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tv   The Rachel Maddow Show  MSNBC  March 15, 2019 6:00pm-7:01pm PDT

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and beto cancel each other out? >> no. but i will say this quickly, whoever we know is a front runner has not done well in our primaries. so look out. >> that was not one word. thank you, guys very much. the rachel maddow show starts right now. >> you hit it on the post. boom. both feet on the tape. >> stuck the landing. >> thanks to you all at home for joining us this hour. happy friday. this have been a very newsi week. we got a lot to get here tonight. including someone who's you're very much going to want to see with me later on this hour. the dominant news story in our country and around the world is what happened in new zealand where new zealand is still reeling and i think much of the world is still reeling today after yesterday's shootings at two mosques in the city of
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christchurch. the death toll stands at 49 people killed. over 40 people were injured including a dozen people who were described this evening by christchurch hospital as critically ill. there had been four people in custody in conjunction with these killings. one of those in custody is believed to be the gunman. he's already showed up in court in new zealand today. interesting, new zealand authorities announced that his court proceedings today and presumably his future court proceedings as well will be closed. they will not be open to the public, nobody will be allowed to observe them. they're describing them as a security decision. that may have also implications in terms of how much this guy wants to continue to try to be a propagandaist for his terroristic ideas that led him to do this as he's done in his online writings as well. of the other people who were arrested besides him, police had said originally that it was two men and one woman who were arrested in addition to the guy who's believed to be the gunman
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and police initially said they were picked up because at least some if not all of them had firearms near the scene of the crime. authorities are now no longer characterizing those three people in any way except to say that one of those people has since been released from police custody after it became clear that that person was trying to help police in stopping the event and he was not part of committing it. these other two people who were arrested, those other two people as of right now remain in custody. we know nothing about them and we know nothing about their potential complicity in this act. we also don't have really a clear time line as yet. the vast majority of those killed, 41 people, were killed at the al noor mosque in christchurch, but seven other people were also killed at a different mosque, at the
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linwood. we know from the way law enforcement has described what happened, that the man who's in custody, he drove to the al noor mosque first, killed those 41 people there, and then we know from the way police have described what happened, that after the killings at the al noor mosque, he got back into his vehicle and drove away. it is possible that when he drove away, he drove to that other mosque 3 miles away and committed the other killings there. but i should tell you, that has not actually been laid out that way by police. they haven't given us that level of detail. so that sort of hole in the timeline, that in combination with the fact that other people are also skill in custody without police saying what their potential involvement in this might have been just means that some of the basics here remain unsaid and we have a lot to learn about what happened. as of tonight, a lot of people are still being treated for injuries. as i said, christchurch hospital
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just said that as many as a dozen people are viewed as critically ill, which means the death toll may yet rise above the almost unbelievably high number of 49 people already known to have died. we will have more ahead on this still unfolding story tonight. this is going to be the subject of the interview that we're going to do onset tonight. but before we get to that, we're going to start with an exclusive with a bit of a scoop. at the beginning of the trump administration, there were a lot of somewhat strange personnel choices made by the incoming president. even in the cabinet, rick perry for energy secretary, rick perry had not only proposed abolishing the energy department, he appeared to believe that the energy department was the oil and gas part of the government and not the part that deals with nuclear weapons. he didn't even appear to understand that once he had been named the secretary of energy. so that was a weird choice. also remember the party planner
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for eric trump's wedding was put in charge of housing. that was a weird choice. also the president's personal bankruptcy lawyer was named ambassador to israel for the united states. also the president really did make an effort to try to make his personal pilot the head of the faa. so there were some weird choices right off the bat. one less high profile but equally weird choice came when president trump picked a man named scott lloyd to be the director of the office of resettlement. he had never worked with refugees ever, he had never worked with resettling anyone. so the idea that he would be in charge of resettling refugees was odd. what scott lloyd had done in his life, he has been a conservative activist group. he basically was an activist, anti-abortion guy. his body of public writings
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included stuff like this, quote, facts about abortion, why you can't be prolife and procontraception. this was all about how birth control is the same thing as abortion and women shouldn't be allowed access to either in this country. all abortion should be illegal for american women and birth control should be illegal for american women too. so that was his public profile before he got put in charge of the office of refugee resettlement. if you want to know what happens when you put someone like that in charge of randomly refugee resettlement in this country, we've done that. now we know how that works out. here's a headline from the l.a. times, december 2017, trump official sought to block abortion for 17-year-old rape victim. scott lloyd is the trump official in question. part of this scandal is him writing a memo outlining his reasoning for blocking a teenage
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rape victim from accessing abortion. i'm convinced that assisting in an abortion in this case is not in her best interest. i'm mindful that abortion is offered by some as a solution to a rape. i disagree. and then he tried to block her from getting an abortion. the 17-year-old in that case, the 17-year-old girl who had been raped. he was one of many kids who arrived in the u.s., she was sent alone to a shelter operated by the trump administration. at some point along the way she found out that she was pregnant as a result of that rape. in america, it does not matter whether you're an immigrant or not, doesn't matter your age, where you're from in america, you have a constitutionally protected right to get an abortion if you want one. the government is not allowed to stop you from getting one if you want one. that is a decision that you are allowed to make for yourself. it is protected by the
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constitution. but when scott lloyd took over the office of refugee resettlement, he became the guy who was in charge of all those kids and he decided he would make his his first priority in his job to block any girl who came into the clutches of that agency he was running, he would block any girl under his preview from getting an abortion. the only reason that 17-year-old victim, the only reason she was allowed to get an abortion and the only reason we know about her plight is because she found her way to lawyers at the aclu who sued on her behalf and won. she was the first jane doe in the case. and it's interesting, in her case, she had raised the funds needed to pay for it herself. she had gotten a judge in texas to grant her permission to get the abortion despite the fact that she had no way of getting parental consent for it.
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she had arranged for her own travel that would be necessary for her to get the abortion. but scott lloyd's agency, the federal government agency he was running wouldn't let her leave the shelter to go to the doctor. that is what ultimately became a class-action lawsuit led by that pregnant teenage girl who was literally being forced to continue this pregnant against her will by the u.s. government until the aclu intervened to take her case and won it. we talked to the attorney who sued on her behalf. >> they were literally holding her hostage, blocking the door, preventing her from obtaining an abortion. and i believe that was their goal to hold her hostage until she carried this pregnancy to term against her will. >> talking about her client who had the name in court of jane doe. as that case made its way through the courts, the aclu kept turning up more janes, more girls who were being held in shelters overseen by this guy
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scott lloyd who were being blocked from getting an abortion. and it soon became very clear why, this was not some fluke thing where somebody wasn't properly trained or something, this was an official policy of that agency under this trump administration official, scott lloyd. the aclu attorney, she got to depose scott lloyd as part of that lawsuit. >> you're opposed to abortion correct. >> correct >> and you've ribbon on the subject. >> yes >> you're opposed to contraception, correct? >> it depends. >> you wrote an article that said northerly to be prolife you needed to be anti-contraception. >> that was the title of the article. something along those lines. >> something along those lines. something like, the title of the article, why you can't be prolife and procontraception. something along those lines. so those are his views.
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she goes on to ask him about how it is when he's running this agency that essentially controls the fate and controls the physical movement of all of these girls who are in this country because they're asking for asylum, how it is that all of these girls keep getting blocked from accessing abortions. and watch what she gets him to admit. >> have you ever approved an abortion request in your time as or director? >> no. >> are there any circumstances under which you would approve an abortion request. >> objection, calls for speculation. >> i'm going to not answer that. >> you can still answer it -- >> i don't know. >> you denied abortion requests, correct? >> yes >> you denied abortion requests even in the context where the pregnancy is a result of rape, right?
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>> yes. >> so the way the system was working under the trump administration is that scott lloyd was in charge of this agency when a teenage girl who was a rape victim made her way to the united states seeking help in this country, she has to get permission from scott lloyd personally to get an abortion because he's weighing in on all of these cases blocking these girls from getting it. and so scott lloyd has appointed himself the gatekeeper about whether or not these girls are allowed to access the thing they have a right to get. it turns out he's never granted that permission anymore anybody's come to that gate. so this was starting to look like a de facto u.s. government trump administration policy. that deposition with scott lloyd was released in february of last year as the lawsuit was still ongoing. then in april, the "new york times" reported something that began to shed a little bit of
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light on how that policy was carried out. the "new york times" reported that scott lloyd, quote, has instructed his staff to give him a spreadsheet each week that tells him about any unaccompanied minors who have asked for an abortion and how far along they are in the their pregnancy. in at least one days he instructed staff to read to a girl about what happens during an abortion. and he calls on a list of pregnancy resource centers. he was keeping a spreadsheet and he was using that information individualized to these individual girls, teenagers and some of them younger, to block them from accessing abortions that they wanted to get. after the "new york times" reported that that spreadsheet existed somewhere inside the federal government, a progressive superpac filed a freedom of information act request asking the government to
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hand over that spreadsheet since that's apparently federal government property and federal government employees are doing that, tracking these individual girls menstrual cycles and how far along they are in their pregnancies, as federal employees, as people who are working at a federal agency for the purpose of controlling what happens to those girls' pregnancies. this week, much to the surprise of the people at american bridge, as far as we can tell, the trump administration did hand that spreadsheet over and tonight we have obtained it. and it's a -- it is a remarkable thing to look at. here it is. it is 28 pages long. let me show you what we're looking at here. when the government released this document because of the freedom of information act request, they sent it as a pdf document. so they didn't send it as a spreadsheet that you could look at as a spreadsheet. that means the titles of the columns are collapsed in some
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cases. the first column, we believe, is the date when the pregnant was reported. second column, we think, is how the pregnancy was reported, how government officials found out about it. the next column contains an identification number for each of these kids who's come over to ask for asylum. the government has redacted those here because that would identify the specific girls. scott lloyd had access to that unique information for each girl, next is the girls' age, they range from 12 to 17. next is the name of the shelter where each girl is being held. and then we think this is the date the girl was admitted to the shelter. we redacted this ourselves because we think this could be identified as a bank shot. and then you have in this u.s. government document, the results of their pregnancy tests. they all say positive, positive,
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positive. then you have the u.s. government's calculation of the estimated gestation age, how far along these pregnancies are, tracking them for each of these girls. then the next line is whether the pregnancy is believed to be the result of consensual sex or not. the u.s. government keeping track of that for each of these girls on this spreadsheet. then whether or not it was reported as a sexual assault, those column lines there, reported, not reported, and then the second-to-last column is top requested. top we think means termination of pregnancy. so the question of whether or not this girl has asked for an abortion. they're keeping track of that with each of these girls including their age, the -- how far along they are in their pregnancy, the gestational age as the fetus as believed by the federal government, the
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circumstances under which the girl may have become impregnated. and is she asking for an abortion, the federal government is tracking this down to age 12. and finally the last column is reserves for notes on each case. you can zoom in on that notes section. you can see in one case, they're talking about the timeline of the girl's last menstrual cycle as being tracked by the trump administration except they spell it wrong. let's look at one industry here so you can see this is one at random. so you can see the kind of data they were collecting. this is a case from march of last year, march of 2018. it's a 14-year-old girl being held in a shelter in illinois. she's believed to be about 1 month pregnant from nonconsensual sex. a 14-year-old girl.
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as you can see in the notes column, it says assaulted by unknown assailant. this is the federal government with your tax dollars keeping an individualized record of pregnant teenage girls menstrual cycles, whether they've had a positive pregnancy test, what the government knows about how they believe the girls got pregnant, how they believe this individual girl got pregnant and whether this girl has requested an abortion and then the last column, the last column is of course what the federal government is doing about it. and this record was being kept for the express purpose of subverting any of these girls' ability to get an abortion. this was a spreadsheet designed to facilitate action to block these girls for getting an abortion they might want, given the circumstances described in these cold, hard spreadsheet cells. when you look through this 28-page document. it's full of teenagers and some
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cases girls who aren't teenagers who report being raped and being pregnant as a result. and here's scott lloyd, compiling this information about these girls and using it so he can intervene as a government official to block each of these girls from getting the abortion they asked for. all along he was tracking how far along each girl he was, how long he could delay it, how much longer he had to keep blocking her from leaving the shelter until she would be forced to give birth, thanks to the u.s. federal government. so this document has never been seen before. this is not the sort of thing we're used to seeing, this the not the sort of thing we expect our government to be keeping tabs on in the modern era. but there's one other element of this that i think is for me the -- part of this that made me
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want to sort of close the door and yell the story a little bit. this is the part to me that is actually the most shocking part of it. remember, the aclu had sued to stop scott lloyd from blocking these girls access to abortion, right? they did very well in that suit. on march 30th of last year, they won a major victory in that case, not only had the original jane doe been allowed to get the abortion that she has been seeking, on march 30th, a federal judge granted class action status to that case and ordered scott lloyd and anybody else in charge at the trump administration's office of refugee resettlement, that they needed to by court order stop interfering with or obstructing any access to a judicial by pass related to pregnancy dating, abortion counseling or any other pregnancy related clear. the courts have stepped in and stopped this. the court, march 30th, tells scott lloyd this trump
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administration appointee, that as a federal official, he needs to stop interfering with these girls' decisions about whether or not they're going to get an abortion. march 30th was that order from the court. we called up the lawyer who had fought this case. one of the things she told us is that among the things that was most shocking about this document, which she had never previously seen, was that the dates on this spreadsheet show that scott lloyd kept tracking all the girls' pregnancies and their menstrual cycles for months after that court ruling. all of these dates on the first page are from june of last year. he was supposed to stop this stuff in march, he kept doing it. and we don't know if scott lloyd continued to physically block girls from access to abortion services the way he was before
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the court ruling, after he was ordered not to by a federal judge. but we do know thanks to this document uncovered this week which we are making public for the first time, he kept on tracking them, regardless of what the court told them. why would he want to keep an individual record of individual girls and the means by which they became pregnant and the desires of whether or not they wanted an abortion. why would he have kept all that information if he had pledged that he wasn't going to do anything else to block them? we don't know. we put the in a request to get a response from the department. they told us, quote, we can't comment because of ongoing litigation on the matter. but the fact that this spreadsheet is being produced on your dime, this is what the federal government does now with individual girls in this circumstance, well, that's where we are. joining us now is the deputy
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director of the aclu. we appreciate you being here today. >> thanks for having me. >> i'm right that you had not seen this document before we obtained it today? >> i had not. >> there had been reporting that the trump administration was tracking girls at this level of detail in this country agency. seeing the document to me, first of all, has a visceral effect, but it's -- it struck me, i had no idea it was going to be this detailed. did you know that this was the level of information the government was tracking? >> i had a sense it was. i asked scott lloyd at his deposition in february about what kind of reports he was getting because at that point we knew through e-mails we had obtained that he was getting weekly reports. so i had a sense that it was at least this level of detail, but you're right, seeing all of it together and all of these young women and their specific requests for abortion was really quite surprising.
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>> as you told us today when we called you to get your take on this and before we asked you to come on the air tonight, you said that it seems shocking or it's at least surprising that this level of tracking information about all of these individual girls continued even after the court order in your case which blocked lloyd from intervening, blocked the trump administration from intervening. is there any reason that you know of or that hhs might have put forward that would explain why they would need to track all this information on these girls if they weren't going to use it to try to continue blocking them from getting abortions. >> there's no reason to track this information at all. we don't know that there's been any attempt to block any of these young women. but it's curious and i would say creepy that scott lloyd was continuing to get this level of information about these young women and their pregnancies even after we got the court order. and i think you're right, for
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what purpose? we're not aware of any obstruction attempts, but it is concerning and kind of bizarre. >> yeah. seeing this -- the other thing to me that i think was visit visceral -- it takes a while to figure out, and then you realize the level of personal information that they're getting here. and you realize you're looking at 28 pages of it. part of it is the volume, that they were tracking. did you know it was this many girls who they had their eyes on this way? >> i didn't know it was this many girls. we knew there were hundreds of young women who were pregnant in custody and a number of them, some subset of them, were seeking access to abortion, but i did not know there was this level of detail for this many young women. >> the hhs spokesperson contacted us, returned our call, and said they can't comment
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because of ongoing litigation. what's the status? >> our injunction is still in place. we're waiting forever a decision from the court of appeals. but the government is prohibited from obstructing or interfering for access to abortion for all unaccompanied pregnant minors in their custody. if anyone has any concerns, issues, witness to any problems, they should give the aclu a call. >> do you anticipate on privacy si grounds, i don't think you can sue for creepiness, maybe margaret atwood can sue for copy right infringement, do you anticipate there might be further action simply on the base of the fact that the federal government has been tracking this level of personal information on girls at such -- to such an extent and for so long? might this be a cause for additional action on its own? >> it's a good question. i just saw the document a little bit ago and certainly i'll be
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talking to my team and we'll discuss it further. >> all right. deputy director of the aclu reproductive freedom. thank you for talking to us today. thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> all right. yeah, as i mentioned, that is an exclusive here. that document was not obtained by my staff. it was obtained by this superpac american bridge. we're being transparent about that sourcing. they provided it to us so we could make it public. we expect because it was handed over by hhs as a result of a foia request, that this is fair game for reporting by any other news organization. much more to get to tonight. stay with us. ion. much more to get to tonight. stay with us
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we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. today at the white house the president excessed condolences for the people who were killed and injured in the terrible terrorist attack were injured and killed by a man who appears at this point to be a white supremacist, anti-immigrant
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gunman. so president trump expressed condolences for that attack today, when he chose his settling for expressing those condolences, he chose to make those remarks at the white house photo-op where he was set to make a big show of vetoing the bill that was stop him from using an emergency declaration. so he's using the veto photo-op to talk about new zealand. the way this goes in order is that he starts off by expressing his upset over the new zealand massacre carried out about the white supremacist and then the president went onto his next thought which was saying about his border wall, quote, it is a national emergency, rarely have we had such a national emergency, quote, it is a
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tremendous national national emergency. we are on track for a million illegal aliens to rush our border. people hate the word invasion, but that is what it is. it's an emergency. we have to stop them. the president says today. moments after expressing his condolences for what happened in new zealand less than 24 hours ago. right now the largest state in the country, the largest state in our country, is pretty much openly confronting the president on his position on the border and on immigration. california governor gavin newsom has announced the withdrawal of national guard troops on the border. governor newsom redeployed a third of those troops to prepare for the upcoming fire season in california. california is also one of the 16 states suing the president over his emergency declaration to try to build his wall. joining us now is california
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governor gavin newsom. thanks for being here. >> thank you, rachel. >> when i asked you to come in, i didn't exactly know what was going to be going on in the news. i have to ask you about in the wake of what we believe has happened in new zealand, we know about the extent of the violence and the terrorist attack that was committed. what's your reaction? >> it's interesting. the way you just set this up, invaders, last week when we opened an asylum center for people who are coming through the border legally, the busiest border in the western hemisphere, legally, surrounded were all these trump supporters with signing saying invaders. it's out there. it's intentional. and to hear him say that tonight in light of what happened in new zealand is an outrage and people
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should be i think more -- well, more intense about that than pretty much anything else that they heard today. >> let me ask you about -- i have interviewed you a few times. you've had different jobs in public service, lieutenant governor, now as governor as california. and california is an important state as far as the size of the economy, you have a totally different take on the issue of immigration and asylum and the border than the president. >> yeah. >> but there's a question about governing differently that is different than how you win the argument, how you win the fight with somebody who's using those issues in the way this president is using it. do you see those in two different ways? >> no, i think they're very distichkt challenges. california is the most diverse state. we're a majority, minority state. we're a universal state meaning
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we are actively engaged in diversity, meaning we're celebrating, not just tolerating our diversity. we brought in 112,000 refugees just in the last 15 years where the federal government walks away, we step up and step in. we were dumping people out on the streets and sidewalks 60 to 180 families every single night, legally coming through our border, were being dumped off in the bus stations, on the streets and sidewalks, federal government doing nothing for them. the state of california put $25 million up to create a migrant shelter and we did it because of our human capacity to empathize and also because we're a welcoming people and we believe in the american dream and we believe it should be afforded to anyone who seeks it legally. the trump administration does not feel the same. they are making this a national emergency, legal migrants seeking asylum. last year, here are the facts, last year, we had the fifth
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lowest illegal border crossings since 1973 in 46 years. the fifth lowest in 46 years. the crisis is nothing more than legal asylum seekers coming through the border, a crisis that is not just manufactured in the context of the larger issue, but is manufactured with intentionality by the trump administration that is metering those crossings, doing nothing to help support these people and actually creating the conditions that they're condemning. this is a farce. it's political theater and the fact is, california is not going to play part of that. how do i make that an argument that can -- >> leading by example in a different way is one thing, confronting them, defeating them in argument, winning the battle, winning the war of ideas around this stuff is something in addition to it. >> that's the separate question. you can use facts, but then you've got a guy who uses emotion. and he knows the vulnerabilities
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of his base and he uses them every day. it's about fear, angry, fear anger. it's a golden oldie. we got to push back with facts and positive alternative and i would like to think our state is that. >> i have a bunch of other stuff to ask you about it, will you stay there. >> yes. >> california governor newsom is our guest. stay with us. newsom is our guest. stay with us with a terrain management system for... this. a bash plate for... that. an electronic locking rear differential for... yeah... this. heading to the supermarket? get any truck. heading out here? get the ford ranger. the only adventure gear built ford tough.
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governor gavin newsom, democrat of california. governor, thanks for staying with us. you made national news within the last few days by making a decision to basically stop the death penalty in your state. you have made executive decisions in other leadership roles in the past. you made a controversial decision around guy marriage. and this one, i'm struck by the fact that california voters have been asked if they want to get rid of the death penalty, and they said no. you nevertheless decided that this was the right thing to do for not just yourself but your state. >> prop 22 in california said marriage is between a man and woman. there's right and wrong. and with respect -- we have had 164 people in this country since 1973 that will be exonerated from death row, five in california, one since the voters
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approved a measure to fast track the death penalty. we have the largest death penalty in the western hemisphere. 737 people. >> california has 7 -- more than 700 people -- >> 737 human beings on death row. the largest in the united states. 120 have died on death row -- >> without being executed. >> of suicides or natural causes including someone else just a week or so ago. what's remarkable, we spent $5 billion, we've executed 13 people, yet we're still in a debate for good reason because we know that we're putting people to death that are innocent, we don't think that. we know that. we estimate by conservative estimates 4% of people on death row today are innocent. do the math on the 737 in california. that means i'm being tasked to exercise my authority to execute someone every single day for two years, knowing that it's likely
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30 of them are innocent. and with respect that's not an intellectual exercise, that's an exercise of the governor has the power to execute or to reprieve. i choose reprieve. i choose not to do this for another reason. the racial skew is overwhelming. two-thirds doesn't surprise anyone listening of those of death row are people on color. one-third have severe mental illness. many of them are there for crimes that are more modest, as horrendous that they are, than folks who are out on parole. it's like lightening, it strikes some, but it strikes those of people of color and those that commit crimes against white against others and those withoutwet. i cannot support that system. >> i was surprised this year when you went out early with an endorsement in the democratic presidential primary. one is because i think that a
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lot of people looking at this race and the way it's going to shape up, think you're a potential vice president choice and so somebody who's -- i know you're not hot for it. nobody ever says they do. as somebody who wasn't talking to you about it, i thought that's -- you're somebody they might consider. and given that active policy, i wouldn't expect you to endorse. california is going to be important in terms of picking a nominee. it's going to put the spotlight on you in the way that's going to burn hot. for you, early onto come out and say you support senator harris was a not expected bold chose. >> i think she's the right person at the right time. and i've had an opportunity to get to know her over the course of decades. i saw her firsthand as district attorney in san francisco, i saw her stand up weeks after we were both elected on principle against the death penalty and against the overwhelming
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majority of people that wanted an individual executed and she said, i cannot do that. that was a profile in courage. i saw her as attorney general when i was lieutenant governor doing work on mortgage settlements on issues of implicit vice, on issues of independent police investigations. i saw the work she did when she got into the senate and engaged in some of the national debate. i think she's impressive. i think she can take on not only those who are in the primary but she's the right person to take on one on one donald trump. i have great confidence in her and i could not be more enthusiastic and supportive. >> are you going to campaign for her around the country. >> i am. i think i'm doing it right here. >> it's nice to see. more ahead tonight, stay with us. o see. more ahead tonight, stay with us feel so, when the world expects you to follow the rules, write your own. ♪
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because no one gets an opinion on how you live your life, why you shave, or how you show your skin. my skin. my way. ♪
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the big drug companies don't see they see us as profits. we're paying the highest prescription drug prices in the world so they can make billions? americans shouldn't have to choose between
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buying medication and buying food for our families. it's time for someone to look out for us. congress, stop the greed. cut drug prices now. when the president's campaign chairman paul manafort was sentenced to federal prison for the second time this week, that led to a lot of expectations that maybe everything related to the special counsel's office was wrapping up now too. i will say i hope that by now everybody has learned to be a little bit humble about predicting what's going on with the sopecial counsel's since we've all been wrong. but when manafort's federal criminal cases came to a close this week, it at least seemed safe to guess that, okay, at least we now know the rick gates will come to an end now too. right? these were linked.
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gates was the deputy campaign chair when manafort was campaign chair. gates was charged along side manafort in the first indictments that were handed down by mueller. after initially pleading not only along side manafort, gates manafort, gates was the one who first took the plunge, changed his mind, pled guilty, became a cooperating witness. that included a couple of walk ard weeks with him serving as the star witness against paul manafort in manafort's trial in the eastern district of virginia. now over the long duration of manafort's trials, gates' sentencing has been delayed again and again and again. that made sense. he was being used as a kupter and a prosecution witness against manafort in the manafort trial as long as the manafort case was still alive, it made sense that prosecutors might want to keep their claws in rick gates, keep them cooperating. stop him from going through with this sentencing and moving on with the rest of his life. when the manafort case finally came to a close in court with the sentencing on wednesday, it seems like, okay, gates will now
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finally wrap up, too. gates' case scheduled for a status update in federal court today. and i think it's fair to say it was widely assumed that everyone thought today we'd learn that gates was coming to his own end of the line. they'd finally be ready to move forward with sentencing him, too. nope. nope. nope. wrong again. prosecutors today asked for another delay in rick gates' sentencing. they asked for four separate delays in gates' sentencing over the course of the manafort trials. now that the manafort trials are over, today they just asked for an extension in gates' sentencing for a fifth final. mr. gates, quote, continues to cooperate with respect to several ongoing investigations, says the special counsel's office. and so at least another 60 days, at least until mid-may now before gates' case will be back in court after yet another extension. gates is still an actively cooperating witness in several ongoing investigations. no we still don't know what
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those investigations are, but, again, trying to stay humble here, given everybody's record on predicting these cases. we might surmise it has something to do with gates was number two in the trump inaugural. trump inaugural didn't appear to be under law enforcement scrutiny at the outset, but it's clearly under scrutiny now. trump inaugural was a subject of subpoena from the southern district of new york recently. and by the d.c. attorney general. it's also the subject of extensive document requests from the judiciary committee in congress and rick gates was the number two guy -- number two guy in the trump inaugural committee. so it's possible that that's some of what he is still cooperating on and why they can't move forward with his sentencing. but given how good everybody's been at predicting things from here on out and guessing how things are going with mueller, it's also possible it has somebody to do with the moon and green cheese, but don't hold me to it. we'll see when we see.
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watch this space. ♪ ♪ this is why we plan. ♪ ♪ you never cease to amaze me, maya. see how investing with a j.p. morgan advisor can help you. visit your local chase branch. so why not bundle them with esurance and save up to 10%? which you can spend on things you really want to buy, like... well, i don't know what you'd wanna buy because i'm just a guy on your tv. esurance. it's surprisingly painless.
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sometimes, bipolar i disorder makes you feel like you can do it all. but mania, such as unusual changes in your mood, activity or energy levels, can leave you on shaky ground. help take control by asking your healthcare provider about vraylar. vraylar treats acute mania of bipolar i disorder. vraylar significantly reduces overall manic symptoms,... ...and was proven in adults with mixed episodes who have both mania and depression. vraylar should not be used in elderly patients with dementia, due to increased risk of death or stroke. call your doctor about fever, stiff muscles, or confusion, which may mean a life-threatening reaction or uncontrollable muscle movements, which may be permanent. side effects may not appear for several weeks. high cholesterol; weight gain; high blood sugar and decreased white blood cells, both of which can be serious or fatal;... ...dizziness upon standing; falls; seizures; impaired judgment; heat sensitivity; and trouble swallowing may occur. ask if vraylar can help you get on track. ♪ do you ♪ love me? ♪ ♪ i can really move ♪
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this was lisbon, pouring. you are killing your mother. in germany, our house is on fire. in seoul and dublin with signs that say there is no planet b, as in no plan b. in italy, kids painted their hands to say "our future is in your hands." in cape town, south africa, school kids chanted outside the parliament, we need change, we need change, we need change. there were crowds in new zealand, yes, even today in new zealand. in prague, ukraine, uganda, also here at home in washington, d.c. this was paris. you are never too small to make a difference. more ahead tonight. stay with us. tonight stay with us live from the starl. ♪ one plus one equals too little too late ♪ ♪ a sock-a-bam-boom ♪ who's in the room? ♪ love is dangerous ♪ but driving safe means you pay less ♪ ♪ switch and save
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♪ yes, ma'am excuse me, miss. ♪ does this heart belong to you? ♪ ♪ would you like it anyway? [ scatting ] ♪ would you like it anyway? metastatic breast cancer is relentless, but i'm relentless too. mbc doesn't take a day off, and neither will i. i treat my mbc with everyday verzenio, the only one of its kind that can be taken every day. verzenio is the only cdk4 & 6 inhibitor approved with hormonal therapy that can be taken every day for post menopausal women with hr+, her2 negative mbc. verzenio plus an ai helped women have significantly more time without disease progression, and more than half of women saw their tumors shrink vs an ai. diarrhea is common, may be severe, or cause dehydration or infection. before taking verzenio, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection. verzenio may cause low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infection that can lead to death. serious liver problems can occur.
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from the judiciary committees a couple of weeks ago. they are all, all 81 of them, facing the same deadline this monday for getting those records up to capitol hill. judiciary chairman gerald nadler is asking these 81 people and entities for information about a gazillion different scandals and issues, everything from the president's hush money payments to the trump tower meeting with the russians to details about the inaugural committee. it's a ton of stuff. some people who were targeted with these document requests have apparently said they're not going to comply, but nadler's office tells us they actually think they're getting a good response so far. they say they've also been working with people who might need a little bit more time, if not potentially a friendly subpoena. but, again, deadline for all of them is on monday. we shall see as of monday what they get. have a good weekend. that does it for us now. we will see you again monday night. now it's time for "the last word" with ali velshi sitting in for lawrence tonight. >> i'm