i mean, even though a prosecutor doesn't have to act politically, that's where he's going to be headed. >> mary-ann, nick, nick, thanks for being here. this is all in for this evening. we will be back on monday. good night. happy friday. still full? welcome to special edition of the rachel maddow show tonight. a few days after the presidential election in 2016, something really quite unexpected happened. planned parenthood started getting a flood of donations from mike pence. from all over the country. mike pence was donating. the new vice president elect. once it became clear that republicans would soon control the white house and chambers of congress, a lot of americans suddenly felt a strong urge to donate to civil rights reproductive health organizations like the aclu and planned parenthood. and when people started donating to planned parenthood in particular, a good number of them did so under the name mike

pence. it was just a little dig at the very anti-abortion conservative incoming vice president. please send certificate of receipt for my donation to the indiana state house. liberals and democrats were trying to figure out what to do next in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election. troll mike pence was a funny option. a huge new influx of people chose to donate to progressive rights protection groups. that presumably would be working overtime in the administration. then by the end of the transition and the start of the administration, the next widely chosen option was for people to march. the women's marches in new york city and washington, d.c. made national news for days, in part for their sheer size. some of the biggest demonstrations we have ever had in this country. but, women's marches turned up in pockets of the country really all over the place. places like jackson,

mississippi, or fair banks, alaska, almost 2,000 people braving snow and sleet in fair banks. salt lake city, utah, thousands of people took over the capitol building in utah. in the snow. monday after inauguration. nobody really knew at the time what all that energy would become after the women's marches were over. whether it was harness and turned something tangible and long lasting. but the marches definitely help shift the national tone in that direction. and then the first big electoral test of that was in the common wealth of virginia. >> jennifer loves a challenge, she was one of the first african american women at vmi. first in her family to graduate from college and law school. and in january, this public defender announced her candidacy for a house seat that covers part of prince william and stafford. she had concerned about policy she viewed as anti-women. >> i said why not meet and if

not now, when? my youngest was just seven months old. the lease was inspired by ellis island. vietnamese and that was inspired by the liberty bell. so her name means to ring the bells of liberty and champion opportunity for all. i made the decision to run when she was about a month old, i just came in very aspirational name to. this tiny little baby and i realized, i couldn't rest upon her shoulders, that responsibility. i had to stand up and fight for those values myself. >> i had a brother who struggled with alcoholism and ptsd for decades. i lost him in march, two weeks after i announced for this. it was devastating. and hard to go on, but there are others like him. and i intend to make sure that they have more chances than he

had. >> the women featured in that footage there, jennifer carol, kathy trend, wendy, they ended up being some of the figs-time indicates in virginia who flipped 15 seats in virginia's house of delegates from republican to democrat. it's been a decade since democrats flipped more than one seat in that legislature. and they just flipped 15 in one night. at least. those democrats include the first latino woman in the virginia house of delegates, first asian american woman in the house of delegates and openly transgender person to sit in any state legislature. that same night the democrats won the governship in virginia and new jersey. then a week later, democrats in oklahoma flipped a very unlikely seat, they flipped a state senate seat in a district that had gone for trump by 40 points in november. the woman who won it was a democrat, she's a woman. she's a mother of three. she's 26 years old.

and she's openly gay. hello, oklahoma. right now democratic women are having kind of a moment. which is all the more remarkable given what happened to the nation's first female presidential candidate, just a year ago. one of the things you deal with in a surprisingly straightforward way, they're surprised with your human nature. >> yes. >> everything from sort of deep thing that you point out which is that people needed to be told again and again why, why truly do you want to be president? when nobody ever asked marco rubio or ted cruz that question, exactly that same way, but also, you know, the really human stuff. this is what you write in the opening of chapter 5 in the book. what i ate, who did my hair and make-up, what my mornings were like. it may seem strange but i get asked about these things constantly. flil leap raines calls it the panda principle.

pandas just live their lives with, they eat bamboo, they play with their kids, but for some reason, people love watching pan das hoping for something, anything to happen. so you're sort of marveling people have that interest in you and you also basically concede that you have now learned that that's what people want to know. and chapter 5 of the book is literally, here's what time i get up, here's what i eat for breakfast. here's where i exercise, yes, i love my husband. here's some mystery novels i like, yes, i like hot sauce. do you wish people didn't want to know you in that way and do you understand why they do? >> well, you know, i've stopped asking both questions because i've concluded that it's just a part of our lives now. and i think i was slow to accept that and i believe that i'm pretty straightforward and, you know, pretty ordinary in most of my human existence, and so, i

think though that people were a little bit intrigued, maybe even obsessed because of when i burst into the public awareness. bill was the first baby boomer president and i was the first professional wife, first lady, and, you know, there was just this insatiable daughter yosty, and i have said many times before, i became like a national shop test. you see what you want to see in you, but i wanted this book because it is true people ask me these questions all the time. and i thought, well, you know what, i just to want embrace it and go ahead and tell you what i have for breakfast and all the rest of it. and maybe it will give people, well, a little bit of satisfaction that they know me better than they thought they did. >> do you feel like it's that sort of interest and that sort

of -- almost that sort of no-win situation about your privacy? is something that is inherent -- that any woman who runs for president is going to face? is it inherently gender dynamic going forward. did you face it more than anybody else will because you were the trying to break the glass ceiling twice? >> i think there's a lot of truth to that. i think that just being a woman at that high level of politics is still so unusual and people are sorting it out. i have some fascinating statistics in there about how there's a big difference between democrats and republicans in terms of wanting to see a woman be president, lots of good research that i put into the book about how difficult it is because as a man gets more professionally successful, he becomes more likable, as a woman gets more professionally successful, she becomes less likable. i really wanted to pull the curtain back and talk about this

because i hope through my experience and the fact that i'm, you know, trying to have this conversation with the american public, that people will begin to be more self-aware. because also in that chapter i ha have, i would have voted for another woman, but not this woman. well, i ran for the senate, i was elected twice. i know how people can get to know you and respect you and support you, but because we've never had a woman president, the barrier is so high that glass ceiling is so hard, and knew some of the potential 2020 candidates are starting to get public attention, they're getting hit from both the left and the right and sometimes whether it comes from the left, you're not sure whether it's a russian pretending to be an american from the left or not i

want to the raise the visibility so that if women run for president in 2020 or 2024 or whenever it might happen, the more americans will say, hey, you know, maybe i should actually listen to her and see what she has to say rather than, oh, saying i don't like her hair or why is she wearing that color. the kinds of things that get in the way of giving women candidates the sort of serious consideration that we deserve. >> i hear your optimism about how that can get better. >> i hope so. by talking about it and naming it, you give people a way to discuss it and maybe combat it. i also feel like the sexism that you faced a as political barrier in 2016 was considerably worse than the sexism you faced a as barrier in 2008. and i know in 2016 you got further, but i feel like what i saw directed at you as a public figure was more have i tree yalic and more rhetorically

violent than what i saw eight years earlier, which implies to me, maybe that's the general election versus the democratic primary, but i like to think that things get better over time too. and i don't see that as having happened with you. >> well, but i think there were several different conditions that had to be dealt with for the first time. the internet was obviously up and going, but social media was not as unleashed in '08 as it was in 2016. i ran against someone who demeaned women, degraded them, attacked them, and again, not just me, but, you know, miss universe contestants and republican women who dared to run against him and interviewers who questioned him. it was so rhetorically vile what he said about so many women, and that kind of lifted the top off

of what had been much more restrained because i did feel like in '08, there was a lot of it, it was out there, but by the years that followed, i thought, okay, you know, people are coming to grips with the fact that that's, you know, you don't talk about women like that. you may think, but you don't talk about it anymore and you have to at least try to give, you know, lip service to women being treated equally. trump threw that out the window. >> you think his changed the weather? >> i think he gave permission for people to be much more sexist and massage nisic which is much more generalized, hatred of women. so -- and even for me, i was taken aback by some of what he would say and the fact that people would vote for him, including women after the hollywood access tape, it just had a different feel to it.

so, yeah, i think he was in large measure the determinant to factor that made it so much worse in 2016. >> hillary clinton speaking very bluntly there about who made things worse and how. former attorney general eric holder has some thoughts on that too. that's next. it's what this country is made of. but right now, our bond is fraying. how do we get back to "us"? the y fills the gaps. and bridges our divides. donate to your local y today. because where there's a y, there's an us.

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it was 2010. i was in alaska. lisa murkowski lost the primary for her own seat and then went on to win it anyway by writing in for a general election. and in the middle of that

nuttiness, i went up to alaska to cover that race. and there, unexpectedly on the street in anchorage. there's where i learned that any political conversation with a stranger at any point might suddenly veer into untrue nonsense about eric holder up. you have to be ready at any time. good luck, you guys. >> eric holder, we disagree with that. >> she voted to confirm eric holder. >> why are you against that? >> anti-gun attorney general this country has ever had. >> what's he gone against guns? >> at this point, what hasn't he done against guns? let's ask that question. let's look at what his voting record beforehand -- >> eric holder wasn't an elected official. >> no, just -- all i'm asking is look at what his record is with obama then. look at what -- >> what's he done on guns that you're upset about though? just so -- i mean. >> i honestly, i don't know

enough about him to answer that truthfully. >> can i ask why you're upset about eric holder. >> what has he done that's anti-gun. >> i don't have all the facts, but he's anti-gun. >> there's no specific thing. >> look at his press releases. look at his press releases. >> press release about what? >> anything -- >> that was in alaska in 2010. eric holder, the nation's first african american attorney general only served by the previous year, by 2010, he was the object of ornate fantasies. by people who really were invested in hating him. even for things he hadn't done. eric is holder served as attorney general from 2009 to 2015 where on the republican-controlled senate finally consented to swear in loretta lynch as his successor. eric holder served for 12 years in the justice department's public integrity unit before becoming a superior court judge in d.c. and becoming the u.s. attorney in d.c. and deputy

attorney general and then becoming attorney general. since leaving office as ag, he has returned to private practice to the law firm tonight he's here for his first live tv interview since president trump was sworn into office. thank you for being here. >> good to be here. >> have you seen that clip before? >> i have. i've saved it. i saw it on youtube and it's one of the watch later -- i watch it every now and again. >> i wonder if now that you are no longer the lightning rod that you once were, do you miss that at all? do you get any sort of perverse satisfaction from the hatred that you attracted? >> no, not really. you know, it was something that kind of baffled me. because i never quite understood like that piece that you showed, what was the nature of and the depth of the negative feelings they generated in people on the other side? i never quite understood that. >> you did in your time as attorney general, it didn't become more clear? >> no, no, never really did.

i, i said things in support of the program of the president, but there seemed to be a special an mouse that political washington and then people like that had for me, and you know, not totally sure what that was all about. >> there have been by the time you were sworn in, there had been 82 attorneys general. >> yes. >> 81. >> i was the 82nd. >> 82nd. so 80 of them, 79 of them, had been white men. >> right. >> alberto gonzalez had a term as attorney general that didn't end well. janet reno was the only woman who had served as attorney general before you and you're the first african american man to serve. the only have i tree yol that i've seen directed at a public official that was so divorced from the record, other than to a president was against janet reno. >> uh-huh. >> and my theory has been that the nation's top law enforcement officer is someone who evokes a different kind of emotional

reaction out of particularly a paranoid slice of the public. and it's there for just the hard place to be first. >> yeah. >> to break any sort of barrier. >> attorney general sits at the conjunction of law and policy and the justice department is in so many parts of so many people's lives. from national security things to civil rights, voting, that you are of presence in a way that other cabinet members are not. that is at least one of the reason why is perhaps, you know, i could ingender those kind of negative feelings most people saw me as representative of the obama administration, and for some, you know, for some. and i'm not saying this is for all, but for some, i think they were probably some racial issues. >> attorney general of the united states is often a lightning rod for criticism of the president of the united states. eric holder understood that to be just part of the gig. now though, we've got that gig inverted. where now the attorney general is a lightning rod for criticism

from the president, not for the president. more ahead. stay with us. nick was born to move.

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really? really? really? really? really? see zero in a whole new way. get zero down, zero deposit, zero first month's payment, and zero due at signing on select volkswagen models. now with the people first warranty. this january, cory booker made history when he became the first sitting united states senator to testify against another sitting u.s. senator. >> i know that some of my many colleagues aren't happy that i'm breaking with senate tradition to testify on the nomination of one of my colleagues, but i

believe like perhaps all of my colleagues in the senate that in the choice between standing with senate norms or standing up for what my conscious tells me is best for our country, i will always choose conscious and country. >> that senator who cory booker was breaking precedent for in the united states senate, it was republican senator jeff sessions of alabama. jeff sessions was a senate back bencher, a man whose nomination to be a district court judge had failed years before after accusations of racism against him. he was never a particularly senior senator or a particularly influential senator, but the hardline nature of his views did stand out over time. not just against illegal immigration, but against immigration, full stop. not just in favor of the drug war, but wanting one specifically against people who smoke pot. that made him a the favorite of the breitbart.com hardline part of the american conservative

media. he then became the first u.s. senator to endorse donald trump for president, and then once trump was president, sessions became the nations attorney general. now, jeff sessions' days may conceivably be numbered even there, as every day, there is a new opportunity for the foth pick a fight with him. eric holder explains just why that dynamic might actually be something dangerous for the country. in terms of the justice department as a national security agency, which in many ways it is, i've always wondered if -- if it fits the line of national security policy making, in the sense that it's less partisan than other types of domestic policy. what i mean by that is in my job, i'm often looking back into some time in the last couple of generations, looking for historical context or things that are happening now and public officials are national security figures, national

security advisor, defense secretary. i often have to look up what the partisan affiliation is, it's just often not that important. and there's a certain continuity and inertia in national security policy that transcends partisan wins. is that also true at justice? >> yes. and justice department officials have gotten in trouble when they have forgotten that the justice department really different from other agencies. i remember senator lei i had say, you're not the secretary of justice, you are the attorney general of the united states. and there has to be a wall between the justice department and the white house even though you're a part of the administration. put up kind of an interesting thing between me and a president who i was a friend with. certain things we couldn't discuss. certain things we didn't discuss. but i think that's an appropriate way for an attorney general to think of himself or herself and it's an appropriate way for the justice department to be run. >> is there more discontinuity between the justice department

under jeff sessions and the justice department under president obama than will there has been between previous administrations? >> i'm looking from outside, but it sure seems that way to me. there have been statements that this attorney general has made, attorney general sessions has made. the interactions he's had with the white house that are inconsistent with i think the way in which i conducted myself as attorney general and frankly the way in which i think my predecessors, many of my predecessors conducted themselves. certainly, berating that he reportedly took by the president was totally inconsistent with my experience, and again, i think inconsistent with all the previous attorneys generals that i'm aware of. >> is that just a matter of personality and washington personal drama or do you think that there is national consequence or risk associated with that, that strange thing that we saw unfold with the president berating his attorney general that way? >> i think that actually worries

me. i think it betrays a lack of understanding on the part of the president about what the role of the attorney general has to be. you can't go at the ag in that way. if you truly understand the independent role that he should play within the administration. they're going to be things that an attorney general is going to do that a president is not going to agree with. and a president has got to suck it up and say that the ag has the responsibility to enforce the laws. he's got national security responsibilities, and he is an independent actor in the way that other ab net officials are not. >> unless the president doesn't treat him that way. >> unless the president doesn't treat him in that way. history has shown us that when that wall is too low. that's when justice departments get in trouble during the nixon years, during the bush years. when we have white house contacts with the justice department and channels that are not approved. >> what's the corrective for that when it goes back? >> resignations, investigations,

public outcries. you know, there are really no formal things that can be done. ultimately, impeachment of an attorney general, something along those lines, but it really is a question of, you know, having a vibrant press focussed on these issues, and the american people keeping track of what's going on between doj and the white house. >> a vibrant press, last line of defense. both eric holder and hillary clinton in their interviews warned about shifting norms under president trump. affecting our government's institutions. secretary clinton had some insider information to offer on that front. that's coming up next, stay with us.

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charlie?! you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you. liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance. was supposed to be a wake reup call for our government?sh people all across the country lost their savings, their pensions and their jobs. i'm tom steyer and it turned out that the system that had benefited people like me who are well off, was, in fact, stacked against everyone else. it's why i left my investment firm and resolved to use my savings for the public good. but here we are nine years later and this president and the republican congress are making a bad situation even worse. they won't tell you that their so called "tax reform" plan is really for the wealthy and big corporations, while hurting the middle class. it blows up the deficit and that means fewer investments in education, health care and job creation. it's up to all of us to stand up to this president. not just for impeachable offenses, but also to demand a country

where everyone has a real chance to succeed. join us. your voice matters. it seems to you that defense secretary jim mattis may be effectively operating as both defense secretary and secretary of state. you were one of the highest profiles secretaries of state we had. rex tillerson is among the lowest, certainly the lowest in modern times. he has advocated a 30% cut to his own agency, he's left dozens of senior jobs unfilled as you said today. he told state department staff that his biggest goal for the state department is efficiency and that's why he wants to shrink the state department so much. they've even stopped doing daily press briefings. given the risk of nuclear war with north korea, given the sorts of diplomatic challenges that we've got around the country and around the world, why do you think they are

hollowing out the state department? >> well, i think think came in with preexisting conceptions about the state department and about diplomacy that were not particularly well-founded. it's not that we want to be more efficient, i had a process to make sure we became more efficient. but they came in if with a bias against diplomats and diplomacy. now the good news rachel is the budget that tillerson's been promoting has been rejected in the senate appropriations committee. the members of the senate have said, look, we've traveled the world, we know what our diplomats do on the front lines and we are not going to give you a 30% cut, and they basically came up with about the same amount of money. so, the congress is even recognizing that there is no strategy, there is no real plan, what i hear from inside the department, because i still have

a lot of communication coming to me is that there's a very small group of people around tillerson, none of them experienced diplomats that he has brought in to be his palace guard so to speak, they don't even reach out into the state department to talk to the people who have studied north korea for years. they're not getting the expertise and experience that is still at the state department. >> you think they're disdainful? >> i think they don't know what they don't know to be honest. i think that they had views that were superficial and i think the perspective of secretary tillerson was as a chief executive officer where you tell people what to do, you tell kim jong-un what to do, you tell people that, you know, you have a different plan, you know, the world is a really complex place and it's about a lot of things that people in the state department have had experience

with and at least should be brought to the table and listened to which i don't think is happening. >> do you think that it was inherently a bad idea to take somebody who had been a lifer at exxon, somebody who only in his adult life only worked at exxon. the immediate ceo to put him immediately in charge of diplomacy. which you were secretary of state, rex tillerson went to vladimir putin's house on the black sea -- >> right. >> to celebrate exxon and russia signing half trillion dollar oil deal, probably the biggest in the history of oil. >> right. putin later awarded him the russian order of friendship when another part of that deal closed. was he a strange choice for the job as being the ceo of exxon inappropriate experience to bring to the job that he's trying to do now? >> i think it's very limited experience. i think there have been in our past people with extensive business experience, ceo positions, other kinds of

private sector work. that i believe could have gotten into this position and had a better understanding of what's required in the 21st century. i don't know that he was a particularly bad choice from the very beginning, i mean, i didn't know anything about him, other than what you just said basically, but he never reached out to anybody. he's never zd people, you know, there used to be a tradition, republican, democratic administrations, you would come in and the prior secretaries of state would all get together and have a dinner and talk. and oftentimes you would be on the other end of a phone call saying that what did you deal with on this or could you tell me some more about that? i've talked to a few of the other secretaries of state that are still around and nobody's heard anything, whether they were republican or democrat. >> and you haven't had communication with him?

>> i met him at the inauguration lunch and that was it. and then you've got somebody like steve bannon who is clearly wielding influence from the outside who, you know, recently spewed contempt about some excellent american public servants including two prior republican secretaries of state and one prior republican national security advisor. so the attitude was so negative and, you know, why take a job that you're not willing to really dive into and learn about and you come in with preconceptions and you have a model that you're trying to put on top of an institution that has so much inherent strength even though yeah, does it have problems? everything in government does. that's not a big surprise, but then not to want to learn. i kept waiting for the aha moment where you'd hear the

secretary call in people and say hey, tell me what i don't know. tell me what i need to know. let's listen, from what i hear that doesn't happen, and in fact there's a concerted effort to prevent that from happening. well, like most of you, i just bought a house.

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here's my question for you, having been through your trump ringer, do you have any advice for his staff? >> well, this is a man who

engages in humiliation and domination as a tactic of control. and he acted out on the national stage first in the republican primary and then continuing into the general election. and i think for a lot of people watching, the public and the press, it was hard to turn away from. you haven't seen somebody at that high of a level aiming for a job that's the most important in the world who behaves like that. who says what he says. who delights in mocking people, attacking people. so i think that's pretty deeply embedded in his character. and i think going forward any effort to try to contain him which i know some in the white house and in the broader administration have been trying to do is especially important

when it comes to consequential decisions. i think the goal might well have been psychologically to really make jeff sessions who's a very proud man, i served with him in the senate, didn't agree with him on anything, but i did serve with him, to make him just be more dependent on pleasing the president. whatever he could do, delivering that speech about daca only to have trump a few days later say hey, just kidding, we're going to do something that'll keep these young strivers in our country. it's all part of his manipulation, that is who he is, that's how he behaves. so i'm hoping that the people who have a mature view of the exercise of power when it comes to something like north korea, like that when it comes to something incredibly stupid, given north korea pulling out of

the iran deal, so we'd have a second nuclear crisis to contend with, i'm hoping that on the really big issues, there's enough authority to be able to restrain and contain the president. that's what we all have to hope because i think this president and some of the people around him pose a clear and present danger to our country. domestically to our institutions of democracy, our self-governess, our rule of law, internationally, in so many ways because of the unpredictability then the fact that there is no strategic plan, there's just a reactive, emotional, visceral kind of behavior. so i can only hope and every american that thinks about this can only hope that people who know better, who have experience and who realize that, you know, this country of ours is really worth defending and protecting

will be able to prevent anything really bad from happening. it's a horrible thing to have to say about anybody in that office. >> on the question of the presidency and the president proves for american norms, for the rule of law. i want to ask you about the lock her up thing. >> yeah. >> which started off as sort astonishing thing then became a regular daily feature of the campaign. the president and his supporters calling for your arrest, calling for you to be jailed, he has kept up his rallies as president and that is still a regular thing that they chant when he mentions you as he always does. do you take that literally? do you worry they might try to gin up a prosecution against you? >> well, i know there's nothing there, so i don't take it substantively as much of a worry, but here's what i do

believe. i believe that trump admires aauthoritarians, he doesn't just like putin, he wants to be like putin. he want to have that kind of power that is largely unaccountab unaccountable, unchecked. and when i first heard that, especially at these rallies that, you know, were incites violence and insulting people and all the rest of it, i thought it was bizarre kind of, you know, really unbecoming somebody who's running for president. then when they moved it into his convention and it was being done from the platform and people were chanting it and screaming it, i thought, wow, this is unlike anything i have ever read about our seen in presidential conventions. every kind of political barrier that should have restrained this president and those urging him on was broken through.

and so, i don't personally worry, i have no doubt into serious political trouble, you know, about me or president obama, we are his two favorite targets. but i worry that it is indicative of the kind of self-image that he has not only of himself but of what the president should be able to do. and that's why it's really imperative that the republicans in congress reign that in. that's part of the reason i mentioned on the state department, you know, standing up to some of these very foolish plans that they have. why the press has to hold him more accountable than it did during the campaign. and why the people around him have to be our first line of defense against him doing something that could have serious repercussions. >> placing a lot of hope for the

country in the wisdom of the people who surround him. >> well, it's not -- we don't have much else to place it on right now. he is somebody who doesn't listen and pursues his own interests as he perceives them. and is very emotionally reactive. so on the small stuff, you know, they may not be able to stop him. they may need to hold their fire until something is serious enough to intervene.

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try to end political jerry handering to the extent that we can. and i'll see. i'm not saying no at this point, but that's not the focus of what i'm concentrating on. >> you're not working on the redistricting project because it's part of a larger project in terms of you getting back into public life? >> no, and i'm not being hyperbolic here. i think our democracy is under attack. if you look at jerry handering in a way we have a system where politicians are picking their voters as opposed to picking their representatives. if you look at the way in which these voters suppression laws have been passed, we're coming to be a country that is inconsistent with our founding ideals and the notion of one man, one vote is really under attack. and i'm bound and determined to do all that i can to reverse that which has happened over the

last decade. >> i think you and president obama surprised a lot of people in early january when you announced you were going to work on this project together on redistricting. in part because redistricting and gerrymandering is an old political problem, it's not novel. and each party has used it to their own advantage in different ways and different times and they've been -- people have sort of been better or worse at it in different eras. are you and president obama working on this because you want democrats to compete better at this time at the old project of redirecting and gerrymandering or are you trying to eliminate it in general in a good government kind of way? >> a couple things. princeton did a study and said that what the republicans did in 2011 when they do the lines was the worst partisan gerrymandering over the last 50 years. what we are engaged in and this sounds inconsistent, partisan attempt at good government, all i want to have done in 2021 after the census is the lines be drawn in a fair way and make this a battle between republican

ideas, democratic ideas, liberal ideas, progressive ideas, and conservative ideas. if that is the case. if that is the contest, but what i do not want to have happen is for this to be a successful effort and have democrats in 2021 do what republicans do in 2011. that is not what this project is all about. >> you feel like republicans kind of ran the table on this when they do their project in 2010 that set them up in a way that tilted the playing field. what you want is to tilt it back and fix the system. >> tilt it back, but get it to disfair. not to favor democrats, but just get it to a place where the lines are drawn in such a way that people truly have a choice. have more competitive districts at the congressional level to have representation at the state level that's consistent with the wishes of the voters. if you look at wisconsin, for instance, it's about a 5050 state, republicans control two-thirds of the state assembly and when you control for

everything else, it's just a function in which the way the lines were drawn in 2011. >> so i knee in this project you're working on ballot initiatives in some places where they're going to do nonpartisan redirecting. you' -- redistricting. you're working on litigation strategy, you're also working on supporting individual democratic candidates in state legislatures whose election would be key in terms of what control of redistricting would look like right there. that's a comprehensive tragedy that makes this sort of make or break this as a strategy. what i don't get is why this effort is going to succeed. i feel like i've heard so much democratic hot air on we've got to work on the states, we've got to work on redistricting. i feel like there's been so many projects launched that were going to do this that never really seemed to, why is yours going to have traction? >> i think ours is organized, first off, it is also the only thing that is within the democratic party that has sole

responsibility this whole notion of redirecting, and then i think the other reality in the trump era. and i think people have seen over the past decade what partisan gerrymandering on the republican side has meant. where you have state legislatures that pass these crazy gun laws. these anti-choice laws. these voter suppression laws that are not necessarily supported by the people in those states. we have seen a dysfunctional congress, where people come to congress, especially on the republican side, and because of gerrymandering, you're in a seat and you're more worried about being challenged by a person on the right. you're worried about being primaried as opposed to the general election. and that means that you have dysfunction in washington because people don't necessarily have to talk to one another. they don't have to compromise. in fact that's a bad thing for somebody who is in a jerry mannered district. i think dissatisfaction with the dysfunction, the concern about what trump, the trump administration has been doing, and the way in which this thing

is constructed within the party. and the support frankly that we have gotten and having -- >> raised more than 10e million the first half of the year. >> and having the former president of the united states support this. i think this can be successful. >> i should mention that in the wake of that statewide election of virginia earlier this month, the richmond times dispatch published an editorial about the fact that democrats earned a majority of votes in the house of delegates over 200,000 more votes for democrats than for republicans. if you only look at the candidates, democrats won 55% of the vote in virginia's legislative races this month. republicans won 45% of the vote. and yet, despite democrats winning so many more votes than the republicans, despite democrats beating the republicans by almost ten points, democrats are still fighting to win enough seats to control the house of delegates. richmond times dispatch wrote quote, this year a democratic

tidal wave erased much of the gop's gerrymandering advantage, but not entirely. that does it for us tonight. we will see you again next week. now it's time for the good evening, i'm lawrence o'donnell and this is our special thanksgiving week edition of "the last word" with conversations of rachel maddow and steven colbert and the economist i most want to hear from about the impact of the trump tax cuts but first as president trump gets ready for his first semester final exam on tax cuts how does the rest of his report card look? >> he has 24 hours after donald trump's presidential inauguration, people fill the streets of america cities and capitals around the world. >> far more people marching for women rights than inauguration. >> the president late today signing an order for what he calls extreme vetting. >> protests at airports across the country as more than 100 people were detained.