that's kinda my thing. thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. the beat starts now. hi, ari. >> thank you very much and welcome to the beat. tonight, we have a special report on elon musk's free speech hypocrisy from that don

lemon controversy to a big and important supreme court case. that's coming up. stay with me for that. while our top story right now are the new developments in the first criminal trial of a former president. this is now under two weeks away and a judge toughening the gag order for defendant trump and rebuking his efforts to as they put it, inject fear into the trial while attacking family members. they discuss the threats to the case. this is a response in part to the d.a. prosecuting trump and has raised concerns about how the defendant is already acting. trump has continued to attack the judge's daughter in this case circulating pictures of her online. trump using his platform to push the pictures as well as the coverage of this very storm recreated. he responds now to the gag order by sharing a fox segment that also goes after the judge's daughter and that is a topic that's only in the news or at least on fox news because of trump's earlier smears. the judge also dismissing

exaggeration from trump's attorneys as they fail their arguments to delay this case. trump's team is today asking about the judge recusing himself. d.a. bragg is opposed that. we are on track for a trial within two weeks and those are the tensions in that criminal trial that looms. while last night, trump took a very different approach and i want to explain this contrast here, where he complied with the laws in his civil fraud case. the contrast is telling because trump is testing and defying all these criminal rules on the one hand where he clearly doubts this judge will jail him before trial regardless of what he does or even if he clearly violates the gag order. common defendants might commonly face that kind of pretrial incarceration. yet at the same time, trump is fully complying in the civil case and that's because he doesn't have a lot of good choices. trump owing roughly half a

billion dollars in the civil fraud case. he wants to appeal it to see if he can get that number reduced. the law requires a bond in new york to be able to appeal, so he is complying. indeed, you may have heard about the struggle to get the money but last night, trump found a company to post bond for $175 million. a trump donor runs the firm that's involved in this. billionaire don hanky. trump likely paid a fee and pledged collateral to get a bond of this size, "the new york times" reports. and even if it's a friendly business partner who invested in the bank on two other properties in the past, it still took all of this haggling for trump to get this far. in criminal court, trump still pushing this chaos. daring the judge to treat him like a common criminal. it may be this trump who is wily and strategic may want the judge to get involved in a back and

forth kind of tit for tat or outburst with him. while on the civil side, the cost is so high that trump's lawyers admitted he didn't have the cash for the full penalty and trump is complying with the law. even before the deadline. so it is kind of a mixed picture tonight but i'll tell you one observation here in new york would be the law is real. donald trump facing these real deadlines set to lose hundreds of millions of dollars if he blew it. so with a little back and forth, he still met the deadline and this comes at a time when his campaign is bleeding money on lawyers and small donors who have been bailing and new tech venture trump is pushing. that stock is crashing. there just isn't a lot of money to go around. if you follow the law, people say jail's worse than a fine, right? prison sentence is worse than a parking ticket. that's generally true and i think you don't need to go to law school to understand that,

yet here we have someone who at this point, he hasn't been convicted of anything, seems to be moved a lot more by the tile of parking tickets that have turned into an empire threatening half a billion dollar fine and that has him complying at least part of the time. we have two great prosecutors here to break it down. we're back in just 90 seconds. e. we're back in just 90 seconds. f) about our honeymoon. what about africa? safari? hot air balloon ride? swim with elephants? wait, can we afford a safari? great question. like everything, it takes a little planning. or, put the money towards a down-payment... ...on a ranch ...in montana ...with horses let's take a look at those scenarios. j.p. morgan wealth management has advisors in chase branches and tools, like wealth plan to keep you on track. when you're planning for it all... the answer is j.p. morgan wealth management. always dry scoop before you run. listen to me, the hot dog diet got me shredded. it's time we listen to science.

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i didn't do anything wrong. i had to put up a bond this morning for $175 million. i did nothing wrong. >> well, he did something wrong according to the courts, which was fraud, which is why he put up the bond. we're joined by prosecutors with experience in the southern district of new york. david also my former boss. welcome to both of you. david, i don't want to get too highbrow for you here. we're just a couple of lawyers talking about the news. best of time, worst of times, but it does seem like the best of compliance last night on the bond side and the worst possible on the threatening of the judge's family. and i'm wondering what you think with your experience about that gap as i've told you. it's obvious he was so worried about losing money that he did fully comply on that side. >> plus, he's pushing the envelope. i think he's pushed it as far as

he can on the civil side. he's got two appeals. one for the e. jean carroll case and one for the fraud case. he's taken that as far as he can get it. he got a little bit of gift with a lowered bond. on the criminal side, he's still, this is something new and fresh. he's seen how far he can push this judge. i think any litigator will tell you this does not work for and you know getting favorable rulings and so forth once the trial gets underway. number one. number two, i think it's incredibly despicable and irresponsible to do what he's doing. i would like to see what his reaction is going to be if something horrible has happened, which has in the past. judges have been killed. family members have been killed and he's essentially implicitly inviting that to happen. >> yeah. we saw a version of that on january 6th. some of his closest, longest serving aides. we know this from the private text messages, the emotional interactions. they said this is horrible.

we have gone too far. they looked up and saw him taking in the violence. seeing how long it could last. even the most cynical, hardened political people around him, some of them were shocked. but no one can claim to be shocked now. if god forbid something were to happen to any innocent person, no one would be surprised with what we've lived through. >> i don't know how thoughtful this is. as i mentioned, the judge isn't going to be looking to do him any favorites in the courtroom and he may be, if he keeps it up, he's going to be forgoing his opportunity to really participate effectively in jury selection was they're going to keep the identity of the jurors away from him. >> shouldn't they at this point? >> yeah, i think they should. but the judge has left that issue out there. >> for another day. >> for another day. and so he's really kind of hampered himself from a strategic perspective. if he gets convicted here, it's

a big deal. it's a felony conviction that he cannot set aside and so again, from a strategic perspective, i think he's making some gross errors here and i can only think his lawyers are cringing. >> christie, take a listen to some of the experienced judges who have spoken out on this. >> it is very troubling because i think it is an attack on the rule of law when judges are threatened and particularly when their family is threatened and it's something that's wrong and should not happen. >> his attacks, vicious attacks on the federal courts an the state courts and their individual judges. his objective was to delegitimize those courts. >> christie? >> it's so important that you have both a former judge and a sitting judge speaking out on this issue. because they're absolutely right. what he's trying to do, his strategy at least in the short-term is really to cast

doubt and delegitimize the rule of law. right now, alvin bragg is less than two weeks out from trial and he is meeting with witnesses looking to prep witnesses and if those witnesses are coming to him saying hey, how will you protect me and my family if i testify against this guy? the judge can't even protect his own daughter. those are real questions and bragg's briefing, he lays that out. that he's getting these kinds of safety concerns from the witnesses he's meeting with. that's the last thing you want to have to deal with as a prosecutor less than two weeks out. you want to be shoring up your case, dotting your is and crossing your ts. not dealing with whether or not the witness is going to show up and if they're going to say what you expect them to say in response to your questions. he is trying for a maximum disruption. as a long-term strategy, i agree with david. it's not a good strategy, if you are convicted, this is the judge

who would sentence you eventually. but in the short-term, it's a good short-term strategy. that along with distracting the prosecutors rather than working on witness prep, they're responding to all this briefing. they're laying out the record of all of his statements. all things you don't want to be doing two weeks out from trial. he's trying for chaos and at least at the moment, it was important that the judge bat that away and say you're not going to hold this process hostage. we are going to make sure that you're treated the way that any other defendant would be treated in this case. even though you have a platform that other defendants don't have and i need to recognize that in crafting the order i'm going to craft. >> you paraphrased the point in dark night rises where they want the accountant to testify and he says to the nypd in gotham, which is new york, you can't even protect yourself. how are you going to protect me?

that is the very real chaos of it. we associate that with stories of actual criminal violent enterprises like the mafia or gangs. that's one of the groups depicted in that film and yet here we are talking about someone who's a current candidate for president. i give you a bite of the apple as well before i go back to david on the civil side. how do you make sense of what we mentioned? maximum defiance in criminal court and civil court? >> well, he did get what he wanted. he did get the bond amount reduced and we still don't know why. this is a defendant who's whole defense at that trial was i am too rich to defraud anyone. banks love me. they want a relationship with me. i've got $10 million. i have 500 million in cash. some of that he said under oath. others he said just days before the court reduced his bond. so there's still not visibility as to why this was reduced but he had asked for 10 omillion.

it seems clear he would be able to find somebody who would pay that, put that guarantee up for him. i think the question is to the collateral. where did he get the cash to put up for this? where did that come from? that's not transparency we're going to get from the courts but it is a real question i think the intelligence community could ask when he's asking for these intelligence briefings that he would normally be entitled to as the republican candidate for president. you know, where are you getting this cash from? are you compromised in some way? those seem to be fair questions to ask as to whether or not this president should, this presidential candidate should be entitled to those briefings. >> david, your final thoughts. >> i agree with everything christie said but i think the prosecutors have probably girded for this possibility and have locked the testimony. let me make a quick comment on the civil judgment and we talk about this several weeks ago.

i think viscerally, that's a high fine the judge imposed and i think we may expect in the appeal by lowering the appeals bond that the appeals court may be going in that direction. upholding the verdict, the judgment, lowering the fine. >> yeah, i think that makes sense. again, people who aren't used to this say is this a miscarriage of justice? this wasn't a very high fraud cost penalty for him. on the other hand, some of the lies went beyond the standards of new york real estate. brokers will tell you one thing. just wild lies. my thanks to david and christie. coming up, ron desantis and elon musk. they are lying. they know they're lying and i'm going to show you how we know

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now to our special report on freedom. accountability in these tense times and about this. >> the president subjected shooting migrants in the legs. seriously, mr. president? what is the matter with you? >> the words of the president, the words, we will return to that and to don lemon but we begin with why elon musk and ron desantis have been caught cracking down on free speech. a concept that famously dates to the late 1700s when the first amendment to the constitution stated quote, congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. today, some of the most prominent people attacking freedom of speech are government

officials and very rich people. who cannot handle free speech or criticism. and there's nothing new about that. it's exactly why the founders made this the very first amendment to combat the expected and understandable, familiar censorship that occurs by the powerful when they can get away with it. what is new and different today is that free speech has over the years become such a popular tradition, such a good brand as they say, that now even its opponents pretend to be for it as they crack down on free speech. let me show you how. it's pretty simple. like i mentioned, the first amendment prohibits laws abridging freedom of speech. and a republican governor comes out here and passes a law abridging freedom of speech while also loudly claiming he's

protecting speech. ron desantis' claim is false, down right orwelian, but for people who only hear the sound bites, it can be confusing. he helped pass this new florida law that restricts first amendment rights as a nonpartisan first amendment organization fire summarizes it. the law tries to limit digital company's speech rights and choices and it's so extreme it's now pending review before a pretty skeptical supreme court. we'll come back to that as well. but first, it is vital to see how this playbook stretches from conservative politicians who know better, desantis went to harvard, all the way out to the right leaning billionaires who use their immense power to attack and control free speech and they spend money to sue and punish people for free speech. sometimes they even buy media tech companies to take even more control over speech. while they also tend to claim

that they are the true billionaire liberators of free speech. who might fit the bill? i bet you can guess. here's a clue from a federal judge. who just made a new ruling against billionaire elon musk who bought twitter for a separate effort he was trying to achieve. as the judge put it, musk trying to sensor and punish speech by a group which monitors and counters digital hate. the judge tossed the whole case in an excureuating rebuke to musks antifree speech agenda. a judge found musk was wrong to try to use the courts to punish the center for countering digital hate for its protected speech. judge also wrote that musk brought this expensive federal case against seeming critics likely with the intent to dissuade others who might wish

to engage in such criticism of elon musk or x formerly twitter. that is a judge rebuking elon musk for abusing courts to try to silence the free speech of others. musk lost. and this is important point before i go any further. free speech is not art. it's not some subjective debate with no final answer over what is good art or what even constituted art. musk about desantis may wish this is all subjective, but this ain't that. they might wish it was subjective so they could conceal their antispeech agenda in a kind of an endless debate, but free speech in america is actually law. it is a set of rules and precedents which protects speech and speakers and publishers against censorship and other interference. usually against censorship by

the government. free speech is also a set of principles that can be applied beyond the strict realm of government. musk loudly claimed he would use that approach, the idea of free speech principles, to open twitter up to more free speech and he emphasized that would obviously require the principle of including opposing views. >> free speech is meaningless unless you allow people you don't like to say things you don't like. we must protect free speech. i think it's very important for there to be an inclusive arena for free speech. at the point in which you lose free speech, it doesn't come back. >> musk warning you can't get free speech back if the powerful crack down. that brings us to don lemon. an anchor known for serious reporting and some controversy.

>> you have heard a lot of people talking about what the police are doing wrong here in ferguson. but that's not the entire story. >> this supreme court ruling with a colorado baker tonight who refused to bake a cake to celebrate the marriage of a same-sex couple. >> black people, if you really want to fix the problem, here's just five things. here's number five. pull up your pants. >> the ruling leaves broader constitutional questions of civil rights and religious liberty. >> sorry, when a woman is in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s. >> three, two, one! >> don lemon is now an independent host who recently briefly partnered with musk to carry a show on x. and lemon echoed musks claims, touting x as quote the biggest space for free speech in the world. that claim did not even last through the first edition of the

show and you might recall this because this was the whole controversy. the show began by interviewing musk who was so upset with the questions and topics that reimmediately retaliated against lemon, against the thing he used to say he would protect. opposing views, ideas he didn't like, by canceling their deal. >> do you believe that x and you have some responsibility to moderate hate speech on the platform? >> we don't promote hate speech. >> i don't want censorship. >> no, i don't. i want responsibility. why would that question upset you? you seem upset? not trying to upset you. >> well, you are upsetting me. >> a high profile deal between two unlikely partners imploding. hours later, lemon received a -- you know you're doing something wrong when you're asked to leave twitter. i'm sorry, you're no longer welcome in our community of flat

earth mounties. >> many noted the antispeech agenda. there are several points here. one is musk could not handle even a single day of the opposing views that he claimed he was so forcefully going to advocate that were required under free speech. that's obvious. two is the point that musk and x still do have the legal freedom to make these calls. they can pay for a show or not. promote it or not. they can let people publish or limit, pause, or block people. i'm going to come back to that. these are complex matters so i'm dwoik to come back to the point of their freedom. three, this brings us to news that is pending in the supreme court. who would be trying to take away that right from musk? the right he currently has, and i would explain why he legally has it, but that right that x or any company has to say they do

or don't publish a show? who's out there trying to silence musk? you can't make it up. it is his supposed right wing free speech fellow traveler, ron desantis. i mentioned we'd get back to him and now we will. if desantis got his way, the florida government could force x or face these companies to publish material it opposes. to make x continue a show by don lemon or somebody else. so this whole debacle shows why desantis is likely to lose at the supreme court. at that argument last month, most justices leaned against the republican efforts in florida by desantis and texas, which has a similar copy cat bill, to crack down on publisher speech and dictate what tech companies publish or post. i'm going the play this part for you because this is big. this is national rules. law of the land stuff. but here we're going to listen as obama and trump appointees

seem to come together against desantis. pressing the desantis side on why a state government should be able to enforce made up government restrictions on what publishers or tech companies do with their freedom to publish. >> why isn't that a, you know, a classic first amendment violation for the state to come in and say we're not going to allow you to enforce those sorts of restrictions. >> could florida enact a law telling bookstores that they have to put everything out by alphabetical order? >> when a private entity or individual makes decisions about what to include or exclude, that's protected generally editorial discretion. >> just tell me why this doesn't look like the same kind of editorial control we see newspaper exercise.

>> it went on like that which gives us a clue as to where the supreme court might be headed. the theme that independent publishers make these calls. whether they're stocking book shelves or twitter streams or anything in between. if you don't follow this, it's ron desantis, self-appointed free speech advocate who's trying to crush the rights of people like elon musk to decide what they want to do. this ain't art. it's law. and you can't just say you're for the thing you're against and expect to get away with it. especially not before the supreme court. so keep those justices fair questions in mind when you listen to what desantis has been telling people for years. that he has been doing this to protect free speech. >> we are protecting floridaens ability to speak. massive companies in silicon valley are exerting a power of population. this will lead to more speech. not less speech.

>> many judges disagree and the supreme court will have the final word in the ruling this term for those oral arguments we just heard a little bit of. so you take it together from musk's new loss in court that i mentioned. a judge saying no, you're trying to abuse power to punish speech, to the public fallout with don lemon which showed how much speech musk can handle for how long, to the actual agenda of these republican state laws interfering with free speech trying to use government, a direct first amendment violation to control or veto or double check what independent companies and publishers do. take that all together and if you're listening and paying attention, then you realize this year's long set of right wing claims looks completely absurd. >> i think big tech censorship is the single greatest threat to free speech in america. >> apparently, the algorithm has

existed to sensor conservatives. >> it's republicans who seem conservative content that seems to be geing censured. >> you'll notice each of those are political partisans. recycling a playbook where often right wing men say they are the victims of these powerful forces and that justifies their anger and politics and whatever crackdowns they seek. so tonight, i'm trying to bring this together for you because this stuff matters. it's not going away. and i would tell you instead of listening to partisans trying to claim they are your freedom fighter, it is logical to be weary of partisans who suddenly care about free speech. especially when they don't have a record of credibility on the issue. and that when they engage on free speech issues, it tends to follow their self-interest. political and financial. the reality in this area is actually a lot more complicated.

let me put it like this. there are some on the right who oppose this type of free speech because they think it hurts their political cause. there are some specifically in the republican party who oppose it because they increasingly see publishers using their rights to limit how people post online for efforts that connect with violence or hate or crime. which apparently impacts a republican party that is minimizing or defending those things, including violent insurrectionists and other conspiracy theories. there are issues across the spectrum. there are those on the left who attack free speech because they literally oppose the airing of certain views. colleges, for example, have seen over 40 efforts to deplatform the peaceful presentation of views of protected speech in just the first three months of the year according to a database

from the free speech group i mentioned earlier and some of those cases involve groups that self-identify as progressive basically saying they don't want to hear an alternative view on campus. they want to prevent it from being shared peacefully. the actual first amendment protects even horrific views from censorship. the whole point dating back to the beginning of this country, is that ideas and opinions can be shared and debated without being prevetted for us by the government or some outside group. if there's no boundary for ideas that are too terrible to be peacefully discussed, only a boundary for violence, foreseeable harm, or legal accountability for deliberate, intentional abuse of speech like defamation. i am simplifying but that's kind of how it works. examples in the precedence are quite a contrast to musks obvious overreaction to don lemon which shredded whatever

credibility he might have had left about free speech. that was nothing. the actual precedents are examples like the aclu defending the right of the kkk to speak and nowing that's a tough position to hold, but saying if it's peaceful speech, the first amendment applies or lawyers who are jewish going out of their way to litigate the legal fact that the first amendment does apply to and protect the speech of neo nazis as long as it is just speech. historically, free speech has faced its greatest tests when times are tough. punishing dissent during a patriotic ferver of war. or the mob mentality against an otherwise healthy democracy that can make it almost impossible for people to discuss dissenting ideas unless they want to give up their whole standing in life. their jobs, finances. that's not a good baseline for the free discussion of ideas even bad ideas. we still have those challenges today but we also have some new

ones. with technology accelerating the speed and risk of certain speech that can quickly curdle into lies, conspiracy theories and violence. we have these clever lawyers turned politicians who have figured out as desantis did that one tricky way to attack free speech is to first proclaim itself as true defender. but that doesn't seem to be working on the supreme court. which again is going to make a big ruling on all this pretty soon. and it shouldn't work on the public. because there are many actual first amendment defenders across our history from jurists and attorneys to activists like angela davis and mayor ruston. these are people who actually defended the free speech. they defended the rights of their own critics and they didn't do it to win elections or

to engage in vain, self-perpetuating popularity contests and trolling and other anamties that people want to associate with the speech agenda today. many of the people you see here, i just picked a few, sacrificed a whole lot more than that. not only to advocate what they believed in, but to do something quite uniquely first amendment american in its tradition, which is to also defend your own critics. in a way, it can be quite an inspiring thing. we live in strange times. with billionaires pretending they're activists -- which doesn't really add up. so in these strange times if we might just take a step back to keep our eyes on the facts having fact checked some of these issues in the conclusion of this report, let's hand off the mike and listen to some of the actual freedom pioneers

whose wisdom on freedom of speech resonates today perhaps more than ever. >> somewhere are the freedom of speech. >> there's nothing i'd restrict. >> where of the freedom of press. >> i don't make the distinction. i feel as though late justice douglas that everything is protected. >> somewhere i read that the greatness of america is the right to protest far right. ght t e crohn's disease skyrizi is the first il-23 inhibitor that can deliver remission and visibly improve damage of the intestinal lining. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine or plan to. liver problems may occur in crohn's disease. control of crohn's means everything to me. ask your gastroenterologist about skyrizi. ♪ control is everything to me ♪ learn how abbvie could help you save.

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welcome back. in turning to something we might call autocracy watch, mike johnson had back efforts to try to overturn trump's loss in 2020. that's been well-known. he pushed a lawsuit well after it was clear the courts didn't find valid evidence to fight those cases and change the outcome. he also backed the false pretext for refusing to certify president-elect biden's win at the time. now, it was a big shift. it was a long ways from 2016 when johnson had warned trump was dangerous but now we can see it was a step towards more radical acts. he didn't at the time cheer on the people doing the crimes in the capitol. now he's going further. lying about the maga

seditionists. >> so i made a commitment immediately after i got the gavel and that originally we blur the faces to protect the innocent. people who were just there and happened to be walking through the building. >> people who just happened to be walking through the building. johnson who of course had done a lot of talk about being a constitutional lawyer, lively calls them quote unquote innocent. well, if you're trespassing on government property, you are legally presumed innocent but you are likely involved in a crime. congress is closed for visitors during certification. it is false to suggest people ambled into the building especially when everyone saw in realtime that maga fans had to clash with police sometimes for hours just to break through the the barricades and doorways to trespass their way into the

capitol. and then you have the fact that members of congress know this better than most. while most people watched this on tv, it was members of congress like the republican you see here, literally running to make sure that those maga fans didn't go attack or kill them. they were scared. rightly so. of trump's violent thugs. some of whom are convicted se diggsists. it's become a kind of thug test for some of his republican allies. that's why johnson goes farther. that's why trump and his allies continue to lie about his people calling them things like hostages. trump even doing something that if we saw it happen in another country, perhaps we would write one of those reports about the decline of democracy there. it's happening here. defendant trump awaiting trial on coup crimes among other

issues using these rallies to play a national anthem sung by inmates at a d.c. jail. >> please rise for the horribly and unfairly january 6th hostages. ♪ oh say can you see ♪ >> this is the clear propaganda that takes what happened on january 6th. remember, they're not blaming it on antifa anymore. that was the first thing they did when it was so bad they thought we can't carry the load, we'll put it on someone else. new conspiracy theory to blame others. now, they're trying this tack. this is obviously false to lie and claim those people are hostages. i will give you some facts. they are lawfully held defendants. some are convicts. at the d.c. facility, 27 of 29 have been brought in on charges

of assaulting police. 19 of those already convicted. one former officer who tried to fight off donald trump's maga thugs responded. >> he doesn't give a damn about us. you can't claim to support law and order in this time and attention, saluting the american flag while they play a modified national anthem written by a convicted felon who attacked my co-workers. >> this is what's happening. we discussed earlier tonight, people who want to claim their for free speech while they attack and use an orwellian tactic to try to confuse. we have a lot of orwell type problems because he was dealing with propaganda and autocracy. and that's what we're dealing with. people who oppose the police. who oppose blue lives. law and order.

who are interested in violence and white supremacy above democracy. it was all out in the open. the question is whether the country is going to stay informed and vigilant in the six months we have left before this election. coming up, you're going to get into a whole other topic. backlash over florida and a very sweeping abortion ban. stay with us. sweeping abortion ban. stay with us and longer-lasting relief than tylenol rapid release gels because advil targets pain at the source of inflammation. so for faster pain relief, advil the pain away. for people who feel limited by the unpredictability of generalized myasthenia gravis and who are anti-achr antibody positive, season to season, ultomiris is continuous symptom control, with improvement in activities of daily living. it is reduced muscle weakness. and ultomiris is the only long-acting gmg treatment with the freedom of just 6 to 7 infusions per year, for a predictable routine i can count on.

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largest states in the union and it's joining the rush to ban most possible abortions. florida restricting reproductive rights in the supreme court in that state has upheld the state's aborg ban that bavs the way for an even more severe one planned for six weeks because few women know they're pregnant there. over 88,000 women get abortions in that state annually. it's under 10% of the total in the country, even if you think of florida as a more red or conservative place. families seeking health care will now have to face one of the most restrictive bans in the nation. but the voters will also be weighing in in florida. we now know according to a court ruling there at the state level that a proposal about protecting abortion rights in that state's constitution will make it on to this november's ballot. that could have profound implications both for human rights and how people want to weigh in in florida, but also for the electoral map. democrats responding by saying florida is now winnable. the democratic leader in the house, hakeem jeffries, and

others, went to florida today invoking witness testimony and mixing what they call the policy and human rights issues with the need politically to turn out the vote. >> the real world florida's six-week ban is a total abortion ban. >> we need federal protections now or our patients will continue to suffer. our maternal outcomes will continue to worsen. >> even though the baby had a life threatening condition, until my life was on the line, i couldn't get induced. >> i want to make it really clear that it's not about science. it's not about viability. it's not about exceptions. it's about power and control and controlling people's bodies. >> those are the stakes according to some of those witnesses. now, in florida, democrats have seen the state slip out of reach for national elections for some time. but abortion could change that. and this is not the only state where this is happening. florida is now one of over ten

states where these abortion issues will be on the ballot. that has haunted republicans around the country in states red, blue, purple, and in between. and it's why donald trump may find that what his judges did while after he put them on the court could keep him out of the white house, well, potentially forever. that's one more story we wanted to get in. i'm glad you spent time with us here on "the beat." you can always find me online @arimelber, including the blue bird there on the lower left, we can talk about free speech if you hit me up there. thanks for watching. "the reidout" with joy reid is up next.

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