18-year-old walk in, a 20-year-old and buy an ar-15. that s why back in 1994 i took on the nra and passed the assault weapons ban. for ten years mass shootings were down. ten years in a row. i was going to say i passed that legislation in 1994 as a senator. but in 2004 republicans let that ban expire. what happened? mass shootings in america tripled. it s time to ban these. it s time to ban these weapons. we did it before. we can do it again. [ applause ] it s time to hold every elected official s feet to the fire and ask them are you for banning assault weapons, yes or no? ask them. if the answer is no, vote against them. [ applause ] look, i m prouder that after seven years we finally had a senate confirm director of alcohol, tobacco and firearms responsible for fighting gun crimes, for seven years the other team would not let us appoint anyone to that job. incredibly important job to help local law enforcement, federal law enforcement identify the ballistics. a whole range
tribalism. i want to get back to a point that dowd actually stole from me here is that, you know, nicole, if you re talking about 10 or 12% of americans who are all in on this cult-like behavior, you re talking about upwards of 20 million people. you re talking about an army of americans, and that s the real danger here. that s why i actually really appreciate what president biden did today, what, to me, what president biden did today was really a call to americans decency, a call back to decency in politics and asked over and over again, you know, what the heck are we doing? this isn t america. this isn t who we are. and i think the majority of americans will rally around that ideal that, this is not who we are. and this is something that we have to put down. yeah, i mean, alexi, i
democracy. we re back with our panel, alexi, matt, and cornell. matt, talk about to be clear, that could have gone on for another 30, 40, 50 minutes. talk about this crop of republicans. well, you know, i had to come up with a test a three-part test in order to limit the number to ten, because the number is north of a hundred and that s serious. the number is north of a hundred of candidates that are that are nominated by republicans in this election in state after state, so i wanted to limit to the top ten so we could focus on the top ten, and it s basically a three-part test, as you just evidenced from there. it s, one, how crazy they are, the crazy stuff they say and the unhinged stuff they say and how far out of the mainstream they are. two is how much of a danger are they to democracy if they take power, if they actually win the office. and three, what are their chances of winning in this election? because, yes, somebody could be crazy, and yes, somebody could be a danger,
they mean. they believe you don t need that many people to have a successful coup or uprising or revolution in the united states. that s the whole point of this for groups like the oath keepers, and three percenters and the qanon people. they are not interested in majority rule. they are interested in fighting. they want desperately to fight a ground war in the united states to keep their guy in power, and that s where this is all headed, and i think that s, you know, sounding the alarm today is very important. ben collins, thank you for your reporting on all this. i m really grateful that you do it and that you take the time to come and talk to us about it. alexi, matt and cornell stick around. when we come back, matthew has compiled a list of the top candidates who pose the most danger to our constitutional democracy. we ll go through all of them. they re some of the biggest election deniers who spread some of the most insidious conspiracy theories, and alarmingly, they also have a
will the losers of any of the midterms elections acknowledge narrow losses? will the twice impeached ex-president incite more violence? the burning questions about this moment in american politics is where we begin the hour with some of our most favorite reporters and friends. axios political reporter alexi is here. political strategist, my friend, matt dowd, and cornell belcher is here, pollster and president of brilliant corners research. alexi, matt and cornell are all msnbc contributors. also joining us today, msnbc senior reporter ben collins. i want to start with you. your twitter feed is the stuff of my nightmares. i flagged it, and i have been sending it around, because the things that donald trump i don t know if he has this many followers on the what is it? the social truth as he did on twitter, but a lot of people watch what he does and talk about what he is disseminates.