Transcripts For MSNBCW All In With Chris Hayes 20190821

And an msnbc news exclusive ben collins, behind the most viewed news concept on facebook and youtube. And now you can try it yourself by clicking that button below. And all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. Back in 1971 pat bu canon wrote a memo to president nixon arguing nixons path to reelection was via waging ruthless culture wars. Nix nixon buchanan argued, he said we will, quote, cut the Democratic Party and the country in half. My view is we would have far the larger half. Donald trump now has the same strategy but with an amazing wrinkle which is that he has the smaller half. Donald trump is rerunning the nixon play book but inside of a silent majority, he has allowed minority. But and this is the craziest part of all, its been successful so far. He is running the country despite receiving just 46 of the vote. He lost the popular vote by 3 million votes. Just so happens the coalition he put together is better distributed for the purposes of electoral college. Everywhere you look right now trump is digging into the strategy of high risk culture lines where he has the smaller half. The president , though, only remembers it worked the first time around. Atlantic david graham writes, quote, recent polling shows that donald trump has managed to reshape American Attitudes to a remarkable extent on key issues, race, immigration and trade. Theres just one catch, the public is turning against trumps views. On a day he toips to baselessly accuse congresswoman Rashida Tlaib of violence he continued his stream of insulting taunts with this. Where has the Democratic Party gone . Where have they gone where theyre defending these two people over the state of israel . And i think any jewish people that vote for a democrat, i think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or a great disloyalty. All right . Im sorry, 80 of jewishamericans voted for democrats. Youre with us or against us, trump likes to say at basically every turn. And it is true, and this is the important part. It is working with one specific demographic astoundingly well. White men in this country without a College Education of whom there are millions distributed throughout the country particularly in the midwestern u. S. , key to trumps 2016 victory, they just happen to be in the right place for him. And trumps message is clearly working with them. Look at these wild numbers from the latest nbc news wall street journal poll. 70 of white mean approve of trump. What pumps up support among that subgroup at least in the ways trump does it also has the effect of alieniating just about everyone else. And hes losing them by enormous margins. But if you just look at white people, white voters in the quadrupt opposite men with a high school education, women with a College Education, theyre basically a mirror image. 72 disapprove while 26 approve. Now, that group only voted for Hillary Clinton by 6 points in 2016. That is a 40point drop for trump. And there are white men with a College Education. Normally a republican group. Here trumps under water by 7 points. Finally there are white women with a high school degree, okay . In 2016 they went for trump by almost 30 points. Now he only has a 4point edge. Look at that. And for all the talk about how the trump ledge is about the nonworking white class, these men work for the same companies and face a challenge or worse like men without a degree. They also have watched loved ones succumb to opioid addictions, all the same issues and trump is barely holding on there. Thats the state of play right now. Trump thinks he can run this strategy that cleaves the country into two chunks where he gets 40 plus . He thinks he can win and govern with that 40 plus percent. And it is a wild test of american mechanics to see if that is going to work a second time. Remember the things trump does to consolidate his base also alienates people. They announced they were endorsing trumps reelection, one of their Board Members Jennifer Horn decided it was too much for her. And she was telling the washington post, quote, there is no world where i can sit down at the dining room table and explain to my children i just endorsed donald trump president. Thanks for joining me. First, i guess your history in American Party politics, you have a very active member of the party and a valued conservative for a while. Yeah, i absolutely have been. I was the nominee for congress in the Second District up here in 2008. I served two terms as chairman of the New Hampshire republican party, and i very proudly was very honored to be recruited oo serve on the board of National Log Cabin republicans, an organization i joined believing it would be the opportunity to engage in a principle fight to expand civil rights for all americans. And this is, you know, one of it reasons why im so adamantly oppose to this president and this endorsements because he does not support civil rights for all americans. What has he done that to you makes an endorsement from the log cabin republicans inathema . The question is what hasnt he done . I made this decision a long time ago when i first got involved in politics i would never say or do anything i could not explain or defend to my own children. I ticked off a lot of republicans because when donald trump was running and he became our nominee i had to choose between defending our partys principles or defending our partys nominee and i defended our principles. And i continue to try to do that today. Whether were talking about transgender rights, the recommendation coming out of hud, some of the actions being rolled back through doj, protecting transgender students. I mean the list goes on and on. But its not just the Lgbtq Community this president targets. When we look at immigrants, people anyone that he thinks he can somehow use to anger his base, to he doesnt care if he has to divide on racial lines, on ethnic lines, on educational lines. He will divide and damage and destroy this country in any manner he thinks he need to advance his own political power. Did you vote for him in 2016 . I did not. Was that the first time you hadnt voted for a republican nominee . It was the first time in my life i did not vote for the republican nominee. I did vote republican. You voted republican other than donald trump . Yes, yes. Oh, you wrote in someone . I did, i did. Is that your plan this time around or you feel like given everything youve articulated about him that you will vote for the democratic nominee . I cant imagine voting for a democratic nominee because i am a conservative. I do believe in the Core Principles of the party of lincoln. I dont know what im going to do in 2020 other than i will not be voting for donald trump. Can i ask you this, its interesting because we were just doing this whole demographic analysis and demographics are participated with broad brushes and millions of people are diverse and they have millions of views with them. Youre a white woman, and youre a white woman republican. What are the conversations you have with the people in your Social Circle who are similar, who are republicans and are generally in the social form strata as you . There are truly few people in my Social Circle who agree with my position. I think those numbers are reflective not just of my sushlg but of the electorate here in New Hampshire as well. You know, one of the things people are not looking at very closely and i think they should is how fewer people identify as republican today than they did on the election day in 2016. Its enough to sway an election in many states including New Hampshire. So i think that those numbers that you referenced are very reflective of whats happening across the country. Jennifer horn, thank you for making some time tonight. Thank you for the invitation. I appreciate it. Joining me is Jeffrey Johnson and, dave, you know, theres a real kind of almost like demographic arbitrage that President Trump pulled off that he was able to take a 77,000vote margin throughout the industrial midwest and overcome a 3 million vote lost in the popular electorate and that same structure still exists, right . Thats true. Democrats have to be careful not to think of 2016 as a fluke because it is possible donald trump could lose the popular vote by 5 million votes in 2020 and still win reelection. Part of the reason is because most of the demographic change benefitting democrats nationally is occurring in states that are not near the Tipping Point of the electoral college, particularly california and texas where democrats could afford to add a million votes to their lead, their margin in california when not a single additional electoral vote cut trumps lead by 800,000 in texas and still fall short there. So the key is really do democrats nominate a candidate who can break through particularly, and this is the group that im most focused on, white women without College Degrees who dont attend church regularly. I think thats the key demographic in the midwest. Joshua, theres a broader question here just of the basic structure of Democratic Politics were confronted with. The weird version of the buchanan play which is cut the country in half and well get the bigger half, and in the 72 election they did. Even though they committed some illegal crimes on their way to doing that. Theres a question what does it mean for democratic legitimacy and representational legitimacy in which a country theres a decent strategy to govern 45 or 43 of the country . I think thats why democrats have been trying so hard to shore up every single piece of the base. The analysis we just heard is very wellput, and i think its a lesson democrats need to take seriously because thats what happened in 2016. There were just enough people in just the right places President Trump could eke out a victory. He could lose michigan and pennsylvania, keep all the other states that he won, and win reelection. I think that part of what ive been seeing from the democrats, particularly on the campaign trail at some of the events like the union forum in ne forum for nativeamerican voters and others, having three of candidates speak is to telegraph theyre broadening the coalition across the country. And it feels like the messaging is we really do want everybody to the polls, not just to have voter access but recognize we the democrats are the party of all the people. And if that message is effective then maybe democrats who chose to stay home in 2016, enough democrats who would have flipped the election will say, no, no, this is a party that speaks for me and all americans, i better show up. Theres two different pockets of voters. Theres the iconic obama swroeters and also the people who voted for barack obama in 2012 and did not show up in 2016 at all. Those are generally different sets of people. When we talk about the subgroups the margins everywhere matter. Right, if you do a little better among every group, which is possibility, that enough could be it. Its not like you have to pick some like subcategory. Yeah, the question i hear a lot is do democrats try and turn back the clock and win a higher share of working class whites or do they try and revert to turning out more africanamericans and young people who didnt show up in 2016 . I think the answer is it has to be a little bit of both. And in order to do that, i think democrats can use a few issues in particular to drive wedges into the trump coalition. I think background checks and abortion rights in particular are issues that divide elements of trumps base particularly in those midwestern states. I think youre right on both of those, and i think particularly in the wake of the specter of roe being overturned. Yeah wu, its interesting because we hear so much about issues that have come forward in the democratic primary, for instance, decriminalizing unauthorized entry or medicare for all. And theres some polling that decriminalizing unauthorized entry isnt particularly popular, but overturning roe is like a 37 issue. And when you look at those gender splits particularly among white women or white men without College Degrees theres some ground to be made there. Certainly as i looked at that poll its worth noting men with College Degree and white women without College Degrees are within the margin of error. Men with College Degrees are about a percentage point outside, women without College Degrees are outside the margin of error. Those who were kind of voting for trump while holding their nose and, where and now theyre looking at the election and saying my lot in life is better. I dont know how much he tweets and i wish he would be a little nicer but based on what i asked him to do for me and for the country, im good. Im not sure yet if the democrats have made enough of a case to make those voters go i need to reconsider. But if they cant, they will lose because we already know how they lost the last time. If cay cant pull enough voters to their side like, okay, trump theyre going to lose in 2020. The woman we just interviewed is an interesting case. She wrote in someone else. Thats a vote thats essentially a blank vote in terms of the ledger. But the question is like if she does that again, how many of those people, right, are actually motivated to make the affirmative choice i cant do this anymore. While i was speaking i looked at the log cabin republican statements and they talked about President Trump putting more money into fighting hiv aids which is true. He also has been fighting against the affordable medicare act and medicaid. They talked about how the president s employment plan, the job programs have been good for lgbtq people. But last week the president propagated a proposed Labor Department rule and a statement to the Supreme Court that would make it easier for businesses, federal and private, to discriminate against lgbtq people with impunity. So it may come down to people reading between the lines and saying what does everything that the administration has done, and does it behoove me to vote for him again. Thank you both. Next, a Trump Administration that has seen multiple Migrant Children die in its custody has now decided to stop providing flu vaccines at border camps. Dont go anywhere. Camps dont go anywhere. We learned today the Trump Administration will not be providing the flu vaccine to immigrants held in its detention centers. Quote neither cbp nor its medical contractors administer vaccinations to those in our custody. They claim theyre doing this because immigrants are only supposed to be in their custody for 72 hours or less. Aside from the egregious cruelty hear one would think perhaps the injury strong cbp union that so vociferously supports the president would maybe i dont know want to have working facilities where there isnt the constant threat of flu epidemics, maybe. This comes on the heels yesterday of a sweeping Class Action Lawsuit filed against the Trump Administration over the absolutely horrible medical care in immigration centers. This is all the latest in a constant series of policies and actions do deter people from migrating to the u. S. The seek asylum by convincing them our administration hates them, will make their lives miserable and perhaps endanger their health. Joining me now is senator murkily, the author of the new book america is better than this trumps war against migrant families. Good to be here. First your reaction to this policy decision that they will not provide flu vaccines to families that arrive at detention facilities. Is this america . That we have refugee children three of whom have died of flu last year . Specifically of flu. It was a contributing factor in their death and we have people packed in tight spaces. Ive seen maybe 150 people packed into very small rooms, and disease travels enormously in that situation, so why would we not provide a vaccine when people come in . They say they dont do them well change your mind and do them. They said, well, we dont do that. Well, change your policy and do that. I mean, part of it seems to me these facilities that are designed to hold people for less than 72 hours where they dont have programs in place to do these kinds of things are now Holding People for 30 and 40 days. Theres a crazy mismatch between what the facility is designed to do that becomes a longterm place where people have to get, you know, the basics of life. Well, cbp facilities they have held people for several weeks. They do attempt to move people out in three to five days. But three to five days is plenty for flu to spread among the population. And this is just part of this ongoing strategy for example this mass action lawsuit that says that trump appealed to say, well, we dont want to be held to the law to provide hygiene and nutrition. Are you kidding me . For refugees, for children, for people fleeing persecution, were not going to provide just the basics when people come into this country . Theres news tonight thonigh theyre planning on trying to tear up or change the torres settlement. Its a civil suit by the plaintiffs parties and the government that guides the detention of minors particularly families. And it will permit family detention yond the 20 days that is currently the limit by flores. What do you think of that . Well, if we go back a year last june in 2018 the trump team held a press conference with the president or a whole bunch of senators and said were ending child separation. But the fact is the document that was in front of the president didnt end child separation. That was done by a judge what it did was have three strategies in it to hold chirp. They want to be able to hold children and families indefinitely in family internment camps. Overturning a former court decision, passing regulations or passing a law. And by the way this aspect of passing a law, this shows a vast difference between democrats and republicans. There are 40 republican senators who signed onto a bill for indei indefinite detention of migrant parents and their family. There are former Democratic Senators who have signed onto my bill to stop the treatment and not republicans. We should note that president barack obama did experiment essentially with family detention during the big crisis in 2014. There were periods of time in which the Obama Administration did try to cull Families Together for a long periods of time before they abandoned that partly under judges pressure. And in recognition it was absolutely wrong for the children. Because so many child psychologists and therapists came forward to say when you imprison a child you are doing deep damage. I want to ask you about the economy today. Jp morgan put out a forecast that the tariffs currently part of the president s unilateral trade work, hes doing this through executive action on somewhat dubious National Security grounds could cost u. S. Families up to 1,000 a year. Thats a 1,000 trump tax. Thats right. And the same analysis says if the tariffs go up to 25 it might be 15,0,500 to a family. They never notice an improvement. They will notice when theyre losing a 1,000 to 1,500 out of their annual income. How does it play in oregon . I must say its chaotic. The relationship we have with aegis and we are a trading state so thats a big deal. We do not have the same Agricultural Commodities the same as the midwest that are exporting so that changes that dynamic. But what people really see it doesnt seem theres an actual plan to bring manufacturing back. Well all waiting to see whos next. Today theres news congressman whos the highest ranking House Democrat to come out and support an impeachment investigation has come out in support of it. Laura underwood, where she flipped a seat that had been held by republicans she came out and held an inquiry which was call apimpeachmen impeachment i court filing. He laid out four cases of obstruction of justice in which he said all three essential components have substantial evidence and this inclulded witness tampering. And were going trul tee to have equal justice under law, then we cant have a situation where the evidence is all laid out that the president committed crimes and we dont even have a conversation about it in the house of representatives. Do you and your colleagues anticipate this is something youre going to be dealing with on your side of capitol hill when you come back in the fall . Well, we only deal with it if the house acts. So were waiting to see what happens there. I was wondering if you guys talk to each other in the house and senate . Not that much. It seems like a half a world away, but on this topic theres a lot of conversation. And i think theres a growing understanding while trump is damaging our ins cushions, hes damaging the core, the presidency, Mitch Mcconnell is damaging the senate, but theres other institutions like principles, like equal justice under law, and for the house not to act damages that principle. Coming up, what is sometimes the most viewed news creator on all of facebook, youtube and twitter also believes that donald trump was cesent from heaven to destroy the communist party. That exclusive reporting after this. Party. That exclusive reporting after this. Sunlight. Longer hours. Eyes today are stressed but ocuvite has vital nutrients. That help protect them. Ocuvite. Eye nutrition for today. Announcer only fidelity offers four zero Expense Ratio index funds directly to investors. And we have zero account fees for brokerage accounts. At fidelity those zeros really add up. Maybe ill win saved by zero bleech aww awww its the easiest because its the cheesiest. Kraft for the win win. All right, so this morning my friend sent me a link to a clip of on youtube. I was served this absolutely bizarre ad for a newspaper. Hey, do you want to see something extremely interesting well take a look at this. While Jeffrey Epstein has been in the news a lot ovthe last week, how many newspapers do you find reporting this . His questionable source of wealth as well as his ties to the clintons as well as how trump actually barred him from maralago many years ago. The epic times is one of the only sources you can get information like this because we do our investigates without any hidden agendas, and we dont have any false narratives to push. We give you the facts and let you make up your own mind. That is weird, right . What the epack times its a small newspaper that spent more money on protrump facebook ads in the last six months than any other organization outside the trump campaign. Its a Nonprofit Organization that puts all these Media Outlets in page views running a massive protrump propaganda operation. Thats just the tip of the iceberg. This jaw dropping exclusive look into this. First, lets talk about the scale, right intheres lots of different publications out in the world. They dont all have a big reach, like its not a big deal, but this has a very big reach. Were talking billions of view on the beat. In april it was larger than any traditional news outlet, period. Ten other people make videos in the whole world on facebook, youtube and twitter. No. Its true. It sounds impossible and youre like i havent heard of this thing, ask somebody over 50, ask anybody over 50 because theyve probably seen an ad from them. They spend 1. 5 million just in the last six months putting this stuff out there. And pushing it particularly to people they target to people over 50 on facebook. Thats something we know. And also they send physical fliers to people in the mail, mostly to elderly people that show how Hillary Clinton is ending the world. Okay, the editorial slant is, you know, protrump kind of right wing conspiratorial . Who runs this thing . It is it sounds unbelievable but its true. It is run by a group by an antiChinese Communist group that believes that the world is coming to an end soon. In fact, they think judgment day is 30 years late and all communists on judgment day will go to hell and everybody else will go to heaven. And they believe donald trump was sent in part to bring this judgment day. So part of their spiritual belief and it is a spiritual practice, Spiritual Group is that donald trump is like a key figure in delivering the final judgment and raincoaty over chinese communism that they so anxiously wait for. That is 100 correct. For five months we reported the story out and thats exactly what we found for various different exemployees. They really have been the subject of horrible treatment by the chinese government, torture, imprisonment. They come by their hatred of the Chinese State honestly, lets be clear about that. Two things can be bad at once. When did this thing start and how did it grow . Its such a bizarre thing for them to take on as a thing theyre doing . The epoch time ss . Oats not Anyone Running the largest publisher of protrump right wing news in the u. S. . The leader of the Spiritual Group is named lihang jiand he said we need to become normal media. Like they have this thing kicking around which was just about spreading the gospel and this thing and they said we have to become normal media. And ever since they try today hire western journalists and they would bring them on and learn how to sort of talk like normal americans and they would fire them. Thats what happened here, too. They had a whole staff of american journalists and they fired them ten days before the election in 2016. And now they have people that sound like that guy whos, you know, really close to sort of like sounding the part but its not all the way there. So they they have now published ive been sort of looking at them, they say this is hit piece. Were chinese spies. Youre chinese spies and youre towing the Chinese Communist line. Whats the end game here . They keep growing and they hope that donald trump delivers some final victory over the Chinese Communists . Yeah, sure, look, they are deeply entwined with the administration. I had a 40minute sit down with President Trump. The president s Facebook Page has shared their content six times. When they sent a letter back to us with responses, they actually published it as an article, and devin nunes tweeted that response as like they got you nbc. So thatre really wrapped up in this. Their deeply tied into conservative media. You may not see it if again youre under 50, if youre in some different filter well, its a fantastic piece of reporting and really a fascinating look into the current ecosystem of the media. Ahead, the president weighs in on some of the worlds most fraught conflicts including a standoff between two nuclear powers. Plus tonights thing one, thing two will blow you away. 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First in case you missed it last night we announced a new series of friday night special editions of the show done in front of a live studio audience. Now the seats for this fridays show are already gone. A huge thank you to those who rushed out to get them. If you missed them this time around you can still tune in this friday at 8 00 p. M. Just like always. Plus, well have free tickets for next fridays show soon and ill let you know when those become available. The other news i have tonight is about our podcast why is this happening because it is tuesday. That means we have a new episode. This weeks interview i think is unlike any weve ever done. Weve dedicated a lot of time to covering the humanitarian crisis at the southern border and the impacts of the miduration policy of the Trump Administration. And often the way we talk about those seeking asylum is through numbers and statistics. We try to convey the extent of the crisis by showing images of crowds of people caught in limbo, and it can start to feel like undifferentiated mass of humanity splee fleeing some faceless misery. But each individual human being has their story and each story has its own trauma and own heart. We interviewed one person who sought asylum in the United States. His is one of the most emotionally powered stories ive ever heard. It was an honor to have him share his journey with me and were our listeners. The response to our conversations has already been overwhelming. So if you have not yet, make sure. Go check it out now. Yet, make sure go check it out now. Billions of mouths. Billions of problems. Morning breath . Garlic breath . Stinky breath . Theres a therabreath for you. Therabreath fresh breath oral rinse instantly fights all types of bad breath and works for 24 hours. So you can. Breathe easy. Theres therabreath at walmart. And its now on sale fors and just 59. Ories. It can lead you on an unexpected journey. To discover your heritage. Get your dna kit now for just 59 at ancestry. Com. Were pretty different. Were all unique in our own ways. Somos muy diferentes. Muy diferentes. vo verizon knows everyone in your family is different. There are so many of us doing so many different things. vo thats why verizon lets everyone mix and match different unlimited plans. Sebastians the gamer. Sebastian. This is my office. vo and now with more plans, everyone gets what they need without paying for things they dont. New plans start at just 35. The plan is so reasonable, they could stay on for the rest of their lives. Aww, did you get that on camera . Thanks, dad vo the network more people rely on gives you more. Roxana our students dont have parttime needs. So they absolutely cannot have parttime solutions. Angelia one of changes that we need is smaller class sizes. Rosanne we need a lot more school nurses, a lot more school counselors. Rodney counselors provide that social, emotional core thats needed. Marisa schools need to be safe places for our children to learn. Ever every student has the right to quality education. No matter what neighborhood you live in. Angelia we are cta. Rosanne we are cta. Marisa we are cta. Narrator because we know quality Public Schools make a better california for all of us. All right. Im going to show you some headlines of the Trump Administrations Foreign Policy announcements in the worlds hotspots and they essentially amount to donald trump sauntering around a barn with dry straw tossing matches, hither and yawn. On the brexit question, which among a slew of serious issues, involves one of the most contested and for awhile violent borders in decades. Thats the border between ireland and Northern Ireland which is of course part of great britain. What to do about that border if there is a hard brexit with no deal. Donald trump essentially says just go do it. See what happens. Just figure it out. Then on russias continued occupation of ukraines crimea which is what got russia kicked out of the g8 is the subject of an ongoing violent conflict in ukraine. President trump says let russia back into the group. Sorry, crimea. Sorry, ukraine. Meanwhile, there are 1. 7 Million People in the streets of hong kong protesting the chinese government. Donald trump has said all sorts of things, sometimes contradictory. He said the hong kong thing is a very tough situation, which i guess is true. Just yesterday he said it would be hard to make a trade deal with china if hong kong became another Tiananmen Square which i guess is a warning, but its unclear what exactly hes trying to say. Then there is literally possibly the single most dangerous and contested piece of land in the world. Which is simultaneously claimed by two nuclear powers, pakistan and india who have fought numerous wars over it, have gone into hair trigger brinksmanship in the past. Last month when the pakistani president came to the white house, the president out of nowhere apparently just lied and said the indiana Prime Minister had personally asked trump to solve the problem. Then india had to say, no, no, thats not true. No such request has been made. And then in turn, the hypernationalist figure who is kind of a trumplike figure in indian politics imposed this really disturbing crackdown on where they have gone completely radio silent. We dont know really what is happening here. Which is bringing us to whats happening here, our president s insight on the topic today. Its kashmir, and kashmirs a very complicated place. You have the hindus and the muslims, and i wouldnt say they get along so great. And thats what you have right now. A lot has to do with religion. Religions a complicated subject. Joining me now, a true expert on the subject, alyssa ayers. She served as deputy secretary of state for south asia. Alyssa, i guess i first want to start with what do we know. Ive sort of been watching reporting on this. Ive been watching folks on social media who have relatives in kashmir. What do we know about what the modi government, the Indian Government has done to put the curfew on kashmir. Right. Thank you for spending time on this issue because it doesnt get the level of attention it deserves. There is three components. There are three regions. Now, the Administrative Changes that the government of india made were accompanied by a communications blockout a blockade and by the preventive detention of a number of politicians, particularly in the kashmir region. It seems many of these restrictions have been lifted. The communications are gradually being restored to the kashmir region, but many of the politicians are still detained and thats a real tern. Okay. Two things. So there are kashmiri politicians who have been detained. The Communications Blackout is what sent chills up my spine. Did they knock out peoples Internet Service or cell phones . What was that . All of that above including some land lines. The government created some emergency lines that people could use, but it did create, you know, basically no ability to have normal communications with loved ones. What is modis play here . There is obviously a very tense status quo. It is not a settled status quo for a long time. Right. Modi is a very nationalist figure. And what is he doing here . The idea, and first i should note that removing the autonomous status of kashmir has long been a priority for modis party. So the fact that they wanted to implement Something Like this was not a surprise. It was actually the timing that actually was a surprise. As you alluded to earlier in the segment, some people in india attribute this to a real fear in india that there might be a lot more International Attention to the region and the time to act was now. They are also fearful of a region signal security situation they may worsen following the presumed withdrawal of international troops. But the way the Indian Government has explained this to the public is that they hope to bring down terrorism and militancy by amping up development, economic development, and that it will be easier to encouraging investment by having this administrative change in the region. Theyre changing the fundamental way in which the politics are administered there. Yes. There was sort of a kind of autonomy that was granted there. The party that modi represents has reacquiring it as a goal for a while as part of the nationalist project and now theyre just sort of gone and doing it. Yeah, in fact, the way this has been done, there are actually some cases that have been filed before the Supreme Court. So there is a judicial process that will unfold in india, questioning whether this was in fact the correct way to do so. You know, i dont think that obviously the american president isnt the thing that triggers this is a longstanding point of contention. Right. That precedes donald trump. But does it matter what the american president does or says about this kind of extremely delicate issue . It is delicate. I mean, i think the government of india was concerned about feeling like all of a sudden there was going to be some effort at u. S. Mediation, particularly coming on the heels of the visit of pakistans Prime Minister. Now, remember, pakistan also administers portions of what is the former Princely State of kashmir. And pakistan also has a number of terrorist groups that have been fomenting and sending terrorists across into kashmir. There was a terrorist attack just in february that escalated tensions. So this is a very unstable combination of issues here and i think the best role that the United States can play would be, first of all, to encourage pakistan to really crack down on these terrorists and to continue encouraging both countries to have a dialogue with each other. Have some safeguards there. And not just have donald trump make the deal himself, as he floated the idea. Alyssa ayers, thank you so much for that. Thank you. That is all in for this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now. Good evening, rachel. You already sold out your live show like five seconds after you said you could buy tickets . You are very note to me, Rachel Maddow. I will note that they were free. We sold out. Its nice of you to say we sold out, yes, they were free and people went to the website very quickly and snatched them all up. Youre going to do three of these live shows. When are you going to put tickets on sale for the second one . I dont know. Youll have to stay tuned. Will you tell me offline secretly . I will. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, my friend. Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. You know, sometimes there are signs early on that something is not just its just, like, its fated to not go well. In the second term of the george w. Bush Administration One of the Many International culdesacs that administration,