Already. But when it comes to the more important question, the bottom line question, when it comes to how the country is going to determine the way this scandal will end, how the Congressional Committee wills conduct and conclude their investigations, how congress will react to its own investigations, as well as to whatever we eventually learn from the special counsel investigation at the fbi, that ultimate response which is the most important thing for the country, that is not going to be determined by what the white house does. And its not going tong determined by what the press does. It will be determined in a granular sense largely by republicans. Especially if it happens soon while republicans still control congress. If you think there are eventually going to be impeachment proceedings, if you think the congressional investigations are going to be consequential and their findings are going to be known. All of that stuff will be decide bid the people who run congress. And at least until the midterm elections twhabs Congressional Republicans. And that fact, the fact that at least, you know, until january after the next midterms, the fate of this presidency is in the hands of Congressional Republicans, that, if nothing else, makes the strain between the white house and the elected republicans not just human drama in washington. It makes it potentially a existential matter for this presidency. And of all of the things that have driven this strain between the president and the elected republicans, the most interesting dynamic, the most persistent and difficult problem for that relationship has turned out to be the president s expression of sympathy with the grievances of whies supremacists and neonazis who gathered for a rally and riot in charlottesville, virginia. The president has sympathy with their grooenss and solidarity other their affection for the confederacy. That really has been a problem. Reportedly it has been a problem for some senior white house staff working for this president , although you can take that as far as you can throw it since none of them have actually resigned from the white house or threatened to resign in response to the president s remarks. But Congressional Republicans too have described this moment, this problem their discomfort with what the president said, theyve described this as something that bothered them. Something that made them feel this presidency, maybe theyre not going to go to bat to keep it going, if it comes right down to it. Its interesting how much of a problem this has been, not just if are the president s standing not just our soul as a nation but specifically his relationship with other republicans. Heres what makes that supposed revulsion on the part of other republicans. Those comments from the president being a supposed breaking point. Heres what makes that moes a shakes peerian drama. At least a crock depending on how you look at it. White strem cysts did not brand them as the alt right because donald trump was elected president. The hitler lets make a white homeland of america extremism, it didnt spring out of the toilet that it lives in because this guy elected. The white supremacist nightmare edge rebranded themselvess as the altright years ago and i reup for discussion the fact that well before this president moved on from reality tv, i was the Republican Party in congress, before trump, that started to insinuate these guys into otherwise mainstream republican politics. Dont believe me . Watch this. This is what we did at the time. But we have to start tonight in montana at the headquarters of an organization that like to think of itself as americas think tank for the White Nationalist movement. They dont like to same white supremacist. They like to say White Nationalist. They think it stands better. You can judge for yourself. Who stands for us. Have you ever wondered why isnt there an organization that works for us. From africanamerican to illegal immigrants, from lesbians to lefthanders, every ethnic and Interest Group has its own lobby or cultural foundation. The exception, of course, the White Americans. This is the white supremacist sorry, the White Nationalist think tank group. They call themselves the White National policy institute. Their slogan, for our people, our culture, our future. When they say our theyre really specific about who they mean. As long as whites continue to avoid and deny their own racial identity at a time whenever other racial and ethnic category is reasserting its own, whites have no chance. This is our challenge, this is our calling. Wont you join us. So if you poke around on the website of the White Nationalist think tank, you can see how theyre trying to update the racist image. Some are still skin head guys but they wear suits and some of them have hair. This is an old school kind of thing want no bininner breed. It is exactly what you think it with improved haircuts. If you dig into the fine print in their online web presence, theyre not just an online group that they hold physical conferences and events. They maintain a p. O. Box in whitefish, montana. Thats the exact same p. O. Box for this online racist forum. And i awe a bunch of links to this today but no, its all still there. Its called the alternative right. And its an online racist forum. It describes itself as being founded by the wont you join us white power guy you just saw in the think tank video. This is their post on holocaust remembrance dwa day. They call it holocaust amnesia day. And ushd the picture it says, i cant believe its crept up on me today. Today i discover that today is Holocaust Memorial day and im fresh out of onions. The author goes on to describe his mixed feelings of commemorating a historic event and he goes to say we leave aside for the moment whether this whole holocaust thing actually happened. This is the real deal. This is alternativeright which lives in the same whitefish, montana p. O. Box as the White Nationalist think tank. This corner of the internet is relevant because its suddenly front and center in super mainstream american politics. This arian nation crock is directly linked to the legislation that finally started getting a markup today. There was a talk that the Republican Party were finally going to help see into law reform of our nations royally skruds up immigration system. The writing was on the wall after losing the presidency again after losing seats in the house and the senate. The Republican Party had to get right with latino voters and the way it was going to do it was by supporting Immigration Reform ti finally. It is really not clear that enough republicans do support it that its going to pass. Jefferson be regard sessions iii introduced 49 separate amendment to the bill today and thats not because hes trying to help it along. And the most conservative think tank is against it. The Heritage Foundation is leading the conservative operation. And this is where the white supremacist problem comes in. Yesterday it was Dylan Matthews who looked up the credential of the people who wrote the antiimmigration study for heritage and they found out that one of the coawe tors authors s study. Im only barely paraphrasing. The dissertation describing latinos has an an iq substantially lower than that of the white native population. They do not have the same cognitive ability as nay tys. No one knows whether hispanics reach iq parity with whites but the percentage of the low iq children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against. Not only are they intellectually inferior to whites, but of course, they breed. Its disgusting, right . To be clear. This guy with the thesis that white people are just naturally smarter, he isnt some temp that the Heritage Foundation bumped into. He has a titled position at the Heritage Foundation. A senior policy analyst. And even tz they tried to disavow his dissertation, thats his student past, thats the one problem with him. Today we learned thanks to some digging, that this fies whole record of public output is the same kind of stuff. Heres another article from him, this one from march twen, model minority question mark . You get the implication, right . Hispanics are in fact substantially more likely than whites to commit serious crimes. These findings are not due to age differences or immigration violations or other statistical artifacts. The reality of hispanic crimes should be one of the factors that we consider when setting immigration policy. Thats not from a dissertation. Thats on the online machine, specifically thats on the online machine at alternativeright. Com with the place where theyre cutting up onions to make them fake cry over the holocaust. Where the whitefish, montana post office box lives with this guy and where the Heritage Foundation author of the immigration study is expanding on these brown people who we really ought to consider keeping out of the count friday. And when the heritage town daths was considering hiring him, his most recent public output, the thing he was going online the month before heritage hired him was writing about the racial inferiority and criminality of latinos as a group. And this is the world where the Heritage Foundation went to, to find an author for their study of Immigration Reform. Their Study Concludes that its a terrible idea to reform immigration because these immigrants, and you know who remean, these immigrants and their children and grandchildren, everybody in their blood line, that are loi achieving parra sites who will need on the native born population and that will be expensiv expensive. And we learned all of this today about the schark tcheraractecha. We learned who the leading the Immigration Reform on the day it finally gets introduced to the senate. That was our coverage in may 2013 of the lond standing White Supremacist Movement in this country we branding itself as the altright and the Republican Partys willingness to dance with them for political differences even then. President trumps kind remarks about the White Supremacists among us may make republicans proclaim their discomfort. But is theres a recent past for the republican to reckon with. A recent past of republicans and the Heritage Foundation really opening the door to those groups before donald trump was even known to be a republican, let alone a republican politician. I should also tell you that report, that hispanic or pari p sites report is proudly displayed on the website of the Heritage Foundation. Its still there. Well be right back. Here with your stop stories. Hurricane irma is upgraded to a category four. U. N. Ambassador says north korea is begging for war and shes calling for Diplomatic Options including new sanctions in response to north Koreas Nuclear boehm test this weekend. The Rachel Maddow show continues after this. Winds stirring. Too treacherous for a selfie. [ camera shutter clicks ] sure, ive taken discounts to new heights with safe driver and paperless billing. But the prize at the top is worth every last breath. Here we go. [ grunts ] got em. Ahh. Wait a minute. Whole wheat waffles . [ crying ] why wait a minute. Whole wheat waffles . For the neverbeforeseen two sided clean, just add water. One side deeply exfoliates the other gently smooths and a flexible body cleanser inside lathers for a close, complete clean. Just hang your duo to dry after each use, for dayafterday of touchably soft skin. Hurry over to walgreens and get olay duos for only 3. 99 with card and online coupon clean up on savings. Available at walgreens itthe power of nexium 24hr protection from frequent heartburn. All day, and all night. Now packed into a pill so small, we call it mini. New clearminis from nexium 24hr. See heartburn differently. Before americans who were shell shocked by the election had started watching tv news again, this is quite soon after the election, a lot of people were still really in shock, this was actually so soon after the election that really even the president ial transition hadnt really gotten up and running. Before thanksgiving, after the election this past year, there was a show of force in washington, d. C. That when you look back at it now, it rings like a bell in terms of what it foreshadowed for this new presidency. To be white is to be a striver, a crusader, an explorer and a conquerer. We build, we produce, we go upward. And we recognize the central lie of american race relations. We dont exploit other groups. We dont gain anything from their presence. They need us and not the other way around. [ applause ] two weeks ago i might have said the election of donald trump would actually lessen the pressure on White Americans. But today it is clear his election is only intensifying the storm of hatred and hysteria being directed against us. As europeans we are uniquely at the center of history. We are, as hagel recognized, the embodiment of World History itself. No one will honor us for losing gracefully. No one mourns the great crimes committed against us. For us it is conquer or die. This is a [ applause ] this is a unique burden for the white man that our fate is entirely in our hands. And it is appropriate because within us, within the very blood in our veins as children of the sun lies the potential for greatness. That is the great struggle we are called to. We were meant to overcome, overcome all of it because that is natural and normal for us. [ applause ] because for us, as europeans, it is only normal again when we are great again. See what he did there . When we are great again. We europeans. Make white people great again. Also, did you notice the white people are children of the sun . Did you notice that line from him . I would just im not expert but i would think children of the sun would be more tan. You mow what im saying . This was not a tan group. But now that weve got this new president elect, this is the news cycle on the monday of thanksgiving week because this is part of our National Politics now. With this new president elect and the way he got elected and who he is bringing with him to washington. This is the kind of thing were getting used to covering now. Honestly the view from inside todays news cycle, trying to figure out how to do an evening news cycle had to today include a big serious selfconscious earnest debate inside the knew organizations about whether the White Supremacists, there was a huge debate about whether when they got together they were saying heil trump or whether they were saying hail trump. It was a big debate today. Because for us as europeans, it is only normal again when we are great again. Hail trump, hai lil our people, hail victory. Big discussion as to whether that was heil like german or a hail. Then late this afternoon we got tape of that event from a different angle which settled the conclusion of heil versus hail. You see the guy at the podium saying hail trump and then you take the wide shot and you can see how the room reacted. Watch this. Hail trump, hail our people, hail victory. [ applause ] gathered in that room responding to hail trump. Hail victory. With the straight arm hitler style salute. Theres no use arguing about whats going on there and what particular vowel that genius bought at the end of his speech. This is not one guy in the room doing this. Its cropping up all over the room. Once you see those eyes, im not hung on whether theyre sayin i hail in english or heil. We know what they mean. Nbc news called him tonight, much to his deep delight and he told them that his mission as he sees it is to professionalize this movement that hes part of so that they will have more influence in this country. So yes, maybe there was some hail trump people giving nazi salutes. But he told nbc news tonight that people were giving that salute in that room in response to the cries of hail trump simply out of, in his words, out of exuberance. So we therefore shouldnt read that much into it. We know this kind of stuff exists exists in our country. We hack ch we actually covered him because every once in a while real politics buts up against men like him. Weve been covering this guy on and off for a couple of years. What were not used to cover is a part of our relevant president ial politics, which is what it has now become. And because the followers of this White Nationalist, white supremacist racist agenda came in to the d. C. Conference on saturday from all over the country, that means that folks with this agenda are all out there around the country and we know theyre feeling super empowered by what just happened in this election and they feel like theyve got a guy at the top. They feel like theyve got a guy at the top. And the new administration soon took steps to prove them right. This whole thing, this did not come out of nowhere. More ahead. Thing original. Thing original. Has grown into an enterprise. Thats why i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. Now, im earning unlimited 2 cash back on every purchase i make. Everything. Which adds up to thousands of dollars back every year. And helps keep my passion growing. In every direction. Whats in your wallet . Just turn on cars. Coms on tprice dropswant . And get realtime notifications that could help save you money. Use cars. Com and save. Before the current presidency we spent a long time on this show, yearsing with reapply, covering extremism. Covering extremist kol picks in the united states. And in particular we spent a lot of time tracking the surprising inroads made by extremists into the political right, into what passed for norma