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tv   Deadline White House  MSNBC  March 19, 2024 1:00pm-3:00pm PDT

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and those disruptions lasted for a long time, but eventually we adapted. we've got very resilient economy, creative business people, flexible work, and we adapted. that's what brought inflation down with really hardly any economic pain. >> paul krugman, it's really, really great to have you. thank you so much. an interesting disconnect but one i think you've explained well. it's more about partisanship, the culture wars. thank you so much for being here. appreciate your time. >> thanks for having me on. >> and that's going to do it for me today. "deadline white house" starts right now. hi, everyone. it is 4:00 in new york. i'm ayman mohyeldin in for nicolle wallace. as we come on the air we're following growing questions about the federal judge seeing one of the expresident's twice
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indicted, highly classified documents in bathroom and the ballroom down at mar-a-lago. and federal judge aileen cannon, the trump appointed lawyer who came to this case with only three years on the bench and with very little experience in running criminal trials. cannon whose rulings in the case so far have repeatedly drawn scrutiny and reversals and rebukes by higher courts. and now judge cannon is under fire once again for what "the washington post" diplomatically calls, quote, an unusual order regarding jury instruction. quote, even though cannon has not yet ruled when the trial will be held or a host of other issues, she's skipping ahead to the very end, to jury instructions, asking prosecutors and defense attorneys to consider two different hypothetical situations. writing in part, quote, in the first scenario the jury would be allowed today review a former
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president's possession of a record and make a factual finding, whether it is personal or presidential, using the definition set forth in the presidential records act. the second scenario is one in which a president has sole authority to categorize records as personal or presidential. and as "the washington post" points out, that second hypothetical would appear to be one in which trump seemingly could not be convicted under almost any set of facts of improperly possessing classified documents. now, for the nonlawyers in our audience that is the legal version of heads you lose, tales i wane. a stark choice, allow jurors to see a trove of national secrets or let him go. as she's repeatedly done cannon has used these innocuous legal steps as yet another way to swing the case wildly in favor
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of the man who appointed her while he was president. quote, special counsel jack smith must now choz whether to allow jurors to pursue or peruse the many classified documents found at the former president's south florida mansion or give jurors instructions that would effectively order them to acquit him. it is a move so off-the-wall, it puts judge cannon squarely on earth 2 as nicolle might say. but could it also get judge cannon actually removed from the case altogether? ever since judge cannon's bizarre new orders came down, calls for her removal have been growing by the order. we're also following late breaking news this one the case of presidential immunity now from the supreme court. within the last hour trump's lawyers filed their brief arguing no former or current president faced criminal charges for their official acts. and yoet, a denial of criminal immunity would incapacity every
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future president and with de facto blackmail and exportion while in office and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents. and with all that, that is where we start today with national investigative reporter for "the washington post," carol leonnig, and plus top department official and legal analyst andrew weissmann, and with me here on the set msnbc host and legal analyst katie phang. andrew, i'll start with you. you had a moment to review this filing just sent to the supreme court on the question of presidential immunity by team trump. what stands out to you? >> so i think the quote that you have which is clearly, you know, donald trump projection about if we don't have presidential immunity we're going to have this sort of tit for tat going on where future former presidents will be subject to blackmail and extortion. one response to that is we've
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been doing pretty well so far. there hasn't been absolute presidential immunity so far, and all has been well. the reason we're in the situation we're in is because of donald trump's actions where he has been charged with criminality before, during, and after his presidency. but i would like to note for folks a statement on page 5 of the brief i thought was interesting. i'm going to quote it to you. it said donald trump took the actions he did in connection with the january 6th criminal case -- the reason he took the actions he did with respect to georgia, with respect to the department of justice, all the allegations on interference this is a quote. based on the luminous information available to president trump in his official capacity, that the election was tainted by extensive fraud and
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irregularities, unquote. so the problem with that is so far no one has seen that evidence. we have tons of information from the january 6th committee, from witnesses including donald trump's own appointed officials that that evidence does not exist. we have donald trump saying that he has irrefutable evidence. remember he was going to give a press conference where he was going to unveil that. he never gave that press conference, and now he is making an assertion to the supreme court of the united states that he took these actions based on the luminous information available to him. nobody has seen that, and that's the kind of statement that you would hope that the justices in the supreme court would jump onto say what is it because that kind of language is something that at least here to for, you really don't get away with in the supreme court. >> so to that point, katie, the
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idea that somehow donald trump has information that his attorney general bill barr at the time said this election was not stealin', it was not rigged, no evidence of fraud. this had gone through multiple court proceedings, that somehow he's going to magically whip up something to present to the supreme court, that, hey, he was just doing this because it was his official role to make sure elections were not stolen, they had integrity, it seems a bit of a reach. >> maybe peter navarro took that amaze evidence with him. >> or mike lindell. >> into the federal correction institution today. to andrew's pointd, and i'm always such a fan of andrew. he's so elegant. but what he's saying is this is, look, where is this evidence? not only has it been tested in other forms, judicial forms and lawsuits where nothing came of it, but where's the evidence? you're not going to wait until to last minute and say i have all this evidence and i'm presenting it now.
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i'm troubled by the lawyers for donald trump they're willing to put their bar numbers, their names on briefs when they're making representations on that. that's a concerning thing. in the absence of this, ayman, what is the court left to do. you and i both know no matter how many justices appointed by the president on the supreme court, we wouldn't have any type of democracy left. this rubric, this fact analysis they want to do on a case by case basis, on an act by act basis, they want the trial court to get this case back. they want chutkan to get this case all the way back and do a case by case, act by act analysis of whether or not what trump did fell in the outer perimeter of his office, at the same time having chutkan labeled under this misbelief that
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because he's president, his broad swath of presidential power allows him to do everything. because they have to argue this in the alternative. that's what we call as lawyers. this is my position "a," this is my plan "w." you can't even say it's a plan "b" because it's so far-fetched. if you're not going to find absolute immunity, judge chutkan you feed to go and do a fact by fact basis. stop and think about how long this is going to take, and think about how inconsistent the results could be. you could be a judge, i could come and try to argue something and then another judge could hear something else. and so it's just going to be chaos, but that's exactly what trump wants, right? total chaos agent that he is, he either wants to interfere or put that into our judicial system. >> i was going to say he wins just by delaying this more and more and having more of these questions we're talking about. andrew, let's go back to the other top story we're discussing in this dealing with judge cannon and the documents case.
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explain what these jury instructions mean. and if i'm understanding this correctly, she's actually putting jack smith in an untenable position here. let jurors view classified documents or acquit trump because he would be able to claim these documents are personal or he has the purview to decide what they are. >> well, the reason this is so legally wrong is that the two options that she asked jack smith and donald trump to address, both have the same faulty legal premise, which is that these documents can be determined under the presidential records act to be personal versus governmental documents. that alone is very questionable that a president has that unilateral power. but the real problem with both option "a" and option "b" is that the presidential records act is irrelevant. the former president has not
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been charged with a violation of the presidential records act. he's being charged with keeping classified information, national defense information at mar-a-lago and obstruction of justice. that has nothing to do with the presidential records act. so this is like saying i'd like you to address jack smith, i'd like you to address the jury charge with respect to whether and how the earth is flat. that's option "a." and then option "b," i want you to address how the jury should consider how the earth is square. both of those are absurd. they're illegally just fundamentally wrong. there are a number of other things wrong with those two options. the real issue here, the sort of big picture issue is what is it going to take to tee up this case so that jack smith can get to the 11th circuit? i think it is absolutely beyond question at this point that this
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judge is both way too inexperienced for this case and has shown her partisanship. she has been reversed twice by the 11th circuit in strong language, and she really didn't learn her lesson. she's continued to do the same thing. this -- this order that came out yesterday is the kind of thing that i have never seen. i have never seen sort of something that's so completely off-the-wall both legally and even the way it's presented, so the issue issert of is jack smith going to figure out how to get this to the 11th circuit and getting her removed? >> it was just last week brian butler otherwise known as employee number 5 broke his silence. let me play for you and our audience about what he had to say about judge cannon and his decision to come forward. >> why are you speaking out publicly with your story now? >> well, i mean it's been almost
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a year since fbi agents showed up at my house when my wife was at home and, you know, over the course of the last year, emotionally it's been a roller coaster. you know, a couple weeks ago judge cannon said she's going to release the names of the witnesses. you know, you go from highs and lows in this. and instead of just waiting for it to just come out, i think it's better that i get to at least say what happened than it coming out in the news, people calling anyone crazy. i'd rather just get it out there. >> not necessarily a good look from the judge. what we've seen from judge cannon so far, does any of this surprise you? and can we chalk this up to naivety. when she was assigned this case she'd only handled i believe four criminal cases that went to trial? or is judge cannon crazy like a fox in that she knows exactly what she's doing? >> you know, we can't be inside her head, ayman, but it is hard
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to watch a judge clearly inexperienced make mistake after mistake and not have her then lead hard into other judicial advisers to give her some sort of counsel. the fact that every single one of her mistakes bends toward donald trump's favor, starts to raise pretty significant questions. remember her first mistake was in concluding that the federal government and criminal investigators should not be allowed to review some of the classified records that they obtained in a surprised raid of donald trump's part-time residence and club in mar-a-lago. these are government documents. her idea that she would create a special master and that the government couldn't review their own records was immediately rejected by the 11th circuit. that was her first one. this now more recent bending towards the presidential records
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act rather than the clear-cut case this is, i mean every single prosecutor no matter what stripe knows what this case is. two years ago the fbi opened an investigation based on a criminal referral that classified records had been improperly stored, some of the most sensitive ones that the government holds, at a club near a pastry -- basically a pastry chef and vodka stand. and these records should not have been anywhere outside ricide of government lock and key. the fbi two years ago gaap to pursue the information and evidence that many, many more classified records remain at this club improperly. this is a former president who's been asked for at that point i believe eight months to please return records that the government knew were missing, and he didn't. indeed, what he did, the evidence seems very, very clear at this point based on tape recordings from mar-a-lago, he
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worked with his staff to try to move these records around and conceal the ones he wanted to keep. and that really doesn't have anything to do with his classification authorities, as a former president or a current president. it doesn't really have anything to do with the basic case. if this had been treated as another classified records matter with another person, say me -- if i had a raid on my property where classified records were found inside, i would pretty much be arrested that night. >> yeah, i know it's a very important point you bring up, and you laid it out so succinctly there. katie, let me go back to you. how some of this is actually judge aileen cannon's fault. this is what "the new york times" writes. quote, she has done herself no favor by resolving a logjam of issues. it has kept her from reaching a prompt timing on the case even though the defense and prosecution have both informed
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her they believe the trial can start this summer. a lot of it is by her own doing. it's not a tactic that only benefits trump but he's putting herself in this situation. >> are the unforced errors being done through the negligence of her experience or as everybody is starting to pick up, they all militate in favor of trump. when that happen, you have to ask yourself, what happened today the judge that is supposed to be calling balls and strikes? that's what a judge is supposed to do. and andrew raises an important point, which is how does jack smith get this to the 11th circuit? why can't jack smith take it to the 11th circuit and kick her off the case? it's not that easy. so where we are procedurally, the posture of this case necessitates a move being made by cannon. this order, this gobbledy gook order that is outrageous, the
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judge hasn't even ruled on critical motions to dismiss. now she's asking for jury instructions, jury instructions for a trial date that hasn't been confirmed yet. furthermore double jepidary is an issue we're going to be concerned. it basically means you can't try a criminal defendant a second time once that jury has been sworn in. the concern we have is if the judge doesn't rule, if cannon doesn't rule on a motion to dismiss based on the presidential records act because her law is flawed, right, and she said deferring ruling and jack smith does his conclusion and case in chief, and she says at the conclusion of case in chief she says judgment of acquittal, i'm going to take this out of the jury's hand, what is the recourse for jack smith then? none. so how does jack smith get this? can he do a pretrial ruling on appeal? normally you can in a criminal
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case. can you get a written saying 11th circuit help me, the judge is wrong on the law as evidence by her proposed scenarios, we need you to intervene so she doesn't give the wrong instruction, and that's what people need to understand. jury instructions, these are instructions given to jurors to tell them what the law is. but if her law is wrong going in, the jury is screwed. they have no options left if they're being told by the judge to apply the wrong law. >> and the framing in these two binary situations seems a bit premature, certainly out of left field. >> not even premature, it's just flawed, it's wrong, and then it's premature as well. >> carroll lenning, thank you so much. everyone else stick around. when we come back, donald trump may have finally run out of options realizing he may have to raise half a billion dollars somehow in the next six days. the reality of this deadline is finally sinking in and it is freaking him out. raging at the judge and the attorney general.
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plus peter nuvar so is the first former official to come out of the white house and into the prison system over efforts to try to overturn the 2020 election. and how evidence of of the january 6th insurrectionists is becoming a central theme of his re-election campaign. all these stories and much more when "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. se" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. ed up. dude, you gotta work on your trash talk. i'd rather work on saving for retirement. or college, since you like to get schooled. that's a pretty good burn, right? ♪♪ we're building a better postal service. all parts working in sync to move your business forward. with a streamlined shipping network. and new, high-speed processing and delivery centers. for more value. more reliability. and more on-time deliveries. the united states postal service is built for how you business. and how you business is with simple,
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that created our ai highlights technology, which uses ai to detect the major plays in a sports game. giving millions of fans, like my dad and me, new ways of catching up on their favorite sport. his entire public persona depends on a perception of wealth. try not to roll your eyes here for a moment. the real estate billionaire who managed to turn a small loan of a billion dollars into a sprawling empire before giving
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it all up to run for president. it's a rag to riches story not so much based in reality, though. but today it is clear his self-inflicted reality situation is certainly is. donald trump world renowned for his ability to keep his cool has spent the better part of his last 24 hours fuming on social media. remember we learned he was unable to get a bond to secure the $464 million frauds judgment against him and his alleged codefendants in the fraud case brought by new york attorney general letitia james. trump's got until monday to pay up in full or the attorney general could begin correcting while he appeals, a process that could ifclude the seizure of assets including his buildings. so trump's aimed his social tirades like a fire hose at the state of new york, judge arcter engoron, and the attorney general calling her racist and
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corrupt. i would be forced to sell great assets perhaps at fire sale prices, and if and when i win the appeal, they will be gone. we are back with andrew and katie. andrew, first off explain what trump is actually afraid of, what we should expect going forward over the next couple of days should he remain unable to secure a bond. >> sure. well, first, the brief he submitted to the court is seeking to have the court lower the amount of the bond that he would have to put up, so he doesn't have to put up $464 million or have a company put a bond up for that. so either put up the cash yourself or get a company and put up the bond. so he could get a court to agree that the amount should be lower. his argument, though, makes no sense. what he says is i don't have that amount of cash on hand even though he had said he had about
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$400 million previously, he now apparently doesn't have any cash he can put up. but he says all i have is real estate, and the companies that i can go to put up a bond don't want real estate, they want cash as collateral. that doesn't explain why he just doesn't get a mortgage? if he really has unencumbered real estate, just get a mortgage like many, many, many people do when they buy homes and put that money up. so there's a real disconnect in his papers, and what it suggests to me is that he doesn't actually have unencumbered real estate. in other words, the real estate that he has has already been pledged to other people and other companies to support other loans, otherwise there's an easy out here. his papers really don't make sense. what can happen is remember the judgment that was entered against him was actually enforceable on the day it was
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entered, but the attorney general as a matter of grace, and it's pretty common, gave the defendant 30 days, gave donald trump 340 days to put the bond up or put the money up, and that is to make sure during the appeal that it's protected so the money can't be dissipated. it will be there when this is litigated and if there's a decision that affirms the judgment, the money is there in the court to satisfy the amount. and so at the end of that 30 days, which is on the 25th, this monday, the liens can go out by the attorney general for all ashts. whether they're encumbered or not she can put liens on bank accounts, cash accounts, security accounts, real estate. and then she can seek an order of enforcement for all the up encumbered assets that have not bip pledged, she can seek to
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have the title of that transferred to her. if she cannot find all of that assets, if she thinks there's more out there, the other thing she can do is she can seek to have depositions taken of everyone up to and including the former president to find out where any and all assets are that can be used to satisfy the judgment. and all of that can happen starting on monday. >> it's incredible. there's a part of this i also want to ask you about, andrew, which is in reference to what michael cohen, trump's former fixer had to say. let me play for you what he said yesterday and i'll get your reaction to it. >> what if hypothetically the money is coming from saudi arabia, from qatar? what if by chance it's coming through a back door channel of russia? it leaves a presidential candidate basically owing a foreign entity all at the
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expense of america's national security. this is no joke. >> let's say trump does come up with this money for the bond ahead of monday's deadline, andrew, will the american people get to see where it came from? will there be transparency? is that required, the visibility of where that money originated from? >> it is not required. and the same issue came up also in the e. jean carroll case when a bond was put up there. and so the issue of whether somebody is fronting the money to the former president, whether somebody, for instance, is cosigning a bond, now, there's who is he beholden to? whether it's a foreign person, whether it's an american person, doesn't really malter. that is something the electorate would have a keen interest in knowing because to be so much snarky about it, if it is coming from another person, then, you know, the former president and
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candidate for office might have 464 million reasons to do what that person wants. so that issue of is he beholden to somebody is going to become quite salient as a political matter. but in terms of the plaintiffs here, are they're interested in is is the money there in case i win? i want to make sure on appeal i'm not taking the risk there's no money there. so they're not that concerned about who fronted the money, they just want to know that pot of money is there. >> katie, let me pick up on something andrew said about securing the funds and why trump can do it. i want to read something a "the washington post" call umnist wrote. >> imagine you sold an old engagement ring you claimed was a diamond and when the judge claimed it was fraud you tried to use the ring.
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complain why donald trump is finding himself in such trouble here? >> that's a beautiful thing catherine put forth. trump went to trial on the basis of he overinflated or underinflated his assets to be able to secure a better result for himself. and the judge in that instance, justice engoron said i agree with you, new york attorney general letitia james. you have proven your case. i have fraud to be perpetrated by donald trump, his adult sons, other members of his organizations, as well as his business. so to katherine's point in "the washington post" piece, why would you if you were a bond surety company, if you were a lender, like a legitimate up and up lender, why would you even believe anything in term of the valuation of a donald trump asset? when he tries to come to you and say i'm going to give this to you as collateral, we have confirmed on msnbc donald trump has damages on all these trump
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property towers. these properties are already leveraged, already mortgaged, they already have lien holders that are saying you owe me first, right? why would you ever want to use that property as collateral to loan munsny the man was always a cred risk but how no now he's unbankable. he now has a bond surety of 100 million he owes. these bond sureties as we know from the affidavits done through donald trump's filing yesterday they said we went through all these bond sureties and said we want cash or cash equivalent. we also found in florida a charles schwab account was used to be able to collateralize the chubb surety bond. trump is rupping out of options and that is why monday is looming so heavy for him. that's why you see him lashing out on social media. that's why you see a dearth of
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people coming forward to give him money. to your question there will be trance paeshs who gave him the money or who cosigns on it which would be horrific, because i don't know weren't we talking about mar-a-lago? wurp we talking about the fact had classified documents in his possession he wrongfully and illegally retained to we don't know who he showed, gave access. the man is a quid pro quo guy, totally transactional. >> and weaponize all this to his advantage. we've got a lot more to discuss with you. up next we'll take some accountability, not much but we'll take it today for former white house trump aide peter navarro, one of the admitted architects of the january 6th coup attempt. that story when we come back. 6t coup attempt that story when we come back
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a longer and happier life. the farmer's dog makes weight management easy with fresh food pre-portioned for your dog's needs. it's an idea whose time has come. at the same time he was refusing to comply with our subpoena, mr. navarro made multiple media appearances during which he expressed his various roles which culminated in the january 6th attack. i would like to play a media clip right now. >> i have so much knowledge to share with you about what i was involved in and what i know. >> he has so much knowledge to share with the journalists, but he refuses to share that knowledge in response to a lawful subpoena. >> and it is for that reason trump white house aide peter navarro is as of this afternoon locked up in a federal prison, day one of a four-month sentence. remember the january 6th select
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committee in the course of its investigation knew he had information on the coup plot. in fact, navarro himself suggested as much on national television no less with our own msnbc colleague ari melber, as you just saw. novario blew off the subpoena for documents sw subpoena. and for that he was convicted on two counts of criminal contempt of congress. this afternoon following a failed last appeal to the supreme court, navarro earned a historic distinction. he's now the very first donald trump senior aide to serve time in connection with the coup plot, and perhaps he won't be the last. joining urconversation is the former lead investigator of the january 6th committee. tim, great to see you again. let's unwind a bit and talk about why the january 6th committee wanted to talk to navarro in the first place. and i want to play for you and some of our viewers what he told
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my colleague ari melber back in 2022. watch. >> the remedy is for vice president pence to remand those back to the states. >> do you realize you are describing a coup? >> no. >> that clip will never get old no matter how many times you watch it. but, tim, the committee sees that and thinks what? >> that's exactly why we wanted to talk to him because he was centrally involved in discussions in the white house about january 6th. this whole notion of the green bay sweep was an intentional effort to prevent the transfer of power based on nothing, no actual evidence of fraud. the committee understandably wanted to develop that information, hear it from mr. navarro about his role in those discussions, who else was involved, what the specific plans were, and he simply blew us off, did not appear, did not
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assert any sort of privilege on the record, did not produce one document. and importantly, we never heard anything from the former president. we did with respect to other witnesses get correspondence from representatives of the former president saying i have directed such and such to certain executive privilege. no such communication with respect to navarro, so that is why we wanted to talk to him, and his response was radio silence. that's what resulted in the referral to the department of justice for contempt. >> tim, while the january 6th related case is brought by jack smith and in fulton county, georgia, a little bit more complicated. this one is actually a bit more narrow on the specifics of defying a lawful subpoena. and some have suggested it's no big deal, not worth a prison sentence, this is over the top in terms of the reaction. explain why the subpoena system is just so important for our rule of law that even if it is something as someone like peter
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navarro dismissing it or ignoring it, there has to be real life consequences for such action. >> yeah, it's crucially important that subpoenas are enforced. and if you have an objection, you as the recipient of a subpoena to particular questions that are put forth, then there's a process by which you contest that. you can go under oath and assert a privilege. dozens of witnesses did that exact thing with respect to select committee subpoenas. they came in and they insert questions with a privilege assertion. that creates a record on which there can be litigation over whether those privileges are valid. in contrast to that mr. navarro and mr. bannon both just completely ignored the subpoena, refused to engage in that question by question colloquy that would create a basis on which those assertions could be challenged, and that has to stand for something. the subpoena power of congress in its appropriate oversight
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role has to be enforceable via appearance of production of documents. the disregard of that is what lands people in criminal jeopardy like mr. navarro. >> tim, always a pleasure. just a day after locking in his fourth term in office russian president vladimir putin tatelling the world exactly what he wants to happen to ukraine. how a newly emboldened leader there is pledging to never back down. former ambassador michael mcfaul is joining us next. former ambassador michael mcfaul is joining us next (shouting) i can't! i'm just telling everyone! ...hey! see your tax refund go further with buy one get one free at visionworks. see the difference. i'm adding downy unstopables to my wash. now i'll be smelling fresh all day long. [sniff] still fresh. ♪♪ get 6x longer-lasting freshness, plus odor protection. try for under $5!
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having extended his rule over russia again a newly emboldened vladimir putin was quick to declare a top priority of his new term. according to "the new york times," quote to continue waging his war in ukraine until kyiv agree to a peace deal on his terms. as cities across ukraine face yet another round of deadly air attacks, future u.s. aid is still deadlocked thanks to house republicans. meanwhile, their presumptive nominee is on the campaign trail mocking ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy's plea for more help. trump also suggested any future aid should be on loan, which high brought up to zelenskyy this week as the quote, quote most likely path forward. ambassador mcfaul, great to see you again. your thoughts after another putin election. i use that word very reluctantly, one in which there
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was really one possible outcome, and how now that he has been embold bd when it comes to ukraine following this result. >> great. i'm glad you qualified the word election. we should call it sham election, potempkin election, soviet era election so people don't confuse it with a real election. i've studied elections since the soviet union. it's as if putin isn't trying anymore. a couple decades ago he want today have the veneer of an election and there was a bit of campaign. this had none of that, right? 88% that's a joke i think even offends some of his own supporters. the second thing i would note, however, i think vladimir putin didn't win this election. yuliya navalniya won this
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election. she said show that we are there and tens of thousands of russians did, inside russia and throughout embassies all over the world. that was the greatest political act of that election on sunday. >> very important act of the election. and to your point what can you tell us about where the opposition goes from here? given this strength, this show of force, is there a future for them as putin begins a six-year term? how does this new opposition reconstitute itself without this figure head of alexei navalny? >> well, they lost their most dynamic, effective political leader, alexei navalny, that is a tragic fact. but his widow has now taken that baton, and i'm impressed. it's just early weeks, but i'm impressed so far how serious she is about trying to lead this opposition. that said nobody should have any illusions that this opposition is going to take down putin
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anytime soon. the most important way to weaken putin today is not through symbolic things that i applaud that that happened on sunday like what these russians are doing now. but the best way to weaken putin is to give ukrainians arms to defend themselves against his invasion. and that i think is most important especially given what you alluded to, what he said in his victory speech, that he's not done conquering ukrainian territory. he will only be done when he can no longer do it, and that requires we give ukrainians the weapons they need to stop his invading army. >> so let's drill down on that a bit, and i want to get your reaction to what republican senator lindsey graham has suggested, which is a loan to ukraine would be the best way forward. he said that in a meeting with volodymyr zelenskyy, the president of ukraine. >> well, i disagree. i think there's a bill that his
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own u.s. senate passed, got a majority vote there. everyone who does any close analysis of the house of representatives demonstrates that if they're allowed to vote, that senate bill for $50 billion, $6 billion in military aid, an additional $10 billion in economic assistance to ukraine would pass. so speaker johnson should just let his people vote, you know? that's the democratic process. and we should show that we have a democratic process that is superior to the to the facade p stuff that putin just did, and that's why i think there should be a vote right now. >> i'm sure you saw over the weekend, the comments made by former president, mocking zelenskyy as being, quote, one of the greatest salesman in his request for u.s. aid. how does it look like? you served overseas, obviously. you have the perspective that level. how does it look on the world stage to have a likely party
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nominee, potentially president, and the entire party failing to meet the moment and the message that sends to our allies around the world, who may be watching what happens around ukraine with fear and trepidation. >> it sends a terrible message. it sends a message that we are not prepared to be the leader of the free world. that we are not ready to defend our allies. i was just in lithuania in january, and all the leaders in that part of the world are very frightened by the possibility of a return of mr. trump, precisely because he says those things. they hope he doesn't mean those things, but hope is not a strategy, it makes everyone very nervous. >> yeah, i was going to say, hope is not bankable if you're an ally facing down an enemy. former u.s. ambassador michael mcfaul, it's always a pleasure. thank you very much for your time. coming up, the supreme court has given the green light to the state of texas to basically
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enforce its own la laws at the southern border. what the justices ruled on nah decision, next. ustices ruled onh decision, next
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a new ruling from the supreme court just this afternoon allowing texas to enforce one of their controversial new immigration laws that gives local police the power to arrest migrants, rejecting an emergency separate biden administration while litigation continues in the lower courts. three liberal justices, sotomayor, kagan, and brown-jackson dissented with sotomayor writing, quote, today the court invites further chaos
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in immigration enforcement. the law upends the federal state balance of power that has existed for over a century. the court majority gave no reasons for their decision, but justice amy coney barrett signaled they expect a prompt ruling from the appeals court, writing in part, quote, if a decision does not issue soon, the applicants may return to this court. of course, we'll keep an eye out for that ruling, from the fifth circuit court of appeals. up next, donald trump making january 6th and the insurrectionists behind the attack the cornerstone of his re-election campaign. we'll talk about that when "deadline: white house" returns after a quick break. when "deadline: white house" returns after a quick break. when you're a small business owner, your to-do list can be...a lot. ♪♪ [ cellphone whooshes ] [ sighs ] that's why progressive makes it easy to save with a commercial auto quote online so you can take on all your others to-dos.
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i would like to begin by addressing the heinous attack on the united states capitol. like all americans, i am outraged by the violence, lawlessness, and mayhem. america is and must always be a nation of law and order. the demonstrators who infiltrated the capitol have defiled the seat of american democracy. to those who engaged in the acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country. and to those who broke the law, you will pay. >> hi, again, everyone. it is 5:00 in new york. i'm ayman mohyeldin in for nicolle wallace. how far we have come. 24 hours after the capitol insurrection and that was the stance of the ex-president. he came against them, unequivocally, against those rioters who violated our laws, against the violence and horror of that day. but that position did not last
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very long. and here we are. three years later, with trump as the presumptive republican presidential nominee, pledging to pardon those he now calls hostages. like trump said in that first clip, the people who broke the law on january 6th paid or will pay, as the investigation is not over for their crimes. the justice department charged over 1,300 people, about 500 of which have been sentenced to prison. but now they are viewed by trump as wrongly imprisoned, as loyalists who he must stand up for now. we saw it on full display this weekend as he began his rally in ohio by playing the national anthem, recorded by convicted january 6th rioters, who are now in jail. it was a moment that signified trump's larger campaign strategy, one the ap describes as using the capitol attack as a cornerstone of his bid for the white house. this from the ap's reporting. initially relegated to a fringe theory on the edges of the
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republican party, the revisionist history of january 6th, which trump amplified during the early days of the gop primary campaign to rows his most devouted voters remains a rally centerpiece, even as he must appeal more broadly to a general election audience. his elevation of the january 6th criminals is just one aspect of his anti-democratic platform. he stokes fear and division using hateful language. he said he will be a dictator on day one. he uses his own indictments over his role on the january 6th as a political tool, and he said that he will weaponize the justice department to go after his enemies. for the ex-president, it is all about who is on his side now, a peace in semafor looked at trump's evolution towards embracing the rioters, writing in part, another crucial factor in trump's growing support for the cause may have been his own confrontation with american law enforcement. including over charges related to his efforts to overturn the
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2020 election. the biggest thing that helped us was him getting arrested. so that the rest of the world can see what is happening to january 6thers. that is to merit perryman's whose husband was charged in the riot. she told semafor, now he's welcome to the family. and that is where we start this hour with former assistant u.s. attorney, maya wiley, plus former rnc spokesman and host of the bull wark podcast, tim miller, and democratic strategist, senior political analyst, matt dowd. with me here on set, democratic strategist and director of the public policy program at hunter college, basel smiley. great to have you all with us. beginning with that clip of trump, what would have happened if he kept that position he had on january the 7th up until this
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day? >> it's a hard counterfactual, eamon. because the fact that he changed his position into one where he was correct, right, that the election was stolen from him, the people that attacked the capitol that day were not rioters, but were is patriots. that new position that he developed went a long way into helping him box out everyone else in the republican primary. because it's not logically consistent, if you are a maga voter, you're saying, well, i like donald trump, i thought he did a good job, and, you know, he was robbed of the election, and they tried to steal everything from us, and they're trying to punish him now, and the deep state is coming after him. why would you go somebody else, right? like, if you bought that and we know that about 60% give or take of the party has bought that line, then that doesn't leave room for anyone else to lead the cult. and so in theory he would probably be better off today with swing voters, right, if he
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had actually lived up to his law and order rhetoric and said that people broke the law should be punished, but would that have made him look weak with his own base? it's hard to work that out. but what we see now is not that he's praising those patriots, but saluting them. he literally salutes them as if they're soldiers, and in some way they are his soldiers in this separatist maga, i guess i would call it army is too much, but militia, maybe. and i think that is really the most alarming thing out of what we saw from the trump rally, and what we saw from this evolution from him to going from -- from criticizing them to calling them patriots to now saluting them as if they are heroes and heroes that might, maybe again, challenge the country. >> maya, i wanted to read a little more from the semafor
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piece that i cited in the top, in part, january 6th defendants and families and their lawyers were uncertain of what to make of the trump's sporadic early remarks. many were disappointed of what they viewed as a lack of support from the former president, starting with his failure to grant them pardons before leaving office. in early 2022, joseph mcbride, a lawyer for multiple january 6th defendants went to mar-a-lago to speak with members of trump's team. since that first meeting, mcbride says he has spoken with people across trump's orbit, even meeting with trump's legal team on occasion, and that january 6th events have grown organically over time. trump is easy the to manipulate. he listens to anyone who shows him loyalty. do you think he's held hostage by this crowd or he's driving this crowd's position? >> it's hard to answer that but say that he's had a horrible, very bad day, week, year,
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whether it's all of the indictments that he's faced, his civil trials, the most recent news where he's having trouble raising the $464 million bond he has to pay. whether that's true or he's the trying to distract fla, we don't know, but here's the bottom line. he's not doing well because law enforcement is doing its job, because prosecutors are doing their job, and because in many of these instance, people are standing up to him, including bringing civil suit against him and his company. and what we've always seen from donald trump is whatever is most expedient for donald trump is what donald trump will do. including those words you played at the top of the hour. and i think the problem that we see here is both the deep division and understanding of facts in this country, but also the fact that there are far too many people, particularly in politics, in elected position,
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willing to take up the reins even when they don't believe it and support the lies, the distraction, and the deep divisions that it's driving for a politics that's about power and not about people. and that's what we need to focus on, is what ensures that people know the facts and understand their power at the polls. >> matthew, this position from trump, his evolution goes really beyond just a revisionist history of the capitol insurrection, as much as it is gaslighting us to see him pivot like this. but trump has continued to push the big lie. he's gone on so far to install election deniers in key positions within the rnc, he's certainly lobbied for people who are election deniers on the campaign trail, in the midterms and elsewhere. this is what the republican party now is. it's not just simply a party that rejects basically decency, it also rejects the fundamental results of the 2020 election. >> yeah, i mean, the thing about donald trump, and i know tim knows this, because he was
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involved in it, and opposing him in 2015, 2016, donald trump understands the current republican party and what it's become better than anybody. better than any of the elected officials who ran for office before him, who also ran against him. he's understood it since 2015, which is why he won the nomination, and why he continues to get 80 to 85% approval rating among republicans in today's environment. he knows what the republican party is, and he knows that teleprompter speech -- i would say his thought process hasn't been an evolution. the only part of the process where he spoke something differently was somebody put a teleprompter speech in front of him to say those words that you played at the beginning here, that i don't actually think that he agreed with, and he never meant or never -- because everything he's done since and everything he did before showed that he actually approved of the insurrectionists at the capitol and helped facilitate it in the course of this. but to me, donald trump we can debate donald trump and all of
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that. donald trump is who donald trump is. but donald trump, is, i think, by what he's been doing, and now supporting and saying he's going to pardon these insurrectionists is basically showing everyone what the republican party is. and donald trump has a great viewpoint into that party, as tim said, in understanding the base of that party, and he's just widening open the book and saying, this is who the republican party is. and i think that clarity is important for all of us as we head into these elections. >> it's certainly not the party of allow and order, which leads me to ask you, basel about his strategy here. i mean, trump choosing this as his strategy in the primary, and speaking politics here, but what does it say about his strategy for the general election that he's going all in on these rite rioters, wanting to pardon them if he is re-elected? >> it's interesting, typically, what you would do as a campaign is expand your base, not shrink it. and it seems like every -- at every turn, when he may have had had the opportunity to expand,
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as tim pointed out, he could have used that initial, you know, repudiation of the insurrectionists to embrace mike pence and say, you know, you should never have been treated that way. or he would have gone out and partnered with the new president, with joe biden and said, you know what, we've got to make sure we stand up for democracy together, but none of that happened. none of us really expected it to happen, but that's what a typical person that cared about public service and the future of the country would do. he shrinks his base. he doesn't expand his base. and you know, to me, and what's even more scary is, we spend a lot of time talking about who he might be pardoning. i think a lot about who he would want to lock up. because i think about the fact that we're now criminalizing librarians, we're criminalizing teachers, his lieutenant, giuliani, in the '90s criminalized poverty and criminalized homelessness, at the same time, a "vanity fair" article was talking about how trump would read the speeches of adolf hitler. this is the person he's always
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been. it was never about expanding his base and getting more support to be able to run the country from the point of view of a public servant. it was criminalizing behavior he did not like, people he did not like, and evaluating a white supremacist class in this country, so those salutes, as our friends, eddie glaude said, those rituals of those rallies are really a way to evaluate white supremacy above all else, but that's the person he's always been. >> tim, trump and his supporters have shown no respect for the rule of law, we've seen that time and time again. what happens to america's standing of a global democracy if we free those convicted of an attempted coup in our country? >> yeah, i mean, i think the consequences are both abroad and at home, are pretty dramatic. and from the abroad standpoint, you're already seeing this. and if you looked at any reporting from or spoke to anybody from the munich security
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conference, and there is just panic among our allies in the western world that the united states is not going to be a reliable partner. that the united states cannot be counted on. and if you layer into that this idea that, you know, people that stormed the capitol get pardoned while those who resisted that are punished, what is the moral standing then to support democratic allies in other parts of the world. and the whole system that undergirded the peace and prosperity of the west since world war ii is absolutely a threat, and if you think that's overstated, just talk to anybody that is in one of our nato ally countries in europe, and they'll tell you that they are worried that that is exactly right. and i think that when you look at the ramifications at home, you know, to basel's point there, what message it sends to trump and his social media site bleated out yesterday that they want cassidy hutchison to be
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prosecuted and the reason for that is a total lie that's not worth getting into the details about, but what message does it send if he gets back in there that says, okay, the people that stormed the capitol, they get pardoned. the people that spoke truth, they get prosecuted. they get looked into by the doj. that just incentivizes perverse behavior throughout the government, throughout the country during his next four years, people thinking, as long as they're donald trump's side, they can act with impunity and if they speak out, they'll be targeted. i think that is the most alarming thing of all when you l sort of consider the combination of those threats, of the prosecutions and the pardons together. >> and we see a theme between that and what he's arguing in front of the supreme court. and we spoke about it a little bit last hour, how trump is trying to urge the supreme court to rule. he's absolutely immune from criminal charges in the election interference case, trying to argue that this was part of his official duty. everything that he was doing on that day. your take on this latest move from the former president's team, and whether or not you
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think he'll ever face accountability in a court of law, beyond just the ballot box and at the hands of americans. >> well, i'll say this. i mean, first of all, what we have seen from donald trump, who would say, i can stand on fifth avenue and shoot somebody and still be president, this is a point, but i don't expect that to stand. and i also would say that i do think that he's going to be held accountable if a court of law for his behavior, and there's more than one court of law in this instance. but i think the question here is about timing and i want to go basel's point and it's not only about practice that we have a very, very broad and deep record of facts to report in terms of criminal indictments, that include donald trump directly and personally, it's that we actually are seeing and witnessing in states across this country efforts to make it hard for people to vote, particularly people of color, using lies of
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voter fraud, which are very much old lies, not just the new big lie of january 6th. this has been building for a long time, because our country is becoming more demographically diverse. and these forces of division that donald trump is taking advantage of and stoking for his own authoritarian reasons are actually at the heart of what we need to do to preserve our democracy right now, which is say, we're not going to believe the lies anymore, and whether or not he's held accountable for before this election, we have to understand that democracy is on the ballot about whether we'll stand with our government and our principles of law enforcement for the purpose of protecting rights, for the purpose of protecting the freedom to vote. or we're going to cave to totalitarianism and a vision of america that excludes so many of us who are people of color and multiple religions who have helped to build it. that's the future we're charting out here. we have to decide which path we're on. and as long as we make it hard
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for everyone to vote, we won't actually be reflecting the will of what i see as the majority of this country and that's what we have to fight for. >> matthew, he's always framed things as you're with him or somehow against america. jimmy kimmel who is engaged in his own battle with the ex-president put that to the test. he had a correspondent go to a rally and ask trump supporters questions on a u.s. citizenship test. >> number one, what is the supreme law of the land? >> no! >> guns, liberty, and justice. >> i have no idea. >> that's a good question. i can't answer that one right now. >> how many amendments does the constitution have? >> 32. >> 10? >> i don't know. >> 20-something, i think. maybe 13. i'm not real sure on that. i worry about number one and
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number two, huh huh! >> what are the first three words of the constitution. >> "in god we trust." >> so that's four. >> life, liberty, and happiness. >> no, it's "we the people"! >> that guy said it walking past. you cheated! you cheated like joe biden! >> look, it's easy to laugh and kind of like brush that off and it shows a sad state of affairs in this country, but talk about this patriotism framing in how to fight against it, when as we just saw anecdotally there in that small clip, his base probably very unaware of the framing that he's trying to put this country in, that either you're with him or anti-american. >> well, i'll take up the word that tim just mentioned, which is, that is such a demonstration of a cult, because their idea of patriotism is directly related to donald trump. and anybody on his panel, as i'm sure you, as well, if you say anything about donald trump on social media at all, you are relentlessly attacked. you know, by some of the most
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pejorative things are said about you, if you do anything and say anything about donald trump that's a criticism at all in this. but their idea of patriotism isn't the constitution, isn't anything that we all have been used to and what we were taught. it is, do you or do you not love donald trump? and if you love donald trump, you're a patriot, and if you don't like donald trump and you criticize donald trump, you're not a patriot in the course of this. this is everything we've talked about in the first part of this show is all sort of out of the autocrats playbook. and the supporters have bought right into it. i in many ways feel aed by sad about these supporters who donald trump could care less about, treats badly, in all the ways, lies to and all of this. and he treats them as these gullible goofballs in many ways, and that's what he thinks of them. and they've bought into this. but the other thing i'll add into this. what's amazing about those people he interviewed, and if you ask them about immigrants,
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they would be totally anti-immigrant. and any immigrant who's come through a process and become a citizen of this country knows far, far more about the founding of our country and what does it mean to be a country of laws and not men than any of those trump supporters. >> that's a very important point. thank you so much. maya wiley, thank you for starting us off this hour. everyone else, stick around. when we return, a key senate primary in the major battleground state of ohio. it is a major test of the disgraced ex-president's grip on the republican party. and the results could determine whether democrats can keep control of the senate. steve kornacki joins us after the break. plus, why hillary clinton says the only person in america who is better off four years ago than today, donald trump. and a brand-new documentary shining light on one of the biggest purveyors of lies and conspiracy theories, the filmmaker behind the new movie "the truth versus alex jones" will be our guest later on in the hour. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere.
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the endorsement makes zero difference to me. i don't trust trump's criteria at all. >> president trump can endorse whoever he wants. that doesn't mean to say that i'm going to support that person. >> i think that i was already leaning towards bernie moreno even before the trump endorsement, but i think that the trump endorsement helps to solidify that maybe that's the vein that the republican party is going. >> so those were just a few of the republican voters ahead of today's republican senate primary in ohio. it is a major test of donald trump's endorsement power and the direction of the republican
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party. with trump's pick, bernie moreno, a former car dealer and a block chain entrepreneur, in a tight race against ohio state senator, matt dolan. today's primary will determine who will face ohio senator sherrod brown in november. it is a race that is key to determining the democrats maintaining their razor-thin majority in the senate. but it also represents a personal challenge to the ex-president and his grip on the gop. let's bring in gop national news political correspondent steve kornacki at the big board with a closer look at the ohio race. steve, great to see you, as always, my friend. we'll see you throughout the night, but walk us through what we're seeing now in terms of the exit polls. any early indication as to how this plays out? >> we do have exit polling in ohio and we're just getting our first data from it. the polls still open in the buckeye state for two more hours, until about 7:30 eastern time. this is the set-up, this is the most closely watched race in the country, today. this republican senate primary. and what you've got, as you said, bernie moreno, running
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with trump support. trump was just there the other day, having a rally for him. you have matt dolan, matt dolan supported by the republican governor, mike dewine. dolan's been attacked by trump. dolan said the 2020 election was won fair and square by joe biden. he pushes the blame for january 6th on donald trump, you can see the lines of division there. and the third candidate in this race, frank larose, the secretary of state, has cinched the 2020 election, which he certified in ohio, has gravitated towards trump, has sought trump's endorsement in this race, didn't get it, but has certainly tried to align himself with trump with his movement and try to get some share of that vote. those are the basic dynamics here. and as you said, exit polling was conducted today. we'll get more numbers as the night goes on, but can i show you some initial numbers that we've gotten here, about the composition of the electorate. again, first wave numbers can change, but this is a picture coming into focus here. and i think this question is one that it's interesting here, how important, we asked republican primary voters, is it that the next ohio senator show support
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for donald trump. and here's what they are telling us so far in the exit poll. 55%, a majority here is very important. another 15% say somewhat important. so that's a total of 7 out of 10 in this exit poll right now, at least, saying it's at some level of importance now that the senate nominee be supportive of donald trump. that leaves 29%, saying it's not really important, not at all important. may not add up to 100% exactly. there's rounding involved here, basically 70%, 30% in here. and what dolan is looking for, if he's going to have a chance of winning this night, he wants to basically monopolize anybody who is saying this, aligning with trump is not that important or not important at all. he wants to monopolize that vote. but if he's going to have a chance to actually win it, he needs two other things to happen. one, he's probably going to need to get a big chunk of this vote, too. the folks who say it's important, but only somewhat important to be aligned with donald trump here. there's a little wiggle room
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maybe for those voters. dolan's going to need to get a of them. and the other thing that needs to happen, this big group of voters here who say it's very important to them, remember, trump has endorsed bernie moreno, but frank larose is also trying hard to get that trump vote. so what dolan would need is for this vote to be split here in a way that would let him almost come up the middle with those who say it's not that important, and some who say it's somewhat important. it's kind of the balancing act that dolan is trying to pull off here. and the broader significance of this race, as you said, eamon, just in terms of control of the u.s. senate, here's the map this year. blue, blue seats, red, red seats. these are the ones up this year. right now, democrats with a 51/49 edge. and there's one particular type of state here that democrats are extremely worried about. if they can't figure out, they will not be able to retain control of the senate. there are three states that are up this year, blue, held by democrats in states that trump has carried in the past two presidential elections. that is in west virginia, that's in ohio, and that's in montana.
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and the reality is, democrats have basically already given up on west virginia. trump won it by more than 40 points. if they don't win west virginia, that knocks it down to 50 right there. that means they have to win both ohio and montana. ohio, a state that went for trump by 20 points. montana, jon tester running for re-election, went for trump by 16 points. if democrats are going to retain control of the senate, it's very likely they're going to need trump voters in both ohio and montana, a critical chunk of trump voters to switch over in the senate race and vote for the democrats, sherrod brown in ohio, tester in montana in those senate elections. because without holding on to those two seats, the idea of democrats retaining control of the senate becomes faint, it becomes remote, it becomes basically hard to fathom. so that's the grim reality for democrats of this map. but that is the importance of ohio. and one other note here, bernie moreno, trump's candidate,
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democrats have actually spent heavily in the closing weeks of this campaign trying to boost his appeal with republican primary voters. they believe, i don't know if they're right or wrong, but they believe that he would be the least-difficult candidate for sherrod brown to defeat this november. >> steve kornacki, you've given us a lot to chew on there. thank you so much, as always, my friend. it's good to see you. tim, let me pick up on that really quickly. the question is about moreno, as steve just outlined, how do you view moreno has a general election candidate? are there concerns that this is a repeat or situation that we saw with herschel walker, dr. oz in pennsylvania, tudor dixon, where trump's endorsement propelled them through this primary, but once they get to the general election, these are extremely weak, very flawed candidates that do not do well with non-extreme voters. >> yeah, i think that kind of remains to be seen. moreno's a car dealership owner. he totally flip-flopped on trump.
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he seems to be very unreliable. there was an ap story about his personal life that left a lot of questions that came out earlier this week. and so, i think that he's seen as the most potentially vulnerable of the republican candidates. it's not -- i don't think it's a herschel walker situation. the red flags around herschel were like red sirens were wearing around herschel walker, this guy's a loser. it might be more akin to a blake masters, who ended up losing a narrow race in arizona, who maybe looked like he could have been a strong candidate, but did not wear well with the electorate. i think that's what the democrats would be hoping. look, i think we do have a situation, i want to throw out there, having at least one candidate in this race, there are so few candidates where somebody has spoken out against trump on the republican side has any hope. the fact that dolan has some hope today, i think my friend jonathan martin in politico wrote, the last gasp of the old guard. and i think there is something that. all things considered, i would
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rather us not have insurrectionist donald trump acolytes in the united states senate, in a red state. so on balance, i guess, maybe the dscc might have a different opinion that tim miller, but i would like to see dolan win. >> it's a little bit playing with fire when you choose to have the more extreme candidate win the republican primary, but that's the nature of the politics right now. no one's going anywhere. when we return, hillary clinton putting her spin on the age-old question, are you better off now than you were four years ago. the only person she says could answer that in the "yes" after the break. answer that in the "yes" after the break. buy one get one free at visionworks! (shouting) how can you see me squinting? (shouting) i can't! i'm just telling everyone! ...hey! see your tax refund go further with buy one get one free at visionworks. see the difference. >> tech: cracked windshield? schedule with safelite, and we'll come to you to fix it. >> tech vo: this customer was enjoying her morning walk. we texted her when we were on our way. and she could track us and see exactly when we'd arrive. >> woman: i have a few more minutes. let's go! >> tech vo: we came to her with service that fit her schedule.
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donald trump and his surrogates have tried to frame the election of 2024 like this. are you better off than you were four years ago? >> and people look around and they say, am i better off now than i was four years ago? the answer to that is "no." you can compare very easily how much better your life was with donald trump in office and how much worse you are now that joe biden is in office. >> i can't believe i'm going to say this, but lara trump is right about one thing. it is very, very, very, very easy to compare life in america now under joe biden with life back in 2020. right now, there is lower crime and lower unemployment than back in 2020. we are not at the start of a pandemic that will claim the lives of other 1 million americans or facing down a massive food insecurity crisis that led to miles-long lines at food banks. nor are americans getting in
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fistfights with their neighbors over basic necessities like toilet paper or stressed about whether they should be lysoling their produce when they get home the from the grocery store. nor is the leader of the free world suggesting that we might want to inject ourselves with bleach, or as hillary clinton put it, multiple indictments and half a billion dollars in civil liability later, pretty much the only person who can say they were better off four years ago is donald trump. we are back with tim, matt, and basel. basel, do you feel that is an accurate way of looking at it right now with the framing and as this election season intensifies a little bit? >> i think it's a great way to look at it. i go back to my tear-stained jacket from election night in 2016 and think about all the things that hillary clinton have said that have become true. not just about the kind of government that trump would bring, but the fact that he didn't pay his bills, that he really was broke. and you know, there are a lot of folks that looked at that
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election as the lesser of two evils. they will look at this one also as a lesser of two evils. and if you just take a moment to think about all of the things that we discussed at the beginning of this, at the top of the hour, in terms of what trump brings and what joe biden brings, you can't ever say that it's the lesser of two evils. there's a clear understanding of the kind of government that would persist under a joe biden. as you mentioned, the pandemic, i lost 19 people during that pandemic. so, while i would not have wanted to go through that, i'm outside talking to you because of leadership. and so it is important, as hillary clinton has done, is we need to continue to do to keep talking about what the difference in leadership does and makes for our day-to-day lives. and you know, anybody looking at it, i think could argue that joe biden has made us better off now than before. >> the numbers don't lie, tim. i think the data doesn't lie, either. there's no way in a real world, lara trump is making that
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framing knowing that for the general election is going to be forgotten. that people will be able to look at these numbers, look at these charts, look at the unemployment rate, look at the gdp, it just doesn't make sense that she would try say this in a way to compare, as a realistic offering for republican voters. >> yeah, it's a comedy of errors from the trump folks on this, eamon. and lisa stefanick who went to harvard is a little smarter than these folks, i forget if she said, are you better off three years ago or five years ago, but she picked a different year. like, let's look at a different year, and see if that argument will work. and i think that's what they're going to have to do. donald trump will have to try to appeal to people's maybe not fully formed memories of what life was like before the pandemic. these halls ondays and kind of frame up this election as where donald trump gets no blame from the pandemic that happened on his watch, but joe biden gets
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all the blame for any aftershocks of the pandemic that happened. that's a tough sell, and a tough sell across basically all of the substantiative markers, whether it be crime, economic, et cetera. >> and so the counterpoint to that, matt, is that it feels like the only way this real works is if you have the right-wing media basically lying about things like crime statistics. here's what "the washington post" reports. quote, since crime began to surge during the pandemic, cable news coverage of crime increased, but on fox news, coverage was consistently higher during the biden administration relative to the first three years of donald trump's presidency. the peak came in october of 2022, as the channel tried successfully to ensure that the rise in crime that had already begun to wane was a central discussion point for the midterm election. crime and immigration. >> yeah, i mean, i wish i was more optimistic that facts would rule the day in this, but my gut
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says that feelings are going to rule the day in this election, because of where -- what kind of space that the trump voters operate in. and i've talked to a lot of them and a lot of them recently. they talk about crime and then you say, well, crime has actually gone down, and then they kind of cross their eyes, and they're like, no, it hasn't. i saw a bunch of shows on television. then you talk about the economy, and you say, they say, trump had a better economy. and you go through all the data, the gdp, the unemployment, the people's pay, all of that, and they say, well, who did that data? that's the government and joe biden is manipulating the data. so the facts are not going to determine, in my view, unfortunately, in this environment that we're going to be in. and i would argue that the biden campaign would make a mistake in trying to present this election as an argument, with their data saying, you're better off than you were four years ago. i would make the argument, they have to look forward and describe what a trump presidency would do in the next four years compared to a biden presidency.
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and what people would lose in a trump presidency. their freedoms, any economic quality, any kind of opportunity for the working class to have any mobility. all of the facts that we know, their social security, their medicare, all of those things. and so, i understand why the trump campaign and lara trump is making this argument. they don't have the facts, but they have the feelings among the trump base to support this, but joe biden ought to present this argument as what are the next four years going to look like under himself versus donald trump. and that's, i think, the threat that people will respond to. >> yeah, what's at stake is nothing short of our entire democracy and system of governance, as we know it. gentlemen, thank you to the three of you for spending time with us this afternoon. greatly appreciate it. when we return, confronting one of the most prominent spreaders of disinformation and conspiracy theories, the director of the new documentary, "the truth versus alex jones" will be our guest after a very short break. jones" will be our guest after a very short break. now, there's skyrizi.
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in helping hungry kids or go online to helpnokidhungry.org and help feed hungry kids today. i was in a conference for mothers whose kids died by gun violence. and i was in an elevator with this woman, and she saw my necklace, and she said, whose this, and i said, oh, this is my son, ben. he was killed when he was 6. and she said, when do you mean? and i said, well, we live in
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sandy hook. he died in his school. and she said, you're lying. that didn't happen! they said it didn't happen! and i was like, what? she's like, no, no, they said it didn't happen. and i was like, no, it really happened. and she wasn't crazy. >> that moment, that was part of a brand-new documentary about the misery and harassment that sandy hook families were put through by years, already on top of the unfathomable tragedy of losing their loved ones. it features accounts like the one you just saw of how the appalling lies spouted by alex jones can quickly spread and do serious damage on the truth and society and real people's lives. and it follows the retribution they sought against that disinformation and against jones who still owes them more than $1.5 billion in damages after a landmark defamation trial. joining us now, the filmmaker, dan reid, the director of that new hbo documentary, "the truth versus alex jones."
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dan, incredible. just that clip alone i think speaks volumes to where we are as a country and the disinformation that has plagued us. but you've had incredible interviews, powerful members with family members. why this documentary, why now? >> well, this documentary because just viscerally, i believe that someone would tell lies on a vast scale over a period offen the years that would cause immense pain. this really marks a pivot point where disinformation goes massive. and it becomes political. or conspiracy becomes political, forgive me. alex jones was a kind of aimable buffoon, you didn't know what his politics were, and suddenly he's doing second amendment and sandy hook was fake and all over the alt-right themes. and for me this marks an escalation into the entrance of fantasy into american politics. >> it had to do also with the explosion of just the way social media is, and the dynamic of
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24-hour consumption of information. it wasn't siloed off in one little pocket of texas. but talk to me about the extent of this scam, the degree to which he was able to profit off of these lie, how he was able to build an empire that for the most part largely went ignored until it began to have real-life consequences for these families. >> alex else supplements on the back of the outrage and engagement that he creates. it's like, come for the outrage and stay to buy the supplements. and these are supplements like colloidal silver and man pills and brain pills, sort of snake oil. and that's his business and he makes a tremendous amount of money. what he found, when he mentioned sandy hook, people flocked to the infowars store and bought his products. so he made money, so he kept mentioning it and the parents kept on suffering. they couldn't grieve for their children, because that opportunity was getting taken away from them. they were being called liars, they were being called -- and so
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they took him to court and that's what this film is about. >> let me play another clip, i believe this scarlett lewis' testimony, she was featured in your documentary. her son, jesse, was killed in sandy hook. >> this is extraordinary. >> yeah. >> sandy hook is a hard truth. and having a quarter of americans doubt that sandy hook happened or doubt the facts around sandy hook is not conducive to keeping our kids safe. it's not. jesse was real. i am a real mom. i know you know that. that's the problem. i know you know that. and it. you keep saying it. why? >> so it's an incredibly powerful moment in testimony and yet after a $1.5 billion judgment alex jones is still on the air. it has not gone away. >> it was a long tail to those court cases. the parents got what they needed from the court cases.
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they got acknowledgment that they were lied about for seven years. alex jones isn't worth $1.5 billion. they're never going to get the entire amount of the verdict. there will be a long tail to the bankruptcy. i know the families are determined to get what's owed to them. he will stay on the air forever because he's pretty unstoppable. do we take someone to court every time they tell lies at this scale? how else can we deal with it? >> we've seen that play out with donald trump in the case of e. jean carroll. let me ask you about this moment we're in and that having to do with disinformation. you had aaron rodgers being a vice presidential candidate. talk about where people trade for not just monetary value but for clout, for visibility, for positions of power using disinformation. >> i think disinformation is
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kind of like candy that's so easily consumed. in the absence of -- our world is complex and our world is confusing and it's changing fast. in the absence of a way to understand it, conspiracies and the fake news provides an easy way to sort of put it in a box and say, well, it's a hidden hand. it's the deep state, george sorrows, something else. they're to blame and not me. it's just an easy take away. >> i feel like we've also seen that happen in places like the january 6 ofth where some of the followers who went up to the capitol believed. >> sincerely believe. people who believe in conspiracies are not bad people, they're just believers. >> thank you. the documentary, of course, is "the truth versus alex jones." it will be available to stream on max. a quick break for us. we'll be right back.
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online sales have started for the first over the counter birth control pill in the u.s. the first pill, opill, has been available since 1973 without a prescription. federal regulators approved it for use without prescription. a major step making sure birth control is accessible since clarence thomas wrote in his concurring decision in the dobbs decision that the court, quote, should reconsider its past rulings codifying rights to contraception access, same-sex
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marriages and same-sex marriage. according to the company, shipments will be discrete, sent in plain, unbranded boxes. so far opill is for sale on their websites and amazon with cvs and amazon saying they will offer the pill once they receive their shipments. another quick break for us. we'll be right bag. ag protect their money with chase. woahc.k.eker down. lost her card, not the vibe. the soul searcher, is finding his identity, and helping to protect it. hey! oh yeah, the explorer! she's looking to dive deeper... all while chase looks out for her. because these friends have chase. alerts that help check. tools that help protect. one bank that puts you in control. chase. make more of what's yours.
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"the price lock, the price lock..." so, if you could change the price, change the name! it's not a lock, i know a lock. so how can we undo the damage? we could all unsubscribe and switch to xfinity. their connection is unreal. and we could all un-experience this whole session. okay, that's uncalled for. thank you for spending some of your tuesday with us. we are grateful for your time. the beat with jason jorch son who is in for ari melber is here. >> thanks to the audience. welcome to "the beat." i'm jason johnson in for ari melber. we start with breaking news. today donald trump telling the supreme court he should get, quote, absolute immunity from prosecution. that's his official stance in the jack smith election case that is barrelling towards a showdown at the supreme court. trump

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