Transcripts For MSNBCW Alex 20240702

moderate republicans voted in -- voted in a far right speaker of the house. with the intraparty war over house leadership resolved the idea was that those emergencies would finally be dealt with, at least that was the idea. today it became painfully obvious that the republicans new speaker, congressman mike johnson, is not really going to deal with any of it. this evening speaker johnson put every republican on the record voting for a bill that did not include any aid to ukraine, and which would provide aid to israel only on the condition congress defunded the irs to allow billionaires to cheat on their taxes. >> we have obligations, and we have commitments, and we want to protect and help our friend israel, but we have to keep our own house in order as well. >> you're saying you will not pass an israel aid bill unless it's offset? is that the correct interpretation? >> that's what we're going to do. i did not attach that for political purposes, okaych i attached it because, again, we're trying to get back to the principle of fiscal responsibility here. >> before we get any further here it has to be pointed out a bill that cuts funding to the irs does not do anything to get back to the principle of fiscal responsibility. in fact, the head of the irs estimates that cutting that funding would actually cost the u.s. $90 billion in tax revenue, which is plainly obvious. if you defund the tax police for rich people, rich people end up paying less taxes. it also should be noted that speaker johnson and house republicans are once again very concerned about the debt with a democrat in the white house. they were far less concerned when donald trump added almost $8 trillion to the debt in a single term in part due to massive tax cuts that republicans passed to benefit the wealthy. i see a pattern here. and tonight republicans voted overwhelmingly to bass that bill tying aid for israel to what is effectively aid for billionaires. so the domestic politics here are transparent. but the global consequences could be damning. thomas freedman writes today in "the new york times," thank goodness johnson was not the speaker during world war ii. he and his myopic members might have pressed to fund the war in europe but not the japanese in the pacific. where they would have agreed to lend assistance only where the allies would agree to lend together. they are shameless, shameful, and dangerous. they are also apparently wasting a whole lot of everybody's time. senator chuck schumer has already declared speaker johnson's bill dead on arrival in the senate, and senate republican leader mitch mcconnell has already embraced the idea of keeping israel aid tied to ukraine aid, which puts him directly at odds with the republican speaker of the house. do not be mistaken into thining senate republicans have it better, though. last night republicans took to the senate floor and spent four hours fighting with a fellow republican after senator tommy tuberville refused to give up his months long blockade on military appointments as a protest, a one man protest over the defense department's abortion policy. >> i really respect men of their word. i do not respect men who do not honor their word. >> if this is the norm, who the hell wants to serve in the military when your promotion can be canned based on something you had nothing to do with? >> and it's simply a -- in my opinion an abuse of the powers we have as senators. >> we're going to look back at this episode and just be stunned at what a national security suicide mission this would bring. >> today they were able to finally break through for a few hours and individually confirmed three military leaders, but senator tuberville has blocked almost 400 nominations and he does not seem to be going anywhere. this whole thing is not over yet, nor is the battle over aid for israel and ukraine. meanwhile, house republicans would rather be working on something else entirely. last night at least 50 house republicans all appeared together for an interview, i guess you'd call it an interview with sean hannity. if that alone wasn't enough, this is what happened. >> is this leading to impeachment? >> we're going to follow the truth where it leads because we have a constitutional responsibility to do so. we're on it, we're going to continue. >> let me scan the room, how many of you think that's where this is headed? please raise your head. wow, a whole room. thank you all. >> joining me now is congressman adam schiff, democrat of california. he is also, of course, a candidate for the california senate seat from california. congressman, thank you for being here. i just would like to first get your reaction to the process, i guess we could call, that speaker johnson has led in the house. thomas freedman asserts that johnson is either too inexperienced or too ideological or both to see the geopolitical reality of what this is. what do you think he is? >> well, i think he's probably right on both regards that a lack of experience and frankly a lack of substance, a lack of seeing the big picture, a willingness to be small and not consider what's at stake, not consider how the rest of the world is going interpret this partisan bill on israel that was saddled with this poison pill of letting off the hook wealthy tax cheats. wealthy tax cheats -- and i do think more particularly as you mention in the outset these are small but petty partisan thinkers at a time when the world has huge challenges. and he's going to have to learn fast. he's going to have to grow fast because the world demands it. we need to support our ally, israel. we need to support our ally, ukraine. we need to make sure we can provide humanitarian relief for palestinians being used as human shields by hamas. we need to be able to do it all, and this was a terrible start of a speakership. >> do you think that he is just going to -- i mean right now it looks as if there's a real -- a continuing intraparty war between republicans in the upper chamber and republicans in the lower chamber. mitch mcconnell does not approve at least in terms of what he said of what speaker johnson is doing, decoupling the ukraine aid from israel aid. how do you think this ends? >> i think it ends with our providing aid to israel, aid to ukraine. and i hope it ends up being jointly done and in a bipartisan fashion. but, you know, mcconnell is looking at playing the same game in the senate, frankly, just on the other aid package. with israel aid, the republican house speaker wanted a time to, you know, the republican dream of letting off wealthy tax cheats. in the senate mcconnell is dreaming of combining ukraine aid apparently with some republican harsh border bill. neither of those poison pills belong in these emergency aid packages. historically they never have. we've taken them up individually particularly during a time of war. and hope at the end of the day we get to the place we should have started at. but the fact it's going to take time and it's going to involve the kind of division which was showcased in the house today, you know, it's a welcome sign for putin, it's a welcome sign for hamas, and it's a welcome sign for iran and their other terrorist organizations they back. >> meanwhile, the republicans in the house have -- at least 50 of them have time to sit for an interview with sean hannity and raise their hand in support of an impeachment proceeding or an impeachment process for president biden. i want to play a little bit of sound from speaker johnson talking about the impeachment process. this is from today. >> i do believe that very soon we are coming to a point of decision on it. what you're seeing right now is a deliberate constitutional process not the way the democrats did it, snap impeachments, sham impeachments and all the rest. >> congressman, you were intimately involved in the impeachment proceedings in the house. what do you make of this current speaker calling it the way the democrats did it was a snap impeachment, a sham impeachment? >> well, he has a fairly short memory, apparently. we investigated as you know during a lengthy period of time the president's russia misconduct. we didn't bring impeachment proceedings although many were urging us to do so at the time. it wasn't until his even more serious ukraine misconduct that was discovered that we initiated impeachment proceedings. and so he has a very short and evidently very inaccurate memory of things. but what we understood is once we announced an impeachment investigation, that was going to gather great momentum. it's why we held off for so long. but by kevin mccarthy announcing an impeachment investigation in the hopes of throwing that red meat to his base would save his speakership, neither saved his speakership nor was the right move for the country because it created this momentum, this train moving forward. >> speaking of which there was movement yesterday to expel george santos from congress. the vote failed. there were also 31 democrats who voted not to expel congressman santos. one of them was your colleague jamie raskin. i wonder how would you vote if you could vote tonight? >> i would have voted to expel him. but for two canceled flights, i would have voted to expel him. the evidence against santos i think is overwhelming. republicans ntsds that just as well as we do, but they want his vote anyway. they'll take the vote of the serial liarany day of the week to prop up their very weak fragile, divided majority. while i understand the argument of some of my democratic colleagues who opposed the motion to expel him, i think you have to look at the quantum of evidence and not simply await a conviction because we have to have a higher standard in the house than a conviction of multiple felonies. >> congressman adam schiff, someone who still believes in standards in the house of representatives. i think the other side of the aisle is doing much to disabuse that notion. now i want to turn to sam stein. thank you for being here. what do democrats do with mike johnson leading the house of representatives? >> well, i think they have to wait and see which way this goes in. one, he's signaled to senate republicans he does support ukraine aid. he said he supports aid for israel, but he's also in the other direction put this provision in for an israel-only package that he knew wchbt get adopted by the senate. and so democrats on the hill we talk to and including in the white house, frankly, are in a wait and see approach. they don't know the guy particularly well. they have almost negligible time negotiating with him. ultimately they're going to have to engage him. >> they're going to have to engage him, and he's going to have to engage them, too, right? or at least he's going to have to engage the people standing in opposition to him. i guess i wonder what you think johnson's next move there. he made republicans in this congress take this vote knowing it was dead on arrival in the senate, right? >> oh, yeah. and this is the same problem that kevin mccarthy essentially faced, right? at some point you probably do have to anger a portion of your caucus. and how much you anger them could very well determine how long you hold onto the speakership. for mccarthy it was funding the government for a matter of months, and wasn't he did that, it was over. keep in mind the impeachment stuff you were just talking about with adam schiff, kevin mccarthy launched an impeachment inquiry without a vote precisely to buy himself more time with the hard liners in his caucus, and that did not do the trick. so now mike johnson faces basically the same issue, right? how long can he placate those members of his caucus before he has to bring to the floor a vote to fund the government, potentially fund ukraine and fund israel? and what kind of concessions can he maybe extract that could make it more palatable to the conservatives? they still have that small threshold that allows them to oust the speaker if they choose to do so. >> well, not only do they have that sort of legislative reality, or that sort of parliamentary reality in their grip, there's also the example of tommy tuberville sitting in the senate getting absolutely destroyed by his colleagues in his party for this one-man campaign that has borne no fruit, that has held up 400 military appointments that he's been at since february of this year, he's not shutting it down. i kind of wonder to what degree, you know, house republicans look at that and say, you know, that's the kind of guy i want to be. >> right. well, i empathize with tommy tuberville. that's how my colleagues feel about me, and they say it to me all the time, and it makes a lot of sense to me. i think it was mitt romney in a clip said something about the ability of one or two people. and it used today be you would be a pariah, you would get embarrassed about it and ultimately they would work around you. in the modern day politics tommy tuberville frankly is a hero to a lot of people. he's showing no willingness to back off on what he's doing. there's very few points of leverage except a rules change they could hold over him. and that gets to the incentive structure you're talking about, right? which is for moderate politicians the thing to do now is stick your neck out and that would be considered crazy and outrageous, fund raise a ton of money and bask in the idea you become a hero to the right. and i think tommy tube frville is a great example of that. >> yeah, the sort of diminishment of american politics, it used to be -- the bad development used to be republicans putting party before country. now it's just putting themselves before anything else. at the expense of their own party, these campaigns are being waged. sam stein, thanks for your time tonight. it's great to see. >> my pleasure, alex. we have a lot more this evening. senate it democrats and republicans are squaring off over justice thomas and his relationships with some very wealthy friends. plus we have breaking news about donald trump, his gag order, and the supreme court. that is next. rt that is next goli, taste your goals. we have some breaking news this evening. lawyers for donald trump have filed an emergency motion in the d.c. circuit court to appeal a gag order placed on him by judge tanya chutkan in the federal case surrounding trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. trump's lawyers write president trump's uniquely powerful voice has been a fixture of american political discourse for eight years and central to the american fabric for decades. the prosecution's claim that trump's political speech suddenly poses a threat to the administration of justice is baseless. trump's lawyers further make it clear they want to take this issue all the way to the highest court in the land. if the court denies this motion, president trump requests that the court extend its administrative stay for seven days to allow him to seek relief from the u.s. supreme court. joining me now is joyce vance,firmer district attorney for the northern district of alabama. joyce, thank you for being here as we parse this breaking news here. first of all, on its face it doesn't seem that surprising trump is appealing anything because that seems central to his defense strategy, but what do you make of the idea he wants to take this to the supreme court and in relatively short order? >> so i think that's not surprising at all. this is a notice of appeal combined with a request first for a quick administrative stay of the gag order, so he can go back presumably to talking about witnesses and others involved in the case, and then he asks for a full stay pending appeal. so it's a little bit of complicated legal maneuvering. ultimately it could go up to the supreme court if as i think most people expect this appeal will be not particularly productive for trump in the court of appeals. >> just to sort of bring in some other data points on that, i mean trump has some interesting bed foaloes here in this fight against this gog order, the aclu is one of them. they believe this is an infringement on his first amendment rights. you sound pretty confident the supreme court is not going to find for trump on this, but is there any merit to the appeals on its face? >> so there's a difference between motions that ultimately may not help a defendant and a motion that is frivolous. as trump's lawyers point out in this brief that they've submitted tonight, a court has never imposed a gag order on a leading presidential candidate. of course that's because no leading presidential candidate has ever been under indictment while they've been running before, but there are some legitimate legal issues that the court can consider here. >> joyce, i've got to ask you because there's a lot -- there's a lot happening in the criminal court system as it pertains to donald trump, and jack smith's office filed a motion this morning urging judge cannon who is of course the federal judge overseeing the mar-a-lago case down in florida, urging her not to be manipulated by trump's defense team, which is at once asking to push off the washington, d.c. case but also saying a packed calender prevents them from being part of the florida case on the timetable bus established. they're basically trying to have their cake and eat it, too. and jack smith's office seems to have taken notice of that and urged judge cannon to effectively ignore the treaties made by donald trump's team. i find it they're directly and fernly asking the judge -- >> i think it's a reflection of where they are in this case. judge cannon was always going to be a tough judge for them. they knew that because of the proceedings previous where she'd gone off on a crazy civil theory before the 11th circuit reined her in. but this direct use of the language don't let them manipulate you shows they they're pointing out he's trying to delay all cases using the same argument, playing one judge off the other. that's in a sharp contrast to this motion that we see regarding the gag order tonight where they're asking for speed, almost unheard of speed, telling the court of appeals that they want a decision just in shortly over a week, which would barely provide sufficient time for briefing on this gag order request. so a very interesting discrepancy trying to delay the trial while preserving trump's rights to go out in public and say whatever he'd like to about witnesses and court personnel. >> interesting tactic that maybe gives rise to an incoherent strategy more broadly. but, joyce, i have to ask just from a, you know, lawyerly perspective, is it a bad move to get so personal with a judge? does that help jack smith's case or does it hurt it to suggest however much of it is subtext that judge cannon has been manipulated by trump and his defense? >> so, look, i think it suggests they think they have nothing left to lose with this judge. they tried early onto play nice, to be respectful, to move forward in an even handed fashion. that has not worked for the prosecution. they may now be regretting. you know, they may have a bit of buyer's remorse over not trying to posture the case early on so they could request a recusal. if they do that now they run a great risk of slowing down the case themselves by doing that. so they'll do their best to try to encourage the judge to not give to these sort of manipulative efforts by trump's lawyers. and this is familiar territory for federal prosecutors, when you have a defendant who's facing trial or proceedings in more than one jurisdiction. it's not unheard of for them to try to play off one judge against the other and get cascading delays. so what the special counsel's office is doing here is just a very straightforward heads up to the judge saying don't be taken in by this, we're letting you know what's going on in all the cases, and perhaps where this will be ultimately headed the judge is we'll all put our heads together and confer on scheduling. i suspect that's what all the prosecutors would like to see happen. >> yes, all the judges have cellphones presumably. they can talk to each other. they don't need to go through trump's defense. joyce vance, thank you for your thoughts. super helpful tonight as we try to understand all this. >> thanks, alex. when we come back florida governor ron desantis is against cancel culture except when he's for it. we'll explain. plus justice clarence thomas was the subject of a heated debate today. we're going to have more on that coming up next. te today we're going to have more on that coming up next ah, these bills are crazy. she has no idea she's sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn't know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even a term policy? even a term policy! find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com. i got this $1,000 camera for only $41 on dealdash. dealdash.com, online auctions since 2009. this playstation 5 sold for only 50 cents. this ipad pro sold for less than $34. and this nintendo switch, sold for less than $20. i got this kitchenaid stand mixer for only $56. i got this bbq smoker for 26 bucks. and shipping is always free. go to dealdash.com right now and see how much you can save. do you find this relaxing? >> oh, yeah. it's away from the sort of the meanness that you see in washington. you get to be with just the regular folks, and it's so pleasant. >> for years that motor coach has been a center piece of justice clarn s thomas' every man persona. tom has talked about the coach, done an interview on the coach, and otherwise made a show of how darn regular he is by driving to america and talking to people he meet in wal-mart parking lots along the way. the inconvenient detail here is that according to the senate finance committee it appears that justice thomas did not pay for that rv. and that rv did not come cheap. last week the committee responding to reporting in "the new york times" earlier this year released a report. and the report asserts that justice thomas received a loan of $260,000 from a wealthy friend named anthony welters so that thomas could buy that 40-foot luxury motor coach back in 1999. and apparently clarence thomas only paid $20,000 in interest on that loan, and maybe quite possibly that is all. according to the committee report based on the documents reviewed by committee staff, welters foregave a substantial amount or even all of the principal balance of his loan through clarn s thomas. justice thomas through his lawyer told "the new york times" he made all the payments until the terms of agreement were satisfied in full, but thomas would not answer questions about what the terms were and what satisfies practically meant. and so journalists and senate democrats are skeptical especially given the fact this new revelation comes on the heels of a series of bombshell reports by investigative journalists at propublica detailing how justice thomas has been the recipient of lavish trips and investments from wealthy friends including billionaire harlan crowe all through the last 25 years, and justice thomas has not disclosed any of it. now, democrats on the senate judiciary committee have been pushing for more details here, and they've been following up on media reports with fact finding over they're own. democrats clashed with republicans over their plans subpoena harlan crow about information on his gifts to justice thomas. they also want subpoena another republican donor and leonard leo, both of whom have flatly refused to cooperate with the committee's investigation. >> let us be very clear about what is going on here. billionaires who are invested heavily in influencing the supreme court have been caught giving enormous secret gifts to individual justices. >> y'all ought to be ashamed of yourself because you're the ones who always profess how you're defending our democracy. you're the ones undermining our democracy. >> the highest court in the land cannot have the lowest standard of ethics in the government. >> this is a fight you want, you're going to get it. >> the panel is set to vote next week on whether to issue those subpoenas, so stay tuned. when we come back, tonight israel says its troops have now completely encircled gaza city and are engaged in face-to-face battles with hamas. the quote, concept of a cease-fire according to an israeli military spokesman is currently not on the table at all. that as key voices here in the u.s. urge israel to change its approach. we'll have more on that next. l t attention hearing loss sufferers! do you struggle to hear loved ones? 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"the new york times" reports that groups that have led campaigns to oust school board members and remake state curriculums have also jumped into the fray. parents defending education, a conservative non-profit organization, says that it fights indoctrination in the classroom and started tracking incidents in which school district leadership appeared to criticize israel. and moms for liberty, a national conservative group has warned that progressive school administrators are being trained at the same universities allowing anti-semitic protests. joining me now is peter, editor at large of jewish finance magazine. peter, thank you for being with me tonight. i wonder what you think the jet effect of having anti-woke organizations like moms for liberty jump into the fray here. >> i mean it's just an extension of the incredible hypocrisy we've been seeing from conservatives over the past few years about this. on the one hand they rail against cancel culture, they attack liberal snowflakes who don't have the stomach for real debate, and then they go in and try to ban books or ban content that discusses lgbt themes and now they're extending that to the debate. if they're so confident about their position, then have the self-confidence to have those debates on college campuses, which is what's supposed to happen on college campuses as opposed to what he's doing which is ordered to shutdown the palestinian groups on the campuses of the florida universities. >> i do wonder if you think the transparent political goal of these groups and of someone like governor desantis has an effect on the sort of contours of the fracture among democrats and the sort of different wings of the democratic party that are arguing for more or less support of israel as it wages war in gaza. >> well, what i would hope democrats would agree on regardless of a position on israel's policies in gaza is that people should have the right to openly debate israel's policies in gaza. it's not actually just ron desantis. the anti-defamation league has also called on an investigation for these pro-palestinian groups. it was roundly condemned just this week by the aclu for doing that. students should have the right to articulate their positions without being shutdown by campus administrators. >> setting the college debate aside, the broader debate over what israel is doing, the role of hamas, what's happening to the civilian and the children in gaza, do you feel like the sort of narrative on that is shifting among at least democrats? today senators dick durbin and chris murphy came out and were very vocal about serious reservations they have about israel's strategy here. does it feel like the tide is shifting? >> a little bit because there's a huge gap between where democratic politics in washington are and where democrats are on the ground. first of all, because the people who support the invasion do not have good answers for the end game. they don't have a good answer for what comes after they topple hamas. it's very reminiscent of the lack of answers that america's leaders had when they went into iraq and afghanistan. secondly because of according to save the children, the league believed the hamas run health ministry, 3,000 children have been killed in gaza already. that's more according to save the children, than in an entire year in armed conflict and the year since 2019. so nothing good is going to come of this massive destruction of gaza that we're seeing. >> i do wonder whether you think we are getting closer to a more inclusive dialogue about what is happening here or further away from it. i tend to see hopeful signs through the day, but it seems like a desperately stressing and dark conversation that i have a hard time believing is evolving. >> look, it is because there is just -- look, there is unbelievable agony among israelis, and there's unbelievable agony in our jewish community. i see it all around me all the time. and there's also unbelievable agony among palestinians. and so there's a tremendous amount of polarization and pain, but i think there's certain basic principles that we should try to agree on. one of them the principle of free speech. you don't have the right to violence, of course, but you do have the right to arstickulate your opinion. and things like international law and human rights are really, really critical even when you're at war with an organization like hamas that has committed war crimes and done terrible things. just as the united states after 9/11 despite what al-qaeda had done, we still had a moral obligation to try to adhere to certain norms because it was about us. we have to hold israel to the same standards. >> editor at large of jewish occurrence, thank you for your time tonight, i appreciate it. >> thank you. still ahead as presidential hopeful ron desantis keeps falling short in the polls, he is looking for any strategy that might give him a boost. but at this point in the primaries, can he get a leg up anywhere? that's a lot of puns that are foreshadowing a very interesting block coming up. stay with us. eresting block coming up. stay with us c'mon, we're right there. c'mon baby. it's the only we need. go, go, go, go! ah! touchdown baby! -touchdown! are your neighbors watching the same game? yeah, my 5g home internet delays the game a bit. but you get used to it. try these. they're noise cancelling earmuffs. i stole them from an airport. it's always something with you, man. great! solid! -greek salad? exactly! don't delay the game with verizon or t-mobile 5g home internet. catch it on the xfinity 10g network. according to new nbc polling released this week 43% of likely iowa republican caucus goers said they would choose donald trump as their first choice in the caucuses. governor ron desantis is now tied with south carolina governor nikki haley at 16%, and that means the gloves are off. >> are you wearing higher heels than ron desantis next week at the debate so you can look taller than him on the stage? >> i don't know. we'll have to figure that out. i can tell you i've always talked about my high heels. i've never, you know, hid that from anybody. i've always said don't wear them if you can't run in them, so we'll see if he can run in them. >> joining me now is tim miller, msnbc political analyst and writer at large at the bulwark. the most interesting thing to me right now is the discussion about whether or not he wears lifts in his cowboy boots. what does that say about his candidacy? >> doesn't say anything good, alex. i'll let you know that. it's not nice when your boss goes and does interviews. i've got breaking news for our viewers but just about an hour ago on news max desantis was asked about this, and he tried to turn it on trump in a weird way, and was like, well, if trump has the balls to show up at the dedebate next week then i'll wear my boots on my head. really weird quotes, reminiscent of little marco. when you're trying to do this and make a joke out of the high heels that is the talk of the town, like that is not a sinecure on a path to a comeback. >> you're just getting ptsd from 2016, that's impressive. but, tim, i think the reason -- the reason we're talking about the lifts is that it's not -- personally i think what it gets to is his core sort of belief that ron desantis would do anything to be the front-runner, and that explains his policies in florida. all of it is in service to this presidential bid or this nomination that seems to get further and further from his grasp as the months tick on, and the boots are just an indication of the sort of humiliations he will endure himself. to say nothing of the humiliations he visits on others including the migrants he sent to opponents north with absolutely no warning and no resources. but he'll literally do anything, and that's why it seems particularly devastating, right? if the criticism gets at something essential to the character of the nominee, that's when it's something you don't recover from. >> absolutely, and it does play into this phoniness, this thirstiness, this idea ron desantis is trying so hard to be a maga tough guy, and he'll be mean to the migrants, he'll be mean to the kids in schools of gay families. he'll be mean to whoever it will take if only that will make the maga voters love him and pretend to be the tough guy. it's all part of the same thing of him playing this part, acting this role of what he thinks maga voters wants because the reality is ron desantis is just a typical ivy league politician until five years ago, just one that has a little bit more appetite for cruelty than the other ivy league politicians, and voters can smell that, and they sense it on him, that he might be saying the words that a maga candidate would say, but he is not the authentic outsider they're looking for. donald trump is the authentic outsider they're looking for. and for a minority of the republican party that's a traditional conservative, he's not offering them that either, so he's really stuck in a sour spot on this. >> the national review is arguing that more candidates need to exit the field to allow nikki haley to consolidate support. it is imperative donald trump not be the republican nominee in 2024. president trump is currently the favorite for the gop nomination by a large margin, but he would likely lose a head to head match against haley. is that wishful thinking from a publication that is decidedly anti-trump? >> i agree with the first sentiment. the last sentiment, i want some of whatever they're smoking. nikki haley can't win with trump. a majority of the party likes trump, that's the problem. in order to beat trump, they need to do something that appeals to maga voters. that was the desantis pitch originally. nicky doesn't appeal to them. she has a ceiling of like 30%, so she can keep going, i think nicky would be a much better nominee than donald trump. i mean that should be unanimous opinion just for our democracy, for our country, but that's just wish casting. and the people at the national review and these other conservative outlets, they miss their opportunity to stop trump. they had a chance. they should have been pressuring republicans to vote to convict him. during impeachment 2021 they should have been going after him 2022, but they did it. and they got it onboard, and now they've lost control of their own audience. >> i do wonder, tim, whether you think, in fact, counter to what the national review advises, that folks like desantis and haley stay in this longer than they normally would because precisely of the trump factor, the "x" factor being the criminal indictments and it trials that await him next spring and maybe summer. is that their insurance policy, effectively? >> yeah. a desantis super pac actually told me this when i was in iowa and wrote it for the bulwark, that is something they're considering. so there's an argument for staying in the race, getting the delegates you get for second and third place. now, many republican contests are winner take all, so this might not actually play out like this, but it's definitely something they are considering and that they are looking at should we, you know, gather delegates just in case something happens to trump and there's a convention fight in milwaukee. now, that feels like real fan fiction. but the interesting thing is if the desantis team convinces themselves of that, and maybe you see him staying around longer and harming the extreme outside chance that someone like haley could make a comeback. >> we'll be talking about his shoes until september. tim miller, thank you tonight, my friend. that is our show for this evening. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. as we said from the start, israel has not only the right but the obligation to defend itself and also to take steps to

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