ould never be a home wrecker. oo this is a good book title. good morning. it is sunday, september 8. 58 days until election day.

i melissa murray filling in for my friend ali velshi, who has the day off. in just a couple of days, harris and donald trump will finally meet each other in person for the first time. the two candidates have never even spoken to each other before. but on tuesday night they will go head-to-head in a 90 minute debate in philadelphia. the debate will certainly highlight the campaigns, contrasting visions for the future of america. and as you imagine, they are preparing for the upcoming meeting in very different ways. harris has been in pittsburgh since thursday where she's doing debate prep with a little campaigning on the side. yesterday the democratic nominee visited a local spiced or where she met with workers and patrons and bought seasonings but most of her time in pittsburgh has been spent inside a hotel where she's been huddled with a team of advisers hitting ready for tuesday. harris hasn't participated in a debate since facing mike patton during the vice presidential debate four years ago but she told reporters yesterday that she is ready to face trump and this morning we are already getting word about her plans for after the debate. the vice president and her

running mate tim walz, and their spouses, will barton storm the swing states getting later this week with harris scheduled to appear in north carolina on thursday in pennsylvania on friday. as for donald trump, his campaign has repeatedly said his strategy does not involve any former -- formal preparation. he does not study for debates like most candidates and instead his campaign says trump holds informal sessions with advisers. they also had his many campaign -related events have repaired him to debate anyone at any time. but if the past week is any indication of how his debate prep is going, they may want to rethink the strategy. when asked about his childcare policy during an event at the economic club of new york on thursday, the republican nominee gave a vague and meandering answer that was nearly two minutes long during which he came to the realization that, childcare is child care. a day later during his remarks to the fraternal order of police in charlotte, north carolina,

trump opposed drug dealers, sex traffickers and anyone who kills a police officer should be punished with quote, a strong death penalty and that is really in wisconsin yesterday he ruled out a new plan to modify the 25th amendment to make it an impeachable offense for a vice president to cover up a presidents mental incapacity. it is an obvious and baseless political jab at both harris and biden. is just another unserious talking point trump presents as something he could do as president. but none of this is actual policy, it is purely political bluster meant to garner attention because this is mostly a vanity campaign. trump simply repeats whatever ideas he thinks are convenient for him at the moment and that can change from one hour to the next. the candidate doesn't know what his own policies are and that makes it difficult for voters to really know what they are voting for her. joining me now to discuss all of this is molly jong-fast,

special correspondent for vanity fair and msnbc political analyst and host of the fast politics podcast, also david road, the senior executive editor of national security for nbc news and author of a brand- new book, where tyranny begins, the justice department, the fbi and the war on democracy. molly, donald trump said that childcare is child care. and that made it pretty obvious how absolutely unserious he is about this job. he wants power but not necessarily responsibility and a highlights why it is important to get him to stay on policy during this debate. what is the best way for the harris campaign to nail him to the wall on policy? >> i think that is a really good point because a lot of times trump is giving a pass, because he speaks in shorthand, he says this, he says that but the reality is, and again we have talked about this idea, rupert's idea that there is sane washing going on, when you repeat his life, if you are not

completely clear and you do not write them verbatim, you make him sound like in an canada and it is important that we in the mainstream media don't do that. but i would say, trump doesn't have a lot of policy and the thing that is so important, that reporters need to do, and also in debate questions, i really think it is important, is follow-up questions. so how you do that, how do you pay for that, what does that mean, what does that look like, how would you implement that because a lot of the time with the childcare answer he goes on to say that terrace are wildly inflationary terrorists are somehow going to pay for child care. >> a lots of work for the debate moderators but trump is again, still staying on his message. he posted another long diatribe statement on truth social life and it read in part, quote, when i win, the people that cheated will be executed to the

fullest extent of the law which will include long-term prison sentences of this depravity of justice does not happen again. we cannot let our country further devolved into a third world nation and we won't. this is a kind of rhetoric that you describe so well in your new book. what is the point of this and why has he sang this, and to whom is it directed? >> i want to thank our colleagues julian frankel and vaughn hillyard who saw the post and wrote it up. it is serious because it is part of a strategy. he asked erratically but he is systematic about what he's doing. and it is sort of to intimidate people come is what i was told by one legal expert. and it will make it official, let's say trump claims fraud, he is saying when i win the election, that this will -- the only way he can lose is if there is fraud. they will feel the pressure to actually follow-up on his demands that people be investigated, people be executed. under american law, you are not to be prosecuted unless there is probable cause, basic evidence. >> i have heard of that, yes. >> so this is him laying

groundwork for a campaign to go after to say he's cheated out of the election and b if he wins, prosecute his enemies. sparkling the seed for this and ultimately hopefully they will bear fruit for him, that is his plan. >> and building on a pattern i saw in his first term where he did -- i didn't find the bias whether it was pro-trump by a store and a trumpet bias in the justice department and fbi i found a lot of people worried about providing for their families. worried about getting pensions revoked, like andy mccabe, and of the tactics were effective. people didn't want to be involved in the mar-a-lago search, these highly politicized, highly charged cases are lose-lose if you are a career dressed department or fbi official. >> molly, for those of us trying to figure out what the policies are, and it seems like at least one policy is to deter how individuals of the justice department do their jobs and another policy donald trump has mentioned, a proposal masquerading as policy is to amend the 25th amendment. and

again, as part of the same rhetoric. he is essentially putting critics on notice, here it is, here specifically, but why should his supporters taken seriously? these aren't real policies. these aren't about bread and butter issues. is about clinical vengeance. >> what i would say is you need to take seriously is the authoritarian streak and trump, which does lead to project 2025, which is an authoritarian handbook. it is you know, take apart the administrative state, get rid of nonpartisan government act errors, create a trump driven doj. and i think look, trump, what he's doing here with that truth social post, is that he is saying that people need to obey. this is timothy schneider idea of like, when authoritarianism comes, the goal is to get people to obey in advance and the most important thing is that people do not do that, that people stand up to

democracy and they don't go along with what the authoritarians want because that is the road to the end of democracy. >> how likely are trump supporters to understand this, as blossoming authoritarianism? >> the thing is the republican party has tried to sell authoritarianism to them, so sometimes they will say things like democracy hasn't worked for us. i don't know that they completely understand what crony capitalism will do to our economy, what it will look like. i don't think there is a great driving middle-class in russia but you wouldn't know because there's no free press. >> david, let's switch to the justice department. talk about what happened this week. we saw that there have been two indictments against donald trump and only one of the cases has gone to trial successful in securing 34 convictions against donald trump. this week judge juan merchan said he is going to delay the sentencing in that case until

after the election. of course we know that in the other cases like the january 6th election interference case, we likely won't have any movement on that until after the election. so is this a situation where the justice system, as a whole, is broken and we will not see accountability. the voters will not know whether one of the president -- candidates for president was in an effort to unseat the waiting candidate in 2020. >> clearly the trials aren't going to happen. there's rolls by judges and looting the supreme court that has helped to delay the process but i will be honest, people in the justice department feel that it is a difficult, and awkward thing to try to have the judicial system solve the country's political differences and that it turns out that it is difficult to quickly prosecute a former president who has tremendous lawyers and resources. so it turns into being a projected and complicated process but it is a very dangerous moment. there's this pattern of trying to weaponize these departments and that it hasn't happened under garland, maybe he was cautious. he thought if he obeyed the

rules that will restore public trust in the justice department and that has not necessarily happened. and one last note, jamie raskin, the firebrand house member on the january 6th committee said it is important to investigate the facts but also said it is important in the end to win this politically and that is what justice department say will resolve political differences through elections. here we are. >> in your book you detail what it was like during the trump administration for the department of justice, to be weaponize as essentially a branch of the oval office. what is the likelihood and what do you fear if donald trump is elected again, of transforming the doj into again, a public defender's office for the president or prosecution's office for the president. >> a key thing is project 2025, which we talk about. the president appoints 3000 appointees. it would be expanded beyond that, he could have large numbers of people doing exactly what he wanted. the fbi has one political appointee, the director. that person is supposed to serve a 10 year term.

that did not happen with jim comey. you see massive politicization of the department and it is very dangerous. and i would emphasize again, people that fought, that resisted him often underestimated him. one person told me, i thought the presidency would change donald trump and instead, donald judge -- trump change the presidency. >> donald trump is changing his ideology it seems. he wrote in an article molly that both trump and his running mate j.d. vance are trying to moderate their positions on a number of issues including abortion. and women's rights as they make it appeal to swing voters. is this pivot something we should believe in or is this more political expediency? >> a great example is j.d. vance. he is hot on the child tax credit but he voted, when the child tax credit -- credit was up to expire he did not show up for the vote in the senate. so republicans didn't support the child tax credit in 2023

and the idea that now they are going to implement it and the same thing with ivf, republican senators didn't vote to codify ivf and now saying donald trump is saying he's going to mandate ivf and everyone is going to have ivf. he's going to make ivf -- this crazy thing where the government will pay for ivf and if the government doesn't pay for ivf we will make sure every insurance company pays for ivf. okay, and that is the thing. all of the voting records say different things. and again, in 2017 trump tried to overturn obamacare so this guy is trying to take away her health care saying he will make it so everyone can have free ivf. i don't buy it. >> we will hear more about this on the debate stage in philadelphia on tuesday. mileage on, david road, thank you for joining us to get us started. we will break open our copy of project 2025 , disaster peace theater and shine the light on criminalizing and

erasing lgbtq americans. inflation can be caused by lots of fact yours but when it comes to food, it is easy to tell when it is caused by price- fixing and there is a way to stop it. later, with control of congress at a tipping point and 34 senate seats up for grabs, i will talk to former montana governor steve bullock and former senator doug jones about the swing state races that will decide the balance of power in the next congress. xt congress.

narrator: what drives us? is it something bigger than ourselves, an ideal that connects us? st. jude and fedex are driven by the pursuit of curing childhood cancer. but the drive is not ours alone. it's in every family, hoping for a cure, every act of kindness, every donation. join fedex in helping st. jude save more lives. st. jude, the drive is in you.

pete g. writes, “my tween wants a new phone. how do i not break the bank?" we gotcha, pete. xfinity mobile was designed to save you money and gives you access to wifi speeds up to a gig. so you get high speeds for low prices. better than getting low speeds for high prices. right, bruce? jealous? yeah, look at that. honestly, someone get a helmet on this guy. get a free unlimited line for a year when you buy one unlimited line. plus, get up to $800 off google pixel 9 phones. switch today! we are following breaking news out of kentucky. a manhunt has resumed near the city of london, kentucky were last night around 7:00 local time, a gunman opened fire at several vehicles on interstate 75. at least five people were seriously injured in the

attack. kentucky state police have named a person of interest. is been identified as 32-year- old joseph a couch of woodbine, kentucky. couches at large and considered to be armed and dangerous. joining me now, live from london, kentucky is nbc's priya sridhar. what is the latest on the ground in london? >> reporter: the manhunt just resumed a little over an hour ago and as you mentioned, 32- year-old joseph a couches being identified as a person of interest, not a suspect, is considered armed and dangerous but they believe they have him basically penned off into a wooded area near where the shooting took place. a sheriff deputy described the scene as chaotic last night. they say that he was shooting into both north and southbound lanes of interstate 75 and that there were gunshots through vehicle windows and the five injured, one of them was shot in the chest, one was shot in the head and the other in the arm. all said to be at table condition and obviously praying for a full recovery.

let's take a listen to what the laurel county sheriff department public affairs officer had to say about the search. >> everyone is tore up and worry of course. i have been in law enforcement here for 48 years and i can ever remember a situation such as this. with us knowing the approximate area we need to search, and the number of people we have and the special teams we are going to have come including our special response team, i just feel like we are getting him today. i really do. >> reporter: we don't know much information at this point, about a potential motive or what kind of weapon was used or even exactly how the person of interest could have carried out the shooting. we don't know if it took lice from an overpass, inside a car or on the side of the road. that official did tell us it appears though it was random. of the five people injured,

only one of them was from kentucky. we will continue to follow this for developments. but that was nbc's priya sridhar, in london, kentucky. think you for the update extract coming up, inflation -- i will talk to the director of the -- why price-fixing and inflation may net -- be to blame for the high prices and what can be done about it. it. (♪♪) evan, my guy! you're helping them with savings, right? (♪♪) i wish i had someone like evan when i started. somebody just got their first debit card! ice cream on you? ooo, tacos! i got you. wait hold on, don't you owe me money? what?! your money is a part of your community, so your bank should be too. like, chase!

♪♪ vicks vapostick provides soothing non-medicated vicks vapors. easy to apply for the whole family. vicks vapostick. and try new vaposhower max for steamy vicks vapors. the biden administration is turning attention to corporate is fixing out of a broader effort to help american family struggling with a high cost-of- living. inflation can be caused by lots of factors including supply- chain disruptions, high demand and labor shortages. but with food, it is usually much easier to tell when it is caused by price-fixing. that is because while inflation has slowed, grocery prices have

remained elevated. leading many to speculate grocery retailers are using inflation as an excuse to raise prices beyond what is justified. as part of the government's efforts to curb the practice, the federal trade commission recently sued to block the proposed merger between two of the nations largest grocery chains, kroger and albertsons. the ftc said the archer would stifle comp addition allowing the mega chain to continue manipulating and raising prices. at a recent trial, a senior kroger executive actually admitted the chain raise prices on stable items like milk and eggs beyond what inflation justify. a practice that is typically known as price gouging. democratic nominee kamala harris pledged to tackle corporate price gouging within the first 100 days in office including enacting a federal ban on the practice to be enforced with financial penalties. with more on this, i am joined by robert chopra, director of the consumer financial protection bureau. welcome. i have some questions.

what is the distinction between price fixing on one hand and price gouging on the other, but it's been a long time since i took econ 201. what is the difference? >> when you walk down the aisle of the grocery store, it may look like there is 100 different cereals or 50 types of soap. that in many cases, the items are owned by two or three companies. when it comes to the supermarket they may have all sorts of names, all over the country but there's really just a handful of the big supermarkets that run at all. so often when we talk about price fixing it is about companies coordinating, colluding to push up prices rather than innovating. and we have seen this all over the economy, including when it comes to renting apartments. a company real pitch was sued for fixing rent between landlords. so that is the kind of collusion that can often be

criminal. price gouging is often when you are just jacking up the price to exploit a particular situation like a disaster, a pandemic, or some type of disruption to the economy. the bottom line, it is a way to pump up profits without doing anything to serve your customers better. >> and democratic at nominee kamala harris has taken aim at price gouging as an assault on the middle class. she propose a federal ban on price gouging that would come with financial penalties, and this is in addition to the 87th dates that already have similar prohibitions on price gouging within their jurisdictions. how would this federal ban work in practice and how would interact with the state bans and dirty seven jurisdictions? >> we have a number of state bans and we have seen how individual states of all types have gone on to enforce it during the pandemic. a lot of companies said, we have a supply-chain shortage,

we've got to jack up the price. but then the supply-chain shortage goes away like diapers or so many things, those prices stay high. so there are lots of efforts to strike at prices, especially when it comes to companies sidestepping the law and the national law, we have some on the books today, that we need to enforce and we may need new laws to make sure that companies are competing and not cheating. >> it is really about shoring up the system and plugging any gaps that access -- exist because some states don't have a ban on the books already. >> we have to look at the individuals were calling the shots, when it comes to price- fixing. the cfpb is very focused on repeat offenders and individual executives that are direct thing some of this misconduct. if they are the ones colluding at a conference or a dinner, to push up prices or designing algorithms to allow them to price it, we think they need to

be on the hook, too, individually. >> the cfpb has been part of the biden administration efforts to address this kind of corporate fixing, corporate price-fixing in tandem with the ftc. is this different from other administrations, and how they have approached the cfpb mission x --? >> our work has focused on the creep of junk fees throughout the economy. we see the same fees are popular in banks, the same weird fee. the airlines charging family seating fees. and now the cfpb recently uncovered school lunch junk fees, where parents have to pay to load up the payment card, to be used for their kid's school lunch, over and over again we are seeing how companies are, especially when there's just one or two of them, able to push up fees and

prices. it adds up to billions of dollars. the cfpb has done work to wipe away tens of billions of it and we are part of an all of government effort to do it, just this week we teamed up again with the department of transportation to go after some of the sketchy practices on rewards credit cards. that are charging big fees and often suddenly devaluing people's points. >> the cfpb is an institution, an agency that is relatively recent in origin. it was only founded in 2010 after the great recession. but even though it is relatively young, it has been the target of conservative ire for its entire existence. why does the right hate the cfpb so much, and can you say more about all of the efforts to dismantle your agency and its funding structure? >> here's what's funny, i don't

see it is left or right. the only place that cfpb is unpopular is with lobbyist and their lawyers. you know, i take it in some ways that when we are challenging abusive, illegal practices that take billions of dollars from people's pockets, or rick the market, to make people worse off, i do think that sometimes we are going to get some real pushback. and we have not been afraid. we have still been able to rack up some big victories for families across the country, and i expect that pushback is going to continue. >> what do you think happens or the cfpb of project 2025 becomes the law of the land and the second trump administration comes into power? >> i don't want to comment on elections but i will say this. there's a long-standing effort to defund and destroy the cfpb, and i think it is because it takes on some of wall street's abuses and the financial industries abusive that for too

long went unchecked and that is why we are focused on the credit card companies, making sure people can refinance their mortgages better. make sure they are not cheated on their auto loans and that they can keep the money they earned. and i think that is what this is all about. >> fighting for the little guy, thank you so much. this has been terrific. up next, we are going inside project 2025 . that is the 922 page reprint for the next republican presidency and it contains a very telling passage on the very first page. that passage has not been talked about enough that we will talk about it, when we come back. come back.

there are some feelings you can get with any sportsbook. ohhh! the highs! no, no, no. the no, no, noooos - oooooooo! the oh, oh, ohhhhs! now whatcha wanna do with this? but the feeling that, no matter what, you're taken care of. ohhh, i just earned a hotel suite! hee! you only get that here. at the sportsbook born in vegas, where they know how to treat you right. who you talking to jamie foxx? bonus bets. exclusive offers. real world rewards. betmgm. download and bet today.

has devoted a lot of time to opening up project 2025 and making sure you know exactly what is in it. what the right is planning for the next republican presidency. today, we're going to start with a very revealing passage from the very first page. quote, what -- under the ruling and cultural elite. inflation is ravaging budget for drug overdose deaths escalate and children suffer the toxic normalization of transgender is him with drag queens and pornography invading school libraries. all the parties the heritage foundation and project 2025

might have, of all of the items on their conservative wish list, you might be surprised to see drag queens and so-called transgender is him and pornography singled out within the first sentences of the nearly 1000 page. if you are surprised, don't be. it falls right in line with the fixation on anything that might threaten conservative image of what the american family should be. the authors of project 2025 made the connection between pornography and transgender people in a calculated and cynical move to equate the two. project 2025 aims to define anything related to sex, gender or sexuality as pornography. his goal is to paint the very idea of people who are not straight and cis-gender as obscene, dangerous and ultimately illegal. a few pages later the mandate reads quote, photography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of

transgender ideology and sexualization of children and is not a political gordian knot binding up disparate claims about re-speech, property rights, sexual liberation and wild -- child welfare. it has no claim to first amendment protection. its purveyors are exploiters of women. the product is as addictive as any illicit drug in a psychologically disruptive as any crime. pornography should be outlawed, the people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. educators and public librarians who purvey it should be pacified as registered sex offenders, tele- commissions firm that facilitates it spread should be shuddered. to be clear, this means if the architects of project 2025 have their way, teachers and librarians who provide information about the existence of trans and queer people would be jailed. project 2025 goes against --

content that parents might object to, goes after the very existence of trans people. the intention is to erase lgbtq people and the mandate calls for deleting any mention of lgbtq people, any mention of reproductive health and health care and any mention of diversity from all legislation. the forward of the 900 page manifesto reads in part, quote, this starts with deleting the term sexual orientation and gender identity, diversity, equity and inclusion, dei, gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender sensitive abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, all of this out of every rule agency regulation and piece of legislation that exists. so let's recap. project 2025's authors want to classify anything outside heteronormativity, any

discussion of gender or sexuality or the existence of trans people as pornography. they want to imprison anyone who provides information related to sexuality and gender. they want any company or organization that publishes or provides information related to sexuality and gender to be shut down. they literally call for the eradication of any mention of queer people, reproductive health and anything related to diversity and inclusion. that is the conservative vision for america. they literally made it overly long and complicated to discourage us from reading it and understanding it. but make no mistake, if donald trump is elected, they will hold it up as a mandate to transform america into a dystopian chapter from a margaret atwood novel. vel. ♪ and i am lost and i can't ♪ punch buggy red. ♪ even say why ♪

♪ i am, i said ♪ ♪ ♪ mom! he gave us a break on our car insurance. and he'll look after you two. yep, with flexible payment options. ok, but why is shaq coming too? to show you how it's done. ♪♪ for a great low rate, go with the general. sometimes jonah wrestles with falling asleep... ...so he takes zzzquil. the world's #1 sleep aid brand. and wakes up feeling like himself. get the rest to be your best with non-habit forming zzzquil. ♪ ♪

announcer what if you could whiten your teeth by simply brushing your teeth? now you can with smileactives, the teeth whitening breakthrough that safely gets your teeth white and keeps them white every day just by brushing your teeth. christine i never thought that whitening my teeth could be so easy. i just put the gel on the brush, the toothpaste on it, brush and i can see my white teeth. announcer simply add smileactives to any toothpaste, and our patented polyclean technology activates into a powerful micro foam that penetrates into the enamel surface to safely lift and remove stains. robert you need a simple way to withen your teeth without strips, without trays, without going to the dentist. and it was about time that a product was developed that you would be able to do that with just brushing. announcer and now smileactives is even better. with new pro whitening gel with 33% greater whitening power. clinically shown to whiten teeth faster up to eight shades. 100% of users saw whiter teeth on food stains, coffee and wine stains, even on veneers,

crowns and dentures. paul i eat the blueberries, i drink the coffee and i know that smileactives will keep my teeth white every day. janell if you could do something so easy like smileactives to take yellow teeth to white teeth, why wouldn't you? announcer why spend hundreds of dollars for whitening treatments at the dentist, when now you can whiten your teeth with new smileactives pro whitening gel every time you brush your teeth. call or go to smileactives.com and for a limited time get new pro whitening gel for just $24.95. order in the next 5 minutes and buy one get one absolutely free for just $24.95. that's two for one and save 58%. we■ll even include free shipping. get your teeth whiter, guaranteed, or return it within 60 days for your money back. i smile every day now. the difference is literally night and day. so now i'm always smiling or cheesing because now my teeth are much wither. announcer this offer is not available in stores, so call or click now before the special buy one, get one free offer goes away.

before the break i told you

about project 2025's long- standing effort to build a nice queer and transgender americans acquitting lgbtq identity with pornography and obscenity. joining us to talk about this is amar jones, chair of the transgender la center and ceo of trans media. leah littman as professor of university of michigan law school, cofounder of women know law and my cohost on the podcast. you have been talking about the heritage foundation's long- standing efforts to push and anti-trans ideology for years. the heritage foundation achieve these goals through state-level legislation that they pushed during the trump administration. much of this is in effect today. what is the impact of this legislation and what will be the likely impact if there is a second trump residency? >> i think that the reality is that a second trump administration and presents people that are trans gender

expensive with and existential threat, and x essential, potential assault by the administration. and that is because they already had a test run in the first administration, as a matter of fact, one of the architects of project 2025 is --, the person who constructed many of the anti-trans policies during the first trip administration, they actually work shopped while at the heritage foundation. said this is something that we already had a dry run at. so they will come in with a much stronger sense of where the pressure points are and i think that what we really need to understand is that project 2025 wouldn't be possible without this original test run. where they experimented on how to weaponize the federal government against a group of americans. and all they have done with project 2025 is wrap up all of

the learning they gained from this broad assault on trans and expanded to a variety of communities which is why there is outcry. so i think we need to understand the origins of project 2025 thinking comes from this in the trump administration. >> amar has spoken about the threat to trans people but there's a broader discussion about equating, even discussion of gender sexuality with pornography. what is behind this tactic and how is it going to be successful and what will it achieve? >> i think what they are trying to do is enforce traditional gender roles. throughout the country. and basically give people the freedom not to defy traditional gender roles but instead to require everyone else to perform them. and this comes for example when they declare the department of justice would be used to basically undermine civil rights protections for the transgender community as

well as the queer community. they want the government to be arguing it is unconstitutional to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity because it doesn't allow the people who want to eight on the basis of sexual orientation and -- to do that. you combine that with efforts to basically force motherhood on american women, and they are desperately trying to take us back to a time when people were not allowed to be themselves and decide for themselves when they would become mothers and what they would do with their lives. >> you have touched a little bit about this, this is an invitation maybe to elaborate on it. but the goals of the heritage foundation and christian conservatism has been to fill a nice trans people so fears in general and some of this is about trying to limit the performance of norms that aren't consistent with traditional gender norms. what you see happening in the future trump administration if one happens, that would be more

expensive of the efforts in your community? >> i think two things. one is we have to understand that unlike progressives, to be frank about and also liberals, the christian nationalist movement does not see trans people in isolation from a range of other issues. they see it as direct the connected to abortion. they see it directly connected to bodily autonomy over all. they see it directly, did two issues of immigration because so much of what they are thinking when it comes to these groups of people, is the preservation of right christian culture in the united states. that is why there is a focus on it because it is not for them, isolated or a marginal issue, it is a central one in the project to maintain white christianity. so i wanted to state that.

the within that i think what we are going to see, is the literal erasure of trans people. i think you will see the federal government not allow for trans people to be recognized in any way, both in terms of i.d., in terms of health care, in terms of education. schools would not have to be safe. trans people would not receive equal access to health care. trans people, because of the erasure would face open discrimination on jobs and housing. and i think that the whole point is to erase, literally erase the idea that trans people are real, through all of the instruments of the federal government. and it is not going to stop there. i don't know an authoritarian regime that targeted a group of people --. >> that is an excellent point. leah, in order to erase a group of people, you actually need handpicked personnel at every level of government or with the program. the heritage foundation and project 2025 has been clear about installing handpicked

conservatives, who are willing to go along with the project. amara mentioned this but to highlight him again, project 2025 lowther who is the director of the divorce center for religion and civil society at the heritage foundation in 2015 before being appointed to direct the office of civil rights and director of health and human services during the trump administration is known to be anti-lgbtq rights and in his role at hhs, he removed protections for lgbtq people, allowing doctors to refuse to treat patients based on sexuality or gender identity. what is his likely role in the future trump administration if that happens, and what will the impact of that be for the trans communtiy? >> it is difficult to know exactly where they would place him. and i think there would definitely be part of a plan to install him somewhere where he would be able to carry out the plans, perhaps as the head of the department of health and human services, whereas you

know part of project 2025's plan is basically to deny civil rights protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in the areas of health care and education. one of the core platforms is to argue the supreme court decision which held a players cannot discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and argue the decision doesn't apply to health care, education and a variety of other social services. that the department of health and human service administers, and other people who are part of project 2025 and offer different chapters have argued that homosexuality is a sin and so these are the kinds of people that they are hoping to install at the head of the federal government to implement the vision of denying rights to transient people, the queer community , and more. than ever stop with one community and instead lump it altogether under some umbrella, to bill and eyes different

communities and to distract from the fact that the biggest problems facing our country is simply not where students p or what sports teams they are on. there are real health care crises, crises of gun violence and this is part of an effort to distract the country from those real problems and allow them to institute the agenda, which no one wants, and force it on the country. >> amara, one of the things striking about this attack on the trans communtiy is is not especially original. the fear mongering about trans in the danger that trans identity poses to children is something conservatives have been doing for years. it is not especially accurate. they are pushing falsehoods that kids are pushed into surgeries and that all of this is great among trans adults that received treatment. all of this is a gross myth terry -- mischaracterization of health care. can you say more about the standard play and how it is being translated to the american public, as the assault

continues. >> i think that one of the important things to think about is that this entire effort to misinform the american public about trans people as part of a larger political and religious project, is the result of a lot of -- this will sound strange, a lot of intelligent brainwork on their side. they have spent years, focus grouping and work shopping and working on messaging and figuring out how you get americans to be uncomfortable with the idea of trans people. the american principles project did a lot of this work and so therefore the reason the disinformation is so impactful, is because it has been researched. they understand these are the messages that are going to break through and sees hold and make people uncomfortable. so i think one of the things that is different about the fear mongering now, is that it actually is grounded in a lot

of research and thought. and that is how they have been able in a relatively quick period of time, to move the conversation about trans people to the center of american political conversation, as part of this project. so i think we cannot underestimate and say that this is something we have seen before. this is not what they did in the 1980s. this is not anita bryant. this is not jerry falwell spilling out. this is a result of a group of people who are very intelligent, who understand the way the american conversation and media and journalism work, and have gone about hacking the system through some really smart ways. and we can't underestimate that. >> really important context. amara jones and lelah, thank you for joining us. up next, we're going live to pittsburgh, where vice president kamala harris is doing debate prep at the omni william penn hotel for her first one-on-one face-off with

donald trump. an important conversation about a rare case of a 2016 campaign promise donald trump actually kept during his presidency. and how it could back fire on him in this election year. and former montana governor steve bullock and former senator doug jones joined me to break down the vital state senate races that will decide control of congress. i'm melissa murray and another hour of velshi starts after this break. ev en when you have heart failure. but when he had shortness of breath, carpal tunnel syndrome, and lower back pain, we wondered, could these be warning signs of something bigger? thank goodness we called his cardiologist because these were signs of attr-cm, a rare and serious disease... ...that gets worse over time. if you see any of the warning signs, don't wait, ask your cardiologist about attr-cm today. ♪♪ vicks vapostick

provides soothing non-medicated vicks vapors. easy to apply for the whole family. vicks vapostick. and try new vaposhower max for steamy vicks vapors. a test or approve a medication. we didn't have to worry about any of those things thanks to the donations. and our family is forever grateful because it's completely changed our lives.