and enslaved africans, so that the power of both groups would be diminished, because if they came together, they could change everything, and he was trying to change everything by bringing them together, along with impoverished native americans, asian americans, latino americans, obviously our country became much more of rainbow. but at the heart of, it was an appeal to poor whites and poor blacks, to come together. and that's the unfinished work. >> ben, it's always a privilege to see you, thank you my friend for being with us on this important night. we appreciate that. that is all in on this monday night, chris saves is gonna be back tomorrow, at eight eastern, and then again at ten eastern hosting a special national day of racial healing town hall, along with my colleagues joy reid and sean mainly, they will be live in new orleans at 10 pm eastern on msnbc, and streaming on

good evening, ali, it's good to see you my friend. thank you very much. much appreciated. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. we're going to start with breaking news on a story that we first brought you this time last week when it was just emerging. this may have been the only place you've heard about it in the national news. as luck would have it, we brought you the story for the first time a week ago at this time. it's a story out of new mexico. just tonight as we are getting on the air, there is a major development in that story tonight and it is a shocking one. i imagine given these new developments in the story, this will not be the only place you will be hearing about this over the next several days. all right, what we were able to tell you last week is news of a spate of recent shootings that had targeted the homes and offices of at least a half dozen elected officials in new mexico, all of them members of the democratic party. no one was injured in these shootings. these shootings hit buildings,

not people. but they apparently had all been targeted at democratic politicians during december and january. so just over the last few weeks. we first learned of the shootings at five homes and offices belonging to some county commissioners and two state senators and new mexico's newly elected democratic attorney general. then we learned that there had also been an additional shooting at the house of the incoming speaker of the new mexico state legislature. we've since learned some additional details about these shootings targeting individual democratic politicians, and it's alarming. it's not an individual potshot here and there. for example, on december 4th, it was eight shots that were fired into the home of one democratic

county commissioner in new mexico. that was december 4th. then on december 11th, it was 12 bullets that were fired into the home of a county commissioner. again, all in new mexico, they're all democrats. so again december 4th at one politician's home, a county commissioner, eight shots fired into his home. a week later, december 11th, 12 bullets fired into the home of another democratic county commissioner. then on january 3rd, it was a state representative, a democratic state representative named linda lopez in new mexico. on january 3rd, shots rang out at her house. three bullets went through her daughter's bedroom as her 10-year-old daughter was inside that bedroom asleep. so that's three of them december 4th, december 11th, january 3rd. but all in all, it ended up being six different democratic officials who appear to have been targeted. initially two county commissioners, then a state

representative, then state attorney general and then a state senator. so six shootings altogether. again, all targeting democratic party officials in new mexico. tonight albuquerque police have announced that they have made an arrest in these shootings. and i said this is sort of shocking news. the reason it is shocking news is because the man they have arrested and charged is a republican candidate for a statehouse seat in last year's elections. he was the republican nominee for a state legislative election this past november, albuquerque's house district 14. his name is solomon pena. he lost that election by more than 3600 votes to the income bent democrat who holds that seat. there was a local write-up on his candidacy in the santa fe new mexican in august. it said despite being the nominee, he was a convicted felon many times over. he had been convicted, in fact, of 19 different felonies, including burglary, larceny, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and receiving stolen property.

as a result of those multiple felony convictions, he spent almost seven years in prison. but then the republican party picked him to be their nominee for this state legislature seat in albuquerque. again, he made it to the general election as the republican nominee. he lost the election to the democrat incumbent. but now police allege, announcing his arrest today, that he hired people to shoot at some of these democratic officials' homes and offices. in a press conference just tonight, albuquerque officials say that solomon pena pulled the trigger himself at at least one of the shootings, but they also made enclosure that they have evidence connecting this candidate to four of the six shootings that they have been investigating while the other two are still under investigation. again, this is just a remarkable development in this story. the lead in the albuquerque

journal tonight is this, the albuquerque police department has arrested solomon pena an unsuccess candidate for the house district 14 seat in connection with the shootings at local democratic politicians' homes. chief harold medina said pena, an unsuccessful candidate in the 2022 election is accused of conspiring with and paying four other men to shoot at the homes of two county commissioners and two state legislators. again, that shows that they are connecting him to four of the six shootings that they have been investigating. they're saying that they are not connecting him and these men he believe -- they believe he hired. he is albuquerque's mayor speaking tonight after the arrest was announced. >> this situation today, i think, obviously points out that these shootings were orchestrated, they were dangerous attacks not only to these individuals, which is personally the most terrifying for them, but fundamentally also to democracy. that is why this is so terrible.

this type of radicalism is a threat to our nation and it has made its way to our doorstep right here in albuquerque, new mexico. i know here we are going to push back and we will not allow this to cross the threshold. fundamentally at the end of the day, this was about a right-wing radical, an election denier who was arrested today and someone who did the worst imaginable thing you can do when you have a political disagreement, which is turn that to violence. >> again, that's the albuquerque mayor speaking tonight after the arrest of this republican state legislative candidate was announced by albuquerque police. again, police say they believe he pulled the trigger in at least one of these shootings targeting the homes and offices of democratic elected officials and they believe he conspired with and paid four other men to fire into the homes of county

commissioners and state legislators. now, you heard the mayor reference this was about a right-wing radical, an election denier who was arrested today. what that references, i believe, are the frequent public statements, online social media statements by this republican candidate maintaining that he didn't actually lose this election in which he was the republican candidate this past november. again, the republican party nominated him to be their candidate for the state legislative seat out of albuquerque in november. he lost by a large marge en, by more than 3500 votes. since then he has maintained that he didn't really lose and the election was rigged against him. local coverage of his candidacy has noted that he is a, in the words of the santa fe new mexican, gushing supporter of former president donald trump.

he appears to have emulated trump in rejecting the results of the election that he lost, but police in albuquerque tonight say he went much further than that, accusing him tonight formally, charging him with having pulled the trigger himself and led a conspiracy with four other men to shoot into the homes of other democratic officials. so again, this is just breaking tonight. we'll bring you more on this as we learn more. we do know the names of these half dozen democratic elected officials in new mexico who we believe were targeted in this string of attacks. we've got calls out to some of those elected officials who were reportedly targeted in those attacks as we collect statements from them and are able to get in contact with them over the

course of this hour, we will revisit this story as we learn more. wow. i knew that was a strange story out of albuquerque when we first started covering it. i did not expect that it would develop in this way. it was actually a s.w.a.t. raid on this guy's apartment today in albuquerque that resulted in the first public knowledge that he was the man who had been arrested. as i said, we'll bring you more as we learn more. today of course is the martin luther king federal holiday. i hope you had the day off from work or from school today as we celebrate what would have been the 94th birthday of dr. martin luther king jr. and i know 94 is old.

we all hope to make it to 94, right? but honestly it's not that old. there are lots of 94-year-olds still with us, still in our families, still in our communities. i say that just because i think we think of dr. martin luther king as not just of another generation, even another century. i think we tend to think of him as part of history. we think of him as having been of another era on this earth long before our own. but when you hear that today is his -- that we're marking what would have been his 94th birthday, you realize it wasn't really that long ago that he lived and worked among us. i mean had he lived, had he not been assassinated, had he lived a long and healthy life, he might well still be among us today. he would be just turning 94. he might well have spent another 50 plus years among us as a controversial activist, organizer, an orator, a thorn in the side, a kind of moral emergency beacon, insistent and interruptive. think about all the different u.s. presidents he could have driven absolutely crazy by now by the time he was living among us in his 90s. do you have your phone on you or somewhere near you? if you were like me increasingly it's never very far. i used to be -- i used to be kind of attentive to not always having my phone on me. i'd try to put it aside if i was working or didn't want to be distracted or if i was watching or listening to something else. now i feel like it's always on the table in front of me or always in my pocket. when your phone rings and it's a telemarketer or a robo call, phones now will usually say something on the screen like spam likely or probable spam. i feel like we all make the same joke when that happens.

oh, it's my boyfriend, spam likely, he always calls me around this time. because of scams and spam, we're trained basically to not answer calls that come in on our mobile phones from unfamiliar numbers unless we have to answer them for some reason. and sometimes the spam and the scams come in as text messages or as emails, but we're increasingly trained not to fall for those either, right? we all sort of know what you shouldn't do. we know when something is scammy. we know not to click on links that somebody sent us. we know not to open attachments to emails unless we know exactly who sent the attachment and why and what it is. i think we all increasingly, no matter how old we are, and how sort of tech native we are, i think we all have developed some good defensive reflexes now about how to not let bad actors use our phones against us, particularly as we have them more and more integrated into our lives. and, you know, if we do make a mistake, if we accidentally do open something we're not supposed to or click on something we shouldn't have clicked on, we can usually tell that's where i went wrong. that was the bad email or that was the bad text or that was the bad link i shouldn't have fallen

for and clicked on. that at least can help you identify the source of the scam, the source of the attack and who was trying to get at you through your phone. but what if you didn't have to do anything wrong? what if somebody could target your mobile phone without you having to click on a link or open an attachment or even answer a call? what if just by having your phone number someone who wished you harm could take complete control of your phone from afar. again, without you doing anything wrong and without you knowing that they had control of it.

they could see all of your contacts. they could read all of your texts. they could read all of your emails. they could see all of your photos and videos. they could see everything in your calendar. they could listen in on all of your calls. without you knowing they could use the location data in your phone to pinpoint your exact personal location at any time, 24 hours a day. they could turn on the microphone in your phone to listen in wherever you are. they could turn on the camera on your phone to see you and see whatever you're doing, again, without you ever knowing that they were doing it. and again, without you doing anything wrong to make it possible. it turns out that kind of technology exists. where somebody without you knowing can access your phone and do all of those things on

your phone and see everything that you do on your phone and have done on your phone. that technology exists. imagine how dangerous a tool that would be against civil rights activists. imagine how dangerous a tool that would have been against the martin luther king era civil rights movement. and in fact this technology, it not only exists, it's not like a concept car. it's not like something that hasn't been deployed, it's just been developed in a lab, it actually has been used already by repressive governments around the world to target exactly who you think they would target with a tool like that. this thing is marketed supposedly as a law enforcement tool, anti-terrorism tool. but government officials have used it around the world against their personal enemies, their ex-wives, their political rivals. and of course they have used it against opposition figures and journalists and human rights advocates and civil rights activists and advocates for minority groups.

whoever it is that's that country's thorn in the side, whoever it is that is that country's insistent moral beacon, whoever is making change and leading movements, whoever is angering repressive government officials, that's who's been targeted with this technology. there's a book that's coming out tomorrow, which means technically at midnight tonight and it's called "pegasus" written by two journalists. they expose the existence of this technology and its use by repressive governments around the world. the big break in them exposing it came when they got a list of 50,000 phones that had been selected for targeting with this pernicious software. the software is called pegasus. with that list of 50,000 numbers in hand, these journalists launched an international reporting project to discover what this software was, where it came from, and who it was being used against. and as i said, the book, which is called "pegasus," it comes out at midnight tonight. i wrote the introduction to the book. here's a little piece of it from the audio book. >> the insidious power of a pegasus infection was that it was completely invisible to the

victim. you'd have no way to know the baddies were reading your texts and emails and listening in on your calls and even your in-person meetings until they used their ability to track your exact location to send the men with guns to meet you. for the pegasus project to succeed in exposing the scale of the scandal, the journalists knew they would need to be able to diagnose an infection or an attempted infection on an individual phone. claudi oh and donncha figured out how to do it. working quite literally alone, these two took on a multi billion dollar corporation that employed 550 well-paid cyber specialists, many with the highest levels of military cyber warfare training. to best that goliath, these two davids had to fashion their own sling shot. they had to invent the methods and tools of their forensics on the fly. that they succeeded in that is as improbable as it is important, for all of our sakes. here also is the story of the

victims of pegasus. among them are those who hold enough power that you might expect they'd be protected from this kind of totalist intrusion, heads of state, high ranking royals, senior politicians, law enforcement figures. and then there's the people whom governments the world over have always liked to put in the crosshairs. opposition figures, dissidents, human rights activists, academics. laurent and sandrine rack focus tight on the group most represented in the leaked data, of course, and that's journalists. it's no surprise that pegasus has been turned full blast on reporters and editors in order to harass, intimidate and silence.

if this anti-democratic authoritarian nightmare cannot be safely reported upon, it won't be understood. and if it isn't understood, there's no chance that it will be stopped. >> again, that's from the introduction i did to this book, "pegasus" which comes out tonight at midnight. i did not write the whole book, i just did the introduction because i think the story is incredible. and the story has developed in the united states in really interesting ways. once this international reporting project exposed this kind of surveillance was happening, the u.s. government did an unexpectedly stand up and strong thing. they black listed the company that makes pegasus and banned the use of pegasus software in the united states. that didn't stop it around the world. this is still a live issue. it's still a live issue in the united states. just last week the u.s. supreme court let the company whatsapp go ahead and sue the company that makes pegasus.

whatsapp gets to sue pegasus -- sue the company that makes pegasus for using their software to break into people's phones and spy on people's encrypted messages on whatsapp, so that intratech civil lawsuit will go ahead and that could be a big deal. this is a live issue. this is hotly contested territory. but it's sort of from the news gods, i think it's serendipitous. it's a good thing the book is coming out tonight as we celebrate the federal holiday honoring dr. king today. because what repressive governments do to target the activists in their midst, to stop civil rights movements, to stop human rights advocates, lawyers and journalists, yes, the tactics evolve as the technology evolves but the intent and effect is the same the world over. obviously we remember dr. king now as one of the greatest moral leaders ever produced by our country, but he really did have the whole power of the state turned against him in his day, which really wasn't all that long ago. today in every state in the

country, we celebrate that federal holiday honoring dr. king. but in two states, in alabama and mississippi, today is not just martin luther king day, today in alabama and mississippi, it's king lee day. not kingly like an adverb, but king-lee, as in martin luther king and robert e. lee. in mississippi and alabama today, in 2023, they have added to martin luther king day another state holiday on the same day honoring the commander of the confederate army that fought to preserve slavery. and virginia used to do that too until the year 2000. and arkansas used to do that too. they used to do king-lee day as well until 2018. but even if it took them a long time to get there, at least arkansas and virginia did finally give it up and stop using the federal martin luther

king civil rights holiday to also honor slavery. mississippi and alabama are still doing that, as of this year, which is amazing. federally the king holiday is designated by congress as a day of service. a day that americans are called on to volunteer or do other acts of service in their community. for the seventh year this year, tomorrow, the day after the federal holiday, is designated as a day for communities around the country to hold town halls, to work toward dialogue, toward binding up some of these wounds. communities around the country tomorrow will hold town halls to dialogue for the purpose of racial healing. we're going to hold one of those town halls here tomorrow night on msnbc at 10:00 p.m. eastern. it's going to be live from new orleans. the plans for it are kind of incredible, i hope that you're able to check that out. again, tomorrow 10:00 p.m. eastern here on msnbc. tonight here on the show, we're going to have congressman jamie

raskin here, member of the january 6 investigation, of course. we're going to talk with him about the ongoing prosecutions and criminal investigations concerning the violent attempt to overthrow our government on january 6, 2021. with republicans now in control of the house of representatives, they say they believe they have the power to oversee even ongoing criminal cases at the department of justice, which is actually not something they are able to do from congress but they are going to try. that is setting up to be a huge fight. congressman raskin will join us on that. we'll also talk with him about this breaking news out of new mexico about a republican state legislative candidate being arrested tonight after a s.w.a.t. team raid. albuquerque police saying that they believe that he was the perpetrator of a series of shootings into democratic elected officials homes and offices over the past few weeks. tonight we're also going to be joined exclusively bidr. david kessler. dr. kessler was brought on as

joe biden's top science advisor on covid. when mr. biden was running his campaign for president in 2020. you might remember the first presidential debate between mr. biden and then president trump, that debate was held in late september, 2020. it's sort of hard to remember this at this time, but in september 2020, there were no covid vaccines available yet. the first vaccines weren't administered until december 2020. but in september when biden and trump met for the first debate, it was david kessler as biden's covid advisor who insisted that they be that far apart, that they had to be at least 13 feet apart from each other when they were standing at their podiums at the debate. thank god david kessler insisted on that. you will recall that debate was

on a tuesday. by thursday night that week, trump had tested positive for covid and by friday he was hospitalized with it and profoundly ill. despite having stood on the debate stage with him just two and a half days before, biden didn't get it from trump. by all accounts, trump nearly died from it. after president biden beat trump in that 2020 election, it was david kessler who led the covid response during the transition and then it was dr. kessler who went on to be the chief science officer advising president biden on covid for the first two years of hi presidency. dr. kessler helped set the goal of administering 100 million vaccine shots in president biden's first 100 days in office. they hit that goal by march of 2021. as we stand here today, about 80% of our population has had at least one dose of the vaccine. more than 90% of people over the age of 65 have had at least one dose. the success of our vaccination efforts, the success of vaccines at keeping people from getting seriously sick or dying when they're infected, the success of anti-virals that treating people once they are infected, all

those things together have been under david kessler's purview and those things together have succeeded over the past two years in making covid seem like much less of an emergency than it was before. but now as the prospect rises that our country will ending the so-called emergency over covid, as the concern about covid is honestly way down all around the country but as the numbers start ticking back up right now. as more than 500 americans are dying from covid every day right now, now this week dr. david kessler is leaving government service. he's returning to his job at ucsf in san francisco. dr. kessler as he leaves federal service is going to join us here tonight exclusively. busy night. we've got a lot to get to tonight. stay with us. with us

this is just last week. this is a hospital in shanghai in china last week. this is not an e.r. or an inpatient wing where people get cared for. this is actually the lobby of a hospital in shanghai. you see patients crowded together and they're surrounded by their loved ones, their family member who say brought them in.

this is a shot inside the part of that same hospital that's meant for actually treating people. you can see how crowded it is. barely any room to walk, there's so many beds in this part of the hospital. they have run out of room to put people in rooms, so they have gurneys in this hospital lined up in the hallways. outside of supply closets. iv bags pushed up against the walls. this man is receiving treatment in what looks like just a waiting room chair. he appears to be sleeping while he's sitting up. there's nowhere else to put him. this hospital in shanghai is so overwhelmed, i'm sorry to say there are dead bodies that are sitting unattended still inside the hospital, nowhere to take them. these upsetting photos were taken by a "new york times" photographer, and they paint a scary portrait of just how badly china is struggling with covid

right now. they lifted their strict lockdown measures late last year and numbers there appear to be just skyrocketing. hospitals and morgues are overwhelmed. officials in china say close to 60,000 people have died of covid just in the last month alone. and this is coming out of a country that notoriously undercounts not only their covid cases but also their covid deaths. one reason china is getting hit so hard right now is because lots of adults in china haven't had the full course of -- the original course of vaccines, let alone any new booster shots that would target new variants. but it's also important to note that china is in a different situation than we are when it comes to vaccines. they distributed their own vaccine. they didn't distribute the very highly effective pfizer and moderna and even johnson &

johnson shots that we got here. so looking at this very dire situation in parts of china right now is part of what's going on there, that their vaccines just are not as effective. and so we'd never be at risk for something getting that bad here again because our vaccines have been better. china's struggle with covid right now, is there any way in which it is a salient warning for us here in the united states? there's a lot of very live questions right now about where covid is going for us. i mean a lot of americans are boosted. 94% of americans over the age of 64 have at least one shot. but the vast majority of americans haven't received the latest booster. that new-fangled bivalent booster that came out in september of last year. only 16% of americans have received a bivalent new booster. if americans aren't going to get those new booster shots, do we still benefit from the baseline immunity that we got from so many americans getting the first round of shots more than a year ago, or as the virus develops and we don't get additional shots because the country is sick and tired of getting additional boosters, do we run

the risk of reverting to the kind of vulnerability that essentially an unvaccinated population would have? more infections of course mean more chances for the virus to mutate and create new variants. as the virus mutates and creates new variants, does that affect the accuracy of our testing technology? does that affect the effectiveness of our available treatments? the treatments have been very effective. but right now things like oral anti-virals, paxlovid, those are available and effective. monoclonal antibodies have become obsolete as the virus has developed. what's the status on emerging new treatments? are there fears about some of the existing anti-virals that are working now becoming obsolete in the future as the virus evolves? how's the distribution going for the anti-viral medications that we do have? as we speak, the white house is reportedly discussing ending the formal emergency declaration around covid that's been in effect since 2020. if that is going to end, if we're no longer going to be on emergency footing sometime this spring when the current

declaration of emergency status expires, is that going to change what we can do as a country, what we can do as a government? are there things that we can't do without an emergency declaration that we could do with it? if this thing takes off again like wildfire, if we start facing anything like what they're looking at in china right now in our near future, will we be able to bounce back nimbly and handle it? joining us now is someone who for the last several years has been at the absolute center of these questions, dr. david kessler is the chief science officer for the biden administration's covid response and he'll be in that job for just a little while longer. dr. kessler has announced he'll be leaving his post in the biden administration soon, this week. he joins us now to talk about it. dr. kessler, thank you so much for being here. i know you don't do a ton of interviews. it makes me all the more thankful that you choose to be

here. thank you, sir. >> thank you, rachel. >> so talk to me about your decision to step down and the timing to do so now. is the fact that you're leaving now linked to that expected end of the emergency declaration? does it indicate that the white house is on a new footing when it comes to covid? >> no. i think the commitment is there. i have always believed in public service. i group up in the generation that it was an obligation, it was a privilege to serve, but i also believe you come in and serve and there is a time to leave. let me assure you there is a great team in place. you don't hear their names at all. you know, jason ruse, kim armstrong, steve cha, lisa barkley. they are there. they will stay there. and i assure you this president is fully committed.

he has made sure that we've had everything we needed to get us to this point. it's been an historic accomplishment what this country collectively has done. you know, my thanks to my predecessors at operation warp speed. never in the history of public health would we ever do what we just did. 660 million vaccines in arms, 13 million anti-virals administered, 600 million doses donated. it just is an incredible accomplishment. where we are, the virus is not done with us yet. it will still evolve. but i think the chances are low, not nonexistent, but low that it will revert to the kind of mortality that we saw two years ago. to any skeptic, look at those pictures of china. one of the major reasons we don't look like that is because of the vaccines we have here. >> dr. kessler, you'll be remembered in history among a lot of other things that you've

done in your career. the only person to ever serve at fda commissioner under two different presidents. your incredibly important role on things like tobacco and nutrition and hiv and aids and your role in fighting this pandemic. you'll be remembered specifically for having probably been responsible for keeping president biden from getting infected from covid before there were vaccines at that first debate in september of 2020. you'll be remembered for leading the task to get 100 million doses in the first 100 days. 100 million vaccine doses distributed in the first 100 days of president biden's term and those things saved innumerable lives. but i worry now, when i look at

the low level of uptake on those bivalent boosters, they became available in the fall. they're a qualitatively different kind of booster. they protect us from the new variants that have developed since the initial round of vaccines came out. i worry that we're essentially leaving 85% of the population vulnerable to new variants because people don't want to get the new boosters. >> our job, and i saw our job, my job is to make sure that anyone who wanted access to a vaccine or an anti-viral that worked had that access. that it was easy to get. that was our job. we put it out there. we urged people to get it. as you said, 80% of this country, 225 million people had their primary vaccine. look, no doubt there's cases are still northeast, middle atlantic now is going to roll through the

united states. it's a fraction of what we saw. rachel, if you remember some of those nights that you and i talked, some of those nights were pretty scary. nothing like that is now. i think we're in a different place. but you're right, if you haven't had your bivalent booster, get it. if you're eligible for anti-viral if you get covid, take it. we have to be vigilant. this virus is not done with us yet. >> dr. kessler, in terms of those treatments, we've seen the monoclonal antibodies become less effective or not effective at all as the virus has mutated. should we have confidence as the virus continues to evolve that we'll continue to have anti-viral treatments that help us, that reduce the hospitalization rates and keep people from dying once they do get infected? >> we have a very effective treatment on the market.

it's not perfect. no doubt in my mind we have to do everything we can to get another anti-viral as soon as we can, just to have it. there's no guarantees in this business. you and i lived through the anti-virals changing the course of hiv. yes, there's a great anti-viral in paxlovid, but we need to continue to make sure that that remains the case. >> dr. david kessler, stepping down as the chief science officer for the biden administration's covid response. dr. kessler, thank you so much for your service and for talking with us over these past couple of years. i look forward to staying in touch and to seeing what you do at ucsf. i hope you get some time off, sir, you deserve it. >> thank you very much, rachel. >> all right. much more ahead for tonight. stay with us. stay with us i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program.

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we're following breaking news tonight out of new mexico, where police have just announced this evening that they have made an arrest in conjunction with their investigation of shootings into the homes and offices of a half dozen democratic party elected officials in the albuquerque, new mexico, area. the man arrested tonight was the republican nominee for a state legislative seat from albuquerque in the november elections.

he lost that race for the state legislature, but has since insisted publicly that he didn't lose and the election was rigged against him. albuquerque police saying tonight that he is, quote, accused of conspiring with and paying four other men to shoot at the homes of at least four democratic elected officials. joining us now is congressman jamie raskin of maryland. he's a former member of the january 6th investigation. he's now the top democrat on the oversight committee in the house. congressman raskin, it's great to see you. thanks very much for being with us. >> thank you, rachel. it's great to be with you too. >> i know that you're learning about this new mexico arrest just as we are tonight. this is breaking news that we've

been covering. i have to ask if these allegations are proven out, this again is a republican candidate for office who's an election denier, who's an outspoken trump supporter. he said on social media trump just announced for 2024. i stand with him. i never conceded my race. now i'm researching my options. if these allegations are borne out, is this the kind of radicalization, violent radicalization that you and your colleagues on the january 6th investigation were so worried about? >> yes. we warned of this dangerous extremism that now has been embraced as part of the political system. we know that donald trump used dangerous extremists for his own purposes on january 6th. but they have used him as well and have been brought into the political system. and now we're ending up with people like george santos or lauren boebert or solomon pena

in new mexico as actual republican nominees for congress. i mean it's an extraordinary thing. so if you have a policy of no enemies on the right, you are going to get people entering into public office and entering into political campaigns who behave in such ways. >> when you say no enemies on the right, do you mean that's the internal dynamic within republican circles as pertains to extremism? >> well, that was donald trump's attitude. essentially if you were willing to support trump, it didn't make any difference if you were a holocaust revisionist, if you were marching in charlottesville, if you were a liar, a cheat, a swindler, what have you. and when kevin mccarthy decided to embrace trumpism, he by definition embraced that credo

too. the chickens are coming home to roost with people like george santos and lauren boebert and this guy in new mexico. i mean a political party has got to be big and a big tent, but it really can't stand for dangerous extremists and criminals and other elements like that, that will use electoral politics for their own purposes, whether they're financial, ideological or political in an extremist sense. >> and we're having this conversation in the context of yet another seditious conspiracy trial being under way in washington. we had seditious conspiracy convictions related to the january 6th attack on congress already for members of the oath keepers. the proud boys seditious conspiracy trial is under way and will resume tomorrow after today's federal holiday. i wonder if you think that the republican takeover of the house and their efforts to target the fbi, to target the justice department, to describe what the doj and fbi have been doing as somehow weaponizing the federal government for political

purposes, if you think that has the possibility of interfering with january 6th investigations and indeed these ongoing prosecutions? >> well, that's one of the central purposes of it. you know, you have a lot of people who were involved at different levels in the january 6th attempted political coup against the vice president, against congress, and the insurrection which stormed the capitol. a lot of those people are involved, which is why we are calling the new committee the select committee on insurrection protection, because a lot of these people are in it to try to make sure they don't get investigated and they don't get prosecuted. but it is a larger principle, it's not just about january 6th, it's in general about making sure that there is no neutral and objective law enforcement that comes to their door for any crimes they may have committed. and so it's a major threat to the rule of law in america. i mean traditionally the political parties have taken the position that the law enforcement function is independent and the politicians will not try to micromanage or interfere or obstruct what's taking place within law enforcement.

and the whole purpose of this committee is to obstruct the fbi or what donald trump today called the fake bureau of investigation. it's an attack on law enforcement. lots of my republican colleagues are calling for defunding the fbi. defunding the federal prosecutors and investigators. >> maryland congressman jamie raskin, the top democrat on the oversight committee. former member of the january 6th investigation. sir, thanks very much for your time tonight. it is good to see you. >> great to see you, rachel. >> we'll be right back. stay with us.

i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program.

if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. what are the three ps? the three ps of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54, what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i'm 65 and take medications. what's my price? also $9.95 a month. i just turned 80, what's my price? $9.95 a month for you too. if you're age 50 to 85, call now about the #1 most popular whole life insurance plan available through the colonial penn program. it has an affordable rate starting at $9.95 a month. no medical exam, no health questions. your acceptance is guaranteed. and this plan has a guaranteed lifetime rate lock

so your rate can never go up for any reason. so call now for free information and you'll also get this free beneficiary planner. and it's yours free just for calling. so call now for free information. we've been covering this

breaking news story out of new mexico over the course of this hour tonight. now a new development. as police sources tell us, there is a second s.w.a.t. raid being carried out tonight at a second location in new mexico. we're awaiting details about that. but here's what we know. police today in the first s.w.a.t. raid arrested a republican candidate for state legislature in new mexico. a man named solomon pena. he was the republican party's nominee for a statehouse seat in the elections this past november. he lost to the incumbent democrat but then refused to acknowledge the election results. he said it was rigged. mr. pena was arrested today, again in a s.w.a.t. raid. he was arrested in connection with a string of four shootings into the homes and offices of democratic politicians, including one case in which three bullets were fired into the bedroom of the 10-year-old daughter of one democratic state rep. the girl was asleep in her bedroom when those three shots were fired into her bedroom on january 3rd. tonight we received new

statements from one of the democratic politicians who has had shots fired into his home in recent weeks. he's the incoming new mexico house of representatives speaker. his name is javier martinez and he tells us i deeply appreciate our albuquerque police department for their hard work throughout the investigation into these shootings targeting elected officials. i'm grateful a suspect is in custody. i trust our justice system will hold those responsible accountable. we've seen far too much political violence lately and all of these events are powerful reminders that stirring up fear, heightening tensions and stirring hatred can have devastating consequences. after the arrest of this republican politician today, police sources tell us now a second s.w.a.t. raid is under way in new mexico. we'll continue to following this breaking news story. stay with us. stay with us mon co. so it takes the right tool for the job... to keep it together. now there's new theraflu flu relief with a max strength fever fighting formula.

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when you add comcast business mobile. or, ask how to get up to a $750 prepaid card. complete connectivity. one solution, for wherever business takes you. comcast business. powering possibilities. thanks for being with us tonight. again, i hope that you had the day off from work or the day off from school in honor of the mlk day holiday. remember that tomorrow the big town hall here on msnbc is going to be 10:00 p.m. eastern tomorrow night for the national day of racial healing, which has now been held for the last seven years. this day has been held in conjunction with the mlk holiday. should be a really, really good town hall tomorrow night here, 10:00 p.m. on msnbc. that's going to do it for me. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is up next. >> face aol inflection point in our nation's history. one that's going to determine what this country looks like severa