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tv   Alex Wagner Tonight  MSNBC  August 16, 2023 6:00pm-7:00pm PDT

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elector. the democratic party from 92 was the one that was further away from the elector. right now there is no question that the republican base voter is further away from the middle of the electorate than democrats, are and that should work in the party's favor. >> that is a good answer. thank you both. that is all in on this wednesday night, now earlier in the show, we mentioned a big day today. it has been one year since president biden signed the inflation reduction act. it's not the only anniversary that we are marking tonight. alex wagner tonight also turns one today and as great as the i.r.a. is, alex wagner tonight is even better. good evening, alex. >> i don't know. i mean, i really appreciate the sentiment. >> i think you are better than the inflation reduction act. i do. >> that is saying a lot. that is like the biggest investment in climate change that the country has ever made and in cable news on at nine pm
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through friday. i'll take it. >> let's be clear, i do not think that you are more important then the inflation reduction act, but i do -- i do think that you are better, and i am more excited about your anniversary. >> i thank you for that. you have not known the inflation reduction act for what is it -- my god, 25 years? and you have that. i will take it. i'm just thrilled to have this kind of with you every four days a week chris. it is the thing that brings me joy, my friend. >> happy anniversary. >> thanks, buddy. thanks for a great show, as always. nks, buddy >> thanks to you at home for joining me this hour once again. we now have a date, march 4th, 2024. that is the day that fulton county district attorney, fani willis, proposed her case against trump and his 18 codefendants that is the date that she would like to put it to trial. just two months after the
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january 2nd date that special counsel jack smith proposed for the federal case against trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election. and it would be just three weeks before trump's hush money case is set to start in new york. it would be just two months before the start of jack smith's mar-a-lago classified documents case which is on may 20th and it would be just one day before super tuesday. that means just 200 days from tomorrow trump and his codefendants could be in a potentially televised courtroom battling this all out just one day before the biggest day on the republican primary calendar trump and the rest of the defendants will file whatever files they want. the decisions will be made by this case in particular but we will put that calendar back up for a second. trump's 2024 calendar is already so jam-packed with legal troubles where else on
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the calendar is there a window for this georgia case if not in march? we will get some expert legal help in just a second. but first, i want to talk about the other reason that trump's 2024 legal calendar is problematic for him. it is tearing a hole in his wallet. the new york times reports that in the first six months of this year, trump raised about $67 million, which she has, is an eye-popping sign. but in the same period of time, trump spent 90 million. and 30 cents of every dollar that they spent was on legal fees, and other investigation related bills. $27 million to fight his legal troubles in just the first six months of the year. a period of time when he was only facing two criminal indictments instead of the current form. those are big expenses. seemingly unsustainable expenses. now, in hearing for the federal
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2020 election case in d.c. last friday, one of trump's lawyers mentioned that they planned to use volunteer lawyers to help handle the case. volunteer lawyers, presumably not the kind of lawyers who are paid, definitely cheap, and that could be the reason why they are talking about volunteer lawyers. but trump does not have that many paid lawyers representing him. there are only ten lawyers heading up trump's various legal defense teams in the for criminal cases against him. i know any amount of lawyers is a lot of lawyers to a normal person. but for a former president facing 91 felony charges, this seems like it small number of people. one lawyer is representing trump three times over. todd blanche is on three different cases. and if former president trump is already hemorrhaging cash with this small, shall we say,
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elite group of lawyers, then he might need to bring in volunteer staff to help manage the defense for 91 felony counts. and then, of course, there are legal bills from trump's codefendants. bills at trump in his various packs are paying. people like trump's ballot and property manager, carlos de oliveira, those fellows from the mar-a-lago case. those are just the people that we know trump and his packs are paying the legal bills for. thanks to the georgia indictment trump has 18 more codefendants. that means 18 more people facing potentially serious jail time her needing to figure out how to pay their legal bills. and that might be problematic for more than just trump's involvement. today, former trump attorney and current trump codefendant, jenna ellis, turned to a christian crowdfunding website to raise cash for her legal defense. you can send money or you can send digital prayers to help
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her defend herself in this case in georgia. and there are a lot of potential. doesn't mean trump is not footing jenna ellis's legal bills? what does that mean for the rest of the defendants in this case? the moment where trump needs to be doing everything that he can to keep all of his codefendants an alleged coconspirators on his side as these numerous and considerable legal troubles plowed his future, how long can trump afford to pay other peoples lawyers, and for that matter, his own? joining me now are mary mccord, former activist and assistant attorney general for national security at the department of justice, and former fbi general counsel and member of special counsel robert mueller investigation. mary and andrew are the co-host of the msnbc podcast prosecuting donald trump where i get all of my good ideas for things to talk about on television. andrew, the burn rate in terms of trump's packs spending money
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on these legal problems is staggering. that was all the data we had from before these latest indictments landed. does this seem problematic to you as it does to me, a person on the outside? >> i had a couple of thoughts, one, just to put it into perspective, there are many, many people in the federal and state system who can't afford counsel at all. and it is constitutional requirements that they can share that council paid for. it's a dual system of justice that we have here. but unfortunately, with money, comes power. and you see it whether it is an organized crime prosecution that i've done in the past, where you have house counsel. i've seen it in the corporate setting where corporations pay for council for individuals and some of these people do their job and they represent the person as they should independently. but there are subtle and not so
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subtle pressures and we have seen it in this very case. cassidy hutchinson gave us explicit testimony about how she was given trump appointed counsel. and she actually said, she asked, who is paying for my counsel? and her counsel, if this is true, completely they said don't worry your head about it. which is unreal. she was entitled to know that. so that is the way in which money can be used to keep everybody in line and inside the tent. and with the first thing i said when i saw that there were 18 codefendants here, as we saw, there are two in the documents case, is how do you keep these -- because in the georgia case, these are all potential cooperators, because there is no federal pardon with respect to those cases. those people are really facing realtime and the proof on some of them looks really strong. so, he needs to be able to
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figure out how is he going to do that. and money, supporting that in terms of their counsel, is one way to do that. he's learned his lesson from michael cohen, who when we were prosecuting him in the mueller investigation, the spigot was turned off, and he felt abandoned. so that is the downside. >> paying for the lawyers as one of the main ways, it seems, that trump has influence, in terms of loyalty, when it comes to potential codefendants singing to the feds or not. >> saying i have your back, or it could be a real issue for some of these people, this is having retained councils opposed to accountable counsel. it is really expensive. so in addition to being indicted, is not like you just wake up and say that this is a great day, i was just indicted, but then you have to spend, you know, hundreds of thousands, if not more for counsel in a case like this. which is a big, sprawling case.
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so, having somebody who is going to be a benefactor is important. >> one would hope that benefactor actually has to cash in his pockets to do the thing that you are hoping the benefactor does. >> donald trump does have a way of raising money. i wouldn't be surprised if there was more money that will come from somewhere. >> what is going on with volunteer lawyers? is that a usual thing? and what does it signal to you about the council that he does have in some of these cases? >> well, pro bono lawyering it is well known, particularly in the public interest, my day job is running a pro bono shop, the institute for constitutional advocacy and protection, and we do all of our work pro bono. but that is usually not representing a candidate for president, who has been well financed and portrayed himself as a billionaire for decades and who is facing criminal charges in four different states and different federal
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cases as well. it is a very different type of thing to think about volunteer lawyering. and i have not had time to look into this yet. but i do think that any volunteer lawyers will have to also look into whether their contributions could be perceived to be political donations because that could put some restrictions on that. but i think that there are other things that are significant about what we are seeing with donald trump's legal problems. one, we've been talking now about how much he has spent on legal representation and how few lawyers he has on his team. i would know that we reported that he was left high and dry in many of his former lawyers who are now his codependency fani willis case and are unindicted coconspirators and the jacques mid-january 6th-related case. i think that the lawyers, whether they want to be volunteering, or don't want to be volunteering, ought to go into this thinking, there is a
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good chance i am not going to get paid, and that could certainly dissuade lawyers who are expecting to be paid from representing mr. trump. i think that it also is a deterrent for additional lawyers or others in the future to hitch their wagon to mr. trump who has a habit, we now see, of dragging people into a situation where they face their own criminal liability like we are seeing in these indictments particularly the georgia indictment. and third, most of the legal bills, as i understand it now, are being paid by one of his pacts, the save america pact, and this is a pack that recruited and sought money based on false claims of election fraud. and at some point, the people making those, in many cases, small dollar gifts have got to think through. do they want their money to be going to defending these multiple criminal cases? he shifting gears, as we just indicated, to explicitly
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fundraising on arguing he is the victim of political persecution and political prosecution. but still, for the people, the many people out there who do not have substantial means, and are contributing some of their income to these pacts, for these reasons, they may start thinking twice as so many more cases are piling up on him. >> they make a point about who is actually working for donald trump in terms of council. maybe because he is such a difficult client, or notoriously tight fisted client who doesn't pay his bills, we are not talking about big law firms here. john lauro, who is defending trump in the federal cases, his website says that they have for lawyers and paralegals. todd blanche, who is representing him in three of these cases, said that there are two lawyers. we are talking about cases where the discovery in the federal case, 11.6 million documents, i know this is kind of one of the excuses that
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trump's team has said we cannot get through all of this in this time but there are two people in the shop and what can you tell me about the barebones nature of his counsel, given the mountain of evidence the feds have, the dea has and how they are going to plow through that two assembly defense? >> well, it is interesting, because it is a two edged sword in the d.c. case because you have jack smith who is saying i want a fast trial. we will see the same thing playing out in the georgia case. where fani willis is now saying that he wants a march trial. and at the same time, the defense gets to say, there is a huge amount of resources needed to get through this. so one of the things that was argued before judge chutkan in the d.c. case, was could you give sensitive material to volunteer lawyers as mary talked about? the judge was basically, like i
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really don't want volunteer lawyers. because that opens a real pandora's box of exactly who is getting -- if they are employed lawyers, and that could be, by the way, discovery lawyers. people you can get who are there for -- but they have to be employed. she was clearly concerned about that issue. but if you are jacks mitt, that is a tough call. because you want to get to trial. so you have to allow the defense to expand its team to get through all of this. that is where to mary's point, this is somebody who has said that he is a billionaire. we are now not talking about how he can find many other people, we are just talking about his own defense. leaving aside that he does not have big law firms for a whole variety of reasons. so, he has made zero showing that he does not have the financial wherewithal to get through all of this. again, to repeat something that judge chutkan said, there will be a faster trial if you continue to interfere with the
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administration of justice. so, he's not helping himself with her ultimate decision on august 28, when she will decide when trump -- >> i wonder if he could get a big law firm because he is so toxic in the broader sense of american society. do they really want to represent donald trump, or does the blanche law with the two lawyers, are they more inclined to? >> look at their former presidents. i keep on using the example of david candle. so you have somebody who is the cream of the crop where anybody in the legal profession is saying, okay, that is absolutely top-notch impeccable council. i am not knocking todd blanche, but they are not on the same caliber. there is a reason. part of it is mary's reason. it is a service, you should get paid for it. the other is, if you are at that stage in your career where you would have somebody, like
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the former president, they need to take your advice. so if you have somebody who is going to end up like mr. corcoran, it lawyer and a witness, which is unbelievable, mary and i have talked about that, we just don't want to be in that position. >> it is unbelievable that evan corcoran is still a lawyer in this case. we have more to talk to you both about, mary and andrew, do not go anywhere. when we come back this evening, what might be going through donald trump's mind as he faces a trip to fulton county lockup for the next few days? we will get insight from his niece, mary trump. plus, special counsel jack smith, wanted access to donald trump's twitter account and he got it. the question is, why? that is next. that is next tv: try tide power pods with 85% more tide in every pod. who needs that much more tide? (crashing sounds) everyone's gonna need more tide.
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>> jack smith has gotten his
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hands on donald trump's twitter account. according to newly unsealed court filings, a special counsel requested everything from tweets created, drafted, favorite, it liked where we tweeted by at real donald trump. including deleted ones. to all direct messages sent from, received by, stored and drafted by, or otherwise associated with at real donald trump. it is unclear who may have written those tweets and dms from mr. trump's twitter account but it is all stuff that the special counsel wanted to see. smith asked for other twitter data as well. including location information for the user, at real donald trump, and ip addresses used to log into the account between october 2020 and january 2021. there is a lot that the special counsel has asked for and received. what exactly are the feds looking for?
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still with me are mary and andrew. mary, let me go to you on this first. what do you think jack smith is looking for in the direct messages? >> so, the direct messages are interesting because i would not have necessarily expected that he would be using direct message functions. it appears either he, or someone else with access to his account was using that function. i would be looking at a number of things, like who is he having direct messages with? people who are responding to his tweets? are some of those people who showed up and attacked the capitol on january 6th for are some of them people who threaten election workers or election officials in these states, particularly the states where the pressure campaign was put on. what was he saying to them, if he was having those direct messages? the direct messages also could reveal intend. could it reveal knowledge? consciousness of guilt. it is possibly that he was direct messaging people in his own circle and it is possible
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that some of those might acknowledge some of the falsity of the things he was tweeting. we just don't know, but i certainly know i would be interested if i were jack smith in seeing those. the other things, it is easier to guess what he was getting at. the ip addresses and locations when the account was being used. jack smith needs to know who all had access and was able to post tweets on those accounts. we know that don's could be no was some of those people. where they're others? where the tweets that are in many ways the most incendiary here, included in the indictment related to january 6th, and the buildup to january 6th, where the tweets that really got people that promoted election fraud and that lied about mike pence's ability to not certify the vote? and even lied about mike pence agreeing with him that he had the authority to not certify the vote. they need to know who send those because part of his
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theory is that it was mr. trump. >> do you -- i know this is asking the impossible, but do you think that jack smith is looking to get the information from the dms or the draft messages, or whatever, or do you think that he is trying to foreclose the possibility that trump can say i never sent that tweet, that he knows that it was not down scavino who said either, we will be wild, and that it was donald trump to send that tweet? >> the answer is both. you want to know everything. just to be clear, this application is totally normal for all the reasons that mary said. we want to know emails, any sort of texting, dms, and the sort of form of communication of the people that you are investigating you want to know. this is the former chief judge who presided over this who made a point of saying i know all about this because of special counselor mueller's case, there were hundreds of these that
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were done. so she knows that this is a standard practice. it is particularly useful when you discover a form of communication where the people using it do not think that line forsman can get it because there may be some more candor. one note of caution, if this was really bombshell evidence, we would have seen some sign of, it in the jack smith a january 6th indictment. and it is not a necessary thing to put it in. but i just think that if it were something really explosive, given just how much is revealed in that indictment, that there would have been some sign of it. >> maybe it is the latter, that he just needs to know, in the same way that you interview witnesses were not necessarily going to say what you need to say for your case, that they aren't going to say anything that actively harms you. it is knowing that donald trump cannot offer the defense. i never sent the tweet it was someone else who did it. i never sent that. >> absolutely. you go in hoping that you are
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looking for all of that. but sometimes it is dry hauling and it can be that all you do is clear the issue of the defendants saying i didn't do that. it is one of those things where it could be all of those going in. because you don't know what will be in the box that we'll see what it reveals. that is why they were pressing these hearings for all this information. and the trial was just excellent -- and she pointedly said why are you suddenly doing this now with respect to the former president trump when you have not done this for anyone else. and she knows. because she has been presiding over these things with this exact company. but again, i have some note of caution in my own head on how it is executed. >> all these are being crossed, all eyes are being dotted, this is very much a comprehensive set of information that the special counsel now has at his fingertips.
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my two favorite podcasters in this season of litigation, thank you so much for your time and wisdom. i really appreciate it. >> happy anniversary. >> thank you. >> still ahead this evening, she warned trump about his inflammatory remarks and now the judge handling the january 6th cases getting death threats. that story is coming up. but first, what is waiting for donald trump when he has to surrender and be booked inside of fulton county jail? mary trump joins me to talk about all of that, next, stay with us. with us. i will be a travel influencer... hey, i thought you were on vacation? it's too expensive. use priceline, they've got deals no one else has. what about work? i got you. looking great you guys! ♪ go to your happy price ♪ ♪ priceline ♪ looking for a bladder leak pad that keeps you dry? all of the things that you're looking for in a pad, that is always discreet. look at how it absorbs all of the liquid. and locking it right on in! you feel no wetness. - oh my gosh! - totally absorbed!
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differently, we are following our normal practices. so it does not matter your status, we have mugshots ready for you. >> by next friday, donald trump and 18 others will all have to surrender at the rice street jail in atlanta. and if they are treated the same way as any other defendant as the sheriff suggested right there, they will have to take mugshots and get fingerprinted and fill out forms including a medical questionnaire. now, in his previous three criminal indictments, the former president was processed and arraigned in a matter of hours. there were no mugshots and there were no cameras present. but at the rights street jailed the booking process could take up to 12 hours because of overcrowding. and defendants have to be booked and arraigned separately. that arraignment could happen
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on camera. sometime during the week of september 5th. trump could appear virtually or wave it. but he will have to show up to the jail regardless. sometime before friday, august 25th. that is the deadline for him to surrender and be booked and processed on all 13 counts in the fulton county criminal indictment. joining me now is someone who knows mr. trump very well, mary trump, she is donald trump's niece and the author of the backstory, serial substack, and host of the mary trump show podcast. thank you so much for being here tonight. i am so eager to get your thoughts on the man, your uncle, you know well, the first is i kind of wonder as we talk about the booking process, the potential mugshots and fingerprints and marching through jail like every other defendant, what you think of this idea that chris christie floated a couple of weeks ago. he said he knows trump really well, and no matter how much he's been bragging and going on about not being afraid, he goes
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to bed at every night thinking about the sound of that jail cell door closing behind him. do you think that deep down inside this is weighing on him and the middle of the night, for example? >> yes. first of all, thank you for having me, it is great to be here. i do not think that it is his conscience as chris christie seems to think. because there are so many reasons for donald not to believe that this is happening, first of all, and secondly, probably the worst thing that he can feel it's humiliation. he uses a lot of weapons at his disposal to displace the humiliation and two this place the humiliation so he does not have to feel we've been hearing a lot of people in his inner circle say he's furious all the time. it is much better to feel angry than it is to feel humiliated
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and afraid but donald is, and always has been, a frightened little boy deep down. and i actually believe that when he goes through this process next week, or in the coming days, if he does, as he should, as all of them should, because everybody else has to, it might actually start breaking through. that there is nothing that he could do to get out of this. we saw this in new york, he wasn't arrogant, he wasn't brash, he submitted in a way that was meek, and we are going to see the same thing but on steroids next week, i believe. >> i think you are making observations, quite obviously, because you know the man well. but what you say about the manner in which he's denied this reality is through anger and vitriol.
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you could deny the concept of incarceration, but when he has walked and mugshot it and fingerprinted, and put through a jail system that is not at all similar to the booking process that he has gone through so far, i wonder if that is a form of humiliation. just the man who descends from the gilded palace in which he resides, to the basis levels of the judicial system, and treated like a common criminal. that very process to me seems like a systematic moment in donald trump's life. >> yeah. and quite honestly, just the fact that he has to show up on somebody else's schedule and he does not have the option of saying, you know what? i don't want to do this. but in itself is humiliating enough. we are seeing a man who, for his entire life, has never had the experience of being held accountable for anything. who has never had to submit to
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anybody. who is always having the system rigged in his favor, at this point, for the fourth time, not only is he -- for the fourth time, he's going to have to show up instead of in front of the judge, or go through the processing, he's going to actually have to go through all of it, just like any common criminal defendant. >> you mentioned the concept of accountability and how it is not something that donald trump is particularly familiar with. i wonder what you think of the peril that he keeps putting himself in legally speaking, by lashing out at prosecutors. targeting judges. speaking badly about the very people who will determine his fate. and being, effectively, not threatened, but potentially forced to pay a price for that in the form of a trial date that has moved a, or a fine, or even the possibility of being incarcerated while he awaits trial. do you think that there is anything at this point that could force donald trump to
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stop the vitriol and to stop the tweets and the rams? or is he going to push it as far as he possibly can? >> the short answer is no, he is not going to be able to stop himself. there has been a really interesting shift over the last few months or couple of years. the way in which he is presenting himself in social media, the kind of attacking nature, and the aggressiveness, that used to be a strategy for him. you know, he used to throw temper tantrums strategically to get his way. it is not strategy anymore. he is literally doing what he has done in other contexts, which is pushing the envelope to see how much he could get away with, which obviously, until this time, has been everything. but, the unconscious fear, terror, and especially if you have a fear of humiliation is
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so strong, that he cannot course correct and realize that what he's always done is, this time, not going to get him what he wants. in fact, quite the opposite. >> yeah, the idea that anger has become the dominant of to effectively make up for all the things he doesn't want to feel it is a dangerous proposition indeed. mary trump, it is and valuable to have your perspective on this and this individual at this time. thank you so much for your time tonight. >> thank you. >> still ahead this evening, donald trump and maga republicans pride themselves on being the party that backs the blue. but what happens when they are the ones in handcuffs? that is next. that is next looking for a bladder leak pad that keeps you dry? all of the things that you're looking for in a pad, that is always discreet. look at how it absorbs all of the liquid. and locking it right on in! you feel no wetness. - oh my gosh! - totally absorbed!
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members get travel perks, like room upgrades. oh, hello! hi! do you know that every load of laundry could be worth as much as $300? really? and your clothes just keep getting more damaged the more times you wash them. downy protects fibers, doing more than detergent alone. see? this one looks brand new. saves me money? i'm starting to like downy. downy saves loads. >> last week, a 12-year-old named sean bernard was taking out the trash at his home in lansing, michigan, when this happened. a lansing police officer approached deshaun with his gun john drawn, and put the 12-year-old in handcuffs and detained him. officers claimed the child, who is not old enough to drive, match the description of a suspected car thief in the area the. boy's parents say their son was terrified by the incident, and you can sort of see that in the video. despite having done nothing wrong, the boy doesn't resent the officer as he is handcuff
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and pulled by the arm to the police cruiser. contrast that with the way that this adult man in texas reacted when he was confronted and put in handcuffs by law enforcement. >> you came in. yes you did. you flew in. you are a team [bleep]. >> and he did to get back. >> you better recalculate, mother [bleep]. the >> man you saw hurling expletives at police officer's texas republican ronny jackson. the video, obtained this week by the texas tribune, shows congressman jackson getting into an altercation with police, become a belligerent, and eventually being forced to the ground. congressman jackson had been attending and rodeo when a teenager began experiencing in a medical emergency. congressman jackson, who was a physician, attempted to assist a teenager. but when police asked the congressman to step back, so that emergency medical services could respond, congressman jackson reportedly began
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shouting and threatening to beat up a state trooper. that is when the handcuffs came out and ronny jackson was thrown to the ground. it should be noted that this is the same congressman ronny jackson who has accused democrats of failing to support law enforcement. in may of 2021, ronny jackson tweeted, unlike our president, i will always stand by our country's police officers. back the blue! since this indictment, congressman jackson has to buy his actions, claiming he was right to disobey the officers orders. it is one of the latest examples we have a republican party that claims to support law enforcement right up until the moment that members of this party find themselves in trouble with the law. there is no better example of this then donald trump, who regularly calls for law and order while simultaneously attacking federal law enforcement and deriving prosecutors. just to be clear here, it's not the police actions are always justified. the story of 12-year-old 12
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year old to sean bernard makes that abundantly clear. but egregious policing like that is exactly what many democrats and reform advocates are trying to change. and it is precisely what republicans have tried to weaponize as they decry any call for reform. and today trump's very real attacks on law enforcement and our system of justice appear to have placed innocent people in very serious jeopardy. that story is coming up next. story is coming up next senra is an add-on treatment for asthma driven by eosinophils. it's designed to target and remove them and helps prevent asthma attacks. fasenra is not for sudden breathing problems or other eosinophilic conditions. allergic reactions may occur. don't stop your asthma treatments without talking with your doctor. tell your doctor if your asthma worsens. headache and sore throat may occur. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. get back to better breathing. ask your doctor about fasenra.
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i was just trying to improve our signal, so some of the trees had to go. i might've taken it a step too far. (chainsaw revs) (tree crashes) (chainsaw continues) (daughter screams) let's pretend for a second that you didn't let down your entire family. what would that reality look like? well i guess i would've gotten us xfinity... and we'd have a better view. do you need mulch? >> donald trump's way to public what, we have a ton of mulch. war against law enforcement and the prosecutors who have indicted him. he has targeted d.a. fani willis, calling her a failed d.a. from atlanta, where waiters and crimes soar. willis says she has faced racism from trump supporters and yesterday trump used the word rigors, of course rhymes with something else and perhaps that with the point. despite multiple orders not to
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trump has continued these attacks and now they're a life consequences. today woman in texas was arrested for threatening the judge overseeing the 2020 election case against trump. she called judge chutkan a stupid slave, threatening to kill judge chutkan. we ought you are in our site, we will kill you if trump doesn't get elected in 2024, so tread lightly. she ended with a word that ends with which and a word that ends with rigor. this was after -- killed utah man who was threatening to kill biden and alvin bragg. joining now me to discuss all this is michelle goldberg, new york times columnist and an msnbc contributor. michelle, it is so terribly distressing and so completely and surprising that this is the sort of harvest of all the threats the trump has made online.
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can we see this as anything other than our response or extension of what trump has been calling for on social media? >> no. this is been the pattern throughout his presidency, right? you saw the entire time that he was in office, he would make these threats and some of his more worship full fans, the person he sent mail bombs to democrats and journalists and alike would try to act on them. and he has been warned over over an over gander that's where these threats lead, and it only leads him to escalate them. what strikes me is, how people talk about special treatment. he is being treated with such kid gloves. he is being treated so unlike any other criminal defendant in his position, in that there has been, so far, very little sanction for threats, witness intimidation,'s intimations. when you think about what's happening in georgia, georgia's law on bail is in my opinion
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unreasonably strict. it puts the burden of proof on the defendant to show that they don't pose a risk of witness tampering or obstruction of justice. there is no universe in which donald trump poses no risk of witness tampering and obstruction of justice but i don't think anyone expects him to be held pending trial but at some point to has to be some sort of sanction are just gonna keep escalating. >> i think it's dangerous for him not to face some kind of sanction. the problem is, honestly, the sanction, the fine is it gonna doing do, it moving the trial date around seems complicated and impossible in the georgia case. what's left? incarceration. and then it's widely dismissed is impossible. but if trump doesn't face some sort of sanction, it's an implicit acceptance that trump is gonna do what tomsk trump's gonna. do >> i think it certainly has to be, at least on the table, if you look at what happened with the e. jean carroll footage, he gets, i believe, a 5 million-dollar verdict for
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defamation after he's held responsible for sexual assault, and basically the next day he's back to defaming her all over again. so he is someone who is not going to be held in check, and in fact not only is he not gonna be held in check but seems to perceive any limits as a kind of dare, as a good to double down on his aggression. so yeah, i hope there is at least, and i think we should stop talking about jail is unthinkable and start saying that there is going to be a point, and maybe judges should be clear about where that point is, at which it will become inevitable. >> i think it's not just because it's donald trump but also for the example that he sets to other would-be people who exhibit threatening behavior. i have to recall the video we just played ronny jackson. a republican congressman out there be rating law enforcement, calling them any names under the sun, and then simultaneously audaciously has the chutzpah, i don't know what
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you would call, it embraces the hypocrisy of saying he somebody who backs the blue. he's a law and order guy. the fallacy of that line, of that position, is revealed so acutely in moments like this. and even though it is repetitive, i think it really bears mentioning. when law enforcement comes for you, there's no backing the blow. >> i don't think that's what back in the blue means. backing the blue is basically, in the way that they have to use that phrase, means that the law should be a kind of praetorian guard against a certain strata of people and then it should be backed in doing whatever it needs to do to defend them and their property. it certainly doesn't mean law and order in the general sense of the global sense. otherwise the republican party would've been outraged over what happened to the capitol police on january 6th. >> let's keep in mind the genesis of black back the blue was a conservative response to
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the black lives matter movement. there is an implicit race sole and racist threat that runs through this confederacy of people. >> the police are not supposed to police them. the police are supposed to police those other people. when the police and out policing a donald trump or ronny jackson, they are by definition, by this definition, stepping out of their proper role. >> i do wonder, between january six and defund the fbi, whether law enforcement proper, as an institution, begins to break with the republican party, if it continues to be headed by someone like donald trump, who himself is facing multiple criminal indictments, is to prosecutor,'s law forsman officials, and is accusing basically the department of justice of being a wing of the deep state. do you just think the institutional desires of law enforcement are too closely aligned with the republican party no matter how vitriolic
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the relationship gets? >> yes. yes i do. >> full stop, it'll never happen. >> i'm sure it happens with the high-levels prosecutors but fundamentally there are plenty of, not all police obviously but plenty of police who also see that kind of backed the blue definition of their role, as to kind of protect the donald trump's of the world as opposed to protect the world from downtown. >> i just wonder if the bankruptcy, if he's actually convicted, whether the republican party can say without even a glimmer of a smile on its face that it's true the party of law and order. >> it hasn't been the party of order since richard nixon. >> but the front runner of their party for the nomination may be a convict at one point. >> right. well he is charged with 91 felonies. he has been found guilty of sexual assault. while not guilty about responsible for sexual assault.
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his company has is about to be tried, i don't even remember offhand, -- >> there's a lot. >> all kinds of layers of fraud. nobody believes that donald trump is a rule follower. but he preserves a certain hierarchy. >> he sure does. michelle goldberg, no better person to whip ourselves into a lather about this. thank you for your time, my friend. that is our show for this evening. now it is time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. wit>> on this day, one year ag, president biden signed the inflation reduction act. i have to say there are very few pieces of legislation in which the title describes it less than the inflation reduction act. democratic leader of the house hakeem jeffries and others have agreed to basically make that the platform for the democrats reelection

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