ruth ben-ghiat is back with me. ruth, i'm so happy to be having this compulsion with you.ually i want to start with something that happened this week. this week you had secretary clinton, she went on msnbc with alex wagner and she told alex, she said, there is this certain yearning among certain people in the u.s.. for a kind of authoritarian leadership. what do you think is at the root of that yearning and why do you think it feels more pronounced in the united states right now? >> first of, all i wish we didn't have to have this discussion because democracy was in a better shape. but here we are. first thing is that trump, who is a superb propagandist, has actually been conditioning americans for many years and now he's soup it up to think of authoritarians and strongmen as models of leadership. so in his speeches, every time he practically praises shea jinping and putin. they are very fine people, marvelous models, even that leader of north korea. so americans buying into trump and everything he believes and have been conditioned. more broadly, authoritarians and charis

ruth ben-ghiat is a professor of history at nyu, author of an essential book called strong men, from to the present. ruth, it's a pleasure to have you here. thanks for joining us. >> a pleasure. >> the prospect of massive foreign support for a president who is in serious financial trouble feels like a very singular thing that we have never faced before in the united states. but the way you write about money and corruption and its relation to authoritarianism in your book makes me think this is not something necessarily that should be seen in isolation to trump here but maybe should be seen as more a larger part of the authoritarian project. >> yes, exactly. trump is what we call a personless ruler, meaning he personalizes politics. and holding pulic office or running for office in this case, the goal of it is and the party and government agencies, they're supposed to solve the leader's personal, legal, and financial problems. so holding office is a mechanism of self enrichment, so the campaign in this case. trump in that sense is very similar to other authoritarians, at its most extre

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. >> ruth ben-ghiat is professor of history at new york university, the author of strong men, mussolini to the present. ruth, thanks very much for talking with us tonight. i appreciate you being here. >> sure. a pleasure. >> of course, the root and branch of all american anticorruption protections has been about transparency, the >>> you show, it they're used for ukraine, shameful backlash towards those who would try to get away from something like that. that, effectively, loses itself. when transparency doesn't work because there's no shame, there is in fact pride doing it, you need a new tool box. all right, that's going to do it for us tonight. i'm going to see you again this weekend, saturday night, 6:30 pm eastern, i will be part of our special coverage of the south carolina republican primary again, 6:30 eastern saturday night. i will see that. now, time for the last word with brought lawrence o'donnell. good evening. >> i have nothing better to do a saturday night. i will be dropping by. joining you at the table. we have senator sherrod brown joining us tonight, which is always a

. >> ruth ben-ghiat is a professor of history at new york university, the author of strongmen: mussolini to the present. ruth, thank you for talking to us tonight. i appreciate you being here. >> thank you. >>> of course, that route and branch of all american anti corruption protections has always been about transparency's, and the idea that you show it, therefore you create shame, political backlash towards those who would try to get away with something like this. and that effectively polices itself. when transparency doesn't work because there is no shame and there's a fact pride in doing it, we do need a new tool box. >>> that's going to do it for us tonight. i'm gonna see you again it is a weekend, saturday night, 6:30 pm eastern. i would be part of our special coverage of the south carolina republican primary again, 6:30 eastern saturday night. i will see that. now, time for the last word with brought lawrence o'donnell. good evening. good evening >> good evening,. rachel i have nothing to do on saturday night, so i will be dropping by and joining you at that table. we have senator

cult author of the upcoming how to steal a presidential election, which shells on tuesday, and ruth ben- ghiat, professor of history at nyu and author of strongmen. from mussolini to the president. matt, i would like to start the conversation with you about the 14th amendment. you agree with supreme court watchers when you say that the court basically looks like it is going to hand donald trump a victory in this case. but you also say that there could be a silver lining for jack smith's election interference case. could you please explain that, what do you mean? >> that's right. thank you for having me. it seems absolutely clear that the supreme court is going to reject the attempt to bar former president trump from the ballot on the basis of his disqualification as an insurrectionist. but, critically, the basis of his decision based on of the oral arguments, on thursday will not be that he did not gauge an insurrection. they are going to rule, most likely, that states don't have the power to do that, that has to be congress that takes him off the ballot. but what that leaves open is whether h