joining me now from the front lines, marc elias. nationally recognized -- mark, they've been going for a while. they have been debating, as the senate is designed to do. where -- how are you feeling right now watching this? >> look, i wouldn't be being honest with you if i didn't tell you that i am saddened, that it appears that this bill is not going to pass. the times that i came on your show and said, how essential this bill was, i wasn't saying that because i thought it was a nice thing. i was saying it because our democracy needs it. so, i appreciate all the senators having an opportunity to say their piece, but at the end of the day, tomorrow morning, voters are going to wake up around the country, and face an onslaught of voter suppression. congress will not have helped. >> you will -- you mentioned yesterday -- senator joe manchin. we should be precise here, imagine is on board with this legislation, on the merits, all 50 democratic senators are. he is not on board with changing the filibuster rules, to make it -- you can de

marc elias. he and his colleagues won 64 cases to date against the trump campaign and lost just one. he is now so feared by trump world that maga tv even suggested doing this. >> marc elias, why don't you guys put together a half billion dollars and go hire him and get him out of your way? >> so, marc elias, would you have gone away for half a billion dollars? let's talk to marc about this, the founder of democracy docket joins me now. marc, putting that to the side, that was just in jest. how likely is it in these upcoming midterms that we're going to see a scenario of multiple elections across the country becoming such a huge circus because of these bogus fraud claims? >> i think it's an inevitability. i think we are maybe one, two election cycles away from a real constitutional crisis because you now have one of the two major parties in this country that is no longer committed to free and fair elections, no longer committed to the peaceful transfer of power. and, you know, it's easy for people

think if you talk to marc elias, i'm sure you have.his concerted effort across our country to suppress the vote. that litigation is not enough. you have a case where, say in montana, where they have had same-day registration for 15 years. flip the switch, got rid of it, 1000 people used. in the last election and now they're going to go to the polls and find out that it is disappearing. in georgia, raphael warnock, 70,000 people registered to vote in the runoff period. they've now limited the runoff period and stop the registration of people during that month. these are things that are going on state by state by state. and yeah, you can litigate, and we have incredible arguments to be made. but basically, what we want to put in place, so that you can vote regardless of your zip code. federal minimum standards, upheld repeatedly by the way, the ability of congress to do this, under the constitution, that says congress can make -- regarding federal elections. that is what we are trying to do here. regardless of state of the living >> sena

marc elias was one of the strongest supporters of this bill because he knew all this work couldn't beick garland, the attorney general, got up before the country a few days ago and said that congress needed to act to give the justice department the power it needed to go to court to fight some of these voter suppression measures. and what's really disturbing about these arguments is that the filibuster, as amy klobuchar pointed out, has been changed again and again and again. mitch mcconnell changed the filibuster to help put three republican appointees on the supreme court with just 51 votes. so it's absolute nonsense to treat the filibuster rules as some sacred writ, especially sacred writ that came from the founders because the filibuster didn't even exist for the first 17 years of the congress and arguably came into effect kind of by accident in rules rewrite by aaron burr of all people. so it's really such a shame that history has been so distorted in this debate. >> we're going to squeeze in a commercial break here in our live coverage of this situation. and when we come back, we

both those sets of maps were immediately challenged by multiple lawsuits, including one from marc eliasrymandered maps of the ohio legislature. >> it was a really important victory for the voters of ohio. what it means is that the supreme court of ohio is going to stand up for the right of voters. the voters passed a constitutional amendment that said that you cannot have partisan gerrymandering in redistricting. notwithstanding that, the republican-controlled redistricting process yielded a tremendously gerrymandered map in favor of republicans. and the 4-3 decision of the state supreme court said no way, that the people's will needs to be abided by and said that the commission needs to go back and take another shot at drawing fair maps. >> so that means that the proposed map, which i think would have added one republican seat to an already quite lopsided delegation in a state that's republican plus eight, that that now is gone, right? they have to start from scratch essentially and draw a new map? >> right. this was the state legislative maps. so, yes, they have to start over with usi

marc elias is here, voting rights attorney and founder of the democracy docket.ining us, dnc chairman j.b. harrison, msnbc contributor and former congresswoman donna wards is here and the aforementioned ari berman. it's an embarrassment of riches. you're four people we have called on since the earliest days after the november election and marc elias, this is all of our fight but you're one of the first people suited up and on the battlefield and i wonder your reaction to the president and vice president's speeches this afternoon. >> i thought the speeches were excellent, and i think they met the moment where we are. which is, not looking past this week. we need to pass the freedom to vote act. we need to pass the john lewis voting rights advancement act and we need to pass them now, and the senate is going to have an opportunity to take an up and down vote on the passage of those important bills, and every senator, democrat and republican, are going to have to look at themselves in the mirror and look at the american people and decide whether or not they are goin

marc elias is one of the strong proponents of this bill, because he knew that this would maybe die in few days ago, and said that congress needed to add to the justice department the power it needed to go to court and fight these voter suppression measures. what's really -- about these arguments is that the filibuster has been changed again and again and again. by mitch mcconnell know, changing the filibuster to help put three republican appointees on the supreme court with just 51 court votes. so it's not just to change the filibuster rules as some sacred rate that came from the founders, because the filibuster did not exist for the first 17 years of congress. arguably, it was kind of by accident, and rewrite by -- of all people. so it is really such a chain -- it is really such a shame that history has been -- in this way. >> we're coming to a commercial break in this live conversation, when we come back more to my point what joe biden said today. this is not over. in the presidents teleconference he said they will's come back at the voting rights issue. we'll be right back. rights

the former general counsel for hillary clinton campaign, he is lawyer marc elias, he deleted a tweetyork times." he called for restrictions on freedom of the press after "the times" put out an article exposing how he and democrats raise a lot of money from quote, dark money sources for things like stopping the states in their vote reform bills. your take on the irony of this? >> oh, my gosh, how could it be more rich with irony. there are two things i would say. for a decade the democrats have been warning us that dark money is evil that dark money will destroy democracy. and now we know that silently, an of course purposely, they're raising and spending way more dark money than the republicans have. then the second irony which is just as rich, even more, here we have this individual as you described who is one of the primary characters in the russian hoax, for four years he and others told lie after lie to compliant media, attacked innocent people, worked with almost certainly russian disinformation campaigns. now he is complaining what he considers disinformation in the press and w

. >> you know, durham, put marc elias, top lawyer for the hillary clinton cam in.rought in democrat and dnc hillary clinton campaign money to hire fusion gps and christopher steele to build the anti-trump steele dossier that has since been debunked. looking putting it before the grand jury, former fbi official bill priestap, james baker, dozens of fbi and cia workers, director of the counterintelligence division. is he going after these guys in the trump russia investigation, what do you think? >> hard to tell. the prosecutor cannot force the target of an investigation into a grand jury. you can say i will go after liz, make her subject herself to cross-examination. that tells you one of two things, either they're not targets when they go in or they cut some sort of deal as a cooperating defendant meaning they eat some charges, that they memorialize their testimony in front of the grand jury. from the outside we can't tell. but a for a guy who lost nine months of grand jury for covid looks like it is heating up pretty high-profile witnesses going in. elizabeth: he

tell you perpetration of fraud was absolutely done and it was done by the democrats, the left, marc eliasat perpetration was on the american people. that's why it's shown over 50% of the americans believe there was fraud in the 2020 election. it was substantial, 47-41. the fraud changed results in the 20 election. so, ari, everything is that was done was done legally by the trump legal team according to the rules and under the leadership of rudy giuliani. we fought for the truth, and the truth is that there was overwhelming fraud in the 2020 election, and i'm doing everything possible within all the rules, laws, and regulation to make sure that the truth comes out. >> part of what you said is false, but we're going to move forward. i mentioned the reporting about this proposed draft order that may have come from a trump lawyer in the transit documents according to the supreme court law, 8 to 1 this week ha says there was an idea of appointing a special counsel to have the military seize ballots. were you aware of the plan at this time? >> absolutely not. i didn't hear about it today. i wo

. >> all right, marc elias, thank you so much for your time. >> thank you. >> that is "all in" for this week. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now with ayman mohyeldin in for rachel. >> thank you, chris. enjoy the rest of your night off. thanks to you at home for joining us. rachel does have the night off but we do have a very big show tonight, capping off what has been a pretty extraordinary week of news here in the united states. the last few days may very well be a part in our history as a nation that we look back on as the time everything started to come closer into focus about the coordinated effort orchestrated by many republicans to overturn the results of the 2020 election and derail our democracy. and we're going to get to everything that happened this week in just a second. but first, i actually want to rewind a bit further to one of the weirdest moments of the trump administration. take a look. this was june of 2018, the start of hurricane season. donald trump and vice president mike pence visited fema headquarters to be briefed on hurricane preparedness. the first lady,