>> you see workers in the field. some are jubilant. we have musicians and dancers celebrating. but the future is foretold as well. we see the union troops in each meeting. >> reporter: this is one of almost a dozen pieces on loan from harlem's schomburg center. >> these artworks sit at the nexus of black people recreating themselves. >> reporter: art that tells a story, a statement of newfound freedom. >> this is a legacy that i hope generations of today will be inspired by. >> reporter: a restoration of history bringing it back to the center of american art. >> aly roker and the power of black art, history, enjoy. that will take us off the air tonight. and on that note, i wish you a good evening. i'm symone sanders-townsend, in for stephanie ruhle. she will be back tomorrow night . and you can catch me on saturday and sunday mornings on my new show the weekend.

chicago, they've got a replica coal mine, a full sized fake coal mine that you write caged elevator down into. you get on a train down there, and you ride around in the fake, bizarre, right in the middle of downtown chicago. and that museum, they've togot , actual apollo eight spacecraft, not a replica of it. they've got the real apollo eight module. they've also got this terrifying mirror maze that i can't even look at pictures of without getting my stomach all twisted i up. my edworst nightmare. it's the museum of science and industry in chicago and they have many cool things that you can see, touch, and get inside, and ride around in.

but undoubtedly, the craziest thing they've got there is this, which is a real life german u- boat. it's the only one on display anywhere in the western hemisphere. this is a german submarine thata the u.s. captured during world war ii. german u-boat during world war two riwere absolutely devastating. they sunk thousands of allied ships including lots and lots of american ships. by 1943, the allies had hunter killer task forces assigned to go find u-boats anywhere in the world and think them because they were so dangerous as they were doing so much damage, not just to allied military vessels, but even just merchant ships, everywhere. by 1943, they had hunter killer task force is looking for u- boats everywhere. by 1944, one particular u.s. navy hunter killer task force was able to do an almost impossible thing.

they hunted down a german u-boat . it was called uj 505. they found it and hunted it miles off of the coast of west africa but they did not sink it they captured it. they crippled this thing with depth charges while it was undersea. they then fired on it when it surfaced. they then boarded the sub, american sailors boarded the sub on the high seas. they stop the germans from scuttling that sub, deliberately sinking it. they rescued a german crew that had bailed out. they took them prisoner. and then they took the sub. they towed the german u-boat away. it was edthe first time the u.s had captured an enemy ship on ip the high seas since the war of 1812. and it turns out it was a gold mine, way better to capture it than to just sink it. not only do the allies now have a u-boat they could study so he they could learn its

capabilities, learn how it operated, learn its vulnerabilities, they also got all the stuff that was on board on that german u-boat, including code books. they got code books. they got all these classified german minatare documents. they got german communication equipments, state-of-the-art german communication equipment. they even got a german enigma cipher machine, with all the most up-to-date coding and decoding stuff on it, all of the up-to-date cipher rotors. it was a ton of gold mine that they got on that u-boat. as i mentioned, the crew, the german crew, was taken prisoner. they were held at a p.o.w. camp in louisiana. the sub itself was towed away. they towed it thousands of miles, so it could ultimately be studied by u.s. military ar intelligence. they painted it, though, for that tow across thousands of miles of ocean. they have painted it to look like it wasn't a german u-boat they painted it to look like an

allied sub while they were taking it off to be studied. and they painted it that way, they camouflaged it that way because it had to be a huge secret that the allies had captured this up. they did not want the germans to note that the allies now had its huge intelligence trove, not just the ship itself, but the code books and the enigma machine and the rest of it. for obvious reasons, right? if germany knew that the u.s. had all of the current code books and the current up-to- date enigma machine, they would have changed their codes. so the u.s. did not want germany to know that they had that u-boat. it was not until after germany surrendered in 1935 that the u.s. revealed that we had captured this sub. and then, remarkably, throw a remarkable series of events, only about a decade after the end of the war, that u-boat, u- 505 and it up in chicago of all places, where you today and buy a ticket and go see it. that u-boat is all restored.

you can go inside it. they built a huge purpose built exhibit hall for it. which is an amazing thing. and or, of course, is most often about finding the enemy's shifts, tanks, planes, or submarines so that you can destroy them, take them off the battlefield. f tt but sometimes, one of the most valuable things you can do is not just destroy as many as possible, but see if you can take one, see if you can capture it so you can study it, you can learn how it operates, what its systems are, what its vulnerabilities are, so you can better target similar hardware that your enemy has been using against you in that fight, right? and sometimes, like in the case of this megerman u-boat that yo can see on display at that chicago museum, the value is partially having the sub itself so they can study that sub itself. but equally, it was having what they found inside it when they captured this, capturing something is often much better than killing it, strategically

speaking. in may 1960, the cold war, the soviet union shot down an american high altitude spy plane. it was a plane called the u2. the u.s. had secretly been flying very high altitude spying missions over the soviet union for about four years by that point. but we were denying that we were doing it. on may 1st, 1960, though, when the soviets hit our u-2 with a surface to air missile, they not only were able to capture the pilot, cia pilot named francis garry powers, they were also able to take custody to seize all the pieces of his plane that came down one of the missile hit it. and that gave the soviet union intelligence about americas technological capabilities with these u-2 planes that were able to take pictures of what was going on on the ground from 70,000 feet up in the air. it also gave them a great propaganda victory because it gave them something to put on display.

that soviet union put pieces of francis garry powers's shot ho down u-2 cia spy plane on display in moscow, to show the russian people that the soviet government had been right about the u.s. spying on the, that the u.s. had been spying, and the u.s. had been lying about it. and here, with the parts of this plane to prove it. so, so capturing the enemy's stuff in wartime or even in cold war time, you get that think itself. you potentially get good intelligence from whatever whatr was on board or inside the thing. you also potentially get the propaganda, political benefit, from what you are having the thing can prove to the public. m mostly in wartime, we try to shoot each other's stuff, but there's kind of a golden ticket, if s you can see the otr sides stuff, even if you can see these pieces of the other f side's stuff.

and so it was last summer, august 2023. a russian pilot at the controls of a twin engine am i a russian military helicopter took off from an airfield from kursk airfield in western russia not far from the ukrainian border. and he was supposed to be flying inside russia. he was supposed to be flying replacement parts for russian fighter jets from one russian airfield to another. but instead, he took his cargo of russian fighter jets spare parts, and he flew straight for the flukrainian border. he flew in radio silence. he flew extremely low altitude. he was w reportedly shot, shot the leg by russian forces, as he flew his helicopter across the border into ukraine. but this, apparently, was a , long planned mission, this russian pilot had planned for months. do the fact that ukrainian side. his family had reportedly

already been extracted from russia before he made that fight over the ukrainian border. he landed that russian helicopter in eastern ukraine. he landed in that ukrainian airbase, 80 miles from the border with russia. in so doing, he delivered both himself, a russian pilot, and this russian military chopper to ukraine, and to the ukrainian intelligence, where they made fast work of making the most of it. this was stdavid axis reporting on it at the time for ford's. he said the imheadline there, t mi8 is one of russia's best assault helicopter, a defector just flew one into ukraine. quote, russia just unwittingly donated to ukraine and up armored mi8 transport helicopter. now, russia first tried to say that the pilot must have gotten lost. they called it a navigational error. but then, within a couple of weeks, that was very profoundly disproven when, oh, there he

is, at a press conference in kyiv, in ukraine, expressed in the conference alongside the ukrainian officials that he had defected to the ukrainian months -- [inaudible] about his country invading ukraine and starting this war. so when he defected, they got him, including the value of him speaking about why he defected. they got his up armored assault helicopter, and they got it reportedly with a bunch of spare fighter jet parts that have been loaded on to it. fighter jet parts that actually fit the kinds of fighter jets that ukraine uses, so this was very helpful. but having this russian military pilot, right, and all he knows, and just the fact of him to show tthe world, yeah, the helicopter is one thing, but he was a big part of what they gained there too.

today, multiple news agencies are reporting that that pilot has been found dead, shot to death, seriously, in a parking garage in a town in coastal spin spain. now, nbc news hasn't verified these reports, so i'm bringing news at this point we can only attribute to other news agencies. again, we cannot verify these reports ourselves. but if these reports turn out to be true, as the guardian he was paper in london puts it today, quote, the finger of blame is likely to point to the kremlin. and that's because the kremlin does stuff like this all the time. ml in 2006, russian intelligence agents used radioactive polonium to assassinate a russian dissident named alexander. they put the polonium in a pot of tea when they met with him in a restaurant in london.

in 2018, russian military intelligence siagents used a proprietary russian military nerve agent to try to assassinate another russian ia defector in salisbury, england. they did not quite kill him, but they did kill a british innocent bystander who mistakenly handled the poison. in 2019, another russian intelligence officer murdered at chechen russian dissidents in broad daylight in a park in downtown a berlin right nearby h the german chancellor's office. he rode up to him on a bicycle in apart, shot him dead. in february 2020, russia even tried it , in the united states a russian effort to assassinate a former high ranking russian intelligence official in miami, after he became an informant for the u.s. government. that assassination plot on u.s. soil was only foiled by the arrest of that guy who was set to surveil the target before he could convict his location back to his fsb handler. and now, the russian pilot who

flew that helicopter, that russian helicopter, over the russian border into ukraine and landed it, saying he was troubled by his country, russia, having invaded ukraine. and he and his helicopter were now being put in ukrainian hands. w and they kill these guys in germany and at least two assassination attempts in the uk . they have similarly tried it in the united states. maybe now they've done it again in spain. who cares? they will do it anywhere. if you are a dissident in russia, if you effect from russia, if you turn against putin in russia, it doesn't matter if you no longer in russia, he will send assassination teams anywhere in the world and hunch. hunt you. so there's a clear message heree obviously, right? don't be a russian dissident anywhere in that world. at least, that is the very clear message from putin. the message from the rest of the

world, of course, is do please be a russian dissident because the world needs you to. because vladimir putin, now in his 25th year in power, is not someone for whom his ambitions or the damage he is willing to impose wiour things confined by russia's borders. he operates anywhere in the world, doing whatever he wants. it's like he can't try any harder to make clear that this is -- this is a whole world - problem now. let me show you part of a report that richard engel aired tonight on nbc nightly news. watch this. >> reporter: the ukrainians broadcast warnings, telling russian troops to stop shelling at that risk of a nuclear disaster. ll the warnings went unheeded. russian troops occupied the plant and that territory around

it. ukrainian forces held on to the far onbank of the dnieper river, leaving the nuclear power station right on the front line. two years on, the international a thomas energy agency, which has inspectors at the plant, is sounding the alarm. >> it's responsible for nuclear security all around the world. is it is that most dangerous nuclear facility on the planet right now? >> it's the most dangerous situation that we have. it's my job not to, you know, so panicked. but at the same time, i have to tell the truth of what's happening. >> reporter: nuclear experts point to three main dangers. first, a military strike on the plant, either accidental or deliberate. second, a power cut. the plant six uranium reactors require electricity for cooling. but ukrainian officials say three of the four power lines are damaged and the fourth is i faulty. they have already been eight

blackouts as recently as december. >> utwhen you have a blackout, the cooling function of that reactors is lost and you could have a meltdown. >> reporter: and finally, it is understaffed. ukrainians say the russians have been abusing employees. 11,000 people who worked at the plant before. only 4000 or there now. irena is responsible for radiation detection for that ukrainian government. our office predicts how if there was a meltdown, a cloud of radioactive particles would spread across much of ukraine and spneighboring countries. >> this is istanbul right here, the ghcity of istanbul. contaminated the entire city of istanbul on the black sea. it is a catastrophe, a total catastrophe. >> reporter: she says the fallout would last up to 100 years. >> a nuclear disaster here would be felt around the world and leave large parts of ukraine and beyond uninhabitable.

that is nbc richard engel reporting tonight on nbc nightln news. and if you remember, we heard a lot about that zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest nuclear power plant in your, at the start of russia's invasion of ukraine. now, two years into russia's invasion of ukraine, with russian troops there, 7000 of 11,000 people it takes to safely run that reactor are gone. they are having regular blackouts. they are allegedly torturing some of the remaining people who tuare there, trying to keep that thing from melting down, t fukushima style. that is part of what putin is bringing oto bear on the rest the world tright now. you may also have seen that news just a few days ago with what started off as a cryptic warning from the intelligence committee in the house and its i republican chairman about some kind of great, new national security threat from russia that the american government needs to be addressing and talking to congress about. it started off with that cryptic

letter from the house intelligence committee chairman. it cwas soon reported all over the place that that point of concern was russia developing a new nuclear capability that they would deploy in space, a nuclear weapon, they have thousands of nuclear weapons just s like we do, except this one would be put into orbit around the earth, so it could strategically be detonated to wipe out satellites orbiting the planet, which would have the effect down here ulon earth of wiping out not only communications technology, but navigation, and military capabilities, like missile defense. that new york times summed it up nlike this, quote, global communication systems would fail, making everything from emergency services to sell phones, to the regulation of generators and pubs go awry. quote, debris from the explosion would scattered throughout lower orbit and make navigation difficult if not

impossible from everything from starlink satellites to internet complications to spy satellites. so, here's the game plan, right? we will assassinate our enemies anywhere on earth, including in western europe and even the united states, by any means we choose, including by the use of military nerve agents that we will dump willingly in civilian areas, that's killing by standards. t we will bring out war inside the gates of one of the world's largest active nuclear plants, threatening a continent wide century-long radiation disaster, and no one and nothing is allowed to protect that site. we'll do what we want with it. and we anwill put nuclear weapo in orbit around the earth for the first time in human history, so we have the power to knock out, not just your gps and your cell phones, but your emergency systems and your power grids and your water systems and everything else. oh, and we s will invite georgi

in 2008, inukraine in 2014, ukraine again in 2022. look at your back into the gain of a large land wars for the first time since world war ii. l at the munich security conference this weekend in germany, nato secretary general shared a new nato intelligence. he repeatedly shared new nato intelligence that they believe what putin intends to do next is try and attack one of the smaller nato countries on its border. na estonia, latvia, lithuania, the baltic states, all nato members, new nato intelligence says that putin's inext designs are on o of them. if he indeed x one of them, which nato now says he's planning on, that would bring russia into war with all 31 countries that are part of the nato tralliance, which includes little country called the united states of america. there is not another entity like this on earth. there is not another country on earth that is doing anything

like this. there is not another leader on earth that is doing anything like this. and so, what do we do about it? what do we, the united states, do about it? what does that world do about it? this is what the russian embassy in london looks like in normal times on a normal day. this is what it looked like this weekend. your e right side of screen, that's twhat it looked like this weekend after putin killed russia's charismatic, creative opposition leader alexei navalny at the age of 47 at a siberian e prison camp. at the russian prison, they projected this image of navalny onto the side of the building. it takes the whole side of the russian embassy. ba the russian embassy, russian embassies all over the world, this weekend, in eastern, western europe, as far away as india, at the russian consulate in new york, the russian embassy in d.c., people left flowers and signs in alexei

navalny's name. inside russia, anybody leaving flowers or leaving signs or even just showing up in public to pay their respects, for most of the weekend, they got beaten up and hold off by police, hundreds of people. ea they were arrested this weekend for laying flowers in public, for holding a sign with navalny's name on it. in memunich at that internation munich security conference, right after vice president harris spoke ceabout the need f the world to help ukraine defend itself against this now two-year-long russian invasion. alexei navalny's widow -- excuse me, his widow appeared without announcement after vice president harris spoke. she appeared to everyone's surprise, making unannounced remarks, asking the world to stand up, stand together to fight against the putin regime

and russia. then this weekend, she posted this stunning, straight to camera video in russian, saying she is not afraid and that she will carry on her husband's work . she said that will stop by naming and showing that faces soon off that people who carried out the murder of her husband at that prison camp. she said people do not to be afraid, they need to do everything they can to fight against putin's regime. and, of course, we have to wonder if she is now marking herself for death as well, by stepping forward into that kind of a role, now that her husband has been killed for it. in the whole world needs for there to be russian dissidents because the world needs for russia to change. the whole world needs for there to be russian dissidents and needs for them to not only survive, but ultimately to win

because of the incredible threat that -- increasing threat, and increasingly aggressive and unconstrained threat that putin poses to the rest of the world as long as he remains in charge of russia. but how do we get that? here in the united states, we have that leader of the republican party trying to return to the white house, saying, quote, i would sa encourage them, and i would encourage russia, to do whatever the hell they want to our allies. it's just before russia killed navalny. he has made one comment about navalny's death, not until today, saying online today that it was a, quote, sudden death, and not lamenting at all. he'll be running for the white house this fall against incumbent administration which is trying to continue the life or death support that we have been providing in the country, russia has invaded, which is trying to maintain a global

coalition to pressure russia and putin, which is trying to act in the interests of russia's brave -- and until now, basically, invariably doomed dissidents. as putin kills them one by one without consequences, at home and anywhere in esthe world. what else can they do? n what else can we do as a country, literally, what else can you do? a very small but surprising silver lining may have just emerged on us. and that's next. so stay with us. 's next. so stay with us. face, hands, and feet called tardive dyskinesia, or td. so his doctor prescribed austedo xr— a once-daily td treatment for adults. ♪as you go with austedo♪ austedo xr significantly reduced dan's td movements. some people saw a response as early as 2 weeks.

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i want you to know that the white house gave us information today. it's going to remain in close contact with leaders in congress on the issue and it will be dealt with. steady hands at the wheel, the united states can't rely on other nations to handle matters like this. we must do it ourselves and we will. >> the bottom line is we all came away with a very strong impression that the administration is taking this very seriously and that the administration has a plan in place. we look forward to supporting them as they go to implement it. but in the interim, i have got great faith in what the administration is currently doing to address this matter. and i appreciate the support and the working relationship on a bipartisan basis i have with my members. >> you are not hallucinating. that was two senior

republicans, including that speaker of the house, mike johnson, praising the biden administration, saying how much they trust them and value them to deal with what was first reported last week as an emerging national security threat of russia trying to put satellite killer nuclear weapons in orbit around the earth, outer space. for this unbelievably partisan and dysfunctional republican congress to have senior leaders praising the biden administration on a national security issue related to russia is perhaps the tiniest, teeny, tiny, teeny tiny silver linings of hope that maybe the u.s. government as a whole might be able to get it together to stand up to putin on at least some things. in the wake of not only two years of war in ukraine, but now the murder of russian opposition leader alexei navalny. i'll take it. joining us now is a pulitzer prize-winning author, staff writer for the atlantic, and applebaum. she just returned from the

munich security conference with leaders from all over the world gathered when news broke about navalny's death. miss applebaum, great to see you. thanks for being here tonight. >> thank you. >> first, let me just ask you, i know you were at munich when news about navalny's death was announced. what went through your mind? how did everyone react? it must have been an amazing and awful thing? >> i share the feeling that i've heard a lot of russians say in the last day or two, which is , you know, you feel like the future has been stolen. you know, navalny represented in the idea of a different russia, you know, that russia could be a different kind of place. you know, different kinds of people could rule it. it wouldn't be a threat to the world. it wouldn't be a backer of iran, and north korea. it would not be invading ukraine. and what putin is trying to do by killing people like navalny's destroy that hope, to give people the feeling that there is nothing we could do.

putin is inevitable and autocracy remains. and it's really, really important that his wife has now stood up to say, i will do that . i will try to be the person who gives you that hope, who makes you believe that something could be different because if no one believes it could be different, then it will never be. >> how do russians see yulia navalnaya? and, i mean, as an american who's followed this throughout her career, who was gutted by the news of his killing, i feel like i've been aware of them as a force together and i've been aware of the way they've been able and willing, remarkably, to put their family and their relationship in the public eye despite the threats to him. how do the russians view her? the first thing i thought when i saw her give that direct camera -- those video remarks this weekend, i felt she was marking herself as a target, just after her husband was killed for

doing exactly this. >> so she's made a point, actually, of not speaking much in public. you know, she decided that her role was to support him and be the person who gave him the strength to do what he did. you know, obviously, she's now a made in this decision to shift . it is extremely painful, difficult for her. i did see her privately at munich, and she is like, you know, an ice statue. she's, you know, frozen and horrified. but she understands that what he did, which was so important, was that he modeled civic courage by deciding to go back to russia. he was famously poisoned in russia. he left the country. he was secured. he made a decision to go back. he went back with her and he went back to show russians that there is such a thing as bravery and this society is trying to kill of bravery. and i think she understands that and she's now trying to be that person as well. >> what can the u.s. government do that we are not already doing to support bravery like

that? and to help them in their cause. >> first of all, we can win the war. the war in ukraine is a war of a democratic state against russia. it is also the war of the democratic world against russia, ukraine at this spectacular coalition of 50 countries. europeans are giving more money to russia -- to ukraine to aid in the war than we are. yet, we aren't strangely divided about it. we have allowed a very small minority of republicans inspired by the former president, to block that aid, and that's giving putin this inspiration, this feeling that he can go farther. it may even be why he killed navalny, just to show that he can. look, i don't care what any of you do, i'm going to keep going. we can enforce our sanctions. we have sanctioned russia. we have, you know, put out dozens, dozens of export control, all kinds of things. but we do very little to enforce it. if we were serious about winning this war, you know, we

would have thousands of people working on sanctions, thousands of people, not a few guys at the treasury department. you know, a few policeman here and there we, would be taking this seriously. you know, there are two ways this war can end, excuse me, one way this war can end. the war ends when russia leaves ukraine but that's not just, that means that the point is not we need to help ukraine, but the point is to defeat russia. and we have many different spheres in which we can defeat russia, political, military, economic. and i just don't feel that we have taken it really seriously yet. >> staff writer for the atlantic, pulitzer prize winner anne applebaum, thanks very much for making the time. difficult subject and i'm lucky to be able to talk with you about it. thank you. all right, we've got much more here ahead tonight. stay with us. uch more here ahead tonight. stay with us. shed there was a o 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!

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i'm katie porter and i approve this message. for years now, for more than a decade, democrats in that state of wisconsin have been trying to level the playing field in wisconsin politics. even when wisconsin democrats have won statewide in recent years, turf-ing out the republican governor, scott walker, for example in 2018, even when wisconsin democrats have gotten way more votes for state assembly, say, in 2018 when they got 54% of state assembly votes. even when they've been out voting, republicans, that

clearly democrats have been getting way less when it comes to seats in the state legislature. in that 2018 race, democrats want the total vote for state assembly by a margin of more than 200,000 votes. but republicans still got more seats. democrats won 54% of the votes for state assembly, but that 54% of the vote only earned them 36% of the states. ever since wisconsin republicans got control of the state government in 2010, they have redrawn the political maps, the state legislature, the congressional maps, so that republicans effectively can't be voted out of power, so they can win more seats for wisconsin, despite getting fewer votes from wisconsin. i mean, in wisconsin, it is that democrats who have won 14 out of 17 of the last statewide elections. but republicans consistently win more seats even though they've got fewer votes. the state consistently votes overall for democrats most

recently in that 2022 election. but republicans nevertheless got nearly two thirds of seats in the state assembly and a full two thirds of the seats in the state senate. for the past 13 years in wisconsin, the bottom line is that democrats can basically win as many votes as they want, but those votes will not put them into power in that state. and for years, wisconsin democrats have been trying to fix that. they've been trying to level the playing field, again, so that what people vote for is what they get in terms of state government. and in 2017, wisconsin democrats brought a legal challenge to their republican drawn maps, all the way up to the supreme court. but that got swatted down. in 2022, following his reelection, democratic governor tony evers was able to push through revised maps, not quite not gerrymandered, but a step in a less gerrymandered direction. the u.s. supreme court threw those out too.

finally, it was what happened last year that changed the course in wisconsin. after doggett campaigning and organizing by the democrats, wisconsin voters elected a new liberal judge to the wisconsin supreme court. and that effectively flipped control of the court to the liberals. and wisconsin voters then filed a new lawsuit arguing that the republican maps or illegal. the states supreme court agreed, and they ordered new maps for wisconsin, new, fair, on gerrymandered maps that met the playing field would not be tilted in either parties direction. today, just today, 13 years after this all started, governor evers has signed a new state maps into law, maps that will effectively end republican gerrymandering and give equal party a fair shot at trying to control the legislature in that state. it took 13 years of

perseverance by wisconsin democrats. but those old unbelievably outrageous republican maps are finally gone, which means when republicans or democratic voters go to the polls in wisconsin, however they vote will now be reflected in their state government. shocking, i know. for now, these maps apply just to the state legislature. on the congressional level, it is still about way it was. there is a fairly evenly split electorate in wisconsin. it is a purple state. but even so because of the congressional maps are still gerrymandered under the old system of the eight seats that wisconsin has in congress, six of them are held by republicans. now, the wisconsin supreme court has not yet decided whether they will take up that legal challenge to the congressional maps as well as that legislative maps that they just took a challenge for. you can expect that to be the next battle and you can expect wisconsin democrats to fight

hard for that as they have for these past 13 years. still, though, take a moment to recognize what a victory this is in wisconsin, a victory not for capital d democrats per se, but for small d democracy. a victory out of perseverance, organizing, and dedication. the chair of the democratic party in wisconsin is going to be on the floor with lawrence o'donnell next hour to talk about what it took to win this fight and how it can be a model for the nation. that news out of with conson today is also a good reminder about the many democratic victories in the state recently. democrats in the biden era really do keep winning in election after election after election. consider pennsylvania, kind of a case study, pennsylvania just held a special election for an open house seat in the state. in 2020, this is at district that joe biden won by 11 points. but in a special election last week, that democrat in that race not only won, he beat that republican by 35 points.

in that past here, there have been six special elections in pennsylvania. democrats have won six out of that six. democrats also won last week in new york. they flipped the congressional seat that once belonged to republican congressman george santos. it's an increasingly red district, everybody's been saying. but the democrat won that race. and, yeah, you can read that as a democratic party victory. for sure, and that democrats deserve credit their. but look also at the republican party response to that victory. steve bannon, senior adviser to donald trump, very influential right-wing podcast or now. he's now saying publicly that that new york special election was rigged for the democrats. he says, quote, they stole this election in new york. so we are in this era now where we have one party competing to win elections, persevering year after year after year after year to win in a democratic system, level the playing field

to compete and win. they're doing very well at it in the biden era, working their hearts out in a small the democratic way. but they are working against an opponent that doesn't want elections to determine who gets to be in political power anymore in that united states. but what do you do about that? how do you win that democratic fight with an opponent that doesn't want a democracy to be the way we solve that problem. we're gonna get expert help on that, next. stay with us. that, next. stay with us. ♪ i'm gonna hold you forever... ♪ ♪ i'll be there... ♪ ♪ you don't... ♪ ♪ you don't have to worry... ♪

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you said, quote, i won't take a penny from these donations. and, quote, i am taking nothing! zero. and, quote, it's not possible to steal the money. those were the promises made by a crowd sourced campaign to build a trump border wall with donations on gofundme. it started in december 2018. by august 2020, four leaders of that build the wall thing had been federally indicted for fraud. three of the four ended up convicted and sentenced to prison. and the fourth is trump aide steve bannon who got a federal pardon from his former boss on his last day in office. although i should mention that bannon now faces state charges basically for the same fraud in new york state. on friday, a new york judge ordered trump himself to pay more than 400 and $50 million including interest in a civil fraud case involving his real estate businesses. don't worry, if that sounds like a lot of money, and you

gofundme campaign has raised half 1 million dollars already to help the former president to that end. more than $27 million and trump campaign fundraising went to his legal fees just in the last half of last year alone. now, trump is working to put his own people in charge of that national republican party. some senior republicans are worried he will end up tapping the republican party as well. the prospect tonight, though, is the idea that it will be a foreign government, some sort of foreign entity, perhaps even a hostile one that could decide this. how could that fit with trump's announced plans for a second term and for his strongman style of promised governance? our next guest studies the relationship between corruption and foreign influence being openly bought between those perils and the idea of authoritarian governance. ruth ben-ghiat is a professor of history at nyu. she's the author of an essential book on authoritarianism called

strongmen: from mussolini to the present. ruth, pleasure to have you here. thanks so much for joining us. >> it's a pleasure. >> the prospect of massive foreign support for a president who is in serious financial trouble feels like a very singular thing that we have never faced before in the united states. but that way you write about money and corruption in relation to authoritarianism in your book makes me think that this is not something necessarily that should be seen in a solution to trump here, but maybe should be seen as a larger part of the authoritarian project. >> yes, exactly. trump is what we call a person who -- meaning he personalizes his politics. and holding public office or running for office in this case, the goal of it is -- and the party and government agencies, they're supposed to solve the leader's personal, legal, and financial problems.

so holding office is a mechanism of self enrichment. and so, it's a campaign in this case. and trump in that sense is very similar to other authoritarians , and at its most extreme, putin's russia, you have kleptocracy. but what we have here is a party mechanism, donald trump is saying everything has to go to the rnc and donors, electing trump and solving his financial problems. and sadly and disgracefully, the rnc was already doing this. it is incredible, rachel, that a whole year after the 2020 election, the rnc was paying trump's personal legal bills. and so, this is an example of the personalization of power where there is no division or recognition of the difference between the public and private. and so, when trump says openly that he received, you know,

millions of chinese to his businesses while he was president for, quote, services, and he says this openly, he is telling you that he erased that conception of power. >> does it have to work only on his supporters so that they will give him their own money? or does it also have to work in such a way that, as you say, even foreign money, even obviously corrupting foreign influence funneled as money to the leader personally has to be made into a political virtue as well. >> yes, yes. it has to be both. and the key here is the republican party that is a linchpin of this. it is a willing accomplice to trump's, you know, financial corruption. and, you know, it was okay with him, you know, hiring his

family, jared kushner in power. and is not doing anything to stand up for the division between personal and political indeed is embracing this kind of authoritarian leader cult where trump can do whatever he says, and says that putin can do whatever he says as well. so it can be hard for americans to understand because it is a completely proprietary vision of power, that everything is for your taking, everything is yours. there is a kind of megalomania. and that's how you could end up with highly classified government documents in the bathroom of your private residence and think it's okay to say that the chinese gave my businesses millions of dollars for, quote, services. most people who are democrats would not say such things. but for trump, it is a boast. and this is why he admires xi jinping and putin because they

get away with things like that. it's been very open the corruption, and corruption is institutionalized. and that's what he would like america to be like, if he comes back to the white house. >> ruth ben-ghiat is a professor of history at new york university, the author of strongmen: mussolini to the present. ruth, thank you for talking to us tonight. i appreciate you being here. >> thank you. of course, that route and branch of all american anti corruption protections has always been about transparency's, and the idea that you show it, therefore you create shame, political backlash towards those who would try to get away with something like this. and that effectively polices itself. when transparency doesn't work because there is no shame and there's a fact pride in doing it, we do need a new tool box. that's going to do it for us tonight. i'm gonna see you again it is a weekend, saturday night, 6:30 pm eastern. i would be part of our special coverage of the south carolina republican primary again, 6:30