Home
cover of episode Maddow joins colleagues in objecting to McDaniel for legitimizing Trump, attacking democracy

Maddow joins colleagues in objecting to McDaniel for legitimizing Trump, attacking democracy

2024/3/26
logo of podcast The Rachel Maddow Show

The Rachel Maddow Show

Chapters

Shownotes Transcript

The national sales event is on at your Toyota dealer, making now the perfect time to get a great deal on a dependable new SUV. Like an adventure-ready RAV4. Available with all-wheel drive, your new RAV4 is built for performance on any terrain.

Or check out a stylish and comfortable Highlander. With seating for up to eight and available panoramic moonroof, you can enjoy wide open views with the whole family. Visit buyatoyota.com for more national sales event deals. Toyota, let's go places.

Today, at the start of the day, the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee was facing a deadline to put up a $460 million bond, or if he couldn't, today the state of New York would start seizing his bank accounts and his properties pursuant to a huge fraud judgment that has been levied against him by the courts.

He then got a surprise reprieve of that deadline this morning. A New York appeals court said today he can put up a smaller bond, only $175 million. They also said the deadline is no longer today. Now he has an extra 10 days to do it. They did not explain their decision, but that is what it was.

Today, the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee also learned that the first of his four pending criminal trials starts three weeks from today, April 15th. This is the case in which he's facing dozens of felony charges related to falsifying records at his business to cover up illegal contributions to his presidential campaign. That was today as well.

Also today, the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The US, importantly, abstained from the vote instead of vetoing it, which angered the Israeli government, which resulted in Israel calling off planned meetings with US government officials. Today, the CEO of Boeing announced that he's resigning, and everyone pronounced him lucky that he was just stepping down and not falling through a fuselage door that someone forgot to screw closed.

Today, the rapper Sean Combs had his homes searched by Homeland Security officials in some sort of federal investigation. Mr. Combs has recently been accused of sexual assault and sex trafficking in public forums. But today, federal officials searched his homes.

Today, the New York Times reported that when Brazil seized the passport of that country's former president and they started arresting his aides for trying to mount a coup to keep him in power after he lost re-election, that former president, Jair Bolsonaro, apparently fled to another country's embassy. He fled to the embassy of Hungary, apparently to try to get asylum from the Hungarian government and Viktor Orban so his own country's police forces could not arrest him in Brazil.

Each one of those stories is incredible on its own terms, right? Today is one of those days in which the news has been a fire hose, not a faucet. There is a lot going on. There is a lot to cover.

There is a huge and totally underappreciated Supreme Court case that's going to be argued tomorrow, which is so radical and so potentially life-changing for American women and comes from such a bizarre place in the law that it almost can't be overstated how important and how strange it is. We've got a guest booked on that tonight, tomorrow's Supreme Court's argument in that case. I'm very eager to talk about it.

All of this to say there is a lot going on and this is a huge day in the news, all of which makes me all the more flabbergasted, all the more bewildered that I have to start tonight with something else. But I have to start tonight with something else. So let me explain it my way in the hopes that this maybe helps our overall understanding of what has just happened here. These are guys who live rent-free in my head.

None of their faces will likely be familiar to you. But on the upper left, that's a man named William Dudley Pelley.

He ran a fascist paramilitary group in the United States that was modeled on the brown shirts in Germany, the stormtroopers. William Dudley Pelley's group is called the Silver Shirts. Pelley was their leader. He said that he would be America's Hitler, that he and his Silver Legion would get rid of democracy and run America the way Hitler was running Germany. William Dudley Pelley mounted a run for president there.

from a party he called the Christian Party. His run for president did not go well. He got less than 2,000 votes total. Go back to that group there, the foursome on the upper right. Probably never seen that guy either. His name is Gerald L.K. Smith. He was a fantastic speaker. Some people in his time said he was the best orator this country maybe had ever produced.

Gerald L.K. Smith, he was a fascist. He called himself a Christian nationalist. He said we needed a Christian nationalist takeover to, quote, seize the government of the United States. He attacked FDR. He attacked President Roosevelt for supposedly being too old and too infirm to stay in the job. Gerald L.K. Smith said about FDR, quote, we're going to drive that cripple out of the White House. Gerald L.K. Smith said,

also ran for president. He ran for president on the America First Party ticket. And like William Dudley Pelley, he also got less than 2,000 votes. Go back to that foursome again. Okay, let's do lower left. You might recognize him, maybe. His name is Charles Coughlin. He was a right-wing radio phenomenon, maybe the most influential and widest-reaching American media figure ever in the history of American television and radio. Father Coughlin was a fascist.

He was in love with the Franco dictatorship in Spain. He invited Mussolini to submit articles to his newsletter. He published a speech by the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, word for word translated into English, and he put his own byline on it. That's classy. Father Coughlin knew that he couldn't be president himself.

because he was a priest maybe, but mostly because he was Canadian. So Coughlin decided to arrange effectively a puppet candidacy of a no-name congressman. But everybody knew that if you voted for that no-name congressman, it would really be Father Coughlin behind the scenes running the show. That presidential run organized by Father Coughlin, it did not work either.

He did his best and he was a huge media figure at the time, but in that presidential run he got less than a million votes nationwide. Now back to the force of McGonagall, the last one, lower right hand side. His name is General George Van Horn Mosley. Ever heard of him? Mosley? He was deputy chief of staff of the U.S. Army at one point.

And he conspired with fascist groups in the United States that were plotting a violent overthrow of the U.S. government, whereupon his deal with them was that after they overthrew the government, they would install him as the new American dictator.

And General Mosley traveled the country advocating for the American system of government to be overthrown. He testified to Congress about it. He explained that if he got into the White House, first thing he would do would be effectively to empty the government out, to fire the entire government. He'd have to because, you know, deep state. Commies everywhere.

General George Van Horn Mosley's plan did not work out either. I mentioned he was a retired general. As a retired general, the U.S. Army told him he, of course, was welcome to continue barnstorming the country, offering himself as America's Fuhrer. But if he did so, the Army would no longer feel obligated to keep him on their payroll as a retiree. And so...

General Mosley, would you like to keep your army pension or would you like to keep calling for the overthrow of the American system of government in order to install yourself as a dictator? You can have one, but not both. Which will it be? General Mosley decided, hard call, but let's go with the pension. So he took his pension. A condition of keeping his pension was that he would stop talking about overthrowing the government and becoming America's dictator. So it didn't work for him to take over either.

I bring this up because these guys live rent-free in my head. And I am aware, I am very well aware that in our country, there has been no shortage of creeps like this. There has been no shortage of American men who thought they would make an excellent dictator of the United States. And they were delusional enough to think the rest of us would like that too, that we would put them in that position.

if we could. They all thought that you could stoke enough frustration in the United States, you could get people divided against each other enough, you could get people head up enough and frustrated enough with the complexities and the compromises and the frustrations of democracy that you could convince people to get rid of it. You know, you tell people it's an emergency enough, eventually you tell people it's time to break glass in case of emergency. And the message of what they're offering instead

is always some variation of the same theme, right? Imagine a new America where, thank God, there's finally a man in charge and he's finally going to get stuff done. And we'll all be unified for once behind this leader because he really loves America and he's going to finally once and for all fix our problems by getting rid of all the things that are stopping us from fixing our problems.

And if you're against the leader, maybe you're one of those problems and maybe we'll have to get rid of you. But otherwise, the rest of us will all be so unified, right? This has this clean simplicity to it, right? Things will be efficient for once. There won't be an opposition political party. This useless Congress will stop standing in the way. They'll either become irrelevant or they'll be ignored. Or if need be, they'll be abolished. Get them out of the way. They don't do anything anyway. The judicial system.

That will no longer be a constraint on the country or on the leader who's trying to get stuff done. All of these Lilliputian strings will no longer hold Gulliver down, right? The leader will finally be able to lead. The judicial branch will also come to heel. It will do as it's told or it will be ignored or even abolished if that's what it takes, just like Congress. The government will be emptied out.

and replaced with people loyal only to the leader, just so we can get stuff done. You don't want that bureaucracy hanging around. You don't want that deep state. We'll get rid of everybody. We'll put in people who are all part of the leader's program. It'll be so clean, so efficient, so simple. Politics will finally get out of the way. Aren't we exhausted of politics? Let's not have politics anymore.

All this deep state nonsense, all these lesser institutions, these lesser people, these would-be competitors who lost to the leader. They will get out of the way. They will be gone. So we can be unified. So we can finally get something done. So we can be great again. It's always the same thing. It's always some version of that same sales pitch, right? And there has been no shortage of guys who have preached that to the people of the United States. You go back and look, you find that there are

are not just a no shortage of them, there's a surprising number of them who really did think they could persuade the country to vote for that kind of change. Vote to install somebody like them in power whereupon the whole American system of government we'd done away with so we could have this new system instead under them. They all thought, I'll just give people a chance to vote for me instead of the American system of government. I'll run for president. They all failed miserably.

But they all live rent-free in my head to this day, because while we have had a succession of dudes with these aspirations, live and among us in the United States of America, they're all now largely forgotten for a reason. There's a reason when I put up those four pictures, none of those guys looked all that familiar. There's a reason they've all been mostly lost to history. And it's this. Did you catch what I said about how those guys were actually trying to get into the White House? How those guys thought they were going to get to be leader of the United States?

William Dudley Pelley, he was the presidential candidate of the Christian Party. What's that? Gerald L.K. Smith, he was the presidential candidate of the America First Party. What's that? Father Charles Coughlin, the puppet presidential campaign he ran was for the Union Party. What's that? General George Van Horn Mosley, the group he tried to get to put him in the White House was called the American Nationalist Confederation. Huh?

What are those things? None of them are still parties or organizations. Some of them don't even have Wikipedia pages to this day. So yeah, we've had a lot. We've had plenty of would-be authoritarians who wanted to do away with the American system of government and make us an authoritarian country instead. But they tried to accomplish that by inventing or latching on to random parties and movements you have never heard of and that never went anywhere. None of them ever attached themselves to something big.

and powerful with institutional capacity and gravitas and historic heft. None of them ever attached themselves to something like the Republican Party. And at first, real estate developer Donald Trump didn't either. Do you remember that his first attempt to run for president was with a different party?

Year 2000, the Reform Party. Remember that? No, nobody does. And the reason we don't remember it is because it's about as memorable as any other pointless, no-name, third-party vanity campaign. It's like whether it's radical and revolutionary and wants to get rid of the American system of government or not, it's almost like beside the point. Who cares, right? It's irrelevant.

Even though we have had a thousand and one would-be authoritarian leaders in this country, guys who imagined and plotted and promised an overthrow of the U.S. system of government, we have never before had someone with that ambition who also has the use of one of our two major political parties to get him there. And so it's a different kind of danger, right? I mean, it's a different kind of danger. It's dangerous because it means the power...

and the institutional heft and the legitimacy of a massive American political institution is now being brought to bear on this project that has always before now been, yes, radical and worrying and sometimes quite violent, but it wasn't going to win. What has always been a fringe project before now, in America today, if the polls are to be believed, it's now a cause and a candidate that is likely to win.

And it's not because the American people have never heard the sales pitch, right? It's not because we, the American people, have never heard the siren song of a guy proclaiming the virtues of a new America where there's finally a man in charge and nothing's going to get in his way. We've heard this a million times from a million crazy-eyed weirdos, right? It's only likely to win now because of the Republican Party, because people in so-called normal politics have laundered it, have laundered it.

thundered this sales pitch to make it seem like a good choice. They've lent their own credibility to even the craziest parts of it. I mean, they didn't just stick around for the policy. They didn't just stick around for the potentially normal parts of it. They stuck around with it and stayed on board and pitched in to help when push came to shove, when we got to the violent part.

The person who is the head of the Republican Party during Donald Trump's time in office and during his effort to throw out the election result and stay in power anyway, and during his effort to run for election again after having done that, is Ronna Romney McDaniel. And she pitched in and helped.

She helped set in motion the part of the plot that involved sending fake Trump electors to Congress from states that Trump did not win so Republicans in Washington could use those fake, fraudulent elector slates to contend that maybe Trump did win those states, even though he didn't. And don't believe me on that.

There she is on page 23 and page 27 of the federal indictment charging Donald Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States. There's her personal appearance in this scene of the crime, as alleged by the U.S. Justice Department, in this ongoing criminal case. In Michigan, where the fake electors are themselves now on trial, she told the state of Michigan in writing explicitly, do not certify the election results.

The Detroit News has reported that with Donald Trump on the phone with her, she directed Michigan election officials to not certify the vote. She told them, quote, do not sign it. We will get you lawyers. She pitched in. She was part of the project.

And what was the project? It was to use the power of the Republican Party, Republican officials in the states, Republican officeholders in Washington, the national Republican party that she runs, to use the party's power to reject election results, to take over the government and hold power by other means. And this project is now ongoing, right? Now the project is to

Tell the American people that those efforts around the 2020 election were righteous. That 2020 election, it wasn't okay. Those election results were not correct. We shouldn't believe American elections. We shouldn't believe American elections are real elections.

American election results should not be seen as real. They should not be respected. That's the project now, right? I mean, it didn't work to overthrow the government the last time, but as long as you can build on that first effort, as long as you can keep up the anti-election mythology, then you are priming your people. You're priming the American public to not accept the results of the next election either. You're telling them that they're going to need to take power by other means because the election isn't going to be how we do it anymore.

You're also priming people, honestly, to vote to give up this supposed democracy we have because what good is it anyway? So what are we really losing if we decide we're going to lose this? Who cares? Elections are fraudulent here anyway. Who cares if we give them up? Ronna McDaniel has been pitching in on that too, continuing to say since 2020 that that election wasn't right, that the American public should know that that vote wasn't real. And that is a message not only about 2020 but about this next election.

and about whether or not elections should matter at all and whether we should bother having them at all. The Republican Party getting behind that message is a choice. I mean, Trump himself is going to do what he wants to do. We've always had guys like Trump. Sometimes they wear ridiculous little uniforms, right? But we've always had guys like that. We've never before had a big, storied, important American political institution embrace a guy like that, even when it came to

to overthrowing the American system of government. And in a time like this, it's hard, right? I mean, this is a challenging and worrying time. Republican officials have to figure out whether they're going to stand up for the American system of government or not. Republican politicians, you know, Congress has to decide if it's going to assert its own relevance, they're going to assert their own independence, their own role in the government, stand up for our system of government or not.

Judges and prosecutors have to decide if they're going to be braver than they ever thought they'd have to be in this job. They have to decide whether they're going to stand up to the threats and the violence and nevertheless be independent, be fearless, stand up for their own independence and thereby stand up for our system of government. Regular citizens have to decide if we're going to brave the threats and the violence to stay involved in politics.

to work for campaigns, to volunteer as election workers despite all the threats, all the attacks, all the violence, to stand up for our system of government. And then there's the press, which is both reporting on all of this and is also part of it.

Because just as a strongman needs to control the judicial branch or get rid of it, needs to control the Congress or get rid of it, needs to control the political opposition or get rid of it, what the strongman most desires before all of that, the necessary precursor to all of that, is to control the free press or get rid of it. And, you know, in the press, we do not take it personally when we get attacked.

when they, you know, say they want to put us on trial and execute us for treason. We don't take it personally. But we do defend ourselves as an institution, not because we're personally offended by the way that we're treated, but because a free and uncowed press is necessary for our democracy. A free and uncowed press is part of our system of government. We stand up for ourselves as a way of standing up for our country.

and for our Constitution, the First Amendment to which makes it possible for us to exist at all. And so I want to associate myself with all my colleagues, both at MSNBC and at NBC News, who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company putting on the payroll someone who hasn't just attacked us as journalists, but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government. Someone who still has

is trying to convince Americans that this election stuff, it doesn't really work. That this last election, it wasn't a real result. That American elections are fraudulent. Because that argument, that is a necessary part, that is the most necessary part of the overall project of getting us as Americans to give up on this election stuff. Because wouldn't we rather have a real man in charge anyway? Somebody who could really get some stuff done. If only we could clear away all the things in his way. We have a long history in this country of forgettable men.

telling us that we need a new system of government where everything's under their control and politics is over and this new strongman way of government is gonna make America great again. We have had a lot of these guys. But our generation's version of this guy has gotten a lot farther than all the rest of them. And why is that? He would have been as forgotten as all the rest of them had he not been able to attach himself to an institution like the Republican Party.

and had the leader of that party in his time not decided that she wouldn't just abide him, she would help. She would help with the worst of it. It's my understanding that MSNBC's leadership did not object to Ronna McDaniel being hired by NBC News when the matter first arose. But when the hiring was announced and MSNBC staff essentially unanimously and instantly expressed outrage,

Our leadership at MSNBC heard us, understood, and adjusted course. We were told this weekend in clear terms, Ronna McDaniel will not be on our air. Ronna McDaniel will not be on MSNBC. And I say that and give you that level of detail because

Because there has been an effort since by other parts of the company to muddy that up in the press and make it seem like that's not what happened at MSNBC. I can assure you that is what happened at MSNBC. Ronna McDaniel will not appear on MSNBC. So says our boss since Saturday. And it has never been anything other than clear. And I will also say, you know, if you care what I think about this, I will tell you the fact that Ms. McDaniel is on the payroll at NBC News.

To me, that is inexplicable. I mean, you wouldn't hire a wise guy. You wouldn't hire a made man, like a mobster, to work at a DA's office, right? You wouldn't hire a pickpocket to work as a TSA screener. And so I find the decision to put her on the payroll inexplicable.

And I hope they will reverse their decision. And it's not about, you know, Democratic Party, Republican Party. It's not about partisanship. It's not about right versus left. It's not about being a political professional versus some other kinds of person. It's not about being mean or nice to journalists. It's not about just being associated with Donald Trump and his time in the Republican Party. It's not even about lying or not lying. It's about our system of government and undermining elections and going after democracy.

As an ongoing project, right? And this is a difficult time for us as a country. And I think that means we need to be clear-eyed about the implications of it. Difficult times make for difficult decisions. We are contending with something we've never had to contend with before.

In the news business, yes, we are covering an election, which we do all the time, but we're also covering bad actors trying to use the rights and privileges of a democracy to end democracy. The chief threat among them now is not the rioters and the kooks, but the slick political professionals who are turning their considerable talents to laundering violently revolutionary claims that America's elections aren't real, that election results aren't real, and that they shouldn't be respected.

We are contending with this now, not from William Dudley Pelley's brown shirt militias, right? But from the multi-billion dollar massive political operation of one of the two governing parties of the United States of America. And that's new. And with our country up against something that daunting and that scary and that dangerous for the country, I think bad decisions will inevitably happen. Mistakes will be made. But part of our resilience as a democracy is

is going to be recognizing, us recognizing when decisions are bad ones and reversing those bad decisions. Hearing legitimate criticism, responding to it, and correcting course. Not digging in, not blaming others. Take a minute. Acknowledge that maybe it wasn't the right call. It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to acknowledge when you were wrong. It is a sign of strength.

And our country needs us to be strong right now. I'll be right back. MSNBC Live Democracy 2024, Saturday, September 7th in Brooklyn, New York. Join your favorite MSNBC hosts at our premier live audience event. Visit msnbc.com slash democracy 2024 to buy your tickets today.

So it was February 28th. The County Board of Supervisors was holding one of its regular meetings. This was in Arizona, Maricopa County, Arizona. And there were discussions about proposed zoning changes and a new irrigation district and bringing certain roads into the county highway system. There was even a pet showcase for adoptable dogs. Oh, hello.

Maricopa County is home to the city of Phoenix. It's home to over 60% of the population of the state of Arizona. There's a lot of local governance to cover at these Board of Supervisors meetings. But as this meeting approached the two-hour mark, something changed in the room that was definitely a vibe shift. You could see the supervisors looking around, starting to whisper to each other. They seemed to sense something was about to happen.

And then the chair abruptly adjourned the meeting, at which point some version of pandemonium broke out.

This meeting is now adjourned. Sellers running for the hill. We the people will have answers. You are being served. You are being served. You are being served. You are being served. You are being served.

You are being served. You are treasonous.

This is where election denialism hits the road. This is what it looks like in real life. You can see in the video how the Maricopa supervisors, they hustle out pretty quickly. Law enforcement blocks these people who are yelling at them and jostling them. And if you're wondering what all the yelling is about, all the shouting about treasonous and you are being served. After the supervisors left, one person in the crowd laid it all out.

Again, to, uh,

rebut any one of our claims, which I'm making right now. None of them have signed a note of office. None of them are bonded to me, the people. All of them are foreign invaders acting as government. They are not our government. Therefore, we will be serving them a dreadful warranto with a waiver of tort, and if they still do not rebut, we'll be notifying the military. And they can be held off, hauled off, I'm sorry, to a military tribunal, and I think we all know the penalty for treason. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. We'll be serving them with a widow pool warranty with a waiver of tort. If they do not rebut, we'll be notifying the military and they can be hauled off to a military tribunal. We all know the penalty for treason. Thank you very much. Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, for what it's worth, almost all of them are Republicans. They're all foreign invaders who are now liable for millions of dollars because somebody yelled, you're being served. If they don't resign in minutes, the military will come and execute them.

And however this might look to us watching it on video, for the Maricopa Board of Supervisors, having a bunch of people rush the dais where they're sitting, yelling that they're traitors and they should all be killed is scary.

Here's how the Washington Post reported it. Quote,

After the 2020 election, you might remember this was the scene for days on end outside that county elections department when the votes were being tabulated. There are mobs of often armed Trump supporters gathering outside the building, yelling at the election workers inside. At one point, they surrounded one elections worker outside the building. The person had to be pulled out of the angry crowd by a sheriff's deputy.

Arizona has been a hotbed of election denialism ever since, as epitomized by the circus of that bizarre arena audit of the 2020 election. The state's attorney general is closing in on a decision now whether to criminally charge the fake electors from Arizona who signed forged documents after the 2020 election claiming that Trump had won the state rather than Biden.

Just today, a man was sentenced to two and a half years in federal prison for making repeated death threats in 2022 against Katie Hobbs, who was then Arizona's top elections official and is now governor. The head of the U.S. Justice Department's Elections Threat Task Force had a press conference in Phoenix today after that sentencing to drive home the message that threats against election officials will not be tolerated, they will be prosecuted, and you will go to prison.

In Arizona now, the man who's at the center of all this, the state's current top elections official, is somebody who newly needs a bodyguard just to go to work every day. He joins us live here next. Stay with us.

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.

When news breaks, go beyond the headlines with the MSNBC app. We begin with breaking news from Washington, D.C. Watch your favorite shows live. It can feel difficult to wrap your head around all of the news that will just not stop unfolding. Get real-time analysis from live blogs to in-depth essays and the latest updates on the 2024 election. A point or two could be all it takes to sway the outcome. Go beyond the what to understand the why. Download the app now at

MSNBC.com slash app. Quote, in training poll workers for this year's presidential election, the office of Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is preparing them for a series of worst case scenarios, including combat, coordinating active shooter drills for election workers, sending kits to county election offices that include tourniquets to stem bleeding, devices to barricade doors, hammers to break glass windows.

Arizona has been ground zero for election denial and threats and intimidation of election workers ever since the 2020 election. Things do not seem to be getting better ahead of this next election, but this time at least state officials do know a lot more about what they're up against. Joining us now is Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes. Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for being with us. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much, Rachel, for having me.

Is it fair to say that things aren't better since 2020 in Arizona and that as we head toward this next election, you're expecting to see a continuation or maybe even a worsening of some of the sorts of threats and sort of craziness that we saw in Arizona a few years ago?

Well, I think in balance things are actually better. Our elections officials are much trained, they're more prepared. We know what to expect for the most part. There are some new emerging wrinkles, but we've been here, we've seen that and those pictures you showed of those armed crowds outside of the warehouse, that was my warehouse. That was my election in Maricopa County in 2020. We got through that. We got through 2022. We will get past 2024 and we will protect democracy.

Tell me some of the specifics of your planning. This is obviously a threatening environment, not just in terms of physical safety for you and your staff, but in terms of making sure the election can be carried out without being hindered by external forces.

Yeah, well, first, the background. We've lost senior election officials in 12 out of our 15 counties here in Arizona. But to shore up the load, we're making sure that everybody who is coming in, most of whom really were already in elections at sort of the next level down positions, that they're prepared. And we're focusing on the fundamentals. But we're also adding in some augmented training, including some AI training like we had at a recent tabletop exercise. That's

training that law enforcement and the military use to sort of role play, throw scenarios out there. We've also got some Tiger teams from our office that are going out to make sure that our IT security systems are locked down, that folks are well trained. And we have worked directly with the Department of Homeland Security, both at the state and federal level, and CISA to shore up all of our physical and cyber security needs.

But at the end of the day, it is fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. And the folks who are running elections in Arizona are ready. I know that the Justice Department had a press conference today in Arizona in Phoenix after the sentencing of a man sentenced to more than two years in federal prison after threatening your predecessor, who's now the governor of the state. Do you feel like the criminal law part of this—obviously, threats and intimidation are always illegal—

let alone violence itself. Do you feel like on the criminal law side of this, that Arizona is doing a good job at prosecuting the stuff and that you have the support that you need from the federal justice department to do what needs to be done?

Well, I've been openly critical of the Department of Justice and the FBI for not celebrating their wins in the courtroom enough to act as a deterrent against this sort of thing. And it looks like they're coming around a little bit. The press conference today really does show that accountability matters. And it's important that we let folks know that threats or violence against elections officials. Look, at the end of the day, that's domestic terrorism. Threats or violence are

for a political outcome is terrorism. And that's just what's happening in America today. It's inexcusable. And law enforcement at the federal and state level needs to step up, not just the investigations, but promoting the convictions that have been had so that folks understand clearly threatening election workers is not an American thing. It is criminal.

acts of violence against election workers, election officials, is also criminal. And we cannot have this kind of activity and maintain the civil society that we purport to love. It's a really interesting point about putting a spotlight and making sure that people know when these prosecutions happen and when they're successful. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, I'm sorry that your job is the kind of job that requires a bodyguard now. I'm thankful for your service and thankful for your time tonight. Good luck. Thank you so much.

All right, we'll be right back. Stay with us. The United States Supreme Court is going to hear oral arguments tomorrow in an incredible case, a case that will decide whether or not to severely curtail access to the abortion pill in this country. That's how most abortions are done in this country. The Supreme Court agreed to take up this case after a federal judge in Texas

effectively banned the use of one of the two pills that's used as part of medication abortion. Research has overwhelmingly shown the abortion pill to be effective and safe. It was first approved by the FDA more than two decades ago. But this Texas judge, a Trump appointee, a lifelong anti-abortion activist, he ruled that the FDA was wrong to approve this drug. I have to tell you, his ruling was not a monument to intellectual heft.

I'm not a lawyer, but I know it's a bad thing when your ruling relies on two studies that have since been retracted by their publisher. Also, another quote-unquote study that pulled its data entirely from anonymous blog posts posted on an anti-abortion website.

Also, according to a brief filed by the ACLU, the ruling also cited testimony from a person purporting to be a doctor who's not actually a doctor unless you're okay to make people call you doctor because you have a master's degree in theological studies. Like I said, not exactly a model ruling. Nevertheless, a Republican-heavy appeals court upheld parts of that Texas ruling and

We don't know what the Supreme Court's going to do in response, but today in a post-Roe world, nearly two-thirds of abortion in this country are done through medication. And this case the court's going to deliberate on tomorrow is whether or not to severely restrict the use of the abortion pill. It has almost unfathomable consequences for reproductive rights, and not just in the parts of the country that are hostile to abortion who have already banned it, but everywhere in the country.

Joining us now is Nancy Northup. She's president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights. Ms. Northup, I appreciate you being here. Thank you. Thank you.

We are used to thinking about abortion rights now in terms of the patchwork of states that have various laws either banning or allowing it. This case that's coming to the Supreme Court tomorrow is about medication abortion nationwide. This is a Texas case that would essentially rescind FDA approval for one of the drugs that's used in medication abortion. And that wouldn't just be for red states. It would be everywhere, right?

Yeah, it makes me think about, you know, when the draft opinion first came down and we read it and the Center for Reproductive Rights litigated the Dobbs case. And of course, the line in there from Justice Alito, we're going to send this back to the states. Well, that...

This case puts the lie to that. We're back in the Supreme Court less than two years later, and they are going to decide whether really important approval for medication abortion, and particularly, you know, the approval for it to be done by telemedicine, which has totally expanded the ability for people who live far from clinics, who'd prefer to be at home, to have a conversation by telemedicine and get the pills by mail. The FDA has

approve that as safe and effective. And that's what's on the line, among other things, in this case that will be argued tomorrow in the Supreme Court.

I know this is folly to ask, and you don't have to answer if you don't want. But what are you expecting the court to do here? Everything that I've read has said that the underlying ruling, the district court ruling, is so bananas that it would be unthinkable for them to side with that district court judge. That said, the appeals court did uphold some of what he was trying to do. And so that makes it a little bit more of a wild card. What are you actually expecting?

Well, I don't want to predict what the Supreme Court's going to do, but I want to make really clear to your viewers that there was no basis in law and fact, as you pointed out in the district court's opinion. And there was no basis in law and fact in the very conservative Fifth Circuit decision. So there's only one right outcome on the facts in the law for the Supreme Court, and that is to uphold justice.

all of the agency decision making. You know, this is for agencies, the Food and Drug Administration, to decide based on science, not for the court to be second guessing. It doesn't just impact, as it would significantly, abortion care, but all

of approvals of drugs. That's why drug manufacturers, including Pfizer, filed a brief in the case saying you can't upend FDA law in this way. I mean, the stakes are high for abortion and the stakes are high for the rule of law and for science-based FDA approval of drugs.

Yeah. For anybody who uses pharmaceuticals for any reason in this country, this is up for debate tomorrow if they're going to take away the ruling, the ability of the FDA to approve drugs in the normal course. Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, will be listening closely to tomorrow's arguments. Thanks for helping us know what to listen for. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. We'll be right back. Stay with us. One last piece of very exciting news to leave you with tonight.

I'm going to do a live event with Joy, with Joy Reid. And you can come if you want to. My brilliant friend and colleague Joy Reid has an excellent new book out, instant New York Times bestseller. It's called Medgar and Merle, Medgar Evers and the Love Story that Awakened America, chronicles the lives of those two very important civil rights activists. Saturday, April 6th, Joy Reid and I are going to do an event together, a live event about the book at the Apollo Theater in New York City.

I'm so looking forward to this. If you want tickets, you can find out how to get them at msnbc.com slash Medgar and Murley. The link right there on your screen. Also, I should tell you tomorrow I'll be on Joy's show with her at 7 p.m. The readout, 7 p.m. Eastern here tomorrow night on MSNBC to discuss many things, including tomorrow's Supreme Court arguments on the big abortion case. That does it for us for now.

Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts to get new episodes of Morning Joe and the Rachel Maddow Show ad-free. Plus ad-free listening to all of Rachel Maddow'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.