tv The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC June 12, 2023 9:00pm-10:00pm PDT
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will surrender at a federal court in miami, and be processed on criminal charges. msnbc will have live coverage throughout the day, and special primetime coverage with rachel maddow, joy reid, me, and the rest of our primetime colleagues, to break down what happens in court, and where the case goes from here. you are not going to want to miss this. and on that note, i wish you all a very good and very safe night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying up late. i will see you at the end of tomorrow. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> thanks to at-home for joining us this hour. i'm very happy to have you here. as chris mentioned, we do have a new podcast that just launched its first episode today. it's called rachel maddow presents deja news, the whole idea of the podcast is déjà vu,
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like something is going on in the news today, doesn't this remind me of something else? yes, it does, something that might seem unprecedented, like we've never faced something like this before in the news. it turns out more often than it, it does have an antecedent in history. the very first episode dropped today. it is about something that's very much like january 6th that happened before. i would have more to say about this later on this hour. but chris is right, it's just drop. today we are super excited about it. that's all still to come, it's called rachel maddow presents "deja news". all right, so, here's what it said when they finally showed what they had to the public. this was from the u.s. justice department at the time. quote, the following statement is respectfully submitted to the court by the government at the arraignment of the defendant. it constitutes a detailed resuscitation of the facts and
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evidence developed by the investigation to date. that presentation of this statement in court today was a material condition, requested by that department of justice, to the agreement reached between the government and the defendant. and that, this statement, which came out 50 years ago, it goes on and on and on and on, page after page after page, in tiny print, just like it says, it is a detailed citation of the facts and the evidence. the justice department had amassed all of this evidence that the defendant had committed dozens of felonies, that described in a statement all of the evidence they had, all the things they believed they had proved that the defendant had done. and it was not a short recitation. it was thousands of words. it described years of allegations of extortion and bribery, just ranked corruption. this guy, taking envelops, stuffed with cash, in exchange for official apps, as a public
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official. they had it all documented. they had records. they had receipts. they had notes. they had witnesses who had been involved in the corruption scheme, who were set to testify at trial. they had this guy. they had him. and he knew that they had him. and he just went on ballistic against the justice department investigation that had targeted him. he said the only reason they were coming after him was that he was a political target, that the people behind this investigation only wanted him out as a political official. they were corrupt, unprofessional, malicious, and outrageous. he said he was gonna go after these terrible people in the justice department who were witch hunting him. he was gonna destroy them. he was gonna tear the whole system down. he singled out individual officials in the u.s. justice department and went after them one by one. >> i say this to you -- the conduct of high individuals
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in the department of justice, particularly the conduct of the chief of the criminal investigation division of that department, is unprofessional, and malicious, and outrageous. >> it is my intention to use the courts of this country in an attempt to gain permission to examine under oath these people who are trying to destroy me politically through the abuse of the criminal justice system of the united states. [applause] >> they are trying to recoup their reputation at my expense. i'm a big trophy. [applause] and let me say further -- that one of those individuals has made some very severe mistakes, serious mistakes, in the handling of his job. he considers himself a career professional, and a class by
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himself. but a recent examination of his record will show that he also through annapolis and blunder, prevented the successful prosecution of my crime figures because of wiretapping errors. it leads me to reinstate his reputation as a tough and courageous and hard-nosed prosecutor. well, i'm not gonna fall down and be his victim, i assure you. [applause] >> he is corrupt, those justice department officials, using me for political purposes, using me because they need me for their own purposes. that was 1973. and people say now, wow, we've never had a president trying to tear down the justice system, and attack federal law enforcement officials like trump is now. yes, we have. we definitely have. except he was vice president, not president, when he did it. his name was spiro agnew, and he was facing a 40 count
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federal criminal felony indictment in 1973. >> because i -- because of these tactics which have been deployed against me, because of small and fearful men who have been frightened furnishing evidence against me, they have involved themselves in many cases, as my understanding. i will not resign if indicted. i will not resign if indicted. [applause] >> the crowd goes wild. washington post, new york times headlines, page 81 in both papers the next day, agnew declares he will not quit, agnew declares he will not resign, even if indicted! 11 days later, he resigned. under circumstances that all of a sudden seemed very urgent today, very relevant to what we
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are doing today. as a presidential candidate, former president donald trump goes in for his federal felony criminal arraignment on dozens of federal criminal charges tomorrow. there is a precedent that is at play here, the last time we contended with something like this as a country, the justice department prosecutors working that case back in 1973, they kept their heads down, kept working while he was out there in public, rallying republicans to his defense, calling it a witch hunt, saying he was gonna turn the tables on them, destroy the justice department. he was gonna go after them one by one, attacking them individually. he was gonna expose them all as being corrupt and committing all sorts of misconduct. the justice department officials working on that case, nevertheless, persevered. they kept their heads down, subpoenaing witnesses, issuing records that put together the evidence. they put together enough
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evidence for dozens of federal criminal counts against him. now, this is the crucial point, i think, at least today. i think it is crucial to know that the justice department at that time, when they were putting together all of this voluminous hard evidence against agnew, they believed that in this vice president, agnew, they were looking at a man who had committed dozens of felonies. and they believed they were looking at a man who had a very good shot at being the next president of the united states, not only because vice presidents tend to run for the top job themselves, after serving as vice presidents, and sometimes that works out, sometimes it doesn't. but in agnew's case, there was an even more immediate expectation that he was going to become president. the justice department had a very good reason to expect, in 1973, that nixon was going down.
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the watergate scandal was getting worse and worse and worse. nixon was pretty unhealthy by then, in lots of ways, his behavior was erratic and strange, which is something the top officials at the justice department saw personally in their interactions with nixon, including the attorney general himself. i mean, it just seemed like very good odds that if nixon didn't kill over, there was a very good prospect that he was gonna be out, he was gonna resign, and he was gonna be forced out of office by impeachment, which of course would make his vice president president. and his vice president, the justice department believed, had committed dozens of felonies. and they had that evidence to back it up. so, just think about that moment in time for a second, think of that moment in time in relation to where we are today, with trump, about to be arraigned on 37 felony counts tomorrow. i mean, we've got trump saying right now, i will not suspend my campaign because of this
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indictment. i will never drop out of this campaign. he said this week and, i will continue to run for president, not only after when i'm indicted, i will continue to run for president even if i'm convicted. that is what trump is saying now. in agnew's case, you just heard him say it, i will not resign if indicted, very same kind of pledge. but think about how that would work in practical terms. i mean, think about that with the agnew case. especially, given that with the benefit of hindsight, we now know that nixon was out, nixon did not get to the end of his term, he was forced out by the watergate scandal. think about what would that have meant with agnew not resigning if indicted. right, you've got all the evidence against him, the justice department indites him. he says he won't resign if indicted. so, okay, let's say they pressed on, and they went to trial, he would very likely be convicted on dozens of felony counts. they had very hard evidence against him. so, you would be convicted, he
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would get sentenced, to jail, quite possibly. it was dozens of felonies. it's not like the espionage act felonies, but still as bad. if he doesn't resign, he goes on trial, he gets convicted, and then sentenced to jail. then, is the vice president of the united states in jail. and from jail, what the justice department is expecting about an accent comes true. nixon goes poof from the presidency. so, now, post nixon, we've got the new president governing from jail, from federal prison. or maybe, now that agnew's president, he tries to pardon himself from prison, but nobody really knows how that would work, can you do that, would people obey that order that he proclaimed himself? it would be chaos. so, what do you do in that circumstance if you are the u.s. department of justice? what do you do ask the justice department, when you believe you've got someone who you
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believe has committed dozens of felonies, felonies in this case, that he was only able to commit because he held public office. it was only because he was a high-ranking public official that he was allowed access to these things that allowed him to commit these crimes. what do you do? do you just prosecute this guy like anyone else? i mean, at a base level, yes. nobody is about the law. we only have one system of law for everyone. nothing about being an elected official gives you a license to commit crimes, or a license to get away with it if you do. the last time we had to contend with something very much like this as a country, the three young idealistic prosecutors, who had run this case, who had documented all the bribery and extortion claims against agnew, who had amassed all the evidence for trial, they wanted not only put him on trial, they wanted to convict him and put him in jail, like he was just and the other slime ball, who
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was found guilty of these types of crimes, with the hard evidence they had lined up for dozens of felony counts, a jail sentence was not going to be a stretch. they wanted jail. the evidence of these crimes spelled jail. but what the justice department offered the guy was no jail. it is a decision that is controversial to this day, and for good reason. but that's what they did. the justice department insisted that the evidence of all his alleged crimes be made public and put in writing. that's what i showed at the very top of the hour. they put that in writing. they introduced it in open court. they released it to the public. it was printed in all the papers. but in addition to, you know, printing all that evidence they had of his crimes, they didn't do much else. they let him plead to just one count of tax evasion, and they agreed he would serve zero jail time.
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in exchange for that, what he had to agree to was to leave elected office, to resign. now, the justice department had internal fights about this. there was gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. but in the end, they decided that the interest of justice would be best served if they told the world what they believed he had done, and they got him out of office, thus preventing a nationwide crisis and a potential collapse of our constitutional system of government, with a president trying to run the country from prison. tri mean, here was the front pae of the new york times, spiro t. agnew resigned as vice president of the united states today under an agreement with the doj to admit evasion of federal income taxes and avoid imprisonment. the stunning development, and doing a federal grand jury investigation of mr. agnew, and probably terminating his political career, shocked his
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closest associates and precipitated an immediate search by president nixon for a successor. it's interesting, they didn't, as part of the plea deal, they didn't require him to swear that he would never run for public office again. that's why the times said it was, this deal had probably terminated his political career. but they did make him resign from the office he was then holding. they figured that the shame of that would be enough to, you know, keep him from ever getting elected to anything again. his supporters were so mad in the wake of that deal. you might have thought for a minute that they would vote for him again if they could. >> i thought he was one of the greatest men that this country has ever had. >> what is your reaction to that resignation? >> i think it's a sad thing. >> i'm just sick of that. i think he's a man of his word, and i think he's been doing the same thing, ever since i
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started voting. and i think is just too bad. i think he's a great man. >> i think it was very unnecessary, oh, i'm just sick. i'm very unhappy. i don't think it was necessary. i think it was a lot of political hogwash. and just, oh -- >> the immediate aftermath of a agnew's plea deal, he's not going to prison, but he does have to resign office immediately. in the immediate aftermath of that deal, his supporters were so strongly in support of him, they were so upset at the charges against him, you might have thought the country was on the precipice of something terrible. but you know what? it passed. it took a little while. he stayed in the news for a few weeks, a few months. he was very mad about what had happened to him. but then, he just faded out. he disappeared. his name all but disappeared from history. but it hasn't entirely disappeared. we do have his example. we have had experience with something like this before as a country.
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and whether you like how that worked out with him or not, whether you think that was justice or not, that is the real history of how the u.s. department of justice contended with these issues the last time they were confronted with something like this. i mean, here was a man who fully expected himself to be the next president of the united states. the u.s. justice department also expected that he might be about to become the next president of the united states. but the justice department also had evidence that he committed dozens of felonies. he went nuts about the fact that they were investigating him. he threatened them all the time, he tried to shut that investigation. he tried to bully them. he said he was gonna come after them, turn the tables on them. but they did not back down. they confronted him with the evidence in court. and what's happened? he pled, he pled to avoid jail. and they let him because he also agreed to leave public office. we have only ever done something like this once before
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as a country, and that's how we did it the last time. now, does this mean that the justice department today is going to approach this, the second time around, this time with trump, the same way they did with agnew, we don't know. but the idea that trump might bleed, that he might negotiate to plead to something in exchange for leniency, it's something that is generally being dismissed out of hand right now, when perhaps it shouldn't be. particularly if it looks like there's a chance of jail time, that it tends to these charges for him, particularly if pleading guilty to something might be his only way to avoid jail time. the question of whether or not trump's future eligibility for public office might be part of any such plea is something that everybody is afraid to touch with a ten foot pole, i know. but we really have only ever
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done this once before. and that's the way we did it. we made his public office, his holding public office, part of the plea deal. that's the solution. this still controversial to this date solution, that the justice department and the lawyers of the defendant came up 50 years ago, the last time we were plagued with a problem this disgusting. and it's no use pretending that that isn't the relevant history here. it is. and i think we should not gift that person emma, i think history is here to help. i mentioned at the top, i have a new podcast, just dropped its first episode today. it's called "deja news". i will tell you what that's all about in a few minutes, later on this hour. but the first broadcast i ever did was about this agnew story, about the justice department's investigation of that particular criminal in the white house, and the agonizing decision to let him escape jail
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in exchange for leaving public office. after they had all the evidence in the world to nail him for his crimes. that podcast was called bad man, and the three we life stars of that podcast are the three federal prosecutors from baltimore who ran the agnew investigation, who asked all the evidence against him, enough to put him in jail for a long time, before that illegal let him escape jail, and exchange for leaving public office. those three prosecutors are to baker, ron liebermann, and if anyone in the whole country has ever been here before, it's these guys. y ha joining us now live is one of those men from the center of that story, ron liebman, former assistant u.s. attorney in baltimore. mr. ron liebman, it's nice to see you, thank you for being here tonight. >> great pleasure to be here, thank you. >> first, let me just ask you if i got anything wrong there. i know i didn't tell the whole story, but the parts of it that i told, did i get anything wrong? >> no, you got it right.
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you got it right. >> it is a bedrock principle that no one is above the law, there's only one system of law for everybody. how did you guys square that with the fact that agnew had this very valuable thing to trade, effectively? he had this public office to trade, to keep himself from going to jail. that is something that nobody else would have. >> well, my team members have already argued for days with the attorney general and his staff about this very point. we felt strongly, very strongly that agnew was not above the law. he committed crimes. he should go to trial. he gets convicted, he gets acquitted, he gets his day in court. and the attorney general, elliot richardson, to his credit, gave us as much time as
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we wanted. we argued with him for days, when finally, the three of us, finally came to the conclusion that he was right, and that he had the maturity of judgment at the time, given what was going on, to approve this deal. agnew had get out of jail guard, he was in elected office. anyone could see that richard nixon was not long for that office, and so, there would be the specter of the vice president under indictment, perhaps at trial, perhaps convicted, becoming the president of the united states. and then, because of justice department policy, not law, he would be immune from prosecution while he was in office. this is in the middle of watergate. the country was in a constitutional crisis. we, the three of us, finally came around to understand and agree that at the time, what was going on there, that was the right call.
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donald trump's contender. he is not an elected office. he may become the republican nominee that he is, that he will, he may or may not get elected. at the time of the election, if he is the republican nominee, even if he is elected, he could be tried for this espionage case. he could well have other indictments, against him. it could be even possible that he would be convicted and sentenced to jail, when you've had this specter. and here's where the similarity is, rachel, you have the specter of president trump running the white house while doing time in the big house. that would be terrible. however, it's not watergate. we are not in a constitutional crisis. the fact that trump would become president if there is a fair election and he is elected, i know for mr. trump, it's only
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a fair election if he wins. but if this is a fair election, and he becomes president, that's democracy. he becomes president. doesn't mean he stays president. it depends on what he does. he is likely to be vindictive. he will certainly try to kick the wheels off the lady liberties wagon. he doesn't necessarily remain president. he could be impeached on what congress said in session, the 25th amendment that could be used. so, there are similarities. but i think there are fundamental differences as well. trump is not in office now. he is a contender. there's a lot of moving parts to this, and we will have to see what happens. i do think and i know that my colleague think that we made the right decision at the right time for what was going on. these times are a bit different, and there's a lot to play out yet. >> and, ron, in terms of --
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when you say you and your colleagues believe that was the right decision at the right time, in terms of your understanding of the legacy of the agnew decision within the justice department, is that viewed as having been the wise decision? i ask only because we have to think now whether the justice department might be considering something along those same lines, in any potential plea negotiation with former president trump. obviously, anything can be part of a plea negotiation, and an agreement to not stand for public office would be somewhat parallel to this sort of agreement that came with agnew, in terms of him resigning office he then held. >> i think the justice department, to answer the first part of your question, felt that the plea agreement with agnew was the right thing. in terms of the plea agreement with donald trump, first of all, keep in mind that, you know, he is the roy cohn school of
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behavior. so, he fights everything no matter what, no matter where, to the very end. and anyone who processes him, or things about, that goes after him. so it's very likely that he will actually go to trial, thinking that only enhances his chances of getting elected because of how his base would react. but if he were to, for the same kind of reasons, i think that agnew had, not want to go to jail, i mean, nobody wants to go to jail, white-collar defendants will you don't want to go to jail. they don't want to go to time. so, he would authorize his lawyers, let's say hypothetically, to offer and agnew likely deal, wherein trump would agree for a global settlement, which, depending on all the cases he's facing, i don't know how that would work, but let's say, he would tell his lawyers i would agree not to run for office if you drop
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these charges against me, or i can plead, content to some jaywalking offense. i'm not true sure the justice department, in this context, would go along with that. i hope they would not because that feeds into the rhetoric that the prosecution, that the department of justice is bringing, a weaponization. it is an illegitimate prosecution, just so that donald trump won't run for office again. that's a different situation than agnew, and i don't think the justice department, i hope they would not agree to do that. >> ron liebman, former assistant u.s. attorney for the district of maryland, a member of the team that prosecuted spiro agnew, a man with a place in history. ron, it's really good to have you here tonight. thank you so much for talking to us about this. >> thanks, rachel. pleasure to be here. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. with us oo expensive so i brought it here. you know with priceline you could actually take that trip for less than all this.
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in session as of tonight. and as the senators are coming back to washington for tonight, some of them started giving their first reaction to the news about the indictment of former president donald trump. >> well, i mean, this is, you know, these are serious, you are talking about national security secrets, classified information, and, you know, a very detailed indictment. so they are serious allegations. but they serious allegations -- >> are you concerned about the
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severity of the charges? >> yeah, i mean, i think they are, i think president trump should be concerned. i mean, anytime you get indicted, it's concerning. yeah, so, yeah, i think that it is serious. >> the accusations are very serious and if we find out whether or not they have a case, so everybody's proved. is innocent until they, you know, unless they are convicted. and in this particular case, like everybody else. he's got a right to maintain his innocence unless he is convicted, and those are very serious charges. it suggests that we don't know how to handle classified information. and that is something we can be very dangerous for people. >> how but do you think this indictment is? >> it's not good. you should not be walking out
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with classified information. and yes, i think everybody could agree with that. >> yes, it is. it is concerning, but we will find out more tomorrow. >> i've read everything i could find about it. i'm not a legal analyst, so i'm not going to comment. i'm going to leave that to the professional people. >> i'm not a legal analyst, so i'm not going to comment. i will leave that to the professional people, says the last senator there, chuck grassley, the man who was ahead of the senate judiciary committee until not that long ago. saying his write everything he could find about it, but no, i don't understand these things, he told another outlet that he hadn't read the indictment itself. because how could he possibly. that's the reaction of elected republicans, elected republican senators on capitol hill tonight. online, the reaction of trump supporters is taking its own set of contours, that's next, stay with us. stay with us
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cecily: no two community schools are alike. john: many of our classes are designed around our own students' cultures. kenny: it's about working with the parents. david: the educators, the parents, the students. rafael: we all come together to better meet the needs of our kids and our families. jackie: it's been really powerful. terry: i'm excited to go to work every day. narrator: california's community schools: reimagining public education. >> so it's a picture of what former president trump looks like, i think, from a military academy graduation, maybe, during his time as president. and the caption says this, quote, this is not a game. this is a war. this is literally evil mocking. when you answer? when you fight? we will, you elected us to take back our country, our world. enough is enough. that was a name that was repulsed by the former president himself on his social media site over the weekend. along with that call to war, this is not a game, this is a
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war, trump also posted this message to his followers. he said, see you in miami on tuesday. right now, we all know what the worst-case scenario looks like, when the particular former president bush's his supporters to be riled up, being in the same place at the same time, because it is the final battle for the soul of america. ahead of tomorrow's, initial court appearance for the former president, in federal court in miami, we haven't seen anything that looks like the mobilization before that pro trump mob stormed the u.s. congress on january 6th. they have been as mattering of pro trump protesters outside his golf course in miami. we saw a similar scene outside his house elsewhere in florida yesterday, people at mar-a-lago, washington post reports got the miami-dade police homeland security bureau issuing an advisory about a rally apparently being organized by
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the miami chapter of the proud boys, which is one of the pro trump paramilitary groups that played a key role in the attack on congress on january 6th. that is set to take place tomorrow in miami and of trump's first court appearance at that courthouse in downtown miami. organizers of that rally posted digital flyers for it on pro trump message boards. we don't yet know whether or not it's going to come together, but it it's obviously something to keep an eye on. but itin some pro trump forums , people have been making specific threats, threats against attorney general merrick garland and his family, special counsel jack smith and his family. one of the websites that was used to organize the january 6th attack was called the donald dot when. that site still exists somewhere, patriots got in, and interestingly, that site was down. but the site is back up now. and ever since trump posted that call to his supporters,
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see you in miami on tuesday, users on that pro trump message board had been replying over and over again, with the phrase, or some variation of, will be wild, which of course is an explicit reference to trump's rallying cry to his supporters ahead of what became the attack on january 6th. joining us now is ben collins, nbc senior reporter. he covers online disinformation and extremism. ben, thank you for being here. >> then i get that wrong? >> that was exactly right. >> what do you think about the scale and tenor of what you are seeing online? >> scale is smaller than before january 6th. the tenor, basically the same. they're having a hard time organizing, as you said, that website where they plant most of january 6th mostly was down, almost all of yesterday. >> do you know why it was down? >> an anonymous claim, but who knows, they are anonymous, right? it's a hard deal. but they are having a hard time in part because these really siloed factions of trump
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supporters since january 6th have become even more siloed. there are several chapters of the miami, saying they're going down there, helping out the og trump world french figure, who once handcuffed herself to twitter headquarters, and she got herself banned from twitter. she's gonna be there as well, posting flyers as well. and people in the replies on telegram and other pages, there's lots of violence. a lot of saying, you're gonna be armed. the issue is there is no plan. you know, january 6th, there were malicious coordinating, walkie talkie's, plans, maps of the capital, things like that. that's really what we are seeing right now. it's not the same thing. >> is it possible that the planning just isn't public face anymore, that people have moved everything into encrypted chats that don't have a public face or component? >> exactly, there's definitely
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a chance for that. in fact, the proud boys moved over to smaller apps that are inherently not public. but usually, those things start to dribble out before events like this. the big worry, as always, somebody who says, here is all this rhetoric, and says enough is enough, i can't deal with this anymore. and then they do something. we have a lot of evidence for this. we have the nancy pelosi, paul pelosi attack. we have, last, year after the raid at mar-a-lago, the closest field office for the fbi he could find. so there's a string of this stuff that happens when people get that loan wolf i.d. and their head boast of the tone and tenor here. >> one congressman like trump himself, clay higgins, other high-profile figures, particular you have sort of a credibility that come from elected office, when they post this is war type messages, or messages about how this is the end time, or this is a thing
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that is meant to sort of peaked peoples fears, and make people think like this is the time to act. are you seeing any evidence that those things are more influential then your average man on the street, trump supporters saying the same kind of extremist stuff? ters>> not everywhere you show p tomorrow is going to be in that world of qanon, and all this stuff. some people just support trump, just the way it is. but there are people who think overtime that there is, effectively, at kabul taking over the world, and somebody needs to stop it. and when you read the posts of people who commit terror attacks, that's what happens. they just say i couldn't take it anymore. couldn't do nothing. and it only takes one guy. predicting that, rachel, is inherently impossible, and it's one of those things, that it should keep you up at night. it's one of those things where if we could predict it, we would love to. right now, no one is just gonna say it before we do it. >> ben collins, nbc senior
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reporter who covers online disinformation and extremist events. ben, good to see. we'll be right back, stay with us. us hi, i'm ron reagan, an unabashed atheist. and i'm alarmed, as you may be, by the intrusions of religion into our secular government. that's why i'm asking you to join the freedom from religion foundation, the nation's largest and most effective association of atheists and agnostics working to keep state and church separate, just like our founders intended. please join the freedom from religion foundation today. ron reagan, lifelong atheist, not afraid of burning in hell. your best defense against erosion and cavities is strong enamel- nothing beats it. new pronamel active shield actively shields the enamel to defend against erosion and cavities.
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documents case in court now, but he is examining trump's action around the january 6th attack on congress, overturning the election, and stay in power after being voted out. that part of the investigation is apparently still life. and we see was forced to report that among the people recently subpoenaed to appear before that grand jury in washington, d.c. is trump advisor steve bannon. so, the classified documents think has produced an indictment. the other side of the investigation, that january 6th part of it remains on jack smith's plate. we just had a stack of convictions and some really stiff sentences handed down for people involved in the january 6th attack. stewart rhodes is the leader of the pro trump parallel mentor group the oath keepers, recently sentenced to 18 years in prison for his role in january 6th. if you think trump world is going crazy about the prospect of trump being trialed on espionage charges were later to his handling of classified
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material, the prospect of him coming up on sedition charges for helping inspire a physical attack on the seat of the government, that would be something else. stewart rhodes has just this weekend done an interview from prison, are they allowed to do interviews from prison? he said a phone interview from prison in which he says that he believes from his perspective as a defendant who was prosecuted on sedition charges, he believes that trump, too, will be brought up on sedition charges, indeed on four different felony charges relating to january 6th. so, you know, believe stewart rhodes or not, he is the highest profile january 6th defendant that there is. he himself is a yale trained lawyer. he says that trump is due for january six charges. we shall see. there is a word that gets used a lot these days, we use the word unprecedented all the time, because it often feels that we are in a moment where all kinds of stuff is happening, that is brand-new, never happened
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before. that can feel overwhelming, right? how do you understand what's going on? how do you make sense of what we are living through if you have no frame or of reference or processing it? as i mentioned, at the top of the show, we've got a new podcast that just launched today for addressing just this problem. it's called "deja news". this is a podcast i am doing with my longtime friend and producer isaac-davy aronson. the basic idea of "deja news" is this feeling that we have so often lately that we are going through stuff that we've never gone through before, maybe the feeling, maybe that feeling isn't justified, it isn't quite right. maybe people have gone through something similar in some other time or place. knowing those historical antecedents, exploring their parallels, what's happening today, i think that can sometimes help. it can help us grapple with what we are going through now, maybe even give us a sense of what to expect next. and i don't want to give too much away. you should definitely go listen to it. if you use the camera on your
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phone to scan that code, that's right there on the lower right hand side of the screen right now, if you open up your phone, open it, use the camera, hold the camera up to that little coat, it will take you right there to the podcast. and you can listen for free. but the first episode drop today. it's about january 6th, the attack on the capitol. it's about an uncannily similar event that happened just like that in history. and even though, as you can tell from this imagery, it was a long time ago, where that event took place, still reverberates in politics even decades later, which is sobering when you think about what is potentially the long term impact of our experience but that seems sort of thing. again, then your podcast, it's called "deja news", i am very excited about it. i am excited for you to meet isaac-davy aronson, long time rachel maddow show producer, longtime rachel maddow friend. again, scan that code on your screen, or search for "deja news" wherever you get your podcasts, or you just go online to msnbc.com slash deja news.
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i couldn't make it through the airport, and every like 20 or 30 yards i had to sit down and get my breath. every physical exertion seemed to exhaust me. and finally, i went to the hospital where i was diagnosed with afib. when i first noticed symptoms, which kept coming and going, i should have gone to the doctor and told them what was happening. instead, i tried to let it pass. if you experience irregular heartbeat, heart racing, chest pain, shortness of breath, fatigue, or light-headedness, you should talk to your doctor. afib increases the risk of stroke about 5 times i want my experience to help others understand the symptoms of atrial fibrillation. when it comes to your health, this is no time to wait.
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federally indicted former president before. we are in new territory now, that means we have no idea exactly what to expect tomorrow, when donald trump is scheduled to make his first court appearance in miami. we're gonna have special coverage tomorrow on msnbc, starting at ten a.m.. tomorrow evening, i will be back with you for a primetime special coverage, that is from eight pm to ten pm eastern. i will see you then. that's gonna do it for me for a few minutes, before i join the last word with lawrence o'donnell as well. good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, rachel. i am so excited to be able to have you come over here. >> >> me too. >> and andrew weissmann is gonna be the first guest in the studio. he's actually on his way at the moment. so, we have to do that bu
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