can i just tell you, and this is all caps, thank you so so much. it's neat that those of you on the call are part of protecting the future of our court and they appreciate it. >> he said our court. they appreciate it meaning the justices. not just ginny thomas who is the spokesperson for her husband. these interest groups need justice thomas to say where he is and lavishing him with gifts so he'll remain on the court. it's not that different from the russians paying right wing influencers huge sums of money to do what they are doing. clarence thomas is just the tim pool of the supreme court. urt. very well, you do a great job, and we're going to be connecting the clarence thomas dots in a different direction in a few months, butin that's a good one.

great show. >> thank you. okay, so yesterday propublicaes published a recordg they obtained of the president and ceo of a conservative group called the first liberty institute, and on the tape the president reads his donors an e-mail that the first liberty institute got from ginni thomas. >> g i got an e-mail today from ginni thomas, justice thomas' wife, so i want to read that to you. you guys have filled the sails of manyll judges. can i just tell you thank -- and this is in all caps -- thank you so, so much. >> to understand how exactly inappropriate that e-mail is from the wife of a sitting supreme court justice you have to first understand what it is that firstst liberty institute actually does. >> we're the nation's largest law firm exclusively supporting religiouslu liberty. we've

recently won four supreme court cases. we win over 90% of our cases, which is unheard of the in the legal world. and at the supreme court our record is nine wins and zero losses. >> that is correct. the organization that ginni thomas was thanking so profusely is a law firm that specializes in trying to change the law by bringing cases before the supreme court, you know, the court where ginni thomas' husband, clarence thomas, is a sitting justice. even if you don't know first liberty by name, you may know some of the cases the group has brought before the high court. first liberty h sued to strike down the state of maine's ban on using public founding to pay for religious schools. they represented that bakery in oregon whoseey owners refused t make a cake for a same-sex wedding. and they brought a big case opposing vaccine mandates for religious groups. all of those cases made their way to the supreme court, and

first liberty won all of them. but that actually isn't the work ginni thomas is praising in that e-mail to first liberty. ms. thomas was thanking the group for theiras work on this kind of stuff. >> so now they're coming right out and saying it. political elites from the radical left want to overthrow the supreme court. so how do they plan ongoing about this? by flooding the supreme court with cronies. in other words, by installing a permanent automatic majority. soto what would you call it whe there's an attempt to overthrow an a entire branch of our government? let's call it whatf it is. a supreme court coup. where have we seen a coup like this before? venezuela under hugo chavez. >> in the wake of the supreme court's numerous and recent scandals many of which involve clarence and ginni thomas first

liberty has been playing defense. they have been publishing articles and running ads and essentially operating like a pr shop for scandal ridden justices. they even made a website to what they call the liberal supreme court coup. and amazingly in the recordings that were obtained by propublica, the president and ceo of first liberty says the quiet part out loud. he says first liberty is defending the court in public because the justices themselves cannot do so on their own. here is kelly shackelford this time referencing a case where first liberty represented a group of navy s.e.a.l.s who did not want to take the covid vaccine. >> it reminded me of the s.e.a.l.s. whenhe the s.e.a.l.s know how t

fight but they can't fight in court.t and when we came to them, they were so appreciative because we were doing something for them they couldn't do, and these judges are that same thing. they can't gome out in the political sphere and fight, and they know they're trying to protect the existence of the court, and so it's neat that, you know, those of you on the call are a part of protecting the future of our court, and they really appreciate it. >>ia really appreciate it. that is the group ginni thomas is thank youing for its work. a thank you e-mail, by the way, she sent after she held a meeting with the first liberty staffer, a staffer for a group that is fighting for her husband, clarence thomas, in the court of public opinion. a staffer for a group that will undoubtedly continue to bring major law changing cases before her husband at the supreme court. and the fact that ginni thomas and a conservative activist group like first liberty are this cozy is a real problem both

in theory and in practice. the supreme court is supposed to be ath neutral arbiter of the l, but the reality is that it is dominated byit incredibly conservative justices with clear ideological agendas that may, in fact, be significantly influenced by outside conservative activists. and today we got a powerful reminder of why that really, really matters right now. today waste the first hearing i former president trump's federat election interference case since the supreme court granted trump limited immunity more than two months ago. it was the first hearing in nearly 11 months because the whole thing got put on pause while the supreme court deliberate. and the firsteme order of busi today was for the prosecution ande the defense to present thr cases as to what can and cannot still be charged given trump's limited immunity. on that front judge chutkan was incredibly candid.

we're hardly sprinting to a finish here, she said. we all know -- we all know whatever my ruling on immunity is it's going to be appealed and that the taking of that appeal will again stay this case. judge chutkan knows that whatever she decides, it will all end being appealed very likely all the way up to the supreme court, the court where clarence thomas sits. now, the other issue before the court today was the argument from trump's lawyers that the entire case should be thrown out on the premise that the appointment of the special counsel, jack smith, was unconstitutional. and to advance that argument trump's lawyers cited who else? justice clarence thomas. specifically they cited thomas' note -- i guess is what we'll call it -- in his immunity opinion, which called into question the appointment of the special counsel. here's trump's lawyer, john

lauro. what i'mn saying is the court should consider this issue and justiceue thomas directed us to raise this issue and suggested that we do it immediately in light of his view in that concurrency. judge chutkan, thomas directed you to do that? here's trump's lawyer. well, i shouldn't say that he absolutely thsaid, you know, do it, but when you read that opinion it is absolutely clear that's something we have to do now to preserve this issue. joining me now former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district offo new york, and ankush, thank you both for being here tonight. clarence thomas being cited directly in all of that, it's very clear that trump's lawyers enjoyed his direction or at least paid attention to it. i want to talk a little bit about what unfolded in the courtroom today, tonia. judge chutkan seemed incredibly

resistant to the argument that handling this business before the election would be bad news. she says, quote, this court is not concerned with the electoral schedule. trump'sdu lawyer -- we're talki about thela presidency of the united states, and we're entitled -- judge chutkan -- i'm not talking about the presidency of the united states. i'm talking about a four-count criminal indictment. bam. what'd you think of that? >> bam. it is she is resetting and making clear to of course the parties in the case and to the public that this case is just like any other case, and it will proceed according to the schedule that any other defendant would be entitled to or subject to. so that -- and she repeatedly said that. she made very clear i think john lauro, the defense counsel at some point said we shouldn't rush to judgment here and chuckled and said, no, you know, this has been --

>> we're notno rushing into anything. >> no, this r has been over a year, and it's been tied up in litigation in superior courts. so i think she just made clear that we're going to do things the way we ordinarily do and despite the not i guess direction but invitation by clarence thomas. so she sat a pretty tight schedule as the proceedings were over. as much as she said she's not driven by the election and the case is not driven by the electoral calender, the briefing on the immunity issue will be completed by the election. andhe that's the way it should for any case. it's the happenstance of the calender, not of the campaign or the election. >> let's look at the calender for a second. the immunity arguments of the calender there is september 10th, turn over all required evidence. september 26th, which if you're following along at home, that is

a day to mark on your calender. that's the deadline for the special counsel to submit their opening brief. october 17th is when trump's team can respond to the special counsel's filing. and october 29th is the deadline for the special counsel to file its reply. i need not remind us election day is november 5th. october 29th is the conclusion of what we expect to be an intense back and forth between these two teams. how much do you think we're going to see publicly of the informationli that's presented? >> well, look, that is the big question, and you're exactly right toyo instruct people to circle the date on their calender. i d literally did that on my phe this afternoon. >> did you circle it on your phone? i'm sorry, gon ahead. >> digitally. excuse me, not literally but figuratively. the government is prepared to submit evidence to the court including pled and unfed facts,

meaning facts not u alleged in the indictment, and that submission could come in the form of grand jury transcripts, interview transcripts, and documents from discovery. the big caveat is whether or not the government decides or believes it is appropriate to put some or even most of that information under seal, which is something the government, in fact, alluded to today. now, that process itself could get messy. i imagine media organizations would fight that effort. judge chutkan may not go along with utit, but she may very wel agree. ordinarily material is not supposed to be kept out of public dockets except in narrow circumstances, issuesar that mit indicate potential harm to witnesses or prejudice to an ongoing investigation. but it's pretty clear to me from reading the transcript this afternoon that the government is actuallyhe treading kind of lightly here and even though not explicitly is at least

implicitlyic trying to be a lite cautious heading into election day, so i'm hopeful we'll see a lot ofho new information, but w really won't know until we get closer potentially on september 26th itself. >> do you read anything into chutkan's refusal to proceed with the realities of the day to say there are rare exceptions to keeping this under seal, so i am going to make this information public? >> i do. i think at every turn she has signaled that she is not giving special dispensations to this criminal defendant. and so if she deems after she receives the briefings that it is necessary or important for this informationry to be made public, and that's assuming as ankush said that the government tries to seal it, it is ultimately her decision, she will decide whether or not it should be sealed and whether

she's going to have an evidentiary hearing. it's usually in her discretion. even though it's days before the election. >> and there's another piece of this which is whether or not clarence thomas -- sorry -- special counsel jack smith should be taken off this case entirely. the calender for sort of resolvingof this dispute octobe 24th trump's team submits the motion to dismiss the case. halloween, the special counsel replies. tth, which is two days after the election. lord knows what's going to be happening on that front is the deadline for trump's team to reply. judge chutkan did not seem to favor the notion special counsel smith wasci unconstitutionalall appointed. i think she said she did not find judge cannon's call on this topic in mar-a-lago not particularly persuasive.

it is unusual to have a judge v. judge situation playing out in public view? >> playing out at a high level, yes. it's not that unusual for district court judges to disagree onou issues. in this particular issue it's unusual because judge cannon's order was a real outlier. there is controlling d.c. circuit court opinion that binds her. even if she wanted to agree with aileen cannon and said it was unpersuasive, she couldn't because she is bound by the d.c. circuit's ruling. after we go through some years long process, justice thomas seems inclined to agree with that argument, but for now i don't expect judge chutkan to give it much credence. >> he summoned the specter of clarence thomased so i have to ask. judge chutkan seems remarkably resigned to the appellate

process here that any decision she makes is going to be appealed. that's how trump does it. is this all dust to land in the lap of the supreme court? >> yes, it will. it's a question of how long and, you know, once the election is over, i mean i guess that's the only if, right? if trump should win a second term then all bets are off and perhaps the whole case will be dismissed, and then in that event it likely won't be appealed. but, you know, i think judge chutkan very squarely sees the issue for what it is and has already said, look, she's not setting a trial date now because she understands that it will go up the circuit again into the supreme court, andin so what's e point of putting dates on -- >> there's no trial date -- >> ankush doesn't have to circle that date on his calender. >> he literally said years potentially until this trial begins. it literally t feels it's the

beginning of a face off between a district court judge, judge chutkan, and the conservative bent of the supreme court. we'll see what happens there. thank you guys for making the time and giving us the scoop. coming up the trump-vance solution to combat the skyrocketing cost of child care is to call grandma. but first the presidential debate does not take place until next week, but donald trump is already claiming it's being rigged against him. we're going to have trump's prebuttal to his debate performance and why d he might doing that right after this break. nce and why he might be doing that right after this break. safe step's best offer, just got better! now, when you purchase your brand new safe step walk-in tub, you'll receive a free shower package. yes, a free shower package! and if you call today, you'll also receive 15% off your entire order. now you can enjoy the best of both worlds! the therapeutic benefits of a warm,

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kamala harris and donald trump have never met face-to-face, and in only five days that will change. next tuesday harris is trump will be on the presidential debate stage together in

philadelphia. yesterday abc news released the official rules for that event, which both campaigns agreed upon. and despite that, trump is insisting that abc has somehow rigged the debate. which would seem to be trump's version of a prebuttal just in case he flames out. >> abc is the worst network in terms of fairness. they are the most dishonest network. the meanest, the nastiest, but that's what was i was presented with. i was presented with abc. her best friend is the head of the network. her husband's best friend is married to the head of the network. and they're going to get the questions. i've already heard they're going to get the questions in advance. >> joining me now is charlie sykes, co-founder of the bulwark and msnbc contributor and columnist. charlie, we all know donald

trump isn't like legacy media, media as an institution. but i sort of weird more into this prebuttal on the debate is rigged. do you have a working theory why he's doing this right now? >> it's very much donald trump. it's on brand. he walks in and turns the board over before you even begin the game. he is trying -- as you said it's a prebuttal. he's playing the pre-victim card and all of this whining is designed to make him an object of sympathy for his base. he's challenging abc. i said you're going to do all these terrible things, i've told lies about you, now you need to bend over backwards to be nice to me. again, this is donald trump. this is someone not a mystery, not a secret, not a riddle or enigma. he's going to go in there and do

everything possible to derail this debate. we can talk about the substance of it, but i think anyone expects this is going to be a reprise of-lengthen, douglas has not been paying attention over the last ten years. >> i was going to say, charlie, our standards have been significantly lowered from that. but props to you for conjuring the ghosts of lincoln and douglas. i also think there's the reality that donald trump has been saying some crazily incoherent stuff in recent interviews and events and on the trail. and it may not be some personal cognizance that he's not the man he used to be, but, wow does it sound addled. i want to play this is trump about a week ago at a rally in lacrosse, wisconsin. let's listen. >> you take a look at bacon and some of these products and some people don't eat bacon anymore.

and we are going to get the energy crisis down. this was caused by their horrible energy, wind. >> i guess somewhere there's a linkage between bacon consumption and the energy and wind and he goes onto talk about birds. we made light of the fact he talks about hannibingal lecter now. while it was just six weeks ago another was forced out of the race because of concerns about advanced age and declining menal acuity the other party doesn't seem all that concerned. he is much more incoherent than he has been, and that was a low bar. >> right, and you saw that again today where he has this rambling absolutely incoherent gibberish

when asked about how he would lower day care costs. this was the political story of 2024. it was the cognitive decline of joe biden. why has it not continued to be a leading story? i'm really glad you brought this up because this is preview of the debate. as i mentioned before this is not going to be a debate that is going to center on policy because what you see with donald trump is a mind as devoid of information as it is lacking in any sort of discipline. what he's going to do is go in there and he's going to throw anything he can up against kamala harris. every insult, every bit of disinformation. and it's a real challenge. it is a challenge for both the moderators and for the vice president to deal with somebody who is unbound by the truth and is not going to engage in any kind of a substantive policy debate because, frankly, i don't think he's interested in that. that is not what he is going to be aiming for in the debate.

what he's going to be aiming for is to muddy up kamala harris, maybe drag her down into the mud. but it's not going to be, you know, a particularly edifying experience for any of us, i don't think. >> you know, i was interested, charlie, in the fact the harris campaign wrote a letter to abc news expressing its displeasure that the mics will be muted at the debate. they said the mic muting will serve to shield donald trump from direct exchanges with the vice president and that harris will be fundamentally disadvantaged by this format. do you -- i mean what do you make of that argument? >> well, i don't think it fundamentally disadvantages her, but i also think it's kind of an insight into what they hope will happen, which is donald trump will be donald trump. let trump be trump here and trump will, in fact, continue to blurt out, interrupt her, will, in fact, put on display many parts of his personality and character that have turned off

so many americans, maybe remind american voters why they defeated him four years ago. so it is interesting that, you know, she is taking this particular position, but i don't think she's fundamentally disadvantaged. on the other hand, donald trump may be somewhat protected against his worst instincts and worst behavior, but i don't think it will ultimately make that much of a difference. >> protected against his own long-winded jabs about bacon and wind. charlie sykes, thank you for joining me tonight. i appreciate you. >> thank you. coming up the past 24 hours saw both trump and j.d. vance deliver equally ridiculous answers to a very simple question. what do you do to make child care more affordable in this country? whose answer was worse? that is next. whose answer was worse that is next ith hiv, craig leard he can stay undetectable with fewer medicines. that's why he switched to dovato. dovato is a complete hiv treatment for some adults. no other complete hiv pill uses fewer medicines to help keep you undetectable than dovato.

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he's been waiting to update his equipment! there's a smarter way to save. comcast business mobile. you could save up to 70% on your wireless bill. so you don't have to compromise. powering smarter savings. powering possibilities. i think what donald trump is really trying to do is be pro-family. i think what i have said is that we want our country to be more pro-family. there are, though, policy positions behind my view the country should become more pro-fomally. it's become way too expensive to raise a family in this country. you have a lot of young women today who say they'd like to have more children but for some reason for health or financially they're not able to. we want to be able to solve that problem. >> that has been his pitch. he is pro-family. he will make the republican ticket more pro-family, and he has policy solutions to remove

the economic barriers preventing america from becoming more pro-family. last night at a turning point action event in arizona, maga pundit charlie kirk gave j.d. vance to put a little detail on those policies. >> it's very hard for working families to get by. how will we lower the cost of day care? >> such an important question, charlie, and i think one of the things that we can do is make it easier for family models to choose -- or families to choose whatever model they want, right? o one of the ways you might be able to relieve a little bit of pressure on people who are paying so much for day care is make it so, you know, maybe grandma, grandpa wants to help out a little bit more, or maybe there's an aunt or uncle that wants to help out a little bit more. if that happens, you relieve some of the pressure on all the resources we're spending on day care. >> grandma and grandpa, they're so much cheaper than day care. there's a couple problems with

this. first of all, not every new dad or new mom has a living parent. second, many millennial and gen z parents are moving away from their home bases in large part because housing has gotten so expensive. a recent pew research center study shows only 55% of americans live within an hours drive of their extended family, and the 55% of americans who do live close to their parents might encounter a different problem. their parents are often still working because either they want to or because they have to, which means that dropping everything to to watch the grandkids actually comes at a cost. j.d. vance himself knows something about this. remember this old j.d. vance interview, which resurfaced last month? >> it makes him a much better human being to have exposure to his grandparents. and the evidence on this, by the way, is super clear. >> that's the whole purpose of the post menopausal female. >> okay, set aside for one

second j.d. vance agreeing the whole purpose of the post menopausal female is to to watch her grandkids, which is just, okay, j.d. vance. that exchange was about vance's mother-in-law taking a yearlong sabbatical as her post as a molecular biology professor so she could look after j.d. vance's children. and this shouldn't bear complaining but not every working grandparent is a biology professor who can tempitarily or permanently leave their job to to watch the grandkids. many of them aren't even able to retire until after age 75, but according to j.d. vance the federal fix for day care costs is to phone grandma, the post menopausal female, that's her purpose. as for his running mate, donald trump, he detailed his own -- i don't know -- plan to lower child care costs earlier today. >> if you win in november can you commit to prioritizing

legislation to make child care affordable? and if so what specific piece of legislation will you advance? >> well, i would do that. and we're sitting down -- you know, i was somebody -- we had senator marco rubio and my daughter ivanka was so impactful on that issue. it's a very important issue. but i think when you talk about the kind of numbers that i'm talking about that -- because the child care is child care. you know, it's something you have to have it. in this country you have to have it. but when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers i'm talking about taxing foreign nations. >> child care is child care. you have to have it. i'm going to talk more about what exactly is going on with this republican ticket when the great maya wily joins me coming up next. t maya wily joins me co up next.

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one the ways you might be able to relieve a little bit of pressure on people who are paying so much for day care is make it so that -- you know, maybe like grandma, grandpa wants to help out a little bit more. or maybe there's an aunt or uncle who wants to help out a little bit more. >> the trump-vance plan for rising child care costs is make your grandparents to watch the kids. a 2022 survey found that 40% of americans between the ages of 55 and 64 did not even have a

retirement account, which probably makes it somewhat challenging to drop everything and go baby-sit. joining me now is maya wily, president and ceo of the leadership conference on civil rights. maya, it galls me the republican party purported itself to be the party of the working class and understands the economy and you have literally the vice presidential nominee out there proposing a solution that has nothing to do with the economic hardships faced by working people in this country. >> they actually have nothing to do with understanding what most people in this country's lives are like. it's like when george bush ran and didn't understand how cashiers worked at the grocery store. you're like where do you live and who do you talk to? because, i'm sorry, it's both they want to raise the retirement age for social security benefits. >> yes. >> the thing that half of americans have to rely on in order to retire and then maybe be a care taking grandparent. >> yes.

>> or what if your mom gets alzheimer's or your dad has a stroke? then what are you supposed to do? not only that, what if you moved away from your family because you couldn't afford the housing, the two most expensive costs of living for parents is housing and child care. and, you know, take the -- i'm sorry what about the woman who is working in a pre-k as a teacher earning $40,000 a year with her own young child, and she can't even afford the tuition for her own young child in the program she's teaching in, but you want to tell her that her problem is that she had to get an education. >> yeah. >> so maybe you have cats. i don't know. >> i have two little ones, and i love my mom but she's not going to be a full-time caregiver for

them. i feel like this statement on the part of vance is so important to unpack because it hits at everything you're talking about. it hits at the social safety net, which republicans want to gut. it's something like there's a vast number of retirees that depend on social security benefits for 90% of their income, right? they want to slash those. they do not care about health care in any meaningful way. if your parent has a stroke and is a designated child caregiver, what do you do then? there's the cost of housing this is obviously numb to, and there's a fundamental, you know, equity. >> it's making up a fantasy about life in america, a fantasy you wish was true and real. because my biggest fantasy after having and starting my family was that my mom would be living at home with us, and we did a three generation household, and she got alzheimer's. right? and, look, i was one of the

hucky ones because we had a two paycheck family and could pay the child care. in the de blasio administration when i was counseling the mayor when we did an analysis on universal pre-k we knew we were putting $5,000 a year back in the pockets of families. it was an income strategy that also benefitted the educational futures of children. that's called problem solving that understands what people's lives are like. what they want to do is create a fantasy and then force us to figure out how to eat, pay the rent, and get some good care for our kids without any help. >> well, with the no federal solution to a structural problem in our economy. the other part of it so weird that keeps happening with j.d. vance is his obsession with controlling women, right? it's the role of the post-menopausal female. his recent jag about how women need to be having babies earlier, his obsession with when and how and if women have --

bear children, the concerns he has about declining fertility. i mean all of this paints a very sort of odd, dare i say weird portrait of a man who is at once obsessed with the control of womens bodies but completely out of touch with the realities of them. >> and has a working wife as he denigrates women. >> and a working grandparent. >> and a working grandparent who's a faculty member. it's like what world do you want? because really what it sounds like you want it all and that means women are stuck with nothing. but it's also what is exactly so alienating about it. because take child care, 95% of people were either owning a child care facility or working in one is a woman, and yet those child care facilities are making 1% profit. i mean the working poor, the women working in those facilities are the working poor.

they're working and they're poor. i mean what does that tell us about this fn taes about women performing these jobs and also the fantasy about work and then the denigration of women who have actually figured out a way to make it work. >> that's so true. >> it's like we're going to penalize you no matter what. and you and i know this because you and have have had to work and raise kids and raise other people's kids. >> and our moms worked even when they were post menopausal. we played some sound of donald trump giving an absolutely garbled incoherent answer how to handle the cost of child care. in the end he gets applause because i don't know they felt bad for him. honestly it's completely meandering and nonsensical. and i guess i wonder, like, does the absence of policy, does the absence of true connection with the struggles of working class americans, does the utter

incoherence and mendacity of this platform really just no longer matter to any of its adherents? >> clearly. or they wouldn't be adherents. but i think this is the thing. i think there are a lot of people starting to say wait, what? project 2025, you want to end head start programs? so we're talking about child care. that blueprint, that plan that was created by trump administration officials as well as that base actually has a plan that is very clearly making sure that regular folks without regard to their politics don't get what they need. but here's the other thing. it isn't working. and there are a lot of people starting to scratch their heads and go what. and i think one of the things we have to address is the double standard in the media and the

coverage because let's face it, that was incoherent. why are we talking about his cognitive abilities to be president? >> well, listen, we try. we're trying, maya. he'll be putting them on center stage on tuesday night at the debate in philadelphia. j.d. vance will keep j.d. vancing. maya wiley, thank you for your time and thoughts. it's great to see you. coming up republicans latest push on so-called election integrity is beginning to look a lot like jim crow 2.0. that is next. stay with us. w 2.0. that is next stay with us

i think it's unfortunate but sometimes the only way you can find out is to look for ethnic names. we don't want to be doing anything illegal. that quote is from "the new york times" reporting today about a recording of republican activists discussing ways to

keep undocumented immigrants from voting. look for ethnic names. this is a solution in search of a problem. across the country rerepublicans at all levels from activists to state officials are implementing strategies reminiscent of those used during the jim crow era despite the fact that voter fraud remains vanishingly small. this week in texas the attorney general vote sued to stop -- republican activists in a rural georgia county accused an election official of recruiting undocumented immigrants to vote because she asked poll workers if they spoke spanish. and a gop activist in detroit recommended hanging up signs in ethnic neighborhoods warning people not to vote if they were not eligible. joining me now is ari berman, national voting rights correspondent at mother jones and the author of "minority rule

the right wing attack on the will of the people and the fight to resist it." we thought of you and i feel this edges right up to the line of being legal and illegal. how are such tactics possible in the 21st century? >> well, alex, what trump and his republican allies are doing is they're pushing the latest version of the big lie by fusing voter fraud paranoia with anti-immigration hysteria. and they feel like if they can make people believe noncitizens are voting, which they are not, they can not only build support with new restrictions on voting, but they can also build support on new restrictions on immigration, which then furthers the goal of trying to preserve conservative white power on multiple fronts. that's why you suddenly hear them talk about this issue so much. >> i do wonder the suggestion

they should look down the rolls and zero in on ethnic names, i mean how is that -- how is that legal? >> it's not legal. i mean it's basically a form of racial profiling in voting, if that's indeed what they're doing. and there's a lot of disturbing precedent here. i'm in texas right now. this is a state where they tried to remove suspected noncitizens from the rolls a few years ago. they ended up removing a lot of naturalized citizens from the rolls instead, of course that were disproportionately hispanic. this is state where recently you had s.w.a.t. teams ralding the homes of 87-year-old women who are trying to assist people for voting. i think what they're trying to do is get people to not only believe things untrue, but this is going to have a chilling effect on voter participation, and it's going to have a chilling effect on the communities that republicans

don't believe are going to vote for them. >> can you talk more about the chilling effect? because it does seem hanging signs that warn people in ethnic languages they could be subject to criminal charges if they vote, you know, unlawfully, seems like literally textbook voter intimidation, right? even if you are here legally, maybe you're just worried, maybe there's some statute you've run afoul of, and maybe you shouldn't go into that voting booth. what kind of efforts are there underway to make sure that kind of tactic does not succeed in keeping people away from the vote? >> well, i think it's just part of the broader voter protection efforts we're seeing in 2024. they're going to have to be larger than ever this year because we're seeing so many different attempts to try to restrict voter participation from intimidating people into not voting, passing new laws to make it harder to vote, challenging election law certification so even if people overcome these barriers, their votes could still be thrown out. i mean this is kitchen sink

strategy by republicans to make voting difficult in so many different ways, and there has to be an overwhelming effort to make people think they can vote, that their vote will be counted, and they should be able to do so free of intimidation and free of fear. >> yeah, it seems like it's two fold, right? there's an initial attempt to get people to stop them from voting, and there's a secondary after effect of suggesting publicly if you're a republican state official or election official that there was shicannery, that something illegal happened at a certain county whether it's bayer county or fulton county or dekalb county or metro detroit. that's where there's concern of something can happen after the fact. what is your concern this can all be a longer preamble to crying udfraud after election day? >> they're not just doing voter suppression on the front end but doing voter suexpression on the

back end as well. and the voter suexpression on the back end is dramatically worse, because if you throw out votes altogether is the ultmal voter suexpression strategy, which is what we're seeing them trying to do. it's clear they're both taking steps to undermine election, and if those fail they're going to claim the election was rigged like they did in 2020. and remember last time this happened we had an insurrection at the capitol, so we have to take this very seariasly. >> you are a wealth of knowledge on this very distressing topic. that is our show for tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. as a parent, do i want my kid's school to have additional security? no, of course, don't. i don't want my kids to go to school in a place where you feel like you've got to have additional security, but that is increasingly the world we live in. >> republican vice presidential