great reputation. >> one of the ex-presidents evangelical boosters resigned after admitting he abused a 12- year-old girl. plus. >> i think he will get a higher vote than any republican since eisenhower. >> the american people want donald trump back in the white house. >> is her winning numbers, the numbers is a donald trump will be the next president of the united states. >> priming them up for another stolen election conspiracy. it as trump once again attacked vaccines >> when you come to the rally,■ as in any event, you assume a personal risk. >> a reminder of his deadly super spreader rally four years ago. when all in starts right now. good evening, from new york. i'm chris hayes. it is that time of year where donald trump's right wing supreme court waits until the very end of the term to bludgeon us with their decisions. there are 21 opinions remaining. we are all holding our breath for one in particular that has a kind of clock ticking of course, that is trump the united states. the former president's claim that he is immune from being criminally prosecuted while he was in the white house. all the justices are adult grown human beings who can read the newspaper and know that time is of the essence in ?e$is case. we are less than five months away from the election, donald trump will have, if you look at polls now, basically a 50-50 shot at taking back the oval office. but at every turn, this court, conservative majority of this court one has to imagine, has dragged its feet the federal case against donald trump for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, charged with four felony counts including conspiracy to defraud the united states. it has been on hold for more than six months. the judge in that case, federal district judge tanya chutkan was forced to pause the case all the way back in december 13th of last year amid trump's immunity appeal. that was 189 days ago. the supreme court finally agreed to take up the case on february 28. they heard arguments at the end of april and we are still waiting. 112 days have passed with nothing.■ç no decision from the supreme court. no movement towards a trial that could hold donald trump accountable for his attempt at interaction and also demonstrate to voters whether the man is guilty or not guilty of the grave crimes of which he is charged. now, to be clear, as we have often said on the show, the wheels of justice do move slowly but this is not normal. as law professor leah lippmann puts it in an opinion piece today, something is rotten about the justices taking so long on trump's immunity case. she goes on to explain, quote, mr. trump's lawyers put together a set of arguments that are so outlandish they did take much time to dispatch. wall street journal also notes that this term, as a whole, the whole supreme court term is moving at a historically slow pace, quote. according to adam feldman, creator of the empirical scotusç blog, the justices are completing decisions at the second slowest rate since the 1946 term now, keep in mind, each justice has a team of four very right and and gestures law clerks insisting that, and they only work nine months out of the year. it is all a really worth remembering the last time the supreme court heard a case this pressing, the direct it involved a corrupt republican president. it was a 1974, had united states in the title. united states versus nixon. that, of course, was when then a sitting president nixon claimed he was immune from complying with the subpoena in the watergate investigation because of executive privilege. in that case, the supreme court managed to move much more expeditiously. >> good evening, the u.s. supreme court acting as swiftlyç as it ever has today announced it will review the special watergate prosecutor's complaint against president nixon. it was just one week ago today when leon jaworski asked for the court to rule on the president's defiance of the subpoena. for more white house tapes. it was yesterday when the president's lawyer asked the court not to rush to judgment and allow the case to be heard in the court of appeals. but this afternoon, the court said it would hear oral arguments in about five weeks, which set the stage for a possible confrontation between the president and the high court on the issue of executive privilege. >> at 3:30, the weekly conference ended, 10 minutes later the chief justice issued a single sheet of paper, setting in motion the biggest constitutional test of presidential power since the civil war.■ç in the case now entitled united states of america versus richard nixon president, the court agreed to settle the question whether the president can be compelled to furnish evidence to the watergate peschel prosecutor, bypassing the court of appeals, briefs should be submitted june 21st and replies, july 1st. the historic argument was set for july 8th. >> good evening the supreme court of the united states today heard three hours of arguments that could very well determine president nixon's chances of staying in office for a full term. there were two principal questions before the court. whether mr. nixon can be forced to give up an additional 64 white house tapes to the special prosecutor and whether the federal grand jury was within its jurisdiction when it is named the president and unindicted co-conspirator. the thrust of the argument centered on the release of the p& tapes. >> a decision is affected in a week or two point this morning's argument, one justice was reiki writing and circling his ideas. mother had his clerks to draft an opinion. >> good evening, president nixon has not yet responded to the sledgehammer decision of the supreme court today, which ruled that he must immediately turn over tapes of 64 presidential conversations. in an unanimous decision, the court rejected 8-0. mr. nixon's claim of absolute privilege on those tapes. >> the court said the president's claim of absolute will upset the constitutional balance. >> the president have to give away criminal proceedings. limited intrusion rarely involved in criminal cases. >> the court took less than two months■ç president nixon's case they agreed to hear the case on may 31st, 1974. see you there. they gave each set of lawyers and 10 sets after that to reply. heard oral arguments and 60 days later, just two weeks, they issued their anonymous rejecting his claim of executive privilege. all done in 54 days. just 54 days to decide richard nixon poskay's and we're still waiting for the outcome of donald trump's after 112 days and counting. similar urgency. nixon was making a completely ahistorical unconstitutional claim because he did not want to turn over his tapes in the water gate investigation. the president is not a king and does not get to ignore ■çthe la donald trump is once again arguing the president is a kind of king, he can do everything, including ordering the assassination of his political rivals and not face prosecution unless impeached. and yet, the court drags its feet. members of that court know full well every day they delay makes it less and less possible that trump will stand trial for the insurrection before this next election. the author that new york times op-ed, she is a professor at the university of michigan law school and cohost of the strict scrutiny podcast and she jointly now. it is great to see you. i love this piece partly because you just walk from the timeline, which inspired us to do so, as well. why do you not think there is a good faith explanation here that it's complex, or that this court is moving slowly because they have, ■çthere's some weird sectional battles happening behind the scenes. >> i think this court has lost the benefit of the doubt and the presumption of good faith for any number of reasons. they are more than capable of acting quickly, in a couple of cases where there is disagreement. the trump disqualification case out of colorado where the colorado state court took him off the ballot. that resulted in a divided opinion and the court was still able to get it out before super tuesday, before people want to cast their ballots and within a month of the oral argument. here there might well be division and that the court has taken two months since oral argument and arguments in the case, i think, are way more out latest then any of the arguments on behalf of disqualifying a president participating in the january 6th insurrection. the qualifications of the justices ■çextracurricular activities like justice alito line multiple stop the steal flags at his house. all that is in more than enough indication that this court just cannot be trusted to actually follow the rules and it here to the legal process when it comes to cases involving donald trump. >> that point about the colorado case is great. i had totally forgotten that timeframe, right? in there, the clock is ticking is they have got to print the ballots, i think, for colorado. they were going to actually vote, they were going to send them out to mail them. of course, if we don't ask, he is not going to be on the ballot. so the constraining thing they had to do was like, if we don't act quickly, donald trump won't be on the ballot. in this, it is totally flat. if we don't act, then nothing happens to our guy. and they seem to be taking longer. ■ç >> yes, that is exactly right and i think if you go back to the oral arguments and the trump immunity case you saw the republican justices attempts to interject, basically every other possibility into this case, aside what they're actually being asked to decide, justice alito floated the possibility to the special counsel access. as of the stop the steal movement was some kind of boopsie that the president had engaged in, or the former president had engaged in this case doesn't involve a simple mistake. and if you look at the nixon case. there the supreme court basically said we don't have the resolve absolutely everything related to immunity. all we have to say is presidents art, and from criminal process based on some generalized definition of confidentiality. >> and this is a really■ç key point. there was a pointed question in both cases. does nixon have to turn over the tapes? does donald trump have to stand for trial. there is all kinds of subpoenas one could imagine maybe a president might be able to keep. there's all sorts of complicated jurisdiction around executive privilege, which is actually a pretty complicated area. they could have done something. just answering the question in front of them very quickly. the question in front of them is very direct and simple in the same way here that they could answer if they want to. >> right, absolutely. this court routinely takes the path of not deciding as much as i possibly could. in some of its cases. in the recent case involving the cheerleader who was published for off-campus speech, the supreme court that were not going to decide everything and say exactly when schools can punish students, we are just going to say here thatç the off-campus speech can be penalized. the court said we don't have to decide what legal test is going to determine where the this taking requires just compensation. we are just going to say it is some kind of analysis and send it back to the lower court. so here the supreme court could easily say, look, are not going to resolve the outer bounds of presidential immunity but whatever that abounds of presidential immunity are they just don't include a month-long effort to overturn the result of the valid presidential election. >> is another detail here which is easy to lose sight of, too, it really drives me nuts which is the fact that jack smith saw this whole thing back in december, you know, 10 days after i think this appeal was, after the check in decision. in the appeal was filed for nine days. he says look, we all know you to rule on this. you are not going to differ. so let's just do it now. and he goes up and he asks for this before judgment to skip the appellate court and they come back and they say no. they could have taken it then. >> that is exactly right. in here, too, have an example where the supreme court was willing to leapfrog the court of appeals in order to and if it the republicans and give donald trump something that he wanted. back in the waning days of the trump administration, when they resumed federal execution, there was a lower court decision of a trial court, a temporarily and enjoined one of the executions. the trump administration went to the supreme court, asked them to intervene■ç before any court of appeals had weighed in and the supreme court did that in order to allow the trump administration to execute one of the federal prisoners. here, the special counsel says, look, we know this case is going to get to the supreme court. why not just do it and they refused to do so. >> the last sort of context here, the fact about the world is that samuel alito and clarence thomas are conservatives. they would like to retire under a republican president. i think we all know that. there are 74 and 75, i believe, respectively it would be a big difference in their lives, personally if donald trump is elected. in the realist sense of what are you going to do with the last part of your golden years, that is something that is just clearly the case for both of those men. i'm not saying it affects their decisions. i'm just saying that is a thing that is out there in the world. that hangs over all of us. >> that is absolutely right. and in the recently secretly recorded between the alito's and the journalist, this is alito basically suggested that once justice alito thought the court she will be able to fly ■ whatever flag she wanted. it seems like there are multiple benefits and the situation and donald trump is re-elected, where he could step down and be replaced by some 30- year-old rights activist and his wife can fly whatever flag she wanted. >> a very specific design that she has in her head. thank you very much. >> thanks. still ahead, a trump spiritual adviser and mega church pastor just had to step down after molesting a 12-year- old girl. but first, four years after his deadly rally in too, donald trump's new plan to endanger the health of fellow americans. that is next. >> is your the virus that causes shingles is sleeping... in 99% of people over 50. and it could strike at any time. think you're not at risk? wake up. because shingles could wake up in you. if you're over 50, talk to your doctor or pharmacist about shingles prevention. if you don't make a habit of listening to donald trump on the campaign trail, then you might not realize quite how many policy promises he is making for his second term. they range from the politically unthinkable, like ■zis pledge t raise everyone's taxes by 10% on all goods purchased from overseas, to the outright ridiculous and possibly catastrophic, like his plan to replace all income tax with a tariff on imported goods, which in early estimates that would amount to 150% tax increase on most things. 150%. lastly, trump once again paid lip service to an extreme plan, possibly as destructive as any he has pitched before. >> and i will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or mask. and i will keep leaving things you have to say this stuff? >> trump has been making this pledge for years, it is not a slip of the tongue. this is a policy. unlike those of the policies i mentioned a oo it is not actually getting the attention it deserves. so public school districts nationwide, by their nature, receive federal funding and they have required all kinds of vaccine mandates for years.,, we all know that, right? but we all know donald trump is in thinking about the chickenpox here, he is throwing red meat to his base which has been increasingly radicalized against the covid vaccines but also in a kind of spillover effect, all vaccines. and radicalized against any common sense public health measures to prevent mass illness. so mark my words, if this plan were to come to pass, it will almost certainly ensure massive outbreaks of various diseases, including measles and mumps and yes, covid. it has become clear that as bad as the x president's handling of covid was four years ago, whenever we got from potential's second trump administration will be even worse. now on the show, wg■have been doing a segment where we answer, this simple question. >> remember ronald reagan talk about general jimmy carter? >> are you better off? >> are you better off? >> are you better off? >> are you better off? >> they are better off. >> be better off? >> better off? >> better off? >> better off? >> better off? >> better off? than you were four years ago? >> the question being posed by so many trump supporters. are you better off than you were four years ago as if we don't remember four years ago today with all this in mind, i do think it is worth taking a look back at what this country was going through this time in 2020. >> we begin with a chilling statement from the head of the world health organization today that started with the words, the pandemic is accelerating. patients, regular icu patients. >> covered deaths in our country passed a staggering 127,000 today. >> we at the hospital are overwhelmed. we are at capacity. we are increasing numbers every day. >> there is talks of crisis nurses coming in soon. >> that was, of course, a full blown crisis and it was admit that context that donald trump decided to return to the campaign trail. originally his big comeback rally was scheduled for exactly four years ago today, juneteenth, 2020 in tulsa, oklahoma. the trump administration scheduled its grand return on the site of one of the most infamous antilock terror attacks in this nation's history. on the holiday commemoratkn the end of . was announced in texas. the resounding backlash was so overwhelming, trump actually had to back off and change the day. instead, the rally was held one day later on june 20th, 2020. >> for months now, large gatherings have been canceled, no concerts, no stadiums built for sporting events. but tonight in tulsa, oklahoma, and arena is packed with thousands rallying for president trump's re-election. >> the president left washington late today for a destination he has not seen in 110 days, the campaign trail. >> the event in oklahoma is unbelievable. >> we have seen an increase in positive cases, which we expected when we reopen. >> today we learned six members of the president's advance team tested positive for coronavirus. >> again, remember, there's no so the case fatality races like 10 times .6 members of the president's team was, if nothing else, a preview of what is to come. but trump supporters lined up to see you there president's triumphant return to the trail. >> it is just a great honor that trump would choose to come here. >> there is a fire risk with this many people here, i understand that. but i felt this is an opportunity i'm not going to get another chance like this in my life. >> we have to go. >> those supporters, of course, were egged on by the white house itself, which downplayed the obvious risk of holding a large, in person, and/or rally during a pandemic. >> they will be given a mass, it is up to them whether to that decision. cdc guidelines are recommended but not required. when you come to ■çthe rally, a in any event, you assume a personal risk. that is just what you do. >> that calculate was also apparently made by former president herman cain, who attended the rally in person. kane was hospitalized with covid less than two weeks later. he ultimately lost his battle with the virus the following month. kane would not be the only one hospitalized after the rally. it was a super spreader event with the state public health apartment conceding that it was likely caused a massive surge in cases in the following weeks. that presumably came as particularly frustrating news to donald trump himself who spent part of the rally admitting that he told us public health officials to slow down testing for the virus to make the case numbers appear artificially lower. >> with testing, you know, testing is a double-edged sword. here's the bad part. when you do tests to that extent. you find more people, you're going to find more cases■ç. so said to my people, slow the testing down, please. >> remember that? right, the testing was the problem, not the virus, the testing. knowing about it was the problem, not the thing. just about everything about trump's handling of covid was unmitigated disaster. we partially blocked out potomac, looking at that footage, are you better off today than you were four years ago? one away donald trump won the 2016 election was to embrace them by evangelicals, both of base and pastors and leaders in that movement.■ç but most prominent is a pastor named robert morris. he founded a texas mega-church in southlake texas. also a spiritual adviser to trump when he was in the white house. he is in the rose garden in 2020, just a few rows behind where then supreme court nominee amy coney barrett's and first lady are about to sit. and here is trump visiting morrises church later that summer, giving his personal assessment of him. >> i want to thank pastors robert morris and steve dolan. they are great people. great people with a great reputation. great reputation. and gateway church, the team has been incredible in hosting us. and i would now like to ask pastor morris and bishop jackson to lead us in prayer. >> robert morris just resigned from his church, falling allegations ■çthat he sexually abused a child. in a statement to a+++a+?propri with a young lady. those are his words. he didn't mention that the young lady in question was a 12-year-old girl. in his statement, trumps one time spiritual adviser admitted he continued to molest the child on, quote, several occasions over the next years. sr. investigative reporter for nbc news has been on the story. he writes about pastor morris in his book, they came for the schools, one towns fight over ho race and identity and the new war for america's classrooms and he joins me now. mike, this is something that happened a long time ago that we are learning about now. take us through how this came out. >> well, last week, the survivor in this case, cindy rv clement scheier, who has tried telling the stories in different ways for years came forward in a blog post and it spelled out in clear detail that when she was 12 years old, on christmas in 1982, pastor morris, who is a family friend and a young traveling evangelist invited her into his room, where he would, the guest room at her house and proceeded to molest her the first of several instances where he would do that over the next 4 1/2 years. and as you mentioned in the lead in, pastor morris and gateway church responded initially by saying, this is an old sin, pastor morris has addressed this moral failure of this relationship with a young lady and you know, he has repented and this has been taken care of. flash forward a few days, there's a lot of pressure around this when people started pointing out, yeah, the young lady was 12. that is a child. and yesterday he resigned from the church that he founded 20+ years ago. >> now he had been telling a sort of story about kind of redemption arc about stepping away from the ministry in the 1980s. because he had been confronted by the then girl's father at that time, is that right? >> that's right. and i have been talking with gateway members and former pastors of the church. they talk about how he talked about the story all the time. and it became kind of like a signature part of his biography that he had this moral failing when he was young. and it was around sexual immorality with, again, a young lady. and some tellings, he would describe himself almost as a victim saying that the young lady had a jezebel spirit. and the fact that she was the one that made it continue. he tried to stop it and she made it continue. so he tells the stories as a way of saying, you should be open about your sin and come forward. but in reality, that we now know, he was covering and papering over the reality of pe child sexual abuse. which is a crime. ic >> he also has been quite a prominent member of the evangelical movement, politically influential. this is not just a, there are obviously, many evangelical pastors, thousands, probably, tens of thousands in this country. this is a particularly ou connected and powerful individual. >> absolutely. yes, a true spiritual adviser. he has really leaned into the idea of advocating for the restoration of christian morality in america through republican politics. so you see that with him inviting glenn beck to speak from the pulpit at his church and being aligned with donald trump. i read about extensively in the book, he has also gotten very engaged over the last few yearse with kind of warning about the dangers children face in schools. i want to emphasize this point the survivor here in this case, cindy, doesn't want the story to become just about politics. she is very primarily concerned with robert morris not being in leadership and kind of checking the culture that allows us to permeate. but at the same time, lots of of the people have watched as people like robert morris have warned that teachers and school librarians are a danger to children because, and to use se the language that they are grooming children, because they have books on their shelves. but morris has preached about that from the pulpit. and, you know, endorsed specific school board candidates that would fight against satan's work in school libraries. people who saw that play out are really frustrated and outraged now, knowing he is pointing at school librarians, who some of these books that were being targeted actually are literature that describes grooming as a way of helping kids understand what warning signs to watch out for. and so to have him be standing in the pulpit, learning about this, given his history, has been a lot, really difficult for people to process and there's a lot of anger, both among survivors and educators who have been targeted by this rhetoric. the in 2017, as you read, you pitched by texas governor greg abbott as her public and is, as a way to protect the safety of o women and children to ban transcend or people from using bathrooms. to protect children from sexual abuse. with that, i agree. thank you very much. >> thanks, chris. mike's excellent new book is out now. i suggest you check it out. still to come, how fox news has private audience to believe another big lie. ev that is ahead. 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where is it coming from? well, this race isn't really about the candidates at least the spending part of it. it is more about the shape of politics in the post-citizens united arab. just take a look at this bar chart here. here are the five top spenders in new york 16, both the candidates are there, as well as some groups you can expect in a liberal democratic primary. the vast majority of all the ad spending in this primary, $14 million is coming over the left from a single super pack called the united democracy project, or udp. they are the sole reason this is the most expensive primary ever in american history. now, udp is a super pack created and largely funded by a pack. and it is not surprising that a pack and its associated group for going after democrats like bowman specifically ever since he gained his seat by knocking off longtime incumbent, ella engel back in 2020, bowman has been in line with the progressive squad of the house and he has been criticizing the israeli government, calling for a cease- fire in its war with gaza. george latimer basically takes the opposite position. he supports israel's continued war and opposes a cease-fire. and you might think, yeah, fair enough, i that is a very divisive issue in a primary. that is what primaries are for, right? here's the thing, udp, the pro- israel super pack, didn't drop $14 million of pro-israel ads on this race. in fact, it didn't mention israel in its ads at all. >> jamaal bowman has his own agenda and refuses to compromise . even with president biden. george latimer is putting people ahead of personal agendas and delivering real, progressive result. >> apparently the choice not to mention israel in any ads was strategic on part of the pro- israel super pack funding those ads. the udp spokesman telling politico last month, we run ads on the issues voters are most focused on. which is a little odd because it is sort of a big issue, you imagine. it seems almost at the pro- israel group things that pro- israel ads might not actually play as well as they would hope in a heavily democratic district like bowman's so instead, the group that can make unlimited expenditures is using his money to attack bowman, as you saw in that ad, for being insufficiently loyal to president biden agenda. that does play in a heavily democratic district. the irony, as slate revealed last spring, that most of udp's top funders are republican mega- donors, including bernie berkus, the former ceo of home depot picked robert kraft, the new england patriots owner, and paul singer who also amos he took sam alito on that luxury fishing trip. but it gets even weirder, okay? if you look back at that bar chart, there is another super pack there that is fair shake. see that there next to george latimer. now fair shake is backed by cryptocurrency interest who want to keep crypto lightly regulated. they are running ads against bowman, too, but they're not running ads on crypt they are running ads on, wait for it, israel. this is what citizens united has wrought. enormous swarms of money from anodyne sounding groups, pounding a candidate to while concealing what their own interests are it is a bizarre perversion of genuine democratic discourse that does not serve voters. but it works great for mega- donors. ♪ i'm lowering my a1c! ♪ jardiance works twenty-four seven in your body to flush out some sugar. and for adults with type 2 diabetes and known heart disease, jardiance can lower the risk of cardiovascular death, too. serious side effects may include ketoacidosis that may be fatal, dehydration that can lead to sudden worsening of kidney function, and genital yeast or urinary tract infections. a rare, life-threatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur. stop jardiance and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this infection ketoacidosis, or an allergic reaction. you may have an increased risk for lower limb loss. call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of infection in your legs or feet. taking jardiance with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. ♪ jardiance is really swell ♪ ♪ the little pill ♪ ♪ with a big story to tell! ♪ before apoquel chewable for allergic itch. giving dogs pills was a battle of wits. oh, maria, i'm wise to your foolish game. is it gone? 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>> donald trump will be the next president of the united states. >> he is on the verge of a 1980 ronald reagan low out of jimmy carter. and i don't see how the democrats offset. >> now, they're telling their audience remember the last time that they did that? after the 2020 election fox personalities parroted trumps election laws, suggesting voter fraud was the only way he could of lost and he ended up getting sued by it by dominion, the voting machine company. 700 $87 million. their coverage also contributed to the atmosphere that gave rise to a violent insurrection and the first attempt to overthrow the constitutional republic. and they are doing it again, which is dangerous but also potentially hilarious on nights like this where foxnews his own polling data from the field gave them an unexpected and their viewers uncomfortable result. >> we are releasing new fox polls right now about the presidential race. president biden gets his best result this election cycle in the head to head against former president donald trump. he leaves 50-48 point that is within the margin of error. president biden has been ahead of trump in the poll since october, 2023. he trailed trump by one point last month. again, all within the margin of error. >> margin of error, folks. an opinion columnist for the new york times. and the ceo of meeting matters for america and they both join me now. angela, let me start with you because i watch a fair amount of fox, we have it on. and it has been striking to me that inside they are programming, the notion this is a tied race is ludicrous. it is just obviously the case that donald trump is running away with it, biden is going to collapse. it is going to be in 1980 clinical election, is that a fair characterization? >> absolutely. and the thing, that is totally fair. they really have cemented their audience. and by extension, a larger right wing media conservator, the trump supporters. there's no chance that trump can lose. one of the flock hosts, said that there is no way that anyone except the election as legitimate unless donald trump is declared a winner. so they validated that very observation. have gone on one step further than that was is to actually build up the paul bunyan tops which is to say not only is he guaranteed to win, but he is doing it against all of these odds, all of this malfeasance and cheating and other sort of hijinks that the democrats are engaging in. they reinforce that and they are also sort of seeding the ground for any sort of blips and poles or anything that comes off expectations. they are already building their argument for how trump could be declared, say, not the winner. >> and michelle, the thing about this that unnerves me is that we have seen polling misses in different directions it is very hard to get a very tight race like exactly correct . and there is a universe in which like donald trump is up in the polling average by two or three points on election day and joe biden wins. >> there is are of what happened in 2016. >> summoned 2022 and a few those marquee races that democrats over performed. and under those conditions, it is like, yeah, you have already got donald trump is not going to accept defeat. we have already seen what he has done. it feels like they are packing gunpowder into an explosive. >> absolutely. the 2020 race was a race overseen by donald trump's justice department. the idea that they are going to accept a race overseen by the biden administration, at least on the federal level, it seems impossible. and that is kind of what they are preparing their people to do. and it is also that they have kept them, i think that they are themselves, and they keep their viewers in such a bubble, right? they are seeing these clips, some of them are quite doctors, you see bind and wandering off. and so >> at the g7 summit where they had the paratroopers come down. >> politically it actually makes no sense because the thing that biden benefits from most is rock bottom expectations. i have been consistently outspokenly worried about biden's performance but he is cendant at the debate, just as he was at the state of the union. and people are going to remember, oh, this isn't the sort of -- >> zombie. >> that i have been told to expect. what they're doing makes no sense unless they really either are in that bubble or are so devoted to just kind of stoking the wish casting of the people that are in that bubble. >> i can't speak to their voters but it does strike me that it is pleasant to hear good news about your candidate point that is just a general thing for everyone and a part of it is just, this works for them. at a ratings level to be like, donald trump is winning. >> yeah, don't have to make too many guesses here. what came out during the dominion lawsuit is they felt like they didn't have a choice and in some ways it is even worse. and they both knew that they were the only boy secondary to tell the truth to trump off people and get some of them to believe him. of these, as you know, to take some of that gunpowder out of the keg. they were the only ones equipped to that in 2020 and they did office and. by telling to 774 segment especially undermining the election results and telling donald trump lines in the first two weeks after the results came in. so they sort of, they know, they knew that they were lying, but they also acknowledge that if they don't do this, their audience will cannibalize. that is even more so right now. think about it, the right-wing media which typically functions as an echo chamber, fox has been the center of gravity. it has been pretty concrete. this is the first election cycle that rush limbaugh is not the vote operation in the country. the entire right wing media is a jump ball. there is no center of gravity but they are at least the loudest voice in the room and they can't lose that megaphone. that does mean they not only have to toe the line but after reinforce it because they know that their audience will come at the point with s know they are the only ones that can penetrate. so it is really terrible. >> they did promote their own poll today. they are pulling operation i think is relatively sound. it also strikes me, we talked about this, just the asymmetry of the psychological position. people, which is like, people in the centerleft are just constantly hammering it, constantly nervous, completely neurotic. up at night, like what is going on? panicking at every turn. it is completely the opposite. they told people donald trump mike win, they'd be like akamai know that. >> part of it is just kind of maybe dispositional eroticism but part of it is also that democrats and liberals are so self-conscious about their own limitations, their own bubble, they will flagellate themselves with the semi-apocryphal quote about not knowing anyone who voted for nixon. jamie vance, who could be the vice president, the thing that has elevated him was that democrats and liberals rushed out to buy his book to understand what had happened when donald trump was elected, right? we must understand. fox news viewers don't care about the resentments of liberals and making. so they are, they have a sense that they are the, quote unquote, real americans. and that either they are a majority or they have a right to be a majority. and so it just kind of, it almost doesn't compute the idea that the country at large is not seeing what they are seeing. >> and i think that the thing we saw in 2020, which does keep you little hopeful, is there was something similar, there was a huge expectation of the big red wave, it didn't pan out. and with the exception of kari lake, right? everyone accepted it. a kari lake kind of sort of accepted it, though she never really accepted it and she is running again. the problem is donald trump is a unique political figure. >> and that was first. >> when you rerun it, you may not end up in the same place. thank you both. that is all in on this wednesday night. alex wagner tonight starts right now. good evening. >> good evening point i want to start tonight and talk about the evolution of a lie. this is the penned tweet on the republican national committee's twitter account rnc research. pending it, meaning sticking it to the top of their accounts page and they are proud of this. they do not want this post to get lost in the shuffle of all their other posts. the post shows of president biden at the g7 summit, watching a parachuting demonstration with other world leaders.