Updated
Summary
January 6 Committee member Congressman Jamie Raskin discusses the ongoing hearings. Right-wing extremists continue to target the LGBTQ community. Donald Trump seeks revenge against two incumbent Republicans in South Carolina primaries. New information emerges on the Trump administration plot to install a new attorney general. Former U.S. Senator Doug Jones discusses the January 6 investigation.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on THE REIDOUT:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): In our next hearing on Thursday, the select committee will examine President Trump`s relentless effort on January 6 and in the days beforehand to pressure Vice President Pence to refuse to count lawful electoral votes.
As a federal judge has indicated, this likely violated two federal criminal statutes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Liz Cheney tees it up. And if it wasn`t already clear, it is now. This committee means business.
They also just released stunning video testimony from a Trump lawyer telling coup architect John Eastman, you better find yourself a good lawyer.
January 6 Committee member Jamie Raskin joins me to discuss what the committee has revealed and will reveal in hearings to come.
And it`s a growing cancer on our nation, right-wing extremists now targeting the LGBTQ community, and not just in Idaho, where 31 of them were unpacked from a U-Haul and arrested.
And the first polls are closing right now in South — in the South Carolina primary, as Trump seeks revenge against two incumbent Republicans. Steve Kornacki will join us from the Big Board.
But we begin tonight with one of the biggest misconceptions about the Trump presidency, that there were no adults in the room. That`s not true. There were plenty of adults. They just couldn`t contain him and possibly didn`t want to.
Thanks to the January 6 Committee, these so-called adults are sharing what they really feel about Trump`s pursuit for power. We`re talking about Trump`s closest allies, his own people narrating the case against him, like star witnesses that included none other than former Attorney General William Barr, a man who spent years defending and serving Trump, not the American people, but who, via video testimony, had this to say about his president`s lies:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM BARR, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Crazy stuff, completely bogus and silly and usually based on complete misinformation.
They were idiotic claims, complete nonsense.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Strong words, right, on just how silly this was, a president so unwilling to listen to reason that Barr could barely do his job, saying Trump`s false claims about the election contributed to his decision to leave the administration.
Interesting. Curious, because, back in December 2020, the same month Barr announced the Justice Department`s finding of no fraud in the election, he submitted this very weird, solicitous and gratuitously fawning resignation letter, heaping praise over Trump`s — quote — “many successes and the unprecedented achievements he had delivered for the American people.”
Let`s also not forget how Barr, who infamously lied about the Mueller report for Trump, told Newsmax that he would still vote for Trump in 2024 if he were the nominee.
And then, sometimes, the adult in the room is your very own daughter, who in video testimony said that she accepted Barr`s assessment of no fraud, but still joined her father for that so-called Stop the Steal Rally at the Ellipse preceding the Capitol attack.
We have also heard from Bill Stepien, Trump`s campaign manager. Talk about MAGA faithful.
He claims he`s a member of so-called team normal, and he testified that he distanced himself from Trump`s lies. This is a Republican operative who was fired by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie amid the Bridgegate scandal and who now works as a political consultant for candidates who are running on the big life, including one who is primarying Liz Cheney.
See, that`s the thing about these adults in the room. Whether it`s the image they`re spinning to say face or the real possibility that a team normal faction did exist within the Trump campaign, we have to remember who these people are. These are Trump people, his aides, his foot soldiers and his biggest cheerleaders.
This isn`t a story about the good Republicans vs. the bad ones. It isn`t about bad guys who became good, and it`s certainly not a story about redemption. These are the bad guys. They say they oppose Trump`s antics and nuttiness, but they sure were willing to walk right up to the line. They just weren`t willing to cross it to commit the ultimate crime of overthrowing the election and our democracy.
And that doesn`t make you a hero.
This is also a story with much more to come with Thursday`s hearing focusing on Trump`s pressure on Mike Pence. Late today, the committee highlighted the video of — video deposition of Eric Herschmann, a White House attorney under Trump.
The day after January 6, Herschmann spoke with John Eastman, the lawyer who wrote memos arguing that Pence could overturn the election.
Here`s how that conversation went, according to Herschmann:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC HERSCHMANN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE ATTORNEY: He started to ask me about something dealing with Georgia and preserving something potentially for appeal.
And I said to him: “Are you out of your F`ing mind?”
I said: “I only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth from now on, orderly transition.”
I said: “I don`t want to hear any other F`ing words coming out of your mouth no matter what other than orderly transition. Repeat those words to me.”
[19:05:00]
And I..
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: What did he say?
HERSCHMANN: Eventually, he said: “Orderly transition.”
I said: “Good, John. Now I`m going to give you the best free legal advice you`re ever getting in your life. Get a great F`ing criminal defense lawyer. You`re going to need it.”
And then I hung up on him.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
REID: Wow.
Joining me now is Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a member of the January 6 Select Committee.
And, Congressman Raskin, thank you for being here. That was some pretty interesting and definitive audio for Mr. Herschmann.
It seems to be that everyone with a law degree who was in any way involved in listening to what Donald Trump and people like Rudy Giuliani wanted to do, with the exception of Rudy Giuliani and Eastman, understood that what they were describing was a crime.
Do you agree that what we`re hearing about are crimes?
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Yes, these are crimes.
What you need for crime is the fancy Latin word mens rea, which means intention. And given that Donald Trump and his whole entourage understood that the big lie was a big lie, they had a criminal state of mind. They had a criminal intention.
They meant to deceive everybody, and continued to drive their plot all the way up through January 6. And what we`re going to do in the next several hearings is take people through the various attacks on the rule of law in different critical governmental institutions, the Department of Justice, state legislatures, the vice president, all the way up until January 6, where we see the convergence of this inside attempted political coup to overthrow the election, with insurrectionary mob violence that Donald Trump incited and helped to unleash against the government.
REID: I give you the quote of one Dan Rather, the great Dan Rather. And he tweeted this last night.
He said: “Funny what people say when they`re under oath and they don`t — that they didn`t say earlier, when it could have made a big difference. Actually, it`s not funny at all. It`s outrageous, a shame that will follow their names into history.”
And I say that because, as — as we`re listening to all these people testify and tell what they know, it strikes me that they, and William Barr really first among equals here, knew that a crime was under way and being contemplated by the president of the United States. And no one said anything, nothing, to the American people.
To me, this does not vindicate William Barr, as he sits there comfortably laying out the case against Trump. It condemns him. What do you think?
RASKIN: Well, thank you for saying that.
Just telling the truth about a president of the United States who is hell- bent on nullifying a presidential election and installing himself in the presidency for another four years doesn`t make you a hero.
And I know what Bill Barr did on June 1 in that paramilitary riot that was leveled against peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters. And I saw the way that he defended Donald Trump at other points.
But, look, Donald Trump was so clearly on a collision course with the Constitution and the government that a lot of people decided to get off of the team at the last minute. And I appreciate the fact that they are telling the truth now.
But I think you`re right. In a moral sense, it doesn`t make you a hero. It`s a great relief to see all of these people, the chair of his — the campaign manager, Stepien, telling the truth, the attorney general of the United States, all of these campaign aides, but we obviously don`t want to overly lionize these people.
REID: Right.
And they had a duty to warn. I mean, the attorney general wrote this sycophantic letter on his way out. In a sense, one might say he had a duty to warn.
And yet there is a controversy inside the committee — at least, that is what seems to be occurring — between the chairman, Congressman Bennie Thompson, who chairs the committee, and some others, who are saying, no, we`re not going to do a filing to the DOJ. There`s not going to be a letter to the DOJ saying that we believe these are crimes that have been committed, and Liz Cheney, who seems hell-bent on making sure that that actually happens.
Where do you fall on that, on whether or not there should be criminal referrals made to the Department of Justice, since you agree that these are crimes?
RASKIN: Yes, I don`t think we have an actual conflict on the committee.
I think we have got semantic confusion generated by the media, because we did a bunch of criminal conferrals for criminal contempt of people like Scavino and Navarro and Meadows and Bannon.
[19:10:00]
But there was a very specific statute that allows for Congress to make criminal referrals for acting in contempt of Congress. There`s not a general catch-all federal statute that allows for Congress to make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice.
So, obviously, we have the power and the authority and I think the duty to publish all the information we have about crimes that have taken place. We have even already committed ourselves to the proposition that crimes have taken place.
In the Eastman litigation, when the judge asked us whether Eastman was covered by some kind of attorney-client privilege, and we said, number one, there was no attorney-client relationship between Eastman and Trump. Two, if there was, they have waived it. And, three, even if they hadn`t waived such a claimed relationship, the privilege doesn`t attach if you`re engaged in crime and fraud.
And we laid out all of the crimes that we saw at that point that Donald Trump had been engaged in. And Judge Carter accepted that analysis. And he repeated those crimes, and he said he thought it was likely that Donald Trump had committed federal criminal offenses.
So we have already committed ourselves to that proposition. But I think the ambiguity is, there`s not some kind of statutory formal structure for referring crimes to the Department of Justice. We can have our hearings. We can issue a report. We can state what we have found.
And so, ultimately, I don`t think there`s any difference between the chair and the vice chair on this.
REID: Thank you for clarifying that.
And in addition to being a congressman and a member of the committee, you`re also one of my favorite people to talk constitutional law with. So, I`m going to use — I`m going to abuse the privilege here and try to get you to talk a little constitutional law.
I know that Michael Luttig, who is a luminary on the right, on the conservative judicial sort of world, to whom Mike Pence consulted on whether or not it would be a crime to try to steal the election by himself, which he ultimately determined he could not do, we`re going to hear from him in the — we`re going to hear lots of people laying this out.
But what we have heard so far — and he said absolutely don`t do it, because he`s a smart man. Can you have a seditious conspiracy that involves violent actors who believe their purpose was to obstruct the — the peaceful transfer of power, to obstruct the congressional hand — the handover, the ceremonial handover?
Can you have that? Can you have memoranda from a lawyer acting ostensibly on behalf of the president or in his — for him, to say, here`s how you lay out — here`s the way we could steal the election, without having the president to be a part of that crime?
In other words, can you prosecute anyone below Donald Trump for seditious conspiracy and leave him out? And if he were prosecuted, how would that even work constitutionally and how would that play out?
RASKIN: Well, theoretically, of course, you could.
You could have a crime to overthrow or put down the government of the United States, on behalf of a president who doesn`t know anything about it. You also could have a seditious conspiracy to overthrow or put down the government of the United States or to thwart its laws that includes the president.
So that`s just a question of fact.
REID: Yes.
RASKIN: That`s a question of evidence.
And so, hypothetically, is it possible that there could have been a plot to install Donald Trump in as president and to keep him in and to Stop the Steal and to seize the presidency for four years without him knowing about it? Theoretically, yes. Is that likely to have happened? I don`t think so.
I think that he was the motor behind the whole plot.
REID: Could — then can you envision this ending without Donald Trump himself facing legal consequences for that, ultimately?
RASKIN: Well, I think Donald Trump will have his comeuppance.
I think that, with Dr. King, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. And I think there will be justice for everyone who set these events into motion. I mean, people were killed. People died. We had an interruption of the counting of Electoral College votes for the first time in American history.
REID: Yes.
RASKIN: We had a violent assault on the peaceful transfer of power, destroying the peaceful part and interrupting the transfer of power for many hours.
I mean, this was an unprecedented and extremely dangerous situation that could have led to anything from martial law to civil war.
REID: Yes. Indeed.
Congressman Jamie Raskin, member of the January 6 Committee and one of our favorite professors to put on, so he can teach us a little constitutional law from time to time, thank you, sir. Have a wonderful weekend.
[19:15:00]
Up next on THE REIDOUT: We are learning more about the Trump administration plot to install a new attorney general specifically for the purpose of stealing the election for Trump.
Plus, Steve Kornacki at the Big Board with the latest returns from today`s primaries.
THE REIDOUT continues after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: We`re learning more about Trump`s efforts to corrupt the Department of Justice into overturning the 2020 election and how that nearly led to a Sunday version of the Nixon era Saturday Night Massacre.
[19:20:01]
An explosive new report in “The Washington Post” details former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark`s plan to take over the Justice Department and deliver the election to Trump. In a meeting three days before the insurrection, Clark discussed his plan to send a draft letter to key states, including Georgia, urging the appointment of separate slates of electors.
Trump`s acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and his deputy, Richard Donoghue, also in the meeting, had already rejected that plan. According to “The Post,” as Rosen and Donoghue listened, Clark told Trump that he would send the letter if Trump named him attorney general.
“History is calling,” Clarke said, according to a deposition from Donoghue. “This is our opportunity. We can get this done.”
Donoghue urged Trump not to put Clark in charge, calling him not competent and warning of mass resignations by Justice Department officials. Trump ultimately backed down on replacing Rosen with Clark, whose actions are under scrutiny by the House January 6 Committee.
A hearing on all of this originally scheduled for tomorrow has been postponed to next week.
With me now, former Senator Doug Jones of Alabama. He`s a distinguished senior fellow for the center for American progress. And Paul Butler, Georgetown Law School professor and a former federal prosecutor.
Thank you all for — both for being here.
Let me start with you, Paul, because this was pretty straightforward. And it actually kind of reminds me of what Trump was impeached for the first time, where he said to the president of Ukraine, the now very much embattled by Russia president of Ukraine, I just need you to announce an investigation. Just get out there and say that there`s an investigation, say that there`s fraud, and then to create the pretext, right?
And he wanted the Justice Department to announce that, with their power, they wanted a separate slate of electors because there was something wrong with the votes in Georgia. That`s a crime, right?
PAUL BUTLER, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: It`s just one of the crimes that is detailed in the “Post” article. Joy.
There is this bombshell, a couple of bombshells like that, when they go right to the criminal culpability of Donald Trump. When Trump refused to make Jeffrey Clark attorney general, Clark then asked if the Justice Department could write a formal opinion about the role of Vice President Pence and certify the election.
And then Trump tells everybody at the meeting, the attorney general, the deputy attorney general, the White House counsel, not to say a word to Mike Pence. In other words, Trump issues this stay-away order to the people he knew would tell Pence that he had the constitutional obligation to certify the Electoral College votes.
Joy, Trump did not want Mike Pence to be instructed on the law. That is strong evidence of Trump`s own consciousness of guilt, that he likely knew that what he was trying to do was illegal and corrupt.
REID: And I do wonder sometimes, Senator Jones, how many of your former colleagues were aware and how aware people were of this plan, because it does seem like part of this coup attempt was an effort to, number one, box Mike Pence in and create this alternate slate of electors and push him to use those, instead of the real electors, but then also, on the violent side, intimidate both Mike Pence and the United States Senate into going along with it.
Hard to get around the idea that this wasn`t a pretty multifaceted conspiracy, right?
FMR. SEN. DOUG JONES (D-AL): Well, it is certainly multifaceted, and it is broad. There are so many things happening before, during and after, Joy.
I mean, we — that`s, I think, a real stunning part of what`s going on right now, as you see so much of the planning and so much that was said, that is still ongoing today. You can look at it in primaries that are taking place tonight, as we speak. The same things are being said.
One of the things that I found most interesting, though, was the fact that I just — I don`t believe that Jeffrey Clark was doing this on his own. This was an environmental lawyer. He was head of that division, civil part of that division. He had no experience in any of this.
All the e-mails and all suggest that there were things being sent to him, letters being prepared. There`s more behind this than we have seen so far. Now, whether or not the committee can get to that, because Jeffrey Clark took the Fifth when he was called, which, by the way, was a fairly smart thing to do, rather than being held in contempt, was to take the Fifth.
REID: Yes.
JONES: But the fact is, I just believe there`s more to this that was coming into the Justice Department.
And thank goodness there were people — you can say what you want about a number of the Trump appointees, but, at the end of the day, there were a lot of folks who stood up for that department and stood up for the Constitution at the end of the day, because we came real close.
REID: Yes, absolutely, and threatened to resign en masse.
Let`s go through, because we know now, per Merrick Garland, that he was — he`s been watching these hearings, which, in a way, it`s like he shouldn`t have to watch. Like, you have got your on investigative authority. You don`t have to watch it, but OK.
[19:25:02]
But there are so many crimes that he could be watching and sort of picking up the straws on, Paul.
Let me let you listen to Senator Claire McCaskill, because she put up one of the options of what Trump — of all the many crimes committed, this is one that could lead to some consequences, maybe.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLAIRE MCCASKILL, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: The other bucket that he really may have trouble with, the Trump Organization might and Donald Trump himself, is consumer protection laws.
Those typically are handled by state`s attorney generals — attorneys general, and not by the federal government, although the federal government could stick their foot in, if they could find some wire fraud, and it was big and blatant enough.
And this may turn out to be that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: So, campaign finance violations. Wire fraud has been mentioned just as — you know, the Bannon — the stuff that Bannon actually got — Steve Bannon got in trouble for lying and telling people, give me this money and we`re going to build a wall.
And then it turns out that was a fraud. Of course, he was pardoned. His partners in that crime are the ones who are going to face the consequences. Three men were charged with him. They have already pleaded guilty, two of them, to conspiring to defraud and swindle donors.
Letitia James already put her hand up and said, oh, I`m paying attention to this as well. Could it be that it`s going to wind up being state`s attorney generals, Paul, who wind up paying attention to the financial crimes and fraud here?
BUTLER: You know, I sure hope not, especially after a federal judge in California found that there`s evidence of a criminal conspiracy between Donald Trump and John Eastman to overturn the election to subvert American democracy.
The January 6 panel hearings are showing direct connections between the president`s words and the bloody, violent attack on the Capitol. So Eastman was told by someone in the White House Counsel`s Office that he clearly needs a good criminal defense lawyer. It`s up to Merrick Garland to decide whether Donald Trump also needs one.
But, Joy, sometimes, it`s important to name the crime. And the crime that there`s evidence that the president of the United States, the former president committed, is sedition, that he conspired to overturn our democracy. And that`s what he should be held accountable for.
REID: And the thing is, Senator Jones, the tragedy here is that the Republican Party has already benefited from this crime, because they have used it, whether they actually believe the Stop the Steal nonsense or not, to pass extremely restrictive voting laws that are going to make it very difficult for Democrats to win future elections in states like yours.
They`re using the big lie, whether or not they believe it. You have individuals who`ve profited from it. Mark Meadows got money. Donald Trump Jr.`s girlfriend skimmed money. They`re using it both to financially profit and to politically profit.
So, in a sense, Donald Trump`s crime has already benefited his political party, right?
JONES: Well, it benefited in a number of ways.
But I want to make sure we are clear about something, Joy. What we`re hearing from the January 6 Committee right now is really stunning. But, at the same time, almost all of the evidence that we`re hearing right now cannot be used in a court of law. It is not going to be admissible that way.
And I have been trying to make sure folks understand that this January 6 Committee is an investigative body,and their job right now is to put the information out there. Let the truth become — you can hold people accountable when the truth is made public through so many ways. And that`s important as we move into the elections.
There are so many election deniers that are on the ballot.
REID: Yes.
JONES: There are so many laws that have been passed.
It is important right now to get that truth out, so that people will understand that as they`re going to the polls. That — and then we will let the criminal justice system figure this out. And I think it will. Whether it`s state or federal, I think the criminal justice system will figure it out.
But the most important thing is to get people to understand what`s at stake here and what this committee is showing them.
REID: Yes, an excellent point. Thank you very much for making it, former Senator Doug Jones, and, of course, Paul Butler. Thank you both.
And still ahead: Right-wing extremists are marking Pride Month by cranking up their hateful rhetoric, egged on by conservative elected officials, and that is not an isolated case.
And check out THE REIDOUT blog. Ja`han Jones looks at the legal exposure for Donald Trump and how the January 6 hearings impact the civil cases against him.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:34:25]
REID: Over the weekend, more than two dozen white supremacists were arrested in Idaho.
The group called the Patriot Front was dressed like a small army and carried a written tactical plan to harass families and allies of the Idaho LGBTQ community, with the goal of terrorizing them and making their attack go viral.
Now, if you think this is a rare occurrence that only happens in some states, you are sadly mistaken. In fact, the men came from all over the country, from 11 states, Texas, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, South Dakota, Illinois, Arkansas, Wyoming, Washington, Oregon, and Virginia.
In California, members of the Proud Boys harassed and threatened children and their families as they attended a drag queen story hour. Police are investigating it as a possible hate crime.
[19:35:08]
According to the Associated Press, these individuals are part of a massive right-wing media ecosystem that has been pushing the idea that there are people who are trying to take your kids to drag shows, there are trans people trying to groom your children.
These groups are emboldened by the rash of Republican state legislatures that have proposed roughly 240 bills targeting LGBTQ Americans, half targeting transgender people specifically. But make no mistake. Their goal is to radicalize the same kinds of people Trump and Trumpism have radicalized on matters of race, immigration, abortion and demographic change, and to do so by any means necessary.
Joining me now is NBC News senior reporter Ben Collins.
Ben, thank you for being here.
And we reached out to you because you tweeted about watching the sort of online weirdo-sphere, the eco — the sort of online sphere, the 4chan, 8chan, that part, and that they were shifting, when the January 6 hearings were starting to actually move people`s opinion, away. And you said that we`re shifting toward LGBTQ people.
How broad is that shift? And what do you make of it?
BEN COLLINS, NBC NEWS SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, that`s their primary target now.
They don`t really have a cohesive narrative for January 6. But they have a cohesive narrative for what they believe the LGBT community is doing to their children. It`s not true, but they believe that they are trying to groom children. This is a months-long efforts. It`s actually really a years-long effort by the far right.
In fact, in 2019, I did a story about how 4chan was specifically posing as gay men on Twitter to try to say — they were posing as gay men, and then they would say that pedophilia is part of our cause now. They would take real gay couples` pictures on Twitter to do that to try to drag that into the narrative.
Then the pandemic happened. They kind of dropped it for a while, and now they`re back in this game. They realized — they think they have a winning political issue with the center.
I don`t know if they do, but they believe that this anti-trans panic is something that they can latch on to a mainstream politician. And so far, people like Ron DeSantis had been happy to oblige.
REID: And I`m glad you mentioned that, because there is the sort of — the sort of weirdo-sphere, that people are like, well, that`s not me. I don`t go on 4chan. I don`t know any — but it has now migrated, this idea, much like a lot of the ideas of anti-immigrant, demographic panic, all the other panics, Critical Race Theory panic.
They go from the far right sphere into mainstream Republican politics, because they target the same demographic of people, generally white, non- college, right-wing Christians, conservative Christians.
Anti-LGBT-related laws so far have been enacted in all of these states. We`re going to put up a map just to show you how much this is spreading. It`s 240 proposed laws. That`s three a day. According to PEN America, 379 books, or 33 percent of all of the banned books this year explicitly addressed LGBTQ themes or have LGBTQ protagonist or prominent or secondary characters who are.
Is this something that law enforcement is noticing more, since we just happened — saw what happened in Idaho? Because they are noticing the race panic stuff.
COLLINS: Yes, I think, look, what happened in Coeur d`Alene, it would be very hard not to identify that group.
Patriot Front is known to ride around like goons in a U-Haul. That is their thing. If they didn`t get tipped off about that, it`s very easy — by the way, to get in their chats, into their Discords. There`s this group called Unicorn Riot that has been in their Discords for years.
So if the Fed`s aren`t too, I`d be very surprised. So they have — people are keeping tabs on some of these groups. But the problem is there, are individual actors who may not act with groups like the Proud Boys, other militia groups.
And those groups, the Proud Boys and places like that, they really want to get violent. They want to start fights. They may not want to murder people, but the point of the problem is you start physical altercations in the streets.
Is the capture of local police nearby strong enough to back that away? I don`t know. Like, it really is on a municipality-by-municipality basis. But I hope that people understand this. Their primary enemy right now is the LGBTQ community, both because of Pride Month and also because they need an enemy to counterprogram the January 6 stuff.
REID: Right.
COLLINS: So people should be on the lookout here.
REID: And so is what you`re saying that, as January 6 takes hold, and maybe it starts to wear off, the flashy thing goes off in front of some MAGA people, this is sort of replacing it?
And, by the way, is this — is this sort of a branch of QAnon? Because that is sort of similar to the QAnon argument.
COLLINS: Well, right.
There is this QAnon-style anti-groomer panic that — it really depends on how far you want to go. You don`t have to go all the way down the line to say, oh, they`re eating kids and drinking their blood and stuff. Some of them do believe that. Some of them believe that there are people who are doing that within the government.
[19:40:08]
And it sort of aligns with that anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ panic that`s been happening in the last few months. So, that`s the thing is, they have fellow travelers here. And there are people who are earnestly anti-LGBTQ or anti- trans who do not believe — who hate the Proud Boys, who do not believe that they are on the same side as them.
REID: Yes.
COLLINS: But they are trying to form a very broad coalition from the center-right all the way to the militia groups on the very, very far right.
REID: And they`re being mainstreamed by people like Ron DeSantis. Perfect.
Ben Collins, thank you. Really appreciate you keeping your eyes on this stuff.
Up next: Primary voters head to the polls in South Carolina, Nevada and North Dakota. Steve Kornacki is at the Big Board. There he is. He`s going to give us the latest after this quick break.
Stay right there. He`s got his khakis on, and he`s ready to party.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:45:35]
REID: New analysis from “The Washington Post” has found that more than 100 primary winners support Donald Trump`s big lie. It`s become a de facto price of admission in many of these primaries.
In South Carolina, where polls just closed this hour, we`re closely watching two Trump-endorsed candidates. They`re aiming to unseat incumbent House Republicans Tom Rice, who was one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the January 6 attack, and Nancy Mace, who did not vote to impeach, but did blame Trump for what happened at the Capitol.
With me now from the Big Board is MSNBC national political correspondent Steve Kornacki.
The numbers are coming in, and you`re our numbers guy. What are we seeing, Steve?
STEVE KORNACKI, NBC NEWS NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, let`s start in the First District.
You mentioned Nancy Mace, freshman Republican congresswoman. Donald Trump has endorsed her challenger, Katie Arrington. What you`re seeing here, we have one of the counties, Charleston County, looks like its early vote has been released. So this is a small number of votes. But you do see Nancy Mace in the early vote at least in one county in this district more than a 2-1 advantage over Katie Arrington.
Now, a couple things besides just the fact that this is very early in terms of the total number of votes that are going to come in. One thing we have seen in some Republican primaries throughout this spring has been that the early vote, the votes cast first, have been more favorable in a lot of contests towards the candidates who don`t have Trump`s endorsement.
And then the same-day vote, the folks who went out today and voted, the Trump-backed candidates, have often done better with that. So that`s one thing we want to see as more vote comes in here in the First District, but the initial batch of votes we`re getting shows Mace more than 2-1 ahead of Arrington in the First District.
Now let`s take a look at the other Republican incumbent being targeted by Donald Trump. Early votes here, but a very different early story. Here`s Tom Rice. He`s running behind. He`s running significantly behind. It`s only 4 percent of the total, but he`s already, you can see, double digits behind the Trump — his Trump-backed challenger.
This is a state legislator, Russell Fry. Take a look here, dig a little bit deeper in terms of where the votes are coming in, in this district. You see three counties. Again, we think we`re getting the early vote from three of these counties. The mother lode in the Seventh District is right here. We have yet to hear from Horry County. This is where Myrtle Beach Is. This is where Conway is.
This is half of the district is in this county. So what we — is in the — half of the district is in Horry County. So, we want to get a real sense of Horry County. That`s obviously key. We have nothing from there yet. But three other counties right now, it looks like they`re reporting out early vote, and a quick start here for Russell Fry, the Trump-backed challenger.
Again, one thing to keep in mind as more votes come in, the 50 percent rule is in effect. And Rice drew a number of challengers. Most of these Republicans who are running in this race cited his vote to impeach Donald Trump as the basis for his candidacy. If nobody gets to 50 percent tonight, the top two could go to a run-off.
And, again, if Rice is forced into a run-off, if he`s well under 50 percent, just given the platforms of all of these other Republican candidates, just about all of these other Republican candidates, they were hostile to Rice. They were hostile to his vote for impeachment. So, again, we will see. Much more to come in here, but not a start, certainly, that Rice wants to see.
REID: It`s interesting, Steve, that this anti-mail-in ballot, anti-early vote sort of idea that Trump introduced, it`s still impacting these primaries.
KORNACKI: Yes, we have seen this.
Certainly, Ohio, I think, was the first state we picked up on it, where you had sort of the more moderate Republican candidate did well with the mail- in ballots, did well with the earlier votes.
REID: Right.
KORNACKI: And then there was sort of a flood on the same-day.
We haven`t seen it fully everywhere. But, again, I just — I think here — and I`m just checking to see if we have got any more votes. That`s the one — sort of the thing to keep in mind when you see Mace jump out to a giant lead like this.
REID: Yes.
KORNACKI: Obviously, this is something she was she would like to see. But there is that open question. Let`s see some same-day votes here, if they do happen to tell a different story.
But it is notable.
REID: Yes.
KORNACKI: Mace and Rice handled the Trump question so differently in their campaigns.
Yes, as you said, after Mace initially went after Donald Trump over his actions on January 6…
REID: Yes.
KORNACKI: … she really spent most of this term in Congress trying to make peace with Trump voters, whereas Rice refused to back down from that vote to impeach.
REID: Yes, and seems to be paying for it.
Well, if anything comes up that we need to know, just wave your hands and then we will bring you back.
(CROSSTALK)
KORNACKI: You got it.
REID: Thank you very much, Steve Kornacki.
[19:50:00]
We will discuss the election denialism trend among Republican primary winners and this anti-early vote, anti-absentee thing that seems to have stuck in the Republican Party when we come right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: Here to discuss “The Washington Post” analysis that more than 100 election deniers have won their primaries this year is Matthew Dowd, MSNBC contributor and founder of Country Over Party and friend of the show.
[19:55:00]
Matthew, what do you make of that?
I mean, the big lie is now standard for Republicans. And you just heard Steve Kornacki. People who oppose the big lie or post Trump`s insurrection, they face a real challenge even keeping their spot.
MATTHEW DOWD, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think this is what we have seen all over. And I think we`re going to see it tonight, not only in South Carolina, but we`re going to see it in Nevada.
Every single candidate running on the Republican side in Nevada, whether it`s for secretary of state, U.S. Senate or governor, are all competing over who`s a bigger election denier. None of them are people that believe actually in the fundamentals of democracy.
I was thinking about this as I — before I came on today. It`s almost as if, like, S.S. Democracy is sitting out there, and they`re all competing over like how many torpedoes they can shoot into it. And they go like, no, I can shoot three torpedoes into democracy. No, I can do this. It`s all a competition about that.
And, as Steve was talking, I was thinking. I have run a lot of elections in my life, a ton of elections in my life. And the standard thing was, Republicans do better in early voting and absentee by mail.
REID: Yes.
DOWD: That was it 50 years ago. And then Democrats…
REID: Oh, I have lost. I have worked on campaigns, and we have lost because of that, absolutely, 100 percent.
DOWD: And Democrats did better on Election Day.
REID: Election Day.
DOWD: Well, because it`s now they have bought into this idea that there`s something fundamentally wrong with casting a ballot, even though it`s easier, and they may actually turn out more voters if they`re able to use all the system, it`s a bit like what happened with vaccines.
As soon as somebody said, it`s wrong to take a vaccine, it was like, I`m not taking a vaccine, even though it`s better for me. The same thing is now happening in voting procedures. But what we — what the scariest thing for 2022, Joy, is that, in so many of these races, election deniers are going to be sitting on the ballot.
REID: Yes.
DOWD: .. whether it`s, again, for secretary, attorney general. Look — attorney general or governor.
Look what`s happened — look what happened in Michigan. You got some nuts on the ballot. And so these are the pillars that preserved democracy in 2020. And they`re trying to knock down the last of those pillars.
REID: You know, I have a couple questions to that.
Number one, if somebody denies the — is an election denier, do they then accept the results of their own race? And how do they justify saying that they were legitimately elected?
DOWD: Well, that`s the question that kept — everybody kept posing in 2021 when Republicans did reasonably well down-ballot. They won seats in the Congress. They did OK in the Senate, up until the Georgia races in the special elections.
And for state legislators, they did well in state legislative races. They – – it`s — they don`t accept that logical point that you make, which is the same person that cast a ballot for Joe Biden or Donald Trump cast a ballot for you as a congressperson or you as a state legislature. They just completely ignore that in the course of this.
And I think it`s really troublesome, because we know that, but for secretaries of states and governors and attorney generals, there is a high likelihood Donald Trump could have succeeded in what he did.
REID: Of course.
DOWD: And once you knock those pillars down, and once those pillars are gone…
REID: Yes.
DOWD: That`s why, to me, the race for 2022 — we can talk about 100 issues. The race to me is fundamentally about, are we or are we not going to preserve this democratic experiment that we have had for over 200 years?
REID: Well, here`s the problem.
There is a non-insignificant percentage of people, I think, in any society that don`t really care whether their country is a democracy. They care whether people like them are in charge. And if that means it`s an autocracy, a dictatorship, there is a not-insignificant number of people who actually don`t care.
We were joking today on our earlier call, on our show call, that we could do a where are they now for the MAGA election deniers and people who were involved with the Trump insurrection. Jenna Ellis has just migrated from insurrectionist Trump to another insurrectionist, Doug Mastriano. She`s working on his campaign.
You have people that are just migrating…
DOWD: For governor of Pennsylvania.
REID: Absolutely.
Stepien, who is telling the truth now, he`s just migrated to another MAGA insurrectionist who`s an election denier, just gone to a different campaign in Wyoming against Liz Cheney.
So, I mean, the question is, how do you run on the Democratic side in an election to save democracy when there are some people in this country who actually don`t care whether we are a democracy?
DOWD: Well, so, I think America has always had this a third, a third, a third, in which a third of the voters today, which is very similar to a third of the voters during civil rights, a third of the voters are 100 percent for we need a democracy and we need to make sure it`s preserved.
A third of the voters would just as soon have an autocracy if it gets them what they want…
REID: Right.
DOWD: … or they don`t fundamentally believe in equality for all, like we have seen in our country`s history, whether was for slavery, for civil rights or women`s votes.
And then there`s been this third of America that has stayed quiet, like, worries about whether or not — what`s happening in their — at their grocery store or whatever is happening. That is who Democratic candidates have to turn on.
REID: Yes.
DOWD: It`s because that is fundamentally who`s going to make the decision in this election.
As Martin Luther King said, the fundamental thing that would fundamentally change this are the people that had — were good of principle, but stayed quiet.
REID: Right.
DOWD: And we have to get those people loud.
REID: Yes. They have to — and we have to end indifference. Indifference is what could kill our democracy, even more than the third.
DOWD: We have to lead them. We have to lead them, not follow them.
REID: Absolutely. I agree, Matthew Dowd.
I always agree with what he says. He`s so smart.
Thank you.
That is tonight`s REIDOUT.
“ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES” starts now.