♪♪ it's 4:00 in new york. we start with what is an extraordinary statement even by the standards of a failed wannabe autocrat who plotted a coup against his own government and recently dined with white supremacists. the disgraced ex-president made his contempt for our democracy as clear as ever when he called for the united states constitution to be, quote, terminated. from "the washington post," quote, trump's message on the truth social platform reiterated the baseless claims he's made since 2020 that the election was stolen. but he went further by suggesting that the country abandoned one of its founding documents. that post came a day after twitter's new owner elon musk claimed he would expose how twitter engaged in free speech suppression in the run-up to the 2020 election. but his twitter files did not

show that the tech giant bent to the will of democrats, but trump doubled down saying this, quote, unprecedented fraud requires unprecedented cure, exclamation point. of course, there was no fraud, unprecedented or otherwise in the last election. and then in a post earlier today, trump tried to walk it all back, denying that he ever called for the, quote, termination of the constitution. on earth 2.0, a rational and totally imaginary world, this would be the clearest, easiest, most obvious moment for republicans to rid themselves of this troublesome and deranged demagogue. but we're on earth 1.0 and this is the republican party of 2022 we're talking about. it is a party completely entraled to all of its elements. and that is why you have republicans saying things like this. just listen to republican

congressman dave joyce on abc on sunday. >> can you support a candidate in 2024 who is for suspending the constitution. >> it's early. i think at the end of the day whoever the republican ends up pick, i'll fall in behind -- >> even and if it's donald trump and he's called for suspending the constitution. >> it's going to be a big field -- >> that's not what i'm asking you. if he's the nominee, will you support him. >> i will support whoever the republican party nominee is. i don't think he'll be able to get there because i think there's a lot of other good quality candidates out there. >> you would support a candidate who has come out for suspending the constitution? >> you've taken him out of context. first off, he has no ability to suspend the constitution -- >> he says he's for it. >> he says a lot of things

that -- but that doesn't mean that it's ever going to happen. you got to accept exact fact from fantasy. >> let's not speed past that moment. this is exactly how trump happened. all of the republicans in washington and around the country said, he says all sorts of stupid you know what. that doesn't mean he's going to do it. he did all of it and then some. while just a handful of republicans did do more than that, quote, far more remain silent including kevin mccarthy. when republicans take control of the chamber of january, he hopes to become speaker. he said that republicans would read the constitution out loud. the significance of trump's comments are clear. from one liz cheney, quote, donald trump believes we should

terminate quote all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the constitution to overturn the 2020 election. that was his view on january 6th and remains his view today. no honest person can now deny that trump is an enemy of the constitution. that is where we begin today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. jake sherman is here, an msnbc contributor, former senator and msnbc contributor claire mccaskill is back, and miles taylor is here, a co-founder of the political party forward. i don't know where to start. i mean, jake, you were here when we thought that the bottom had finally announced itself, trump dining with anti-semites and white supremacists. but here we are, terminating the constitution. what's going on? >> that's a good question. what is going on? listen, i think that this is going to be -- leave aside the substance which is horrible in

and of itself. this is now the story of the week. this is what every republican in the senate and in the house is going to have to respond to for the next, you know, five days. and going forward. so it's the president, again, putting his party in a terrible position of having to respond to this nonsense and, by the way, the clip that you showed of dave joyce is striking for a lot of reasons, nicolle, but most notably, joyce is one of the party's remaining moderates. he leads republican governing group that just last week put out a letter in favor of mccarthy and said we need to get down to the business of governing. and now on a sunday show, he indicated that he wouldn't dump trump even after he said he wanted to suspend the institution. just another mess created by the former president. >> that's what cowardice looks

like. this is from the public hearings of the january 6th committee. >> president donald trump's intention was to remain president of the united states despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election and in violation of his constitutional obligation to relinquish power. >> what the president wanted the vice president to do was not just wrong, it was illegal and unconstitutional. >> in your view, what he was asking you to do would have violated your oath to the constitution of both the united states constitution and the constitution of the state of arizona? >> yes, sir. i did not want for the department of justice to be put in a posture where it would be doing things that were not consistent with the truth, were not consistent with its own appropriate role or were not consistent with the constitution. >> and i assume you also would agree the president has a

particular obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed? >> that is one of the president's obligations, correct. >> there is no defense that donald trump was duped or irrational, no president can defy the rule of law and act this way in a constitutional republic, period. >> my question for you, miles, is, where are the rest of your former colleagues? where is former secretary mattis today, john kelly today, where is h.r. mcmaster today? where are the people who care about the constitution and making sure donald trump is never elevated to president of the united states again? >> well, nicolle, as you said, where are all the other sitting republican members of congress on this question? and i'll address yours in a second here, but i'll say, one of the very first senior republican members of congress who expressed concern to me

about donald trump in 2015 was a man named jim colby. jim colby was a republican congressman who i was having a conversation with and i said, look, i think donald trump, you know, if he makes his way up in the gop, is going to be a threat to the party. and jim was one of the first people that said to me, no, miles, he'll be a threat to the constitution. and i later had to tell jim he was right when i was in the trump administration because as you know, nicolle, his own cabinet thought he was such a threat to the constitution that they considered suspending his presidency with the 25th amendment because trump wanted to suspend the constitution. in fact, he talked often lovingly about the insurrection act which he saw as a way to deploy the military and subvert the constitution's efforts to make sure that civilian law enforcement is what enforced the law of the land. jim colby actually just passed away this past weekend and i'm sure he would have been heartbroken to see the continued cowardice of members of his own

party and he was heartbroken until the end that republicans didn't speak up, whether they were people around donald trump and privately vented their worries and didn't say anything publicly, or whether they're sitting in congress now, people who served with him, and are still keeping those opinions quiet, unable even on a sunday show to say they wouldn't support someone who would suspend the ultimate law of the land, the u.s. constitution. i think it's terrifying. we've talked before about the cowardice pandemic that's sweeping this town. i want to note one other thing. you said at the top of this program that this whole latest episode started because trump saw these so-called twitter files that elon musk released about how twitter was carrying the democrats during the election. i'm going to tell you something, at that time period, i worked for google and worked on election security issues and i was in the room when representatives from twitter and other represents were working on these issues. and guess who was also in the room? the trump white house. the trump white house was briefed on the efforts of the

tech companies to protect their platforms and i never once heard a single complaint from the trump white house about how the tech sector was trying to keep nefarious actors from taking over their platform. this is just ridiculous and i hope elon musk is hearing from people at twitter who were involved in those efforts who know that the trump campaign and white house were briefed on what was being done to protect those platforms. >> i mean, miles, that's important context. trump hears it's raining and he says election fraud. trump hears it's snowing and he says election fraud. is there any -- why is this a trigger? is it because it's his same sort of quasi state media actors who are all pumped up by what elon musk is doing? really, nicolle, it's the desperate effort of the twice-impeached, disgraced ex-president to find a rational for subverting the rules to get himself back into power. i want to point to parallels

here. just on november 3rd, 2020, election day, "politico" published a report that warned about trump's ominous threats about the election being rigged. and i said something to the effect of, i really worry this is him seeding the narrative to justify undertaking a coup in the election, subverting the election and potentially could lead to violence. right now we're seeing trump seed a narrative about, quote/unquote, suspending the constitution. i think it's the type narrative we're going to see come back for his third campaign for the u.s. presidency as a way to suggest that the rules and regulations of the election themselves should be thrown out to give him a fast track to the nomination. mark my words, that type of argument is going to come back as we get into next year. and that's what i think he's doing here. he's trying to find anything he can to cast the rules as illegitimate, to cast the last election as illegitimate, and to try to make excuses to get himself to the front of the

pack. >> and if we could just stick with parallels for a second, claire, that's how the deadly insurrection happened, trump knew he lost, all the republicans knew he lost. they decide to let him cry it out like an 18-month-old. we knocked that out around 2 i think in the toddler book i read. he seeds the insurrection act. stewart rhodes is on his way to jail. donald trump being allowed to cry it out is only possible when republicans like mr. joyce and mr. mccarthy do nothing. and when you look at the -- we talk about it here every day, the current threat of domestic violence extremism, it is linked from lies told by trump and his allies in the media. >> yeah, the lies, it's really interesting if you look at the beginning of the biggest lie of all. and i know that trump supporters

are probably not listening to us today, but if any of their family members are trump supporters, let them know that he lied when he said he loved his supporters, he lied when he said he loved law enforcement, he lied when he said he loved the military. he lied when he said he loved his country, and he lied when he said he loved the constitution. the biggest lie he told was the oath of office. he was lying as he had his hand on the bible that he would uphold the constitution. the only thing donald trump was ever interested in was any lie he needed to tell to get power and hold on to power so he could look himself in the mirror and convince himself that he's wonderful because deep down he knows he's not. and that kind of person is very dangerous with power. and he's getting more and more desperate. the dinner with kanye and the

white supremacist was desperate. this was desperate. and the idea you have a journalist had kevin mccarthy on tv over the weekend and didn't even ask the future speaker of the house whether or not it was okay that the president of his party said get rid of the constitution, i mean this crime is being committed all over the landscape of republicans and republican sycophants, including some on another network. and it is about time for somebody to be a leader here because if they are, you know what's going to happen? they're going to win. a leader right now in the republican party would win. but they're all too afraid. i've never seen anything like it. >> and i mean, i guess, jake sherman, if they could stay in their sandbox and i didn't affect anybody else and i didn't endanger the country if you've got one party's leader intent on ripping up the -- terminating the constitution, i want to be

accurate, there wouldn't be a story. that's not where we are. i want to read you what the white house -- the biden white house had to say about this. the american constitution is a sacrosanct document that has guaranteed that the freedom and rule of law prevail in our country. it brings people together regardless of party and elected leaders swear to uphold it. it's the ultimate monument to all of the americans who have given their lives to defeat self-serving despots. attacking the constitution and all it stands for should be condemned. you cannot only love america when you win. how many republicans, you know, injected with truth serum with nobody recording the comments free with that, seriously? marjorie taylor greene doesn't, trump doesn't, how many do you think agree with that, though?

>> i would say most. but i would say this in addition, the thing that is going to let republicans off the -- they're going to try to get themselves off the hook here is they're going to say that trump later walked back those statements and it's going to be kind of like what joyce said here. it's going to be like, well, he actually didn't mean it. it was out of context, which it wasn't. he said what he said. and he believes it and that the larger issue, nicolle, is just like the dinner with the nazi, it is -- it gives permission -- permission structure for people to say these crazy things and start to believe them among his base. people could say maybe the constitution isn't that great. maybe it does need to be updated. maybe there shouldn't be election laws. trump saying it gives that permission structure to have that conversation which is obscene and absurd, just like it gives a permission structure to neo-nazis, anti-semites and

white supremacists in which they should be normalized. which they shouldn't. it gives people permission to start talking ability this stuff and it's ridiculous. >> any sentence that starts with, just like the dinner with the nazi, i don't believe that's where we are -- >> he's literally a nazi. >> in his words. that's how he describes himself. the nbc hill team has just fed me in some reporting, mcconnell has nothing to say about trump's comments on the constitution today. but he says he'll talk about it tomorrow. my colleague garrett haake asked senator blunt, let me play that for you. we don't have it. here's what he said, garrett says trump and his comments over the weekend about terminating the constitution what's your reaction.

blunt says you take an oath to the constitution and i can't imagine that the former president would make a statement. they all know he made the statement. garrett says people say you know what's it going to take for other republicans to say enough of this guy? blunt says, i've said all i have to say. so here we are again, just like, as you said, just like the dinner with the nazi, no distance being put between donald trump who is against the united states constitution, for the white supremacist and the nazi he dined with, nothing. and impeached twice, lost the u.s. senate for republicans twice, lost the presidential in 2020, got, you know, shellacked in the midterms in '18 and really made it impossible for anything more than a little red dribble in 2022 and they got nothing? >> i will say this about mcconnell. he's waiting to be on camera. i think he's -- he does his press conference on tuesdays. he typically likes to say these things on camera.

i imagine just like last week when he said anybody who would dine with these nazis or white supremacists do not belong anywhere close to the white house, i have to imagine he'll say something similar. roy blunt retiring. i'm just putting context around this. i think he basically in my conversations with him in the last couple weeks has had zero patience for trump and zero desire to talk about him. but this is where we've been since 2017, nicolle. this is not a surprise. i mean, every single week when trump is in the white house, we don't have to revisit it, every single week there was some other bizarre happenstance and every week since then, there's been some other ridiculous comment by trump. but guess what, nicolle, i didn't make them run for public office. they ran for public office as republicans because they're adults and they're free-thinking adults. if they don't want to answer for trump anymore, then they could say, i'm done with the guy and i'm not -- or i'm not going to

be in public office anymore. i don't have much sympathy for people who don't want to talk about trump just because it's inconvenient for them. they decided to run for public office. i didn't make that decision for them. >> and, miles, what's different now? thanks in part to the sworn testimony of steven heirs is that trump's words manifest themselves. hanging mike pence didn't come from this show. we would never advocate for that. trump supporters did and kevin mccarthy has got nothing to say about it. there is a current domestic terror threat warning that the jewish american communities and institutions and lgbtq community and institutions are under threat. who attacks them? republicans and right-leaning media outlets and voices. so what's different now is there are a lot of people in this country that look over their shoulder and don't feel safe

because no republican ever feels like condemning donald trump's garbage hate speech and smears against the constitution, that is why we are where we are. >> yeah, nicolle, i've got to -- i've got to hat tip jake sherman here because he said the operative words. permission structures. and folks might roll their eyes at jake and say, oh, well, if jake says that donald trump says it and then everyone believes it, that's not necessarily true. simply go back to the big lie. that was a ridiculous fringe conspiracy theory. but then donald trump said it. some years later, you got 75% of republicans who still believe that big lie. to jake's point, you create that permission structure to say that the constitution should be terminated and it opens the pathway for millions of americans to start believing that and to start spreading

that. as you note, nicolle, that can jump the tracks into violence. at the beginning of the trump administration, there were only a couple of hundred domestic terrorism investigations in the united states. it sounds like a lot. compared to the international terror, there were thousands. by year one of that administration, it had gone up to 1,000. there were as many domestic terror investigations of isis as there were domestic terrorism which is the first time i had ever seen that in my career. by the end of the trump administration, dhs and the fbi has 3,000 investigations. that's stunning and it shows you this isn't just talk. the talk can lead to physical intimidation and violence and we're in the midst of that right now as a country as we saw weeks ago with paul pelosi, all the way back to the insurrection with mike pence as you said and as we've seen with the roughly tenfold increase in death threats with sitting u.s. members of congress.

>> claire, what is the beginning of the beginning of getting out of this? are we nowhere near that? >> well, it's a good question. you know, i think what really is going to be the death nail for trumpism is in fact kevin mccarthy leading a razor-thin majority in the house because crazy is going to be on parade every day. he is going to elevate and amplify those parts of the party that he must have to get that title that he's yearned for for decades. and he's showing that he is not a leader right now. i mean, what would really be the end of this is if the leadership of the house and the senate and republican governors from all over the country came together for a joint press conference in washington and said, we've had enough. we've had enough.

they know he means what he's saying, nicolle. they can't stand him. they know he's hurting the republican party. but you know the worst part about this is, they know he means it. he wants to suspend the constitution. he wanted those people to attack congress and hurt people and cause an insurrection and a bloody conflict capitol that day. he wanted it. he was glad it was happening. and they know that. that's why this is so egregious. the irony is if they would all come together and reject it, it would be done. he's have 10 or 15% of the republican party, the racists and the bigots would still want to hang out with him. everyone else would be gone. they don't have the strength and character to do it. >> another week gone to defend

it. if it wasn't so dangerous and cynical and sick it would be comical. the politics of it are so politically suicidal. it's just madness. thank you so much for bringing us your reporting. miles taylor, thank you for taking us in the room at google. claire sticks around. the conservative supreme court hearing a case today over free speech and discrimination. a business owner who says she doesn't want same-sex couples as her customers. it could set the tone in this country for all types of discrimination depending on the outcome. plus the white house and the fbi are closely watching what has happened in north carolina. there was an armed attack on two energy substations leaving thousands of people there without power for days now. the search for answers about who was behind it and why it happened is under way. later in the program, the two senate candidates in georgia

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back in 2018 the u.s. supreme court took up a case pitting lgbtq rights against religious conservatives. it narrowly ruled in favor of a colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. but the opinion said at the time that it would wait for a future controversy to decide the broader legal questions about

whether the first amendment allows businesses open to the public to discriminate based on religion or free speech objections. in the year since, the court refused several opportunities to answer that question but today the day has come. the 6-3 supermajority appeared sympathetic to a website designer who says colorado's antidiscrimination law violates her right to free speech. she's suing on the premise that she could be punished if she were to refuse to design a website for a same-sex couple. civil rights groups say that what smith is asking for is a, quote, license to discriminate. the "new york times" says her opponents say a ruling in her favor would allow businesses engaged in expression to, quote, refuse service to say black people or muslims based on odious but sincerely held convictions. and here is justice sonia sotomayor this morning.

>> how about people who don't believe in interracial marriage or about people who don't believe that disabled people should get married? what's -- where is the line? i can choose not to sell to those people, this website because it's my speech? >> joining our coverage, maya wiley, president of the leadership conference on civil and human rights, brian fallon is back, executive director of the progressive judicial advocacy group demand justice and claire mccaskill is still here. i want to play one more piece of sound. this is from justice ketanji brown jackson with another scenario about where this could lead. >> can you give me your thoughts on a photography business in a shopping mall during this holiday season, they want to have a sign next to the santa that says only white children. why isn't your argument that they should be able to do that and maybe it is?

>> because in the photograph itself the objection is not contained in that photograph. but in addition, i think it's important to remind the -- >> don't leave. sorry. what do you mean? the objection just like your client's objection is to expressions that violate their own views of what is being depicted. >> what justices ketanji brown jackson and justice sotomayor lay out is truly terrifying but seems possible. >> sadly both are true. it is terrifying and it is possible in a court that has taken a case that flies in the face of its own precedence, something that we've seen before. here's what i mean by that. i'm going to get personal here because my parents, a black man and a white woman got married in

1961 in this country and that was before the supreme court in loving v. virginia said interracial marriages, you can't discriminate, you can't stop people from getting married because of their race and had all of these implications because my parents had to find a place where they could find people willing to serve them for their major process. even though it was not illegal in new york state, which is where they lived at the time, and i look back on the arguments that were made for people, for my parents, that used religion as an argument against black people, white people getting married because they were in love and it's the same arguments that we are hearing right now in a first amendment context trying to use the same arguments that a belief in what the bible says, literally harry truman, the judge in the county court that

imprisoned the lovings said which is, it's in the bible, the judge himself had said we had separate continents with people of different races because god didn't intend them to mix. i sit here as someone who is a product of that mixture saying we are hearing the exact same arguments, exactly the same, and it is because the implications that we're hearing from justices sotomayor and ketanji brown jackson are exactly the same implications. it comes for all of us so we have to stand together on this. >> maya, i want to follow up with something i read -- i read twice. i couldn't believe this was real. this is nbc's reporting today, alito asked whether a black santa at the mall is obligated to take a picture with a child dressed up in a kkk outfit even if he didn't want to.

alito quipped, quote, you do see a lot of black children in kkk outfits, right, all the time, end quote, drawing scattered laugher. is this where we are? >> apparently it is where we are. and we're here for all the wrong reasons and it has nothing to do with what our constitution says and with the pay in which we look to the supreme court to protect fundamental rights. this supreme court said, it is a fundamental right to allow people to choose who they marry, even if they want to marry someone if it is of the same sex. to be hearing this kind of argument, to be having this kind of crude discussion, this frankly -- i think deeply troubling discussion from some of the people who sit in the most powerful seats in this land, who literally can determine whether or not we have

something as fundamental as a right to decide who we interact with and to have private sector businesses not discriminate against us because we have demanded the dignity of being recognized for who we love and being able to have our families recognized, our humanity recognized, that's what we're talking about here. and, you know, i want my daughter who is a lesbian to be able to get married and to do it her way and not to be told that she doesn't have the same dignity that i have. that can't stand. >> brian fallon, i'm sorry to make you go after maya. i'm always sorry to make anyone do that. the decision to hear this case at all was probably driven by several factors, an increasingly assertive six justice conservative supermajority, a sense that her designs were more likely to be expression protected by the first amendment and the desire of at least some justices to undo or limit the

2015 decision establishing a right to same-sex marriage. this is real. it's on. what justice thomas wrote in his opinion when roe v. wade is overturned, is very much part of the fabric of this court and what justice sotomayor described as the stench of the court, she was talking about republican legislatures who were passing laws because of the kinds of justices that trump had picked for the supreme court nominations. there's a sense, i think, sometimes that the left is overreacting. but literally every concern that anyone on the left has had about this court for two decades has come to pass and then some. >> right. and everything about this case today is dripping with bad faith. the court's decision to hear this case, the arguments being put forward by the people bringing this case. i want to inform your audience about two groups, let's peel the

curtain back for a second. we have two groups here, the alliance defending freedom and the becket found who brought many of these cases, and a key brief was filed, these are groups that if any of the people worked at these organizations ran for congress in a purple district, they would be tarred as extreme and lose the election. they hate the direction of the country in the last 50 years. they oppose the roe decision, so what do they do? they try to find sympathetic plaintiffs and try to package up these new constitutional arguments that are just dressed up attempts to create a new right to discriminate. justices like alito and clarence thomas who have been trying to decide these cases in a favorable way, in favor of so-called religious liberty take the cases and presumably are going to issue a decision in favor of this website design company, but this goes exactly

to what elena kagan was talking about in several appearances that she made throughout the summer and the fall. she said courts start to lose their legitimacy when the public starts to view them as not behaving like courts and that's what's happening here. we're seven years removed from the decision that decided there was a right to same-sex marriage in this country. we're four years from that decision where they punted on a case with similar facts. the only thing that has changed from the masterpiece cake shop case is that anthony kennedy and ruth bader ginsburg are no longer on this court. so alito and thomas believe they have the votes to create a new right to discriminate against same-sex couples in this country. i think the country will see through that. >> we're already there. i think you're less than 24% of all americans who feel very good -- or strongly approve of the united states supreme court which is down i think 40% from 20 years ago. everyone stick around.

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is that where we're heading? >> yeah, i mean, here's the thing about this case. they're going to hang their hat -- there's no question in my mind that the supreme court is, once again, going to backtrack on rights that americans enjoy, this is a new thing with this court. they are the takeaway rights court. not the solidify your rights or establish your rights but take them away. and they're doing it around two things. how is putting up a technical website for a couple that's going to marry different than a chef making a plate of foot with an artistic flare with, you know -- i mean, we've all had plates of food that have an artistic flare to them. what is the difference there and what -- when somebody says it's what i believe and my religion, how do you combat that? how do you combat that? what if my religion is that i

believe that women shouldn't work outside the home? does that mean that no longer can a photographer that works for a newspaper take pictures of successful women in the workplace? they talked about that hypothetical at the court this morning. so this is such a slippery slope. and the court is going to do permanent and lasting damage because what they're doing is very, very unpopular with most americans and not for the wrong reasons. like it might have been back when they were making decisions on desegregation and civil rights. but rather, the decisions are unpopular with americans for the right reasons. and that is we should not discriminate in a country where all people are created equal. >> brian, i haven't had a chance to talk to you since the midterms were 60% of respondents in their first round of exit polls opposed dobbs and opposed the united states supreme court. the supreme court appears right

now to become for the left the opportunity that the right made it for, what, 40, 60 years, right? a voting issue, an electoral emergency. i guess my question is, how do you -- the politics may be very good. but the damage done to the american people and people at risk of losing their rights so grave. how do you balance the two and make sure you're storytelling on both? >> well, you're absolutely right, nicolle, the midterms told an important story both in terms of evidencing the backlash to the dobbs decision and vindicating the idea that democracy is an assailant concern to the public. democratic consultant criticizing biden for talking about our democracy being at stake. both of these issues point in favor of democrats prosecuting a case against this court. and that begins i think with doing things like investigating

the recent revelations in the "new york times" report from a couple weeks ago about influence campaigns that have been waged to try to sway these right-wing justice and is that's why i think it's great news that the house has announced that they're going to hold a hearing this week, i hope they'll call the whistle-blower in that article to testify. but really the hope for investigating these types of issues lies in the senate since the house is going to be changing hands in a month. i hope that the senate will take the baton up because it's one thing to make a case against this supreme court in terms of the unpopular decisions that it's reaching. it's another thing to show the corruption and the special interests that are at work because that proves that this is not the rule of law that's been carried out, it's not constitutional interpretation, it's power and politics being played by politicians in robes. with e need to tell that story to the american public. >> maya, last word. >> brian is making really important points. i just want to say we're seeing

how this very same court is making it difficult for we the people to decide who leads us, who are the same people who decide then who gets put on the court. so if we're really going to be a democracy, if we're really going to support a plural democracy, one that stands up for all of us and sees us all as equal, it means we have to have an equal voice. and while we were able to show up at the polls, it was far too hard for far too many because of this very supreme court, they're about to consider more damage this week. >> let's come back, the four of us, when the house has -- as brian said in the twilight of the democrat-controlled house, that hearing. thank you so much for being with us on this story today. up next, officials are calling it targeted and intentional, the attack on a north carolina power grid. the fbi is involved. what they could be looking for in terms of a motive when we come back. that story is next. that story it

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. 45,000 people were left without power amid freezing temperatures after a suspect or suspects shot up two power substations in moore county, north carolina around 7:00 p.m. saturday evening. the fbi has now joined the investigation into what officials are describing as a targeted attack. authorities say the motive is at this hour unknown. asked if there was any connection to a 7:00 p.m. lgbtq

plus drag show in the city of southern pines on saturday, the moore county sheriff said, "it is possible, yes. anything is possible. but we have not been able to tie anything back to the drag show." the county declared an overnight curfew for the remainder of the week, and around 33,000 people still right now remain without power. that could last until thursday. joining us, former fbi assistant director for counterintelligence, msnbc national security analyst frank figliuzzi. so frank, the fbi's there. what questions are they asking? what would you ask? >> well, we all want to know who and why. and that's where the fbi comes in. not only generally when they respond to crimes and support locals and state authorities like this. they are going to develop a profile. they're going to help with forensic, physical evidence. all of that, yes. but we know the fbi of course is the lead agency for active domestic terrorism. and they're going to be pursuing

motive here. and yes, it's quick and convenient to say look, we know about this planned drag show in town. it happens i think every year. and yes, the coordinators of that show have been receiving unprecedented levels of threats or disagreement over this. so they'll be exploring all of that. the communications around that event. but let's not necessarily do the quick and convenient thing. because there's something much larger going on here, nicolle. we saw something similar to this in california in 2013. it's never been solved. it was at a pacific gas and electric facility. sniper fire was used to take out transformers at a substation. and it woke everybody up in law enforcement to how vulnerable the threat was to our infrastructure, our power grid, and lots of security took place after that. cameras and patrols and all kinds of things that are in place now. particularly at a big player like duke energy in north carolina. where this happened. so this requires a degree of sophistication. the bigger thing going on here is the knowledge it takes to know what you're shooting at,

what equipment, the relay system, the backup that's going to happen to the next substation when the first one you shoot at goes down, and then we know in law enforcement that there's been increased chatter and even specific instructions as recently as last year in something called the accelerationist's handbook that shows you how to do this. the theory behind this, the idea, the bigger idea here is that you can quickly destabilize society and get to chaos if you pull the plug, literally. they see electricity, nicolle, as the great equalizer in society that makes everybody kind of equal. they don't like that. so they want survivalists and white nationalists. this is the far right side of accelerationist theory. because there's a far left side too. but the far right side which has been chatting about this ad gnaws yam for the past couple of years thinks you pull the plug and you get to the chaos to destabilize society and the guys with the weapons, the guys who've trained on weekend for

survivalists, to become survivalists, they get the power at that point. >> frank, late last week we also saw dhs and the fbi issue a new homeland security bulletin specifically warning communities, jewish communities and lgbtq plus communities that there was a heightened threat level against them. what questions will the fbi be asking in those areas? >> so you're right to link these two things, the bulletin and then this event, because you know, bulletins don't come out of thin air. right? it's intelligence driven. and so there's chatter out there that drove this bulletin. analysts aren't going hey-i think tuesday we should release something about the threat of severe weather. no. there's a forecast happening, right? so let's see what happens with regard to fbi now going to dhs and their own analysts talking to each other and saying yeah, now anything in that chatter that looks like north carolina, that looks like the drag show in north carolina.

we all know, you've been reporting on it, that the drag show theme that, you know, this is all about targeting children and grooming children, that's out there big-time and people even on so-called mainstream media are claiming people should be killed for -- in asoefths with drag shows. so all of this is combining to have an increased threat environment. don't be surprised if this ends up not as some teenagers out for a crazy night but rather domestic terrorism-motivated people. >> it's just amazing how often we come back to a conversation about domestic terrorism. it's just -- it's such a sea change, you know, in our adult lifetimes. frank figliuzzi, thank you so much for helping us understand it at this point. a quick break for us, and then my friend and colleague joy reid will join us live from georgia. don't go anywhere.

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we're not about to be lulled into sleep because the issues are too urgent, the stakes are too high, and the differences between me and herschel walker are way too wide for us to sleep through this election. i feel good, but we're going to press all the way to victory. >> hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york, just over 24 hours from right now the results will begin pouring in from georgia's runoff election for the u.s. senate seat. as you just heard, senator raphael warnock speak to, he and his opponent, herschel walker, are two strikingly different candidates, two strikingly different humans. candidates with vastly different approaches to the issues and to

the solutions as well as different approaches to their campaigns in the final days. politico reports this -- "over the weekend warnock had the heavier schedule of the two. on saturday and sunday he sprinted to six events in various cities while also delivering a sermon at ebenezer baptist church, where he serves as a senior pastor. he told parishioners that voting is a form of prayer." walker appeared at two events -- a tailgate in atlanta before a university of georgia football game on sunday, where he did not speak, and a sunday rally in loganville, where his stump speech touched on everything from complaints about pronouns and critical race theory to funding law enforcement. that limited schedule of walker's is reportedly making his republican allies sweat. "the new york times" reports this -- "some have feared that walker, who was endorsed by trump, is running at a time to draw moderate conservatives and black voters who make up about 1/3 of georgia's electorate and appear to overwhelmingly support

warnock. but if white republicans across the state show up for walker, it could propel him to victory. which means this race could all come down to tomorrow and tomorrow's turnout." the runoff election has already seen record early voter turnout, especially in democratic-leaning counties. according to the secretary of state's office, 1.85 million voters have cast early ballots through the weekend. almost all of them in person. but republicans won the day off, election day vote. the choice between georgians is stark. as senator warnock spoke about this weekend on reflecting on his previous runoff victory just two years ago. watch. >> on january 5th georgia sends an african american man and a jewish man, both touched in different ways by john lewis. i was his pastor. jon was his mentee. sending us both to the senate on january 5th. and then on january 6th the most

violent assault on the nation's capitol that we've seen since the war of 1812, driven by racist and anti-semitic and xenophobic tropes. so here's where we are, beloved. we are somewhere between january 5th and january 6th. we shouldn't make this too easy. we can't claim that we're not january 6th. there's a sense in which we are. there's a sense in which we always have been. but the good news is that's not all we are. we are also january 5th, when a kid who grew up in public housing, one of 12 children, the first college graduate in my family, can get elected to serve in the united states senate. we're also january 5th. >> georgia's all-important runoff election is where we begin the hour with some of our

most favorite reporters and friends. my dear friend andag reid joins us live from georgia. she's the host of msnbc's "the reid out." also joining us patricia murphy, political columnist for the "atlanta journal-constitution." and alexi mckennet is here, axios political reporter, also an msnbc contributor. so joy, you're there. there's so much in the recent muscle memory of the election day he's talking about two years ago. and then it's almost -- i mean, jump the shark is putting it sharply enough i think to talk about herschel walker as an opponent, but just take me through what it feels like to be there. >> well, i have to tell you, first of all, i'm at manuel's tavern, which is a legendary spot for democrats here going all the way back to bill clinton was here, jimmy carter, you name it. every sort of star of the democratic party has been here in this space. this is sort of a sacred space to be coming from tonight. you know, i think there's a

certain on the one hand level of exhaustion in georgia. it feels like this is the votingest state in the union because they have to vote essentially twice a year every year because of this runoff situation. so there's a certain amount of exhaustion. but i also think that for -- particularly for democrats in this state it's a matter of pride at this point. you know, they see reverend warnock, raphael warnock, senator warnock, as really a pride of the state. he is obviously the pastor of ebenezer babbtivity church here. legendary church here. he's in that tradition. he's more of a traditional politician that's running a more traditional campaign. whereas herschel walker is something else. and i think that at this point it's a matter of pride of saying that georgia ought to be represented by a certain level of person with a certain level of dignity. that's kind of what i'm hearing over and over, that people are willing to come back out and do this again and again and again, i've heard some people express surprise that warnock didn't go

over 50% in the election. our good friend sahil kapoor has some great reporting that there's more than 77,000 voters who reported not having voted in november because they thought, they assumed warnock would win and are now coming out and voting. and that demographic, you know, there are more asian american, there are more latino, there are more african american, demographically they look a lot more like warnock voters. i think there's a cautious optimism on the warnock side of this. but i think there's a fear. i have to be honest with you. i've heard from people all over the country who keep saying to me, herschel walker absolutely cannot be a united states senator. there's a certain matter of humiliation in the idea of someone like that being a senator, to be blunt. >> so you and i are the two that sort of sit there white-knuckled waiting for the results to come in, for kornacki to wave, and i think we both draw on some of the granular knowledge of campaigns.

what are you hearing from sort of operatives about what they need tomorrow in terms of same-day vote when you look at the mountain of early vote? but i know we're going to talk to nick corsani, the mail-in vote has all but dried up because of the changes there. just take me through what the targets are for same-day vote. >> it's interesting. and you and i both know this very well. the way that campaigns operate has changed so much from when we were on the other side of one another in 2004. it used to be that republicans would run up these huge totals in absentee vote, democrats would because of soles to the polls and weekend voting and younger voters would run up big totals in early vote and then it was sort of a race to the finish on election day. it really is now for the herschel walker campaign, they've kind of put it all on tomorrow. right? like they have to get a huge turnout possibly in the rain. it's chilly down here. it's not like a warm atlanta, you know, week. it's raining. and so they now have to count on

people being self-motivated enough to come because they're going to need to make up a lot of ground. the warnock team has run up huge totals in the early vote. just looking at what the early vote looks like, it's heavily democratic. it's slightly older. but there's a lot of young voters that are in there. it's got more asian american, more african american and more latino voters than usual. and for a runoff especially, this is record early turnout, that is really a warnock vote. so to channel my steve kornacki for a minute, it's now going to be a question of whether enough people are motivated by herschel walker himself, by something about him or his candidacy to come out and vote tomorrow. but he's barely campaigning. he's actually not campaigning. he's not talking to the press. he keeps the press 20 feet away from him. he's really not talking -- look, he challenged me to a debate, nicolle. i can't find him. he won't even call my team back. we were like sure, let's debate. he could have come here to

manuel's. we can't find him. somebody tell him to call me. >> if he's watching, what is it? herschel, if you're watching. that's amazing. i mean, that's an amazing strategy. and i guess one more thing, joy. walker ran so far behind kemp and i think kemp ran so far behind raffensperger. and neither raffensperger nor kemp are on the ballot. what's the strategy? >> and claire mccaskill said this so brilliantly. the motivation to vote for herschel walker in november was the possibility of having walker have the seat that gave republicans the majority. that's off the table now. he's trying to make this complicated argument now for voters that, well, now it's about who gets committees, who gets the gavels. that's not really a motivating, you know, message for voters generally for a runoff election. and he's not good at making the argument because he really can't explain what the committee

process is or what he'd be doing. like he's not good at explaining what being a senator means. so if he's the guy out there making the argument, well, this is about who gets committees and chairmanships on committees, that's really not a strong argument for him to make. now what you're seeing is essentially a herschel walker campaign without herschel walker. he's essentially left it to governor kemp. kemp is sending out mailers that don't even talk about herschel walker. they're talking about all these other things about georgia values and they're sort of alluding to herschel walker. but essentially they're hoping that people who like kemp will come out because they like kemp, not because of herschel walker himself but that somehow kemp voters will be self-motivated to vote for herschel walker. it is a very strange, you know, pool table one off the backboard spin it around, miss the black ball and have it go into the -- you know, it's really complicated what they're trying to do. >> patricia, the other side of

that is the sophistication of the georgia voters. to joy's point, they do this a lot. political information over the last two to four years. what are you hearing? >> so what i'm hearing is a lot of what joy is hearing. the two motivating factors, the two best things that herschel walker had going for him in november, really didn't have anything to do with herschel walker. it was control of the u.s. senate and the fact that governor brian kemp is very, very popular here in this state. he had a lot of crossover appeal with democrats, independents. take those two pieces off of the ballot with herschel walker and herschel walker has a big problem. they wanted, the herschel walker campaign wanted this conversation to be about joe biden and inflation. unfortunately for them, it has become really a conversation about herschel walker. i was with herschel walker earlier today. he is back out on the campaign trail. he had a really light weekend. he had about four events earlier today. he'll have one later tonight. his events are smaller. his speeches are very short,

almost pe funk tri. he just did sort of a lap around the pool hall for one event. and it just feels like a campaign that's losing altitude. it felt before the campaign like it was anyone's race, and right now it just feels like he and his team just feel a little bit defeated. now, because it's georgia anything can happen. and i had conversations with a lot of voters at those herschel walker events just to sense their enthusiasm. they were super enthusiastic. this is way up in north georgia and these are the voters he's got to get to turn out in larger numbers than they did in november, which is hard. and i said something like tell me what you think about raphael warnock, and they just said evil. tell me what you think about herschel walker. "christian. i believe him. i believe everything he believes." so there is a big group of herschel walker fans down here. whether that is a majority of georgia voters, that is going to be the question without kemp and the u.s. senate on the ballot it's a much, much harder mountain for that team to climb. >> and alexi, to everything

that's already been said, i know from my experience on campaigns that when a voter hears the same thing from democrats as they do from republicans the hill becomes even steeper. he's the republican lieutenant governor geoff duncan basically saying herschel walker is disqualified, not qualified, not fit to serve. >> i'm a conservative because i think it's the best way to govern. i've bain republican a lot longer than a lot of folks. i think i've got kids probably that can articulate the conservative platform better than some of the candidates donald trump and his group supported all across the country. this wasn't the right brand for republicanism. and i think herschel walker will probably go down as one of the worst republican candidates in our party's history. >> viewers of this program know who that is. he's been pretty outspoken. his critiques of trump. but everyone in georgia knows who that is. that is one of georgia's most prominent republicans, the sitting lieutenant governor. >> yeah.

and i mean, he's sort of saying the quiet part out loud, that the senator mcconnells and others will not say, that herschel walker is not the mt electable candidate. that's clear in november. that's going to be clear i think in the early vote numbers which we've seen, which democrats are incredibly heartened by. but when republicans actually speak out loud about what they feel about herschel walker and his place in the party, they give other voters and republicans cover not to support him, especially those who might be on the fence or who might be -- who might not know a lot about herschel walker. this just sort of reinforces this idea that you don't have to support the party after all. >> alexi, you've got some great new reporting about a young gen z political superstar coming in to close. tell us about it. >> yeah. and i'm curious if joy ran into him. congressman-elect maxwell frost. he's only 25. he hasn't even taken his seat in the house yet. but democrats have called on him

to rally young voters and students today and tomorrow. the thinking is that young voters, those who haven't turned out yet, are motivated to do something that's more urgent. so they thought having him come, you know, the day before the day of the vote would be the most motivating for those voters. i had a colleague from axios atlanta emma hurt who was at the event with frost and senator ossoff and she said there were a lot of people there very excited, you know, getting up on their feet, cheering. she said it sort of felt like the reception that a boy band would get at times. clearly the rally worked to their favor today, but that's how maxwell frost i think will continue to be used throughout the party. >> joy, you and i both had him on our shows. he has a lot of retail political skills that people two, three, four times his age do not possess. >> he does. and he's going to be here tonight. we're going to have him on. and yeah, i mean, there is -- let's just say there is a fandom that he and senator ossoff

already have. it is really interesting because it used to be that republicans were better at fielding kind of candidates that appealed to sort of more the showbiz aspects. wee this before. democrats are generally not good at the showbiz part of politics. but this cycle i feel like they did an excellent job in candidate recruitment in terms of finding people who could appeal outside of those who were obsessed with politics. and maxwell frost is one of them. he's somebody that just appeals to people in a lot of the way same way aoc does. he's young. and he speaks like a normal person, not like a politician. ossoff's very similar. so they campaigning together i think is really powerful. they're having a lot of energy at their events because of that. and i think the buddy act between warnock and ossoff has also done really good things for both of them as politicians. and you know, to something that you were just talking about a little while ago, nicolle, this is not a trumpy state. this is not florida.

right? florida feels like a state that is more sort of trump's kind of milieu. atlanta is now little hollywood. right? atlanta is a place where the supposed sort of liberal hollywood media lives. and it is doing business. billions and billions of dollars' worth. and because, you know, rural georgia is where the fans of herschel walker are, but just numberswise there are just so many more people. so many more humans and voters in the atlanta suburbs and in atlanta proper that it just becomes a numbers game. and when you take the independent voters and you take the democrats you're talking about a huge plurality of voters who, yeah, they'll vote for kemp. but remember, kemp defied trump. what did kemp do that was notable in the last couple of years? whatever you want to think of him in terms of what he's done to voters, and i mean a lot of what he's done to voters has been pretty nefarious. that republican voter law is the

reason we have long lines here. it is the reason that absentee voting has dropped and collapsed. but he also survived standing up to trump and refusing to steal the election for him. he stood up not just to trump but to lindsey graham, who tried to pressure him to steal the election. and so right now georgia has become the center of not never trumpism but stand up to trumpism. because the lieutenant governor is literally saying that trump's picks are the worst candidates ever to stand in the republican party and getting away with it. and he is somebody who's seen as somebody who could build a future for a new republican party that walks away from trump. and kemp, while he doesn't push trump away by name, he pushed him away in the most fundamental way he could have. by not going along with his cuckoo idea that he won this state, which he didn't.

so this is a more pragmatic state than a state like florida. trump can't pull his shenanigans here. he's going to be here virtually today. he's doing a phone, like virtual town hall for herschel walker. that's a pretty big climb-down for a former president of the united states who trades on his rallies as the way that he projects his political power and influence. >> that's aamazing. and all those republicans have testified in a criminal investigation into him. trump could also -- georgia could be the first place he's indicted criminally for the coup plot. >> correct. >> if fani willis gathers the evidence to do that. so joy's going to interview senator raphael warnock as well as congressman-elect frost, right? >> yeah. >> who else do you have? >> yeah, we're excited. it's going to be great. we're going to talk to both of them. we have some great political reporters. sahil kapoor is going to be here. we'll talk tower guys. our journalists get the best journalism out of what is

happening in georgia. we're going to lead off, though, with senator warnock. and by the way, the invitation is still open to herschel. herschel walker, you wanted to debate me. brother, come on down. there's a seat right here. [ cheers and applause ] there's a crowd behind me. they would like to hear from you. so manuel's tavern. everybody knows it. you'll get a good reception. some great food. come on down, herschel. the water's fine. my name is joy. there's nothing tobe afraid of. >> i'll order the uber if you get a yes. >> there you go. that's a deal. >> joy reid. thank you so much. thank you so much. we'll all be watching you at 6:00 -- at 7:00. patricia and alexi are sticking around. we're going to get to that other reporting we're talk about. we'll be joined by nick course nooeti still ahead as well. as we've been discussing early voting in georgia's senate runoff has been strong. it's not the whole story. how georgia's new voting law that joy just mentioned, signed by governor kemp, suppressed those absentee mail-in voters

heading into tomorrow's election. plus fox news facing a 1.6 billion with a b dollar defamation lawsuit from dominion voting systems after spreading lies and misinformation about that company in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. there are big new developments to tell you about. and a mysterious headline from tehran, that the iranian regime was disbanding its morality police. the hard-line enforcers the islamic republic's strict dress code. but there is a lot of uncertainty over what that means and what is actually happening. we'll sort through what we know later in the show. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. ndemic, innovation refunds could qualify it for a payroll tax refund of up to $26,000 per employee, even if you got ppp. and all it takes is eight minutes to find out. then we'll work with you to fill out your forms and submit the application. that easy. innovation refunds has helped businesses like yours claim over $1 billion in payroll tax refunds. but it's only available for a limited time.

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as we've all been discussing there are new laws on the books and there's some fantastic brand new reporting from the "new york times" that explores how even though this georgia runoff election is seeing extraordinary early in person voting numbers voting by mail is a completely different story. "data released by the georgia secretary of state showed that mail voting in the state's november election plunged by 81% from the level of the 2020 contest. while a drop was expected after the height of the pandemic, georgia had a far greater decrease than any other state with competitive statewide races. that's according to a "new york times" analysis. the numbers are the first sign of how the 2021 law may have affected the election in georgia. the law was signed by governor brian kemp, a republican, and backed by gop state lawmakers, who said that the changes would make it, quote, easier to vote, harder to cheat. it significantly limited drop boxes, added voter identification requirements, and

prevented election officials from proactively mailing out absentee ballot applications. joining us, the author of that reporting, "new york times" domestic correspondent nick corsaniti. nick, there wasn't any fraud in georgia in the drop boxes or the absentee ballots, was there? >> no, there was not. >> so tell me -- i mean, this was a bombshell and it really -- it sort of cuts the euphoria of the early voting numbers with this reality check. there's been an 81% drop in absentee mail voting. >> yeah. and when you look at what sv-202 the georgia voting law was set out to do and the atmosphere in which it came into being, it was after mail-in volting was embraced widely by democrats, by voters of color and kind of helped flip georgia blue in 2020. so the law that was passed last year significantly limited drop boxes, made it so that election officials and the secretary of state couldn't proactively mail

out mail ballot applications to voters, which is a very effective way of letting voters know that this is an option and this is how they could vote. and it also added new other identification restrictions and things like that to mail voting. so it really put mail voting i think in its crosshairs and we saw that play out in the general election. other states like michigan saw mail-in voting drop by about 15%, which was expected after an election held in a pandemic to one that's held in a post-pandemic era. and just seeing turnout kind of drop from a presidential to a midterm election. so there was some kind of drop-off. but seeing just the level and the extent to which mail voting dropped in georgia appears to be one possible effect of the new voting law. now, at the same time turnout alone is a very murky indicator for trying to understand the impact of this voting law. it obscured any kind of

difficulty or challenges that voters had to overcome to simply cast their ballots. i talked to one voter who he was actually a volunteer with a voting rights organization. this is someone who knows the ins and outs of this voting law and thought that the drop box that would be near his house would still be open past 5:00 p.m. and it turned out it wasn't. he's a student. so he couldn't cast his ballot when he wasn't in class by drop boxes, wouldn't have been able to mail it back in time to get it in election officials' hands by election day in order for it to count. so he had to wake up early before class to vote on election day, and he said he waited in line for about 45 minutes or so. so turnout obscures those kind of issues too. so i think it's going to be a long time until we fully know exactly what this law did to impact the turnout of voters in the midterm elections but one thing we can clearly see is mail-in voting took a nose dive in georgia. >> interesting that it took a nose dive, again, much, much larger than any other battleground state.

and i remember covering a lot the time i had brad raffensperger on the show and he said it's a good law. and i said it's an opinion but what does it do? he said it prevents fraud. was there any fraud? he said no. so again, it was a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist in georgia. and it's amazing what not going along with a coup does. right? there was no political price to pay for chemical. and raffensperger. but talk about the grassroots work that democrats have had to do to educate voters to get around a law, again, that was solving a problem that didn't exist. >> both parties have had to reeducate their voters on how to vote with the new rules from v in place with sb-202. i'll tell you one of the reasons it's so much harder to vote by mail. you have to have a printer because in order to just do an application to get your absentee ballot you have to print it off and put your signature on it and then go ahead and mail it in. i haven't had a printer in my home for five years.

most people, especially younger voters, don't have printers. it's just much, much harder just to get the absentee ballot back. it also shortened the window from when the secretary of state could send it and when it could be received. a lot of this goes back to election day in georgia in 2020 when donald trump had won the popular vote on election day and then as those mail-in returns came in and were counted and counted and counted that window shrank and shrank and shrank and you could just feel donald trump's anxiety and anger and fury increase and not all of that was incoming to georgia lawmakers, is it was also incoming to voters, republican voters, who then turned around and demanded their gop lawmakers make some kind of a change. and on the drop boxes the law changed to say you have to go inside a polling location only during voting hours to access a drop box and even then it's limited by population. so you can't have as many as you want if you're a county. it's really capped at 165,000 per one drop box.

so the idea of drop boxes being a convenient way to do this, that's off the table. and the idea of just getting an absent cree ballot, i have multiple friends who say i've got two and three degrees, i cannot figure it this out, i'm just going to go wait in line. so a lot of those lines that we saw and those very high numbers of single-day turnout, that's because it's harder to vote by mail. also the runoff shrank from 17 days of early voting to five days. all compressed into that. we don't know exactly how election day's going to go tomorrow because we think a lot of people have been displaced onto election day. so that will be probably in favor of republicans and we'll just have to see exactly what happens. >> alexi, it's so amazing. drop boxes i think are one of the most secure ways to vote. there are far more signature requirements for an absentee ballot. republicans in their folly to address fraud that didn't exist addressed security threats that don't exist. he they went after the most secure forms of voting. just talk about what we will know 48 hours from now about

these laws and about the results that we didn't know -- that we don't know at this point. >> well, i think the early turnout numbers, especially again among young voters and voters of color speaks to what you were just talking to patricia about, which is the organizing work these grassroots leaders have done really sort of encouraging people to vote early in case there are any problems that arise with their voting. and you know, that's important because as patricia was saying these rules have just made it more challenging for people across the board to figure out how to even access their ability to vote. we will see whether tomorrow how the extent of that will affect democrats. we will also see whether and how it cut down on the fraud that didn't exist or led to more voter fraud in some cases. but i think republicans want this to be their ongoing culture

war and they love talking about how, again, as we were just discussing in 2020 they say things went awry with no evidence and they've used that conspiracy theory to change laws and make it harder for people to vote. >> it's amazing. nick, patricia, alexi, thank you so much for spending time with us today. nick, thank you for your reporting. ahead for us, the deposition of a top member of the murdoch family in that $1.6 billion with a b lawsuit against fox. where dominion's defamation case stands after so much disinformation. that story's next. after so much disinformation that story's next. talling windo, charging something like a hundred bucks a window when other guys were charging four to five-hundred bucks. he just didn't wanna do that. he was proud of the price he was charging. ♪♪ my dad instilled in me, always put the people before the money. be proud of offering a good product at a fair price. i think he'd be extremely proud of me, yeah. ♪♪

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today a potential lesson in actions and constants. lachlan murdoch. he is the chief executive of the fox corporation. he's the oldest son of rupert murdoch. he was set to be deposed, answer questions under oath as art of a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit. it all goes back to donald trump's big lie and the bullhorn that fox news gave that asinine and unproven allegation, that there had been widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, specifically what some of its personalities had to say on air about dominion voting systems in the context of some larger conspiracy. while fox has in the past settled other very sensitive lawsuits before they've gone to trial, "the new york times" is reporting this. "a settlement would dominion appears to be a remote possibility at this point. fox has said that the broad

protections provided to the media under the first amendment shield it from liability. the network says it was merely reporting on trump's accusations, which are protected speech, even if the president is lying. dominion's complaints outlines examples in which fox hosts did much more than just report those false claims. they endorsed them." joining us now, nick confessoree, "new york times" investigative reporter, also an msnbc political analyst. let me show our viewers who may not be regular fox viewers some of what the -- the kind of coverage that fox news gave and seemed to embrace about fraud and dominion. >> dominion came under heavy fire after allegations that their machines caused thousands of votes in one michigan county to be switched from donald trump to joe biden. >> the machines can be hacked. there's no question about that. their machines can be hacked. >> the president's lawyer's alleging a company called dominion, which they say started in venezuela with coupen money and with the assistance of

smartmatic software, a back door is capable of flipping votes. >> you know the votes in dominion, they say, are counted in foreign countries. >> we have evidence of how they flip the votes, how it was designed to flip the votes. >> nick, just take me through the stakes here for fox. >> well, this is really important, nicolle. it's not against the law to make an honest mistake in journalism or on tv. and thank god for that, right? what we have with fox, though, is a pattern of having these claims echoed and repeated for weeks and weeks after being told they were wrong. at one point dominion started sending producers and bookers a list of factual assertions and rebuttals to stop doing this. what today's testimony from lachlan murdoch could reveal is how far you have this knowledge went. what we don't know in suing fox as a corporation, it's important to show fox took responsibility

for this and that it was happening. so this deposition could tell us a bit if lachlan murdoch, the top of the food chain at fox, was aware that the claims being on the air all the time were in fact without merit or base. >> you know, to your point about making mistakes, i misspelled jail on tv today. so it is good that we can be stupid on tv. but this is so much more what they did. and i wonder -- we have a window into what sean hannity and -- who's on after him? laura ingraham was texting mark meadows. i mean, they clearly knew that trump had lost and that the claims were bogus based on the kinds of things they were texting mark meadows. i mean, how much are their private communications acknowledging what they actually knew and believed going to be contrasted to their on-air statements? >> i'm sure quite a lot. and the essence of the lawsuit is to prove that fox and these hosts were aware of the truth at the time that they were echoing and repeating these lies. and the more important question

in some ways, nicolle, is why were they doing this? and the answer is money. according to this lawsuit, the claim made by dominion is that fox was echoing these conspiracy theories because they were losing market share to one america and to news maxx and so they felt they had to oblige their viewers who had come to believe the lie that president trump was telling them and they could not afford to tell the truth. and that's why we're here. >> i think we've also come to understand the fuller picture of the damage that was done by the lies through the 1-6 committee hearings. this is some of georgia election official gabe sterling. >> a little after lunch that day, lunchtime, i received a call from the project manager from dominion voting systems, who was oddly audibly shaken. she informed me about a young contractor they had who had been receiving threats from a video then posted by some qanon supporters. it was a particular tweet that

for lack of a better word was the straw that broke the camel's back. it had the young man's name. it was a very unique name. i believe he's a first generation american. it had his name. "you committed treason. may god have mercy on your soul." with a slowly twisting gif of a noose. and for lack of a better word, i lost it. i just got irate. >> that person was under threat because of these lies. so was mike pence. you know, if you're going for a more marquee name. there was a gallows created to hang mike pence because of the lie of voter fraud. i mean, how much is the actual physical danger that the lie put people in a part of this, or is it more narrowly focused? >> put aside the headline names, nicolle. it was also election administrators around the country, volunteers for canvassing boards, good citizens who were volunteering their time

to do work no one else wants to do, to count votes and make elections work right. there have been threats against them across the country. and it is all rooted in this cacophony of lies, this big lie about the stolen election and the decision by the president and his lawyers and these news channels to advance those claims all around the country and convince a lot of people they were true. that is the source of so much of the anger and dangerous behavior that we see, and it continued through the midterms. it is a lie that almost can't be undone by facts because people are there to believe that it's true instead of believing that they have lost. and that's been a poison to the democratic process, a poison to elections. >> does $1.6 billion hurt fox? >> it even hurts fox. it would hurt me, it would hurt you, but definitely even hurts fox. >> it would end you or me. but as you said, these lies are lucrative. so it's interesting that it's a meaningful sum even for fox. nick, we're so glad you're on

this story. we're going to continue to call on you to take us through the big developments. thank you for being with us today. >> thank you. shifting gears for us, what is really happening in iran? after reports that the regime's so-called morality police has been disbanded. is that window dressing or is that real? we'll break down that story after a quick break. don't go anywhere. after a quick break. don't go anywhere. to only get this far with her cholesterol. taken with a statin, leqvio can lower bad cholesterol by over 50% and keep it low with two doses a year. side effects were injection site reaction, joint pain, urinary tract infection, diarrhea, chest cold, pain in legs or arms, and shortness of breath. with leqvio, lowering cholesterol becomes just one more thing life throws your way. ask your doctor about leqvio. lower. longer. leqvio. (singing )i'll be home for christmas.

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that country's morality police a senior iranian announcement made a stunning and somewhat suspect announcement over the weekend that the morality police would be abolished. according to state media -- keep in mind the source -- iran's attorney general announced the ban. there are major questions about the legitimacy and veracity of this announcement. demonstrators in iran seemingly dismissed these reports entirely and continue with plans of three days of general strike across the country, heaping more pressure on the regime, which sees its greatest threat since coming to power in 1979. let's bring in ben rhodes, former deputy national security adviser to president obama, now an msnbc contributor. how did you -- i know a lot of iranian dissidents really view this with immense skepticism. how did you see this? as sort of papering over what they're actually doing or real? >> well, i think there are a couple of things you can take away from this, nicolle. the first is the way in which this rolled out indicates either

some disagreement or tentativeness in the government itself. this was not an assertive announcement from the supreme leader's office. this was kind of put out there almost like a trial balloon or almost reflective of potential divisions inside the iranian government. that tells you you're talking about a government that doesn't really have its stuff together, that doesn't really know what its playbook is. they've tried the crackdown playbook and it's still not working. the second thing is even if this announcement were true it is clearly too little too late. in a lot of these revolutions demands that might have, if you met them early in the revolution, led some people to go home, right now those demands are no longer just to abolish the morality police. it's against the entire nature of the regime of the islamic republic. so the entire nature of the islam republic. this is not going to take away the protesters, not going to turn off the unrest we've seen, and it speaks to a regime that's badly rattled by what's happening in the streets.

>> seemed directly targeted towards western audiences, not to alleviating the brutality on mostly women, and young women who are out on the streets. what's the danger of something this propaganda driven, and what do we need to watch out for when covering this regime with the appropriate amount of skepticism and distrust? >> speaks to some cynicism here terms of response of the protesters, i have to think unless they see fundamental changes in the nature of the regime, this is not going to go anywhere in term of addressing their concerns. and just to be specific, in the announcement saying that they would do away with the morality police, they haven't even really confirmed, they also said they'd continue to enforce social controls them doesn't change things. you might call the morality police something different, might fold it into what is essentially a police state apparatus with some regime affiliated militia, but this is not going to meet the demand of

those we've seen so bravely all these weeks on the streets. continued arrest in iran for months to come here, because there's this irreconcilable difference for protesters for a regime change and a regime that does not want to let go of the grip of power. >> do you think we have a full view of the brutality the protesters are enduring? >> i don't. because these protests seem to be completely nationwide. the ukrainian government goes to great lengths to conceal the truth from the outsiders. we get glimpses from social media, and what we see is at times horrifying. so even though you may have announcements like these tar tailored this international audiences, the lived reality of iranian on the streets is what's ultimately going to determine protesters view how to negotiate or evolve. and we have not seen anything on the streets that this is a regime willing to change its ways. >> just amazing.

honestly it's challenging to get it right and to cover it. we're grateful to you for helping us sift through this. quick break for us. we will be right back. will be . as someone living with type 2 diabetes, i want to keep it real and talk about some risks. with type 2 diabetes you have up to 4 times greater risk of stroke, heart attack, or death. even at your a1c goal, you're still at risk ...which if ignored could bring you here... ...may put you in one of those... ...or even worse. too much? that's the point. get real about your risks and do something about it. talk to your health care provider

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