radicalization of one of our country's two major political parties has turned into a five-alarm fire for american democracy and new evidence that it will fall on democrats and like-minded americans to try to put out that fire in the coming months. extraordinary new reporting in "the new york times" lays out in graphic detail the extent to which the stop the steal movement all across the country now. from the times reporting at least 357 sitting republican legislators in closely contested battleground states have used the power of their office to try to discredit and try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. the times analysis exposes how deeply rooted lies and misinformation about ex-president donald trump's defeat has become in state legislatures which play an integral role in the u.s. democracy. it's a false view that the election was stolen either by

fraud or as a result of pandemic-related changes to the process is now widely accepted as fact among republican lawmakers into hotbeds of conspiratorial thinking. according to the times report, 44% of republican legislators in nine key swing states took steps to overturn the 2020 election. it's a staggering number. and now ahead of the next presidential election the disgraced ex-president and his allies are trying to add to those ranks and more republicans who are all, too willing to overturn the will of the voters in those states. there's a startling and significant admission quote, in an interview with the times trumpa being knowledged in deciding who to endorse in races he's looking for candidates who want state legislatures to have a say in naming presidential electors. a position that could let politicians short circuit the democratic process and override the popular vote. it's not just statehouses approximately candidates are

hoping to become governors, secretaries of state, u.s. senators and congressmen and women thanks in part to donald trump's endorsements, many of them, not all of them, many of them are winning their primaries. pennsylvania where january 6 rally organizer doug mastriano is the republican nominee for governor of pennsylvania. a wave of big lie republican candidates winning their party's nominations means that democrats have become the last line of defense and that it's on democrats now for better or for worse to convince the rest of america that democracy is what's at stake. here's doug mastriano's opponent pennsylvania's attorney general democratic nominee for governor josh shapiro. >> my opponent, senator mastriano, he wants to take us to a divisive and dark place where he has openly talked if he were governor about the stroke of a pen be able to do away with voting machines that have votes on it that he didn't agree with. it's very dangerous because here

in pennsylvania the next governor will a point the secretary of state and the governor and the governor alone appoints electors based on the will of the people and senator mastriano has made it clear that he will appoint the electors based on his belief system. listen. he's essentially saying, sure, you can go vote, but i'll pick the winner. that's incredibly dangerous and it's what sat stake in this governor's race. >> the big lie is a clear and present danger to our democracy and how to fight back against it. new york times domestic correspondent whose byline is on the reporting and with us at the table and let me say that again, at the table. yamiche alcindor, washington correspondent, moderator of washington week on pbs and msnbc political analyst and msnbc contributor, helming the table.

nick, tame me through this reporting and it's another incredible piece of reporting greatly enhanced by graphics and i'll put some of them up and this is the percentage of republican legislators in each state who took steps to overturn or discredit the 2020 election. in arizona, 81% of that state's legislators tried to overturn the will of the vote there. certified by a republican governor. in wisconsin, 73%, in georgia, 23% in pennsylvania, 78%, michigan 48% and nevada at four. take us through what you and your colleagues are reporting. >> what we wanted to do with this story was look at concrete action. so not get into the rhetoric and not get into, you know, what people might be saying on social media, for political gain, but what did they actually do to try and either overturn the 2020 election or kind of take steps to either discredit or mess with further and future elections. so we focused on either letters to congress, joining this

legally dubious or implausible movement with the desertification. we looked at audits or so-called audits and they're not official audits and in part because we saw in numerous states that audits weren't just the political messaging movement to try to appeal to the base or former president trump, and what was the first step in what was often more concrete actions to discredit the 2020 election or create a constitutional crisis. we looked at, for example, the so-called audit in arizona and in some of the findings that were published that were debunked by local republican election officials were taken verbatim from the report of that audit and put into a resolution by mark fincham and he tried to promote have idea of desert if i

ication, and one more piece of concrete action that lthdors are taking to match still with the 2020 election. tracing to desertification to a statement that mr. fincham put which is independent state legislature theory which is saving that legislatures have complete control over elections and therefore could appoint electors or change laws or things like that. we wanted to use these concrete actions including these partisan election reviews and so-called audits to illustrate exactly what happened and just how deep some of these conspiracies and falsehoods about the 2020 election remain in these statehouses. >> nick, it's an incredible piece of reporting, and i just want to highlight and have you help me do this by leaving this out, the behaviors and the actions that you tracked graphically in this reporting. there is decertifycation and the

alternate states of electors which you report out in a data-driven way by both the justice department and the january 6th committee and talk about how ram rampant the alternate slate of electors was. >> that's with the state legislator doctrine and that's this legal theory that state legislatures have this absolute control over elections and can, indeed, send alternate slates of electors. there were varying degrees of support for this in different legislatures. in michigan, for example, you saw numerous sitting state legislatures trying to help these alternate slates of electors to get into the capitol building and back when the election was being certified. some in other states where even electors themselves in arizona mr. hoffmann was, and then in other states you actually saw a resistance from some republicans to these a alternate state of

electors and they weren't hiding from anything saying this is what we want to do, we believe that the election was compromised and we need to put forth these electors for congress to consider and there wasn't any appetite within the republican caucus in the state legislature to go along with that. so it kind of depended on the state as to how warmly they embraced this theory of alternate slate of electors and almost every legal expert i spoke to said putting forward any kind of alternate slate of electors yet might have caused some kind of constitutional crisis that would have unmoored us further in this tumultuous time after the 2020 election. >> just one more question about the reporting. i think we first started calling on you in georgia and the attempts and 48 states

contemplating voter suppression predicated on the big lie. this almost seems like the bookend in the body of reporting and the live fueled efforts to make it harder for communities of color to vote, but the lie seems to have rushed into office in a structural capacity and the kinds of people who will do whatever donald trump wants him to do anyway. >> yeah. we saw in a lot of those laws that we spoke about last year and there are 18 more laws that have been passed this year that include some restrictions to voting in the preambles of a lot of that, it talks about this crisis of confidence in elections and what our reporting shows based on a lot of the actions that some of these state legislators took that they contributed to that erosion of trust by perpetuating these falsehoods in trying to prolong the debate or overturn the 2020 election, and i don't think it's necessarily over. at the end of our story we look at how former president trump is trying to mold certain state

legislatures to fit this idea and to have more closely aligned allies possibly in the next election. he's endorsed ten candidates for state legislature and some who are challenging and it's maxed out to nine of those candidates. what he's asked the candidates is one of the criteria that he's weighing is what's your thought on electors and how do you think state legislatures should play in these elections and he told me that's a very important thing and when i was talking to one of those candidates and john lindsay, state senate candidate in michigan, he said it wasn't me in that seat, and i would have voted to send trump electors to washington on january 6th. >> yamiche, i want to scream that this is bat crazy, but it's time to get mad and it's time to address what jim clyburn call

out in a post this weekend in "the washington post." we refuse to admit that we have a danger in this country. democracy is in danger of disintegrating and i don't know why people feel that this country has insulated from the historical trends and this is clear from the day donald trump was sworn into office. his speech, if you can call it that if the inauguration was very clear to me, but we chose to ignore it and we're ignoring stuff now and this stuff is dangerous and autocracy is the future of the country. i've had the pleasure of interviewing him. i have never heard him sound this concerned and this unclear at the fork in the road. >> the word of jim clyburn's words is someone who has fought for civil rights and who went to jail in the 1960s and fighting and understanding that he is optimistic in american democracy as he was being beaten because he was a black man asking to be equal in this country.

so if you take that context, he and you talk about a five-alarm fire -- this is jim clyburn doing that for us. this is jim clyburn saying america is not at all immune and we can go the way of venezuela and the way of haiti and these other countries that have seen their democracies fall apart and as someone who talked to immigrants who came to america because we sell this idea that it's foolproof and protected, those same immigrants that are before january 6th and they said this isn't over and this is the beginning. so the bookend of this will be possibly dictatorship. it will be possibly the democracy falling apart. if you have people in office that are saying you can vote all you want, but we know who is going to be the winner at the end of this and that's very scary. when you look at these numbers by "the new york times" this number by nick and my former colleagues, it is in some ways the kind of oral history and the

kind of history that we'll need if things continue to get worse. the only thing i can say out of this article that made me think, okay, maybe i don't want to go all of the way to the dark place as they said and the reporting says that these lawmakers, they haven't had the numbers to overturn the election yet and there's brian kemp and the republican governors association in georgia who said donald trump, you can put millions of dollars try to unseat brian kemp. we'll put millions of dollars behind fighting that lie and the idea that you have to say that the 2020 election was not fair in order to win in a republican primary and win a republican seat. that to me is the only bright side of this that there are republicans, at least in georgia who are the model for how you push back against the lie. >> i thank you for your optimism. >> i'm going to ruin it, though. brian kemp's role was so reprehensible that baseball --

no one else did much, but baseball which we never talked about baseball in the context of politics thought the voter is up suppression law -- >> thank you for diminishing and reminding me that we are a country with a race problem is these are all interconnected. >> right. >> someone will say, okay, the 2020 election was not rigged, but still these people in this district who maybe happen to be brown or maybe happen to be black people, we know how they'll vote and we'll try as much as possible to dilute their power and they're thinking it's separate and different to attack the credibility of american democracy. >> if you say that these people in this district will not have the same amount of equal representation then you are, in fact, acting against american democracy and jim clyburn, politics aside, that is what so many people in the streets from the 1960s until now have been dedicating their lives and black

or white and also if you're republican or democrat and we often have to focus on the democrat and republican side. as you bring up smartly, the race is not going to go away. >> not to totally ruin your optimism, but the reason that communities of color in georgia don't have the same access to the polls is a lie. it's b.s. as you're reporting and nick's entire body of reporting and the voter suppression laws will approve and they were on the back of a big lie in service of donald trump. >> they took absolutely because of a lie and also i would say that there also is racism in there. exactly. it's the lie and racism which is a lie which is that these black people don't deserve the access to citizenship in the way that other americans do, that they haven't worked for it and they don't understand the weight of american democracy. i think those things are so intertwined in this country and

we get to talk about the political side of this and the fact that jim clyburn is saying in a country where we saw george floyd die, it will be two years this week that we saw this man murdered and we're arguing about whether or not we want to teach our children and our students about whether or not sort of racism has continued to permeate all of these different structures and we know graphically and we know statistically that that is simply a fact. >> and a lived experience on the post reports that eight out of ten americans live in fear of violence. i think we'd separate them at our own peril. it's all one piece and it's all in service of donald trump. but they made a frankenstein that is run out of the lab and maybe not too much in too many marvel movies. it's all one and they took the big lie and voter suppression laws and 430 of them making their way through 48 states and they're stacking state legislatures and i'm sure it's happening in your state, claire. >> there's one simple thing that we all need to think about.

i am so used to democratic activists across this country being very up-to-date. i was at the profiles encouraged dinner last night. amazing. >> so many people came up to me and they wanted to know how he was doing in arizona. these were very educated voters and many of them were big donors to a lot of senate candidates, and i wanted to say to all of them and how many of them get to a state representative race? how many people out there that are wringing their hands and worried about the future of our country. how close attention are you paying to who represents you in state government? there are a lot of people that could help a little bit in some of these races in michigan where you've got an incumbent republican being challenged by one of these jokers that trump has recruited to say voters don't matter anymore, and i just want to say people want to put us in office.

you can get those people and resources. is it against migraine to give resources to a republican running? normally it would be and this isn't normal anymore. it is time we start paying attention to state legislatures and paying attention to the extremism and the craziness. in fact, there were many award winners that were moving and i have to mention two of them. one was shea moss who was the woman who was targeted because she was doing what she had to do. >> she had to move her family. she was threatened and it was a nightmare for her and she was amazing last night. she spent all of her speech talking about the election workers in the country instead of about herself. then rusty bowers, the senator in nevada that stopped the law. the republican leader of the senate in arizona, that stopped the law that would have given the power to the state

legislature. it was a republican who stood up and said enough. liz cheney was amazing, too. we do need to recognize that there are some people in the republican party that are worried also. they know this has gone too far. how many of them deserve a profile in courage right now? not enough. i do have to pay attention to the legislative races. >> i do think it's overwhelming to people to pay attention to the school bond vote and i have to pay attention to my governor's race and i have to vote in the midterm and the presidential and i have to worry about some joker in the state legislature in arizona because the variable isn't that the offices suddenly matter and the variables that the republican party have broken bad and been corrupted by tim foil wearing anti-democratic figures. >> is there a question? >> what would you do? what would you be putting on the cover of "time" magazine? >> every week. jim clyburn suggests the stuff is dangerous, but maybe

autocracy is the future of the country. >> the jim clyburn thing depressed me because he's an optimist and he's fought for democracy, and i'm trying to reconcile all of these strands. part of the problem is that we have this 18th century system that we're trying to make function in the 21st century. we still don't have direct electoral voting for the president of the united states. >> we may be the last country in the world. we were the first democracy and the first representative democracy, but we have this crazy thing called the electoral college. even as nick was talking about, there is plenty of law that says the state legislators do make electors. it's crazy. i think it's a 200-year-old theory is it's something people can debate. these republicans, these trumpsters who basically look at it from the outcome isn't what i want. therefore, how do i change the outcome, and they're using and

manipulating this old, creeky system to get to the outcome that they want by using desertification. >> audits and alternate slates. >> to go back to the beginning of your question. everybody has to participate and to claire's point, it's, like, yes. we have to think about all those things and i have to think about who's running for school board in my district and who is running for the state legislature and that's something that a lot of people don't necessarily pay attention to, and that's what the trumpsters are trying to exploit. your lack of attention and all of these things going on. >> people have to be willing to lose for democracies to function, and you are now getting into a party where they are refusing to lose. >> there's two, kinzinger and cheney. that's it. >> rusty bowers and a few others. >> and peacefully hand over power. >> critical. >> critical second step there. lose and peacefully hand over

power and i remember talking to people in haiti when hillary clinton lost, if it was haiti, there would be bloodshed and there would be a whole thing and there would be such sort of -- there would be such chaos of someone not wanting to hand power over, but that didn't happen. barack obama showed up and even though he was someone who had been targeted by donald trump, he showed up to inauguration, and everyone showed up and did what they had to do, but it's this time that jim clyburn is saying are we going to end up in autocracy because people don't want to do frankly whether it's george bush or barack obama have to do which is, as he says, lose and peacefully hand over power. >> what do you think this moment is yielding that we don't see? >> do you think democrats are as alarmed? >> the problem is between the lie and pushing the candidate that nick reports to obscure ones like secretary of state and governor, believe a lie, vote

for a lie and vote for a fraudster. find the good eggs in both parties that are for dechl democrat see. what does the process look like behind the scenes? >> when i talked to democrats in d.c., they understand sort of, they give me the sense that they feel the urgency and they also sound defeated and they sound like what we're supposed to do and we don't have the votes to do all that they have to do, and even in their own party there is a lot of anger centered at senator manchin and senator sinema. they're looking at democrats saying why would we give you more power if you haven't figured out how to do it. >> because the alternative is worse. >> is this the message? >> that's absolutely the message. >> that's not unusual with democracy, vote because the other side is worse. >> we shouldn't act like that's a terrible thing because most presidential elections at the very end people are saying i'm

just voting against the other guy. there are very few where i'm for someone. i think barack obama was when people were for him and so that doesn't bother me, but i think the thing about clyburn's interview that stuck with me that i can't get out of my brain is him talking about the race war turning violent, and him talking about -- we forget, nine people at a bible study in north carolina. they were studying the bible, and someone broke in and because he said he wanted to start a race war and murdered them all. >> ten people in the produce aisle because -- >> and this kid said i want to kill black people. i mean, this is something we can't ever let get out of the top of the news that there are people out there now that are acting on the ugliest stufr in human beings and it is hate and prejudice and ignorance with a

gun, and killing black people because they're black. well, that's not going to keep happening without there being some kind of consequence that will be unrest. you know, can you blame -- i can't even imagine what it must live in that community in buffalo where the grocery store was the place where you saw your neighbor and now is the scene of slaughter. >> every black grocery store in america feels like buffalo. my guess is it transfers across the country the minute it happens. >> what jim is talking about, too, is that the top has been taken off of the box, that once upon a time, even racists were reluctant to say -- >> they covered their heads. i'm trying to murder black people because they're replacing us. >> i mean, even the document, whatever you want to call it of the shooter in buffalo, is just so bald, so plain that as though these things that held us back from expressing prejudice or

reservation or whatever now doesn't exist anymore and part of that is trump letting it all open an in fact, the replacement theory idea does give some kind of incentive, momentum to people to express their racism and that's what's really, really scary. >> i'll give you the last word. >> as you talk about this, i think about martin luther king and what he said about appalling silence. you can't watch this all happen that it is really the responsibility of americans all over the country whether you're impacted or not to speak up and say i see this and it is wrong, and i think one of the first things my mom in particular said to me after the shooting at mother emanuel and after the tops grocery store, but they're so young. these are young men. why are they the ones continuously? because we have another generation of americans who, frankly, are not being educated in the way that they should and

are not being told about the history of this country and i think a large generation of people like jim clyburn and like my mother and they thought the next generation will understand this and they'll be more tolerant and what we're learning is that's not the way this works. >> that's not --. no. i mean, let me ask you one last question. what is your mom saying when you say that to her? >> my mom says that she is sad and that we should try to be safe and make sure that you're safe and that's what black families in private are telling each other. when you walk into the grocery store, make sure you see the exit. when you're going to the church or the black circus which is where i once had a scare, when i heard something that made me want to run. we're at the circus that targets african-americans and if you want to kill black people this

is where you go, and you're in a place where people would target. my mother's response is try to keep yourself safe as best you can and that's the advice so many people are, unfortunately, hearing in buffalo and that advice can try to keep you safe, but honestly is not a guarantee. >> it's amazing. the table helps, right? isn't this better? >> yamiche, we'll have to let you go. thank you so much for being at the table. nick, claire stick around. our conversation continues. when we come back, as claire alluded to, is trying to save democracy from everything we're talking about. plus rudy's back in the news. he once called it the illegal january 6th select committee and nevertheless, he sat down with the illicit for nine whole hours and what we know about the testimony and the ex-president's lies about the election. election day tomorrow in georgia. a look at a race that's become the culmination of an effort of

some republicans as yamiche has previewed for us for donald trump's personal vendetta tour. all of these stories and more when "deadline white house" returns. don't go anywhere. rns. don't go anywhere. et's go! on a trip. book with priceline. you save more, so you can “woooo” more. - wooo. - wooo. wooooo!!!!! woohooooo!!!! w-o-o-o-o-o... yeah, feel the savings. priceline. every trip is a big deal.

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that democracy requires day in and day out. democracy prevailed in 2020, but it will only continue to prevail if people of integrity on both sides of the aisle follow the law, uphold our constitutional protections and ensure that every valid vote is counted. >> we have faced a threat we have never faced before, a former president attempting to unravel our constitutional republic. at this moment, we must all summon the courage to stand against that. >> three remarkable women, three remarkable recipients of the john f. kennedy profile and courage award honored in the work of defending democracy despite facing extraordinary pressure. claire, you were there. you're part of this community. it was a great evening. the opening of the evening was a rabbi that had learned the ukrainian national anthem and

sang it and there was a table of people representing zelenskyy there, and you could hear them singing and her singing and we had these remarkable people that had done the thing that john f. kennedy wrote about. they showed courage that the political consequences were serious and not insignificant. who knows if liz cheney survives? >> politically. >> politically, or shay or survives. that's what's really heartbreaking about this is the people that show courage. not only do they have to suffer political consequences and all of these people have been threatened and their families have been threatened with violence because they were simply standing up for the voters of this country. >> how do you -- that is so asymmetric. that is so out of whack that the people protecting the constitution and protecting the

democracy and alongside two democratic women are the two living in danger, how do you get it back to equilibrium. >> even in the last segment talking about this idea of courage, it was abraham lincoln, the founder of the republican party when famously said that moral courage is much rarer than physical courage, and the thing that we need to see from republicans that we're talking about the state legislatures and are republicans that show moral courage. you know what? this isn't right. there was nothing right with the election and everything that i've stood for in my entire life tells me that i need to speak out about this and too few have, and part of the problem of our system is that autocracy as clyburn talked about and the democratically elect autocrats and that's what happened in hun garry and that's what happened in venezuela and that's what could happen to us in 2024. we democratically elect an

autocrat which then dismantles the constitution. that's the great danger and how democracies die. when you're covering the actions in the state are they attached to these big ideas and conversations about democratic norms and autocratic ones? >> i think more often than not they're rooted in pure politics. there's a benefit to republicans especially ones who might be facing a primary challenge to go along with some of the lies about the 2020 election, the efforts to overturn the 2020 election because they know just how powerful former president trump is in the republican party. his endorsements have won, for the most part, different candidates with their races. he's had a few losses and we don't know what will happen with oz in pennsylvania. it's rooted in politics, and it's also kind of where you see some of the republicans kind of caught in the middle like a j. korman in pennsylvania or robin voss in wisconsin.

these are two very conservative republicans that have a long track record of being conservative republicans and we're willing to launch investigations and so-called audits into the election and we're willing to say falsely that there was widespread fraud and potentially widespread fraud in the 2020 election, but where they still stopped was this effort of overturning or decertifying the election saying we don't have the constitutional power to do that. so i think a lot of that, they have the political gain that they're willing to go with up to a point, but it can also be a bit too much for some of these people in leadership positions. >> nick, is there any awareness of or does anyone ever use bill barr or liz cheney as backstops or not taking those final steps lurching toward autocratic practices? >> when it comes to state legislatures, i feel like they're slightly separated from some of those more natural political movements and they've

become the laboratories of democracy right now. there's not much that gets done in congress especially with the 50/50 senate. so you see state legislatures become the labs for the national party platforms and look at the new abortion law in texas and oklahoma and the voting laws in georgia, texas and florida and they end up being copied around the country. i know there is a national conversation when it comes to the state legislatures and what they view and it's rarely looking to d.c. necessarily for guidance and more other legislatures and the national party movement. >> well, to you, nick, for keeping what's going on in these state legislatures on our radar, thank you. thank you for this incredible reporting that you and your colleagues have today. thank you for joining us to talk about. claire and rick, stick around. there is a lot that congressional investigators probing the capitol attack and the insurrection, you might want to ask rudy giuliani about. they subpoenaed him in january

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>> over the next ten days, we get to see the machines that are crooked, the ballots that are fraudulent and if we're wrong, we will be made fools of, but if we're right, a lot of them will go to jail.

[ cheering ] so let's have trial by combat! >> speaking of fools and jail, the january 6th committee the trump attorney who called trial by combat, rudy giuliani finally responded to his subpoena, met with house january 6th investigators who are probing his role in the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. a source telling nbc news that on friday giuliani spoke with the committee for roughly nine hours including breaks for we're not sure what, giuliani is investigating this role in publicly promoting, claims that the 2020 election were stolen as well as participating in attempts to disrupt or delay the certification of election results based on giuliani's allegations. nbc news has reached out for

comment. >> luke broadwater, luke, betsy described the 1/6 committee's last two weeks as a series of breakthroughs and you've echoed that sentiment. talk about what the rudy interview means for the 1/6 committee. rudy was a central player in the plot, plan, whatever word you want to use to overturn the 2020 election, and so he knows a great deal about all aspects of this -- of this plan. probably as much as anybody with the possible exception of donald trump himself and perhaps mark meadows. he was instrumental in organizationize the state electors and he personally had a hand in suggestions to seize voting machines and he relayed messages on behalf of donald trump along those lines. obviously, he spoke at the ellipse and he played the clip where he called for trial by

combat. what remains to be seen is how much the january 6th committee got out of him. >> right. >> i've spoken to a few people who were there and his testimony lasted somewhere -- it lasted about nine hours, but he took an hour and a half break including -- he -- he did his radio show from new york live on the air during the break for an hour, so, yeah -- and he -- i am told he invoked executive privilege on attorney/client privilege quite a bit. that is legitimate. the committee sees that as legitimate and he is donald trump's attorney and they did think they could get information about him out of other aspects and him talking to state legislators or him talking to members of congress and not necessarily those conversations with donald trump and other aspects of the effort to overturn the election. so i heard at one point it got a little contentious with

representative raskin of maryland, but we have not seen a full transcript yet. i haven't gotten personally a great detailed readout of what all was said in the last seven and a half hours or so and it is a significant development of however many months it's been since january that they did finally get him to come in, sit down under oath and give a sworn deposition. >> so, luke, it seems that probing the fake electors is something that they are -- yoipt i don't want to use the wrong adjective and trying to run down and you've reported previously about connective tissue. what was the connective tissue behind the fake electors' plot or the white house or the trump campaign. what is sort of the activity on the campaign level that would suggest that some of that work was done ahead of the rudy

interview? >> well, there's a fair amount. early on, the committee focused on this call that trump's secretary made to electors in at least michigan where she said that they were organizing a push to put forward these false slates of electors and reclaim the election. the committee wrote in some documents that mike roman and another gentleman on the trump campaign, possibly organized this effort on behalf of mr. giuliani, on behalf of mr. trump. so they do see that the trump campaign as directly behind organizing all these different slates of electors in different states. each state has a different law and some might a law this and might be legal and others might not be and that's one thing that i believe the justice department is looking at right now because if people did sign false statements that were sent to the

national archives in violation of their state laws and that they or whoever put them up to it could be in legal jeopardy and it is a serious matter and i'm not sure how much giuliani told the committee under oath or how often he invoked his privilege in that regard and i do know it is a focus of the committee's questions. >> one question i had was whether or not the committee was trying to stitch together the big gaps in the call logs and we all know rudy giuliani butt dials reporters. >> i would think his phone records would be of more interest to the committee than whatever babble he produced for hours on friday. i have a feeling there was nothing -- there might be around the edges, some things they thought they needed, but here

's the thing that we forget about the big lie. has everyone seen any evidence of fraud? >> no one. not even bill barr. >> you talk about the director of homeland security talked about the most secure election and bill barr said that there was no fraud and what i would like to have is rudy giuliani under oath and say, okay, i'm going to sit here as long as you need. show me. show me the evidence you have. 18 courts in pennsylvania. show me. >> they have done the biggest magic act. they make tigers disappear. these guys have actually gotten the majority of the republican party to believe something where there is absolutely no evidence. >> that's brilliant and you went on tape for your televised hearings. >> exactly. i just wish they would have said we're here and we'll stay as long as long as you like. >> rudy's job was to find the evidence that doesn't exist. >> inspector caruso.

he went to ukraine to try to find evidence on hunter biden. the committee knows interviewed witnesses. >> they do. >> they have triangulated. they know everything that rudy did that day and they're saying, you know, mr. giuliani, at 12:07, when you said x, how do you know that? well, we know that because we have all this evidence. so, i think he, as a former prosecutor, u.s. attorney, he knows that they're kind of closing in on him, which i hope is the case. >> we don't know what he knows to be reality, though, rick. we have to stipulate that, right? >> okay. >> luke, thank you so much for joining us and for all your great reporting on the investigation. a quick break for us. we'll be right back. igation. a quick break for us we'll be right back.

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we're back with claire and rick at the table, which is such a treat. so, tell me, last night, what you heard that inspired you and what made you worried. >> well, it was inspiring to see people who are doing the right thing for the right reasons in government. >> right. >> i mean, that's -- that sentence and all parts of it, you don't get to put together that often anymore. >> that's true. >> and so that -- and for somebody who loves our government and was part of it for many years, it brought a tear to my eye, especially when

she was up there recognizing her mother and when liz cheney was there saying the words that everybody needs to hear. perhaps the most haunting moment of the dinner was when a rabbi who opened the dinner had learned the ukrainian national anthem, and she sang it a cappella and you had a table full of diplomats from ukraine that were singing along with her, and it was almost like an echo in the room because there was no instrumentation at all, and i think everybody in the room felt the weight of what we're doing in ukraine and why and why it's so -- pardon my language -- damn important. >> do you think people make that connection or do we have to have that conversation every day about how the survival or demise of their democracy is inextricably linked to ours? >> i do think it is. i do think that's a hard conversation. i mean, in light of everything we've been talking about this hour, i think there are lots of

americans who don't get that, and might question why we are spending so much money on that, we couldn't even approve a covid bill in washington. but again, in terms of the migration towards autocracy, i mean, russia is the example, is the extreme example of a country that after the fall of the berlin wall and had democratic elections and ended up with an autocracy. going back to jim clyburn, it can happen here and that's the big danger. >> it's an incredible warning. thank you so much for being at the table. thank you so much. up next for us, the ex-president's vendetta tour and the gop's pretty strong effort to try to stop it. all coming to a head tomorrow in georgia. preview of it all after a quick break. don't go anywhere. t all after a break. don't go anywhere. and wayfair's got just what you need. we need a rug. that's the one, yeah. yeah, we were feeling outdoorsy. i know... now through may 31st shop wayfair's memorial day sale and score big

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♪♪ i hope mike pence comes through for us. i have to tell you. i hope that our great vice president, our great vice president comes through for us. he's a great guy. of course, if he doesn't come through, i won't like him quite as much. >> famous last words. hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. two days before the deadly insurrection, donald trump there was rallying for the republican candidates in georgia's runoff senate elections, and pressuring mike pence to overturn the results of his 2020 election defeat. now, almost a year and a half later, that gulf between trump and pence is wider than ever and once again, on full display in georgia, which is holding its primary elections tomorrow. tonight, mike pence will campaign with incumbent republican governor brian kemp in the gop race for georgia

governor, a very public break with donald trump who has put all of his weight behind david purdue who is running against kemp in that primary. pence grew close with kemp during the pandemic and 2020 campaign and now he is lining up against trump's hand-picked candidate, former senator david perdue. but more than that, pence is seeking to take a share of credit in what's expected to be the starkest repudiation yet of trump's attempt to consolidate power. the latest poll kinds kemp with a massive lead over perdue and that likely victory for kemp will signal the limit of trump's influence as well as the desire for voters to move beyond relitigating the 2020 election. kemp, who trump has blamed for his 2020 loss more than any other person, famously defied the president's wishes to overturn the results in georgia. perdue, on the other hand, who was picked by the former president to challenge kemp, has centered his campaign on 2020

election lies and grievances. this race in georgia, the culmination of an effort by republican governors to defend against trump's personal venn da vendetta tour. "washington post" finds this, quote, to protect incumbents up for re-election this year, the republican governors association decided to spend millions of dollars in primaries, an unusual step for an organization that typically reserves its cash for general election matchups against democrats. "the post" goes on to describe the divide within the republican party that the former president has fueled. "the clash has brought into focus an extraordinary battle over the gop that extends well beyond georgia. on one side, an aggrieved former president who retains widespread loyalty in the party from voters. on the other, conservative voters who align with trump on many issues but have grown tired of his stolen election claims, which post-election audits have shown to be false."

georgia as ground zero in determining just how strong trump's grip on his party is, is where we start this hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. "washington post" white house reporter annie linsky and here. she shares a byline on that reporting. charlie sykes is back editor-at-large of the bulwark, and charles blow is here, "new york times" columnist and an msnbc political analyst. i want to start with some of your great reporting, annie. let me read a little bit more from it. "republicans backing kemp have in recent days sought to frame the race as a potentially brutal political setback for trump. it's clearly the most important race for trump in the country. he's made brian kemp public enemy number one, chris christie said, we have to decide if we want to be the party of me or the party of us, and that's what a lot of these primaries are going to decide." annie, is it saying too much to say that this is sort of the -- it's not the last stand of trumpism but the race in the center ring?

>> probably not the last stand here for trumpism, but this is clearly a battle that this sort of -- you know, for lack of a better word, establishment republicans have pitched that -- picked georgia for kind of the biggest showdown to date between trumpism and just plain old conservatism. and the republican governors, you know, they got together in november and plotted out a strategy very quietly that would protect a number of their incumbents, but far and away, georgia is the major, major battle in that, and the poll that you just showed would suggest that there is a good chance that kemp can get through tomorrow without going to a runoff and win it outright, which would be an enormous win, and it would create a playbook, right, for people who -- for conservatives who feel uncomfortable with how far trump has gone and want to stand up to

him in some areas, not all. this isn't a total repudiation of everything trump stands for but it does draw a line at election integrity it have i guess the bad news/worse news here is that kemp is the person who signed into law a voter suppression bill that was so offensive to major league baseball that they moved the all-star game out of the state of georgia. now, massive boycott did not ensue, but that law, i pressed raffensperger on it, there was no fraud. they audited the vote three times. there was no fraud. there was nothing to fix with their voter integrity legislation. so, it's a real settling in terms of bad versus worse. what do you make of the pence/trump dynamic? >> well, i mean, mike pence has been tiptoeing away from donald trump, but this is an open break. look, i mean, this is not the end of trumpism. this party is still controlled by donald trump. but this is not nothing. this is significant. when you have mike pence going down to georgia, when you have chris christie, when you have doug ducey of arizona, when you

have these other major figures who are clearly defying donald trump, and i have to tell you, in mar-a-lago, he has to see this as a very, very serious challenge, and what the republican governors association has done is also significant, because it has already led to the defeat of trump's endorsed candidates for governor in nebraska and in idaho. now, of course, you have an election denier who won in pennsylvania, but this race in georgia does feel as if it is a marker. now, i think it would be a mistake to say, you know, this is an indication that trump is doomed in the republican party, because that's not true. but if there was ever going to be a republican jailbreak from donald trump, it would start with something like this. where you have the party rallying around a very conservative republican governor who is in no way a rino but has been targeted specifically and

really solely because of his refusal to go along with the big lie, so this is a pure referendum on donald trump's most important obsession, and he's going to lose badly in a crucial state tomorrow. >> you know, charles, i'm curious your thoughts about the race, but it strikes me that kemp and raffensperger, who's in a much tighter race against an election denier who says he would have overturned the results in that state's free and fair election, we should be covering them as witnesses in an investigation to plot a coup against the united states government. i wonder your views about the attention on this race and the dynamic between trump and pence. >> well, i think i'm going to take a slightly different position from my other two panelists here, which is to say, there may be a slight repudiation of trump, the person, but there is absolutely no repudiation whatsoever of trumpism right here in georgia. i'm here in georgia now, been

living here for the last two years. the pretext for that bill that you mentioned, nicole, was that there was something faulty about the 2020 election, and that it had to be fixed. and that those bills have gone a long way -- we focus a lot on the making it illegal to bring people water in line because it's so obscene that you would do that in georgia, where it's just hot all the time, but there are bigger issues in that bill. it moves calling election away from the sole purview of the secretary of state to the state legislature. we have no idea how that is going to work out, particularly if we get a close election, whether that be on the state level or on the presidential level. they also made it easier to overtake the election ward in fulton county. fulton county, where anybody who doesn't understand it, that is where atlanta is. that is a very black part of the state, very diverse part of the

state. it is the capital of the state. they have embraced trumpism full bore, and if you watch the gubernatorial debate, which i watched, multiple candidates on that stage said that that's -- that the 2020 election was stolen and there was no pushback from a single candidate other than kemp, and he was mild about it. he kept saying, you know, i don't like what happened. i don't like the result, but i had to do what i had to do. there is no pushback against trumpism here in georgia. they're just being self-interested in not wanting to lose, and so they are choosing kemp. >> so, annie, that's interesting. does it manifest itself in different -- like, will pence's message for kemp be different on a substantive level than trump's message for perdue? >> well, it certainly seems that way, if you think about what

they have been saying so far, and you know, as you note, tonight is this very interesting evening where pence is coming on one side for perdue -- excuse me, on one side for kemp, but trump is also coming in, sort of a last minute tele-town hall rally to gather forces behind perdue so you have these two former governing partners doing duelling rallies in the same state against one another, and you know, all along, kemp has been very careful to say, look, i'm not picking a fight with trump here, as he said today, you know, trump seems like he's angry at me. i'm not angry at him. we just disagreed with how to handle the 2020 election, and i did what i thought was right. so, kemp is trying not to be, you know, seen as picking a fight with trump, whereas on the other side, perdue, and we would imagine this is a preview of what trump will say this evening, has been very eager to bring up the 2020 election, to

claim that kemp was dividing the state in some way as he did at a rally today. so, i think, on one side, there's been sort of a desire to kind of move past the 2020 election and talk about other issues. there are plenty of conservative issues that are on -- being discussed, tax cuts, abortion restrictions, that type of -- as you point out, a new election bill that kemp has been wanting to focus on, whereas perdue has just gone back time and time again to 2020, so it's almost like the playbook. like, can you move on from 2020? and i think that these forces, these republican governors, pence, are trying to say, this is a pathway for us, as a party, to move beyond these claims and look forward rather than back to the 2020 election. >> you know, and charlie, the vantage point, if you're interested, i guess, in small "d" democracy is that in a

primary, you want the least autocratic candidates to face off against the other party, right? so, i guess in that context, it is better that the candidate less hostage to the lie looks like he's going to win running away, but we've talked a lot about what trump does when he's humiliated and defeated. it looks like he'll be both this week. what do you think is, you know, his response is? >> that's what's going to be interesting about this tele-rally tonight. he hasn't been in georgia since, i think, late march, so he wants to distance himself from the defeat because donald trump never likes to be around losers. but look, you know, let me just disagree with the -- with the argument that this is not a repudiation of a big part of trumpism. yes, the republican party, yes, brian kemp is very trumpy, but the heart right now of trumpism is the big lie, and let's focus on that. what is the great threat to our constitutional order? it is the lie and everything that flows out of it, and that's

what's being litigated right now in georgia. and so, i agree very much with the analysis that says that, look, this is the road map for a republican party that says, look, we can continue to be republicans, we are conservative republicans, by the way, people should not expect a post-trump republican party to be progressive or liberal. it's going to be conservative. but this is the road map. and there is a way, and that's why you have governors like larry hogan and others around the country who are saying, look, we need, as a party, to move past the big lie and moving past the big lie is inseparable from moving past donald trump, because donald trump is never going to give up this big lie. he is never going to move past, insisting now that this is the litmus test. so, i do think this is significant, and i do think that it's worth paying a lot of attention to, because it is going to be a setback for donald trump, and you know, you have

devoted a lot of time to the insurrection and the constant ongoing coup attempts and the ongoing january 2nd. well, that's all tied up with donald trump insisting that the election in georgia was stolen, and tomorrow night, the governor who didn't like the outcome but is saying that the election was not stolen is going to defeat donald trump's hand-picked candidate. so, that is kind of a bfd. >> look, i agree with your slicing the right of your country off, seeing if you can break its fever of this autocratic -- it's not an attraction. it's an obsession. and i wonder, charles, if you want to respond to that, and if you think, you know, we still live in a two-party system. republican primary is going to be waged between someone who is more and less trumpy, is it better for democracy if the less trumpy one wins? >> first, i'll say this.

kemp is talking out of both sides of his mouth. i still disagree with mr. sikes because kemp is saying, i believe the election was correctly called, and yet i signed into legislation a bill, number one, that completely goes against that. that bill number one says there was something wrong with the election and we have to fix it. right? and they've gone back to take a second bite of the apple with the same pretest but he gives lip service to the idea of saying, i believe that it was okay. well, if it's okay, you didn't need the voter suppression laws. which you stood on that debate stage and promoted as if they were something to be applauded. you were to be applauded for. he can't have it both ways. and so i just believe that his stance of, like, oh, i believe it was fine, is pretty much a lie, because he went back on it by signing that bill. second thing is, what i think we should look for is for trump to do exactly what he did in 2020,

in the senators races, which made a lot of republicans stay home. basically, trump rained on the parade and basically said, because, you know, these people are running who i don't like, and that election was bad, then you shouldn't vote, basically, is what he was saying. and they didn't. and i think that if kemp wins, we can expect trump to do the very same thing, which is to say, i don't like the guy. you should just punish him by saying home. and you can get enough of that, of the same effect of 2020 that you could get kemp to lose. >> yeah, i mean, charlie, desantis has done the same thing, desantis in the days after the election, said, look at my state. it's a model of integrity in terms of voter security and then as charles is saying, he went ahead and passed a voter suppression law masquerading as a -- i don't even want to say it. what are your thoughts about the raffensperger race? raffensperger's running against another election denier and that race is much closer. >> and that race arguably is more important because the secretary of state played a crucial role in 2020 and of

course, his power has been changed under this law, but that's also going to be one of the real tells about whether or not people are willing to go along with this. but i should also point out that brand raffensperger, who is a man of great integrity and great political courage, who really has put his career on the line, also supported that legislation. look, i think it was a bad bill, but i do think that, you know, some of the claims about it have been exaggerated. for example, if it was an attempt at voter suppression, and i think some of the voters were hoping for it, the vote has not been suppressed. the early vote in georgia is higher than it's ever been before. and brad raffensperger makes a strong case that many of the changes were technical changes, so i do think a distinction needs to be made between the legislation, which i think was a bad bill, but that legislation and the big lie. the big lie is something particular. that is the real threat.

that is donald trump calling up brad raffensperger and saying, i need you to find 11,000 votes. this is the president of the united states planning a coup. the other details about the election, we can argue about some other time, but they are not in the same universe of this. so, when we talk about this, if we think that democracy faces an existential challenge, let's act like it. let's actually treat this issue, and the existential challenge is donald trump trying to install officials around the country who will literally steal the election, and that is really what's on the ballot tomorrow. so, you can disagree with the bill that brad raffensperger also supported, but don't let that erase the fact that he was one of the crucial men of integrity that prevented the steal the first time around and may the next time around. >> and we heard it all on tape, ominous, ominous sound of a

sitting american president asking another official to find him 11,780 votes. annie linskey, thank you for spending time with us. charlie sykes, thank you for starting us off. charles blow sticks around. tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern, joy reid will report her show live from georgia ahead of tomorrow's primary elections. she will be joined by georgia democratic gubernatorial candidate stacey abrams. that's coming up two hours from now, 7:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. up next for us, two years after the murder of george floyd, and one week after a massacre in buffalo that left ten people dead, the vast majority of african americans say they live with fear, the fear that they or someone they love will become a victim in a violent, racially motivated attack. the reverend al sharpton just back from buffalo will join our conversation after a quick break. later in the hour, a russian diplomat calls out his country and its leadership over the war

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comcast business. powering possibilities.™ all right, take a deep breath. wednesday is going to mark two years since the murder of george floyd. now, anyone who lived through the days and weeks that ensued and for those of us who covered it, safe to say we believed we were living through a long, long overdue racial reckoning in this country. but some important new reporting in the "washington post" holds a mirror to our country, and it is not pretty. brand-new polling from the "washington post" and ipsos reports this. "three quarters of black

americans are worried that they or someone they love will be attacked because of their race." "the post" continues with this. in june 2020, one month after floyd's death, 54% of black americans expected police treatment of black americans would improve in the coming years. according to a poll taken then. but today, less than half as many, 19%, say it actually did. another 38% say police treatment has improved a little while 41% say it has not improved at all. joining me onset, the reverend al sharpton, host of "politics nation." pete strzok is here, former fbi counterintelligence agent. charles blow is still with us as well. rev, this story stopped me in my tracks and i try to, i mean, we have had so many conversations, and we have been on the air together, hours and hours after george floyd's murder, and this

crushing feeling that nothing has changed and maybe it's gotten worse seems to be the prevailing view. >> there is certainly it is the prevailing view, and i can tell you, as i move around the country with national action network chapters and on my radio show, i'm hearing it every day. but also, you must remember, nicole, i've probably done six funerals. >> i know you have. >> of police-related killings since george floyd, including ten miles from where we had the trial that convicted his killer with daunte wright, so i think the thing that is missing, and this is what we said to the white house, when you had a moment like selma, you had lyndon johnson step forward and the senate and the congress passed a voting rights bill. when we had other moments, right after dr. king's assassination,

civil rights bill after we saw what happened with the four girls in birmingham. the tragedy of george floyd that awakened a movement all over the world and we were rallying everywhere, we had 200,000 people at our rally at the lincoln memorial during the pandemic. you never would have believed we could have done that. no legislation. when we get the george floyd bill up, a black republican, tim scott, backed out on qualified immunity. no legislation. that's why we've been pushing the president to at least do an executive order on some policing facts and of course he can't do all that would have been in that legislation, but we want to do something. so, why would people think things changed when nothing's on the ground changing? police are still shooting people. and there's not even something to say, enforce the new law or enforce the new rules, because they're not there. >> but rev, it seems to exist around a separate access, and that is the rise of domestic violent extremism, which as trump's fbi director testified to is the biggest chunk of that

is white supremacy. >> the biggest threat in this country is white supremacy. i think homeland security secretary said that. and they're doing it openly. what is frightening to me, and i was in buffalo for two days last week, i'm going back to do two eulogies at two of the last funerals, what frightens me is in my mother and grandmother's time, the ku klux klan at least put hoods on. they didn't want you to know what they were. this guy livestreamed who he was, like, look at me, i'm going to show you me killing blacks and i want to pick up followers. if we're in an era where people are not even ashamed or hiding but think they can just do it openly and livestream it and we have these platforms that are not regulated, if you or i said something right now that was over the line, we're regulated. they get on social media and have a 180-page manifesto

talking about jews are using blacks to replace whites. it is absolutely frightening to everybody, and i think that people look at this like this is just another news story unless you live in a certain silo where you are the target of this. >> charles blow, we talked about this story and this poll in the last hour, and yamiche alcindor said the conversation she has with her mom is about staying safe at the grocery store, staying safe at your church. i want your thoughts about the poll, and i want your thoughts about what the most constructive conversation is to have day in and day out. >> well, i think that we are caught in a horrible, horrible cycle that black people simply feel like we cannot find our way out of. black people, like any other person on the planet, just want to be safe. they want to be safe from community violence. they want to be safe from state violence. they want to be safe from things that are not physical violence. they want to be safe from political violence, people

taking away their voice because they can't vote. they want to be safe from cultural violence, people erasing their history and saying, you cannot talk about what is happening to you. but what america keeps saying is, you cannot have it all. if you have safety from police violence, then community violence will go up on you because police won't be able to do their jobs. the only way the police can do their jobs is you have to be collateral damage in them doing their job, that if they hurt someone, if they kill someone, then that is just part of the job of keeping you safe from your own community, so that becomes the cycle, and that is where the despair is born. which is that, america keeps saying to black people, there is nothing that we can do. it's like a seesaw, if we do this one thing, then the other thing will rise. if this goes down, that rises. that cannot be the answer, and yet, we are locked in a position where our politicians will not respond to us. i believe the reverend al is right on track when he says they should be pushing the white house to offer an executive order.

the white house was actually going to do that, but then when it leaked and the police unions got a look at it, they freaked out. the white house started calling around to say, don't freak out. don't freak out. don't freak out. and then we have not heard about that executive order since. no one seems to have the political courage to come to the defense of black people and say, you are right. you deserve to feel safe. >> charles, if something like that happens, what is sort of the parallel experience piece that has to accompany a change in policy at this point? >> you know, this is very difficult, because you know, so much of what is -- concerns police violence is on the state level. there are no national police, right? so that is part of the problem with federal police guidelines. they were going to be able to go some of the way, but not all of the way, because the federal government cannot supervise.

the department of justice can supervise if they step in, investigate, and determine that there needs to be a consent decree. then they can supervise. but on an individual level, with hundreds and hundreds of individual police departments, you can't do that. so, you have to have some level of control on the state level, and there you see republicans basically stepping in to say, we're going to even suppress the vote here so that you have less representation. we're going to draw the maps differently so that you have less representation in your -- in your state legislature as well as in congress. so it's -- you're asking me to answer a question that i find very difficult because the system itself is making it incredibly difficult. and so, people are doing what they can do. they're passing local ordinances that help, maybe it's wearing a body camera. there are some states that have stepped in and said, we will take the lead on some police reforms. nationally, though, it's very difficult to see how we make those steps forward.

>> and pete strzok, on the other sort of prong of this, which is, you know, not just any republican president but donald trump's hand-picked fbi director, christopher wray, testified in the late summer of 2020 that the greatest threat to the homeland was domestic violent terrorism of the white supremacy variety. if anyone's fbi director had testified to the greatest threat to the homeland being any other sort of ideology, the patriot act would have passed 98-0 or 99-0, which is what i think it passed in 2001. why is there so much paralysis? is it as obvious as it looks, that one of the two parties views some of these people as part of their coalition? why no action on protecting the homeland from domestic violent extremism? >> well, nicole, i think there are a number of reasons that go into that. one of it is i think any discussion of racial bias is inherently difficult, certainly coming from the majority side.

it is one of the few good things that came out in the summer of 2020 was a willingness across the board of police departments and others to at least sit down and start talking about whether or not reforms were needed and what they might look like. but i think that what adds on to that already difficult conversation to have in the best case is, in fact, the -- a large number of the republican party who are embracing things like critical replacement theory, and when you look at, for instance, elise stefanik, she has been putting forward replacement theory as part of her ads and she has corporate sponsors who continue to donate to her campaign, so it's already a difficult conversation. when you add in one entire political party who not only are sort of tacitly allowing the sort of racist or biased potential views to exist, but openly embracing them, when people are, you know, these horrible beliefs that people -- white supremacists and others are embracing, if they see

national leaders not just being silent but actually actively embracing and tacitly encouraging that sort of behavior, that's what really causes the beliefs to take hold and spread broadly and i'm discouraged when you look at the national picture, where we're going in terms of the willingness to accept or not accept this sort of unacceptable behavior. >> well, that's what you're saying, rev, that the thing is to cover their faces. they don't anymore. they're out. >> they don't cover their faces, and those political segregationists and racists at the time were marginalized. you did not see lyndon johnson or john kennedy with lester maddox or george wallace. these people are sitting up in senior positions in the senate and the congress, like stefanik, that are talking about replacement theory. replacing who? most people, unless you were from great britain, protesting king george, came here.

we were already here since 1619. who are we replacing? if anything, we helped build the country that they were appealed to come to. so at the same time you're saying, don't have critical race theory in the schools, which happen to not be in the schools, but we're going to talk about people replacing us, the native americans and the blacks were already here when we got here. in fact, we came here because they built the country, made it seem like it could be enriching, and never got paid for it. and on top of all these insults, grandma can't go to the supermarket? >> it's sick. it's sick. it's a sickness. we need all of you to stick around. we'll be right back. all of you around we'll be right back. ♪ limu emu ♪ and doug. ♪ harp plays ♪ only two things are forever: love and liberty mutual customizing your car insurance,

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and we all believed that we were going to get, finally, some federal reform on the national level in policing. and it languished and stalled in the united states senate. president biden hopefully is going to do something to -- whether it's an executive order or something to -- >> yeah. >> some federal decree that we have to address policing in america, because if he doesn't, where do we get hope when we go out and vote in the polls, but yet we see nothing happen? >> nothing less than hope on the line. that was civil rights attorney benjamin crump, who represented george floyd's family on what he hopes comes next from the biden administration.

rev, what would that do? i mean, what can an executive order do, short of legislation? >> well, according to what it is, but in it, it could set some federal standards, guidelines that things you can and cannot do, but it also will set a tone. >> right. >> it is absolutely correct, policing is done on a state level, but if you have a federal executive order, you then have an argument to go to these states, organize around, this is what an executive order is federally, and this is what we want organizing and challenge our state legislatures on. but there's no model here. and there's nothing to work from, and i think it is important that you set a tone in this country that is, these things are intolerable. we're talking about people getting shot in the back of the head by police, a man's knee on a neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. it is unthinkable that we have not seen any legislative or

concrete executive action, and i think that, again, i blame tim scott, who's black. i blame manchin and sinema because we were that close to getting the george floyd bill through, and they didn't do it, which is why it's all the more reason why the president has to set a tone that his senate democrats would not do, because of two candidates and one republican on the other side. if we had the filibuster changed, we could have brought the george floyd bill through. it didn't even get to the senate because tim scott no, we will not deal with qualified immunity. so, two years later, after i went to marches, nicole, where there were more whites than blacks. >> this is what i want to deal with and i want to take this on from charles's last answer. the despair is rooted in all of it, right, that there's no progress, and you saw public opinion swing from, i think, 55% from all americans associated themselves with the aims of black lives matter, swung up to

76% of all americans who supported the goals of black lives matter. a movement can't be asked to do more than that, swing public opinion 25 points. >> and a movement that was basically very peaceful. you had one or two situations, but it was all -- >> that were condemned by politicians in both parties. >> immediately. and by those of us leading it. so, what are we supposed to do? just sit there and allow ourselves to continue to be targets? and this is the moment the george floyd movement had brought us to, and we missed that moment. we've got to now deal with it, though, because buffalo reminds us how life for blacks in america is certainly not regarded and respected. when a man can say, one of the reasons that this 18-year-old chose tops supermarket, i was just there, it's the only grocery store, supermarket, in that neighborhood. >> it's a food desert. >> how do you, in a food desert, he knew if guy there on a saturday afternoon, a lot of

blacks are going to be shopping. now, what people don't realize, how do you, in a city that you just ratified or confirmed, millions of dollars, somewhere around $100 million to build a new football stadium, but you can't build grocery stores and economic development in the black community? i mean, this is the climate that we live in, and on top of that, we have to fear for our lives. >> charles, ben crump there also talked about needing this hope before they're asked to go back to the polls. what are your thoughts about the political considerations of inaction? >> yeah, it's really dire, quite frankly. rev al made a great point that the executive order would set a tone but it is a problem for the administration now because they've already set a tone. so, the president stood up in the state of the union address and said that we don't need to defund the police, we need to fund the police even more, we need more policing. one of the things that an executive order can do, one, it

can allow agents -- basically it would be direct agency, so agencies can collect more data on things, they can study things, that's what an executive order could do. it can't make criminal law so it won't be able to do that, but it can direct agencies to give more money to states or to withhold money from states, depending on how they behave on certain metrics. well, if you've already said, in the state of the union address, that you believe that the answer here is to give more money to local policing, it's very hard to change that tone. that is what is now on the record. that is one of the biggest speeches that any president is ever going to give is a state of the union address. so, it really becomes a difficult situation, and i think there are a lot of people, particularly, i think, everybody should be worried about young people. those are largely the people who are in the streets. they were looking for some sort of change, and on this thing that all of them spent all of that time and energy and effort in the streets, protesting, it looks like almost nothing on the

federal level will come from it. everyone should be worried about that, scared of that. and how that ripples through to election day. >> yeah, and you talk about people feeling separated and disconnected from our politics. it's a perfect illustration of a movement gaining so much steam, changing the dynamics and to all of your points, nothing. >> we told them to vote, that they could get change with voting. now what are we supposed to tell them? and i think that's got to be answered. >> all right. we'll stay on it. thank you all so much. the reverend al sharpton, charles blow, pete strzok, thank you so much for having this conversation with us. switching gears, a stinging indictment and a bold resignation from a russian diplomat who says he has never been more embarrassed for his country, three months into moscow's invasion of ukraine. the latest from kyiv and our friend, cal perry, is after a quick break. iv and our friend, cal perry, is after a quick break.

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people, but also perhaps the most serious crime against the people of russia. the resignation comes after another weekend of attacks from russia as they continue to pound the country's east and southern regions with air strikes and artillery. let's bring in, you can guess b correspondent kal perry live in kyiv. let's start with the war and the reality on the ground. i was reminded today that it has not diminished, we just perhaps aren't spending quite as much time and attention focused on it. >> reporter: yeah, and i think we had a reality check today from president zelenskyy. he spoke today to davos and the business meetings that are happening there. in the midst of food insecurity created by this war, we learn of a number of attacks last week that were perhaps more serious than we thought. there was an air strike in which

87 were killed. we cannot film there, so we assume it probably is a military target and the death toll could be higher. in this speech he also said that up to 50 to 100 ukrainian soldiers could be dying every day in the eastern part of the country. we don't have a realistic idea of the death toll when it comes to ukrainian soldiers but based on what we're hearing today from the president it could be in the thousands it have backdrop to that is the city of mariupol, not far from the video you're looking at here, and officials say the death toll there could be in the ten of thousands. this is me answering your question when you lay it out as, this war is marching on, and this war is marching on in a way that's difficult to cover every day because it is so spread out, so widespread not only in scale but in the attacks that russia is carrying ukraiian forces are counterattacking. kyiv has come under heavy bombardment, so the initial

gains that the ukrainian government made have slowed, and this timetable that i think we applied to vladimir putin may not have been realistic because the slow slog continues, nicole. >> and it serves russia better than ukraine, where their civilian population isn't being targeted. their economy is decimated by sanctions but not war and the basic lack of vises. i wonder if you can speak to -- does a resignation of a decades long civil servant? russia's foreign ministry, is it a big deal? it is exploited by the ukrainians? diminished by the russians? tell me what happens when there's a protest resignation. >> seems like in russia it's ignored. the information of russia disappeared boo this black hole, and that's one of then ares you have for example, the a president using -- as a channel. here i think the battlefield gains are flagged more than the

diplomatic gains so the dead russian generals are something people here talk more about, that they are inflicting real pain on the russian military. there are rumors that run rampant here about vladimir putin and his health and whether or not he's making meetings. and those videos of him with that long table are played on repeat here and are sort of diagnosed and diagrammed and questions because people here wonder about his leadership and how long he will last. but all of that is typical of a war zone and till cal of two countries at war to wonder whether or not these things are happening. i think the diplomatic news out of new york is not going to land here very big, again, compared to the battlefield gains it's not something people pay attention to. >> what is the degree, just relatively speaking, of people's sense of security in kyiv, which is trying to -- i don't know if snap back is the right word, but return to a new normal? >> it's totally bizarre. so, i spent part of the weekend

of an electric scooter going around town getting coffee, talking to people. you go through check points you go through anti-tank checkpoints you go past buildings that are completely destroyed. but it's a city where people are coming back here. it's a city where people are finally returning. there are kids here now. the other thing that's happened in kyiv, which is really weird, is they dragged the tanks -- the old burned out -- not old. the burned out tanks from the russian invasion behind me in the square, and put them outside the library. as people return home and collect their belongings, they're returning to the cities and able to walk by the burned out remnants of this war. i can go to irpin. i can go about 45 minutes here. but if you're ukrainian you can't travel through the checkpoints. travel is restricted to the area you're from, so the government is bringing in the detrytus of

the war so people can see it. >> what is the pace of soldiers from the front line being able to come back and see families and sort of refreshing? the horrors of the front line, seeing their families, and what does the strain on military families look like right now? >> so i think there's a different between those on the front, fighting on the front. we see them rotate back to visit their families, but it's not something that's talk about for operational security rnc tough civil defense force, the widely conscripted force that helps set up checkpoints and deal with defense services. those folks are here. you see them grabbing coffee, at dinner, out and about. there's little we know about what is happening on the front line, what is happening with the front line marines, special forces, the ones fighting in combat with the russian forces. it's why the country was jarred to say 50 to 100 of them could be dying every day, because it's

something we don't have access to. >> it's an incredible insight that even there there are part os this that remain opaque. >> cal perry, a treasure, life for us in kyiv. please stay safe, my friend. quick break for us, we'll be right back. be right back

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[ dramatic music ] [ engine revs ] yeah, feel the savings. [ roars ]. [ roars ] all right, so it took me one hour and 59 minutes but we do have some good news to tell you about, a story we covered at length last week. john fetorman pennsylvania's democratic candidate for governor is out of the hospital and resting with family after having have a stroke. his wife gisele shared this

video of the big moment. fetorman says he's focused on getting back to 100%. who he'll face is an open question, but for now, a little rnr for him. thank you for letting us into your homes. "the beat" are ari melber starts now. welcome to "the beat." happy monday. i am ari melber. we are tacking another big state in this primary season right now. you hear the music. it's georgia, once gave the senate two democrats, partly from shifting democrats and partly from donald trump's extremism leaving office, which boomeranged on him. georgia is back voting tomorrow in the governor's race, in a place where trump remains in a criminal investigation for an attempt to shake down a top administrations official. a plot that failed. and then trump