Summary
MSNBC`s continuing coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Utah Sen. Mike Lee`s private texts complicate his public statements.
Transcript
AYMAN MOHYELDIN, MSNBC HOST: That is "ALL IN" on this Wednesday night. You can find me Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, Sundays 9:00 p.m. Eastern here on MSNBC. You can stream new original episodes of "The Ayman Show" Fridays on Peacock.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW starts right now.
Good evening, Rachel.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Ayman. Thank you, my friend. Much appreciated.
And thanks at-home for joining us this hour. Good to have you here.
Back in February, just a week before Putin started his war against Ukraine, the president of Brazil, the very Trumpy president of Brazil, flew to Russia, spent three days in Moscow, and obviously, met with Putin. After his Putin meetings on that trip, the president of Brazil made some headlines for saying that his country, Brazil, was quote, in solidarity with Russia.
Now again, keep in mind the timing here. This is February this year. This was the time of the whole world was on tenterhooks expecting that Putin was about to start a big war and invade Ukraine. And there is Brazil`s president hopping into Putin`s proverbial lap, right? He goes to Moscow, does this big three day official trip to Moscow, has this big meeting, this big photo op with Putin. He denied that Putin would launch any war in Ukraine. For good measure he explained how Brazil was closer than ever to Russia.
Don`t worry, world, Putin is great. He`s not going to do anything bad. He`s my guy.
One week later, of course, Putin invaded Ukraine, which was awkward for the Brazilian president. But now today, Brazil`s president has decided that he will handle that very embarrassing turn of events the way I`m sure we all wish we could. He has decided that he will dump it down the memory hole and close the door on it.
Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil`s president today decreed that all public records concerning that very bad timing three day official trip he took to Moscow, right before Putin launched his war, all public records of that will now be sealed for at least five years. So, even though he went to Moscow and told everybody that Putin was going to start in a war and that Brazil stood with Russia, no one is allowed to know what happened on that trip. Or nobody`s even allowed to know who else was traveling with Bolsonaro on that trip, until at least 2027. The records have been sealed for five years.
And just like that, he`s assuming it will all be forgotten. Maybe it will be.
The other would-be president, who the other would-be president, presidential candidate who has an embarrassing Putin ring kissing photo op she would now like everybody to forget is this person on the left of your screen who is running to be the next president of France. The French election is this weekend, it`s on Sunday. The incumbent French president, Emmanuel Macron, is running for reelection against Marine Le Pen from the far right neo-fascist party, the National Front.
This afternoon, Macron and Le Pen held the one and only debate with they will have before the election this weekend and it`s fascinating. It`s a two and half hour-long debate against the only one they`ll have. People over the world watched this debate, because the international stakes in this race are so high.
One French news outlet even broadcast the debate live online with real-time English translation voice over. Because it`s not just French people speaking, it`s not just French people who are very invested what happens here. The English speaking world intense interest in it justify that.
This is not just a normal European election in normal times. No offense to France, in general it matters to the president of French is. French is an important country in matters on merits.
But this one really matters for the whole Western world because in this election, in this case, if France takes Marine Le Pen right now, if France puts in a pro-Putin bar right leader from a neo-fascist party, one who says she will effectively pull France out of NATO, who will block with the European Union is doing to support Ukraine and punish Russia for the war -- I mean, if France elects Le Pen, its going to start the world spinning the other way on its axis in some important ways.
I mean, everything NATO and Europe and all our allies are doing all together unified to side with Ukraine, to try to stop Putin in this war, if France elects Le Pen that would likely end all of that and very quickly.
But at least on that point today, on Le Pen support for Vladimir Putin, or her having to shred the million-plus campaign leaflets she made showing her shaking hands with Putin at the Kremlin, on the point of her taking literally millions of dollars from a Kremlin-linked bank to fund her campaign, at least on those points today, at the debate, she got her proverbial derriere handed to her by Macron.
[21:05:20]
Like I said, there was a voice over translated into English in real time a version of this debate. And so you can actually follow along, you can hear how it went, we`re going to have some of that coming up for you in just a couple of minutes. That was a very big deal.
A couple of years ago in the late summer of 2019, we spent a bunch of time on the show covering something that was basically a mystery. It was definitely a little bit scary at the time. And even though this happened two and a half years ago now, it is something that still today hasn`t ever really been fully explained.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LESTER HOLT, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: Tonight, Russia is facing new questions over the recent explosion at a missile testing site, after telling a nuclear monitoring group to stay out of it. We get more from NBC`s Bill Neely.
BILL NEELY, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: A growing mystery tonight about exactly what happened days after a nuclear explosion that killed five Russian nuclear scientists. At least four radiation monitoring stations nearby went silent and stop transmitting data. Russia told international nuclear watchdog today, mind your own business. Russia admitted radiation levels did spike briefly after the accident, which was tied to the testing of a nuclear missile engine.
President Putin said yesterday there is no threat. No risk of increased radiation. But the Kremlin is also furious.
An international nuclear watchdog tweeted this map of a potential radiation plume spreading across Russia. The Kremlin calls that absurd, warning the watchdog to back off, claiming it can withhold any data.
Nuclear experts say Russia`s real aim is to hide secrets about this, a nuclear power cruise missile that President Putin boasts could evade American defenses. Russia concealing from the U.S. exact data on its nuclear fuel.
Two of the Russian radiation monitoring stations are now working again. But Russia has proved once again that when it comes to his national security, it will hide what the world might want to know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: It will hide what the world might want to know, that was Bill Neely reporting for "NBC Nightly News", a couple of years ago. That was August 2019.
And they did have some sort of big fatal accident. Russia initially said it was just a normal rocket. They called it a liquid fuel rocket. Normal rocket, little mishap, nothing nuclear, a couple of soldiers sadly killed in the failure of this rocket launch, but nothing to worry about.
That was quickly proven false, a town about 25 miles away from the accident site started reporting that its radiation meters, radioactivity meters were going crazy after the accident. The Russian government and made that town take down those reports and shut up about it. Only later to the Russian government have to announce that okay maybe there was something nuclear about the accident. And maybe it was just a couple of soldiers who died, it was a couple of soldiers and also five elite nuclear scientists.
They were than reports that in the doctors and nurses who treated people who were injured in the accident, those doctors and nurses wear themselves irradiated by having come into contact with those injured people. Those medical personnel were all taken from the local hospital near the blast site and they themselves were transferred to Moscow, so they could be treated.
There were reports of an attempted evacuation of civilians from another town nearby to the blast site. And evacuation attend those apparently planned, they brought in a trained to really civilians out and they change their mind and left them all their. There were those very worrying shut offs of all the radiation monitoring stations in that part of Russia. First the ones closest to this mysterious accident and then a few days later the ones for those away and then a few days later as the ones even further away than that.
Russia still to this day has never admitted what exactly happened there, two and a half years ago. But it`s clear that something went wrong. With something related to a weapon. Weapons test, maybe?
Something went wrong with some kind of weapon. Something went wrong in a now, in a nuclear sense and it killed people. And it does appear to have spread radiation all over. Actually believed to have been the most serious release of radiation internationally since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. And we still don`t know a caused it, we still don`t know what Russia was up to and what went wrong and what that was all about.
Later reports suggest it might actually have been a salvage mission, for some kind of a nuclear powered missile that had previously failed and fallen into the sea, and they were trying to get that nuclear powered missile that had wrecked at an attempted launch, they are trying to get that out of the sea and maybe that was a cause explosion that killed all the scientists, who knows?
[21:10:18]
Like I said, we have lots of speculation but we still have no even now. And that is in part because the world kind of let it slide. I mean, in a world that supposedly polices nuclear material and nuclear weapons and nuclear ambitions so aggressively, the United States and NATO basically amounted no response to that mysterious accident in northern Russia two and a half years ago. Putin was doing something nuclear that was reckless enough to have caused that much of a disaster.
And then the Russian government released first lies and then just no information about it. And the world was like, oh yeah, that`s scary, well looks like a mystery, let`s move on.
Now, there was reporting at the time, again, this happened back in 2019 during the Trump administration, there was reporting that NATO felt constrained in their ability to respond. NATO felt constrained in their ability to confront Putin over what had happened, over something potentially so serious involving the country`s nuclear weapons program, basically because NATO had a real weakness on that issue at that time.
In 2019, NATO is worried that they couldn`t confront Putin on something that serious because of the friendly to the point of servile attitude of then U.S. President Donald Trump towards Vladimir Putin. Who knows where Trump would do if you try to have NATO confront Putin over what happened in that accident? And who knows if that is in fact why the whole thing was just kind of love to slide but the whole thing was left to slide.
Today, Russian state media, which is the only kind of media left in Russia, today Russian state media was all full of the same pictures and the same headlines about Russia test firing a missile they call, Satan 2. It`s a missile that Putin says Russia`s newest and most powerful nuclear armed ICBM, perhaps the most powerful nuclear weapon in the world.
It`s an intercontinental ballistic missile. Russia says it is cable dropping multiple nuclear payloads almost anywhere on earth, in a way that can`t be stopped by any country`s missile defense systems. And oh by the way into the nuclear warheads can drop is capable of wiping out an area the size of France. Or say, Texas.
Now, do we believe Russia`s claims about this massive new missile? Who knows? I mean, in Russia, it`s not like there`s even a free press to interrogate the government`s claims. But even in countries with the free press, it`s hard to get the truth out of governments about new experimental weapons.
I mean, we do know that state controlled media in Russia wants the Russian people today to believe that that missile test was the most important thing that happened in the world today. We also know that the place they launch this new missile test today with the sight of another Russian weapons test disaster back in 1980, a disaster that killed 50 people, a rocket exploded on the launching pad there while it was being fueled, 50 people were killed and Russia kept its secret.
The world did know about it until almost a decade later when Westerners were brought in in 1989 to watch the satellite launch and the guy basically like leading the tour at the site, let it slip about the 50 men who were killed in the rocket disaster there back in 1980. Was a not supposed to mention that, did you guys not ever hear about that, this must be a secret? My bad.
Today, "The Associated Press" had an unnerving report of what happened at Chernobyl, at the site of the massive Soviet nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. That disaster, of course, happened in 1986 and Chernobyl has been the most radioactive place on earth ever since.
Chernobyl is also inside Ukraine. And you may remember that at the very start of Russia`s invasion of Ukraine. Chernobyl is one of the first places that Putin sent in Russian soldiers to occupy.
Now, why Putin`s and Russian soldiers to occupy Chernobyl we still don`t really understand. But we`re finally now starting to get a better idea of what the Russians did while they were at that site.
This is from "The Associated Press", dateline: Chernobyl, Ukraine. Quote, in the earliest hours of Russia`s invasion of Ukraine in February, thousands of tanks and troops rumbled into the forested Chernobyl exclusion zone, turning up highly contaminated soil from the site of the 1986 accident that was the world`s worst nuclear disaster.
In the dirt of one of the world`s most radioactive places, Russian soldiers dug trenches. Ukrainian officials worry they may have been digging their own graves. For more than a month, some Russian soldiers bumped in the earth within sight of the massive structure bill to contain radiation from the damage Chernobyl nuclear reactor.
[21:15:09]
A close inspection of the trenches they dug in and they lived in was impossible today because even walking on that dirt is discouraged because of radioactivity. The deputy head of the state agency that manages the Chernobyl exclusion zone told the "A.P." today that he believes hundreds or thousands of soldiers damaged their health, likely with little idea of the consequences, despite plant workers warnings to their commanders. He told the "A.P." today quote, most of the soldiers were around 20 years old.
The full extent of Russia`s activities in the Chernobyl exclusion zone is still unknown, says "The A.P." today, especially because the troops scattered minds that the Ukraine military is still searching for. Some of those mines have detonated, further disturbing the radioactive ground at the site. The Russians also set several forest fires at the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
Ukraine authorities cannot monitor radiation levels across the Chernobyl exclusion zone today because Russian soldiers stole the main server for the system, severing the connection on March 2nd, just days after they occupied the site. The Russians even took Chernobyl staffers personal radiation monitors. So they`re operating without those now to.
Why did they do that? And did they have any idea what they were doing? I mean, these Russian soldiers blundered into Chernobyl right at the start of the war. They stayed for five weeks, apparently with no idea what they were getting into. Only now are we starting to learn, how fantastically reckless and presumably ignorant they were about one of the most radioactive places on earth.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said today, that the head of the IAEA is going to lead a mission of nuclear experts to Chernobyl sometime in the next two weeks to try to assess how much damage was done by the Russian occupation there. They say they`re going to do, quote, nuclear safety security and radiological assessments of the site. And they`re also going to try to set up new monitoring systems to replace the once the Russians all looted and stole, presumably without even knowing what they were for.
But all this is happening, of course, while the war is still underway in Ukraine, while Russia appears hell-bent on taking over all of Ukraine or least all of it that they can destroy enough to seize. And while the Russian soldiers that occupy the Chernobyl exclusion zone or out of there now, that`s why "The A.P." was able to get in there today, Russian soldiers as of right now, as of tonight, they`re still at a nuclear power plant that isn`t mothballed and stuck under a dome like Chernobyl. They are still at a nuclear power plant in Ukraine that is currently operating, they`re still Russian soldiers right now are still occupied the largest currently occupied operating nuclear power plant in Ukraine which is also the largest nuclear power plant in all of Europe.
Russian soldiers are there now. Now we know what they did while they were in Chernobyl. How are they doing with the one that`s currently operating right now, right? Just as we`re learning the extent to which these guys respect and understand and can be trusted with all things nuclear. There`s all this attention on whether or not Putin wants to use nuclear weapons in the fight in Ukraine.
What about the nuclear damage troops are doing on the ground and nuclear power sites?
Joining us now is James Acton. He`s the co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Mr. Acton, I appreciate you take the time to be this night. Thank you.
JAMES ACTON, NATIONAL POLICY PROGRAM CO-DIRECTOR, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: Thanks for having me.
MADDOW: I`m not an expert on these things. I am a lay observer just trying to sort of observance in formation. You are an expert. Let me just ask you if I described any of that wrong or if I got any of it the wrong way around.
ACTON: No. I think that was a very good summary of the nuclear situation on the ground. My primary concern is about the nuclear power plant that Russia is currently occupying at Zaporizhzhia. That`s an operating plant. It needs much more active cooling than Chernobyl does. Spent fuel on the site is much more highly radioactive. It`s not surrounded by a large exclusion zone.
So Russia`s behavior extra noble was reckless, it was dangerous. But I think the immediate nuclear power accident recurring this war has always been the operating plants. And fortunately Russia has now left Chernobyl. We had in a much first day than a found it. But as you read pointed out, Zaporizhzhia is still under occupation.
MADDOW: And Zaporizhzhia, forgive my pronunciation, that`s because they can get, it is a gigantic plant, is a currently operating. And as you say, one of the imperatives there for a currently operating plant is active cooling.
[21:20:00]
You need -- I mean, for a plant that generates a lot of power. It also needs to have a power source that allows it to actively and constantly cool the hot fuel rods that are a byproduct of the production nuclear power at a facility like this.
In a war zone like Ukraine, especially when it`s raining on into this many days of war, with this kind of artillery driven combat, it seems like keeping the power on it for a big plant like that, for any of the nuclear power plants in Ukraine is not at all sure thing, and that that alone could potentially be a very dangerous thing.
ACTON: I think that`s exactly right. Under normal conditions, an accident and nuclear power plant is very unlikely because you have all of these different safety systems in place. So you have an electricity grid connection to provide energy for the cooling, at multiple electricity connections. If they fail, you have emergency backup diesel generators. You often have kinds of factories in the planned.
The problem is, in a war, a failure of all of these different systems together becomes much more likely than it does in these times. You can usually imagine a fire starting, which will we saw in Zaporizhzhia a month or so ago. You can imagine that fire knocks out the grid connection, striking emergency diesel generators.
Under normal circumstances, you could have fire crews come to the plan to try to put out the fire. But when that happened a few months ago, we saw those firefighters were literally shut out, they couldn`t get to the point for a while. Now fortunately, the fire that we saw mother so ago was in an auxiliary building, wasn`t in the actual reactor itself.
But given the Zaporizhzhia is occupied at the moment like other parts of Ukraine, it`s hardly seems unlikely we could see renewed fighting around that plant. And deliberately or inadvertently, one could imagine damage to that plant or a fire or damage to a power supplier cooling system that led to a serious accident because all of these different layers of defense that had normally been in place -- in place for a nuclear power plant.
And under normal circumstances simultaneous, all these different cooling systems, all these different safety systems would be very unlikely. Much more imaginable in a war they could have this kind of series of cascading failures leading to a serious accident.
MADDOW: The prospect of a Fukushima or another Chernobyl in the middle of this war is so, it`s terrifying. I also to ask you before I let you go about this, the extensive discussions are happening around the potential use of nuclear weapons. I think that Vladimir Putin has proven himself to be unpredictable, and that he`s proven to be willing to do things that were previously thought of as unthinkable.
Today, I`m conscious of the fact that the Finnish parliament in Finland, they start debating whether or not they`re going to join NATO. That`s one of the things where he threatened that he would put nuclear weapons more in play, the nuclear weapons in the Baltics if Finland and perhaps Sweden think about joining NATO.
We also saw this test of very highly touted test of a presumably new type of nuclear weapon today by Russia. CNN today quotas officials saying there are more concern about the threat of Russia`s nuclear weapons than at any time since the Cold War.
How do you feel about that risk as somebody who studies these things for a living?
ACTON: I absolutely cannot rule out the possibility of Russian nuclear use. I am less worried about this than I was a month or two back. At the beginning of the war, that first time of the war, Putin came out and made a very explicit nuclear threat. And I was pretty nervous at that point, immediate Russian where you spoke about the fact that the possibility of nuclear escalation. I can`t exclude that possibility today.
But the war has progressed in a way that makes, less likely than it was a month or so ago. Putin has scaled back his for war aims. He`s now mostly focusing on east Ukraine, which means that he has, we stale down your aims to achieve them, the gap there is not as big as if he`d been continue to go off to the whole of Ukraine.
I think another condition that would make it more likely to use nuclear weapons of his hold on power was seriously threatened. We`re not seeing that at the moment, he still appears to be very popular in Russia because he has complete control of the media. But nonetheless, and the Russian economy wanted -- bad state, it doesn`t appear to be on the verge of complete collapse.
So I think, from Putin`s perspective, absolutely realizes that news nuclear weapons would be a risky and dangerous to do. And I think you don`t use them if he thought the risk of using them was smaller than the risks of not using them, because the consequences of not using them were so dire in his opinion. I think the good news is, we`re not all that close to that position today.
Now, none of this distracts from Putin`s exceptionally reckless and dangerous behavior of Russian forces. The nuclear saber-rattling will like continue to see it in the form of test of the new ICBM today. But I am somewhat less worried than it was a month or so ago about the possibility of Russian nuclear use.
MADDOW: James Acton, co-director the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Mr. Acton, thank you for your time tonight. This is a scary topic, but your clarity is calming. Thank you.
ACTON: Thank you for having me.
MADDOW: All right. We got much more ahead here tonight. Do stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:30:34]
MADDOW: In the great state of Tennessee, the fifth congressional district is right here and the central part of the state. Fun fact about the fifth district is that is the only district in the whole state that doesn`t share a border with another state, basically the landlocked Tennessee congressional district. And it turns out there`s a whole bunch a little tidbits about that assert that are of interest to people who live there. There`s enough of them they can sort of make a whole game show about it if you wanted to.
Local radio station in Nashville has done just that. It`s called taking the Fifth. And the game show goes a little bit like this.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
MICHAEL PATRICK LEAHY: Here we go. What three interstate highways are located in the fifth congressional district?
MORGAN ORTAGUS: I`m a terrible driver. I don`t know that. I don`t drive everywhere that I go.
LEAH: Okay, it`s I-65, I-40 and I-24.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
MADDOW: I don`t drive anywhere that I go. It`s all hang gliding, I don`t know. If you don`t like driving though that might be a tricky question, the interstates thing maybe?
The thing you need to know about this trivia game show though about the fifth commercial district and the scenes that they don`t need by just random people from the district police gate, this radio stations specifically invites people to play this game if they are running for Congress to represent this district. That clip we just played was in fact a Republican candidate who is running in the Republican primary to try to fill and open congressional seat in the Tennessee 5th.
So she goes on the local radio show, to show her would be constituents how she deserves to be the representative, how one she is with the people of the fifth district. And her first question, what about the three interstates in the district, that didn`t go well. Just the first question though, plenty of time for adoption.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
LEAHY: A country music superstar, a famous multi-Grammy Award winning performer, has a popular winery in the center of the fifth assert in Arrington, Tennessee.
ORTAGUS: I have been to that winery.
LEAHY: Okay.
ORTAGUS: It`s great. I love the winery. I bought some wine.
LEAHY: Who owns it?
(END AUDIO CLIP)
MADDOW: Who owns it? You`ve got this, though, right? You`ve been to the winery, you bought some of their wine, I bought some wine, okay. You`ve got this one, you`ve been there.
This one, she`s going to get this, one? She has to answer the question, though.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
ORTAGUS: It`s great, I love the winery, I bought some wine.
LEAH: Who owns it?
ORTAGUS: I don`t know who owns it, but I love it. We went there for the summer had a picnic outside. It was beautiful.
LEAHY: Kix Brooks. He`s a Tennessean.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
MADDOW: Who owns the winery? Oh who owns it, no idea, absolutely no idea.
Here`s another one. This is about that big giant car dealership in your district, right in the center of the district, huge, can`t miss it, everybody who lives there knows that one.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
LEAHY: One of the most famous NASCAR drivers living today lives in the fifth district and has a large auto dealership in Franklin. Who is that?
ORTAGUS: You know, my husband is the car guy. He knows -- he used to race, he knows all of the racing stuff.
LEAHY: Darrell Waltrip. This is a Tennessee one, okay?
ORTAGUS: I think they`re all Tennessee ones.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
MADDOW: She`s realizing in real time how bad this is going. Oh, I think these are all Tennessee questions, Patrick. So this is going very poorly for me.
But there is one more, this is the last one for the very end of the game.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
LEAHY: A rather well-known Confederate general, one whose name in history but a source of enormous controversy in Tennessee the last two years, was born and raised in the community of Chapel Hill, in the Fifth District. Who was he?
ORTAGUS: I don`t know.
LEAHY: Nathan Bedford Forrest. What county is Chapel Hill in?
ORTAGUS: I don`t know.
LEAHY: Marshall County. It`s in your district.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
MADDOW: So that did not go well for that candidate. Her name is Morgan Ortagus.
And, you know, it`s a remarkable thing to see this just kind of a disillusion. A candidate for who like office not being able to name the counties in her district. But it`s another thing entirely with the candidate was handpicked to run for that seat by the de facto head of the Republican Party.
Morgan Ortagus used to work in the Trump administration. She`s been personally endorse for that seat by Donald Trump. He was in such a rush to endorse her he actually did so before she had the chance to officially announce she was running for it.
[21:35:01]
This is a race that`s incredibly important Republicans. It`s a seat currently held by a Democrat who`s retiring, so the Republicans have a reasonable chance to pick it up. Crowded field there`s like a dozen Republicans running in the primary.
You would think that being handpicked by the former president that would be like a golden ticket to the top of the field, except Morgan Ortagus has no idea what she`s doing. She`s not from Tennessee, she only moved to the state last year perhaps evidence by that disastrous local radio affair. She doesn`t even live in a district she is running to represent.
And so this is set up an interesting thing, because this is not actually just a story about her, it`s a story about Donald Trump and his influence Republican Party. Because the price twist in the story is that Republicans in the Tennessee legislature decided that Trump endorsement or not, they were not going to have her as the Republican candidate for that seat.
The Republican-led Tennessee legislator said it to pass a bill that requires anybody running for Congress in Tennessee to have lived in their district for at least three years before they run. That seemed squarely aimed at booting Morgan Ortagus off the ticket for that seat.
Then arose another problem. The Tennessee secretary of state said that new bill wouldn`t actually apply to Ms. Ortagus because it was passed after the filing deadline. But then Republicans in the Tennessee legislature decided they were going to kick her out of the race anyway. They instead just voted to remove her name off the ballot. Donald Trump`s handpicked candidate, they just took her off the ballot, full stop.
Now it`s unclear whether it`s going to actually work and whether Morgan Ortagus might challenge her removal from the ballot in court. But either way, this is a twist, right? This is an interesting and surprising tire or in Republican politics right now.
Trump not getting his way in the Republican Party, particularly in the South. That`s new. Him getting popped in the nose by the Republican Party like this, that`s definitely news.
And it happens at a time when some other chickens are coming home to roost, we`re also keeping an eye on the story involving Georgia congresswoman and Trump loyalist, Marjorie Taylor Greene. She`s scheduled to testify under oath this week about her alleged involvement in the insurrection on January 6th. A group of her constituents have filed suit basically challenging her eligibility to run for reelection this year.
Part of the Constitution says earn allowed to run for Congress if you supported an insurrection against the government. It was a post-Civil War effort to try to keep Confederates out of the new U.S. government.
Whether that applies to Marjorie Taylor Greene is now the subject of a court hearing. She`s scheduled to testify in person on Friday. I have to tell you, there will be cameras in the courtroom, there`s a ton of height interest in her testimony. So that`s all happening this week too.
And then of course there`s the case of Utah Senator Mike Lee, who appears to be maybe in the hottest water of the whole lot. We`ve been covering pretty intensely on this show, these new text messages between Senator Lee and Trump`s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, in which Senator Lee repeatedly pushes for a scheme to overturn the election results, even though publicly, he oppose the effort and publicly, he told for example, the hometown press in Utah that he had done no such thing.
Well, that story about Mike Lee and what he did to try to overturn the election results and what he told the truth about or didn`t, that story took another bad turn for him today. And that`s here next. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:43:11]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Senator Lee, these texts show you worked hard to try to overturn the presidential election. Are you still okay with that? How come you won`t talk about it sir? Your public position was much different than those text indicated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: That`s Republican U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah earlier today doing his best to pretend to not hear questions from reporters about something we have covered here recently on the show.
Senator Mike Lee`s text messages, recently revealed by CNN showing that Senator Lee was privately trying to help President Trump`s effort to overturn the 2020 election results, despite publicly saying at the time that he didn`t support the scheme, saying he was shocked to learn about it just days before the January 6th attacks.
But Bryan Schott, a political reporter with "Salt Lake Tribune" has been trying to get a response from Senator Lee at events across the state of Utah. Here he was yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRYAN SCHOTT, SALT LAKE TRIBUN: Senator Lee, why did you lie about your involvement in the Trump White House? Senator Lee, why won`t you answer questions about this?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: That reporter, Bryan Schott, tweeted that video this morning. This is what it`s like now for local reporters trying to get answers from Utah`s senior senator about his involvement in a plot to overturn the election.
Today, Utah`s other big newspaper, "Deseret News", published their own piece on Senator Lee`s text, this emerging fiasco for him. A reporter at the "Deseret News" says in a previous interview after the January 6th attack, Mike Lee basically lied to him then about his involvement in it.
Quote: During my regional conversation with Lee, he stated that his investigations to false election claims, stemmed from curiosity. Not any attempt to aid the Trump legal team`s efforts to investigate or overturn electoral results. The newly-released text messages of course, complicate this narrative.
[21:45:04]
So that`s both of Utah`s biggest newspaper is now asking Senator Lee questions about this. His strategy is apparently to just ignore them and pretend they`re not happening.
One reporter did get a comment at the same event today, from Utah`s other Republican senator, Mitt Romney.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): As you know I think it was a mistake to try to overturn the election on the part of President Trump and those who are part of that effort. But the text I have seen from Senator Lee, so far, didn`t suggest that he was recommending anything that was illegal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: You know things aren`t going well for you when your allies, the people sticking up for you, are having to deny publicly to a gaggle of reporters that what you did was technically legal. That`s not a good turn.
Joining us now is "Salt Lake Tribune" political reporter, Bryan Schott, who has been trying to get these answers himself.
Mr. Schott, thank you for being here, it`s nice to have you here.
SCHOTT: Thank you for the opportunity.
MADDOW: Senator Lee, his campaign has given statements defending his behavior after the election. And in the lead up to January 6th. Has he personally addressed any of this controversy at all? Has he put out a statement with his own face talking to reporters, talking to anybody about it?
SCHOTT: No, he has not, at least not to my knowledge. That`s why I went to the summit county Republican convention last night, was to have an opportunity to ask him some questions. I`ve been trying to find out what he knew and what was happening ever since the Eastman memo came to light in Bob Woodward`s book.
Something about that just seemed off to me, especially about the fact that he talked to so much about how he was trying to adhere to the Constitution. He describes himself as a constitutional conservative.
And it just seemed a little off to me and then we find out that when John Eastman appeared before the January 6th committee. He took the Fifth Amendment, when he was asked about his communication with Mike Lee. He had said in another publication, that him and Mike Lee were working on something else. We still don`t know what that is.
So this is seen a little bit off to me ever since that came out. And when these text messages came out, I wish I could say that I was surprised at some of the things that they showed. But I wasn`t.
MADDOW: You are obviously much closer observer of Utah politics, and Utah political more race than anybody in my position can be. But it seems to be that senator leads problem here may not be with his constituents that he tried to aid the White House. In coming up with a way to overturn the election results and keep Trump in power even though Trump lost. It seems to be that that might actually not that controversial among his supporters in Republican politics in Utah, but I can`t imagine it won`t be a problem for him to have lied about it, to have mischaracterized his involvement when he first learned that the plan was happening. What his reaction was when he learned what Eastman was doing.
I mean, that just lying to the public, lying to the hometown press, lying to reporters, lying publicly about what he was doing at the time. That at least from the outside feels to me like he might have trouble with that?
SCHOTT: You would think, but on Saturday, we have the Republican state convention, and the 4,000 delegates who are going to show up for that, the vast majority of them love Mike Lee. He is a rock star at these events.
I had one Republican operative tell me that Mike Lee could go on stage and read these text messages verbatim as his speech, and he would get a standing ovation. That`s how much they love him, and I think with a lot of the voting public, or at least the GOP base here, it just shows how hard he was fighting for Donald Trump.
I really don`t know how this is going to play out. I don`t know if he`s going to pay a price for lying about when he came into John Eastman`s orbit. And when they were discussing this plan to apparently send alternate electors which would make this entire scheme adhere to the Constitution.
And I often wonder, if those electors had shown up. Would Mike Lee have gone along with this? I think he would have, because that`s what he was hinging the entire thing on.
MADDOW: "Salt Lake Tribune" politics reporter, Bryan Schott, Mr. Schott, thank you for your diligence and trying to get comments from the principal center of the story. And thank you for helping us understand tonight. I appreciate it.
SCHOTT: Anytime.
MADDOW: All right. We`ll be right back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:54:32]
MADDOW: France`s President Emmanuel Macron is facing off this weekend against a far-right challenger to his reelection who is pro-Putin, who says she will pull France out of NATO and who is likely to shut down the thus far unified European efforts to support Ukraine and oppose Putin in the war in Ukraine.
President Macron confronted the candid, marine le pen, with that today in their one and only debate before this weekend`s vote. Here`s some of how that went with English translations.
[21:55:00]
Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT: You are in fact in a Russia`s grip. In 2015, you madam had took out a loan with the first check Russian bank which is close to the authorities. So we`re not talking about others leaders but just about your banker when he mentioned Russia.
MARINE LE PEN, FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Why was a force to take out a loan?
MACRON: So you took one out?
LE PEN: Something that everybody knows because no French bank agreed to give me a loan.
MACRON: Look, 2015 was when you took that loan out, you still haven`t paid a back.
LE PEN: It takes a while to pay back a loan. We repay our loan every single month under the supervision of the campaign oversight --
MACRON: But you still have, but like you still haven`t paid a back.
LE PEN: It is true that we are a political party with not a whole lot of resources but there is honor in that.
MACRON: There`s nothing wrong with that but there is a dependency that there is -- look for so many of your choices can be explained by this link by this relationship.
LE PEN: This is simply not true.
MACRON: I too have loans, like all of our fellow citizens, to buy a house or buy a car, to use your examples. But we have not gotten taken alone out in Russian banks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: I too have loans but I haven`t had to take out a loan from Russian banks. And then I`ll pay them back millions of euros later, when I`m running for president again.
The election in France is Sunday, this weekend, the future of Europe and Ukraine and even Russia may actually hang in the balance in that election.
Watch this space.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: All right, that is going to do it for us tonight. Thank you for being here with us. I`ll see you again tomorrow night.
Now, it`s time for "THE LAST WORD" with the great Lawrence O`Donnell.
Good evening, Lawrence.