tv The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC April 7, 2021 6:00pm-7:00pm PDT
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if you want to do eldercare, you have to carry a pipe. katie porter. that's now to rachel maddow. thank you for joining us this hour. we start tonight on the republican side of politics. and politics in the news where things are a little bit of a three-ring circus right now. it is starting to seem like the circus tent could come down in the wind. the national bulls eye, the focus of so much anger and controversy and new restrictions on voting rights. today in a surprise, georgia's republican lieutenant governor admitted what critics of the law
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alleged from the beginning which is the impetus for the new draconian voting restrictions in georgia, the impetus for it was the set of lies told by president trump. and on behalf of president trump after he lost georgia in the presidential election in 2020 this is what all the critics of georgia republicans have been claiming about where this voting restriction bill came from in john john. georgia republicans as of today are admitting that criticism is true. that these new voting restrictions they passed into law is all based on trump's lies from the last election. >> this is really the fallout from the ten weeks of misinformation that flew in from mr. donald trump p. i went back over the weekend to look where this really started to gain momentum in the legislature. it is when rudy giuliani showed up in a couple committee rooms and spent hours sowing doubt across, you know, hours of
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testimony. yes, republicans in georgia just passed into law all the new voting restrictions in that state because of the lies spread by president trump and rudy giuliani alleging that somehow trump didn't really lose georgia in the election. if that's what they've done to roll back voting rights, then perhaps entities like major league baseball could be forgiven for levying that criticism. that the whole thing is based on a lie. now that georgia republican party admits that absolutely, in fact, yes, this whole thing is based on a lie. in a related matter, the state prosecutor in fulton county, georgia, said that park canyon will not face felony charges for knocking on the door of george governor brian kemp's office
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when he was holding a private signing statement for the voting restrictions bill. we saw that footage of representative canyon being handcuffed and then dragged through the georgia state capitol that night by state troopers. all for the crime of knocking on the door of the room where the governor was holding the signing ceremony on that voting bill. the white republicans signing the voting rights rollback while seated in the front of of a slave plantation. park cannon really was that is rafael visiting her in jail after arrested. she was charged with two felony counts. she was looking at years in prison if convicted on those
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counts. after reviewing all the evidence, i decided to close this matter. it will not be presented to a grand jury of indictment and it is now closed. while some of representative cannon's colleagues and the police officers involved may have found her behavior annoying. such sentiment does not justify a presentment to a grand jury of the allegations in the arrest warrants or any other felony charges. the biggest employers are repulsed by what republicans have done with that law. major league baseball will not hold the draft or all star game in georgia because of that law. the city of atlanta is trying to avoid enforcing that law in metro atlanta. at least this one atlanta based
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state representative, miss park cannon, at least she is not going to jail for years because of this law. because of her knocking on the governor's doord to see it get signed. representative cannon put out a statement today after the da announced there is not any charges brought against her. you see it at the top there. keep knocking. beyond the on going fiasco in georgia and in the other states, republicans are moving to restrict voting rights. republican politics also went through just a remarkable jie rags today when it comes to what you think would be a sensitive issue about the party's comfort level with fleecing its own supporters with just down right defrauding its own supporters and basically stealing from them. we highlighted shane goldmaker that had the scoop about how the republican party took in
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literally tens of millions of dollars around the 2020 election that the donors apparently really didn't intend to give them. and part of the stunning evidence in that story was anecdotal evidence. a 78-year-old california man that made a trump donation in september of $990. the trump campaign took that same amount, $990 seven more times from him without him knowing. they took nearly $8,000 from him when he was trying to donate less than $1,000. he told the times, bandits, i'm retired. i can't afford to pay all that damn money. which is a 78-year-old in california, a 87-year-old in illinois who made a series of small contributions to trump last fall that he thought would add up to $200. by december, federal records show the trump fund-raising operation withdrawn more than 70
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separate donations from the man's bank account totaling $2,300. that man told the "times" it was predatory. beyond the anecdotal evidence though, there was just the shocking cumulative data. trump's campaign and republican fund-raising operation he ran around the election ended up having to refund more than $120 million that they snookerred their own doaners out of. and that's just from the people who caught it and complained. who knows about the people who didn't notice that they got fleeced or who did but they didn't have the wherewithal to try to get the money back. it's just a shocking story, right? not only humiliating but damaging. how do you ever ask them to donate money you to once you ripped off thousands of people like that?
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apparently with no repentance whatsoever. they documented the yellow check box that's the republicans used on all the fund-raising pitches around this scam to rope people into giving more money than they intended. boxes said things like. this let's break a fund-raising record on president trump's birthday. join now! en in in lighter print, this will process on june 14th. that comes prechecked as does the monthly reoccurring donation box above it. but that bottom one, even though it doesn't say it in plain language, if you don't uncheck that box, what they're going to do is they're going to double the amount of money they take from you. whatever the donation, is they're going to take that amount the second time on that date. that's there in the fine print. unless you uncheck that box. so if you're sweet little trump supporting great aunt thought she was giving $200, unless she read to the bottom and figured
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out what the checked boxes meant, and manually unchecked them, she was actually going to end up giving $200 a month. and an extra $200 randomly taken off her account or credit card on june 14th. she had to notice what they were and physically go out of her way to uncheck them for that to not happen. or there is this one. join the president's executive club for true patriots only. and then in lighter type below, make this a weekly reoccurring donation until election day. unless you found that, read it, decided you didn't consider yourself to be a true patriot and didn't want to be in president trump's executive club, unless you fanned all those things and unchecked that box, your intend second down $00 donation is $200 every week all the way through november until you figureded out they were ripping you off and canceled your credit card. and just a humiliating scam the republican party and trump
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organization got caught for. they got caught this past weekend in "the new york times" and now we know how they reacted. today a new fund-raising pitch from the republican party and specifically nrcc which is part of the republican party that supports republicans in the house of representatives. they put this out today. prechecked for their donors. we need to know, we haven't lost you to the radical left. if you uncheck this box, we'll have to tell trump you're a defector and sided with the de many. s. check this box and we can rerinne the house and get him to run in 2024. be clear, the box starts off already checked. lighter text below, neighboring a monthly reoccurring donation. doesn't even look like it is donated about whether you want to be a defector. this is what the national republican party is doing today. to its marks. i mean its donors. if you're a defector and want to be reported as such to our former president who is
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notoriously ruthless and relentless against defectors, ruins people's lives, sicks followers on him. you've seen the way he goes after people who aren't loyal to him. you want to be one of them? if you're one of them, then uncheck this box you traitor. but unchecking the box is the only way you can keep them from taking your intended one time donation over and over and over and over again. so your bank account is, what, drained? also this one today from the republican party. if you want trump to run for president in 2024, check this box. if we flip five seats in the house red, trump says he'll run. that's not actually true. uncheck this box, we lose. and what does unchecking that box actually do? well, you have to skip down a line and then look at the finer print there. it will make it so that they don't keep making -- taking more money from you in the future
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beyond what you're donating today. double your donation. again this was just exposed this week as having driven more than 100 million dollars in fraud claims by republican trump supporters. they're not only still doing it days later, they're going hog wild with it. i mean they're upping the predatory nature and the sort of bamboozling nature of the things to try to trick as many people as they can into falling for one the scams where they donate more than they intended and their bank account is left open to the republican party to keep coming taking money out of it without getting any further permission. becoming a donor to the republican party in this era is like replying to one of the nigerian prince e-mails with your actual bank account information. it's like loning your credit card to the local meth dealer just for a few hours. he said he'd give it back. what could possibly go wrong? like i said, the latest news on the republican side of things is
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a little bit like a three-ring circus with the circus tent falling down. the saddest little third ring is, of course, the on going and expanding scandal around the most visible, most enthusiastically pro trump republican congressman of them all, florida republican congressman matt gaetz. the gaetz scandal has developed today in a way that does not look good for mr. gaetz. part of that broke by politico.com and part broken by cbs news tonight. i'll hold on the details for now. we have one of the reporters who broke the additional developments and that story coming up in a couple minutes to break that down for us. but the republican side of things today was a little helicopterer xelter. democratic side of things today was sort of a super charge day and it marked and president biden and the democrats. there is reason for and because
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of something structural in politics this week. this week the democrats learned that they will be allowed. to use the nat rules. the legislation with the simple majority of votes with the votes from the 50 democratic senators only if that's what they have to do is a tiebreaking and vice president and that is a big deal. they thought they might have to be able to do one more time. that ruling from the senate parliamentarian this week, that's a huge deal if the democrats had a 60 vote margin to pass anything. they have to expect precisely zero legislation to pass into law. republican senator to cast any votes with democrats on anything
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of substance. it is widely popular is the vivid relief bill which had support among the population as a whole among a majority of republican voters and republican senator voted for it. there is not a single republican senator will vote for the infrastructure bill. voters are against it or unpopular measure. new polling today from pro lit he could shows a broad majority of support for every element of the bill. from modernizing hospitals and streets and bridges and improving care giving facilities for disabled americans and older members to replacing all the lead pipes had and building and improving public schools to increasing broadband to improving public trans it and amtrak to airports to electric vehicle fleets and chargers and capping off band ond wells and
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all of it. they pulled down all of the elements of it. every single will one of the elements has 50% support among registered voters. they're considerably more than 50% support. but nothing has less than a majority of the country supporting it. and look at that one highlighted proposal that we have there. the one highlighted in yellow. that is just the proposal about improving care giving facilities for older americans and disabled americans. that's the part of the biden infrastructure bill that in particular and they really hate and they really think if they keep talking about that, that will turn the public against the infrastructure bill. that has 76% support. among registered voters. 64% among republican voters. i mean overall only 13% of the country says they're in opposition to. that the rest say they don't know. but that thing with 76% overall
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support and 64% among republican voters, that the thing that they chose to pick on the most if they keep picking on that. they'll win on this one. it's wildly popular. that is more popular than kittens. but still, they say not a single republican senator will vote for this bill. they promise there are zero republicans. thats your prerogative for something this popular. from all the stand against it when it is going to pass anyway. feel free. because democrats do have an option to pass this without any republican votes. and today president biden made the case he would love for republicans to support this bill. he thinks they should. if they don't, they don't. their call. it's going ahead anyway. >> debate is welcome. compromise is inevitable. changes are certain.
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i'll be meeting with republicans and democrats to hear from everyone. we'll be open to good ideas and good faith negotiations. but here's what we won't be open to. we'll won't be open to doing nothing. inaction simply is not an option. now since i announced this plan, i've heard from my republican friends say that it's too big. they say why not focus on traditional infrastructure? fix what we already got. the roads and the highways that exist and the bridges. i'm happy to have that debate. i want to tell you my view. we are america. we don't just fix for today. we build for tomorrow. 200 years ago trains weren't
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traditional infrastructure either. until america made a chase to lay down tracks across the country. highways weren't traditional infrastructure until we allowed ourselves to imagine that roads could connect our nation. across state lines. the idea of infrastructure has always evolved to meet the aspirations of the american people and their needs. and it's evolving again today. we need to start seeing fruk infrastructure on its effect of lives on working people. what is the foundation today that they need to carve out their place in the middle class. to make it. to live, to go to work, to raise their families with dignity. to ensure that good jobs will be there for their kids no matter what they are or what zip code they live in. that's what infrastructure means
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in the 21st century. it still depends on roads and bridges, ports and airports, rail and mass transit, but it means having reliable high speed internet in every home. today's high speed internet is infrastructure. it depends on the electric grid, a grid that won't collapse in the winter storm or be compromised by hackers home or abroad. ask a teacher or a childcare worker if having clean drinking water, noncontaminated drinking water and our schools and our childcare centers is part of that foundation. >> president biden speaking on infrastructure. with republicans standing uniformly against the infrastructure bill, the republican senate leader promising there is no republican votes for it. if they pass the proposal, they'll have to pass it using
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the same process for the covid-19 relief bill. a senate rule that let them pass it with 50 votes instead of 60. and we know now that they can use that process not just one more time as many times as they want this year. and i'll tell you, it still vaent really caught on, i think, broadly in terms of the way people are talking about politics. fwhut is going to end up being a defining thing about the biden presidency. the filibuster rule, you know, the 60 vote threshold that changed a few times in recent years so it doesn't apply to confirming cabinet nominees and then they changed it so it wouldn't could be firming judges and then under trump so it wouldn't apply to confirming supreme court justices. they keep narrowing down what the filibuster applies to, what you can exempt from that 60 vote threshold. this new rule this week effectively seems to mean there a new exception to the filibuster which means you can't apply that 60 vote threshold to
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budget bills, bills that affect government taxes and spending. that seems to be the ruling to see the exact language of it, but the way it's been described, that seems to be what it means. and that will change what is possible. in a big way with 50 democratic senators and so this 50 vote ruling and mark my words. but in addition to that, what else are they going to pass using that rule? what else are they going to pass that gives ten republicans to cross some mythical line on -- and side with democrats which they won't do on anything? nancy pe lose ji working on a way to pass immigration reform under the same rules. you can't pass everything in immigration reform under these budget rules but can you do a lot. that will mean democrats can agree among themselves and come
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up with lafs things on immigration that fit within the budget rules and they'll be able to pass immigration reform. even with uniform opposition and again, there are limits. they can fit under the budget rulings. nobody believes that voting rights writ large or civil rights legislation can pass nur the budget rules either. >> but they're going to do everything they can every wau they can. and tonight we're learning that at least on guns president biden is taking some executive action and even where the filibuster rule. president biden is due at 11:45 eastern time in the rose garden to announce series of executive actions on guns. will he'll be appearing with vice president harris and merit garland.
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series of executive action that's includes treating homemade guns, guns without serial numbers. the same way that other guns are treated. and the other regulations. that's the supposed ghost guns. loophole. to back checks and the rules. president biden will be nominating a former atf agent to lead the bureau of tobacco and firearms. they're supposed to address gun traffic policy. david chipman is his name. he was, as i said, 25 years at the atf and bombing investigation. he is considered to be one of the gun laws. and most recently the organization founded by former democratic congresswoman gabby giffords shot and nearly killed after a mass shooting in 2011. i have to tell you, even just
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the act of nominating someone to run that federal agency, to run the atf, is something that republicans consider to be in front, terrible thing. there hasn't been a confirmed director of the atf at all since 2015. president biden is saying this year, this year there will be. and republicans will hate that. no republicans will vote for him and it will happen anyway. yeah, the nra will probably hate it too. but, you no he what, they're tied up in bankruptcy right now which is not appear to be going their way. the ceo testifying today in that trial about all of the multiple times he spent taking free vacations on a multimillion dollar yacht. 100% gifted to him personally as he repeatedly signed off on the nra paying the members money out in contracts to the dude letting wayne use his yacht.
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which really seems like he was taking very, very expensive gifts and services for himself as part of the deal by which the president giving him that stuff was getting nra money. and that's one thing that if the nra is something you call your personal bank account, but in this case the nra is a nonprofit organization that govern nonprofit organizations in new york state. they declared bankruptcy to try to get out of a new york state attorney general's office that will do that if they found to abuse their members. and the attorney general alleges. they're on trial in bankruptcy court in texas to see whether they are abusing the bankruptcy process to escape from that accountability. and they're strog admit all sorts of stuff they never had to testify about under oath in the process. and so, yeah, the nra has had better days. but that nra that is supposed to
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make everything impossible when it comes to gun safety and reform. they're occupied right now. the republicans are going to vote no on anything and everything. everything that president biden proposes. what's going on in republican politics right now. they're busy with the moan mess being getting caught regularly. and defrauding their own supporters. they're trying to keep entertaining donald trump's fantasy that maybe somehow he secretly still president from his golf club because the last election didn't count and you call him the 45th president, that means we don't have to tell him he's the ex-president. that's what's going on in republican politics right now. so i know we're a two party
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system. in terms of our political system. one is not like the other. one of these parties is not like the other right now. which is why democrats we are seeing more and more every day now, democrats are just getting on with things on their own. surveying what is going on the other side of the aisle and saying, you know what. we're just going to get some stuff down. that's more ahead tonight. wn that's more ahead tonight. i'm not hungry! you're having one more bite! no! one more bite!
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it's been a twisted grab bag with this story. there is some unsettling detail that you're expecting and not very happy you grabbed. today is this. cbs breaking the news that investigators are looking into a bahamas trip, the florida republican congressman matt gaetz took in 2019. and he went to the bahamas and he got some marijuana entrepreneur and hand surgeon. to declare one person that is both those things. and gaetz travel expenses and for female escorts the sources said. according to cbs news investigators and illegally trafficked across state or international lines and sex with the congressman.
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nbc news confirmed this reporting by cbs tonight, we tried to reach the marijuana entrepreneur hand surgeon. he dn answer our calls. still that was fun. he reiterated denial that he ever paid for states. he specifically denied tonight that he had sex with an underage girl. but the story, of course, first broke in the "new york times" last week that congressman gaetz is being investigated by the justice department over whether he had sex with an underaged girl and whether he paid for her to travel with him across state lines. that would constitute a violation of child sex trafficking laws. the investigation of congressman gaetz started as an off shoot as a different federal sex trafficking investigation. there was an elected official in mr. greenberg much he was arrest lastd year on an array charges including sex trafficking of a
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minor. he plead not guilty. the sex trafficking involving the same underaged girl as the gaetz investigation. mark caputo has new reporting to that i that shed light on the regulationship between gaetz and greenberg and the relation shep between these two criminal investigations. he says he spoke with three sources who knew joel greenberg before chargeded with child sex trafficking, all threw of them told poe litke yoe they personally heard congressman gaetz friend bragging about his sexual relationship with the girl. one of the friends testified before a grand jury ahead of the joel greenberg investigation. what does this mean? we know these allegations of child sex trafficking against joel greenberg are solid enough to serve for the bases for federal charges. we know from the report that there are eyewitness that's
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testified to the grand jury about the charges. now we have three sources talking to a roert about the charges. so all of that will seem to butress the seriousness of that charge against mr. greenberg. but then he denied it. but what exactly is the relationship between this child sex trafficking charge against mr. greenberg which seems to have all of this butressing support and the matt gaetz investigation for child sex trafficking? on that, again, one more interesting report of reporting, they suspect that he is cooperating with prosecutors to build a case against congressman gaetz. if that's true, joining us now is mark caputo national reporter who added the new details in the matt gaetz story. thank you for being here. >> thanks for having me. appreciate it. >> nobody knows florida politics or rights about florida politics quite like you.
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i'm happy to talk to you about this story. i'm happy to know what more of what you know about it. did you see any of this coming once the joel greenberg case broke open last year? his friendship and relationship with congressman gaetz was not a secret. >> it wasn't. i think the alice in wonder land line, curiouser and curiouser comes to mind. it gets weirder and weirder. a mutual friend of a lawyer who represented the political opponent of greenberg had reached out to me many months ago and said, hey, you should interview this guy because joel greenberg the tax collector tried to smear him as a pedophile and now arrested for it. and then that just mushroomed out into this really bizarre investigation. so, you know, every day there is a new allegation. unfortunately, i can't discuss all of the things that we've been making calls about. but the doctor is among them. this bahamas trip has been long rumored there is a possibility
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that other florida officials might be wrapped up in this report. republicans might be wrapped up in this as well. >> mark, onest things that i feel like i've seen referenced a lot, both in court documents related to mr. greenberg and in a lot of open source reporting but still very fuzzy to me is the nature of the connection between the child sex trafficking charge against joel greenberg and what matt gaetz is being investigated for. we're told the gaetz investigation grew out of what they found out mr. greenberg. we found out that mr. greenberg was charge in federal court. that investigation is linked because it's the same girl, the same underaged girl who is at the heart of both the gaetz investigation and the greenberg charges. do you have any more clarity on what the connection is between the investigation on gaetz and the charges against greenberg sfwh. >> that's about it. another common tie is this seek ago rangement website which
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hooks up sugar daddies with women who, you know, are looking for a wealthier male to take care of them. that is the charitable way to explain it. there is a possibility when you read between the lines if the salacious allegations, and there is allegation support. we haven't seen any evidence on gaetz and no name spread on gaetz. if they're true, there is a possibility that the governor may be seeking the seeking arrangement website or the women in those cases as being prostitutes rather than women that want to go on expensive dates and date men. it's kind of complicated to talk about because it's, you know, there are these lines that are blurred by the web sites and prosecutors seeing these are rings as prostitution in the
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case of do declare prosecution against trafficking. so those are the details we're waiting to come out. one thing that gaetz's defenders repeatedly pointed out is it is day six of this. no names came out. there is no clear evidence. and they say, look, other men accused of wrongdoing. there is a host of names and that accusers and that hasn't happened yet with him. so we're certainly reporting this as well as the national media. but right now, we have a lot of anonymous rumors, a lot of salacious stories but not a lot of cold facts. >> mark caputo, national political reporter at "politico." thanks for being here. i have a feeling we'll be talking about more developmentes in this case. >> oh, yeah. >> appreciate it. >> thank you. much more ahead tonight. stay with us. > much more ahead . stay with us and roofers. engineers and electricians. calling all brick masons and boiler makers. steel workers and steam fitters
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putin has been in office as either president or prime minister of russia for the past 21 years. his current six year term in office will end in 2024. after that, for the russian constitution he's banneded from running as at term so he is preparing to step down with dignity in 2024 and hand the reigns to the next generation in a peaceful transition of power. >> kidding. no. putin has just this week signed a law that conveniently erases his previous terms as president, poof, pretend they never happened. that change hits the reset button for the term limits in the russian constitution. so this new law that he just signed this week will allow him to stay in power at least until 2036. clearly after you had 21 years of putin running your country, the thing your country needs most is another 15 years of him.
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while that totally unsurprising played out this week in the kremlin, more worrying are the developments around the top opposition leader. the kremlin tried to assassinate last year using a military grade nerve agent. he is now been locked up in a russian penal colony. he was moved to the sick ward, the infirmary. he kplanld for weeks through his lawyers that his health has been in deep decline. he described severe back pain and numbness in his legs and a fever and severe cough. he's now a week into a hunger strike over the prison's failure to provide him with adequate medical care which he is supposed to be able to get. his wife shared on social media a letter she says she received from the prison director where her husband is being held saying that they can't send her husband to a hospital because they don't have his passport? why would you need a passport to go to a russian hospital when
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he's in russia? bloomberg news reports that biden administration is preparing a set of retaliatory actions against russia for a range of offenses including their interference in the 2020 election, alleged bounties on u.s. soldiers in afghanistan and also the treatment of alexei. this will be the outcome of an intelligence review of russia's recent actions which president biden ordered the intelligence community to do. biden administration already issued one raft of new sanctions against russia over a month ago, specifically for poisoning and jailing navalni. now he appears to be in trouble. the biden administration is pushing russia from day one on how they treated him. but things are taking an ominous turn with the reports of steeply declining ill health, reported mistreatment in prison and are they going to kill him in
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prison? what is the u.s. government planning on doing to stop that or to respond if it happens? we'll have the latest live from moscow next. stay with us. ext. stay with us this is ours. the lexus is. all in on the sports sedan. lease the 2021 is 300 for $369 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. advil dual action fights pain 2 ways. it's the first and only fda approved lease the 2021 is 300 for $369 a month for 36 months. combination of advil plus acetaminophen. advil targets pain. acetaminophen blocks it. advil dual action. fast pain relief that lasts 8 hours.
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comfort in the extreme. ♪♪ the lincoln family of luxury suvs. amid increasingly worrying reports about the health of russian oppositioner leader alexey navalny, amnesty international is giving voice to what i think is everybody's worst fear about the situation saying that russia may be placing him in a situation of a slow death and seeking to hide what is happening to him. macking it all the more important that the world keep watching what's happening here. joining us is andrew cramer. thank you so much for being up at this god-awful hour where you are. >> thank you for having me on. >> what do we know about the
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nature of mr. navalny's illness? we have heard through his lawyers that there are suspicions of tuberculosis. there are reports he tested negative for covid and mysterious reports of back pain and numbness and sounds like something else altogether. >> when navalny returned to russia in january he was in apparent good health and now the health is deteriorating and the personal doctor says she is concerned that his health problems may pose lethal risks and the principle issues are numbness in the legs and hands, painness in his back and respiratory ailment and taken together we don't have a clear picture of what's happening, a lingering effect of chemical weapon poisoning or consequence of being -- spending time in a russian prison. >> mr. navalny's statements through his supporters and
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lawyers have indicated that he at least believes he has the right at his own expense to have a specialist look at him. we know that his doctor who you just described was detained. what should we make of those assertions and the kind of treatment that we've seen with his doctor, actually even for a time a cnn correspondent who was covering the situation at the prison taken in custody by authorities? >> that's right. i was at that event on tuesday, and navalny's personal doctor was arrested with several reporter just the concern of supporters of mr. navalny is what we're witnessing is a slow motion second assassination. now, the kremlin says that navalny has received adequate health care in prison, and state media has reported on this situation as if he may be maligning the symptoms, also
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taunting him for essentially being a complainer. but the great concern of supporters of mr. navalny is that his life might be in danger. >> how much attention is this getting inside russia? we saw those myriad demonstrations and dozens and dozens of cities and towns in russia, not just in moscow, big protests in big support of mr. navalny and heavy hand response. does the putin government feel pressure about what's happening to him now inside prison? >> i don't think they have felt any pressure immediately in terms of protests but they're definitely worried about the protest in january. this was the first time of nationwide protest in multiple cities over a national issue. so the concern about street protest is palpable.
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and it's unclear what would happen if something were to happen to navalny, a step away from where we are now. but it's a very sensitive situation for the kremlin and something that is covered very delicately on state media but then a lot of russians these days receive the news through social media so it's a delicate situation and central to russian politics right now. >> andrew cramer, moscow correspondent for "the new york times," thank you for your continued reporting on this and helping us to understand. it's invaluable to talk to you in moscow tonight. thank you. >> thank you very much. bloomberg news is reporting that the biden administration may be preparing to take some sort of retaliatory action against the russian government including for the treatment of navalny and will tighten the screws on the putin government.
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watch this space. this is a scary situation. we'll be right back. mel healthy, strong, and white. but every day, acidic food and drink can wash these minerals away, weakening and dulling enamel over time. pronamel mineral boost protects teeth by working with your mouth to boost absorption of calcium and phosphate which naturally strengthens enamel. pronamel mineral boost helps keep teeth strong, white, and protected from sensitivity. new pronamel mineral boost
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. one thing to watch for in tomorrow's news, expecting the president's remarks before midday eastern time on executive actions about guns. that will be also the first appearance of merrick garland with president biden since he was sworn in as attorney general. that's midday tomorrow. but also, something else to watch for tomorrow. we are expecting tomorrow the first big count of the ballots in the union election that that amazon facility in alabama. it is going to take a while to count and fight over the ballots. the way it goes in union elections and the potential consequences are huge. if the nation's second largest private employer is going to start unionizing it is a potentially huge deal in the country and the first news of that outcome of that union election sometime tomorrow so watch for that, as well.
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