that does it for us, thank you so much for watching. remember, if your friends are busy tonight. you got a hot date. you and they can watch the night cap again tomorrow night at saturday, 11:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. i'm signing off and i wish you a very good night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of news news, thanks for staying up late with me. see you at the end of tomorrow. it has been a terrible, horrible, no good very bad week for conspiracy theorists. normally there would be no reason to show you a clip of alex jones, but this was really something. >> i'm literally here watching a family die. 30 years on air. 37 years in operation. 15 years in this building and

i'm literally. when i leave tonight. they will shut us down. maybe it is tomorrow, the next day. i want people to know, i love you, i believe in you, humanity, my grandparents grandparents and parents. i believe in humanity. they got to be stopped. you got to stop them. so, at the end of 2 day, we'll beat these people. not trying to be dramatic but it has been a hard fight. >> that was alex jones. one of the country's biggest conspiracy theorists crying on his show last weekend about the fact his program info wars might finally be coming to an end. for decades jones and info wars have pushed insane conspiracy theories like 9/11 was an inside job and the u.s.

government controls the weather. but perhaps his most pernicious and disturbing conspiracy was that the sandy hook massacre, a school shooting that killed 20 students and several adults was staged. >> sandy hook, it's got inside job written all over it. sandy hook is a synthetic, completely fake with actors in my view manufacturers. all i know is the official story of sandy hook has more holes in it than swiss cheese. >> alex jones pushed lies like these about sandy hook for years resulting in his followerring harassing and tormenting the families of of sanly hook victims so they sued for defamation and won. he was ordered to pay $1.5 billion in damages. be 2022.

he declared bankruptcy guarding his money from the sandy hook families tonight. they accepted a proposal from alex jones to liquidate all of jones' personal assets. his court supervised liquidation will allow the families to benefit from the immediate sale of jones' assetting and keeping their claim alive in the event he accrues more wealth in the future. all of this means it could finally be the end for info wars. [ screaming ] >> so alex jones is being held to account literally. his bank account. reality has really set in this week. not just for alex jones. this is the epoch times. a news outlet that started decades ago as an antichinese communist leaflet from the fallen gong. you might know them from shen

yun. they travel the country explaining their version of precommunist history through song and dance. at some point, the epoch times became less about chinese socio cultural views and plain old conspiracy theories. they pushed anti-vax content claiming vaccines caused widespread injury and death. it pushed seriously niche content like this documentary revealing a secret world government plot to call the population and force survivors to eat bugs. but for years now, the epoch times has claimed content like that has been wildly successful. they put up billboards across the country declaring the epoch times as the number one trusted news. in 2021, they claimed they had grown by 685% in two years. it all seemed pretty fantastic. because it was. according to an indictment unsealed this week in the southern district of new york, the site's content was not the

moneymaker here. not the bug plot. prosecutors allege the real increase in revenue was coming from a massive money laundering scheme run by the epoch times chief financial officer. since 2020, the cfc has allegedly been buying millions of dollars of prepaid debit cards at 70 to 80 cents per dollar from criminals on crypto currency. nice work if you can get it. he is being charged with bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering and could face up to 30 years in prison. all of this is negative press for the epoch times and positive news for the health of our information eco system. to that end, to the triumph of reality over conspiracy, there was also news on this front. >> let's begin we asking a simple question. do we know the truth about what really happened in the 2020

election? >> that was a conspiracy theory filled documentary, 2000 mules. when that film debuted, trump hosted a screening of it at mar- a-lago and it is a very schlocky film that says thousands of people were paid to steal the 2020 election. it is a complete fabrication. but the right wing went bananas for it. to this day, the film, 2000 fuels is a central part of the maga revisionist history of 2020. and last week, after a lawsuit was filed against the media company that distributed that film, they stopped distribution and issued a formal public apology. so a pretty good week for reality and a bad week for conspiracy. and that doesn't just matter for the health of our public discourse. it matters for the health of our democracy. it wasn't just 2000 mules

pushing the big lie. all of these outlets were. >> if you have been following the media over the past week, you probably think that the election is over. but that is actually not the case. >> the epoch times is one of the first outlets to really go hard on the big lie. right after the 2020 election, its home page became an election challenge tracker. following elector events state by state. as for alex jones, not only did he push the big lie, but he helped organize and helped fund the stop the steal rally where trump spoke on january 6th. the big lie is maybe the most influential conspiracy theory of our time and i know, yes, there are plenty of other outlets. even sitting u.s. officials who still push the lie. but these outlets, these outlets crashing and burning this week. conspiracy theorists and distortion profiteers being

held accountable. that matters. and it comes on a week that has been equally bad for the people who tried to use the big lie to overturn the election in 2020. this week, three more trump allies were indicted in wisconsin. for their roles in trump's fake elector scheme there. today in arizona, trump's former chief of staff mark meadows pleaded not guilty to his charges in that state. trump's criminal indictment may be frozen on the 2020 election but that doesn't mean everyone has to give up trying to bring this country back to reality. joining me now, the former editor at large of the bull work. gentlemen, i apologize we had to play alex jones footage at the top of the segment but it was for a purpose. mark, i do wonder individually, these stories may not resonate. but i wonder if there is any

political cost to seeing all of these right wing conspiracy theorists go up in flames and be outed for what they are. >> you would think there could be. in some ways, this is all kind of happening on one side. these live by an large on the right. it is not like they are out there very separate from the mainstream of the republican party. you have donald trump closely interacting with them. the alex joneses of the world. mark meadow was chief of staff. there's a lot of very close tie in between what he does, what the republicans do. it is a lot of fertile material for democrats to work with. but how do you make it something that is viable for a political campaign environment? and you could say look, this is a very, very corrupt group of

people. a vice president whose cabinet members are not supporting him. what you need is a strategy to simplify. i think calling donald trump a convicted felon is obviously helpful but it is hard to communicate these sheer. >> charlie, beyond the sort of elegant theory that could be useful for democrats, there is also the reality that these lies hang on republican elected officials. you wrote a piece in the atlantic talking about the way in which the fake electors lead to ron johnson. can you talk about how you see the dominoes falling? >> the story you just told, people need to understand what an integral role all of those outlets played in changing the

political landscape. republicans think the election was stolen. spreading the covid conspiracy theories. that is important because many of the republican politicians have followed where the base went. they have been influenced by the epoch times. and we left out that steve bannon is going to jail. there is a great moment i think of feeling that there is karma catching up with the mendacity you have been documenting. but this is so engrained in the republican party headed by donald trump. i would love to pike the football and say that you know, we are now seeing reality make a comeback. but can reality make a comeback in american politics as long as donald trump is possibly going to be elected the next president of the united states?

because as mark mentioned, these things are not, they are not simply discreet. donald trump has worked very closely with each of these outlets. they are crucial cogs. as long as you have elected officials like ron johnson willing to carry water for the big lie in these conspiracy theories, they can still do a lot of damage. and will do a lot of damage. >> yeah. look, we talk about trump's kind of infallibility at least in the courts in terms of holding him accountable. we talk about changing the election. it is wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania. and in two of those states. if you extend it to arizona, georgia, nevada. , there are state investigations and criminal indictments around these fake electors. while that might not be the overarching movement to hold

donald trump accountable, it does remind people on the ground of what happened in 2020. there is something to the people in your neighborhood being part of a plot to steal the election no matter where they are getting their information or what their social media feed is. >> absolutely. they are central to these cases. it will be an important reminder and those are the three states. you mentioned arizona, nevada, georgia. but the other three he could win with, he is much closer in. so i do think that look, for as much as 2020 is the topic of conversation, this is good news for biden. all of these taken together are products of lawsuits or criminal action.

he is prosecuted or litigated which a fine way to get come up pans in our world. what would be great is if republican politicians en masse could lock arms and if not do the right thing, sort of distance themselves in some way from this rather than hug the really bad actors and become one with it. because look, they are one of our two major parties now. that is what defines them. it would be nice if that would actually just happen more organically. >> they will also pay a price at the ballot box. like mail in voting is fraudulent. you are seeing that unfold this week. trump has a statement. released on tuesday. we will protect the vote. make sure your ballot is secure and your voice is heard. we must swamp the radical

democrats with massive turnout. donald trump encouraging republican voters to vote by mail. it is like reality of how you win a election is slowly dawning on the republican party. >> i actually think this is a significant undercover story. how much chaos there is in republican party ranks over the basic questions. how do we feel about mail in voting? the criminal charges against the fake electors in wisconsin will focus attention on the attempt to steal the election, but also, it will highlight again how divided republicans are about this. this has torn apart the republican party in wisconsin. all of that has been revived. it is hard to predict whether this helpsline or the democrats but i do think at least, let's

take a moment to notice we have talked about earth 2.0 where there is no reality. what we are seeing this week is reality making a little bit of a comeback. there is accountability and the price tag and the consequences for these mendacious lies and in alex jones' case, these profoundly evil lies about the murder of those children. that there is finally some comuppance for these guys. eventually, these things catch up with you and i hope that sends the message and for those of us, all of us looking ahead, when do we get out of this, what's ahead for america? american culture, these stories we saw were a slight glimmer of

hope. i'm not going to be exuberant as long as donald trump is leafing in the polls but it is a bright spot. >> it is a victory for earth one where no one is part of a global plot to make anybody eat bugs. whatever the epoch times has to say about it. thanks for spending a little of your friday night with me. i appreciate it. coming up, private jets, luxury resorts, super yachts, we knew clarence thomas had received millions of dollars in gifts but he is disclosing some of them now. but not all of them. more on that coming up. two former police officers who defended the capitol on january 6th were greeted with boos by republican lawmakers in pennsylvania this week. we'll speak to one of them. retired police officer harry dunn. that's next. police officer hary dunn. that's next. sometimes your work shirt needs to be for more than just work. like when it needs to be a big, soft shoulder to cry on.

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two police officers who defended the capitol, harry dunn and gonell were booed and jeered by republican lawmakers in pennsylvania as they were introduced as heros in the state house. some republican lawmakers even walked out. a standing ovation from democrats quickly drowned out republican attempts to disrespect the officers but that behavior is another example of how far the party of law and order is willing to go to rewrite history and please its leader donald trump. joining me now is harry dunn. formeru.s. capitol police officer and author of standing my ground. a capitol police officer's fight for accountability and good trouble after january 6th. officer dunn. thank you for being here.

let me just ask you what went through your mind as you got booed at? >> honestly, the first thing that walked through my mind, it was such an honor to be there. to be able to be recognized, to be noticed. i appreciated that moment. this has been three-and-a-half years. this is par for the course. it doesn't get any easier to deal with. but it also, it is the reason to keep going. that's why i was in pennsylvania. to meet with people who don't believe or who down play what happened january 6th to tell our stories about what happened. and make sure that people don't forget it. despite the efforts to whitewash, diminish and lie about what happened that day. >> do any of those republicans ever come up to you? do you have a conversation about why they think what they

think? >> not the ones that were doing the boing were booing. let's talk about it. and hear your opinions and what donald trump is telling you and the far right is telling you what happened. i would sit down and talk to them but they didn't give us the opportunity. in fact, we were on the house floor, we were not even being, we got acknowledged. we didn't speak. we didn't say any words. they just acknowledged us. so it wasn't like they walked out in protest or something we said. they just wanted to grand stand and just make a scene. the speaker literally just said our names and why we were there and they walked out. it wasn't like we were out there speaking.

i'm motivated more. >> just your presence was cause for them to jeer you and leave the chamber. this is the week mike johnson, speaker of the house in washington dc, declared that the republican party is the party of law and order. you are a former police officer who is getting booed by members of his party. how does it make you feel when he says that? >> this isn't new. this is their play book. this is what they do. it is a hash tag, a bumper sticker. something they put on a campaign rally sign. but it is not the truth at all. just look at how they are responding to what is happening in the court up in new york. with donald trump. they are not the ruling law. they are the party of law and order when it works for them. they have people like on january 6th, there were people that called the police officers traitors as they were attacking my coworkers. there were people that were there saying they were doing it

for us. so they thought they were right. it's crazy. they think, it is only good when it works for them. you know? i get so flabbergasted because it is unbelievable to think they can sit this with a straight face and say those things. but what they forget to say is only when they do what we want them to do. >> i have to ask you because you have been around in these key moments, you were outside the courthouse in new york city as donald trump was standing trial and you were there when robert de niro was going back at some of the maga acolyting parading around new york for donald trump. do you think democrats and i would say more broadly people who care about democracy need to engage in that kind of hand to and comment? did you feel like it was effective? >> i would be careful saying hand so hand combat. >> figuratively speaking. >> but you know how they get. that's their play book. i do think everybody needs to forcefully push back against

these lies. you know, nobody said a word when mike johnson and the house delegation, the republican delegation was going outside the courthouse in defense of donald trump for that particular case. you know, we just went up there. my story was about january 6th. i didn't talk about the trial. to be honest, i wasn't really following it. i just wanted to let everybody know how i feel that donald trump is one of the biggest threats to our democracy. and, you know, it is kind of rich people say the democrats need to move on from january 6th. i would argue that you tell that to donald trump. he still is campaigning off of january 6th. offering pardons to the people who attacked police officers and stormed the capitol. he is offering pardons for them. i refuse to move on from january 6th when you have people out there spreading lies object what did and did not happen that day. >> i know you started a pac

using leftover money from your congressional campaign to support candidates running against pro trump republicans. officer harry dunn who is not going quietly into this good night. >> democracy defenders pac.com. yeah, we are continuing to fight, doing what we can do. because everybody has to have a role in this protecting our democracy. >> officer harry dunn who was there. and knows well what happened january 6th. thank you so much for making the time and thanks for your service, sir. i appreciate it. >> thanks alex. still ahead tonight, a supreme court justice finally admitted that he did accept luxury travel from a billionaire conservative patron. just as the court is advancing an aggressively conservative agenda. i will speak about how that that agenda is playing out in the court, our schools, and culture, that's next. ools, and culture, that's next. ♪ i wanna hold you forever ♪ hey little bear bear. ♪ ♪

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today, supreme court justice clarence thomas admitted to accepting luxury vacations from republican megadonor harlan crow. thomas noted he had inadvertently left out two

gifts. a secret trip to the men's only club in california and a trip on a yacht. he failed to mention other trips. but thomas is academic standpointening noing the extremely valuable gifts from conservative donors at the moment that the court is advancing an extremely conservative agenda. this court has gutted race based affirmative action and delivered more blows to voting rights. the conservative project is advancing in schools where education around lgbtq has been censored. history lessons have been senatorred by parental rights movements. and book bans against a liberal world view. one book is called the 1619 project by pulitzer prize winner nicole hannah jones. author and creator of the 1619

project out now. this week in paper back. also joining us is senior editor at slate writing about the courts in the law. it is so great to have you guys here. how it mirrors what conservatives are doing, does it surprise you? >> i think that we can both be, you know, appalled we can still be shocked by things that are not necessarily surprising. people who had an understanding of how we work, civics, i'm surprised there is no mechanism against what we are seeing happening on the court.

>> it is the flouting of any kind of oversight. almost the sort of celebration of the immunity is something that makes people incandescant with rage. it seems like, so implausible as if to be in some ways almost useless is an excuse. >> right, if one were cut out like propublica. it might be the only functioning branch of government at this moment. its work has been astounding and we should lift it up. but if you were cut out taking huge, these lavish gifts, loan.

to buy luxury rv that cruises around the country. your grand nephew's tuition is covered. all of this is meticulously laid out the past year by the really industrious reporting of investigative reporters. then you get this kind of back of the envelope like oops filing today. here are two things in 2019 i should have disclosed? not all of the bohemian grove trips. not all of the yacht trips. i will just disclose a couple of things and use this language he keeps using inadvertently omitted. in 2023, he failed to realize in 2021 it was a misunderstanding of filing instructions. right. people go to the death chamber for failing to do their documents correctly and he is

just like oopsy, it is the absolute materialization of what it looks like to have complete immunity. >> well, it also looks like corruption when you look at what clarence thomas has been saying on in terms of advancing the conservative rollback of basic liberties and freedoms we have taken for granted the last half century. this is a man who suggested brown v. board of education had been overused effectively. who helped dismantle women's bodily autonomy. affirmative action. does the appetite of conservatives in this moment at all surprise you? and the willingness of someone like clarence thomas who is himself a black man to reverse progress on race, does that come as a surprise to you? >> i think clarence thomas has been and will continue to be

the perfect vessel. he replaces thurgood marshall on the supreme court. the biggest insult to marshall's legacy i could imagine. when you look at what he offers, he is a black man, so when he votes against trying to stop the racial gerrymandering in south carolina. when he votes to overturn affirmative action and evokes the greatest supreme court ruling in the history of the united states, brown v. board of education of going too far, it doesn't allow us to say that these are racial rulings. because he is a black man. when you combine that with what look to be corrupt activity. american oligarchy bought court decision. doesn't seem to care about

originalism when it comes to the 14th amendment but uses it when convenient. that, again, we should be appalled. but, i have come to think of clarence thomas and others on the court as kind of the atlanta housewives. who's going to check me, boo? we can do it. it doesn't matter that the fourth estate is exposing this and shining the light on what we are seeing. that there is a belief it doesn't matter. you can find out these things about us and there will be no consequence. so how are we supposed to as americans have faith in this court? that the court is ruling based on the law and precedent and not based on what very rich and powerful conservatives want them to rule? >> nicole makes a good point about the puppet like nature that conservatives have over these justices. i think, they are kind of like the real housewives of atlanta in the sense that they think

they can roll anybody. i'm struck by the fact that sam alito excuses away his insurrectionist flags by pointing at his wife and pointing out a dispute where the timetable doesn't check out. this is a judge in the court of law. they know how to make a sound argument in their own defense and they are not even trying to explain away millions of dollars in gifts he never accounted for. >> i think in some sense, this is the disspiritting part, it is because we have trained them with our own complacency about this. we have signaled time and time again that this seems kind of bad. but oh well. you know. they're the monarchs and we're the serfs so we tolerate it. once the court overturns roe on the most bogus premise and does so suffering years of precedent without explaining, once it does away with centuries of

understanding of the second amendment to put guns in the hands of everybody, once the court says oh, you know what? we're going to do away with the epa's ability to function using an invented doctrine with no roots in the constitution or statutory interpretation. they have been doing this in tandem with these flagrant ethics violations. these flagrant statements. public statements. when you are hoisting a flag, that is not a t-shirt or a mug. our answer is to be oh well, there is nothing we can do about it. i want to flip the premise and say how much more of this kind of conduct do we tolerate before we consistently say we are under a monarchy and say this is freedom? >> don't go anywhere. both of you. there is so much more that we have to discuss including the

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and then, lyndon johnson, and you go down that road and we are where we are. >> republican congressman byron donalds of florida made those comments describing jim crow as a unifying time for black families and lamenting the landmark programs enacted in the 1960s to help low income americans. back with me are nicole hannah jones. dahlia lithwick. people have accused your seminal text of being some kind of rewriting of history. but i do wonder what you make of the conservatives who have lobbied the same criticisms absolutely rewriting the civil rights era and great society programs. >> yeah. i don't know if he is saying that out of ignorance or cynicism. what we do know is his own marriage was not legal in the

state he lives in until 1969. we know that as he is talking about black voters mostly conservative, the very first civil rights martyr was a black man named harry moore and his wife henrietta moore who were bombed in florida. they were voting rights activists. the first martyrs of the civil rights movement. and donald is from florida. the poverty rate in jim crow was more than 55%. when they say those things, that i are clearly not really talking to black people. though this was at a black voter event. this messaging is not for us. none of us actually believe. we can talk to our grandparents who grew up in jim crow. we could talk to our parents. my dad was born in apartheid mississippi. the lynching in the country. we can know that times were not better for black people under jim crow. i'm going to assume this is sheer cynicism.

i can't believe he could live in a state like florida and believe times were better for us. and i promise you, he would not want to go back and live under a jim crow. >> you know, what is so incensing, there is so much about it, dahlia. but the way in which the right wing tries to co-op the civil rights era as its own, where they are not criticizing the actual policy legislation, they are wrapping themselves in the cloak of mlk or trump called himself the nelson mandela of our time because of his criminal prosecutions. and dan bishop this week is talking about how donald trump was treated the way black voters were treated in alabama in alabama in 1955. where is that impulse to coopt civil rights come from as it concerns the broader conservative project? >> i think the most charitable verse is they are trying to pick off iconic moments and play them and everybody reveres

mlk. so you are citing to an icon. i got to say it is just trolling at this point. i don't think it is much beyond knowing that the ability to say that you know, the voting rights act, the high water mark of the civil rights era, you know. the reproduction amendments and all the ways they are sort of the baseline of how we made voting fair after a long slot to turn that on its head. it just feels like straight up trolling. i hope i'm wrong. but i think that nicole's word

is so good. this deep cynicism to the project of coopting all of this pain and suffering and saying oh, it is me, donald trump who is really, i'm that guy. >> right. the white grievance. the white grievance has been a lie even since the dawn of originalism. right? which is largely a vehicle to enshrine white grievance through jurisprudence. the book is out in paperback. i wonder how you have seen the country change and whether this book is even more necessary now than it was four years ago and whether. the legacy of slavery led to the george floyd moment.

we are clearly now in a racist backlash where no one is talking about the racial justice efforts of 2020. they are rejecting dei. states legislating. saying people are arguing for free speech who are now legislating and disbanding entire departments that we are trying to bring more diversity. we are seeing more books banned. the 1619 project has been banned across the country. so what you understand is what i say is that conservatives are trying to mandate our ignorance and make it impossible for us to learn the histories an make the connections to help us to see what they are doing. to see why we need these programs in the first place. and, it is trolling. right? because they don't believe what they are saying. they don't actually believe in color blindness. they talk about race all the time. they obsess over it.

but what they do think is that it is again, it is a way to hide the crime. so while they are dismantling civil rights. all we look at is what is the civil rights agenda of republicans and know you cannot then claim dr. king or nelson mandela. >> can i ask you a political question before we go? which is we are told time and time again that joe biden is hemorrhaging votes among young voters and voters of color. given the reality of what the republican party stands for right now, how do you account for that? what should democrats be doing differently? >> oh god. you know. i don't even cover politics. >> but just in terms of, how can it be? it is so explicit. it is not even a dog whistle. the project is out there. it is headline news. and yet, and yet, the numbers are where they are. i just wonder what you think that reflects in society?

>> i don't actually think the polling showing donald trump has upwards of 25% support among black americans is true. when i talk to pollsters who specifically poll black communities, they also don't think that is accurate polling. now it doesn't mean that donald trump is still not getting significant amount of supportment maybe he is. but i don't think it is 25%. but i do think there's a lot of apathy. i think folks who don't want to vote for trump also are feeling very apathetic about biden over things like gaza. but also, this sense that every four years, democrats come begging to black folks to save america and no one delivers to them. joe biden is not talking about racial inequality. there has been no police reform. no reforms on so many of the issues that black americans, you know, go to the ballot and vote for. we don't even have a voting rights act. we don't have a party willing to protect our right to vote.

so, i think that is what we are seeing. it is just a lot of apathy. folks feeling like just always told you have to vote someone is not enough. >> we have more to talk about on this conversation. i know you are busy with book tour. nicole hannah jones, and the great dahlia lithwick. thank you for your time tonight. we'll be right back. tonight. we'll be right back. extra stren, high absorption magnesium helps me get the full benefits of magnesium. qunol, the brand i trust. rsv is out there. for those 60 years and older protect against rsv with arexvy. arexvy is a vaccine used to prevent lower

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