series of searches, including one of his campaign finance ministers, if the mayor hadn't done that complete 180. he was on his way to washington. he put out a video about it. he was going to meet with the white house about the migrant crisis in new york city. and all of a sudden, he turns around, we were initially making calls as there's a threat to new york city or god forbid there was a health issue or anybody in his family. we find out about the searches ongoing in this investigation comes to the forefront. so if it was not for his actions, we wouldn't have known. and those are pretty significant actions to take. so i think there's still more questions to be asked here. i don't file like we have a total arms around what is the core of this investigation. we have to see what happens. >> more to come. thank you. that does it for me. the "deadline white house" starts right now. hi, everyone.

happy monday. it's 4:00 in new york. it's a mask off moment for the disgraced, twice-impeached ex-president. he's making his contempt for our democracy and its institutions and its people crystal clear once again. while president biden honored veterans day by laying a wreath and paying tribute to those who sacrificed for our count,000,000,000,000 the ex-presidential said this. >> we pledge to ewe we will root out the communist, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections and will we'll do anything possible whether legally or illegally to destroy america and to destroy the american dream. real threat is not from the radical right. the real threat is from the radical left. and it's growing every day.

the threat from outside forces is farther less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. our threat is from within. >> we have a i high bar when we show that to you. today it's important. here's why. an ex-president who sought to overturn american democracy claims in a speech like that in front of supporters that americans here at home pose a greater threat to our country than any of our adversaies abroad. and describes this political opponents as, quote, vermin, it naturally leads to comparisons to other authoritarian leaders. we spoke to two historian who is had this to say. the language is the language that dictators use to instill fear. quote, when you dehuman naz an opponent, you strip them of

their constitution rights to participate curely in a democracy, because you're saying they are not human. that's what dictators do. an historian at new york university said in an e-mail this, quote, calling people vermins was used effectivly by hitler to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in volence. in a statement to nbc news, a trump campaign spokesperson rejected the comparison to hitler, calling it ridiculous, a ridiculous assertion. but then said this about trump's critics. quote, their sad existence will be crushed when trump returns to the white house. either whitingly or unwittingly proving their point. the comments are also a reflection of an ex-president right now in this moment, who has become more erratic, more unstable, money more uninformed than when he was in the white house. he's now in consumed by

conspiracy theories and dead set on relitigating his defeat and the january 6th insurrection at the cost of the republican party having any last fingers or grasps on their integrity. who donald trump is now and the vision he and his allies have for the country right now is drawn an extraordinary detail in john carl's new book "tired of winning." . he reports months after he left the white house, trump became obsessed with the idea circulating on the far right that he could be reinstated as president. deste the fact that members of trump's own family and trump supporters had dismissed the theory. one of trump's relatively junior aids at mar-a-lago told me he was so concerned about how much trump was talking about it, he urged a former president to give it a break.

if you really think it's true, then stop talking about it. just let it happen. the aid said he told trump. if you keep talking about it so much, people will think you are crazy. here's what the ex-president had to say to john carl. >> when you had a release recently, you said, 2024 or before, what do you mean by that? you don't really think there's a way you would get reinstated before the next election? >> i'm not going to explain it to you becauses you wouldn't either understand it or write it. >> it's above your head, said donald trump. an ex-president and current republican front runner with an authoritarian vision and olympians on paper for the future of the united states is where we begin today with some of our most favorite reporters. he's the chief washington correspondent for abc news, his latest book "tired of winning" is out tomorrow. it's most important thing that's been written to date about what is in front of the american

people in the next presidential election. also here at the table is former top official andrew weisman, plus former congressman david jolly is here. betrayal, in my opinion, was the road map that the select committee agreed was the road map from investigating how january 6th happened. this feels darker, if that's possible. this feels like the road map donald trump would use to turn our democracy into something really different, what he envisions, what's out, what's being covered. i think the excerpts from your book put in motion the reveal, and these are plans on paper. >> january 6th committee did a tremendous job of describing what january 6th was all about. we have seen the prosecution have outlined all that donald trump did to use the powers of the presidency to try to overturn american democracy torks try to overturn a

presidential election. but this is darker because what this is not trying to explin donald trump on january 6th, this is looking at what he would do if he were to get power again. and i firmly believe, and the research in this book lays it out, that trump is going to be more determined to up end the norms and the customs that make democracy possible. he's going to have fewer restraints, no real guardrails. think january 6th is basically a starting point, not an end point, if there is another trump presidency. >> there's that's covered where you -- let's deal with hitler. trump's affinity was covered under an umbrella with his

stupidity. you must not mean hitler. >> he would talk about the brilliance of hitler's generals. >> correct. you have some reporting about that. but tell me how trump sees hitler. >> trump has this infatuation with strong leaders. he thinks that's good, they must be brilliant and smart. this is why he actually was praising hezbollah recently for being smart, but he talks about his phrase for kim jong-un, for putin. i will get to the hitler this amazing interaction he had with he recounted that he had with angela merkel. he wants to be seen as a big, strong leader. he wants to emulate these people. i'm not saying that donald trump is a nazi. but there is this infatuation

that he has, and he echoes his language. that's when you were talking about rooting out the vermin, even the phrase the enemy of the people, which he used to describe the press, is something that is drawn from nazi germany. it's also drawn from stalin. this is a dictator's phrase. it's one that he eagerly embraced. does he know the history of it, i don't know, but the parallel is clear. >> here's why i don't buy the ignorance anymore. an ignorant person, when warned that hitler used to say that, trump is turning up the volume. >> absolutely. i remember a conversation i had with him when whet had the mass shootings in el bah pennsylvania so in short order. and there were real concerns there would be more. he's using this language. this language out of enemy of the people. i said aren't you concerned the people will take your words to

heart. aren't you concerned they will act on them. and without missing a beat, he said i hope they take my words to heart. i believe the press is the enemy of the people. so i don't know. maybe it's an inability to have any kind of empathy or understanding of the consequences of your words, but that is consistent. that's not new. >> lelt me read the merkel stuff. one prominent member of congress told me that the president on two separate occasions cim merkel had complimented him about the large crowds he attracted. she told me she was amazed at the size of the crowds that came toee me speak. t she said she could never get crowds like that. she told me that it was only wasn't other plait call leader who ever got crowds as big as mine. the congressman couldn't believe the insinuation was lost on trump. and i'm thinking you told me while recounting his interaction

with trump, you know who she's talking about, right? take me behind that. >> this is a prominent member of congress close to donald trump, who was absolutely blown away by this. because who knows what merkel actually told donald trump, but he's recounting the story that the chancellor of germany telling him only one person can get crowds like yours. it's obvious what she's trying to talk to him. trump is bragging about the crowds. so this al sly felt that trump enjoyed the idea of being compared to adolph hitler, at least the aspect of him attracting all those huge crowds. >> what is the level of unrest inside trump world with what you

have reported? >> first of all, trump world is really small right now in terms of the people that are around him. there is no campaign headquarters. he had a very skeletal staff in 2016. i wrote about it in my first book. but there was a campaign headquarters. there were people that were working there. have you been invited lately? >> no. >> there's no office space. trump has an office. there is no central campaign headquarters for trump. there's boris is with him. he has a couple political operatives. he has walt nauta, so i don't think -- there was the first excerpt to this book talked about how he was borrowing steve

bannon was using a confederate code word. there was a plot to assassinate abraham lincoln. they didn't bat an eye about this. and then i understand that steve bannon's war room is making merchandise now with the phrase trump davidians. they are embracing this idea that they are out to get retribution against the deep state, against the communists, the radicals, the vermin. they are embracing this idea. the amount of pushback is remarkably little. >> so let's take that at face value. >> i remember sbr your interview with him. the echo here is the embrace of what we have just described

together as darker. what does had that mean for those of us who cover him? >> there's this project 25, which i know you have talked about. a big figure in betrayal because he played a big role, the end of the trump presidency, he was the one out there to eliminate anyone in the administration that wasn't loyal. he got going after the election. now it's beginning at the right at the start. they had a story about how they are using ai to go through a potential personnel hires to scrub all social media to see anybody that would be disloyal to donald trump could be cast aside. this is, again, another example of that. >>. >> trump does sometimes like the people that turn hard. >> let i think you brought us

some of your conversation about abe. >> i think the single craiest conspiracy about the 2020 election. >> set this up for me. >> italy gate is this idea that italian satellites were yauzed to flip votes in the 2020 election from trump to biden. and that there were these two guys in a prison in rome, who knew the whole story and had been locked up to prevent it from coming out. and what happened is i learned in working on betrayal and the senate committee that was investigating some of this stuff learned that trump -- i'm sorry, mark meadows asked the acting attorney general to investigate this theory. meadows also asked the department of defense to investigate it. this is crazy. italian spy satellites used to change votes. the chief of staff in the white house at the end of the trump

presidency is asking defense and justice to investigate it. so i decided to ask trump a about it. >>et's play it. >> let me ask you one of the theories that mark meadows asked the acting attorney general rosen to investigates was this idea that somehow the italians were involved, using these spy satellites to switch vote with the voting machines? >> don't know anythi aut that, you'd have to ask mark. >> there's a woman sglsh i don't know about that. you'd have to ask mark meadows about that. markeadows is a good man. he did a very good job. he was a really great chief. you have to askarabout that. >> you don't really believe there were somehow foreign control of the voting maines, do you? >> you have to ask whoever it is at saying. i think frankly, there was so much voter fraud and irregularities, where it came from, i can't tell you, but i

can tell you there was a lot of voter fraud and you are regularities. >> so importantly, still with this rep till yan survival sense of i just heard it. this is what ufs hearing. but also this entrenched repetition of the delusion that there was a lot of voter fraud. >> that's not a hard one to just say, no, of course, the italians weren't. >> or blame marjorie taylor greene. she was the one pushing this. >> i mean, now we have learned from mark madows in his testimony in the interference case that he said he was trying to pass on whatever he could because he knew that trump wanted this stuff investigated. he wanted to be able to look at trump and say, i vgted the italian stuff. i did. i have asked somebody to look into it. we're on it. this was trump that was pushing

this. >> the principle. it wasn't that anyone else believed it. >> he didn't think the italians were flipping votes. there was one person in that administration who thought that that was a possibility, and it was donald trump. >> this book makes clear what kind of, i think, subject or defendant he will be on the stand perhaps. this is the best window into who he is now. how -- i don't like to describe him as crazy. but if you look at ivanka and some of the chiefs of staff he had as instagram filters, he's totally unfiltered. he's his truest self-now. what does that mean for him as a criminal defendant in the interference trial? >> first of all, there's very little difference between his criminal defense and his presidential campaign. it's all blurring into one. i think he's going to use -- he's growing into this.

i describe in the book the first indictment and first arraignment, which was the manhattan da, and he hardly spoke in the courtroom. he walked in, he walked out, department talk to the cameras. he talked later that night when he got to mar-a-lago, but he found himself for the first time in a courtroom where the judge was in control, where he had to stand up when the judge entered the room. he was technically not free to leave. he was had under arrest, and it was something that seemed to freak him out. that's over. now he sees the altercation and the fighting and abuse using the judge as a foil, using the judge as a foil, so i think that's what we're going to see him do. and is it going to hurt him -- is he making his own defense harder, probably, but what's the best defense? there's a calculation, maybe

it's just gut, but i'm either potentially going to jail or i'm going to the white house. my best defense is to get elected. >> but what this one reveals is the plan to get to the white house is the the continuation of january 6th, is the continued base. >> riling up the base, trump has said on many occasions that that was a glorious day. i don't mean the stuff that happened later, but it was a glorious day. he said i never spoke to a larger crowd than i did on january 6th. it comes down to crowd size again. i think that one of the issues -- you asked what we face as journalists trying to cover all this, there's been so much coverage of the criminal cases and going back to what happened on january 6th. looking at the documents case, looking at january 6th hearings,

all of that, i don't think there's been enough attention paid to this question we have been talking about, what would it look like if he came back. and the january 6th of it all, i think, is baked in. i think memories have faded for a lot of people that aren't following this as closely as we are, but there's been precious little attention paid to what he's doing and thinking and talking about now. >> this is where the reporting gets into the party. this represents -- i have said if you wanted to do an experiment in this country, let's see what happens if one of the two parties goes away. this is what happens when one of the two parties stops adhering to democratic norms. i want to read some of that and talk about what that means. that takes us into the depths of

darkness. >> i mean, it does. we'll look at that of the critical decisions by party leaders after he left office, where there was a path they could have taken. they chose the path to placate him. i don't think they thought he was going to come back. there was the kevin mccarthy moment, when he goes eight days after trump leaves the white house to mar-a-lago. but more importantly, perhaps, was mcdaniel. trump threatened to leave the republican party. he straight on said he was going to leave. he was going to start his own party. he did this on january 20th, 2021. and she freaked out. and at first pleaded with him not to do it, talked about the damage that would do to all the people that support him, supported him, that everybody will lose as a result of that. he didn't care. then the rnc threatened him. we'll stop paying your legal fees, we'll make your database useless. and the caculation that both

mcdaniel and kevin mccarthy made was if trump leaves, he takes all those voters with him and republicans will lose for a generation. >> republicans have been lose ing now for a quarter of a generation. but they made a calllation that it would be worse. and the what if that's out there is what if they told him, go ahead. start your own party. at the depths of his disgrace after january 6th, how it's too late. he's built it all back. >> correct. i want to bring andrew and david into the conversation. it's so important. we have much more, there's a lot of news in there on the other side of the break. we'll deal with more of the jack smith news. trump is still telling jokes with us. we could describe them about the bludgeoning of an 82-year-old man. he happens to be the husband of speaker pelosi. we'll show you how his supporters ate it up as part of

this conversation. plus don jr. was the first witness for the defense in his dad's $250 million fraud trial. he sounded a bit like a salesman for the trump org, an elevator pitch fawning over valued assets. his brother eric and his father are also expected to be back on the stand this week as well. we'll talk about whether that works as a legal strategy. and later under immense pressure, the united states supreme court is adopting its own ethics code. before you throw a parade, we'll have to look at whether or not it has teeth. we'll talk about all that and more when we come back after a break. n we come back after a break. las vegas grand prix choose t-mobile for business for 5g solutions. because t-mobile is helping power operations

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former president trump did raise eyebrows with his veterans day message. he said in honor of our great veterans, we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, fascists and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country. lie, stael and cheat on elections and will do anything possible whether legally or illegally, to destroy america are you comfortable with this language? >> i'm not going to comment on candidates. president trump supports the veterans. our whole party supports our veterans. i think we're at a very serious moment in our country. the one thing i wish had come out more in our debate is the rnc and nbc for the first time had a jewish cocorrespondent tort sort for a debate. i'm proud of that history we created.

so thank you for being part of that. this is a time where we met the moment. >> we're back with our panel. donald trump is loudly anti-military. he was when he was their commander-in-chief, and he is now. i from john's new book. two military leaders, just issued a statement president trump believed was insubordinate and wanted the aid to let the pentagon know the remark was unacceptable. ift happened again, heads would roll. there's no role for the u.s. military in determihe outcome of the american election. after relaying the disapproval of that joint statement, there was updates for the president. chris miller spoke to both of them and anticipates no more statements coming out. and if another happens, he will

fire them. hours after miller got off the phone with mccarthy, he sent a tweet tha changed the course of history p quote, bigprotest in d.c. on january 6th. be there. will be wild. the u.s. army would have nothing to do with it. did you want that get right at his intent of what he wanted them to do? >> absolutely. this book is amazing. and you can see that note right here. i have always been fascinated by the fact you had had the defense department and milley with a lot going on behind the scenes pushing back because you can'ten gauge in a coup without military

backing. and the fact that they were there, a figure with no military expertise whatsoever and was installed there is always this inwrun story about what was happening. my general experience when i was in the government is the military is incredibly law-abiding. and really stands for the rule of law. and as much of you think of it as a military organization with a high arty, they are also trained they do not violate the constitution. when there's an invalid order, they cannot follow it because the constitution comes first. so to me, this is right to the heart of donald trump brushing up against one guardrail, but i have the same concern as you were outlining here, which is donald trump is not been in office the year or so it took

him to learn the levers of power, he knows. so when he first started, a friend of mine said this is matched by inincompetence. the muslim ban is a perfect example. it took them so many tries to get it, quote, right. but i took your book as that is going to be a paled comparison in trump 2.0. >> it's astounding that the note that got him so upset is the u.s. -- >> let me read it again the quote, there's no role for the u.s. military in determining the outcome of an mempb election. >> that statement infur rated donald trump. >> if you do it again, you will be fired. that note gets ripped up into pieces so no one could find it. >> david jolly, i think he does catch some of andrew's

appearances. but he has heard this indictment of his competence because the same fella is making the plans to put this in motion in a second term. you and i talk about it a lot. john has done the reporting. another outlets are reporting on this more and more, but it feels like we need ta whole new frame in terms of not looking at these as gaffes, but these are sloppily communicated white paper plans. >> i i think there's two sides of a very important coin. one is to demand loyalty to donald trump should he will reelected. and that is not unusual, but for the extent to which donald trump would demand that loyalty. he would require that to be above loyalty to the constitution. that is a danger. the other side of that, what

does he do with his enemies list, which he would have and try to execute against. and that's where this conversation about the term of the use vermin comes in, but i'm taken by the verbiage ahead had of that. his comment about vermin was he was going to root it out. that that he was going to defeat it or expose it, he was going to root it out. to me, it is very anal gist of the pattern we have seen him take on e pattern we have seen hm take o immigration. he called immigrants rapists and thugs and said in the last few weeks immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country. at the same time he's unveiling a policy where he's going to round them up in mass camps and have the greatest deportation we have had in 100 years in the united states. so if the lang warge aroundment im grants leads to this type of policy, what does it mean when he says we're going to root out the vermin? he the told us one thing. he wants to ban those with pro palestinian viewpoints from colleges and universities in the

united states. now whatever position you take on israel and hamas and the palestinian people, the fact is we have a constitution that says you can take that view. whatever that view is, donald trump is saying, no, you can't. to root out the vermin, the verbiage suggests he's prepared to execute against his critics. that's a danger we should listen to, it should inform our judgment, but we should be prepared for it. this is now thinking he will have an enemies list and the irs is going to go after them. the question is does he use the department of justice or does he try to turn to the military to suspend what seems to so farfetched, but who does he try to use to root out his critics and what does he do to them? that's a real question. this is where today's republican party has fallen flat and they are as much to blame for donald trump's behavior because they haven't stopped it. they have gone along with it and elevated it and affirmed it. >> there's nothing in the new book that suggests he will do anything different. >> again, i think that you have

to realize that this time the guardrails are gone. if you look at the use of the military, they worked to try to placate the president so he wouldn't call it out. and to keep this idea down of sending active duty u.s. military personnel to the streets of washington, d.c. in the wake of the george floyd protests. his rap sheet, which i clun inn collude in here as well, he tried to keep the department of defense apolitical. he tried to focus the department on russia. then he opposed the use of the insurrection act to deploy american troops against rioters.

that's why he was fired. so there's no in a second trump term. maybe it's going to be somebody that does what trump want thes to do. >> until they meet a milley. it actually says something incredible clash because you can put who are you want want at the top of the department, but you can't strip them of the rank and file. >> which raises tough questions. puff civilian leadership of the military. and our military offer officers, our enlisted men and women are some of the most impressive people in the country driven by service to the country. and it gets really tricky when you're in a situation where you defying orders of an elected commander-in-chief. >> we have so much more to get to. we're not making any of the progress we thought we would make. there's more news in here. how the team pleaded with jack

smith hours ahead of a federal indictment. that didn't work. we'll bring you that, next. t wok we'll bring you that, next ♪everything i do that's for my health is an accomplishment.♪ ♪concerns of getting screened faded away♪ ♪to my astonishment.♪ ♪my doc gave me a script i got it done without a delay.♪ ♪i screened with cologuard and did it my way.♪ cologuard is a one-of-a-kind way to screen for colon cancer that's effective and non-invasive. it's for people 45 plus at average risk, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your provider for cologuard. ♪i did it my way!♪

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watch how easy it is to put on new hands free skechers slip-ins. i just step in and go. sitting? doesn't matter. i don't even have to touch them. ooo, gangsta. in a hurry? there's not a faster, easier way to put on shoes. they know a 10 when they see it. when you smell the amazing scent of gain flings... time stops. (♪♪) and you realize you're in love... steve? with a laundry detergent. (♪♪) gain flings. seriously good scent. there's lots of news in john's new book. there's a brand new detail about a private meeting between special counsel jack smith and trump's lawyers in a final attempt to prevent an indictment. this was july 2th. a pair of jump lawyers travelled to make a presentation, i think we knew that at the time.

speaking in front of jack smith and duodependent tirks trump's attorney spoke virtually uninterrupted for nearly an hour. resiting theeasons why trump shouldn't be charged. quote, smith waited until he was done speaking, and without commenting on what he just heard, he bid the trump lawyers fair well. the direct knowledge of the meeting, jack smith did not ask a single question. aside from the pleasant tries at the start of the meeting, neither smith nor the two prosecutors said anything at all. smith did listen carefully, his one-hour presentation did not change his mind. it did give the special counsel a detailed outline of how trump's legal team would defend the former president against charges related to january 6th. merely four hours later, trump was indicted in the classified documents case and indicted again on the election-related crimes days later. we're back with our panel.

i don't know. i remember this meeting. i remember you saying everybody -- he will listen to anybody. >> i got really detail account of what went down. although jack smith did not ask a single question, he did take notes. and it was just so brilliant. why not take the meeting and find out exactly not that it was a hard to discern exactly what their strategy was, but it was outlined. and then one of the fascinating things about it is the meeting takes place mid-morning. and jack smith says nothing. there's all kinds of speculation that this indictment on january 6th is going to come. he says nothing to them about any of that. a few hours later, boom, the supersaeding indictment on the documents case. and jack smith didn't give any hints that that was about to come. he had them all right there. not a single hint. you remember how damning the

superseding indictment was with that. >> it's the flashlights. and then a week later, you have the actual 6th smooimt. you can tell that jack smith tries to anticipate what the defense will be because he just heard the whole road map. >> do you think that with the reporting in this book about the republican party, it's just dead. if it had a pulse for the four years of the presidency and they humiliated themselves, rob portman, all these guys had had never called out, called fouls on trump, they seem to be flat lined. what is the role of the republican party at all? >> i think there were important figures in the republican party, who showed courage and stood up and called out what they saw as

blatant like jeff flake. there were people who stood up. the commentary now, they are all gone. virtually all gone. they either john mccain's case, he died. people like flake and corker decided not to run again. liz cheney was beaten. mitt romney decided thot to run again. they are all gone. but i still think there is -- i close this book with something of a tribute to those who really stand up. some of them are the public figures that i just mentioned, but some of them were close to donald trump. and people may disagree on a

thousand different things, but when the time came, they stood up. famously, mike pence, not going along with the the idea of overturning the election, but people like the lawyers in the white house's counsel office, they are right until the end. people that the spire justice department, the political appointees of the justice department, every single one of them with the exception of jeffrey clark threatened to resign if trump were to try to install clarks a at attorney general to do what he wanted him to do. these were good people. these were republicans. these are still republicans, and these are the people that i think and what i think is true, the most sering criticism of donald trump, the most sering condemnation, the most piercing words against him were poken by people closest to him. >> and david jolly, to use your

two sides of the coin, again, they are the people often the targets of chris teaks for carrying out child separation policy. they were at doj or dhs or milley was criticize sod widely that he apologized himself for the participation in the event. but they are the small handful of people that how close we came to losing the country with because they did draw a line somewhere. >> yeah, we know a lot of those people. the theory of their case is they did their part to keep america safer under donald trump. had they not been there, it would have been worse. that's kind of a hard case to swal low, but it makes sense. so i think everybody gets to make their own assessment and judgment of individuals based on their actions. and we give them grace to recognize it is complicated. i think the bigger question

maybe politically through a raw political lens is everyone that was just spoken of at the table, everyone we know who stood up to donald trump, they are now the vanquished. donald trump is the victor. it remains donald trump's party. it has been fashioned in his image. he crushed the traditional orthodoxy, but he crushed the allegiance to the constitution that the party once held. he refashioned it through a loyalty pledge to donald trump himself. that is the danger that underlies everything we're talking about today. >> and that along with the permission structure for political violence is sort of the subject of our final term that we're going to make. a quick break. when we come back, paul pelosi, the husband of the former house speaker, is still the butt of jokes being told right now this week by the ex-president. he's said to take the witness stand against the man who allegedly attacked him in his own home with a hammer.

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underscoring the deeply disturbing violent consequences for those who consume far right lies and peddle conspiracy theories. we're back with john, andrew and david. andrew. >> so fitting with that, you tell this story on page 35 of your book which i kept rereading, which was the derivation of the i am your retribution. and you sort of alluded to it but i thought it would be great if you could sort of tell us about that because i think it fits in with this idea that you can have somebody joking about attacking an 82-year-old man with a hammer. >> it's -- the speech where he said in 2016 "i am your voice," now saying "i am your retribution," that was a cpac speech that he did before the indictments came down. we could see that they were coming. but it was before the indictments came down and is the

turning point of his campaign. it's the turning point in terms of the polls. at that point he was actually trailing in a lot of polls to desantis. but it was the turning point in the message, which is i am going to eliminate and annihilate my enemies. and steve bannon was describing the speech to me as the great moment of the campaign, calling it the come retribution, come retribution. and he used the phrase so much. what is this, where is this coming from? and it turns out it comes from a confederacy plot, a plot by the confederate secret service to assassinate abraham lincoln. to kidnap and assassinate abraham lincoln. and this is -- steve bannon was describing this to me. and i said -- he recommended -- there's actually a book called "come retribution," that is all about this plot. when the story came out bannon said i hope you include the predicate. they were doing it because lincoln had ordered the

assassination of jefferson davis and the entire confederate cabinet. so he was just going out to get retribution against those who had wronged them. i mean, it's astounding. but if you look at not long after the tweet and the indictments came down you remember when he made the threat explicit. "if you come after me, i'm coming after you." it's jefferson davis's secret service going after abraham lincoln. can you imagine describing a pivotal moment in your campaign using confederate code words that were used to describe the assassination of abraham lincoln? but that's what it was. >> when he says if you come after me, who's he talking to? because he now has as witness in that trial his former vice president, his former attorney general, all sorts of -- >> well, i think he is talking about them. >> what's he going to do to them? >> i think they're very high on his list. i think they're much higher on his list than hakeem jeffries or chuck schumer or his political opponents or joe biden. >> are they the vermin?

>> i think that's largely who he's talking about. he said it in the "come retribution" speech. he says, this is an important thing, he says, "we will beat the democrats." okay. that's fine. we will rout out the fake news media. of course. we will expose and appropriately deal with the rinos. of course the republicans in name only. those are the enemies that he is most infuriated about. and i saw this in my interviews with him. you know, you really want to get him going, start talking about bill barr. he's not going to -- you know, joe biden, whatever. >> i mean, look, david jolly, that gets us back to where we always end up. everyone that thought they were going to be different, it's like a bad dating analogy. no one's ever different. he's a bad boyfriend to everybody. >> exactly right. and i think the question is if he is in power how does he seek that retribution? the paul pelosi anecdote is a very important one because it affirms that the cultural conditions are there to condone political violence. we know that based on donald

trump's rhetoric and the way crowds receive those statements. however, the constitutional conditions are not there today condone political violence. the constitutional conditions have largely held since donald trump came on the scene. but what happens in the second term, when the chief executive of the nation decides i'm going to try to reach outside of the constitutional limits and what can i do to root out my political adversaries? that's the danger we face right now. >> this is so important. this is such a pleasure to have you, david jolly and you andrew weissmann here. it felt like a book club. and i'm not sure there's a more important conversation to have over the next 12 months. >> thank you for taking the time to dig in -- >> a book tour lasts a long time. we as a show will read it together. please come back. congratulations. >> thank you. >> "tired of winning: donald trump and the end of the grand old party" isn't out until tomorrow but you can order it already. it's a must read. the u.s. supreme court is out today with a big headline. they have enacted their own code

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oh, ohhhh. will this instition survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the constitution and its reading are just political acts? i don't see how it is possible. >> hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in new york. for an institution that relies

on the public believing and trusting in its integrity and honesty, today a seemingly potentially important step. the supreme court of the united states announced that it has adopted a new code of conduct. a move it seemed forced to make following the extensive news reporting over the past several months exposing allegations of ethics lapses by some of the justices. at the center of those reports justice clarence thomas, who was gifted expensive trips from a billionaire friend and republican donor named harlan crow. who incidentally also purchased a property that the justice's mom lived on and that crow renovated, all of which thomas did not disclose. justice sam alito also did not disclose a pricey trip he was gifted years ago from a billionaire friend. which brings us to today's news. the highest court in the land putting in writing that justices are required to, quote, uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary and, quote,

avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities. the introctn to this new ethics code provides this context. quote, the absence of a code however, has led in recent years to the misunderstandingthe justices of this court, unlike all other justices in country, regar themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules. to dispel this misundding we are issuing this code, which largely represents a codeification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct. hmm. despite that proclamation, what the code is missing is any way to enforce the ethical standards the justices insist they've always abided by but we the public seem to have a different perception of. as senator sheldon whitehouse of the judiciary committee responded this afternoon after this news broke, quote, an updated ethics code with no means to enforce it still leaves

a gaping hole for mischief. this court and this court alone, the supposed guardian of due process, still exempts itself. that is where we start the hour with senator sheldon whitehouse of rhode island. so i will admit to feeling emotional when i saw this. yay, they're listening. they have -- they read newspapers. they've seen senator whitehouse on television. and all of the sort of cuba gooding jr., tom cruise, you know, from jerry maguire, "help me help you" has gotten through to them. but even their statement feels like it's us that misperceived their ethical lapses. tell me your thought of today's news. >> well, it's a really strong signal from the court that they get how badly their standing has fallen and how serious the legitimacy crisis is that they are experiencing.

at the same time they also try to say that this is for the most part not new and it's largely what we've always done and nobody should really worry. so they're a little bit spongy about that. the important thing here is that while they've said okay, we're going to adhere to the rules of baseball, what they have not said is and we're going to allow umpiring. we're going to keep calling our own balls and strikes. we're going to keep calling our own base running, whether we're safe or not at second. irrespective of what the facts are with nobody neutral having a look at it with no serious fact finding. that's the big hole that remains, and that's where the work remains to be done. and i hope that the court will see that and move on to that next step of deciding like every other circuit court of appeals here's how we're going to enforce our code of ethics. >> let's keep the baseball thing going. it does feel very significant, though, that they've agreed to

play baseball. right? like on a field with bases and to wear the uniforms. do you think there's any opening here to talk about umpires? >> yeah, i think that there is. they have said in their announcement that they're looking to the other courts for advice on other measures. what those other courts have is the process for making a determination about whether a justice has broken the rules or not. and it's super simple stuff. it's not super complicated. it's where's the inbox to file the complaint. it's who sorts out the crazy complaints from the legit ones. it's who does the investigation and fact finding for the legit ones. it's once you have the facts who compares them to the rules to see if the rules have been followed. and then who tells what the result was. that's all super simple stuff and all other courts do it so i think there's a real pathway for

them to follow if they can suck up the courage to defend their institution by doing it. >> i will draw my time in the republican party to explain what might be going on inside. i imagine the folks that were for this step feel like they just climbed mount everest, like oh my god, we got the naysayers, you know, to the peak and you want more. what is in your view sort of the -- you know, what is sort of the balance that you have to do as someone so steeped in all these issues and with the court? >> i think there's a lot less balance here than the court seems to perceive. it's not hard for the court to decide here's where the inbox is for complaints. it's not hard for the court to hire people to sort through them and to hire staff attorneys to do basic investigative work to determine what the facts are in

relation to a complaint. it's not hard to set up a panel of very distinguished federal judges to say guys, we've looked at the facts and we've looked at the rules and they don't line up this time, just want you to know that if this were our court we'd call a foul here, this would break the rules and to make that report public so everybody knows there was an answer at the end of the day. it's very simple stuff. other courts do it. they can too. and i think while there is a feeling of phew, we just summited everest, and i think there are some really reluctant people who don't -- who are not going a step further, i do think it's inevitable that they have to go that next step further. now that they've adopted rules, they have to have a mechanism for enforcing them. >> and i assume it's not -- let me just read what is in the -- it's called the supreme court ethics recusal and transparency act of 2023. itequires supreme court justices to adopt a code of conduct, creates a mechanism to investigate alleged vielthss of the code of conduct, which is

what you're describing. it improves disclorend transparency when a justice has a connection to a party or amicus before the court. and it requires justices to explain their recusal decisions to the public. it does not look like any of this looks backward. is that your sense? >> i think they are very much eager to only look forward. there's a proceeding in the judicial conference right now to determine whether they should look backward with regard to the rule about personal invitations from resort owners being treated as personal hospitality. and the larger question of looking backwards i think remains very much alive. we in the judiciary committee i believe, i haven't canvassed the whole committee today, but i believe we still want to go forward with the subpoenas. the public is entitled to know what happened, how many gifts there were from what billionaires to whom, under what circumstances, organized by whom, and put the story together

because it's an important story to tell, particularly because it bears on the political decisions the court has been making. you can't separate those two things. >> that was my next question for you. will the committee proceed in pursuing the subpoenas for harlan crow and leonard leo? >> as i said, i haven't canvassed the members yet, but i think chairman durbin is eager to proceed. i certainly am. and our process is to reschedule after the avalanche of obstructive amendments that we got so we're prepared for it next time and can deal with it and go on to the important vote, which is the one on the subpoenas. >> right. and i mean, in terms of what is in front of the court this term, these questions are very much relevant. >> yeah, they're very relevant. and by the way, we have two of the billionaires already cooperating. so it's not as if we're doing something that's so improper that nobody will cooperate. and the ones we're still looking at are harlan crow, who you

mentioned, and leonard leo, who has been the functionary for the billionaires and was behind the trump supreme court list and was involved and traveled with alito on his fishing trip and was sitting with harlan crow with thomas in his back yard where the painting was made. so these are people who are deeply, deeply enmeshed with the court right-wing justices. >> well, it felt like an important step today, and i really will hang on to this image of them catching some of your appearances and feeling like helping them do this really does help them help themselves. senator sheldon whitehouse, thank you for starting us off this hour on this. joining our conversation, legal correspondent and senior editor for slate and author of "lady justice," our friend dahlia lithwick is back. plus executive director for fix the court gabe roth is here. dahlia, you first. your reaction to today's

breaking news. >> i think it was probably something along the lines of yours, nicolle. there was a sense of at least they want to be in conversation with us even if it's a fake conversation in which they largely gaslight us and tell us that it was our misunderstanding. so none of that feels great. but it feels good that they now realize this is a sport that two teams are playing, one is them and one is us, and that the us team is pretty frustrated. i think, you know, as you both just said, without an investigative mechanism, wous an without an enforcement mechanism, without any real rules, there does feel like alongside the gaslighting and the maintaining that this is all just because we're super confused about the rules that they always abided by. i think there's a side of real cynicism about constructing what looks like a document that protects a lot of misconduct

rather than try to explain it. >> gabe, i'm sort of going around and around with these two reactions, right? this as the senator said, at least we're all playing baseball to i worked for a politician once and i said the group you spoke to was offended and he said well, let's apologize that they're offended. and i said i think they're looking for an apology about what you said. and this is like to your perception we don't have any ethics we'll name this thing an ethics code and there you have it. where do you come down on sort of those twin reactions? >> yeah, i think it's perfectly reasonable to hold two thoughts in your head at the same time. it's generally a positive step that the court responds to public pressure. and we can discuss whether or not it's a good thing that they might respond to public pressure for their cases. but in terms of how the institution runs, it's not such an outlier from how congress

runs, the executive branch runs, it's an institution that has 330 million con zpichts we care how it runs and that it runs effectively and ethically. so it's a good thing that the justices have the capability and willingness to respond to that. however, if you read the code and take the time to look at it and you put the code that came out today against the lower court code that already exists, right? you put them side by side and you're reading them and seeing how they differ because the code that came out today is based on the lower court's code. you read the scottis code and you're like, well, that's in there because of ginni thomas, that's in there because of justice alito's trips, that phrase is in there because of what justice thomas did a few years ago and he didn't report this gift. so it's very much reflective of the current situation and trying to give them excuses as to -- defenses of some of their more egregious ethics lapses. so i didn't love seeing that as i was reading it over the last few hours. it only came out about three hours ago. but at the same time i mean, i do want to very briefly give

chief justice roberts some credit for at the very end saying, and i think senator whitehouse mentioned this, this is an iterative process, we're going to look into how other courts conduct their ethics rubric. so maybe there's a chance for future amendments where we have the inbox and the complaint process and the public reporting that i think all of us in the advocacy community as well as in the -- among lawmakers who care about this want to see. so the champagne's still on ice. we may be at base camp of everest. this is not the summit. >> yeah, and i use it because i know when you're inside an institution and you're pushing for transparency or telling your story and there are naysayers if you get to pull back the curtain an inch you feel like you've done this herculean thing and when everyone is still unsatisfied you want to say you have no idea what i had to do to get thomas and alito over the line. i mean, dahlia, what do you imagine went on behind the scenes to get to this? >> yeah, i think a lot of what

gabe just described. a lot of caveating and writing around misconduct. there's so many sections that almost look like they were reverse engineered in order to get a signature. and i think that what i feel flicks of this where there's a section about threats to justices and their security, flicks of ideas again about judicial supremacy and that the justices cannot be told what to do by outsiders, there are so many pieces of this that for me chime in the key of justice alito's, you know, interview in the "wall street journal" where he effectively said, you know, you can't touch us, there's a lot of that in here that i don't feel chief justice roberts would have put in himself. >> chime in the key of alito's interviews. i'm going to steal that. i love that so much. i mean, there's a lot of stuff

that chimes in the key too of propublica's jaw-dropping investigative reporting about how bad it had become. and i wonder, gabe, if you think there is behind -- this is total conjecture, but do you think there are some alliances around ethics between old and new? that cross sort of the political parties, the people who appointed them. or do you think it's still sort of -- what do you think the breakdown is of people who supported doing this today and those who resisted it? >> yeah, i mean, i think that it's fairly likely that thomas and alito were the ones who were resisting this from the get-go. you know, that is conjecture. i don't have great contacts in those camps. but we do know that justices barrett, kavanagh, kagan and roberts all within the last few months mentioned their desire to

see some movement on this issue. so that is cross-partisan. three of those are republican appointees. one of them is -- kagan being the lone democratic appointee among those four. so it does appear there were some cross-partisan alliances, as you mentioned. but at the end of the day this is a document that saves sort of the very end i mentioned earlier is signed by all nine justices. so it does feel like it is being written by the lowest common denominator on the ethics scale. so that's -- it's always i think in that regard given the personnel of who is currently on the court, it's going to be a little disappointing. i mean, i think that sort of comes with the territory. but to senator whitehouse's point, it doesn't mean that this existence, the existence of the code removes congress's responsibility and the people's responsibility through our representatives in congress to request the justices, to press the justices to do more, to have a complaint process, to have an inbox, to have an ethics

investigative council, to have a judiciary inspector general that can neutrally investigate calls for misconduct. like every executive agency has and like chuck grassley on the right and dick blumenthal on the left have called for in the last few years. i still think there's more that congress can do. but you know, i think to what dahlia's saying, the fact we're all agreeing that we're playing baseball here, you know, is something that isn't nothing and hopefully will be a building block for future reforms at the supreme court. >> it is just a peak 2023 conversation to say we are at least going to give good faith attaboys and girls to agree that we're all playing baseball. i had these like dueling reactions that i didn't know what to do with. yay, they did something. and oh wow, it is like a multilateral communique, right? where oh, all 38 nations agreed on these two things but at least there was a communique. so thank you for grappling with all that.

with me. dahlia lithwick and gabe roth. we're so grateful that you're able to hop on and have this conversation with us. when we come back, the next phase of the trump org civil fraud trial is under way today with don jr. returning to the stand. this time as a witness for the defense. we'll bring you the latest from a busy day in court next. also ahead for us, never mind that 57% of ohio voters want to enshrine reproductive rights in their state constitution. republican lawmakers don't like that. they didn't like the results of tuesday's election. and now they're taking steps to destroy democracy so that the thing that people voted on can't actually take effect. we'll explain. and a new round of u.s. airstrikes against iranian proxies in syria. why the pentagon is attacking now and what it means for the frightening prospect of a wider war. later in the broadcast. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. eak. don't go anywhere.

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so after six weeks and 25 witnesses the prosecution in the new york civil fraud trial against former president donald trump and his business rested its case. today marked the beginning of the defense's case. and first up, a very familiar face. donald trump jr.'s. the eldest trump son of course along with his siblings eric and ivanka were questioned by the prosecution in recent weeks. they took no, zero, zilch responsibility for the financial statements in question. they said they relied on the work of the accountants they hired. today the eldest trump son lavished praise on his dad and

the family business. the defense took its time going through the history of the trump organization. each trump property. and donald trump jr.'s role in the business. from our colleague lisa rubin, who was in the courtroom at one point when there was just five minutes to go before a break the judge joked that the younger trump goes on so long that maybe he should have given a ten-minute warning. the defense lawyer replied, "not as long as other people." and then don jr. joked, "i only got half of the genes, so i take half of the time." eric trump is also expected to come back and testify for the defense and there may also be another appearance by the former president, donald trump. but if he does return it likely won't be the same fireworks we witnessed last week. the kicker to all of this bears repeating. before any of this drama and testimony even began, judge engoron found trump and his businesses liable for fraud. lots of it. joining our conversation, former deputy assistant attorney

general, former u.s. attorney harry litman's here. and outside the courthouse once again msnbc legal analyst lisa rubin. lisa, tell me what -- what the defense strategy is with that finding of fraud already sort of on the books. >> you know, nicolle, it's a little bit difficult to discern what they're doing here. and i could posit maybe two theories of what they're trying to do here. one is what i'd call the constituency of one theory, which is that donald trump last week you'll remember said from the stand, "he called me a fraud and he didn't even know me." and using his eldest son sort of as his proxy, he wanted judge engoron to know him. this was his opportunity to tell the narrative of his life story in the light most favorable to him, as a developer, as a licenser, as a brand builder and even as his son said at one point to some snickers in the crowd, as an artist who used buildings and existing properties as his canvas with which to paint the manhattan

skyline. that's theory number within. theory number two is nobody intended to defraud anyone because these were, as donald trump jr. repeatedly said, spectacular, magnificent, unique properties many of which were dilapidated, in disrepair, had been run down and needed to be restored to their luster and glory, something that only donald trump could do. and if there was a mistake in one direction or another, certainly it wasn't intentional, just look at the magnificence of these properties. and you and i both know that for all of their opulence -- and i want to be very clear with our viewers. many of these properties are in fact spectacular. i saw seaside view after seaside view today. and many of them are quite gorgeous. but of course none of that changes what tish james has always said this case is about. it's about documents and it's about overinflation and overvaluation of assets. not about how beautiful or magnificent they are, nicolle. >> yeah. harry, trump is the only thing that is more of an obsession

than beauty and what things look like for trump is the size of things. so we'll put beauty -- it's not what any of this is about. it's about lying. it's about this thing he does all the time in every arena. and i wonder if the thing that it's really about is getting lost in the thing that they're talking about. >> look, yes and no. this was, as lisa says, an infomercial for the trump empire in which trump's a visionary and he builds, you know, crown jewels all over new york. but there's no jury there to tell the story to and they've already concluded judge engoron isn't going for them. this infomercial was for the american people. and it didn't even address the charges. he was never really asked was this inflated, was that inflated. now, it sets the stage for what's going to be further testimony, expert testimony in theory from real estate evaluators. i think they will say it's a

crazy world out there, it could be very inflated or deflated, you never know. the question is are they actually going to say these lies that lisa is properly saying tish james is focused on were in fact true? will anybody ever try to say these weren't inflated? so to be clear, what they're really going at first now is not intent but falsity. there's actually setting up a suggestion, oh my god, these fabulous properties, why, they were undervalued as donald trump is saying. very, very hard case to make. and i think really this case was to the american people, not to the judge. the judge let him go on and on. the a.g. at first was objecting. but everyone realized, you know, there's no harm no foul here. the judge doesn't want to shut them down to have an issue on appeal. let him talk and do the infomercial and it doesn't really change anything about the case. not so far. >> you know, to harry's point, lisa, that there is no jury and

the audience that would maybe care that the properties are beautiful -- i mean, i've peeked over at fox a little bit over the last six weeks. i haven't seen much coverage of the trial. who do you think they think they're talking to? >> i think first of all -- first and foremost they're talking to donald trump jr.'s father. i think client appeasement is definitely part of the strategy. and managing their client and his ego and assuaging him and perhaps even keeping him off the stand -- you know, nicolle, i told you last week that i was virtually certain that donald trump would come back. i'm not so sure of that today because his son did what he probably thinks is a magnificent job and attesting to his multidecade career as a real estate tycoon and as a person who ultimately got to brand himself and basically put his imprimatur on various other properties because it was associated with success and with wealth. and what donald trump jr. said

today was that was great for them because they didn't have to invest any equity. what was left unsaid was they also didn't have to borrow any money or have any liquidity to do that. right? so as donald trump gets progressively less liquid, as he becomes more constrained in his ability to borrow money, along comes a licensing business that takes advantage of his brand value but also has the advantage of not basically hurting the trumps where they can't take that kick. so i do think donald trump was the primary audience. but i also think there's a whole ecosystem of right-wing media that we don't listen to, that we don't feed into and is not listening to us, where folks like alina habba will be very successful after court today in selling this narrative that harry and i have been talking-b about dismantling the a.g.'s case on intent, or trying to dismantle the a.g.'s case on falsity and anticipation of expert witnesses to come. and harry's point about judge engoron is a really, really good one because at one point today

he said to the a.g. as they were objecting, do you really want the verdict to be overturned based on this one stupid question? and of course what's left unsaid there is i've already told this court with all of you assembled that you have more evidence than can fill my entire courtroom in your favor. this is the time to shut up, sit down and listen because none of this is having any impact on me, even as i smile and enjoy the history lesson. >> the history and a marketing brochure. harry, i'll give you the last word. where do you think this is heading in the coming days? >> well, first, what she said. but second, we know where it's heading. there's going to be some halfhearted efforts to make things a little bit sort of vaporous, oh, it could have been bigger, it could have been smaller. i do not think you're going to get bank officers to come up and say we didn't care what donald trump said, the way trump said on the stand. i do not think you're going to

get credible forensic experts or real estate people to say that 10,000 really was 30,000 or, you know, the valuations were false. they're going to try to make it seem that you know, it was all loosey-goosey and you never know. but you have to zero in like a laser and the cross-examinations will on the specific false statements and can they show either that they were true, good luck with that, or that they didn't know about it, they didn't sign, they didn't know banks relied on it. better look with that. so i think where it's going is to a really pummeling opinion by justice engoron in a few weeks. >> harry litman and lisa rubin, thank you both so much for spending time with us on this. when we come back, if you don't like the results of a vote or an election, attack democracy. that is what republicans in ohio are doing right now today. because they are not happy that abortion rights won big at the

ballot box last week. so now they're trying to strip the ohio courts of their power to enforce that new law voted on overwhelmingly by the people of ohio. we'll tell you about that next. o we'll tell you about that next hey, grab more delectables. you know, that lickable cat treat? de-lick-able delectables? yes, just hurry. hmm. it must be delicious. delectables lickable treat.

stop us if you've heard this one before. there's an election. republicans lose. they hate the results. so then they say no more democracy. case in point in ohio.

days after the overwhelming majority of ohio citizens and voters voted for a ballot initiative enshrining abortion access, the republican-controlled legislature has vowed to prevent judges from implementing the overwhelmingly supported passed ballot initiative. writing thisn th statement. quote, to preventmischief by pro-abortion courts ohio legislatrs will consider removing jurdiion from the jur this ambiguous ballot initiative. the ohio legislature alone will consider what if anything modification to make to existing laws. this has happened before. it's not an isolated incident. not the only anti-democratic move republicans have made lately. last week in michigan anti-abortion advocates sued to block that state's abortion rights ballot initiative from going into effect. sense a pattern? with the energy behind putting abortion legislaon directly to th voters, we're only going to se o this, folks.

ssri, florida, colorado, ona, maryland, nebraska, va and new york are all expected to see abortion protections on the ballot in 2024. joining our conversation, opinion editor at the "washington post" and msnbc political analyst alexi mccam mon is back. also joining us president and ceo of reproductive freedom minnie is back. there's an echo to the voter suppression laws. right? you purge the rolls and make it harder to register to vote and then you remove the drop boxes even though those ballots are actually the most secure ballots that are ever produced or created during an election making it hard for people that work weird hours. in ohio they voted on an anti-democratic measure. that failed. then they voted on the abortion protection and that passed. the message seems to be to voters, we'll put it to you but if you don't vote wait we vote we'll take it away from you

after. >> nicolle, you know, we've talked about how this ohio electorate has really been asked to weigh in on democracy and the fundamental connections between reproductive freedom and our democratic values and our democracy as we know it. you know, ohio republicans, i said this to you before, they just can't help themselves. you know, one of the -- i just want to point out one of the folks who wrote that letter is also a vaccine denier as well. these are some of the most extreme members of the ohio legislature. the point is so astounding that this is the second time they're trying to change the rules and cheat to subvert the will of the people. and you know, this goes back to the issue of are republicans getting the message that voters are delivering, and they're absolutely not in ohio. you know, folks want their will to be heard. in ohio 18% of republicans voted yes on this ballot initiative. over 60% of independents voted

yes on this ballot issue -- ballot initiative. so going into an electoral year, 2024, where you have a high-stakes u.s. senate race, this is political and it should be and it will be political suicide. >> the numbers are -- you can't get around them, alexi. you can't outdemocracy the numbers. 83% of all americans believe today abortion should be legal in some or all instances. so you're dealing with -- you're starting -- you're at the starting gate. you're talking to 17% of the country. there's no other issue. there's no other issue that i think as cornel puts it that is both mobilizing and galvanizing. and this galvanizes public support and mobilizes voter behavior. what are they doing? >> yeah. well, and i mean, to mini's point it's just enacting other people to be mobilized against them. and we're seeing this with abortion, with education. and those are issues that aren't

just driven by democrats or liberals. republicans, independents as she just mentioned are also voting in favor of protecting rights to abortion in their state constitution. she mentioned the senate race. there are also a number of competitive house races in ohio in other states where democrats and pro-abortion groups are trying to bring pro-abortion ballot initiatives to the forefront for next year. but it's not about abortion at the end of the day. it's about power and control and an extreme amount of power and control over things that go far beyond abortion. their own press release said the ohio legislature alone will decide what to do if anything. and then they say they'll bring in legal experts and hear from the public. they've heard from the public. this was a citizen-initiated ballot initiative and it passed by double digits. these folks instead of looking

in the mirror and thinking hmm, i wonder what we could do to better serve our constituents are thinking, hmm, i wonder how we can have more power so we control all of these issues that folks think they're in charge of but we will have the final say. >> mini, i'm of two minds. i mean, in some ways my political concerns might have ticked up. if they'd responded differently. this is why they lost, and they're doing the thing that made them lose. in ohio access to abortion health care is a plus 20 issue for biden. he sits at 41%. this has 60% of the voting electorate on tuesday. i mean, the room that this gives biden to go and say you may not love my agenda, you may not love me, but on this issue that brought you out to the polls on an off-year election, i am the only one with you. i am with you. i am with 83% of you on this issue of reproductive health care. what are your conversations like with democrats right now?

>> we've been in a lot of conversations with the party committees, with the candidates and with voters. we had folks on the ground in ohio door knocking. and your point is spot on. this is an absolute advantage for democrats. it's a huge advantage for joe biden and kamala harris going into 2024. we've seen in focus groups where you know, voters when asked this question, swing voters when asked this question about abortion versus any other issue, they're willing to break from candidates around abortion. it's showing up in the polls. it's showing up in the research. more importantly, it showed up on tuesday in the states where abortion was on the ballot. we saw repudiation in virginia, glenn youngkin and his agenda. we saw turnout in record numbers in pennsylvania in an off year for a state supreme court race. so what this tells us is there is a path to victory for democrats around abortion. but we have to also do the work, communicate with voters about the stakes, make it really, really clear where joe biden is versus the republican field. it's early and we don't know how

many voters are paying attention. we also have to make sure we're clear about the threat of a national abortion ban. and democrats have to be proactive about solutions, not just fear-mongering. and that means pushing for a national bill to codify abortion access after the fall of roe. folks want to see democrats provide solutions. joe biden has said he'll sign it, but we need a house and senate that will send it to him. >> well, we'll continue this conversation over the next 12 months. i promise. alexi and mini, thank you both so much for spending time with us on it. when we come back, the united states trying to stop the israel-hamas war from expanding wider in the region. once again striking iranian proxy targets in syria. we'll explain what that means for the region and for us and for the biden administration's goal of preventing that widening conflict. that's next. conflict that's next.

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we are here for everyone. it is more important than ever to take a stand. so please join us today. because we the people means all the people, including you. so call now or go online to my aclu.org to become a guardian of liberty. the pentagon announced another round of retaliatory airstrikes in syria over the weekend against iran-linked groups, quote, in direct response to dozens of recent attacks on u.s. military bases in the middle east. the u.s. defense official telling nbc news that at president joe biden's direction initial assessments indicate this third round of precision air strikes successfully destroyed a training facility us by iran's islamic stern syria

revolutionary guard corps, and iran-backed militia groups. proxy fighters is still unknown. we' covered here on this broadcast, the targeting of u.s. military bases has dramatically spiked in the weeks since israel began its ground war against hamas. according to the pentagon, since october 17th, 56 u.s. military personnel have suffered minor injuries in at least 47 attacks in is iraq and syria. joining our conversation, retired four-star general and msnbc military analyst barry mccaffrey. general mccaffrey, what is a normal sort of baseline amount of threat that u.s. troops from these iran-backed and iran associated militants, and what is the up tick? i'm trying to get it, what do they sort of live with as a baseline threat and risk in the region, and how much above that are we looking at in the last

three weeks? >> i think generally speaking it's a risky proposition. there's 25 u.s. forces in iraq and about 900 in syria. and they're surrounded by contending factions attacking their own governments, never mind the u.s. presence, so it's a risky business. once iran enters the equation and starts firing bigger missiles, cruise missiles with multi-hundred pound warheads, then the potential for catastrophic loss of u.s. life is there. so, you know, fortunately, secretary lloyd austin knows every inch of the mideast, as a serving commander in iraq. he's very experienced at this, and what they're trying to do is carefully calculate the amount of force required to signal iran, up the ante on us, but it's an unstable situation, a

tremendous risk and the next step up could be a significant escalation. >> well, and i guess i was going to ask you what that would look like. i mean, attacking iranian-backed proxies in syria and iraq, where's the line between targeting iranian-backed hezbollah, targeting somewhere else, how are those calculations made? >> well, so far of course we're striking targets in primarily in syria, and so the assad regime, another ally of iran essentially. it's another proxy for hezbollah and lebanon, they are linked, there's tho question, so the signaling that secretary austin is doing now, the president of the united states and diplomacy is telling iran, don't enter this equation.

there's a lot of u.s. air force combat power in the gulf region already, never mind nato air based in greece, italy, cypress, you name it, along with two carrier strike groups. the potential to strike iran directly is enormous. that's what the iranians have to take into account. >> it all just feels a little more opaque and more dicey than we appreciate. we'll continue to call on you for your expertise, general. thank you for calling on us today. a quick break. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. only unitedhealthcare medicare advantage plans come with the ucard — one simple member card that opens doors for what matters. what if we need to see a doctor away from home? we got you — with medicare advantage's largest national provider network. only from unitedhealthcare.

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it's my hope and expectation that there will be a less intrusive action relative to the hospital. also, there's an effort to take this pause to deal with the release of prisoners. and that's being negotiated as well with the qataris engaged, and so i remain somewhat hopeful, but the hospital must be protected. >> that was president joe biden's response to a question from our colleague, kelly o'donnell, on the recently israeli strikes on and around hospitals in gaza as well as the latest on his own push for humanitarian pauses by israel to allow for the release of the more than 200 hostages still being held by hamas in gaza. nbc news has learned that president biden's top middle east adviser, brett mcgurk is

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes. we are grate. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. welcome to "the beat," i am ari melber. we are tracking breaking news coming up in a couple of minutes, where jenna ellis, the convicted trump aide, talked about donald trump's coup motive, and this is video where you'oi