Summary
Nearly 100 texts between Meadows and Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Congressman Chip Roy of Texas that reveal an aggressive attempt to lobby, encourage, and eventually warn the White House over its efforts to overturn the election. Senator Mike Lee is up for reelection this November and he has yet to be endorsed by his fellow Republican senator from Utah Mitt Romney. In Crimea, dozens of Russians gathered to mourn the loss of the flagship of Russia`s Black Sea Fleet, Moskva. In Florida, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis recently rejected the Republican-led legislature`s map and he proposed his own, which would give Republicans an enormous 20 to eight advantage in House seats.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Go Ukraine. I want to dig up 18-year-old gifted teen Jonathan Walker -- let`s show his picture -- Rutherford Senior High School, Panama City, Florida. This young man applied to some of the nation`s top universities and got 27 college acceptances including Harvard, MIT, $4 million in scholarships. Brilliant young man. Young man, you won the week.
Thank you Juanita Tolliver, Tom Nichols. And that is tonight`s REIDOUT. "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KATIE PHANG, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN, explosive new reporting on new texts released by the January 6 Committee. Why was Senator Mike Lee demanding that the Kraken lawyer get access to Donald Trump?
SIDNEY POWELL, LAWYER OF DONALD TRUMP: President Trump won by a landslide. We`re going to prove it.
PHANG: Tonight, what these newly released texts say about the early days of Trump`s coup.
Then, the furious response from Russia as the Pentagon confirms their flagship vessel was sunk by Ukrainian missiles.
Renewed outrage as Florida joins the states that are trying to ban abortion.
And he`s a no show for his own primary debates, so why is Herschel Walker challenging Elie Mystal to one?
HERSCHEL WALKER (R-GA), SENATE CANDIDATE: What I would love to do for you to take the time to come down to Georgia and we sit down and break bread.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: So, you`re actually inviting this author to come and sit down and meet the real Herschel Walker.
PHANG: Elie Mystal joins me to respond when ALL IN starts now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHANG (on camera): Good evening from Miami. I`m Katie Phang, I`m in for Chris Hayes. In November of 2021, Mark Meadows, Trump`s former chief of staff, began cooperating with the January 6 Committee. Congressman Bennie Thompson, the committee chair, said at the time that Meadows produced records to the committee and will soon appear for an initial deposition.
Well, Meadows never did appear before the committee as he stopped cooperating shortly thereafter. He was subsequently found in contempt of Congress and referred to the Justice Department for a possible criminal charge. But the records he turned over, including thousands of his own text messages, well, they paint a clear picture of the Republican effort to steal the 2020 election.
There were texts from Donald Trump Jr. to Meadows laying out a strategy to overturn the election. There were texts from Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, imploring Mark Meadows to overturn the election.
And now, we have reports of nearly 100 texts between Meadows and Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Congressman Chip Roy of Texas that "reveal an aggressive attempt to lobby, encourage, and eventually warn the White House over its efforts to overturn the election."
The texts show that Senator Lee was eager to keep Donald Trump in office. On November 7, the day the race was called for Biden, Lee texted Meadows "Sidney Powell is saying that she needs to get in to see the President, but she`s being kept away from him. Apparently, she has a strategy to keep things alive and put several states back in play. Can you help her get her in?
Days after that text, Sidney Powell became one of the public faces of the big lie, officially representing Donald Trump and the Trump campaign and making truly wild claims like this one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POWELL: The Dominion voting systems, the Smartmatic technology software, and the software that goes in other computerized voting systems here as well, not just Dominion, were created in Venezuela at the direction of Hugo Chavez to make sure he never lost an election after one constitutional referendum came out the way he did not want it to come out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHANG: Senator Lee was clearly rattled by that performance, texting Trump`s chief of staff that same day, "I`m worried about the Powell press conference. The potential defamation liability for the president is significant here."
Jackie Alemany is tracking these developments as a congressional correspondent for The Washington Post. She joins me now so we can break this down. Jackie, what did we learn in these particular texts that have been released that we didn`t know before?
JACQUELINE ALEMANY, CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes, Katie, I think what these text messages show, again, time and time again, as we`ve seen throughout the course of the investigation, is just how important Mark Meadows` trove of text messages to the January 6 Committee has been for them to piece together a full and comprehensive picture of what exactly the former president was up to in that time period after the 2020 election and before the January 6, insurrection as he was trying to unsuccessfully build a case to overturn the results of the election.
But it`s new information that CNN reported, these new text messages between At Mark Meadows, who was essentially the gatekeeper to the former president and to lawmakers show to the extent of what lengths that people in elected office were going to push conspiracy theories on to the former president and trying to help buoy some of these conspiracy theories themselves.
[20:05:19]
But I think what it also shows is, once again, these are two more people that you can add to the tally of the long-running list of people who ultimately came to the conclusion that the Constitution was not on the former president`s side. And that could have been -- apologies for the squeaky toy.
PHANG: Not at all. Not at all.
ALEMANY: The former president should abandon this plan. And that could ultimately be used against him by the DOJ or if this ever makes it out of the committee and into potential terminal referrals. It shows that the former president, as you all know, you`re the lawyer in this conversation, had corrupt intent.
PHANG: Yes. But Jackie, quickly, do you think the way that there was the evolution of people like Senator Lee`s text messages, do you think that kind of redeems where they ended up because they clearly got to that point where they were saying this is all a bad idea?
ALEMANY: Yes, look, I can`t necessarily make a conclusion about redemption here. But at the end of the day, these are people who are again, elected officials that were propping up people like Sidney Powell and really gave them a lot of ammunition going into the aftermath of the election that has still taken a hold on a lot of the Republican Party, and has created this entire universe of disinformation.
That was obviously very corrosive on January 6, and continues to be corrosive on our democracy. So, yes, they might have come to the best case conclusions, but that didn`t prevent an insurrection from happening.
PHANG: Jackie, you know, these gems that we`re calling them, these almost Easter eggs, no pun intended for this weekend, they`re coming out of a trove of text messages that were released by Mark Meadows before he stopped cooperating. If I`m a Republican member of Congress, you think I should be concerned that the committee may have my text messages as well?
ALEMANY: I think that the Committee has lots of people`s text messages that we don`t yet know about. They gave us -- reporters an update today on the amount of information they`ve collected. They`ve interviewed over 181 people. That`s people who have voluntarily and people who`ve been subpoenaed and sat for interviews and depositions. And they have over 100,000 pages worth of documents.
Mark Meadows is text message consisting of a substantial -- just a tiny sliver of that broader trove of documents that they`ve collected. But I think, you know, undoubtedly, this is maybe potentially putting more pressure on the Department of Justice, which has yet to say whether or not they`re ultimately going to decide to prosecute Mark Meadows and hold him in criminal contempt.
And you could imagine that this would push them in that direction to show just how valuable Mark Meadows could be to this committee, and just how many elected officials were going at the president to try to help him overturn the results of the election.
PHANG: Yes, Jackie, I don`t know if you can hear it, but we actually have music playing in our studio. It sounded like the cops were coming for your pooch with the squeaky toy. Welcome to live television. Jackie Alemany from the Washington Post, thank you so much.
ALEMANY: Thanks Katie.
PHANG: Harry Litman is a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Justice Department. Harry, you actually have theme music that`s playing in the background. I`m not sure if you can hear it. You`re one of the few people I think that as a guest gets that theme music.
Harry is also a former United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. He`s now the host and the creator of the Talking Feds podcast. Harry, thank you for joining me this evening. I was dying to get to this part of the segment with you. Are these texts really as big of a deal as we`re all making them out to be?
HARRY LITMAN, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: You know, in the collective, Katie, I think they`re pretty big. You could use these as many of newspapers are doing to sort of bring Lee and Roy in with the whole kind of criminal enterprise. But I think more strongly is to say look, they started out that way. They were stalwarts of Trump and said you say there`s a fraud, OK, there`s a fraud. You say there`s a legal way to go, just tell us what to do.
And little by little as it may -- as it`s clear that there`s no there- there, they have no hand to play, you find frustration and ultimately abandonment. If I`m either the committee or the DOJ, I want these guys as witnesses. Lee and Roy are basically, you know, in the establishment Republican camp. And for them to come forward and say look, at first we thought but then we realized there was no way to do this consistent with the Constitution and everything we knew, Meadows knew, that I think is really strong evidence against Meadows and Trump.
And one more quick point. You really just made it. But remember, he just gave what he wanted to give and then he stopped cooperating. Imagine. And all these trove, we got we have nothing about what he said back to them. And it`s just his initial cut. There has to be so much more. And one hopes that maybe the Department of Justice in negotiating with him is actually trying to still get him to cooperate and give this evidence over because otherwise at least the committee is never going to see it.
[20:10:31]
PHANG: Yes. And Harry, we`re going to get to that in a second. But, you know, I think that these text messages are actually going to help build the case against Donald Trump. Because as you know, it goes to the idea that his defense that there was some good faith belief that there was a truly fraudulent, stolen election gets blown up.
The drip, drip, drip of these text messages just goes to show that Donald Trump had the requisite intent to know that he was going to be committing fraud, those fake slate of electors, things like that. Do you agree or do you disagree with me?
LITMAN: I totally agree. And on this slate of electors, what did they say? Let`s try to get it as long as it`s legitimate under state law. Look from the start, you`ve had to total cans here, Trump`s a criminal, criminal, criminal, Trump is totally OK, and there was fraud.
Here we have people who wanted, were disposed to believe Trump. And here, no facts are -- finally, you have Roy saying, come on, man, what are you doing? We`re going to have to call this off or you`re going to put a stake in the heart of the Republic.
So, you have these really rare people who want it to be on his side, and then they were convinced by reason as any jury would have to be. So, I agree with you, they are really unusual. And you could use -- the best way to use them, is in fact, to show that Trump knew. And again, I want to see what Meadows was saying in the other end. Because at least in one text, we have he`s saying, yes, I know, I know, I know. Well, OK, if he knows, the President knows.
PHANG: And that`s what I wanted to get to next, right? The common denominator these days for so many of these damning text messages from Ginni Thomas now, to Lee, and to Roy is Mark Meadows. Harry, is he the linchpin of this investigation? And does that explain why the DOJ hasn`t taken any action against him since the one six committee did its criminal referral?
LITMAN: Yes, I think he`s one of two. He and Scavino are really huge. And I said at the time, look, this is the cost of the -- of playing it that way because he had initially started to cooperate. Does this explain? My best guess actually, sad to say, is no. I think other things explain what`s going on. But it wouldn`t be unprecedented for his lawyer, George Terwilliger, a sophisticated guy to be coming in saying, don`t charge contempt, we`ll still cooperate, and we`ll make this evidence available.
Because what we`ve seen has to be 1/10 of it in numbers and culpability. So, I actually don`t think that`s all that`s going on. If it`s part of what`s going on. That would be heartening. We really, really, really would like to see the rest of these emails -- excuse me -- text.
PHANG: Yes, quickly, Harry, because I only have about 30 seconds left -- 30 seconds left with you. You`re a lawyer. I`m a lawyer. It turns out Chip Roy is a lawyer, Mike Lee`s lawyer. They`re all lawyers. Shouldn`t they know better than to be participating in planning a seditious conspiracy basically?
LITMAN: Maybe. But what they said upfront, and Lee is a pretty responsible guy, is if you have the facts and the law, give it to me, I`m on your side. And then ultimately, they said no facts, no law. goodbye. And so, I think they start out suspicious, but come through at the end looking OK.
PHANG: Harry, we don`t have that exit music for you, but you are always welcome anytime.
LITMAN: Oh, no.
PHANG: Harry Litman, thank you.
LITMAN: Thank you, Katie.
PHANG: When we come back, will Republican Senator Mike Lee face any political costs for playing the Kraken card in the lead up to Donald Trump`s attempted coup? Why tonight`s big story could spell big trouble. And the land of the Great Salt Lake coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:15:00]
PHANG: Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee, who is now in the spotlight for the text messages he sent to Trump`s chief of staff Mark Meadows, he`s also up for reelection this November. Right now, Senator Lee has a considerable advantage of the Republican primary field. He`s polling at 67 percent.
But while he may have Trump`s support, Lee has yet to be endorsed by his fellow Republican senator from Utah Mitt Romney. Now, Romney is on the different side of the equation to Lee. Romney condemned Donald Trump`s efforts to overturn the election results and voted to impeach him following the January 6 attack on the Capitol, while Lee as we know, voted to acquit, which makes for an interesting situation right now in the state of Utah.
Evan McMullin, he`s an independent candidate running for Mike Lee`s Senate seat in Utah. He`s also a former CIA analyst and the former House Republican policy director. Evan joins me now. Evan, thank you so much for being here. Mike Lee clearly and repeatedly has kissed the Trump ring. In fact, he recently said I`m the only conservative in this race who can stop the radical left. Why would he even want Mitt Romney`s endorsement at this point?
[20:20:01]
EVAN MCMULLIN (I-UT), SENATE CANDIDATE: Well, Mitt Romney`s endorsement or support is important for Mike Lee if he expects to win this race. And the reality is that most Utahans want to replace Mike Lee. And that includes Democrats, independents, and Romney Republicans, center-right, pro- democracy Republicans.
And Mike Lee is in trouble because he only has the support of the far- right. I think the reason why he got so involved in this effort to overturn the election was because he was pandering to the far right. But I`m running as an independent to unite Romney Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, again, a majority of the state to replace Mike Lee. And I think he`s very concerned about that.
PHAM: It looks like we might be having some problems with Evan McMullin right now. So, what we`re going to do is go to a commercial if we can. If not, we can actually just wait and see whether or not we`d get Evan McMullin back. Nope, still no Evan McMullin. So, we`re going to go to a --
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PHANG: In Crimea today, dozens of Russians gathered to mourn the loss of the flagship of Russia`s Black Sea Fleet, the guided-missile cruiser Moskva. Russia still claims the ship sank after an ammunition explosion and onboard fire. But a senior U.S. defense official confirmed that the ship was hit by two Neptune missiles that were fired by Ukraine, and that is the reason why it sank.
In retaliation, Russian forces began firing on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv again today, and the Russian Defense Ministry said a plant that made and repaired Ukrainian missiles was targeted in the attack.
Helene Cooper is a Pentagon correspondent with the New York Times. She`s been covering the war in Ukraine and the sinking of The Moskva. She joins me now. Helene, thank you for being here. What do we know about the circumstances surrounding The Moskva sinking?
[20:30:05]
HELENE COOPER, PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Hi, Katie. Well, a senior defense official today confirmed to me at the Pentagon that the American intelligence officials believe that two Neptune missiles Ukrainian made hit the Moskva. And there was a huge fire afterwards, the defense official said and the ship eventually sank.
The official said that the belief is that there were big numbers of Russian casualties. They don`t know the exact number, but they do know that they do -- American intelligence does believe that they were Russian casualties. And intelligence picked up lifeboats they believe that they were also Russian sailors who were rescued from the ship because we saw lifeboats around the ship after it was hit.
This is a big deal, Katie, because this was the flagship Russia -- the flagship crashing cruiser of the Black Sea -- in the Black Sea, that is now at the bottom of the Black Sea. And this is a big deal, it really hurts Russian morale. But it also hurts the Russian ability to carry out this war. This ship had a lot of missiles on that are now at the bottom of the Black Sea.
And so, this is sort of a -- this is a big deal. And this is again, another example of the Russian military not being able to do what it tried to do, what it has intended to do. The fact that they didn`t have better protection for that ship is quite startling.
At the Pentagon today, Navy officers were talking about how surprised they were that the Russian Navy was not better prepared and that they didn`t have the type of protection -- the type of protection around the ship that you would have expected.
PHANG: So, Helene, maybe it really isn`t so surprising, right? That they didn`t have the right kind of protection around this particular vessel.
Now, the Moskva was the only Russian cruiser of that class in the Black Sea. So Helene, what does this mean in terms of it sinking? Does this actually pose some kind of turning point in the war? Or is that just wishful thinking for the Ukrainians?
COOPER: I don`t know if I will go so far, Katie as saying a turning point. It may. I don`t know that we know this at this point. But it certainly means that Russia is going to have to rethink its plans. Russia is still going ahead the Pentagon believe with its plans to attack the Donbass and to push forward in the Donbass, defensive officials here in the United States expect that this new renewed assault is going to start very, very soon.
And so, we`re going to have to wait and see how this plays out in, you know, this ship had definitely would have been part of that attack, you would have been seeing cruise missiles launched from that ship, you would have seen some pounding coming from the south. But how this what happens next is we`re going to have to see.
PHANG: There`s also news that in a diplomatic letter, Russia has warned the Biden administration to stop supplying advanced weapons to Ukrainian forces or face "unpredictable consequences".
Helene, is this just posturing? Or does the Pentagon view this as a credible threat from Putin?
COOPER: We don`t know at this point. They certainly don`t like the weapons that the Americans have been sending to Ukraine.
And so, this is the first official sort of demarche that we`ve seen on this, but that hasn`t so far stopped the Biden administration. We have more. We`re looking now at sending -- the United States has been sending javelins and stingers and is now upping back to the helicopters, as well as talking about -- looking at artillery.
So, this is -- the Russia`s Vladimir Putin certainly don`t like this. But I don`t think you`re going to be seeing the United States stopping at any point, you know, in the next -- in the near future. And it`s -- particularly now that President Biden has announced this latest tranche of 800 million in weaponry median aid to Ukraine.
[20:35:11]
COOPER: So, I expect to see more complaints coming from Russia. But whether or not this -- I don`t think you`re going to be seeing anything from the Biden administration that sort of stops at this point in time or from NATO allies.
PHANG: Helene Cooper, thank you so much for your reporting. Please keep us up to date as you`ve been doing.
COOPER: Thank you.
PHANG: Coming up, from his outrageous new redistricting map to his abortion ban photo-op. Why everyone should be keeping a close eye on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, after this quick break.
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PHANG: Democrats are rightly worried about what the redistricting process will mean for their chances in November`s midterms. Republicans are in a position to do some pretty dramatic gerrymandering, which could give them the power to win a majority of congressional seats with a minority of the votes.
In Florida, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis recently rejected the Republican-led legislature`s map and he proposed his own even more extreme gerrymander, which would give Republicans an enormous 20 to eight advantage in House seats. This is in a state Donald Trump won with barely more than half the vote back in 2020.
And DeSantis, is making sure to shore up his own base before Florida voters go to the polls in November. But he`s not just contented to destroy voting rights for minorities.
Just yesterday, he signed an extremely restrictive 15 week abortion ban, which is guaranteed to face legal challenges.
Joining me now on set is Marc Caputo, a national political reporter for NBC News. And in my opinion, an expert on all things Florida politics.
Mark, it should be hashtag because Florida politics. Can we steal that?
MARC CAPUTO, NBC NEWS NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Sure. Anytime.
PHANG: Let`s do that. So Mark, the current split in Florida is Republican seats, there are 16 and 11 Democratic Congressional seats, right?
So, then, we picked up because of the new census, which happens every 10 years, we`ve picked up one extra seat in Florida for a total of 28.
DeSantis`s proposal for his map is going to be 20 Republican seats to eight Democratic seats. How`s that going to fly?
CAPUTO: Well, it`s probably going to fly in that it`s going to pass the legislature next week.
PHANG: Well, that`s no big surprise though, it`s a Republican (INAUDIBLE).
CAPUTO: Another way to phrase it is that right now, there`s a five seat Republican edge, right? And now, it`s going to go to 12. It`s just quite a big jump.
Now, part of that is because of demographic shifts in Florida and the way in which people kind of self-segregate, politically speaking.
But some of that also to your point looks like a partisan gerrymander and some of our reporting that we`ve done, that I`ve done, some Republicans in the legislature privately acknowledged, like, yes, there`s some partisan gerrymandering going on here.
[20:40:02]
CAPUTO: Charlie Crist, who is the congressman from the St. Peter`s Burg area, his seat. He`s leaving that seat by the way to run for governor. His seat is on the Peninsula. And what they`ve done is they`ve actually taken Democrats or people from Democratic areas in the south of the Peninsula. And they`ve put them across the Tampa Bay into Tampa. And that makes his seat or his former seat -- soon to be former seat, more Republican and the Democratic seat just more Democrat. So, that`s one of those shifts.
And the other one is in North Florida. There is a congressional district held by Lawson, the Black congressman, the Fifth Congressional District goes from Jacksonville to Tallahassee, that`s just eliminated.
So, those are two Democratic seats that are probably just gone.
PHANG: Yes. And we`re going to get to that fifth district seat. But I mean, people should understand, right, in Florida, the governor getting involved in a redistricting map, that doesn`t happen.
Well, frankly, it really doesn`t happen any other states, but to have a governor that`s actively involved, where he says, you know, what, I`m going to veto that proposed map that comes from his own party folks in the legislature. And he says, I`m going to do it. It`s rare, right?
CAPUTO: We haven`t seen it before in the state. This is what my third redistricting that I`ve done. And or second, third actually. I know, I`m getting too old, it`s the gray hair, right? Yes, normally, the governor is in charge of the legislative maps he can -- he can -- or better said, the governor is not in charge of legislative maps. He`s in charge of the congressional ones whether to veto or not, but usually they don`t care. Because it`s not their problem.
You know, the one of the legislature passes, fine. What made DeSantis different this time is he started off the process with a proposal, very similar to the map you see now. The legislature looked at and said, look, we can`t do this, because we think it violates the Florida Supreme Court rulings on what are called the Fair District amendments, right? Which voters approved in 2010. And part of that was that district that we just talked about, Lawson`s district in North Florida. So they --
PHANG: Because it`s supposed to give people that are underrepresented the opportunity to have a seat at the table. And that`s the reason why the voters said let`s go ahead and allow those types of maps to occur, right?
CAPUTO: Yes. That was one of the reasons that the Court said to draw the map this way. It`s kind of complicated because of the way in which that seat was drawn and redrawn. The Fair Districts amendments also said, look, you can`t draw districts to intentionally favor or disfavor an incumbent or political party.
And what DeSantis did is he drew his initial map legislature and said, look, we can`t do this, they passed their maps, they said, you know, I`m going to veto it and hold them back in.
Now, the legislature is basically looking at essentially the same maps. And a lot of them are thinking, look, this is probably not going to pass muster, it`s probably going to wind up in courts.
But you know, maybe Ron DeSantis is right, maybe what are called minority access seats, that seat in North Florida, maybe because of new U.S. Supreme Court rulings, maybe that`s not going to pass U.S. Supreme Court constitutional muster.
So you know what, this is going to be his problem. Let him get hauled into court, let him get to pose, let him deal with it.
PHANG: Well, here`s the deal, though. Just recently, in March, just a month ago, a federal judge actually ruled that there was a lot of bad voter suppression going on in Florida. No big shocker for those of us that are following what`s happening in Florida. But does DeSantis really think that this is going to pass constitutional muster if this proposed map gets in front of these judges?
CAPUTO: I think he believes that it`s going to pass in the federal sense when it comes to striking down that minority access seat. The big question that we have is when it comes to that potential partisan gerrymander that I mentioned in the Tampa Bay region, St. Petersburg and Tampa, whether that passes Florida State Supreme Court muster, but that also depends on which court winds up taking jurisdiction over this.
Redistricting is very complicated. It`s very convoluted. And now you have possibly two courts. The question is who`s going to take charge? And who`s going to do the map drawing, who`s going to do the rejecting?
PHANG: You mean like the federal court or the state court? Is that what you mean?
CAPUTO: Correct.
PHANG: Now, listen, the Florida Supreme Court has a number of DeSantis appointees, right?
CAPUTO: Right. That is the difference between now and 2015. The last time they ruled on this, there`s now three DeSantis appointees on the Florida Supreme Court. It`s a seven-member court.
PHANG: So, I want to now move on. I mean, listen, I am a moving target for Ron DeSantis. I am a minority. I am a woman and I`m a Democrat. So, I got some problems, right?
So, let`s talk about why I`m also still on the radar for someone like Ron DeSantis. And that`s because he just passed that 15 week abortion bill, that photo-op was pretty unappetizing, having those little kids hold up those signs. But that`s also due for a legal challenge.
Tell me why you think that it actually could not survive. Putting aside what happens with Roe v. Wade, with SCOTUS in June, the Florida Supreme Court actually has prior law that protects women`s right to access under this privacy analysis, right?
CAPUTO: Right. Well, the Florida constitution actually has a right of privacy specifically enshrined in it. And previous Florida Supreme Court rulings have used that in protection of certain abortion rights. And that`s different between the state Supreme Court or better said, the state constitution and the federal constitution.
PHANG: Now, let`s be clear, it`s a woman`s right to privacy to be able to protect her private right to access to abortion. It`s pretty much what it is.
[20:45:01]
CAPUTO: Right. That`s not what that jives with the court rulings now, that`s not the exact text of what`s in the Constitution.
PHANG: The old constitution.
CAPUTO: Right. Well, or the current constitution. But it -- now, the conservatives have tried to remove that from the state constitution that takes a vote of the people 60 percent to do that. So far, they failed.
One of the reasons they`ve tried to remove that is because that right to privacy in the state constitution protects based on prior state Supreme Court rulings, a woman`s right to have an abortion.
PHANG: Well, listen, it doesn`t mean then that if something happens with SCOTUS in June, and it gets kicked back to having the states determine on an individual level, whether or not they`re going to allow right an access to abortion, you know, whether that`s actually going to stand -- constitutional withstand constitutional muster, if every state is able to determine what it`s going to do, right?
CAPUTO: Yes, I mean, in the end, the question we have back to your original point, or your point you made a moment ago, is it`s a kind of a different state Supreme Court.
So, to what degree are they going to respect the prior court opinions when it was more of a liberal or a Democratic leaning court? I don`t know.
The other question I have is kind of politically speaking, is, Ron DeSantis is up for reelection. He`s raised $100 million so far.
PHANG: And we all know that he`s gunning for a 2024 presidential nomination.
CAPUTO: There`s that as well. But the question is, is there this sleeping giant that we in politics have long presupposed that if abortion is made illegal, that lots of women and lots of moderates, moderate men are going to rise up and say, you know what, this is too much, we`re going to come out and vote against another.
Some evidence that Florida voters actually support abortion rights, in 2012, the legislature put a measure on the ballot, asking people in Florida to ban public funding of abortions, which really didn`t happen, but nevertheless, they put it on there.
Florida voters voted against that by 10 percentage points, which is another way to say that is Florida voters actually voted to allow for public funding of abortions, sort of allowed to continue again, it wasn`t really happening.
So, that`s one example we have, but the question is, is there -- is there this kind of sleeping giant or the sleeping mass of votes and voters or women voters, a moderate voters, pro-choice voters, so to speak, who will come out and vote or not? Like we`re going to find out.
PHANG: Yes, but the problem is, Marc, you and I both know the amount of time it`s going to take to see if that sleeping giant`s concept works, there`s going to be so many women that are not going to have access, and we`re going to have something like abortion tourism, right? Where people are going to have to go to a state where they`re going to be able to seek this relief.
Marc Caputo, thank you for being here with me. Thank you for the insight, and we appreciate your time.
CAPUTO: Thank you.
PHANG: Coming up next, Herschel Walker`s Senate campaign takes another be wielding turn. After skipping his own debate, he`s now going on T.V. to ask The Nation Elie Mystal to hang out?
Well, the man of the hour Elie Mystal is going to join me next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:52:30]
PHANG: Yesterday, the Republican National Committee voted unanimously to require Republican presidential candidates to skip debates? Held by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates which has run the process for decades, RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel said "The RNC will find newer, better debate platforms for Republican candidates to make their cases."
Platforms like Fox News, perhaps because that`s where we found Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker, he`s been making most of his national appearances on Fox News after skipping his state`s first debate ahead of next month`s Republican primary. And it was from that safe space on conservative T.V. that Walker took a shot at writer Elie Mystal who wrote this piece critical of Walker`s candidacy this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HERSCHEL WALKER (R), SENATORIAL CANDIDATE OF GEORGIA: It doesn`t matter what they say, I represent the people of Georgia, and I`m not going to do what people tell me to do. And I`m not going to have you to bully me because you can`t.
But what I would love to do for you to take the time to come down to Georgia. We sit down and break bread because I`m about bringing people together, not separating people. What it seems like you are is to separate people because of color, that`s not Herschel Walker.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHANG: Elie Mystal is the Justice Correspondent for The Nation, whose new article is titled The Herschel Walker Senate campaign is an insult to Black people. He joins me now.
Ellie, when this came out last night, I tweeted, I`m driving, there was a lot of responses. First question to you is, what are our snacks for that road trip and who`s in control of the mix tape?
ELIE MYSTAL, JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT, THE NATION: Don`t get me wrong, Katie. I would love to Snap into a Slim Jim, pop down I-95, taking through way down, threw on some -- I would probably go with just because of the season, I probably go with Jesus Christ Superstar. I do a great chi effects (PH) which will be fun for the entire road trip, but I won`t.
Because of the -- because the bottom line is, I will not waste the time of Georgia voters helping Herschel Walker distract himself from their issues, all right?
I will debate or have lunch with or break bread with Herschel Walker the moment after he talks to the senator from Georgia, Raphael Warnock about actual issues affecting Georgia voters.
All Walker is trying to do is distract people from the fact that he doesn`t have a policy plan, literally cannot articulate an energy policy or a COVID policy or any policy that matters for Georgia voters.
[20:55:07]
MYSTAL: And he won`t even sit down for his own party`s senatorial debate. But sure, he wants to talk to a guy from New York.
I mean, look, he wants to talk to a guy from New York. What are we going to? I mean, look, if he wants to talk about, you know, the efficacy of the screen pass in the face of an all-out blitz, we can have that discussion.
But if he wants to talk about being Senate, a senator from Georgia, he needs to talk to Georgians, which is what he`s afraid of doing.
PHANG: Well, you know, the shotgun formation is a personal favorite of mine. So, Elie, here`s the deal, though. You`re not just some guy, right? Walker predictably -- there`s a reason why he addressed what you -- what you said and what you wrote about. He did not respond, though, to the merits of your argument.
Bottom line, what is your case against Herschel Walker?
MYSTAL: So, again, it`s a misunderstanding that he has. And I think that a lot of Republicans have, as if liking somebody is important -- is an important qualification for their political career, it`s not.
I don`t need to sit down and have dinner with him because I don`t care if he`s a nice guy, right? My article about him wasn`t even really about him. It was about his Republican handlers. It was about the white conservative handlers that dredge this guy up out of Texas, which is where he lives, not Georgia, dredge them up to run against Raphael Warnock.
Why? Because Raphael Warnock is Black. And in 2020, Black voters in Georgia prove that they have the electoral might and muscle to put candidates over the top. That`s what they did for Warnock. That`s what they did for Jon Ossoff, all credit to Stacey Abrams and LaTosha Brown for registering Black voters in Georgia, and so what does the Republican Party do? Do they have an outreach to Black voters in Georgia? No.
All they come forward with Black voters in Georgia is voter suppression. That`s all you get from the Republicans if you`re a Black voter in Georgia. Tthey want to suppress your vote, they want to make it so that you have to sit in a very long line before you can vote, then they don`t want to let people -- they want to make it so people can`t bring you water while you`re in the line to vote.
Why does Herschel Walker want to break bread with people who are voting in Georgia? That would be a nice use of his time. Go hand out bread and water to people who are standing in line to vote in Georgia. I bet he won`t.
I`ll tell you why he won`t because he -- because he knows that the more people who vote, the less likely he is to be senator. And that`s the whole game, right?
To distract, to throw up -- to throw up bank shots, to call me out on in front of -- as you put it, the safe space of Hannity, as opposed to getting down on the ground and dealing with his potential constituents. That`s what he`s afraid of doing.
PHANG: How much longer is this I`m going to hide out in the basement of Fox News is going to last? How long is that going to work for him? Because he will eventually have to address the critical issues, the core issues, the kitchen table issues that are confronting not only all of us in the United States, but the people in Georgia.
I mean, Walker, he won`t even show up for that debate we`ve talked about, he`s been accused of abuse by his ex-wife, which he blamed on his struggles with mental health. He has basically said, I don`t have to do this until I actually get the primary win.
But you and I both know, he`s never going to stand a chance against the brilliance of somebody like Raphael Warnock. So, is this just a throw away for the GOP at this point?
MYSTAL: It`s going to work for Republicans until voters start punishing them for putting forward these clown candidates, right? And that`s what we haven`t seen so far from the Republican base, right?
So, you can -- you can go on -- you can go on this network, and you can find a bunch of former Republicans who now want the Democratic Party to start acting like the Republican Party, but they`re not doing the work in their own party of stopping these people at the primary stage, right?
Because the Trumpers have completely taken over that party. The inmates are running the asylum and it`s the crazy people now who are in charge of that party.
Until the Republican voters, other place like Georgia, other place like Iowa, other place like Arizona until the Republican voters stop voting for these yahoos (PH), there will continue to be yahoos.
Right now, there is no downside from Walker hiding from the voters of Georgia because the voters of -- because the Republican voters of Georgia apparently do not care about his actual policies.
And let`s be clear, this is the same state that sent the inimitable Marjorie Taylor Greene to Congress, right? So, Republicans voters in Georgia are clearly not particularly -- they don`t really care about what these people are going to do. So long as there`s an R behind their name. And they feel like those people will own the lives, that`s like their -- that`s their -- that`s what passes as policy for these people, which is -- which is a problem.
So, until enough voters kind of rise up to stop them, we will be where we are.
[21:00:02]
PHANG: Elie Mystal, we`ve run out of time. I should have just actually just had you do the entire segment. I`m still going to drive though, just in case you change your mind. Thanks for being here.
MYSTAL: When Raphael Warnock beats him, we will go down and we will have dinner with Herschel Walker and talk about energy policy. Let`s see how that goes.
PHANG: Thanks, Elie. That is ALL IN on this Friday night.
Don`t forget, you can now find me on my own show every Saturday and Sunday morning at 7:00 a.m. Eastern right here on MSNBC. We hope you`ll join us.
"The Rachel Maddow Show" with Mehdi Hasan starts now. Good evening, Mehdi.