claire's point, they don't want it on the ballot. folks elected, michael beschloss, thank you for letting your as but expertise as well as claire mccaskill and elie mystal. appreciate you both being here. this is all for tonight. alex wagner tonight starts right now. good evening, alex. w. good evening, chris. great coverage as always. we're excited to have a live interview tonight with the newest democrat elected to congress, last night mary peltola defeated sarah palin in the alaska election for the election, we will have the latestve coming up. and donald trump lawyers faced off with the department of justice tonight. we start tonight withwi 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 and the maga republicans represent an

extremismes that threatens the very foundation of our republic. there's 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 republicans do not respect the constitution. they do not believe in the rule of law. they do not recognize the will of the people. they refuse to accept the results of a free election. and promote authoritarian leadersor and flame the threatsf violence and a threat to our personal right, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law torque the very soul of this country. they look at the mob that stormed the united states capitol on january 6th, rudely attacking law enforcement, not as insurrection nists but place a dagger at the throat of our

democracy and they look at them as patriots and see the maga failure to stop a peaceful transfer of power after the election as preparation for the 2022 and fo2024 elections, and now, america must choose. to move forward. or to move backward. to build a future obsessed about the past. to be a nation of hope and unity and optimism. or a nation of fear, division, and of darkness. >> that was president biden tonight delivering a speech in philadelphia, calling on americans to save democracy itself from authoritarian, anti-democratic forces within the republican party. it is a challenge the president has called a battle for the souflt nation, it was angry insurrectionists attacking the capitol and striking at the heart of democracy january 6th following donald trump's claims of aim stolen election and the

fight to hold them accountable continuesth to this day. today the longest sentence handed down by the d.o.j. for anyed rioter involved in the attack on the u.s. capitol. former nypd officer thomas webster was sentenced to ten years in prison for his role in the january 6th attack. here is thomas webster on that day, beating his brothers and sisters in blue with a flag pole. hereth he is, seen trying to ri off the mask of a police officer, who had fall ton his knees while trying to protect the capitol. the justice department says it hasde arrested more than 860 peopleed involved in the attackn our nation's capitol. so far eight january 6th departments have faced jury trials.ed all eight were convicted on everyl count they were charged withey including thomas webster. many more january 6th defendants have pleaded guilty in court. today, g january 6th rioter juln pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting law enforcement officers. here is the insurrection nist who attacked officers brian sick

knick and brian edwards with bear spray and can be heard on a recording from that day, give me that bear bleep before spraying the officers with a highly toxic chemical picture and officer sick nick suffered two strokes following that attack and went on a ventilator and died the next day. officer edwards gave harrowing testimony at the very first january 6th hearing about the injuries she suffered that day and likened to what she saw on january 6th 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.at just today, the defacto leader of the gop, donald trump, told the house in a right wing internet show if he is re-elected president, key consider fullle pardons for january 6th defendants. >> and i will tell you, i will lookl very, very favorably abo

full pardons, as i just said, if i win, i will be looking very, very strongly at that pardon. >> as trump mulls over the idea of pardoning rioters the justice department continues to bring charges of those involved in the attack. the lawyer forve the right wing para-military group the oath keeperse was indicted on three felony counts of obstructing an official proceeding and obstructing justiceful several membersg of that group were previously charged with seditious conspiracy or an effort to overthrow the government and will under go trial at the end of this month. effort for accountability inside the white house continue tont me forward. trump white house lawyers pat cipollone and pat philbin are expected to testify before a federal grand jury on part of the justice department's ongoing investigation into the attack. meanwhile theve january 6th committee continues its own investigation. tonight, it sent a letter to former house speaker newt gingrich, asking him to voluntarily testify before the committee. their letter to gingrich is full

of newri allegations about what the white house is planning both before and after the capitol attack. the committee claims that after the election, gingrich was involved in the creation of tv ads promoting the false claim that the election was stolen. they say he urged the trump team to promote the false election fraud claims, that centered around election workers ruby freeman and shane moss who both testified to the committee about the harassment they faced as a result of those lies. the letter also alleges that the former housele speaker was involved in a fake electors scandal. the one that's being currently investigated by both the committee and the justice department. after laying all of that out, the committee writes to gingrich, accordingly, you appear to have been involved with president trump's efforts to stop theed certification of e election results, even after the attack on the capitol. the shocking revelations out of mar-a-lago may have pushed the january 6th investigations out of the headlines for a while, but as president biden laid out tonight the ongoing threat to democracy is still one of the

fundamental challenges of our time. and the investigation into january 6th may be the country's best shot at holding accountable those men and women who threaten one of the country's most basic freedoms. joining us now is congressman jamie raskin, democrat from maryland and member of the january 6th committee. congressman ras kin, thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> you bet. >> let me just 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's likely, by percentage of 39%, republicans 58% of the gop believes we are on the precipice ofon civil war, where do you

believe we are? >> well, it was a superb speech that president biden gave in philadelphia. he talked about the defense of democracy, and the defense of equality. i think we need to elaborate further the defense of freedom. it was lincoln after all who said that constitutional democracy is the beautiful silver platter upon which rests the golden apple of freedom. and in america, democracy is clearly under attack, as we saw onea january 6th, as we see in these continuing assaults on elections, and elections across the country. but freedomhe is under attack, too. by a supreme court that has been gerrymandered by supreme court's party, and by the justices that he packed quite ill lengthily on -- illegitimately on the court by preventing hearings for example in theco nomination of merrick garland to the supreme court.me so in any event, you know, there is a lot of chatter about civil

war. lincoln didou say that a house divided cannot stand. and the nation couldn't survive half slave and half free. major political fault line we're seeing right now is between a nation that is half free choice for women, and half theocrat, and half misogynist, and i don't know that that can last for a very long time. ier think we will become either country that is equal and free for all citizens including women, including with the right to travel, or have the republicans vewant, as mike pen has argued for, they will pass a national law banning abortion, and really driving women into a permanent second class status in the country. >> and i think you're right to call into the fore, reproductive freedom but this also, it felt like a speech for history. it was a moment where we have a president speaking to a country that is in crisis, that could be at a breaking point, and i

wonder if someone who is on one of the key committees that is investigating sort of how we make amends, how we hold accountable the actors who are trying to undermine democracy, do you feel like these investigation, do you feel like 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 around basic democratic values, and i think that that may have something to do with president biden's speech, the fact that we have focused everybody's attention on the fact that we've got the maga-dominated republican party positioned outside of the constitutional order. i would, i would add only a couple of points to the president's excellent speech. one is that democracy is not a static thing, but it is a dynamicbu process. and tochville remarked in "democracy in america" that

voting rights are shrinking away, and we've been in a contraction,en and they're growg or expand, and that's been the history of course of the struggle of women to be equal participants in democracy, the struggle of african americans to have full participating votes rights and so on and i think as 37 states have had to argue for democratic inclusion, there are more would-be states seeking inclusion membership, including washington, d.c., 713,000 disenfranchised tax-paying american citizens, that they want statehood, 3.5 million people in puerto rico, who have tasted the bitter price of colonial disenfranchisement as recently as hurricane maria where they gotic cheated out of hundreds of millionser of dolla of aid and instead donald trump threw paper towels at them, we need a constitutional amendment to guarantee everybody the right vote, we need the john lewis voting rights act, in other words we got to get democracy

moving again, it is not just a defensivein question of protectg what we've got but making sure that democracy moves in and adapts to the challenges of the century. >> well, and part of moving forward is coming to a conclusion about what happened, right? or at least agreeing what went wrong, for example, on january 6wrth. and, i would love to turn our attention to the committee work, because there's fairly big breaking news this b evening abt your request to speak to former speaker newt gingrich, one. president's casual advisers, if you will. you cans, tell us a little bit more about the specific actions undertaken by mr. gingrich that have piqued the committee's interest? >> well, we have spoken obviously to more than a thousand witnesses at this point, and we're 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 are we going to need to do to fortify ourselves against fycoup's, insurrection, political violence, attempts to manipulate the nooks and cran yifs the electoral college, in order to entrench minority rule and to get losers r propelled t the presidency. so i think that newt gingrich, speaking as one member, to my mind, was involved in that process, and used whatever knowledge he has to try to promote and absolutely insidious and indefensive interpretation offe the constitution. but we'll see. mean you know, this is why we ask people to come k in. people tell us things. we get certain kinds of communications. we want people to testify themselves. and most people have done that. without lying and coming forward and telling what they know. there are other people who have tried to battle us who haver

invoked phony privileges and tried to elude the process, but the truth is being known, and for every person who tries to lie and cover up the truth, there are another five people who come forward and tell us exactly what happened. >> i want to ask about that, because chairman thompson, bennie thompson, has suggested that lots of trump cabinet members are willing and happy to accommodate the committee's line ofmm questioning that, the work has been ongoing through the 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 usd about any of the topics yo have been focusing on, we've heard reporting about the 25th amendment, and the gingrich invitation, we're hearing about the fake slates of electors. is there anything you coulds ge us by way of guidance in terms of the committee's activities? >> well, the country has learned a remarkable amount from the hearings that we've had. there are certain open questions on the table that people

approach me about all the time, when, you know, i bump into them, on the street or whatever, people want to know, was there in fact a coverup, 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 t for example when black lis matter came to the capitol on june 2nd of 2020. soju we're going to try to answ 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 capitol 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. so we need to tie up some loose ends.

but the main thing really, alexe now, is to make recommendations to the country and to the congress about what needsnt to done to make sure that we are never caught like this again, by a fascist street movement and inside bad faith strategic actors who are determinedic to overthrow the constitutional order. and you know, i wish only that joe biden had placed his excellent analysis in a global context. because the autocrats and the cleptocrates and the theocrates all over earth are marching against democracy and trying to destroy democratic institutions and we needst to defend it here we need to make it work, we need to make democracy grow, in order to turn around that global trend. and america, the cause of america, like tom payne said, should be the cause of all 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,he that of the mar-a-lago documents that were taken by the fbi. does the committee have an interest in t those documents, given that some of them seem to be fairly key documents from president trump's time in office? you have been in communication about reviewing those once the odni is done with its review? >> well, under house resolution 503, our charge is to examine what happened on january 6th and why and then to make recommendations about preventing any repetition in the future. to the extent those documents bear on those set of questions, then we're interested. but you know, i'll make a remark, as just one member of congress, who has lived through theco trump period, the guy is one man crime wave, and i was completely unaware of the fact that he had pilfered, you know,

top secret classified documents from the white house and taken them with him to mar-a-lago. i think most if not all of the members of our committee were completely taken by surprise by all of 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 and the bank fraud and trump university, all of these different criminal and civil offenses have a different genesis. but the guy is obviously like a mob boss who wakes up and decides who he is going to try to rip off or exploit that day. but we're paying attention to theti protection of american constitutional democracy, becauseer for us, that's the center of the threat that he poses to the republic. >> congressman jamie raskin, democrat from maryland, and member of the january 6th committee, thank you so much for joining us tonight. >> thanks for having me. we have much more to get to this hour, we are going to talk live with the woman, the

democrat who beat sara pail ton be alaska's next member of congress. we will speak to senator amy klobuchar about president biden's speech and what she as a member of the senate judiciary committee thinks about trump's mar-a-lago document drama. and joyce vance has more on a courtroom where donald trump's lawyers faced off with the legal team. stay with us.'s ay with us

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an overdue library book, that was team trump's argument in a federal courtroom in palm beach florida in which they were trying to characterize the pickle donald trump has gotten into after failing to return documents to the national archives. trump lawyers have said, we have characterized it at times as an overdue library book scenario.

no biggie. classified and top secret documents. they are just like an overdue library book. that interesting argument 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 retrieved from trump's home. yes, documents like these. top secret classified documents found squirrelled away throughout mar-a-lago, in his office, his bedroom, and his storage room. the trump appointed judge did not issue a ruling from the bench as to whether or not she would appoint a special master, per trump's request but she did say she would unseal a more detailed inventory of the documents taken from mar-a-lago. her riling and the unsealing of that document could come at any time. we have no idea when we are going to get it. so know that we have all of our eyes on you. a legal joke. in court today, the judge had a

simple reminder for the former president's legal team as to whose documents they really. are trump, quote, it is no longer the president, and because he is no longer the president, he had no rights to those documents. he was unlawfully in possession of them. that and the analysis. it does not get any clearer than that. the claims of a special master would be unprecedented because that is claiming executive privilege against the executive branch. which seems sort of impossible. the d.o.j. also argued that adding a special master at this point would cause delays. not only for its own ongoing criminal investigation but for the office of the director of national intelligence and the ongoing damage assessment of the documents. remember the justice department has said their initial review of the documents is complete. its special review team, that team has set aside a small handful of documents deemed

privileged. and the appointment of a special master could delay the important work, that damage assessment, but the fallout from the classified top secret documents langing around trump's club and what that means for national security. also whether or not those classified documents contain national secrets that improperly held would be a violation under the espionage act. meanwhile team trump said 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 calls of targeted violence against fbi agents, a plea for everybody to just please get along. joining us now is joyce vance, former u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama, current professor at the university of alabama law school, school of law, and co-host of the podcast "sisters in law" thank you for being with us this evening. >> thanks for having me, alex.

>> so let's talk about this third party, this special master, where, you know, i know you've seen the court minutes that we have, and the judge's ruling, where do you think she's going to land on this? do you have any indication that based on the events of today? >> she's given every indication that she's inclined to use a special master. and her approach to the government has been a little bit of a plea, come on, what's it going to hurt to do this. but that's not how the law works. right? you could say this in every case. every defendant would love to have an investigation into their criminal conduct slowed down, and have an outside person reviewing everything that d.o.j. does, but that's not how our system works, and doing this is just another way of trump demanding that he receive special treatment, that he be set above the law, i hope the judge will see through this and

not go along with it. >> and not just the appointment of a special master, it is what the trump team wants from the special master. today in court, they want a third party special master to share all of the evidence with them, including the affidavit laying out the government's case. is that the bridge too far? do you think that could be legitimately under consideration? >> no, that would be an absolutely illegitimate take. this judge is 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, take a step back and look at the pleadings, this is just an effort to delegitimize the justice department. there's no legal basis for appointing a special master, and giving him this extra look-see into the government's work. he's in essence trying to look at the jury of public opinion and he can't trust the justice department. that's what it is all about. he doesn't have an defense.

he acknowledged having the documents. we can see for ourselves that they're classified. his only strategy is to trot out this tired old approach that he's used time and time again when he's been in trouble, and to say, you can't trust d.o.j., they're at fault, they're coming after me, it is a witch hunt, i should have a level of oversight into their investigation that that no other subject in a criminal case is entitled to. >> what about the unsealing of the detailed inventory of items seized from mar-a-lago. what can we expect there? what does that practically mean? >> so, it's important to note that d.o.j. offered this up, and their response brief, they specifically said in a footnote, by the way, judge, we're submitting this enhanced return of service, 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'll agree to unseal particular and we'll agree to let president trump take a look at what we've got. so we know that this was

something d.o.j. offered in good faith. i don't expect that we'll learn much if anything about the nature of the classified documents. we might learn, for instance, more detailed information about the number of top secret documents that have fbi access compartmented sorts of access listed on them. but alex, something that i'm looking for here is in the response, d.o.j. said that some of the evidence that they seized had evidentiary value, it wasn't classified documents per se, but it had evidentiary value and in a case like this where you're trying to establish who was in possession of documents it can be very helpful to know that you found several classified documents in a drawer with the former president's passport. so maybe some of this evidence that we'll learn about will be more identifying information. right? i mean it's his wallet, if his wallet is in there, a note pad he has taken notes on is in there, that is all very valuable to show who is in possession, who had control of these items,

did he know they were, there it is reasonable to believe that if the passports were in there, we know what else was in that drawer, very helpful to d.o.j., if it is looking to develop a prosecutable case. >> the irony is that we first learned about the seizure of passports from passport and it may be turning out to be a sort of smoking gun in all of that, the more information that he puts out there, the worse the picture looks for him. joyce vance, thanks for your expertise. we appreciate you. >> thanks, alex. still to come this hour, we will speak to the woman who beat sarah palin, mary peltola and the first democrat to represent alaska in the house in half a century. and then, could democrats actually stand a chance of holding on to the senate and the house in november? are they even allowed to express that outloud? senator amy klobuchar will join me next to talk about the midterms, trump's legal woes and recent trip to ukraine. stick around.

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every search you make, every click you take, every move you make, every step you take, i'll be watching you. the internet doesn't have to be duckduckgo is a free all in one privacy app with a built in search engine, web browser, one click data clearing and more stop companies like google from watching you, by downloading the app today. duckduckgo: privacy, simplified. about an hour ago, president joe biden wrapped up his prime time address to the nation. in addition to offering a broad thesis of american democracy, the president gave democrats marching orders, a play book if you will for the november midterms, as a way to hold off republicans from retaking congress. >> not every republican, not even the majority of republicans, are maga

republicans. not every republican embraces the extreme ideology. i know. because i've been able to work with these mainstream republicans. but there's no question that 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's no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, 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 really are. joining us to discuss that strategy and democratic fortunes is senator amy klobuchar of minnesota who sits of course 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. thank you for being on the new show. i want to start first with your trip to ukraine. >> any time. >> the president laid out a pretty epic thesis about the state of affairs here in america and the darkness he sees encroaching on our democracy. and i wonder having just returned from ukraine, where it's such a pitched battle between the forces of light and darkness whether you see any parallels between the forces of autocracy there and what is happening at home domestically. >> well, i certainly do, in fact, that's what i was thinking as i listened to the president's beautiful and forceful speech. i was thinking, as the people of ukraine, putting their lives on the line, ballet dancers wearing camo, you've got young men who

have left their families behind, gone into danger's way on the front line, all to stand up for democracy. and when we met with president zelenskyy, senator portman and i, did for over an hour, he wanted the people of america to know how grateful he is for all we have done, humanitarian aid, feeding their people, economic aid, and of course military aid. and an embassy employee told me that she got a takeout food from the ukrainian restaurant and someone wrote on it knowing she was american, thank you for the himars, the rockets that we, have the missiles that we have let them use there in ukraine. it is an amazing story. how does it relate? these people are putting themselves on the line. and what the president asked the american people today, whether they are independents, moderate republicans, democrats, put their votes on the line. vote for freedom. vote for democracy. because, as he gave his speech in defense of democracy, donald trump, in the very same day,

literally implied that he wanted to pardon insurrectionists. that is the contrast. standing up for democracy. putting our freedoms on the line. and that's why you see democrats doing so well in these races across the country. >> and he's also trying to do something that seems fairly tricky, because 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. you know, the hope and the unseen, was the central part of his message, but it is hard to do that, isn't it? especially if you're a democrat out on the campaign trail. how do you balance those seemingly conflicting ideaing? >> i thought one sentence summed it up from his speech when he said we honor the will of the people, we don't deny it. 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, and it is helping people gain broadband out to people in every corner of this country, and by standing up for our veterans who are stationed next to burn pits, that's honoring the will of the people, and i do talk about earlier honoring the will of the people is also saying women should be able to have the right to make their own decisions about their health care, instead of a bunch of politicians. and when you look at what just happened in alaska, and i can't wait to hear our new congresswoman, who i know is going to be on your show very soon, look what happened in kansas, people turned out in droves to stands up for the principle that women should have the freedom to make their own decisions about their health care, instead of politicians, so i think it all relates, because i think 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 in people who respect that democracy and want to get things done. >> and i think you know, it's right to talk about abortion being relevant in the midterms, it is something a pew poll shows 71% of democrats say abortion is very important in the midterms. but then you look on the flip side of that, and a different poll in "the wall street journal" out today says that the mar-a-lago search, the mar-a-lago search makes 64% of republican voters more likely to vote in the midterms. i mean on one side we're talking about a central sort of request of freedom, abortion, and on the other hand, on the republican side, the motivator is an fbi search of documents the president squirrelled 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, in this november election? >> okay, well, first of all, "the wall street journal" must not have talked to the people i talked to at the minnesota state

fair today. i'm just walking around the fair. people are really concerned about someone stealing the nation's top secrets. 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 us in. 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 stored them away in his desk, as we just found out after saying he had given them all back through his lawyers, and you've got a place where they're literally rents out croquet sets and golf carts and putting the nation's top secrets in that situation is absolutely outrageous and that's why the justice department is looking into, this when you look at it in terms of national security, there are a whole lot of

moderate republicans and independents what ta that are on the side of national security, on the side of the fbi, and that's the case we have to make. >> and then hopefully that's what is motivating it, and not indignation over the fact that the fbi knocked on the front door of mar-a-lago. senator amy klobuchar, we are glad you're back home safe and sound. thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you. as senator klobuchar just said, we will be joined live by democrat mary peltola, the first alaska native elected to congress and the woman who beat sarah palin. she joins me live coming up next. e coming up next

in alaska, state senator don young apparently has won a narrow victory in yesterday's' election for alaska's only seat in the u.s. congress. >> in 1973, republican don young ran for and won alaska agency only congressional seat in a special election. that same year, mary peltola, the democrat who would one day replace him, she was born. 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. meaning that voters get to rank their preferred candidates in order. and no candidate receives more than 50% of the first place vote the race becomes an sbapt runoff in round two. the candidate with the fewest

votes gets eliminate and their votes go to the next choice. this keeps happening until two candidates are left, and the candidate with the most votes wins. it sounds kind of confusing but to win an election like this requires a sort of crossover appeal and as it turns out that is just what mary peltola has spent her career preparing for. she spent a decade serving in alaska state house where she developed a reputation for being, well, nice, and for working across the aisle with folks you might not expect. and the most surprising example of which is probably former governor sarah palin, the two say they bonded as expectant mothers working in the state capitol at the same time and although palin admits the two have very different viewpoints she has said that peltola is a beautiful soul who has a heart for alaska. in any other state, this sort of friendship might seem surprising but there is alaska. and doing the unexpected has kind of become peltola's thing. during her campaign she vocally supported abortion rights, she voiced support for universal

background checks while campaigning in a pro gun state and in the end, it worked. voters have elected her to finish the term of the late congressman don young. she is now the first native woman to represent alaska in congress, joining me now, is democratic congress-woman elect, mary peltola of alaska. i know you're not tired of hearing the intro, democratic congresswoman-elect, am i right? >> thank you so much, alex, and no, it hasn't gotten old yet. >> good. first, congratulations. and second, let's talk about what went down. for people who aren't that familiar with the way ranked choice voting works, is it generally the case, or usually the case that because of the system, you often end up with candidates who are less partisan, and more palatable to both sides? is that a fair assessment of how it all works in the end? >> well, we're still learning the process in 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 and i think what it allows to happen is steering away from the closed primary process, which has really shown us that that has created an environment where folks are trying to out-democrat each other, our out-republican each other, to the point that we wind up with very extreme candidates, sometimes fringe candidates, who get elected and then are not able to negotiate well, when it's time to solve our challenges and they're not really able to compromise, or build consensus, and i think that the beauty of ranked choice voting is it is 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 across the

united states, who we do tend to be very middle of the road, as an electorate. >> i wonder, i mean is that like sarah palin didn't win and you think she would learn that lesson, you and everyone is still running for the seat, the permanent seat come november. when she lost, she impugned the rank choice voting system and though we're disappointed in this outcome, alaskans know i'm the last one who will ever retreat and instead i am going to reload. i mean i understand alaska is a pro-gun state but palin tends to speak in these extreme trump-y maga-ish semi word salad epithets and if you think that kind of extremism has a place not just in ranked choice voting but the republican party if they do well in november, is that why she lost? >> well, i think this election, for the special election, just to fill out the remainder of congressman young's term, i

think it really showeds that you there is an appetite for folks who are not consumed by partisanship, who really want to bring people together, you know, 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, and it makes me realize that no other americans are my enemies, it doesn't matter what party you're from, if you're an american, you're not my enemy, and i think that that kind of messaging appeals to people. there's an appetite for that. i think that we saw where that takes us, on january 6th. and i just think that people are craving people who want to burn coalitions, and -- build coalitions and unite us as

americans rather than divide us. >> do you feel that there are republicans in the house who feel the same way? >> i certainly hope so. i certainly hope so. and i'm very optimistic about both ranked choice voting, but where we're going as a country, and i think that there is 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've got skyrocketing inflation. we've got housing shortages. we all want jobs with livable wages. we all want good schools to send our children to. there are so many more things that unite us than divide us. >> democratic congress-woman elect, mary peltola of alaska, the first native person to represent the state, it's about damn time. thank you for your time, congratulations on your win. we'll be right back. our win. we'll be right back. ow you can sell your policy - even a term policy - for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had

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for you. on the heels of president biden's prime time speech about the ongoing threats to democracy, wisconsin election officials are seeking to establish a new office to fight back on misinformation. on wisconsin, good luck to you. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. i believe america is at an inflection point. one of those moments that determines the shape of everything that is to come after. and now, america must choose to move forward, or to move back wars and build a future obsessed about the past, to be a nation of hope and unity and optimism. or a nation of fear, division, and of darkness. >> president biden gives a forceful and fiery speech, calling out the former president and his