Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. We are monitoring demonstrations tonight in louisville and around the country as protesters react to the decision today by a grand jury in kentucky to not pursue murder charges against Police Officers who shot and killed Breonna Taylor in her own apartment just six months ago. One officer was charged today with a relatively minor felony but not for the shooting of taylor herself. We will have much more on the protests as well as and that charge later in the show. Conversations with john legend and many others. But we begin tonight with a chilling moment, ive got to say. I dont know any other way to say it. The president of the United States threatening violence to stay in power. Sounds weird coming out of my mouth, but thats what happened. When explicitly asked to commit to a peaceful transfer of power today, he declined, and this was his response. Will you commit to making sure that there is a peaceful transfer of power after the election . We will have to see what happens. You know that. I have been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster. I understand that, but people are rioting. Do you commit to making sure there is a peaceful transfer of power . Get rid of the ballots and well have a very peaceful there wont be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation. The ballots are out of control. You know it. You know who knows it better than anybody else . The democrats know it better than anybody else. Just to be clear, if you are talking to a person and you ask them to commit to behave peacefully and they refuse, theyre threatening violence, right . What the president is doing here is the most explicit that he has been about his plans for this election. Hes plotting in open public repeatedly a coup to steal the election and hold on to power. Again, it all sounds crazy to say. Those are the plain facts as assembled before us. It is not a behind the scenes type of thing. It is happening in public, in plain view. The election is 41 days away. People are already voting. And, look, a few things can happen between now and november 3rd. I mean, the polls could all be wrong. It could turn out donald trump is much more popular than appears to be right now even with 200,000 plus americans dead from a pandemic. Or some event could happen that changes things dramatically and donald trump could win. He could win in a clear and evident fashion. That is a possibility. Another possibility, one that right now polls would indicate is much more likely is that if democrats fight and organized and the broad bipartisan antitrump majority in this country comes out and votes in unprecedented numbers that joe biden could sweep by eight or nine or ten votes in the popular votes, a decisive historic unambiguous route. Thats another possibility. We also may land somewhere between those two ends where the margins are tight and the outcome is not obvious right away. And thats what the president is very explicitly planning for, because those tight margins sets in motion his plan to steal the election. Now, there are already attempts all over the country to make it harder for democratic constituencies to vote. There is voter id requirements. Those have been around a while and there is plans to send trump friendly volunteers to patrol polling places and intimidate voters. We saw that in early voting in virginia. There are also, right, as part of this kind of attempt, there are lawsuits all over the country filed by the Trump Campaign republicans, places like pennsylvania, right, where the Trump Campaign republicans sued to block voters from using drop boxes of all things to turn in their ballots. Right . Thats because they dont want to be able to vote. And then there is the key tactic, the key rhetorical tactic, which is what we have seen time and time again, the relentless attacks aided by William Barrs lies on legitimacy and integrity of mailin voting while the country is still in the midst of a once in a century pandemic that has not ebbed because of the president s failures. Around support for himself. The goal is that the protrump minority of the country, and it is a clear minority, lets be clear right now as i spoke to you, that that minority votes in person on election day and that the antitrump majority, perhaps more concerned about the pandemic that they largely vote by mail. Of course, the president s abject mishandling and pollicization of the Coronavirus Crisis has a lot to do with us being in this position to begin with. And the president has been explicit about why hes doing this, right . He will take advantage of something called the red mirage where more republicans votes come in first because those people voted in person, making it look like trump is ahead on Election Night and then he will attempt to use the courts to delay something called the blue shift, which is just the counting of more heavily democratic mailin votes. Theyre all the same votes. Theyre all just getting counted at different times, right . Keep that in mind. There is a stack over here, a stack over there. If the Election Night stack is very republican and the mailin stack is very democratic, there is no difference between those votes. But he will try to use the courts to invalidate as many of those votes as he can. Remember, this is why today he refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, the mailin ballots. Get rid of those ballots, he said. Those are also a reason the president says, keeps saying, that he is counting on the courts, the federal courts to help him win. Hes not going to wait for the ballots to be counted. Hes saying it. That is why the president and his allies like senator ted cruz are making this part of their explicit argument to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburgs seat on the Supreme Court. Theyre out there. We should have nine justices on the bench, an odd number to resolve the election. Keep in mind, republicans already have a 53 majority of the court. But apparently they do not trust chief Justice John Roberts to be enough of a hack to hand them the white house. So thats everything they are doing in public. But it is even worse in private behind the scenes, especially when you think about how they might use the power of the presidency again to steal the election after the votes are cast. And this is the subject of this new piece titled the election that could break america. The piece is nearly 10,000 words long and breaks down how much effort is going into stealing the election. I want to take you through a piece of his reporting. This is not fan fiction. It is not doom casting. This is reporting, right . The Trump Campaign reportedly actively engaged in conversations about appointing, appointing loyal electors for the Electoral College in battleground states where republicans hold the majority with a justification based on those claims of ramped fraud. Trump would ask legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a late of electors directly. After they delay and they fight and they scratch and they claw and hopefully they get lucky with a bunch of judges that donald trump installed and they get to get them not to count as many of the mailin votes as possible and take a long time, those votes they suspect are largely democratic and they agree to discount it because who can say there is all this fraud. Just listen to the president and hand him his electors into victory in the Electoral College. I know. It sounds like distaupic science fiction. It is what is happening in front of our eyes. We have to be honest about it, the same we we had to be honest about what the virus was going to do to this country back in late february. It is, frankly, a plan for an authoritarian power grab. Now, as you digest this, before you get paralyzed by this nightmare scenario because part of the plan here, i think, is to psych people into paralysis, there are even more nightmare scenarios were going to talk about. But the key thing thats important to remember is there is an off ramp here. And it doesnt lie with donald trump. It doesnt really lie with Mitch Mcconnell or federal judges or anyone. The remedy to avoid all this is just a historic mobilization of the countrys antitrump prodemocratic majority coming out to vote, delivering a resounding unquestionable defeat to the president and his agenda in order to save american selfgovernance. And joining me now is bart gellman. Staff writer or the atlantic. Author of the piece. It is a great piece of work. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. You hear these people say, well, trump is not going to leave if he loses. My thinking is, no, we will leave. We will be kicked out of the white house on inauguration day, january 20th. But you are describing a plan to essentially use the rules and the jockeying around them to create a plausible legal victory in the absence of an actual popular one. And it starts on Election Night. Lets talk about the sort of plan around in anticipation that Election Night the votes are kind of polarized along in person mailin voting. What does that do . What does that start to set in motion in terms of the plan the trump folks have . So trump has deliberately polarized that. Thats an insight i didnt come to until very recently. His comments on mailin voting, chris, are designed to drive his votes to the polls in person and democratic votes to stay in the mailin ballots, to be safe from covid. And that gives him a proxy so that his lawyers, probably more than a thousand lawyers hes got lined up to go in the battleground states beginning on election day or beginning eight months ago because they have been fighting this out all year, they know which ballots to target. They know which ones to accuse of being fraudulent. They know which ones to challenge signature by signature and envelope by envelope. And the idea is to freeze the count in place on Election Night. Its never going to get better for trump than on Election Night because that is when he is expecting his voters to turn out and many democratic voters yet to be counted. So the idea is to freeze that in place, to raise accusations of fraud and rigging and general chaos to go into court but basically to delay any period during which biden could be coming back or to delay any recognition that biden is ahead. This is all assuming that things dont go well for him, chris. As you pointed out, he could win. He could win legit. Sure. But his plan is the plan of someone who does not expect to get the most votes. I mean, i guess one question, right, is there are different rules in different states, and this matters quite a bit about when those ballots are counted, when theyre allowed to be counted. There has been republican mischief around those states intentionally intervening to make them not counted, to make it illegal to start counting them before election day. Am i right about that . That is right. There have been a number of lawsuits around the country that lead to the question you have got a whole bunch of mail ballots that have come in. Theyre stacking up in the offices. Are you allowed to start comparing signatures . Are you allowed to say, yes, john doe requested a ballot. Here is the ballot. The signature matches. The address matches, all the checks they are supposed to do. And then they put the inner security envelope, which has the ballot, the actual vote in it into a place where it will be counted on election day, but it is a laborious process. If you can do that preprocessing before election day, then you have a chance of having same day results. Some states dont allow that. Arizona does. Florida does, which is key, which is why florida ends up being key because they count quickly. That process starts at ballots come in. I know this is technical but think about this. When were talking about the two stacks, there are some states with two stacks and some states with one stack. The states with one stack, youre opening them and this person is a voter. Youre saying, it goes in the same stack as the same day votes, right . And florida is one of those states. It is part of the reason that florida closing early and counting quickly is key. Lets talk about this idea of that time line, right . Because i think people need to think about this. Obviously there is a lot of people on the other side thinking about this. There is basically the constitution and statute, right, creates a deadline for states to appoint their electors in december 8th; is that correct . Right. So december 14th is the day the electors meet in their 50 state capitals and cast their ballots. Popular misconception aside, the Electoral College itself does not meet as a body. Thats december 14th. December 8th is called the safe harbor date. That is the deadline for each state to appoint its electors to certify these are the electors who will cast our votes. And after that deadline, they cant be sure that congress will accept the credentials of those electors. As long as there is no controversy about who the electors are on december 8th, then congress accepts. If there is a controversy, and this is going to be key in our story here, then its congress that decide. If there is more than one slate of electors, for example, or if there is controversy about who counts, then congress decides which electors if any to accept. And thats the key to the trump plan. And that was key to the reporting here because i have thought about this scenario for a long time because it is in the constitution and if you sort of game it out. But you have i mean, i think the chair of the Republican Party is on the record in your story saying hes discussed this. You have sources close to the Republican Party in pennsylvania saying, yeah, were talking about. And its one plus one equals two, right. If you get enough lawsuits that you delay and it is december 6th and they say, oh, man, we havent counted yet and we have to send our electors in. Pennsylvania selects donald trump electors to the state of pennsylvania. Here you go. Right. So you have to rewind a little bit. Its in the constitution. Yes. That eight legislators can appoint electors for president in any manner they choose. And the Supreme Court ruled in bush v gore in 2000 that state legislators can take back that power from the people any time they want. So were accustomed to voting by popular vote for who is going to represent our state in the state electors, but the constitution doesnt guarantee that. And the idea that some trump people are discussing, not saying they have a plan to do it, but i know that it is coming up and they have discussed it also with the Republican Party in pennsylvania, a crucial swing state, is that they would ask republican legislators who control both chambers in pennsylvania and in fact in all six of the most closely contested battleground states to name trump friendly electors notwithstanding the popular vote, regardless of the popular vote that it will be a claim that the county isnt finished or that it it was corrupt or that it was rigged or that there are still legal disputes. And so just appoint some trump people. We should say that mark caputo of politico got some on the record comments from political state reps in florida today saying no, we wont do that. Which is good. It is good to have it on the record. Joni ernst is also saying there is no way were going to confirm a justice in an election year. So take that for what its worth. Read it. When i spoke to you in late february about the virus, we should be clear about what the possibilities of the future are. Thank you, bart. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me. Still to come, if you are watching this, you are wondering what option do you have to make sure your vote is protected and what to do about all this. Do not go anywhere because we will talk about that next. I feel like were forgetting something. Let me check. Xfinity home gives you peace of mind from anywhere with professionally monitored Home Security built around you. No, i think were good. Good. So when youre away, you dont have to worry. The tent. We forgot. The tent. Except about that. Xfinity home. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Hey look, i found the tent get xfinity home with no Term Contract required. Click or call today. Will you commit to making sure there is a peaceful transferal of power after the election . We will have to see what happens. You know that. I have been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster. I understand that, but people are rioting. Do you commit to making sure there is a peaceful transfer of power . Get rid of the ballots and you will have a very peaceful there wont be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation. The ballots are out of control. You know it. And you know who knows it better than anybody else . The democrats know it better than anybody else. By the way, thats flatly wrong. The ballots are not out of control. Were in the midst of a once in a century pandemic that has killed 200,000. And sickened 7 million. Were amidst an overlapping and cascading crises, tens of millions of people out of work. A historic crisis for the country in terms of the strength of our democracy. All of us as democratic citizens are being called upon to do what we can to avoid a catastrophic blow to our system of government. There are going to be battles fought in the courts. And various things the campaigns are going to be doing. There are also small things you can do to play your part in this. Obviously voting is one of the key essential tools. But in a pandemic, it is unclear how to do that safety. The Brennan Center for justice issues studies among other issues Election Integrity and security. How polling site consolidation affects turnout and wait times at the ballot box. Joining me, michael wallman, nonpartisan law and Public Policy institute at nyus law school. That program is aimed at protecting the vote. Okay. Lets talk about what people can do, about voting. First obviously you need to make sure you are registered and we have plan your vote tool at nbc. Com planyourvote. How are you talking to people about how they should think about their vote plan . This year of course because it is unlike other years, the pandemic changes a lot of things. All of us acid sevens have to do a bit more to make sure that we can be registered, that we can vote and that our vote counts. The first thing is make sure you are registered. There are ways to do that online. Then if at all possible, vote early. Whatever way you are planning on voting, whether it is vote by mail or in person with absentee balloting excuse me, with in person early voting or on election day, the most important thing is if you can vote early enough to have your vote counted with confidence then people will know they will be able to have their vote asked and have it matter. This is key here, and i want to make this distinction between mailin ballots and voting early in person because i think early in person is also a really good option. There are fewer crowds. There is more space generally because it is not election day, right . You tend not to have big, long lines. These are the states you can do early voting, in person absentee in all of the states you see up there, which is a lot of them. If you can take advantage of that, again, we talked about this strategy of kind of polarizing mailin voting versus in person, this is a way of doing it. Do we have that graphic . This is the way you can do it. Vote early, in person in many states. Check your state to see if you can do it. Well, and you can also check to see if your ballot went in in a lot of states. There are ways to track it online. Look, already in this country one out of three people vote before election day in a typical year whether in person or absentee. This time it will probably be more. Probably closer to half or above that. But trumps diabolical streak here is taking something that was never particularly controversial and making it seem like some horrible disaster. There is another thing that can be done thats important. There is another positive thing. States need money, and congress provided 400 million, but thats not enough. But the good news is the private sector is actually stepping up. I dont mean only philanthropy providing funds. But businesses. There is a coalition called time to vote of a thousand big companies, giving people time off and encouraging them to go staff the polling places. Those kinds of things make a big difference, making the stadiums available as polling places as the nba and the Nba Players Association have made happen. There is kind of a civic upsurge to try to help the election to happen, notwithstanding trump. Right. So you can volunteer to be a poll worker, particularly if you are wrong, you are someone with antibodies, relatively low risk. Were going to need poll workers. We saw what happened in milwaukee in that primary. Not enough poll workers. They had to close sites and long lines. If you are in a state that can vote early, absentee in person thats relatively safe, relatively empty, relatively spaced out, it means that vote goes into that pile, the count tonight pile, which is key. A key thing here thats worth talking about is tracking your mailin ballot. If you are going to vote absentee, if you are going to use a mailin ballot, you will see the vast majority of states allow you to track it, which means it can be complicated. We talked about the naked ballots in pennsylvania. There is two envelopes. You have to sign it, make sure you follow all the rules. And then make sure it gets counted by using your states tool to track the ballot. Its like tracking ups or a fedex package or overnight nail. We have those tools. Were all used to using them. Fortunately, it is something thats available now for our democracy. I will mention one last thing that can be a vaccine to inoculate against the virus of the misinformation about this election. And thats the news media. We know that it is, as you have covered, showed, that it is likely that its not going to be some big reveal at 11 00 on east coast time when the polls are closed in the west and now we know and were going to tell you who won. Probably not. It might be. It is probably going to be several days. And that is not a problem. That is not chaos. Right. That is not fraud. It just means people are carefully counting the ballots. I think we all need to get used to that and tv and other media institutions have a big responsibility, too. Could not agree with you more. Michael waldman, the Brennan Justice center, thank you so much. Next protests in louisville tonight after a grand jury announced in murder charges in the Police Killing of Breonna Taylor. The president of the naacp Legal Defense sunday Sherrilynn Ifill joins me for reaction right after this. These folks, they dont have time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps. Com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the services of the post office plus ups only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps. Com tv and never go to the post office again. There are protests in louisville, kentucky tonight and a number of cities after one officer was charged with a minor felony in connection with the death of Breonna Taylor. Not for her actual killing, rather for endangering the lives of other neighbors with the gunshots he fired. This is the scene in louisville tonight, where the police have declared a state of emergency. Federal buildings are closed to the public. Barricades were put in place downtown. A National Guard has been deployed to the city. The major issued a curfew that starts in less than an hour at 9 00 p. M. Eastern. Tensions have been high throughout the day. In fact, a gang of camo clad gunmen, civilians with weapons, were seen marching in downtown louisville this afternoon and refused to identify themselves to a reporter. Scuffles broke out between police and protesters after today awes announcement was made. Police have already started rounding up and arresting protesters, declaring some protests, even though they were nonviolent nonlawful assemblies. Were seeing protests happen across the country tonight. This is a scene in washington, d. C. There are also protests in chicago and new york and l. A. As americans take to the streets to express anger and frustration over what they see is the lack of justice for Breonna Taylor. A 26yearold emt, an aspiring nurse who was killed in march when officers executing a socalled noknock warrant broke down her door as part of a narcotics investigation. She was in her apartment with her boyfriend who said he believed the couple was facing a home invasion. He fired his gun once at the front door, injuring an officer. Police fired back, hitting taylor at least five times and killing her. Two of the officers involved were not charged in the announcement today. They remain on the force on administrative leave. A grand jury recommended charges for a single officer, that would be the hangover part ii who was fired back in june. He is not charged with murder or manslaughter but first degree wanton endangerment because of some of the shots entered the apartment of a neighbor. That former detective faces up to five years in prison. For each of three counts. Legal experts say he could potentially qualify for pretrial diversion which could potentially keep him out of prison. The officers who shot Breonna Taylor remain free. You have been reporting on this and does some amazing reporting on Breonna Taylors life before this moment. Talk us through what happened today in terms of what evidence was presented, the charges and what the reaction has been. You know, chris, the difficulty with this case is there were a domino effect of decisions taken before the officers even got to her door, which in many ways set in motion the events that led to her death. The three officers who showed up at her door were not part of the investigation that led police there in the first place. That intelligence was already flawed. There have been questions about the warrant that was issued in the case of her apartment. But once the raid was in motion, the three officers who were at her door did have a warrant that had been signed the day before by a judge. So they were there legally. According to at least one witness, they did announce themselves as police. They beat down her door and once they got inside her apartment, they were fired at. So what the attorney general explained is that according to kentuckys statute on selfdefense, they were within their rights to fire back. Hankison, brett hankison, the detective that is the only one being charged here broke the formation at the door, the stack of officers who were there getting ready to go in. He ran outside into the parking lot and from the parking lot without any line of sight he began blindly firing into her patio door and into her window. Those bullets passed across her. They did not hit her. This is why he is not being charged with her death. But they went into the apartment behind hers where there was a pregnant woman, her husband and their fiveyearold child. Thankfully they were not hurt, but thats where that charge is coming from, the Reckless Endangerment charge for the neighbors who were behind. We should note that the braes boyfriend says they did not say police and he did not hear them. The police say they did announce themselves. He says its night and people barged into his door and he thinks he is being assaulted. There are no drugs on the premises. Nothing is found. There is no reason to think theyre doing anything criminal whatsoever. He is a lawful gun owner and he is protecting his domicile. Right, right. A couple of points, chris. So number one, according to a former instructor at the Police Academy here in kentucky who taught the course on what is called dynamic entry, which is this type of raid when you burst into somebodys house, you have to knock and announce very loudly. Youre supposed to announce so loudly he said that you wake up the entire neighborhood. By all accounts that did not happen. I was able to find after taking apart that apartment complex, i was able to find a single witness who i believe is the same witness that the attorney general and their investigation spoke to, and he was outside his apartment. He was a truck driver coming home late from shift. So he was on the landing outside and heard the police shouting police and crucially, he heard it only once. So it is possible that both sides are telling a version of the truth here. It is possible that the police announced themselves but not sufficiently. And its possible that Breonna Taylor and her boyfriend did not hear them through multiple walls in the bedroom where she was asleep and he was getting ready to fall asleep. Now regarding the investigation, the family and a legal team have pointed out that no drugs and no cash were found at the premises. The investigators that i have spoken to have pushed back really hard against that and they point out that no search was actually conducted once she was killed. Once she was killed, the search was called off. I was skeptical of this claim until i was able to get access of hundreds of pages, now thousands of pages of police documents and i did find among those documents a document that said warrant canceled and it was issued before all of the protests about Breonna Taylor. So that point remains inconclusive. But youre right. If you are asleep in your home in the middle of the night why would you hear police shout once. The New York Times is down there in louisville as police react to this announcement today. I want to bring in Sherrilynn Ifill, president director and counsel of the naacp Legal Defense fund. I have seen a lot of people say today is that the law as constituted gives police tremendously wide latitude to use lethal force against people, and this is the system that we have. Well, i have talked for some time, chris, about what i call the regime of impunity that protects Police Officers and the entire apparatus from accountability, and were seeing some of that today. I insist, chris, on reading something to you. Based on my observations and supervision of this officer for the past calendar year, i would not recommend him for reemployment at any time in the future due to his actions in violation of standing orders, refusal to accept supervision and general poor attitude towards the division of policing and his commanding staff. That was written by the former supervisor of officer hankinson when he worked at the Lexington Police department, written a year before he joined the Louisville Police department. One area of impunity is the ability of unfit officers to go from department to department. Since hes been in louisville, hes been the subject of multiple disciplinary actions. He is currently under investigation from multiple charges or claims by women of sexual assault. This is the person that they had go to serve, quote unquote serve this socalled warrant at Breonna Taylors home. So it begins first of all with just the personnel. And then we know all of the mistakes that happen, the sending away from the ambulance that is supposed to be outside when they engage in this kind of action. I want to know more though, chris. This is why i want to see the grand jury transcripts. I want to know how this case was presented to the grand jury. The idea they would come forward with only one set of charges, none of them having to do with Breonna Taylor herself is quite alarming and i want to know how this case was presented to the grand jury. It is striking to me as we saw that footage of a number of men walking through the streets openly carrying their weapons, sort of dressed up like some kind of, you know, protomilitary, Para Military gang that, you know, Breonna Taylors boyfriend was a lawful gun owner who was using his weapon in service of the thing that people who celebrate gun rights and the nra say is the sacrosanct reason that we need guns, the sacrosanct reason that has to be defended to protect your home from invaders. That is precisely what this man thought he was doing in the night when people barged into his home. And Breonna Taylor is dead and there is no resource for him. Because black people dont have Second Amendment rights when they are in encounters with white people or encounters with law enforcement. Thats the reality. And thats whats so chilling and so frightening. One of the msnbc guests said it earlier today. Marq claxton. He said you cant put together the Castle Doctrine that a man or a woman can protect their home with noknock warrants, right . Right. So this encounter happens, and, remember, the boyfriend is charged with attempted murder before all of this came to light. We are only learning about this because of the activism, the protests, the refusal of people to forget Breonna Taylor and insist we say her name. After all this people what we have gotten out of it are these charges, these wanton endangerment charges against an officer who never should have been on that police force, let alone assigned to execute a warrant under this kind of high tension situation. There is a lot more to learn about what happened and what has been happening in the Louisville Police department. You know, one thing that i have learned from radley balkos great book and his book the rise of the war for cop is the insane overuse of noknock warrants. I mean, this is an extremely dangerous tactic, extremely high leverage that is used indiscriminately by forces across the country of barging into peoples houses and causing mayhem and violence and destruction and mistakes, a shocking percentage of the time. Yeah. A mistake that results in a loss of life, so one positive that has come out of this in Breonna Taylors name is that louisville no longer uses no knock warrants and they have been outlawed, which is wonderful. There is a provision that would bar noknock warrants in a george floyd policing act that was passed by the house and sits in the senate yet untended to. This has to be addressed. But this whole warier mentality of police departments, because of the tactics they used against just more electrifying. Still a night out. But everything fits in. Still hard work. Just a little easier. Still a legend. Just more legendary. Chevrolet. Making lifes journey, just better. So if there is one thing we know about florida and the election is that florida is going to be very, very close. We got some polls out today that show how thats the case and has always been the ways. Cnbc had a new poll showed joe biden up by three points over donald trump. And then an abc News Washington poll that shows trump ahead by 4. Remember, in 2016, donald trump won the state by just over 100,000 votes, or a bit over 1 . And the 538 polling average has joe biden up by just 1. 6 . Again, razor thin. Now, republicans know republicans know how close the states can be and they have under taken this staggering assault to peoples access franchise precisely that reasons. On our show, weve covered this incredible grassroots effort to restore Voting Rights to some of the felons in florida who have paid their debt to society. Florida used to have among the strictest disenfranchisement in the country. People voted and in that sharply divided state, look at what the results are. Look at those results, this is a 50 50 state. Look at those results. 65 voted yes and 35 voted no. In favor of democracy and reintegration of the formally incarcerated. Incredible victory. Well, the republicans got to work on that. And the republican legislators moved to pass a law that would stop felons from voting until they pay their fines. It would disenfranchise those same people all over again. The republicans in the Legislature Passed it and the republican Governor Ron Desantis signed it, and now perhaps a 775,000 people cannot vote unless they come up with money. Thats right, they have to pay money to vote. If that sounds like a poll tax, a federal judge agrees. Writing, quote, the 24th amendment precludes florida from conditioning federal elections on the payment of these fees and costs. Now the Voter Registration deadline looming on october 5th, the Grassroots Group working on this has raised more than 20 million with a recent contribution from Michael Bloomberg to pay those fines in time to make sure every eligible voter in the state can cast a ballot this november. Joining me now are two people instrumental to this project, the president of the Florida Rights Coalition who had his right restored and author of the forthcoming book let my people vote my battle to restore the rights of returning citizens and john legend from the florida restoration Rights Coalition who has written and produced a few hit songs you might have heard of. Let me start with you about where things stand right now. This has been such a struggle and so many two steps forward and one step back and federal lawsuit, how would you characterize where things stand right now in terms of formally incarcerated folks in your state having access to the ballot . Chris, first of all, thank you for having me on again. It is great to see you. Let me start by saying this. I know you mention something about bloomberg. But this thing is far beyond that. Im happy. Im smiling because im seeing something amazing. Over 44,000 people across the country have been standing up to free to vote in florida that believe a person should not have to choose between putting food on their kids plate or voting. They shouldnt have to choose between paying their rent or mortgage and voting. This is an amazing display of people just standing up to defend, creating a more inclusive democracy. So where do we stand . Im going to tell you where we stand. We have 1. 4 million floridians who benefited from amendment 4. Out of those 1. 4 million, there are 774,000 who have some type of outstanding financial obligations. Lets not lose sight of the fact that it still leaves 500000 to 600,000 returning citizens who can register to vote right now today because they dont have those barrier. Right. Were not frelging about american citizens of one who just died last week and her dying wish was to be able to cast a ballot before she did pass away. Bufrtly, she was unable to do so. I know there are so Many American citizens in that 774,000 that wants to experience what i experience just a few weeks ago when i voted the first time in over 30 years. What that experience goes beyond partisan politics. We are letting those legislators legislate and let the politicians do what they do to divide this country. But the core of what were doing is bringing people together from all walks of life, all political persuasions to experience the American Dream of being able to stand up in the voting booth and say that i am, i exist and i count. You know, john, what desmond is speaking to there about this sort of indefatigability of the effort in this movement, you organize and get the 6535 outcome in a divided state is amazing. Then the legislature comes back and tries to bar these people. Ive watched these people, what does it take right now what is this fundraising movement looking to do . Well, we are going to literally pay off some of these fees and fines and free the vote for thousands more people. We believe this is a moral imperative to include as many people as possible in our democracy. We believe its a moral imperative because the people of florida, as you so eloquently said, voted 6535. Since when does florida vote anything 6535 . It has been a divided state for a long time. That requirement for that amendment to pass was a super majority, 60 . We exceeded that super majority by five points. The idea that the state legislature would then turn around and try to basically repeal what the people voted for is still unconscionable for so many floridians and americans. We are all coming together to say well, lets erase these fines by paying it off for people who need the help. Thats what we are doing. Desmond, you had quite a week. You were named as one of the time 100 most influential people. You also were denied your application for a full pardon from the governor, from governor desantis. I think that denial happened yesterday or today. Your reaction to that denial. I look at it, chris, is justice delayed is justice denied. I was actually denied the decision. That experience speaks to why we launch amendment 4 campaign to begin with. We have a situation where where it was purely arbitrary. Clemency hearings are designed to look at what a person does after they have committed their crime, how they have rehabilitated themselves, how have they become an asset to the community. And its very laid out. My track record is very clear. The work that i do with the homeless, the work that i do with returning citizens, the work that i have done even in responding to covid19 in prisons and jails and ive had all kinds of commendations from being named floridian of the year and central floridian of the year and even time 100 most influential in the world. And if that is not enough to show rehabilitation and a commitment to giving back to the community, then what is . It just speaks to the arbitraryness of this clemency process that we have been talking about for years. And that was the purpose. How could we let four politicians just rule arbitrarily to decide which american citizens get to vote and which dont . Amendment 4 created an alternative pathway so that american citizens who have done their time, who have paid their debt to society and just want to move on with their lives and choose whether or not they want to participate in democracy have that opportunity to do so and that is what were fighting. At the end of the day, it is about people from all walks of life and all political persuasions that just want to move on and feel like they are apart of this country. John, i want to ask you and have you here on this somber day when we got this announcement out of the state of kentucky about charges for one of the officers involved in the shooting of Breonna Taylor. I know you wrote an oped on her birthday. You have been very vocal in looking for some kind of accountability and justice for Breonna Taylor. And for people that are feeling frustrated or angry or disappoint order upset, i wonder what you want to say about your own reaction today to that announcement. Im angry. Im frustrated. Im grieving for breonna and her family. Im grieving for so many other families that have these interaction was the police, that have had these killings caused by the police, that have gone would w no accountability. It continues to happen. The system is not broken. Its working exactly how it was designed. So we need to change the system. And part of the way we do that is through our election process. Part of the way we do that is voting for different attorney generals and different district attorneys wholl adjudicate and make decisions in a way thats more progressive and in tune of whats happening in the community and protecting the lives of all the citizens of the community instead of being a collusion with the police force and the Police Unions to protect them. We need to make sure we are voting so we have say in all those local and state officials that make these decisions that far too often side with police, believe the Police Account without taking into account the value of the lives of the polices victims. All right, john legend and desmond mead, gentlemen, thank you both for making time tonight. I really appreciate it. That is all in for this wednesday night. Rachel maddow show starts right now. Good evening, rachel. Good evening, chris. Thanks, my friend. Much appreciated. We have a lot to get to tonight there is a lot going on, including some absolutely unbelievable remarks from the president tonight. You know me. Dont tend to cover things the president says as if they themselves are news, because his words are frequently designed just to distract us from whatever else is really going on in the news. Tonight, though, the president has Cross Adeline in his public remarks that bring us to a new place as a country, and were going to be talking about that in some detail tonight. But were going start tonight with our eyes on louisville, kentucky. Louisville, kentucky. An allnight curfew has just gone into effect this hour, as of the last few seconds. It comes at the end of a tense day in louisville, which followed a tense sumner that city. There have been protested on the streets of louisville, kentucky, for 119 consecutive days, protests over the Police Killing of Breonna Taylor in march of this year as the Kentucky Attorney general announced whether there would be charges brought against any of the officers involved, much of downtown louisville was closed off with vehicles, concrete barriers, store fronts were boarded up, a re