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reidout" -- >> i'm sick of republicans losing. >> do you want a leader from a different generation who is going to put this country first, or do you want dick cheney in three-inch heels? we have two of them on stage tonight. in the last debate, she made fun of me for joining tiktok, while her own daughter was using the app for a long time. you might want to take care of urfamily first. >> leave my daughter out of your voice. >> here's the truth. >> you're scum. >> we have become a party of losers at the end of the day. >> that part is pretty accurate, a party of loser. we saw a lot of heated rhetoric in last night's debate. in the end, they're all just running for second place. also tonight, joe manchin, the senate's most conservative democrat, announces he will not be running for re-election. plus, new reporting that special counsel jack smith plans to make donald trump's role in the january 6th insurrection the centerpiece of trump's federal election interference trial. but we begin tonight with the republican presidential debate featuring five candidates who let's keep it real, will almost certainly not be getting the nomination. but despite the digs and petty insults and ron desantis's awkward attempt to express joy, there were some notable takeaways because what we have seen from those five candidates is a pretty distinct snapshot of what the republican party of today stands for. and what a republican presidency in the year 2024 would look like policy wise, well, 2025. it is alarming, starting with the sheer amount of warmongering, specially on the topic of iran. when some of the candidates seemed to not so subtly suggest getting the u.s. involved in a full-fledged war. >> if wow want to start the 40-plus attacks on military personnel in the middle east, you have to strike in iran. if you want to make a difference, you cannot just continue to have strikes in syria on warehouses. you actually have to cut off the head of the snake and the head of the snake is iran. >> iran responds to strength. you punch them one and you punch them hard, and they will back off. >> i would say you harm a hair on the head of an american service member, then you are going to have hell to pay. we are not just going to sit there and let our service members be sitting ducks. >> the hawkishness continued on the response to the israel/hamas war. each candidate using violent rhetoric to pledge their support to benjamin netanyahu and his efforts to eliminate hamas by any means necessary. >> i would be telling bibi finish the job once and for all. >> the first thing i said to him when it happened was i said finish them. >> wipe hamas off the map. >> and what is biden doing? not only is he not helping the jewish students who are being persecuted, he is launching an initiative to combat so-called islamophobia. >> not a single candidate expressed any support for providing humanitarian aid to gaza or mentioned the more than 10,000 who have been killed there, including thousands of women and children, or the fact that millions of palestinian civilians have been displaced. some did however hint at also potentially going to war with mexico. saying this about the southern border. >> if someone in the drug cartels is sneaking fentanyl across the border when i'm president, that's going to be the last thing they do. we're going to shoot them stone cold dead. >> we'll send special operations in to take out the cartels. we need to go to where they're distributing it and take them out. >> what i would tell bibi is israel has the right and the responsibility to defend itself. i would tell him to smoke those terrorists on his southern border, and then i'll tem hill as president of the united states, i'll be smoking the terrorists on our southern border. >> on top of all that, you had free form right wing podcaster vivek ramaswamy quite literally calling volodymyr zelenskyy, who is jewish, by the way, a nazi. real presidential. and then there was the fact that after getting shellacked, a mere 24 hours prior in yet another election, where abortion rights were on the ballot, you would think that maybe just maybe they would take the hint that americans do not want abortion bans, except they didn't. they just went on to talk about banning abortion anyway. >> i'm 100% pro life. i am 100% pro life voting record. i would certainly as president of the united states have a 15-week national limit. i would not allow states like california, illinois, or new york to have abortion up until the day of birth. >> a pregnant woman walking down the street, she's assaulted. the unborn child dies in that assault. you find me one person in this country who says that that criminal does not deserve liability for that death. >> i trust the people of this country, state by state, to make the call for themselves. >> let's find consensus. let's agree on what -- how we can ban late-term abortions. >> this is the message of republicans in 2024. control women's bodies and bomb stuff. they have no other governing philosophy. that's just it, that's it. in the meantime, the elephant who wasn't in the room, donald trump, who was almost definitely getting the nomination next year and will fully try to end democracy as we know it, remains unscathed. he also just announced he won't be at the fourth debate either, so just brace yourself for even more of this nonsense. joining me now is cornell belcher, democratic pollster, strategist, and msnbc political analyst, and stuart stevens, political strategist and senior adviser to the lincoln project. i'm going to start with you first, stuart, because what we heard last night in some ways is irrelevant because these people essentially are irrelevant, but to me, what was relevant and wi we wanted to play those clips is it does speak to what they believe the core philosophy of the republican party should be. apparently, it's going to war not once, not twice, not just in the middle east, but also with our neighbor to the south. your thoughts? >> yeah, i guess if you're canadian you can sleep well tonight, but that might come up in the next debate. you know, this is what happens when, as you said, a party doesn't have any governing philosophy. and that really means it doesn't really have a reason to exist. so it becomes like a sports team where the lunatic fans who run out on the field naked, they're the ones who get the attention. and the thing that struck me, there was no decency or humanity or kindness at all on that stage. i mean, who are these people that you would say, look, if anything happened to me, i would like you to take care of my family? i think that's really important of the president of our united states in this system. that's something president biden does very well. and it's very genuine to him. so i think we need to look at this, all of this, you know, we're going to bomb iran, going to bomb mexico, kill these people. i just think most americans look at that and they're right, it is a party of losers. >> you know what's interesting about that, cornell, i can remember the late john mccain, he did the joke where he would sing bomb bomb bomb, bomb iran. you would have lindsey graham joke about flattening iran, and this was like a thing. in the republican party, we know there's a core of warmongering. there's a neoliberal version of it, too. but one of the reasons barack obama beat john mccain despite john mccain being a war hero is americans were sick of going into foreign wars. even trump voters, one of the things that unites them is the idea they don't think trump would put us in world war iii. the idea that these guys think warmongering is the way to win over his voters to me seems upside down and backwards. but i'll let you weigh in. >> i'm going to deconstruct it a little more than that, joy. there is a fine line between being tough, right? and so this idea of being tough on crime or being tough on immigration, being tough on terrorism. there's a fine line between being tough and camouflage for hate. i think they cross that line at the debate, when you look at the language about shooting people dead and bombing and wiping people off. joy, that's not about being tough on terrorism. that is crossing the line and becomes a camouflage for hate. and i hate to say it, but you know american history very well. there is a landing space for hate in this country. and hate does mobilize people in this country. we have seen it time and again. as a matter of fact, it's the whole predicate of donald trump's presidency is that hate, and what i saw on display there is crossing the line. it is not about being tough. it is about hate, camouflage that's being tough, and it's hate against, surprise, surprise, a bunch of brown people. so i'm not surprised by that at all. >> and by the way, not only just hate against brown people because you're right. iran becomes a surrogate for muslims. you know, we're going to shoot people in mexico becomes a surrogate for brown people south of our border. to have three nonwhite people on that stage who are in some ways the most vehement and most vicious about the violence that they would do as president was interesting. and of course, ron desantis who has already done violence to desperate venezuelan migrants from collecting them from texas and shipping them to wherever his paid airline flights would take them, it feels like maybe that's what they're zeroing in on. they have decided the republican party hates people of color maybe and they think if they show they share in it, maybe that will help them. >> well, there is something, i think, there about sharing the values. it is how can i prove i'm not like one of them? it's like, i'm going to double down and be as angry and as hateful towards them as possible so i do think it is something sort of how can i get more credibility with the base around these conversations, having to deal with hate and taking on what they, again, claim. you don't see this same sort of vitriol about terrorism when it comes to american terrorism. you know the last decade, you know, the people who have been the biggest terrorists in america is coming from white supremacy. you never hear any of them talking about i'm going to wipe out white supremacy in this country. you never hear them say we're going to take out, we're going to smoke white supremacy out of this country. in the same way they talk about terrorism in other places. i wonder why that is. >> stuart, you have ron desantis up there, and he's in his home turf, who has said nothing as nazis have marched through the state of florida. there have been numerous instances, sometimes they're holding his signs that say they support him. he says nothing about it. the only time we hear about an opposition to naziism is vivek ramaswamy calling the president -- calling volodymyr zelenskyy a nazi. he's jewish. so there is this sort of weird play they're doing there. talk about that a little bit and also the other theme that i sort of heard last night, especially coming from tim scott, this sort of over the top, i am the sort of bringer of christianity to the country. he sort of said he's running to impose a christian world view, his particular version of it, on the country. >> yeah, you know, i think those are great points there. there's sort of rejoicing in violence. violence should be something that is disturbing, that is used as a last resort. that serious governments look at use of force like that as a failure of public policy, when there's no last resort. they're going to this as sort of a first resort. look, i tend to remember that we went to war in two countries for like 20 years. do we not know what the price of that is, what the reality of that is, what it's done to so many americans and so many hundreds of thousands of others in other countries? so there's just -- you know, this becomes about this sort of strange emotion that they're trying to connect with people by appealing to their worst sides. ultimately, a strong country is a country where you feel safe, where you don't have to think about the government. and this intrusiveness about it, it's just -- it is really not a group of serious people. i thought the comment ramaswamy made about president of ukraine, a jewish president being a nazi, i had a depressing realization i have been to over 40 republican primary debates in my life, and i think that may have been the worst moment in all of them. and let me tell you, there's been some really bad moments, really ridiculous people. but that was disgraceful. he should drop out of the race. the party should censure him. he should not be on stage, being able to be given a platform for hate speech. >> i agree, and ostensibly, he's running to be commander in chief and the person to deal with volodymyr zelenskyy. how would he sit across a table from him, having called that jewish man a nazi, somebody oo is facing an onslaught from russia, who is trying to invade and occupy his country? how would he even sit across from him? he's not a serious human being. i want to talk about the man who wasn't there, donald trump. i'll stay with you, stuart. donald trump's bill of particulars of what he wants to do is shocking and worse than what they want to do. he's talking about upending completely the rule of law in the country, arresting people he doesn't like in the country, maybe even former generals, et cetera. when you look at them versus him, should we be comforted that it's not them or frightened that he's even worse? >> well, look, they were given a chance to say whether or not they would support donald trump if he was convicted of a felony. and that felony would be for attempting to overthrow the government of the united states, basically. and everybody on that stage said yes, except for chris christie. so just think about that. once you say that, what kind of moral standing do you have to be -- to lead a country, to lead a party? and that really is the problem here. there's nobody who is presenting a vision that says, look, the trump years were a threat to the american experiment. they were disastrous. even chris christie isn't saying that, but he sadly supported him in two elections. until the party does that, i don't think that it really has any moral standing to represent the country. >> yeah. >> it's incredibly disturbing. >> nikki haley for her being the least offensive person on the stage, was still one of the most vicious, talking about wars and bombing mexico and not caring what the u.n. thought. she was playing the game along with the rest of them. before we know, i want to ask about joe manchin. it looks like he says he's not running. i looked at the campaign video he put out, i'm sorry, that video he put out announcing he's not going to run. it sounded to me like a campaign video. hey, i'm running as a third party candidate. you know no labels is out there. what do you think of what he's doing and going to do? >> i think he's probably going to run because he wants to be president. they all want to be president in the senate. you know, i have been to focus groups the last couple months. there's not a lot of groups clamoring for a manchin presidency. i don't understand it. i don't think he has a shot, but he has the opportunity. >> i will tell you, to me, he's simply oil and coal in human form. if he thinks he's running for president, it's because they want him to be president because they feel he will let them drill, drill, drill until earth dies. that's my theory. cornell belcher and stuart stevens. by the way, the people last night also want to drill until earth dies. up next on "the reidout," the events of january 6th provide a backdrop for trump's upcoming trial in washington. and the select committee's report on those events will provide the framework. i will talk with a senior investigator from that committee about the tie-in when "the reidout" returns. meet the jennifers. jen x. jen y. and jen z. each planning their future through the chase mobile app. jen x is planning a summer in portugal with some help from j.p. morgan wealth plan. let's go whiskers. jen y is working with a banker to budget for her birthday. you only turn 30 once. and jen z? 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(christmas music) ( ♪♪ ) weathertech gift cards have the power to wow everyone on your holiday list. offering a variety of american made products... weathertech! nice! like floorliners... cargo liner... seat protector... boot tray... cupfone... sink mat... pet feeding system... anti-fatigue comfortmat...and more. order the weathertech gift card instantly for the perfect gift at weathertech.com. when the federal election interference trial against donald trump gets under way in less than four months, trump is really hoping that the special counsel's team won't be able to even mention the chaos and violence perpetrated by trump supporters at the capitol on january 6th. his attorney argues that the actions are not relevant to his charges, and are they gave us a preview of how hes team plans to make january 6th the centerpiece of the trial. the special counsel's filing states, indeed, that day was the culmination of the defendant's criminal conspiracies to overturn the legitimate results of the presidential election. when the defendant directed a large and angry crowd, one that he had summoned to washington, d.c., and fueled with knowingly false claims of election fraud, to the capitol, to obstruct the congressional certification proceeding. when his supporters did so, including through violence, the defendant did not try to stop them. instead, he encouraged them and attempted to leverage their actions by further obstructing the certification, unquote. as politico reports, by combining the trump aions with the riots, smi is unlocking a mountain of cas law developed in the january 6th riot cases to tie trump more clearly to violence than he has been to date. in short, he's casting trump as one of the 1200 plus riot defendants who have already been charged. joining me now is sunia, a former senior investigator on the house january 6th select committee. it's great to see you. let's talk about this, because one of the things that is sort of odd about donald trump's attempts to say that january 6th is too procedure disht to jewel is he's using it. he's using a song recorded by incarcerated january 6th defendants on the campaign trail. he continually talks about january 6th as a beautiful day. he references it. so legally, just for our nonlawyers in the audience, how is it possible that his lawyers can claim it's not relevant when he's using it? >> yeah, joy, i think that donald trump's team is trying to do a classic attempt of what defense attorneys do, of having it both ways. so he as the defendant can't be proud of the rioters that he's been so -- has said publicly in so many different ways how january 6th was a beautiful day, and how it was a peaceful protest. and then attempt to use that same conduct that he essentially incited and say it can't be used in terms of the criminal trial. so as the motion that was filed lays out, not only is the conduct of donald trump on january 6th relevant, it's highly probative to the charge scheme of the indictment itself. >> you know, when i watch the january 6th hearings, which were fascinating and felt like a trial in many ways, one of the most interesting things that i heard was cassidy hutchinson's testimony about donald trump's reaction to finding out that some in the crowd who were trying to get in to watch his speech were armed. i want to pla