Updated
Summary
A new batch of Mark Meadows`s text messages reveal how closely he worked with Fox News host Sean Hannity to push Trump`s big lie. A judge rejected the former President`s bid to end a $10k daily fine in the New York attorney general`s investigation. The Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby gets emotional discussing the atrocities in Bucha. Former U.S. Marine dies fighting alongside Ukrainian forces.
Transcript
JONATHAN CAPEHART, MSNBC HOST: That does it for me tonight. I`m Jonathan Capehart. I`ll see you on the Sunday show Sunday morning 10:00 a.m. Eastern right here on MSNBC. The 11th Hour starts right now.
[23:00:19]
CHRIS JANSING, MSNBC HOST: Tonight, a new trove of text messages the back and forth between Mark Meadows and Fox News hosts around election day, as we wait on new letters from the January 6 committee to members of Congress, calling on them to testify.
Plus, Russia`s new offensive in eastern Ukraine and the desperate operation to rescue civilians from a city described as hell on Earth. We`re back inside Kyiv.
Plus, the divide between the country`s two biggest parties driven further apart by the day as one side clings to the big lie. The other searches for a message that will stick as the 11th Hour gets underway on this Friday night.
Good evening, I`m Chris Jansing in for Stephanie Ruhle and tonight, a new batch of text messages between Mark Meadows and Sean Hannity revealing just how closely they work together to push Trump`s big lie.
CNN reports they exchanged more than 80 messages between Election Day in 2020 in Joe Biden`s inauguration. They suggest Hannity was at times less a Fox News host and more a White House adviser even a researcher.
On November 29, 2020, he wrote, I`ve had my team digging into the numbers. There is no way Biden got those numbers. Just mathematically impossible. It`s so sad for this country. they can pull this off in 2020. We need a major breakthrough. Meadows who replied, you`re exactly right, working on a breakthrough.
But about a month later, as it became clear Trump`s efforts to challenge the election were going nowhere in the courts. Hannity began to criticize some of the people pushing Trump`s case. He sent this to Meadows on December 22nd, quote, you fighting is fine. The effing lunatics is not fine. They are not helping him. I`m fed up with those people.
NBC News has not seen these texts. CNN reports they were among some 2,300 messages Mark Meadows gave to the January 6 committee. That panel is now preparing to interview more witnesses, and we`ll hold hearings in June to reveal the findings of its investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ELAINE LURIA (D-VA): The information that is, you know, been released by the committee and the subpoenas and letters we`ve issued things that have become known to the public in other ways. It`s just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much information having interviewed 850 witnesses, I think we have over 100,000 documents. I think that there is much more that will be of interest as we tell the story from the beginning to the end.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JANSING: The criminal investigation into the riot is also moving forward. Today, a second member of the Oath Keepers not only pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy, he is now cooperating with prosecutors.
As for the former president`s own legal troubles a New York Grand Jury considering a potential criminal case expired today without filing any charges.
But a judge rejected Trump`s request to drop a contempt ruling against him, saying the former president`s affidavit is quote, devoid of any useful detail. Trump`s being fined $10,000 a day for refusing to submit records subpoenaed by the New York Attorney General in a civil case.
With that, let`s bring in our experts. Harry Litman, former U.S. attorney and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Peter Baker, Chief White House correspondent for The New York Times and Luke Broadwater, congressional reporter for the New York Times. Good to see all of you.
Harry, the committee has also asked Sean Hannity for an interview, so they`ve got these facts. What else do you think they might be hoping to hear from him? And just these messages, do they reveal enough to help their case?
HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Definitely to help their case. I mean, this is so beyond the pale of a normal press relationship, right? He`s not even being just a mouthpiece for the government. He`s been a policymaker. He is taking advice from Meadows giving advice to Meadows. This is the antithesis of what you think a Oregon of the press ought to be doing.
But the real focus now — he probably doesn`t have any criminal exposure, but Meadows might. So yes, to the extent it reveals meadows, either knowledge of the violence or possibly what he`s done in these phony slate electors that could zero in on Meadows.
I think though, they are mainly looking to tell the story. They`re not looking for any dramatic Klieg light moments, but they want to sort of put one foot in front of the other. I think you`re going to see largely a ground game with maybe a few 20-yard attempts, but it`s really one foot after the other and even for Meadows I think they`ll look less to him.
[23:05:05]
Doesn`t seem to be time for that and more that people like Cassidy Hutchinson, his aide who did give them important information about him.
JANSING: Peter, I think to Harry`s point, these texts show Sean Hannity acting, I mean, almost like a shadow Chief of Staff. Do we know just how far that went? Or do we at least know more about how far that went? And can we just talk about how unusual this is?
PETER BAKER, THE NEW YORK TIMES CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it`s certainly unusual, certainly, for regular journalists, even opinion hosts are generally not supposed to be participating in a politician`s, you know, operation in effect, but the rules have always been different from the Fox News evening hosts and we knew this about Sean Hannity. We knew that he was a regular telephone confidant of President Trump. The president would call him before a show or call him after a show they would talk about what he said on the show.
The President literally at one point in the 2018 midterm elections called Sean Hannity on to stage a campaign rally and Hannity went up there and gave a campaign speech, basically, for the President and trashed the press. Those of us in the back of the room saying, you know, they`re the enemy. They`re the fake news, people back there, including by the way of Fox News correspondent who happened to be back there.
He has repeatedly been a member of the team. Look at the text he sent to Paul Manafort, when Paul Manafort was being prosecuted, he said, I`m on the team. In other words, he was participating with Manafort in trying to undercut the validity of the Mueller investigation was going on.
So we`ve known this for a long time. But these texts bring home in a very vivid way, just how intertwined Sean Hannity, at least probably some of the other Fox News evening hosts were with this White House and particularly in these final weeks of such dramatic events, to be a part of that is I think, revealing.
JANSING: Speaking of other Fox hosts. Luke, there were also other texts from Fox Business hosts, Maria Bartiromo to Mark Meadows. CNN has one from November 29, 2020, just before she interviewed Trump, and it seems to start with some advice, quote, Hi, the public wants to know he will fight this. They want to hear a path to victory, and he`s in control. And then the tech seems seemingly to go on to feed the question she`s going to ask Trump writing, you`ve said many times this election is rigged and the facts are on your side. Let`s start there. What are the facts? Characterize what took place here.
And here`s her actual question to Trump on the air later that same morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX NEWS HOST: Mr. President, you`ve said many times that this election was rigged, that there was much fraud, and the facts are on your side. Let`s start there. Please go through the facts, characterize what took place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JANSING: Luke, is it fair to say a big takeaway this week seems to be how all these text messages reveal the extraordinary level of cooperation and coordination between the Trump White House and these other entities. I mean, Capitol Hill, the Trump campaign and obviously conservative media.
LUKE BROADWATER, THE NEW YORK TIMES CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Yes, the Fox News hosts very much for acting as you know, hand in love with the Trump White House here. You know, these aren`t normal journalistic practices. No one at the New York Times is giving the questions to interview subjects that have well in advance and then coaching them through how to answer them.
But the, you know, I do think the particularly the Sean Hannity text show, at some point, Sean Hannity becomes concerned about this plan. He`d been cheerleading it on for a while. And then he starts to say, Well, I`m very worried about how this final 48 hours is going to go. And I don`t like what`s happening with the Vice President, and the whole White House Counsel`s Office is going to resign if we go forward with this.
And then after January 6, after the attack on the Capitol, he calls Trump and they have a conversation and he tells Meadows, he doesn`t like what he heard from Trump, and that he has got to stop talking about the fake stolen election that he`s obsessed with.
And so it`s very interesting insight to see Sean Hannity, who`s one of Donald Trump`s most ardent supporters realize this has gone way too far. And, you know, we`ve crossed some line here, we`ve got to bring it back. And so to me that was very revealing to what he actually knows is the truth about what happened on January 6.
JANSING: And Harry, this broke later today. Marjorie Taylor Greene`s lawyer arguing in a new filing that`s aimed at keeping her name on the ballot, argues not only did she not play a direct role in inciting January 6. She is in fact, these are his words, a victim of the attack on the capital that she`s been targeted in a political smear campaign.
What do you make of that as a legal argument, she is the victim?
[23:10:08
LITMAN: We`re living in an Alice in Wonderland world where you know, with both the press and here, top is bottom, and bottom is top. She certainly showed herself to be not candid in the proceedings last week. And on paper, she`s in a little bit of hot water, even though it`s a very exotic kind of claim to keep her off the ballot.
But you do see, she`s actually in the aftermath of the sixth along with maybe to two others, Brooks and Gomer, the most sort of rabid calling for martial law and the like. So basically, it`s funny, but they`re — but it`s part of the playbook maybe not so funny that they always retreat to a grievance, you know, first outrage, then grievance, and she`s doing the same. I`m the victim here. You know, it`s just it`s just a label it doesn`t accord with the facts at all.
JANSING: And Luke, the committee chairman said yesterday, they`re about to send out more letters requesting interviews, that hasn`t happened. Should we read anything into it? Are they waiting until after the big Correspondents Dinner tomorrow? What are you hearing about these additional letters going out?
BROADWATER: I suspect they will come early next week. I think it was — they weren`t quite ready. And they were pushing up against a Friday night. And it just made more sense to put them out next week. I do think they will go to new members of Congress who we had — who have not received letters yet for interviews.
So far, the committees only asked for interviews from Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan and Scott Perry. So we could see we know those — there were at least 11 members of Congress who were meeting regularly with the White House to plan out the January 6 objections and potentially even the rallies and potentially even a march on the Capitol. So I expect some of those names to get to get letters next week.
JANSING: Anybody on the Senate side you`re hearing?
BROADWATER: Well, we know I mean, obviously, you know, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley led the objections over there. We know that Mike Lee showed up in the Mark Meadows text messages. So there, you know, there are some obvious, not suspects, but obvious witnesses they would want to have interviews from and, you know, I haven`t heard exactly who they will send them to.
It is a little bit out of the norm for Congress for the House to ask questions of senators that almost never happens. And so it`ll be interesting to see whether they take that step. But Bennie Thompson did say that Senators could potentially be called.
JANSING: And Peter, let`s just talk a little bit about the timing. And this has been a question right all along from the very beginning, the concern that it would run up against the midterms. Now, they`re really going to start these hearing, really, as these midterm campaigns are getting underway in earnest planning to release a report in the fall.
I mean, is this investigation at risk here of getting lost in all of that and getting lost in the election and getting lost in whatever happens in terms of control of Congress?
BAKER: Well, does it get lost in the campaign? Or does it does it affect the campaign? Right? That`s sort of the question and you can play it out in different ways. I mean, you know, I think Democrats in the past and discover that they won elections that they tried not to focus on Trump in 2018 during the midterms, and they felt like they are — the off-year election in Virginia last year showed the opposite when then they focus too much on Trump when he wasn`t on the ballot. Voters punish them for that they should focus on health care or other issues that are important to their constituencies.
But it may be that you`re hearing a lot of Democrats say that increasingly that this fall`s election will turn on this. And what they`ll say is, you know, if you want to hand over the power of the Congress to the Republicans, then you`re handing it over to Marjorie Taylor Greene, you`re handing it over to some of these other people that we`ve been talking about, and that therefore, in that sense that focus on the January 6 events, hearings in a report may play into that strategy.
JANSING: Peter Baker, Harry Litman, Luke Broadwater, thank you guys for being with us on a Friday. The Russians tried to regroup with the conflict in Ukraine well into the third month. We`re going to update the military and diplomatic strategies.
And later, this was a challenging week for Kevin McCarthy and some of his colleagues, but Democrats have problems of their own with the midterms now just six months away, the 11th Hour just getting underway on a Friday night.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:18:39]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: It`s hard to look at what he`s doing in Ukraine, what his forces are doing in Ukraine and think that any ethical moral individual could justify that, it`s difficult to look at some of the images and imagine that any well thinking serious mature leader would do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JANSING: A rare display of emotion from the Pentagon press secretary in response to a question about Vladimir Putin. Tonight, a former U.S. Marine is among those killed in the battle against Russian aggression. NBC`s Kelly Cobiella has more from Ukraine tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
KELLY COBIELLA, NCB NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After more than two months of war and countless Ukrainians killed in battle. Tonight we`ve learned an American is now among the dead. 22-year-old ex-Marine Willy Joseph Cancel, died Monday his family said but where and how still unclear.
His family telling CNN, Cancel was working for a private military contractor. He believed in what Ukraine was fighting for, his mother said. He was married with a seven-month-old son.
Tonight, a senior U.S. defense official says the Russians are making slow and uneven progress and are likely a few days behind schedule in their effort to take control of the East.
[23:20:00]
In Mariupol, city officials posting this video they say of Russian forces under fire near the steel plant, where Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have been holed up. The families of those inside pleading for international help.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is this the price we need to pay for our freedom and independence? Many dead people, kids.
COBIELLA: The war taking a heartbreaking toll. This funeral for a 24-year- old Ukrainian soldier killed near Kharkiv.
(on camera): Tell me about Vladimir who was he? He was a wonderful person, his friend said. He helped everyone.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
JANSING: Our thanks to Kelly Cobiella for her ongoing reporting. It is now Saturday morning and Ukraine`s capital of Kyiv where air raid sirens were heard overnight. Our own Cal Perry standing by for us. So Cal, President Zelenskyy said overnight that a prominent radio journalist was killed when a missile struck her apartment building there. Now more air raid sirens after the shelling. I can`t even imagine how high tensions are there this weekend?
CAL PERRY, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: No, absolutely. It looked as follows sort of a 10-day low where we didn`t have airstrikes in the capital. I think people were hoping and when you look at the United Nations statistics, 7.7 million people displaced 15 percent of them trying to make their way back to their homes, that has really changed things now that airstrikes that we saw about 24 hours ago.
In fact, the mayor now urging people not to return to their homes because of this air strike. And we`ve had further threats from Vladimir Putin saying he will continue to strike the capital, as long as attacks continue on the Russian side of the border.
All of this the backdrop really to what we`re seeing in Mariupol, that siege is continuing day 66 of the war, Chris, and day 66 of that siege. There are at least 600 civilians hunkered down underneath that plant. That fighting that you`re seeing on the left side of your screen shows you just how fierce the fighting is in and around that steel plant.
There was a rescue attempt. We understand now on Thursday that was called off at the last minute because of that fighting. It`s not clear if they`ve tried that rescue attempt again. But it is something that the nation is watching.
The other thing that`s happened here, Chris, in the last sort of 12 hours, the President gave his daily address and announced there was yet another mass grave found somewhere in and around Kyiv, his spokesperson updating saying that it was found yesterday. We don`t have further details on how many people were in that grave. But just another indication that this war is continuing in the east and while the cleanup continues where I am, they`re still uncovering these atrocities. Chris.
JANSING: Cal Perry in Kyiv, thank you. Take good care. With us tonight, retired four star US Army General Barry McCaffrey, a decorated combat veteran of Vietnam and a former battlefield commander in the Persian Gulf, and Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO. Now the president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
General, let me just start with where Cal Perry left off. And you and I`ve had this conversation before, but every day that goes by the more desperate the situation in Mariupol becomes, talk to us about the difficulty of trying to do everything they can to get people out of there to just somehow save as many lives as they possibly can.
GEN. BARRY MCCAFFREY, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Well, Chris, certainly up front we have watched as a deliberate strategy the Russian Air Force using cruise missiles and bombs and the Russian ground combat force using rockets and artillery, directly attacking civilians and their infrastructure as a strategic way to influence a war.
We just mentioned a statistic of perhaps 20,000 or more dead. The military defense of Mariupol is now down to a couple of 1,000 police and an army. They`re surrounded. They can`t get out. They probably are facing execution when they finally are overcome. Their families are with them. It`s an utter disaster.
They have bought strategic time for the Ukrainian army, Korea equip rearm and get ready for the big fight which is up north of them is facing east toward to Donbas, but it`s a heroic struggle of monumental proportions. In some ways it reminds me of the defense of the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines against the Japanese early in World War II.
JANSING: So give us your overall assessment of where you think this stands now. This morning when Ukraine officials said Russia is taking colossal losses but we know in the eastern part of the country. So are Ukrainians. The Pentagon says Russia`s offensive appear stalled. Maybe it`s several days behind schedule they say, where do you see this conflict right now?
MCCAFFREY: Well, first of all, Putin and his generals cannot fix the Russian army in less than a year or so. They can adapt they can get less stupid in their tactics.
[23:25:00]
But there are a damage force, their logistic doesn`t work very well, their battalions are undisciplined and cruel and brutal of civilians. Their morale is low they`ve taken. We`re saying publicly DoD 25 percent of the initial invasion force are casualties, with huge losses of equipment.
On the other hand, Ukraine is now basically one on one with manpower, facing the Russian army inside Ukraine. And it`s a race against time for them to achieve parity and military technology, given the magnificent support, they`re now starting to get out of both the U.S. and the 41 nations, the Secretary often brought together in Germany.
So, I`d say on balance, Ukraine suffering brutal losses to their infrastructure, their economy, is probably feeling pretty optimistic about punching the Russian directly in the skull during the coming 30 days.
JANSING: So Ambassador with so much talk about this being a critical point, there is talk of NATO venturing into western Ukraine to help deploy heavy weapons sent by the U.S. and allies. You`ve posted your opposition to that, tell us why.
IVO DAALDER, FMR. AMBASSADOR TO NATO: Yes, I don`t think NATO at the moment needs to get directly involved in this conflict. It`s the one line that President Biden really has underscored that he wants to try to avoid. We will do everything to help the Ukrainians for sending in extraordinary amounts of weapons as General McCaffrey just said, and not only us, the other nations around the world, really 41 nations, including all of our European allies, the Germans now sending heavy armaments helping the Ukrainians with intelligence and other ways.
But if you start getting into the actual battlefield, even if it`s in the West, you risk a direct confrontation between U.S. or NATO forces and Russian forces. And once that happens, all bets are off in terms of escalation, in terms of the possibility of this thing really getting off the rails. I think we should reserve that for circumstances in which NATO gets attacked directly.
And of course, I think, and long believed that if Russia uses weapons of mass destruction, nuclear chemical in large quantities, then it is also time for us to intervene. But until that happens, I think we have the right strategy. Let`s help the Ukrainians give them what they need. Make this a real fight, as General McCaffrey said, but let`s for ourselves at the moment, stay out of it.
JANSING: And meantime, as the U.S. says it would strongly support NATO membership for Sweden and Finland, there are a growing number of Republicans who seem to be suggesting that there`s a problem with NATO, they seem to be drifting away from supporting the Alliance, how worrisome is that to you?
DAALDER: Well be very worrisome if the United States weren`t able to ratify a change in the treaty, which would be you would need in order to get Finland and Sweden to join. These are two really, really capable militaries. They fill a gap in the NATO defense structure.
But more importantly, they also provide real capabilities to NATO, to the defense of the Baltics, to the very exposed parts of NATO that are now under potential threat from Russia.
So it is very much in our interest. It`s long been our interest to have Finland and Sweden join NATO. And it would be a very sad mistake. If the United States were the country that said no, we`re not going to support that because of our internal political differences. So I very much hope that that`s not where we end up.
JANSING: Former ambassador Ivo Daalder, General Barry McCaffrey, thanks to both of you. And coming up, the Big Lie and it`s damaging lasting impact as the midterms approach when the 11th Hour continues.
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[23:33:44]
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Minority believe that our allies in NATO who are trying to defend the people of Ukraine are Nazis. Has it come to this?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JANSING: The public fallout over Marjorie Taylor Greene to attempt to compare NATO with Nazis topped off a challenging week for Republicans. Fellow freshman Republican Madison Cawthorn couldn`t stay out of the headlines while news leaked of Greene reportedly almost coming to blows with Lauren Boebert. All this as the former president still has a chokehold on his party. His endorsed candidates are repeating his big election lie a tactic that might win them some primaries but also may end up costing them in November.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID PERDUE, FORMER U.S. SENATOR: First off, folks, let me be very clear tonight. The election in 2020 was rigged and stolen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Former President Donald Trump continues to talk about the 2020 election. Is it time for the Republican Party to move forward?
MEHMET OZ, REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR U.S. SENATE: I had discussed with President Trump and we cannot move on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JANSING: With us tonight, Mara Gay, who`s part of the New York Times Editorial Board. She is also an MSNBC contributor and Tim Miller, a contributor to The Bulwark and the former communications director for Jeb Bush. His new book, “Why We Did It” comes out June 28.
[23:35:00]
So Tim, I`m not sure we have enough time to enumerate all the controversies enveloping Madison Cawthorn. What? Being detained for bringing a loaded gun to an airport again, charged with driving with a revoked license, again, falsely accusing his colleagues of cocaine fueled orgies. And then, of course, Marjorie, Taylor Greene, et cetera. How much do these fringe candidates and the headlines they generate hurt the Republican Party?
TIM MILLER, THE BULWARK CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Chris. And I appreciate the book reveal. I feel I wrote why we did it. Because I feel like every time I`m on one of these shows, somebody in your seat is asking me, what happened? Why did the Republicans go so crazy? What happened? Like what are these guys doing? And so I want to explain it tonight. I did my best and longer than a two minute segment in the book.
And here`s the thing. These guys the Cawthorns and the Greenes, I got some bad news for the Democrats. Their craziness is not going to be the thing that allows the Democrats to control the House in the Senate in November. It`s just not. Voters are not going to vote on what somebody in some other district said that`s crazy when they were concerned about gas prices and other things in their day to day lives.
Here`s what could matter, though, those second clips. The clips of the candidates that Republicans are nominating that are absolutely insane for secretary of state governor, senator across swing states in places like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Michigan, just last weekend, they nominated to people who are, you know, far right like MyPillow level QAnon conspirators in how much they want to talk about the 2020 election being fraudulent, that is not going to work.
And I think when the Democrats can do what Jamie Raskin was doing, if they can run ads about the actual candidates on the ballot, not Donald Trump, not people in other states, but the candidates on the ballot in their states and say these people aren`t going to help you with inflation. All these people want to talk about is Donald Trump`s fantasies and conspiracies about the last election that led to January 6, that could have an impact. And I think that nominating those candidates are is a big risk for Republicans in what is otherwise a good political environment for them.
JANSING: And yet, Mara, many Republicans want to label Democrats as the radicals and earlier today, Matthew Dowd said that characterization of this Big Lurch left is simply not accurate. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEW DOWD, MSNBC POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: If you think about the center of the country, let`s call it the St. Louis suburbs, the center of the country. Let`s grant that the Democrats might have moved to Kansas City not far away, but might have moved to Kansas City. The Republicans have left the United States and have moved to Hungary and or moved to Russia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JANSING: He argues, Mara, that one party has gotten much more extreme. And it`s not the Democrats. But and this is the But Republicans are just better at their messaging. Is he right?
MARA GAY, THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD: I have to completely agree. I would also say that the Virginia gubernatorial election last time around I think, is very instructive as a word of warning for Democrats, which is to say that, you know, I think Democrats need to stop using the language of Republican — of the Republican Party to defend themselves and to get their message to Americans.
They seem to be in constant reaction mode to whatever Republicans are accusing them of. So, it`s like a schoolyard threat. You know, you`re radical. No, no, you`re the radical one. And I think the Democrats really need to kind of pull back a second and ask themselves, what their narrative is, what their story is, what their message is to the American people. And they should really focus on that rather than constantly reacting to whatever message —
JANSING: But do they have a message? What is that message?
GAY: Do they have a message? Great question. They have a lot of policies that can help the American people, and they are the only party right now that is deeply committed to democracy. And that`s a problem.
You know, I certainly don`t come on these shows to defend the Democratic Party or offer them advice. That`s not my interest. And yet, there is only one party United States right now that is committed to democracy. And so they really need to turn their policies into a productive message that they can deliver on and it`s a very difficult environment when all politics is local.
And you know, in these swing districts, OK, it`s not going to be decided on Madison Cawthorn. It`s going to be decided on again, gas prices, on issues closer to home, the pandemic, the inflation crisis. So I think that the Democrats should stop reacting and they should start getting their message straight.
JANSING: Let`s look at one example, Tim, that I think a lot of people are examining to see where this is going. Ohio, JD Vance, of course, his number surged with Trump`s endorsement, but Republican challenger Mack Dolan is keeping the race pretty competitive. And there are still a lot of undecideds. How do you read that race now and maybe more to the point of this conversation? What will the outcome of that primary tell us about the power of Trump and the state At the Republican Party?
[23:40:01]
MILLER: I don`t know what the outcome is going to tell us that much because we know that right now the Trump has a plurality support within the party. What`s happening in Ohio is that Dolan who`s running as, you know, maybe your traditional male boss, Jeb Bush, kind of Republican, is one of five candidates. And then there are four candidates that are like MAGA lights, you know, MAGA premium, MAGA extra, extra premium, and you know, they have JD Vance, who`s, you know, sucking up to Donald Trump`s kids and have in print campaigning with Marjorie Taylor Greene. He`s the one that is in the lead right now.
I think it`s possible that Dolan could sneak through because it`s a five- way race. I think that if you`re an independent in Ohio, watching the show right now, I would support Dolan`s candidacy in that primary. I think it`s more likely that Vance, you know, as the MAGA extra, extra premium will end up winning, and then he is going to be up against Tim Ryan, who is a center left kind of old school Bill Clinton style union Democrat.
I think that is the kind of contrast that Democrats need. I think for Democrats have a chance to they need to attack the Republicans as being outside the mainstream, too conspiratorial, too concerned about Donald Trump not concerned about inflation, and then run on pocketbook issues themselves. If it`s Vance versus Ryan, that can be a good example for it works out for Democrats in Ohio, other states might not be looking quite as good.
JANSING: And before we go on our closing minute, Mara, I want to ask you about the 30th anniversary today of the start of the LA riots, your most recent Times piece argues that the discourse around race and policing is still stuck in the 90s. There had been so much conversation about moving forward. Is this an issue? Democrats again, need to have clear messaging on what three decades after the crime bill?
GAY: I think it is. There, you know, we do have an issue in in cities across America with crime on the rise —
JANSING: And voters care about it. They`ve made it clear, right?
GAY: The problem is, I think that in my view, mayors and others need to be talking about getting guns off the street, and about professionalizing America`s police departments, and also holding them accountable so that we can actually have some trust from citizens to the police departments, and vice versa.
So I think, you know, the problem here with Mayor Adams`s messages he`s defending, he`s been defending some old school policies that really have not been proven to be effective, and have shown extreme levels of collateral damage in black and brown communities across America for generations.
So, there`s this idea out there that you have to have aggressive policing, or allow police departments do whatever they like, with no accountability, or we`re going to have mayhem in the streets. And that is both an ineffective way to keep people safe because it doesn`t work. And it`s extremely harmful. So we have to really – we have to get this right let`s do better.
JANSING: Mara Gay, Tim Miller, thank you both. Coming up, the immediate humanitarian needs of Ukrainian refugees in Poland is one crisis. The lasting psychological trauma sis another Dr. Irwin Redlener is just back from Poland and joins us next when the 11th Hour continues.
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JANSING: The country of Poland still struggling under the weight of the Ukraine refugee crisis roughly 3 million Ukrainians crossing the border into Poland since the start of the conflict far more than any other country. And the humanitarian demands are simply overwhelming.
Dr. Irwin Redlener, who we got to know during the pandemic, just spent a week there with his wife, Karen, and joins us now. Tell us about the time you spent with these refugees. This is not new for you or for Karen, for that matter, you`ve gone into other situations like this, how does it compare?
DR. IRWIN REDLENER, EXPERT ON PANDEMIC INFLUENZA: Every situation is different. The bottom line is these are kids who have been violently disrupted from their lives. These are kids who are just going to school, living in the community and everything normal and really very recognizable to you and I. And all of a sudden we have this indiscriminate, horrendously cruel attacks on civilian communities, regular neighborhoods in suburbia and flattening of towns. And we heard the consequences of that directly from the mouths of some of the children.
We spent five hours Chris in a high school in Warsaw, high school number one that has 50 Ukrainian high school kids. And I spoke to two of the classes with these kids. And I heard stories that were just my hair stand on anyway, you know, like you said, we`ve seen all sorts of terrible things, children`s suffering after major disasters. I`ve seen children in other refugee situations.
But these kids are — I`d like to tell you just one of these stories here, which is principal related to me about a 15 year old girl who I saw in one of the classrooms who was stone silent facial expression, facial — face expressionless. And he said what happened to her was they were — they`re in an apartment building near Mariupol and the bombing started on their apartment building in the middle of the night. She woke the kids up, she had two kids from the car, took a few things with her, and they`re on the road with a few other of their neighbors with other children in the cars and they got two miles away from where they live and a Russian missile hit the car directly in front of them blew it to smithereens.
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They had two children in there that knew — that her kids knew. So this kid gets to a high school in Poland, in Warsaw very welcoming, but she is — she`s stone, depressed and nonresponsive. And who can blame her? The question is, what`s going to happen to her?
JANSING: Yes, and what`s going to happen? I mean, we just saw a Save the Children releasing some pictures that young children were drawing. And, you know, they do that as a kind of therapy, but they`re drawing pictures that have tanks and bombs and even dead people.
REDLENER: Yes.
JANSING: What are these children going to face? And what do we as humanitarians need to know that they`re going to need in terms of health?
REDLENER: Well first of all, there`s the immediate needs that they have. They need shelter, they need safety, they need food, they need water. But immediately after that, for children comes these other macro worries, like how much psychological impact and trauma have they had? What are we going to do about that?
And the second thing is that the discontinuity, the interruption of their education, can have lifelong consequences for these children`s something that Karen and I are both very concerned about.
And I think one of the things that we`re going to be focusing on is trying to get people to support the ability of children to get the psychological support that they need, but also to get back into some sort of educational trajectory. So they don`t under — undermine the opportunities for a successful life later on.
But it`s a really big problem. And the numbers are massive, you know, the city of Warsaw as of somewhere between 15 and 20 percent increases in its population in a matter of few weeks from these refugees coming in. And it`s tough and our sympathy or generosity, I hope less. But, you know, who knows, there`s no end in sight to this nightmare of a war that Putin has started and how long are people in the world going to be able to sustain people trying to get to safety.
JANSING: An important reminder that the need is going to continue far beyond when it is maybe top of the newscast every night, and thanks to you and Karen and all the other people who have gone to see it firsthand and are committed to seeing this through. Thank you, Irwin. It`s great to see you in person.
REDLENER: Thank you too, Chris, thanks.
JANSING: Those mocking moments 11 years ago that may have changed politics in this country for good when the 11th Hour continues.
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SETH MEYERS, COMEDIAN: Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican, which is surprising since I just assumed, he was running as a joke.
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JANSING: The last thing before we go tonight, what could go wrong? It`s the return of the annual Washington weekend event that everyone loves to hate. The White House Correspondents Dinner is back tomorrow night after a two- year pandemic break.
In fact, the many social events surrounding this so-called nerd prom are already underway. Now, to be fair, there`s more to this weekend than just letting Washington insider schmooze with celebrities. The White House Correspondents Association says it exists to promote excellence in journalism as well as journalism education and ensure robust news coverage of the President and the presidency.
Tomorrow they will give out scholarships and awards. But it will also mark the first time a sitting president has attended the dinner since 2016, which gets us to the nerd prom moment 11 years ago tomorrow, that may well have shifted the political course in Washington for good. It all started when the incumbent commander in chief decided to poke fun at the, shall we say, trumped up scandal over his birth certificate.
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BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Donald Trump is here tonight. Now, I know that he`s taken some flak lately, but no one is happier. No one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. And that`s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter. Like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?
All kidding aside, obviously we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. For example, seriously, just recently, in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice at the steakhouse, the men`s cooking team did not impress the judges from Omaha Steaks. And there was a lot of blame to go around. But you Mr. Trump recognize that the real problem was lack of leadership. And so ultimately, you didn`t blame Lil Jon or Meatloaf. You fired Gary Busey. And these are the kinds of decisions that would keep me up at night.
Say what you will about, Mr. Trump, he certainly would bring some change to the White House and see what we`ve got up there.
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JANSING: Those jokes at the expense of a notoriously thin-skinned man convinced many pundits that it was that dinner that convinced Donald Trump to run. From the Washington Post quote, Trump was so humiliated by the experience they say that it triggered some deep previously hidden yearning for revenge.
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So, not only will people be watching tomorrow`s event to see if it turns out to be a major super spreader event, they`ll also be listening to see if someone says something at the podium that just might once again impact politics for years to come.
And on that note, I wish you a good night from all of our colleagues across the networks of NBC News, thank you for staying up late. And have a great weekend.