with, the doctors or nurses, she was the only one. she sent a voicemail today and i asked about her brother but she never responded. she seemed to be in a lot of distress. i think about him a lot too. he is trying to provide for his wife and daughter. that last shot was in front of it. that's the hospital. i don't know if that garden is even there anymore. i don't know what happened to it. >> dr. attar, thank you for your time . i appreciate it. that is all in. now. >> okay, what would it look like if a republican president took office andub then immediately s about replacing all the career officials with right-wing idelogs who continue to upend the wayin the federal governmen works?

there's recently been a lot of speculation about just that kind of scenario. but we don't have to actually imagine because something like that has happened before in july offo 1981. here's the headline. "reagan reversing many u.s. policies." . "the new york times" reported the reaganli administration has set about accomplishing a sweeping reversal of policy and practice in the way the government deals with business and individual citizens. in key cabinet and regulatory posts the reagan transformation amounts to a revolution of attitude involving the appointment of officials who in previous administrations might have been ruled out over concern of lack of interest or open or ostilt to the mission of the agencies theyhe now lead. sounds familiar. president reagan embarked on what you might call the first modern purge of the administrative state, filling the federal government with young conservative zealots who

were looking to carry out a radical newo agenda. and nowhere was that more evident than at the department oft justice. as politico reported in 2015 the doj was the nerve center of the reagan revolution, the most intellectually vibrant and ideologically conservative agency of the federal government. among thede battalion of conservatives who entered reagan's justice department were these guys. a pair of young lawyers called john roberts and sam alito. the two would become much more famous for playing in a different bandng years later. during the reagan administration they laid the foundation what would become their judicial legacy. they spent their time in the justice departmenthe workshopin hard right decisions like ending affirmative action and curbing voting rights. john roberts was actually working in w the civil rights division of the justice department writing memos about how to restrict key provisions

of the voting rights act. at one point samuel alito's job was tots help ronald reagan's solicitor-general craft arguments against affirmative action for the supreme court. that solicitor-general recalled toor "the new yorker" alito cam up with some choice lines such as hank aaron would not be regarded as the all-time home run king and a model for youth as defenses had moved had he ever moved to the plate. that trite baseball metaphor did not do it, though, and they lost the battle to curb affirmative action. when the time came for president reagan to re-authorize the voting rights act his administrationht ultimately cav to political pressure and renewed the landmark legislation. nonetheless, this group of conservative warriors represented the first frontns ia decades long effort a to try to

erode voting rights bit by bit. >> president reagan issued a statement before just flying to new york on a political trip. he supported a ten-year extension of the voting rights act but told reports he favored making it easier for states and communities to bail out of the act, showing they were no longer discriminating and thus no needing to comply. >> after n all this time there could be theti possibility of a better bail out opportunity for those who have abided by the election law. >> that may anger black groups, but it pleased conservative southerners who have said theed law is unfair. >> i think it shows a willingness on the part of the administration to encourage the judiciary and the senate as a whole to look very carefully at this whole question of the extension of thele voting right act of 1965. >> so began the long journey to reverse america's hard won progress on civil rights. now we're in the year 2024 you probably know how this story

ends. those two plucky young reagan justice department officials eventually made their way to th supreme court where they got a chance to gut voting rights, end affirmative action and in samuel alito's case to write half a century oflf reproductive freed and pepped the latest 6-3 decision once again attacking rights and in this case voting rights. lastvo year the court ruled a state had engaged in illegal racial gerrymandering diluting the power of the black voters. but justice alito writing the south must give carolina republicans the benefit of the doubt when they say that race had nothing to do with how they drew the congressionalwi maps. quoting from gralito's opinion

when a federal court finds that race drove a legislature's district decisions it is finding the legislature bears offensive and meaningful conduct of apartheid. we should not be quick to hurl such accusations at the political branches. in other words, it's pretty offensive to accuse south carolina republicans of racism, so let's not.sm and if there's no racism, then there's nothing to see here, folks. but if e,alito's decision seeme absurd and also extreme, another reagan administration alum, a man by the name of clarence thomas, took this all one step further. in his concuring opinion justice thomas argued the federal judiciary should have no role about settling disputes about anyng election maps, and then h called into question a half century of precedent following the court's landmark decision in

brown v. education. hey,br why not? all of them on the chopping block, why not go for desegregation, too? this is what it looks like when you fill government withli political ovzealots. the administration may end, but the people dost not necessarilyo away. they just become the next generation of serious people, experienced enough for a confirmation hearing and young enough for a lifetime appointment. joining me nowim is ari berman, national voting rights correspondent and mother jones. he's also author of the new book "minority rule." also joining me is dahlia lithwick, slate's senior editor writing about the courts ands e law. thank you both for joining this, well, monumental day. let's talk about the project here. we did not get to this moment by

chance. >> i was having ptsd from reliving my last book and going into my new one. >> i'm sorry for that. >> because this is history very familiar to me, which is that the conservative movementwh specifically put people that were opposedec to the civil rigs movement, opposed to voting rights, opposed to these policies in positions of power to dosi things through the cour they knew they could not do through the normal political process. they knew they would not have been able to get rid of the voting rights act, overturn roe v. wade through the normal political process.oc he said let's construct this anti-democratic court that would do all these anti- democratic things and we're seeing this decades long strategy play out today. they are overturning roe v. wade. they are gutting the voting rights act to t such a point it barely effective, and this didn't happen byff chance. basically the conservative movement has made the courts their test case for minority

rule because they know that the court at least in their hopes will be ipsulated from political accountability. and certainly the way the justices are acting they feel they are. >> this week of all weeks, dahlia, when we find justice alito has flags bearing the hallmark of the insurrection movementth flying above one of s homes, here he is again going against the will of the people and the democratic process to undermine votingcr rights. what is yourng reaction to the decision today? >> yeah, i mean i think your point is the right one, alish, which is these are both stories of minority rule and complete lack of accountability, and i really want to make one more pitch to folks who are listening that these are the same story, that we tend to sort of talk about alito malfeasance, weird behavior, upside down flags as a kind ofow a one story and then e doctrine that comes out of the court as another, and they are

so intrinsically connected because they're both stories of what it is to create a judiciary that is so utterly, utterly protect from public disdain, public displeasure from the sense that they are subverting democracy as we know it. and i think both the decision today and justice alito's publi conduct where he's just flouting everysial ethics and sort of appearance constraint, there are of a piece, they are both stories of what it is toce be utterly untouchable in this moment. >> this is going to have implications and beyond the conservative project, there's the immediate impact on our elections and how we have a representative democracy or not, ari. this is happening in south carolina, but how do you see this decision echoing across the united ecstates? >> you're right. whatta it does is gives the republicans ave house seat. they also ran out the clock

because a lower court was already forced to basically say the republicans can this district and then the supreme court went further and they're making it f very difficult to challenge racial gerrymandering in the future. they've already gutted the voting rights act twice. they've also said partisan gerrymandering cannot be challenged in federal court, which is absolutely insane. you could draw a map where one party gets 30% of the votes, 70% of thevo seats and they'll say can't even challenge it let alone strike it down. racial gerrymandering is one of the only things you can still challenge when it comes to voting rights, now they're say basically racial gerrymandering because essentially what alito is saying let's give the benefi of the doubt to those who are discriminating versus those -- >> who are fighting it. >> there are people suexpressing votes, diluting votes, making it

harder to vote as opposed to those people facing the obstacles to voting? >> i'm not asking this rhetorically. i am asking this. inrh saying that race has nothi to do with this, they are just revealing the racial agenda they operate within and under. is that unfair? because nine times out of ten these justices with the exception of one ruling earlier this year are always going with the whiter people. >> right. this is like a layer cake of gaslighting, alex. there's so many levels of, you know, we're just trying to be fair, we're just going to defer to the legislature. we're just going to say whatever the rules are finding errors in the district court finding, there's extensive, extensive findings from the lower court, the three-judge panel. you know, alito just bats away. i don't find any of this to be

indicative of, you know, of racial gerrymander. so there's layers and layers of denialism and maybe the cherly on top of this cake is when justiceis alito literally tells justice kagen an opinion she wrote, that his opinion is actually truer to that than hers. and when she says in her dissent, no, you've completely obverted everything ie wrote, he's like oh, honey, listen to me. there's just every single check that was supposed to protect disadvantaged racialte minoriti from having their power suppressed over centuries, every one of those checks is batted away under the theory that this was never a problem, it's certainly not a problem now. >> as chilling as all the writing in this opinion.

he's basically suggesting brown v. boardly of education, there' nothing that should follow fromt that, it has no teeth. the courts should not be involved in this business. i meanin reminder clarence thom was put on the court to replace thurgood marshall. the iron and alarm bells that should bela ringing how do you read that opinion? >> we were jolting about what's the silver line here because at least clarence thomas is -- because he literally wants to repeal the 20th l century. saying he wants to overturn the one person, one vote rulings which earl warren said were the most important rulings of that court,or saying you can't challenge racial gerrymandering ever, whicher will basically gu the 14th and 15th amendment.

he's basically saying from reconstruction onwards -- from the 1860s and '70s onwards we should repeal all of that and we should go back to the day ironically when black people have nohe rights and other racially disenfranchised minorities have no rights. yes, it's concurrence, but the fact he's even putting this out there, what we see these radical concurrences, they become theic thing the lower courts pick up on and it goes back to the supreme court. >> it reminds me of the dobbs decision where thomas is suggesting gay marriage may be something to follow. moving the goal posts down the field and saying maybe we should rethink brown. that may not be the immediate impact of all this, but it does sort of set a new goal for the right, does itor not? >> it does. and it embodens as ari says lower court judges trying out constantly for the supreme court

to be like i'm going to read the thomas dissent as the majority opinion and write it into law and take a big swing and see what happens. we've got case after case in this supreme court that arese borne of that kind of zealotry, and i think the really importana point ari is saying and we shouldn't miss it's really easy to get focused on the flags and what's happening at the court, but the a court eviscerated the reconstruction amendments. for all intents and purposes the court saidte that the amendment that promise a freer, fuller participatory democracy are essentially unenforceable. and for us to sit around and be like, this can't go any farther, clarence thomas is pretty much telling us he's willing to take it farther, just jump on and enjoy theer ride. >> repeal the 20th century from clarence thomas. ari berman, dahlia lithwick,

thank you for your time and wisdom. i'm not going to say calming alarmed ause i'm more than i ever have been, but thank you for your time tonight. i t appreciate you. coming up ronald reagan -- once again it's reagan night. ronald reagan visited the heavily bureaucratic bronx in 1980, and i tonight donald trum tried to same thing. but first an appeals court today shutdown trump's hail mary tory get judge juan merchan thrn off his case. the latest in the hush money trials denials is next. st in thy trials denials is next

hi, i'm chris and i lost 57 pounds on golo. golo isn't complicated. i don't have to follow a restrictive diet, and i don't have to spend a lot of time making meals. using golo was truly transformative. it was easy, and inexpensive. why choose a sleep number smart bed? can it keep me warm when i'm cold? wait, no, i'm always hot. sleep number does that. now, save 50% on the sleep number limited edition smart bed. plus, free home delivery when you add any base shop now at sleepnumber.com

a slow network is no network for business. that's why more choose comcast business. and now, we're introducing ultimate speed for business —our fastest plans yet. we're up to 12 times faster than verizon, at&t, and t-mobile. and existing customers could even get up to triple the speeds... at no additional cost. it's ultimate speed for ultimate business. don't miss out on our fastest speed plans yet! switch to comcast business and get started for $49.99 a month. plus, ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. call today!

it was one of many attempts to derail his new york city criminal trial, and it failed again. today a new york appellate court rejected donald trump's bid to have judge juan merchan recused from the case citing merchan's daughters work consulting for democratic clients. the judges ruled trump's defense team they failed to prove judge merchan overstepped his authority by refusing to recuse himself. and upheld the court's decision denying some of trump's social media posts were covered by presidential immunity. now, these denials are all happening as we await a consequential ruling from judge merchan on jury instructions, which will guide the jury as it tries to reach a verdict.

joining me now is neil katyal, now msnbc analyst. it's great to see you. i have a lot of questions here. pertaining first to the appeals court ruling, there have been so many denials throughout this trial. i assume it's the throw spaghetti at the wall and let's see what sticks to it school of defense strategy. does it have any kind of meaningful impact, though, in the big picture here? >> it's the spaghetti strategy at the wall and trump's m.o. being the loser once gep as he does time and again in the new york court system. so the idea this judge should be recused i think is laughable. this is judge if anything is bending over backwards to accommodate trump and his antics like just take all of trump's defiance of the gag order. i would just tell you, alex, if you or i did that we mind be going straight to jail but this

judge gave trump every benefit of the doubt. it is true there's a lot of pretrial publicity, a lot of publicity he himself has ginned up in part but legally that's always been a loser because in order to change venue you have to show some other place that doesn't have as much pretrial publicity, and of course everywhere is probably this case. it's the same argument when i prosecuted the george floyd murder derek chauvin said change venue, i can't get a fair trial in minneapolis, and the trial judge said no, it's the same everywhere. >> what are your biggest questions around the jury

instructions? we went through some of them but i wonder if there's a particular looming question about the guidance going to be given to the jury you're going to be focused on as we get those instructions. >> for the jurors the instructions are the legal standards the judge tells the jury. what are the elements they're going to need to find as a jaefr in order to convict trump. the money trial here -- this trial is so intense franklying you think even the jury instructions are going to need an attorney at some point. but the major point of contention is criminal it tept. the defense is arguing for very specific language that would require the jury to find that trump specifically intended to commit a campaign finance violation. and the prosecution, by contrast, is arguing for something more lean i want. that's really important because that's one of the key ways in which this crime becomes not

just a misdemeanor of falsifying business records but rather a very serious campaign finance violation, a felony with the possibility of jail time. >> you know, when we talk utwhat the jury is going to be guided towards, what kind of instructions they're going to get, trump did not testify in this despite his explicit assertion he was going to testify. he explained why he didn't take the stand to abc i believe it was yesterday. let us take a listen to his explanation. it's a full screen. okay, i'm going to read it. anything i did, he said, anything i did in the past they can bring anything up, and you know what i have a great past, but anything. the other reason is they have no case. why testify when they have no case? i don't do a great donald trump, neil, but you get the gist of things which is anything but saying i can't take the stand because i would be moy own worst possible witness in my own defense. is that going to be something -- is the jury going to find out

why trump didn't take the stand? we know there's a couple of key witnesses in all this that didn't take the stand, and i would assume the jury has to be told why they didn't take the stand. >> i called this on your show more than a month ago trump is not going to testify, and he's not going to testify for two simple reasons. number one he's a chicken, and number two his attorneys would never let him testify because there's two great a risk he's going to perjure himself on the stand. and i further said of course he'll blame it on someone else. he'll blame it on the fact there's no case or something like that. all the things he was saying and they can't infer anything negative from donald trump about his decision not to take the stand. and that's absolutely his right.

they're going to be told that exporously in the jury instructions. that doesn't say anything about the court of public opinion where there is no fifth amendment. and politicians act in a public environment and if they don't take the stand there's a good reason for that, which is not there's no case, it's because they're worried about showing up on the stand and having to tell the truth. i think we can make a certain inference from that, the fact that there's witness after witness who said trump did it, and he's just sitting there silently sitting on his hands. that tells us, i think, what we need to know. >> when you talk about drawing inferences, neil, i wonder, you know, how you think the closing arguments are going to go based on what we saw on the last day of testimony bob costello having quite a time on the stand with judge merchan and others. where do you think they go from here, and what are your expectations? >> so the trump defense is

really simple. this is not a case about donald trump. this a case about michael cohen and his credibility. this is guy they're going to say has lied, lied repeatedly, lied to the point he had to go to jail, and you can't trust him. and the prosecution is going to say, hey, there's a lot of reasons to trust him now, but, "b," you don't have to trust him because there's all sorts of corroborating documentary evidence. and someone like trump who there's testimony that says he meticulously counted every cent going out of his accounts, the idea he would have tolerated his attorney spending hundreds of thousands of dollars without his permission is just so against the trump modus operandi as to make it unbelievable. so i think that's going to be the debate. remember in our system the jury all 12 of them have to find trump guilty in order for him to be convicted. if one person says he didn't do it, then he can't be convicted, there may be a mistrial and a

hung jury. and at that point you'll have perhaps another trial, and i think some of trump's defense tactics in the case particularly over costello would give the prosecution ample grounds to have a retrial. so we could be back here again if trump doesn't get convicted next week. >> you just had to say another trial didn't you, neil? we're not ready for that talk yet. sir, it is great to talk with you and get your expertise on all this. really appreciate you. thanks for making the time. coming up donald trump and ronald reagan both went to the bronx. who had a better visit? we'll have more on that after the break. we'll have more on that after the break. and i have kept it off. most of the weight that i gained was strictly in my belly which is a sign of insulin resistance. but since golo, that weight has completely gone away, as you can tell. thanks to golo and release, i've got my life and my health back. ah, these bills are crazy. she

has no idea she's sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn't know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even a term policy? even a term policy! find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com. (psst! psst!) ahhh! with flonase, allergies don't have to be scary. spraying flonase daily gives you long lasting non-drowsy relief. flonase all good. also, try our allergy headache and nighttime pills.

only purple's gel flex grid passes the raw egg test. no other mattress cradles your body and simultaneously supports your spine.

memory foam doesn't come close. get your best sleep guaranteed. save up to $800 during our memorial day sale. visit purple.com or a store near you

go back to hollywood. we don't want you. >> those are residents of the south bronx here in new york city responding to a visit from presidential candidate ronald reagan in 198 o. as the headline for the "the new york times" story put it the next day reagan went to the south to urge blacks to look past labels and to vote for him. three years earlier in 1977 president jimmy carter had visited that same neighborhood in the bronx and promised more social services for its residents, so reagan thought it would be a good idea to take a limo surrounded by police and give a speech about tax cuts and

deregulation as the answer to everybody's problems and not say, i don't know, a social safety net. it is what we now think of as classic reagan, but at the time it was a fresh, new brand of conservatism. and during his actual speech when he was just speaking to a relatively friendly audience made up of members of the press, well, the campaign stop went well. but when reagan was done using the south bronx as a backdrop, he made the mistake of actually interacting with the residents of the neighborhood he claimed he was there to speak to. and here is how that went. >> what are you going to do for us? >> i'm trying to tell you. >> mr. reagan, go ahead. >> i am trying to tell you. if you will listen a minute what i'm tying to tell you is i can't do a damn thing for you ifiodon't get elengthed. >> today donald trump held his own rally in the south bronx

just yards from where ronald reagan spoke in 1980 and the headlines say it all. trump to hold campaign rally to court black, latino voters. >> it doesn't matter whether you're black or brown or white or whatever the hell color you are, it doesn't matter, we are all americaned and we're going to pull together as americans. >> trump appears to have learned from reagan's mistake. congressman richie torres represents the area of the bronx where trump gave his remarks today, and here's how he described them. trump's rally may be in the south bronx but it is not of the south bronx. bluntly put the trump trance transplants are much whiter. sort of a weird way to court black and latino voters. but if you're trump, i get it.

ahow is trump actually doing when it comes to black and latino voters and how does it compare to joe biden? i'll speak with the president and ceo of the center for american progress coming up next. why choose a sleep number smart bed? can i make my side softer? i like my side firmer. sleep number does that. now, save 50% on the sleep number limited edition smart bed. plus, free home delivery when you add any base. shop now at sleepnumber.com

hi, i'm kevin,

and i've lost 152 pounds on golo. i had just left a checkup with my doctor, and i'd weighed in at 345 pounds. my doctor prescribed a weight loss drug, but as soon as i stopped taking the drug, i gained all the weight back and then some. that's when i decided to give golo a try. taking the release supplement, i noticed a change within the first week, and each month the weight just kept coming off. with golo, you can keep the weight off. our subways are squalid and unsafe, the ceiling tiles are falling down, and they look worse than a third world

country. the medians of our highways are crumbling. our sidewalks are littered with bottles, garbage, and trash. but worst of all the discarded needles from people that so desperately are in need of help. and we have mobs of migrants fighting our police officers and giving america the middle finger. >> i wonder what subway line donald trump took to get to that rally. anyway, trump took advantage of a break in his criminal hush money trial to do what he does best, participate inner cities as hell scapes. his rally in the south bronx in the park an attempt to reach out to black and latino voters might best be described as fraud. first off new york city has not voted for a republican presidential candidate since ronald reagan, which was more than four decades ago, and then there is trump's problematic history with the city's residents of color like the full page ads he ran in local newspapers calling for the death penalty for five black and latino teens wrongly convicted

of rape in 1989 and who are today known as the exonerated five. and there are the well documented allegations trump denied housing potential black tenants in the city. despite this history trump appears to be making in roads with voters of color. a recent "the new york times" poll found trump would win 23% of black voters. "the times" notes that would be the highest level of black support for any presidential candidate since the enactment of the civil rights act in 1964. joining me now is the ceo of the center for american progress action fund. thank you for being here. >> alex, thank you for having me on. you described that rally as fraught. i would describe it as fraud. >> just because of the man or the setting or both? >> all of it. it was astroturf. they imported a whole bunch of people into the bronx. let's be really clear here,

donald trump ain't winning the bronx. those of us from new york know him best, and that's why hillary clinton won the bronx by i think 75 points and joe biden did even better than that in 2020. so he's not competitive in new york, but more importantly he's just telling a completely false story. >> crumbling instruct. >> those were the things he said he would take care of and failed to and joe biden has. we all know when he's in other states like the battleground states he promises to launch the largest deportation program in the history of america. well, talking about a lot of folks who actually reside in the bronx as opposed to people he imported to into the borough today. >> to your point it doesn't seem he's planting a flag in the bronx and he's going to win it. but making a point how he can

and should and appeal to communities of color. the fact is, though, he's getting more support than he did last time by double digits. again, fair enough but -- >> that poll is interesting, right? because if it's actually the case that donald trump really has 20, 25% of black, brown voters he would be winning those polls, running away nationally and in each and every one of the states, and that's clearly not the case in their own math. so there's a distinct problem there, we've seen data like this before when i worked for a guy named barack obama in 2012. we were trailing in all the national polls at this point by about 3 or 4 points to mitt romney and we were told he was making historic in roads i with black and brown voters and that never panned out actual election day. >> it seems, though, the biden campaign is considering these numbers if nautica pitulating to them. there's a new ad that came out i believe today about trump and his relationship to the black

community. >> i'm joe biden and i approve this message. >> of course i hate these people. >> donald trump disrespecting black folk is nothing new. he refused to rent his apartments to black families and called for the execution of five innocent black and brown teen armgs. >> and it's more than anger, it's hate railroad. >> it's why trump stood with white supremacists, warned of a bloodbath if he loses the next election, and if he's president again vows to be a dictator and get revenge on his enemies. now who do you think that is? >> of course i hate these people. >> that's nautica pitulation to trump's message. >> i'm not saying it's capitulation. it's acknowledgement more reminding needs to be done about donald trump's policy decision. >> and an acknowledgement we're in an environment where you have to persuade folks to participate and i came back from

philadelphia talking to african american voters in that city and in that state, and they understand exactly where the states are. but, you know, they're dealing with all kinds of things in their lives with education, with safety, the things that are approximate. the election seems far off to them. it's different for you or i, and i think the biden campaign is wisely reminding folks what the stakes are and persuading them to participate in the here and now and driving that contrast and also reminding people in philadelphia, detroit, milwaukee, that african american, latino unemployment is at historic lows. all these things are going to be brought home between now and november. >> do you feel like the inflation piece is a big thing for these communities as well? they're often the front line with price increase. when you talk about tangible issues people vote on, could that explain -- >> it is terribly important,

alex. folks are concerned about price gouging, and i think they're beginning to understand that you have one candidate in joe biden who's wrestling with the corporations on greed and price gouging and another guy who has, you know, a kind of laissez-faire attitude, and they're also going to appreciate that the tariffs donald trump wants to impose will include a $1,500 tax across the board especially for black and brown families that he pretends to make an appeal to today. >> there's totally cognitive dissonance. trump is anything but consist in terms of policy and who he's trying to reach out to and even a platform. it's all over the place. on the one hand he's saying my dalliance tuesday be euphemistic about it with a criminal justice system make me more appealing to communities of color because they know how unjust the system is. they know the systemic bias that is inherent to our criminal justice system. on the other hand, earlier this

month in wisconsin -- >> yes, the man with a golden toilet. >> he's vulnerable. in wisconsin trump says he would give police more power and immunity from prosecution. does he pay a price for the cognitive dissonance here? does he pay a price for the hypocrisy ever? >> he ult metly will. let's not just look at this issue, alex. let's look at the flip-flops he's executing on abortion. we had that ruling from louisiana today. donald trump has in the last few days come out and said he's going to institute national restrictions on birth control and said he was going to have national restrictions on abortion, ran away from that. he is flip-flopping on that issue every minute. and you have 40% of suburban women who are saying that's the single most important issue for them in november. so you can trust they're going to hold him to account on that and recognize that joe biden has been a protector of reproductive freedom in this country. >> we're going to talk more

about that in the break, so please hang with me for just a few more minutes, patrick. >> this is cool place to be. >> i think so. we'll be right back. i think so. we'll be right back.

norman, bad news... i never graduated from med school. what? -but the good news is... xfinity mobile just got even better! now, you can automatically connect to wifi speeds up to a gig on the go. plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. i gotta get this deal... i know... faster wifi and savings? ...i don't want to miss that. that's amazing doc. mobile savings are calling. visit xfinitymobile.com to learn more. doc?

the state of louisiana is poised to become the first state in the nation to criminalize the possession of abortion pills, which account for nearly two-thirds of all abortions in this country. today the state senate passed a bill to reclassify abortion pills as dangerous controlled

substances. what does that actually mean? well, women in louisiana could be thrown in jail for up to five years and face thousands of dollars in fines for having those pills without a prescription. louisiana already bans nearly all abortions, but conservative lawmakers needed to make doubly sure that no woman in the state could possibly get around that ban and exert bodily atonmy. the arizona republican governor is expected to sign the bill into law shortly. patrick, there is reporting from nbc that the trump team is working behind the scenes to ensure the republican platform on abortion doesn't shift too far right. good luck to them i say with states -- >> the ship has sailed. >> yeah, the ship has sailed. and i keep thinking back to trump's statement this should all be left to the states. how do democrats, you know, best highlight what happens in the states when the decision is left up to them? >> trump's statement this should be left to states after trump ran around the country declaring

i did this with his appointments to the supreme court, right, so i think that there's a way we have to get out of their way and let trump and the maga extremists speak for themselves on this issue. it's not just a question in the presidential contest, it matters in places like arizona where republicans have two congressional seats that they are likely to lose as a consequence of passing restrictive measures that come from a bill that was passed in the 1800s and doubling down on it in this moment. there's an authoritarian blue prpt called 2025 that i'm sure you've talked to your viewers about that lays out a path how they're going to list up executive authority over agencies like the fda to precisely use things like the comm stock act to restrict a woman's right to have access. today in louisiana and we'll see this across the country women were visited by maga past, present, and the future.

the past they've been working on this for decades. the present in louisiana, arkansas, and arizona where they're lifting these kind of bills, and the future where they have a clear plan in 2025 to expand abortion restrictions. it's a story that tells itself, but you can trust that team biden, that they're exceptionally smart at all of this. they're going to be using the advantage that they have in resources to push that story particularly in places like montana, arizona, nevada, where there are abortion referendums that are on the ballot that will make a difference at every single level. >> i would assume that the accounts of the women themselves who are affected by these bans and the criminalization of basic reproductive freedom are very key interlockteres. i was speaking with cecille richards and she said it's the women stories that cut across republican lines. these are republican women that need lifesaving abortions.

in some ways it almost seems their voices are maybe more important than biden's on the issue in terms of moving people from the center and the middle. >> 100%. and cecille's my hero but i'll add this little piece. joe biden won suburban women by 19 points. right now he's currently leading by 16, 17 points with that cohort and a full third are saying they're undecided or not fully committed to trump. that story told by women themselves will assure that joe biden has that kind of advantage and cushion suburban women who as i said before 40% of them are saying this is the single most important issue for them. and 59% of that cohort believe that donald trump is an absolute extremist on this issue. >> do they believe he wants to restrict contraception? >> yes. yes. they heard him loud and clear, and as maya angelou says if

someone tells you who they are, believe them. so folks are bleechbing trump on contraception, on apportion, on the authoritarian power grab he and his maga extremists who control congress and republican state legislatures intend to enact. we are going to tell that story. we're going to win as a result of that story. >> the confidence i can feel it. >> bring it on. >> bring it he says. president of the center for american progress action fund, patrick, it's great to see you. thanks for your time tonight and your enthusiasm. that is our show for this evening. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. we had the greatest economy in history, and i was getting calls from the other side. i call it the radical left, but left leaning to put it mildly democrats, can we get together? because everybody had the best they've ever had. african american jobs were