increase in worker productivity, workers should benefit from these changes. >> senator bernie sanders, a pleasure, sir. >> thank you on the economic prospects, first saw a day when the prime problem of american capitalism would be leisure. what to do with all the leisure time. we would just be sitting around. but it didn't work out that way. that is all in this wednesday night. alex starts now. wednesday night. alex starts now.

come to light. democrats were promising a new direction for the war, and to make their case they'd just nominated a decorated war veteran to be their nominee, a man who'd been awarded the silver star, the bronze star, and three purple hearts for valor in combat. >> thank you i'm -- i'm john kerry, and i'm reporting for duty >> senator john kerry made his military service in vietnam a central part of his campaign for president that year. in the weeks after he accepted the democratic nomination, kerry consistently led the incumbent, president george w. bush, in the but then in august everything changed.in that was when these campaign ads startedca airing. >> i served with john kerry.

>> i served with john kerry. >> john kerry has not been honest about what happened in vietnam. >> he is lying about his record. >> it's a central image of john kerry'sl campaign, the candida literally wrapping his arms around his vietnam teammates. now republicans are challenging kerry's war effort with a tv ad featuring other vietnam veterans none of whom served on kerry's boat, saying kerry did not help veteran. >> they were one of the most impactful and dishonest campaigns in presidential history. for weeks p the national news covered this story, comparing different accounts rof john di kerry's war record. eventually it was revealed the swift vote stories of senator kerry did not o line up with official nerecord, but by that pointd, the damage had been don. theee ads had aired across multiple swing states. president bush opened up a wide

lead in the polls and kerry's campaign never recovered. the phrase swift voting has since become a verb used to describe untrue and unfair political attacks. but the imfact of that ad, the impact of that campaign went well beyond electing george w. bush and our political lexicon because the people behind that campaign continued to test thei boundaries of american t politi and o shape them for years to come. among the top contributors to the swift campaign were people like bob perry, instrumental in turning the evangelical movement into a conservative base. also harlan crow, a man that's been in the news recently because of his lavish patronage with clarence thomas that includes lavish plane flights and questionable real estate purchases. to the central players in the swift affair were these men, john o'neal and they coauthored

the book unfit for command. that would became the main force for the false and misleading accusations against senatormi kerry. john o'neal became the director ofbe the most conservative movement most prominent anti-islamen groups, the david horowitz freedom center which focuses on allies to destroy american values. jerome corse went onto become one ofen the leading componentsf the perther conspiracy which went to claim barack obama was not born in the united states. he later went onto become bureau chief for the foe wars. of all the conservatives in the swift vote smear there's one man credit under being its mastermind. as new york magazine puts it it was him who turned their fringe allegations into a campaign funded by millions of dollars in

shadowy contributions. where is chris today? where is she? well, he's running pretty much everything. chris currently serves as donald trump's top political advisor. he has been described as the campaign's de facto campaign manager. he was the brains behind the trump campaign's efforts to smother ron desantis' presidential campaign while it was still in its infancy. and now in addition to his prominent role on that trump campaign, hele has a new job, leading trump's takeover of the republican national committee. according to "the washington post" e.trump's team led by chr the senior leadership has been almost entirely replaced or reassigned while dozens of low ranking officials d including state directors were either fired or told to rep apply for

their jobs. the firings were done by lacivida. one is lawyer christina bob, a lawyer for oan and an outspoken election denier. christina bobb will now be the republican party's senior counsel for election integrity. election integrity being the right's preferred vehicle for engaging ind voter intimidatio and claims of voter fraud. those are some of the changes we know of at this moment, but what does it mean really quite practically that the guy behind the swift vote smears is now running another presidential campaign? new york magazine suggests his pastaz filled with trickeries a lies provides a template how he will go after joe biden and the tms, not by attacking what is perceived as joe biden's weaknesses, but his strengths. joining me now is michael sher

of the washington post who reported that takeover and co-host of the weekend michael steele. gentlemen, it's greatic to have you here. michael steel, let me ask you about the appointment of chris lacavita, and what do you think the effect will beta on the tru campaign as we enter the general election? >> it's less a practical effect on the trump campaign, but the practical effect the trump campaign has on everything else. and it isn the shock and awe. it is the idea of creating damage that will come in short bursts and longer bursts that cannot be contained. it is an asymmetrical political game, which i've been telling folks these guys have been playing for the last six or

seven years. and now it will come to fruition in this cycle because it all matterse right now. itri all has to work right now because when they get the power back, that's how the rest is done. so lacavita going to the rnc is ag way to have him straddle tw universes, have his campaign diminished obviously because of law, but rements by also having his ear and his hands on the levers of power inside the republican national committee to make sure that the money, the structure, the infrastructure, the e organization, and most essentially, which is what the firings were about, the personnel -- the people are doing exactly what the design is. and that design, again, asymmetrical, means that you don't know that it's going to be the same tomorrow that it is

today, and that's one of the strengths the swift voting showed and what we've seen from trump particularly in this'v election cycle. this is not 2016, folks, and it's, not even 2020, trust me. >> yeah, and i want to get back to that, but the importance of what's happening atha the rnc, michael, which you reported on. so hopefully today is the blood letting has been swift, and it has been s vicious, and it is effectively it sounds like trump at ally costs. i understand that from the perspective of donald trump and to some degree chris lacavita, but what about the republican party? not everyone has the last name trump and what are the implications here for t other republicans running this year? >> i think there's two things to know, it is a far more competent campaign than we saw in either 2016 or 2020. it's top down, it's organized. they have a plan, they know what they're doing. there's not the personnel

turnover we solat least in the last cycles so far. they went through very smoothly. chris with suzy wiles has been a key part of that. his or her a combatant, he wants to be in the fight and fighting hard i think you've seen in the style how he's taken over the rnc. it's normal for a nominee or presumptive nominee to take over the national party at this point, but chris lacavita went in and cleared the house in a dramatic way, made a lot of people in the building upset. there is concern as you mentioned there about down ballot republicans having the same benefits. one of the things he did is he's closing community centers in some communities and reassigning that money and that effort to be more focused on trump. now, lacavita will say trump is at the top of the ticket. i think what we don't know is

how it's going to affect at the state level, and we'll see how the senate and house campaigns come along with that. >> i want to talk about ending that early voting outreach, that seems like something you might not want to do, and yet it's absolutely in, line with what republicans have been advocating under the sort of banner of donald trump for several years now. michael, how much is that about --h sorry, michael steel. >> sorry, michael. yeah, it's all of that. put everything behind winning the presidency. okay, so you're going to let governors hang out, what about governorsut in purple states, wt about candidates in purple districts? how do they navigate ataxic candidate at the top of the ticket like donald trump, where you know that candidate is going to needt democratic and voters to support them, but now all the focus and emphasis is on trump.

so whats do you think and who you think those candidates are going toe be talking about? and so it is -- it is a strategy about one person because that's how donald trump wants it to be. that's why his daughter-in-law is running in the rnc. that's why watly was picked to run the rnc. the other side of this scenario, folks,ce is that when trump los this election, all right, or if trump loses this election, you're going to have the same narrative around stolen election, riggedelection, and he'll have the bodies in place to prosecute that case better and more effectively from that point forward, which he did not have the last time because oh, i don't know people actually the constitutional oath they took and their responsibility to the country to uphold the election results. and that got in the way.

trump has largely cleared the way. and the costy will be to the r and tobe candidates running acrs the country in various state races and statewide races to find the instruct they need to bend successful. because if it ain't about trump, it certainly won't be about them. >> michael steele makes a great point when you're talking about election integrity, i said earlier that is about voter intimidation, but it is an insurance policy against a lost election, which is we can claim voter fraud and now he has the ambassadors, if you will, in place, christina bobb chief among them at the rnc. can you give me what the election integritiy efforts on a practical matter might entail or the expectations christina bobb is going to be an effective general on that front. >> i think christina is going to be a fun person on that front.

and she'll be on tv a lot, speaking to the v base, and carrying the president's message. we know for three years now any election he's not performing well inti is a fraud. up to the election day and after the election day. upft to the election day republicans feel they were just wiped out in questions of early voting, lots of changes about signature verification, changes about voter i.d. they want to re -- there's not much time left, but the rnc wants to go backbu in and relitigate that stuff. there was actually a lawsuit filed today in michigan in which the rnc is asking the state of michigan to clear their voter rolls because they say there's too manyvo old names on those voteres rolls. and interestingly they brought in a guy named charlie spieth, one of the most rrpted electiond lawyers, the guy behind jeb

bush's super pac, mit romney's super pac. and he's being brought ipbecause they believe he actually knows how to h do this well. whereas i think christina bobb she's well-known among the base, good on tv, but i don't think she's going to be the legal mind behindga the scenes deciding ho to prosecute this. >>cu i will leave everybody wita quote from the new york magazine analysis here. in 2016 trump's campaign was a totally shamca balk operation. by 2020 you had a more professional and now we get to see what happens when you bring in somens of thomost shrewd, calculating and ruthless operators in the party. an experiment on the national stage. the two michaels, thank you for your time tonight, guys. we have much more ahead tonight including how are you going to learn the moves for

beyonce's texas hold em dance if congress bans tiktok? and what are the implications for american politics if that communication line goes dead? first, the fulton county district attorney's f sprawling election interference case just got a little more narrow. we're going tole talk about tha and what it means for donald trump with melissa redman, the former fulton county district attorney coming up next. ton cou attorney coming up next. shipstation saves us so much time

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so, look, all i want to do is this. i just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state. >> i just want to find 11,780 votes, just enough to overturn

the georgia 2020 election results. that was the now notorious january 2021 phone call between president donald trump and georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger. there's also a central part of the sprawling election conspiracy case brought by the election fani willis. today that case got a little less sprawling when judge mcafee dismissed 6 of the 41 counts citing lack of detail and one of the accounts is one that specifically calls out trump and his chief of staff mark meadows for that january 2nd call to brad raffensperger. this doesn't mean trump is out of the woods legally speaking. 35 of those 41 criminal counts are very much intact, but all of this is happening as we await judge mcafee's ruling whether or not d.a. willis will be disqualified from her own case. the judge has said he hopes to rule on that matter by friday. melissa redman joins me now.

a former fulton county deputy aattorney and a professor at the georgia school of law. melissa, thank you so much for joining me tonight. i am really eager to get your professional opinion on whether these charges, these counts seemed overly broad or lacking definition in your mind when they were first charged? does mcafee's dismissal seem unusual to you? >> it is a bit unusual in that those are filed very often in criminal cases and so basically the defense has to show the crime has not been alleged with enough specificity for them to be put on notice for what they have to defend against. and so for these defenses, all of which involve solicitation of violation of the oath of office by a public official, there's not enough information in the oath for the state to allege how a particular conduct violated a

particular term of the oath. so officials in georgia have different oaths. and it just so happened the oath taken by the house of representatives and senators in georgia as well as the secretaries of state is very broad and alleges you will support the constitution of the state and the state of georgia, which means all the terms and articles they would have to show or put in the indictment each one of those asking for the alternate slate of electors to be appointed or for the folks to be found, which one of those clauses, that conduct violated such that these people were being asked about their terms of their oath of office. >> you know far more about this than me, but it just seems like upholding the state constitution

would present election fraud, right, asking someone to find the votes to overturn the results of the election seems like asking someone to violate their oath of office. but i am not a lawyer and i've not worked for the state of georgia, so i understand there are some legal underpinnings to all of that. i do wonder if you think d.a. willis tenacious like few other people on the national stage. and i wonder if you think she's going to let these go in the name of keeping this case already delayed and way laid, on track, or fight some of this with mcafee on these other charges? >> i think it depends on the evidence they have. and of course we don't have the full copy of the evidence provided to the defense. so the defense is on notice, but they would have to actually allege that in the indictment. and whether she will be able to do that would govern her

decision of whether to appeal judge mcafee, who has indicated in his order that if she asks for a certificate of immediate review, he will grant it. however, the thing about rico prosecutors love and these attorneys hate is you really don't need the counts in this indictment, for her to proceed on the exact same case without proving those substantive offenses. i actually don't think she will appeal. i think she may just be willing to let those counts go and just move forward with the rico and using that conduct as overt acts, and she still would be allowed to do that. >> yeah, the sort of substance of the power of that broader case remains very much instakt. trump is not out of legal hot water by any stretch of the imagination, but then there's looming question we're supposed to get resolution to friday, which is does d.a. fani willis stay on this case? do you read anything -- i know judges aren't supposed to be political, but it seems clear

politics is very much on the horizon here, and i wonder if you read anything into judge mcafee's decision to sort of give a few points to trump, if you will, on the dismissal of these counts with the expectation he may be handing a win to fani willis on friday by allowing her to stay in the case. is that me just wearing a tinfoil hat hat on all ofts this, or could there be jumitt maes. >> >> if you think about how the case is playing out, all the motions that have been filed, and they're kind of slowly working their way through hearing those motions, and this actually wasn't the only motion to dismiss. there are other motions to dismiss various counts still pending judge mcafee has to rule on. so it looks to me he's methodically going through the case and the hearings that he tailed, the supplemental brief submitted by each party after the hearing and orders after he gets to them. this particular motion was held i want to say a couple weeks

before the motion to disqualify, so it makes sense he's kind of going through and issuing the orders as he gets to those motions, but i don't think we can tell one way or the other what that indicates as far as he intends to rule on the motion to disqualify other than i do believe if he's willing to grant a certificate of immediate review for this, that may indicate his willingness to have these issues resolved before the case goes to trial. so whichever way he rules on the motion to dismiss, perhaps he will also be willing to give either side certificate of immediate review, which will further delay the case. so i think the only thing we can read is that it is very unlikely this case is going to be tried this year. >> melissa redman, keeping me in line and giving us the hard truth about what is happening. thank you so much for your time and wisdom tonight. really appreciate you. >> thank you.

we have more ahead this hour including what hung dparian autocrat viktor orban says about trump's plan to end the war in ukraine. here's a hint, putin wins. first, a rare moment of bipartisanship today in congress could lead to the end of tiktok. congressman jamal bowman joins me on set to discuss the potential political fallout of that major decision. stay with us. that major decision. stay with us

if you haven't already heard the u.s. government is going to permanently shutdown tiktok. >> tiktok has gotten so desperate they're sending out sos messages on the app, begging people to call their u.s. congress representatives. >> hi, i'm calling to ask about the tiktok pan. >> hr 7521. >> call your representative. tell them to vote no, and if they don't, you're going to vote them out in the primaries. >> last week the social media app tiktok urged its 171 million american users to call tear representatives in congress. by noon the same day, the phone lines for members of the house, members of congress were overwhelmed with calls mostly from teenagers. some congressional aides say their offices received hundreds of calls in a matter of hours. but despite or maybe because of how much tiktok clearly matters to young americans, today the house overwhelmingly passed the

bill that all their of their tiktok users urged their representatives not to pass, hr-721. i should say despite how tiktok framed the bill to its users, this is not an immediate tiktok ban. the way it was written tiktok's chinese parent company, bytedance, has six months to sell the company to a buyer approved by the u.s. government or it will be banned from app stores and therefore gone. before we even get to that six-month count down the bill has to pass the senate and then has to be signed into law by president biden. and the politics involved in passing those hurdles are not exactly straightforward. this bill has made lot of very weird bedfellows with marjy taylor greene and matt gaetz. they all have freedom of speech issuewise the bill although definitely not the same freedom of speech issues. and the proponents of the bill

are also a rather unusual group. speaker imerita nancy pelosi, for example, is united with chip roy. and as with the rest of our politics, the whole thing is made even more complicated and messy by donald trump. back when trump was president, he tried to ban tiktok via executive order. but now trump has reversed course completely and come out in favor of tiktok. so it's all fairly encipherable. but if there's one thing everyone on all sides of this issue can agree on here, it is that tiktok matters. if you don't use tiktok, it can be easy to write the app off as just a place where young people teach each other beyonce dances and teach other jokes boomers don't get, but the app is kind of a modern public square. it is filled with content like this about news and politics. >> hey, everyone.

from gaza, and i'm still alive. >> these dark red states, abortion is already outlawed there. >> as a registered democrat, no, i'm not voting for joe biden. sorry not sorry. >> want to know a great reason to vote for joe biden in 2024, the supreme court. >> i'll be ranking my top ten reasons why joe biden truly sucks. >> how is the best case scenario joe biden? >> like it or not tiktok is currently what is energizing young voters. american teens spend an average of an hour and a half on tiktok every day. and poll after poll has shown tiktok may be the top news source for gen-z americans. and it really is worth emphasizing just how significant it is that the app got a sizable chunk of american's gen-z population to pick up a phone and call a stranger in congress. i'm not trying to malign america's youth here but

statisticically speaking phone calls are not their thing. so, yes, today's vote in the house is about the future of tiktok, but in that it was also about the future of our political landscape, and in the immediate future it is about getting out the vote for the november election. we are going to talk about all of that and more with representative jamal bowman right after the break. h representative jamal bowman right after the break. why choose a sleep number smart bed? can it keep me warm when i'm cold? wait. no i'm always hot. sleep number does that. now, save up to $1,000 on select sleep number smart beds. plus, special financing.

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ah, these bills are crazy. she has no idea she's sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn't know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or

part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even a term policy? even a term policy! find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com. back ip2020 then-president donald trump tried to ban tiktok

via executive order. but in the last week donald trump has done a 180. >> there are a lot of people on tiktok that love it. there are a lot of young kids on tiktok who will go crazy without it. there are a lot of users, you know, a lot of good. >> a lot of good. why the change of heart, donald trump? two reasons. the first appears to be cash. trump recently hosted jeff yass at his mar-a-lago club in florida. trump is seeking his support in the presidential race. maybe don't upset the billionaire tiktok investor if you want his money. the second reason is voters. trump ally kelly anne conway has been advocating for club for growth. it's the organization where it so happens billionaire jeff yass puts a lot of his money. and this laubly argued trump his

supporters especially younger ones like tiktok. >> here are three reasons why if you're a young person like me you should vote for trump. >> we like trump because he actually stood up to you and also exposed you. you want socialism. we don't. ♪ please four four more years, four more years donald trump ♪ >> some house democrats voted against the ban today. and why they may not share donald trump's reasons or motivations, they too think banning tiktok is a bad idea. congressman beauman, thank you for being here. i'm sorry you had to witness some of those tiktok videos. i apologize to our viewers at home, but first tell me why you voted against the tiktok ban. >> once again congress is trying to shove a bill down our throats in just a few days and got to vote for it right now, let's hurry-up and get this done. first of all, it's moving too

quickly, secondly tried to get bytedance to sell within 160 days or 180 days is unreasonable, completely unreasonable. third, free speech. you know, there are people who use tiktok to -- you know, they have small businesses on tiktok, they use it to build community, so it's a free speech issue. and fourth, when are we going to a comprehensive conversation about all of social media and all of the problems on social media including our data being sold on the open market to china and other nations without our consent, without our knowledge? so we need to talk about privacy, we need to talk about mental health, we need to talk about all of social media, why do we continue to scapegoat tiktok especially having not seen not enough evidence to tell me it's a national security issue. and so that's why i voted no on the bill. >> i do want to talk about the sort of -- the social media aspect, the user reality, the political implications of taking

away the platform hups of millions of people -- 170 million americans, the youngs are all over it. it's the primary channel of communication with america's youth. as a democrat and someone who seeks re-election, as someone who's heading into a big election year, what do you think the implications of basically taking down tiktok is? >> it doesn't make sense to me. young voters already feel disenfranchised because we do a horrible job of reaching out to young voters, connecting with them, engaging in them and listening to them. tiktok is actually a platform where young voters have found community with each other, and they're learning a lot more about politics. they're learning a lot more about elected officials, what we all stand for, and they're sharing information whether it relates to foreign policy, domestic policy, child care, education, whatever the issues are. so they are literally building their own community and building their own political power. why are we then going to disenfranchise them even further

especially when young voters have a tendency to vote democrat if we go about engaging them and doing it the right way, so having this discussion or trying to ban it or almost ban it makes no sense at this time. >> we look at the numbers of it latest polling of the head to head matches, young voters under 35, biden leads 52-48. that's a 4-point lead. the margin of error is 3 points. we're talking about young people here. this is an area that's recently been overwhelmingly in support of the democratic party and its platforms. that's i think probably for democrats an uncomfortably narrow margin, and then you talk about the democratic support in communities of color among black voters, hispanic voters, latino voters, many of whom are not going to traditional media for news and information. that's a staggering, staggering curve downwards, and i wonder, you know, how essential platforms including social media are going to be in this election to bringing those folks back in

the fold and telling the story of democrats in the white house. >> and i think that's why you saw such a diverse representation of who voted no on this bill. it wasn't just a squad, it was moderate and more conservative democrats. i mean we have the ranking member of the house intelligence committee -- intelligence committee vote no on this particular bill. so you have these diverse responses to this because we understand the implications politically, socially, and in terms of our entire country, and so we need young voters. we need young voters of color. we need to engage them as much as possible. we need to not disenfranchise them but respect their voices all over social media. they're not watching msnbc as we would like them to. >> but they're welcome to, congressman. >> they're welcome to but they're not. they're on social media, tiktok. how are we using tiktok to engage them, and our biggest issue when it comes to national security is ourselves. we hurt ourselves more because

we ignore the needs of the american people. you push through a tiktok ban but you're not doing nothing on foreign policy aid or not enough. you're not doing nothing on affordable housing, on child care, nothing on the issues that americans care about quickly. we can never turn the corner on those issues. >> let me ask you, you say you've not bip given hard eftd or sufficient evidence this is national security threat anymore than any other social media on a national security threat. do you worry about the memeification of american politics, that it's like anybody can put up their content and hopefully the truthful stuff rises to the top and goes most viral. it's a better's game. >> yes, i am. tiktok is way better at that than twitter and facebook and some other platforms. so i am worried about the bite sized memeification, headlined nature of how social media operates. but what i've seen on tiktok is

the depth of content and the depth of scholarship exists there that i haven't seen on the other plat frps. twitter right now is a cesspool. you go on there, you send out a tweet, next thing you know you have the far-right white nationalists attacking you for all kinds of nonsense and lies and disinformation and misinformation live on that platform and facebook. facebook also -- and i've been told this. facebook tries to use facebook to get more data than anywhere else by far. but we're not talking about banning facebook. and facebook was implicated in what russia did in 2016. so what are we talking about in. >> obviously there needs to be a broader and more transparent conversation. in the meantime enjoy learning the steps to the beyonce video texas hold em because it's all over tiktok and that's how i spent part of my time for the show. still ahead this evening, trump's strong man obsession

reach as new low. we are going to get into the very real fallout from the trump, orban, putin triumverrant, with former advisor ben rhodes coming up next. r advisor ben rhodes coming up next what is cirkul? cirkul is the fuel you need to take flight. cirkul is the energy that gets you to the next level. cirkul is what you hope for when life tosses lemons your way. cirkul, available at walmart and drinkcirkul.com.

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russian president vladimir putin is days away from another election that is expected to keep thim in power for another six years. that is happening as ukraine loses ground in its war with russia because of ammunition shortages while the u.s. congress continues to do nothing. two dueling attempts to force a vote on ukraine aid are making their way through congress right now, but neither has a strong chance of leading to an actual vote. and according to hungarian prime minister viktor orban who just met with donald trump last week, the presumptive republican presidential nominee told orban he will not give a penny to help ukraine. orban concluded therefore the war will end because it is obvious that ukraine cannot stand on its own feet. joining me now is ben rhodes,

former deputy national security advisor for the obama white house. ben, thanks for being here with me this evening. there was a lot of consternation leading up to this meeting that orhp ban would basically be an interlockter for putin and it feels like that's exactly what happened. how do you see that sort of fallout from that meeting last week? >> it's not subtle at all, alex. i don't usually plug things but i wrote a book a couple years ago which is both a sense of their own domestic politic and the kind of leaders they want to be at home and therefore the kind of world they want to live in. putin is at the far end of the authoritarian spectrum. he's already transitioned this country into what was trying to be a democracy into a one man dictatorship. orban is something in the middle. a liberal democracy and soft autocracy where there's really a one-party rule. trump wants to be these guys,

but the price of that is kind of signing onto this no-holds barred, no respect for sovereignty, no care for democracy of putin's. putin is at the vanguard of this, this triangle of sadness between these three guys. and it's clear to me he walks out of the meeting with what he wanted, which is a commitment to donald trump to throw him under the bus. >> you know, i was thinking we had a conversation with jacob halbrin last week who made the important point in terms of historic parallels in and around world war ii there were a whole faction of americans who were quote-unquote isolationists, and he made the point isolationism is often a misnomer because it vails fascism and a lot of people against the u.s. entry into world war ii were actually pro-hitler, they were pro-nazi. i wonder if you think the same is true in the modern day, whether the resistance to aid in

ukraine actually betrays a pro-fascist attitude inside the republican party. >> there's no question in my mind it does, alex. i mean viktor orban has been transparent. he's declared he's the vanguard of so-called illiberal democracies as he calls it, which is essentially a contradiction in terms. he's embraced the reality he's a far right nationalist who demonizes the other be it whoever is in his firing line back in the day. he's used his power to essentially silence critics and ensure his party remains in mower. he has essentially a mussolini agenda. trump and biden to mar-a-lago is the same thing as if you invited mussolini in the 1930s here. and let's be clear, not giving ukraine aid is a choice, right? if you can call it isolationism, but it's a choice to cut these people off and allow vladimir

putin to run roughshod over them when that serves no other interest other than the strong manna talkeracy in the world, which the republican party seems to hold in such high esteem now. and so we have to recognize it's a choice to cut the cord on you crane in this matter, and what it's going to do is put wind in the sails of not just putin but this brand of autocracy. >> if you're a would-be autocrat and looking at the weekend plans around the world putin is going to win another sham election of six years in office, and ukraine as you said, ammunition shortages on the battlefield and war there is looking bleaker and bleaker for the forces of democracy. you know, it is a dark horizon we're gazing out against, and, you know, people in washington seem to be largely content to do nothing about it. the fact it's unlikely for democrats to get a basic simple majority on a discharge petition to fund this is staggering. >> yeah, and let's not forget, alex, the guy that appeared with

putin in bill boards for his re-election campaign was also b.b. netanyahu he'd like to be a part of this club as well. look, the reality is if you talk to people around the world, talk to people in europe, they're astonished and panicked and anxiety-ridden that -- look, the money going to be spent to purchase weapons for ukraine is spent in the united states. it's money for our defense industrial base. we send the money to u.s. states to build the kind of shells and ammunition needed by ukrainians and ship it over there. we're essentially cutting ukrainians loose and cutting the cord on funding that actually supports u.s. jobs and industry, albeit the defense industry, of course, for what? so that we can align ourselves with putin. not only does that have the u.s. retreating from its role in the world and standing up for democracies like ukraine under threat, it also is it, again, signaling a choice. the united states is moving into this other column here, the putin column. so it's not just isolationism

but making a choice between this continued balance of struggle and that has people around the world much more exercised than kind of in washington than oh, this is just another political game. no, if we do not deliver this money to ukraine, they will lose territory, lose people, lose momentum, on the front line on the biggest war with europe since world war ii and our politics can't seem to process. >> so it's a real statement of priorities on behalf of the united states of america. ben rhodes, thank you for your time and thoughts tonight. really appreciate it. that is our show for the evening. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. tiktok is a threat to our national security because it is owned by bytedance, which does the bidding of the chinese communist party. >> i believe that