tonight on "the reidout" -- >> if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. although the second amendment people, maybe there is. i don't know. >> that was more than six years ago. during the rise of trump, who champions the idea that republicans have a right to rule by force if necessary. now, a failed republican politician in new mexico is accused of a raging violent attack on the homes of four elected officials. one of those officials joins me in a few moments. that case is the latest example of how years of right wing crackpot conspiracy theories including election denial have very real consequences and put lives at

risk. good evening from studio b in new orleans. site of tonight's national day of racial healing town hall, which i will be hosting tonight at 10:00 p.m. eastern along with chris hayes and trymaine lee. i'll tell you much more about that a little later. >> we begin tonight with the real life confluence of a toxic stew of election denial, extremism, and political violence. the type of nightmare scenario that is all too real in america. police in new mexico arrested failed republican legislative candidate solomon pena, who they say orchestrated a string of shootings targeting democratic officials in the state. last november, pena lost to his democratic opponent in a landslide, by nearly 50 points. but claimed he really lost because of so-called fraud. apparently he's both an election denier and a sore loser. after the election, a very stable pena wrote on twitter, i dissent. i am the maga king. he later posted a photo of

himself in maga gear, noting much like donald trump, he never conceded. police say pena's anger at losing may have motivated him to mastermind the plan to conspire with and pay four men to carry out shootings at the albuquerque homes of two county commissioners and two state legislators. prior to the shootings, he even visited the homes of officials to dispute his loss, including county commissioner adrian barboa. thankfully, no one was hurt in the shootings but as we have seen over and over again since 2020, this is not an aberration. it's now a philosophy for the right and maga republicans. a firm belief that it's just not possible for them to lose, whether it's by 50 points or 5 million votes. backed by a threat of violence. now, to be clear, not all republicans who lose will shoot you. but some have no qualms implying they will in their political ads. >> madam speaker, tear down this

wall. >> join the maga crew, get a rino hunting perment. there's no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesn't expire until we save our country. >> in 2022, i'm going to blow away the democrat socialist agenda. >> it's become the norm on the republican side. photo ops with guns, pose with your entire family with rifles. even in front of your christmas tree. and with it, an implied message if republicans don't get what they want, winning, they're prepared to use them. those implied threats of violence come amid a chilling trend of real-world political violence. it's been barely six months since paul pelosi, husband of former speaker nancy was attacked with a hammer by an assailant looking for the speaker. a florida man is in prison for

threatening to behead pelosi as well as congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez. a man was arrested after he showed up with a gun at the home of congresswoman pramila jayapal. and republican senator susan collins told "the new york times" last year that she wouldn't be surprised if a member of either chamber were killed. it's not that there's never violence coming from the left. the 2017 congressional baseball game shooting that injured republican majority leader steve scalise is an example. but for republicans, the implied violence is baked into their message. in fact, just a few weeks ago, marjorie taylor greene said that if she and steve bannon had planned january 6th, they would have been armed and won. the embrace of political violence is now almost a religion, an overt form of terrorism, of political and physical inside the no longer grand old party. if you don't win, take action to

seize power, by any means necessary. fight it in court, go after election officials, overthrow the government, storm the capitol. an entitlement to rule with devastating consequences, even with donald trump in the rear-view mirror. and joining me now is county commissioner and vice chair adrienne barboa, one of four people targeted by the political attacks on new mexico. commissioner, thank you for being here. i want to ask you how you're doing and if you could sort of lay out how you're doing and just lay out for us what happened at your home. >> yes, thank you so much. yeah, i was -- i was out christmas shopping and came back home to my house being shot up, literally four shots went through my front door and out my back window, literally through my living room where i had just only hours before been playing with my grand baby, my daughter was visiting. getting ready for christmas.

>> when you learned that -- go on. >> i was going to say, it was shocking and i'm still shocked and processing this attack. it continues to be incredibly heavy. especially knowing that, like, women of color, elected officials are specifically being targeted in our state and included our now speaker of the house, but was also a hispanic male democrat. >> let me ask you this. the climate that we're seeing right now among not all but some republicans and unfortunately a lot of prominent republicans is that they are showing a kind of sort of warlord style in their ads, posing with guns, threatening violence, the implied threats that we're armed, we want to make sure that you know it, do you feel that that kind of rhetoric, that kind of vibe inside the party along

with this idea that they can't lose, that if they lose, it's inherently fraud, do you feel that contributed to what happened to you and the other elected officials? >> oh, i have no doubt about it. you know, election deniers have -- and this movement, this vibe you're talking about, is coming from our highest level of government. when they continue to make threats and violence is a regular part of public discourse, it has real impact on our democracy and obviously our lives. like, these shots came through my front door, through my living room, and out my kitchen. like, this was direct targeted violence that could have truly harmed and killed somebody. and so that, you know, when we're not careful of our words as elected official whether you're at a local level like myself or a congressional or federal level, our words matter, and people, we have influence. that's the point of taking

elected office, is to serve. we should be more careful of our words and what we're promoting. >> and this alleged shooter, the person who is accused, has been arrested for this crime and for orchestrating these shootings, apparently visited several of your homes. i believe including yours. in the weeks before the shooting. had you ever spoken with him? did he speak with you, did he knock on your door and say hey, i didn't really lose? >> yeah, so i serve on the county commission, and we certify elections locally, the county runs our county elections. and then the county commission certifies it. so yeah, there's about a two-week period between elections and when we actually certify the elections. and right after the election in that period of time, he came to my home, into the home of other commissioners. he was a bit erratic, definitely aggressive. i didn't so much feel threatened because i want to believe that our public should be able to reach their elected officials.

so i just wanted to listen to him. but he had papers and he was talking about election fraud and that we must deny the election and that it's the duty of the commissioners to deny the election results. >> and is the republican party -- have they made any statements about the truth of the results of the election? has there been an attempt fraumpt the other side to say no, no, to anyone who doubts the results of the election, these elections were valid, they were fair? >> no, not at least in new mexico. and you know, we have had a string of election deniers coming through the commission on a regular basis, and then that has just meant that around every corner they're talking to either our county commission, our county clerk, and really trying to push that the elections are a

fraud. i made a statement because we were having it so much, i made a statement to say i believe in same-day election, i believe in the quality and integrity of our elections and our county staff and i was worried that might have been what triggered some of this. i was the first person, i believe, that was targeted. >> well, we wish you well. i'm glad you're okay and that your family is okay and that you weren't harmed. and i also very much appreciate you coming on the program tonight. adrienne barboa, thank you so much and be well. >> and let's bring in former republican congressman david jolly who is no longer affiliated with the party, and kurt bardella, democratic strategist and former spokesman for the house oversight committee. i want to start with you first, david. this has been a long time. i mean, during the tea party era, the sort of, you know, what they would do would be to hang president obama in effigy, go

around with this idea of nooses. you saw nooses sort of cropping up around the country in relshz relation to the former president, the first black president. we know during the passage of obamacare, lots and lots of democratic members of congress got threatening voice mails, rocks through their windows, threats of violence against them. this isn't a new thing. but in your mind, as somebody who has been around republican politics a long time, has it gotten worse? >> oh, absolutely. i think the arc you just described is absolutely accurate. you can look kind of the philosophical underpinnings of today's republican party and see the chapters where it moved from less government to no government to now government is the enemy. and at the same time, you're seeing this cultural narrative within the party when we talk about lgbtq issues and issues of race where the party has taken a position that the government is coming for your privilege, for your way of life. that's why we see don't say gay and we see the ban on critical race theory and all these other culture war issues.

so the broad narrative of today's republican party has really landed in a place where the government is your enemy, the government is trying to take things from you, the government is trying to cheat you. and what you see now is violent actions. and i appreciate you focusing on the leadership message that then trickles down to these violent actors because there will always be violent actors but it's the leadership message that at times inspires them. we saw it on january 6th clearly where donald trump excited the crowd. i would say this is the danger in the new subcommittee on the weaponization of government, that house republicans just implemented. weaponization against whom? who has the government been weaponized against? clearly in republican minds, it's against you the citizen, the government is coming for you. and ultimately, that's going to incite the type of actions that we saw here tonight. >> right, and you know, kurt, they're being very specific. they're not saying you the citizen. they're saying white christians,

and the problem is that they are creating among a group of people who are already falling into the minority and not happy about it, and anxious about it, and you think about just what's happened in the last several years. threats against members of congress are up 330% since 2016. armed demonstrations are up 47% since the 2020 election day. armed paramilitary groups up 96% between 2020 election day and inauguration day. fbi hate crimes, 8,263, just in 2020. that's the highest number since 9/11. white supremacy propaganda and activism up 1100% since 2017. it definitely feels like there is a weaponizing of people's fear of minority status and of losing power and status. and you are very familiar with steve bannon, a self-described leninist, who wants this kind of camp of the saints war, he's

getting it. >> yeah, i just think, too, just the explosion in hate crimes against asian americans we have seen over the last two years, all fueled by gop rhetoric, and we think about that segment you just had about people's lives really being threatened, that people who ran unsuccessfully won't accept the truth and literally put a target on the backs of their opponents. i think the other day when eric swalwell released a voice mail he received threatening the lives of him, his family, his kids. you look at what republicans just did today, appointing 12, 13, 14 members the house oversight committee who were election deniers. i just reviewed a report that was just released by the congressional integrity project articulating all the election deniers who have been appointed to this committee, and it's so dangerous because all of this does is legitimize those conspiracy theories. it tells these people, the radical actors who take and treat these members' words and

rhetoric like the bible, it legitimizes them. it tells them they are right to feel how they feel, that is it right for them to act on these crazy conspiracy theories and the more republicans in leadership like kevin mccarthy legitimize those dangerous conspiracy theories, the more violence we're going to have, the more threats we're going to have, and let's be very clear, when that happens, and it will continue to, the blood is on the hands of the republicans who we know know better. >> yeah. kevin mccarthy, one might say he sold his soul for that gavel because he is, i mean, let's look at this congress. the republicans who support overturning the election, the 117th congress, there were 139 of them. now there are 136 of them. there are eight in the senate right now, there used to be -- sorry, 13 in the senate right now. and you're absolutely right. paul gosar, whose own family rejects everything about him in terms of his attitudes on race. marjorie taylor greene, andrew

clyde, these people who have already shown a penchant for insurrection, they're getting committee assignments. i want you to talk more, to zoom back a little bit. the way these guys are running for office is to show themselves armed to the teeth, to show you and let you know before the election even happens, let me just let you know, i'm armed, my whole family is armed. let me show you this christmas card with all of us with guns. to me, the implication is i'm basically a warlord, and i'll either get elected or i'll get power anyway because i have these guns. >> so many serious threads in this story. i'm glad you're treating it as such. take just the issue of gun violence and the celebration of the use of high capacity weapons as a part of republican messaging. that in and of itself is dangerous. then you have the lies and this notion that the government is coming for your place in society. well, if government is coming to take something from you, then you have a right to protect

yourself. those threads kind of merge together. the dangerous thing, probably the most dangerous piece of this is who among today's republican leadership is going to lead the party out of it? actually what we see is everybody fall into it. kevin mccarthy arguably six or eight years ago would have been the more rational speaker that would have been able to keep all this at bay. instead, he fell right into it. even the voices of mitch mcconnell and others are ineffective in pushing back. the next generation of republican leader will be elevating and celebrating this. and i hate to get kind of overtly partisan here, but that is the importance of the coalition that democrats have built in the last six years. of democrats, independents, and disaffected republicans who say there's this movement in today's american politics that is dangerous and worrisome, so whether we're democrats or independents or disaffected republicans, we have to step in and put a stop to it. that's the importance of what democrats are leading in this moment in history right now. >> i think it's important that i'm sitting here with two former

republicans, people who were partisan at one time in that party, but you're right, david. we now have a coalition, and there are really sort of two sides in american politics. there are those who think that you shouldn't use violence to solve the problem of losing, that violence shouldn't have anything to do with politics. and there's another side that says, well, you know, maybe it's okay if we lose, maybe we should storm the capitol. maybe we should hunt pelosi. maybe we should just hunt them down if they won't let us have power, if they vote wrong, we'll shut them out at the ballot. kurt, do you think that there is someone in the republican party who does have the stature to do it? because people like adam kinzinger and others are being chased out. there are republicans who are saying they were afraid to vote for impeachment because they thought their own base would kill them. they're afraid of their own base. is there somebody who is not

afraid of the very heavily armed republican base, part of it, to say something or do something about it? >> i think that's really kind of the sad thing at this point, joy, is that there isn't. there isn't anyone that has the stature and the ability to successfully lead the republican party out of this extreme wilderness. we have seen the folks like kinzinger and liz cheney. guess what, they're not in congress anymore. every time at least one or two of them try, they get ran out of town, ran out of their own party, ran out of their own leadership in the case of liz cheney. kevin mccarthy was caught on audio agreeing with liz cheney about donald trump's culpability on january 6th and a few weeks later, what was kevin doing? high tailing to mar-a-lago and throwing liz cheney under the bus. there is no -- there's only cowardice right now in the republican hierarchy. as long as that's the case and it seems to be the case after what we have seen from kevin mccarthy, they're going to keep

going to the extreme. after an election in which they just woefully underperformed, a lot of their extremist candidates lost, the calculation they have made is, you know what, we're going to make marjorie taylor greene the face of the party, make laurent boebert the face of the party, make scott perry the face of the party. in fact, we're going to put them on the oversight committee where they're center stage when these hearings are broadcast wall to what on every news network, they're going to make them more influential, more important. that's the lesson they learn from almost losing the midterm elections almost entirely. >> and the problem is they can't win a majority in the country, and they certainly can't win the white house this way. and it's a vicious cycle because then when they lose because the majority of american voters go whoa, no, that's too crazy for me, then they cycle it back again and say no, we didn't really lose. it was also fraud, and it's just right back where we started. david jolly and kurt bardella, thank you. up next on "the reidout," the arrest in new mexico was

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there is a common theme in what we saw in new mexico as well as other attempts of political violence over the past few years. many of them stem from a conspiracy, whether it's the big

lie and election denialism, qanon, or anti-vax. for some, conspiracy theories have become a sort of religion. in his new book, the midnight kingdom, a history of power paranoia, and the coming crisis, the author explores how people are sucked into paranoid fantasies in order to justify their world view and how it can drive individuals to extremism or in some cases even violence. he writes, quote, this is unfortunately part of an ongoing cycle throughout history, the apowerful have continually used this exact same formulation. the outside threat, partnering with internal traitors and taking advantage of populations through manipulations and lies to protect themselves. particularly the white patriarchal establishment which relies on these conspiracy theories to divert anger to their enemies and opponents. the same song and dance that has inspired wars, genocides, and

coups. joining me is jared, cohost of the muck rake podcast and author. i'm fascinated by this and i want you to say more about it. i definitely have this ongoing theory that a lot of what we're seeing are certain elites, billionaire elites, people with lots of money who don't want to pay taxes, stoking conspiracy theories, paying for and funding organizations that will whip up the masses so that they don't focus on the rich folks and try to raise their taxes. what do you think? >> absolutely. i couldn't agree with you more, joy. thank you for having me. i think one of the things we need to start focusing on are those donors, those billionaires and millionaires who have consistently attacked democracy and the united states. you know, we can look at donald trump and his buffoonish cartoonish side show antics but there are people behind the scenes paying for things like january 6th, who are paying for things like the ottawa truckers

convoy and even the coup attempt in brazil. and the consistent thing we find is that they're using these conspiracy theories, whether it's the idea of crt or groomers or qanon, all of these things are useful tools to go ahead and help explain how we have arrived at this point, but as you were saying, it changes the consequences. it changes the focus from the powerful to political enemies, including liberal traitors or people of color. you know, it's interesting that we just celebrated martin luther king day. we never talk about the fact he was portrayed as a communist agent by the right wing, by the powerful, in order to go ahead and say that he wasn't serious about reform or that there wasn't a clamor for some sort of a civil rights action. and always, we find this through american history, that this is how the powerful protect themselves and how they go ahead and expand their power. >> well, and if you think about dr. king as you're right, we're a day past martin luther king

jr. day, and also to try to blunt the message they never tell you about, where he was saying economic justice, right? it was one thing if you're saying everybody sit down at the table of brotherhood, that's fine, and that's well and good in church, but if you're saying economic justice, that's going to cost somebody something. so you start to see him become more dangerous to, you know, the upper echelons of society, when he's talking about repair. and so i feel like we're kind of in a similar moment. you have barack obama coming along, he's very popular, and so there's this fear that he's going to, you know, make morgueening companies eat some of their losses for mortgages people couldn't pay. boom, tea party. and they refocus it on he's a muslim, he's not really american. but their original beef, the tea party, was that they didn't want mortgage cram down, so how we got from billionaires who didn't want mortgage cram down to obama is a monkey and a false president, to me, it does seem

like maybe not a conspiracy, but a plan. >> oh, it absolutely is. i want to point out these conspiracy theories and these ideologies are ways of making sense of things that otherwise would be unthinkable. you know, you start talking about the possibility of overthrowing a government or even locking up your political enemies. if you just said, let's go and do that, that's unacceptable. but all of a sudden you start telling a story which is barack obama, of course, is either a muslim, new world order puppet, or possibly even the atichrist, and that turns the temperature up. suddenly you're deciding between protecting your family and what you have or letting something awful happen. right now, the republican party is continually stoking that fear among their base. i mean, we have even gotten to the point where a debate over gas stoves and whether or not they affect childhood asthma has turned into the fear of jackbooted thugs breaking into people's homes. we're no longer talking about the issue, about something that could cause problems with big

energy or fossil fuel companies. what we're doing is replacing it instead with this fearmongering idea and story that goes ahead and gets people to go along with the plan. >> and how do we protect ourselves from it when they add in the idea that an election happens, you have millions of people who are disappointed, and then that disappointment is being redirected toward a lie, towards saying oh, no, don't worry. your candidate, your favorite president, your favorite whoever didn't lose. it was stolen. i feel like in a country with more guns than people and with a group of people who are already feeling insecure about their future in the country, they're already primed. this election denialism is the perfect, you know, match that you can throw on all of that. >> it absolutely is. and unfortunately, it's a very american tradition. let's not lose sight of the fact that the confederate states of america was more or less an election denying movement.

the ku klux klan was an election denying movement. the coup of wilmington in 1898 was a white supremacist election denying movement. white supremacy in the united states of america will not accept the results of democracy if it goes against the wishes of white supremacy. it's an absolute tinder box. what we have arrived at now is a moment much like the lead-up to the civil war and that era of wilmington where you have a white supremacist population that is heavily armed and is heavily radicalized and ready for violence. these election denying conspiracy theorists are the perfect way to ignite that. the people who push them in order to push their own agendas, they're absolutely playing with fire, and they have already gotten people killed, people harassed. that poor woman you were talking to earlier. i mean, we're pushing public figures out of the public arena. we're making it to the point where nobody wants to be involved with any of this for fear of their lives. this is the way you attack open society and the way you start to notch up wins. >> yeah, and the scary thing

about it is many of the people pushing this are just getting elevated to higher and higher elected office and getting on important committees in congress where they'll have oversight authority. it's pretty frightening. i would love to have you back. thank you so much for being here. and we will definitely check out your book. >> still ahead, the death toll from russia's latest atax on civilian targets in ukraine continues to climb as ukrainian troops arrive in the u.s. for training on the advanced patriot missile defense system. more on this live from studio b in new orleans.

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how much their accident case is worth.h barnes. t ouour juryry aorneneys hehelpou today marks the second anniversary of russian opposition leader alexei navalny returning to russia after recovering from being poisoned. he was immediately arrested upon his arrival, convicted on fabricated charges and is still in prison to this day. in a tweet sent by his associated outside russia, he wrote that he will never surrender his country and urges everyone not to abandon hope. navalny is a prime example of russian president vladimir putin's attempts to clamp down on any form of dissent to his rule. dissent has only been growing as we near the one-year anniversary of the start of his war against ukraine. while it has led to immense political and economic turmoil within the kremlin, putin has not relented at all in his vicious assault on ukraine. take a look at these pictures of

an apartment complex in the ukrainian city of dnipro that was the target of a russian missile strike over the weekend. ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy denounced the strike that claimed the lives of at least 45 people including six children, as a war crime. it's one of the deadliest attacks on civilian targets since the war began. joining me now is michael mcfaul, former ambassador to russia and msnbc international affairs analyst. it's always great to speak with you. it definitely feels like despite the fact that it feels like a losing effort overall, russia's viciousness and barbarity has not been mitigated at all. this attack on an apartment building that killed so many people, that feels like an escalation, not a de-escalation. >> you're right, joy. it does to me, too. when you can't win on the battlefield, and putin is losing on the battlefield, he is upping the ante in his terrorist attacks against ukrainian civilians. this is a horrible one that we

just saw, horrific what happened with this missile attack on this apartment building, right? doesn't that remind you a little bit of september 11th, by the way, looking at that footage? but that's what he does when he can't win on the battlefield. i see no signs he's going to stop. >> and you know, i just combine sort of these things. you know, having alexei navalny imprisoned, a friend of the show is also in prison. imprisoning the people who could free and liberate russia and turn it into a democracy. at the same time, openly partnering with belarus and others to sort of look to make it look like he's got allies in this war. but i'm wondering if any of it is helping internally in terms of how russians view him, because the fact he has to run to belarus now for help doesn't feel like strength and having navalny and his other opponents in prison doesn't look like

strength either. >> joy, first of all, thank you for mentioning alexei navalny at the top of your show. it's the two-year anniversary of his wrongful imprisonment, and people need to remember he's still in jail. you make a really good point. why is alexei navalny in jail? why are other colleagues in jail? when putin wants us to believe there's no opposition to the war, everybody supports him, everybody loves him. yet he feels like he has to put all these people in jail, chase out independent media, and i think those are signs that in fact when you read opinion polls and it says everybody supports the war, we need to be suspicious about those polls. by the way, remember, there are really high nonrespondent rates to polls in russia. guess why. because you can go to jail for 15 years if you say the wrong thing about putin. surprise, surprise, people aren't answering those polls. that's number one. number two, navalny's opposition channel, if you watch his youtube channels that his

opposition in exile are still doing, their numbers are going way up. and state controlled television channels, people are watching those less and less. and even those opinion polls with all their flaws are showing declining support for the war and anxiety about the war. so yes, superficially, it looks like everybody is supporting the war, but you dig a little deeper and there's a lot of data that suggests he's losing popular support for this war. >> you know, it feels like he could probably go on for quite some time as long as oil prices stay high, as long as russia's oil industry stayed strong. that doesn't seem to be happening. less than frigid winter has kind of foiled the plan to freeze europe out. and it seems that russia's oil industry is actually feeling the effects of sanctions. could that weaken putin ultimately? >> you're right.

i fear tragically analytically if i have to answer the question, he could last a long time because he controls everything, but you raise a good point. ukrainians like to say god is on our side. look at what great weather they had in europe, right? he's not selling oil, you know, a 30% discount already, and it's way below where it was at the beginning of the war. and over time, sanctions are having that impact. russia today is a very isolated economy. it's not going to grow in the next year. tens of thousands of the best and the brightest are leaving. and over time, that is going to take its toll. economic elites, there's not a single major economic elite, well, maybe one or two that are really close to putin, but most of them lament this war, most of them detest this war. they don't say that because they don't want to go to jail, but there's no enthusiasm among economic elites for this war inside russia. >> there is -- somebody has

left, you have a wagner group commander who has requested asylum in norway. the first time we have seen a defection to the west since the start of the war. do you think this is significant? >> i do. i think we should be doing a whole lot more to encourage more defections, by the way. have a comprehensive strategy for doing that. but it's important in two respects. one, he's with a wagner group, the paramilitary mercenaries, private military company run by this guy, so they're supposed to be professionals and he's defecting. you also see tensions below the surface between the wagner group and the regular military forces. they're each claiming credit for recent victories. putin just had to change his commander in charge of this war, right? you don't change your generals when you're winning wars. you change them when you're losing. and again, you add up these things and i think there's lots of different pieces of evidence that suggest that, a, this war is going badly.

b, a lot of russians know it, and maybe even c, putin himself knows it. >> the last question i feel like i ask you this all the time, but i'll ask it again. you know, when russia is bombing apartment buildings, it's a war crime. everyone knows it's a war crime. everyone knows they're doing it, but it feels like the international community is utterly helpless. the u.s. is now training ukrainian soldiers, we're bringing them into the u.s. and helping in training them. we're providing them billions of dollars in aid, in military aid. but it feels like there must be something more the world can do to brush back this rogue nation? >> i think there is. three things. one, we should designate russia a state sponsor of terrorism. we have a list, four countries are on it right now. cuba is on that list. if cuba is on that list, how can russia not be on that list? number two, we should massively increase sanctions.

we talked about the good news of sanctions. but there are literally hundreds of new sanctions that we could impose. we should have a big bang approach to sanctions, not incrementalism. and third, i think the same thing about weapons. if you listen to general, the commander in chief of ukraine, he says give me 300 tanks and i will push the russians out. we should test that hypothesis. we should give them the offensive weapons they need to try to push the russians out. so we have done lot. i give the biden administration a ton of credit for 2022. but nobody is going to remember all the good things they did in 2022 if putin begins to win in 2023. and that's why i think we need a big bang approach here on sanctions, on weapons, and on designating them a state sponsor of terrorism. what a great way to start the new year. >> sounds like great ideas. hopefully somebody in biden world is listening. thank you very much. >> and don't go anywhere because we're going to have a little preparty ahead of tonight's town hall with my good friends chris

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did you know you can get discounts on your meds even if you don't have a medicare prescription drug plan? it's true. all you have to do is go to singlecare.com type in your prescription, and then present the coupon to your pharmacist. it's that simple. not to mention, it's free. singlecare is accepted by major pharmacies across the country and it works for everyone, whether you have insurance or not. next time you need a prescription filled, go to singlecare to make sure you get the best price. visit singlecare.com and start saving today. >> in just two short hours, i will be back here with this guy, chris hayes, for our town hall,

commemorating national day of racial healing. we will be coming to you live from right here at the iconic studio b and cultural landmark in new orleans. joining me now is my pal, chris hayes, and new orleans-based visual artist, brandon b. mike odoms of studio b. thank you for being here and i know we were both just, like, peppering you with questions about all this. before, chris, we will talk about the thing. but can you talk about the space, which is so amazing? >> yeah, so studio b, thank you for having us and being in the studio, it's a labor of love, it's a product of our. coming -- filled with our, started off as a pop-up, a six month long pop-up and we've been here now almost seven years, so it's been a blessing. >> it's amazing. >> how did you start as an artist? i mean, your work is incredible and folks can check it out, like some of your paintings are up here. how did you start as an artist? >> it's been a long, meandering journey, but new orleans it's a city, such a creative, beautiful place. i've been poured into by so many amazing people and i was

given the responsibility to do something with my work and my creativity, what is the function of it? so for me, that started off -- illegally at first, responding to the hurricane katrina damage spaces. it snowballed into the series of organic projects. exhibit b, -- being one and studio b being the space right now. >> when we are not here taking up your space, what happens in this incredible studio? >> we're open five days a week. the general public is able to walk through. as well, we have a nonprofit called -- where the goal is to pour into the upcoming creatives, emerging artists and that programming here, classroom education spaces. so, our goal is just to be as useful with our time, to be a good steward of the moment that we are in. >> we've got portraits in this building of -- i see -- we have john louis right there. obviously, this sort of questions of the struggles of civil rights movement. like, a huge part of that theme is the work you do. >> yeah, definitely. -- the artist duty to reflect the

times. but for me, it's a duality of not just reflecting the times, but also using your imagination to see beyond who we are, to see what's beyond us, to see hopefully a better and brighter future. i think creatives have this kenow billet-y to lean into the radical imagination. so ideally in the space, you see this juxtaposition of the past as well as the possibilities for the future. so, that's the goal. >> the thing is, what we're doing tonight, we're talking about this sort of racial healing dynamic and what can be done to sort of create it. i definitely feel like art has a big part in healing, right? >> definitely. >> it has the ability to express and what you're doing here, you're showing beautiful black people and you're showing the joy of blackness as well as the struggle. >> yeah, it's all about our community. i think the ideal transformation, i think when you think about the black experience in this country, it's always been of -- not being defined by the pain or the trauma, but somehow being able to transform it into beauty and joy. new orleans is a city that is steep with that. you think about the way we celebrate death, you think the way we celebrate life. this is a space that has taught me how artists can be

alchemists and i think you are right, art plays a huge role in that process, as we think about all the things that are in front of us, the problems we face, the things we want to dismantle and destroy. we also have to think about who we want to -- >> i've got to ask you a question because now -- what do you hope to get out of this conversation on racial history? what do you think people will get out of it? >> look, i feel like every, there is no, like, one size fits all and there is no one and done about the topic, right? so, everything, my feeling is, like, persuasion matters a lot in that people are open to persuasion, they're open to new ways of thinking, and we get these glimmers sometimes, we saw that in the summer of 2020. you can see consciousness break open a little bit. you can see little spaces for people to reimagine things and i think tonight is one of those opportunities to break open a little bit, to get people to get a perspective they may not have had, to have the consciousness, like, move around a little bit. that, to me, anytime we can do that in our work, to me, that's

a victory. >> it's a beginning, right? >> always. >> we won't solve the whole issue. >> it's -- >> it's going to be exciting, it's going to be exciting to be here. we will have a beautiful audience here. -- it will be filled with people who hopefully will be open to having this conversation, to experiencing the artwork. hopefully they will get a chance to walk around and experience your brilliant work. and i think it's going to be great. and who will you have on your show tonight? >> we're doing a bunch of santos stuff, we're doing the shooting in new mexico. i've got dan goldman, the new congress member who will be joining us as well. >> okay, we will sit and we will enjoy that. but you know what? i will be enjoying it in the space. it'll be wonderful. maybe someone will get me, like, -- or something to enjoy your show. thank you, brandon. >> great on air ask. >> on air ask, somebody bring me these in a hurricane. while not a hurricane because -- the next thing we do later tonight. brandon bmike biden brandan odums chris hayes, thank you so much -- be sure to join me chris, and trymaine lee tonight at 10 pm eastern for our special msnbc town hall, a national day of

racial healing, and it's sponsored by the w. k kellogg foundation. it's right here in studio b in gorgeous new orleans. all in with chris hayes's next right after this break. s next right after this break right after this break nicorette knows quitting smoking is freaking hard. you get advice like... just stop. go for a run. go for ten runs. run a marathon. instead, start small with nicorette, which will lead to something big.

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i screwed up. mhm. i got us t-mobile home internet. now cell phone users have priority over us. and your marriage survived that? you can almost feel the drag when people walk by with their phones. oh i can't hear you... you're froze-- ladies, please! you put it on airplane mode when you pass our house. i was trying to work. we're workin' it too. yeah! work it girl! woo! i want to hear you say it out loud. well, i could switch us to xfinity. those smiles. that's why i do what i do. that and the paycheck.