>> in this case, my office will seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens. >> that was special counsel jack smith back in august, and now he's asking the u.s. supreme court for a speedy ruling on whether presidential immunity protects donald trump from prosecution. also tonight, the u.n. describes the situation in gaza as apocalyptic and on the brink of collapse. for all the death and destruction, how much has hamas been degraded by israel. plus, a major new development tonight in the case of a texas woman who sought a court order to get an abortion. and we begin with the american hard right's bear hug of the european hard right. hungary's authoritarian leader, viktor orban, has long been a right wing idol for republicans trying to destroy democracy at home. it should come as no surprise that this week, allies of orban will hold a closed door meeting with republicans in washington, including members of congress, to push for an end to u.s. military aid to ukraine. they probably won't have to push too hard since stopping ukraine would be a gift to russian president vladimir putin, the russians' over favorite strong man. as president biden will be hosting ukraine's president, volodymyr zelenskyy, at the white house on tuesday. the republicans' embrace of putin friendly policies is the latest in a growing alliance building between america's far right wing and europe's earlier this year, orban hosted some of america's most high profile maga foot soldiers at cpac hungary, including failed arizona senate candidate kari lake, and white nationalist sympathizer, arizona congressman paul gosar. and orban's remarks make it clear why his american hard right admirers see hungary's fascist dictatorship as a model for the u.s. he denounced lgbtq rights and what he called woke culture. and told his audience of international right wingers, quote, no migration, no gender, no war. adding, hungary is actually an incubator, where experiments are done on the future of conservative policies. hungary is the place where we didn't gist talk about defeating the progressives and liberals can causing a conservative christian political turn, but we did it. it's no wonder then that america's own fascist right agrees and has been on a years long campaign to make it happen. in 2021, one of orban's biggest cheerleaders, tucker carlson, took his show to budapest for a week. >> the small country with a lot of lessons for the rest of us. one last thing, because the example of hungary is so powerful, not just in europe, but to the world, to the entire world, not simply the west, what you can do with a relatively small economy and not many people if you're just serious about keeping your nation from being destroyed. >> another orban devotee on this side of the atlantic is gavin wax, president of the new york young republica club. in 2022, he told cpac hungary, america firstonservatives demand nothing short of an american orbannism. later that year at the organization's annual gala, he declared total war on the group's perceived enemies in front of a who's who of white nationalists and trolls. including anti-immigration zealot peter brim alow, founder of the white supremacist website, and former trump adviser and lord of the alt-right at breitbart, steve bannon. it's important to note the new york young republican club is nothing short of a donald trump superfan society, and during that same 2022 gala, marjorie taylor greene told the crowd, quote, if steve bannon and i organized that, meaning january 6th, we would have won. not to mention it would have been armed. "the new york times" also noted another key guest, hungry's ambassador to the u.s., who said he attended at orban's behest. at this year's gala, the guest of honor and america's own wanna be orban, donald trump, doubled down on this little gem. >> i said i want to be a dictator for one day. but "the new york times" said, and you know why i wanted to be a dictator, because i want a wall, right? i want a wall, and i want to drill, drill, drill. >> and one more note crowd of orban and trump fans who are working hard to destroy america's multiracial democracy from within, their followers have a shared set of goals with europe and also south america's far right. subordinating women and eliminating abortion, eliminating lgbtq rights, ending immigration, and getting their countries and ours as close as possible to being white ethno states, swhich was home, by the way, to the 2022 nationa conservative conference or nat con, whias described by regious dispatches last year as a who's who of the thought leaders. opinion shapers, policymakers and foot soldis of the rid flank of the maga ecosystem. it adds, while most of the extremely online movements that espouse these ideas or the neoreactionary dark and light movement, they have been politically marginal and ineffective. the people gathered at nat con know how to get things done. the king maker peter thiel has delivered the opening keynote at all three conferences in the u.s. as for their international conferences, back in 2020, one of their guests of honor for their conference in rome was hungry's prime minister, viktor orban. joining me is ben collins, nbc news senior reporter, and steven luvitsky, coauthor of tyranny of the minority, why american democracy reached the breaking point. thank you both for being here. i will start with you, steve. can you just talk a little bit more about how the european far right and the american far right sort of came together and how long that's been going on? >> it has been going on for about a decade or so. i think it's important to point out or step back and think about how new this is. it wasn't that long ago that americans and republicans thought of the united states as a model for the world. that other countries and other political parties would follow. now, we have descended or the republicans have descended to a point where they're running around chasing a small country like hungary and viewing it as a model. rather than the united states being a model for anybody, we are copying hungry or republicans are hellbent on copying hungary. that's pathetic. and i think the most important thing for us to take into account is for the republicans for a long time was a sister party to other conservative parties in the west, the german democrats, the torys in great britain, other center right parties. now the republican party is openly embracing not center right parties. those parties are still there. we're not interested in them. we're openly embracing openly authoritarian parties like hungerary, putin in russia, and in south america. this is a dramatic, dramatic transformation. we need to keep this front and center as we head into the 2024 election. >> yeah, and we're going to talk more about south america, victor malange, he likes to wave the chainsaw around and said he's going to take that to society in his country. ben, you know, tucker carlson was kind of the most open, there he is waving his chainsaw. tucker carlson was kind of the most hungry hungary boot liquor on fox before he got fired. he's taking the show on the road, he said x wasn't big enough so he has his own platform trying to push more of this we need to be more like hungary meme, but it isn't just him and his testicle tanning fans. it's also elon musk, who has now put alex jones back on twitter. they're embracing what is the guy's name who is accused of rape around the world, and he's sort of a fan or he's basically an avatar -- andrew tate, who is kind of the incel superleader. it's a group of them who are online as well, right? >> yeah, it's the american global far right that's been building on the internet since about 2014, 2015, post what i would say gamer gate, online harassment campaigns that target minorities and women, specifically, to try to show off some sort of strongman prowess through bullying and intimidation. that's the entire point of this group. i think you did a good job of showing where the power structure is now. the power structure is with elon musk and with tucker carlson and alex jones and matt gaetz and vivek ramaswamy. those are the people, the real power centers of the american republican party. and that pushes out, by the way, that's a give and take relationship with people like viktor orban, who echoed those things. i think the number one thing people should know about this, whether you agree with them about rolling back american trans rights or gay rights or if you for some reason decide that your speech rights are fine to give up, democracy right now over there under viktor orban's leadership is not doable. he said he's going to be their leader for the next ten years plus. that's what he wants to be. he made constitutional amendments to make it harder for opposition parties. he essentially squelched the free press, which tucker carlson viewed as more free press. so that's the model. the model that you keep hearing in those spaces is we're not a democracy. we're a constitutional republic. what does that mean? they're going to try once they get into power to never, ever relinquish it. >> right, and the point being, i mean, i don't mean this to be funny. it's sort of an incel movement. i was reading the stories about victor mulay and his pace. it's these young white males who are angry, and 50 or 60 years ago, they held absolute power in society, and now they feel it's too much women, blacks, gays, brown, immigrants, and they want to rebuild that society and put everyone else on their heels and put everyone else to heel. it kind of is that, but they're more serious than that in the fact they're willing to use violence to deproiv people of their rights to vote, to exist, to speak, in order to make it happen. >> so yes, throughout history, every time that we take steps towards greater inclusion and greater democracy, there's always pushback. there's always a reaction, there's always authoritarian reaction. we have seen it in u.s. history and elsewhere. argentina like the united states has become a much more inclusive democracy in recent years. dramatic expansion of gay rights in the last decade, and abortion rights, and like the united states, we're seeing a pushback. but it's important to point out, javier mulay is a nut and he's far right, but his threat to democracy i think is far less than trump. donald trump has been much more openly authoritarian, particularly in the run-up to the 2024 election than any of these guys, than orban, than erdogan, than bolsonaro. none of these guys openly promised to lock up their opponents and to go after the media. mulay is a clown, he ran around with a chainsaw. he never promised to lock up his opponents. he never promised to use the argentine judicial system against his opponents. he never promised to try to shut down the media. trump has been the most openly authoritarian candidate in a competitive election that i have seen since the end of world war ii. >> and unfortunately, ben, the polls a year out mean very little, but they are a little bit of data that's interesting. right now, he's beating joe biden in the polls. how much of the challenge here is that biden's base is not as strongly behind him? he's polling maybe 8 in 10 of the people who voted for him before, where trump is pulling 9 plus in 10. and in a thee-way race, it's not a whole lot better, and biden's base are the more sort of economically stressed people of color, younger people, people who are very mad at him over gaza, et cetera. he's got problems. how much of this is a challenge that biden, i don't know, in some ways can't solve because he's part of the problem? >> that's part of it. there's two sides to this. running a cult of personality based campaign, the magic is people do not leave you. people will support you to the very end. that's exactly what donald trump is doing and joe biden is not. you know, he's not messaging around the only i can fix this kind of stuff that donald trump has been saying. only i will get rid of your en enemies, these authoritarian fascist talking points. but also, joe biden, because of that, his base is fractured. the kids in his base, you were saying, overtly, they will not vote for him over gaza. that is a problem they need to figure out. this is not, you know, joy, you hear from a lot of people, i think, that the de facto position is to browbeat these kids and say they're not on to something, they're not seeing what they're seeing with their eyes all over the place, and that this mass death is acceptable. i don't think that's a great strategy. they should say the beauty of the democratic party or the beauty of democracy or the beauty of the old republican party is you could disagree about these one to one issues. you could talk about them. an conversations. that's what they should say instead of going for this other playbook that kind of mirrors trump, you don't actually know what you're talking about, and if you don't shut up, you'll end up with something a lot worse. >> yeah, i think that is good advice. we'll see if they take it. ben and steven, thank you both very much. up next on "the reidout," a new filing by special counsel jack smith asks the supreme court to weigh in on trump's claim of immunity surrounding the events of january 6th, and to to it as soon as possible. "the reidout" continues after this. d isn't keeping this thrill seeker down. lost her card, not the vibe. the soul searcher, is finding his identity, and helping to protect it. hey! oh yeah, the explorer! she's looking to dive deeper... all while chase looks out for her. because these friends have chase. alerts that help check. tools that help protect. one bank that puts you in control. chase. make more of what's yours. ♪ if you struggle with cpap... [man struggles] ...you should check out inspire. no mask. no hose. just sleep. learn more and view important safety information at inspiresleep.com i'm free to grow. i'm free to learn. i'm free to make the next big thing. contra costa college is free for full-time students, which makes you free to explore all the incredible opportunities unleashed by higher learning. start your future and apply today at contracosta.edu/free despite trump's best efforts to delay his criminal trials until after next year's election, jack smith is not having any of it. earlier today, smith asked the u.s. supreme court to step in and immediately consider trump's claim tt he has presidential immunity for his attempted coup seeking to overturn the election. writing, this case presents a fundamental question at the heart of our democracy, whether a former president is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office. the move is essentially the special counsel's attempt to bypass trump's appeal to the d.c. circuit after tanya chutkan rejected this notion of absolute immunity. and smith is urging the to move quickly so the trial can move forward as plan. over the weekend, another filing from smith's office lays out new details about his team's extensive probe into trump's election lies, specifically the unfounded claim that foreign governments rigged u.s. voting machines. joining me now is tim 8 hathy, and katie phang, trial attorney and host of the katie phang show on msnbc. katie, let me start with you. how quickly could in theory the supreme court move on this? >> well, consider the following, the supreme court has basically said i am allowing the expediting of this motion, and we just got this today, i mean, this motion to expedite, i'm looking at it now, was filed, motion to expedite briefing on the petition. the order was entered. donald trump has to fail a response to that petition on or before 4:00 p.m. on wednesday, december 20th. and just in today as well, that appellate court appeal in the regular course that normally would happen if you didn't skip the appellate court and went straight to the supreme court, that order just got entered right now telling donald trump to respond to jack smith's motion to expedite by wednesday of this week. so we're probably going to get this very quickly done. how quickly? if you look at the united states v. nixon case that is cited by jack smith. it was done within a few months. it's almost -- if there was ever anything that was the utmost paramount importance is to have these questions answered. special counsel jack smith says the united states recognizes this is an extraordinary request. this is an extraordinary case. the future of democracy hangs in the balance. the supreme court understands that perhaps this needs to be addressed as soon as possible so that this issue can be resolved as quickly as possible. >> and tim, you were an investigator on the january 6th -- for the january 6th select committee. did you from your investigation notice any normal presidential activities donald trump was doing when he was watching the insurrection unfold on tv, for instance, or calling his vice president the p word? >> no, joy. absolutely not. look, we faced a lot of the same objections from witnesses during our process. witnesses would say, look, we don't have to come in because we're protected by executive privilege, everything that we did, all communications with the president were pursuant to our official function. our response, the committee's response was always, this is outside of your official function. it has to do with campaign related activity or straight up conspiracy to obstruct the official proceeding. none of which falls within the definition of official business. it's the very same argument before the court. donald trump wants to say, look, i was acting as president. jack smith says no, you were acting outside of the lawful permissible bounds of official action in an unlawful way. that's a question teed up for the supreme court. judge chutkan issued a very detailed, very well reasoned ruling. i think donald trump loses, the bigger quest is when, and by which court these issues are teed up. >> did you see any evidence that a foreign government interfered with the voting machines and flipped votes from biden to -- from trump to biden? >> no, absolutely not. jack smith has followed this lead as well. we talked to national security officials who looked into allegations of foreign interference with voting machines, found no such evidence. jack smith has even gone further, joy, and actually spoken to some additional members of the trump administration who themselves were able to rebut the notion of any foreign interference. jack smith wants to show that because president trump repeated allegations of voter fraud, despite the fact he was told repeatedly, our evidence of his deception and his specific intent to disrupt the joint session. >> katie, let me go to you on this. the special counsel says they're going to call three data location experts to testify in the d.c. trial. the bottom line, they reviewed the phones that were operating inside the white house, and the phones being used by the defendant, meaning donald trump and another person called individual one, and specifically identified the periods of time when the defendant's phone was unlocked and the twitter application was open on january 6th. twitter application. what is the significance of that? >> i think consider the following, it just goes to show how much has been going on behind the scenes about which we have no idea. and that is the biggest underestimating that could possibly be done to the detriment of someone like donald trump. there has been this level of investigation that's been conducted, where they have gone so far in a granular way to find evidence that shows when an app has been opened, the apps that have been used, the timing of such. and we were always looking to figure out, was there communications going on? what was going on when this was happening? there's d