tv The Reid Out MSNBC March 19, 2024 4:00pm-5:00pm PDT
4:00 pm
we created magic in the studio. >> growing up in compton, i would never imagine i would one day be represented among some of my childhood heroes. we have heard focus on your passion and the rest will follow and that's what it is for me. >> complicated, yes. controversial, yes. influential, undoubtedly. dre has been in the lab with a pen and pad for almost 40 years now, and at some level, today, he'll get his due. as a reminder, you can always hear more from me on my podcast, a word with jason johnson, new episodes drop this friday. with a special guest who is following us now, "the reidout" with joy reid is up next. tonight on "the reidout" -- >> so to be clear, mr. trump has no financial relationships with any russian oligarchs?
4:01 pm
>> that's what he said, that's esobviously what the opposition is. >> paul manafort mumbling his way through a 2016 interview with cbs because he himself had extensive russia ties. now trump is reportedly planning to bring him back as another loyal trumper, peter navarro, heads off to prison. also tonight, judge aileen cannon's unusual request for jury instructions which legal experts are calling insane, bizarre, clumsy, amateurish, you get the idea. plus, polls will close soon in ohio, where three republicans are competing to challenge senator sherrod brown in a race that could decide which party controls the senate. but we begin tonight with the former president's crime syndicate. trump white house aide peter navarro is as of today locked in a federal prison. day one of a four-month sentence. before turning himself in,
4:02 pm
navarro held a press conference at a strip mall parking lot down the street from the facility. he was convicted for contempt of congress for refusing to comply with the january 6th committee. he even asked the supreme court to help him avoid prison time. but he failed and now he's in prison. making him the very first donald trump senior aide to serve time in connection with the coup plot. trump has to be afraid watching one of his top aides getting locked up. over the past couple years, the cells have been filling up with these guys. roger stone, michael cohen, rick gates, george papadopoulos, michael flynn, allen weisselberg, his own trump organization fined more than a million dollars for tax fraud. all the president's men now have criminal records or rather all of the four times indicted, twice impeached, adjudicated sexual abuser's men. in that list of donald trump's very best people, i mentioned paul manafort. if you have been following us
4:03 pm
during the maga vacation of u.s. politics you would remember manafort, the key aide who seemed to appear out of nowhere to run trump's campaign for free. he actually had some lujet d.c. cred as a republican consult want with ties to presidents bush and reagan. in the reagan era he founded black, manafort, and stone. the black being charles black, and the stone being none other than roger stone. the trump foot soldier and nixon zealot who would one day get pardoned by trump for multiple felony convictions. stone is the one you see there in the center, manafort is on the left. per "the washington post," one of manafort and stone's first clients was a new york developer named donald j. trump, brought into their portfolio by stone who had met him through the notorious gotham lawyer, roy cohn. you can't make this up. but as all of this firm stuff was happening, manafort cooked up this side hustle that
4:04 pm
eventually blew into quite the lucrative gig. but not necessarily one you wrote home about because manafort's specialty became working for literally the world's worst people. he was this mercenary lobbyist, one of his clients was former philippine president ferdinand marcos who hired him when he needed an image boost. the year after he hired manafort in 1986, marcos won the country's presidential election, thanks to rampant voter fraud. his wi imela became famous for shoe hoarding while the country went broke. manafort was also a lobbyist for the dictator of then zaire, the current democratic republic of congo. manafort functioned as his de facto pr guy, and he, like marcos, was a bad guy. in this 1989 article, "the washington post" writes of him, he keeps coming back to washington with his hand out, and congress keeps filling that hand in spite of the human
4:05 pm
rights abuses in zaire, and the inexplicable lack of progress by the country under his reign. the republican administration winks at him because he's been a cooperative ally in africa, and those are in short supply, but some democrats are fed up with paying for a corrupt and abusive dictatorship. now remember, manafort also helped steal the ukrainian election for a putin ally. he went from doing that to working for trump. and despite all of these people he worked for, dictators accused of human rights abuses and who lived lavishly while their people starved, it was trump he took the fall for. now, supposedly, manafort is back with trump eyeing him for a 2024 campaign role, the timing very interesting. trump is bringing him back at a time when he desperately needs money, cough cough, tish james, and new york civil trial. and manafort is the, who you going to call, guy, when you need cash or to steal an
4:06 pm
election so you can become president and use the presidency to enrich yourself and your family. the man lived lavishly himself. he owns a $15,000 ostrich feather coat. he's friends with dictators and the oligarchs no one has ever heard of. has them on speed dial, i'm sure. during his four-decade career, he, well, kind of became an oligarch himself. joining me is michael isikoff, investigative journalist and co-author of find me the votes, all about the georgia crisis and we're going to bring you back to talk all about georgia because that's a whole mess with that prosecution. talk to me about manafort, because he also kind of played ball in the trump campaign with a russian spy. >> yes, he did. i mean, look, i'm having flashbacks to 2016 right now. manafort was sort of the first red flag when i and other people started reporting into the trump world's ties to russia. you had trump, of course, who was saying all these nice things about vladimir putin while he
4:07 pm
was trying to do a business deal in moscow. but when he brought manafort in, that just raised all sorts of questions. manafort, as you pointed out, had been the political consultant for years for viktor yanukovych, who was the pro-putin president of ukraine at the time, or up until 2014. the uprising took place -- >> the orange revolution. >> the orange revolution, and he flees to moscow. that had been, so yanukovych was manafort's main patron for years. and all of the money from the party of regions which was yanukovych's party, came from oligarchs who were close to putin. many of whom manafort had all these ties to. oling deripaska, a name from the past i'm sure you remember. he was a business partner of manafort while he was considered
4:08 pm
one of the two or three oligarchs closest to vladimir putin. had all sorts of suspected ties to organized crime. the u.s. government wouldn't let him in the country as a result of that. and here's manafort, not only doing business with -- not only representing him, but they did business together. and then they fell out. this is what really got me. this is may of 2016, i discover that deripaska, the pro-putin billionaire, is suing manafort in the cayman islands because millions of dollars in their business deal disappeared. so at the very moment that he gets hired by the trump campaign, he's in hoch to a russian oligarch who was tied in with vladimir putin. >> so the giving over of non-public campaign data to someone who turns out to essentially be a russian spy, that and also when he then takes
4:09 pm
over the trump campaign, changing only one thing in the republican platform, which is to remove the plank in the republican platform for support for ukraine. putting all that together, donald trump is now desperate for money, and the only way he can stay out of prison is to become president. is that suspicious to you that he's bringing this specific guy back in who has ties to russian cash and helps steal elections? >> look, i think it's going to be suspicious to a lot of people. let's go back to the senate intelligence committee report. they spent years investigating this. bipartisan report, and they concluded that manafort, because of one of his closest associates, was this guy, kilimnik, who was viewed by the fbi as a russian intelligence asset, manafort is meeting with him while he's chairman of the trump campaign, and sharing internal polling data with him at the grand havana room in new
4:10 pm
york. senate intelligence committee report described this, it said manafort was a grave counterintelligence threat. who was the chairman of the senate intelligence committee at the time the report was written? >> was it marco rubio? >> marco rubio. so one question, you know, you and others might want to ask of marco rubio, is he comfortable with somebody who he declared to be a grave counterintelligence threat working for the republican nominee? >> oh, michael. ia know his answer will be whatever trump wants. michael isikoff, fantastic. we'll bring you to talk about georgia. good to see you again. >> all right, let's bring in congressman adam schiff of california, a former member of the january 6th select committee. hopefully you were able to hear michael isikoff. great journalism there, but are you concerned, congressman, from a national security perspective, that donald trump, who is desperate for money and who needs to be president in order
4:11 pm
to make the cases against him, the federal cases go away, is turning to manafort again? >> absolutely. and let's remember that during that 2016 campaign, while manafort is the chair of the campaign, he secretly is meeting with this russian intelligence officer or operative, konstantin kilimnik, giving them internal polling information. this is the same russian intelligence that is hacking and dumping the dnc documents, that is working with a troll farm in st. petersburg to try to essentially run a covert social media campaign for donald trump. so he is effectively the liaison between the trump campaign and russian intelligence. and as part of that relationship, he's also involved in a pro-russian plan for eastern ukraine. what could there possibly be to worry about in having someone like that brought into a presidential campaign again?
4:12 pm
not to meng the fact that he was tried and convicted of various fraudulent activities including those around not registering as a foreign agent involved with trying to intimidate other witnesses. we don't know even more about his role and his relationship with russian intelligence because he used encrypted apps, and he refused to cooperate when it came to kilimnik. so all kinds of sirens going on with this prospect. >> and by the way, it does kind of make you sit back and think about the fact that donald trump said he would allow putin to do whatever the hell he wants to our nato allies and he's doubled down on getting his apparatus in the house of representatives to refuse to fund ukraine. donald trump needs money. vladimir putin might be the world's richest man because he's robbed all of the oligarchs he has under his control. does it concern you that perhaps what donald trump is hoping to trade for help from russia again
4:13 pm
to get himself back in the white house is ukraine? >> oh, absolutely. you know, what we saw in the first presidential campaign when he was lying about having any business dealings in russia, even as michael cohen, his lawyer, was on the phone with the kremlin right up to the point of the republican convention, trying to make this deal for moscow trump tower, something that bob mueller found would be the most lucrative deal of donald trump's life, he was willing to do that even when he wasn't in all of that debt that he's in now with these judgments against him. he is more financially imperiled now than ever before. more economic incentive, more greed operating here now than in the past. and ukraine is in a much more vulnerable position. he has a lot more to offer the kremlin dictators. so it's a grave, as the senate bipartisan report said, a grave
4:14 pm
counterintelligence risk to have manafort anywhere near that campaign. >> in addition to that, we know that donald trump is facing, i don't know if the trial will happen because judge aileen cannon doesn't seem interested, but if that were case to go forward, donald trump is accused of stealing national security secrets, including nuclear secrets he's accused of sharing with people who don't have access to them. how would we even find out if donald trump decided that is something that might be something that's useful for manafort to broker around the world? i'm just trying to think, use my lurid imagination with donald trump which we sometimes fail to do. >> doesn't require much of a lurid imagination, it just required recollection. you'll recall in his meeting with putin when he essentially banished everyone out of the room. he didn't want witnesses to his conversation with putin, and as i recall, i think he was reliant
4:15 pm
even on the interpreter, the russian interpreter, i don't know if it was his or putin's so there's lots of reasons to be concerned about any private conversation he might have with putin, but also whatever he would relate to paul manafort about national security or intelligence matters that might be of interest or value to russian intelligence. it's exactly the reason why i think when the intelligence community briefs him as the presumptive nominee of the republican party, they're going to really dumb down anything they tell him because they know they can't trust him with whatever they share. >> i have two more quick questions. one, your reaction to peter navarro now finally serving time? >> well, i think it's very important affirmation of the fact you can't just thumb your nose at a subpoena. there's no separate standard for cronies of donald trump. and without a penalty like going to jail when people receive congressional subpoenas they'll just say this is optional. now, i think a congressional
4:16 pm
subpoena has real teeth, and that's vitally important for our oversight role. >> let me play you a piece of sound of donald trump with apologies to how offensive it is and get your reaction. >> when you see those palestinian marches, even i, i'm amazed at how many people are in those marches. and guys like schumer see that, and to him it's votes. i think it's votes more than anything else. because he was always pro-israel. he's very anti-israel now. any jewish person that votes for democrats hates their religion. they hate everything about israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves. >> congressman, you yourself have faced some of those pro-palestinian protests. some of the protesters are themselves jewish people. what do you make of the idea that donald trump has said that anyone who doesn't vote for him hates their religion if they're jewish? >> you know, it's hard to begin
4:17 pm
to explain how offensive that is. it odd to be offensive to everyone, certainly offensive to anyone in the jewish community. but the idea, the very idea that donald trump would think he's in a position to be advising jewish people about their own faith, he's not in a position to advise anyone about anyone's faith, if he knew even the first thing about judaism, he would understand the obligation of the respect we have for efforts to mend the broken parts of our world. and if anyone is the antithesis to those jewish values it is someone like donald trump who is so determined to divide, pit american against american, and further break this very damaged world we live in. >> yeah, he might want to stop saying hitler did good things before he starts advising jewish people on what they ought to do and how they ought to vote. congressman adam schiff, thank you very much. up next on "the reidout," judge aileen cannon has already shown her affinity for trump
4:18 pm
throughout the classified documents case, but her new and super bizarre jury instructions take that deference to a whole new level. "the reidout" continues after this. he reidout" continues afte this ♪ today, my friend you did it, you did it, you did it... ♪ centrum silver is now clinically shown to support cognitive health in older adults. it's one more step towards taking charge of your health. so every day, you can say, ♪ youuu did it! ♪ with centrum silver.
4:19 pm
voices of people with cidp: cidp disrupts. cidp derails. let's be honest... all: cidp sucks! voices of people with cidp: but living with cidp doesn't have to. when you sign up at shiningthroughcidp.com, you'll find inspiration in real patient stories, helpful tips, reliable information, and more. cidp can be tough. but finding hope just got a little easier. sign up at shiningthroughcidp.com. all: be heard. be hopeful. be you. -remember when i said we need to screen for colon cancer? -was that after i texted the age to screen was now 45?
4:20 pm
[both] because i said cologuard®! -hey there! -where did he come from? -yup, with me you can screen at home. just talk to your provider. [both] we'll screen with cologuard and do it my way. cologuard is a one-of-a-kind way to screen for colon cancer that's effective and non-invasive. it's for people 45+ at average risk, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your provider for me, cologuard.
4:22 pm
4:23 pm
to overturn the 2020 election and for fomenting the ensuing january 6th insurrection. one of their claims is, quote, the long history of not prosecuting presidents for official acts despite ample motive and opportunity to do so over the years. demonstrates that the newly discovered alleged power to do so does not exist. now, it is true that this is the first time a former president has faced criminal charges. but that's because it's the first time a former president tried to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power with the help of a mob of supporters he summoned. it is worth noting that trump's lawyers used the term official act more than 70 times in this filing, trying to make it seem that this was all in the purview of trump's role as president. and the supreme court's decision will not only affect trump's federal election interference trial but some of his other criminal trials including his classified documents trial in george. to that, judge aileen cannon who trump appointed after he lost the 2020 election is taking
4:24 pm
actions that are calling into question her legal inexperience, her partisan leanings and whether she's auditioning for the role in the supreme court should they retire under a trump presidency. she's called on trump and the special counsel to file a proposed jury instructions for use at the end of the trial. one that she has yet to even set a start date for. included in the order are two different hypothetical situations she has asked both sides to consider for those instructions. scenario one is that a jury of ordinary people with no security clearances should be allowed to comb through the highly classified documents trump took from the white house and decide for themselves if national security information regarding, for example, our nuclear program, should not be considered trump's personal mementos. and in scenario two, that a president like trump does have the broad powers to make that decision for himself and as such cannot be questioned over what he decides to take with him when leaving the white house.
4:25 pm
i'm no lawyer, but that sounds insane to me. according to msnbc legal analyst and former fbi general counsel andrew weissmann, there is no legal basis for either of those choices. and it looks very much like she's trying to engineer a situation where either trump can be easily acquitted of the charges or it just becomes almost impossible to convict him unless special counsel jack smith is okay with people without security clearances gaining access to the country's highly protected secrets. joining me now to try to make it make sense is the great mary mccord, former acting assistant attorney general for national security and cohost of the prosecuting donald trump podcast. can you make it make sense? >> it's hard to do so. let's just say she also just completely ignored all of the legal arguments put forth by jack smith and his team. things like, you know, he's not charged with what he did while he was in the white house. he's charged with retaining these classified documents, this national defense information after he left in florida and not
4:26 pm
returning it when he was asked. so the presidential record act and whether he tried to designate it personal or not doesn't matter, but they also argued more fundamentally to this point there are definitions in the presidential record act of personal records and presidential records. personal records must be purely personal that are not related to information prepared for presentation to the president or prepared by the president related to his constitutional statutory and other official duties. what could be more related to his constitutional and statutory duties than this intelligence community raw intelligence community products turned into classified documents to share with the president. so this is not something where she has to hypothesis, should we let a jury determine if these are personal or not or let a jury decide whether he by merely not giving them to the archivist, that necessarily meant they were personal. these legal questions about whether a document like that could even be personal or
4:27 pm
presidential, she should be dressed about that. >> what judge thinks that joe can look at these and be like, this looks like it says nuclear on it. i think that might not be personal. how would they even know that? do they have to get security clearance? that doesn't make sense. >> mind you, they will be seeing some of these materials to rule on whether there's national defense information, but that's a completely different assessment. i think your intro really hit the concern here. if she had just ruled as a matter of law, if she either decided to dismiss the indictment or dismiss charges 1 through 32, that's something that jack smith could appeal. by doing this, she's not really issuing an appealable ruling. she's just trying to kick the can down the road to trial. and once you're in trial with a sworn jury, if she grants a motion for judgment of acquittal at the end of the government's case, that's not appealable. >> is there anything jack smith can do? >> so, there is something called a petition for a writ of mandamus, where you go to the
4:28 pm
appellate court and say what the judge has done is so clearly and indisputably wrong it should be overruled immediately. that's a very difficult standard to meet. it's one that i think is very questionable here. because this is still just her sort of saying give me these potential jury instructions. just write that up for me. so i think that jack smith and his team are probably considering it. i don't know that they'll use this particular order to do it. >> she's going to dismiss this case, let him off. >> if she dismissed the case before trial, that would be better because they could appeal that. the worst case is they're in the trial, she grants an acquittal. >> let's talk about this. here it is, this is donald trump's filing to the supreme court. he's trying to make the claim that trump's actions reaching out to state officials and congress and his vice president was based on some extensive evidence of fraud that's apparently secret that he's
4:29 pm
never shown us before. doesn't he have to show this evidence, and isn't it weird he would also be showing it to clarence thomas whose wife also believes in the big lie and thinks there was fraud? maybe she has the evidence. >> this is recycled from what he's been filing since he was before judge chutkan and the d.c. circuit. everything i did, everything jack smith's indictment charges me with is part of my official acts. of course i can talk to state legislatures about fraud. of course i can talk to my own vice president about fraud in the election. of course, i can talk to my own department of justice. he's trying to paint the facts in a way that gets him within his official acts, and then to argue justices of the supreme court, i should be immune for everything that i do within the outer perimeter of my official acts. >> where is the talking part of bringing -- of having your people bring a noose to hang mike pence? that's not talking to him. at that point, you're threatening to kill him. >> you know, he would say that's just what -- >> talking loud. >> that's what his supporters
4:30 pm
did. he never said that. we know there's evidence when he was advised reporters that he said that. he did say something along the lines of maybe he deserved it. he would say i certainly never ordered them to hang mike pence. he has a good argument he did not order that specific thing, but you know, his official acts argument is necessary for him if he's going to make any headway with the supreme court. >> last one really quick. this whole thing about donald trump suing abc news over the fact that the word rape was used. now, i feel like when you're arguing whether you sexually abused someone or raped them, you're probably in the wrong place in the argument. you probably don't want to be there. what the judge literally said was the finding is ms. carroll failed to prove she was raped in the meaning of the new york penal law does not fail to show that donald trump raped her. does donald trump have road to stand on here? >> no, i tink it was george
4:31 pm
stephanopoulos using the same terminology that a judge has used. you have to prove with definition it's a knowing falsehood. it's not a knowing falsehood when you're quoting the judge. i'll just say, sexual acts are defined in the u.s. code and many codes including any type of penetration with any part of the body. >> mary mccord, you always make it make sense. it doesn't make sense, but you make it sound good. you make it simple to understand, and we always appreciate that. we didn't go to law school. coming up, steve kornacki is at the big board as polls are now closing in the state of ohio, where we're following a very consequential race that could determine control of the united states senate in september. if you struggle with cpap...
4:32 pm
you should check out inspire. honey? inspire. sleep apnea innovation. learn more and view important safety information at inspiresleep.com ♪ upbeat music ♪ asthma. it can make you miss out on those epic hikes with friends. step back out there, with fasenra. fasenra is an add-on treatment for eosinophilic asthma that is taken once every 8 weeks.
4:33 pm
fasenra helps prevent asthma attacks. most patients did not have an attack in the first year. fasenra is proven to help you breathe better so you can get back to doing day-to-day activities. and fasenra helps lower the use of oral steroids. fasenra is not for sudden breathing problems or other eosinophilic conditions. allergic reactions may occur. don't stop your asthma treatments without talking with your doctor. tell your doctor if your asthma worsens. headache and sore throat may occur. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. get back to better breathing. get back to what you've missed. ask your doctor about fasenra, the only asthma treatment taken once every 8 weeks. if you can't afford your medication astrazeneca may be able to help.
4:36 pm
. polls are now closing in the grit state of ohio, and while the presidential nominations are settled, of course, there's also a big senate race on the ballot. national political correspondent the cornackster is at the big board. >> the polls are closed in ohio and votes are starting to come in here in the senate race. the dynamics here, bernie moreno, the businessman who is backed by donald trump, matt dolan, the state senator who trump has been attacking. dolan said the 2020 election was won fair and square by biden. he's put blame on trump for january 6th. and the third candidate, secretary of state frank lurose, who tried to get trump's
4:37 pm
endorsement, failed in that, but tried to position himself as a trump aligned candidate. two counties with votes coming in. the key thing is the votes you're going to see early are the mail-in ballots. they're counted, tabulated, and released first. the mail-in vote in warren county just outside cincinnati, mason ohio, about 40,000 people if you're familiar with the area, is around there. bernie moreno leading here in the votes that have been released, 47%. you see dolan a little more than 11 points behind him. then larose in third. this should be if moreno is having his night, he should be winning here comfortably. if this is indeed the mail vote which we believe it is, the mail vote in the past, when dolan ran for the senate back in 2022, he did better with the mail-in vote than he did with the same-day vote. so this may be sort of a high water mark for dolan in this county. we'll see as more votes come in. the other place we're getting votes from, this is one of the
4:38 pm
mother lodes in the state, franklin county. the state capital of columbus is. a lot of suburbs around columbus as well. this is one of only three counties in ohio that matt dolan won in the 2022 senate primary. he lost to jd vance in the primary. this is a place where dolan wants to get big numbers. you see him with what we think is the mail vote leading by 12 points over moreno. he wants to get the number as high as he can in places like franklin, in cuyahoga, the big counties here with lots of suburban metro areas. lots of college degrees. that's where he needs to run up the biggest numbers to have a shot here. >> steve kornacki, wave your arms if any excitement takes place. thank you, my friend. we'll be right back.
4:39 pm
generalized myasthenia gravis made my life a lot harder. but the picture started changing when i started on vyvgart. ♪♪ vyvgart is for adults with generalized myasthenia gravis who are anti-achr antibody positive. in a clinical trial, vyvgart significantly improved most participants' ability to do daily activities when added to their current gmg treatment. ♪♪ most participants taking vyvgart also had less muscle weakness. and your vyvgart treatment schedule is designed just for you. in a clinical study, the most common side effects included urinary and respiratory tract infections, and headache. vyvgart may increase the risk of infection. tell your doctor if you have a history of infections or symptoms of an infection. vyvgart can cause allergic reactions. available as vyvgart for iv infusion
4:40 pm
4:41 pm
so this is pickleball? it's basically tennis for babies, but for adults. it should be called wiffle tennis. pickle! yeah, aw! whoo! ♪♪ these guys are intense. we got nothing to worry about. with e*trade from morgan stanley, we're ready for whatever gets served 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? got him. good game. thanks for coming to our clinic, first one's free.
4:43 pm
we're going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line. and you're not going to be able to sell those cars. if i get elected. if i don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole -- that's going to be the least of it. it's going to be a bloodbath for the country. >> as dangerous and clearly deranged as trump is, we have to start asking not just what's wrong with a society that produces so much support for this chaos theater, but also who is it that so badly wants trump to be president, not just at the bottom, but at the top. there's a term in latin, it means who benefits?
4:44 pm
because beyond the angry masses who want to luxoriate in the punishment of migrants, women, trans kids, the real beneficiaries would be the ones the late george karl ln called men of wealth, who long sought to return to a team where people like them didn't pay income taxes or face regulation over their businesses or didn't have to worry about labor unions, workers rights or competitions from women or blacks. they could work their employees way past a 40-hour work week and reap unlimited profits and leave vast estates to their heirs tax free. they could call themselves good christians and never think twice about dirty words like diversity, history, accountability, or equity. these are the men behind organizations like project 2025, the clairemont institute, the heritage foundation, and whatever leonard leo is up to at any given time. trump in many ways is just their
4:45 pm
useful scary clown. and while some of these groups are loudly proclaiming these plans to take our country back to the 19th century, others are flying under the radar, like a group called society for american civic renewal, or sacr for short. this group was uncovered earlier this month by talking points memo, which described them as a secret men-only recognize-wing society with members in influential positions around the country who are on a crusade to recruit a christian government that will form after the right achieves regime change in the united states. potentially via a national divorce. joining me now is a journalist who wrote this story, investigative reporter for talking points memo. josh, thanks for being here. i wish that this sounded fanciful, but it doesn't. please explain who sacr is and what they want. >> yeah, so what sacr wants is kind out what we said in the
4:46 pm
story, they want to populate the government of what they call a future aligned regime. what is that? a future aligned regime is a government going back, you know, before the 1960s, before the 1930s, before the progressive era writ large. a government that might sound familiar to people who lived in america in the 1890s. so the other kind of interesting thing about sacr is who allowed to join. it's only available to men, to certain kinds of christians, and they have other criteria as well. you have to be influential, you have to have wealth. it's very restrictive and only certain kinds of christians and certain kinds of men. what they're doing is trying to kind of inculcate this embryonic version of what they want society to be like, of what they want people who govern america to be like in this small secret society. >> and these are not like the disgruntled, like the people you see at trump rallies. those people can't join. you have to be rich, right? can you give us some of the
4:47 pm
names, because the clairemont institute guy is involved. these are wealthy white men, male christians, right? >> yeah, that's what's critical about it. ryan williams is the president of the clairemont institute. he's a member of the national board. there's other people, nate fisher in dallas, he is a harvard law graduate. he worked in private equity for a few years. there's scott yenner, a professor at boise state university. he became notorious a couple years ago for saying he thinks that professions like engineering and law and medicine should stop recruiting women into their ranks. so yeah, look, these are not people who are kind of economically downscale. these are not downwardly mobile people. these are basically the winners in our society. i think when you thing about the kind of resentment this group represents, again, it's not resentment directed upwards, what it is is rage from people with money and status and position directed downward at the rest of our society.
4:48 pm
it's them saying they want a certain hierarchy that they believe does not exist right now and they're trying to create it or revive it. >> what would happen with women in this kind of society they want? >> well, i think a really telling thing is what they look for in their members. what they ask for is their -- again, the members all male and they want them to be dominant in their household. they phrase that a few different ways in the documents that we obtained. but the message there is clear, they believe that they believe in a very traditional strict version of hierarchies and believe that men should be at the top of them. another tell, joy, is that one thing they say in terms of their objectives is they want to form the government of a future aligned regime. since they're all men, clearly they believe men should be the ones in charge. >> the weirdest thing about them -- yeah, the weirdest thing about them, sorry to interrupt you, the logo, the mark.
4:49 pm
can you put this on the screen? are they tattooing this on themselves? what's going on here? >> well, i think our reporting fell short in that we didn't get a lot of visibility into the rituals they have at their meetings. beyond copies of prayers they recite. yeah, it's a weird kind of amalgam of symbols there. it's partly a various kinds of crosses. and then kind of a pattern around it. you know, i think with that, it's important to like keep in mind, you know, there's this self re-enforcing thing going on, what they're saying in their documents is that we are the people who understand how power should truly be exercised. we're the people who understand where dominance is needed and how power can be legitimized. when you have things like that like the mark and other weird esoteric things which define who is in and out, what they're saying is it's -- there's a little vanity here. they're saying we deserve to be
4:50 pm
in charge. we're the ones who understand how power in our society works. >> and donald trump would be their perfect king jaufry. what a charming future they have in mind. josh, great reporting. thank you so much. we'll be right back. why would i use kayak to compare hundreds of travel sites at once?
4:51 pm
i like to do things myself. i can't trust anything else to do the job right. kayak... aaaaaaaahhhh kayak. search one and done. meet the traveling trio. the thrill seeker. the soul searcher. and - ahoy! it's the explorer! each helping to protect their money with chase. woah, a lost card isn't keeping this thrill seeker down. lost her card, not the vibe. the soul searcher, is finding his identity, and helping to protect it. hey! oh yeah, the explorer!
4:52 pm
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. morikawa on 18. chase. he is really boxed in here. -not a good spot. off the comcast business van. into the vending area. oh, not the fries! where's the ball? -anybody see it? oh wait, there it is! -back into play and... aw no, it's in the water. wait a minute... are you kidding me? you got to be kidding me. rolling towards the cup, and it's in the hole! what an impossible shot brought to you by comcast business.
4:54 pm
4:55 pm
a month for the next two years, as mortgage rates go down. to put court towards a good mortgage or trade up to come from middle-class background and come from a family that has $200,000 or less. >> with the economy being one of the top issues for voters this election cycle, president biden is trying to sharpen his economic message by putting a focus on his administration's efforts to make housing more affordable. prices and inflation overall have cooled significantly. the cost of housing is still on the rise. climbing faster than the inflation right and making it incredibly tough for many americans, especially younger folks to afford rent or buy a house. the person who was tapped to lead on this issue over the past three years, as former ohio congresswoman and secretary of housing and urban development, marcia fudge, who last week announced that she will be stepping down from her post. joining me now, is the marcia
4:56 pm
fudge. so good to see you. >> so good to see you. >> this is tough work, housing is a big deal. before we get to some of the things you have accomplished. why are you leaving? >> i believe that it's time. i have been at this a long long time. i believe i have given all that i have to give. we have put in place, all of the things that are necessary to make the change, that i think is to be made. it is time to give it to some younger person, to come into the work that we started. and i feel good. >> are you running for office, is there some other story that i'm not getting from your? >> i am not running for office. >> okay, we wanted to make sure of that. let's talk about housing. i do hear this a lot from young people, the numbers in the data look good, the employment rate and you can tell me all of that but it is for my life, what has been done, to try to bring down the cost of rent and owning a home market >> it supported to understand that this country for decades has not invested in low income and moderate income housing.
4:57 pm
so, there is housing but it is not affordable for everyday people. and because of the supply is so small, what happens is prices go up, and that is basic supply and demand. what we have done is made it easier to buy down payment assistance, we have changed the way that we look at student loan debt, which is a big issue. who has student loan debt, black and brown and poor people. but we always wade it any higher than any kind of debt, is what made more difficult for people to buy. so we change the way that we do that. we changed the way that we look at was creditworthy. most minorities come to us and we say, you don't have any credit. but now we say, if you to rent on time or 12 months, we consider you creditworthy. so, fha can then work on underwriting a mortgage for you. we have done some down payment assistance. we have created new products to keep people at home, we have done an awful lot. >> how do we get, the thing is, sometimes there's a disconnect between how government works and what people feel in their lives, how do we bridge that,
4:58 pm
you have been a member of congress, you have been a mayor, and you spoken to your constituents at a level that is closer to home. how does government and what it does connect to people's lives? >> one of the things that we have done, we do house parties all over the country. literally, we call them house parties. but we teach people how to go about the process. what prepares you to be able to buy a home? and it has worked. over the three years that i have been there, we have supported 1.8 million mortgages. 1.5 million of them are new first-time homebuyers. and more than 250,000 are black. because we have taught them through our technical assistance, through our housing counseling, how to go about the process because so many of them quantify but they just don't know they do. and it's not just only getting into things like public housing, and trying to teach people, this is how you move to the next step. i got a public housing a lot, because that is where i learned what people are doing. i learned how people are living. and i think that it has become
4:59 pm
an issue for many people that i do, but that is what i do. >> the great state of ohio, it is election day in your home state, what are you looking to see what happens, do you think sherrod brown can win against either of the two front runners in the senate. >> unfortunately, i am still under the hatchet. >> right, you're absolutely right. >> i am hopeful that we will come up with two good candidates. and i think that ohio is such a great state. i think we will do some good things. >> so, i will give you a four final answer, for those, who feel that there hasn't -- that they can't afford to buy, or to rent, what is your elevator pitch as to why they should feel hopeful? >> they should feel hopeful because were creating an environment in which we are building more houses. more than 500,000 units of housing under construction today. we are looking at an issue of how we can create better housing. how we can assist people in preparing through housing counseling and the other thing
5:00 pm
we have done that people forget about is, homelessness comes under us, so just in january, we issued more than $3 million to deal with that situation. so we are helping people move from the very worst they can be, to the best they can be. >> the last thing before we go, the first black woman to lead in more than four decades, what has been the importance of representation because that is a huge representation. that is a huge instance. >> the important thing is i know the people that i represent, they are my people. >> i will say among your people are me, because they sort of incorporated it. >> you know that i want my red. >> we had it all covered. >> between the two of us we have it covered. secretary marcia fudge. that is tonight's reading. all in his up next. tonight on all in. >> how does ohio feel about donald j trump? >> to the big vote in ohio
87 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
MSNBC West Television Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on