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tv   The Rachel Maddow Show  MSNBC  August 27, 2024 1:00am-2:00am PDT

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i will run upstairs. >> thank you, my friend. i'm nervous but excited. thank you for joining us this hour. i am happy to have you here. we are going to show that clip of this thing i have been working on for ages and ages and i hope you like it. in a presidential election year, allies understandably, two major party residential campaigns. we have had the republican national convention and the democratic national convention. new rounds of polling that come out both national polls and swing state polls. they are telling the same story right now. they are telling a story that -- vice president kamala harris is doing significantly better against donald trump than president biden had been doing in his campaign. that is comparatively good news for the democrats.
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they are apparently better off now with harris as their candidate than they were before the switch from biden to harris. that said in absolute terms the polls and swing state polls broadly speaking don't really give either party a reason to celebrate right now. vice president harris maybe doing better than biden was against trump, but it doesn't mean she was clearly winning against trump. it's basically a tie between the two candidates right now. and that produces all sorts of interesting dynamics to watch for. when it is this close little differences between the candidates and their campaigns can make an interesting -- not only for an interesting contrast, but can make a big difference in terms of the ultimate results. for example, right now trump's campaign appears to by maneuvering to try to get him out of the one debate he agreed
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to with kamala harris. that debate is supposed to happen two weeks from now on september 10th but trump's campaign and trump himself is trying to get out of it. they have overlaid the sound of him complaining about the date -- they've overlaid the sound of him complaining about the debate with the sound of chickens clucking, so they're clearly sort of baiting him about this. but it does seem like trump and his campaign are trying to get him out of it, which is fascinating. they're trying to get all the way to the generaleral election without a single debate against harris. also noting trump's campaign events are getting a little bit weird. at an arizona event a few days ago there was a backstage camera angle that caught this on the teleprompter as republican senate candidate kari lake was speaking. as you can see there minus 535, meaning you're 5 minutes and 35
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seconds over your allotted time and says underneath, please get off the stagech and there's this other shot, minus 6:23, and now the instruction to her says please get off stage, trump waiting. this is the same event when trump got an endorset from an arizona police union. and while the union president was making his pro-trump remarks and basically giving the endorsement, it seems like trump got bored or annoyed or something, he just kind of crept up on the guy and was looming over his shoulder and frowning at him while the guy was speaking. at one point he leans in and apparently tells this guy he needs to get lost and get off the stage. and the police union guy appears a little rattled by this, maybe even a little startled, starts flipping through his pages quickly, gets his stuff together and then awkwardly slinks off
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because trump told him to get out. that's a nice way to receive an endorsement. that was on friday at an event in glendale, arizona. and now today that same police union announced that they're endorsing the democratic u.s. senate candidate in arizona, the guy who's running against republican kari lake. that same police union is endorsing democratic use congressman ruben die go. inthis situation here, if this was trump trying to turn on the charm to also get this union's endorsement for the republican senate candidate he was ostensibly there to support, well, we all know how good he is at sharing the glory, right? sharing the spotlight. get off stage. trump waiting. so like i said when it is this close, when it is essentially a tie, it is worth watching even the small differences and even
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the nuances between the two campaigns because anything could be determinative. over the course of this hour we'll have news about how democrats appear to have put north carolina back on their side of the electoral map or they hope to have. interesting story there. and as i mentioned to jen, i'm going to show this hour the very first clip we're released from a new movie i helped make. it's about the first trump impeachment. and you probably think you know all there is to know about trump's first impeachment. you don't. and i think that story, bizarrely, ends up being not just really entertaining, in the way we've told it, i think, it is for me. but i think it is particularly relevant as trump is running for re-election. we have that clip of "from
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russia with lev" coming up. i'll tell you how you can get tickets to see the movie. anyway. there's lots to watch between the two campaigns. and it's understandable in presidential election years all eyes are on the top level contest, the two major parties and their presidential candidates. but in a presidential election year like this, just two months to go until the big day, may i also suggest that you don't sleep on what is happening in the states. yes, watch the two major parties and their two candidates and the way the presidential campaigns fight each other and nuances of how they compete. but watch what is happening in the states because sometimes even in an election year what is happening in the states just seems like it can't possibly actually be happening. for example, how is this for a local news lead this weekend in michigan? >> things got off to an odd
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start at the michigan republican party convention in flint today. former michigan gop chair, christina kuramo, was escorted out of the event by police. >> yes, that is an odd start, things did get off to an odd start. even if this weren't the state republican party and one of the most important swing states in the country in a presidential election year, yes, sounds like an odd start for the michigan republican party state convention. >> former michigan gop chair christina kuramo who was ousted from leadership, made an appearance at the event but was removed by flint police. new chair, pete hocstra was greeted by some boos as he took the stage. >> we've had problems in this state party. >> officials say she was asked to take a seat, refused, then asked to leave and refused again.
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that prompted law enforcement to get involved and escorting her out of the building for, quote, causing a disruption and clogging up the floor. >> causing a disruption and clogging up the floor. a detroit news reporter was able to capture this view of the former state republican party chair being escorted out of the state republican party convention by police. it was followed by some pushing and shoving, maybe a little punching. it's hard to tell exactly what is going on there. but clearly something that is not politics is happening here, as police are called in to remove from the state republican party convention the woman who claims she still is the chair of the michigan republican party. she was elected in 2023, removed in january 2024, this year, she then refused to go in february. a michigan court ruled that she had to go. as of this summer she was still trying to get courts to reinstate her as michigan party chairman. and as of this weekend the cops were called in to get her out
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when she appeared on the floor of the state party convention. did i mention that this is one of the most important states in the country for the presidential race, and we're two months out from the presidential election? right, the ostensible state chairman is also booed off the stage as she tries to convene their state convention, and the person who claims she's still the real party chair is escorted off by police. it's been months in the michigan state republican party they've been calling the cops on each other and getting in fist fights at their official republican party events. we pay so much attention to how the two presidential campaigns are doing, competing in swing state polls. it's worth noticing when things are absolutely bananas with one of the parties in those states. it's not only happening in one state.
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and i mean not long after the michigan party went to war with itself and it ousted its chair and she took them to court and nobody knew who who was running the place, not long after that a version of the same thing happened in the state of florida. right after michigan threw out their state republican party chair, florida threw out theirs, too, following news reports he was being investigated by police for allegations of rape. police also said they were investigating him for video voyeurism charges for allegedly illegally recording a sexual encounter without consent. the florida republican party threw him out. police later cleared him of charges in both of those investigations. but then right on the heels of that, the state of arizona lost their state republican chair, too. that same republican senate candidate who awkwardly appeared with trump this weekend, kari
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lake, she released secretly recorded audiotapes of the arizona state republican chairman in which she said he was trying to bribe her to leave the senate race. she also reportedly threatened to release more tapes of him, and so he quit as arizona state republican party chairman. then right on the heels of that, the national republican party lost its chair, too. ronna mcdaniel pushed out or resigned apparently to make room for donald trump's daughter-in-law. her experience for the job included being a singer in addition to being married to one of trump's sons, the blonde one. that seemed like a legit choice for the national republican party, and so ronna mcdaniel had to go. but all of that has only happened just this year in 2024. it's only august but michigan, florida, arizona, the national republican party, they all lost
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their top leadership under embarrassing if not terrible circumstances. all in a crucial election year. and now it's happened again. this time it has happened in colorado. >> we start tonight with some big news in colorado politics. the state's republican party chairman is out. dave williams and other party leaders were voted out as leadership of the colorado gop today, but those party leaders have said they consider today's meeting and vote fake. the meeting started at noon and is still going. right now republican party members are still voting on who will now lead the state party. news reporter lawrence gafiti has been there all day. >> it's 2 1/2 months until election day and colorado republican party leaders are still fighting their own leader. >> to those who say don't change a writer in the middle of a race, that's a valid argument unless the rider is trying to kill the horse. >> that is a valid argument
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unless the rider is trying to kill the horse. so that was this weekend, saturday, as colorado republican party officials met to vote out their state party chairman, who they said was destroying the party. now, for his part, it's a little bit like what happened in michigan, the republican party chair in colorado is refusing to recognize the validity of the vote to remove him because, of course, he is. he says the meeting this saturday in brighton, colorado, where they voted to fire him, he said it was a sham and illegitimate and illegal. as of sunday, the day after they voted to fire him, he at least still had custody of the state republican letterhead on which to release his statement that said his firing was a sham and so he's still in charge somehow. so that's something. maybe possession is still nine tenths of the law. maybe you are still state
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republican party chairman if you still possess some 8 1/2 by 11 letterhead that has your name on it. i don't know. i mean, who knows? one perp who says she is still the chair of the republican party of michigan was escorted out of that party's state convention by cops this weekend while fists flew. another person who says he's still the chair of the republican party in colorado was voted out by other republicans but he says his vote doesn't count and he has the letterhead to prove it, and he's his own chair and convene his own meeting this upcoming weekend and then we'll see who's really in charge. doesn't it seem like a great idea to put those folks and that party in charge of a whole country? and then there's georgia. for a few weeks now we've been covering sort of increasingly astonishing story about what is happening not to politics broadly but specifically to the election system in georgia. one of the things that has
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happened over the last four years since trump tried to overturn his election loss in 2020 is that the republican party has installed election officials in counties and states all across the country who not only parrot trump's idea the 2020 election was stolen, but they started doing what he wanted election officials do for him in 2020. they have started refusing to certify election results. now, they've done this in a number of states around the country, some blue states, some swing states, some red states, but the state where republicans have done this more often than any other state in the country is georgia. and georgia, you will recall, is a state where trump was indicted for multiple felonies under state law including a rico charges for his efforts to try to overthrow georgia's election result in 2020, to try to get georgia officials to declare that he was the winner even
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though he had lost that state. republican are now trying these gambits to block the certification of election results everywhere, but they have been trying most aggressively in georgia. and over these last few weeks a really alarming situation has emerged in georgia because there is a newly appointed pro-trump majority on the official georgia state election board. and in recent weeks they have passed a flurry of new rules that purport to legalize some of these tactics, that purport to empower local election officials to actually do this stuff, to block the certification of the vote or to delay the certification of the vote. and this state election board in georgia is apparently planning to do much more of this, even as we are getting closer and closer to the election date. "the washington post" just reported that the election board plans to adopt nearly a dozen additional rules beyond the new ones they've just put into
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effect over the coming weeks. quote, despite warnings from state and local officials that the lateness of the calender all but guarantees confusion and mistakes. and i think part of understanding the importance of this tactic is that confusion and mistakes are probably the point. it's one thing to say we want the right to flip an election result. that's going to be sort of a hard sell. it's another thing to say we want the right and we claim the right to essentially report that there's no knowable results here, that there isn't any discernible result, that there's a big question about it, that it seems like there's a cloud over the result. if you can not just flip the result -- not directly flip the result but instead create a sense that there's some confusion, that there's some lack of clarity, that there's something wrong with the way the election was conducted, and so a result isn't organically and clearly emerging, that can justify doing all sorts of extraordinary, strange stuff to come up with what purports to be an election result in that
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state. so i'll be honest with you. i have found that the -- these action by the state election board in georgia have just been jaw dropping. i mean, i've been covering this stuff for a long time. i've covered a lot of different versions of different types of these things not just in the trump era but of republicans in all sorts of elections before this. but i've never seen really seen what's happened with this state election board in repeat weeks. this isn't just the trump campaign making crazy claims or people advocating the state do crazy stuff, this actually is the state. this is the official election board that sets the rules for how elections are handled in georgia, and they're not just discussing crazy stuff, they are passing these rules that are rudy giuliani hair dye dripping down the face crazy. and again, they're not just asking people to do crazy stuff related to the election, they are the elections board and they are doing it.
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so i'll just be honest, watching the georgia situation with their state election board over the past few weeks has about tripled my blood pressure. it has been worrying me so much i wrote an op-ed it in yesterday's sunday "the new york times." and it is not like me to do something like that, but i have been very worried. but now i've got to tell you in today's news, something appears to be breaking on this subject. thetia nan gans at the georgia state election board have now provoked what talking points memo is calling, quote, ferocious pushback particularly from georgia's own voter registration and election officials. local officials have indeed been fighting these radical late changes to georgia's election rules, these rules that really do seem to be designed to give republicans cover to refuse to declare the official results of the election in november. local officials, voter registration officials, local elections officials at the county level and beyond in georgia, they have been pushing back vociferously.
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today state legislator and democratic congresswoman lucy mcbath spoke at the georgia state capitol, demanding that this run away election board be stopped not only because they're substantively trying to mug the elections process in the state but also they're doing so in a way that seems to violate the rules in which bodies like this are supposed to operate. after that press conference today at the georgia state capitol, two really, really interesting things happened. first, the republican governor of georgia, brian kemp, did something very interesting. he made a request to the state attorney general asking for clarification, asking if he as governor has the power to remove members of the state elections board, if it's warranted by ethics concerns. that is fascinating. we will see what the attorney general says in response to that query from the governor. i expect the attorney general's response will likely come quickly. if georgia governor brian kemp
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then does decide to remove these pro-trump election board members who have been upending that state's whole election process just weeks before the presidential election, wow. i don't know, watch this space. that would be a very, very big deal. so that's one very big thing that happened today. but then also late today a new lawsuit was filed from the democratic party of georgia and the national democratic party. they say, quote, with support from the harris-walz campaign as of tonight they are suing the state election board in georgia to stop them from what they've been doing. the democrats big new lawsuit, again, filed tonight asks georgia's state courts to make clear that local trump loyalist officials don't actually get to make it up as they go when it comes to certifying the election results, no matter what the state election board has been telling them. local officials can't just opt out of certifying election results. they can't decide on their own that they're going to delay the
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certification of the election results, presumably, to try to blow through electoral college deadlines to prevent georgia's electoral counts from being counted in washington. the democrats' lawsuit tonight asking georgia courts to act quickly, to clarify that what this maga elections board in georgia is trying to do cannot be done. and that these rules they have purportedly tried to pass in order to give local election officials all this leeway to mess up the vote count in georgia, that that leeway is not real, that legally they must certify, and there's no way they can mess it up. so i'll tell you, honestly, i have been wondering and worrying for a few weeks now about whether the democrats pushback, their inevitable challenge to what the trump folks have been doing in georgia was going to be strong enough or come quickly enough to turn it around to make sure georgia voters are able to vote in an election where vote counts are completed and certified and they matter when it comes to picking the president of the united states.
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i mean, kamala harris and tim walz are doing a georgia bus tour this week, right? harris is doing a big event this week in savannah. they are going for it in georgia, as they should. but in a presidential election year as important as it is to watch the way the two major party's candidates are campaigning, to see the way they are competing to try to win the presidency, it is also worth watching what happens in the states. the radical stuff that republicans have been doing to the georgia state election infrastructure means that democrats need to try both to earn people's vote in georgia this year in traditional terms, but democrats also need to fight this whole other fight, to force the republicans to actually consent to count the vote as well. as of tonight we know what some of that democratic pushback looks like.
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quintan fuks tells us this tonight. for months maga republicans in georgia and across the country have been trying to lay the groundwork to challenge the election results when they lose again in november. but democrats are prepared, and we will stop them. certifying an election is not a choice, it is the law. a few unelected extremists can't just decide not to count your vote. that's why we have one case after case in court fending off efforts to chip away our democracy. we will win this case, too, and keep fighting so that every eligible voter can confidently cast their vote exposing it will count. and that statement tonight from the harris-walz campaign as the democratic party both nationally and the democratic party of georgia filed this big pushback, this big lawsuit in georgia to try to stop what trump republicans are doing there to mess up the vote count. finally a big democratic punch. back against what thus far are the worst elections shenanigans
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in the whole country. congresswoman lucy mcbath joins us ahead. we've got a lot to get to tonight. stay with us.
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so here it is, filed this afternoon in superior court in fulton county, georgia, a 44-page lawsuit brought by the georgia and national democratic parties. suing over the rash of rules the
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state elections board has just passed, ruled supposed to be the boring technocrattic process of counting up the votes and reporting who won. democrats say the republican majority on georgia's state election board is trying to turn the, quote, straightforward and mandatory process of certifying the vote into a, quote, broad license for individual county election board members to delay certification of the vote. they say the new rules are designed to, quote, invite chaos. this new lawsuit filed tonight follows an ethics complaint from the recent former chair of the fulton county board of elections, another from democratic state senator nabila parks. these complaints ask governor kemp of georgia to remove from the state elections board the republican appointees who have voted for all these radical changes just before this fall's election. and amazingly it appears governor kemp might actually think about doing that. governor kemp's office today
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says he is seeking advice from the state attorney general about whether as governor he has the authority to take somebody off the georgia election board. as these trump republicans have tried effectively a brazen takeover of the election's infrastructure of this state, the pushback has now become ferocious and quite interesting. there is an emerging sense in georgia and beyond that these trump loyalists who took over that state elections board may have just gone too far. already this month they passed new rules that add requirements for certifying the evote that let any member of a koumty board demand reams of documents as an excuse to avoid certifying an election. now the board has cued up 11 more suggested rules for georgia counties to follow, 11 more changes in the way georgia administers elections, changes about absentee ballots and counting ballots by hand. the board plans to vote on these
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changes next month, and then they say they want to roll them out to all 159 of georgia's counties before election day on november 5th. so they don't even want the rules to exist until the end of september, and then they want all the counties in georgia toredically changed everything about the way they administer elections by november 5th. the counties are saying effectively in one voice there's no way we can do that even if these rules were good faith changes. in the georgia state capitol today with governor kemp publicly considering taking action, georgia democrats called for him to do more than just think about it. >> to do i am jointing my esteemed colleagues to call for governor kemp to hold state elections board accountable, to stand up for the rule of law and to ensure that our democratic process is protected. he must not allow our state
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elections board to be taken over by donald trump. >> joining us now is georgia democratic congresswoman lucy mcbath. congresswoman mcbath, i really appreciate you taking the time to be with us tonight. thank you. >> thank you. >> i was wondering if you could put in your own words what you think is going on with the georgia state elections board. i've been watching with increasing levels of alarm and high blood pressure. but how would you make the country listening now understand what they're trying to do? >> thank you so much for even asking, rachel. the fight for equal rights is person, i saw up close how much the civil rights leaders sacrificed to make sure we have a voice in this country.
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and my dad took me, in the stroller, at the march on washington. i'm absolutely appalled to see we're still fighting the very same fight today my parents and our civil rights icons before us have been fighting. and in our state, we've witnessed incredible progress up to this point. georgia elected joe biden and kamala harris while electing two state senators, john ossoff and rafael warnock. but in response to that we see that trump has tried to overtly steal the georgia election. and these rules that are passed by the state elections board make it much easier for them to do so. so georgians know that trump is working to sow chaos and division and to roll back our democracy and we've refused to let that happen. we are not going back. and state to senators like
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nabila islam parks these efforts to subvert our democracy are not going to go unchallenged. >> of course there's some intrarepublican dynamics going on here, too. governor kemp today asking the state attorney general to clarify whether he has the power as governor to remove member from that state elections board. i saw arguments today, some of the people who spoke alongside you at the georgia state capitol saying absolutely the governor does have that authority. not only can he but he must investigate these allegations. do you expect governor kemp either personally or through his administration somehow to take action here that would essentially stop the harm that the state election board is doing? >> well, i'm certainly not an attorney. i'm not a lawyer. but every lawyer that i have spoken to says that the law is
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very, very clear and that governor kemp is legally required to follow this law. you know, georgia is the birthplace of the civil rights movement and from john lewis to martin luther king jr., andrew young, the list goes on. if we truly believe in our democratic values and process, then we have a responsibility to continue their fight. so how is brian kemp going to claim that he is for law and order but refuse to follow the law? so we have to remember that brian kemp's second in command -- let's remember this -- the lieutenant governor jones is a fake elector who attempted to overturn the election here in georgia. so georgians are working as hard as we can. we're looking to stop this chaos, and we cannot let donald trump take control of the state elections board. we must stand up to the rule of law, and we hope that our governor will do the same. >> congresswoman lucy mcbath,
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thank you so much for making time for us tonight. it was a -- it landed differently to see you as a member of congress standing there with those state legislators there today making that case in the capitol. i know this is sort of an all hands on deck moment for georgia democrats. i appreciate you helping us to understand it. >> thank you. >> all right, we've got much more ahead for tonight. do stay with us. to duckduckgo on all your devie
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duckduckgo comes with a built-n engine, like google, but it's r and doesn't spy on your searchs and duckduckgo lets you browsel but it blocks cookies and creepy ads that follow youa and other companies.
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and there's no catch. it's fre. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you aroud join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today. looking at presidential polling averages from the swing
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states, it's clear who has the momentum right now. according to "the washington post"'s polling averages, kamala harris and donald trump are practically tied in all sevenswi states. but the momentum is with the democrats. since president biden decided not to run for re-election, harris has increased democrats lead in just about every state by at least 3 points, which is no small feat in any of these tight races, in any of these hard fought states. but it's particularly striking in north carolina where democrats haven't won the presidential race since 2008. and obviously the enthusiasm for harris and the strengthen of her campaign has a lot to do with it, but there is something else going on in north carolina as well. this november on the same bamt as the presidential race, north carolina voters will also be choosing a new governor. the guy on the left here is the democratic nominee. his name is josh stein. the guy on the right side of your screen is who the republicans picked. his name is mark robinson.
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you know the movie quat black panther," the republican candidate for governor mark robinson said that movie was, quote, created by a agnostic jew and put to film by a satanic marxist. really? he says the music industry is run by satan and by the illuminati. he calls gay people filth and maggots. he says kids who survive school gun massacres are, quote, media prosti-tots and spoiled little bastards who need to, quote, shut up. and so with that record survey says -- even in a closely fought swing state like north carolina, north carolina does not want that guy. the republican governor for no, ma'am is currently polling 14 points behind his democratic apopant, josh stein. democrats are not only hoping to
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beat mark robinson very badly, they're hoping he will be such a drag on democrats up and down the ticket it will give every democrat on the north carolina ballot a considerable boost. north carolina democrats have announced a fairly epic get out the vote effort targeting young voters in particular. they're holding 30 different college campus events across the state in 30 days. 30 campuses in 30 days. that campaign will be led by anderson clayton. she's chair of the north carolina democratic party. she's also only 26 years old, which makes her youngest chair of any state political party in the whole country. she joins us now. ms. clayton, thanks very much for being here. >> thank you for having us. >> i'm looking at this through an admittedly reductive lens about who's at the top of it ticket in the ballot oip your state. are there nuances and angles here i ought to be noticing or that should give people a different impression about how things should be fought in your
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state? >> no, i think you laid out the case against mark robinson just fine, but i also think the extremism at the top of the ticket is one we're finding that runs straight down the ballot as well. north carolina is one of 11 states in the entire country that elect a council of states or our executive branch is not just the governor's office but it is also nine other position. our attorney general we have, congressman jeff jackson running against dan bishop, who's the augtd fr of the bathroom bill in north carolina. hb2 for those of you who remember in 2016 in our state that cost north carolina $26 million. someone that called for the public execution of barack obama to be publicly televised she belongs nowhere near our classrooms right now. and mo green is someone who's been the superintendent of the largest school system in north carolina and made the case our children and public schools matter more than anything this year. i just think it's not just
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donald trump and mark robinson we're looking at this year for extremism, but it runs throughout and down to our state legislative races that fully endorsed what he stands for at the top of the ticket. we've not had one republican in our state that have separated themselves from him this year. >> i was going to ask you about that dynamic. sometimes when you get extreechl of the kind crur describing, that opens up an opportunity for the nonextremist party, in this case the democrats, to win cross over voters, to start targeting a different audience than you would in a typical election. even republicans to cross over and sort of vote for the more sane ticket. how are you allocating resources? how are you thinking about the type of messaging and events and spending you're doing in your party to maximize persuadable voters and reaching them? >> we have a campaign that's reaching people across the
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state. because of the fact we have true public servants running for these positions, josh stein is someone who's taken on and been our consumer protection person in our attorney general's office before he was an attorney general, someone bhoz also been protecting the people of north carolina. and i think it's important folks realize that's not just a democrat running on your ballot, that's someone that cares about everybody up and down the ticket this year and goes so far to look at people like natasha marcus who's running for commissioner of insurance in north carolina. people talk about the races that affect your pocketbooks the most. north carolina has had over 16 rate hikes in our state in the last eight years alone because we've had a republican commissioner of insurance, that's allowed for these rate hikes to happen. and it's taken insurance commission this year -- or insurance money this year while he's in the commissions office and he hasn't actually been working for the people of north carolina. we've got a state senator named natasha marcus running against
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him this year, and she's promised she's not taking a dime of insurance corporation money because she wants to ensure the people of north carolina make sure they know who she represents. we're trying to speak to everybody this year, really. >> aermd clayton, the chair of the, i learn something knew what's happening in your state. you're a really great communicator on behalf of our party and i'm looking forward to seeing what's next for you. thank you so much. >> thank you. all right, we'll be right back. stay with us.
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what do you think is the main inaccuracy or the main lie that's being told that you feel like you can correct? >> that the president didn't know what was going on. president trump knew exactly what was going on. he was aware of all my movements. he -- i wouldn't do anything without the concept of rudy giuliani or the president. >> at the start of 2020 i interviewed a man named lev parnas, and it ended up being kind of a landmark interview because he turned out to be the key man in the middle of the quid pro quo scheme that led to former president trump's first impeachment. shortly after lev parnas talked to me in that interview, donald trump vigorously denied ever knowing him. trump literally said i don't
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know him, perhaps he's a fine man, perhaps he's not. i know nothing about him. but he did know lev parnas, and we know that because lev kept all the receipts, pictures, texts, secret recordings even. and it turns out when you put them all together, they tell a story about that now mostly forgotten trump first impeachment that will blow your mind. you will not quite believe that this is a thing that happened in the way it did, and we all lived through it. and now the guy who did it is trying to become president again. that story is the focus of a new documentary that i helped to make. it's coming out soon. it's called "from russia with lev." here's a little piece of it. >> but in the beginning i really looked up to him and i really cared for rudy giuliani. >> i'm here with my friends lev and igor. >> it was like a bromance made in heaven. >> at some point, almost every night, rudy became lev's, i
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don't know, work wife or something because they spent so much time together. and they had such an intimate relationship. they were almost like father and son. >> four or five days out of the week, four or five, six times a day with phone calls and messages, and he was the godfather to my son nathan. >> there's a picture of him wiping his mouth. i don't think lev has ever offered me that service, maybe not all of our kids. after that i was like, yep, we're not getting him back, people. >> "from russia with lev" is the name of the film. it is the first documentary from my production company. it's going to debut for the first time anywhere at the msnbc live democracy 2024 event, which is on september 7th in brooklyn, new york. if you're thinking about coming, that is the first place you can see this film. i'll be introducing the 5:00 screening. if you can't make it to the event in brooklyn, we have added additional screenings in manhattan and miami and los
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angeles, all of which will feature a live q&a with me and the director and the producer. i should also mention lev himself is going to join us at the miami screening. so if you're interested in getting tickets before they're gone, you can go online to msnbc.com/lev.
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all right, that's going to do it for me for tonight. "way too early" is up next. do you still plan to participate in the abc debate? >> we