Transcripts For MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show 20240911

Birthday, North Korea. Hope you remember to get them something nice. North korea traces its founding to This date in 1948. And so today was full of palpably terrified North Korean citizens marching through the streets dressed identically, Doing Synchronized things with s flags and banners all pledging loyalty until death to the third generation of totalitarian dictators who have ruled that country since its founding in 1948. The cult of personality that undergirds the North Korean dictatorship involves the worship of the kim family as gods on earth. Today, on the occasion of North Koreas birthday, the chinese president , Xi Jinping and the president of russia, Vladimir Putin, sent warm congratulations to North Korea. Warm congratulations to kim jongun, praising his dictatorship, promising Closinga Relations and cooperation in the future. And at some level, maybe the Birthday Card from China And Russia for North Korea makes d sense. I mean, both China And Russia do border North Korea, all three of those countries are dictatorships of one kind or anOther. Ip but China And Russia are kind of in different boats, right . Russia used to be communist, briefly tried on the idea of being a democracy, now under Vladimir Putin its devolved into a variety of fascist ut dictatorship. Russia waging the largest Land Grab since World War ii. China is still communist. China is also huge, both population wise and in terms of its economic and geopolitical influence. China, of course, is the Other global superpower besides the united States. Yeah, these are three dictatorships, two sending a Birthday Card to the third. Why are these two Big Swaggery countries, China And Russia, kind of embarrassing themselves with This small fry, with This a weird little small fry, aligning themselves with honestly the Freak Show that is North Korea . North korea for decades has been in competition for the top spot globally as the strangest, most backward, most repressive place on earth. North korea is known for its mass cultlike spectacles forced on a population that literally has been taught to worship its leaders as gods. They have been told that every time their Dear Leader goes golfing on every hole he gets a hole in one. And no, youre not allowed to laugh at that. A country where the Dear Leader brags about assassinating his relatives using antiaircraft guns. A country now regularly floating balloons full of Trash And Poop into Neighboring South Korea because sure, why not, thats a thing that normal countries do. E a country known equally for the Mass Starvation of its own people while its government committed massive, immeasurable resources into becoming a nuclear rogue State. Whose sole exports now are e Statesponsored Cyber Crime and weapons. To the Other States'>Rogue States of the world. North korea is tiny, very strange, backward. It is a geopolitical culdesac of a country. It is the international epitome of a Pariah Nation and for all the right reasons. And because of that, it says something a little unfortunate about these leaders of these two Other very big countries, that they would bOther to go kiss up to the North Korean Dictator Today on the birthday of that country. Why bOther . Why do that . Who on earth thinks that the murderous Humpty Dumpty ridiculous totalitarian dictator of North Korea needs love, Needs International Praise and sucking up to him. Who thinks that . Kim jongun, i got along great with him. I have a very good relationship with him. Er different kind of a guy, but he probably thinks the same thing about me. We have a different kind of relationship. We have a very good relationship. Ve i also say that, by The Way,p with respect to North Korea. Sa kim jongun, who i have gotten to know extremely well, the First Lady has gotten to know kim jongun and she would agree with me. He is a man with a country that has tremendous potential. I was really being tough and so was he. We go back and forth. And then we fell in love. Okay . No really. He wrote me beautiful letters. And theyre great letters. We fell in love. E but you know what, now, theylll say Donald Trump said they fellw in love. How horrible. How horrible is that . Le so unpresident ial. I think tat he really wants to do a great job for North Korea. You Trust Him . I do Trust Him, yeah. I think he trusts me and i truss him. I like him, he likes me. I guess thats okay. Am i allowed to say that . What is the constituency for that in the united States . Even at that really sweaty rally that hes doing there, like that rally full of his supporters ano everything, he starts talking about falling in love with the North Korean dictator, and his audience is like, yeah. Yeah . Is it okay for me to say that i like him . We love each Other, and all the trump people at the rally are like, you do we clap for This . What single person in the united States is like, you know what, what im looking for in a Li Politician is somebody who has the hots for the totalitarian I Dictator of North Korea, the guy with the hair. Im looking for a politician who thinks that guy is awesome. Where do i get me an american president who tells people in his own administration in the united States that he really likes The Way the dictator of te North Korea rules his Country Wa and he would like things to be which Donald Trump did when he was president. I mean, who is This for . What domestic audience, what political Audience And Purpose does This serve . What is that about . In her recent book, Autocracy Inc. , Anne Applebaum argues that all these various dictators of every idealogical stripe, they and helping each Other. Nd because of mutual interest. Because no matter what they are like individually, no matter what The System of government is in their country, whether theyre left Wing Dictator or right Wing Dictators or just Le Cuckoo for cocoa puffs, they all have a mutual interest in doing what they can to denigrate democracy. Making sure the people wherever they are dont get Big Dreams or big ideas about rising up and replacing authoritarian systems with some Other more democratic form of government. They all mutually no matter what else you can say about them, they all want to stay in power. They want to accumulate as much wealth as possible and keep it for themselves and their families and they want to rule a for life. They all have that in common, and so they formed kind of a club. They admire each Others tactics in repressing their own people and the opposition and the judiciary and the press. They copy each Others tactics. They support each Other in doing those kinds of tactics whenever they can. And they support each Other Around The World. So russia gives money to Nicolas Maduro in venezuela, and Xi Jinping sends a Love Note to kim jongun on his countrys birthday, and zimbabwe and Cuby Vote in favor of russia taking crimea from ukraine. Why do you care . And Viktor Orban tries to stop europe from helping Ukraine O defend itself when it was invaded by russia. And china helps Russia Wage that war, and what is the connectione between all these very different kinds of countries all over the world . Those are all very different kinds of countries. But they are all led by rulers who are all interested in staying in power for life. And making sure that the people of those countries never rise up against the strong Man Form of leadership that keeps them under the boot. So whatever differences may exist between them, whether theyre communist or fascist, whether theyre theocratic or they worship as a god on Earth A Denigrate and discredit democracy wherever it exists. Particularly the united States of america, which should not and cannot serve as a beacon for the world to aspire to democratic change. Sp they want no one anywhere to think it is possible, let alone desirable, to throw a strongman out. T at the Democratic National Convention a few weeks ago, in her speech accepting the democratic Partys President ial nomination, Vice President Kamala Harris tried to explain the phenomenon like This. And know This. I will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran And F iranbacked terrorists. I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like kim jongun, who are rooting for trump. Who are rooting for trump. Ot because you know, they know. They know he is easy to manipulate with flattery and favors. They know trump wont Hold Autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat himself. Because he wants to be an autocrat himself. I feel like a lot of different politicians have pointed out how unseemly and how not in keeping it is with the entire rest of american history for a former president like trump, for a president like trump, to have praised dictators and sort of cozied up to dictators and said the dictators of the world were the people he liked best. A lot of people have pointed out unseemly, seemingly unamerican, creepy that is. T Kamala Harris is one of the only politicians who said the reason youre doing This is because you want what they have. Donald trump, you want to be an autocrat. Thats why you praise these autocrats. And naming it is an important part of confronting it. And so tomorrow night, Vice President harris and former President Trump will face each Other in what may well be the only president ial debate were going to get This year. The first one we had between Trump And President Joe Biden, that ended up being effectively the most consequential debate in the united States for all the On Obvious reasons. Nobody knows how consequential tomorrow Nights Debate will be, but tens of thousands of americans will tune in to watch it, and everybody will be bracing to see what happens. Yb but there is something happening in the campaign as we have gotten closer and closer to that debate tomorrow. A debate for which Kamala Harris has signaled shes prepared and ready to call out Donald Trump d for wanting to be an autocrat. And that is that as we have g gotten closer to that debate, as we have gotten sort of farther along in time from the democratic convention, the Strongman Stuff from trump has become more explicit and more gory. With almost each passing day. And you would expect that he would be trying to sort of moderate his image for the general election, right . You attack however hard right you need to tack for the primary campaign, but then once youre the nominee, you tack back t toward the center and try to ne reassure people any scary stuffc they heard about you, dont believe it. Im actually sort of a Centrist Character who wants whats best for us all. Thats The Way you campaign for president in This country. Not for Donald Trump. T as we have gotten further alonga in the campaign, hes getting pa further and further out there in terms of what hes promising. And what he is joking about. On friday, he started joking again about the man who broke into the home of former House Speaker Nancy pelosi and smashed her husband in the head with a hammer. Fracturing his skull. He has put that back in his repertoire as things he tells jokes about now. Now, he is doing that. On saturday, he made a Promise D to a rally in wisconsin that when he gets back in office and starts mass deportations of millions of people, he said, quote, getting them out will be a bloody story. Later that same night, he said in writing, that when hes back in office, there are going to be, quote, long Term Prison sentences for his political enemies who said, quote, are going to be prosecuted at levels unfortunately never seen before in our country and who is going to be subject to the long Prison Sentences . Quite the list. Quote, lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal voters, and corrupt Election Officials. So among the people hes now targeting for long Prison Sentences are people who run elections and people who donate money to candidates . Yeah, everybody. Everybody is going to prison if he gets back in. He put that in writing. In the last couple weeks, trump has promoted Social Media images like these. Ai generated images showing people like Nancy Pelosi and ed Vice President harris and President Biden and his son all locked up and in prison. And you know, wasnt that hilarious when the husband of that democratic politician had his Skull Fractured with a hammer . Isnt that a great Laugh Line for my rallies now . Shouldnt we all laugh at that . And after he orders the u. S. Military to build his camps to hold millions of people, He Bu Promises what will happen then will be a, quote, bloody story. Q This is the direction that his campaign is taking as it gets deeper into campaign season, closer to the first debate, and closer to election day. And, you know, on top of all the demonizing and gory fantasies he has been spewing about immigrants in particular, his Vice President ial running Mate Jd Vance along with his Billionaire Donor Elon musk and his president ial advisor stephen miller, and a republican politicians of every stripe have started boosting a bizarre Conspiracy Theory that immigrants on top of everything else trump has said about them, according to the republicans now, theyre stealing Peoples Household pets and eating them. Which is insane. This is not true. But hey, once youre getting people riled up to do their worst, who among us thinks that a little Fact Checking is goinga to be enough to stop what you ac have started . This gross, even darker than ed usual turn from the republican nominee, comes at a very late moment in the president ial campaign. And it comes at a time when something that we cant ignore is raising its head again in their political circles. Ts and that, i cant even believe i have to say This, but its part of the News Cycle again from them. Its Holocaust Denial. And i say its come up from them again because of course, we had Trump Host a dinner for Rawas G people and started Posting Swastikas online. Mr. Wests Dinner Companion was a selfavowed nazi with a large online following. We recently had a major point of awkwardness between the Trump Campaign and one of their largest donors. Remember when trump said the Medal Of Honor was a bad thing because members of the militaryr who receive that highest Military Honor we receive as a nation, they have usually been shot or killed in defense of their country by the time they receive that award . You remember the context of why he said that . Erth the reason he said that, the riff that led him to that is because he was saying the Medal Of Honor is bad compared with anOther medal that he said was better. Because the Other medal he said was better was the one he had e given to his Billionaire Donor W miriam adelson. Why was he talking about the fact he gave it to her years ago . Why was he bringing that up now on the Campaign Trail . Because he was trying to make nice to her. He had to make nice to her because he wants her money for the campaign again This year. And he had to make something up to her because a bunch of Text Messages were leaked in which his running Mate Jd Vance talks smack about mrs. Adelson and her husband. Those disparaging messages were leaked to the press by the person to whom Jd Vance sent the texts. This is a man who Jd Vance was texting with a lot. Including texting This man disparaging remarks about a famous jewish republican political donor. The man who Jd Vance was texting with about that, the guy who leaked the messages to the ha press, is himself most notorious for being a Holocaust Denier. And now, Senator Vance is due to go do a big public event with a former Fox News Host who just spoke at the rnc who then followed that up with a Big Public Facing Laudatory interview with yet anOther Holocaust Denier whom he praised as the best Public Historian in america. A man who says the united States fought on the wrong side in World War ii, that hitler was not the real Bad Guy in World War ii. That hitler has gone to heaven. And who has said its a myth that the nazis ever really set out to kill the jews. It is astonishing that Holocaust Denial is not an accidental brush with This Campaign But Something that keeps coming up over and over and over again. And its not just something thats like, impolite. Its really consequential, and its really worrying that This is a recurring thing in This president ial campaign. That This president ial campaign, that This president ial candidate keeps churning up new associations with Holocaust Deniers every few weeks or ns months. Because why do people do This . Y what is Holocaust Denial for . What purpose does it serve . Holocaust deniers dont think theres been a big misunderstanding or theres been sort of some good Faith Mistake about what really happened in history. What Holocaust Deniers are contending is that a deliberate lie has been concocted to make us believe something that isnt actually true, to make us believe that the history we have been taught about, what happened in World War ii, is a hoax. A hoax perpetrated by the jews to make germany look bad when germany doesnt really deserve s that. When hitler really wasnt so bad. Holocaust deniers say not only that the holocaust didnt really holocaust was invented as a hoax to make Nazism And Fascism look back when really theyre not bai at all, theyre good. Thats the first level implication of Holocaust Denial. Its not only a bad and dangerous thing because its an overt effort to rehabilitate Nazism And Fascism and white wash what is bad about those things, its also bad because is entails a Conspiracy Theory about the world today. Which ultimately demands that we get rid of democracy and get ourselves a Strongman Government instead. A because Holocaust Denial isnt just, oh, im fuzzy on what really happened. M it was a long time ago. Holocaust denial, particularly the kind being promoted by the guy who Jd Vance is about to appear with, This variety of Holocaust Denial is the contention that there is a conspiracy that is teaching you a lie, that is trying to make you believe a myth about some bad thing having happened to the jewish people that didnt really happen, and why have you been taught This myth about a bad thing happening to the jewish people when it didnt really happen . Well, thats the jews who are teaching you that myth, because it serves the jewish interests, because jews are so powerful and so conniving that they have invented This fake history and made us all believe it. The contention of the Holocaust Deniers is that nothing bad actually happened to the jews. T you have been manipulated into believing it did because jews are secretly This unimaginably powerful cabal to get what they want. What do they want . They want white christians to look bad so they can be in charge. They want to destroy the white race. They want to destroy christianity, they want to rule the world. And the implication of This is that if theres a group that powerful conspiring against christians everywhere, what could possibly stop them . Certainly theres no point in engaging in democratic political processes because, hey, if the real power is in the hands of This secret Evil Elite Operatedi Behind The Scenes then nothing you do in socalled politics is ever going to matter. The evil cabal will keep pulling the strings. Dont bOther participating in s. Politics. Er its all a ruse, a hoax, you know theres an evil conspiracy running everything. s in that formulation, democracy is for suckers. Naive and maybe even evil, if it allowed these evil powerful groups like jewish people to es participate in Democratic E processes among us, the christians, who are ever more their victims. So in the short term, before you rush to the eliminationist, Murderous Ends that Holocaust Denial inevitably leads to, even before you get there, the consequences of perpetrating This stuff, the consequence of platforming This stuff, the Consequence Offf telling these lies, of defining jewish people as the secret power behind the Government Or Finance or whatever, the consequence of it, what youre telling people is we should give up on democracy because were going to need to take extreme action against these very, very, very, very ala powerful evil enemies within. L so maybe well start with camps for millions of people. E and long Prison Sentences for Ns Everybody who identifies an ri enemy, and what did he say . It will be a bloody story. So none of This is good. I mean, happy birthday, North Korea. I wish you all the best. But none of This is good. We are heading into the first and likely the only president ial debate of This campaign, while the republican ticket is not just led by a selfprofessed fan of the weirdest and worst dictators Around The World, a selfprofessed fan of dictatorship itself. Hes now promising at his rallies that there will be bloodshed. He is getting his crowds to laugh at deadly violence perpetrated against his political enemies. Hes turned a Skull Fracture en into a Laugh Line. Hes promising to imprison his enemies en masse. Hes telling his crowds his supporters who have committed criminal acts of violence on his behalf, he will spring them allw from prison because they are his martyrs. And now his Running Mate is about to go do a ticketed Tour Event with the most high profile american Media Figure to have ever promoted Holocaust Denial. Because Hitler Wasnt really the Bad Guy in World War ii, and by The Way, the united States was on the wrong side of that fight. Welcome, Vice President Ial Ro Nominee Jd Vance. With that as the republican Party Platform This year, heading into the first debate, the president ial race is tied between the two parties. And the character of the race on the republican side, the De Facto platform of the republican party here, is not just a little Red Flag here for danger. This is all the alarms going off all at once. There has never, ever been a president ial contest in This country with stakes like This. ] is your dog telling you they may have allergic itch . Apoquel is the 1 treatment for allergic itch. That veterinarians have trusted for over 15 Million dogs. 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Quote, All Of Us have in our minds a cartoon image of an autocratic State. Theres a bad man at the top. He controls the army and the police. The army and the police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators. Maybe some brave dissidents but in the 20th Century, nowadays autocracies are not run by one Bad Guy but network. These networks are connected to not only one anOther within a given autocracy but to networks in Other autocratic countries and sometimes democracies, too. They share troll farms that can be used to promote anOthers. As well as themes. Themes like the degeneracy of democracy, the stability of autocracy and the evil of america. Those are some of the opening lines of Autocracy Inc. , the dictators who want to rule the world, the latest book from Pulitzer Prizewinner Anne Applebaum. A thesis i keep coming back to as the campaign gets later and later and the republican side of it gets more and more explicit about their hostility to the american system of government. Anne applebaum is ostthe host of the atlantics new podcast called autocracy in america. Thank you for joining us. I appreciate you being here. U w the Opening Segment that i did. First of all, let me ask you, you and i dont always agree on these things. Certainly, youre a very distinguished historian in the field. Is there anything i said that you think im getting the wrong way around or misstating particularly on Holocaust Denial and its dangers . No, i think you hit it exactly right. I would just add something which is that by criticizing Americas Role in the second World War, and implying we were on the wrong side, you know, we should have been with hitler against churchill, the Holocaust Deniers, tucker carlson, Jd Vance, are undermining one of the really few historical moments that unifies us. Were a country that has a very complicated history. People take different sides on different issues. One of the few things we have agreed on is that we were on the right side in the second World War. We did something good by fighting in it. We helped save democracy. We rebuilt europe after the war. Its one of the things that defines america in the second half of the 20th Century and the first half of the current century. If you undermine that, you take away one of the few things that we really all have in common. And i think thats deliberate. If you shatter a country, if you destroy its sense of what it is, if you make people doubt The System, the history, everything they have always believed in, you know, whats churchill even our friend . Then you prepare the country for something very radically different. I think there are people around trump who want that. Yeah, its taking one of the moral cornerstones of us as a country and blowing it up. Which has all of the architectural consequences you might think. Let me also ask you, after Vice President harris got the nomination, there was some talk among pundits that she should shift the Campaign Message away from This idea that trump poses a threat to democracy. Saying that that kind of language makes him seem like a more powerful figure than he really is. Instead you should focus on making him seem small and pathetic. As someone who studied these threats and transformations what do you make of that political calculation . Actually, you can do both. The one really successful election against autocratic leadership that happened a few months ago was in poland. One of The Ways it was won is not just by saying the Ruling Party are dictators. It was also by connecting their autocratic instincts to things that people felt. So actually in poland, one of the big issues was abortion. Making people understand that it was actually because the Ruling Party had illegally captured the the courts in an unconstitutional way that people, literally women were dying, and people felt the real impact of it. And i think harris could do that. I mean, i actually thought her speech at the convention was very effective. Talking about Americas Role in the world in a way that reminded americans that we used to be proud of what we were and who we are and what we stand for. But i also think you can connect that to what people experience in their daily lives in a really powerful way. Others have done it. She could do it too. Heading into tomorrows debate, obviously, i think its i have said i think its a little surprising to see the rhetoric and the promises and even the joking get even edgier and sort of bloodier from trump as we get closer to the campaign and closer to the debate. If a candidate or major party is campaigning for top office by threatening long Term Prison sentences for all kinds of people that oppose them, threatening the kinds of Norm Upending and system of government upending Things Trump is promising, are there examples of that Around The World where people ran for office on that kind of a platform and won and then it turned out to be a bluff, nothing to worry about . No is the short answer. It seems oo me that what trump is doing is by invoking violence, by making people afraid, by talking about terrible things that are going to happen, he makes people want dictatorship or thats what hes seeking to do. Its really in times of Chaos And Crisis that people turn to strong men, and i think hes trying to create that feeling that were living in a crisis and therefore he should win the election. Theres also something else going on which is hes beginning to feel he might not win, having been very certain of it a month or two ago. And hes also preparing his people and his supporters for a second attempt to steal an election. And so the implication is that if he doesnt win, that its because somebody cheated, because of illegal immigrants. That is in preparation. Also, hes certainly trying to evoke fear and prepare people for more violence. Anne applebaum, Pulitzer Prize winning historian, the author most recently of Autocracy Inc. , really good to have you here tonight. Dark topic and really urgently needed discussion. Thanks. Thank you. All right, much more ahead here tonight. Stay with us. Stay with us to duckduckgo on all your Devie Duckduckgo comes with a builtn engine, like google, but its r and doesnt spy on your searchs and duckduckgo lets you browsel but it blocks cookies and creepy ads that follow youa and Other companies. And theres no catch. Its fre. We make money from ads, but they dont follow you aroud join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today. Why choose a mobile network built join for places youllople tak probably never be. Y. Instead of for where you are most of the time . Xfinity mobile was designed for where you need it most. Now Xfinity Internet customers can buy one line of unlimited and get one free for a year. In arizona, Maricopa County, just after the 2020 election, This was outside the Vote Counting Center in phoenix. Election workers were tabulating the ballots inside, and trump supporters, at least some of them armed, were outside the building doing This. And some of what they were doing is calling out Election Workers by name. Workers had to be escorted in and out of the building by police. Arizona was one of the toughest locations in the country for intimidation and threats of violence directed at Election Workers, directed at Election Officials in particular. Arizona was also one of the States where fake republican electors signed fraudulent certificates falsely certifying that trump had won their State when in fact he lost their State. 11 arizona republican electors were deindicted earlier This year in that plot. The State republican party responded by choosing three of the people who were indicted to be delegates to the republican national convention. Thank you for your service. Now as the 2024 election approaches, The Post reported that Election Officials in at least three battleground States including arizona received nearly identical letters from the american conservative union, the group that puts on the cpac conference. They explained the american conservative unions plan to monitor Ballot Drop boxes and scrutinize those using them to vote. The letters prompted concerns from Election Officials about privacy and the possibility of voter intimidation. Adrian fontes is a former top Maricopa County elections official. Hes now arizonas secretary of State. He told The Post in response to that reporting, quote, the whole thing is an absurd sham to cover up direct efforts to intimidate voters. The efforts purpose, he said, is to intimidate voters, and we absolutely will not be cooperating with them. Joining us now is Arizona Secretary of State adrian fontes. Thank you so much for being here. Nice to meet you in person. Nice to see you too. Everybody in the country has eyes on arizona, worrying about the kinds of not just contentious Campaign Stuff that is a healthy part of our democracy, but worried about voter suppression, worried about certification of the vote, potential intimidation of voters and people running The System. What should the country know about arizona This year . The same thing about the rest of the Election Officials across the entire united States of america. Great civil servants who have been doing great work, and in arizona, they have been doing exceptionally good work for a long time. Theres been a little turnover, but you have the same character of folks. Neighbors, friends, relatives, american citizens just like you and me doing a great job. Thats what people can know about elections in arizona and in the united States of america. Were the ones who run our elections. When the criminal indictment was brought in arizona against republicans who had submitted their names as false electors, claiming that trump had won when in Fact Biden had won, that criminal prosecution meant serious consequences, potential consequences, indictment itself is a consequence, but really serious consequences for those people. The republican party responded by giving new, essentially honors and leadership positions to a significant number of those who had been indicted. That was a real message of support for what they had done. I wondered if you think that sort of political decision, that sort of leadership makes things harder. You can say it makes things harder but at the end of the day, our job is to just run our elections. We stick with the fundamentals, make sure everything is good to go and leave the campaigning and politics to the campaigns and politicians. I know what my duty is, to operate within those bounds. I have my political opinion too. I was at the dnc. Ill have my personal choices when it comes to voting but i can separate my duty from my opinion. And i think theres a lot of folks out there that kind of confuse the two, and so really i think were in a good space in arizona as far as Election Administration is concerned. But the message is that Other people send for their intended to get too involved in. What have you had to change in terms of training, preparation, resources, roles in order to make sure Election Administration is safe and done properly . How much time do we have . Since i was elected and took office in january of 2023, we have been revamping just about who came from the legislature or Other politicians. We didnt have Elections Administrators coming up from the county. We really had to look at our training and give the counties in arizona the resources they need from the perspective of look, you guys are the ones who are recruiting poll workers, the voter registers, the ones running the tabulation equipment. Were a regulator in arizona. Were Bottom Up State. Some States, the secretary of State is top down position and they run everything. Not here. So we have that different perspective which is informed everything we have done from working closely with cisa, the critical Infrastructure Security Administration agency under department of security, all The Way to injecting some Artificial Intelligence and some deep fakes into our Tabletop Exercises with elections officials, Law Enforcement officials, and even members of the media who we brought in so people can understand the processes better learn The System first and then try to tell the story on those deadlines. They can have that background information. Were working with the entire community of folks who have to deal with This to make sure everybody is prepared. I will say on that last point, that commitment, as a member of the media, obviously, i want us to have access, i want us to know as much as we can, but its actually a national Security Matter around elections that members of the media are well positioned and well informed to be able to tell people Whats Disinformation and whats real at a time when a lot of these wars are going to be fought in the information spot, having an informed media matters. And understand the complex processes, the laws and rules behind it, that doesnt happen immediately. When someone from out of town comes into phoenix or tucson, we need to make sure they have that base of information, just like our elections officials, just like our voters. We need to make sure folks are informed so they can perform their constitutional duties and we can just move on with the rest of our lives. Thank you for explaining This. And thank you for being here tonight. Good luck to you. I appreciate it. Adrian fontes is the secretary of State of the great State of arizona. Well be right back. Announcer what if you could whiten your teeth by simply brushing your teeth . Now you can with smileactives, the Teeth Whitening breakthrough that safely gets your teeth white and keeps them white every day just by brushing your teeth. Christine i never thought that whitening my teeth could be so easy. I just put the gel on the brush, the toothpaste on it, brush and i can see my white teeth. Announcer simply add smileactives to any toothpaste, and our Patented Polyclean Technology Activates into a powerful Micro Foam that penetrates into the Enamel Surface to safely lift and remove stains. Robert you need a simple way to withen your teeth without strips, without trays, without going to the dentist. And it was about time that a product was developed that you would be able to do that with just brushing. Announcer and now smileactives is even better. 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It includes what prosecutors say was a kremlin financed 10 Million effort to pay protrump conservative online influencers. There was also an indictment of a former Trump Campaign adviser for his ties to a sanctioned State controlled russian media entity. This Trump Campaign adviser was indicted by the Justice Department a few days ago, but he was not arrested. The reason he was not arrested is because he is in russia. This recent news has been a effort on behalf of trump in This election in 2024. We all remember what they did in 2016 to help trump get elected in the first place. Its all very wellunderstood. What they did in between, though, in 2020 also to help trump is something that is less well remembered but its also of significant scale, significant audacity, and significant stupidity. And that very deeply stupid story is the story of my first Feature Documentary from my company, surprise inside. The film has just come out. Called from russia with lev, about an exmafia Connected Hustler named Lev Parnas Who helped Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani try to gin up fake attacks against Joe Biden and his son hunter. Lev parnas sat down with hunter biden, facetoface, to apologize to him. They had a frank and very emotional conversation. They had that conversation on camera for our film. Heres a little piece of it. You have to understand, at that time, i truly believed there was a deep State. I truly believed that you were up to some [ bleep ]. There was never any criminality. Thats the whole thing. There were basically innuendos. Conspiracy theories but no actual facts. The crazy part, i feel embarrassed, hunter, your Bank Records. How did they get my Bank Records . May Bank Records arent even on the computer. I got an amale from John Solomon who said his friends at the fbi got your records. I dont know where, how, what. So the fbi secretly subpoenas and got my Bank Records under the trump administration, handed them to John Solomon. And Rudy Giuliani recirculates them back into the doj and on to me. Absolutely. John solomon and fox had a whole system. From russia with lev. It premieres mere on msnbc friday, september 20th, at 9 00 p. M. Eastern. I really want you to watch it. I hope you like it. All right, more ahead tonight. Stay with us. Ay with us with dexcom g7, managing your diabetes just got easier. So, whats your Glucose Number right now . Good thing you dont need to fingerstick. Hows all that food affect your glucose . Oh, the answers on your phone. What if youre heading low at night . [notifications ringing] wow, it can alert you . and you can even track your goals. Manage your diabetes with confidence with dexcom g7. The most accurate cgm. Learn more at dexcom. Com. How much you can save. Tomorrow night is the president ial debate. Join me and the whole Msnbc Gang here for special coverage starting at 7 00 eastern. Now, the debate is hosted by abc news, but you can to watch the whole thing here on msnbc with us, and then well have highlights and analysis after. Again, the whole thing starts here at 7 00 p. M. Eastern tomorrow night. I will see you then. Way too early with Jonathan Lemire is up next. Vice president Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump will meet for the first