Fantastic on that note, i wish you a great night. Remember, you can catch the Night Cap not just tonight but every night at 11 00 and you can see the Documentary Series my generation. Saturday, 9 00 p. M. Eastern. Tomorrow night, order in and watch tv all night. But for now, im signing off. For all of our colleagues on the networks of Nbc News, thanks for staying up late. See you at The End of monday. In august of 2020, Donald Trump was campaigning for reelection amid a series of ongoing crises. We were in the throws of the covid19 pandemic. The Summer Saw A Wave of protests and uprisings over the murder of george floyd. And, to top it all off, the state of california was experiencing its largest wild Fire Season in recorded history. And it was that last crisis that prompted Donald Trump to say this during a Campaign Rally in pennsylvania. And i see again the Forest Fires are starting. They are starting again in california. You got to clean your forests. They have many, many years of leaves and broken trees. And they are like, like so flammable. You touch them and it goes up. I have been telling them this now for three years. But they dont want to listen. The environment. But there are massive fires again in california. Maybe we are just going to have to make them pay for it. Maybe we are just going to have to make them pay for it. Trump bizarrely and falsely claimed Wild Fires were the cause of officials not cleaning the floors of the forest. And then threatened to make california pay for its own Disaster Relief. For the record, his claim has been thoroughly debunked. The state of california owns only 3 of its forest. The rest are owned by private groups or the federal government and they take regular steps to mitigate the debris in the forest. I dont know if that includes cleaning the floors, whatever that means but that didnt stop him from repeating the claim over and again. He tweeted i told Gavin Newsom from the first day we met he must clean his Forest Floors and then he come to the federal government for financial help. No more. Before that, it was the same thing. Almost like a california Wild Fire tradition. That year, trump tweeted billions of dollars are given each year with so many lives lost. All because of Cross Mismanagement of the forest. Remedy now or no more fed payment. That is how Donald Trump acted as president. During moments of national disasters. He blamed the libs and threatened withhold aid. He is still doing it. He threatened to withhold future Fire Aid if Governor Newsom didnt agree to change the States Water Usage rule. And Gavin Newsom is going to sign those papers and if he doesnt sign those papers we wont give him money to put out all his fires and if we dont give him money to put out the fires, hes got problems. Hes a lousy governor. That through the is not just bluster. He has tried to do this before. A Bomb Shell new report revealed that in 2018, President Trump actually did try to withhold Disaster Aid from california just because it was a Blue State to punish The Americans who didnt vote for trump. Mark harvey told the news he was only able to get trump to approve Disaster Relief for california by pulling up Voting Results from Conservative Leaning orange county. To show President Trump that his own supporters had been heavily affected by the fire. Harvey told the outlet we went as far as looking up how many Votes Trump got in those impacted areas to show him these are the people who voted for you. They also found as president , Donald Trump Directed Fema to cover 100 of the costs in disasters like the Florida Panhandle while objecting to and slow Walking Aid for blue territories like Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands after hurricane maria. So he did manage to throw the people of Puerto Rico a few paper towels. Joe biden wrote on x you only help those in need if they voted for you. Its the most basic part of being president and this guy knows nothing about it. Right now, the biden administration is in the middle of trying to deal with the latest natural disaster to hit this country. The full extent of the damage from Hurricane Helene has yet to be realized. But right now, Nbc News reports 220 people have died as a result of that storm. And hundreds of people are likely still missing. Nearly 700,000 people are still dealing with Mayor Power outages. Loss of connectivity has made it difficult and impossible to reach people. Residents are dealing with a Health Risk posed by the lack of access to clean water and toxic contamination. Trump decided to use this disaster as fodder for his political campaign. At a rally last night, trump falsely claimed that Hurricane Victims are being denied Relief Money because the biden administration spent Fema Dollars on housing for migrants. Now, for the record, this is totally false. The White House has responded saying no Disaster Relief funding at as will used to all to fund housing. Trump himself diverted money from fema so the Border Control could use it for migrant detention. Trump it seemed to follow the bizarre rule that every accusation is a confession but that has not stopped the spread of misinformation among trump supporters especially online where he is aided by his Pal Elon Musk in a quest to propagate lies. Elon musk himself has been amplifying fake news. Things have gotten so out of hand here that fema has had to make its own Landing Page on the Fema Website dedicated to debunking these rumors about recovery efforts. In the meantime, trump traveled to Georgia Today for a Press Conference where he claimed without irony his focus is on people and not politics. Im not thinking about voters right now. Im thinking about lives. And, to be honest, it is much bigger than anything else. But we are thinking about lives. A lot of lives lost, a lot of people missing. Thats what i would be focused on now. Joining me now are michelle goldberg. George conway. Lawyer and contributor for the atlantic. Thank you guys both for being here. George, just for what does the clearly concessional nature of these accusations tell you about, i dont know, where his head is at right now . Well i mean, you are absolutely right. Its a form of projection. He attributes to others motives that he himself has. But it is more than that. I mean, the words that came to mind when i read about this Controversy Today is, Big Lie. It means Big Lie. It was a phrase coined by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf for a Propaganda Technique. Tell as Big A Lie as possible so people will believe the Big Lie. They believe bigger lies more than smaller lies. Because they think it is impossible for anyone to tell such an amazingly large lie. But Donald Trump does that as a matter of course. He is a pathological liar and a sociopath. This is par for the course for Donald Trump. Just as the lie about the supposedly stolen election in 2020. This is what he does. It is why he is a Cancer On American Public Life that must be removed once and for all. I will say. I wont speak german on this audience. I will save our audience from that. But the lies in particular are focused on people of color and migrants and the Pock Sisty has possibly ifive was even possible has increased in their sort of Poison Grade since the Springfield Debacle that the haitian immigrants were eating pets. This is what happened at a Trump Rally and this is evidence at how successful trump has been in poisoning his audience. Lets take a listen. This week, this week, we have learned that not only did 13,000 murders illegally cross our border, but fema is out of money because they have been providing 9,000 to every illegal. We must put americans first. How soon will you start supporting the deporting the murder ins. You are right about that. It is 13,099 to be exact. And, murders, many of these people murdered more than one person. One did seven. These are not people we want in our country. The Crime Statistics are a whole other kettle of fish. Some of that happened under the trump administration. The numbers have not been verified by Nbc News as far as i know. But to get to the point of this woman in the audience believes that fema gave 9,000 to migrants instead of spending it on Disaster Aid for georgia and north carolina. And this vicious demonization is the precondition for trumps Mass Deportation plan. When Jd Vance was asked what Mass Deportation looked like at the debate, he didnt want to give a straight answer. Because nobody wants to talk about what it would mean to have a network of Detention Camps dotted throughout this country. What it means to have the national guard going into neighborhoods and rounding people up. If you want to get The American people to consent to that and this does deserve probably some sort of german analogy. But you actually need to convince people they are not Human Beings like you and i. I just want to add on the Jd Vance answer, how are you going to deport . He outlined how One Million would leave because the Wages Wouldnt be what they wanted to be and the rest would self deport. There was no explanation of how that would work. George. I think even the attempt of the truth has become kind of a fulls errand. The year, 2024, Marjorie Taylor Greene, maybe one of the more rational actors in the republican conference in the house. Tweeted yes, they can control the weather. Its ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it cant be done. This is a member of congress. Part of the inner trump sanctum. The truth does not matter. They compete with Each Other to tell the biggest lies. They are all into that. And the phrase you are looking for. There is one. They are persuading The American public that people who come from other countries are beneath them. Beneath man. Beneath human. And this is the kind of poison that the republican party is spreading now. It is really, really sick. And it is difficult to chase it all down because they fell so many Big Lies quickly. I walked in and i saw a big headline in the new York Post about this big line. That the government had blown all of its money on migrants it is hard and difficult work and it gets in the way of people actually getting help. I will say it is laudable they have committed themselves to debunking the rumors, but about any number of right wing actors, you know. The unbridled Enthuse Yam for disinformation that is the internet. And i wonder if you have a thought about how Kamala Harris should be handling this. She came out with a statement. What is the Correcter Pushback on a topic where republicans have mud on their hands at best . They have consistently refused to fund fema. It is funded through the Stopgap Measures here. The irony is so thick you couldnt even slice it. I mean look. He has to go out and be on the ground and just talk about what the government is doing. And calling out Donald Trumps lies. Over and over again. But i dont think that is an antidote. A lot of times you can ignore that Elon Musk has spent this enormous fortune to buy himself a microphone for his own boundless narcissism you need reliable information. What they are doing is vicious and cruel to the people in those regions. Who need to know who they can trust. Some of the lies out there is that fema will confiscate your supply. It is instilling Fear And Par noah in people who are deeply paranoia in people who are already traumatized. There is going to be more and more climate related disasters, they can only explain that with recourse to ever escalating conspiracy theories. Yeah. That is such a good point. Red states tend to be on the forefront of climate change. They dont want to fund fema. The last Saving Grace for people in harms way. And they will lie about migrants who help propel The American economy in a fundamental way. George, do you have a thought . About what harris or democrats or anybody who still lives on earth one should be doing in a moment like this when the lies are so malicious . I think you have to point out and get people to understand the Propaganda Technique of the Big Lie being employed here. Because they are employing it all the time. Look at trumps. These lies are just as credible as the claim that the 80,000 Harris Supporters you saw populate her rallies after she became the presumptive nominee were all artificially created by ai. You know. There is no. He is just todaying out Big Lie after Big Lie after Big Lie and it cannot be understated. This man is a pathological liar. How much of a permission he has created for other republicans and supporters to pas on these lies. I think we have to nip it in the bud by pointing it out. And saying that you about to have a stable democracy under the rule of law, this has to be out of bounds. This is not shading about the margins about how great a particular Spending Program is. That it will create a lot of jobs and maybe you are exaggerating a little bit. This is just, these are flat out malicious and dangerous lies. They will harm people, harm our democracy. And it is a terrible thing to see in the united states of america in the 21st century. That we have a political party that subsists on this level of mendacity. Its a disgrace. No one can control the weather no matter what Marjorie Taylor Greene believes. Just putting it out there for the world. Good fact check. George, thank you both for your time. Coming up, the Trump Campaign is making a Big Bet On A Newfangled Ground Game. Is it a smart strategy or a gigantic mistake . Well get into that next. Ke . Well get into that next. 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Well, Post Election Analysis pointed to what are referred to as low Propensity Voters. People who dont normally vote. Nowhere was the impact of these low Propensity Voters more noticeable than in florida. In 2020, trumps campaign carved up the Sunshine State into dozens of subgroups and picked out the communities where they believed targeted messaging could drive irregular voters and some traditional democrat to their side. They launched Outreach Programs targeting black men, jewish households and spanish speaking communities. Ultimately, trump won four in ten jewish votes in florida. The best performance by a republican in two decades. And he got a lot of surprising votes from areas with large cuban and Puerto Rican populations. In miamidade, he got 200,000 more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. Now. Four years later, trumps plan for this Years Election is to take that Florida Strategy and use it nationally bringing it to all of the Swing States across the country. But there is a big difference between what the Trump Campaign did in florida in 2020 and what it is doing nationally right now. Rather than the campaign itself doing this, the campaign is outsourcing that outreach to third parties like this. There is actually a website in the state of michigan where you can find people who would probably vote for the candidate you are voting for but dont vote. And you can look them up. The Voter Rolls are right there. You can go on there. And just contact people you know. That was Tucker Carlson telling people at his live show in michigan to go to this website. And to use it to find rightlinging contacts they know wh