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Transcript: The ReidOut, 5/18/22

Guests: Roberto Ferdman, Kurt Bardella, Tim Miller

Summary

The Pennsylvania Republican Senate primary remains too close to call. Congressman Madison Cawthorn loses his primary race. Vladimir Putin suffers another setback, as Sweden and Finland officially apply for NATO membership. VICE News uncovers new information about the officers who killed Breonna Taylor. Those who`ve been pushing so-called Replacement Theory for political gain and profit are examined.

Transcript

ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Those are the best ways to reach me and tell me your positive nicknames.

THE REIDOUT WITH JOY REID is up next.

JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, everyone.

There are a ton of political headlines today, starting with the big multistate campaign news from overnight.

Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman handily won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, news he received while recovering from a stroke he suffered last week. Idaho Governor Brad Little fended off his Trumpy lieutenant governor, who twice attempted to grab power while he was out of state.

Charles Booker could become Kentucky`s first black United States senator. He will be running against Rand Paul this November. And former North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley is one step closer to becoming that state`s first black U.S. senator, after winning her Democratic primary.

Also, in North Carolina, we have got a poor one out for Madison Cawthorn, who was taken down by his party not for bringing guns on planes, or calling Ukraine evil, or making Hitler`s home part of his vacation bucket list, or alleged sexual misconduct, or for being an insurrection supporter, no, no, but, rather, for snitching on the alleged Republican cocaine orgies. Never tell about the orgies.

More on him later.

But we begin THE REIDOUT tonight in Pennsylvania with a reminder of how elections work. Now, you see there are many different ways to vote. There`s early voting and voting on Election Day and filling out mail-in ballots. In the state of Pennsylvania, anyone can vote by mail, but those ballots cannot be counted until Election Day.

That`s why, in 2020, it took a few days past Election Day for Joe Biden to be declared the winner. And the lead can change as you count more and later tallied votes, nothing nefarious about that.

And yet Donald Trump and Republicans used that perfectly normal process and its completely routine delays to cry voter fraud and stolen election, which led to Trump`s lawyer Rudy Giuliani somehow winding up holding that embarrassing press conference at Four Seasons Landscaping.

And thanks to the big lie about a stolen election, which lots of Republican voters believed, there was an insurrection at the United States capital. And you know the rest.

Flash forward to today, and the Republican Senate primary is currently too close to call in Pennsylvania. The establishment candidate, hedge funder David McCormick, was actually ahead last night. But, by midnight, the Trump-endorsed candidate, Dr. Mehmet Oz, pulled ahead as more votes were counted.

If Dr. Oz winds up winning, he likely will be able to think those very same mail-in ballots that Republicans spent the last year-and-a-half having a meltdown over. As if on cue, Trump took to his failing social media network today to say, Dr. Oz should just declare himself the winner now, despite the fact that counting more votes might actually help Oz.

But while the situation is deeply ironic and easy to mock, last night`s election also highlighted the incredibly serious stakes of this year`s midterms. Take a look at the winner of the Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial primary, Doug Mastriano.

Back in 2020, he was the ringleader of that aforementioned effort to steal the vote in Pennsylvania, holding unauthorized vote audits and hearings on fake election fraud and even been floating the idea that the state legislature could just nullify the vote.

He was even subpoenaed by the January 6 Committee after attending the insurrection. If he`s elected governor, he would appoint the secretary of state, who oversees elections. And he has said that that person would force everyone in the state to re-register to vote to stay on the rolls, which, in case you didn`t realize, is literal voter suppression.

And he`s not even hiding that he intends to steal the election if elected. Here`s video of him celebrating with election decertification proponent Ivan Raiklin last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IVAN RAIKLIN, ELECTION DECERTIFICATION PROPONENT: The next governor of Pennsylvania, folks, Colonel, retired, Doug Mastriano, also senator, the future governor.

What do you want to tell us tonight as you`re about to clinch victory?

DOUG MASTRIANO (D), PENNSYLVANIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: We`re going to send a message to the United States of America that things are changing in Pennsylvania. It`s going to be fantastic.

RAIKLIN: Twenty electoral votes as well.

MASTRIANO: Oh, yeah.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Yes, there it is, right in plain sight, a plan to put Pennsylvania`s 20 Electoral College votes in Republican hands in 2024, regardless of how Pennsylvanians vote.

Joining me now, Juanita Tolliver, Democratic strategist and MSNBC political analyst, and Tim Wise, writer at large for The Bulwark and author of the upcoming book -- Tim Miller. I`m sorry. We said Tim Wise, when we meant to Miller. "Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell."

I got your -- literally, Tim -- Tim, I apologize, my fellow Coloradan. My bad.

[19:05:04]

So I`m going to let you go first, because, look, I mean, the thing is, is that I got to let you comment on the delicious irony of the fact that the exact same process that Republicans called the steal in 2020 is the same process now that is going to elect these Republican primary candidates.

And it`s the same reason for the delay. Can they possibly declare this a steal? Let`s say Dr. Oz doesn`t win, because there were no blacks, except the lady who lost. This is a very, very non-Philly electorate. It used to be that, in the 1990s, Philadelphia and the big four suburban counties passed a third -- used to cast a third of GOP primary votes.

Tuesday, it was just above a fifth. That`s Ron Brownstein, the brilliant Ron Brownstein, reporting. So it ain`t Philly. It`s just the absentee ballots. Your thoughts?

TIM MILLER, THE BULWARK: I am wise, so I took that as compliment, Joy

(LAUGHTER)

MILLER: Look, here`s the thing.

I think you get to the bottom of this. We can mock this. We make fun of it. Like, oh, you remember how everybody said, oh, well, I went to bed and Donald Trump was winning, and then I woke up and Joe Biden was winning.

REID: Yes.

MILLER: And nothing good happens after 9:00, so it must have been a cheat. And the same thing happened last night.

People went to bed, Dave McCormick was winning. They woke up, Dr. Oz is winning right now. But you don`t hear the same -- Trump chose Oz, right? So he`s kind of doing a little half-hearted steal effort and saying that Oz should declare victory. But you don`t -- you don`t hear them making the same arguments, because it all a ruse from the start.

It was all fantasy from the start, and they all know it is. And so here`s the thing that`s uniquely dangerous about Trump. I think that we`re going to get to Mastriano. There`s some anti-democratic just energy that`s going through the entire Republican Party, no doubt, but there`s something about Trump that`s unique.

And that is, he`s shameless. He has a shameless superpower that is just far beyond all these other mere mortals. And his willingness to be able to carry on this ruse, this obvious ruse, for years and convince millions and millions of people that it`s true, not many regular politicians can do that.

It`s hard to see David McCormick creating a cult following him around if he loses this thing. He`s just going to go back to his wine chalet, to his hedge fund buddies and, like, move on with his life if he loses this thing.

(LAUGHTER)

MILLER: Because, for all of his flaws, he`s like a relatively normal human.

So without Trump in the mix, without the ability to demagogue about what`s happening in Philly, without being able to demagogue about how maybe George Soros got involved in this thing, or the wily foreigners, the whole steal thing won`t happen this time, which just reveals how much of a just ridiculous scam it was and continues to be from the 2020 election.

REID: Right, because, also, Juanita, they never declared the steal when they themselves, the members of Congress who believe in this so-called conspiracy theory, that it was a steal, well, they didn`t think their own elections were stolen.

They somehow feel like the dead Venezuelan dictator excised just Trump`s votes, and they left their votes. So I got elected legitimately, but there`s something wrong with the Trump -- right? So it never made sense.

But let`s talk about shameless, because, if you want to talk about shameless, this guy Mastriano, he equals Trump in shamelessness. He`s just not famous.

There was a lengthy piece in "The New Yorker" that was -- I posted under scaring is caring, because this guy, unlike Trump, who I doubt is really a Christian -- I doubt he`s ever read four words in the Bible. But he appeals to a certain kind of conservative Christian. I put an asterisk, because it`s a branch of Christianity that is a far right evangelical Christian nationalism.

"Mastriano," per "The New Yorker," "participated in a series of Jericho Marches, in which conservative Christians, among a hodgepodge of QAnon followers and white nationalists, gathered to pray that God would keep Trump in office. Participants dressed in colonial knickers to evoke the American Revolution or in animal skins to evoke the Israelites.

"Jack Jenkins, a reporter for Religion News Service, told me they blew shofars, ram`s horns that Israelite priests blew, according to the Bible, to bring down the sinful city of Jericho, believing they could literally overturn the election results."

They were attempting to use incantations, prayer, anything. They thought that, literally, there is some sort of demonic force that is allowing Democrats to win presidential elections. That is who would be the governor of Pennsylvania if he were to win. Your thoughts.

JUANITA TOLLIVER, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, I watched bits and pieces of his acceptance speech last night. And sprinkled throughout were the Scripture, were the appeals to Christians.

And it was just a meandering speech in which she talked and hit on every attack that comes from the evangelical right, attacks on LGBTQ people, attacks on trans kids, attacks on any and everything that appeals to them.

[19:10:05]

And I think, if there`s any moment for him to expand his message beyond the 2020 election, it will be now. And he`s going to lean in on these -- these wars that we have seen from the evangelical right, not only on the censorship that we have seen a black history and CRT, but also of, again, LGBT people like kids, as well as abortion.

And I appreciate Josh Shapiro tapping into that already, because he released an ad just five days ago outlining all of the threats that Mastriano presents. He emphasized -- of course, this is somebody who knows the ins and outs of Pennsylvania legislature, who filed a resolution to throw out the 2020 presidential votes, and insert fake electors in -- and actively participate in the coup attempt.

And he`s also the one who authors anti-abortion bills and will come after our basic rights, based on what he defines as his Christian religion as a guide. And so there`s no stopping that. And I fear is going to continue to be a uniting entity, as that article mentioned, not only of religious folks, but QAnon believers, and ever -- anybody who wants to tap into that energy.

And that`s what he has on Trump, like you said, Joy. That`s how he`s probably going to be able to expand his base to some degree, because we know that the 2020 lies do have a limiting factor there, a limiting factor that we know is not going to reach broad appeal across Pennsylvania.

But when he taps into the religion factor, that is something that is going to be expansive in this -- in the general election.

REID: And now I`m going to get you right here, Tim, because you are the guy who tried to write a plan for Republicans at one point to try to expand their base to include more people of color, to broaden it beyond being a very ultra-white party.

But now they have gone in completely the opposite direction. I just read a Thomas Edsall piece which I think everyone should read on "The New York Times" -- I hope they open it up and take down other paywall for it -- that said that 20 to 25 percent of Americans can be classified as believing in some form of Replacement Theory, in some version, some element of the idea that white Americans are under existential threat because black and brown people are attempting to replace them in a conspiracy, whether or not they believe that this part of the conspiracy that Jewish people are behind.

So that means that we have a national security threat tied to this election. Are Democrats approaching this -- because this is why Democrats were quite gleeful that Mastriano is the nominee. Should they be? Or should they be worried?

MILLER: Yes, I think they should be a little worried.

I think that Josh Shapiro has run a really good primary so far. For folks haven`t been watching him, he`s running as a center-left and a uniting kind of Democrat. And I think he can kind of appealed to the kinds of folks that I was talking to back when I totally failed to expand the Republican Party`s appeal in the suburbs and to people of color, and talking about kind of almost some Republican principles, like appealing to their individual freedoms and how Mastriano wants to kind of do a top-down government Christian nationalist and insert into their lives.

I think Shapiro`s messaging on that`s been good.

I didn`t love that they did some ads kind of promoting Mastriano because they thought he`d be the weakest candidate. I didn`t love that they did that.

REID: Yes.

MILLER: Because I just think that the threat here is so severe.

REID: Yes.

MILLER: And I just -- I just think Democrats need to take -- they need to understand that Pennsylvania, this is not like having a crazy governor in Idaho, OK?

REID: That`s right.

MILLER: Pennsylvania could be the critical state in the next election.

REID: That`s right.

MILLER: And having somebody who`s already said that they would overturn the results, that`s very dangerous.

REID: Yes.

MILLER: And so the Democrats got to be able to speak to those suburban swing voters to win this race.

(CROSSTALK)

REID: And the guy he was with, Ivan Raiklin, this is a former lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, is the guy who was pushing the Pence card theory, that Pence really could overturn the election.

Let me play some sound here. This was -- let`s talk about Madison Cawthorn. I feel like I should sing "In the Arms of the Angels" for his political career right now. But I`m not going to subject anyone to that.

(LAUGHTER)

REID: His party drove him the hell out, showing that they can do it.

Here`s some of his voters that were asked, what are his accomplishments? Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t know about the achievements, but I was with my wife when she spoke directly to him, and they looked at each other eye to eye. And you can tell he`s very sincere in the -- in what he stands for.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He sends out an e-mail to me, and he tells me the bills that he`s presenting.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s got boldness, and he`s got desire. He`s only been in Congress for less than two years. And it takes -- it takes longer than that to get your feet wet and to be able to accomplish meaningful things. You have got to build up seniority.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Juanita, I`m going to let you take this one.

(LAUGHTER)

REID: Are Democrats prepared to deal with an electorate full of people like that, who, despite everything, were willing to vote for Madison Cawthorn again? He barely lost.

TOLLIVER: Willing to vote for him again. He barely lost.

[19:15:00]

And I think also recognizing that Democrats are dealing with a Republican Party that found his comments about their drug activities, their sex activities to be the red line. Like you said, Joy, their red line wasn`t about child sex trafficking investigations. It wasn`t about active threats to the lives of the president or other members of Congress, right?

Like, this is what did them in. And I look at someone like Madison Cawthorn, who did prioritize celebrity over any type of substantive action, and these voters say, that was enough for them. But it clearly wasn`t enough to get him over the finish line.

And so I don`t expect him to go far. But I don`t expect him to be engaged with the Republican Party in the future.

REID: Well, I wonder what Tim -- very quickly. We`re going to -- we`re about to go. But I invited him on the show tonight.

Our team reached out to him to see if he would come on, because I think he should name names. They came for him. He should come for them. I want to hear the names.

(LAUGHTER)

REID: So, do you have any sources in the party that can get me to get Madison Cawthorn to get on this show and tell me the names?

MILLER: Oh, boy, I -- don`t get me in trouble, Joy. Don`t get me in trouble, Joy. I`m not going there.

(LAUGHTER)

REID: He should name names.

MILLER: But I think, look, he`s only 26.

So, I -- so, this is a guy who could have a second life. So I`m not surprised that he`s not naming names.

REID: He will have a Spotify podcast in four days. And he will be naming all -- I just want him to name the names.

TOLLIVER: Yikes.

REID: I will subscribe to it if he names the names. I want to know who was doing them cocaine orgies inside the Republican Party, because I know you know the names, Madison.

Juanita Tolliver and Tim Miller.

Tell us the names. Burn it all down, man.

Tim Miller, thank you very much, you guys.

Still ahead of THE REIDOUT: another setback for Putin, as Sweden and Finland officially apply for NATO membership. Will Putin follow through on his threats to retaliate?

And later:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have to not only talk about how we`re going to end the hate, but who`s responsible for generating it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Who`s responsible? Well, it`s no great mystery, Mr. President. We have been talking about it. Much more on that later.

Plus, VICE News uncovers new information about the officers who killed Breonna Taylor, and it raises even more questions about that botched no- knock raid.

THE REIDOUT continues after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:21:30]

REID: In a sign of the ongoing U.S. and Western commitment to Ukraine today, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv is back up and running. The flag raised there as it officially resumed operations after three months.

In another sign of Western unity, and that Vladimir Putin`s invasion of Ukraine has gotten him exactly the opposite of what he wanted, today, Finland and Sweden formally submitted applications to join NATO. Both countries are abandoning decades of neutrality, in direct response to Russia`s aggression in Ukraine.

NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance is ready to seize this historic moment. That process has stalled for now, however, over objections from just one of NATO`s 30 members, Turkey. But, today, President Biden suggested Turkish concerns could be overcome.

If that`s the case, the two Nordic countries` membership could be finalized within months, significantly expanding NATO`s border with Russia and underscoring the Russian dictator`s blunder. The leaders of both Finland and Sweden are headed to Washington to meet with President Biden tomorrow.

And joining me now, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul.

And, Ambassador McFaul, thank you for being here.

Let`s talk really quickly about the Turkish objections. So their objections were about the PKK, which is a -- the Kurdistan Workers` Party, which they consider to be a terrorist organization and they believe are being harbored by countries like Sweden, both countries, but especially Sweden. And they want export bans on some of their arms sales to Turkey lifted.

Do you see those things getting resolved quickly enough to get these two countries into NATO?

MICHAEL MCFAUL, NBC NEWS INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I do.

I think Erdogan is just trying to use his leverage while he has it. But, at the end of the day, he`s the outlier here. No other country has objected. I think it`ll be very difficult for him to say that it`s not in the security interest of NATO to have these two countries joined Finland and Sweden.

And so I suspect this is a negotiating tactic that eventually will be resolved.

REID: This -- it just really does speak to the huge error that Putin made.

His beef was against NATO being too close to his borders and being too big and too threatening. Well, now there are going to be two more members of it. And I wonder how that, you think, resonates inside of the Kremlin.

MCFAUL: Well, you`re absolutely right.

In fact, I would go all the way back to 2014, the first time he invaded Ukraine. That`s when he breathed new life into NATO. NATO was not in good shape before 2014. And then it had some rough years in the Trump era. And now, with this second invasion, not only has he brought two members in -- I mean, Stalin didn`t bring these countries in. They weren`t -- they weren`t afraid of Stalin. They`re afraid of Putin. Think about that for a minute.

REID: Yes.

MCFAUL: But, secondly, the alliance as a whole is way more unified, has a sense of purpose in ways that it didn`t before this invasion.

So, if the objective was to weaken NATO, he`s done exactly the opposite.

REID: Yes. And he didn`t get the president that he wanted in the United States who would have pulled the U.S. out of NATO.

MCFAUL: That`s for sure.

REID: Let`s talk about some of the things that are happening now.

For sure.

So, there is a Russian soldier who is on trial now. I believe is pleading guilty. He pleaded guilty to allegedly shooting a 62-year-old man in the head through a car window. He faces up to life in prison. The Ukrainian government is looking into 10,700 potential war crimes involving more than 600 suspects.

What does it do inside of the minds of Putin and his cronies to have one of their soldiers plead guilty to war crimes?

[19:25:00]

MCFAUL: Well, I forgot to answer your first question about the Kremlin and NATO, because I think these two things are intertwined.

I think they`re going to look at the NATO expansion thing. And they`re blowing it off formally, right? Lavrov, the foreign minister, said, no big deal. But, informally, I think they`re raising doubt about this strategy within his inner circle. And, most certainly, in the second- and third-tier circles, people that I talk to, nobody thinks this war is a good -- has been a good idea for Russia`s security or economic interests.

And now layer on to that this notion, not this notion, this accusation now proven with a conviction already today -- or a plea -- I should be careful here. That he pleaded guilty raises the specter that Russian soldiers are going to have real trouble in getting out of Ukraine if they`re captured and convicted.

The Ukrainians are playing this very seriously. They have got the documentation. They brought in international experts to do it. And I think they`re dead serious about trying to convict these criminals. There are rules of war.

REID: Yes.

MCFAUL: And the Russians, from the Ukrainian position, have violated them?

REID: Well, I mean, speaking of violating, I mean, they`re -- this tragic story of this steel plant Mariupol, where now Russia has essentially kidnapped the fighters that were inside of that plant defending their country and are now essentially -- well, not essentially -- trying to call them terrorists.

What do you think happens to these men?

MCFAUL: I don`t know Joy. It`s a scary moment. Nobody wants to be captured by the Russians and then accused of being terrorists.

They`re trying to play this quid pro quo game, whataboutism, comparing different methods of fighting that are different. But they`re trying to say they`re the same. And you need to remember that, in Russia propaganda, if you watch Russian television, they have been saying that this is the center of Nazism, Mariupol and these fighters. So it plays into that propaganda, and I want to underscore, completely falsified propaganda narrative.

REID: Yes.

MCFAUL: But that I think even makes it harder for there to be, for instance, a soldier swap that I think the Ukrainians would be interested in doing.

REID: Yes. Yes.

And I will note that, even on Russian state TV, one of their military analysts admitted the whole world is against us. So that maybe is a crack in the propaganda that`s being seen by the Russians.

MCFAUL: Yes, big time, Joy.

That -- I`m glad you underscored that. That interview -- and I`m going to tweet it out, so that people can see it.

REID: Yes.

MCFAUL: That was shocking to me, and maybe the sign that there are some cracks.

REID: Yes, we -- well, let us hope so.

Ambassador Michael McFaul, always a pleasure, sir. Thank you very much.

MCFAUL: Thanks for having me.

REID: Cheers.

And still ahead: Suddenly, everybody`s talking about the Great Replacement Theory. But this racist trope has been baked into the American experience for a very, very long time. Everything old is new again -- after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:32:35]

REID: Yesterday, President Biden was in Buffalo paying his respects to the victims of Saturday`s mass shooting and mourning with the families.

For all of them and for this tight-knit neighborhood, the pain is still raw and the reality incomprehensible. How could someone be so filled with hate?

Sadly, that hate is all too common. That disdain for the other goes way back. It`s even been chronicled in American literature. Back in 1925. F. Scott Fitzgerald classic novel "The Great Gatsby" was published.

In it, the antagonist, Tom Buchanan, does his own version of the Great Replacement Theory, bemoaning the migrants coming to replace so-called real Americans. He`s so concerned, he recommends his friends check out a book based on a real-life 1920s novel that warned that immigration would alter America`s racial composition and destroy the country.

Sound familiar? Says Tom -- quote -- "Civilizations going to pieces. I have gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read `The Rise of the Colored Empires` by this man Goddard? It`s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is, if we don`t look out, the white race will be -- will be utterly submerged. It`s all scientific stuff. It`s been proved."

"The Great Gatsby" came out a year after Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1924, which mandated quotas for quotas for -- quote -- "less desirable immigrants" from Eastern Europe and excluded Asian and North African migrants altogether.

The senator who sponsored the bill wrote in "The New York Times," the law was passed with the goal of making a more homogeneous nation more closely knit by common purpose.

Indeed, the 1920s the Jazz Age, can smack in the middle of one of America`s most violently anti-black, anti-immigrant periods, movements like America First and KKK ran rampant. And that 1924 Immigration Act, it gained new fans during the Trump era, including Stephen Miller, Trump`s ideas man. Everything old is new again.

In 2017, modern-day Nazis took to the streets in Charlottesville, chanting "Jews will not replace us." Their brazen, deadly rally is what spurred Joe Biden to run for president against Donald Trump, calling it a battle for the soul of the nation.

President Biden referenced Charlottesville again as he comforted those families in Buffalo. And later in the afternoon, while attending an event to celebrate Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, a group of Americans who have also seen significant upticks in hate crimes, Biden called out the Great Replacement conspiracy theory and those who peddle it.

[19:35:13]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: We have to not only talk about how we`re going to end the hate, but who`s responsible for generating it, who`s responsible for generating it.

Look. I have said many times hate can have no safe harbor in America. And every person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. But you have folks on television stations talking about the Replacement Theory, scaring the living hell out of people who don`t have a whole lot of emotional stability, taking advantage of on the Internet and other means by talking about how we`re going to be overtaken.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Well, Biden isn`t alone in calling out those who`ve been pushing Replacement Theory for political gain and profit.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer joined in the call to take that racist fearmongering off our social and cable media. And Schumer named names, calling on Rupert Murdoch to get his house in order, a house that includes the chief purveyor of racist Replacement Theory on cable news, Tucker Carlson, whose nightly hate fest writes the script for Republican politicians and all too many Republican voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Anchors like Tucker Carlson and, in fact, all MAGA Republicans and all voices of influence across the political spectrum should not just condemn racial violence, not just denounce white supremacist views like Replacement Theory, but, further, refuse to give these false and racist conspiracy theories a platform whatsoever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Well, stay tuned after the break to find out what Majority Leader Schumer is trying to do about FOX News.

Back in the sec.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:41:28]

REID: If you have got a parent or grumpy uncle or a Gen X brother who is captured by FOX News, you know the deal. It`s quite addictive for those who are into it.

It`s the most watched cable news network in America. It`s highly successful.And it`s also a daily smorgasbord of white grievance, immigration hysteria and factual inaccuracies.

Sadly, none of that matters, because it`s done by design. The Murdoch family led by geriatric billionaire Rupert Murdoch, profit handsomely off of it, which explains why Rupert`s eldest son Lachlan, who is the man calling most of the shots at FOX, personally rejected the Anti-Defamation League`s request to fire Tucker Carlson after a racist Great Replacement rant.

You know why? The prime-time Great Replacement promoter is their biggest cash cow. It should shock absolutely no one that, only three days after the deranged Great Replacement believer murdered 10 black people in Buffalo, New York, just because they`re black and after a daylong network pause, presumably to figure out what the network`s collective response will be, Tucker went right back to defending it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: The Democratic Party has decided then, rather than convince you, people who are born here, that their policies are helping you and making the country better and stronger, they will change the electorate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Yesterday, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sent a letter to the FOX Corporation demanding that the Murdoch empire "immediately cease the reckless amplification of the so-called Great Replacement Theory on your network`s broadcasts."

Naturally, that didn`t happen.

With me now, Kurt Bardella, adviser to the DNC and the DCCC.

Kurt, thanks for being here.

My friend and colleague Lawrence O`Donnell said something that I think is just so smart, is, why waste so much time on the people in the makeup at FOX, when the real problem is the boss?

Let me play you what former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had to say about someone he knows very well, and that would be Rupert Murdoch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALCOLM TURNBULL, FORMER AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: What they have created is a market for crazy. They have become unhinged from the facts.

It is now -- basically, they have worked out that you can just make stuff up. Murdoch has to take responsibility for what he has done. Bottom line is, they enjoy the power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: And, Kurt, it`s not just FOX News.

Define American, our friend Jose Antonio Vargas came on the show, and he talked about this Great Replacement network that their studies have shown exists. "The New York Post," which is also Murdoch, is in there, FOX News, NumbersUSA, Prager University, Blaze, TV, FAIR, FORA TV, and Hoover Institution.

But two of those things are Murdoch -- part of the Murdoch empire. Your thoughts?

KURT BARDELLA, DNC AND DCCC ADVISER: Well, what FOX News and what Rupert Murdoch has done is take this absurdity of Replacement Theory, wrapped in their own hypocrisy.

They have bathed it in lunacy. They have had this outsized sense of entitlement that they feed off of from their audience, which creates this storyline of delusional grievances that has resulted in violence, that foments violence, that nurtures violence.

We saw it on January 6. We have seen it in Buffalo. FOX News is basically the recruiting tool now, the propaganda recruiting tool for the domestic terrorist cell that is today`s Republican Party.

When you traffic in these extreme viewpoints, and you campaign on the central premise that democracy should be thrown out, that people that are black, brown, minorities, immigrants, poor should be treated as others, that are less than the rest of us, when you traffic in that, and violence happens, you have blood on your hands. You are a part of that.

[19:45:03]

And that is the legacy of Rupert Murdoch, not just in America, but in the world.

REID: The thing is, I mean, back in the day, before -- when you were a Republican, and you used to advise that other Great Replacement advocate, Steve Bannon, I mean, he was pushing "Camp of the Saints," which is literally Great Replacement Theory, the idea that Europe is going to be overrun by Muslims, and, therefore, Muslims are -- they are sort of an existential threat to white people.

That kind of thing has now become standard. That was like a fringe tome. It is now standard on FOX News every night, to the point where the Associated Press did a poll with NORC. And they released a study called "Immigration Attitudes of Conspiracy Thinkers."

Among those ranked high in conspiratorial thinking, 42 percent agree -- of those agreed a group of people are trying to replace native-born Americans and that native-born Americans are losing economic, political and cultural influence to immigrants, compared to 8 percent of low-conspiracy thinkers.

And the belief in conspiracy -- Replacement Theory is much higher among viewers of OANN, Newsmax and FOX. So there is no -- there is statistical proof that they -- their viewers are the ones most likely to believe this stuff.

BARDELLA: Well, and this is what happens when an entire political party cedes public square to this toxic brand of idiocy and racism. This is the end result of that.

And that`s why I say a lot of this has been normalized right before our very eyes. I go back to remember when Donald Trump refer to immigrants from S-hole countries, and how, in the Republican world, that was met with laughter, as a joke, shrugging their shoulders. It`s just how he talks, no big deal.

But, really, what that was, was a smoke signal to their audience, to their voters, to their base that it`s OK to talk like that, to think like, that brown people are indeed drug dealers and rapists coming from the border to invade all of us.

We have watched this normalization in slow motion happen before our very eyes for the last five years. And now it is culminating with violence and mayhem. And it`s just the beginning, Joy.

REID: Yes.

BARDELLA: It is only going to get worse as long as the Republican Party and their leadership double down on it.

REID: Absolutely.

It`s a national security threat. It`s not just that they`re trying to ban books and ban history. They`re pushing a dangerous conspiracy theory that breeds violence. And Rupert Murdoch isn`t going to do a damn thing about it, because he`s making money off of it. That doesn`t seem right to me.

We will see what happens with this letter that Chuck Schumer has sent to FOX News. Probably nothing.

Kurt Bardella, thank you very much, my friend. Appreciate you.

Before we go, next week marks two years since the senseless killing of George Floyd. Today, Thomas Lane, one of the former Minneapolis police officers who was charged in connection with Floyd`s death, pled guilty to a state charge of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. The state and Lane`s attorney are recommending a sentence of three years.

Lane had already been convicted in a federal trial in February of violating Floyd`s civil rights. He has not yet been sentenced in that case.

Meanwhile, there is new reporting about the night that police killed Breonna Taylor, part of a blockbuster expose on the Louisville Police Department by VICE News.

The correspondent who`s breaking that story joins me tonight.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:52:46]

REID: It has been more than two years since Breonna Taylor was shot and killed in her Louisville home during a botched police raid, after officers with a no-knock warrant broke down her front door after midnight.

The 26-year-old emergency room technician, who was not even the target of the raid, was shot five times. To this day, none of the officers have been held accountable for killing an innocent unarmed woman in her own home, where she was supposed to be safe. The only charges ever brought were against one officer accused of endangering a neighboring white couple when shots were fired, went into their apartment.

And, even then, the officer was cleared. And no charges were ever filed regarding Breonna`s black neighbors, who also had bullet holes in their walls.

In a two-part special investigation that airs tonight and tomorrow, VICE News has uncovered new information about a host of illegal activities allegedly perpetrated by Louisville police officers, including sexual assault and pocketing cash from police seizures, including taking money from Breonna Taylor`s home after they killed her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTO FERDMAN, VICE NEWS: When you say crooked people, what do you mean?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like, keeping drugs, keeping money, and stuff that they seems off of the defendants. They would tell me, when and go do these busts that, like -- let`s just say four of them are going to do it. Everybody gets money split equally.

The most that I have ever seen him get was $500,000. They split most of the money amongst themselves.

FERDMAN: So, they only reported some of the $500,000

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t know if any of it got reported.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: VICE News correspondent Roberto Ferdman joins me now.

Thank you for being here, Roberto.

How widespread was -- this sounds like a theft ring.

FERDMAN: I mean, based on our reporting, I would say that it`s fairly widespread within the narcotics unit.

We have spoken to about two dozen people whose homes have been raided and who say that more money was taken than police reported. We have identified several different instances. And, through this reporting, it`s our understanding that this isn`t a matter of like one or two bad apples, people who are doing this, former narcotics officers, current narcotics officers at the department.

It was more of something like a dozen narcotics officers who either were doing this or must have known about this, because people that they were working with were executing warrants, seizing money, and then reporting less in many of these cases than people said was taken from their homes.

[19:55:00]

REID: Yes.

And were any of the officers that were involved in killing Breonna Taylor doing this?

FERDMAN: What we know is that the informant that you saw in this clip, who was describing what happened in a separate raid, the day after Breonna Taylor`s raid, says that they were told by a member in -- of Hankison -- Brett Hankison`s former unit, who was -- who was famously part of this raid, that $15,000 was found at the apartment that night.

They said that they don`t know what happened to it. But we spoke to Kenneth Walker, Breonna Taylor`s boyfriend, who was at the apartment that night. And he said that he was aware of $1,000 that there was at the apartment that went missing after the raid.

And then, on top of that, the day afterward, in a jail phone recall -- jail phone call, Breonna Taylor`s ex, Jamarcus Glover, who was at the center of this investigation that led to these raids, said that he`d given Breonna about $14,000. He says $8,000, plus another $6,000.

And I think it`s important to point out that there were three separate investigations into what happened that night, two by LMPD and one by the attorney general`s office. And despite an investigation, despite investigators at LMPD pointing out this jail call recording where the money is mentioned, there never seems to be -- have been an attempt to figure out if there was money there and, if so, who took it.

REID: And Daniel Cameron, who ostensibly was the leader of that investigation that was supposed to get to the truth, he`s now running for governor. That`s interesting.

But let`s talk about these other allegations that include sexual misconduct. Or, essentially, is this extorting sex out of defendants?

FERDMAN: I mean, the pattern that we have found and that we have seen through -- we have culled through hundreds of internal documents, most of them which the public hasn`t previously seen, interviews of officers -- we have spoken to victims -- is using the power that a police officer has to hold charges over someone`s head, for instance, after they have arrested a woman, to solicit sex from them, whether that`s any sort of sexual activity.

And these women, some of whom we have spoken to, have expressed how effective a police officer can be in wielding that power, because they have immense control over whether a charge is brought, whether a citation is handed in, and even what happens in the courtroom afterward.

REID: Is there any evidence that the department, internal affairs, or Daniel Cameron, who`s, again, running for governor, has tried to investigate any of this?

FERDMAN: The police department has fielded many complaints against police officers.

And I don`t think it`s fair to say that they haven`t tried to investigate. But what our reporting, we believe, has shown is that the efforts to investigate these complaints, especially when the initial complaints come in, have really fallen short.

They have not brought officers in for interviews. They have waited to request certain evidence, like officers` phones, and, in doing so, they have allowed some of these bad actors to continue acting unchecked, and, in some cases, victimize more women.

REID: Did you find evidence in your reporting that other officers who might know that these what really come down to sort of a crime ring or theft ring inside of the department and have tried to speak up, have felt intimidated or been afraid to come forward?

FERDMAN: Oh, I mean, I can say with great certainty that there is a lot of pressure internally to not speak to the press.

And I say this because many of our sources are current and former LMPD officers. I know that, this afternoon, after press started coming out, an e-mail was sent to the entire department by the public information officer reminding everyone that it is against policy to speak to the media and that all requests should go through them.

So, absolutely, there`s a lot of pressure to not speak to people out -- outside. There are people that really want to internally. But I think that part of this is a system problem.

REID: Yes.

FERDMAN: A big part of this is a system problem.

REID: And let me ask you this, because you know -- we know that departments, police departments around the country have chosen to settle and spend taxpayer money to pay when they kill people, unarmed people. This happens a lot.

Have there been attempts in these cases to settle with people who`ve had their money stolen, to cover it up that way?

FERDMAN: Well, in the local system there, plea deals are very common.

And this is true around the country. So -- and this is true in all sorts of cases. It`s true in sexual assault cases involving police officers. It`s true when someone`s home is raided.

REID: Yes.

FERDMAN: And the plea deals end up, I think, allowing for pretty lenient sentencing of officers and for things not to be found out by the public.

REID: Great reporting.

Roberto Ferdman, thank you very much.

You can see more of this terrific reporting on this two-part investigation tonight and tomorrow on VICE News. Please check it out on VICE TV.

That is tonight`s REIDOUT.

"ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now.