tonight on all in. >> i feel like this is we are waiting for the curtain went up and i just couldn't believe it. >> the biggest day at at the trump trial. lee for the first time in the public record here, we are getting david cooperating what michael cohen for years has now articulated about that meeting.

clean the man at the center of the conspiracy tells all. >> he said we shouldn't speak over landline, we should use signal. please deny, david role in the criminal conspiracy to elect donald trump and the wild hearing on trump's gag order abuse. clearance, the judge is getting tough on trump's lawyer. >> saying to donald trump's attorneys, you are losing all credibility, you are losing all credibility with the court. then why the biden campaign said they had a chance to win florida. >> he is out campaigning and i am sitting up all day long. and r series continues, are you better off than you were four years ago? >> the disinfectant, it knocked it out in a minute and is there a way we can do something like that? by injection or cleaning. >> when all in starch right now.

good evening, from new york, i am chris hayes, day two of the criminal trial, donald trump, today we heard in great detail how trump and his gang conspired to hide all his worst secrets, at least some of them. trump and his lawyer continue to stretch the patience of judge merchan. the started with the hearing on the gag order the judge had already issued, which trump has her heatedly and freely been violating on social media and elsewhere, more on that later in the show but suffice to say, the entire event was a huge embarrassment for trump's attorney, todd blanche. like every trump employee, blanche wants an assistant u.s. attorney from the southern district of new york was forced to repeatedly debase himself in service of his boss because if you agree to work for trump's, the fresh old qualifications to be the kind of person who only cares first and foremost about pleasing him rather than, well, doing her job.

the fact in his opening statement on monday, blanche went out of his way to let everybody know he was speaking to an audience of one, he insisted on inferring to his client, criminal defendant, prided private citizen is president trump and said quote, you're going to hear me refer to him as president trump, this is a title he has erred because he was our 45th president cause meeting: president trump out of respect for the office he held from 2017 to 2020. but as we saw today, as we will likely continue to come as we have seen in many, many different venues and many situations, pleasing donald trump and doing your job, in this case, providing him the best legal representation, often a mutually exclusive choice pick that theme continued with longtime publisher of the met national inquirer, david took the stand again this afternoon for a second day of testimony. outlawed while running the national inquirer he worked with trump and michael cohen to both suppress negative stories about the then presidential candidate and to flit negative and presumably baseless stories

about trump's political opponents point quote, michael cohen called me and said we would like you to run a article on the let's say, for argument sake, ted cruz point then we he would send me information about ted cruz or carson or marco rubio point that was the basis and then we would embellish it from there. of on further questioning, clarified, quote, michael cohen was a part of the campaign. that he is talking about himself and mr. trump took it sound like believed he was acting in the correction of donald trump when he published stories like this about texas senator ted cruz who challenged trump in the 2016 primary, having extramarital affairs with multiple women, five secret mistresses, actually, or the story, remember this one? this one got a little bit of attention for which admitted to making up, linking cruises father to the john f. kennedy assassination. remember that one? the substance of this trial is about what the inquirer did not publish as part of its

practice, the tabloid world known as catch and kill during which it helps press story about trump's on affairs: it is in a 2015 meeting between trump, and cohen . >> tonight a person familiar with the matter tells nbc news in august 2015, candidate trump was in the room and cohen, and national inquirer publisher david discussed ways company could quash negative stories about trump's relationships with women. >> when that meeting was first reported. according to and that 2015 meeting in august, he told trump paul cohen, quote, i said that anything i hear in the marketplace, if i hear anything negative about yourself or i hear anything about women telling stories i was notified michael cohen and i did over the last several years. i would notify uncle: and he would be able to have him in another magazine or have them not be published or somebody would have to purchase them. today's testimony ended on

something of a cliffhanger as began to outline the plan to play off playboy model karen mcdougal to cover up her own story. according to testimony, one of his with the understanding that she wanted somebody to purchase the affair. he contacted michael cohen and insisted on communication through an encrypted app. increasingly agitated as the editor first to that mcdougall's story with single quote, he kept on calling and each time he called he seemed more anxious adding, quote, i assumed he had the conversation esther trump and mr. trump was asking michael cohen did we hear anything yet? also testified that trump called him directly about the mcdougall story but then the candidate saying i spoke to michael and, quote, he told me about karen and trump said to me, what do you think? p ecker he said trump to push the mcdougall story pick former edison are will resume his testimony we have the day off

tomorrow for the trial but we already know how the story ends, the inquirer paid mcdougall 150 grand for the rights to her story and her silence but, here's the asterisk, which is great, trump was supposed to repay p ecker, he wasn't just doing this as charity. he was the pass-through, if you will. but trump did what he always does, he stiffed him on the bill $150,000, which is why michael cohen was the one forced to pay stormy daniels out of his own pocket. that, of course, is why trump was ultimately in court today. msnbc legal correspondent wasn't watching from inside the courtroom, andrew rice also in the courtroom today, he is a writer near magazine where he just profiled trump's defense attorney, todd entered a new kind of story point great to have you both here we just start topline impressions for the day today, lisa quickly top line impression is that david p ecker has a whole lot to say pick one of the things that he

said at the very beginning was he was asked how often he commuted with trump and he said after trump became a candidate their conversations increased, not decreased for acute expect a presidential candidate to get so busy that they wouldn't really have time for the old friend david p ecker and yet they still found time to meet once a month, talked on the phone roughly once a week and sometimes more point we heard about two of those conversations today, book ended the beginning and the end of the testimony, that august 2015 meeting you talked about and that phone call during 2016 about karen mcdougal having been vetted and what trump wanted to know about the conversation. i have to assume there are a lot more conversations that david p ecker had directly with donald trump and that the prosecution is going to elicit testimony about them in the ensuing days. >> i thought the most relevant thing to watch was actually sort of the ongoing dichotomy between what is going on inside the courtroom and what is happening outside the courtroom and i think that it came into relief really went at the beginning of the day when there

is a hearing about whether donald trump was going to be held in contempt for some of the things that he has said. on truth social about witnesses even about a juror. in this case and todd blanche, the guy that profiled in the story got up and said that our client has a right to talk about the two systems of justice that are being shown here in this courtroom. and i think there's something that we will see a lot, which is basically donald trump is not, if he can win on acquittal or win on a mistrial that is great for him but he is running against the system. >> okay, i follow up on that because blanche also insisted, we are going to talk about this in a second in greater detail but he says he is doing his best or something or like trying our best and that is when rochon says you are losing credibility point come on, buddy. what is blanches angle here? not primarily legal, it is primarily about the sort of making this broader case in the court of public opinion. is blanche on board with that

strategy? >> well, i think that blanche is ultimately trying to, made it very clear, they're hoping to find a juror, one juror, really, who will hold out and will vote to convict donald trump and they're hoping for a mistrial and if there is a mistrial, course donald trump will go out on the courtroom, courthouse steps and say i am completely exonerated, here in new york and so that was their strategy ultimately the back- and-forth with the judges is happening outside the has not blood into the trial too much but it is >> >> in terms of the mistrial, one of the things that just going back to the transcripts, just sort of striking me again, maybe this is such an obvious point but indulge me, sometimes you'll have like in a classic sort of mystery courtroom drama

there's a question of light, wasn't that person driving the car? did this actually happen? in this case, it is like it is clear as day all the stuff happened. it is clear as day. is there any real doubt that david p ecker met with michael cohen and donald trump looks that they set up, i guess you could think that p ecker is lying and that michael cohen is lying. but the basics of the story that is being presented here just seemed to be pretty much better rock solid. >> let me pushback that a little bit. i think one of the things that the prosecution has to establish and was surprising to many people in the courtroom is the extent of donald trump's own involvement here which, of course. which is necessarily not only contextually but to approve the crime. the other thing is we all know about what will call the antecedent story, the setup of the hush money payments for the thing that the prosecutors have to really prove, though, to show falsification of his records as a felony is that there was a cover up with the intent to commit or conceal a crime and tying donald trump

expressly to that, i think is something that none of us have really seen their evidence about it and we are all looking forward. >> totally but i guess my point is that of this pardon, which is not the criminal pardon, did this arrangement happen, just seems clear that it did. again, i'm not in the jury but just from the recording we have from the testimony, and i also wonder also because i can't quite get it from the transcript, from the transcript, p ecker seems pretty comfortable and forthcoming. as a witness how would you describe him? got that it was maybe i am a but i thought it was pretty shocking to hear him talk with such total frankness. >> yes, exactly. >> the nature of the relationship that he has with donald trump and he actually can't quite candidly said on the stand that this was not normal. this, even by the standards of the national enquirer, these transactions were not normal. they had a very special relationship with donald trump that they had forged and they

wanted to see donald trump elected president and they were acting sort of as an adjunct arm of the campaign. >> that, this has nothing to do with the criminal trial, per se, just as disclosures go, the part about ceding negative stories, like he would just send them stuff. that is shocking and would be in any other media enterprise, and unbelievable scandal and also gives you little sense of how donald trump projects his view of the media. like his view of the media being like the all function like that because that is what the inquirer did for me. >> i think the other thing that sort of was lost until today is what is david p ecker getting out of this? and then complement and praising donald trump, that is what made his testimony so damning. he said he was the top celebrity among inquirer readers, that he was knowledgeable about his business, that he was detail oriented, micro-managerial prayer all the things he said

about donald trump that were complement are eventually going to be his dim as tells a story. >> a little bit of a time sheet about going back to the apprentice as a hit show and i am trying to tell magazines, man point this guy has a big show and he was product so we need to be closer. that was great, thank you very much. coming up, i deal with the judge tells your lawyer when he is losing credibility with the court, that is worse when it happens before the first witnesses in his pick what did we go wrong with the trump defense team? next. fense team? next.

class 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 picked donald trump jr. even posted an article trying to picture of the judges daughter on social media. but a month ago, as the case neared jury selection, the judge in this case, one marchant, prevented trump and quote, the family members of any counsel or staff member.

trump continue to post about the judges own daughter, which was not to be part of that first gag order but did an expansion to the gag order less than a week later picked that added family of the court and district attorney to the prohibited list. in a hearing today, prosecutors resented before the judge several posts from donald trump, 10, in fact, violated the order most attacking his michael cohen and stormy daniels, the adult film star at the center of the hush money payments, both who are present 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 his own disobedience is willful and intentional. >> added, quote, we are not yet seeking and incarcerated tory penalty, defendant seems to be angling for that. trump lawyer, todd blanchard, we were just discussing, tried to defend the honestly indefensible, making the judge

visibly frustrated and when blanche told the judge, quote, this gag order we are trying to comply with the, president trump is being very careful to comply with your honored rules, the judge responded, mr. blanche, you are losing all credibility with this order. cordell served as a judge for nearly 20 years, including on the bench of the superior court of the state of california. she joined me now pick it is great to have you, judge, we love hearing from you. so first, just set the stage point this was, there is a sort of motion to show cause. so 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 pick so what was the proceeding that started the hearing today? >> so this was a criminal contempt hearing and the burden is on the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt every single element of criminal content, which is there is a ballot order, trump about the

order and he willfully violated it so that was there burden today and they absolutely proved the burden by proving all the social media post and website post and you can see the judge getting very frustrated and almost losing it at a point because he was asking the defense, well, what is your defense to this? and here's 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's a repost that is the ridiculous argument that the defense was giving to the judge. and so, they 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 the decision to hold off when the judge could be more calm her 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. >> so this point about retweets are not endorsements or reposting. what is just unclear is that trump thinks he's got some incredibly clever way through the gag order, which is if he is just reposting people, even though, you know, one of the points that the people may today is that one of the posts at issue where donald trump claimed to be reposting jesse watters, they're catching undercover liberal activist lying to the judge in order to get on the trump jury was actually a hybrid of a quote and send that trump himself added for the point is like a mall that doesn't matter, right? i mean, the idea that there is some repost loophole to the gag order, like i am not saying the jurors should fear for their lives if he is convicted, so what else said that and i just reposted a point obviously plainly that is not going to fly. clear right, but chris, that is 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 was just absurd. there is no distinction. he posted on social media and did it violate the order? of course it did. so i anticipate that there were, 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 fine cannot be paid by his donors or people that he asks money for, that has to come out of his pocket. it won't mean much but it some form of punishment. the other part is the incarceration piece what is going to happen with that? >> well, keep going. i found it striking when the district attorney, said he appears to want that penalty. he is basically try to get himself thrown in jail for some stunt reason. what did you think about that? >> i think that is a relevant. it doesn't matter when people say well, he will go to jail because then he could be a

martyr. it doesn't matter the question, there is two purposes of content. one is to punish and the other is to deter future behavior. the fine is not going to deter. but incarceration will pick so the question is, will the judge do it? and if i were the trial judge, yes, i would impose jail time and i would stay, yes, i would stay the jail time meeting you're not going to go to jail right now because that would delay the trial, which is what donald trump and his people want. but i would stay it, meaning i might sentence you to whatever time i decide is appropriate and i'm going to impose that sentence at the end of the trial. maybe while the jurors are deliberating so there's nothing to prevent the judge from doing that. >> that is really interesting. you think, yeah, the deterrent effect clearly, no one has had much luck deterring, right? this has been a constant theme here. even going down to like the sort of merciless harassment that the clerk was subjected to pick it has been very difficult to contain him.

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

thank you very much, appreciate it. >> thank you. still to come, as the trump trial continues, i look back four years to one of the most indelible moments of the entire trump presidency. our special series, are you better off? next. hi, i'm janice, and i lost 172 pounds on golo. when i was a teenager i had some severe trauma in my life and i turned to food for comfort. a friend told me that i was the only one holding me back from being as beautiful on the outside as i am the inside. once i saw golo was working, i felt this rush, i just had to keep going. a lot of people think no pain no gain, but with golo it is so easy. when i look in the mirror, i don't even recognize myself. golo really works.

for decades, before he lost his first for presidency, donald trump publicly funded with the idea eating into politics. his intentions seem to serious.

in 1998 interview with chris matthews at the height of the clinton-lewinsky scandal trump shrugged off the question explaining that all the womanizing would make campaigning difficult. click that you ever have a flickering you're taking a shower, walking to work or waking up in the morning when you said donald trump, why don't you run for governor, why don't you run for president, did you think about that? >> people want me to all the time. i don't like it can imagine how controversial it be? i'm a hit with the women, how about me with the women? >> no cigar. cleaned i like my women better, too. clear course by 2015, trump appeared to have changed his mind. on june 16, of course, he descended the golden escalator to formally announce his presidential ambitions. now despite years spent kicking around the idea, trump was flying by the seat of his pants, the announcement itself was thrown together in a matter of weeks. the room was filled with ground actors, remember that pay $50 to wear t-shirts and carry side

and help to him. according to the casting call they put out. trump's staff was a ragtag group of little experience led by corey lewandowski who cannot run a campaign since 2002. trump posted his press secretary from his daughter, ibaka's clothing line. the social media director was a golf caddie promoted to club manager. and pollsters, he had no speechwriters pick up back, the campaign spent more money on swagger than any sort of professional expertise or building at a national team and all 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 p ecker to catch and kill stories about his affairs. would buy the rights to women's stories about trump and bury them so they would never see the light of day. he was supposed to get reimbursed. as david p ecker testified in court today to devise that secret plan at a trump tower

meeting in august of 2015, just two months into trump's presidential campaign. it was one of the first away things he put real effort into because he knew how crucial for his chances of making it to the oval office. once he actually got there with a month, taking office, trump brought michael cohen to the white house to settle the debt for his hush money payment to stormy daniels. things went downhill from there. over the course of 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 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, it knocked it out in a minute. a minute and we can do something like that. like injection inside or, most of cleaning.

remember ronald reagan talking about jimmy carter correctly ronald reagan used to ask. >> are you better off? >> are you better off? >> are you better off?

we are you better off? >> are you better off quickly better off? >> that are off? >> better off? >> better off? please better off? >> that you were four years ago. >> when you first conceived the series, we had a few particular deeds circled on the calendar of the picture. the kind of day were you definitely wouldn't want to be asking the question but trump and his people just 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 see how we were doing four years ago today april 23rd, 2020. a full month into the first covid-19 wave, 2400 deaths a day. as a nation approached 50,000 total deaths no vaccine insight, some say were opening with trump's encouragement before they flattened the curve. even as we were spreading the

virus much worse than authorities had initially thought. we were nowhere near out of the woods. listen to the reporting from the evening news four years ago on april 23rd, 2020, versus what donald trump was saying in his 67 minute press conference. >> the death toll still inching upward, now for 48,000, at the same time, unemployment numbers have risen to numbers worse than the great depression. >> just not there yet. please note that i don't agree with him. i think we are doing a great job. i don't agree, if you said that i don't agree. >> reporter: the cdc conference 23 cases in five major u.s. cities. but researchers say models suggest the true number of infections was likely 28,000 cleaner than a good job, we have done real credit for the great job we have done because of the media. because the media is not an honest media, in my opinion. >> the family of an fdny

firefighter sharing their loss, little jade natalie lozano was just one week shy of turning five months and her family says she passed her complications of the coronavirus. >> it is interesting what the states that are in trouble do happen to be, it is interesting , whenever you look around the states that seem to have the problem happen to be democrat and slegers got hit by this. we new york and big -- >> in a peer a lot of problems long before the plague came. >> the top priority right now should be staying home to slow the spread of the virus >> you're the president and people tuning into these briefings they want information and guidance and want to know what to do. >> i am the president and you are fake news and you know what else? i say very nicely, i know you well, i know you well because i know the guy a total faker. >> that is all beyond insanity and enraging but wasn't the darkest moment four years ago, they came right after william

bryan, the head of science and technology in the department of homeland security gave a lesson on 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. an extra care may be warranted for dry environments that do not have exposure to solar light. we are also testing disinfectants readily available and we attested bleach, tested isopropyl alcohol on the virus specifically in saliva and 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 that is with no manipulation. clear useful info, important research. again, this was not definitive at that point but research. and then when he finished, the president of the united states came back to the lecture and has some ideas of his own. >> i would like to thank the president, thanks a vice

president for their ongoing support and leadership to the department and for their work in addressing the pandemic forgot also like to thank the scientist not only s and t with impact but for two larger scientific immunity. thank you very much. >> a question that probably some of you are thinking of, totally into that world, which i find to be very interesting. so supposing we hit the body with a tremendous whether it is ultraviolet or just a very powerful light, and i think you said that has them been checked, you're going to test and supposing you brought the light inside the body, what you can do either through the skin or in some other way and i think you said you were going to test that, too? right, and then i see the disinfectant, knocks it out in a minute, one minute, is there way can do something like

injection inside? or almost a cleaning. it is in the lungs and it does his number on the long so it would be interesting to check that so medical doctors but it sounds interesting to me. and so we will see but the whole concept of the light that kills it in one minute, that is pretty powerful. >> president trump, bleach or ivory propyl alcohol, there is no scenario that would be injected, is there? >> no, i am here to talk. we don't do that within that lab. >> it honestly is so much worse than i remember. i mean, people worked with 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 ideas that maybe you can come by the coronavirus by shining a

bright light inside your various orifices or maybe by injecting disinfectant into your body like a cleaning. you can probably guess what happened next. >> the maker of lysol has issued a warning this morning concerned that people may try it the maker of lysol saying we must be clear that under no circumstances should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body through injection, ingestion, or any other route. >> 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 says the calls included people using detergent as a sinus rinse and gargling with leach and mouthwash in an attempt to kill the coronavirus control center also reported 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, it went on to kill 1 million americans. that is part of the record. we can all consider it. when we ask, sitting here today, whether we are better off today than we were four years ago? for healints. all

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club next week one of the nation's most extreme antiabortion will take effect in 3 to 4 hours, it is criminalizing reproductive healthcare for women even know whether they are pregnant. let's be real clear, there is one person responsible for this nightmare and he has acknowledged it and he brags about, donald trump. donald trump is word voters are going to hold him accountable for the chaos he created. folks, the bad news for trump is we are going to hold him accountable! please today, president biden delivered his message on abortion and restoring row in florida, where a six week abortion ban will take effect next week and wear a belt

measure for abortion rights would be up for vote in november, leading into the biting campaign to tell workers they think florida is implied >> we take this very fiercely. the fact that the idea that donald trump has a date in the back cannot be further from the truth. 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. >> abortions is one issue where republicans are having to reckon with the deep unpopularity of their own ideals for a long time they have been for insulting themselves from this popular from all sorts of means, gerrymandering state legislators and suppressing the vote and by actually leveraging the my trinitarian structures of the u.s. constitution, the u.s. senate, and electoral college, which, of course, got trump in the white house despite him losing by nearly 2.9 million votes.

as berman writes in his new book, to entrench a shrinking conservative white minority israel is an exporting the undemocratic features of america's clinical institutions while doubling down on a wide variety of anti-democratic tactics berman retina, the national voter right correspondent his new book out today, minority rule, the right attack on the rule of the people, the fight to resistance is out right now. fantastic piece of work. sort of a unified theory of a lot of the politics of the moment will start with four to an abortion because i do think abortion is a fascinating illustration of your thesis. which is the structures republicans have built to barricade themselves against public opinion and the force of public opinion coming head-to- head. >> that's right, republicans know where abortion rights are popular so they provided this counter majority institutions to weigh abortion rights so they created the supreme court, there five or six conservative

justices initially appointed by republican presidents who lost the popular vote and confirmed by senators represented americans, playwright, that super majority itself is the product of those. >> exactly, the supreme court that was the product of minority rule then institutionalized by minority rule by overturning roe v wade pick something that was super unpopular, 70% of americans disagree with so over and over we see the republican party has these unpopular positions on things like abortion rights, on things like gun control and things like voting rights and then they rigged the political system either because the political system is already rigged in their favor or because they layer all these antidemocratic tactics on top of it to then put all these unpopular policies in place. >> we saw an illustration of this in ohio where the, they had a statewide referendum and those super gerrymandered legislator was doing everything in its power to try to figure out a way to outsmart the people of ohio so that it never just had an up or down vote. >> there is a case study of how

republicans were trying to undermine majority rule because the legislature was heavily gerrymandered but the people themselves, product of majority rule put an initiative on the ballot to pass abortion rights, do they do? they go attack democracy. so what we see, so the republicans try to win the war of public opinion, they're just trying to win the battle for democracy by undermining the democracy over and over so the people don't actually have a choice in how democracy works. >> how recent is this trend? you write in the book about it antecedents. it seems like it is at this moment, where'd you see the beginning of this? we will, i tried to tell the history of minority rule in my book and i trace it all the way back to the founding, because the founding fathers created these very anti-democratic institution, the electoral college, the u.s. senate even though these institutions are democratized they still violate basic notions of one person, one vote. and the supreme court. but we have more recently as this newer antidemocratic movement that predates trump and has also been led more recently by

trump and they have layered on top these anti-democratic tactics on top of the anti- democratic institution so we already have the structure that is undemocratic but layered on gerrymandering, voter suppression and basically what they're trying to do is create forgers to stop what they view as the common siege. >> trump is in some ways sort of the most perfect example of this because he is such a polarizing figure, he does a lot of things that most politicians wouldn't do, telling people to inject bleach, for instance or shine uv light inside themselves. you think, well, how does this work? it shouldn't work, right? and at one level it is like well, doesn't work actually he lost, that first election, if that was an election for city councilmember, he would have just lost. he lost the 2020 election by an even wider margin even though he tried to deny it. other elections that the candidates who acted like him and have been associated with him lost so he, the reason we have him is the ultimate sort

of proving ground on the thesis of the book. >> exactly, that is without main points is that yes, donald trump is an accelerant of growth and medical system but is also the product of a broken political system. he has never presented the majority of americans, he was elected by the minority of americans, the republican congress that worked with him to pass his agenda was a the supreme court that institutionalizes agenda was a product of a minority of americans and so we have an elite conservative right minority trying to thwart the power of a more diverse racial majority and we see that very clear in 2024 where the stakes are is it going to be reactionary white supremacy orze going to be multiracial democracy in the future? >> here's my question because you should've talk about this demographic panic in the book and the kind of, the obama election, this notion that the country is getting less white, it is getting multiracial and so therefore we have to barricade ourselves inside these but i also think that, like, there's so much evidence

they don't have to do that. they actually focused less on trying to rig the rules of the gain and gerrymandered the state legislator of wisconsin and more i'm just trying to get 50+ they could be perfectly successful doing it, it is not like there's some demo graphics destiny that is writing conservatism out of american politics. in fact i think the to get shot with their return from focusing on this institutional game playing and reading to actually persuading. >> they gave up on persuasion a while ago. i think the tipping point was barack obama's election point they saw the country moving in a more diverse direction. instead of trying to court those new demographics they say we are going to go to law. build a wall against it. now you're going to see that, what is motivating them a lot is the sphere of the majority minority future. 20 to 5 white people are going to be a white my minority that is led to panic so they're trying to write 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 kind of racial resentment. plea the things you talk about in the book, voter suppression, you covered that for a very long time on voting rights, give us a vote. you, these sort of antidemocratic forces, i feel like there is much more spotlight than on them now. in wisconsin, where this gerrymandered legislator, you have seen this conservative pro- democracy movement, does it feel to you like there is more grassroots on the ground through all layers of democratic society focused on writing the ship? >> absolutely, the majority vote, the effort to make a democracy has led to a backlash to try to protect american democracy that is really accelerated in recent years where in states like wisconsin and michigan where the political system was really rigged, activists have worked on the state level to try to change. have been very successful so all these incidences of

minority rule of the book but there is a happy ending, since that in states like wisconsin, like michigan people have worked on the level to expand democracy. what you realize is democracy itself is very popular when the choice is do we want to preserve democracy or not, over and over americans say they want to preserve it. >> the book is called minority rule, is fantastic and i suggest you check it out. it is out today. >> thanks so much. glad that is all in on this tuesday night. alex wagner start right now. clearly it is essential reading in a moment like this. is always essential reading pickets the best. thank you for having him on, i look forward.