MSNBC prime time special coverage of Super Tuesday primaries
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For everybody wondering about whether or not mail-in voting is a good idea, within eight minutes of the polls closing in Colorado, we have 95% of the vote counted in Denver. Within 10 minutes of the polls closing in Colorado, we've got 95% of Arapahoe County, 95% of Jefferson County. Gee, it sort of seems like if you let people vote conveniently by mail and it

and allow elections officials to tabulate those ballots, not in a terrifying rush with tons of pressure. You can have very efficient, quick results. It's a model for the rest of the country. It's obviously a terrorist movement. Yes, very, very slick, slick.

con artists. The RNC is actually spending a ton of money on mail-in ballots and encouraging people. This is so ironic, right? Because they're spending millions and millions of dollars on these programs to get people to vote early and vote by mail. And then the leader of their party and the nominee is going out at every chance and saying, it's not safe, don't do it. So they're banging their head against the wall. But the Republicans used

I mean, I remember when Republican campaigns were all, Karl Rove ascended in Republican politics as, you know, a direct mail guy. But I mean, the mail vote used to be a huge part of the campaign. So how do they make, I mean, this is a purposely naive question, but how do they make up for that? Because it's not just

Trump is committed to this message about voter fraud. Now, I mean, his daughter-in-law, who he is installing at the RNC, Laura Trump, did an interview the other day where she was asked, don't we have to get rid of all early voting and all mail-in voting? And she was like, well, you know, that's what my father-in-law says. Exactly.

The RNC position. Rachel is Laura Trump. I mean, I get mistaken for her all the time. But if it's going to be not just Trump, but the Trump family branded RNC that are now saying this strategically, presuming that they do want there to be at least a few more elections in America. How do they make government?

up for that tactically for votes they're now telling people they shouldn't cast. I mean, look, a lot of Trump voters got the COVID shot, too. They don't always do what they think Trump wants him to do, which points to sort of the shallowness and the emptiness of the party. But I'm hung up on something that you said. I mean, we are anchoring the boiling of the frog. This is the night that Trump has almost enough delegates to become the Republican nominee. And as Steve Kornacki almost nonchalantly said, we're going to a Trumpier area, the evangelical county. I almost choked on the M&M.

In 16, when Access Hollywood came out, all the Republicans who worked on the Trump campaign were like, oh, he's, you know, it's over. Lights out. We've got to get, we've got to flip the ticket. You know, Ryan Spreepus is like, oh, we have to put Pence at the top of the ticket. Now it's like, oh, it's the part of the state. It's the evangelical county. That's all

Trump vote. It's wacky how completely saturated the Republican Party is with Trump and Trump is with the Republican Party. It's over. It's Carrie Bradshaw. It's so over we need a new word for over.

Well, I mean, and I cannot get over the fact that this is the state that produced the kind of Republicans who would file a lawsuit to keep them off the ballot. That's Colorado. And it produced the kind of Republicans. And we had one of them on my show last week, and she was so refreshingly normal. But she sounded like a person that had normal political instincts and said, you can't have somebody with 91 criminal counts against him and who also tried to overthrow the government.

And, you know, Colorado is the state that now is famous in the Supreme Court's, you know, analogs forever as the state that did try to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which has now been rendered inoperable by the Supreme Court just for him and the five conservative men involved.

All decided that they went further than saying that they didn't want Colorado to make that choice to keep him off the ballot. But also they sort of inoculated him and every other insurrectionist that was with him in Congress and said, we're going to go further than say that Colorado has to keep him on the ballot, which obviously he is and he'll probably win or whatever.

But the insurrectionists are insulated unless Congress passes a law specifically saying they can't. Which the Supreme Court will then decide whether, you know, which is inevitably going to go to the Supreme Court. It's just a consolidation of Supreme Court power. Can I say one thing to your point about evangelicals, which we, I mean, I...

Because I have a lot of free time, I've been just very interested in the roots of how evangelicals became such a potent political force. And in some ways, it's a homecoming for them, right? It was 1980, and it was really school desegregation efforts, and it was the Bob Jones fight against the IRS that brought evangelicals into the movement. Exploiting the Bob Jones fight.

Bob Jones Christian University, and they basically outlawed interracial dating on the campus of Bob Jones University. There was another school involved in the suit that didn't allow black people in the school at all. That was the thing. Not abortion, not busing, but really desegregation was the thing that brought evangelicals into the political movement of the right wing.

under the auspices of, you know, free religion and free speech and what Christian institutions should be allowed to do. But really, at its core, it was race. And in some ways, you know, we think about evangelicals and Trump as being so different, right? These godly, you know, faithful people and this unfaithful person who's been found guilty in civil trial of sexual assault. The issue of race is...

Donald Trump, the issue of race has long animated the evangelical movement. And in some ways, it makes perfect sense that you're seeing the unity that you are. And I'm so glad you said that, because Chris Hayes, I think, made a really excellent point that you're seeing the sort of disconnect between a president that is a white working class guy himself and that keeps doing all of these things that disproportionately benefit white working class Americans in red states. And their reaction to him is they hate him more, like the more he does. And

And it is because the most economically vulnerable voters tend to be young voters who tend to be more voters of color. They're economically vulnerable and they tend to hold the president to account if they can't afford their lives or can't pay their student loans. They vote that way. But Republican voters don't vote that way. They don't vote based on economics or based on the benefits they're getting economically from the president.

They're increasingly from the Tea Party on, they're voting on race. They're voting on this idea of an invasion of brown people over the border. The idea that they can't get whatever job they want. A black person got it. Therefore, drive all the blacks out of the colleges. Get rid of DEI. That is what they're voting on. They're just voting specifically on racial animus at this stage. It isn't about economics. No. Which is why Trump killed the immigration bill. Correct. That's why. And because...

Otherwise, he can't run against the other and brown people and people who don't look like him, like his supporters, his base of supporters coming across the border and scaring people and killing people or whatever he's threatening out there. I mean, if you look at some of these exit polls, I mean, I live in Virginia. Immigration was the number one issue. I mean, again, these could change in Virginia. Well, Virginia does have a border with West Virginia. Very good.

Very contested area. But you're thinking, like, what? I mean, when I was in New Hampshire, people were talking about the northern border as a threat because Trump has indoctrinated people with this fear of people who do not look like them being a threat to them. But, you know, I mean, and every, you know, every election cycle, particularly when there's a Democratic incumbent, we get reminded about the borders. And the borders become a thing again. And then if there's a Republican in office, we don't think about them anymore. It's the deficit.

the deficit and the border. You make these things an issue. You make them into boogeymen. You make them into something that grabs you from under the bed at night as soon as you wake up. As long as there's a Democratic incumbent to blame on it, you make sure that nothing's ever done to fix either and then you hope that people stop talking about them once you've got a Republican office. It's just the same thing.

My entire adult life. But the only difference now is they drop the every four years part. And now, I mean, all the programming about cities is the kind of threat of crime and crime. Meanwhile, on Earth 1, the FBI reports that violent migrant America is at a 50-year low. And migrant crime is not a thing. And migrant crime is not a thing. And you live...

On Earth One. But this is a very complicated concept, I know, because Fox News is right there. All right. I have to tell you one thing and then we have to take a break. The thing I have to tell you is that we have a new projection from the decision desk. We are going to follow their lead to the great state of Colorado, which we have just been discussing on the Republican side, the presidential contest in Colorado.

Colorado. The projected winner is Donald Trump. I also have to tell you that very shortly we're going to be speaking with the governor of Colorado who's going to be joining us live. We're also still watching Vermont, where there is not a projected winner at this point between Nikki Haley and Donald Trump. There's a lot still to come. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

Well, I think just deciding who the next president is is already a big thing because the president's going to decide Supreme Court justices. We've seen in recent years that a lot of Supreme Court justices have made decisions that are impacting especially women. So for me, that's a big thing for me.

Cal students at the University of California at Berkeley wearing excellent Go Bears, Go Vote sweatshirts speaking with NBC News earlier today. It's just about 925 right now on the East Coast. At 9 o'clock Eastern time, we had poll closings among other places in the great state of Colorado. We have since had projections

elections in Colorado. On the Republican side, Donald Trump is projected to have won the Republican contest tonight in that state. And on the Democratic side, Joe Biden is projected to have won that state. But I'm going to hand it over to my colleague Alex Wagner now, who brings us a very special guest. Thank you, Rachel. Joining us now is the Democratic governor of the great state of Colorado, Jared Polis. Governor, thanks for joining us on this busy evening for you and the people of your state.

I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about how the Supreme Court's decision on the 14th Amendment has animated voters in your state. I mean, Donald Trump's name never actually left the Colorado ballot, but it was certainly an issue that was litigated fiercely both in the Supreme Court and in the court of public opinion. Do you think it animated Democrats more or Republicans? And what do you think it portends for the coming months?

Well, first, thanks to everybody who voted. So excited about the turnout, Republican, Democratic, Colorado, across the country. So many voters across the country had their voice heard. You know, I mean, it's kind of like reading tea leaves. Everybody sees something different in it.

Obviously, it highlights the role that President Trump played on January 6th, which obviously animates voters who care about protecting our democracy and integrity in the institution of the presidency. Obviously, the prospect of removing somebody from a primary ballot animates people. But he always was on the Colorado primary ballot.

That was never in jeopardy. They went out. In fact, not only are Nikki Haley and Donald Trump on it, but a number of candidates have actually dropped out or on it, like Rhonda Sandis and a number of others. And then I voted in the Democratic primary in Colorado. There's a bunch of people I never even heard of. In addition to President Biden, who won overwhelmingly here in our state. Governor, in addition to the people you've never heard of, there was a line for not committed or noncommitted candidates.

uncommitted known colloquially to the rest of us in the rest of the other 49 states. That was not an option until December, I believe, when the Democratic State Party of Colorado decided to add that option for voters in your state. Can you talk a little bit about why Democrats felt that was necessary and what it signals to the incumbent Joe Biden?

Well, I can't speak to why it was included. I know it has in prior elections, but I can't speak to the fact that President Biden won overwhelmingly a higher percentage of the vote than Donald Trump in the Democratic primary. I think it's good that it shows his strength.

uh... you know i miss people making a big show of voting offer nobody in there only a few percent of the electorate it really shows that it's an empty thread in people value president by his leadership both globally of course i seeking peace in the middle east as well as here at home fighting to reduce prices and uh... make a colorado in the country more livable for everybody yet the reporting on uh... on the decision was that

young voters needed to feel included in the process and that having an uncommitted section would get them to the polls. Do you think that that's at all an issue for Democrats in your state, making sure that young people feel energized and animated by the Biden candidacy?

Well, looking at the percentages, obviously what excited people was Joe Biden. You know, and I think that the none of the above had to get 15 percent to get a single delegate. It doesn't look like it was anywhere close to that in the initial figures that I've seen. So clearly what was driving the turnout was was the president perhaps having another option drove supporters of Joe Biden to vote more, obviously, just as having.

competition for on the Republican side led more people to come out to vote for them. If there's no competition, I think there's, you know, less of an impetus that people might have to vote. But I'm just thrilled with everybody who voted in Colorado. Unaffiliated voters can vote in either primary of their choice. About a third of the primary elector was unaffiliated. Some voted Republican, some voted Democratic. But it's a great chance for everybody to be heard. Are you surprised at how Nikki Haley is doing, given the sort of demographic realities in Colorado and how well she could have done?

Well, you know, again, I mean, I know she might have campaigned here a bit. I haven't seen much advertising or promotion for either of the candidates. And obviously the former president has greater name recognition. So, you know, I'm not terribly surprised to see that. Of course, it still is a competitive race. And I think that there's a lot of Haley supporters that are also going to be open to supporting President Biden in the general election because of the integrity and character issues that are really an important part of who he is.

Governor, we were talking about Colorado's best-in-class mail-in vote system, and I wonder what your words would be for the Laura Trumps of the world who think the Republican Party should get rid of mail-in voting entirely.

Yeah, first of all, it's mail-in plus. I mean, that's the default. Most people vote that way, but if you really want to vote in person, we have voting stations, we have early voting, but the vast majority of people value the ability to simply vote at home. It's safe, it's secure, and really Republicans and Democrats in our state overwhelmingly support the ability to vote by mail, especially because in Colorado, in the general election, our ballots are somewhat lengthy. We have a lot of important issues for people to vote on, everything from taxes to choice to...

a number of other issues and people really appreciate the chance to discuss it around the dinner table and send their ballot in knowing it'll be counted. Have your roast chicken and mark your ballot. Governor of Colorado, Sheriff Hollis, I just made up the roast chicken part, Governor. Whatever you choose to have for dinner. Whenever floats your boat. As they say, could just be a vegan meat.

Thank you for your time tonight, sir. Rachel, over to you. He didn't know that he was joining us at girl gang o'clock. Somebody should have warned him. There might be chicken talk. Are you ready for that? It's going to come out of nowhere when he's expected. It'll be hidden in a compliment about Ellen Bodecker.

I added a meat alternative for people who felt not included. An uncommitted vote, if you will, on the dinner table selection. That was a very MSNBC grace note at the end there. I tried. A little shout out to the plant protein. No disrespect. Yes. From the West of West here. Listen, we've got a number of poll closings still to come. All right. We've got California still to come. Utah still to come. Alaska still to come. California...

is going to be important, not only because we're going to find out what's going to happen with the Dianne Feinstein Senate race. And again, as we were talking about, Jen, as you mentioned earlier, there is this interesting jungle primary system in California now, which always feels like kind of the wrong thing to say. It feels like kind of the unpolished name of it. It is what we call

it. It is a jungle primary. Everybody runs in the same primary. Top two candidates advance to the general no matter which party they are from. We could very well get a Republican candidate in California who has basically not campaigned

His name is Steve Garvey. He used to be a baseball player. Now he's like a hair model or something. I don't know. Like he's not he doesn't have like a job now that pertains to the Senate race. And he's not really campaigning. But Adam Schiff has basically campaigned for Steve Garvey because he'd like his chances better running against a Republican in the general election statewide in California in November than he likes his chances running against another Republican.

Democrat. But I will say the other thing that's going on in California, and we'll start to get this information at 11 o'clock tonight, but we won't really learn it until the next few days because California counts so slow. We may get a really important piece of information about who's going to control the United States House of Representatives, because there are incumbents in California who are very well potentially going to lose their seats tonight. And there are

incumbents who are leaving to run for other things whose seats may be replaced by somebody from the other party. There's only a two-seat margin for the Republicans right now in the House. And there's all these interesting seats up in California with all these wild cards and this crazy primary system. I

I mean, what's going on in Washington right now may change tonight because of what's happening in California. That's exactly right. And also what's been so interesting to me is to watch the Republican Party and outside Republican Party groups try to finagle who's going to be in the Republican Party a year from now. Maybe this is a good sign. I don't know. I'm going to be an optimist for a moment where they're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to try to knock out Trump supporters.

Republicans from these primaries so that they can get more of a normie Republican to win. One, because it will help them in the swing state, in the swing districts, but also because they want more normie Republicans, all these outside groups, which has been fascinating to watch. But as you just said, I mean, this could determine tonight in the next 24 hours could have a huge impact on who is sworn in and could be getting the next president's

through Congress next January. I mean, that's what we're looking at over the next 24 hours. And that dynamic that you're talking about, Jen, in terms of seeking, for lack of a better phrase, normie Republicans to run against what are considered to be potentially difficult contests against Democrats, it's very, very hard to do that through the process of voting in a Republican primary tonight in California because it's a closed primary. Yes. Donald Trump's campaign came into California and said, I have very, very specific ideas about how

how you should be running the California Republican primary this year, which has a massive number of delegates. And I want it to be run in such a way that's going to maximize my ability to win all of the delegates without even trying and spending any money. And so it's a closed primary. It's winner take all.

And a very small proportion of the California population is going to be able to vote in that primary. And the idea that you would use it to get some non-Trumpy candidates through, it's just not the reason, not the purpose for which that primary was built the way it's built. Right. Or why people may turn out. I mean, it's a huge, challenging, multilayered issue there for them.

So the complexities of the Republican Party tonight, I think, are going to be on best display when we get to California. But as we're looking across the studio here at Steve Kornacki, we're all still wondering about what's going on in Vermont, where it does seem like there is a real race on between Nikki Haley and Donald Trump.

Yeah, I mean, this is the biggest piece of suspense right now on the Republican side. And you can see we've got almost two thirds of the vote in right now in Vermont. Trump has regained the lead over Nikki Haley. It's about a two point margin for him. I think one of the is looking at this. And again, a lot of these are very small towns is Vermont.

But in terms of where Haley is looking for votes tonight, one of the places was around Rutland. And actually here you can see it's Trump red in this area. This was I'm trying to get inside there. You can't quite get it, but you do see the town of Rutland here. Haley wanted, I think, to be winning this and maybe getting a bit of a margin. But really what we're waiting on here, the biggest single thing we're waiting on.

Where is this paper? I could zoom in probably. Okay. Is the city of Burlington and then South Burlington combined a pretty good chunk of the vote here, probably the biggest single concentration of votes. You go just immediately south of it to Shelburne. These should be very Haley-friendly areas. And again, she could get, relatively speaking, a good chunk of the vote out here, potentially enough to vault her back ahead of Trump.

And then she's just trying to, you know, withstand. There are a lot of towns here, as we've said, small towns with very, you know, working class, rural white populations, very friendly to Donald Trump. So she's trying to withstand that Burlington waiting on it. That could be key here. And as we said, we've talked about this as a winner take all state because in states tonight, most of them you're seeing 50 percent plus one will get you most, if not all the delegates. But.

It's razor thin. And if they both finish under 50, they will just divvy this pot up. But that is that's the closest race right now that we're seeing. But we also are finally I could just quickly point out getting some votes in in Minnesota. It's early here, but you do see, you know, some of the counties right around Minneapolis. We are, you know, Anoka County. We actually got more than 90 percent in here. Again, the Twin Cities was an area here. Certainly big suburban metro area that Haley wanted to be performing well in.

to be competitive statewide. That result from Anoka not encouraging for her. So it continues to be the case. Vermont, if you want a close race, go to the Green Mountain State. We're going to keep a close eye on it. Steve Karnacki, thank you. Just ahead, we're going to take a closer look at...

at one of the really big storylines of the night, which is the governor's race in North Carolina. We've got projected winners in both the Democratic and Republican primary there. The Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina is going to be a national story from now until November. And the North Carolina Democratic Party chair is going to join us live on that story right here next. You will not want to miss this. Stay with us.

Although I don't, by far, don't 100% everything that Biden has done, I...

have been personally impacted by the policies that Trump made when he was president, immigration policies, Muslim ban, his COVID era policies, and having being personally impacted by those things in a negative way. I just have to go with my gut on this one. Nikki Haley is irrelevant. Why irrelevant?

because it's obvious that she's just there representing the rhino part of the Republican Party, and she has no chance. And she knows it, and everyone knows it. It's self-evident.

In particular, I mentioned concern about Mr. Trump. His statements about NATO are a threat to the security of this country. His cozying up to people like Putin and Orban, I think, are a threat to the people of this country and our national security.

Voters in North Carolina speaking with NBC News earlier today. North Carolina is one of the big, big news stories that is going to emerge from Super Tuesday. And it is not because of the Super Tuesday contests, at least not as we usually think of them. Presidential contest in North Carolina went as you would expect. But it is the gubernatorial primaries in North Carolina that are going to be making headlines all over the country tomorrow and one way or another between now and November.

I want to show you one more piece of tape out of North Carolina. This is a portion of an ad that ran in the Republican gubernatorial primary in North Carolina. This was run by a candidate who did not win, a lawyer named Bill Graham, who spent a ton of money in the race. He did have some high-profile support, including from Republican U.S. Senator Tom Tillis.

He did not win. He lost to a candidate named Mark Robinson, who's the state's current lieutenant governor and who will be the Republican Party's nominee for governor in the fall. But but watch this ad. Watch what Bill Graham had to say in this ad and watch what he felt the need to say to the voters of North Carolina about his gubernatorial opponent.

Mark Robinson, he suggested the Holocaust wasn't real. Downplayed the Nazis. Promoted Hitler propaganda. That's just plain wrong. I'm Bill Graham. The Holocaust was real. Hitler was evil. And we must stand with Israel, defend the Holy Land, and defeat radical Islamic terrorism. When you have to say the Holocaust was real and Hitler was evil, both...

In a primary ad, you know that this is not a normal primary year, but Mark Robinson is not a normal primary winner. He will be the Republican nominee for governor in North Carolina. He has, in fact, called the Holocaust hogwash. He says Beyonce is satanic. He says the moon landing in 1969 may have been fake. He

He says the civil rights movement in the 1960s was, quote, crap and that Martin Luther King was a communist. He also says there is a secret ruling cabal that is part reptile, meaning part human, part reptile. He will be the Republican Party's nominee for governor in the state of North Carolina, in swing state North Carolina, in a Republican presidential year where Democrats not just hoping but

planning to put North Carolina back in the blue column. Joining us now live from North Carolina is Anderson Clayton. She's chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party. Ms. Clayton, we're honored to have you with us. Thanks for making time.

Thank you for having us. We really do appreciate the opportunity. So your party also picked a gubernatorial nominee this evening, Josh Stein, who's the current attorney general of the state of North Carolina. It seems to me from the outside looking in at this primary that Mr. Stein, even if you knew nothing else about him, you certainly could take to the voters, hey,

Josh Stein has run for attorney general, run for statewide office in this state twice in elections where Donald Trump won the state twice and Mr. Stein nevertheless won as a Democrat. That's a pretty good track record to take into a general election where Donald Trump is once again going to be running North Carolina. I imagine that's been a real focus of the campaign.

Absolutely. And we're so excited and proud to have Josh Stein as our gubernatorial nominee this year on behalf of the Democratic Party. You know, what you were just describing earlier, Rachel, is what we're dealing with in North Carolina right now. The fact that Mark Robinson is too extreme of a candidate to represent North Carolinians. And Josh Stein has been able to and will be able to this year take a message across North Carolina in all 100 states.

counties, because we know that Joe Biden came within a 74,000 vote margin in this state in 2020. We that's why we're looked at as a battleground state this year and an opportunity and expansion state, really, because we're the only state in the country in which he came within a percentage point of winning. And we fully expect North Carolina to be the reason why we keep the White House this year. I want to talk to you in detail about that, that

concept, that idea about North Carolina being Joe Biden's closest loss, it being the state, if he is going to flip one that he lost, North Carolina is his best bet at having been so close. But let me ask you about Mark Robinson. I mean, Mr. Robinson, he's almost a point of fun, I think, for a national audience because he is so extreme, because he has said things that are so crazy, including the Beyonce stuff and the reptile person stuff. But him

excusing the Nazis and saying that Hitler wasn't so bad and saying the Holocaust didn't happen isn't just crazy. It's obviously dangerous. And I wonder what your assessment is of how the Republican electorate in North Carolina, knowing that about him, how they decided on him anyway. He won resoundingly tonight.

Well, I think it's because they don't know it about him. Right. I mean, Mark Robinson, for all people know, has been the lieutenant governor of North Carolina for the last four years. And the part of politics that I think a lot of people don't necessarily understand is how alienated the average voter right now feels from the political system. And so our job as the North Carolina Democratic Party is to make sure that everyone knows who Mark Robinson is.

Which is why you can go to a website called realmarkrobinson.com right now and read any sort of fact that you want to about his record as lieutenant governor and what he said. You know, Mark Robinson not only has denied the Holocaust, but he's also called the LGBTQ community filth.

He says they don't deserve the right to marry and love who they want to love. He said that if he was governor, he would enact a total heartbeat abortion bill in North Carolina. When we just saw last year, North Carolina Republicans with a super majority in our state roll back abortion rights to a 12-week abortion ban, a 10-week medical abortion ban in North Carolina. And that's something this year that we've got to look at. You know, our governor, our

president is not just on the ballot in North Carolina. It's our state legislature. It's our court systems. It's everything this year that we're trying to make sure that folks understand the value of and really labeling what's at stake in this election cycle.

Ms. Clayton, you've been earning a reputation nationwide for the work you and your colleagues are putting in in North Carolina and the effort and the hustle that's happening in North Carolina to put that state back in the blue column. When you talk about that 74,000 vote margin, and we spoke with Governor Cooper earlier talking about this being Biden, North Carolina having been Biden's closest loss. And if Democrats didn't see North Carolina as a place they could take back before, let the Mark Robinson race prove to them that this is a winnable race.

If I gave you a magic wand, if I gave you carte blanche to tell the National Democratic Party how to run to win North Carolina, what issues to run ads on, what types of events to do in the state, what types of surrogates to tap, what issues to engage people on, get people talking about in the state, what would you most want?

I mean, I'd ask them where are they sitting in North Carolina right now? Because I think the problem with Democratic messaging is that we define that there's only one. And I think that North Carolinians, you know, in Western North Carolina right now, we've got thousands of people that are dying from the opioid epidemic out there every single day. In Eastern North Carolina, we've got capos farms that have restricted and made it so that clean water acts

Thank you.

I mean, these kids are fearing for their lives. And I tell people, you know, I've got a national reputation, but I tell folks the reason why I am so passionate this year and that folks need to understand that North Carolina is a battleground state is because you're voting for the future of people that look like me in North Carolina and that look like the young folks that have galvanized this year to take back and to fight for a state that we know we can take back.

You know, the South in general as a region, 55 percent of black Americans live in this region. And we need to be sure that we're fighting for an area of the country that I feel like has felt divested from. And so I'm hoping that the National Democratic Party shows up here. They give us the resources that we need because we know that Barack Obama won the state in 2008 and it's possible to do it again.

Anderson Clayton, North Carolina Democratic Party chair, speaking with conviction and speaking very persuasively. And there is a national Democratic audience that I know is hearing what you're saying tonight. Thank you. And good luck to you. Stay in touch.

Thank you so much. Since we have been having this discussion, we have a new call to bring you. The Decision Desk brings us to the great state of Minnesota, where I believe on the Democrat, excuse me, on the Republican side in the presidential contest, we have a projected winner in Donald Trump. And in addition, on the Democratic side in the presidential contest in Minnesota, we have a projected winner who is Joe Biden. All right. We've got a quick break.

Quick break ahead. Three states still voting at this hour. Utah, Alaska and California. That means more races to call, more results to track. We still don't know which of the two Republican candidates has won in the great state of Vermont. We've got lots to get to tonight. Stay with us.

And now...

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Welcome back to MSNBC's special coverage of Super Tuesday, where it is still Tuesday and more Super all the time. Let's go to NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff, who's at the Orange County Registrar's Office in Southern California. Now, Jacob, by my watch, voting is still underway in California for another hour or so. Is that right? Yes, it is. What are you seeing? Yeah, Rachel, it's happening right now.

Check this out. Well, we're going to see them go right now. We were talking about how weird I was listening to your conversation earlier about how the primary system is here, the top two primary system. Not only do we no longer have widespread, you can vote in person if you want. I remember I was out here almost five years ago talking to you on this very sidewalk in 2018, stretched down this sidewalk. The entire line was filled with people because in 2020 with COVID, we started to move to an all mail-in ballot, at least publicly.

permanent mail-in ballot. Everyone gets one if they want to use one. Everybody's doing sort of a different thing. We have drive-through voting. And I just want to give a very special shout-out to our election workers because we love our election workers. Tell me your name again. Hi, Sandra. Sandra. Sandra, you said you're a social worker when you're not doing this? Yes. So have you been meeting a lot of interesting people as they've been coming through on the drive-through vote tonight? Yes. What are they telling you? They're happy to be coming out here? Oh, very happy.

appreciative of our service and the availability for them to drive up to the ballot box. Let me tell you something, we're appreciative of you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for doing this. Rachel, as we wait to see if another car comes through, I want to tell you about what is so interesting about this, particularly about the Senate race here in Orange County. Not only is the

presidential race going to be potentially decided, you know, in this building, the fifth largest election jurisdiction in the country for California, because there are so many Republicans here, but also the Senate contest and also those House races that you mentioned. And the Senate race is so interesting in California because of the top two system. You have seen Adam Schiff spend

an incredible amount of money to essentially prop up and this is both an allegation from katie porter who is running against but also he admits this strategy he's spending a bunch of money to prop up steve garvey as his republican opponent because he'd rather face a republican in the general election in california then face a fellow democrat katie porter

whatever happens in this race, all of these members of Congress, Barbara Lee included, running for office are going to be vacating their seats because they're running for this Senate seat. And so you're going to have a situation where the House of Representatives could very well be up in the air because someone like a Katie Porter, who in 2018 was part of those Democrats that flipped the House by running and winning in this county,

at this election jurisdiction will very well may no longer be in Congress if she doesn't end up in the top two come the end of the night tonight. So we have one hour, one minute and 40 seconds left here for cars to keep coming, for people to keep voting, and ultimately we'll see what happens. But if and when it does, it's going to happen right here in Orange County.

Can I just ask you two, we've been talking about the jungle primary system and this sort of, I mean, it's not California didn't invent it. It happens in some other places. But the idea is it doesn't matter what party you are. If you finish as one of the top two people in the primary, you move on to the general election.

California hasn't been doing this for very long. It's having profound consequences in terms of the contours of the race, spending, the politics, the strategy of the race, as we're seeing, especially in this dramatic Senate race to replace Dianne Feinstein. Is it controversial in the state? It has been a radical change in the way people vote and the way politics are conducted. How do Californians feel, even just anecdotally, that you're experiencing about this change in the way they conduct their politics now?

confused, Rachel, because I think a lot of people are thinking about, do they need to vote strategically? If you were going to vote for Barbara Lee, for instance, who trails in the polls behind Katie Porter, should you vote for Katie Porter instead so that potentially she has a shot of facing, uh, Adam Schiff in this top two, in this top two primary, what do we call the jungle? What people call the jungle primary, uh, out here. And, and Katie Porter herself has called the campaign that Adam Schiff has been running brazenly cynical. It's not something that you would expect to hear from two colleagues, uh,

on the democratic side of the house of representatives, but it has gotten really acrimonious because of the way that you have to compete with one another. As you said, it's not new when Gavin Newsom ran back at all the way in 20, uh, it was a 2018. He, I'm sure the internet will correct me if I'm wrong, but he ran a similar strategy. He spent a lot of money propping up John Cox, the gentleman who ended up running against him, uh,

in the finals of that election over the familiar Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, who many people thought was going to be a shoo-in to face Gavin Newsom in that gubernatorial runoff election. So, you know, I do think that there will be an accounting after this election as to whether it is the most effective way for Democrats to have their voice heard, to have a healthy debate of ideas. It's a very, as you said, it's a very important Senate seat. The idea that a Republican in a state that has a two-to-one Democratic majority could end up in a runoff election in the top

to system is not something I think a lot of people want to see as a possibility here in California, but that is the possibility we're faced with tonight. Yeah, it's high risk, high reward strategy for Adam Schiff and his campaign to be pursuing that. Jacob Soboroff, I know we will be checking back in with you. Thank you, my friend. It's great to have you there.

I'm worried that you're going to I'm sort of worried that Jacob is going to like kind of commandeer a car that came by. You know what I'm saying? Like while we wait to see if another car comes, Jacob, I'm sorry. They just put you back. Were you going to actually come in like like stick your arms in the window of a car if one came by? Well, let's go. Come on. Come on. Let's just do it. Is this your first time doing drive through voting?

Not your first time? No. Rachel Maddow's worried I'm going to commandeer your car. I promise I'm not. What's your name? Debbie. Do you want to say what brought you out tonight? To vote, of course. For whom, Debbie? Donald. Really? Okay, Rachel, there's not enough time to have this conversation. Debbie, I'm going to let you go. If I need a ride, though, I might call you for a ride home later. Okay, thanks, Debbie. Take care. You never know what you're going to get at the drive-thru vote.

If Jacob Silverhoff is there while people are driving by voting, we know exactly what we're going to get, which is exactly what you just proved. Thank you very much, Jacob. But she even gave him Donald. Donald. She was so proud of him. She might have met a different Donald. What do we know? He's in a swing district that was exactly a 50% chance of getting that answer. Not fair.

In a particular district. But in other places, you wouldn't get an answer. Because it was Jacob Sovoroff that we knew we would get an answer. Honestly, if any of us were out there doing that stand-up right now, us stopping that car, it would have been the start of a crime. The car wouldn't have stopped. The car wouldn't have stopped. There would have been an altercation. But Jacob just somehow charms people into being like, oh, yeah.

Hop in. You want to come meet my mom? There's no difference in his life on camera or off. I've seen him on the streets of Los Angeles without a camera, just going to restaurants. It's the same guy. Same guy, same behavior. Sometimes he walks backwards, sometimes sideways. He wears socks and sandals on and off TV. Can we go back to the Adam show? In just one second, we have a call to make. The decision desk is summoning us to the great state of Utah.

The Democrats held a primary in Utah tonight, and the decision desk can project, NBC News can project that Democrat Joe Biden, sorry, that it is too early to call in the Utah Democratic primary. I apologize. That is my mistake. But we do also have another call from a different state in Texas. This is in the

Excuse me. I'm sorry. I've made two mistakes in one minute. I need to drink some water and calm down. This is the Democratic U.S. Senate primary in Texas. NBC News can project that the winner of the Democratic U.S. Senate primary

primary in Texas will be Colin Allred, who was favored here. Um, he's a Republican Congressman. He turfed out a Republican incumbent to get into Congress in the first place. He's a moderate, he's a very effective campaigner. He's a very good fundraiser. Um, and he is Ted Cruz's worst nightmare in terms of Ted Cruz holding onto his seat in Texas. Um, we now have, there you go. Uh,

In Utah, a projected winner in the Democratic contest, President Joe Biden is the projected winner there. I will say, I apologize for a little bit of confusion there. Part of my confusion is that in Utah, they're running two totally different types of contests. The Democrats running a primary. We just saw President Biden projected as the winner of that. The Republicans are running a caucus in Utah tonight, and that does not close for an hour.

And so my notes to self on this remark are completely on this point are completely illegible. And I crossed my own wires and I'm sorry, but you were going to say something. Yeah, I wish people could listen to themselves when they talk about the Adam Schiff Senate campaign. So there's there's three prominent Democrat members.

members of the House of Representatives who all decide to run for Senate for Dianne Feinstein's seat. They all decide. And so that makes it a difficult decision. And there's a Republican who's not very prominent, but decides he's the most prominent Republican. So Adam Schiff and Katie Porter and Barbara Lee, they had a choice in campaigning. And there was this really convenient choice there, which is when you're up there campaigning, you can run against the Republican,

Or you can run against Katie Porter. Or you can run against Barbara Lee.

And Adam Schiff made the correct strategic choice that every Democrat should have made, run against the Republican. And because, let's just get it straight, it's not a high-risk gamble. It's impossible for a Republican to win statewide in California. It can not happen. So Adam Schiff or Katie Porter, whoever ends up, if they're in this race with Steve Garvey, they're going to win. There's no doubt about it.

The alternative, if people were to follow through what they're saying in this kind of accusatory way about the Schiff campaign, would be

A preference, apparently, for Adam Schiff to have spent the time attacking Katie Porter, Katie Porter attacking him and Barbara Lee, Barbara Lee attacking both of them, so that you could get two Democrats running for the same Senate seat in November in the most expensive state in the union, thereby creating the single most expensive Democratic campaign other than the presidency.

What we're likely to end up with here, according to the latest polls, is one Democrat running for Senate in California in an easy race. And he won't need much money in terms of the Garvey elevating Garvey, elevating the Republican there in terms of. Well, you know, I'm sorry. People always use the word elevating. They don't use the word attacking.

That's a choice. That's a conceptual choice in how we're describing what's going on. But with Steve Garvey having a campaign this big, how many people would have even known that he was running had Adam Schiff not run ads being like, behold, Steve Garvey, the Republican candidate. All of that is completely true. And yes, it did elevate him. But everything I said that I put right beside it is also true at exactly the same time. So people have to ask themselves, what you really wanted was,

was Barbara Lee and Katie Porter attacking each other and then them attacking Adam Schiff and Adam Schiff attacking all of them so that you could get two of them in literally what would be the most expensive Senate campaign in American history. I will say, I mean, I feel like the tragedy to the extent that there is one for the Democratic Party in that Republican, sorry, in that Senate primary in California, is that Barbara Lee and Katie Porter and Adam Schiff are all

extraordinarily effective members of Congress. Extraordinarily effective. I don't know a single California voter who had an easy choice. Not one. Anecdotally, every person. But the end result, the practical result of the Senate primary is that one of them is probably going to be a senator, but...

all three of them are going to be out of the House. To me, the great unfairness of it is California should have a minimum of six Senate seats. Lawrence just gave us right this argument. Don't elevate the person. Don't think of it as elevated. Think of it as attack.

Now, apply this to Donald Trump. All the criticisms of we don't want to hear about Donald Trump. Don't talk about him. That's why people have forgotten how he behaved when he was president. And if Joe Biden spent the next 255 days with his huge war chest of money that he's raised, simply reminding the American people of every ridiculous, offensive, terrible,

thing Donald Trump has done over the last six or seven years, many of those people who are sitting on the couch or not thinking about the election won't say, oh, Trump just got elevated. They'll say there was a reason to attack him and why we need to vote against him. I will say the most effective ads that I have seen against Donald Trump this year are

are the Nikki Haley closing argument ads. She's done sort of two of them now, which are about what it was like when he was president. And so she made this argument overtly to viewers during the, to viewers, to voters during the primary, you know, I was proud to serve as his UN ambassador and he was the right president at the time and everything. But what she's arguing now is remember what a

nightmare it was for him to be the president of the United States. And just cutting together news clips and clips of him at the White House and reminding people what it felt like. And by the way, the Democrats are facing a very tough election cycle of the three. This is one of the tougher ones. And now they're going to have to fight for a Senate seat in Maryland because the former governor is running. They're going to have to elevate the hell out of

him to make sure people don't take a chance on reelecting a fairly moderate former governor and give up a Senate seat there. So I think the point that Lawrence makes is really important. They have to decide where they're going to spend their money. And because the California race then is a fait accompli, they can direct

that money, they've got to try to save that Senate majority. Because if, for whatever reason, Donald Trump does win, the Democrats' only way to constrain him is to not have him have full control of the government, not have a House and a Senate majority. And so Democrats really

need to save their Senate majority. They did give up three winnable races when you do Wisconsin. Maybe Florida wasn't so winnable and North Carolina. They can't make any mistakes this time. Yeah. And Rachel, you asked about the behavioral effect on California voters. Here's my anecdotal over the last, I don't know, 10 days or so. People sending in their mail-in ballots, making their final decisions. All sorts of people calling me up saying, how should I vote? So here's what they were doing. The latest poll showed Adam Schiff as number one.

And it showed Steve Garvey as number two in the polls. And it showed Katie Porter as number three. So people who couldn't decide, who just was a coin toss for them between Katie Porter and Adam Schiff, a lot of them were voting for Katie Porter in the hope that she would come in second so they could delay their choice to November between Adam Schiff and Katie Porter. The whole idea of the jungle primary. Well, yeah. In other words, it turns the voter into a politician. Yeah. Let's go.

to our friend Steve Kornacki. One of the races that has been percolating on the back burner all night is a Republican presidential contest in Vermont where we still don't have a call. It's still too close to call, right, Steve? It is. It is. I mean, look, in the grand scheme of things, Donald Trump tonight has added 439 delegates to his total. Nikki Haley's added three.

In the grand scheme of things, a very lopsided night, but not, as you say, in Vermont, because look at this. Nearly 90 percent of the vote is in Vermont. And we've been talking all night about how that Burlington, Vermont area, Burlington, the largest city and South Burlington there combined. That's the sort of the biggest area vote wise in the state here. We got South Burlington just a few minutes ago. And this this is big in Vermont terms. Haley wins South Burlington.

South Burlington by a better than two to one margin over Trump. Nets, you can see here, nets 854 votes, 854 votes in the scheme of this elections quite a bit right now. And Haley has now jumped ahead of Donald Trump. She leads him by two points statewide. And again, that is without

the city of Burlington reporting. And I think you can expect the city of Burlington is going to look just like South Burlington, both in terms of the number of votes there and the way it breaks in Haley's favor. So you can expect this lead to be padded for Nikki Haley. And also we don't have anything yet. Oh boy, I messed that up badly, but we don't have anything yet. There we go. From Montpelier, another place I think you can expect Haley to be getting the lion's share of the vote. And again, in Vermont terms, padding that margin. So I

Honestly, this is the kind of situation right now in Vermont. You would rather be you'd rather be Trump nationally. But in Vermont right now, you'd rather be Nikki Haley than Donald Trump. And one question to keep in mind as these final votes do come in here. There are 17 delegates at stake in Vermont. And if Nikki Haley wins this state with 50.1 percent of the vote.

she'd get all 17. If she wins this state with 49.9, she has to split them. And it would probably be nine to eight for Haley with the delegates. So again, you got to hit that 50% threshold to take them all. There are other names in the ballot attracting a scattering of support here. And that could be the final variable here as Haley has taken the lead and you can see a path for her to expand this lead. I think that's becoming the question here. Will she expand it to an

outright majority in Vermont. And again, overall, we're looking at 86 percent of the vote in now, Steve. And we don't necessarily know when we're going to get more. We don't know enough about how they're going to report. But we'll just keep checking back in with you. All right. Lawrence, over to you. Joining us now is Mitchell Andrews, national co-chair for the Biden-Harris 2024 presidential campaign, former senior advisor to the president, former mayor of New Orleans. Does the presidential campaign in reality between these two eventual nominees really start tomorrow?

Well, I think it started a long time ago. You know, we've been saying this is going to happen. Folks just kept thinking that it wasn't. But it's been clear to me and many other people that this race was going to be between the future and the past, between two candidates that are men that are very different from each other. Their visions of the country are very different from each other. And as you guys were talking about early, reminding people what the country was like when Donald Trump ran it.

I just want to remind people that 17 of his cabinet members quit and are now advising people to please never vote for Donald Trump again. And what you saw in the last couple of weeks and then tonight is Donald Trump basically eviscerating the Republican Party, as we know it, the party of Reagan, the party of Bush, the party of Cheney, Nikki Haley, all.

Mitt Romney down the line. All of these folks have been warning us about the chaos that Donald Trump caused. And then you can compare him to President Biden, who, as you know, wakes up every day fighting hard for the American people. Trump fights for himself.

The president brings people together. Trump splits people apart. And what he's promised us, President Trump, is that he's going to do more of what he did before and that revenge is going to be, you know, his method of going forward. So I think it's going to be really a clear choice. And I think that people are going to pick going forward rather than going backwards.

David Plouffe, as you know, a successful presidential campaign manager, was with us earlier in the evening. And he was saying that President Biden has got to pick up some of these disaffected Republican voters who are currently voting for Nikki Haley, who are

will be available to to get in November. It won't be all of them, but some of them will be available. You live among those voters in Louisiana, like Nikki Haley, a southerner. You know how you know how to talk to them. What what is your coaching for President Biden on how to reach that voter?

Well, I would I would never presume to coach President Biden about anything. He's the president of the United States and he's the only guy that we know standing does ever beat Donald Trump and he's going to beat him again. So having said that, let me let me say this. I think what you're seeing in all of these primaries is that Donald Trump's got a real problem and he's got a real problem in places where presidential elections are actually won and lost. And one of the reasons is because he's taken the Republican Party as we knew it and turned it into extreme MAGA party.

that basically oppresses people. And there's nothing more evident in this than him basically putting three justices on the Supreme Court that reversed Roe versus Wade and took away the reproductive rights of women in America. And as a consequence, you see things like completely abandoning the rights to have in vitro fertilization. I think people are going to turn away from that extremism, and I think they're going to vote for Joe Biden in the future.

Mitch Landrieu, New Orleans former mayor, joining us from America's favorite city. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you, Lawrence. Amen to that. We are keeping an eye right now on Trump campaign headquarters, where I believe we are expecting remarks. Remarks have just started for former President Donald Trump. Let's let's let's listen in. Nobody thought a thing like this would be possible. We wouldn't have Russia here.

attack in Ukraine. We wouldn't have Israel being attacked. Iran, as you know, was broke when I was running things. They were broke. They didn't have money for Hamas. They didn't have money for Hezbollah. We had no inflation. Inflation is destroying the middle class. It's destroying everything. Inflation, if you look back over the history hundreds of years back, it's called inflation. It's called a country buster.

And that's what it's doing to our country. What's happened with inflation has been unbelievable. A lot of people say, a lot of experts have said the stock market's the only thing that's doing well, and that's doing well because our poll numbers are so much higher than Joe Biden's. He's the worst president in the history of our country. There's never been anything like what's happening to our country. Today it was announced that

325,000 people were flown in from parts unknown. Migrants were flown in, airplane, not going through borders, not going through that great Texas barrier that I was with the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, the other day, and we were looking at the job they're doing. But in the meantime, they're pouring into California and they're pouring into Arizona.

because those governors aren't doing anything, they're doing nothing. But today it was just announced before I came out, it was unbelievable. I said, "That must be a mistake." They flew 325,000 migrants, flew them in over the borders and into our country. So that really tells you where they're coming from. They want open borders, and open borders are going to destroy our country. We need borders and we need free and fair elections, or we don't have a country.

This is an incredible group of people. So many celebrities that I'm not going to introduce any because I'm just going to get myself in trouble if I do that, because I'll leave out most of you. But we have, this is a room chock full of incredible, talented people, like some of the guys standing right in front of me, right? Big, big futures, big, fat, beautiful futures. Oh, I'd love to be your age. I'd pay you a lot of money to be your age.

But we have some tremendously talented people in this room, including tremendously talented political people that have helped me right from the beginning. We had the safest border in the history of our country. We built 571 miles of wall. We had Mexico supply us with 28,000 soldiers because we wanted them, that's why. And they said, "We won't do that." I said, "Yes, you will. You will." And in the end, they did.

It was an easy negotiation, but we had the safest border, the best numbers we've ever had, and now we have the worst numbers probably in the history of the world. It's sad to see what's happening to our cities. Our cities are being overrun with migrant crime, and that's Biden migrant crime, but it's a new category of crime, and it's violent, where they'll stand in the middle of a street and have fistfights with police officers, and if they did that in their countries from where they came...

They'd be killed instantly, instantly. They wouldn't do that. So the world is laughing at us. The world is taking advantage of us. Three years ago, we were at a level where energy independent. We're going to be very shortly energy dominant. And today we're getting oil from Venezuela. Can you believe it? And we're doing numbers on that oil. You know what we're doing? We're refining the oil.

We have our refinery for that oil. It's really, I call it tar. It's not oil. It's terrible. We have real stuff, but we're refining it in Houston. So for all of the environmentalists, you ought to look at that because all of that tar is going right up into the atmosphere. You just ought to take a look. It's the only plant that can do it. We have the only plants that can take tar and make it into oil, and that's what it is.

It's a shame. But we were energy independent. We were going to be energy dominant. We were going to be supplying oil to Europe all over the world. And then a tragic thing happened during the election. It was a tragedy because you wouldn't have think of it. All of the problems that you have today, I don't think you would have had any of them. You'd only have success. And that's what's ultimately going to unify this country and unify this party. We have a great Republican Party with tremendous talent.

And we want to have unity, and we're going to have unity. And it's going to happen very quickly. And I have been saying lately, success will bring unity to our country. And it happened before we had...

the best economy our country's ever had. And people were calling me that I would have said will never happen. It'll never happen. They wanted to get together African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic-American, women, men, people with diplomas from the best schools in the world and people that didn't graduate from high school. Every single group was doing better than ever before. And it was a beautiful thing. Our country was coming together.

Our country was coming together. And now we have a very divided country. We have a country that a political person uses weaponization against his political opponent. Never happened here. It happens in other countries, but they're third world countries. And in some ways, we're a third world country. We're a third world country at our borders and we're a third world country at our elections. And we have to stop that.

We need a fair and free press. The press has not been fair, nor has it been free, but maybe someday they will be. They're being beaten up pretty badly. People aren't trusting them. They're not believing them. And really, it's a very important factor. The press used to be the policeman. It used to police our country. Now nobody has confidence in them, and we have to get that confidence back. It's so important for the success of our country. So important. Thank you.

So this has been a day that we've been waiting for. I want to thank my family for being here. It's a great family. I have a great family. They've had it very easy since I decided to run for politics. They say, thanks a lot, Dad. We appreciate it. But they're strong and they're very capable people and they love the country. They really do love the country and we appreciate it. And I want to thank everybody, my staff,

Susie, Chris, incredible job. Incredible job you did. I read an article yesterday where it said this is one of the finest run campaigns that anybody has ever seen. That's pretty good, right? That's pretty good. Really a statement. And we have no choice. Yeah, okay. You know, it is...

Okay. I will say that it is a decision that we revisit constantly in terms of the balance between allowing somebody to knowingly lie on your air about things they've lied about before and you can predict they are going to lie about. And so therefore it is just, it's irresponsible to allow them to do that. It's a balance between knowing that that's irresponsible to broadcast and

and also knowing that as the de facto, soon to be de facto nominee of the Republican Party, this is not only the man who is likely to be the Republican candidate for president, but this is the way he's running. Well, here's how we balance it. Why don't we fact check the hell out of him? Yes. And we do that after the fact. And that is the best remedy that we've got. It does not fit

the fact that we broadcast it. But it's stunning that he's saying these things and people are hearing it. Let's just go through it, right? That we have the most devastating economy. Are you kidding me? We have had the best economic recovery of any country in the developed world. He's telling an audience right there, oh my goodness, that the paltry oil production, we're producing more oil today than we ever have in the history of our country. Think about the American Rescue Plan, the infrastructure plan. We have created more jobs, 3.3%.

million more jobs than we had pre-pandemic. The problem that we do have is inflation. And so what Donald Trump does is prey upon the fact that people don't necessarily feel good and life's expensive. But when it comes to facts, here's something that's absolutely nonsensical and infuriating. When people's wages go up, they credit themselves. They say, I'm good at my job. I just got a raise. But when everything costs more, they blame the government. And wages are

up, which is a huge positive. And one of the reasons wage one of those reasons wages are up is all the union wins in the last two years. And remember, President Biden has stood with those unions, the most pro-union president in American history for numbers. I just was literally Googling and I just I just pulled up these four numbers. This is the gross domestic product in the country. In 2019, it was plus two point three percent.

In 2020, it was negative 2.8 percent. That is the election year. That is the reason Donald Trump didn't get reelected. That was part of it. But 2021, it was 5.9. And I was just going to say that. I was just going to say that. And 1.9 in 2022. Those four numbers, 2.3, negative 2.8, 5.9 and 1.9. There's one factor in all four of those. And Lawrence just said it.

Donald Trump had one job. He had one crisis. He's saying, oh, all of these things were perfect. You had one crisis, bro. It was called the pandemic. And you know what you did? You bollocks did completely. You did so poorly at managing your soul crisis. The one hard thing you do. The reason he doesn't look old like Biden looks older. The presidency ages you when you do the job. Obama went gray because he was doing the work.

Donald Trump looks the same as when he ran because he was playing golf the whole time. His one job was to manage. You think that hair color is natural? That's true. But the reality is he had one job, manage this crisis. And he messed it up so badly that they had to do the stimmy. People love the stimmy. Why did he have to do the stimmy? Because a million bodies are in the ground. It was because of how poorly he managed an aircraft.

It was the Democratic plan to pull forward the stimulus check. If you want to thank anyone in this country for it, Nancy Pelosi. And they got a few Democrats to sign, excuse me, Republicans to sign on. But Donald Trump was clever enough as the branding man to put his name on it. But why did they have to have a stimmy? I mean, we have to keep going back to it because I do hear this a lot, particularly among this attempt to sort of pretend you're going to get black voters, is they run the stimmy game.

But you have to ask the question Plies ask. We don't have Ari on the stage, so I'm going to play the part of Ari. Let's ask the question that hip hop artist Plies asked. Why did you have to have a stimmy man? Because you messed up the pandemic so badly that the economy crashed.

It cratered. It went into negative GDP. People were literally unable to work, unable to earn money, unable to literally survive economically. People were going to literally lose their homes, their apartments.

Apartments, everything. You had everyone locked in the house. And the only thing that you could do was do massive government spending, which is a democratic thing. Which is one of the reasons we're dealing with inflation. Yes. Which is sort of a necessary evil that got us out of the devastation that we're in. But one of the reasons the stock market is doing so well, not Donald Trump, because traders think you're going to win.

is because we didn't have a hard landing. We didn't have a crash. That's right. We had the best post-COVID economic recovery of any major country in the world. 5.9% GED in 2021. That's Biden. There is a tactical approach that television news could try here because we know what's coming.

You could give him half the screen and you could rewrite, you could pre-write this scroll that you could just keep rolling by. Well, yeah. That says America is producing more oil than any other country on Earth and the most in history. That the, you know, the economy is stronger than it has ever been. It is bigger than it has ever been. The stock market is at an all time high. You know, you could just. Mar-a-Lago isn't a room full of celebrities right now. Right.

You can just plug in those things and run them, you know, because, you know, he's going to say all this stuff repeatedly and just put it there right beside him on the screen while he's saying it, because they are the same lies over and over again. Cities are overrun with crime. Crime is down. You know, put they put in the FBI. Violent crime is at a 50 year low. Unemployment is at a 50 year low. You just plug them in and just roll a speech and just let those things cycle by while he's talking. It's more.

More than just Crime is Down. I mean, last week NBC News came out with a study that said in the cities that have received the most migrants. Yes.

Crime is down. The DOJ has a report in the cities that have received the most migrants. There is no homicide rates, robbery. There's no there there. Migrant Biden, migrant crime is going to be that's his new line. And let's not forget the xenophobia inherent in all this, the racism that's inherent in all this. Not only is it incumbent upon the news media to correct the record.

It is also incumbent upon the Biden administration because thus far they have really sort of played footsie with this narrative that the I mean, there is a problem with our immigration system. It, of course, needs to be fixed. Immigrants are also central to the American economy.

And they are not, you know, they are not single handedly the cause of fentanyl coming over the border. They are not all criminals. They are not laying waste to the American project. And it is incumbent upon all of us who care about the truth on Earth one.

to push back and correct the record on a group of people that has been maligned in spectacular fashion. And by the way, if you want to do another chart of when you saw the spike in border crossings, because it was down to record numbers under George W. Bush and President Obama, it spiked again because of COVID. COVID is the spike again. You just look at the chart. All

All of these crises that Donald Trump inherited a strong, growing economy and managed to ruin it by

by ruining, by messing up his one crisis, which was COVID, which is why the border went crazy. It's why inflation went crazy. All of those crises Joe Biden has had to fix. Joe Biden's job creation rate is second only to Bill Clinton. He's not only done, you know, fixed it. He's actually been more successful as a domestic policy president than any modern president. All of

All of the things Donald Trump is trying to take credit for on the campaign trail are Biden things. And Biden needs to run out there and take credit for it. Well, the president, the president has done a little bit of that while we have been talking. We just got a statement from President Biden on the Super Tuesday election results. May I read it to you? Please. Tonight's results leave the American people with a clear choice. Are we going to keep moving forward or will we allow Donald Trump to drag us backwards into the chaos, division and darkness that defined his term in office?

Four years ago, I ran because of the existential threat Donald Trump posed to the America we all believe in. Since then, we've made enormous progress. Fifteen million jobs, wages rising faster than inflation, taking on big pharma and the gun lobby, and winning. But we have more to do. If Donald Trump returns to the White House, all of this progress is at risk. He's driven by grievance and grift. Folks,

focused on his own revenge and retribution, not the American people. He's determined to destroy our democracy, rip away fundamental freedoms like the ability for women to make their own health care decisions and pass another round of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy. And he'll do or say anything to put himself in power.

Today, millions of voters across the country made their voices heard, showing that they are ready to fight back against Donald Trump's extreme plan to take us backwards. My message to the country is this: Every generation of Americans will face a moment when it has to defend democracy. Stand up for our personal freedom. Stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights. To every Democrat, Republican, and Independent who believes in a free and fair America,

This is our moment. This is our fight. Together we will win. Statement from President Biden tonight on the Super Tuesday election results, making some of the case that y'all were just saying that he needed to be making, 15 million jobs, wages rising faster than inflation, taking on big pharma, taking on the gun lobby and winning.

does the president have to tell people every single thing he's done economically? Can I just give a couple examples? If I had my student loans forgiven, I would know that. I'd be happy about it, right? If junk fees are no longer an issue for me, that's great news. Just today, you know, it hasn't been enacted, but the White House announced that they're going to cap credit card fees. These are things that impact people every day of the week. And it is stunning to me how many still

don't credit the administration for it. When your drug prices just got renegotiated and that has not happened in decades. Joe Biden was trying to do that when he was in the Senate 20 years ago. So yes, we like everybody else rightfully say, man, this White House has to get their messaging down. But the American people all

also have to realize, holy cow, look at all these great things that have just happened for me. Did they think that happened out of thin air? Right. Yeah. Yes, they do. That's the problem. For example, when those credit card bank feet, when that kicks in, no one's going to look. I mean, the people who need to look at that statement and go,

oh, Joe Biden did that. They're not going to have any idea who did that. They won't know. No, they don't have government work. I mean, we have a crisis of civics in this country. People actually don't know how these things change. And there is a sort of there's a systematic problem that politics, we talked about this before, is broken because the connection between politics and the things that happen in my life has been severed. People think when things go wrong, they look at

the quarterback on the team, you know, like they do in football, right? When the team wins, the quarterback gets the credit. And when they lose, the quarterback gets the blame. So the things that hurt them, the things that make it harder to afford your life, they blame Biden. But the things that help, they think, as you said, I did great at my job. I did this. I created. I got a raise. But there isn't a connection between

the way that the government actually functions, which is what Democrats are good at, and the way you feel, which is what Republicans are good at. Yeah. And that's, I mean, the Democratic message for Joe Biden is as simple as it is positive, right? It's the best jobs market since the 1960s. Markets are at record highs. Inflation doing better than ever.

other major country in the world is dealing with inflation. COVID recovery better than every other major country in the world dealing with a COVID recovery. Drug prices, progress. Wages, progress. Most people with health insurance in this country we have ever had. It's

It's simple. There are prices, progress, oil production, oil. Exactly. I mean, they're just there aren't very many things that you can talk about in terms of the economic measurements that mean things to people on which Biden doesn't have bragging rights. The question is how the volume of their bragging is set and whether people are willing to listen to the White House and listen to Democrats and listen to the campaign when they say, hey, everything that's getting better is getting better in part because of Joe Biden policies that were designed to make it better.

That lesson, that disconnect that you're talking about in terms of our politics being disconnected from our feelings about how the country is going, that's a democratic project to fix it. And I firmly believe, I keep saying this, and I think I'm boring people with it, but I firmly believe the message is practical, popular policies. We want to do normal stuff.

And they are talking about literally Donald Trump is hosting Hungarian dictator Viktor Orban at Mar-a-Lago on Friday. And they're talking about building camps for millions of people. Right. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that they're talking about doing. Building camps for millions of people. Oh, and invading Mexico. Oh, and invading Mexico.

Oh, and putting the U.S. Army with live ammunition in the streets of the United States to shoot American citizens. And they can do that, Rachel, because their voters don't vote on the economy. I mean, I think we just have to accept. Everybody keeps telling us that they do. Well, their voters don't. That's economic dislocation that explains the Trump vote. The people who are the most economically sensitive are younger people. Older people have savings. They've got a house that's got

equity. They've got money. The people who vote for Donald Trump aren't the poor. They're people who have money. Whether they have a college degree or not, they're fine economically. The economically sensitive people are young people who can't pay their rent. They're young people who can't pay their student loans. That's called a Democrat. Young people are more often people of color. They're more economically sensitive, and they also have super high expectations. These young people, their first president, a lot of them, was Obama.

So they expect a lot. They have high expectations to love and like the president. And they also are super sensitive economically. When things go a little wrong, it goes really wrong for them. So Biden has to speak to people who do vote economically. Trump can just speak to people who are feelings people. And all they care about is how they feel. Do vote Republican because they know that their taxes aren't going to go up. They know that President Biden did not chit chat with the CEO community. Right. And he walked the picket.

line with the UAW. And even though Donald Trump speaks at his rallies to the masses, remember he walks into Mar-a-Lago and says look at the sub market. Your taxes are going to go down. So you have to remember that. Think about Mitch McConnell today was just complimenting

Kyrsten Sinema, of all people, because what did she do? Protected carried interest. And that really wealthy class sits there worried. What could Joe? But I don't have Joe Biden in my pocket in a way that they would like. Democrats are a risk for them economically. Kyrsten Sinema, we haven't talked about her tonight. She's not running for reelection. It is amazing to become to all that effort and all the people, all the man hours it took from all the different people to become the

first Arizona senator in a generation to get in there so that you could do the carry interest loophole and block efforts to make prescription drugs cheaper and to make sure the minimum wage didn't go up. I mean, that's what her legacy is in the Senate. And Republicans are like, wow, that was really our kind of Democrat. It's a real shame to lose Kyrsten Sinema. It

It's just all it did was make the math bad for a long time in terms of trying to count votes on anything. But, yeah, Kyrsten Sinema is out. She's likely to be replaced by a Democrat who votes like a Democrat in the Arizona Senate. We should go over to Steve Karnacki because looking over his shoulder, it appears that something is happening in Vermont. Right.

Yeah, we're up to 87 percent here. But we've been talking all night in this Vermont race about when the city of Burlington, the biggest in Vermont, would report. Burlington has come in as expected here. It's about a thousand vote margin, just shy of that for Haley, a margin of about 43 points there for her. So between Burlington and South Burlington, by Vermont standards, Haley just netted a lot of votes, enough now to expand that lead statewide north of twenty five hundred votes that excites.

accounts for a quest to more than four percentage points, 4.1. This is Vermont, as we keep saying, small towns. I'm going to show you just a couple of small towns here, at least one where we are waiting for results that should be very favorable to Nikki Haley. Woodstock, Vermont. If you've ever been there, a bit of a destination town demographics that are favorable to Nikki Haley. You got Plymouth, you got old Calvin Coolidge's hometown. We're still waiting on as well. But overall,

Well, again, Haley now putting some distance between herself and Trump. And I've been saying, you know, not only would you rather be Haley than Trump in Vermont with these kinds of numbers and what's left to come and what we see on the map here. But I think the suspense now is coming down to in Vermont, these 17 delegates, because Haley to get all 17 has to finish off.

above 50.0%. You need an outright majority to get all of them. Right now, that would be just enough for her to get all 17. If she were to keep that and go even higher, she gets them all. If she were to win but fall to, let's say, 49.9%, suddenly she has to split that delegate pool. So for Haley, it's looking like a question right now. We'll see. Trump could stage a late rally here. But I think the most likely scenario for Haley is a question of, is she going to go 17-0?

or is she going to go 9-8 in the delegate count? But again, to put that in some perspective, overall, that Vermont delegate math is going to go into this national delegate math. And you can see here in the grand scheme of things, what she's really looking for tonight, Haley, I think, is just she wants to be able, I think, at this point, to be able to say she got at least one state. And that state that she could get is Vermont.

So, you know how, Alex, you were saying earlier that you wouldn't have expected that like the cliffhanger tonight, we're going to be checking in on over and over and over again. I'm going to beat that. I have something more. Mariana. I know it is not the Mariana Islands, but good guess. All right. So do you remember in 2020, we had a big, big, very...

vital Democratic presidential primary. Yeah. You might remember that a man named Joe Biden ended up winning. But there was, you know, there was a lot of people. There was some Elizabeth Warren. There was some Kamala Harris. There was Michael Bloomberg. So in 2020, when American Samoa held its Democratic caucus, who won? Mike Bloomberg. Mike Bloomberg won the American Samoa Democratic caucus. Who came in second?

We'll see Gabbard. So American Samoa has obviously been a bellwether for Democratic politics for a long time now. In recent days, if you had been following political news in American Samoa, you would have noted that there was a Democrat campaigning heavily for the American Samoa caucus results in recent days, campaigning heavily. He's a person named Jason Palmer.

You know, Jason. Jason Palmer is a venture capitalist. JP? He was on the ballot in New Hampshire. He got 130 votes. He was on the ballot in Nevada. He got 512 votes. And tonight, NBC News can now project that the winner. No. Yeah, there he is. Wow. The winner of the Democratic presidential contest in American Samoa is that person.

Wow. Jason Palmer. The total number of votes cast, do the math right now. You guys can do it. Total number of votes cast in the American Small Caucus, 91. Wow. Wow.

Is it just because he wanted to campaign in American Samoa? 40 of them went to Joe Biden. 51 of them went to Jason Palmer. And that's enough. He wins the American Samoa. I think we could guess. Mike Bloomberg won American Samoa. What does Mike Bloomberg have? A whole heck of a lot of money. A venture capitalist runs there. What does he likely have? A whole bunch of money. And you know, some

billionaires and even fake billionaires get fake Time Magazine covers made with themselves to put up like in guilt frames on the walls of their golf houses. You can get that in amusement parks. You have maybe as much of an argument for staying in this race as Nikki Haley. I'm sorry. Is that too low of a blow? The Vermont

thing, Washington, D.C. and Vermont, they're not American Samoa, right? But the big sort of question is what next, Nikki Haley, right? Nikki Haley is staying in the race to keep Republican arguments against Donald Trump alive. And because what else has she got to do?

I mean, that's a very practical point. Because she has the money. Why leave? She has the money. The question beyond like where are Nikki Haley voters going to go? It's where are Nikki Haley donors going to go? Because she has huge ones.

And from my reporting, nowhere. They're happy to give her money because she's sort of this great hope for them of kind of getting back to this George Bush Republican. But when she's out, so are they. And they will begrudgingly vote for they will begrudgingly

vote for Joe Biden, but they're not going to give him a big check or they'll secretly and not admit it, vote for Donald Trump. But you're not going to see them writing big checks because they're writing that no labels type of check for Nikki Haley, thinking there's a chance. Does Biden have an in with them, though? Could Biden make a play for that money?

For the money, not so much. For the votes, yes. I mean, I think I said it when we were talking to South Carolina. It was a Fortune 500 CEO said to me because they were kind of arguing, Joe Biden's not pro-business. And I said, what are you talking about? But he said, you can judge him by his agenda. And he does not spend a lot of time with the CEO set. And he doesn't have to follow what they're. It's an ego squad. I'm not defending it, but that's how they roll.

with me. I'm not saying they're right, but I'm saying it's how they feel. And so he could get their support in terms of their votes. But if you think about where their checks are going, they're likely going to go to down ballot races because they ridiculously love gridlock. They don't want one party to control things. And they want to either help moderate Republicans hold their seat that are facing far right challengers, or they maybe want to just make sure we get this do nothing gridlock status quo.

I wonder, I think the most important choreography of this election cycle is potentially the exit choreography, Nikki Haley, and what she does, if anything, to throw her supporters over to the Biden. What is the what is the overt? You keep asking the why is she still in? Why is she still in? Why is she? Why should she leave? You know, I'm I think the harshest critic of Nikki Haley's criticism of Donald Trump just because he is a poison.

to the Republican Party. He is destroying the party from within. And to eradicate the poison. And I think her wording, her criticism has gotten sharper in like the closing hours of her campaign. But is she really attacking the problem in the way that it needs to be attacked? Because just sort of like

you know, saying chaos follows him rightly or wrongly. Is that is that the long term strategy to to to stop the cancer? I'm not sure. I mean, if her bid is 2028 and the ashes of the Republican Party rebuilding it, I mean, Trumpism has a long tail.

And if this is the best shot at, you know, ending its reign of terror, I'm not that convinced that it's going to work. But once she gets out, there's not going to be any voice in the Republican Party criticizing him at all. She's also doing very well. She said when she, after Mississippi,

After Michigan, she reminded people that Donald Trump has been campaigning in Michigan for eight years. She showed up a couple of times over a few months and got 20 plus percent of the vote. You don't leave the bar until you're out of money and can't afford drinks. She's still got money. We've got a call to make following the decision desk to the

The great state of Vermont, the Green Mountain State. There you go. There you got it. She's still at the bar. In the Republican presidential contest in the great state of Vermont, famous for all sorts of things, including really, really, really excellent beer. It is now also famous as the first state that has been won by Nikki Haley. In the 2024 Republican presidential nominating contest so far, it is the District of Columbia and the state of Vermont that

have been won by Nikki Haley. As you see there, at least right now, with 93% of the vote in, we'll check in on this with Steve, but she's over the 50% threshold, which means not only has she won the state, but she'll win every delegate in the state as well. Although I am speaking off the cuff there. I'm just talking about what I have learned from Steve Kornacki tonight is that seemed to be the case.

So, yeah, right now we don't know. You can see with that call, Nikki Haley is now projected by her decision desk to get at least nine delegates, at least nine delegates out of Vermont. Nine would be, you know, if this if she falls under 50, it's proportionally.

So if she falls under 50, this is a very even race and she would have the one extra delegate to Trump. It would be nine for Haley, eight for Trump. The other eight remain unassigned because if she does finish over 50, she'll get the additional eight and win this 17-0. So there's a question right now of whether Haley will win this state 17-0 in the delegate count or not.

or whether it will be nine to eight. And you can see now she has the last time we checked in, it was about 2,500 votes. It's expanded further. It's over 3,000 votes right now. And again, we're ticking our way into the mid nineties in terms of vote percentage in. And you know, you just don't see what we've seen here are some of the higher, and this is all I keep saying by Vermont standards, some of the higher population, the city of Burlington and some of the higher population towns that have come in in the last 20 minutes or so that are just very fluctuating.

favorable to Haley. And so when you see 3,000 votes statewide, it translates here into four and a half points. And that number is ticked up. It was 50.1 the last time we checked, 50.3. I think there's a decent chance here that she's built enough of a pad. And there are a couple of towns here I could point to that are remaining that could help her retain that 50.3 and maybe even build on it.

But there is a possibility with these remaining towns in Vermont as they come in. And we'll see if it's a really slow process to get them all counted out because it's a very diffuse process of getting the vote counted in Vermont. If Trump is able to perform well enough in some of them to tug that number for Haley down under the 50 percent mark, in which case it would be nine eight for the dust. He gets the win statewide.

And to the extent her campaign wanted to be able to win tonight, it's been clear for a while. Vermont was really their only shot. They will be able to say they got a win in Vermont. Will they get a sweep in the delegates? Will they split them? That remains to be seen. But you can see that in the context of tonight. That is subtle distinctions here in the color, but the dark

dark red is Haley's color. So that lights up in her color. All the other red from tonight's states that's come in has been Trump's shade of red. And this is now where the overall Republican delegate race stands. And by the way, if you just kind of play this out based on what's remaining delegate wise, Trump right now is on course to finish the night over a thousand delegates on the Republican side. And we just did the math. If you cumulatively add up

all of the votes that have been cast in Super Tuesday contests on the Republican side. Trump is getting, Haley is getting 25 percent of the vote collectively across all of these states. So it's a worthwhile metric because her campaign has really been leaning on this 40 percent idea. It's been the heart of her stump speech the last few weeks. There's 40 percent who won't vote for Trump in these primaries tonight. That number across all these states is 25 cumulatively. So let me just underscore that, Steve, 25 percent. If you add all

All the states that have voted thus far, the popular vote in all of those states, not looking at like the proportion of delegates or anything. You're saying of the number of people turning out in Republican primaries, she's getting in total a quarter of them. Yeah. All right. Thank you very much. We're going to take a quick break when we come back. We're going to have poll closings at the top of the hour. Lots still to come. But Nikki Haley has won a state tonight. She has won the state of Vermont. And what was that guy's name?

Jason Palmer has won the Democratic caucus in American Samoa. And that's news you can use. We'll be right back. Welcome back to our special coverage of Super Tuesday. I want to go right back right now to NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff, who is at the Orange County Registrar's Office in California. Last time we saw him, we were protecting him from carjacking allegations. But now he's back inside. Yes, Jacob.

Rich, I'm lucky enough to be joined by the Registrar, Bob Page. Mr. Page, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. So when the polls close in three minutes and 15 seconds, the first thing that's going to happen, this is the tabulation room, as everybody can see on the sign behind you, is you all are going to push a button and something's going to change on this screen. What are we going to see in real time when that happens? So we're going to run, the voting system will run a tabulation report so that we can, for every contest on the ballot, be able to report out what candidates got how many votes. So

So is that we're talking immediately. So this and those are unofficial results or those official results? It's unofficial until we certify the election in a few weeks. And just to clarify for the viewers at home and across the country, that could be up to what is a 28 days that the state gives California counties to certify the results of the election. So if it's close, particularly in the Senate race, we could be waiting a while.

Yeah, well, for the U.S. Senate race, obviously, you'll need to look at the Secretary of State's website for the results because they'll combine all the counties' results together. Our results will just be Orange County's. While I have you, I wanted to ask you, on the sign-in sheet when we walked in for security purposes, ahead of me on the sign-in sheet was a name of somebody and it said the Department of Homeland Security. I know you guys have task force, you have interagency sort of cooperation in terms of interference with the election to protect from that. Is there

any indication on a federal level or a state level there was any sort of interference or attempted interference in the election this time around? Nothing out of the ordinary. We'll typically monitor attempts for people around the world trying to access people's websites, but nothing, no serious threats or anything like that. Okay, I'm going to let you get back to your job because you have one minute and...

50 seconds, I think, before the polls close. You go back in the tabulation room. Thank you. And we'll check in with you in just a little bit. Rachel, that is the man of the hour, Bob Page, the registrar here in Orange County, California. There's a lot more to show you, but I'll let the polls close and we'll talk about it after that. I'm sorry that I said the carjacking thing that I get you in trouble. No, it's OK. There are a lot of sheriff's deputies around here. In fact, here's one right here.

I didn't carjack. She was saying, did I carjack? I haven't carjacked. I just want to make that clear. She's like, okay, fine. I meant it in a very colloquial conversational sense. Like you were making friends through car windows with people who weren't actually stopping their cars. They were always going down. It just looked carjack-y. I go by Jack. Sometimes it's Jack, Jacob. It could be anything. Car Jacob. Yes. Thank you very much, Jacob. I'm sorry again.

Oh, man. That's a worrying thing. We are closing in on a poll closing in California. And as we have been talking about over the course of the night,

There's a bunch of things to watch for in California. First of all, there's a whole bunch of congressional primaries, some of which might be really consequential. Some incumbents which may lose their jobs. There's a bunch of incumbents whose seats are becoming open in part. Some of them are retiring, but some of them are running for other jobs. Those could switch parties. Those could create unusual results. California's primaries are also a jungle primary system where it doesn't matter what party you're in.

If you finish in the top two, you ascend to the general election in November. We are expecting presidential results now as the polls close, but also, crucially, Democratic Senate primary results in the Senate race that's vacated by the late Senator Dianne Feinstein. Powerhouse Democrats from the House of Representatives who are competing against one another to try to win Dianne Feinstein's Senate seat and we'll expect to get the first projection of those results tomorrow.

right now. The decision desk tells us that in California, in the presidential race, on the Republican side, the projected winner is former President Donald Trump. In the California presidential contest, on the Democratic side, the projected winner is President Joe Biden. Now, in terms of what we're going to show us next, wait with me here. Here we go. The California Senate primary and the Democrats, not on the Democratic side, forgive me, as I was just explaining,

Senate primary in California is what they call a jungle primary. It does not matter what party you are. The top two vote getters overall will move ahead to the general election right now. That race, Senate primary in California, is too early to call. Is there anything else, control room, that I can say about

That Senate primary, we'll come back to that in just a moment. We do have one additional projection in Utah, in the Republican caucus in Utah. It is too early to call between Donald Trump and Nikki Haley. And I just want to ask the control room for clarity here. Again, these decision desk projections are not our own. The decision desk is airlocked apart from us, and we don't influence what they say. They're not aware what we're saying about them. But we've got Steve Garvey and Adam Schiff there as pictures of

Along with the formal projection from NBC News that it is too early to call. Obviously, there's a ton of people in this primary. Why are we showing the pictures of Adam Schiff and Steve Garvey? Is that relevant or is that just window dressing?

There we go. Too early to call. That's a better representation of what we're looking at here. Thank you. I appreciate it. Adam Schiff, Steve Garvey, Katie Porter, Barbara Lee, and other candidates as well who are all competing in the California U.S. Senate primary where, again, it is too early to call. Don't read anything into the fact that we showed the picture of those two candidates who are in the upper left of your screen. It was not representational as to what way this is too early to call. And I just wanted to make sure we clarified that. Did I clarify?

I thought we were getting a message as well. Yes. But we were not. No. So thank you for doing that. Okay. Now I'm done. That's all I can do. Right now, Chris Hayes, I wanted to ask you, since you have rejoined us, we have since had the news that Nikki Haley has won the Vermont Grand Prix.

Republican presidential primary. I want to shout out our friend Steve Kornacki, who at the very, very, very outset of this Republican presidential primary said, you know, looking at the demographics and the kinds of voters that seem to be attracted to each of these candidates, I'm going to say that it looks like Nikki Haley could win D.C., maybe Vermont. She said exactly those things. And we have now seen Nikki Haley win D.C. and Vermont, but no additional contests. How

How does that make you feel about this overall debate that we've been having here on set tonight and that you've heard so much of in the media recently about Nikki Haley's raison d'etre?

I mean, I guess there's sort of an external question about why she's doing it in an internal one. I can't speak to the latter, right? I mean, I think that the point is that you run until you can't anymore. The thing that makes her different than most is that I think she can continue to fund her campaign because of the intensity here. And I think this actually, this sort of intensity versus breadth question is actually a really useful analytical one to think about with respect to Donald Trump. And it goes like this. There are people out there

And there's lots of them who will crawl over broken glass to vote against Donald Trump. You throw them on any ballot, they will hitchhike across America to do it. They will ford a river. They will climb a mountain. They will go anywhere to vote against this man. Some of those people are traditionally liberals and they've been lifelong Democrats. Some of those people used to call themselves Republicans. In fact, some of the people that are the most sort of like

invested in stopping him are people that even rather recently called themselves Republicans. I know a lot of them. We all know a lot of them. Michael Steele still calls himself. So you've got this. So what we've seen and I think this sort of actually kind of cascades out. Right. So this is true of a lot of the people in the larger, I would say, center left pro-democracy majority. We see it in special election after special election after special election where people will show up

because they view him as such a threat and because they view the Republican Party under his aegis as such a threat. Nikki Haley occupies an interesting position right now as this sort of

She is receiving that energy and is being channeled into her in a way that breaks the normal rules for how this goes. Because the normal rules for how this goes is if once it becomes clear you can't win, all the energy goes away and the donors dry up and you've got nothing to do. You don't get to make the choice if you keep running. There's nothing to do. No one's funding your campaign. They unplug the telephone. Yeah, you can't put gas in the plane. But what we are seeing with her and one of the things I think Steve has been talking about is sort of like

keeping these analytical categories clear in our head is like, there is this almost unprecedented group of Americans that are just so

to Donald Trump and what he represents for the future of the country, they produce this kind of like incredible heat of activity that is right now sort of finding its locus in her. I think not because necessarily who she is, but because what she represents in this context. And I think that makes it possible for her to sort of defy the normal gravity. I talk to a lot of those donors and really they don't want to officially turn the light off and say this is the party of Trump. Right. You can give them example of

after example, and they still want to desperately believe their Republican Party, even if there's ultimately a dead end, there's hope for it. And she's still young, and it's this, there's all this optimism and money behind her right now. And so it's why she's staying in. But if you look at Donald Trump, right, state after state, he's losing everything.

30% of the vote to her. That's a really big number. Even if she's not getting the delegates, this is not a party united. Whereas, yes, are people getting worried about the uncommitted voters for Joe Biden? They're just uncommitted. They're raising a flashlight to Joe Biden, right? Think about it. Listen to Michigan was that group of uncommitted. They're not

saying never Bidens. They're saying, listen to us if you want our vote in November. That's right. They're trying to change his policy. Can I say one thing, though? It's not that Nikki Haley is just criticizing Donald Trump. She's criticizing Joe Biden probably as much, if not more.

The only thing that matters in terms of stopping Donald Trump is whether Nikki Haley can give some votes to Joe Biden. Nikki Haley is not going to stop Donald Trump. Nikki Haley is out there trashing Joe Biden. But she's not looking to save the world. Wait, wait, wait. We're talking about the utility of her campaign. Yes, right. From the perspective of the Biden campaign. Why is she in it? If she's in there to truly stop the Republican, stop, stop Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, right? If that's what we can assume, her work is to stop Donald Trump. She's in it for her own success. Okay, fine. If she's in it for her own success, does she think that the criticism she's leveling at Donald Trump is sufficient to actually have the Republican Party turn the page if he loses in November? To the MAGA crowd? Absolutely not. But to the donor crowd?

He has taken over the party. And I think if you really are looking at the long term or medium term prospects for the party, you have someone in there who's really going to be challenging. Can I say one more thing just from the perspective of, again, how you're reading this, the Biden campaign and what calculations you want to make? I mean, it's striking to me that what they have said from leaving last, I guess it was after South Carolina, where they're like they want a forced choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

The Biden campaign. Yes, the Biden campaign wants it to be a forced choice between two individuals. Donald Trump and Joe Biden. They don't talk about Nikki Haley. She doesn't exist in the world of statements they make. They sure as heck are not going to talk about anyone else who might be floating around the ballot in various states. To them, the key to them getting back to 50 plus one and recreating the majority coalition they put together in 2020 is that it be a stark

That would be a forced choice between two men, the two men that we keep putting up on our screen tonight. And that is their calculation of a key part. Do you think under the construct that you just described a moment ago, do you think that Nikki Haley being a sink for some of that anti-Trump heat is hurting the Biden campaign? Because it means that Republicans who are repulsed by Trump, and there are some, are not repulsed.

and maybe never will move their energies to Donald Trump. I mean, to Joe Biden, which is the only way to actually stop Donald Trump. I think a lot of that depends on what develops. Like, I really do think it matters what she does, because I think at the end of all this, after being that sort of heat sink and after getting the people who are coming out in a

across the country when they're coming, a lot of them are coming out of you, like not because they're like longtime Nikki Haley. Right. Like we all know. So the question becomes, what do you do with that? What that energy that you've gotten and what do you reflect back when you make whatever decision you make or when you go up to the convention with your delegates and make your stand? The question is, like, what is the messaging about that, about that forced choice?

Because again, that forced choice is going to be that forced choice, barring some. So you're saying exactly what she's going to do. Go to the Yellowstone Club in Montana, the most expensive ski resort in the country, and give a speech for a million dollars to suggest. I don't think that helps either way. I mean, it doesn't. But I mean, her minimum pick.

price of the ticket to entry is that she's got to keep criticizing Biden. I mean, just as a pragmatic thing, she's a Republican. And so for her minimum price of entry is to keep criticizing Biden. And I don't think the Biden people necessarily care. But if she turns around and endorses Trump, I think it's... That would be the end of that. Materially and marginally bad. Like, that's actually, like, more than delaying the inevitable. She was absolutely

by our very own Kristen Walker this Sunday, would she endorse Trump, which she pledged on stage to do as a Republican primary candidate and didn't really answer the question. And that answer to that question will be how Nikki Haley goes down in history and whether or not she helps or hurts the Republic. When she joins three corporate boards, she's going to say, I'm not allowed to comment. While we have been talking and having this excellent conversation along these lines,

I believe we've just got in a whole ton of vote in California. Is that right, Steve? No. The reason we're looking at California is not because the presidential race, which is already has projected winners in both the Republican and Democratic side, but it's really because of that California Democratic, excuse me, that California U.S. Senate primary.

Yeah, exactly. And I just want to show this, though, because we did call this off the exit poll. We do have votes coming in that are consistent in this Republican primary with the exit poll. So that's what the exit poll was showing, something like this. That's why it was called without any votes. And you can just see what's coming in now is confirming that. But what's happening in California, I'll call that Senate race up. What's happening in California and how this vote's going to be reported out is they have all

All of that early voting, all of that vote by mail in California. And these counties can begin. Jacob was just showing you they can press a button when these polls close and they can get a whole bunch of the vote that was it was cast before Election Day. They get it tabulated and reported out right away. So you're going to see in county after county this hour, they're going to start lighting up. And what you're going to see, I'll show you Orange County. We've already got in one fell swoop half the vote.

In Orange County, big, massive Southern California county here, Orange County, we've got half the vote in. And so here's an interesting, you know, Katie Porter, of course, from this region of the state. And you can see if we can. There you go. We can go down and you can see Barbara Lee, of course, representing Northern California in the House. This is not her natural political territory. But, you know, Garvey, the main, most prominent Republican candidate in this race. So to the extent there is a Republican vote out there.

You know, this suggests he's going to be gobbling up that Republican vote here. And then you can see Adam Schiff running in second here in Orange County. Katie Porter, about three points behind him. And then everybody else here well into single digits. And that is half the vote in Orange County. Sonoma County up north also coming in here. Very Democratic county here. Adam Schiff with 35, about a

third of the vote in Sonoma County comes in right away. Shift jumps to a big lead Porter in second. And you could see Garvey here, uh, the Republican candidate, uh, just behind Katie Porter. And again, I getting closer to Barbara Lee's political turf here, and she's still running under 10% here. That's a very, some very discouraging early signs for Barbara Lee. And those votes were also now getting into the Sierras here. Uh,

And OK, again, now about half the vote coming in. Oh, they had some big snow here in the last couple of days. But about half the vote coming in. Steve Garvey, first place here again, corralling that Republican vote shift running behind him. And boy, just look at the gap there to Katie Porter.

And again, look at the gap much further back to Barbara Lee. You start to add this together. Just these three counties we've gotten so far, more than 5 percent of the statewide vote now has been recorded. And again, I expect these counties to be continually lighting up in the next several minutes. But while we're in a bit of a lull here, potentially for a second, I'll just explain that from this point forward in a lot of these counties, again, go back to Orange County here. We get a huge, massive chunk.

The vote counting after this first hour or so in a lot of these counties gets very slow. Some of them you'll get more, you'll get a considerable amount overnight. But a lot of them we're not we're talking about not getting a significant chunk more until tomorrow, two days from now.

A week from now, if you remember back in the 2022 midterms, control of the House of Representatives was actually called by a California district. It was the 27th district, which is in the outer reaches of Los Angeles County. That was called for Republican Mike Garcia. It gave Republicans their 218th seat. When was that race called?

It was called eight days after Election Day. And there were still other California districts at that point that were uncalled. So I think the thing to keep in mind here with California and these results that come in the next hour, which are going to be very, very fascinating, is it takes something fairly decisive in the returns, you know, for there to be a call tonight because there's so much that will come in later. So, again, Garvey as the lone Republican, is he building a

big, big number here, a big pad over third place. Would that allow this to be clear in the next hour or so that Garvey will be in one of those two spots going into the general election? And just based on what Schiff is doing in these three counties so far that we've seen here, and again, a bit of a geographic range here as well in terms of what's coming in, would Schiff potentially, for that matter, if this continues in other counties, big if, but if it does, would there be enough there potentially for Schiff to be able to say, hey,

Schiff and Garvey, maybe we're not sure of the order, but there's a big enough gap to third that it will be those two. If that's not clear tonight, it might be a while before that is clear. But again, there it is, about 6% from those three counties. And I was padding a little bit here because I was expecting a few more to light up. But I do think within the next few minutes, we're going to have a lot more. And by the end of this hour, we're going to have a ton of colored in counties on this map. Well, Steve, stand by with that. We're going to go live to somebody who's at

Vote Processing Center in California. And I have a feeling if those votes come in while we are talking to Gadi, we'll come back to you and get an update. Joining us now from a ballot processing center in Los Angeles County is NBC News correspondent Gadi Schwartz. Gadi, what are you seeing? We're just talking with Steve about the speed of the vote, the expectation in terms of when we're going to see returns.

Yeah, we're a lot closer to the source, but we don't really have very many answers. We actually have some questions ourselves. So let me just paint the picture of where we are right now. This is the nerve center for the largest county in the country. This is Los Angeles County, the county's brand new voter ballot processing center. It used to be an old Fry's Electronics warehouse. And now you can see it is this just massive warehouse.

warehouse where they process all those ballots. We understand 5.7 million registered voters in L.A. County. All of them are the ones with mailing addresses, got their ballots, mailed to them. And now it's a matter of seeing how many of those ballots came back today or how many people voted. When those ballots start coming in from all the different polling sites are going to be coming in through those doors, escorted from all across the county.

from different sheriff's departments. There's even a helicopter that's gonna be landing in the parking lot in a little bit. But when it comes to the numbers, we know that there have been a lot of ballots that have already been tabulated. Last election, there was something like 80% of the ballots came back for early voting.

This thing is making us question what's going on here, just in terms of when the refresh button is going to be pressed. We're looking at the tally system. We know at 8 o'clock it looks like there was some sort of tabulation event. There's a number up there, 1.6 million. There's a number of ballots up there, 672,000. We don't know what those correspond to. We've asked somebody to come over and explain it to us, and so far we're waiting for a

a supervisor to come because the first person couldn't really explain it. But what we do know is that this is the air lock center. This is a place that is not connected to the internet. This is where all that tabulation happens. There's no cell phones allowed. And the people that go in here are cleared through an extra secure set of doors over there. And everyone is standing on that side of the wall

as this is somewhat the calm before the storm, waiting for those ballots to come in. All the ballots that came in from same-day voting here in Los Angeles, this is where they will be sorted, they will be extracted, then the signatures will be compared over there, and then those will go into the tabulation room. But the tabulation room, as we understand it, has already tabulated possibly the bulk

of the votes that we're going to see out of Los Angeles County because most of the ballots have been sent out mail-in and many of them have been returned mail-in. So we know that earlier in the day it was something under a million that had already come back and now we're just...

hoping for that refresh button or hoping for that tabulation button to be pressed so that we can get some solid answers. We may get them a few seconds before Steve Kornacki, but I wouldn't be surprised if he has some sort of like a crystal ball that goes straight into this room over here. Let me ask you, you mentioned that you're expecting some of the ballots to arrive by helicopter. Can I just ask why you're expecting that? Who gets the privilege?

the privilege of getting Catalina Island. Oh, of course, rather than rowing it across. Exactly, exactly. Yes, and that's, apparently that's a place to be on election coverage, so if you guys want to send me to Catalina Island for the next one, I am all for it. Catalina Wine Mixer. Oh, that is very, very,

Very, very, very giving of you. Yes, very generous. Well done. Gotti Schwartz for us. In Southern California, we are getting in more vote in California. Steve is polishing and tuning the aforementioned crystal ball. We're going to take a quick break and be back with more of those results right after this. Stay with us.

We just got a statement from the Nikki Haley campaign, a campaign spokesperson. The statement says this, quote, We're honored to have received the support of millions of Americans across the country today, including in Vermont, where Nikki became the first Republican woman to win two presidential primary contests.

Unity is not achieved by simply claiming we're united today in state after state. There remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump. That is not the unity our party needs for success. Addressing those voters concerns will make the Republican Party and America better. Statement tonight from Nikki Haley's campaign statement.

Steve Kornacki, today, I quote, in state after state, there remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump. Is that thesis from the Nikki Haley campaign borne out in the voting data as you see it?

Well, it's how you interpret it. But I mean, I would look at it this way. We gave you a number a little while ago. We've been keeping a running tab of the cumulative that is across all primaries and caucuses. What's the cumulative vote share for Nikki Haley and for Donald Trump? Remembering that her talking point along these lines for the last few weeks has been she's been calling it the 40 percent. She's been using that term over and over at rallies, a reference to her New Hampshire and South Carolina showings.

I just want to show you some of the numbers we're seeing in these contests tonight because they're substantially below that. I think Texas is the most glaring example here. She's barely cracking 15% in Texas statewide tonight, and that is with 80% of the vote in. You go north to Oklahoma, Trump is over 80%. You take a look over at Arkansas. There's a rule in Arkansas.

It's the participation trophy delegate, they call it. Hit 20 percent, you get one delegate. The rest go to the other candidate, but you can get one. She's short of 20 percent, the participation trophy delegate in in Arkansas. You go to Tennessee. Donald Trump is approaching 80 percent here. She did win Vermont tonight. Very small number of votes in Vermont. And in terms of delegates right now, she's you can see the total here. Trump is on pace to finish near eleven hundred delegates tonight.

Right now, when you add all the votes together, she's getting 23 percent of the vote tonight. I would note that number has been coming down as we've been monitoring it. Texas, where you still have votes to come, is continuing to drag that number down. She's a little south of it in California as well. So that might be the ceiling for how well she ends up doing tonight just in terms of the percentage. And again, 40, 43 percent is what she's been campaigning on. And the other thing...

I do not have any insight, obviously, into what she's thinking, what motivates her and what decisions she may make here. But if there's a scenario where Nikki Haley does end up exiting this race in the coming days, one thing to keep in mind is given the delegate trajectory for Donald Trump right here, again, he's likely to finish approaching 1100 delegates tonight. He is now on course. He's going to get enough delegates tonight where he's realistically on course.

to crack that 1,215 number needed to officially win the nomination in next week's contests on March 12th. So that is the question for Haley's campaign. Do you want to be in the race getting 15, 20, 22 percent of the vote as Donald Trump officially crosses that number? Is there some scenario where you want to issue a statement like that, give a speech like that? And basically, what do they say about the strategy for Vietnam? Declare victory and get out.

Steve Kornacki, thank you very, very much. Clarifying as always, much appreciated. Again, what Steve just said there is that with the delegate hall tonight and the way things are going, it looks like Trump is on track to clinch the nomination on the Republican side within the next week by March 12th. With Trump coming close to running the table on the primary contest thus far, although D.C. and Vermont, don't forget D.C. and Vermont, D.C.

We are inching closer to a general election rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Now, in terms of fundraising, the Democrats currently have a financial advantage over the Republicans. Joe Biden started the year with forty six million dollars on hand compared to Trump's thirty three million. Here's some news, though. Perhaps that imbalance will not last for long. Check out the scoop from The New York Times tonight. You see the headline there. Donald Trump seeking cash infusion meets with Elon Musk.

The New York Times reporting that Donald Trump met with Elon Musk and also a few other wealthy Republican donors seeking a cash infusion to support his campaign. That was within the last few days. That was reportedly over the weekend. According to The Times, Trump is now hoping to have a one-on-one meeting just with Elon Musk, who reportedly has been saying that he believes it is, quote, essential to defeat Joe Biden in November, quoting The New York Times there.

Elon Musk, of course, is one of the two richest people on Earth. He could single-handedly erase any financial advantage Democrats might have heading into the general election in November if he decided to and if he wanted to play it that way. What would that mean for what happens to the world and the republic? And we're sure that money is not to pay Donald Trump's legal bills. It can. And when we all sit here and go, oh, my gosh. Money's fungible.

Donald Trump owes $83 million on E.G. Carroll. He owes $400 million here. And we say he doesn't have that money. Guess what? Whether it's Elon Musk or all sorts of other supremely wealthy forces out there, they would be happy to pay the bills for someone who could be the next president. Elon Musk. Oh,

He hates the FTC. And how much would he like it if he then owned the president? Yes. I mean, this is let's go back to Citizens United and Mitch McConnell and John Roberts who have crafted the universe in which we operate, who have brought us to a position where the richest billionaire out of like a it's like an 1890s Gilded Age cartoon in a newspaper and the corrupt

desperately in need of cash have a meeting. And like, what is either the explicit or implied quid pro quo in that interaction? Musk has tens of millions and hundreds of millions of dollars of government contracts with the Pentagon through SpaceX. He has unbelievable amounts of interest in regulatory affairs. He's currently suing to get rid of the

National Labor Relations Act of the New Deal to destroy unions across the board and render them unconstitutional. That is a current lawsuit he has filed onto. Think about the sheer ROI return on investment of an investment. And it is so shocks the conscience that this would even be possible.

It's only possible, again, because of Mitch McConnell, because of the Roberts court and the MAGA court, that you could even be in a position where you have such an obviously –

corrupt setup. Chris, Tesla is the only car manufacturer that is allowed to sell directly to consumer because one of the biggest, strongest lobbies in this country is car dealership owners, right? So the fact that he could back Donald Trump, the fact that he could pay his bills and then be able to push Donald Trump around, giddy up. That's what he's doing.

up. That's an easy one for him. And by the way, he controls Starlink, which is critical to the defense of Ukraine and to the U.S. defense establishment. This guy could be the J.P. Morgan of the current era. He would literally own a desperate, fearful man. I sat and watched seven minutes of Donald Trump speaking from what looked like his basement the other day. Donald Trump is afraid. He's afraid of going to prison. He's afraid of

losing everything that he built in New York, well that his dad built and that he like borrowed money from the Russians or whatever after he failed at business.

But he could be saved right now. All he needs is a billionaire like Elon Musk who wants to own him. And that's a mute. And then he gets to be president and he gets to dismiss all his cases. Boom. He's basically that is his MBS. He's running for his life. He's running for his life. I mean, it does assume that Trump is inevitably going to win once he has Elon's money behind him. And though I believe that money in politics is a colossal.

Oh, yeah. No. There is, you know, he is someone who's reliant. But you'd rather be even than out.

Yes, but he is relying on government contracts. And, you know, if Joe Biden is reelected and Elon Musk is bankrupt, Donald Trump's a great Tesla wasn't invited to the last EV summit at the White House. And, you know, they won't be invited in 2025. What you're supposed to do with that money is to fund ground campaigns, mail campaigns, et cetera. They're already saying they're not going to do mail. Most of that money, let's be clear, is going to go to cure Donald Trump's financial, personal financial issues, not

to the ground. Can I just say one more thing about this? Because I actually find it like very usefully clarifying is it's so much of the way that Donald Trump talks so much the way their politics talk about are these sort of like cultural signifiers, these points of like intense sort of ideological, rhetorical, demographic conflict in the country, the invaders coming over the border, you know, the sort of Marxists that run the Democratic Party, they're trying to destroy the future.

When in power, what Republican governments do is do policy that helps people like Elon Musk. They cut corporate taxes. It's the only domestic policy bill that they passed the last time around when they had a... They didn't build the wall. They had all three...

They did make it easier for people adjudicated to be mentally ill to buy firearms. They did do that. They also did that. They also did that. But to me, it's just like there's this whole, you're sort of watching Elon Musk like self-radicalize online every day. His brain gets mushier and mushier and mushier. And, you know, there's part of this radicalization is like social media and his own ego. But again, when you look at what governments do, local governments, state governments, federal governments, when they are Republican and conservative governments with power, they

They deregulate, they go after unions, they cut taxes for rich people. And so there's something very clarifying about Elon Musk and Donald Trump together in the same room because it cuts through a lot of like the faux populism and culture war nonsense that masks fundamentally the material interests that are being pursued by

But that is also why people often falsely say Republicans are good for the economy, because in terms of deregulation, in terms of big business, that set will say a Republican is a safer bet for me, for us. And that's where that narrative comes from. You've even heard people say, well, if it's good for my boss, maybe it'll trickle down to me. It won't. That's where the mindset is from. And by the way, what makes it perfect chefs kiss perfect.

is that the Supreme Court sits atop it all trying to ensure the longevity of Republican government because that is how they get their wonderful vacays and they're going to do whatever they can to make sure that Donald Trump comes in so that those two grifters on the court, if I might say, can retire and have 30-year-old versions of themselves to replicate the grift. I should just say, though, that in terms of the whole

logic around there being like legal policing of this. Like you shouldn't ideally in a democracy have a multi-billionaire be able to come in and say here are multiple billions of dollars to cover all your legal fees, to cover all your campaigning fees, and to set you up in a way that you can't lose. We technically shouldn't have that. But how do we police it? We police it by shame.

Right. Because it's speech. Money is speech and therefore it's transparency. And so if all we can do is force disclosure of the funding, that will take care of itself because people will be repulsed by this. But Rachel, shamelessness is Donald Trump's superpower. Remember,

Back when we were saying this guy doesn't pay his taxes. And he said, you're right, I don't because I'm smart. But not to Democrats. When Joe Biden was running, he said, I'm going to close so many loopholes. So it won't just be shameful for Republicans to violate emoluments and so on and so forth. And they haven't. And if we end up with a Donald Trump again, like it's no holds barred. MBS, come on over for a barbecue. I'm just going to say that this is there. There is this idea when you study Democrats.

Countries that used to be democracies that slid out of democracy and became authoritarian instead. One of the things that everybody who studies that in every country tells you is that the institutions cannot defend themselves. And we have set up our institutions so that their defense against authoritarian rule and anti-democratic tactics is shame and is transparency and is people knowing the information and being able to react accordingly. If that is all we've got...

then our institutions will not defend our democracy. If we let things play out along these lines, our democracy will fall and we will become a country that doesn't have elections anymore. And so we're in a situation right now where we can't count on the existing structures to just do this on autopilot. There's only one way out of this. You have to pick one. You have to pick Donald Trump. Mm-hmm.

or you have to pick Joe Biden. There isn't a magic other answer. There's no institution. There's no court. There's no criminal prosecution. There is no institution. There's no magic in the media. There's people having to figure out which one of those candidates they want and what it means for the future of this country.

And then going out and doing the work to make sure that that candidate wins. It means not only voting. It means literally doing what you can to make one of those two candidates win. And if you're not working for one of them, you are by default working for the other. And by the way, you know what? It's all we've got. But the Biden campaign folks said they're sending out two words tonight, cementing reality.

And what you just said is what they're saying. They're saying what tonight was about was cementing the reality that it's Biden or Trump. And what Joe Biden was able to do is to clear 80 percent in almost all of these races to cement that reality. They're hoping that emotionally they can cement that reality for their voters because their voters are the ones who are most fantasy prone when it comes more so than Republicans. But Republicans are more fantasy.

disconnected from each other. They are actually having a fight that's bigger than the fight inside the Democratic Party. You just have some Democrats who would love for Donald Trump, I mean, for Joe Biden to change his Middle East policy. Yeah, Democrats hoping that Republicans are going to take care of this problem, this Donald Trump problem on their own side. Not going to happen. It's not happening. Our coverage continues in just a moment. We're going to be joined by Colin Allred, who won the Democratic nomination for Senate in Texas, who will run against Republican incumbent Ted Cruz this fall. Lots still to come here on MSNBC. Stay with us.

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