This afternoon President Joe Biden is taking his brand on energy on the road after a fiery state of the Union Address in which he laid out the choice facing voters in november. He made a stunning indictment of the gops decision to turn its back on democracy and freedom both here and abroad, all in service of the disgraced wannabe autocrat who is The Republicans presumptive president ial nominee. President joe biden will be soon making remarks in pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is central to his hopes of prevailing in november. If todays speech is like anything we saw last night from the president he will take a blow torch to his opponent and the Republican Party. Standing before congress in front of some of the very same people who aided and abetted donald trump, trying to overturn the 2020 election, and the very seen of the crime that is the january 6th insurrection, President Biden on thursday night painted a picture of a Republican Party that has fallen so far it no longer respects or ads here to the norms of our democracy. Many of you were here on that darkest of days. We all saw with our own eyes the insurrectionists were not patriots. They had come to stop the peaceful transfer of power and overturn the will of the people. January 6th lies about the 2020 election and the plot to steal the election posed a great gravest threat to u. S. Democracy since the civil war. My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth about january 6th. I will not do that. This is a moment to speak the truth and to bury the lies. Heres the simple truth, you cant love your country only when you win. Remember your oath of office defending against all threats foreign and domestic. Respect free and Fair Elections and restore trust in our institutions and make clear Political Violence has absolutely no place, no place in america, zero place. [ applause ] my lifetime has taught me to embrace freedom and democracy. A future based on core values that have defined america. I see a future where defending democracy, you dont diminish it. I see a future where to restore the right to choose and protect our freedoms not take them away. I will always be president for all americans because i believe in america. The president speaking about things that used to not make it into speeches like this, right. Everybody agreed about them. Bipartisan values that have been made partisan by the movement led by donald trump. Trump is mentioned in the speech 13 times, referred to simply as my predecessor. Make no mistake, trump and the threat he poses to our democracy, to progress at home, to our standing in the world, loomed large over just about every line of this speech. The new york sometimes describing the president s State Of The Union this way, unleashed and unyielding mr. Biden seemed to relish the showdown as president s usually do made no aspiration to lofty flourishes. He mentioned in passing his unity agenda in a speech with almost no unity in it. He conveyed a candidate inching for a fight. We will not walk away. We will not bow down. I will not bow down. He was speaking at that moment specifically about the fight against putin and russia, and he seemed to also intend it for the fight for his open presidency. President joe biden coming out swinging against donald trump and the gop in a speech that laid out in the bluntest terms to date the stakes in the upcoming election for our democracy and freedom at home and abroad. Its where we start today. With us at the stable table New York Times member political analyst mara gay is here and msnbc National Affairs analyst john heilemann, host of Politics Nation rev al sharpton is here. I made a list of the first things he talked about. First thing he mentions is putin, mentioning nato, january 6th and Political Violence and then mentions abortion. These are all i think starting with putin, 9010 issue, 90 of americans do not aa prove of putin. Nato last poll 70 or 80 approval among all americans. Numbers lower in the Republican Party. January 6th, again, among the General Public has high 60s, low 70s in terms of people who dont approve of what they saw on their tvs. Political violence is interesting the Republican Party 60 of republicans i think or high 50s think it can be acceptable in situations. But as a gentle issue, its another like 60 or 70 of americans who oppose Political Violence and then abortion which has some of its highest approval ratings. 60 or 70 . This was a speech designed to grab back the center of the country and say, this guy over here, you dont want to do that, folks. Its interesting because as unpopular in some ways as joe biden is, a lot of the concerns about his age have dominated, you know, the news cycles but what he did last night was important. He turned the tables and focused on the democratic agenda compared to the republican agenda and the reality is that on the issues, the democrats are winning on every issue. They have the agenda that represents more americans. Americans want gun control thats reasonable. Americans dont want to have their rights taken away. They are against the overturning of row v. Wade. Down the line, you know, the democrats actually have the more popular agenda and so joe biden reminded americans of that last night, and he really comes off as someone who is empathetic and not aing me glow maniac. Which is helpful. He said this really isnt about me, this is about you, this is about american democracy and were going to fight for it and were going to fight for the issues that you care about that are going to improve your lives. And i think that that actually is a really winning message, compared to the doom and the gloom that we saw from republicans. Even their snickering last night, came off as cynical and small. And so i think fired up biden. Even if it hadnt come out badly for them, it kind of invigorated him. I was so glad they were so interactive because he just fed off of it. Where i thought oh, god, whatever they did, sort of juiced him for the next part of the speech. We saw a fighter and i think americans are looking for a fighter. Yeah. And i think democrats had to see that. But the other thing he needs to be doing this, you know, almost every day. Yeah. I mean he needs to be out there much more. Theres no reason for him not to be if this is what hes going to look look. Bring it on. I dont know how many of the old adages of politics still hold, but when i worked on campaigns, if youre an incumbent you needed the election to be a choice, a Referendum No Buono for your political fate. He laid out the choice as expertly as any incumbent president has ever done ahead of a general election. Yeah. I think thats right. But i dont want to, you know i states of the union have a couple audiences. The audience which is the viewers and voters and that you can make a case on your agenda and make a case on choice versus the Referendum Issue and those are effective if they are they are then prosecuted over the course consistently over days and weeks and months into the future. There is this other audience for the State Of The Union which is the filter. You know, its us. The mainstream media, the ideological partisan media, the washington democrats, the democratic insiders, republican insiders, right. Those people had one thing they were looking at last night. None of the rest of this mattered. It had become a speech about is joe biden capable of running, of doing this . You can talk about why we got to that point but that was the thing. It was a binary thing. He was going to come out and people were going to go okay, he can do this, or not. Republicans made a huge mistake, not just republicans themselves but their right wing media who set the bar at, you know, hes a corps. Hes going to he can dribble out his shirt. Hes not competent. Not only did biden clear the bar but soared way above it in terms of the energy, the aggression, the aggressiveness, prosecutorial nature of it, the speed of it. Did he stumble a few times, yes. He should be but there doing this all the time. No one is talking about the few moments he stumbled or stuttered. You got the New York Post headline, hes alive. That is not a small thing in this moment where democrats are panicking, republicans are licking their chops, to walk home and have everyone go okay, the idea that this guy is just feeble and incapable and going to make an idiot of himself in this race, that at least for this news cycle is now gone and the reason you can tell is whether republicans decide to attack him. The speech is too partisan, talking too fast, yelling too loud. Nobody saying yesterday, nobody saying boy, joe biden looked old. Boy, joe biden looked feeble. Didnt hear that from anyone, even the far right people were not saying that. It was very politically nimble. If you had been Lost In Space for the last 20 years and the last Campaign You Saw was the mccainbiden 2008 campaign and you plopped down yesterday in front of a tv you would not have known necessarily that this was a democratic president. He started out quoting Ronald Reagan, talking about the civil war and world war ii. He then went on i thought it was an incredibly aggressive move to use reagans words against the people sitting in the chamber saying, you know, tear down this wall. You have a guy that says come on in. The marry poll plan which manafort, trumps last campaign manager, was essentially to give away to a chunk of ukraine and give it away. That was trumps policy. What hes saying in private and in public. I also thought that the moment that wasnt scripted, not only didnt hurt him, but might have helped him. Im sure its not that popular, but when he was confronted by Marjorie Taylor greenes stunt, it was a moment he handled it. I think it did all the things you both said it did to the filter and democrats, but i think hes also speaking directly to nikki haleys supporters the newest sort of coalition of never trumpers. I think that is correct. I think the nikki haley crowd, but i also think he spoke to some of the constituents that he was beginning to have polling lower in the democratic party. Yeah which is the priority. Which is priority because of turnout which is why yes, he spoke to the issues at the top that are 9010 but then he circled back around and reminded young voters what he did around College Debt Relief and was blocked and found a way to do it anyway. He talked to black voters about this is the anniversary of Bloody Sunday where people were beaten for the right to vote. I supported the john lewis Voting Rights bill and we need to vote it again. So he went and got the edges after he had gotten what was in the middle. And i think that i agree that the bar was lower in terms of like saying he was some guy that couldnt function, and i think the two things that was durngs by him being able to handle Marjorie Taylor greene if i was on their side and a veteran protester i would not have given him that last night. To sit in a chamber that has been disruptive youre playing the script wrong. You wanted to act like we are not that and she played right into this stereotype of what he said, that they des crated this particular chamber. He handled it well. Which showed that he was alert, astute and anything but old. The other thing that people are missing, he was almost the last person to leave the chamber. Yes. Everybody else was running to go to bed. He was up there, how are you doing, how is your wife . He blew all of it out of the water. They had to turn the lights out. The speaker gaveled the chamber, shut it down, close to midnight, biden still there, democrats were, you know, overjoyed at what they saw and eventually started to turn the lights. Like when youre at party and start to flash the lights, time to go home. Almost had to push him down the aisle to make him go speak. He was talking to everybody. This is not like a guy that is tired and old and cant make it. And to your point, and you know what this is like, rev, how many times did you tell george w. Bush, lets work on ad libs for the State Of The Union. No one does that. Doesnt matter how verbally deck truss the person is. State of the union is a scripted speech. Biden went off script like two dozen times and they were clearly kind of scripted off script moments. He was looking for opportunities to engage with republicans on the floor like it was question time in the british parliament. Like looking to, he had things, this is where im going to hold their feets to the fire. Im going to say this when they make a noise im going to hit back. Again to your point, the notion he not only, you know, showed that he had energy but thats like a High Wire Act, man. When you start having an interactive thing on Live Television at this level thats a High Wire Act for any politician, and he handled it just fine. He handled it fine because its more comfortable for him. Totally. He is more of a, you know, Prime Ministers question kind of political skill set than he is, you know, a, you know, a teleprompter speech. And a creature of that chamber, someone who is very comfortable in that room. Right. And, so i hope theres something there about otrs or i known jen psaki was saying he loved it when members were on air force one. Most president s let me put it diplomatically. That is not a sentence you would say about many president s. I mean, the the other thing is, you know, my shift ended at the end of the speech so when he was a half hour late you have to be kidding me. They should be a half hour and put those people, and they werent all democrats. He was just as juiced by The Republicans that hes known a long time. I want to Say Something that, you know, i was watching it and i was trying not to look at a lot of social media because you can get pulled in a rabbit hole of eight people talking to each other. I was trying to watch The Republicans and there was something so tragic about i was gone for four months, mike johnson, the speaker, our speaker, Mike Johnsons face and posture and then Lindsey Graham by the end was like he was watching mccain up there. He was there he is. It was like a chuckle and it was like a look of he was truly entertain and amused and to see The Republicans i wont say capitulate, because they just you can tell from their faces that, again, im sure they were back to attack aing him by the 11 00 p. M. Hour on conservative media, but in the hour it was clear everyone knew this was a good speech and moment for the. The they also know that many of them are engaged in lying daily. Theres that. You know, theyre sitting there thinking oh, yeah, he is speaking the truth. Were not going to say that, though. Were going to sit there like disgruntled schoolchildren in the back of the room snickering. Then there was the bizarre moment where langford is sitting there, you know its true. He says its true. As President Biden talks about the Immigration Bill he worked for months to secure, you know, the most Conservative Bill in years that The Republicans are now jeering and so kind of the surrealness of that moment was astounding. It actually kind of reminded me of that moment many years ago when i think it was joe wilson saying to barack obama, you lie. This was almost just an inversion of that. You have langford sitting there saying, you know, its true. And so i dont know if we he speaks the truth. Occasionally at an nba game you will see a runway game down. 20point game and youll see the other team when like lebron james does an incredible dunk the other team will like they all like to be applauding. A little bit of like were not going to win, well get them tomorrow, but now that was an incredible dunk. Im not comparing joe biden to lebron james, but with Lindsey Graham there was a little bit like this is not the night, this was not our night. This is his night. He beat us. Well get him tomorrow there was a little bit of appreciative sense like well fight this tomorrow, not today. I want to deal with the structural work he did. The axis on which the election will be decided are issues like choice and aa borgs. I have to sneak in a break, but i want to show you some of his work in that area. Well have more when we come back from the president s address in which he calls out to their faces in front of him, the United States Supreme Court about the power and importance of womens voices in this country, quoting them back to them. As President Biden pitches policies for the future his presumptive rival is paying like with money for lies and defamatory statements he made about e. Jean carroll. Details on that huge bond he has posted and what he still has outstanding in that category and later in the broadcast the four times indicted expresident getting a little autocracy one on one tutoring from the Prime Minister of hungary. All those stories and more when deadline white house continues after a quick break. Dont go anywhere. Ter a quick b. Dont go anywhere. Nice to meet ya. My name is david. Ive been a pharmacist for 44 years mainly because i just love helping people. As i got older, it was just a natural part of aging, i felt that my memory was beginning to decline and thats when i started looking for something that would help. When i first started taking prevagen, i noticed my memory was so much better. Just stuff seemed to come together and fit like a Jigsaw Puzzle in my mind. Prevagen. At stores everywhere without a prescription. Power e trades easytouse tools, like dynamic charting and riskreward analysis, help make trading feel effortless. 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But, you also cant leave covered in hair. With bounce pet, you can cuddle and brush that hair off. Bounce, its the sheet. Okay everyone, our mission is to provide complete, balanced nutrition for strength and energy. Yay woo hoo ensure, with 27 vitamins and minerals, nutrients for immune health. And ensure complete with 30 grams of protein. many of you in this chamber and my predecessor are promising to pass a national ban on reproductive freedom. My god, what freedom else would you take away . Look, its a decision to overturn roe v. Wade the Supreme Court majority wrote the following with all due respect justices, women are not without electoral power excuse me, electoral or political power, youre about to realize just how much. [ applause ] those bragging ability overturning roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women, but they found out when reproductive freedom was on the ballot. We won in 2022 and well win again in 2024. With all due respect. Justices. I think that was added because they were so close and that line from their own opinion, women are not without power. That was an impassioned President Joe Biden confronting literally the conservative Supreme Court justices and assembled republicans in the chamber last night highlighting the issue that the gop is most afraid of ahead of the 2024 election and beyond frankly, their role, their choice, to overturn and do everything in their power to make sure that it would be overturned, a womans right to choose, roe v. Wade. As the president put it last night the other freedoms theyre pursuing next. This might not have been, you know, the sound bite moment, but this is a structural political issue, is biden and harris biggest strength and trump and whoever he picks biggest weakness. There was something cathartic in seeing President Biden joe biden, you know, even just rhetorically confront these justices because i think since dobbs, since the dobbs ruling, a lot of americans have felt, especially women, a Little Helpless and a little scared and wondering, you know, does democracy, does electoral politics still work . Is there anything that we can do about this . And i think it was cathartic to see the president of the United States say, give me a Democratic Congress and i will make roe v. Wade the Law Of The Land, you know. We actually do have elections in this country and electoral politics should matter, not simply gerrymandering, trying to keep people from voting through various forms of suppression, or a conservative packed Supreme Court and that the voters will actually and should have the final say, and i think that really was in keeping with his theme last night of this is still a democracy and were going to act like it. Were going to fight for it, and im going to continue to im able to do that, and i think that was really encouraging and i believe that there will be voters who will see that and say, wait a second. We could make roe v. Wade law . Yes. There are things that you can do through the democratic process. I think trumpism is really focused on Making Americans feel like nothing matters, like peoples votes dont matter, and its just not true or they wouldnt be trying to take our votes away. I think thats absolutely right. I also think when you look at the failures in deep red corners of the country, trump coal against the abortion ban. This pressures trump more than perhaps any other issue. I think there are probably, ill have to look at this, all the pollsters im working with im about to make a poll prediction, there are greater numbers in the Trump Coalition who believe the election was stolen than believe abortion should be illegal. The unpopularity yeah. Of criminalizing abortion and the republican bans, they eliminate the exceptions, criminalize i mean they are so extreme and they are so known now with women dying, with Sepsis Waiting in parking lots to be critically ill, its happening. I dont think theres any question about your right. You cover me with matt dowd and the pollsters in my life. What we learned the other night in the republican states according to the exit polls youve got somewhere, you know, like a third of California Republicans who think the election was legitimate and these the numbers are overwhelming. I think, you know, weve seen in kansas and some of these red states is that now when push is not when weve moved from the realm of the predobbs where i think of like all of that polling on abortion before that was what they call in congress a free vote, like youre allowed to say whatever you want to a pollster because we know roe v. Wade abortion is Law Of The Land and i can express my moral outrage or concern about like beginning at conception, whatever you want to say and then the next day, but now your daughter, your daughterinlaw, your granddaughter or whatever is the one that is going to be impacted if they get raped and theyre 14. All of a sudden, whoa, now ask me the question. Now and thats whats changed, right. I think in that trumps Republican Party hes got a huge problem. He has proven adept at getting around this abortion thing. Kind of talking about being pro life, proven it since 2016, we know his history and what he said in the past, been pro choice in the past and then now pro life. You ask him questions. People in the Republican Party have given him a pass on that to a large extent. This is all that was all predobbs now the postdobbs world and the difficulty of managing that issue for donald trump given what he said about the Supreme Court and raltty has been and the political impact this may be the paramount strategic political challenge that the Trump Campaign has to deal with Going Forward towards the fall and its not going to be easy. The problem and he can be verbally nimble, word used to be flip flopper and untethered from truth but our politics have moved on from that, but the problem is the women in alabama, whose embryos are frozen and the clinics terrified to do business without 11 lawyers in the room and the problem even women in new york are seeking Sterilization Surgeries because they dont trust the government to preserve their right to make choices about their body. The problem is this is now the lived truth and the lived reality for women in america. The problem is the lived reality and this is a reality that all women have to deal with and most women are outraged by it. Then the optics that they showed last night. Youre going to have a president challenge respectfully the Supreme Court on their behalf, while you have your rebuttal Woman Standing in the kitchen like aunt bee in the 1950s On Goober Pyle Show or something. Women are like you want us back in the kitchen. Youve taken away our right to choose. And then tomorrow, your candidate will have to pay a woman over 90 million or put up the bond for violating a woman. You couldnt have a worse 24 hours if you wanted donald trump to appeal to women. Youre posting a 91 million 12 hours after the president challenged the Supreme Court that you stacked and you put a woman in the kitchen with an apron on to play in a modern day version of aunt bee. By the way, the Andy Griffith show, the goober pyle show. Come on. I was young. I had a mix up. I think that the president , he made three references to his age, and One Of The Best im always obsessed with the structural work that gets done in the speeches, the structural political choices they make, they chose to tie this policy more than any other to i might be old but his ideas are old. Nothing more obvious to people that dont watch cable news or read the political stories on their phone all day than this was not the way that it hasnt been like this for a very long time and its one of the most salient ways to turn the age argument around. What do you think of his efforts to do that . That was my favorite moment in the speech because, of course, the ideas of trumpism are super old and what the rev is talking about is exactly Night Fighting about which tv show is old enough right. That gop rebuttal to me was more kind of Handmaid Tale influencer vibes. Either way you slice it, most americans dont want to live in that kind of country anymore and dont live in that kind of a country and joe biden sounded as though he understood that, and i think he lives in the world that many modern women live in, that we have lived in, and unfortunately, very tragically were dealing with the situation now where, you know, my 6yearold goddaughter has fewer rights than i had 30 years ago. People dont generally take kind will i to seeing their rights taken away. Thats just been true throughout history, throughout american history, and i actually speaking of prediction, nicole, im wondering, we dont know yet, but i wonder if the Dobbs Decision may actually have a longterm impact on republican efforts to build coalitions in the future because i think that this is an issue where the memory is going to be very long. You can have voters 10, 15, 20 years from now saying i will never vote republican because they took away my right to choose. The same way that you had realignment years ago over civil rights. Died. They didnt take a way to come back. It had real world consequences the day it was decided. Clinics shut. Real stuff. I will say one last thing, though, with all due respect when the president says that, great thing about that phrase, it doesnt really mean respectfully, it means often with no real respect and, respectfully to the Supreme Court. He said with all due respect which can mean no respect which is how a lot of people heard it last night and a lot of people in terms of Base Politics were excited to see him do something no one has done at the State Of The Union get in the face of the Supreme Court. I think its a moment a lot of people were waiting for. No one is going anywhere. The expresident making a nearly 92 million payment in the e. Jean carroll case. Where did the money come from . Where did the rest come from . Well bring you that story next. Well bring you that story next. 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Standing the test of time. The 2024 split screen thing has never been starker than it is today between President Joe Bidens strong case for a second term and with the disgraced expresident is doing with his day today. Strapped for cash trump posted a 91 million bond in the e. Jean carroll case that found he repeatedly defamed her, a Verdict Trump also today appealed. Thats just a sliver of the hundreds of millions of dollars he currently owes in the state of new york. Another 5 million from a separate verdict that found him libel for sexually abusing e. Jean carroll. Joining our Coverage Msnbc Legal Correspondent lisa rubin is here, mara, john and the rev are still with us. While joe biden is taking a bit of a victory lap with a head of steam politically donald trump is counting out his dollars like 90, 91 million. But theyre not his. Its important to underscore that for our viewers, that this isnt his money. This is money belonging to a assurety company thats a subsidiary of chubb insurance, a brand name lots of our viewers know, many of them may have insurance policies written through chubb to get chubb to put up this 91. 63 million, nicole, trump probably had to give them between 1 to 10 in cash and pledge collateral to them and they would want what we call unencumbered collateral where nobody else has a mortgage is. As you know and everybody knows, trump is mortgaged to the hit and owes tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars outstanding on loans. I think whats interesting about this is how he obtained the bond, who he obtained it from, because he is simultaneously telling an Appeals Court in New York State that he shouldnt have to post any bond and the new York Attorney general civil fraud case because hes just cant afford it. Hes not liquid enough. This might tell a different story to them when you have a hugely reputable commercial insurer willing to affiliate themselves with him and sign this and essentially say i will e. Jean carroll the money she is due if the Second Circuit court of appeals upholds the verdict and trump doesnt make good on it were good for it. What is i mean, what do you think he put up . Is there any way to find out what that collateral is . No. Some cases you dont even know what we have here, which is we have the bond itself, right. It was attached as an exhibit to a filing that alina habba made today. On the first e. Jean carroll verdict he just took money from an account that joe tack pinot was holding for client funds. Every lawyer has a client fund escrow. Joe took it and deposited it with the court. Its presumed that was trumps cash, but we have no way of substantiating that and well never know. That will never be filed with the court. Its amazing. In a way we can see. Let me read the best part of this story today, this is a post from e. Jean carroll on Robbie Kaplan her lawyer says, quote, though the illustrious Robbie Kaplan is Strong Enough to yank a golden toilet out of trump tower and toss it out the window the this Savings Robby from doing so. Im actually i was just enjoying listening to it. Kind of a writer responds. Yeah. Also just, you know, seeing it is pretty satisfying to see the bill come due. But im it still stuck on this issue of well why what would chubb benefit from accepting this kind of a deal . What you know, and should the public hear more about that . I mean, im not a financial mind, obviously, but help us understand what interests they have in this transactionp and there is any concern that this may have anything to do with him being a president ial candidate or whats happening here . Well, in the ordinary course a Company Might not want to be affiliated with someone who is a president ial candidate because how do you collect from someone who becomes a president . On the other hand, there are some indications that chubb and executives at chubb favor former president trump, that its ceo served in an advisory capacity during the Trump Presidency to a council he convened. There may be an affiliation there that is not as transparent to the public that could be. I think you raise an Interest Point if he gets money and ordered to post a bond in the other case we wont know where its coming from and how he got it and given that hes a candidate, thats particularly troubling. Hes no longer in commander in chief, but hes commander in chubb. Sorry. That was an infantile joke. Its all right. Anything goes around here. I just cant somehow chubb i just think that the two fit in some way. If he has to give the other 300 some odd million and we would not know where that comes from youre saying . We would not know where that comes from or theres a possibility we wont know how he got it. I have asked the new York Attorney generals office, if and when he posts a bond in your case, will you know the source of the funding and theyve said were not sure. So russia could put up the money for him. Rachel maddow has floated that possibility several times the source of the funding could be a Foreign Government or someone close to a Foreign Government and we would not know. Oh, lord. Remarkable. Recommended reading on this. No one is going anywhere. Growing calls from club allies and supporters who want the rnc to pay all the bills associated with the expresident s travails. The rnc installed his handpicked leaders to make those decisions. Well bring you those details next. Well bring you those details next po, you need to bring peace to the valley. 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Today the disgraced expresident officially turned his tightening of the grip on the Republican Party into a family affair. The rncs 168 members unanimously approved new leadership handpicked by donald trump. The new chairman will be Election Denier and head of the Republican Party Michael Whatley and the cochair his daughterinlaw lara trump who today told the crowd the first order of business must be, quote, we have to raise a lot of money end quote. After she suggested last month voters support financially struggling rnc paying her fatherinlaws legal bills. Another example of an institution being fit to shape the mold of what trump wants it to be rather than what it was supposed to be in a normal world that isnt an au trokcracy. I thought that the sort of Nepo West Wing was bad enough now, weve got nepo rnc. Yeah. And thats kind of a its the exponential transformation thats going to take place at trumps winds. All the bad stuff you saw until 2017 to 2021 period is all going to be, you know, x times worse if we get to another trump term and its like an early indication, poor taste of that, which is that he is going to, you know president ial nominees and president s take over the dnc and rnc when they as a political matter in every administration. The fact that now hes taking in the nepo thing and pushing it out, im going to take over i mean literally take over not just take over ideological or a personality around me but the closest people around me, the cloest people in the cult, Family Members, stephen miller, people like that who are quasi Family Members basically and basically say were going to take over every institution in republican washington and be soaked in maga trump cult worship. I think thats what we all assume is going to happen anyway. This is like a prologue to that. Its starting now. Lara is this is i guess don junior erics wife. Kimberly guilfoyle. What theyre looking at, the trump world, the trump cult, hes got four trials coming. Were talking about two civil cases like this is the end of his problems. Its the beginning. Right. And if he goes on the Alvin Bragg Trial Hush Money and convicted of a felony, hes now a felon looking for how he deals with his civil problems. And on his way to three more trials. So iftrump, you dont care about anything. Youre desperate because you havent seen any of the criminal trials started. Youve got to pay criminal attorneys and needs to get some better than the guys, the cracks that he had down in atlanta, because youre talking about him being a felon and possibly facing jail in the immediate future is one trial. You can say what you want about alvin braggs trial was the least serious, it is serious if hes convicted of one felony. I never say that. No, im not talking im not talking about youyou. Well sneak in a quick break and well be right back on the other side of it. 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I have one question for you, is it i know that this is what he does, and putting the family in is what autocrats do, but is it legal . Not clear, right . I mean, first of all, i dont think weve ever seen a party pay what should be purely personal legal costs before of a former president or a president ial candidate. To date the spending that hes done has been from his Leadership Pac. If you ask Finance Law Experts they will tell you thats absolutely not what its intended for, yes, from a Leadership Pac you can make some personal expenditures but hes taken it far beyond what should be legally permissible. The problem is that the federal Election Commission right now as its constituted is not likely to do anything about it and so unless and until the Department Of Justice gets involved, theres nowhere to stop him. Theres one other problem which is the that donors to the pac arent complaining to it which if you had someone felt as though their funds were being used for x and might file a lawsuit but trumps people are writing those checks are like perfectly happy you know when hell be mad, december if he loses. Maybe if i hadnt spent all my money on if hes not successful, i imagine the donors will feel different if he doesnt win. You would have thought. Who knows. Well always protest that he did win. Well just you know, well go through the whole scenario again that they robbed me and he will again lead his flock to feel, see, they stole it from us again and theyre convicting me and he will do that all the way until they close the jail cell if he gets jail time. As long as he is a kingmaker he has power even though hes not in office. Amazing state of affairs. Lisa rubin, and the rev, thanks to all of you. We are keeping an eye on President Joe Bidens Upcoming Event in the philadelphia area due to start any moment. Thats the podium from which he will speak. The president , of course, fresh off that fiery state of the Union Address and bring those to you live and have much, much more after a quick break. Dont go anywhere. I love your dress. Oh thanks i splurged a little because Liberty Mutual customized my Car Insurance and i saved hundreds. Thats great. I know, right . Ive been telling everyone. Baby liberty. Did you hear that . Ty just said her first word. Can you say mama . Baby liberty. Can you say auntie . Baby liberty. How many people did you tell . Only pay for what you need. Jingle liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Baby liberty. Okay yall we got ten orders coming in. Big orders starting a business is never easy, but starting it eight months pregnant. Thats a different story. I couldnt slow down. We were starting a business from the ground up. People were showing up left and right. 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Yeah if you want to just look at the split screen to understand whats at stake, on the one hand you have joe biden, someone who is competent, who is principled, who has accomplished more than many president s even hoped for be it on infrastructure, on climate, on health care and on the other side of that split screen youve got the former president who glorifies dictators and has said hell be a dictator on day one, someone who said he will weaponize the Department Of Justice against his political enemies. The split screen is clear. Indeed, it is. Hi again, everybody. Its 5 00 in new york. That was Vice President Kamala Harris speaking there in an interview with nbcs Peter Alexander in a postState Of The Union conversation. Shes absolutely right. A split screen, it truly is, perhaps none more stark in recent political history and no better demonstrated 2457b what the two 2024 president ial candidates are doing. Not just today but right now. Right now, donald trump is hosting hungarys autocratic leader Prime Minister viktor orban down at maralago, Orban Who Trump has praised publicly many times was democratically elected but put in place reforms to keep himself in power indefinite. It wiped hungary from the worlds list of democracies. President joe biden fresh off his strong and boisterous state of the Union Address last night is expected to follow it up with a Campaign Speech in suburban philadelphia any minute now. It is expected to continue on bidens message, articulating the very clear and high stakes of novembers president ial election where freedoms and fundamental rights for all americans very much hang in the balance. Two diametrically opposed visions, one hugely consequential choice ahead for the American People to make in november. Thats where we start the hour with some of our favorite experts and friend, cofounder and Executive Director at protect democracy, our friend ian bassen is here with us, plus Princeton University professor of sociology and interNational Affairs, kim lanechefle and with me former state department official, rick stengel is here. You inspired this series for us about looking at it could happen here, something that looks more like an american autocrat leading our floorous country than an american president , and events have seemed to conspire to give us fresh examples every single day, and perhaps none more so than todays events, where joe biden after the speech, where he lays out this choice between continuing to live in a democracy and sliding toward an autocracy and then donald trump as if trying to help all of us to figure out our rundowns today gabbing and chatting with viktor orban at maralago. I mean, its no secret anymore that orban is the model for donald trump and you dont need to trust anyone on that beyond donald trump himself who said earlier in New Hampshire in reference to orban, some people dont like him because hes too strong, quote, its good to have a strong man at the head of a country. A strong man which is a phrase from these modern autocrats and i think the warning that orban sounds for all of us is that autocrat 2. 0 is much more dangerous than autocrat 1. 0. He governed like a fairly mainstream conservative, lost in 2002, blamed his loss on fraud and spent the intervening years out of Power Building what he called a central Political Force field around himself that would allow him or his allies to rule for the next 15 or 20 years. He returned to power in 2010 and hes not relinquished it since and thats the model that donald trump openly aspires to follow. Ian, something that tim snyder said that has stuck with me is that to the degree trump has saturated his base of voters. Vaughn hillyard conducted this on the Campaign Trial with donald trump with people saying what you and i are talking about. Yeah, we want a strong man. What tim pointed out is that strong man in history gives a youknowwhat about his people. He gives all of his attention and his reflecting circle becomes other autocrats, and to that end, a tweet sent by hungarys Secretary Of State for Public Diplomacy and relations showed orban meeting with steve bannon yesterday. So to your point, orban isnt just trumps model, not just what hes aspiring to be but theyre already maybe excuse the word because its loaded but colluding. Yeah, look, we have been at a forefront, the United States, of this since the Second World War which was a period of unprecedented security and peace internationally where weve led a democratic order preserving freedom and opportunity and trying to lead our country and the rest of the world in that direct, and what orban is doing is building alliances with Vladimir Putin, xi jinping in almost an alliance of autocrats, and if joe biden stays in power we will be head of the alliance of democracies. If donald trump returns to power we will become part of the alliance of autocracies and that is never a place the United States should ever, ever be. Kim, President Biden tried to put meat on the bones of conversations that i think we can shorthand, you are also expert and we try to cover this day after day after day and so for our viewers its a story that we very much update with any events that happen in our news cycle but in terms of beginning a general election conversation with the American People, the president seemed to spend a lot of time and energy explaining with it means. Id like to show you something i thought was extremely effective where he quoted Ronald Reagan as a rhetorical contrast to the current Republican Party. Let me show you that. Ukraine can stop putin if we stand with ukraine and provide the weapons they need to defend themselves. Now, assistance to ukraine is being blocked by those who want to walk away from our world leadership. It wasnt long ago when a republican president named Ronald Reagan thundered mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Kim, i thought this was necessary because i even feel and you see that when you talk about an autocracy, something antidemocratic, even quoting trump which i think the Vice President did very effectively there in his own words he said he will be a dictator on day one, you wonder if that means anything. But devoting reagan back to a Republican Base will always mean something. I wonder what you thought of that. Yeah, i know exactly. So, one of the things we have to think about damn time the next American Election is that its not a choice between left and right but democracy and autocracy. And One Of The Best ways to make that point is for democrats to quote republicans from before the Republican Party eight contractic turn so i think quoting reagan especially on, you know, the old cold war which reagan presided over the demise of was very effective and for now to have, you know, mr. Trump questioning the value of nato, saying to putin that, you know, you can take whoever is not spending enough money on defense for my likings and then meeting with orban because, by the way, mr. Orban has been a spoiler both in nato and the eu every time both of them have tried to stand up to russia and tried to defend ukraine. So, for example, in nato, mr. Orban blocked highlevel communications between nato and ukraine since 2017 when ukraine cast a language law that ended bilingual schools in this corner of ukraine that is hungarian speaking and basically in the runup to the invasion of ukraine by russia in 2022 had natos guard down because nato could not engage in highlevel communications. Since the invasion mr. Orban has come out in favor of quote, unquote peace, you know, but, of course, what peace means in the ongoing conflict is sort of freezing the lines where they are and peace at this stage would mean that russia takes a bite out of ukraine, which is not the message that the u. S. Or that our european allies have wanted to send. And so in the eu orban has been blocking insofar as he can almost all the sanctions against russia, he tried to block accession to ukraine and was given 10 billion for his troubles so basically orban is all of these alliances as a spoiler and if donald trump comes to power hes got this readymade outlet there to blow up our alliances on the other side of the atlantic. Kim, can you just give me your analysis of the stakes for putin. I mean, because right now he has, orban, he has fox news, tucker or highprofile rightwing personalities, but he doesnt have the american presidency. What are the stakes for putin in making it go putin, orban, rightwing media, American White House . Well, i mean the u. S. Is the 500pound gorilla in the room so capturing the presidency would be a huge victory and would really change the Balance Of Power with regard to the current conflict in ukraine. It would also, by the way, sell our european allies under the bug because right at the moment, theyre contributing even more than we are to trying to achieve a victory in ukraine. So, you know, this would mean a massive realignment of the world as we know it, and it would really mean the destruction, you know, of the rulesbased liberal International Order as, you know, as mr. Biden constantly calls it so it would be a Culture Shock to the International System and it would certainly empower putin. I want to show you something that my colleague Rachel Maddow said on this program about this, about the republican project. Theres just no governing talk happening at all in the Republican Party. Its instead about this idea that america is a disaster, americas in decline. America is being laughed at, america is humiliated and there must be extreme measures taken to fundamentally change the course of the country or were all going to die. This is just two Different Things and what that latter thing is, the reason youve been doing the series on autocracy is not the project of a governing party but a project of a party that is trying to get rid of the form of government that we have and install something else. This concept, i thought, would be a very difficult thing to explain in a speech to a General Public audience, but President Joe Biden did just that, and i wonder what you think of that choice, i mean, the president made a decision to try to have this conversation that were having here with the whole country, and i think a lot of people you just look at the instant polls. A lot of people want what hes selling. A lot of people, when the question is put to them as starkly as it was last night say, what are you talking about . Of course, i want to remain a democracy. Yes, i thought he did something really interesting and special which is this, democracy and autocracy are abstract words to lots of people. Theyre Great Concepts but what do they mean . What he did last night was he explained what democracy means to him and what democracy means to america. It means decency, it means integrity, it means honesty, it means fairness, its giving hate no purchase. Those are the values of democracy for him, and theres no greater contrast to what the values of democracy are for donald trump. He stands for the opposite of everything. The problem of all this and the problem of our project is and you were alluding to it earlier what scholars used to call the authoritarian voter. Even when you explain what autocracy is and you have no choice and someone is making choices for you a lot of voters say, yeah, i like that. I like that strong man. The problem with democracy is it makes people make choices and we have to educate people how to make those choices and the authoritarian voter doesnt want to have the choice. The part of this conversation that for me is oddly and suspiciously silent is business, and i wonder, ian, i know i pressed you and asked you on and off the air if you ever hear anything but the fact that there is just nothing, i mean, the study of orbans hungary is the study in economic collapse in terms of free markets, sure, theres still economic vibrancy but only where orban says there can be. What do you think keeps Big Business Silent on this question about democracy versus autocracy in our country . I mean i think State Capture generally is when monied interests have undue influence over the state and able to buy favorable treatment and we know that happens rampantly across the world with big money using lobbyists to pass laws that will help them in the marketplace, to relieve them of regulations, et cetera, but what is happening in these modern authoritarian regimes is opposite, autocratic capture. Where instead of State Capture where the money has influence over the government, its where the government has undue influence over actors in the private sector and essentially what these autocratic governments do, use the regulatory state to punish businesses that are insufficiently loyal to the leader himself. So and i will tip my cap here to kim who is really the expert on how orban did this in hungry. If Media Outlets were not favorable enough to orban or his party theyd be hit with fines and public advertising dollars were steered away from them until it became very, very hard for them to compete openly in the marketplace and eventually those properties would get bought by an investor who offered a pretty penny for the deal who turned out to be an ally of orban and his party and once they purchased it and the regulatory thumb was lifted they made a lot of money and fired all the independent journalists and hired a bunch of loyalist cheerleaders. Unless we dont think that can happen in the United States during the 2016 Campaign Donald trump said openly that if cnn didnt change its coverage, he was going to block the merger between feat and time warner, the Parent Companies and lo and behold, sure enough, he did. When he didnt like the coverage of the Washington Post he told his postpastor to raise Shipping Rates on amazon and any Business Owner today that doesnt think that thats not coming for them in a Second Trump Term isnt doing their homework. Well, kim, same war about what ian is talking about, i mean just in Disclosure Trump has already targeted my network and my employers. As a candidate for office in 2024, and i have to say from covering trump for eight years, i would add this, trump is also the most petty human ive ever covered and it could be a leaders kid that tweets, you know, college kid that tweets something and he could sabotage that companys stock just for kicks on a Monday Morning while watching fox news. The arbitrary and capricious nature of trumps targeting for retribution and thats his word, not mine, should alarm big business and i wonder why you think theyre silent on this conversation about autocracy in america. Well, i think business just wants to be on the side of whoever wins and they assume that whoever wins is someone they can control, but i think youre absolutely right to point out the sensitivity of someone like trump, also i might say someone like orban paying close attention to who was a critic and then the next thing you know somebody thats the hungarian strategy was somebody would seidel up to the Business Owner and say, the business you have here its nice, shame if something happened and the business has to sell out to the oligarch. What we forget whenever you get somebody in power like this, they control whether or not theres prosecution of law breaking and if the law breaking is coming from their people, if their people are going in and pressuring Business Leaders or theyre using sort of Discretionary Regulatory discriminate Tri Enforcement who is going to police that . You know . When the leader wants to do it, the leader gets away with it, especially when hes weaponized the Justice Department, when you know there arent going to be investigations, you know, and so i think big business and medium and smallsize businesses really ought to look at the structure of government to say, what happens if theres someone hostile in there, not only to my interests in a kind of big sense but to me personally and what recourse do i have . You know, if the Justice Department is weaponized, if the courts are packed, you know, we keep forgetting how many judges trump put onto the court and hes going to get to put more judges on to the courts if he is elected and weve seen, you know, what kind of judges many of those judges are, so, you know, again, if you what you lose when you have an autocrat in power is any ability for an individual to fight back against the government. Thats exactly those are all the avenues they close and to business and individuals. Let me ask you, were you glad to hear the Vice President in such plain language calling out trump saying hes going to be a dictator on day one. Thats what he told us he would do. I mean, all of my current and recent studies suggest that you have to believe them when an autocrat in waiting tells you what they want to do. Is it helpful in that study for the Vice President and the president to call this out . Absolutely, you know, theres a debate going on in sort of political strategy circles about whether the right way for President Biden to run for reelection is to talk about, you know, what you might consider sort of the Kitchen Table issues, economics and how much a loaf of bread costs and i dont want to deny that thats an important thing that actually matters to everyone in their lives and its on peoples minds but my experience in politics also is that the thing that most resonates with voters is the thing that is most authentically true and if you are saying something that is authentically true, people are going to attach to it. The thing that is pose authentically true about this election is what joe biden came out and said in the opening minutes last night, what the Vice President said on the clip you showed earlier which is it is a choice between democracy and authoritarianism and a degree of normalcy in this country and something that is extremely abnormal, dangerous and extremely limiting of peoples freedom. That is true and i think the more that the president and the Vice President say that, the more that is ultimately going to resonate with voters. It did in 2018. It did in 22. It did in 23 and i think it will likely do it again in 2024 again. You fill me with hope. Dare i say that ill put all of you on warning. We will continue to call on you often, ian bassin, Kim Lane Scheppele and rick stengel. American autocracy, it can happen here as donald trump gets tips on how to be a good little autocrat from victor orban. Well be joined by masha gessen, author of Surviving Autocracy and what the rest of us can do about it. The disgraced expresident posting bond in the e. Jean carroll case was just one of a flurry of legal developments in the multiple cases against him. What jack smith had to say in response to trumps immunity claims in the classified documents criminal investigation later in the hour. Deadline white house continues after a quick break. Dont go anywhere. [street noise] [car door shuts] [paparazzi taking pictures] introducing, neds plaque psoriasis. Ned, ned, who are you wearing . He thinks his flaky red patches are all people see otezla is the 1 prescribed pill to treat plaque psoriasis. Ned . Otezla can help you get clearer skin, and reduce itching and flaking. With no routine blood tests required. Doctors have been prescribing otezla for nearly a decade. Otezla is also approved to treat psoriatic arthritis. Dont use otezla if youre allergic to it. 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Now, my predecessor, a former republican president , tells putin, quote, do whatever the hell you want. Thats a quote. A former president actually said that, bowing down to a russian leader, i think its outrageous. Its dangerous and its unacceptable. My message to President Putin who ive known for a long time is simple, we will not walk away. [ applause ] we will not bow down. I will not bow down. President joe biden pulling no pumps during last nights state of the Union Address calling out russian dictator Vladimir Putin as well as americas wannabe dictator donald trump. The split screen could not be more stark in the news cycle. President biden going directly at Vladimir Putin over his conduct on The World Stage while the Presumptive Republican nominee for president with his closest viktor orban and the question were scratching at in american autocracy, what if donald trump wins and succeeds in making our democracy backslide into something more orbanlike, an autocracy. Lucky for us we have people to turn to who have survived autocratic regimes and live to tell like masha gessen, the Legendary Russian journalist. Guess writing, he ran not for president of the United States but for autocrat and won. Gessen should know. She lived in autocracies most of their life. Gessen wrote down some life lessons to share with an american audience but gessen called rules for surviving in an uti and salvaging your sanity and selfrespect. Believe the autocrat. I think i just quoted that. He means what he says. Rule number three, institutions will not save you. It is both chilling and all too familiar for those of us who have watched the events of the last several years. Were fortunate to have Masha To Guide us at this moment in our countrys history. The New York Times put it, quote, when mashagessen speaks about autocracy, you listen. We are listening. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. Tell me what the how you narrow the delta between what you understand and know to be happening, this sort of slow motion sleepwalking towards autocracy here in this country, and what people understand who is busy going about their daytoday lives. How do you narrow that gap and make more people aware trump isnt doing dog peeing on a Hydrant Minesless instinctive things but strategic things to move this country away from democracy. I dont know that hes doing strategic things. I i this hes driven largely by instinct but doesnt make what hes doing any less dangerous or any less effective. In a sense that kind of being driven by sort of the militant incompetence is one of the hallmarks of this kind of autocracy. Its destroying checks and balances, its destroying governance as its currently consty instituted. That was very much his platform during his first term and we now know what its given us, among other things its given us the current Supreme Court. In that sense he was strategic but the people around him were, the Federalist Society certainly was. And we know that he appointed a Record Number of federal judges and were seeing the results, right . The judiciary is now very much a part of whats enabling the possibility of a second Trump Presidency. How far did he get and how much weaker are we in terms of i find it stunning that his supporters say, yeah, i want a strong man. I was covering the political moment in 16. Thats conditioning. Our reporter who covers the Trump Campaign has conditioned his supporters to want strong man leadership. How far how much progress did he make . So, i think that part of it, wanting a strong man, i dont know we credit trump with that. I think we credit the world with that. People tend to want a strong man when things are scary. When theres so much anxiety and theres so much uncertainty. So, think modern economics for that. Thank covid for that to a large extent. I mean, all of that anxiety was there when he was first running for office and so much more of it is there now in large part because of the pandemic and just this experience that we all had of the world stopping suddenly because of something that we dont know how to deal with. But as far as how far he got and whether were sleepwalking, i dont think we are. I think were careening. He got very, very far in the first four years. And students of autocracy and its interesting, when i first started using the work of a political a hungarian political scientist, when i used it to analyze the United States i thought it was a questionable move because who is going to use hungary to analyze the United States but it has turned out to be his apparatus has turned out to be really important for me to understand the u. S. But also were seeing the trump is learning from orban. But it is posited that the first term is often the autocratic attempt and the second term or a subsequent term is the autocratic breakthrough and the autocratic breakthrough is basically the Point Of No Return or rather its the point where you cant Reverse Autocracy by electoral means and i think that thats what would happen if trump were president for the second term. Have you seen i mean, are there examples of countries getting this far where weve had the one term and were staring down the barrel at a possible second . I mean liz cheney said this morning it would be her last election. You know, take an exit ramp. Is there reason to be optimistic . Well, poland is optimistic. They got very, very far. Poland is coming back from the brink right now, and poland is actually instructive in the sense that were also seeing how difficult it is to come back from the brink. I mean, theyre like polish because you dont want to do anything in reversing autocratic attempts that is going that you dont want to be repeated by bad actors, and so were seeing just how difficult it is to restore democracy, and had the Law And Justice socalled party in poland been in power for maybe a year more, maybe six months more it would be irreversible. What vision do you have for, you know, people to try to have the conversation, you know, sometimes limited by time and having to i said to Rachel Maddow this week, i would ignore all of the newsnews and talk about this for two hours every day but how do you broaden the conversation so everyone can say i want that thing, i want to stay a democracy . Thats the question. I dont know that the people who are watching this show right now are the people who really need to be convinced. Thats the problem. The media silos and unfortunately, with President Biden, its great that he raised the specter of autocracy yesterday but he did it during the state of the Union Address. He should have done it during the super bowl interview. So, unless its up to him and its up to democrats to figure out ways to reach out to younger people and to people who are planning to sit out this election and to talk to them about things that matter to them and primary among them is palestine and gaza and israels war in gaza. I mean, you saw the president try to do some of those this work, and i think this sort of stability to count on young people to tune into a Network Production of the state of the Union Address, its such a throwback ritual. I dont know how many young people had that on or even have i suppose you could have streamed it. But also some of these cross pressures among the young voters in his coalition. How do you deal with those two things . I think its super difficult and i mean young voters by nature historically vote less and come out than older people do. I mean, in fact, people have always had trouble motivating. I want to ask masha a question. Of course. Because we one of the things that was noted in the beginning in kind of the rules of how to deal with autocracy is that institutions cant save you. One of the problems in the postwar phenomenon of countries that have either gone from democracy to autocracy or autocracy to democracy is they dont actually have institutions or their institutions are not very old. We have institutions that are two centuries old. Why in trumps first term, so many institutions did put roadblocks in front of him. Why wouldnt that be potentially enough in a Second Trump Term . Because institutions are not designed to deal with bad actors, right . Think about trumps muslim ban that then became rebranded as the travel ban, the Supreme Court which stopped it on the first go is not equipped for dealing with somebody who treats the Supreme Court like the Licensing Board in new york city and just tries to get a variance by any means necessary. You didnt like that ban, ill bring it to you with some adjustments. You didnt like that, ill bring it back with some adjustments, and you see this Venerated Institution which i also have a lot of things to criticize about, but you see that Institution Just not know what to do with someone like that. Thats the problem with institutions. Theyre all designed to deal with good faith actors. You saw that with the military and Department Of Justice and congress and i mean you saw that with he literally broke every institution that tried to or came close to breaking but in his second term, i think he can break them, yeah. Masha, can we continue to call on you . Absolutely. I dont know if we can answer any questions around here but at least ask the right question. Sounds great. Thank you very much for being here. Masha is the author of the book Surviving Autocracy. When we come back, developments in two of the criminal cases against the diggs graced expresident including a stinging rebuke from jack smith in the maralago documents case. Well have that for you after a short break. Yall wayfair makes it so easy to create a home youll love. Its the talk of the neighborhood. Kelly i just wayfaird. Thats wayfair. Saving time saving money. You wayfaird your whole bathroom . even the vanity when i wayfair, i wayfair ya know . Oh i know. This is nice. Another wayfair day you know it. New couch in just two days the Wayfair Word Is Out. Wayfair, youve got just what i need lve always wanted to do that. Were building a better Postal Service. All parts working in sync to move your business forward. For more value. More reliability. And more ontime deliveries. The United States Postal Service built for how you business. Everywhere but the seat. The seat is leather. Talan, we get it. You love your bike. We do, too. Thats why were americas numberone motorcycle insurer. But do you have to wedge it into everything . What . I dont do that. This reminds me of my bike. The wolf was about the size of my new motorcycle. Have you seen it, by the way . Happy birthday, grandma really . Look how the brushstrokes follow the line of the gas tank. Hey hey brought my plusone. Jamie . Frivolous, outlandish, jack smith is coming out swinging against a number of Donald Trumps recent motions to dismiss the classified documents case entirely. One of the expresident s attempts is claim immunity and smiths team said that is so wholly without merit that it is difficult to understand it except as a part of a strategic effort for delay and smith argues his argument is even more farfetched than in the federal election interference case since his mishandling of classified material happened after he left office. Prosecutors also dismantled the expresident s argument that the hundreds of documents he wrongfully retained were personal records. They write this, quote, trump did not create them. They do not reflect his personal thoughts. They came into his possession only through his official duties and except for one charged document bear classification markings and have no resemblance to diaries, that was in reference to the expresident comparing his actions to president reagan retaining his diaries after leaving office. Shortly after jack smiths team submitted their filings, the judge overseeing the case aileen cannon scheduled a hearing for next thursday. Joining our conversation, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General harry litman is here and former acting assistant Attorney General for National Security at the Justice Department and msnbc legal analyst mary mccord is here. Rick is still with me at the table. Mary, let me ask you, jack smiths paper tells us most of what we know and from his paper and filings, he seems to be calling bs on all of trumps moves and arguments. Is that a fair read . I think in legal terms thats what hes doing but using different verbiage and it had to be said. I mean, some of these motions, the motion to dismiss based on president ial immunity is based on an argument that mr. Trump while he was president designated all of these classified documents as personal and, therefore, that was within the scope of his official acts that he should have immunity for. So you dont even have to get to the question, says jack smith, of whether a president , a former president is ever immune from criminal prosecution for official acts because its ludicrous to think that what hes charged with here was part of his official act. Hes charged with retaining classified information, not classified information, National Defense information, which most of classified information falls within, retaining that when he was unauthorized to have it after he was president and refusing to return it. Hes also, of course, charged with obstruction of justice and things like that. So this those that he did anything relevant to this case while he was president , thats what jack smith is calling bs on. Hes saying that is so frivolous that if this court denies the motion as it should, it should not pause things and allow the former president to appeal, remember, in the jack smith case in d. C. , the january 6th related case when judge chutkan denied his motion for president ial immunity, she paused the entire case in order for him to appeal. Jack smith says because it would be so frivolous, an appeal would be so frivolous, you dont have to pause the case so hes going all in on that and makes similar arguments on the motion to dismiss on the grounds again that the president ial records act under that act, the president designated things personal and, therefore, he cant be charged with having personal documents and as jack smith through his lawyer says, i think quite persuasively, these are classified documents that were prepared for your duties while president exercising your statutory duties and not personal. They could not be personal and criminal statutes that apply to the mishandling of National Defense information are utterly unaffected and unrelated to a civil regime that ensures that the archivers can keep president ial records for historical purposes. Harry, let me read you a little bit more from this calling bs filing which is what ill shorthand it around here. Under trumps view, a president could direct the special forces to murder his principal political opponent. He could accept a bribe in exchange for steering a lucrative government contract to the bribe payer and he could sell classified information to an adversary and as long as he was not impeached by the house and convicted by the senate, he could act with impunity. All this talk of autocracies is so close to the surface in my brain, but the work he did in pushing and stranging and pressing and perverting the rule of law seems to be the farthest he got and it seems that almost everything about whether we remain a nation of laws is at stake and the Supreme Court hearing, any immunity claim from donald trump. Thats a total fact but smith is even taking it a step further, as you say hes come out swinging and the gloves are off. Hes begun to use the d word, delay. Its so frivolous that it could only be a transparent effort to try to delay. Weve got the motion that mary just summarized and, remember, i just want to put a marker in there about the possibility that she denies the motion but authorize an interlock tri appeal and then we have that whole trip up and down. Hes brought 12 motions. Theyve asked for hearings in 10 of them. And she has granted today for next week hearing on two of them. The one that mary just summarized and also a vagueness claim in which he says because he had maybe this other kind of security clearance, he cant even understand what the charges are, and for both, smith very aptly says, the whole premise of his motions really dont matter at all legally. Even if it were right hed have no right to the relief he sought even if it were right about immunity, he took these actions afterwards, so any other most other judges would read these and deny them on the papers, who knows why these two have caught her eye. Shes now going to have a hearing. They may push forward for an evidentiary hearing. As always there are two simultaneous games going on with trump especially in maralago, the game to win dubious rulings, here they are more than dubious, they are frivolous and the game to get delay and every hearing, every evidentiary hearing in particular is just one more kicking of the can down the road. I understand why trump does this because delaying has worked and worked in every attempt. Hes sort of houdini, every effort to hole him accountable he gets out of it. I dont understand why any judge appointed by any president or party allows it. It makes a mockery. I would ask marion harry about this. His whole motive is to delay it. Use the process to make sure that its delayed so justice is denied. Correct. And so i think to outside observers who are not lawyers it does look like hes using that. Successfully. Successfully and seems like its a problem with the legal system that it can be manipulated like that particularly with frivolous claims. Id love to hear if theres some kind of legal response to that to just kind of dismiss it outright. Mary. Yes, so i think this does expose what normally i think the procedures and the rules are designed to make sure that people charged with crimes get due process, right . They have ample opportunity to prepare for trial. They have ample access to the evidence that will be used against them. Time to amass their own evidence, ample time to file motions, legal motions, in the case of immunity which is very similar to sort of double jeopardy, the idea is you shouldnt be forced to sit through a trial at all and thats usually to protect a defendant and thats why you can take an appeal and stay the whole trial when you take an appeal. So, these things are steeped in sort of the need under our system, our constitutional system to ensure that criminal defendants have fair trials, have due process, et cetera. But i think what this has exposed is that particularly when someone like mr. Trump can afford or his pacs can afford to pay for armies of lawyers, they can really manipulate these systems kind of like people would say that some people manipulate our tax code, right, to their benefit and to delay and unless you have judges that are really willing to put a stop to it, things like expediting the way that the d. C. Circuit expedited its appeal and ruled quickly, those are the only real ways to combat that and weve seen with the Supreme Court taking almost two weeks to even decide if it was going to take the immunity case and having passed over the opportunity to having been able to have been taken it earlier in december straight from the District Court leapfrogging the d. C. Circuit, the Supreme Court has injected even more delay and even though they expedited somewhat they didnt expedite anywhere nearly as fast as they expedited the 14th amendment section 3 disqualification case. So, if youre going to avoid that delay, youve got to have judges that are willing to just prevent it and to set schedules that ensure fairness to the defendant, but also fairness to the public, because here theres an important public interest. Harry, i want to read a little more from the jack smith filing. This is about trumps knowledge that what he was doing was wrong, slash illegal. Trump has provided additional evidence of his knowing that the possession of the documents and willful retention publicly claiming that he took the documents with him, quote, openly and transparently and that he was, quote, right to do so because he made sure to, quote, keep secured documents in a secure place. If he in these declassification claims, that, too, would provide additional evidence that he knowingly possessed the documents. Weve all dangerously become experts in intent, and it seems this goes a long way toward illustrating that they have plenty of evidence that trump intended to do what hes accused of doing. And theres a lot more where that came from. Remember the conversation where he says, i couldnt do that now. He knows the difference. Its just patent in the law. Even his claim that he could have done it then recognizes that the charges this is smiths big point. The charge has nothing to do with whether he somehow magically tried to make them personal. Its whether, as mary says, he possesses National Defense information after the time. And by the way, obstructs, instructs the lawyer to lie, and all those things. And, look, marys right that the wheel of justice grind slowly in this way. But every day, District Courts turn down of course you let the defendant make the motion, but you turn it down on the papers, especially in this pretrial period, where people generally and trump is the paramount example throw stuff against the wall to see what sticks. All the time you turn these down on the papers when, as here, it wouldnt matter even if what they said were accurate. So, she is being indulgent in a way that many, not just a few, many if not most District Court judges would not be. I have one more question for you. But let me just ask, is President Biden about to begin his remarks . That, i dont know. Are we ready to go to that or can i ask rick one more . I got permission to ask you one last question. I cannot separate this conversation from our conversation about autocracy and masha writing that institutions dont work. And autocrats make the courts work for them. They put in their own judges. They have people who make the decision they want. Lets listen to the president. Im joe biden. Im joe bidens husband. And thanks to elected officials here today, including someone i keep telling i think were related. Our families come from the county in ireland. Representative where is she . There you are. Youre doing a hell of a job representing this district. If youre tired, you probably watched my address last night. I got my usual warm reception from congress from Marjorie Taylor greene. In my address, i spoke about how far weve come since we took office. I talked about how much is at stake. Folks, our freedoms really are on the ballot this november. Donald trump and the maga republicans are trying to take away our freedoms. Thats not an exaggeration. Guess what . We will not let him. We will not let him. Last night from the u. S. Capitol, the same building where our freedoms came under assault in july 6th excuse me, january 6th we talked about another alabama. 14 months ago, she and her husband welcomed a baby girl, thanks to another alabama thanks to the miracle of ivf. She scheduled treatments to have a second child, but the alabama Supreme Court shut down ivf treatments. Across the state, unleashed by the u. S. Supreme Court Decision overturning roe v. Wade. She was told her dream would have to wait, but her family has gone through should never have happened. And folks, do you know why it happened . Ill tell you why. One reason. Donald trump. He came to office determined to overturn roe v. Wade. In fact, hes bragged about it repeatedly, that hes the reason it got overturned. He got his wish. And states are passing bans, criminalizing doctors, forcing rape and incest victims to leave their state to get care. And now, maga republicans and donald trump want to pass a national ban on the right to choose, period. Well, take it seriously, folks, because thats what theyre heading for. Hear me loud and clear. This will not happen on my watch. The decision [ cheers and applause ] [ crowd chanting ] four more years. Thank you. The decision to overturn roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court majority wrote, women are not without electoral power or political power. Clearly these bragging anyway. Those bragging about overturning roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women in america. No clue. They found out when reproductive freedom was on the ballot in 2022 and 2023, and theyll find out again in 2024. I mean this from the bottom of my heart when i say, i thank Vice President harris for leading on this issue and so many others. You know, in pennsylvania, i have a message for you. Send me the congress that i can support, and i promise we take back congress, we will restore roe v. Wade as the Law Of The Land. Look, i came to office determined to get us through one of the toughest periods in our nations history, and we have. I inherited an economy that was on the brink. Now our economy is the envy of the world. 15 million new jobs in just three years. Thats a record in american history. Unemployment hit a 50year low. 800,000 new manufacturing jobs and counting. As i said when i started, where is it written that we cant be the manufacturing capital of the world again . Wages are up, and inflation is coming down. Inflation has dropped from 9 to 3 . We made so much progress, so now lets talk about the future we can build because we have more to do. Look, the future where the days of trickle down economics are over and the wealthy and the biggest corporations begin to pay their fair share, god love them. For example, americans pay more, as the pharmacist can tell us, the doc can tell us, for Prescription Drugs, than anywhere else in the world. Its wrong. And ive been fighting the pharmaceutical industry since i was in the senate over 30 years. Guess what . Were ending it. The law i proposed, no one, not one republican voted for it. But we finally beat big pharma. Instead of paying 400 a month, for example, on insulin for seniors, they only have to pay 35 bucks. And by the way, it only costs 10 to make. Theyre still paying theyre still getting a big profit. But, look, im not stopping there. Lets cap the cost of insulin to 35 a month for every american who needs it, not just seniors. I finally beat big pharma, and now were giving medicare the power to negotiate lower prices for Prescription Drugs, just like the va does for our military. This doesnt just save seniors money. Its saving taxpayers billions of dollars, cutting the deficit. Now its time to give medicare the power to negotiate lower prices for even more drugs. Its going to save the taxpayers another 200 billion. We already saved 160 billion off your taxes because the medicare doesnt have to pay that bill. Folks, starting next year, the bill i got passed, were capping the total Prescription Drug cost for seniors on medicare at 2,000 a year, even for expensive cancer drugs that cost 10, 12, 14, 15,000 a year. And my goal next year, lets do that for all americans, all americans. Lets cap Prescription Drug costs to 2,000 a year for everyone. Folks, the Affordable Care act is still a very big deal. Over 100 million americans can no longer be denied Health Insurance because of preexisting conditions. But donald trump has announced he wants to repeal the Affordable Care act. Republican colleagues tried 49 other times in the last since obamacare was passed. Its not going to happen on my watch. Look, im also working to bring down the cost of housing. Im proposing an annual tax credit that will give americans 400 a month over the next two years to put toward their mortgage if theyre buying their first home or