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tv   Alex Wagner Tonight  MSNBC  December 1, 2023 1:00am-2:01am PST

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voters loathe. i saw wonderful story the other day that jeremy diamond worked to help nikki haley. >>. don't say that out loud, jeremy diamond. >> makers and democrats working to help nikki haley. it's the worst headline imaginable. >> that is also part of the problem. the entire authority structure within the party broke down so badly that there is nothing outside of it and outside of trump to be able to pry it away. donald trump was the greatest thing ever, right? then it's hard to turn around and say the next day actually he's a danger to republicans. >> that is "all in" on this thursday night. good evening, alex. >> real sign of the times someone not ending the project of liberal democracy is like the
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bar -- >> i would like to get out over that bar. >> just a sign of the time, my friend. thank you as always. thanks to you at home for joining me this hour. we begin tonight with breaking news. "the new york times" has just published a major new report about israeli intelligence failures in the lead-up to the october 7th hamas attack. according to the reporting not yet verified by nbc news officials obtained the detailed battle plan for hamas' attack more than a year before the attack took place. quoting from "the new york times" israeli officials obtained the battle plans for the october 7th terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents and e-mails and interviews show. but israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for hamas to carry out. the approximately 40-page document which the israeli authorities code named jericho wall outlined point by point the
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devastation that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people. hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision. the document called for a barrage of rockets at the outside of the attack. it called for drones to knock out the security camera and automated machine guns along the border and called for gunmen to pour in israel en masse on paragliders and on foot, all of which happened on october 7th. officials privately conceive had the military taken these warnings seriously, israel could have blunted the attacks or even possibly prevented them. what could have been an intelligence coup turned into one of the worst miscalculations in israel's 75-year history. joining us now is john brennen. he's now an msnbc and senior national security analyst. thank you for being here. and let me first get your reaction to this bombshell reporting from "the new york times."
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>> well, alex, i was utterly shocked when i read through "the new york times" report. the fact the israelis were able to collect in advance the actual battle plan hamas used but then failed to realize this was in fact what they were going to do, it shows they made faulty assumptions. and that's the real problems. here it was underestimating the capables of their adversary. and that usually happens when they're look at a paramilitary adversary. but this document, this jericho wall document they got, it should have been through the prism of which they looked at every hamas action over past year to see whether or not the hamas fighters were actually working on it and making progress against it. they deemed it was too aspirational for hamas to carry out. but they had more than a year to be able to judge and evaluate whether or not hamas was moving down that progression.
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and obviously this is something that's going to require very extensive review in terms of what the failure was. but it also raises serious questions about how intelligence might not be not used appropriately or -- the system is not working as it should if this document didn't make it through to be actually an opportunity for israel to stop and prevent those horrific attacks. >> yeah, when you say this document should have been the prism through which all hamas exercises, for example, were seen, there's a detail in the piece that says in july just three months before the attacks a veteran analyst with israel's signals intelligence agency warned hamas conducted an intense day-long training exercise that appeared similar to what was outlined in the blueprint. and the same analyst goes onto say it is a plan designed to start a war, she added, not just
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a raid on a village. the idea they effectively saw a dry run for this, how unusual is that? and in terms of annalist ringing an alarm bell so clearly, is that unusual? >> that analyst did exactly what she was supposed to do, which was to look at what hamas was doing, and see whether or not whether thursday any coordination with previous intelligence huisrael collected. but she seemed to be pushing it but somebody on the chain of command still determined hamas would be unable to carry out such a broad, extensive plan. this is where you need to continue to have those analysts push it up the chain of command. and this is what they're going to have look at during the commission review. how did the system break down so badly they weren't able to exploit this opportunity given to them exactly a year ago. >> to that end it seems there was one colonel who stood in the
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way of her warnings, potentially ascending up the food chain, if you will. a colonel in the gaza division brushed off the analyst's concerns according to encrypted e-mails reviewed by "the times." i utterly refute this scenario is imaginary the an lgs wrote in e-mail exchanges. the colonel applauded the analysis but said the exercise was a totally imagined scenario, in short let's wait patiently, the colonel wrote. director brennen, in short let's wait patiently, that is the stuff that lives on in infamy after october 7th. i know we're talking a different intelligence service over here in israel, but as far as that chain of command, as far as the ways analyst would have around a colonel like this who seems dead set not taking it anywhere, does that opportunity exist? how many people do you imagine saw this report?
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>> it should be a lot. no single person should be stopped it from from being reviewed and looked at. it seems this was a legitimate hamas document in the eyes of intelligence. they just didn't believe this could be carried out. something like this should be shared broadly across israeli intelligence and others. even to the extent, you know, the united states has such a close intelligence relationship with the israelis, this is something that i think they really would want to have fresh eyes look at and also see whether or not u.s. intelligence or other intelligence might have picked up some indications that, in fact, hamas was able to realize this plan. if one individual was able to stop this from being considered a real legitimate plan hamas
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would be able to carry out, there is a strong, strong need for there to be an immediate review of what's going on inside israeli intelligence and how this information gets to policy makers to make sure that it can be acted upon, operationalized and to mitigate any potential future threats. >> former cia director john brennen, thank you for your time and perspective on all this. appreciate it. i want to bring into the conversation ben rhodes who served as deputy national security advisor in the obama administration. ben, thanks for joining me tonight. i'm shocked by the reporting. i'm also shocked given the public statements we've gotten from the israeli government thus far. "the times" said israel benjamin netanyahu i believe this is october 28 rgt there's a tweet he pulls down that he says contrary to the false claims under no circumstances and at no stage was prime minister netanyahu warned of hamas' war intentions. perhaps this never made it to
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his desk, but that in and of itself if you listen to director brennen seems to be a massive security failure. >> yeah. i mean ultimately first of all he's the senior official, and his whole political identity has been tied to the fact that he's the person that assured israel security. so either you had a situation in which there were warnings that were ignored that may have reached him or people in his cabinet, or this system so dysfunctional that information wasn't being shared and that the focus from -- the other issue here, alex, is sometimes there's a demand from policy makers. you know, what do we have in terms of hamas' intentions? what we saw in the run off the october 7th is a number of things. number one, we saw mass political dysfunction in israel. you had mass protests in the streets, and you had public warnings -- public warnings from some of the security officials.
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that dysfunction was putting israel in danger. then you had the idf units who guarded that border up in the west bank in part because they were protecting israeli settlers from clashes with palestinians. you had a lot of dits function. and what we learn really in this astonishing reporting is at minimum the dysfunction with in the israeli intelligence community, and was preventing a document that was unprecedented in its like specificity about the nature of the attack and was there for a year. it was not something only a couple days before the attacks. it was sitting thin system for a year and nobody was acting upon it, and nobody was seemingly accountable for needing to act upon it. >> given the potential indictment here, i wonder if you were surprised we even know about this given how fraught it is for this prime minister at a time when the political landscape is complicated for him. >> well, alex, i think what happens -- i've been in government when there have been intelligence failures. i've worked for the vice chair
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of the 9/11 commission throughout that effort. inevitably what happens is when there are officials who knew that they were doing their jobs and then they stafrt to hear politicians say nobody had any idea this would have happened or we couldn't have done anything to stop it, that information tends to find its way out because there are people that are frustrate asked there are people who want there to be accountability and people who want the system to work better. people not with just motivations themselves but motivations to say, look, actually be need to fix some things here. and usually the impulse of politicians and certainly wouldn't be the tim pulse of netanyahu on october 7th to say when the war is over, then we'll take a look back. and i think part of the reason the information is coming out there are people in that system like, no, we need to understand what happened, how this happened, why this happened in part to have people held accountable but in part we have to fix this. this is an ongoing military
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operation against hamas. what are their military camabilities? what are their contacts with external actors? all of that information is absolutely indispensable to everything israel is doing on a day-to-day basis. unless these deficiencies are fixed i think obviously israel is not going to be as secure as it needs to be. >> you bring that up as this pause, whatever we're calling it, the semicease-fire is set to expire. and i wonder how you think this informs that given, you know, renewed military incursions are going to depend on intelligence, which as we're reading the pages of "the new york times," has failed israel profoundly. and it's a very complicated picture, right? because on the one hand they actually are collecting intelligence. they had the intelligence plan, the whole blueprint of this attack. what wasn't happening is it wasn't being shared appropriately. it wasn't being acted upon. it wasn't the focus of the political leadership of the country, wasn't perhaps the
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focus of the leadership security services when it should have been. and you're right, there's a pause, and during that pause one of the things we know the biden administration is counseling the israeli government is what you were doing before, this kind of full-scale destruction of the gaza strip that's killed over 15,000 people and opinion around the world could be contributing to the radicalization of the people in gaza, that approach is not going to be sustainable from a humanitarian perspective and from a political and diplomatic perspective. therefore any recalibration is going to depend on a more targeted approach, one that identifies what the prioritization is in terms of hamas' leadership and military capabilities. that is very much an intelligence-driven kind of effort here. and so i think it speaks to the need to take a minute here and try to figure out how to make sure that that's working as well as it should. i should also add, alex, in case people are saying israel can't go back it october 6th.
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they wouldn't be going back to october 6th with a longer cease-fire. they are on the border now. the idf is there. it is fortified. october 7th isn't possible in the current dynamic. i think it's totally possible for israel to say we're basically going to be making decisions about the recalculation of this military operation and we're also going to look hard at how we could have had a catastrophic system fail, and are there changes we can make in stride to fix it. netanyahu's standing was lower before this bob shell dropped. he'd never had lower approval ratings. i think the conventional wisdom is he'll be replaced at some point. probably he wanted to see the conclusion of this military operation. i think those questions going to kick up again. all of this i think is going to be whirling around israeli politics in the days to come, and there's a lot of important decisions that need to be made. >> and just to sound a human note, there are the families of those hostages who are still in
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fauza, who are still being held captive having to read this story thinking somewhere maybe it all could have been prevented. just devastating. ben rhodes, thank you for your time tonight. >> much more ahead this evening including exactly what made senator lindsey graham very, very angry at a senate judiciary committee hearing today. >> i think this is a bunch of garbage and crap to be honest with you. but first new text messages between congressman scott perry and trump justice official jeffrey clark sed shoe light on the republican effort ipcongress to overturn the 2020 election. that is next. to overturn the 2020 election. that is next
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goli, taste your goals. so the gag order is back in effect.
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today a new york appeals court reinstated the gag order on former president donald trump and his civil fraud trial. that gag order bars trump from making any statements about court staff after his repeated social media posts attacking the judge's clerk in this case after being prohibited from attacking the judge's staff today trump instead attacked the judge's wife. so necessity is the mother of invention, i goes. meanwhile, we could learn any day now whether another separate gag order on trump will be upheld in federal court. the d.c. appeals court is set to rule on trump's challenge to the gag order imposed on him by the judge in the january 6th case brought by special counsel jack smith. but while we are waiting for that ruling, we did get something unexpected from that particular appeals court, and it concerns this guy. this is republican congressman scott perry of pennsylvania, who you may know from his many, many cameos in congress' jan 6th
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investigation. in fact scott perry turned out to be so entangled in trump was efforts to stay in office after the 2020 election, january 6th committee took the unprecedented step of subpoenaing him, a former member of congress. last year the fbi seized scott perry's phone as part of the criminal investigation of january 6th. and since then special counsel jack smith and scott perry have been in a legal battle over exactly what communications federal prosecutors are allowed to access on mr. perry's phone. well, now, in what appears to have been a clerical error, the appeals court briefly posted online a document that describes and quotes from a whole bunch of those communications from perry's phone. and, oh, boy, they sure would seem to confirm that congressman scott perry was right in the middle of donald trump's efforts to overturn the election. to quote politico's headline "court file reveals representative scott perry's
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vast contacts in a bid to reverse the 2020 election." for example there are the texts perry exchanged would jeffrey clark, the obscure justice department official who perry introduced to trump as someone who could help the effort to overturn the election. trump found mr. clark so helpful, in fact, in late december 2020 trump made it known he was planning to install jeffrey clark as acting attorney general so trump could use the justice department to push his stolen election claims. in these newly revealed communications we learned that scott perry texted jeffrey clark late on december 30th to tell clark president trump seemed happy with them, suggesting the plan to elevate clark to the top of the doj was moving forward. clark replied, quote, i'm praying. this makes me quite nervous and wonder if i'm worthy or ready." to which perry responded "you are the man, i've confirmed it. god does what he does for a reason." in addition to telling clark
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that he'd been chosen by god to take over the justice department for donald trump, perry also told clark, trump would give clark unprecedented security clearance. and congressman perry was busy strategizing with lots of people to try to keep donald trump in power. he was texting with top officials as well as legislators in his home state of pennsylvania about various ways joe biden's victory might be overturned in that state in pennsylvania and beyond. this is all on top of what we heard in testimony from former trump white house aid cassidy hutchinson who said that congressman scott perry was central to conversations about trump potentially leading rally goers to the capitol on january 6th, and that after january 6th mr. perry asked trump for a preemptive presidential pardon, something congressman perry denies. but scott perry is far from the only member of congress who was deeply involved in all of this. remember that trump's own
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justice department leaders testified that trump told them, quote, just day the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the republican congressmen. those included people like ohio congressman jim jordan who was a key player in white house strategy sessions about keeping trump in power and the current house speaker, mike johnson, whose specious legal arguments for overturning the election gave cover to his 146 republican colleagues who voted against certifying joe biden's win. and now the guy who almost got to be trump's attorney general, jeffrey clark, is among those criminally charged in georgia, and he is named as one of the six unindicted coconspiratorteres in the federal criminal case against donald trump. though as it turns out trump had a lot of other coconspiratorteres in the united states congress. joining me now is devlen barrett, national security and law enforcement reporter for "the washington post." devlen, thanks so much for being here. scott perry very much the sort
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of where's waldo in the scene inside the capitol and outside the capitol unfolding in and around january 6th. can you talk about the role he played in choosing jeffrey clark and helping to elevate him to be a potential a.g.? >> right. so one in the ways in which the time period we're talking about was so strange, which it was, people were really confused. people in the justice department were really confused. how did jeff clark come to the president's attention? jeff clark was essentially an environmental lawyer, and it wasn't clear to people even running the department why jeff clark was suddenly a person of such interest to president trump. and now we understand much better from this perhaps accidently unsealed filing why that is because perry was apparently acting as a go between between the president and clark. so that sort of fills in a big blank and a big sort of question
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mark as to how all this came to be. and really what you see is you see perry helping sort of navigate this weird budding relationship between clark and president trump. >> i was surprised to see trepidation on the part of jeffrey clark, a man who was so very much going against the grain of basically what every other legal mind thought as far as trump's ability to overturn the results of the election. can you tell me anything more about the sort of coaching role that scott perry played in trying to reassure jeffrey clark that god was on his side and the doubts that existed in jeff clark's mind as he sought to run the justice department. right. well, we really don't have a great sense of why these two were so immediately open with each other on this level because clark is expressing doubts about his own ability to pursue this, and perry is saying, no, you are essentially, you know, the perfect person to do this.
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but i do think the back and forth shows a number of things. one of which i think is a really odd quirk of this whole thing is the discussion of tickets. and tickets in this context is -- they have a discussion about clark wants a ticket, and perry says he will try to get him one. and that is a discussion about security clearances. and what they're really talking about is the desire to get access to classified information that they think will help make their argument that this election was stolen. now, we know through a whole range of people who were in the intelligence community at that time that there was no meaningful intelligence that would help trump's argument here. but i think it's really interesting that perry and clark were both so focused at that time on getting classified intelligence they thought would make their argument in part because clearly there was no public information that would help them make this case. and it really shows the degree to which they were, you know,
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desperate. they were looking for anything that might help them make an argument that didn't make sense. >> it just becomes clear in your reporting that scott perry is playing a very strange role here as someone that's trying to help install this sort of random justice official and coach him through the process to be the attorney general, he's someone that has conversations with trump chief of staff mark meadows. after those conversations meadows according to cassidy hutchinson starts burning documents in the fireplace. i think i'm getting that right. and then perry asks reportedly for a preemptive pardon from donald trump. he is sort of like a zealot like figure here finding himself -- putting himself in situations of key import. i wumder why thus far you think he evaded his own criminal indictment?
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>> it's a really interesting question. as you pointed out clark has been indicted in georgia. clark is an unindicted coconspirator in the federal case in washington. yet from these texts we see perry is a really important go-between between clark and president trump. so it's a fair question to ask why hasn't he faced more of a sort of public accounting from prosecutors. but i will say, like, the whole reason we're seeing these texts, and the whole reason this legal issue exists is because it's very clear that the special counsel has been looking very closely at perry, and there's been a whole legal argument around the legal protections surrounding members of congress that protects perry a little bit more than other people. and that may explain some of why he's not been named in the way you're talking about. but i also think you can't assume he's out of the woods because as these texts show he's right in the middle of some of the most concerning conversations to prosecutors.
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>> yeah, i got to say in that vein he's not the only one that's so far skated away from a federal -- or skating parallel perhaps to a federal criminal indictment. mike johnson is also someone, the current speaker of the house who mark elias says in his bid to get 147 republicans to sign on this amicus brief other than former president trump mike johnson is arguably the most culpable official in what transpired on january 6, 2021. i know it's tricky with members of congress and i assume more so with the speakers of the house, i wonder if you think he's potentially absolved out of the woods to use your expression, on the federal investigation given the central role he played up in ginning up enthusiasm and general support for the big lie. >> look, i think it's hard to predict exactly what prosecutors plan to do with the broader conspiracy. one of the things i think is very tricky about the case jack
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smith has charged against president trump is he's essentially charged with conspiracy, but he's charged alone. but the premise of charging someone with conspiracy is you can't conspire with yourself. you conspire with others. smith has named -- well, he's identified essentially a handful of people who were part of that conspiracy, but that doesn't mean that's where the conspiracy ends. and i think there's a world in which this can keep going. but it's pretty clear that the special counsel is trying to finish a case before trump before it starts a case against anyone else. >> that is true. whether he can is another issue entirely. devlin barrett from "the washington post," thank you for your time. still ahead this evening senate democrats want to hear more from wealthy conservatives who reportedly have been bankrolling luxury trips for conservative supreme court
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justices. which republicans on the committee tried to stand in their way? that is next. s next "paint the bathroom, give baxter a bath, get life insurance," hm. i have a few minutes. i can do that now. oh, that fast? remember that colonial penn ad? i called and i got information. they sent the simple form i need to apply. all i do is fill it out and send it back. well, that sounds too easy! (man) give a little information, check a few boxes, sign my name, done. they don't ask about your health? (man) no health questions. -physical exam? -don't need one. it's colonial penn guaranteed acceptance whole life insurance. if you're between the ages of 50 and 85, your acceptance is guaranteed in most states, even if you're not in the best health. options start at $9.95 a month, 35 cents a day. once insured, your rate will never increase. a lifetime rate lock guarantees it. keep in mind, this is lifetime protection. as long as you pay your premiums,
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goli, taste your goals. learn more today. today democrats in the senate judiciary committee voted on something that made senator lindsey graham, the top republican on the committee, furious. >> i should be real blunt and
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direct, this is garbage. we think it's a really bad idea. i think this is a bunch of garbage and crap to be honest with you. so, yeah, this is really bad, senator kennedy. this is a political effort by the radical left to destroy this court. this committee is taking the country down a very dark and dangerous road. >> and it wasn't just senator graham who thought what democrats voted on today was something like a jihad by the radical left. because when it came time to vote on this dark and nefarious thing, every republican on the committee disappear. they stormed out, refusing to vote. so what was it that republicans were so passionately opposed to today? issuing two subpoenas. now, remember when republicans controlled this committee and
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lindsey graham was its chairman, they had no problem issuing more than 50 subpoenas to people involved in the muller investigation of donald trump and the 2016 election. but today's two subpoenas, those crossed the line. because today democrats on the committee subpoenaed conservative activist leonard leo and republican billionaire mega donor harlan crow. you might recognize crow as the billionaire according to propublic law has taken justice clarence thomas on undisclosed jet flights and luxury vacations for two decades or as the guy who bought a house from justice thomas but for some reason let thomas' mother continue to live there for free. or as the man who paid for the private school tuition of a relative thomas said he was raising as a son. and you might remember leonard leo because of all the great propublica reporting about him acting as a powerbroker of sorts, setting up those luxury
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excursions for supreme court justices with rich republicans. but democrats wanting to know about all that was a bridge too far for lindsey graham had his republican colleagues. coming up as, as two arizona officials are indicted under delaying the certification of the 2020 mid-term election results, one local radio station is trying to combat disinformation in the grand canyon state. that is next. disinformation in canyon state that is next i did in the past, i would lose 20, 30, 50 pounds just to gain them over and over again. thanks to golo, i've been able to steadily go down the sizes in my closet and keep the weight off. for the first time in forever, i feel in control. (announcer) change your life at golo.com. that's golo.com.
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this week two local officials in arizona were indicted by a grand jury for their efforts to with hold certification of the 2022 mid-term election results in their county. the election deniers were charged with two felonies for allegedly conspiring to delay the certification of election results and interfering with the secretary of state's statewide canvas. their indictment comes as efforts are being made in arizona, a state with a long history of disinformation. efforts are being made to counter disinformation ahead offy lection day 2024. one radio station in phoenix is doing its part to fight that disinformation particularly among latino voters, who make up nearly a quarter of the electorate in the state of arizona. >> they're about to record their morning show.
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today's theme is mis and disinformation. and they'll be dispelling a lot of the themed narratives that latina voters are exposed to hear. with the seat of arizona up for grabs in the 2024 election, it's emerged as a purveyor of truth amid a landscape filled with disinformation. the radio station is also an effective mobilizer for a community whose relationship with politics has been strained in the past. the station has been a consistent and trusted messenger
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for decades. ever since it was founded by labor activist caesar chavez in 1983, it was meant to serve as a voice for the spanish speaking community including arizona. this state has been home to the country's most anti-immigrant policies. from racial profiling by sheriff joe arpaio to show me your papers by kerry lake. the biden campaign has already launched spanish radio ads and other spanish radio stations in arizona and nevada marking what it says is the earliest investment for democrats. so far the trump campaign has focused more on the early primary states. they didn't respond to our questions about their plans for arizona. misinformation and disillusionment can feed off the
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deeply rooted mistrust many latinos feel. and that's why its taken to connecting to its audience in a unique and traditional way. it's saturday night in phoenix, arizona. and we're at this rodeo community event being hosted. but this is more than fun and games. it's a political strategy. it's the way of building trust with the community. they know the way into their community, and it's through outreach events like this. here there are people trying to have fun. they're here for the rodeo, to drink, be with their families. and yet you all on stage were talking about politics and misinformation. was that strategic? >> yes. because, yes, weir here to celebrate joy but this is way
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you do it by registering to vote and understanding you cannot allow any misinformation to stop you to vote. >> we were curious just how deep does that misinformation and mistrust go. so you still believe that trump may have won the election? there's a lot of mistrust in the community, and we've been talking to people. there's a lot of information they're hearing. can they trust you? >> they trust the brand. we have been next to them. at the front line they need us more. >> reporter: with millions of dollars spent courting latino voters, with initiatives setup
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to counter the big lie and drive voter turnout, the answer may lie in a trusted messenger and the voice that has always had the ear of the community. >> paolo ramos joins me right here to talk about all of that coming up next. up next
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i don't know how to thank you. i'm here to thank you. two weeks ago this show reported on a controversy surrounding america's most influential spanish language network, univision, and its recent choice to embrace donald trump despite the former president's previous attacks on the network and its award winning journalists.
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the univision decision to curry favor with trump is not happening inside a vacuum. "the wall street journal" reported recently that meta, the parent company of facebook, threads, and instagram, will now allow ad that falsely claim that past elections were stolen. joining me now is paola ramos, nbc contributor, and the person who brought us that very compelling field piece about the fight against misinformation in arizona. it's great to see you. i think this is such essential reporting to understand the spread of disinformation and also the efforts to combat it. so i wonder if you can sort of explain to folks who don't know the broader spanish language media environment and where radio campasina fits into that. >> i think it's very easy to overlook and diminish a small radio station like them within this massive cable news network and environment. it has a lot of power.
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still if you want to win the latino vote, radio is the key to do it. why? because over 90% of latino adults tune into radio every month. over 50% of latinos still believe radio is the way to remain grounded in their community. and i think radio has something that tv doesn't have, which is like this nostalgic format. you can fuse music with these voices that sound very familiar, and that's the beauty of the radio. because they've been this constant and steady voice in the community for years. they have been in the voice and background of peoples homes while joe arpaio was doing his thing, during sb 1070, during trump's i.c.e. raids, during president biden's very conflicting immigration agenda. in the midst of all that uncertainty radio campesina was there. when you're looking at this rapidly changing landscape, when you're looking at a latino
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audience that may be signaling to us they're changing, radio campesina is still emerging as this voice. >> and critical voice in pushing back. it's actually the truth versus lies, and i wonder if you can contextualize that. but you know what i'm saying. you know, misinformation, tis information is a real problem. it's not just currying favor with trump. it's actually putting out bad information there that has a depressing effect on political action, voter registration, a number of things that are critical to the survival of our democracy. >> i say this all the time. if we know mis and disinformation is way bad in english, it's way worse in spanish. we're exposed to it in higher rates and also because the monitoring and mechanisms behind aren't there in spanish the way they're there in english. i think what we try to tell in
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the story is this idea that misand disinformation among latinos doesn't happen in a vacuum. the big lie doesn't happen in a vacuum. the big lie sort of feeds off this really deeply misrooted mistrust a lot of latinos are carrying with them. it feeds off this generational trauma latinos have been faced with for years. the way that the trauma has seen politicians on both sides of the aisle make a lot of promises that don't ever happen, the way that that trauma has seen joe biden in 2020 pledge he wouldn't build the wall and certainly now the wall is going up. so that trauma and that mis and disinformation can create the current environment we're in where there's apathy, and that's what we found in arizona, where there's uncertainty, where there's disenchantment. so i think that is the biggest question and challenge joe biden is up against, which is how do you sustain that hope he was able to sort of garner among arizona latinos in 2020,
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becoming the first democratic president to win that state since 1996. how do you sustain that credibility? >> yeah, and that's -- i have to ask you because if we're talking about credibility and joe biden and the challenges he faces, i have to ask you about univision where your father is a legendary journalist. he came out with a statement i think this was yesterday speaking of his broadly but i think pointedly to univision, actually. we cannot normalize behavior that threatens democracy and the hispanic community or offer trump an open microphone to broadcast his falsehoods and conspiracy theories. have you -- can you offer us any insight into what this is like for a truth seeker and truth teller like jorge ramose in a moment of seismic change in a network he helped build? >> i think my father has always told me since day one the biggest role we have as journalists is to question power
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and authority. in the face of someone like trump, you question him. and i think what univision is doing and radio campesino shows you the questions they're wrestling with, which is do you cave in to trumpism or give them a platform because that's what latinos want -- >> or access to power. >> they're betting on this idea trump will win, with that comes power and access. and they're also betting and i think that's an interesting question. they're betting on a latino audience that may be changing, that may be telling us, you know what, we may need a more conservative point of view and it may fail or not. but what certainly does fail is journalism. >> and truth writ large. let me ask you in terms of how, for example, democrats, joe biden, people interested in the truth combat this, right? it seems to me authenticity being sort of native to the
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environment which is radio campesina has been there for a long time. >> you're right. you need to find a trusted voice, and i'll give you a good example. it was so crystal clear to me in 2019 because i asked a latino voter a question. this was a voter that didn't believe in vaccines, didn't believe in masks. and i said why don't you trust dr. fauci, and she said who is dr. fauci. and it was because we weren't reaching her and it was because there wasn't a spanish version of dr. fauci. so it goes back to who is that trusted messenger. it may not be joe biden, but it may be people within stations like radio campesina. >> it's great to know they're out there doing the work and you are covering it, my friend. such essential rofrting. please come back. that is our show for this evening. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. you're trolling folks and trying to find migrants to play political games

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