Lying about election results, mailing personal insults at its critics. Making famously veil threats towards those who seek to hold him accountable. But none of trumps can change the cold, hard fact that the former president now faces serious criminal charges in three separate cases. In the coming days and weeks, it could even be one more. We start tonight with congressman benny thompson, democrat of mississippi. The former chairman of the january six commission. Congressman, thank you for joining us. Its always good to talk to you. Lets talk about trumps lawyer, john moreau. He did it washington and said recall the full ginsburg today. Almost a little bit about what he had to say becho and get your response on the other side. Take a listen. The defense is quite simple, donald trump, President Trump believed in his heart of hearts that he had won that election. As an american citizen, he had the right to speak out under the First Amendment. He had the right to petition governments aroun
but not necessarily for the reasons that people are worried. back in 2016 when black voter turnout took a day, people today i think that was in the first presidential election since the gunning of the voting rights act by the supreme court. similarly, when we look at the decrease turnout in 2022, people act as if we had not just come out of a year in 2021 that saw wave of voters sweeping the country. including the state right now in the state of georgia. so, the first thing in the state of what the turnout has been over the past year and a half, it has been in the context of a wave of voter suppression. we told people what would happen if there was a federal legislation and action to deal with. that s exactly what happened. with that said, we now have to focus on, how do we overcome those barriers? how do we give support to the groups that need it? and how do we message in a way that inspires people enough that if they re able to come out in historic numbers, and spite of that suppre
is not optional, the time is now, and that this is urgent and that we need to pass this legislation. yeah, let s talk about those efforts because there are at least 17 states that are passing laws trying to restrict voting, and a new york times article from this week says these new restrictions would never have made it this far in the 60s because of a ruling by the supreme court in 2013 saying racial discrimination was no longer a threat in the u.s., thus lifting the requirement that states with a history of racial discrimination had to get approval from the justice department before changing voting laws. so are we going backwards? yes. i mean the gutting of the voting rights act by the supreme court is tragic. we know that as soon as that happened there are states that went back to their previous discriminatory practices. we saw hundreds of polling locations across the southeastern seaboard of the united states close down. we saw rules change, and i think that it is really impo
almost 150 of them moved on january 6th to block millions of votes on the basis of lies. those actions were based on the fear of losing power. that s not democratic. that s autocratic. maybe you re okay with that. because you re getting away with it. or maybe you ve become so emboldened by the neutering of the voting rights act by the supreme court. first with the gutting of section 5 eight years ago. and just seven days ago the undermining of section 2. maybe you no longer think you have anything to fear. if that s the case, it is every american who believes in democracy who now should be afraid. news on covid vaccines tonight. pfizer says you might need a third shot. a booster shot of it s vaccine while the cdc and fda say americans don t need booster shots yet. will all this complicate efforts
for photo id. always a pleasure. good to see you. you can catch his show at 6:00 p.m. eastern weeknights here on msnbc. joining me judith brown deanna. codirector of inadvancement project. what does the landscape look like legally in terms of the fallout legally, not legislatively, legally, with the voting rights act, the core part of it, the preclearance part being gutted, the states moving ahead. what recourse is there now in the courts to fight back? right, well, thanks for having me, chris. so right now, with the gutting of the voting rights act by the supreme court, what we re finding is groups like advancement project and others having to go in and aggressively litigate. so, for example, we have a case in north carolina against what s called the monster voter suppression bill that has everything in there, it s the kitchen sink. but you also see in texas, very quickly, i mean, we must remember, after the shelby county case, texas tweeted out