election. u.s. aid to ukraine could run out before the end of the year. the urgent plea from the white house to congress. then, republicans moving one step closer to a former biden impeachment inquiry. the focus in the house after a chaotic here. as the 11th hour gets underway on this monday night. ♪ ♪ ♪ good evening once again. i'm stephanie ruhle. we begin this evening with fresh warnings about what we could see in washington and across the nation, should donald trump returned to the white house. remember, he is currently a defendant in multiple cases. and right now, as his trials are set to unfold, as he is making his pitch to voters for a second term. over the last few days, he has been on the losing end of several appeals in two of his trials. the gag order in the new york civil fraud case remains at his claims to be immune from prosecution in the federal election case has been officially rejected. but several reports are indicating trump is making plans for his next administration despite these legal setbacks. the new york times reports it would be more radical in the first. and the former president and his advisors extreme ideas would have a better chance of becoming reality, since the forces that restrained him will be weaker this time around. the atlantic magazine's latest issue is devoted to sounding the alarm about what trump 2.0 would look like. as we like to say on the 11th hour, truth matters, but only if you hear it. and in the interest of the truth, i want to share some of what donald trump told a live audience in iowa this weekend. and we warn you, it is not true. >> joe biden is not the defender of american democracy. joe biden is the destroyer of american democracy. and it is him and his people. >> we have to take our country back. [applause] because the fact is americans don't like fascists. we don't like communists. we don't like tyrants. if you had a real election and jesus came down and guard came down and said i'm gonna be the scorekeeper here, i think we would win their. i think we will win in eloy and new york. never forget our enemies want to take away my freedom. together, we will take on some of the most menacing forces and vicious opponents that our people have ever seen. >> reminder -- donald trump who is been indicted in federal court for trying to overturn the 2020 election is out there calling joe biden the destroyer of democracy. that is what many would call projection. former january 6th committee vice chair liz cheney is also warning about the threat of the former president. here is what she told our colleague rachel maddow earlier this evening. >> we need the rule of law to function, and that means you have to have a president in particular who takes seriously his obligation to uphold it. you would take those people who are the most radical, the most dangerous, who had the proposals that were the most dangerous. and you put them in positions of, you know, supreme power's, and that is, that is a risk that we simply can't take. >> keep in mind, there are just 13 weeks left until super tuesday on march 5th. that is when donald trump, many believe, good luck of the republican presidential nomination. and that will be one day after his federal election interference trial is set to begin. that's a lot. with that, let's get smarter tonight with the health of our leadoff panel. carol leonnig, pulitzer prize-winning investigator from the washington post. hugo lowell is here, a political investigations reporter for the guardian and catherine christian, former assistant district attorney at the manhattan district attorney's office. she is now an msnbc legal analyst and has actually worked with special counsel jack smith on a murder trial. carol, let us start with you. we are approaching three years since the january 6th riot. what is your reaction to liz cheney's warnings? >> you know, what liz cheney spent all of her political capital on, and she realized that resisting republicans wanted to swear fealty, at least publicly to donald trump's, she realized she was going to lose her office. she was gonna lose her power position, leadership position in the party. she was ultimately going to lose grown political seat. and she did it because she felt very strongly that democracy is hung in the balance. if a president could try to overturn the free and fair election, that clearly found joe biden a winner, then what next? what else will happen? now, three years later, she is sort of sounding and even more dire alarm, and saying that if he is reelected, some terrible things are going to happen because he is going to have a better team, a more efficient team, a more loyal and consistently vetted team that is going to carry out the wishes that many other republican appointees stopped him from launching into. they stopped him from trying to put jim comey in jail because donald trump felt he was an enemy. they stopped him from trying to jail children indefinitely at the border. many things like that, steph. >> so, just for clarification, when you say better team, you mean better in terms of better as in more willing and equipped to execute donald trump's wishes? >> that's right. i mean, when donald trump came into office, and you remember this well, some people joked that he had not the a-team, not the b team, but the c team. very few people including trump, expected that was going to win the presidency. and so, he really did not have a transition in motion. he had later some pretty serious people that joined him in cabinet-level positions, john kelly, a general, jim mattis, bill barr, who used to be an attorney general in a previous lifetime, pretty serious republicans. and all three of them forwarded his efforts. others were a little bit, let's just say, an schooled on how government operated. and they will do things that were patently illegal, patently a violation of federal policy, and over and over again, federal courts said sorry, you can just do this because you decided to. you have to follow the law. and you have to follow federal regulations -- >> and trump is continuing to bring potentially potentially that squad. back hugo, i want to share a bit of what david firm was talking about. he wrote one of the pieces for the atlantic and he shared his warning about trump's possible return to the white house. watch this. >> if donald trump is elected again, i don't think people appreciate enough how much chaos there is going to be. the government is going to break. we are in a situation where the presidency just melts down under the weight of a president who uses the presidency to protect himself and his crimes. >> as we get closer to 2024, do you see a possible situation like the one david is describing? >> you know, i do. and it is basically because his team has become much more efficient at carrying out his wishes. i mean, if you look at the people he's surrounded himself with on the current campaign, it is much leaner, it is much smaller, it is much more loyal to him then his 2016 campaign or his 2020 campaign, which became famously bloated. and i think a lot of those people who are seeing leadership roles now envision themselves now in the white house. you don't, when that campaign first launched, they were ambivalent about that. now, they seem closer towards locking down a nomination, and they seem to be really ready to get into the white house and to start carrying out his wishes, and as carroll says, if there are no more kind of, people who are saying no to him, just surrounded by yes men, then i think that's gonna be a problem. >> kathryn, do you fear that our institutions, especially the justice system, will be at grave risk if trump is voted again in the white house. >> well, just consider that the president of the united states is the one who appoints u.s. attorneys. there are 93 in the united states, also there's r.i.c.o., virgin islands, and one. so you will have 93 people who report essentially, they technically report to the a.g., who would be appointed by the president, so they are the chief law enforcement, federal law enforcement officers throughout the states, the united states. that would be the problem. his intention is to come in and do revenge against people, and just, you know, run over the constitution. yes, that's concerning if you believe in the rule of law. >> carol, people say they don't like joe biden's policies. they don't want him in the white house. they don't want to look at his face. that's one thing. but donald trump is now accusing joe biden of trying to destroy democracy. clearly, trying to flip the script on the warnings about the threats he poses. what is really going on here because there is absolutely no evidence that joe biden is trying to destroy democracy? >> yes, there is absolutely no evidence of that. in fact, you know, when donald trump said in a clip that you played, steph, which i thought was the perfect choice. when he talked about our people, meaning his supporters, which is also a worrisome thing. a presidential candidate continuing to divide the country and described our people as the right people in america, the ones that support him. our people had never never seen such nefarious forces. i found it compelling because the only person that has taken nefarious steps in this campaign to try to undo democracy is donald trump. i mean, we can say that he did not have very efficient consigliere's. he did not have a team the first time around that always said yes to him. but in the final year of 2020, we got a dry run of what another trump presidency would be like. and you ask the right question with catherine about the rule of law. you know, we saw how new u.s. attorneys were tossed out once to agree to trump's fever dream that there was fraud in the election. b.j. pak pushed out of georgia for failing to, you know, falsely claimed that there was fraud. we saw a u.s. attorney's office in the district of columbia, basically, have multiple cases, criminal prosecutions undone because they were prosecutions of donald trump's friends. so, we see that dry run of what kind of operation would look like. and now, let's counter that with your good point about joe biden. is there anyone more mainstream cautious and careful as the president then joe biden? is there anyone who's more worried about appearing to bend the rules to his favor? i can't invasion it actually. and we have covered it in my lifetime at the washington post, five presidencies. and this is one where he is really straddling the lie of trying to restore confidence, it seems, over and over again in democracy. so, donald trump's projection is something he is a master at, and we are here again. >> it's hugo, we keep people safe, who will trump even get to work for him in a second administration? but there are a lot of people already working on. something called project 2025, what is this? >> you know, this is an idea thrown by trump's allies that has been passed out in the meantime. people like kash patel, people like mike davis, people who have been essentially loyal to trump and trump world, in terms of carrying out the sort of policies that -- and that the administration might want. and they all quite have a dream, like, in the main, it's about, you know, putting down the department of justice. it's about cutting down the fbi, or at least using the fbi to go off the zones, after perceived enemies. and the people that he wants to use are the people that are gonna be vetted ahead of time. you know, axios had some reporting recently about how even right now, looking at the kinds of people they want to put in agencies, the kind of people they want to put inside the department of justice, so that they will carry out trump's whims. i think put all of that together, and that gives you a flavor of the kind of administration that we will get if trump is reelected. >> all right, catherine, i got two for you on a new topic. donald trump's civil fraud trial, his appeal of the gag order went nowhere. he is expected to be back on the stand next week. what do you make of where this thing is headed? it's challenging that there are no cameras in the courtroom because he marches out to those front steps every chance he can get, and tells boldface lies about what happened inside. >> he fictionalizes what actually happens. and the reason why, the appeal went nowhere today, it's because his attorneys failed new york appellate practice 101. they just completely got the procedure wrong. so, we expect next week it -- is also appalling, quite frankly, that they are so anxious to have trump go back out and attack this prologue look, because that's what the gag order is, don't attacks, don't talk about the court staff. so they are so anxious to have it lifted so they can go on doing that again knowing that harassment and threats he received is quite frankly appalling. >> i said it at the top of this segment, you worked with jack smith on a federal case, a murder case. >> state -- >> state, excuse me. >> when he was a baby, when he was a first year rookie assistant as an attorney in manhattan, we were assigned to the same bureau, i was senior than him. and we sat together for about a month. i chose him to second seat me on the murder trial because i thought at that time, this guy seems very serious, and very thoughtful. and with our personal friends, years later, i still see the serious, thoughtful, and flammable person that he was, i think that was 1994. >> and that's what you saw in him in court. we know very little about him. we see very little. what should we be on the lookout for? what are you looking to? >> he's unflappable. like i said, a first year prosecutor. he had no experience with the press and all of that attention. but for the years, as we were saying, he's just a bat. always by the book, always serious, always ethical. >> we will be watching. all right, carol leonnig, hugo lowell, and catherine christian, thank you all for starting us off on this monday night. when we come back, we're gonna head to the middle east. israel expanding its attacks, tens of thousands of gazans ordered to move even further south as aid to israel and ukraine is now under threat. and later, worshipping america. tim alberta joins to help explain what evangelical begin some of trump's most loyal supporters. they 11th hour just getting underway, kicking off the week, on a monday night. ♪ ♪ ♪ i switched to dovato. dovato is a complete hiv treatment for some adults. no other complete hiv pill uses fewer medicines to help keep you undetectable than dovato. detect this: most hiv pills contain 3 or 4 medicines. dovato is as effective with just 2. if you have hepatitis b, don't stop dovato 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starting, and there are mobilization all across israel. the chief of staff of the israeli military says the operations in southern gaza would be just as intense, just as powerful as what northern gaza has seen so far. >> reporter: these girls are from a local family. doctors say ten members of the family were injured and five killed, when israel bomb their home today. the biden administration has urged israel to be more precise, today, praising more targeted evacuations. but a u.s. military official told nbc news he was taken aback by the ferocity of israel's expanding campaign. >> the united states urged publicly, repeatedly israel to do more to avoid civilian casualties. do you think, are you listening to that? are you taking that on board? >> absolutely. we are attentive to the administration, and from military to military perspective, we are constantly engaging with our american counterparts. the is no very good mother that would make hamas dippear. >> thank you to richard engel r that reporting. asngress is battling over aid to israel, same story in ukraine. the white house warned law makers, the u.s. could run out of money to send weapons to ukraine by the end of the year if congress does not take action soon. and when it comes to russia, my next guest warns, public opinion has shifted in putin's favor. joining me now to discuss, the man who wrote that piece for the washington post, mikhail zygar, founder and editor in chief of the russian independent news tv station. thank you so much for being here. this piece you wrote certainly got our attention. you wrote that it is the war in the middle east that has convinced russian business leaders that putin is not winning his war. can you explain this? >> yes. first, obviously, i'm afraid that the sanctions are not working. and the russian economy that was expected to collapse this year is not collapsing. and i will say, a year and a half ago, most russian big businesses, political businesses, other works, impacted by the catastrophe. everyone was sure that putin was doomed. and now, the situation changed. >> why? like, what about the sanctions did not work? we are trying to sanction anything that did not move. >> unfortunately, first and foremost, russia is still selling oil and gas, india, china, not only by a third parties. russia is selling oil and gas to the rest of the world, and probably, we might suspect that even european countries are buying, like turkey, azerbaijan. it's really hard. and unfortunately, a lot of fresh businessmen had to leave europe, or the west, and go back to russia so, unfortunately, the situation domestically looks like it is more or less stable. and here comes the middle east. it creates the atmosphere that -- that globally, the united states has a lot of problems, a lot of problems with the global south. and putting this playing like leader of the south, he is blaming the united states for being the cause of the middle eastern crisis. he is not supporting hamas publicly. >> publicly. >> but, you know, that's kind of a game. because, you know, during the previous years, he was very close to prime minister netanyahu. he was very pro israeli. now, nothing personal, just business. he has switched sides. and he is playing as if he is the anti-american politician number one in the world. and he feels that -- that helps him to become more popular globally. >> how much would it help him in his mind if donald trump with a republican nominee, if donald trump became president. because it is joe biden and the strong nato alliance that has been a huge help to ukraine. >> i think that was a year ago when i was in this studio, talking to one of your colleagues. and i said that putin only has one strategy, sit and wait until donald trump comes back, because a year ago, the situation in russia was much worse. >> terrible! >> and he had no option but to wait for donald trump. and now, the situation is much better. and, yes, he expects donald trump to come back. he wanted him to be back because it was expecting the decline of the american support to ukraine. and now, he still needs donald trump, yes. but he sees that there is much less of international support. and that is good news for him, unfortunately. >> okay, but perception is, russia is doing better, putin has support. he did not have support before, right? russian, you know, state run media over there has been telling the russian people that they have been winning from the get-go on the ground vladimir putin is not winning. >> yes, obviously. but there is a stalemate. he is not winning, he is not losing. and actually, he does not mean victory. he needs the war because he needs the war to mobilize the nation. he got rid of all the opposition leaders, all the independent media, everyone who's not supporting the war. so, he doesn't need any good news. and he is expecting the international support for ukraine to decline. and actually, the best news for him is when he hears that american convoys are not in a hurry to help ukraine. >> all right, last question, one of the things he's doing, there has been a tremendous amount of casualties in the russian military. he is now recruiting from the poorest areas in russia, offering hugely inflated salaries. how long can he do that? >> you know, he's running on money. unfortunately, with oil and gas, we have seen older forecasts of, for example, the international monetary fund that last year predicted that the russian economy would fall. but now, it's growing. according to the international forecasts, it is 2.5% this year. so, unfortunately, at least the last thing he's going to sacrifice is the salary for those poor soldiers from the most depressed regions of russia. that's a deal. he is paying to their families for having them dead. >> my got! , mikhail thank you so much for being here, and informing us on a really important subject. when we come back, they may not have evidence. but that hasn't stopped them before. the house gop shooting their shot again for biden impeachment inquiry. we're gonna get to that, when they 11th hour continue. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ vraylar helped give it a lift. adding vraylar to an antidepressant... is clinically proven to help relieve overall depression symptoms... ...better than an antidepressant alone. and in vraylar clinical studies, most saw no substantial impact on weight. elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. report unusual changes in behavior or suicidal thoughts. antidepressants can increase these in children and young adults. report fever, stiff muscles, or confusion, as these may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. high blood sugar, which can lead to coma or death, weight gain, and high cholesterol may occur. movement dysfunction and restlessness are common side effects. stomach and sleep issues, dizziness, increased appetite, and fatigue are also common. side effects may not appear for several 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he's worked on a number of gop campaigns, including john mccain, arnold schwarzenegger, and george w. bush. reed, i turn to you first, this year alone, republicans took 15 ballots to elect a speaker. they kicked him out after nine months. then, they spent 21 days trying to find a new speaker. and most recently, they expelled a member of their own caucus. and the next thing they want to do is impeach joe biden. is that really what they are focused on? where are the kitchen table issues that they all run on? >> well, they don't run on table issues. but i'll say this, between getting rid of kevin mccarthy who was relatively speaking normal, tonight put that into big air quotes. and they got mike johnson whose enough job. and this is really bad news for those 20 or so members who are in districts that joe biden won. now, i know that everybody is talking about the president to this president, the sky is falling, so many chicken little's out there. but the truth is, a lot of these people are in very, very competitive districts. and a vote to impeach joe biden is not gonna go over very well here. i'd like to believe that there is some higher level political calculus going on, stephanie, where it's like, okay, johnson knows he's gonna get stuff for israel, he knows he's gotta get funding for ukraine. so he has got to give it to these guys. but i think it's another example of where the republican majority, as it gets smaller every day, and now has no capacity whatsoever to govern. and i think it's a broader indication of really what maga is. it's not a governing party anymore. it might as well be libertarians at this point. all they care about is ruling. all they care about is revanchist, ugliness, and making sure that if they can do something that they think will harm joe biden go into 2024 and will help donald trump, they're gonna go ahead and do that. >> he showed up in sweats tonight. reed galen is out ther swinging. he's in the ring. jason, can we talk about james comer, because republicans say they've got new evidce of financial wrongdoing on joe biden's part. but all it's basically is, hunter biden paid his dad back for a car loan. i'm gonna let james comer explain it himself. >> you can loan people money. if they pay you back, you benefited directly. >> for facts sake, joe biden gave his son a no interest loan. there is no special benefit as the lender. does a sitting congressman, right, head of the house oversight committee not understand how a loan works? >> you know, stephanie, he does understand how a loan works. he also understands how the crazed feverish base that he is speaking to actually works. look, i am sure everybody watching right now, at some point, if you are fortunate enough to have parents who are financially capable, they gave you a no interest loan. i think my parents sold my brother's first car for $1, technically, as long as he's gonna pay for the insurance. this is what happens. this is what is the normal thing we've ever heard about biden and his son. and the idea that republicans actually want to make political drifts on this, stephanie, we are heading towards the end of the year. you know what americans want to see on the great tweet, they want to see lower taxes, inflation continue to go down, they want to see continued lower gas prices. and they don't care about impeachment. and they don't care about biden's son. and they don't care about any of these things. but it's an example of what we have as a bankrupt political organization, it's a front for terrorism but cannot figure out how to govern. none of this is new and this is just grasping and straws because they have no policies to run in 2024. >> reed, you are a strategy guy. democratic governors are now urging president biden to talk less about trump. but if you think back to the last presidential election, scores of americans who are voting against trump, and have an opportunity potentially to do that again. why not let the american people focus on all his wrongdoings and the risk of what it would be like to have him back in office? >> well, with all due respect to the governors, i have to respectfully disagree with them. donald trump is a bad person. he was a bad president. he would be the worst president, and perhaps the last president if he gets back in. if this election is about donald trump, we've got a pretty good chance of winning. if this election is about joe biden and all of the various things that happened to him, right? maybe joe biden wins, i think he still could. but this is a time for choosing. this is a time to decide what the stakes are, right? he's telling us what he wants to do. we saw robert cajuns article in the washington post the other day. now, donald trump is saying, look at this, look at what he says i'm gonna be. he thinks that's a compliment, right? why would never let this man within a mile of the white house? we should not let him back in if they ever put his portrait in the basement, maybe in the peacock the down in the bunker. we shouldn't ever let this man anywhere near and i think the other part too, about a guy like comer, that james brought up, these are the kinds of people you get in an organization, in a movement like maga. they are all mediocre. they're all morons. they have no opportunities for advancement except under someone like donald trump. you see the loyalty oaths, they're gonna make people think. when they say i want to these deconstruct the administrative state, that means i want to take away all the things that helped americans, and i want to increase the things that control americans. and that's what all this is about. it's about control and at the end of the day, again, with all due respect to those democratic governors, this is about making sure that donald trump never ever ascend to the presidency again. >> i think that's an insult to mediocrity. i think about mediocre like above moron in my ranking. jason, do you agree, because at the same time, joe biden has a lot of accomplishments that he can be talking about? >> he can. look, stephanie, i'll be honest with you. i will never tell any advice to any of these that mccracken governors. they basically said, if you are out with someone, don't mention that her ex was a juror -- just talk about you. no, i'll do both. he treated you wrong. i'm much better than him. and here is why. [laughter] so, you have to. it is necessary. it is necessary for joe biden to say, donald trump will be -- there is an entire issue in the atlantic this week, these are the terrible things that will happen if this man gets back into office. and these are the great things i've done. and i have pointed out, stephanie, because we talked about this several weeks ago. look at the polling that has happened after thanksgiving. joe biden's polling has gone up after thanksgiving. everybody went home, talk to their family. gaetz thought they were gonna get jobs after graduation. this economy is picking up in substantive financial ways, and joe biden can brag about that. if you cannot forget to remind people how terrible the alternative is, because if you don't do that, you make it, it ends up being of herenda. and you don't want referendum on you are running for president. you want it to be a choice, and you want that choice to be this guy is terrible, and i'm not. >> you can do both. jason johnson, political guidance, as well as good advice. jason johnson, reed galen, great to see both of you. when we come back, you must -- you must stay for the segment. donaldp's stunning hold on a very unlikely group of voters who became his most devoted, evangelicals. my next guest digs into why in his new book. he's gonna tell us all about it, when the 11th hour continues. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [city ambience sounds] [car screech] [car door slam] [camera shutter sfx] introducing ned's plaque psoriasis. 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(uplifting music) my biggest concern when i started golo was food. i'm a big guy and, shockingly, i like to eat. i was worried it was gonna be like other diets that were bland and restrictive. but with golo, my meals are great, and i'm no longer hungry like i was before. i'm so pleased i gave golo a shot. don't wait, go to golo.com. the first time you made a sale online with godaddy was also the first time you heard of a town named dinosaur, colorado. we just got an order from dinosaur, colorado. start an easy to build, powerful website for free with a partner that always puts you first. start for free at godaddy.com watch how easy it is to put on new hands free skechers slip-ins. i just step in and go. sitting? doesn't matter. i don't even have to touch them. ooo, gangsta. in a hurry? there's not a faster, easier way to put on shoes. they know a 10 when they see it. i am so excited for this segment. i really want you to pay attention. back in 2016, donald trump won the election with 77% of a group you might not expect, the white evangelical protestant vote. after four years in office, that number grew. in 2020, he won 84% of their vote. my next guest was raised as a christian, and he's a son of an evangelical pastor who spent years trying to figure out why and how the evangelical movement got where we are today. i am thrilled to welcome tim alberta, my friend and staff writer for the atlantic. his new book, a must read, the kingdom the power and the glory: american evangelicals in the age of extremism. it is out tomorrow. i want to say thank you for writing this book. congratulations. this is hard and deeply personal. tell our viewers what got you started writing this book because you went home to mourn and eulogized your father. >> yes, that's right. my dad was a pastor. and i grew up in the church. the church was my home. and, you know i have walked with jesus for as long as i can remember, since i was a little boy. and i still do. when my dad died, i went home for a funeral. and it just so happens that he died right after my first book had come out, which was pretty harsh, pretty critical of donald trump. and when i got home for the viewing at the church, i had people confronting me, and wanting to argue about politics. my dad in a box, and we are in a church in a sanctuary. sanctuary means set apart, just from linguistics. sanctuary, set apart for the purposes of being together as a community believers. so there and then, people wanted to talk politics. i did not want to just talk politics, they wanted to argue politics, argue trump. and then, the next day, when i issued a bit of a rebuke because i was so bothered by that, when i delivered the eulogy at a later in the funeral, things got a little even worse. i was handed a note from an elder in the church, somebody who i had known since i was a little kid, basically telling me that i should be ashamed of myself, that i was a part of the deep state, that i was undermining god in being against donald trump. the thing in life, when a problem has been sort of an obstruction, something you know is not quite right, but you just don't have the time, or the energy, or the inclination to really address it, suddenly it becomes real, and then becomes urgent, and almost threatening in a way. and this was that moment for me. >> but what is it about donald trump, right? when you think back to the evangelical church, what they care about, their values, right? there is no alignment with donald trump the man, except, of course, he said, let's get rid of abortion. was that it? >> i think it was a few things. i think abortion is in many ways the entry point. i think it's almost fair to characterize it as a gateway drug for many evangelicals. what i mean by that is that if you are a churchgoing evangelical christian. and you are taught, if you are discipled in the church to realize that partisan politics are not be all, in all, it's not the party where or the arena where you are called to invest all the passions. but abortion for many of these people is not a political issue, it's an ethical issue, it's a moral issue, it's a spiritual issue. so, they create a permission structure to invest in that issue of abortion. but, suddenly, stephanie, when you invest so heavily in that issue of abortion, then the red team becomes your allies. the blue team becomes your enemies. and then suddenly, all of this other proxy wars that pop up over all kinds of policy issues, they become not r versus, democrat versus republican. it's good versus evil. this guy, donald trump, who shares none of your values, is willing to go to war for you. he's willing to fight for you. in fact, i will even say, he's willing to fight for you in ways that no good christian ever would, right? remember when george w. bush said that in order to save the free market, he had free market principles. there's something to that idea here were for some christians, they came to believe that to protect christian virtue in this country, the first step was embrace this guy, donald trump. >> okay, but there's a line in the book that took me. one pastor told you that parishioners could cite the second amendment in the second commandment. he said that the problem with many evangelicals is that they now warship america. what? what does that even mean. >> well, i'll tell you exactly what it means. you heard the term about christian nationalism. and different people have different definitions and interpretations. i think it is very much worth understanding that there are millions and millions and millions of people in this country who truly do believe deep down in their bones that america is not just another nation, that america is a covenant nation, that it is a nation that is in special relationship with god. and that therefore, fighting for america's fighting for god. now, that is blatantly anti biblical. it is just, i cannot emphasize just how bad the theology behind that thinking is because we as christians are told again and again and again, old testament, new testament, let our citizenship is in heaven. and jesus, when he talks about the kingdom of heaven, he described it as a very real place, a physical place. it's not an abstraction. it is the place to which we are ultimately called to belong. and so, this idea that we can merge these two kingdoms into one, it is not only wrong, but it is dangerous because as we saw on january six, and as we may very well see again in the not so distant future, people who assign these sort of apocalyptic, existential, internal stakes to these earthly political disputes, it doesn't end well. >> how much of this movement, in terms of evangelical christians, is rooted in fear, and that this country is changing, that face of this country, the politics, the people, right? there are a lot less white evangelical people in power today than there are 20, 30, 40 years ago. >> listen. i think fear is the one word that in many ways best encapsulates the entire, not only that when a ship between these folks with trump. but the relationship between these folks and their country. to your point, you know, if you go back and look at the statistics, the demographics 30 years ago, this was a country that was 90 plus percent white, 90 plus percent churchgoing christians every sunday, probably 95% plus people who said they believe in a higher power, all of that. those statistics have obviously been on a sharp downward trajectory ever since. and so, of course, we can't decouple the idea of this fear and this resentment and this grievance that we see in quarters of the evangelical church from that changing face of america, a country that is far more secular, a country that is far less white. and, really, also, i think if you consider where we are today, in terms of the culture wars, we have this hand wringing, and this, you know, the end is near, the barbarians of the dates talk decades ago, that white evangelicals were in a much better place, much more secure place culturally, in terms of the laws on everything from abortion to same-sex marriage to drug legalization, all of that, right? so you consider the fact that culture wars have swung so sharply against them and the country is changing so dramatically in such a short period of time, you start to understand why there is this fear and this anxiety. again, i will just stress, stephanie, for the christians, for the bible believing christian, theologically, the most of cited command in all of scripture, fear not. jesus, again and again, rebukes his disciples. comes walking on the water. and then as soon as he turns and sees the storm, he starts to sink, he starts to drown. jesus grabs his hand and he says, you are a man of faith, why did you doubt? this cannot, this fear that you are talking about, it cannot in fact impact the question psyche the way it is now. it's so unhealthy. and ultimately, it damages the credibility of our witness to the outside world. >> a huge swing in the movement, yet those evangelicals have no fear of swinging jerry falwell junior, his wife, and her poor boyfriend. tim alberta, thank you. >> you said it. >> when we come back, days after getting kicked out of congress, george santos already has a new side hustle. you can guess what it is, when the 11th hour continues. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ provider about the number one prescribed h-i-v treatment, biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in many people whether you're 18 or 80. with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to undetectable—and stay there whether you're just starting or replacing your current treatment. research shows that taking h-i-v treatment as prescribed and getting to and staying undetectable prevents transmitting h-i-v through sex. serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. rare, life-threatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines and supplements you take, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. if you have hepatitis b do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your healthcare provider. common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. no matter where life takes you, biktarvy can go with you. talk to your healthcare provider today. hmmm... biktarvy can go with you. can this be more, squiggly? 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