hi, everyone. it is 4:00 in new york on a monday. there is brand-new block buster reporting that read feels that

in the wake of the 2020 election, fox news found itself trapped in a confine entirely of its own making. they could tell the truth to the viewers, as all new networks, even fox, inspired to do and are prepared to do. with election decision debts and models, to call races accurately. or, kurt number two, fox news could came to the life and conspiracies being told by the man had almost completely synced up with so closely aligned with by that point. the disgraced ex-president for taking that path would mean that fox news would shield its millions of viewers from the sophisticated and expensive data-driven results produced by its own, competent election desk. importantly, fox news realizes at the highest level of that company, that it cannot do both. according to brandon reporting in the new york times, fox

news' decision to promote joe biden on election night, it was a call they were able to make ahead of other networks. it is a call that they got right ahead of other networks. it spurgeon emergency crisis management meeting. the times, which reviewed a recording from that meeting reported that typically it is a point of pride for news network to be the first to project election winners. fox is no typical news network. in the days following the 2020 boat, it was besieged with angry protests, not just from donald trump's camp from its own viewers. i have called the battleground date of arizona for mr. biden. nevermind that the call was correct. fox executives worried that they would lose viewers to heartbreak competitors like newsmax. on monday, november 16, 2020, suzanne scott, the chief executive of fox news and jay wallace, the president, convened a zoom meeting for an expression with unusual go. how

to keep from angering that network's conservative audience again by calling an election for the democrat before the competition? executives and host tossed around all sorts of ideas. once again, from this news time reporting, quote, bret baier and martha maccallum suggested it was not enough to call a state based on numerical calculations. the standard by which networks have made such determinations for generations. but that viewer reaction should be considered, quote, in a trumping environment, the game is just very, very different trump environment that she referred to was a world in which trout's lies about the election had already terminated the republican base. it was, indeed, the alternate reality that she described once in an interview with chuck todd. in which the only way a democrat could win in this country would be through cheating. and then here was fox news,

talk about how to reinforce what was now except did as the alternate reality to its millions of viewers, despite the cold hard facts, as accurately projected by its own election decision desk. all of it was in the wake of that -- what would become an infamous call, calling arizona. according to the voting machine company, dominion, with fines of his $1.6 billion defamation suit caused a backlash. it led fox news to give a platform to or at times indoors, the trump campaign's bases claims of election fraud the new york times has brand- new details on what happened inside fox news after it decision desk made that call. here's what happened the morning after, quote, ms. scott suggest fox not call any more states until certified by authorities. a process that could take days or weeks. she was talked out of that but

the next day, with mr. biden's meet in arizona nearing, the campaign was angry and suggested reversing the call, quote, it is hurting us, network president jay wallace and others in a previously reported email the sooner we pull it, even if it gives us a major ache and put it back in his column, the better we are in my opinion,". the decision desk overseen by bill sammon, the managing editor for washington resisted giving it back to a candidate who was losing, just to satisfy critics. in a statement to the new york times, fox news defended these internal discussions surrounding the arizona decision this way, quote, fox news did by the arizona called despite intense scrutiny. given the extremely narrow 0.3% margin and a new production mechanism that no other network had, of course, there would be

a wide-ranging postmortem surrounding the call and how it was executed no matter the candidate. what happened after fox news called arizona for joe biden? and what does that say about the power of donald trump and his big lies today? that is where we start the hour. david focal book is here and the levine joins us once again. he has represented media clients for decades. and has successfully argued first amendment cases in front of the united states supreme court. plus, former republican david is here and former u.s. senator claire mccaskill is back with us. david and claire, msnbc political analyst. david, i want to start with you. i should say on these internal deliberations that involve bret baier and martha maccallum who have the news acre titles on these nights, that there is some sense from book folks was put the call back in as a call

column. regardless, the reporting is rock solid on the fact that even the news he asked figures he returned with an accurate call of arizona for joe biden. >> i think they saw it as a terrible thing to happen to their viewers, especially ahead of others having gone first. they would have like very much to have been able to lay the groundwork and say, fox news is joining other news organizations but please don't let us be the ones to break this news to our viewers and to the nation. that is what i was thinking seen as a severing of accord between many trump voters and fox viewers and the network that night. you saw it on their faces. there were surprised. they were presenting at that night, not

that they did not have any notice but that this was happening. there is an army of what going on. this new there was news that their audience would want to hear. what was amazing this is a result of, what? back in 2016 when all the organizations were surprised that the poles did not reflect donald trump's enduring strength in states where it mattered so much fox news decide to go on its own and it was joined by the associated press in a completely different model. fox have the fruits of that model on election night in 2020. it completely reversed what fox expected to be able to deliver to its audience in a sense that it was the bear of the worst possible news to its large audience. of course, the audience wanted it donald trump himself. >> lee, this area of exploration, if you will inside dominion's lawsuit against fox news, jump in if i have this

incorrect. they are trying to establish that everyone inside fox news knew the results of the election and knew they were free from fraud. that is why rupert murdoch, asserting and including the call with jared kushner about the results are so important. if i had that right, let me know if i have that wrong, correct me. just explain the legal significance of the quality of the data and the confidence in the accuracy of the call before we take this tangent on what it means. >> nicole, i think we have to be careful not to mix apples and oranges here. the issue that dominion is litigating is whether or not the information that fox disseminated about it through rudy giuliani and sidney powell , was false. minion is arguing that the

reason they gave these people a platform and allow them to get this man's information is that fox had a real problem, as you just laid out quite elegantly, with its own audience for calling arizona the way that it did. i think this is a nether one of those circumstances where, while the new york times story is jaw-dropping and newsworthy and incredibly interesting, it is only tangentially relevant to the lawsuit. when i read the story because i am a lawyer, my first thought was -- is dominion even going to try to get this particular recording into evidence because it is so three steps removed from the guts of their case? if they do, will fox try to excluded? i came to the conclusion that if i were dominion's lawyers, i would not try to get into evidence in the case. >> lee, you have done such a good job and an important

service to our show and organizing the journalism around this lawsuit into that which is legally a blockbuster. that which tells us things that we may have suspected about fox news before this lawsuit and thanks to this lawsuit, and in the public interest to understand how dishonestly broadcast decisions are made -- is this separate bucket. i appreciate you siphoning this off over there. let me ask you this on the legal front. is it relevant to show a jury that fox news, on election night , as a factual matter, agreed with the result that joe biden had won arizona. that when the election official for the country grid said the election was a free from fraud, everyone believed it. it seemed that fox did not accept that. it is important to establish

that fox news never accepted any of the questions about the legitimacy or the sanctity of the vote? >> yes. but declaration is directly relevant to the case. it shows that was one of the many data points that fox news had at the time that it was putting giuliani and powell on the air. that indicated that there was no fraud. that resulted in a change in the result of the election. certainly, nothing to do is just dominion was involved in that in any way. the somewhat different question of states being called and when they were being called is relevant to the issue of the blowback that fox was getting, which provides a motive for fox to allow these claims of

election fraud to be made even if they thought they were probably fault. >> david, i want to come back to the immediate consequence. this blowback, this emergency meeting. does not happen in a vacuum. it happens before other states in the ultimate election result has been called toward me read this from peter baker's new story. on friday night, november 6, when mr. sam's team was calling nevada for dividing. mr. wells refused aired. i'm not there yet sent us for our criminal marbles dashed jack it was a text message that was tame by the new york times rather than be the first to call the election winner, fox became the last. cnn declared mr. biden the victor the next day at 11:24 a.m. followed by the other networks. fox did not concur until 11:40 a.m. , some 14 hours after minster salmon's election team internally concluded the race

was over. this may be a weedy thing to pull out. viewers of this program has been six-year in the weeds. i'm going to do it anyway. it is, and until the selection probably even at fox there was some wild scenes from other election night, it is something sacred that the decision desk calls -- they drive the broadcasting of said calls. rachel maddow did the midterms . it is one of the -- i was a few but it is a sacred pipeline that the decision is made by the desk and when there may bear broadcast it seems that that fracture between arizona call and the nevada call, is a how you read this? >> absolutely. fox never again wanted to go first calling donald trump to have lost a key race, a vital race that could help swing oars cement the election for joe biden.

i was watching. i remember, you are taking me back to 2020, and thinking about the sequence of calling. honestly, we watch fox very closely to see when they would do. they came in last as we saw rupert murdoch writing. the two top buses at the head of the pyramid. we could have done this first, we could call the general election first for joe biden. we had the information in hand before anyone else but perhaps it is better that we did not. i think it is notable that from some folks inside fox, that bret baier and marshall mcallen did not want to hang on that night. it was called to be around alone: 40 on monday. they have information the evening before they could have been there to make the call or make the call in the early morning hours. they were reluctant to do it. it did not want to stick around

there was exceptional trepidation not only was there no desire there was active in timothy torres putting fox at the front of the line. one of the other things i will point out is that on fox, they identified for some years as an ideological driven network. we are the ones who put our news anchors on. were not having opinion host announced the results to folks. interesting, you find a behind the scenes, the new anchors are being caught in the same riptide as you would imagine opinion host to be caught between wanting to serve their audiences and the facts are staring them in the eye. not being able to very much resist that, even when in the first instance when they did call arizona for joe biden, they stood behind him. that is what they had already done. >> i love exceptional trepidation, it is so spot on.

it is also manufactured by fox news itself. never before has fox news feared an administration led by a member from the other party. those are fox news' year, clinton, obama. that is when fox news put itself on the map. to represent such a perversion. it was the media run state. they represent such an inversion of what that network was by its own benchmarks. you also have, and i like lee's revelations in terms of what is legally significant and historically sort of new data points about what fox news was like behind-the-scenes. it just reads as so much worse than it looks from the outside. >> nicole, let us be blind. fox news was lying the answer to a political campaign and its supporters to dictate what music presented as when. we are

witnessing is the very public humiliation of the fox news network. we learned last week that there opinion and entertainment hose were platforming conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists with information that they likely knew to not be true. it was kind of compartmentalize, if you believe there's any separation between their opinion and entertainment hose and the new journalist. now, we learned that the news journalist were also engaging what is malpractice, but not in the legal term, but in terms of this relation with the country for the news it was presenting emulation with the viewers. the crazy thing about this is the suggestion that somehow, were going to withhold the biggest news in the country because they were not sure how their audience would feel about that news. imagine -- imagine walter cronkite not reporting to the nation that jfk had actually died but withholding that information. are tom brokaw during his 12 hours during that 11 of broadcasting never informing america that the towers fell.

this is a presidential election at a critical time in history where a dangerous and common, fox news, based on their own analysis that they invested in, has information that the incumbent president has lost. refuses to tell america a shameful but also humiliating the for fox news. >> the reason we know all of this, claire, is because the affectations of fox news figures and people who would know. i want to play some of chris stirewalt, he was the political editor for a while. he had an editorial role and he testified before the january 6 committee on the arizona call. ms. our poll in arizona was beautiful. it was doing just what we wanted it to do. it was cooking up just right. at some point, and i forget exactly who but at some point it became clear that arizona was getting ready to make a call. we, around, my boss, bill sammon

said we're not taking a call to and says yes. you have to understand, in this room, you have the best people from academia, democrats, republicans, a broad cross- section of people who would work together for a decade, who were serious about this stuff. we knew it would be a consequential call because is one of five states that really mattered. wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, georgia, and arizona is what we are watching. we knew would be significant to call any one of those five. we are the new trump's changes were getting smaller from what we had seen. we were able to make the call early. we are able to beat the competition. >> claire, not a journalist for the new york times, not a craddick operative, not a journalist from nbc, a senior editorial journalist from inside fox news thing, we were able to make the call because our poll and our models were so good. what is up is down and what is

down is up. >> you know, i think lee does a good job on focusing on what our views are what important in this lawsuit. it is how dominion was damaged. keep in mind, that dominion, the only thing they sell, is the ability to have reliable and secure tabulations of votes. i would disagree with lee on strategy here. all of this information that we are finding out, to me goes in the bubble get reckless disregard. fox is trying to say, well, we were covering it because it was newsworthy. they booked sydney powell 11 times. after the election had been called evernote for joe biden, they booked her 11 times between that moment and december 20. she was spouting this stuff

every time. nobody was telling her not to go on the air. we now know that not only were the host there saying that she was a liar and a nut and cannot be trusted -- which certainly is knowing something is false -- but the fact that all of this conversation was going on and ousting the tabulation of votes that there is another layer that you have to consider? what are you talk about? there is no layer. bret baier is supposed to be the head political correspondent for the network. the only layer is, how do people vote? the notion that they were doing all these things behind-the- scenes in order to please their viewers. not to give them the truth. that is called reckless disregard for the truth. that is called, we are only going to tell the truth if it makes us money.

>> that is amazing. i have so much more for all of you. i need you to stick around for a little bit longer. when we come back, we will put up questions about how the defense from fox news in this case is actually setting up another political clash with a prominent conservatives republicans who plan running for president in the next cycle. we will explain what that looks like, plus republicans taser moving to banned books on race, to ban gender studies and then lgbtq performers all in the name of protecting kids. why is it that when it comes to gun laws, there were about in virginia people's rights? cannot do that. talk about bad. we will show you one viral exchange calling out an extraordinary hypocrisy. later in the broadcast how any potential indictments the ex-president, stemming from his alleged crimes may impact his own presidential campaign. although story and more when deadline white house continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere today . how'd

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we are glad to have you on but because of this lawsuit, our lawyers have asked that you please don't say anything crazy about dominion. >> no problem, i have been brief. i know the rules every dominion machine has a venezuela envelope inside. >> got to cut you off there, pal. we cannot be saying whatever evermore. >> let me choose my words carefully. the manual voting machines give triple votes to democrats, illegals, and that lady eminem that stopped shaving her pet. >> [ laughter ]

>> mike, were going to have to end it there. >> that is probably for the best >> fox news was the butt of jokes on snl, imagine how fox and friends would cover the defamation lawsuit, should they decide to cover the lawsuit. we're back withsix, seven, david jolly and claire mccaskill. his candidacy is animated by his belief that the last election was stolen from him in part because of dominion and voting machines. what careful balance does fox news has to strive to not amplify those lies about dominion again? >> it is a real tight rope for them to walk, and the culprit as we talked about before, it is no accident that they are not covering this case at all. they told him that they couldn't, if you were fox news viewer, you would not know that

this lawsuit even existed. you are right, as the campaign heats up and donald trump continues on the campaign trail to censure his campaign around the election was stolen from him, fox is going to have some serious decisions to make about whether to put that on the air and give dominion the tool of being able to say, look, they are continuing to this day to give a platform for these lies about us that they know our faults and i would not want to be in their shoes and >> we should say, that they choose to stand in their shoes and they choose to stay in their shoes. to my knowledge, no one has left fox news because of their lies that they broadcast, potentially defamatory lies. we will see how the lawsuit shakes out. what is so clear is that like mitch mcconnell and kevin mccarthy and rob portman, and so many individuals and institutions before them, fox news caved on even its own

questionable code, if you well. it used to pride itself on the accuracy and independence of its decision desk. that too has been sacrificed at the altar of trumpism. >> what we're learning as a result of the dominion filings and the records that are now being attended to as a result of it, is that fox news truly has been misleading the viewers, reporting false information and withholding information that is accurate and true. that is not just public humiliation but that should kneecap them as being considered a news organization. in america, we don't get to regulate the news and rightly so and rightfully so hard it raises question, if you are a fox news viewer, are you being told that you have been misinformed are you just going along for the ride because they keep it from you again? this is a really important story for our time. we are in a new era of journalism, a couple decades

in. how do you wrestle with the platform that misinformed it's viewers but still has the largest audience at times in the country? it is a hard question. >> david, it also has inspired new questions. one of the rising stars on the right is florida's governor ron desantis. wirt trump burps out policy decoration, ron desantis it's around and thinks about them. one of his policies is in complete opposition to fox news this defense. fox news is an unlikely collision course with two leading contenders for the republican presidential nomination over the rights of journalists. in defending itself against a massive defamation lawsuit over how it covered false claims surrounding the 2020 presidential election, the network, fox news, is relying on a 60-year-old supreme court ruling that makes it difficult to successfully sue media organizations for libel. donald trump and ron desantis,

two favorites of fox news viewers, have advocated for the court to revisit that standard. it is considered the foundational case in american defamation law. i don't imagine, david, that there's going to be policy debates on fox news. they used to but they do not do that anymore. it is rationale in this $1.6 billion case, is at odds with two of the republican figures that they platform most enthusiastically. >> i think that is right. i think you could also look at the fact that you have two very conservative supreme court justices, clarence thomas, and your corset who have indicated the decisions that they would be open to revisit that case from 1964, the ruling called the sullivan, in which there is was is very strong protection put in for the press to have some running room to cover politics and debate and discuss it. and not to be precise in every detail because freedom of the

press and freedom of each. it's just because about politicians without being narrow margins on this. if you have these two conservative justice and justin kagan before she joined the suggested that she might be interested in visiting it too. that would be a moment you think fox would look at such a thing. right now, it is clinging, it is clinging to the status as part of the news media. i did a story for npr, talking about the notion that fox is putting forward. i interviewed one of its attorneys, aaron murphy, if we get hit on this. if we lose this case it will have terrible effects for the rest of the media. it will be inhibit the ability of the press to cover claims by by major ms. baker's about hugely important events like a presidential election. even if those claims, themselves don't hold up to scrutiny. a lot of media lawyers have pushed back against that. i can tell you, that there are some lawyers and some first

amendment experts to say, there are real concerns about what happens if fox loses this case. right now, they would be seen as part of the establishment more than any time in its history. >> that is so fascinating. claire, as you look at all of these intersecting factors, intersecting data points, that show us where we are, that we used to have ideological silos but information can flow in and out. we now have information silos in which her ideology determines what information you have. as a person who has had a foot in red america and blue america, what are your concerns and what you think the stakes are? >> it is ironic that all of the pandering is going on right now around new york versus sullivan among media organizations and their lawyers. because, it has been such a high bar for anyone to bring an

action against a news organization because of that 60- year-old president. here, bad facts make bad law. here, fox news, of all outlets, is delivering to the courts, probably the worst set of facts in a high profile liable case in many, many years. these facts are bad for them. while truth is always a defense in libel, the faxed that this was not the truth and there's so much evidence whirling around the fact, they knew it was not the truth. this was important stuff. i guarantee you this -- there's one thing that everyone agrees on that represent media outlets in america. that is they hope this case settles. if it goes to the supreme court, i bet you five bucks that we have some new law, new rules of

the road, around what news organizations can and cannot do around falsehoods that they knowingly put out on the air. >> i want your thoughts on that. i believe it when these transcripts that were still digesting came out, there was word that there was much more to come, more exhibit and more filings ahead of the trial later this spring. in terms of what you're looking for and whatever disclosure is from this week or the days ahead and it claire's prediction, give me the last word. >> with respect to your question , nicole, my understanding is that tomorrow, i believe, the exhibits themselves that are quoted in the briefs that have been released publicly over the last few weeks, they will become public. we can test when we see those exhibit, whether fox is to be taken at is word when it says

that a lot of the statements that dominion quoted were taken out of context. that is one thing. the second thing is and i think eric had a really good piece in the washington post about it today, many of the documents that are quoted in the briefs that we have access to had substantial reductions in them. you can tell from what came before and what came after, that the refracted material is likely to be very interesting and relevant. the redactions were made at the test of fox, not dominion. the new york times and npr, filed a lawsuit to get access to the unredacted versions of these things. i suspect that, at some point, we will get access to at least some of those documents. with respect to claire's point, i have to respectfully disagree that this is the case that is

going to give the supreme court an opportunity to revisit new york times versus sullivan. remember, the plaintiff in this case is dominion. it is only dominion who would be seeking to overturn new york times versus sullivan, not, ironically, in this case fox. so that if dominion loses and appeals, it would probably asked the court to fiddle with new york times versus sullivan. but as we have discussed in the past, it is highly unlikely that dominion is going to lose. i think there is going to win or the case is going to settle >> that is amazing. claire, do you want to respond? >> he is probably right about that. the question is, are we seeing the ground shift around new york versus sullivan? isn't it ironic that the ground is shifting that the person who is causing the tremors is none other than fox news.

i don't think that any of us would have predicted this on our bingo card. >> no. if i had a bingo card and could have imagined the things being said behind-the- scenes, to lead's point with what is expected -- what we have seen is reportedly only tip of the iceberg in terms of how they actually felt about some of these claims and figures. the good news is, there is much more to come and learn. the bad news is, we will need a lot more of all of your time between 4:00 and 6:00 eastern.six, lee levine, david jolly eight and 29 thanks for starting of us. when we come back, florida republicans are trying to advance one of the most extreme agendas in the country. it is a to do list filled with priorities around education and prominence, gender studies, all while of the very same time loosening gun safety restrictions. that state, ground zero, for a

party bent on launching a cultural war while enduring american's gun violence epidemic. they with us. ♪♪ ♪♪ get $1500 purchase allowance on a 2023 cadillac xt5 and xt6. ♪♪ visit your local cadillac dealer today.

in every other place in your life, you want to bring order but guns are the outlier for you. you want to ban dragster reading to children. why? what are you protecting? >> the government does have responsively to protect --

>> i'm sorry? >> the government does have responsibility. >> what is a leading cause of death amongst children this country and i'm a give you it is not drag show for children. it is firearms more than cancer and car accidents. what you are telling me is, you don't mind infringing free speech to protect children from this thing that you think of. when it comes to children that have died, you don't give a flying [ bleep ] to stop that because that shall not be infringed. >> i strongly suggest watching the unedited version of that clip on social media, if you can find it. that was jon stewart, the one and only jon stewart, calling out the dangerous, hitter corel, backward logic. frankly, false priorities of today's gop, as only he can. the other guy and that clip is oklahoma state center, nathan, he is one of many republicans who support legislation to

limit drag shows in oklahoma. but not legislation to make guns safer, which would actually make kids and everyone else safer. nowhere is that hypocrisy any clearer than it is in the state of florida. where a proposed laws would transform how ford educates children this new laws include the washington post reports requiring teachers to use pronouns matching children's as assigned at birth. eliminating college majors in gender studies, nixing measures to the xers at universities and drop protections for tenured faculty, strengthening parents ability to veto k-12 class materials and extending a ban on teaching about gender and sexuality from third grade to eighth grade. during our coverage is -- she served a gun violence prevention test for, david jolly is also with us. congresswoman, i start with you.

first, i asked this question of everyone from florida who has them asked his governor. what should people know about ron desantis? >> very good to be with you, nicolle and also david jolly. hello, david . first, nicolle , i have lived here in this date over 50 years. i raise my son here, my grandchildren are bring up here. i can tell you i am very frightened for them and the women of the state and anybody who does not look or think like ron desantis. he is an autocratic bully. he ran to drain the swamp and then he has appointed some 250 donors to every political post he can find, mostly very right ring fingers. if you want to be free in this state, and that i think it's his message, you are only free if you agree with him.

>> what are the contours of the battle and the state? it seems that he has some political, and jump in if i have some of this wrong. it seems like he is taking some political capital that he earned for keeping the state open during the pandemic and converting it to these hard right extremists agendas that are not as popular with an entirely electric especially in a state like florida. do you have that right? is it all about his national run for president in '24? >> definitely he is in a contest with people like the governor of texas, to see who can be more right wing. keep in mind, 70,000 people died of covid in the state. we do have sunshine, we have a beautiful climate here, we have beautiful natural resources. low employment like the rest of the country and very low taxes.

that is what it make florida so popular. all that was done way before ron desantis came governor. keep in mind, this last election, which he did win overwhelmingly. a lot of it was because democrats got outspent in this election by hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. still, i have to say, when i read, i call him the front runner for the republican nominee. that just really scares me. i really truly believe that when the people of america knows who he is, what he is about and what he is doing to the state, this man will never be president. >> people use the word autocratic with ron desantis, very carefully and very accurately. his visions for treating businesses, his war with disney, is very much at a viktor orban's playbook.

his approach of the press and getting bloggers to register if they will write about him. again, another tactic from an autocratic leader's toolkit. where does that leave him in terms of his support in the state? do you think he will want nationally and we can political standing? >> it is a tough question for me. my constituent here is donald trump. i'm almost looking forward to seeing them battle it out. but i just start with the banning of books. teachers and librarians are now threatened with jail, if they put the wrong book in front of a child. it is so scary that in one of our counties, they have removed books about harriet tubman, rosa parks, roberto clemente and frank, i could go on and on

and that is what it has come to. we have a governor who is purging school board. he isn't firing college presidents. he is putting people in charge of the college boards with his political cronies, who have donated a lot of money to him. he has gone so far as to take one of our leading most liberal colleges in sarasota and fire the president. put in a crony gave him a $700,000 salary. we are going to watch that school, probably turn from some very progressive thinking to the most conservative. here is what he wants to bring to the state -- that is why so scary for children -- children. he's trying to indoctrinate the children of this state and make this the right-wing, i say the right-wing gun-toting area or state of this country. i guess i should add he's also promoted now an open carry law.

so we'll have people walking the streets with their guns banning the books. >> it's such an alarming picture and so out of the mainstream of american thought. david jolly has a brand new piece out about what you congresswoman are describing. i think of them as two tarantulas in a bowl, the trump vs. desantis primary. i want to read some of that. i need to sneak in a quick break. we will all be right back. break. we will all be right back.

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we are back with congresswoman lois frankel and former congressman david jolly. david, this from npr. quote, with his efforts to control even local policies he's left behind the commitment to limited government he once had as a member of the freedom caucus. former congressman david jolly says it's a lesson he took from donald trump. quote, what donald trump brought to the party was to really crush that orthodoxy of small government and instead say the ends justify the means and so whatever it takes to achieve conservative results. it doesn't matter if it takes big government, jolly says, to desantis it doesn't even matter if courts have said it's unconstitutional. that really is the path he's following. >> he is a big government governor, but he is still lying and suggesting he is a less government governor. you mentioned the political capital he got from keeping florida open. that in itself is a lie. it is an identity he has

projected. ron desantis closed the beaches, the restaurants, the bowling alleys and the nightclubs and he issued an executive order asking all floridians to limit their movement. he did not keep florida open like he says he does. now the leader of the vaccine hesitancy movement, got the vaccine himself and rushed the vaccines to his highest dollar contributors. and then you move to whether or not he is truly less government and he's not. look, it is not the role of government to regulate gender identity and gender fluidity. it's a basic premise of less government and the left's embrace of personal freedom. it is not the role of limited government or of a limited government to allow gun violence to perpetuate across the state and risk harm to our kids. he is doing that. and now his attacks on the press, i know we were talking in the previous segment about this, nicolle, it will be his law in florida that gets tested by the supreme court. his new law will unleash the plaintiff's bar to go after the press requiring no financial contribution of the plaintiff themselves and the most dangerous part, his law would say under the law that an

anonymous source is presumed to be lying, to be lying. and the press that reports based on an anonymous source is risking defamation. this is a dangerous big government governor. he went from house freedom caucus to big government governor in florida, self-apologist to trump challenger and he has created an identity that is false. and it will be be up to the republican contenders for the gop nomination it to crack that persona that he's established. >> that is such an important point you've just made about what may end up being the test case. let's dig into that a little more later this week. david jolly and congresswoman lois frankel, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. up next for us, the ex-president trying once again to claim executive privilege, this time asking a judge to block his former vp mike pence from testifying before a grand jury. how it could impact special counsel jack smith's investigation and donald trump's run for president. that story's next.

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if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. >> if this is not a crime, i don't know what is. if a president can incite an insurrection and not be held accountable, then really there's no limit to what a president can do or can't do. >> so we've been very clear about a number of different criminal offenses that are likely at issue here. if the department of justice determines that they have the evidence that we believe is there and they make a decision not to prosecute, i think that

really calls into question whether or not we're a nation of laws. >> so much crime and so little time. hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. for the people who know him best, who looked at him most closely and dispassionately, the investigators, trump's criminality isn't a question. it came down to whether or not they had the power to charge him. now that he's no longer the president there are multiple criminal investigations into the twice-impeached ex-president's conduct. the question of indictments against donald trump are more pressing and more salient than ever today. however, trump isn't just a former president. he's also a current presidential candidate. having announced his bid for the 2024 presidential race back in november as those doj investigations were heating up. this weekend at the conservative movement's annual shindig trump made clear any indictments against him would not stop him from continuing his presidential

campaign. while there are no laws against it, it does constitute yet another norm busted. an unprecedented situation that trump is forcing the country to grapple with. "new york times" writes this. "it is not unusual for a candidate who's facing legal problems to say they'll stay in a race regardless of whether they'll prosecute or to claim that an investigation is politically motivated. but it is uncharted territory for a former president running as the poll leader in primaries to intertwine a candidacy with a defense against investigations. several people close to trump said he believes his presidential campaign can be used as a cudgel to hit back against the prosecutors. in his ma repeatedly cast the prosecutors as corrupt and politically motivated, citing no evidence, of course, as he has for years. he cast the investigations not as a result of his own actions but as an effort to silence the voices of his supporters. for years we have seen him use the presidency as a shield,

successfully, against legal exposure. it's a practice he still deploys. from a different piece of reporting in the "new york times," quote, trump has filed a motion asking a federal judge to prevent his former vice president, mike pence, from testifying to a grand jury about specific issues that trump is claiming are protected by executive privilege. that filing is unsurprising. mr. trump's lawyers have repeatedly sought to assert executive privilege over aides as a means of blocking testimony. but it underscores how much the justice department's attempts to get mr. pence to testify in the investigation into trump's efforts to cling to power may be drawn out. as our friend and former u.s. attorney barbara mcquade points out, quote, trump's effort to block pence's grand jury testimony with executive privilege will fail under nixon precedent but will cause further delay. the ticking clock is getting louder. and this afternoon abc news is reporting that trump is also trying to prevent the special counsel from using grand jury

testimony from former white house lawyers pat cipollone and patrick philbin as well as eric hershman. according to brand new reporting that has just dropped in the "new york times" former trump aild hope hicks has just met with manhattan d.a.'s office -- district attorney alvin braeg's office today. this ticking clock and the question of investigation that's could lead to possible trump indictments is where we begin the hour with some of our most favorite reporters and friends. former u.s. attorney, former deputy astichbt attorney general harry litman is here. also joining us former fbi counterintelligence agent pete strzok is here. former maryland congresswoman donna edwards joins us. and charlie sykes is back. he's editor at large of the bulwark. donna and charlie are msnbc contributors. i want to start with the latest news, which is that hope hicks joins kellyanne conway, who was with alvin bragg's office twice two days last week. this has just broken in the "new

york times." let me read this to you, pete strzok. "hope hicks, a trusted aide to donald trump during his 2016 presidential campaign, met with the manhattan district attorney's office on monday the latest in a string of witnesses to be questioned by prosecutors as they investigate the former president's involvement in paying hush money to a porn star. the aappearance of ms. hicks, who was seen walking into the manhattan d.a.'s office in the early afternoon, represents the latest sign that the prosecutors are in the final stages of their investigation. she is at least the seventh witness to meet with prosecutors since the d.a. alvin bragg convened a grand jury in january to hear evidence in the case. last week another prominent member of the 2016 campaign, kellyanne conway, testified before the grand jury, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. two employees of trump's company have also testified, as have two former executives of the national enquirer, who helped broker the hush money arrangement, as well as a lawyer

for the porn star stormy daniels." pete, as an investigator what is the appearance in as many as three days of two very senior former trump campaign officials say to you? >> well, it tells me this investigation is moving at a fairly rapid clip. i mean, you've got to keep in mind as a d.a., as an investigator when you bring somebody in to the grand jury or in for an interview that isn't something you do sort of off the cuff. that's something that you're going to sit down, you're going to cut" come up with an interview strategy, you're going to come up with a list of questions you're going to ask, you're going to come up with the information you know and don't know. this isn't something you sit down one night is it & decide you're going to call someone in the next day. so the fact they've had several people and not just random folks but people who were in the intimate inner circle of trump surrounding the decisions and the actions that may or may not have been taken about this hush money payment tells me that the investigation out of new york is in a fairly advanced stage and that they're very serious in

putting in a tremendous amount of work into getting ready and actually conducting these interviews as part of their investigation. >> so harry, "the new york times" again is first out with this reporting. let me read a little bit more of their story. it says that as the spokeswoman for mr. trump's 2016 campaign hope hicks was responsible for damage control on a number of issues, a role that has attracted the interest of various investigators over the years. in court records from mr. cohen's federal case the fbi noted that she participated in a phone call with mr. trump and mr. cohen on the same day they learned that ms. daniels wanted money for her story. ms. hicks also spoke with mr. cohen the day after he wired the $130,000 to ms. daniels' lawyer. prosecutors are likely to want to know whether she was privy to any conversations or other information about mr. cohen's dealings with ms. daniels' representatives or how the hush money payment was arranged.

hicks, however, has testified before congress that she was not present for any conversation in which cohen and trump discussed the hush money. she has also said that she was unaware of the deal with ms. daniels at the time it was arranged. an interesting tightrope i guess, that she was the fixer but wasn't aware of any of those conversations. what does she say to you as a witness? >> well, first, to back up pete, they know already, the watch-word as a prosecutor, you don't put her in until you know exactly what she's going to say and exactly how she's going to help. she's a little bit akin to cassidy hutchinson i'd say, nicolle, in that she is a solid witness with really no -- she won't be impeached. and remember, at the end of the administration she was really chagrined come january 6th. she thought this ruined everything including her own future job prospects. so whatever role she played, and apparently she spoke with

mike michael cohen, who we have reason to believe has also been in front of the grand jury, she's going to recite chapter and verse. they're moving ahead pretty expeditiously when they're already putting these people in the grand jury. >> and charlie sykes, the collision i guess with today's news is that trump over the weekend said i wouldn't even think about leaving when he was asked about the presidential race. here -- i just want to show our work a little bit. this is chris christie, one-time very close outside adviser to donald trump, on a conservative radio show saying you can't do this, you cannot run for president if you're about to be indicted. listen. >> can someone run for office and do debates and give interviews when they're under indictment and not make their situation worse? >> no. i think it's impossible for them not to make the situation worse. although what i would say to you, hugh, is given the limited nature of the new york case i don't know that he's going to be getting a whole lot of questions about the stormy daniels

situation anyway. i think it's something that seems to be a pretty cut and dry situation. and i don't know that they'd make his situation markedly worse. but every time you open your mouth, as you know, in this kind of situation you run the real risk of it adding complications to a case where you could lose your liberty. and that's why defense lawyers always rightfully tell their clients to keep quiet, because you don't need to make that situation more complicated because your liberty is at stake. >> again, charlie, i don't want to put that out there because i care about donald trump's political fate but i do think we can't cover trump like a normal candidate, right? he is a candidate for the republican primary. i think you and i, charlie, see the polls pretty clearly. he is the front-runner. barring anything extraordinary politically. he's the front-runner. and he could be indicted. >> yes. he is the front-runner, and he

could be indicted, and it might actually boost his standing in the polls. chris christie is right about the normal rules about a defendant in a case like this, but the normal rules clearly do not apply to donald trump. we ought to have learned that over the last six or seven years. so when he stands up there and says of course i'm going to stay in the race, because first of all he has the bully pulpit that he can use to push back against the prosecutors. so his strategy's going to be delay, deflect, and attack. and he is convinced, based on past experience, that you will have the republican base rally around him and he's convinced that his fellow republican candidate will never attack him on this. and this is the big question. will any other republican make the case that chris christie just made? will any other republican say we can't have a candidate for president of the united states who is facing indictment and possible -- and possible prison?

because you know what the blowback would be. i think a lot of these guys think that they can go around donald trump, that they can run for president without saying his name, without bringing up january 6th, without bringing up the indictments, and i think that's incredibly naive, but that is what donald trump is counting on and he may not be wrong. >> i don't want to accept that at face value. i think you're accurate as a predictive measure. but donna edwards, to all the republicans who normally communicate with me on signal help me out. donald trump is setting up a more catastrophic domestic extremism situation than what he put in motion with january 6th. and if you're going to sit back and watch and see what kind of grip he still has on your base, you have another thing coming. you will have blood on your hands. if republicans sit back. paul ryan sends pearl-clutching e-mails to others at fox and says oh, this is dangerous. where are these people? they know how dangerous it is. officer gonell can tell them how dangerous it is.

so can officer harry dunn and michael fanone. the those who lost their lives. so can the mother of ashleigh babbit. we are sleepwalking toward another disaster. >> i think we are. we all know donald trump makes a lousy client he doesn't listen to his lawyers, he will continue to talk. and his whole shtick, and you heard it over the weekend at the cpac convention, his whole thing is about grievance, about retribution, about stirring up that base so that they are there to defend him. and i think this is a scary thing for republicans, if they're not willing to go after him, if they're not willing to challenge his even legitimacy as a candidate given that he's facing all of these legal problems, let alone an indictment, then they are not willing to lead the republican party out of this morass. i actually do see the dangers here. and you know, the republicans who are as you say clutching their pearls, dancing around the issue, not willing to say his

names are doing themselves a disservice because there's no way to rebuild the republican party from this garbage if they let this pass. and donald trump, i do predict that without that kind of challenge and attack he is going to be the nominee of the republican party, indicted or not. >> and charlie, i didn't mean to tee off on you. and i know you see this with clear eyes. but the people who are responsible for his current standing atop the polls in the republican party are mitch mcconnell and larry hogan and anyone else who says if he's the nominee in 2024 he's my guy. a person who is autocratic and corrupt and a liar and who may be indicted imminently should not have your vote in 2024. >> well, i obviously agree with you about that. but here's the thing about donald trump. and you made the point about how the dangers are are rising exponentially. donald trump has told us what he is about again and again. he is embracing january 6th.

he used the word "retribution" not once but twice, essentially saying elect me if you want payback, if you want vengeance, if you want retaliation. there's nothing secret about any of this. he's basically looking at the pearl clutchers and saying damn right, i called the code red, you can't handle the truth. and all of them obviously have contributed to this. and what is striking again as we sit here today is how few of them are willing to actually take him on. i talked to paul ryan last week and he said, well, i'm never again trump because he can't win. well, and i asked him, why don't you make the case that he's not fit, why don't you make the case that here's a man who actually tried to coup, was talking about terminating the constitution to hold on to power? and they won't go there. look, if you are not willing to say that donald trump should never be entrusted with any office of trust in the united

states, you're not going to bring this guy down and you're not going to get out. but also, again, i want to come back to your point, nicolle. you know, the language that you are now hearing in places like cpac, it's easy to make fun of it. but this is the id of the right wing right now. and you have the former and maybe future president talking about retribution. you have people talking about eradicating transgenderism. the language is getting more extreme, more explicit, and these are folks that actually know what the words mean, what the vocabulary means, and what signals they are sending and it is escalating in real time in -- you know, in broad daylight. >> so pete, we made a decision editorially not to show any of that but it happened exactly as charlie sykes described it. let me read a little bit of the language. he went on to describe his campaign in apocalyptic terms. quote, this is it.

either they win or we win. and if they win we no longer have a country. trump insisted he would become a target once he joined politics. quote, i didn't know the word subpoena, said trump, who has sued and been sued hundreds and hundreds of times in civil courts and was first investigated by federal officials in the 1970s in brooklyn. i think sometimes, pete, with trump the projection gets mixed up with a little bit of a tell. and this "i didn't hear the word subpoena" i think is foreshadowing that he knows the end is near in terms of not being charged and indicted. it's clear that -- and we don't know which one. he's got particular ire for fani willis but i think it's clear that a lot of his most intimate advisers, people who saw so much on january 6th, i think it was hope hicks who described the white house as look like domestic terrorists. so people who really saw

everything are really in front of grand juries and prosecutors. what do you see, again, as an investigator, about the way the subject and potential target is acting? >> well, i think, nicolle, that's absolutely right. trump's strategic horizon is tomorrow. it's not a year from now or two years from now. he's thinking about whatever most aggravated him as he was eating his hamburger at lunch. but to kind of peck up on charlie's comments a little bit, in my view when trump says things like "i am your retribution," he's not talking about november 2024. he's talking about right now, march 2023. he is talking to every single republican leader who might be trying to consider whether or not they're going to say something about him to, you know, take up arms that charlie and you suggested that when is somebody going to do something? they're not because trump is trying to scare them with retribution right now. he is talking to fani willis. he is talking to new york prosecutors. he is talking to jack smith and all of his investigators right

now, instilling fear, riling up his base, encouraging violence. again, not a year and a half from now. now. february 2023. so again, for trump it is all what is going on right now. the things he is trying to achieve are in the moment. this isn't some four-dimensional chess he's thinking about what the general election is going to look at. this is a campaign of fear. it is directed at law enforcement and republicans. and it is in the moment right now. >> that is so right. and i guess i don't want to lose this point. i have to sneak in a break. but i think, harry, one of the things you and i have clashed with more often than not is he's clearly talking to all those people. he's talking to doj. and from the outside it looks like doj is listening, a little too intently. we'll have that exchange once between on the other side of a break. there's also a lot more news about all these investigations including jack smith's probes to tell you about. and this lingering question of whether there will ever be legal accountability for the twice-impeached ex-president.

plus later in the show an urgent warning from president joe biden on the anniversary of bloody sunday. a call to action to protect voting rights in america, to defeat the forces of hate and extremism as we've been discussing, very much alive and being prodded and goosed by the most recent ex-president, 60 years later. and brand new reporting about the original attorney for key january 6th committee witness cassidy hutchinson. the trump-aligned attorney she says tried to influence and shape her testimony. but a prominent group of attorneys wants to see happen to him. we'll tell you about it when "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. ues after a q. don't go anywhere.

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we are back with everybody. harry, let me bring you the latest news on the investigations, and then i'll give you the floor to respond to everything. this is in the "new york times." trump's lawyers have sought to block the testimony by two of pence's top aides, his former chief counsel greg jacob and his former chief of staff marc short. the privilege disputes have been dealt with by the chief federal judge in washington, judge beryl howell, who is stepping down this month and will be replaced by a new chief judge. in the cases of mr. jacob and mr. short she ruled that they had to testify on issues that trump had sought to shield through executive privilege. also breaking this afternoon, over at abc news, trump fighting to bar the use of white house lawyers' grand jury testimony in the special counsel probes, seeking to bar cipollone, philbin and hershmann's testimony from being presented to a grand jury.

first evaluate those moves and second, do you think the special counsel will prevail? >> yeah, so i think this is deja vu all over again. this is executive privilege as opposed to what pence is doing under speech or debate. it has already been decided and it's a loser three different ways. biden has waived it. he's not acting like president when he's berating pence. and finally, the bedrock sort of can't fail proposition, they need the evidence and under the richard nixon case they'll get it. it's just -- it's not even a delay mode. i think they'll be fairly quick. but it's just because he can. but generally i do think we've heard the kind of trump red meat line -- i think he anticipates being indicted. i think he will be indicted. but it is this cudgel, as you say. he has said i am your warrior, i am your justice, for those of you who have been wronged and betrayed i am your retribution.

that's like messianic terms trying to make of everyone his sort of apostles, and he's just -- you know, takes on their grievance for them. so it's really where he's going and i do think maybe when he's looking right at a jury being sworn he changes his tune. but that is a long way away, in particular in the fani willis case, which may come -- which may be the first one. and so i think we've seen his approach. christie is right. it's anomalous. but that's how he is going to play it. and it's sort of breathtaking because it wants to take his, you know, dispute and make it countrywide and not just about him but about all the things that created the melee on january 6th. it is trouble. >> harry, we're watching the wire in our house, and there is this language of rigging

criminal operations. in "the wire" it's the drug -- the grip of the drug trade. but the language is recognizable. i've got you. who gives you the checks when your money doesn't come? don't testify. if you testify you're dead. i mean, there is the language of thuggery that as charlie said wasn't -- it wasn't in hidden messages that had been unearthed through extraordinary investigative journalism. it was at his cpac speech. the language of retribution and punishment, of being the one who is the victim when the victim is the country, the victim is the democracy that he sought to destroy. >> and mour main discussions, nicolle, have been whether that's really going to cow the doj. i don't think it will. although we talked about delay a lot. i think the story last week by carol leonnig about the fbi infighting tells you something about the delay. but doj is not baltimore 1986.

they will be able to forge ahead. but he's going to pursue a defense on two tracks. legal, which i think doesn't amount to much, but the sort of political kind of turn that makes -- that makes his grievance his maga followers' grievance, and that is incendiary stuff not legally but politically that points at the same kinds of dangers that we barely, you know, escaped just a couple years ago. >> donna, how would you like to see donald trump covered from this day forward? >> i think that we have to cover him as he is. i mean, we know that he's ginning up a base and he's magnifying their grievance and he's conflating it with his grievance. we should cover donald trump like the almost indicted criminal that he is. i think it's important in every

single story that we do to describe him as the twice-impeached, under investigation in every forum that you can think and not let him get away with that. i also want to be very careful that we not give him a pass just because he's a candidate for the presidency. he's counting on that and not our legal system nor our media can give him a pass just because he is a candidate. we have to cover him like the almost criminal that he will soon be. >> i want to give you the last word on this, charlie. how do you think we should cover him? >> -- greatest television show ever made. i think that we ought to acknowledge that. and secondly, i want to go back to peter's point, how his use of the word "retribution" is intended in real time to threaten and intimidate prosecutors and opponents. this i think is a case that needs to be made here, that he is intending to use his

candidacy as a cudgel to obstruct justice and to cow his opponents. and i think that needs to be underlined, that there were so many things in that speech that i think get lost because we've gotten tired, maybe normalize him. i think you need to highlight not only what he is saying in these speeches very clearly but what he -- what the meaning is. what signals he is sending. what his motivations are. so in terms of coverage, i don't write the headlines but i think one headline should be, you know, trump trying to intimidate -- trump's effort to cow, bully and intimidate prosecutors on display at cpac. you know, lay it out what he is doing, how he is using the language of mob bosses, but then again -- and not in a back room at a pool hall. he's using the language, you know, on a big stage right in front of the cameras under the lights, where by the way the orange makeup seems to be melting.

but he's making no secret of it whatsoever. and if he's willing to say it i think we need to call him out. i think there's a certain amount of exhaustion and normalization in the coverage because i mean in that speech he's praising vladimir putin, basically promising to end the war. i mean, there was one thing after another. and it is this firehose of falsehood and misinformation that makes it so difficult for us to catch up. and i think that maybe we need to slow down and report and call it out and say what it means the way peter just did a few minutes ago. >> well, we'll try to make this a place where that happens because i couldn't agree with you more. and we're not tired but the other thing i think people try to balance is not amplifying it. i mean, i think a lot of people who diagnose how he became the nominee in '16 they view it as the sort of unfiltered air time. so we are trying to figure it out in real time. we need all of your help. we welcome anyone's feedback. thanks for getting it right or wrong. and we'll stay at it.

harry litman, pete strzok, donna edwards and charmie sykes. thank you so much. when we come back, joe biden warning that voter suppression is very much central to the republican political playbook. we'll have a look at the states where voting rights right now today as we meet are most endangered. top democratic voting rights attorney our friend marc elias will be our guest. don't go anywhere. nywhere. your heart is the beat of life. if you have heart failure, entrust your heart to entresto. entresto helps improve your heart's ability to pump blood to the body. don't take entresto if pregnant; it can cause harm or death to an unborn baby. don't take entresto with an ace inhibitor or aliskiren, or if you've had angioedema with an ace or arb. the most serious side effects are angioedema, low blood pressure, kidney problems,

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♪♪ alex! mateo, hey how's business? great. you know that loan has really worked wonders. that's what u.s. bank is for. and you're growing in california? -yup, socal, norcal... -monterey? -all day. -a branch in ventura? that's for sure-ah. atms in fresno? fres-yes. encinitas? yes, indeed-us. anaheim? big time. more guacamole? i'm on a roll-ay. how about you? i'm just visiting. u.s. bank. ranked #1 in customer satisfaction with retail banking in california by j.d. power. the right to vote, to have your vote counted, is the

threshold of democracy and liberty. with it anything's possible. without it, without that right nothing is possible. and this fundamental right remains under assault. the conservative supreme court has gutted the voting rights act over the years. since the 2020 election a wave of states and dozens, dozens of anti-voting laws fueled by the big lie and the election deniers. we know that we must get the votes in congress to pass the john lewis voting rights advancement act. [ applause ] and the freedom to vote act. >> it would be hard to think of a more important or appropriate time or place for any american president to recommit him or herself to issues of voting rights than in selma, alabama on the anniversary of bloody sunday. after all the march across edmund pettus bridge, 600

strong, in 1965 was part of a larger effort to register black voters in the south. and the brutal beatings at the hands of alabama police that day made the stakes of that effort abundantly clear. and we don't have to tell any of you that somehow still 58 years later that fight for truly equal civil rights in america presses ever onward, in part because of a modern surge in political extremism. president joe biden recognized that as well in his speech yesterday. >> and together we're saying loud and clearly that in america hate and extremism will not prevail, although they are rearing their ugly head in significance now. silence, as the saying goes, silence is complicity. and i promise you my administration will not remain silent. i promise you. >> turning our coverage, marc elias, voting rights attorney and the founder of the site

democracy docket. eddie glaude is here, chairman of the department of african american studies at princeton university and an msnbc political analyst. marc, i start with you. i love and i know you love when these issues are in focus for anybody, especially the president. what did you think of his speech yesterday, and what does this look like moving forward? what does this work look like? >> look, president biden has been a leader on this. at every opportunity he has spoken out about not just the importance of voting but the fact that there is a concerted effort to lie to the american public about free and fair elections to undermine the ability to vote. and as the president pointed out the ability to have one's vote count. you know, it's one thing to be allowed to vote. it's another thing to be sure your vote will count. so i give kudos to the president for speaking out on this again,

on the anniversary of bloody sunday in selma. but we all need to pick up on that message and not be silent. it is complicity when we are silent every day. not just on special days of commemoration. but we need to not be silent day in and day out. to fight against this scourge of anti-democratic behavior and thought coming from the right. >> marc, can i ask you a personal question? we cover voting rights. we lead this hour with it as many days as we can. we look for news. we look for items for everything you right in the democracy docket. we try to scream from the rooftops. do you ever get discouraged? >> i don't have the luxury to be discouraged. i don't have that luxury. one of the things that drives me a little bit crazy, candidly, about some pundits and some professors, some people is that they kind of like -- they drop into it and they drop out of it.

like i don't have the luxury to say the supreme court is bad. i don't have the luxury to say the legislature in florida or ron desantis are authoritarian mds and therefore i'm going to give up. i have to keep fighting. i have to keep fighting every single day because if i stop fighting then the other side wins. then we just say okay, you know what? democracy was nice while we had it. and i am committed that i will tell my children and my grandchildren and they will know that whether we were successful or not, they will know we fought and fought and fought for the right to vote and for free and fair elections in our democracy, even when people said you know what, it's pointless. so no, i never think about giving up. >> do you see -- i mean, listen, and that's why i think you're such an important -- i was going to say one of the most important voices to our show and to any conversation about democracy. i mean, there is this

indifference, well, there's something more important happening today, i won't cover democracy. without democracy there isn't anything else. there are no fights about the budget. there are no fights about war. there are no fights about entitlements. there's nothing because who you vote for and what you chose to send to washington to represent you doesn't get counted. what are the tactical things people can do who he see it the way you do, that there is nothing as important as this short of a real fair fight in terms of federal voting rights legislation? >> so what i ask people to do is every day to speak out in their town square. you know, people like you, nicolle, have an enormous town square. you have all of these people who listen to you every day. and for many people they've got a much smaller town square. they've got their social media. they've got their book club. they've got their friends, their family. their customers, their clients. speak out. don't avoid having the difficult

conversation with your crazy uncle. don't avoid correcting someone when they are mis -- when they are spreading conspiracy theories about elections. don't avoid those opportunities. address them. speak out forthrightly. speak out with courage. go to your town square and say we need to protect democracy because without it there are no other rights. and it is under threat and it's not under threat in some theoretical way, it's not under threat in some bipartisan way, it is under threat because donald trump was an authoritarian who led a movement that was joined lock, stock and barrel by kevin mccarthy and the republican party to undermine free and fair elections. and there was a violent insurrection on january 6th, and to this day republicans are refusing to say and do what's necessary. so don't shy away from that. say it loudly. say it in your town square.

>> eddie, you're one of my most favorite guests in my little town square. and i feel like you and i come to the same conclusion sometimes, that it's groundhog day. here we go again. i just asked in the last block how should we cover a twice-impeached coup-plotting ex-president running again? i don't even know what to call it. was it trump's campaign speech at cpac? was it his preindictment speech at cpac? should i ignore it? should i explore it? so my same question about how you stay in the fight and how you communicate the stakes of things that are happening in a way that reaches people. what are your thoughts today, eddie? >> right. well, first of all, i just want to thank marc for his tireless work. i think what he said is so important. and what you do, nicolle, is so important. but he want to connect these two segments. what you described with trump in

the first segment, we have to bear the burden of that. it's not abstraction. trumpism and the authoritarianism that follows, the despotism that follows, the fascism that follows from that, there are concrete implications of that. and people like me, people the color of me bear the brunt of it. so it's trump, it's desantis, it's abbott, it's youngkin, i could go down the line. and we must remember that selma, 1965, is the year that america actually struck the deal to try to be a genuinely multiracial democracy. we haven't been one -- you know, 1965 marks the inaugural moment. what do i mean? it's at that moment when all of american citizens could vote. right? and we've been trying to undermine it ever since. so the way we cover it, it seems to me, to answer your question directly, is that we have to talk incessantly about the threat that these forces present to democracy. not just simply because of there are personalities as it were but because of what they represent. and what they represent, if we look at the venn diagram,

nicolle, actually crosses over into some of our own kind of anxieties and we have to be able to explore that in the corners of our lives if that makes sense. >> it makes perfect sense. and eddie, i think it also means that the voter suppression laws predicated on the lie that there was fraud in 2020 should be a front burner issue every day for everybody. because the same men and women that we hold up as doing the right thing, brad raffensperger, kemp, are nodding along as they take away access to the right to vote in their state. these were laws that were so objectionable that major league baseball said we can't play our all-star game here. and now other states are doing it and nobody's -- no one's calling for boycotts. i guess my question to you, eddie, is how do you keep the emotional connection to something that is such a sustained assault on democracy and the right to vote? >> right. you said something the other day that we're so slow to call a lie a lie. and that's all -- some people

that's all you think you have to do, is put lipstick on the pig and the pig is suddenly beautiful. no, it's still a pig. the voter suppression laws that they passed, it's just simply an extension of the outsized rhetoric of trumpism. we have to see the connection. we're constantly trying to disentangle these things. and i think that disentanglement, that effort to disentangle, nicolle, is actually rooted in our attempt to salvage the people we love who actually hold these views. marc said you've got to talk to that crazy uncle. we've got to talk to our loved ones who actually hold these views. instead what we find ourselves doing is make these analytic discussions in order to salvage them, to save them. no, if we're going to keep this on the front burner eph we have to tell the truth straight, no chaser, and then tell a little bit more. >> marc, i'll give you the last word on the truth, straight no chaser. >> that's absolutely right. you know, the line between the

voter purges that brad raffensperger oversaw when stacey abrams lost, after she lost her election, is a through line from that point through the laws that in 2021 led major league baseball to boycott the state. and we cannot sugar-coat those things. we cannot try to find heroes in villains. people who are vote suppressors are villains. they're not heroes. they may not do everything wrong. but they do enough wrong that we have to constantly be telling the truth about what is happening in this country. right now state after state after state controlled by republicans are pulling out of an agreement between states to share data. what is the purpose of data sharing? to actually remove people from the rolls who have died or have moved. it's actually exactly the election integrity measures that these republicans claim they're in favor of.

they're not in favor of it. they're in favor of demagoguing. they're in favor of obfuscating. they're in favor of the big lie. and we just need to call that out every single day. >> all right. consider both of you enlisted to help with this effort. i needed this today. marc elias and eddie glaude, thank you so much. when we come back, a scathing complaint against the original attorney, the first person who represented cassidy hutchinson. remember the one who she says pressured her to remain loyal to the twice-impeached, disgraced ex-president. that brand new reporting is next. n reporting is next easy-to-use tools make complex trading less complicated custom scans help you find new trading opportunities while an earnings tool helps you plan your trades and stay on top of the market >> tech: when you have auto glass damage, trust safelite. while an earnings tool we'll replace your windshield, and recalibrate your advanced safety system. so automatic emergency braking and lane departure warning work properly. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪

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if president was fired up about the supreme court decision, and so i was standing next to mr. meadows, but i stepped back so i was probably two, three feet catty corner, diagonal from him. the president's just raging about the decision and why it's wrong and why they didn't make more calls, and just his typical anger outburst as this decision. and the president said he -- so, he had said something to the effect of, i don't want people to know we lost, mark. this is embarrassing. figure it out. we need to figure it out. i don't want people to know we lost. >> shh. don't tell anybody we lost. presidential campaign was one of the most shocking and revealing

and explosive moments from any of the january 6th select committee's public hearings, as cassidy hutchinson testified the twice impeached ex president didn't want anybody to know they lost the election. hutchinson would go on to be the star witness -- through transcripts released by the committee, we've learned that those close to the former president knew how danieling cassidy hutchinson's testimony could be and tried to influence her. in an effort to halt the inquiry and the direction it pointed them in its tracks. today thanks to new reporting from "the new york times," we're learning one person in particular is paying the price. dozens of lawyers seeking to remove the law license of one stephan passentino.

the complaint says that former trump white house ethics lawyer, whose fees were covered by trump's pact, quote, violated his own professional duty along with the host of other ethical requirements by putting the interest of a third party over that of his client. let's bring in the reporter with a by line on that, charlie savage. charlie, this is a plot twist that you may have ethics complaints and get ethics investigations launched by disciplinary committees, but various trump afill yatd lawyers related to january 6th. rudy giuliani has his law license in new york suspended. there's an investigation against john eastman and other who is came up with the scheme of having the fake electors in order to give mike pence an excuse not to count biden's electoral college victory, which of course biden -- not biden --

pence refused to do. this is a different in kind complaint brought by this grouch very high profile lawyers, a lot of former presidents of the d.c. bar and american bar association among them, asking for the disbarment of stephan passantino, the first lawyer for cassidy hutchinson. while those other complaints amentioned were about lawyers who arguably want too far in defending their client's interest, their client be donald trump, this set of allegations based on cassidy hutchen son's testimony, after she fired him and got a different lawyer and was more forth copping to the january 6th testimony, it boils down to the allegation he put trump's interests above her interests in encouraging her, she says, to stay quiet about

thicks, not forthcoming. if she didn't remember everything to say she just didn't remember that thing, giving the details to the committee she did remember. i should haste ton say his own lawyer says there's nothing to this. she didn't sign it so no one should pay attention to it, and she also testified he told her not to lie, so that's important to have in the public record here at this stage. >> is the witness tampering investigation that was alluded to at the end of the 1/6 committee something that could ensnare witnesses or lawyers? >> he was also passing on that she was likely to get a good job from trump world after this was all over, and so they are saying that amounts to witness tampering or even a form of bribery, even if the charge has never been brought, and

something barr's disciplinary would consider. >> so interesting to follow these threads to their end. thank you for joining us to talk about it. quick break for us. we'll be right back. us we'll be right back. with five flavors that are delicious any time of day. only from ihop. download the app and earn free food with every order. your heart is the beat of life. if you have heart failure, entrust your heart to entresto, a medicine specifically made for heart failure. entresto is the #1 heart failure brand prescribed by cardiologists. it was proven superior at helping people stay alive and out of the hospital. heart failure can change the structure of your heart,

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