i'm talkin' about pennsylvania republican gubernatorial candidate and haunted testicle, doug mastrianobelieved god would ensure his victory, so it was extra sweet when, this sunday, doug mastriano conceded to josh shapiro. ♪ hallelujah! hallelujah ♪ yes, on a sunday. reminds me of the inspirational poster, wherein the lord says, "the times when you saw only one set of footprints on the beach, that's because i didn't wanna be seen anywhere near doug mastriano. he's koo-koo!" ( laughter ) ( applause ) before the-- ♪ hallelujah ♪ before the midterms, the former president had been teasing his 2024 presidential kickoff for tomorrow. right? it was supposed to be tomorrow. but now that so many of his candidates got creamed, republicans are advising him to delay his announcement until after the senate runoff in georgia. and so... he's gonna announce tomorrow. ( laughter ) advisors to the former president claim he's eager to start attacking other potential g.o.p. hopefuls, saying, "i would expect him to come out swinging." which sounds scary at first. but remember: when he comes out swinging, i

we're still waiting for you to intervene on behalf of doug mastriano. >> who? rioted on january 6 and looks like a big toe? not my best work.

doug mastriano never actually spoke. the lawyer berated the committee as illegitimate and then he and doug mastriano left. there is also this. melania trump's former chief of staffp' describing what she hea from people in the white house about donald trump on january 6th. quote, that he was sitting in the diningqu room, and he was jt watching it all unfold, and that a couple of his comments, some of his comments were that these people looked very trashy, but also look at what fighters they were. i don't know if he expected them todo be wearing full suits of le roman armor and that would have made them not trashy. but t he did feel that they lood trashy but he looked how they weretr fighting for him. in the batch of 20 transcript, the latest release from the january 6th committee as it winds downmm its work. innd another sign that the committee's work is coming to a close today the committee formally withdrew the subpoena to former president trump, acknowledging that it would bee moot once the committee ceases to exist ne

nominee for pennsylvania governor, doug mastriano, still has not conceded the race. many of his supporters believed god would intervene on his behalf, even though the race had already been called for his opponent, josh shapiro. >> we call all of you-- call on you to pray, and to ask the lord to intervene. >> excuse me, god. i came here all the way from bethlehem, pennsylvania. we're still waiting for you to intervene on behalf of doug mastriano. >> who? oh, you mean the guy who rioted on january 6 and looks like a big toe? not my best work. >> so are you going to help him win the pennsylvania governor race? >> no! i already settled that one. it's shapiro. i like a guy who listens to me, and he's the only one who is circumcised. >> but doug mastriano is the chosen-- ( static ) >> you're breaking up... ( static ) can't hear you... ( static ) going into a tunnel... ( static ) new bush, who dis? >> announcer: it's "the late show with stephen colbert." tonight: blame on you! plus, stephen welcomes: emily blunt and george saunders featuring louis cato and the late show ban

the failed republican candidate for governor in pennsylvania that transcript is short, because doug mastriano never actually spoke. the lawyer berated the committee has illegitimate, and then he ended mastriano left. there's also this, from the line of trump's former chief of staff. describing what she heard from people in the white house about donald trump on january six. quote, that he was sitting in the dining room, and he was watching it all unfold. and then a couple of his comments, some of his comments where that these people looked very tragic, but also look at what fighters they were. i don't know if he was expecting them to be wearing full suits, of roman armor, and that would've made them not trashy. but he did feel, that they looked trashy, but he loved how they were fighting for him. this batch of almost 20 transcripts as the latest release from the january six committee, as it winds down its work and another sign of the committee's work is coming to a close. today the committee formally withdrew its subpoena. to former president trump acknowledging that it would be -- once the co

despite the utter insanity o the republican field, with candidates like kari lake an doug mastriano, the polls go really uncomfortably tight there was finger-pointing an questioning about the democrat strategy and whether the party had focus on the wrong issues. expectations once agai reverted back to historica patterns and then got worse. but as it turns out, the message had been the right one the candidates had been th right ones against precedent, the democrats did a lot better tha expected they outperformed al predictions. this great so-called red wav never materialized instead, republicans squeake out a nine seat majority in th house. the democrats not only held on to the senate, but they gain a seat with raphael warnock' victory in the georgia runoff. at the state level, democrat just knocked it out of the park they flipped four stat legislative chambers also the pennsylvania house. they reelected michiga democratic governor gretchen whitmer, giving democrat control of all three bodies in that key swing state it is the first time the party had full governing control i michigan

so was mehmet oz so was doug mastriano. one would think that republicans won't do that again so then what should democrats take away from their victories in the last election >> there is a very clear glass half empty view of this, which is that herschel walker, kari lake, you know, adam laxhalt came extremely close despite all of herschel walker's herschel walkerness and kari lake's kari lakenesses it came this close this was supposed to be a very favorable democratic map they won one seat. on a whole it was a really good cycle, surprisingly good for democrats. but this is not a one race i don't know -- the problem is i don't think republicans know how to learn a lesson here i mean, this is not a rational party right now because donald trump is still ostensibly driving it if he falls in love with candidate x in montana and decides to go all in with him or her that's potentially great news for jon tester or whoever the vulnerable democrat is >> do you, claire, think that trump will hold that sway over the nominating process

doing so well is pennsylvania republican nominee and-- ( audience booing ) and egg with dentures, doug mastriano the polls in part because, according to political scientists, he sucks! ( cheers and applause ) among other things-- ( applause ) among the ways that he sucks, he attended the january 6th riot, has a long-standing association with christian nationalist ideas, proposed charging women who violate an abortion ban with murder-- ( audience boos ) --is connected to a social media site run by a notorious anti- semite, and was photographed wearing a confederate uniform. ( audience boos ) because historically, nothing projects "winner" like a confederate soldier in pennsylvania. ( laughter and applause ) "four score and seven years ago"... mastriano's popularity was never great, now it's tanking. case in point-- this weekend he held what he promised would be a "big rally," but ended up looking like this. ouch. not a great sign when your rally has more stairs than people. ( laughter ) he's also been wildly out-raised by millions of dollars, and he seems to be getting desperate, because yesterda

kimberly guilfoyle, christina baab, stephen miller and those to try to overturn the election like doug mastrianocnn's paula reid is joining me now. you're going through this. i know it's a lot. there are hundreds of people with many, many pages of transcripts. what has stood out to you so far? >> reporter: well, we have the support of a big team combing over this. sara, i want to start with some of the revelations in the transcript from donald trump jr. specifically, the transcript reveals new details about text messages that the former president exchanged with then white house chief of staff mark meadows. we've reported on some of these text messages, we're getting new details, new context. for example, you dive into a text message that donald trump jr. extent on january 6 to meadows where he said his father then president needs to condemn this expletive. he's encouraging meadows to press this father to condemn the violence on capitol hill. now, the committee pressed him and said, well, why didn't you reach out to your father yourself? why are you going through mark meadows? he said my father d

and yet democrat joshua pirro is the new -- there was a maga candidate named doug mastriano who is unelectable statewide and it was over and over. -- michigan, pennsylvania, arizona, nevada, on and on. >> yeah. i think arizona and nevada are two cases, two top targets of the republicans. and democrats won both of those races. and now they have one yet another senate seat in the deep south. this is a real moment for republicans to figure out how they are going to proceed and it goes beyond donald trump at this point. because it is not just trumpism. it's also a lot of trump voters who are we are trump's and maybe even beyond that at a certain point. and that is what is pushing the party so far to the right that they are not able to get out of these primaries unscathed with a candidate who can really survive in a general election. the primary process is a huge part of the problem here. it is making them vulnerable. it's making them unpalatable in the suburbs. it's making them unpalatable to a lot of these emerging voters of color, who are decisive in states like nevada and arizona and georgia. b

oz and doug mastriano, et cetera, et cetera.andidates who have fealty to donald trump and they're not winners. >> and neither is donald trump. i think the one thing in georgia is they picked herschel walker thinking that black votes would vote for herschel walker because he was black but black voters are smarter than that and they vote for candidates that know how to have comprehensive sentences, understand policy and don't have some of the compromising issues that herschel walker's campaign has really surfaced about him and maybe somebody who has residency in the state they're running in. and i think donald trump, he isn't going into georgia because he doesn't have that special effect in that state. he lost the state in 2020. and he is a big problem for your party, he is a big problem for america, and i think warnock will pull this out. >> biden is not going to georgia, to be fair. >> but obama is there. >> let's talk about georgia for a second. i don't want people to think this is inside baseball, but this is about the democra

you on the one hand in 2022 democracy was saved in the key swing states, the carry lakes and doug mastrianofictions all lost. but, on the other hand gop election players about take control of the house. what does the future hold for american democracy in your view? >> i think what we are going to see is what i would call increased organization, happening. not just when the house of representatives but from figures like ron desantis. we have seen the targeting a public institutions like public schools, astroturf tack on public schools, i expect the tactics that -- wields with such efficiency will come here, they will be targeting private universities as he did with central european university and targeting endowments in federal funding, and more tactics of the sort that rhonda santa ceos with disney. targeting private companies. so, that is one development. i also expect the structural effects of the supreme court, the far-right supreme court to bear down upon us in the coming years. >> ruth, is there a danger that the same democratic party and, quote unquote, liberal media which took so lon

election denier doug mastriano called the separation of church and state a myth, adding "in november we're going to take our state back, my god will make it so." he lost. mehmet oz lost, backed by the former president. and herschel walker. here's what a campaign adviser told "the atlanta journal-constitution" today, quoting herschel now. "herschel was like a plane crash train wrack dumpster fire orphanage animal shelter, you have to watch it squinting 30 your fingers. it certainly will be part of the case that next time should be different. this time might have ended differently had the gop fielded a better slate. the argument that a so-called generic republican might have defeated raphael warnock. then again, it's worth remembering in 2020 in the runoff, admittedly under far different circumstances, warnock defeated not just a generic republican but a specific run, kelly loeffler, the sitting u.s. senator, which raises another set of questions for republicans and their prospects in georgia in the next election. let's get perspective from two cnn political commentators. melissa farr

tudor dixon, bolduc, doug mastriano, mehmet oz. all the way down here. and these are the senate candidates. we're not mentioning dan cox in maryland, other gubernatorial offices. what does this mean for trumpism? >> well, it means that voters are rejecting election denialism. a good thing. good for democracy. i caution to go any further to say that it has massive implications for donald trump. and i say that because many of these were very weak candidates. they were people he hand-picked based on their loyalty and fealty to him, less based on their experience. but donald trump still controls a large portion of the base, and i always caution folks, we've seen many, many times that we've said he's over, he's done. time will tell. he's the only announced candidate right now. he's still polling ahead in a number of polls for the republican front-runner. but it shows the limitations on running as a trump candidate. perhaps he can do it. perhaps that may work for him. though it hasn't worked for him since 2016. but it's certainly not working when trying to be

herschel walker, kari lake, blake master, tudor dixon in michigan, doug mastriano, who is, whew, diane, tim mick else, lee zeldin in new york, darryn bailey, all of his can'ts went down. the only one that managed to get through is j.d. vance who is an embarrassing, less interesting ted cruz but he was really peter fields' candidate. let's talk about herschel for a moment because herschel really was kind of a ventroloquist dummy for somebody like lindsey gra whom who i want to play a few. this is good. cut one. this was lindsey graham's case for elected herschel walker. here it is. >> he changes the entire narrative of the left. we're a party of racists, sean. me and you are a racist, the republican party is racist. what happens when the republican party elects and nominates herschel walker, an african american, black heisman trophy winner, right, olympian, it destroys the whole narrative. they're scared to death of herschel walker because if herschel walker becomes a republican, maybe every other young child in america of color might want to be a republican. >> nothing about that case,

the utter insanity of the republican field with candidates like kari lake and don bold duck and doug mastriano, the polls got really uncomfortably tight. there was finger pointing and questioning about the democrats' strategy and whether the party had focused on the wrong issues. expectations once again reverted back to historical patterns and then got worse, but as it turns out, the message had been the right one. the candidates had been the right ones against precedent the democrats did a lot better than expected they outperformed all predictions. this great so-called red wave never materialized and instead republicans squeaked out a nine-seat majority in the house and the democrats not only held onto the senate but they gained a seat with rafael warnock's victory in the georgia runoff. at the state level democrats just knocked it out of the park, they flipped four state legislative chambers, both chambers in michigan, the legislature in minnesota and the pennsylvania house they reelected gretchen whitmer, giving democrats control of all three bodies in that key swing state, the first time t

between herschel walker, doug mastriano, this guy george santos, they can't find any republicans that are more serious minded and sane and rationally qualified? >> i think that there are some big underlying issues that you raise but santos is a very special case in that, in a sense, he's a failure on the part of both parties because neither party discovered all of this insanity on his part, all of this pathological lying until after he had been elected. if i am a democratic campaign strategists, i am rethinking some of the money i spent on opposition research, not having uncovered this. and you have to assume, i think, that had all this come delay earlier, that santa's would not have won the republican primary, let alone the general election. this is a guy, you can't even trust him if he swears on his mother's grave, right? he will say anything for the most fleeting and momentary of advantages. >> alison, i got to say that they did have this research. this is what makes this so interesting. i agree that this is now political malpractice on the part of new york democrats. i am very inv

vance, doug mastriano. >> none of those guys know how to debate whether they want to be a we are werewolf or a vampire. it's not you the resolve but actually like the numbers have said it. there's like 5, 6% of people who didn't vote in the midterms. those are enthusiastic people. those are not people who have been convinced by herschel walker who need to participate. they believe in raphael warnock. maybe playing for overtime. they're ready, voting, prepared, they want this to be over so the governing can start next spring. >> this will be a six-year term. people will get a break in this situation. i wonder if that's a motivating factor. our reporter at nbc, they have laid it out. there are something like 77,000 voters who didn't vote in november who are voting now. and is that because people maybe thought warnock was a shoe in before, and maybe now they're deciding. >> one, i think some people really recognized how critical it was. i think there were people who thought warnock was going to win and when they went into a runoff, wait, we have to do something different. i think that was a

. >> just a note on that, a gubernatorial candidate in pennsylvania, doug mastriano called his supporters to 40 days of prayer and fasting. the media use that as evidence that he is a christian nationalist. look it up. that is what we are talking about and that's why we cannot shrink back from these labels that are being assigned. i'm going to go to you dr. hall, you touched on this a little bit in your remarks this comes from one of our viewers. the term christian was originally derogatory in the bible, can we not adopt the term christian nationalism and turn it to good. >> you take it first and then i will let stephen had it. >> i tend to think when you have a term that is created for the purpose of attacking you that it does not become real until you respond to it. then once you respond to it you are captured by it so everything from that moment forward -- there is actually a methodology involved in this not just an opinion. the minute you respond to critical race theory now that is all you're talking about and it is a serious defense or the entire narrative. making a right to have a d

oz running for the senate or general don bolduck, here's something they don't realize, doug mastriano was going to win that nomination with or without donald trump's endorsement, and maybe when he was -- already won the primary. i can tell you bolduck was not endorsed in new hampshire until he had already won the primary. in every opinion piece that i read, people say donald trump cost us new hampshire and pennsylvania. .. i don't think that that's true. i really. so was this vote a referendum on donald trump? michael, i'll say this to you. like i was expecting repudiation on the level of 2010. in 2010, after two years of barack in 2010 after two years of barack hussein obama, republicans flipped 64 seats come 6363 or 64 seats in the house here i was expecting something like that. instead looks like we're going to win by two. i didn't expect that. and it didn't expect that because i believe that if you last tuesday were voting for your own self interest, which is typically what you would expect of people, then there was no way that you would've voted for a democrat if you would've wan

they did not want to vote for blake masters or kari lake or doug mastriano, who lost by 15 points in should have been good for republicans. the reason republicans are underperforming what they should be doing is because swing voters are moving away from the republican party long as it is trumpy. i feel that way too. while i understand there is a deep well of support among a group of base voters, the candidates they are nominating are unpopular with the general election voters. that is why those candidates are losing. host: the latest episode of "the focus group" is with amy walter. four hours ago you posted a new episode focusing on georgia. let's go to georgia. marietta, georgia. caller: good morning. i am a descendant of a black slave, i am a black nationalist and a panafricanist. i voted for him in 2016 and i will vote for him again. everybody knows about him. they knew about his history. he did not hide it. to me, he is the most honest of the politicians i have ever encountered. no, he is not perfect, but he stands on his square. he is not going to sit in front of one set of peop

they did not want to vote for blake masters or kari lake or doug mastriano, who lost by 15 points in should have been good for republicans. the reason republicans are underperforming what they should be doing is because swing voters are moving away from the republican party long as it is trumpy. i feel that way too. while i understand there is a deep well of support among a group of base voters, the candidates they are nominating are unpopular with the general election voters. that is why those candidates are losing. host: the latest episode of "the focus group" is with amy walter. four hours ago you posted a new episode focusing on georgia. let's go to georgia. marietta, georgia. caller: good morning. i am a descendant of a black slave, i am a black nationalist and a panafricanist. i voted for him in 2016 and i will vote for him again. everybody knows about him. they knew about his history. he did not hide it. to me, he is the most honest of the politicians i have ever encountered. no, he is not perfect, but he stands on his square. he is not going to sit in front of one set of peop

no one will sit around and say, if only kari lake and doug mastriano and herschel walker weren't ourey came close with that crop. matthew, i think you are bummed herschel walker is coming home to texas. isn't he a texan? >> time for me to leave. >> i'm sure it would fine if you ran into him at the grocery store. when we come back, will the republicans get the message that the twice-impeached disgraced ex-president's brand is bad? we will show you what mitt romney had to say about that after a break. what mitt romney had to say about that after a break. once upon a time, at the magical everly estate, landscaper larry and his trusty crew... were delayed when the new kid totaled his truck. timber... fortunately, they were covered by progressive, so it was a happy ending... for almost everyone. for people living with h-i-v, keep being you. and ask your doctor about biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in certain adults. it's not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to and stay undetectable. that's when the amoun

elect rather that broke with the gop and its election lies, fed up with election deniers like doug mastrianopennsylvania who would do his and donald trump's bidding from that "times" report today, quote, it was so reprehensible, that's pennsylvania republican joe m molller i didn't want anybody like that. discernible surveys and interviews did not necessarily lay to rest concerns about the ability of the election system to withstand the new pressures unleashed upon it by mr. trump, but they did suggest a possible ceiling on the appeal of extreme partisanship, one that prevented in this cycle the worst fears for the health of democracy from being realized joining us now, michigan's democratic secretary of state jocelyn benson, who won reelection this november, defeating a trump-backed election denier. basil is still with us madam secretary, i feel like this is something we intuited and we talked about, and something you, you know, knew or felt or were hearing in michigan but this reporting that looks at states like yours and says that there really was a limit on the appeal of this anti-democr

doug mastery ono. whose campaign was tied to far-right antisemites, and who pushed antisemitic tropes about his jewish opponent and the jewish school he sent his son to. again, mastrianoorter, a jewish reporter, just listen to mastriano's wife's defense. >> i would like to make a comment on that real quick. i'm gonna say it's the family, we so much love israel, in fact, i mean estate we probably love israel more than a lot of jews do. i have to say that. >> astonishing. but it appears to be the go-to move. even republicans who do condemn antisemitism in their party, they make sure to talk about israel, and their love for the israeli government. they see it as a kind of get out of jail free card. where could they have got this idea from? >> i love israel. and i honor introspective the jewish faith. my administration will stand side-by-side with the jewish people and israel's leaders. >> the republican jewish coalition thank you for your incredible support. i stood with your prime minister at the white house, to recognize israel sovereignty over the golan heights. >> cutting off aid to israel because of two people that hate israel and hate jewish people? and i think any