Trump's 'A Crazy Man': Inside The Final MAGA Days As The Big Lie Spreads

we start tonight with the party of trump's war on democracy amid new details on how concerned the nation's top general was about an unhinged lame duck trump what chairman millie was trying to do as we show in the book is contain a national security emergency and as bob said he was reading people in while these calls with general lee were held on a top secret back channel they were not secret this was not someone who was working in isolation he was reading people in in the nationals he was not going rogue he was reading people in throughout the national security and military community trying to contain a situation and a president he believed was in serious mental decline so think about this he was trying to contain a president he believed was in serious mental decline trump stewing after losing and in his made-up mind believed the election was stolen now eight months later that big lie in the war on democracy is alive we've been reporting on sham election audits from arizona to pennsylvania now they're happening in michigan and colorado but get this in counties that trump actually won all because this entrenched idea among the trump base that elections are rigged and can't be trusted apparently even their own votes can't be trusted new today senators lindsey graham and mike lee personally vetted trump's election fraud claims despite saying publicly trump should not concede and spreading unfounded claims of fraudulent mail and voting behind closed doors they weren't convinced but trump is still pushing this writing to georgia's secretary of state last week asking to decertify the election look here's what you actually need to know the republican party is running on this big lie this is the party's platform and politico is reporting that phony election fraud conspiracies are becoming more entrenched in conservative circles with vague unspecified claims that future races already rigged this is going to include the 2022 midterms and while the rally supporting january 6 terrorists was a dud remember trump has said his heart was with them it comes as capital police reveal more than 4 000 threats against members of congress in the first quarter of 2021 on pace to double 2020's numbers journalist bob woodward and robert costa report on how close mike pence came to overthrowing the election this really was a question of the legitimacy of the american presidency and if pence had gone up there in congress and said look i can't decide whose votes to count he's with president trump on january 5th hours before the insurrection and president trump has this temptation of power wouldn't it be cool he says to vice president pence to have the power to decertify an election joining me now is pulitzer prize winning college for the washington post eugene robinson former democratic congresswoman donna edwards and democratic pollster fernand armandi thank you all so much for starting off the show today look i'm going to start with this i get all sorts of hate mail you get hate mail all the time but death threats are something else entirely and that seems to have been skyrocketing since last year i want to play this sound from speaker pelosi and then donna i want to get your thoughts on the other side as a former member of congress about how much this has been a sea change in our body politic you know i mean i'm the speaker i have threats all the time but so i'm not afraid for myself but i was afraid for my other members and for the staff and for the workers in the capitol they were traumatized by this assault on the capital of the united states a temple of democracy for the world donna i mean nancy pelosi basically said hey i'm about this life there have been people after me all along but this is not normal for everybody else how do you view this sort of new temperature in washington dc and how's that contrasted when you were there well i have to say i mean i was there in the time of the passage of the affordable care act and to be quite honest with you i think there were a number of us as members who received significant threats to our to ourselves many members stopped doing in-person town hall meetings as a result of those kind of threats but what we're seeing now has escalated well beyond what we experienced um back in that time in the you know 2008 to 2010-2012 uh time frame and i you know you have members of congress uh anthony gonzalez from ohio who said he was leaving because of the toxic environment he and his family had received threats and so many other members and it's tough to protect yourself as a member of congress if you're the rank and file you don't get the security detail that the leadership uh gets you're on your own your staff in the district are on their own and it's a very dangerous time and you know look it's it's strange to think that there was ever a time that being in congress was safe there was always there always been people who are unhappy with you can go back to 200 years in history and members of congress occasionally getting flogged by somebody being angry but the idea of overt actions of violence against members of congress seems to be part and parcel of the current gop you know fernand there's this there's new ad out the marjorie taylor green is using where she's you know shooting weapons at a like a honda civic or something that says socialism and blowing it up and then auctioning off the weaponry you know from a polling perspective who out there is watching this and saying you know what i want a member of congress that wants to engage in violence against their colleagues is that work polling wise or is it is it all in the heads of the republicans well jason i mean it certainly works in the radicalized fringe segment of the electorate that the maga paramilitary cult caters to and i think that's what we've seen you listen to the comments now congresswoman edwards at the top of the segment what robert costa and bob woodward were describing was general milly in a hostage situation where american democracy in fact the very nature of the american republic was facing a moment of a potential domestic terrorist takeover and the actions that i think general miller were taking were trying to deal with a terrorist takeover and i think frankly until we start speaking in the language of what is in front of us however alarming it may sound like however dangerous it may be i don't think we're doing justice to the point and i think that means calling donald trump what he is he's a terrorist donald trump is a terrorist this radicalized fringe element of what is today's gop again uses violent threats threats against family in some cases literal violence and when that happens i think one has to recognize the impact on the polling is clear but the impact on the republic is even clearer and sometimes just violence against treaties like madikin thoth or and uh congressman punching that tree from his from his wheelchair a couple weeks ago look eugene this is this is the other thing that concerns me you know you have members of congress i'm going to play this audio from costa again talking about how concerned people were about trump's mental state i want to get your thoughts about this afterwards and how this sort of changes the dynamic in washington when you have a president you can't trust president trump's conduct alarmed everyone nearly everyone in his inner circle his administration he could very well run for president in 2024 in this system the american system tested all the way to the brink could be tested again now eugene i i don't know that america really passed the test because i think we're just in an ongoing slow moving coup objectively but you know with donald trump with all that we have learned about him with all that we have learned that he's attempted to do since he's left off this do you think he'll even have the time since he seems to be wanting to run the slow turn moving insurrection do you think he'll have the time to run in 2024 and is washington prepared for that um well yes i think he'll he'll make the time uh to do that if he chooses to run my you know my working theory until fairly recently was that trump would pretend that he was going to run in 2024 uh as a way of deflecting possible criminal prosecutions and saying he was being persecuted politically um i've started to believe that he actually may run and probably will run and and the backdrop that that we have to keep in mind and you just mentioned it jason is that this is as nancy pelosi said to general miller this is a crazy man right this is a man who is not um who is not compass menace and that's one of the real takeaways from the woodward costa book it's you have you know the speaker of the house of representatives and the chairman of the detroit chiefs of staff um you know ranting on the phone about how the president was literally out of his mind um and uh and here he comes again i mean i you know i'm starting to think that he is going to try once again to run for president and fernand you know when it comes to conspiracy theories and crazy and ignoring covet i'm sure desantis is always saying hold my beer but if donald trump were to run in 2024 he would be stepping over aspirational politicians like desantis do you think that there's a possibility that there would actually be a primary in 2024 uh do you think that anyone would actually challenge the former disgrace twice impeach president if he were to run again uh do you think most people would just sort of part like the red sea and let him continue to do the damage he's already done well jason all indications are that even if there is a primary it's not going to matter donald trump still continues to hold almost total support within the republican party and if you look at these republican party primary polling they all say if trump runs again they'll be with him in lockstep i think any republican who dares run against him will see the fate of any republican that is there across donald trump they will soon get the proverbial knife in the back and their political career will end in shame amongst the republican electorate so i don't see anybody willing to take on the juggernaut that is trump but again think about the terms that miley talked about and dealt with this wasn't an aberration i think the other hypothetical to think about what would have happened had those protesters breach the congress and taken hostages and the worst case scenario would have transpired then i think one when you look at it in retrospect it changes the dynamic fortunately for american for democracy the insurrection was contained but it could have very easily gone the other way and i think that's the danger that bob woodward and bob costa are talking about in their book barrel [Music] you

Channel: MSNBC

Views: 367,216

Rating: 4.8296199 out of 5

Keywords: Chris Hayes

Id: nTfkuOY-Sj4

Length: 11min 10sec (670 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 20 2021