right side of the equation.

57:44

I want to pick up both of your points.

57:46

First off, I want to reiterate that although

57:48

if you kind of lined up to the average person,

57:51

something where you could potentially go to jail for election

57:55

interference, obstruction of

57:57

justice things, this is the one

57:59

that gets to the table.

57:59

the core of who he is because before a politician,

58:02

he's a businessman with big tall buildings

58:05

and lots of piles of money and everything

58:07

is big and everything is an extension, a

58:09

grandiose extension and this is just putting

58:11

a pin in that Thanksgiving

58:14

Day parade balloon. And to your point,

58:17

him showing up was such a mistake because you are seeing

58:19

a weekend man. You are seeing somebody that can't

58:21

speak out when they want to speak out, but can't control a situation

58:24

that is not in control. And I think those

58:26

are two points and I want to also bring it back

58:28

to the top of the four o'clock hour where we are ending

58:30

now with a buffoon businessman, but

58:33

we started with a bigoted, race-baiting, violent,

58:36

incentivizing,

58:37

dangerous fascist stare. And that's the

58:40

range here to the white collar

58:42

where we giggle a little bit to the part

58:44

where we are so far from giggling, where

58:46

we are just terrified and where you use

58:48

the words that are so powerful, what if

58:51

he gets elected again? I think we have to keep

58:53

saying that over and over and over

58:55

again.

58:56

Well, and I mean, Harry Libman, they

58:58

are all connected in his mind. I mean,

59:00

his business prowess is his political

59:02

brand and I think the reason his

59:04

reporting was so kind

59:07

of schlizmic for

59:09

him is it sort of peeling back the layers

59:11

that the money from his father was not

59:14

a seed, it

59:17

was a constant crutch, it was a net,

59:19

it lasted forever, it was a lot more than he ever

59:21

claimed it was.

59:23

I think that's totally right and I really concur

59:26

with what Donnie says, it's odd, but

59:28

the criminal charges, he almost

59:30

takes as a badge of honor on the campaign trail,

59:33

but this hits him where he breathes,

59:35

he is mortified at the notion that he would

59:37

be formally found to be a fraudster

59:40

and his whole brand for all

59:42

his life have been just

59:44

a sort of pose. This is, by

59:46

the way, I think a coordinated smorgasbord

59:49

is a pretty good word that you use, I call

59:51

four different cases and

59:54

including this one, he's going, I think we will

59:56

see tomorrow a motion to stay

59:58

this entire term. none

1:00:00

of it I expect will be successful

1:00:03

but all of it especially the one before

1:00:05

Judge Chutkin is trying to lay

1:00:07

the groundwork for something on

1:00:10

appeal you know when we're talking about

1:00:12

if he's not elected and he is convicted 2025

1:00:16

2026 but there's just no doubt that even though these

1:00:19

aren't criminal charges they absolutely

1:00:21

stick the knife into him in

1:00:24

a way that none of the others does.

1:00:26

I mean Harry is any judge, I mean

1:00:30

it's all a delay tactic because he wants to

1:00:32

put them all off to the other side of the election

1:00:35

and he really does have a lot of trials. I

1:00:37

mean how is a judge going

1:00:39

to sit through the fact that it

1:00:41

is it is it is flagrant

1:00:43

delay they're not making legal

1:00:45

arguments they're making political arguments and

1:00:48

he is on trial in a lot of places for a lot of different

1:00:50

things.

1:00:52

Pretty easily I think the judges say look

1:00:54

to the extent that's your argument we

1:00:56

can work it out with judges talking to

1:00:58

one another as they already are beginning

1:01:01

to do. It's a tight schedule but

1:01:03

one that you can manage now

1:01:05

but with some of these motions again they're

1:01:08

looking to appeal and we may be talking

1:01:10

about this God forbid in 2026 especially

1:01:14

the big one January 6 I think is meant to

1:01:16

attract the interest of the Supreme Court and

1:01:19

if he is convicted as the evidence suggests

1:01:21

he should be and if he doesn't win

1:01:23

election as everything in God's

1:01:25

universe suggests he shouldn't be. We're

1:01:28

going to be thinking very hard about will

1:01:30

he be granted bail pending

1:01:33

appeal. If you need to have

1:01:35

a good argument to get that on the other hand

1:01:37

former president I think it's likely he will

1:01:40

be granted bail and the upshot of today's

1:01:42

motions maybe to keep him out

1:01:44

for a good long while.

1:01:46

Let me just remind everybody what the

1:01:49

most powerful Republican in the

1:01:51

Senate actually in Washington Mitch McConnell

1:01:53

the only one still standing set about

1:01:56

president Trump liability first contact.

1:02:00

President Trump is still

1:02:02

liable for everything he did while he was in

1:02:04

office

1:02:06

as an ordinary citizen. Unless

1:02:09

the statute of limitations is run, still

1:02:11

liable for everything he did while

1:02:14

he was in office. Didn't

1:02:16

get away with anything yet. Yet.

1:02:23

We have a criminal justice system in this country. We

1:02:26

have civil litigation.

1:02:29

And former presidents are not immune from being

1:02:31

accountable by either one.

1:02:34

Play that because in his filing to delay

1:02:37

the case in front of Judge Chuck in the

1:02:40

coup case, he's

1:02:43

arguing that the

1:02:45

Congress looked at this and he wasn't convicted.

1:02:47

Not true. Mitch McConnell literally referred

1:02:49

him to the Justice Department in his

1:02:51

speech on the floor. Who would have sunk?

1:02:54

Who would have sunk that the Republican

1:02:56

hero, the man we can look up to, the man

1:02:58

speaking from reason of common sense of gravitas

1:03:03

of decency is Mitch McConnell. Just today.

1:03:05

Yeah. I love it. I'm

1:03:08

liable for everything he did while he was in office.

1:03:10

I love that when we key

1:03:12

up the voice of reason, it's Mitch McConnell and

1:03:14

that's where we go. And it just,

1:03:17

every character, when you line them up and you get

1:03:20

further and further away from Trump, whether it's an ex-president,

1:03:22

whether it's anybody, just is so

1:03:25

refreshingly human.

1:03:28

I mean, to just see this guy make sense to me. I

1:03:30

know it's just today. Let me just say this

1:03:32

because

1:03:32

Mitch McConnell couldn't find his

1:03:34

spine in time to vote conviction. I'm just saying

1:03:36

today. But yes, for the purposes

1:03:39

of Trump's asinine filing, we would

1:03:41

have Mitch McConnell to rather than his spine.

1:03:43

I do think that this is a argument

1:03:45

we've heard a lot from Trump. It's always the wrong

1:03:47

venue.

1:03:47

Right. It's criminal. It's

1:03:49

not the right thing. It always is. If it's

1:03:51

impeachment, it should be in civil court. If it's civil

1:03:53

court, it should be somewhere else. Right. I

1:03:55

mean, I think the thing about the business trial

1:03:57

is that it's not just that it sort of goes to his emp- Which

1:04:00

I mean, this judge is moving to put

1:04:02

him out of business. And

1:04:04

this judge has already appointed

1:04:06

an independent monitor in this case who had

1:04:08

to look at their books to make sure that they were not

1:04:10

committing fraud

1:04:12

now. So this judge means business

1:04:14

and that was, you know, Trump tried to get

1:04:16

that blocked by the appeals court. He

1:04:18

was not successful. So this really, really,

1:04:21

really could happen. I mean, I think we are

1:04:23

close, closer than most people realize

1:04:25

to Trump not having

1:04:26

a business. It has happened

1:04:28

on the page. There's a receiver

1:04:30

over it. He cannot, there's

1:04:32

so many things that have happened. It's not

1:04:34

just that fine. He's got a receiver

1:04:36

now. He's got his business certificates

1:04:39

revoked. He can't transfer Monday.

1:04:41

Has he attacked? Does he know who the receiver is?

1:04:44

Well, they're

1:04:44

going to put forward people that this

1:04:46

is by now October 26. They have to have a list.

1:04:49

It's like you're driving a car and somebody's

1:04:51

taken away. It's like the driver's in a car where

1:04:53

they like they can hold a break. And

1:04:55

that's it. You know what? This is

1:04:58

why it's so real. It's not just, oh, there's a trial going on and

1:05:00

there could be a big fine that he's going to have

1:05:02

to pay. It is, this is

1:05:04

already, a lot of this has already happened

1:05:06

and the business is, you know, it's sort

1:05:08

of been frozen. He's been taken out of the driver's

1:05:10

seat on it and so is his family. That's incredible.

1:05:13

And you're saying it doesn't

1:05:13

have. There's, I would put everything

1:05:16

I own on. There is your chance he's anywhere close

1:05:18

to $250 million in liquid. I mean, the

1:05:20

guy like that has never had that kind of cash

1:05:23

in the back and he surely doesn't have it today.

1:05:24

Did we cut you off?

1:05:26

No, I was just going to say that's true, but that's exactly

1:05:29

the thing that he has appealed. So his big hope with

1:05:31

the fraud trial is to A, interrupt

1:05:33

it and B, get the appellate division to reverse

1:05:36

Angaran's pretty aggressive decision,

1:05:38

but very fact bound decision. If he loses

1:05:40

that and we'll know as the trial is going on

1:05:43

within a few weeks, I do think as a matter

1:05:45

of business, the reality

1:05:48

as Donnie was just saying,

1:05:50

he's

1:05:50

toast.

1:05:51

What do the kids do? You

1:05:54

know, the kids are screwed. The kids

1:05:56

are screwed because they also, you know,

1:05:59

it's been a no.

1:05:59

own fact he's not a big sharer you

1:06:02

know he is not showering his

1:06:04

children his kids and

1:06:09

where they're so damaged is they can't go anywhere

1:06:11

their brand is so disgustingly tarnished

1:06:13

and justifiably so that these

1:06:15

two buffoon sons I don't know what they do and Ivanka

1:06:18

is just moved as far away as she can from

1:06:20

him they're hiding in Florida and that's what they do it

1:06:22

and Jared and his two billion dollars that he got from

1:06:24

the South East yeah unbelievable thank

1:06:27

you so much all of you for being here Suzanne Craig

1:06:29

Donnie Deutsch for starting

1:06:31

us off Andrew's podcast we need to talk about

1:06:33

Leonard exploits explores the

1:06:35

web of money influence and

1:06:37

power behind the conservative takeover

1:06:40

of America's courts and the man of course

1:06:42

we've talked about him here behind or at the center

1:06:44

of all of that Leonard Leo particularly

1:06:46

relevant in our current time thank you so

1:06:48

much for coming to the table with us Harry sticks

1:06:50

around a little bit longer he has a head for us there's

1:06:53

some new developments to tell you

1:06:54

about in funny Willis's sprawling

1:06:56

Rico case against the disgraced ex

1:06:58

president and 18 others in Holton County

1:07:01

Georgia why she is now seeking testimony

1:07:03

from two people very high up

1:07:05

in that team and in Trump's inner circle

1:07:07

we'll tell you about that next plus things

1:07:10

might be heading from bad to even worse on

1:07:12

Capitol Hill especially when you consider

1:07:14

that the two Republicans running for speaker

1:07:17

both voted to object to Joe Biden's

1:07:19

victory in the 2020 election just

1:07:21

hours after the deadly Capitol insurrection

1:07:24

of

1:07:24

January set there's no leadership in

1:07:26

the house there are big questions and fears

1:07:28

right now about American military

1:07:31

aid to Ukraine we'll talk to his top

1:07:33

Democrat about where we go from here that's

1:07:35

why my house continues after a quick break don't

1:07:38

go anywhere I'm

1:07:42

MSNBC's Ali Vilshi a

1:07:45

book banning epidemic is infiltrating our

1:07:47

classrooms with 1,500 titles

1:07:49

banned last year alone each week on

1:07:51

my podcast Velshi banned book club a

1:07:53

different author joins me to discuss their

1:07:56

banned book like Margaret Atwood glory

1:07:58

Halse Anderson and many more using

1:07:59

books, that's how we share wisdom

1:08:02

or

1:08:02

values, that's how we take our country

1:08:05

to the place it should be.

1:08:06

Listen to Velshi Band Book Club now

1:08:08

on Amazon Music. New episodes,

1:08:10

Thursdays.

1:08:14

There is yet another telling development to tell

1:08:17

you about today. In the case, Fulton County

1:08:19

District Attorney Fonny Willis is building

1:08:21

against the disgraced ex-president. It

1:08:23

comes nearly two weeks before the first of his

1:08:25

co-defendants head to trial. According

1:08:28

to new court filings, Willis is working

1:08:30

to secure key out-of-state witnesses

1:08:33

to testify against Sidney Powell

1:08:35

and Kenneth Cheesebrow. It includes

1:08:37

pro-Trump Attorney Lynn Wood, who prosecutors

1:08:40

alleged hosted Powell and Michael

1:08:42

Flynn at his South Carolina estate

1:08:45

starting in November 2020 when

1:08:47

they drafted the memo recommending seizing

1:08:49

the Dominion voting machines. Prosecutors

1:08:52

are also working on securing testimony

1:08:55

from Trump Attorney Boris Epstein, who

1:08:57

according to new court filings can provide

1:09:00

evidence against Cheesebrow, quote,

1:09:02

including without limitation

1:09:04

as it relates to his communication with

1:09:06

co-defendants John Eastman and Rudy

1:09:08

Giuliani regarding the attempt

1:09:11

to disrupt and delay the January 6, 2021 joint

1:09:13

session of Congress.

1:09:14

And against Sidney Powell,

1:09:17

quote, including without limitation

1:09:19

as it relates to her appearance at the press conference

1:09:22

on November 19, 2020, where

1:09:24

Powell, Jenna Ellis and Rudy Giuliani

1:09:27

spread extreme, wacky

1:09:29

conspiracy theories about widespread

1:09:32

voter fraud and interference from

1:09:34

George Soros and Venezuela

1:09:37

all without a shred of evidence. Joining

1:09:40

our coverage, Washington correspondent for

1:09:42

the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Tia

1:09:44

Mitchell is back. Harry's still with us. Tia,

1:09:47

take us through what this means

1:09:49

about one, funny Willis's

1:09:52

trial strategy and

1:09:55

two, these first early

1:09:57

trials that we expect to get underway

1:09:59

later this month.

1:10:01

Yeah, I think it reinforces

1:10:04

what we kind of learned from

1:10:06

the indictments, what we've

1:10:08

been, you know, what we've known to be

1:10:10

true all along, which

1:10:11

is that Bonnie Willis's investigation

1:10:14

is very wide ranging. She's

1:10:17

wanting to now ask for

1:10:19

witnesses outside of the state of Georgia.

1:10:22

We know that she's looking at a lot

1:10:24

of different aspects

1:10:26

of attempts to overturn

1:10:28

the

1:10:28

election, not just the way Fulton

1:10:30

County election workers were treated, but also

1:10:33

the coffee county voter

1:10:36

machines, also the calls to

1:10:38

different elected officials. So as

1:10:41

we look at this witness list, and even

1:10:43

today with procedural

1:10:49

court hearings are occurring, she's

1:10:52

going full steam ahead, expecting

1:10:54

to take these first two

1:10:57

defendants to trial later this month.

1:10:59

So let me read Harry a little bit more

1:11:02

for you. This is from her filing about Boris

1:11:04

Epstein. Boris Epstein is necessary

1:11:07

and a material witness. He possesses

1:11:09

unique knowledge concerning communications between

1:11:11

himself and Sidney Powell, as well as communications

1:11:14

between himself and Kenneth Cheesebrow and

1:11:16

other known and unknown individuals involved

1:11:18

in the multi-state coordinated efforts to influence

1:11:21

the results of the November 2020 election

1:11:24

in Georgia and elsewhere.

1:11:27

I guess one,

1:11:29

why does she need him? And two, do you think

1:11:31

he complies?

1:11:33

I think

1:11:34

he does comply. Why does he need him? He

1:11:36

in particular is part of this November 2020

1:11:39

news conference where they lay out all

1:11:41

manner of fabulous

1:11:44

ideas about dominion, which is really

1:11:46

the core of what Sidney Powell did

1:11:49

wrong. I think two things bear emphasis

1:11:51

and first to second Tia. Every

1:11:53

time I think about this case, always think about how big

1:11:56

and sprawling it is and what it means

1:11:58

here. I think there are good aspects. and bad aspects

1:12:00

is everything, including out of

1:12:03

state conduct, is ascribed to

1:12:05

everyone. So she wants especially

1:12:07

the even these these witnesses

1:12:09

who will talk about Arizona and Pennsylvania

1:12:12

as well as Georgia, she wants that. And

1:12:14

then second, Powell, as you and I

1:12:16

were discussing earlier this week, unlike

1:12:19

everyone else who can sort of see how this

1:12:21

many month process plays out, Powell

1:12:23

is really looking at

1:12:26

going to trial and very soon, and

1:12:28

not just these out of state witnesses,

1:12:30

but other people, in particular,

1:12:33

the man who's already pleaded guilty have things

1:12:35

to say about her. So she's in a kind

1:12:37

of pressure that others aren't. And

1:12:39

it'll be very interesting to see what she does

1:12:42

in these next two weeks.

1:12:43

Tia Harry tweeted about that earlier

1:12:45

in a Powell hearing before Judge McAfee,

1:12:48

Scott Hall comes up right away. DA

1:12:50

tells Judge they're preparing transcript of his

1:12:52

video. And otherwise, Powell has

1:12:55

everything she's entitled to. We still don't

1:12:57

know what we don't know about

1:12:59

what Mr. Hall testified to when he pleaded guilty,

1:13:02

I guess it'll be a week

1:13:03

tomorrow, last Friday. What

1:13:07

are you hearing about who may be most

1:13:10

exposed based on that guilty plea?

1:13:14

Well, we know that according to

1:13:16

his indictment, Scott Hall was

1:13:19

part of this case because of the

1:13:22

Coffey County breach of the voting

1:13:24

machines. So anyone else

1:13:26

whose indictment also relates to Coffey

1:13:28

County probably should be

1:13:30

concerned about what he's telling

1:13:33

the prosecutors. Of course, that includes Sidney

1:13:35

Powell and others. So there

1:13:38

were a handful of people whose indictments

1:13:41

relate to Coffey County or relate

1:13:43

to the efforts to get the

1:13:46

investigators hired by Trump

1:13:49

allies to Coffey County.

1:13:51

And they're hoping that Scott Hall can

1:13:53

provide additional insight

1:13:56

into those discussions and

1:13:58

who was really part of bringing. that

1:14:00

together because as we know part

1:14:02

of what Sidney Powell is saying for example

1:14:05

is that she really had nothing to do with

1:14:07

it and that there's no evidence she was

1:14:09

behind that breach perhaps

1:14:12

Scott Hall or others that

1:14:14

we know the prosecutors are hoping to talk

1:14:16

to can shed additional

1:14:18

light on those conversations.

1:14:20

I mean you know who is interested in seizing

1:14:22

voting machines because they heard they weren't

1:14:25

secure with Donald Trump. I'm

1:14:28

fascinated to see where the

1:14:30

breadcrumbs lead. Tia Mitchell and

1:14:32

Harry Lippmann thank you both so much for spending

1:14:34

some time with us in this development. When

1:14:36

we come back the removal of the Speaker of the

1:14:38

House Kevin McCarthy by a cabal

1:14:41

of right-wing rebels in his own caucus

1:14:43

and the fight among Republicans now to replace

1:14:46

him.

1:14:46

But now and now the disgraced ex-president

1:14:49

is mulling a bigger

1:14:51

role in all of the chaos. We'll bring you

1:14:54

that story in the latest after a very short break.

1:14:56

Stay with us.

1:15:02

The two most likely replacements

1:15:04

to succeed Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker have

1:15:06

now confirmed that they're officially campaigning

1:15:08

and running for the position. The first

1:15:11

is jacketless Jim

1:15:13

Jordan. His resume includes among

1:15:15

other things partisan exploits of

1:15:17

which you are likely well aware. Chairmanship

1:15:20

of the so-called weaponization

1:15:22

of the federal government subcommittee a humiliating

1:15:26

attempt to exact revenge

1:15:28

on

1:15:28

Democratic law enforcement officials

1:15:30

and others. The second is House

1:15:33

Majority Leader Steve Scalise whose

1:15:35

most probable out attributes

1:15:38

right now is maybe just

1:15:40

that he's not Jim Jordan but ideologically

1:15:44

how different are they? Look at their records

1:15:46

Donald Trump's first impeachment withholding

1:15:48

aid to Ukraine. Scalise and Jordan

1:15:50

voted against impeachment they

1:15:52

also voted against certifying the

1:15:55

election on January 6 hours

1:15:57

after the attack and without any questions about the

1:15:59

integrity of the Senate. of their own re-elections. And

1:16:02

then they both voted to let Trump

1:16:04

off the hook in his second impeachment. What

1:16:06

about legislation? They both voted against

1:16:09

that historic bipartisan gun safety bill,

1:16:11

the Safer Communities Act, same with the infrastructure

1:16:14

bill, and the Chips and Science Act

1:16:16

designed to keep economic pace with China.

1:16:19

So just because Steve Scalise

1:16:21

can find his jacket doesn't mean the two candidates

1:16:23

are materially different on anything

1:16:26

else. During our conversation, former congressmen

1:16:28

from Florida MSNBC political

1:16:31

analyst, David Jelly, with me at the table,

1:16:33

Basil Schmeichel, a democratic strategist

1:16:35

and the director of the Public Policy Program

1:16:37

at Hunter College. David Jelly,

1:16:40

your thoughts on these

1:16:42

two?

1:16:45

Yeah, Nicole, we're about where we

1:16:47

expected we would be in the days after

1:16:50

Kevin McCarthy, which your Scalise and

1:16:52

Jordan are really the two strong front runners

1:16:55

for the speakership, but they still face

1:16:57

that threshold that there's

1:16:59

a question whether anybody can meet the 218

1:17:02

votes to become speaker of the House.

1:17:04

And so look, a little bit of palace entry here

1:17:06

on these two, Scalise has been

1:17:09

McCarthy's number two now for about 10

1:17:11

years. He's been one place in leadership right

1:17:13

behind McCarthy, but they began to

1:17:15

separate. And McCarthy had

1:17:17

some suspicions of disloyalty

1:17:20

by Scalise a year or so ago. There was a

1:17:22

question whether Scalise would challenge McCarthy

1:17:24

in January to become speaker. Alternatively,

1:17:27

Jim Jordan, who for the last 10 years led

1:17:30

the House Freedom Caucus, or at least

1:17:32

was the titular leader of that caucus,

1:17:34

he made a strategic decision in January

1:17:37

not to lead his forces to oppose McCarthy,

1:17:40

but to fold in under McCarthy. And

1:17:42

McCarthy gave him the chairmanship

1:17:44

of the Judiciary Committee, said, go impeach Joe

1:17:46

Biden. And Jim Jordan, despite

1:17:48

his decade of being a Freedom

1:17:51

Caucus guy, has really fallen in line

1:17:53

behind McCarthy's leadership, which puts a

1:17:55

little bit of momentum now behind

1:17:57

Jim Jordan. So clearly the two front

1:17:59

runners. but still the question, can

1:18:02

you hold the entire caucus together?

1:18:04

They will be able to reach that decision

1:18:06

behind closed doors before we see all the

1:18:08

dirty laundry on the floor like we saw in January,

1:18:11

but still a hard question if either one

1:18:13

of them can reach 218.

1:18:15

All right. Should we do this

1:18:17

or not? There is another person

1:18:20

being talked about in the MAGA world.

1:18:22

Should we talk about

1:18:24

it? His name is Donald Trump.

1:18:27

This is reporting from my colleagues. Former President

1:18:29

Trump is considering a visit to the US Capitol

1:18:31

early next week as House Republicans consider

1:18:33

who should be their next speaker, according to two

1:18:36

GOP lawmakers and two Trump

1:18:38

allies.

1:18:39

Former president who has not set foot on Capitol

1:18:41

grounds since prior to January 6th is considering

1:18:44

making an appearance. So he goes

1:18:46

on Fox News this afternoon and says this

1:18:48

quote, they have asked me if I want it. Not

1:18:51

clear who they are. Their voices in his

1:18:53

head is sometimes chiming in as well as we all know.

1:18:56

But Basil, do we entertain

1:18:58

this? Do we give it oxygen? Do we ignore

1:19:00

it? And the next surprise if it happens, what

1:19:03

do we do with this?

1:19:03

Well, I think you can't ignore

1:19:06

it because the reality is every GOP

1:19:09

candidate on that debate stage, even if they

1:19:11

claim to be running against Donald

1:19:13

Trump's policies, they still sort

1:19:15

of feel to each other. So

1:19:17

he's going to be a player in all of this. And

1:19:20

of course, I hate to say that, but the reality is I have

1:19:23

to account for it, I

1:19:25

should say. And you know, what

1:19:27

you won't see

1:19:28

is what we saw in 1994 with Newt Gingrich standing

1:19:31

with members of Congress and saying this is the contract with

1:19:33

America and all the intellectual

1:19:35

undependings from the Heritage Foundation. I

1:19:37

don't mean to sound wistful about that time.

1:19:40

But it does reinforce

1:19:45

this juxtaposition where you had Representative

1:19:47

Comer on Tuesday saying, we have no plan.

1:19:49

Representative Davidson saying there's no

1:19:51

path forward to governing. So to me, what

1:19:54

you're looking at with either Scalise

1:19:56

Jordan or, yes, Scalise

1:19:58

Jordan or Endowment. Trump's influence is

1:20:01

that you're looking at who's going to more quickly

1:20:03

decimate what's left of the Republican Party

1:20:06

and create

1:20:08

something that is so antithetical to where

1:20:10

the rest of this country is. I

1:20:14

hate to use the term lesser or two evils because I just

1:20:16

generally hate saying that. But

1:20:19

my strategist had is, well, who's the one

1:20:22

that's going to unite Republicans the

1:20:24

most and raise the most money for the more vulnerable

1:20:27

members? That probably is going

1:20:30

to be part of the test. But the reality

1:20:32

is it doesn't matter anyway, because it's

1:20:34

all bad and it's all the worst possible

1:20:36

outcome.

1:20:38

David, what are you hearing about the pacing

1:20:40

of any of this? Do you think they have a new speaker

1:20:43

in the near term?

1:20:45

I'm not sure by next week. First of all, I don't

1:20:47

think Donald Trump actually accepts the

1:20:50

overtures once he finds out that the speaker can't

1:20:52

pardon somebody. Once

1:20:54

he realizes you got to be president, that's a large power.

1:20:56

He's probably not interested. I

1:20:59

do think he has the power to knock out one of the

1:21:01

top two candidates. And that might be Steve

1:21:03

Scalise that he knocks out if he tilts

1:21:06

the lever in favor of Jim Jordan. Here's

1:21:09

the interesting thing on timing, Nicole. This is where

1:21:11

it's a little different than what we

1:21:13

saw in January. In January, it was an

1:21:15

organizing session brought about by the

1:21:18

Constitution and House rules. And so they had

1:21:20

to go to the floor for a vote and

1:21:22

we got to watch it all play out. Now

1:21:24

behind closed doors in this environment,

1:21:27

traditionally the House Republican Caucus has

1:21:30

said whichever candidate can get 51%

1:21:32

of the caucus, we all go to the floor and

1:21:34

give that candidate our votes. That

1:21:37

began to unravel in 2015 when McCarthy,

1:21:40

frankly, I was part of this, there were people

1:21:42

who withheld their votes from McCarthy to succeed

1:21:45

Boehner. Even though he

1:21:47

got 80%, 90% in caucus, there were enough of us that said

1:21:49

we're not taking our votes to the floor. So

1:21:51

that rule is off. It's done. It

1:21:54

no longer exists, which means what we will

1:21:56

see with the Republican Caucus, I believe,

1:21:58

is meeting after meeting.

1:21:59

meeting after meeting behind closed doors

1:22:02

to get to 218 so that they know when they

1:22:05

go to the floor, there's just one vote

1:22:07

for speaker. How long does that take?

1:22:09

Well, now the pressure becomes the 45 day

1:22:12

CR because part of the negotiation

1:22:15

for who the next speaker is within the

1:22:17

Republican caucus is what is the

1:22:19

strategy for the next budget

1:22:21

negotiation. And ironically, the

1:22:24

next speaker is going to lose the budget negotiation

1:22:26

to Schumer and Biden. I mean, math is just math.

1:22:28

So how do you responsibly

1:22:32

explain to your caucus what you're going

1:22:34

to work towards, but you'll probably lose and

1:22:36

still secure the votes for speaker? Who

1:22:38

knows? This is where Donald Trump comes in.

1:22:40

If Donald Trump puts his finger on

1:22:42

the lever of somebody, it could catapult

1:22:45

him to the top.

1:22:46

If Donald Trump stands for election

1:22:48

as speaker, I don't think he gets 218. You

1:22:50

still got two people in there that voted to impeach him.

1:22:53

Last one. No, I think that's absolutely

1:22:55

right. And I would say

1:22:57

going back to the earlier point, when

1:23:00

you look at Donald Trump's potential influence

1:23:02

in this race and who becomes

1:23:04

the next speaker,

1:23:07

it really does

1:23:10

make it so much clear to me how

1:23:12

anyone asking for Democrats to be

1:23:14

able to step in and help whoever can

1:23:17

ever happen. Totally. A party

1:23:20

that has been against reproductive rights

1:23:22

and promotes the most draconian versions

1:23:24

of any abortion policy.

1:23:27

A party that is against gun control, against

1:23:30

or support of a book banning that supports

1:23:32

the suppression of votes. How

1:23:34

in the world can any Democrat actually

1:23:37

step in to say, well, I'm going to help

1:23:40

someone lead that charge on the other

1:23:42

side and then go back and play defense? That

1:23:44

just can't ever happen.

1:23:45

It's

1:23:48

too far apart. David Jolly,

1:23:50

Basel, thank you so much for being part of our

1:23:52

conversation. When we come back, a top Democrat

1:23:55

in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, join

1:23:58

us to talk about the very real possibilities of the election.

1:23:59

This chaos we're talking about among House

1:24:02

Republicans could disrupt the flow of

1:24:04

American military aid to our allies in

1:24:06

Ukraine on the battlefield. We'll have that conversation

1:24:08

next. Hey everybody, it's Joe Scarborough.

1:24:13

Did you know

1:24:16

you can stream Morning Joe live on

1:24:18

Peacock? That's right. You can

1:24:20

find us in the Morning News live feature

1:24:23

every weekday beginning at 6 a.m. Head

1:24:25

to PeacockTV.com slash

1:24:28

Morning Joe for more information. See

1:24:30

you there. Does

1:24:35

your disarray on Capitol Hill worry

1:24:38

you that you won't be able to deliver the aid that the U.S.

1:24:40

has promised to Ukraine?

1:24:42

It does worry me, but I know

1:24:44

there are a majority of members of the House

1:24:46

and Senate in both parties who

1:24:49

have said that

1:24:51

they support funding Ukraine.

1:24:54

With your, I'm going to be announcing

1:24:56

very shortly a major speech I'm going to make on this

1:24:58

issue and why it's critically important

1:25:00

for the United States and our allies

1:25:03

that we keep our commitment.

1:25:05

President Joe Biden yesterday afternoon

1:25:07

responding to concerns that the GOP

1:25:09

dysfunction will imperil U.S. aid

1:25:12

to Ukraine, promising to address

1:25:14

the issue, as he notes there in a speech

1:25:17

shortly. It comes as one of the leading contenders

1:25:19

to be House Speaker, MAGA loyalist

1:25:21

Jim Jordan of Ohio has questioned

1:25:24

the utility of U.S. aid to Ukraine. Joining

1:25:26

our coverage, Congressman Jason Crow of

1:25:28

Colorado. Congressman, I know this

1:25:31

has been top of mind for President Zelensky

1:25:33

and the people around him. They have

1:25:35

probably watched House Republicans as closely

1:25:38

as anyone in this country has because

1:25:40

their very lives depend on it. And

1:25:42

I wonder what this moment

1:25:44

says where you have this sort of tyranny

1:25:46

of the radical minority dictating

1:25:48

U.S. foreign policy potentially.

1:25:51

Well, there's no doubt

1:25:53

that the chaos and the dysfunction of

1:25:56

the GOP majority

1:25:58

in the House of Representatives now has a lot of impact. impacts.

1:26:00

It has the impacts on our economy,

1:26:02

has impacts on our security,

1:26:04

it has impacts on our ability to deliver very

1:26:07

important aid to hungry families

1:26:10

and to maintain basic

1:26:12

safety net needs for Americans everywhere.

1:26:14

And yes, it has impacts on our global

1:26:17

security as well. There's no doubt in

1:26:19

my mind and the mind of other people that have been paying

1:26:21

attention to this conflict that our

1:26:23

support for Ukraine is in our own

1:26:26

vested interest. We can keep Americans

1:26:29

safe and secure and

1:26:31

help promote a prosperous economy by preserving

1:26:34

peace and stability in Europe and that's what this conflict

1:26:36

is about. So by continuing to support the Ukrainians,

1:26:39

we are certainly serving

1:26:42

our own self-interest as well as the interests

1:26:44

of democracy everywhere. So it is important we keep

1:26:46

it going and I am concerned about the need

1:26:48

to do that or the ability to do that so long as

1:26:51

the GOP and the House does

1:26:54

not have his act together.

1:26:55

The way we

1:26:57

sort of sought to reassure President

1:27:00

Zelensky and the Ukrainians was

1:27:02

that the majority of the American people are

1:27:04

behind support for Ukraine, all

1:27:06

the Democrats and the majority of the Republicans.

1:27:09

President Zelensky referred to different voices.

1:27:12

Some of the voices are very strange when he was

1:27:14

here. You

1:27:16

deal with counterparts around the

1:27:19

globe. How do you sort of articulate

1:27:23

this ability of this

1:27:25

super minority, this extreme minority

1:27:28

that doesn't represent the views of the majority

1:27:30

of Americans, that doesn't represent the views of any

1:27:32

of the Democrats, that doesn't represent the views of most

1:27:35

Republicans, able to imperil military

1:27:37

aid during what Ambassador Bill

1:27:39

Taylor once described as a hot war in Ukraine

1:27:42

against the sworn enemy of the United States, Russia?

1:27:46

Yeah, you raise such a good point. We have to

1:27:48

have some perspective here and the facts

1:27:50

are these. The vast majority of Americans

1:27:53

support defending Ukraine and providing

1:27:55

support to Ukraine. Over 50 countries

1:27:58

have joined the Ukraine. the Ukraine Support

1:28:00

Coalition led by the United States. There

1:28:03

are actually 11 countries who have provided more

1:28:05

aid than the United States per capita.

1:28:08

And if a vote were held today in the House of

1:28:11

Representatives, a vast majority, like three

1:28:13

quarters or more, including over half

1:28:15

Republicans, would vote to support that aid. We

1:28:18

had a vote just last week

1:28:21

for Ukraine support and over half the Republicans

1:28:23

voted for it. Some of these numbers about

1:28:25

less than half, that's not the actual real vote.

1:28:27

The actual real vote that was held to

1:28:30

support Ukraine, over half Republicans voted

1:28:32

in favor of that. So the issue is not

1:28:34

the vote, the issue is getting the vote. And

1:28:36

what happened earlier this year is the Republicans

1:28:38

bargained away, to be clear,

1:28:41

Kevin McCarthy bargained away the ability to

1:28:43

put a vote on the floor based

1:28:45

on plurality of support. And

1:28:48

he gave that power to the Freedom Caucus to the most

1:28:50

extreme element. So that is the decision facing

1:28:53

the Republican Conference right now. Are

1:28:55

they gonna continue to give all their power

1:28:58

to the most extreme elements of the party that

1:29:00

will hold all of us hostage? Or are they gonna take that back

1:29:03

so we can actually govern in a bipartisan way again?

1:29:06

Congressman Jason Crow, it

1:29:08

just all feels so

1:29:10

fraught. We appreciate you spending some

1:29:12

time with us to talk about it. We'll continue to call

1:29:14

on you. A quick break for us, we'll be right

1:29:17

back.

1:29:21

A federal court has ordered Alabama to

1:29:23

adopt a new congressional map, which

1:29:25

will include a second Black Opportunity

1:29:27

District intended to curb racial gerrymandering.

1:29:30

Alabama's population is more than 26% Black,

1:29:34

but the Republican controlled state legislature

1:29:37

has now repeatedly drawn maps so

1:29:40

that just one of the state's seven congressional

1:29:42

seats would be majority Black,

1:29:44

even after a federal court and the US

1:29:46

Supreme Court

1:29:47

ruled they were in violation of the Voting

1:29:50

Rights Act. With today's court order, the

1:29:52

state will likely see a second Democrat

1:29:55

voted into Congress in 2024, aiding

1:29:57

Democrats' efforts to flip control

1:29:59

representatives. Another break for us. We'll

1:30:02

be right back.

1:30:07

Just in the last hour, mourners

1:30:09

gathered at the steps of San Francisco

1:30:11

City Hall for a funeral service honoring

1:30:13

the life of the late Senator Dianne

1:30:15

Feinstein. It was at City Hall in

1:30:17

San Francisco where Feinstein began

1:30:20

her decades-long political career. The

1:30:22

giant of the United States Senate, the

1:30:25

trailblazer. She was both the longest-serving

1:30:27

female senator and the longest-serving

1:30:30

California senator before she died

1:30:32

Friday at the age of 90. For our

1:30:34

part, we want to thank you for letting us into your

1:30:36

homes once again during these truly extraordinary

1:30:39

times.

1:30:39

We are grateful.

1:30:41

Hey everybody, it's Hoda Kotbins. And I'm Jenna Bush

1:30:43

Hager.

1:30:43

And we got big news, y'all. Our

1:30:45

show is now a podcast.

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