passed away, but he had a yacht. the name of the e.r. was overdraft, i swear to god. >> can't make this stuff up. the last thing before we go, sinking overdraft fees. let's takehat in. banks have made so mu money on overdraft fees that one former ceo even named his yacht overdraft. today, they will assess introduced a proposal to sink that very ship and lower bank overdraft fees to as low as $3. now, some banks currently charge as much as 39 bucks per overdraft, and who do these fees expect the most, the most vulnerable americans. the proposal is just the latest in the biden administration's efforts to combat junk fees. in a statement today, president biden said this, banks call it a surface, i call it exploitation. the ap reports of deregulation survives a legal battle, and you know that they will face

one, it will go into effect in the autumn of 2025. tomorrow night, we'll have more on this and what consumers are up to. here is a hint, they are spending and spending big. on that note, i wish you a very good night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thank you for staying up late, i'll see you at the end of tomorrow. d of tomorrow >> the last time that republicans had a contested republican primary was in 2016. though it seems sort of impossible to imagine now, the party was kind of divided about trump's victory, all the way to the convention floor. you saw that no more clearly than when senator ted cruz went to the podium. in a primetime speaking slot, i may add, and refused to mention trump's name during his convention speech. boy, oh boy, the people notice.

>> if you love our country, and they have your children as much as i know that you, to stand and end vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who tries to defend our freedom. god bless each and every one of you and god bless the united states of america. >> so to that moment, the four though she has deafening booze, ted cruz and donald trump had been going at each other from months. relations between these two men were not good. trump regular went after ted cruz's family during the primaries. he willingly and baselessly had used a chemist cruises five have planned well on the candidates agitation.

even started cruises while, because, for her appearance. and senator ted cruz was quite obviously fierce over. >> that does not look down. women stoneman skedaddled. i think we often. but, you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that will do it every time. donald, you are sniffling coward, and we've had that hell -- >> -- -- ,. ,. >>. ,. >>. >>.

. >>,. ,,,,,. ,,. and that judges right now as we speak deliberating how much money, likely millions and millions a dollars, donald trump must pay for his -swindling. but marco rubio has not said anything about that condos time around. meanwhile, ted cruz, who made some real waves back in 2016, calling a trump sphere of strong women and urging

republicans to vote their conscience. last night, ted cruz also endorsed donald trump for president, and he did so in the very same week that mr. trump a sitting in a new york courtroom, having been found civilly liable for defamation of a woman strong enough to take donald trump to court, a woman that the civil court says donald trump sexually abused. but senator cruz had that they say about strong women, consciousness this week. the moral judgment from republicans was made about donald trump apparently did not matter anymore. the fact that donald trump sent, 12 days ago, 12 days ago, ted cruz, he should not even exist. i could have destroyed him. i kind of did not destroy him in 2016, if you think about it, but then, i let him live. even that did not matter to ted cruz. what we are seeing right now is the near complete competes relation of the republican

party to donald trump. in addition to the senators that i just mentioned, trump has locked up 23 other endorsements from senate republicans, probably the group of republicans most, at least inclined to be resistant to his lawlessness. nikki haley and around the sentence for their part have a collective zero senate endorsements between them. over in the house, trump has endorsements for more than 100 members, ron desantis, who served in the house, has five. nikki haley has one. it's not just elected republicans though. it is the moneyed republicans who helped get them elected. all of them are falling in line. according to the website, puck news, the trump campaign has put out the word to major gop donors that if they are not on the trump train by next month, it will be noted on their permanent record, and that forgiveness would get harder thereafter. the threats have apparently been affective.

robert bigelow, the hotelier and aerospace entrepreneur who previously gave $20 million to desantis's super pac, has recently signaled to trump allies that he is not supporting trump for president. and mcmullin, a trump hundreds or who served in trump's administration described a tidal wave, a tidal wave of republican donors rushing to make amends and secure their place amongst trump's allies. i've never had the experience of people reaching out in such large numbers to do a mea culpa and say, how can i support the president? this is what is happening right now inside the republican party, and the reality is that at this juncture, the only person meaningfully standing between donald trump and the republican nomination is nikki haley. now, donald trump has already begun ramping up its attacks on hallie, dusting off the racist birther playbook that he has

seized on president obama and similarly referring to nikki haley by her first name, as if to prove that, i guess, she somehow does not belong here. and in response, well, governor haley can not even mustered the kind of responses that marco rubio and ted cruz managed against donald trump just eight years ago. >> how do you feel about your party's front runner being held liable for sexual abuse? >> first of all, i have not paid attention to his cases. and i am not a lawyer. all i know is that he is innocent until proven guilty. when he's proven guilty and sitting in a courtroom, that's exactly what i am talking about. you have investigations on trump and biden. >> a lot of people, forgive me, a lot of people in the republican party blow it off and say, it's all a witch hunt. >> some of the cases -- >> but this one in particular?

>> this one, i have not looked at. if he is found guilty, then he needs to pay the price. he needs to do what he is supposed to. >> joining me now is mark leibovich, staff writer at the atlantic and author of thank you for your servitude, donald trump's washington and the price of submission. also with me, jamelle bouie, opinion columnist of the new york times. thank you gentlemen for joining me. mark, i let me start with the first. this is the speed of capitulation, the speed with which the dominoes are falling, does it in any way to surprise you given the unknown x-factors that remain in terms of donald trump's ability to stay out of a jail cell? >> yeah, the only known here is that they always capitulate, it is kind of stunning to hear nikki haley just -- i think capitulation implies that she actually was putting up a fight to begin with against us. it's been such a passive resistance to him to begin with, and then to hear that. you could diagram to answer, as

far as -- i have not been paying attention. dana bash, like -- he was found liable of sexual assault. basically, i did not see the tweak. that is a later day version. i did not see the tweet. look, nikki haley is not going to put up a serious fight based on what we saw in that clip. and it doesn't look like we are in the middle of white flag week, which is, in so much as there is any campaign or resistance, and i think nikki haley is the one position in new hampshire, it's not going to look anything like we saw in 2016 or really in any other contested campaign. you're right. i think i forgot about the ted cruz speech, they see it again, that's what it looks like. of course, they all capitulated, and they all done it again years later. it's frankly really depressing to. what we have seen it 1 million different ways. i guess sort of seeing it play out and what could be the last

weeks of potential opposition to donald trump within the republican party really puts a new bow on. it i guess this is the future that the republicans continue to choose for themselves. >> it seems that the incentive structure is double fork, if you will. on one hand, there is the incentive a personal material gain which explains the donors flocking to the president and there are a lot a timeframe before they get their reputation on their personal trump scorecard and or political annihilation. at least that is the suggestion from trump planned. i think one of the most stark examples of that is the house freedom caucus chair bob good endorsed ron desantis. enough faces a primary challenger and the trump team is explicitly threatening him. a senior trump advisor said bob good will be electable when we get done with him.

it's everything short of the horse had in the bed, jamele, but it tells you how the modern-day republican party is run. >> right, my view at this is that this has basically been baked into the cake ever since mid february 2021, that won the republican majority, republicans in the senate chose not to remove trump or prevent him from running for office again, voting for it to be impeachment, when they did not get the requisite votes, that kind of guaranteed what we're seeing now, that that was the one opportunity to actually knock him out of the process, but since that did not happen, it was sort of inevitability that he would regain the stature that he had four. what i find strange about it is that trump does have this real power within the republican party. -- i think trump could --

i think trump could and his allies could make like difficult for bob good, in terms of winning the republican primary. one of the features of trump's reign at the head of the party, he's actually an electoral drag in competitive elections. the candidates close to trump in a competitive race don't do well, so strange that you have republican politicians who presumably care about winning elections, unwilling to disentangle themselves from a guy other than 2016, other than the surprise in 2016, has not been particularly successful for the republican party. >> mark, jamele raises a good point, actually, we were talking about this when we talked about the segment. donald trump as something us on the board. kari lake, break masters, death

mastriano, memphis, herschel walker, in terms of actually getting people into office, the isn't that successful. which i think begs the second question, which is it just a day personal darts that are so precedent with elected republicans, at the idea that their house, they will be the victim of a swatting attack, the headache of going up against trump, if not the actual primary challenge or losing of the sea. >> i would not underestimate the sort of factor of worrying about their personal safety as a factor here, but i think all of the instances that you mentioned, these are statewide senate races in swing states. somebody like bob good, mike johnson, they are not living in swing districts. they are not going to lose close. these are not biden districts, true across the board. their biggest worry is big primary and, again, that's an

explicit bet that they make against bob good here, -- so, it's terrifying. they have this kind of power. it's a real kind of shake down situation, which we have seen over and over again. i think that will be the reality of the party, and we will have to find candidates occasionally not so terrified of losing and getting on the wrong side of donald trump and the base of the party. >> jamele, when you talk about a foregone conclusion that the gop will be in this conclusion at the january 2021, the only thing that has really truly develop that my app changed that is trump's potential criminal exposure. there is an unknown future for this individual, i see concerns the justice system, which is, if anything, maybe a cause for republicans to be a little bit hesitant about putting all their chips on a man, who could be, you know, in the process of a federal appeals process for criminal convictions.

they're 91 felony accounts against him, jamele. does that lack of hesitancy surprise you at all? >> it does not surprise me, again, because i think that, people vying for national leadership but the republican party do seem to just be unwilling to make the decisive -- and there is space and room theoretically to make this case against trump on this basis, right, that he is criminally liable, that he may very well be convicted of serious crimes between now and november. and an electoral loser, we should get rid of them and choose someone else. nikki haley nor on desantis are at all capable. not only can we not make the kind of pragmatic argument against, desantis tried running to his political right, which is odd to me, but if you listen to their rhetoric and what

they're saying in the debates and everything, you don't know what happens with the temperature of the republican base in terms of what you want to hear beyond kind of like what if the, right? the one thing that struck me about previous debates was nikki haley and ron desantis basically referring to 2012, your deficit fearmongering, and it's like, what? like, donald trump was like, i don't care about that stuff. that does not matter to me. i feel like that is a huge follow. you try to make this pragmatic case, try to try to get it that way, but they can't even seem to do that. i will be honest with you, it's very odd and strange to watch. >> that is the understatement of the season. mark leibovich, jamelle bouie, thank you both for your time tonight. >> thanks a lot. >> we have a lot more to get to

tonight. like donald trump doing his best to disrupt court proceedings today, which is a strategy, maybe? and senator elizabeth warren on an issue that democrats would like to be front of mind is november. she joins me now live coming up next. .

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desantis, his poll numbers have gone down to a level that he's going to be out of the race very soon. it happened to coincide with that, because a lot of people say, you, know if you top five or six weeks, a lot of women don't know they're pregnant and five or six weeks. >> trump's incoherent messaging on abortion actually seems possibly to be working in his favor. on monday, in but iowa, he was able to get 55% of the vote who of those who favor a national abortion ban, and 44% of the vote of those who oppose it. now, of course, the strategy has its limits. at some point, donald trump will likely face a real question about where exactly he stands on the issue and whether he can do is what is happening to women all over this country. to that and, democrats in the senate today held a briefing on the state of abortion rights, where victims described the painful consequences of republican restrictions on abortion.

>> a routine ultrasound showed devastating news. [crying] -- the brain and skull had not formed and i remember looking at the ultrasound screen incomplete disbelief. i can't believe i need another abortion, i thought. we have to flee the state. because of texas's new laws, we are afraid to use our credit card or tell people where we were going. it was absolutely humiliating. and i felt physically and emotionally broken. >> joining me now is senator elizabeth warren, a democrat that was a part of the senate abortion briefing today. senator, great to see you today, thanks for making the time. i find the stories from these women absolutely wrenching. i wonder how you think they may be changing what we think of as a partisan landscape when it

comes to reproductive freedom. >> i think what has happened in the past 18 months since an extremist supreme court overturned roe versus wade as being like getting smacked in the face day after day after day after day after day. back when roe was in place, sure, a lot of efforts to chip away at it. but people thought of abortion rights as something we were guaranteed. they had been there for nearly half a century, the supreme court had spoken, that is what america wanted and that's what america had. and then donald trump manages to get an extremist supreme court in place. they overturn roe and we watched day after day as another aspect unfolds. a 10-year-old who needs an

abortion and can't get it in her state. a mother who desperately wants a baby but understands that this fetus in her is badly deformed and she needs an abortion. another mother whose life is at risk and doctors stand beside her saying, is she close enough to death for us to give her an abortion under local laws? so it's watching the reality unfold piece at a time, piece at a time, piece at a time. and it's watching it unfold with a neighbor with a sister with a cousin with a friend so that it's spread across america. and we actually come to see what it means to live in donald trump's america, where politicians decide who gets access to abortion rather than doctors and patients. >> you know, i think it's remarkable that you call it

donald trump's america, because it is in fact the supreme court that he shaped that overturned roe v. wade. but donald trump has somehow managed to skate on both sides of the issue here by being very unclear as to be indecipherable in his position on abortion. >> no, no. >> my question for you is -- i mean, is he going to get asked the tough question here? it's unclear if he's -- if there are gonna be debates in the general election season. and that's fair. >> alex, we don't need to ask him this question. i think that is absolutely the wrong way to frame this. he probably put this supreme court in place. he proudly screen them for their position on abortion. and he is responsible for the state of abortion in this country right now. he is responsible for the fact that 20 states make it virtually impossible for someone who needs an abortion

to get access. he is responsible for the fact that now these courts may take away mifepristone, for example, and undermine access to abortion in california, massachusetts, washington state, oregon, and all of the places that have protected abortion. donald trump is responsible. i don't need a question to him. i don't need a debate from him. i don't need a clear statement from him. the facts are the facts. he is responsible, and abortion will be on the ballot in 2024. >> and i hear you on that. i'm just going off the fact that 44% of caucus goers who do not support a federal abortion ban supported donald trump. he won on that issue. so clearly, the facts are the facts. but somehow, they're not being communicated to certain sections of the american electorate. >> let's remember, those

caucusgoers are republican caucus goers who showed up in iowa in the middle of freezing weather to say no matter what i'm going to get there, and a big hunk of them said i'm going to support donald trump no matter what. i do not think this means he can pull the wool over the eyes of the rest of america, of the people who are out on the streets marching over abortion, of the people who showed up in kansas and the people who showed up in michigan, the people who said you give us a chance to vote on abortion, and we will make certain that access to abortion is protected. so i'm not worried. donald trump is responsible. and i believe regardless of what hard-core republicans are going to do, i believe the rest of america is going to hold him responsible, and it's going to be one of many reasons that donald trump is going to lose in november. >> are you confident that if the republicans gain the senate,

it's not exactly a federal map in 2024, that they are not going to do donald trump's bidding or the bidding of hard-core anti choice conservatives should they regain control of the upper chamber? >> oh, i think that if the republicans had the house, the senate, and the white house, and please know, but if that happened i don't think there's any doubt. they're going for a nationwide abortion ban. they made that clear. mitch mcconnell stood up and said as much. and many of them say that part, the quiet part out loud. and they understand it is unpopular. so they don't want to be too overt about it. but they're looking for a nationwide abortion ban. and keep in mind the other half. so long as we don't make roe v. wade the law of the land, these courts can continue to undermine access to abortion everywhere in the country. this decision that came out of a court down in texas that may

take mifepristone off the market, keep in mind, a place like massachusetts, about 50% of abortions in massachusetts are medication abortions, they use mifepristone. and what they're trying to do is say that would not be available and not just the 20 states that banned abortion, it would not be available anywhere in the united states. so the attacks on abortion rights that the republicans are putting forward is both legislative, both at the state

and federal level, and it's at the courts. in other words, wherever you are in america, if you care about abortion rights, if you care about protecting the right of people to have access to abortion, understand this. donald trump and the republicans are coming for you. and your chance to beat that back comes in november 2024, when you vote down not just trump, but every other republican on the ballot. >> senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts, thank you for your time tonight. >> you bet. we have a lot more this evening, including the sale of a prestigious newspaper to a right-wing media mogul and the implications of that for american democracy. and after that, and donald trump's rage was on display for a new york jury today. we will recap what you might call the strategy there, coming up next. who are these people? real life spies. i am a writer. why would they care about me? because you're a fortune teller elly. what you wrote in your argylle series

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here's why you should switch fo 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. earlier today inside a new

york courtroom, former magazine writer e. jean carroll took the witness stand for the first time in her second defamation lawsuit against donald trump. i'm here because donald trump assaulted me, ms. carroll said, and when i wrote about it, he said it ner ppened. he lied and he shattered my reputation. in this very courtroom in may, a jury found i had indeed been sexually assaulted by donald trump. and this from rer kaplan, ms. carroll's lawyer. ms. carroll, has he continue to lie about you? carroll, yes he continues to lie, he lied last month, he

lied on sunday, he lied yesterday. and i'm here to get my reputation back and to stop him from telling lies about me. donald trump was also in the courtroom today, oddly making comments jurors could hear, saying it was all a con job. the commentary got to a point where the judge threatened to throw trump out of the com altogether. judge kaplan, mr. trump, i hope i don't have to consider excluding you from the trial or at least the presence. understand your probably very eager for me to do that. mr. trump, i would love it. kaplan, i know you would. you just can't control yourself in these circumstances. trump's strategy here is debatable and what is at stake is considerable. joining me now is chuck rosenberg, msnbc contributor and former u.s. attorney and former fbi official. chuck, thanks for being here. we know that ms. carroll is asking for $10 million in

damages plus punitive damages. it's unclear what the jury is going to decide. but i wonder how you think the outbursts here factor into the jury's process and indeed the judges threshold for taking trump out of his courtroom. >> great questions, alex. at least the outburst so far have not been the presence of the jurors. the jury has been out of the courtroom when those exchanges took place. although they may have heard some of the things he said and that ms. carroll's attorneys complain about. but the outburst were in front of the judge. so how does it affect the judge? courtrooms, federal courtrooms in particular, are serious places. they are governed by rules and procedures. and judges are used to having their orders abided. so this may help mr. trump politically. it may help them in some world outside of the courtroom.

but it's inconceivable, alex, that it helped them inside the courtroom. >> can i ask though, because there seems to be a tacit understanding on the part of the judge that trump would love to be kicked out of the courtroom, certainly for political optics, this system is rigged against me, they're taking me out of the courtroom. but i wonder if you think there's any -- i hesitate to use the word strategy, but i'll use it, strategy on the part of trump to sort of be kicked out so you can use that in appeal? would that be in anyway meaningful? >> there's a big difference between a strategy and a successful strategy. >> [laughter] true. >> so alex, maybe it's his strategy, and his goal is to try and foul the record so that on appeal he has something to argue. but two things you ought to know. one is that judges control their courtrooms carefully because it is governed by rule and procedure, judges care a lot about that, and rightfully so. the second thing is that courts of appeal on review give trial court judge's enormous

discretion to do exactly that, to control their courtrooms. appellate courts understand that they are only seeing black white record, word on paper. but what the trial judge is watching and seeing everything. so trial judges have enormous discretion. and appellate courts have said that over and over, to control their courtroom. so if this is mr. trump's strategy to foul the record, it's a bad one, it's not going to work, alex. >> yeah, and i wonder how you think that behavior is going to potentially influence judge arthur engoron, who is presiding over trump's case with the new york a. g. laetitia james. that's a bench trial, so the judge is the only person to decide. and trump is antagonized judge engoron in a fairly remarkable fashion. >> he has. and look, a judge has an absolute obligation to both parties to be fair and thoughtful. and that can be hard when you have a litigant in front of you, a defendant in mr. trump's case, that just sort of tries at every opportunity to get under your skin. i don't know judge engoron. i imagine he's like all the judges in front of whom i practiced, alex.

and he's going to try very hard to keep it down the middle. that's his job. that's what he has to do. so what mr. trump is doing by acting out, again, maybe a valuable political strategy, it may play to some of his fans. it is not going to help him in court. it's not going to help him with the judges. and it's not going to help him if he continues to do this in front of a jury. it is not going to work. >> it could be a very expensive january. chuck rosenberg, thank you again for your wisdom, chuck, appreciate it. >> my pleasure. still ahead tonight, what would you do with $100 million? one conservative media executive who famously disdains print media just use that sum of cash to buy a newspaper, a really important newspaper, and that could mean some big changes. that's next.

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false news has become all too common on social media. alarming some social media -- [inaudible] unfortunately, some members of the community are pushing for their own personal bias agenda to control exactly what is being played. this is extremely dangerous to our democracy. >> back in 2018, a media conglomerate, sinclair broadcast group gave all of their anchors the same script, and told them all to work it

into the broadcast. the script, largely, followed a sanitized version of trump's rhetoric about the, quote unquote, fake news media. the script is what is known at sinclair as a must run. meaning, stations must errant, no ifs, ands, orbits. it meant, a lot of people heard the script. sinclair owns around 200 local tv stations across the country, making sinclair one of the nation's largest broadcasters with, millions of viewers. because these stations are local, people trust them. these are the folks of people turn to for the weather, and traffic updates, and, also, conservative talking points. in addition to the must run segment that sinclair had them

read, they also had must run pre-taped packages, featuring political analysis of former trump staffer, boris epshteyn, as well as a historical conservative segments, like this one. how can americans, especially blacks and latinos in america, support hillary clinton? >> a surprising message, coming from a black pastor. evangelical bishop, aubry shines, spreading a message of why he believes that hillary clinton's democratic party is >> this not good for black americans. >> the party that gave this country slavery. week, sinclair's executive chairman, david smith, bought one of the most important newspaper in the country, the baltimore sun. if you are unfamiliar with their work, the baltimore sun won a pulitzer prize in 2020, specifically, on the strength of their local reporting. in a tense meeting with the staff of the baltimore sun this week, its new owner, david smith,

reportedly insulted the quality of the paper's journalism. smith reportedly has his own vision for the paper and, surprising no one, thinks it should mimic one of his sinclair television stations, baltimore's fox 45. that station is known for segments like city in crisis, highlighting crime, and dysfunction. as former baltimore sun media critic david -- describes it, fox 45's coverage fits into a larger pattern of, this is what happens when you let democrats run your city, it goes to hell. to quote from a sinclair must-run script, unfortunately, some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control exactly what people think. that extremely dangerous to our democracy. brian stelter joins me to discuss the erosion of the fourth state, and the rise of right-wing disinformation,

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you're probably not easily persuaded to switch mobile providers for your business. but what if we told you it's possible that comcast business mobile can save you up to 75% a year on your wireless bill versus the big three carriers? did we peak your interest? you can get two unlimited lines for just $30 each a month. there are no term contracts or line activation fees. and you can bring your own device. oh, and all on the most reliable 5g mobile network nationwide. wireless that works for you. this morning, the baltimore it's not just possible, it's happening.

sun guild, the union that represents the papers staff, released a statement that read in part, during yesterday's meeting, new owner david smith shared his vision for the paper, which he admitted he has rarely read. the editorial direction he described focusing on clicks rather than journalistic value concern many of our members. that nearly three-hour meeting between the sons staff and its new owner, david smith, the executive chairman of sinclair broadcast group, it was described as tense. mr. smith, who bought the paper last week, told reporters to go make me some money. when asked about job security, smith said not so reassuringly that everyone has a job today. now, david smith is known not only for his right wing broadcasting network sinclair, but also for support of conservative causes and groups, including project veritas, turning point usa, and moms for liberty. as the new owner of the storied

newspaper, smith has claimed print media has no credibility and is so left-wing as to be meaningless dribble. joining me now is brian stelter, special correspondent for vanity fair, author of network of lies: the epic saga of fox news, donald trump, in the battle for american democracy, and native mary lander who's been writing about sinclair for decades. brian, thank you for being here. you know better than most that when conservatives takeover media organizations they tend to make changes. what is your expectations for a paper that's essential as the baltimore sun? >> yes, i grew up reading the sun, oftentimes when i was in annapolis or baltimore covering a story, the only other reported there was from the baltimore sun. and although the paper has been shrinking for years, like most print newspapers across the country, it is still the default, they go to media outlet for an a major american

city. so what's going to happen to it? now alex, i fear this is likely the end of the sun as a non partisan widely trusted outlet. and there's going to have to be alternatives that pop up in its place. because when these sorts of right-wing backers of media talk, they talk in code. when they say it fair, they really think the press is too liberal. when they say balanced, what they mean is we want the media to advance our political agendas claim to balance. it's that kind of code language that we're already hearing the new owner of the sun start use. >> and i wonder what you would say of the profile who's somee who funds something like project veritas, which carries out alleged sting operations of media groups, who says that print journalism has no credibility and then it goes in spends 100 million dollars to buy the son and a few other smaller papers. i mean, is that just kind of the execution of a conservative agenda, to bring the fort state

to heal? or is it sort of a eagle maniacal fixation that conservatives like donald trump have in the fourth east gate? >> right, it's trump attacking the media, carrying a lot about what time magazine and msnbc say about him. my understanding from sources at the sun and maryland politics is that david smith has been interesting and trying to buy the sun for quite some time. he sits at home in his mansion in suburban baltimore, he watches what's going on in the city, and he thinks he can somehow make a difference, and let's be clear, make a difference means advance a right-wing agenda by buying up the only big newspaper in town. this is a part of a pattern, alex, of old school newspaper and news outlets becoming is on these. they get taken over by these right-wing buyers. they become shells of their formal selves, and they become political machines. this is going to happen as proof it way and truth and handlers move to digital. alex, there's something we can do about it. we can support the alternatives. >> yeah, i want to get to that. but i do think it's important

to note how the articulated fixation on crime and police's a really important part of the ecosystem that internet fuels the right-wing broader agenda. can you talk a little bit more about that, given your experience at fox news where they love talking about crime and backing the blue? >> one hunted percent. i feel like i've been studying this for years. because you see attention on a city like baltimore only when there's unrest, as we saw nearly a decade ago with freddy gray, only when there's a surge in crime. you know what happened in baltimore in 2023? dramatic reduction in the murder rate. you don't hear about that on fox or across right-wing talk radio. you only hear these headlines when they are terrifying and when they are used to advance a certain agenda. and unfortunately, i think that's a force to be reckoned with this republican primary, but also the 2024 election. it's kind of like a spigot that's always turn on and pumping at full blast every day, no matter what's actually

happening in the trend lines or the data. >> yeah, and you wonder how immigration gets to be the number one topic and the number one voting issue in republican primary. this is a huge part of how that happened. so what -- >> what we do? support alternatives -- it's an amazing start up in baltimore that's actually breaking news about the sun being taken over. and that's what viewers can do, they can support local grassroots news, nonprofits, start-ups, they can go out and help create their own. that is going to be the solution to this problem that's plaguing the media, alex. >> by a local newspaper that is not a conservative mouthpiece, support your local journalism. brian stelter, author of network of lies, it is always good to talk to someone so deeply entrenched in this very essential topic. thanks, brian. >> thanks. that is our show for this evening. now it is time for the last word with my friend lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, alex. i missed you on the panel on the iowa