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tv   Alex Wagner Tonight  MSNBC  September 1, 2022 6:00pm-7:00pm PDT

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letting your as but expertise as well as claire mccaskill and elie mystal. appreciate you both being here. this is all for tonight. starts right now. good evening, alex. arts right now >> we are excited to have a live interview tonight with the newest democrat elected to congress. last night -- defeated sarah palin in the special election for alaska is deep red at large congressional district. she will join us right here live, coming up. and we will have the latest from the courtroom where donald trump's lawyers faced off of the department of justice today. but we start tonight with a stark warning from the president of the united states. >> too much of what is happening in our country today is not normal. donald trump in the maga republicans represented extremism that threatens the foundations of our republic. there is no question that the republican party today is
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dominated, driven, and intimidated by donald trump and the maga republicans. that is a threat to this country. maga republicans do not respect the constitution, believe in the rule of the law, recognize the will of the people. they refused to accept the results of a free election and promote authoritarian leaders. they fanned the flames of political violence. they are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country. they look at the mob that stormed that united states capitol on january 6th, be brutally attacking law enforcement, not as insurrectionists. they placed a dagger the throat of our democracy, but they look at them as patriots. they see their maga failure to stop a fees peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election as preparation for the
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2022 in 2024 elections. and now america must choose to move forward or to move backwards, to build a future obsessed about the past, to be a nation of hope and unity in optimism or a nation of division, fear, and darkness. >> that was president biden tonight delivering a speech in philadelphia, calling on americans to save democracy from authoritarian forces within the republican party. the president cause of the battle for the soul of the nation, represented by angry insurrections attacking the capitol on january 6th, following donald trump's chief charge of a stolen election. today saw the longest sentence handed down by the doj for any rioter involved in the attack on the u.s. capitol.
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for emerson white of us are tom as webster was sentenced to -- years. here is tom webster on that day, beating his brothers and sisters in blue with the flagpole. here he is, seen trying to rip off the mask of a police officer who had fallen to his knees while trying to protect the the capitol. the justice department says his arrested more than 680 people involved. so far eight defendants have faced jury trials. all eight were convicted on every count, including thomas webster. many more january six defendants have pleaded guilty in court. today jerry sixth rioter julian cater pled guilty to two counts of assaulting law enforcement officers. he was the one who attacked brian sicknick and caroline -- with bare spray. telling the fellow rioter, give me that bare bleep beavers
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spraying the officers with the highly toxic chemical mixture. officer sicknick followed two strokes after that attack. he was taken to the hospital put on a ventilator and he died the next day. officer edwards went on to give harrowing testimony of at the very first january six hearing about the injuries she suffered that day. she likened what she saw on january six to a war scene, telling the country it was carnage, it was chaos. that is the kind of violence that republicans have tried to whitewash or explain away by calling it legitimate political discourse. just today the de facto leader of the gop, donald trump, told the host of a right-wing internet show if he is reelected president he would consider full pardons for january 6th defendants. >> and i will tell you, i will look very favorably about full pardons, if i decide to run, i will be looking very strongly at that pardon. >> as trump mulls over the
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possibility of pardoning rioters, the justice department continues to bring charges. the lawyer for the right wing paramilitary group the oath keepers was indicted on three felony counts of obstructing an official proceeding and obstructing justice. several members of that group were previously charged with seditious conspiracy or an effort to overthrow the government. it will go on trial at the end of this month. the efforts to seek accountability for what happened inside the white house continue to move forward. tomorrow trump white house lawyers pat philbin and pat cipollone are expected to testify before a grand jury is part of the investigation into the attack. meanwhile the january six committee continues its own investigation. tonight it sent a letter to newt greenwich asking him to voluntarily testify before the committee. their letter to gingrich is full of new allegations about what the white house is planning, both before and after the capitol attack. the committee claims that after the election gingrich was
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involved in the creation of tv ads promoting a false claim that the election was stolen. they say he urged the trump team to promote the false election fraud claims it centered around election workers ruby friedman and shane moss who testified about the harassment they faced as a result of those lies. the letter alleges the house speaker was involved in the fake elector scandal, the one being currently investigated by both the committee and the justice department. after laying all of that out, the committee right to gingrich, you appear to be involved to be involved with trump's effort to stop the certification even after the attack on the capitol. >> the shocking findings out of mar-a-lago may have pushed all that out of the headlines, but as biden laid out tonight, the threat to democracy is one of the fundamental challenges of our times. the investigation into january 6th might be the country's best shot at holding accountable those men and women who
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threaten the country's most basic freedoms. joining us now is congressman jamie raskin, democrat from maryland and member of the january six committee. congressman raskin, thank you for joining us tonight. >> you bet. >> let me first start with where you think the country is at. the president offered a very pointed, i would call it a line of criticism, it was bluntly an attack on maga republicans, who he accuses of being usurpers of democracy, which is obviously paraphrasing. do you think we are on the precipice of civil war? the polling around this shows the democrats think it is likely by a percentage of 39%, republicans 58% of the gop believes we are on the precipice of civil war. where do you believe we are? >> it was a superb speech that biden gave in philadelphia.
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he talked about the defense of democracy and the defense of equality. but i think we need to elaborate further the defensive freedom. it was lincoln, after all, who said that constitutional democracy is a beautiful silver platter upon which rests the golden apple of freedom. in america, democracy is clearly under attack because we saw on january 6th, as we see in the continued assault on elections and election officials across the country. but freedom is under attack as well by a supreme court that has been gerrymandered by donald trump's party and by the justices that he packed quite illegitimately on the court by preventing hearings, for example, in the nomination of merrick garland to the supreme court. in any event, there is a lot of chatter about civil war. lincoln did say that a house divided cannot stand and the nation couldn't survive half
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slave and half free. i suppose the major political faultline we are seeing is between a nation that is half free choice for women and half theocratic and half massage honest. i don't know that that can last for a very long time. i think we will become either a country that is equal in free for all citizens, including women, including the right to travel. or, as the republicans want, as mike pence has argued for, they will pass a national law banning abortion and banning women into a permanent second class status in the country. >> i think you're right to call into the for reproductive freedom. but this is also, it felt like a speech for history. this was a moment when you have a president speaking to a country that is in crisis, that could be at a breaking point. i wonder, as someone who was on one of the key committees investigating how we make amends, how we hold accountable the actors trying to undermine
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democracy, do you feel these investigations, this committee, work is getting us closer to a more peaceable union? or is it fracturing us further? >> no, it's definitely unifying the country around the constitution, around the rule of law, and basic democratic values, and i think that may have something to do with president biden's speech, the fact that we focused everybody's attention on the fact that we have got the maga dominated republican party situated outside the constitutional order. i would add only a couple of points to the presidents excellent speech. one is that democracy is not a static thing, but it is a dynamic process. toqueville remarked, in democracy in america, that voting rights in the country are either shrinking in traveling away, and we have certainly been in the contraction area mode, or they are growing in their expanding, and that has been a history of the struggle of women to be
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full participants and democracy, the struggle of african americans to have full voting rights and to be full participants and so on. well, i think that just as 37 states have had to argue for democratic inclusion, there are more would-be states seeking inclusion measure membership, including washington d.c.. 713,000 disenfranchise taxpaying american citizens. they want statehood. three and a half million people in for puerto rico who have tasted the bitter price of colonial disenfranchisement is recently got cheated out of millions of dollars of aid and instead donald trump threw paper towels at them. we need a constitutional -- guaranteeing everyone to vote. we've got to get dark democracy moving again. it's not just a defensive question of protecting what we've got, but making sure the democracy moves and adapt to the challenges of the new
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century. >> and part of moving forward is coming to a conclusion about what happened. agreeing what went wrong. for example, on january 6th, i would love to turn or attention to the committee work, because there is fairly big breaking news this evening about your request to speak to former speaker newt greene grit, one of the presidents casual advisers, if you will. can you tell us a little more about the specific actions undertaken by mr. gingrich that peeks the committees interest? >> well, we have spoken, obviously, to more than 1000 witnesses at this point. we are interested in talking to anybody who can shed some light on why this dangerous assault on american democratic institutions took place. how exactly it took place, and then what we will need to do to fortify ourselves against insurrections, political
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violence, attempts to manipulate, the nooks and crannies of the electoral college in order to entrenched minority rule and to get losers propelled to the presidency. i think that newt gingrich speaking as one member, to my mind, was involved in that process. he used whatever knowledge he has to try to promote and absolutely insidious and indefensible interpretation of the constitution. but we will see. this is why we ask people to come in. people tell us things. we get indications. we want people to testify themselves. most people have done out without lying and coming forward and telling what they know. there are other people who have tried to battle us who have invoked phony privileges and tried to elude the process. but the truth is being known, and for every person who tries
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to lie and cover up the truth, there are other five people who come forward to tell us exactly what happened. >> i want to ask about that, because chairman thompson, benny thompson has adjusted lots of trump cabinet members are willing and happy to accommodate the committees line of questioning, that the work has been ongoing through this summer. is there anything you can tell us about what might happen next month? is there a plan to hold more hearings? is there anything you can tell us about any of the topics you have been focusing on? we've heard reporting about the 25th amendment with his gingrich invitation, the fake slates of electors. is there anything you can give us by way of guidance by way of the committees activities? >> the country has learned a remarkable amount from the hearings that we had. there are certain open questions on the table that people approach me about all the time when i bump into them. the word on the street. people want to know, was, there
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in fact a cover-up? was there an effort to destroy all of those texts in the secret service and in the department of defense. people want more clarity on why the national guard was not a visible forceful presence from the beginning the way that it was for example when black lives manual matter came to the capital on 2020 so we're gonna try to answer some of those questions and i am very determined to find out what exactly trump had in mind in trying to ride back to the capital like mussolini to storm in with the mob to get himself declared president, and how exactly did they think that was going to unfold on the floor of the house of representatives. we need to tie up some loose ends, but the main thing, really, alex, now is to make recommendations to the country and to the congress about what needs to be done to make sure
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that we are never caught like this again by a fascist street movement and inside that strategic actors that are determined to overthrow the constitutional order. i wish only that joe biden had placed his excellent analysis on a global context. the theocratic, kleptocrats, autocrats, are all marching against democracy and trying to destroy democratic institutions, and rigid fended here. we need to make it work. we need to make democracy grow in order to turn around that global trend. america, the cause of america, like tom paine said, should be the cause of humanity in terms of promoting democracy and human rights and freedom. i just have one last question for you about the investigation that has been front and center in the news in the last several weeks, of the mar-a-lago documents that were taken by
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the fbi. does the committee have an interest in those documents? given that some of them seem to be fairly keyed from president trump's time in office. have you been in communication about doing those once the odni is done with its review? well, under house resolution 503. our charges to discuss what happened on january 6th and why, and to make recommendations on how to not repeat that in the future. to the extent that those documents bear on those set of questions, then we're interested. but all make a remark, as just one member of congress who's lived through the trump period. the guy is a one-man crime wave. i was completely of the fact that he had pilfered, top secret classified documents from the white house and taking them with him to mar-a-lago. i think most, if not all of the members of our committee were
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completely taken by surprise by all that. that's a separate stream of investigation from what we're looking at. just like the alleged rapes and sexual assaults, and the real estate fraud in the bank fraud. trump university, all these different criminal and civil offensives have a different genesis. but he's obviously like a mob boss, and weeks up and sees he's gonna try to rip off in a subway that day. we are taking attention to the protection of american constitutional democracy. that's the center of my threat that he posed to the republic. >> congressman jamie raskin, member the january six committee. thanks so much for joining us tonight. >> thanks for having me. >> we have much more to get to this hour, we're gonna talk live with the woman the democrat, who beat sarah palin to be alaska's next member of congress. we will talk to senator amy klobuchar about president biden's speech and what she is a member of senate judiciary committee thinks about trump's
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mar-a-lago documents ramah. next, former u.s. attorney joyce vance will join me to unpack what happened in a florida courtroom today, where doj lawyers faced off with donald trump's legal team. stay with us. eam. stay with us r] the future. the way you see it is said to depend on where you sit. at x-chair, we think it also gets down to how you sit, which is why our technology is lightyears ahead. x-chair has done it again with our groundbreaking elemax technology, providing hours of infinite comfort no matter where in the world you're sitting by synthesizing the universe's elements, bringing hot, cold, and touch into one extraordinary seating experience. our mission is to help you discover that every work day can happen with body and mind in an out-of-this-world place of comfort and productivity. x-chair is charting a new course, helping workers everywhere find comfort as their work worlds zoom back and forth. even though your work reality may continue to shift, we've got our eye on the future of work so you can focus on the present.
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yes, folks, that was team trump's argument today in a federal courtroom in palm beach, florida, where they were trying to characterize the pickle that donald trump has gotten himself into after repeatedly failing to return classified documents and records for the national archives. trump's lawyer said in court today, quote, we've characterized it at times as an overdue library book scenario. no big. those classified and top secret documents, they are just like an overdue library book. that's an interesting argument, that was made by trump's lawyers today during a hearing this afternoon to determine whether or not a federal judge should grant trump's request to appoint a special master to review the documents that the fbi retreat from his home. yes, documents like these, top secret classified documents found squirrel the way throughout mar-a-lago, in his office, his bedroom, and is storage room. the trump appointed judge does not issue a ruling from the bench over whether or not she to point a special master, pro
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trump's request, but she did say she would conceal a more detailed inventory of the documents taken from mar-a-lago. paroling, and that feeling that document could come at anytime. we have no idea when we're gonna get it. so know that we have all of our eyes on you, pacer. that's a little legal joke. in court today, the justice department had a simple reminder for the former president and his legal team, about just whose documents they are. they pointed out that trump, quote, is no longer the president, and because he's no longer the president, he had no rights of those documents. he was unlawfully in possession of them, that ends the analysis. it does not get any clearer than that. the justice department argued that the appointment of a special master on claims of executive privilege would be, quote, unprecedented. because that's claiming executive privilege against the executive branch. which seems sort of an impossible. the doj also argued that adding
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a special master at this point would cause delays, not only for its own ongoing criminal investigation, but for the office of the director national intelligence, and her ongoing damage assessment of the documents. remember, the doj said their initial review of the documents is complete. it's special review team, that filter, team has already set aside a small handful of documents deemed privileged. the appointment of a special master could delay the important work that damage assessment about the fallout from those classified documents hanging around his club, and what all that means for national security. also, whether or not those classified documents contain national secrets, and that improperly held would be in violation under the espionage act. meanwhile, team trump set aside a special master must be appointed, because we need to lower the temperature on both sides. we need to take a deep breath. from the man who brought you cause of targeted violence
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against fbi agents. a plea for everyone to please just get along. joining us now is joyce vance, former u.s. attorney for the northern edge district of alabama. current professor at the university of alabama school of law, and co-host of the podcast sisters in law. joyce, thanks for being with me this evening. >> thanks for having me, alex. >> let's talk about this third-party review, the special master. i know you've seen the court minutes that we have, and the judge's ruling. where do you think she will handle this? do you have any indication based on the events of today? >> she is given every indication that she is inclined to use a special master. -- come on what's gonna have to do this. but that's not how the law works, right? you can say this in every case. every defendant would love to
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have an investigation into the criminal conduct slowed down, and have an outside person reviewing everything that the doj does. but that's not how our system works, and doing this is just another way of trump demanding that he received special treatment, that he set up of the law. i hope the judge will see through this and not go along with it. >> it's not just the appointment of the special master, it's what the trump team wants from the special master. today in court, the trump attorney said they wanted a third party special master to share all the evidence with them, including the affidavit lane out the government's case. is that the bridge too far, or do you think that could be legitimately under consideration? >> no, that would be an absolutely illegitimate step to take. this judge as a former federal prosecutor, it's tough to believe that she would approve that sort of a strategy. because what trump is really trying to do here, if you take a step back and look at the
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pleading. this is just an effort to delegitimized the justice department. there is no legal basis to appointing a special master and giving him this extra look see into the government's work. he is in essence trying to argue to the jury of public opinion, you can't trust the justice department. and that's what this is all about. he doesn't have a defense. he's acknowledged having the documents. we can all see for ourselves and they are classified. so his only strategy is to trot out this tired old approach that easy's time and time again when he's been in trouble, and say you can't trust doj, they're at fulton coming after me, it's a witch hunt. i should have a level of oversight into their investigation then no other subject in a criminal case is entitled to. >> what about the unsealing of the detailed inventory of items from mar-a-lago? what can we expect there? what does that practically mean? >> so it's important to note that doj offered this up, their
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response brief they specifically said in -- this inventory of what we took from mar-a-lago, under seal like you asked us to. but in light of the extraordinary circumstances, in this case, we will agree to unseal it and let president trump take a look at what we've got. so we know this was something that doj often in good faith. i don't expect that we'll learn much of anything about the nature of classified documents. we might learn, for instance, more detailed information about the number of top secret documents that sci access, compartment to some sort of list. but alex, something i'm looking for here is that in the response doj said that some of the evidence that they seized had evidentiary value, it wasn't classified documents per se, but it had evidentiary value. in a case like this where you're trying to establish who is in possession of documents, it can be very helpful to know
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that you found several classified documents in a drawer, with the former presidents passports, so maybe some of this evidence that we'll learn about will be more identify and information if his wallet is in there if a notepad was been notices on there, that's all very valuable and showing who's in possession who had control of these items, did they know they were there. it's reasonable to believe that if his passports were in there he know what else was in that drawer, very helpful for doj folks looking to develop a prosecutable case. >> the irony is that we first learned about the seizure of the passports from donald trump, and it may turn out to be a sort of smoking gun in all this. the more information he puts out there or requests, the worse picture becomes for him. joyce vance, former u.s. attorney, thanks so much for your time and expertise this evening, we've always appreciate you. >> thanks alex. >> still to come this hour, we will talk to the woman who beat sarah palin last night. mary peltola, who is set to
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become the first democrats represent alaska in the house and a half a century. and then, could democrats actually stand a chance of holding on to the senate and the house in november. are they allowed to even express hideouts allowed? amy klobuchar will join me next to talk about the midterms, trump's latest legal woes, and her latest trip to ukraine. stick around. stick around - [narrator] the future. the way you see it is said to depend on where you sit. at x-chair, we think it also gets down to how you sit,
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joe biden wrapped up his primetime address to the nation. in addition to offering a broad thesis about american democracy, the president gave democrats their marching orders a playbook for the november midterms as his party seeks to hold off republicans from, retaking congress. >> not every republican, not even a majority of republicans are maga republicans. not every republican a embraces their extreme ideology. i know, because i've been able to work with these mainstream republicans. but there is no question that the republican party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated, by donald trump and the maga republicans. and that is a threat to this country. maga forces are determined to take this country backward. backwards to an america where there is no right to choose. no right to privacy. no right to contraception.
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no right to marry who you love. >> so there it is, straight from the head of the democratic party. hit republican opponents hard on social issues, from reproductive freedom to gay marriage, and don't mince words about just how serious the stakes where they are. joining us now to discuss that strategy, a democratic fortunes, is amy klobuchar of minnesota, who sits on the judiciary committee. we should note that she just returned from a trip to ukraine, a country fighting every day to preserve their own democracy. senator, it's always great to see, you thanks for joining me tonight. >> well thanks, alex and congratulations on the new show. >> thank you, and thank you for being on the naisha. i want to start first with your trip to ukraine. and the president laid out a pretty epic thesis about the state of affairs here in america, and the darkness ccs encroaching on our democracy. i wonder, having just returned from ukraine, where it's such a pitched battle between the
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forces of light and darkness, whether you see any parallels between the forces of our top russi there, and what's happening at home domestically. >> i certainly do, and that's what i was listening to the beautiful and forceful speech. i think in at the people of ukraine, putting their lives on the line. ballet dancers wearing them ammo. you have young men who left their countries behind, gone into dangers way on the front line all the stand up for democracy. when we met with president zelenskyy, for over an hour he wanted the people of america to know how grateful he is for all we have done, on feeding their people, economic aid and military aid. an employee told me she got a takeout food from the ukrainian restaurant, and someone wrote on it knowing they were american, thank you for the himars. the the missiles that we have
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let them use them there any crime. -- >> these people are putting themselves in the line. but the president asking the american people today whether they are independents or democrats. put their votes on the line. vote for freedom and vote for democracy. because as he gave this speech in defensive democracy, donald trump in the very same day literally implied that he wanted to pardon insurrectionists. that is a contrast. -- putting their freedom on the line. that's why you see democrats doing so well across the country. >> he was trying to do something that seems fairly tricky. on one hand he's painting this vivid picture of the threats on the horizon. at the same time the president is saying i've never felt more optimistic about america. the hope in the unseen was a central part of his message, but it's hard to do that, isn't it? especially if you're a democrat out on the campaign trail, how
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do you bounce those two seemingly conflicting ideas? >> i thought one sentence summed it up from the speech, when he said we honor the will of the people. we don't tonight. that to me sums it up, because yes you're talking about democracy, honoring the will of the people, but you're talking about honoring the will of the people by having their backs, by bringing down the cost of pharmaceuticals, and by passing a bipartisan infrastructure bill, that's helping people get broadband out to people, in every corner of this country. by standing up for veterans who are stationed next to burn pits. that's honoring the will of the people, and as you talked about earlier, honoring the will of the people is also saying within, should be able to have instead of a bunch of politicians. when you look at what just happened in alaska, and i can't wait to hear our new congresswoman, who i know is gonna be on your show very soon. look what happened in kansas,
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people turned out in droves to stand up for the principle that women should have the freedom to make their own decisions about their health care, instead of politicians. i think it all relates, because he struck a good balance today about talking about what would happen if donald trump and his allies took charge again. but also, what is happening now, and what our future can be if we keep putting and people who respect that democracy and want to get things done. >> and i think you know, it's right up to talk about abortion being relevant in the midterms, a pew poll shows up 71% of democrats believe that abortion is very important in the midterms. but then look at midterms, and a different poll in the wall street journal says that the mar-a-lago search. the mar-a-lago search made 64% of republican voters more likely to vote in the midterms. on one side, we're talking about an essential sort of question of freedom, and on the other hand, on the republican
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side there motivator is an fbi search of documents that president swirled away with him. that were not his. what does that tell you about the ability of two parties to come together, and the stakes in this november election? >> okay, well first of, all the wall street journal must not talk to the people i spoke to the minnesota state fair today, when i'm just walking around the fair. people are really concerned about someone stealing the nation's top secret. they understand that there are patriots all over the globe that are helping our country, and revealing their names and the intelligence that they brought us, could put them at grave risk. there are countries that want to do listen. look at the evil, inhuman barbarism of vladimir putin right now. there are terrorists that want to do us in. and for the president to have, the former president to have taken those documents and store
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them in wayne's desk, as we just found out after saying he'd given them all back to his lawyers, and you've got a place where they are literally running out croquet sets and golf carts, and putting the nation's top secrets in that situation. i think it's absolutely outrageous, and that's why the justice department is looking into this. so when you look at it in terms of national security, there are a whole lot of moderate republicans and independents, that are on the side of national security, on the side of the fbi, and that's the case we have to make. >> and hopefully that is what's motivating them to vote, and not in the gauge is shane -- mar-a-lago. senator amy klobuchar, we're glad you are back home safe and sound, thank you very time tonight. >> thank you. >> as senator klobuchar just said, we'll be joined live by democrat mary -- the first alaska native elected to congress, and the woman who beat sarah palin, she joins me live coming up next.
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the democrat who would one day replace him, she was moran. she would also go on to win alaska's lone house seat through a special election. although this time around, the process was very different. it was a ranked choice election, we knew that voters could rank their preferred candidates in order. if no no -- we the race becomes an instant runoff, in round two. the candidate with the fewest votes gets eliminated, and their votes go to the next choice. this keeps happening until two candidates are left, and then the candidate with the most votes winds. it sounds kind of confusing, but the win in election like this requires a sort of crossover appeal. as it turns out, that's just what we mary peltola had spent her career preparing for. she spent a decade working in the alaska state house, where she developed a reputation for being well, nice, and working across the aisle with folks who might not expect. the most surprising example of which is probably former governor sarah palin. the two say they bonded as
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expected others working in the state capital of the same time. and although palin admits that the two have very different viewpoints, she has said that mary peltola is a beautiful soul who has a heart for alaska. in any other state, the sort of friendship might seem surprising, but this is alaska, and doing the unexpected has kind of become her thing. during her campaign, she vocally supported abortion rights, she also voiced support for universal background checks while campaigning in a pro gun state. and in the end it works, voters have elected her to finish the term of the late congressman don young. she is now the first native -- joining me now is democratic congresswoman-elect, we mary peltola have alaska. i know you're not tired of hearing the insured democratic congresswoman-elect, am i right? >> thank you so much, alex. no, it hasn't gotten old yet. >> good. first, congratulations. second, let's start talking
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about what went down. for people who are that familiar with the way that ranked choice voting works, is it generally the case are usually the case that because of the system you often end up with candidates who are less partisan and more political to both sides. it is not a fair assessment of how it all works in the end? >> well, we are still learning the process and alaska as well. this was the very first election that has been conducted under the new ranked choice voting system. but, i am very optimistic. i think what it allows to happen is steering away from the closed primary process, which has really shown us with data that has created an environment where folks are trying to end up democrat each other, or out republican each other to the point that we wind up with very extreme candidates, sometimes fringe candidates get elected, and that are not able to negotiate well when it's
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time to solve our challenges, and they're not really able to win compromise, or build consensus. i think the beauty of ranked choice voting is that it's going to attract more middle of the road candidates, and allow more middle of the road candidates who are much more in line with the average voter, i think, in alaska, as well as around the united states, and we do tend to be very middle of the road as an electorate. >> i wonder, is that why sarah palin didn't win, and you think she's learned that lesson? you all, nick baggage and sarah palin are still running for the seat, the permanent seat come november. when she lost, she impudent the rank choice voting systems, she said -- i'm the last one who will ever retreat. instead, i'm going to reload. i understand alaska is a pro gun state, but palin has a tendency to speak in these
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extreme, trumpy, maga-ish semi word silent epithets. i wonder if you think that kind of extremism has a place in, not just rang choice voting, but in the republican party, if they're gonna do well in november. is that why she lost? >> well, i think this election, for the special election to just fill out the remainder of congressman young's term, i think it showed us that there is an appetite for folks who are not consumed by partisanship, and you really want to bring people together. earlier in your program you talked about some of the issues that we're facing as a nation. i think we've seen some of the foreign aggression come out of russia and china, which is very concerning to me as an american. it makes me realize that no other americans are my enemies. it doesn't matter what party you are from. if you're an american, you're not my enemy. and i think that kind of
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messaging appeals to people. there is an appetite for that. i think we saw where that takes us, on january 6th. and i just think that, people are craving people who want to build coalitions, and unitas americans rather than divide us. >> do you think that there are republicans in the house who feel the same way? >> i certainly hope so, i certainly hope so. i'm very optimistic about both ranked choice voting, but also where we're going as a country i think there's just such an appetite and such a demand for people who want to work together, and want to cooperate with each other. we have very serious and pressing issues that are facing households across the nation. we have skyrocketing inflation, we have housing shortages. we all want jobs with livable wages. we all want to good schools to
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send our children to. there are so many more things that unite us then divides. >> democratic congresswoman -elect. democratic congresswoman-elect, mary peltola of alaska, the first native american person to represent the state, it's about damn time. thank you for your time, thank you for a win, we will be right back. back i typed in grandma's name and birth year... and there she was, working at the five and dime. my dad's been wondering about his childhood address for 70 years... and i found it in five minutes. ...that little leaf helped me learn all the names from the old neighborhood... it felt like a treasure hunt. the 1950 census adds vivid new detail to your family story. and it's available now on ancestry.
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go, we have an update for you. on the heels of president biden's primetime speech about the ongoing threats to democracy, wisconsin election officials are seeking to establish a new office to fight back on misinformation. we're on wisconsin, good luck to you. now it's time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. good evening lawrence,. e o'donnell. goodgood evening alex, we have stacey abrams, james clyburn, michael beschloss, to talk about biden speech tonight. we will begin with what happened in that courtroom in florida today, t

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