france for the d-day anniversary. his plan to tout american leadership on the world stage and highlight the stark contrast with donald trump. then my keynote conversation about skipping the small talk and getting real. plus, senate republicans lock a bill to protect access to birth control as "the 11th hour" gets underway on this wednesday night. good evening once again. i am stephanie ruhle. we are now 153 days away from the election and that means it is exactly 5 months from today. as we get closer to that day, president biden is trying to show the sharp differences between him and donald trump. right now he is in france to mark tomorrow's 80th anniversary of d-day and while he is there for a very important occasion, he is also trying to reassure our allies about america's place on the world stage and what will happen when voters go to polls in november? in capitals across the continent leaders and diplomats express a sense of alarm bordering on panic at the prospect of donald trump's reelection. on friday he is scheduled to give a major speech on democracy and the global struggle against authoritarianism. compare that to what donald trump's allies are doing at home. they are openly calling for revenge against democrats after trump was convicted in new york even though there is zero evidence that president biden or any of his allies in congress had anything to do with that prosecution. steve bannon, one of donald trump's oldest allies, told the new york times that now is the moment for obscure republican prosecutors to make a name for themselves by prosecuting democrats. with that, let's get smarter with the help of our leadoff panel and it is a super one. my dear friend molly is here. special correspondent for vanity fair. reporter and former federal prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst glenn kirschner is with us. it is obviously important for president biden to be there as america's leader, but from a political standpoint what is the image he is trying to project and how important is it? >> it really is important because it is a struggle for democracy. i think we were talking about this before. the more he can get out there, every time biden gets out and speaks people are like, he sounds pretty good. the state of the union address -- >> they said he knocked it out of the park. >> so good in fact that trump was like, he is on drugs. trump world could not even conceptualize it. this kind of thing is good. he did this before the midterms and a lot of people in the media were like this doesn't work, people don't put on democracy and in fact it works really well. also d-day is really important. world war ii is the thing that created american democracy in a different way and also nato. >> that's kind of the thing. the president is marking the day, but standing arm in arm with these other world leaders. do you think it will be successful or they are hitting the right tone, that this is a battle across the world. that threat is real. >> you mentioned his peace at the top. this question all over the world about authoritarianism, what is happening to the conversation about democracy and what happens next in all of these countries and world system we have been used to is a big one and what is remarkable to me is i think we put those things back to back and they show how different both of these candidates are. america, i talked to a lot of voters all over the country and a lot of americans are sad and freaked out. they want to feel confident and good about being american again. biden tells them there is a way to do that by building up the foundations that we have. i will talk to nato, rebuild those alliances. we will have a country you are used to. trump's argument is we will tear all of these down and prosecute democrats, do politically motivated judicial things. the difference is so stark and it is remarkable to me how close the election is, when you see how different the two guys are. >> how different they are and those messages. the messages donald trump is pushing, one would think are wildly unpopular. so who is he speaking to and why is it sticking? the super wealthy set that is getting excited about him, that is all about tax cuts. they cannot be down with any of this. >> a lot of these policies are not super popular. look, we live in a media bubble. there is not that much mainstream media getting to a lot of people in this country. >> bingo. let's talk about what donald trump and his allies are doing. talk to us about this revenge mission. steve bannon saying this is a moment for obscure republican prosecutors to make a name for themselves and go after democrats. what? >> you know the republicans are distinguishing themselves as the pro crime party, plain and simple. you see house speaker mike johnson, representative jim jordan and his weaponization of government committee. this is the way it looks to this old prosecutor. they are obstructing justice. obstructing prosecutions of donald trump for political advantage. whether they are state court prosecutions, federal prosecutions. i wish some prosecutors would actually rise up and begin to call them out and hold them accountable for it. because they seem to stand for nothing other than a naked power grab in the way they perceive, i think, their chances of retaining power is to make sure they never break from donald trump. so i don't understand it, but i hope it comes back to haunt them, come november. >> evan, molly correctly identified the media bubble. let's talk about the truth because republicans are arguing that the justice system is being weaponized, but it is those very republicans that are openly advocating for politically persecuting their opponents and at the same time while donald trump stood trial, guess who else is? the president's son and new jersey senator bob menendez, like at this very moment. what is going on here? on what grounds can republicans say this? >> sometimes you ask these hard questions and it is a difficult challenge to answer them. >> if we knew the answers, we wouldn't have you on. >> sometimes these questions are like straight up politics. the most old-school, boring politics you can think of. when you think of a person saying that the judge who prosecuted my case, that judge is a bad judge, but the judge giving me good rulings in florida for example or the judge prosecuting the case against hunter biden, those are good judges. this is basic politics. the idea that if it is against me it is bad, if it is against them it is good. that is all it is. at least in this cycle it is just such an obvious political play. >> so the steve bannon argument is that you opened the doors and if you do this to trump, we will do this to you. >> the whole thing is retribution. if you try to do these prosecutions we will get back to you. you need to be afraid of republicans. look, the whole party is basically about trump. name a republican platform like one of the tenants of the party now. >> i do want to say something. >> if you are in the trump sphere, you never do mainstream media so no one will look back and see been in and say what about menendez, what about hunter biden? >> this is also very dangerous. the things that bind us together as a country. we talk about this idea of attacking the judicial system, just saying it is fake. when someone says look, elect me and i will prosecute everybody that you hate and that is how it works. if you prosecute me it is fake. this stuff has real impact down the line. it is politics right now. people are making bets that they can say these things and get enough votes in swing states to win, but there is a serious long-term impact to think about. we take away the idea of the courts as being real. we don't really know what happens after that and that is something i watch closely when i do my reporting and talk to these voters who are concerned about the state of america, to tell them that this whole other chunk of it is not working and is also fake. i don't know what that means for the nation's health in the long term. >> it is kind of this reminder of how extraordinary it was that a week ago 12 ordinary new yorkers took on the brave, bold, and difficult task of sitting on that jury and convicting donald trump. today we learn from axios reporting that trump allies are already talking about this idea that they want to throw d.a. alvin bragg in jail. what does that say to you, especially where donald trump was in 2016 to where he is today? >> it says the republicans are the pro crime party. i am thrilled that new york, a state jurisdiction, decided to do the hard work of holding donald trump accountable for some of his crimes and these were designed to gain unfair advantage in the 2016 presidential election. what did they get for it in new york? we have jurors being doxed, witnesses being swatted. judges family members and prosecutors being put in harm's way, including by the republican party who want to as you say go after alvin bragg for simply doing his job. one thing i think would probably go a long way to kind of prod justice into wakefulness writ large, is if the federal government began charging some of the hierarchy of the insurrection. the suits of the insurrection as compared to the boots of the insurrection. the command structure. what happened on january 6 is a federal problem and needs a federal solution and for whatever reason the feds content to let the states, whether new york, arizona, wisconsin, georgia, michigan, do the dirty work, the hard work of justice. for whatever reason the feds continued to sit back as they did until we saw the house january 6 select committee begin to prod doj into wakefulness. i would like to see the federal government start flexing its justice muscle and begin indicting some of these folks, including the ones that are presently unindicted co- conspirators in donald trump's federal prosecution in d.c. >> molly, what do democrats, what does the biden campaign do with this? how do they break through and explain to the american people this right-wing drive for vengeance. the same old-school politics, this is dangerous. >> donald trump is an autocrat. he is running as an autocrat. he does these things that are anti-democracy like pulling down the courts, the rule of law, the constitution. the norms we have lived by in this constitutional democracy and they think what democrats have to do and biden has done a good job of this, but he needs to be out there more. then the vice president who is really an effective messenger, she needs to be out there, too. they need to explain that these are the norms and if the norms go away we will no longer be the country that we have lived in. we will be something closer to hungary or russia or turkey. that is what it will eventually be, so i think they need states -- >> i saved this to the end because i know the story has you ready to bust out your black belt and start kicking. today the georgia court of appeals basically froze the fulton county election interference case, at least for now. why is this happening and what does it mean? >> but for the new york result, justice seems to be going nowhere fast and georgia is proving the point. appellate litigation can be a very slow ordeal and the georgia appeals court just proved it by not only setting the argument in the appeal of the disqualification of district attorney fani willis, which was rejected by judge mcafee and trump and company appealed it. they said that for october but they also put a stay in place, so now judge mcafee can do nothing but just tread water until the georgia appeals court finally resolves the appeal. so look, there is no hope now of anything happening in georgia before the november election. of course there is still a slim chance we might see something happen in d.c. if the supreme court decides absolute immunity and returns it to put it back on the trial track and of course down in florida judge cannon made sure that case will make zero progress. >> down in florida, safe to say forget about it. molly, evan, glenn, thank you for starting us off. don't go anywhere if you are watching from home. in fact, stretch her legs, sit back down and turn up the volume. when we come back, bibles and classroom and making abortion a homicide. texas republicans are making their extreme platform very, very clear. how they are taking a page from the project 2025 playbook. later my keynote conversation with charlamagne tha god. why he says we need to quit the small talk and commit to deeper and tougher conversations. we are just getting underway on a wednesday. think you're not at risk? 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