and how invalidating 2020 became a rhino litmus test in wisconsin. all in starts right now. good evening from new york, i am chris hayes. it has been about 32 hours since a trump appointed federal district judge issued this astonishing ruling, essentially siding with donald trump s lawyers, giving the ex president nearly everything he wanted and more in the case of his clearly on lawful and possibly criminal retention of classified documents that are not his. now, we will get to the details of the ruling itself, but first, it is notable that this decision has come under unbelievable, overwhelming and near universal criticism. law professor of duke university telling new york times, quote, this ruling is laughably bat and the justification is even flimsier. paul rosen by a former george w. bush official cause the ruling, quote, a generally unprecedented decision by a judge. andrew weissmann, formerly prosecutor and law investigation, who i speak to at this table in a moment, w
was a hoax, two impeachments were a hoax, the mueller investigation was a hoax and much more. same sleazy people involved. and in the days after, trump kept bringing up that washington post report again and again and again. on august 26th, affidavit heavily redacted. nothing mentioned on nuclear. a few days later, again, quote, what happened to nuclear, a word that was leaked early on by fbi doj to the fake news media? something about that whole nuclear thing really irked donald trump. it really got right under his skin. but besides trump s littleout burst for days after that reporting we heard nothing about the washington post s reporting on those nuclear secrets, no other news outlets confirm the post s along-terming reporting. but then a week ago, a week ago tonight, the justice department revealed in a court filing in an unsealed subpoena from may for those documents that the doj was looking for documents at mar-a-lago, ones that including classification called formally
wisconsin and democracy of america, it is absolutely critical. go to the gerrymandering stuff is bonkers, truly exsentially ben wikler, thank you. that is all in on this tuesday night. alex wagner tonight starts right now. alex? a lot of bonkers out there in the world. thank you as always. thank you for being with us this evening, this breaking news evening. it was three weeks ago when the washington post published this bomb shell piece. it is hard to forget a report with a title like this, quote, fbi searched trump s home to look for nuclear documents and other items, sources say. the source fbi agents were classified classified documents relating to nuclear weapons could be found at trump s beach club down in florida. the former president told the world, quote, nuclear weapons issue is a hoax. just like russia, russia, russia
you said something tonight about gridlock is mitch mcconnell. look, first of all there s structural problems with congress now that the vice president didn t deal with. citizens united, the inju gerrymandering stuff we got today and the attacks on voting rights. when there were bipartisan deals cut they were mcconnell taking everything i ve said before mcconnell is immune to give-and-take unless he s taking everything. and on that deal mcconnell took everything and he stole the democrats economic argument for it last presidential election. we had run against the bush tax cuts. that deal had made the bush tax cuts, almost all of them permanent. we had run against the sequester that was going to be so ugly congress would never pass it. that deal made it the law of the land. and on top of that we ve had the
we are also awaiting a ruling on this large war memorial in the shape of a cross just outside washington, d.c. a humanist organization is suing to take down that world war i memorial saying it amounts to the government endorsing religion. supporters of the cross say an adverse ruling could impact hundreds of veterans memorials in places like arlington national cemetery. the next round of opinion is due 10:00 a.m. thursday and of course the entire term is supposed to wrap up next week. bret: the gerrymandering stuff could really have an impact on the election. politically it s record. bret: we will see you tonight at 11. see you then. bret: gloria vanderbilt, the society of ours who built a $100 million fashion a pair died at her home in new york today. vanderbilt was the great, great granddaughter of financier cornelius vanderbilt. her life was chronicled in sensational headlines from her childhood through four marriages, three divorces her son, cnn anchor anderson cooper rep