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tv   Alex Wagner Tonight  MSNBC  March 6, 2024 6:00pm-7:00pm PST

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democratic majority and democratic president? >> we need to talk about a freedom agenda. freedom for women, to control their bodies. the fact that we are about to potentially elect a president who appointed the justices that overturned roe v wade and turn back the clock when it comes to you know, women having control over their lives, again, i think it's something that we cannot discount. so that is step one. if you elect donald trump and kari lake they will push again for justices on the supreme court, they will assure that roe v wade will continue to be not the law of the land. number 2, freedom, real, economic freedom. we have done a lot of work in this administration to bring down the cost of prescription drugs, bring down the cost of insulin, and continue to do other great work such as
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especially in arizona, the expansion of the great economy, especially when it comes to the chips act. we are not there yet. there's still a lot of costs that we have to bring down. housing and other things and we are going to be able to do that and the administration with me as a senator are going to work and do that for every day arizona's. >> thank you very much, we appreciate it. alex wagner tonight starts right now. >> thank you, friend, good to see you again. thanks for joining me. donald trump is now the presumptive republican nominee for president.
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his only opponent in this race, former governor nikki haley, had vowed to stay in the race through super tuesday and this morning, after only winning the state of vermont and the city of washington, d.c., nikki haley dropped out. now, if there was anything truly significant about haley's campaign, it was the degree to which it was a symbol of dissatisfaction with donald trump. yes, nikki haley talked about the deficit and advocated for congressional term limits but really, the whole point of the haley project was to offer republicans an alternative to the guy with the orange blowout. so when nikki haley dropped out this morning, the big question was, who is she going to endorse? you might think this would be the moment with the last person standing between trump and complete takeover of the gop, that she wouldn't just capitulate to donald trump and therefore render the entire point of her candidacy moved, maybe she would endorse joe biden but could she, wouldn't she, suggest that her supporters didn't have to vote for donald trump, that there were other alternatives that the haley people might put country over party in times like these? as it turns out, that's not what nikki haley did. >> in all likelihood, donald trump will be the republican nominee when our party
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convention meets in july. i congratulate him, and i wish him well. it's up to donald trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it, who did not support him. and i hope he does that. at its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. and our conservative cause, badly needs more people. this is now his time for choosing. >> nikki haley offered up her supporters on a silver platter to donald trump. not to joe biden or even rfk jr., jason palmer, the guy who won the american samoa primary last night, she offered them up to donald trump. she entreated trump to woo her people and make them his in the name of the conservative cause. and that is because, if you look at what nikki haley's campaign was actually about, it
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was never about taking on donald trump, not really. it was about yes, courting voters who were dissatisfied with trump it was also about courting trump voters, too. >> i believe president trump was the right president at the right time. and i agreed with a lot of his policies. but the truth is, rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him. >> i personally think president trump was the right president at the right time. i agree with a lot of his policies. but the reality is, rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him. >> i agree with a lot of trump's policies, i think he was the right president at the right time. chaos follows him. >> or does he create the chaos? that sounds passive.
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>> i mean, rightly or wrongly, you call it whatever you want to call it but when you feel it, it's chaos. >> nikki haley wanted to be the alternative to donald trump but she also wanted to stay in the good graces of the people who supported donald trump and that meant that her candidacy was sort of indecipherable. haley was the alternative to someone who she couldn't really bring herself to criticize, so what was the point? well, if there was any certainty in the making haley campaign it was that president biden was too old, that he was very bad at his job and he put america in peril. >> i want to make it clear that i'm not being disrespectful when i say that. we all know people over 75 who can run circles around us, and then we know joe biden. >> we can't afford four more years of biden's failures. >> every time he opens his mouth , he sounds like his mind is closing up shop. >> we can't afford to put americans at risk and that is
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what joe biden is doing every day. >> it sounds like if we have a trump -- choice between trump and biden, you are choosing trump. >> i think biden is more dangerous. >> she thinks that biden is more dangerous for this country than donald trump. the man with 91 felony counts to his name, who has said he will be a dictator on day one who intends to round up tens of thousands of people into camps, the man who wants to essentially destroy the geopolitical order. but joe biden is more dangerous. at every juncture, where she might have said otherwise, given any opportunity, nikki haley has made clear that she is a republican, she is a conservative before she is anything else. is it any wonder that she is offering her supporters to donald trump? there was never any other possibility, not really. to what we are witnessing here is the final capitulation. the men and women who have been credit about with being
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resistant to trump-ism are finally showing their hand. today the republican leader in the senate, mitch mcconnell formally endorsed donald trump for president, and there was a moment after january 6th when mcconnell said explicitly that donald trump was practically and morally responsible for the insurrection but that did not stop niche mcconnell from enabling him before and after either directly or indirectly, by carrying out trump's bidding when it was convenient, or avoiding comment when it was not convenient and by the way when a comment was very much needed, and a critical one at that. >> are you concerned at all, comfortable with your party embracing the former president when you said he was morally responsible for january 6th? >> i do think we need to be talking about the future and not the past. >> you think it's appropriate, the way that the former president was storing those classified documents at his private estate of mar-a-lago.
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>> i don't really have a comment on this whole investigation. >> former president trump ridiculed mcconnell saying he had a death wish he also went after connell's wife with a racist attack, what did mcconnell have to say about that? >> he said he had no comment and i pressed him about that racist attack against his wife i said is it acceptable to have that attack against elaine chao, and he said, i don't have anything to say about that. >> for years, nikki haley and mitch mcconnell have been touted as holdouts, members of the republican party that was still based in reality, resistant agents against trump and the maga movement but the truth is they never actually did anything to stop trump because all along, this whole time, they knew they needed trump. haley wanted to win over
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trump's voters and mcconnell needed the support of trump's allies in congress and what makes today so utterly disappointing is that neither of them actually needs trump anymore. nikki haley has left the race, she said she's off to life as a private citizen, mcconnell has announced his retirement from public life at the conclusion of his current senate term. they don't need trump anymore but they are still abiding him, still looking to him as the future of their party. the fantasy here of a different republican party and something other than the darkness that trump represents is officially over. yes, you may still know plenty of people who are republicans and don't like trump but as far as republicans in power, the people can who could have tried to stop trump from the inside, they didn't, and now, they are gone. joining me now are brandon buck, political analyst and charlie sykes, thank both of you guys for being here. brandon i know you have thoughts which you have written about about what nikki haley's
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candidacy was all about. can you refresh people who are not familiar with your writings? >> thank you. look haley was really excited to be the last person standing, in case donald trump were to somehow implode. it's not necessarily crazy to think that would happen, somebody who was indicted 91 times, who was found liable for sexual assault during the campaign, but you have to understand what republican voters want. that sort of chaos that she talks about, is not a bug, it's a feature. and if your plan is to be there as the savior when donald trump implodes, you know nothing about the republican party. he would have imploded many times if that was going to happen. republican voters like the chaos that comes with him, so she was happy to sit there, for
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many months, and really draw no contrast, to hurt credit, towards the end, she certainly did, and took a lot of swipes that he was 50 points ahead of her at that point and there was never any real chance, it was a confusing strategy to pivot at the end and really make yourself quite unpopular with a lot of republican voters when they could have actually made a difference early on when trump looked a little more vulnerable, maybe when some indictments came down, maybe when he dodged some debates but she didn't, she waited until the end, until he was clearly already going to be the nominee. and as we've seen time and time again, the implosion never happened and it was foolish to think it ever would. >> charlie, i if you think it's too harsh to suggest that when people ask the big questions, what happened to the republican party, of course the fingers would point to donald trump at
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the enablers, the people who knew better, i feel like, they are the ones that deserve special credit for that. people like nikki haley, who, for so long refused to call trump out and was his only opponent in this race, or mitch mcconnell who certainly knew better and was his great enabler in the senate. >> they never failed to disappoint. this is what is extraordinary about what's happening. and i hope people understand that, this feels like the old story of republicans caving into trump but it's not the same old same all, when you think about how different 2024 is from 2020, what they are willing to swallow, not just the fact that trump, since 2020, incited a violent attack on the capital, try to overturn the election. embraced the big lie, stopped the first peaceful transfer of power for the first time ever. call for the termination of the constitution, has been found liable fora woman, and faces 91
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felony counts and i haven't even gotten to the massive fraud judgments against him, and yet, republicans are rolling over and embracing him and nikki haley or any other republican they couldn't figure out how could they run against this guy, but what issues might work against them because this party has become so supine. we see the man in full but the story here has been the absolute serial failure of responsible republicans to stand up against him and as brandon noted, the fact that republican voters don't want a return to normalcy. they don't want to move past the chaos, they like it. >> i do wonder, brandon, being a creature of congress, what you thought of mitch mcconnell predicated his announcement saying it should come as no surprise. withering personal attacks on him and his wife, from donald
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trump and here he is, the humiliation, the public humiliation of mitch mcconnell by donald trump, it was so embarrassing, for even people who worked republicans and yet, it should not be surprising in the words of mitch mcconnell, that he is endorsing donald trump. >> when he went to the senate floor and announced that he was going to be stepping down her he said, i have many faults but misunderstanding politics is not one of them. and i think that is absolutely true. he cares about one thing right now, that is winning back the senate, and he understands that a divided party is bad and therefore endorsing trump is good. he knows it would be a huge distraction and he would has to be asked about it all the time and he would rather just get that out of the way. he understands that this is what not only republican voters one but it's what the rest of the conference is doing and he understands if he were to stage a fight within the conference, a, he would lose because voters
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are with trump clearly but also he would distract them from his one and only goal, i think he could go either way on who the president is but if it gets in the way of taking back the senate, he will do whatever it takes. it's politics and that's what he knows best and that's what he cares most about. >> as trump says, they always bend the knee. charlie, i think nikki haley gets credit for taking swipes at trump's in the closing hours of her campaign but i was remarkably unimpressed by her appetite for actually taking him on, on anything substantive and suggesting repeatedly that biden was the greater existential threat to america. as far as a formal endorsement, do you expect her to formally endorse trump at any point? >> i think just assume that these people will bow at the knee. but you know, what we are seeing, though, is this embrace
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of the sick political logic that does put party in power ahead of the country, you know, she was disappointing, but let's stick with mcconnell for a minute. mitch mcconnell knows what donald trump did on january 6th, he came very close to voting to convict him, to spare us this particular moment, the attacks on his wife, the attacks on him and yet he's decided that this is what he has to do in order to leave the senate. at some point you would think there would be other republican to it follow the example of liz cheney and say, there are some things that are more important than winning an election or holding onto the site seat and mitch mcconnell is over 80 years old, he's not running for reelection, he has nothing to lose. if there's ever a moment in which you say, this is right, this is wrong, this man poses a danger to the republic, i have watched him and i know what he
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will do, this would be the moment, the fact that mitch mcconnell is so immersed in this political cynicism, this endless loop of search for power, it's really a rather pathetic quandary. it's not knew that people would do this but if you want an example of whatever the opposite of profiles in courage is, this would be it. >> we get that news on the day that the rnc announces that trump's lackeys will be installed in the rnc and more than a majority of the members want to use the money they have to offset the bills from donald trump's lawyers. that is the state of play on the right side of the aisle. thank you guys both for your time. lots more ahead, and actual election the conspiracy about stuffing ballot boxes, more on the wild crop of maga
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this week was supposed to be the start of donald trump's federal election interference trial in washington, but instead of proceedings in the judge's courtroom on monday, what we got was an expedited ruling by the supreme court saying states cannot remove trump from their ballots for engaging in insurrection under the 14th amendment and today, the court announced it will hear oral arguments over trump's presidential immunity claim, seven weeks from now on april 25th, which is the very last day of the court's term. joining me now is sherrilyn ifill , i should also note, she filed an amicus brief in the trump case. it's great to see you, thank you for being here in new york. i will not ask you to tell me the good news because i think it is truly bad news. the very last day of the court's term is when they are
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going to hear this immunity claim, contrasted with the relatively quick time frame for the 14th amendment ruling. how do you interpret that decision? >> it's consistent with this court's refusal to be moved from the narrative it has tried to create that we are somehow impervious to the politics of what's happening around us. this is one of their ways of doing it, pretending they don't understand the urgency, the reason why american voters would want to know whether one of the candidates for president has been convicted of a crime. and so what they do is, they just carry on business as usual, and i suspect, to their mind, they think it is carrying forward a narrative of impartiality, they think we are so deluded that we believe that they are just sticking to the
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timetable, sticking to the line, not letting politics movement but we know that's not true we know they can move quickly when they want to and they move slowly when they want to move slowly. and so, it's consistent with what they have demonstrated but it's incredibly cynical. >> and i take it one step further? you know, speeding up the decision on the 14th amendment, help trump, slowing down the immunity claim, help trump. there's a thread that makes sense if you look at it through a political lens. >> the timing suggest taking seriously how much their failure to acquiesce to the urgency of the moment, itself, undermines democracy and the electoral process. niv, particularly with the 14th amendment case coming the day before super tuesday, one may call that quick, i'm not sure i would, i would say that their whole approach to the case showed a kind of laissez-faire, they didn't sound prepared. they did the most cursory
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review of the history, which is why so much of it was wrong. there's just a lack of seriousness, and i think, i said this before, the moment we are in, in this country which is a time, it requires us to be big, be bigger than what we were and to meet the moment of this court, the majority of this court, is not prepared to meet the moment, they are scrabbling, even the fact that clarence thomas was part of the 14th amendment decision. if you cared about our democracy, the integrity of the court, the conflicts abound. and he should not have been a part of that decision but they can't help it and then you see the ham-fisted mess, it's a per curiam decision that no one wants to assign their name to it, there's the illusion that it is unanimous but it's not really, you have the concurring justices, and saying to me, what has been the most serious, harsh and i think not really given enough attention, the statement about what's going on
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with the majority of that court and i would say nothing has shaken me as much as the language. >> the suggestion that the conservative justices on the court are basically trying to shield future insurrection is, they said the majority attempts to insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal offices. that should frighten all of us, we should be sitting with that, that people said why didn't they descend? i would like for them to at least dissent in parts but they are telling us, in no uncertain terms, as clearly as they possibly can, these are not wild eyed folks, these other colleagues on the court and we have seen them try to maintain relationships, try to be as careful as possible and when they make a statement like that, if we refuse to pay
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attention to what they are telling us is happening on the court, that's on us, not on the majority, even amy cohen barry, the one conservative woman, who of course tries to you know, school the women by saying, we shouldn't air our dirty laundry but she said even she didn't think the decision had to go that far. the only reason she's telling us that is because they obviously were having conversations behind the scenes in which she too, was hoping that the guys would be able to control themselves and restrain themselves enough to just issue the decision and the parameters in which they needed to. so you've got four women saying -- >> ring the alarm bell loudly. >> and we are going, it's 9-0 and it doesn't matter. anyway, it section 3 and it's after the civil war and it's like, no, there is a bellringing, folks, and they are telling us. >> the other part of it, that is profoundly hypocritical, is this is the court that rules in 2013 in shelby county that congress did not have the
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constitutional power under section 5 of the 14th amendment, to enforce the voting rights act. and now, in the same amendment there saying, oh it's all up to congress. >> what they did was, exactly what they would do if congress does pass the statute implementing section 3 which was to say, not quite this way, don't do it this way. so congress has a coverage formula under the voting rights act, and reauthorize that formula after hearings, after amassing evidence and the supreme court says we don't think that's right because we believe, as the court says, that things have changed dramatically. >> there's no racism.
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>> and now we see the stories, all of the studies being done that shows that the turnout gap has increased again in those places where preclearance was removed. they don't know better, congress does know better which is why they have the power so even when the court concedes that congress has power, then they proceed to tell congress, how to use the power in fact in this case, it's that it has to be legislation of the legislation have to specifically say this and that so it's a power grab in every way, and it is deference to congress in name only. the 14th amendment is to my mind, one of the most important provisions of our constitution for the way we live our modern lives, our post-civil war lives and to see this supreme court subverted, take it as their own, the times that that happened in the past, in the 19th century, in the reconstruction period, resulted in devastation for our democracy whether it was plessy versus ferguson, whether it was the civil rights cases in 1883, these were all circumstances in which the supreme court undermined congress's power to issue a statute in accordance
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with the 14th amendment and every time they did it, they ushered in jim crow, for 60 years in this country. so honestly, when we see the supreme court doing this, when we see them subverting a provision of the constitution that the framers, the only ones who have looked insurrection in the eye, and overcome it when we see them do this, we should understand, this is an emergency moment. >> and that emergency, we will talk in the coming block about just how crystal-clear it is and how much at our doorstep it is. >> please stay with me if you can. still to come, president biden has a lot to write about in tomorrow state of the union address, bustling economy, higher wages, lower crime, but when do american voters start to give him credit? credit
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>> we've identified more than 1100 meals. >> what is a meal? >> a person picking up ballots and running them to the drop boxes. >> that was the trailer for the election conspiracy propaganda, 2000 meals, it was created by, and it's been widely cited by election denialism across the country as proof that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. in the trailer you may have caught mention of an organization called true the vote. that's a right wing voter suppression group. 2000 meals is very upfront about the fact that the main source for their stolen election allegations his research by true the vote. true the vote claimed they have identified secret operatives, so-called, mules, who were stuffing ballot boxes with votes and the filmmakers suggest that that is proof of an election that was stolen per joe biden. it claims -- they've been forced to admit in a court
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filing that it had no evidence to back up its claims about ballot tampering there. so after that humiliating admission you may think anyone involved in the whole 2000 mules election conspiracy, would retreat from public life, but you would be wrong. yesterday, republicans chose this man, brandon gill to be their nominee for texas's congressional district, he is the son-in-law and of the creator of the creator and he was the film's main promoter when it america, that alone is an environment -- alarming example of where the republican party is right now but it's even more shocking when you consider one of the other candidates that republicans chose to be their nominee, this is mark harris, a conservative pastor who ran for congress in north carolina in 2018.
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and mark harris won the race in 2018 or at least that was how things appeared at first. because after election day, everything changed. >> republican mark harris beat democrat dan mccready by 905 votes, but instead of calling the race, officials launched a dramatic month-long investigation into allegations of absentee ballot tampering. harris denied knowing about any wrongdoing. but just a date earlier his own son, john, a federal prosecutor, gave emotional testimony, revealing he warned his parents about the political operative they hired, leslie mcrae dallas, accused of running an operation that tampered with absentee ballots, workers for dallas a they were directed to forge signatures, collect blank or incomplete ballots and even fill in votes. >> north carolina had to hold a brand-new election after it was revealed that a republican operative had helped steal the
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verb republican race by running, wait for it, a wing of ballot harvesting mules, mules who collected ballots and mail them into be counted. in the end, scandal plagued mark harris chose not to run in the do over election citing health issues but there is no shortage of second chances in republican politics. yesterday, republicans in north carolina voted once again, to make mark harris their nominee, this time in north carolina's eighth congressional district. he is now claiming the 2018 scandal was actually manufactured by democrats to steal the election from him
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because of course he saying that. the guy who promoted the totally discredited ballot mule conspiracy is now the republican nominee for congress and the guy who was tainted i the very real scandal, if you will, he is also not a republican nominee for congress. both men are running in safe seats that they will likely be elected to the u.s. house of representatives this november. we will talk about the new cast of crazy republican characters they are likely to join in america in their government just ahead. ju. one in five children worldwide are faced with the reality of living without food, no family dinners, no special treats, not enough energy to play.
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2020, democrats stole the election from president trump. the year before, they did it to
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me. and in 2024, president trump is making a comeback, and so am i. >> that was mark harris, republican from north carolina who now has a second crack at a seat in the u.s. house of representatives. he won his first race for a healthy in 2018 but the victory was overturned when his campaign was accused of election fraud. that did not stop mr. harris yesterday from winning the republican primary for north carolina's eighth congressional district. republicans also chose this guy to be their nominee for governor, mark robinson, the state lieutenant governor. he's known for denying the holocaust and calling a and transgender americans, filth. these are some of the down ballot nominees this year, not just bad candidates, not just french, they are now, accurate representations of what the party has become under donald trump.
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back with me as sherrilyn ifill . the liberal justices, the normal on the supreme court are saying, we just made it easier for insurrectionists to run for and hold federal office. when you look at this crop of candidates who are likely to win house seats, maybe even governorships, in light of that decision that they have effectively made it easier for people who campaigned violently against the united states to hold office. >> will let's go back to the insurrection of 2020. you will remember, there were 10 members of congress, actually nine and one representative elect, who met with the president and others at the white house on december 21st, 2020, to talk about how they would try and overturn the election and to pressure mike pence. i'm talking about andy biggs, andy harris from maryland, talking about matt gaetz, talking about jim jordan, all of those individuals, took a
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deep sigh of relief after the supreme court's decision as well. these are people who had taken an oath and perhaps, engaged or alleged to have engaged in plans for that insurrection. so let's talk about those folks, who essentially get a pass unless congress passes legislation through these. and then you have a new crop of folks, who will be sworn in. congress will be sworn in will have a new congress at that point, there will be people who have taken an oath and what they decide to do should be thought about as well, think about the effect of this decision which essentially says, unless congress passes a statute that does all the things we say it has to deal and the statute holds up, that these kinds of folks are not barred by section 3. this is so contrary to what the framers wanted, who were so concerned about the spirit of insurrection that they believe
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still existed in the country. they were not only concerned about the period over the civil war, they wanted to protect this country for evermore and this decision has essentially unraveled that and set us up for danger. i mean, if you are a democracy and you can't protect yourself and you can't protect yourself from those who would undermine you and from those who would unravel you, you are not worthy of the name and we are seeing the tools taken out of our hands but people say just vote but we are seeing voting rights on the chopping block so all of the tools are being taken out
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of our hands that we need to protect the country and that's what i find most alarming. >> the other piece of it, the inmates running the asylum, if you will, the surge of christian nationalism, and a focus on mark robinson, who may very well run the state. today, a video has resurfaced of mark robinson saying that he wants to go back to when women couldn't vote. this is someone who has called trans people, phil, this is someone who, belize feminism was created by satan. i mean, the injection of a theocracy, or the overlay of a theocracy onto a democracy seems deeply problematic. >> it's a perverted theocracy, of course because i don't know who mark robinson thinks he would've been in 1919 but maybe you should ask those who were in the east st. louis race riots and race massacre, maybe you should ask those who were in tulsa or ask folks who were in alabama and mississippi during that period. the part that bothers me, alex, is we have a rich tradition in this country of those who were associated with christianity, who fought for social justice and change. these are the same people who will quote albeit one line from a speech, dr. martin luther king, when you think about the people, the civil rights
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movement was deeply affected by people of faith, by reverend shuttlesworth and ct vivian and people who study the christian faith and believe in the christian faith and who were moved by it and that tradition is part of our country as well so to see these people pervert rheology, is
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msnbc will have special coverage of president biden's state of the union address and his unofficial kickoff or the general election rematch against donald trump. in his new piece joe biden's last campaign the new yorker writes that by the usual measures biden to be cruising to re-election. violent crime has dropped to nearly 50 year low, unemployment is below 4%, and in january the s&p 500 and the dow hit record highs. but the usual measures do not apply these days. joining me now is franklin forrest, staff writer at the atlantic and the author of the last politician, inside joe biden's white house and the struggle for america's future. franklin, it's great to see you. passages of your book are quoted in the new york piece. i wonder, you know, there has been a lot of talk about the bad pulling that came out this week in the biden trump matchup. bad news for biden in these
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polls. what is your experience in reporting out from inside the white house as to how this administration deals with negative feedback or criticism at large? >> one of the strengths and death valley one of the political weaknesses of this white house is it's in fluid nature. there's a small group of people clustered around the president. they are people who are clustered around him for decades. and they have this innate self- confidence about the ark of the biden story, which is that he goes through these times where everybody underestimates him. and then he rises from the ashes like a phoenix. there is a lot of that that is built into the way that they assess their situation. and then they assume that there is this noise that's happening that biden is the incumbent, so the attention is disproportionately rest on him. there become a point in the campaign where attention inevitably starts to shift to
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the opponent and then it becomes a comparison and then we are back to 2020. and that is the race they feel more comfortable with, despite all of these alarming signs that we are seeing continually about where this race is headed. >> think about 2020. i was talking about with chris hayes in the earlier hours. biden really had to campaign. he couldn't, there was a pandemic. when he did campaign i was with him on the trail for a number of weeks. he was in the world's greatest campaigner. that's not to malign his presidency, but to what degree, sarah longworth also made this point, to what degree does this white house understand they need circuits, ambassadors and need to flood the zone with people who aren't joe biden to talk about what he has done? >> i'm sure they understand that. there is this way in which the a.i.d.s. question cuts in different directions. there's a question about his capacity to govern. i think evan oz knows says if
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you sit and talk to joe biden you see that he has the mental acuity to do the job. and you can argue even that his wisdom and his age have been a major boon to him as he has gone about being president. and then there's this other question, which is about his stamina and his ability to go out and burn storm across the country. as you say, he didn't need to inject that kind of stamina into the campaign in 2020, because of the nature of that campaign. but he has to do it now. and he has to find creative ways to compensate for his own shortcomings as a campaigner. >> do you feel like they're going to try and do anything -- what your expectations for tomorrow, i should say? given the state of play, the unofficial kickoff for the general election. >> right. obviously, there is this theatrical part of it about the age question if he needs repeat what he did last time. which is that everybody has expectations that are so low for joe biden. this narrative that he is aimlessly roaming around the
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west wing, which is just clearly not true. so, if he gives a competent well delivered speech that's one thing. i think the most important thing is that they need to come -- become masters of their own narrative. there's an economic story that they can tell. there's the story about america being back that they can tell, it has been in that passage you read from the new yorker. and then they need to stitch together all of their accomplishments on redirecting the shape of the american economy, being more active on the consumer front, whether credit card fraud, junk fees, the return of american labor, the return of antitrust enforcement, the way in which the state is now acting as an investment banking claiming the commanding heights of the economy through the inflation reduction act, healthcare, et cetera. it's a story they need to tell it. >> they got a lot to do tomorrow.

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