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tv   Alex Wagner Tonight  MSNBC  October 26, 2022 1:00am-2:00am PDT

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alex wagner tonight starts right now. good evening, alex. >> chris you know that you know do you live now in a swing state, in terms of the gubernatorial race? >> i mean wow! >> there's a debate tonight, we're gonna look highlights of it now. and there's a debate, now that election day is november 8th, everyone. >> chris, thank you as always. >> and they get home for joining us tonight, we are just two weeks away from the midterm elections. and the battle for the control of congress, in the state houses, literally cannot be closer. polls have been tightening for weeks as republicans have edged into democratic gains that were made over the summer. and tonight, debate suggest wrapped and the races for new york governor, and pennsylvania senate. we will have a lot more on that in a second. in a second. in a second. before we do, it's worth remembering exactly how we got here, given what an extraordinary roller coaster of a year this has been remember a few months ago on june 7th, when the city of san francisco shocked the country
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when it called its district attorney boudin. and that local election in blue, blue california was held up by pundits as a canary in the coal mine for democrats the party, according to them had a crime problem that republicans would seize on in an election year, one that already favored and here were some of those headlines. progressive backlash in california fuels democratic debate over crime. california voters send a stark message to democrats on crime and homelessness. democrats need to know the message that crisis september. week of recall, gas topped $5 a gallon for the first time ever and republicans began gearing up to make the election all about inflation. those were theoretically, the contours of this election, only a few months ago, as of the
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first week of june and then two weeks later, everything changed. the united states supreme court struck down a 50-year precedent protecting a woman's own right to control her own body which upended politicals across the country. at first, democrats didn't know how to respond. their first response was confused and cringy. remember, this is what congressional democrats decided to domo the day the court overturned roe ♪ from the mountains to the mary to the oceans wide and full ♪ god bless america my home sweet home ♪♪ >> needs to say that a cappella performance did not immediately inspire confidence to 162 million women who lost their
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right to their body. but they coalesced in large part because of what happened six weeks later. on awkward 2nd, voters in deep red texas went to the polls in droves. and democrats heard that message out ofat kansas and they heard tell loud and career. it was time to make this campaign a referendum a public assault on personal freedom. abortion became the central issue of the campaign. ads about abortion became e the norm.he democrats rose in the polls in parallel topo outrage of the supreme court decision, and that spread across the country but as democrats focused their message on abortion there was just simply less time to talk about other issues, some of which were really pretty good for democrats. because overor the course of th same summer, democrats managed to pull off a historic
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legislative sweep, passing policies like lowering the price of prescription drugs, passing the biggest bill of veteran history. the first major gun safety in decades and that was on top of major victories of the previous year like covid relief and checks for americans and structure on america's infrastructure. according to a new analysis by "the washington post" democrats have spent more than $100 million one abortion ads since labor day, just $28 million on health care issues and $20 million about ads on job us. so here we are, and, man, is this election going to be a nail-biter, the current average shows senateen races in georgia pennsylvania, new hampshire, iowa, arizona all within four points which in a lot of cases is the margin of error.
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the parties are going to be battling it out for every single vote. in the closing of this election, republicans are using everything onre their arsenal. and yes, they're going after democrats on inflation. and surprise, they're hitting democrats on crime, the very same they were worried about after the san francisco recall back in early june. republicans are focused on urban crime and they're pushing racially coded messages to care voters to believing democrats want to turn this country into a scene out of "mad max." republicans have spent more than $50 million in ads focused on crime since labor day. here's how that issue played out during tonight's debates. >> john fetterman during this crime wavett has been trying to get as many murderered out of jail as soon as possible. >> i'm running on support
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unapologetically on men and women in law enforcement. people are afraid of being pushed in front of subway cars. >> that last comment was from lee zeldin, the republican candidatebl pulling within four points of democrat kathy hochul in a state, new york, who has not elected a republican as its governor in two decades. chacin boudin lost his recall election which now seems that it happened approximately two lifetimes ago. but now with just two weeks left do democrats have enough time left to counter that message and remind regular americans, voters of all stripes, about the pretty major things they have accomplished in the last two years. joining me at the big board where he lives is msnbc national correspondent steve kornacki. steve, it seems like we're really -- chris hayes my friend
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and colleague used the phrase jump ball to describe what happens on novmber 8th. how closely have they tightened? >> yeah, on the left, you see the seats that democrats are defending, on theem right, you e the seats that republicans are defending. and then you see for democrats how crucial that pennsylvania race is. there is one democrat-held seat in nevada where the republican adam laxalt leads. if laxalt were to win there, republicans get a gain. the republicans need a gain of one seat. so theat function for pennsylvania, if fetterman who leads in the polling average by just over a point hangs on, it would basically cancel out a loss and allow democrats to keep the senate. it's the only seat pennsylvania
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is where democrats lead the poll average.d you talk about tightening, 1.3 is the fetterman lead right now. over the summer, it was 8.7, it's come all the way from nine to barely a point. democrats getting very jittery about their chances of fetterman hanging on there in pennsylvania. that raises the question for pennsylvania. if it's not pennsylvania is there another republican seat on this board that they could pick up. now, take a look, second closest, it's ohio. republican seat j.d. vance is leading but that's iclose, it' twoth points on average. here's the skepticism that i think republicans and many democrats have when it comes to ohio. we talked about the polling misses in recent elections, the polling misses have really centered in the midwest, particularly in ohio. here's the poll average in ohio in '16 and '20. democrats went into election both days thinking they could really winki ohio.
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here's what happened, trump didn't justre win, they won big. by the way, the 2018 midterm, the governor's race there was a polling miss there as well. the polls have overestimated democratic support in ohio in recent elections. there's some thought, hey, have they really figured this not the state ofy ohio. we'll see but that's the skepticism they see when they lookci at that number. if you're a democrat and looking at a seat to pick off here. what about wisconsin, ron johnson, interestingly johnson was losing in the polls in wisconsin over the summer, now leads. what explanation that change? we mentioned, emphasis on crime. johnson has played up that message on crime. here's the poll from marquette that basically asked are those issues important to you. i think this is a significant finding. nearly 90% said that crime is an
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important issue to them. abortion, it was just about ten points less. so there's a difference there in terms of the resonance of these two issues. crime on which johnson is running hard on and abortion on which johnson is running hard on. and that's what we've seen that race that'v put johnson ahead. we turn to the averages. again, democrats want to win at least one of these republican-held seats right now. if you take a look at the target list for democrats here, the name of the game for democrats would be hold everything else. and that's where georgia comes into play because look how close that warnock/walker race has gotten. on average, a half point lead for warnock. remember, there's that possibility in georgia if nobody gets 50% on election day. they go to a runoff. possibly, georgia could be decided in a runoff, the senate could be decided on a runoff.
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if you look at georgia, the republican brian kemp is over 50% and ahead of stacey abrams. kemp is running well ahead of walker. there is a voter in georgia, it's a suburban it tends to be who doesn't really like biden, doesn't really like the democrats but also doesn't like donald trump. remember, trump went to political war with brian kemp earlier this year, tried to take him out as governor. kemp survived, i think that probably made kemp okay in that voter's book. walker much more closely aligned with donald trump certainly than kemp is. and i think that might explain some of the hesitancy of those types of voters to get behind walker. questions for the final weeks of the campaign basically is do those kempal voters reluctantlyt the end of the day that gap, do they reluctantly vote for walk and put him over the top, or is there a split ticket in georgia? democrats with a chance for the senate may hinge on that. >> also interesting that warnock
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andte walker, different strategies. andt you're see the different strategies borne out in the numbers. steve kornacki, thank you as always. be sure to lead "the refusals" podcast by steve kornacki which drops on monday. that's steve kornacki's personal refusals. now, i want to turn to dan fiver, former senior adviser to president obama and now a co-host. dan, i need all the help to understand what's happening ta here, my friend. and i want to get to this bigger change strategy the democrats havey pursued through the year right? ir, wanted everybody to -- we needed to collectively remind ourselves what was happening in june. and the ways in which we thought this i election would be litigated, and how that changed after dobbs. and now we're sort of seen to be in sort of a gray space between dobbs and, you know, the june 7th recall of chacin boudin.
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what do you make of the democratic thus far and what has to happen in the few weeks here? >> sure, if you go back to the last two years where democrats wanted this to be about the referendum on republican extremism. that's weitz so important to focus on dobbs to republicans focusing on freedoms attacking marriage equality, bullying, gay, trans-kids, books all that, economic pessimism has picked up in recent weeks. gas price has gone down in september, then went up and they're going down now. when democrats -- you've seen president bide don - this receny is connect the very resonant argument that republicans are extremists and apply it to economicpp issues. he has a way to qualify for them as people who will fight for them. that's why they will cut social security and medicare.
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cut taxes for the large corporations and the wealthy. we're building on the extremist argument. that's what the campaign can do. we're not making a last-minute panic pivot. >> well, i guess you wonder if you think the administration, democratic candidates at large have touted their achievements enough, given that republicans are going hard on this message how ton help working class americans and the biden administration and democrats in congress have a really pretty compelling argument to make about the concrete steps they've taken to help people who are working class americans. >> i think in this environment, it would be a historic mistake to simply tout your achievements to say, yes, you're feeling economic pain. yes,ec your costs have gone up. look at this bill you passed almost two years ago that sent you checks that you spent already. here's the bill we passed that reduced inflation that shut out of touch. the right way to talk about our
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accomplishments is proof of what we're going to do in the future. good campaigns don't look back. they look forward. you saw president biden say we tookbi on the pharmaceutical companies. we took on the oil companies. we're raising taxes to help inflation to lower costs. that's why you can trust us to fight four. yout can't trust people who wa to give big cuts to oil and gas prices. you can't trust people who want to give cuts to wall street banks to fight four. it's proof of what you're doing going forward, not asking for a pat on the back what you did. i think that is the pivot here. i think the president has laid that out in a couple speeches and i hope democrats will follow that. >> i want to ask you about crime. that's of all the issues, sort of the glittery object that republicans are intending on making that the centerpiece of their argument there. we've heard it a number of times until key senate debates this
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evening. and yet, if you look at statistics, and i don't know why if this is on a mug as a fundraising to, the top states with the high mortality rates are all the red states, mississippi, louisiana, alabama, mississippi, arkansas how are democrats not playing defense on this?in how is not a stat that is mentioned every single time tham republicans want to talk about crime? >> well, this has been the republicans, this is their break-last issue, every issue that williecourt had in 1988, they did it against barack obama, trump tried it. in you opening you said pride is a topic but for race, a lot of language here a lot of explicitly racist. some campaigns like the fetterman campaign have done this very well is to take it on, to state what you are for. that you have fought, you have fought crime in your previous job, you will fund responsible
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accountable policing. and then what you do is you pivot. because these -- the trap in all of these things is something that and president obama used to say it, you don't play their game. you callpl out their game. now, you talk about why they are trying to use crime to scare you, to distract from your personal freedom, cut your medicare, cut taxes. yet in the statement going forward, do not them incorrectly and inaccurately frame democrats as being soft on crime. call them out. and in some states as you point out you can do that very aggressively against republicans who are overseen steep increases in crime over the last couple of years. >> i mean, just put it on a mug. carry it around with you on the campaign trail.wi >> that's right. >> dan, what do you make in terms of voters of color key parts of coalition, specifically, hispanic voters, black voters, we have news that democrats leads with hispanic voters are smaller than they
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were in 2018. and there's less enthusiasm with specifically black male voters leading into the midterms. draw feel like it's a cause for concern? i feel like there's two schools of thought, one is yes, there's cause for concern here and the other is democrats are freaking out and it never comes to pass. where do you stand on it? >> and worry about panic about nothing, i'm going to file this under worry about it, and we have to take this very seriously because we have seen in 2020 thatse democrats did worse with this corera group of voters who have been part of our coalition for a long time we have in previous years. so, we have to watch very carefully i think what we have to focus on is why are the voters not supporting us, how do we get their support. how do we talk about why voting for democrats matter. why not, and aggressively make the acase. i think for too long, too many
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democrats have considered black voters, latino voters to be a g out to vote vote. we don't need to persuade them like pollsters thank you about pundits and make a case against them there are campaigns doing very well here. we have to see what the actual numbers are in the election, as steve pointed out in the previous section, we don't know if the polls are right or not. let's just turn them out. >> you have two weeks to go, dan, is thats long enough? >> i know. >> for the states? >> absolutely. like now, the clock is ticking for sure. i'd rather be up in these impossibly incorrect polls than down in the impossibly correct polls. i'd rather bepoct leading in ale races but there's still time. and thesel races like panic in the streets and chest bumping,
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these races are going to end up where they alwaysin end up, they're taking place in states that joe biden in many states won by one point. they were always going to be incredibly close. t that's where we are. now all that's left to do is ignore the polls and get the work done p over the next few weeks. >> the jedi master in american politics, dan pfeiffer, former senior adviser to president obama, now the host of podcast. dan, thanks for making the time. >> thank you. much more to come tonight, just two weeks from election day, i'llks say it over and ove again, next week the focus on pennsylvania and tonight's fetterman/oz debate. joining us next. and coming up, the election bonkers defiers who may end up running an election near you. y plus, dr. anthony fauci
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let's also talk about the elephant in the room. i had a stroke. he's never let me forget that. and i might miss some words during this debate, mush two words together, but it knocked me down, but i'm going to keep coming back up. and this campaign is all about, to me is about fighting for everyone in pennsylvania that ever got knocked down that needs
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to get back up, and fighting for all forgotten communities all across pennsylvania that also got knocked down. >> that was democratic pennsylvania senate candidate john fetterman addressing his stroke in the first few minutes in the first and only debate in pennsylvania's insanely heated senate race. fetterman leads his republican opponent mehmet oz by two points which is well within the margin of error. just months ago, fetterman was leading by five points. aside from his health, the debate touched on other subjects that motivated voters, including abortion. >> i want leaders, political leaders to put the best ideas nord for states to decide them contrast with my opponent john fetterman who on this debate stage said he would demand federally mandated for all states that would allow abortion
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at 38 weeks. >> i want to look into the face of every women in pennsylvania. if you believe that the choice of your reproductive freedom belongs with dr. oz, then you have a choice. but if you believe that the choice for abortion belongs with you and your doctor, that's what i fight for, roe v. wade for me is -- should be the law. he celebrated when roe v. wade went down. and my campaign would fight for roe v. wade. and if given the opportunity to codify it into law. >> fetterman also struck back at dr. oz for using senator bernie sanders as a point of attack against fetterman during his campaign. >> he keeps talking about bernie, bernie sanders, you know, three years ago, he was on his show, and he hugged him, he said, i love this guy. you know why, why don't you pretend you live in vermont instead of pennsylvania and run against bernie sanders because all you can do is talk about bernie sanders. my truth is that health care is
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a fundamental right. and i believe some expanding that and i believe in supporting for health care, the kind of health care that saved my life. >> joinsing us now is rebecca tracer, new york at large new york magazine, rebecca, it's great to see you. thanks for joining us tonight. >> thanks for having me, alex. >> so, i want to know what you think about the debate. one of the things -- you have such a thoughtful and way about about fetterman trying to present running one of the highest stakes in the country. and one of the things you pause pose in your article is that fetterman is trying to turn a vulnerability into an asset here. do you think he did so on the stage tonight? >> i think it's tough to say whether or not it would be an asset with voters but it's certainly an example of remarkable transparency, the
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opposite what the oz campaign has asserted which is that he's somehow hiding something about his health. i mean, showing up for an hour debate, as he said starting out, he said i'm going to talk about the elephant in the room, he said he's going to miss words. i wrote in the story there was a moment where he became frustrated and stressed out and it made some of his communication worse. i think the context what you described as the sanely hot race, clearly, this is a candidate feeling stress, there was intense scrutiny, obvious tense scrutiny, and he just did a debate in front of the nation, an audience who could listen. and it was so transparent. he did fumble, he did make verbal mistakes and it was all on view. and i cannot predict whether that will help him or not.
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i know from my reporting that i was doing over the past, you know, six or seven weeks that voters were responding to his public appearances. to his rally experiences to his speeches, the fact that he was doing interviews including with you several weeks ago very warmly, how will that -- you know, follow this debate, i cannot predict. but, you know, i think it's really interesting, you played a lot of clips. there were moments where he was really strong, including that bernie sanders clip. including his very fluid and direct response on raising the minimum wage i thought was a really strong moment for him. he had some really, really strong comebacks. and his opponent oz -- first of all, he also fumbled. right, i fumble on television. >> i definitely fumble on television. >> oz was nervous and hesitant at first, too. yeah, this happens, right? but oz also was really slippery in his presentation and in terms what he was saying.
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i was sort of bowled over by how frequently and fluently oz lied or refused to answer. and gave the answers that i thought were just terrible. the one you that played about abortion, you know, was one of them, i think where he said that the decision should be made between women, doctors and their local elected officials. i mean that is a terrible thing to say. >> yeah. and i think some people are going to say, oh, oz is bucking party orthodoxy by suggesting he's not going to vote for a federal ban on abortion, a.k.a., lindsey graham's 13-week federal abortion ban. >> i thought that was slippery. i thought he was going to say on this day, i wouldn't support lindsey graham. he did say he would not support federal legislation on abortion. i thought it was really interesting, the line that
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jumped out at me, more than the one he played that you just talked about he actually invoked his role as doctor. there's another clip at the debate that's worth looking at, he says as a doctor, he's really offended that we would interfere with the state's right to defend abortion. he actually used the statement as someone who believes in state's rights i would never -- he said as a doctor, i would never interfere with the individual's state's ability to govern whether or not a person can have access to a state abortion. it was sort of a wild juxtaposition of his medical experience with this. ful you believe in every individual state -- >> usually, a state is not involved in the decisions between the patient and his or her doctor. therefore, the statement -- >> well, he had a weird medical practice, apparently. >> yeah. one more, rebecca, the crime piece. you bring up fetterman's background which i think a lot
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of people don't really understand vis-a-vis crime. and the ways in which oz has tried to tether fetterman's vulnerabilities to also being soft on crime. do you think that's any more of an effective line of attack, given what we know of fetterman's background, and the person he is just categorically is not a weak person. i think no matter what his recovery processes looks like. the man does look enfeeble. >> no he doesn't. and actually, it's very interesting because i was thinking about that tonight, so much of the initial attack that oz made on fetterman about crime has to do with his work on the parole, the clemency board, and granting clemency, including two brothers who work on his campaign now who were wrongly convicted and served 27 years for murder that they didn't commit. it has nothing to do with crime around the country. it's truly a bait-and-switch
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argument that is rooted in a lie. fetterman himself has actually been very friendly and pro-police, i think more pro-police than a lot of progressives would like him to be, right? but it is also true that we know that a right wing -- no matter how dishonest, and no matter how sort of morally corrupt and false right wing attacks on democrats were being soft on crime which are racially coded and often gender, too, softness, weakness. people reach for those kind of weapons because they're effective in a country that responds to racism and sexismivn a candidate. fetterman is an interesting candidate, in part, because it's just very hard to use this kind of racism and sexist language against him.
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but, you know, i think we have to see. i think his responses tonight on crime, you know, were pretty communicatively effective. but this is, you know, very sweet candy that republicans are selling to a country that is so deeply built and attuned to messages that are fundamentally misogynistic and racist in nature. >> i would say candy with a poison center. rebecca tracer, writer for "new york magazine" thank you for having time tonight. >> thanks for having me, alex. still ahead, 2020 election deniers are on the ballot next month. will they use this election to set up conspiracies for the next election in 2024? i bet you know the answer, owe stay tuned.
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why is my opponent stirring the pot? our dishonest secretary of state is now claiming they have seen a rise in misinformation leading up to the november election. >> that was republican candidate for michigan secretary of state christina karamo yesterday. where could the rise of misinformation for michigan, where could that be coming from? here's is kristina again. trying to make it look
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suspicious with no evidence or any legitimate evidence. >> in this video, you see an unmarked suv arrive at a drop box at a satellite voting center. a young man can be seen unloading large stacks of ballots from the drop box while an elderly woman retrieved a large black garbage bag from the bax of her vehicle. she snaps it open and walks it over to the worker who proceeds to fill the garbage bag. >> at no point ask car ramo talk about anything. she just narrates. and that video is part of 18 of a series of videos just like it if kristina karamo was on facebook putting out videos like this, you'd say, mom, that friend of yours is weird. but this is a woman running to be secretary of state. she's running to be in charge of elections in the state of michigan. it's starting to look like she
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could actually win. according to polling, karamo is only four points behind michigan secretary of state jocelyn benson. that's within the margin of error. what's more interesting, karamo is not alone. there are four republicans with a real chance of winning their secretary of state races. in arizona, mark finchem is more than a point ahead of adrian fontez. and in nevada, jim merchant is up by ten points. i should mention that marchant's election has gone so far that he's now alleging that nancy pelosi and adam schiff somehow stole their respective elections for real. >> these politicians keep winning elections, how is that possible? it's not. jim marchant is the fighter that voters need.
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>> saying this out loud as part of a strategy, all three of those election deerns, karamo, finchem and marchant have been endorsed by president trump. and one who may actually win her races, minnesota's kim crockett, trailing steve simon by a fuel seven points but today, two weeks before the election, she finally got her trump endorsement. that would mean four trump supporters running key elections by the time trump is on the ballot in 2024 which is concerning. what makes it decidedly bonkers that even if they don't win, they may try to stick around, "rolling stone" reported this weekend that president trump has been holding in-person meetings for more than a month now to gin up as much as possible to midterm elections. trump sees the challenges as a dress rehearsal for trump 2024. two of these republican candidates for secretary of state have already refused to
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earlier this afternoon, president biden received his latest booster, the bivalent booster, the most effective against covid-19. urging americans to protect
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themselves as winter draws near. asking americans to quit it with the misinformation about covid. ending the attacks on dr. anthony fauci would be quite helpful on a number of public health fronts but the reality of where republicans are on this issue is quite stark. >> i want to lock somebody down. and it's that liar dr. fauci. >> sick of seeing him. i know he says he's going to retire. someone leads to grab that little elf and chuck him across the potomac. >> the bottom line was anthony fauci and a lot of his underlings as unelected bureaucrats they were funding the very same people who cooked up the covid-19 virus and fauci must be held responsible for that. >> dr. fauci, retiring to vermont is going to be spending a lot of time in front of a congressional committee and committees if republicans take
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back control. >> anthony fauci and all of these other folks that we're going to subpoena, they better put them in jail as well. >> we are over 2 1/2 years in this pandemic and the threats against dr. fauci, in the face of the federal government's response for covid-19, those threats are full tilt as hundreds of americans are still dying from this disease every day. and officials worn about a tripledemic of the flu, the virus and rsv. that has americans on the brink. as that's happening, republicans would like to look away and lock up dr. fauci. joining us now is dr. anthony fauci, the director of institute of allergies and diseases. and chief adviser to the president. dr. fauci, thank you for being here. i'm sorry you have to hear this. i'm sure it's not the first time you heard these outrageous insults. what does it like to be at the center of what is a concerted campaign to target you as somehow responsible for covid or the federal government overreach, or just the face of
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the looming destruction of america? why do you think this is happening? >> well, i think it's pretty obvious, alex, it's purely politically motivated. they're running on that. they're raising campaign money. they pick out a boogieman who they feel represents the antithesis of what they want. and if you look at what i've been doing, focusing like a laser for almost now three years, is to protect the health and the safety of the american public. by getting people vaccinated. by having them practice good public health practices. they construe that as somehow or other being an encroachment upon their freedom, when we know things like vaccines have already saved millions of lives. and yet, when you talk about getting vaccinated and encouraging people to get vaccinated. or when you have a very high level of virus in the community, to encourage people to wear
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masks which are well-known to protect you from getting infected, they make that a political issue. so, you know, nobody likes to see that kind of thing said about you but i don't pay hardly any attention to that. and i just focus on my job. which is to make sure we ensure the health of the american public. if they want to play political games that almost become ludicrous, they're so preposterous, i think anybody that pays attention to it, thinks about it and gives it some thought, realizes, a., it's politically motivated, and b., it's so ridiculous, it's almost ludicrous. >> i worry, though, i understand what you're saying it seems like the dark horses of racism and anti-semitism, and anti-vax and it's folding itself around his covid issue. i think this past weekend, beverly hills police in
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california had to look into anti-semitic fliers that were distributed around beverly hills listing cdc officials who have jewish last names saying every single aspect of the covid agenda is jewish. that worries me as an american. that worries me as someone who believes in the work that you're doing and sees it as essential to public health. does it worry you, and does it concern you that this vitriol has grown and has reached tentacles into other sort of pointous areas of american politics? >> right. i think you have a very important point there, alex, that has worried me much, much more so than personal attacks on me. it's the things you brought out there, the complete denial of reality, the normalization of untruths, where there's so much lying going on over there, that people accept it as being part of the norm, and i think if
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anybody looks at history, and finds out and examines when you distort reality and keep lying over and over again, after a while, you get a lot of people believing it, and that is the beginning, i believe, of the destruction of our democracy. so, it's less an attack on me or my jewish colleagues at the cdc that they're attacking. it's really, in my mind, an affront on our democracy. it's the same mind-set that says the president didn't win the election, even though every single examination proved that he did. when they say that january 6th did not exist. and it was a friendly visit to the gift shop at the capitol, i mean that kind of mentality to me is a threat to democracy. >> let me visit the work of the
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booster, it's not only closing off the virus from the win the but allowing this virus mutate farther, is it not? >> yes, it's a combination of personal protection to protect the individual, but also to blunt the capability of the virus, if you let it freely replicate. viruses don't mutate, unless they freely replicate. and if you prevent them to any degree from freely replicating, and by replicating, i mean going from person to person, and essentially infecting a lot of people, you diminish greatly their capability in mutating. and if you don't allow them to mutate regularly, then the fact is you very likely get more variants. variants are the results ever mutations that ultimately affect the function of a virus and leads to a new variant. >> dr. anthony fauci quite literally fighting the good
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fight. director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases and chief medical advisor to president biden. thank you very much, dr. fauci. we'll be right back. back. gives us the dual action effect that really takes care of both our teeth sensitivity as well as our gum issues. there's no question it's something that i would recommend.
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so let's go. the digital age is waiting. that does it for us tonight, "way too early with jonathan lemire" is coming up next. ♪♪ let's also talk about the elephant in the room. i had a stroke. he's never let me forget that. and i might miss some words during thi

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