year. each of them will be awarded $10,000. the person who wins gets enough of your votes to be the cnn hero of the year will get an additional $100,000 to continue their work. you can go to cnn heroes.com. you can vote up to ten times a day. be sure to join me and my friend kelly ripa, as we celebrate all the honorees sunday at 8:00 p.m. during the cnn heroes. once again, congratulations to top ten cnn heroes of 2022. i hope you go out and vote for them. the news continues. i want to hand it over to jake i want to hand it over to jake tapper and "cnn tonight." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com welcome to "cnn tonight." i'm jack tapper in washington. and tonight the united states of america versus a far right militia accused of trying to overthrow the government, perhaps its biggest test yet. federal prosecutors today rested their historic case of five

alleged members of the oath keepers, including its founder, for their role in the attack on the capitol on january 6, 2021. over the last month, the justice department presented witness testimony and shocking videos and damning text messages and more, all of it evidence that prosecutors say proves the five defendants attempted to carry out a coordinated conspiracy to stop the legal and lawful transfer of presidential power and keep donald trump in the white house. now, why is this case so different than the hundreds of cases facing alleged rioters. two words, seditious conspiracy. that's a rare charge. it's one that was put on the books around the time of the u.s. civil war when the confederacy declared war on the u.s. government. it's a charge reserved for only the gravest of threats to the u.s. government. and these five alleged oath keepers are the first to stand trial for this accusation in more than a decade.

to really understand this case, you've got to first understand who and what the oath keepers are. the group was founded by this guy, stewart rhodes in 2009. rhodes is a disbarred lawyer. he accidentally shot out his own eye a few years ago. and the oath keepers is a, quote, non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, police, and first responders who plenl to fulfill the oath all military and police take to defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, unquote. translated, what that means is they think they don't have to follow any orders from any government that they think is illegitimate, such as our current democratically elected one. >> you've got to declare everything that comes out of king biden's voice and illegitimate and null and void

from inception because he is not a legitimate president. >> so, let's go inside the courtroom and examine the case so far. prosecutors say that rods along with kelly meggs, jessica thompson, and thomas caldwell, planned for an armed rebellion long before january 6th, and they were prepared to do anything necessary to keep george floyden out of the white house. members of the oath keepers attended rallies as, quote, dry runs. here's what rhodes said in 2020 at one of those ents, as he tried to encourage president trump to fight to stay in office. >> if he does not do it now while he is commander in chief, we're going to have to do it ourselves later in a much more desperate, much more bloody war. >> much more desperate, much more bloody war. they were dressed for that bloody war the next month, january 6th. oath keepers decked out in full

battle gear seen moving through the mob purposefully and entering the capitol. meggs, harrellson, and watkins were part of the stack formation which joined a mob of people, some of whom were attacking police officers. rhodes also allegedly entered the capitol grounds and mentioned having a quick reaction force, a qrf. that's what it's called in the military -- at a hotel outside washington, d.c. with other members carrying firearms standing by to join his bloody war if necessary. prosecutors say those qrf teams were coordinated in part by thomas caldwell, the fifth defendant on trial right now. today the defense began to present its case, and we've gotten a glimpse into their strategy already. defense attorneys argue that the oath keepers never had a specific plan on january 6 and that rhodes never explicitly instructed the group to enter the capitol. the defense attorneys also say that the oath keepers were not

violent during the riot and they themselves never called in their quick reaction forces, their qrfs. obviously prosecutors disagreed and think the oath keepers were conspiring for much more than they actually carried out on that day, hence the charge of seditious conspiracy. so, what does that mean? what is this statute in u.s. federal law? why does it exist? well, as i told you, it dates back to 1861 in the u.s. civil war. congress made it a crime to conspire to overthrow the u.s. government or to conspire to use force to, quote, prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the united states. the confederate insurrectionists failed, though it took four years to stop their armed rebellion. and the seditious conspiracy charge has rarely been used since. it was used notably in 1954 against terrorists pushing puerto rican independence.

>> ruthless fanatic violence erupted in the halls of congress. three men and a woman believed to be members of the puerto rican nationalist gang that in november 1950 attempted the assassination of president truman opened fire from the visitor's gallery of the house of representatives. estimates of the numbers of shots fired range from 15 to 30 and each bullet hole found is a grim reminder to those who were present of the terrible surprise attack. >> in that attack on the capitol, five congressmen were shot and wounded. but thankfully all survived. and those suspects were convicted on charges of seditious conspiracy. the last time the justice department brought those charges and won the case was in 1995, when an egyptian cleric, the so-called blind sheik and nine of his followers -- the broad

nature of the seditious conspiracy law can be difficult to sell to a jury. in 1988, a jury acquitted a group of white supremacists accused of plotting to overthrow the government and establish an all-white nation. and ten years ago, a judge just dismissed a case against a michigan militia accused of plotting an attack on law enforcement. all of that raises the stakes for the justice department today in this trial against the oath keepers and its upcoming trial against a different far right group, the proud boys. now, look, january 6 was clearly an effort to stop the peaceful transfer of power. but prosecutors are going to have to prove and convince a jury that it was coordinated. as evidenced by the attack on paul pelosi last week or the attempted attack on supreme court justice brett kavanaugh a few months ago, domestic extremist violence is a real threat. a study from earlier this year by the antidefamation league

reveals, quote, right wing extremists were linked to at least 26 extremist murders in the united states in 2021 and have been responsible for 75% of such murders in the last ten years, unquote. so, this has been building for years. remember the unite the right gathering of racists and extremists in charlottesville? now, look, back in 2020 at the first presidential debate, our own chris wallace directly asked then president trump if he was willing to condemn white supremacists and far right groups, such as the proud boys. do you remember trump's response? >> proud boys, stand back and stand by. >> stand back and stand by. justice department prosecutors say the evidence shows that these far right groups were standing by. they were waiting for a green light to undermine democracy and

allow trump to hold on to power. as the january 6 select house committee has proven, there were connections between members of these far right groups and folks in donald trump's orbit, people like roger stone or michael flynn. i asked trump's former communications director, alyssa farah griffin, why. >> the only reason he would be talking to those groups is because you wanted a violence presence at the capitol that day. >> donald trump could, today, right now, issue a clear and unequivocal condemnation of the oath keepers and the proud boys and what they tried to do that day. you'd think condemning would be terrorists charged by the u.s. department of justice with seditious conspiracy would not be difficult. ask yourself, why has it?

do you remember what the former spokesman for the oath keepers told the january 6 committee a few months ago. >> if a president that's willing to try to instill and -- and encourage to whip up a civil war amongst his followers using lies and deceit and snake oil. and regardless of the human impact, what else is he going to do if he gets elected again? >> opening statements in the oath keepers' trial were given exactly one month ago. one person who's been covering every step in this trial is cnn's sara sidner, who joins us now. sara, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> how compelling has the case been the department of justice has been trying to make that this was actually a conspiracy against the united states government? >> very compelling. there are mountains of evidence. we have heard from about a half dozen fbi agents talking about

everything from where their phones were and having to ping the phones. we've heard from capitol police officers like harry dunn, who talked about the fact that while the oath keepers' defense is trying to say they were trying to help him that that was not the case in any way, shape, or form. some of the most compelling has been from former oath keepers themselves, one of whom was there that day and has pleaded guilty himself to se dditious conspiracy, who basically said, look, i'm sorry now looking back -- and this is a quote. he said, i was acting like a traitor against my own country. and taking that upon himself as a member of this group that went in to the capitol. and he said, look, the three people he knows went into the capitol from this group of oath keepers thought of it as something of a bass teal day.

they were starting their own revolution in their own minds. i think the star witness from my time watching this case is the words of the defendants th themselves because they have it on signal. they have it on their social media accounts. they have it in their text messages. and they have secret recordings of the group talking about what they're going to do as this date marches closer and even after january 6, what they wanted to tell the president, the leader himself, stewart rhodes. and it was a very sort of violent-filled rhetoric about what they thought of joe biden winning the election. >> so interesting. you've been covering hate groups for cnn for years and years and years. it's a tough beat to cover. i know. you and i have talked about it. how significant was the election of donald trump and donald trump's refusal to concede? how much was that a pivot point for these groups? >> so, it really does go back --

and i hate to see this. but we saw really a spike dmiend of rhetoric and hate crimes actually when president obama, especially in his second election. we saw those numbers start to march up. the oath keepers themselves, for example, they were founded in 2009. what was that year? it was the year after the first black president got into office. and there are a lot of groups that look at extremism and can correlate that with why this group suddenly emerged in the way it emerged with the kind of backing that it emerged from its members. that being said, pandora's box was already there. these feelings were already there. >> right. >> president trump just helped open the box. maybe he blew the lid off the box. and then you saw a culmination of that on january 6th. but all of those feelings, they're still there. this is not over. that might have been the beginning. we don't know. it's still rhetoric that i see

every day on all kinds of different social media sites that these very. >> prominent republican is going to join us in a minute. senator tom cotton just wrote a book about what he calls the left's plot to sabotage american power, the left, after we just january 6th. we've got a lot to talk about with senator tom cotton, including 2024. that's next. stay with us. contntestants ready? go! only pay for what you need. jingle: liberty. liberty. libeberty. liberty.

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with five days until the midterm elections, candidates around the country are making their final pitches to voters, the ones who haven't voted already early. among those hitting the trail for republicans, gop senator tom cotton of arkansas, been campaigning with dr. mehmet oz in pennsylvania and herschel walker in georgia. senator cotton also has a

brand-new book out called "only the strong: reversing the left's plot to sabotage american power." he gives his take on how democratic presidents have been steering the country down the wrong path when it comes to military and foreign policy issues. quote, america's recent decline isn't an accident. it's declined by design. liberal democrats have plotted to sabotage american power. war, arrogance, and oppression, not safety, freedom, and prosperity. senator cotton joins us now here in studio. thank you so much for being here. good to have you here. it's a pointed book. it's a very pointed -- is that fair to say? it's a pointed book. >> i had a lot to get off my chest. >> it's very sharp criticism about democrats. i knew you were very conservative. i don't think i realized fully how -- is contempt an okay word to use -- how much contempt you had for these policies. and i wonder does it make it difficult to work with senate

democrats given how strongly you feel that they stand for all these wrong things? >> not at all. i mean, look, you've got to deal with senators every day. one day a senator is going to be your adversary. the next day they're going to be your ally. going back 100 years to woodrow wilson, he was the first president to openly repudiate the declaration, the constitution. at home that meant that he and the progressives wanted to create this great administrative unelected bureaucrats. >> segregated too. he was a horrible racist. >> he was a racist as well. >> didn't he resegregate the government? >> the left can take his name off of buildings because of that, but they can't take his ideas out of their movement. you still see that today domestically. you see it abroad as well. when he declared war on germany shortly after his reelection, it wasn't for many good reason to declare war on germany the founding fathers would have cited. germany conceded with mexico to

cede territory in the southwest. it was on behalf of abstract ideals. you know, he famously said that we're going to make the world safe for democracy. and i would suggest there's one word missing from that and i think our founders would have suggested there's a word missing as well. >> america? >> we should make the world safe for america's democracy. >> america's democracy. a lot of pointed criticisms of democratic presidents dating back to wilson all the way through to today president biden. fdr and truman were president during the ally's victory in world war ii. obama okayed the mission to go kill osama bin laden. you cite that to criticize biden for not agreeing with them, but you don't really give obama the credit. there are some things democratic presidents -- >> they don't get everything wrong obviously. the older presidents in the 20th century are better than the recent ones, especially the

post-vietnam democratic presidents. our army was smaller than portugals army before world war ii. >> they cranked it back up. >> same thing before the korean war. we deployed our troops into the korean war woefully underprepared and undertrained. jfk was a strong president was a misnomer. he was a disaster as a foreign policy president. especially after vietnam when the left turned not just on america's founding but on america itself, then you begin to see a steady erosion of american power throughout the democratic presidencies of jimmy carter, bill clinton, and especially barack obama. >> so, one thing that i was interested, since you bring up vietnam, i was interested to read your criticism of the "new york times" for publishing pentagon papers, which were leaked to "the times" by danielle else elz berg who thought the war wasn't winnable. they didn't want to bring it to

congress, so then he went to the press. here's the thing. you're so critical -- i'm not saying you're wrong -- of jfk and lbj in how they waged the war in vietnam. what's wrong with "the new york times" bringing the failures of these democratic administrations, two of them, to the public so they could see what was really going on. if you're a veteran, you know how many americans died in vietnam when the generals didn't think the war was going to hold. but they didn't have the guts to tell the commander in chief or to tell the country.. >> supreme court sided with them. >> they said that you couldn't have consequences. >> didn't the public have a right to know if all these failures you criticize -- >> about the pentagon papers themselves, there wasn't a lot of new revelations there. a lot of it was known to the public, and it did show the war

was unwinnable. once richard nixon became president and took the handcuffs off the military, we had the war won by 1973. the viet cong had been destroyed as a fighting force, ho chi minh's army no longer gained purchase in the south. it was only when he was weakened by watergate, democratic congresses began to cut funding, including a young senator, joe biden, that we had the absolute disaster in south vietnam when we had helicopters lifting off our embassy there in 1975. >> on that subject, you compared that to the botched withdrawal from afghanistan under the biden administration. i want to share with you something that fellow veteran republican congressman adam kinzinger tweeted. he said, i blame both trump for this moment coming and biden for the bombed ending. it's the truth about afghanistan. do you hold president trump accountable at all for that peace treaty that he and secretary pompeo negotiated with the taliban, which biden

inherited. and you might remember, trump wanted to have the taliban leaders come to camp david near the anniversary of 9/11. >> it's president biden who's responsible for what happened in afghanistan. that agreement was not without flaw, but it was based on conditions on the ground that the taliban was not meeting in 2021. i think a lot of what happened in 2021 is that joe biden had a chip on his shoulder going back to 2009 that barack obama had sided with the military advisers like stan mccrisco and dave -- and bob gates. >> and everyone else. and joe biden was the one between 2009 who kept poisoning the well saying you've got to get out, you can't do this. and he wanted to prove that he was right. and we had numerous instances of testimony after the collapse in afghanistan last year of secretary austin and general milley and general mckenzie and others saying their best advice

is that we keep a small contingent in afghanistan, that we keep civilian contractors there, to keep aircraft flying to provide air cover for the troops. my understanding is in the white house and state department advised joe biden against this course of action. >> right. you don't hold trump responsible. >> i think in the end it was joe biden's decision as commander in chief last year. >> okay. first of all this underlines why you should be coming on cnn more, so that we can have these conversations. it's good for people to hear from you not just on fox or in arkansas. i know you're not going to announce on my show that you're running for president in 2024. but two quick questions. does trump's decision as to whether or not he's going to run, will that play any role in whether or not you decide to run? and do you think you would make a good president? those are -- >> i'll just say two things. first, we have an election five days from now. >> sure. >> and that's where my focus is. there will be time after that election to think about the 2024 election. anyone who thinks they can be

president and wants to run for president, should check out a copy of "only the strong" so they can learn how to restore american power. >> your publisher is going to be happy with that. i'm interested to see your amazon rank. best to your wife and boys. please come back. coming up, serious questions still need answers after another deadly school shooting. the teenage gunman who shot up the school in st. louis was once blocked by the fbi from buying a semiautomatic rifle. why was he eventually able to purchase one? why wasn't law enforcement informed? how did so many warning signs go missed? we're going to investigate. that's next.

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two people, one student, one teacher, shot and killed at a school in st. louis. this is the 67th school campus terrorized by gunfire this year alone in the united states. in our now far-too-routine analysis, the one part we don't pay enough attention to is this. >> the information that we have at the current time is that they were legally purchased firearms. >> it was legally purchased in a gun store. >> all indications are they were purchased legally. >> once again, in st. louis, a suspect was 19. he was legally an adult. he had no criminal record. you might hear that and think,

of course he's allowed to buy a gun. there's nothing that could have prevented this from happening. but that's not accurate. as cnn contributor and founder of the website "the reload" points out, by the police department's own telling of events, it appears the st. louis shooter committed at least two crimes before he opened fire last week at the central visual performing arts high school, crimes that should have led to police actions that could have prevented the shooting. for the first one, the shooter tried to buy a gun, but he failed the federal background check, likely after lying on the background check form. that's a crime. the st. louis police commissioner gives the likely answer as to why he failed the background check despite his lack of a criminal record. >> there's no prior criminal history. >> multiple involuntary mental health commitments would have flagged the shooter as a prohibited person, in other words, someone who cannot legally buy a gun.

and federal law makes it a crime for someone not allowed to own a weapon to even attempt to buy one. local police should have been alerted as soon as he was flagged on october 8th for failing that background check while trying to buy a gun. you see, there's a new federal law passed in march. it requires the fbi to report every failed background check to local police. that does not appear to have happened here. according to the st. louis "post dispatch" the shooter initially tried to buy a gun from licensed nearby dealer in st. charles, missouri, but he was turned down. st. charles police, they say they were never notified about a failed background check. the fbi never told them. might they have done something different if they had heard that someone who failed a background check was trying to buy a gun? we don't know. but we do know the fbi apparently dropped the ball here. it appears the shooter was able to buy a gun through a private sale, which does not require a

background check in missouri. and that brings us to the second crime likely committed before last week's attack, the shooter had the gun when police were called to his house earlier this year by his own family, who was worried about his having that weapon. >> are they aware he acquired a firearm. they worked with our department to transfer that to an adult who could legally possess that one. >> the st. louis police officers earlier this year could have arrested the shooter then for even having a weapon because he was on the prohibited persons list, but they didn't. we don't know if they even knew about him failing the background check when they got to his house. but we know this trail of missed warning signs is all too common. there were red flag laws in place that should have kept a gun out of the hands of the suspect in that buffalo racist attack on that grocery store in may, which saw ten innocent people shot and killed.

just like there were background check laws in place in highland park, illinois, where the shooter, nonetheless, got guns legally and murdered seven people on the fourth of july. time after time, the laws appear to be there. the tools appear to be there. but they're not being used by law enforcement. all these warning signs are falling through the cracks. it's an area where there needs to be vast improvement. lives literally depend upon it. we have five days until the midterms. we're going to take you to one of the biggest battlegrounds, arizona. the democratic candidate for governor katie hobbs is here. will her decision to not debate her opponent, kari lake, cost her on tuesday. and should hobbs recuse herself as secretary of state from overseeing her own election? that's next. en when you're not . a plan that includes all your accounts so you can enjoy whatever comes next.

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the democratic nominee for arizona governor, katie hobbs' message to voters is clear, democracy, she says, is on the ballot. it's a message former president obama tried to drive home while campaigning with hobbs yesterday. >> and if you've got election deniers serving as your governor, your senator, your secretary of state, as your attorney general, then democracy, as we know it, may not survive in arizona.

that's not an exaggeration. that is a fact. >> i mean, he's right. but just days out from the midterm elections, hobbs is locked in a statistical dead heat with her opponent, election liar kari lake. the race has led many democrats to wonder why hobbs has given lake an opening by refusing to debate her and call out her lies face to face. secretary hobbs, thanks for joining us. i get not wanting to amplify lake's rhetoric or provide her a platform, but she has a platform. she got one anyway. even if you don't debate her, she still got one from the tv stations, and she's branded you a coward for refusing to take the stage with her. doesn't standing up for the facts and the truth, doesn't that require debating? >> i don't agree with that. i have been continuing to stand up for the facts and truth during my tenure as secretary of state pushing back on all this election denialism since the

2020 election. and on the campaign trail. the fact is at this point in the game, we're five days out from the election. i'm not second guessing any decisions we've made. i'm really proud of the campaign that we're running. i'm confident in the campaign that we're running. and, you know, we knew this race was going to be tight. it is not surprising to me that we're in a dead heat. and it's going to be a close outcome. >> you're receiving criticism from some in your own party, congressman tim ryan, who is running for senate in ohio. he's a democrat. he was asked about your refusal to debate your opponent. take a listen. >> have some guts, have some guts. look, you have to lead. this moment right now is calling for leadership. it's calling for citizenship. you need leaders who can go into an environment like a fox news town hall as a democrat and say, look, we've got to love each other. we've got to care each other. e we need forgiveness. we need reconciliation. we need reform. we need some grace. and it starts by leaders going

into those environments saying, i understand you have concerns. let's talk about them. >> is he wrong? >> well, if kari lake showed any inical inclination to have a substantive conversation about the issues, perhaps he would be right. but she's only interested in creating a spectacle. and i've made the decision to make my case directly to the voters. i've done several town halls, and i've done several in depth interviews with media. and we're continuing to take it on the road and talk directly to voters. that's the choice we made. and tim ryan can run his own campaign. and we're running ours. >> so, i mean, she has said that if she had been governor in 2020, she would not have certified the results in arizona. and you had a republican governor at the time, you still do, governor ducey, and he did certify the election.

she says so many false things, wild, untethered, crazy things. she's telling almost half of arizona, i don't respect your votes if you don't vote for me, if you don't vote for republicans. why is it so close? >> arizona is a battleground state. it means every single race is a battle. every single state-wide nominee is on the republican side is an election denier, and every single state-wide race is close. even mark kelly's. >> this week a federal judge in your state, in arizona, imposed new restrictions on this one right-leaning group blocking members from openly carrying guns or wearing body armor within 250 feet of voting drop boxes. and speaking to or yelling at voters who are dropping off their ballots in the state. how concerned are you about the impact these so-called activists might have on intimidating voters from actually casting their ballots? >> i think that's exactly the

outcome they're looking for. so, we are incredibly concerned about it. we were preparing for the possibility of this and have acted on every referral that's come to our office making sure we're referring it to the proper authorities for investigation. it's critical that these matters are investigated and acted on quickly. i'm grateful for the judge for implementing the restraining order on these activities. we're still vigilant and making sure that voters know what the options are to vote safely, to make sure that they can cast their ballot in a way that's free from intimidation or harassment. and thankfully in arizona, we have a lot of options. we continue to have a reporting form available on our website, and we'll continue to report these incidents as we learn of them. >> so, in addition to being the democratic gubernatorial nominee, you're the secretary of state of arizona, which means you're in charge of supervising this election.

there are calls that you should recuse yourself from overseeing the election, given the fact that you're running for governor. it's not just from what ckos, said, democrat and republican, said to avoid even the appearance of a conflict, you should recuse. we know kari lake says she's only going to accept the election results if she wins. take a listen. >> i'm going to win the election and i will accept that result. the people will never -- the people of arizona will never support and vote for a coward like katie hobbs. >> so, i realize she's out there, but given all the insanity out there, might the election results be tougher for her to challenge if you do in fact recuse yourself from your secretary of state duties, specifically having to do with the governor's race? might that be the most prudent thing to do? >> elected secretaries of state

in arizona have overseen elections where they're on the ballot since statehood. this has never been an issue until now, and i'm not going to recuse myself from the job that the voters elected me to do. and for which i took an oath of office to uphold the constitution of the united states and the constitution and laws of the state of arizona. i have done that throughout my tenure as secretary of state, and i will continue to do that until i leave office on january 2nd. >> all right. >> kari lake is the one who -- oh, go ahead. >> go ahead. >> oh, kari lake is the one who's based her entire campaign on this false premises of election fraud. and she's making these calls for my recusal to distract from her extreme positions and to distract from the fact that she's actually the one who wants to dismantle democracy in our state and country. >> secretary of state katie hobbs, thanks so much for joining us. enjoy your next five days on the campaign trail. >> thank you.

did democrats get too comfortable banking on roe-vember. seizing on the uproar over the overturning of rowe v. wade. does congressman pat ryan still think he can win tuesday with roe-mentum fading. that's coming up. pronamel repair because it p penetrates deep into the tooth to help actively repaiair acid-weakened enamel. i recommend pronamel repair to my patients. i'd like to thank our sponsor liberty mutual. they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. contestants ready? go!

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when the supreme court ripped away reproductive freedoms, access to abortion rights we said this is not what america stands for. >> it was barely two months ago when democrat pat ryan pulled off what seemed like a surprising special election victory in a swing district. this fueled democrats hopes abortion rights could be an issue in the mid-term elections. in the weeks since we've shown you repeatedly how voters concerns have shifted with fears in the economy and of a

recession. democratic congressman pat ryan of new york joins us now. congressman, four months democrats were hopeful about a blue wave in the wake of the overturning of roe v. wade, which some called roe-vember, but seems unlikely and out of reach. do you think your party, the democratic party has been too comfortable banking on that issue and the issue of democracy when this much more salient issue of the economy and inflat inflation and recession fears was obviously more on voter minds? >> thanks for having me, jake. what i'm hearing is people can be worried about multiple things at once. and right now what americans want us to deliver on is fight for their rights including reproductive rights, voting rights, lgbtq rights and also deliver relief. and it's not talked about as much by the press, but we had both of those messages as full steam ahead in our special

election, fighting for your rights and delivering relief. so that message has continued to be really rezinate not just here but across the country and i think we will continue to see that momentum. look, when a fundamental american freedom is ripped away from half the country americans stood up in kansas and new york and alaska, and they're going to do it again in november. i'm confident of that. >> you've seen the polling indicating a lot of the voters that i think somebody like you and a lot of the democrats need to turn out for you specifically white suburban women have been shifting, independent women, shifting to the republican camp at least according to polling. >> i've got to say with all respect to the pollsters they were so far wrong in my race and they've been consistently wrong for years and years now. you've got to actually start listening to people at the

ground, which is what i've been doing and candidates across the country, not the pollsters. in my special election everyone said we were going to lose. we never were leading in any of the dozen plus polls and we won because we stood up and said we are fighting for something, we are fighting to protect shared american freedoms, and my opponent stood for absolutely nothing except for fear and division and delivering no results. that is what we have to continue to keep our head down, talk about delivering relief and fighting for rights. >> your new opponent, republican state assembly member collin schmidt has joined republicans in pushing a tough on crime message. he's tried to tie you to new york's contentious bail laws, which limits the ability of judges to set cash bail for accused criminals. it's what the gop even some democrats have blamed for the rising crime rates. what's your counter argument? >> well, look, we always see

this. a desperate attempt to divide us and to incite fear rather than to be for something and talk about bringing us together. i think people see through that. in my special election once again we were outspent 4-1. the same message these lies and deceptions about records on crime and public safety, look, i've worn the uniform in combat. i'm a proud west point graduate, served two deployments in iraq. i know what it means to keep people safe. i know what it means both in my last job as a elected official and in congress to increase funding to law enforcement as i've done. and i think people see right through this b.s. and this division, and again, it's about being for something, getting people to come out something for rather than to continue to be so cynical and negative and divisive. >> all right. democratic congressman pat ryan, thank you. enjoy your next five days on the

campaign trail. >> all right, thanks, jake. >> we'll be right back. people remember ads with young people having a good time. so to help you remember that liberty mutual customizes your home insurance, here's a pool party. ♪ good times. insurance! ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ ♪ [christmas music] ♪ ♪ ♪ weathertech gift cards have the power to wow everyone on your holiday list. offering a variety of american made products. weathertech! nice!

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thanks so much for joining us tonight. you can follow me on facebook, instagram and twitter @jaketapper. that's right, i deleted tiktok. i did. tomorrow actress carrie washington is going to be here, working to get voters out to the polls. our coverage now continues with luminous laura coates and awesome alisyn cam rata. i deleted to tiktok, i did it because national security experts kept coming on the show and saying delete the tiktok, the communist chinese government controls it, they have access to everything so i did. >> where will you be lip-syncing and dancing tomorrow? >> i don't do that. i never did that anyway. a