unstopand it's strengthenedting place, the by xfi pods,gateway. which plug in to extend the wifi even farther, past anything that stands in its way. ...well almost anything. leave no room behind with xfi pods. simple. easy. awesome. click or visit a retail store today. that does it for me. i'll be back here tomorrow morning at 8:00 eastern time. it's time now for "am joy" with joy reid. >> somebody called the county commission to complain because they saw all these black folks

get on this big black bus, the blackest bus in america, somebody drove past, saw that, got nervous, got mad, called the county commissions office, which then called the center, and the bottom line was all the folks who had just got on the bus, the bus was full, a 50 passenger bus, full of folk, had to come off the bus. >> none of what happened was a real issue, what it was, it was an intimidation factor, right? but it ain't going to stop us. can't stop, won't stop. can't stop, won't stop. >> well, good morning and welcome to "am joy" live from los angeles where we are today for politicon. the saudi arabias are finally admitting what we already know. also, as we count down to election day, just 17 short days from now, the justice department has charged a russian national for attempting to meddle, not in 2016, but in the upcoming midterms. much more on that. but first, what you heard a

moment ago was part of yet another apparent voter suppression effort in georgia. a group of african-american senior citizens forced off a bus, taking them to a polling site after county officials said the event was a prohibited political activity. this has georgia's secretary of state and republican candidate for governor brian kim stands by his decision to place some 53,000 voter registrations of mostly black voters on hold because he claims they don't meet the standards of the state's exact match law. meanwhile, another equally disturbing story, flew mostly under the radar this week with the exception, of course, of our friend rachel maddow. tens of thousands of native americans in north dakota could be turned away from polling sites. now that the supreme court has upheld changes to the state's voter id law. a voter's residential address must now appear on an id card in order to vote. now, that might not sound like

much of a hardship. but it's sure to disenfranchise most native americans who live live on the state's five reservations and often use po boxes. the id law could further hurt heidi heitkamp's reelection campaign as democrats try to use that seat to take control of the united states senate. heitkamp won her first election in 2012 by fewer than 3,000 votes thanks in large part to native american voters. joining me now is kareem jean pierre. greg palace who just sued the georgia secretary of state. la tasha brown, co-founder of black voters matter, she was one of the organizers on the bus with those senior citizens on monday. and oj semens, a member of the rosebud sioux tribe. thank you all very much.

got a smors board of people to talk to. we opened with that video, can't stop, won't stop, you guys are refusing to be held back from voting in the state of georgia. can you tell us whether or not most of the african-americans on that bus were able, ultimately, to vote? >> they were. that was a good question. they were able to vote. we actually went down that incident happened on monday. we went back down to jefferson county on wednesday. pry hairly for the purpose of checking in with the seniors. we had already started organizing to make provisions to make sure they would go vote. some of them, because this wasn't a nursing home facility. this was just a community center that seniors had gone to. some of them left immediately after they got off the bus went and got in their cars and went to vote. others that didn't have transportation, they were actually provided, the next day or so, on that tuesday, the county did wind up providing a van where some of them went to vote and some went with their

own families. we actually checked with our organizer who was based there so make sure that they knew that we had provisions to get them to the polls, that nothing was going to stop us from making sure that their right to vote was honored. >> and let me read a statement from jefferson county, georgia. now, for those who are not familiar with georgia, and i was talking with friend of mine who's listen elected official in georgia about the incredible increases in turnout in what's called the black bet. jefferson county is one of those counties predominantly african-american, people are voting in some cases, 200% or better, more than they did in 2014. so it kind of tells you why you're seeing voter suppression. jefferson county administrators felt uncomfortable with allowing senior is center patrons to lea the facility in a bus. are the certain citizens not adults of capable making a decision who they get on a bus with. why is this statement making it sound as if they are wards of the state?

>> that's precisely the problem. that's why we have to think about how these officials actually are abusing their power. this wasn't a facility where the residents, they were residents of this particular facility, they were patrons of this facility. some of them drive, others are all independent living. able-bodied adults. it's really interesting that at the end of the day, he says, this county administrator says he was uncomfortable. obviously the people we had spent two hours with and actually asked and requested to get on the bus, they were very comfortable with riding with us. so it's interesting that he would think that his ability -- that he could make a decision, and make a choice for able-bodied adult people who decided to ride and actually requested to ride on the bus with us. >> yeah, where have we seen in history black people, people of color being treated like children, even when they're adults? i'm trying to think of where that was, when that might have been. somewhere in history. maybe we'll google it and think

about it later. let me go over to oj, not only are african-americans being treated as if they were somehow not capable of deciding who to get on a bus with, because they want to go vote. you now have native americans getting the same treatment in north dakota, there's a history there in terms of making it not easy for native americans to vote. tell us a little bit about what's going on there, native americans who do not have the id card that's wanted by the secretary of state who also, just like in georgia, is running for governor, are they going to be able to vote? >> well, first of all, good morning. yeah, they're trying to make it so that the native americans can't vote. i can tell you that the tribes have gotten together united, they're all working on meeting the requirements of the court. and we have the tribal members going door to door. so i think, if anything, they awoke a giant instead of putting

it to a whisper. you're going to hear a thunder. >> sorry, i got that wrong. there's so many secretaries of state who are trying to bioengineer their own election to governor. that's kansas where you have kris kobach, secretary of state. in north dakota this is about high key heitkamp. 23,268 people, 4% of the state's population. how important is the native american community to heidi h e heitkamp's election, is that what this is about, oj? >> in my opinion, yes, it is because the legislature didn't start changing the requirements until her win in 2012. it was 2013 when the action started requiring different things on the id. but what's really strange in this case is that during the primary the id that native americans had in north dakota were perfect. you could use that, they went and voted, and then comes the general election and everything

changes, all of a sudden they require physical addresses in order to be eligible to vote. >> all right. let me come to the panel. let me come to the panel here at the table. because, you know, it is uncanny that you have -- president obama wince the election, and then all the sudden the john roberts supreme court says we don't need the voting rights act anymore, racism is over, let's make it easier to make it harder for people to vote. that happens. you now have in georgia, obviously, a senior citizen, african-americans being pulled off a bus because they can't decide who to get on a bus with. let me show you an ad that kemp's office just took down featuring children and who gets to vote and who gets a provisional ballot. interesting ad, take a look. i think it's just video. i don't know that we have the audio. as you can see in the ad, the white little girl gets a ballot -- >> if you vote a provisional ballot. you have three days after election day to return to the county elections office to show

your identification for your ballot to be accepted and counted. if you don't return, your ballot will be rejected and it will not count. please note -- >> it's crazy. >> am i paranoid why the black girl -- >> you're not paranoid. they're not even trying to hide it anymore. they're just being bold about it. we were talking about that last night. the two of us. here's the thing, there is something that we're seeing over and over again. democrats are not trying to suppress the vote. it's republicans who are trying to suppress the vote. you see them as governors and you see them as secretary of state. but it's been four -- it's a systematic thing. it's been happening for a long time. yes, in 2013, the supreme court decided to gut the voting rights act. but republicans have been planning this for a long time, for decades, spending tens of millions of dollars, making sure they win the governor's seats, that they're winning secretary of state seats, that they're winning those state house, nonstate legislative seat because they want to put up these awful voter suppression

laws which is racism, to make it difficult for people of color to vote and it really -- this is why early voting is so important. because it's not about just convenience. it is about just being able to exercise your right to vote because they -- >> and making sure you're on the rolls. >> they will take it away from you and they are doing that across the country. >> you and i first met, greg, by phone in 2000. the first go round when you had this sort of pretty open caging of voters, saying, washington, jefferson, jackson, gonzales, you might not be eligible to vote, surprise, you're black or brown, but it seems to me, and you tell me, because you're in this business as a journalist covering this, is it more aggressive this year, is it more frantic, the attempts to basically engineer an electorate with as few black and brown asian-american and native american people in it as possible? >> i have never seen anything like it in 18 years. you're referring back to when bush won the presidency by 300

votes. >> correct. >> his secretary of state katherine harris removed 58,000 black people from the voter rolls saying they were felons, their only crime, every single one was innocent, the only crime was voting while black. i thought that was bad. it's gone wild. yesterday i sued brian kemp in a federal court. the reason is, i looked at the data, on threat of a federal suit. he gave me his voter files. they cancelled 550,000 voter registrations in georgia. that's brian kemp, he's running for governor. he cancels half a million people off the voter rolls. and the reason is, they left the state, a few died, 19,000. but i had computer experts, the best people in the nation, who check people's addresses. the guy is hunting you down to make your pay your bills or send you catalogs. >> right. >> they went through name by name. kemp didn't realize i was going to do this. they went through name by name,

340,134 georgians did not move from their registration addresses. they got removed. they've been given no notice, joy, no notice that they've been removed. >> they're going to show up to vote and being told they're not on the voter rolls. >> are you ready for this? brian kemp. they'll be given provagsal ballots. >> like the little black girl in the ad. >> like the little black girl. in this case you still won't be able to vote. you'll think you'll have voted. you're going to have a massive number of provisional ballots and brian kemp gets to count those ballots. >> i think that's part of -- and it's not just -- i think it's not just on the top level, it's all the way down on the county level. and particularly in these rural counties like we saw in jefferson county, but that's absolutely right, what we've been seeing is this slow roll around voter suppression. we've been talking to people, there are folks that are even concerned whether they're on the voting polls, voting rolls or

not, and i think that's why we've got to -- we've really got to respond to this by really resisting. we've got to respond to this and expose this, that is happening and has been happening, particularly in the south, which is part of the reason why black voters matter is doing what we're doing, it's really critical for us to know that it's happening on multiple levels. it's happening on the governor's level, on the secretary of state's level. it's happening in -- we see the state house passing policy. we see on county levels, people making decisions based on their own assumptions. we've got to really think about how -- and i think it's really critical that what we saw is it certainly got worse when there was a gutting of the voting rights act. if section 5 had been in place there would be some protection mek anymores in place to address this. >> it does feel like the vote -- getting rid of the voting rights act. something john roberts wanted to do since he was in the reagan

administration, believingst unfair to the south. unif un fair to fetter them. they went right after it. how many states you now have databases in where people can find out if they've been taken off the rolls of republican secretaries of state. >> we have six bases up. go to gregpalast.com, find out if you've been purged. >> kansas, indiana. >> indiana, kansas, and indiana, by the way, the lawyer for the state admitted, after i went through their voter files, that they have removed tens of thousands of people in violation of a court order. and they're removing people because chris kobach of kansas, the purgeon general of the united states, the vote hunter, created these lists called cross checklists which he sent to a couple dozen republican states.

they're using it to say people have moved out of the state. we've checked the list. checked the people they've removed for moving. they haven't moved. i had a veteran, african-american veteran. he moved from illinois more than ten years ago. he voted for obama in two elections in georgia, and they threw him off the list, said he moved back to illinois, because his old registration was sitting there. kemp threw him off the voter rolls because kobach gave him this phony list of people to remove. people who have supposedly moved and they haven't. i've got databases illinois, ohio up, nebraska, we've got illinois and indiana, nevada where it's a very, very close race, 90,000 people removed in reno and vegas. >> and so what's basically we're talking about here, because in ohio you also have brian husted, the secretary of state who would also like to be governor, people bio engineering their own election. >> they should resign.

if you're secretary of state, you're the vote counter, you generally, tradition is to resign when you're running for governor. a lot of people do that. kemp won't to it in georgia, kobach won't do it in kansas. >> let me get o oj semans here. how how old they ensure they can actually cast a ballot? >> well, we've been working with the tribes. the tribes have been issuing ids. we're going out, identifying those individuals that don't have them. we're bringing them in. we also worked with a tribe in creating a fail safe precinct map in which if they come in we can assign them a physical address. we also worked it out so they have a letter with a name, date of birth and physical address that the tribal issues. we are finding means and ways to make sure that they can vote. >> that people can vote.

latosha, give us your website so people can get information about your organization. >> yes, www.blackvotersmatter fund.org. you can also find us on twitter@black voters matter. mtr. >> palast. p-a-l-a-s-t. >> we've been here before. thank you very much greg palast, latosha brown. protect your right to vote. if you show up and they say you're not on the rolls, do not leave. call for help, get a lawyer, do whatever you have to do. protect your right to vote. me on the soap box, jumping off the soap box now. up next, the russians are

also at it again, as if meddling in the 2016 general election was not enough, now the russians are meddling in the 2018 midterms. true story. we'll be back. guys, you ready? guys, you ready? hi! cinturones por favor. gracias. opportunity is everywhere. ♪ it's gonna be fine. it's a door... ♪ it's doing a lot of kicking down there. waiting to be opened. ♪ whatever your ambition... ♪ whatever your drive... ♪ whatever you're chasing... driver, are we almost there? we're gonna have a baby! ♪ daddy! daddy! opportunity is everywhere. ♪

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>> indictment against a russian national accused of trying to influence the election. >> nothing to do with my campaign. all of the hackers and all of the -- everybody that you see,

nothing to do with my campaign. if they're hackers, a lot of them probably like hillary clinton better than me. >> oh, those russians and their love affair with hillary clinton. the latest charges against a russian national comes just two weeks before the midterms. nbc news reports that charges aren't coming out of robert mueller's office. but interestingly enough the russian woman under indictment worked for a company owned by a friend of vladimir putin who's already been indicted by special counsel robert mueller's team. the justice department's complaint says the social media influence campaign began shortly after donald trump was elected until around this past may. and included a wide variety of topics including immigration, gun control, the second amendment, confederate flag, race relations, lgbt issues, the women's march and the nfl national anthem debate. joining me is malcolm nance and

mimi rocah. malcolm, we were talking about the fact that i feel like we've been talking about for ten years the same thing, groundhogs day, two years and three months. >> any moment now i expect to here "i got you babe". >> i think so. i play that every time you're on. the thing that's galling for americans who actually understand how horrific it is for foreign government interfering in our election is the fact that not only did russia not stop, they've doubled their spin and doubled down on using right wing media to influence the voting behavior you. >> because it's successful. you literally have the pinnacol american in the united states, donald trump saying none of this is happening, don't believe anything you're seeing. on the other hand, you have the people who are opposed to this are trying to explain it and they don't use the words where the average american can understand it. >> right, right. >> you would call our first day that we talked about this, the only way to phrase this is we

were attacked. >> right. >> and we are continuing to be attacked. we are under attack. >> is this cyberwarfare? >> it customer service as -- hybrid warfare because it's informs warfare, propaganda, and intelligence and special operations. this woman who was just indicted. she was the follow-on successor to the internet research agency. her job was to effect this year's elections, the 2018 elections, start rg out in 2016, and spray that information back out into the cybersphere. >> right. >> on both sides. she wasn't just doing the right. the point is -- i said this yesterday. they are very, very attuned to the united states. they watch the united states public in realtime. and they show -- they watch every word donald trump says. they watch this program. we know. for a fact that they watch this

program. and they will craft their propaganda products and disseminate them in realtime. they have weaponized freedom of speech. the only way to defeat it is awareness. hopefully facebook and twitter would take actions. >> mimi, potentially indicting and prosecuting to potentially the people doing it. in this case, they're going after the pay master, the woman who's writing the checks. can you explain, since it is related to russian interference, why is it not coming out of the mueller team? >> well, i think, joy, that there's a couple of reasons. one is i think mueller views his role appropriately as investigating anything related to the 2016 election. technically, while this is related to that because it's really, as malcolm said, the same group of people, i mean, you can, you know, call these organizations by different

names. you can name different individuals, but this is all one giant conspiracy. but now we're looking at their attack on the 2018 elections. and so i think mueller appropriately decided that's sort of out of his, you know, bandwidth, not something that he should appropriately be doing. >> right. >> and, you know, again, i think this points to people who like to attack mueller, this is exactly the kind of thing mueller takes seriously, he takes his mandate seriously, interprets it as narrowly as he can doing his job. it's completely appropriate. also it does put in a safety net for these kind of cases. we're concerned about mueller, we're concerned about how the special counsel's work is going to get out. but once you put something in a regular old u.s. attorney's office, which there are hundreds of around the country, you know, there is really very little that anybody can do to stop that from getting out, particularly when you're talking about publicly filed charges, which this is. this is a prosecutor's way, the

department of justice's way of speaking is through charged instruments. >> absolutely. and also because malcolm, robert mueller in some cases is a victim of it. one of the propaganda sets is to attack robert mueller. a lot of things you hear donald trump do, interestingly enough, whether you hear his -- in congress, republicans do or conservative media do, that's what these trolls are doing. they're saying robert mueller is a bad guy and that kind of thing. >> yeah, this is the amplification of the signal that's already out there. >> right. >> and so what you do is if somebody says something, donald trump makes a negative statement, it goes back to the internet research agency and their subcontractors. they make up a propaganda product, ironically isn't the intelligence community is called a p.p., they disseminate that propaganda product, by using the bandwidth that the trump campaign could never imagine and also the exponential factor of it replicates through his supporters and around the world. robert mueller does not care. i know if he's listening he really doesn't care because i

think this particular prosecution is very interesting. she was the pay master. >> right. >> this allows him to go after putin's -- >> his chef. >> he's actually chief of dirty tricks. this is the guy who runs mercenaries in syria. he supplies all the food to the russian army and every school. he's the head of the russian space agency, a new twist to that. but he's still a businessman. and by going after his pay master, you can now go after his finances. and you hit them where it hurts. then you can say, well, all of this money was used in an illicit, continuing criminal enterprise and we're going to seize those assets worldwise. >> seeding the assets. very quickly, mimi, can you actually prosecute these people because they're not here? >> not if they don't -- you can. you can file charges. he's done that with concord management and other russian entities already, the ira,

internet research agency. he can charge them. the department of justice can charge them. whether they actually ever get them to show up in court, you know, they would have to have them travel somewhere, be able -- there are ways to get them. and, you know, look, it is a little bit intriguing to me this was done by a complaint as opposed to an indictment. the complaint was under seal for a while. there are some theories out there that they had word this woman was going to travel. we don't have any indication of that so far. we'll see. but, you know, whether or not they ever get them, the bodies here, so to speak, this obviously is a way of sounding the alarm system for the public. that's one important purpose of this. showing that, you know, how much our intel and investigatory agencies know. this is such a detailed indictment, and russia should know that we're watching. >> forewarned is forearmed,

hopefully. malcolm and mimi will both be back with us. up next, the killing of journalist jamal khashoggi.

is saudi government has finally acknowledged the death of journalist jamal khashoggi.

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>> saudi arabia's been a great ally. what happened is unacceptable. we have going to see they've arrested just for the people at the table a large number of people having to do with the event that took place in turkey in the consulate, the saudi consulate. and it's a big first step.

it's only a first step, but it's a big first step. >> nearly 17 days after "washington post" columnist jamal khashoggi walked into the saudi consulate in istanbul, turkey and never came out, the saudi government has finally officially acknowledged that he is, in fact, dead. contradicting their earlier claims that khashoggi left the consulate alive shortly after he looifd. the announcement included a remarkable claim that a fistfight between khashoggi and 15 saudis inside the consulate, one of whom was carrying a bone saw, according to turkish officials, led to his death. we already knew the saudi government planned to name scapegoats for the death. that has, in fact, happened. five top officials have been fired, and 18 other saudis have been arrested. as of now the saudi government remains adamant that crown prince mo lauhammed mohammad bi

nothing to do with the killing. it's inconceivable to say he had no connection, but they have no direct evidence connecting him to it. the white house released a statement friday acknowledging the statement, and not saying much else. many questions still remain, including the whereabouts of khashoggi's body. ej, i'll go to you first, so many disturbing things about this. it's hard no know where to begin. you have a president of the united states who actually floated the theory of the case that the saudis were then going to float themselves, the sort of rogue actors theory. they go ahead and float that theory, name a scapegoat, donald trump's administration says very little. we are still nowhere further than where we were, right? >> right. this is a remarkable thing that over the last several days it's as if you had both a private and a public negotiation between trump and the saudis where he floated the idea that, well,

maybe it's rogue killers as we put it. and then lo and behold yesterday that's exactly the kind of explanation they came up with after, by the way, denying this for a long time. there are a lot of people who are not at all persuaded by the saudi story. one of them is senator lindsey graham who's been very pro-trump for a long time, but not on this. he said to say i am skeptical of the new narrative about mr. khashoggi is an understatement. and i think that trump would like to stay close to saudi arabia. i think all of us would like to know more about what his business dealings are with saudi arabia. but i don't think the congress, even republicans, are going to see it easily after this murder. i think mbs, as the crown prince is known, is in a lot of trouble over time. this is a step that i think he's done a lot of dangerous things, i think he crossed a very

dangerous line here. and obviously the crime itself was horrific. >> but, you know, e.j., you're more optimistic than i am. i have to be honest about whether or not the republicans -- they want to sound stuff now. but lindsey graham and the rest have all been just such absolute donald trump -- they've shown no ability to distance themselves from the president at all. sure, they want to now sound tough and they want to have the media praise them as taking a hard line. but this is donald trump being asked if the saudi account is credible. i have a question for you on the other side. >> do you consider it credible, their explanation? >> i do, i do. m again, it's early. we haven't finished our review or investigation. but i think it's a very important first step and it happened sooner than people thought it would happen. >> i mean, e.j., what's the over/under on how long it will take lindsey graham to repeat that? >> i will bow to no one in my

pessimism about republicans in congress and trump. of course you're right that they have folded again and again. but the one area where they have occasionally said this is too far is foreign policy and somebody like lindsey graham feels more strongly, i think, about foreign policy than anything else. and what trump seems to be doing here is breaking with our own intelligence agencies in his assessment, as you reported earlier, our own intelligence folks think that mbs was involved. they can't see how he wasn't. you may well be right. as i say, i think pessimism is the right general attitude. but i think this touched something that may keep republican resistance alive a little bit longer than usual. >> let me go to mimi. i love an optimistic voice. e.j., thank you for supplying. you have some republicans that are floating, really, dirt about khashoggi, they're smearing him.

and these are more of the house republicans that are donald trump's sort of -- his squad, right, that pretty much ride for him no matter what happens and they're already participating in the smearing of this dead man, of this journalist, this "washington post" journalist. and then on top of that you have a congress that is not exactly being tough on the clause -- this is eric trump saying two things that are patently not true about his father's investments and where he's gotten his money. take a listen. >> there's zero investments in russia, zero investments in saudi. we have absolutely nothing to do with those countries. >> mimi, you'll recall that eric is the same trump who said we're seeing increasing money coming out of the russia, who said that to a golf magazine, unprompted and who his father has bragged about how much he's -- how much money he's made from the saudis. donald trump sold a floor of trump world tower to the saudi government, explored building a hotel in saudi arabia during the campaign for president.

donald trump's washington hotel was paid $270,000 by lobby ists frd saudi embassy. his personal, financial ties keep getting tangled up with his job. and his sons' denials notwithstanding, is there any confidence we should have in nevada them? >> no, absolutely no confidence. and here's the problem, right, this is a fundamental overarching problem with the trump presidency. we as the american people can never know whether trump is acting -- whether rightly or wrongly, whether you agree with the policies or not, whether he's acting in -- trying to act in the interests of the american public, the country, its safety and security, or whether he's acting because of his own financial interests. and over and over again it seems, with russia, with saudi arabia, that he is acting because of his financial interests, his own personal

financial entanglements. it's not dissimilar to how he treats, you know, information that comes out of our intel agencies, again, about russia, probably about what happened here with the killing. he denies it. he can't acknowledge it because he thinks it will make him personally look bad as opposed to approaching this as most presidents would and have, which is, you know, what is in the best interest of the country? >> yeah. >> and the strategy that's been crewsed here by saudi arabia is exactly like the strategy that's been used by trump with respect to the russia investigation, right, with russia first it was we didn't meet with the russians. then it was we met with them, but we talked about adoptions. then it was, okay, we talked about the election, but nothing illegal happened. and now here with saudi arabia it's he left the embassy, he's alive, okay, no, he's not alive, it was rogue killers. and now it is -- >> they got in a fight. >> he got in a fight. but these changing stories is very telling about -- >> they're using -- >> they can't keep their story

straight. >> the thing is, what a lot of people fear, malcolm, the next step will be then you've got these guys who can then say they did it. then what happens? >> well, i'm going to make a couple predictions about what's going to happen here. advice to the government of saudi arabia, o.j. simpson is available as a consultant for them to find out who exactly did this. who's going to help them with the killer? what's going to happen here is this, because i've worked there my entire career, one, the youngest of that hit team is going to be singled out and he is going to either be executed or he is going to be disappeared in some way. his tribe and his family will be oweed a favor by the king of saudi arabia. the rest of them will all be banished to mecca. mbs will get out of this scott clear. you will hear a letter of intent on weapons sales to the united states that donald trump can walk around the campaign trail. >> your predictions have proved very prussian in the past.

we will look for that checklist coming up. malcolm nance, e.j. dion, mimi rocah, thank you. they defend trump, don't do much more than that. more on that. . i like your card, but i'm absolutely not paying . an annual fee. discover has no annual fees. really? yeah. we just don't believe in them. oh nice. you would not believe how long i've been rehearsing that. no annual fee on any card. only from discover.

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what i would do, i know what i'm going to do. i'm going to sanction the hell out of saudi arabia. >> we have to take some sort of economic sanctions. we have to put a clear statement out demonizing them. >> we lose our moral standing to criticize putin for murdering people, assad for murdering people. we can't say anything about that if we allow saudi arabia to do it. >> there was lots of tough talk this week from congressional republicans, even before saudi arabia admitted that "washington post" journalist jamal khashoggi was killed. but how authentic tractor-trailer outthe outrage from a party that exists to cling to power and defend their dear leader, donald trump. on friday "the washington post" reported that some conservatives are actually mounting a whisper campaign to smear jamal khashoggi, and right on cue, to

defend trump's response. joining me now to discuss this, craig unger, author of "house of bush, house of sod." i want to play you fox news which is the best way to gauge what the thinking is inside of the trump white house. here's harris faulkner talking about the late jamal khashoggi. >> now some things have come out and we're just reporting the facts. you know, lisa, we don't have to fall down one way or the other on this but khashoggi was tied to the muslim brotherhood. >> that's iffy. >> i just put it out there because it is a constellation of -- >> craig, that same talking point has been coming out of saudi arabia and found its way into the american media. we are used to now putin's russia having that kind of sort of information flow into the american right.

how long has saudi arabia been at that game? >> i think it's worth going back to 9/11 and it's interesting, on 9/11 there were 15 out of the 19 hijackers were saudis and right after the murder of 3,000 people in the united states you saw the saudi pr machine go into action. the prince went on the air and said osama bin laden was not a saudi when, in fact, he was. that was in many ways a saudi operation that was whitewashed for many years. here again, we have 15 saudis going into the saudi embassy in istanbul in turkey two weeks ago and again we see a new whitewash coming up by smearing khashoggi. >> we've also seen some republican members of congress echoing that same smear campaign. follow the money is usually a pretty good strategy in terms of trying to figure out what's going on in the world. "time" magazine reports that

saudi spending on lobbying in the united states, $10 million in 2016, jumped to $27 million in 2017. according to foreign influence transparency initiative, in 2017 saudi lobbyists contacted more than 200 members of congress including literally every senator. so the saudis are spreading a lot of money around in washington. >> absolutely. i think it's worth looking at the president's family, specifically jared. there was a report that mbs, the crown prince, was meeting regularly with jared and saw that he had jared in his pocket. jared kushner is vastly overspent on some of his new york real estate properties. he's been looking for money. there's been lots of saudi money going into operations such as this like soft bank which is a

japanese bank that's heavily funded by saudis with $45 billion being pumped in at a time. i think especially if the democrats win the house we're going to see a lot of investigations and this can be a fruitful area they should investigate. >> if people want to know, pop quiz, who is the number one investor, the single largest funding source of u.s. startups? saudi arabia. they're spreading a lot of money around the united states. craig unger, thank you very much for being here. appreciate your time. everybody, please check out craig's book, "house of trump, the untold story of donald trump and the russian mafia. thank you, more "am joy" after the break. and... adjourned. business loans for eligible card members up to fifty thousand dollars, decided in as little as 60 seconds. the powerful backing of american express. don't do business without it.

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it will be the election of kavanau kavanaugh, the caravan, law and order tax cuts. we forget about tax cuts all the time, and common sense. >> welcome back to "am joy." well, there you have it, the preview of the next 17 days. donald trump trying to rile up his base using immigration to stoke their fear of immigrants. this time in the form of a caravan of around 4,000 central american migrants leaving honduras in the hopes of getting to the united states for

sanctuary. these evare people hoping to escape violence and poverty only to be painted by criminals by trump. things got tense as migrants broke through a border fence to get to mexican territory as mexico grappled with a humanitarian crises. trump raised the possibility that the migrants -- get this -- are being paid off. >> a lot of money has been passing through people to try to come up and try and get to the border by election day because they think that's a negative for us. number one, they're being stopped. number two, regardless, that's our issue. >> he's likely referring to a video republican congressman matt goetz posted on wednesday and later tweeted by trump. goetz claims it shows migrants in honduras giving cash to people as they head for the u.s., suggesting without any evidence that george soros, the

boogie man, was funding the caravan. it turns out that the video was apparently not even shot in honduras but in guatemala. trump is now threatening to call the military to guard the southern border, to cut off aid to those countries and tear up the trade deal he just signed with mexico if they don't stop the caravan, all of it designed to revive a now familiar animus toward immigrants that helped propel trump into the presidency. joining me now, senior adviser to move on.org. tiffany cross, manager editor of the beat d.c., and democratic california congressman jimmy gomez. congressman, what do we know about the status of this caravan and what is the origin of it? >> the caravan has been a yearly activity to show the plight of asylum seekers around the globe. it often starts in guatemala and honduras and moves north. by the time it gets north, it's only a few hundred people and they seek asylum the proper way

through the ports of entry. right now, they're stuck at the southern border of mexico and they're getting processed there and mexico is allowing a few of them through. but it's not about the caravan. let's focus on what it's about. this is about donald trump trying to stoke fears among the american people in order to win the mid-terms, plain and simple. he did it in 2016. he's doing it in 2018. if it wasn't, why are you bringing it up at a rally and why are you actually blaming george soros? why are you trying to make it seem like the democrats are doing this? it's because it's not about the caravan, it's about getting people, his base, to go vote in the november 6th election. that's it. >> let's do a quick civics 101. you are a member of congress. is it legal in any way for a child from honduras to vote in an american election? >> no, it's not. >> is it legal in any way for an adult who's in a caravan fleeing for their lives to come in and the first thing they do once they are not being threatened by a gang to kill them is to

register to vote in an american election? >> first, no, it's not. one of the things that we know is that the republicans are trying to keep everybody from voting. look at georgia, look across the country. it's not that easy to register to vote. >> they make it real hard for americans. >> it should be a lot easier for americans but for immigrants, people undocumented, don't even have a driver's license, nearly impossible. >> tiffany, i feel like in the past -- and we worked on the same campaign once so we know that there is a panic that sets in. when the first black president was running in 2008, we both saw it on the campaign trail, a certain amount of backlash and fear of the unknown. i have to be honest, i've never seen this level of sort of panicky, frantic voter suppression combined with this thing of saying these children who are fleeing for their lives are coming here to register and vote in the mid-term. that doesn't even make sense.

you follow politics. have you ever heard of a child fleeing from a central american country, coming here for the express purpose of registering as a democrat and voting? >> i've not heard anything like that. i've heard of children fleeing from police shooting them in the back. the president doesn't talk about that. i think the president should spend less time trying to vilify immigrants and more time setting the law and understanding what a logistical nightmare this would be to even attempt to close 2,000 feet of the border between mexico and american. 1.7 billion of our goods and services come through that border every day, nearly half of our fruits and vegetables come from mexico, 44% of our produce. it doesn't make sense. 75% of republican voters view immigration as a huge problem. this is why he's trying to, again, stoke fear and run on this policy. this comes at a time where the administration is threatening to take daca to the supreme court

where justice kavanaugh now gives them a conserve lean in court. this also comes at a time where the administration is considering reinstituting the policy of the children at the border. this is somebody who exhibited his incredible animus towards immigrants and has done that by lying to the american people. the family values party, the quote, pro life party who cares about children so much has bought into this story line that these children fleeing violence from gangs and their parents' lives being threatened, all of a sudden they are the villains. i don't understand how you resolve this with the other rhetoric coming out of their mouth particularly when they purport to be the family values party. >> can we show that picture of the bridge again. we both come from immigrant backgrounds, our parents. there was a time, in my lifetime -- i'm not that old -- when a picture like that would

have just elicited nothing but sympathy and empathy among the american people. you see that and think, oh, my god, what must be happening where those people are coming from, how can we open our arms to people like that. that image now is being used to terrify voters whose real concern is that the big corporations who employ them don't care about them, would rather employ robots, that people -- that the corporations getting the big tax cuts are like, thanks for the tax cut man giving nothing to my workers. they see those pictures and are being told fear those brown people. where have we come to? >> this is trump's america now. this is what trump has done. this is the playbook of donald trump from 2016, and he told us back in july when the zero tolerance was put in place and they were separating children from their families. he thought, oh, this is great. he told us, the closing argument for the mid-terms will be immigration. we had heard more things were

going to come on immigration. so this is how he sees things. it's that small base but it still exists that he's trying to stoke fear in and he's trying to get them to come out. this is the play that he's doing but i have to question though, we saw this happening last year in virginia where it was ms-13 where the republican candidate -- and i remember living in maryland having to see those ads over and over. it backfired on him. we saw that in p.a. '18. he started off with tax cuts. guess what, tax cuts are unpopular so we really went in on awful, hateful immigration ads. and what happened? we won a seat that we should have had no business being competitive, we being democrats. so they're doing this and i think it's going to backfire in some areas, especially in these swing congressional districts that we're all talking about, that democrats have a real chance of talking back. this is what he had decided, donald trump, months ago, that he was going to end on this

hateful im gramigration rhetori >> you're absolutely right. we talk a lot about what donald trump is doing but it's not like he's some sort of strategic genius. this is a playbook that's been in play before. let's go to newton gingrich of georgia who's played this game before, has been in the game a long time. here's gingrich on wednesday on fox news saying what he thinks the closing argument of the mid-terms will be. take a listen. >> i think two words are going to define the 2018 election in the next three weeks. one is kavanaugh and the other is caravan. >> blatantly saying that they're going to tell the base of the republican party that we think that your main drivers are to defend somebody accused of sexual assault and that we think -- this is what they think of their own base. why don't democrats just go to

their base and say your party leaders think that you're so anti-immigrant and so afraid of brown people that that's all it takes to get you to vote. >> that's what we should do. one of the things that i've always believed that this president is making this country small. this is actually a great country when we live up to our values. when he attacks immigrants, he's attacking our values, our history. we got to push back on that and tell the republican base that immigrants do make this country better. how is it like myself in one generation i can go from the son of immigrants, farm workers who lived in a one-room adobe house to a member of congress. my sister, i'm very proud of my sister. this is a personal issue for me. because of the fear that donald trump has put out there, for the first time in her life she'll be becoming a u.s. citizen on tuesday because her son was afraid if she went to visit her 95-year-old grandfather for his birthday, she wouldn't be able

to get back in. we are better than this. the republican party is better than this. we need to bring them back into the fold of the american community. it's not about democrats. it's not about republicans. it's about one america and we need to bring them back into the fold because that's what's going to make us better. this is what their leaders think of them, that they can play them off with lies and misperceptions. >> it's rather insulting. it is insulting in a way to your ordinary rank and file republican that we can go, brown kid, brown kid, and you're going to respond to it. that's what they think of their own voters. >> i think the scary part of all of this is is that donald trump talked about using acts of military duty to close the border. never mind that there's actually precedent that he can't do that, that you're not supposed to use military to enact domestic policy but also this is a president who's never been to visit the troops. he's not engaged with the military. he had bone spurs.

the fact that this is when he chooses to tap into the military for something that's illegal, again, this is something who doesn't understand how the law works, doesn't understand the difference between the legislative and executive and judicial branches. we shouldn't let that give us a sigh of relief because this is somebody who has pushed the legal precedent before and actually won. the court just struck down his sanctuary city law in san francisco i believe where he was trying to punish them by withholding funds and a judge said you can't do that. i wouldn't let the fact that the law stands in his way give us some sort of relief because i think -- >> he doesn't care. >> "the washington post," they have a piece out saying that trump is threatening drastic action on immigration not because he thinks it's important for national security. he doesn't think little kids coming over that bridge are going to hurt anything. they're children and mommies. he is literally admitting that he's doing it to help focus

republicans' election message on the economy, continue to highlight immigration, confident that his hard line views on enforcement will motivate his base and carry significant crossover appeal, he thinks, to independent modern voters, blah blah blah. that he actually thinks that the more he hurts people, the more he harms people, that is the motivator to get people to vote. >> it's awful and it is about power. at the end of the day it's about power. they want to keep control of the senate, the house and the presidency, this the senate and the house is what they're focused on and this is the way to do it. they're doing it in fear, using fear to hold onto that power. i said that this is trump's america. it doesn't have to be trump's america. in 17 days we can really clap back and say no to all of this, and we do have the power. we just have to exercise it and vote. we have to make sure we as democrats stay on message and be clear that we have to stop this runaway train, we have to make sure we protect health care for

people, make sure the economy works for everyone, and that's really what it's all about. >> it's the body that you're in, congressman, that the democrats have the strongest chance of taking back. in a nutshell to close out, what would be different if democrats controlled the house? what about any of this would change? >> first, there would be a real check and balance on this administration. instead of having hearings like we have with secretary nielsen and border patrol and i.c.e. behind closed doors, we would do it in broad daylight so the american people can hear the questions and understand the real motivations behind this administration's policies, that it's never been about keeping the american people safe, it's about their political posture at maintaining power. that's what we would do, push it back. then we would actually push for making sure daca recipients are protected, tps holders are protected, and then push for a comprehensive immigration reform package that lives up to our values. >> absolutely. congressman, what committees are you on? >> oversight which is going to

be fun and natural resources. >> if you want to put power in the hands of this man -- >> there you go. >> that's an important committee. y'all remember how it's been when it was when president obama was there. congressman, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> and tiffany and corinne will be back later. you know the new talking point about democrats being a scary, terrifying mob -- >> look at nancy pelosi right here, look at this piece of [bleep] right here. look at this piece of [bleep] right here. >> we'll show you the rest of that video and talk gop thug politics next. [ upbeat music ]

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the democrats have turned into an angry mob bent on destroying anything or anyone in their path. the shameful democratic mob. these people are starting to think of it as a mob. the choice could not be more clear. democrats produce mobs. republicans produce jobs. >> pass fis tick democrats are so scary. when republicans roll out the new talking point smearing democrats as a mob, this is what happened to nancy pelosi during a campaign event in florida this week.

>> look at this piece of [bleep] right here. look at this piece of [bleep] pelosi right here. you don't belong here you [bleep] communist. get the [bleep] out of here. get the [bleep] out of here. [bleep] you and you [bleep] democrats. >> we wanted everybody to see it and get your live reaction to it. republicans think in their minds they're just doing the same thing as the democrats who interrupt like a republican congressman at brunch. >> false equivalency there. just watching that, the feeling that you get of fear, i don't care who you are, how long you've been doing this in public service, having that type of hatred and anger and venom

directed at you from people that you know want to do you harm, people that you know advocate for violence, this isn't a peaceful protest. there's a very, very big difference in peaceful assembly and exercising your right to protest this government and doing what we're seeing right there. we've seen that this group, whether it's in los angeles, new york have had instances where they insight violence wherever they go. that's a very scary thing and a very different thing. that's what a mob is. >> there's a little false equivalency and the media will do it. people who say shame, shame, shame, why are you caging children, this is a pretty intimidating thing, a man, hurling vile epithets at an older woman. >> right. i would echo kurt's point and also i think this isn't new, this isn't something that we're just now seeing. donald trump often stokes the anger and ire in his audience at rallies or he has people call the press the enemy of the

people. the press feels intimidated. we all remember on the campaign trail when one of his reporters sucker punched a kid who was there supporting him. trump has offered to pay the legal fees of people who want to insight violence. this also comes at a time that the president is trying to shrink protests in d.c. his administration is working with the national parks to try to make it so people have to have permits to protest or only a certain number of people can convene in the areas near the white house. eleanor holmes norton is pushing legislation to combat this. the hypocrisy where you see not only from the administration where they call the democrats a mob, it's very dangerous to have the media echo this. we saw this last week when former attorney general eric holder said when they go low, we kick them. he immediately said afterwards, i don't mean that literally. of course that got melted into a 30-second sound bite and we have that both sidesism, the what aboutism that they try to do

that's emphatically not the same. >> the side that's on the nra side, the side that wants to carry guns into church and in the bar is afraid of the pacifists. to your point, let's play the leader because it does trickle down from the top. here's donald trump and his insigcitement of his own base. >> guards are very gentle with him. he's walking out, big high fives, smiling, laughing. i'd like to punch him in the face, i'll tell you. in the good old days this doesn't happen because they used to treat them very, very rough. and when they protested once, you know, they would not do it again so easily. we had some people, some rough guys like we have right in here, and they started punching back. it was a beautiful thing. [ chanting "lock her up" ] >> by the way, locker up is now a chant for any woman. >> any woman, any woman

disobeys. it was feinstein. they've used it multiple times recently. he doesn't even have to say anything. he just mentioned a name or stands there and they start chanting it. so the first couple of clips that you showed, it was candidate trump which was already unbelievable that he was doing it as a nominee, as a candidate. now we're seeing it behind the white house podium essentially as a president. it's abhorrent. this week he praised a congressman who was convicted of assaulting, body slamming a reporter. then what else has he done? he's looked at the white nationalist marching in charlottesville, a young woman died during that time and he says, they were very fine people. they were praising trump. those are very fine people. this is who we're talking about. now they're the victims? what we have seen on the democrat side is the mobs that they're calling that we have seen is like women coming

together and i was there coming together in front of the scotus building or the capitol. we are protesting sexual assault. no one is being violent. we're trying to get our voices heard because women are angry. we're angry and are still angry at the time. also, there was that woman who had her baby on her hip. >> yeah, so scary. >> so scary. she wanted to talk about the issues, like why are you doing this, why are you separating at the time kids from their families. that's the mob that they're talking about, really? it is, to your point, kurt, a false equivalency. >> about this attack on journalists, we just saw a "washington post" journalist, jamal khashoggi was a resident of the united states. he worked for "the washington post," and he was killed apparently inside of an embassy, inside of a consulate and donald trump is like, eh, i don't know, maybe it's a rogue killer.

he didn't want to admit it. this is the american president talking about the roughing up of another journalist, of an american journalist by an elected official who then gets re-elected because this feel good ideas of y of we don't lik, beat their behind. he's encouraging that. here's the president. >> greg is smafrt, and by the way, never wrestle him. you understand that? never. any guy that can do a body slam, he's my kind. we endorsed greg very early, but i had heard that he body slammed a reporter. i said, oh, this is terrible, he's going to lose the election. then i said wait a minute, i know montana pretty well. i think it might help him, and it did. >> so this is donald trump's schtick, kurt, he thinks it's funny. a lot of people write it off as comedy but we showed it earlier. let's show it again, this rope, tree journalist shirt just

before the 2016 election. i was in cleveland for the rnc convention. some of the t-shirts and buttons were vile. i saw older women wearing them about trump grabbing by the -- there were women putting that on their bodies saying he can do that. there were violent, threatening messages about hillary clinton, just violent. what i don't understand i guess is these people control the supreme court, the white house, both houses of congress, a majority of state houses, and yet they are enraged. what are they angry about? is it because people are resisting their rule? >> i think they're realizing for the very first time and i think it started -- i think back to the women's march where you had three times the amount of time turn out for that than who watched donald trump get inaugurated in a completely 100% peaceful demonstration by the way of protests. this harnessing of power, you have more women running for public office than ever before,

more minorities and diversity in public office. >> is it a stop resisting us? >> they are terrified that society has gotten to a point where the white old man is going to actually be put in their place in our society and be forced to have to accept the social change that's happening. whether they want to admit it or not, changes are changing. there's a lot of good happening when it comes to diversity and inclusion and progress in this country, and they have found a voice and they're being actual and people are turning out to vote and that's what we're going to see in november, is that going from words to action and people are going to lose their jobs, these white old congressmen who want to fight against us and stop this progress, who are leading these protests and this violence. they're going down and what we're seeing from them is their last grasp at power. >> when you see these democrats trying to run in the middle of the road, the media concerned they're going to alienate in trump supporter, these are the

people they're concerned about alienating. if you're still a swing voter, there's no turning these people. candidates have got to stop trying to appeal to those people. the media has to stop making the false equivalency. we see the consequences from 2016 and i hope both sides learn the lessons. >> unfortunately there's a percentage of people who will always be with us. there's a piece in the atlantic about the camaraderie of the anger and people find the camaraderie in stoking the suffering of other people. it binds them to trump. his cruelty binds them to him. it's not a majority of the american people. >> by far. >> it's a shrinking base. that's the concern. >> most of america is not like this, world that's watching this. believe me, it's not. my panel is going to join us later in the show. coming up, first they came after your health care but they failed. then they cut taxes for the super rich and big business. now they're comingcare again bu

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a trillion in 2019. what's going on with the debt? >> it's very disturbing and it's driven by the three big entitlement programs that are very popular, medicare, social security and medicaid. that's 70% of what we spend every year. >> okay, here's the republican economic plan. cut taxes for the rich by $1.5 trillion which makes the deficit balloon which of course will give you a perfect excuse to cut, quote unquote, untightmetls untitlements. david johnson and bruce bartlett join us next to discuss. i was there, just not always where i needed to be. is she alright? i hope so.

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i voted to protect people with pre-existing conditions to make sure insurance companies were forced to give them health care. >> the reality is we took the vote and during the vote martha voted to repeal these protections. >> seven different times i voted when i was in the united states congress in favor of covering pre-existing illness. >> the one mechanism that's been in place to protect that, he has been against relentlessly, attacked it from the beginning. >> we can protect people and we must with pre-existing conditions but they shouldn't be forced to pay the prices they are paying now. >> his lawsuit is reckless because there's no back-up here. there's no back-up plan for

pre-existing conditions if he's successful. >> republicans are trying it. across the country as democratic candidates run on protecting the remaining parts of the affordable care act with people with pre-existing conditions, republicans are responding by claiming that they too will protect your health care while also suing to end pre-existing conditions coverage, threatening to kill the entire affordable care act if they hold onto congress, and now openly admitting that they plan to cut social security and medicare and medicaid to pay for the deficits they created with their massive tax cuts for the rich. joining me, david k. johnson, journalist and author of "it's even worse than you think" and bruce bower. i'm going to play a mash-up of republican ads in which they claim they will protect pre-existing conditions. >> we must protect america's health care system. that's why i'm taking on both parties and fighting for those with pre-existing conditions.

>> i'm josh hauly. i want to cover all pre-existing conditions. >> it's personal to me, plus it's just the right thing to do. as long as i'm governor i will always cover pre-existing conditions. >> i'll let both of you comment but i'll start with you, bruce. josh hauly, his name is on a lawsuit attempting to end the affordable care act's pre-existing conditions protection. scott walker could have taken the medicaid expansion and refused. these people are on the record being against this stuff but running ads saying they're for it. how can this be? >> they're shameless liars. i mean, they've been playing this game for quite a long time. i mean, year after year the republican congress passes budgets saying we are going to slash medicare, and then they run advertising saying that they're protecting medicare and

that it's actually the democrats who are trying to cut medicare. it's just out and out fabrication. it's lying. unfortunately, it works. >> let me play for you, david k. johnson, the response democratic ads trying to refute that complete lie that republicans are telling. >> those who face cancer and many other illnesses have a pre-existing condition when it comes to health coverage. unfortunately, josh hauly filed a lawsuit letting insurance companies deny coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. >> now the threat is patrick morrissey's lawsuit to take away health care from people with pre-existing conditions. >> my mom lost her job so she lost her health insurance and couldn't afford the premiums. that's when she was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer. >> i'm a mother of two with disabilities and a history of health problems. >> david, you can look at a poll, this one from kaiser, that

shows that health care is the number one issue for people in this election. are democrats cutting through when they try to say, the other party wants to get rid of it? >> bruce is exactly right, they're lying through their teeth about this, but if that's the only message you hear, you'll believe it. here's the fact democrats ought to be out pushing. if we had universal health care, either the french or the german system, the amount of money it would save is the equivalent of eliminating income taxes for everyone who makes less than $500,000 a year. it would get health care off the backs of small businesses. as somebody who's a founder of a small business, there's nothing more vexing from being detuerre from trying to make profits by

paying for health care. >> bruce, for a long time you were in the republican party game. republicans will simply say what david k. johnson said is socialism. donald trump is out with this usa today op-ed which they ran which is apparently according to "the washington post" every line contained a falsehood, but he's claiming that this idea of medicaid for all would end medicare somehow. >> i suppose it might in the sense that medicare for all is different than medicare. but i think it's important to keep in mind that we already spend a vast amount of money through government on health care. we spend more than almost any other country that has national health insurance. for what we're already spending we could have a national health insurance system no worse than what they have in the united kingdom and they have better health outcomes than we do wh. e

david is exactly right, the amount that we spend that we could save by having universal health care is about the equivalent of what we pay in payroll taxes. you would have that much additional money to spend on something else other than health. >> i want to stay with you for just one second. the other thing you're now seeing is an open admission by mitch mcconnell that they're coming after what they call entitlements, things that we are all paying into, social security, medicare, medicaid. they want to cut it to cover these huge deficits. let's show the deficits which have ballooned because of this tax cut. they passed a trillion dollar tax cut that gave most of the money to the top 1% -- the top .1% into corporations and now they're going to pay for it by making senior citizens pay for it. how can they get away with that? >> well, it's been a 40-year plan that's called starve the

beast and it's been going on for a very long time. when republicans figured out because of proposition 13 that the way to cut spending is to cut taxes first and how speaker paul ryan and others have talked about how they've been dreaming about privatizing social security and medicare since they were in college. these are long-term plans and they're finally coming to fruition. the only thing republicans are waiting for is for democrats to buy in and be part of the grand bargain, the bipartisan deal that in my opinion will probably lead eventually to a two-tier system, the existing system for older people, a much stripped down, lesser system for younger people. in a way it's their own fault because they don't vote. old people like myself do vote, and that's the inevitable political result. >> unfortunately i think we are out of time. quickly, david k. johnson, would

social security and medicare survive as private? >> not at all. the entire reason the deficit is larger is the $200 billion in taxes we are not collecting because of the trump gop tax bill. medicare and social security are going up 2 to 4% a year. our deficit is up 17%. so mitch mcconnell is lying too. >> yeah, the rich people got the money and y'all out there getting the bill. you're welcome. david k. johnson and bruce bartlett, thank you both for your time. at the top of the hour, michael avenatti, stormy daniels' attorney and donald trump's nemesis. but first, we are bringing it back. who won the week? i will ask my panel next. here we go. discover. i like your card, but i'm absolutely not paying an annual fee. discover has no annual fees. really? yeah. we just don't believe in them. oh nice. you would not believe how long i've been rehearsing that. no annual fee on any card. only from discover.

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biden. >> here's why. there are two reasons why he won. one, earlier this week poll came out showing he has a huge advantage starting out in this campaign, which isn't surprising, but -- but then elizabeth warren stepped into the picture, his closest, perhaps most competitive person he has to worry about. she stepped in it, did herself a lot of harm, that only helps him. that's why it stre-- >> why did she step into trump's trap? >> i don't know. you are not going to beat him -- would you pick a fight with a 12-year-old? i mean, c'mon. >> there you go. now i'm sad. thanks a lot, kurt. >> have you seen "mean girls"? they can be vicious. >> they are not as bad as the

man-child. >> this is what happens when saidy hawkins, instead of ladies first. >> i would have gone last. i'm a gentleman. i would have closed it out. >> now we got to step it up, thanks, kurt. >> fix it. fix it. >> oh, boy, i would say early voters, especially those in georgia who stayed in lines for hours trying to exercise their right to vote. every time you give me a platform, i say please vote early. that is one of the ways to take away the horrible barriers that we have in front of you like voter suppression, and voting should just be a national holiday, but that's a whole other discussion. i want to give a shoutout to can't stop, won't stop latasha. you had her on the show earlier, just a shoutout to them. please, everybody, request you can, vote early, do it. >> 1-800-vote was the number i was struggling with.

don't leave and get some help. >> i say who won the week -- [ laughter ] >> different but similar, so i say chair of the congressional black caucus. he penned a letter to jeff sessions, and is calling him out on being hands off and silent on voter suppression hatching in georgia. we all saw the headlines this week. 53,000 people purged off rolls. a group of senior citizens were kicked off that bus in georgia as they were being taken top vote, and there is other suppression. >> the lawyers committee, kristin clark, they are suing the state of georgia over some of these tactics that are straight out of the jim crow era. i hear -- i close the show with reverend sharpton every tuesday,

and so many people call in and what are the democrats doing? please rae "the beat." we talk about it all the time. there's a lot of leastance, but the black caucus, asian-american caucus are out there on these things. this week he particularly called out sessions. ironically in a much more diplomatic and professional leader-ly way than the president calls out his own attorney general, but he talks about how they gut the section 5 of the voters right. that's why ear seeing this with many people. >> mine is also "dimilar." all the groups stepping up and doing the job that used to be done by the attorney general attorneys general have always been proactive about suing states that violate people's

right to vote. we don't have an attorney general who cares about that now. all of the organization, not just the naacp, but aclu, an hispanic-american group and groups that collectively sued brian kemp to make sure people had the right to vote. native-american groups are proactively on the floor making penalty people vote. all of you all won the week. we do a little facebook live and people say, what can we do? i say the same thing -- vote. you have to vote your way out of it. we're going to go, but before we go, i want one other person, nancy pelosi, she has poise, y'all. she came out well dressed, pressed and undistressed when this happened to her in miami. let's take a look. >> look at this piece of [ bleep ] right here. look at this piece of [ bleep ] right here, pelosi, you don't

belong here. get the [ bleep ] out of here. get the [ bleep ] out of here. >> you are wrong. you are wrong. >> you and the [ bleep ] democrats. >> unbothered in the face of verbal abuse. i'm going to give nancy pelosi an honorary mention. >> well deserved. thank you to my panel here. you'll see them on the instag m instagram. we'll take a fabulous selfie after this. more after the break. as a pro athlete, the sleep number 360 smart bed

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that is our show for today. a.m. joy will be back tomorrow. up next alex witt is next. we have taken over your town. >> can i say one thing? when your guests with saying how important it is to vote. i got irked at a preview. i have someone coming on, a correspondent who spoke with millennial, there's a level of apathy with voting -- >> drives me crazy. >> yes. and that tape you played. good on nancy pelosi. she's got teflon in her veins. >> and she had the killer-watt smile. >> good heavens. >> have a great show. >> have a good time at politicon.