Updated
Summary
The former president back in Washington, D.C. for the first time since he lost election and the Capitol attack, as new subpoenas showed DOJ widening January 6th probe and new evidence showing Trump`s lawyers knew election fraud plan was a lie. The attorney general in rare interview insisted DOJ would continue probe and would hold anyone accountable. Fox owner Rupert Murdoch eyes on Ron DeSantis and coverage shifts against Donald Trump. U.S. youth eyes on radical change amidst rough economy, pandemic, and Trump era.
Transcript
NICOLLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: Thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. We are grateful. THE BEAT WITH ARI MELBER starts right now.
Hi, Ari.
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Hi, Nicolle. Thank you. Welcome to THE BEAT. I am Ari Melber.
And top Republicans are gathering in Washington today at a conservative conference where several were pushing the kind of authoritarian arguments for overturning American elections and lying about voting, not only wading into unconstitutional territory, but blatantly contradicting their own claims about why they wanted to stop those kind of MAGA attacks on democracy after Trump`s loss and the insurrection.
But we have the receipts for some of the people you see on your screen at this conference today, including Senator Graham, he was a Trump critic in 2015 who then became a valuable loyal Trump supporter then criticized exactly what Trump was leading on the insurrection on the night of January 6th, but now as he faces legal pressure to testify in Georgia for his own role in helping a Trump effort that he claimed was over when he gave his famous enough is enough speech after Trump fans stormed the Capitol, clamoring to kill Mike Pence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I hope he runs again. If you think Trump is bad for the party, I disagree with you. I think President Trump is good for the party.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
GRAHAM: All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough. It is over. I`ve travelled the world with Joe. I hoped he lost. I`d pray he would lose. He won. He`s the legitimate president of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Some of this is pretty simple, even though people would wish it otherwise. So, as to what you just heard, fact-check, true. President Biden is president. That is just a simple fact. Then you have Graham`s extra statement that President Biden is the legitimate president, which undercuts much of what was argued in the right-wing gathering we showed you briefly today, which also included Donald Trump`s first return to Washington since losing that election to the president, the current president, the legitimate president.
And Washington is a place where the Capitol remains a crime scene under investigation in many ways and for the first time we know of, Trump White House aides are walking in and out of the federal buildings to talk about Trump to a grand jury, which involves a criminal probe. There`s a Pence aide talking while new subpoenas show federal heat on that elector fraud plot. DOJ demanding Arizona officials cough up evidence on any communication with the Trump White House, the executive and legislative branch, Trump or his campaign, and in what you see on your screen, it`s a lengthy list, that`s always bad if you`re on the wrong side of it.
It also ticks off the names of coup plotters like Giuliani, Ellis, or of course, Eastman, the infamous coup lawyer shown here, recently searched by federal agents, patting him down, putting his hands on the air, seizing his phone under lawful subpoena. Well, that was a development which matters in the search for criminal evidence which made news, just as the fed searching the home of another Trump loyalist, Jeffrey Clark, made news and suggested they think there is some kind of criminal evidence about some plots in his home.
What did not make much news was Donald Trump`s speech today, his return to Washington since becoming the loser of that last election. We can tell you FOX News did not take the speech live today. A snub surely noticed by Trump and the entire Republican Party. And if you are keeping count, by the way, FOX News has done live broadcasts airing about six of the daytime congressional hearings by the January 6th Committee, with all that evidence on Trump, and now none of Mr. Trump`s return to Washington since being a loser and his live speech today.
I want to get right to it. We have some other developments I`m going to bring up but I want to start with our experts, NYU law professor Melissa Murray, and “New York Times” magazine legal writer Emily Bazelon.
Welcome to both of you. Emily, I`m not sure that anyone would have expected if you told them a couple months ago that Donald Trump`s return to Washington speech during daytime, where you can take all kinds of things live, would not make air while six of these hearings would on FOX. I`m curious what you think that tells us both on substance and beyond.
EMILY BAZELON, LEGAL WRITER, NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: Well, I mean, it`s an important signal that the media is learning something about what`s important to cover. You know, obviously the January 6th hearings have been an important news event. They have been very successful television.
Former President Trump`s previous campaign kicked off with, you know, wall to wall coverage on channels like CNN, of rallies he was doing.
[18:05:08]
It was a lot of really free air time for him that boosted his candidacy. And so I think it`s important for TV networks to realize that they need to be covering things that are newsworthy.
MELBER: Yes, and specifically — I agree with everything you just said. It makes sense. And then FOX — how can I put this respectfully, Emily? They will cover some things that are not newsworthy or even true, and yet even with that somewhat lower bar — respectfully as we say in the streets — respectfully, they still didn`t cover this, Emily.
BAZELON: Right, and that — you`re right. It`s a more surprising development. They were at first very reluctant to cover the January 6th hearings, and so watching them figure out how to kind of thread this needle, what their audience is expecting, how much they can afford to get on Donald Trump`s bad side, because we know that Trump hates to be ignored, it`s really interesting to see all that play out, and it matters a great deal because the FOX audience is the one that is most trapped by the lies about the election, which, you know, have been so problematic and damaging to our democracy.
MELBER: Fair. And you mentioned the lies and then when lies turn into fraud, which I want to go to the professor on, we have new evidence coming out on the elector fraud plot, a Trump lawyer writing about how at the time they secretly viewed their own plan as false or fraudulent. They referred to sending in fake electoral votes to Mike Pence so someone in Congress would make an objection.
These are new e-mails obtained by “The New York Times.” So even the lawyers pushing this knew it was false, wrong, and possibly criminal, and other evidence were showing that those people I mentioned, Eastman and Giuliani, knew the elector fraud was a crime. These new e-mails bring modern emojis into the plotting. Trump lawyer Boris Epshteyn receiving another e-mail the “Times” obtained by a lawyer saying, well, alternative votes is probably a better term than fake votes with a smiley face emoji. You can see it right there on the screen.
And we`ve reached apparently the emoji section of criminal plotting. That may seem odd, but then again, the technology and communication of any era can be fused with daily life or day crime. And I want to be clear, I want to bring this up with the professor, the effort to minimize this with word play or emoji play or jokes can actually be a kind of a tactic. We`ve seen Trump officials try to rebrand all sorts of things, especially when they realize that the story or evidence is coming out.
I asked Mr. Epshteyn who`s in the middle of this about it, and he was leaning into parsing language, trying to stretch a distinction between fraud, fake, and alternate electors.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BORIS EPSHTEYN, TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN ADVISER: That`s so funny. Not fraudulent electors, Ari. It`s alternate electors. Because of the process, again, that`s laid out in the Constitution under the 12th Amendment, everything that was done legally by the Trump legal team, according to the rules and under the leadership of Rudy Giuliani. We fought for the truth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Two-part question, Professor Murray. One, can you lighten a criminal plot by adding a fun-loving emoji afterwards? Just give us your legal analysis. And then two, what does it mean that they are getting caught up in the fact that they wrote down in real time that this was fake or fraudulent, which seems to be a problem if you then try to submit it to the government as a dually elected elector of vote.
MELISSA MURRAY, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY LAW PROFESSOR: So to my knowledge, Ari, the emoji mitigation scheme is not one that`s recognized by most jurisdictions in the United States, so I don`t think it`s going to be availing here. But to your point, it does seem like the fact that there is this word play going on, that they`re shifting from fake to alternate and there`s a smiley face or a winky face suggest that they know that what they`re doing is fraudulent to some degree.
I mean, so there really is I think in this e-mail chain some evidence of intent here. Like, they know that these are electors that are not the electors selected by the people of this jurisdiction, that they are instead alternate electors or fake electors, there for the purpose of essentially defrauding the people of the electors that they had initially chosen, so to my mind, the real question here is, who are these geniuses that are writing this down in an e-mail because that seems to be the real problem?
MELBER: Emily?
BAZELON: Well, that is an excellent question Melissa asks, but maybe it`s not the problem, because in some sense it`s the clue that we have now to what is going on. I think it`s also important that we know that people who were on these e-mail chains were reporting what they were doing, not only to Giuliani but also to Mark Meadows, Trump`s chief of staff. And we know that around this same time that these discussions are going on on this thread, that Meadows is e-mailing another campaign adviser and saying — and this is a quote — we just need to have someone coordinating the electors for states.
[18:10:05]
And so again, I think that goes to Melissa`s point that there`s this sense of kind of ginning up some fakery and flimflam here and that people involved knew that`s what they were up to.
MELBER: Well, and Emily, I think there`s also, with all due respect to Melissa`s theory, that some of these people were just making mistakes, which is a fair theory. There`s also the fact that they —
MURRAY: I don`t think that was my theory.
MELBER: Well, you said they were stupid.
MURRAY: I said they weren`t geniuses, but I don`t think that this was necessarily a mistake. I think it`s purposeful, just purposefully stupid, perhaps.
MELBER: I was trying — you said not geniuses and I was trying not to call them dumb.
MURRAY: Fair.
MELBER: Fair. And I would say that I think it counts — we`ll call it the not genius theory, and I think that definitely accounts for some of the conduct that`s gotten people in trouble. But I think there`s an overlapping theory here, and I`m actually not joking about this, although much of this is risible, Emily, but this part I`m not joining about. There`s also the fact that they were writing each other before a violent insurrection had occurred.
So they thought that their secrecy and attorney-client privilege would hold, and I would observe that oftentimes it does if not for the horror of the violence on the 6th and then a very assertive aggressive congressional committee. It`s not clear that any of this would be overturned let alone in “The New York Times.” What about that, Emily, that some of what we`re seeing in addition to the not genius part, is people thinking they can just plot and say, yes, obviously this is not true, and if we submit it to the government it`s fraud, but we`ll call it fake or we`ll call it alternate, winky face, and we don`t think this will ever come out.
BAZELON: I mean, I think that is a crucial point and it helps answer this question of why were people writing things down that could get them in trouble later. It also just seems from the tone of these e-mails that they had totally lost sight of what they were doing, which was to try to overturn the legitimate election results of a U.S. presidential election. Should be a really momentous wavy kind of scheme to engage in, and yet somehow with all this like wink-wink, nudge-nudge, you know, fake or alternate, it all just like seemed not like the very serious infraction that it actually could have been if it had worked and was, as a kind of attempted conspiracy, if that`s indeed what we`re seeing here.
MELBER: Exactly, and that`s why it is more serious than the emoji, but as you say, how do you normalize that, how do you get more and more people on board? That matters.
Thank you, Emily. And Melissa, I want to you stay with me on this other legal item because Lester Holt actually just sat down with the attorney general about all of this. Let`s take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LESTER HOLT, MSNBC ANCHOR: So if Donald Trump were to become a candidate for president again, that would not change your schedule or how you move forward or don`t move forward?
MERRICK GARLAND, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I`ll say again that we will hold accountable anyone who is criminally responsible for attempting to interfere with the transfer — legitimate, lawful transfer of power from one administration to the next.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Transfer of power and holding people accountable. Let`s return to you, Professor, when we`re back in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELBER: Attorney General Merrick Garland speaking out in a rare interview with NBC`s Lester Holt. We are back with Professor Melissa Murray.
One, what does it mean when this largely press averse attorney general, and I can attest to that personally, grants a national TV interview at this juncture after those hearings wrapped on Thursday? And two, what did you make of what we just heard him say about anyone being possibly prosecuted?
[18:15:02]
MURRAY: Well, with regard to the timing of this interview, I think that really speaks to the fact that these set of hearings were aimed at a number of different audiences, the American public in advance of the midterm election, but also to the Department of Justice and Merrick Garland himself.
I mean, this was an effort, I think, on the part of the special committee to show that there is some there there. There`s something worth investigating. And to at least give the administration and the DOJ a head start as it were to investigate and to really get to the bottom of all of this and to actually hold accountable those who planned and plotted and ultimately executed this insurrection on January 6th.
As to the AG`s responses to Lester Holt, I`m not entirely sure this was responsive. I mean, he said before and he said this when he took office that he was going to reform the Department of Justice. This was a department that had been really mired under the Trump administration in claims of partisanship, it was no longer independent. Morale was low, and he had vowed to change all of that, to return the department to its previous independent status and to pursue those who were doing wrong without fear or favor, and he merely reiterated that.
He didn`t really say anything about the timing of this, and obviously he has said before that if someone was a candidate in a presidential election that would be meaningful in terms of whether or not the Department of Justice would bring a prosecution. And so he didn`t really refute that in this statement. He simply said he would hold accountable those who needed to be held accountable.
MELBER: So you`re making a very nuanced distinction that I think is important, which is in your legal view he is trying to both exist within this public reality and this important probe, but also not by inference or admission or answer, not actually substantively change or announce anything. Is that fair?
MURRAY: I think that`s right. I think he`s trying make clear to the public that he wants to hold those who are accountable accountable, but not on any particular timeline. He did not commit to timing. Not before the presidential election, not after the midterm election. He said he would pursue this without fear or favor, and that`s all he said.
MELBER: Understood. Well, from — if I can go full circle, Professor, from some non-genius subjects to genius level professorial analysis, we thank you.
MURRAY: Thanks for having me.
MELBER: Thank you, Professor Melissa Murray from NYU, on more than one topic.
Let me tell you what`s coming up tonight, everyone. Alex Jones lost a big case, and now he could pay millions and millions that even his people say could bankrupt him. This is a story about truth and the necessary limits of the First Amendment later tonight.
And why do young people with all this information want more radical change? We`re going to hear from a very interesting conversation, Jay-Z and Kevin Hart, about what this younger generation gets right in politics.
But coming up next, something that I want to talk to you about, conservative media further splitting over January 6th. Evidence some of this now coming right out in the open.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First, January 6th Committee, not a show trial. We even have “The Wall Street Journal” and “The New York Post” saying that Trump was unelectable again, that it was dereliction of duty. He sat by and watched this for hours.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:23:03]
MELBER: One of the silliest things we hear over and over in politics is also not true. It`s that everything stays the same, which is why so many people insist on making predictions. Like you may have heard people say that, well, the evidence coming out of the January 6th Committee may not matter if the right-wing media always just defends Trump no matter what, but that assumes a future that we don`t know because we are fallible humans.
That brings us to a very important report, I`m sharing with you right now and it`s something we`ve mentioned in the broadcast. Hard evidence day after day that parts, not all, but parts of the normally Trump loyal conservative media are splintering in public, and sometimes awkwardly, over Donald Trump. His alleged malfeasance or crimes and whether it`s time to look for something other than Trump for the future. This is bursting wide into the open.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: January 6th floundered. It ended up accidentally exonerating Trump. Why is it that he seems more electable now? Is it because the public saw that it was a show trial?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First on the January 6th Committee, not a show trial. We even had “The Wall Street Journal” and “The New York Post” saying that Trump was unelectable again. That it was dereliction of duty. He sat by and watched this for hours. And he was the one person —
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s not what the hearings were about. But anyway.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Of course it is what the hearings were about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Dereliction, the House is not a show trial. FOX on FOX debate. If you watch THE BEAT, you may know we welcome all kinds of ideas and sources and debates. What`s different is you don`t always often see that over there, so they are seeing and their audience is getting an airing of much more debate over Trump and his potential crimes.
Now you have Rupert Murdoch, that very powerful chairman and basically the guy usually in charge over there, also turning on Trump through what we know to be his key mouthpieces like “The New York Post,” which is part of the FOX News parent company there, saying that the silence by Trump was damning on the 6th, or “The Wall Street Journal,” so influential both in right-wing politics and business, turning on Trump as well.
[18:25:12]
Meanwhile, there`s something else going on on FOX because this isn`t just about assessing the evidence. Nobody really thinks that. Certainly not over there. It may be that going negative on Trump fits the desire to go positive for Ron DeSantis.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE DOOCY, FOX NEWS HOST: DeSantis leads the former president in all age groupings. Then there is the University of New Hampshire poll in June, DeSantis actually led Trump, 39-37. And that “The New York Times”-Sienna College poll that we`ve cited quite a few times, less than half of Republican voters backed Donald Trump as their preferred choice.
BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX NEWS HOST: If you look state by state, Ron DeSantis is showing tremendous strength in New Hampshire. Michigan and Florida. He`s leading or tied with the former president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: You can read the body language yourself, but that`s clearly the data. DeSantis also leading by 14 points over Trump in the key state of New Hampshire. And Trump is accusing at least part of FOX is going to the dark side. He`s noticed.
Where does the rupture head from here? Is it about Murdoch? Is it about Jan. 6th? Is it about DeSantis? If Rupert Murdoch`s empire continues a full-court press for Ron DeSantis and against Donald Trump, it`s going to matter.
Now we have a friend of THE BEAT who has worked for Obama and other Democratic presidential campaigns who has some ideas about all of this. Chai Komanduri, on the splinter, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:31:21]
MELBER: With signs of a turning against Trump on right-wing media, I am joined by Obama campaign veteran Chai Komanduri. Welcome back.
CHAI KOMANDURI, POLITICAL STRATEGIST: It`s good to be back, Ari.
MELBER: How do you define what is happening on the airwaves and in papers according to the public evidence and why?
KOMANDURI: Well, I think the Murdochs definitely want to break up with Donald Trump and I wish I could say it`s because they`ve grown a conscience or they saw the evidence presented by that January 6th hearings, and it changed their minds about him. But I think something far more nefarious is at work. They know that Trump is damaged, they know that more damage is to come.
And they see a viable medical alternative in Ron DeSantis. They see somebody who can basically pay all of Trump`s greatest hits, but have none of his baggage. He can use conspiracy theories. He can do culture war battles. He can do all the things that keep their viewers on Fox News engaged. And he doesn`t — he never tried to assassinate his vice president. So that`s like a very low bar. But DeSantis actually clears it.
And if you think about it, when Rupert Murdoch was head of Fox Studios in the 90s, he decided, hey, I`d like to cut costs. Let me replace Keanu Reeves with Jason Patric on the set of Speed Two, which is exactly what he did. That turned out to be a disastrous movie. And I fear that what they`re doing is going to be just as disastrous for the country.
MELBER: And was Murdoch involved in that decision?
KOMANDURI: Yes, he was head of Fox Studios in the 90s. And actually, when they — when they showed the movie, and it was a really bad movie. His first thing he said to everybody was, well, at least it`s cheaper than Titanic.
MELBER: Well, and it`s — you know, whether there`s a low-cost version of Trump and DeSantis is the point you`re raising, interesting. We always learn extra things on Chai day. And you do have the public evidence. It`s not nothing when the post and the journal pick the exact same time to turn on Trump over January 6th, for evidence that was dramatically and deeply presented.
Much of it was new, as we`ve emphasized, but the outlines of the problem as you say, were there for a long time. Then you combine what we just saw, which was Fox was fighting about it. Then Mr. Bannon, who has found a lot of support from Tucker Carlson, actually apparently either watches THE BEAT or thinks that our reporting is accurate. So, this is, of course, self- referential.
But this is a new post from Mr. Bannon that says THE BEAT coverage, quote, lays out Murdoch`s all-out multi-platform assault on Trump, parentheses, the great Tucker Carlson notwithstanding, and he`s referring to some of that coverage Chai and it does look, in fairness, like a multi-platform is sold in the sense that Tucker and others are going to do their loyal Trumpism. But this is probably what, the widest break with Trump we`ve seen in the last several years on air there.
KOMANDURI: Yes, and it`s mirrored throughout the Republican establishment. I think the Republican establishment I have noticed is getting closer and closer to DeSantis. National Review has run multiple editorials saying DeSantis is the horse we should ride. Rich Lowry wrote in Politico that liberals should be happy with DeSantis. We don`t understand why everyone`s being upset about it.
We`re hearing a lot of Never Trumpers, I think sort of say that, hey, you know, I didn`t like Donald Trump, but I can live with Ron DeSantis. You`re starting to hear that from the Republican establishment, that this is somebody who we think we can control this is a better bet. This is somebody who is fresh and new. And he`s not going to have all the baggage Donald Trump has.
[18:35:00]
Their real issue with Trump isn`t actually what he did. It`s their fear that Trump could lose. That has always been their guiding idea. And I think that they worry that Donald Trump is a goner in another election. And somebody like Ron DeSantis could be brought in and replace him very, very easily.
MELBER: Right. And to your point, Donald Trump got fewer votes in 16. He got viewer — fewer votes in 20. He has proved resilient in many ways. I think viewers know. But the notion that everything that`s going on is going to somehow miraculously make him not the same, but better. He would have to increase his popularity and appeal and vote total. If you rerun the Biden- Trump election that well, he lost. And who believe that, none other than, take a look, Ron DeSantis.
KOMANDURI: Yes, I think —
MELBER: I`m waiting for — sorry. We`re trying to go to the DeSantis by tape. Let`s take a look at that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: DeSantis sort of admitted it was time to move on. When asked if he accepted Joe Biden as the president-elect.
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): It`s not from — it`s not for me to do. But here`s what I would say, you know, obviously, we did our thing in Florida. The college voted. You know, what`s going to happen is going to happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Now, it`s a faux casual style. You know, we did our thing, the Electoral College always votes on December 14th, but it`s different than Trump`s big lie.
KOMANDURI: It is. It actually had some shades of Josh Hawley running away. You know, basically, he didn`t want to get too close to the — to the danger of the mob. And so, he tried to distance himself and give himself some wiggle room for the future. I think DeSantis is actually very cagey and very cunning in that sense.
But I also think that explains why some of the Tucker Carlson is more circumspect about embracing him, and still thinks that Trump is the answer and he is the key. You know, all you have to do is go on YouTube, go to C- SPAN, watch DeSantis his actual speeches. DeSantis is extremely boring. I think Donald Trump described him as a dolt, which is, you know, Donald Trump does nothing but lie.
But that might be the one true thing that Donald Trump has said, DeSantis is dumb. You know, to watching Donald Trump, it`s sort of like watching a car crash. It`s a terrible thing, but you can`t take your eyes off of it. With DeSantis, it`s much more like having a bad meal at a restaurant. You know, you have the bad meal, you don`t finish the plate, you`re never going to go to the restaurant again.
Nobody out of fascination is going to complete the meal, you know, if it`s a bad meal. So, I think that`s like really the problem with DeSantis, he`s boring and repulsive, not just merely repulsive.
MELBER: You`re getting very close to saying that the food was terrible, but the portions were too small. But I want you to stick with me. I move beyond some of the conservative media to something in the culture, Chai. Kevin Hart was actually talking to Jay-Z, about this younger generation`s politics and why so many young people want faster change.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAY-Z, RAPPER: This younger generation, they have the information, right? Because it`s at their fingertips. They believe they have more information than us at that time, and what in some ways they do. You know, but if the nation without understanding, there`s nothing, right? Because on a cigarette box, it has, this can kill you, and people still smoke.
So, it`s not just inflammation, that`d be understanding of inflammation and who is coming from. They grew up in a time where the banks collapsed. And all these things happen, you know, so they don`t really have the trust of the generation before. They`re like, no, no. You did great whole system, we need a whole new system, because you guys went too far with it. Which is super exciting. It`s super exciting to see where they`re going to take it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Jay-Z now over 50 years old talking about this younger generation. He keeps that open mind. He says it`s super exciting. But that they want something different than his generation or this whole older generation in our society, people may be like us over 40. Your reaction — his diagnosis of youth politics today.
KOMANDURI: I think Jay-Z concisely, and I would say broadly, he really puts his finger on one of the big issues in American politics and culture, which is this generational divide between millennials and boomers. The millennials have experienced 20 years of nonstop crises. You know, nine-11, the Iraq War, the Great Recession, Trumpism. And each response seems to have made everything much worse.
So, they are — I think, very dispirited, they have suffered. But I think Jay-Z`s also right to be optimistic about what they can create. And history tells us this is the case. If you look at the World War II generation, the greatest generation as they were dubbed. They experienced a war, a depression, and an even worse war.
What they ended up doing was creating the great welfare states of Europe and Asia. They created the labor movement that created the post-war prosperity in the middle class. African American veterans came back. And were at the forefront like Jackie Robinson of the civil rights movement. They ended slave — Jim Crow and segregation.
[18:40:00]
So, the World War II generation, despite all that suffering, was able to really put the country back in a better place, and then they had found it. And so, I think Jay-Z is very right to be optimistic about what these millennials have created — or I mean, could create.
MELBER: And with the — I got 45 seconds or so. But his specific point as well about the speed — I mean, this is a — this is new, how quickly you can get information, and yet he`s the first to say, that`s different than understanding it.
KOMANDURI: Yes, he`s actually under — it saying that there`s a difference between intelligence processing information and wisdom. (INAUDIBLE) there`s a whole line of thinking from Aeschylus to Nietzsche, that says, wisdom comes out of suffering. Well, this millennial generation has really suffered. And I think that there`s a possibility for great wisdom to come from them. And I think Jay-Z is also very open to that possibility as well.
MELBER: I love it when you put it like that. And all the politics we talk about comes out of people`s experience and emotion. And when you said like the cascading crises, and something we hear from young people today as well, when you look at what their economic opportunities are.
What they`re being told to put up with, and how that`s going to then, as you say, from suffering to wisdom to demand impact, what kind of life they want in the workplace, in politics in this government. Super interesting. On more than one topic, Chai Komanduri. Thank you, sir.
KOMANDURI: Thank you.
MELBER: And I`ll mention when we were looking at that interview, we saw that it was done by Kevin Hart on Peacock. He`s got this show Hart to Heart. So, you can check out the whole interview on Peacock where you get your streaming. Coming up, it is judgment day for right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and he`s complaining he could run out of money. When we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:46:37]
MELBER: Turning now to truth, lies, accountability, and the actual limits of speech literally. We could start anywhere, but if you go back far enough, you can start with the Scopes Trial, which looked at whether evolution could even be taught as true or as a theory in our schools. It was made into that award-winning film with Spencer Tracy. Discusses what we want to do about the rules for what is allowed to be taught said or not.
We have lying on trial right now because they`re opening statements today in the punishment for Alex Jones, who has repeatedly and knowingly peddled some of the most disgusting possible lies you could imagine about the Sandy Hook murders, and the parents and victims involved. I`m not going to repeat all of his lies.
But for the purpose of this story, you have to know that he has besmirched everyone involved by suggesting that the parents were staging the murder of their own children, which is a falsehood, of course. In 2017, for example, he attacked the father of six-year-old Jesse Lewis. Basically, saying that this child who is dead was actually a part of his father`s hoax. It went on and on like this.
The parents of Jesse Lewis are getting some modicum of process and justice. They are testifying about what that turned into. Bad enough as an initial lie, but they`ve faced threats and harassment from people who follow Alex Jones, who, and this is important, profits of all of this. Makes money off all of this. This is not some random set of beliefs. It`s something that he uses as a profitable business.
Now, Jones lost the defamation trial. So, this case, basically, I`m simplifying will focus on how much he has to pay. He`s already the loser. Question now is whether he will be hit with millions of dollars in judgments. And the parents say this is not about making money. And that`s an important point here. Because while they have suffered real financial losses, and the courts can measure that, they have said for years, this is much bigger than Alex Jones.
It is about something that`s only gotten worse in the last several years. The construction of lies or what under Trump was called alternative facts to pursue any in all agendas, business, profit, or political. This is a very real problem in America right now. I bet you`ve heard about it. Lies that lead people around the country to spend their free time literally trying to torment grieving parents of dead children.
It is pretty disgusting when you think about these specific examples. In politics, it has turned to these fantasies about pedophiles running the U.S. government or that Venezuela stole the election. This problem is bigger with Mr. — bigger I should say than Mr. Jones, but boy, bankrupting him, according to these plaintiffs and some legal experts might help stop some of the worst of the worst.
We want to get into all of this, including the political side of it, because that`s where so much of the heat is. We`re joined by a longtime Republican strategist, Reed Galen, who hosts the Lincoln Project podcast. Has been critical of some of these problems. Welcome, sir.
REED GALEN, CO-FOUNDER, THE LINCOLN PROJECT: Thanks for having me.
MELBER: You look at Alex Jones as someone who 20 years ago might have been considered completely fringe and yet got a larger foothold in Donald Trump`s Republican Party. Makes money as I mentioned by peddling conspiracy adjacent fear products, but now could lose millions, his own folks are saying he could be bankrupted. What do you see as important here in this case on judgment day?
[18:50:00]
GALEN: Well, I think it`s interesting. Remember that years ago, Alex Jones lost a custody case with his wife over their children because she`s like (INAUDIBLE) he can`t raise our kids around someone like this and his defense was it`s all an act. Right now, with the kids from Sandy Hook and their parents he saying — well, he`s already put his organization into bankruptcy to protect it.
And Ari, what I think is interesting, whether or not it`s Alex Jones, or so many of these people around January 6th, that we`ve seen, take the Fifth Amendment, which is they have no respect or regard for human decency or the law. But when they are suddenly in the target of American jurisprudence, they hide behind the very constitution that so many of them disdain.
MELBER: Well, put. What is Alex Jones` position in your view in today`s Republican Party?
GALEN: I think he is right up there with the Steve Bannon and the Tucker Carlson`s of the world, which is he provides a safe place for otherwise, as you said, incredibly destructive, strange, weird, you know, theories. I was watching a little clip of him today, Ari, and I wouldn`t recommend that for your mental health. You know, there`s a giant dragon waiting to eat all of us.
We`ve already had the nanotechnology implanted in us, they`re all ready to kill us. I mean, this stuff, it — it boggles the mind. I mean, you know, charlatan, and clown doesn`t begin to say it, but he has the voice that speaks to millions of people. And it`s not just the folks that watch them on YouTube, which I think he`s been banned from, but also his clips get pushed around. And they further these conspiracy theories.
And I was just watching your last segment where we`re Jay-Z says that information doesn`t equal knowledge or wisdom. And I think that`s the truth, which is folks are taking in information. It doesn`t matter whether or not it`s true, you can hold your iPhone, it`s got every last bit of human knowledge that`s ever been invented within it. And yet, we have people that believe the same sort of superstitions as they did in the 15 and 1600s.
MELBER: Yes, I mean, I think you make a strong point, both connecting back to that comment about the speed of information for the younger generation, as well as what we were thinking about with the Scopes Trial and other ways that we understand what`s possible, what can be discussed or taught and what again, according to the law, he`s already lost.
I mean, BEAT viewers know I talked a lot about how there is a lot of free speech in America for good reason. This is not free speech. This is dangerous defamation that has already been ruled by the courts. He had his day in court, not free speech, illegal defamation. These poor families, my heart goes out to these parents and the children that are no longer with us and then what they`ve had to endure beyond.
What does it mean, do you think for folks who are on as you said, the scam or profit side if they see that sooner or later, he does have to pay out 10s of millions? What does that do to this so-called political quote unquote, disinformation economy?
GALEN: Well, I think that what it does is it scares them in some way because now they have a lot of corporate overlords, right? Our iHeart radio, Salem communications, a lot of these folks who are — I`m not going to call the mainstream, I won`t insult mainstream that way, Ari. But they are mainstream outlets, they are backed by quite large corporate interests, who are willing to let them say these things because they`re profitable, right?
We know Facebook, trucks, and these things. We know YouTube has until recently pushed these sorts of algorithms because they know that conflict sells and these people sell ultimate conflict all the time. And so, you know, Ari, you know, you`re a legal scholar far more than I am, right? They all hold ideas like you can`t yell fire in a crowded theater. That`s all these people all did do all day.
They yell fire in a crowded theater the size of the United States of America, and they do it almost without compunction. And so, we`ll Alex Jones, stop? He won`t, because I frankly, don`t think he has any place else to go at this point. He`s not a normal human being. This is a guy that goes into barbecue restaurants in Texas and starts screaming at people. This is a deranged, dangerous, sick man to begin with.
And so, do I think it is possible? Yes. Do I think it is important? Yes. That we talk to the people who sell advertising on these people`s podcasts on (INAUDIBLE) you know, big corporate family company. Is this the kind of stuff you want to sell your people to? There`s a reason, Ari, why, you know, over on Fox News and primetime, like no reputable company wants to advertise on that, right?
It`s gold, bomb shelters, and the pillow guy, right? That`s it. Those are the only people they got because no otherwise respectable company or outlet wants to have anything to do with them. And I think that these people were drawn in from the fringes, in from the woods by the likes of Donald Trump and we need to inch by inch push them back.
[18:55:00]
MELBER: Yes, Reed Galen, with all your experience. We wanted to hear from you on this and we`re going to keep covering this accountability trial on THE BEAT. Thank you, sir, and we will be right back.
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MELBER: Donald Trump`s first time in Washington today since he lost the election did not get live coverage on Fox News as mentioned, but it did get this political move by the Democrats who actually funded advance circling the hotel where Trump was speaking with the facts of his loss, playing an endless loop as well the moment when Fox News did declare the fact that Trump lost the election.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Fox News decision desk (INAUDIBLE) —
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fake news! Fake news!
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MELBER: And this is the way we live now. Just a moment from Washington. You can always find me online @AriMelber in social media or arimelber.com. And let me know what you thought of anything today including our discussion about information and the speed of information. arimelber.com or @arimelber. And I`ll see you tomorrow at 6:00 Eastern. “THE REIDOUT” with Jason Johnson in for Joy starts now.