Transcripts For MSNBCW Why 20240706

Below new york, thank you for joining us live at town hall in new york city for this very special addition of why is this happening . He is incisive, he is big hearted, he is very, very smart, and admit it, he is taller than you expected. Please give a warm welcome to my friend, my beloved colleague, msnbcs chris hayes. Hey, everybody, hello. [applause] thank you, hey, oh, stop. Stop. [applause] how are you . Good. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Sit down, sit down, sit down. Thank you, thats extremely kind. I hate attention and positive feedback. That was a really hard 20 seconds for me. Thank you for cutting it short. Its amazing to be here, in my hometown of new york city. I got some family here. Tonight, we are going to talk about democracy, and that word, i think we have probably talked more about democracy than the last four or five years that i had in all of my time as a journalist. Even as a topic seems a longer. We all know, america is a democracy, and there is a history that youre thought, that i think is part of america suffolk culture, almost kind of civic religion, which roughly goes for the following. The founders rebelled against the tyranny of the crown, and the injustice of the monarchy. They conceived in liberty, the nation, founded on a government by any of and for the people. That is the Gettysburg Address of it, and they rejected basically the idea that there is some authority above all of us that has dominion over us, that each of us are imbued with the ability to determine our own faith collectively, as it be, and that is a difficult, messy process. Fundamentally, in the eyes of some of the founders, thats a given. In the eyes of others, its a natural truth. That is the idea. We all decide together what we all are going to do. That simple, fundamental and at the time, radical vision is what separates us from the Western Hemisphere from the old war of europe, or you have monarchies, kings, greens and tyrants. As time went on, various forms of blood spilled over authoritarianism, ultimately fascism. You dont really get democracies in that part of the world, from the way that we think about them at the time. There is some, obviously, like there are democratic forms of government that exists, all these revolutions, sort of these compromises to be worked out in uk, in poland and different parts of the continent. But, basically, we are the model for the world, right . Yes, we are the first ones, we figured it out. We sloughed off the yoke of tyranny, and we seized our faith. Now, the other part of the story that we all know is a very complicated story, as one british critic at the time said, the loudest cries of liberty come from the american states. Which is, by the way, an important point that they saw at the time, right . People understood at the time, the incredible, ridiculous tension in american rhetoric about ourself democracy. But the general story i think we have is, we start with an imperfect democracy, and we work towards a more perfect democracy, a more Perfect Union in the preamble. I think there is something to that story. I dont think its a crazy story, but its basically the civic religion that we have. I think theres another way of thinking about the story of american democracy, which is that america is kind of the ongoing dynamic sight of Perpetual Contestation over democracy. That is the site of constant pitched battle between forces on the side of democracy and against them. And the forces against them are not fringe characters. Sometimes, the forces against them are the most celebrated people in the country. Andrew jackson, viewed as a democrat, because he sort of railed against the elites, founded the modern Democratic Party with populism. He invited people into the white house on the day of his inauguration, all that junk. He was not in any recognizable sense was really a democrat in the way that we think about it today. He thought that there was a cast of people who should roll over another cast of people. He was one of the major pursuers of the Ethnic Cleansing that made the continent what is, right . He did not think that everyone had some universal inevitable right, and all of us collectively should rule of all of us collectively. He thought that the white man should rule over slaves and over the Indigenous People that populated the land. Im not saying this in like, Andrew Jacksons canceled way. I mean, he should be, to be clear. I am actually talking in a specific way, how would you characterize and ideological Belief System of Andrew Jackson . Is it accurate to call and jackson a small the democrat . Is it accurate to call Andrew Jackson like a believer in democracy, right . I think its a little tough to say it is, at least in our modern sense [laughter] Theodore Roosevelts on mount rushmore. What does Theodore Roosevelt think . Theodore roosevelt believes, says and rights often is that the white races that rule over the other races. He found this what essentially becomes the american empire, in the pacific, where we will roll over these people. They are not going to get the vote, not going to be citizens, not fully legal, they are subject to authority from our high, and they are forced to be under the authority, not different, in a way, then the remote king at the time. Again, all of these examples i am getting, there are people at the time that recognize this. One of the most pitched debates that happened in American History on the floor of congress about the Trail Of Tears, which people come to say, they did not have the term at the time, is ethnic on sick. This is totally unjust. We cant do this. These people have inalienable rights. At the same time, when we started fighting our wars under Theodore Roosevelt and pursuing american empire, there are people at the time, mark twain, prominent among them, saying that we are doing dating that we hate the crown for doing. At each moment in American History, where you have these fights and frictions over what the meaning of democracy is. There are contemporaries on each side of the debate. Its not this knee arc where we start out sort of confused. Dont understand that slavery is wrong, walking into the light. No, they knew, they knew, they knew the Trail Of Tears was wrong. They knew that the wars and the pacific, in the philippines, what we were doing, it was wrong. There were people who clearly saw what it was, and that issue at every point. Its true up until the period and run up to world war ii. Now, that story, we have learned, is basically the following. Because of the trauma of world war one, the u. S. Is reticent to get involved more on european shores, fair. And we kind of dither, and fdr comes up with a land lease, like the basic version, because he is trying to shadow, realized that something will have to be done, but its hard to get americans into the idea Of A Second War In Europe in just several decades later and then pearl harbor happens, were in, and we defeat fascism. Right . [laughter] go us. Thats basically the story, and that story also mask exactly the same thing, that is masked in other movements from the countrys founding to the Trail Of Tears in jackson, to the creation of the u. S. Empire in the u. S. Pacific, under Theodore Roosevelt, which is contemporary bay in society about what democracy is, and whether it is good. Whether what we actually do want is for all of us collectively, as individuals, with sovereign rights over ourselves, collectively to come together, to transfer that sovereignty into a collective we, that the sides as a democracy, how we will mark our faith. How we will go far. Or whether what we want is something else, dominion, ruled by some group or person, that is an internal debate in american politics. We are now realizing this in a way that we did not appreciate until we found ourselves in this moment now, where we debate it again every day. And a feels weird and alien and feels like it landed from mars. Hadnt we all come to a consensus on this . Didnt we all agree that we arent a democracy . Wasnt it the fact that in the old days, we would fight along the 40 yard lines, is the cliche . Right . We did not have extremes. We were not actually debating. No, the debate has been there the entire time. One of the most useful interventions in understanding to debate the whole time, comes by way of this up and coming talent that i spotted. [laughter] [applause] i got a pretty good eye, and this really remarkable podcast called spoelstra, that came out a year ago [applause] totally, if you have not listened to it, go download it, subscribe to my podcast to while doing it, but, download ultra, and it is the story of an attempt at a basic fascist sympathizer in the u. S. Prior to the war and their efforts, and the incredible like they went to. I will not spoil it, well talk about it in a second. Now, subsequently, that as part of it, but i want to urge people, because i read the book this week, because i have to do it that down why. Sauter you to listen to cultural to read the book, because this book, recall, see, look at this [applause] it is not just the podcast in the book, to actually go so much further, an incredible read, and its kind of, i think, a skeleton key for this particular moment. So, without further ado, i would like to introduce, the author of precool, my dear, dear, dear friend, my beloved colleague, richard meadow. [applause] [applause] there are a lot of people in this room. There are a lot of people. For those listening on the podcast, there are 20,000 people. I never seen anything like it in my life. I am wearing my reading glasses, so all of you are little blobs, can see you at all, which is helpful. Yes. Can we i want to start in the way that you wrote prequel. I had to say, its in an incredible town that you have, and this has been shoe on your show for years, finding these unexplored audiences in history, the stories of people dont know, and then you taught them, and youre like, what, really, that happened . Ultra was an incredible example of that i knew who Father Coughlin was, a rightwing, Antisemitic Populace preacher. So i knew that. I knew that there was, theres this american version i read the philippe brought novel which is great. Which is great, that was kind of my caveat for those things. I knew those things. I knew nothing else. So i want you to start by saying, what was your way into it, because its really not on the surface . So, i never set out to tell a history story. I am always looking for something that is going on in current life. Its always something that sprung from things going on in the news. The thing i get dinged for rightly, i think, in terms of the way that i do my work is, if i want to tell you about something happening in the world today, everything has to start with, first, a meteor hit the earth, and then the dinosaurs died. When their bodies dissolved thats a good bit. Thats a good bit. If that is not your way of thinking about the world, i can understand why it is alienating. I love you too. [applause] but that is the way that my brain works, and i was, as unnerved as everybody but also kind of confused and entrusted that we were seeing all of this altright neonazi antisemitic and Holocaust Denial stuff around the rise of trumpism, so trumpism is happening in the electoral politics pace, and we got this at the minute, the altright, i dont think we call them that anymore. But it was seeing the rise alongside trump, and see them cheerleading for trump, and seeing the parallel movements, i did not understand why that was. So, i wanted to figure out, how, not just antisemitism but specifically, Holocaust Denial, has function in the United States before. That was the starting point. That was the starting point. How do because, if you go back far enough, in terms of the origins of the holocaust now, which i did, you get back to like 1948, and the Holocaust Denialism has done a lot of things, but one of the things is it is weird. With so much evidence that it happened, how can it be that we say it did not happen. But that is especially true in 1948, where there are lots of people in the world who are witnesses to what happened. So how can it be that it is a source of now for people. Well, its not that data earnestly believe that it happened, theyre using holocaust now as a reason, as part of a political project. That is what i got into in the 40s, and that is how i found my defendants, and that is how i learned that they all got put on trial, and they all got off when the judge died. I thought, you know what, if i am to tell a story, i think of this one. Because i did not know any of it. There is, you treson the book, different strands of pro fascist, antisemitic, not see aligned thought actors. How would you describe because in some ways, its a little bit of misfit toys situations. There are a lot wonder. But there are also operating in a discursive environment that is not closed off to what they are saying. Tell me about Public Opinion around the question of fascism and the rise of it in 1931, 32, when some of the people that you document in the book are trying to, sometimes, at the behest of the german government, cultivate sympathy. Yeah, fascism was the movement at the future. Fascism did not have to cast that we associate now, respectfully with naughty germany. The number one selling book in america in 1941 was for him by Charles Lindberghs wife, and mora lindberg. It was about how fascism is Coming To America, and wouldnt that be fantastic . Because we could finally get some stuff done. It was, in fact, a lot of people who have looked into, fully, i cannot say definitively, but a lot of people say it was gosper in by a guy named Lawrence Dennis, who was the leading fascist at the time. He actually wrote a book called the Coming To America fascism. He wrote one of these things that we found from an old nbc archives, a town meeting on the air, which is a great show that they used to host on the nbc networks. One of the very first things they brought is Lawrence Dennis on to argue for fascism, i guess people arguing against fascism. And he wiped the floor. Fascism crossfire exactly, totally. But it was a popular thing. By the time that you get to 1940, 83 of the American Public is against austria and world war ii. 82 . That is what the fewer was up against. Some of that is that we dont want to fight another war, but some of that is that the people that you want us to fight against, we actually think had the better idea. How did they go about cultivating, talk about dennis for a little bit, a worthwhile time spent on. Oh, there are so many good twists when it comes to him. Well talk about him a little bit. Lawrence tennis had been a State Department official, had gone to harvard, was very area, very articulate guy. He was kind of a Substack Contrary next to him. You can compliment him without insulting you for complimenting him. He was that kind of guy. He was also in his gruffness and controversy in this, made everybody fall in love with him. Men, women, old, young, did not matter, everybody had a crush on Lawrence Dennis, and he slipped his way to the 1930s in a way that he did not understand why his wife minded. Theres a lot of interesting stuff about him. But he was Writing Speeches and books for the isolationists, and the isolationists were not calling themselves fascists overtly, but they had the leading intellectual subscribed fascist in america right in their stuff. And, dennis was a favor of the Nazi Government in berlin. They brought him over for birth rallies, brought him over to germany and gave him access to everybody, up to and including hitler. And he used it to, essentially, become a very well networked, influential person. He interviewed mussolini, interviewed hitler, spent time with all the most important diplomats and foreign leaders at the time. He wrote speeches for isolationists senators and books for Isolationists Wives and heroes. And he was one of the sedition trial defendants. He was so arrogant, he not only defended himself in court, but he insisted that there should be mental examinations of his codefendants, which once they realized that was actually the way out of it, agreed, they all wanted mental examinations. He is sort of the leading fascist american intellectual. But there is also, the soil, the seat is being planted in somewhat fertile soils, for a bunch of reasons. I want you to talk about why that is the case. There is the fact that world war i was awful, and there is an interesting thing to have been in this book, ultra, which is that people understandably and personally thought that was a disaster, being kind of prepared to say that we are never doing that again. That posture, which is not at all ecology posture, totally irrational posture, being the Slippery Slope by the way in which they had been for isolationism and then outright fascism. To do that, you have depression, and then you have this sense of like the brokenness of the american system, slash the messiness of american democracy. All three of those things are running themes and the people that are pushing for, proposing or in the case of huey long, embodying and alternate. Yes, i think it is easy to see when you look at what the germans were secretly telling us. One of the things we now know, in the book too, there was a really big, really aggressive, really well funded secret german propaganda effort targeting the american people, and what were they trying to do . They are basically trying to do two things, i guess you can narrow it down to. One was to support isolationism, however they could, however you wanted to hear it, dont help you hear it. Any argument against the americans during the war, they were all for that. They also wanted to turn us against our allies by making us see fascism as preferable to every other form of government. They are arguing that we should go to war to defend our ally brynn, because of what sense, are they really our ally . They are corrupt, and empire, cruel, week, the germans, who have a much better idea, are going to run over them in a matter of weeks. Why side with the feeling of empire said that the germans, who have a better idea . They also try to make us believe, that we are inherently weak, that we should change our own form of government, and that by having a democracy, we our opening ourselves up to be controlled by the jews, to be controlled by international forces, to be controlled by those who will sent us into the meat grinder so they wore, whereas we can side with germany. They were trying to articulate all of those things to any american voices that they could put their words in the mouth of. Its members of congress, its your senators, its people like lawrence denys, who they are funding up at the was. Its a sylvester who is an american nazi, running about 12 different publications. Its magazines, and the messages that they were trying to sell us, to me, its just unnerving and terrifying to see them, because it is so much the story that we are still being sold by those who would prefer that we became a strongman form of government today. Its the exact same message. 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Unlike some others, it supports 7 brain health indicators, including Mental Alertness from one serving. To help keep me sharp. Try new neuriva ultra. Think bigger. Im a little anxious, im a little excited. Try new neuriva ultra. Im gonna be emotional, shes gonna be emotional, but its gonna be so worth it. I love that i can give back to one of our customers. I hope you enjoy these amazing gifts. Oh my goodness. Oh, you guys. I know you like wrestling, so we got you some vip tickets. You have made an impact. So have you. For you guys to be out here doing Something Like this, the message is, its not it restores a lot of faith in humanity. Just that there are minority groups that you out, these minority groups are secretly powerful. They are the hidden power behind the scenes, and i think you are controlling the government. You think you are voting for people, but your vote does not matter, because there is the secret cabal. The secret cabal, which means that we cannot participate in the democracy, because why would we give the secret cabal evo . What the government needs to be able to do is protect us from those people. We need a government that is strong, that has authority, that can protect us from those people, to vote is cute, but its weak, and, this is the only way that we can efficiently compete with the real countries on earth, the real strong countries. Like you would say today, china, russia, hungary. So, that message is the same. Turn us against each other to make us believe that democracy does not work, to align us with strongmen countries and other parts of the world. The other piece of it is that there is no noble truth. Yes, this is its really important, and i can tell right now that this sounds its not, its very specific. One of the things that they do, is that they tell you dont believe journalism, dont believe science, dont believe experts, dont believe history. Its all fake, all designed to bamboozle you. None of these expertise, so called sources of expertise are real, the only notable truth to something that you feel in your gut. Let me tell you what the feel in your gut. [laughter] separating us from the idea of noble truth means we dont recognize real, practical problems in the world. We dont recognize real, Practical Solutions to these problems, that we put our government to. And it means that were very susceptible to conspiracy theories, and youre susceptible to suggestion from the leader who wants you to do things that you probably would not do if you had your wits about you. That dislocation from the truth, dont trust the media, dont trust science, dont trust experts, dont trust any political opposition, dont trust journalism, that is part of the authoritarian project, and it always has been. Okay, here is one of the things that has been so fascinating to me, everything you just described, it may happen now, versions of it happened now, there is this very, i think, somewhat a historical but understandable tendency to put them on the technology of the time. All of the same traits that i think we try to see as some technological moment here, platform moment, its just all there. They are just doing like analog versions of it. As far as i can tell, almost as yeah, the thing that has changed is the Interval Nature of the media, your ability to talk back in a social environment. What that does, i think, it can work as an accelerant. Somebody says a lie to you, you repeat the lie back to them, okay, here is a bigger lie. Okay, you repeat that back, heres a bigger lie. It helps the messages being targeted better, i think. Yeah, there is a famous celebrity pilot, in her day. Pilots used to be like the kardashians and the travis kelces. It was everything, all together. Who doesnt love a pilot . Exactly, they were the celebrities of their day, like you cannot believe. After a Millionaire Heart the most famous, female ava tricks, they called her, and the country, was laura angles. Way, little house on the paris . No, her eighth cousin. Laurel angus if cousin dont get it twisted, about her role. She flew an airplane over the white house and dropped pamphlets over the white house out of an airplane yeah, very impressive, also, you dont want to see these pamphlets. So she was actually working for the gestapo. She is american, who was on the payroll of the nazis. He was answering to the top gestapo agent in the United States, and she was fully getting paid, at a monthly stipend. There is a great moment, actually, you know how you do Times Machine for all of the New York Times articles. If you have a New York Times subscription, you can use the time machine. Turns out, theres a limit to how much you can use the time machine. You found it . I found it by spending a lot of time with laura angles. Shes kicked out of the bar at 4 am, thats it, sorry. You are done, you are over served on stories about laura angles, not see ava tricks. I got cut off, and they called me. I was like, i did not think that you had my number. She was so famous, that there was an article in the New York Times, like in 1934, when she got a speeding ticket, article in the New York Times. By 1945, she was so famous, there was an article in the New York Times when she got a parking ticket. It was crazy how famous she was. Then she was working for the gestapo and dropping puppets but the white house. Theres an amazing story of when she goes on trial, one of the witnesses who goes against are on trial was a surgeon, who operated on their, who said after she was under the laughing gas, all she wanted to talk about was the swastika necklace. But, like, one of the most influential and popular celebrities in the entire country. Now, her espousing the views that she had and being a daredevil. Its like, we dont have anything like that today. That is a different kind of power, in terms of that big level of masks fame, which is harder to achieve now. Yes, yes. And how fractured is. There are people in the book, and laura angles is a great example. You never heard of, but was massive at the time. There are a bunch of those. And then there is henry ford. You know, its so funny because, i know, again, the Broad Strokes of henry ford, ford motors, basically created the modern means, the modern factory method Assembly Line production, brought cost down in doing so, gave workers a higher wage than others, also a ridging antisemite. That is my two sentences on fort, right . That last sentence, like, i knew, but when you read in your book, when you reencounter henry ford on the subject of the jews, and the lengths that he went to, i really dont think that we, i think that you need to kind of reverse the order of that bio in the two sentences. Its like, this guy was wildly dangerous and bad and aligned with the worst faces of human history. And i knew about fords antisemitism, as if it were a private vice. No, he was a different thing. It was one of the things that he contributed to this world. Do you want me to read that part . I would like you to read that part. You guys mind if i [applause] f i [applause] one and done relief with a morning jolt of instant cooling sensation. Its comeback season. [music playing] today, you can give a gift like no other. A gift that can help st. Jude Childrens Research Hospital save lives. I think its the most worthwhile place to put your money when it comes to Childhood Cancer. If it werent for st. 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Skyrizi attaches to and reduces a source of excess inflammation that can lead to skin and joint symptoms. He was one of the most with skyrizi 90 clearer skin and less joint pain are possible. Serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine, or plan to. Thanks to skyrizi, theres successful and celebrated industrialists on the planet. His antisemitism was rank and it was unchecked. He speaks out freely in private to rights among friends, family, close business cohorts, newspaper reporters, or pretty much anyone within our shot, and the office, in private chats, and interviews, at dinners, even on camping trips. A close friend wrote in his diary after witnessing one late night around the campfire diatribe, ford attributes all evil to jews. Ford even ordered his engineers to forego that use of any brass in his model t automobile. He called barack jew mantle. Ford senate, where first there was anything wrong with the country, youll find the jews on the job there. He blamed a Fast And Intuit Jewish conspiracy for inciting his workers and his stockholders to demand he share a sliver more of the expensive ford moderate Company Profits with them. He blamed jews for the Gold Standard and the advent of the Federal Reserve bank. He blamed jews for ruining Motion Pictures and america. He blamed jews for ruining popular music. He blamed jews for ruining baseball. Ford was hardly the only radical antisemite in the u. S. Circa 1920. But in addition to his fortune and his famous name and his iconic company, he had a megaphone. Youre on Crazy Theorizer lacked. He had twitter, no, im kidding, sorry, sorry, its acts. Im sorry, yes, sorry. He had a newspaper. It was cold that airborne independent which he had purchased for a song in 1918. The paper was a big money loser in the beginning, poor to middling circulation. For its editorial harangues did little to draw new readers. How many attacks on that man whod beaten forward in that Michigan State senate race to the public really want . Oh, but truman h. Newberry had stolen that election. One of the terrible an independent editorial staffers was a veteran of the new york newspaper wars. He had an idea. He wrote to fords righthand man, find an evil to attack, lets find some sensationalism. And lo, the unseen landed unbidden not long after. At newly translated english language edition of a book titled the protocols of the meetings of the learned elders of zion. ,. Ford these headlines were splashed on to the pages of fords paper which was distributed in ford dealerships across the country. For also so to the Publication Officers in full form. It was time, the International Jew. It ran to four volumes. Never mind that the protocols was exposed as makebelieve in 1921, right in the middle of henry for its not a twoweek series. His likely International Jew essays continued without pause. And Ford Motor Dealers kept tossing that latest issue up that durable an independent on the front seat of newlypurchased model ts all over the country. Ford salt at the four volumes of the International Jew were translated and published worldwide in 12 international editions, including one in germany and put a pin on that. Of all the contributions henry ford made to this world, one of them was this. The most prolific, most sustained published attack on jews the world had ever known. The german edition of fords book had landed in the hands of one particular got to propagandist. When adolf hitlers book, i mein kampf, was published in 1925, the author appeared not to leftist ideas but whole passages from fords own publications. Mein kampfs First Addition extolled ford by name. Hitler wrote, it is jews who govern the Stock Exchange forces of the american union. Every year makes that more and more control it masters of the producers and a nation of 120 millions. Only a single great man, ford, two there if you are, still maintains full independence. By this point, hitler had already mulled sending german shock troops to major American Cities to aid in what he hoped would be henry fords run for president in 1924. When a reporter from the detroit news showed up at four nazi putty had quarters in munich and since 1931 to interview hadler, she had a series called five minutes with men in public. I she had her five minutes with hitler. When she went to hitlers office, she was surprised to find, hanging on the wall behind hitlers desk, a large, framed portrait of a very famous american. Hitler explained to the newspaper woman, im record henry ford as my inspiration. That detroit reporter asked hitler that tight, point blank, why he was antisemitic. He said, without hesitation, somebody has to be blamed for our troubles. For i feel like, if you go back in time, to that, you go back in time. The worst thing you could find, if you could time machine yourself back to the futurist, ill say your family or people you are interested in at the time, i think you could imagine if they had a portrait of hitler at the time. I think hitler having a portrait of you is actually morris. I didnt know that was an option, but thats worse. I heres why i think that passage is so important and you can hear the sort of breath in the room go out, which is that to return to what i was saying earlier, i think we have a sense of like fascism is a european production. Yes. But that passage is like, did we export this . How much is it actually coming from us . And this is not the only place thats the case. But talk a little bit about like that notion, that like antisemitism, which i think, everyone understands is sort of ubiquitous and universal in some senses. It exists in many different places in many different forms. Its not particular to one era or one place. But i do think theres a sense that this sort of endemic european problem and that the u. S. Was maybe like a little more immune from it, and that just is not not the case. The case. Yeah. And the thing thats important, but i think one of the things that is unsettling about the Henry Ford Dynamic is the idea that it was a west to east conveyance. You also saw that at the university of arkansas law school. The nazis sent a young, important, Rising Star Nazi lawyer to spend a year at the university of arkansas lawyers doing a study of american race law because they wanted to learn about how america could be seen as a paragon of democracy and a good guy country in the world while oppressing African Americans to the degree that we were, while oppressing indigenous americans, Native Americans to the degree that we were, and while conquering countries around the world and subjugating the people in those countries as subjects and not citizens. How is it that america looks good and their constitution says none of this is possible, but theyre still doing it . They thought that was an excellent idea. And so they sent a nazi lawyer, heinrich krieger, to the university of arkansas to do a deep study of american racist law and the way that you can have the Fourteenth Amendment and also jim crow and also lynching. And they brought that, it was a Nazi Government production. They brought his report back to munich and berlin, and they used it as the basis for discussion for writing the nuremberg laws, to strip jews of their citizenship in germany. They learned some of that from us. And if you think that its something in the german character that makes you susceptible to fascism, i invite you to spend time thinking about that anecdote. Its very disturbing. Loving this pay bump in our allowance. Wonder where mom and dad got the extra money . Maybe they won the lottery . Maybe they inherited a fortune . Maybe buried treasure . Maybe it fell off a truck . Maybe they heard that xfinity customers can save hundreds when they buy one unlimted line and get one free. Now i can buy that Electric Scooter im starting a Privateequity Fund that specializes in midcap. You do you. Visit xfinitymobile. Com today. To there is been headlines the last few days about the efficient of people being put to get donald trump. Around Port Essington turn looked look like. And politically stuffing, and particularly who the lawyers would be, and what the lawyers would do, and how the lawyers would approach their job. One of the things that i recognized in the last days, particularly the trump administration, is that the rule of law, which is like a grandiose and abstract term, is just as a kind of sociological fact, what the sort of acculturation of a class of lawyers will or wont go for at a certain moment. To yeah. That like, in reality, what it means is like, when its time to do the coup, which lawyers will be like, yes, and which will be like, no. And thats like a sociological fact, as opposed to an abstract fact about law yes. Because law is no. Yes. You cant. But if you got people with bad enough faith and bad enough intentions and sort of morally dubious enough and smart enough. Smart enough is important. They can come up with ways to make a colorable argument that yes. And we got lucky in so far as like, there were a few, but there were many more who didnt. Yes. But that idea that like it comes down to that which it sort of shows up in that fayetteville chapter that everyone whos operating the system of jim crow in the south who are lawyers knows what theyre doing. That really haunts me. Yes. Because its what i think about the most when i read the stories about the 2025 project about trumps plans and about what ultimately the guardrail is that keeps us a Liberal Democracy under the rule of law and not Something Like a dictatorship. Right. And to be clear, i should just say the book is called prequel not because of the bad guys, but because of the good guys. Yes. Only hitler is hitler. Only nazis are nazis. There is no modern analogy to Germany Under Hitler and the nazis from 1933 to 1945. There isnt one. Dont try to make one. The prequel, the people to sort of learn from here, the story that went before, that feels like the antecedent to what we are in now were the americans who were fighting against the ultra right in this previous time. Both in the government, but also mostly outside of the Government People who were trying to outflank and expose them and hold them to account. I know its obvious to everybody here, i just think its important to say. But in terms of whats going on in contemporary terms, thinking about this project 2025 stuff, zed that im having another one of those moments, which you know me well enough to know happens all the time, which is that everybody sees it one way, and im really stuck on a piece of it that i see differently and i cant let it go. And thats the Insurrection Act part of it. So this reporting in the Washington Post last sunday that the project 2025 plan involves invoking the Insurrection Act on the first day that he is sworn in for his next term. And that keeps getting discussed as how crazy is it that trump wants to use the military against peaceful protestors . Well, first of all, these protests, hypothetical, we dont know that they exist. Also, theres nothing in them invoking the Insurrection Act that has anything to do with protest. If you, on your first day in office, give yourself the power to use the u. S. Military against u. S. Civilians on u. S. Soil, do you think it matters whether or not there is a Protest Anywhere in the country that day or any subsequent day . [applause] it is the chekhovian loaded gun right. Sitting on the table in the first act of the play. That will be used by the end of the play. And it is accruing power to himself in a way that its not like theyll do it for 12 hours and then give it back, right . The idea of the authoritarian project is to gather all power to the leader, both inside the government and outside the governments. Youre not allowed to be a political opponent. Youre also not allowed to be a media critic. And youre not really allowed to be Civic Society if that Civic Society entails any sort of opposition or criticism of the leader, right . This is what fascism is. This is how it works. And there may be a form of government that includes other sources of authority when the leader takes over, but those other sources of authority within the government will be either neutered or closed down. And so the congress will not function, the Fourth Estate will no longer be free, Civil Society will not be allowed to do anything that is critical or in opposition, political opponents will not be tolerated, ultimately disfavored minorities will be scapegoated, and then you head down and eliminationist path. I mean, this is how these things go. And to know that i will accrue all power to myself, i will unify civilian and military authority on day one, and have that be the announced plan, it just means that were there, right. This is it. Like, were not in a hypothetical confrontation with a leader who promises authoritarian rule. We are in an explicit choice. Well, the choice part is the part that i think a lot of people have a hard time with. And its something that appears in the book, which is that fascism in both its italian and german forms and differently in spain actually, because it functions a little differently there. Yes. But is a popular movement. Like yes. Its not, you know, again, this is the trope, hitler was elected, but its the case that like, there is Mass Mobilization and tons of people and millions of people who are like, yes, we want this. And theres sort of a fascinating irony to it, which is it is a Mass Movement of actual grassroots supporters mobilizing in favor of what will ultimately be an authoritarian project that makes the Civil Society that allows for Mass Movements basically to go away. Yes. And i think a lot of people probably in this room, probably listening to this podcast or watching this, have a hard time being like, how is this popular . Right. How is this popular and why is this popular . And im curious if you feel like youve got insights that youve drawn from this period of historical study. Again, its not like a precise apples to apples. Yes. But people wanting a charismatic leader whos going to fight for them and sort of defend their purity or place. And embody the nation. Embody the nation against its enemies, foreign and domestic. That has been a very popular recipe. Yes. And theres different kinds of authoritarianism, right . Yes. Fascism is a Mass Mobilization movement. Thats also complex, right . Because one of the things that happens in fascist societies, it becomes impossible not to be part of the movement. Right, yes. So, you may be an enthusiast. But even if youre not, youre probably going to be out there wearing the badge and doing the thing because theres no choice. I mean, you create the illusion of unitary nation whos all subject to and a fan of the great leader about whom there is a cult of personality and who youre not allowed to oppose. In fact, theres an amazing Huey Long Line that you quote and huey long i dont think was a fascist, but he was an authoritarian yes. Who says, you know, you could get to a point where it looks like its a democracy, its not a democracy anymore because people are just so happy with the leader. Yes. I mean, no one is complaining anymore, because you just solved everything. Yes. This was his line about louisiana under huey long. Why bother voting . Yes. We all agree. Yes. Yes. That was kind of his line. I mean it is amazing too that louisiana under huey long was routinely described as a dictatorship. And not like people were throwing that as an epithet. Like in court, it was described as a dictatorship. It was a defense actually used by people who were put on trial in Federal Court for having been part of his immensely corrupt Graft Schemes in louisiana. Judges would say like, well you werent huey long, so you didnt have a choice in the matter. This is a dictatorship. You actually didnt have free will. Therefore, yes, you took the bribes but you were kicking them up to him. It was accepted that he was a dictator and thats why native fascists love the idea of huey long. And thats confusing if you look at authoritarianism as a conservative versus liberal thing right. Because lots of things about huey long kind of look liberal. Very leftcoded, yes. Policy does not matter. It is about accruing all power to the leader. Thats all that matters. And theyll say and do anything in order to get all the power. But then once theyve got it, thats the point. Theres a certain kind of specific visual grammar and sort of language syntax and cadence to fascism or to broadly authoritarian movements of sort of popular leadership cults. And theres a picture that you have in the book of huey longs big portrait over a rally and you see it immediately and youre like, oh, i know exactly what this is. Yes. Like theres The Big Picture of the guy over it. And i feel that way about, to bring it back to the contemporary, i feel that way about the use of the word vermin by trump this weekend. Like trump this weekend in a speech to describe his political domestic enemies. Theres something in the same way of that, like when you see that photo, youre like, i know what im looking at. Its like when i hear a Populist Leader describe the other people in the political spectrum as vermin whove infested the nation, like i just know what that is immediately. Everybody knows what that is. And i think he knows what that is. Yes. Yes. I mean theres also something, theres a little bit of, i dont know what we should call it. I think of it as a Playground Thing that he does in terms of his politics. Do you remember where the idea of fake news came from, that phrase . That phrase was not Donald Trumps no. Phrase. It was buzzfeed. That term was used to describe what was happening in russian information spaces, where they were writing legitimately fake, madeup news stories, and then siloing them into the u. S. News ecosystem through prorussian sort of covert sources. And it was a legitimate thing. This thing didnt happen in montenegro, but russian Propaganda Sources wrote that this thing happened in montenegro. And now weirdly there are rightwing news sources in america who are describing this thing that happened in montenegro that never happened in montenegro. It was a real thing and it was part of what was going on with the russian disinformation and influence and election interference efforts in 2016. And people were starting to figure it out that was one of the weird things that was happening in our Information Universe in that election. And then trump adopted it and said, all news is fake news. And so then you couldnt use that term anymore to describe this one technical thing, which we had been previously right. Describing. And without a term to describe it, we then lost track of it. Because then it became a thing that had a meaningless name. And so then you cant talk about that thing happening. Theres some of that, and i think that with what . With the use of the word vermin. Okay. And with the way that hes now calling his enemies fascists. Right. So yes, he has started doing that. He has started calling you and me and everybody whos not team trump is a fascist, that he has to save the country from the fascists. And hes using this terminology which is overtly and obviously fascist callback language. Things like the enemy of the people, yes, okay. But calling the internal enemy vermin that needs to be exterminated, he knows what hes doing. And that will make everybody say, wow, thats the most fascist thing ive ever heard, oh fascist, oh fascist, no, youre the fascist. Right. And then all of his enemies are fascist. And then the word fascist doesnt mean anything anymore. Its just an epithet that flies around in politics and we dont have a word anymore to describe what this thing is that hes trying to get us to do. [applause] so as he starts to advance what i think is a more overtly authoritarian project, watch for him to call everybody else an authoritarian. And a tyrant and a fascist and all this. Its just its to rob those words of their function. There are people in your book who want to be the next american hitler yes. And dont have it in them. And i dont mean, morally, i just mean like whatever the stuff is, the charisma, whatever it is. And i guess something i was thinking about reading your book is like, what is the thing . What is the thing that makes huey long successful in becoming huey long . What is the thing that makes trump successful . Theres a particular kind of type, like authoritarian populist demagogue. Different people have tried it yes. In different ways. It has a lot of commonalities in the rhetoric. And some succeed and some dont. Yes. And it feels alchemical to me at some level. I cant tell you what it is because i can describe. I understand the basic dynamics of it. I understand of blaming some small disfavored minority for the nations ills and the sort of invigorating feeling of kind of communal solidarity that comes with the nations blood all pumped, coursing through the rally and all being directed in one place, like a bunch of solar panels aimed up at a water tower to boil everything together and boil together. And i can get that and look at someone whos gifted at rhetoric and has presence and charisma, which is 100 percent true about him. But in the end, its like if i had the nba draft of fascists, autocrats, and i was running them through, the pace is like, i dont know in the end what makes someone work for someone and not for someone else. This is a very unpopular opinion, but i do not believe that the leader matters. This is what i sort of the movement matters. He backs into it. You need a country that is looking for an authoritarian solution, and any people who are willing to submit themselves to the authority of the person who says that they deserve it. So, youve got, franco was nepal incised, like hitler was a dark, right . Mussolini was a journalist and socialists. Those are the worst things. [laughter] theyre not the worst things in the world. [applause] but not a Great Linkedin Set Up for i want to be there is nothing about these guys that is inherently, that transformed those countries against their will, those countries were subject to an anti democratic pro authoritarian movement that had skills. The people were ready to do it. So, you and up with a huey long being very successful in the project that he was part of. The person who fdr most feared running against in 1936 was huey long. And in 1935 as huey long was gearing up to start his president ial campaign where he was going to run against fdr, and fdr believed if anybody could beat him, it would be huey. That in 1935, fdr was at the summer white house in hyde park, new york, and he had summoned Father Coughlin to come talk to him about the fact that coughlin was clearly supporting huey long. He believed that coughlin and long together would absolutely bring america to a fascist dictatorship within two years. He thought it was an unstoppable force, the two of them, and he was there to try to talk coughlin out of it. And as coughlin was driving to fdrs house, that day for that talk, huey long was assassinated. And spoiler alert. Yes. That was 1935 and that is the way things went that way. But in terms of what huey longs power was, i think what was magic about him was his unbridled appetite for power. Right. I mean, the thing that he did was, yes, he paved roads and he gave away free School Textbooks and he was a spellbinding orator and he wore silk outfits, and theres all sorts of things you could say about him. But really what he was a maestro of was power, that he never met a source of authority that he could not accrue to himself. And that was the thing that you need to be able to do right. To be able to lead a society in that direction while telling a country, while telling a people that they need to do it, that they can only trust you and that their enemies are out to get them and that youre the only one who can protect them from those enemies. Thats how it works. When moderate to Severe Ulcerative Colitis takes you off course. Put it in check with rinvoq, a oncedaily pill. When i wanted to see results fast, rinvoq delivered rapid Symptom Relief and helped Leave Bathroom urgency behind. Check. When uc tried to slow me down. I got lasting, steroidfree remission with rinvoq. Check. 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Huey long . Huey long. [applause] [laughter] obviously like worlds smallest violin, im extremely lucky to do what i do, and i love what i do. But theres an Exhaustion Factor to it. You guys feel that way, too. [applause] but theres also like, theres exhaustion, but theres also just like, you got to be indefatigable because the movement on the other side seems indefatigable. Yes. And like are you exhausted, too . Like i know, seriously, like how do you, because people ask me all the time, and im like i feel for myself. I feel very mission driven, i feel like the stakes are incredibly high. When you just said what you said before about like when were looking at someone talking about doing this day one, its like were in it. And i feel that way and i felt that way for much of this. That is animating, it gives me a sense of zeal, and mission, and energy. But also its like sometimes im like, i cannot, i cant, you know. Yes. And so, you know, i just balance those two, but im curious how you do. Well, i think one thing that, you and i have talked about this over beers, but one of the things that is the privilege and a pleasure of our job, maybe not a pleasure, a privilege, is that if youre here, and if you watch msnbc, and if you know us from, [applause] youre thinking about this stuff all the time, right . Youre consuming the news all the time and you are thinking about our country and you are worrying about the worst people in america and what they might do next, all the time. We all are. You then have to do all of that and then go do your jobs. Right. Chris and i are doing all of that but then our jobs is processing. Right. So, like its therapy. Like were all being put through the same wringer but chris and i get to do our day jobs talking about the stuff. That is a great privilege. Yes. To that part of my day job is also been writing this book and doing ultra and doing other projects like that. Im working on ultra season two right now, which is very exciting. And what is energizing to me about that is, again, the good guys. Like, you think that the bad guys in this are obscure. Most of them are, other than, you know, coughlin and lindbergh and ford and those guys. Most of the bad guys are obscure, but the really obscure people are the good guys, are the americans who, you know, the beleaguered secretary who is working for this minnesota senator who is such a freaking creep. Every time she gets paid by the senate, she has to hand back half of her salary to him in cash. Thats how much power she had in the workplace, and yet she went to the fbi. And she told the fbi what her senator boss was doing with that wellknown nazi agent. Like that is a woman who did not sign up for the marines and planned to paratroop, you know, trying to be a paratrooper somewhere. But she was somebody who was not in a powerful position at all, and she did something that was really important for her country. I am very enthused to learn her story. Im very enthused to learn about the guy who was like this really milk toast, like normal, Middle Of The Road guy whose field of expertise was direct mail advertising. And yet when his son came home from his first semester at college and was like, dad, im getting all this propaganda, this antisemitic, progerman, profascism propaganda at school. Its really freaking me out. I dont know what to do with it. And he was like, well, i do happen to have an area of expertise that relates to stuff being sent in the mail. And he applied his random area of expertise to becoming a oneman expository journalist and investigator to find out and to literally document for the good of the country a multimillion dollar covert Propaganda Campaign that the germans were running through 24 congressional offices and multiple front organizations all over the country. And he exposed it and he was an ad man. He was a random civilian who did this. Im so energized by stories like that because whos going to be that secretary . Whos going to be that admin . Whos going to be the guy working for the adl in Southern California running a spy ring of his fellow world war i veterans. This guy is amazing. Because they noticed that german groups in los angeles were starting to have hitler youth summer camps and they were worried about that. I mean, who are the heroes among us today who didnt sign up to be heroes, but heroism is coming to their door . Cassidy hutchinson, right . So i am energized, i am energized by that. But i also i feel like for all of us, being a 250yearold democracy is hard. There arent very many. And the seeds of antidemocratic projects and authoritarian projects are within the heart of every person who lives in a democracy because democracy, like you were saying at the outset, chris, is about us all deciding something together, us as equals with our rights and our sacred lives given to us by the almighty god. And equal before one another can decide together how we will be governed. And that is a beautiful thing, unless you think that some of the people who are in your polity with you shouldnt get a say because theyre creeps. And who among us has not felt that way . [laughter] its not an evil thing to think actually, ive got a better idea than you. You shouldnt get a say. Its a natural thing. But as smalld democrats, we have to be committed to the idea that this is a better system of government than all the others for all of its flaws. [applause] and the great tactical disadvantage for those of us who will fight for democracy is that fighting for democracy, you have one tool to do it. Its democracy. Yes. You must use democratic means to defeat antidemocratic forces. And that can feel Like Fighting with one hand tied behind your back. Yes. But youre either a democrat or youre not. Yes. And that makes it hard. Its hard and we got to do it. Lowering bad cholesterol can be hard, even with a statin. Diets and exercise add to the struggle. Today, its possible to go from struggle to Cholesterol Success with leqvio. With a statin, leqvio is proven to lower bad cholesterol by 50 and keep it low with 2 doses a year. Common side effects were injection site reaction, joint pain, and chest cold. Ask your doctor about twiceyearly leqvio. Lower. Longer. Leqvio® this isnt charmin no wonder i dont feel as clean. Hurry up dad im trying this cheap stuff is too thin heres Charmin Ultra Strong ahhh my bottoms been saved woohoo with its diamond weave texture, Charmin Ultra Strong cleans better with fewer sheets and less effort. Whats everybody waiting for . This . We all go, why not enjoy the go with charmin. And for a showerfresh clean feeling try charmin flushable wipes there is a lot of information out there. Hamas oppresses the people of gaza, uses civilians as human shields, and steals their basic supplies to use them in a war of terror. Even when given the chance at peace, hamas broke the truce. Our Community Needs to stand against hamas and stand with palestinians and israelis for basic human rights. Focus on the truth. Hmmm. Kind of needs to be more, squiggly . Perfect so now, do you have a drivers license . Oh. What did you get us . [ chuckling ] with the click of a pen, you can a new volkswagen at the sign, then drive event. Sign today and youre off in a new volkswagen during the sign, then drive event. I have a few questions for i have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. Thanks to skyrizi im playing with clearer skin. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90 clearer skin at 4 months. And skyrizi is just 4 doses a year after 2 starter doses. Serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine, or plan to. With skyrizi, nothing on my skin means everything nothing is everything ask your dermatologist about skyrizi. Learn how abbvie could help you save. The folks in the audience. Perfectly sideways to angela and stand for connecticut, and she says, i like this question, but how do you handle Close Friends and family and others that you know who have extreme or different point of use. [laughter] asking for a friend. [laughter] i live in rural, western massachusetts. [applause] and living in rural, western new england, like the road, new england, has a lot of great things about it. Now we have the internet, which is new, which has really made things a lot better. But one of the things that i think, as a kid who grew up in the suburbs and who lived in cities my whole life, to now have lived in the country for the past 20 years, one of the things that it has taught me is that politics is only one thing in any one persons life. Yes. And even for people who are committed news junkies and political activists or work for a Political Party or theyre even an elected official themselves, they also have bears getting into their trash. And they also have a lot of heartbreak about whats happened to the patriots. And they also have a lot of a lot of heartbreak. And they are taking care of their elderly parent who they didnt expect to be taken care of at this point in their life. And theyve got both kids and parents and theyre the responsible Family Member. And theyve got another Family Member whos in recovery who theyre so hopeful for, but also so scared for. And there is, i believe, something really important that you can do in your nonpolitical life that will improve your political life, which is have personal relationships with people yes. Facetoface that are about everything besides politics too and its hard to do. I think right. Postcovid, its even harder to do. But do you have a book club . Do you want to maybe start a book club . It can be on zoom. Do you have a neighbor who lives alone who wants to come to thanksgiving . Do you want to be part of a civic group thats working on a local pipeline thats going to come through your town . Do you want to volunteer at the vets hospital . Something that connects you to the people in your immediate area that isnt about finding consensus about whats going to happen in the 2024 election is good for your community. It is good for your soul. And when things get very hard, being able to look at other people in the eye, recognize each other as humans, can save your life. [applause] ive got another one. This is from pat s. In warwick, pennsylvania. This is completely out of the blue, and i dont think a Single Person in this audience has given this any thought, but im going to ask it anyway. Okay. Nice lead in. Good. What do you think of the latest polls . Why do they show biden and trump neck and neck . I dont know. Ask president romney. I dont know. I mean, youre actually much better at reading polls than i am. I feel like i no, you are. You do a better job. Youre more supple with them on everything. I just look at them and go, bah. I mean i feel like polls in my adult lifetime are garbage. Except occasionally theyre right and yes, right. Except when theyre not, yes. Except when theyre not. And so, yes, you can spend all your time worrying about the polls or you can work as hard as possible for the candidate who you want to win. And you know, sometimes theres interesting crosstabs information about like, you know, a specific group of people who used to think this about your chosen candidate, now thinks this about that person. Okay, that might be helpful in terms of the way you want to go work for your candidate. Right. But its the point of them, especially for us just as a public, for people who are not, you know, political professionals yes. Is that they tell you what work needs to be done. So if youre worried about the polls, calibrate your level of political involvement to match exactly your anxiety about the polls. If youre freaked out about it, just do something. Again, do something with other humans. Youll be better for it and youll be more resilient, again, in difficult times ahead. All right, this one is from debbie p. In chapel hill, north carolina. I think i might have met debbie before the show who came here from chapel hill to see us today. Wow. I think thats you. And this is a tradecraft question that i also have having watched you up close for years. How do you come up with such amazing topics that start out seeming totally random and drive a stake through the heart of a relevant event . Its that meteor thing, like i think i have, but how . Like i want you to get real brass tacks. Yes. Process. Like where does the seed come of like the random anecdote, like that is the start of the thing . Its youre reading all the time or you follow some set of like well, in general, its good to read all the time. Right. The one thing that i always tell people like in our business is like, if theres one piece of advice i could impart to you, well, if youre a female person whos coming to this, first of all, never show your emotions. No one will understand. But otherwise, male or female good talk. Thats exactly, still true, hello. But in general, for everybody, read beyond the assigned reading. Like whatever the assigned reading is whats going on in the news cycle, read beyond that. Like just you never know whats going to be relevant. Yes. Read stuff that interests you. That is nonfiction and that is journalism and that is history and that is Academic Work that interests you. You never know when its going to be relevant and when its going to be a helpful contribution, so just in general. But the way that it works on a daytoday basis is that theres something going on in the news that im interested in or confused by or want to understand better. And then, i just keep looking stuff up about it until i find something that interests me and then i teach myself that and then i teach other people that thing. But it depends, again, like your mileage may vary. My storytelling style does not work for everybody. But if you dont mind coming along on the journey that i am on, i really believe that over the course of one conversation, you can get to a Graduate School Level of complexity with anybody as long as youre willing to start together in kindergarten. Oh, yes. [applause] like some people dont like that i repeat things, that i will restate, and then i would loop back and restate, and then loop back and restate as were going through, and some people find that very frustrating. Like, i heard you the seventh time. I didnt need it the seventeenth. But thats because were starting here and were going here, and i need to make sure were all there every step of the way. [applause] and the weirder the topic or the more unfamiliar the proper nouns are, i think the more you have to just really Pay Attention to the way you tell the story. So, that by the time you get to the point of it, there is a, oh, like it all comes together. I got it. And the way that i always, like my shorthand for myself is that by the time we get to the end of the story, i want you to understand it well enough that you can tell somebody else. Not just like send the clip of rachel doing it, but youve got it. So, that you can tell that story. Like thats what im always trying to do. What are changes that youve made to your method, both in process and in final versions over the course of the long career youve now had doing this . The a block keeps getting longer. Sorry. If you represent one of our advertisers, im particularly sorry. It has a real consequence in that regard. Yes, i dont know. Like i said, i do have this kind of one gear brain. And so i dont think that ive changed very much in terms of the way that i think about the news. I tried for a while to Pay Attention to the visual elements that are on the screen while i am talking, but that didnt work. So, i gave up on that. That was like my big try, my big effort to try to notice whats it no, i feel like youre very involved in the production elements. Yes, but i dont look at them while im talking. Oh yes, you cant look at them while youre talking. No. No, its not like i am aware i will choose what element looking for a smarter way to mop . Try the swiffer powermop. An allinone Cleaning Tool that gives you a mop and bucket clean in half the time our cleaning pad has hundreds of scrubbing strips that absorb and lock dirt away, and it has a 360degree swivel head that goes places a regular mop just cant. So, you can clean your home, faster than ever. Dont mop harder, mop smarter, with the swiffer powermop. I told myself i was ok with my moderate to severe Rheumatoid Arthritis symptoms. With my Psoriatic Arthritis symptoms. But just ok isnt ok. And i was done settling. If you still have symptoms after a tnf blocker like humira or enbrel, rinvoq is different and may help. Rinvoq is a oncedaily pill that can rapidly relieve joint pain, stiffness, and swelling in ra and psa. Relieve fatigue for some. And stop joint damage. And in psa, can leave skin clear or almost clear. Rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. Serious infections and blood clots, some fatal; cancers, including lymphoma and skin; heart attack, stroke, and gi tears occurred. People 50 and older with a Heart Disease risk factor have an increased risk of death. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Tell your doctor if you are or may become pregnant. Done settling . Ask your rheumatologist for rinvoq. And take back whats yours. Abbvie could help you save. Sorry, gnome. I think i know part the answer to this. Part of this is public record, but i am curious to hear you say at least in our group, he says, how they decompress, given the nature of her job . But there is a little bit of fishing. Since i switched to mondays, instead of being on five days a week, i know, i know more, more, more, more, thank you. Here is the thing. I couldnt keep doing it. I was dying. And so im sorry that im only there on mondays, but i am alive and so that is it. [applause] i really cant overemphasize how unsustainable her entire workflow is. Like truly deranged. Its really bad. But the one thing that ive like, now im one day a week, so im not dying, so thats good. Except, i did used to count for Compartmentalization Purposes on the schedule of the daily live show. And so what that meant is no matter how long i work during the course of the day, i am live at 9 00 p. M. Eastern and no longer live at 10 01, sorry lawrence. And then at 10 01 i am done and i will not work the rest of the evening, unless theres some breaking news thing and then i will do whatever i need to do in the morning before i start working and then i start working again. There was an off switch and an on switch, a switch. And the switch is only there on mondays. And so whats happening is that im just working seven days a week and im working until midnight every day because im doing all these other things, which are fantastic. And it is, actually, its bad. I have to fix it. Last question from a military, new york. What keeps you up at night . Wine [laughter] i used to do friday night cocktail moments. Oh, i remember, yes. If im in the same room with something that is over 80proof right now, im awake for five days. Yeah. A glass of wine and i am up at 3 00 in the morning being 50yearsold. So, that is the true story about whats keeping me up at night. I just outgrew the ability to make cocktails. But in terms of this work, one of the reasons that i said that thing about trying to have some inperson connections with other people who live near you in your life right now, one of the reasons that i said that, and ive been trying to tell people that when ive been speaking at audiences for this book tour and stuff, is just because i do think that were going to have a really hard year. And i think its going to be a really weird year. And if it goes very badly, its going to be more weird bad years after that. But regardless of how it goes a year from now, its going to be a really tough year. And therefore, i want us all to make ourselves as resilient as we can. And that means not having Baggage Trailing behind you that you dont want to be trailing behind you. It means making up with your estranged Family Members. It means getting to know your neighbors. It means if you have very serious concerns about politics, it means working in a political campaign. It means having something to do with the civic life of where you are, so that you are not alone while we have a tough year in this country. This has come for us in this generation, in this country, in this lifetime. And it does not come for every generation. It has come for us. And we need to be up to it. And it means you cannot live in your phone. [applause] you cant build from a position of despair and feeling powerless. And you need to have people who you can call not just because theyre on your side, but because you know them and they know you and you are americans together in a difficult moment. [applause] and i want that kind of resilience for us all. And so, start a book club. Rachel maddow, ladies and gentlemen. [applause] ntly clearer skin. Skyrizi helps me move with less joint pain, stiffness, swelling, and fatigue. And is just 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. Skyrizi attaches to and reduces a source of excess inflammation that can lead to skin and joint symptoms. 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