or other plants. we found this happening in multiple companies in multiple states across the united states and it continues to be the subject of federal investigations although investigators say in many cases their hands are tied and the penalties for something like this is pretty minimal, just about over $15,000 per child if a company is found to have hired a child. they say they need more tools to hold companies accountable and to go after places that might be exploiting children. >> disturbing. fascinating reporting. julia ainsley, thank you. please do stay on it. that's going to do it for us today. thank you so much for joining us. hope your monday is off to a good start. i'll see you back here tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern for "ana cabrera reports." "deadline: white house" starts right now. ♪ ♪ hi, everyone. it is 4:00 in new york. i'm ali velshi in for nicolle wallace. long-time viewers of the show

are no stranger to the disgraced, twice-impeached, four-times indicted ex president saying the quiet parts out loud. it is basically his calling card. often it meant speaking in code using dog whistles telling the proud boys for instance to stand back and stand by or saying there are good people on both sides after white supremacists marched through the sheets of charlottesville chanting, jews will not replace us. but now? now, donald trump has dispensed with the dog whistles. he is going for. . as a rule we don't air video of donald trump lightly on this show but we thought it was important that you hear this, that we all bear witness to what the ex-president and current leading republican candidate is saying here. >> we're like a rocket ship, who's like a rocket ship sent by kim jong-un, just like that. who is very nice, i will tell you. he is not so fond of this

administration, but he's fond of me, and we had a very good relationship. >> vladimir putin of russia says that biden's -- and this is a quote -- politically motivated persecution of his political rival is very good for russia because it shows the rottenness of the american political system. >> victor orban the highly respected prime minister of hungary said trump is the man who can save the western world. >> now, donald trump says a lot of crazy stuff at his rallies and this rally over the weekend was no exception, but make no mistake. when donald trump uses his platform to give a bear hug to the most ruthless dictators of the 21st century, vladimir putin, kim jong-un, viktor orban, it is no accident. he knows what he is doing. he didn't just name check the world's current cast of authoritarians and villains. no, he also nodded to the most notorious, blood-thirsty, depraved fascist of all time,

adolf hitler. >> we got a lot of work to do. you know, when they let -- i think the number is 15, 16 million people into our country, when they do that, we got a lot of work to do. they're poisoning the blood of our country. >> they're poisoning the blood of our country. he's referencing undocumented immigrants. now, trump bad mouthing undocumented immigrants is also absolutely nothing new. he has been doing that since the moment he came down the escalator at trump tower and claimed mexico was sending rapists over the border, but poisoning the blood of our country. it is an important turn of phrase that is sounding alarm bells for civil rights and extremist experts for a reason. in hisler's manifesto there are several passages in which hitler used the word poison and blood in conjunction in attacking people he deemed a threat to the purity of the aryan race. he was mostly talking about jews at the same time. claiming, quote, great

civilizations of the past died out as a result of contamination of the blood and linking the, quote, poison which has invaded the national body to an influx of foreign blood. if you are saying to yourself, yeah, but donald trump wouldn't know hitler doesn't wrote that, donald trump doesn't even allegedly like to read. it is worth remembering as "the new york times" long reported donald trump had a hitler fascination. his bedside table head a book of hitler speeches, a gift of a friend that his wife said he occasionally leafed there. he told his chief of staff john kelly that hitler did a lot of good things. he complained to kelly that american generals weren't as loyal as hitler's german asking him, why can't you be like the german generals of the third reich. none of this is subtle and none of it is a joke. it is all straight out of the dictator's playbook and dovetails with what he has

already told us that he would do in a second term including, quote, radically reshaping the federal government by purging potentially thousands ofivil servants and filling career s with loyalists. ly 20 current and former trump aides told reuters, quote, donald trump in a s term would likely install loyalists in key positions in the peag, state department and cia whose primary allegiance would be to him, allowing him more freedomt in his first presidency to enact isolationist policies and whims. it would enable him to make stance on issues ranging from china. as the saying goes when someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time, and donald j. trump is putting us all on blast about who he is and what he plans to do if he is reelected in 2024. that's where we start this hour with the former united states

senator and co-host of msnbc's "how to win 2024" podcast, claire mccaskill. protect democracy co-founder, ian bass. plus with me at the table, former congressman from florida, david jolly, and the princeton university professor and distinguished political scholar eddie glaude. lucky for us, all are msnbc political analysts. welcome to you all. ian bass, let me start with you, because there are folks -- you and i talked about this a couple of weeks ago. there are folks that would say nothing much has changed are donald trump. he is an extremist. he has been this way a long time. what is the difference now that he is using words that hitler used? you know, we're not even 100% sure he's doing it deliberately. what is the difference now? why is it uniquely important for americans to understand what he's up to and what he is saying? >> well, i think there are a couple of differences, ali. one is when he did this during his first term and started

introducing concepts that were wholly foreign to the american experiment of self-government for the last 247 years, first off, he didn't really have the apparatus to fully implement them. he had people in government who were brought in from prior republican administrations who in many cases did enable some of his bad acts, but in other cases stood to thwart them. we learned for example his white house counsel, don mcgahn, would interference of him trying to get the department of justice to prosecute his opponents, although in some cases he still succeeded. what is different is trump has learned and this time he has an entire apparatus outside of government that is preparing to fill the government ranks with loyalists who would simply carry out his wishes and are ideologically aligned to this dictator-type agenda. that's sort of the second thing that's different, is the first time i think trump was kind of out of right field in a way in terms of some of his anti-democratic activity. but in the last several years,

an intellectual movement has begun to burgon on the far right that is kind of filling in the gaps of trumpism, providing an intellectual footing for it. you have movements on the far right calling for the end of the american liberal order and to replace it with something that looks much mora authoritarian, even in some cases calling for an american seizure to put it if place. now it is not just one person sounding different. it is a movement that seeks to replace american democracy. >> i see you nodding your head here, eddie. >> there is a sense the first time around he is a rookie. now he's a seasoned actor, and he's mobilizing all of those forces and resources across the country in order to in some ways execute what is obviously and seriously an anti-democratic project. i want to say it is not wholly foreign to the u.s. remember, nazi lawyers in the 1930s were actually looking to american law and anti-misogyny law and immigration law as

examples. mein kampf quotes it. in 1939 in madison square garden there was a rally. trump has tapped into a long-standing tradition in the united states and is exploiting it. we need to see the newness of it but also the familiarness of it. >> claire mccaskill, when people say did donald trump even read hitler, many of the recipients of his messages may not have read hitler but these things are tried and true, phrases and behavior that is ill-liberal worked around the world as eddie points out historically. it is working around the world right now. there is the kind of thing that actually gins people up and gets them to support a guy like donald trump. >> yeah. donald trump is marketing

grievance and doing it with scary stuff. you listed some of the things, ali. he also said he wanted to terminate the constitution. those are his words, terminate the constitution. this language that he used, i will never believe that he doesn't understand the reference to poisoning the blood and, yes, he was referring to illegal immigration and, yes, we do have a problem at the southern border. but when you step back and think about this, try this on for size. he is using a phrase that immigrants are poisoning the blood of the country and he's married to an immigrant, and he is the father of the child of an immigrant, a first-generation immigrant. so when he does that, i hope all the americans who understand that we are a country of immigrants are as offended as they should be over him using that phrase, which brings up horrific shadows from history that are something we should never allow to be repeated

again. >> david jolly, one of the things that experts on this sort of thing including ruth mangia bringing all the time is if this were just donald trump, if donald trump were just a fringey character on the side it would be one thing but, a, he is not a fringey character. he was the president of the united states. may well be the president of the united states again, and ruth's point is that the republican party, the current republican party, particularly the party in the house, enables this behavior. there are lots of exit ramps. there are lots of opportunities to say that was one too far, tearing up the constitution was one too forward, good people on both sides was one too far. he keeps on going and it is not causing anybody in the house to sit there and say, this is not who we are. >> a leader without a follower is just taking a walk in the woods. >> right. >> he has followers, whether they're sitting in the united states congress or they're at a rally in new hampshire. i think we have to have a cultural conversation, rip the veneer off this entire mom. we almost do ourselves a

disservice bringing in the policies of immigration. >> which are valid and worthy of a different conversation. >> sure. his policies are hard right, policies. what he expressed in new hampshire and has expressed before is a racist statement. it either reflects racism he harbors personally in his heart or racism he is willing to peddle for personal and political gain. we should use that word cautiously. they're probably thrown around too often. he went on to suggest immigrants not just from south america which by the way shows a significant ignorance of the actual border crisis originating from central american. he said it is not just south americans but africans and asians. what he said is a racist statement and it becomes a cultural conversation for us. are we going to elevate somebody that espouses such racist

philosophy. what if you are another republican right now? lindsey graham said i don't want to worry about what he says, but what he does. you have to worry about what he says. this is akin to someone in the civil rights era saying i support segregation and to allow diversity poisons the american spirit and the american identity. for nikki haley whose parents are first generation, all of you join the cultural conversation whether or not we can elevate a racist to the presidency. donald trump told us who he is. >> you identify particular language and my colleague, christian welker, claire mccaskey, asked lindsey graham specifically about this because lindsey glam was trying to say what david jolly was paraphrasing and that is don't worry about what he says. let's talk about immigration policy. let's play a little of the interchange both with brian kilmeade -- it was actually

lindsey graham talking to kristen welker about things that brian kilmeade said on fox. let's listen. >> in new hampshire they didn't like his rhetoric. he was talking about the border, he was talking about people coming from other countries, coming from prisons, and they wanted to focus all of the sunday shows, lawrence, on the word he used "poison." he was trying to say we want to keep america america, we want to build up the border and find out who is coming in and out. they tried to say this language was the problem. >> what about his language, just that language, that poisoning the blood? >> i'm worried about an outcome. he is right to want -- he had the border secured, the lowest in 40 years in december of 2020, to the biden administration. you are talking about donald trump's language, as you said on sidelines and allow the country to be invaded. >> senator, i want to get the language. you have endorsed former president trump. are you comfortable with him using words like that? >> you know, we're talking about

language. >> yeah, we're talking about language, claire mccaskill. in fact, even in lindsey graham's defense of trump or the idea we shouldn't use language, he used the term "invaded" which is another one of those terms. david jolly's point is valid. all of this is infusing a conversation that, a logical conversation we could be having about immigration but we're not. we are having a fearmongering, anti-immigrant racist conversation about immigration. >> yeah, and i don't get it. i just don't get it. i don't get why lindsey graham can't say what he really means. donald trump shouldn't say that. i disagree with donald trump, that immigrants are not poisoning the blood of america. it is ridiculous. all of these people kowtowing to this guy who is -- the people that donald trump is lifting up, i have listened to lindsey graham over and over again in the armed services committee say what a danger they are to the

world. kim jong-un, viktor orban, putin. lindsey graham knows that he is playing footsie with the bad guys, and the notion that lindsey graham doesn't have the guts to speak up and say, stop it, we cannot play footsie with the bad guys, we are about freedom and human rights. by the way, if lindsey really wanted to fix the border, he voted for the border bill that we passed in terms of immigration reform back in, you know, almost ten years ago now. why aren't they fixing it? they don't want to fix it. >> right. >> they didn't want to build a wall when they controlled congress. they could have built a wall when they controlled congress. they had the house, the senate and the white house. they didn't. they don't want to fix it. they just want it as a political issue. >> eddie, we have been talking about the stuff he talked about immigrants, but in fact even before that it is almost like you don't pay attention to some of the stuff he says that isn't that crazy, but he talked about

vladimir putin. he is talking about kim jong-un. he talked about the widely respected viktor orban who is a nato leader who is actively working against the 50-country effort to keep ukraine alive from its invasion of russia. again, i don't know if the audience was listening to him, doesn't care or doesn't know, but he leaned into, of all of the 200-plus leaders in the country, he picked these three guys. >> right. and we keep trying to give the audience the benefit of the doubt. >> yes, yes. >> you know, we said he's the snake oil salesman but people are buying the snake oil. >> yeah. >> we are reluctant to actually deal with that. if lindsey graham is playing footsie with the bad guy, he is now one of the bad guys. we keep trying to keep folks npt of this thing, right. let's be very, very clear. at the heart of this debate is the question -- i mean let's not exceptionalize donald trump. but you have immigration and nationality act of 1965 people have been trying to undo that

provides a frame. you have the immigration act of 1924 that in some way provides the frame for how we think about the border. donald trump's rhetoric is not simply corrupting our politics but corrupting our souls. but to change the argument from what donald trump is saying back to the language of the crisis of immigration doesn't change the context. >> right. >> you haven't changed the soil, you haven't turned it over because you are still arguing on the same grounds, 1924 and the efforts to overturn 1965. if we don't shift the framework, ali, we will continue to provide the context, the oxygen, the fertilizer, the nonsense. >> david said the same thing. we need to have a cultural conversation about this. who is we? the people around this table and the two people on my screen are having it. what does this look like as a national conversation? i don't know where we go from here because we're talking about donald trump who keeps saying this stuff, but nobody is advancing this conversation. >> really quickly, david. >> please. >> we have to stop starting with

the negative and start defining -- >> what it looks like. >> -- what the values of the country actually are. we keep saying what we're not and what we shouldn't do, and trump becomes the poster child for that. when are we going to start -- >> let me ask you about that because we talked about it a couple of weeks ago about all the people that said donald trump didn't break anything. for all of the crazy stuff he did nothing really note. you have to make note of dobbs, but the argument is if the supreme court were constituted the way it was constituted under any republican president dobbs may have fallen. here is the question. he broke all of the things that eddie just said he broke. so how do we characterize a conversation about the future of america that is about unbreaking those things, about fixing those things, about making this country what we generally speaking share a view it should be? >> well, look, i worked for president obama and he liked to say we were on a long journey of perfecting our union. we have never been, and it is a

point eddie was making earlier, we have never been a perfect inclusive democracy but over the long arc of our history we have been moving in that direction. i think if you ask people about basic values, and i have seen research on this as well, people in america share values around decency, around humanity, around care for one's neighbors. i think what people are not realizing is it is so dissonant to see a candidate for president who is so at odds with those that people are denying that reality. that's why we're having this conversation. is he serious? i think we do need to articulate that positive vision, but also take very seriously that donald trump means what he says. and i would say this, even if there's a 90% chance that he's not serious about it and he's not really going to do it, would you get on a plane that had a one in ten chance of crashing? how hard would you work to keep your kids off that plane? >> this is the beginning of an important conversation. i take all of your advice, that let's start looking at it from a different perspective. we understand who is going to

crash that plane, and let's look at who is going to actually make sure we get to our destination properly. i didn't come back to you because you are sticking with me, so stick around, david jolly. claire mccaskey, ian bassen, eddie glaude, thank you for your impassioned defense of what this country actually needs to be. when we come back we have breaking news. just in the last few minutes from an appeals court in mark meadows' long-shot hail mary, 11th hour, take your pick as who how to characterize it, attempt to move his case out of a court in fulton county, georgia, to a federal court. that is a huge blow to his defense. we will have that after the break. plus, after being slapped with a $148 million judgment on friday, rudy giuliani again lied about the georgia election workers ruby freeman and shea moss. now they have filed a brand-new complaint against the former mayor and attorney for the ex-president. we will talk about that just ahead as well. later in the show, new reporting on how and why the gifts from conservative donors

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just moments ago we got some breaking news involving a hail-mary attempt by one of donald trump's co-defendants in the fulton county election interference case. his former chief of staff mark meadows tried to get his case moved to federal court. he argued he was acting in his capacity as an officer of the federal government when the conduct that got him indicted took place. now a federal appeals court has rejected that argument,

supporting a lower court decision that ruled against meadows as well. the judges say that only current federal officers are eligible to get their cases moved, and they add, quote, the events giving rise to this criminal action were not related to meadows' official duties. the ruling comes just three days after a hearing took place on the matter. joining our conversation now is a former top official at the department of justice, andrew weissmann. david is also back with us. andrew, i mean, look, at some point we have to give an award to mark meadow for really trying. i mean he really has tried literally everything in the book, but there are two salient local points here. one, he is not a current federal officer. two is that the things that he was charged for he would like to claim was part of -- i think the language he used was trying to land the plane in the transition from donald trump to joe biden, but it didn't seem like official chief of staff-ish kind of work. >> yeah. so he lost on two separate grounds as you noted.

so the court said that the statute, the removal statute only applies to current federal officers. why? the court looked at the statute, the language of the statute and the purpose of the statute, and said it only really makes sense in terms of interference with the current administration, and there's nothing that interferes with the current administration if you remove or don't remove a case of a federal -- a former federal official. but the court went on to say even if we are wrong -- by the way, this is the first court that has ever said that. so to meadows, you know, to the point of taking an appeal, you know, this is the first time a court has ever held that. but the court said, you know what? even if we were wrong on that, what you are alleged to have done here is not within your official duties, very much reminiscent of a case that recently came out of the dc

circuit that said, you know, when you are running a campaign, when you are taking campaign activity, even if you are currently sitting in the oval office and in the white house, that does not make it official business. you are just like any other campaign. the office of the white house, the office does not have any stake in who the next president will be. that is just a campaign activity, not an official duty of somebody who is either chief of staff or the president. so this is a very good decision for georgia. it is a very bad decision for meadows, but it also is very much going to be something that i think that the supreme court and the dc circuit look to in deciding donald trump's ongoing effort to say that he should be immune because he was acting as the executive in connection with the charged conduct in dc

because you now have two separate circuit courts saying that's not what's at issue here. so very good day for the government, both federal and state. >> can i ask you about this other matter? and this is that a complaint -- i think you broke this news in fact because it was while your were doing your podcast. a lawyer for ruby freeman and shea moss taking new action against rudy giuliani? >> yes. so new case was filed today by ruby freeman and shea moss. remember, they won $148 million judgment from a jury on friday, and today not letting the grass grow and being very tenacious they have filed an injunctive action. you might be thinking, well, why do you need that if you just got this judgment for $148 million. it is sort of for two purposes. one, it is seeking relief to

prevent rudy giuliani from continuing to harm the plaintiffs, and that is continuing to disparage them. remember, rudy giuliani just last week both during the trial and right after the trial continued to make damaging statements about the plaintiffs. so it seeks relief to say you need to stop and it also seeks to make sure that they can take that injunctive relief and get third parties to adhere to it. so they can going to news organizations, to x, to all sorts of people who might want to disseminate those false statements and defamatory statements to say there's an injunction against this. so it is definitely sort of an aggressive move to protect these plaintiffs from ongoing harm. >> you worked, david, with mark

meadows. >> yeah. >> and unlike rudy giuliani who gives off a sense that something is not right at all times, mark meadows is the opposite. he was affable in his testimony. i wasn't interfering. i went to atlanta of my own accord. they were all nuts and i was trying to get this whole thing to run properly. it has not worked for him once ironically. being the nice guy who mark meadows is hasn't worked for him once, and the prosecutors in georgia said they're not cutting a deal with rudy giuliani or mark meadows. they're going after trump, giuliani, meadows. anyone else wants to cut a deal, we're ready to talk. not you through. >> at this point rudy giuliani should welcome handcuffs because he wakes up every day and punches himself in the face. it is almost sad to see what is happening to him. mark meadows, the opposite. very cerebral, very tactical. widely believe he has decided to work with jack smith, and i suspect that through his attorneys he is going to try to

work with the georgia prosecutors. even though the georgia prosecutors have said, no, no, no, it might be this ruling by the 11th circuit that leads mark meadows to say, okay, is there a deal on the table? because we know he has been willing to do it with jack smith. we believe he has been willing to do it with jack smith. the one thing about mark meadows i truly have believed since the very moment is that he will sell out donald trump before he will go to jail. i really believe that. that's true of a lot of people, right? but it is not true of rudy giuliani and it is not true of some other trump loyalists. mark meadows i think is just -- the makeup of mark meadows is somebody who will desperately try to stay out of jail if he can. this 11th circuit ruling, to andrew's point, carries on with the theme that you don't get to claim you are an officer, you don't get to claim immunity, you don't get to remove this because you are a white house official. this is campaign activity and you will be held under the law based on that type of action. mark meadows is in trouble. i suspect he will try to deal in georgia if they'll take it.

>> andrew, to that point really quickly, can he if the georgia -- the georgia prosecutors have said they're not interested in dealing with -- making a deal with mark meadows. is that true or sort of what they have to say? >> you know, i don't know the answer to that but, you know, if he has really key evidence, it is hard to think that they'll say under no circumstances will we listen to you. but to david's point about what mark meadows may do in georgia, i think people should remember whatever happens to donald trump if he were to be elected, that does not protect mark meadows from that state criminal case that he is facing. there is no stay. there is no immunity. there is no federal pardon that can help mark meadows in connection with the state criminal case that he is now

confronting. in fact, he and the other people who are charged are going to be holding the bag even if donald trump becomes president and manages to get -- and he gets out of the federal and state cases. all of those other people still face a criminal trial. so to david's point about, you know, who are you looking out for, that's something that he has to worry about. >> of course, that answers the question as to why he may have been more interested in this being heard in federal court because regardless of whether it was federal court or state court he's still facing charges. andrew, thanks very much for that. stick around with me. we are going to have another conversation on the other side. david, nice to see you as well. thank you for your analysis. david jolly. >> coming up next, as andrew mentioned ruby freeman and shea moss have brought another lawsuit against rudy giuliani for defamation. we are going to look at the latest chapter of the man once known as america's mayor. at th!

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it is much more than a beginning than an end. it is much more of a beginning than an end, the $148 million verdict in rudy giuliani's election workers civil defamation case. the former new york mayor has vowed to appeal the nine-figure ruling but the road ahead is bigger than that. for starters less than an hour ago we learned attorneys for ruby freeman and shea moss filed a new complaint against rudy giuliani seeking an injunction.

we will tell you what that means in a moment. what about donald trump himself? if giuliani is guilty of defaming two innocent people, knowingly spreading lies at their expense, is the disgraced ex-president as well? after all, the january 6th select committee clearly illustrated the way trump targeted ruby freeman and shea moss in the aftermath of the election. this was the crowd in valdosta, georgia, at a trump rally on december the 5th, 2020. remember, this was after the election. what they're doing is watching the video incorrectly purporting to show moss and freeman engaged in election fraud, and after that this is what trump said. >> so if you just take the crime of what those democrat workers were doing -- by the way, there was no water main break. you know, they said there was no water main break. that's ten times more than i need to win this state, ten times more.

it is ten times, maybe more than that, but it is ten times more because we lost by a very close number. >> beyond the scope of civil litigation, what sort of overlap exists between the giuliani ruling and trump's criminal case in fulton county, georgia? trump mentioned ruby freeman 18 times on that infamous "find me 11,000 votes" call with georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger after all. what is next? joining our conversation former assistant u.s. attorney and former candidate for mayor of new york city, maya wiley. andrew is alt back with us. andrew, let me ask you that question because rudy giuliani, i don't know what the language is to use. some would say in nonlegal terms he sort of defaulted on that case because he didn't do what he was supposed to do so he was found responsible, and the trial that occurred was basically about the fees, the penalties he would pay. that said, the same allegations are in the georgia criminal indictment and he's not the only

would that faces them. so what's the relationship between what happened in the civil trial and what's going to happen in georgia? >> sure. so first to the criminal case, ruby freeman and shea moss, their testimony is completely integral to some of the criminal charges brought by the state of georgia. they're specifically focused on in terms of what rudy giuliani and other people did in terms of damaging and harassing them. so they will certainly be witnesses, and rudy giuliani in addition to the civil case where there is the judgment last week is facing criminal charges in connection with what he did with respect to them. it is also part of the criminal case that jack smith has brought federally in dc where allegations with respect to ruby freeman and shea moss are also part of that larger scheme.

finally to your question about donald trump, i can understand -- by the way, in our podcast we actually asked the lead lawyer about that, why did you not sue donald trump and not -- and why just rudy giuliani. it is important to remember that if you are focusing on a case for something that the former president did while he was in office, that could delay seeking relief because there are issues of presidential immunity. however, statements that donald trump made after he left office -- and i believe there are some -- could form the basis of a civil case in addition to all of the other liability that he is facing. in the same way, for instance, e. jean carroll has brought sit in connection with defamation and statements made by donald trump when he was no longer the president and thus does not have a claim of presidential

immunity. >> this is an important distinction because in the time those phone calls were made or those things were done, with some exceptions because rudy giuliani kept doing this long after donald trumn't president, but rudy giuliani wasn't president of anything. donald trump was. mya, let's put up the $148 million damages and see how they break down. $16 million to freeman for defamation. $17 million to moss for defamation. then emotional distress. you are a new yorker. rudy giuliani does this. he is a guy who has wrecked people's reputation for a living back when he was u.s. attorney, when he was mayor. this is his thing. when people talk about the fall of rudy giuliani into this sort of mess that he has become, many people from this city say rudy giuliani was always some version of this guy. >> rudy giuliani could always be a knee basher, let's put it that

way. he was not gentle with his words or his actions. but the rudy giuliani who was a u.s. attorney in a preeminent office i was privileged to work with on the civil side, one that values the cases in the department of justice, did not bring cases without evidence. this is a rudy giuliani who made statements calling two public servants, the same man who defends public servants who are police officers, these women were public servants, too. lots of history from rudy giuliani being mayor. there were accusations that he was not sensitive to people of color and black people in particular. i'm being polite. but that here the pattern is he used what i consider to be racist stereotypical tropes against two public servants doing their job, and he was willing both in their case, also in cases across the country willing to make allegations of conduct that would be a crime, a

crime, as a former top federal prosecutor for the government without evidence. to your point to the question you asked andrew, it was absolutely that rudy giuliani said, yes, i agree that my statements were false and what we call defamation per se. all that means is anybody would know when you call somebody a drug dealer, a hustler and say they're stealing an election, it is defamatory. that is a totally different picture. >> andrew, how much of that plays into the idea, because when rudy giuliani was arguing about the damages or his lawyers were arguing about why the damages shouldn't be nearly as large as they turned out to be they said, a, the punishment should fit the crime and, b, maybe he couldn't have foreseen that things that he said about ruby freeman and shea moss would

have resulted in the threats, many of them racist threats that they got. others would argue he could have completely reasonably foreseen this. a, he has done that sort of thing in the past, to which mya was alluding. b, you could have done that. he didn't just say they were passing u.s. -- they were passing them like they would have been viles of cocaine or heroin. he was using tropes that a guy with his knowledge, experience and legal training would know would have implications. >> you know, donald trump has made this same argument, this same sort of like, i'm not responsible for what third parties do. you know, that argument works only the very first time that you make statements and you see the reaction of third parties, where you can say, you know, i had no idea that people would do that. when you see that happen over and over and over again, that really falls on deaf ears and should do so.

remember, the whole idea of the january 6th case is that donald trump knew all too well exactly what people would do in response to his calls to come to the capitol and for things to be wild. he knew darn well what the response would be, and the same is true. the jury found with respect to rudy giuliani. the idea of this being something that was unforeseen i think was properly rejected by the jury in reaching its conclusions. >> thanks to both of you. mya is going to stick around. she will be back in the next hour. andrew, always great to see you. thank you for being with us. don't forget to check out andrew's podcast "prosecuting donald trump." the latest is out this evening with a lot of brand-new news in it, some of which we have been talking about. mary mccord with speak with shea moss's and ruby freeman's

lawyer. scan the code on your screen to listen. scaling back the war on gaza, with high-level names heading to the region. how the goals are shifting for gaza and israel. we have that story next. israel. we have that story next. vo: illegal immigrants rush our border in record numbers. more get away than are detained. leaders of “sanctuary cities” spend billions on migrants - creating a magnet for more illegal immigration

and fueling the crisis. all while americans struggle to pay for food and housing. and what is the biden administration doing? closing more immigration detention facilities. tell your member of congress: biden's closing of immigration facilities makes this crisis even worse.

. democracies are stronger and more secure when we uphold the law of war. as i've said, protecting palestinian civilians in gaza is both a moral duty and a

strategic imperative. so we will continue to stand up for israel's bedrock right to defend itself. and we will also continue to urge the protection of civilians during conflict and to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into gaza. >> that was the defense secretary lloyd austin in tel aviv today. the latest u.s. official to meet with israeli leaders amid an increasingly public dispute between president joe biden and the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu over israel's heavy bombardment in gaza, the mounting death toll and a post-war two-state solution. nbc news has also learned that the cia director william burns is meeting with israeli and qatari officials in poland today to restart talks about hostages and a humanitarian pause. as netanyahu faces growing pressure from the israeli public to get back to the negotiating table to free the remaining hamas hostages. after this weekend's accidental

killing by the idf of three israeli hostages became front-page news for him at home. joining us now is aaron david miller, senior fellow at the carnegie endowment for international peace, former senior adviser for arab-israeli negotiations at the department of state. aaron, thanks very much for being with us. i want to read something to you that max boot wrote in the "washington post," an op-ed. i'm not typically one to read you things because you're the expert. but i think max put this very well, and i want to get your take on it "netanyahu is ignoring biden's wise words of council because his coalition allies are anxious to annex the west bank and opposed to the creation of a palestinian state. bi plainly hopes to stay in office by promising to block a two-state solution no matter how much damage that does to israel's long-term security interests or its alliance with the united states. netanyahu may soon learn the cost of alienating israel's best friend in the world." i'd love your take on that. >> max's judgment i think is

probably correct. i think the prime minister is in his own particular bind. he can't give up on his coalition because he's facing three charges -- bribery, fraud and breach of trust in a jerusalem district court. that trial's been going on for three years now. there may be a verdict at some point. in order to undermine that legal process he needs to remain as prime minister. and that means courting and enabling, acquiescing in the policies of two of the most extremist right-wing ministers in the history of any israeli government. i mean, look, ali. biden's in a bind. he's tethered himself to israel's war aims which the israelis are having a hard time accomplishing. destroying hamas's military infrastructure above and below ground, and killing its senior leaders. meanwhile you see palestinian death tolls rising and the humanitarian catastrophe worsens. if that's even possible given what's happening in gaza. i think the administration is not looking for an open break. i don't think they want one.

and if benjamin netanyahu thinks he can run on a platform given his sagging poll numbers and the reality that president biden is probably more popular in israel frankly than he is in some constituencies here at home, i think netanyahu's making a huge mistake. the administration i think is pushing and pressing. they have leverage. they could do more. waiting to see whether or not the operational tempo of the israeli campaign changes from these artillery airstrikes, comprehensive strikes at the division level, to more intention-driven brigades, smaller units focusing on more directed operations. they won't admit there's a timetable or deadline, but i think january's the month to watch. and we'll see whether or not israelis -- israel's military tactics somehow change. >> aaron, there's an interesting split also developing on the issue of what the end goal is.

and i'm not talking about a two-state solution because that's very far away. but the idea that netanyahu has stated this war doesn't end until he's used expressions like every member of hamas is dead or hamas is totally eliminated. the united states has said that's just sort of not the way to think about this simply because lamas is sort of a loose ideology, one that by the way is shared by a number of people around the region. that's not to justify it or say that it's a good one but it is broadly held. so how do you even determine what the end of the war, the day after as israelis like to call it, looks like? >> i think it's very difficult. i mean, there are some elements, ali, i think we have to accept. number one, israel is going to be conducting some kind of military action in gaza for months to come. number two, the palestinian authority is probably palestinian governance with a revamped, revitalized new leadership.

mahmoud abbas, 87, 18th year of a four-year term is probably the answer. palestinians should be governing palestinians in gaza. the problem is that even if you ended hamas's sovereignty, which i think is the objective, you get to a point where hamas can no longer dictate what happens, economically, politically, and from a security point of view. you still need some sort of transition between i guess the day after and the day after that. so i don't think the biden administration's thinking on this has congealed because i think the options frankly are pretty poor. international force? who's going to send troops? the arabs? arab states patrolling gaza and tamping down a residual insurgency? hard to believe. a long-term israeli occupation? israelis don't want that. so a lot of it i think frankly is uncertain and i think we have to simply be honest. we're not going to know what the shape of this is until probably

mid next year when you get a better idea of where the israelis are in their efforts to end hamas's sovereignty in gaza. we simply don't know enough. >> the problem is, and you're right, this has taken a long time and it will take a long time. we just need to hope that a whole lot more people don't die in the process. but aaron, thanks very much. you're always sober, but you're always right. aaron david miller is a former negotiator involved in the peace process in the middle east. much more news to come, including a new report on just how clarence thomas opened up the pocketbooks of those wealthy conservative donors. the next hour of "deadline: white house" starts right after this quick break. line: white house" starts right after this quick break ah, these bills are crazy. she has no idea she's sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn't know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even

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i think it is very important that we all care about all of this, and i haven't been in washington so long that i've been infected by that cynicism. the job is not worth doing for what they pay. it's not worth doing for the green. but it is worth doing for the

principle. >> hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. i'm ali velshi in for nicolle wallace. when you hear that comment from supreme court justice clarence thomas, sounds like exactly what we want our public officials to say. that it's more about the job and the principle than the salary and the grief that comes along with it. but according to new reporting in propublica around the same time justice thomas made those comments he was complaining to friends and even some in congress about how he was not being compensated enough. so much so that some thought he might resign from his position on the nation's highest court. after an off the record conservative conference at a five-star beach resort in georgia in early 2000, propli reports that thomas found himself seated nex t a republican member of congress on thelight home. the two men talked and the lawmaker left t conversation worried that thomas might resign. congress should give supreme court justices a pay raise, thomas told him. if lawmakers didn't act, quote, one o more justices will leave

soon, end quote, maybe in the next year. that congressman was cliff sterns of florida who according to propubli took what the justice said and ran with it. he wrote a letter to e justice saying "as we agreed, it's worth a lot to america to have the constitution properly interpreted. we must have the proper incentives here too," end quote. sterns' office sought help from a lobbying firm working on the issue, and he delivered a speech on the house floor about judges' salaries getting eroded by inflation. additionally a top judicial official wrote to then chief justice william rehnquist about thomas's concerns, referencing it as a delicate matter. and thomas talked privately about removing the ban on justices making money from speeches. propublica puts this all into context. "thomas was talking about his finances in a crucial period in his tenure just as he was developing his relationships with a set of wealthy

benefactors. congress never lifted the ban on speaking fees or gave the justices a major raise, b in the years that followed, as propublic bea has reported, thomas accepted a stream of gifts from friends and acquaintances that appeared to be unparalleled in theodern history of the supreme court. some defrayed living expenses large and small. private school tuition, vehicle batteries, tires. other gifts froa coterie of ultra rich men supplemented his lifestyle such as free international vacations on the private jet and superyacht of dallas real estate billionaire harlan crow, end quote. neither thomas nor crow has responded to propublica's questions about the story. and that's where we start this hour, with propublica senior editor and reporter jesse eyesinger. plus senior writer for slate, mark joseph stern. and back with me at the table former assistant united states attorney and president of the leadership conference on civil and human rights, maya wiley. welcome to all of you. jesse, let me start with you and the wonderful reporting from

propublica on this, which is by the way just a new installment in a lot of great reporting that you're doing on the topic. what's the conclusion here that one draws? thomas was dissatisfied with his income, shared that information with some people, and then in the midst of that was developing relationships with people who could help him do better on the salary he was earning. >> yeah, well, we are trying to provide the facts here. and people can draw their own conclusions about the timing and what happened. but clearly thomas was deeply in debt. he didn't come from a huge amount of wealth. so he didn't have, you know, some kind of big family pat rimowny to fall back on. and he was making a lot of money for an average person but he certainly -- you know, he's making the equivalent of over $300,000 in today's dollars.

plus ginni had about $100,000. so they're making half a million dollars in today's money. but you know, that's not remotely what a law firm partner at a major firm in d.c. or new york would be making. so he's feeling pinched, he's feeling squeezed, he's got debt, and he says to this congressman, you know, one or two justices might leave. which he took the strong implication that he's essentially saying you've got a nice justice here, shame if anything would happen to him. >> and mark, that's kind of what happened, right? the idea was he floated the idea. it wasn't just a discussion about i think we should make more money, which i'm sure all of us have had with either friends or bosses in some way. it was the implication that you could lose me if this doesn't get fixed. >> absolutely. and i think the timing here is really important. this initial conversation took place in january 2000.

and justice thomas put a time stamp on his request there. he said one or two justices might step down within a year. well, at the time everyone knew the presidential election was looming. there was a real chance that al gore could win. and that meant if clarence thomas felt the need to step down so he could make more money that he might be replaced not by another conservative but by a liberal, which is the worst nightmare of the conservative legal movement. and so you know, i'll note that that private conference he was at which was extremely lavish and extravagant, he refused to actually reveal that in his financial disclosure forms that year, as propublica notes. so he was already getting into the habit of hiding all of this stuff from the public. but you know, i think justice thomas really made it clear this has to happen very quickly. and that's when the gifts from billionaires began showering down all around him. and it's pretty much impossible not to draw the conclusion that

his benefactors took note and he had decided he would become indispensable as long as he could live extravagantly and told his benefactors let me live this well by any means necessary. if you can't lobby for a raise, if you can't lobby to let me give paid speeches at least let me live the lavish lifestyle of a law partner and it looks like that's what happened. >> maya, it certainly looks like most of this isn't illegal. you've made some choices and in those jobs you make certain choices. almost never does somebody who is well trained and well educated do as well for themselves financially in the public services as they do in the private sector. >> yeah, look, anybody who goes to law school makes a choice. and the choice is do you want to be a public servant or do you want to serve the private bar as

we call it, and you'll make significantly more money if you join the private bar. but let's just be honest about public servants, especially at this level of career are very highly paid and highly paid significantly more than most americans, who are working very hard and living a middle-class life and not making as much. sometimes not with as good benefits. so i just say that because it really is a choice. it's a choice we make. i think the important part of this story is not whether it's a crime but whether or not we're stealing the public's confidence in the neutral arbitration of decisions that will impact their lives because that's what the supreme court does every day. and once you pull together i like this job, you need me to make ideological decisions, so you want me to stay on the job, that's already a problem for the public's confidence. the next part of that problem is

oh, by the way, now i am sitting in the chair next to very powerful billionaires who have an agenda repeatedly and i am financially dependent on them in certain ways for a lifestyle that gets me buying a $260,000 rv. right? that's not about principles. >> right. >> and add all of that up. we're having a debate in this country about what kinds of ethics laws should be mandatory and binding on some of the most powerful people in our government, the supreme court justices. this is just a pattern that shows why most americans don't trust the supreme court right now. that's devastating for democracy because this is the third branch of government. >> right. >> it is supposed to be independent. it is supposed to be neutral. and the problem here isn't whether clarence thomas wanted to make more money. quit. get another job and you can.

it's that he wasn't making what he wanted to and then he was taking money and then knowingly not disclosing it, repeatedly. repeatedly, while he's sitting with people with an ideological agenda. that's a problem. >> jesse, maya brought up an interesting point here. and this is something propublica's been on since these stories first came out. and that is that the idea that most people have, maybe people don't care or care about what clarence thomas took, but the idea is that they are neutral arbiters of matters that are of great import. and some of the people who have been involved in giving some of these justices gifts or benefits of some sort do have either an ideological or a highly specific reason to have business before the supreme court. they've got -- it cannot be disentangled from the fact that some people have agendas and currying favor with a supreme court justice if you have an agenda is bad for democracy.

>> yeah. now, let's just be clear. we've never been able to identify any one of the benefactors, the many benefactors of thomas. harlan crow chief among them. you've got blockbuster's wayne huizenga. several others. they never had cases that were directly in front of the court, in this kind of bald manner where thomas did something unusual and you could see, well, there must be some quid pro quo there. we don't have that. we did report earlier this year that sam alito went on a lavish trip with leonard leo. leonard leo, one of the activists funded, with a hedge fund billionaire who's a conservative activist who then had a case before the court and alito didn't recuse. thomas we haven't had that. but what the speculation is from experts is that what this does is it kind of cocoons thomas in

a lifestyle that is lavish and comfortable and an ideological cocoon, an ideological kind of bubble of like-minded people who feed him the latest, greatest thinking in conservative legal thought. and so this is kind of working twofold to kind of keep the consistency of his views because there have been a lot of right-wing judges who moved left over the history of the court. they wanted to prevent that. and two, it seems to make him very comfortable with making less money than he could make in the private sector. >> mark, let's just -- maya brought up a point about whether you think supreme court justices are paid well or not well. i just want to put up a comparison. thiss from propublica. it's part of the article. the median salary in 2022 i $60,000 in the united states. it means half of all p make more, half make less.

a member of congress makes $174,000. an associate supreme court stice makes $274,000. and to ma's point a partner at the highest-paying law firms could make$7,294,000. it's a different game. and if you want to make that choice you make that choice. and a lot of people's parents would say that's a very good choice to make, to be a partner at a high-paying law firm. but public service is not there. it is many times what the average american, what the median american makes nonetheless. >> that's absolutely right. i see those salaries for justices, and i see the complaints from people like clarence thomas that they aren't enough, and i think cry me a river. you are getting paid well over what the vast majority of americans earn in a year. you are able to build up a huge amount of savings. you are able to pay off loans with a salary like that. most people's eyes would pop at a salary like that. thomas is upset that he's not making as much as a partner at a top law firm at big law.

working in big law is essentially the opposite of public service. it's like doing the worst work possible that harms the public, and you're paid millions of dollars to soothe your conscience. clarence thomas is welcome to do that, to work against the public's interest in private and make a lot of money. but he decided he wants to work against the public interest on the supreme court and allow his billionaires to share all of their money with him. >> maya, how do you -- what is the conversation that we should be having? we're not having the conversation about clarence thomas, who was trying to squeeze people to figure out ways to get him more money or get congress to raise their salaries. what's the actual conversation we could have on this front that could cause people to get more faith in the judicial branch? because this is a problem. as you said, it's one of the branches of government. it's the one populated by the smallest number of people. so they are all disproportionately important in our faith in the supreme court. >> yeah, the discussion we need

to be having is the one that says ethics, ethics, ethics. if we don't have ethics rules binding on the supreme court justices, which they have not had, we're not having the conversation we need to have about what it means to be accountable to the public. i agree, there's no evidence of a crime being committed. that's not the point. the crime here, which is not a legal crime, but it's a moral crime. it is we're stealing from our government and our country our faith that we have an independent operating system in our judiciary at the highest levels. the way we recreate trust in the important institution that is the supreme court is we say we're going to be transparent and accountable about what we're doing, how we're doing it, when it comes to finances, so we can demonstrate to you that we're not doing anything wrong so that you believe in us. >> right. >> and these are common laws. when i worked for city hall, we

had conflicts of -- ethics rules i had to report out and disclose any money i had coming in that fell within the law. this is something that is common in government. it should be common for the supreme court. and the real question is why would any of these justices oppose it? if they're there for the public, if they believe they're not doing anything wrong, there's nothing wrong with mandatory disclosure and consequences if you don't. >> right. and jesse, some of your reporting has resulted in some stuff by the supreme court, right? they claim fairly strenuously that there's nothing new that they're doing, they're just sort of -- i don't know what the language was that they used as a result of your reporting that they're just sort of articulating, highlighting, underlining the stuff they already do, but it has caused them to understand that there is a light shining on them. >> yeah. you're exactly right. and maya's exactly right. what we're seeing with thomas is not necessarily breaking the

ethics laws, although he pretty clearly has broken the disclosure laws over and over and over again. the first time ever in our history the supreme court adopted a code of conduct adopting ethics rules similar to what federal judges have to adhere to. but there is no enforcement mechanism. and so it is just like the disclosure rules where thomas can break the rules and break the law and there are no consequences because there's no enforcement. and in fact, we wrote a story last week that didn't go quite as viral because it's about a bureaucracy. the inner workings of a bureaucracy that's not doing anything. but the bureaucracy of oversight of the judiciary as a whole has served to be a praetorian guard to protect their perks and guard against oversight than actually doing the oversight themselves. they police themselves, and that

goes about as well as you can imagine. so we've got a real problem here with a third branch, especially the supreme court, can operate with impunity and then you see something like thomas, who's just getting this lavish lifestyle underwritten by billionaires who have a series of deep interests in the way the court rules and are getting what they want. >> well, when this all changes to a method that's more satisfactory, jesse, you and your colleagues at propublica can take a vow because you have brought this to all of our attention in a remarkable way. jesse eisinger, mark joseph stern, thank you both for starting us off this hour. maya's going to stick around. when we return, the former president coming to the defense of people who tried to help him overturn an election just a day before they appear in court. the fate of the fake trump electors is next. plus, after abortion rights won at the ballot in states all across the country, anti-abortion activists are changing tactics. they're trying to stop people from voting.

later in the program, a lot at stake as senators try to negotiate a last-minute deal for border funding and aid to ukraine. we'll have an update from capitol hill. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. don't go anywhere. lly had that conversation. oh, no, not about that. about what comes next in life. for her. i may not be in perfect health, but i want to stay in my home, where my family visits often and where my memories are. i can do it with help from a prep cook, wardrobe assistant and stylist, someone to help me live right at home. life's good. when you have a plan. ♪ ♪

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now i can buy that electric scooter! i'm starting a private-equity fund that specializes in midcap. you do you. visit xfinitymobile.com today. this afternoon another important court case having to do with donald trump's malign efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election began in earnest. in nevada six republican fake electors who fraudulently signed certificates stating that trump won the state were arraigned on felony charges but not before some good old-fashioned rah rah from donald trump, a man with a cataloged history of not so

subtle saying it without saying it witness timidation. last night in reno, nevada trump called one of the fake electors, the nevada gop chairman mike mcdonald a fantastic guy. another one, a fantastic man, quote, who'd been treated very unfairly. joining our conversation is the ceo of the nevada independent and msnbc political analyst john ralston. maya's back with us as well. john, donald trump's doing this. he's going around and subjecting himself to cheering on people who a few legal enterprises down this road have indicated are not going to fare well. what's behind this? >> well, michael mcdonald and jesse long who you mentioned, ali, were trump guys from the beginning. jesse law even worked briefly in the trump administration. they're in the tank for trump. they totally fixed the upcoming nevada caucus that they created

out of whole cloth for trump. michael mcdonald, who was the state party chairman and was indicted as you pointed out, actually said at that rally that he wants everyone to go caucus for trump. so these are guys who are in the tank for trump, who went and did a public ceremony on december 14th, 2020. ali, these are either the dumbest or most delusional group of alleged criminals. they did this out in public. they said it was the real electoral college. they had a right-wing network livestream the ceremony for them. and they said that we're the real electors. remember, ali, some of the other states the electors said they were alternate electors. not ours. >> i'm kind of fascinated by this, maya. i'm not sure if i were involved in this trump enterprise of the 2020 election how much of a hill i'd die on on this. these guys are pretty committed. like at some point it's like you can read in the january 6th

indictment that some of these people may have been duped some of the time, right? and it would be plausible for them to tell any prosecutor or judge i thought they were talking the truth, i thought i might be an elector, as jon says. but these guys are doubling down. what do they get for this? >> power. i mean, i don't know what else they get. or true believers. but you know -- >> they need lawyers is what they need. >> well, or they're not listening to lawyers. they have the wrong lawyers. we've seen that happen. but in this case, i mean, it's really interesting. what we know from public records and text messages is that they were having text exchanges in real time wondering if the secretary of state was going to go along with this. pretty clear indications in some of the texts that suggest that they know they don't have grounds for these fake electors in addition to all of the ceremony they put around it. remember the governor of nevada actually came out and said no,

no, no, our elections were fair. >> right. >> they were doing this anyway. it's not a case that doesn't smack of real corruption. so it's very hard to understand other than they think they're going to have an ally in the white house, what they get out of it. just remember, there's no sitting president of the united states of america that can absolve you of state crime. >> right. >> but any way you slice it this is a playbook from donald trump to say be on my side, i'll stay on yours. cross me and i will make sure you burn in flames. >> and jon, let's talk about this because different states in which there were ooeth either fake elector schemes or things that just didn't go well, have gone different ways. you have michigan which has gone all in for trump. right? one of the candidates who called it a fake election ran for office and is now the chairman of the state republican party. you've got arizona where, you know, a lot of long-time

republicans said this is not right, this is not the way it's going, we have a long history of republicanism and we're not going down this road. where is nevada in this whole thing? >> well, as i mentioned and you mentioned it too, ali, these are two of the chairmen of the parties here. michael mcdonald and jesse law. jesse law's the chairman of the largest county party. michael mcdonald's the chair of the state party. and they have not let trump from view after the fake elector controversy. they have prominent positions and they are now actively, as i said earlier, trying to fix the voting here. we have a state-mandated primary, ali. these two guys and the fake electors that are with them are part of the republican party hierarchy, some of them at least have created a caucus outside of the state primary. they extorted campaigns for $55,000 to participate in the caucus and then would not allow them to participate in the

primary. they are major players in the republican party here, and they are the fake electors who were just indicted and the elected officials including the governor, by the way, who's a republican, joe lombardo, who has said the election was not fixed but has not criticized trump. all he has said is what they have done with the caucus is wrong and it's confusing people. ali, just one last thing if i may. they are about to get primary ballots in the mail for nevada because of what these guys have done trump is not going to be on the primary ballot. imagine the hundreds of thousands of voters in this state, republican primary voters, getting a ballot and donald trump's name is not on it. but if they go to the fixed caucus two days later, they may be able to vote for trump. >> just to be clear, that's because you've got two different systems going on in nevada for the republican primary. which one is the real one?

which one -- how does this end? the words that are coming out of your mouth, john, sound like a cartoon. >> i was afraid that you would say something like that. it is cartoonish. and i think to have my state, my beloved state be so embarrassed, but it is cartoonish. they have created another form of balloting which will have very low turnout just to make sure that trump is going to win the state. the caucus, you talk about the real one, the caucus is the one that's going to apportion the delegates. trump and desantis and a couple other candidates are in that. the only candidate now in the primary is nikki haley. she will win that primary on february 6th. and who knows what's going to happen in the couple of states before us. but there's some argument that she could get some momentum, having won the primary, which she will, because she's up against nobody except, ali, the one thing on the ballot here that's not on the ballot anywhere else, none of these candidates.

it will be interesting to see what they get. so that's the story from the nevada cartoon. >> i'm smiling because if somebody doesn't see that this is msnbc and just switches the channel on they're going to think this is one of those new pretend channels that pretends to be news. maya, just pinch me to make sure i'm not dreaming because this is some weird stuff. jon, maya, it's the news. i mean, i guess we've got to tell you what's actually going on. thanks to both of you. i appreciate it. jon ralston for spending time with us. maya, thank you as well. coming up for us, anti-abortion activists are so tired of losing referendums in state after state that they're now trying to stop people from voting altogether. that story's next. r. that story's next.

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fears by anti-abortion groups that their issue is a political loser have reached a new high and their deceitful efforts have reached a new low. they're exhausting every option. state courts, lawsuits, amendment language, door-to-door campaigns and bullying tactics to keep abortion rights off the ballot completely. it's a tacit admission by republicans that they know anti-abortion initiatives can't win. this from politico today, quote, progressives are bracing for an array of taccs from conservatives to prevent abortion-related measures being lt on in november and say the opposio campaigns prove that abortion rights remain so popular that they can only be defeated through subterfuge.

joining us president of reproductive freedom for all minnie timaraju. maya, i said good-bye to you, and i apologize. you're back. i love you're back. minnie, you and i had this conversation maybe a week ago where the courts are doing what the courts are doing, in many cases for anti-abortion forces they're doing what they want. they are actually succeeding in proving the point that there are not really exceptions to these anti-abortion laws and the cruelty is kind of the point. but the ballot is not winning for them. virtually anywhere. in fact, correct me if i'm wrong, there have been virtually no wins across the board in statewide elections in the midterms, in the referenda and in the off-year elections for anti-abortion forces. so they know where they're going to lose this battle. >> yeah. i mean, they're completely aware of it. as we've talked before, these laws are designed in such a way that they make it really hard to challenge, right?

and the other key point to remember is with the courts these are predominantly elected courts. the state supreme courts of these states, which is why the wisconsin fight was such a big one to get janet protasevich elected because we know these laws are getting challenged by anti-abortion extremextremists. i thought this piece in politico was really good. there are a couple key points i want to highlight. one is they're not only resorting to subterfuge, they're pushing disinformation on the ballot. one in florida they're encouraging their supporters to stop and harass pro-democracy and pro-reproductive freedom ballot signature activists. and when they can't do that, when they can't win that way, they're trying to change the rules and are pushing disinformation. right? disinformation in how they talk about the work. so i think what we know is when they can't win they change the rules. when they can't win on changing the rules they cheat.

and we're finding now why it's so important for our organizations to be fighting so hard for democracy, not just abortion rights, because they're so connected. >> and that's why in all these referenda and plebsits and things like that have won, maya, i don't know that it's been about abortion. i think it's people's rights. people who don't think a lot about abortion say you're taking my rights. mini and i had a great conversation with a lawyer from the center for reproductive rights who say you have to exhaust these cases in the court even though pro abortion places like texas will win those cases. because people have to understand this will be won at the ballot box. >> look, what mini said is so important and both mini's organization and center for constitutional rights, they're members of the leadership conference on civil and human

rights. because these issues are all connected. democracy is about rights. it's about freedoms. it's about choice. and so one of the things that's so clear to me in this, that goes centrally to this point, yes, we're seeing it across our polling in our civil rights monitor poll that people are as concerned about democracy and rights as they are about the economy because they understand that these things are connected for them. and that's also true when we look at the rule rigging. part of how we got to the growth nature of the distortion of what a majority of americans want and whether state legislators or courts actually uphold what they want frankly comes from undermining voting rights. and that started in real earnest in 2013 with the supreme court. >> right. >> saying we're going to roll back the thing that we used to have bipartisan support about because we understood it was about everyone. >> right. >> ability to have a voice in our government. and the pattern of rule rigging

that is in this article that mini's talking about and elevating is such a direct attack on just the fundamental principles of democracy, which is that we the people decide. balloting is direct democracy. that's people being able to register their vote without the gerrymandering of a party or any particular people in power trying to tell them what will or will not happen or lie to them or deceive them. so that's why these ballot initiatives are so important. it's also why we have to pay attention. it happened in ohio too. and nonetheless, even after they tried to make it harder and tried to rig the rules on that ballot, the people spoke and it was loud and clear. >> and that was not the only case. ohio was just the most recent and obvious one, mini, in which the anti-abortion forces tried two different ways to rig the outcome of a vote that they knew they would likely lose. the first was to change the timing of it to a time when people otherwise wouldn't be

around to vote. and then the second part was to sort of invert the wording and do that. and yet every time we've seen it, whether it's been kansas or ohio or other places, it still ultimately doesn't work. but that doesn't make the work of your group and people like you any easier because you've got to be alert for all of this nonsense, right? in the end voting for rights, meaning abortion rights but other rights, will win as long as people know to vote and are allowed to vote. >> well, and are allowed to vote, to your point. and to maya's point. you know, in nevada we're actually in court as well because there's been some challenge to the language by anti-abortion activists. you know, ultimately what was really telling to me in the article is that there are multiple anti-reproductive freedom activists and elected officials making the point that -- making the point that a simple majority should not be enough. i'm being joined here by a

special guest. i apologize. the simple majority should not be enough to win back fundamental rights. and that tells you everything. they're being caught out loud saying what they've always thought, which is subverting democracy is their goal. >> who is our special guest here? >> you want to say hi? >> hi. >> hello! the best part of the show. >> do not apologize because this is what we're talking about. >> don't lock the door. this is it. this is amazing. thank you both. i appreciate it. and thank you to our special guest for your debut on msnbc. mini timmaraju. maya, i'm not saying good-bye to you because every time i say good-bye i get burned. >> i think you're saying good-bye. >> you think it is it? to my good friend maya wiley. it's just good-bye for a while because we'll talk again. a bit of historic news from the vatican. pope francis announcing a more inclusive stance in the catholic church's policy toward lgbtq plus people. priests are now allowed to bless

same-sex couples. the change coming in a vatican declaration that states that people seeking god's love and mercy should not be, quote, subject to an exhaustive moral analysis to receive it, end quote. this is a reversal of a 2021 doctrine which was widely criticized which stated that the church could not bless same-sex unions because god cannot bless sin. but the church still insists that the sacrament of marriage in the church will be reserved for a man and a woman. deadlock on capitol hill that could have consequences for some of the big issues facing the country. the g biissues faci the country. alice loves the sceo much, she wished there was a way to make it last longer. say hello to your fairy godmother alice and long-lasting gain scent beads. part of the irresistible scent collection from gain! ( ♪♪ ) growing up, hughes and cowboys were one and the same. my daddy's a cowboy.

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the senate is back in session at this hour with the clock ticking in the effort to reach a deal on aid to ukraine and u.s. border security before senators leave town for the holidays. talks continued over the weekend and into today with department of homeland security alejandro mayorkas seen at the capitol meeting with senate negotiators to strike a deal. i want to bring in "new york times" congressional reporter luke broadwater who's covering this. luke, nobody's sounding very hopeful that a deal will get done by the end of this year. and of course the important part of this thing, republicans say the important part of this is getting a border deal. the sort of critical part of this is getting that aid to ukraine. >> right. i think it's good to remember that what's really happened here

is as the biden administration has asked for more money to help ukraine fight off the russian invasion republicans are insisting on attaching trump-era border policies to that deal and they're saying without enacting some of these policies from the trump administration, to force people out of the country or to prevent people from coming in, then we will not authorize more money for ukraine. so it's very much the commingling of two issues that don't necessarily have much to do with each other other than the argument that why would we help ukraine secure their border when there are so many immigrants coming in through our southern border. >> i want to play something that lindsey graham said yesterday on "meet the press" about this. and i want to talk to you on the other side of it. >> let me tell you what will happen if we pull the plug on ukraine. putin will keep going. will be in a war with nato.

china will see that as a green light to go into taiwan. it would be a national security nightmare for europe. if you don't help israel destroy hamas, if hamas is still standing when this is over, god help us all. i get everything. >> all right. so the israel funding is part of this package. lindsey graham gets it. mitch mcconnell gets it. what's the problem here? this sounds like a conversation that should be happening between republicans and republicans. republicans in the senate and republicans in the house. >> right. well, yes. i think mitch mcconnell and lindsey graham, probably on their own if it was just up to them, would approve the aid to ukraine no strings attached. but the house is very much insistent upon the provisions in the very strict border bill that they passed earlier this congress, which has been dead on arrival in the democratic-controlled senate, they have said repeatedly they want that all or nothing. so maybe they're willing to negotiate a little bit. but from what it sounds like

with the house, who i'll remind you is not even in washington right now and won't come back until january 8th, almost whatever the senate comes up with with the biden administration will probably be too moderate for their liking. so it's a little concerning that there's no house negotiators at the table here while they're talking through this because a deal between the senate and the white house may not ever become law. so there's a lot of talks going on right now. but i think all the prognosticators who are saying we're far from a deal are right. it's hard to see how any deal could be reached anytime soon. >> and you've got republicans, as you said, not at the table, not interested in any of this stuff. you've got a republicans are not at the table. you've got a number of democrats who have said to the white house and senate negotiator, democrats from the house saying, this is also a nonstarter for us. the things that the very berreman one of the house republicans are looking for are

not things that we would agree to under any circumstances. >> right, and remember, immigration has been a very tricky issue for congress to come to a resolution for a long time, for decades. typically, there was something for the democrats and it, in an immigration deal. like, legalizing the dreamers and making sure they feel safe in the country without the threat of being kicked out. those things aren't even being discussed right now, they're talking about simply helping out ukraine fight off the russian invasion exchange for republican policies at the border, and there's going to be a lot of democrats to not going to like that trade-off. so, this could get very messy and it is hard to see how it gets resolved. >> thank you for your reporting. we always appreciate. luke broadwater. we will take a quick break and be right back. a quick break and be right back.

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time with us this monday. we are grateful. the beets with katie phang in four ari melber starts right now. hello my friend. >> hello my weekend friend it's always good to see you during the week. i hope all is well and happy holidays to you. >> and you, enjoy your show. >> awesome, thank. you to the rest of you, thank you to the beat. i am katie phang in for ari melber. we have a lot to get to including the massive legal setbacks for donald trump's coup insiders mark meadows and rudy giuliani. it will katya will be here for that. also tonight, new revolutions