department of government efficiency, whatever that means. elon, who has tons of interest in china, under tons of federal investigations, is going to be in the conference room. elon tweeted a photo the other day with no explanation of him with howard let nick, the code trump transition team. to some extent, we are sitting here trying to guess what is going on, but it's pretty obvious what's going on. elon musk is donating tons of money. i do a lot of reporting about what elon musk is saying behind the scenes, and what he saying behind the scenes is what is tweeting in reply to eggheads on twitter. he clearly believes that, you know, american democracy is at risk of falling due to undocumented immigrants, and he believes that crime is out of control. i think what we see is what we get here. >> thank you so much for your time tonight. >> sure thing. >> that is all in for this

week. >> i'm glad you have that conversation, because we wonder why musk is getting involved in this. he has remarkable self interest in making sure donald trump is the next president of the united states. unimportant discussion for people thinking he's just in the discourse. all right. well, this morning on fox and friends, donald trump said the quiet part out loud. >> actually got another event to go to. >> the event i have now, i'm going to see rupert murdoch. >> please tell him we also thank you. >> i told him very something simple. don't put on negative commercials for 21 days. and don't put on the air they are horrible people, they come and live. what is a rupert, please do it this way. and then we will have a victory. >> we are 18 days out from the

presidential election, so i'm not really sure donald trump is giving 21 days from. perhaps in donald trump's america, the election is on the 28th. donald trump's objective is clear. this was donald trump out loud live on national television this morning saying that he was going to meet with the owner of one of the nation's biggest cable channels and pressure him into not running any ads that criticize him or put on any criticism until the election is over. in any other presidential election in america, that would be a campaign defining scandal. but with trump, it is just friday. it's hardly a blip on the radar. just yesterday, trump the cbs news show 60 minutes on truth social, referencing a fully fabricated scandal that he told 60 minutes to release the tapes, saying we can do with the nice way, or the hard way. now, as a presidential candidate, it's a pretty empty threat. but as president, it's not. trump is very clearly telegraphing what he will do to the media if he regains power.

he wants the media to bend to his will or pay the price. and again, he has been saying that over and over and over again out loud and on camera. >> i go a step further. it's so bad, they should lose their license, and they should take 60 minutes off the air. it's one of the most dishonest of all. i watched the new york times, and it's a classic. wait till you see what i'm going to do with it. when you have so much fun. i think abc took a big hit last night, to be honest. they are a news organization. they have to be licensed to do it. they ought to take away their license for the way they did that. >> this is not normal. at least not in a democracy. i think it's important to ask the question -- is it time to start using the f word? >> donald trump is about taking us backward. >> it's about fascism. why can't we just say it? >> yes, we can say that. >> all week, donald trump has

been given opportunity after opportunity to either downplay or verify his comments about what he called the enemy from within. conservative press keeps heading them off ramps to give him a chance to say that he didn't really mean it when he said he thinks the american military should be turned against americans it is and with whom he disagrees. but donald trump keeps doubling down. in fact, here he was again just this morning. >> i that we have more of an enemy from within then we do outside. they talk about china and russia and everything else. if you have a smart president, we won't have a problem. we have a bigger problem from within. i noticed today there was, he said the enemy from within. adam schiff, these are bad people. >> donald trump is not backtracking. he is saying overly outright that he would like to use the u.s. military to go after his political enemies, people like the democratic congressman that he just named, adam schiff. and while trump wants to use the government to go after his

political enemies, listen to how he is speaking about the january 6th rioters. the violent group of his supporters who attacked our nation's capital in a bid to keep him in power. this is not old footage that i'm about to show you. this is donald trump talking about the january 6th rioters today. >> why are they still being held? nobody has ever been treated like this. maybe the japanese during the second world war, frankly. but, you know, they were held, too. >> trump is comparing the january 6th rioters to the japanese-americans were interned in camps in america during world war ii. the january 6th rioters attacked our nation's capital. they physically attacked police officers, destroyed government property. the japanese-americans were interned during world war ii did absolutely nothing wrong. they were simply rounded up by their government because they were of japanese descent.

donald trump sees those two groups as equally victimized. and while donald trump thinks the january 6th rioters facing time for their crimes is an outrage, he actually does want to use the arcane more than 200- year-old law that was used by the united states government to imprison the japanese. the law is called the alien enemies act of 1798, and trump wants to use it to roundup, imprison, and deport more than 11 million people. >> immediately upon taking the oath of office, i will launch the largest deportation program in american history. story. i will rescue every town across america that has been invaded and conquered, and i will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail, or kick them out of the country, which is one number one goal. i invoke the alien enemies act of 1798. that's where we had to go to target and dismantle every

migrant criminal network operating on americans oil. >> that was donald trump just 25 minutes ago tonight. think about what trump is proposing would really look like. millions of millions of people ripped from the streets and their homes law enforcement all across the country. i know trump tries to make that sound more reasonable by saying the people he would be targeting are criminals, but the thing to keep in mind there is that trump things that all immigrants he doesn't like are criminals. here he was last week, talking about haitian immigrants in springfield, ohio, whom he knows are in america illegally. >> look at springfield, where 30,000 illegal immigrants are dropped in, and they may have done it to a certain little trick, but they are illegal immigrants as far as i'm concerned. >> they are illegal immigrants because donald trump feels like they should be legal immigrants. that little trick, that made them actual illegal immigrants.

others suppress immigrants, the pattern here is exactly the same. donald trump is planning to use the powers of the united states government, the military, the police, the justice department, you name it, to go after any person or group that he perceives as his enemy, whether or not they've actually done anything wrong. and he's not being shy about it. in fact, he's campaigning about it out in the open. donald trump is speaking like hitler, stalin, and mussolini for a reason. because he and his campaign team believe that by using the tactics of the 1930s, they can win. >> we pledge to you that we will route out the communist, marxist, fascist, and the radical left thugs that live like berman. they are poisoning the blood of our country. that's what they've done. people are coming in with disease. people are coming in with every possible thing that you can

have. >> what's happening to our country as we are just destroying the fabric of life in our country, and we are not going to take it any longer. and you got to get rid of these people. if i don't get elected, it's to be a bloodbath. that's would be the least of it. it's going to be a bloodbath. in aqua to be a dictator, are you? no, other than day one. >> joining me now, jason stanley. ruth is a professor of history at nyu who writes about fascism, authoritarianism, and propaganda. jason is a professor of philosophy at yale who was written several books about fascism and propaganda. good evening to both of you. thank you for being here. ruth, we've had some version of this conversation many times with you and with jason, but it is escalating. you -- he posted a tweet the other day because donald trump was in oaks, pennsylvania, monday in front of a sign that read, trump was right about everything. and you posted a tweet in which it said, this is totally fascist. mussolini slogan was misleading

as always right, and here it is on a building, advertising and exhibition on autarky, which i guess is like autocracy? i don't know. >> so, yes. it's like self-sufficiency, italy first. and this was, you know, mussolini putting italy first and getting rid of foreign influence, and that included, you know, who are tagged as foreign influence. and so, everything that we've seen in these clips, trump chewing, has been done by the fascist. and even before hitler came into power, mussolini was talking about berman and rodents who bring bolshevism and marxism and the beast diseases into italy. and when he declared a dictatorship, he had penal

colonies in concentration camps inside italy, and who was in there? the same groups the donald trump talks about. the left, you know, the marxist's, and even priests. if you a socialist priest or a progressive priest, lgbt people, immigrants that he complained about black and brown and yellow people, in his words, having too many babies. all the same playbook. and so it is very, very disturbing that trump is doing this, and of course, he's got a reason he is doing this right before the election to create a sense of dread in people and fear, because that is what he prays on. that's what he needs for people to feel that he is the answer. >> jason, i'm in arizona tonight, and obviously when you are in a swing state, all the advertising at this point close to an election is about the election. the number of ads that i heard that were taken over by third- party groups about immigration,

about the stuff that ruth is talking about, and the 20 minute drive between the hotel and the studio, i -- it instills anxiety, because they just didn't warn you about all the horrible things are happening, even though they are not happening to you or you don't experience them. this is work for decades, probably centuries and millennia. i'm kind of wondering, why are we not more sophisticated than we were in the '30s when hitler and mussolini were doing it? >> just to bracket ruth's comments with hitler versus mussolini, in mein kampf, hitler talks about he openly admires america's extremely restrictive immigration, particularly he says it is focused on healthy immigrants, meaning racially healthy immigrants. so this is really straight out of mein kampf. the parts were hitler is talking about american immigration and american restrictions on nonwhite

immigration. and really, i think the philosophical question, as a philosopher -- what i wonder and what i ask is, why aren't people more alarmed? why aren't people more alarmed by the rhetoric that we are seeing? this would've been disqualifying a 2016. and we read this again and again about the history of fascism. we read this from victor klemperer's work on the language of -ism. it becomes normalized. and the function of this normalization is to normalize the practices. now, the rhetoric has been normalized. the next move, history tells us, is for this rhetoric to normalize the practices. >> it goes into action. and ruth, this is interesting, because you certainly on your social media feeds and in your newsletter, you one of these things.

you sort of have a running commentary about the fact that, don't let this be normalized. this is really unusual. and by the way, these are the historical precedents to what donald trump is doing. if you feel like it's got away from you? like i said, we treat it like it's friday when donald trump says crazy things, i can when asked rupert murdoch to make sure there are no commercials that are against him for the next -- he called it three weeks, less than three weeks to the election. >> i don't know if it's gotten away, because all we can do is continue to call it out and continue to ask -- to not only talk about the what, talk about the why. so for example, and you can talk about the historical antecedents for this, what trump has been doing is to change the perception of violence in america, and that is what the fascists had to do. in order to get people to buy into violence that you intend to wage on your own population,

you have to get violence to seem something that is morally necessary, and even patriotic, such as the thugs who bashed the heads of capital police on january 6th. now they are patriots. trump has invested a huge amount of time and effort in changing this perception of violence. the other thing you have to do is get people beyond polarization into what i call survivalism. so it's not just me versus you, and we are going to agree to disagree. it is me or you, and only one of us is going to survive because the enemy is within. it's in the heartland. they eat cats and dogs, they your pets, cannibals. and so you literally will not survive if not for trump, and he has been giving this message for a long time, that he has usually escalated it now. so we can continue to call it out and call out the devices and why it's being done the way

it is, and educate people. that is what i'm trying to do for years now. >> what you do, and it's important work. you pointed out the donald trump says, i am your retribution. mussolini was your avenger. with the same concept. jason, i do wonder about fascism. when we talk about the word, you saw charlemagne the god sing to kamala harris, why can't we just use the word fascism? general mark millie saying, donald trump is a fascist to the core. this is a military man. tell me about the use of the word fascism. too much, too soon, too little, too late? it does seem so far removed from our experience as american citizens that i think some people don't take it seriously and make it feel like you are being a little crazy by saying it. >> it is far and away -- it is

far past time to label this what it is. and what we are seeing is a fascist social and political movement. there are many varieties of authoritarianism. the kind of authoritarianism that vilifies lgbt citizens. that is based around immigration and immigrants as criminals and vermin. that labels any supporter of democracy with a small d as a marxist, cleaning that marxists are controlling the institutions and says we need violence to root them out. the kind of extortion that we are seeing. essentially, trump is saying, if you don't elect me, this country is going to plunge into violence. when he says bloodshed, what does he mean? he is encouraging his supporters to plunge the country into violence. that's a kind of extortion that we are familiar with our fascist past. so authoritarianism doesn't identify the target narrowly enough. what we are dealing with now is fascism. and let me tell you something about the rhetoric that we are seeing.

in rwanda, before the genocide, they called to see snakes and cockroaches. it was a point of honor to be given a machete to kill a snake. what you are saying was you were justifying killing with machetes by calling them snakes. so think about calling immigrants vermin. >> yeah, you dehumanize them, and it's a permission structure to do all the horrible things that either the government or you think are right to do. next to both of you for your work in clarifying this. we appreciate your time tonight. okay. coming up, we are going to be discussing this. kamala harris and union workers. , harris delivered yet another impassioned defense of labor unions. what is it resonating with rank- and-file members were still apparently on the fence? 18 days until election day, barack obama is out in swing states. here he is tonight in tucson,

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>> he just decided, you know what? he is swaying to of a maria and ymca for about half an hour. he's just standing there, not sure what's happening.

can you imagine if i did that? you would be worried if your grandpa was acting like this. so imagine it coming from a guy who wants to be given unchecked power. tucson, we do not need to see what an older, linear donald trump looks like with no guardrails. >> president obama in tucson, arizona, tonight as the campaign brings up the heavy hitters for the final days of the campaign. running is now, former campaign manager for bernie sanders in 2020 and his presidential campaign and the founder and director of more perfect union. you for being here tonight. talk to me about these last 18 days of the campaign and how you see it going. there been a lot of people very nervous about the fact that the whole race has tightened, which does often happen. it typically happens.

now it's a dead heat. in the country, is a dead heat. what you make of how this is unfolding? >> the fracture of the race is always been sound. if you go back to the last presidential election, joe biden wins with 80 million votes, a record. you start with that basis. had a huge turnout against donald trump. that is the basis. since then, he led an insurrection, he sat in trials where we revealed more of his poor conduct. since then, we've seen abortion bans go into effect that it destroyed so many families lives. the structural things, those are facts. so i think we are in a very good place in which people know and understand the donald trump should not be the next president of the united dates. the next thing left is, you're not just voting against donald trump, who are voting for chuck kamala harris. she is still left with work to do to introduce who she is, what her values are, what motivates her, why does she want to wield government power on your behalf. you think of some of the lingering boats out there who are maybe shading too much

toward trump among working- class voters, i think it's largely because they don't know who she is fully and they don't know her value system and she's got some work to do in this final stretch just convincing them i will go to bat for you, i understand your life. >> what has to happen there? there have been people who have worried about that. your old boss has been one of them. debbie dangle in michigan is worried that the messages got to be sharper for the working class. i'm going to be speaking to somebody in a few moments about union support of kamala harris. do you think she is pivoted in the right direction and is doing enough? what is that message? >> it is bit by bit. i think as much as its policy, i'm not sold that it's always just policy. it is really reflecting that i understand your life. donald trump, if you see what he's doing, is a liar and a con artist, but is a decent con artist. so he will go -- even tonight, he said i will rollout attacks where people who are in active duty in law enforcement will not pay any taxes.

no tax on social security, no taxes on tips, and attackers on overtime. by the way, i got tariffs. if your master lock worker, your job is moved to mexico. i'm going to put tariffs on all the goods coming back in from mexico. it sounds good. it's nonsense. we seen his record of four years. you compete with that is you not only call him out for being the con artist, you also expressed to those workers at master lock and john deere and still lantus were struggling that, i know what you are going through. i'm not here to sell you a bill of goods of everything is great. there have been improvements in this economy, we are not going to turn around like that, but i see that it's harder for you to own a house, it's harder for you to ernie carr. that animation from her about understanding the plight that you are going through is really critical, especially if -- i think she gets pulled into this direction are talking about small businesses, talking to mark cuban about this thing and that thing, try to talk about crypto. all fine. i get it. but don't lose that there are

tens of millions of working- class voters who want to know, you know my life? are you aware of it? >> donald trump was in detroit about a week and half ago or something, and he was quite insulting to the audience there. this was literally a city that was built on the working class. but he doesn't seem to incur a cost for doing that. and so your argument is valid about what kamala harris could do better, but i'm curious, do you think he incurs a cost for the insults that he holds at working-class people? >> at this point, my view is that he's got a cap. able made their judgment, is 100% known, he's doing his own voter mobilization at the moment. is going on these podcasts and he doesn't mind that we criticize him, is to some degree, it's also generating intensity on his own base. i think kamala harris has a ton of intensity on her own base, but when you are talking about the last four or 5%, my view on this is that if they go to trump, it's just that they weren't sold on harris.

it's not that they are for him, they are just falling that way. and we can't let them fall that way. there are four to 5% that i think are inclined towards kamala harris, and it's the job to sell it to them that not only is the stakes of his presidency really awful, but i know your life. i am prepared to fight for it. i know that you are cynical about government. i'm going to stand up to corporate power and use whatever authorities i have to try to improve your life. i'm recognizing and understanding that we made some marginal improvements, but we are not there yet. give me four more years to add on to the work we've been doing the fight for middle-class families. >> and then the other issue, as you said, his voter mobilization effort right now, that's a lot of what happens. kamala harris is still introducing herself in some cases, motivating some voters, but she's got to get that turned out. in the last presidential election, almost as many people voted for joe biden who could have voted didn't vote. is enough being done on that

front? that's a real threat this time around. the blow said, deliberately sitting this election out. >> i tend to think that sometimes people who are the last deciders, you know, they are not huge information consumers. might be cynical about government and they just want to know, what do you fight for? and sometimes, it is just important to pick the right fights. and in my view, some of the partisan fights, have limited value. you're running for president against him. you don't like him, he doesn't like you, that is understood. so what are the other animating fights? and i tend to live in the place and the belief of working-class fights where corporate power is at play. this is why biden got a lot of success at fighting big pharma. utilizing the powers of his agency to take on corporate abuses of all times, such as inflation. you remember all of these things. taking on the corporate tax system, issuing a billionaire tax cut,