uffering. who doesn't want internet that helps a.i. do your homework even faster. come again. -sorry, what was that? introducing the next generation 10g network only from xfinity. the future starts now.

thanks for being with us tonight. it is very, very good to have you here so, it was labor day weekend, 1936, it was hot, it was around 90 degrees and 100,000 people turned out to see him. he himself said from the stage from the podium at the front of the crowd that the crowd was about 80,000 but the police actually said it was bigger. the police said it was 100,000 people, and, again, this was in 1936 so if you want to adjust that for inflation like it was a dollar amount, if you want to adjust that to account for how big the whole population of the country was at the time compared

to now 100,000 people then compared to the overall size of the country that would translate today to a crowd of like 250,000, 260,000 people. which is a really big crowd, particularly since the person they were all there to see was just some guy with a radio show. have you ever heard of a politician named william lemke it's okay if you haven't he was a congressman, a candidate for president. a third party candidate in the 1936 presidential election and that huge, huge, huge rally on labor day weekend in chicago in 1937, that was ostensibly, a rally in support of his presidential campaign. but lemke's campaign did nothing. lemke himself held a rally a day before that 100 person rally and he got less than 10,000 people

to show up when it came to election day in november of 1936, lemke got less than 2% of the vote. he is somebody who has not only been forgotten by history he was forgotten while he was still happening. i mean, he was just -- nothing didn't move the needle at all. the only reason 100,000 people turned out for a lemke-related rally on a hot september day for something-something related to lemke's campaign,the only reason that gigantic number of people turned out was because the radio guy was there. they were all there to see the radio guy because the radio guy, he was the big deal. he was huge. he could turn out 100,000 americans at a rally easy. a proportion of the population that would translate to 250,000 people today at an in-person event. he was one of the best-known people in the country.

he was on hundreds of radio stations at a time when radio stations were all we had in terms of his weekly listenership, the best estimates are that he around 1936, around this time, he had tens of millions of americans listening to him again, this was a time when the country had a population of less than 130 million people. but he had 30 million people listening to him every week? i mean, that's among the conservative estimates of his reach, something like a quarter of the entire population of the united states was listening to him on the radio every week. until they weren't his name was father charles coughlin and while he was being the biggest, most dominant media figure this country has ever known, he was also serving as a catholic priest and while he just became a bigger and bigger

and bigger deal on the radio and he got more and more political and more and more radically right wing in his broadcasts, sometimes his views allied with the views and the catholic church, sometimes they didn't. thanks to his massive reach on the radio, his huge success on that medium, more dominant than anyone ever before or since, because he was such a big deal in the media, you know, both coughlin and the church were well aware that with the possible exception of the pope himself and that's arguable, charles coughlin was the most influential catholic on earth.

even though he was really controversial and getting more so all the time, the church gave him a wide berth until they didn't i mean, when he started explicitly telling his followers, i choose the road of fascism, that was awkward for his bosses at the church when he organized his followers into an armed militia in the united states and one unit of that militia got put on trial for making and stockpiling bombs and attempting a violent overthrow of the u.s. government, yeah, too was awkward for the church and for father coughlin's bosses when he called the president of the united states, quote, anti-god and a communist and said he was a secret jew, that was very awkward for coughlin's bosses when he blamed jews for all the i wills of the record and reported after kristallnacht that, negotiation, yeah, maybe the nazis were going after the jews but we should understand the jews brought it on themselves, it was all awkward for his bosses and, yes, individual radio stations here and there and then some radio networks started pulling his show off the air in response to that his supporters picketed and protested and claimed he was being persecuted but ultimately what finally changed, what finally pulled him

off the air entirely was that his bishop died. he was a catholic priest and he had had this bishop who came up with excuses for everything he said and covered for him and protected him. his bishop died, coughlin had a new bishop who came in and the new bishop thought he was way too much of a headache for the catholic church and pulled the plug on him, took him off the radio, gone, poof. and no one in america media would ever be that dominant again. i mean, it would be a full 50 years before anybody even pretended to that throne but the next closest sort of long shadow of that guy's influence was this guy, who in the late 1980s started an a.m. radio career that changed a.m. radio and turned what had been a mix of sports broadcast and religious services and community service, community access, sometimes even foreign language broadcasting, it turned all of that into a part of the american

media that was just dominated by hard line, right-wing talk radio. he went to dozens and then hundreds of stations nationwide very quickly he got himself literally a golden microphone, like, you know, there's a certain kind of world leader who shows off he has a gun made of gold this guy had a gold microphone that me made sure was all in his photos, was very proud of it he was hugely successful he changed the whole purpose of that part of american media and spawned a thousand if not thousands of radio imitators that your angry great uncle still listens to today you know, at his height he seemed like his potential was limitless, his influence would keep growing and growing and growing until it didn't. there was also a bit of the sad william lemke for president campaign about him as well

he was a notable failure to cross over yeah, he did wonders for a.m. radio. he transformed a.m. radio but they tried to put him on television in the 1990s and tried to put his radio show into a living room set that looked like a reject set from the 700 club, that didn't work at all. it was huge humiliation. they also amazingly at espn they tried putting him on tv as a sports commentator at one point. he lasted i think not one month before that failed and that fell apart too. then after him there was this guy who also built a fast-growing audience on right wing a.m. talk radio and then he was brought onto television and did well he was brought on to the fox news channel and he got huge ratings at the fox news channel

with his sort of signature elaborate conspiracy theories that he would draw out on a chalkboard and kind of a pseudoreligious messianic thing that people forget about him he held a sued joe religious revival rally for himself on the national mall and said at one point that rally was to unveil his hundred-year plan to save the country. it's all very weird. but at the fox news channel he was their fastest growing star, which they must have been very happy with at fox news until they weren't he was fired and now he has like a website. at the time slot he used to be on and set rating records, after he left they filled that with like an ensemble show that turns out also does great in the ratings without him and they don't have anybody whose name you'd know off the top of your head at all. then it was this guy, this guy

actually was the biggest host that fox ever had and their marquee prime time spot, the most dominant voice in right wing television ever until he wasn't he too fired in 2017 in his case and now he does like youtube videos, i think, from his home now there's this guy their latest biggest thing and he's out today as well he's been fired. and if you can see these guys as a series, if you can see them as a sequence rather than just a stand-alone individual, which is i think a helpful way to see them, i at least think it's helpful to look at them that way to cut through the noise, the personality and individual

circumstances around their rises and falls, it's easier if you look at them as a series, it's easier to get to what matters about them, not for themselves, their individual companies, their families, their friends, i think it's easier when you look at them as a group to get to what matters about them for the country. because what you get if you squint at this series of guys who are dominant for their time, well, what you realize over time is that as time has gone forward, if you look at this over, you know, a 90-year spread of time you see that over time whoever the dominant figure is in right wing radio or media or the media industry, whoever is dominant for their time gets smaller and smaller and smaller over time. i mean, don't get me wrong there is a constancy you get unnervingly similar messaging from these guys over the decades and generations. they all say some version of trust no one except me because

i'll give it to you straight nobody else will they also tend to say i know what god wants and obviously what god wants is what i want and i therefore can tell you who is evil and must be eliminated there's a constancy in terms of the way they perform they all sing a version of that same song. you are right to see commonalities among them in style and in terms of the kind of appeal they have, the kind of thing they're selling, the way they try to get americans to hate each other and resent each other and particularly the way they try to get americans to hate minority groups but i also think it can be overstated, right, even though there's always one of them who is dominant, the magnitude of their dominance decreases over time and you can see that when you look at who's been the dominant figure in decade after decade, generation as generation, as big as any of these modern guys are there's never ever going to be anyone as dominant as father charles coughlin was in the 1930s and as big as the broadcasters were,

you know, in the '80s and '90s, they'll never compete with coughlin and the broadcasters huge in the '80s and '90s were more dominant in their time thank any of the flavor of the month broadcasters are dominant now so we have a dominant figure, almost always there's someone dominating but the magnitude of their dominance, their overall importance to the media, right wing media ecosystem shrinks as right wing media over time diversifies and becomes a lot of different things and secret that exists on a lot of different platforms so they'll never be somebody as big as the biggest guys of the past were. secondly, what you see over and over and over again, and i don't know why this hasn't sunk in and become a thing we make fun of these guys for, but when you

really look at it it becomes quite clear that dominance inside conservative media doesn't tend to cross over into any other kind of major influence. i mean, yeah, you can fill chicago on a labor day weekend in 1936 with your sweaty fervent screaming supporters, but you can't get your candidate william lemqe to 2% in the polls on election day a few weeks later you don't get your pet candidate lemke elected to anything. you don't get to call football games on tv for the nfl.

you don't lead hundred-year-long mess an nick religious revivals. you don't persuade americans to start tanning their testicles en masse. success in conservative media is a thing. there's always someone it does not tend to translate to success anywhere other than the conservative media and that's fine it is a very big business. it is slick, it is very successful as an entity in a way, i'm sorry to say, that partisan liberal media never has been, not for want of trying, trust me, i know but what's actually important for the country, i think, here is understanding what conservative media does. not overstating dominant conservative media figures as somehow standing bestride american culture and making things happen they only exist in terms of their influence within conservative media but conservative media and the conservative movement are very effective. they're rich, effective, successful, thriving enterprises. and for at least the past generation, that really is where the political success has been on the american right. it's in conservative media and in the conservative movement that's where they are strongest. and conservative media and the conservative movement tend to drag the actual republican party

around like a rag doll that's missing a limb or two. i mean, the republican party is comparatively very weak, very disorganized and has no idea how to talk to people. the republican party has lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. i mean, look at the headlines and the other news from the right right now. news that's not about the conservative media, news that's about the republican party, keep in mind we are a democracy and your success as a political party depends on people liking your ideas and voting for them look at what they're running on right now. look at what they're doing in governance and think about the popularity of these things with the average american look at the headlines right now. republicans voting to roll back child labor laws lobbyists have found remarkable success among republicans to relax regulations that prevent american children from working long hours in dangerous conditions, okay, so they're crusading against child labor laws, republicans in missouri

vote to shut all public libraries. yeah, americans sure hate libraries. republican controlled states go after millions of american families who right now have health insurance because republicans want to take away that health insurance from millions of american families and leave them with nothing. that will be popular republicans fighting right now in dozens of states to load people up with student loans they otherwise wouldn't have to deal with. everybody is going to love that. republicans blocking rape victims from receiving emergency contraception because who among us doesn't see a mainstream american voting issue enforcing women who have been raped, forcing women who have been raped to bear the child of the rapist against their will. that's a winning issue for the voters, i'm sure republicans all over the country not only banning abortion, which is radically unpopular in this country but now in multiple states they are changing the rules of how laws can be made in those states so the people who live in those states will no

longer be able to vote for abortion rights even if that's what they want i mean, look at it in terms of their high dollar candidates the guy polling second for the republican nomination for president right now is hoping to coast to the white house on the popularity of him just signing a total ban on abortion and also instituting book bans and attacking disney what, no puppies to kick the guy polling first for the republican nomination for president was just indicted on 34 felonies and tomorrow's the day that the civil suit against him starts related to the rape claims and i mean that's just like today. a snapshot of how things are going with the republican party in their effort to win over the american people to the popularity of their ideas. and it's kind of been like that for awhile and in contrast, the

conservative media business and the conservative movement, they have their act together when you compare them to the republican party. they, for example, are very successful, both at what they try to do and in pure business terms. they are slick and they are powerful, at least they have been, and they really are responsible for the success of the political right in this country in a way that i'm sorry, you cannot credit to the work of the republican party itself because when the republican party, when republican party politicians are left to do their thing, look at what they do. so now here's the question, the conservative media right now today is in one of its periodic crises they just today have lopped off another one of their episodically dominant figures who for whatever reason hasn't worked out but he really is one of a string of them. there will be someone after him. and the important question aside

from the gossip and the business news and all that stuff, the important question for our country is about the success of that business, the success of that industry. whether that remarkably successful industry as a whole is today at any risk of losing its zhuzh, its power, its capacity, importantly, to drag the republican party around in its wake no matter how hapless that party is and remains. that's the question. joining us now is jay rosen, a professor of journalism at new york university and longtime observer of this part of the media world. mr. rosen, i appreciate you making time to be here thank you. >> thanks for having me. >> first let me just ask you to tear me apart and tell me if you think there's anything that i'm fundamentally wrong about or missing or getting the wrong way

around about that take on the strength of the conservative media and its stars. >> nothing wrong, but there is something missing. let me introduce you to verification in reverse, which i think is a factor in the history you're recounting for us verification is taking something that might be true and trying to nail it down with facts, evidence, expertise. verification in reverse is when you take something that's already been nailed down and you introduce doubt about it and that releases a lot of energy, causes commotion, leads to controversy, leads to culture war and with this energy, you can power your political movement, maga, because maga works this way, the republican party looks less and less like a normal traditional political party. because maga works this way, the conservative movement needs its own media system and this, i think, is a sort of hidden factor in the history you're recounting for us because

it leads to absurdities like the debt limit battle, the crazy source of policies that are being suggested, as you listed for us, and this is also where fox news fits in, because fox isn't really a news network, because it doesn't believe in verification and so i would add that as a factor, not a cause, but a factor in the analysis you gave us, which was otherwise right on the mark >> if as you say reverse verification releases a lot of energy, you tell people this thick you thought was settled, this thing you knew was true, we're going to tell you it's not true, it's not settled, we'll blow that up, you said that releases a lot of energy is that process being interrupted by things like the sort of accountability moments like the dominion lawsuit and

like some of the other things that seem to be driving some of the internal crises in the biggest parts of the conservative media world >> that's why that case was so important, the dominion case but overall the conservative media world is built around the success of verification in reverse. that's how trump became a leading political figure with the missing birth certificate case that's what stopped the steel was all about, it's taking something that's been established as true, denying it and the power of that denial moves your movement closer and that movement now is taking over the republican party which is why the democratic party and the republican party no longer resemble each other. that's why we have such an asymmetry in our politics, which screws around with a lot of other values and norms and

practices that no longer make sense because the two parties operate in such a different way. also, i would add one other thing, rachel, which is underneath that history that you gave us, there was the rise of the american consensus as historians call it where the two parties roughly worked in the same way and they had different values, they wanted to take the country in different directions, but they kind of agreed on basic facts, that world is completely gone now and conservatives, so-called, exist in their own information sphere which not only is separate from the mainstream media but needs to constantly attack the mainstream media and its picture of the real in order to create that power and momentum i talked about. >> i feel like what you're describing, though, is a system that's kind of zooming towards entropy and i'm not sure -- the only part i feel like i can't discern from the way you're

describing it is where it ends does that just continue to mushroom out, or does it -- is there some limiting factor that causes a crash i mean, i'm asking in practical terms whether conservative media continues to be as rich as it is and as effective as it is, even with these dynamics that you're describing sort of accelerating right through today's news and right through this very extreme period on the right. >> i want to give you my best professional answer, i don't know >> a humble man. >> i don't know where it's going either what you're saying is, it seems like this couldn't go on and on and on, but it does, and it's given us trump once and it may again and i don't think anyone knows where it's going it's heading for a crash or as you say it'll just continue. >> jay rosen, professor of journalism at new york

university, jay, i really appreciate you making time to be here tonight i know it's been a chaotic day thanks for helping us make sense of it. >> thanks, rachel. much more ahead tonight. we are going to be joined tonight by former chief of staff, former white house chief of staff to president biden ron klain will be here with us live. more ahead stay with us oh. oh! hi there. you're jonathan, right? the 995 plan! yes, from colonial penn. your 995 plan fits my budget just right. excuse me? aren't you jonathan from tv, that 995 plan? yes, from colonial penn. i love your lifetime rate lock. that's what sold me. she thinks you're jonathan, with the 995 plan. -are you? -yes, from colonial penn. we were concerned we couldn't get coverage, but it was easy with the 995 plan. -thank you. -you're welcome. i'm jonathan for colonial penn life insurance company. this guaranteed acceptance whole life insurance plan is our #1 most popular plan. it's loaded with guarantees. if you're age 50 to 85, $9.95 a month buys whole life insurance

with guaranteed acceptance. you cannot be turned down for any health reason. there are no health questions and no medical exam. and here's another guarantee you can count on: guaranteed lifetime coverage. your insurance can never be cancelled. just pay your premiums. guaranteed lifetime rate lock. your rate can never increase. pardon me, i'm curious. how can i learn more about this popular 995 plan? it's easy. just call the toll-free number for free information. (soft music) ♪

standing up for our kids, standing up for our community and democratic values.

that's what it is all about. what the republican legislature does was shocking and un-democratic and it was without any precedent b. you turned it around very quickly, you know, nothing is guaranteed about democracy. every generation has to fight for it and you all are doing just that. >> nothing is guaranteed about democracy. every generation has to fight for it you all are doing just that. that was president biden today at the white house meeting with the so-called tennessee three, three democratic state legislators from tennessee who were threatened with expulsion by the republicans who control that state legislature after they participated in anti-gun violence protests at the statehouse two of those lawmakers, the two young black male lawmakers justin jones and justin pearson, they were expelled from the legislature only to be reinstated days later by their communities. today all three of the lawmakers got an audience with the president of the united states

in which he called the actions against them shocking and un-democratic. those sentiments ring from president obama. throughout his first term he has made the issues of protecting democracy and also stopping gun violence quite central to his presidency so in some ways it makes sense that today he met with those three lawmakers on the eve of what many people expect tomorrow to be his announcement that he's going to run for a second term tomorrow will mark the four-year anniversary of the day president biden officially launched his last run for the white house, his successful run for the white house that put him where he is today as soon as tomorrow morning he is expected to release what we expect to be another video announcement declaring his intention to run for re-election. joining us now, i'm very pleased to say is ron klain, he's former white house chief of staff to president biden. he joins us now for his first primetime interview since he left the white house ron, you look rested, tanned,

ready. i know that has a weird echo but you look well. i hope you are. >> i'm doing very well, rachel thanks for having me >> let me ask about your decision to step down as white house chief of staff when you did, and what you've been working on since i saw the announcement that you are back ott your law firm, for example. >> yeah, it was a grueling two years, very rewarding two year, very productive two years, proud of the team we had at the white house and how we were able to execute on president biden's vision to get so many important laws passed and take some important executive actions and also rally behind the ukrainians in their fight for freedom, but it was a hard grind and after two years i needed to step back and take some time to deal with my health and rest up a bit and spend time with family, so i've been doing that for the past couple of months and now i'm back at work. >> i know you're not going to get ahead of the news. i know you are a disciplined

man, but i also know you told the president i look forward to being at your side when you run for president in 2024. again, i know you are not going to get ahead of the news, but i think we're all expecting that president biden is going to run again and that he's going to announce as soon as tomorrow will you have a formal role? >> he said he is going to rung again. whether that comes tomorrow, i think it will come soon and i am not going to have a formal role. i didn't have a formal role in the 2020 campaign. i was informal adviser, i offered my advice and help when i could. i'll do the same thing this time around and leave the actual campaign work to people who are really experts at campaign work. >> in terms of what you were able to accomplish as chief of staff, there were a lot of major legislative accomplishments of the kind that you could expect them to get -- expect them to

get a lot of attention, gun reform, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, landmark legislation on climate change, landmark legislation on drug prices, a number of different accomplishments like that, the support for ukraine you described a moment ago, do you have a sense of having been there for the creation of those achievements in the president's first term, do you have a sense on how he can best capitalize on those? >> i agree i think the president's accomplishments these first two years will be a big part of his message but he won't just run to get a pat on the back. he will run because he has work left to do we made tremendous progress on the economy but there's still more to be done. we need to further tame inflation and accelerate economic growth and need to take some laws the president passed and actually implement the infrastructure law and build bridges and roads and new airports around the country. we passed the c.h.i.p.s. bill to

create high-tech manufacturing jobs all over america. that's going to unfold in the next couple of years and the inflation reduction act begins to bring down drug prices starting next year more significantly, the first step on insulin this year but other things start next year the same thing with a lot of tax credits for new sustainable energy developments and so you're going to see -- we've already seen companies commit billions and billions to create manufacturing jobs in america thanks to the laws the president passed we're going to make things in america again for the first time in a generation. we're seeing tremendous progress on employment. he created more jobs his first two years than anyone in history. so we've made a lot of progress. there is's more work to be done on things like guns and voting rights, climate change and the economy. and that i think will create a powerful agenda for a second biden term >> ron, in terms of the overall atmosphere in the country, in

terms of the health of our democracy and what it will be like to run in 2024 i have to ask given today's news as somebody who worked at a very high level in the white house, i have to ask if you have any reaction to the news today from fox news, both the settlement with dominion last week but also the firing of their top rated anchor do you have any? >> i don't i agree with the sentiment you expressed in the first part of your program they will find someone to replace tucker carlson and will have the same message that tucker carlson had as o'reilly had him before him and hannity and rush limbaugh had, it'll be the same stuff, different mouthpiece and that definitely is further adding to the division in this country but president biden was able to overcome that in the 2020 election and overcame it with the midterms and i'm confident president biden can overcome that again in 2024 and win again as he did in 2020. >> ron klain, former white house

chief of staff to president biden joining us for his first primetime interview since leaving the white house. it is nice to see you. thank you for being with us. >> thanks for having me, rachel. appreciate it. more news ahead including some more news, some new news on the sort of shocking media developments today that's coming up next. stay with us

and it's easier than ever to■ get your projects done right. inside, outside, big or small, angi helps you find the right so for whatever you need done. with angi, you can connect with and see ratings and reviews. just search or scroll to see upf on hundreds of projects. and when you book and pay throug you're covered by our happiness it's easy to make your home an a check out angi.com today. angi... and done.

mmm, popcorn. (alternate voice) denture disaster, darling! we need poligrip before crispy popcorn. (regular voice) let's fix this. (alternate voice) poligrip power hold + seal gives our strongest hold and 5x food seal. if your mouth could talk, it would ask for... poligrip. i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance and 5x food seal. through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. what are the three ps? the three ps of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54, what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i'm 65 and take medications. what's my price? also $9.95 a month. i just turned 80, what's my price? $9.95 a month for you too.

if you're age 50 to 85, call now about the #1 most popular whole life insurance plan available through the colonial penn program. it has an affordable rate starting at $9.95 a month. no medical exam, no health questions. your acceptance is guaranteed. and this plan has a guaranteed lifetime rate lock so your rate can never go up for any reason. so call now for free information and you'll also get this free beneficiary planner. and it's yours free just for calling. so call now for free information.

here's how the news site semafor puts it. some fox employees pointed today to the lawsuit by carlson's

former producer alleging rampant sexism on the show as the reason he was fired others suggested that emails from carlson deriding fox management which had emerged in the dominion lawsuit were the last straw while both may be true they're not new revelations. what does seem to have changed the rate at which rupert murdoch is making aggressive moves on the fly. semafor runs down a few of them. last october he announced plans to merge newscorp and fox news in january took that back. in november he ousted the editor in chief of "the wall street journal" then in march he announced to a "new york post" columnist he was getting married then in april he announced the engagement was called off. then after fighting to go to trial with dominion he reversed course and green-lit a $800 million settlement with dominion and today he has abruptly pushed out tucker carlson, the highest rated host on fox news joining us is ben smith, editor

in chief at semafor, and has covered this for a good long while. his recent book, "traffic: genius, rivalry and delusion in the billion dollar race to go viral" comes out next week ben, nice to see you. >> nice to see you, rachel thanks for having me on. a head-spinning day. >> it has been a head-spinning day and in order to cope with it and get my show produced and on the air i decided to stop paying attention to all new developments as soon as the sun got to a certain height in the sky today. so first let me just ask you if there's any new reporting, any new important understanding about what actually has happened today? >> you know, the answer is basically no to that people around fox are putting out that in those -- i'm sure people have seen those dominion filings with black marks lined out that underneath those redactions is something that really bothered fox management, maybe something really mean tucker might have said about the bosses, something grotesquely

sexist, the problem is that tucker was -- you know, kind of famous for trashing and dismissing his bosses for years and you could watch the show to see some sexism. you could have lived through a million other scandals to see what his emails even looked like and fox has had those emails that they turned over to dominion for many, many months so it is actually a little unclear. >> let me ask you about -- i mean beyond whatever personally happened with this one fox employee and whatever drama there is around him and his show, i feel like the more important question for me, especially when i take a bigger view of this, look at the other people in my time of the business have come and gone in the conservative media, is there any way to tell whether this is an important moment for sussing the strength of the fox news corporation and, indeed, the strength of the conservative media industry as a whole, is this kind of just the latest guy

to be fired and there will be somebody new or tell us what's going on in the business >> i actually disagree with what ron said there's this incredible lineage starting with father coughlin but they're not all the same there are different flavors. if tucker was donald trump, they're going to replace him with ron desantis. tucker was really had a, you know, kind of paranoid style that was focused lately on conspiracies involving the fbi in particular. he was inflaming racial tensions in a very specific way i think a lot of fox hosts are much more regular republican partisans and that is often the tradition. glenn beck was the other that went off the rails in tucker's direction and who they replace him with is interesting. will it be a good republican soldier who entertains the base or somebody trying to lead them in a new direction which is what tucker was trying to do. >> ben smith, editor in chief at "central pa for. a still unfolding story and the personal story here. thanks for helping us cover it nice to see you. >> good to see you, rachel,

thank you. >> we'll be right back stay with us

as of today closing arguments are under way in the seditious conspiracy trial for several members of the right-wing paramilitary group called the proud boys. that will go over to the jury as soon as it's over. if found guilty this would be the second round of pro-trump

paramilitary defendants to face decades long prison sentences for having tried to overthrow the u.s. government, for having answered donald trump's call to attack the u.s. congress bodily on january 6th prosecutors today said the proud boys saw themselves as, quote, trump's army but eat your wheaties, hydrate that's just the beginning. as we are waiting for the jury to get that case, jury selection is about to start tomorrow in a whole different case, a civil suit filed by writer e. jean carroll, who accuses former president trump of raping her in the 1990s. those allegations will get their day in court starting tomorrow in addition to monetary damages from trump, mrs. carroll wants him to retract his statement last year denying that the rape

occurred there's more today we got a striking set of letters from fani willis she is the district attorney in fulton county, georgia, investigating trump and others for their alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of georgia. look at this district attorney willis sent letters like this one to various law enforcemen agencies in fulton county today basically giving them a heads-up telling them to be ready for possible indictments in this case this summer she says, quote, in the near future i will announce charging decisions resulting from the investigation my office has been conducting into possible criminal interference in the administration of georgia's 2020 election and providing this letter to bring to your attention the need for heightened security and preparedness quote, the announcement of decisions this this case may provoke a significant public reaction i will be announcing charges decisioning results from this investigation during fulton county superior court's fourth term of court, which will begin on july 11th, 2023 and conclude on september 1st please accept this correspondence as notice to

allow you sufficient time to prepare the sheriff's office and coordinate with local, state and federal agencies to ensure that our law enforcement community is ready to protect the public. so she's giving them a few weeks' notice. as we understand it this means that she will present our case to a grand jury and ask for indictments. that grand jury will be sitting in fulton county, she says between july 11th and september 1st and thinks her charging decisions at that point may provoke a significant public reaction that local law enforcement needs this much lead time to plan for so she's talking about something that is still sort of a long way away, but also this is a very provocative warning. and, of course, all of these things are happening all at once today for the former republican president who is now the far out front-runner for the republican nomination to be their next presidential candidate as well watch this space

i'm jonathan lawson

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

your acceptance is guaranteed. and this plan has a guaranteed lifetime rate lock so your rate can never go up for any reason. so call now for free information and you'll also get this free beneficiary planner. and it's yours free just for calling. so call now for free information. paradontax blood when you brush could lead to worse over time. help stop the clock on gum disease now. parodontax toothpaste... ...is 3x more effective at removing plaque bacteria, one of the main causes of bleeding gums. parodontax. the gum experts. and this is ready to go online.

one of the main causes of bleeding gums. any questions? -yeah, i got one. how about the best network imaginable? can someone invent that? that's what we do here. quick, informal survey. who wants the internet to work, pretty much everywhere. thought so. i am not spending 8 hours at school to come home and deal with latency issues. you feel me? i feel you. -facts. because we're busy women. we don't have time for lag or buffering. understood, ma'am. and it needs to run smooth, like super, super, super, super smooth. hey, should you be drinking? -it's decaf. basically, everyone in the house getting that sweet internet nectar all at once. -mhmm. even outside too. -bingo. i mean, who doesn't want internet that helps a.i. do your homework even faster. come again. -sorry, what was that? keep up the good work here, megan. it's mom. -fair enough. introducing the next generation 10g network only from xfinity. the future starts now. tom knows what i'm talking about. isn't that right, tommy?

all right, that is going to do it for us tonight "way too early" with jonathan lemire is up next. we've been sent here to finish the job in my view. let's finish the job