spectrum, liz cheney on the right, joe biden, are warning on a near daily basis an increasingly dire terms that our very democracy is in trouble right now. i don't understand why one party's careen threatens to derail the entire american experiment, the entire republic. can actually just look no further than what happened last night. nikki haley's dorsment of donald trump is part of what has become a time honored tradition of today's republican party in the trump era. prominent republicans whose closely held private views about the ex-president may not actually be that different from mine or that of any trump critic or any democrat. and taking all sorts of very public abuse and scorn from donald trump, including attacks on their spouses. despite all that, despite everything he said about their families and everything they have said about him in return, they turn around and offer him their endorse the. ted cruz's capitulation before the 2016 election after trump attacked his wife. cruz said this. donald, you're a sniffling coward and leave heidi the hell alone. real men don't try to bully women. that's not an action of strength. it's an action of fear. it's an action of a small and petty man. who is intimidated by strong women. >> small and petty man. not a real man. not a real man. we all know what happened after that moment. after he defended his wife, ted cruz turned around and endorsed the man who attacked his wife heidi, turned his back on whatever was in his heart and mind when he made those comments and back on our democracy enable ed trump's presidency and insurrection in 2020. and is currently to this day working to whitewash the violence that took place on january 6th, violence that he called domestic terrorism where he walked that back. just last night in an interview on cnn, ted kruds cruz said he would not accept the results of the election. after donald trump's second impeachment in the weeks that dth sent a mob to storm the capitol putting his own vice president in mortal danger. >> there's no question, none, that president trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. no question about it. >> that's a pattern here. trump also attacked mitch mcconnell's wife with a very ugly racist slur. he attacked mcconnell regularly as well. at one point saying he had a death wish for working with president biden to fund the united states government. and yet as with ted cruz, mitch mcconnell also folded, endorsing donald trump for president in 2024. so add to those two, nikki haley the, here's what nikki haley said about donald trump after the january 6th insurrection. quote, i think he's lost any sort of political viability he was going to have. he's not going to run are for federal office again. he went down a path he shouldn't have and we shouldn't have followed him. we shouldn't have listened to him. and we can't let that ever happen again. we can't let that ever happen again. that being trump as president. our friends at "morning joe" compiled some of what she had to say about trump during the republican pimary contest this year. take a listen. >> times change. and so has trump. he's gotten more unstable and unhinged. >> if you mock the service of a combat veteran, you don't deserve a driver's license, let alone being president of the united states. >> we have seen him get confused. he was confused about me having to do with keeping security away from the capitol. he was confused when he said biden was going to run us into world war ii. >> he's not qualified to be the president of of the united states. >> it's not normal to insult our military heroes and veterans. >> he was thin skinned and easily distracted. >> it's not normal to spend $50 million in campaign contributions on personal court cases. >> there's no way that the american people are going to vote for a convicted criminal. >> it's not criminal to threaten people who back your opponent. >> he went and was trying to buddy up with putin. every time he was in the same room with him, he got weak in the knees. it's not normal to call on russia to invade nato countries. donald trump has done all of that. and more in just the past month. >> now one of the combat veterans she calls him out for attacking veterans, wasn't of them is her husband. watch what she said there on the stump could be easily have come from another well-known nationally reognized conservative republican named liz cheney. liz cheney took a different path and has paid a steep political price for being unwaivered in her very similar lines of critique and opposition to the ex-president. a lot of the indictment of a second trump presidency as well as the last one, that you hear from president biden. but despite everything that she said, as well as trump mocking her husband while he was deployed, nikki haley made the decision yesterday to endorse that person that she described in that way. donald trump. when she did, she turned her back on her own voters. many of whom make the same arguments nikki haley made about trump. they include up to a 5th of the primary electorate in states that voted for her up to two months after she. dropped out of the race. but nikki haley bending the knee to donald trump says about the state of our democracy is where we start today. the executive director for republican voters against trump sara longwell is back with us. plus lieutenant and founder of democratic majority action pack amy mcgrath is here. former congressman david jolly joins us. and at the table vaughn hillyard is back with us. vaughn, any sense of whether -- tell me your reporting on how this came to be. >> number one, there was no phone call between the two camps. we were told since march 6th when she dropped out of the presidential race that she and donald trump have not connected by phone. she has not reached out to establish contact with the former president. so that announcement was done on her own accord here. i think it's telling. the north dakota governor who has been on the campaign trail with him, he told chuck todd he would never do business with donald trump because of the company is reflective of one's self. tim scott was somebody who was critical for a long time of donald trump. especially after january 6th. so nikki haley is really the latest to fall in line. >> what's amazing about your reporting yesterday, and it's why we dug up mcconnell and cruz's past clashes, is how deeply personal they were. nikki haley and her husband had a public social media broadcast fight with donald trump this year. in the last eight weeks. >> i think that we have lived this. i'm glad you talked about ted cruz. back in 2016 i was on the road every single day with ted cruz can, including the day he dropped out of the race. it was at a barbecue shop when on his way out he said donald trump is immoral and a pathological liar. two months laters was the national republican convention. ted cruz was slated to speak. i got the remarks ahead of time. in his remark ares there was no endorsement of donald trump. and so when he went on the stage, i was in the bowls of the arena not expecting much fanfare. why would ted cruz endorse the man who mocked his wife and said all these things about. but then he took the stage. and what this clear to me, and eight years later we're still playing this out with nikki haley, that was the shot across the bow for republicans. because ted cruz said the line, if you love our country and love your children as much as i know you do, stand and speak is and vote your conscious. he didn't say vote donald trump. the arena erupted into boos. it was no longer about donald trump. it was the fact that the republican party had become donald trump. this was a movement that was turning on the likes of cruz and anybody that was in the way. it was not just the new york delegation. this was the republican national committee, the key activist of the party. that was the message that was sent to ted cruz that very day. if you want a future in this republican party, you have to endorse donald trump. he did that. weeks later. all these years later, there's person after person, nikki haley the late thaes are evidence that their relevancy in the republican party today, not just with donald trump, but among voters, is by standing in line with him. >> some of our friends at the conservative network were triggered when i said yesterday as this news was breaking that at a human level, i don't have the ability to understand what makes someone offer their political support to someone who has personally smeared their life partner, their spouse. i feel like i needed to turn to someone who understands the psychology. to place your loyalty to the tribe over your feelty to your partner is something i can't get my head around. does nikki haley endorsement of trump speak to the movement your leading republican voters against trump in a way that makes you nervous? how do you make sense of what she did yesterday after the primary campaign she ran? >> nikki haley chose to go with her political future, her personal ambitions, over the country. over what she knows is best for our country. what is so deeply disappointing to me, and i felt this one. i really thought toward the end of nikki haley's run that she had started to sort of speak her truth. you know these republicans absolutely understand donald trump and the threat he poses. we know that they know it. we wait for them to say the truth. it felt like she had found her voice. i held out hope she meant those things when she said donald trump will side with the madman like putin. that she minute that when she said he will abandon our allies. and nikki haley understands how dangerous the world is right now. she understands how dangerous donald trump is for the world. and so to watch her abandon everything she knows to be true deep down in order to remain in good standing with her political tribe over the bigger tribe of her country is demoralizing. and my fear is there are a lot of voters who have tribal impulses where they are republicans. so they want to stay with the party. they are not democrats. they recognize how dangerous trump is so they look to people like nikki haley for crew cues about how to behavior. she was saying the same things about trump that they feel. it does build a catastrophic permission structure for some of those voters. the good news here is that so many of the nikki haley voters were not there for nikki haley. they were there to oppose donald trump. the vast majority of those voters who have been showing up in these primaries to vote against trump will continue to vote against trump regardless of what nikki haley does. i do think it's damaging, certainly politically in our attempt to get rid of donald trump, but i also suspect deep down it's pretty damaging to her. >> their psychology is haley supporters and trump, people who oppose donald trump. >> anything but trump. >> that was your priority? >> is that the biggest reason you supported nikki haley? >> say. >> because of donald trump? >> yeah. >> i would vote for joe biden over donald trump in a heart beat. >> you're a republican? >> i am. >> what do you do if he's the nominee? >> i vote for joe biden. >> nikki haley. i think donald trump is a threat to the well being of our country. >> if she drops out, would you be disappointed to endorse trump? >> i will vote democrat. that's all there is to it. >> it's important to me to keep trump out of office again. project 2025, i have read it. it's scary. it's frightening. >> i have lived in a constitutional democracy all my life. i want to remain that way. and i want my grandchildren to grow up in one. not a dictatorship. >> i'm curious. over the last two elections, have you voted trump in the past? was it something where you voted for him and trusted him ands disappointed? >> yes. i voted for him in 2016. i am a registered republican. i regretted that vote almost immediately. >> so the biden campaign put that out. those are past trump voters in this cycle they were nikki haley voters. again, these are these people's impulses. these people that were interviewed by journalists on the campaign trail said thad they would vote for joe biden over donald trump if nikki haley were not an option. what's interesting is at least for this swath of the vote, it was more than antitrump. they were aware of the threat he represented to democracy. in terms of the campaign nikki haley ran for anyone who didn't see all her speeches, there was a lot about age and fitness, but there was a lot about his role in ending democracy. the threat that he would be if he handed ukraine over to russia. more than anyone else on the stage in the beginning, she ran against trump as a national security threat. >> that's exactly right. i don't think nikki haley ever quite understood the voters who showed up for her. they showed up for her because she became an avatar for expressing their anxieties about donald trump and his threat to democracy that's what i mean. that's when she found her rhythm in her own campaign. that's when people were shoing up and being enthusestic for her. those types of voters, and i think there were a lot of them repped in the nikki haley margins in the primary, i think that those voters vote for joe biden now. i don't think nikki haley was leading a movement that was about nikki haley. i think that for a period of time when she was telling the truth, she was expressing the concerns that this group of republican voters, the ones that we talked to all the time who do not want trump to be the standard barer of the party and do not want him in charge of this country, those people are not following nikki haley in her endorsement of donald trump. they are going to vote for joe biden. >> you were on before the news broke. as it broke, i was following you on twitter. to the degree that words mean anything, her words are the most damning indictment of what she did yesterday. i wonder as someone who talks to voters, do words still matter? >> i was. i was so dis appointed that i started tweeting all the things that she had said about donald trump through the primary campaign because it is sort of distressing to have seen somebody make such an impassioned case against donald trump on the threat he presents to our country and to turn around and endorse him. i think that this has been the collective problem. what nikki haley did is the reason that donald trump continues to persist in our politics. they all know this to be morally, ethically, and in every way wrong. then they ignore those instincts for political, tribal and ambition reasons. it is sickening actually because i just want them the to know, i want people like nikki haley to know that she is responsible for making a decision that is actively tearing down the country that she claims to love. and it's shameful. i hope she feels ashamed today. >> sara longwell, someone who chooses her words carefully, i appreciate you coming back today. thank you for starting us off. on the other side of the break, we'll hear from amy and david. also still to come, the latest that pile of absolutely insane lunacy metastasizing within the republican party spewing out to an electorate ready, willing and eager to act on it. dth's latest lie that could pose a new and growing threat to our nation's law enforcement officials. and later in the broadcast, that stunning ut no longer surprising story of a second display of support for attempting to overturn an american presidential election. we told you about "the new york times" report yesterday. we'll ask the question what happened next for justice alito and the continue erosion of public trust and confidence in the members of the united states supreme court. we'll have all those stories and more when "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. er a quick break. don't go 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was at arlington cemetery saying what was in it for them, the problem with with trump he's never been anywhere near a uniform. he apparently had some sort of reason hen couldn't do that. the relate is the closest he's come to harm's way is a golf ball hitting him on a golf cart. these men and women sacrifice for us every day. they are willing to shed blood. that's the values that made this country great. and anybody that excuses what he continues to say against the military is hugely mistaken. >> amy, donald trump didn't just attack nikki haley mercilessly. several journalists and writers have written about how he didn't like her skin. that's why he theed her in new york where she was the u.s. ambassador to the united nations, not serving in his cabinet in washington. donald trump also attacked her husband who was sering. i'm not going to play his attack, but this is what he said. she brought her husband, where's her husband? oh, he's away. what happened to her husband? what happened to hr husband? where is he? he's gone. he knew. he was deployed. that sound byte i i played was nikki haley's response. it does bring up trump's long record of disdain for the men and women who serve the country for the men and women who are injured serving the country and the men and women who pay with their lives serving our country. >> absolutely. and i i think one of the things that nikki haley did so well on her campaign was speak to republican voters about exacly what donald trump said. this is not coming from democrats. this is coming from his former national security adviser, who said that donald trump doesn't understand alliances. his former chief of staff, who was a four star general in the united states marine corp., retired, who said that donald trump believes veterans and those who gave the ultimate sack face for our country are suckers and losers. that's what we miss now with nikki haley, turning around and endorsing donald trump. i have to say this is why what you need to be successful in the modern republican party is to give up your integrity. because she knows better. she talked about it in her campaign. she knows that donald trump is a threat to our national security. he knows she doesn't trust him to be commander-in-chief again, but she's simply doing this in order to preserve her political future, her ambitions within a party that has lost its moral compass. that's what's so sad about this whole thing. >> david jolly, we are only covering trump's fight with nikki haley's partner because nikki haley talked about it, tensively. and nikki haley's husband got involved in it. nikki haley also invoeked her children. here's what she said about them when it came to donald trump. >> donald trump is everything i taught my children not to do in kindergarten. i taught my two little ones. you don't lie and make things up. >> so i knew nikki haley was a big hit with a lot of the new york finance money. i hope they are as ashamed as she is. >> yeah, i think we have learned a lot in the last 24 hours. first, that we probably gave nikki haley too much grace and too much credit for having steal steeliness and a backbone, when it turns out she's a raw politician whose words are meaningless and whose convictions are fleeting and probably a product of political convenience. we saw it when she was trying to beat donald trump. now we see her putting her political ambition ahead of the interests of the country and ahead of her own family. the insults from donald trump to her own family, and i think the keyword here is conformity. i'm glad you led with cruz and mcconnell and others, because it's been said the opposite of courage is not always cowardness. it's come formty. i think what we have learned about nikki haley and i think we just have to really submit this reputation with her now, she's no different than any of the rest of them. there's no reason we should credit her with courage for confronting donald trump because it was meaningless. nikki haley is no different than kevin mccarthy, but for a jar of pink star bursts. she's no different. that's the nikki haley we now know. and the question is how does she use whatever political capital she has between now and november? because she created a permission structure for those who voted for her to consider voting for donald trump. i agree with you and sarah. that does not mean all her voters will go to donald trump. but what i fear nikki haley will do out of raw ambition for her own political future is she will actually have a voice going into november demonizing joe biden and hitting joe biden as hard as she can. that's the red flag in this. the level that republicans see joe biden now as this entrenched threat to the united states is real. or at least it's something that nikki haley and others will tell you is real. she's a danger today. we were giving her credit and perhaps months ago we need to recognize she's a danger and a threat to american democracy. >> i think there's something disoienting about someone who makes a fitness argument, who makes a national security argument, who involves their husban nikki haley is saying is deployed and turns around and votes for the person who she says is anti-military, who she says is a national security threat, she says is unfit. we keep coming back to three gentlemen who know everything, know more than we know, and that's general milley, general kelly and general mattis, but it seems that if republicans are going to muddy the waters after making arguments about issues around which no one knows more than those three men, it maybe time for those three men to come out and set the record straight. >> the well, i would certainly like that to happen. we know that general kelly has said things about donald trump. i would love to see some of these gentlemen who have worked with donald trump, who know in their heart the national security threat that he poses to our country come forward. that said, many already have. his former secretary of defense has said publicly, hey, donald trump tried to use the united states military against civilians. he will try to do it again. that's pretty big. ambassador bolton has come out and said donald trump doesn't understand alliances. he throw our democracy under the bus. he is ill informed. so i think we have to take the ones that have already come out and continued to talk about this, and here's the thing about the hah lee voters. i i agree with sarah in that this is certainly a hit and there does give some permission structure to some voters to go for trump now. however, those voters that are for hley that voted for her in the primary, many of them are not dumb. they are the people that won the cold wars. their dads served. their grandfathers were part of the greatest generation, who fought and built the world as we know it. and they are not going to follow nikki haley in this, in my belief, because they understand she's the one who has this ambition to run some day in a party that has lost its moralment compass. the good news is they don't have that ambition. they can follow and still have their integrity. >> the irony is that if trump is who nikki haley told us he is, he's not going to leave. when duz she think she's going to run? he's running as an autocrat. thank you so much. when we come back having already been taken to court, conservative media helping to promote a false conspiracy theory, a dangerous one, spread by the trump campaign. we'll show you that, next. by the trump campaign. we'll show you that, next. safelite makes it easy. you can schedule in just a few clicks. and we'll come to you with a replacement you can trust. >> vo: schedule free mobile service now at safelite.com. ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ first psoriasis, then psoriatic arthritis. it was really holding me back. standing up... even walking was tough. my joints hurt. i was afraid things were going to get worse. i was always hiding and that's just 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indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire so granted donald trump's campaign yauzed lies without any shame, without flinching or blinking to mobilize and energize supporters on daily basis as easily and frequently as the rest of us breathe. but believe me when i tell you this time it's different. disinformation of a stripe and variety goes well beyond the size of his crowds or his golf scores. a dangerous lie this time. we reported it for you yesterday. trump's entirely false assertion that the department of justice authorized the fbi to use deadly force in its 2022 court approved search of mar-a-lago. that lie has exploded. the campaign used it suggesting that president biden was locked and loaded ready to, quote, take him out. then the marjorie taylor greene and trump surrogates augmented and amplified that lie suggesting that president biden had intended to assassinate trump and allies and conservative media, what did they do? >> this was an attempted assassination on donald trump. >> why was merrick garland prepping for a possible shootout? why did agents roll up guns at the ready. >> maybe they wanted to come the in without fbi, without doj, without all of that identifying so that they could engage in deadly physical force. >> deadly force, does that mean that joe biden was authorizing the fbi to -- if it came to that, and he resisted arrest, it would be okay to kill donald trump? >> that's what it seems. >> i won't describe them all-in-one broad brush, but most of those people are smart enough to know what they were saying is bull. not all of them. to believe any of this, you have to ignore the facts that are in front of our eyes. for instance, why would president biden put any such order on paper? why would anybody do that? wait for a specific moment when trump was not at mar-a-lago and then just do that? he wouldn't. neither would the department of justice. why would the department of justice use the same language in the search warrant executed by the fbi. were they going to get him too? there in his own house. the reality is different. the fbi has already explained what the reality is. this language is standard. it's boilerplate. it's the norm in going about executing a search warrant. but trump and his enablers are not interested in letting the facts, even when they could put lives of law enforcement in america, they are not interested in those facts getting in the way of a dangerous new conspiracy theory spreading like wild fire. joining our coverage at the fbi is thr of the book "long haul." he joins us me. >> i don't know whether to laugh or cry, but this is so gravely serious that it can't be treated as humor. we have lost a segment of our population that either is incapable of seems incapable of doing independent thought? they decided some of them to ingest fish tank cleanser because they thought it was an acceptable form of drug. the oh group of people are people who absolutely know, they are smart enough to know that you can look this stuff up and it's verifiable and yet they continue to shovel it into their followers' mouths, who swallow it hole. i have done countless ops orders, written them, aprauf proved them, being physically on search warrants and arrest warrant service. i i can tell you i can't recall seeing an ops order that did not include the deadly force policy. you know why? because it's required. and if people were smart enough to look at the released from the court, you'd see in the bottom right corner a federal form. there's a number there. that means this is a template that we use every single time. it does not change. and the part that stays in there is that deadly force policy. so i would ask some of the people saying, my god, why was this even necessary, even if it's required, why would you do it? because it's in every document. because in my experience, when you send people in and they save this is low threat, no worries, somebody gets hurt. i can give you example after example, including examples where people got killed because they weren't vigilant on a seem ingly routine search or arrest. agents killed because they weren't individual laj on a routine situation. the fact that it's in the biden search, erbe was cooperating. you can't get lower risk than that, but yet the deadly force policy informs that too. you don't take it out. and things happen. murphy's law happens all the time in law enforcement. things go south on you quickly. often with people unrelated to the case. some contractor shows up. the girlfriend shows up with a shotgun. somebody does something unexpected. and god forbid the fbi told those agents today, don't bring your guns. don't bring them. then someone gets killed. that's not the way it works. >> david jolly, there's a lot of projection in year nine of covering donald trump. donald trump is right now arguing before the united states supreme court. he's waiting for a ruling on what he believes would be or should be absolute immunity to use sale team 6 to assassinate a political rival. the idea that anyone who typed and sent this thinks there's any truth to the fact that anyone was trying to assassinate trump is something i can't believe. i don't believe they are that dumb. these people are a lot of things. i don't have enough time to say them all. i he's a lot of things. he's not stupid. he knows damn well that nobody was trying to assassinate donald trump. but this the kind of lie that's going to get the people they view as their people killed. who do they think carries out -- this is going to endanger the life of every man and women in law enforcement who has to knock on a door, who i understand that's some of the most dangerous moments is the moments that sometimes you call your family before. those are the most dangerous moments in a workday that a lot of men and women face. >> yeah, this is one of those moments where you can kind of see the fine line in republican poitics between the knowing, manipulators. the donald trump and steve bannons and the raw idiots that marjorie taylor greene and others who don't understand the facts of the case or just going to am if i pli if i this. both of those lanes, the manipulators and the idiots, are both contributing to real danger in the united states. because the imagery of this shs the story telling of this, excites people who then engage possibly will in violence and response. this is nothing more than what donald trump said go to the capitol with strength, not weakness. they only understand strength. now when donald trump is saying i'm a victim, they are coming for me because they are coming for you. by the way, they are coming for me with weapons with a possible assassination. you better believe that excites some of the most unstable. and that's where those like the steve bannons, i don't know what donald trump understands in husband own head and heart, but people who know better, they know that they are speaking to an audience that could be excited by this. it used to be a rule in politics that you deescalate things. part of leadership is settling things down, deescalating. that is no longer the case when it comes to trumpism and today's republican party. it's a dangerous moment whether they are intending to do it or raw idiots. >> i'll let you take a pass on the idiots vs. intentional breakdown and who falls on what side, but what's amazing is there's no one in law enforcement in the trump coalition who came out and said, whoa, deescalate. >> we had a man who went and entered the speaker of the house's home and attacked her husband. who knows what would have happened if she was the one inside of there. there's crazy people out there. to steal from my producer colleague on the road with me, the way he puts it. there are those who would not pass the lie detort test. those like steve bannon. those like bennie johnson and sean hanhannity. they know what they are saying is a lie. they know that the fbi wasn't sent in to assassinate, but there's a great share that would pass a lie detector test that truly believe that. they are the ones echoing those statements there. when you talk about the potential of how these folks are viewing this, ien can't even begin to explain the ebb tangle ment of conspiracy theories. there's a great number of folks who i have personally talked to who believes that donald trump is in control of the military, is going to take over the white house, and get joe biden out of there. so when you hear that joe biden is using his forces to try to assassinate donald trump at his compound in florida, this maybe complex heerks but this is real violent war talk we're talking about. to minimize it as some lies, one other thing, the wife of don jr., she was just on her online show spoouing out this lie herself. despite having two days of being able to reject this lie and correct it, they are not. they keep it going. >> it's unbelievable. no one is going anywhere. i want to press you on something you said about this yesterday. about the intersection of folks who do see civil war on the near horizon. and lies like this. we have to sneak in a quick break. we'll be right back. sneak in a break. we'll be right back. i used to leak urine when i coughed, laughed or exercised. i couldn't even enjoy playing with my kids. i leaked too. i just assumed it was normal. then we learned about bulkamid - an fda-approved, non-drug solution for our condition. it really works, and it lasts for years. it's been the best thing we've done for our families. visit findrealrelief.com to find an expert physician near you. ask if bulkamid is right for you and discuss potential risks. results and experiences may vary. move beyond the leaks. known for following your dreams. known for keeping with tradition. known for discovering new places. no one wants to be known for cancer, but a treatment can be. keytruda is known to treat 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dangerous. the referred to in the allegation is the justice department's standard policy limiting the use of force. as the fbi advises, it is part of a standard operations plan for searches and, in fact, it was even used in the consensual search of president biden's home. i think i'm going to ask you this, i'm guessing the facts and make a play to the broadcast. >> no, and the hard part is within the republican party today, if you're a voter or somebody who likes donald trump, right, there's two credible voices that are pushing back against the lies and narrative. liz cheney is somebody who is longer credible. john kasich, tom rice out of south carolina. the very few extinguished by the republican party of cast aside, you don't see chuck grassley, john thune on social media because it's pretty easy to put out a tweet. it's very easy to put out a tweet but you don't see them doing that because the pushback for the ecosystem. >> frank figliuzzi, the last word. >> yeah, the speed with which the maga crowd jumped on this and the consistency of their messaging seems to speak towards some level of coordination. that means desperation. that's what they have right now, that's why they're jumping on it but desperate people do dangerous things. that's why the attorney general said this information is dangerous. it will cause mentally unstable people to lash out against fbi properties and that's a deep concern. >> that's not a fantasy. it's a not a what if. we live in post-january 6, post-mike pence, post-political violence, post-election denialism, post-liz cheney being an elected official in the united states, america. frank, david, vaughan, thank you for having difficult considerations with us. still to come, trump dangling the freedom of detained journalist until after the election. we'll bring you that disturbing story, next. story, next. as americans, there's one thing we can all agree on. the promise of our constitution and the hope that liberty and justice is for 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for donald trump these wrongfully imprisoned americans. for joe biden they're family members he spent time with, the white house says he will continue working every day to secure edge's release. he's now been detained for 14 months. up next for us, the united states supreme court deals a blow with a right to vote in an opinion written by -- wait for it -- justice alito. just as more questions swirl about another flag and another house, and what looks from afar like he is projecting pretty hard right-wing views. that story is next. next organic soil from miracle-gro has grown me the best garden i have ever had. good soil, and you get good results. look at that! the broccoli was fantastic. that broccoli! i think some of them were six, seven pounds. uhhh. katie! i knew i'd find you here. i know, it's wild. i'm you from the future! anyway our doctor figured it out. all that constipation with belly pain that keeps coming back, it's ibs—c. she said linzess could help you get ahead of it. 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crimes and misdemeanors, and that certainly includes giving aid and comfort to an insurrection against the constitution of the united states. which is close to treason. that any such person is subject to impeachment by the house of representatives. hi again, everybody. it's 5:00 in new york. calls for recusal even as you herd there from laurence tribe, impeachment. as the accusations are mounting against justice alito for stunning revelations of not one, but two flags were flown at the home of the justice over the past years. the existence of the heaven flag in new jersey is the story we brought you as it protect yesterday during this hour. it is a flag that is used for those who want to remake the american government in christian terms. according to the "the new york times," it was spotted in alito's house on at least four separate occasions. a remarkable development that now two flags seen very visibly during the january 6th insurrection, being waved by the angry trump supporters who stormed the u.s. capitol were also outside the two homes of the man with a lifetime appointment to serve as an arbiter for truth and law of united states of america. hakeem jeffries was among those calling for alito's recusal as well as investigation. >> in the case of samuel alito, he definitively needs to recuse himself from any matter pending before the united states supreme court that has to do with the january 6 violent insurrection. he should have no part of it. if the supreme court does not get its act under control, you can be confident that democrats in the house of representatives partnering with democrats in the united states senate will act the first opportunity we have to engage in thorough oversight and the consideration of imposing an ethical code of conduct on supreme court justices. >> those cases that leader jeffries is referring to, one is an interpretation of the obstruction of justice statute. it has a direct impact on cases of hundreds of january 6th rioter cases. the second being the presidential immunity case, that the highest court in the land will decide whether an american ex-president has immunity. in this case, it's donald trump and it's regarding his role in the deadly january 6th insurrection. huge, monumental decisions that impact the future of our democracy and rule of law in america. alito's flying of these flags also erases his appearance of possessing any impartiality for all cases going forward. at a time when the public's confidence in the sort of neutral stance or the goodwill of the supreme court is at the lowest numbers it has never clocked since gallup poll and other polling institutions have asked the question of the-mile-an-hour people. today in a 6-3 ruling the supreme court rejected a claim that republicans inning is sk unlawfully considered race when they drew a congressional district in a way that removed thousands of black voters a move that a civil rights group described as gerrymander. meanwhile in a blistering dissent, this one in the supreme court, justice elena kagan wrote if the majority had, quote, stacked the deck against the challengers, justice kagan saying the message for politicians who might want to suppress the opinion of minority voters is go right ahead. a supreme court impartiality in question now, while the court has many significant decisions including many that involve january 6, right before right now, we start the hour with some of our favorite experts. "the new york times" eric toaler who was byline on yesterday's stunning piece of reporting at heaven flag at justice alito's home. senior editor of slate. dahlia ludwick is here. "the boston globe" kim aboutenson is here. and msnbc columnist charlie sykes is here. your byline on this story is owe interesting, we live in this time, where i know your editor and publisher has spoken about his where truth is on the line. and telling the story with pictures is one of the, i would presume, the most effective ways to get the truth out to even those not inclined to believe it. tell me the power of these images of the two flags that have flown above the alitos' homes. >> thank you for having me. the first report about the upside down flag, that one speaks for itself. because people have a visceral response when they so the upside down flag but with the new flag, the pine tree flag, maybe not as obvious. i guess would 90% of people have not seen its flag. this is kind of where it's getting a lot of its press. and the history of this flag is fascinating. i'm sure we'll get into it soon but these people are trying to make the government to be a lot more christian values, christian nationals you could say on the far right, than other better uses. it's fascinating to see the images. there are four images of this flag and a fifth one that came out after the report. showing at least this flag flying in alito's house in july and august of september of last year. >> and, the reporting, in both stories, makes clear that these were flags flown by insuctionists on january 6. and the "times" had extensive reporting that day. i clicked on the video story and you can find many insurrectionists waving both flags, especially this appeal to heaven flag. talk about that. >> yeah. it's a little more than the january 6th flag. this flag goes back to the revolutionary war. it's been used in different context. i've counted at least a dozen indiana stances of this flag being flown. this flag upside down speaks for itself. and that was used, very largely, in context at biden's inauguration. there were many people flying this flag between january 6th and january 20th which is when biden was inaugurated. but, yes, this is one of many symbols used january 6th. by people, usually on the right who support trump. and it isn't necessarily only a january 6th symbol. it's much more than that. but it was used by people, largely by people who do agree with the message of "stop the steal" and january 6. >> dahlia lithwick, we now have thanks to journalists like your and aric and the pulitzer prize winning team and jodie kanter who had a report about the leak and the daily insight from the court. we now have a growing body of investigative journalism that points to a couple things. one, complete, flagrant disregard for the spirit of the -- of any ethics applying to at least justices alito and thomas. we also now have journalism, in "the new york times," that makes abundantly clear that flags that were flown on january 6th were proudly, i mean, they were flown at a time when it was in the news that these images were flown by insurrectionists. where anyone could have googled the story i googled when the stories broke and seen the insurrection on that day. where staffers and other people around the alitos have to have told them that. and the flag, especially the heaven flag was up for years before january 6th. >> yeah, i think there's two things that are really interesting. and your larger point is descriptively completely correct. i think that the press corps missed a lot of years for a lot of bad behavior. and thank goodness for investigative reports kind of stepping into the breach and reminding us that we had been covering the court. so the only thing that matters is the handful of decisions that come out at the end of june. it turns out that's half of the story. and the other half of the story is how the justices got on the bench, who paid for them and who is flying them around the country and what they got in exchange. that's part of the story that's been fleshed out in recent years by fantastic and investigative reporters. the other point that i think is essential to understand, the prior stories were about money, things that the justices wanted to keep secret, the salmon trips, and the taking money so that your grand nephew can go to school. those were about money and things that the justices hope to keep hidden. what's really, really, kind of alarming about this new development, this is about politics straight up. whether it's kind of christian nationalism. or whether it's stop the steal. and then it's a flag that's hoisted into the air, this is about politics, and justice alito has been clear about that in his statement. so this is not a sort of front stage, backstage, we want to keep this hidden. this is something that was only hidden because the neighbors were terrified to report it. and that's really a chilling development for a court that thinks it's absolutely immune to any kind of scrutiny. >> charlie sykes, i don't know, if any of us are equipped to answer the question what happened to samuel alito, so i won't ask it. i'd like to present you some thoughts and ask your theory. samuel alito is selected for the supreme after one of his dear, dearest friends from washington, harriet miers nomination. so alito goes after harriet miers. he has conducted himself in a way and he has said things and he's on the phone defending himself in news cycles in very shallow petty nasty terms. there's no public expression of public service. and, again, if there is, i'll go look again. but i read interviews he's done in "the wall street journal." i've heard of reactions to segments like this one on the television that reveal a very thin skin and bitter person. the flags are associated with the only violent transfer of power in the country's history. and one isn't there anymore. the upside down flag. the other one was there for years. what do you make of samuel alito's character that he'd like us to see, what is public-facing? >> it's an interesting question, i actually texted a friend recently wtf happened to this guy. in the last decade, we've seen people whose brains get broken by politicpolitics. but something has happened to him. he's been radicalized in some fundamental way. and we can't get inside someone's head. but what these stories, all of these stories show, though, are the questions about his judgment. you have a supreme court justice who that would be his number one asset, right? to prove that he can reasonably and soberly and fairly make decisions. and as you point out samuel alito comes out again and again and reveals, in fact, his ideological bias which, of course, he has the right to do but also his thin skin and he mixes it up. which leads to the second question which is the appearance. as you point out, this is a court that is struggling with its public image, with faith, in its judgment, in its impartiality. and even in our society, it is a norm, one of those fragile norms that we respect the decisions of the court. this is the amazing thing about it. you would think that a supreme court justice would be concerned not to cast doubt on their judgment, not to create the appearance of bias, and not to lead to the third major issue which, of course, becomes a crisis which is when people begin to question the legitimacy of the court. and samuel alito has been behaving in a manner that shows that he's either not aware or he doesn't care about the considerations. and do you wonder whether the rest of justices at some point are going to have to have an intervention and say, you know, you're not the only member of this court. and you are doing a tremendous damage, not just to yourself, but to the entire judiciary, if you continue to behave in this way. so this does seem like a moment, a kind of come to jesus moment for the court. are they going to take these issues seriously? are they going to address the ethical crisis? are they going to address the appearance that the people like samuel alito have been creating, by their behavior. not just by the flags, but as you point out, by the interviews, the speeches, the way that he conducts himself. because there's a way the judges are supposed to conduct themselves and there's a way they're not supposed to. and he has broken one of those rules after another. >> kim, when justice sonia sotomayor talked about the stench. it's been misquoted and taken out of context. i want to put it back into context. what she was talking about is the stench attached to the supreme court for being so political that a state legislature could wait until the right justices were there to reverse the overturning of roe, by passing a law as a test, for the sole purple of that law making its way to the court. and her worry is that the court would never be free of the stench of that. that's exactly what came to past. and more fantastic investigative journalism from aric's colleagues reveal that perhaps the leak itself came from justice alito. but the worry of the stench of politics is something that's hard to get at. what is the sense of degree of alarm from the legal justices or maybe other conservatives? >> well, i don't doubt that, bosses the justices on the court like sonia sotomayor, probably believe the same thing that i did when i went to law school, when i passed the bar and became an attorney. i swore an oath to be faithful to the constitution and law. not dissimilar to what justices take. and i never at that point i would question the legitimacy the u.s. supreme court all of those decades ago. i certainly disagree with a lot of rules, but as charlie said, a judge is allowed to have ideological views how they interpret the constitution. but what is not okay, based on your political views, a goal on the outcome of a case. and no longer can i look at this and just say, look at a decision like issued today, and say, man, the conservatives have a different view of the racial gerrymandering. no, i have to see that this opinion was written by justice alito -- hmm, this is a man that has flown flags at his own properties that support a very conservative element of our bowl politic. this is a guy who has gone on three vacations with conservatives with business before the court. this is a guy as charlie said on kind of a speech tour after the dobbs decision like he was a christian right crusader. maybe he wants to help republicans stay in power by ensuring that racial gerrymandering claims, even valid ones, cannot make it past political muster, and he did his part today. i cannot say for certain that is not true, and that is a sad day for people, as somebody who voted their entire career to the law and in accordance with the constitutional principle. that's a sad thing and that should be a very alarming thing for the american public. >> and for the chief justice, and, frankly, all of them. i mean, just to underscore your point, approval of the job the supreme court is doing, according to marquette law school yesterday is down to 39%. even lower than gallup had on it. gallup said 41%. 61% disapproving in that poll. aric tolor, thank you very much. thank you for joining us to talk about it, congratulations to you and your colleagues. the rest of the panel will stick around. when we come back, we'll pick up on the big questioning what is the solution to what we're talking about for this plunging 61% of all americans who, today, disapprove of the united states supreme court and the job it's doing? what's the way forward for an institution now mired with credibility questions? we'll have much more on that after the break. plus, alarming new reporting on how the maga movement didn't just break the republican party, it broke democracy itself. the journalist behind that important story with michigan in focus will be our guest. and from the house floor, the democratic member of congress who dared to speak the truth about the twice impeached president. "deadline: white house" is coming back. don't go anywhere. don't go anywhere. wearable tec. trends? all that research. sounds exhausting! nope. schwab's technology does the work. so if i spot an opportunity, in robotics or pets, i can buy those stocks ina few clicks. can't be that easy. it is with schwab! schwaaab! schwab investing themes. 40 customizable themes. up to 25 stocks in justa few clicks. tamra, izzy, and emma... no one puts more love into logistics than these three. you need them. they need a retirement plan. work with principal so we can help you with a plan that's right for your team. let our expertise round out yours. let's get the rest of these plants in. organic soil from miracle-gro has grown me the best garden i have ever had. good soil, and you get good results. this soil will blow you away. it's the martha stewart of soil. norman, bad news... i never graduated this sfrom med school.u away. what? -but the good news is... xfinity mobile just got even better! now, you can automatically connect to wifi speeds up to a gig on the go. plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. i gotta get this deal... i know... faster wifi and savings? ...i don't want to miss that. that's amazing doc. mobile savings are calling. visit xfinitymobile.com to learn more. doc? the recusal requirement is that it is a law. asked by congress, specifically applicable to supreme court justices. so when they pay no attention to it, they're actually violating statutory law. this is the law of the land passed by congress. and they're just flouting it. >> we are back with dahlia, kim and charlie joining our coverage, my dear friend alicia menendez, my dear friend here at msnbc who is jesus take the wheel for me at some point. dahlia, i want to go back to you, i've been surprised how limp the responses have been from democratic senators. i introduced hakeem jeffries to the conversation because he had a sort of forward-leaning posture on is this but the democrats in the judiciary have put up their hands and said nothing we can do. >> yeah, this has been long-standing learned helplessness problem that we've had the jump, you know, we say we're going to write strongly worded letters. a lot of the energy for demanding recusals as though that's going to happen, you know, demanding disclosures as though that's going to happen. and it's so interesting because it's so out of step with public outrage. in other words, you have a clear mandate from the american public that across partisan lines has been really horrified at the ethics violations and the bad behavior and the dobbs leak and all of it. and then you have democrats who either think something is more important or absolutely persuaded that nothing could be done. as charlie said in the last segment, where the public intends this is an inflexion point. this is unacceptable going into an election that the court may decide and yet we have this very, very tepid response like i've got a bad boyfriend but i'm stuck with it because i really love him. that's just not adequate to the moment, but i'm just not sure that we're going to find meaningful energy to really get behind doing something in time to really salvage what's left of the term. >> i mean, charlie, the thing to do, republicans wrote the playbook on this. you make the supreme court a one, two, three, voting issue for democrats. you'll have an unbelievable turnout and position of choice which ranks higher than just about everything in the country between men and women. you have republicans 45 years, you make the supreme court a 1, 2, 3 voter issue. >> well, this is an important point. because if you spent any time in conservative republican politics, the idea of voting on. court has been internalized for a very, very long time. i know a lot of very smart people who believe the 2016 election, donald trump's initial election was really because of the court. because the stakes were so high after the death of justice scalia. this is something that, frankly, i've never fully understood, why democratic voters didn't focus more on the court. obviously, the issues are salient, they're dramatic, they're very, very clear. so clearly, that's on the ballot. to dahlia's point about the learned helplessness that's also built into the constitution. there are very few things you can do about a supreme court justice who has a lifetime tenure. i do think it's appropriate to push for more recusal. but again, that's something that is up to the justice. i think more substantiatively, this is time to talk about an ethics code. it's very difficult for the court, i think, to argue that they should not be subject to the kind of ethics rules that apply to everybody else in government, including all of the rest of the federal judiciary. federal judges that are not supreme court justices have very, very strict ethics rules. and the idea that somehow we should not apply that to the supreme court, i think that's an obsolete idea. so, if you had to find one inflexion point, i think it would be push for the recusal. obviously, make it a political issue in the campaign about what kind of justices you want. but, again, the idea of an ethics code i think is an idea whose time has very much come. >> it is so striking to me, kim, on this question of recusal, when the court presented their code of ethics, it was immediately called out as designed to fail. and recusal is an issue because there were a ton of loopholes that they wrote for themselves including the one that basically allows a justice to disregard a recusal if they think their vote is needed in the case. i mean that is kind of unbelievable, one might say. and given, as you've all said, the stakes, the cases that are pending before this court, whether on the presidential immunity, the 1-6 case, abortion access. even what we saw today out of south carolina it's pretty terrifying that they're refusing to govern themselves. >> yeah, alicia, so two points, what you're talking about in that code is something that the supreme court called the rule of necessity, which means there are cases that, you know, if one justice is missing, it's possible that they could end up in a deadlock, and that would be awful. so they have to do all that they can to ensure that doesn't happen. or, of course, when merrick garland was cooling his heels as a nominee in 2016, when republicans refused to give him a hearing, much less a vote, the court had numbers, you know what it did, it operate just fine. it happens because they own stock in a company, it happens all the time. there really is not a necessity. that's something that's supreme court made up to keep themselves from being held to account. and being really forced to adhere to the code of conduct. as charlie said, yes, do you need a conduct code. the supreme court has one, but the catch is that the enforcement mechanism is each justice, himself or herself, deciding they are the judge. which means there's no enforcement mechanism, right? so, that's an important point. but i want to say something about recusal. first of all, these two cases that we're talking about that are before the court, they've been briefed, they've been argued, they've been deliberated. and opinions have been written and circulated for weeks now. so that horse has left the barn, even if alito suddenly recuses today and doesn't put his name anywhere on any opinion or dissent, he still played a part in it. so, that's already too late. and what is recusal really? recusal is an acknowledgement that there is a conflict, and that's something that alito has refused to do so it's really foolish to think that he would. i think we need to demand congress say, listen you don't get to self-police. we're going to put -- we're going to put something, we're going to put teeth in this rule, maybe create an independent body that will decide whether that recusal was necessary. and then put some penalty if justices refuse to do that. congress can do that. >> yeah. and they haven't. i mean, it's a good point. so far, alito's public posture on the first flag is that his wife did it. i don't know if you got from the fox interview with shannon, that it's not recusal. scary stuff. thank you for taking the wheel. >> thank you. >> dahlia, and kim, charlie, stick around with alicea. >> when he come back, there's brand-new reporting on how maga republicans in a key battleground state to grave damage to itself. the reporter behind that will be our guest. don't go anywhere. guest. don't go anywhere. okay everyone, our mission is to provide complete, balanced nutrition for strength and energy. yay - woo hoo! ensure, with 27 vitamins and minerals, nutrients for immune health. and ensure complete with 30 grams of protein. 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[mind blown explosion noise] sometimes jonah wrestles with falling asleep... ...so he takes zzzquil. the world's #1 sleep aid brand. and wakes up feeling like himself. get the rest to be your best with non-habit forming zzzquil. ♪ ♪ hello, everyone. it's kristina karamo, as you know, i am not allowed to refer myself as chairwoman or act in capacity as chairwoman. this is why i've said very little in the last fuel days. in the meantime, the court is in control of the party and convention. and there's been much confusion. for too long, we've had a republican party who is nothing more than controlled opposition and complicit and destroying the public. >> much confusion indeed that is the former chair kristina karamo who had to be removed by court order, members of her party promised to oust her. claiming that the election held by her own party was stolen. the schism has thrown the state party into chaos ahead of the presidential election and threatened the democracy. it's a phenomenon that michigander, screens from a maga meltdown, inside the american first movements war over democracy. several years ago, my home state stopped making sense to me. i watched as thousands of political newcomers, calls themselves the america first movement. they disparage prominent michigan republicans as globalist elites that belong to a cabal. that cabal denied trump a rightful second term and needs to be purged from the party. the most important fault line in the party now is democracy itself. today republican insurgents believe that democracy has been stolen. they don't trust the process to restore it. it's nevada, georgia, idaho and florida, but perhaps the starkest in michigan. joining the investigative reporter, andy krol byline and msnbc political analyst, mara gay, charlie is back with us. i just learned that you and mara went to college together. you were on the college newspaper together. how perfect is to having having this conversation together. tell me, andy, what is happening in michigan? >> i think michigan is the setting for one of the most important political developments in this election so far. if you look at the national level, you see polls that say donald trump is ahead of president joe biden across the battleground states in this country, including in my home state of michigan. but what i found going to the ground in michigan spending time with republican voters, republican activists, this so-called america first movement is of actually a republican base that is a lot more conflicted, a lot more at war with each other and really more divided and even starting to become disillusioned with former president trump than you would understand that would you know, from reading these polls and sort of taking in the national vibes of the campaign so far. it's a really different picture on the ground of a state and a political party that is really at war with itself, going into this really critical election in the fall. >> mara, you're very familiar with the state of michigan, does any of this surprise you? >> well, it doesn't surprise me. it was a great piece. and i'd love to ask andy a question about it, yeah. the thing that struck me is that michigan has actually become more blue over the years. and so you also, what that has left the state with is a minority republican minority, that especially on the fringes, is extremely angry about losing power in michigan. so, i think the other side of the story is that oakland county, for example which was a republican stronghold, it was the suburbs outside of detroit has completely flipped and strongly democratic now. you actually have a much broader democratic coalition. and michigan has a large militia movement. one of the questions i have for andy is whether you saw any oval out there and how many of these kind of conspiracy theory, you know, or folks who are maybe prone to conspiracy theories are actually in that movement, or may become violent in some way? i mean, how concerned are you about this? and where is this going, is this about political participation? or is there something else going on? are we talking abe a totally leaving of the republican party as well? where is this going? >> good questions, maura. questioned i remember you asking when we worked together at "the daily. "shoutout for "the daily." the first part, the folks that i embedded with in michigan this year, i was there for a number of weeks and really went there and sought out the folks in this america first movement. the activists, the precinct delegates who flooded into the party in 2021, those inspired by january 6th, 2021, fueled by then president trump, now former president trump's claims of a stolen election. this is what is really driving them. and they flood into the party. and that is still the animates philosophy, the animating belief that the 2021 election was stolen and 2022, and even gone backward where is you have kristina karamo who you saw in that clip, saying actually elections going back decades have been corrupted. this is the sort of central ideology for a lot of people in this movement. and what's so fascinating about it is, this is a movement that donald trump unleashed after the 2020 election when he started spreading these claims that proved to be false about the election being stolen. but now that he's running in 2024, he's trying to tamp down these conspiracy beliefs. he doesn't want the michigan republican party run by election fraud believers like kristina karamo, in fact, donald trump injected himself in michigan in support of the candidate to get karamo out of the michigan republican party which has only made his followers more confused and in some cases disillusion. and it's almost to the point where trump himself is dealing with a phenomenon that he himself created. and it's important to understand for the election year. >> charlie, andy got so right in the title piece it would be really easy to focus on maga's takeover and lasting impact on the republican party. but that's not it. it's the lasting impact it has on democracy when a state party is in such a state of chaos that it cannot focus on properly doing the job of voters? >> this is an interesting article, basically you have it taken over by brain worms but this is happening around the country where you have the party being ripped apart, not on ideological grounds, this is the key point that i think he makes, it's by this sort of, you know, angry fervor, that won't believe any election is valid. will grab on to any sort of conspiracy theory, and if that's debunked, will continue to move on. i think what i took away from this is just how disorienting our political moment is. i have a piece coming out in "the atlantic" in a few minutes talking about the sense of air sickness that we sometimes have, your innerear detects the turbulence but you don't see it. it's that sense. we are buffeted by the turbulence of this crazy and it's moving very quickly. so you have people in the maga world who are fighting with one another over what, resentments, conspiracy theory, denial. you have a movement that was created by donald trump that -- it's not necessarily the ability to control anymore. and a lot of it just doesn't make any sense to outsiders. i mean, whether you're talking about the language they use or the things they obsess about, it is feeling like you've taken crazy pills. and i think this is one of the distinctive parts of this political moment. is that we think the world works in a certain way, and we watch things like this, and read articles like this and you realize, wow, all the rules are out. all of the normal norms and guidelines and standards have been destroyed. and we're trying to figure out what the hell is going on here. >> well, especially because that is by design, that chaos is buy skin, andy kroll, thank you. when we return, one fact about republicans, they cannot handle the truth even when it comes to the most basic thing about donald trump. i'm going to show it to you, next. ♪ [suspenseful music] trains. [whoosh] ♪ trains that sense what isn't on the schedule. ♪ trains that use the power of dell ai and intel. ♪ to see hundreds of miles of tracks. ♪ [vroom] [train horn] [buzz] clearing the way, [whoosh] so you arrive exactly where you belong. a candidate for president of the united states is on trial for sending a hush money payment to a porn star to avoid a sex scandal during his 2016 campaign. and then fraudulently disguising those payments in violation of the law. he's also charged with conspiring to overturn the election. he's also charged with stealing classified information. and a jury has already found him liable for rape in a civil court. and yet, in this republican-controlled house, it's okay to talk about the trial, but you have to call it a sham. >> you take down -- >> it's okay to say the jury is rigged. >> mr. speaker -- i demand that the words be taken down. >> it's okay to say the court will -- >> the gentleman will suspend. >> not corrupting the rule of law. >> demand that his words be taken down. >> to be clear, a jury found donald trump liable for sexual assault. and the judge later clarified it to be rape. but what we saw on that clip is an unprecedented moment on the house floor one that speaks for itself about where republicans stand when it comes to meter. democrat jim mcgovern was allowed to call it a sham when saying that it exists. statements about the republican nominee were unfair, personal attacks which they then struck from the record. they also banned the governor for speaking for the rest of the day. back with mara and charlie. where does this fall in the unending fight to capture the truth? >> it's so and yet, in the scope and the sweep of what we're witnessing right now, donald trump on trial -- i guess i'm allowed to say that here -- you know, it's still so far, you know, it's easy to lose sight of this, but the reality is this is antidemocratic behavior, and it's also abridging the right of jim mcgovern's constituents to have their voice heard in congress. >> charlie, i want to play a little bit more of what mcgovern said before it was struck from the record. take a listen. >> mr. speaker, donald trump might want to be a king, but he's not a king. he is not a presumptive king. he's not even the president. he's a presumptive nominee. frankly, at some point it's time for this body to recognize that there is no precedent for this situation. we have a presumptive nominee for president facing 88 felony counts, and we're being prevented from even acknowledging it. these are not alternative facts. these are real facts. >> the part of that that jumped out to me, charlie, was the fact that there's no precedent for this situation, right? and so even the rules that they're using to strike this from the official record, it's supposed to be about peers in congress. he doesn't qualify as a peer . he's not a member of the body. also, mcgovern's called to say, listen, we have not lived through this before, so let's all start acting as though this is normal and as though the normal rules apply. >> well, and everything he said, every single point was truthful, was correct, and what the republicans showed was they just simply can't handle the truth. it was an absurd moment, but it was a revealing one because this is where we are. this is what their party's about to do, and he just laid it out chapter and verse. >> mara gay, charlie sykes, as always, thank you both so much for spending some time with us. we're going to sneak in a quick break, and then we'll be right back. we'll be right back ivers precision, speed, comfort, ♪♪ and a feeling we couldn't possibly put into words. ♪♪ you just have to get in the seat. millions of children are fighting to survive due to inequality, conflict, poverty and the climate crisis. save the children® is working alongside communities to provide a better life for children. and there's a way you can help. please call or go online to give just $10 a month. only $0.33 a day. we urgently need 1000 new monthly donors in the next 30 days to help the children we support around the world. you can help provide food, medicine, care and protection, plus so much more that a child needs by calling right now and giving just $10 a month. all we need are 1000 monthly donors in the next 30 days. please call or go online now with your monthly gift of just $10. thanks to generous government grants, every dollar you give can have up to ten times the impact. and when you call with your credit card, we will send you this save the children® tote bag as a thank you for your support. your small monthly donation of just $10 could be the reason a child in crisis survives. please call or go online to hungerstopsnow.org to help save lives today. today, at america's beverage companies,... ...our bottles might still look the same... ...but they can be remade in a whole new way. thanks to you... we're getting bottles back... and we've developed a way to make new ones from 100% recycled plastic. new bottles - made using no new plastic. you'll be seeing more of these bottles in more places. and when we get more of them back... ...we can use less new plastic. see how our bottles are made to be remade. an update to a story we brought you yesterday out of louisiana. republicans in that state senate have passed the bill criminalizing medication abortion pills as a dangerous controlled substance, making possession without a prescription a crime punishable with jail time and thousands of dollars in fines. louisiana already has a near total abortion ban in place, which applies to abortion pills. but that was not enough. now they're classifying the pills as schedule 4 drugs, a category for things like opioids. the fda does not consider these pills to be addictive. and years of research have shown both to be safe. despite more than 200 doctors in the state signing a letter to lawmakers warning it could create a barrier to physicians prescribing appropriate treatment, that bill is headed to republican governor jeff landry's desk. i want to thank you for spending part of your thursday with us. we are as always so grateful. i will see you this saturday and sunday on the weekend. "the beat" with ari melber starts right after a short break. stay with us. stay with us and a tablet. yep, all 3 on us only at verizon. was that your grandfather, leading armies to battle? was that your great aunt, keeping armies alive? drafting the plans. taking the pictures. was it your family members who flew? who fixed. who fought. who rose to the occasion. when the world needed them the most. discover, preserve, and share the stories of your family's heroes. save on ancestry subscriptions for a limited time. and they're all coming? save those who are stillptions with us, yes. grandpa! what's this? your wings. light 'em up! gentlemen, it's a beautiful... ...day to fly. ♪♪ welcome to our news special, new york versus donald trump. i'm ari melber and we are bringing our new breakdown of what happened this past week. the first ever for a former president as you certainly know by now. this final week was a short one