any alternative to donald trump, who's ragged this party through several losing elections now. you probably saw or heard some of that debate which did not seem to clarify a ton, except perhaps how much the vac has managed to alienate everyone from nikki haley to eminem, a sentence we didn't know we'd commit to here on msnbc. it was vivek who took the mic and actually told republican candidates and voters something they have not wanted to hear this week. that they are in the middle of an ongoing, rolling, epic losing streak that is not stopping. >> we have lost 2018. 2020. 2022, no red wave that never came. we got trounced last night in 2023. >> that is just a mathematical fact, whatever you think of the messenger. it cannot be spun by pundits or trolled out of existence in the echo chamber of elon musk's anti-free speech version of twitter. it can't be buried under the type of fake news that really animates so much right-wing discourse from the internet to actual insurrections. so here's what we know. step one, republicans have been losing ever since donald trump took those escalator steps down into trump tower to announce his campaign, to come on the scene. that's the politics. step two, i could tell you tonight, republicans have been losing every single test on abortion policy since trump's judges broke their public vows and gutted roe v. wade. abortion access is undefeated in states red and blue every time has been tested here, including this week in conservative ohio. it's a trend that goe through ballot measures, surging turnout across over 50 vos, now over two dozen states according to a "washington post" count. seismic shift in how the is a republican party even discusses abortion, as "politico" explained this week. now clearly rushing to moderate or muddy their message. since tuesday, republican officials and candidates are now publicly starting to at least partially say out loud what they've been denying for a very long time. that their position is a political loser, and it's dragging down many of their losing candidates. >> i'm sick of republicans losing. in florida -- >> republicans can't keep stumbling and bumbling on abortion. >> we've become a party of losers, at the end of the day. >> we continue the losing streak in the pro-life movement. >> we have lost 2018. 2020. 2022, no red wave that never came. we got trounced last night. >> but until we own this issue as a party, we will lose again and again and again. >> again and again and again. sounds like a long time. every voice you heard there, not only republicans but pretty conservative ones. not compromising moderate republicans. the trend lines here also go well beyond the backlash on choice. as we take it all in i've got great guests standing by. i wanted to start our broadcast here on this friday night by going a little deeper with you. the fact is america has rejected trumpism and the maga republican party every time there's actually been a referendum. now, there are forces that are in denial about that. obviously donald trump with his big lie and his enablers. and also some other sort of contributing factors like the parts of the beltway conflict system which stokes endless clashes and false equivalents as a kind of political business model. but this is just a set of true facts and numbers that i'm going to show you. there's also, i should mention, structural limits that do obscure some of the depth of the way the public has rejected maga. for example, the supreme court is not a democracy. so we live with those results long-term even if each of the judges you see on your screen were picked by a person who lost the total vote both times he's run, donald trump. and the electoral college is obviously not a democracy. and gerrymandering and voter suppression undercut democracy. so it's a little complicated when you try to understand all of it at once. but if you just look at votes themselves, which i'm about to show you, you will be reminded that there have actually never been more votes for trump in any of the elections he has run in. i'm going to show you the numbers starting from when donald trump first emerged in 2016. more voters picked democrat hillary clinton than trump. 3 million more votes, in fact. so that's where this all started. we had a big debate. everyone learned about these two candidates. and more people wanted a democrat in the white house. trump was saved by the electoral college. it's the only system in the modern world of democracy right now where a person who comes in second then gets to run the country. that was perfectly legal. everyone knew the electoral college rules going into it. what i'm about to show you, in five elections in a row if you're tracking what the voters chose, what the public wanted, in that first people more people voted democrat, opposed trump. next election. take this back in full because i want to let you really see this. far more people right here voting democratic in 2018. that was that huge and historic flipping of the house that blew away 40 seats, a rejection of trump, who was then of course defeated in the next election, 2020, by a larger margin than '16. so yes, we can remember that he got through the electoral college in '16. if we're looking at the trend lines since he emerged, he lost by 3 million in terms of who people want in the white house in '16. then it doubles. he lost by basically 7 million last cycle when he was up in '20. while the opposition party usually wins back over 20 seats on average in the following election cycle -- you probably heard about that. republicans going into this next one after biden won, they were talking up getting 30, maybe 40 seats like the dems did. last year brought that red fizzle. i'm sure you remember it. you watch the news, you lived through it. four house seats for republicans, which paved the way for their messy speaker fights and their narrow margin because they vastly underperformed while trump was running around talking about the big lie, doing denialism and everything else he stood for. that catches us up to this week. which you just lived through from tuesday. more democratic wins in these conservative states that have off-year elections. that's not the whole map. but in the places that voted, including red states like kentucky and ohio, democrats win again. these are facts. you are looking at the american public preferences in five, five elections in a row. in a consistent rejection of what has become a hardening of the maga republican party as the alternative. i'm not telling you how to vote. i really never do that. i'm not telling you who's got the better plans. i'm giving you the evidence that has been sometimes obscured, particularly by, as mentioned, parts of our system that are not oriented towards democracy. i'm not telling you that voters will always and consistently rejectve go back far enough, of course there are conservative and some moderate republicans who won national coalitions, who won handily. but the current maga implosion of the republican party, what it offers, what it stands for, is quite different than what was being offered then. and that is the wider context that's not coming out of the blue, and it's not even only about trump. his extreme approach grew out of a party that was already narrowing its base, its racial demography, and its appeals consider, if you go wider, pre-trump in the last eight presidential elections, more americans voted for the democrat than the republican in seven of the eight. that's across different candidates, different regional breakdowns, different economies, different foreign policies. that is quite a trend line in blue that you see. that's all the years you see on your screen. and only once do you have an actual preference in the total vote for a republican for the white house in that stretch of time, when george w. bush won re-election as an incumbent after the 9/11 attack amidst two wars. if that seems like a history lesson that you lived through or have to be reminded of, or when you hear about beltway media trying to send camera crews to some narrow part of ohio to find a trump voter, well, that's because there are a lot of trends that sometimes get forgotten. a lot of people who have a stake in trying to convince everyone those trend lines aren't happening. the descent, though, is largely obscured by the electoral college and some political forces i bet you've heard about. gerrymandering has made many house republicans more worried about losing primaries to the hard right in the red seats that they made super red artificially, rather than having to compete for the broader electorate in a red state, let alone a national coalition, which you just saw they have a hard time winning anymore. so even against these repeat losses, that's why many republicans in the political class and candidates in those gerrymandered super-red districts just keep kind of reliving their failures in a surrealtime loop, which we again saw happen this week on tuesday. it's sort of like kevin mccarthy meeting bill murray in "groundhog day." >> rita, i'm reliving the same day over and over. groundhog day. >> stop it! >> how many times can you get yourself slapped in the face on the same day? that kind of loop will either drive you sort of insane, or drive you to take action to change your reality so you don't keep reliving it. i think that is the wider context after this week's elections. the republican party may feel partly stuck in reliving this same approach to another election, even as the voters and its own leaders start to now publicly admit some of the obvious. so do we all have to relive groundhog day like a bill murray house speaker race? do we all have to get slapped over and over again? would we be better off as a democracy where we all decide things together with two healthy competitive parties that aren't just driving themselves into the same gerrymandered districts? molly and mark are my special guests on this very topic. they're here, back in one minute. their money with chase. wooo! tools that help protect. alerts that help check. one bank that puts you in control. chase. make more of what's yours. we're back with molly jong-fast, "vanity fair," "fast pot texass" podcast, and mark thompson, host of "make the plane" podcast. i mentioned a wider history, molly. sometimes it does seem to get obscure. when you look at these five races, and like him or not vivek was the one who was able to say it. that's a lot of losses. >> yeah. they can't stop losing. and i think it's really important. this off year election, this off year, 2023, they did not do well. glenn youngkin did not leave with a mandate. he lost the legislature, the state legislature. so i do think we saw -- and in kentucky, you saw andy beshear re-elected with more votes. he ran on abortion, he was unapologetic, he was talking about it. what we've seen more and more since dobbs has been overturned, since the end of roe, that is abortion is health care. women want doctors who can treat. they don't want doctors who are worried about losing their licenses. and you really are seeing this play out. and i think we really see american women do not want to die from mike johnson's religious beliefs. >> you put it starkly. mark, i'll put it this way. on the one hand, at a religious, spiritual, and personal level, people of good faith can have strong and different views about this very difficult issue. on the other hand, the supreme court ruling, the leadup to it, and the political project behind it, is a lie. i can say, respect to people's feelings. but reading from what justice alito said in that ruling, quote, we don't pretend to know how our political system or society will respond to today's decision overruling roe and the related case, casey. they argued, deceitfully, that the ruling was somehow opening of democracy, but it wasn't. it was an effort to, as you just said, affect health care and change the law. the restroltd against that is a rebuke not only to the republican party but to the supreme court trying to lie people into this policy. >> the root of all evil is in the right-wing evangelical movement, which has been waging this war for 50 years. this is supposed to be a country that has no respect for any one religion. to your point, people can disagree. but i think everyone has to agree that each individual has a right to make their own decision about what to do with her own body. and that's pretty much it. this is about women's bodily autonomy. so this was an important issue. there's not been an election loss by the democrats since roe was overturned. and i think people also see, unfortunately, when this tragedy happened with the court, it also awakened people, wait a minute, they may get rid of marriage equality. >> sure. >> we've already seen what they've done when it comes to voting rights and a number of other things. of course, there were issues we do have to mention. mississippi didn't do bad, mississippi and kentucky, to health care, about medicaid expansion. i was in kentucky and mississippi with bishop barb talking to poor people. republicans wanted me caid expansion. obviously too in kentucky, while bashir ran on abortion, the only thing daniel cameron is known for is being unwilling to prosecute breonna taylor's killers, the police who killed them, and kudos to untold freedom for organizing there. people are aware of these issues, but lastly, on the issue of reasonable disagreement -- obviously americans are divided. some households are divided when it comes to what's going on in israel and gaza. some young people are saying, we don't want to vote. but i think we have to keep our eyes on the prize here. lest we go back to fascism and a lack of democracy by default allowing trump to come back in office. it's not as if his foreign policies are going to be helpful to either side. and of course, all the other issues, people are going to be threatened. >> i mentioned groundhog day. and it's great to see bill murray get slapped that many times. when we put just the years on the screen, you know -- it is not -- it's not been by any means a close call. when you actually look at what happens when voters turn out in the polls, the electoral college basically dragged several republicans over the finish line, then they got to name supreme court justices on top of that. what does this very simple chart tell you? if this is a surprise to people in the beltway, why? why do people not know our recent history? >> the thing that's amazing is these democratic ideas are popular. choice is popular. legalizing marijuana is popular. these are popular ideas. i think republicans have a handful of really bad ideas. then they have a candidate who has 92-plus counts, felony counts, against him. so i do think there really is -- this is not really a choice. i would say the other thing that i think, when i think about this lie the supreme court told us, i think about, you know, when they overturned roe. they said this was going to be states' rights. then immediately they started talking about a federal ban. >> a federal ban, which is exactly what people like johnson and others in the house are going to go for. so yes, as you say, it's lie upon lie, and it's catching up with them. even though people are busy with many issues, they're seeing through it. so this was a kind of larger picture we wanted to start with as we wrap the week. molly, thanks for being here. you, sir, get to come back. "snl" veteran sam jay, a very funny comic, will join mark. nobel prize-winner paul krugman is going to be here live. bidenomics and why he says democrats have to be more than lecture on what is a good factual environment for them. don jr. is back on the witness stand monday. i'll tell you why. i'll tell you why. to severe plaque psoriasis. now i feel free to bare my skin, thanks to skyrizi. ♪(uplifting music)♪ ♪nothing is everything♪ i'm celebrating my clearer skin... my way. with skyrizi, 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months. in another study, most people had 90% clearer skin, even at 5 years. 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. thanks to clearer skin with skyrizi - this is my moment. there's nothing on my skin and that means everything! ♪nothing is everything♪ now's the time. ask your doctor about skyrizi, the #1 dermatologist-prescribed biologic in psoriasis. learn how abbvie could help you save. it's easy to get lost in investment research. introducing j.p. morgan personal advisors. hey david. connect with an advisor to create your personalized plan. let's find the right investments for your goals okay, great. j.p. morgan wealth management. ♪ limu emu & doug ♪ [bell ringing] and doug says, “you can customize and save hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual.” he hits his mark —center stage— and is crushed by a baby grand piano. are you replacing me? with this guy? customize and save with liberty bibberty. he doesn't even have a mustache! oh, look! a bibu. 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[ laughter ] >> jimmy kimmel there joking about the ongoing testimony in the civil fraud trial against the trump organization and its executives. that footage was from when the new york attorney general made donald trump jr. take the stand, then the lawyers grilled him with evidence, documents, receipts to show his signatures as they try to prove the fraud case. they drew some admissions like don jr. saying under oath that he was part of this basically small team that had the ultimate authority over firm decisions. and that team notably included convict allen weisselberg, a former trump org colleague, who ended up doing hard time at rikers. monday, donald trump jr. will return to the stand by choice because the trump org's strategy will try to use him as it begins its defense monday. they, like anyone, have any right to summon their witnesses they can get the judge to approve to make their case. one of the strategies we're going to see nex