-it is. -i thought -- i thought it was last thursday. hi there, everyone. the greatest fault line in american political life. on one side, those who see it clearly as an unprecedented assault on our democracy. who refuse to support a bipartisan commission to investigate. today the bombshell new revelations about the failure to ward the capitol police today.

quote, an fbi memo on january 5th warning of people traveling to washington for war, never made it way to top official. right-wing extremist groups had been posting online. armed with weapons. quote, if they don't show up, we enter capitol as the third continental congress, quote, bring guns, it's now or never. "the washington post" adding this, the u.s. capitol police had specific intelligence that

supporters of president trump planned to mount an armed invasion, but a series of omissions and miscommunications kept that information from reaching frontline officers targeted. by capitol police officers themselves. a case being made by officer sicknick's loved ones about the brutality suffered tess hands of the ex-president's supporters. the objects thrown at you will varied in size, some were frozen cans and bottling, rebar from the construction, bricks, liquids, pepper spray, bear spray, sticks of various width, pipes and bats. another officer tells the committee, quote, we were not informed with intelligence. we were betrayed. the report provides the most comprehensive look at what happened that day, but even members of the committee that put together the report point to

its deficiencies. here is committee chair gary peters with or colleague this morning. is this a replacement? >> absolutely not. we need a full look on january 6th and what led up to it. as far as the events that led up to it, the motivation, all are important questions, they need to be answered and certainly the american people deserve those answers. also joining us is john brennan. and donna edwards joins us. looking for us all three msnbc

contributor. carol linnik. you've been covering this. it feels like there's still some revelations here. what stands out to you? >> i absolutely agree there are some chilling revelations here. you know, i was lucky enough to get the first account of the police chief, and even some of this would be news to him. first of all, the intelligence collected by the capitol police and also by the fbi, but by the capitol police two weeks ahead of time at the time, maybe a couple days after the attack, we reported there was a small intelligence paragraph in a long report that warned that the capitol was the target itself. what is new here is the language, the visceral violence of the language. the fact that people were being

told to bring guns they planning to draw weapons on officers if they are barred from entering the capitol. and marking tunnels and entrances and exits. third, there was an online discussion about how to bar the exits to track lawmakers. to know these things were being discussed, but not shared with the battalion commanders, literally manning the barricades on the capitol. if you replace trump supportors

for the actors in the communication that were known ahead, and you replace them with al qaeda, what would have happened? >> the bell would have been rung long and hard. clearly there was a breakdown here. they were the only indicators that there were be activities engaged in that so, therefore, the fact that it was coming from a group of individuals who were supportive of the incumbent in the white house really i think speaks to the environment of intimidation and politicization that existed in washington on january 6th and before. there was clearly breakdowns in kinetic control, communication, but at the same time i think there was an over-arching environment that led to some of these problems that the intelligence that was available was not taken as seriously as it

should have been, and if it had al qaeda or one of the other known terrorist groups attached to it, i'm sure there would have been much more vigorous and rigorous reaction to it. >> i want to follow up with you, they knew violence was planned. i wonder if you can flesh out more the point you're making, because it was planned by the outgoing president's supporters, it seemed to paralyze the information. the information didn't flow. is that the right way to look at this report? >> yeah. it's clear in the weeks, if not months, before the january 6th assault, things were underway, and this was the timeline that law enforcement and intelligence looks at. what is it that indicates some type of violence climb max. so you saw in the run-up to january 6th, all of the telltale

signs that intelligence officers look for. but, again, i think it was in the context of a political environment that was highly charged, highly polarized and politicized that i think there was skittishness on the part of individuals in that process to act upon it the way they should have. that's why i think i agree completely with senator peters, that while this takes a good-looking at the tactical deficiencies and flaws that took place, we really need to get below that and find out what were some of the strategic consideration that came into play that resulted in the assault january 6th. i wonder, dr. brennan, if you this this frame was a failure to connect the dots, it was a totally different context and totally different threat, but it seems that some of that was applicable here, too. because you're talking about a political culture. everyone who covered politics at the moment knew exactly what was going on.

people who covered pence knew exactly what he was walking into. axios was writing about the lincoln project ad, but that almost existed in this political silo, and on the other site may have been traditional security measures. so now can it be that our biggest threat is -- is there a need to knit together difficult flowing of information from different walks of life? >> i think there needs to be a strategic look at what happened and why certainly things evolved the way they did, and the role of individuals. i think quite frankly, the committee's -- whamp the actions or inactions of congress that continued to this. were there budget requests denied by these committees, or the capitol police or fbi our others? what were the responsibilities? i do think a commission is able to get to some of these factors. looking at what is contributing

in our country today, to this rise in extremist violence, in militias, what is it that we can do and try to address to prevent a recurrence. that would be the whole purpose of a commission. yes, there's accountability issues involved, but i think more fundamentally, we want to prevent this tragedy from ever happening again. it clearly was not only a threat to life and property, but a bleachish on this country's great democracy. >> donna edwards, mitch mcconnell had the opposite reaction. he saw this report as evidence of the lack of a need for a commission, but as senator peters says, as director brennan is articulating, what the report does, is it's an excellent sort of first step at understanding the events of that day, but it is blind to everything that happened before the planning for violence on 1/6. i wonder if you think this report helps inform whatever happens next.

i wonder what you make of this development. >> well, first of all, i think the report underscores why it is that we still need a january 6th commission, because, as director brennan has pointed out, all of the questions their not answers. we have a lot of the what from different sources, but we don't have any of the why. we have not as much as we need of the how. communications from white house to the department of defense. from the white house to potential members of congress. there are still so many things we don't know, so i think mitch mcconnell is trying to let himself off the hook, but we should not let the senate off of the hook. i totally support speaker pelosi going forward in whatever manner

she needs to, giving that the commission hasn't come through yet in the senate, but i also think that chuck schumer is right. he has to put this back on them and this report tells us all the reasons why that needs to happen. there are still so many unanswered questions. we don't have the ability -- we now have several reports, each of them -- some of them slightly conflicting, each of them revealing different things, but we don't have anything that takes the 30,000-foot-level look at everything that happened leading up to that day and the days after. if we don't, i'm telling you, this will happen again. >> carol, let me be the least diplomatic of the four of us today. we know exactly what happened before the attack. so do the law enforcement

officials who are mute rated by the ex-president's supporters. here's one of them in their own words with kasie hunt. >> it was unbelievable. unbelievable. the crowd, they wouldn't listen to anything the police were saying, at all. they continued to say, we are here because our president trump sent us here. we won't listen to nobody else but him. >> so he was face-to-face with the insurrectionists, the fbi is now charging them and defendant after defendant still believe in the big lie. most of their legal defense now, in a criminal context, is exactly what we heard there, they were there because trump sent them. will that forever impede any sort of comprehensive investigation into how this happened? something that everyone aspires to.

that being the reality, they were the ex-president's supporters, he told them to be at the capitol that day. do you think we'll ever have an investigation into that? >> we'll see. the political considerations here are obviously weighing heavily on republicans while they try to pretend they weren't frightened out of their minds on january 6th and weren't despondent as we reported in real time, despondent that such a thing could happen, that democracy would be asailed in this way. they tried to rewrite that essentially and pretend they never had that experience, largely because many of republicans are liking forward toite election. an team to gain power and seats in congress, and continues to talk about trump supporters attacking democracy is not particularly helpful for that cause. what is interesting about the

capitol police officers, and how betrayed they feel is they have reason to feel betrayed once more, in the sense that the law-and-order president is the one who lit this match. i happen to agree very much with donna edwards and director brennan that, you know, there are so many unanswered questions about how this all started that go even beyond president trump -- then president trump lighting a match. thereof many other details that need to be ferreted out. as a reporter, i'm hunting for them now. i don't have subpoena power. a january 6th commission does. those police officers put themselves on the line put their lives at risk who were afraid that day for their lives, who were begging for the national

guard to come in and rescue them and their staff. now they find themselves left aside again, no longer uninformed about the risk they are facing, now they are informed that lawmakers just want to put this behind us and go on without getting to the real cause. i think that that's going to be going on for some time, unfortunately. >> well, carol, if i could just -- the tragedy is not the politics of it. the politics are just sort of like political russian roulette. thigh -- they're almost guarantees it will happen again. what they're doing is making it far more likely this happens again and that more events that incite this violence they're as

to desperate to brush under the rug, they threw congressman katko under the but after reaching a deal -- >> in my reporting, it indicates they do believe the politics are good, and i think this is important, nicolle, they're focusing on the short term. one of things that all reporters who are focusing in on this matter in the back of their minds, many of the ones i speak to colleagues and competitors is the question that director brennan asked -- what leads this group of people, beyond donald trump saying, if true, what leads this people to believe that violence is the action they have to use to restore their party or supporter in power. what caused that?

that's almost more important than any other question. >> director brennan, again, not the political side of this question, but the security side of this question -- what if we didn't have such a toxic political culture, what would be everything that would be examined? would we look at what was on fox news every night between donald trump refusing to concede on election night, even though some of thinks allies, chris christie on abc, saying he should have. i think doj is going to charge 100 more suspects or alleged suspects, there are 490 now. what would you look at if you wanted to understand how his supporters became so radicalized they attacked the capitol? >> two things, in the aftermath of 9/11, they looked at the lack of cooperation with the federal agencies. i think we have to do that domestically.

there's a distributed responsibility. unfortunately i think between the fbi and homeland security and other departments and agencies, working with local law enforcement, i don't think we have a coherent architecture that's able to understand some of these trends and these developments that are contributing to this rise in right-wing violent extremism. i think we have to organize ourselves better. secondly, i think we have to look at what role the political official, policymakers play in stirring up these emotions. clearly january 6th, the person most responsible to that, without a doubt, was donald trump. spewing forth the lies that the election was stolen. calling these people to appear clearly another day they were supposed to certify the election. he was able to tap into the fears and emotions and bring them together that led to that assault. how we organize to address it

and look at it, and secondly whether the underlying conditions that are lead -- across the country, not just from one state. so what is the phenomenon that we're looking at right now, and how will we address it forthrightly and -- and -- >> you know, donna, i never put a question about the democrats in a frame of, you know -- this is not their fault, but there is only one party that is interested in governing, only one party that is interested in investigating and getting to the bottom of what happened that day. so i guess, to you, i ask what advice you would give as they move forward with the republican party. i heard the same things, carol's reporting is better than mine, the -- democrats are on their own in terms of protecting the democracy and protecting from a future insurrection. what should they do next? >> well, i think that, you know,

should things fealty -- fail in the senate, i think speaker pelosi should set up as independent a process as they can, and proceed with investigating, giving that committee all of the authority they need for subpoenas, for bringing in witnesses, for examination fully before, during and appears what happened, so we can begin to piece this together. and recommendations to the various agencies about how to proceed in the full. you know, the lessons are really clear here about what happens in authoritarian societies when you don't deal with extremists. it doesn't get better, it gets worse.

on that note, i thank all three of you for starting us off today. thank you so much. when we come back, more reaction on the brand-new report from congress, as democrats have to contemplate whether they go it alone. and joe manchin confronted with the facts of his decision on a federal voting bill, by the people who know firsthand the ugly history of the fill -- filibuster. trump's comments are now being defended by the biden administration justice department. we'll analyze it after a quick break. don't go anywhere. we'll analyze it after a quick break. don't go anywhere.

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a mob was able to mobilize and attack the capitol, all of them say they didn't know. what the hell is going on in washington? what are these doing between breakfast and lunch? picking where they go for lunch? >> general honore led a review, making clear his frustration with the lawmakers that that is also significant for what it all of which would have been under a purview of an independence

bipartisan commission. despite the gaping holes, mitch mcconnell used the report for justification for blocking a commission. >> today's report is one of the many reasons i'm confident in the ability of existing investigation to uncover all actionable facts about the events of january 6th. i'll continue to support these efforts over anything that seek to politicize the process, and i would urge my colleagues to do the same. joining me is congressman jim hines of connecticut. i would love your thoughts how we talk about what we learned. is this, to you, an intelligence failure? it sounds like they knew, the report said as they were preparing for war, or is it more a failure to connect the dots. >> well, it's all of the above, nicolle. of course it was a massive

intelligence failure. if there's any excuse -- and it's not an excuse, obviously the people who think about this stuff had never seen anything like this. there were plenty of indications on social media that people were planning violence. they had looked at the graphics of the architecture of the capitol. it was also a failure to prepared. our national security and our police forces and capitol police, all of the associated agencies, they're there to prevent the worst-case scenario. we weren't close to preventing the worst-case scenario on january 6th. >> so the fbi director has been warning now of the threat of domestic violent extremism, particularly the white supremacist variety, since september. we now have an ongoing two bull fins i believe have been issued since president biden was in

office. tell me how the action around the bipartisan commission, in your view, impacts the threat, if at all? >> well, where mitch mcconnell is wrong, because there are other investigations going on. there's hundreds of prosecutions going on, where mitch mcconnell is dead wrong is that there's two critical pieces here we won't get at anytime soon without a commission, how donald trump and associated people, and i don't know who they are, because they don't have a commission issuing subpoenas -- how they helped spark, how they drove as director brennan said, what happened on january 6th. we need to better understand that. the other piece that won't come up necessarily, and this is a clear and present danger to the republic today, how is it there are still tens of millions of americans that still believe donald trump was denied the election, despite the fact

there's still not -- who today believe that the president is illegitimate, and there are people, i'm telling you, including some in this building, who understand the power of that big lie, and who are just waiting to take advantage of it for their own purposes. >> i mean, liz cheney, for one thing that -- are you worried at this point what is happening to any evidence that could answer those kinds of questions? >> i am worried about that. i don't know what kevin mccarthy may or may not have. in some ways we know the critical fact, on the day of january 6th, when his life was in danger, the president said, maybe the people outside the capitol care more about the election than you do. i would love to know what else was said. i'll tell you how i feel, and i

obviously feel relieved we don't have a president who is deliberately stoking violence anymore. it wasn't just january 6th. he stoked violence for four years, just did it by suggesting maybe it was that guy's fault or this immigrant group that is at fault. so even though we don't have a president stoking violence anymore, that toxicity is still there. it is still out there with people angry, as i said before, people who believe that joe biden is an illegitimate president, we need to address that as a country. otherwise we're going to see again groups of americans who believe that the system doesn't work and they should come here and make political change through violence. that just cannot be the country that we are. >> you talked about the big lie and all the danger, one of the dangers in real time is ushering in a tsunami of voter suppression laws, republican-controlled legislatures have i think close

to 400 laws they're contemplating. the rules for the mid terms have already changed. i know it's not your chamber, but do you think that -- i mean, you guys did your work. you had a bipart san bill for start a commission. you did your work, it died in the senate. do you think the extraordinary threat should usher a change for the senate rules around the filibuster? >> i do. i'm of the point of view we should join the other democracies around the world. other countries don't do it this way. i happen to think at this moment it's pot aren't pooh important. if we can't deliver a good transportation bill, a climate change from an climate catastrophy, but we can't deliver voting rights,

eventually more and more americans are going to say or government can't do anything. that's a very toxic place to be. fewer people will vote, which of course, is precisely what the republican party wants. but what really worries me, if you look at what they have done, they basically handed power away from secretaries of state, remember brad raffensperger, who probably saved the election in georgia. they put it in the hands of state legislators. they setting it up so next time, next time they prevail. >> those are the parts of the bills that seem most egregious. voter suppression and trying to disenfranchise any american is heinous. the history of the black americans is the most egregious, but rigging elections is designed to have made 2020 turn

out the way trump's delusions would have said would have turned out. arizona has done it as well. i think they found a way -- it would have taken katie hobbes out of some of her authority. what is the plan other this seemingly doomed federal legislation? >> i can tell you what i hope, but i can't tell you if it's going to work. if you look at hr-1, and you say it's too big, too expensive, and let's face it there is a lot in there. okay,manchin, tell us what needs to come out. don't let it die. you're absolutely right. the republicans are addressing a problem that doesn't exist. they're port to tell americans, we're securing our election against fraud. folks, there was no fraud. they're taking every step they

can to try to reduce the number of people in communities of color who vote, they are trying to set this up so they can rule without a majority of the american people signing off on them ruling. >> well, i hope you're part of those conversations. congressman jim himes, thank you for spending time with us. >> thank you. still heal for us, joe manchin appearing unmoved. how the conversation went with someone who was in the room where it happened. next. someone who was in the room where it happened. next ahhh! get out of here mouse. ahhh! ♪♪

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did they change your mind? >> what we had was a great, respectful, very form tiff, in-depth conversation. it's the start of a good relationship. it really was. >> seeming to not back down moments after his meeting with leaders of national civil rights groups. about 48 hours after he said he will not support federal legislation to reverse the bills impacting communities of color, but the leader still called the meeting very constructive. they pressed him on the need for the sweeping legislation that manchin has all but tanked, as well as the john lewis voting roots, which he's said he will

report, but even that bill faces a, lisa murkowski is currently backing it. reverend al sharpton, plus erin haines is here. rev, you have said on the show the way the filibuster han used to, i guess, help racist policies stay in place. you talked about making those points to management, reminding them of the history. one did that come up? two, did he seem to be aware of it? three, did he -- >> he did not say he was going to change his position. a part of what we raised to him is that we had three bills in mind. mind you, we had arranged this meeting for the civil rights

groups to meet before he read the op-ed, but he did not cancel, and we did not cancel. the three things we wanted to talk about was senate bill 1, certainly on voting rights, the john lewis bill and the george floyd justice in policing act. what he did say is that he was open to what comes down on the george floyd bill. he believes that the compromise that both senator tim scott and senator cory booker comes with he could support. he said he would support the john lewis bill, even though we don't know all that will be in that bill, but he would not support senate bill 1. our position is if you can't get the votes on any one of these three, then will you go and support what has happened before where they have voted on bills without the filibuster, the 60

votes that have been -- that are needed, and go on a majority vote. that's where we're trying to push. he agreed we should keep talking. he said he would reach out before the end of this week, but clearly the difference between the john lewis bill and senate bill 1 is something that i think speaker pelosi is right, it's not one or the other. senate bill 1 deals with, one, what is going on now in georgia and in florida and texas, states that are changing. john lewis bill goes from whenever it is enacted going forward. so it would not deal with the bills that are being changed as we speak. we wouldn't expect the john lewis bill to come into being until the fall. so you can't act like it's one or the other that approaches the same things. it does not.

the john lewis bill doesn't deal with campaign financing. there is many things that is not in there. we need all three. we're glad we started the did i log. it was firm and candid. we are going to continue talking and pressing this with all we can. >> does he understand the racist nature of the nearly 400 bills that are being pushed in republican legislatures? >> he was certainly told that by all of us involved. no, i don't think he did not not understand it. he did not argue again it. we are talking about blatant racism here. we're talking about these bills are designed to undermine mostly black areas of participation, like sunday souls to the polls, like we're going to stop

dropbox -- or drop jo was for ballots. things that clearly are overused or over -- by the community. these are the new jim crow voting laws. that is why we need this. to think at this time that you're seeing 47 states trying to change voting laws that the federal government doesn't respond, is something that i think is absolutely absurd. of course you need voting protection. in the civil rights movement and voting rights movement of 50 years ago, when i was a kid, and when erin wasn't even born, they had to go to the federal government to get relief. that's what we are doing right now, talk to go manchin and others, going to the federal government to get relief. if we can't go to the federal government against states rights' jim crow voting laws,

then where can we go? >> erin, i don't want to make too much of joe manchin, but i want to dig in on one of his reasons to not supporting the legislation and not supporting the way business as usual is done. it's that his reason is too partisan. the point is when you see republicans talking about these state level voting restriction laws, have you ever won seen an expression of concern about the purely partisan nature of their passage? and yet, and yet it would be terrible in congressional democrats would pass any -- so terrible that congressional democrats themselves are refusing to pass such a bill, even though they have the votes to do it. your thoughts. >> i mean, listen, i think what i heard from a lot of the civil rights leaders that i talked to who were in the room with

reverend sharpton is they heard somebody who was sincere, but also seemed conflicted. there used to be a secretary of state in virginia. he is somebody who as worked on laws in the state and knows what it means to make voting more accessible for people. the democrats who a lot of civil rights groups helped to galvanize are very much wanting democrats to act like they won the election, as opposed to republicans who lost the election that are acting like they won. joe manchin, who is not siding with his fellow democrats, and getting things like voting rights, police reform, the things that the democrats voted for and said they want indeed november to happen so what i

heard, reverend sharpton is points that they had a can debt conversation, that this is the first time engaging in this. i wonder if that's also the kay. they never dialogued with him before. they called this an important first step today. they know this is going to be a long summer, something that will stretch into the fall. to speaker pelosi's point, the john lewis voting rights act will not be ready until the fall, so continues to work on police reform and voting rights, trying to, i guess, make a partner out of joe manchin is something they civil rights groups say they're committed to, but he's not the only person they will be engaging with. these groups will be talking to speak to a bipartisan group of senators, anybody who's opening to hear their arguments for why this legislation is necessary and why it needs to pass.

these are folks that are used to playing the long game, but feeling a sense of urgency, based on what they're seeing happening at the state level. rev, you want to answer errin's questions? have you engaged much with manchin? >> no, i have not. i've never been in a meeting with them. this was a virtual meeting. i wasn't in a virtual meeting or in-person moo et in all these years. she's correct, we tend to approach other senators. based on the color of the skin. i believe.

still a republican attempt to try to disenfranchise based on race. all of this about, i believe we need to do everything by partisan, well, the ones resisting bipartisan are republicans, so to sit there and say i would want to do something based on the republicans, i believe in faith. i do not believe in fantasy. >> just within more point. reverend, i know you all plan on keeping pushing, but i know vice

president harris has tasked to work in and outside of washington with groups like yours. i know you're continues to work on this legislation, are you also continues, frankly to try to get more black and brown voters to counteract what is happening at the state level anh of these bills does not happen? >> well, we're doing both/and. we're registering voters. we're trying to create a ground swell. in many ways, i think the behavior might cause a record turnout again because people understand they're trying to rob them of the vote, and nicole, when i told president biden in tulsa last week when we talked, when he appointed vice president kamala harris to lead this, when she walks in the room, her physical presence proves why we need this. she's black and a woman. and neither one of them would have the right to vote if there was not a voter rights movement. >> the reverend al sharpton, errin haines, most important

conversation of the hour. thank you both for spending time with us. up next for us, president biden's department of justice is going to court to defend, wait for it, donald trump. details next. details next vo: the world is racing to create the clean energy jobs that will solve the climate crisis. president biden has a plan

to make sure america wins that race. biden: doing nothing is not an option. the world is not waiting. if we act to save the planet, we can create millions of good paying jobs. and i want to put the world on notice, america is back. the competition of the 21st century, the future, will be built right here in america. doing nothing is not an option.

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and sued him for defamation after he publicly told the press that it never happened and said this, quote, she's not my type. last night, president biden's d.o.j. filed documents appealing a new york judge's decision, arguing that trump should be defended by the justice department and that he is protected from that defamation lawsuit from carroll because he made those statements as part of his official role as president. e. jean carroll's response, in part, quote, as women across the country are standing up and holding men accountable for assault, the d.o.j. is trying to stop me from having that same right. i am angry. i am offended. joining us now, former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor, joyce vance. joyce, i want you to explain what they're doing and then just address this sort of backdrop that i keep hearing from folks i talk to. the garland justice department has sided with bill barr over sharing a memo preparing barr to really knock down and smear the

results of the mueller probe. they pursued the records, emails, and phone records of four "new york times" reporters after the president said they wouldn't. and now, they are defending donald trump against e. jean carroll. what's going on? >> well, merrick garland was always fated to be the most hated man in america within a couple of months of becoming attorney general. it's a thankless job in the best of times, and these are not the best of times. so, what's happening here is d.o.j. is actually seeking to substitute itself in the lawsuit in place of the former president, and presumably, that would end the case, because the federal government is immune from being sued for defamation, and these are claims in defamation. the problem here is e. jean carroll gets no remedy and the lawsuit is over if the second circuit permits garland and d.o.j. to essentially become trump in this case. but you know, that's not to say that d.o.j. is representing

trump in the same way that barr did. they're critical of him. they call what he said about carroll crude and disrespectful. trump is certainly going to find a lot to criticize in d.o.j.'s, quote, representation of him, so it's a nuanced situation. ultimately, nicole, i think the bottom line is this. for d.o.j. to represent trump here, they have to say that his comments about e. jean carroll were within the scope of his duties as president. that's a bad argument. it's a wrong argument on the law. the district judge held that that wasn't the case. ultimately, i think although d.o.j. made this decision for the right reasons, it's the wrong decision to continue this representation. >> joyce vance, only you could make sense of that in a little time we have available. for that, i am very grateful to you for spending some time with us today. it's nice to see you, my friend. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts after a very short break. don't go anywhere. we're just getting started. shor. don't go anywhere. we're just getting started

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we are in a competition of models with autocracies, and we are trying to show the world that american democracy and democracy writ large can work, can effectively deliver the will of the people, and to the extent that we are not updating, refurbishing, revamping our own democratic processes and procedures to meet the needs of the modern moment, then we are not going to be a successful in making that case to the rest of the world, to china, to russia, or to anyone else, and so there is a national security dimension to this today, just as there was through the decades of the cold war. >> refurbishing? we're not even doing the laundry. hi, everyone, it's 5:00 in the east. the hallmark of a successful democracy is its ability to hold free and fair elections, to show that our democracy works, that the voices of our people are represented. as president biden's national security advisor, jake sullivan, points out there, demonstrating that on the world stage is key

to america's global standing. if our democracy is diminished, there, too, goes our power on the world stage. and therefore, becomes a threat to our national security. yet, what we've witnessed over the past several months has been the republicans dismantling of that central tenet of our democracy. making it harder for some americans, mostly ones who tend to vote democratic, to exercise their right to vote. stripping power from nonpartisan election officials and undermining confidence in our democratic systems, all moves spurred by the big lie. new reporting in "the new york times" takes a look at how the next generation of republicans are cementing that shift to the darkside. a rising class of republican challengers has embraced the fiction that the 2020 election was illegitimate, aggressively pushing trump's baseless claims that he was robbed of re-election. these candidates represent the next generation of aspiring gop

leaders who would bring to congress the real possibility that the party's assault on the legitimacy of elections, a bedrock principle of american democracy, could continue through the 2024 contest. the "times" details how the big lie and the conspiracies that have sprouted from and around it will continue to be that party's north star. republicans unwavering fealty to the voter fraud myth underscores an emerging dynamic of party politics, to build a campaign in the modern gop, most candidates must embrace or at least not openly deny conspiracy theories and election lies. and they must commit to a commission of imposing greater voting restrictions and making it easier to challenge or even overturn on election's results. the prevalence of such candidates in the nascent stage of the party primaries highlights how trump's willingness to embrace far flung falsehoods has elevated fringe ideas to the mainstream of the party. a phenomenon we're witnessing as we see two-thirds of the party believe that joe biden's win was not legitimate and in the 61

restrictive voting measures currently moving through 18 state legislatures on top of 22 suppressive laws already enacted this year. the threat to american democracy posed by the gop is where we start this hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. former rnc chairman michael steele is here, jonathan lemire, associated press white house reporter and clint watts is here, former fbi special agent and distinguished research fellow at the foreign policy research institute. lucky for us, all three are msnbc contributors. michael steele, i'm going to start with you, and i was briefed on some polling earlier today that made me think that all these republicans are tattooing trump across their forehead forever at the very moment when he's tanking in the polls. in new hampshire, let me read this polling. it's from former national security advisor john bolton, but he teamed up with st. ansem college institute of politics. in october 2020, 72% of republican voters in new hampshire were favorable to

trump. now 47% are, so 35% drop. 25 points. also, 61% of new hampshire republican voters disapprove of his personality and character. he's tanking. they're taking the most heinous aspects of trumpism and running with it, michael steele. why? >> well, i think in large measure, nicole, that's in isolation, so that's, you know, new hampshire voters. it's new hampshire. it's not, you know, show me that number in mississippi and throughout the south. show it to me in parts of the west. so, i think, you know, while that may portend a trend in what we could see as we reemerge into a new election cycle and people start to look at the possibility of electing trump-like candidates, that may be something to pay attention to. but right now, i just think it's a one-off. i think the underlying realities

are still very much there, that the party is wholesale trumpian. it is trump-like or wants to be. and you'll see that as the lead-in indicates with candidates who are emerging now to run for every office from dogcatcher to governor of the states and the u.s. senate and beyond is this kind of one-off from trump. and so they're going to perpetuate the lie, and they're going to perpetuate the narrative that they think may land a trump endorsement at some point in their race. so, i think that's still the animating idea right now, despite what at least this one poll may show us. >> and i think they would dispute that. they've seen this in the national polls but i take your point. until you see it in sort of the heart of his strongholds, it does not portend a national trend. i want to show you, jonathan lemire, something that president obama said because it has an

echo to some of the warnings that former presidents have been sounding, too quietly in my opinion, about the threat to democracy that the ex-president and all the apparatus around him pose. let's watch. >> all of us, as citizens, have to recognize that the paths towards an undemocratic america is not going to happen in just one bang. it happens in a series of steps. and when you look at what's happened in places like hungary and in poland that obviously did not have the same traditions, democratic traditions, that we did, they weren't as deeply rooted, and yet as recently as ten years ago, were functioning democracies and now, essentially, have become -- >> democracy doesn't die in a military coup. democracy dies at the ballot box. >> that's exactly right. and vladimir putin gets elected with a majority of russian

voters. but none of us would claim that that's the kind of democracy that we want. >> so, i don't know, jonathan lemire, if he meant to weigh in to this pretty hot debate we're having in this country right now about federal voting rights legislation, but that line there, democracy dies at the ballot box, so applicable to what this white house is grappling with and what democrats in congress are grappling with. >> and that's the stakes they've set, nicole, for the president's first overseas trip. i'll be traveling with him for three stops. he leaves tomorrow morning, and the president has said, and his aides have said, including jake sullivan, that this is an effort to rally the world's democracies to prove that they still work, like in very blunt, important terms here, that the president feels that they need to prove that democracies can still deliver economically for citizens and need to be the bulwark to two rising authoritarian countries, including russia and certainly china as well.

that they feel like this is a moment where the president, he's going to try to deliver the message overseas that america is back after four very inward-looking years of america first foreign policy by donald trump, and they need -- but in order to do that, they need to be able to show that democracy works at home. we've heard that from this president time and again in renault weeks. it's really honed in on that. it's one of the central themes of his entire presidency, to fix the matters at home to be able to broadcast as a role model on the global stage. and what we're seeing here, the attack on voting rights in so many republican-controlled state legislatures, the refusal for the republican party to go along with a bipartisan january 6th commission to look into what happened there, that insurrection at the capitol, one of the darkest days in our nation's history, and that maukz makes this president's job all the harder. let's be clear, to president obama's point, aides around this president know that his job got

harder because of what's happening here at home. they know that vladimir putin, when the president meets with him in geneva will seize upon the trouble at home, the restrictions to votes, the january 6th and the riot to try to attack the u.s.'s standing as that global leader for democracy and freedom. >> yeah, i mean, clint, i think about that every time we cover this phony audit in maricopa county. i mean, to the millions of people who went along with the big lie, they're still on the roller coaster, and they're still living and dying for all these phony events that very much weaken us on the world stage. i want to read you something greg sargent wrote about that. he said, the idea behind these audits and examinations isn't merely to rewrite the history of trump's loss to, flatter him and/or reenergize his supporters. instead, these should be seen as dry runs in manufacturing fake rationales for treating legitimate but despised election outcomes as illegitimate, thus fake justifying maximal procedural efforts to overturn

them. congressman himes was on in the last hour and said, he's actually the first lawmaker who i have heard sort of come out and point to one of the more ominous aspects of these voter suppression laws, which is that they rewrite, they reassign the referees. they take power away from nonpartisan election officials, which is one of the things like literally on every checklist is that a democracy, how healthy is the democracy? they put cronies in charge of election results, and i wonder what you think our exposure is in terms of foreign governments using that against us and against this president. >> it's absolutely happening right now, nicole. vladimir putin, over the last week, one of the kremlin's key messages has been that the insurrectionists were unjustly detained and that they were right to protest against the capitol on january 6th. what is very clear, i think, at this point, which started really five to six years ago, is there is an authoritarian strain that vladimir putin and the far right

have really come together as the connective tissue, and there's a constant in vladimir putin. president obama was talking about it. putin is a constant that authoritarian base is a constant, but in the u.s. right now, we flip-flop back and forth every four years between what is really a more authoritarian flip to the political right versus a more pluralist democracy to the political left in the united states, and because of that, there is a fault line that runs through the afd in germany, the far right in france, the brexit movement in the uk and all the way in the united states under the party of trump. and so, when i look at this now, what you're seeing them do, which all authoritarians successfully do to manipulate people's perceptions is they don't just tweet. they don't just make broad social media campaigns. they actually do physical actions in the real world that make those social media movements look justified. you will see a putin do a provocation and then push it in the information space. you will see trump, you know, rally or back an audit or

nominate candidates that believe in this or at least will say and repeat this conspiracy that there's an alternative reality out there, and over time, as an american voter, it becomes very difficult if you sit in one preference or information bubble versus another, it becomes very difficult to know what is true, and that's really playing out right now in the course of some in the u.s. regarding those detained for the insurrection. you're seeing them play both sides of the fence, depending on what their lawyers are advising them. some saying they realize it was all a big lie, others doubling down and saying there is no proof that the election wasn't rigged and the election wasn't a fraud and they can point to places like arizona where these manufactured provocations provide some basis for this fringe, false perception of what democracy really is. >> well, and i just want to follow up, clint. i mean, there aren't two bubbles where there's just, you know, i

say tomato. there's one that is the reality, the fact of police officers mutilated by trump supporters and there's one that's total b.s. made up by a disgraced ex-president who lied about how much he weighed when he stepped on the scale, so how do you deal with that, the fake one? >> go in and challenge them point by point and not give up. part of the reason that these perpetuate is ultimately, those purveying the truth, they get worn down, they start to accept, if they don't want to believe it, they don't have to. actually, we do need to believe in facts and sciences. it's played out with our election integrity, with covid-19 and the vaccine deployment. all of these things are from that alternative bubble and when you crash into the reality horizon over time, we may not get to herd immunity. we may not get to a unified country that can move forward in terms of policy. we can't get to any legislative action at this point and that is really how, as they said there, at the ballot box is where democracy dies. you're seeing a lot of people running for office under the

express purpose to not govern, to not regulate, to not try and compromise in any way and advance the country forward. >> you know, michael steele, i just want to put this out there, because i hear this, you know, why can't we let trump go? i let trump go. it was the happiest day of my life. but the damage that he's done to our country and the fact that he's turned the party into an anti-democratic movement is irreparable and it's harm that's already done and potentially catastrophic in the damage it could do in the future. i want to read you something max boot writes. he kind of gets his finger right on this buffoonery that maybe distracts from the potent danger he represents. max boot writes this in the "washington post." while trump is not a serious person, he's the a serious threat to our democracy and we make a grave mistake if we dismiss him as a punchline. what has made dictators and demagogues so dangerous is their

ability to pull vast numbers of people into their delusions, to turn their paranoid fantasies into harsh reality for millions. trump has the same malign gift. what will it take for someone like you to throw in and run as a democrat? i mean, to go further than calling out your own party? >> well, i mean, that's the challenge for all of us right now is how do you navigate this new space that trump has clearly defined? i mean, to max's point, you fundamentally have to understand how did that happen? well, for about a 14, 15-year period, trump had built this relationship with this vast numbers of people across the country. he, in effect, when he became a politician, turned his viewers into his voters. and so, like any good, you know, reality tv program, they stay stuck on that channel, and they like those episodes, and he plays to that narrative. so, for other programming, if

you were to stay with that analogy, how do you now program against it? how do you draw people away from that? is it enough just to say, to change the label of your station, to change from an "r" to a "d," and i think that's -- i don't think it is. i think we fundamentally have to go deeper than that. you're not going to change the fact that, you know, 72 million americans voted again for what trump was selling them. after four years of witnessing the deconstruction of the administrative state, he picked up six, seven more million americans. so, we fundamentally have to understand what we're in right now. this is, i mean, it's almost trite, as much as we're using it, but it is so damn true. this is about what our democracy is, what it will become. this is about the character of our leaders, and as the -- as citizens, we, the people, we're going to have to decide, is this

us? is this the new u.s.? right? is this the new us? and if it isn't, then what you're going to have to go into 2022 with everything and ten times more than you had in 2020. and for those who are looking at running for office, whether under what banner or label they wanted to run under, they're going to have to decide and define what those guiding principles are going to be to distinguish them from that reality tv nonsense. that's not real. from the very beginning, when trump came out with fake news, you knew what this game was all about, you know? and so he's defining truth as lies. he's defining what's real as fake. and whatever he puts out there is legitimate. and so, now, we are stuck with trying to undo that, and that's the heart of -- hardest part of saving this democracy is going about doing that. >> michael steele, you're a good person to talk our way through it with.

thank you for starting us off is this hour. clint watts and jonathan lemire are sticking around. when we return, a high-profile capitol insurrectionist wants out of jail, claiming that he is a victim of the disgraced ex-president and the qanon conspiracy theories. that's next. plus, after four years of bluster by the former guy, vice president kamala harris says there's no quick fix to the immigration crisis on the u.s.-mexico border. and later for us, as if a federal judge's ruling to overturn california's assault rifle ban wasn't outrageous enough, dangerous enough, buried inside that ruling, a glaring law about coronavirus vaccines. we'll explain. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. ontinues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. [sfx: thunder rumbles] [sfx: rainstorm] ♪♪ comfort in the extreme. ♪♪ the lincoln family of luxury suvs.

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it is still one of the most shocking and horrific moments from the capitol insurrection that were caught on video. capitol police officer eugene goodman luring a mob of trump-supporting insurrectionists away from the entrance to the senate. the man seen here wearing a qanon shirt chasing goodman is now among the hundreds charged for their role in the january 6th insurrection. now in a new court filing, iowa native doug jensen is seeking release from custody, claiming he was deceived by the former president and saying he fell victim to misinformation and conspiracy theories like qanon. as "the washington post" reports, jensen is just the latest capitol riot suspect to blame qanon or former president trump for inciting the deadly insurrection. so far, those defenses, those lines of argument have failed to sway the federal judges

overseeing the cases. joining us now is investigative reporter for nbc 4 washington, scott macfarlane, and clint watts is still here. scott, you were watching these more closely than anyone. take me inside this case, this defense and this judge that seems to not be buying it. >> really the most fascinating case so far, not just because a notorious defendant but because of what's been filed over the last few days. he technically pleaded not guilty during an arraignment today. that's what happened on the legal side. but what's most interesting is what happened before in the court filings. doug jensen is seeking to get released from jail pending trial and making some unique arguments. this court filing references george or well's "1984," referencing how unexpected it was that a reality show host, a billionaire reality show host would become president. but then he appears to turn on trump, saying he went there that day, did what he did that day because he thought it was at the

instruction of donald trump, then says he felt deceived by the pack of lies. another note, nicole, the attorneys in the case today say plea talks have kind of gone off the rails. that's noteworthy because doug jensen says he is languishing in jail, suffering because of it, and still can't find agreement for a plea with the feds. >> you know, clint, does a suspect like him offer any sort of benefit if he tells this story that scott's reporting, or is this just a -- literally a get out of jail card? >> yeah, i don't think that gentleman provides much, you know, the irony of it all is his shirt there, i don't know if you noticed, it says, trust the plan. and he did. and then it says, where we go one, we go all. i guess he didn't go with him, donald trump, right? he believed this conspiracy, believed his lie. it's a carryover from our last segment, which is, this is

delusional. and i don't really understand what the angle is going to be, ultimately, other than it has elevated the idea of president trump, because this individual, jensen, is so prolific in every video we see. it's the most traumatizing one, i think, for anybody to watch because you imagine yourself as that law enforcement officer being charged at by these individuals as they come in. so, i don't see how a judge is going to be sympathetic to this plea, that he needs to be removed from jail. he is clearly being told repeatedly, he needs to back down. he does not. it's on film everywhere around the world. and it was the first individual, i think, a lot of people identified with. he was most focal point. so i don't understand this case, and i think he's just probably wasting his own time squandering in jail. >> scott, this is the first time we've had a chance to talk to you since this senate report came out today with these massive intelligence failures saying that it was known that trump supporters were planning for war at the capitol that day. your thoughts?

>> one thing really struck me, nicole, in that 128-page report is a reference to the warning the fbi's norfolk field office issued a few hours before the insurrection, that violence was possible. they sent the warning to d.c., and d.c.'s fbi emailed it out to police. d.c.'s police chief said, can you pick up the phone next time? an email doesn't really underscore the significance of what you're trying to tell us. it's clear there were communication breakdowns and the senate is recommending a wholesale fix of communication for capitol police. >> you know, clint watts, i want to come back to you on that. we reported on that. i think "the washington post" first had that reporting about the norfolk field office that had some incredible details about communications that had the insurrectionists planning to meet outside of d.c. to travel into d.c. together clear premeditated coordination and planning for the events of that day. what is supposed to happen? are they supposed to pick up the phone? is it supposed to go from a field office?

what should that have looked like? >> nicole, the normal pathway is to go through the joint terrorism task forces and what is usually the task force officers. many of the local police forces and, in this case, the capitol police, would have task force officers that integrate all the time with the jdtf and they would bring that intelligence in. there is still deliberation, even in the report, about what the fbi and dhs should look at in social media and take as a warning that could go into an intelligence report. here's the problem. those were the president's supporters. imagine they had done up an intelligence report, a bulletin, the way the report sort of suggests, and it's just social media posts of trump supporters talking about violence. if that were sent around the government, immediately, they would say, oh, here you go, spying on trump, trump campaign again, deep state, that's what the reaction would be, i'm sure that's what caused this rift with the fbi about how do you communicate when it's the supporters of one of the political candidates? second is, the breakdown of

intelligence at the capitol police. this has always been a challenge for state and locals, which is how do you do what's called intelligence led policing? i used to design scenarios, even a scenario exactly like january 6th and train it in new jersey with their state police. it's a very delicate issue. when does a protest become something that you need to police or investigate as violence. well, you have to have tips and leads. this police department clearly does not have a good intelligence system that can provide early warning out to frontline folks and to make good risk assessments about what sort of an action plan needs to be developed. the other part is the breakdown with the d.o.d. i actually don't think it's a breakdown. the procedure seemed to be pretty straightforward. the d.c. police, the capitol police, have to make that request, and if they don't make it the day before, those reserve forces aren't going to be there, so i think in terms of the capitol police, they need a complete top to bottom review and redo of their intelligence led processes throughout that

department. >> we will stay on this story with both of you, scott macfarlane, clint watts, thank you so much for spending time with us today. when we return, vice president kamala harris pushing back against her critics on her trip to latin america to address the root causes of illegal immigration. we'll hear from the vice president in an exclusive new interview with nbc news next. t interview with nbc news next ♪ the light. ♪ it comes from within. it drives you. and it guides you. to shine your brightest. ♪ as you charge ahead. illuminating the way forward. a light maker. recognizing that the impact you make comes from the energy you create. introducing the all-electric lyriq. lighting the way.

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it's in the best interest not only of your neighbor but

yourself to help them out, right? and that's how we think about this work. what is the united states' interest in this? we're prepared to show up and do it in a way that is motivated by the best interests of diplomacy and democracy and goodwill. there's not going to be a quick fix. we are not going to see an immediate return, but we're going to see progress. >> no quick fix. that was vice president kamala harris in an exclusive interview with nbc's lester holt on her first international trip as vice president. harris met today with the president of mexico as she continues her tour there focusing on the root causes of the crisis at the u.s.-mexico border and how the slow migration from mexico and northern triangle countries like el salvador, guatemala, and honduras. in that same interview, holt pressed harris on her comments from yesterday where the vice president told migrants not to come here. listen. >> what do you tell a guatemalan family who heard you say, don't

come, but you know, they're facing the end. there's poverty, there's disease. all these things happening at once. you tell them, don't come? >> we don't want -- listen, i don't think that americans want people to be exposed to harm if they can avoid it. and what we are seeing is that people are fleeing. they're paying coyotes. they're taking the trek from the place that they know that they want to stay. so i'm here in guatemala to say, what can we do to support people and to give them a sense of hope that help is on the way? so for example, we have for the first time created an anti-trafficking task force, in addition, an anti-corruption task force where the united states department of justice, together with the treasury department and the state department are going to be focusing on the issue of corruption in this region. we need to deal with and confront the corruption issue. and we need to give people a sense of hope.

>> you can see more of lester's interview with the vice president tonight on "nbc nightly news," but for now, let's bring into our conversation, kim atkins, senior opinion writer for the "boston globe" and an msnbc contributor and jonathan lemire is still here. kim atkins, the vice president really walking into what is maybe the most charged political issue in the country. what do you make of the headlines and the speeches and the announcements so far? >> yes, it's one of the most charged and one of the most difficult policiwise to navigate. you know, it's a lot easier to do what the past administration did and just denounce immigrants and insult them and separate them from their children in an effort to deter them from coming. it's much harder to try to actually fix the problem, and what the vice president is trying to do is to say that this is going to be a long haul. there are a lot of causes to why we are seeing so many migrants

coming to the united states, and they are going to have to be a complex set of issues that are addressed in order to address it. the headline, when she said, don't come, that's an easy headline as somebody who's worked for a number of news organizations, including radio and tabloid newspapers that would splash that. but what she was trying to say is, hold on. just coming, just thinking that because there was an administration change, you could just come into the united states and you still won't face the obstacles and you certainly won't face the treacherous road to try to migrate from their home countries to the united states, it's very dangerous. to hold on and wait for the u.s. to try to establish something that would be helpful. it's tough, and i think she knew that going in, and it's certainly playing out that way. >> yeah, i want to show you this, but jonathan lemire, i want to have a different conversation on the other side. let me play this clip with lester holt where she talks about the border.

we'll talk about it on the other side. >> we've been to the border, so this whole -- this whole thing about the border, we've been to the border. we've been to the border. >> you haven't been to the border. >> and i haven't been to europe. i mean, i don't know -- i don't understand the point that you're making. i'm not discounting the importance of the border. i care about what's happening at the border. i'm in guatemala because my focus is dealing with the root causes of migration. there may be some who think that that is not important. but it is my firm belief that if we care about what's happening at the border, we better care about the root causes and address them. >> and then, jonathan, the vice president responded to the reaction to that by saying, it's a legitimate conversation and concerns going to the border to address what's happening at our southern border, we cannot have that question and have that conversation without giving equal weight and attention to what is causing that to occur.

it is hard for a policy maker to try to highlight root causes of anything, but especially an issue as kim was saying that the last president used as a bumper sticker for the last four years. that seems to be part of what she's running into on this trip. >> no question. and this is a moment, nicole, where two things can be true at once. her response there about having not been to europe either, that caused some head shakes in the building behind me, perhaps coming off as a little bit too glib, but certainly, her point is clear, that the symbolism of the border has frankly become something that has become such a republican talking point, right, that if we were to have this conversation a couple months ago when the numbers were really surging, when there were more and more migrant children trying to come across the border and there was a steady drum beat on the right. well, if the president and to a lesser extent the vice president were to travel to the border, it's a massive security procedure and package goes with that person, him or her, and it

would disrupt operations there and so on and so on, and certainly this administration has sent representatives to the border repeatedly and they have reported back to the vice president and the president. but what she's trying to do, as you say, is underscore the real issue here. no question, things at the border, this administration admits, has to get better. the facilities have to get better but this is more about trying to stop the root cause of these journeys ending up at the southern border. she's trying to call attention to those anti-corruption task forces because far too often, these northern triangle countries, the u.s. would send money and it wouldn't end up in the hands of people who really need it but rather with corrupt local officials would seize it for themselves. so this is a very politically dangerous, tricky situation for this vice president. she's navigating it as best she can, and what is, of course, her first international trip, one that comes just a day before the president makes his own first overseas journey. >> and i think the notion that

there was a million things going on at any white house is true today. jonathan, i just want to get you on the breaking news that infrastructure negotiations with republican shelley moore capito have fallen apart. what do you know? >> that's right, nicole. word just came out both from the white house and senator capito within the last few minutes. you know the president has really put a lot of effort into having a bipartisan deal on at least a hard part of infrastructure, roads, bridges, highways, broadband, things like that. but the numbers simply weren't there, and he had talked to -- good faith efforts with senator capito, he and the press secretary, jen psaki put out a statement thanking her for her good faith efforts but there wasn't, in the white house estimation, enough new republican money to make this deal work. there wasn't enough new funding. also the sources of the funding still was never hammered out. the republicans wanted to use unused covid relief bill money, there wasn't any of that left. they were resistant to tax increases. we saw president biden move away from that in recent days, talk about a minimum corporate tax instead that could help fund it

along with some additional irs enforcements but the republicans didn't sign off on that either. the gap was simply too far. but bipartisan hopes not quite dead yet. though this group with senator moore capito is over, there is a bipartisan group with senators manchin and romney and others, the president say he and his team are going to continue those talks. some of his senior advisors will remain here in washington to have those conversations, the president says he'll chime in by phone while he's in europe. so, there's still some hope there for a bipartisan agreement, but at the end of the day, the democrats may need to do this on a party line only effort if they can keep all of their senators in line, including joe manchin. >> jonathan lemire, thank you for that great reporting. we'll keep following it with you. we'll keep following you on your trip. kim is sticking around for longer. when we return, what does the coronavirus vaccine have to do with assault rifles? very little. but that didn't stop a federal judge from spreading vaccine disinformation in a highly

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call 1-800-miracle today and experience the miracle-ear advantage for yourself. an alarming new instance of vaccine disinformation where you night not have expected it, contained within a federal judge's momentous decision striking down an assault weapons ban in california. here's the baseless claim from u.s. district judge roger benitez, which is, once again, we emphasize, a lie. quote, the evidence described so far provides that the harm of an assault rifle being used in a mass shooting is infinitesimally rare event. more people have died from the covid-19 vaccine than from mass shooting in california. now, he provides zero evidence and zero citation. our "washington post" friend and colleague, erin blake, points out this. the cdc hasn't established a so-called causal link between deaths and the vaccine, but he notes, quote, the cdc has linked

one specific vaccine from johnson & johnson to potential blood clotting in a very small number of cases. this led it to temporarily halt the vaccine's use, but as of last month, there were just 28 cases of clotting and 3 deaths that were under investigation. those are the numbers for the whole country. even if that link were conclusive, and this were just in california, it still wouldn't be more than california's mass shooting deaths. joining our conversation, branding and marketing expert and the host of the podcast "on brand", donny deutsch. kim is still here. donny, your thoughts. >> first on the assault weapon ban, overturning that, how reprehensible. every study that's been done from when the clinton ban was lifted, those ten years later, those shootings went up 183%, deaths went up 230% and it's been proven statistically that 70% of the deaths that have come

in these mass shooting could have been avoided if this assault -- if these assault weapons were illegal. i would love this judge to sit with one of the parents from parkland or sandy hook and talk to them about this ruling. so, shame on you, reprehensible, disgusting. compared assault weapons to a swiss arm knife, and so, this is a judge that's not playing with all cards to begin with. and to just do this, to just outright lie about the vaccine and causing deaths, you know, this is donald trump legacy. if a president can lie 20,000 times, a federal judge can lie -- i mean, a state judge can lie, and i think it speaks for itself. look, there are bad cops, bad ad guys, bad doctors, bad lawyers, bad judges, and certainly this judge is one of them. >> it reminds me, though, that judges were the thing that mitch mcconnell blew up the filibuster for, the nuclear option, his legacy too, judges. >> yeah. this is what we're left with,

we're going to live with this for a long time and what's scary about the assault weapon ban overturn is we've got a packed supreme court on the conservative side. what implication is this going to have going forward? and you know, the fact that assault weapons are still legal in this country is stunning. but you know, this might be an opportunity on the vaccine side to use this judge as a hammer to continue to get across how safe the vaccine is, take this story, turn it upside down, might be an opportunity to turn some heads. >> you know, kim, that's the opportunity we saw today, setting the record straight, but i guess the insidious nature of vaccine disinformation is that if you're receptive to it, it comes from all places on that side of the ideological divide. >> it really does. i mean, that line in this opinion really stood out for its lack of support and for its really, frankly, ridiculousness. it may be one of the factors that might lead, at least in the

short-term, when this case is appealed up to the ninth circuit, for that decision to be overturned. but one thing that i am far more concerned about in this instance, when it comes to gun rights, is exactly what you all were talking about. the shift in the federal the shift to a more conservative stance. one that is really elevating as the judge does in this decision. the second amendment as something higher than other rights, really giving it super powers in a sense. we have already gotten signals from justices at the supreme court who believe that lower courts have been interpreting the heller decision wrong, the decision that gave an individual right to have a gun. the court itself next term will take up a case that will decide whether that individual right of gun ownership extends to take those guns outside of the home. it is expanding the second amendment far beyond in my opinion as an attorney what the constitution does and decisions

like this only help to fuel that. comparing an ar-15 to a swiss army life, i don't know about you but i never used an ar-15 to open a can or start a campfire. that's the direction this could be going and the supreme court very well could be very receptive to it. >> the most credibility on all of these issues. he lost his daughter jaime in the parkland shooting that if the shooter had been carrying a swiss army life his daughter one alive and graduating, so to your point, kim. thank you so much for spending some time with us today. when we return, we will remember lives well-lived. a

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"the beat" with ari melber starts right now. >> hi, nicole. thank you. welcome to "the beat." we begin tonight with breaking news out of washington. president biden has just broken off talks with republicans on his infrastructure plan. the president had been holding these extensive talks with republicans. it's been publically referred to a lot in washington. but now tonight i can report for you he's called their lead negotiator and told her the gop offer fails america's essential needs now. that's according to the biden white house. it watches a new statement we got in the news room from her office. it is a big deal. biden had been pushing for a $2 trillion plan. republican negotiators here never got close to that. now he's moving on, pressing forward with a bipartisan group of senators who may be opening to bringing a package to the senator floor while many see this as