really confront and bring any meaningful pressure or leverage on netanyahu is very hard to understand. but i also have to add, in terms of putin wanting a trump victory, putin is one of -- in terms of his own goals for russia, his war on ukraine, he is really one of the biggest beneficiaries of the gaza war. it has shown that the so-called rules based order, international law, so much of the combination that was levied against him for his invasion of ukraine by the united states and the west is --. >> it is up for debate about what that rules-based international order looks like. thank you very much. that is all in for the wake. alex wagner tonight starts right now. mcdormand and donald trump at mar-a-lago, to be a fly on

the wall. >> straight for putin. we see -- you guys are cooking something up, obviously. >> but don't even suggested that he could be an for putin. no such nefarious plan exists. stop it. unreal. have a good weekend. okay, so this is a video taken at the u.s. capitol in january 6th. do you see the guy in the scarf walking around among the throngs of writers? if you do, that man's name is anthony kern . he is an arizona state senator and in addition to being at the capital that day, he was also one of the fake electors from the state of arizona. he has since been criminally indicted for his role in that alleged scheme. one of his co-conspirators was this guy, jake hoffman. he is also an arizona state senator and one of the fake elect others who allegedly conspired to overturn the results in that state.

and mr. hoffman has been struggling to explain his participation in that scheme ever since. >> so i'm simply -- i was one of the electors. i'm not in charge of the electors. >> how did you hear about it? how did you hear about the plan? >> you would need to add --. >> you received the call. how did you know to shop that day? >> you can ask the party chair. >> ask her how you got a phone call? you are welcome to talk to them. thank you, i appreciate your questions. have a great one. >> senders hoffman and curran were indicted back in may along with 16 other people including this woman. her name is nancy cottle and she is another fake elector. the reason i bring up these three arizona fake electors is because next week they are all expected to be in the same

place. and that place is not a courtroom and it is not a holding cell. the place where those three fake electors will be gathering is the republican national convention in milwaukee. all three of those arizona fake electors are delegates to their party's convention this year. they had to get special permission from a judge to travel out of state and to attend the convention while under criminal and vet -- and that meant, and they are not alone. cnn reports that fake electors from seven different states will be serving as delegates to the rnc in milwaukee this year. which, on the one hand is kind of unusual. people involved in the plot to overturn the election, some of whom have been charged criminally are the very people who their party has chosen to represent it at the national convention. but on the other hand, it also very much makes sense. after all that, convention is

where republicans are going to nominate in men with 34 felony convictions to be their presidential nominee. the first felon in american history to be leading one of the nation's major political parties. that is where the republican party is at right now. and despite the impression you may have after the last three weeks, very few people have forgotten that fact, even amid the ongoing debate over president biden's age and his fitness for another four years in office. it is why everywhere you look there are voters saying things like this. >> i would vote for two dead flies with their wings pulled off over trump. all right? i would vote for darth vader over trump. that's how i feel about it. that man is going to be the ruin of the nation of this country and this world. >> my option is joe biden. old

or not, i don't care if he is -- in a casket. dead, i am still going to vote for him. >> if it's abided in trump race, then i would vote for biden even if he was dead. i'm a republican. >> it's not just anecdotal. polling data we have tells us that at least for now, that sentiment is widely shared. a new npr poll conducted after the debate and released today found that nearly two thirds of voters, 64%, do not think president biden has the mental fitness to serve as president, but when that same poll asked voters who they would choose in november, and in a statistical tie with joe biden actually leading trump by two points, which is within the margin of error. that poll was conducted before last night's press conference, but again, after the debate. so, if that poll is correct,

there are significant number of people who do not think joe biden is mentally fit to be president but plan to vote for him anyway because they would vote for literally anyone, anyone over donald trump, dead or alive, mammal or insect. there is nothing that would make those voters choose trump, just like there is nothing that can make worshipers in the cult of maga abandoned donald trump. most voters made up their minds long ago about where they stand in the selection. the question is, what about a handful of voters who have not made up their minds and who literally hold the fate of our country in their hands. what about them? a good way to think about the polling is that because of the way the electoral college is structured, democratic candidates tended to have to win the popular vote by around four or five points in order to win the election. hillary clinton won the popular vote by two points and narrowly

lost the electoral college in 2016. joe biden won the popular vote by nearly 4.5 points and nearly won the electoral and narrowly won the electoral college in 2020. and now because of the way the population has shifted since then, president biden will likely need to win the popular vote by an even bigger margin this time around. so far, none of the polling data we have says he is on track to do that. however, none of the polling data says that any of biden's potential replacements would run away with this racy there. that same poll today found kamala harris, governor newsom and witmer are all pulling within the margin of error. so purely based on the numbers, there really is no obvious strategy here. and therefore there is still a major and raging debate inside the democratic party about what needs to be done to stop donald trump. today, the hill reports that house speaker nancy pelosi is

working behind the scenes to get president biden to reconsider his stance on staying in the race. pelosi is not think he should exit the race but the lawmakers said she harbors deep concerns about his ability to defeat former president trump, and she is fighting to prevent the party from rubberstamping biden's candidacy before there is a broader discussion about potential he -- the damaging consequences of that decision. hakim jeffries sent a letter to his house democratic colleagues today saying that he met privately with president biden and that he directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward. the letter neither says or suggests that the matter of president biden's candidacy is settled. it comes as to more democratic members of congress, mike levin and britney peterson of colorado have now joined the

calls for biden to step out as the party's nominee. that brings the total number of members calling on biden to step down to 19. the president is also facing a revolt from some of his biggest donors. the new york times reports that some major donors are withholding $90 million in contributions to his super pack as long as he remains at the top of the ticket. biden's team is now worried about his own delegates to the democratic national convention, about them coming out against him at the convention. all of which just further illustrates the unbelievably stark difference between these two parties. as destabilizing as all of this may be, the democratic convention still remains the place where the party and its delegates can decide their own fate. while the republican party has become so enthralled with its criminally convicted leader that the delegates themselves are under indictment for helping donald trump cling to

power. at a rally tonight in detroit for a crowd, a crowd chanting four more years and we have got your back, president biden put the choice in sharp relief while reminding the crowd that he is not going anywhere. >> fulks , you probably noticed , there is a lot of speculation lately. what is joe biden going to do? i am running and we are going to win. >> we love you. >> debbie --. i've got your back. i know i look 40 years old. i'm a little bit old. hopefully with age comes a little wisdom. and here's what i know. i know how to tell the truth.

i know right from wrong. i know how and i have demonstrated how to do this job. and i know america wants a president, not a dictator. >> joining me are michelle goldberg and david jolly. thank you guys both for being here. michelle, we talked last night about the pendulum swinging back and forth and it feels like it has swung in another direction. how are you thinking about the moment we are in and whether you think the party is any closer to a decision. >> it's not clear that the party is going to be able to make a decision. the decision might be made for them because it's almost -- the pendulum has almost move every day this week. it seemed certain that joe biden was never going to survive this. there were days when it seemed

the insurgency against joe biden had been completely tamped down. right now it looks like that insurgency again is on its back foot. joe biden has had a couple of good days in a row. he had a very good press conference. he had an even better rally tonight. we will see about the tv interview that he does with lester holt on monday because this is a very fluid situation. there was a lot of reporting yesterday that there was going to be a flood of democrats coming out against him after the press conference and so far it has been more of a trickle. but there is still a lot of real terror out there. you pointed out that there is polls that show them neck to neck nationally. but the state level polls and this is going to be decided in a handful of states. the state level polls are much more alarming. i don't know that anybody who was worried about joe biden a couple of days ago has now been -- is now particularly sanguine.

>> dave, how are you looking at --. if you are a member of congress , you want polling data, right? but it doesn't seem like there is both a floor and a ceiling to biden's support. i'm talking nationally. but even in the swing state polling. there is a guarantee it's not going to go below a certain number but that number isn't high enough to secure that actual win. if you are biden, status quo seems like it reaffirms his position that he should not have to leave the race. how do you see the calculation? >> the way i see it, a member of congress doesn't have more sway than the captain sitting in a county done in ohio or florida. joe biden would be doing much better if capitol hill democrats would shut up and fall in line. i know everybody is working in good faith but this decision is over. there is no decision that capitol hill democrats needed to make. joe biden made it. he told you, once and twice. he told you tonight in detroit

to a raucous crowd. he said, i'm running and i'm going to win. the only thing that will hold him back are democrats. it's time for democrats to put this to bed and fall in line. you'll be standing in line behind disaffected republicans and in attendance and presentable to already figured out this equation. is either a criminal nominee or a pro-democracy nominee and you are either working for and fighting for joe biden or fighting against him. there is nothing good that comes from continuing to prosecute a case against your nominee, against joe biden, when there is a criminal nominee that the republicans are about to elevate. they have lost precious time. what the democrats need is unity and i understand how unsettled we all were coming out of the debate. everybody was reaching for unity and it seemed like there might be a moment where unity was another candidate. it's not it. that's no longer.

the opportunity now is to unify around joe biden and if democrats fail to do this, you will lose and handed the nation back to donald trump and it will be on them. >> michelle, the rally in detroit is going to get a lot of analysis in the next 24 hours, 72 hours. it almost feels like what needs to happen is a decisive moment and maybe tonight was actually its. to dave's point about how much longer democrats can continue to do this. human expectation? the convention is the 19th to the 22nd of august. the actual virtual nominating process is unfolding on august 7th because of a strange bit of ohio law that actually is no longer relevant, but nonetheless , there is not a lot more time before anyone can be substituted in here. there is talk of losses from the heritage foundation.

button from the top of the ticket but then there is the political reality of fighting is not doing anything good for biden or the party. i wonder what you think the appetite is for extending this into next week. >> i think it's going to depend on the next few days. i hear david jolly saying that what -- this debate is weakening joe biden but the fact is, you cannot run a national campaign premise on getting people not to say what they are really thinking. you can't run a campaign like that when the other part of your -- when you are also saying the other side is a called that falls in line behind their dear leader. i think what you need to do, what people who are skeptical need to see from the campaign and its surrogates and defenders is a theory of a victory. a clear path where, because the debate was supposed to be the starting point, it clearly wasn't or a turning point in the wrong direction. how can joe biden win?

if people really don't feel like joe biden can win and right now there are a lot of people in the democratic party that honestly don't feel like he can win, then saying, telling them to get in line is telling people to join a crowd that is marching off a cliff. the people who are not sold on joe biden, it's not because they don't recognize the existential threat of donald trump. it's because they recognize the existential threat of donald trump that they believe that extraordinary measures should be taken if the current candidate can't swing at. and so, i think it was really heartening to see how well joe biden performed tonight and i hope he does that over and over again, but i think until people are confident that there are going to be many more nights like tonight, and we are not going to see repeats of the joe biden we also at the debate, it is people who are genuinely -- people generally need to believe that there is a road to

victory before they are going to march lockstep on it. >> dave, are you surprised by the reporting that nancy pelosi is working behind the scenes to air out these tensions? the reporting in the doesn't say she is trying to oust biden but what are you making of that? she is a tactician. nancy pelosi does not play. how do you read that behavior? >> i'm not surprised at all and it's also because i agree with michelle's points. again, i think everybody is working in good faith. my point is, the decision is made by joe biden and he has made that decision. i was part of the group coming out of the debate that thought, maybe he should be replaced, but he gets to make the decision and he made it. now, there is no tool that democrats have other than mounting that opposition candidate against him and flipping 2000 electors. no democrat who is sitting

there saying, i don't know of joe biden should be the candidate, has a strategy to actually flip 2000 candidates. at this point, if you are a democrat opposing joe biden, your strategy is to call the secretary of state of georgia and say, can you find me 11,000 more votes for dean phillips? it's not a strategy. if you are in the pro-democracy coalition, joe biden told you he is not getting out. so unless democrats on capitol hill have a plan to topple the sitting president and the presumptive nominee, your guy is the only shot you have got to be to donald trump right now. your job is to work for joe biden, not against him. the anxiety is real. three out of four people have said, i'm not sure joe biden can do it. head-to-head, i'm looking at a criminal nominee versus an aging nominee. i think the criminal nominee is more dangerous to our democracy than the aging nominee. democrats, that's good enough for you to get behind your guy and allow him to beat donald trump because the joe biden you saw tonight will win in

november. >> michelle goldberg and david jolly, thank you both for your time and passions this evening. i appreciated. we have a lot to get through tonight starting with why donald trump's lawyers think he has gotten a get out of jail free card, plus what joe biden has in common with lebron james and taylor swift. is not what you think, maybe. that is next. and keeping it off? same. discover the power of wegovy®. ♪ ♪ with wegovy®, i lost 35 pounds. and some lost over 46 pounds. ♪ ♪ and i'm keeping the weight off. wegovy® helps you lose weight and keep it off. i'm reducing my risk. wegovy® is the only fda-approved weight-management medicine that's proven to reduce risk of major cardiovascular events in adults with known heart disease and with either obesity or overweight.

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the policies of the left would unleash a long-lasting economic catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. our country will go into a depression. the likes of which we have not seen since 1929, and maybe worse. >> that was president trump four years ago predicting a biden presidency would unleash a lasting economic catastrophe of unimaginable proportions.

was trump right? let's take a look at how foxbusiness reported on the economy this week. >> the nasdaq and the snp are heading fresh new records for the nasdaq. it's the 25th record of this year, the 35th for the s&p 500. fireworks with the dow jones industrial, nasdaq at rest.. >> you are looking at inflation. it's tied since 2021 are the lowest. >> the stock market is at a record high, inflation is negative month over month for the first time in four years. on a macro level, america's economic recovery from the pandemic is literally the best in the world. as the atlantic put it, the united states economy were an athlete, right now it would be peak lebron james. if it were a popstar, it would

be peak taylor swift. joining me now is founder and executive director of more perfect union and medical adviser to senator bernie sanders. i love talking to you about things like this because this should be a moment of great national uplift and pride. we are the envy of the world. we have this second chart showing real wage growth by country. this is from 2019 to 2023. look at where the united states is. this is wages compared to cost of goods. the united states is the winner, like that is the gold-medal. i just want to marinate in this good news right now we have -- the biden presidency has been such accosted by bad news. >> this is the most important part of that, why did that happen? for a lot of people, i understand, not struggling with the narrative. how did this all come about? it starts in the pandemic era in which president biden makes

a bold decision of $1.9 trillion in the form of stimulus , unemployment tax credits, school lunches were going to be free. we were going to make sure that people are going to be taken care of financially. that they aren't living in fear of eviction and having their cars repossessed. that happens to stave off the worst economic consequences. it puts money into people's pockets in a time of desperation. what happens immediately after that? now we are investing in american jobs. here comes infrastructure bill, semiconductors. we are going to take on corporate greed where we sit occurring my so we are going to go after inflation and in prescription drugs. we will take it on in the food industry and as you see, it has been a fight, but now you are seeing airline costs coming down. you are fighting monopolies in airline industry and pete buttigieg going after them and filing bad behavior. these are results of policy choices for the inverse of those policy choices is what's on the table by donald trump.

he is watching all of this and that he goes into rooms and says, hey, all you business leaders are upset with this guy. you don't like what joe biden is doing. he used to be a guy who campaigned on drain the swamp. he is promising the swamp to the swamp. i will -- put me back in and i will stop all of this. i got your back. >> he is literally jumping into the swamp, putting a swamp bubble over the swamp and ensuring the swamp ecosystem flourishes if he is re-elected to another four years in office. project 2025, which we will talk about a little bit later and more specificity is the blueprint for a trump second term and the proposals economically would so clearly harm middle-class families. i think cbs did an estimate. families making $100,000 a year would pay 2000 to 6000 -- nearly $7000 more in taxes every year. if you are making $5 million a year, you pay $325,000 less in taxes. those are hard and cold facts.

i wonder, is it the affordability crisis that is piercing the good news balloon that should surround this economic plan? how and why do the vibes peel off? >> we do feel like we don't talk -- we don't have a discourse of the economic that we need in democratic circles. the language of voting rights, abortion rights, it comes fluidly. and then when we start talking about the economy, guess what middle-class succeeding and thriving, but when we start to challenge, how and why the thesis of what we are doing is being made and delivered, i don't see the same kind of understanding. biden is revolutionary in some ways of what he is trying to do. the sticker in the back of your shirt that used to say made in america and no longer does, that matters to me. i want things to be made in

america. that is a bold kind of thinking. by the way i want them to be union jobs that the difference between me and these republicans saying they are for labor. are they for unions? no they are not. the the discourse of what is on the table because of what biden is trying to do and reverse decades of neoliberalism. we can drive down consumer prices and as we did drive down consumer prices, the jobs of america were lost and biden says, that's my problem. i'm coming in here to get those jobs back. that language as we move out of neoliberalism needs to re-emerge in democratic ranks but it's the language of fdr. building and investing in america in doing so taking on corporate greed, taking on the bad actors who have exploited this for too long to their ends so we have had economic authoritarianism going on. >> you are so right about democrats not having a language port because they should on this good news. they should own economic populism and yet time after time , jump on the right wing get

credit for managing the u.s. economy better than democrats. i wonder whether you think -- though had. spark i watch a lot of speeches. >> if you watch him, he spends a lot of time talking about the economy and he is a businessman and it makes some sense but he will spend time telling you about how immigration is affecting jobs here and he will spend some yarns about ev's and destroying and terrible and electric vehicles don't work for the tariffs i'm going to bring are going to improve your jobs. he gives you economic narrative and storytelling. what we haven't heard, and i'm glad that biden is getting out now because for too long, he kept them caged for too long. he is a great economic storyteller and he has an economic vision. that scranton joe element has to come out more often and he wasn't doing super bowl interviews which was crazy. now he heard is and guess what, when he talks he connects with people because these -- he

tells an economic story of a values orientation that people can connect with and we should all follow that lead, quite frankly. >> it's of a piece with all the other parts of the democratic form, the people first thank you for your time and energy tonight on this friday evening. i really appreciate it. >> thank you. maga style authoritarianism has aspired a trump accolade to assemble his own private militia. what could go wrong? plus his latest attempt to undo his conviction may actually work thanks to the supreme court. will have more on that just ahead. ahead. i thought i was sleeping ok... but i was waking up so tired. then i tried new zzzquil sleep nasal strips. their four—point lift design opens my nose for maximum air flow. so, i breathe better. and we both sleep better. and stay married. oh, my leaffilter?

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it's piled high with tender beef that's slow cooked and smothered in tangy memphis style barbecue sauce. it's no fuss, no muss. just tons of flavor. the best barbecue beef is only a togo's. try one today. arguably one of the more potent campaign attacks against trump is the fact that he has been convicted of 34.1 he counts and is awaiting sentencing. trumps lawyers filed a new motion asking the judge to throw out trumps convictions. his lawyers cite the recent decision by the supreme court in which the majority ruled that presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts. trumps team is arguing that

immunity ruling effectively nullifies the jury verdict in new york. this is their argument. some of the evidence presented at trumps trial included conversations he had with a.i.d.s. during his time as president. trumps lawyers are calling that evidence, unconstitutional official acts and saying that the inclusion of that evidence taints his guilty verdict. joining me is msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin. can you flush out this argument more. how much weight does it carry with judge merchan. >> some of it carries weight. the argument is that if you are entitled to immunity based on your official acts, that is not just immunity from criminal liability. you also have immunity from those actively introduces events for even the things you do that are wholly and squarely personal, like the things for which trump was charged with and hush money verdict. they are saying it was impermissible for the d.a. to introduce a host of evidence

that dates back to his time in the white house. everything from hope hicks and metal and whist testimony about conversations with trump to even his tweets and government ethics disclosure that he filled out. some of that is well overstated and overblown. on the other hand, they make an argument toward the back end of their brief that a lot of folks are overlooking. they are saying the court and majority said that if you are going to exclude evidence or make determinations about immunity, you have to do at the outset of the case. judge merchan did not because this was not the law at the time he was approaching his trial. now they are saying because he didn't and because this is now the law of the land, before his sentencing, the whole thing has to be thrown out, not even on substance per se but just because the procedure didn't work correctly. and that's were i think they might have a point, alex. >> lisa, the fact that the supreme court ruled after the

jury issued it for its verdict is not special dispensation here? because merchan hasn't sentenced him this is all up for re-examination? >> yeah, if the verdict were still on appeal it would be up for re-examination as well. until the verdict and the sentence are fully and squarely finalized, a supreme court opinion can have impact on that case and that's exactly where we find ourselves now. i should know, if trumps trial had started when it was supposed to in march, we might not be facing it the same situation, at least they might have to interrupt his appeal or see that differently, but at least he would have been sentenced by now, but because through variation of delay tactics, the trial didn't start until mid april, this is where we are given where the supreme court has been. >> judge merchan has been clear in his rulings and he has ruled for trump and special

counsel. you have an expectation about how differential he is going to be for this very problematic supreme court ruling that is hazy at best? do you have a sense of where he might go on this? >> i think the judge merchan is in the completely unenviable position because the supreme court opinion isn't just lawless in many ways, it is highly unclear and amorphous and others. i think he will find many of trumps arguments about what constitutes an official act is an exaggeration of the supreme court's opinion, even taken generously. on the other hand, that sentence , immunity decisions have to be made at the outset of a proceeding is very hard to see why evidentiary decisions would be different than decisions about what conduct can be charged and not charge. that is the case because special counsel tried to argue to the court, evidence issues can be dealt with through jury

instructions or normal appellate procedure and the majority said no, that's not enough. if you are immune from prosecution, you shouldn't have to go through the burden of all of these pretrial proceedings in trial. that's the part i think he is really going to struggle with and might have to hold his nose and grant some relief for donald trump, even if the remainder of the arguments are really a perversion of the supreme court's ruling. >> i'm assuming that if he doesn't role in trumps favor, he will appeal this and we will end up right back at the court with nine justices and a 6-3 conservative majority. thank you for your time. coming up, donald trump's very own bentley, his own umbrella valley. that man is now recruiting and arming citizens for a private quasi militia. what could go wrong? more on that next. [audience laughing] worried you'll laugh so hard you'll leak?

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thank you. and now, save 25% on our most popular sleep number smart bed. shop now at sleepnumber.com this was a good week to ask really big questions about the future of democracy because if you watch the nato summit in washington this week , one of the central issues those leaders were discussing was the rising power of dictators and authoritarians around the world. from vladimir putin to xi jinping and victor or von, there is a massive consolidation of autocratic power happening right now.

there is a real open question as to whether western-style democracies will continue to wield the same influence in the face of those rising powers. especially since many of those western-style democracies including americas are in the middle of their own struggles to keep authoritarians out of power. but that fight isn't just relegated to the global or national level. it is also happening at a high or local level. take for instance this man. >> somebody that is a real star in politics and has done an incredible job and is a popular, the county executive nassau county bruce blake. come up. this guy is central casting. if i'm doing a movie on a politician, this is the guy i have playing. >> thank you very much, mr. president.

nassau county is not a sanctuary county. when donald trump gets re- elected, this will not be a sanction country. god bless america. >> that was donald trump at a rally in the bronx earlier this year praising the republican executive named bruce blakeman. he is a staunch trump supporter and a very loyal umbrella holder who oversees the county just outside of new york city's border with long island. last year when a 30-year-old black man named jordan nearly was choked to death on a subway, bruce blakeman led the charge to defend mr. penny. amid massive public outcry that this was a case of racist vigilantism , blakeman advocated for penny calling him a good samaritan and a hero. and now bruce blakeman is taking his support for vigilante justice one step further. for the last three months, blakeman has been using his power as county executive to train and recruit 75 armed

civilians to act as a quasi militia that can be activated whenever he chooses. and blakeman plans to empower those civilians to use their own private firearms in the event of an emergency. asked by a local news outlet if a political protest could constitute the kind of emergency where blakeman would activate his militia, he responded, if there was a riot, i would consider it. now citizens of nassau county have been rallying against it is flat ever since it was first proposed, rally outside the executive building with signs reading, no militia in our backyards and reject like men's armed militia. he has barreled ahead with the plan anyway arguing it is necessary to keep nassau county safe. >> so, there are a lot of

things the patient to an american politics right now. but a trump ally assembling his own private battalion outside of america's most populous city feels like something worth paying attention to. just ahead, we will have more on trump's playbook for the authoritarian state, product 2025. i will discuss that looming threat to democracy with the president and chairman of media matters. stay with us.

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google searches for project 2025 it skyrocketed this month. if you have not searched for it yet, product 2025 is the blueprint for a potential second trump term. it is a 900 page document put together by conservative think tank the heritage foundation, with input from over 100 former trump administration officials. and all this newfound attention has caused donald trump to try to distance himself from the project, by saying on truth social that he knows nothing

about it, and has nothing to do with it. the problem with that is the president of the heritage foundation said this week that the overlap between projects .25 and trump's own campaign platform is, quote, tremendous. joining me now, the president and chairman of media matters. thank you for joining me. and a topic that even president biden has been topping about tonight. we will get to that in a second. but as far as what project 2025 is, it is a long one. it is a long read. and in it, there are some deeply distressing proposals, including but not limited to, abolishing the department of education, replacing nonpartisan civil servants with political appointees, moving the department of justice under presidential control, targeting abortion medication, expanding deportation powers, and expanding presidential powers. what do you find most disturbing about the project?

>> the thing that disturbs me the most about project 2025 and the document you referred to, which is sort of their 900 page blueprint, is that it is not a set of aspirational ideas that they are sort of rallying around. it is actually the granularity. it is an extremely detailed plan, a step-by-step guide for how you can implement an authoritarian regime, but initially just pure revenge. and the theory behind it is that you go in there, you follow those steps, one by one, and the consequence of that is that you basically shock everybody. you engage in, as you noted, firing thousands of federal employees and replacing them with the day-to-day's they already have of people they can go into various parts of the federal government and enact these policies immediately. you arrest a bunch of individuals, people that are distributed abortion medication, publishers of books that they consider to be too favorable to trans-education.

teachers and librarians. you do mass arrests of individuals for distributing pornography. and the idea behind that is to make it very clear that things have changed, to change our culture immediately. and you continue to follow the steps. that is what scares me the most, not the individual things, although they are scary. it is the granularity. they are detailed. and to me, that is the difference maker here. >> right, it is not a lofty plan, pie-in-the-sky, long-term goals. this was a how-to manual. and the possibility of enacting that, sort of the steps of that manual, laying at the doorstep in november. i wonder what you make of the messaging around it, both on the left and the right. this is president biden talking about project 2025 tonight. let's take a listen. >> folks, project 2025 is the biggest attack on the system of government and personal freedom that has ever been proposed in the history of this country. >> so, i think it is a good thing that the front runner on the democratic ticket is talking about this. do you think trump gets away with saying i have nothing to do with this? are people not paying attention enough yet that trump can get a

pass on this? >> i don't think he's going to get a pass on this. i think it is really important, and significant in the fact that he is doing what he is doing. that he is trying to sort of separate himself from policies that he has embraced, pretty clearly. and that his former administration officials have been authoring. they know how deeply unpopular and terrifying what is in this document is. that's the thing, the more you learn about project 2025, the more you don't want anything to do with it. like i said, it is not just ideas, it is an action plan. it will change people's lives. even things like getting rid of the 30 year mortgage. regardless of your politics, that is not a guy, i would not want that. it is really specific. the more people learn about it, the note they don't like it. we know he has disassociated himself. the problem is he cannot go too far. we know what happens when trump wants to incinerate something.

he files losses. they are out raising money and operating in his name, and he has not set any legal threats or incinerated them in a big way. just i don't know anything about it. and just yesterday, kevin roberts, the same guy who started this catalyst by saying it will be a bloodless revolution as long as liberals go along with the project 2025 policies, which started this big wave of people paying attention to it for the first time. just yesterday he was bragging about the fact that the trump campaign staff and project 2025 staff have been working arm in arm for years, and that he anticipates a meeting very soon to figure out how they navigate what he described as the political tactical maneuvers that trump is being forced to do in order to win elections. and that is the key here. trump is doing it because republicans understand that in order to put anything in place you first need power. and you get power by winning elections. will he get away with it amongst his people? probably. because they are engaged on a wink and a nod. but i don't think that he will get away with it with the rest. >> well, it is up to the media and the public to start googling and start talking. media matters providing an indispensable service to our democracy. thanks for your time. that is our show for tonight.