call. i dare you to shape our fate. above all, i dare you to do good so that the world might be great. >> tonight, her dare is our final thought for you. "the reidout" with joy reid starts now. tonight on "the reidout" -- >> the crux of the theory is this belief that you are secretly saving the world from this satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals. does that sound like something you are behind? >> i haven't heard that. but is that supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing? >> trum feigned ignorance about qanon when he was president. now he's fully embracing this

dangerous cult as evidenced by his creepy rally for jd vance this weekend. as the new special master gets to work, why does trump seem so confident that his preposterous claims of executive privilege will hold up? >> plus, why ron desantis may have gravely miscalculated the politics of using migrant men, women, and children as political pawns. >> we begin tonight with qanon. the conspiracy driven cult born in 2016 on the idea that there is a kabul of pedophiles including prominent democrats and media elites running the world, drinking the blood of babies. and only donald trump can stop them. they also believe that jfk jr. is leading their resistance movement against the baby eating hordes. despite the fact he's been dead for more than 20 years. that bonker idea, which used to be relegated to the darkest corners of the internet, has now become mainstream in today's

republican party. they even got some congress members in the faith. that was evidence this weekend at a rally in youngstown, ohio, where after years of playing footsy with the conspiracy theory, donald trump gave a full throated embrace in this disturbing and downright creepy moment. >> the department of justice that refuses to investigate egregious acts of voting irregularities and fraud. and we have a president who is cognitively impaired and in no condition to lead our country, which may end up in world war iii. >> in that clip, we're speaking like this, you can hear music that's almost identical to the qanon theme song. while scores of people in the crowd lifted their little pointy fingersane salute, apparently a reference to the qanon slogan, where we go one we go all. many compared that to something

you might see in nazi germany. but this was a rally for a republican senate candidate, jd vance, in 2022. it comes just days after trump reposted to his fake sad substandard version of twitter a photoshopped picture of him wearing a q lapel pin overlaid with the words, the storm is coming. a message with dangerous implications. one expert on this topic told the associated press, the storm is coming is shorthand for something really dark that he's not saying out loud. this is a way for him to point to violence without explicitly calling for it. he is the prince of plausible deniability. in fact, just last week, trump told conservative radio host hugh hewitt that if he is indicted over his theft and mishandling of classified documents, the nation would face, quote, problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we have never seen before. meanwhile, republicans are silent because even though he's

not in office, trump and trumpism have metastasized throughout the republican party like a cancer. so much so that republicans running for office this november are taking a page directly out of his playbook. "the washington post" reports that out of 19 of the most closely watched state-wide races in the country, a dozen republican candidates have declined to say whether they would accept the results of the elections that they are competing in. joining me is will bunch, syndicated columnist for the philadelphia inquirer and author of "after the ivory tower falls" and david corn, washington bureau chief for mother jones and author of the new book "american psychosis." thank you both for being here, and will, since you're at the disadvantage of not sitting here at the desk with us, i'm going to go to you first. i read your piece today on this mess, this thing that happened in ohio. and the title of it, this qanon flavored soundtrack to trump

gop's fascist right turn should terrify you. it did terrify me. talk about this merger. it seems now a full-blown merger between trump and qanon. >> absolutely. i'm glad you're giving this story the importance it deserves because i think the media struggles with something like this because it's a style. you know, it's not -- the words were terrifying you played some of them, but what's really going on here is a paranoid style, a fascist style, frankly, because as you said, i mean, to see those arms raised in unison in those fingers wagging, really recalled the scenes we saw in nuremberg in the early 1930s. there's no escaping it, and we have to talk about this, because we're seeing the core leadership base of one of our two political parties trance substantiate from a political party into a cult before our eyes. you know, in this embrace of

this quasi-religious theme with the music that they played, you know, and i think he's appealing to qanon -- i mean, first of all, it's just out of the fascist playbook to create a cult of personality, to try and save himself. he's having a lot of problems right now with the documents probe, with the january 6th probe closing in. he is seeing some of his support peel off, so he wants to make the hardest core of supporters more rabid, more committed to him personally, and frankly, with some of these who were willing to commit violence on his behalf, and people need to pay attention to this and be alarmed. >> i mean, it's war lordism. what he's doing is because, as will said, he's in trouble, he's decided to become a war lord, and he's gathering his people around him much the way jim jones when he was under fire decided to hand out the kool-aid. much the way the movement in the 1930s around mussolini and the

one around hitler in germany, let's be honest, and look, don't quote me. jd vance used to say he was america's hitler before he joined the club. this is something you wrote in your new book. the quote, the problem was republicans. the voters, the people, not just those few thousand in the january 6th rage driven mob, but the millions who accepted trump's reality-free and irrational assertions who looks to this dissembling power mad egoist for the truth. republican office holders devoted themselves to trump because he owned the allegiance of these voters. he had won the republican masses. his prejudices, his lies, his resentments were theirs. this is not just a problem of trump but a problem of the people who follow him. >> when i write about him and talk about him in the book that just came out is for 70 years the republican party has encouraged and exploited far right extremism. you can go back to the paranoia of the mccarthy era, when they believed there was a kabal trying to bring the government down from inside the government.

it was qanon without baby eating and satanic rituals. you can go all the way up through the alliance with the john birch society. the early '60s. you can go to alliances with white supremacists and the tea party. they believed barack obama was a secret socialist muslim who had a secret plan to destroy america so he couldn't pose a totalitarian dictatorship. and what did john boehner do? he embraced the tea party. for 70 years there's been this dark side to the republican party. my book is basically the saga of the dark side of the gop, and then trump came along and either because he had calculated this or he felt it instinctually, he said this is where the heart of the party is. these millions of people who have been fed this radicalized far right extremism from the party, and have been authenticated and validated by john boehner and sarah palin and others and newt gingrich going back a few more years. they want red meat.

they want the reddest meat possible. i can do that. and he did it in 2016. it worked. it almost worked again in 2020. this is escalation. that he's now just merging maga with qanon. we should call it qmaga or something, and throw in christian nationalism. he's taken the playbook that has worked again and again for the republican party and put it into like a hyperdrive. and that's what we're seeing today. after the january 6th attack, the capitol riot across the street from us, it seems the republican party did not put the brakes on the crazy. thaw thought they could do that for a few seconds. instead, everything since then has gotten crazier, and he just keeps going beyond, and now with the full embrace of qanon, it is a whole new ball game for the republican party. and the question is, jd vance, mitch mcconnell, kevin mccarthy, are they going to follow him fully on this? >> yes. >> we know they are. we know the answer is yes, but

he's taking the party even to a more extreme direction. >> and the thing is, donald trump, you know, will, he grew up in something of a personality cult himself. he and his father were devotees of norman vincent peal, the power positive thinking guy. let's play a clip of him. >> positive thinking works wonders. and it does do, that is for sure. whatever your life is this morning, unsatisfactory, unhappy, defeated perhaps. i want to tell you, it doesn't need to remain that way. >> and he, donald trump said this to psychology today. i'm a cautious optimist and also a firm believer in the power of

being positive. i refuse to be pulled into negative thinking. he's a devotee of that belief system. on the system david mentioned about the conversion, he mentioned the tea party. this is one thing i think the media missed. the tea party was stage one of this in the modern era. let's look at the number of people who have not answered whether they will accept an election that they're in. inside of the governor's office, i see ron desantis on that list. he was a back benture tea party congressman. he was a tea partier. you have people like greg abbott, terry mitchells, doug mastriano who is a christian nationalist. you go to the senate side, you have marco rubio who was a normal ordinary republican who then decided to jump on the bandwagon of what, the tea party. he became a tea partier. got on the cover of "time" magazine as the future of the tea party. you're seeing the republican party has willingly evolved into

this. lindsey graham, all the rest, they're doing this knowing what it is. >> yeah, absolutely. you know, the tea party kind of subsided for a while when fox news stopped promoting it for a couple years but the sentiment never went away. the tea party basically faded from view right around the same time that trump embraced birtherism, and you know, the whole norman vincent peale think, trump sees himself as the master salesman, but we know he's a huckster, a conman, but that's his sense, and he knows what sells. and he probably doesn't know the first thing about qanon or understand what it's all about. but he knows that it sells. he knows that they're responding, you see he looks out at the crowd and sees people coming with their q signs and q t-shirts, and he knows i have got to sell these people. >> yeah. >> and you know, and so he's done it. he finds their music and plays it. >> exactly.

literally. >> yeah, he finds their slogans and he adopts it. that's his skill. you don't become president of the united states without some kind of skill, even if it's a diabolical one, which is what we saw in trump's case. and you know, what's alarming to me, i think, is the way that it's not just trump. it's spreading throughout the republican party. i mean, it's really very vivid in pennsylvania with doug mastriano. there was a rally where he had the same kind of raised right hand, bizarro pledge of allegiance for the dear leader. it's morphing throughout the party. >> david, the question then becomes, is there anyone inside the party, and you have written an entire book about this so i expect you to answer right now, is there anyone in the party that has the moral gravitas left with this crowd of people who believe there are people eating babies in washington and in hollywood who can arrest this movement before it turns violent, not for the first time, but again? because it already turned

violent in the capitol. >> you know, from a historical perspective, this is really interesting because if you go back to the mccarthy era, there were some republicans, republicans first embraced joe mccarthy. >> the kennedys did. >> even eisenhower did. yes, the kennedys did, then they saw it was a problem. when he was censured, half of the republican party in the senate censured him in the mid-'50s. then you saw the john birch society rise up and barry goldwater and william f. buckley found out how to use them at first. when they got out of hand, then buckley tried to excommunicate them. okay, so you have seen the early parts of this. some republicans, nelson rockefeller and others, who are trying to keep the party from falling into the hands of extremists. >> you don't have anyone like that now. >> you have no one like that now. my book opens with a bunch of republicans trying to excommunicate the burchers at the '64 convention and they get shouted down. you don't have that anymore. >> mitch cconnell sure isn't

going to do it. will, david, thank you both very much. best of luck with the books. >> up next on "the reidout," new reporting that the trump team believed they had a judge, okay, get this, who would validate their claims of executive privilege. right in their little pockets. who could that judge be, i wonder. "the reidout" continues after this. woman tc: my a1c stayed here, it needed to be here. doctor tc: ruby's a1c is down with rybelsus®. man tc: my a1c wasn't at goal, now i'm down with rybelsus®. son tc: mom's a1c is down with rybelsus®. song: a1c down with rybelsus® anncr vo: in a clinical study, once-daily rybelsus® significantly lowered a1c better than the leading branded pill. anncr vo: rybelsus® isn't for people with type 1 diabetes. anncr vo: don't take rybelsus® if you or your family ever had medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, or if allergic to it. anncr vo: stop rybelsus® and get medical help right away if you get a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, or an allergic reaction.

anncr vo: serious side effects may include pancreatitis. gallbladder problems may occur. tell your provider about vision problems or changes. anncr vo: taking rybelsus® with a sulfonylurea or insulin increases low blood sugar risk. anncr vo: side effects like nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea may lead to dehydration, which may worsen kidney problems. mom tc: need to get your a1c down? song: a1c down with rybelsus® anncr vo: ask your healthcare provider about rybelsus® today. ♪♪ here goes nothing. hey greg. um...hello? it's me, your heart! really? yes! recording an ekg in 30 seconds. tada! wow that was fast! good news, pal. i'm not detecting any of the six most common arrhythmias. what next? let's get some fresh air. been cooped up for too long. yeah... ♪♪ get kardia mobile card at kardia.com or amazon.

when you saw the photograph of the top secret documents laid out on the floor at mar-a-lago, what did you think to yourself? looking at that image. >> how that could possibly happen. how anyone could be that irresponsible. and i thought, what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods? by that, i mean names of people who helped, et cetera. and it just totally irresponsible. >> the trump legal team has until noon tomorrow to respond to the doj's latest motion to temporarily block a judge's ruling preventing them from accessing classifying documents seized at mar-a-lago. the deadline comes just hours before the doj and trump's legal team will sit down for the first time with the newly appointed special master, judge raymond dearie. this all follows the decision from trump appointed judge aileen cannon siding with trump's legal team on the need for a special master, a decision that by and large the legal

community left, right, and center thought was bizarre and unprecedented and a mistake. even trump's former attorney general william barr called it a crock of, well, you know. a new report from "the new york times" about the infighting among trump's team of lawyers had this little interesting nugget. over the course -- over the summer when one of trump's former white house lawyers, eric hirschmann, you may remember him from the january 6th hearings, tried to get guidance from trump's current lawyers on how to handle questions from prosecutors that raise issues of executive privilege or attorney/client privilege, two of the former president's lawyers, evan corcoran and john rally, offered him only broad instructions in late august. assert sweeping claims of executive privilege, after mr. corcoran had suggested that an unspecified chief judge would ultimately validate their belief that a president's powers extend far beyond their time in office. joining me now is a former special agent with the fbi's

counterterrorism division and joyce vance, former u.s. attorney and law professor at the university of alabama. joyce, i am going to go to you first. that nugget stood out to me and all of my producers. did that little snippet about this unspecified chief judge stand out to you? >> it's an interesting comment, but frankly, joy, we don't know what it means. there are a lot of chief judges. we don't know what the basis for the statement was. i'm a little bit hesitant to get too far out on this one, simply because there's such a lack of clarity. but that certainly underlines the need for doj to be able to proceed with the criminal investigation in this case, particularly since some of the charges that doj has suggested that they're pursuing could involve obstruction of justice. it's a bright line distinction between a federal judge in miami

and the southern district of florida who tried to shut down this criminal investigation and the need for it to proceed speedily. >> let me go to you on this one because this idea of shutting down the investigation would really has perplexed a lot of people, including lay people like myself is the idea that the federal government, that the fbi and the agencies involved in trying to investigation what happened to these documents, where they went, who they might have been shared with, et cetera, can't even look at the documents, but this judge thinks that trump's team, who are the alleged thieves of the documents, can review them. that they should be able to continue to have access to the stolen property but the government cannot. i cannot make that make sense in my mind. and i'm wondering what you make of this ongoing? >> yes, joy, i don't think the confusion is just for lay people. i mean, we're really in the legal twilight zone. this is a journey beyond imagination in terms of what the legal issues are.

because what judge cannon has done is really muddy up what is, i think, the basic legal issue, which is does trump have a possessory interest in these documents? as you mentioned, this is at its core a stolen property case. this is all government property, whether it's classified, declassified, whether it's subject to executive privilege. all of this except for a small sliver of personal records that do not have evidentiary value or attorney/client privilege materials that are not subject to some kind of crime fraud privilege, all of this belongs to the government. so it's not really clear what, to me, and i would love to hear joyce's thoughts on this, what the purpose of this special master is. why sort all this stuff out? because it's not going to go back to trump. they don't belong to him. it's not his records. but you know, i think as you said, this judge has made it so that they have effectively shut down this investigation, and by

the way, made the intelligence community unable to really assess the damage to national security that his actions may have caused. >> right, and so joyce, i will throw this back to you. couldn't judge dearie since donald trump never actually produced any proof that he tried to declassify anything, never produced any proof that he did declassify anything, and never actually made the assertions that the judge made on his behalf about what he did with those documents, couldn't judge dearie say okay, here are these 100 records at issue. you, trump team, you tell me which of these documents you think you own, and make his job like real quick, make it fast and say you tell me which of these things in here did you declassify? which of these things do you think are yours? >> so there's an argument that judge dearie can't even handle these issues, that because of the appeal to the 11th circuit, he has to wait and the district court has been divested of its

jurisdiction until the 11th circuit rules. it will be interesting to see if doj makes that argument tomorrow or permits judge dearie to go ahead. as you say, he could absolutely engage in an order like that. of course, it would have to be reviewed by judge cannon before it was affirmed, but we have just gotten in the last few minutes some inkling from the trump camp of where they're headed on this. they filed their letter to the court that judge dearie solicited from each of the parties and the trump parties have said they should not have to have any further support for their argument that these documents have been declassified, put forward until november. and so what they're in essence trying to do is get past the midterm elections or it appears they're trying to get past the midterm elections before they have to engage on this argument, pushing back doj's ability to reclaim control and the ability to use these classified

materials even further. now, we're talking at least six weeks down the line. >> let's go through this just a little bit. we do have a few little details here. apparently, the quarterback for trump's legal efforts is boris epshteyn. back in the day, i used to be on tv with boris epshteyn. we used to spar on daytime msnbc together. i never thought of him as a legal quarterback of any significance. but he apparently was the boss in charge of everything, which is the reason that trump's lawyer was like, i think he's an idiot. i think he's an idiot and i'm not taking advice from him. that's not me. that's what hirschmann said. trump team apparently according to an axios story said they wanted judge dearie because they saw him as an fbi skeptic. they figured he would be skeptical of the fbi. that's why they wanted him. when you go through and look at what they have said, and then you add in this nugget. i'll go back to it, that they were like, we have a judge

that's going to affirm all of our stuff, and then this stuff happens. i'm just super skeptical. what do you make of all these facts? >> it's really hard for me to get into the minds of trump's lawyers. it's kind of a rabbit hole, i don't know i can go down. but this whole idea that dearie would be sort of on their side because he's skeptical of the fbi, it doesn't make any sense. i think the premise here is that dearie signed off on a couple of the renewals for the carter page fisa, which later the internal audit by the department of justice inspector general said weren't accurate in terms of their presentation. and so it may very well be when it comes to fisa applications, dearie would be skeptical, but this has nothing to do with the fbi's representations. these are about the status of these documents, and whether the

contents of them fall into particular categories. so this idea that somehow he's going to be swayed to, you know, be on their side to me doesn't make any sense. but i think it's actually worked out a little bit to the benefit because i think you have a fairly, you know, objective person now handling this. >> i'm just going to say to our audience, don't try this at home. trust and believe if you steal some government documents, nobody, nobody is going to give you all of this largees. you're going to jail. this is not normal. this is not normal. don't try this. i'm telling you. trust and believe you're going to jail. thank you both very much. >> still ahead, stark contrast of american ideals. attorney general merrick garland welcomes 200 new citizens at ellis island while florida governor ron desantis takes a victory lap after turning new arrivals into political pawns. we'll be right back.

♪ (customer) save yourself?! money with farmers. (burke) that's not wrong. when you bundle your home and auto policies with farmers, you save yourself up to twenty percent. (customer) that's something. (burke) get a whole lot of something with farmers. kinda creepy. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ "shake your thang" by salt n pepa i was always the competitive one in our family... 'til my sister signed up for united healthcare medicare advantage. ♪wow, uh-huh♪ now she's got a whole team to help her get the most out of her plan. ♪wow, uh-huh♪

with coverage for dental... ...vision... ...prescription drugs and more. advantage: me! can't wait 'til i turn 65! aarp medicare advantage plans, only from unitedhealthcare. take advantage now at uhc.com/medicare only on prime video. the steelers. the browns. our hopes and dreams out on this field right here. how does he do it time after time? an afc showdown. it's the steel city and the dawg pound. they gon' need the whole bench to tackle me! a rivalry renewed. thursday night football. only on prime video.

want a permanent solution to homelessness? aarp medicare advantage plans, only from unitedhealthcare. you won't get it with prop 27. it was written and funded by out-of-state corporations to permanently maximize profits, not homeless funding. 90% of the profits go to out-of-state corporations permanently. only pennies on the dollar for the homeless permanently. and with loopholes, the homeless get even less permanently. prop 27. they didn't write it for the homeless. they wrote it for themselves. general merrick garland swore in 200 new u.s. citizens on ellis island, the site of his own family's american origin story. >> some of my family entered right here at ellis island. my grandmother is one of five

children born in what is now belarus. two were killed in the holocaust. if not for america, there's little doubt that the same would have happened to my grandmother. but this country took her in. and under the protection of our laws, she was able to live without fear of persecution. >> garland's heartfelt emotional message evoked the very words etched on the statue of liberty, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. while a different kind of leader waged war on that very tradition. >> we are not a sanctuary state. and it's better to be able to go to a sanctuary jurisdiction and yes, we will help facilitate that transport for you.

>> you are not welcome here, is the gist of what ron desantis is all about. it can even be a slogan for what is clearly his already active presidential campaign. his actions are callous and petty. he uses human beings fleeing violence and oppressive regimes i guess kind of like the one he's setting up in florida, as pawns for a cruel theatrical stunt that many are likening to kidnapping. and because american conservatism since trump has devolved into a contest for who can be the biggest dikensian jerk, right wing american is fawning over the chaos, with desantis receiving a standing ovation during his remarks in kansas on sunday. >> the one place in our country where we see virtually no law and order is at the southern border. and this is a crisis -- now getting a little more attention -- this is a crisis -- [ applause ]

it is a crisis. >> desantis' overarching goal is to change federal immigration policy to inject it with less statue of liberty and more fascistic trumpian cruelty, which he has made central to his feud with president biden, which in turn is central to his presidential ambition. well, that along with his war against covid protections, wokeness, accurate american history, and the existence of gay and trans people, and drag shows. he really hates drag shows. and despite all of this, much of the mainstream political media has created this weird fiction that desantis is somehow a better version of trump, the solution to shifting trumpism into something less dangerous and more mainstream and acceptable. after all, has desantis ever inflamed an armed mob to assault the u.s. capitol and try to hang a vice president? hmm? well, not yet. the reason junior maga is even considered it only republican who can beat trump is because he's no different than trump.

he's just the smirky unsmiling humorless version. all the fascism but none of the schtick. but under the less orange veneer, it's all the same. the inhumane racist stunts, the xenophobic fear of the border and from feeling bad about history. in fact, desantis sending plane loads of migrants to a liberal haven is so akin to a trump troll, donald trump had said himself is a bit mad about it. something else that trump can relate to. the question of whether desantis could wind up in legal trouble for his political stunt. and that is next.

- [female narrator] they line up by the thousands. each one with a story that breaks your heart. like ravette... every step, brought her pain. their only hope: mercy ships. the largest floating civilian hospital in the world. bringing free surgeries to people who have no other hope. $19 a month will help provide urgently needed surgery for so many still suffering. so don't wait, call the number on your screen. [ kimberly ] before clearchoice, my dental health was so bad i would be in a lot of pain. i was unable to eat. it was very hard. kimberly came to clearchoice with a bunch of missing teeth, struggling with pain, with dental disease. clearchoice dental implants solved her dental issues. [ kimberly ] i feel so much better.

i feel energized to go outside and play with my daughter. i can ate anything. like, i don't have to worry. clearchoice changed my life. florida governor ron desantis will not stop crowing about last week's political stunt, flying texas migrants to martha's vineyard, but he's pretty cagey about how it was done. that's probably because what reporters have uncovered is deeply problematic. state records show his administration paid an aviation company $615,000 from the, quote, relocation program of unauthorized aliens. the payment was made by the florida department of transportation. which received $12 million in state funding for the program. again, these migrants were flown by desantis to massachusetts from texas, not from florida. which democrats say is a violation of state law.

meanwhile, over the weekend, the president of the legal of united latin american citizens traveled to massachusetts and spoke with a few of the migrants who shared similar stories of a mysterious operative named perla who lured the migrants onto the plane with false promises of employment. he's offering a $5,000 reward for information about this woman known as perla, jud langham obtained a copy of a brochure provided to the migrants before they boarded the planes. the brochure says migrants will be eligible for numerous benefits including eight months cash assistance, assistance with housing, food, clothing, transportation to job interviews, job training, job placement, registering children for school. assistance applying for social security cards and many other benefits. none of which is true. because they are still in the process of seeking asylum. and moments ago in san antonio, texas, the bexar county

sheriff's department announced a investigation into the luring of those migrants, a venezuelan migrant was paid a fee to recruit and lure those migrants under false pretenses. joining me now is nicky freed, florida's commissioner of agriculture and ran for governor, and domingo garcia, and mr. garcia, i want to start with you because you have spoken with some of these migrants. now that we have an investigation out of texas of whether migrants -- of whether someone was paid to lure these migrants onto those planes, what do you know about that aspect of what happened? >> well, we know for sure that i talked to about 11 or 12 of those migrants at martha's vineyard. they were told they would get three months paid work, free housing, free transit, free benefits. it was all a lie. and the terrible part about it, they had a map of martha's vineyard in the envelope along with that folder, and it said this is refugee service. it was a parking lot at martha's

vineyard. i mean, that's how mean spirited, how sadistically cruel the governor of florida was and how he treated fellow human beings who are desperate, the least among us, and it was just not christian charity at all. it was just a political game being played by the governor of florida. >> and we do know now, mr. garcia, they have been moved to a federal facility. is that correct? that is the right is trying to claim that is them being ousted from martha's vineyard. that is gnaw true. this is the federal government taking control of a federal situation, no? >> actually, at st. andrew's parish welcomed them, they gave them clothe, food. what the americans should do for those seeking refuge, and they were moved to cape cod because there was no shelter there in martha's vineyard, so they put them in a military base. they're free to go, not prisoners. they have just been relocated. they eventually let to the

destinations they want to go. one said they wanted to go to portland, oregon. how far away is it? he was sent to the opposite part of the country. >> let me bring you in here because there's a lot to unpack here. first, these migrants were not in florida. they seem to have touched down in florida, maybe as a pretext so desantis could claim they were in florida, but they came from texas. what do you know about this aviation company? i heard it's a flight school. whatever it is, it has four employees. whatever do you know about this company that received $615,000 of florida taxpayer money? >> you know, joy, this is actually part of the disturbing part of all this. we know that these flights originated in texas and they stopped in florida to refuel. now, whether or not that's the governor's way of having a nexus between that money and then being able to utilize these flights. there is something very strange going on that this entity was actually represented at some

point by the law firm that is now our immigration czar, that is overseeing all of this. so i just got off the phone with a reporter who is starting to dig in more and more on this. there's a weird connection between this flight company that is actually out of oregon, i think is where it's actually based out of, and so how exactly did this company receive a $615,000 of florida's taxpayers dollars. we have been asking for the department of justice to get engaged to figure out who paid for what, where this company came from. the last time i knew anything about state contracts, you have to bid to receive money from our state government. none of that was done. so you're going to find that this company, there's going to be direct connections to the republican party that just like we saw on january 6th, of who was paying for those buses out of florida. you're going to find some really interesting connections between this company as well as others

who are well known in florida politics who have had their hand in the cookie jar for decades and this is part of the unraveling that we need the department of justice to engage in. >> do you know if any florida taxpayer money was used to pay this person called perla because this person is now being sought. they have offered a reward for this person's identity. do you have information that this person was paid with florida taxpayer dollars herself? >> i don't know that. i don't know, and hopefully we'll be able to figure out and continue to make that connection of who was this person, was there communication between the desantis administration and her, did they hire her, was it in conjunction with greg abbott on the ground. these are one of the connecting of dots we don't know the answer of. we're talking about 50 people whose lives were upended. let's go back to the human story. these individuals who crossed from venezuela, came into america for political asylum.

for so many of the people down in south florida, this is how they got here to begin with. >> yeah. mr. garcia, let me let you finish on that point. what did some of these folks tell you their stories were? why did they flee venezuela? communist dictatorship under maduro there who is the president of venezuela, terrible economic conditions. they went through the swamps of the darian straight, looking through multiple countries. one man was kidnapped, in mexico, they pulled all his state from the front for the ransom. and in martha's vineyard, nobody in texas -- he was literally bleeding from his mouth. after the cartel got hold of him. and he wasn't until he got to massachusetts until he got assistance. and women with four-month-old babies are in their hands. they were dumped from the sidewalks of washington. at 6 am in the morning, who does that? who has that kind of evil-ness

to use people like that and babies like that, and families like that, when they're coming here for the american dream. and these people are spitting the statue of liberty. >> i'll tell you what, greg abbott and ron desantis, and the governor of arizona, d.c., that's who does it. commissioner nikki fried, domingo garcia, please keep us updated as you continue reporting on the plight of his people. up next, puerto rico is without power again, as the hurricane fiona slams the island, leaving widespread flooding and destruction in its wake. more, next. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - common percy! - yeah let's go! on a trip. book with priceline. you save more, so you can “woooo” more. - wooo. - wooo. wooooo!!!!! woohooooo!!!! w-o-o-o-o-o... yeah, feel the savings. priceline. every trip is a big deal. shingles. some describe it as an intense burning sensation or an unbearable itch. this painful, blistering rash can disrupt your life for weeks. it could make your workday feel impossible.

the virus that causes shingles is likely already inside of you. if you're 50 years or older, ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingles. ("this little light of mine") - [narrator] in the world's poorest places, children with cleft conditions live in darkness and shame. they're shunned, outcast, living in pain. you can reach out and change the life of a suffering child right now.

a surgery that takes as little as 45 minutes and your act of love can change a child's life forever. please call or visit operationsmile.org now. thousands of children are waiting. ♪♪ here goes nothing. hey greg. uhh...hello? it's me, your heart! really? yes! recording an ekg in 30 seconds. tada! wow, that was fast. you know it! kardia offers the only personal ekgs that detect six of the most common arrhythmias in just 30 seconds. so you can manage your heart health from home, or on the go. your heart rhythm is normal. no arrhythmias in sight.

i wonder what my doctor would say. ooh! let's find out! with kardia, you can email your ekg directly to them or send it to a cardiologist for review. kardia can do all that? all that and then some, greg! kardia also gives you access to heart health reports and automatic ekg sharing. what next? let's get some fresh air. been cooped up for too long. yeah... ♪♪ kardia mobile card is available for just $99. get yours at kardia.com or amazon.

hi, my name's steve. i lost 138 pounds on golo is available for just $99. and i kept it off. so with other diets, you just feel like you're muscling your way through it. the reason why i like golo is plain and simple, it was easy. i didn't have to grit my teeth and do a diet. golo's a lifestyle change and you make the change and it stays off. golo's changed my life in so many ways. i sleep better, i eat better. took my shirt off for the first time in 25 years. it's golo. it's all golo. it's smarter, it's better, >> puerto rico tonight, more it will change your life forever.

than 1 million people are without power. and hundreds of thousands are without clean water. hurricane fiona made landfall sunday, causing damage to puerto rico's governor, calling it catastrophic, bringing with it flooding rains and this devastated the island. today's storm slammed into the dominican republic on its way to the atlantic. more is expected to strengthen. president biden has declared a state of emergency for puerto rico. the islands energy provider said it has restored service to 100,000 customers, but it could be days before power is fully restored. this is bringing back painful memories of hurricane maria, which struck puerto rico almost exactly five years ago, killing nearly 3000 people, and leaving much of the island we govern to the state. for example, fiona just washed away a bridge in the mountain town that was installed by the national guard, to be temporary, after maria hit in 2017. joining me now is nbc news

national correspondent dave gutierrez. he is in puerto rico. what is going on there, and what are the conditions there tonight, and how much power it has restored? >> reporter: either, or join. we are here in southeastern puerto rico, in arecibo. this was hit very hard by hurricane maria, hit hard once again by hurricane fiona. there are downed street throughout this region. residents here have been going through that today, trying to cut some of that down, trying to get them off the roads. but, joy, you mentioned the key here. most of the island is still without power, and most urgently, without clean drinking water at this point. this is something that will go on for days, the governor says. he hopes it will not go on for months, like it went on after hurricane maria. now, president biden, on his way home from europe today, called puerto rico's governor and pledged more federal help. i spoke with the governor this afternoon, as he toured this neighborhood. and i asked him whether, you

know, this was something that the government adequately prepared for. and i also asked him whether it was fair to say that puerto rico's electrical grid with a complete disaster. he said, it was fragile. now, joy, you know this. it's a complicated history here between the statewide utility that was then taken over by a private consortium last year, they took over power distribution. residents here in prayer rico have been complaining extensively over the last few months that these outages have gotten worse. and now, they have this. they're tonight, adding injury, joy, a short time ago, the rain continued here. more than 2000 people are in emergency shelters in puerto rico since the start of the storm, the governor says more than 1000 people across the island had to be rescued. and in this neighborhood, joy, we spoke with residents, entire families that were saved from

their homes yesterday, in this huge flood, as the floodwaters overtook their homes. in this particular neighborhood, they said they saw more water here and then they did during hurricane maria. the difference was, hurricane maria, five years ago, tomorrow, by the way, that is the anniversary, hurricane maria brought heavy winds and a lot of rain, but in this particular neighborhood, the rushing waters came here at the storage so much. the issue now is rescuers have been able to get some of the unaccessible parts of the island, and the question will be, how long before power and water service is restored? joy? >> and gabe, what do people in the island need. and is it possible to even get supplies and assistance in? >> well, i will say this, joy. i came here during hurricane maria the communication system, cell phone service in many parts of the island right now are better than they were in hurricane maria. but that's not to say they are

good. many roads in the rural areas and the mountains are not passable. it is a challenge to get some of that aid in here. joy? >> gabe gutierrez, thank you very much. stay safe, my friend. really appreciate you. amazing reporting. we need to be speaking about that place, that island, and making sure the infrastructure is ready for the next hurricane. it is shameful that we're still not prepared. that's tonight's reidout. all in with chris hayes starts now. ut all in with chris hayes starts>- >> i understand they like me very much. which i appreciate. >> the disgraced ex president of the united states praises his new role as leader of the delusional and dangerous qanon cult. >> we will make america strong again. >> scenes from the ohio trump rally which began something far more disturbing. then, why the supposed alternative to trump is turning into a real problem for republicans? plus,