he's. the one. there. well i'm tom hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture for republican steele the georgia six runoff election between john asaf and karen handel investigative reporter greg palast slinks they couldn't ill explain why in just

a moment and donald trump has confirmed he's under investigation how much longer are republicans willing to sit by and let this dumpster fire burn the whole house down alaska greer and kind newkirk into night's big picture. the latest polls out of the sixth district of georgia show the democrat john os off as about a three point advantage over republican challenger karen angle if these polls are accurate asaf will sneak by with a win in tuesday's special runoff election or will he one of america's leading investigative journalist now thinks that the georgia six runoff will be stolen or at least could be by republicans and their racist voter suppression laws joining me now to explain just what's going on down in georgia is greg palast state a reporter and creator of the new documentary the best democracy money can buy billionaires and ballot bandits greg welcome back. glad to be with you tom and why

don't we have escaped from the sixth i was just going to say welcome back home from georgia so tell us you know first of all if you pay attention the mainstream media are pretty confident that asaf will win tuesday but you aren't what did you learn when you were in georgia last week that informs your opinion oh boy because it isn't running against karen handel the republican she's running against jim crow they are they are testing the latest jim crow techniques to keep voters of color off the voter rolls and the tent that means especially asian americans so for example in my film the best democracy money can buy it happen to be filmed substantially in the georgia sixth congressional i didn't know be a national issue at the time and i was meeting with voter registration groups including the group that was labeled ten thousand koreans vote it's a huge asian american community there and they vote they vote almost like the

african-american community seventy five eighty percent democratic and so they are registering ten thousand new americans in korean young korean voters. and i told them you better check if those names are actually getting on the voter rolls sure enough they weren't thousands of names missing their lawyer called the secretary of state a republican and said where are our voters and they said what voters they lost the forms they claim that they never got the forms and in fact in the group said well the forms that we have photocopied so we know we know that those voters should be on the list the response of the georgia republicans was to kick in the doors of the group take their files take their computer files and shut the group down it scared the hell out of people they threaten the group with criminal charges illegal voter registration there was no such there were no illegal voters registered everything was done right they dropped the charges by the way they never filed the charges actually but the threat was enough to shut down the group those voters are still

not on the voter rolls same with an african-american group a registration drive new georgia project they signed of eighty six thousand people to vote around the around the state but concentrated in the sixth congressional district and forty thousand forty thousand of the names that they submitted to the state have not been entered on to the voter rolls almost all democrats and once again they've been threatened with criminal with criminal sanctions and but they haven't backed down but still they got forty thousand people who won't see their names on the voter rolls now you know it's several thousand in the sixth congressional that's just the beginning of the jim crow tactics including putting voting places concentrated in white neighborhoods and then the little korea which is in the six and the black neighborhoods the new black suburban areas of northern atlanta very few of the polling stations it's ugly and i don't see how os off

can swim against this on slaw of jim crow tactics. it's really now using spreadsheets you know and instead of white sheets this is more games crow e.s.q. you know. as. mattering would say your investigations of actually reveal that asaf would probably have won the first round of voting that preceded this runoff outright if it weren't for voter suppression and talk more about that. well let's as i mentioned we had the ten thousand korean voters several thousand never entered on to the voter rolls the african-americans not entered on to the voter rolls and young people the state g.o.p. officials are claiming that they don't have time or staff to enter those names and verify them etc baloney some of these names are registered six months ago but that was remember also off only last a complete when the clear winner on the first run by thirty seven hundred votes in

this case and karen handel got twenty percent of the vote while he got forty eight percent so it should be a walk away but there you know i'm seeing how they're placing voting stations are going to have the long line problem for african-american voters you're also going to the problem that a lot of african-american voters are being caught up in that game we've talked about called cross-checked where they're going to show up to vote and their names will be missing especially people common names like. david kim a very common korean name they're saying well if there's a david camm in georgia in the sixth and i'm not making up this example by the way this is an example they became of the georgia six and there's a david camm in virginia and they're saying all that means the same voters so they're removing those voter registrations people will then think that they voted because they're given provisional ballots we've talked about those those of those things you sign off on paper and generally they don't count those we have about

a third of provisional ballots are simply tossed in the dumpster i don't think that it's going to have a very very tough time overcoming because i don't want to be discouraging please i would say it's not that i'm endorsing asaf i am saying don't let anyone discourage you please vote whose vote a sauce opponent in this runoff election karen handel is the former georgia secretary of state here was her response when you asked her about republican voter suppression efforts trying to do it in this project to make sure that illegal voters are not on our. yes in fact we did get you back did you arrest that one as a matter of fact several people were brought before the state election for a. chance george you did not convict a single double voter thank you ok then you turned we're producing these blocks you know going to the if we can grab me you've got this one on one work with just three puppets the republicans have tried to do more with you you know you mock me just so if you read what i don't think it's all part of the new republican method of

helping out or not. does the fact that karen handel is awesome upon it and she was the secretary of state who got to you know ran the cross-check thing and threw all these folks off the voting rolls is doesn't have virtually guaranteed skullduggery on tuesday. well you have a very ugly situation in which the woman who's running against us off was in charge of counting the votes and cleansing the vote registries of people she considered suspicious which according to our records were substantially mostly voters of color and her and the current secretary of state brian kemp as your good buddy who's running for governor on the republican line you know america's one the only nations in the planet where the people who are running for office count their own votes and again os off as a screen you know swim upstream against this type of obvious and ugly conflict of interest as you saw just so you know by the way karen handel handel she did not

give me any problems when i asked her if the democrats were stealing the election she was thrilled to have the question from me she was buddy buddy with me the minute i asked a tough question three toughs got my way body blocked me pulled me back. you know and so assault is the new republican response to a difficult question from a reporter and believe me the other reporters around me like they like immediately were like stopped asking any real questions it was just tough after that they didn't want to be pulled away because you know a lot of those t.v. reporters would lose their job so it's terrorize it's a kind of a low level harassment and terrorizing of the of reporters with tough questions is a campaign aware of what they're up against. i think that you know unless asaf is a fool and he doesn't seem to be he knows what's going on his job is simply to get voters out there no matter what's happening it's been left the ga n.w.a. c.p. contacted me they want to you know they want to take major legal action they want

to promote in fact using my film as an educational tool but they want to get out there and warn people what's happening in georgia in particular with these new vote purging systems created by the way by donald trump's henchmen kris kobach who is now head of of trump's elections integrity commission you know you know and he's the guy who is the vote thief in chief and he's investigating vote fraud good luck to all of us but the end of lacy p. common cause of the civil rights center of washington a.c.l.u. are all ready to take this on and fortunately. they reviewed the my findings but there's just been no time to take action before this runoff on tuesday so i again i'm not endorsing asaf i hope the voters weren't so please vote her representative is the georgia sixth district campaign of campaigns all across the country in terms of how republicans of rigged the system to their advantage. i think it's one of the

ugliest because you have controlled legislature control the secretary of state's office control of the justice department now remember the justice department used to be the you know the voting cops when georgia would pull stunts like this under the voting rights act they couldn't get away with it they could never have implemented the whole cross-checked vote purging campaign under the old voting rights act because they would have needed what's called pre-clearance they would have had to run it past the feds first and i want to know never a flat pass the smell test so the supreme court took away federal power to act or reduce federal power the current feds you know they're under jeff's beauregard sessions good luck there the state both the state officials at the secretary of state's office and remember it was the georgia bureau of investigation which literally raided the offices of these vote of the voter registration groups if you

can imagine they raided the offices in the asian american community that was terrifying these are new voters and we i was told. i was told by the lawyers for the asian american organizations in this community that type of terrorism and harassment reminds them of the dictatorships that they fled and a lot of them will not show up at the at the polling stations now because they fear harassment these are new american voters and young american voters and georgia is is just become one of the worst jim crow operations out there but as you say it's you know dr james crow esquire because it's done in a very sophisticated manner an ugly manner but sophisticated and then on top of that it's going to be on i think they're the only state no house voting machines that have absolutely no auto trail absolutely no paper trail absolutely no way to verify who voter where our when and you know that greg we're we're out of time thanks so much for being with us and i grant dallas. you're welcome tom. it's great

to see coming up why is n.b.c. given a platform to dangerous conspiracy theorists like alex jones scott greer and i knew kirk in tonight's big picture and. i think the average viewer just after watching a couple of segments understands that we're telling stories that are critics can't tell you know why because their advertisers won't let them. in order to create change you have to be honest you have to tell the truth marty's able to do that every story is built on going after the back story to what's really happening out there to the american what's happening when it's local ration makes

a pharmaceutical chills people when a company in the environmental business ends up polluting a river that causes cancer and other illnesses and they put all the health risk all the dangers out to the american public those are stories that we tell every week and you know what they're working. with the politicians to do such things to. put themselves on the line. to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to express. something wanted. to do it to be that's what the for. the people that i'm interested in the.

with an obstruction of justice investigation into the president now more or less confirmed will republicans finally dump trump or are they craven enough to stick through the circus to the end let's ask tonight's big picture politics panel. will be for tonight's panel are scott greer deputy editor of the daily caller and kirk progressive organizer of democracy spring and co-founder of ninety nine rise

thank you both for being here with me. so donald trump has officially admitted that he is under investigation in a tweet sent out the small in the president said i am being investigated for firing the f.b.i. director by the man who told me to fire the f.b.i. director which daunte. in case it wasn't clear the man trump is referring to in that tweet is deputy attorney general rod rosenstein who appointed former f.b.i. director robert mueller to be special counsel for the russian vest a geisha rosenstein also wrote the memo justifying homeys firing firing of james comey so if mueller finishes his investigation in claims obstruction of justice and rosenstein recommends impeachment or at least says hey here's a crime were republicans in congress actually impeach trump and i've got another theory about these tweets i'd like to read by you guys and that is that you know let's say the j. actually finds out it's

a crime they won't prosecute or presidents never happen in two hundred forty years and so what they do is they print that present that evidence to congress at that point it's no longer a criminal issue it's a political issue and what donald trump is doing with his tweets right now is political all the lawyers are going oh my god you put yourself in legal jeopardy he doesn't care they can say oh yeah his tweet obstructed justice and he's going to keep tweeting and builds the political pressure so that the republicans in congress will refuse to impeach him that this is my theory i'm just curious what you guys the republicans are not for him and i don't even think with miller's investigation the of chuck schumer justice cases because shown as possible most people we already know most of the evidence of that is coming has presented and many people said it's not a strong enough especially towards republicans i don't think there's going to be any smoking more smoking gun than trump saying i hopes you move on from this repugnant some are heard that they've already determined that that's not obstruction of justice so that this is going to be impeachable what mueller is more likely to do and with all these tweets is try to find something else that you can connect the

trouble is going to be a thing with the collusion or anything like that but it could be something with his real estate deals some of the elves are going to be on ads as right now and it's very clear that miller wants to bring down trump with who is hiring many people or their own private donors he has a close relationship with comi clearly komi doesn't like try. and wants to bring him down through the leaks and even with his testimony he gave a very strong anti trump position and it's obvious that he did that trump did fire him from a job you love so what the miller investigation i think it's more not going to be this obstruction of justice that's a big thing right now i think further down the line somewhere to how clinton with can starr they found the sexual affair out allegations from that i thought or yeah but that's what clinton peach and i got him and he knows that i that there's a there is they are so there's so i just like is that clinton was only impeached for obstruction of justice not better throw regardless that there's something going to be allow down the line that miller might find that i don't like it i don't disagree it's clear that the investigation the further it goes along we find out

more standing in terms of trump and the more he continues to make mistakes i don't know about your theory it's an interesting one but you know for me what's important is that for the future of our democracy for the good of our country we have to move to try to impeach trump we have to get him out he's a threat to our nation and he's violating the constitution since day one in my view in terms of the emoluments calls and it's conflicts of interest and the base of the lawsuits that were filed and so on is based on that not the obstruction of justice the republicans are going to move to try to get rid of trump until they're forced to by the public by the movement by the resistance that's what we've got to focus on continue to build and create enough pressure we're starting to see democrats come around introduce articles of impeachment and try to push for that republicans are going to do so until trump's numbers tend to go when there's a threat when he. he will be a neutered president if he is in office now whether imposing because i think if you have maybe a member of the surveyor coming that's what i was sort of i was from taking from

a lot of resistance i would be much rather have president trump the president president heads and is considered the reason why there you have a health care bill that's passed through the house and is out now possibly might pass in the senate he knows how to work the legislature he knows how to get laws passed and republicans respect him wasn't just. rather of president i would say if i was going to live twenty years and no i would rather have president trump for my own position but even from a left wing position i would say you would rather have a president trump as well as president hence we have to deal with the immediate threat that we face which is trump pence is a radical conservative but he's not a neo fascist like trump and he doesn't he's not playing to try to bring this economic populist case to the table which can bring in voters that that pence can and if pence survives impeachment because he'll be closely implicated in whatever we're able to bring down trump he's going to be deeply chastened by the fact that the american people drew a line in the sand they said you will not cross beyond this if we look back to

watergate nixon's impeachment gerald ford was not a strong president and the aftermath of that and the democrats made huge gains in the twenty two midterm so i think we've got to focus on the media threat and deal with pence afterward but i'm confident that we'll be able to do so you know ok so the controversy over meghan kelly's interview with far right conspiracy theorist alex jones has grown even bigger after jones revealed thursday night that he had secretly recorded their entire conversation quoting when she called him first called him and solicited him to be on her show and as if that wasn't bad enough jones also released an embarrassing audio clip this is from that initial call of meghan kelley moralize saying that she'll go easy on him take a listen and think about me i'm michelle and i i'll show. you when it's over you'll say. and you'll be silent i'll looking up the tray you wish.

you could you know you. just you know if you're in there as well. you know what i should like. and what believe so i was american journalism. and just so perverted by the profit motive media consolidation you know this is like the television equivalent of click bait the were here well this is and that's ignoring the problem of it you have to see a major network would want to interview and says that somebody is connected to the president who has million of you who have millions of viewers to a show who has is willing. an unprecedented level of influence in america right now why would a network try to interview a clip of course doesn't make you look great but a lot of journalists do these kind of we're all going to do all these great things you know they kind of sucker up to him in order to allow them to be interviewed the

reason why i released those clip clips is because when this interview was first announced earlier this week and they released a teaser for it there was this tremendous backlash against us there was reports that he was re re editing it to make even look worse and even by the teaser alex jones was a coming off great in this interview and it's kind of a way of as a backlash against men kelly let me jump in here which is it's not it's not wrong to interview this guy but the frame in the approach is what's important and you know on the about universal compassion on part of the love army i don't want to hate anybody but alex jones has said some terrible terrible things and has been leading people and in the dark. more in person i mean people kind of argue about the present a united states interview then you can go around that you hold them accountable for and she was even in the even in the teaser she was addressing him about all these controversial topics that he's had and asked and demanded answers for that and it's not like most of america is going to agree with alex jones on the positions he's

taking on these issues and you that's what you know news that we should do that's what sixty minutes used to do it instead of like doing you know corporate advertising they have to interview and asked tough questions of these people and a lot of american public no wonder if and b.c. is going to start by and show i mean. i mean giving them a forum with. really holding that and i don't really think it is a lot for me i don't know how most of the n.b.c. viewers are going to say like wow i want to you know i don't think there's going to be much crossover the stand you know and maybe she's saying that to just try to get him to give her a chance you know if that's the case we'll see what the ultimate product is but i think i think you're right that the profit motive is certainly here and the journalistic responsibility especially in this era of fake news and all the allegations and the erosion of any kind of trust not that we look to and d.c. to provide but you know if she's going to uphold the responsibility of being a journalist the way that you do then she needs to really challenge it and you really should ok thank you amazon has announced a thirteen point seven billion dollars deal to buy the gorm

a grocery chain whole foods that move continues amazon's trend of expanding outward from its digital bookstore routes but it also raises serious concerns about whether that company is becoming or has already become functionally a monopoly so is it time is for us to bring back the sherman antitrust act and break up these big companies you know this this is by the way let me just add this is the reason why small businesses across america die this is the horizontal integrator vertical integration with an industry and now both of those companies trying to horizontal integration as well. if so before reagan stopped in force in the sherman antitrust act in one thousand nine hundred two you could you could go to any city in america and you knew exactly where you were because the local bank was named after the city the local restaurant was named after the city the local clothing store was owned by a family to live down the street everything was locally owned now you can drop out of a plane at sixty thousand feet and fall into any random city or parachute into any random city in america and have no idea where you are because it's all here's

a taco bell there's a mcdonald's there's the joseph a banks there's that or whatever i mean you know they're all there it's is this this this monopolization of. retail and that it puts power in only these few institutions i mean if you shop and basically get most of your goods from the same. company you know that's a tremendous amount of power it has over american lives begin to turn what products you eat in don't eat in favor of yeah i think i did i'm not bullies are not good for the public i mean we did we determine that as a society we don't want to know eighteen eighty want to know the rules of it would be rolling in his grave i mean this is just one instance of a much much broader problem of consolidation of political and economic power in the hands of fewer and fewer people and i think that we've got a demand of our representatives that they've got to they've got to use those laws those tools to start to break up these monopolies and challenge this or it's going to continue to go further and further and it's not just going to consolidation of power and economic power political and economic power it's also the consolidation

of wealth it's now reached a point where the people who are the investors in the senior executives of the major stock holders of these giant corporations are the ones who are becoming one hundred millionaires and billionaires and meanwhile all across america i mean you know when when your employer loot literally lived down the street from you your employer tended to treat you well now when your employer is off in new york city in your in poughkeepsie your employer doesn't give a damn and so eight am minimum wage and working like crazy just this this is the the fruit of monopoly it seems to me and it's so. well i don't know what we do with this but we've got to continue to fight we've got to build a movement we've got to challenge this you know the use of economic wealth to create political power to then change the laws or make them not force to do this you know those efforts the child's been beaten on the straw elizabeth warren has but it's got to be driven in the streets by a movement well said scott thank you both good and good and that's the way it is tonight and don't forget democracy is not

a spectator sport get out there get active tag your. all the feeling go through. every the world should experience. and you get the old. the old according to just. come along for the.

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