then, by the way, my personal favorite, francis tiafoe because of hi personal story. his dad a custodian at a tennis facility, alongside his brother, making it all the way here to the u.s. open. you think about it, you cannot reiterate this enough and you can feel the energy and the air here and on the ground, is that they really feel like this could be anybody's title with all of the favorites kind of the out of the game, any of them could clinch that title this weekend, katy. >> i love his love of tony goldwynn, who is great. yasmin, thank you. that's going to do it for me today. "deadline white house" starts right now. hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in

new york. nine weeks to go until election day, folks. nine weeks until today and one week today to what may be the only presidential debate to transpire between donald trump and vice president kamala harris. and then, of course, the start of the so-called final sprint to election day, which finds two presidential diameter rickly opposed, polar opposite camps. she wants to turn the page on a dark and dysfunctional past decade in politics, her campaign has been met with obama levels of enthusiasm among voters, her rallies drawing massive record-breaking crowds, her campaign enlisting an army of volunteers, racking up endorsements from all across the political spectrum, as politico reports today, quote, the vice president has flipped the enthusiasm gap, the money gap and the polling gap in her favor

in the six weeks since she replaced president joe biden as the democratic nominee. now, the other person on the menu behind door number two, a candidate who is unable to land on an effective line of attack, who has resorted to personal smears and misagonistic attacks, and a man who thinks his rants are, as you sees it, bursts of rhetorical brilliance. he calls it the weave and not the deranged tirades of a man who is a friend of this show, is in the last stage of his political life. he finds himself embroiled in one disqualifying moment after another. the latest political stunt that shows nothing but disrespect and disdain for veterans and their

families. voters' views of trump are so toxic that his campaign has to admit that. they've reportedly given up and even trying to revamp trump's image at all. it's not one of their goals. washington post reports this, with little proof of improving trump's standing, trump's advisers see the only option is damaging hers. kamala harris. it's in that context that we have to cover these next 60 days, right? it's in that context that the campaigns are preparing for the next debate a week from tonight. or, rather, only one campaign is preparing for the debate, donald trump's. telling nbc news, unlike kamala harris he has a command of the issues, end quote. team harris, on the other hand, is reportedly buckling down for full mock debate preparation and prep. while harris' team is preparing to talk about a variety of

topics, the campaign very much views the optics of the debate as critically important. to that end, the source said, harris and her team are focusing on homing in on how to needle trump, to rattle him. in that sense, the source said it will be less about substance and more about showcasing harris as a woman who isn't scared, who won't cower, standing up to trump and holding him accountable. it's something she's prepared for her entire political career. >> our democratic party, unfortunately, is not the party that is of, by and for the people. it is a party that has been and continues to be influenced by the foreign policy establishment in washington represented by hillary clinton. >> thank you. >> senator harris, any response? >> oh, sure. i think it's unfortunate we have

someone on the stage who is attempting to be the democratic nominee for president of the united states who during the obama administration spent four years full time on fox news criticizing president obama, who has spent full time -- >> that's ridiculous. >> spent full time criticizing people on this stage as affiliated with the democratic party when donald trump was elected, not even sworn in, buddied up to steve bannon to get a meeting with donald trump in the trump tower. fails to call a war criminal by what he is as a war criminal, and then spends full time during the course of this campaign, again, criticizing the democratic party. >> susan, this is important. i want to add -- mr. vice president, i'm speaking. >> i have -- >> i'm speaking. >> you have 50 more seconds and then we'll give the vice president a chance -- >> thank you. i want to ask the american people, how calm are you when you were panicked about where you're going to get your next roll of toilet paper? how calm were you when your kids were sent home from school and

you didn't know when they could go back? >> critical next debate as the next big event in an historic and, frankly, unpredictable 2024 election campaign season is where we begin today with some of our most favorite reporters and friends. former senator, co-host of how to win 2024 podcast claire mccaskill, host of the upcoming podcast in sync with alexei mackanin and publisher of the bullwork, sara longwork is here. her group has a brand-new multimillion dollar ad campaign out. it is absolutely smoking. we'll show it to you in a couple of minutes. but i want to start with you, claire mccaskill. on the state of the race and what your thoughts are about how we cover these next 60 days. i think it's really important that we not cover trump on what

he calls kamala harris. because his only campaign strategy appears to be to denigrate her, disrespect her, along with hosts of other people, including women in this country. i really think she has figured out something really important. that is deprive this guy of oxygen. don't engage. if he wants to get out on the campaign trail and talk about his tax plan, if he wants to talk about what he is proposing for this country and he says it with any shred of truth, then he should be covered like a presidential candidate. otherwise, he should just stay in his golf cart eating cheese burgers. i think that's where his campaign wants him because he isn't even campaigning this week. i think they figured out, we can't shut him up, so let's shut him in and make sure he stays on the golf course.

and, you know, covering the fact that he's not working at this, covering the fact that he's lying is very important. but acting as if there's some false equivalency between what kamala harris is campaigning on and about and what trump is campaigning on and about doesn't serve this country well. >> claire, as we head into this week before the debate, what your thoughts about what birch about what will be contrasted before the american people? you and i have had a lot of these conversations on and off tv. i think it's important that we sort of show how we grapple with them. i've spent -- i said this to someone today. i spent nine years orienting myself, especially after the dominion trial and we saw the inner workings of fox news, what they were doing was obviously operating as an arm of the trump candidacy. if they showed trump, i didn't

think we should. i've had strong views about platforming him. when they shut him down and the minute he talks about wind and gas and whatever else he's blurting out, i wonder if we should be showing people that. what are your thoughts about the most basic coverage decisions we make over the next 60 days? >> i think it's hard. i do think it's hard. fox has been cutting him off because he's gotten boring. he loses his crowd about 60 minutes in, even though the most die-hards start wandering away because whatever he calls it, and, frankly, allowing him to call it the weave is so silly. it's not oratory, it's crazy town. they start wandering away after a while because it's boring. his act -- sara has said this, i think, very effectively. and i'm stealing a little bit of her stuff here. >> we all are at this point.

>> his whole act has become very tired. and i think fox is cutting away because it's boring. we should not cover him when he's doing nothing but spewing lies. we should not platform that. if he wants to come on and do an interview, i think that would be one thing. if he wants to talk about policy, that would be another thing. but it is -- it is very hard decision when a major political party has nominated this guy. there has to be coverage, but i think we have to be careful how we do it because we promote something that is not really in the country's best interest if we treat him like he's a normal candidate, because he's not. >> one of the heartening things about all of your data and research and, i, do, find myself quoting you on and off tv, is that the voters see it. they see him as not having any interest in their lives. they are aware of his criminal record. the character stuff has caught

up with him without ever uttering the word character. and i wonder what your thoughts are about these final 60 days. >> let me make a robust case for platforming trump. in this moment -- look, he is the nominee of the republican party. and i think in some ways that's case alone. but i'll tell you, i think it's really important that voters see trump often unfiltered because here's a thing i know from doing focus groups every single week, maybe multiple focus groups for over the last mou many, many years, which is the more voters see of donald trump, the less they like him. when donald trump is less visible, his approval ratings go up. when he is more visible, his approval ratings go down. we want the american people to see him in his rambling, insane glory. the fact is, kicking him off twitter and shunting him over to truth social has essentially

protected a lot of -- it's protected trump and it's kept a lot of voters from seeing -- i mean, if you were to take a spin through truth social, sometimes people grab one or two screen shots and they report on them, but if you just were to look at it as an average voter, you would say these are the ramblings of a deranged lunatic and america needs to know when they're getting when they elect donald trump. when i listen to voters, there's a little trump amnesia. when trump says, were you better off four years ago? the answer is, no, we were stuck in our houses because you mismanaged a pandemic and lied to everybody about what was actually going on. i mean, people have to see what they would get with a second term of trump, which is somebody who is now going into 2024 much older, much less tethered to reality, much less good at articulating his positions on things. so, i say let trump cook and let the american people see him because the more they see him,

the less they like it. >> to that point, he is -- let me just -- let me do what sarah is suggesting. let me show you some of his greatest hits in debate moments. >> it's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of donald trump is want in charge of the law in our country. >> because you'd be in jail. >> we need to put more money into social security trust fund. that's part of my commitment to raise taxes on the wealthy. my social security payroll contribution will go up, as will donald's, assuming he can't figure out how to get out of it, but what we want to do is to replenish -- >> such a nasty woman. you want to call them -- give me a name. give me a name. what rue -- >> proud boys -- >> proud boys. stand back and stand by. >> to sarah's point, he's not gotten better at that. and, i mean, we could have done

that for 20 minutes. there was talking about blood coming out of megyn kelly's eyes and other places. there's telling the extremists to stand back and stand by, which they did, to tragic consequence on january 6th. and this may be the only debate. so, all eyes will be on donald trump a week from tonight. >> yeah, and those clips are a great example, while not comprehensive, as you mentioned, of why he and his team are insisting that the microphone should remain muted. they know he cannot control himself on his own and that his normal behavior is that of an erratic person who is willing to not just say something to interrupt or counteract the other person's point but to denigrate them and to make fun of them or belittle them oftentimes. i think it's likely we will hear some sort of sexist or racist attack against the vice

president at this debate. you remember the mabj conference. trump couldn't even handle a black female reporter asking him a question about his own words without having a meltdown. i think we will see almost the exact same situation, just by way of having a strong black woman standing next to him, going toe to toe with him, and not showing she's afraid of him and his so-called locker room talk. >> you know, claire, someone said to me today that the most damage harris does to trump is ignoring him. that her answer to dana bash in the interview about his racist attacks on her, saying, same old playbook, next question, is the thing -- and trump said the same thing. his nephew said the worst nine days of his life are the worst nine days of kamala harris' candidacy when there wasn't any room in the news cycle for his bizarre rants and ravings.

how do deploy that on a debate stage? >> first of all, she has to do what she does very well. that is pivot and punch. she is a -- you know, i have to giggle whenever anybody says she needs a script. you know, if you've done courtroom prosecuting, if you've actually looked a jury in the eye and been responsible proving a case beyond a reasonable doubt to put somebody in prison and remove their liberty in this world, then you have to think on your feet because there's no script. you don't know what witnesses are going to say. you don't know when objections are going to be made. she knows how to think on her feet. she knows how to pivot and punch. she's going to need to use her sense of humor so people do get this sense that while she's strong and tough, she also can be self-deprecating and she can have joy in her heart at the same time and be easy to live with for four days in your living room.

that's the kind of balance she has to walk. i'm confident she can do it. i'm confident she can get under his skin because she can be dismissive of him. she knows how to do that. i've watched her do it in hearing times on many, many times on committees we've served on together. >> sarah, do you think -- i think you can ask brett kavanaugh or bill barr or jeff sessions how she did questioning them without a script. i mean, is that a model for parts of the debate? what do you think they should deploy next tuesday night? >> look, i would like to make a case for substance. i saw that quote that you played kind of at the lead-in about how she's going to focus on getting under her skin. if i were her, look, this is your chance to really introduce yourself to the american people. they still don't have a firm grasp on who she is. and so i think it's really important that she is strong

talking about policy. people want to know what she stands for because the thing about rattling trump, trump will rattle himself. being on the stage with her will cause him to be undone. she doesn't need to do anything to get under his skin. she is under his skin. i mean, this is a guy who i think can't figure out how to deal with her. so, if i were her, i would focus on showing that you have a strong command of the substance and let trump do what he did in his debate like he did with biden in 2020 where he just howled at the moon like a lunatic. i'll tell you, i remember doing focus groups after that. that was the time that voters said, you know what, this guy's out of his mind. and i think that's who trump is. so, she's got to show people that she is -- she's ready to be commander in chief and this guy is just a crazy man barking from the sidelines. >> you're right, to the degree of where the most effort goes in, trump does a lot of that work for her.

i have a million more questions to put to you. when we come back, i'll show you the latest campaign messages from sarah's group. it's a huge multimillion dollar ad campaign of reformed ex-trump voters talking about why they changed their minds. we'll talk to her about how her group intends to change more minds with nine weeks to go. the fight against abortion bans in our country. why it is not and should not be a women's issue. how more men are feeling comfortable speaking out and working to make it a valid issue and a voting issue this november. we'll talk with the founder of a group doing just that and leading the charge. later in the broadcast, donald trump bringing back all the hits for his third run at the presidency. it's the revenge and retribution tour. we'll look back at how he weaponized doj the first time around and why the next four years promise to be much worse. all those stories and more when "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. don't go anyw.

t-mobile “savings”, take one. ...missed me the last couple... try just standing and say... “at t-mobile, you get tons of benefits and you can still save versus the other guys.” forget it. check out the t-mobile savings calculator to see how much you can save. are these my only lines? they sure are! >> university of maryland global campus is a school for real life, one that values the successes you've already achieved. earn up to 90 undergraduate credits for relevant experience and get the support you need from your first day to graduation day and beyond. what will your next success be? new projects means new project managers.

you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today.

let's say you're deep in a show w or a game or the game. match your job criteria. on a train, at home, at work. okay, maybe not at work. point is at xfinity. we're constantly engineering new ways to get the entertainment you love to you faster and easier than ever. that's what i do. is that love island? okay everyone, our mission is to provide complete, balanced nutrition for strength and energy. yay - woo hoo! ensure, with 27 vitamins and minerals, nutrients for immune health. and ensure complete with 30 grams of protein. (♪♪)

country who will have 2024 presidential ballots in their hands this week. with such precious few days left before the election t is crunch time to communicate with and sway americans who are, as of today, undecided. new today republican voters against trump is flooding the zone with new ads to the tune of $11.5 million across areas targeted -- targeted areas of pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, arizona and nebraska. in addition to a number of billboards showcasing former

trump voters support of vice president kamala harris, the group will air similar advertisements across tv and radio testimonials from former trump voters. watch. >> i'm a two-time trump voter. >> in 2024 i cannot support donald trump. >> trump is 100% -- >> responsible for january 6th. >> mistreatment of women. >> disgusting. >> trump called service men suckers and losers. >> if trump has a second term. >> it will be much worse than the first. >> kamala harris is a prosecutor. >> he's a convicted felon. >> in 2024 -- >> i will -- >> i will be proudly voting for kamala harris. >> republican accountability pac for responsible voting. >> republican voters against trump created and released that ad. sarah, talk to me, i know from talking to you now for years that it's the permission structure stupid, is the new it's the economy, stupid. it feels like the kinzinger

speech and this targeted really smart sort of data-driven work you've been doing, the permission structures there, what's the next step? what needs to happen in the next 60 days to move over a sizeable chunk of republican voters for harris? >> well, look, it's not just about moving republican voters over to vote for harris, although obviously that's a big part of it. we want to reach right-leaning independents, soft gop voters and, like you said, build that permission structure. but we also want to sort of hold together the biggest coalition in politics, which is the anti-trump coalition. it's not just republican voters for harris. it's republican voters against trump. one of the things that i know from doing the focus groups and listening to republican voters for so long is that, look, we'll try to get as many of these voters over for harris that we can, but we know there's a bunch of former trump voters that just

cannot vote for this guy again. maybe they're not democrats and they can't get themselves there. but if they simply leave the line blank, that, too, is good. we are chasing -- we are chasing both net votes, meaning taking one from trump and giving it to harris, and also just subtracting from trump. every -- this is an election that is going to be decided on the thinnest of margins. i mean, obviously everybody's going to hope for a blue wave that crushes trump and sort of eliminates trumpism once and for all, but much more likely it is going to be fighting for absolutely every vote and every inch. because of january 6th, because of trump's uniquely horrific behavior, the way he talks about military service members, because of the abortion issue, there are a number of republican voters, a real meaningful chunk that are unable to get there on him. we're going to try to make the affirmative case for harris

using these trusted measures. this is one of the things we really learned. voters are low trust now, right? they don't trust anybody. the one group they do trust, people like them. so, we've tried to build this new tribe, this tribe of people who identify as republicans and even identify as people who have voted for trump, but who are willing to vote for harris because trump is so uniquely disqualified from being president again. so, that helps hold that anti-trump coalition together and push people to vote for harris, but also just take their votes away from trump. >> let me show you one such voice. this is a retired military voice. >> hello. my name is chris. i'm a retired soldier. i voted for donald trump in 2016. at the end of the day, once the election is over, i'm going to have to look at myself in the mirror and i want to be able to feel good about myself and know that i did the right thing.

there's just no way that i can support a man like donald trump who mocked, disrespected and denigrated every service member that has ever served this nation by calling them a sucker and a loser. i refuse to be a part of that. >> so, i think, sarah, in covering trump you learn that you can't shame people out of their support for trump, but a trump voter shame articulated, to me, is the most tragic and effective thing you can see. and to sort of find that and find someone willing to tell the story on what is, i think, when suckers and losers came out, i believe it was "the atlantic" that broke that story, it was like a finger in the socket moment for me. i knew trump was horrible but that he viewed the men and women who died serving our country as, quote, suckers and losers, gutted me anew. how potent is that argument from someone who describes themselves as a former soldier? >> look, the number one thing that matters to voters or people

who are sort of up for persuasion is authenticity. it is feeling the realness, right? so, everybody's kind of used to political ads. they know that somebody's trying to persuade them. a voter like this isn't so much trying to persuade them as they are trying to speak about their own anguish, their own choices. they're telling a story about something that affected them deeply. that has the impact of moving other people. because they're not being sold a bill of goods. this person is not out for themselves. they're talking about a reason why they, somebody who is a committed republican, someone who even voted for trump, why they can't do it again. and i'll tell you, sometimes the ads that we have that are the most persuasive, the ones that people resonate with republicans the most are the ones where the person is saying, look, i've never voted for a democrat before in my life. i'm not a democrat. i wouldn't. and under different circumstances i might not vote

for a democrat but i'm voting for kamala harris this time because donald trump is so uniquely terrible. that is the thing that moves these voters. there were a lot of these kinds of voters in the states that matter. pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, nebraska, arizona. that's where we're airing these ads. that's where we're pushing these stories out. that's where, if you can move 3% to 5% of the vote, that's the critical margin of victory. >> alexi, trump's campaign staff is famously shrewd and cynical. and runs negative, dark campaigns. that's what they do. what, in your view, should we all be girding for in response to this? >> oh, i mean, as you mentioned, i think they will go to the bottom of the barrel, especially online where they think anything goes to try to discredit, not just kamala harris and her campaign, but any groups like

sarah's who are supporting them, or former republicans who are now having second thoughts about donald trump. but i think the big thing that is going to be difficult for the right to attack or take down is that in many ways, casting a ballot for kamala harris is about so much more than her because of all the democratic leaders coming out of the woodwork to support her. they're giving voters an idea of what these other democratic figures look like, what the democratic party looks like and governs like and acts like under a potential president kamala harris. everyone from josh shapiro to wes moore to all of the female governors across the country who are coming out to support her. folks are seeing a fuller picture of the democratic party and learning more about people who they might not have known otherwise. and that's not something rensz republicans are going to have an easy time taking down because that's a much larger entity than one person or one campaign.

>> thank you for spending time with us today. to be continued. claire sticks around. coming up for us, one of the biggest fights this november will be those statewide bans on abortion access. the issue is front and center. not just for women voters. up next, how men are finding themselves a critical voice in this fight as well. ept me out of the picture. with skyrizi, feel significant symptom relief at 4 weeks. many people were in remission at 12 weeks, 1 year, and even at 2 years. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine or plan to. liver problems may occur in crohn's disease. ask your gastroenterologist about skyrizi. ♪ control is everything to me ♪ abbvie could help you save. donald trump's back, and he's out for control. ♪ control is everything to me ♪ i would have every right to go after them. complete control. i will wield that power very aggressively. and he has a plan to get it.

detailed plans for exactly what our movement will do. it's called project 2025, a 922-page blueprint to make donald trump the most powerful president ever: overhauling the department of justice, giving trump the unchecked power to seek vengeance, eliminating the department of education, and defunding k through 12 schools, requiring the government to monitor women's pregnancies, and severe cuts to medicare and social security. donald trump may try to deny it, but those are donald trump's plans. we'll revenge does take time. i will say that sometimes revenge can be justified. he'll take control. we'll pay the price. i'm kamala harris, and i approved this message. so, you know, han is 22 years old, and we've been together most of my life. not often do you have a childhood dog that, that lives this long so i think it's really unique and special that we've experienced so many, so many things in life together.

knowing that he's getting good nutrition and that he has energy is a huge relief for me and my dad. “such a good little bean.” we're so grateful to have had this time with him, so let's keep it going and make every day special.

experience a complete, 2 week wellness transformation with golo foods. keep it going nutrient packed meals made of pure, wholesome ingredients. heat up your golo meal in a pan or microwave and you'll experience delicious super fuel in under 2 minutes. each meal is mixed with our phytonutrient blend choose from beef, chicken, plant-based or egg. experience how delicious fueling your body can be. kickstart your journey to a healthier you. visit golofoods.com today to start fueling your health one meal at a time. we were told with 100% certainty we would lose our baby

girl, willow, and we were sent home. for three days we waited until amanda was sick enough to receive standard abortion care. i'm here tonight because the fight for reproductive rights isn't just a woman's fight. this is about fighting -- [ applause ] this is about fighting for our families. and as kamala harris says, our future! >> that was josh at the dnc telling the story that all of our viewers know very well because we've had a chance to his wife, amanda, so many times. but he spoke at the convention, talking about what it was like for him to have to watch his wife, amanda, nearly die of sepsis after they lost their daughter, willow. she is who they were pregnant with. this is following the fall of roe versus wade.

josh isn't alone in speaking out and turning that pain and outrage into political action. "the washington post" is reporting more and more men are joining josh and refusing to remain silent about the impact these bans have on their families. quote, growing numbers of men in red states are speaking out in defense of reproductive rights because of the harrowing experiences they've seen wives or partners go through when pregnancies went tragically awry, endangering their health or ability to bear children. some have been staunch abortion opponents. some concede they have given the issue little thought until it hit close to home. a co-founder of men for choice tells "the washington post" this, quote, it's not just about abortion, it's about freedom, it's about power. it is an issue that impacts all of us and the women and family we love. joining our conversation is oren jacobson. claire is with us as well. i dug around a little bit and i found this great piece of data that i know you're familiar with. pew found in 2019 that 6 in 10

men believe that abortion should be safe in all or most cases. i didn't know the numbers were as high. i think for women it's one point higher, it's 73% of women. but men see this issue the same way. some of this is on us in the media. we often frame it as an issue that brings women into politics, but men are asking for a seat at the table as well. tell me about that. >> yes, to your point, most men, america thinks abortion should be legal in most or all cases and that's been true for a long, long time. men for choice exists for one simple reason. for most of the last several decades, it was only been the men who are trying to ban and criminalize abortion who have been speaking out while most of us oppose those ideas and want people to have the freedom to make their own decisions about their bodies and if, when and how they build their families. so, what we've been doing over the last decade, and certainly

escalating since dobbs has been activating, educating and mobilizing thousands of passively supportive pro-choice men in this country to get off the sidelines, to speak out and to take action in support of reproductive freedom because, as i said, in "the washington post" piece, this is not just a fight about abortion. it is about freedom and power, control. and no person can be free if they don't have the power to control their own body and reproductive decisions. >> it's a lot like the framing that pennsylvania governor josh shapiro deploys when he talks about what freedom is and isn't. i wonder if the room, are you going to men and talking to them as girl dads, are you going to men and speaking to them as partners, are you going to men and speaking to them as sons? what is the conversation, the persuasion in the room sound like? >> yeah, so as a starting point, most of what we do isn't actually focused on persuasion at all. it's about activating the six in

ten men who already agree with us but are sitting on the sidelines in this fight. we're talking about tens of millions of people who are already with us va haven't been engaged, that haven't been activated. what we're doing is a peer-to-peer approach, man-to-man conversation. so, you know, if it's somebody like me, i'm a 42-year-old father of three talking to my buddies, we're going to talk about what it means to build and raise a family and whether or not we think it's okay for the government to have the power to control our wife's body and the way we build our families. with a 22-year-old college student, that conversation's going to be looking very different. but in many ways it focuses on what the basic idea of freedom is and whether or not a politician or a judge should ever have the power to decide what i think is the most consequential and important decision people can make in their lives, which is the decision of whether if and how to build a family. >> it's so interesting because when you look at the elections

in kansas and north carolina, where people were surprised by the outcome, i posited to many that there has to be some hidden male vote that causes the margins by which these abortion measures are failing in the red pockets of america. what is the piece of it that keeps the male support or that six in ten hidden? i mean, how much of it is, again, on how we cover it and how do you remedy that in the next 60 days to turn the six in ten of the people that vote on this issue and vote for harris? >> that's a great question. when i think about the referendum, i think one of the beautiful things about a ballot initiative is you're just voting up or down on an issue. which means i don't have to activate around my partisan identity. i can just say in kentucky or ohio, do i think the government should have the power to control this decision, yes or no? it's a more challenging issue at the top of the ticket, per se,

than at the bottom, but our job at men for choice in particular, and i think one way in which the media and others can help, is make sure men understand what's at stake. you started this segment with josh. i've had a chance to spend a lot of time with josh and amanda and derek and anya cook down in florida who have a similar story. more men are starting to see how abortion bans and criminalizations hurt people, families and communities. they're starting to come awake post-dobbs of just how extreme these laws are and how extreme the politicians are that are pursuing these laws. when we have conversations peer-to-peer, in particular man-to-man about what these laws are doing and who is being hurt and how, that can change a lot. we're seeing that in real time. we've had our guys on the doors in florida talking to republican men and having those republican men saying, out loud, we want to

vote yes on amendment 4 to restore abortion rights in the state of florida. >> it's so interesting. i want to bring claire in on this conversation. i want to show both of you how vice president kamala harris and governor tim walz plan to keep this topic and this fight front and center for the next 60 days. a quick break. we'll be right back.

inez, let me ask you, you're using head & shoulders, right? only when i see flakes. then i switch back to my regular shampoo. you should use it every wash, otherwise the flakes will come back. he's right, you know. is that tiny troy? the ingredients in head & shoulders keep the microbes that cause flakes at bay. microbes, really? they're always on your scalp... but good news, there's no itchiness, dryness or flakes down here. i love tiny troy. and his tiny gorgeous hair. make every wash count! and for stubborn dandruff, try head & shoulders clinical strength. right now across the u.s., people are trying to ban books from public schools and public libraries. yes, libraries. we all have a first amendment right to read and learn different viewpoints. that's why every book belongs on the shelf. yet book banning in the u.s. is worse than i've ever seen. it's people in power

who want to control everything. well, i say no to censorship. and i say yes to freedom of speech and expression. if you do too, please join us in supporting the american civil liberties union today. for over 100 years, the aclu has fought for your rights and mine. including the right to read all manner of books. so please call or go online to myaclu.org. for just $19 a month, only $0.63 a day. you can become a guardian of liberty and help protect all the rights promised to us by the u.s. constitution. make no mistake, this move to ban books is a coordinated attack on students right to learn. this is a clear violation of free speech. that's why the aclu is working to fight against censorship in all its forms. it is so important now more than ever.

so please call or go to myaclu.org and become an aclu guardian of liberty, for just $19 a month. use your credit card and you'll get this special we the people t-shirt and more to show you're helping to protect the rights of all people. the aclu is in all 50 states, d.c. and puerto rico defending our first amendment right of free speech and all of your constitutional rights. because we the people, means all of us. so please, call or, go online to myaclu.org today. you didn't start a business just to keep the lights on. lucky for you, shopify built the just one-tapping, ridiculously fast-acting, sky-high sales stacking champion of checkouts. businesses that want to win, win with shopify.

i was in the bathroom of a hair salon and i miscarried. the last thing i remember is my husband's face as he desperately tried to stop the bleeding. when i reached the hospital, i had lost nearly half the blood in my body. doctors told my husband i could die in the operating room. as my husband prayed for my life in the hospital, donald trump sat down the road at mar-a-lago bragging about overturning roe v. wade and calling the apportion bans that he unleashed and that nearly took my life a beautiful thing to watch. >> those are all true statements. that was anya cook earlier today in florida, doing the unthinkable, recounting this personal tragedy that almost took her life, being denied abortion health care and having to miscarry in a bathroom after donald trump delivered on ms. promise to overturn roe v. wade,

more than delivered, bragged about it. cook was part of the harris/walz bus tour which kicked off in her home state. making clear the danger that trump poses and that trump would present all women if a nationwide abortion ban goes into place, as it likely would under his presidency. we're back. claire, the stories are so gutting and so searing. and i think for anyone who's been through anything remotely as tragic as what anya's been through, to see women so strong in their grief and so powerful in telling these stories, is in and of itself a political phenomenon that has completely changed the conversation and the

coverage and the calculation and the politics and the map around this issue in america today. what are you watching as the next 60 days play out around this issue? >> well, i'm watching -- excuse me. i'm watching, frankly, how trump is trying to maneuver around a reality that has set in, that the overturning of roe v. wade was a huge miscalculation in terms of where this country is. and, yes, women and men. by the way, the extreme forces behind this, they have exacerbated this problem for the republican party because not only is it about limiting families' freedom, men and women's freedom to make this decision without the interference of the government, it goes so far to impact whether or not they can have a child.

in my state, an embryo is a person. a fertilized egg is a person. and there are no weeks exception. so, it has really disrupted things in my state and, obviously, you know, for men who think their daughters might be raped, the government of missouri says that that child would have to be born into this world by that rape victim. and that -- this is something that is -- has been taken -- it's like they overturn roe and they didn't realize they had gone too far, so they kept trying to go further. further. and the forces behind this trump tried to flip-flop, he got such a blowback, he was back in line the next day. so there is a minority in this country that have pushed this policy relentlessly for decades, and now they got in their way

and politically don't know what to do with it. i agree with men for choice that the men are the secret sauce here. and i think the conversations that can occur when i encount aeroyoung man who doesn't vote because it doesn't matter to him, i remind him that if his girlfriend gets pregnant in missouri, she cannot terminate that pregnancy. even if she decides immediately, they decide together immediately, they do not want to have a child. i remind men who haven't voted that they need to register to vote because if their wife some day was having a miscarriage, they would be turned away from an emergency room. it's really impacting people, both women and men. it's like the gun thing. most americans disagree with the gun policy in this country, but the politicians have hung on. this is going to be a moment

where the politicians aren't going to be able to hang on and the government is going to have to heed what the people want, and that is freedom from reproductive health care. >> in the interim, the election defeat after election defeat when you're on the other side of the american people including 60% of american men. it's remarkable. we want to hear how this effort goes. if you want to bring along anymore men for choice, i have been fascinated by the data on this. i'm learning as we cover it. please come back and be part of our conversation. claire, wonderful to spend the hour with you. another break for us. we'll be right back. u. another break for us we'll be right back.

you founded your kayak company because you love the ocean- not spreadsheets. you need to hire. i need indeed.

indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire

as we help you frame up your fall calendar, here's another date for you. two weeks from tomorrow, the ex-president is set to be sentenced for those pesky 34 felony counts in his hush money case, a consequence he's still trying to avoid. today prosecutors from the da's office pushed back against the last-ditch effort urging the judge in the case not to delay proceedings anymore after trump tried last week to get his sentencing transferred to federal court and out of this judge's hands. the judge could rule on trump's motion at any point, but he must rule by september 16th on the

motion to overturn the conviction based on the supreme court's immunity decision. he's then set to sentence trump just two days later if he throws that out. we'll keep you updated on all of it as it happened. up next for us, new fears on donald trump's promise and plan to weaponize the department of justice against his perceived political enemies. the next hour of "deadline: white house" starts after a quick break. don't go anywhere. starts after quick break. don't go anywhere. rn shipping to your advantage. with low cost ground shipping from the united states postal service. ♪♪ (vo) you've got your sunday obsession from the united states postal service. and we got you now with verizon, get nfl sunday ticket from youtube tv on us... and a great deal on galaxy z fold6... for a total value of twelve hundred and fifty dollars. only on verizon. (jalen hurts) see you sunday! everywhere but the seat. the seat is leather. alan, we get it. you love your bike. we do, too. that's why we're america's number-one motorcycle insurer. but do you have to wedge it into everything? what? i don't do that.

this reminds me of my bike. the wolf was about the size of my new motorcycle. have you seen it, by the way? happy birthday, grandma! really? look how the brushstrokes follow the line of the gas tank. -hey! -hey! brought my plus-one. jamie?

i know a lot of republicans who want retribution. they want -- we're going sto see what happens. >> if you're elected, define that.

>> look, what i have gone through, nobody has ever gone through. i'm a very legitimate person. i built a great business. based on what they have done, i would have every right to go after them. >> if they want to follow through on this, i could certainly happen in reverse. it could certainly happen in reverse. they have released the genie out of the boxes. they have done something that nobody thought would happen. >> i'm a very legitimate person. how many legitimate people say that? it's 5:00 in new york. he's not hiding it this time. it's not being unearthed by the brilliant journalists. he's saying it out loud publicly in tv interviews that he plans to use the justice department to pursue and prosecute and go after for the purpose of retribution his perceived political enemies if he's reelected president. he has assailed judges,

republican judges, anyone who holds him accountable. he has made retribution and revenge the snernt piece of his reelection campaign. the project 2025 agenda that was written by his former staffers and his former allies explicit ly lay out the architecture for how doj will be aligned with trump's wishes, if he's reelected. but as security points out, trump going after his enemies is not a new feature. it's not a new instinct on his part. when he was president, he did it already. at least a dozen times by their count. they play out 12 instances when trump jews used the department of justice and other levers of government power including by pressuring officials to target his chosen political targets.

incluing when he asked the attorney general to unrecuse himself to investigate and prosecute hillary clinton. the criminal investigation and near prosecution of former fbi deputy director andrew mccabe, and he urged the president of another country to simply open an investigation into his election opponent. which was impeached over, but it didn't slow him down. criminal investigations he directed into former fbi director jim comey and threatening the secretary of state if he didn't overturn trump's defeat in the state of georgia. remember this part of the call with brad raffensperger. >> it's more illegal for you than it is for them because you know what they did and you're not reporting it. that's a criminal, that's a criminal offense. and, you know, you can't let that happen. that's a big risk to you and to ryan, your lawyer. that's a big risk. >> again, nobody following the law talks about doing things

that are more legal than other things. a crime is a crime. now trump's view here that when you're president you can do it, just like when you're famous you can do it, his view he can use and pull the levers of government for his own political purposes is bolstered now by the supreme court and their recent ruling on absolute presidential immunity for presidential acts. it states that a president is free from criminal prosecution for those, quote, official acts. acts, which according to the twice impeached ex-president thinking include interviewing in an election. >> whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election when you have every right to do it, you get indicted and your poll numbers go up. but it was such nonsense. >> the only guy.

some of our favorite reporters and friends. the president media matters angela caresone is back. and writer for protect democracy amanda carpenter is here with us. angelo, i know you are the person we turn to for your granular understanding of project 25025. and i hate asking anybody to put trump's norm busting and proversion of government in any ranking, but tell me in terms of how radical and how much a departure from any of his predecessors, his plans for doj as laid out in his own words in thiz interviews? >> there's nothing like this. the ideas that you don't use

existing levers. even if we were to compare it, you would still be using the levers in a different way. that's not what project 2025 is calling for. what it's calling for is to take the existing levers within the department of justice, wipe them out and replace them with a series of prevetted, pre-designed appointees, who will go in and modify the department of justice is and convert it to an instrument of revenge. it's to go after as many former political opponents, members of the media, other targets as quickly as possible to shock everybody into either ducking and covering and accepting what comes next, or breaking and aligning. that's the difference here. they don't want to use the existing levers. they want to wipe out what's there and build something new into this instrument of revenge. the part this you noted is that one of the things that happened after that supreme court

decision and, it's reflected in the center for renewing america, which is one of the project 2025 partner organizations, they have described what they want to do from day one as eliminating all the post watergate norms. what they said is the president not holding his handle on the levers of the department of justice is not a prctice that needs to be followed anymore. it never should have happened. it was a post-watergate norm. the moment trump gets reelected, that norm goes out the window. that's the best way i can describe it. you can't compare it to anything in the past. >> there's a mistake people make in thinking he didn't travel very far down the road. if it's a marathon, he went about 16 miles. he didn't go all 26. but he wanted john kerry prosecuted. it still happened. the mistake that we make in

covering what you're talking about is misunderstanding how far he went to doing all of that in his first term. >> what he tried to do is speed through a school zone, but there was a bunch of speed bump there is. and that's why it was so difficult to happen the first time around. a lot of these figures that are part of project 2025, a lot of the agents of revenge were all, as you noted, part of the first administration were now going to come back. one of the things that puts clearly into focus is one of the people he was going to use in the last few weeks as he was trying to figure out some way to convert the department of justice into another tool to stay in power that the department of defense into a tool to stay in power. he's a full on accolade. there was a conversation where bannon was describing plans for a second trump administration and he kept reiterating, people think we're kidding, but we're not. we mean what we're saying.

we are going to eliminate all the members of the deep state. when they say deep state, they are referring to the exact same safeguards and slowdowns that you were referring to. the things that they tried to implement in the first administration, those were either norms or individual members of the government that were acting in align with the rule of law. and what they are proposing with the second trump administration is to get rid of those speed bumps, get rid of the individuals, eliminate all the norms that are essentially protected us from them running those last few miles of that marathon the first time around. there's no going back from a second trump administration. >> and bill barr's position in all this i think also gets fogged up because of his frankly calling trump's election

dilutions bull in his taped deposition rehabbed his image in unbelievable ways. the truth is he stuck his thumb on the scale in the sentencing of a lot of trump's allies in a way that repelled the kind of folks he used to work with at the department of justice. people left the department in an unprecedented manner. bill barr also demeaned prosecutors. he likened them to preschoolers, he said why would you leave them in charge. i think what i'm trying to get at is to make sure people understand how far along this project was in trump's term. >> yeah, 100 rs% correct. exactly right about attorney general bar and others, who did put their finger on the scale in contrast to long standing department of justice tradition. which is applied to republican and democratic administrations

that the white house directing or working through the attorney general does not get involved in retail decisions about criminal prosecutions. now luckily, there are some exceptions like the ones with attorney general barr, but in a lot of what's reported in that just security article that pulls together a lot of these attempts to personally use the department as his tool, people said no. don mcgahn said no. jeff sessions said no. i just have no faith that in a second trump administration that those people will be there. the credential to get appointed to those positions will be to go along with this radical change in policy that politics can and should influence the department of justice priorities. and i share the fear if we ever reach that plateau, very difficult to go back. >> i remember when the mueller investigation was sort of nearing its culmination a senior justice official telling me off

the record mueller doesn't get there on collusion. it's hard politically to sustain obstruction. and i was trying to learn information. i took that in. duh this durham thing. and it's not just the people who stood in trump's way who would not be there in a second term. it's the people who said yes who dish don't think anyone as we covered trump's inauguration thought john durham would say yes and become so radicalized he would travel to foreign capitals in search of the most insane conspiracies being pdalled by the right. things that if they were injecting truth serum, even the whackiest hosts at fox news didn't believe in their coverage of them. what do you make of sort of our failure to imagine the john durhams the first time around? >> it's like you're reading my mind. i feel like that was a really

great list that they put together proving that trump has attempted to do these things, but it is even more important to focus on the things that he actually was successful in doing. i feel like trump gets away with a lot because people think he's not capable of doing these authoritarian things. i think it is always most useful to point right back to what he did effectively do in his first term. if you want to look at the weaponization and the abuse he's capable at the department of justice, yes, look at the threats that he continually made to lock hillary clinton up, but then look at what he did was successfully able to do. and that does bring you to the durham report, which really didn't get a lot of attention because it was such a thud and didn't make good on any of the conclusions that it kept promising and promising to deliver. but at its base, that was report in which he commanded the department of justice to investigate the investigators of

the mueller report. as a form of retribution for what he thought he suffered in his first term. that happened, but it was such a slow roll and it's kind of hard to follow because it was so laced with conspiracy theories. but that did happen. just like a number of other officials chased down crazy conspiracy theories in the final days of his presidency trying to prove them true so that he could hold on to power. if there's any kind of through line, jd vance, even when he defends donald trump now as his vice president from these outlandish wild things that trump promises to do, particularly when it comes to prosecuting people, he will say, you know what, i prefer someone be unscripted. he's just talking. it's not just talk. donald trump has been consistent on message, on brand about this stuff since 2016. even last week, his reaction to the new indictment from jack

smith was to go ahead and charge and say that the january 6th committee should be indicted for sedition and going on a number of things, calling on barack obama to go to the military tribunals. this is stuff he says all the time. the other guests were absolutely correct. the only thing that stopped him from being effective were that people that said no. there were checks and balances in the system. when he talks about that i have a right to interfere in the election, that's the same thing that he thinks he has the right to use the department of justice to go after anyone who may stand in the way of power. that's why he's such a uniquely authoritarian threat. he believes that is his right to do as president and that is absolutely contrary to what our skpras rule of law stands for. >> this is where we still fall down on the job, not you, but me. at covering the threat he represents to the rule of law, what are your thoughts on how we

bring this into sharp relief into voters? >> i think it's really important to -- i have struggled with this too. trump has been a fixture of our conversation for so long that the impressions, ideas, notions about him are calcified. to pick up on what was being said, it can be hard to believe it because there's this character part of it. there's some that's part of his brand, but he wouldn't really do those things. he's just trying to win. it's just talk. it's not real. i think one of the things that i landed on is that so much of what he says is actually fruit of a poisoned tree. it's coming from a larger sort of right wing media landscape. that's part of the reason the project 2025 discussion has had such penetration. it's not that the ideas were new, but the branding, the narrative about it was new. it helped people look at it from

a different framework. i think the one thing that can be helpful here in connecting the dots on trump is as we talked about trump, to also be mindful about where some of these things are coming from. when you see the figures and where the ideas are originating from, the extremist elements, but they are building power on what used to be considered the fringes. now he's moved the fringes front and center. i don't think most people fully appreciate that to your point. that's what's helpful. we need to start talking about these as the fruit of the poion tree. >> to me, when you talk to other sort of doj veterans, what do people make of the fact he wants military tribunals to meet out justice for liz cheney? do people laugh that off or how does the country prepare for that? >> you need ultimately facts to follow through on those commitments. i don't think anybody

practically worries there will be any consequence. it doesn't mean there won't be allegations. allegations are debilitating and have consequences. so yes, people fear the weaponization even if they believe the fact and the truth are on their side. i think you have to zoom out from justice and look more broadly at the way the former president attempted to use multiple agencies to forward personal political goals. you look at what happened with the department of homeland security with the direction that they focused more on the black lives matter protesters opposed to extremists who were on the assent in this country. the attempts to use the department of defense to potentially invoke the insurrection act and go aggressively toward the protesters in the summer of 2020. general milley had to repeatedly push back against the former president's desire to use the military for his personal political aims. is a it's not just justice.

it's across the board. this is a person that fundamentally looks at these agencies as tools of his own exertion of power, and that's just not the way the system has worked. again, not just in democratic or republican administrations, but in american history. >> to tim's point, he sicked the irs on jim comey and andy mccabe. we talk about guardrails. milley was a one-man guardrail. as you have warned, those folk would not be around in a second trump term. what happens then? >> i think it's helpful to think about what happens on people who aren't actually the direct targets of these kind of threats. i think you're already seeing a negative effect where trump has been successful in intimidating people. i'm thinking of it's a trite incident, but it's ill straightive that the foundation contemplating giving liz cheney some kind of profile award for

her work on the january 6th committee, but they actually backed down. they decided not to give it to her. the reporting came out that afraid their tax exempt status maybe revoked if they took a stand in giving liz cheney her due, should trump be elected in a second administration. so we can look at these threats from trump and be like, okay, maybe he wouldn't do that, maybe he wouldn't be successful, but it has more intended affect beyond that. we have scholars that study this stuff. there's a term called anticipate toir obedience. you make threats to scare people who aren't just the targets so they actually effectively scurry away. in order to resist this authoritarianism, you need to maintain that broad coalition of people to hang together. but these kind of threats, they scare people. they don't want to be the targets of it. you have a lot of rent-seeking business interest who is say,

hey, my tax exemption might be taken away. you saw people play around with the stuff in georgia. companies like coca cola took a stand to support voting rights. on desantis threatening to take away tax exemptions for disney. so yes, the targets of these attacks will have a lot to withstand. you will see people who are courageous, but what effect who should be supporting them and standing up to it too. it's stadly effective. >> it's such a good point. thank you all so much for starting us off with this conversation. when we come back, new revelations about a drug kingpin whose life sentence for killing a law enforcement officer was commuted by donald trump on the last day of his presidency. that murder has now been convicted after being pardoned

by trump of strangling his wife. it's after he was set free by donald trump. we'll bring you that new reporting, after a short break. later in the show, tracing the history of political violence. db db will be our guest. it could describe 2020, but instead chronicles an earlier era with valuable lessons as important and relevant today. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. k break. don't go anywhere. ♪billllllle!♪ ♪now mesh boosts wifi all over your home.♪ ♪hooommmmmmeee!♪ for a limited time get a free upgrade to home internet plus. just $50 bucks a month. (♪♪) hey what if we move ballet... ssshh just hold on and let me think. we just have too many children. ugh we have one child and that's not funny. it's funny, it's just not constructive. we need a miracle.

miracle every thursday starting at 2:45. sure. can i tell you something? i hate this calendar. find childcare that fits your schedule at care.com your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire arearn: saint jude-- they gave it 110% every time. and for kenadie to get treatment here without having to pay anything was amazing. when we started feeding bogie the farmer's dog, he lost so much weight. pre-portioned packs makes it really easy to keep him lean and healthy. in the morning, he flies up the stairs and hops up on my bed. in the past, he would not have been able to do any of those things.

(♪♪)

behind every splenda product is a mission. helping millions of people reduce sugar from their diets. now try a sweetener grown by u.s. farmers. introducing zero-calorie splenda stevia. at splenda stevia farms, our plants are sweetened by sunshine. experience how great splenda stevia can be. grown on our farm, enjoyed at your table. (♪♪) during donald trump's pardon and comation spree as he left

office, he commuted the sentences of two criminals who have since been charged with domestic abuse. according to reporting in "the new york times" today, a man whose life sentence in federal prison was commuted in 2021 by then president trump was convicted this spring of a misdemeanor charge of assaulting his wife. the man was sentenced in florida to three months behind bars in the domestic violence case. davidson had been previously kwibted of murder for his role in a robbery that led to the death of an undercover police officer. the news of his new criminal status comes on top of another trump pardon recipient being arrested last month for punching his had 75-year-old father-in-law in the head and assaulting his wife. it's quite the record of granting clemency to violent felons for a presidential candidate, who is somehow seeking to portray vice president kamala harris, the prosecutor, as the one soft on

crime. joining our conversation is mike smith, on the new piece of reporting. so you spent a lot of time looking at the kinds of people trump pardoned. it turns out that the kind of person he pardoned went on to beat their spouses. talk about these two pardons as trump gets ready in a week. we can only assume. >> i think that of all the different things in the trump administration that we have never had a full understanding of is the pardons process. how was it that these individuals were able to get to the front of the line when they didn't go through the normal justice department process of vetting pardons and commutations. and we spent a lot of time on jonathan braun. this is someone who had been convicted of being a drug dealer, but was under investigation for being a

predatory lender. just a couple of weeks ago, he was arrested on long island after punching his 75-year-old father-in-law in the face as he tried to shield his daughter from him. when the police interviewed jonathan braun's wife, his wife told the police that he had beaten her twice in the previous five weeks and braun not only has been arrested for violence, but it was known on the public record at the time that donald trump commuted jonathan braun's sentence that he had a violent history. it was in public court documents. if the justice department had gone through the the normal process of vetting the clemency, it would have seen that. >> so how does he get pardoned by trump? >> we know that the braun family knew the kushner family and went

through jared kushner's father to ensure that the application went to the white house. we know allen disturb wits saying his case had been a miscarriage of justice and that he was deserving of clemency. braun was under investigation by sdny at the time. he had just been sued by the new york state attorney general. he had just been sued by federal regultors. this was all on the public record. the case that we wrote about today, another one where the violent history was known. he had been commuted for his role in this murder of a police officer, and his case which we didn't know until they brought to light this morning started in 2023. he was first accused of this in

2023 and it wasn't until earlier this year that he was sentenced. >> so connect some dots. how does trump pardon two wife beaters? is it indifference? is it cutting out doj? is it because the pardon process was corrupted and so no one could warn him of the character of the people he was pardoning within presidential pardoned have vexed both parties, but stst it's unprecedented to pardon people who would go on to beat their wives and be charged and convicted of those crimes. >> trump claimed there was a commission that vetted all his picks. there was no process. and the willy nilliness of the white house was exploited by those trying to get their applications before the president. they were able the to cut to the front of the line in the way that other people weren't. under the obama administration,

they issued a lot of pardons and commutations, particularly on drug cases. that was undertaken through a vast process where they went back to the prosecutor who is brought the cases and said, hey, we're thinking about giving a pardon here. you were the prosecutor on the case. that's the normal way that a clemency application is dealt with. that's not what happened here. and these weren't secrets, the things that i'm telling you about. all of this stuff was known at the time. >> tim, this is where our broken politics continue to service donald trump. because in republican politics, in the '70s and '80s, lights out. if this were on the other side, if this was a democratic nominee for any office who had commuted the sentence of anyone who went on to be violent punching a

wife, to have pardoned two wife beaters is in the old pre-trump politics before gravity went away, lights out disqualifying, end of story. >> right. do you remember willie horton? >> of course, i do. >> he lets a guy out for -- not even personally, but his government in massachusetts lets a man out of prison for a weekend who commits an awful crime. that becomes the most significant political ad of that fall campaign and did direct damage to mike delaware caught kiss. i question whether these two important stories that mike and his colleagues at "the new york times" have uncovered will have the same effect. you're right, we're in a different world now. this is an example of an extension of what we were talking about before the break of the former president disregarding norms of the department of justice that have been observed for years. there's no question that constitutionally, legally, the president has complete power to pardon anyone. the presidents of both parties

have put in place systems to guide that discretion to prevent against these kinds of mistakes, where these things are vetted at the end of the obama administration, there was a process to consider a potential resentencing in drug cases that went back to the former prosecutors. no such process took place at the end of the trump administration. our committee uncovered evidence of people calling up the chain to trying to sneak pardons in at the end for january 6th related conduct. that was discussed and considered. there was no adherence to the guardrail process that weighs pardons. there ought to be consideration. he disregarded another example of the former president blowing through these time-tested checks and balances. >> so the only thing i'm going to disagree with you on is what voters will think about these stories.

i'm going to break with what is planned here. i'm going to quote voters care about what i tell them to care about. we'll continue this conversation. we're going to ask you to stick around. we're going to bring in dana bash. she has a new book about violence. it has importantless sons. we'll get to that after we pick up this conversation on the other side of a break. don't dpo anywhere. e other side of a break. don't dpo anywhere introducing kardiamobile. with kardiamobile, the fda-cleared smart device, you can take a medical-grade ekg in just 30 seconds from anywhere.

every morning i check, make sure i'm in good shape. and it makes me feel pretty good about my heart condition. kardiamobile is proven to detect atrial fibrillation. and it's fda-cleared to detect normal heart rhythm, bradycardia and tachycardia. i mean, you might as well be in doctor's office. get yours today for just $79 at kardia.com or amazon. now, hsa/fsa eligible.

joining our conversation is dana bash. she's the thor of a new book. but because you're here and in the roop the and having this conversation, you have moderated a debate. you have just interviewed kamala harris and tim walz. tim made the point that this may not be what it would have been in a another political moment. you have a candidate that pardoned two men who would go on to beat wives and be arrested and prosecuted for battery. we know donald trump is likely to attack kamala harris for her record on immigration and crime. he's the guy who comuted two wife beaters. >> first of all, hi. it's so good to see you. >> you have to write more books so we can have you here. >> i think he's right it's not what it would have been, but it doesn't mean that it's not going to be a thing. particularly, since the minute

kamala harris rose to the top of the ticket, i was hearing from people inside trump world that their biggest attack against her was going to be her record and things that she did when she was a prosecutor and then locally attorney general in california. this should, if you look at the basics of this, which is excellent reporting, this should make that not only a wash, but make it perhaps more of a liability for donald trump than kamala harris, particularly since her whole campaign has been for the people. >> and how much of that is on us? >> maybe it is on us. and it's also because one of the hallmarks of trump and trumpism is so much noise. it's like hard to keep track of so many things that he does,

that he throws out there, whethers it is things like this, which is his record and moves that he's made that have ramifications or things that he says that we have to cover because they are remarkable in so many ways. so i think it's still the volume question that we have to keep in mind and decide where the focus is. >> i think one of the things that consumers of news get frustrated by is our inability to see any single story as a warm knife through cold butter. i would pause as why isn't someone who is only free because of donald trump beating their most intimate parter in on the planet, why isn't that one of the stories? >> i don't know. maybe it could be. this just came out. you just broke this story. so maybe it could be. i want to maybe caution that it is like that warm knife through

cold butter. it's a way to really drill down on where we are and where we aren't. and when i started covering politics, there was a thing. there was an october surprise, there was a moment, there was a story that was like the story. i'm not saying it's impossible, but it is harder. and i do think going back to that, it's because the narrative is so noisy and there's so much that we're getting on our phones that we're hearing from our own information streams that are pushed to us from the algorithms that see what we're all doing. there's so many factors in how we consume media that that's a big part of it. >> i want to ask you about how those things get bumped up to the top. i want to ask you about your book. i want to thank you for jumping in on this breaking news story. we'll thank our other guests and move on to the book. thank you for being here after breaking this story.

but thank you. tim, thank you for sticking around and rolling with our extended coverage. maybe this is one of those stories. maybe women look around and think the only thing worse than being facing a threat of physical violence from your partner is that someone running for president would deem to pardon them and then go on to be able to do that. we'll see. we'll dive into the book after a short break. stay with us. o the book after a short break. stay with us (vo) you've got your sunday obsession and we got you now with verizon,

get nfl sunday ticket from youtube tv on us... and a great deal on galaxy z fold6... for a total value of twelve hundred and fifty dollars. only on verizon. (jalen hurts) see you sunday! nothing dims my light like a migraine. with nurtec odt, i found relief. the only migraine medication that helps treat and prevent, all in one. to those with migraine, i see you. for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura and the preventive treatment of episodic migraine in adults. don't take if allergic to nurtec odt. allergic reactions can occur, even days after using. most common side effects were nausea, indigestion, and stomach pain. it's time we all shine. talk to a healthcare provider about nurtec odt from pfizer. your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire narrator: when we, the people, rally for a common cause, we become beacons of hope.

stand with saint jude against childhood cancer this september because our cause unites all. [laughing] donate now. we always had dogs, they're like my best buddies. yep, had them my whole life. c'mon bo! so we got him and he is a, an absolute joy. daddy's puppy. once we got on the farmer's dog he just attacks it, it's incredible. they're so tuned into you and they have such, such personality. being without a dog, i don't know, can't imagine it. [laughter] hi, my name is damian clark. if you have both medicare and medicaid, i

have some really encouraging news that you'll definitely want to hear. depending on the plans available in your area, you may be eligible to get extra benefits with a humana medicare advantage dual-eligible special needs plan. all these plans include a healthy options allowance, a monthly allowance to help pay for eligible groceries, utilities, rent, and over-the-counter items. the healthy options allowance is loaded onto a prepaid card each month. and whatever you don't spend, carries over from each month. other benefits on these plans include free rides to and from your medical appointments. and our large networks of doctors, hospitals and pharmacies. so, call the number on your screen now and ask about a humana medicare advantage dual-eligible special needs plan. humana. a more human way to healthcare.

he suggested you happened to turn black recently for political purposes. questioning your identity. >> same old tired playbook. next question, please. >> that's it? >> that's it. >> next question. it became an instant classic. the veteran political journalist conducting that interview is our guest cnn's chief political correspondent dana bash. her new book is a guide to history for surviing the political crucible. it's called "america's deadliest election." that could describe the 2020 election aftermath, the deadly insurrection on january 6th, but dana's new book tells the tale of another chapter in our

nation's history from more than 150 years ago that has unmistakable parallels to today and offers an urgent lesson about the history of political violence in our countcountry. it's so good and so important. how did you decide to carve out time to do this? >> my coauthor david fischer came to me with the idea, quite honestly. it's been a little busy. and the reality is that i really didn't know much of anything about this part of history, which i felt like, shame on me. i went to a terrific public school in new jersey, but i didn't learn about this. >> i didn't know about it either. >> most people don't. and we have to know our history. you love history. i love history. and if i had known about this incredibly chaotic, violent moment in our nation's history

before the 2020 election, i would have covered it completely different. >> so tell us a story. >> the story is, in a nutshell, it's after the civil war. reconstruction is the era. and there is a new ability for freedman in the south to vote. there was a carpet bagger named henry who went from the north down to louisiana. he saw an opportunity for power. that's what he wanted. so he courted the black vote. he won and became governor. then the segregationists, the democrats in the south, saw, oh, our way of life is really almost over if we allow black americans to actually vote and become as powerful as we are. so they took the next election in 1872 and they intimidated black voters, they were violent against black voters, and the whole system was completely

corrupted. as a result of that, nobody would concede. it ended up there were two governors, who were actually inaugurated, two legislatures, two sets of judges empanelled, and it was chaos. there was violence as a result of all that chaos, so much that there was a massacre. 150 black men were brutally slaughtered. the whites who did it, they were prosecuted on a federal level because the state officials knew they wouldn't be able to really convict them. they lost. they did it on civil rights charges. it went all the way up to the supreme court. the crook shank decision is what came of that. anybody who goes to law school or people who are really focused on this part of history knows that the crook shank decision took the federal government out of civil rights on the state

level and then we got jim crow. so it was this election that directly led to the horrible jim crow laws for 100 years in this country. >> why do you think this isn't taught? >> i don't know. it's a great question. i'm hoping that the discussion that we're having now, there's a little bit more of a discussion nationwide. i know former president obama is doing a project on reconstruction and that era. there is more of a discussion about it. it's the violence and the chaos and uncertainty. what happens when the electoral system is compromised, then if you fast forward, which is also in this book, to 1876, that you also in this book to 1876, that presidential election, because the electoral votes in louisiana and other states were so corrupted, in congress they wouldn't accept the slates of electors, and there were debates then about the authority of the

vice president, how much he could do to push back on the electors or not. we ended up with a situation where it was even, the electoral college was even, because there were four states that couldn't be counted. there was a commission, a back-room compromise. one guy decided the presidential election because of all of that chaos. >> you said at the beginning if you had known of this story, you would have covered the 2020 election differently. how? >> we were all in shock -- not surprised, but shocked. i think you probably felt the same way, but if we learn or history and know what happened back then, the violence and the insurrection has happened before. i mean, there were calls back then by people in the streets of new orleans, hang him, hang him.

>> hang mike pence. >> the exact same calls were done against a candidate for governor back then, kellogg. as surprising as it was on january 6th, 2021, i frankly would have been less surprised and more informed about what i knew about the very violent history, not just this, but the violent history that's also part of the american electoral story. >> is this weird to be out doing other before view. you've been at the center of every political story this summer, and to help us learn this chapter of history you didn't know about either, is this a weird experience for you? >> i think what is the weirdest right now is to hang out with you on tv. i'm honored to be here, but also with you, we met a long time ago

covering bush, and game good friends. i feel like i've gotten a lot of advice through you, and we helped each other through tough times, and i feel honored -- and happy times in our lives. >> there's so much. we could have talked about two hours happening in the news. what are your feelings about the next 60 days? >> um, i am just buckling up. >> are you prepared? are you anticipating in preparing personally for violence against? >> yeah. prepared for the worst, and then you're pleasantly surprised if it doesn't happen. aren't you? i mean, you cover this every single day. >> so do you. >> we have to. >> the new normal. >> we learn from the recent history of 2020 and 2021, and that's enough to get us prepared. >> thank you so much for coming. write more books, so we can have

you on more often. thank you to be here, and thank you for jumping on with the breaking news. "america's deadliest election" the. it's out today. you don't want to miss it. another break for us. we'll be right back. another break for us we'll be right back. conflict is raging across the world, and millions of children's lives are being devastated by war, hunger, disease and poverty. we urgently need your help to reach children in crisis. please call or go online to give just $10 a month. only $0.33 a day. we need 1000 new monthly donors this month to help children in crisis around the world and right here at home. you can help us provide food, essentials, and lifesaving medical care to children in the most need.

in the darkest times children suffer the most. you can help by calling right now and giving just $10 a month. all we need are 1000 monthly donors. please call or go online now with your monthly gift of just $10. thanks to generous government grants, every dollar you give can have up to ten times the impact and when you call with your credit card, we will send you this save the children tote bag as a thank you for your support. your small monthly donation of just $10. could be the reason a child in crisis survives.

show them they're not alone. please call or go online to givetosave.org to help save lives. is the plan to take more territory? >> i would not tell. sorry, i cannot speak about it. it's like the beginning of this operation. with all respect, i can't speak about it. i think that the success is very close to surprise. conceptually, you have this territory now -- >> conceptually, we will hold it. conceptually, we will hold it. fascinating interview with volodymyr zelenskyy. he was talking to my colleague

richard engel, talking about how ukraine will hold the territory it seized last month. as they try to force president vladimir putin to the negotiating table. earlier today, two ballistic missiles hit an educational institution. he posted -- you can see more of richard's conversation tonight. we will be right back. tonit we will be right back. your doctor when added to hormone therapy. verzenio reduces the risk of recurrence versus hormone therapy alone. diarrhea is common, may be severe, or cause dehydration or infection. at the first sign, call your doctor, start an antidiarrheal, and drink fluids. before taking verzenio, tell your doctor about any fever, chills, or other signs of infection. verzenio may cause low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infection that can lead to death. life-threatening lung inflammation can occur.

tell your doctor about any new or worsening trouble breathing, cough, or chest pain. serious liver problems can happen. symptoms include fatigue, appetite loss, stomach pain, and bleeding or bruising. blood clots that can lead to death have occurred. tell your doctor if you have pain or swelling in your arms or legs, shortness of breath, chest pain and rapid breathing or heart rate, or if you are nursing, pregnant, or plan to be. i'm focusing on what counts. talk to your doctor about reducing your risk. ♪ taking care of your family is hard work, especially when schedules change. join the 29 million people who have turned to care and find support in your area for kids,

seniors, pets, and homes. all from background-checked caregivers, rated and reviewed by people like you. that's hours and hours of goofing around. hundreds of 'lovely afternoons'. mile after mile of w-a-l-k-ses. and acres of expertly cleaned floors. find care that fits your schedule, go to care.com now. is it possible to count on my find care that fits internet like my customers count on me? it is with comcast business. keeping you up and running with our 99.9% network reliability.

and security that helps outsmart threats to your data. moaire dida twoo? -your data, too. there's even round-the- clock customer support. so you can be there for your customers. with comcast business, reliability isn't just possible. it's happening. switch to reliable comcast business internet with security and get started for $49.99 a month. plus ask how to get up to a $500 prepaid card. call today! thank you for letting us in your homes. his, ari. >> thanks so much. it's official, we have a big show for you tonight, including later in the hour ld