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hi, everyone it's 4:00 in the east. this time next week democrats, freshly propelled by sails so fuel of energy and genuine enthusiasm, will begin the process of formalizing what is self-evident, they will make vice president kamala harris officially the party's standard bearer, having already assembled a mighty and fired-up coalition as formidable as diverse just in the last few weeks the harris/walz appeal has cut across demographics, reaching voters of all stripes, some previously tuned out, and this is what they're hearing. >> unlike donald trump, i will always, i promise you, put the

middle class and working families first >> i just made a very clear observation that they seem to be really concerned about i pointed out that taking away reproductive freedoms, banning books, raising the price of insulin, trying to hurt labor unions, nobody is asking for that weird crap. no one is asking for it. >> someone who suggests we should terminate the constitution of the united states should never again stand behind the seal of president of the united states. >> now, these rallies are -- those are not the highlights the rallies are sustained energy, sustained enthusiasm, sustained punch lines and applause, and the vice president

and her running mate's gravitational pull, unsurprisingly, is now extending well beyond what democrats typically think of as their winning coalitions, all the way out deep into republican territory. many of those republicans deeply disaffected by the maga movement, we have called them never-trump republicans, people who recognize the existential threat posed by the disgraced ex-president, and those small few who understand the concept of publicly putting country over party. these republicans around the country have spent a decade now on the margins, supporting biden in 2020, but otherwise biding their time well, now they seem to have found an unlikely new champion, a disciple of barack obama, vice president to joe biden, a standard bearer for their one-time rival party jeff duncan has already endorsed

vice president harris. david french submitted this opinion article to "the new york times," quote, the only real hope for restoring a conservatism that values integrity, demonstrates compassion and defends our constitutional principles is not to try to make the best of trump, a man who values only himself. if he wins again, it will validate his cruelty and his idealogical transformation of the republican party if harris wins, the west will still stand against vladimir putin and conservative americans will have a chance to build something decent from the ruins of a party that was once a force for genuine good in american life and then there's the republican mayor of mesa, arizona, a lifelong republican. listen to what he said at kamala harris' rally on friday night. >> the republican party has been taken over by extremists that

are committed to forcing people in the middle spectrum out of the party. so i have something to say to those of us who are in the political middle you don't owe a damn thing to that political party >> you don't owe a damn thing to that political party the crowd went wild. you could practically reach out and feel the crackling energy infused by vice president harris and governor walz, just in the last 72 hours at the rallies in city after city, the harris/walz ticket is bringing roaring approval from the crowds, crowds that swell to 15,000 people, with people not getting in, waiting outside. so full of life and energy and purpose, that donald trump, after first attacking it, now literally refuses to believe it, believe what he sees with his own eyes the man whose first act as america's president was going to the cia and lying about crowd

size did it again this weekend when he falsely suggested images of jam-packed harris rallies, the size of her crowds were ai generated. trump made news today for simply scheduling a rally in the midst of a where's waldo period in his 2024 campaign, is now left to join the rest of us, sitting back and seeing how far and how high the harris/walz ticket will soar joining our coverage, where we start today, joining our coverage, some of our most favorite experts and friends distinguished political scholar and professor at princeton, university, and democratic pol pollster, cornell belch is here, and claire mccaskill is here stipulating that vice president kamala harris describes herself as the underdog in this race, she did that in that huge rally

in philadelphia, and that the country is pretty closely divided in terms of how they self-identify, there is no denying what is before our eyes and what we can hear with our ears at these events, and that is that the harris team has all the momentum, the harris campaign was changed the structure of the race, and there will likely be -- and i want to hear your opinion, but i imagine a political dog fight for momentum but in terms of structural changes, it doesn't feel like there are a ton of opportunities to reshape the race. what do you think about where the race stands today? >> i actually think there's a ton of opportunity to reshape the race as someone who worked on the '08 '12 obama campaigns where we expanded the electorate and the political map in a profound way, i think the harris coalition has the ability to even be larger and grow that. look, they're already expanding

their paid media and their time and attention into more battleground states, and i think that's the key thing here. you know, they're not going to be sitting around on election night waiting on the results of one state to come in, something david plouffe said in '08. they're expanding the map, bringing more states into battle and, look, the republican thing is interesting in 2020 donald trump garnered 94% of the republican vote so you see that, is there opportunity now to garner more of the republican vote i don't know but i certainly think that republicans, you know, like you've talked about here, coming out prominently, speaking against donald trump in a way that we've never seen republicans come out and talk against their nominee, opens up a whole nother door for democrats to make more inroads

if you look at the way democrats are winning college educated white voters, particularly college educated white women, in 2012 we were not winning voters like this. the playing field and the coalition opportunities now are actually larger than we saw in 2012, so i think the democratic coalition, or at least the democratic coalition, those who believe in democracy, i think can grow in a way we haven't seen before. >> yeah, i forget who said it first, but to the point you're making, i'm not sure the polls capture the movement of the pro-democracy movement, because i've kept a close eye on republicans because there were like four of us in 2015 and the rest were sort of in witness protection but this david french piece is so interesting, because it's not just i'm disgusted with trump, we should get rid of him, it's

an intellectual argument for the heart and soul of pro-life evange va gel conservatism let me read this about the states and the ground states i think there's an opportunity to have almost like generate the way there were reagan democrats for a generation and people remembered their parents sort of switching parties because it was so seismic i think there's an opportunity to have the inverse of that, sort of like a harris conservatives for this reason that i'm going to read you that david french sort of puts his finger on. he writes, quote, while there are voters who are experiencing a degree of trump nostalgia remembering life pro-covid as a time of full employment and low inflation, there's a deeper and darker story to tell about his first term our social fabric frayed, the murder rates skyrocketed, drug overdose deaths hit new highs, marriage rates fell, birth rates

continued their long decline americans ended his term more divided than when it began i'm often asked by trump voters if i'm still conservative and i respond that i can't vote for trump precisely because i am conservative i loathe sex abuse, pornography and adultery trump has brought those vices into the mainstream of the republican party i want to cultivate a culture that values human life from conception through natural death, yet america became more brutal and violent during trump's term i want to defend liberal democracy from authoritarian aggression, yet trump would abandon our allies and risk our most precious alliances. you never, ever, ever, hear a prominent conservative articulate that trump brought the specific vices of adultery and sex abuse into the mainstream, but that is exactly what he did. and i talked to you for months about permission structures. this feels like a new one.

>> it does, because it's laying out the very conservative case against donald trump look, we've had this conversation on your show before none of us think that donald trump is actually a true conservative so you have true conservatives stepping up and giving them a permission structure let's lean in, also, and give kudos to liz cheney who i think started this, right? >> yep. >> and sort of leaned into this. and i think she began giving permission structure and that is coming full fruition now >> eddie, i love the images that we can see and believe with our own eyes and the sounds that we can hear and the roar of crowd if it were up to me, i would air every one of these rallies from before they began and you hear all the, you know, sort of music and the deejays, until the end when you see people leaving with tears in their eyes who say they've never gone to a rally before, because it's not about

one candidate's political event. i understand the arguments against. it's about knowing what you're witnessing, what we're witnessing and i say this having worked on the campaign that went up against president obama, it's a political phenomenon and the trump voters were a political phenomenon but this harris/walz ticket is a legitimate political phenomenon. >> i think you're absolutely right, and it's a convergence of a number of different factors. there's the reality of just generalized exhaustion, the possibility of another trump presidency or term had people on the ropes in so many ways. and, of course, the ascendance of harris and walz as a running mate infused a different kind of energy into the political process. but i think the idea that politics can be joyous is a new feeling, but more importantly, in addition to that, nicolle, the politics can give us some indication about our future.

it's really important. we've been so backward looking in our politics, so wrapped up in our grievances and hatreds, that the idea that we can actually engage in political debate about what the future looks like, will look like, is something that is exhilarating for a lot of folks so this is, in fact, a phenomenon and it's different in a lot of ways because it's a convergence of a number of different factors that have described the last eight years or so. >> yeah, i mean, claire, what do you think is fueling this? i mean, i've read all of the interviews that speaker pelosi is doing, and i think even she, who is very publicly out there sort of saying what she saw after the debate between president joe biden and donald trump underestimated what kamala harris would do when and if joe biden endorsed her this is just -- it's a political

phenomenon it's a phenomenon of a woman being underestimated, i think number twos are often underestimated, but loyal to joe biden. and her political acumen, you're friends with her and you saw her operate very skillfully on the senate judiciary committee, but there has to be a little bit of, i don't know, mea culpa or people sort of pleasantly surprised with how much better she is than anyone expected. >> yeah, i think it's a good reminder that sometimes what we see is so superficial, and this goes for a whole lot of people in elective office, the way people consume media now, the way people get information now, so much of it is, you know, as thick as a tupperware container. it's not really who these people

are. and what happened is kamala harris had a bad presidential campaign, which rolled into her becoming vice president, and there was tisk-tisks about that among the chattering class, which rolled into her having a little bit of a shaky start as vice president what was forgotten is the battle she had fought and won thus far in her life, the obstacles she had overcome her skill, her raw intelligence, and incredible work ethic. so she is benefiting from being wildly underestimated by people that are democrats, not by republicans, not by maga people, but by the democratic party. i kept saying to people over and over again, oh, but we can't have kamala harris, i kept saying, why not? why can't we have kamala harris? kamala harris is terrific and she's showing that

and she also showed it with who she picked for number two. there was a lot of -- oh, she shouldn't have done that, and now people are seeing what she saw, someone so authentic it takes your breath away someone who is so relatable and so real to most americans. he's not a rich guy, he's never been, you know, in a hedge fund, he's never been a venture capitalist, he has never had more than one mortgage in his life he is very as you see him, a teacher, a coach, somebody who was drawn to public service for all the right reasons. so i think it's just terrific. i love it that she only has a short sprint instead of a marathon, and i love that she was so underestimated, and i love it the most -- and you talk about karma, for donald trump to be taken out by this woman, oh, my god, it's just too good to be true. >> it's so good.

claire, quickly, let me show you what you're talking about. governor walz is a lot of things he's also the very best at sticking sort of something right under trump's skin let me show you his rip on crowd sizes. >> hello, arizona! wow. [ crowd chanting ] >> wow you might have seen, a few people showed up in philadelphia the other night. and then 10,000 plus walked into a field in western wisconsin and then, on wednesday, the largest crowd of the campaign showed up in detroit, michigan

but arizona just couldn't leave it alone, could you? [ cheers ] >> you know, it's not as if anybody cares about crowd sizes or anything. start to slow down. but did you know prevagen can help keep your memory sharp? the secret is the powerful ingredient, apoaequorin, originally discovered in jellyfish and found only in prevagen. in a clinical study, prevagen was shown to improve memory in subgroups of individuals who were cognitively normal or mildly impaired. stay sharp and improve your memory with prevagen. prevagen. in stores everywhere without a prescription. (bell ringing) someone needs to customize and save hundreds

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eddie, cornell and claire. cornell, i want to show you how vice president harris is working on keeping herself on offense on the issue of immigration let me show you this. >> but donald trump does not want to fix this problem, be clear about that he has no interest or desire to actually fix the problem he talks a big game about border security, but he does not walk the walk earlier this year, everybody here knows, earlier this year we had a chance to pass the toughest bipartisan border security bill in decades, but donald trump tanked the deal because he thought by doing that, it would help him win an election but when i am president, i will sign the bill.

>> cornell, there's this real relief that the facts are getting out on this issue. i mean, donald trump -- when people say donald trump has benefitted over people's feelings about immigration, donald trump has benefitted from donald trump's lies about immigration, because when donald trump was in charge of immigration for four years, he spent more time working on the sadistic points on the top of his wall that were meant to hurt and impale people trying to come into this country. this is a real voter issue, but she seems to be trying to break down the lies that have been told by donald trump for nine years now. >> well, a couple things one is, i would go even further on the border issue, is that the real issue and fear behind the border is the changing face of america. so a lot of this fear that's being generated around the border, it is a proxy for a conversation about the browning of america and making brown

people and others the boogeyman. but i'll let the professor speak more on that because he's more eloquent than i am that said, i think it is smart, because, look, this is an issue around the border that republicans have had a key issue advantage on for over a decade and the voters most concerned about the border and border security are, in fact, voters who are, in fact -- really it's republican you do have moderate voters in the middle who are anxious about the border and certainly anxious about security but what this does is gives democrats an opportunity to go on the offense and say that they are playing politics with it and pivot, right so it is, i'm going to do something about the border, we actually had a bill about the border that did all the things we wanted to do, but you all played politics on it. so i think it's a great opportunity to take what i think is a complete boggle by the republicans on this issue and how they're losing ground with this issue in the middle parts of america because they're

playing politics with it i think it's a great hit and then pivot >> yeah, i mean, eddie, you've been en vogue so i'll turn it over to you. the only thing i'll add is that the bipartisan bill was bipartisan because president joe biden helmed the negotiations, but the stuff in it was stuff that republicans have wanted to get done since 2004. i mean, it was a lot of republican stuff >> yeah, and i want to underline what cornell just said, so i don't need to say it again about the battleground politics to the immigration debate but i think you're absolutely right, and here is where i would urge vice president harris to recalibrate her language here. so on the one hand, she's right, donald trump tanked the immigration bill but she also has her base and doesn't want to alienate her base because some were a little squeamish about that bill because it was, in fact, the

toughest immigration bill in decades, right so the idea here is to emphasize, we're interested in governing. what does that mean, what does that entail? it's going to entail compromises, some things we might not agree with, but we have to work together in order to address issues that confront everyday ordinary folk the other side is just interested in power. that was very clear, because even when they got what they wanted, they tanked it because all they want is power i think it's important that she embraces, engages in this triangulation around policy and also understands that she can't take for granted, right, those people who are really, really excited about her candidacy. does that make sense or do i sound like an abstract professor? no, i think this is some of her skill that claire was talking about, people underestimate her ability to manage and stay on the right side of a policy nuance without advocating the political upper hand and i think sort of my observation, eddie, is that so

far, 88 days is an eternity in politics, she seems to be threading that needle. what do you think? >> i think so. this is really, really important. folks are going to green screen her just like obama in 2008. they made him and they're going to make her what they want her desperately to be. and i think as long as she doesn't disrupt that, she'll be good, just like obama was good in 2008. >> claire, i want to come to you because i think that what she's done on immigration, get herself on offense on a perceived political liability, is part of what makes everybody exhale, right? it's part of the relief. it was a pivot that joe biden, i think, pioneered in the state of the union address when the republican senator he had worked with mouthed, you're right, that's true. but to see vice president harris do it in a political arena and have the crowd roaring -- i

think eddie's point is this is a complicated piece of legislation. her point is, we worked for solving the problem and trump killed it. it is a very sort of specific skill she's displaying in these rallies on the issue of immigration. >> well, there's a rule in politics, if you're on defense you're losing. and she knows that rule. and she's not on defense she's not even letting herself get on defense when the other side is basically -- this split screen is phenomenal on one side you have lying and name calling and dark, dark stuff, our country is in ruins, our country is a hell hole, our country sucks, isn't everything terrible in our country, aren't we awful, we are so awful. and, by the way, let me think of all the good names i can call the other people and then the other side is smiles and laughter and -- i mean, you see tim walz's exuberance, it just spills out

of him a container cannot hold the exuberance that you feel on the other side people in america are relieved that someone has the language, optimism, opportunity, aspiration, problem solving, and, you know, we now know -- you know, whatever is real is not real if it's not good for donald trump >> yeah. >> and the more he digs this hole, the more he does this bonkers bs that the crowds are ai, i mean, it's just -- i mean, why have these businesspeople endorsed this guy? what should the pentagon be doing with the fact that we're buying satellite from elon musk? i mean, really it's just crazy to me that there are educated people that don't see how desperate and sick

donald trump really is >> cornell, i'll give you the last word. i never disagree with my friend claire, but, i mean, darkness is what trump projected that scared all of us. i feel like what he's -- i feel like one of the great achievements of the young harris/walz candidacy is they popped that balloon and now he just looked like a boob. >> well, you know this well, nicolle, is that the optimists, the one speaking to american exceptionalism tends to win, whether it be reagan or obama or clinton, or even bush talking about seizing the moment i think to a great extent trump is an outlier in this, and the scare tactics and gotham city i think is going to show that's

not where the majority of americans are. the majority of americans are with an optimistic view of america and this optimistic ideal that we are extraordinary, no matter what the evidence is we are extraordinary >> what keeps you up at night, cornell? i mean politically >> drinking. [ laughter ] >> if you look at the efforts, nicolle, especially in states like georgia where they're trying to undermine the vote and they're trying to -- i think she's going to win a majority. i do i think she's going to win a majority in a lot of the battleground states that i think she'll carry she'll carry the election day. whether or not we win the battle after the election, that's what keeps they up late at night. >> yeah. text me. me, too. and the fact that trump is now calling out these obscure -- he's gone from secretaries of

state to election board members is ominous cornell, thank you for starting us off eddie and claire, stick around a little bit longer. up next, could trump's running mate, ohio's j.d. vance, actually cost the gop ticket the state of ohio? new reporting suggests the trump campaign is now watching ohio very, very, very closely we'll talk to a political journalist on the ground who first warned us of this next it's time to feed the dogs real food, not highly processed pellets. the farmer's dog is fresh food made with whole meat and veggies. it's not dry food. it's not wet food. it's just real food. it's an idea whose time has come.

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new reporting from inside the trump campaign highlights a donald trump who is obviously rattled by a series of events, in large part due to his inability to adapt or accept, now find him trailing in several key battleground states. the scenario, seemingly unimaginable trump has been whipsawed by a seven-week roller coaster ride of events, an attempt on his life, the selection of a running mate, a galvanizing new rifval, iranian assassination attempt, and rather than adapt to changing circumstances, trump has chosen to ignore most campaign advice and lash out, questioning his opponent's

ethnicity, delivering incoherent and unhinged press conferences from mar-a-lago and crying about the size of vice president kamala harris' crowds at her rallies. now his campaign is worried about carrying even in the state where his running mate serves as senator. quote, two private polls conducted in ohio recently by pln pollster, show donald trump receiving less than 50% against ms. harris in the state, according to a person with direct knowledge of the data ohio not pennsylvania, michigan or wisconsin. they are now worried about ohio. joining our conversation, editor for the "plain dealer" chris quinn, back with us and eddie and claire are here. when i saw this reporting in "the new york times," i thought about your reporting and the things you've shared on this program. i thought of you instantly i'm so happy to have you do you think they're going to be looking over their shoulder in ohio >> i hope so, but i do have to say this is a rabbit hole that i

fear to go down. the last two elections, all the polling showed it was close and rere we reported it and participated with baldwin wallace university in the polling, it turned out to be way off he won by eight points both times. baldwin wallace has stopped doing horse race polls because they're so unreliable. i say that as somebody who lives in this state and has been here for 28 years, and i do think this is not a state that embraces the hateful invective you get from donald trump. you just had a conversation before the break about the exuberance and the joy you're seeing in the democratic ticket. and after eight years of all this anger, i do get the sense ohio is tired of all of that, does want to like their candidates again they're decent people that live here so i'm in the small minority of people who watch in ohio who think it can happen, but i would

never base it on polls, because they've been so wrong for so long >> well, and, chris, i know from working on campaigns, sometimes it's not that you necessarily think you're going to lose a state, it's that you have to go and protect it and i think some of what -- my guess, after reading this reporting, is that the trump campaign is polling in ohio to protect it and that, too, is a political expense. when you have to spend time in ohio, you can't spend time in nevada or pennsylvania when you have to make a trip to texas to make sure you don't embarrass yourself, you're not spending your time in the battlegrounds. and i wondered if that was part of it. i think the other thing, what we keep talking to you about, that's j.d. vance. i mean, he is so unlikable he is so extreme you've got donald trump saying, oh, they're not labeling me weird, they're labeling j.d. vance weird. he doesn't have a defender anywhere >> we don't see j.d. vance a lot in ohio.

he's everywhere but ohio it's interesting you say about coming here to guard it, because we've been talking about doing the story saying, for the first time in many decades, in all of our lifetimes, ohio doesn't matter that no one will come here, we won't get the advertising. we've been bombarded by all the visits and advertising for years, and based on what you're saying, we might still see that, which would be interesting the other factor, i've got to tell you, the one i'm not unders understanding, sherrod brown is in a tight battle, the polls are up and people like him he's not going to the democratic national convention for the first time ever as far as we can tell, and we don't see him embracing the democratic ticket. and i would have thought, because of what we're seeing elsewhere, he would want them to come here and barnstorm the state to try and capitalize on that energy. but he's running almost apart

from the democratic party, and i don't know how that plays out on election day >> claire wants to weigh in on this. >> chris, this is claire mccaskill. do you think that sherrod is trying to make sure it doesn't get nationalized so much of his popularity is based on who he is and has always been. he was a populist before j.d. vance was even saying it out loud he had been working for the folks who take a shower after work for as long as he's been walking the planet so do you think this is just him trying to decouple from the national polarized politics? because i frankly think it's not going to be shocking to see kamala harris and tim walz come into ohio as far as i'm concerned. and i don't think you're going to have to worry about whether or not trump shows up. i think they're going to have to show up before this is over.

>> yeah, yeah, we love when that happens. i think what really is governing sherrod brown's moves are what happened with j.d. vance's election j.d. vance really had no business winning that election he was virtually unknown and he was running against a pretty well known candidate in tim ryan, a regular guy like slrd sherrod brown, and he got beaten it was six points, not nearly what the rest of the republicans in the state won by. i think brown is a little bit afraid of that but the game has changed look, if the democratic ticket comes to ohio and barnstorms the place to try to force donald trump to spend time here, i do expect sherrod brown will be on the stage with them. he's not going to shun the ticket there's an energy in the land right now that he could use. but maybe -- you're right, maybe he's staying quiet, he didn't think there would be national

campaigning here because we're considered a red state, why draw that attention >> it is so interesting. i worked on the 2004 bush campaign and carey and bush weren't just in the same state or city. their buzzes would cross each other. they were traveling the same roads, and there are all sorts of images, i'll dig them up, of the carey and bush buses crossing multiple times on the campaign trail i have questions for you about the issue of abortion in the state of ohio. also ahead, more on trump's successfully branded weird running mate and how the harris campaign is fighting back. that's next.

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let's focus on something that's gotten a lot of attention, this cat ladies comment, you talked about a party dominated by childless cat ladies put that aside you also made a policy proposal, which is why tucker carlson had you on for that interview, and you advocated giving extra votes to people with children, which seems a little -- >> john, it's not a policy proposal it's a thought experiment, right? >> we're back with chris, eddie and claire chris, this is parsing, disrespectful, this is dishonest. this guy did a round of interviews to clean up his disastrous rollout and i think

he dug in and made it worse. women in ohio in large numbers, and a lot of voters who weren't women, rejected that state's effort to make it easier to ban abortion just talk to me about women in ohio and whether they are to the degree we're talking about ohio is possible, gettable for a harris/walz ticket. >> abortion is a key issue twice last year ohio did turn out, as you said, in very large numbers to enshrine a right to abortion in the state constitution, and they had to overcome a lot of dastardally deeds by republicans to do it. that's one of the things that frightens voters in ohio about j.d. vance just a few months ago he was still saying he's dead set opposed to any form of abortion, no exceptions. then he gets on the ticket and he's in favor of the abortion pill the problem with everything you hear from him is you don't know

what he actually believes. so he'll say now, i favor the use of the abortion pill, i'm with donald trump on this. but if he gets in, does he immediately embrace the project 2025 plan to outlaw abortion everywhere it's a frightening thing and if the democrats can impress that upon the voters of ohio, they've shown that's a key issue, a single subject issue that drives people to the polls. >> you know, eddie, i think the voters have experienced and suffered from someone who doesn't believe in anything, but will believe and champion the most heinous things in our politics that was donald trump's model. and j.d. vance seems intent on . pete buttigieg had a real takedown on j.d. vance's anti-family policies let me show that to you. >> i don't know which part of that is worse, the lie that he just told when he says he never

criticized people for not having kids -- because of course he very much did, including kamala harris and me and a lot of other people millions of americans. but let's remember also that last time i checked he doesn't even think i should legally be able to have a family. now, if he really got his way in his anti-marriage equality rules i don't know if that means he'd want my husband and i to be forcibly divorced and separated from our children or if he'd be satisfied just to have us lose legal protections like the ability to do our taxes together or visit them in the hospital. i don't know exactly what his vision of us not having a family looks like but i know that it's not pro family for me. >> there are millions and millions and millions of stepparents and same-sex couples with kids that j.d. vance didn't just insult, he galvanized for the other side this is a walking, talking political debacle. >> yeah. a disaster every time he opens his mouth.

and you know, what's interesting is the nature of secretary buttigieg's response, right? he emphasized the mean-spirited nature of it and then he came behind it with a kind of libertarian response, mind your own damn business. right? so it's this kind of interesting combination. i'm just really interested in ohio for a number of reasons not only because of what women's response to dobbs and the effort to overturn abortions across the board, but i'm also interested in what nicolle, what will the excitement around the harris-walz campaign do with young voters how will it show up with young voters around those college campuses what will happen if columbus, cincinnati, cleveland, toledo, akron show up in extraordinary numbers? tim ryan lost because those numbers weren't what they should have been. so what happens down ballot as well as at the presidential level if cities in ohio turn out in historic numbers and young people turn out in historic numbers and women turn out in

historic numbers ohio very well may be in play. >> yeah. claire, i refuse to count it out because i think the issue of abortion and the issue of ivf -- i think what walz has broadened the conversation to include is the actual consequences of a trump-vance administration, and that would be to jeopardize ivf in america >> yeah. i mean, the irony of him calling kamala harris a chameleon when this guy has gone from saying trump is the worst thing to ever happen to america to gee isn't trump wonderful and his other positions that he changed overnight -- and i don't know how you change your position around abortion access overnight. i don't know haw that even computes in someone. but keep in mind just a few months ago, nicolle, i'm not talking about ten years ago, i'm not talkingabout even an interview with tucker carlson a year ago, just a few months ago

he voted against protecting contraception and ivf for american women just a few months ago. so he can say everything he wants to say, but we know what he believes, and that is that women should have the government telling them when, how, and if they should have children. >> you know, chris, it strikes me listening -- i mean claire, that the biggest problem with j.d. vance is that he can't land any of the attacks trump needs him to land. he can't call harris a chameleon because he described donald trump in more harsh and brutal terms than anyone i've ever had on this show he called him america's hitler, cultural heroin. he can't attack anyone for changing their positions on anything because he changed his view on the most fundamental basic thing in american political and civic life >> right you just can't -- you cannot tie him down

and that is what's frightening, is the other candidates we're talking about on the democratic side have a lifetime of positions. they are who they always were. and with j.d. vance you don't have that. i'm telling you, just from 2016 till now the number of gyrations ohio saw, it's hard to understand that's why i said earlier, he really shouldn't have been elected. he doesn't fit with what ohio thinks i'm glad to hear that others think ohio could be in play. i think it's in addition to getting all the cities out you're also going to need the trump vote to not be as rabid to show up. which you already are getting a sense -- i get a lot of feedback from our readers and it's kind of hollow, the messages i get about trump now it's not the same fervor it's almost like they thought they were going to win and now they're pretty sure they're going to lose and they don't know what to make of it. and so they might stay home. they may not have the enthusiasm

that the other side has. >> yeah, you realize in the last three weeks that electability was sort of all that he had. he didn't have a record. he didn't have likability. he didn't have shares our val cruze. he didn't have strong leader all he had as a political attribute was electability and without it i think some of the bottom following out is what we're seeing chris, we love talking to you. thank you so much for joining us eddie and claire, he we always love talking to you. thank you for spending the whole hour with us scan the qr code on your screen because saturday december 7th you can join claire along with our all-star panel of my fellow anchors and analysts at the inaugural msnbc live democracy 2024 event in brooklyn, new york there are still tickets available. but go quick scan the qr code on your screen now for more information on how to get your tickets today. up next for us, a how-to for republicans looking to expand their extremist agenda there are never-before-seen

training videos. lordy, there are tapes 114 hours of them. from project 2025. to make sure future trump administration appointees are ready if trump wins the white house in november. the reporter who scooped this story and has the tapes joins us next don't go anywhere. old spice gentleman's super hydration body wash. (whispered) vanilla and shea. 24/7 moisturization with vitamin b3. (knock on the door) are you using all the old spice? oops. ♪ (old spice mnemonic) ♪ ♪ (woman) c'mon c'mon oops. ♪

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i coached football for enough years when somebody draws up a playbook, they plan on using it. and when they do, they'll

restrict our freedoms. when they do they'll do what they've done they'll rig the economy so that the middle class gets nothing and the rich get richer. if this guy gets an opportunity again, he won't only pick up where he left off. it will be much worse than it was last time. >> hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in the east. no matter how many times donald trump tries to distance himself from it, project 2025 and its radical agenda of overhauling the federal government and taking away freedoms are inextricably linked to the ex-president and his 2024 campaign that link shown to be even stronger in brand new extraordinary reporting by propublica, which shines a light on behind-the-scenes training that the group is working on for future political appointees in a trump administration propublica obtained never before published training videos for project 2025's presidential

administration academy 23 videos in all they total more than 14 hours of content. from that reporting, "the project 2025 videos coach future appointees on everything from the nuts and bolts of governing to how to outwit bureaucrats there are strategies for avoiding embarrassing freedom of information act disclosures and ensuring that conservative policies are not struck down by left-wing judges some of the content is routine advice that any incoming political appointee might be told other segments of the training offer guidance on radically changing how the federal government works and what it does some of the video titles include executive orders, working with the media, the art of professionalism, left-wing code words and language, oversight and investigations, and advancing the president's agenda." here's a taste of what is in them >> you can't be a political

appointee if you don't believe in the president's vision. >> career bureaucrats and the left are also using language to change culture and gain more and more authority >> how does the president carry out his functions? and the way he does it is through orders >> if you're not on board with helping implement a dramatic course correction because you're afraid it will damage your future employment prospects, it will harm you socially, look, i get it that's a real danger it's a real thing. but please, do us all a favor and sit this one out >> so who are those people those are the people in the videos propublica reports this. quote, 29 of the 36 speakers have worked for trump in some capacity on his 2016, 2017 transition team, in the trump administration, or on his 2024 re-election campaign the heritage foundation and most of the people who appear in the videos cited in this story did not respond to propublica's repeated requests for comment. a spokesperson for the trump campaign who features in one of the videos said this, quote, as

our campaign leadership and president trump have repeatedly stating -- stated, agenda 47 is the only official policy agenda from our campaign. a deep look into project 2025's training of political appointees for the next republican administration is where we begin this hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends propublica investigative reporter andy kroll, who is bylined on this reporting is here kwus. plus writer and editor for protect democracy amanda carpenter is back. former top prosecutor at the department of justice msnbc legal analt weissmann is here. and former lead investigator for the january 6th select committee tim heaphy's back with us. i want to start with the reporting. it's amazing, andy kroll, that you got your hands on these training videos. take us through what's described in the story sort of the ho-hum to the radical. >> yeah, you see a real range of guidance and advice come through in these videos. and i'm glad that you pointed

out the part about 29 of the speakers, of the 36 in total being trump-connected people these are very much lessons, lessons learned, advice, wisdom gleaned from trump administration alums offered to what will be potential future trump administration alums of course if donald trump wins in november so you have some pretty extreme policy suggestions in these training videos, one that we highlight is a former trump official talking about how climate change is not really real, it is not a threat, that the federal government has overblown this issue and that future appointees need to, quote unquote, eradicate climate change references from every federal government document that they see there are pieces of advice in here from other former trump administration officials about eliminating any positions that have to do with gender equity, anything that advances equity and equality as president biden has tried to do in several executive actions. again, this word "eradicate" is

used those are in there as well and then finally i would say something that actually tim walz kind of nodded to in that first opening, this is a plan to have trump appointees if again he's elected land and on day one continue the work of the last administration they are trying to avoid what happened last time, chaos, confusion, inefficiency in that first year or more this is a plan to hit the ground running if donald trump wins in november >> let me show you something j.d. vance said about his advice for how to land and avoid the chaos of the last trump presidency >> i think that what trump should do, like if i was giving him one piece of advice, fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state. replace them with our people and when the courts -- because you will get taken to court. and when the courts stop you stand before the country like andrew jackson did and say the

chief justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it >> it is in language, substance, tone and tenor indecipherable from the language, substance, tone and tenor on these videos how much of j.d. vance's is ab soshd in project 2024 -- 2025? >> the ethos that j.d. vance espouses there and the substance and the underlying strategy of these videos are one and the same j.d. vance is just parroting in his typically extreme j.d. vance language something that project 2025 already advocates, which is reclassifying tens of thousands of career government employees to make them easier to fire and then replacing those employees with political loyalists that's what j.d. vance is saying essentially in that clip these videos that we've published -- and we've published all of them, by the way.

propublica.org you can watch all 14 hours if you have nothing else to do on monday night these videos -- these videos are here to train those people who would go into the administration in the spirit of what j.d. vance has just said. so this isn't just idle podcast talk banter that j.d. vance is putting out there, though there is a lot of that, obviously. there's a real plan here real strategy. dozens of videos and hours of training so that those trump loyalist appointees, the ones who are prepared as that one video showed us to sacrifice their social or professional standings to work for him can be there on day one and step into those jobs and enact his agenda. >> i asked a reporter who's gone through all of what's in the document what the scariest thing about project 2025 is, and he said it's its specificity and granu granularity. i keep thinking that when i

watch. i haven't made it through all the videos but when i watch them, there is real specificity and granularity that was lacking from trump's first term so i'd ask you the same question, what strikes you about all of the time and effort and energy that's gone into project 2025 >> a few things strike me. there's a video in that collection that features rick dearborn, republican official who led trump's transition in 2016 and '17, and ed corrigan, a major think tank leader, conservative operator in washington it's a really interesting conversation about what a transition team does, landing teams, beachhead teams you know, it gets a little technical. but it tells war stories from '16 and '17. and i watched that video -- and you know, it's in the context of a video made for political appointees to watch, learn and better understand what they're going to do if they go into government they're prepared this time they've cataloged the lessons and the mistakes from the first

trump administration, the first trump transition even. they will not be unprepared if trump wins there was this sort of meme out there that trump's most extreme ideas were tempered by his inability or incompetence at actually pulling them off, he was too distracted, he was pulled in too many different directions or on social media or whatever but this time he has hundreds if not thousands of people in line behind him thanks in large part to project 2025 waiting to go into government with a mission, with a focus and a portfolio, with all the collected wisdom from four years of the first trump presidency that is a very different situation than 2016 and '17. and it really has grave ramifications for putting in place the kind of policies that are in that 900-page project 2025 document. >> andrew weissmann, let me bring you in on something that andy and his colleagues report

from the videos. they write this, quote, operating under the assumption that some career employees might seek to thwart a future conservative president's agenda, some of the advice we are tainz to how political appointees can avoid being derailed or bogged down by the government bureaucrats who work with them katie sullivan, who was an acting assistant attorney general at doj under trump, urges viewers to, quote, empower your political staff limit access to appointees' calendars. and leave out career staff from early meetings with more senior agency officials quote, you are making it clear to career staff that your political appointees are in charge some of this is about avoiding the pitfalls of the first trump term but i mean this largely -- you know, by the time bill barr -- i mean, this largely was the m.o. at the department of justice this is how geoff berman rejected prosecutions that he didn't think were there and sent them back to main doj and they brought them this is how'd bill barr repelled lifelong prosecutors from the

cases involving mike flynn and other trump accomplices. when he put his thumb on the scale. talk about what this means this will happen day one and operationalize at doj. >> i think there's no question that what you've been talking about, which is that they're ready and they will not make the same mistakes as last time i remember people saying last time that you had sort of that lev lens but it's fortunately matched with incompetence. and so it took a long time for the trump administration to sort of understand the levers of power and what to do that's not what's going to happen now now, i think it's important to note that elections have consequences and the president and attorney general are entitled to have their policies so long as they're legal become, you know, what happens at the department of justice in terms

of what kind of cases should be brought in general, what should be prioritized i think the substance is really the story here as well as the fact they're going to be ready and the substance is if you care about reproductive rights, if you care about climate, if you care about lgbtq rights, then the propublica revelations are things you have to read because over and over and over again each of those things whether it's abortion, whether it's climate change, whether it's lgbtq rights, are attacked root and branch it's absolutely correct that it's not that they just say oh, leave be it to the states. that's not the position of the incoming administration. it is that you need to eradicate all references to climate change you need to make sure that you

don't talk about abortion, that killing fetuses is murder, that is, abortion is -- they make a reference to the left is making abortion sound a little less like murder and we can't have that it's absolutely clear it's not leave it to the states, it's that it should be banned completely and also anything having to do with lgbtq rights, with the idea of trans rights, all of that is attacked substantively so it's really a question of if you think those are things that are important to you then it's really clear in terms of this election who you should be voting for >> well, and amamanda, this is where trump finds himself polit politically at odds with project 2025 make no mistake, if it polled at 70% he would not be distancing

himself from it is only because it is wildly unpopular that he's throwing all of these former people that worked for him under the bus let me read you some of the polling. this is from umass americans widely oppose project 2025 our poll showed that a large majority of americans oppose key pillars of project 2025 such as the replacement of career government officials with political appointees 68% of americans oppose restricting a woman's right to couldn't rah sefgs 72% are opposed in eliminating the department of education. 64% oppose trump was unpopular, but even trump wasn't as unpopular as his policy infrastructure is >> yeah. but the thing is that trump's policies in project 2025 are largely one and the same you can look at the same policies that he lays out on his campaign website through agenda 47 and see the promises to implement schedule f and to do all the rest

but it is sort of important because i come from this conservative movement to separate what is acceptable and what is objectionable about those training videos. the bread and butter of the conservative movement, places like heritage, the services that they sort of provide is education and training the fact that they put out these videos, i mean, frankly they've been doing things like this for decades. i've attended many of these similar kind of training seminars my welcoming to, you know, conservative movement in washington was through leadership institute and programs like start a paper where you learn how to write stories about your campus website. and it was really great. and those days it provided networking opportunities and i don't think it's much different than what a lot of organizations do and listen, the president does have a right to have appointees who push his policies. but what becomes objectionable, the scary thing about what they're proposing is that what donald trump and the heritage foundation through project 2025 are uniting around is a massive increase in executive

presidential power to gut checks and balances, to implement the authoritarian agenda, which is laid out line by line in project 2025 and donald trump's agenda 47 on his campaign website and you know, you asked earlier, like what's the scariest part about this and i think it's hard to point to a specific policy or a line in these items because it's the tone it's the undercurrent of aggression and condescension and hostility that they have for their fellow americans that comes out of both the trump camp, that comes out of this movement now i know people -- i've worked with people in those training videos, and it is so hard to watch this aggression come out in this way. these young people who probably want to come to washington and do good things and they're being misled they're being said -- being told you have to be loyal to the president, throw out what everybody else is saying, throw out what these well-meaning career servants may be trying to tell you once you're lucky

enough and fortune enough to get into that place and throw it all away because you're supposed to be loyal to this man and that's what makes it scary that's what makes it authoritarian. >> andrew, let me come back to you on amanda's very wise point, which i think is where we're heading, that elections have consequences i don't think anyone has argued that they don't. i think it's that fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. i mean, what trump did when he got there was the first, you know, several months he wanted to use doj to prosecute hillary clinton and jim comey and andrew mccabe there are reports that the irs targeted jim comey and andy mccabe with the most invasive audits that exist inside the entire irs bureaucracy there's evidence that he sought to thwart the at&t -- i mean, it's not -- it's something totally different than a president has the right to appoint people ideologically aligned. trump is ideologicalless

he's about the politics of retribution. so says trump. so if i had you look at the doj and the fbi section, would that be a good candidate for the scariest stuff in here >> yeah. i just want to put a stamp on what amanda said, though, because i also spent the last few days watching these videos and i think her point is absolutely right, that when you listen for instance, i thought the video having to do with the change in terminology, getting rid of the term -- any term that has to do with gender, with lgbtq rights, with abortion, the condescension and the sense that this is authoritarian comes through loud and clear to your point, nicolle, there's no question that one of the things that is a norm in the department of justice under democrats and republicans except

donald trump is the idea that the department of justice is independent of the white house when it comes to who to prosecute and who not to prosecute. that may sound highfalutin what we're talking about is you don't want politicians saying go after my enemies and don't go after my friends it's evenhanded. that is why under the garland administration you can have senator menendez be prosecuted you can have the son of the president of the united states be prosecuted. and that's what you want i can't imagine anyone in the united states who is a sentient human being not agreeing with that, that you don't want that politicized, that facts and law are what should govern the department of justice. and i think that is what's so scary, is that you don't sense in any minute of this -- of these videos that sense of

independence, that sense of the department of justice and the fbi being a check, that the intelligence community is a check, that facts that are sort of inconvenient for the white house are not things that you ignore that is an important part of the department of justice. the same way it's an important part of congress, of the media, of the ports, to be that independent check. as opposed to how do we have just one unitary authority to -- and this really is just a way of embroidering amanda's point, which i just completely agree with, about the entire tone of project 2025 in these videos >> it's amazing. and i'm grateful to all of you for -- i feel like i watched the fewest number of videos. i'm going to have to catch up. andy kroll, it's an incredible

scoop, an incredible body of reporting. everyone needs to watch all of them everyone sticks around when we come back, tracing the through line from the white supremacist rally in charlottesville to the insurrection on january 6th and the permission structure the disgraced ex-president has granted to those on the extreme far right fringes. plus, he's the richest man in the world and he's also one of the preeminent purveyors of election misinformation. now a political action committee backed by elon musk is under investigation for duping voters. this part of a wave of disinformation facing election officials across the country how they're fighting back later in the hour. "deadline: white house" continues after a quicbrk eak. don't go anywhere. to save with a quick commercial auto quote online. so you can get back to your monster to-do list. -really? -get a quote at progresivecommercial.com. you founded your kayak company because you love the ocean- not spreadsheets. you need to hire.

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under his presidency they came out of the woods with no hoods. knowing they had an ally that's how i read it they knew they had an ally in the white house. he stepped up for them >> seven years ago today those white supremacist demonstrations in charlottesville that president joe biden is referring to turned deadly extremists took to the streets with racist and antisemitic rhetoric, and it ended in the murder of an innocent woman, heather heyer. if donald trump claimed that there were, quote, very fine people on both sides it was an event that president joe biden has long cited as the reason he decided to run for president in 2020. meanwhile, the ex-president's courting of extremism and

extremists has only continued over the last seven years. it's the same kind of white supremacists who marched in charlottesville showed up to the u.s. capitol on january 6th to violently overthrow the results of the 2020 election we're back with amanda, andrew and tim. tim, i am reading your yet to be released new book about january 6th and charlottesville, and it is -- i wish it were out now i wish it were out for the purposes of this conversation. but you're here. so just tell us about these two events and how they're forever linked not just in history but sort of looming on the fringes of our politics. >> yeah, nicolle, thank you. they're inextricably linked. they reveal so much about where we are as a country. the book's called "harbingers" because they're both sort of ringing bells as to significant threats to democracy they have tactical things in common they were both horrible failures of law enforcement lots of intelligence before the events in charlottesville

suggesting violence, yet police were unprepared. very similar in charlottesville. they were both organized online. they reveal how americans get their information, much of which is misinformation, or allows things like hate speech to proliferate and people to find each other and then what they ultimately reveal, nicolle, is there are just a lot of people in this country that no longer believe in institutions. each of those events started with sort of a core impetus. charlottesville it was civil war, statues january 6th obviously the election but they then metastasized into broad forums of anger at government, anger at institutions and that is what we are dealing with that is what threatens democracy. and that's what we need to pay attention to because it's larger than any one political figure. it's obviously exacerbated by the former president and his rhetoric but that fundamental cynicism and frustration with institutions isn't going to go anywhere if president trump is

defeated in the election. >> i mean, tim, you importantly point out that neither was an intelligence failure but both were law enforcement failures. some of the sort of conundrum seems to be that the first amendment protects people's rights to say the most heinous and hideous things and we have the leader of one of the two political parties hellbent on exploiting that to lie and to sit at the intersection of lies that inspire action in some instances violence when you see the ex-president calling out people on the election board in georgia, what do you feel like we should be on edge for or, you know, sort of -- what should we not be surprised to see him do? >> yeah, nicolle, this harkens back to your previous segment about project 2025 there's another lie that's a call to action just like january 6th. the lie that the election was

stolen inspired people fueled by the former president's rhetoric to charge the capitol. the lie with project 2025 is that the federal government is filled with these deep state bureaucrats who are all pursuing some sort of progressive agenda. absolutely false they're career bureaucrats who do their work day to day without regard to politics and that lie is being used to pursue a political agenda. so we have to pay attention. the lesson of the book is that look, democracy is earned, not given, it depends upon participation, people in this country paying attention to these issues, voting, talking to each other, educating themselves and not being as susceptible to misinformation that often fuels these false narratives it's up to us, nicolle, in order to protect democracy and past is prologue we have to pay attention to what happened so it doesn't happen again. >> tim, let me just isolate some of trump's language on charlottesville and his hate

speech >> but you also had people that were very fine people. on both sides. you had people in that group -- excuse me. excuse me. >> we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country >> we've got a lot of work to do you know, when they let -- i think the real number's 15, 16 million people into our country. when they do that, we've got a lot of work to do. they're poisoning the blood of our country. >> tim, having overseen the investigations into charlottesville and january 6th, what do the extremists hear when donald trump says we will root out the communists, marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country? >> nicolle, they see it as an invitation and they see it as

permission there are a lot of people in charlottesville who went -- who merged from their dark basements where they were banging things out on the keyboard to a public place in part because they felt as if things were politically changing in america such that they could show their faces, like president biden said yesterday. the hoods came off and they were willing to kind of join forces on the streets o charlottesville. january 6th, when he said be there, will be wild, and the election was stolen, without evidence people take that seriously. be wild they took to mean it's okay and he even wants us to go to extreme measures to protect democracy and prevent this, again, false narrative of election fraud so people take it seriously. it is not rhetoric it is not hyperbole. people hear that, nicolle, and they act on it we've seen it in charlottesville. and we're going to see it again if we're not careful >> amanda carpenter, i guess i

would argue that we're seeing it now. these are not -- i didn't go into the way back file trump saying they're poisoning the blood of our country, that's post-january 6th insurrection rhetoric and when you see him with his back up against the wall politically and you see what he did when he lost to joe biden, i wonder if we're sort of sleepwalking into another failure of imagination of what he'll do when he sees the possibility of being defeated this time by a woman and a woman of color >> on the one hand i think the good news is more people are awake to what can happen as a result of this violent rhetoric and they're more likely to reconsider their political support for donald trump but tim is absolutely right in that we are seeing the second big election lie unfolding it really started with the search of mar-a-lago when donald trump started telling his supporters right then and there that he was the victim of some

deep state plot that was out to deprive him of his second pres presidency so you see that play out in a number of ways you see it with the false narrative promoted by project 2025 that the deep state must be defeated so donald trump can be victorious and that is just designed to gloss over the fact that donald trump was ineffective because he was incompetent in the beginning. but that doesn't take away the danger of how that lie is being weaponized and you see, you know, lots of -- maybe you want to call it stochastic authoritarianism where he doesn't actually have to go out and instruct people how to try to throw the election this time. you see people at the georgia board of elections go forth and say you know what, we're going to play around -- play these dangerous games with certification powers even though it's not in accordance with state law. i think we just have to be extremely vigilant because we know where this goes we know that the playbook is but at the same time you cannot dismiss the fact that there are more people, republicans who are

saying, you know, like kamala harris, we're not going back to that i have the words of that mayor from arizona from last week in my head. where he said you don't owe this party a damn thing and isn't that true? i mean, what do you owe this person, this party when you have a patriotic duty to keep our democratic institutions alive that protect us all? >> it's such a good point. we started with mayor giles of mesa, arizona. a fantastic speech on friday night. amanda carpenter, andrew weissmann, tim heaphy. let's keep this conversation going. super important one. thank you all for spending time with us. tim, i'm sorry for pulling the curtain back on your not yet released new book. >> it's okay >> when we come back, election officials across the country are being inundated by a wave of disinformation, some of it being spread by the world's richest person what's being done to push back, after a short break.

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the deluge of election misinformation, conspiracies and threats shows how far we've traveled from anything normal. "the new york times" says county clerks and secretaries of state are overwhelmed in their new roles as defenders against disinformation and its consequences the "times" reporting this, "on

any given day they are debunking claims that masses of dead people are contaminating the voting pool or that mail-in balloting is susceptible to fraud. online the persistence of election lies has been exacerbated by elon musk's dismantling of twitter's fact-checking features, his restoring of banned accounts, and his own participation in his platform's disinformation. just last week five secretaries of state including one of our next guests sent a letter urging elon musk to fix an ai-powered system they say is providing false information about ballot deadlines. so we're left all the more alarmed but not at all surprised that donald trump has turned to elon musk for an interview tonight and that he has on the same day again, thanks to elon musk, found himself tweeting again for the first time in a year joining our conversation, michigan secretary of state jocelyn benson, plus ceo of the center for countering digital hate imran ahmed, and technology reporter for the "new york times" tiffany chu is here

she is bylined on that incredible piece of "new york times" reporting that we read from tiffany, let me start with you and ask you to tell us a little bit more about this incredible comprehensive piece of reporting today. >> yeah, of course thanks so much for having me the situation out there is dire. we thought it was bad in 2020. we thought it was not great in 2022 this year if anything it's gotten worse you have so many people who have been election administrators who have left their jobs because they can't handle the stress in oregon, which is not a particularly swing state, the budget for the secretary of state's anti-disinformation measures has been slashed from $500,000 to $150,000 they've had to reduce their ad spending by 35%. there's a 30-year-old county clerk in georgia whose district is partly represented by

representative marge roe taylor greene who has been shouted down in public meetings by election deniers. she's got politicians calling her on the weekends about falsehoods circulating on next-door forums you've got election administrators who are facing existential kroiss because they just can't figure out what has gone so wrong, why it is that voters don't have any more trust in the system. harassment up the wazoo. fake threats of bombings and break-ins. a few of these officials have gotten letters laced with fentanyl it's a mess. >> madam secretary, you've been dealing with the lies and the lies that in a short period of time resulted in threats to you and your family and your home. can you just sort of articulate or contextual ize what four year of lies have done and the pressure that's put on the system >> well, thanks for having me,

nicolle. it's good to see you it's been an exhausting several years. i mean, michigan election workers and election officials all across the country at all levels have faced enormous range of threats and intimidation consistently, now reaching an inflection point everything from veiled threats to chatter to mean voicemails and threatening messages and e-mails to direct harassment i've personally been swatted at my home twice in the last 48 hours alone. it's exhausting. it has created a consistent level of intimidation. but at the same time we are also becoming stronger. we are more emboldened and determined than ever before to do our jobs. we've recruited 80,000 election workers in michigan to work the polls over the last several years as well. and our laws have gotten stronger to protect election officials. it's now a crime in michigan to

threaten an election official in their line of work so it's the same thing we've seen in many ways for our democracy. the threats have increased but so has our determination to ensure our elections continue and are secure and smooth for everyone >> madam secretary, i am really sorry to hear that you've been swatted at your home in the last 48 hours that has happened to me in my home, and you don't just worry about yourself you worry about your family and -- they do it because it is a tactic designed to frighten people and it is disruptive. i want to ask you, though, if you see trump's musings on social media and you see elon musk's appetite for disinformation as the owner of a platform and worry or wonder if the good guys and the truth is set up in a fair fight

>> i think with the truth on our side it's always a fight that we are positioned to win no matter what we're up against. that's what we told ourselves in the darkest days of 2020 the truth and the law are on our side the vast majority of people know the truth and deserve to know the truth. everyone deserves to know the truth. so with that we go into the battlefield or the arena for lack of better words with i think the best armament we can have but that said, you know, when things like our own verified methods of getting out trusted information on social media are restricted, as they have been for many of us in battleground states with our verification check mark removed over recent days, it makes it harder to break through the noise and equip citizens with what they need to make informed decisions. the bottom line for me is that the power of the people and an informed citizenry is always greater than any one powerful

infrastructure or person and so for me the lesson for all of us is that we have to all become critical consumers of information. we all have to be ambassadors of truth and fighters for democracy in this moment and if we do that then we can overcome any one person or any group of people with an enlarged platform and influence who are trying to dismantle the very fabric of our democracy through lies and misinformation. >> yeah, i want to ask imran why, why musk is doing what he's doing. i have to sneak in a quick break first. we'll all be right back.

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we're all back imran, take us through what elon musk is doing and the theories as to what his motives are >> well, unfortunately, i can't tell you what's in the heart of any individual, but i can tell you what our researchers have been studying with mr. musk's own output on his platform, x. we examined posts about the u.s. elections that he'd posted between january the 1st and july the 31st identifying 50 posts that independent fact checkers found to be false. those 50 posts had accrued 1.2 billion views. and there were three main categories there was an ai-generatedposts independent have proved fake. there were claims that democrats are importing voters. the great replacement theory.

a really, really dangerous lie. that has led to bloodshed on american streets at the tree of life synagogue in pittsburgh. it's the same conspiracy theory that led to the christ church masker in new zealand and in my home country england. mr. musk says that community notes is sort of the self- regulation scheme for posting is a way of ensuring that is an immediate way to refute anything false of the records he said. none of them carries none of those notes. and brings the question, is he suppressing notes on his own posts. his own users. but it does appear clear he is abusing his privilege that brings discord and distrust in the election process. the kind of conspiracy theories

that lead to then, atrocious assaults on election workers and the kinds of things the secretary of state was just talking about. >> what are the prospects for any reforms between now and the election? >> well look, it's highly unlikely we're going to see any reforms brought forward in legislation and to be frank, legislation is a blunt tool for dealing with these platforms. i think we do have to ask ourselves in society about our relationship with a platform like x. x is increasingly becoming like telegram. which is that dodgy platform that's used bid terrorists and others. it is the platform that has the morals. you have to ask yourself if you're using that platform, lawmakers, journalists they're the ones that have made this

platform so famous. the which brings us the question should we be using platforms like x. in their search for eyeballs for their the ads is it really is worth selling out tkphrobg democracy. when we can't tell lies from truth that leads to a democratic election fundamentally meaningless. >> i love that challenge to all. let's do that here. why are any of us on it? what is the role of x? when you can't trust the quality of the information on it. i ask you all to come back and we'll have that conversation here. michigan secretary of state benson, tiffany sheal with the reporting of the day.

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businesses that grow grow with shopify. >> there's some new reporting from the miami herald we want to talk about. former president trump's campaign flew in a blue gold stream jet formerly owned by sex trafficker jeffrey epstein using it to get to several campaign events over the weekend. in boseman, montana last week, landing in bellings because of mechanical problems. he then flew on a small charter plane to boseman for a rally friday night. the next day he switched to another larger plane with a serial number that matches the plane once owned by epstein. the plane is now owned by a private charter company. the spokesperson told the

herald this, quote. the campaign had no awareness that the charter plane had been owned by mr. epstein. we heard about the former owner through the media. end quote. another break for us, we'll be another break for us, we'll be right back. ♪ [suspenseful music] trains. [whoosh] ♪ trains that sense what isn't on the schedule. ♪ trains that use the power of dell ai and intel. ♪ to see hundreds of miles of tracks. ♪ [vroom] [train horn] [buzz] clearing the way, [whoosh] so you arrive exactly where you belong.

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