tv Alex Wagner Tonight MSNBC October 17, 2024 1:00am-2:00am PDT
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terrorists, their words, operating in a command and control center next to the hospital. on his gofundme page he wrote, my life has been turned upside down by the bombings and shelling. they now face the harsh reality of displacement and uncertainty. got in gaza dreams go to die. each displacement leaves behind another fragment of our shattered souls. time feels like it has stopped in gaza and we are's duck in a never ending nightmare. that man should have celebrated his 20th birthday today. instead the world became witness to his death in a video depicting the endless wars in gaza. or is that, whether we like it or not, our government and our weapons are facilitating, day after day, until something changes. that is "all in" on this wednesday night. >> chris, you are so right to put a human face on what's
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happening over there. we have become, in too many ways, desensitized to the carnage. with so many other crises we are learning that actually telling the story of the people who are living and suffering, and in this case dying through these moments, is the only way to make them resonate once again with a large portion of our public. thank you for doing that, my friend. okay. today both donald trump and vice president harris each had their own specials on fox news. trump's was a town hall with women voters in georgia while kamala harris sat for an interview with fox anchor brett bayer. needless to say these television specials could not have been more different. the trump town hall, maybe unsurprisingly, was filled with a very sympathetic audience. to give you a sense what it was like in the room, here was the tone of the audience-based q&a. >> the middle class continues to struggle these last 3 1/2 years under the biden-harris administration.
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could you outline your plans to revitalize the economy again as president. >> furthering the discussion on immigrant crime along with liberal run cities where crime is out of control. >> i'd also like to ask that as you work to dewoke our military that you pay careful attention to the generals that you put in charge. >> it was a very friendly crowd on fox news. who could have guessed? now, for the most part, trump said some fairly outrageous things about abortion and reproductive rights, things we are going to dig into a little bit on this hour. for the most part, this was not appointment television, except for one moment. there was one moment where trump was presented with his own words and given a pretty big off-ramp to either down-play or clarify some of the most authoritarian stuff he has ever said. but instead of taking that
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off-ramp, here's what happened. >> i want to take a look at what you said and just tell me -- let's to watch it. >> if we have to. we have two enemies. we have the outside insquem the enemy from within. and the enemy from within in nigh opinion is more dangerous than china, russia, all these countries. if you have a smart president he can handle them pretty easily. the thing that's tougher to handle the lunatics that we have inside like adam schiff. i call him the enemy from within. >> mr. president, kamala harris said you sounded unhinged and unchecked power is in our future. >> i thought it was a nice presentation. >> a nice presentation of explicit fascism. you wouldn't know it from the laughter in the fox audience. and trump didn't stop there. he doubled down.
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>> it is the enemy from within, and they're very dangerous. they're marxist and communist and fascist, and they're sick. they're dangerous for our country. we have china, we have russia, we have all these countries. you have a smart president, they can all be handled. the more difficult part, you know, the pelosis, these people they're so sick, and they're so evil. they're the threat to democracy. >> this is a question -- >> i'm glad i got that out. >> glad i got that out. quite clearly trump's authoritarian rhetoric here is not a mistake, it is his sales pitch. and kamala harris' strategy in these closing weeks of the campaign is to use trump's sales pitch against him. today "the wall street journal" reports that harris has told her campaign staff that with less than three weeks to go, she wants to turn trump's own words back on him. that strategy was on display last night at harris' rally in
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erie, pennsylvania, where harriy spent alv portion of her speech playing trump's enemy from within comments for the crowd on the jumbo tron. but harris isn't just using trump's words to rile up her base, she's also using them to reach across the aisle. over the past few weeks harris has made a concerted effort to hold events with current and former republicans using trump's authoritarian sales pitch to show the kind of person who may have been a nikki haley voter just a year ago trump is not is just another republican but something else, something much more dangerous. here was harris at one of those th events today in bucks county, pennsylvania. >> let us, be clear about whate is saying. he considers any american who me doesn't support him or bend to
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his will to be an enemy to our country. and further, he says that as as commander in chief, he would use our military to go after them. t honestly, let that sink in. use of the american military to go after american citizens? >> tonight vice president harris wenton onig fox to deliver her message to that network's decidedly conservative audience. throughout thedeci entirety of 30 minutes fox's host brett ox bayer repeatedly interrupted her and cut her off and grilled her, giving her the exact opposite of the treatment trump got of the fawning crowd at his fox town hall this morning. at oneha point in the interview
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trump's enemy from within came a in and bayer played a clip of from trump's town hall, a clip that notably included none of the footage we have played so far in this show, a clip that totally omitted trump doubling down on his uh-uh thoritarian rhetoric.ic well, kamala harris wasn't having any+++oy?f it >> the enemy within, talking about the american military, suggesting he would turn the american military on the american people. >> we asked that question to the former president today harris faulkner had a town hall and this is how he responded >> i heard about that. they're the ones doing the they're doing phony investigations. i've been investigated more than alphonse capone. no, it's true. the weaponization of government is a terrible thing.
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>> bret, i'm sorry and with all due respect, that clip is not what he has been saying about thes enemy within that he has repeated when he's speaking about the american people. that's not what you just showed. that's what you just showed. >> i'm just telling you that was the question we asked him. >> you didn't show that, and t here's the bottom line, he has repeated it many h times, and y and i both know that. and you and i both know he has talked about turning the american military on the american people. he has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest. he has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him. this is a democracy, and in a democracy the presidentn of th united states in the united states of america should be willing to be able to handle criticism without saying he'd lock people up for doing it. and this is what is at stake, which is why you have someone like theh former chairman of t
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joint chiefs of staff saying what mark millie has said about donald trump being aou threat t the united states of america. >> he's quoted in the book that way, yes. let me ask you this, madam, vice president. >> let's not diminish the significance of that. >> joining ush now sarah matthews who served as deputy press secretary in the trump administration beforear resigni on january 6th. she endorsed kamala harris this week. also joiningis me former virgin congresswoman barbara comstock, who has endorsed vice president harris and appeared on stage alongside her in pennsylvania today. thank you both for joining me. i'm so eager to get your perspective on everything that's transpired today. congresswoman comstock, i'd love to get your thoughts. first, on this exchange with bret bair, i've not seen the vice president that angry andno that incensed in an interview maybe this entire election
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cycle. and i wonder e ifnt you think h comments break through with the verygh republicans she may be trying toep target ongoing on f in the first place. >> well, i hope so because fox doesn't have republicans on very often. they certainly don't have me or republicans like liz cheney or adam kins 'inger. i don't imagine they invite sarah on very often anymore. because if they do invite people like dothat, they get attacked donald trump. and bret bair himself has gotten attacked by donald trump so much that the morning after the election -- i believe it was the morning after the election, bret bair was shown in e-mails during that whole lawsuit that they had, he was one of the ones who was arguing, hey, maybe we should pull back the call on arizona. can we do c that, because they were getting so much blow back from b their audience and attac from trump. so this is what happens.
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you know, fox gets attacked, trump bullies everybody, and he knows darnyb well that trump ha bullied and attacked people and made exactly the kind of threats that the vice president talked about today at the rally that i attended. and his own people, the reason donald trump is not supported by the dozens and dozens of people who worked for him, people like mark esper, people like dan coates, people like mark millie, people like jim mattis, all those national security people who didn't work for him, they know he made these kind of outrageous statements. mark esperus has been on other networks, not on fox making that same case that the vice president is making. and brett bair won't be showing those kind of things on-air. i daret fox news and bret bairo have mark esper, to have people like me, to have people like sarahpl matthews and liz cheney
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and adam kinzinger on there. but they won't do it because they'll get beat up by donald trump who they gave all that free g airtime to. >> you know, sarah, as a comms person i do wonder there's such a clear earth one, earth two, reality versus parallel reality, facts versus paranoia sort of divide in american culture right now. the editing that you saw -- bret bair plays his version of what trump said about thesi enemy within, which doesn't include trump doubling down on this notion of the enemy within. and there's what trump actually said in the town hall which was doubling down on the innotion of the enemy within. i wonder if you think an exchange like that is enough to pierce the veil of secrecy or
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partisanship, it's the bubble potentially these nikki haley supporters live in which to watch fox news the persuadable republicans exist that kamala harris is trying toad appeal to. do you think this makes a hi difference? >> yeah, i think it makes a huge difference, actually. i think it'ske really important that kamala harris went into the lions den, and she knew that this was going to be a tough interview, and it might not necessarily be fair as you pointed out with the deceptive editing on bret bair's part, but she was right to call him out. i thought that was a really powerful moment. for those in the fox news audience watching who might have not been familiar with these remarksil they might have saw h push back on this and thought what am i not being shown, and maybe they won't back and googled and saw the remarks for themselves and sawre him double down on it. that's why it's so important for her to make the case on a
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network that might not necessarily be friendly to her. i thought she did a fantastic job. maybe some answers weren't 100% her best. but i thought in that particular moment where she called out brett bair with the deceptive editing was really powerful. >> there's a phenomenon we're seeing from people who are prominent trump critics, they are finally a making the jump t actually t endorsing kamala harris. i know you endorsed the vice president this week, and i wonder if you can talk to me and our audience a little bit about the decision making process there. why now? and if you're sort ofon trying imagine being in those shoes of the nikki haley voters or on the fence republicans harris is trying to appealfe to, what do think the calculation is at this stage before election day? ini had actually endorsed presidenti biden when he was still inid the race and had endorsed vp harris shortly thereafter, after she entered
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the race. but i've been a little bit more voket about it as of late because right now this is the time when people are tuning into the election.in people are tuning in 20 days out. for those undecided who might be on the face, those disaffected, i think it's important to see thoseor republican voices out there saying enough is enough, we need to turn the page on donald trump, and saying, hey, it's okay to put policy aside in this one election and cast a ballot for kamala harris. because, look, i've never voted for a democrat a day in my life, but i think rightn now in this moment i'mno prioritizing the constitution and character. and so i'm willing to say we might notli agree on everythingn the t vp's agenda, but i think that she is someone who will uphold the constitution. i think she's someone that our children will look up to and aspire to be like. i don't think anyone would hope their children look up to donald trump and would emulate his behavior. andem so i'm hopeful this messa
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will resonateef with some of the republicans or independents who might be on the fence who are thinking about itsitting this election out or staying on the couch or leaving the top of their ballot blank, that it is okaynk to cross that party line and vote for a democrat because i think enough is enough with donald trump, and we're sick of the division and the chaos that heon brings. >> congresswoman, what is it like? you're at these events with vice president harris, and there's a handful of republicans who are on stage with you, and i just wonder if you could tell us a little bitd what that experien is lelike. because i would imagine onie on hand it's probably cathartic, but given the rhetoric coming from trump about punishing enemies and the p enemies from within, is there a certain amount of fear as well? what a is the experience like f you as you campaign for a democratic candidate for president? >> well, actually, that's one of the reasons that i did endorse because you have great people matthews, like cassidy hutchinson, young women
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who stood up and had the courage. a lot of a these people are you women and p people like liz chey and my friends like adam kinzinger. so i wanted to -- previously i wrote in in '16 and '20. this time i was sick6 of the bullying and wanted to stand up with my voice because donald trump tries to bully people into being afraid. i know a lot of people are afraid, but i didn't want to bew and i wanted to tell a lot of people out there who are afraid, yeah, maybe you're afraid, but you can still -- the ballot box is t secret, and you can go in there and he can vote. and he isd terrorizing people like election workers. like here in pennsylvania, i'm still in here doing an event tonight. but here in pennsylvania, you know, the secretary of state was one ofkn the people who had to have, you know, people protecting him in his home in the 2020 election because donald
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trump was making attacks at him sending out tweets. and we know that happened in georgia and arizona, too. and i'm on the national counsel onoo election integrity, and wee got to protect our election workers. so i think a lotle of us who ar standing up, we're using our voices because we know there are other people like election workers and others who, you know, can't -- they aren't as well-known, and we need to stand up and use our voices to protect them. and it's important that they know that there's those of us out there who know how hard it is on them, and they deserve that kind of respect for the good work that they're doing to protect democracy. >> former trump white house staffer sarah matthews, former republican congresswoman barbars comstock, doing the brave thing in the closing hours of the election. thank you so much for your time tonight. it's really great havingr you the show. >> thank you. still ahead this evening, donald trump often says he's a
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big fanru of elon musk. this week he got 75 million reasons to be an elon musk devotee, and they are all dollar signs. but llfirst, have you heard, donald trump is the father of ivf, or at least that's what he told a roomful of women this morning before explaining he had no idea what ivf actually is. i'll talk about that coming up next. y is i'll talk about that coming up next
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today at an all-female town hall hosted by fox news, a voter posed this question to donald trump. >> why is the government involved in women's basic rights? >> i think it's great. i'm glad you asked that. >> then to this same room full of women trump boasted about the supreme court overturning roe, falsely claiming that everyone wanted state governments in charge of women's reproductive decisions. >> through really the courage of six supreme court justices we were able to do this, after years and years of turmoil. the democrats, the republican p republican, the liberals, and conservatives, they wanted it brought out of the federal government and brought back to the states for a vote of the people. and like ronald reagan i believe in the exceptions for rape,
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incest, life of the mother. some might agree they're too tough, and those are going to be redone. >> joining me now are melissa murray, nyu law professor and co-host of the strict scrutiny podcast, and erin carmon, author of the forthcoming book, unbearable, being pregnant in america. there are no two better people to discuss this insane town hall with. melissa, let me start with you first. trump says some of these abortion restrictions are too tough. they're going to be redone, they're going to be redone. to me, that sounds like donald trump is out there supporting ballot initiatives to maybe curb or claw back some reproductive rights at the state level, something that literally the whole republican party is organized against including in the state of florida where donald trump lives, they're literally trying to make it harder for the voters to redo really draconian abortion laws.
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>> let's step back, a town hall filled with women, does justice alito know? i don't know, we'll find out. again, it begs relief for donald trump to go on tv and say these restrictions are too tough whether it's ballot initiatives or something else. the illinois billionaire who just funneled a ton of money into donald trump's campaign -- that's the technical term, an actual ton of money with other large donors, they funneled a massive pac for trump. he's one of the individuals who donated again another slush fund to overturning the ohio effort to enshrine a right to abortion on that state's constitution last summer. again, these are the same people. these are the people apparently in favor of the ballot initiatives, i don't think so. and more particularly even if we were to put these in same state
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legislatures, these are the same state legislatures donald trump's supreme court have allowed today be even more gerrymandered. they couldn't get it because those state legislatures are gerrymandered beyond belief. >> it's such a data point in the broader effort to rewrite recent history in realtime. he says this all the time on campaign trail. everybody wanted it returned to the states. who everybody? >> and also who cares about the process here because we know republicans don't actually care about this as a states rights issue. if they did, they wouldn't have put in their platform for the republican national convention that they support 14th amendment rights for embryos and fetuses, and they would not have appointed justices who with a wink and a nod are probably going to uphold a 14th amendment argument if given the chance. and we know if donald trump wins again, he'll probably have the
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opportunity to replace alito, replace thomas, possibly more justices, and bring before them arguments. if he says over and over again i don't want a national ban, first of all, we all know that they want a national ban. >> we have a national ban. >> they can use the comstock act, written brilliantly. but also nobody on either side of this ever actually cared about it's a state right. if you believe its murder, believe in women's dominion over their body, the process of which we get there is beside the point. it was always a fig leaf for broader ideological differences. now we're seeing people are having to travel and even in states where they have these kind of exceptions the emptiness of the so-called states rights argument. >> i do wonder when you talk about the notion how hard core donald trump is going to be, he protects himself in the shield of this kind of rhetoric of some of it's too extreme, i'm just
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doing what you wanted, this is the will of the people, blah, blah, blah. some and on issue that should be clear as day, this is an individual out on the campaign trail saying i am happy the 66 supreme court justices did the thing and overturned roe. and yet this is going back to may of 2024, 30% of voters don't know whether it's trump or biden that should -- that deserves blame for the ending of roe. a poll in september or october of this year, 75% of women think trump would sign an abortion ban if congress passed one. 46% thought it was very likely, and 28% thought it was somewhat likely. this is like a third of the country that do not believe this man has an extreme position on abortion. >> i mean, yes, we are slouching towards and 30% of the country doesn't seem to mind. but the rest of the country seems to understand what's going
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on, and the key here i think is how can you persuade other people that it's go time right now, the frog is literally being boiled in the pot, and we don't get another chance after this. the pro-life movement has been clear about this. they have been trumpeting their aims for years and accelerated their calls after dobbs. dobbs is just the beginning. this was never going to we a state by state settlement. if you believe abortion is a species of murder, you can't be okay with california doing it. like it ends with fetal personhood. and if the fetus is a person, then the person carrying the fetus is an incubator, and her rights can be subordinated and they will be subordinated, and we're already seeing that. there are already efforts in many of the states to use existing laws like wrongful death statutes to go after people who helped with abortions, whether it's medication abortion or something else. and, again, wrongful death is a legal regime available for the death of a person. so when you civilly sue someone for wrongful death, you're
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basically saying they killed a person. >> those numbers what's behind those they're intentionally confusing and dare i say it lying about what it is they also believe. youologist saw this in the vice presidential debate where j.d. vance is talking about we need to win back trust and so on. an interview today where someone was asking him about support for a national abortion ban and he said show me where i said it. there is a clip where he said i'd certainly like abortion to be nationwide. if people are confused it's because they're saying totally different things at different points, even in a specific interview like the one today trump did. >> to extend your point to the logical conclusion, it also means all manner of reproductive choice is off the table. >> i mean, we're already seeing this. there are women in blue states like california who have a cesarean section and then want to get their tubes tied but they
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can't because they're at a catholic hospital. so they get sewn up, sent to a hospital 40 miles away and then they have it. it will only get worse but for everyone. >> that's at a catholic hospital. donald trump today saying today i'm the father of ivf, he later had to explained to him in a 2-minute what is ivingf. >> i think he meant i'm the father of ivanka. >> as in the commercial break, call him daddy. >> call him daddy, he got on-air. republicans in congress i think have voted two times in four months to block bills that would protect ivf. you don't even have to be in a catholic -- if you want to see how extreme the republican party is getting on the issue of women who want to control their bodies, women who want to have families control their own bodies, look no further than the elected congress they're in. >> and what they say is they
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want to protect religious freedom and it means where we're already seeing denial of care in catholic hospitals. they put to forth their own really flimsy ivf bill, and they would point to that. again, if we're talking about the consistency of their beliefs here, if you believe that the embryo has 14th amendment right to life just like a person walking this earth, then protecting the embryos follows from that logical conclusion. and, in fact, i think -- and i want to go back to this creepy i am the father of ivf quote because it reminds me how trump said he is the protector of women and how he'll be healthy, happy, and free and he won't have to worry about abortion anymore. >> it sounded better in the original german. >> yeah, i mean it's menacing. it's menacing, paternlistic and
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patriarchal. it provides people more choice over their lives, but who needs choice when you have daddy? >> oh, that is chilling, especially the reference of donald trump, daddy. we're going to leave it there because i'm too scared to go on. melissa murray and irin cardon. coming up donald trump continues to fan boy over elon musk and even outsourced grass roots operation in critical battleground states to a super pac run by the richest man in the world. we have new details on how that is all going, and we're going to discuss it with ground game expert ben wickler, the chair of the wisconsin party. that's coming up next. stay with us. sin party. that's coming up next. stay with us sailboat... these men of means with their silver spoons, eating up the financial favors of the 1%. what would become of them when they discover
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his name is elon musk. he saved free speech. he created so many different great things. i want to thank a man named elon musk because he did a good thing. so i called up elon and he endorsed me. he gave me the greatest endorsement. no, yo nosh no, i have a great respect for elon. i'm a big fan of elon who endorsed us. you know that. elon's great. >> all that fanning out is just
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from the past two weeks. in the closing days of this election donald trump has gone out of his way in almost embarrassing fashion to heap praise on tech billionaire elon musk. today trump prattled on about elon musk for so long fox news had to cut him off to go to a commercial break. >> elon did a great service. you know what i like about him, he endorsed me. he gave me the biggest -- you know what you said harris -- he's a respected guy. when you can see a guy take that rocket yesterday and have that sucker come back out of space and it's all burned up. why do you do that? because i don't want to build another one. >> we've got to go. we'll be right back with more after this break. >> now we're getting a clearer picture why trump has been so effusive in his praise. new released filings from the fec shows elon musk has put $75 million of his own money into
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his america pac, that's a super pac created by musk to exclusively support donald trump. the trump campaign has reportedly outsourced most of their get out the vote operation to america pac, which means elon musk, the tesla guy, the rocket guy is in charge of trump's campaign game in key battleground states. and new reporting suggests that the tesla guy's multi-million dollar operation might not be all that effective. "the washington post" reports that musk's characteristically erratic leadership style including towering demands and sudden firings has at times impeded his political project, potentially limiting its effectiveness in the final stretch of the presidential race. in july america pac fired two of its initial vendors as they were ramping up their work, leading the committee to start over just months before the election. a few weeks later the committee fired another vendor that had
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been brought onto lead canvassing efforts in arizona and nevada after the initial round of firings, said another person familiar with the decisions. one woman hired to knock on doors for trump told "the post" she was fired by one of america pac's vendors in north carolina only to be quickly rehired by another america pac vendor in wisconsin and georgia. at the same time as all this is happening, rolling stone reports that people inside the trump operation are starting to sound the alarm about elon musk's operation. some saying they are seeing a relatively small get out the vote presence on the ground despite the super pac's massive spending to boost trump. some concerns revolve around the fact the super pac still appears to be building its field operation. multiple other republican consultant and megadonors have pointed out in recent days america pac still had open postings for canvassers on its
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website. in addition to all that, the guardian reports that america pac's door knockers are relying on a canvassing app that frequently crashes and does not work in areas where there's no strong internet connection. it kind of seems like putting a self-important billionaire without any actual campaign experience in charge of your voter outreach maybe isn't the best way to run a high stakes presidential campaign. in just a second i'll talk to someone with a lot of experience in getting out the vote on the democratic side about how this race is shaping up on the ground and what we can expect to see from both campaigns in these critical last few weeks. that's next. that's next.
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donald trump's choice to outsource his get out the vote operations to elon musk means that trump gets access to elon musk's millions, but that cash also comes with shall we say unorthodox methods of running a get out the vote operation. the guardian reports an app using the trump campaign and the must back america pac to track paid canvasser's efforts to reach rural voters, that app keeps crashing in those very rural areas where internet service is often slow. as a result the trump campaign and america pac have little way to know whether canvassers are actually knocking on doors or cheating because remember
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they're getting paid to do this work by elon musk. one political operative involved with the pac said maybe elon musk can give his canvassers a star link, which is a joke about musk's satellite based internet router, but might actually not be a bad idea. ben, thank you for being here. i said we need someone that really understands how you build a robust field operation and what it means to have paid canvassers and apps that don't work. ben, i want to read -- that person is you, ben. i want to read you this quote from "the washington post." some of his early rad visors on the super pac warned elon musk he was trying to move too fast for such an ambitious political project. cautioning it would take months more to train a staff. musk appearing to believe if we just run out there with clip boards and tell people what's at stake they'll be convinced.
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>> what alarms you about the details we're learning about the musk operation here, ben? >> i'll be totally honest. i'm delighted about the musk operation because these efforts are all trying to elect someone who would be a terrible, terrible president. so the fact it's a totally disorganized dumpster fire of a ground game on the republican side is good news for democracy. it's good news for freedom. it's good news for any working family who doesn't want to be slapped with a $4,000 trump tax, because they're not going to be able to turn out those last few voters that could tip an election basically tied in a state like wisconsin. >> but to be kind of very elementary about it, walk me through, you know, what an effective field operation looks like and what we're hearing about here. >> absolutely. i'll say tonight i was in grant county in southwestern wisconsin. there were 25,000 voters there in the 2020 election, and in grant county we've been organizing continuously going
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back to the spring of 2017 of the democratic party of wisconsin. the chair before me launched organizing programs, and i launched a scale building out a team of volunteers that knows every inch of that county, all over that county we have local folks who have been going door-to-door building relationships with their neighbors. some of them use paper and clip boards, others have the mini van app on their phones which allows you to sync when you do have internet access and save the data when you don't have internet access so it doesn't crash the way the republican app does. it takes time. a lot of the volunteers who are doing this are older folks who are not familiar with the technology or they're new volunteers with the idea going after a stranger or talking about politics can be scary, so you want to go out the first time with someone who's already done this before. but you build the strength, you build the practice especially you do it in a local election and then a big presidential election and you getter and better at it.
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none of that is happening in the elon musk america pac operation. and the field operation, it's not going to turn a close race into a landslide, but it can give you an extra half of a point that what tips an election in a state like wisconsin. that's where having glitch after glitch into an untested operation is like getting into a des lusupposed to drive itself and slams into the wall of a parking garage. this is what what you want to see in a presidential campaign. >> that's a very apt metaphor, ben. i'm very interested. i sort of belabor the point about the ground game because i agree with you in terms of the margins which is what this race is going to be won on, this could be the difference maker. in terms of these volunteers who are paid, hired by elon musk, a guy with no political experience and are still being hired less than three weeks to go, what does that tell you about the quality of the argument they are going to be making to the these local voters apparently the target of the trump campaign in terms of winning this race?
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>> there's a lot of research that it's not just the number of doors you knock, it's the quality of the conversation you have, your ability to engage and listen and speak to the issues people care about. folks who are watching this right now who feel strongly about this, you can get involved. go to wisdom.org/volunteer. when you volunteer, you will know what issues kamala harris actually stands for. you'll practice the script of things you're going to say. you're going to walk people through the process of making a plan to vote. if you're hiring people willy-nilly and at the last second who may not actually support your candidate in sending them out, they're just not going to do a very good job of hitting the points that win the votes, having them committed to winning a victory is critical in the final stretch. and all of wisconsin i'm hearing from people they're getting door hangers left on their doors but the america pac is not actually knocking on the door and talking to people. they're just trying to cross a house off a list if they're even
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doing that. there's a big difference of leaving something on someone's doorstep and having a face-to-face conversation with them. and, you know, i wish the best of luck to all the folks who are on the payroll at america pac. feel free to speak from your heart if you think harris will be a better presidential candidate, but there's a questionable strategy on the trump campaign on the ground game this year. >> ben wickler, encouraging all america pac volunteers or paid staff to just ahead and leave the groceries at the doorstep while we're talking. thank you for joining me, ben. it's great to hear from you. coming up we are going to show you one of the most forceful arguments the harris campaign is making against donald trump's immigration policy. you do not want to miss this. stay with us.
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ahead of donald trump's univision town hall tonight, which starts momentarily, the harris campaign held a press conference in miami featuring families torn apart by trump's family separation policy. children, some who are as young as 6 when they were taken from their parents, stood on boxes to reach the microphones. >> i was 7, my brother was 5 or 6. we -- immigration got us and took us to this place.
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they told us we were going to be separated, and then we started to cry. so we got back with our mother. we saw her, we hugged her, we were crying. and then we -- and then we started to laugh for a few moments. >> i don't want this to happen to other kids. and cites sad to see what's going to happen to them. >> more than 1,000 children are still separated from their families because of the immigration policies enacted in trump's first term. on the campaign trail trump has been promising to deliver even more extreme immigration policy if elected to a second term. that is our show for tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. bret, i'm sorry, and with all due respect, that clip w
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