>> that is all in on this wednesday night. the rachel maddow show is with what alex wagner, good evening alex. >> good evening, chris. my >> kids would bang on pots and pans after the start of the pandemic. ns after the start of th pandemic of the pandemic. >> it was very special and it felt like being something special across distance and it inspired things and i look back now and it >> we are a long way from that moment, my friend. thank you as always. and thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. on december 1st of 2020 a few weeks after the presidential election,fe a republican state representative in michigan got a very odd voice mail message. wery played a recording of this voice mail message on the show before. it was obtained by a small news service called the michigan information anded research service. but now, in light of new developments, this voice mail has taken on even more

significance. >> hi, representative, my name is angela mccalum, i'm calling from trump campaign headquarters in washington, d.c., i know you're veryhi busy but i did wa personally reach out to you on behalf of the president as you've got an opportunity to be a crucial part of his re-election. we just wanted to make sure you knew how you could be helpful in ensuring that every american is representeden and can rest assud that their vote will be fairly andat correctly counted in this election. the united states constitution provides that the state legislators retain sole authority to designate the presidentialau electors. you do have the power to reclaim youre authority and send us a slateur of electors that will support president trump and vice president pence. >>id you do have the power to reclaim your authority and send us a slate of electors that will support president trump. you know,ec just a friendly reminder on behalf of the president that you do have that

power. obviously, this voice mail was one part of the trump campaign's fake electors scheme. where they assembled trump electors that they intended to replace the actual electors in states biden won. last s month, we got reporting that it was rudy giuliani leading the effort for theor trp campaign but who else? well, angela mccalum, the trump campaign m staff who you heard making that phone call, she was subpoenaed by the january 6th investigation in novembersu and now that language from her call about urging state lawmakers to reclaim their authority, well, that language has now shown up in new subpoenas from the january 6th investigation. this is from a letter accompanied a subpoena to a guy named mike roman, quote, the select committee is in possession of communications reflecting your involvement in a coordinatedlv strategy to conta republican members of state legislatures in certain states that former president trump had lost andth urged them to reclai

their authority, by sending an alternate slate of electors that would support former president trump. it appears that you helped directit the trump campaign staffers participating in this effort. and pathen, as you check out th footnotes in the letter, the investigators say they'refo basg these allegations on quote documents in the possession of the select committee. in other words, the material they have obtained from other witnesses or other subpoenas. and who is this mike roman guy who the january 6th investigation believes helped elect campaign, mike roman may have the perfect resume for false claims of voter fraud. he was behind what you might call the og republican stolen election narrative. do you remember this video? back in 2010, the 80 second

video clip of a couple of guys hanging outside a philadelphia polling chase, wall to wall nonstop on a fox news channel, two guys outside a philly polling place, but once fed through the fox news outrage machine,ro it became evidence oa massiveme campaign of voter intimidation by radical black activists that was being covered up by the obama justice department. elections were being stolen for obama and his democrats through shameless voter intimidation tactics. that video, the video that launched a thousand fox news careers, that video came from this guy mike roman and that kind of achievement will get you far in today's republican party. by the 2020 election, it really came full circle for mike roman, he was on the trump campaign poll watching team, spending election day accusing democrats of stealing the election, using evidence photos and videos, of black voters in philadelphia.

and after that, the january 6th investigation believes mike roman went on to help direct the trump campaign's fake elector scheme. he is one of several people subpoenaed this week in connection with that scheme, as the investigation appears to be settling, building an org chart how the plot was carried out and the investigation appears to be making progress on other fronts as well. today president biden rejected donald trump'sto attempts to blk the investigation from getting visitor logs from the trump white house. hevi directed the national archives to hand over those logs within 15 days. and honestly, trump and his allies arene acting a little rattled. at the january 6th investigation subpoenas more and more people tied to the fake electors plot, a plot that rudy giuliani reportedly ran and amid reporting that rudy giuliani may be considering actually talking toon investigators, giuliani to toto the right wing pro-trump ns

max channel last night to rant about how the investigation is illegal and can't subpoena anybody. he also spent some time peddling a brand new conspiracy theory that hillary clinton spied on the trump white house. heard something about e this, if you ever dip yr toe into the right wing immediato ecosystem. donald trump himself has put out no fewer than five increasingly irate statements for it. i'm not going to deconstruct the whole theory right here but go to maddow blog to see it. and to spy on the white house, hillary clinton would have needed a time machine becauseho the evidence waived around by trump and giuliani and company, it happened before trump was president. with time machines. ipr digress. how many, no matter how many new

shiny objects donald trump and his allies throw out to shift the attention to some other imagined scandal they cannot change the fact that the january 6thch investigation is moving steadily ahead. and they can't change the fact that the january 6th investigation has already amassed so much damning evidence.uc today, the "washington post" published a feature on just one strand ofis that evidence. the thousands of text messages the januarye. 6th investigation obtained from key players around trump on january 6th, and in the days and 6 weeks leading up to . quote, thousands of frantic ephemeral text messages that might have otherwise been lost to history are now key to piecingst together the most viv and comprehensive picture to date of the events surrounding the chaos of thete capitol. texts that go all the way back to the day after the election. like this one, to trump's chief of staff, from energy secretary rick perry, previewing what

would have become one of the attempted strategies to overturn the election, quote, here is an aggressiveti strategy, why can' georgia, north carolina, opennsylvania, and other republican-controlled state houses declare this as bs and just send their own electors to vote, and have it go to the supreme court? okay, now, rick perry. and this is one to trump's chief of staff from an unidentified memberto of the far right house leading caucus just a few days beforee january 6th, quote. if potus allows this to occur, we're driving a stake in the heartg of the federal republic. and texts like those are just the beginning. the post reports quote, the committee so far has publicly revealed only a sliver of the thousandsre of text messages it so far.ived joining us now is the lead author on that piece, "washington post" congressional correspondent jacqueline alameny

and as of today she is also an msnbc contributor. thank you for being here. congratulations. come into the family. let's talk about these text messages. so you know that the committee has only reviewed a sliver of the thousands of text messages, how many of those text messages do you believe were provided by former chief of staff mark meadows? >> yeah, alex, it's a good question. mark meadows has certainly provided the majority of the text messages that the committee has receivedte so far. we believe that number is upwards of 7,000 but meadows himself provided 4,000 personal text messages, most of which were actually not reviewed by the former president trump's legal team since they were retrieved from a personal device. meadows text messages are really viewed by the select committee investigating the january 6th insurrection, asar sort of a connective tissue that is really pulling all of the disparate threads about the planning leadingte up to and on january h

all together. these text messages especially throughout the course of our reporting that weou pulled together every text that the committee so far publicly released is really helping to paint a more vivid picture of what happened, especially since there isat a champ between publ statement -- chasm between public statements made between gop lawmakers and fox news hosts versuset the concern and the pac that was communicated and put directly into markom meadows re inbox. >> the release of thect tranchef correspondence, it is like a serialized drama. how is the in the deciding which texts to release publicly and when tong release them? i mean do we havey a sense tha they're holding on to texts that mayin be even more explosive in terms of public consumption? >> absolutely. ite think the committee is tryi to ensure that they have the most blockbuster public hearings possible, and that means holding back some of these text messages. that being m said, the trail of

bread crumbs they have left so far, in releasing some of meadows' text messages with people like jim jordan, sean hannity, and as we reported this morning, president and founder of james o'keefe, have been fairly juicy and they have needed to release those in order to makene a persuasive argumento hold mark meadows in contempt. a lot of thoseld messages were released in the context report that the committee put out a few months ago. we're still waiting on whether or not the d.o.j. isnt going to ultimately take up that contempt referral. but there's a fine line, a sort of straddling to apply public pressure to get peoplein like sn hannityle to cooperate voluntarily, with the committee. versus holding back some of these messages, and trying to make thees splashiest public presentations possible to draw the american public in. >> well, as of yet, some of the things we have are splashy and explosive, and drawing the american public in.

the text message sent to mark meadows by rick perry, a day after the election, which is essentially like a strategy, an aggressive strategy, into the whole perry, misspelled, with the strategyel in texas, house legs laters in texas, sending their ownin electors that was t plan as laid out and executed, right? and yesterday we find out that the committee issued subpoenas to two members of the trump campaign, who had a role in directing that scheme. i guess i wonder whether you think the committee is ahead of the public, the public reporting we have, on that aspect of the campaign, that effectively they know a lot more about what transpired than we have digested insp the press as yet? >> i think they do. i think not to toot our own horn, we have done a good job of getting out ahead of a lot of the stories before the committee was previously aware of them, but when it comes to the information that they've gathered so far, theto volume o

these text messages, documents, andth records, and depositions that they've collected, makes this such that there is inevitably going to be some new big reveals. i think what is important to notes about these text,k other than the content and some of these crazier and unexpected reactions to things, these frantic ephemeral concerns that were raised that would have otherwise been lost to history, its f-not for being realized in the text message, is the forensic analysis that i believe committee investigators can do of the social networking. obviously, these text messages show the direct pipeline between the white house and fox news, andt they also show some of th relationships that were more personal t than potentially we realize. for example, like the fact that mark meadows had a text can relationship with jamesws o'kee, sola that is also helping piece together a lot of these various schemes that were sort of all concurrentlysc going on. >> it's the first kind of

beginning of a fully fleshed out org chart of the trump universe and the power grid, if you will. irs got to ask about the news today, that the biden white house is effectively clearing the committee to get access to the trump visitor, the white house visitor logs. what could be in those that might not be in the texts and we've ommunications that been privy to thus far? >> that is a very good question, and it is t actually, you know, i'm not all that certain that we're going to get that much from these logs just yet because as the reporting has born out in the last few week, we know this was a president who subverted, ignored and failed to follow most procedures, and it's unclear if these white house visitors logs were meticulously and accurately kept, or if the president was sort ofly again, sort of sneaking past these processes that were implemented for a reason, to document and keep, paint the most comprehensive picture of histore in order for the american public

toto look back and to be able t potentially know who was visiting with the president at this crucial juncture in our democracy, but it's unclear if trump wasde doing that. on the other side of the coin here, any names that are on there of people going in and out of the white house that wepl dot already know of will be extremely helpful. we know in those final weeks that the president was trying to overturn thesi results of the election, there were fringe figures like michael flynn, michael lindell, sidney powell going in and out of the oval, and the white house residence, and i think that at this point, any documentse, that the commite can get their hands on is a win. >> yes, the president was flushing records down the white house toilet and who knows what happened to the visitor logs. we will wait on the information, jackie, "washington post" congressional correspondent and nowck an msnbc contributor, thas for joining us tonight. >> thanks,t alex. next, we have some breaking news, from the white house, wherebr one official now says that russia is actually

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this was the scene today in the national sports complex in kyiv. as government employees marched a 220 yard ukrainian flag around the stadium track. in northeast ukraine, a choir sang the country's national anthem. and ukrainians across the country proudly deplayed their flag inside from inside parliament to the streets of odessa to western ukraine, roughly 70 kilometers from the border with poland where military cadets raised a large flag as they too sang ukraine's national anthem. they did all of this because president zelensky designated as to ukrainian unity day and he chose this day, february 16th because it was allegedly the day that russia had planned on invading ukraine. well, it is already the early morning hours of february 17th

and ukraine and so far, fingers crossed, no invasion. and it appears that for many, the feeling on the ground in ukraine is, let us just say not necessarily one of panic. the "washington post" spoke to one 24-year-old ukrainian in kyiv who told the paper quote, everyone is talking about war and what will happen and blah-blah-blah. but for people who are working, it's all the same. just an ordinary day. a retail manager told the post, quote, i have to go to work, that is all. meanwhile, thousands of miles above the streets of kyiv, ukrainian air space remains open, nonetheless no international carriers are exactly trying to fly over the country right now. as it has been for days, the situation in ukraine remains murky. very murky. and late this evening we got yet another reminder of that. even though many of the citizens of ukraine are still just going about their business, the international community

continues to sound the alarm. both secretary of state antony blinken and nato says despite putin's assurance, there are no signs of russian troop withdrawal, on the kraer, russia continues to mass troops at the border and we have more detail on that point from a senior biden administration official, that official notes that russia has added as many as 7,000 troops to the ukrainian border with some arriving as recently as today. that official tonight rejecting russia's insistence that there's been a reduction in forces, end quote. they received a lot of attention to that claim, both here and around the world. but we now know it was false. that official also noted a marked increase in false claims by the kremlin, including fake reports of unmarked graves in eastern ukraine, with citizens allegedly killed by ukrainian forces. it is thought that russia might use such false claims like these as a pretext for invasion. we should note that the official

reporters spoke on condition of anonymity and did not provide any underlying evidence for the alleged troop buildup but it is jet another data point in what is an incredibly complicated situation that we are all desperate to make sense of. joining us now on this day to make sense of what is happening, ben rhodes, former deputy security adviser to president bpa, in that post when -- president obama, in that post when russia invaded in 2014. contrary to what the russians are saying, we are seeing a buildup of the troops on the border with ukraine. do we tend to believe the russian government, more than the russian government, what do you think is happening here? is it international gas lighting? >> here's what i think is happening, alex. we're looking at russia, what they try to do when they have military aggression is create a pretext they're acting in

defense. in 2014 when they annexed crimea, they claimed that ukrainian nazis were blocking the area and russian separatists shot down an airliner over eastern ukraine in 2014, they claimed that the ukrainians shot down the plane. right now as we have in the report, they are suggesting that potentially genocide is happening against the ethnic russian population in eastern ukraine. so i think the scenario that the biden team is worried about is that by saying that they're open to diplomacy, by saying that they're gas lighting, by saying they're pulling back troops, they're trying to create an international impression that they're not really there to threaten ukraine, that they're pulling back, and then they'll sight some pretext for an invasion, and just as the biden administration is trying to deny president putin that capacity to do that by publicizing all of these moves over the last several weeks and months i think right now in this very tense moment, they're pointing out

look what the russians are saying is something you can't believe, we're looking at the hard evidence, we're looking at the troops on the ground and we're not seeing any signs of a pullback. instead what we're seeing is a continued effort by vladimir putin to set up his forces for an invasion that would be an offensive operation by russia, not a defense. >> so that the biden white house is aggressively countering this russian strategy, right, but i guess i wonder, does it, to an international audience, to an international audience, does it become a game of he said, she said, is anybody actively believing the russians at this point, the u.s. has been countering every day for information and it is being radically transparent about, does russia have actually, is their game working? do you think it's possible that they will be able to convince anybody that they are operating from an offensive position rather than defensive if in fact they do launch a military engagement. >> here's the thing i would say alex, i once sat in the white house and was responsible for

the battle over this international information and i think most americans trust the u.s. government over the russian government. their audience is in europe. their audience is around the world. the united states, if russia invades is, going to have to try to convince as many countries as possible to go along with u.s.-led sanctions, to go along with u.s.-led pressure on russian response. what russia needs to do, from an information standpoint, is not necessarily convince everybody that they are certainly correct, but to just sow enough doubt, it is a he said, she said kind of thing and that russia claims their force were being attacked and the u.s. says this was a pre-planned invasion all along and who knows what the actual answer is and kind of sow chaos and doubt about this, enough to create divisions in the coalition and respond with sanctions on russia and that's what they need to do, and in some way, alex, not dissimilar

from what donald trump needs to, do he doesn't need to convince everybody that everything he says is true, he has to sow enough doubt in people's mind, it is all partisan and he said and she said thing and you can't trust everybody and therefore it is not worth your effort, that is essentially the russian information game, they don't have to convince people they're right, they just need to sow doubt about what the united states is saying. >> i'm struck with the confidence with which they're apparently lying, right, if you listen to what the russians are saying in response to questions about western warnings of an invasion, today, russian's ambassador by the eu was asked by a german reporter whether russia was going to attack on february 16th, today, wednesday, and he responds, wars in europe rarely start on a wednesday. i mean that's just like maybe the best international gas lighting i've ever heard, but it is also, it is indicative of a country that they sound just remarkably confident in their position. and it makes me wonder, you

know, it feels like putin is a little bit of a chess master here. he sounds like he's ready to play a long game. one gets to say he enjoys the fact that russia is in the limelight, that we're talking about, you know, nato in a way that we wouldn't have even been considering a few weeks ago. and i mean i guess i wonder, whose game are we playing here right now? >> we are all responding to vladimir putin and i'm sure he likes nothing more than the fact that the rest of world is wondering what vladimir putin is thinking and what he's going to do. look i sat in the room with putin and sergei lavrov, the prime minister, these are people who can lie very easily with a smile on their face. it is not something that is discomforting to them, to tell lie after lie after lie, and frankly, what we've seen is, since putin has taken this much more aggressive and hostile stance, the lies have come more fast and furious. and once you decide that you don't have to abide by any rules, whether those are rules

applied to telling the truth about matters of war and peace, or whether those rules apply to things like annexing a chunk of a neighboring country as they did in crimea, once you decide that you don't care about the rules, in some ways that does give you some advantage. i think the other thing you have to recognize here is that putin has been building up for a long time, these troop deployments clearly took a long time to plan. you don't move 150,000 troops from across a vast country like russia to surround ukraine without planning for that for at least a year. we've seen russia stash away reserves, cash reserve, of over $600 billion, precisely because they probably anticipated the kind of devastating sanctions that biden has been threatening in response to war. it's quite likely that putin has been on a ramp-up to this moment for a long time. and the question is whether he wants to use that ramp-up to, as you said, just put a spotlight on the notion that he will not accept further nato enlargement, ukraine is never going to be

nato, people are going to have to respond to that diplomatically, or whether this has been a buildup to an inevitable invasion of ukraine in which he wants to topple the ukrainian government, and essentially control the affairs of a neighbor that he sees as a buffer state, in between russia and nato. and that's what we have to wait to find out. but the action on the ground, unfortunately, continues to suggest it's the latter scenario, the worst scenario. >> magic eight ball is highly unclear on this. ben, i'm glad you have you with us, former deputy security adviser, thanks, ben. >> thanks. still to come, it is no secret that air travel has been messy during the pandemic but several republican senators want to stop the government from doing anything about all that mess. that's next. ing anything about mess that's next.

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this morning, yet another

disturbing video showing yet another scare in the air. passengers on board a delta flight from l.a. pinning a man down after an airline says off-duty flight attendant tried to take control of the p. a. system and the captain asked for help. >> we would like all strong males to handle the passenger. >> air traffic control diverted the flight to oklahoma city where police took the passenger into custody. it is just the latest incident involving what the faa says is a surge in bad behavior in the skies. earlier this month, another delta passenger was arrested, after reportedly attempting to breach the cockpit. on this southwest flight from sacramento to san diego, in late may, a passenger punched a flight attendant causing her to lose two teeth. >> since the start of the pandemic, incidents involving dangerous passengers on planes

have absolutely skyrocketed. this past sunday, two separate american airlines flights were forced to divert their flight from their flight path because passengers were causing a disturbance. on one of those plane, the passenger tried to open the plane door mid flight. this uptick of inflight disturbances has put flight attendants in a terrible spot essentially turning them into club bouncers who have to mitigate dangerous often violent and sometimes drunken situations at 30,000 feet. airlines often keep lists of these unruly passengers and ban them ever from flying with their airline again, but the issue does nothing to stop them from hopping on a flight from a different airline and doing all of that nonsense all over again. earlier this month the ceo of delta airlines wrote to the u.s. attorney general, proposing a more permanent solution, one that would prevent unruly passengers from buying airline tickets and asked the justice department, a national no fly

list, a list shared among airlines and banned people convicted of dangerous violent behavior from all flights. it would work the same way as the no fly list for terrorists. if found to be unruly or violent on airplane, you would be banned from flying again, not just with the one specific airline but full stop it. seems like a no-brainer total solution of the problem until a group of republican senators came out against the plan this week. the fact that the spike in airline disturbances cones sides with the pandemic is of course not a coincidence. with the unruly passenger reports, 72% of them were because of passengers who refused to wear masks. and that is why these eight republican senators are against a no fly list for unruly airline passengers. they're worried that creating such a list might unfairly liken an anti-masker, many of them

republicans, to a terrorist. the senators write this to the attorney general. quote, creating a federal no fly list for unruly passengers who are skeptical of this mandate would seemingly equate them to terrorists, who seek to actively take the lives of americans and perpetrate attacks on the homeland. joining us now is sara nelson, president of the association of flight attendants, ms. nelson, thank you for being here. >> thank you, alex. >> so let's first start with the suggestion of a national no fly list, one for unruly and called dangerous passengers. does the union support the list, and were you at all involved in the ideation around it? >> i actually testified three times in the past six months before congress on this very issue and encouraging the faa, the d.o.j. to put the list together so the government can control that and communicate that in realtime and put a

transparent process, with due process, because a lot of people are concerned about that due process for good reason. but we need to use this as a consequence for people who are acting out on planes. we already have fines, you heard about the fines from the faa, that hasn't slowed this down, you heard that the d.o.j. is starting to prosecute, although we haven't made it all the way through those prosecutions, with a conviction, and people landing in jail yet, but we have this other option as well, pete buttigieg said this is on the table along with all of us and other airlines supportive, too, we need to work together to solve these issues to use the threat of losing your ability to fly if you're causing this much problem on a plane because you're putting everyone at risk for doing that and very much like the other no fly list that we have for a very good reason. >> these people are unruly passengers and they're not mad that there is cranberry juice cocktail, if there is none in

the drink cart, this is people who want to open doors. >> it's like death. and access to flights. we have this just last week, we had a flight attendant who used a coffee pot, used the training we have, the crew member self-defense training that we worked so hard to get in place, and made available to flight attendants, again, in this pandemic, because of these issues, because of the spike in these issues. every single day, when flight attendants go to put on their uniform today, they say is this going to be a sign of authority and leadership in the cabin or is this a sign for someone to launch a vicious attack, a violent attack against us and that's very different. i'm a a 25-year flight attendant, this occurrence happened on a bad day, one, two, maybe three times in a career, and every single day, flight attendants are facing this. and what is causing it is people do not want to take up as much time, they're having a difficult time staffing those flights

because of that. and there is a consequence all the way around. and what our members tell us as well is that 61% of these incidents are also accompanied with racial, gender or homophobic slurs and people are taking the brunt of a at work and we got to stop this and can't accept this as the new norm. >> when you lay all of that out, it is a no-brainer, and something needs to be done here but obviously we're running into resistance here specifically partisan resistance, why to your mind are republican senators coming out against a national no fly list? >> well, they're making this all about masks but i want to be really clear, that while a good number of the reports over the past year have included mask issues, the vast majority of the violent events have not had anything to do with masks. so let's, they want to set a certain narrative here, that has created conflict on our planes in the first place and people are at a stress level ten, all over this country, because they have been kept in a state of not

knowing what to believe. they have been told two different things during this pandemic. two totally opposite things and they are told they are at odds with each other everywhere we go and what we find when we get in the air, americans crave solidarity and that's what we are trying to do as flight attendant, bring them together, not tear them apart, but people are coming to the door of the aircraft, with leaders of the country having told them two different things and those eight sflors are directly responsible for that confusion, that anxiety, and the stress level of everyone around this country, because there have been two sets of information here that have been given to people, and people don't know what to believe. and specifically, about masks that they have made a political issue, this public health device, that can keep all of us safe, they have made a political issue, and they have put people in harm's way, more people have died, and the workspace that i

work in has become combative and has become a very difficult place to be. and as long as they continue to do that, and make this the new norm, they're also putting our economic security at risk as well. because people at a certain point are not going to want to buy airplane tickets if this is what they think they're signing up for. >> and someone who flies very often, my heart goes out to you, and all of the attendants that have to face these dangers at work, let us hope that these eight republican senators are not a bellwether for the rest of the party will be on this national no fly list. sara nelson, president of the association of flight attendants, thanks for being here and up there. >> thank you. we know republicans will spend every waking moment from now until november's midterm hammering democrats on the preferred topics like critical race theory and open borders but how much energy should democrats expend fooid fighting back? and what issues should democrats be hitting republicans on?

simone sanders joins us live coming up next. simone sanders je coming up next

ready or not, the midterm elections are officially here. i know. both major parties have started laying out their plans for how to approach the november showdown. it's true. over the weekend, "the new york times" reported that senator mitch mcconnell is quietly working behind the scenes to try and limit trump's influence on the upcoming election. the times reports mcconnell has privately declared to other republicans that he quote won't let unelectable goof balls win republican primaries. mcconnell's house counterparts kevin mccarthy has some similar plans of the hill nunes reports today that mccarthy has a new strategy to try to emphasize his party's policy ambitions. we will believe that when we see. >> it and shift the debate away from the former president spreading the big lie and the january 6th attack on the capitol. that may sound like an effective plan for republican politicians

heading into a cycle where history suggests they'll do well, but the former president and his allies have other plans. for the past few months, trump has been throwing his weight around a republican primary, by endorsing fringe candidates, some might even call them goofball candidates, a majority of whom have openly questioned the results of the 2020 election. and so we've seen republican politicians across the country touting their anti-democracy on the campaign trails and interviews and even in political ads. >> i was one of the first to support president trump for president, he has made america great and the democrats have rigged the election and prevent the democrats from rigging another election. >> i'm running so you know the truth. >> president trump says the election was stolen and he's right. >> as republicans argue amongst themselves over the last

election, democrats are gearing up for a fight this november. nbc news reports today that white house chief of staff ron klain is headed to capitol hill tomorrow to talk strategy. and the house campaign arm is developing a new strategy to push back against a host of culture war criticisms being pushed by republicans. the plan is to offer a strong rebuttal to political hits on republican hot button issues like immigration, and critical race theory. can democrats keep the majority while playing defense? and should democrats focus their own political messaging on kitchen table issues or should they train their fire on trump and the threat to democracy posed by the former president and his allies. can democrats do both of those things? or do they have to choose? joining us now is simone sanders, former chief spokesperson for vice president harris and former senior adviser, president biden's presidential campaign. great to see you.

thanks for joining us. >> nice to see you. thank you. >> simone, let's just start first with the democrats, on one hand, there's this push to engage with republicans in the culture war scamp around critical race theory and defunding the police, up until now, the party has largely ignored those attacks. is it a good idea to engage or does it just increase the amount of air time in that line of argument actually gets, does it make it into a bigger issue that it should be? >> it's a good question, alex, there's not a one size fits all answer, the answer is it a good idea to engage and not a good idea to engage, basically you got to pick your battles. democrats running in mid term election, house elections, senate election or many of the governors races, governors up for re-election or running to capture new governor seats like stacey abrams in georgia, they have to engage on their own territory, and understand the

issues and their districts and their states, and president biden for example, in his race for president, he largely shrugged off the defund the police narrative, because anybody that knows joe biden knows that that is not something that he himself believes in. but frankly it was a narrative that was taking hold in some places until the campaign had a counter ad that said this is what joe biden is for. so it matters where you're talking about engaging. >> i was in georgia a lot before the runoff in january, january 5th, and i was with now senators ossoff and warnock and the disciplines those campaigns had in refusing to engage in trump and all of the election fraud, even the day that the phone call came off between president trump and brad raffensperger, overseeing the elections, and

that discipline paid off, they only wanted to talk about so-called kitchen table issues. and i guess i wonder don't you kind of have to choose at some point? because if voters really want to hear about issues that matter to them, right, not that democracy shouldn't matter to them, but if they want to hear health care, and they want to hear about the economy and they want it hear about jobs and they want to hear about student debt, it takes up a lot of air time, in which you can't really talk about january 6th election stealing and the big lie. >> yes, it does. look, democrats had to run their races for their districts. look, i know we on the national level like to talk about, and i think it's very important, talking about january 6th, and reminding people what happened that day, and that the people at the capitol that day, those insurrectionists, they went home, okay, so we can't let that slide, and i think the committee is doing an amazing job continuing to dig down to the

core of what happened, and peel the layers back but if you're trying to win a midterm election in your district and trying to win re-election in michigan in the governor's mansion, you have to talk to your voters and you have to be responsive, and engaging, with folks where they are. democrats don't need to preach to folks this election cycle and they need to go in there and talk about the amazing things that they have and why they should be re-elected to continue to do this and they need to continue to talk about and understanding what they haven't been able to get done and their plan to address those issues. they should not take the bait. the last midterm election, i know that the democratic congressional campaign committee had a lot to say about the last midterm election, where democrats did win a lot of seats, but it was still extremely close. well, in that midterm election, democrats ran to their districts, you were traveling around the country, alex, you know, when you don't get distracted, when you stay focused on the issues that the voters care about, that's how you do well, and those how democrats are going to hold on in this midterm election. but for those people that do get

distracted, for those folks that do think that donald trump is some kind of, there is no such thing and donald trump is not the president, he is not on the ballot, they want to hear what democrats are for and what they are going to do to make their lives better. >> and mitch mcconnells will focus on not electing goof balls, we'll see how that experiment spans out. symone sanders former senior adviser on former president biden's -- on president biden's presidential campaign. good to see you. one more story to get to tonight. don't go anywhere. one more o tonight. don't go anywhere.

. as a result of all this progress and the tools we now have, we are leading to a time where covid isn't a crisis but something we can protect against and treat. >> a positive message out of the white house today, as covid continues its dramatic downtick across most of the country. also today, the white house made two key hires to a team of top science advisers. l.a. week the highest ranked science official in the biden administration resigned over accusations that he demeaned and disrespected his colleagues. the president's top science adviser and the office of science and technology policy. today president biden chose eric landers' deputy to lead the role in his place and to fill the top science adviser role to the

president, he named collins for the national institutes of health, the white house says they will perform these roles on a temporary basis until permanent candidates can be nominated and confirmed. that does it tonight. we'll see you tomorrow. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. russia claims it has pulled back troops from the border of ukraine but the u.s. says the opposite is true. the question this morning, is russia still ramping up its military presence in the region? >> plus, the latest in the battle of mask mandates as the cdc says change is on the way. the question is, will the agency still catch up with the blue state governors who have already eased some restrictions. and it will be an understatement to say the nfl tapped a high profile lawyer to fight allegations of racial discrimination. the question, what is hiring former attorney general