Wondering why im saying hi from northampton. Yes, i am. Yes. I was asked to say that today when i was on the Bill Newman Radio Show in northampton, massachusetts. Phoning in to the radio show. Of course, you are a big local hero there. I was on the show, of course, talking about my new book Playing With Fire and im one of those do anything to sell a book guys and so when he asked me to say hi to Rachel Maddow from northampton i said ill say that tonight on tv. And may many book sales follow. Bill newman is a great guy, Local Aclu Hero in western massachusetts. Known him for a very long time and anything from northampton is good as far as im concerned. Well done. He loves you and they love you up there. Thanks, man. Thank you, rachel. Well, donald trump jr. s secret communication with wikileaks about material stolen from the Democratic Party became
fifth accuser of roy moore emerged this afternoon. And this time, the woman appeared before cameras and told her own story in her own words about what she says roy moore did to her when she was 16 years old. Three hours before the newest accuser told her story, Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell decided he had already heard enough and read enough about the accusations against roy moore and roy moores self contradictory defense offered on Sean Hannitys radio show on friday. Do you believe these allegations to believe true . I believe the women, yes. Do you believe roy moore, calling for him to step down from the senate race. I did. I think he should step aside. Are you encouraging a writein campaign . Thats an option. Were looking at. Whether or not there is someone who could mount a writein
campaign successfully. Would it be senator strange, do you think . Well see. Mitch mcconnell was the leader of the Senate Republicans who today stepped out of the if true group into the roy moore must drop out now group. Every republican senator who endorsed roy moore has withdrawn their endorsement of roy moore with the exception of rand paul who just returned to capitol hill today after recovering from injuries. Senator jeff flake today bah imthe first republican senator to say he would vote for a democrat over roy moore. Just to be clear, he said if the choice is between roy moore and a democrat, i would run to the Polling Place to vote for the democrat. Jeff flake said that after the fifth accuser spoke. Beverly Young Johnson was 16 years old when she was working in the Old Hickory House Restaurant and roy moore was a regular customer. She said he came in almost every night and stay until closing
he would compliment me on my looks and i did not think anything of it. I did nothing to encourage his flirtatious behavior. I was accustomed to men flirting with me because i was a very well developed and complete competed in beauty pageants. She brought her School Yearbook to work one day and she says when roy moore noticed it he asked if he could write in her yearbook. He wrote in my yearbook as follows to a sweeter, more beautiful girl, i could not say merry christmas, christmas 1977, love roy moore, old hickory house. And he signed it roy moore d. A. Did. He noticed that my boyfriend was not there and he offered me a ride home. I trusted mr. Moore because he was the District Attorney. I thought that he was simply doing something nice. He stopped the car and he parked his car in between the dumpster and the back of the restaurant where there were no lights. There it was dark and it was deserted. I was alarmed and i immediately asked him what he was doing. And instead of answering my questions, mr. Rmoore reached over and began groping me. He put his hand on my breasts. I tried to open my car door to
told me he said, youre just a child. And he said, i am the District Attorney. I of Etowah County and if you tell anyone about this no one will ever believe you. No one will ever believe you. Roy moore was wrong. Mitch mcconnell believes her. Republican senator Corey Gardner who runs the Republican SenateCampaign Committee in the business of electing republican senators today said this. I believe the individuals speaking out against roy moore spoke with courage and truth, proving he is unfit to serve in the United States senate and he should not run for office. If he refuses to withdraw and wins the senate should vote to expel him because he does not meet the ethical and moral requirements of the United States senate. The president of the United States, a selfconfessing Sexual Assaulter, has said nothing today about roy moore. Nothing about the latest accuser
of roy moore. An accuser who claims he sexually assaulted her in his car. Today, Beverly Young nelson tried to remove any suggestion of political partisanship from her accusation and she did it in language that no one will appreciate more than donald trump. My husband and i supported donald trump for president. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the republicans or the democrats. It has everything to do with mr. Moores Sexual Assault when i was a teenager. So is Donald TrumpsAttack Machine Run by steve bannon going to attack a trump voter whos telling her story about roy moore . Beverly young nelson said she decided to speak after reading the accounts of the four women who spoke to the Washington Post about what roy moore did
to them when they were teenage girls including the Sexual Assault of Leigh Corfman described at 14 years old. Beverly Young Johnson said she thought she was roy moores only victim. I would probably have taken what mr. Moore did to me to my grave had it not been for the courage of four other women that were willing to speak out about their experiences with mr. Moore. Their courage has inspired me to overcome my fear. Mr. Moore attacked me when i was a child. I did nothing to deserve this sexual attack. I was frightened by his position and his power and i am coming forward today to let i want mr. Moore to know he no longer has any power over me and i no
longer live in fear of him. Courage creates more courage. It always does. Courage creates more courage and now courage creates more unanswerable accusations against roy moore. Joining us now, Wendy Sherman, former undersecretary of state for political affairs. She is now a msnbc Global Affairs contributor and also neera tan den, president of the center for American Progress and maria tee rhee sa ka mar. Ambassador sherman, i want do give you the floor. I dont pretend to be able to guide this discussion. I think better than you can all guide it. Wendy sherman, please go first for us. Thanks very much, lawrence. You know, i have listened to that clip several times today and every time i want to break down and cry. I really want to affirm the courage of beverly Young Johnson and of all the women who have come forward. Not just in the case of roy
moore who absolutely how would not be in the u. S. Senate or any Public Office whatsoever. He actually probably ought to have been in jail some years ago for taking a 14yearold out and assaulting her. Her coming close to assaulting her. Hard to know what happened. Traumatic event in ms. Corfmans life. So, indeed, i want to say what you said. This is tremendous courage. And i dont often thank senator mcconnell. I am a democrat but i want to thank him for saying i believe the women. 26 years ago when i was doing politics, not National Security, which happened right after 26 years ago, i spent the weekend with anita hill helping her to navigate the u. S. Senate in what was an incredibly depressing weekend with much of the same themes where people said, well, you know, Clarence Thomas was going to be a supreme court
justice so a Judiciary Committee of all white men sat in judgment not of Clarence Thomas but anita hill and we started to wear pins saying i believe anita hill. I still believe her today. I believe these women. And i am very grateful that finally men in power as well as women in power are beginning to say that they believe these women because after all at the end of the day this is about power. Who has it, who will share it, who is acknowledged, who is affirmed, whose voices are heard. This is unfortunately a story that has gone on for centuries and each time we have a situation like this, we hope it will change the tide. We will have a new day. And i hope that the republicans not only in the senate but in
alabama understand this and im glad that al. Com put out an editorial saying today what needs to be said. Roy moore does not belong in the u. S. Senate. He does not belong anywhere in real life. Maria teresa, your reaction to what she had to say today . I think its devastating but also highlights that the Republican Party has a lot of has to bear a lot of the burden of this. We had the same allegations literally a year ago, lawrence on this show with woman after woman coming after saying, look, donald trump groped me. Donald trump crossed the line. He sexually harassed me and when the Republican Party could have said, yes, this is not okay, we stand and we believe the women, they decided to send in a sexual predator to the white house. Now they have bigger problem on their hands because you have a party that where people feel that they can have a political career based on what they saw as
a pathway to higher Leadership Office and that is the danger. It is great that Mitch Mcconnell came out today but they need to do more, show more, believe the women. It is not one. The reason that roy moore may not remember beverly is because theres so many other women that are hiding in the shadows afraid to come forward and it is time to have an honest, frank conversation of what leadership truly means and that means making sure that women are safe in the workplace. That little girls are safe where they are. And that the Community Comes forward. The fact that the Alabama Paper came out saying, yes, it was known that the District Attorney would literally go around the mall and at High School Games trying to date young girls, that should have literally the whole community should have come out in protest. They decided to elect him year after year. And neera tan den, your reaction to what Bever Ri Young Nelson had to say today, the fifth accuser now to go public . Well, i want to also say that
i applaud her courage and that her statements are really heart breaking. You can hear the fear of a teenager who looked to a person to be a trusted Law Enforcement official. I mean, he was a District Attorney. Thats why she got in the car to get a ride home and instead he decided to assault her. And, you know, i think what we really have to think about is all of the women, all the young women, all the girls who have faced situations like this, and what is the message alabama would is end to them if after all of this they vote for roy moore . So i would really say to the people of alabama, to the women of alabama, that this really shouldnt be a choice. Public office is not, you know, is not for people like roy moore. Maria teresa is right. He should not be e leblgted to
the highest office, highest offices in the country. And so, you know, they face a choice of a person who prosecuted, you know, illegal behavior and also i mean, there are four people, four women, four young girls that doug jones had to oversee and they were the birmingham girls, girls murdered in the Birmingham Church and he got justice for them and running against roy moore and his record with these women and it could not be a starker choice for the people of alabama. Lawrence, can i add something . Yes. What were seeing is senator flake coming out becoming the moral compass of the Republican Party. He was very front and center every single time that donald trump basically went after one community after the next and once again he made it very clear that we as a country have to have principles. The fact saying, looking at this point, the choice between a pedophile and a republican, no choice. This is about party, about having a moral compass, purposeful and hes demonstrating what it means to be above party and be for your country. Ambassador sherman, as we know, it is hard to come up with what we would call evidence in cases that are this old but i want to put up on the screen, this love note that roy moore wrote in Beverly Young nelsons yearbook. I want the audience to be able to take a long look at that. He signs it love. He soons his name and he puts d. A. His title right there. The name of the restaurant in it. He claims now to not know about that restaurant. And when youre looking at evidence to see Something Like that, in a case like this, a love note from a man and his mid30s to a 16yearold girl, thats about as strong a piece of evidence to expect to say
this many years. It is a strong piece of evidence and i would say roy moores own words is evidence. When he says that he generally didnt date young girls, but generally he would always ask their mothers for permission to date those girls, i am a mother of a daughter who is now a mother herself and i cringed when i listened to that comment. It really quite frankly just creeped me out. That someone would say that they would ask the mother if they could date the girl. This is really pedophilia. This is Sexual Assault. This is something where were supposed to be a country with values and norms that we want the world to embrace though sometimes the president doesnt seem that way. We get to that later today, i know. But All Over The World girls face assault. Everything from people who are
just creeps to rape, to Sexual Assault, to child marriage. These are issues which we have to put out in the open and as i said at the beginning, lawrence, at the end of the day, this is about power. I know that lots of people feel powerless. But when you feel powerless, the way to gain power is not to assault a child. And neera, quickly before our break here, we have a report today from The New Yorker that people saying roy moore was banned from the mall where he was meeting these girls and reportedly trying to flirt with them in a harassing way and that it was Common Knowledge that this was his practice. I mean, i think when you just listen to the evidence of the last week, its not one piece of evidence. Theres story after story. We have five women now who knows how many more will come forward . Roy moore himself just said yesterday or over the weekend
that there will likely be more stories. He knows his record and what he did and im sure there will be more, not fewer stories in the days and weeks to come. Neera and maria teresa, thank you both for joining us tonight. Really appreciate it. Thank you, lawrence. Crooming up, donald trump J Communications with wikileaks and well take another look at roy moore and his opponent doug jones and alabama history and what has brought us to this point tonight. When you have a cold
we learned today that donald trump jr. Had secret communications with wikileaks during the president ial campaign about stolen emails from democrats that wikileaks had obtained possibly through russian sources. And we know this because the atlantic broke the news today about donald trump jrss twitter private messages quoting from those messages extensively. And after the atlantic broke the story of donald trump jr. s messages donald trump jr. Then released what he says are all of the twitter private messages between him and wikileaks. Donald trump jr. Knows that those twitter private messages have all been handed over to congressional investigating committees by the lawyers and he knows that they are out of his
custody an theyre going to be become public in full eventually. And so, once the atlantic broke the story today donald trump jr. Decided in consultation with lawyers and guidance to put what he says are all of the messages out there right now. Here is what Candidate Trump said about wikileaks when wikileaks started publishing material stolen from the democrats. Now, this just came out. This just came out. Wikileaks i love wikileaks. And i said, write a couple of them down. We have to go back to wikileaks. Oh, wikileaks. Thats donald trump using the stolen information in his rallies. In one case, donald trump jr. Appeared to take direction from wikileaks. Two days after Candidate Trump praised wikileaks, the group sent a link to its of to
its hacked emails. They sent a