thanks for spending time with us here on "the beat" with ari melber. lots going on. i'll see you tomorrow if you tune in at 6:00 p.m. eastern. "the reidout" with joy reid starts now. tonight on "the reidout" -- >> cash.

i know you're probably going to be head of the cia, but do you believe you can deliver the goods on this in a pretty short order in the first couple months so we can get rolling on prosecutions? >> yes. one thing we learned in the trump administration the first go around is woo have to put in american patriots top to bottom. we got them for law enforcement, for intell collection, for offensive operations, for dod, cia, everywhere. >> that's kash patel, who might run donald trump's cia, and how about stephen miller at the doj or chief of staff steve bannon? those are just some of the people trump would likely dredge up from the maga swamp if he somehow gets a second presidency. speaking of trump, he was back in court today, and there's new reporting on the signals from prosecutors in georgia that they expect trump and/or his codefendants to get prison time. plus, an update on the major scandal involving florida's republican party chair and his wife, which is shining a light on the efforts by moms for

liberty to take over school systems and control what your children can read. and we begin tonight with a clear and present danger that cannot be repeated enough. if donald trump gets a second presidency, the american democratic experience will cease to exist as we know it. we know what he plans to do. first, he wants to round up, imprison and deportment 11 million migrants. then he wants to gut the epa, roll back environmental regulations, and of course, a promise to drill, drill, drill to the earth literally dies. then we'll see the deployment of federal troops in major democratic cities to shut down protests. and round up unhoused people where they alongside the rounded up migrants will be forced into tent cities. while federal forces are busy doing that, trump's department of justice will be thediting joe biden, his family, democratic officials, and members of the media. the people who beat police officers and smeared feces on the walls of the capitol hill in

the january 6th insurrection meanwhile will receive full pardons. internationally, trump will pull the u.s. out of nato, abandon ukraine, and continue to endorse the annexation of palestinian territories. you might think this is hyperbole, or that the institutional guardrails will hold, or maybe just maybe some fellow republicans assuming any of them still have spines, will somehow restrain him. do not hold your breath. just look at what happened last night during the fourth republican presidential debate, of the four candidates, only former governor chris christie say his name or criticize his dictatorial aspirations. and he's not wrong, his second administration will be a curated cabal of enablers. john mcafee will be central in culling so-called infidels, and russell vout who is running a policy organization which is laying the groundwork for a

second trump administration, recently explained why, telling "the new york times" what we're trying to do is identify the pockets of independents and seize them. this morning, axios laid out what a second administration will look like, and it should terrify every single one of you. according to axios, among those in contention for vice president are senator jd vance, congresswoman marjorie taylor greene, and melania trump's favorite, tucker carlson. then there are the cabinet officials. let's start with stephen miller. a man who promoted white nationalist books and articles who just might be your next attorney general or i charge of immigration. >> you need to mobilize the u.s. military, state, federal, and local law enforcement to then carry out large-scale deportations across the whole country, and then you would need to build very large staging facilities to carry out the removals. it would be an undertaking that would be greater than any

national infrastructure project we have done to date, but that's what we have to do. >> then there's kash patel, a former trump administration official who was once considered for cia until people threatened to quit. well, he could get a second crack at the job. it's procedure because he agreed to trump that former joint chiefs chairman mark milley should be punished for preventing trump from launching a military attack after his 2020 loss. >> chairman milley is trying to use the media to show that the mission serves his needs, and that is the main reason he needs to go and be court-martialed. >> and there's richard grinnell, who as ambassador to germany told breitbart he absolutely wanted to empower other conservatives throughout europe. he could be our next secretary of state. and he might be the guy -- and who might be the one who manages the white house, you ask? it could be steve bannon as trump's next chief of staff. this kind of stuff is why. >> it's either us or them. one side is going to win and one is going to lose.

no compromise. >> axios is also telling us that trump is considering jpmorgan chase ceo jamie dimon, a democrat, to head the treasury department, because he loves billionaires. and his son-in-law, jared kushner, for secretary of state. it is a nightmare inducing poo-poo platter. joining me is anne applebaum, and denver riggleman, who served as a republican congressman and is now an independent. anne, i want to start with you. we went through all these choices, stephen miller, kash patel, et cetera. one of the sort conceits is any of these people would have to go through a prosin the senate to be confirmed. i think that is quite a conceit to have. if donald trump is re-elected, that sort of process, process won't matter anymore. tell me if i'm wrong. >> now, he could make them acting secretaries of state or acting cabinet ministers. he might just skip the process

altogether. and i should say, it's very common in other failing or democracies in trouble, for the second term of the would-be autocratic party to be much different and worse than the first. that's what happened in viktor orban's hungerary. after he lost an election and came back, he really created a one-party state, much in his way appointing loyalists. it's the second try after briefly being an officer, the experience of failure, they're much more likely to try again. it's an accurate analysis, something that we should worry about. >> i think about maduro, who has been there 13 years or however many years. they get worse as they go on because they learn from their previous experience. netanyahu was one way the first time that he ran. he's now lake, i think i'll just take over the supreme court and change it because i have a criminal indictment. you can go on and on. poland had this, they only recently emerged from it.

italy faced it. it's kind of everywhere. what do you make of the fact donald trump fakes into the same milieu of people who had experience, they now know what they quote/unquote did wrong, and now the idea is to stack the deck with people who are only loyal to him, and therefore, there is no process. there is no sort of bureaucracy that slows him down. that's the idea. >> no, that's the definition of how you create a one-party state, is what's the qualification for a government job? is it that you understand water pollution and know how to fix it, or are you somebody's cousin or somebody's friend? and in states that are declining where democracy is failing, and sometimes actually where the bureaucracy is failing and the economy is failing, this is the kind of political system that you have. >> and denver, you have been investigating all that happened on january 6th. the idea is what donald trump seems to have learned from the experience of january 6th and not being able to complete the coup is that he had the wrong

people. that the problem was that mark milley wasn't willing to deploy the military, so he'll get someone who is. the problem wasn't the coup. it seems to me republicans, i'm not even sure if you're a republican anymore, what people have learned from it is they need to join in more enthusiastically. i have to be honest, i can't think of a sing soul in the united states senate that would stand in his way if he decides he's an autocrat and we're not going to have the mechanisms to have another election. i don't know who is left in the party who thinks that's a bad idea. >> don't either because winning is their number one objective. that's what they want to do, so looking at polling and cross tabs and fund-raising, you're seeing trump is the guy, he's going to get them re-elected. what is crazy about what you showed with kash patel, with stephen miller, and by the way, i think you gave a bad name to poo-poo platter, i love those, i think the issue that we have right now is what is kash patel's main qualification? really, that he liked to pose in

full leather. that's pretty much what kash patel's qualification is. he likes to take pictures wearing leather. when you have people like that, you value loyalty over competence, you have a problem with our government. loyalty is always something that comes into play, but you really have nepotism of idiots. that's the thing that bothers me, these people just aren't qualified. they're specifically attuned to trump's needs and wants. a lot of that is authoritarianism bent. the other thing when you're looking at their comments, it should scare the hell out of people they're absolutely, just like january 6th, they're telegraphing their punch. we saw the open source intelligence. i was warning about it on the floor of congress starting in august, joy. they're telegraphing their punch. believe people and what they say to you because that's exactly what they're going to do. that's why we need to fight. if they want to come after people, i love what anne said also, if they want to come after individuals like us or make a loyalty component the first thing they do, it's our job to rise up and fight back.

there's a lot of other intelligence analysts and former military people out there happy to fight for the united states constitution. >> that becomes the question, and i'll pose it to you. then what happens is that we then have to count on whatever institutions are left to not be full of people who are sympathetic. we know that the proud boys and oath keepers draw from the military, they draw from police. then we have to say, what percentage of current military are willing to stop it? who stands against it? it's not clear how widespread the authoritarianism is in each of these institutions. we would have to trust that somebody stands up to it. when you look at our system, the sort of openness of our system, do you see guardrails left? i fail to see very many, and when i look at it, and i think in general, the military is still strong and loyal to the constitution, but there are some in it who are oath keepers. >> yeah, i think, you know, the experience of the last administration, i mean, i think the leadership of the military

is clearly still loyal to the constitution and the leadership of most institutions, you know, the other security services and so on, are as well. the problem is that it often takes only a minority of people. i would say the majority of americans don't believe in a authoritarianism, believe in the constitution, and the vast majority of people who work for the government in whatever capacity. it can often take very few people, just a few people making the wrong decisions at the wrong moment in a few places who are really determined to make the change. and others are usually not prepared and not organized and once someone has broken the constitution, and i lived through this in poland, i watched it happen. once it's happen and taken place, there isn't really even a legal way to push back because, you know, the rule of law has already been undermined.

and then people are a little bit at sea as to how to behave. >> and the other problem is human adaptability. i have been to cuba. what you see is a lot of people who are adapted to autocracy rather than actively fight it, because who i am, how do i fight it when it's the system and the system is overwhelming and a lot of people simply adapt to it. there's also the idea of auditioning. far be it for me to play the foolishness that aired on, what is it called, news nation the other night, this supposed debate for second place or to be donald trump's leader of his fan club. let me play one person, vivek ramaswamy, because the other thing that's happening, you're seeing people audition to be part of the team. here's his audition in which he completely lies about january 6th. here he is. >> why am i the only person on the stage at least who can say that january 6th now does look like it was an inside job? that the government lied to us for 20 years about saudi arabia's involvement in 9/11.

that the great replacement theory is not some grand right wing conspiracy theory? >> there was that. at one point, ashli babbitt's mother had to correct him or i'm sorry, not him, let me take that back. there was another part in which ron desantis and nikki haley tried to sort of outbigot each other and be hearter on the lgbtq community, et cetera, et cetera. you had a gentleman who was sentenced for january 6th activity who claimed at his sentencing hearing that the whole thing was a conspiracy, that the cia was behind it, and then said ashli babbitt wasn't even dead. her mother in the hallway had to correct him and say, she's dead. so there is sort of an auditioning. what do you make of that, that that is what we're seeing here? people are auditioning to join donald trump's team. >> joy, watching this, i saw the data from january 6th. and i have looked at conspiracy theories for a long time and those types of beliefs,

radicalization, the war on terror. vivek ramaswamy, what he's saying is actually dangerous. i don't think he believes any of it. i don't think he has any moral compish, but false flags are the bastion of the most ignorant conspiracy theoriests. what he's doing is going back to that radicalization cycle for people who are listening to it. if you audition from vivek, he comes out and says these things so he gets on trump's good side, this would chill the american public, because we talk about january 6th, it was an inside side, it's proven, it's ridiculous to say that. he always likes to step into 9/11 trutherism. when you're talking about great replacement, you're talking about one of the most racist theories out there. it's ironic, looking at where he comes from, looking at his skin color, the fact he would mention the great replacement theory, means he's one of the worst individuals i have ever seen on the political stage, maybe besides donald trump.

i don't say that lightly. vivek ramaswamy is dangerous because he mines the ignorant and the stupid, and he's very effective at it because he's good at translating ignorance to the masses. >> unfortunately, we're out of time. thank you both very much. up next on "the reidout," new reporting sheds light on prosecutors' end game in fulton county, confirming they're aiming for prison sentences for trump and his top fellow coup plotters. "the reidout" continues after this. this 23andme, i was aware of that gene. that saved my life.

donald trump was back in a new york city courtroom today, in his $250 million civil fraud trial. it comes four days before he's scheduled to take sthand as the final witness for the defense. the judge in this case has already ruled that trump and his codefendants are liable for fraud. what is jet to be determined by the judge is what financial penalties trump will have to face. and since it is a civil trial and not a criminal one, there is no threat of jail time. that is not the case for trump in his four criminal indictments. in the georgia case, prosecutors have signaled they are seeking prison sentences for trump and several codefendants, according to private emails between lawyers obtaiy the guardian. in one email between prosecutors and defense lawyers, fulton county district attorney fani willis said that the attorneys have a long road ahead, long after these folks are in jail, we will still be practicing law. joining me now is the guardian's

hugo lowell, and catherine christian, msnbc legal analyst. i'm going to come to you, hugo, on these emails. say more. this seems to be an open conversation about putting who in jail? did they mention any specific names besides trump? >> there weren't specific names but i think it gives you an indication of the end game that prosecutors are envisioning in this case. i think several elements of this case are starting to crystallize. we're moving towards setting a trial date. we have an idea of the kinds of people that prosecutors are happy to extend plea deals to. that's the lens through which i see these emails. we're getting closer and closer to how these proceedings are going to unfold at trial and the pressure is ramping up on the codefendants who are think doing i take a deal, am i going to become a cooperating witness? at the end, if i'm convicted, maybe there's jail on the horizon. >> people who cannot try for a plea deal for giuliani, trump, and mark meadows.

they don't have that option. their option is win or lose. >> that was the reporting we had a couple weeks ago, which is they are looking at those three at least as people who won't be offered plea deals. that could change if mark meadows comes back and says take my phone, that could be a little different. but at present, those three are off the table. for the remaining codefendants, there are quite a few. it's been the strategy to try to flip as many as possible to have the best case going to trial. >> the idea of a timeline, catherine, that is also a bit fungible at this point. donald trump has filed an appeal. and this is in the federal election interference case. this is the jack smith case. heas appealed the judge's ruling rejecting his claim of presidential immunity. he seeks a pause in the january 6th proceedings amid an appeal to toss the federal case. but what he wants to do is to pause everything, to basically put a stopper on everything and pause everything while this is litigated, which could mean the

start date that we think of right now as march for at least one of these cases to begin could get pushed back. how likely is that? >> well, it's all in the hands of the d.c. circuit court of appeals. because they will be the ones, not the trump defense team, they will be the ones to decide whether or not they will stay the proceedings. meaning, no more proceedings can happen in the district court with judge chutkan. it's interesting because judge chutkan, about an hour ago, set a briefing schedule for both sides to argue why there should be a stay or should not be a stay. and so the trump team has to respond sunday. and the government has to respond on tuesday. but it's in the hands of the d.c. circuit court of appeals. it's troubling that they still haven't come with a decision on the gag order. remember that was argued two weeks ago. but you know, they know what the time table is, too.

and are they going to put this case on hold or are they going to, you know, try to expeditiously make a decision. >> let me ask you this. i don't know what's in her mind, but it doesn't seem likely the florida case, the documents case, is going to go to trial anytime soon. she seems to be keeping that going very slowly. you have got the jack smith argument, which i'm sure their argument is going to be that the american people have a right to know whether the person they might elect to the white house is a felon before the election happens. and then you have the georgia case. is it possible, because donald trump's strategy is obviously delay, delay, try to push it back, become president, and then wipe all these cases away to the extent he can. can this case, this attempt to delay, can that stop the georgia case? >> no. because the georgia case is -- well, the judge, they had a hearing about this august date, the d.a. wants -- i'm talking august of 2024.

so let's say the classified documents case doesn't go to trial because it's delayed, and the federal election interference. you still have the georgia case. and the judge did not seem to buy their argument that it's election interference for that case to go to trial. essentially, you're telling the other 14 defendants and i don't believe 14 defendants will be left by next august, that too bad, you're not running for president, you have to go to trial. but donald trump, your codefendant, he gets to get an adjournment until 2025. the judge wasn't buying that argument. but i think we can expect the d.c. circuit court of appeals to try to expeditiously decide this. they are aware that there's an election in november of 2024. they don't want to be the ones that are like, well, what's going on here? why can't they make a decision. so the trial may not happen on march 4th, but it might happen on april 4th. >> can he then appeal to the supreme court? >> yes, that's the other -- so,

he can appeal to what's call -- basically, the supreme court will deny or grant, and again, they also are aware. people assume because he appointed three members of the supreme court, they're part of the donald trump fan club. they have lifetime appointments. they don't have to do anything he says. and they, too, don't want to be, you know, they already have a lot of bad will against them. they don't want to be known as, oh, they delayed this so he can get re-elected. so yes, if the d.c. circuit court denies his appeal, they can seek that from the supreme court of the united states. >> we assume that's how they feel. inside team trump, it does seem their strategy is to just keep playing the appeals game. and to try to run out the clock. is that their thinking? >> yeah, 100%. they have no other strategy left to push back the d.c. case in particular. like you said, in the classified

documents case, judge cannon has shown repeatedly that she intends to push this out, to delay proceedings. but in the d.c. case, judge chutkan has been so adamant she will stick to her march trial date or bring it forward if trump continues to make inflammatory comments that i think the defense lawyers in that case know they're up against a hard clock, and that is why they're trying to find any avenue they can to appeal. so the motions to dismiss, that was rejected, that was written actually in a way that would tee it up for appeal because the d.c. circuit could take months to rule on that. you have to set a briefing schedule, have oral arguments and then there's a decision. yes, if the supreme court takes it up, this will be another months-long delay. >> take notes, children. if you want to commit crimes, run for president. because apparently, you can delay adjudication of said crimes forever. thank you, hugo lowell and

catherine christians. thank you both. still ahead, a released israeli hostage shares her thoughts on the war in an exclusive interview, as president biden faces growing calls to push for a permanent cease-fire. we'll be right back. traveling . the thrill seeker. the soul searcher. and - ahoy! it's the explorer! each helping to protect their money with chase. woah, a lost card isn't keeping this thrill seeker down. lost her card, not the vibe. the soul searcher, is finding his identity, and helping to protect it. hey! oh yeah, the explorer! she's looking to dive deeper... all while chase looks out for her. because these friends have chase. alerts that help check. tools that help protect. one bank that puts you in control. chase. make more of what's yours.

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as fighting rages on in the

southern gaza city, today, the gaza health ministry says the death toll in the region has surpassed 17,000. while the u.n. is warning civilians trying to flee the fighting have nowhere safe to go. israeli forces are now blowing up the entrances to hamas tunnels while reportedly considering flooding them with seawater, even though some of the estimated 138 hostages might be in those tunnels which once again raises the question, what exactly is israel's end game here? we are also hearing directly from one of the freed israeli hostages, 73-year-old irina, who earlier today spoke with richard engel. >> reporter: and to the other question, what's it like for you to come back here after all that you have been through?

>> and back here in the u.s., pressure is growing on the white house to call for a cease-fire. today, more than 500 staffers from over 400 -- from over 140 jewish organizations across the country signed on to an open letter to president biden calling for a permanent cease-fire and the return of all hostages. writing in part, many of us have devoted our life's work to building thriving j communities. we know there is no military solution to this crisis. we know that israelis and palestinians are here to stay. neither jewish safety nor palestine liberation can be achieved if they're pitted against one another. joining me now is michelle goldberg, columnist for "the new york times" and an msnbc political analyst.

always good to see you. i want to let you comment on that sweet elderly woman who is saying how do i live here now? you know, the state of siege is so thorough and so overwhelming, the amount of death across that border, she lives in southern israel right near gaza, has made her feel that she didn't know how things can going forward. she wants the war to end. your comments. >> two things. one of the reasons i think people are saying they can't live there now is a lot of these kibbutz, they have lost a huge number of their population. and the entire area has been turned into a war zone. one of the things that is so devastating about the hamas attacks and the war, i think, for left of center, for many left of center jews is that it was really the heart of the peace movement that hamas attacked. the kibbutz in the south are the

sort of heartland of what remains of socialist labor zionism, people who are opposed to the current government. you had those were the communities that were attacked, and the people who are responding are very much the opposite of that and have shown very little care or concern in many cases for not just for the futures of these kibbutzs but also for the remaining hostages. >> and i mean, it is a strange dialectic. you do have so many liberal jewish groups here in the united states who are kind of part of the cornerstone of the peace movement here. and as you said, at the same time, there is this agony over their counterparts in southern israel who really were the main people who were attacked. so they're in this sort of dual mind, that the violence and the amount of death we're seeing in gaza is heartbreaking for them as well. but as you said, there is also a

desire to see their communities thrive or at least their sister communities thrive in israel as well. >> i think that's what's so difficult. you obviously have some jewish groups that are just wholly committed to a cease-fire, but you have other groups like j-street for example that is very much on the fence, that has put out a statement saying they may soon withdraw their support for the war if they don't see more care taken for civilians in southern gaza, which doesn't look like that's happening right now. but the reason that this is so agonizing is because it's not clear if even if you could get the netanyahu government to stop the war, which may be fantastical, it still isn't clear what happens to the displaced people in israel, who have had to leave communities that have either been decimated because of hamas attacks but also are subject to continuing rocket barrages. so it's -- i think it's really

painful for a lot of liberal jews who think the amount of palestinian death has become intolerable, but who also don't know what the future of israel looks like with hamas next door. >> you wrote a piece about what's happening on the campuses in the united states. we just saw this hearing, elise stefanik questioned the presidents of harvard university, university of pennsylvania that lost a big donation because of the response of that president to the anti-semitism on campuses. what do you make of the state of sort of speech on this issue? because there's a lot of passion on these campuses, on both sides of it. what do you make of the way the university presidents are handling it and how they handled that hearing? >> i don't think anybody thinks they handled that hearing well, even though i think there's been a huge amount of distortion about what they actually, not what they said but sort of the

context. i know for some people it's going to be hard to hear there could be a context that makes what they said okay, but if you watched the entire hearing as i did, you heard elise stefanik over and over again define pretty common palestinian slogans like from the river to the sea or intefadeh as calling for the genocide of the jews. so she was clearly trying to say that these university presidents should take disciplinary action against students who say these -- who use this very common rhetoric. and when it got -- so they kept pushing back on that. so when this questioning began, is it okay to call for jewish genocide? it was clear y think, if you had watched the previous part of the hearing, that's what she meant. is it okay under your rules for somebody to chant from the river to the sea? and the presidents gave these sort of legalistic answers because on the one hand, they don't want -- because they don't want to get into an argument

about the meaning of genocide, the semantics of genocide. at the same time, to say they're going to start expelling people for chanting these slogans that have very disputed definitions would put them crosswise with the first amendment. so now, there's been this tremendous backlash that's going to end up, i think, creating more censorship and repression. >> yeah, it is a complex and horrific situation that doesn't seem to be getting much better. but i always appreciate the opportunity to speak with you, my friend. michelle goldberg, thank you very much. coming up, the growing scandal surrounding florida's republican party chair, christian ziegler, sheds new light on right wing efforts to pack local school boards with conservative ideologies. more next.

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christian ziegler, the florida republican chairman, is facing mounting pressure to resign from his position amid rape allegations. his wife bridget ziegler is also facing pressure to resign from her position on the sarasota county school board. her fellow board member says ziegler must step down. bridget ziegler has already resigned from a different position as vice president of school boards for the leadership institute, an organization that provides training for conservative activists. bridget ziegler has not been accused of any crime. but he is engulfed in the scandal nonetheless.

her husband, christian, is accused of raping a yet unnamed woman, which he denies. according to a search warrant affidavit first obtained by the florida center for government accountability, the zieglers admitted to police they engaged in a threesome with the accuser more than a year ago. another sexual encounter was set in october, but the woman told police that christian raped her when she refused to have sex without bridget present. so why the ire against bridget if she is not even named in the police complaint? well, the scandal has many layers of messy, and isn't a good look for florida republicans. but also, bridget is essentially an anti-gay crusider who has now admitted to having sex at least once with another woman. in fact, here she is in 2022, standing behind ron desantis when he signed the don't say gay bill into law. hypocritical much? yes. ziegler is a cofounder of moms for liberty, the very group who

slings groomer accusations at gay people and is obsessed with banning books about mlk and thinks a kids book about hugging sea horses is too risque. the group's mission is clear, to take over school boards and steer local politics to the far right. ziegler has held the seat on the sarasota county school board since 2014. earlier this year, she introduced a last-minute agenda item to hire an educational consulting foorm called vermeilium, but the board would eventually reject her proposal. about a week later, a last minute item about hiring vermilion showed up on a different school board agenda. this time it was in pennsylvania. huh, coincidence? hardly, because it's associated with hillsdale college, a christian school that is chummy with folks like trump and desantis and when is disseminating something called the 1776 curriculum. its response to the heralded

1619 project. the 1776 project has been slammed by critics as littered with right-wing christian ideology and historical inaccuracies. when vermilion failed to secure a contract for its curriculum in flod, it moves on to pennsylvania. unlike sarasota, the penridge district hired vermilion owner jordan adams. it didn't go well. per the southern poverty law center, from the start, there were red flags about pvermilion education proposal and contract, which called for a consulting feef $125 per hour,lus travel expenses. adams' proposal titled education restored, began with a letter to the school board calling on its members remain part of the right-wing movement against public education. long story short, it turned into a huge mess. a school board member told popular infortion that adams was amateurish and horrible.

penridge would eventually terminate its contract but only after an election this fall toppled the moms for liberty members and adams had already been paid $35,000 for his shoddy work. the moms for liberty cofounder are now scrambling to distance themselves from bridget ziegler amid her and her husband's scandal, but the damage is done, and we're seeing exactly how this group plans to infiltrate american schools with folks like jordan adams who in a leaks audio made his war on education abundantly clear.

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almost 100 years -- to start planning today, a 100 year head start. and if we don't make the most of this chance, we're not going to get another one. it very much is within educations -- at the moment. >> that word leaked audio of jordan adams, president of vermilion education consulting company, addressing a moms for liberty liberty summit in philadelphia. video was posted by bucks county beacon adams, bucks county beacon. adams, an education consultant with no education degrees and a graduate of hillsville college, also describes his concerned consulting work as fox in the house. joining me is the author of popular information and the guy

who has reported extensively on vermilion. tell me about jordan allen adams and 4 million. >> this is someone who really appeared out of nowhere. he only started his company this march by he immediately started attracting the attention of school boards, really through this connection to hillsdale. it relates back the way we're talking about in your previous segment, where the first person to try to bring jordan adams in and have him reshaped the curriculum in the school district, was brigitte ziegler down in florida. and she brought him in and obviously she represents a very conservative district. she usually she gets her gets what she wants on that school board. but he was so unqualified and there was such little information about what he would actually do that the school board had kind of a revolt and said we're not going to do this. we're not signing this contract. it makes no sense. we don't even understand what

the purpose of this person is. but he was able to be successfully retained in a district in pennsylvania, pennridge, and was able to get started there, $125 an hour, with no specific deliverables. and started making his recommendations. >> how much of this is ideology and how much of it is a straight-up financial grift? >> i think it's a marriage of the two things, to be honest. there's a broader movement around the hillsdale 1776 curriculum, which was inspired by trump. there was the new york times came out with the 16 19 project. trump and the maga folks were very upset about that. they created in response when trump had a 70 70 zones is commission, hillsdale tried to

make this into an entire curriculum that presents the right as the hero's trying to defeat the evil progressives, trying throughout history. and jordan adams worked with hillsdale, worked at his hillsdale, helping to promote this curriculum. and then spawn up what he calls for vermilion, which is bright red, a bright red color, to essentially make money to graft the hillsdale curriculum onto public schools. >> let's talk about hillsdale for a moment. people probably have not heard of it. it's not like a top college. but it seems to be a factory for evangelical, white evangelical ideology. >> it is a very powerful institution. they attract a lot of very conservative students and they're educating the students. but more than that they are really creating ideological

warriors who after going to hillsdale will then go out into the community. that's exactly what jordan adams did. he was going out, teaching in various schools in texas, some other degrees, and then came back, worked on this curriculum. and then there's an aggressive effort by the college itself to push the materials that they are creating beyond the campus and into the broader country. >> i think the bigger picture is that education is a multi billion dollar business. like the college board, selling you all those tests, mcmillian and company, the companies that make the tests, et cetera. this is a very lucrative business. if they can break in and replace what they see as liberal elites that are pushing diversity and inclusion and no black people contributed to

history and replace that with white christian nationalism they prefer, they both get ideologically groomed children to be right wingers, and they also make a buck. >> brigitte ziegler was upset she didn't get jordan adams in her district, but when jordan adam signed that contract in pennsylvania she said this is great, he will now be able to go in and do what she called a woke audit of the public schools. that's really what she feels is going. on that is what happened. >> is that woke audit including being against, i don't know, threesomes? >> i that i don't know. i would have to defer. >> nothing wrong if it's consenting adults, but i'm just saying, a bit hypocritical. that's tonight's reidout. wishing everyone a happy hanukkah. all in with chris hayes starts right now. right >> tonight on all in. >> why do you think most people still t