tonight on "the reidout" -- >> you have a former president who is literally willing to pull the whole house down around him if he feels threatened. and that means false accusations that the fbi is corrupt, false accusations that evidence may be planted. >> and late today, we got a new legal filing from donald trump seeking a special master to review evidence seized from mar-a-lago. the questions remain, why did trump take classified documents in the first place? why did he keep them for so long at his private home? and what are the likely consequences? also tonight, a new poll shows that the threat to democracy is now the number one issue for americans heading into the primaries. and the road to saving democracy runs right through the not so free state of florida, where voters go to the polls tomorrow.

and imagine if after all the slavish loyalty to donald trump and all of the red and pink starbusts kevin mccarthy does not become speaker of the house. tonight, we're going to imagine what a sorry state of affairs it would be if he does. we begin tonight with me. in this chair. yes, i am back and very grateful to my dear friends jason johnson and tiffany cross for holding down the bridge of "the reidout" enterprise for two whole weeks. two weeks i flew away for my writing retreat, and it turns out i can't leave you alone for one day let alone two weeks without all hell breaking lose. there was the fbi searching mar-a-lago on day one, polio in new york on like day three. i mean, apparently, i need to stay here to keep y'all out of trouble. real talk, now that i'm here and all caught up, i have questions. because it is not, shall we say, normal for a president of the united states to pack up boxes of classified top secret material and ferry them off to his private residence.

that is just not normal. and the excuses that trump's republican sycophants are offering for what he did, well -- >> seen any evidence that trump was even asked to give these documents back. do any of us believe donald trump is reading his nuclear secrets at his bedside. >> now they want to make him responsible for having taken classified documents and preserved them. >> every former president has access to their documents. it's how they write their memoirs. >> okay. so here's the thing. about presidential records. something trump and his posse cannot seem to understand. they belong not to trump or to any president. they belong to the american people, to you. they are literally and legally the property of the u.s. government. which is why the national archives and records administration known as nara, assumed exclusive legal and physical custody of the obama presidential records when

president obama left office in 2017. the agency said that about 30 million pages of unclassified records went to a national archives facility in the chicago area. classified obama presidential records are in a facility in the d.c. area. which leads to this building. this is the future home of the obama presidential library in chicago, illinois. there will be lots of exhibits in this gorgeous building, historic images of our first black first family, plenty on obamacare, aka, the affordable care act, aka a bfd, and displays on daca and on the day our troops got osama bin laden, that kind of thing. you know what won't be in there? classified materials. ditto on the libraries for lyndon johnson and the reagan and bush libraries and the carter library. can i show you this book? you see this book? it's a big thick book, so heavy you could probably hurt a man with this book. this is president obama's memoir. he wrote this humongous book. probably like an army of researchers who could go through his presidential records, and without taking home, wait for

it, classified materials. because presidents do not just get to like take home the ufo files when they leave office. okay, here's a joke you can use with your friends. you know what you call a person who used to be the president of the united states? a regular ordinary citizen. former presidents have no special powers or privileges. and all the laws that apply to you apply to them. in no way does donald trump have the right to have any of that presidential material in his personal possession instead of in the national archives. it is literally illegal. so my questions are twofold. why did he take the stuff? for what purpose. i mean, michael cohen who used to work for trump, has speculated he was using it as kind of an insurance policy, this mob style, you come after me, justice department, and i release the nuke details to putin. i wrote a book about trump called "the man who sold america" and based on like the trump insiders that i talked to, one could easily argue that he's just ignorant.

and thinks that everything in the white house, classified or not, belongs to him personally, because he thinks the american president's job is just like putin's. was he going to sell it to the saudis or the kremlin for jared style billions? who knows. but we do need to know why. and the next question, which we will get to in a bit later with the great laurence tribe, is what are the consequences? because don't there need to be consequences? but let us start with the what and the why, and my wonderful team has assembled a rely great team of guests to do that. joining me are luke broadwater, congressional reporter for "the new york times," and tim o'brien, senior executive editor for bloomberg opinion. and luke, i'm going to start with you because there's a ton of new information. trump has now filed this motion. he's filed a motion to ask a judge to appoint a special master to review the materials. he wants to sort of push back on them taking it. but there is sort of reporting

to understand about the way that these documents wound up in mar-a-lago. what can you tell us about the process that happened before the documents went from where they were supposed to be to where they wound up? >> sure, it was in fact a long process. and you know, donald trump has said repeatedly, why didn't they just ask me for them? i would have given them to them, but you know, the government has said repeatedly, they engaged in negotiations for some time to get these documents back. and in fact, of course, they got those 15 boxes back some time ago, but the key thing here, i think, is something that happens in june. when the trump legal team offers up a signed statement to the justice department that they have returned everything. and then the justice department learns that that is not true. and that promoted a breach of trust between these two parties and i think led to the execution of the search warrant. we still don't know whether the government has received back all of the classified and top secret

information that they know could be missing. we obviously know they got a lot back. they have a ton of material right now. they have a filter team going through it. but there could be even more. and so i think we're just -- even though some major actions have happened in this case, i think we are in some ways not at the end of it, and there is more to come. >> and let me ask you, sit with you for a second, luke, where was mark meadows the whole time? when this stuff was removed, trump was still president, he still had a team, a chief of staff. there was some reporting he was sort of mia for a lot of this period. what do we know about what he was doing and whether he was involved in getting this stuff moved? >> we have to put this in context. we know donald trump and mark melmeadows were consumed with donald trump staying in office. they were, in the weeks after he lost the election, they were busy putting together schemes of fake electors and they were coming up with plans for january 6th, to have a big rally and put pressure on congress.

and so there wasn't a lot of emphasis or a spotlight on records retention or proper policies. you mentioned that the obama administration turned everything over to the archives. the archives put them in special facilities where he could review them, but he didn't take them with him as he left. mark meadows was assuring people in the white house he was going to handle everything, it would be done properly, but clearly that was nut the case. some of those assurances mark meadows made to administration officials who could have been helping donald trump unload these boxes or carry them around with them, those could come under scrutiny as the justice department continues to investigate. >> tim o'brien, let me bring you in here because you have followed donald trump for a really long time. there is a contradiction here in what we just heard luke talking about, about donald trump and mark meadows being consumed with the idea of trying to stay in office and doing everything they can to not leave, and boxing up materials and taking them away and taking them to mar-a-lago, which is a strange thing to do if you think you're still going

to be president and you think there's an opportunity to stay, which he's been telling his followers the whole time. what do you make of the idea that he took this away? there have been theories thrown out there as to why he did it. do you have one? >> well, i mean, it's all speculation at this point, joy. i think that, you know, you would have to get inside his head to talk about motive, but i think there clearly have been patterns in his presidency, in his business life we can draw on to suggest why donald trump holds on to things that he really wants. some of it is he's got a little boy's fascination with the trappings of the presidency. he was very fascinated with the retro fitting of air force one. he wanted to hold on to a model of air force one that apparently he was required to turn over to the national archives. so there's that kind of juvenile fascination with it, and who really cares? none of that affects the national security. it's just part of his flaws as a person. the more salient factors that

might have motivated him, and i think are damaging, danger, and should concern law enforcement and the american public, is whether or not money was a factor. did he believe he was taking things thromfederal government that he could use to feather his own nest. he was looking at other people in his administration like jared kushner, steve mnuchin cash in on their relationship with to saudis. they have gotten billions from them for start-up investment firms that wouldn't have drawn that money but for their proximity to the trump administration. trump saw that going on and had to wonder himself how he could monetize his ex-presidency. were there documents he took from the government that he thought he could monetize in some fashion? i think the other reason -- >> go on. >> i think the other reason is that he wanted government documents that might help perpetuate a cover-up.

donald trump was impeached twice, impeached the first time for trying to strongarm ukraine's president, zelenskyy, to dig up dirt on biden. are there any communiques with foreign leaders like zelenskyy or xi or putin that trump didn't want to get out into the open? again, this is raw speculation. but it is rational speculation, and we also know that the fbi were concerned about nuclear documents he took. so there's a national security issue here as well. so these are very good reasons behind why the fbi would want to take a look at this, lock it down, but until they provide more transparency, the fbi, either by prosecuting trump or clarifying what's in the documents, this is raw speculation. >> tim, lock her up was literally one of the themes of the trump campaign when he ran against hillary clinton in 2016. and the point of lock her up, if people don't remember specifically what that was

about, was saying she should be prosecuted for having a private server upon which there could be classified information at her house. it turned out she didn't, but i mean, she didn't commit a crime, but he knew that that was something that he thought people should be locked up for. >> well, i think one of the great hypocrisies of the trump era is that the party of law and order, the gop, has been busily smearing law enforcement and the rule of law in an effort to allow trump to essentially lay claim to an imperial presidency where he's not bound by the rule of law or the constitution and therefore is able to do whatever he wants to do. and i think we could take a lot of examples in the past where they held political apoinants or others to a higher standard than they're holding themselves now, hillary clinton being one of them. >> luke, let me give you the last word on this. throughout this, pat cipollone still existed and we know he was very much involved in trying to get trump to not break the law,

not break the law and not try to impede congress. but is it possible, and is there any reporting on whether or not there was any consultation with the white house counsel about whether anything could be boxed up and moved to trump's private residence? did anyone inspect what he was taking before he took it? >> my understanding is that donald trump was very much freelancing within the office. he was saying certain documents were mine, they were his and people didn't really understand what he was doing with the documents. he would have certain aides carrying them around or taking them to his private residence, and yes, people like my understanding is pat cipollone and pat philbin have been contacted as part of this investigation. and so i think those are the type of questions the justice department is asking, what kind of counsel did he receive, was he defying the legal advice he was getting from his top lawyers at the time? so i do think this could just be

getting started. i think there's plenty more to come on this. >> before we go, any speculation out there from trump world about who might have tipped off the fbi to the existence of these materials, luke? >> well, we know they have interviewed at least a half dozen people. and in fact, the court filing today from the trump campaign put forward that they had put some of the aides down at mar-a-lago out there for these interviews. so it could well be that the justice department interviewed people who told them, look, there are still classified documents there, or this door is open and people are walking by it, or they're not handled the right way. we don't know exactly who gave the information to the fbi. but we do know that people at mar-a-lago have talked to them and maybe that is the reason the search warrant was proffered. >> thank you, apprec ament you both. >> up next, constitutional law

scholar laurence tribe on trump's legal filing calling for a special master to review the evidence seized from mar-a-lago. stay with us. lily! welcome to our third bark-ery. oh, i can tell business is going through the “woof”. but seriously we need a reliable way to help keep everyone connected from wherever we go. well at at&t we'll help you find the right wireless plan for you. so, you can stay connected to all your drivers and stores on america's most reliable 5g network. that sounds just paw-fect. terrier-iffic i labra-dore you

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after threatening last week to file a major motion involving the fourth amendment over the fbi search of his mar-a-lago home, donald trump and his legal team have now officially followed through, suing the government, claiming the warrant was overbroad, the motion filed this afternoon asked a judge for a third party, a so-called

special master to review what was taken by the fbi during their search. to prohibit the doj from further review of the seized material, requiring more detailed receipt of what was taken and return any items not within the scope of the search warrant. the doj responded to the filing, writing, quote, the august 8th search warrant at mar-a-lago was authorized by a federal court upon the required finding of probable cause. the department is aware of this evening's motion. the united states will file its response in court. of course, the fact this motion is only now being filed two weeks after the documents were collected and likely already reviewed makes you wonder, like, what the trump team expects from this filing other than a good talking point for fox news. unfortunately, we have the perfect person to discuss this with. joining me now, laurence tribe from harvard law school. professor tribe, thank you so much for being here. let's get into this. this motion that trump has now kind of weirdly belatedly filed, what do you make of it?

>> i just fixed reading it, it's 27 pags long. it's very strange. for one thing, it's filed not on behalf of private citizen trump but filed on behalf of president donald j. trump. you know, it's never been clear that he distinguishes between himself as a private citizen and himself as president. that may help explain just psychologically why he feels he's entitled to all these papers. he says they're his. that's one thing that's really strange. another thing that's quite strange, you mentioned yourself just a minute ago, he waited a couple weeks. so it's sort of too late to ask for some new special master, but one of the things he says on this, in his brief on page seven is it's terrible that it took the department of justice three whole days between getting the search warrant and executing it. that's another thing that's strange.

and then, finally, it's strange, not so much what it says but what it doesn't say. it doesn't really give any good reasons for thinking this warrant was illegal. in fact, one of the amazing things that i agree with is a statement on page 13 that president trump, he still calls himself president trump, should not be treated differently from any other citizen. finally, he gets that right. any other citizen who took top secret material to not just a private home but a resort like mar-a-lago, which has been penetrated by chinese spies and perhaps by others, would be prosecuted under the espionage act. so he is sort of asking merrick garland to prosecute him. thank you, mr. trump, i won't call him president trump. >> i have -- yes, we were -- andrea mitchell and i were in

hair and makeup earlier and i was trying to remember the name of the guy from the clinton administration who got in trouble for this, national security adviser sandy berger, he pleaded guilty, didn't go to jail. he got a $10,000 fine, he had to surrender his security clearance for three years because he went into a room that was like safe room to read classified documents and apparently took a page. david petraeus in 2015 had to plead out, the heroic general from the iraq war, had to plead out because he provided highly classified journals to his girlfriend. he was sentenced to two years probation and a $100,000 fine. so yes, donald trump is being treated exactly the way anyone else would be treated, and the way anyone who was not necessarily a republican would be treated, no? >> well, that will be true if he's actually indicted for what he's done, not only for trying to hold on to the presidency after losing and for fomenting an insurrection, but for having top secret documents that he was

going to do heaven knows what with. we don't yet know if he's going to be indicted. if he's being treated not as president but as a citizen, he's got to be indicted. otherwise, the rule of law just doesn't mean anything. now, a lot of people say, it's going to be really tough to indict a former president. look, it was tough even to search his resort. wait until you see what the fallout looks like, and they're threatening violence, and these people are armed and they're dangerous, but if we allow them through their threats of violence to terrify us into not treating the ex-president as an ordinary citizen and holding him to account, we will have given up something that people have died for, and that is the right to a self-governing democracy with a peaceful transition to the person who wins the next election.

>> there is another thing that they did that was very strange. this is in this article that talks about this motion. the federal magistrate judge who signed off doubled off, no, there was probable cause of crimes, that's why we did it. trump, also, his filing included a message that trump and his lawyer relaid to a justice department lawyer on august 11th. and this is what the message says. president trump, still referring to himself that way, wants the attorney general to know he's been hearing from people all over the country about the raid. if there's one word to describe their mood, it's angry. the heat is building up, the pressure is building up. whatever i can do to bring the heat down and bring the pressure down, just let us know. that sounds like threatening language, like if you don't stop proceeding in this direction, people might go crazy. that does not sound normal. >> it sounds like a mob boss. in fact, in this filing, one of the things he says, politics can't be allowed to affect the administration of justice.

of course, threats of violence would be included, but right then, in footnote one, he says, i'm leading 84% would support me if i ran for president in 2024. notice he's basically saying, i'm the big guy here. i'm going to be president. you better watch out. i mean, this document is itself perhaps one of the exhibits that might be entered in evidence in a criminal trial of donald trump for obstruction of justice. which is one of the things that led to the issuance of the search warrant. >> amazing. absolutely amazing. professor laurence tribe, always a pleasure. thank you, sir. >> still ahead, florida becomes ground zero in the fight to preserve american democracy and free speech. the good news is democracy actually might be winning. we'll be right back.

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between two initiatives on sports betting. prop 27 generates hundreds of millions every year to permanently fund getting people off the streets a prop 26? not a dime to solve homelessness prop 27 has strong protections to prevent minors from betting. prop 26? no protections for minors. prop 27 helps every tribe, including disadvantaged tribes. prop 26? nothing for disadvantaged tribes vote yes on 27. our democracy is on the ballot in this year's midterm elections, with election deniers backed by former president donald trump running all across the country. a new nbc news poll found threats to democracy has overtaken cost of living as the most important issue facing the country in the eyes of voters. but in some ways the path to

saving our democracy could run right through one state. florida. home to the other trump. florida governor ron desantis who has run his state as an experiment in re-creating trumpism on steroids, weaponizing the culture wars at every turn. last week, he took his presidential bid in waiting to pennsylvania, campaigning for election denying candidate for governor doug mastriano. >> we must fight the woke in our schools. we must fight the woke in our businesses. we must fight the woke in government agencies. we can never, ever surrender to woke ideology. and i'll tell you this. the state of florida is where woke goes to die. >> what is he talking about? desantis also spent the weekend rallying for florida school board candidates that support his anti-woke agenda. that includes his don't say gay law and turning florida public schools into right-wing

re-education factories. tomorrow, democratic voter in the sunshine state will choose their nominee to take on desantis in november. the leading contenders, agriculture commissioner nicky freed, and charlie crist. there's also florida's senate race where val demings is the leading candidate to face incumbent marco rubio who may have hoped he could coast to re-election on good old ron's coat tails. rubio also had an email saying his fund-raising is a disaster, and literally begging for help. joining me now, a pollter and msnbc analyst, and peter short, publisher of politics and the guy, by the way, who broke the story of the raid on mar-a-lago and also my old pal from way back in the day. i'm not going to say how long we have known each other, but peter. so good to see you. talk to me. >> thanks for having me on. >> absolutely. it is good to see you. let's talk about what's going on in florida. because i would say even two

weeks ago, before i went away on my little writing retreat, people were certain that ron desantis was going to get re-elected, that rubio was going to be re-elected. something has shifted in the vibe in florida, and i am wondering if you have any idea why, and does it have anything to do with what's going on in the shenanigans in mar-a-lago? >> i don't know if it's connected to mar-a-lago, but there is definitely something here in the water in florida. on both sides. i don't remember the activity level being like this since maybe august 2010, during like the tea party flare-up post the health care debate. democrats all of a sudden woke up. now i'm starting to wonder, were people making a bismistake to have written off florida so early, that demings had no chance, now it looks like as the republicans scale back from arizona, pennsylvania, et cetera, florida is in play. the u.s. senate race is in play

right now. and so i think val demings may have the best chance of pulling off an upset. i'm a little suspect about charlie crist or nicky freed beating desantis, but the water is warm down here. come on down. >> you know, we have been friends a long time, and you know that my name is joy, but i'm sometimes ironic because i was real pessimistic about florida. but all of a sudden it's not doomed. so val demings we showed that, 48/44, within the margin of error, and florida used to be this 50/50 state where if you won you won by .2, but it does seem in order for rubio and desantis to pull it off, they might be able to pull it off with the narrow margins we got used to in florida. desantis needs to like win big to be viable for president. i don't know. how is it looking to you? and what do you make of these weird polls like the charlie crist poll and nicky freed. it's weird because you can't tell which one of them is ahead,

i can't. can you? >> well, first off, joy, one of those pollsters is going to have to close up shop for business because you can't be this off the night before the election with those kind of weird results going one day and another. having said that, the question for everybody is, is florida foregone? i had my heart broken here so many times as a democrat over the years. so i'm not really confident yet that we can say that the democrats have a chance to definitely beat everything straight up. i think it's going to require a perfect storm. category-5 type hurricane andrew storm against the republicans. the good news is you asked what has upended the dynamic here. i can describe it in two words. reproductive freedom. there is no question that the overturning of the roe v. wade decision by the court is the seismic earthquake that has reshaped the balance of this election, certainly in florida. i'm seeing it in the polls. abortion is an issue now that really wasn't prior to the leaking of the news in may.

but that coupled with a series of unforced errors by desantis, also this raid on mar-a-lago, which yes, it may be helping the trump base reconsolidate, but it's really taking a sledge hammer to the image of trump as really being someone who is acting as a criminal which i think for a lot of people, that's causing some real questions. so i'm not sure i'm yet ready to say florida is 100% back in play, but like peter says, it's maybe worth dipping a toe or two in the water because if it looks like this in about a month, then yeah, come on in because it could be everywhere is in play. >> and peter, let's talk about the other x-factor, because it's val demings and you know well based on where you're located in the state, if there is one single person in the entire state of florida who could actually win a state-wide election and also be a woman and a black person, it's val demings. she's the police, so you can't say that she's, test.

test. test. test. test. test. test. test. test. did you see that?

please. what are you, a senator? grow up, man. no, val demings is a dream candidate for the democrats. we see it in the enthusiasm, the fund-raising, the question is, can she out florida florida? that's what we're all wondering. florida will break your heart, take it from me. >> it's what it does. it's what florida does. unless obama is on the ticked, florida is going to hurt your feelings. two of my faves, thank you both very much. >> all right, coming up next, a zero interest in policy, check. a relentless thirst for power? check. a slavish devotion to check. check. so what would the house of representatives led by kevin mccarthy look like? brace yourselves because that's next. and you can find her, and millions of other talented pros, right now on upwork.com

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will you be speaker in january? >> i believe so, we'll win the majority and i'll be speaker, yes. >> that was house minority leader kevin mccarthy last week displaying his signature trace, hubris and ambition. despite what he might say, nobody really knows what going to happen in november. what we do know about the man who wants to be speaker has been helpful, however, in understanding what that might look like. and it leaves, shall we say, much to be desired. central to mccarthy's rise to power has been his own personal ambition, the new republic in a new profile titled bland ambition, spoke with a string of current and former allies, some noted that mccarthy has always aspired to be speaker.

one longtime friend who met mccarthy when he was a young congressional staffer said mccarthy would tell him, quote, i want to be speaker. that led him quickly up the ranks of the house caucus, and made him the face, but not necessarily the brains, behind the young guns. a new generation of republican leaders. that polished group of up and coming republicans had a sweet brand game coming on. eric cantor, the self described leader, paul ryan, the self described thinker, and kevin mccarthy, the strategist. according to a long time congressional reporter who spoke to the new republic, the strategist has a reputation as a, quote, absolutely the biggest star chaser in washington. he's so taken with someone who is a big name. he loves to hobnob with celebrities. no one thinks the guy has any real ideology or real morals. ouch. his first brush with greatness was thwarted by the extreme wing of his caucus and cantankerous republican walter jones woo

fanned rumors mccarthy had an affair with a former colleague, an allegation mccarthy denied. nevertheless, he put on hold his long sought after dream for an even younger gun. >> i just think it's best we have a new face. >> since then, the new face of the party has become the sol goodman of politics willing to say and do anything to defend his people as long for the right price. >> qanon has no place in our party, and marjorie greene actually said that inside our conference today. they're going to judge her on things that were said that she has now denounced before she was ever a member of congress. >> matt gaetz is the same as any american. he's innocent until proven guilty. there's no charges against him yet. >> do you believe that joe biden was the legitimate victor of the 2020 election? and do you believe that donald trump is just flat wrong when he says the election was stolen? >> look, we have answered this question a long time.

joe biden is the president. i think you can look that there's a lot of problems still with an election process. >> oh, kevin. a person who has followed mccarthy's political machinations on capitol hill told politico,ane strange way that is hard to explain, he's gotten more stupid the longer he's here, unquote. just last week, liz cheney, a former deputy to mccarthy, told abc news mccarthy has no business being second in line to the presidency. >> my views about kevin mccarthy are very clear. the speaker of the house is the second in line for the presidency. it requires somebody who understands and recognizes their duty, their oath, their obligation, and he's been completely unfaithful to the constitution. demonstrated a total lack of understanding of the significance and the importance of the role of speaker, so i don't believe he should be speaker of the house. >> savage. stay with us. after the break, to find out why she just might be right.

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speaker kevin mccarthy actually be? he's a person who got behind trump early because he had no moral qualms with trump with doesn't bode well with trumpublican rich already. say what you will about paul ryan, at least what he had.

joining me for the staff writer for the new republic. former spokesperson and senior adviser for republicans house oversight committee. and to start with you grace segers welcome to the show. there are all these wild stories about kevin mccarthy. one of my favorites is this when it's a new york times story. kevin mccarthy, this is a quote from the new york times. a golden retriever of a man who hates to be mined self, once cozied up to the president by bringing him a curated jarvis favorite cherry and strawberry starburst candies. he called him my kevin because he sees him as a hand puppet. how is this guy the one out of all the republicans in that caucus who is lined up to be potentially speaker? >> i think the important thing to realize about kevin mccarthy is that his power comes from relationships. so he has spent literally

decades even before he was in congress building up relationships and for the past 16 years or so that he's been in congress maintaining those relationships with fellow republicans. they like him. he knows everyone's spouses name, everyone's dogs name, they're your favorite sports team, and that along with a very prodigious fund reigning skill set can propel you to power. i think that's the really important thing to know about kevin mccarthy but it helps explain why he is willing to go so far to accommodate trump, because he recognizes that he can leverage relationships. >> but i mean kurt that doesn't stop so-called friends from going behind his back and saying that he's someone who gets dumber with time. there is no good quote. it's all insults. so people may like that he knows their families names, but they don't seem to respect him very much? >> yeah, i think that just shows that we have someone is

not rooted in any sort of conviction, any moral compass of any kind, it's hard to muster respect from your colleagues because ultimately they know that you don't have loyalty that your political litmus test just shifts with one of the prevailing winds are. i first came across kevin mccarthy when he was first started in the public service, and at the time he was trying to be arnold schwarzenegger's riding shotgun. arnold snorts negativism are most modern model republican we've ever had. that first of kevin mccarthy would not recognize the one with we have now. that version of kevin mccarthy would be called a rhino in today's republican party. when you go as far as being arnold schwartz makers to donald trump swing, that it's hard to respect or trust you. >> let me show you first of all. this is a picture of kevin mccarthy with donald trump on january 28th, 2021 at

mar-a-lago. this is a reminder that after the rioters hit the capitol, mccarthy voted with a hunter of his colleagues to overturn the election. he's been a ride or die guy with trump. it was a cynical calculation of which wind way the wind was blowing. he doesn't believe in trump, he doesn't believe in trump's in the former staffer said. he doesn't believe in protectionism and all this election bs, but he feels like the strays too far away from it, he will absolutely mrs. chance to finally get the gavel which is finally in his grasp. does this guy believe in anything else than becoming speaker? >> i think that is definitely been an ambition of his for several years now. as you mention from the article earlier, even before he got to the house he wanted to be speaker. i do think that he is willing to do many things to get there

but especially recognizing the power of donald trump and the power that he has over the republican conference, because mccarthy knows that without trump, he won't be able to ascend to the speakership. he needs to keep trump on his good side. he needs to make sure that trump is happy with him, because otherwise he probably won't have the juice to be elected speaker by his republican colleagues. >> kurt you were there so you know what the hell of the time john boehner had trying to deal with the ford or some odd members of the freedom caucus. he literally got out of dodge, he couldn't deal with them. you have paul ryan who got a super duper tax cut and then bailed and went to fox news. if they who seem to be more intelligent than kevin mccarthy. not to be mean, but according to his colleagues couldn't handle a 40 some odd person freedom caucus, i would kevin mccarthy and the one it's about

129 members of the trump caucus? >> this is the challenge he is going to have. particularly watching republican self sabotage themselves leading up to the midterms, they were counting on having a massive majority. [inaudible] they were boasting about winning 60 seats. well, the problem is they are not gonna do that. they may not even get the majority, if they do it's gonna be a lot smaller, and a lot harder to manage. there's no way kevin mccarthy will be able to marshal this caucus into anything productive, put forward any policy agenda, is gonna be crazy. this is now the marjory the caucus of marjorie taylor greene, matt gates and others. they all know that kevin mccarthy's oppose, or he's pretending to be maga. in fact he doesn't believe in anything, so just can be one headache after another and if he's fortunate to become speaker, he won't be for very long. >> real quickly grace, and they

win the majority will someone else take it from? >> i think that's very dependent on whether he is endorsed by donald trump, but if he has not endorsed by donald trump, if trump stays out of the race altogether or god forbid doesn't endorse someone else, i think that could be someone seeing someone else. it could be >> it could be marjorie taylor greene for all we. no thank you both very much, that's tonight's read out, all women with per se stars. now women with per se stars. tonight on all in. >> democracy remains in danger, the conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over. >> as anti-democratic forces win elections and take power in state houses, tonight new evidence that america is waking up to the reality. >> we are facing a moment where our democracy is really under attack and under threat. >> then, donald trump files a new lawsuit as he