is really -- you couldn't make it up if you wanted to. if you did, nobody would believe the script, and i do think the structural advantage of fundraising is really important. we've come to an era when you've got so much soft money and so much dark money into the system, really very few races were decided by money anymore. and this race has a struck drilling financial advantage right now for one candidate, and that's joe biden. >> jennifer palmieri and robert gibbs, always good to talk to you two. thank you very much. that is all in on this wednesday night. alex starts right now. >> we are going to be talking about those bibles coming up and -- >> you know it's the only one, thank you. >> if you thought the king james you had on your bedside table was a donald trump endorsed, you would be wrong.

big news. thank you my friend and thanks to you at home for joining me this our. for years now donald trump has insisted his favorite book is the bible. but four years now he has also been seemingly unable or at least unwilling to recall any of its specifics. >> the whole bible is very incredible. i joke, very much so, they always hold up the art of the deal. i say my second favorite book of all time. but i just think the bible is something very special. >> i'm wondering what one or two of your most favorite bible verses are. >> i wouldn't want to get into it because to me that's reversible. you know when i talk about the bible it's very personal so i don't want to get into -- >> is there a verse that means a lot to you that you think about or site? >> the bible means a lot to me but i don't want to get into specifics. >> is there a favorite bible verse or bible story that has informed your thinking of your character through life, sir? >> i think many.

i mean you know when we get into the bible i think many, so many. >> old testament or new testament? >> probably equal. >> you may think that an aide would slip in a sheet of paper with something like i don't know, john 3:16 on it so trump could at least pretend to know something about the bible. but no. and that reality is part of what makes trump's latest grift so amazing. >> all-americans need a bible in their home and i have many. it's my favorite book. we must protect content that is pro-god. we love god and we have to protect anything that is pro- god. we have to bring christianity back into our lives and back into what will be again a great nation. i'm proud to endorse and encourage you to get this bible. we must make america pray again. i think you all should get a copy of god bless the usa bible now and help spread our christian values with others. >> donald trump talking bibles while actually having never opened one himself is ironic

but it is also not out of character. i mean this is a man who is selling basketball shoes right now and i'm not even sure his three-pointer exists. the reason trump is bible peddling and the reason it is interesting isn't because of the hypocrisy. the reason trump and his bible sales are interesting is because of the fine print here. this is the frequently asked questions page of this new trump bible. if you were wondering, this is the only bible endorsed by donald trump, which may be alarming news. i don't know. but the thing that actually matters here is the very last question on this list. is any of the money from this bible going to the donald j trump campaign for president? the answer is no. despite the fact that trump's ad for this bible really feels like a political ad, to make america pray again, et cetera, despite that, money from the sale of these bibles does not

go to any political cause. it goes to a politician. it goes to donald trump. according to the new york times, trump gets royalties from bible purchases, which is part of a licensing deal through a shell company. so the money is split between this bible company and donald trump. at the end of the day, this is really just trump getting his supporters to enrich him personally. and the reason i point this out isn't because i care particularly about donald trump making money off a bunch of bibles. it's because this little shell game here is very much part of a pattern and we are seeing it repeat itself in a big way that could impact the 2024 election. you probably remember that back in 2020, after losing the race, trump launched what he calls his official election defense fund. between election day and january 6, the trump campaign sent millions of fundraising emails to supporters, sometimes as much as 25 emails a day.

the fundraising pitch was that the democrats want to steal the election and that this fund needed your money to fight back. trump managed to raise $250 million with that sales pitch, but there was just one small problem with trump's official election defense fund. it didn't exist. >> i don't believe there is actually a fund called the election defense fund. >> now trump really did raise $250 million, but only a small fraction actually went towards anything resembling fighting back or challenging the 2020 election. if you read the fine print while donating to trump's official election defense fund, you learn that before a single penny is given to trump's efforts to fight the election results, the first $5000 donated by any donor is split between the rnc and trump's save america pack. in other words, if you sent in $200, none of that would go towards the trump defense fund.

now today the new york times is out with a very useful piece showing where all that money did go, and it turns out that all of that $254 million windfall trump got from claiming the election was stolen, it turns out trump funneled that money through a series of different accounts like his save america pac. the money was part of a little shell game that ultimately paid donald trump's personal legal expenses. he used it to fill the $90,000 a day hole in his pocket from the legal bills he has been incurring in his various civil and criminal cases. the other big showstopper in this piece today is that that big pot of money, it is nearly gone, and now with those coffers nearly run dry, trump is looking for another cash cow. next month trump is set to hold a big-ticket fundraising dinner with the rnc in palm beach,

florida, and the fine print on the invites to that dinner, that fineprint is telling. this is the first major fundraiser since trump got his daughter-in-law, laura trump, installed as the cochair of the rnc and lara trump has since very publicly made clear that the rnc will not be paying any of trump's personal legal bills. again, look at the fine print. at this fundraiser next month the invitation shows that the first $6600 donated go straight to trump's campaign and the next $5000 donated after that go to trump's save america pac, the entity that has been paying his legal bills. so in order to actually get money into the rnc at this rnc fundraiser, you first have to clear $11,600 in trump's ownbanks. so okay, the rnc isn't paying trump's legal fees but it is not as simple as that. it is a shell game. joining me now to discuss is

rusty greenberg, former federal prosecutor who served for over a decade in the u.s. attorney's office for the southern district of new york and tim miller, writer at large for the bulwark and cohost of the next level podcast. thank you both for being here. kristi, how is this legal? how can he keep saying this one thing and doing another? >> i think the big question here will be looking behind all of this as to who is coordinating its. if donald trump is coordinating between his campaign and these pacs that are supposed to be third parties and independent. the save america pac is independent even though he directed, independent third- party, if there is sufficient coordination you could prove that, then maybe you would have something to say. these expenditures are not purely personal. these are really campaign contributions and therefore they should be subject to the limits of $5000 that campaign contributions are subject to. so again, it seems to me, like you said, they are just trying to do it and run around these various regulations, and it

seems so transparent. the question is, will anybody look into this, will the ftc look into this, will any prosecutors took into this? it's unclear. >> can i ask a follow on that? because we are on the eve, kind of, of the stormy daniels hush money payments case, which is 100 and some thousand dollars. we are talking about a whopping sum of money here is being moved around various pacs and super pac sand campaign arms and republican committees, to ultimately help donald trump in his bid for the presidency. do you think the conversation around the justice department be in quote, unquote westernized is actually going to steer these potential prosecutors off a case like this? that seems so much greater in magnitude than what's already going to trial. >> it feels like it already has because member, jack smith, as you pointed out, had looked into, had served some subpoenas in connection with that nonexistent, as it turns out,

election defense fund. he served some subpoenas and then he withdrew them and it was unclear why because that seemed like such a clear-cut fraud. i questioned why that happened. perhaps it was optics. perhaps he thought like he had such strong cases, the january 6 case in the national security case, that he didn't want to seem as though he was trying to drain trump of the ability to legally defend against those cases. hard to say but i questioned it that time because that seemed like such a clear wire fraud case that it seemed like it should be looked into but maybe they just had limited resources and didn't like the optics of it. but i agree with you, this raises a lot of questions. someone, somewhere, even if not the special counsel's office, because they are pretty busy, some prosecutors should be looking into this. >> eric garland, can you hear us? the other thing that i find astounding is that somehow donald trump, who makes a point, his campaign is predicated on the idea that he's so rich, he doesn't need

any of this, he's a mogul, he's got all this cash. white working class americans, why do trump supporters continue to give this man money when it so clearly is paying for a legal defense that he himself could pick up the tab for? >> good question. why do people continue to give money to grafting pastors at mega-churches, too? sometimes people don't like to admit that they've been had. i think that some of it is not just a shell game and how he's moving the money around to the different organizations, it also is the fact that he's being dishonest with the supporters. this segment is not happening on newsmax, right? this segment is not happening on fox. certainly there are some supporters that recognize that their dollars are going to his legal defense fund and his airplane and his fancy dinners at mar-a-lago, and they don't care because it's their way to give the middle finger to the people they don't like. but there are other people who are donating that luda really believed that that money was going to an election defense fund, that there was fraud in the election, that literally

believe that the country is under threat, it's under some invasion and the little $10 donation they give is part of the effort to stop that vision and to support candidates that are going to put in policies that they care about. there are some of these people and there are some people, elderly people in particular, people who aren't internet savvy, who are literally getting conned, as the new york times has reported, and others, where they think they are making one donation and actually they are having a monthly withdrawal taken from their accounts. this is been happening over and over again so you know there are plenty of these supporters that are getting scammed and i think that this is potentially a useful political issue for democrats, frankly, because it undermines a core message of donald trump that he cares about these people. >> and look, kristi, the expenses aren't going anywhere, right? the cases remain ongoing, right? trump seems to drag these trials out because he doesn't

want to actually be held accountable before november, but he's still got to continue paying his lawyers. he has settlements, he has bonds that he has to pay up. he has a $175 million bond in the new york ag's case, tish james's case, the civil fraud case. on that case, what is your expectation in terms of trumps ability to pay that without someone else putting a bond out for him? >> he asked for, when he filed his brief with the new york court of appeals, he said i want $100 million and so they have now given him $175 million bond so figure he's close and $75 million more, i would assume that he would probably be able to find a source of it. it can't be his campaign. his campaign cannot pay for that civil judgment because that was purely personal conduct. they can pay for campaign finances that are related to his conduct in the campaign or as an officeholder. his campaign can't pay for this, so i think he really is going to have to find other forces to be able to pay for

that, which it's just insane to me, just that the bond was reduced for him to be able to do this, to go forward with his appeal, because at the end of the day this was a defendant who went in court and said his whole defense was i'm too rich to defraud because the banks just want to have a relationship with me, and my business is good enough. they don't care what's on these financial statements. they just want to do business with me because i'm so rich, and then he just said recently he has $500 million in cash and then he's telling the court, i can't pay that amount for a bond, and then they reduce it without explaining why. and that's just head scratching that a defendant who made the kind of defense, who don junior basically put on a timeshare presentation about the business empire and every property end all these iconic assets and yet, to then come back and say when it's time to pay up, i can't do it. >> and meanwhile, trump supporters are starting gofundme pages. it defies logic that there is a

very practical campaign implication here, tim, which is the robbing peter to pay paul aspect of all of this, which is funneling money away from his own campaign and from down ballot republicans so that he can pay for his legal defense. and i do wonder, when you look at the reality here, biden and the dnc, combined cash on hand $87.5 million, trump $44.8 million. numbers are often abstract, especially at that magnitude, but you know from campaigns, like that would seem to have a meaningful difference in terms of how these two campaigns can operate in the coming months. >> and their really is a limit to the pot. there is only so many small dollar donors to go around and trump's campaign month to month is showing him losing ground in small dollar donors in an election year where he should be gaining. i think this makes a difference. on a little bit suspect of often times how much marginal differences make on cash in a presidential campaign, given the scope of information and how much money has been spent, but eventually you get to a point where there is actually a

meaningful difference and i think right now for one example, joe biden steam is on the air right now. they are trying to drive a message about what he accomplished and maybe address some of the age questions and donald trump's campaign isn't because his money is going to pay a bunch of lawyers and a bunch of grifters who work for him. i think that is at least on the margins of what might be a close race, could certainly be meaningful. >> you know when the state republican sharon michigan is reading the alarm bell that someone needs some ads in this state, you got a problem. kristi greenberg, tim miller, thank you both for joining me tonight. i appreciate you. coming up, things are looking up for the biden campaign while the republican sharon michigan, as we just discussed, is saying when is the trump run rnc going to start doing something in this state, anything? i'm going to break all of that down with obama campaign manager david plus. that's next. that's next. but starting it eight months pregnant...

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is it going to be the position of the rnc in 2024 the 2020 election was not fairly decided or it was stolen somehow? >> i think we're past that. i think that's in the past. we've learned a lot. the past is the past and unfortunately we had to learn a lot of hard lessons in 2020. >> stolen election claims, that's all in the past, says the new rnc cochair lara trump, just hours after speaking with my colleague garrett haake we got this reporting in the washington post. those seeking republican at the republican national committee have been asked in job interviews if they believe the 2020 election was stolen, according to people familiar with the interviews, making the false claim a litmus test of sorts for hiring. so you want to work at the rnc? where do you see yourself in five years? what are your biggest weaknesses? did joe biden steal the election from donald trump?

we'll reach out if we have any other questions. that is how things are going right now for one of the two major parties in the next presidential election. meanwhile on the democratic side, the biden campaign is focused not on the last election but the common one and recent polls show president biden gaining ground across the country. a new bloomberg morning consult poll out today shows biden either tied or leading within the margin of error in michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin. all states biden was trailing in just a few weeks ago. joining me now is david plouffe, former obama campaign manager and host of the campaign hq podcast. david, thanks for joining me tonight. i was stunned by this warning that pete hoekstra, the michigan republican party chair, issued to the trump campaign, effectively saying they haven't made any significant general election investments in michigan. this is neither the campaign nor the rnc. they haven't transferred any money to the state to help ulster its operations heading into the general. there are no specific programs in place to court voters of color and there is no general

election field staff in place. how meaningful is that from a campaign perspective? >> honestly hoekstra has won races himself so he knows how to put together a campaign. that's a searing indictment. now alex, for those who have run campaigns, sometimes it's humbling to admit that they really make a difference on the margins. they don't change big things but the polls you just showed suggest we could be heading to a race, let's say that's 48 to the winner in a bunch of battleground states, 47, and five third-party. that's were a campaign matters. in the obama campaigns we often used to talk of them as they are the field goal unit. they're not going to get you two touchdowns but they could be worth one, two, three points.

right now joe biden's campaign is running ads on the air. donald trump seasons. we just heard in michigan, one of the six or seven states that will determine our next president, there's nothing going on. that's not going to change because all trump cares about is himself and sucking up this money to defray his legal costs. so again, it's not going to change big things but if this race is like the one we just had in 20 and the one we had in 16, campaigns matter a lot around the margin so that's why i think you're going to see increasingly republicans get very concerned. of course it just doesn't affect trump. it really affects down ballot people who are harmed by his selfish, lackadaisical political influence. >> what do you attribute the biden upswing to? we're talking incremental here, this is within the margin of error, but nonetheless it does feel like an inflection point. is at the after? is it the halo effect of the state of the union or is it american voters having better vibes about the economy? how do you look at the landscape therefore biden? >> i think it's many things. i think democrats and i don't think swing voters but i think a lot of democrats are more

enthused now because of the state of the union, because the president's out there campaigning, number one. number two, i do think voters feel slightly better about their personal economic situation and three i think the biggest factor is people are really zeroing in on the fact that this is the rematch. it's a rematch, by the way, that a lot of americans don't want but it is the one they're faced with and at the end of the day i do think there is enough americans out there who basically, even if they don't approve joe biden's performance as president, say i just can't sign up for four more years of the trump circus. it's not going to help me or my family so i think you're starting to see some voters, even though it's very, very early, but i think you are seeing more voters zeroing in on the fact that there is no fantasy here of alternative options. these are the two candidates and you have to make a choice. >> to that end, politico is reporting that biden is kind of pursuing an unusual strategy to remind americans of what was happening four years ago. usually you want to be future facing, relitigating covid

doesn't seem like something the american public necessarily wants but the biden campaign is effectively betting, this is according to politico, that they can turn the issue of covid into a referendum on trump's overall competence, reminding the american public how trump behaved in the emergency. from a strategy perspective, do you think there is peril in doing that, given the anguish and the trauma that i think is a lot of people still feel when they think of the beginning of the covid pandemic. >> you have to do it carefully and this is a very deep race and the last time we had two presidents running against each other was 1896, i believe, so it's been a long time. we have two incumbents so in that regard joe biden has to be clear, every voter out there, he says if you give me four more years i'm going to do this for the economy, healthcare, the environment, range of issues. but you've got to put trump on trial and his conduct as president, and why i think this is important if done artfully

is when you listen to trump talk about his presidency, he wants to forget the year 2020. so you can't let him do that. you've got to put this in front of people and say, listen, bad things are going to happen that are out of our control in the next four years. they just always do and you really want this guy who mishandled it in kind of a historically awful way, you know, to be back and trump, who is more diminished, will feel even less accountability, who said he's going to surround himself, you saw that rnc pledge about the 2020 election. there is no doubt that if trump wins they're going to ask the same thing of everybody who wants to work in the government so that's what we will be facing. you don't want to make it may be the cornerstone of your campaign but trump is trying to avoid 2020 and i do think it's important. but you can tie that to the future. here is how he acted then. here is how it harmed the country then and he's going to do the same thing if he's given the reins one more time. >> remind people that he urged americans to inject bleach into

their veins. >> that's amongst the messages. >> it's great to hear from you. coming up, you may recognize this picture of supreme court justice clarence thomas and his conservative buddies smoking cigars at his billionaire benefactor's lakeside resort. but what about this photo from real life? what it says about the state of judicial ethics in our post row america is coming up next. nex. are you still struggling with your bra? it's time for you to try knix. makers of the world's comfiest wireless bras. for revolutionary support without underwires, and sizes up to a g-cup, find your new favorite bra today at knix.com when i was diagnosed with h-i-v, i didn't know who i would be.

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>> take a look at this photo. it's a lot like an optical illusion. the more you look at it, the more you see. there is supreme court justice clarence thomas right in the middle, swearing in his protigi, james , to be a judge on the fifth circuit court of appeals. judge has his hand on the bible, held by his wife, alison, in the home of justice thomas's billionaire benefactor harlan crow. the year is 2018. judge would go on to play a crucial role in trying to restrict access to medication abortion across the united states. not only did judge agree that the fda improperly expanded access to abortion pills in 2016 and 21, he was the only judge on that court to conclude that right-wing doctors in this case, the alliance for defending freedom, suffered

injury because women had access to abortion medication. that case went before the supreme court yesterday, where even those judges seemed skeptical that the plaintiffs even had the standing to bring this case before the court, which makes judge decision there appear that much more unusual land now we are learning that judge wife, alison, an attorney with the federalist society ties is linked to, what else, the alliance defending freedom. the guardian newspaper reports that from 2018 to 2022, that group made at least six payments to mrs. it is unclear what exactly the group paid her to do but judge says the money donated to his wife was then donated to charity. wherever that money ended up, it does not change the fact that the judge who was deciding a court case brought by a right-wing group is married to someone being paid by that same right-wing group.

joining me now is melissa marie gossard, nyu law and a cohost of the essential strict scrutiny podcast. melissa, thanks for being here. how in heavens is this not a breach of ethics? >> again, she is his spouse. spouses are allowed to have paid income from other sources. this appears to be a series of honoraria, but it does seem odd that judge did not even consider the optics of what this looks like and perhaps thought maybe this would be an opportunity to recuse himself from this particular case, which he did not. all of this suggest that the very thin rules we have for judicial recusal probably need to be beefed up and you'll recall a few months ago we had all of the supreme court kind of making some gestures toward a code of conduct, which actually turned out not to really be a code of conduct at all. again, it seems like there is a

real need for judicial reform across the board, not just on the supreme court but in the lower federal courts, for two thier rules regarding this sort of thing. >> it surprises me. i guess it shouldn't but these effectively activists like matthew kaczmarek, who is another judge that's just been rubberstamping conservative lawsuits in search of a sort of broader policy change across the country, that these judges don't even hide the activism at this point. what is it about this moment in time that licenses them to feel so emboldened, do you think? >> it's a lot of things. one we have to recall that during the trump administration the selection of federal judges was essentially outsourced to leonard leo and the federalist society and the heritage foundation, which we've heard about before, you've talked about on the show before. those judges were vetted to be movement conservatives so what they are doing now, what they feel emboldened to do, exactly what they were put on the bench to do. so there is a kind of comfort there. they know what they're supposed to do. they know the mission.

they've chosen to accept it and they're doing it. the other thing i think it's worth thinking about here, this case you just talked about, the mifepristone case was heard at the supreme court yesterday. you're right. judge was totally out there with his view of the injury that these doctors allegedly suffered and it seems very likely that the court is going to issue a very stern rebuke, that this is not the kind of injury they look for for these cases. but the fifth circuit and judges like judge who are so extreme, actually provide a do service for the united states to print court which is steadily moving to the right. when these lower courts are really out there, like truly pushing the envelope, as judge did, the court can then rain it in a little, offer up what seems like moderation, get heralded by the press for their moderation when in fact the court is still moving to the right. so they provide essential cover that we cannot forget that. >> they shifted the overton window. >> overton french doors. this is not an overton window anymore. the doors are wide open and the

court is walking through, moving to the right. we just don't see how far to the right there actually going. >> there is also something like slightly pernicious in terms of what's happening in the context of judicial appointments. judge is so out there it's almost like he's auditioning for a role on the supreme court. >> he is auditioning! that is exactly right. i said this on this show before. if donald trump wins the presidency, or any republican wins the presidency in 2024, clarence thomas and samuel alito, who are in their 70s, are very, very likely, almost certainly two-step down, and when they do, you have people waiting in the wings like judge who has been auditioning for this. and that's exactly what these sort of outlandish gestures are. they are auditioning for the next spot on the supreme court, to be donald trump's guy going forward. >> it's an audition tape, if anything. i want to hear your thoughts on the way in which these activists who are cloaked in judges robes are doing their part to move the conservative agenda forward. but they're not actually doing a great political service for the gop on a whole.

you see these judges, whether it's the judge in alabama ruling on ivf or even judge in the fifth circuit making decisions on mifepristone, they put into the center spotlight these issues of reproductive freedom that maybe things that conservative activists want but are terribly -- terrible politically for the republican party. we see evidence of that last night in alabama, where marilyn lance, who's going to be a guest on lawrence o'donnell show in the next hour, flipped a republican state house in the state of alabama, largely on the issue of ivf. >> i think that's exactly right. the republican party recognizes that it's the mystic agenda is not one that plays well to the electorate. the electorate is far more moderate than what the republican party is doing right now but that might not matter so much if you have the courts. like the courts are by design a minority reinstitution but what the republicans have banked on is that they can do and prosecute through the courts what they could not do in majoritarian politics. so the goal on the other side for progressives is you not only have to win elections, you

have to win decisively and then you have to turn your attention to rolling back the conservatism of the courts. >> it is a multipronged effort and potentially a multipronged solution. melissa murray, it is always good to see you, my friend. thank you for your time tonight. coming up, republican-led order policies are having a devastating effect on migrants seeking asylum in the u.s. and increasingly it is in the form of sexual violence. are going to have a special report on that from the mexican side of the u.s. border right after the break. the break. care of fixing your windshield. but did you know we can take care of your insurance claim? that means less stress for you. >> woman: thanks. >> tech: my pleasure. have a good one. >> woman: you too. >> tech: schedule today at safelite.com. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ everybody wants super straight, super white teeth. they want that hollywood white smile. new seinical white provides 2 shades whiter teeth and 24/7 sensitivity protection. i think it's a great product. it's going to help a lot of patients.

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today a federal appears court ruled that a hugely controversial texas law known as sb 4 must remain blocked while legal challenges against it cantin can you. if it is allowed to go into effect as before mack would criminalize integration and america's largest border state by giving texas police the power to arrest and jail migrants suspected of entering the u.s. illegally and it marks an unprecedented power grab at the state level. at the federal level, donald trump is also promising that if reelected, he, too will use local police to arrest migrants as part of his massive deportation plan. >> as president i will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in american history. if they don't go back to their countries, we will never get back our country. >> migrants who are escaping violence and poverty and political uncertainty often cannot go back home so what

these types of policies do is force migrants to wait in parts of mexico near the u.s. border, hoping to one day sort out their immigration status and they are in parts of mexico where dangerous cartels are systematically exploiting migrants with devastating consequences. this is a special report from our msnbc contributor paola ramos, and i want to warn you that some parts of the story are difficult and disturbing to hear. >> so we just crossed from brownsville, texas, over to matamoros. right now we're in the state of tamaulipas, which is considered one of the most dangerous places in mexico, more than anything because of the cartel violence that's taking place right here. know every single person we talked to on the ground is telling us that the rate of sexual violence against migrants is escalating, it's increasing, it's getting worse by the day so we are on our way

to the refugee shelter to understand the impact that it's having on the migrants that are crossing from these border towns into the united states. >> reporter: maria, her husband and their two children say they had to leave guatemala last year after receiving death threats from the same gang that had already killed nearly half of her family. they traveled north, hoping to be near the u.s. border as they waited for their official integration appointments, a crucial part of seeking asylum. they had no idea the worst part of their journey would take place just feet away from texas. texas.

>> many of the migrants in the shelter have endured similar situations. situations. >> reporter: what's happening to these women might not be a coincidence. cartels have developed a systemize, organized weapon to kidnap and demand ransom from migrants on the way to their integration points. integration points.

>> reporter: doctors without borders has seen this crisis up close. from october to december 2023, they recorded a 70% increase in consultations for sexual violence in matamoros and reynosa, compared to the prior three months. the first two months of 2024 they have already seen nearly 70 cases. >> i just got back from talking to three asylum-seekers and at least two of them had been sexually assaulted. is that what you guys are seeing on the ground, too? >> yeah it's true. when we had the consultations our patients also tell us their stories, which are quite

traumatizing. traumatizing. migrants. unwanted pregnancies. >> you offer pregnancy test? >> it is part of the protocol that we follow. it's the first medical treatment. >> does doctors without borders also offer access to abortions or abortion pills? is that part of the work you are doing? >> we are concerned all over the world wherever we operate, we are concerned about unwanted pregnancies. we try to ensure that services o are being offered, and also to ensure that we adhere to the laws of the country. >> reporter: what many migrantsr don't know is that once they cross the border, a line that represents security, dreams, and other opportunities, they are walking into the realities of post-roe america. >> [ speaking in a global

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dripping years mexican cartels have leveraged the long waiting period on the mexican side of the u.s. border. today these cartels are increasingly kidnapping migrants for ransom and weatherizing sexual violence as yet another form of extortion. joining me now, paula ramos, msnbc contributor and host of msnbc field report. it's so great seeing you. your bringing back stories that are not being told and need to be told as we have this raging debate about immigration and don't talk about the people involved. what did you see on the border in terms of sexual violence? the story we played earlier was harry doing. i wonder if you can talk broadly about the picture you saw when you were there.

>> when you think about the women we just saw, i think of this image. these are women, on the mexican side of the border, they are faced with this incredibly vicious sexual violence. when they look the other way, when they look at the american side of the border, they are faced with post row, the problem with that is you are seeing this growing group of migrant women that are stepping into post-roe america with unwanted pregnancies. and the reason why, that's what we find in our reporting, is because there is this alarming spike of sexual violence against migrant women, something that doctors without borders told us, lawyers are telling us that, activists told us, migrants themselves, and the difference now is that, cartel violence has always been the norm, the difference now is that the cartels are very explicitly weapon icing sexual violence as yet another form of extortion, torture, to get what they want. >> can you talk a little bit

about how the cartels functionally operate? >> it's very simple. some people won't want to hear this. the longer migrants wait on the mexican side of the border, the more the cartels profit. unfortunately, cartel violence is deeply intertwined with the u.s. failed, i have to say, failed immigration policy and failed asylum seeking process. this is what happens. the cartels have leveraged the very long waiting times that immigrants are faced with on the mexican side of the border, because of policies like trumps title 42, and now bidens cbp one application which essentially pushes migrants, right now, to wait on the mexican side of the border as they're waiting for their immigration appointments. as migrants wait, and as they adapt to the different u.s. policy changes, so to do the cartels. through that time, they have developed simply more sophisticated and organized methods of violence.

they know the routes, they know the buses, they know when the immigration appointments are. so it used to be that migrants could just pay with cash when you were held hostage. but now you have to pay with your body. >> because you don't have the cash. >> and that violence is not just more vicious, it's not just more terrifying, but now, the problem is that we are feeling the ramifications of that violence. now we are the ones that are faced with migrant women that are carrying those pregnancies, so what we do? >> and they come to a state like texas where their options are nil york effectively, you are telling me that immigration policy is so broken it's forcing these extremely long waiting times, there's no diminished appetite, there's no appetite for decreasing those wait times, on either side of the aisle in the u.s. migrants are effectively preyed upon by the cartels. are they, is there any protection for them? is there any recourse for them as they effectively lie waiting to be preyed upon by dangerous

cartels? >> no, and precisely i think that's something that president biden should have done when he visited the border. you can say everything we want, we can talk about policy, but go to the other side and you will see this. it's important to understand that no matter how conservative you are at the border, no matter how hard you want to make it for migrants to come to the u.s., that only benefits the cartels. migrants will continue to come, the desperation we just saw on our screens, that isn't deterred by walls and policies and policy debates. it's not. people will continue to migrate north, so what do you do? >> the desperation is so acute and it is driving people to do things that are debasing their own, that force them to debase their own humanity and we are not looking at this, we're not talking about this at all, your reporting is so essential. i'm so grateful for everything you do to shine a light on this, really important stuff. thanks for making the ti