details. melanie, who has been doing fantastic reporting on this, thank you so much. i appreciate it. >> thank you for having me, chris. >> that's "all in" on this monday night. my great thanks to mehdi hassan for filling in for me last week. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. good evening, rachel. >> i know you had at least one great day last week. did you have a project or a trip or something? or just spending time with kate and the kids? >> hanging with the fam, kate and kids, doing some long walks. a day date with my wife, we went for a walk. had a midday cocktail. you know, it's the heart of decadence, when you're 42 and just getting to hang with your spouse, take in the sunshine. it was awesome.

>> this is, for all of the ways in which we are different from one another and we're a diverse community, for a very large proportion of the population, the idea of, if i could just day drink. it's a very, very unifying thing for a lot of us in our fantasies. >> not an absent part of my vacation. >> well done, my friend. welcome back. great to have you back. and thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. we're happy to have you here. a big show for you tonight. the chair of president biden's council of economic advisers is here tonight. this will be her first interview on this show. looking forward to talking with her. today of all days, that will become clear in just a moment. we'll also be talking with the "new york times" reporter who just broke the astonishing story of the previously unknown

major grift, major fraud that former president trump ran against his supporters in the final months of his time in office. to the tune of over $120 million and thousands of fraud claims. now even one state republican party claiming to have been just plain ripped off by the former president and his operation. we will have more on that ahead tonight. plus, we will have some very interesting news tonight, unexpected at least to me, from the nra's bankruptcy trial. which aught ought to be getting more attention. super interesting. but if you heard any weird yips and shouts and exclamations tonight around dinnertime on the east coast, i'm here to congratulate you that that probaby means there's a deep,

deep politics nerd in your household. if you're a true civics dork, not just a person who loves voting or knows the lyrics to some good "schoolhouse rocks" songs. if you're a deep dive civics dork, if i can say to you, what presidential speech has been read out loud in congress every year since 1933, you can say, that's george washington's farewell address, if you're a true blue civics dork, tonight was a really big night. and we're going to have an expert keep me on the straight and narrow in terms of what this means. but i think this is a very, very big deal. here's what happened. here's how i understand it. a couple of weeks ago, we reported on this building sized light-up l.e.d. billboard that

was running in times square in new york city. that's the size of a full building. help is here. thank you, joe biden. thank you democrats. 100 million shots, 100 million checks. help is here. that was last month as congress passed and president biden signed the big covid relief act. to fund the vaccine rollout, to send americans all those relief payments, to do all that stuff that was in that big, very consequential bill. and that billboard is not typical democratic behavior, right? a big, brash, taking credit for it kind of thing like that. but the republicans did make it possible for the democrats to be that blunt about it. that billboard in times square blunt about it. because not a single republican in the house or the senate voted for covid relief. and so you legitimately can say,

thank you democrats. and the covid relief bill has huge support in the public. it has fueled an over 70% approval rating for president biden, specifically on the issue of his handling covid. republican members of congress, who all voted against the bill in the house and the senate, they're still getting caught trying to take credit for things in the relief bill. roger wicker of mississippi, bragging about all the money from the covid relief bill that is coming to mississippi. bragging about it even though he voted against the bill. madison cawthorn, bragging about all the funding for, i think it was health centers in his district. all that money coming to his district from the covid relief bill. him bragging about it as if he had anything to do with it other than voting against it. there was uniform republican opposition to the covid relief

bill. uniform and unanimous. so, yes, it may be brash to do it, but democrats are in their rights to put something like this up in times square. thank you, democrats. thank you, joe biden. they're not overstating the case. there are no republicans to thank. but now, this is times square in new york city. now, they've started doing this around the country. this went up in minneapolis, minnesota, today. help is here. $1,400 checks, money to reopen schools, money for vaccines. help is here. thanks to president biden, and on the other side, thanks to senator klobuchar, senator smith, who both voted for the covid relief bill, so they get thanks. if you're in a state that doesn't have democratic senators like minnesota does, here's the version that you may see going

up. this is from north carolina. i think it also just went up today in greensboro. similar theme, help is here, checks, money for schools and vaccines. thanks to president biden. but in this case, because it's north carolina, the other side says, help is here, no thanks to senator burr and senator tillis. since they have two republican senators, and both voted no. all republican senators voted no. it makes it particularly stark in a state like wisconsin, where they have one senator from each party. their billboard has one senator over there with president biden. thanks to president biden and thanks to senator baldwin, help is here. on the other side, it says no thanks to senator johnson. over there on the right, all by himself in black and white, looking sad. the democrats taking a victory lap, taking credit for this wildly popular bill that in fact

they passed all alone, with no help from the other side. it marks a new vibe for democrats. they want people to know who is getting stuff done, and also who isn't helping. trying to increase the cost for republicans who are voting no on everything. but here's the thing. the only reason this can happen, the only reason the democrats are in a position to brag and brag in this way, to brag that it's only them that is getting stuff done for the country, the only reason this is possible is because the democrats were able to pass the covid relief bill all by themselves. in the house of representatives, you can pass things with a simple majority. half of the house plus one. nancy pelosi bears all the slings and arrows of her critics, they love to deride

her. but she's really good at getting stuff done. she's really good at getting stuff passed in the house. she does not miscount or miscalculate. if democrats have legislation they want to pass in the house, you give nancy pelosi a democratic majority in the house, however slim, she will get that passed. she does it every time, like a machine. like a boss. in the senate, it's not that simple. in the senate, the filibuster rule means you can't do it that way. the minority party can insist that in the senate you can't pass things with 50 votes plus 1. they can use that filibuster rule to insist that you need a super majority, 60 votes to pass something. for democrats to pass something

with 60 votes, they would need 10 republican senators to cross the aisle. and in this republican party, you couldn't get ten republican senators to vote for a proclamation that today is monday and tomorrow is tuesday, or that ice cream tastes good. not if it was a democratic bill that needed ten republican votes to pass. they would just never do it. so that procedural thing about the senate makes the prospects of joe biden's presidency very mathematically simple. and this is the thing that undergirds everything else we talk about in politics and in policy in this time in our country. the sum total of what the biden presidency will be able to get done, in terms of real policy, in terms of actual legislation. the big stuff that you can only do by passing something and the president signing it. the alpha and omega of what the

biden presidency will be able to accomplish is defined by how many bills they can pass in the house and the senate, and that means how many will not be subject to the filibuster rule and the 60-vote threshold. because it will be impossible to reach for any bill that says anything at all. the way they got the covid relief bill is they used an exception to the filibuster rule. the exception they used so they could pass it with 50 votes and only democratic senators voting for it and all the republicans voting no, the thing that has the world's most boring name. it's called -- it's -- it's called budget reconciliation. are there two more boring words in the english language? budget reconciliation sounds incredibly boring, and it is a technical thing inside senate

rules. and it has a very boring name, but it has a very important purpose. it allows that once per year, once per budget, once per every -- a piece of legislation that congress passes every year called the budget resolution, once per year, the majority can pass things that have an impact on the budget with only 50 votes on a vote that is not subject to the filibuster rule and the minority of the senate forcing a 60-vote super majority. in the real world, this is everything. put that times square billboard back up there. this is what it means in the real world. even with republicans all opposed, democrats were able to get that thing done anyway.

they were able to get that huge covid relief package done. they were able to get it passed. and that's why you got $1,400 in the mail, and the vaccine funding, and schools reopening. because they were able to use that boring-sounding budget reconciliation thing. 50 votes was enough, because republicans will vote no on everything. you may remember, at the beginning of democrats taking control of the senate, i interviewed senator chuck schumer. i had his first interview when he became the new majority leader of the senate. i asked him about what he planned to do now that the democrats were in control, how he planned to get stuff done, despite the fact that republican senators will vote for nothing. and i remember keenly from that interview, i'm glad i went to d.c. and did it in person, even

though i was freaked out about traveling and covid. it was worth it because i got to see eye-to-eye him giving me that slightly approaching kid in a candy store look. when he pointed out to me that actually they thought they would be able to use this budget reconciliation thing not once but twice. that's the thing that allows them to pass something with just 50 votes. he pointed out to me, by a quirk of fate, they hadn't passed a budget resolution thing in 2020. so senator schumer told me, they were going to be able to use budget reconciliation twice. they would be able to use it to pass biden's covid relief bill with just 50 democratic votes if they needed to. then he said they could do it again. a second time, for a second big bill. because of that quirk where the 2020 budget resolution was left

undone. and for all of the headlines, for all of the consequences, for all of the resulting politics and the resulting policy and the movement of money that changed. for all of the billboards on times square and on the side of interstates, with the ridiculous filibuster rule, and the ridiculous exception to it relating to budget resolutions, once every budget resolution, you can have this thing that isn't subject to a 60-vote threshold. this system, which civics dorks can preach to you about it with passion in their eyes, but most people don't understand or care about it enough, democrats in this system believed until tonight that they had precisely two bites at the apple.

they had two things that they could pass without any republican support. the first thing, they already did it. covid relief bill. the second thing will be the big infrastructure bill. the administration this weekend and today fanning the cabinet secretaries and members of the executive branch, making the face for why the infrastructure bill will be great and why everybody should support it. but until tonight, it was basically, yeah, we did covid relief. we were able to do that because of budget reconciliation. we'll also do this infrastructure bill. but then that's it. that's all we'll be able to get to do. because we only get two bills we can pass under budget reconciliation. covid was the first, this is the second thing, so we need to make sure it's really good and it's got everything we want in it.

because it's the last legislation that will get made in the biden area, the last thing that president biden will be able to sign. it's depressing, but that has been the bottom line until tonight. tonight, the yips and whoops and omgs coming from your civics dork teenager down the hall, they were about this. tonight, the senate parliamentarian ruled that the democrats can do this three more times this year. wait, what? this budget reconciliation thing we're talking about. usually it's only once a year they can do this. there's a budget resolution once per year, and you can do it once. schumer got very lucky, and was going to be able to use it twice because of a quirk about last year's resolution never going through. so he was going to get two,

which was a huge deal. covid relief and infrastructure. but schumer's staff, a couple of weeks ago, apparently went to the parliamentarian of the senate and said we've looked into this arcane rule, and we think actually we don't have one more thing that we can pass this year with just 50 votes. we think if you look closely at the way this rule is written, we can do this three more times this congress. which means in real, practical political terms, they can do covid relief, check, infrastructure, working on it, and then two more things. this congress, which means this year and next year. even if they don't get a single republican vote. they went to the senate parliamentarian with that, and tonight, they said, yeah, i agree. actually, you're right. it's like a ruling of the senate parliamentarian, it sounds like

the smallest thing in the world. but if you're doing your laundry, you find five bucks in your pocket. nice. then you pull out the lint trap, and there's a couple of hundred dollar bills stuck in there with the lint. holy mackerel, i was psyched for five bucks. here's 200! i know this is high-level dork territory, but this means the democrats and the biden administration can double the amount of stuff they want to get done, and that they can get done. covid relief was huge. they can only do that with budget reconciliation. covid and infrastructure would have been huge. but now, they just got the go-ahead to do two more things using these same rules. which means the filibuster doesn't apply. two more times. and, yeah, i'm sure they would

love it if none of this was necessary. because at least some of the time, some republicans would cross over and vote for stuff that they like. but this is not the world we live in. the real truth is that the only way biden and the democrats can get anything done is to do it around the republicans. and now they have a way to do that. a lot of that. if they can get it together to take advantage of this, you know, this winning lottery ticket that just fell into their lab. joining us now, adam gentleson, chief of staff to harry reid for five years. author of "kill switch," adam, thank you for joining us on short notice tonight. i know it's like birthday, christmas, and new year's eve rolled up in one for civics dorks. >> very exciting. everybody talking about senate

rules, it's like christmas for me. >> i am not as much of a dork as i should be on this stuff. i'm a dork enough that i'm excited by this being a big deal. but will you just tell me if i explained any of that wrong about what this ruing means in practical terms? >> no, i think you got it 100% correct in terms of what it allows democrats to do. one way to think about it, it's like a special bucket that you can put certain kinds of legislation in and pass around the filibuster. democrats tonight learned they had a lot more than two buckets. but this ruling doesn't change the type of legislation that can go into that bucket, and that will present some challenges moving forward. >> and that in oversimplifying but basically accurate terms, they can only pass things using this rule if those things have a

budget impact. and that is pretty narrowly defined by the parliamentarian, arguably, but that will still be the same standard that is applied to anything else they want to do. just like they were precluded from raising the minimum wage in the covid relief bill. because that was said not to have a budget impact. they will run up against the same thing in anything else they try to use that for. >> right. and budgetary impact, many things have an impact on the budget. but in senate terms, that is defined very narrowly. minimum wage, you would think that has a budgetary impact, but the parliamentarian ruled it didn't qualify. so if things like minimum wage don't qualify, they're probably

also going to rule that a lot of other things don't meet that standard. so it's great that there are more vehicles that they can use, but things like voting rights will not pass the budget impact criteria. those will always be left outside of the bucket, to be blocked by the filibuster. so that's still a big challenge. >> voting rights is exactly what i was going to ask you about. is there a way, obviously democrats like hr-1 and hr-4, the john lewis and for the people act, they like the way those are currently construed. putting a nationwide floor under

voting rights, is there a way to reconceive this legislation so it might get closer at least to fitting under the kind of rules you need to pass it using reconciliation? >> i would love to tell you yes. but i don't think that that is possible. i think you can get really creative under reconciliation rules. but, you know, it's also sort of a common sense test that the parliamentarian applies. something like voting rights, you could certainly argue there are many budgetary impacts on the bills and their implementation. but it's clear the main purpose of them is not to impact the budget. it's to expand voting rights. so you'll have a really hard time making the case that those pass muster under reconciliation's very strict standards. i say that as someone who wants hr-1 and the voting rights bills

to pass. but the democrats, while they should be excited about tonight's ruling, it doesn't change the fundamental challenge that hr-1 and voting rights bills will have to fit into one of these reconciliation budgets. they will still have to pass on the senate floor, meaning they could be blocked by a filibuster. so democrats have to face the question about whether or not to reform the filibuster if they want to pass these bills. >> adam jentleson, thank you for helping us sort this out tonight. it was a very unexpected piece of news from the parliamentarian. thank you so much. >> thank you, rachel. so, if the biden administration and the democrats

in congress all of a sudden tonight just doubled their opportunities to pass legislation that has a budgetary impact, legislation -- to pass legislation in a way that does not require them to persuade republican senators to come over to their side on this, what are they going to do with this opportunity? did they know this was coming? do they have stuff in mind that they want to now stack up to try to pass this way? and if you're a top economist sitting in the white house, what does this mean for you? president biden's top economist joins us live. stay right here, that's next. xt

feeling stressed in your skin? not with new olay retinol body wash. which improves skin 3x better. from dry and stressed, to bright and smooth. . . olay body. fearless in my skin.

wanna help kids get their homework done? well, an internet connection's a good start. but kids also need computers. and sometimes the hardest thing about homework is finding a place to do it. so why not hook community centers up with wifi? for kids like us, and all the amazing things we're gonna learn. over the next 10 years, comcast is committing $1 billion to reach 50 million low-income americans with the tools and resources they need to be ready for anything. i hope you're ready. 'cause we are.

we crunched the numbers. we find that 5.5% of the $2 trillion, well, 5.6% of the $2 trillion proposal is only dedicated to roads and bridges. why is that?

>> we're talking about roads and bridges, rail and transit, airports and ports. we're talking about things like the grid. i don't know why anybody would say it's a mistake to invest in the grid after what we saw in texas. we saw u.s. citizens in texas melting snow to be able to flush their toilets in the united states of america, and that's unacceptable. >> the fact of the matter is, replacing all the pipes and infrastructure. talking about making sure to take that out of schools, that's infrastructure. talking about high-speed rail, that's infrastructure. talking about making sure you're in a situation where you can re-do some of the federal

buildings that are absolutely leaking energy every single day. that's infrastructure. >> president biden speaking today. transportation secretary buttigieg speaking this weekend. trying to make the case for the infrastructure bill. mitch mcconnell saying there will be no republican votes for it. but as we learned tonight, the parliamentarian will allow democrats to pass more bills that republicans wouldn't be able to filibuster. does that change the scope of the administration's ambition around big-ticket items like infrastructure? joining us now, cecilia rouse. thank you for making time to be here. >> oh, it's my pleasure.

thank you for having me. >> so, i noted in the introduction that senator mcconnell has said bluntly that there won't be any republican votes for the infrastructure bill. and he wasn't talking about anything specific. he just said, no matter what case is made for it, there won't be any republican votes. i wonder if you have to factor that in when you try to make the case to the public for doing something big like this. >> look, president biden has been laser focused on accomplishing two things in his presidency. one, getting us through this pandemic. and the ensuing economic crisis. we've been through a once in a century pandemic, which brought the economy to its knees and brought untold suffering to the american people. two, he recognized even before the pandemic, we had structural

inequality, decades where we we were not investing in our infrastructure. this economy had real infrastructure needs. so he's been focused on these important economic investments from the very beginning. so, you know, he would like to be able to pass and accomplish these goals in a bipartisan fashion. but what is most important for him is that we actually make these investments in our economy, and that we make the u.s. the competitive country it should be. and to ensure we're prepared for the 21st century. >> one of the issues that is having a lot of political debate around it already is the way that president biden has proposed to pay for this. including increasing the corporate tax rate from 21% to

28%. it's interesting that that has made the proposal poll better. so it sort of feels to me like talking about any specific corporate tax rate is grasping at phantoms a little bit. we keep seeing headlines about how the biggest and most profitable corporations year after year seem to pay nothing, if not negative taxes. seems like the biggest and most savvy corporations never get close to paying that rate we're talking about paying. >> that's exactly right. what president biden is trying to do here is to make really important investments in our economy, our work force, to make the u.s. more competitive. but we understand we have to do that in a fiscally responsible way. we know corporate tax revenue has been declining.

he believes that corporations should pay their fair share. it's absolutely outrageous that, you know, the proposal to increase the corporate tax rate to 28%, which really is lower than it's been since world war ii, it's only been in the last three, four years since the tax cut and jobs act in 2017, that the corporate tax rate was so very low. so president biden is asking that corporations pay their fair share so we can have a prosperous economy for everybody in the u.s. >> i think that when it comes to the idea of infrastructure, even though it's a long, hard to pronounce word, everybody is on board with the idea of spending american taxpayer dollars to improve bridges and roads and

ports and airports and all of these things that we think of traditional literally concrete infrastructure. but other things in the proposal that republicans have derided as having nothing to do with infrastructure, and want them stripped out of the bill. what is the argument for the money proposed to provide care for the elderly and disabled that is in this bill? how does that lead to jobs? how is that part of infrastructure, as it's conceived for this bill? >> look, i like to think of care as, for centuries, when women were providing most of the care in the home, and the man, this is traditional, stereotypical, there was shadow infrastructure provided by the woman. taking care of the elders, and the children. now, somebody needs to take care

of the children and the elders. thinking about our population in the next ten years, a growing proportion will be reaching retirement age. in the next decade, the fraction of the population over the age of 85 will increase by a third. so, someone needs to be taking care of elders for women to be able to take care of them, disproportionately women. someone needs to take care of them in their elder years. it's part of infrastructure, because we need these kinds of jobs and care to enable disproportionately women to go to work. just like using roads to get to jobs, we need electricity and broadband to do my job, and for kids to go to school.

so these are all things that help us do the kinds of economic activity to ensure your economy is healthy and moving forward. >> cecilia rouse, the chair of the white house council of economicadvisers. thank you for your time. i have a feeling that the politics on this will get crazier and crazier over the next few weeks. we would love to have you back. >> thank you very much. it's been a pleasure. >> all right. coming up next, we're going to be speaking with a "new york times" reporter who broke a huge story in politics this weekend about the former president running a straight-up hundred million-dollar plus grift on his supporters. we have the guy who broke that news coming it right after this. stay with us. this. stay with us

it doesn't happen often. everyday people taking on the corporate special interests. and winning. but now, the for the people act stands on the brink of becoming law. ensuring accurate elections. iron-clad ethics rules to crack down on political self-dealing. a ban on dark money. and finally reducing corporate money in our politics. to restore our faith in government. because it's time. for the people to win. [sfx: psst psst]

because it's time. allergies don't have to be scary. spraying flonase daily stops your body from overreacting to allergens all season long. psst! psst! all good

i'm not sure if there's anything i can say to my family members to convince them to take the covid-19 vaccine. i'm not even sure if i'm convinced. hi darius, i think that people respond more to what we do than what we say. so after looking at all the data and the science about these vaccines, i got the vaccine. and i made sure my mom and dad got the vaccine. because these vaccines are safe. ♪ ♪

here's how it starts. stacey blatt was in hospice care last september listening to rush limbaugh's warnings about how much donald trump's campaign needed money. that single $500 contributions, federal records show, it was his first ever. it quickly multiplied. another $500 was withdrawn the next day, then the next week. and every week through mid-october, without his knowledge. until his bank account had been depleted and frozen. when his utility and rent payments bounced, he called his brother for help. what they soon discovered was $3,000 in withdrawals in less than 30 days. they called the bank and thought

they were the victims of fraud. he said it felt like a scam it was. on the former presidents followers, to the tune of millions and millions of dollars. the trump campaign last year started putting little check boxes that were already pre-checked when you went to make a donation. first, it locked you into repeating your donation every month. then a repeated donation every week. there a second check box which the campaign called its money bomb. which locked you into an extra donation on some random day of the campaign's choosing. if you didn't want the trump campaign to keep reaching into your bank account or credit card over time, you had to deliberately un-check them. if you let them be, they would

keep coming for more money from you without ever notifying you. the campaign kept finding ways to hide that fine print underneath all sorts of verbiage that begged you not to read to the end. the tactic ensnared scores of unsuspecting trump loyalists. soon banks and credit card companies were inundated with fraud complaints about donations they had not intended to make. sometimes for thousands of dollars. you know, all big campaigns do end up refunding some amount of money to donors because of mistakes or because some folks give more than they intended, or they accidentally give more than the legal maximum, and it has to be made square. but the trump campaign had to refund over $120 million to

their online donors. for reference, the corresponding amount for the biden campaign was $21 million. and amazingly, trump paid for refunds with money he raised from his donors in his next scam. and for what it's worth, this story upset mr. trump enough to say, the "times" story is all wrong, and he was the real winner of the november election. okay, chief. by the way, the trump campaign may be over. but the for profit company they put in charge of all their online donations, that company is still going quite strong in republican politics. one member of the republican national committee is speaking

out about what they're doing in minnesota. he's written to state republican party officials complaining that of all the money raised online in the last year and a half, over half of it has gone straight to this company for something called win red credit card processing fees. most of the money they have raised online in the past year and a half has gone to that company? to keep? this can't go on indefinitely, right? the republican party can't just be an assemblage of various players who are all constantly scamming each other and running fraud schemes on each other. this does have to, i don't know. the "new york times" reporter who broke this story joins us next. next es send the wrong message. help prevent them before they start with downy wrinkleguard.

stay restless with the icon that does the same. the rx crafted by lexus. lease the 2021 rx 350 for $439 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. with relapsing forms of ms, there's a lot to deal with.

not just unpredictable relapses. all these other things too. who needs that kind of drama? kesimpta is a once-monthly at-home injection that may help you put this rms drama in its place. kesimpta was proven superior at reducing the rate of relapses, active lesions and slowing disability progression versus aubagio. don't take kesimpta if you have hepatitis b, and tell your doctor if you have had it, as it could come back. kesimpta can cause serious side effects, including infections. while no cases of pml were recorded in rms clinical trials, it could happen. tell your doctor if you had or plan to have vaccines, or if you are or plan to become pregnant. kesimpta may cause a decrease in some types of antibodies. the most common side effects are upper respiratory tract infection, headache and injection reactions. dealing with this rms drama? it's time to ask your doctor about kesimpta. dramatic results. less rms drama.

like you, my hands are everything to me. but i was diagnosed with dupuytren's contracture. and it got to the point where things i took for granted got tougher to do. thought surgery was my only option. turns out i was wrong. so when a hand specialist told me about nonsurgical treatments, it was a total game changer. like you, my hands have a lot more to do. learn more at factsonhand.com today. cranky-pated: a bad mood related to a sluggish gut. like you, my hands have a lot more to do. miralax is different. it works naturally with the water in your body to unblock your gut. free your gut, and your mood will follow. since you're heading off to school, i got you this brita.

dad... i just got a zerowater. but we've always used brita. it's two stage-filter... doesn't compare to zerowater's 5-stage. this meter shows how much stuff, or dissolved solids, gets left behind. our tap water is 220. brita? 110... seriously? but zerowater- let me guess. zero? yup, that's how i know it is the purest-tasting water. i need to find the receipt for that. oh yeah, you do. i'll rush to the end and tell you i don't know how long it will take for this become a big class action lawsuit or a

criminal fraud information. but the story begs for both or either of these. shane goldmacher talking about how the trump campaign ran a $100 million scam on its own supporters last year, duping them into repeated payments they never intended to make. resulting in thousands of fraud claims trying to figure out where their money went. joining us now, shane goldmacher, thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me on. >> one of the things that was helpful in your reporting, this was something more than just a bigger problem than you would see in other campaigns. lots of campaigns have to return donor money for various means. it was almost a qualitatively

different approach for trying to relieve their donors of money that donors did not intend to give. is that fair? >> you can look at the refund data. it tells this whole story. at the beginning of 2020, before they started deploying these boxes and before they made them weekly, before they added a second check box, and before they obscured the language, the refund between the biden and trump campaign was almost the same. in fact, the biden campaign rate was slightly higher. but then, after, the trump campaign rate from 2% to 12% in the last half of last year. at the end of the day, 1 out of every $10 that people donated to donald trump online was refunded

back to donors. not all of those are fraud claims where people said this was a scam. but a good chunk of it is. when i went to the trump campaign and told them the findings, they said, look, less than 1% of donors formally complained to their credit card. that's still a very large number. because win red and the trump campaign generally tried to give people back their money. these are people that called their credit card and said, i've been a victim of something. i talked to numerous officials at banks who said there was a surge of fraud complaints around the election and shortly after. >> when they had to refund this money, did they refund it with interest? because they had the money and were able to use it for campaign

purposes before they refunded it. were they in effect taking interest free loans from their donors? >> i've not heard of anyone who got their money back with interest. and more than just an interest free loan from supporters, this was money to the trump campaign when they needed it. in the final weeks of the election, they had far more television ads reserved than they had money in the bank. so by collecting them before the election and in many cases refunding them after the election, they had the money when they needed it. and trump continued to raise tens of millions of dollars after the election when he was talking to his supporters and saying you have to stop the steal. i really won. and you need to give me your money so i can fight this in the courts. but the reality is, more of the

money he raised after the election went towards paying these refunds than towards legal bills. >> stunning. shane, this is an incredible story. thank you for helping us understand it. >> thanks for having me on. we'll be right back. [ ding] success! that means... best burger ever. intuit quickbooks helps small businesses be more successful with payments, payroll, and banking.

look at this human trying to get in shape. you know what he will get? muscle pain. give up, the couch is calling. i say, it's me, the couch, i'm calling. pain says you can't. advil says you can. vo: calling all builders, all welders, and roofers. engineers and electricians. calling all brick masons and boiler makers. steel workers and steam fitters your country is calling you to rebuild america.

to create a cleaner, safer, more prosperous future for all. tackling climate change, this is the job of our lifetime. it's time to build back better. let's get to work.

that's going to do it for us tonight. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening, lawrence. >> it was wonderful to see the glee in your eyes at the beginning of your hour, knowing you had breaking parliamentary news to