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tv   The Rachel Maddow Show  MSNBC  June 24, 2024 9:00pm-10:00pm PDT

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finding the exact date on ancestry that our family business was founded, really struck a chord with my grandfather. i've never seen this before. look at it - where has this come from? all the stories that's he's been able to hand me throughout the years, for me to hand him that information.. you don't get that moment every day.
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when we're young, we're told anything is possible... ...but only a few of us go out and prove it. witness the greatness of anna hall on a connection worthy of gold: xfinity mobile. only xfinity gives you the most powerful mobile wifi network, with speeds up to a gig in millions of locations. and right now, xfinity internet customers can buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. get the fastest connection to paris with xfinity. that does it for us here in aspen tonight. and tune in tomorrow, i'll be talking to west virginia's joe manchin. you can catch that conversation here. and on that note, i wish you a good night. i will see you at the end of
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tomorrow. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. it's really good for you to be here. i'm going to show you something, but i'm going to tell you what you're going see in advance. i'm going to tell you in advance, but even so, i'm going to venture a guess that you knowing in advance what's coming, you having me tell you in advance what you're about to see, is not going to make it make anymore sense. but let me just describe it ahead of time so you can get your head around it, okay? it's going to start with -- i think it's like a bracelet, a decorated bracelet hitting the floor. it's possible it's like a mouth guard or something. but that's so gross i don't even want to think about it. it's a bracelet a decorated bracelet hits the floor. then there's a guy with fake fire, and that guy then shows off that he's got teeth like this, like the james bond villain, the giant guy who had
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the metal teeth. has teeth like that. then after we see the teeth like that, then next there's a guy who breaks a window with his head. and then there's a guy who points. it goes on from there, but let's just -- that's enough. let's just watch that part now, and then we'll do the next part. so start just with the bracelet thing. watch this. see? it's just like i said. bracelet, fake fire, metal teeth, head through the window, and then the guy who points. i mean, theet retically, it should help to know in advance what's coming in this sequence, but it doesn't help. it's still just as weird. it keeps going. after the pointing guy, we then get a guy motioning like he's going to cut himself in the
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neck. then you get a guy who kicks the air. then inexplicably you get the highlight a guy with vampire teeth, and then the guy with the big fake vampire teeth punches the fake fire. then two other guys down punchy thing, and then it gets really funny. i can't even describe it. there's an audio component, and then there's donald trump. so start it -- roll it right from where the guy just points. >> affliction banned, july 19th, the honda center, anaheim, california, live on pay per view. >> i will say these are tough looking guys. i asked one of them how long would i last? you know, i'm tough. we're all tough. and he looked at me like i was kidding. that wasn't even nice, but it's an honor to have you in trump
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tower. i think affliction's going to do really well. >> i just want to say that we did not like edit this and cut in a different goofy voice where it was supposed to be a tough guy voice. just -- this is how it came out. play the actual announcement part again. just listen to the voice here. >> affliction banned, july 19th, the honda center, anaheim, california, live on pay per view. >> affliction banned. they apparently did not spring for the expensive announcer guy. they just had the intern do it. this is a thing that donald trump failed at in business. i did not know that this was another one of his failed business ventures until new york magazine wrote about it yesterday. in reference to donald trump saying at a rally this weekend that he wants to force immigrants into fighting for entertainment. he wants a migrant cage match
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fighting league. because, you know, sure, maybe the lions are all full from all the christians, so time for new entertainments for him and his followers. but in reference to that bizarre proposal that he made at a political rally, this weekend new york magazine noted that trump in 2008 formed his own mixed martial arts league with the vampire teeth and all the rest of it. >> i think affliction's going to do really well. >> spoiler alert, affliction did not do very well. trump was the face of it. he was the promoter. michael cohen was the c.o.o. they hosted precisely two event, and then it failed. it folded. another in a long line of illustrious trump business ventures. this one was new to me, but he was operating the vampire teeth,
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break windows with your head thing, which failed, at the same time that he was operating trump university, which was shut down as a scam, as a fraud in a settlement that required trump to pay $25 million to the people who had been ripped off by his supposed university. he was operating both the vampire teeth thing and the trump university scam at the same time he was also operating the trump foundation, which was also shut down as a scam. it was dissolved by court order, and its assets were ordered to be redistributed to actual charities while trump had to pay millions of dollars in restitution. he was operating all of those at the same time he was, of course, running the trump organization. the family business built by his father. under donald trump's leadership that business, of course, was found guilty of criminal fraud. its cfo is in prison, and trump himself will be sentenced in a couple of weeks, possibly sentenced to prison, after he was convicted of 34 felonies for using that same business to
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launder illegal campaign payments. and with a record like that, naturally, he is in support with the business world now because, wow, what a businessman. can't believe the boxer with the vampire teeth thing didn't work. seems like such a sure bet for a sports that is based on all sorts of punching and kicking and grappling but not at all on biting. definitely get yourself a vampire teeth guy. that'll work. the first presidential debate is -- that is a real thing. it's like, really -- sorry. affliction. definitely make it sound like it's something you might catch and then ask people to come together in a big collective space to catch the affliction. i'm sorry. the first presidential debate is happening this week, which is
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weird because it's june. i can't speak to whatever advantage the two campaigns see in having their candidates debate now, nearly five months before the election, but it means that we're all getting set this week for this faceoff between the two candidates. and we've got very different metrics to look at than we would usually have by the time a presidential debate rolled around well into the fall, right? polls don't mean much this time of year. polls don't mean much five months before voting. most likely voters won't be paying attention to the race until well into the fall, when edebates used to normally be scheduled. but as they head into this weird, very early debate, the relative strength of their campaigns is something that we have to assess by sort of indirect measures. and one of the things that people have been using heading into this debate to contrast the candidates, to try to sort of measure the strength of each of their campaigns, sort of
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handicap their chances at who's going to win the presidency, one of the things people have been using -- you might have seen a lot about it in the press the last couple of weeks -- is the issue of fundraising. you have likely seen a lot of headlines and a lot of attention to the financial contest of the two candidates. the financial race used to favor biden, but now trump has reportedly caught up. and along with that sort of bottom line comparison of the two candidates, you're also seeing really outsized attention now to the very, very, very, very, very rich people of america. the kind of people who can donate $10, $20, $30, $50 million in one check without breaking a sweat and thereby potentially change the nature of the race. and very, very, very rich people like that have started to write those kinds of checks. there's a rich man named timothy mellen who earned this headline
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in 2020 when he donated tens of millions to help trump and republicans four years ago. timothy mellon leads 2020 gop donors, defends use of racial stereotypes. that was four years ago, now this year he's giving even more. he has made multimillion dollar donations to both robert f. kennedy jr. and to trump in this election. the accumulating nature of his donations to trump, in fact, mark him as one of the largest political donors in u.s. history at this point. and this comes on the heels of high profile gazillion dollar fundraisers for trump, hosted by right wing tech billionaires in california. and of course, it comes on the heels of months of high profile trump support from tesla billionaire elon musk. who used to be thought of as a quirky business billionaire, as an eccentric inventor type, but
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now he's basically this guy if this guy also had the resources to buy twitter and then destroy it while also inexplicably being allowed by the u.s. government to operate crucial u.s. security assets that he has used to help russia's war against ukraine. so this has been getting outsized attention, in part because of the extremist beliefs of some of these very, very, very rich people who are now making a big show out of supporting donald trump. but it's also getting outsized attention because it's one of the few metrics we have to assess the relative strength of these two candidates in their campaigns as they head into this very early, very weird first debate this week. it's also getting attention, though, the preferences of the business class and the donation behavior of the uber wealthy is getting attention also right now not just because of its affect on sort of the odds in the race,
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the likelihood of each of these candidates to win, i think it's also getting attention because of the substance of it. because on what basis are these business folks and these very, very, very rich people making these decisions? because the biden record and the trump record are real things that business people can look at and presumably make rational decisions about, if they are, in fact, making decisions about this election for economic and business reasons, which is what the press keeps telling us. right? we have an incumbent president and somebody who was the last president, so they both have a term in office that we can look at, that we can measure against one another. they've both got observable records. why would business people be turning against joe biden on the basis of his record? which is what we keep being told in the press heading into this debate. i mean, this is something where there, again, is an observable truth here. under joe biden we just had the best year of american job
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creation in the 21st century. the last time we had a streak this long of unemployment beelow 4%, it was the early 1960s. under joe biden, the u.s. has the best economy in the world. literally the envy of the world. in fact, the world bank just said that the u.s. economy is so good it's actually stabilizing the whole world economy. the u.s. stock market keeps hitting new records and then breaking those records and then hitting new ones that are even higher. crime is at 50-year lows. we just had the largest single-year drop in the murder rate that we have ever recorded. and president biden keeps passing, keeps signing big legislation that's good for the economy, that's good for the business climate. and he has been able to do it, miracle of all miracles, with bipartisan support. and that includes the big infrastructure bill and domestic manufacturing of computer chips
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and all of these other things. i mean, this is the kind of business landscape, hellscape, business leaders have been suffering through under joe biden. headlines like these. corporate profits hit record high as economy boomed in fourth quarter of 2023. or this one. u.s. corporate profits soar with margins at widest since 1950. or this one, money watch, u.s. companies just had their best year since before most of us -- before most of us were born. oh, the poor business guys. they really need trump back, don't they? and even if they want to say, oh, it's not about the business climate, it's about being fiscally responsible, it's just that we're so worried about the debt and the deficit, and that's why we want to go back to trump and get rid of joe biden, i mean, tell me what the rationale is there in reality, tell me what the rationale is, because the committee for a responsible
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budget put this out today, which puts a fine point on it. right, that's who added what to the debt. when you compare trump's term in office with joe biden's term in office. and no, you can't blame covid. they actually break out the covid spending. that's the bit in the lighter red color there, so yes, donald trump and joe biden both spent on the pandemic. they had to, but even if you wipe that out, trump added trillions more to the debt and the deficit than biden did regardless of covid. and maybe you don't particularly care about the deficit and the debt, but business guys almost always say they do. and so what's the rationale along those lines of supporting trump over biden? as we head into this weird early debate this week, supporters of this business genius have created an impression that trump's got an advantage heading into the debate at this point in
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the campaign because his business record, right? he's so appealing to all the other rich business guy who is so appreciate how smart you need to be to book a guy with vampire teeth for your cage match business. they are trying to create an impression that there is support for trump in the business world because there's, you know, economic and business reasons to support someone who himself is so good at business. in reality, the actual stakes in this election, the comparative record of these two candidates on the economy and business, it doesn't favor the failed promoter of the affliction mixed martial arts league which promoted exactly two bouts before it folded. and the man whose surviving company was convicted on multiple felony fraud counts and was named in his own trial for falsification of business record, and his cfo is doing his second stint in prison.
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weirdly, his business record, his business environment record, his economic and fiscal record on the facts doesn't support the idea that he should be winning support from people who prioritize those things. despite the massive spin generated by all these high profile, idealogical trumpy billionaire, we're starting now, as of today i think, to see a corrective in that narrative about what's really happening. this is front page of "the new york times" tonight. quote, ceos are frustrated. that doesn't mean they embrace trump. quote, a number of prominent figures in silicon valley and on wall street have grown increasingly vocal in their criticism of mr. biden, their praise of former president donald j. trump, or both. still, that shift mostly reflects movement among executives who already supported republican politicians. quote, there is little evidence of a major shift in allegiance among executives away from biden
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and toward trump. this is on the front page. this is the op-ed page. recent headlines suggest that our nation's business leaders are embracing the presidential candidate donald trump. his campaign would have you believe that our nation's top chief executives are returning to support trump for president, touting declarations of support from some prominent financiers. it is far from the truth, though. they didn't flock to him before, and they certainly aren't flocking to him now. quote, trump continues to suffer from the lowest level of corporate support in the history of the republican party. quote, not a single fortunate 100 chief executive has donated to trump so far this year, which indicates a major break from the overwhelming business and executive support for republican presidential candidates that dates back over a century. trump received a, quote, frigid reception when he spoke to the business roundtable this month with no noticeable applause at any point during his, quote, remarkably meandering remarks
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according to andrew ross sorokin. and with trump assuming a subdued and if not hostile posture. chief executives are not protectionist, isolationist, or xenophobic, and they believe in investing w there is the rule of law, not the law of rulers. whether or not business support is going to make the difference for either one of these candidates in november, heading into this debate this week, there has been a concerted effort to create a perception, a false perception, that trump has the whole business world lining up behind him. and that's because his time in office compared favorably with president biden. which is not true in the overall business climate. it is not true on jobs. and it is not true in terms of business leaders lining up behind these two candidates. but that kind of false perception itself has political consequences, and heading into this debate and all the attention it's going to get about the relative strengths of
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these two candidates and what they have to offer, excuse me, more than ever it is worth getting these things right. joining us now is my dear friend and colleague stephanie ruhle. she's host of "the 11th hour" here at msnbc, she's a senior business analyst for nbc news. she's joining us live from beautiful aspen, colorado, because of course she is, because she's speaking at the aspen ideas festival, which is a gathering of highfalutin leaders and thinkers from all over the world. full disclosure, i asked stove be here tonight, because she is the only person i know who speaks to ceos. stephanie ruhle, thank you so much for screwing up your show prep schedule and being here tonight. i know it's a busy night for you. >> thank you for having me. i'm in awe of your lead-in. you have laid out exactly the sort of economic landscape of what we're looking like here. and one of the main reasons you're seeing sort of this trump narrative that all these business leaders are backing me, because remember, the number one thing they want to try to push
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and convince people of is that the economy is terrible. and while inflation is a persistent problem, business leaders are not standing with donald trump and that business roundtable meeting, it's really important for our audience to understand trump would have you believe corporate america invited me in. they wanted me to speak to them. it was their normal meeting that he they have every year and they invited both candidate. president biden could not attend because he was at g7 and his chief of staff was there. and donald trump has said since then they were clapping for me at the end. they were, because it was at the opened after presidential candidate's remarks and that is what a room does who's marginally courteous. i spoke to other people who basically said this thing was all over the place. and it is a break. pre-donald trump, the business community sort of the c suite class was with the republican
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party. you remember that al smith dinner years ago george h.w. bush kind of jokingly looked out at the room and said you're my base. that's not the case anymore. it was after charlottesville, you saw the first business council in american history break from a president and say i can't even be associated with him anymore. >> steph, one of the reasons that i think this is important heading into the debate is because i'm not a person who knows a ton about the business world. i definitely don't think of myself as sharing all the same values as ceos and people on wall street and people who think of, you know, who read the business section first maybe don't even read the politics page. i don't think of myself that way, but i also know politics reasonably well, and i feel like the perceptions of who the business community is with is an important thing even for people who aren't themselves in the business world, right? because you start to think, oh, well these business people are smart.
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they must know who's going to be economically better for the country, and that's, i believe, why they're trying to create this perception. and that's why it's important for us to report if that perception is false. >> rachel, it's especially important this year because we've had this division, right? all of the positive economic data that you just laid out is disconnected from how people feel. because people haven't been feeling good about the economy because they're coming off of covid, because of persistent inflation. so when you keep pushing this narrative that the business community is standing with donald trump, it convinces people, well, maybe bad news is coming. but here's what's important. there are -- there is sort of a subgroup of very, very successful wall street financiers. there's elon musk and kind of elon musk backup dancers who have been very pro and outspoken trump -- pro-trump in the last few weeks, and i want to explain why. they know how good the economy is. elon musk and all that joe biden has done for electric vehicle, he certainly knows how good the economy.
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he knows how good the stock market is. however, they know that donald trump is transactional. they know that if they stand with donald trump now, if they're throwing fundraisers for him that if, in fact, he becomes the president, they're going to have a direct line into the oval office. so it's as though ethey're trying to recreate kind of a putin's oligarchs here. if they help trump now, he will take their call and give them the quote,unquote get out of jail free pass six months from now. now, that is not the fortune 100 ceos out there who have all of these constituents, but this small wall street universe, the nelson pelt, the bill ackmans of the world. they're putting on the trump show because they would love to have his kind of power and him in their back pocket if he were to win. >> and the problem with a transactional leader like that, with that form of corruption, is that, yeah, you may get what you want when you've thrown the last fundraiser, when you've given him the last million dollars, but then somebody else comes along, gives him $2 million or does a bigger fundraiser for
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him, and because it's totally transactional, you have no legitimate principle buy-in on anything. it's just who's willing to pay for it most recently and in largest -- to the largest effect. that's why the rule of law usually is a better idea for the business world than the law of rulers, certainly in the medium term and certainly in the long term. steph rhule, thanks so much, i know i'm screwing your show up. i appreciate it, my friend. much more to come tonight. we've got a hugely busy week this week with all sorts of stuff screwing up michal dar and yours. we're going to talk about that coming up. stay with us. k about that coming up. stay with us when i was diagnosed with h-i-v, i didn't know who i would be. but here i am... being me. keep being you... and ask your healthcare provider about the number one prescribed h-i-v treatment, biktarvy.
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and bring on the good stuff. all right, get your calendars out. cancel all the plans you kind of wanted to cancel anyway but you didn't have a good excuse. now you have a good excuse, because i am here to tell you that the rest of this week is going to be bananas. first of all, tomorrow is election day in new york, utah, colorado, and south carolina. this is going to be one of the
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most interesting, most consequencetial, most newsworthy primary and election days we've had all this year. in new york, there's that very high profile race where jamal bowman is being primaried by a challenger named george latimer, the most expensive house primary race in american history. nearly $25 million spent on political ads in that race. in utah, it's a u.s. senate primary. this is the seat that's being vacated by retiring senator mitt romney. republican voters will get to pick their nominee for that seat. longtime republican utah congressman john curtis is supposed to be the favorite to win that race, but he has had to fight to even get his name on the ballot, to keep his name on the ballot, after he lost his party's official convention endorsement to a trump-backed maga candidate instead. in south carolina tomorrow, republicans are going to vote in a runoff election to choose
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between a candidate named sheri biggs who has the backing of south carolina's republican governor. it'll be her or a televangelist named mark burns who is backed by donald trump, who incidentally has said that he wants to execute public school teachers for treason. that's nice. all of that is just what's happening tomorrow. then the day after tomorrow on wednesday, we enter a whole new kind of crazy because wednesday, thursday, and friday all three of those days the supreme court of the united states is scheduled to hand down more decisions, and they have a ton left, including another really big, important, very consequential reproductive rights decision. they've got a huge decision dealing with the government's fundamental ability to regulate things, everything from the food we eat to the air we breathe. that's not even counting the long delayed decision which we are still waiting for in the outrageous donald trump immunity from the law case.
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we could get any or all of those between wednesday and friday. and then on thursday right in the middle of all that, there is this presidential debate, which is bizarre. this is the earliest presidential debate in modern history. it is so weird that this is happening five months before the election in june, but hey, why not? that debate is going to be hosted by our friends at cnn, but this is important, even though it's being hosted by cnn, it's going to air live on all the networks, including this one. so yes, hosted by cnn. you'll see cnn hosts as moderators, but you can watch the whole thing here live in real time with us on msnbc. i will be here with the whole msnbc team for live special coverage both before and after that debate. our coverage is going to start 7:00 p.m. on thursday. again, you're going to be able to watch this anywhere on all the networks. we hope that you'll watch it with us. we promise to -- i don't know if we'll make it fun, we'll at
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least make it our own msnbc brand of weird. i i also have one other big announcement to add to that. msnbc has just announced a new live event. and we have never really done anything like this before, but we are giving it a try. sort of by popular demand. it's a live event. you can buy tickets. you can come in person. it's not going to be on tv. it's just an in-person event. it's going to include a whole bunch of msnbc hosts, including me. it's called msnbc live democracy 2024. it's going to happen on september 7th, saturday, september 7th, in brooklyn, new york. we're all going to be there. it's a whole day long event. you're going to be able to see all of us and the premier of an msnbc movie that we're not saying anything about yet, but it's going to premier at that event. anyway, if you want to meet us goobers in person, tickets are on sale at msnbc.com/democracy2024.
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it started in kansas. less than two months after the supreme court overturned roe, after they overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, voters in red, red, red state kansas resoundingly stood up for abortion rights in
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their state. 59% of them voting that abortions should stay legal in that state. a few weeks later, democrats won a special election in a swing district in upstate new york with a candidate who made the loss of abortion rights the centerpiece of his campaign. a week after that in alaska, another democrat won another special election in the house. this time flipping a seat from red to blue, also running on a pro-abortion rights platform. i should mention, only 12% of alaska voters are democrats. but the democrat won that seat. then a few months later in november 2022, we had the first big nationwide election since they overturned roe, and more democrats ran aggressive campaigns focused on reproductive rights, and in those elections in november 2022 #, historically poor result, the worst for an opposition party in decades. beyond the congressional races that day, there were five more
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states that put abortion directly on the ballot, and in all five of those states, voters moved toward abortion rights and away from abortion restrictions. the reproductive rights victories continued the following year. affecting the race for supreme court on the wisconsin -- excuse me, affecting the race for a seat on the wisconsin supreme court and the race for the kentucky governorship and the race for control of legislature in virginia. also the state constitution in ohio where voters chose to enshrine the right to have an abortion in the ohio state constitution. since the fall of roe two years ago today, the political impact has been indelible and stark and remarkably consistent. and that has been bolstered by what the overturning of roe has changed in the minds of the american people. it's a new understanding that the question of reproductive rights is not just about
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accessing abortion, it is about what happens if you have a miscarriage or you go into septic shock during pregnancy or you have any other dangerous form of complication and you can't access health ecare because the state you live in has banned abortion. one pollster telling "the new york times" today that before roe fell the percentage of the public that considered abortion personally relevant to them was as low as about 15%. but in the post-roe landscape that we live in now, that has changed. more recent polling asked independent voters about the stories of women almost dying because they live in states that have banned abortion. of independent voters she polled who support abortion rights, the number who said those stories will affect how they will vote in upcoming elections is 73%. the pollster tells "the new york times", quote, now it's about pregnancy. and everybody knows someone who had a baby or wants to have a baby or might get pregnant. it is profoundly personal to a
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majority of the public. joining us now is amy klobuchar, democratic senator from minnesota. a member of the judiciary committee. senator klobuchar, thank you so much for making time to be here. >> thanks, rachel. it's great to be on again. >> so today is the two-year anniversary since roe was overturned. we know a lot about the human cost. we know about, for example, new research just published in the journal of the american medical association which says that it has adversely and seriously affected infant mortality in that state with its profound abortion ban. what do you think is most important for the american public to understand on this two-year anniversary since the decision was made for the country? >> you know, i think everyone remembers where they were when this thought to be leaked opinion was -- you found out it was a real opinion. i was at the -- getting my hair cut, and there's a line of four women at the hairdressers. and never the place said that
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just can't be true. and two years later, oh, we know how true it is. 50 years of freedoms just thrown out the window. you've got ivf affected, 8 million babies were born that way, you've got contraception affected. you have got doctors in fear of criminal prosecution. you've got women bleeding out in parking lot because they're told in an emergency room you've got to be more serious. we know you're in bad health but you've got to be near death to get the kind of treatment you need. one in three women are now living in a state with an extreme abortion ban. that is our current reality, rachel. but it does not have to be our future. and that's what you see in these states all across the country with people turning out for referendums and governors races and u.s. senate races, and of course, the presidency. because it is so clear, and you're going to hear this on
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that debate stage, when one of the candidates, donald trump, said he is proud to be responsible for overturning roe, and then you've got joe biden vowing to codify roe v. wade into law so long as we elect these candidates and we know we need to take back the house and win these senate races. that is what is at stake in this election. >> i think that a lot of people who are strongly for abortion rights, whether they were before this decision or they newly are strongly for abortion rights, worry that this is something that the supreme court has taken on that republican legislatures have taken on, and they've effectively taken it out of the hands of somebody like joe biden who supports abortion rights, that when he talks about codifying roe versus wade, i'm not sure what that means in terms of state laws where republican legislators and governors have enforced these bans. >> well, we know it is time to
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have a national standard which is roe v. wade. that will guarantee our freedoms. because what trump has now said is that he wants to return it to the states. what does that mean? look at what the states are doing. one state, texas, with that trump-appointed judge. and yes, the judges are on the line here. the trump-appointed judge banning mifepristone. you've got another state where they're going to criminally prosecute doctors. another state says they don't want to have people cross lines to get their reproductive healthcare. state by state by state you saw governors racing to their state house to see how draconian they could be to kiss the ring of donald trump. that is what is going on right now. so that is a clear difference. and i think, as you showed with your proof points from across the country, people do see the difference. they know that there is one person who's going to stand up for them, and then there's donald trump who has vowed over the years everything he has said
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from, yes, he'd prosecute doctors to, yes, he would look at a national ban to, yes, most recently, hey, let's give it back to the states. look at the patch work of laws that we have had that have hurt the women of this country. >> minnesota senator amy klobuchar. thank you so much for your time tonight. it's the anniversary now, but we're also in a very, very acute political moment when i think people are tuning in on how much this affects us as a country. >> exactly, thanks, rachel. >> all right, we'll be right back. stay with us. , we'll be right back stay with us
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the commonwealth of the northern marietta islands. it's a territory of the united states, but it is very, very, very far from the mainland u.s. i think we can show you on a map here this is the united states you see over there on the right side of the map. that's the pacific coast side of the american mainland. you see the state of hawaii way out there in the pacific ocean and then way, way, way, way further out in the pacific from hawaii you find the northern mariana islands. they are way out there, closer to, say, australia, than the united states. and that's important. that proximity plays a crucial part in a big story that just broke this evening as we were getting on the air. because at 9:00 a.m., wednesday morning, local time, in the mariana islands, in a u.s.
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federal courthouse in the capital, anz, the founder of wikileaks, is expected to appear and to plead guilty to a single felony count of illegally obtaining and disclosing national security material. and the really huge news here is that after he pleads guilty in that federal courthouse in the northern mariana islands, after he pleads guilty there, he will be allowed to fly home to his native australia as a free man. for the last five years, julian assange has been in prison in britain. he's been fighting attempts to extradite him to the united states to stand trial on more than a dozen charges that he illegally obtained and disseminated classified information on his wikileaks website. even once he and the united states department of justice reached an agreement under which he would plead guilty to one count, essentially be sentenced to time served and released from prison in britain, there was one last hangup that needed to be sorted out. defendants, if they're going to plead guilty to a felony, they
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have to do it in person. julian assange has always adamantly refused to set foot in the mainland united states. and so that's where this compromise came from. the northern marianas, the northern mariana islands, that is where he will enter his plea. julian assange first made a name for himself leaking volumes of classified information on america's wars in afghanistan and iraq through the site wikileaks. he then in 2016 published leaked material the russian intelligence services had hacked from the democratic party. russian military intelligence stole the material, then they used wikileaks, they disseminated the material through wikileaks in a specific effort to hurt hillary clinton's campaign and hurt donald trump's campaign. donald trump, you will remember, happily accepted the help. he cited wikileaks nearly 150 times during the campaign. at one point just flat out
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crowing, i love wikileaks. three years later when trump's justice department indicted julian assange, trump claimed that he knew nothing about this organization. the biden administration is the third u.s. administration to try to figure out what to do with julian assange. the obama justice department ultimately decided that the first amendment issues were basically too thorny. when the trump justice department indicted assange, many feared it would have a chilling effect on the ability of journalists to report on national security and classified information. that said, lots of other people argued that what julian assange was doing was something other than journalism. but when it came to the biden administration, it seems they just wanted to figure out a way to put this case to bet. and they have figured something out. and so on wednesday in a very unlikely spot in the middle of the pacific the long saga of julian assange versus the united states and the united states versus julian assange looks like it is set to come to an end.
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want to see me screw something up? it's on tape. all right, look at this. on the left side of the screen there, that's supervising producer kelsey, who is a genius of everything we do. the regular show, and special coverage, and podcasts, and everything, she's fantastic. on the right, the person whose face you cannot see in the dumpy green sweatshirt, that's me. and i'm trying to record, and i'm not doing all that well at it. podcasts are very humbling. they are more difficult than you would think. at least they are for me. fortunately, kelsey and i had help that day from orzo, who is a cat. y from orzo, who i a cat.