significantly in his policy. he's been doing this for 10 months. he has 5 to 6 months left. he's trying to do the best he can within the constraints of a policy where you don't fundamentally break from the prime minister. withholding the flow of arms. the next president will have a window to reassess that and the tone she sets will send a signal about what her priorities will be. israel's security, yes. palestinian dignity and security as well and that i think is what people will be watching for, what tone is she setting in the next few months? >> ben rhodes, appreciate it. >> thanks, chris. >> that is "all in" on this thursday night. "alex wagner tonight" starts now with ali velshi. >> that was a great conversation. earlier this week qatar, egypt and joe biden sent a letter saying it is time now. in theory they are all getting

together august 15 to restart negotiations. netanyahu has said so. these things used to be monumental, but as ben says, every time it happens it fizzles out in a couple of days, so let's keep our fingers crossed. >> when i saw that headline i put in the team slack, i feel like i read this headline many times. but we will see. >> negotiators always say this is not a game for people who lose hope. we have to keep on trying. thanks, appreciate it. everyday since president biden dropped out of the reelection race and endorsed vice president harris to take the top of the ticket, donald trump has had more reason to be nervous. polling averages compiled by election expert nate silver show that since biden dropped out harris has moved from being down by four points to ahead of trump by two. a new poll today has her up six points among registered voters and that is beyond the margin of error.

and among likely voters, harris is up by nine points. that could be an anomaly, but it is pointing out that things are changing. polling is not the only thing looking good for kamala harris. her fundraising is off the charts, her crowd sizes are massive and people are volunteering to work for her campaign in droves. she has enthusiasm on her side. she has momentum. the washington post reports that trump has grown increasingly upset about harris's surging poll numbers and media coverage since replacing biden on the ticket. five people close to the campaign told the post that trump is, quote, complaining relentlessly and asking friends about how his campaign is performing. today donald trump invited members of the press to his florida beach club, mar-a-lago, where he held a press conference of sorts to try to take back control of the news cycle. >> they talk about the enthusiasm. let me tell you, we have the

enthusiasm. the republican party and me as a candidate, but the republican party has the enthusiasm. >> when you have to tell people you have the enthusiasm, that's an issue. clearly nervous about the 12,000 and 15,000 person crowds in wisconsin and michigan yesterday, trump spent a disproportionately large part of this press conference hyper focused on, you guessed it, crowd size. first he claimed he had 88,000 people come out to see him in south carolina. 88,000 people. a very, very big crowd. it turns out the 88,000 people were there to see him. the event he was talking about was not a trump rally, it was the state's biggest college football game of the year, the palmetto bowl. trump did not even make any remarks at the game, he smiled and waved. by that logic i should ask msnbc pr to talk about how big of a crowd i pulled and when i went to my last yankee game. they were all there for ali

velshi. it was not the most outrageous claim about crowd size that trump made today. the most outrageous was comparing his rallies with harrises rallies. it was trump comparing the crowd and his speech before the attack on our capital on january 6 two, well, roll the tape. >> nobody spoke to crowds bigger than me. if you look at martin luther king, when he did his speech, his great speech and you look at ours, same real estate. same everything. same number of people, if not we had more. and they say he had 1 million people but i had 25,000 people. when you look at the exact same people and everything is the same. the fountains, the whole thing, all the way back from lincoln to washington. and you look at it and you look at the picture of his crowd, my crowd. we actually had more people.

>> martin luther king. now, not only do estimates put the crowd of martin luther king jr.'s i had a dream speech during the march on washington at about five times bigger than trump's crowd, but the crowds were there for very different reasons and i think that is an important context. the other thing trump tried to do to seize the new cycle today is to shift the goal posts around upcoming presidential debates. you might remember trump originally agreed to two debates with president biden. one was the debate moderated by cnn earlier this summer which ultimately led to biden dropping out of the race. the other debate was still on the horizon. it was set to be moderated by abc news, but once vice president kamala harris took the spot at the top of the democratic ticket, trump tried to back out of the abc debate. saying that abc was fake news and biased. his pitch was that the debate

should be held on fox news instead, but harris did not take the bait. she said she would see trump as the campaigns previously agreed on september 10 on abc. so last week trump double down, saying he would debate harris on fox news or not at all. again, harris did not take the bait. so today trump came out with yet another alternative pitch. >> i think it is very important to have debates and we've agreed with fox on a date of september 4. we have agreed with nbc. fairly full agreement subject to them on september 10. and we have agreed with abc on september 25. >> don't put anything in your diary just yet, because you've got trump, you've got abc and nbc mixed up. regardless of the flubs, it is easy to see what he is doing

here. he is still trying to make that fox news debate, a debate on the friendliest terms for him, happen and happen first. once again kamala harris did not take the bait. >> well, i'm glad he has finally agreed to a debate. i am looking forward to it and i hope he shows up. >> are you open to more debates? >> i'm happy to have a conversation about an additional debate after september 10, for sure. >> he proposed two more dates. >> like i said, i'm happy to have that conversation. i am beyond trying to speculate. what else? >> can you comment on his other criticisms? >> i was too busy talking to voters, i didn't hear them. >> i was too busy talking to voters, something trump is doing with decreasing frequency. while vice president harris and her running mate continue through swing states, tomorrow jumbled since first rally since last weekend.

he is going to the reliably red state of montana. joining us now is a national columnist for the washington post and charlie sykes, msnbc contributor and columnist. good evening to both of you. i don't know where to start. that was quite an adventure with donald trump today. sort of a press conference. mostly the rambling miss. what you make of what he is trying to do here? >> well you know, it was over after that hour-long ramble. i thought to myself, what did we just watch here? what happened? is he okay? clearly he is suffering from a debilitating case of crowd envy, but once again i'm struck by the asymmetry of our politics. if joe biden or kamala harris had come out and given a performance like that, there would be a serious discussion about, do we need to make a change at the top of the ticket? do we need an intervention? it really was interesting watching this sort of low energy, rambling, shrunken

donald trump. this is what donald trump looks like when he is losing and the contrast, the split screen with kamala harris and tim walz is inescapable because there was no joy in mar-a-lago today. >> charlie said it is low energy. all of his rallies are rambling now. it is kind of weird. he goes from sharks to batteries to whatever he wants to talk about, but you published a piece in which you said trump is not campaigning as hard as he used to. he is not keeping up the pace. some will argue because he thinks he has this wrapped up. is there more to it? >> we don't really know. to paraphrase the vice president, it is hard to read trump's mind at any point in time, so it's not clear. i went back to look at 2016 and 2020. especially starting in august he had rally after rally.

multiple rallies on single days. in 2020 even with the covid restrictions he was doing telephone rallies and all of the presidential things. south dakota on july 4 and doing a huge event there. there were all of these manifestations of him as a candidate we simply don't see now. we have j.d. vance as they go across the country and it is just not the same thing. he insisted during that press conference today that he was waiting for the democrats to have a convention or whatever, which doesn't make a lot of sense. we will see if it picks up once the convention is out-of-the- way, but there is no obvious explanation. what is he doing? he is sitting at mar-a-lago. it's not like he has a job. he should be out campaigning and yet for some reason he isn't. >> the crowd sizes interesting because it is a go to for him. people forget this is the first press conference he ever gave, about alternative facts and crowd sizes.

when you tell people you have more enthusiasm than they have, you are getting yourself into trouble. initially with the enthusiasm behind kamala harris some conservative critics said it is manufactured. it turns out it is a lot more organic than people thought. that said we are still some distance away from the election. what has to happen now? there is the enthusiasm. there seemed to be an enthusiasm bump with tim walz. there will be the convention. that will be a bump or a steadying force. what happens after that? >> then you have to execute. we will see whether or not this translates into the ground game and at this point no one knows if we are talking about a sugar high or talking about a fundamental reset of this campaign. but you know i can't help thinking again and again about what it was like here in milwaukee just three weeks ago. the mood that the republicans had to. the optimism. they were absolutely certain

that they had this thing. they were riding high. donald trump seems to be in a dominant position and he is clearly having a difficult time coping with this change of fortune and really with the departure of joe biden he has lost a foil that he was counting on. with joe biden in the race he could run a low-energy campaign like this and play the what about ism card. what a lot of people were looking at today is okay, who is the old guy in the race now? the 78-year-old man who is rambling. you can't say what about joe biden? you are watching somebody who clearly lost the fastball if he ever had the fastball. a very different candidate in 2016 and even 2020, and yet once again now we are focused because joe biden is not his

foil, the focus is what is going on with donald trump? is he unwell? does it get any better than this? i wonder how many americans are watching if they were watching because a lot of media coverage does not capture how strange it is. asking themselves, do we really want four more years of this? do we really want an 82-year- old donald trump with control of the nuclear button because this was not an impressive performance by any means. >> well, philip, as he said last week i don't want to world where have to worry about hannibal lecter and being eaten by sharks and things like that. that said the drum campaign is not lending a lot of punches yet. they tried a lot including calling her names none of us could figure out, but we have a while. the old adage used to be no one watches the news in summer. no one latches onto presidential campaigns until the conventions and sometimes not until labor day. i think the calculus has changed and the world has

changed, but out there in america there are still people not fully dialed into the story just yet, which gives the trump- vance campaign time to recalibrate. can they, in your opinion? >> they certainly can. all things being equal. they can and i think they are advantaged by the fact that people have a general sense of kamala harris. although we have seen that that has changed. her status among democrats has improved dramatically. and of course walz -- not many people have an opinion of him. i think fundamentally what we are seeing in this moment and the energy behind harris at this moment is a reflection of the broader feel that people have with this campaign. which is this doomsaying, end of the world, harris is the worst and walz will unleash on

earth. terrace and walls being like this guy is weird. it doesn't matter what people say if people go to the polls and feel like that is the choice. i don't see how donald trump is able to be successful. >> harris and walz are putting forward a sunny view of what american b and there is certainly some appeal. to walz's hokey charm. that said i will ask you the same question i asked phil, but for the campaign when they hit the ground running, they've started, but postconvention when more eyes are on them, what has to change? what has to happen to keep the momentum up? >> one of the key moments has to be and obviously the republicans are hammering away on this that she is going to have to have press conferences and sit down for longform interviews anything republicans are thinking she might fumble

those. we don't know. she has exceeded expectations so far. i think with what we have already seen it is a recalibration. this campaign recalibrated on so many levels. we can talk about social media, the small donors and all of this but also as somebody in the upper midwest, this focus on the upper midwest. the populist themes. the very, very clear messaging to the white working class. that have been drifting away from the democrats. it has been very pointed and i still have a little bit of ptsd thinking about 2016. hillary clinton never visited wisconsin. she has already visited wisconsin twice and she brought with her one of our neighbors who is going to relate to wisconsin voters in a different way. this guy is not one of the coastal elites. he is a guy we recognize from the hardware store. so this focus on places like

minnesota, michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania. also the message that they are crafting. let's talk about the future. let's work together. it really is a completely different line. the only campaign i can think of that had the same feel was obama in 2008 and republicans remember what that wave was like. there was nothing john mccain could do or say that would change that game once it began and i think that is the fear in mar-a-lago. >> this has become an exciting campaign one way or another. thanks for kicking us off tonight. we have much more to get to tonight including what happens when the billionaire owner of one of the largest social media companies in the world spreads misinformation online. 1.2 billion people are at risk of believing it. but first -- >> everyone's voice matters, but i am speaking now.

i am speaking now. >> kamala harris faced gaza protesters last night. what can we learn from previous campaigns about what happens when protesters confront candidates who are willing to listen? that is next. it means building your next success on the foundation of life experience. umgc values the successes you've already achieved. that's why you can earn up to 90 credits from prior learning and life and job experience toward our bachelor's degree programs. no application fee if you apply by august 29 at umgc.edu. ♪ music ♪ ♪ unnecessary action hero! ♪ no application fee if you apply ♪ unnecessary. ♪ was that necessary? no. neither is missing your daughter's competition

to do payroll. with paycom, employees do their own payroll so you don't have to miss your daughter's big day. time to shine. get paycom and make the unnecessary unnecessary. whoa! how'd you get your teeth so white? you gotta use the right toothpaste! dr. c?! ♪♪ not all toothpastes whiten the same. crest 3d white removes 100% more stains for a noticeably whiter smile. new personal best. crest.

lyles will need a good leg here. can he deliver? here comes the pass! look at this kid! coming in tight on the line. team usa, what a run! it's gold for team usa. noah lyles with another gold medal. in case there was any doubt, who was the breakout star of these world championships.

the last time democrats were seeking to hold onto the white house after four years in power was 2012. then president barack obama was running against mitt romney. romney was not the most conservative candidate in the republican party even back then, but he staked out an aggressively hard-line position on the issue of immigration. running on a platform of self deportation. making life so hard for immigrants in this country that

they would have no choice but to leave. given that it probably surprised a lot of people that young, undocumented immigrants have chosen to spend time and energy protesting president obama. they held mass demonstrations outside the white house where many of them were arrested. they showed up at campaign offices with signs like this one that read obama, stop deporting dreamers. they even had a sit in at obama's campaign offices in the van swing state of colorado. at issue were protections for so-called dreamers, people brought to this country without legal authorization as children. many of whom have lived in the u.s. almost their entire lives. president obama supported protections for those dreamers, but he insisted he could not grant them those protections alone. he said the republican- controlled congress would have to send him a bill. then in june, 2012, right in the middle of the campaign, something remarkable happened.

president obama came around and decided to try. he announced he would grant protections to thousands of dreamers through executive order. the pressure worked. president obama was reelected with strong support despite the protests. much to the chagrin of the administration, the protests did not stop. many of those dreamers were now protected, but there were still some who weren't and the parents of those dreamers could be deported at any moment, so the activists kept pushing, even interrupting the president during speaking events. >> most importantly, most importantly we will live up -- most importantly we will live up to our character as a nation. >> i need your help. there are thousands -- >> that is exactly what we are talking about. that is why we are here. >> you have the power to stop

deportation -- >> actually i don't and that is why we are here. >> president obama insisted he did not have the power to take those actions alone, but activist kept the pressure on and by the following year obama moved again. shielding even more dreamers from deportation and de- prioritize the deportation of people without criminal records. there were plenty of people who questioned the strategy, who asked why they weren't protesting mitt romney and republicans in congress were blocking progress on immigration reform? because those protesters understood how social movements work. they understood sometimes in order to make real change you have to target the people who are movable. the people who wanted you in their coalition. the people who actually care. that is both the burden and the beauty of what it means to be part of a functioning, big tent political party that is responsive to social change. to be on the side of what the

late john lewis called good trouble. yesterday at a rally in detroit, michigan, vice president kamala harris was interrupted by a group of demonstrators protesting the war in gaza. this is how she responded. >> you know what? if you want donald trump to win, then say that. otherwise i'm speaking. >> it's a snappy line. it makes for a good sound bite. it is undeniably true that she will be a better president for their cause than donald trump, but as those immigration protesters proved in the obama administration, these issues are more complicated than, we are better for you than the other guys. kamala harris has already proven that she is the kind of thoughtful leader who listens on these issues. that she understands the nuance of this particular issue. even while some insist that neither nuance nor context

matter in the story and her campaign presents a real opportunity to reset the relationship with the communities expressing dissatisfaction over this war and america's role in it. can the harris campaign use this as an opportunity to listen? and can those protesters use this as an opportunity to be heard? i will talk to michelle goldberg about that after the break. an add-on treatment for eosinophilic asthma that is taken once every 8 weeks. fasenra is not for sudden breathing problems or other eosinophilic conditions. allergic reactions may occur. don't stop your asthma treatments without talking with your doctor. tell your doctor if your asthma worsens. headache and sore throat may occur. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. step back out there with fasenra. ask your doctor if it's right for you. (♪♪) kids love summer break, but parents? well... care.com makes it easy to find background checked childcare that fits your summer schedule. from long term to short notice.

give yourself a break this summer. go to care.com now. sometimes jonah wrestles with falling asleep... ...so he takes zzzquil. the world's #1 sleep aid brand. and wakes up feeling like himself. get the rest to be your best with non-habit forming zzzquil. ♪ ♪ i still love to surf, snowboard, with non-habit and, of course, skate. so, i take qunol magnesium to support my muscle and bone health. qunol's extra strength, high absorption magnesium helps me get the full benefits

of magnesium. qunol, the brand i trust. (intercom) t minus 10... (janet) so much space! that open kitchen! (tanya) ...definitely the one! (ethan) but how can you sell your house when we're stuck on a space station for months???!!! (brian) opendoor gives you the flexibility to sell and buy on your timeline. (janet) nice! (intercom) flightdeck, see you at the house warming.

everybody wants super straight, super white teeth. they want that hollywood white smile. new sensodyne clinical white provides 2 shades whiter teeth and 24/7 sensitivity protection. i think it's a great product. it's going to help a lot of patients. (♪♪) we need a miracle. miracle every thursday starting at 2:45. i know. i love you. find childcare that fits your schedule at care.com

three months ago before president biden dropped out of the race, a journalist asked congresswoman alexandria ocasio- cortez what she would say to americans who felt like they could not vote for joe biden because of his handling of the war in gaza. >> for an individual palestinian american who has had their family killed, there is nothing. i am not here to lecture anyone. i have a vested interest in protecting democracy. not just here, domestically, but globally. and it isn't, i truly do not believe this is a lesser of two evils type of situation. i think about what conditions do i want to be organizing under in the next four years? >> what conditions do i want to be organizing under for the next four years?

which of the candidates on the ballot would you prefer to organize and protest under? will sit, listen, and be moved by the voices of dissent and who will try to silence them? these are questions important for voters and the harris campaign as they continue to face americans speaking out loudly against the ongoing war in gaza. joining me now is michelle goldberg, columnist for the new york times. thank you for joining me. you have understood and tried to parse the nuance in this difficult situation since october 7, including how it played out on college campuses and it seems to me that kamala harris had a moment and an opportunity here to bring that nuance to the conversation. prior to that rally she met with members of the uncommitted movement. a group of people who organized going out in the primary and saying we are voting, we are showing up, but we are telling

you about our dissatisfaction. tell me what you think is going on here. >> i think this is an extremely difficult needle for kamala harris to thread and i am not sure i agree that it is possible to bring that much nuance to conversation you're having with protesters at a rally, as opposed to with people, with stakeholders that you meet with one on one. i was very glad to hear that she met with the uncommitted activists and hope she has more and longer meetings with them. to some extent there is just going to be a fundamental difference. i don't know if it is a difference of opinion. kamala harris is the vice president and i don't think it is realistic to expect her to break with the policy of the president that she serves while she is serving him, even if she sent a lot of signals that she is much more sympathetic to the palestinians and much more cognizant of the suffering of

gaza than biden has been. >> let's listen to that. ben rhodes and chris hayes were talking about that a little while ago. let's listen to what kamala harris said after her meeting with benjamin netanyahu on july 25. >> the images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third, or fourth time. we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. we cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and i will not be silent. so to everyone calling for a cease-fire, and for everyone who yearns for peace, icu and i hear you. let's get the deal done. so we can get the cease-fire to end the war.

let's bring the hostages home and let's provide much-needed relief to the palestinian people. >> in the same set of comments she reaffirmed support for israel. like a lot of politicians saying not only about netanyahu, but we still support israel. she was able to hold both thoughts. she is still the vice president under joe biden. how does she convey to people that she is prepared to try to thread a needle that is difficult to thread? >> look, certainly there are some people who are not going to be satisfied with anything other than a radical change in u.s. policy that frankly even if you think it is substantively warranted, will be politically, really risky for her to announce right now. i don't think that is going to happen. where she can, i hope, signal a change from biden and already signaled.

already a change in affect, which is obviously not enough, but i heard about a number of palestinians were beyond grieving. there is immense grief on what is happening in palestine, but also a sense of dehumanization that biden, a man so known for his ability to empathize, seems to not have that ability when it comes to palestinians. i do think it is a start. it's not going to be enough for most people, but it is at least a start when she speaks about the suffering in gaza. she speaks about it with real pain, that she seems to really feel it and find it intolerable. >> in interview occurred before the rally in michigan that we were just showing a tape of. the first arab-american mayor of dearborn, where the door was closed with president biden,

the door has cracked open with kamala harris. i think cracking the door really shows an opportunity for meaningful dialogue. i want to ask you in the context of the way we set this conversation up and that is that sometimes you protest the people that are more likely to be movable, more likely to be closer to your cause. the democratic party of two months ago or a month ago will -- was a slightly different organization that it is today. this remains the fissure we could see a lot of in chicago and see a lot of in the next few months. >> right and that is certainly one reason why a lot of people, not everyone, but a significant minority of people were very relieved to that the vice presidential nominee was not josh shapiro and the difficulty of that, that is what makes this so different than the case of the dreamers. why activists would be

protesting kamala harris and not donald trump, because kamala harris is part of the administration in power. she has a level of agency that donald trump thankfully does not have. at the same time it is in the interest of the democratic party to maintain order and unity and i actually think that kind of politically the way she handled those protesters was probably a plus for her. >> michelle, thank you for joining us tonight. we appreciate your insights and reporting. michelle goldberg of the new york times. coming up, the gigantic reach of elon musk's misleading rhetoric and the real world chaos that it sows. that is next. uld be. but here i am... being me. keep being you... and ask your healthcare provider about the number one prescribed h-i-v treatment, biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in many people whether you're 18 or 80. with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to undetectable—and stay there

whether you're just starting or replacing your current treatment. research shows that taking h-i-v treatment as prescribed and getting to and staying undetectable prevents transmitting h-i-v through sex. serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. rare, life-threatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines and supplements you take, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. if you have hepatitis b do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your healthcare provider. common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. no matter where life takes you, biktarvy can go with you. talk to your healthcare provider today. we've always loved taking care of our home. but last year, grandpa here broke his arm. we realized some home maintenance jobs aren't worth the risk. that's when we called leaffilter to protect our gutters. leaffilter's patented filter technology keeps debris out of your gutters for good. they gave us a free inspection and we had the system installed that week. my only regret is not calling them sooner.

now we can focus on what we really enjoy. join millions of satisfied homeowners. call 833 leaffilter today or visit leaffilter.com - i got the cabin for three days. it's gonna be sweet! what? i'm 12 hours short. - have a fun weekend. - ♪ unnecessary action hero! unnecessary. ♪ - was that necessary? - no. neither is a blown weekend. with paycom, employees do their own payroll so you can fix problems before they become problems. - hmm! get paycom and make the unnecessary, unnecessary. - see you down the line. (granddaughter laughing) when pain freezes you in your tracks... ...vapofreeze your pain away.

penetrating pain relief... ...with vicks vapors. (granddaughter laughing) vapofreeze your pain away. now at walmart. ♪♪ imagine a future where plastic is not wasted... but instead remade over and over... into the things that keep our food fresher, our families safer, and our planet cleaner. to help us get there, america's plastic makers are investing billions of dollars to create innovative products and new recycling technologies for sustainable change. because when you push for smarter solutions, big things can happen. [ music ] >> before umgc, i was a pretty good teacher,

but i needed my students to see that someone like them can make it and actually graduate, and do things better. that's why i decided to go to umgc. the skills they taught me are skills i wouldn't have learned anywhere else. in my role now as vice principal, i want my students to succeed. i wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't for umgc. you become a part of that family, and it's a family that will support you for the rest of your life. (reporters) over here. kev! kev! (reporter 1) any response to the tradeor rumors, we keep hearing about? (kev) we talkin' about moving? not the trade, not the trade, we talking about movin'. no thank you. (reporter 2) you could use opendoor. sell your house directly to them, it's easy. (kev) ... i guess we're movin'. what causes a curve down there? is it peyronie's disease? will it get worse? how common is it? who can i talk to? can this be treated? stop typing. start talking to a specialized urologist. because it could be peyronie's disease, or pd. it's a medical condition where there is a curve in the erection, caused by a formation of scar tissue. and an estimated 1 in 10 men may have it. but pd can be treated

even without surgery. say goodbye to searching online. find a specialized urologist who can diagnose pd and build a treatment plan with you. visit makeapdplan.com today. tech billionaire elon musk this week posted this comment on x, the platform formally known as twitter. quote, civil war is inevitable. the world's richest man was reacting to a video allegedly showing rioters clashing with the british police after days of far right agitated violence and anti-immigrant protest in several towns and cities across the uk, inspired by a lie that was spread across social media. mosques dangerous comment and subsequent ones earned him justifiable admonishment for members of the british government, but this is not a problem just in the uk.

governments are grappling with how to stop the circulation of insightful rhetoric, disinformation and misinformation across social media. a task made monumentally more difficult when the person doing it is elon musk, who owns x and has the biggest audience on the platform with 193 million followers. his followers. a recent analysis by the nonprofit center for countering digital hate found that musk's misleading claims have accrued to 1.2 billion views on x, which includes 50 instances this year when musk posted already debunked election claims. so the question is, is there a remedy? joining me now is a veteran venture capitalist and early investor in facebook and google. he is the author of waking up to the facebook catastrophe. good to see you. it is often good to see you, but not in circumstances like this. this is a big problem. elon musk announced to everyone

that he wanted twitter to be a town square and open to everybody and he has turned out to be one of the biggest garbage purveyors on the entire platform. >> i think the sad thing is that elon musk is the proof point that vast amounts of wealth do not buy you happiness or wisdom and i think what he is doing now is incredibly destructive and i don't think it is an accident. i think this is not just his goal, but the goal of a lot of billionaires who are really trying to disrupt the world order and it is in my mind both incredibly dangerous and very sad. a lot of it is true because governments around the world have had a policy of being hands-off relative to industry, relative to wealthy people. that leaves us in this precarious situation where they control the most important platforms in our lives.

>> but we have seen and you have talked about this a lot, actual election interference. that these platforms can do things that are quite disastrous. in the uk, what happened is a coastal town in northwest england. the suspect was a 17-year-old. he was born in wales. a child of immigrants. not an immigrant himself. he just wasn't white. it was spread that this was something that was done by an undocumented immigrant, which has led essentially to race riots in the uk. people died as a result of this. police were losing control because people were going out and thinking they would clear the uk of undocumented immigrants because of this. elon musk knows better. what is he trying to do here? >> i do believe that among billionaires today there is a sense that liberal democracy is teetering and that they can dislodge it and replace it with something authoritarian that will give them free reign to do

what they want to do. you see this in our own election where there is one group of tech billionaires in particular who are supporting trump. a second group who are supporting harris and yet the things that they have in common from a policy point of view completely overwhelm the places where they disagree. their goal, in fact, for all of them, is to be in a situation where their ability to act is unfettered by any kind of regulation and where they are not required to protect the safety of the people who use their products. they are not required to protect privacy and they are allowed to do things that completely stifle competition and innovation in the economy. >> how does this dovetail with your conversation you have been having with me for years about a healthy democracy depending on a well-informed electorate? the influence these platforms have now does not make me feel like we are getting a more informed electorate as a result on social media.

>> i think it is bad news and good news on this front. the bad news is that the power of these platforms is so great that it has undermined the intellectual honesty of traditional media. we've seen this with the new york times, the washington post and a lot of other things that historically we trusted to give us a neutral perspective on what is going on. quite clearly they are playing the game to maximize clicks, to maximize attention, so they are trying to find ways to undercut the enthusiasm of the harris campaign by suggesting there is an issue or, oh my gosh, there is a problem with walz's military history, which is total baloney. that's the bad news. the good news is that the biden- harris administration has done something essential. they have empowered the federal trade commission and the department of justice to pursue antitrust remedies and in the case of the ftc, consumer

protection remedies, against the big tech platforms. and they just one. last week a monstrous case against google, which believe it or not is the first of two. there is a second one starting next month. in winning these cases they are threatening, if you will, the ability of these companies to essentially run the world. if you have 3 billion active users the way that meta does, the way that google does, you are in a position where you think you are more important than any government, so you do not obey the law. that is epidemic in tact. it is time for a reset in technology and it is my hope that the harris administration, should she be elected, would not only maintain the extraordinary progress of the administration in antitrust, but complemented in consumer protection and privacy so we can have the much needed reset we need in silicon valley and get the focus on important

problems like climate change and public health. things right now it is ignoring in favor of nonsense like crypto and generative a.i. >> is there a case for, and you made the argument that the federal trade commission is getting involved in this. are we thinking big enough in terms of what regulation should look like in terms of social media? >> the beauty is when she is looking at consumer protection, she started looking at instagram and kids. she initiated a suit the purpose of which is to force meta to stop gathering data and stop monetizing people under the age of 18. that is where you decide what the outcome is you are looking for and you decree that is how it is going to be. you look at elon musk. why is there no law that says you cannot create a website

that pretends to register people to vote and only register them in red states? that is what he is doing. that kind of stuff should be illegal and we need to look at the use of technology to undermine the basic values of the technology, which is epidemic. >> thank you as always for joining us. roger mcnamee is an investor in technology and a very important name on these issues. coming up, new tonight, special counsel jack smith drops a special surprise new filing in the january 6 election case. that is next. and doesn't leave behind irritating residues. and it's gentle on her skin. tide free and gentle liquid is epa safer choice certified. it's gotta be tide.

wait- noom can design a personalized weight loss plan for me? woah. i'm vegan. i have high cholesterol. does noom have plans for us? noom's plans can be personalized for both your needs! yes! how about dad bod? get your personalized plan today at noom.com

ryan t. writes, "moving is stressful. can you help me take one thing off of my to do list?” ugh, moving's the worst. with xfinity, you can transfer your internet in just a few taps. just a few easy moves. did somebody say “easy moves”? ♪ ♪ oh no. no, i was talking about moving your internet. this will move the internet. ♪ ♪ ooh, ooh. -let's keep it professional. professional dancers! -ok! stay connected during your move with the best in home wifi. easily transfer your services in the xfinity app. bring on the good stuff.

we had a surprising new development in donald trump's january 6 election interference case tonight. both sides were expected to submit a joint filing tomorrow proposing a timeline for pretrial proceedings. now that the supreme court returned the case to the district court judge, tonya

chutkan. but in a new filing it is jack smith, not trump's lawyers, seeking a delay for more time as smith considers what impact the immunity ruling should have on his case. joining me as a former federal prosecutor and senior writer for political magazine. good to see you. thanks for being with us. usually it is trump's folks who are asking for delays. what do you think is happening? >> usually it is trump's folks. i am sure they are thrilled by this development. one possibility i think that is in play as the department is considering whether and to what extent they are comfortable moving this case forward in the final few months of the election. i think that is somewhat unlikely since the position the government has taken in this case and the case in florida is essentially that there should be no pretrial proceedings because the cases already charged. i've seen speculation to the effect of the government getting ready to file a

superseding indictment. that surprised me because there would be no reason for the government to hike the ball on that at this point and another possibility that i think is more likely than not is that they are legitimately as the filing says consulting with other components including the office of legal counsel. given the complexity and vagueness of the test that the supreme court provided in the decision and kicked back to the lower court. >> right because the supreme court if you remember they sent this back and said judge chutkan, you work out based on what we said, which was unprecedented, what is allowed and what is not allowed. here's the problem. there is logic in working this out and moving forward with this case because donald trump may not win the election and this may still be alive. what is the chance given on what you have heard today and do you think we will still see progress before the election on this case?

>> i think it is more likely than not that we will see progress. maybe that takes the form of written submissions with evidence and hearings that the government may request. we have a few months left. if the standard is nebulous that the court gave and difficult to work through given the various moving parts and the government, but i think it is more likely than not that we will see material activity before the election and perhaps a pretrial hearing or two. >> by the way this is a request by jack smith's team. it sounds like they said the trump team does not disagree with that, so it is it your view that judge chutkan will grant the delay? >> yes, she probably will. it is a request at the consent of the defendant and a request where the judge has a lot of latitude to really second-guess them. it is not like they're talking about consultation on an issue she has insight into, so she really is to take their word and it would be unusual to

reject a request like this made in a joint capacity. >> is there going to be a great deal of conflict between the trump team and jack smith team given that everybody's job is to figure out what it is that the supreme court has said is allowable and is not? >> i do think we should anticipate some conflict here. if i was the justice department lawyers, i would still be trying to move this forward even with this delay, in the form of hearings and live testimony of those hearings. trump's position would be that nothing should happen before november and if anything would happen it should be as little as possible. i would expect once we get down to brass tacks, which would hopefully be in a matter of weeks, we will see real daylight between them. >> great to see you. thank you for joining us, ankush khardori. that is tonight's show. now time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell."