Updated
Summary
The DOJ is investigating Trump for January 6 attack and the classified documents found at his home. Biden makes “crystal clear” that right to an abortion is on the ballot in November.
Transcript
ALEX WAGNER, MSNBC HOST: Chris, you know, ever you look in the world, it really feels like humanity is at this hinge point between autocracy and freedom. I mean, everywhere — here, abroad, and the themes are so strikingly eerily similar, globally.
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST, “ALL IN”: Yeah, and you know, the state control, the state controlling what you wear, those images that we`ve been seeing in Russia which I find so profoundly upsetting, people just dragged off to war. You know, people want autonomy.
And there`s not a lot that`s universal. I think we`re pretty contingent creatures and there`s a lot that`s institutionally determined and politically determined and culturally determined, but autonomy and dignity seems pretty universal to me and the fight for it is not over.
WAGNER: Have a great weekend, Chris.
HAYES: You, too.
WAGNER: And thanks to you at home for joining us tonight.
For over a year, Attorney General Merrick Garland faced an enormous amount of pressure to criminally investigate Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including the events of January 6.
The crescendo built through this summer as a January Committee in Congress was televising just explosive revelations about what was happening in the White House in and around January 6. But that committee had no ability to charge anyone with anything, only the Department of Justice did.
And from what everyone could tell, at least from the outside, not a whole lot seemed to be happening over at the DOJ. By July, Attorney General Garland felt the need to speak out and defend his department.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: There is a lot of speculation about what the Justice Department is doing, what it`s not doing, what our theories are, what our theories aren`t. And there will continue to be that speculation.
This is the most wide-ranging investigation and the most important investigation that the Justice Department has ever entered into, and we have done so because this represents this effort to upend a legitimate election transferring power from one administration to another, cuts at the fundamental of American democracy. We have to get this right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WAGNER: Garland was not wrong. This is the most important investigation that the Justice Department has ever entered into. No president has ever been criminally charged in the history of the United States of America. And that means that Merrick Garland holds one of the most difficult jobs in the entire country. He is now not at the helm of not just one but two sweeping Justice Department investigations into a former president, Donald Trump.
The department`s expanding investigation into January 6 and its probe into White House documents, some of them classified, found at Trump`s Florida beach club. As the guy who has to decide whether to criminally charge the 45th president, Garland faces a ton of complicated questions when it comes to Trump`s culpability in those two schemes. And with every passing day, it seems like his department is both casting a wider net and amassing even more evidence.
In the last few months, we`ve seen a clear ramping up of the DOJ`s January investigation. It`s expanded beyond prosecuting the rioters themselves and now includes the fake elector scheme and attempts to obstruct the certification of Biden`s election win. This month, the department issued roughly 40 subpoenas, including ones to top Trump allies and seized the phones of two Trump advisors, again as part of that January 6 investigation.
Yesterday, three Trump lawyers were spotted at the D.C. federal courthouse, leaving around the same time as the Justice Department`s top January 6 prosecutor.
Today, CNN and “The New York Times” report that Trump`s lawyers were there trying to essentially stop high-profile Trump administration witnesses from providing damaging testimony to the grand jury in the DOJ`s now absolutely sprawling investigation.
That investigation, according to former federal prosecutor Jim Walden looks like it is now, quote, a multi-pronged fraud and obstruction investigation. Walden told “The Washington Post”: It strikes me that they`re going after a very, very large group of people.
So the department is talking to everyone and trying to gather basically everything. But ultimately, what happens here, who if anyone gets charged with what if anything, that`s going to be up to the Attorney General Merrick Garland. And then there is Mar-a-Lago and Trump`s private stash of classified documents, a DOJ investigation that was for a time on hold as the government battled the Trump legal team in court. But it is very much now full steam ahead.
After a federal appeals court this week overturned Judge Aileen Cannon`s ruling and gave the Justice Department a green light to continue its investigation into those roughly classified documents, today, we learned that the intelligence assessment, the ODNI investigation, that is officially back up and running as well.
And that`s important because that intelligence assessment is looking into the potential national security risks and fallout of that classified information potentially being improperly disclosed.
[21:05:04]
And a lot of people, including some very high profile Democrats, are saying that Mar-a-Lago, rather than January 6 is the investigation where Merrick Garland might want to use the full force of the law against Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MODERATOR: Will he face charges for January 6th?
HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, I don`t know.
January 6 may be harder to prove than maybe some of the charges that could come out of the material found at Mar-a-Lago.
Some of this of this stuff is really sensitive. You know, it`s about people who risk their lives to give us information about what`s going on.
The pictures that they take — I don`t know what he`s doing with it but I can`t help but believe that he thought there was some financial or political gain to him having it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WAGNER: With every passing day, instead of winding down, these investigations seem to be gaining steam — new witnesses, new evidence, new leads.
This week, the New York Attorney General Letitia James not only filed a $250 million fraud lawsuit against Trump and his business, but she also said that Trump`s business fraud had likely violated federal criminal law and referred that significant case to — guess where? The Justice Department.
It is clear that the attorney general has a whole lot to hunt down, in at least two in separate investigations, and maybe possibly three.
And then after all that is completed, he has to make the biggest call of his career. Today, “The Washington Post” reports on the decision facing Merrick Garland. Quote: The Justice Department from Attorney General Merrick Garland on down has repeatedly said that no one is above the law. But legal experts say that prosecutors may still feel they need a serious can`t miss case to file criminal charges against a former commander-in- chief. If authorities were to seek an indictment against Trump, at either the state or federal level, these experts say there would need to be compelling evidence that a crime had been committed.
But they write: In addition, the alleged crime would have to be quite serious. How serious? Over to you, Mr. Attorney General.
Joining us now is Jim Walden, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York who I should note has argued several times in front of special master, Judge Raymond Dearie, in that role.
Jim, thanks for being here.
JIM WALDEN, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY: Thank you.
WAGNER: So as you look at these two cases, I`ll set aside Letitia James`s invested lawsuit for the moment, when you look at Mar-a-Lago and you look at what happened on January 6, do you think one of these — one of these investigations is potentially stronger and can support a criminal indictment against former president rather than the other?
I think the January 6th investigation both before, during and after the insurrection is definitely more red meat. There is going to be more witnesses. There are more aspects of criminality. They cover the country if you think about it from Washington, D.C. to Georgia and Colorado.
So I think that that`s going to take the most time and Merrick Garland`s going to have one shot at this.
WAGNER: Yeah.
WALDEN: They cannot bring successive cases against Donald Trump. That`s never going to fly.
So I think that they are working hard on everything, but they are going to put together a massive case that puts the former president, with a lot of other very unseemly people in a range of crimes.
WAGNER: You have put together what is a very instructive graphic that I will pull up while I`ll ask our beautiful production team to pull up right now.
This is what you see as the sort of the wheel and spokes of a criminal charge effectively. Can you — there are a number of — there are a number of charges that you outline here. Among them I think two of the most kind of explosive and under-discussed, murder conspiracy and there you specify Mike Pence.
Can you talk a little bit about how you see Trump potentially being involved in murder conspiracy?
WALDEN: So the way you would describe this kind of an investigation is right on point. The prosecutors refer to it as a hub and spoke RICO conspiracy. And at the center of the hub, the round wheel is all of the primary people. And in the graphic, there are some people named but literally the people at the center of this were too big to fit on a graphic.
So that`s really the nerve center of the conspiracy. But as in an organized crime case which the racketeering law was designed to address, there are all kinds of crimes. There`s murder. There`s extortion. There`s gambling. There`s prostitution.
And the reason that RICO is so powerful is because you can bring all of those crimes together under — and the Pence murder conspiracies I think is really fascinating because, obviously, we don`t know all the evidence yet. But what we do know is that — at the ellipse, the president was disparaging Pence. Pence had already communicated that he was not going to stop the election from going forward.
[21:10:01]
Trump tweets, you can see in the videos, the crowd surging forward. His staff tells him that there are people there saying “hang Mike Pence.” The president is reported to say essentially he deserves it. There`s a lot that we don`t know.
WAGNER: He knows they`re armed, he doesn`t want the security systems to be put in place. You don`t have to take him down.
WALDEN: Exactly.
WAGNER: And then we don`t know what actually happens in the 187 minutes while he`s in the White House, but it doesn`t sound like he was doing anything to ensure Mike Pence`s safety.
There is a lot of talk about the pressure campaign on Pence being a topic of future January 6 committee hearings. There is also pressure for Vice President Pence to testify.
Do you think there`s any world in which Mike Pence testifies?
WALDEN: I believe that Mike Pence is different than Donald Trump in many ways and I think that while he had to tow the party line during the course of that administration, that he`s more like traditional Republicans than President Trump.
So whether they will force him to, I hope that he does. I think Jacobs` testimony was incredibly powerful, seeing that footage of what he and his family went through on that day was horrific.
WAGNER: What about money laundering? I know you have fraud on there as well. There`s been some talk of the investigation into the Save America PAC. But what specifically, where do you see the money laundering factoring into all this?
WALDEN: So this is really interesting, but if you think about it, this is exactly what happened to Steve Bannon with the build the wall. They brought charges for fraud and money laundering because when you raise money through fraud, that`s illegal proceeds. And when you then use those proceeds for purportedly legitimate, that`s a form of money laundering.
It`s not all just like the cartels, right? When you have illegal money and then you use it, that`s a subject of the money laundering statute. So that`s another possible thread for them.
And based on the subpoenas that that I`ve been seeing, it really seems like that`s one of the themes of the requests.
WAGNER: I just — I say this, we`re talking about these charges. And as much as we have covered this topic, as much as we`ve exhaustively chronicled the misdeeds of Donald Trump, to be talking about a former president and saying the words murder conspiracy and money laundering along, if we could pull that graphic up again, and look at what you think is a former assistant U.S. attorney, the president could be charged with is staggering, and I don`t think we should lose sight of the gravity of all this.
And the people named in the center of this, one of the things that seemed to be happening at the outset of the DOJ`s investigation is it seemed to be a ground-up investigation, right? We were looking — we — there seemed to be a lot of focus on the unnamed January rioters. And I know — at least some legal minds including Andrew Weissmann said that`s the wrong way of going about this. We should be looking at this as a top-down conspiracy.
You certainly have a top-down pyramid right there, not quite a pyramid, but you know what I`m saying. You`re looking at key players in the Trump administration, in the Trump circle. Do you think what that is what the DOJ is now doing as well?
WALDEN: I actually think that`s what DOJ`s been doing all along. I mean, Merrick Garland was under a lot of pressure right from the beginning. The insurrection was horrific. It was anti-democratic. It was one of the worst things that ever happened in our history.
He needed to bring action and they were the low-hanging fruit. So I believe that we`re seeing now the results of months and months, maybe a year of planning to get to this stage where just remember, five former folks in the White House circle went into the grand jury. Within a couple days, 40 subpoenas go out, search warrants are served, phones are seized.
This is not something that was planned overnight.
WAGNER: Yeah. I got to ask you about Mar-a-Lago because there`s been — you get conflicting opinions on this. It is a tighter case. It is more seemingly easy — easily provable. But you don`t think that the gravity of that kind of obstruction will support effectively a historic indictment of a sitting former president. Is that fair to say?
WALDEN: I think that`s completely fair to say. I mean, a documents case where you have someone that been known to be sloppy, was probably getting counsel from lawyers, even though some of that information had no business anywhere near where the president was keeping it. That is a case that if you indict the president, the former president, on that charge, it is going to be much more difficult to defend. It will be seen as political, as opposed to this kind of multi-pronged RICO conspiracy where there`s there could be even street level crimes.
Even if the president himself is not named in it, there are certainly people that were guilty of a sedition, as I think many people believe the president was. And when you commit — when there is a murder or death in the context of a felony, that`s felony murder. So putting Pence aside, there`s a valid case for them to put together this massive conspiracy with all of these problems.
HANNITY: Yeah, and that is something Joyce Vance, one of our MSNBC legal analysts has also echoed.
I just want to say, as far as lives lost, the ODNI assessment is not yet complete.
WALDEN: Yeah.
HANNITY: And if human intelligence sources have been compromised or even extinguished, that will probably ratchet Mar-a-Lago up to another level.
[21:15:04]
Both of them — just — we`re talking about a former president.
WALDEN: I know.
HANNITY: It`s — we — I think everybody needs to remind themselves, we are not talking about just anyone. This is someone who is running the country and look at the bevy of charges that are on the table. Staggering.
Jim Walden is a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Jim, thanks so much for coming on and talking to us about some very compelling things.
WALDEN: Thank you.
WAGNER: Much more ahead this hour.
House Republicans are out with their new legislative agenda today, much to the delight of Democrats running against them. Jennifer Palmieri joins us next.
And so-called voting started today in occupied parts of Ukraine, regarding whether to formally join Russia. A move that is being decried as a sham by Kyiv and its Western allies. Russia expert Julia Ioffe joins me to discuss.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:20:43]
WAGNER: Today marks day one of early voting in 2022 midterms. Voters in Minnesota, South Dakota, Virginia and Wyoming began casting early ballots this morning and with less than 50 days until election day, Republicans have found themselves on the defensive, after a summer as strong favorites to take back the House.
Looking to regain some of their lost political momentum, today, the top three House Republicans, Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise and Elise Stefanik traveled to southwestern Pennsylvania to unveil the new GOP agenda. They are calling it their, quote, commitment to America, a nod to Newt Gingrich`s earlier Contract with America from the 1990s.
This one is pretty scant on details. One awkward feature of today`s launch, the slick video purportedly showing scenes of the American heartland, House Republicans aim to run that actually showed images of mother Russia.
That is correct. The new Commitment to America video used a stock footage of a drilling rig and a little boy playing in Russia.
At any rate, in their one-page Commitment to America, the House Republicans note they plan to, quote, protect the lives of unborn children and their mothers. But when Kevin McCarthy and other Republican leaders spoke about the plan today, they steered clear of any mention of abortion, probably because after the Supreme Court`s decision to overturn Roe, abortion bans have proliferated across the country and in turn energized Democrats.
One area though where there was no hesitation or uncertainty was around culture war issues. For example, the Republicans promised to, quote, secure the border and combat illegal immigration, fully fund effective border enforcement strategies, infrastructure and advanced technology to prevent illegal crossings and trafficking by cartels.
Please let us note the fact that Governor Ron DeSantis had to go searching for migrants in Texas to fill a charter flight since there weren`t enough in his own state of Florida.
McCarthy also promised to make, quote, parents rights a centerpiece of American education, the kind of anti-CRT legislation that prohibits a full accounting of American history and bans books by Tony Morrison and Margaret Atwood and Art Spiegelman.
Other highlights included getting rid of IRS agents, making sure, quote, women only compete in women`s sports and sticking it to China for the COVID pandemic. That is what house Republicans offered up to American voters today, immigration bans, IRS attacks, and parental rights laws that censure inclusive curricula, also abortion but also not really abortion.
On that topic, President Biden today made sure the GOP`s position remained top of mind.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So, in 46 days, America is going to choose. If Republicans win control of the Congress, abortion will be banned. But if you give me two more Democratic senators in the United States Senate, I promise you — I promise you —
(CHEERS)
We`re going to codify Roe.
(CHEERS)
Forty-six days in the midterms, we need to be crystal clear about what we`re — what`s on the ballot because there`s a heck of a lot at stake that`s on the ballot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WAGNER: Joining us now is Jennifer Palmieri. I call her Jen, former White House communications director in the Obama White House, former communications director for Hillary Clinton`s 2016 presidential campaign and now, co-host of `The Circus”, which is back this Sunday with a new episode featuring Jen`s interview with Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
My friend, it is so — it is — it`s such a pleasure to have you.
JENNIFER PALMIERI, FORMER OBAMA WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Thanks.
WAGNER: On this show, which is a different show than the one we used to be on together.
PALMIERI: As you said, it`s like — it`s like you`re — it`s like when your friends from home came to visit you at summer camps.
WAGNER: This is just like summer camp, only fewer horses.
Okay. So, abortion — Biden does not — would like — like to have the Democrats march to the polls under an abortion banner. And I wonder strategically whether you think this is the issue that can hold the Senate and the House for them. Because we`ve been talking about a lot of issues over the course of the last two years.
PALMIERI: Right.
WAGNER: And this certainly seems to be animating and energizing. But is it enough?
PALMIERI: I think that — I mean, I know what — I know what the White House thinks. I think they think that abortion helps a great deal, you know? And I think that when the decision happened, when Dobb`s decision happened on June 24th and, you know, I was pretty devastated.
WAGNER: And many of us were.
PALMIERI: I think many of us were.
[21:25:00]
But you had a sense like this has got to be worth a couple percentage points and a couple percentage points and really tough races is going to mean a lot.
But I think that what`s happened is it doesn`t stay isolated in the abortion lane, right? Do you know what I mean? It`s like they are taking this right away from women and you see how the candidates fight back on — you know, on the issue. And that may — and if they do it well — it may accrue leadership — you know leadership points elsewhere.
Like that is — and I want to come back to like what I think Biden thinks, but just on the — on — you know, about what they should run on. But just on the question abortion, you know, I spent time with Governor Whitmer, I`m wearing the exact same outfit that the clip that you just showed, because I should know I haven`t been home in eight days and so I have only —
WAGNER: Girl, I know how it is.
PALMIERI: You know how it is.
WAGNER: It`s a good outfit.
PALMIERI: I bought it in Detroit, I did, at the H&M in Detroit.
But, you know, what she did was in April, before the — before Dobbs, before it even leaked, she filed — remember this, she filed a lawsuit, right, to challenge their 1931 law that bad support.
WAGNER: The zombie law.
PALMIERI: The zombie law. And what she told me in the interview was that she started working on that the night Ruth Bader Ginsberg died.
WAGNER: Amazing.
PALMIERI: Yeah.
WAGNER: And by the way, a lot of other Democrats — maybe some in the White House — weren`t thinking as strategically as the governor was.
PALMIERI: So she was — she was like, what — you know, what can we do? What are our options? And that`s why in 2020 — early 2022, she pursued to challenge us.
And people criticized her at the time. They said, you know, it`s too — it`s alarmist or maybe you`re going to trigger the law. But she did that.
Then she did — you know, and I know NBC has covered this too. She does a lot of round tables, women. Women doctors, moms, young women, how they feel about abortion, and that seems to have created a sense of community and, you know, and obligation that the women feel to share their stories to know like, hey, I had abortion or, you know, or Gretchen Whitmer herself. I was raped in college, and if I — you know, and she was —
WAGNER: You think it`s creating a movement independent of the actual legislative issue.
PALMIERI: It`s like — yeah, it`s like, you know, and I know that NBC showed a poll this morning that I saw that had abortion ranked number three in terms of what people care about right on issues. But it`s definitely creating a different kind of energy, you know?
So, Whitmer, and of course, she`s running against Tudor Dixon, too.
WAGNER: Yes.
PALMIERI: Very pro-life, thinks that a girl that was a 14-year-old impregnated by a rape should — she forced to bring up —
WAGNER: Carry the child to term. I mean, so, that is a meaningful I think data point.
PALMIERI: And it`s like she`s trained — it`s like Whitmer is going to change the structural dynamics of that race. She was kind of tied and now, she`s in double digits. Right? It`s like it just turned everything.
So, if you are — and it`s a principle to fight for her, right? She`s — she`s a — it`s — she`s a very good messenger on it. That`s not going to work for everyone.
WAGNER: Well. And, yes, she`s a very skilled politician and we`re talking about Senate races that are complicated. There are men running in them. They are at a disadvantage in many cases. Talking about reproductive freedom and having the vocabulary to talk about it.
But I have to ask you since we spent so much time on it, the Republican Commitment to America, does this work? I mean, who is this for? Who is it – –
PALMIERI: My favorite — my favorite thing about it is that — is that you can download a PDF pocket card —
WAGNER: Yes, for your friends.
PALMIERI: So like this is a — this is this is a maxim we have in politics. You know you`re on a losing campaign when the box of message pocket cards arrives from HQ.
WAGNER: So you think —
PALMIERI: I don`t think — I`m not just not to say that I think the whole thing`s going to lose, but it does show is that they`re totally bankrupt of any kind of agenda they can coalesce around, and that has been true. I mean, I was thinking about it.
That was true for Speaker Boehner under President Obama. That was true for Speaker Ryan, right? It is — this is not a new thing that the only thing they can call us around is fealty to Trump.
WAGNER: Yeah.
PALMIERI: Abortion, culture issue.
WAGNER: Things they`re against and putting together a document saying what you are for is proving an uphill challenge for the GOP.
PALMIERI: Yeah.
WAGNER: I have a thousand hours of questions I would like to ask you but unfortunately, I cannot do that on this television program.
Jennifer Palmieri, former White House communications director in the Obama White House, and now, co-host of “The Circus” — thank you for your time and friendship. Everybody go watch “The Circus” on Sunday night.
Still ahead here on this channel tonight. Donald Trump cannot seem to stop promoting QAnon conspiracy theories. What`s the end game?
But, first, an exodus from Russia as military aged men attempt to flee Putin`s draft for the war in Ukraine. Julia Ioffe joins me with the latest.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:34:19]
WAGNER: If you turned on Russian TV news today, you might have seen this — the massive 50,000-person rally/concert in Moscow supporting the war in Ukraine. Specifically, it was an event to support the multiple referendums that started today to make the parts of Ukraine under Russian control officially part of Russia.
The rally was also in support of the, quote/unquote, partial mobilization of Russian men into the military as Russia tries to ramp up the war it did not expect to lose.
Now if all you did was watch Russian TV, you`d think lots of Russians supported this war and that lots of Russian men were happy to be drafted for the cause. But if he went to the Finnish-Russian border, you`d see this — lines of cars filled with people leaving Russia to avoid the draft.
[21:35:01]
This man who described himself to the “AP” only as Yuri from Moscow underscored his reason for leaving by saying, I think no one, a sane person wants to go to war.
This was the line of cars backed up at a border crossing between Russia and Kazakhstan today. One of the handful of countries were fleeing Russian would not need a visa.
Before Putin`s announcement of the draft, the average price for a plane ticket from Moscow to Kazakhstan`s main airport was about 300 bucks. Now, the cheapest ticket, the cheapest ticket is more than eight thousand dollars. People are leaving in droves and those who aren`t are very quickly facing a tough reality.
Forgive the weird shark-like watermark on this video. It is the symbol of a Russian news outlet. The young man here, his name is Dimitri. He`s a student. In this video he`s telling a reporter how he got his draft notice that morning. He told him to come to the military office at 3:00 p.m.
He didn`t think he qualified for the draft because he`s a student so he thought he`d just clear that mistake up and be on his way. But once he got to the military office, Dimitri was told he would be leaving for training immediately, with no notice. At the time of that interview, Dimitri had called his mother in the hopes of saying goodbye but she was stuck at work. It all happened so fast he wasn`t sure if he would get to see her.
This bizarre dance routine in military uniform was part of another pro- Russia rally today. It was held in Crimea, the part of Ukraine that Russia already annexed by a stage referendum back in 2014. This rally was also in support of the referenda being held today in the four other Ukrainian regions that Russia has captured in this war.
And again, if you watch Russian TV today, you would see plenty of footage portraying residents of these regions happily voting to become a part of Russia. Meanwhile, we are already getting reports that armed Russian soldiers are collecting votes door to door. One reason the one resident told the BBC that you have to answer verbally and the soldier marks the answer on the sheet and keeps it. I`m not sure that would be considered free and fair.
It is not news that there is a massive gap between Russian media and Russian reality, but I want to know as do — as we all do, what does the average Russian citizen actually think is happening right now?
Joining us now is Julia Ioffe, founding partner and Washington correspondent for “Puck.”
Julia, it`s great to see you. I — you`re the person with all the answers here, and I`m thrilled that you`re joining me.
Can you answer that question? What does the average and I`ll say rural Russian who watches state media think is happening right now?
JULIA IOFFE, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, PUCK: The thing is we don`t know what they think. It`s very hard to measure public opinion in an atmosphere of such thorough brainwashing and such fear. You know, it`s been months since the Russian government implemented a law that sends people to prison for criticizing the army, for spreading what it calls fake news, which is basically anything that contradicts the ministry of defense or the Kremlin.
And people are really afraid and some people really support the war and between those two extremes, there are obviously a lot of people but they`re quite — quite silent these days. I think a lot of people as you saw are voting with their feet. There were a lot of people also crossing into Mongolia today.
And what`s also interesting about this draft is we`re getting reports out of Russia that they`re purposely avoiding drafting too many people from Moscow, from St. Petersburg, and from other urban centers. They`re focusing on rural areas where they point out in the — you know, these sources tell journalists, you know, there`s no — there`s no independent media there, people watch TV, there`s no opposition there, and they`re also focusing really heavily on places where ethnic minorities live, which is incredibly problematic.
WAGNER: Yes. Let me ask you, as we talk about all the things that Putin is doing and instituting. The referenda — I`ve read that you have a slightly different assessment about why Putin is conducting these referenda.
Can you talk a little bit about what you think is motivation here is?
IOFFE: I think the motivation is that — you know, I think we here in the west think of Putin as this blood thirsty monster and no doubt he is, but inside the Kremlin and inside Russia and the Russian government, he has become a sort of moderating force. When the war started, it created this so-called party of war. These hardliners who went so far as to publicly criticize him and to publicly criticize his prosecution of the war. They were, in fact, the only people who were allowed to publicly criticize how the war was going.
And they were saying you`re not fighting hard enough. We`re fighting with one hand tied behind our back. They were calling for mobilization. They were calling for the annexation of these areas.
These are people with a very imperialist mindset who, you know, think that basically if Russia called up all its men, it could have crushed Ukraine months ago which is still not true.
[21:40:09]
But I think this is very much a concession to the party of war and it`s a way to annex whatever swaths of territory has not lost — Russia has not lost yet to the Ukrainian counter-offensive and to say, look, we`ve added territory in these seven months of pointless fighting.
WAGNER: If he`s making concessions to the party of war and has been thus far a moderating force, what then do you make of his suggestion that the nuclear arsenal is a potential — is something he would potentially tap into in all of this? Is that a bluff? Is that — what is that?
IOFFE: Well, whenever somebody says I`m not bluffing, what`s your first thought, right? I`m bluffing.
But in general, the worse Russia does on the battlefield, the more likely it is that they`re going to use a strategic nuclear weapon, or some kind of nuclear weapon. The question is, how will they use it? Where will they use it, if they use it?
I think the chances are still small but they`re not zero and that`s really scary.
WAGNER: That`s absolutely terrifying. You do make the point that Putin often does what he says he`s going to do. Let us all pray that this is not one of those cases.
Julia Ioffe, founding partner and Washington correspondent for the media company Puck, thanks for your time and expertise tonight as always. Great to see you.
IOFFE: Thanks, Alex.
WAGNER: Still ahead tonight, Donald Trump cannot stop amplifying QAnon, and it is raising concerns. What could it mean if his followers embrace the conspiracy theory as well?
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:46:24]
WAGNER: Foreign-born members of Congress are a rarity and this past June, Mayra Flores became the first Mexican-born congresswoman elected to the House when she won a special election in Texas.
Most immigrants in the House are Democrats, but unlike most immigrants in the House or even most Latino members of Congress, Mayra Flores is a Republican. And she flipped Texas`s 34th district for the GOP, a district long held by Democrats. It went to Obama by 22 points in 2012, to Hillary Clinton by a similar margin in 2016, and then it went to Joe Biden by just four points in 2020.
Flores is an example of a new trend in Republican politics. Latino voters increasingly rejecting the Democratic Party and embracing the GOP.
In 2016, 28 percent of Latino voters voted for Trump. But in 2020, that number went up to 32 percent. It is a trend that has delighted Republicans and left Democrats very worried.
Journalist Paola Ramos went down to the 34th district in South Texas and spoke to former Democratic voters to understand why they were now voting for the GOP.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAOLA RAMOS, MSNBC MODERATOR: Is anyone in this room has — had anyone been a former Democrat at some point? Had anyone ever voted for a Democrat? Raise your hand.
Okay. So several of you.
Why are we suddenly seeing a Republican having so much momentum? What do you all think?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were already conservatives. We were already with conservative values. It`s just nobody noticed. They took us for granted.
The party, the Democratic Party left me. I didn`t leave the party.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are not to be taken advantage of. We are not to be assumed that because we`re Hispanic, we`re naturally or going to vote Democratic.
RAMOS: What does the congresswoman represent for you all?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is that Latina or Hispanic woman that is saying enough is enough, that our values matter.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here in the valley, we are for God, for family, for hard work. She does not only verbalize those things, but she actually lives those things. And let the chips fall where they may.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WAGNER: Paola has been traveling across the country ahead of the midterms, talking to Latino voters to understand this apparent rightward shift. The latest episode of “Field Report with Paola Ramos” which focuses on Congresswoman Flores`s South Texas district will air shortly. Stay tuned, right here on MSNBC at 10:00 p.m.
Joining me now is Paola Ramos.
Paola, it`s great to see you.
We love what you are doing here.
RAMOS: Thank you.
WAGNER: What do they mean the Democratic Party has left me? What is that — what does that practically mean?
RAMOS: It means that they believe that they no longer align with their values, right? When you think of someone like Mayra Flores, the reason why she won one of them was because of her message. It was clear. It was God, family, country.
And she bet on this idea that conservatives have been on for many years. It`s what Reagan believed in. It`s what Trump believed in. It`s what Bush believed in, which is yes, at our core, Latinos are more conservative for decades. No conservative movement was truly able to fracture the Democratic coalition until someone like Mayra Flores comes around.
WAGNER: Yeah.
RAMOS: And she sounds like them. And she looks like them and she too is an immigrant, and she too grew up in a working class neighborhood.
And she bet on that idea and it started working.
WAGNER: The — okay — so God, country — what was the other one?
RAMOS: Family.
WAGNER: Family. At the same time that you — that they feel like the Democratic Party has abandoned those values as they see them, the Republican Party is doing some things that one would think would alienate Latino voters, right?
[21:50:01]
I mean, today, the National Republican Senate Committee sent out an email asking supporters where Republican governors should ship migrants next. It is hard for me to understand how anybody in this country and especially immigrants and the children of immigrants, I am one of them, can look at that and say, that`s my party. They care about me.
RAMOS: Right. I think no matter how you look at that, it is — it`s cruel. It`s hypocritical. It`s political because — let`s remember, these are two governors, DeSantis and Abbott, that have catered to Latinos through one message, and that is the fear of communism.
And here, they are punishing asylum seekers for leaving communism.
WAGNER: Communism, exactly.
RAMOS: No, he`s punishing Venezuelan asylum seekers for leaving Venezuela.
WAGNER: Yeah.
RAMOS: So I think you`re right. I think it will backfire. I think for those Latino moderates, it will backfire. And because there`s no way that you see that and you don`t see the hypocrisy.
At the same time in a place like the Rio Grande Valley, there`s also this – – which you`ve talked about this — like underlying trend of assimilation.
WAGNER: Yeah.
RAMOS: Where you look at migrants and you look at asylum seekers and you look up Brown people that look just like you, and you want to look the other way, because you want to assimilate, right? Because you feel like success and what it means to be American —
WAGNER: It`s not that.
RAMOS: It`s not that, and that`s also happening there.
WAGNER: Well, and I would assume that being able to identify a congresswoman who looks like you but who has reached success like Mayra Flores —
RAMOS: That`s exactly right.
WAGNER: That`s really meaningful.
RAMOS: And we`re not just talking about Mayra Flores. There`s at least two other Mayra Flores. There`s Monica de la Cruz in McAllen. There`s Casey Garcia, that`s in Laredo.
What the three of them have in common is that they`re Republican, they`re avid Trump supporters, they`re daughter of immigrants, they`re bilingual, they can speak in Spanish. They all have right wing policies about immigration, abortion, the economy.
But you`re right, they look like them and it`s very different when a white man tells you, vote for a Republican versus suddenly these Brown Latinas that are changing that.
WAGNER: In Spanish.
RAMOS: In Spanish, that`s right.
WAGNER: The one thing that there are many fascinating aspects of all this, you speak to a political Latino outreach group that is advocating for the preservation of conservative values. And they say one of the forums in which outreach has taken place is the church and it`s — I`ll read the quote.
If Republicans don`t start strategizing with Latino pastors in churches like the Democrats have done for years at the Black church, there will be no victory for conservative candidates across the country. It is fascinating to me that the church, the church is so mined politically.
White evangelicals, a bedrock contingent of the Republican Party. Black church going Democrats, I mean, Souls of the Polls is an invention of the Black church, and a largely Democratic activity.
And yet the Latino church has not been I guess seized upon in the way that one would expect it to be as an organizing tool.
RAMOS: And that`s — that was their exact decision-making process, right, where they saw the way that Democrats are going into Black churches, are mobilizing their base and they said, wait, a second. They`ve been doing this for decades, why don`t we do the same thing.
And so, that`s one of the ways that Mayra Flores won, through her pastor. Her campaign started in her church, and her evangelical church. Her pastor mobilized the congregation, he mobilized other pastors, he mobilized evangelical Latinos in the area, and not only did it work in the Rio Grande Valley, but they want to nationalize that model.
Now, there`s a question is it fair to compare these Latino evangelical models to Black churches?
WAGNER: Yeah.
RAMOS: Are you having the same conversations about social justice and racial equality or are they becoming these hubs of political indoctrination?
WAGNER: Yeah, that is that is an open question. I — all of this research, this journalism is so critical and so upends our preconceived ideas about Latinos, voters, this country in general.
Paola, it`s a great series. Thank you for being here.
The newest episode of “Field Report with Paola Ramos” will debut in just a few minutes, next, at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on MSNBC. It will also be available to stream on Peacock.
Coming up, former President Donald Trump`s promotion of the QAnon conspiracy theory appears to grow by the day. Will his followers take the bait? That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:58:15]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUIMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: I know nothing about QAnon. I know very little —
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: I just told you.
TRUMP: You told me, what you told me does not necessarily make it fact. I hate to say that. I know nothing about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WAGNER: For years, Donald Trump has been claiming he knows absolutely nothing about QAnon, the fringe white right wing conspiracy movements, which claims Democrats are secretary a bunch of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who drink the blood of innocent children, I wish I was kidding.
But recently, the former president has been making more explicit entreaties to followers of the Q conspiracy. Over the past few weeks, Trump has increasingly posted QAnon related content to his account on his social media website, Truth Social.
Just last night, he promoted several QAnon related posts, including a video sideshow that included an image of him in a giant Q superimposed over the Capitol. A giant Q over the abbreviation for the QAnon slogan. And the photoshopped image of himself holding a single playing card with the letter Q.
He also posted this terrifying rendering of himself holding an infant that says pain is coming, you should have stayed away from the children, hashtag save our children.
But his overtures to the QAnon crowd go beyond social media. Trump has also been embracing a song that is identical to a QAnon anthem that is well known among followers of the conspiracy theory. At a rally last Saturday, just as the song started to play, Trump`s followers seemed to respond to it by lifting their arms and holding up one finger in the air, just it appears to echo the slogan where we go one, we go all.
And tonight, just moments ago, they did it again. At a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, just as we were coming on the air, Trump once again played that QAnon song and the crowd once again gave that single fingered salute.
Donald Trump has already convinced about a third of the country that the 2020 election was stolen and was able to use that conspiracy to stoke a violent attack on the seat of our government. Just think of what might happen if Trump openly tells his legions of followers that those same Democrats he claims stole the election are also involved in an insidious plot to drink the blood of children.
That does it for us tonight. Rachel will be here on Monday, and I will see you on Tuesday.
Now, it`s time for “Field Report with Paola Ramos.”