news, for bean, maryland. >> we are here to stay, they say. and from everybody the 11th hour, we are really glad to hear it. on that note, i wish you all at home a very, very good night, from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying up late with us, i'll see you at the end of tomorrow. and thanks for joining us here this hour. very happy to have you here. i was almost 100 years ago. it was 1922, october 1922. and the fascist party announced that they would march into the nation's capital. they would march on rome. and the prime minister at the time knew that if they were gonna march on rome, this meant

that the fascists were gonna try to take over. there are gonna try to mount a physical fascist coup. to defend against that, you wanted to call it the military to defend rome. to stop the coup. but the king at the time wouldn't agree to that. so the military wasn't called to defend the capital. and instead, what the king did is he caved to the fascists. he invited the leader of the fascists to form a government. to become the new prime minister. and the head of the fascists, enthusiastically, he agreed. the tens of thousands of his supporters who he had threatened would march on rome to seize power in a coup, they didn't march on rome to seize power. instead, they marched on rome in a victory parade. because just the threat of them have made it so that he was handed power blood blissfully. that is how the fascists took power in italy 100 years ago next month. they threatened to take power by force, didn't have to,

because they intimidated everybody into giving them far ahead of their march on rome. that's the famous march in rome. october, 19 2022. the centennial of that event will be next month. what happened in 1922, things in italy changed pretty quickly. within three years, by 1924, italy was a one party state. within three years after that, by 1928, mussolini had abolished elections altogether. it was a full-on fascist dictatorship. not to spoil the plaid or anything, but as you may know, things ended poorly for everyone. we think of the end of world war ii, i think, mostly here in

the united states, we think of it as august, 1945. the u.s. dropped atomic bombs on japan in august, japan surrendered a few days later, but of course, japan was just one of the axis powers. things ended months earlier in europe. april 25th, 1945, that's when italy celebrates its liberation day. the day that italy was liberated from both fascist rule and now see occupation. on the, day april 25th, 1945, the fascist leader, who had been in power since 1922, the needle mussolini, he tried to

flee the country. he fled the country, or tried to flee in the country, starting april 25th, 1945. within two days, he was caught. he was disguised as an aussie soldier wearing german army gear. he was caught on a road near lake como just north of milan. he tried to flee starting on the 25th. they caught him on the 22nd. they held him overnight. and then, early in the morning. at the side of a roll road on april 25th, they shot him dead. and then, for something more than indignity, something more than just the end, they didn't just leave him there on the side of the road. they threw mussolini's corpse into a truck and drove it back to milan. now, after when you, if you're squeamish or if you've got kids watching with you, you might not want to see it. i'm just gonna show it for a second and i'm only gonna show it once. so if you don't to see it, i understand. but, this is what they did with him in milan. they hung his corpse upside down from the feet, off of the guard. and they left it there, hanging in the square and milan. it was him and his mistress, another top fascist officials who were executed alongside him. believe it or not, it got worse from there. the u.s. military ordered him -- his body taken down. they ordered his body autopsied, cause of death. not hard to figure out at that point. they buried him in an unmarked grave, which apparently wasn't unmarked enough. vanya, and 46, a fascist supporter of mussolini found him in that unmarked grave, dug him up, and stole his body. whereupon the fascists started shoveling that corpse all over

the place. they drank this thing so all over the place that at least one report suggests that it lost one of its legs along the way. but they ended up hiding his body, such as it was, in a monastery for more than a decade until the mid 1950s. 1957, they decided to dig him up again at that monastery, and they put him in his family's tomb and his hometown. and so, now fascists the world over can have a little fascist pilgrimages to the maybe final resting place of old mussolini. like i said, it didn't end well for anyone. let alone him. but, supporters of that dictatorships, supporters of that variety of fascism, they don't only have the mausoleum to remember mussolini by. because the year after he was killed, right around the time that his body was getting dug up and shuttled around by his

supporters, a year after the end of world war ii, 1946, a man who had served as chief of staff and mussolini's government founded a new political party to carry on the spirit of mussolini. to carry on the mussolini dream. by then, of course, italy had lost world war ii. mussolini at come to the end they it come to. but that time, it was overtly illegal to form a fascist party in italy. understandable, given what they've been through. because an overt fascist party was illegal, when they founded this new party to keep alive the spirit of mussolini, they couldn't use, as the symbol of the new party, the old symbol that he had used. that cluster of rods that he used as the symbol of fascism from his day. instead, they picked a different symbol. they picked a flame colored red, green, and white. the colors of the italian flag. supposed to represent the eternal flame that is maintained at the grave of mussolini. the grave of mussolini, which is now the pilgrimage site for

fascists worldwide. so, again, mussolini is dead. really that. in april 1945. the guy who was a chief of staff of mussolini's government, next year, 1946, forms this new party to keep fascism, to keep the spirit of mussolini alive. that guy, we've been the chief of staff in the mussolini government, he ran that party for years. the next head of the party after him said publicly that mussolini was the greatest statesman of the 20th century. the party chief after him declared about his party, quote, we are all areas of l dj. we are all areas of mussolini. but they weren't hiding their light under a bushel.

this was a party designed to keep his legacy alive. by his side we are all the areas of lbj, we're all the areas of mussolini, that was the last head of that party. before now. the head of that party now, today, just claimed victory for her party, and she's about to become the next prime minister of italy. here she is with steve bannon. here she is doing interviews from washington, d. c.. where she was invited during the trump years to the national prayer breakfast, invited by republicans. here he is at cpac. this is this here, just a few months ago. >> and that's exactly what they want. a right wing on a leash. irrelevant. and trained as a monkey. but you know what? we're not monkeys. we are not even rhinos. we won't be part of their zero. we will not be part of their inner circles.

>> yay! everybody stands up at cpac and collapse for that. before today, the highest profile member of her party was benito mussolini's granddaughter, who happens to be on the city council in rome now. but now, the, day we know that the head of mussolini's post fascist party and italy is not taking some city council job somewhere. she's about to take over and run that country. like i said, i'm not hiding their light under a bushel here. not being subtle about this. here she is in her younger days an interview from french tv. >> [speaking french] >> i think mussolini was a good politician. everything he did, he did for italy. while, now shall be the new leader of italy. it's gonna be a gangbusters way to commemorate the hundred year anniversary of mussolini's march on rome, right?

kind of on the nose. but you know, i think it's important to remember that these things don't always work. back in 1922, we certainly success with his march on rahm, the fascist coup, he was able to pull off in italy, at the time, that seemed so successful it seemed like it could be replicated elsewhere. it inspired a particular guy and germany to try the same thing and bavaria. he planned the basic same approach. a show of force, a relatively small, violent contract trying to takeover through pure intimidation. and dave, when he tried was the bureau all push. it was just a year after the march on rome. that was -- even though it worked in rome and bavaria, it didn't work. the dude running that effort got arrested, was tried and convicted, sentenced to five years in prison, but was released after only serving

about nine months. during his nine months in jail, he wrote a book that ended up doing well for him. it was called mein kampf. after he got released, he said about capitalizing on his newfound fame, and all the time he had to think about how he was gonna seize power for good the next time. which he did. and suddenly, i should mention historians are pretty sure, not totally sure, but pretty sure that hitler was informed as to what happened to mussolini right before he died. and that one fateful week in 1945, you've got mussolini trying to flee the country on the 25th, you've got him shot on the 28th, you've got him strong up upside down in milan on the 29th, and then it is the 30th, the very next day, when hitler killed himself and his bunker. and maybe learning what happened to mussolini is part of what led to his decision to do that. but even though both germany

and italy were defeated and world war ii, both germany and italy surrendered, and the fascist leaders about those countries died within 48 hours of each other, coincidentally or not, germany subsequently and famously went through an aggressive decades long painful process of denazification. by plumbing the depths of why their country went that direction. committing to the concept and practical realities that they can never do anything like that again. that happened in germany. but no other country in europe, including italy, went through a process like that. so we're at this capital h historical moment right now where history keeps telling us that the last time such and such happened is during these very dark times from the last century. and it is, i know, uncomfortable to talk about this part of history. it's uncomfortable to talk about the second world war in the fascism of that time. the reason we have to talk about it now is not to make a comparison. this is not to make an allegory between then and today. it's actually this history on its own terms. we selina really was the fascist dictator of italy. and this is the party founded

by his supporters and his staffers after his death. that as of today is not gonna rule italy again. and this is obviously rattling everyone this side of steve bannon and steve pack. they think it's delightful. but everybody else is back of the envelope telling this up. when you look at the leaders who are congratulating giorgia meloni on her big win, we have viktor orban in hungary. great hero of the american right and fox news now, right? viktor orban runs hungry, where the european parliament says he has effectively ended real democracy. you've got the lawn justice party in poland, which is following the same playbook to do the same thing that orban has done in hungary, this time in poland. we have maria le pen, a fascist leader and friend's that came close to winning the presidency. we've got the new far-right

party that won the second highest share of the vote in sweden a few weeks ago. the party literally founded by neo-nazis and skinheads that may now be part of the swedish government. and of course, we've got the kremlin with putin running a fascist dictatorship that is not only treating its own people in unspeakable ways, but is now bursting out of its borders and invading its neighbors, taking territory away from other countries. is the first time that's happened in europe since, i'm sorry to say, world war ii. and russia, tomorrow, they will announce the so-called results of these sham potemkin little votes that they're holding in parts of ukraine. ukraine has pushed russia way back on the battlefield, so in areas that russian troops can

still operate, the kremlin has now decided that they're going to declare democracy to be in effect, i'm gonna hold a vote, a real fair vote at the point of a gun, where they've already proclaimed that the result of the vote will be that ukrainians want to be taken over by russia. the sham referendum is they're doing, they're gonna announce the results tomorrow. they're patently ridiculous. there's no sense in which these are real or illegitimate elections. but they will use these fake elections, these fake votes, to do two things. to justify moving the border, to justify taking these parts of the southern country. taking parts of ukraine and the claiming that these are now part of russia instead. that's one of the things they're doing with this. start of sham referendum, these fake votes they're taking in eastern ukraine. the reason they're doing it is to make a mockery of democracy. to make it seem like elections are just fake. you in the west, you see that voting is what makes things legitimate? here's what we call about. you cannot criticize our democracy? we thought you loved fighting. this is just what the people want. or just following the desires of the people. take a back of the envelope

tally in terms of how are heading. as a world. in terms of authoritarian and, indeed, fascist forms of government versus small bead democracy. one side is winning right now. in our country, we are six weeks out as of tomorrow from our first big national election since the party of the ousted right-wing president tried to maintain him in power by force, by mass assault on the u.s. capitol from his supporters. it was just two years ago this past week and the run up to that 2020 election, when trump started saying outright that he would not accept the results of the election unless he won. that was a crazy benchmark for american politics at the time. but it's now the new normal, not just for him, but for political candidates of his party. hundreds of republican candidates for office are standing for office. six weeks from now, and the premise that the last election result from 2020 shouldn't have counted and maybe the next one

shouldn't either. let's see how it turns out. and i think we think of this as a sort of tactical radicalism on the part of trump era republicans. a threat to the technical nuts and bolts first tuesday and july system by which we pick winners by voting. but it's actually a much simpler problem than that. i think you can see more easily when you see it happen in other countries. and it is. and when you can see what changes another country's, republicans here are cheering for them abroad. and i think it's easier to see when you can see what is happened before. what this is descended from in history. no longer respecting election results isn't just about messing with elections themselves. it's about a different kind of governance, a different kind of power.

if they don't want your vote to determine who's in power, that means they don't want to have to use power to try to meet your needs. i'll say that one more time. if they do not want it to be your vote that determines who is in power, it means that they don't want to have to use power to try to meet your needs. to try to earn your vote. yes, this is about messing with elections. yes, this is about minority rule instead of majority rule. but fundamentally, basically, it's very simple. this is the big thing that history tells us about. this is the thing that's easier to see in other countries than in our own. but it's a simple thing. it is about separating power from the preferences of the people. and instead, just ruling over the people by for us. for their own purposes and to meet their own needs instead of the needs of the people. if you're trying to get and hold power by force and intimidation, not because the people want you there, that doesn't end well for anyone.

not just in history, not just as a political distraction, but in terms of how we live and what the prospects are for -- what are the prospects for you and for your future and for your kids and for their future? whether or not you care about what's going on in history. whether not you care -- whether or not you care about majority rule are minority rule as concepts. whether you care at all about the isms at the heart of these discussions. this is about your life. and a very practical, i get a sense, if there is any party that's trying to cast doubt on elections, it means they want to stay in power regardless of elections. they want to stay in power without your consent and without the ability to remove them. this means they do not want to serve you. and that means, if you want government to do anything at all to make your family's life materially better, more stable, more dignified, this is a

flashing red siren about the abandonment of that task. and it is sometimes easier to see that in faraway countries than it is here a close-up. and it's easier to see it in history, so we can see how it both leads to and rhymes with what we are going through today. joining us now is my friend david corn is the washington bureau chief from -- he has been marinating in history to try to help us get our heads around our current moment. his new excellent book is called american psychosis, a historical investigation of how the republican party went crazy. david, thank you so much for writing this book and thank you for being here. i'm sorry i haven't been here enough to have it on right when it came out but i'm glad you could be here tonight. >> thanks a lot, rachel. i appreciate your respect for history. you know, talking about what happened in italy this past few days over the hundred-year stretch, we see the patterns, we see what we call the rhymes of history. and doing this book, american psychosis, i saw the same thing in american history.

you see patterns again again. but when we lived through it, we don't recognize that the republican party -- maga extremism is something that came to fascism, but the republican party for 70 years keeps having this dance with extremism. encouraging, exploiting extremism. it happens all the time. we see it now, donald trump in the republican party is not an operation. it's a continuation. and i was struck because i was reading up on the italian election earlier today. and it was an academic in europe he was talking about the history, and he said what we're seeing in italy is nothing new. you make that point quite obviously. but even in the last 50 years. the far-right has always been there, starting at the end of world war ii. and it's bubbled up and down,

and now it's just emerging. but it's always been there, i think the same way we've always had a fringe far-right fanaticism here that the republican party has always tried to exploit to its own benefit, whether it's mccarthy -ism, white segregationists in the 60s and 70s, and donald trump just made it burst out. and it's interesting. and italy, they have a multiple party system. so in italy, the fringe elements -- the far-right elements get their own parties. in america, it doesn't work that way. we don't have multiple parties. but we have seen the expansion of the influence of these extremists within the republican party. the republican party acting like a coalition in europe, taking them in to get power and juice to the extent that we even see donald trump, and recent days, welcoming the

qanon movement and to his trumpist republican party the way that the majority or close to majority coalition and italy and has been led by the fast shift. >> david, i'm struck by the fact that you document over and over again these moments that we'd considered to be mainstream republican party -- has to confront how much they want to be associated with people that they see and movements that they see as toxic anti-democratic extreme, and in most cases, embarrassing. you talk about that in the john birch society and other elements of the goldwater campaign. and the conservative media around that time. we talk about it with dwight eisenhower, general eisenhower, president eisenhower having to confront mccarthyism. and the appeal of joe mccarthy both at home and in wisconsin, where he was an incredibly tiring figure. but also in terms of the way he tapped into some real dangerous energy on the far-right. i feel like you've busted a bunch of myths in terms of

these self serving histories. we've told ourselves left right and center that the republican party, the mainstream republican party, has effectively policed those extremes and keep them at bay until now. in fact, i think, tell me if i'm wrong, but what i took from your book is that there are multiple instances in which the guys who we think of that as the good guys actually chose deliberately to keep cultivating those extremes. keep the qanon movements of their time alive and agitating for the republican cause. >> again, the pattern is obvious when you go back and. look there's not a single major republican president or presidential candidate that didn't embrace and extremism to some degree. and waxes and wanes, and some of da nang tensely than others, but it's always been part of the republican playbook. a recent example that of course you'll remember, most of our viewers will, will be john boehner embracing the tea party. the tea party was an extremist movement that was arguing that barack obama was a secret

socialist muslim born in africa that had a secret plan to destroy the american country so he could impose a dictatorship. it was a rational the same way that qanon is a rational. and john boehner, country club or publican, he knew that. but he invited the tea party to the steps of the capital for demonstrations, brought them into the party because they helped him get elected speaker. and then chased them out. but he validated and authenticated the tea party perspective. unlike mccarthy-ism, you go to the fascists of europe and there's a core there. the element that i see uniting all of this is that they look at the other side, the political enemies, and they demonize and dehumanize them. their subversive, they want to destroy their society. the mccarthy, there was this cabal, they thought they wanted

to turn it over to the soviets and it was being run by people in the u.s. government. i described the tea party conspiracy theory, you know the qanon conspiracy theory, if you listen to what maloney is saying, using literally, the other day, i saw her say financial speculators -- i don't know what that's code for -- and woke ask davis want to steal our identities as italians, christians, and women and men, and turn us into consumer slaves. i mean, that's very cue him long in a way. not a matter of policy disputes or -- subversives who want to destroy the country we love, take away our culture from us. and the republicans are playing that game again and again, and i'm sorry. we can't both sides this. there is no equivalent on the democratic side. this is an asymmetrical political history. the book describes this and i think -- has not acknowledged -- in full view because donald

trump has made it center stage. >> david corn's washington bureau -- his new book as americans cut casas. a historical investigation of how the republican party went crazy. david, congratulations on the book. >> thank you so much, rachel. >> it's good to see. we've got much more ahead here tonight, including a stand up and chair yes we can, yes we did a moment that just happened within the past couple hours. this is something we didn't know is gonna work. it worked. we've got the footage from it. that's next. stay with us. before we begin, i'd like to thank our sponsor, liberty mutual. they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. and by switching, you could even save $652.

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toward mira's, about 7 million miles away and that direction, there's a little tiny asteroid called did a mouse. this is a view of demos from -- footage taken in july. it's real footage spun up about 900 times. didymos is an asteroid that rotates around the sun like we do. it takes about two years to make a full rotation. even though it's a little, and also, like us, as its own little moon that circles around didymos like a mosh around a flame, just like our moon

circles around us. that little mean light is so small you can't even see it from here on earth. but we know it's there, because when it crosses between us and didymos, the light that we can see it from didymos dems for a second and then brightens. so we knew that there is something there that's passing around between us and didymos. we know that little moonlet is circling around. it takes a little less than 12 hours for that little moonlet to make it all the right around that asteroid. less than 12 hours. that's how long it takes. or that's how long it took, before tonight. because we are flings maybe just changed that. about ten months ago, nasa launched a rocket at that little moonlet. seriously. the hope was that the rocket would smash into the moonlet and knock it off course, not just enough to change its orbit. something like this have been tried before in the movies. i did never before been tried and real space before tonight. a couple hours ago, the smash

happened, and we've got footage thanks to an on board camera on the nasa rocket. this is what the asteroid and its moon looked like as the nasa rocket approached. and then a few minutes later, came the moment of impact. watch. >> three, two, one! oh my gosh! >> awaiting visual confirmation. >> all right. >> we got it? >> waiting. >> waiting. >> and we have impact! in the name of planetary defence. >> fantastic. >> the signal drops, the image drops, because the camera was on the rocket. that successfully smashed into that little moonlet. it worked. now you might be wondering, why

did we do this? what's the point of demolishing a perfectly good spacecraft and whacking into a little perfect moonlet that never did anything to us? while, the point as you heard the staffer say there, is for humanity and in the name of planetary defense. the point is the survival of life on earth. this mission is a test to see whether humanity can deflect an as yet undiscovered asteroid, that god forbid, might be heading right for our planet. whose impact could obliterate life on our planet, the way that that asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago when it smacked into us. we are awaiting data from this mission to tell us whether the technique worked, whether the moonlight was nudged and is -- well that somewhere else if it was coming at us. waiting for the proof of concept, if you will, but they were aiming to hit this thing, and they hit. and you know, who knows if one of the things humankind is ever gonna be called upon to do is shoot a spaceship into an

asteroid to avoid a collision that will only mammoth us all into mass extinction? we don't know if we'll need to scale. but if we do need it, clearly, we should work on developing. it we should get going on that. this test night was to prove the concept that we can do it. tens of, we can do it. there is a lot of cynicism and the world. our country in particular. a lot of ideological undercutting of the idea that governments can do anything. right? i think we can all agree that saving earth from massive instant death from above would be a good thing to be able to do. so yay for the asteroid moonlit direct thing tonight. but proving we can do something important like that, i mean, it's more than its own reward. so let it inspire us back here on earth right now. our own congress, which no one has any faith in a ball, right, now own congress on earth is trying to can do something to

stave off a more immediate threat. they're trying to stave off the threat that a band of criminals can't overthrow the next presidential election the way they tried to overthrow the last one. it's something that they believe they can do, they're about to have proof of concept of that tomorrow. we're gonna hear about that effort here next. stay with us. helping reduce carbon footprints, and big bets on environmentally conscious construction. citi has committed 1 trillion dollars in sustainable financing to help build a better future. because to reach net zero, it's going to take everything. ♪ ♪ last week, the house passed a

bill to reform the electoral count act. all the democrats in the house supported that plus nine republicans. this is a bill that would

clearly stop any future effort to do what trump's supporters tried to do on january 6th, to try to not count the electoral votes for count electoral votes in order to upend the results of the election. again, this past the house, and that goes to the senate. it has the support of all the democrats in the senate is far as we know. plus, it has ten republican senators as cosponsors. so maybe it could pass? maybe? this is a bill that would clarify that the vice presidents role in counting the votes is solely ministerial. it make it harder for members of congress to object to certifying the election results and would make it so states can't send in fake electors like the trump voters -- reforms that we shouldn't need

because nobody should try these schemes. but now that they've tried them once, everybody expects that they'll try them again. some will republicans joined democrats and making sure that this part of our election system is clear enough that those strategies would be impossible to mount again? the bad -- bill heads for a markup tomorrow. joining me now is -- senator kobe, shaq thank you for being here tonight. >> thank you, rachel. i've never had a lead in with the spacecraft hitting an asteroid millions of miles away. -- all these things we've gotten done where people had counted us out. >> and i have a weird way of thinking about government and the things that we can do, but i sort of feel like prospect of ask derides wiping out life on earth used to be same likelihood, in my mind, as the prospect that somebody wouldn't really count the electoral votes and instead we've got a president that somebody just for us through. each of these things seemed equally improbable. we're working on the one that should be even more difficult,

but i feel some hope that there's so many republican cosponsors on this effort to fix this particular problem in our elections. >>, well there are. the house is doing great work. but there is an effort that started in the senate with a bipartisan group of senators led by senator collins and manchin, and -- advised them through the process. we're pretty excited about our bill that's coming up tomorrow.

don we're gonna make some changes we've agreed to, and i think we're gonna have a really strong fallout and the senate committee tomorrow. this is the only committee, rachel, that includes both senator schumer, our leader, as well as senator mcconnell, and ted cruz. what can go wrong? but actually, this is so important. as you pointed, out voting is about where is the power. i like what you said earlier in the show. if you disregard peoples fights, you disagree vow their power. -- the insurrections got within 40 feet of vice president pence as they were yelling, hang mike pence. because of donald trump who bloated the role of the vice president in this proceeding. number two, you can't have just two out of 535 people be able to object and bring down the will of the people state by state by state. so we increase the number, the percentage of people in the congress that would have to be able to lodge an objection to then have us go back and vote

on this. the third thing, they shouldn't be able to just make up electors after the fact. it is an appeal process that make sense. there's been a lot of intricate bipartisan russ work, and the markup is tomorrow afternoon. >> i am expecting in the one to throw sand and the gears here? obviously with senator mcconnell not voicing objections thus far with ten republican cosponsors and senator collins being so key and senator blunt being so key on the republican side in terms of getting this fire, are you expecting shenanigans to try to stop it or provide it for some other purpose? >> you can always anticipate that it could happen. but so far, we've not seen signs of that because it's been such a lengthily good faith effort on both sides. i will say we had a major hearing on the bill when we had democratic and republican witnesses agreeing that there should be some changes made to this archaic law from the late 1800s, and senator cruz then did say that he liked the commission that was set up in

the year 1856. i pointed out to him that i didn't really like that year because i couldn't have voted, and i don't think we want to harken back to the time of whether v. hayes, and it's time to update this law. so far, i think we're gonna get a very strong vote on this bill. and then, we'll take it to the floor. >> well, if we can both nudge and asteroid out of the way and get a bipartisan vote to save democracy in the same week, i feel like our work here is done and it's time for everybody to go on vacation. >> well, not quite yet. we want people to vote in the election, very important, in the midterms, and the volunteer and help out our great candidates. because we've got to win this mid term. >> that is fair enough and very grounded. thank you, thank you senator. we'll be right back. stay with us. kitchen? sorted. hot tub, why not? and of course, puppy-friendly. we don't like to say perfect, but it's pretty perfect. booking.com, booking.yeah.

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happened was in new mexico earlier this month. a judge in new mexico ousted a county commissioner from his office, threw him out of office, and barred him from ever serving an elected office again specifically because he participated in the january 6th attack on the capital. the judge ruled that this commissioner had to be flown out of office and was disqualified from ever serving again because of section three of the 14th amendment of the u. s. constitution. that section of the constitution says that -- barr is from office any state or federal officeholders who's taken an oath to support the constitution but who has then engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. so that judges ruling in new mexico earlier this month, that was the first time since 1869 that the court had disqualified in american public official

under that clause in the u.s. constitution. it was also the first time that the january 6th attack was formally found by a court to be an insurrection against the united states. although that sounds like kind of a technical determination, a finding like that has a lot of consequences. and now, this is happened again not in new mexico, but alaska. a judge in alaska has just ruled that a sitting state representative, our republican member of state legislature in alaska, is likely ineligible to hold public office, including the office that season now, because he's a member of the far-right pro trump paramilitary group the oath keepers. they were a big force in the january 6th attack. that group's leader in a bunch of his members are currently under indictment for seditious conspiracy against the united states for their actions leading up to end on that day. this alaska state wrap, his

name is david eastman, he's a lifetime member. he has a life membership in the oath keepers, whatever that means. he also says that he did attend trump's rally on the morning of january 6th, although he denies participating in any violence at the capitol that day. the judge hearing this case and alaska has ruled that this republican state rep is likely to be found ineligible to hold public office in alaska, because of his membership in this group that helped lead the attack on the capital and is now on trial for sedition. it's interesting, that. unlike in the new mexico case, this judge in alaska didn't base his ruling on the u.s. constitution. he based it on alaska's state constitution. alaska's state constitution contains a disloyalty clause that says no person who advocates or who aids or belongs to any party organization or association which advocates the overthrow by force or violence of the united states or of the state shall be qualified to hold any public office of trust or profit under this constitution. no person who belongs to an

organization that advocates the overthrow by force of the government of the united states shall hold any public office of trust. up, his knee got keepers. mr. eastman, representative eastman, is up for reelection this november. the judge in alaska hearing this case has ordered that even if he wins reelection, the results of that election cannot be certified but the state of alaska until this issue of whether he's qualified to serve in public office ever again can be settled. so they will hold the certification of that election in a -- in advance until's eligibility can be determined based on his membership in the oath keepers. so, there's two of these cases so far. new mexico and now alaska. the fact that this is happening, that we are starting to see this in multiple jurisdictions, setting both federal and state constitutions, this is something that could grow. and it's something that

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know that i'll be back here wednesday night this week, 8 pm eastern, wednesday night, the january 6th investigation is holding its next hearing, possibly its final hearing, wednesday at 1 pm eastern during the day. you can of course watch it live here as it happens on msnbc, but that night, wednesday night debate eastern, i will be here along with a cast of thousands to help with our special primetime recap of the hearing. whether not able to watch it live, join us here wednesday night starting at 8 pm eastern on msnbc. looking forward to seeing you back. that does it for me for now. alex wagner will be back here tomorrow. now, it's time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell.