that has been in the making for nearly 100 years. >> paying it ford ward is just the icing on the cake. it is a beautiful story. maybe it is one that the world needs to hear. >> reporter: elwyn lopez, nbc news, california. >> it absolutely is a story the world needs to hear. and it goes to show you that you never know how the amazing ripple effect of one act of bravery, what it can produce. on that extraordinary note, i wish you a very goodnight. i told you i was giving you sweet dreams. for all of our colleagues, thanks for staying up late with me. see you at the end of tomorrow. in the summer of 2004, the war in iraq was raging. fighting had intensified and evidence of american torture at the prison had just come to light. democrats were promising a new direction for the war. and to make their case, they had just nominated a decorated war veteran to be their nominee. a man who had been awarded the silver star, the bronze star, and three purple hearts for valor and combat. >> thank you. i'm john kerry and i'm reporting for duty. >> senator john kerry made his military service in vietnam a central part of his campaign. in the weeks after he accepted the democratic nomination, he consistently led george w. bush in the polls. then in august, everything changed. that was when these campaign ads started airing. >> i served with john kerry. >> i served with john kerry. >> john kerry has not be honest about what happened in vietnam. >> he is lying about his record. >> it is a central image of john kerry's campaign. the candidate literally wrapping his arms around his vietnam crew mates but now republicans are challenging his war record with a tv ad featuring other vietnam veterans. none of whom served on kerry's boat. claiming kerry did not earn his medals. >> they were the swift boat veterans for truth ads and they were one of if not the most impactful and most dishonest ad campaigns in presidential history. eventually it was revealed the swift boat veteran stories did not line up with the official record. but by that point, the damage had been done. the ads had aired across multiple swing states. president bush opened up a wide lead in the polls and kerry's campaign never recovered. the phrase swift boating has become a verb to describe untrue and unfair political attacks but the impact of that ad, the impact of that.campaign went well beyond electing george bush. because the people behind that campaign continued to test the boundaries of conservative politics and shape them years to come. among the top contributors to the campaign were the late bob perry instrumental in turning the movement into a conservative voting base. and harlan crow who has been in the news for his lavish patronage of clarence thomas. vacations, private plane flights and questionable real estate purchases. two players were john o'neal and jarome coursey, they coauthored the book unfit for command. that would become the main source for many of the false or misleading accusations against senator kerry. john o'neal went onto become the director of one of the conservative movements most anti-islam groups. the horowitz center. jarome corsey went onto become one of the birther conspiracies that claimed barack obama was not born in the united states. he later became a bureau chief for alex jones' info wars. but of all the controversial conservatives involved in the smear, there is one man credited with being the master mind. his name is chris lacecita who turned it into a campaign. funded by millions of dollars in shadowy contributions. and where is he today? where is he? well, he is running pretty much everything. chris lacivita serves as trump's political adviser. lacivita was the brains behind the trump campaign's efforts to smother ron desantis' political campaign while it was in its infancy. now in addition to his prominent role on that trump campaign, mr. lacivita has a new job leading trump's take over as the republican national committee. according to the republican national post, trump's team led by lacivita is running on the political equivalent of shock and awe. the leadership has been replaced or reassigned while dozens of lower ranking officials including state directors were fired or told to reapply for their jobs. the firings were done by lacivita. among the people he has hired is lawyer christina bobb. she is on the left there. a former reporter for the news channel oan and outspoken election denier. she will now be the republican party's senior council for election integrity. the right's preferred vehicle for engaging in voter intimidation and claims of voter fraud. those are some of the changes we know of at this moment. but what does it mean that the guy behind the swift boat smears is now running another presidential campaign? new york magazine suggests that mr. lacivita's past filled with trickery and lies shows a testimony plat for how he will go after joe biden and the democrats. not attacking biden's weaknesses but his strengths. joining me now is michael, national political reporter for the national post. and former rnc chair and the cohost of the weekend. of course on msnbc. michael steele. great to have you here. michael steele, let me first ask you about the appointment of chris famous for the swift boat campaign. and subsequent very intense conservative campaigns. what do you think the practical effect that will be on the trump campaign as we enter the general election? >> it is less the practical effect on the trump campaign. but the practical effect the trump campaign has on everything else. and, it is the shock and awe. creating damage that will come in short bursts and longer bursts. that cannot be contained. it is an asymmetrical gain which i have been telling folks these guys have been playing. and now it will come to fruition in the cycle because it all matters right now. it all has to work right now. because when they get the power back, that is how the rest of it is done. it is a way to have him sort of straddle two universes. have his role in the campaign diminished obviously because of the requirements by law. having his ear and his hands on the tail and the lever inside the republican national committee. to make sure that the money, the structure, the organization and most essentially, the personnel are the people doing what the design is. and that design, asymmetrical means you don't know it will be the same tomorrow this is not 2016, folks. and not 2020. trust me. >> yeah. and i want to get back to that. this sort of, the importance of what is happening at the rnc, michael, which you reported on. so hopefully today is the blood letting has been swift. and it has been vicious. and it is trump at all costs. i understand that. but what about the republican party? not everybody has the last name trump. why the implications here for other republicans who are running this year? >> two important things to know. it is top down, organized. they have a plan, they know what they are doing. there is not the personnel turnover we saw in both of the last cycles. and, they went through the primaries very smoothly. chris, with susie wiles has been a key part of that. the defining feature of chris lacivita is he is a combatant. he wants to be in the fight and he is fighting hard. remember it is normal for a presumptive nominee to take over the national party at this point. but chris went in and cleared house in a dramatic way. made a lot of people in the building upset. there is concern about down ballot republicans having the same benefitsment one of the things he did, he is closing community centers and some communities. and, reassigning that money and effort to be more focused on trump. lacivita will say trump is at the top of the ticket. when trump wins, republicans will win up and down the ballot. that's the most important thing. what we don't know is how it will affect at the state level and how the senate and the house campaigns come along with these changes. >> i want to talk about that. ending early voting out reach. it fits in line with what republicans have been advocating under the banner of donald trump. how much of a goal is that? >> it is all of that. put everything behind the presidency. what about candidates in purple districts? how did they navigate a toxic candidate at the top of the ticket like donald trump? well you know that candidate will need democratic and independent voters. to support them. but now, all the focus and emphasis is on trump. who do you think those candidates are going to be talking about? and so, it is a strategy about one person. that is how donald trump wants it to be. that is why his daughter-in-law is runing the rnc. the other side of the scenario is that when trump loses this election, or if trump loses this election, you are going to have the psalm narrative around stolen election, rigged election, all of that. and he will have the bodies in place to prosecute that place better and more effectively from that point forward. people actually believed the constitutional oath they took and their responsibility to the country to uphold the election results and that got in the way. trump has largely cleared the way and the cost will be to the rnc. and the candidates running across the country. in various state races that are going to have to figure out how to find the resources and infrastructure they need. if it ant about trump, it certainly won't be about them. >> michael steele makes a great point. when you are talking about election integrity, that is about voter intimidation. it is an insurance policy against a lost election. we can claim voter fraud and he has the ambassadors in place. christina bobb chief among them at the rnc. can you give me a sense of what those election integrity efforts on a practical matter might entail and or the expectations that christina bobb will be an effective general on that front? >> i think it will be the the front person on the front. she will be on tv carrying the president's message which as we have known for three now is any election that he is not performing well in is a fraud. i think there is a real effort here to do what a lot of republicans feel the rnc did not do well in 2020 up to the election day. up to the election day. they were just wiped out and questions of early voting. questions about signature verification. they want, there is not much time left but the rnc wants to relitigate that stuff. there was a lawsuit filed in michigan which which the rnc is asking michigan to clear the voter rolls saying there are too many old names on the rolls. they brought in charlie spies, he is one of the most respected republican election lawyers who was the guy behind jeb bush's superpac and ron desantis' campaign and mitt romney's superpac and i think he is being brought in because they believe that he actually knows how to do this well. she is well known among the base. >> i will leave everybody with a quote from the new york analysis. the trump campaign was a sham bollic operation. you had a more professional operation but it was trump's web designer until the home stretch. now you see what happens when you get the most rude calculating and ruthless operators. an experiment on stage. thank you guys. >> thank you. we have much more ahead this evening including how are you going to learn the moves for beyonce's texas dance if congress bans tiktok? what are the implications for american politics if that communication line goes dead? but first, the fulton county district attorney's sprawling election interference case got a little more narrow. we will talk about that and what it means for donald trump with melissa redman, former fulton county deputy district attorney coming up next. distr attorney coming up next. breathing claritin clear is like... 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chase. make more of what's yours. my name is oluseyi how do you cashback? and some of my favorite moments throughout my life are watching sports with my dad. now, i work at comcast as part of the team that created our ai highlights technology, which uses ai to detect the major plays in a sports game. giving millions of fans, like my dad and me, new ways of catching up on their favorite sport. i can't talk right now, i'm at a silent retreat. cashback on everything you buy with chase freedom unlimited with no annual fee. how do you cashback? chase. make more of what's yours. president donald trump and georgia's secretary of state. it is also a central part of the sprawlg election conspiracy case brought by the fulton county district attorney. but today that case got a little less sprawling when judge scott mcafee dismissed six of its 41 counts citing lack of detail. and one of those counts is the one that specifically calls out trump and his chief of staff mark meadows for that january 2nd call to brad raffensberger. this doesn't mean trump is out of the woods. 35 of those criminal counts are very much intact but all of this is happening as we await judge mcafee east ruling on whether the da will be disqualified from her own case. he hope to rule on that matter by friday. msnbc legal analyst melissa redman joins me now. thanks for joining me tonight. i'm really eager to get your professional opinion on whether these charges seemed overly broad or lacking definition in your mind when they were first charged. does mcafee's dismissal seem unusual to you? >> it is a bit unusual in that of those filed in criminal cases, they are rarely granted. so basically, the defense has to show that the crime has not been alleged be enough for them to be on notice. these defenses all of which involve solicitation of violation of the oath of office by public official, there is not enough information in the oath for the state to allege how the conduct violated that personal term of the oath. so public officials in georgia have different oaths so some are more specific than others. and it just so happens that the oaths taken by the house, the representatives and the senators in georgia and the governor, the secretary of state is very broad and alleges she will support the constitution of the state and the state of georgia. of all the terms, the state would have to put in the indictment which one of those asking for the electors, alternate slate of electors to be appointed or for votes to be found. which one of those clauses, that conduct violated such that these people were being asked to violate their terms of their oath of office. so it is a little iffy. >> you know far more about this than me. but it just seems like upholding the state constitution would prevent election fraud. right? asking someone to find the votes to overturn the result of the election. to vie violate their oath of office. i understand there are legal unpinnings to all that. i do wonder if you think da willis is tenacious like few other people in the national stage and i wonder if you think she will let these go in the name of keeping this case already delayed and waylaid to some degree. on track or whether she will fight mcafee and take another turn at the charges. >> it will depend on the evident they have. and of course, we don't have the full copy of the discovery provided to the defense. you can tell from the discovery provided and the evidence that the state intends to use how that oath was violated. so the defense is on notice. whether to appeal judge mcafee who has indicated, think about rico that prosecutors love and the defense attorney takes is that you don't need those counts to proceed on the exact same case without proving those substantiative offenses so i actually don't think she will appeal. i think she may just be willing to let those counts go. and just move forward with the rico and using that conduct as overt acts and she would still be allow today do that. >> the substance and the power of that broader case remains intact. trump is not out of legal hot water but then there is the looming question we are supposed to get resolution to on friday. does the da stay on this case. do you read anything? i know judges are not supposed to be political. everybody tells me that all the time but it seems clear politics is very much on the horizon here and i wonder if you read anything into judge mcafee's decision to giver a few points to trump if you will on the dismissal of the counts with the expectation he may be handing a win to fani willis allowing her to stay on the case. is that me just wearing a tinfoil hat on all of this or could there be some legitimacy o to that? >> i don't think you can read anything into this. if you think about how the case is playing out, all of the motions filed. there are other motions to dismiss that judge mcafee has to rule on so it looks to me that he just methodically goes on through the case. and the hearings that he tells, the supplemental briefs submitted by each party after the hearing and issuing orders as he gets to them. this motion was held before the motion to disqualify so it makes sense he is going through issuing the odors as he gets to those motions but i don't think we can tell one way or the other what that indicates as far as how he intends to rule on the motion to disqualify other than i do believe that if he is willing to grant an immediate review for this, that may indicate his willingness to have these issues resolved before the case goes to trial. perhaps he would be willing to give either side of the certificate of immediate review. it is very unlikely this case will be tried this year. >> melissa keeping me in line giving us the hard truth object what is happening down in fulton county. thank you so much for your time and wisdom. really appreciate you. >> thank you. we have more ahead this hour including what hungarian autocrat viktor orban said. plus, the end of tiktok. jamal bowman joins me onset to discuss the potential political fallout of that major decision. stay with us. . stay with us. okay y'all we got ten orders coming in... big orders! starting a business is never easy, but starting it eight months pregnant... that's a different story. i couldn't slow down. we were starting a business from the ground up. people were showing up left and right. and so did our business needs the chase ink card made it easy. when you go for something big like this, your kids see that. and they believe they can do the same. earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase with the chase ink business unlimited card. make more of what's yours. 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[♪ music playing ♪] >> tiktok has gotten so desperate, they are sending out sos messages on the app begging people to call their u.s. congress representatives. >> i'm calling to ask about the tiktok ban. >> huh, i'm calling about the tiktok ban. >> vote no on the tiktok ban. >> call your representative. tell them to vote know and if they don't, you will vote them out in the primaries. >> last week, the social media app tiktok urged its 170 million american users to call their representatives in congress. by noon, the same day, the phone line for members of the house were overwhelmed with calls mostly from teenager. some congressional aides said their offices received hundreds of calls in a matter of hours. but despite or because of how much tiktok clearly matters to young americans, today the house overwhelmingly passed the bill that all of these tiktok users urged their representatives not to pass. hr7521. i should adespite how tiktok framed the bill to its users, this is not an immediate tiktok ban. the way this bill is written, tiktok's chinese parent company byte dance has six months to sell the company to a buyer approved by the u.s. government or it will be banned from app stores and therefore gone. but before we get to that six month countdown, the bill still has to pass the senate. then it has to be signed into law by president biden and the politics involved in that are not exactly straightforward. this bill has made a lot of very weird bedfellows. you have democrats like maxwell frost lined up with marjorie taylor green and matt gaetz. they have freedom of speech issues with the bill. and proponents of the bill are rather unusual a group. nancy pelosi is working with far right rabble-rouser chip roy. they are united by concerns the chinese government may be using tiktok as a vehicle to meddle in american politics. and, as with the rest of our politics the whole thing is made more complicated and messy by donald trump. when trump was president, he tried to ban tiktok via executive order. now he has come out in favor of it. it is all fairly indecipherable. if you don't use tiktok, it could be easy to write it off as a place young people teach each other beyonci dances. but it is actually a modern public square filled with content like this about news, and politics. >> i'm still alive in gaza. >> these dark red states, abortion is already outlawed there. >> as a registered democrat, no, i'm not voting for joe biden. >> i want to know a great reason to vote for joe biden in 2024? the supreme court. >> i will be ranking my top ten reasons on why joe biden truly sucks. >> don't fight it. >> like it or not, tiktok is currently what is energizing young voters. american teens spend an average of an hour-and-a-half on tiktok every day. and poll after poll has shown that tiktok may be the top news source for gen z americans. and it really is worth emphasizing just how significant it is that the app got a sizable chunk of america's gen z population to pick up a phone and call a stranger in congress. i am not trying to malign america's youth here, but statistically speaking, phone calls are not their thing. they do not like phone calls so yes. today's vote in the house was about the future of tiktok and also the future of our political landscape. in the immediate future, it is about getting out the vote for the november election. we are going to talk about all of that and more with representative jamal bowman after the break. tative jamal b after the break. and stabbing pain in my hands, so i use nervive. nervive's clinical dose of ala reduces nerve discomfort in as little as 14 days. now i can help again. feel the difference with nervive. what causes a curve down there? who can treat this? stop typing, and start talking. it could be a medical condition called peyronie's disease, or pd. you're not alone, there is hope. find a specialized urologist who can diagnose and treat pd. visit makeapdplan.com today. ♪3, 4♪ ♪ find a specialized urologist who can diagnose and treat pd. ♪hey♪ ♪ ♪are you ready for me♪ ♪are you ready♪ ♪are you ready♪ back in 2020, then president donald trump tried to ban tiktok via executive order which the courts quickly told him he could not do. in the last week, donald trump has done a 180. >> there are a lot of people on tiktok that love it. there are a lot of young kids on tiktok who will go crazy without it. there are a lot of users doing a lot of good. >> why the change of heart donald trump? two reasons. the first appear to be cash. trump recently hosted jeff yass, a billionaire investor in byte dance and trump is seeking his support in the presidential race. maybe don't upset the billionaire tiktok investor if you want his money. the second reason is voters. trump ally kellyanne conway has been advocating for tiktok on behalf of the club for growth. the conservative organization where it so happens billionaire jeff yass puts a lot of his money. and ms. conway lobbied trump saying his supporters, especially the younger ones, like tiktok. >> here are three reasons why if you are a young person you should vote for trump. >> we like trump because he stood up to you and also exposed you. you want socialism. we don't. >> please four more years of trump. >> donald trump and his party are not the only ones defending tiktok. some house democrats voted against the ban. while may might not share donald trump's reasons or motivations, they, too, think banning tiktok is a very bad idea. joining me now is one of those house democrats, congressman jamal bowman of new york. congressman bowman, thank you for being here. >> good to be with you. >> i'm sorry you had to witness to some of those tiktok videos and i apologize to the viewers as well. why did you vote against the ban? >> congress is trying to shove a bill down our throats within a few days. we will ban tiktok. let's hurry up and get this done. so first of all moving too quickly. secondly trying to get byte dance to sell is completely unreasonable. third, free speech. people who use tiktok, they have small businesses. they have community. when are we going to have a comprehensive conversation about all of social media and all of the problems on social media including our data being sold on the open market to china and other nations without our consent or knowledge? so we need to talk about privacy. we need to talk about mental health. we need to talk about all of social media. why do we continue to scapegoat tiktok. especially when we haven't seen any evidence or not enough evidence, you tell me, that it is a national security issue. >> i want to talk about this sort of, the social media aspect, the user realities. the political implications of taking away the platform hundreds of millions of americans, the youngs are all over it. >> half the country. >> yeah. it's the primary channel for communication with america's youth. as a democrat, someone who seeks reelection, what do you think the implications of just basically taking down tiktok would be? >> it doesn't make sense to me. young voters already feel disenfranchised because we do a horrible job of reaching out to young voters. connecting with them. engaging them. and listening to them. tiktok is a platform where they have found community with each other and they are learning more about politics, their elected officials. and they are sharing information whether it is related to foreign policy, domestic policy. child care. so they are literally building their own community. why are we then going to disenfranchise them further when young voters have a tendency to vote democrat if we go about engaging them and doing it the right way? so having this discussion and trying to ban it or almost ban it makes no sense at this time. >> yeah. we look at the numbers of the latest, the head to head natchups between donald trump and joe biden. young voters under 35. biden leads 52-48. a four-point lead. the margin of error is three points. we are talking young people. this group has recently been overwhelmingly in support of the democratic party and its platforms. that's i think probably for democrats an uncomfortably narrow margin. and you talk about the democratic support and communities of color among black voters. many of whom are not going to traditional media. that is a staggering, staggering curve downward. i wonder how essential platforms including social media will be in this election to bringing those folks back in the fold and telling the story of a democrats in the white house. >> i think that is why you saw such a diverse representation of who voted no on this bill. it wasn't just a squad. it was moderate and more conservative democrats. we have a ranking member of the house intelligence committee. vote no on this particular bill. but you have these diverse responses to this because we understand the implications politically, socially, and in terms of our entire country, so we need young voters, we need young voters of color. we need to engage them as much as possible. not disenfranchise them and respect their voices and how they are engaging. they are all over social media. not watching msnbc as we would like them to. >> but they are welcome to. >> but they are not. they are on social media. they are on tiktok. how are we using tiktok? and listen, let me say this one other thing. our biggest issue when it comes to national security is ourselves. we hurt ourselves more. because we ignore the needs of the american people. you push through a tiktok ban, but you are not doing nothing on foreign policy aid. you are not doing enough on child care, nothing on the issues americans care about quickly. we could never turn the corner of the issues. >> let me ask you. you said you have not been given hard or sufficient evidence this is a real national security threat any more than any other social media is a national security threat. do you at all worry about the meme-ification of american politic ins anybody can put up their content and hopefully, the truthful stuff rises to the top and goes most viral but you know, it's a better's game. >> yes i am. tiktok is way better at that than twitter. than facebook. and some of the other platforms. so i am worried about the bite sized meme-ification headline nature of how social media operates. what i have seen on tiktok is the depth of content. and the depth of scholarship exists there. that i haven't seen on the other platforms. twitter is a cesspool. you go on there, you send out a tweet, next thing you know, you have the far right attacking you for all kinds of nonsense and lies. disinformation. misinformation. live on that platform. facebook also i have been told this, china uses facebook to get more of our data than anywhere else by far what are we talking about? >> there need to be a broader more transparent conversation. in the meantime, enjoy learning the step to the beyonce video. . because it's all over tiktok and that's how i spent heart of my time preparing for the show. thank you so much for your time and thoughts, really great to have you here. still ahead this evening, trumps strongman obsession reaches a new low, vewe are goi to get into the very real fallout from the trump orb on triumvirate, with former obama adviser ben rose, coming up next. p next. 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(dog bark) it's simply fresh meat and vegetables, with all the nutrients dogs need— instead of dried pellets. just food made for the health of dogs. delivered in packs portioned for your dog. it's amazing what real food can do. that is expected to keep him in power for another six years. that is happening as ukraine loses ground in its war with russia because of ammunition shortages, while the u.s. congress continues to do nothing. two dooling attempts to force a vote on ukraine eight are making their way through congress right now, but neither has a strong chance of leading to an actual vote work and according to hungarian prime minister victor orban, who just met with donald trump last week, the presumptive republican presidential nominee told orban he will not give up any to help ukraine. orban concluded, therefore, the war will end, because it is obvious that ukraine cannot stand on its own feet. joining me now is ben rose, former deputy national security adviser for the obama white house, thanks for being here with me this evening. there was a lot of consternation leading up to this orban trump meeting, that orban would basically be an interlocutor for putin, and it feels like that's exactly what happened. how do you see the fallout from that meeting last week? >> it's not subtle at all, alex. i don't usually plug things, but i wrote a book a couple years ago that is about this phenomenon of trump, orban, and put in and what they share in common, which is a sense of their own domestic politics and the leaders they want to be home and therefore the kind of world that they want to live in. couldn't is at the far end of the authoritarian spectrum, he's already transition his country from something that was trying to be a democracy to a one man, one world dictatorship. orban is on the spectrum, he's in the middle, he's turned a country into a soft autocracy where there's really one-party rule. trump wants to be these guys, but the price of that is signing onto this no holds barred, no respect for sovereignty, no care for democracy foreign-policy of prudence. putin is at the vanguard of this clique of authoritarians, a triangle of sadness between these three guys. it was clear to me that orban has been talking to putin, and he walks out of the meeting in mar-a-lago with what he wanted, a commitment from donald trump to throw ukraine under the bus and joined the autocrats club if the auction goes his way in november. >> we had a conversation with jacob last week who made a very important point, in terms of historic parallels. in and around world war ii there was a whole faction of americans who were isolationists, and he made the point that isolationism is often a misnomer, because it bails fascism. and that a lot of the people who are against the u.s. entering into world war ii were actually pro-hitler, they were pro- . i wonder if you think the same is true in the modern day, whether the resistance to aid in ukraine actually betrays a proto-or pro-fascist attitude inside the republican party. >> there is no question in my mind it does. victor orban has been transparent. he's declared that he is the vanguard of so-called illiberal democracy, is what he calls it, which is a contradiction in terms. he has embraced the reality, far right nationalist who demonizes the other, the immigrants, liberal elites, whoever is in his firing line in that given day. he's used his power to essentially silence critics and ensure that his party remains in power. he has essentially a mussolini agenda. trump inviting this guy to mar- a-lago is the same as if you invited mussolini for a weekend getaway in the 1930s. let's be clear, not giving ukraine aid is a choice. if you can call it isolationism, but it is a choice to cut these people off and allow vladimir putin to run roughshod over them, when that serves no other interest other than the kind of continued momentum behind this strongman autocracy in the world, which the republican party seems to hold in such high esteem now. we have to recognize, it's a choice to cut the cord on ukraine in this manner. and what it's going to do is put wind in the sales of not just britain, but this brand of autocracy that we see getting traction in lots of parts of the world. >> if you're a would-be autocrat and you're looking at the weekend plans around the world, putin is going to win in a sham election another six years in office, ukraine, as we said, ammunition shortages on the battlefield, the war is looking bleaker and bleaker for the forces of democracy, it is a dark horizon that we're gazing out against and yet, people in washington seem to be largely content to do nothing about it. the fact that it's unlikely for democrats to get a basic simple majority on a discharge petition to fund this is staggering. >> let's not forget, the guy that appeared with putin and billboards for his re-election campaign was also netanyahu, who would like to be part of this club as well. if you talk to people around the world, talk to people in europe, they're astonished and panicked and anxiety written about the fact that the money that is going to be spent to purchase these weapons for ukraine is spent in the united states. it is money for our defense industrial base. we send the money to u.s. states to build the kind of shells and a munitions needed by the ukrainians and ship it over there, so we're cutting the ukrainians loose and cutting the cord on funding that actually supports u.s. jobs and industry, albeit in the defense industry, for what? so that we can align ourselves with putin. not only does it have the u.s. retreating from his role in the world and standing up for democracy like ukraine that are under threat, it also, again, signaling a choice. the united states is moving into this other column. the putin column. it's not just isolationism, it's making a choice about which side we're on in this continued balance and struggle between democracy