tonight s special coverage. i m rachel maddow here at the and messam busy mothership with my colleagues joy, read and lawrence o donnell, and gems, aki and all remember. great to have you all. here our friends chris hayes and stephanie ruhle will be joining us later. it is going to be fun. we are less than a week out from the republican presidential caucuses in iowa, last i when public debate is underway tonight with oddly, a sort of random selection of two of the remaining five people for presidential candidates taking part in that debate. if you can, right now, name all five remaining republican presidential candidates off the top of your head without looking anything up, congratulations. also two of them are debating, tonight nikki haley and ron desantis. also tonight, two miles away from that final hour debate, fox news conducted a live town hall with the front running republican candidate who of course has refused to participate in any debates at all of this year, but
undoubtedly sign the thing. now, if you are live in the real world, and the words diversity, equity, and inclusion sound like positive things to you, what happened today in florida feels like madness. but if you re a fox news viewer, this all might make perfect sense. it might even seem overdue. let me take a step back. this is christopher ruffo. he s now one of the people that governor desantis has appointed to the board of trustees that oversees new college in florida that s a school that we, on the show, have done quite a bit of reporting on. it is the school that governor desantis is essentially trying to make the test case for anti woke education. christopher ruffo is also likely the reason your conservative uncle wouldn t stop talking about critical race theory, or crt, at thanksgiving last year. ruffo is even the reason former president trump became obsessed with crt. and september of 2020, ruffo went on tucker carlson s show to not only make his case against crt, but
give some of these republican officeholders truth serum. and get out why they were doing this. like, why get into the whole election came? what would they say? because well i think power is one thing. but to really have no principles that you can particularly articulate other than winning. i mean, and texas it s particularly interesting, and it s interesting in a lot of the states. cnn missouri, ohio s not like you guys are on the run. you re doing fine! you don t have to rig the rules. the paranoia is so the paranoia, yeah. but to holders point, if there wasn t so much no, there weren t. it s a confession. it s a snake eating its own tale. exactly. thank, you my friend, as always. today, the florida state house of representatives cast a bill that prevents colleges and universities in florida from spending any money on anything that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion. the state senate already gave this bill the greenlight, so not heads to f
it s really progressive. it s moving very very quickly now. brand-new indications of an imminent trump indictment. we ll have the latest. then these were the jim jordan, marjorie taylor greene, matt gates. days the big republican area of republican oversight. a big old. that this is a new republican playbook, apparently. this american safety and security to score political points. tonight the latest fools errand from the government weaponization committee. hypocrisy is the hangover of an addiction to attention. the disappointment of its biggest supporters. i m sick of these hearings. make me feel better, guys. tell me this is going somewhere. can i throw someone in prison. plus, as loughlin murdaugh tries to defend fox news, jane mayer looks at the fallout from the defamation suit. and a fresh warning about democracy in 2024. ryan gilman joins live when all in starts right now. good evening from new york. i m chris hayes. we ve got some breaking news ton
here. in norfolk southern ceo apologizes after that toxic train derailment in ohio. he is grilling from lawmakers, today, as the 11th hour gets underway on this thursday night. good evening once again. i m stephanie ruhle. buckle up, boys, and girls, the new york times is reporting tonight the manhattan prosecutors are inching closer and closer to criminal charges against the former president, donald j trump, and the stormy daniels case. that, as you recall, is the one involving hush money payments made before the 2016 election to keep the former porn star, daniels, from talking about her apparent affair with trump, who still denies it. the times says that according to four sources, quote, the manhattan district attorney s office recently signaled to trump s lawyers that he could face criminal charges for his role in the payment of hush money. prosecutors offered trump the chance to testify next week before the grand jury. alvin bragg in his office declined to comment on th