on that day. june 6th, 1944. it's to listen to the echoes. they're asking us to do our job, to protect freedom in our time, to defend democracy. to stand up against aggression abroad and at home. >> president biden stressing the importance of democracy from the very cliffs that allied forces scaled 80 years ago to fight the nazis. >> plus, the far right is finally facing accountability, with steve bannon ordered to report to prison next months and alex jones forced to liquidate his assets to pay sandy hook families. i asked you all online if you would be interested in us talking about the sudden boom and interest surrounding the wnba and the controversy that has come with it. and you answered with a resounding yes. stay tuned for that conversation later in the show. and we begin tonight with president biden in normandy. delivering an address on democracy and freedom at a pivotal site during the world war ii allied invasion on d-day in normandy, france. >> democracy begins with each of us. begins when one person decides there's something more important than themselves. when they decide the person they're serving alongside of is someone to look after, when they decide the mission matters more than their life. when they decide that their country matters more than they do. >> but as dana milbank notes in "the washington post," as biden rallies the free world, trump serves a higher cause, himself. in a softball interview with tabloid psychologist dr. phil mcgraw, trump showed us again he's thirsting for revenge. >> i'm the best president for black people since abraham lincoln, and black people are seeing that. >> i think you have so much to do, you don't have time to get even. you only have time to get right. >> revenge does take time, i will say that. sometimes revenge can be justified, phil. i have to be honest. sometimes it can. >> is the country better or worse for them going after you? >> i think the country is really worse for what they have done. >> sometimes revenge can be justified. hmm. tough words. that's a frightening statement from someone who wants to be the president of the united states. remember, this was trump's second opportunity this week to clarify his threats of retaliation in the wake of his felony conviction. on wednesday, his pal sean hannity offered trump an off ramp to walk away from the rhetoric, only for trump to double down and say he has every right to go after his opponents. even his sycophants in the media can't save him because this is no longer speculation. we're not left wondering what a second trump term would be like. donald trump is saying point blank that he can seek prosecutions against his perceived political enemies for made-up crimes. and if that dreadful day does come where trump is president again, you can bet members of the january 6th committee would be high on his list. in an unhinged screed on his dime store twitter, trump raged about the prison sentence handed to his former white house chief strategist steve bannon who in 2022 was convicted of defying a congressional subpoena issued by the j-6 committee and called out republicans by name. liz cheney and adam kinzinger. exacting revenge on those who don't support him, weaponizing the justice department, and law enforcement to go after his opponents, punishing and undermining the media. sounds like a dictatorship. the path toward an american autoocracy has never been so clear, and instead of slouching toward it, it feels like the move is proceeding at breakneck speed. what explains this pull toward a convicted felon who will make this country poorer, sicker, less safe, less free? cults of personality go hand in hand with dictators. and more and more trump is embracing the role of religious leader. kind of like how god made ron desantis a fighter, and how the j-6 prison choir tries to rewrite the national anthem in their image, there's something strangely golden calf like about maga's interpretation of christianity, and sometimes it's just plain silly. this morning he boasts online about a bizarre new song from christian singer natasha owens that called trump the chosen one. think country music meets gospel meets weird. ♪ i'm standing with the ♪ >> where's moses and the ten commandments when you really need them. joining me now, ben rhodes, msnbc political analyst and former deputy national security adviser to president obama. ben, thank you very much for being here. let's get started. you had president obama delivering this speech in normandy in front of that beautiful vista. you can see the sea, he's greeting members of the military, retired members of the military, et cetera. and meanwhile, he also, while he's in normandy, is apologizing to volodymyr zelenskyy for the late delivery of arms when they were sorely needed to try to win the war against russia. while vladimir putin is saying that the american justice system is weaponized against donald trump. what's going on? >> well, joy, first, i'm never going to unsee the clip of that video you just played. i would say that i think something we're all feeling about the consequence of this moment kind of converged in normandy which is that we kind of face two existential threats right now. at home, we have someone who is running for president to literally dismantle our democracy and turn it into an extension of his personal interests. and that's not some theory. that's something donald trump tells us every day. we face an existential threat to our democracy at home. abroad, we have for the first time since world war ii a major land war in which an aggressor has invaded a neighboring country in europe and hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and wounded in that war. and vladimir putin kind of represents the form of nationalism and autocracy that those young people were fighting when they stormed the beaches. we also sense these two things are somehow connected, not just because putin and trump have had their connections, because putin and trump both represent a brand of nationalism and autocracy and cult of personality that throughout history has been a threat to democracy. and so i think today, clearly, we saw the kind of convergence of those two threats in the kind of speech that joe biden was delivering in normandy. >> you know, it is fascinating. we talked a little bit about this yesterday. i mean, putin really is kind of a modern day stalin. that's who he seems to revere. he wants to restore the soviet union the way it was then. the irony is what broke stalin from fdr and truman is he said now that we won the war, i get to eat half of europe, and the u.s. said no, you can't do that, so the cold war is born from there. you know, all of the alliances are scrambled where ukraine was then versus now, where russia was then versus now. the new alliances where germany is our ally, japan is our ally, it's all scrambled. it's like trying to understand the post world war ii world is also scrambled because the global south is like no longer interested in the west. they like despise the people who enslaved and colonized them. i feel like there's so much that's mixed up. has joe biden presented himself as someone capable of managing all of those contradictions in a way that makes americans feel safe and secure enough to just give him four more years to keep going? >> well, i mean, i think he is certainly part of the way there. i think you're right, joy. the post cold war world has fractured. it's kind of come apart. i wrote, contributed to writing two of these speeches for barack obama around those anniversaries. vladimir putin was at those anniversaries because the russians were on our side in world war ii. he's not there anymore. he's broken off. there's no more a functional relationship between the west and russia. russia has thrown in completely with china to build an alternative world order. you have the american-led bloc and then the chinese and russian bloc, and then you have the rest of the world, it global south, which was by the way also the competing ground during the cold war. i think those are the ones who are sitting and looking at this and saying, who is going to stand up for our interests, who is going to be consistent in the application of democratic principles? what joe biden has done as president is reconstituted america's core alliances. we're back friends with europe and our asian allies again. we have rallied the world to support ukraine against vladimir putin's invasion. he's not yet taken that additional step, i think, particularly in the wake of gaza, of signaling to the rest of the world that hey, we get that we're in a new world and we have to be consistent in the application of our principles. we have to care about what happens to people in the global south as much as we care about what happens to people in ukraine. but to be clear, one person who has absolutely no interest in doing any of that is donald trump. and the kind of order that he envisions is one in which he's kind of buddies with this collection of strong men around the world. be it vladimir putin or kim jong-un or viktor orban, the kind of soft dictator of hungary, these are the people he wants to associate with. with biden, we're trying to stitch together something new that is rooted in democratic principles and needs to be expanded. with trump, we know what we're going to get and it's not good. >> it's also, he's -- it's not unusual for people who are fans of a president to write songs. my president is black came out when barack obama was in. people were proud you had this black president and people did cultural things around it. the difference is they weren't worshiping him. they weren't falling down in front of him like he's the golden calf, which is what they're doing with trump. let's go back to biden. the difference between the post world war ii order and now is that the global south, the place where you get all the resources, the stuff that makes you able to make a cell phone, the minerals, the oil, the wealth, it's all in concentrated in the part of the world that was colonized, and that had no other meaning besides being a colony. now it has meaning, and a lot of that world has its eyes trained directly on gaza, where you have israel apparently investigating and intimidating the icj, where you have george clooney's wife, amal clooney, now going to the white house and saying hey, you're about to sanction icj members because they're issuing arrest warrants against netanyahu. one of those people is my wife. you better not do that because i'm your big fund-raiser and ally. do you really want to antagonize the clooneys? you have what just happened in the bombing of these schools with american bombs. nbc reporting, we don't have that reporting, but npr has it. we just dropped bombs not long after nikki haley signed some of them. we are in this awkward position, ben, and i wonder if biden has made the mental shift to that reality. >> look, i think, joy, the reality is american foreign policy is always come along with a heavy dose of hypocrisy. we talk about rules that we want to apply, but we only apply the rules to the people we don't like, to people like putin. i think gaza has put that on full display. i frankly think that was never the right in the to do, but it's even more dangerous today because if we truly are in the kind of battle between democracy and autocracy that joe biden talks about and referenced again today, actually the bar should be higher for us to live by the same principles whether it applies to netanyahu or vladimir putin. we can't just say there's a ruled based international order in one part of the world but not in the other. the audience that matters, you can't deal with climate change without partnership in the global south. you can't deal with supply chains, you can't keep inflation down. this is something people miss. those supply chains run through asia and africa. countries looking at our policies and saying you're a bunch of hypocrites. you welcome the icc when they go after putin but call it outrageous when they go after netanyahu. i would like to see us emerge embracing more democracy, and the civil rights movement was deeply entwined with the liberation movements in africa. when you had martin luther king and meggr evers, you had dozens of african countries throwing off the shackles of colonialism. the pursuit of social justice has always been connected taa global sense of justice. i think that's what the united states at its best stands for. that's what the people were storming the beaches to do, but something we have to globealize our vision just as we have to globealize it at home. >> i say a lot that world war ii, one of the things people don't realize it did, it launched the modern civil rights movement. because a lot of black soldiers came home and demanded the right to vote, and a lot of african nations emerged into liberation. you saw country after country liberating themselves. there was a movement toward more freedom. china and russia are in there. ben rhodes, always a pleasure talking to you. i appreciate you being here. all right, and coming up next, the trump to prison pipeline, it is the age of accountability and maga world is literally crying about it. dangerous ladders. gutter muck. yuck. no wonder you hate cleaning your gutters. good thing there's leaffilter. our patented filter technology keeps leaves and debris out of your gutters forever. guaranteed. call 833- leaffilter to get started. and get the permanent gutter solution that ends clogs for good. they took the time to answer all of our questions. they really put us at ease. end clogged gutters for good. call 833.leaf.filter, or visit leaffilter.com today. detect this: living with hiv, robert learned he can stay undetectable with fewer medicines. that's why he switched to dovato. dovato is a complete hiv treatment for some adults. no other complete hiv pill uses fewer medicines to help keep you undetectable than dovato. detect this: marnina learned that most hiv pills contain 3 or 4 medicines. dovato is as effective with just 2. if you have hepatitis b, don't stop dovato without talking to your doctor. don't take dovato if you're allergic to its ingredients or taking dofetilide. this can cause serious or life-threatening side effects. if you have a rash or allergic reaction symptoms, stop dovato and get medical help right away. serious or life-threatening lactic acid buildup and liver problems can occur. tell your doctor if you have kidney or liver problems, or if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or considering pregnancy. dovato may harm an unborn baby. most common side effects are headache, nausea, diarrhea, trouble sleeping, tiredness, and anxiety. detect this: you could stay undetectable with fewer medicines. ask your doctor about dovato. shop etsy for thoughtful pieces made by real people to bring a little something yo extra to the ordinary.le with fewer medicines. find items that add wow to walls and make you fall in love with your family room again. when you want one-of-a-kind pieces to refresh your home... etsy has it. kayak. no way. why would i use kayak to compare hundreds of travel sites at once? kayak. i like to do things myself. i do my own searching. it isn't efficient. use kayak. i can't trust anything else to do the job right. aaaaaaaahhhh! kayak. search one and done. her uncle's unhappy. i'm sensing an underlying issue. it's t-mobile. it started when we tried to get him under a new plan. but they they unexpectedly unraveled their “price lock” guarantee. which has made him, a bit... unruly. you called yourself the “un-carrier”. you sing about “price lock” on those commercials. “the price lock, the price lock...” so, if you could change the price, change the name! it's not a lock, i know a lock. so how can we undo the damage? we could all unsubscribe and switch to xfinity. their connection is unreal. and we could all un-experience this whole session. okay, that's uncalled for. okay, i know it can sometimes seem like the right have these superpowers where they can get away with anything, but recently we have seen a remarkable string of accountability. today, right wing conspiracy theorist alex jones agreed to liquidate his personal assets to pay the families of sandy hook victims the $1.5 billion he owes them in damages after spreading lies about the 2012 school massacre. a move that would ultimately end his ownership of the info wars company. it comes just days after jones openly sobbed on his conspiracy laden broadcast, baselessly claiming the deep state was trying to shut him down. >> i just want to stop these people. they got to be stopped. we have to stop them. >> no, alex, it's not the deep state. it's the families of murders babies who a court said you defamed. there's also steve bannon who as you may recall said this the day before the january 6th insurrection. >> listen, all hell is going to break loose tomorrow. just understand this. all hell is going to break loose tomorrow. >> well, after defying a subpoena and refusing to testify before the house select committee about that statement, bannon was ordered yesterday to report to prison by july 1st to serve a four-month sentence. just like former white house aide peter navarro. those are just some of the long list of trump attorneys, aides, and associates that are facing repercussions for their involvement with the big lie. rudy giuliani lost his law license, owes nearly $150 million for defaming georgia poll workers and just a few weeks ago was served an indictment in the arizona election interference case at his 80th birthday party. also facing charges in arizona for allegedly conspiring to overturn the election is trump's former chief of staff, mark meadows. today, he pleaded not guilty to those charges. on top of that, 2000 mules the conspiracy ridden movie about election fraud created by dinesh d'souza has been pulled from all platforms. and of course, there's donald trump himself, who last week was found guilty by a jury of his peers on 34 felony counts. and while some of these are state cases, some are federal. it's an important reminder that no matter how slow it may sometimes feel, the wheels of justice are in fact turning. and the trump to prison pipeline is real. i'm joined by david jolly, former republican congressman who is no longer affiliated with the republican party, who is also an msnbc political analyst. he is affiliated with us which we're grateful for. david, i wanted to do this today because i do think that on the democratic side, there's a kind of despair that has set in thinking trump is superman, but he's not. he's been involved in 4,000 lawsuits, something like that in his lifetime. every time he's gone to court in new york, he's lost. you know, whether it's the case where he owes $500 million, whether it's the e. jean carroll case, or the felony counts, and look at all the people he's left disbarred and jailed. your thoughts. >> joy, it's hard sometimes to recognize this, but you're exactly right. given all of the challenges that donald trump and the people around him have thrown at our republic, at american democracy, one of the themes of his first term and thereafter is that the courts largely held. certainly imperfectly, there are lots of problems with delays in prosecutions, with certain decisions. we're watching them right now, but we can see evidence of accountability, however long it takes. and i appreciate that in your lead-in you point out the victims in each of these cases. for alex jones, the victims were the families of sandy hook. 26 people who lost their lives and the judgment was on their behalf. for steve bannon, the victim was the american people because he knew stuff about january 6th, refused to cooperate. same with mark meadows, supporting a boss who was trying to steal the election. rudy giuliani, on down the lin