november ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights in its constitution. if you take a step back and look at these maps, you will note a striking similarity between states trump. in 2020 and states where abortion is banned or unavailable. and since the roe decision, regardless of how the states voted in the past, abortion is a losing issue for trump. the latest poll shows biden leading by a 15 point margin on which candidate would be better on this issue. which, surprise, surprise, also happens to be a top issue on voters minds. if the former president is stuck in court, spending more and more donor money on legal fees, it is worth knowing how much abortion is raising the stakes for the november election and creating the potential to flip the electoral map and it is not just florida that is in play. that is tonight's "the reidout." "all in with chris hayes"

starts now. tonight on all in day >> i feel like this is what we have been waiting for and the curtain went up. i couldn't believe it. >> the biggest today at at the trump trial. for the first time on the public record we are getting david corroborating what michael cohen for years has articulated about that meeting. >> the man at the center of the conspiracy tells all. >> he said we should not speak over a landline, we should use signal. >> tonight, david role in the conspiracy to elect donald trump. it sounds like the judges getting tough on trump's lawyer. >> judge merchan saying to donald trump's attorneys, you are losing all credibility with the court. >> and why the biden campaign says they have a chance to win florida. >> he's out campaigning and i

am here sitting up as straight as i can all day long. in our series continues, are you better off than you were four years ago? >> the disinfectant knocks it out in a minute and is there a way that we can do something like that injection inside or almost a cleaning? >> "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york, im chris hayes. day two of the criminal trial of donald trump and today we heard in great detail how trump and his gang conspired to hide his were secrets, or some of them. while trump and his lawyer continue to stretch the patient's of judge juan merchan. the morning started on a hearing on the gag order which was issued, which trump has flagrantly been violating on social media and elsewhere. we will have more on that later in the show, but suffice it to

say the entire event was an embarrassment for trump's attorney. blanche, once assistant u.s. attorney for the district of new york, was forced to debase himself in the service of his boss. if you agree to work for trump the threshold qualification is to be the kind of person who only cares first and foremost about pleasing him rather than doing your job. in fact in statements on monday, blanche went out of his way to let everyone know he was speaking to an audience of one. he insisted on referring to his client as president trump and saying, quote, you're going to hear me refer to him as president trump. this is a title he earned as our 45th president. call him president trump out of respect for the office that he held. as we saw today and likely will continue to see, as we have seen in many different venues and situations, pleasing donald trump and doing your job, in this case providing the best legal representation,

often a mutually exclusive choice. that theme continued when longtime publisher of the national enquirer david took the stand again this afternoon. he outlined how he worked for trump and michael cohen to suppress negative stories about that then presidential candidate and to plant negative and presumably baseless stories about trump's political opponent. quote, michael cohen would call me and say we would like you to run a negative article, let's say for arguments sake on ted cruz. he would send me information about ted cruz or ben carson or marco rubio and that was the basis of our story. we would embellish it from there. michael cohen was not part of the campaign. when he said we, i thought he was talking about himself and mr. trump. it sounds like he thought he was acting at the direction of donald trump. he published stories like this

about texas senator ted cruz who challenged trump in the primary. extramarital affairs with multiple women. or this story, remember this one? this one got a little bit of attention. admitted making up linking ted cruz to the john f. kennedy assassination. remember that one? the substance of this is what the inquirer did not practice -- did not publish as part of a practice known as catch and kill. culminating in a 2015 meeting -- >> reporter: tonight a person with the matter tells nbc news that candidate trump was in the room when the national enquirer publisher discussed ways that ami could help quash negative stories about mr. trump's relationships with women. >> that was from 2018 when the meeting was first reported. in that meeting in august he told trump through michael

cohen that anything i hear in the marketplace, if i hear anything negative about yourself or i hear anything about women selling stories, i would notify you. i would notify michael cohen and then he would be able to have them kill in another magazine or have them not be published. today's testimony was a bit of a cliffhanger as he began to outline the plan to pay off playboy model karen mcdougal to cover up her own story of an affair with trump. according to testimony, one of his editors approached him in the spring of 2016 about mcdougal with the understanding that she wanted someone to purchase and bury the story. michael cohen insisted on communicating through an encrypted app. he grew agitated as they worked to vet the story, saying, quote, he kept on calling and each time he called he seemed more anxious. i assumed that he had the

conversation with mr. trump and he was asking michael cohen, did you hear anything yet? he also testified that trump called him directly about the mcdougal story, saying, quote, i spoke to michael and he told me about karen and trump said to me, what do you think? he said that he told trump to purchase the story. the former editor will resume his testimony. he paid mcdougal $150,000 for the rights to her story and silence. trump was supposed to repay him. he was not doing this as charity. he was the pass-through, if you will. trump did what he always does. he stiffed him on the bill, which is why michael cohen was the one forced to pay stormy daniels out of his own pocket. and msnbc legal correspondent

has been watching from inside the courtroom. andrew rice, he just profiled todd blanche in a cover story. good to have you both here. topline impressions from today? >> my topline impression is that he had a whole lot to say. he was asked how often he communicated with trump and said after trump became a candidate, conversations increased. he would expect a candidate would get so busy that they would not have time and yet they still found time to meet once a month and talked on the phone once a week and sometimes more. we heard about those conversations today, bookending the testimony. that august, 2015 meeting that you talked about and the phone call during 2016 about karen mcdougal having been vetted and what trump wanted to know about the conversation.

i to assume there are a lot more conversations and the prosecution is going to elicit testimony about them in the ensuing days. >> i thought the most relevant thing to watch was the ongoing dichotomy going on inside the courtroom and outside the courtroom. i think it came into relief really at the beginning of the day when there was a hearing about whether donald trump would be held in contempt for some of the things he said on truth social about witnesses and even about a juror. todd blanche, the guy that i profiled in this story, got up and said that a client has a right to talk about the two systems of justice that have been shown in the courtroom and i think this is something that we will see a lot. donald trump if he can win an acquittal or a mistrial, that's great for him, but he is running against the system. >> a follow-up on that, we will

talk about this in a second in greater detail, but he says he is doing his best or something and that is when he says you are losing credibility, come on, buddy. what is blanche's angle? if it is the case that your understanding of the trump approach to this is not primarily legal, that it is about making this broader case, is blanche on board with that strategy? >> i think he is trying to make it very clear to find a juror, one juror really who will hold out and won't vote to convict donald trump and they are hoping for a mistrial. if there is a mistrial of course donald trump will go on the courthouse steps and say i have been completely exonerated, even in new york. so that is the strategy. ultimately the back and forth with the judge was happening

outside the presence of the jury and has not bled into the trial too much, but it will be an interesting dynamic to watch. >> in terms of this testimony and the notion of a mistrial, one of the things that is going back to the transcripts and striking me again. indulge me for a second. sometimes you will have a classic courtroom drama and there was a question of was that person driving the car? did that actually happen? in this case it is clear as day all this stuff happened. is there any real doubt that they set up the catch and kill? i guess you could think that michael cohen is lying, but the basics of all of the stories being presented seems bedrock solid. >> let me push back on that. i think one of the things the prosecution has to establishes the extent of donald trump's own involvement.

it is necessary not only contextually, but to prove the crime. we all know about what i will call the antecedent story. the setup of the hush money payments. the thing that they have to prove to show falsification of business records is a felony is that there was a cover-up to commit or conceal a crime and tying donald trump expressly to that i think is something none of us have really seen the evidence about yet and we are all looking for it. >> i guess my point is that on this part of it, not the criminal part, it is just did this arrangement happen? from the reporting we have, also i can't quite get it from the transcript. from the transcript he seems comfortable and forthcoming as a witness. how would you describe it? >> maybe i am naive, but i thought it was pretty shocking

to hear him talk with such total frankness. the nature of the relationship that he had with donald trump. he candidly said on the stand that this is not normal. even by the standards of the national enquirer, these transactions were not normal. they had a very special relationship that they had forged and they wanted to see donald trump elected president and they were acting as an adjunct arm of the campaign. >> this had nothing to do with the criminal trial, but as disclosures go, the part about negative stories. he would just send us stuff. that is shocking. an unbelievable scandal and it also gives you a sense of how donald trump rejects his view of the media. they all function like that --

>> i think the other thing that was lost until today is what is david getting out of this? he said he was the top celebrity among inquirer readers. that he was detail oriented. all of the things that he said about donald trump that are complementary are eventually going to be his doom as he tells his story. >> also there is a little bit of a time machine going back to the apprentice as a hit show. this guy has a hit show and moves product periods we need to be close to him. thank you very much. coming up, it's not ideal when the judge tells your lawyer he is losing credibility before the court. where did it go wrong for the defense team, next. nse team, n wetjet absorbs and locks grime deep inside.

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plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. i gotta get this deal... that's like $20 a month per unlimited line... i don't want to miss that. that's amazing doc. mobile savings are calling. visit xfinitymobile.com to learn more. doc? ever since he was first indicted in new york more than a year ago, donald trump has been attacking the presiding judge and his daughter on social media. donald trump junior even posted a picture of the judge's daughter on social media. about a month ago the judge in this case, juan merchan, issued a gag order preventing trump from posting about witnesses, jurors, or district attorney staff and the family members of any counsel or staff member. but trump continued to post

about the judge's own daughter, which was not technically part of the first gag order, which prompted an expansion to the gag order. that added family of the court and the district attorney to the prohibited list. in a hearing today prosecutors presented several posts from donald trump, 10 in fact, they say violated the order. most attacking michael cohen and stormy daniels. both of whom are presumed witnesses in the case. the prosecutor argued, quote, there can't be any question that he is aware of what the order requires and that knowledge alone indicates the disobedience of the order is willful. it is intentional. he added we are not yet seeking and incarcerated tory penalty. defendant seems to be angling for that. trump lawyer todd blanche tried to defend the indefensible, making the judge visibly frustrated and when he told the judge this gag order, we are

trying to comply with it, president trump is being very careful to comply with the rules. the judge responded, you are losing all credibility with this court. she served as a judge for nearly 20 years in the state of california and joins me now. we love hearing from you. first, set the stage. there was a sort of motion to show cause, right? the people, the district attorney's office wants to make the case affirmatively to the judge that trump is right now violating his gag order, so what was the preceding that started the hearing today? >> this was a criminal contempt hearing and the burden is on the prosecution to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, every single element of criminal contempt. which is, there is a valid order, trump know about the order and willfully violated it. that was the burden today and they met the burden by presenting all of these social

media posts and website posts. then you could see the judge getting very frustrated and almost losing it at a point, because he was asking the defense, what is your defense to this? here is what we got, chris, and i will put it to you in a riddle. when is a social media post not a social media post? the answer, when it is a repost. that is the ridiculous argument the defense was giving to the judge. so the even went further to say, well, you didn't actually say repost in your gag order. this is just absurd and i get it because they don't have a defense to this. so the judge smartly did not rule in anger and decided to make a decision to hold off when the judge could be more calm about everything and my guess is that the judge will issue a written decision, so it is very clear, and i believe the judge will find donald trump in contempt.

>> this point about retweets are not endorsements, what was crystal clear is that trump thinks he's got some incredibly clever way through the gag order. if he is just reposting people. even though one of the points made today was one of the posts an issue where donald trump claimed to be reposting, they are catching undercover liberal activists lying in order to get on the jury. it was something that trump himself added, but the point is, all of that doesn't matter, right? the idea that there is some repost loophole to the gag order, like i'm not saying the jurors should fear for their lives if convicted. someone else reposted it. obviously, plainly, that's not going to fly. >> but chris, that's what you do when you don't have a defense. you have to come up with something. that is what the lawyers are getting paid to do and it is absurd. there is no distinction.

he posted on social media and did it violate the order? of course it did. i anticipate that at a minimum he will receive a fine and if i were to impose a fine on donald trump, i would make it clear that that cannot be paid by his donors or people that he asked money for. it has to come out of his pocket. it won't mean much, but it is some part of punishment. the other part is the incarceration piece. what's going to happen with that? >> keep going. i found it striking when the district attorney said he appears to want that penalty. he is basically trying to get himself thrown in jail for some stunned reason. what did you think about that? >> i think that is irrelevant. it doesn't matter. >> that is interesting. >> some people say he will go to jail. he will be a martyr. it doesn't matter. there are two purposes of contempt. one is to punish and one is to

deter future behavior. the fine will not deter, but incarceration well. the question is, will the judge do it? if i were the judge i would in pose jail time. you're not going to jail right now, because that would delay the trial, which is what donald trump and his people want. i would stay at, meaning i will sentence you to whatever time i find appropriate and i will impose that at the end of the trial, maybe while the jurors are deliberating. there is nothing to prevent the judge from doing that. >> that is interesting. the deterrent effect, clearly no one has had much luck deterring. this has been a constant theme, even going down to the sort of merciless harassment that a clerk was subjected to. it has been very difficult to contain him. do you think, well, what do you expect?

there will be a written order, right? he has not yet ruled, so we are still pending that. >> right, but that decision has to come quickly. until the judge says, donald trump the behavior you engaged in is unacceptable, then he will continue to do it. my guess is that maybe it will come down today and i hope the latest tomorrow. what the judge has to make clear is maybe this. to the public, we can put a man on the moon. we can control a man in the courtroom and outside the courtroom and that is the message that has to come across. i hope the judge will consider doing just that. saying i am going to incarcerate you and i will watch your behavior through the rest of this trial and decide then how much time i will give you. >> this is not an unsolved problem past the frontier of human knowledge of making someone behave in a courtroom. ladoris cordell, thank you so much. i appreciate it.

>> thank you. still to come, as the trump trial continues, a look back for years to one of the most indelible moments of the term presidency. our special series, are you better off, ahead. ahead. you need dirt with the right kind of nutrients. look at this new organic soil from miracle-gro. everybody should have it. it worked great for us. this is as good as gold in any garden. if people only knew that it really is about the dirt. you're a dirt nerd. huge dirt nerd. i'm proud of it! [ryan laughs] a test or approve a medication. we didn't have to worry about any of those things thanks to the donations. and our family is forever grateful because it's completely changed our lives. ok y'all we got ten orders coming in.. big orders! starting a business is never easy, but starting it eight months pregnant.. that's a different story. i couldn't slow down.

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for decades, before he launched his first bid for the presidency, donald trump publicly flirted with the idea of getting in politics. his intentions rarely seemed serious. in a 1998 interview with chris

matthews, trump shrugged off the question, explaining that his womanizing would make the campaign difficult. >> reporter: did you ever have a flicker when you are taking a shower or walking to work or waking up in the morning, donald trump, you've won every battle you've ever fought, why don't you run for governor? why don't you run for president? >> i don't like it. can you think how controversial i would be. you think about him with the woman, but think about me with the women. >> reporter: he might be close, but no cigar. the >> trump appeared to have changed his mind. he descended the golden escalator to announce his presidential ambitions. despite years spent kicking around the idea, trump was flying by the seat of his pants. the announcement was thrown together in a matter of weeks. the room was filled with background actors, remember that? paid $50 to wear t-shirts and cheer him according to the casting call they put out. trump's staff was a ragtag

group with little experience ran by corey lewandowski, who had not run a campaign since 2002. trump approached his secretary from the clothing line. he had no pollsters or speechwriters. in fact, the campaign spent more money on swag than any sort of professional expertise or building out a team. all of that context makes it especially striking that donald trump did put a tremendous amount of thought and effort into this one thing that is now the cornerstone of the criminal case against him in new york. he came up with a scheme along with fixer michael cohen and tabloid boss david to catch and kill stories. and bury them so they would never see the light of day. he was supposed to be reimbursed. as testified in court today, they devised the secret plan at a trump tower meeting in august, 2015.

just two months into trump's presidential campaign. it was one of the only things he put real effort into because he knew how crucial it would be to his chances of making it to the oval office. once he actually got there, trump brought michael cohen to the white house to settle the debt for his hush money payment to adult film actress stormy daniels. remarkably, things went downhill from there. of course, the trump presidency. and yet here we are four years later. well, eight years later. four years after he was president. the former president still trying to run on his record, asking voters the same question over and over again. are you better off than you were four years ago? we have been taking a look back at that record to see exactly where we were four years ago and i suggest you buckle up, because tonight's installment is a real doozy. >> and then i see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute.

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>> then you were four years ago? >> when we first conceived of the series, we had a few dates circled on the calendar. today was one of those days. the kind of day when you definitely would not want to be asking the question, but trump and his people can't help themselves. >> the key question in any election is are you better off today than you were four years ago? the obvious answer for all of us is no, we are not better off. if you are an illegal alien, you are better off today. >> i don't know, maria, let's take a look at how we were doing four years ago today, april 23, 2020. a full month in the first covid- 19 wave. 2400 deaths per day. as the nation approached 50,000 total deaths, no vaccine insight. some states were opening with trump's encouragement before they flattened the curve, even as we were learning the spread of the virus was much worse than authorities initially thought. we were nowhere near out of the

woods. listen to the report from the evening news four years ago on april 23, 2020, versus what donald trump was saying in his press conference. >> the death toll, still inching upward. now over 48,000. at the same time, unemployment numbers have risen to numbers worse than the great depression. >> that we are just not there yet. >> i do not agree with him. i think we are doing a great job. if he said that, i don't agree. >> on march 1, the cdc confirmed 23 cases in five major cities, but researchers say models suggest the true number of infections was likely 28,000. >> we've gotten very little credit for the great job we've done, because of the media. the media is not an honest media in my opinion. >> tonight the family of a firefighter sharing their loss. she was one week shy of turning five months when her family says

she passed from complications of the coronavirus. >> it is interesting that the states that are in trouble do happen to be blue. it is interesting. states that seem to have the problem happened to be democrat and -- new york and new jersey were in a lot of trouble long before the plague came. they had a lot of problems before the plague came. >> most americans say the top priority right now should be staying home to slow the spread of the virus. >> tuning into these briefings, they want to get information and guidance and know what to do. they are not looking for rumors. >> i'm the president and you are fake news. you know what i will say to you? i will say very nicely. i know the guy, i see what he writes. he's a total faker. >> it wasn't even the darkest moment four years ago. that came after the head of science and technology at the department of homeland security

gave a lesson about what we know about how the virus survives outside the body. >> increasing the temperature and humidity of potentially contaminated indoor spaces appears to reduce the stability of the virus and extra care may be warranted for dry environments that do not have exposure to solar light. we are also testing disinfectants. readily available. we have tested bleach. we tested isopropyl alcohol on the virus specifically in saliva or respiratory fluids and i can tell you that leach will kill the virus in five minutes. isopropyl alcohol will kill the virus in 30 seconds and that is with no manipulation. >> useful info. important research. this wasn't definitive, but research. then when william brian finished, the president of the united states came back to the lectern and had some ideas of his own. >> i would like to thank the

president and vice president for their ongoing support and leadership to the department and their work in addressing the pandemic. i would also like to thank the scientists and the larger community. thank you very much. >> i have a question that probably some of you are thinking of. that world that i find to be very interesting. whether it is ultraviolet or just very powerful light and i think you said that hasn't been checked but you're going to tested and i said suppose you brought the light inside the body, which you can do. you go through the skin in some other way. and i thought you said you're going to test that, too. it sounds interesting and then i see the disinfectant and it knocks it out in one minute and is there a way we can do something like that? by injection inside or almost a

cleaning. he gets in the lungs. it would be interesting to check that, so you have to use medical doctors. it sounds interesting to me. we will see, but the whole concept of the light and the way it goes in one minute, that's pretty powerful. >> reporter: the president mentioned the idea of cleaner, bleach or isopropyl alcohol. there is no scenario that could be injected into a person is there? >> no, i'm going to talk about findings we have in the study. we don't do that. >> honestly it is so much worse than i remembered. thousands of people were dying a day. that was the president of the united states. in the midst of this epic, historic disaster and his big brain idea is maybe you can combat the coronavirus by shining a bright light inside your various orifices or maybe by injecting disinfectant in

your body like a cleaning. you can probably guess what happened next. >> the maker of lysol has issued a warning this morning concerned people will try it. they say we must be clear that under no circumstances should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body through injection or any other out. >> reporter: calls to poison control hotlines have skyrocketed across the u.s. as more americans have questions about using bleach and other disinfectants to keep covid-19 away. health officials in illinois say calls included people using detergent as a sinus rinse and gargling with bleach and mouthwash in an attempt to kill the coronavirus. new york city's poison control center also reporting a higher number of calls in the hours after trump's comments. >> the clownish, reckless, dangerous, incompetent handling of a genuine crisis. the first one he faced, a pandemic that went on to kill 1

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next week, one of the nation's most extreme antiabortion laws will take effect here, in florida. it is criminalizing reproductive health care for women before they know they are even pregnant. let's make clear there is one person responsible for this nightmare, and he brags about

it. donald trump. donald trump is worried was going to hold him accountable for the chaos he created. folks, we are going to hold him accountable. >> today, president biden delivered his message on abortion and restoring roe v. wade where a six-week abortion ban will take effect next week, and where ballot measure for abortion rights will be up on the ballot in november. reporters have been told they think florida is in play. >> we take florida very fiercely. the fact the idea donald trump has the stake in the bag could not be further from the truth, right? he owns not only the state of abortion rights across the country, but he owns the restriction that we are seeing play out in florida. >> abortion is one issue where republicans are having to reckon with the deep unpopularity of their own

ideals. they have been insulating themselves from this popular repulsion through gerrymandering state legislatures, suppressing the votes, and by maximally leveraging structures of the constitution, the electoral college, which got trump in the white house come despite him losing by 2.9 million votes. as ari berman writes to entrench and hold onto power, shrinking conservative minority is relentlessly exploiting the under features of america's political institutions-- national voting rights correspondent, his new book out today, minority rule the right- wing attack on the will of the people and the fight to resist it is out right now. it's a fantastic piece of work, sort of a unified theory. i think, of a lot of the politics of the moment. let's begin with abortion.

i think it's a fascinating illustration of your thesis, which is the sort-of structures republicans have built to barricade themselves against public opinion and the force of public opinion coming head to head. >> that's right, republicans now abortion rights are popular, they have sought to take away abortion rights, five of six conservative justices were initially pointed by republican was a printing minority of americans-- >> that super majority itself is the product. >> that's right, a product of minority rule then by overturning roe v. wade. something that was super unpopular, 70% of americans disagree with. what we see is the republican party has these unpopular positions on things like abortion rights, gun control, voting rights, then they rigged the system, either because it is already rigged in their favor or they layer tactics on top to put these unpopular

policies in place. >> we saw an illustration of this in ohio, they had a statewide referendum, and the super gerrymandered legislature was doing everything in its power to try and like figure out to outsmart ohio, so it never had an up or down vote. >> that was a case study for how republicans were trying to undermine majority rule. it was heavily gerrymandered. the people themselves, a product of majority rule, they attack democracy, so what we see over and over, instead of republicans trying to win the war of public opinion they are trying to win the battle for democracy by undermining democracy so people don't have a choice in how democracy works. >> how recent is this trend? you right in the book that it seems that has been quickening at this moment. where do you see the beginning?

>> i try to tell the history of minority rule in my book, and i trace it to the founding, because the founding fathers created these antidemocratic institutions, electoral college, u.s. senate, democratized, but they violate notions of one person one vote. but what we have more recently is this new art antidemocratic movement that predates trump but has been led recently by trump. they have layered these on top of the antidemocratic institution. we have the structure, then they layered on gerrymandering, voting suppression, censoring of history, and based on what they are trying to do is create a fortress. >> trump is in some ways in sort of a perfect example of this, because he's such a polarizing figure. he does lots of things politicians wouldn't do telling people to inject leach for instance or uv light sun

themselves. at one level it is like it does not work, actually. he lost that first election, if it was for city council, any position, he would have lost. he lost the 2020 election by a larger margin, although he tried to deny, and candidates he's been associated with have lost. the reason we have him is the ultimate proving ground of the thesis of the book. >> that's one of the main points i wanted to make. trump is an accelerant of a broken system, he's also a product of a broken political system. he's never presented a majority of americans. he was elected by a minority of americans. the congress, the supreme court that institutionalizes agenda was a product of a minority of americans, so what we have is an elite conservative white minority thwarting power of a

more diverse multiracial majority, and i think we see that clearly in 2024 where the stakes are is it white supremacy or multiracial democracy in our future? >> here is my question. you talk about this demographic panic in the book, and the obama election, this notion that the country is getting less white, is more more multiracial, so we barricade ourselves in these structures, but there's so much evidence they don't have to do that. they actually focused less on rigged the rules and gerrymander the state legislature of wisconsin and more on trying to get 50+1 they could be perfectly successful doing it. there's not some democratic destiny writing conservatism out of american politics. they have a good shot if they would turn from this institutional gameplaying and rigging to actually persuading. >> they give up on persuasion a while ago. i think the tipping point was barack obama's election.

they saw the country moving in a diverse direction instead of courting new demographics they said we'll build a wall, in trump's case, a literal wall. there's this fear of a majority- minority future. that white people will be a minority in the country, and that has led to panic within republican circles. they are trying to ride this politics of racial resentment as far as they can, and trump is really the figurehead for that, because his whole career is based on stirring up this racial resentment. >> the things you talk about in the book, voter suppression, you covered that for a long time, you wrote a great book on voting rights called give us a vote. you, these sort-of debt antidemocratic forces, i think there is more spotlight now. wisconsin, where this gerrymandered legislature has been running amok you see this pro-democracy movement, does it feel to you that there are more grassroots on the ground for all layers of democratic society focus on writing the

ship against these counter majority institutions? >> there's no question the push for minority rule has led for majority rule, this backlash to protect american democracy, and it's accelerated in recent years, in wisconsin and michigan where the system was really rigged activists have worked on the state level to try and change the system, and they've been successful. these instances of minority rule, but there's a happy ending where wisconsin, like michigan, people worked on a little to expand democracy. democracy itself is very popular, when the choice facing americans is do we preserve democracy or not, americans say over and over they want to preserve it. >> minority rule, it's fantastic, check it out today. ari berman, thank you. alex wagner tonight starts right now. speckled up, again, ari berman, that is