good evening and welcome to our special coverage of night two of the republican national convention in beautiful, downtown milwaukee, wisconsin. super glad to have you with us tonight. i am rachel maddow with my beloved, cheerful, well hydrated colleagues joy reid, jen psaki, ari melber, lawrence o'donnell. we got nicolle wallace. we will be talking shortly, i promise you. any minute now we are expecting the republican party presidential nominee, donald trump, to be entering the hall at the rnc in milwaukee. if i look shifty like i'm not making eye contact, it is because i am trying to keep an eye on the monitors to know when that happens. both secret service and local

law enforcement today faced increasingly tough questions about saturday's assassination attempt against him. cnn was the first report today and nbc news has confirmed that the secret service it actually ramped up security around trump in recent weeks after they received intelligence about a plot by iran to attack trump. iran has singled out a number of different american officials in recent years for potential attempts on their lives. nbc news reporting that three different trump administration officials, john bolton, former secretary of state mike pompeo, brian cook, all were provided u.s. funded security teams because of threats from iran with congress approving the funding for those added layers of protection in the case of each of those guys. trump, as the republican nominee, is just the latest u.s. official, former official, to reportedly be threatened by iran.

now what is interesting here in terms of sort of news of the day and pressing concerns about what happened this pack past weekend is that there is not known to be any connection at all between that plot and the actual shooting that happened on saturday. what this does mean, somewhat worryingly, is when that shooting happened on saturday it happened despite the fact that trump's secret service protection had already been recently boosted to account for new threats. it is worrying that the secret service believed it had boosted security enough around trump to account for a potential state- sponsored terrorist threat from iran, but was still somehow lacks enough to not account for a random 20-year-old registered republican with an ar-15. the secret service says it was local law enforcement that had responsibility for the building from which the shooter took those shots on saturday that killed one rally goer, wounded two more and hit trump in the ear. the secret service says in fact

local law enforcement officers were inside that building at the same time the shooter is on the roof. as we are keeping an eye on the live shot from milwaukee, here is trump with the bandage on the right ear. it looks, what you think? about the same as it did yesterday. we saw trump's newly announced running mate, j.d. vance, walking the hall moments ago. now trump himself joining in a bright blue, extra long tie and white shirt. the bandage looks about the same as it did yesterday. we expect that trump will be sitting with his family and with his running mate. he is not expected to speak. we expect vince to give his vice presidential nomination acceptance speech tomorrow. wednesday night. we expect trump to give his presidential nomination acceptance speech late at night on thursday, so this is sort of

what we get from the nominee and his vice presidential running mate. last night and tonight. we get to see them clapping and enjoying the proceedings and sitting near. again, live images from milwaukee. j.d. vance, the senator from ohio, 39 years old. exactly half the age of his running mate, donald trump. sarah huckabee sanders, former white house aide, now the governor of arkansas. his son, eric, of course, the blonde one. j.d. vance. immediately behind republican nominee, mr. trump, is a florida congressman who today on cnn suggested that shadow

forces intentionally allow the assassination attempt against trump to go forward. those remarks are not enough to keep him out of the box and right behind the nominee and his running mate. >> i kinda want to know if they have cleared the music. we heard ymca and some signature songs that trump loves to play. now they are playing the king send i know they had some issues on the republican side with some preferring they would not, but -- >> i don't know if they have objected. i've never heard that they have. a lot of what we have been hearing has been cover bands, too. which is a slightly different thing than just paying the right. but there you have it. in terms of the other news that is going on around this convention that is sort of casting a shadow over these events, it is, it would be a remarkable thing in any

circumstance, particularly remarkable that in new jersey today the senior senator, robert menendez, is now facing, calls for his resignation, certainly. calls for his expulsion from the senate. in federal court new jersey senator menendez was convicted of 16 felonies for which he was charged. guilty on all charges including bribery, extortion, acting as a foreign agent. this was the case in which senator menendez was charged with accepting cash and gold bars in exchange for acting to benefit the governments of egypt and cutter. now that menendez has not just been indicted on those charges, but convicted, it is basically inconceivable that the democratic party will allow robert menendez to stay in the senate. senate minority leader chuck schumer insisted that menendez resign as did his fellow new jersey senator, cory booker.

we will speak live with senator booker later this hour. democratic governor phil murphy also demanding that menendez resign because he has been criminally convicted. governor murphy going further saying that if menendez does not resign, he is requesting that the united states senate vote to expel him, force him out if he won't leave on his own terms. this is awkward, right? for what is going on in milwaukee. to be clear it is the democratic senate leader, the democratic governor of his home state demanding that a democratic senator must resign or be forced out because of his criminal conviction and the democrats surely aren't happy that a senator from their party turned out to be a felon 16 times over, but at least the democratic party knows what to do when something like that happens, right? if you are convicted of felonies in the democratic party you are expected to leave office and indeed your party will demand that you must leave

of your own accord and if you don't leave of your own accord they will remove you otherwise. that is how it works in democratic party politics. had robert menendez been a republican, i'm sorry j.d. vance, menendez would probably be the vice presidential nominee of the republican party by now. all of the both sides mirror image analysis we get of how there are things wrong in both parties and corruption, the handling of menendez and handling of donald trump, both of whom were convicted on multiple felony counts tells you what you need to know about the way these parties feel about law and order issues. today senator vince spoke by phone with vice president kamala harris. harris were told tried to reach vince yesterday. she reportedly left him a voicemail in which she asked him to debate her. harris has agreed to a debate in the coming weeks on cbs news. she and vance reportedly discussed a debate today when they did speak by phone, but there is no word on whether or not the republican nominee has

agreed to that debate. for his part, president biden was back on the campaign trail today in swing state nevada. he addressed the annual convention of the naacp in las vegas. tomorrow we will speak to a latino civil rights and advocacy network and the dnc appears to be moving ahead with its plan for a virtual roll call for its convention starting as early as next week. the democratic convention is not until august, but they are planning on moving the roll call up. some congressional democrats today circulated a letter calling on the dnc to not do that. two, quote, cancel any plans for an accelerated virtual roll call and refrain from any extraordinary procedures that could be perceived as curtailing legitimate debate or attempting to force an early resolution of the party nomination. california congressman and senate candidate adam schiff became the latest prominent democrat to be quoted saying that the democrats are in trouble if they do not make a

change on the presidential ticket. the new york times reported on the remarks at a democratic fundraiser, quoting him as saying, quote, i think if he is our nominee i think we lose and we may very well lose the senate and lose our chance to take back the house. in his own senate race in california, adam schiff is, frankly, dozens of points ahead of his somewhat hapless republican opponent. so adam schiff does not have much to worry about himself. but tonight at the republican convention, the republicans rolled out basically a parade of republican senate candidates from various states including swing states, all of whom are hoping to flip democratic house seats. this hour, two of donald trump's biggest primary opponents from the republican presidential primary will take the stage to say how much they love donald trump now and you should get -- forget all the

stuff you heard before. first up will be nikki haley. she was critical of trump in the campaign, but then she took all that back and agreed to become trump's u.n. ambassador. after she left the trump administration she was again critical of trump after january 6. she decided to run against trump. during the primary she called trump unhinged and chaotic. she said he was too old and confused and diminished to be president again. she said nominating donald trump for president would be, quote, suicide for our country. she said, quote, i know the american people are not going to vote for a convicted criminal. trump in turn mocked nikki haley's birth name. she is the daughter of immigrants from india. he called her birdbrain. at one point he attacked nikki haley for not having her husband out supporting her on the campaign trail. nikki haley's husband is an officer in the national guard who at the time was deployed overseas with the u.s. military and that is why he could not

join her on the campaign trail. nikki haley responded by saying trump was not edified to be president of the united states because of his repeated and palpable disrespect for the u.s. military. across a dozen primaries and caucuses nikki haley, only one, vermont and d.c., but she did get upwards of 20% of the republican vote from trump even after she ended her candidacy. she did drop out in march. she did not endorse trump right away, but true to form a couple months later she said she would be voting for him. a week ago she released her 97 pledged convention delegates and told them they ought to vote for trump. as recently as last week nikki haley said she had not been invited to the rnc and she said she was just fine with that, but this weekend she was added to the lineup and tonight, there she will be. nikki haley's highlight reel is about to get a whole new batch of trump compliments to put

alongside her long record of dire warnings about trump being a serious, fundamental threat to the united states. we are keeping an eye on the proceedings live in milwaukee. we are expecting nikki haley to take the stage in just a few moments. watching this, the contrast obviously with the last real convention, nonvirtual convention in 2016 includes the fact that in 2016 there was a floor fight. there was ted cruz's speech in which he did not escort -- endorsed donald trump and then he and his family had to be escorted out for their safety. there was an effort to shift delegates to try to get the nomination off of him. with this one, not a peep of dissent, even from the republican voices that were most and most recently -- >> also, rachel, obviously they changed the programming. it changed in the sense that i

don't think donald trump would have been walking into the hall silently last night and tonight and i would anticipate tomorrow night again if that had not happened. that never would've been received, of course, in that way. of course saturday events have a huge impact on that but as you mention there was a floor fight, there was division, there was opposition to him. you weren't certain what people might say and now we are all anticipating how nikki haley is going to, how, as you outlined, personally criticized by him and attacked her family and husband in sexist ways. she was critical of him. >> attacked her husband's military service. >> and her husband's absence. it got incredibly gross, his attacks and now we are waiting to see as they have previewed how she is going to appeal to people have questions about trump. i will also note national security is her thing. donald trump just to name somebody as his running mate yesterday who does not really

care about the future of ukraine. donald trump said recently that he's going to take the other side if he wins. that should be in affront to her core national security values and she is going to stand up there tonight and we will see what she says. >> i keep thinking about trump at the end of the republican primary contest, saying not only birdbrain and attacking the husband's military service and all that stuff, attacking her on her birth name and all this other, but saying he did not want nikki haley voters, that he did not want their vote, did not need their vote and they should not vote for him and now trump has apparently changed his schedule so that he could be there in person while she gives this speech tonight and she has got to suck it up and give this speech and say despite all of those things that he insulted about her personally and about people who support her, that she should be responsible not only for her own endorsement, but forgetting the people who supported her on board for him.

>> and then he was the j.d. vance pick, which is about as far as you can go to tell nikki haley voters where to go as you can get, because j.d. vance is almost to the right of donald trump when it comes to ukraine. when it comes to telling ukraine that he would love for them to lose this war. it's going to be interesting, but as we know and discussed yesterday, the ritual humiliation of former trump opponents is part of the way it works. to be part of maga you must accept your ritual humiliation. that is part of the price and nikki haley is going to pay that price tonight. i find it very interesting, you know, nikki haley's demographics are identical to the wife of j.d. vance and we are already seeing really vicious, ugly attacks on j.d. vance his wife, who, like nikki haley, her parents were born in

india. >> racist attacks. >> deeply racist attacks against j.d. vance his wife, but they are going to pretend that it isn't happening in the world in which they live and they are going to take the knee. it is, to use the game of thrones reference, they all must take the knee. we saw tim scott do it in most humiliating fashion. we saw vivek ramaswamy do it today despite prominent republicans telling him he is not qualified based on that and i think it is, you know, the price she is willing to pay and i don't think it says a lot about her character, but it says a lot about the republican party. >> i think nikki haley's function tonight and it really does work this way for trump voters, is to prove that the people who attacked donald trump do not mean it. it isn't true. and nikki haley is going to come up tonight and show you

none of what i said about donald trump, which sounds a lot like what donald trump says about -- like what joe biden says about donald trump, none of that is true. j.d. vance has the same record. so the trump voters have these people is the proof that this can't be true and then there is the thing of the king demonstrating to them his power. the king can make them all bend, no matter what they said in the past. >> and what do they get for it? >> they get a future. that is what they think they get, they get a future in that party. >> that says something about them. nikki haley who called him unfit and range of other things that they used in ads, because it was so effective. you know what, what she said. >> and i had one thing you did not add? nikki haley set about donald trump and this is important. we can't have, as republicans, him as the nominee. he can't win a general election.

that's the problem. we have to have someone who can actually win. nikki haley did not even believe trump was electable. the other thing is i would note the absence, other than nikki haley, of any other member of donald trump's cabinet when he was president of the united states. as vice president isn't there because they had to replace him because he tried to get the first one killed, so he can't be there. >> the meme going around today, always ask why the job is vacant. why isn't the former running mate the second time around the running mate? >> this is the thing about donald trump. we are always told politics is addition and for most politicians it is addition and donald trump has said himself he feels lucky. others have observed he has a kind of political luck, but there is very little addition here. reported nikki haley was not until the horrific events this weekend necessarily even going to speak.

we saw mike pence's treatment for being loyal up and do the loss and punishment for not wanting to join an illegal coup and these other individuals faced that same situation so i do think it is something fascinating. nikki haley speech probably matters more than any other non- nominee because she could give it in a way that could appeal or she might do the bare minimum. donald trump has never gotten more votes. he lost in 2020. the midterms of been bruising for him, so he does look luckier right now, but again he does not do a lot of addition. with nikki haley i will be watching to see if she puts in more phoned in, mellow, or like a checklist speech, because there are people that he would still need to join the coalition and we have to see how she sounds. >> by the way to that point,

the biden campaign has been sending kamala harris to sit with republican women. she had 16 to 20% in each of these primaries. there are some of these people who have set on camera that they cannot vote for donald trump. they are available if the biden team wants to try to recruit them and the biden team is actively trying to recruit them and is sitting down particularly with republican women because the issue of abortion has crossed party lines like nothing in recent memory. you have women in states like ohio, kansas, and ballot measures in states like florida. so it is an issue. >> to the point about adding voters, apparently based on the ratings from last night, they are not going to add them through this convention. they got 19 million people to watch over all of the networks covering it. 6 million at fox, so that is 6 million ardent trump supporters was the most they could get.

that is less than 10% of ardent trump voters actually decided i'm going to watch this thing last night. >> that's not even really that much of a bump for fox. >> no, i have written episodes of a drama series that of gotten a bigger rating. we used to get 20 million people routinely on wednesday nights at 9:00 p.m. this is a very low rated convention for donald trump and i think it is one of the reasons he went there and even if he hadn't been attacked there's a possibility he would've gone to pump up his ratings. he did everything he could and they are lower than the monday night ratings of his 2016 convention. >> we are going to take a quick break because we want to come back on the other side of the break and see what nikki haley has to say. that is all coming up after this break. stay with us.

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welcome back to our special coverage of what is now night two of the republican national convention in milwaukee, wisconsin. our friend nicolle wallace is standing by. we are waiting for the start of the speech from nikki haley. sort of more interesting from your typical also-ran in the primary contender convention speech. given the insults that are flown between them.

the types of very serious criticism she has levied against trump not only in general, but specifically the idea of him running right now in 2024, what are you watching for and thinking about at this event tonight? >> i think there are theatrics and optics that will be forgotten by tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m., but i think there are fundamental structural things that make it hard for me to believe she is there. she seems to believe in the righteousness of ukraine's war against russia, against our enemy, against ukraine's enemy and then she is going to take the stage after donald trump picked someone who is an enemy of that ally. who has coddled, at least rhetorically, the aggressor in that conflict, is something worse than just going back on her primary campaign rhetoric and we will see if she deals with that tonight. >> we are also hearing the reception for nikki haley in the room. a mix of boos and cheers,

applause and cheering. >> my fellow republicans, president trump, president trump asked me to speak to this convention in the name of unity. it was a gracious invitation and i was happy to accept. i will start by making one thing perfectly clear. donald trump has my strong endorsement, period.

our country is at a critical moment. we have a choice to make. for more than a year i said a vote for joe biden is a vote for president kamala harris. after seeing the debate, everyone knows it is true. if we have four more years of biden or a single day of harris, our country will be badly worse off. for the sake of our nation, we have to go with donald trump.

but there is more to it than that. we should acknowledge that there are some americans who don't agree with donald trump 100% of the time. i happen to know some of them. and i want to speak to them tonight. my message to them is simple. you don't have to agree with trump 100% of the time to vote for him. take it from me, i haven't always agreed with president trump. but we agree more often than we

disagree. we agree on keeping america strong. we agree on keeping america safe. and we agree that democrats have moved so far to the left that they bring our freedoms in danger. i am here tonight because we have a country to save. and a unified republican party is essential for saving her.

for those who have some doubts about president trump, i want to tell you a few things about the commander-in-chief i know and worked with. as ambassador to the united nations, i had a front row seat to his national security policy. we sure could use those again. >> some news made for the first time, really at this republican national convention. at least news made for the first time from the stage, with former u.n. ambassador and republican presidential primary 2024 contender nikki haley, who had previously said she would not back any 2024 bid by donald trump for president. nikki haley changing her mind yet again and saying that she strongly endorses donald trump. she said that in an unequivocal way and is now laying out her

case for why everyone should support donald trump. joining us now from the rnc as reporter tim alberta, who chronicled the portions of many republican hopefuls and their campaigns including ambassador nikki haley, who had quite the wild ride in her now very much over fight with trump. it's great to have you with us. thanks for being here. >> reporter: thanks for having me, rachel. >> so, nikki haley and her relationship with trump, it is like watching one of those paddle games where the ball is attached by an elastic string and it keeps coming back for another whack. was there any doubt that she would be giving this speech if she were asked to? that she would be giving a full endorsement at the end of her journey with trump, including the way she ran against him this year? >> no, not in my mind. and i will tell you why, because one of the vivid memories of the last few years

for me was sitting with nikki haley at her country club in south carolina in the days after january 6. i had spent a lot of time with her over the previous couple of months while i was writing for political magazine and the profile was just about over and then january 6 happened. so she invited me back down for another conversation and in that conversation, rachel, nikki haley said to me, listen. donald trump let us down. we should not have listened to him. we should not have followed him down this path and we can never follow him again. that is what she said to me and what was so striking in that moment was of course there were republicans and democrats in the house and the senate at that point considering whether to impeach trump and maybe even whether to invoke the 25th amendment against trump. i asked her if you were in congress, would you be on board with that?

would you be trying to oust trump? she told me that does not matter, because he is already dead politically. he can never come back from this. he has sunk into far. the damages done, so there is no need to do any of that because his career as we have known it is over and here we are today. nikki haley's ark, vis-a-vis donald trump, has been more dramatic than most, but in many ways i think she is probably the best, the most accurate representative of how so many people who know better and who publicly came out against trump and said he was effectively unfit to be commander-in-chief, how they somehow, someway always wind up coming back and accommodating themselves to him in the end. >> is that because there is something for her in it? i mean, i don't think she has a place in a second trump administration. i could be wrong. having gone much further than just criticizing him in normal terms, even with giving a speech, he has to expect that

she is not going to win any obvious or immediate prize here. the calculation and the way nikki haley thinks about politics, that someday in a post trump future she will be remembered as a good enough soldier to win voters trust again? i mean, where does she see this going? >> reporter: what is interesting, rachel, as i spent the last couple of days on the convention floor talking with delegates, it really is remarkable how short of a memory many of these people have. it doesn't matter that j.d. vance called donald trump americas hitler. if you look at the primetime speaking lineup, i would venture to say that it is one out of every three republicans featured this week speaking at the convention, have in the past offered blistering, like really, really harsh criticism of donald trump. not even a political level, but a personal level calling him unethical, unfit for office,

what have you. and yet as long as they come back around and kiss the ring and apologize and swear that they did not mean it, then they wind up being embraced by the party faithful. i think if you are nikki haley then you understand even though you were critical of trump in 2016, saying he behaved like a kindergartner and was an embarrassment or even if you were critical in 2020, saying he had fallen so far and we should never follow him again, you recognize and politics, especially trump era republican politics, people have a really short memory and they are ultimately willing to forgive and forget and move on as long as you debase yourself and ultimately bend the knee to him when it counts the most. >> tim, when you do these kinds of longitudinal profiles, when you spend time with a person like nikki haley, for the type of journalism you have been doing for political magazine and elsewhere, do you feel like you are seeing the cost of that

debasement? it is a feature, a regular feature. it is not an accidental, coincidental or incidental thing that happens with donald trump, that he regularly demands debasement. not just that mexico will get a wall on the border, but that they will pay for it. there is this groveling he demands and regularly gets from everyone else in republican politics who has sort of fallen behind as he has taken over that party in its entirety. do you see what that costs them as people, just as human beings? >> reporter: rachel, one of my favorite verses in scripture is mark 8:36 which says what shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? to the question you are asking, what we have seen in so many cases, nikki haley and so many others, is truly nothing short of forfeiting one's soul to gain the temporary affections of donald trump, of his inner

circle and the party base. yes, there is a real and profound and cascading damage done to these people. nikki haley as an example, i can tell you that in reporting my profile of her, i spoke with dozens and dozens of people who have been friends, confidants, allies over the years. most of those people are no longer in contact with nikki haley. they feel entirely estranged in part because they feel as though she lied to them and conned them into believing that she had a set of principles that were ironclad that came from a deep place and she jettisoned them at the first opportunity to gain some sort of entree into the world of donald trump and that is the story of so many republicans in the trump era. frankly it is a bit heartbreaking at a certain level because when you talk with some of these people on the other side, when you talk with people who have sort of sustained this damage to their

family relationships, to their professional careers, to their reputation, to their integrity. when you talk to them on the other side what they will tell you, time and time again, it was not worth it. i think obviously that realization hit some people sooner than others. >> tim alberta, atlantic staff writer. thank you so much for joining us tonight. your thoughtful journalism and aggressive old journalism on this has helped with understanding it. it's been helpful to have your tonight. thanks so much. we saw nikki haley leave the stage moments ago. leaving to a rousing ovation, a sort of straight up ovation, in contrast to the mix of doing and cheering that greeted her arrival on the stage. that is your signal that she did what she was there to do, which was to make a totally unequivocal endorsement of donald trump. i thought that was poignant what tim alberta was saying, tim alberta who has done incredible journalism about nikki haley and spent a lot of

time with her, talking about the reaction of those in her own life and political circles in which she is essentially alone. people feel betrayed by her after her run against donald trump. people feeling in tim's words that she had conned them into thinking she had some sort of real, principled stance against a figure like trump. it's also interesting, you see ron desantis on the stage. ron desantis and nikki haley, essentially equivalent figures despite the different approaches each of them took ford running against trump in 2024. haley did go to trump. ron desantis never did, but it does not matter. they were both destroyed by trump in the primary. had not only their supporters, but their donors attacked by trump and are both now reduced to a sort of twin speaking role engagement that does not reflect anything, any credit at all for the slack that ron desantis cut donald trump for some of the primary that nikki

haley did not. they all end up in the same bottom of the same barrel. nicolle wallace has been watching along with us. obviously some news from the stage tonight. nikki haley saying that she is a strong endorsement tonight of donald trump and then spend her speech trying to talk people who did not support donald trump initially into why she -- why they should change like she has. what you make of it? >> tim alberta speaks in poetry of his own. he is so unique and distinct and i think he distilled the conversation you were happening at the top of the hour, the why, right? it is the abandoning their souls that is still disorienting. we watched chris christie do it. we watched marco rubio duet. we watched ted cruz do it. one was called fat, one's wife was called ugly and the other was the implication was that

small hands meant small something else and they all rolled over. to see that phenomenon ongoing in year nine of the trump story is remarkable. trump doesn't care about any of them. today he was engaged in a twitter war because what president joe biden is considering doing with the supreme court rattles him. he got on social media and sent out a post trash talking that idea. he doesn't really have his mind or his got with anyone in the room. his mind is on winning and tim alberta's extraordinary piece of journalism before his reporting this week was about the sort of, i don't even want to call them brain trust, but the strategic nerve center of the trump campaign and the smears against joe biden and brutally perfect, not perfect, brutally personal attacks against him, that was their plan all along. so to watch, sort of to watch both pieces come together and

sort of collide, you really have to reduce it all to politics, because that is all it is to donald trump. >> politics and power, more bluntly. nicole, thank you very much. we will be back with you. we are going to sneak in a quick break right here, because on the other side of the break we have senator cory booker, who is always one of our favorite people to talk to. new jersey senator cory booker today in a very unusual position as the senator from his state, bob menendez, has been convicted on multiple felony counts. senator booker joining his colleagues in it insisting that menendez must resign. booker, also a strong voice in the senate in support of ukraine and its war against russia, with the republican ticket now including j.d. vance, the senate's strongest critic of ukraine and in some cases by default the senate's strongest proponent of the russian side in that war.

we will get senator booker's take on both of those stories and on tonight's proceedings. we will be right back. with 4 powerful pain-fighting ingredients that start working on contact to target tough pain at the source. for up to 8 hours of powerful relief. new advil targeted relief. the promise of america is freedom, equality, but right now, those pillars of our democracy are fragile

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it is our commitment. we need to do this. looking at live images right now of the republican national convention in milwaukee, wisconsin. tonight is night two. after j.d. vance was announced as trump's running mate on night one, this was the lineup. trump's vp pick spells disaster for europe and ukraine. but the u.s. for the moment standing is the most important ally in the world for a country that is fighting for its very existence after having been invaded by russia. trump has already effectively pledged that the u.s. will switch sides in this war if he is elected. he has gone so far as to say

that russia can do whatever they want to any of our nato allies, once he is president. even so, of all the choices that trump could have made for his running mate, senator j.d. vance is the single most radical choice he could've made on this issue. senator vance has said bluntly that he is opposed to any proposal for the u.s. to continue funding this war and said even more bluntly, quote, i don't really care what happens to ukraine one way or the other. which understandably has ukraine and the rest of europe and everyone who cares about the biggest european wars since world war ii, has everyone a little freaked out about the prospect of a vice president j.d. vance. moscow was delighted. delighte vance. moscow is delighted but the rest of the world not so much. on the issue of abortion, a key electoral issue motivating voters this fall is jd vance opposing abortion and any instance especially in the case

where a woman was a victim of wo incest or raped. ra he said even those women and every instance should be forced by the government to stay pregnant for the full term and should be forced by the government to give birth against their will and he supports what he calls a minimum national standards to restrict abortion everywhere in all 50 states meaning effectively a national abortion ban. and there is another part of his record on abortion that is now getting attention given his promotion to the running mate. let's say you are an american woman in mississippi who can get an abortion and the republican controlled government and your state has banned that abortion, so you will need to travel out of c state in order to get one. well, not so fast, not according to jd vance. this isn't exactly a hypothetical.

the republican attorney general in mississippi said she believes mississippi law enforcement has the power to effectively follow you out of the state if you find yourself in this circumstance and she believes it has the power to be get your medical records from any state in the country to see if you had gotten an abortion anywhere else, even a state illegal. mississippi law enforcement wants to get your medical records from any state in the country so they can use those ee records in bringing criminal prosecutions for abortion and it is just mississippi. the republican attorneys general in 19 states all signed biden letter in the ministration saying they would like to write to go after private medical records from anywhere in the country including any state where abortion is legal. they want the right to follow women from their state all over the country to see if they may r be getting an abortion somewhere or getting any other reproductive care anywhere the e they want to bring criminal

charges about. they could use those records for prosecutions. it turns out senator jd vance has endorsed that idea as well and the investigative news outlet reported today that in addition to those 19 republican attorneys general, jd vance pressure the biden ministration last year that they should withdraw the rule that protects women in this instance and withdraw the biden ministration rule that prevents law enforcement from tracking down and prosecuting women who have crossed state lines to have abortions. here is the signature for jd vance and in a letter to the white house. if donald trump and jd vance if are elected in november, they will have the power to withdraw the biden administration's privacy rule on this issue and they will have the power without congress doing anything to make it legal for in prosecutors to access the private medical records of women who have left their state to obtain abortion care so they

can use those medical records to track you down and bring charges. joining us now is senator booker of new jersey. thank you for joining us in what is an incredibly busy and fraught news cycle and it is a s pleasure to have you here. >> it is always good to be with you, rachel. >> i want to talk about the choice of your send it colleague to be donald trump's running mate and ask you about something closer to home. your nearest senate colleague, your fellow to new jersey senator was found guilty on 16 federal charges of corruption including bribery and today you again called for him to resign and want to get your reaction an to that verdict. i want to hear from you what you expect to happen here in the case of the senator. >> bob is a figure that those people from new jersey know and he has been working in public

life for decades. this is a painful day of real heartbreak and frankly deep disappointment with the jury sworn to objectivity and a jury of his peers found by the highest criminal standard beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty on all 16 charges. yes, he must stand up now and lead the senate and he must do that. if he refuses to do that, many of us will now lead that effort to make sure he is removed from the senate. >> meaning you would lead the effort to expel him from the senate if he refuses to resign? >> absolutely. it is the right and just thing to do. >> let me ask you about broadening the lens on this issue. it has been long expected that if a member of congress or a member of the united states senate is convicted or, in some

cases, arguably, indicted and it has been argued that an indictment should trigger this as well that that member should resign or expect to be removed. we do see that play out right now with your fellow new jersey senator and not only you as the fellow home state senator but chuck schumer and the governor of new jersey all insisting that democrats loudly insisting that he must go and no question about it and it is no longer up to him. i can't help but remark on the timing that this is happening on a day when the republicans are in the middle of their nominating convention for somebody who has just been convict did on 34 felony counts and not only asking him to leave the ticket but promoted him to be the nominee of their party for the presidency for the third time running and are projecting what appears to be 100% unanimity even those

rivals who are harsh critics at times particularly nikki haley saying they are all in for him with no mention of these felony charges at all and this contrast strikes me today and even in this painful moment for new jersey she said and i imagine it strikes you as well. >> it strikes me more deeply than that. donald trump with the journey -- a jury sworn to objectivity that convicted him beyond a reasonable doubt on 34 charges should alone be enough for anybody to be disqualified from the highest office of the land and there are a lot of honorable republicans who have shown careers and patriotism ow from the military and serving senators and governors to have a man that not only has 34 felony convictions but pending federal charges, criminal charges, against him. his business practices. he paid hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for corrupted

business press uses. his charity was disbanded for corrupt practices and forced to play millions of dollars -- pay millions of dollars. several crimes are adding up including one for sexual assault. we are a nation that should do e better than this and republican values are american values and this belies common sense really the moral leadership needed and about the folks i am walking tonight from nikki haley to desantis. there were so many people on that stage tonight that he has not only been in deep disagreement with on policy issues on but he has sought to degrade and demean them in the most personal ways and viciously he went after people in the most outrageous ways. now they are running to that stage to endorse him.

this is not what we need in america. we don't need somebody who deals in degrading with people in their own party and we don't definitely need a felony -- a felon convicted in federal court and somebody who is paid out millions and millions of dollars in civil fraud from his charitable efforts to business life to the accounts against him that he is somebody who is thoroughly corrupt in a way that has been proven in court after court after court. >> one of your colleagues in the u.s. senate has been chosen to be donald trump's running mate and mr. vance hasn't been in the senate for very long and he was only sworn in for the first time last year and he has been there a year and a half and 39 years old and i want to ask your reaction about his selection because things are getting attention because of his substance and his

articulated positions and i think what could be construed as the most radical hard behili pro-russian anti-ukraine and anti-nato position of all members of the united states senate arguably. also hard line no exceptions pro-national abortion ban position, which is something that i feel like has a different cast as a first election since we are facing since the right to have an abortion was taken away by the us supreme court and what is your reaction to trump's running mate? >> you are jumping over the biggest most obvious thing and i think people should be asking trying to reelect donald trump. where is donald trump's vice president? where is mike pence? he is not there. and neither is his former chief of staff or secretary of defense and i could go to so

many people who are the folks who worked most closely with him who are not only at that convention but don't think you should be president and have said so public the. the thing that most frightens me and showed a lot of americans is that pence isn't there because he saved our democracy because he said i will move forward and certify an election but even donald trump's highest election officers said was a fair election. and so we now have a vacancy for donald trump to fill. his first criteria is to make sure he picks somebody who, should we be in that position again, a lawful election in the u.s. proven by court challenge after court challenge and noble republican state actors that we saw in georgia have to fight the presidents unjust efforts to interfere with in the election, he picked somebody who said publicly that if i were in the same space as mike pence, i wouldn't do the right thing or the honorable thing and i would subvert the

democratic elections. he is my colleague and i have met with him and sat with them and i know how difficult it is w to put yourself on the nationalo stage and i wish him and his family the best but, number one, i know and worry about the outcome of the selection that he and others have clearly said he won't honor the outcome of this election unless of course donald trump wins. as far as his extreme views, i am grateful because this lays claim for the american people that this is an election that is a clear choice about abortion and access to abortion care and a clear choice about social security with his voice on what he wants to do and so many things, this is an extreme candidate that has clear views and it is a clear choice and i hope america can see that. >> this is lawrence o'donnell. the u.s. attorney said this finally puts an end to what he

called the years of corruption by senator menendez and in the sweep of that statement it did certainly sound like they were referring to and including the first federal criminal prosecution of senator menendez which ended in a hung jury. do you regret immediately champion -- championing him? >> it was a hung juror. one juror wouldn't render a not guilty verdict. look, lawrence. this is reprehensible behavior convicted of, en these 16 counts involving not only honest theft of services but doing things for foreign governments that could do this and he needs to step down right now. there are so many in new jersey who believed in him and millions who voted for him but

this is a dark and painful day. he was convicted by this jury and that is what is hurting a lot of us right now and the charges are extraordinarily painful. >> as you know the senate ethics committee did find in that first criminal case against him after they read the full court transcript and examined all the exhibits, they found that senator menendez seven years ago violated senate rules and related statutes which means the committee found he broke laws and wasn't that the time to expel him? >> they didn't recommend expulsion but they wrote the most serious rebuke i know of. to me that with the time that all of us should have thought twice. you know this. senator menendez was duly reelected by the people who have all of those back and putting that forward.

what is happening now is the time where we should be unified, republicans and democrats and simply say enough is enough and he needs to step s down. >> thank you for eejoining us, r senator booker. we know this is a newsday of another magnitude so we do appreciate your being here. >> talk about a day in the middle of what is going on but it is this contrast with the way they are dealing with this and a criminal conviction here and it feels quite pregnant. >> to me it's deeper than reactions to convictions. to me it speaks to the worst case scenarios to come out of a second trump term with how the justice department functions. this is functioning at arms

length to the white house both in statute and practiced since watergate and there is no universe in which joe biden will call off merrick garland and he is indicting a democratic senator. >> i have a one seat margin in the senate. you can do that. >> it is the kind of phone call that richard nixon would have attempted to make or had made. it is the kind of call they don't think has happened in the modern era although there was some stuff that happened with george w. bush that was fairly shady but it is something donald trump has explicitly tried to do it via tweet and explicit we -- explicitly believes is his right and how the justice department should run an is the controlling opinion of the supreme court in the u.s. decision by john roberts, who explicitly went out of his way in the decision to say basically that phone call i just conjured is it constitutionally. >> under this ruling by the supreme court, had joe onbiden, yesterday called up the u.s. justice department and said

drop that case and he is a democrat and you are not prosecuting a democrat while i am running for reelection, the justice department would not have been within its rights to blow the whistle and they would've had to do it and it would have been immune for any action. >> again that section of the ruling is it isn't just different reaction but the moral turpitude of somebody being convicted of a thing and it is bad to do and it speaks to the very question of what the rule of law is and what it will be and in whose hands it will reside in the biden ministration is so accused of mi weapon icing the department of justice which is now craftily managed to convict the presidents some -- son. >> i was told they were going

easy on democrats. >> according to john roberts, if joe biden had then taken s.a bribe from senator menendez for getting him out of trouble and according to john roberts the phone call that you described could not be used as evidence because it was an official act so the phone call couldn't be used as evidence in a bribery case. so this is perfect because it involves everybody including the supreme court. >> i think this matters and it matters a lot. there is a universe in which you can imagine a person saying after the trump decision that i can do this now? so it is the supreme court and call your lawyers and wait a second can we just drop this menendez thing? there is a world in which dthe character of the person in that office and the character of the

people around him and in the department of justice and all those people that have to go along with that could say the supreme court found us and what are we doing and why wouldn't we use this power or use it to save your son? and my right? the pardon power. the fact of the matter is the character of the people in the white house they are such that it never cost any of their minds for a second i guarantee you and that is the thing keeping us still the character of the people and the professional norms of the situation >> these institutions aren't protect the nest and that is a frightening thought in that the institutions have shown that they can't but won't so they -- we are the only reason they didn't have a successful insurrection is the individual character of certain r republicans around the country including a guy who would have been hung, mike pence who is

absent from the rnc. but for the character of individual conservative republicans who testified to a f man and woman that they wanted him to be reelected but despite that didn't rake the law on his behalf so we are living in a world where everybody who says the institution will protect us, you can't believe that. >> absolutely. >> i hear this all the time from business guys. >> just recently a bank ceo said the institutions and that is what they ride on. >> the other part is important because it is relevant to what e we were talking about with jd vance. one of the things that i think has helped him in the past and will help him here is american

politics is hard to get legislation passed and they weren't successful the first time around and the awhole purpose for somebody like jd vance and the whole purpose for this sort of vision of the executive they have is there is a lot of stuff they can do on day one that they don't have toh pass legislation for. things like whether tit protec the privacy records of women pregnant or seeking abortions is something they can do on day one and whether they have approved the abortion medicine or the victorian era calm stack act. those don't have to go through the house or a filibuster in the senate but they can happen immediately and it's important to understand that they are focused on that because they do understand how sporadic it can be and for voters to understand that it isn't some remote yada yada yada and we will do this thing. >> voters this time around know exactly who donald trump is. in 2016 you saw a number of big

business people in new york and people who did business with them forever and worn them this is who he is and a lot of them said no. but this time around we know t exactly what he will do and it is stunning that so many republicans are doing that. >> the thing they understand are the things they want and the vast majority of people don't. there is a deep frustration you see in that room. you look at that hall and people started booing nikki haley but they started cheering but they understand they are a u minority and they understand that ideologically they are a minority and it's hard for them to win the popular elections and they almost never can and an there is deep frustration with not being able to persuade. and they have anger and rage and not been able to move the culture toward national abortion bans toward making contraception illegal toward the awful things they want to do in terms of legalizing what

we go -- won't go into but they understand these are minority positions or get them through elections and they y don't care they are like we would rather have a dictator. >> that is what explains the hostility against elections. >> one of the things we see around the idea of certifying elections and we see that and mike pence was trying to do that but there is a whole different stratified level of government that have to do certifications before we get to the electrical votes -- electoral votes. what is happening right now if you look at the county in nevada or fulton county in georgia are all these places where this is happening, the republicans are now saying and election officials at the lowest level with regular counties in any state in the country, conditions already exist and we are telling you that will allow you and justify and serve as a pretext for you

saying no to certification. so you do already see on republican officials realizing that to certify and election, even when adit isn't a controversial election or when republicans win big or they themselves are the officials of the election, they are certifying it because of doing that suggests any election is legitimate and the point of republican politics isn't to contest an election but contest the idea that elections are howr we decide in america. you need to do that if your t policy positions are unpopular. >> they don't want to pass their ideas through elections. one thing related to the other news we have been talking about is the rules committee of the democratic party sent out this note to its membership today talking about why they are doing this virtual vote. it isn't a scheme to rig the primary for the guy who already

won the primary, joe biden. but it is to lay out the fact that they are concerned that republican election officials in states like ohio that ostensibly change rules to allow the s later certification to say you can be on the ballot even if you passed the original deadline but ohio did that and their concern is they find that law but there are threats out there from republican officials saying we still may not allow joe biden on the ballot and there are multiple states in which they are concerned about litigation. to avoid that, that is part of a the reason they want to do it virtually because they don't trust at this point republican officials in states they have control over to do the basic thing of putting joe biden's name on the ballot and this is the level of distrust you see on the democratic side and republicans believe in the whole idea that there should be

elections and the whole idea that democrats have any right to be in power. >> i wanted to note that when it was coined everyday american, it seems to have taken off. everyday american is the title for the individual speaking right now has seemed to work and i didn't think it would have legs but it has. the second thing i will say is in the state of democracy, you said this thing that struck me in the debate where there is always in these moments these tensions between the abnormal and normal and there are these two guys and one of the guys had the worst transfer of power since cannons fired after lincoln was elected. if you are talking to somebody visiting from another country and you describe who these guysn are they say this is the other guy and what is his deal and at you say he tried to lead a violent coup and they say really, he isn't running -- he is running again and they sortai

said he didn't have to do anything about it. if you are coming into this from mars or another country, you would think this seems like a bad set up. so he tried that and it didn't work and now he is back and running this time and, again, that is where we are and he issued its amendment and it is done what it is done and this is a field upon which the democratic contest is engaged but bizarre. >> one of the reasons so temany groups are okay with this is gr because they are special interest groups willing to get limited access to abortion the business community that hears them float ideas like this corporate tax rate and i just won't extend it but get it down to 15 which no ceo in the

history of ever has dared to do and they are willing to say democracy will hold or the institution is okay because a 15% tax rate is a super win. >> what you think of that that he is somehow some sort of concern to the business community that he is a real populace and big business has a reason to worry about venture capitalists peter thiel pocket pal jd vance on the ticket. you can tell from the way i presenting this that we thought those headlines were laugh out loud hilarious. >> it is true. he has expressed in the past way more popular -- populist views. he likes lina khan and when you talk to people in the fortune 500 universe, they don't like her and they think of her as anti-mergers and acquisitions. he liked her and he worked with elizabeth worn on legislation

to have clawbacks for bank executive bonuses that you would think, wow. let's be honest you had elon musk and peter thiel backing him. and one thing donald trump love when a nd the base is rich business community that shunned him for ever say you are my boy and jd vance will like at the same. so this notion that maybe jd vance will be different on business and trump will pay attention, he absolutely will. one of the favorite things he on said was i will cut your taxes and have you looked at the stock market? and you know who can say d to that is joe biden. he broke a record. >> it reminds me in 2016 when people said that donald trump was going to be great on rights and the remember that ? >> peter thiel gave a speech at the rnc. >> it is still ringing in my

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welcome back to our special coverage of night 2 of the republican national convention in milwaukee, wisconsin, where we had a whole bunch of republican senate candidates speak and we heard a speech from nikki haley making news with her unequivocal endorsement of donald trump despite her earlier portrayals of him as a threat to the future of the republic. we also heard from ron desantis. political conventions are often the focus of protesters. this is no exception. 3000 people gathered in a park near the arena yesterday which is a collection of more than 100 different activist groups protesting and today another large group with several thousand people marching through downtown milwaukee protesting. while the biden campaign itself

pressed pause on the campaign ads and events after this weekend's shooting at the trump rally in pennsylvania, the democratic national committee, the party, they have nevertheless been papering the city of milwaukee with billboards and 16 different billboards highlighting some of the most unpopular policies on the trump vance ticket and another eight cheek year ones with the dark brandon laser eyes look highlighting president biden's policies and accomplishments. social security cuts, try me. milwaukee maybe home to trump's nominating convention this year, but remember, joe biden won milwaukee county the last time around in 20 20 x 40 points. milwaukee is a blue blue blue city and a purple state. in wisconsin democrats and republicans have been fighting as hard as you can imagine for more than the past decade and some of the most well joined

and well thought highest stakes partisan combat in the nation has been the state of wisconsin in the trump era and beyond and the man at the helm of it is the chairman of the wisconsin democratic party and thank you for joining us. it is a pleasure to have you here. >> great to be with you in this wild moment in history of our democracy and certainly in the state of wisconsin. >> things are always wild and politics in wisconsin and at least they have been since you and i have at one point worked at air america radio back in the day and knew each other back in the george w. bush era and i feel like since then wisconsin has been ground zero for the harshest and hardest spot political combat in the country given all the things that you and the wisconsin democrats are joined in right now. what does it mean to have the republicans doing that convention in milwaukee? >> there is one reason why

donald trump calls horrible city behind closed doors although it is a great city and a great lake but there is one reason they put their convention here. as trump said when he was in wisconsin, if we win wisconsin, we win this whole thing and this is the state that tips presidential elections one way or the another and it's the land of the nailbiter. they have come within one percentage point margins across the state. this means that everything can tip the state which then tips the country and they are here to bamboozle wisconsin and democrats across the state are knocking on doors and organizing to make sure the truth gets out about the agenda and what it is that trump and jd vance want to do to those in wisconsin and the freedoms they want to rip away if they get back. >> how would you characterize

the state of the fight in wisconsin and how are democrats doing and how have you been doing in recent elections. how are things looking in terms of things like organizing and voter registration? how to the polls look between the presidential candidates in wisconsin? >> wisconsin is almost perfectly evenly split and there are outlier poles that go in either direction if you look at the aggregators. it is within a few points here at the moment and the thing that is striking that while the republican national convention is here and while trump has been is an in our state every so often, the republicans haven't built a serious grassroots infrastructure but have been engaged in a long- term civil war within their party and in an effort to dismantle democracy as a poor strategy and there is a recall effort against the speaker of the state assembly because he has resisted calls to impeach the nonpartisan elections administrator in our state and this is after he tried to impeach the supreme court justice and a grassroots

uprising pushing back so hard that republicans realized it would be a disaster. but now it is very real in the battle of reproductive freedom and it's not academic and nobody can get an abortion in the state of wisconsin for 451 days after the dobbs decision. on both of those fronts you see a democratic party organized and mobilizing all over the state and you see the republican party trying to suppress the vote in dismantle democracy and take away freedoms and consequences and on every level of the ballot finally after we throughout the gerrymander all the way to the presidential means this race is a tossup and immigrants have to work but i do think we could win if they do that. >> thank you for joining us. what you make of jd vance as his running mate because a lot of people say it's them doubling down on white working- class voters trying to reach a sizable portion of the electorate in the midwest. and you think it moves voters

in your state? >> it is him doubling down on people willing to sacrifice any principle in order to gain power other than for whatever reason their desire to rip away reproductive freedom and it's a way of appealing to tech billionaires but not to voters and jd vance did terrible relative to other republicans when he is a for reelection and i think when wisconsin voters who look at the sky, whom trump wants to put a heart beat away from the presidency they see somebody with an abortion ban 100% with no exceptions for rape or incest or somebody who said he wouldn't certify the election if he had been vice president instead of mike pence. it's an act of wild overconfidence from trump to let his darkest impulses run wild but not something that will bring any voters into the republican column. it reinforces the fact that trump is a threat to the idea

of democracy and freedom in america. >> a lot of people call this the mega maggot ticket which is fair enough and there was a moment in the 50s when people in the very far right of the republican party wanted a wisconsin senator and the ticket and also joe mccarthy and general mccarthy and it would be due an ticket this mega maggot ticket of its day and they never got the stream but trump and jd vance in 2024, they had to wait 70 years for it to get here. the chairman of the wisconsin democratic party, thank you so much for being here and always interesting and good to talk to you. >> thank you for having me on. >> let's go to the floor of the republican national convention where is always jacob is making friends and winning people over to his side. what do you see?'s >> we heard from sarah huckabee sanders with ben carson coming

up. but let's go back to nikki haley as you talked about the news of the evening. nikki haley certainly after being quite opposed and vocal and quite specifically against former president donald trump and i think she called him unhinged, she showed up for him tonight with the south carolina direction -- delegation. in fact, i heard you guys talking about some doing originally when nikki haley came out and there wasn't going and you are saying -- and i met this nice lady earlier and you said there was no booing. >> there was absolutely no booing. 100% we were yelling nikki and applauding. >> they were very happy and if they were happy to see her, and nikki haley was happy to see president trump. one thing i want to point out but if you look at -- the seats are not great here? >> i would like to be a little

bit closer. >> check this out. we are in pretty much the last row and as far away as you can be from the stage and come with me and i will take you for a little walk. we are behind columbia and alaska, utah and no fans of donald trump back in the day and here and thank you very much for accommodating us and we appreciate that. you can't even see president trump from the south carolina section. if you look for here, you have to get a good view here a former president trump in there he is sitting next to jd vance. it was strange to watch president trump when nikki haley came out and you probably got a longer look but if there was excitement, you couldn't quite see it and it was contentious i am sure and he is probably happy to have her endorsement but there are a lot of strange bedfellows here

tonight and you can feel it in this corner of the arena. >> corner is the operative word in this seems like beyond back seats. >> i am okay, right? he is great he says. >> those seem like terrible seats but thank you for sorting that out and i also want you to have better seats. it seems weird. >> i am on my way to guam. see you later. >> that is kind of amazing. they really stuffed them back there in that closet. maybe it is just coincidence. i didn't want to ask jacob this because i didn't want to make him answer this in front of all

of those people he wants to spend the whole evening with but it looks like the whole place is kind of empty. >> tuesday night, i feel like they really do fill up over the course of the week. although the other weird thing is traditionally the whole way it works is you don't see the bride before the wedding and the nominee doesn't usually come until the last night which is where it fills up but trump wants to be there and he wants the center of attention on him but one of things about the and the nominee is you don't have to sit through all the speeches and it's not the most riveting thing in the world. he has given himself the job of sitting there listening. >> and he did fall asleep the other day. >> he was praying and i think it was this information. he looked sleepy but it was the moment the prayer was happening. in the moment i noted it and i am telling you i saw that. >> whether he is not expressing it facially, having nikki haley

begin by saying i endorse president trump's it is more like an indian wedding having been to many in my experience with the bride and groom are out for several days rather than just at the end. >> i did want to ask you about what you said earlier at the top of our coverage and night about what happened with relatively low television ratings for these proceedings. you suggested that maybe trump is there a lot more than you would expect to see the nominee because he is trying to boost the ratings and he thinks being there himself would help? >> whether he would've gone without the assassination attempt, i don't know. but when he decided to go, one of the things was this will certainly help monday's ratings and that is bad news if it did because it means if he didn't show up, they would've gotten less than 19 million people. these ratings are pretty low for a first night of the

convention and we have last nights ratings. this is the forum where you are supposed to try to reach out to some voters you don't already have which at previous trump conventions, they have not been good at. people watching it here are people interested in this. it is entirely possible that of the people here watching, they don't all intend to vote for donald trump. maybe none of them do. remember, with that 19 million, there is a solid 5 million watching who are hoping this ticket sales and a minimum 5 million. there is no more than 14 million people are so cheering for this ticket who are actually watching this. so this is, in terms of compared with past televised conventions you have the 1960s and 70s, this is a small event. >> it is a small event and it is a swing state with interesting news and an observation tonight from ben

that even though we think of wisconsin as such a partisan battleground in such a hard- fought contested territory, and what he is observing, is the republicans have not put together a ground operation in wisconsin for this ticket and maybe they have around other republican priorities in the state but, in terms of wisconsin trying to get it together on the republican side to cast votes for trump and now vance, he said it isn't there. >> i have been talking about it fairly regularly on our program. one of the reasons possibly for that is they are kind of bad at the organizational end of it, especially if you change heads of the party like they do and remember, so much of the trump money was going to legal fees and the democratic campaign money was going to building the

infrastructure in wisconsin and in other states like that. then he had a big head start. >> he is the best. >> as we await the headliners speech by donald trump's daughter-in-law because she is now in the rnc, so crazy, we will get a view of the new trump family business and michael steele will join us coming up. stay with us. but the choice won't be easy with exceptional offers on the e-class sedan, c-class sedan, cle cabriolet and cle coupe. hurry, these dream offers won't last forever. come in now through september 3rd.

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besides the balloons and the pageantry and the stagecraft and the weird cover bans, political conventions are really meant to be a display and a televised perfect display of unity, not only of the party coming together in support of their chosen candidate, but conventions are an opportunity for parties to pitch to the whole nation about how their party, their candidate, their platform is the best suited to unite the whole country in the years ahead and it is a showcase of unity and at least that is a what -- what they are supposed to be. >> welcome to everybody watching at home and welcome to

everybody in this great arena tonight. we love you all. actually, wait a minute. i don't mean that. i don't welcome everybody. in this room, the guys in the fake news, frankly, frankly, you guys up there in the fake news have worn out your welcome. >> madam chairman, the commonwealth of kentucky cast 46 votes for the next president donald j. trump. >> are you speaking tonight? if you took that stage, you would get booed off the stage. >> that was florida congressman matt gates at the end there sort of frothing at the

proverbial mouth yelling at kevin mccarthy, the guy from his own party that he helped drive out of congress. you know, unity and smiles, everyone. there was at least one guy in the crowd today who did get into the spirit of solidarity and did you guys see this? i thought it was a prank but apparently it was just the thing and honestly i can't believe there is only one so far in joining us now is our beloved colleague the former chairman of the republican national community and one of the hosts of the weekend and thank you for being here. >> it is good to be with you. how is it going? >> you know, we are nuts at this point and we are so punchy and we have no idea what we might say at any given moment and we don't know if it is commercial or a tv time or if it's swear time and we are a mess.

>> i was gonna say the last person you need with you right now is me. i won't help your cause, baby girl. >> all right. i want to talk to you right now because we are awaiting a speech, not from the chair of the republican party, because he isn't giving a big long televised speech in prime time in the 10:00 hour on the east coast but this year it is the number two official in the republican party who has been given the honor of the big culminating primetime speech. why is that? because her name is laura trump and she is married to donald trump's son eric. is this weird, first, that the candidate has put his family in charge of the republican party and that they are also putting the second ranked official on television for the big deal speech? >> yes. it is. it is very very weird, number

one that this is now become a family enterprise for the republican national committee. number two, that you would have the cochair taking a prime time slot. typically party officials will speak at the beginning of the day at the 5:00 hour long before primetime and their roles are generally administrative. they don't have a clarion call they will send out to the gathered because they are organizing this. they are managing this. they are not there to give speeches as the chair and cochair in that regard. this is different because it is the daughter-in-law of the former president who is there for one purpose and one purpose only to make sure that trump enterprises is fully operationalized inside the rnc which is now no longer the rnc and either the maga party or

the trump republican party but it's not the republican party of lincoln, reagan and eisenhower. so here this means a lot for the duration of the party structurally and organizationally. >> in terms of the way the republican national committee is supposed to run, obviously, whenever you have a president, the president is the de facto head of the party. the party. committee and there is a lot of power that comes from the presidency down into the party. in this case we have a somewhat unusual situation because we have a former president running to become president again, so you would definitely expect him to be asserting power in the rt party. but by making it his family and by making it so personal and so

much a part of, as you say, trump enterprises, is there a risk that the party is run to trump's benefit in a way that may hurt the other goals of the party, which includes not just senate seats and governorships, but state legislature and all the other races that the rnc has to try to win for the parties best interest. >> rachel, you put your finger on the heart and soul of what a party is there to do. my job is national chairman was twofold. i had two responsibilities at the end of the day. raise money, win elections. that's it. with the money to build the infrastructure to win those elections. with the money you create the messaging to wind those elections. with the money you are able to level up your candidates, particularly in battleground areas and in weaker districts where you can probably cobble together some resources to move the needle that would help not just further down the ballot candidates, but even sometimes, this is something little

understood in politics, everything does not go top-down. there are a number of races in which a candidate running for congress or a candidate running for the state legislature helps a statewide candidate, even a presidential statewide candidate, by drawing up more nd voters who may not otherwise be excited. so that infrastructure is very, very important and when the rnc was taken over, i would say largely condemned to its fate by the takeover by the trump organization, they fired 60 plus people who had already built that infrastructure. you can't just replace those ca people who have the battle plan to run those operations on the ground, number one, and you certainly can't do it when you disrupt those operations or those operations are incomplete. how they were going to be

filled out and how they were going to be laid out to their completion, so the reality becomes, you set yourself behind and you don't do it six months before a general election in a hotly contested on presidential election. so that infrastructure that your prior guest was talking about, that he noticed, i guess it was the democratic chairman, that the party in wisconsin has not been able to crystallize and organize, they will pay a price for that downstream. you don't just stand it up, rachel, in 30 days. that is a network that is built out over a year plus time and the fact that they cut that cord six months before the election by firing people tells you where the emphasis is. wh the emphasis is one place, top line, presidential. we win that, the thinking is everything else falls in place. that is not how the election will play out. >> and you combine that with

the chaos we have seen in state parties. literal chaos in some cases. physical fighting at state party levels as people are fighting over these really sort of extreme maga figures that have been elevated. i think it really is a black box for what will happen over the next months. >> can i, real quick with you, you guys are having fun with our friend up on the balcony, talking to the states in the outlying sections of the arena. typically what happens with that, states that wind up so far removed from the floor, a lot of times that is based on how the presidential candidate or nominee did in those states, so beyond the host state and for the president and the vice president, you then have a degree of support, if you will, so you get to places like maryland where donald trump lost by 35 points, yeah, they are going to be sitting in the balcony. it's >> you are way in the back and

still on the ground. it is the worst possible. >> tucked behind some tumbleweeds. >> i am here behind the pillar, obstructed view. cheaper to get. former chairman michael steele, thank you, it is great to see you. >> absolutely. >> we are awaiting a primetime speech from the daughter-in-law of the nominee. she is not the chair of the republican party, but close enough. we will take a quick break before we expect to hear from lara trump. stay with us. . on medicare? have diabetes? with the freestyle libre 3 system you'll know your glucose and where it's headed no fingersticks needed. covered by medicare for more people managing diabetes with insulin. visit freestylelibre.us/medicare king c. gillette is an award winning lineup

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welcome back to our special coverage of night two of the republican national convention at the great city on the lake in wisconsin, downtown milwaukee is where the fiserv arena is. has it begun? we are looking for the keynote

speech tonight from lara trump. she is not the chair of the republican party. she is the cochair, but she is eric trump's wife, so she is getting the speaking gig. >> oh, some of you have been. regardless of how the media have painted these rallies, you would be hard-pressed to find and to join a happier group of people coming together over there love for the greatest country on earth, the united states of america. i dare anyone trying to leave a trump rally without leaving with some new friends. you always make friends at a trump rally, right? veterans, teachers, blue-collar workers, white-collar workers. active-duty military. police officers, firefighters,

small business owners. black supporters, white supporters, asian supporters, supporters. republicans. independence and yes, even democrats. at a trump rally you are not viewed as your profession, your religion or the color of your skin. you are viewed as one thing and -- and american. last saturday was a jarring reminder that we, as americans, must always remember there is more that unites us than divides us. >> lara trump is the daughter- in-law of republican presidential nominee donald trump. she is number two in charge of the republna