safety cameras that other bay area police departments have to discourage crime, catch criminals, and increase prosecutions. prop e is a smart step our city can take right now to keep san francisco moving in the right direction. please join me in voting yes on prop e. someone rosenberg gets tonight's last word. the 11th hour with stephanie ruhle starts now.

the 11th hour with stephanie ruhle starts now. tonight, donald trump's legal delays and the impacts they may have on november as you tries to kill back the union vote for president biden. then, tense moments at a public apology during a senate hearing with tech ceos about child safety online. but will anything meaningful come out of it? and the border deal hangs in the balance while gop infighting nearly thanked a tax cut deal. how republicans are playing -- wednesday night. good evening once again, i'm stephanie ruhle live from msnbc headquarters here in new york city. and timing is everything, especially when it comes to donald trump's legal dramas and his campaign to retake the white house. it has just been over three weeks since an appeals court heard arguments over trump's claim of absolute immunity from prosecution in the 2020 election interference case.

so far, there has been no decision. it looks like that case will begin well past the scheduled more fourth start date. -- in florida for a closed-door meeting with judge aileen cannon about trump's classified documents case which is set to begin in may. there are questions about whether that will push back as well. and as political points, out each day that trump's criminal cases are delayed, raises the possibility that the opening days of his trials could be pushed to late summer or fall, or potentially even after the election. but today, donald trump was focused on his standing with union members. he went to washington to meet the teamsters leadership in an effort to lay the ground for an endorsement. the teamsters, they were not quite ready to take that step. >> we had a very productive meeting, stranger things that happened. usually a republican when you we didn't get that endorsement, they thought we should come over and pay our respects, and as you know a big part of the

voting bloc votes for me. a very big part. >> we have a long way to go before we make a decision, -- you are going to support our issues, in time need you will step up and do what is right by working people in this country. >> meanwhile, president biden who has already won backing from the united auto workers will be in michigan tomorrow for an event with union members. that meeting comes as even more signs of a stronger economy are emerging. for the second month in a row, the united states is producing more oil than any other country in history. the u.s. is expected to keep producing record amounts of oil in the future. even though the fed decided it is not time to cut rates yet, it is likely coming soon. as the washington post put, it falling inflation and rising growth give the united states the world's best recovery. with that let's get smarter with the help of our leadoff panel tonight. john allen is here, senior national politics reporter for nbc news, and we see national political correspondent mike --

who's covered president biden, his family, and his inner circle of advisers for more than a decade, and former u. s. attorney joyce vance who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor. joyce, you know in coming to first. we are getting deeper into primary season, and we still haven't seen an immunity decision. it now looks like judge aileen cannon is in no rush on the documents case. how concerned are you? >> look, the courts move slowly at the best of, times and these are not the best of times, stephanie ruhle. it's surprising we've not seen a decision from the court of appeals and the district of columbia yet, i think we all anticipated that. it doesn't necessarily mean there is a problem, these are just, judges three judges who have to reach a decision, together and sometimes that takes time. in my career as an appellate lawyer, it often took more than a year. here we are talking about a matter of weeks.

as far as aileen cannon, goes the handwriting has been on the wall for a long, time that she will do everything she can to prevent trying this case before the election takes place. she has drawn out this process involved with classified discovery, and her decision- making process to the point where the section for hearing won't even take place until the middle of next month. so i think we can count out the possibility that this case gets tried anytime soon. >> john, we have seen over the last few weeks, donald trump rally against judges, prosecutors, biden, any and all democrats. during his civil cases on the courthouse steps, if these criminal cases do not start the summer, or even the fall, what does the race for the white house look like? >> i think it a lot of it is going to be a question of whether voters want to see donald trump continue to be prosecuted, if there is not a conclusion heading into that election, that will be the

argument. what we have seen from donald trump, certainly these allegations against him, the court cases he is facing, ultimately the republican primary, it is a wildcard as to what would happen if he were actually convicted of a crime. but, with a up in the air, i think it is hard to tell right now what the effect will be. one thing i can tell you is going on right now, there is politics and his legal cases have merged. we just saw tonight has super pac file its campaign finance filing for the last six months of last year. they transferred $30 million to the main vehicle he is using to pay legal fees. so that is $30 million that is not going to be used on the campaign trail. >> i want to stay on those campaign dollars, joyce, because today donald trump was asked if he would use campaign money to pay e. jean carroll for the defamation penalties, which is over 80 million, dollars and he did not say no. watch this. >> that case is a ridiculous, case we are appealing, it she did not know anything about, me

she did not know when it, happened there was nothing. people are looking at that case, it is a disgrace. we are appealing that case. we had a very hostile judge, we are appealing their case. it is a ridiculous case. >> so he didn't say no, we know that he used $50 million from super pac money to pay legal bills. could he use donor dollars to pay her? >> well, certainly he can try. but the reality for donald trump is that the next thing he has to do is post an appellate bond in this case. if he wants to appeal the decision. will he be able to scrape together donor money and have the past legal scrutiny where he now has some decent lawyers on his team? they are very likely to look at that and tell him no, you cannot do it this way. these are not the kind of dollars that you can use to satisfy a judgment against you in court. so donald trump increasingly we have not reached the point where he meets the -- and finds out that he can't always do things and manipulate money in

the ways he has been used to doing for so many years. >> michael, new topic, president biden and donald trump are in a battle for union endorsements. help us understand how critical the union vote is, and it's two- pronged, because even if joe biden is getting union leadership like the autoworkers, he has to get rank and file which is sort of donald trump sweet spot. >> yes, this is really one of the most fascinating things for you and i took over throughout this election year. we have talked a lot about the biden campaign's focus on the issue of democracy, the threat they believe former president poses to the future of this country. we talked about the focus on abortion rights, that was the big rally the vice president and first lady and second gentleman held just a few weeks ago. inside the west wing, president biden and his senior team are obsessed with winning the economic argument in 2024. this is a president who a year ago was talking about the

legacy of his party, he was trying to break away from as limousine liberals. he wants this to be the party of the working class, the ordinary joe. so he is approaching the state of the union address in the next two weeks laser focused on the economy. he has the endorsement of some of the nation's largest unions. is going to michigan tomorrow, to highlight the most recent endorsement from the united auto workers, but there is a concern that the rank and file of these unions are as the former president said, today during his visit to the teamsters union, leaning towards donald trump. so the president, he has been criticized by some in his party for focusing too much on the economy, too much on biden economics, but he's going to be spending a lot of time trying to do exactly what he is doing tomorrow, showing him side by side saying he is not just physically, with him but he is on policy with them every step of the way on his presidency. >> jon, but here's why joe biden can and should talk about the economy. he has a winning one.

there are ten different measures that show it. donald trump is out there straight up lying, crediting himself with a strong stock market, lying thing oil production is down, people are able to see how much money is in their wallet. they can look at their 401k. they know how much things cost. yes, life is still expensive, but inflation is cooling. we may get a federate cut soon. are people buying what donald trump is trying to claim? >> well, i think a lot of people have been buying that the economy is doing well. if you go back to 1992 -- bill clinton lying against a recovering economy the message is -- the economy, stupid. was repeated so often that people believed the economy was worse than it actually was. so there is some precedent for doing that successfully. that said, i think anytime president biden can connect what he's doing with the economy at large, to what is going on in people's lives on a daily basis, that makes a lot more sense to them. it is easier to sell than to talk about what we have to talk about at the national level.

there is some of the things that go into what people feel at home, but he has to be able to connect what he is doing legislatively with what he is doing at the executive action to peoples lives. i think it was really remarkable, you showed a clip of the teamsters president coming out and talking about which president was going to be working the fact that the teamsters -- basically flirting with donald trump as really amazing. joe biden got the 90 billion dollar bailout of the -- pension funds of unions primarily the teamsters -- central state fund. trying to do for 20 years. biden delivers it for, them here three years later the president of that union obviously feels enough pressure from his membership that he wants to meet with donald trump. i think it is unfathomable they would actually endorsed trump, but just the fact that he feels the need to be seen with him gives an indication of how nervous some of biden's traditional allies feel right

now. >> it is a meeting, but not an endorsement. mike, it is tricky though for the biden administration, because they want to celebrate some of these winds, but they do not want to anger certain factions of their party, the far left for example. oil production is the best example. i said it before, we are producing more oil than any country ever. that is a difficult conversation for the president, because he doesn't want to upset voters who consider climate her top issue. but to those voters realize that donald trump cares nothing about their agenda. well it might not be joe biden's number one, it is donald trump's number 460, eight and in fact he wants to go in the opposite direction. >> yes, in fact, we heard donald trump today talking about wanting to get rid of some of the biden administration's policies moving things to electric vehicle production, so this is when you talk to biden advisers about the fact that the presidents poll numbers

continue to be in a dangerous place for an incumbent heading into the election year, they say if you look under the hood at these numbers, some of them are weaknesses, the fact that our base is not quite as rallied behind president biden in the way the maga base is lockstep with the former president at this point. you talk about the issue of climate, the president is in particular dies trades with a young voters and that is one of the top issues for young voters is this climate crisis. i was with the president in south carolina this weekend where he got an enthusiastic reception from south carolina democratic party -- more protest among them on this issue of climate that campaign feels one of the things that will help him is this will ultimately after be as the president likes to say a choice not between himself and the almighty but himself in the alternative and they will spend some time maybe not the president himself but some of their powerful surrogates making the argument that there is no daylight between the president and his base on these core issues. he has done a lot, and he will continue to do more than what

we would see if donald trump returns to the white house. >> look at what was inside the inflation reduction act. it was some of the most aggressive moves in terms of climate. donald trump's base might be loud, but they are not large. >> yes, stephanie, you've always impressed me with your ability to count, and the 2020 election, joe biden won by seven and a half million, votes something like that, the donald trump base is you, know what we have seen is maybe about 35 to 40% of the republican party, the number the, percentage of them willing to vote for him is obviously a lot larger. but pull our, pull you see that donald trump's favorable ratings are underwater. what you have is a country that is looking you know, a choice that made for three or four years ago, and asked to make again, but donald trump came in just as, big he should have -- he did learn it in 2020, we're at least it was whether it was

absorbed and we want to see if he changes her all and figures out a way to try and compete with persuadable voters this time. this time. republican voters or the economy, which is super strong, and immigration. right now joe biden is trying to get something done on immigration. by all accounts, it is donald trump who is blocking it. joyce, one last legal question. if donald trump's legal civil fraud trial, the new york attorney general is asking for a 370 million dollar penalty. she wants trump barred from doing business in new york forever. we thought we were going to get a decision today, it did not happen, what do you think there is a delay? >> sometimes judges are humans, just like the rest of us. it takes them a little bit longer to get their work done. ultimately, when it comes to writing the sort of a lengthy detailed legal opinion, that

will be the basis for an appeal, i think the judge bmay have decided it was the better part of wisdom to take the time he needed to make sure that -- he had all of the numbers right in this opinion, because it will be numbers heavy when it comes to his valuation of illegally gotten gains, illicitly gotten gains to have to be discouraged back to the state. need of what will be in the details, here this is a judge who likes to get details right. >> i have a sinking dgfeeling h thinks an appeal may be on the horizon. joyce, mike, john, thank you all for starting us off this evening. when we come back, big tech testified on capitol hill before a room of parents whose children, whose teenagers were victimized on their platforms. a rare show of bipartisanship, but was it just a show? later, instead of taking action on the border, house republicans are wasting time trying to impeach e the homelan security secretary, because they just do not think he is doing a good job. when the 11th hour just getting underway on a wednesday night. underway on a wednesday night.

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with the touch of your finger, that smartphone that can entertain and inform you can become a back alley with the lives of your children are damaged and destroyed. >> mr. zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, i know you do not mean to be so, but you have blood on your hands. you have a product that is killing people. >> when the boeing plane lost a door in midflight several weeks ago, nobody questioned the decision to ground a fleet of over 700 planes. so why aren't we taking the same type of decisive action on the danger of these platforms when we know these kids are dying? >> does your user agreement still suck? >> i'm not going to answer that, senator. >> until these people can be sued for the damage they are doing, it is all talk. >> i just want to get this, done i am so tired of, this it has been 28 years since the internet. we haven't passed any of these bills because everyone is double, top double talk. it is time to actually pass them. >> okay, it is all, talk those

people talking and complaining it is all talk, they are the ones who make the laws. after hours of tense moments with big tech leaders, a hearing on online child safety and it the way things usually do on capitol hill, with no solutions. so let's discuss. i want to bring in two of my nbc colleagues. internet called shull reporter -- and nbc news tech correspondent jake ward. also with us alex starmer's, former chief security officer at both facebook and yahoo. i turn to first, because you have been reporting, watching vlogging, you have been in this hearing and three or four countless hours. what were your biggest takeaways? >> i think the number one take away, the number one moment i'm still thinking about is mark second brics apology to the parents of children who have

been affected by social media. these children have either died by suicide, been mostly affected. he in a tense exchange with josh hawley stood up, turned around, and offered an apology, however, steph, this was such a stilted apology. it felt so robach. i don't think it will go over well. i don't think it has gone over well. that was a moment that stood out for me today. i think the exchange between tom and -- showed you the tiktok, that was an interesting moment. >> that was a nonsense sideshow. >> it was ridiculous to get into that line of thinking, the questioning has nationality. of course he is singaporean, he was asking if he was chinese. people online are talking about is this racist, xenophobic? >> whatever it is, it does nothing to address child safety. we actually have that soundbite

of josh hawley and mark zuckerberg. i want to play it. >> all right, we don't have. it just give me a second. jake, you and amy talk about what is happening online with social media platforms with boeing, and she said, it when a door fell off a plane mid, air all the max 9s got grounded. kids are on social media platforms every day in their lives around, is the reason nothing is happening because

these companies had giant lobbying efforts, and these lawmakers are always talking at the end of the day and don't do anything. >> well, i think you make a good point there, staff, yes there has been enormous amounts of lobbying, yes enormous apparatus that surrounds every one of those companies in the entire industry to shape our optics around what the do. they have always been great at saying, the vast majority of people's experiences are positive on our platform. these few cases in which something unfortunate happens to a child, or anyone, else is sort of an edge case. what we saw today was that edge case was front and center the optics were just aimlessly bad for social media ceos. at one point the snapchat ceo is sitting there testifying, and there is a dad a few rows behind him holding up a photograph of his own dead son who died from an overdose on drugs which were supposedly procured on snapchat. so there was no idea, no sense of an edge case idea. the optics were entirely -- as a result, you couldn't, this ceos could not -- -- positive

experience for a lot of team creators. he was booed and hissed by the audience, many of whom are the parents, the bereaved parents of all the children. so it was really amazing to see him have to sit in this one small slice of their operations that have been such terrible effect to everybody. >> i think we have that soundbite of mark zuckerberg now. let's play it. >> there is families of victims here today, have you apologized to the victims? would you like to do so now? they are here. you are a national television. would you like now to apologize to the victims who have been -- would you like to apologize for what you have done to the people? >> i'm sorry, everything -- terrible, no one should have to go through the things your

families have suffered. this is why we invest so much and are going to continue doing industry leading efforts to make sure that no one has to go through the types of things your families have had to suffer. >> alex, these are families who had dead teenagers. his response is, how they are investing. you know this, man you know facebook, what do you make of this? >> well, i think it was a very difficult day for mark zuckerberg and the rest of the ceos. there are people at these companies who dedicate their lives to safety, security work, and those of us on that side have to cut a deal with the reality of the downside that the platforms every day. so we go to conferences like the crimes against children conference, i have been to

testifying in trials and been to hearings with victims. that is not something the ceo is norman exposed to. so i think it was probably an eye-opening moment for him, because generally someone like mark gets to only experience the positive feedback of people who enjoy product or complain about little things. they do not have to see the fact that like jacob said, this is a numerically small number of people from whom there is a horrible horrible outcome from using social media. >> jake, let's talk about who is not in the room. youtube, twitch, apple, these are major players. where were they? >> yes, you know, it is interesting, youtube is always in the tech world, in this huge 800 pound gorilla, the platform across which so much information moves. they have been largely absent from these conversations, and famously the ceo was pretty hostile to the idea there was any sort of reputation work that needs to be done.

famously, you know, immune to the line of argument from the people who work for her. so very interesting thing to see those folks missing. i think what we are seeing here though, stephanie, because the optics were so bad today, because we are on the verge of there being at least five pieces of legislation around exportation, socialize material, and all the dangerous stuff that kids get exposed to on these platforms, because there is nothing more powerful i think ife than a bereaved parents. we have seen this with mothers against trump drunk driving, losses that brought down alex jones. when parents lose children, they are so -- in pursuing a remedy to that. i wonder if at this time, we have seen the same arguments go around and around, i wonder if there is some traction emerging

here, certainly the optics today suggests that to me. >> now the eye is here, is it turbo charging all those problems? >> it is absolutely -- my good colleague -- has been reporting on, this and the -- celebrities or seeing themselves in deepfakes, it is accessible. there is a wealth of legislation now that this hearing is happening with a backdrop in, and we have legislation that has just come out to hold the fix accountable and give people the victims of deepfakes illegal path forward to getting retribution for what has happened for them. we are also seeing a wealth of bipartisan legislation coming forward, you can see the -- covid two point oh state level we're actually seeing a big influx of legislation that is meant to protect children online. so there's a lot across the board, but definitely in the eyes of something nasty

legislation, and just one that might not be enough to do it. >> alex, what do you think? >> so you know, you heard, there's five pieces of legislation in congress, one already been passed under the senate. so the folks who upheld this hearing, at least did their job on that. it is called the report act. it is the least controversial of the bills. if exist in a very important technical issues about the relationship between these companies and the national center for missing and exploited children. it is a clearinghouse for child exploitation reports. it makes a bunch of changes and really important. it is dead in the house, and so in lot of this comes down to the fact that congress, while there is theoretically bipartisan support, in reality the house is doing nothing other than arguing over tax bills and not passing immigration and search.

-- pass unanimously -- >> today felt hopeful or exciting because it appeared bipartisan. lindsey graham made this great argument about what victims should be allowed to sue these platforms. watch this. >> the representative so south carolina, -- got caught up in a sex extortion ring in nigeria using instagram. he was shaken down, paid money, and killed himself using instagram. do you think he should be allowed to sue you? >> i -- i think that they can sue us. >> well i think he should and he can't. >> lindsey graham is making that statement, people are going right, on bullet talk about how he votes. because in 2005 when he had a chance to allow americans to suit gun manufacturers, he voted to give those manufactures immunity instead. so what do you actually expect to come out of this? jake? >> you know, i think, steph,

one thing that has in the past always been very frustrating to those of us who look to sit across these tech ceos and ask tough questions, has been the performative nature of it. you have the senators up, there want to turn the cameras and lights on, everybody is performing. there isn't an exchange of ideas, questions are asked but they don't allow them to answer. on the other hand, senator klobuchar got applause, lindsey graham got applause from a room full of people. i know this in the scheme of things probably doesn't seem like it makes a difference, but i think the idea, the experience of being applauded

for the positions and statements they were taking and making today, i don't, now i just wonder if the senators will come out of this and be like there might be some hate to make her in a way that maybe it hasn't occurred before. i think until now everyone thought of this as an abstract thing. we can come together on it. it felt to me like they may have taken something away from this that might serve as a fuel for some kind of action down the line. i don't think we are going to see it right away, but it feels to me over the years that there is something building, here i just don't quite know what it is yet, stuff. >> -- mark zuckerberg got a good haircut, things are changing. alex, jake, you are laughing, but you know he did. when we come back, republicans raise hopes, and just as quickly, dash them on a border bill. so what is getting done in the house? we are going to get into all of the theatrical, and hope there is a policy when the 11th hour continues.

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to fighting climate change. shake up the senate - with democrat katie porter. i'm katie porter and i approve this message. you want to see who we are as americans? i'm peter dixon and in kenya... we built a hospital that provides maternal care. as a marine... we fought against the taliban and their crimes against women. and in hillary clinton's state department... we took on gender-based violence in the congo. now extremists are banning abortion and contraception right here at home. so, i'm running for congress to help stop them. for your family... and mine. i approved this message because this is who we are. >> house republicans are clearly not interested in working across the aisle on the border. instead they are busy trying to impeach the homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas. late last night at committee

voted along party lines to advance an impeachment resolution. but apparently there is a bipartisan issue that does interest speaker mike johnson. taxes. tonight he brought a bill to the floor that would expand the child tax credit and bring back some tax benefits to the businesses. let's discuss with two of our favorite analysts, juanita tolliver and tim miller. tim, that tax bill was in jeopardy this week because new york republicans wanted more state and local tax relief. but now that's not even in this bill. my question is, how important is it for a biden's reelection to get the blue state tax reduction restored? >> i don't think it's important at all, to biden's reelection. you will be shocked, stephanie, that the moderate, so-called moderate publicans in the biden districts folded again. another issue that they've backed down on. meanwhile the far-right maga don't even have a problem. i'll see say about this deal, if it gets through, if it gets to biden's desk through senate, we live in a weird world we talk about our polarized we are, how little gets done in

congress. in one sense that's true. in another sense this first term for biden is gonna have more bipartisan victories than any term or since bush's first term maybe? even before? that may be clinton? saw it's pretty noteworthy and doesn't get enough recognition. this is of course a modest tax bill, but it can be meaningful to middle class people with kids who are struggling to get a deduction. and i think it just would be another chip for him going into the general election to get this done, and this should be a make-or-break issue. >> juanita, joe biden has gotten a ton done on a bipartisan basis, certainly in his first term. with the does that change with the pressure of this election? this tax bill is going to go into the senate. the likes of chuck grassley, who we've already heard from, might take this thing because they don't want to see anything get done there will help biden ahead of the election. if that happens now, what does that say to the american people? nothing's happening? >> not that nothing's happening. it's third in the face of efforts to deliver on what people need, republicans are

more focused on being cruel and harming the people in order to dig at president biden. that's the message here. i honestly think it's going to be critical for that message to permeate across the country through storytelling, through emphasizing the hundreds of thousands of children, for example, who would be lifted out of poverty with this expanded child tax credit. that's what needs to be the drumbeat. the cruelty is being seen across issues from republicans. so it's important to democrats take this message to the public, showing the base faces of the children, showing the faces the family that these types of policies will help, and show how republicans are using them as political fodder just to be heinous. >> ten, republicans in congress are blaming joe biden only for the problems at the border. but if it was all in the hands of the president, wouldn't donald trump have built that great big wall and deported everybody when he was in office the first time? >> indeed. heinous, i like juanita's description of the republicans behavior on this. and by the way, trump tried to

do some of this stuff and was blocked by courts. so we know this already. we lived through this. and you do need legislative -- there are a couple of things biden could do from the white house. but much of the stuff in this bill that they're negotiating does require legislative solutions. and the whole thing is ridiculous. you can sense, when even a lot of republicans -- over the trump era, jake flint, tom young, tom tillis, these types of republican senators, when even they are getting frustrated and their colleagues saying guys, you've asked us to go on the immigration deal to get this ukraine funding, we did it, it's also entirely republican stuff. progressives are gonna be happy with this bill. and now you're taking it because you don't want to do anything in an election year in

order to help mr. trump? happiness is the best way to describe it. >> i want to talk about those disappointed progressives and switch gears a moment. jonathan chait points out that the coalition that defeated donald trump 2020 does seem to have grumblings. and the left wing of the parties are so upset with joe biden that some of them are ambivalent about a trump win. juanita, what is the rationale here? joe biden didn't do enough for me so i am okay with trump, who wants none of what i do? >> i think the rationale is that they are genuinely fatigued by the strain that people have been under for years now, and i think that came across one elmo tweets out, check house everybody doing in and everybody is like bad. that's the tail.

that's the tone of this electorate right now. i think it's going to be a massive uphill battle for democrats because yes, democrats have to do a better job of voicing and communicating in educating voters on what they have achieved, as tim enumerated earlier. but they also has to mobilize, and that's where the big concern comes in. i was in conversation with dnc chair jaime harrison for one a day which is airing tomorrow, where he died about the call to action still being clear. but again, if voters are genuinely fatigued, if voters are genuinely turning away from the biden administration for a range of issues, whether it's immigration, they don't like what they're seeing in the deal, whether it's a conflict are in gaza, and they don't like the biden administration's response, the reality, is on top of those issues, the fatigue has to be accounted for, and that's something we absolutely need to be keeping an eye on in battleground states, because we know how tight this election is going to

be. >> all right then, when eta, tom, thank you both for being here. when we come back, we're talking comedy in culture wars. our next guest mapped out decades worth of controversies to show that cancel culture is not so new after all. we'll have that when the 11th hour continues. hour continues. an alternative to pills, voltaren is a clinically proven arthritis pain relief gel, which penetrates deep to target the source of pain with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine directly at the source. voltaren, the joy of movement.

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>> turn off the volume for this one. it is interesting. how many times have you heard someone say, oh, you can't joke about anything anymore. the world is full of complaints about cancel culture and wokeness. just look at this. fox news was doing a segment about the so-called death of comedy just three hours ago. but no matter what anyone would have you believe, none of this is new. 70 years ago, one comedian complain, americans are losing their sense of humor. he was upset that blackface comedy was suddenly unpopular. during the civil rights movement, one right-wing activist called the marchers a horde of termites from all over the country in a typical demonstration of communist activism.

so about the word communist for a woke, and that quote, you could see in today's headlines. my next guest took a deep dive into the history of all of this for his new book. i'm glad to welcome kliph nesteroff. his book is outrageous, a history of so bs and culture wars. it is a must read. kliph, your book is full of quotes like this from america's past. so why it is so many people can pretend counsel culture is a new thing? it seems like it's part of american culture. >> initially i think it has something to do with political strategy but now that we've all heard this over and over and over, we are led to believe it.

but really it's a good way to demonize people. several years ago on pretty much every election cycle there was a scare tactic that they're gonna take your guns away, don't vote for this person they're gonna take your guns away. and now it's they'll take your jokes away. they take your jokes away. if you vote for this personal take your jokes away. so it's sort of a very effective political strategy, i think. if you look at history, and this is what i talk about in my book, the number of things you were not allowed to say throughout the 20th century in comedy and most of today's most common topics. so for most of the 20th century, right up until 1970, really, you couldn't express sexuality on the stage.

you couldn't criticize religion on the stage. ask david steinberg what happened to him on this mother brothers comedy hour. there was history's hysteria when he did mark sermons and ultimately led to the cancellation of the program. he couldn't criticize foreign policy. he certainly couldn't swear on the stand up stage. many comedians were arrested all throughout the 20th century. may west was arrested and convicted of staging obscene performance for a play she wrote called sex. she spent ten days in a prison workhouse in the late 19 twenties. so if you compare what you could and could not say for most of history on network television on ami fm radio compared to today on streaming services, on cable, on satellite radio, we actually have more freedom of speech in comedy today, not less. but we are constantly told

precisely the opposite. >> you dig into how the outrage we see around these things is north organic and how back then it was created and cultivated, often by right-wing groups and then they weaponized it. so where did it start? >> it's hard to pinpoint the precise start. but the evangelical groups are always sort of involved in this hysteria. and the 19 twenties there is a campaign against jazz music. there is a campaign against dancing, the walls of the takao and all of these things were considered lewd and immoral and there was a campaign against crooning. being crosby's easy stolen singing with caught considered lurid and going to lead to sexual deviancy. religious forces had a lot to do with it in the late 1950s our viewers are familiar with the john birch society and that was the 1958 supposedly an anti communist organization but they really were an anti civil rights organization. they themselves went after comedians. bob new heart, a very innocuous and beloved comic, was denounced by the john birch society as an american because heeded parodies of american history. a phone hall called abraham lincoln. this was considered sacrilege. he was demonized for it. the attack leni bruce and dick gregory for their progressive points of view. they attacked stan freeburg, a

satirist who did a comedy record about american history. and most of this was used as a political strategy to demonize liberal people, to demonize those who were in favor of the civil rights movement. you still see it today and situations like taylor swift being demonized strictly for political purposes, not because of anything that has to do with content. >> so you see what's happening with taylor swift. you see the common thread to what's happening to artists through the years. because she's not doing anything corrupt. what you're talking about them doing, may west, you could argue she was doing provocative things. taylor swift isn't. >> will you know what's funny, i don't know if this is like a special anniversary celebration, but it was 20 years ago at the super bowl that the janet jackson nepal controversy occurred. exactly 20 years ago. and who was responsible for that hysteria? it wasn't general americans

watching the super bowl. it was a guy named brett purcell buttered, and evangelical lobbyist, and created that hysteria, created that groundswell, guarded out there in the media to demonize networks and ultimately led to the fcc fine. and brett brazil, and britain's all speech writer, our speech writer for joe mccarthy -- and his son, iv was arrested for storming the capitol on january six. so you have this incredible family tree of cultural war hysteria that goes back at least to the 1950s so a lot of similarities between taylor swift controversy and janet jackson controversy. >> but doesn't this parallel with the whole idea behind make the grand america great again? it's a crusade against progress and change. >> well certainly. when you look at the demonization of the civil rights movement by some of these groups, like the john birch society, they claim that the civil rights act of 1964 in the voting rights act of 1965 would lead to a communist style tyranny in the united states.

and they scared a lot of people with this tactic. ultimately civil rights one out, but a lot of those same players who started back then are still alive and still trying to claw back those famous acts, claw back affirmative action, and a number of other things. so it's a long game. ultimately in the internet age, as repetition becomes this incredible strategy, it's only become more potent. more people fall for these things because we have a tendency to re-read the same headlines on social media over and over again, whereas in the past we would read it and the newspaper and just read it once we didn't score through the same newspaper over and over, reinforcing these hysterical ideas. >> kliph, extraordinary. brock what a lesson. thank you for joining us. and for you at home, thank you so much for watching. and that note, i wish you all a very good and very safe night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying up late. i'll see you at the end of tomorrow.