reporters looking at the available facility in baton rouge. ashton pittman has been doing very good reporting, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> that's all in, good evening>g good evening. chris. thank you for saying nice things about my new podcast. it's so good. she's so good at this. bag of magic tricks. >> what you heard is still the rough draft. it's not going to be ready until -- >> you and your weird self-loathing staff will share your incredible inability to take a compliment. it's not final, it's not final. >> it's true. that is -- there's going to be 400 more drafts between that,

what you heard, and what's going to the public. >> what i heard is awesome. >> thank you very much. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. happy to have you here. so once upon a time, not all that long ago in the grand scheme of things, but once upon a time the biggest celebrities in america were pilots. you know how "time" magazine has person of the year, used to be man of the year? "time" magazine actually invented that whole idea because of a pilot. they figured they needed to do something because in 1927 the pilot charles lindbergh became the first person to fly nonstop solo across the atlantic ocean. he became the biggest celebrity in the world for doing that. there were parades held for him and international prizes and all kinds of honors. he instantly became the most famous man in the world when he did that in 1927. and so that is where "time" got the whole man of the year thing in the first place. they invented it specifically

for him. amelia earhart was the first woman to fly across the atlantic and then the first solo pilot to fly between hawaii and california. amelia earhart is remembered today mostly for going missing on a round-the-world flight in 1937. but she really was a household name in the united states. they weren't the only ones. between the first and second world wars, flying was just a huge deal to americans. it was a nationwide craze. pilots would get really, really famous, like household name famous for setting new records or flying new routes, or doing aviation tricks in front of audiences. by the mid-1930s, there was a female pilot named laura ingalls who was up there with amelia earhart in terms of national

celebrity. that may be ringing a bell for you, but she is not laura ingles wilder who wrote "little house on the prairie." but in her, laura ingalls was more famous distant cousin, the author. laura ingalls was famous for being a pilot. she was the first woman to ever fly across the united states nonstop from east to west. she was the first woman to ever fly solo from north america to south america. she set the overall record for

the fastest flight by anyone from the west coast to the east coast. she set another record flying although around all of south america. she set the world rod for barrel rolls, 714 barrel rolls in a row over lambert field in st. louis. she then set the record for loop-the-loops, 980 all in a row. this was the absolute peak of the golden age of aviation. americans were just crazy for aviation, fascinated by it and all the great fliers became great stars. laura ingalls was famous enough as a dare devil pilot that by 1934 it would literally garner an alter in "the new york times" when she got a speeding ticket. she was that big a celebrity. by the following year, 1935, she was so famous that she got an entire article in "the new york times" because she got a parking ticket. she was a big deal. but by 1939, things had gotten a little bit weird for laura ingalls. in september 1939, laura ingalls

was arrested. after she flew her plane, her single-engine airplane right over the white house. when she flew over the white house, she dropped out of the plane a whole big load of leaflets, pamphlets arguing against the u.s. joining the war against the nazis in germany. this was 1939. she was the arrested for violating the air space over the white house. she was also arrested for dropping objects out of a plane. he defense was that she didn't consider a leaflet to be an object. this was 1939. two years later in 1941, laura ingalls was arrested again, this time she was indicted for being

a paid secret agent working for the german government. that one made page 1 of "the new york times." the prosecution contended at her trial that ingalls was a nazi agent, that she was being paid by hitler's government, and she was enact ing a specific technique devised by hitler's government to, quote, disunite the people of countries that hitler intended to conquer, including us. the prosecution also asked her how much she knew about the german official from whom she had been receiving her money and her orders. the prosecutor asked laura ingalls, quote, did you know that he was the head of the gestapo in this country? laura ingalls replied, no, i didn't know until i read it quite recently in the newspapers. i was thrilled. the airport manager at her home airport and a doctor she saw in new york both testified about how startling it was that unprompted she would just start praising hitler, saying she was preparing for the day when hitler would bring his new order to america. the doctor testified about how unnerved he was when she came back for surgery and he found that she was wearing a big swastika pendant under her clothes. in the end, laura ingalls, this incredibly famous aviator, one of the biggest celebrities in the whole country, she was convicted of being an agent of the german government. among the uncomfortable public revelations from her trial was that when she went to her gestapo handler at the german embassy and asked for more missions, more important assignments, she apparently didn't just want to promote

hitler and naziism in the united states, she also volunteered to spy for the germans, to steal u.s. secrets to help the nazis against us. but what emerged in her trial is that when she went to her gestapo handler to ask for more to do, to ask for more assignments, he apparently told her that the most important thing she could do was just more of what she had already been doing. specifically he told her there was nothing more valuable she could do for the nazi cause than keep giving speeches for something called the america first committee. the america first committee was the leading organization at the time in the united states that was opposed to the u.s. joining the war to fight against hitler and the nazis. after getting that instruction from her handler, laura ingalls indeed stepped up her speech-giving for america first, advised by the hitler government that was paying her at the time, and she became one of america first's most popular nationwide speakers. alongside their primary national spokesman who was charles lindbergh, the aforementioned

"time" magazine man of the year seen here in germany receiving a nazi medal from herman goring, one of the powerful officials from the nazi government. goring ate cyanide to avoid hanging, but we'll have this photo of him pinning a swastika. given the history of the america first committee in our country, it's kind of amazing for anybody to decide to bring back that slogan in politics today, right? i mean, given the history of america first, you might think twice before you -- the conservative political action coalition cpac, the influential republican party conference this weekend put the hashtag #americafirst on their tweet in support of russian president vladimir putin announcing the annexation of parts of ukraine. their initial tweet actually showed a waving russian flag.

go putin, conquer europe, we should stay out of it. america first. cpac has since deleted that tweet. around the same time that laura ingalls was coming under investigation for being a paid nazi agent in the late '30s, her husband, charles ingalls, was always implicated in a nationwide plot involving hundreds of armed 13-man cells who were all going to violently attack government targets around the country simultaneously. he and his co-conspirators thought fdr was going to win re-election in 1940, but americans on the far right would be upset by that outcome. in order to channel that upset into something much more dangerous they planning in the aftermath, they would mount hundreds of simultaneous armed attacks attacks on u.s.

government targets, thus setting of chaos and panic in the united states galvanizing and radicalizing anti-roosevelt americans, culminating in a violent take-over of the united states government and the installation of something much more like a fascist dictatorship. so good times. a week from today, next monday i'm launching a new podcast called "rachel maddow presents ultra." it's about this time i'm talking about in american history , this last big round of fights that we had as an american people against our fellow americans on the ultra right who wanted to violently overthrow the government, who decided they were done with elections and done with democratic governance in this country and they were willing to act by any means necessary to get that done, including in the case of some of

these folks, taking support from the hitler government in germany to aid in their cause. so the podcast is called "ultra" because it's about our experience in this country with the ultra right, but most of the story line is actually about sedition, a huge sedition trial mounted against more than two dozen defendants in 1944. it's about why that trial was sort of impossible and it's about how members of congress who themselves were involved in these she man ganz, who themselves were implicated in what was going on, members of congress used their political power in washington to intimidate the justice department and drive the prosecution off course. anyway, the trailer is out today, podcast launches next week. i'll say more about it next week on the show. you know, i knew that there was contemporary resonance to this story about american authoritarianism and trying to overthrow the government by force, january 6th, right?

putting people on trial for sedition. i knew there would be resonance for what we're going through now, that's why i wanted to do it in the first place. i did not know at the time that i picked this topic and this launch date for the podcast that the actual sedition trial for january 6th would be starting on the day the podcast was announced. but that is what happened today. here we are. today members of the oath keepers, the pro-trump military group oath keepers went on trial as of today in federal court in washington on charges of seditious conspiracy, the largest trial since the decision trial of 1944. they're facing charges that they conspired to use force to stop the peaceful transfer of power to a new president and thereby overthrow the u.s. government. these are the most serious charges brought against any of the january 6th defendants. if convicted of these charges, these goes are looking at, like, 20-year prison sentences. but i have to tell you, sedition charges are really, really, really hard to prove. getting a sedition -- bringing sedition charges is very rare. getting a conviction on sedition charges is very, very difficult. and it's true not only because they're very serious charges, but it's almost structurally true. it's almost sort of by definition hard to prove a sedition case. i mean, if you think about it, sedition is a charge of trying to overthrow the u.s. government by force. if you succeeded in that effort,

you would be in charge now. there wouldn't be a u.s. government anymore. if you are now charged with sedition, by definition that means your plot didn't work. you may have tried it, but the u.s. government still stands and has put you on trial for sedition. by definition, if you're on trial for decision, your seditious plot did not work. and that means whatever your plot against the government was, it can now easily be minimized as improbable, you know, fantastical since in the end it didn't work. it's a structural problem with this kind of charge. but there's got to be a charge like this for people po w.h.o. attempt to overthrow the

government by for sale. you don't get to try that and if you succeed, you get to be dictator for life, but if you fail, nothing happens. that can't be the decision tree, not in a country with this many guns. the government today at the opening of the oath keeper sedition trial played tape of the oath keepers' leader telling a meeting after january 6th, quote, my only regret is they should have brought rifles. we could have fixed it right then and there, mining my only regret is they should have brought rifles to the capitol on january 6th. they also played tape of him for the jury, him at a meeting with his followers, telling them that they would use the idea of trump invoking the insurrection act as legal cover for what they were doing in bringing guns to the capitol. but also saying that with or without an insurrection act pronouncement from trump, they were still going to do it. that means if they're going to rely on this insurrection act defense in court, they've got the chief proponent of that

theory admitting on tape that that was just a figure leaf that he didn't really mean it that they were using that as a pre-text. prosecutors today also introduced evidence that in addition to the thousands of rounds of ammunition and the many, many guns this group did stage just outside d.c. for the attack on the capitol, they also brought hand grenades. we learned that in court for the first time. that's nice. prosecutors also said when they moved to arrest the defendants after january 6th, they did so in a hurry because they believed the group was planning a second armed attack to stop the transfer of power after january 6th didn't work, a second armed attack aimed at biden's inauguration. prosecutors said in their opening statement today that the oath keepers, quote, planned to continue waging that war to stop the transfer of power. thankfully, those plans were foiled. on january 17th, the fbi began arresting these conspirators. you might remember the footage from january 6th that saw members of the oath keepers in military-style gear, using the ranger stack formation, even one with their hand of the shoulder of the person in front of them going to the breach of the capitol building. today prosecutors said the oath

keepers who did that, who led the breach that way, then divided into two groups. one was led by an oath keeper guy who has now pled guilty and is cooperating with prosecutors. the other was led by one of today's defendants. according to prosecutors today, his group split off inside the capitol with one specific mission -- to go find house speaker nancy pelosi, the leader of that group, that unit of oath keepers that went hunting for pelosi, he had texted his family on election day saying he was ready to go, quote, on a killing spree, and that when he did, quote, pelosi would be first. he was the one leading the group of oath keepers who went hunting for nancy pelosi that day inside the capitol. they did not find her. so that trial started today. it's expected to go on all month and probably into next month as well. a second round of oath keeper defendants is going to go on trial on similar charges after this. the leader of the oath keepers,

a man named stewart rhodes, who's one of the five defendants who's on trial as of today, he's a former ron paul staffer. he worked for the father of republican senator rand paul when his dad ron paul was a republican congressman from texas. seems to me like that doesn't come up nearly often enough when covering this historic trial. but we're just 36 days out from this year's congressional elections in which we as a country will decide whether the democrats or the republicans will have control of congress and the senate. "the new york times" today reporting that if the republicans take over the house, committees are to be chaired by members of congress who voted not to certify the election results, who voted to overturn the results and keep trump in power despite the vote. these are all members of congress who took that vote after the capitol attack on

january 6th. they'll be running eight of the most important committees in the u.s. congress. and also, this is the supreme court term just started today in which the new conservative super majority on the supreme court has gone out of their way to put a case before themselves on something called the independent state legislature doctrine, which is a thing that i swear to you is well and truly boring. the more you read about it, the more soft riffic you will feel. what the independent state legislature doctrine could do, what this case can do now that the supreme court justices have asked to hear a case about it, is it effectively could give republicans and state legislatures to power to do what trump demanded they do in 2020. it could give republican-controlled state legislatures the power to decide what the election results will be from that state regardless of how the people of that state

voted. which is what trump demanded of republican state legislators after 2020. the supreme court case that's before the court for this term could potentially legalize the illegal, unconstitutional scheme that trump was demanding of republicans who supported him, to hand him the electors from states that he, in fact, lost. so this is quite a moment, right? at a time when we've got the biggest sedition trial in 80 years under way in washington, i'm doing a podcast about the last sedition threat like this from the late '30s and early '40s, while that's happening in washington as of today, we're not just closing in on an election where people who denied we should have real election results are trying to take over. we're also today starting a new supreme court session with a court that has never had a lower level of respect from the american people in the entire time that pollsters have been

asking the american people about their level of respect for the court. with the new conservative super majority on the supreme court, they are reaching way out this term, way, way out of their way to take cases that are expected to serve as a vehicle for them to let state legislatures change election results, to get rid of of affirmative action programs in education, to get rid of anti-discrimination civil rights laws that protect gay people, and to once and for all get rid of the crown jewel achievement of the united states civil rights movement, which of course is the voting rights act. conservatives on the court already took away the heart of the voting rights act in 2013. now with the case they'll hear tomorrow, they could pave the way to haul out all the rest of it too. that case tomorrow is out of

alabama. alabama has a population that's more than a quarter african american. but the republicans who control the alabama state legislature want only one of the state's congressional districts to have a majority-black electorate. under the voting rights act, even a very conservative court with two trump-appointed judges told alabama that they couldn't do that, that that's an illegal infringement. the voting rights act hollowed out as it is, that's what's controlling that case right now. but the supreme court has nevertheless chosen to weigh in, with the expectation being they're going to tell alabama and the rest of the country to go ahead and do what you want, no need to worry about that pesky voting rights act anymore. and if you think that is too radical a thing to imagine them doing, i mean, this is the court that just overruled roe v. wade, right? a recent gallup poll shows the american people say their trust in the court has dropped 20 points just since 2020, just in

the past two years another. another similar poll from marquette law school shows it's dropped 26 points in the past two years. you might think the court would start to think americans won't follow its rulings anymore, which would be a disaster. that would literally be the end of the rule of law in a fundamental way. but if there's one thing we can be sure of, it is that we're playing with the fundamentals in lots of ways these days, pushing ourselves right up to the edge and occasionally over it. and we all know enough history to know that we have pushed ourselves far, very far in the past as well. but these fights too hold onto our constitutional republic, they don't win themselves. the constitution isn't a self-healing document.

prosecutions for this kind of stuff, even when they happen, they are hard to happen and they are not the end-all, be-all for accountability. whether you are volunteering for a candidate who's running this year or maybe you're running for office yourself or you're volunteering as a poll worker or you're door knocking for the latest good government pro-democracy initiative that's on the ballot where you live, whatever you are doing right now, particularly over these next six weeks, you are part of what will decide what happens next in our country. the outcome is not at all certain at this point. we are in the middle of all of it, and good luck to us all. . today the first time the . >> > today the first time the

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today the first time the united states supreme court has let the public inside for oral arguments since the start of the pandemic in march 2020. it was also the first day on the bench for the newest kid in class, supreme court justice ketanji brown jackson. the start of the new extremity term is typically an exciting moment. but this one feels lease like the excitement you get from the first day of school and more like when you're trying to take a picture of a scenic vista at the top of a perilous cliff and the railing at the edge of the cliff you're leaning on breaks while you're taking the picture and you fall into the abyss. this year feels exciting that way. public trust in the united states supreme court to make

fair decisions has never been lower. in a survey from gallup, the only group that trusts the frankly judiciary right now is the red line there. republicans, democrats, below 50%. a new poll by marquette law school shows the american public's approval of the supreme court specifically has dropped 26 points in two years. and this isn't a popularity contest. this isn't just a sad tale about people not liking the court. this is a story about our country. if americans do wholesale lose faith in the court, what's the consequence of that? how long before we are at risk of this unspeakable thing? in which the american people no longer consent to follow the court's rulings? if we're not going to follow them, what do we follow instead? what's the law if court rulings no longer hold sway? because the courts are no longer seen as legitimate? this is all happening, of course, in the wake of the decision to overturn roe v. wade, an unimaginable, very

unpopular benchmark that we have nevertheless passed and are living with now. so the term that starts today, the conservative super majority on the court has sought out case that's could continue reshaping life as we know it in terms almost as fundamental as roe. that case tomorrow is out of alabama. alabama has a population that's more than a quarter african american. but the republicans who control the alabama state legislature want only one of the state's congressional districts to have a majority-black electorate. under the voting rights act, even a very conservative court with two trump-appointed judges told alabama that they couldn't do that, that that's an illegal infringement.

how long before we are at risk of this unspeakable thing? they have taken away an expanded. the court works ever harder. states punish lbgtq families baen books in schools. this is legal theory to try to set aside this 2020. this will not be reversed in a year or a decade. she said, i don't believe women sleep through backsliding any easier than they sleep through colic. we hear things. with he see things. the we are awake. joining us now is senior editor at slight. author of "lady justice: women,

the law, and the battle." nice to you have here in person. >> we're cheerful the two of us. >> sorry. >> i want to hear more nazi stories? >> usually i'm the depressive of the two of us. man, you really set the barlow. >> the point though is we should not see our current challenges as unprecedented challenges. we have had very, very difficult moments including our constitutional fundamentals in the past. it takes a lot. it takes just not the courts. it takes not just the justice department. it takes not just jail for bad guys to fix these things. i feel in lady justice and the way you're approaching this current court, you're telling a little bit of the same story. there is work do. >> and telling exactly the same story that you just told which is if you think that winning lawsuits is going to get you there, it's not enough. you can win a bunch of lawsuits and sometimes this book is about

a bunch of amazing lawsuits. the last third of the book is exactly what you're talking about, organizing, registering voters, structural democracy reform, right? senate has to be reformed, electoral college has to be reformed. we have to think about massive reform to the supreme court. those aren't things that are going to get fixed in the midterm and they're not going to get fixed in 2024 assuming the 2024 election plays out the way we hope it does. this is really a moment for people to say, what am i doing to protect coal workers? what am am i doing to protect teachers? how am i going to make sure that the secretary of state race in my state is essential? and that's the kind of stuff i think we lose track of. but that's the structural democratic fix that is absolutely essential for everybody to be paying attention to. >> honestly, this is sort of the time, if you are concerned about democracy, if you are concerned about what is happening with the elections in your state, now, today is the day. we're just far enough out from the election that you still have time to ask yourself, well, when i tell my kids and my grandkids

and my friends about this moment, what am i going to say i did? what was my role in helping? how i did participate in trying to hold up this thing that i say i value? another thing i'm concerned about, i'm concerned about the voting rights act and what they're hearing tomorrow. what are your expectations in terms of the dilution of voting rights for minorities and the other voting rights with this court this year? >> yeah, i mean, it's important. i think what you said is correct. this is not the beginning of the process. this is a process that began in shelby county. it began with citizens united two years ago and section two of the voting rights act was circumscribed. this is really what is left of the voting rights act that has been eviscerated by this court. and i think if they do what i suspect they're going to do tomorrow and hear about it in the spring is going to be almost

impossible to protect the rights that were in the voting rights act which was a crown jewel of how we were going to get to fair voting. and so i think that if you put that in tandem with the moore case that you were talking about, the independent state legislature case, what you're really looking at is an attempt to do in black robe what's donald trump and john eastman tried to do in the 2020 election which is say we're going to give state legislatures unfeddered power to do what they will with elections, to do what they will with jerry mandering, to do what they will with vote suppression, to and including election denialism. i think once you're there and it's unreviewable, if it turns out that it's unreviewable by state courts, under state constitutions, you are essentially green lighting the thing that didn't happen in 2020 just because it was too soon.

>> if the court -- in terms of court legitimacy that i think is a term thrown around a lot without people understanding what it means, if court legitimacy continues to be in flux the way it is now, feels like it is in free fall, actually, do we think the justices themselves end up starting to worry about people following their orders and people start following their ruling? do you think they're conscious of that as a threat? >> a year ago i would have said yes. i would have said the shadow docket, all the epic stuff we saw around clarence thomas' wife being involved in january 6th and him failing to remove himself for a case squarely about january 6th, any process up into the dobz leak this is a court in trouble. the wheels are coming off. they understand there is no plan b for the rule of law. once it's gone, it's gone for decades. i no longer have any confidence

that's bothering them. i would go so far as to say i think when she is a leader ar roberts are scolding us for having questions about legitimacy instead of asking what they can do differently, i think it is evidence to me of gas lighting. and b, evidence that they don't care. >> dolly is the author of "lady justice: women, the law, and the battle to save america." and by nature a very cheery person. thank you. good to see you. much more ahead tonight. stay with us. ch more ahead toni. stay with us - when you lose power, life stops. your home needs a hero.

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in sedition trial to got underway, five members of the pro trump parra military group the oath keepers, there is not much? dispute about the case. they did descend on dc on january 6th. they brought guns and ammo and handguns with them. they played an audio recording of the group's leader regretting they didn't bring guns to the capitol thmselves. he said my only regret is they should have bright rifles. we could have fixed it right then and there. oath keepers in their fake military uniforms, this he did storm the capitol. they split into two teams fanning out to go hunt down individual lawmakers. and after january 6th, the group's leader definitely did keep buying weapons and messaging fellow oath keepers

about continuing to try to block president biden from it taking office. none of that is really in dispute in this trial. "new york times" reporter who was in the courthouse as the trial kicked off today, he put it this way. he said because of the government's wealth of evidence, the trial is less likely to focus over disputes over what the group did leading up to january 6th than to hinge on the question of why they did it. joining us now is allen hoyer. i appreciate you being here. thank you for your time. >> thanks for having me. >> so can you explain that last point? that dispute in the courtroom is going to be less about what they did and more about why they did it? >> the leader of the oath keepers was vocal about not letting joe biden get into office.

the government says that is evidence they had a conspiracy afoot to stop the lawful transfer of power. the defense said, no, that is a free speech issue. why is it? the government, you know, no one disputes that oath keepers, you know, had this armed quick reaction for hotel rooms across the potomac river in virginia kind of at the ready should thing goes wrong on january 6th. and, you know, the government says, hey, that's evidence they had the plot afoot to stop the transfer of power again. the armed oath keepers were awaiting orders from president trump to envoek a revolutionary era law called the insurrection act that would have given them a legal standing as a militia to come to trump's aid. again, it's a question of

intent. >> in terms of that argument, sometimes the way these thing goes and several trials i know is that the judge will rule in advance. they'll hear motions in advance about an argument and particular evidence. sometimes a judge will rule, yes, can you make that argument, no, you can't make that kind of argument. that's had issue of the insurrection act potentially legalizing their otherwise illegal actions, is that something that has been litigated thus far in the trial or is this essentially them trying it for the first time in front of the jury and nobody quite knows if it's going to fly? >> it was absolutely litigated beforehand. the judge set kind of specific limits on how this defense could be raised. and again, it had to be raised as an issue of intent. there is a defense called a public authority defense where someone charges a crime and says, hey, i thought i was following the law when i was

breaking this crime or i thought i was acting under the authority of government official. and that's what sort of closely related but separate thing. what the oath keepers are saying here is they believed, in their minds, they believed that it would have been legal for them to bring their weapons over the river and come to the aid of their compatriots at the capitol had trump envoeked the insurrection act. what is interesting about that aside from the novel and very risky, frankly, defense they're raising is you went to the forefront. there is sedition cases in the past going back, you know, civil war cases through, you know, the radical unionists, through sort of war resisters. you know, on up to islamic terrorists. nobody, none of it -- no one charged with he is dishs conspiracy has ever tried to align themselves with the chief executive of the government

while charged with seeking to use force against the government. that's the real kind of weird and new thing here. >> "new york times" criminal justice reporter, thank you for explaining that so well. thanks for your time tonight. t . thanks for your time tonight

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nnchts the state of kansas, the republican candidate for governor this year is derrick schmitt. before becoming an elected official himself, he is currently attorney general in

the state. he worked as a staffer for elected republicans in kansas. he worked in the office of kansas republican governor bill gray. he was a staffer for former kansas republican u.s. senator nancy castlebom. the reason that's important to know that now is because former kansas republican governor bill graves was derrick schmitt's boss all those years ago decided to endorse his democratic opponent, laura kelly, in that race for governor. that happened last month. now this week the same thing is happening again. this time it's former republican u.s. senator kansy castlebom who used to be derrick schmitt's boss. she, too, endorsed the democrat in the race over her fellow republican and her former employee. and derrick schmitt's two republican bosses are not alone in this. the democratic governor of kansas, laura kelly, racked up more than 100 endorsementes from prominent kansas republicans all around the state.

this is a phenomenon happening in kansas and in michigan, there are 150 prominent republicans across the state that crossed over to endorse the democratic governor gretchen whitmer. in pennsylvania, we're seeing the same thing. headline after headline about prominent pennsylvania republicans endorsing the democrat josh schapiro over their republican candidate. part of the reason we're seeing this trend is just because the republican candidates in those races are out there. so much so that even other republicans can't bring themselves to support the candidate from their own party. tomorrow wisconsin's governor is planning to release a new ad highlighting his republican opponent's position on abortion. the aim of this ad is clear to try to put his republican opponent in that same boat as the republicans who are hemorrhaging even republican support now in pennsylvania,

michigan, and kansas. tonight we obtained an exclusive preview of the ad that is going up in wisconsin tomorrow. it is quite something. watch this. >> a 12-year-old girl can't legally drive a car. at 12, she can't even vote. but if this little girl were tragically raped or a victim of incest and became pregnant, he would force her to deliver the baby. he said it's not unreasonable for the state government to mandate rape victims to give birth. would it be unreasonable if he were forcing this on you? let him know on election day. >> let him know on election day. again, we got an exclusive preview of that ad that it will go up on the air tomorrow in wisconsin. election day, five weeks from tomorrow. watch this space. eeks from tomorrow watch this space

before we go tonight, one more personal privilege, i want to say thank you to a beloved member of our show team, the great and good michael young. michael has been a camera operator on this show for i think about 95% of the time that we have been on the air. since we have been on the air since the dawn of time. that's a the lo of shows that michael has been behind the

camera for. michael, you are such a joy to to work with every day. retiring after 24 years at msnbc. the great and good michael young. god bless you, my friend. we're going to really, really miss you. you are everybody's favorite co-worker. all right. that is going to do it tonight. alex will be here tomorrow. i'll see you again on monday. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is up next. >> jill and i have had people in puerto rico on our mind and in our prayers. we came here in person to show that we're with you. all of america is with you as you receive and recover and rebuild. >> president biden promises puerto rico that they have not been forgotten. more than two weeks after hurricane fiona battered the island. we'll have the latest from there. and on the on going recover you are effort in florida. plus, new reporting on former president trump