who has been involved in a lot of very shady businesses. >> but he hasn't stood trial for them all. i just want to say, i think he is going to be indicted in georgia. i think what we are talking about is, when does he actually go to prison? we don't know. and mar-a-lago is the best bet. i completely agree with that. a man who's out here saying he's gonna run for president is facing very serious state charges. what he is known for is being a mob boss that says, wink, wink, nod, nod. he was not winking and nodding in this case. >> that is a very good point. charles coleman, i learned a lot the table, thank you very much. that is it for this special edition of all in, i hope you are having a fantastic holiday. have a great night. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> good evening and thank you >> good evening and thank you for joining us this hour. for joining us this hour. happy holidays. happy holidays. tonight, we start back in tonight, we start back in may. may.

it was a monday night, just after 8:30 eastern time when news broke that shook the entire country. political had the once in a lifetime scoop about a draft opinion. supreme court has voted to overturn abortion rights. we hold that roe and casey must be overruled, justice alito writes in a draft circulated inside the courtroom. that scoop, that headline changed everything. it certainly changed the course of the midterm elections. in that moment, the stakes of the upcoming november election, they skyrocketed. it gave democrats over a month and a half a head start to start campaigning on that issue before the opinion was handed down in late june. and on june 24th, the supreme court struck down roe v. wade. the law of the land for nearly 50 years, they stripped away reproductive rights for millions in this country. just six weeks later, the first test of abortion rights at the ballot box came in kansas.

voters in kansas headed to the polls in early august to vote on a constitutional amendment that would strip away abortion rights from the state constitution. in kansas, of all places, voters rejected that republican effort. people overwhelmingly voted to protect abortion rights in the state's constitution. it was not even close. voters in kansas rejected the amendment by nearly 60%. the turnout for that election soared. it was the largest turnout for a primary in the state's history. but beyond kansas, that primary changed the entire midterm election landscape. it gave the democrats bona fide momentum. until that point, all expectations were that the party was headed for traditional and sizeable midterm losses in congress. but that night in kansas, expectations shifted. voters were engaged, we are showing up in a way that was largely unseen in modern political history. and then there was the special election in new york's 19th

congressional district. democrat pat ryan campaigned on abortion rights, he even released his first ad that highlighted reproductive rights minutes after the supreme court overturned roe. pat ryan labelled his campaign as a referendum on abortion rights. that strategy worked. coupled with that, democrats headed into november with significant legislative momentum in congress. there was the american rescue plan, and the infrastructure bill. there was the sweeping gun reform legislation, the first in decades. the president biden signed this after roe fell. in early august, biden signed the landmark bill protecting veterans who were exposed to toxic burn pits. democrats fought a long battle to get that one past. they did it. the same week that president -- he also signed the chips and science act, a investment into chip manufacturing that is already started attracting business to u.s. soil. and then there was the inflation reduction act. president biden's massive and signature bill that invested

that bill that democrats hundreds of billions in climate change and health care, fighting inflation and setting a corporate minimum tax rate. passed into law is the largest investment combatting climate change ever. it was against that backdrop that democrats headed into the midterm elections. and yet, in the closing weeks of that race. questions about the economy and inflation, and crime, they seemed to cloud the midterm landscape. despite the utter insanity of the republican field, with candidates like kari lake and doug mastriano, the polls got really uncomfortably tight. there was finger-pointing and questioning about the democrat strategy and whether the party had focus on the wrong issues. expectations once again reverted back to historical patterns and then got worse. but as it turns out, the message had been the right one. the candidates had been the

right ones. against precedent, the democrats did a lot better than expected. they outperformed all predictions. this great so-called red wave never materialized. instead, republicans squeaked out a nine seat majority in the house. the democrats not only held on to the senate, but they gain a seat with raphael warnock's victory in the georgia runoff. at the state level, democrats just knocked it out of the park. they flipped four state legislative chambers. also the pennsylvania house. they reelected michigan democratic governor gretchen whitmer, giving democrats control of all three bodies in that key swing state. it is the first time the party had full governing control in michigan in nearly 40 years. democrats offended off republicans from having a supermajority in wisconsin and in kansas by defying the odds and maintaining control of the governorship in both states. so, as we head into 2023 and the start of a new congress, where do we go from here? what can we expect from this

new congress where democrats will no longer be in control of the house and republicans are eager to exert their power whenever and wherever possible. what can even get done with a divided congress? joining us now is former missouri democratic senator claire mccaskill and mark, staff writer at the atlantic and author of thank you for your servitude. donald trump's washington and the price of submission. claire, mark, it is great to close out the year with you. and claire, i just want to start with you first since you are a creature of the senate and know it's contours well. you are someone who has led fierce campaigns yourself, is there anything about the midterm elections that surprised you? >> well, listen, i get that dobbs was an earthquake politically. i understand that democracy was very important. at the end of the day, this is about candidate quality, it really is. if you look in pennsylvania,

dr. oz, if you look in many states. if you look at georgia, when extreme candidates were nominated by the republican party. when trump election deniers were nominated, what most of the states did was, they said we are not going to go down that road. that is not what we are looking for in our elected representatives. as we look towards the next election, and believe me, a lot of people in the senate are already doing that, i know it feels like we just got 51, 24 is brutal for us. we have montana, we have west virginia, we have ohio. once again we have pennsylvania. we have wisconsin, ron johnson just got reelected. we can talk about victories in wisconsin. ron johnson is a terrible senator and he just got reelected. and then in arizona, where it was a squeaker and nevada, that is also a squeaker. those states are all up in 2024. it is about finding the right candidates if there are any open seats, which doesn't look

like there is going to be. >> mark, should democrats be dismayed at that assessment? obviously, there was a coordinated message. there were legislative victories, there is the reality that republicans ran bonkers candidates. herschel walker was a bonkers candidate, so was mehmet oz, so was doug mastriano, so was don bolduc. one would think that republicans won't do that again, so what should democrats take away from their victories in the last election? >> there is a very clear glass half empty view of this, which is that herschel walker, kari lake, adam laxalt came extremely close. despite all of herschel walker 's herschel walker-ness and terry lake's kerry lake-ness. it could've gone the other way. clare's right, the math is absolutely brutal.

this was supposed to be a very favorable democratic map. they won one seat. on a whole, it is been a great cycle, surprisingly good cycle for democrats. but no, this is not a won race. i don't know -- i think republicans know how to learn a lesson here. this is not a rational party right now, donald trump is still driving it. if he falls in love with candidate x in montana and decides to go all in with him or her, that is potentially great news for john or whoever the vulnerable democrat is. >> do you think that trump will hold that sway over the nominating process in terms of the senate in 2024? his record is so abysmal from 2022. and yet, he has done plenty of things to cause departures from his loyalists. and yet, we always have to end every sentence with, and yet he still is the center of this gop. i'm asking you to look into a crystal ball, but at this moment, do you think he still has the power, the king making power that he did in the last

election? >> he had a brutal cycle. in the last few weeks, they've not been kind to him. but i see what is going on in the media right now, the narrative that trump is losing his grip and how desantis is rising, and trump is going to be history in the rearview mirror any minute. and it kind of reminds me of the democrats, they're gonna have a brutal election in november. it was going to be this big red wave. i kind of think we have to wait and see. i think right now, desantis is an unknown to most of america. i think republicans are being

fed his name by a lot of people who don't want trump. but desantis has problems too. it's not like he is not wacky, he is banning books and arresting people on bogus charges who tried to vote, who have fallen apart. all kinds of things that he has done, they will come front and center. he is an extreme guy. joe biden is not an extreme guy, he is a middle of the road guy who won because he is middle of the road. if they nominate either trump or desantis, i still think that the democrats are in a commanding position if they stick to their knitting at the kitchen table stuff. doing something about prescription drugs, continuing to bang away on the infrastructure victories and working on gun safety and the things that they've gotten done. i think -- presidential politics is going to come into play here because we have a president at the top of the ticket every election. >> mark, you've reported on ron desantis and his likability, which is actually a real factor when it comes to electing a president. but there is also his legislative record. we have covered it all on the show, whether it's the stop woke act, the don't say gay bill, or his fraudulent election police. he has done a lot of stuff that may play well in florida, which is a strange laboratory.

it is a state like any other. but could that become a political liability the more light is shown on it on a national stage? >> there's no question about this. if you look at pretty much all of the consequential attention getting stuff that he is done, it hasn't worn particularly well. he got this attention when he sent the refugees from latin america to martha's vineyard, new york, wherever. this is taxpayer money. when you look, when that thing unfolded, it was not a good look for ron desantis. i can't imagine florida's taxpayers, beyond the initial speculative look, we owned the liberals here, could be happy about this once these things play out. there is this pattern, very trump-like in some ways, which is that you get this spasm of attention and then once it unfolds, it becomes a bit of an embarrassment. >> his strategy seems to be so deeply rooted in owning the libs, with nothing else as a goal. shuttle asylum seekers to

points north with no resources when they get there to own the libs on immigration. prevent them from saying things about racism and systemic injustice to own the libs and censor their language. this is the stuff that may play well amongst a very specific slice of an engage gop voter. but when it comes to the kind of person that someone wants to sit down and have beer with, it is hard to imagine the meanness and the cruelty that is so animated, plays well with the national voter. >> also, in his haste to strip the erogenous zones of tucker carlson or whoever. >> did you really have to say that? >> i'm sorry, i withdraw that. is it, okay. but look, he went full anti-vaxxer here at the end of the year. he is basically, he wants to investigate people who are studying vaccines at the cdc. that is not where the country is. it might be were his rarefied little conservative bubble in

florida, or conservative media is, but it's not where the country is. so, stay tuned. >> clare, what should president biden be thinking about in the closing hours of 2022 as we head towards a divided congress? trump, who is officially running, desantis who's waiting in the wings, and a presidential election that starts sometime next year. >> well, i think he has a big decision to make. i don't think that he has made a final decision. first and foremost, he has got to figure out if he wants to run again. if he does, and he has to start looking at his record and building a narrative about why the country should trust him to navigate another four years, that is always a tall order. it is not easy to get elected to a second term. i don't care who you are. he has got that in front of him.

and then also, he's going to have to manage a crazy town over in the house of representatives. he's going to figure out if there's anything. that mccarthy can get across the finish line that would be palatable to americans. it is going to be tough because right now, mccarthy is on bended knee to crazy town. marjorie taylor greene and all the others are the ones who can make him speaker. he can't be speaker without them. so you think boehner had trouble with the freedom caucus. you think paul ryan had trouble with the right-wing, you haven't seen anything until you see what is going to happen in the house of representatives with mccarthy and this very slim majority, and everyone pushing and pulling to try to be more extreme than the next. >> this just seems like one of those situations where everybody needs to buckle up and brace for impact. next year is going to be a doozy in the lower chamber. mark, staff writer at the atlantic, and former missouri democratic senator claire mccaskill, the greats, thank you so much for being here in closing out the year with me. >> thank you. >> happy new year. coming up, the one, the only,

my interview with the recently departed host of the daily show, trevor noah. his take on race in america, how the media should cover candidates like donald trump, and what life has in store for him after the daily show. plus, i went down to florida to explore desantis land. what i found, just ahead. research shows people remember ads with a catchy song. so to help you remember that liberty mutual customizes your home insurance, here's a little number you'll never forget. did you know that liberty mutual custo— ♪liberty mutual♪ ♪ only pay for what you need♪ ♪only pay for what you need♪ ♪ custom home insurance created for you all♪ ♪now the song is done♪ ♪back to living in your wall♪ they're just gonna live in there? ♪yes♪ only pay for what you need. ♪liberty liberty liberty♪ ♪liberty♪

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just look around. this digital age we're living in, it's pretty unbelievable. problem is, not everyone's fully living in it. nobody should have to take a class or fill out a medical form on public wifi with a screen the size of your hand. home internet shouldn't be a luxury. everyone should have it and now a lot more people can. so let's go. >> on december 8th, trevor noah the digital age is waiting.

signed off from the daily so for the very last time, ending his epic seven-year run with the show. and just before he left, i had a great pleasure of sitting down with him for a wide ranging interview. we spoke about the politics of race in america and the extreme polarization in our politics. take a listen. joining us now is trevor noah, host of the daily show. trevor is also the executive producer of the new ten-part documentary series, the turning point. welcome, my friend. >> thank you for having me. >> it is a pleasure. it is more exciting for me, i guarantee than you with your star studded history. >> i don't think that's true. >> you were sitting there through that long wind up, and i felt like it was really important to contextualize what is happening in this midterm election cycle amid the hectic, frenetic pace of campaigns. there is something that is at the core of a lot of the campaigning that we are seeing.

as someone who covers this, albeit from a distance, i wonder if any of this, if any of the dog whistles or the explicitly racist language, or just the otherization of people of color, whether any of that surprises you at this point? >> when i look at the buildup towards an election, especially in america at a time when people are struggling to make ends meet, when people are struggling to pay for the groceries. when people are wondering whether the next paycheck will still be enough to live the life that they've been living, it always triggers an idea, or a moment in time or feeling that i will have whenever an election comes up.

the same thing will happen in south africa. you are able to get people to think the worst of others when they themselves are in the worst position. you know, i used to think that in life we could just change people and make them better or make them more inclusive. but i've come to realize, i'm -- it's an fortunate byproduct, as soon as people start thinking that do not have, someone can say that is why you do not have. i think we're going to see a lot more of that now. unfortunately, if politicians do not understand the cause, it is more important in a system, we are going to beach chasing a symptom forever. you cannot change opinions on immigrants. you can try to do that forever, but really what we have seen is time and time again, when people are struggling, they are most susceptible to ideas that will otherize other human beings. >> some of these people are struggling, but others aren't. >> they've been told they are. >> maybe that's what it is.

the narrative of grievance that is intoxicating. >> the irony effect in life in america is, the same image can have a completely different connotation depending on how people want that image to be used. for instance, you will see people being arrested and there will be some politicians who say, see, things are getting better and crime is going down. look, everything is getting better, these people are being arrested. and they use that same image to say, well look how many criminals are out there. it's the same image, just how you tell the story completely changes depending on what you're trying to do. >> it feels like we have lost the common narrative too. >> i think we're moving to a place where politics is now becoming the new religion of america. it is becoming the defining factor. when people meet you, that's the first thing that they say now. are you a democrat, are your republican, this is how i vote. i don't if you know if you remember, there was a time when people talk about that. your vote is your secret. i don't want to talk about that, let's not talk about that at the table, we don't talk about

voting. people just voted and they lived their lives. now, people live to talk about how they voted. i think what it is created in his a world that supersedes everything. >> is that a bad thing or a good thing? >> it's terrible. it's terrifying. >> the political landscape is so divided, the values inherent in each party is so extraordinarily different that it seems almost irreconcilable to ask someone to forget that those are someone else's values, you know what i'm saying? >> you know, sometimes making heads or tails of the american system requires you to start at one point. have your tried to untangle a bunch of cords in your drawer,

trying to find one charger, you think you found it, and that takes you to this charger, you go to that georgia. that's what it feels like sometimes looking at america and what is happened in the country. you see it reflected in other parts of the world, but american system is unique in the conversations that people have and why they have them. what you are seeing about the polarization is, it is just going to become worse. we don't live in the same world anymore. we would all meet in one place, whether it was for the news, people watching walter cronkite or whoever, people who watch the same news and then argue about it. if you are watching, even tv shows, the other day when you saw that angela lansbury passed away, every single episode i watched with my mom in south africa. that was a family thing. how many shows do we have like that, not the shows, but how many moments, everybody is watching there on tv. kids in a different world from their parents, and so you have this unshared reality that we are all sitting in. everyone is on a train in the subway, no one is reading or experiencing the same thing. other than maybe the dancers, but that is about it. but i think what that has done

is, it is created a hyper individualistic society where we don't realize that we are not living in the same world. you can't do anything if you don't agree on the same world. >> when you were going up in south africa, apart from watching murder she wrote, did you think that america had the whole racism thing figured out more than south africa did? >> that's an interesting question. i had a characterized version of what america was. i was watching difference strokes. beverly hills cop, all these movies, they gave me an idea of what america was. i don't think it was too far from what america was trying to be, funnily enough. again, everyone was coming together and watching the same thing. maybe there is some sort of world that people aspired to, even if they couldn't achieve it. what i've learned when i moved to america is, what makes it different to south africa is, we are very blatant about what was happening. i would say, as crazy as it is to say out loud, i think the one benefit of the apartheid government's extreme hubris in what they were doing was that you don't have to uncover it. >> it's explicit. >> we consider people of color, black people, indian people, colored people, whoever they may be, we consider them inferior. that is why we treat them this way. but in america over time, we know the history of it, but all the time, politicians realized that that wasn't suitable, that

wasn't acceptable in public. they learned how to code the language, they learned how to change it so that people didn't hear the word black, people didn't hear the word hispanic or mexican, but they thought it, they felt it. that has become more powerful because instead of fighting racism, you have to try to prove that it exists. >> it makes people feel better because they don't have to be explicitly racist. >> some of them don't feel that they are racist. i think some people go, i didn't even think about race. >> coming up, my trip to florida to take a look at the lab, governor ron desantis and what he has been experimenting with on race, gender, and education. but first, more from my in-depth interview with trevor noah on his future plans, that is next, we'll be right back. #1 isn't a status earned overnight. it's earned in every wash, and re-earned every day. tide. america's #1 detergent.

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wonderful opportunity of speaking to someone who knows the media inside and out. trevor noah, who recently signed off as a host of the daily show after an epic seven -year run. he sat down with me to talk about how the media has covered everything from donald trump to extremist republicans. those two are kind of similar. we also talked about his decision to leave the daily

show and his plans for the future. take a look. >> i've really been lucky to embark on, you know, multiple journeys. i've had the pleasure of executive producing -- working with fantastic producers and directors, filmmakers, i've had the pleasure of doing standup in and around america, the rest of the world, i've had the pleasure of hosting the daily show for seven years. but you know, at some point, you have to figure out how you want to use your time, where you want to be, and how you want to spend, you know, your heart beats, as i call them. theyu're constantly going. >> there's a finite number of them. >> yeah. and i think covid gave everybody in moment to sit down and think. who are you? >> yeah. >> who were you trying to be? with whom are you spending your time? why are you spending it that

way? so i realized, i would never want to be in a position where people feel like i'm not giving my all. and, so i thought i would give my all until i feel like i even have a little bit left, but let me take what i have left, and then try everything else that inspires me. whether it be docuseries, being in movies, doing more standup, whatever it may be. >> you have a perspective on the media that i think a lot of people don't have. and i wonder how you would grade us at this stage of the game. i was talking to rachael maddow, hy great predecessor in this hour, and we were talking about the responsibility here as journalists. when you have a character like donald trump. on one hand, you have to cover some of the things he's saying and doing. but how do you do it in a way that doesn't give him the megaphone?

do you think we've gotten better at this? what can we do better? >> so here's what i think happened. i think america has blurred the lines between news and entertainment for so long that at some point, entertainment took over and became the news. and if there's one thing donald trump is always known how to do, it's hard to be entertaining. and you look at the very inception, the very beginning of the idea of donald trump being on the news, there were campaigns reaching out to cnn and saying, i, you need to cover. this is funny, this is great for us. i think a lot of democrats have to look at themselves and say, why did we encourage this? i spoken about this on my show. the fact that there are still democratic, you know, machines that are funding extreme republicans, basically putting them forward, i think it's gross negligence. you know, forget everything

else that you're trying to do in life. it is grossly negligent to say, i believe this person's gonna destroy democracy. but you know what i'll do? we're gonna take money that people donated to our campaigns, and use it to prop them up because i think they'll be easier to beat. but are you willing to take the risk that this person may be easier to be? you don't remember what happened with donald trump? turned out he was a lot harder to beat than you thought. so when it comes to -- i don't grade anybody because i'm not a master at this. i don't even claim to be. but i look at what people could do differently. i think the media learned a lesson. i think every news outlet said, hey, we thought it was a joke, we played with the joke, and how he turned it on us. and i don't know if the genie will ever go back into the bottle, but i think the media can ask itself questions about the wise. why? why do we put people on? if its ratings push, just be honest. just say. we're doing this to get ratings. don't hide it, don't add icing to the cake to try to make it seem like it is what it isn't. >> the more explicit, like they are in south africa. >> yeah. just be able to say, this is what it has. we're doing it because it's great for ratings. do it, go ahead. but i think a lot of the time, american news will masquerade, will live in this world of, oh no, this is so important, it's great for ratings. and i understand that challenge,

but also acknowledge that there is a country that is watching what you are creating. >> we have much more ahead tonight. stay with us.

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name. a lot. republican governor of florida and likely 2024 presidential contender, ron desantis. since taking office in 2019, governor desantis has been on a crusade against seemingly everything, especially when it comes to public education. if a conversation about a student's race or nationality makes student feel, quote, discomfort, then it can't be taught in the classroom. an inclusive curriculum? nope. anything, quote, woke? whatever that means? nope. so desantis signed the stop woke act. sexual orientation and gender identity? nope. desantis signed the so called don't say gay bill. earlier this year, i took a trip to florida to hear from

students and educators and what they say on the ground about these new policies and desantis 's efforts to reshape public education in florida. here's what students and a local school board member had to say. >> i think it's frightening how we already have such limited access to all this information and important parts of history, and now we're restricting it even more. it's very scary that there's gonna be more ignorance. >> it's really pitiful to think that now, kids that are going into school, younger kids, younger generations, people who are being made into the future, are gonna have no idea what's going on, because we can't pick and choose the past. we can't pick and choose what to teach in history classes. >> well, the governor thinks you can pick and choose what you teach. >> i guess i wonder, like, are students gonna accept that? it sounds like you think some of them are. >> i think that if that's what we're taught from a young age, then that's what we're gonna accept, and start to, you know, repeat back to other kids. >> tell me, if you could

recount, the experience you've had facing the animated crowd of people who are proponents of this anti crt stuff. you understand in a visceral way the passion that is ignited when you talk about this stuff. >> you know, i've had people on my front lawn protesting. i've had people send me death threats. i've had people try to recall me. and none of that has anything to do with crt. none of that has anything to do with lgbtq. they just use those as tools to target and attack me. and truthfully, the reason i feel like i even had to deal with any of that animosity is because i'm a loud, proud, dominant democrat on this school board. >> i mean, i guess what you're saying is, this is basically for a political movement that is much more about republican power than actually some deep seated emotional belief about correcting some wrongs in

schools. and i guess i wonder, on the other side of the coin, do you feel like you are equipped with the tools to counter what has been a pretty successful multipronged effort to change the whole system of education in the florida public school system? >> i hate to be a pessimist, but the reality is, we need the voters to get out and vote. if we have these people in office, there is really not a whole lot we can do. because they put this into law. >> do you hear from teachers who are grappling with the changes that are gonna be in place in the classroom this fall? >> all the time. people asking for answers to, how do we implement these laws or these policies? how is this gonna affect my classroom and my instruction? and one of the things that's really frightening about these laws that are passed is that the state passed them with no instruction. >> what do you think people who are concerned about the direction that things are heading in -- what should they be focused on in the months and years ahead? >> i'm just scared about the future of public education here

in florida. and i'm scared that'll create this movement across the nation. this is a concerted effort to de-fragment public education, to make it unstable in order to privatize education. right? you've got over 9500 instructional vacancies in the state of florida, and we're starting school tomorrow. the fact that we are making them feel like they can literally be brought to court for teaching actual facts about history, or about real families that are in their classroom, at the same exact time we have a governor that's taking over what power the school boards have, putting in place essentially school board candidates that he chooses to be on the school board, i mean, it's scary. >> i also have the opportunity to speak to a florida high school teacher who blew the whistle and state sponsored training to provide to teachers and decided to speak out about what exactly was being instructed. here's what she told me about how the state treats its -- trains its teachers about slavery.

take a listen. >> the only thing i can find in the slide, and this entire presentation about enslaved people, it's one slide, and it says less than 4% of slavery in the western hemisphere was in colonial america. the number of enslaved people increased in america through birth. what is happening here in the slide? >> yeah. so this is a map, kind of showing how the transatlantic slave trade brought enslaved people to both of the americas. there's a heavy emphasis that those people were brought to south america. >> it's a much bigger arrow. >> yeah. and where we are at in north america, you know, our colonies are very small sliver. and that was this heavy emphasis that most of our enslaved people were born here, almost to say it was less bad. >> to enslave children. >> right.

>> for generations. >> to say they were born here, we didn't steal them and bring them on a boat, is kind of what it felt like. >> sort of making a difference between slaves born in the united states, and those born in africa, and suggesting somehow that slave life -- that our moral debt is less because they were born into slavery as opposed to snatched from their homes. >> yes. that's definitely how i felt they were portraying this information. >> and also, that less than 4% of slavery in the western hemisphere was in colonial america. is that to minimize the number of slaves that were here? which still numbered in the millions? >> i believe so. >> i also traveled to wisconsin to talk to a local elections official there about the threats he and his staff had been facing in the run up to the midterms. dane county, which includes madison, is one of the two counties in wisconsin where donald trump demanded a recount in 2020. to give you a sense of the role dane county played in the last presidential election, the official i spoke to recently received a subpoena from the justice department special counsel investigating january

6th, and donald trump's efforts to suppress that election. the subpoena asks for any and all communications with trump and his campaign through inauguration day, 2021. here's what dane county clerk scott mcdonell told me about threats to his office. >> when did you start doing this job? >> ten years ago. >> and, like, what was it like ten years ago, this job? >> it was great. we had the first same-sex marriage license done here, we do marriages out on the front of the steps, and it was fun. but it's become sort of a darker version of that now. i'm worried about my staff. i'm worried about the staff across the hall, that's the city clerk's office. there isn't adequate security. this building wasn't set up to be secure. it was set up to be open. >> yeah. >> the staff is glad they could just walk right in. that's kind of a problem.

they didn't have to go through weapons screening. and that's a good thing, that's an open government, but for us, you know, you can't just be able to walk in off the street and come all the way back to my office the way -- we have stop the steal rallies a block away. and it wouldn't be hard to just point that down here at our office. so. >> have you received death threats? >> i've gotten some vague ones. >> what are vague death threats? >> oh, like, you've committed sedition, there's a lot of that. but they're just vague enough that, you know, when you talk to the police, it almost feels like a game of clue. they have to have an iron pipe and a billiards room or something. they have to tell you the time you're gonna attack you. that's been a problem for clerks around the country. but they're just vague enough that nothing happens with them. >> do you worry about your safety? do you worry about the safety of your colleagues? >> it's more like russian roulette. because it seems like something has to happen that ties to this place. i remember one time the president tweeted about my office. but he didn't say anything negative. and it felt like a click in the chamber.

like it just missed. >> i have to stop and note that this is the county clerk's office and you have plexiglass and panic buttons. what has happened to american democracy? >> yeah. it's not a good sign. >> these are people who are involved in the running of government and elections. like, this requires a totally different set of skills to manage, a, an incredibly stressful situation, but also, resolve it. like, that's a lot to ask of a clerk. what is the general emotional, like, tenor of people coming here who are really angry? i would assume they're all kind of, like -- >> this office, we haven't gotten much of that. the recount, it was really on full display. >> yeah. >> they were closed arms, red face, yelling, not listening. >> how responsive has law enforcement been to your concerns about threats that you may be facing? >> well, they've been helpful. i think part of the problem, though, is that they deal with

people getting threatened all day long. so when they hear, i got a threat on email from a proton email that you can't trace, it's hard for them to do a lot about it. and for them, it's kind of common. but, you know, what i try to explain to them is, it's meant to destabilize our democracy. because if people leave who know what they're doing, who are they replaced by? and then what happens? they make mistakes, and it just continues to fuel the cycle of, ah, we have a scandal, see, it's all messed up, or it's fraud. and that serves, again, the interest of raising money online where intimidating election officials. >> we'll be right back. hey, man. nice pace! clearly, you're a safe driver. you could save hundreds for safe driving with liberty mutual. they customize your car insurance... ...so you only pay for what you need! [squawks]

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that does it for us tonight. thanks for joining us. more ahead on msnbc right after this.