Judge has enough of Trump's attacks on family members; extends gag order on 'defendant's vitriol'
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Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Really happy to have you here. And right off the top, there has been some breaking news just in the last hour or so in a couple of the legal cases involving former President Donald Trump. One of these we've been watching now for a few weeks. He lost a big fraud case against his company a few weeks ago.

There were huge financial penalties that he's been ordered to pay in that case. He is going to appeal the judgment. He's going to appeal the ruling in that case. But he, in the meantime, has to put up a bond while he files that appeal. And we've been watching this because the amount of the judgment against him was so huge, the bond he has to put up is huge, roughly a half billion dollars. So his lawyers told the court as the deadline for filing that bond, for posting that bond approached,

His lawyers told the court that they'd been unable to obtain the bond. They said they had reached out to 30 different insurance companies, but nobody would help him post a bond of that size. At that point, it looked like New York's attorney general, who brought this fraud case in the first place, the AG might be about to start seizing Trump's bank accounts and seizing his properties to secure the judgment.

But then, you may recall, there was sort of a last-minute reprieve for Trump. A New York appeals court lowered the bond to less than half of what had originally been ordered. They did not explain why they were doing that, but that's what they did. They brought the bond amount down from nearly $500 million to $175 million. That would be all that Trump would have to put up while he appeals to—

this fraud judgment against him. They also, in addition to reducing the amount that he had to put up, they gave him more time. The deadline was extended so he would have till later this week to put up that new $175 million bond. Well, as of this last hour, we just got confirmation in court documents that Trump has posted that reduced amount of bond. He secured a $175 million bond through something called Knight Securities,

specialty insurance company in Los Angeles, Knight, K-N-I-G-H-T, Knight Specialty Insurance. That company is part of an insurance group that is chaired by a major Republican donor. Make of that what you will.

But that move tonight would appear to mean that the former president has satisfied his financial obligations in that huge fraud case for now, at least until his appeal is heard. And that is not expected to be at least until this fall.

So that's one of the two big developments that's just happened this evening. There's another. In Trump's other New York state case, which is a criminal case, not a civil case, this is the hush money case that is due to start two weeks from today, the judge in that case has tonight just issued an expanded gag order saying,

Mr. Trump. Last week, this judge issued an order that banned Trump from attacking witnesses or prosecutors or jurors or court staff, as well as their relatives. After that gag order, Trump started publicly attacking not only the judge who

actually is and remains sort of fair game for criticism under the gag order. But he also repeatedly went after the judge's daughter, including identifying her by name on social media. Now, the New York District Attorney, the prosecutor who brought this case, asked the judge to expand the gag order to include family members of the judge and family members of the DA, of the prosecutor.

Tonight, the judge has done just that. So, again, the gag order still doesn't apply to the judge himself or the prosecutor himself, but it does now include their families. In expanding the gag order in that way, the judge did not mince words. He said tonight, quote, this pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose.

It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings that not only they but their family members as well are, quote, fair game for defendants. Vitriol, the average observer, must now, after hearing defendants' recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they become involved in these proceedings, even tangentially, they should worry not only for themselves but for their loved ones as well.

Such concerns will undoubtedly interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitutes direct attack on the rule of law itself.

Again, that case, that criminal case, the first ever criminal case brought against a former president of the United States, it is slated to get underway in a New York courtroom two weeks from today. That's when jury selection will start. The judge tonight making clear that attacks on his family members or family members of the prosecutor will henceforth not be tolerated and will be subject to punishment by the court.

Um, if they continue. So both of those stories breaking within the last hour or so, we'll keep you apprised. Um, if there is further development on those stories, there's no reason in legal terms while there should be further development, but you never know when it's about misbehavior and attacking people and trying to meddle with the rule of law. Sometimes these things develop in a way that the sheer docket could not predict. So we'll keep eyes on that over the course of this hour for you. All right.

Did you ever hear the one about the Cartier jewelry, the shopping spree at Cartier in New York City? This was a fake story, but it was a good one. The fake story was that when the president of Ukraine came to New York City to give a speech to the U.N. General Assembly—

The story was, his wife, who came to New York with him, she spent her time in New York at Cartier, buying over a million dollars worth of jewelry for herself.

Now, this, of course, is meant to be a shocking story, right? Oh, we shouldn't give Ukraine any more support. Nobody should. Clearly, the leaders of Ukraine are just stealing it all so they can buy diamond rings for themselves or whatever, right? Totally fake story. It originated, apparently, in Russia. No surprise. It was a pretty obvious fake from the outset.

even though it had all this detail that was supposed to make it more believable, the detail didn't help. The day on which this person was supposed to have bought all this jewelry at Cartier was a day that she and her husband were not in New York. And that was very public knowledge because they were doing lots of public events in a whole different country.

on that day. They were in Canada that day, on the day this supposed shopping spree happened in New York City. So it was obvious, including in the supposed damning details from the very outset. But lots of people spread that story around.

In the United States, one English-language Russian disinformation site, in particular one that is supposed to look like an American news site, a site called DC Weekly, that was particularly effective at spreading that fake story about the Cartier jewelry shopping spree that never happened.

Then a couple of months later, DC Weekly was doing another one of them. Same idea. Another totally fake but good story. This time it wasn't Cartier jewelry. This time it was yachts. Big boats. This story, again, fake story, included a photo of these two big yachts that you could look up by name on the Internet. They're real yachts.

But the fake story about them was that this time these two yachts had been bought by the president of Ukraine himself. So it wasn't the wife buying jewelry. This time it was the president of Ukraine himself buying boats. Seventy five million dollars he spent buying these two yachts. And again, the whole point of this fake story is very obvious, right?

The Russian disinformation side is spreading this around. Russia obviously wants people to believe this story. They want people to think, oh, why should we, why should anyone keep providing support to Ukraine to fight back against Russia having invaded them? Why should Ukraine get any support from any other country? They're just stealing the support. They're just stealing the money. They're buying yachts with it.

And don't you remember hearing something else about them buying diamond rings with it too? Right? Just like the jewelry one was obviously false, the supposed details of it were easily disproven. Same thing with the fake story about the yachts. I mean, there were two yachts that were supposedly at the center of the scandal. And again, the details of it are supposed to make it more believable, right? These are real yachts that you can look up on the internet machine. But the story was that these were just sold to the leader of Ukraine.

Again, both these boats exist. They're real. They're a knowable thing. You can look them up. They are both for sale now, though, because they have not just been sold to the president of Ukraine or to anyone. Ukraine didn't buy them. He didn't buy them. The president of Ukraine has no yachts. It's a it's a fake story that.

appears to have originated in Russia, created for pretty obvious reasons, right? You don't have to be Clausewitz or something to think this through, right? The strategy behind this is as obvious as a brick. You know, you're waging war against

on another country, if you can spread lies about that other country and make their allies around the world stop supporting them, then you will cut off their support and their supplies sooner and you will beat them in the war. It's very simple stuff. It's obvious why Russia would be doing stuff, even if they're doing it so ham-handedly. The strategy is painfully obvious. The execution is obviously fake.

And I mentioned that the yachts fake story was spread by the same Russian disinformation site that the jewelry fake story was spread by. When you start seeing multiple fake, easily disproven, widely discredited stories spread by the same entity, that itself is a red flag that maybe things spread by that website should not be believed. Makes it all even more obviously fake. But you know, when it came to the yachts one, Republican Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio decided he believed it.

He decided to take that one and run with it. He spread that story himself, the yachts one. He mentioned it as if it was a true thing on Steve Bannon's podcast while Senator Vance was there talking about all the reasons that we should cut off Ukraine and just let Russia take that country and do what they want. We definitely shouldn't support Ukraine anymore because they're just taking our money and buying yachts.

Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene not only spread the same story about the yachts, she linked to a version of it. She decided to spread it online, directing her followers to follow the link that she posted to a Russian think tank, a Russian think tank that the State Department quite recently has described as a, quote, "pillar of Russia's disinformation and propaganda ecosystem."

She's a sitting congresswoman. She linked to this site that the State Department has publicly described as, quote, registered in Russia and directed by Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR. So...

I mean, on the one hand, maybe we can be happy that Russia's disinformation operations that are targeting us and trying to change our policies as a country, try to interfere in our alliances, right? On the one hand, we can be sort of happy that these efforts are so ham-handed and so obvious and so dumb. On the other hand, some of our elected officials are apparently not put off by any of those problems with it. They're jumping right in.

Apparently believing it all, definitely spreading it, even when spreading it means literally linking right to Russia's foreign intelligence service, telling all your American followers, "Go here to check out the truth. Take it from me, your serving member of Congress." After the opposition leader Alexei Navalny was killed in a Russian prison in February, Russia tried another one of these things. They created fake audio recordings.

They said they had intercepted fake audio recordings that purported to be two American government officials, two U.S. State Department officials talking amongst themselves about who America would pick next to be the new head of the Russian opposition to Putin now that Navalny was dead.

And again, the point of this was obvious, right? They're trying to make people think that there is no real opposition to Putin. Anybody saying in Russia that they're opposed to Putin is really just a creation of the United States. Since all real Russians love Putin, there's really nobody who's actually opposed to him there. It's obvious why they would do something like this. It's also obvious that this was another ham-handed fake. The supposed audio of these two Americans hatching this plot with each other

has them both speaking with really heavy Russian accents. They're both Americans who are native English speakers. They don't have accents when they speak English at all, but they have them speaking English like Boris and Natasha without the squirrel. Still, you know, you do what you can.

And every once in a while, maybe you hit the jackpot and a genius like Senator J.D. Vance promotes what you made up on some very popular conservative podcast, and then it becomes a Republican Party talking point as if it's a real thing. You keep doing all this dumb, incredibly transparently fake stuff. Every once in a while, one of those guys will jump on board and help you get it done. It's all so dumb. It's often funny, right? It's often kind of hilarious, except when it's terrifying.

A couple weeks after these Russian disinformation websites started circulating the fake audio recording of U.S. officials supposedly picking the new head of the opposition in Russia, the person that was mentioned in that fake recording, the man who the American officials were supposedly picking to be the new Navalny, he was physically attacked in front of his house by a man with a hammer.

This is a guy who is already exiled from Russia. He is an opponent of Vladimir Putin, so he can't live in Russia anymore. He lives in Lithuania. But still, they came and found him there. He was attacked outside his house, sprayed him with tear gas. They smashed him up with a hammer. They broke his arm, hospitalized him, nearly killed him. And again, this didn't happen in Russia. Opponents of Putin can't live in Russia anymore. But opponents of Putin get killed and attacked all over the world.

because Russia does whatever it wants in whatever country in the world, no matter what their laws are, right? No matter even the threat of getting caught, they just act with impunity because they're just assuming if they keep doing it, they'll get away with it, right?

In Spain, they just murdered the helicopter pilot who defected to Ukraine. In Germany, they shot the guy in broad daylight in the middle of the park in downtown Berlin. In the UK, they used a proprietary Russian military nerve agent to go after one guy. They used radioactive polonium to go after another guy. In the United States, they were reportedly trying to kill a guy in Miami, but they botched it and the guy got arrested. 60 Minutes reported last night on evidence that Russian military intelligence may be behind the so-called...

Havana syndrome attacks on dozens of American intelligence officials and other high ranking U.S. government personnel. Now, it's not the U.S. government saying that Russia is behind it. It's 60 Minutes reporting as of as of last night. But it is it is troubling what they turned up. I mean, this is this is a rogue state, right? This is a country that is still holding American journalists hostage right now. Evan Grishkovich is locked up there for more than a year now.

This is a country that is digging into deep new alliances with great neighbors like Iran and North Korea, including new reporting in The New York Times that Russia is now helping North Korea revivify its nuclear program in exchange for North Korea arming Russia in its ongoing war against Ukraine.

I mean, even if they hadn't just invaded a neighboring country and started the largest land war in Europe since World War II, with everything else they've done and are doing, with everything else they are up to, is this really the country you want to be backing up and helping by spreading their obviously fake propaganda about, you know, Cartier jewelry and yachts to make us abandon our allies? Is this really the country you want to get behind and help out? Yes, of course it is, if you're in the Republican Party today. Because the other thing that Russia does today—

and that they have been doing for years now, is that they support Donald Trump. The key witness in the botched House Republican impeachment effort against President Biden has been arrested and charged with making up his key claims against President Biden. Prosecutors say he is linked to Russian intelligence.

In 2020, these similar Republican efforts to stovepipe false claims about President Biden into some kind of corruption scandal to derail Biden's campaign against Trump in the 2020 election, those claims, too, were also false claims that were also tied to Russian intelligence. Those, too, resulted not only in criminal charges, but also, in that case, in U.S. government sanctions.

The election before that, 2016, of course, the efforts to target the U.S. election to benefit Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton. Those efforts resulted in U.S. government sanctions. It resulted in multiple federal indictments, including indictments of multiple Russian intelligence officers. Nevertheless, they're still doing it.

I mean, we reported here a couple of weeks ago on the renewed efforts by Russia to target American elections, once again, to try to promote Trump's candidacy and to try to hurt his Democratic opponent. And it's not like I was reporting on some obscure thing a couple of weeks ago when we covered that story. I mean, there it is, headlined in The New York Times. Spate of mock news sites with Russian ties pop up in the United States.

Russia is still doing it. They're doing it again, and it is as ham-handed and embarrassing as it ever was. And they're doing it for the same transparently obvious strategic reasons as they do everything. The difference is this time, forewarned is supposedly forearmed, right? Knowing that it's coming should make us better prepared.

Except this time around, some social media companies, particularly Twitter, have no interest at all in even trying to stop what they're doing to target the election this time around. And this time around, many Republicans seem to have lost any qualms they might once have had about helping out with what Russia is doing. Even with the really obviously fake stuff. But now here's something new. Something new on top of that. It is no longer just Russia.

Because why would it be, right? I mean, the way it's gone, why wouldn't other authoritarian countries who want to weaken the United States and want to denigrate democracy and want to try to get Trump back into the White House, why wouldn't they throw their hats in the ring, too? It's not like Russia's paid much of a price for it, right? Russia appears to have purchased themselves a significant chunk of one of the two major governing parties in the United States for the price of a few sanctions and a few intelligence officers being unable to travel for fear of arrest. That's basically the price they've paid.

for the Republican Party and the conservative movement hopping into bed with them in a very serious way. That's cheap if you're willing to buy it. And so, of course, it's no longer just them. Headline today in The New York Times: "China's advancing efforts to influence U.S. election raise alarms." "Researchers and government officials say China has adopted some of the same misinformation tactics that Russia used ahead of the 2016 election."

Quote, covert Chinese accounts are masquerading online as American supporters of former President Donald J. Trump, promoting conspiracy theories, stoking domestic divisions and attacking President Biden ahead of the election in November, according to researchers and government officials. The accounts signal a potential tactical shift and how China aims to influence American politics with more of a willingness to target specific candidates and parties, including Mr. Biden.

In an echo of Russia's influence campaign before the 2016 election, China appears to be trying to harness partisan divisions to undermine the Biden administration's policies. Some of these Chinese accounts impersonate fervent Trump fans, including one on Twitter that purports to be a, quote, father, husband and son who is, quote, MAGA all the way.

The accounts mocked Mr. Biden's age and shared fake images of him in a prison jumpsuit or claimed that Mr. Biden was a Satanist pedophile while promoting Mr. Trump's Make America Great Again slogan.

Here's one of these China-linked accounts described by these researchers promoting that Trump video over the weekend that showed an image of President Biden tied up hand and foot as if you were being kidnapped or held hostage. Here's another one of the China-linked accounts showing a different video, one for Easter. It's an animated video that shows President Biden being assaulted and beaten up by a giant Easter bunny.

And I'm not going to show you the video because it's violence against the president of the United States. And yeah, it's for Easter. Isn't that great? But it shows the president falling down and looking hurt and being pummeled. The New York Times reporting that researchers have linked this new activity to a, quote, long-running network of accounts connected with the Chinese government.

The accounts are not always great at disguising the fact that they're actually Chinese. Like, in this instance, where they're trying to look like an American account, you see the name at the top there with the little eagle and the American flags? It says, "LEAHM, REPUBLICAN PARTY, AMERICA FIRST," with the American flags and the American eagle.

And this post is an attempt by this account to reply to a Trump video with basically a big attaboy. 75 million Trump fans can't be wrong. The problem with this is that they forgot they weren't supposed to be typing in Chinese. They weren't supposed to be typing in Mandarin. So it's only the Google Translate that tells you what it says. Oops. If you're trying to be Liam, Republican Party American first, maybe toggle back to English before you post your compliments to President Trump.

The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which has done some of the research quoted in The New York Times today, particularly about this campaign's operations on Facebook, also notes that the influence operation appears to be active almost exclusively during business hours in China, during business hours Beijing time. All their posts appear here in, for us, one of the overnight hours,

But those hours correspond to the work starting at 8.50 a.m. Beijing time, stopping at 6 p.m. Beijing time, with an hour off for lunch from noon to 1 local time, during which they don't post at all. So these are...

Accounts and users that are occasionally lapsing into Chinese or forgetting to turn off the settings that show that their web browsers are set to operate in Mandarin. They're operating on Chinese business hours, including a nice solid hour for Chinese lunch. They appear pretty obviously linked to Chinese government influence operations. But what they're doing now this year is trying to mess with our election to try to help Trump get back in there and to hurt Joe Biden's chances.

just like Russia has been doing since 2016. And the Trump years have shown us thus far that we have proven to be, forgive me, but we have proven to be not just inept, but spineless when it comes to putting up with this from one authoritarian country that wants the worst for us. What are we going to do now that it's two of them at once, both pulling for Trump?

Joining us now is Tiffany Xu. She's a technology reporter at The New York Times who's reported out this and other stories on the same topic. Ms. Xu, thank you very much for being here. I appreciate your time. Thanks for having me. So what is the evidence, as you understand it, that this appears to be linked to not just operators in China, but to the Chinese state?

Well, like you said, there have been some slip ups in these accounts. Several of these accounts are many, many years old. And for a while, they post exclusively in Mandarin. The narrative is very pro-Beijing. It lapses at some point into America is bad. All of this is in Mandarin. And then they go quiet for a few months and then suddenly reemerge posting as Liam or Ben.

and MAGA all the way. I'm a husband, father, I'm 43 years old, I'm living in Los Angeles. These very convincing accounts that are masquerading as Americans

posting entirely in English. So they adopt these personalities that unless you're a researcher or a journalist and your entire job is to look for clues that you're not an authentic account for the average social media users, you're like, yeah, this is a person who supports president Trump. Just like me. I'm going to, I'm going to listen into what they have to say.

And I've been focusing in trying to understand this on some of the elements of it that are ham-handed or that appear to be mistakes, letting it slip, accidentally showing that your browser is set to Mandarin or sometimes accidentally posting in Mandarin. That interesting detail that was identified by the Foundation for Defending Democracies about them posting mostly on Beijing time, except not during their time.

not during their lunch hour. I've been focusing on the things that kind of show it to be Chinese operations. But as you're saying, some of these personalities and some of the idiom they're using can be sort of convincing. Are they getting better at this? Are these things improving over time in terms of their ability to masquerade as Americans?

Oh, leaps and bounds beyond what the Chinese used to be capable of. I mean, if the Russians are seen as being ham handed, they're like the teenager who's like, oh, mom. Yeah, I was totally studying at the library and not drinking at a party with my friends. Then the Chinese for a long time were the toddler who is covered in paint saying, no, mommy, I didn't just paint the entire wall like you told me not to. Like very, very enthusiastic, but very see through. Yeah.

What they're doing now is a step change in their capabilities, right? The Chinese used to spread this narrative that was very pro-Beijing. It was very much,

This is the Beijing party line. China is great. You know, back all of our policies and our philosophies. A couple of years ago, they shifted to Beijing is good, but America is also bad. And so you see them start getting involved in the American culture wars, trying to weigh in on, you know, gay rights, on crime in the U.S.,

But what they're doing now is focusing on specific candidates, which is not something most researchers have seen them do, right? They're adopting these personalities that seem like real Americans, and they're trying to, and often successfully, generate real engagement from real people. I mean, one of these accounts was retweeted by Alex Jones. He has 2.2 million followers. So the idea that people, including people who have huge audiences, are...

interpreting these accounts as real voices is pretty concerning to people who've looked at China as kind of an inept influence operator for a long time. Yeah, it's concerning not only that it's working, but it's concerning to have what appears to be a state-directed effort like this focused in this way at this time ahead of the election. It really does feel

like we haven't learned much. But I learned a lot about it from you today and from this reporting. I hope you'll come back and talk to us about this as you continue this work. It's fascinating and important stuff. Thank you. Tiffany Hsu is a technology reporter at The New York Times. All right, we've got much more to come here tonight. Stay with us.

MSNBC Live Democracy 2024 Saturday, September 7th in Brooklyn, New York. Join your favorite MSNBC hosts at our premiere live audience event. Visit msnbc.com/democracy2024 to buy your tickets today.

When news breaks, go beyond the headlines with the MSNBC app. Watch your favorite shows live. Get analysis from live blogs to in-depth essays and the latest updates on the 2024 election. Go beyond the what to understand the why. Download the app now at msnbc.com slash app. So the message is hard to miss. It's in all caps, bolded, underlined. You can see it here. It says ENOUGH.

surrounded by an American flag that has been tattered and burned. Visual alone stops you in your tracks, but it's the messages that are in smaller font around the border that are maybe even more arresting. They say things like, you've got the most to lose, and bye-bye Roe versus Wade, and fast track to fascism. On the bottom of the image is a simple request. It just says, vote.

This piece of artwork was designed not just to be on posters, it was put on big billboards, like this one along the highway outside of Bullhead City, Arizona. Enough of Trump. Vote. This was part of a hugely ambitious Get Out the Vote campaign ahead of the 2020 election, one that featured street art and billboards and projections on the side of buildings from some of the country's leading and edgiest artists.

The campaign targeted voters in swing states with that simple message, varieties of that simple message, enough, meaning enough of President Trump. One term is enough. In Detroit and in Pittsburgh and in Orlando, there were billboards like this one that showed an older African-American man alongside him, the words enough of Trump.

On street corners there were digital signs. Some were very, very much to the point. This one says "Basta" - enough in Spanish. Enough. Here's another. Enough noise and lies. Give me some truth. If you're recognizing the style of this artist here, it may be that you are familiar with some of his other work.

You know his name, Shepard Fairey. Shepard Fairey is a hugely influential and accomplished figure in American art. He produced what many people consider to be the most memorable piece of political art in this century, the iconic Barack Obama "Hope" poster from 2008. In that 2020 election, Shepard Fairey was one of the driving forces behind this ambitious "Get Out the Vote" campaign. Enough.

We need democracy. It urged Americans in swing states all over the country to say enough to Trump to get out and vote. That was 2020. Well, now in 2024, Shepard Fairey is helping spearhead another effort by artists to get people to the polls, to galvanize people, to make people think, to make people act. Together with the progressive organization People for the American Way, Shepard Fairey is hoping to

move Americans, particularly in battleground states, move people to get up and do their part to defend democracy at the polls. The campaign is expected to launch billboards in swing states like Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin and Arizona. They're also going to do digital ads and radio PSAs. And the visuals behind the campaign this year are just as striking as they were in 2020, if not more so.

One of them is this image from artist Beverly McIver with a uterus helping to spell out the word vote. It's also the work of Mr. Ferry himself. Look at this. This one says, defend democracy against fascism. Lift every vote. Vote. This campaign for the 2024 election starts tomorrow. Shepard Ferry joins us live here next. Stay with us.

Sunday on MSNBC. Two documentaries. At 9, To Be Destroyed. The story of one community's fight against book banning. Followed by It's Okay. A short film about embracing differences in small-town America. Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC.

Today's news requires more facts, more context, and more analysis. The world's never been harder to understand. That's why it's never been more important to try. MSNBC. Understand more.

When Donald Trump was inaugurated as president in January of 2017, you may remember that he came into office promising to ban Muslims from entering the United States, promising to build a wall on the southern border, promising mass deportations. You may also remember that there were mass demonstrations against him, including the massive, massive, unprecedentedly large women's marches in Washington, D.C., and around the country, indeed around the world.

One of the images that was carried at those first anti-Trump protests was created by the artist probably best known in the world of politics for his iconic image of President Obama in 2008, the iconic Obama hope image. But in 2017, it was this image, among others, by artist Shepard Fairey that was carried by people protesting at the outset of Trump's time as president.

He says, "We the people," and then below that, he says, "Defend dignity." Joining us now is artist, social activist, Shepard Fairey. Mr. Fairey, thank you so much for taking time to be here this evening. It's an honor to have you here. Thanks for having me. Happy to be here. What are you planning for 2024, and what effect are you hoping that it will have?

Well, I'm part of a group called Artists for Democracy, which is under the umbrella of People for the American Way. And a group of us, me and several other artists, are all hoping to save democracy, to keep Trump alive.

from being reelected and to preserve the systems that allow us to participate meaningfully and move towards a better future. I think the arts can really help to

connect people with big ideas, important big picture concepts that resonate emotionally. And, you know, the arts help to define civilization, and I think they can help to save it. So that's what we're trying to do. No civilization without, as we know it, without democracy. Hmm.

So you're not a stranger to this kind of work, either conceptually. I know a lot of these concepts undergird your work in general, but also in these efforts around elections and around important political moments to try to use the arts to—

move people. And I mean that in multiple senses. Do you feel like over time, your thinking about it has changed, that you've seen things that work in ways that you might not have expected, or that you've seen people have reactions to things that weren't necessarily what you would have anticipated when you were creating the art or working with your colleagues to create stuff?

Well, for example, you showed some of the We the People images from 2017. That was at a time when the dominant narrative was that

people were only responding to anger, fear, division, and that something that was about unity and inclusion and everyone having equal humanity and being equally American was not going to resonate, but it did. So sometimes I go with my feeling of if there seems to be a lack of...

of addressing what's really important to me that I know a lot of other people are feeling that maybe, maybe putting that out there can work. Sometimes it does. And sometimes it doesn't. I believe that my work is an ongoing dialogue with people,

with the people of this country and the world. And I'm learning all the time, but I really trust my instincts around my hope and my optimism that we are better than some of the dominant narratives really, really suggest. Do you feel like the sort of conventional wisdom, the common wisdom that, I mean, it sounds a little bit like what you're just describing about 2017, that

The Democratic base, for lack of a better term, is demoralized, that people aren't motivated to vote to try to save democracy or to try to keep our system of government for all its flaws, that division is more motivating, that hatred is more motivating than democracy.

inclusion and then solidarity. Do you take issue with that conventional wisdom? Do you feel like you have a more hopeful view of things or are you kind of banking on it but not sure it's there?

I, um, I'm, I'm banking on it because I think that I have to, I think we all have to, but we have to not just bank on it. We have to, we have to be vigilant. And so my, um, my strategy is to remind people what's at stake. And, and I think that when people understand that if they want to pursue something better in the longterm, even, um,

even something they're not super excited about in the short term that, you know, allows the preservation of democracy and a better result if they remain vigilant in the long term, reminding them of the promise of that and that we all have not just a privilege to participate in democracy, but an obligation to make democracy function better.

by voting, by educating ourselves on the issues. And none of that is super exciting for a lot of people. But what I try to do is I try to make images that connect with people's sense of, you know, just their better humanity. Nurturing the better side of their humanity with images is what I'm hoping to do.

Contemporary artist, social activist, Shepard Ferry. It is an honor to have you here, Shepard. Thank you very much for being here and good luck with the campaign. Thanks so much for having me, Rachel. All right. Starts tomorrow. All right. We'll be right back. Stay with us. The people are calling for a new revolution. The people are calling for a new revolution. The people are calling for a new revolution.

They're saying in Hebrew, what they're saying over and over again there is, the people demand elections now.

You could hear those chants outside the parliament building in Israel. Tens of thousands of people have been protesting, calling for elections to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right government in Israel. The protest on Sunday, yesterday, was the largest single protest in Israel since the start of the war, since the October 7th terrorist attack.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, as he continues the war in Gaza, he's under serious and what looks like it may now be sustained pressure from these very large protests over the weekend and again today outside the parliament in Jerusalem. That is worth watching in terms of the direction of the Israeli government as their war continues in Gaza. Meanwhile, over here in the United States,

Republicans, particularly in the House, continue to be whatever the opposite is of constructive on this matter. The latest example is a Michigan congressman you've probably not heard of named Tim Wahlberg. He's best known, if he's known for anything, for having gone to Uganda a few months ago where he told lawmakers there that they should stand firm and stay strong on their country's new law that establishes the death penalty for being gay.

The U.S. government has harshly criticized Uganda and tried to change its policy after Uganda implemented a new law to impose the death penalty for homosexuality. But there's Republican Congressman Tim Walberg going all the way there to tell them that that law is right and they should stick with it and not do what the U.S. government is asking them to do.

So Tim Wahlberg, he's a peach. And now at a town hall in his home state of Michigan, the congressman was just asked about the pier that President Biden has ordered built in Gaza to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza by sea. Now, because of the way this was recorded at the town hall, you will not see the congressman, but you will hear him. Listen to what he said. Yeah, it's Joe Biden's reason.

We need to get humanitarian aid into Gaza. I don't think we should. We shouldn't be spending a dime on humanitarian aid. It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick. It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima, where we dropped the atomic bomb. He said, get it over quick. Congressman Tim Walberg of Michigan.

The Republican congressman is now trying to backpedal, saying he's being misinterpreted, saying his reasoning on this is the opposite of what's being reported. If the congressman was going for some subtle or nuanced point here, using the word Hiroshima seems to have occluded the possibility of anybody understanding that nuance. I guess we await clarification. Could there be such a thing? We'll be right back. One last little thing to squeeze in before I go tonight. This Saturday, this Saturday, April 6th,

live event, the Apollo Theater in New York City. Me and Joy read together. I am told there are still some tickets available for this event at the Apollo Theater Saturday night. You can find out more and get information about tickets and everything at mattoblog.com. And one other thing, this is a new thing, June 13th, I will be in Houston, Texas.

I'm talking about my latest book, which is called Prequel, Houston, Texas, June 13th. Tickets available now. You can find out about that one at mattoblog.com as well. Very excited about both those events. I'd love to see you. That's going to do it for me for now. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts to get new episodes of Morning Joe and the Rachel Matto Show ad-free. Plus ad-free listening to all of Rachel Matto's original series, Ultra, Bagman, and Deja News.

And now, all MSNBC original podcasts are available ad-free and with bonus content, including How to Win 2024, Prosecuting Donald Trump, Why Is This Happening, and more. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts.