Good morning, it is saturday, september 21st. I am Alecia Menendez with michael steele. Symone Sanders Townsend has the day off. Americans are starting to cast their ballots. And the Vice President makes a passionate, new plea of the stakes of the race. Plus, georgia changes The Way the votes will be counted in the state. Lucky losers. New york times winning is back a new look at the funny story about trumps financial organs origins. Grab your coffee and settle in. Welcome to The Weekend. D. Can you believe it, folks . We are just 45 days from the election of the next President Of The United States and voters are already heading to the polls in some states. Early inperson voting kicked off friday in minnesota, south dakota, and virginia. Overnight, in arizona, The State Supreme Court just guaranteed full Ballot Access for nearly 100,000 voters following a dispute over a clerical error related to the States Proof of citizenship requirements for voting. Meanwhile, Vice PresidentKamala Harris is working to maintain her postdebate balance with a pair of Battleground Events on friday, a series of New Polls also showing democrats gaining support. Folks, this race remains very, very close. Harris framed the choice for voters Last Night at a rally in madison, wisconsin this way. And in many ways, youve heard me say before, is an unserious man. But the consequences of putting him back in the White House are extremely serious, extremely serious. Joining us now to get in on all of this, Msnbc Analyst and professor at princeton university, Eddie Cloud and Michael Cohen, Donald Trumps former personal attorney. He is now host of Me A Couple podcast. That is good podcast for everyone to enjoy, welcome, gentlemen. We are in it now, guys. People are voting. It is very tight, part of this being very tight is because economy is top of mind for folks. A share of registered voters have more trust to handle the economy, 46 harris, 46 trump. What is it about this idea people have, Michael Cohen, that he is somehow this economic genius . Statement and yet, we have all turned around and seen the number of bankruptcies, we have seen the number of failed business ventures. During the greatest boom in u. S. Economy, his own stock, the trump media that has that untrue social platform is down 70 . Everything else is sort of rising up with your 401 k , but not if you are an investor in the trump media stock, and yet, yet, weve got to ask princeton what his position is. I dont have an answer as to how he is managed to fool so many People Day in and day out. That was a part of my job. It is to me, michael, and i will let you take it away, a testament to Personal Branding and how solidified this idea is, this image of him became during those apprentice years ask some great businessman, a reputation that was earned, not on balance sheets, but on reality tv. And that is exactly right. I think eddie and you and i have talked about this, you have so eloquently over recent years, especially, framed this for the country to understand this space we are in. You have an individual who is very good and creative in a space, a wholly fictional space, reality tv, where it was actually rather scripted. But the reality was, for a lots of folks who had checked out of politics, he became their avatar to check back in and they liked the brand. They like the fake botulism, they like the fake boss. They like the guy who is behind the desk saying, youre fired. His viewers became his voters, now they have aligned and locked in with him, that is why he is feeling is so low. It is always tapping out of 46, 47 , but what about the rest of us . What does it say that the face of everything that we know to the discussion of what is happening in places like North Carolina, where the party is Leveling Up some of the most vile kind of candidates that you can imagine, people still buy it . I think first of all, we have this kind of combination, mike, the idea that republicans handle the economy better than democrats, joining with the reality television figure. At the same time, there is supposed to be an economic powerhouse here there is that going on. And then, there is the underneath, this kind of deep uncertainty, this deep panic about the cultural of the landscape of the united states that we really dont like to talk about. We tend to think about this as a traditional type of race, but underneath it is all of this grievance, all of this fear, all of this anxiety that trump has exploited for the better part of his political career. And until we are honest about that, we are going to constantly try to figure out what is going on around these folks, when in fact, what is at the heart of it is that the part of the nation at its founding, and that is who are we as a country . Are we a diverse nation, or are we really just simply white america . And i think that is at the heart of it that we need to get our minds around. Michael cohen Lit Up when you sent that. It reminds me of the movie, who are we . We have lost ourselves and what Donald Trump has done, is he has given the american people, those racist groups, he has given them a platform for which to continue to spew their racist ideology that has been so successfully put under a rock, into a whole in their backyards. He has not opened up pandoras box. And for whatever reason, this is who they want to be. You have talked, Michael Cohen, about how we dont need to interpret Donald Trump, just let the mans words absolutely. Let Donald Trump speak. The more he speaks, the more he tells you who he is. The person he is is not somebody who should be sitting behind the Lincoln Desk in the oval office. That is factual. I want to get into this idea though, youve got the character, the main character in this political melodrama in Donald Trump. Then, you have the real effects and impact of what he represents , and what he has put out there. When you look at, for example, the attacks on our election, you have Vice PresidentKamala Harris on thursday doing the unite america live streamed with oprah winfrey, taking some notes of that. Lets listen. This is not 2016 or 2020, the stakes are even higher. Remember, two months ago, the United States Supreme Court basically told the former president that he will effectively be immune, no matter what he does in the White House. Think about that. Just imagine, Donald Trump with no guard rails. He, who has vowed to be a dictator on day one, he who has called for quote, determination of the constitution of the united states of america. So, you have this idea that he embodies this attack on the country in such a profound way, and yet, people seem to be okay with that. Yeah, i mean, look, one of the things we have also seen, not only Donald Trump telling you he wants to rewrite the constitution, as if he could. All caps, sharpie. No, not sharpie, crayon, maybe on documents he took from the White House. He also has talked about destroying our Apartheid System of government, getting rid of the legislative branch and judiciary, confirming all power onto himself, making him the king. What else has he done . He has said, he wants everyone going to work in the administration, in his government to sign a loyalty pledge. That is something that you dont see from a president. That is something you see from making, a monarch, supreme leader, not from the President Of The United States. Everything here is wrong. It is all wrong for america, it is wrong for the future of america, and it is wrong for democracy. I think that is a really important point. It turns our attention to Donald Trump. I am really interested in the fact that he is appealing to such a large swath of america. That fact requires us to think about our history. And our history leads us to immediately to the fact that there has always been this democratic undertone to american life. Folks who are not committed to the democratic process, folk who are not committed to the idea of checks and balances, folk who think this is an at the national state, folk who believe that only certain folks should have rights. There has always been this battle. Why else is lincoln saying, we must appear to our better angels . Because there is the fact that there is an ugly underbelly to the country. And what is interesting about Donald Trump is, he has turned the wheel over and we can see the barnacles and all the ugliness underneath. So, a part of our challenge is, not just simply to exceptional lies Donald Trump, our challenge is to understand his attraction. Once we wrap our minds around that, and maybe we can open up the space. And look at the attraction. He has gotten Maca Mike Johnson to get on the mic and talk about how he wants to see america as a white, christian nationalist country again. That is their goal. On top of that, he even has Mark Robinson, a black man from North Carolina, buying into the nonsense. Dont get ahead of us. [ laughter ] i was going to say, there is a whole lot of unpacking there, eddie and michael. We will do that and we need you to stick around because we want to talk about trumps hateful rhetoric and the impact of all of that. Later, fresh off posting Vice President in wisconsin, democratic State Party Chair and winkler will join us at the table. The State Party Chairs of Arizona And Michigan will be here as well. This is a chairmans corner Coming Up here as well as you are watching The Weekend. En thats just not who i am. 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So, eddie, there is really good stuff i think to unpack and The Way to begin with what we heard there, listen to second gentleman doug imhoff, who has not actually responded to trump, the clips that we heard, but speaking more broadly to trumps antisemitic themes he had been Leveling Up, lets listen to what the second gentleman had to say. He is somebody who has had dinner with known antisemites. He is someone who, after the horrific events in charlottesville, where people were actually marking with marching with Tiki Torches saying, jews will not replace us and he said, there are five people on both sides of that. This is a guy who has had a record of thing incredibly vile and antisemitic things. For him to say that, i just almost left at the chutzpah, as we would say, as Gas Lighting. And that is the thing, it is the chutzpah and the Gas Lighting that Donald Trump has perfected in our politics. I am reminded of, for example, the response that republicans had went Joe Biden inferred that the African American vote, remember the African American vote supports democrats, and the Hue And Cry that came from that. Here, you have Donald Trump saying, if i lose the election, it is your fault. And lets be clear, Donald Trump and m. A. G. A. Republicans have traded historic antisemitic tropes for years now. Before this, we heard talk about globalists, before that, we know that they have been the spike in antisemitism that is tied to white christian nationalism. We forget about the tree of life, we forget about all of these things we are really driven by. Remember, great Replacement Theory is being funded by jewish globalists, who were trying to change the democratic nature of the country. Weve had this moment where there was this critique of woke is him on college campuses. Suddenly, wokism became a justification for anti semitism. They were linked, layered, and weve got the strange bedfellows in the aftermath of it. At the heart of what trump stands for is, in so many ways, a deepseated antisemitism that has in some ways fueled the campaign, predicated on revenge and hatred, seems to me. That is the thing, it is not