the deeper is support grows amongst moss republican voters. they believe that donald trump is civil for themselves and their party. that he is being attacked is somehow an attack on them. i really don't think it was going to impact the outcome of this race. >> brendan buck and jennifer horn, thank you so much for joining us on all in tonight. >> thank you. >> that is all in on this thursday night. alex wagner tonight starts right now, with ali velshi in for alex. good evening, ali. good they say you, my friend. you have a great evening, and thank you for being here tonight. >> thank you. >> thank you at home as well. i am ali velshi in for alex wagner. a mega freak show, that's a one person familiar with donald trump's january 6th trial preparations described the former president strategy, according to a rolling stone magazine. in new reporting today, rolling

stone cited several trump legal and political advisers who claim that the former president is demanding that they incorporate fringe conspiracies into his legal defense, quote, here's a list of ideas have included inserting that there is evidence that anti trump elements in the fbi framed him and a maga protesters by using undercover agents and -- to instigate the january 6th riot. and there the left wing anti-fascist played a role in attacking the capitol that day, and that trump's lieutenants have gathered real evidence showing, quote, massive amounts of voter and election fraud, and quote, in 2020, in swing states. and heavily democratic urban areas, as his long basically claimed, and quote. if trump's team as we've been discussed calling witnesses, like nancy pelosi and other political foes to the stand, in an effort to pay them as the true violence of january six.

that new reporting helps explain why just last week, the special counsel jack smith asked the judge overseeing trump's federal elections case to prohibit trump from raising any of those conspiracies at trial. jack smith appears to have anticipated these fantastical absurd arguments from trump and, legally, it is absurd. it's hard to see how trotting out right wing conspiracy theories would help trump win over a jury in washington d.c.. but, politically, the strategy of repeating the same conspiracy theories over and over does seem to be working for many republican voters. new polling from the washington post found that republican voters, quote, are now less likely to believe that january six participants were mostly violent, less likely to believe that trump bears responsibility for the attack and are slightly less likely to view joe biden election as legitimate, then

they were in december of 2021. in follow-up interviews, some voters told the post that their views have changed, because they now believe that the riot was instigated by law enforcement to suppress political dissent, a baseless conspiracy theory that have been promoted by trump, and several voters interviewed cited what they viewed as evidence of voter fraud, in particular, the long the bump claim that georgia election workers were caught on video putting fake ballots into tallies, and quote. that there was so, alleges that a jury recently ruled that rudy giuliani has to pay to georgia election workers, nearly $150 for his role in spreading baseless conspiracies about them. despite that ruling, despite fox news settling a lawsuit for hundreds of millions of dollars over spreading belated election conspiracy theories, despite hearings at a testimony for the january six committee, for the bunking's claims, those kind of

conspiracies continue to grain ground for republican voters. trump now wants to use his january six criminal trial to push the conspiracy theories even further. that is if trump does manage to see the inside of a courtroom before election today. tonight, we're expecting donald trump's legal team to tell the d.c. appeals court why they believe trump should be immune to prosecution for anything he did as president. trump's federal criminal trial was effectively on pause until that question settled, and trump's legal team is expected to push that question all the way to the supreme court in an effort to delay the case. at the same time, it looks increasingly likely that the supreme court is going to have to weigh in on a another major issue for trump. the question of whether or not trump will appear on the ballot in several states. so far, maine and colorado have both determined that trump is ineligible to run for president, citing a clause of the 14th amendment that barr's anyone who once held office and then

engaged in insurrection from running for office. tonight, trump's team officially appealed the decision to remove him from the ball on the, stay setting the main secretary of state, calling the main secretary of state a biased decision-maker, who acted in an arbitrary and vicious matter. across the country, in colorado, the democratic secretary of state, janitors will, today, joined colorado republican party, and colorado voters who successfully challenged trump's eligibility, and asking the supreme court to step in and settle this matter once and for. all we're also awaiting a filing for the trump campaign, asking the court to weigh in on the filing. it could come in at any moment as. well joining us now is a member of the january six committee, jamie raskin, congressman from maryland. congressman, good to see you, thank you for being with us. >> great to be with you, ali. >> congressman, what do you make of all of the posturing about donald trump about immunity? he makes two separate cases. one is that he is immune from

anything he did while president, which would tackle a couple of the cases that he is involved in. it would not deal with everything. the other is that with respect to the election, he was tried by congress, and he was not convicted by the senate. you will recall after donald trump's acquittal by the senate, mitch mcconnell himself said that this is a matter of the courts to handle. apparently not for donald trump. >> yeah, on the first point, immunity from prosecution for crimes committed during the course of your presidency would be a standing invitation to do what donald trump did to try to overthrow the government. you can never be prosecuted after trying to do that. trump will be setting the tempo for people getting into office and doing whatever they could, like she could, in order to convert our constitutional democracy to a dictatorship. it's ridiculous and directly contradicted but the language that the constitution, which

says that the president can be prosecuted, or even if he is impeached for office, he is still subject to prosecution and trial. article one, section three, clause seven, but even beyond that stuff, in terms of what you're raising there, they're running around saying, well, he should be able to take office again, this by section three of the 14th amendment. why, because it would be undemocratic to exclude him from the ballot. of course, that was a decision made when the constitution was amended in 1868. that's an argument that is more than a century too late. they want to amend the constitution now, they should go ahead and change the consultation. they needed two thirds vote in the house and senate, three quarters at the states. but, in any of it, i would say, there are different ways that he could be disqualified from running for president. there are 75 million people,

americans, who can't run because of h restrictions. you've got to be 35 years old there are 25 million people who can't run because they are american citizens, but they were born abroad. these are kind of morally arbitrary distinctions, but they keep at least 100 million people from being eligible for president. in this election. donald trump is in a class of maybe a dozen people, who essentially disqualified themselves under section three of the 14th amendment, because they have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the democracy. so, i would say that this is a pro democratic provision that fortifies and sharing things democracy. >> this is what a number of the proponents of the argument say, that this is actually meant to protect democracy. one of the arguments that donald trump supporters make is that it has not been determined, it has not been determined legally that he was involved in an insurrection. i would argue that the colorado supreme court really looked

into this. they really studied all the ways that you could interpret a rebellion, and all the things that donald trump did, much of which, you saw as a member of the january six committee. we all saw. they said, that is not the part that is in question. >> well, it was a painstaking factual analysis that the colorado court engaged, in and they also defined an insurrection, according to original sources, as something more than a riot but less than a full blown revolution. an insurrection is a riot, essentially, has a put occultists. of course, that right at a specific political purpose, which was to block the peaceful transfer of power under the constitution and to get donald trump in. imagine if vice president pence had said, you know what, you guys when. i am buckling under and will simply declare that donald trump has won. i will reject electoral college

votes from arizona, pennsylvania and georgia. did anybody in his or her right mind think that donald trump would say, no, no, i am kidding. the way you do this under the taught them, and under the constitution is that you count all the electoral college votes. yeah, i was kidding about all that stuff. of course, not he would have taken the office, he would have proceeded to impose martial law, as michael flynn had been urging him to do. and we would be living under completely different form of government right now. so, if we listen to the wisdom of the founders, if we follow the literal text of the constitution, donald trump simply cannot be president again. there are tens of millions of other people in the country, who can't be, but he is qualified and self under section three of the 14th amendment by trying to overthrow the constitutional order. >> what do you make of the discussions by people who are not constitutional experts about whether it would be more satisfying or less satisfying

to have donald trump disqualified versus defeated at the polls? >> i mean, it's an irrelevant question, legally speaking. at this point, we should be focused on who is qualified to run, and who is not qualified to run. section three at the 14th amendment is not some kind of admiration will,-centric, provision in the constitution. i count more than a half dozen different provisions of the constitution that specifically target insurrectionary activities. so, take article one, section a clause 15, which says that congress has the power to call forth the militias from the states in order to suppress insurrections. you look at the republican guaranteed clause in article four, which says that congress should guarantee the people of the state a republican form of government that assists them and putting down domestic violence. you look at the trees in clause, the only place where crime is

defined in the constitution. a consist of levying arms against the union, for at a hearing to the enemies here of. there -- even jefferson divisions, so interesting, the people say that section three does not apply to the 14th amendment. section -- jefferson davis, when he was tried for treason in virginia, claimed, iranians sly and unsuccessfully, that he could not be tried for treason, because he already was guilty under section three at the 14th amendment, and, therefore, it was being punished by not being able to serve as president. of course, it's not double jeopardy, because it's not even a criminal punishment, under section three at the 14th amendment. it's just stating a qualification or a disqualification for serving in federal or state office after you have engaged in instructional and rebellion. >> what is your sense of how this plays out? donald trump has built everything as his legal right to do, that he has the ability to reveal the d.c. court of

appeals, quite central these days, we'll be hearing from them it couple of times. at some point, we are probably going to miss the dates by which the federal trial needs to start at the beginning of march. is your sense that this will go to trial before the election? >> yes, i believe that the jack smith case will proceed on the eve various insurrection charges and conspiracy, interfere, a federal proceeding, obstruct a federal proceeding. the voting rights of the people and defrauding the public. i think that those charges will be heard, and that trial will go forward. it really has to go forward, otherwise, it is going to create even more greater problems on the road. i think, also, section three of the 14th amendment question has got to be decided by the supreme court.

this is the test of textualism and originalism on the supreme court. do the self defying textualists and original us really believe their own rhetoric? because the language is completely straightforward. when the radical republicans who put this in the consultation started, it was far broader. it was total disenfranchisement forever of anybody who participated in rebellion or succession or insurrection. when i got to the senate, they said that is way too broad, let's narrow it to the people who were officeholders before they violated their oath of office by engaging in it. and then, even then, we are not going to disenfranchise them. something that donald trump can continue voting, but they cannot serve in office again because they have proven themselves untrustworthy. >> it's a quick you can't ride on this ride at the amusement park if you're not this tall. it's a disqualification, not even a penalty, it's just a, you are not qualified to be on

the ballot. >> that's right, and, as i was saying, there are tens of millions of people who are not qualified to run for president either. some of them might be perfectly qualified. i have colleagues in the democratic side, republican side, who are not 35 years old. maxwell frost would be a great president. aoc is not 35. there are others who can't serve, but that is just the constitution. it's not a democratic, it's the rules of the game. these are our rules under the constitution. the question is whether the core is going to act like a real court. >> to have somebody who understands the constitution, which you do, jamie raskin, good to see you, thank you for being with us tonight. jamie raskin, congressman of maryland. we do have a lot to talk about tonight, we're going to impact the forces that led to the resignation of harvard's first black woman president, including the role of a right vetting activists who spearheaded an attack on crt and the ei in academia. plus, the killing of a key hamas figure in lebanon

torrence to send the israel-hamas war into a wider regional conflict. more on that coming up next. oming up next. we really don't want people to think of feeding food like ours is spoiling their dogs. good, real food is simple. it looks like food, it smells like food, it's what dogs are supposed to be eating. no living being should ever eat processed food for every single meal of their life. it's amazing to me how many people write in about their dogs changing for the better. the farmer's dog is just our way to help people take care of them. ♪

(smelling) ew. gotta get rid of this. ♪tell me why♪ because it stinks. ♪have you tried downy rinse and refresh♪ it helps remove odors 3x better than detergent alone. it worked guys! ♪yeahhhh♪ downy rinse and refresh.

if you■re happy and you know it clap your hands. if you're happy and you know it, ride your bike if you■re happy and you know it then your face will surely show it if you're happy and you know it's smile big and bright. thousands of kids just like me are happy every day and it's all because of generous people like you who support shriners hospitals for children® every month. and when you call or go online right now to donate $19 a month or more, we'll send you this adorable love to the rescue® blanket as a thank you and a reminder of all the smiles you're bringing to kids faces every day. will today be the day you send your love to the rescue? please call or go online right now to give if operators are busy please wait patiently or go to loveshriners.org right way. today, across the israeli

occupied west bank, palestinians took to the streets, protesting the recent killing of a senior hamas official, saleh arouri. arouri deputy chairman at

hamas's political bureau, as well as the commander of the military wing in the west bank. and a key go-between between the lebanese government militant group hezbollah, which is another iranian-backed group that has targeted israel. last night, he was killed in a drone strike. not in gaza, not even in the occupied west bank, which israel controls, but outside of beirut, lebanon, a sovereign country. israel, itself, has neither confirmed nor denied any involvement. some surmised that is because it is generally viewed as against international law to carry out assassinations in other countries. or, or simply, because acknowledging the strike could draw lebanon or hezbollah directly into israel's war with hamas. hezbollah, for its part, has called the killing, quote, a serious attack on lebanon, that will never pass without a response and punishment. now, since the start of the war, hezbollah fighters have been exchanging fire with israel military, across israel's northern border, but today's development, and assassination deep inside lebanon, has the

potential to bring the consequence step closer to a larger regional war, and it comes as israel begins to withdraw several thousand troops from gaza, and in order to prepare for a prolonged fight. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu said this past weekend, the war will go on for, quote, many more months. joining me now is peter breitbart, imfc -- msnbc political analysts and -- peter, good to see, and thank you for being with us tonight. first of all, let's discuss, there are not many people out there who suspect that this assassination was not carried out by israel. what is your sense of why israel won't say so? they are not denying it, not acknowledging it, sort of skirting the issue. >> yeah, israel as a tendency in history of being coy about these questions. as he said, i don't think anyone has any doubts that this was israel, and, look, israel, i would rather have israel use military force against hamas leaders then against an entire

civilian population in gaza. i also understand why israelis are worried about hezbollah's military power in the north, but my fundamental concern is that this government seems to think that its problems have only military solutions. it's not offering any political horizon for the basic underlying cause of these conflicts, and i don't think that these actions in the long run, therefore, are going to make israeli safer. >> one of those underlying issues is palestinian leadership. there are issues about palestinian the ship in the west bank, clearly hamas came to power because of some of those issues, because of some enabling by the israeli government and because of general dissatisfaction amongst palestinians. america has sort of tried to get israel to had a discussion about what it looks like. israel has said, there is no hamas in the future with the palestinian little ship, not

that they want the palestinian authority involved. you and i have talked about this. there are a lot of palestinians that the one the palestinian authority. but what this is the classic? how do we work towards the end of this war, and what happens to the palestinians? >> this israeli government is not offering any vision whatsoever that might suggest that after hamas, palestinians, even if they had a completely different kind of leadership, my have any path to freedom. it's basically just offering occupation and, frankly, apartheid, which israel's own human rights organizations have described the situation, as far as i can see. in those circumstances, israel is going to meet with more palestinian violent resistance. the only way that seems to undermine palestinian support for the kind of horrifying act that we saw on october 7th is by showing palestinians that by ethical resistance, resistance that follows international law, that they can actually achieve their freedom. but this government is

dominated by people who want jewish supremacy, in perpetuity, between the river and the sea. that is only going to bring more conflict. >> the far-right politician -- has called for something that people think of as ethic cleansing. they talk about the mass migration of gaza residents. benjamin netanyahu says that he is in conversations with world leaders about accepting these gazan refugees. what do you make of that? the way of the israeli right-wing looking at this is that the solution is gaza is whether or not to have palestinians in gaza. >> absolutely, this is not a marginal idea inside the israeli government, to have the minister of national security, the finance minister, the intelligence minister, according to reports, the prime minister and the foreign minister, we have all talked about what they called voluntary migration. but when you create a massive humanitarian catastrophe, where people are literally starving to death, and 85% of people are

displaced from their homes, it's not voluntary. you made gaza unlivable, and now, israel, according to reporting for the financial time, israel's alone newspapers, especially in egypt to open the door so that palestinians will either flee and not be allowed back. the horrible, a snorkel irony of this is that most of the people in gaza are from families of refugees to begin with. they are not from gaza. they were expelled to gaza in israel's war of independence in 1940. now, there's a prospect of another act of expulsion. the u.s. government needs to take this seriously and make it clear that it is an absolute right on. >> peter, you have studied this for a long time. you've read about it, written about it, is there a solution in your mind? i don't mean in the short term. the solution in the short term would be to get those hostages out of gaza and get them returned to israel, for the bombardment of gaza stuff. but is there a strategic solution? do you see something happening,

with the person players, is that not possible? >> i don't think with the president players. we are a long way from this. there is a basic principle that i believe in a very strongly, and is this. one people have freedom, when they have a government that actually listens to them, when they can do things like vote, then society becomes more peaceful. most people don't turn to violence as a first resort. they turn to violence when they feel like it is the only way to get government to listen to. sometimes, they do, as hamas on october 7th, horrifying things under the circumstance. if you want to make society more peaceful, you need to give people their freedom. that, in the long term, whether it's freedom in a palestinian state or freedom in one state, where passengers have citizenship and the right to vote, just as we saw import apartheid south africa, just as we saw in northern ireland, also places where there was terrible, terrible violence. you saw that things became much more peaceful for all people,

when all people got their political freedom. >> good to see you, thank you for being with us, peter beinart is a msnbc political analyst and editor at large for jewish currents magazine. he's also the author of the binary notebooks, on substack. still ahead tonight, how donald trump has turned dozens of criminal charges into a rallying cry, could catapult and back to the white house. but first, two down, that's what congresswoman elise stefanik marked the recognition of harvard president claudine again in a tweet today. we doctor the harvard professor about the particle campaign against university leaders, why conservatives leading the charge are promising to keep it going. that is next. that is next

to duckduckgo on all your devie duckduckgo comes with a built-n engine like google, but it's pi and doesn't spy on your searchs and duckduckgo lets you browse like chrome, but it blocks cooi and creepy ads that follow youa from google and other companie. and there's no catch. it's fre. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you aroud join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today. i would like to make it

expected that the president at the white house is within their authority and power to immediately issue an executive order abolishing critical race theory training from the federal government. >> that was a conservative activists, christopher ruffo, into temper of 2020, making an explicit request that former president trump issue an executive order abolishing critical race theory training from the federal government. ruffo is likely the reason your conservative uncle knows at the phrase, critical race theory, to begin with. he is the reason that fox news became obsessed with the, and the recent a trump camp with the process with it, because it's a bust time for pretty much anything to do with race. we know thanks to a reporter

for the washington post that one made as requests, trump was watching. within a month, trump issued an executive order, demanding that no federal money be used for critical race theory. chris ruffo got what he asked for. after that, rufus crt campaign agenda pulled up enough concerted pressure against nicole hannah jones, the cofounder of the 16 19 project, at the university of north carolina denied her tenure. jones had a pulitzer prize of mcarthur genius grant and support from the schools chancellor and faculty, but conservative pressure worked. ruffault then set his sights on florida. he hoped for that governor ron desantis craft legislation on the stop woke act that restricted discussions of race and gender in schools, universities and workplaces. early last year, desantis pointed to ruffle as one of the members of the board of trustees for florida's public university new college. they're, again, ruffault

publicized his goal early and loudly. he tweeted, quote, we will be shutting down low performing, ideologically captured academic departments at hiring new faculty. this student body will be composed overtime. some current suitors will sell out. some old graduate. we'll recruit new students, for a mission aligned. at new college, ruffo made clear that he did not care if his schools failed to win hearts and minds. >> one at the items that i discuss today with governor desantis and legislators present is that diversity, equity and inclusion, which sounds great but in practice, divides people and offers separate judgments on the basis of race and identity -- [crowd chanting] >> your opinion does not matter. >> my opinion does actually matter, unfortunately for. you >> his opinion does matter. within a month at that comment, ruffo's board of trustees had abolished the colleges

diversity, equity and inclusion office. they then did things like axe the schools gender studies program and recruit professors more in line with their conservative mission. since rufo's board took over, more than about a third of difficulty has resigned, and about 125 students have chosen not to return. rufo's plant work. now, today, we are seeing the impact of rufo's latest crusade. a crusade against the first black woman to serve as president of the oldest institution of higher education in the country, harvard president claudine gay. last month, rufo tweeted, quote, we launched the claudine gay plagiarism story from the right. the next step is this buckle it into the media apparatus that the left, legitimizing the narrative to center-left actors who had the power to topple her. then, squeeze, and quote. in the past few weeks, allegations of harvard president have plagiarized academic work accomplished exactly what rufo predicted. they went from rufo's blob to

the pages of conservative publications to mainstream publications like the new york times. now, harvard itself, as investigated the allegations and found that they are, at worse, instances of inadequate citation. they are not with the word plagiarism makes you think of. gay was not stealing anybody's ideas, nor was she presenting other people's ideas at ours her own. nevertheless, today, claudine gay resigned immediately. the story of claudine gays resignation is about a lot of things. was it easier for conservatives to push her out because she's a woman? was it easier because she is black? probably all of the above. but this is also a story of bad actors, like chris, rufo trying to bend academia to their own ideological missions. we'll talk to and sd card professor about all of this and the other major bad faith argument used to chase president day out, and what it means for this course in the country, after this. country, after this.

♪ parodontax ♪ blood when brushing could be the start of a domino effect of gum disease. all of these signs could lead to worse. parodontax is clinically proven to reverse the signs

of early gum disease. parodontax, the gum experts. i love your dress. oh thanks! i splurged a little because liberty mutual customized my car insurance and i saved hundreds. that's great. i know, right? i've been telling everyone. baby: liberty. did you hear that? ty just said her first word. can you say “mama”? baby: liberty. can you say “auntie”? baby: liberty. how many people did you tell? only pay for what you need. jingle: ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ baby: ♪ liberty. ♪

love you. have a good day, behave yourself. like she goes to work at three in the afternoon and sometimes gets off at midnight. she works a lot, a whole lot. we don't get to eat in the early morning. we just wait till we get to the school. so, yeah. right now here in america, millions of kids like victoria and andre live with hunger, and the need to help them has never been greater. when you join your friends, neighbors and me to support no kid hungry, you'll help hungry kids get the food they need. if we want to take care of our children, then we have to feed them. your gift of just $0.63 a day, only $19 a month at helpnokidhungry.org right now will help provide healthy meals and hope. we want our children to grow and thrive and to just not have to worry and face themselves with

the struggles that we endure. nobody wants that for their children. like if these programs didn't exist me and aj, we wouldn't probably get lunch at all. please call or go online right now with your gift of just $19 a month. and when you use your credit card, you'll receive this limited edition t-shirt to show you're part of the team that's helping feed kids and change lives. if you're coming in hungry, there's no way you can listen to me teach, do this activity, work with this group. so starting their day with breakfast and ending their day with this big, beautiful snack is pretty incredible. whether kids are learning at school or at home, your support will ensure they get the healthy meals they need to thrive. because when you help feed kids, you feed their hopes, their dreams, and futures. kids need you now more than ever. so please call this number right now to join me >> there is a reason that the in helping hungry kids or go online to helpnokidhungry.org and help feed hungry kids today.

testimony of the presidents of harvard, pan, and m.i.t. made history as the most -- testimonies order with over one billion, putin's because their testimony was morally bankrupt and pathetic. >> republican course women elise stefanik was on fox news today celebrating the resignation of harvard's president claudine gay, in the first black woman to lead the university with the shortest tenure in the institutions history. her resignation comes on the after stefanik pressed the

president of the university of pennsylvania, the massachusetts institute of technology and harvard about antisemitism on their campuses in the wake of the october terrorist attack on israel. stefanik took issue of the leaders lawyer lee answers to the question, does calling from genocide of jews violate your schools rules on bullying and harassment? she called for all three presidents to be. ousted winless mcgill resigned unimpressive pressure from that schools, board stefanik celebrated. she celebrated again today, quote, i will always deliver results. this is just the beginning of what will be the greatest scandal of any college or university in history. joining me now is harvard university professor of women gender and sexuality an african american studies. professor, good to see. you normally again to talk to you about fun things like literature and books. this feels to me to be very dark. what has happened here.

it is a confluence of a whole bunch of nefarious interests that got together to oust claudine gay. ostensibly it was first about antisemitism and then it became about inflated allegations of plagiarism in which chris ruffo took -- . >> it's a demoralizing moment. i think one of the things that has been lost in the conversation is how challenging the position was to be the leader of the any university at this moment so that we have all these constituencies, the board, the students, faculty, alums, and donors and all with varying investments in this moment of intense political conflict, a historic moment in many ways of devastating proportions. so it was difficult, i think, to be a leader and then to have

this concerted effort that was really part of a comprehensive decision to commit to keeping certain kinds of people out of these kinds of institutional spaces and also to keep a knowledge about them out of these institutional spaces for ideological purposes. it's altogether quite harrowing. i think there is a concerted effort to oust some of us from being in places that are deemed prestigious and sources of knowledge. that happens from k-12 all the way to universities. claudine gaye is the latest victim of those efforts. >> i would argue most people don't know the names of too many university presidents. they come and go. they have existed for a long time. we don't necessarily know their politics. we certainly haven't read their feces. claudine gay came under remarkable when scrutiny. it was a project really to oust

university presidents, including claudine gay, was headed by some odd bedfellows. chris ruffo, crt, most people, he doesn't know what crt is released he knows but he rep misrepresents it, blackmon of harvard alum and rich guy, jonathan greenblatt from the anti-defamation league. elise stefanik who has not articulated a particular apprehension about antisemites some of the time and this was her charge. what happened here? how did this all come together to end up ousting claudine gay? >> it's hard to fully understand. i think it will take some time to actually pull apart all of the elements. what is remarkable, i think, is how transparent the interest was in getting rid of her. and what's alarming is that it seems to be the case that these political forces can dismantle

the structure of higher education as well as k-12 education. and universities are supposed to be places where there are a range of identities, where people can debate, where people can develop, where people can be in conflict, where people can grow. we seem to be finding ourselves in a kind of neo-mccarthy is the moment, driven by a variety of political actors who have not necessarily all the same interests but for the fact that they are resistant to the idea of a multi racial democratic order with people of varying identities taking various positions. it's a dark day. it's a devastating day. i do hope, though, that those of us who believe in principles of democracy in deliberation and intellectual openness and free speech, true free speech,

can actually push back against this. >> you and i have spent a lot of time talking about banning books. we believe in free speech. you also have written about some of the things that make people uncomfortable in this time, this challenging time. chris ruffo, who a lot of people may not know about him. alex wagner has done a lot of work on chris ruffo, threat that he poses. he tweeted recently saying nine contributing an initial $10,000 to plagiarism hunting fund. we will expose the rot in the ivy league and restore truth rather than racialized ideology, as the highest principle in academic life. i would argue that you in your writings, your books, your teaching, you are pursuing truth. you would like to three known. >> oh, absolutely. >> things you people may not have heard before. but someone put people like you or claudine gay or anybody into racist ideology. >> it's the very formulation is predicated on a fallacy that

there is a singular truth. ideas and history are constantly under debate. interpretations are subject to debate. we look at varying pieces of evidence, we organize them in very various ways, and we try to come to the best account of what happened or what should be her how to describe the world. discussion of race and racial inequality to racial inequality. to propose a singular truth that an individual a self donned individual who can arbitrate truth. the other is alarming and manipulative to a general public in ways that that are clearly quite damaging. and this will have a chilling effect, without question. both on institutions that shine away from embracing scholars who are pushing us to think

critically about the world and on scholars who do not want to put themselves under this kind of scrutiny and exposure. >> dr. perry, thank you for joining us tonight. we always appreciate your time, imani perry is a professor of women studies and african american studies at harvard. one more story for you tonight. how donald trump transformed string political failures at the onset of his third run for the white house into staggering political fortune. that's next. political fortune. that's next. >> alice loves the scent of gain so 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! >> woman: what's my safelite story? i see inspiration right through my glass. so when my windshield cracked, i chose safelite. they replaced the glass and recalibrated my safety system. that's service i can trust. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

as someone living with type 2 diabetes, i want to keep it real and talk about some risks. with type 2 diabetes you have up to 4 times greater risk of stroke, heart attack, or death. even at your a1c goal, you're still at risk ...which if ignored could bring you here... ...may put you in one of those... ...or even worse. too much? that's the point. get real about your risks and do something about it. talk to your health care provider about ways to lower your risk of stroke, heart attack, or death. learn more at getrealaboutdiabetes.com

i think he's having a midlife crisis i'm not. you got us t-mobile home internet lite. after a week of streaming they knocked us down... ...to dial up speeds. like from the 90s. great times. all i can do say is that my life is pre-- i like watching the puddles gather rain. -hey, your mom and i procreated to that song. oh, ew! i think you've said enough. why don't we just switch to xfinity like everyone else?

then you would know what year it was. >> we don't run trump i know what year it is. announced his third run for president, he didn't do so from the position of strength, despite the image he wanted to project. republicans were coming off a bruising failure in the midterm elections, and many blamed trump for their losses after voters rejected some of his handpicked senate candidates in key races. add to that dozens as part of federal organization of

january. six some of his advisers and begins testifying before the jury. desantis was hinting at the possibility of a presidential run uttering of sport to be. trump later trump appears on track to easily win the parties nomination. new national polling shows donald trump leading is close as two polling with nikki haley by 49 points. trump 91 felony charges appear to be having little to no negative impact on his base of support. new reporting from the washington post describes donald trump's turn around this way. he has turned criminal indictments into reality and cry. his gop opposition has so far failed to coalesce around a single affective message or challenger. his political operation has been more professional and disciplined than in the past, we savvy moves such as chain challenging contest rules, lining up supportive delegates, and pressuring republicans to come to his defense.

joining us is washington post national political reporter and coauthor of that piece. also the author of the forthcoming bush book, finish what we started, the maga movements ground war to end democracy. thank you for being here with us. thank you for your reporting. those numbers are fascinating. polling numbers for donald trump, we were showing some polling earlier in the show that mainstream republicans are less likely to blame donald trump for january six then more like likely to sink joe biden didn't win the election, to what do you attribute all this? >> well, there have been a few factors, and one, you mentioned the failure of the opposition within the republican party to coalesce around the message against him and it wasn't for lack of time. our reporting fine found that there were a lot of well-funded efforts throughout 2023 to find attacks on trump that would work with republican primary

voters. and they basically came up empty because they were just hitting the wall of how much republican primary voters to like donald trump and how much they resented attacks on him. a lot of those attacks backfired on the other candidates when they try them. the other thing that happened was, ron desantis, who a lot of republicans who wanted to move on from trump were pinning their hopes on right after the midterms, he waited a long time to get in. he waited until may. and part of that had to do with leaving to change the law in florida so that he could learn is a sitting governor. but that gave trump a lot a, huge head start. he just pummeled desantis and starters start steadily bringing down his poll numbers, with desantis basically, without any kind of outfit around him to respond. and then the other thing we really have to mention is the prosecutions. the indictments, which are certainly causing trump a lot of trouble now. and could be a different story

in the general election. but the effect in the primary was to rally republicans around him and make a lot of republican voters want to support him because of his prosecutions. >> one of the things you reported on is trump's team actually testing attacks against trump in focus groups. i am assuming that they were honest about it, in good faith, trying to figure out what attack would stick. they largely found nothing. >> that's standard in a campaign. you have to try to figure out what your vulnerabilities are so you can figure out how to respond to them. so it was both the trump campaign was trent testing that in the other candidates and even major donors who weren't necessarily affiliated with the campaign but sort of testing the waters. if they were going to write a huge check to attack trump, a lot of these are investors who want to know they are going to get some return on that investment. i spoke to one republican

operatives who recalled observing one of these focus groups and they tried explaining to the republicans in the focus group that trump promised to build a wall. that was his signature campaign promise in 2016. and there is no wall on the u.s. mexico border. and there was a woman in the group who said, well, actually, he must have meant to do that. he intentionally left gaps in the wall because that way it would heard the migrants into those gaps and make them easier to detain. and the operative told me, watching this and just thinking, how can you possibly argue with that kind of thinking? >> isaac, how much hat has this to do with a polarized news environment, where people just get different stories? their realities about what donald trump is and what he says are entirely different, including the fact that he sort of uses increasingly authoritarian and dictatorial rhetoric that we generally turn people off in a democracy and it's not for his supporters? >> he's been speaking to

right-wing media and to his supporters directly. he hasn't faced a mainstream interview in quite some time. several months. so he is intentionally going around. that changed early on in the primary when he was trying to use an advantage of media coverage overrun desantis. there was a lot more access. and that has changed as he has increased his lead. and you see the effect of that in the poll over the washington post that you mentioned earlier. the number of republicans who believe that january six was an fbi sting operation or something like that or the election was legitimate, those numbers have actually increased since 2021. >> some wild reporting, isaac, but thank you for doing it. isaac arnsdorf washington post national political reporter. that is our show for tonight. time to the last word with lawrence o'donnell