We are we are back here live in 30 rock second week in a row. Process a little friday situation we are doing. Great to have you all here. Thank you. Again. [ cheers and applause ] the republicans this week were attacking democratic congresswoman elect alexandria ocasiocortes in their defense they do that every woeb. She drives them nuts for some reason. This week they were attack thing because she went after an institution that has become sacred to republicans thats the Electoral College. Aocs argument was basically the Electoral College unfairly diminishes the voting power of some americans and therefore is incompatible with our basic democratic commitments. That was the argument. Republicans flipped out. All right went after her very hard. Trump tv did a bunch of segments about it. The Trump Campaign there was a freshman republican congressman guy named dan crenshaw from congress he tweeted we live in a republic not a democracy probably heard that before. And that this is a quote 51 doesnt get to boss around 49 . Well talk and then the president s campaign took it to a new level. They they sent the totally insane email a fund raising email out to the list basically accusing aoc because she advocated majority rule of attempting a coup to inenfranchise republican conservatives. They explicitly say this is our country, not theirs. Yeah, questionable. Democrats would rather change the rules so their elite friends in new york and california can regain their power. And in i think has become a major fault line in fact one of the most profound fault lines in the history of american politics. Its basically this. Do we actually really believe in democracy . Right . The question before us now in the Electoral College question is are we going to actually live up to the promise of one person one vote . Now, to be fair, its not surprising the republicans are defending the Electoral College, right . There is an obvious reason for that. Since 1992 we have had seven president ial elections. Republicans have won the popular vote one time. But theyve gotten three president s out of it. Which is a very sweet deal if you are the Republican Party. Right, you can see why im just basic tactic willing grounds why the Republican Party would want to continue a system in which they can lose a majority of votes and still guess get the powers of the presidency appointing Supreme Court justices and judges. Signing legislation. Commanding the army, everything, right. All of that with less votes than the democrat got. In no wonder they like it. But i think there is a deeper philosophical thing happening. Which is the question of what exactly american democracy is for . And the weirdest thing about the Electoral College is the fact that if it wasnt specifically in the constitution for the presidency, it would be unconstitutional. Here is what i mean by that. Starting the 1960, 1961 the Supreme Court started developing a jurisprudence of one person one vote, right. The idea and see each individual vote has to carry roughly the same amount of weight as each other individual vote. Which is a pretty intuitive concept you not a reality. There are all sorts of crazy representational systems that were created that would not give one person one vote and would disenfranchise certain minorities you can guess which ones here is an example. Lets say you got a city at 60 plaque and 40 white high pressure. Here is how you ensure white people stay in charge. Divide the city into four voting districts. Right. But you put the entire black population in one district. 60 of the people. And then each district elects one City Council Member and voila. Now the city council for a majority black city is run by a majority white government. This kind of thing they did all offer the south and all over the country. All right . And finally the Supreme Court says, no you cant do that. You cannot just come up with crazy systems of representation to essentially stymy the basic principle of majority rule. And over the course of decades any strike down representation system after representation system because it doesnt meet the standard they have articulated. Even this city new york city longstanding system of government got struck down in 1989 because we had the borough president system where two Million People in the brngs and 500,000 people in Staten Island each had a borough president. The courts like you cant do it. The base ibts principle one person one vote. The candidates with the most votes wins those are the principles applied everywhere in the United States every election turbdog catcher to state senator to governor up to two institutions. The two most powerful. United states senate, right, and this might be for another show but you may have noticed the same number of senators represent the 40 Million People of california and half Million People of wyoming. Not really one person one vote ee. Then of course the other institution the presidency. Take a step back for a second and ponder how preposterrous it is that for the most powerful office thats the case. Right . Like, if you run for class president in the fourth grade. You are elected if and only if you get the most votes. Every election. [ applause ] if you run for sheriff or mayor or governor or senator you win if you get the most votes. Thats it thats the principle. One exception, president of the United States. There are all kinds of people who will tell you this is good for all sorts of reasons. And they are all wrong. A few things to note, one the idea that historically this had anything to do with like the representation of the rural areas again the urban elites is bunk. America was you might recall pretty darn rural at the time of the constitution derivativing, right . The real genesis of the exElectoral College was the belief of shared by a lot of founders that ordinary people were dumb. And couldnt be trusted to elect a president. So instead people would elect electors who in turn convene and pick like a wise man Alexander Hamilton among others did not want normal People Choose chao can choosing the president he is cheer they wanted a small number of persons to do it but the who he will idea of the Electoral College is some kind of deliberate body come one the wise person it collapsed quickly. We have never had the system. It has been outdated since basically the third election the country had. And the other thing you hear all the time and this is what dan crenshaw says is that what what they do is look at this map trump says this too. Look at how the map is and say to you how else can we get president s to listen to the vast swaths of the country . Right you see this map . You have seen this map before. S in a map that donald trump loves. It is in fact a map up in the white house. No seriously the first thing they put up. Okay. But here is the thing. This is a map of land not of human beings. [ applause ] and it is true here is the weirdest part its true in the United States constitution thanks to the senate and Electoral College land gets to vote. Like the actual soil of wyoming, the acreage of south dakota, the square protest of the vast expanse of utah get votes because they are land. Its weird when you think about it. But thats the way it works. And thats why you get the maps. And thats why the president likes the maps. He thinks it shows how much america loves him. In reality, in is a map of a minorities of the country. There are way, way more people in the blue areas than in the red areas, right . In this map this exact map, right Hillary Clinton got tree more million more votes than donald trump. That is what protecting the Electoral College has become all about. Its about the fact that one of the Major Political collisions in American Life doesnt want americans, a majority to run the country because they fear they know they suspect deep down that they are in the minority. [ applause ] and that brings us back to dan crenshaw who says the nature of american Constitutional Government is because we are a republic not a democracy the 51 cant boss around the 49 . But what he and his party are advocating is a world in which the 49 boss around the 51 . [ applause ] and that that is both antidemocratic and perverse. America is a democracy. And if one person one vote means anything at all its time to do something totally radical and that is this. Run the president ial election the which we run every other election, the person with the most votes wins. [ applause ]. I should say that a democracy lies on more more than just one person one vote it relies on freer and Fair Elections joining me is the person hoosz job it is to make that happen. The head of the federal election commission. Ellen win traub. How are you ellen have a seat. [ applause ]. I think if you opine to openly about the Electoral College youll get fired or removed but let me ask you this. I imagine at the fec you have as a regulatory body interactions with other country regulatory body you talk about other systems. With what do people say from other countries when you talk about the Electoral College. Well chris we get a lot of folks from other countries particularly developing democracy come to learn and find out how our democracy works. When i have to explain the Electoral College i always get in kind of perplexed look. Its like a tennis match if you win the set you get all the points. Then they say but which do people accept that . And what i have historically said is well in the end it usually doesnt matter. Historically most elections the president winning the Electoral College is also person winning the popular vote so everybody is happy but of course more recently that hasnt been mapping all the time. And i worry that just like these other countries were people from other countries were confused about it that people in our own country will come to feel that the result is not legitimate. Or just. You run a body that has to essentially play the role of watchdog of american federal elections, right. What do you see as the big challenges or threats for the baseline we talk about in other parts of the world doing Election Monitoring of free and Fair Elections in the United States. People have to feel like they are represented and have a voice in their government. And that is i think the most important part of our election. Of course i worry about a lot of things in connection with our election right now. We have a lot of serious threats to our election like whats going on abroad . We saw this in 2016. The entire Intelligence Community has been very clear on this. That there were folks in russia in particular but malign foreign actors trying to influence our election. And our elections really are for american citizens. So that is i would say my biggest concern right now. That relates to the first thing you said to me which is that the kind of fundamental thing that a democratic system rests upon is psychological almost, right that its a sense of the people that the results are legitimate. Its you know there is transparency and rules but there is a deep sense of legislatimac. You kind of not by name but refuted the president multiple time wrote him a letter when he talked about widespread voter fraud. People voting twice, stolen votes. What does that do to that kind of core sense of legitimacy . Well i think it challenges it. And i think that this is a canard thats been out there for a long time its not unique to the president. And shouldnt be a partisan issue. We need to know american citizens need to know that their elections are fair and that their government represents them. Thats the most important piece of this. [ applause ] right . And when these stories are promulgated that there are people who are voting who shouldnt be voting then people really question whether the results are right, not only are they fair but are they accurate . And people have looked into this. There have been study after study about this. And after the 2014 election one scholar looked at the data. Looked at the data from 2000 to 2014, over a billion votes. And out of that billion votes he was able to find 31 instances of potential voter fraud. This is infinity test mal. The Nonpartisan Center here in new york has opined you are more likely to be struck lie lightning to than to engage in voter fraud. You would have to convince millions of people, millions of people would have to risk going to jail every single one of them to change one vote. This is exactly right. If you have ever worked if youve been around around worshippingers trying to get people to vote for real. Its hard to get people to vote. Its hard to get people to vote. [ applause ] the idea that you can run some scheme where you got people to fake vote or pretend to vote is prepostruss. Your body the fec is in the news today. Im glad we have you here on the last day for the fec. No. Its going to be a crisis turning out the lights at the undermanned fec. Under personed. Underpersoned. You hear that copy editor, yeah. I was reading for the record. But what is going on at the fec that you are now essentially smort a quorum and cant do anything. We have to have six member by law no more than three can have a political party. It takes four to make decisions. For the last couple of years weve been down bodies lost one a couple years ago. Lost another a year and a half ago and havent been replaced. This week on monday i was just about to leave town for an fec conference i got the news a colleague was resigning as of this weekend. And that will leave us with only three. Four goes down to three. You goent interest a quorum. We dont. Does that mean we dont have Election Monitor in america. Not exact we have a triskt staff of dedicated servants who come to work every day. The core mission is to make sure we have disclosure of who is behind the money. We are the original follow the money agency created after watergate. And we track all the money put it up on the web make sure every american citizen can find out who supports which candidate and what they are spend the money on. That will go on. However, there are rules and laws about all of this. That get interpreted by you and colleagues if you have a quorum and you dont have one. Right and people can file complaints. Any citizen can file a complaint. And our staff analyzes it and its teed up for a decision by the commission and the commission wont be able to make the decision. Probably a good idea to get that running in advance of 20 to. That would be good. Ellen weintraub, everybody. Thank you very much. I appreciate it [ cheers and applause ] come up our republican member of Congress Calling it quits. Will hurd of texas is here next. Dont go anywhere. Corey is living with metastatic Breast Cancer, which is Breast Cancer that has spread to other parts of her body. Shes also taking ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor, which is for postmenopausal women or for men with hr her2 metastatic Breast Cancer as the first hormonal based therapy. Ibrance plus letrozole was significantly more effective at delaying disease progression versus letrozole. 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And your movies and shows to go. The best tv experience is the best tv value. Xfinity x1. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Xfinity. The future of awesome. [ cheers and applause ] Washington Post had a big story this week about the border wall. And the president being so obsess with the wall that mexico was going to pay for and fwres wouldnt. But he is telling sboerd knits break the law to get it done. Even including basically stealing land from ranchers. He is quoted from the article saying take the land. Also suggesting he would pardon anyone following his directions to break the law. Which the white house was quick to say was a joke. Trump is joking when he makes statements about pardons. But if you want to know how popular this wall is along the border where its supposed to be built. Here a data point. The only republican to represent a district along the southwest border who squeaked pout a narrow victory in 2018 eystaded to retire. Jing me is that republican congressman will hurd. Great to see you. Great to see you. Just for the record those two things dont have to be connected, okay. Im not going to say thats why you are leaving. You can tell me later whether thats the case. But when i read the quote take the land, i thought that doesnt seem like it would play really well in the texas border area you represent. Am i wrong about that. There is a little thing we care about in the great state of texas called private Property Rights and there is going to be a couple of people [ applause ] there is a few ranchers that have an opinion on this topic. Look, i represent 820 miles of bot berd. I represent 29 counts. Two time zones taking 10. 5 hours to drive from one part of my district to the other at 80mileperhour. I found out recently its not the speed limit in all of the district. I spent almost a decade nine and a half years as an undercover officer in the cia i was in the dude in the back alley at 4 in the morning collecting intelligence. Stopping terrorists preventing russians from stealing secrets putting Nuclear Weapon pro liver eighters out of business [ applause ] so i know a few things about stopping bad guys. And building a wall from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security. [ applause ] i mean its very clear the wall and there is even reporting on this, the wall was created almost as a device the president would remember to talk about the border and immigration and he turned it into an obsession. Have you tried to communicate the basic factual case about the lack of need for the wall to the white house. I have. When john kelly was the head of dhs and ultimately chief of staff we have had conversations. And there are some parts of the border where a physical barrier actually makes sense. But there is also a lot of parts of the border where border patrols Response Time to a threat is measured in hours to days. So if you are trying to respond to a threat and it takes you hours or days, thats the wall is not a physical barrier. Now there is a problem. You have you know 35 billion with a b dollars worth of drugs comings into the country illegally. We know the humanitarian crisis is going on along the border we should be able to defend our borders and we should know whats going back and forth across the border. The way we do that is technology. The way we do that is additional manpower. Let me just sort of on the two points, right, drugs and people. Right. We know that most drupgs comes through ports of sbroe. Thats right. People are not driving to a part of the desert and bringing cartels are sophisticated and have enough people to bribe and get over on to drive them through the ports of entry. Here is what i would say a lot of the drugs are coming indeed coming through ports of entry and we should be plussing up the Technology Using there bach because we can facilitate the movement of goodson a services at the same time and stop bad guys and prevent contraband from coming in but we dont know the did he nominate naturer pan the amount of drugs coming in because we have no clue whats happening in the other parts of the areas. You made a point about the narc o traffic cartel, drug cartels. They make 35 billion in the United States. That means they are larger than mcdonalds and starbucks. And so they have the technology youre seeing them fly things in with drones. They bring it in through on sea. Here is another problem. Coast guard. Coast guard is only able to action 25 of the known intelligence on drugs coming into our coasts. That means 75 where they know something is not happening. Lets spend the money on those things that are going to stop this from coming in. Even the logic of more enforcement, we have seen that over time. Sure. Its gone up every year i talk to people a lot of times we used to have migration that was seasonal people move back and forth one of the things that happened when you up border enforcement you dont just keep people out you keep them in. Umhum. There is a direct correlation the more you enforce the border the harder you make it to get across the border they come for a year and go back six months and go back they stop that. The president sees the border in almost a neurothe on theic way as a place where germs get in when i breathe i might get germs im going to stop breathing. The border is a good thing things through the border arent just bad things. Look we should be defending our border. But also we should be facilitating legal immigration, right. The. The expanding it. Absolutely. Sure. [ applause ] the United States of america has been rowe benefitted from the brain drain of every other country for the last couple of decades. Lets continue that. This is a great crowd by the way. [ applause ] yeah. You got them applauding private property and cia in the first minnesota. Why are you retiring is. Im retiring im looking to help my country in a different way. I know thats what you say but why are you really retiring. I want to make sure there is 15, 0 folks like me in washington, d. C. And the only way to do that. Do you mean by that. You represent republicans in republican primaries. And so we know how to do that. Thats what ive been doing the last three election cycles. Also my background and passion is National Security technology to be able to continue working at the nexus in a couple ways i look forward to that. I left the cia to help my country in a different way in addition to collecting intelligence i had to brief members of congress and i was pretty shocked by the caliber of our elected officials. And my mama said part of the problem or part of the solution. Now i think i can help my country in a different way politically working on these issues because we have generations challenges we have to deal with. I want to end with the quote you talked to the log cabin republicanss in a party thats shrinking the party is not growing in largest parts of the country ill tell you its simple. Dont be an a hole. The race ifrt. Misogynist. Homophobe we should all learn these things when we are in kindergarten. Is that directed at anyone in particular. Look, i was i was just speaking my mind, right. And we look in texas, i always tell my colleagues in texas, if the Republican Party in texas doesnt start looking like texas there is not going to be a Republican Party in texas. And that can plai for the to the rest of the country. And so my goal is to go in and look i go to communities i conceptsly win im a black republican representing a 71 latino district. Right. Right. And what ive learned crisscrossing the district thats actually 50 50. Way morp unites us than divides and if we focus on the things we agree on we can solve real problems. Thank you very much. Thank you. Theres been never been a more corrupt president in the lifetime the reason we know is because there is one reporter who never stops digging he is here with us. Dont go away. Run with us on a john deere 1 series tractor. Beacuse changing your attachments, should be as easy as. What about this . Changing your plans. Yeah. Run with us. Search john deere 1 series for more. Yeah. Run with us. I wanted more thats why ive got the power of 1 2 3 medicines with trelegy. The only fdaapproved 3in1 copd treatment. Trelegy. The power of 123. Trelegy 123 trelegy. 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I just get you mixed up with the other guy. Whats his name . Whats your name . Switch to geico®. You could save 15 or more on car insurance. Could you just tell me . I want this to be over. Thats ensure max protein, with high protein and 1 gram sugar. Its a situp, banana bend at the waist im tryin keep it up. Youll get there. Whoahoahoa 30 grams of protein, and one gram of sugar. Ensure max protein. [ applause ] remember that weird moment back in january 2016 during the primary when donald trump was in a fight with fox news and decided to skip their debate and held a fund raiser for veterans and bragged he raised 6 million for the vets including a million from his own pocket and starpted handing out huge novelty checks. But he stiffed veterans. It was crazy. One reporter at the Washington Post started running around trying to find out exactly where the money went. And what he found because that donald trump hadnt donated all that at all. The reporter basically shamed him into giving the money. And then we [ applause ] pretty good. And then we went on to elect that guy president. And the one mo reported it got a pulitzer. And he he has now become the foremost reporter on the scope of the president s corruption and conflicts of interest. David farronhold joins me now. So you start on this journey where the president says i gave a Million Dollars. You start calling organizations. Yeah. At a certain point the president calls you he is a candidate at that point. Yes he called me. And so at this point his Campaign Said he had given a Million Dollars to veterans. I couldnt find any evidence of it. I called every Veterans Organization i could think of every person who knew a veterans i couldnt find any evidence he gave the money out. So trump called me and trump said then, okay, ten minutes ago i gave the Million Dollars away. To the happy now. And see and it was one of the strangest conversations. There was a bunch of other people money had given him he was sitting on that he said he would give to veterans. While i had him on the phone i would say be, okay, where is that money . And he would weird interaction where he would say instead of answering the question he would say youre a nasty person. You know, youre the worst person ever. And like whats the point in arguing about that . First of all i cant be the worst person ever. And but also whats the point in arguing at a about that i would say okay thank you mr. President or mr. Candidate. Lets go back to the subject of these donations. And he would briefly reset and answer the question sort of semi factually or address it factually but devolve to insults qin. We did that five or six times before the interview was over. So then after this big kind of you discovered this thing. He said he gave a Million Dollars he didnt. Then he has to. Then your editor marty barron has a conversation with you about how to make this a beat. Right. Then sort a one off hobby for me it was not like somebody said write about Donald Trumps charitable gifting marty said that and said well in the under the microscope of a president ial campaign, this is the brightest spotlight we have in american journalism. This guy tried to stiff veterans, the moecht honored group in our society. If he is willing to try that under the microscope we have on him now what was he doing before when it was Just Entertainment tonight coping hip honest, you know. Right, right. [ applause ] so you do this great reporting on the Foundation Throughout the campaign. There is the great there is all the amaze willing colorful details one is he keeps buying big por traits of himself. We have the portrait of Like Foundation money. He uses Foundation Money to by big por traits of himself then puts them in his property and there are pony dpsh dsh there is not real charity there. This is what happened. People often at maralago, in sort of as a side entertainment theyll have an auction of paintings or whatever. I think artists learned if you paint a picture of donald trump he has to buy it. Because no one else will buy it. And then it sits unsold. He would buy the paintings of himself. This is a charity auction. Right if he wants to spend to thousand which is what it was in one case to buy a giant picture of himself great the money goes to charity. The problem is he didnt use his own money. He used the Charity Money to save him money. Okay. Now you do that. If you are charity buys the paining that painting is now a charitable assets. Must be used for charitable purposes that became an important question where is the painting hanging on the wall of a Childrens Hospital someplace . Not that youd endorse that. Thats not very charitable. In a legal sense it would be. Children on college ward. Like, oh. Right. We need to to know where it was was, the purpose it serves. After a long search using twitter one of my twitter followers found it hanging on the wall of the golf resort at doral future sight of the group of 7 zblumt well talk about that. You do this and basically now the foundation has been shut down by the state authorities. The new York Attorney general has shuttered it. [ applause ] there is theyre going to shut it down as soon as they can figure out hout how to the court will supervise the distribution of assets. You move to a different part of the beat which is the foundation relatively small. And its a small world. And you can kind of track down they both have to have public filings you can track down other folks involved in it. Now we have a president with vast business empire. That he is not really that disconnected from. What have you been able to find out about that part of his financing. Youre right thats been a much more difficult task. Because its unlike the charity a lot of the assets and details are better hidden. We have spent time on it. A lot of it is not doing well. We have spend a lot of time trying to identify op the logic if his business does worse he could be become more dprit for favors or observer people seeking to help him youd maybe rather have a president getting rich op off the business rather than losing money off the sfwlois ive never heard you articulate that. Your theory of the case is a desperate indebt spiraling downward president would be a dangerous from a corruption perspective or foreign influence perspective because they might be desperate to do whatever they can to get gifts or money to stay afloat. As an american youd want to know that. I think thats fair to say, sure. If the president is trying to pay off a loan on friday, what will he do if he is in that zprags. We looked at the businesses i cant tell if you the whole business is making or losing money but a lot of the businesses are doing poorly. Some shut down petition. He has lost hotels we have spent time trying to understand that als well as who is putting money in. Weve had a few stories almost i suppose o fact o meriting impeachment they merit real scrutiny. Constitutional threats. One or two stories about saudis dumping a ton of money into his hotels. Two ins stands saudi lobbyist after he gets elected they are running a bogus lobbying campaign flying American Veterans into washington and have them Lobby Congress for a bill thats that the saudi secretly opposed they were doing the saudi bidding wutt know going. Its a waerd thing where you have veterans get flown out to lobby against a bill the saudis doesnt want to which will. The saudis put them up in the hotel. Five hundred hotel rooms over the course of three months plus bang wet meals all kinds of things qb 270,000. Just put going in context if we found out that mbs wrote a collect to donald trump for 270,000 obviously there are expenses here but if we found out the saudi prince wrote the president a keck for 270,000 that would obviously be the the biggest story in the world. Right. Right . Right and i think we are trying just starting to understand how it works with trump, right. I mean maybe somebody is writing him checks. I dont know. Ive never seen that. But there are ways people get money to him through his businesses. His businesses are 100 owned by him. You pay his business 17 oh 0,000 thats a personal asset. There are expenses its not pure profit but it is money that goes to a pot he controls squloo its not just that too. Its the fact that when you do five hundred rooms of business or in thes case of the trump hotel in new york when the saudi family came through and you reported that they put them in the black for the quarter, right. The trump hotel in new york on Central Park West has not been doing well losing business. But they wrote the letter to the investors at the beginning of last year saying great news for once we made a profit for the quarter and the reason was one group of saudi travelers traveling with the crown prince staying for five days spent so much the whole hotel made money foreign the quarter. Two things are problematic. One is the constitute emolument claus but two in both cases you can imagine the information getting back to the president. Its one thing if it was happening and he dont know know where the money comes from but when they write the letter to the investors and we had a great quarter from the saudis there is a plausible case it gets back to him. Thats one thing we are interested in i cant tell you much about. What information is getting to him. If the saudis spend that money and tell the investors about it. Does that go to him . The communication between the business and trump is something i dont understand well. Both cases you got scoops, tips. Umhum. There is correct me if im wrong. There is no real way to look into the president s finances right now. Not in any holistic do are way. I can tell you how this or that business is doing but the whole thing, no. The you mentioned how the president started the week getting up in front of a microphone, promoting doral as the site of the next g 7 how is that doing. Not well. Really poorly actually. [ applause ]. Doral is its important to foe at the start doral is a human part of his finances. A big hotel but unlike other hotels he owns directly its not a franchise sfl right. Its the bigsz source of revenues has the biggest loans in the words of trump he is representatives its been severely underperforming. Profits went down 69 since 2015. And the reason we got the great video of the representative talking to Miamidade County explaining why the hotel was doing poorly. She said basically the reason is trump. The reason is the brand there is nchgt connotation on the brand this is a hotel that needs help. [ applause ] this is a hotel that could use a influx of revenue even if it didnt push the profitability just the revenue to keep the lights on would be welcome there. Final question, the investigative reporting gene y pops out of the lauvergne and says david i grant you a wish you get to look at any documents you want. Were limiting it to trump orb zbliet are there ufos. I mean, i guess what id want to know is how is the business doing overall and if it needs financial help where does that financial help come from . Have they dewon to anybody outside the company outside of the sources of money we know about which are Deutsche Bank and public lenders have they reached out beyond that for financial help eerpt in the presidency or years preceding the presidency. Great question david thank you for being with us. Thank you. Next up, why dont we just ignore the president thats our discussion when we return. I have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. Now, theres skyrizi. 3 out of 4 people achieved. 90 clearer skin at 4 months. After just 2 doses. Skyrizi may increase your risk of infections. And lower your ability to fight them. Before treatment your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection. Or symptoms such as fevers,. Sweats, chills, muscle aches or coughs. Or if you plan to or recently received a vaccine. I feel free to bare my skin. Visit skyrizi. Com. And this is me now i got liberty mutual. 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Ouyour patience might not. Ay. New depend® fitflex underwear offers your best comfort and protection guaranteed. Because, perfect or not, lifes better when youre in it. Be there with depend®. Run with us on a john deere 1 series tractor. Beacuse changing your attachments, should be as easy as. What about this . Changing your plans. Yeah. Run with us. Search john deere 1 series for more. [ applause ] [ applause ] we recently had a kind of unicorn day in the trump era. These are the front pages of todays three major newspapers. Okay look at them. You notice anything . None of the papers have donald trump on them. He is in none of of the headlines thats exceedingly rare in the era of the ubiquitous president. He wasnt on the other three papers yesterday either. Here a question for the democratic strategists or candidates thinking about how to beat trump and the media thinking about how to cover him particularly during the campaign and when it wraps up is all the attention good or donald trump or bad for donald trump . Is it god for him not to be on the front page orp bad for him not to be on the front page. Its a incredibly intense debate. Actors in the media system and how they relate to the president. Here to talk about is the daniel moodiemills host of the show woke am. And a staff writer. Let me just first stipulate its bad for him psychologically when he is not the source of attention. Like that we know politically less paid on donald trump is that good or bad or donald trump danielle. Its good for the country but bad for donald trump. Donald trump has a very fragile ego. When he is not in the press he does his best to make news he guess on the twirpt rants. I mean politically if you are looking at if you were advising him as a political strategist and he was a person containable. And i was not a Reality Tv Show star. Right. If it wasnt reality tv if you are trying to get his Approval Rating up as high as possible is your advice stay off the headlines or always be in the headlines. I would say stay off the headlines unless you rp executing policy that is going to benefit the American People because when he is in the headlines its generally bad. Yeah, what do you think. I think there is actually pretty consistent polling data that trump, you know, not that often but he guess through periods of being relatively normal. Right. And over time his poll numbers go up. And if you just oefrp the last few weeks with you will at Different Things happening notwithstanding the last couple days he trends down. So all of the antics and stuff it it makes him less popular. You know its in a pretty tight bound. But the basically i think until now, look, the economy during his presidency even if its not his doing has been pretty good. So as long as he is just youre not hearing from him its just the incumbent president is popular because the economy does well. So i think it is good for him when he shuts up. The argue argument on the other side is that attention is the most important commodity of our time. Its the reason that you know facebook is worth billions of dollars, right because they get eyeballs and people look at it even if the apology doesnt reflect it there is a kind much superpower and power conferred on him by all the attention. Sure. I mean, he has had a kind of malignant charisma from the get go. And people trafficked on it. But there is a particular demographic for him saying things outrageous, insulting people, getting into feuds with people who have comparatively less power than him which is everyone in the country, these people feel he is championing them but on the other side of it those of us in the actual reality are more than more concerned about, you know, what this says about policy, like about the the stability of the person who has his hand on the control of the economy and on the military and so on. But there is also i feel like there is a dark compulsive emotional attachment to the vilny. Sure. Right . I mean the way that he is the way he excavates for supporters a sense that theyre embattled and he fights for them. There is also a sense from the folks listening to your radio show or call in, its hard for everyone to break the hafbt paying attention. Its hard because you want to be in the know. The fear is that when you are not paying that one minute you decide to i dont know walk your dog or take a nap that the world ends and you will have found out about it on twitter. So [ applause ] thats a real fear and anxiety that people say on a regular basis to me when they call in appear on a so they want to be tapped in but they are so tapped out its exhausting following donald trump on a regular basis. [ applause ] how much how do you think that i think that exhaustion its felt across the political spectrum. I wonder how you think that ends up playing politically, right because its the media has to figure out whats news worth and how do we do deal with the person lying all the time. Democratic Campaign Strategist he is have to figure out how to extricate yorpz from the vortex and what do you deliver as a message to people who are exhausted we have seen this in the ways we interact with readers and stuff. There are a lot of people who are hiktle and concerned. And a lot of them saying i have to turn it off. Im drinking poison basically. Hard to turn it off. But as people kofrpg the news, fundamentally we are about the reality of the situation. And the reality of the situation is this man is president of the United States. He controls the biggest military that has ever existed in the history of the world. So this is i think there is there is a there is a certain strange of thinking of sort of the higher thinking journalism which is if we ignore we take away the oxygen and wont exist. I have always thought kind of before before there was trump when there was the sort of the subterrain yan trumpness everywhere in the politics ignoring it doesnt make it go away it just makes you surprised when it comes up. Fundamentally i dont think we can ignore it because its the reality of the situation. I think that applies to democrat candidates too. The situation in the country right now is that donald trump is the president of the United States. And that is a crisis. And if you try to run a campaign ignoring that fact, youre going to seem stupid and irrelevant. [ applause ] so i mean the fundamental conflict here is about what you are doing for ratings or as a responsibility. And our responsibility is to cover whats going on at this extraordinary moment in our history. And there is a temptation lolts of american stukss dismayed it since november of 2016 there is the temptation to just stick your head in the sand and pretend that this is all just a regular normal event. It is not. And its terrifying. And people dont want to tune in to something where theyre going to be terrified. But the fact is we have a responsibility of saying this is actually whats happening on any given day. Right but i mean the problem with that is that normalcy is almost a its a phenomenon created by repetition. Right. The phrase i use it you know the dial only goes to ten, right. And once you put it up to ten long enough it sounds like five you can only mod late so much. If everything is a crazes nothing is a crisis which is a challenge. People say dont normalize but you dont want to be history onic saying this is nuts, this is nuts. Except given the level of insanity we have seen just in his demeanor, in his rhetoric rick, we have not seen a kind of corresponding catastrophe in Foreign Affairs or the economy or any of the things we foe are supersensitive dell kits things that require a fundamentally sane person at the whole. What happens when Something Like that does happen . What happens when his policy toward iran is driven more by whim that particular morning or what one said on fox news that day. This is Donald Trumps fundamental strategy and the strategy of the Republican Party. When he came into office, the day after inauguration day, psychology today magazine put out an article called the 11 warning signs of gas lighting. One of the 11 warning signs are to lie about everything because then you believe nothing. Right . You lie about everything. You believe nothing. You discredit agencies. You discredit people. You say dont believe youre lying eyes, believe the words coming out of my mouth. Thats fundamentally donald trump strategy. Its not just the normalization. Its actually the breakdown of everything that we have come to understand as what makes us a fundamental democracy. And then that becomes the issue for you know right now tlts did you just talked about josh in terms of the campaign. You know they had the strategy in the midterms. If you look at the ads and say the 40 districts flipped. They are theyre not about donald trump theyre not about impeachment not about the russia investigation. Theyre about health care, Kitchen Table issues. Can you do that when youre running for president and he is the one who is on the ballot . You know, i think can you do both. I would actually say, yes, the memging down in those districts is going to be about health care because that was the that has been the big thing that was on the table in the in the first two years. We can talk about all the more general issues. But whether or not you are going to Lose Health Care whether or not we go back preexisting conditions all that, that was on the table. I think at a basic level, though, Everybody Knows trump is president. And so right. And its so overpowering and he is overpowering that at a certain level you dont always have to say it but i do think that you ignoring something doesnt make it go away. You cant ignore it but you have to stand your ground and talk amidst the vortex and while the winds whip you have to stand in there. Thats hard to do it was in a. Giuliani. Could be. Danielle. That does it for our second ever all in our last studio show is next friday september 6 come be part of the audience. You can find them at the website. Msnbc all in. I hope you see you live in new york next friday. Thats all this evening thanks to everyone here. Thank you everyone watching at home. Hi. Im richard lui at msnbc headquarters in new york city. Thanks for being with us at the top of the hour. Were continuing to follow the breaking news coming out of west texas. At least five people are dead. 21 more are injured. This after a mass shooting earlier today in the cities of odessa and midland. Police say one suspect was killed near a movie theater. And that there is no longer an active shooter threat. They describe the suspect as a white male in his mid 30s. President trump was made aware of the event tweeting earlier, just briefed by attorney general barr about the shootings in texas. Fbi and Law Enforcement is
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