tv Ayman MSNBC December 3, 2022 5:00pm-6:00pm PST
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are prime ministers. >> satisfaction, i got out of that response. i hope you got it to, that is all the time i have heard today. alicia menendez, i will see you back here tomorrow for more american voices but for now, i handed over to my colleague ayman. i am in. i am in. >> i'm so glad to close out the show with that because i saw that clip earlier this week and i'm thinking to myself, my god, what a question. at first i thought he was, i thought it, was honestly, i thought it was going to be one of those gotcha parody moment questions. i didn't think he was a real journalist. and it turned out that he was a real journalist, and that was a sincere, genuine question on his part, and i just can't believe it. i genuinely can't believe it. >> i can believe it, and i love that she was prepared for it. it is much as that was extemporaneous, some part of her brain was, someone's gonna ask the derby question. and they did. >> if i was in her position i would have used, probably something not as diplomatic or
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as political as she was. that's why she's the leader of that country, and i am not. alicia, thank you so much. always good to see you, my friend. enjoy your evening off. good evening to you. welcome to ayman tonight. republicans refused to condemn trump's dinner with a white supremacist. what this means for the georgia runoff and the future of the republican party. then, the stakes could not be higher. supreme court case that could derail american democracy. and the closing arguments have been made in the trump organization's tax fraud trial. will anyone pay the price for the alleged crimes that have occurred? i'm ayman mohyeldin. let's get started. tonight, throughout the next two hours we're going to be focused on georgia. where closing arguments are made ahead of the final election of the midterms. that is the senate runoff. his democratic senator raphael warnock earlier rallying with workers and union members.
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>> my opponent said, if you are able bodied and you have a job, you have health care. now i'm not mad that he doesn't know what he's talking about, i'm mad that he doesn't know what he's talking about and he thinks he ought to be a united states senator. >> we're gonna have more on the stakes in the georgia race in just a moment. but tonight, we begin with the gop's alarming focus on white nationalism and their refusal to condemn one of the chief elevators of white nationalism in this country, donald trump. within a week after trump had dinner with self proclaimed hit hitler fan kanye west and holocaust an iron nick fuentes, few republicans have condemned the meeting. even fewer have called out trump by mid name. most of waited to speak out until they were actually asked by reporters. it's not hard to see why. trump is still the gop's standard bearer. he is still the 2024
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front-runner. apparently he can say or do anything and most republicans will still be too afraid to attack him and. former presidents with white nationalists as a presidential front runner for the two main political parties in america. if we had to pick one state-run statement that we have ever agreed with, it's that he could shoot someone on fifth avenue and people would still love him. one person who stood up to donald trump this week with president biden. he actually tweeted this out. the holocaust happened. hitler was a demonic figure. and silence is complicity. republicans are complicit in the spread of white nationalist ideas and that they can't condemn trump for meeting with a night nationalist. trump doesn't seem to care. he has not said one bad word about nick fuentes since their meeting went public. he's just claimed that he didn't know who nick fuentes
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was. and after kanye west's horrific pro not the ran this week, you would think the donald trump would somehow want to put some distance between and kanye. he hasn't. he's pushing for republicans to overturn the constitution, and overturn the 2020 election results so you could be president again. he just posted that on his social platform earlier today. it is unclear at this moment whether there are any republicans who have the courage to condemn that unhinged statement. so let's not ignore the headlines that republicans are outraged or upset or feeling anything bad about donald trump, because until they can condemn him in harsh words, by name, as often as necessary and as explicitly as possible, they are all complicit in everything donald trump says and does. joining me now, matthew dowd, former chief strategist for the
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bush cheney 2004 presidential campaign, and jennifer reuben, opinion writer for the washington post. both are msnbc political analysis analysts. matthew, i will start with. you your reaction to the new trump post about terminating the constitution. >> i'm not giving points for being as clear as day about what has always been his intentions here. he wants to establish an autocracy in our country. i think the longer republicans, and i thought about this for years, but it's especially true today, the longer republicans continue to allow this, republican leaders and republican voters, continue to allow this, the worse and worse is going to get for them. it's not only they haven't spoken out, it's they've enabled this all along. and so it's very hard to get anywhere when you're driving your car in reverse. and right now riding with donald trump is driving a car in reverse, because all he
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wants to do is litigate what happened two years ago. i think it's politically stupid. it's morally corrupt. but i am not surprised that a series of morally corrupt republicans over the last seven years continue to be morally corrupt. >> i'm gonna take it one step further. he's driving it backwards but off a cliff and taking not just the republican party, but if this guy returns into power, taking the country with him. jennifer, trump, as i mentioned, he has not apologized for dining with kanye west or nick fuentes. he has not condemned their beliefs. why are republicans so reluctant to denounce him, and those that are just doing it so tepidly? >> donald trump of course would not renounce these people because white nationalists is a feature not a bug of today's republican party. this is an essential part of his base. it has been that way since he said they were very fine people on both sides in charlottesville and he has done it since he frankly has made
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excuses all along for people like david duke, when he praised the proud boys in a debate. this is nothing new. donald trump has always been a white nationalist. he has always spewed anti-semitic and racist views. the republican party has come to accept this. we could argue whether they think that this is what the masters want to hear, or we can argue that they really do believe this hateful ideology. at some time, at some level, it doesn't matter anymore. this is what they stand for. and they should not be a major party advocating these views. and frankly, the voters who keep electing them are ultimately responsible. we came very close to giving both houses of congress to this party that is clearly under the thumb of donald trump. so at some point you have to hold the voters responsible as well. >> matthew, it seems to me that most republicans who condemn
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trump in this moment, even if it is tepid, i'm going to back him if he becomes the 2024 gop nominee for president. we have seen time and time again high-profile republicans, when asked specifically, will you support on trump's views long nominee, they give you this response, it's too early, we don't know, we'll see what happens, i don't to speculate, it's hypothetical. do you agree that those republicans that we are hearing those kind of lukewarm responses from now would in fact support trump in 2024 if he is the nominee? >> they will line up like a pack of lemmings and keep right on going with it. this is akin to somebody saying i'm opposed to bank robbery, but when the bank robber comes out they say i'll take the catch. that's what they're doing. it's the abject failure of any courage of people in the republican party today. and that is the problem. it takes courage to stand by your convictions. it's takes courage to stand by
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the constitution. but the republican party, as jennifer laid out, the republican party today is a party that has no moral core. and of course they're going to follow the most immoral person to occupy the oval office. >> jennifer, when you think of someone like paul ryan, he has said that he does not want to support on trump because don trump basically is not winning and he wants republicans to win. do you think this will have an effect on the georgia senate runoff? everything that trump has done, announcing that he's gonna run for president, for performance the republicans, trump republicans have in the midterms, and everything that has happened this week with the normalization of white supremacists and and it margil a go. i'm >> still waiting for the apology from paul ryan for having supported trump. by the way, he's on the board of fox news, which for years now is continue to support him. so his aversion to donald trump strikes me as a little peculiar. i think the worst thing that has happened to herschel walker is that the senate has
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essentially been decided. it has been a side. it democrats have control. and so those republicans who are holding their noses and being prepared to vote for him on the rationalization that they wanted the republicans to control the senate, no longer have that excuse. so they have to make the effort to vote for this guy. i think his behavior, his rhetoric, his lack of experience, his lack of intellectual and moral fitness have been apparent for sometime. my suspicion is that the republicans will probably not want to turn out. they may not vote for warnock for god forbid that they should work for a democrat, a qualified man that has behaved honorably. they may stay home. and that's just bad for the republican party. >> all right, jennifer rubin, matthew dowd, thank you so much. up next, trump's dinner with a white nationalist is one piece in the puzzle of growing white nationalism in america. we will dive into that next.
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keepers founder stewart rhodes guilty of seditious conspiracy in connection with the january 6th attack on the capitol. his conviction is not the most significant to emerge from the justice department sprawling investigation into the investigation. just one day earlier the white gunman who killed ten black people at a buffalo supermarket pleaded guilty to state charges including domestic terrorism and both of these high profile events came on the heels of donald trump's dinner with white supremacist nick fuentes. historian kathleen blue argues that these events are all connected. she calls them, quote, part of the same story about the rising in militant white power movement right here at home. joining me now to discuss this,
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richard benjamin, author of searching for a white topeka, and improbable journey to the heart of white america. also with us, catherine stewart, nor times contributor and author of the power worshippers inside the dangers rise of religious naturalism. it's great to have you both with us. i'll start with you. stewart rhodes the first person to be found guilty of seditious conspiracy in decades. just that charge a significant. talk to us about the importance of this conviction. >> great to be here. it's very important, because that's the most serious charge. with the most serious penalty consequences for any of the january six insurrectionists who have been acquitted and so hopefully sends a signal to the legal system in the republican party just the degree and depth to the evidence that has been collected and the consequences will be had for the
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insurrection. even though many politicians still, to this day, are not denouncing it with a degree of seriousness that it deserves. it's good news for the country. >> what message does it say, kathleen, two other experian other extremist groups when someone like rhodes is held guilty on his seditious conspiracy charge? why isn't it the tragic when someone higher than stewart rhodes? >> it's important to hold these violent extremists accountable, but frankly, they are not the only ones who are responsible to the disgraceful events of january 6th prior to the attack on our capitol. we had a whole number of folks, including many religious right leaders, who are spreading election lies, spreading trump's election lies. and so they were sort of, that
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kind of conspiracism is something that trump cultivated and many people either promoted themselves or tacitly went along with it. >> rich, testimony during the trial outlined how people were drawn into the group. many cited the prevalence of election fraud claims, spending too much time online, and a sense of both desperation of hopelessness. can this kind of testimony offer us clues on how to stop future indoctrination, or perhaps future radicalization into this movement? >> here's the problem with his radicalization. when you have a party that doesn't literally have a political platform, the doesn't literally have policy, or solutions to the country's problems, in the absence of that lack of policy of solutions, what you do have is demagoguery, hate, and conspiracy theories, which are fed into people.
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and so that is, i think, the tie binding them in. and so the deeper question is, what with the republican party due to what's on peoples minds before, during, and after the recent elections? i think to me that the more salient question. what do you do with the party that doesn't believe a smart effective government, and how are they feeding into these conspiracy theories which then also lead to violence? >> kathleen, historian kathleen blue connected the roads conviction the buffalo shooter and trump's dinner with nick fuentes. she sees a common theme, perhaps, in all of these different events. what's your take? do you see a thread between them? >> absolutely. look, and this isn't just about trump. i think it's important to step back and see just how important importantly how much the republican party is changing
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the last 15 or 20 years. i think the republican party in the age of bush and matt cain would've had flaws, but it's hard to imagine they would've made room for this level of domestic extremism, hayton, conspiracism. and yet that kind of conspiracism and hate now represents a significant part of the republican party. trump really enabled that because even late it a lot of the rules, the tacit rules that tend to hold a pluralistic democracy together. that is how he represents in the lawlessness of the authoritarian. he operated for four years with the sort of performative cruelty. that appealed to the grievances of a lot of his supporters. it's not just about him anymore. now a lot of nurses cysts and celebrities have seen that and want to be politicians fc that's the key to his appeal,
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and they are emulating a lot of that behavior. >> and rich, the biggest fear is violence, right? it's one thing to hear white nationalist rhetoric. it's another to see the violence. on wednesday they had the department of homeland security warning of threats to the lgbtq, jewish, in migrant communities. one journalist told americans vote motivated by violent ideologies pose a persistent and lethal threat. do you think enough is being done to counter that threat when you see the level of violence that we have seen targeting various communities and different with the same motivation in different areas? >> it's improving. in the last administration, for four years, we saw an administration that explicitly tried to excise white nationalism from domestic terrorist threat assessments. so that is changed. that has cause for some cautious optimism.
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things might improve. but the question remains, to what extent these white nationalists, where the kind of passive greenlight from above, are infiltrating local police departments and state police forces. and so this is something that the dhs is keeping its eye on. it must keep its eye on. but, as catherine said, it's all very related, between the narcissism of certain celebrities the, vela billet-y of gun violence a conch or a virus propagated. my hope is one of cautious optimism that things might improve. >> katherine, where you come down on this? where do you think this trend of white nationalism is heading? do you share riches optimism? >> well, unfortunately i think there's been a proliferation of a kind of language of exclusionary nationalism. a sort of who gets to properly
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belong in the country and who doesn't. there's a kind of mainstreaming of a certain type of extremism that provides this narrative that the supposedly right kind of americans are engaged in spiritual warfare. many of them have a stated goal, as fuentes does, of creating a kind of theocracy. this kind of ideology used to be, frankly, quite fringe in america. it's pretty dominant now among militia groups. but you can see it elsewhere. you can see echoes of it or even expressions of it throughout different factions of the republican party. so i think that this is something we have to be aware of and be very concerned about. >> my cautious optimism is with the exercise of law enforcement. not with a general culture that
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katherine is describing. >> i'm glad you made that distinction. i felt that that was what you are trying to say, and i apologize if in any way i was mischaracterizing it. i'm glad you clarified that. rich benjamin, katherine stewart, but thank you so much. this is an important conversation. up next, a supreme court case that could have major consequences for future elections. don't go anywhere. n't go anywhere. eel. ♪ ♪ breeze driftin' on... ♪ [coughing] ♪ ...by, you know how i feel. ♪ if you're tired of staring down your copd,... ♪ it's a new dawn, ♪ ♪ it's a new day... ♪ ...stop settling. ♪ ...and i'm feelin' good. ♪ start a new day with trelegy. no once-daily copd medicine has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy makes breathing easier for a full 24 hours, improves lung function, and helps prevent future flare-ups. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems.
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don't have the authority to second guess certain election rules under the state constitution because of a truly bonkers concept known as the independent state legislator theory. the theory is a dangerous and formally fringe legal a large event that was mainstreamed by trump supporters who used a version of that argument in their attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. thomas wolf, deputy director of democracy program at the brennan center for justice laid out the stakes of this case this week, saying, in part, quote, the independent state legislator theory would destabilize our long-standing approach to election administration, destroy our 200-year-old system of checks and balances, and ultimately underline americans trust in the integrity and legitimacy of our elections. thomas wolf joins me now, along with barbara mcquade, law professor at the university of michigan law school. thomas, i would like to start
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with you what. could happen if the court rules in favor of the north carolina republicans in this case? connect the dots for us from this case and the integrity of our democracy. >> the wrong ruling in this case threatens to eliminate the system of checks and balances that's been uniquely american since the start of the founding of the country. for the last 200 years when we make rules for federal elections and other different actors have been involved. not just state legislators but also governors exercising their veto's, state courts making rulings, state constitutions putting boundaries on what everyone can do. the people themselves who director marcus, he changing the rules for elections, and election officials who come for the nuts and bolts. legislators in this case wanted the court not just to restore their name legally gerrymandered map in the process -- they would say ountry.
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we have a system where the legislature is supreme and no one else can check with them except their gridlocked congress, and the supreme court, which has been steadily rolling back voting rights for 10 to 20 years. so really talking about moving from a system where everyone participates in power shares to a system we never had before where legislators tell us how things are gonna be and that's the end of the road. >> barbara, i said in my setup that i was not being hyperbolic. correct me if i'm wrong. are those who claim more versus harper have the potential to reshape or and american democracy as we know? it are we being hyperbolic? >> not at all. there are several degrees of argument when it comes to this independent legislator theory. but increasingly levels of extremists and i think that in light of the way we have seen justice roberts moving the
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court incrementally, i don't think it's too much to think that the day could come if this case goes the wrong way, where we would see absolutely zero judicial review over a decision by a legislature about elections. for example, if a state were to say that people can't vote if they live in certain precincts, if they were to say there are no drop boxes, there is no early voting, you must have a voter i.d., you can't vote if you're black, if the legislature says so, there is no judicial review of that. that just can't be. and so the idea that there is no judicial review when a state makes up its rules is just contrary to everything about our constitution. i don't think it's too much to say that. >> i was going to say, it seems bonkers on the surface, and thomas, matt in your report -- urged the justices to reject
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the independent state legislator theory. that makes me feel hopeful, but then that means there are a third that don't. do you think that that will make a difference for the 63 conservative court? >> i think it certainly should if the court is paying attention to all the paper being put in front of them. so look, for the last two years or so, a couple of justices on the supreme court have had some interest in this theory and have given some gas by moving things along on a shadow docket. the way the court handles emergency appeals. that kind of posture, it's kind of a vacuum of information. the game is different now. those amicus briefs came in because of a bipartisan coalition of experts, and key figures stood up to set the record straight. there are 16 on the other side but this is not just the quantity thing it's a quality thing. on the side opposing the -- , we not only have civil rights groups and government organizations we have current and former federal and state
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challenges from all parties. we have republican election lawyers. we have flowers of -- the society, which centers on this path in the first instance. these voices have come together to tell the court what reality is and have said coming out of these december 7th arguments, we'll see if the supreme court actually engages with what is in front of it or if it continues to try to travel along in its own fantasy land. at least 3 to 4 justices have occupied this in the last few years. >> let me ask you this, tom. it's something on my mind and i'm not sure if it matters to you. correct me if i'm wrong. i'm thinking of clarence thomas, justice clarence thomas and what he's gonna do this week. obviously given the fact that the independent legislator theory was something floated by those within the white house of donald trump that wanted to overturn or election. i can't help wonder if conversations, and i'm not asking you to speculate, but i can't help but wonder of
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conversations about whether justice thomas should recuse himself, given the fact that his wife is the subject of so much questioning and allegations into what role she may have played in the attempt to overturn our 2022 elections, our 2020 election, sorry. >> critically there are a number of voices on the court that have given some credence to this theory. but no one justice can drive it one way or the other. what we need is for a majority of the court to stand up and reject the theory. given the rulings that we have seen come out of the supreme court recently on abortion rights and gun control, you may say, how does this case move forward? there are a couple of port and things for coach folks to keep in mind. one, many members of the court claim to be originalist's. if that's the case, then they should be ruling against the independent state legislator theory. all the evidence shows as we have multiple briefs coming from historians, including ten
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preeminent scholars of the founding era, and they all say the i.s. ltd.'s bank. why? because this country was founded on an idea not ruled by kings, power shared, this checks and balances and there's no way that the founding generation thought that we should be creating a system where legislators have supreme cory over elections. that's just a starter. there's 100 years and court precedent against this theory. there is historical practice. elections have been run through shared power for 230 years. they need to give us a really good reason to change that may have and given a single one of these that can. >> barbara, before we go, i would like to get your thoughts on another important case that we expected here on monday. it is a case involving a conservative christian web designer colorado who wants the supreme court to rule that she has a right to refuse to undertake work for gay couples who want to get married because of her religious based
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opposition to same sex marriage. what do you make of this case? what are you looking for? >> i think it's very troubling that the court is taking a case like this, because remember, it's the court to get to choose its cases. by doing so is that the agenda. it has been on a bit of a path here to deny lgbt rights in the name of religious freedom. this is about free speech, about a web designer says she doesn't want to do web pages for same-sex marriages. but substitute same-sex for black or any other demographic and you see observe how absurd it is that we are allowing this kind of discrimination in the name of free speech, a religious liberty. but the fact that the court has taken on this case, after ruling in fail favor of a cake baker on similar grounds a few years ago, does not bode well for lgbtq rights in the future. >> thomas wolf, thank you, barbara please stick around. prosecutors allege that donald
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trump knew the tax fraud was happening in the trump organization. we have those details next. ils next ♪ kevin! kevin! kevin? oh nice. kevin, where are you... kevin?!?!?.... hey, what's going on? i'm right here! i was busy cashbacking for the holidays with chase freedom unlimited. i'm gonna cashback on a gingerbread house! oooh, it's got little people inside! and a snowglobe. oh, i wished i lived in there. you know i can't believe you lost another kevin.
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tonight we're gonna focus on the united states of allocates which focus is on the question, did trump's children lie to lenders about the trump organization? they drop the closing argument saying trump himself sanctioned what became a sweeping 15-year scheme to compensate top executives off the books. assistant district attorney josh steinglass told them that trump is sanctioning tax fraud. the argument that trump's blissfully ignorant is just not real. trump's team requested a mistrial. van der veen complained about steinglass's comments saying, quote, it's a bias that he put on a jury that can't be undone and it's not insignificant that he did it. the judge in the case rebuffed that mistrial request. the key witness, as you can imagine in this trial, has been longtime trump organization cfo allen weisselberg, who has been
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charged with scheming to defraud, tax fraud, and falsifying records he's also been hit with a larceny charge. they claim he used his position to get in of paying taxes on his income. as of now weisselberg is the only person to be charged. he pled guilty to 15 felony charges back in august. the jury is expected to begin its deliberations this monday in one of the final impressions from trump's defense team, well, it was less than ideal. trump's team pulled an 11th-hour evidence dump, filing motions and new exhibits leading the judge to scold them and refused to accept any more motions from the attorney, saying, quote, if in considerate at a minimum. at worst it's a good old-fashioned sandbagging. also this week, a federal appeals court has rejected on trump's lawsuit aimed at derailing the fbi's investigation of classified records stack east at his mar-a-lago home after he left
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office. particularly embarrassing for judge aileen cannon, a trump appointee who granted his request for a special master to oversee the case. cannon's controversial decision at the time was denounced by the appeals panel, arguing it was an unprecedented step to help trump. there is a lot of legal news to get to. we're gonna cover all of it and more with suzanne craig and barbara mcquade, after a quick break. don't go anywhere. go anywhere. and for those who do get it bad, it may be because they have a high-risk factor. such as heart disease, diabetes, being overweight, asthma, or smoking. even if symptoms feel mild, these factors can increase your risk of covid-19 turning severe. so, if you're at high risk and test positive, don't wait. ask your healthcare provider right away if an authorized oral treatment is right for you. nicorette knows, quitting smoking is freaking hard. ask you get advice like:der right away just stop. go for a run. go for 10 runs!
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run a marathon. instead, start small. with nicorette. which can lead to something big. start stopping with nicorette. i love what downy does for my sheets and towels. but did you know downy provides 7 benefits for your clothes, like making them softer and fresher. plus, downy fights fading and stretching. make your laundry softer, fresher, and look newer longer. (brent) people love subaru just because it stands for much more than just a car.resher, (vo) through the share the love event, subaru retailers have supported over seventeen hundred hometown charities. (phil) have i witnessed and seen the impact of what we do? you bet i have. (kathryn) we have worked with so many amazing causes and made a difference. (vo) by the end of this year, subaru and our retailers will have donated over two hundred and fifty million dollars to charity. (brent) it's about more than just selling cars. (phil) the subaru share the love event going on now. nina's got a lot of ideas for the future. and since anyone can create a free plan at fidelity,
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teeth sensitivity is so common. it immediately feels like somebody's poking directly on the nerve. i recommend sensodyne. sensodyne toothpaste goes inside the tooth and calms the nerve down. and my patents say: “you know doc, it really works." one prilosec otc each morning blocks heartburn all day and all night. prilosec otc reduces excess acid for 24 hours, blocking heartburn before it starts. one pill a day. 24 hours. zero heartburn. >> for the jury in the trump
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organizations tax fraud trial begins deliberations, let's talk about what we can expect going forward. new york times investigative reporter suzanne craig. she's been covering the tax fraud trial. also back with, us barbara mcquade. good to have both of. you suzanne, you've been in the courtroom throughout this tax fraud trial. give us your assessment of the closing arguments, how things are playing out. >> sure.
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and to start by saying i went into this trial thinking, wow, this is going to be an easy case, because they've got this chief financial officer of the company saying he's already pleaded guilty to 15 charges of tax fraud. he's gonna be the star witness. and then i saw for a few days of jury selection it was difficult to find a juror that was a fan of donald trump. quite the opposite. there was a lot of animosity about him and they kept having to separate he is not on try it's the company. as i've sat through a lot of the testimony, it has become clear that that charge and the threshold of the prosecution are going to have to meet is interesting. it is a vague area of the law. they're not just gonna have to prove that allen weisselberg did this, but that he did it in behalf of the company, that he did it with an intent to benefit the company. we will hear more about that when the jury is charged on monday. but it's a high threshold. what the defense has been doing, it is been saying allen weisselberg did it for allen
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weisselberg. if they said it once they said it 1000 times, that this was pure greed, he had no intent with what he did to benefit the company. he did it for his own personal interests. i don't know where the jury is gonna fall, but it's going to be interesting just to see how they digest it all. i think where the defense argument about weisselberg falls apart is, he did do it in there and it was greed but he admitted he knew there would be some game to the company in the game came mainly in a savings of payroll tax. but there were other people involved, and it does start to sound like a conspiracy. several other people had a similar scheme running. getting perks and stuff that taxes didn't quite add up. so that's where i land on it. i don't know how they're gonna process, it but i think it's where i see the cheek in the case. >> i know this may be hard to ask, but was there a moment or moments that stood out to you throughout the trial besides
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the closing arguments? >> you know, to me, just as somebody who was a student of trump and his finances, to see allen weisselberg on the stand when he got very emotional about what he had done, particularly when there was an admission, he put his wife on the payroll at one point, it was six or $7,000 that she got so she could qualify for social security. he definitely, he was in charge of the accounting department and was definitely running a scam on the company. it was painful to hear, to have to see somebody admit that in court in his long running relationship with the trump's, which goes back decades. it was powerful testimony. and he was tearing up and points in it. >> barbara, as we said, the jury deliberations scheduled to begin monday. any thoughts on where you see this heading? why should we be looking out for? >> well, i think the key thing for the jury here is how willing they are to use
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circumstantial evidence to find liability here. there's a concept in law called willful blindness. if other people in the organization kind in knew this was going on but so don't tell me not want to know anymore about it, that could be imputed knowledge to them. if you can show that people who were acting on behalf of the organization, which, by the way, could include weisselberg himself as the cfo, and doing it for the benefit of the company, then that is sufficient evidence for guilt. and so it seems that 15 years of this going on, that trump himself saw memos, documents, and sign checks that supported it, does build at least that circumstantial case. so juries are interesting things. they have their own personalities, their own quirks. reasonable minds can disagree about whether evidence prove something or not. but it will be whether they are willing to go along with that circumstantial agent evidence as opposed to requiring an admission, as jury sometimes say. i want to see it on video. they most certainly don't have
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that. so we will have to see how this jury decides it. >> suzanne, let me shift gears for a moment. the house ways and means committee has finally obtained six years of trump's federal tax returns. i know we have spoken about this in the past. what may have felt aloft lifetime ago. can democrats do much with them before republicans take control of the chamber in the final few weeks they have? >> they construed to a lot of damage. the question is, can they do anything constructive. i don't know if they'll put out a report about their findings. they can do a document dump and just put them in the record. there's speculation we're gonna do that. i sort of think, to me, i'd love to see them. we have a lot of his taxes up until 2018, so to see another few years will give us more insight into his finances. but the ways and means committee, they want to these documents, they wanted his taxes for public policy reason. they want to look at how the president, how the audit happens. there's a presidential audit that goes on. but just to dump them into the
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public record seems to be that would be completely political to do that. i think they would come under a lot of fire. nothing would surprise me these days. but i don't see them coming up with a report in the next three or four weeks that's going to be very insightful or that we're gonna learn anything directionally we don't know about his taxes. >> if they lose control, and obviously they're gonna lose control of the house and by extension controlling the ability to do anything with this committee, can the senate do anything as well by that extension? >> there's speculation they could turn it over to the senate. i'm not a lawyer advising them. i'm not sure how all those rules work. they did get them for a specific reason. i don't see that the reason they got that they're gonna be able to affect. but there is speculation they could turn them over to the senate and see how maybe something will play out there. rachel there's a lot of options to doing nothing, to putting them out in a partial report, to reading them right into the record, just kind of letting us crowd source them and see what we can find.
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>> all right we see it's how it plays out. susanne craig, barbara mcquade, thank you so much. ahead, the senate takes a historic vote on protections for same-sex and interracial marriage. we'll tell you about that. ut that. avoiding triggers, but still get migraine attacks? qulipta™ can help prevent migraine attacks. qulipta gets right to work. keeps attacks away over time. qulipta is a preventive treatment for episodic migraine. most common side effects are nausea, constipation, and tiredness. ask your doctor about qulipta.
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the virus that causes shingles is sleeping... in 99% of people over 50. it's lying dormant, waiting... and could reactivate. shingles strikes as a painful, blistering rash that can last for weeks. and it could wake at any time. think you're not at risk for shingles? it's time to wake up. because shingles could wake up in you. if you're over 50, talk to your doctor or pharmacist about shingles prevention. this week the senate passed the
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recognize same-sex marriages, even if obergefell v. hodges, the spring court case that the strength right to same sex marriage in off to states were to fall. it would also re-peel the defense of marriage act, which defines marriage between a man and a woman. it is a significant move that the legislation has limitations. notably, it allows religious organizations to still deny services to lgbtq couples under the guise of their personal beliefs, meaning it still makes members of the lgbtq community second-class citizens in some cases. what's more is that 36 senate republicans voted against the respect for marriage act meaning that 36 senators wanted to make members of the lgbtq community second-class citizens in all cases. today 71% of americans believe same-sex marriages should have the same legal recognitions of marriages between a man and a woman. for the first time, if a number of same-sex households in the
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united states has passed 1 million. lgbtq people deserve respect and legal recognition, and to be frank, they need far more than what this legislation does. my colleague said this week, if a senate really wanted to take a big step to protect lgbtq americans and our families, it would finally pass the equality act. this is a difficult message to sand. it's a victory, no doubt, that the respect for marriage passed the senate, but more can i should be done to protect our lgbtq friends and family members. coming up, on the second hour of ayman, party fail. republicans could have a historic mess on their hands when they take control of the house, as democrats have a historic and smooth leadership transition. then all eyes are on georgia. record early voting turnout gives hope to raphael warnock in the final sprint for the senate runoff on tuesday, and pres
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