Summary
New reporting indicates that FBI agents seized more than 300 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, some containing the most sensitive secrets. Voters in several states head to the polls. Beto O`Rourke discusses his Texas gubernatorial campaign. The fight for abortion rights is examined.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on THE REIDOUT:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREW WEISSMANN, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: That is incredibly damning. If you`re a prosecutor, you really look for evidence of what the former president did personally. And if the DOJ either knows about or is soon to interview those people who are sources for "The New York Times," they`re going to have a substantial criminal case.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Substantial indeed, the fallout from the bombshell reporting that FBI agents seized more than 300 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, some containing the most sensitive secrets, shocking, but not surprising, given Trump`s history.
Also tonight, Ron DeSantis fancies himself a political Tom Cruise, seriously. He seems to believe it. And voters today are choosing the wannabe top gun`s opponent with democracy hanging in the balance.
That`s also true in Texas, where Beto O`Rourke is taking on Greg Abbott for governor. He joins me tonight.
Plus: Our worst fears are coming true. Republicans` forced birth laws are mandating women and girls to continue with pregnancies that will not even result in the birth of a living child. But the fight for abortion rights is on the march.
But we begin THE REIDOUT tonight with what we`re learning about just how highly classified the documents were that Donald Trump squirreled away at his Florida mansion resort and the security threat that they could present.
According to a May letter from the National Archives to one of Trump`s lawyers, the initial 15 boxes Trump turned over in January contained 700 pages that were marked as -- quote -- "classified national security information," up to the level of top secret and including sensitive, compartmented information and Special Access Program materials.
Now, what does that mean? Well, it suggests that some of the most highly protected material in the U.S. government material that, if disclosed, could betray sources and methods, was taken by Trump on his way out the door from the White House.
And while his current and former lawyers have claimed that Mar-a-Lago is as secure as it gets, a veritable Fort Knox, if you will, there are countless examples refuting that claim and showing the extreme risk that Trump was willing to take with our national security.
There is the Chinese businesswoman by the name of Yujing Zhang. Now, that is a name you might not be familiar with. She was actually deported last year to China after serving a prison sentence in Southern Florida. That`s because, back in 2019, she trespassed at Mar-a-Lago, initially making it past Secret Service agents at a security checkpoint.
Eventually, she was detained and found to be carrying four cell phones, a laptop computer, a hard drive, and a thumb drive that may have included some form of malware. And, apparently, back at her hotel room, she had a device that detects hidden cameras, and more than $8,000 in cash.
Now, she claimed that she just wanted to meet Donald Trump. But, as NBC News reported at the time, the full story remains unclear, because prosecutors filed secret evidence under seal saying it had national security implications.
Judge Roy Altman wrote important papers that releasing the evidence could cause serious damage to the country.
But she wasn`t the only one able to infiltrate the president`s Florida residence. In 2018, a college freshman was able to sneak in, also passing through a Secret Service security screening. He was able to wander around for a while before he was stopped. The 18-year-old told the judge: "I wanted to see how far I could get."
Well, apparently, pretty far.
So, if an 18-year-old can walk right in, what do you think might have happened in 2019 when Russian surveillance ships -- a Russian surveillance ship was spotted off the coast of Southern Florida? How difficult would it have been for the Kremlin to make their way in?
Well, when it comes to Mar-a-Lago, they wouldn`t have had to even set foot on the property to cause a security breach. In 2017, journalists from ProPublica and Gizmodo parked a 17-foot motorboat behind Mar-a-Lago to test its Internet security.
They wrote -- quote -- "Within a minute, we spotted three weakly encrypted Wi-Fi networks. We could have hacked them in less than five minutes. But we refrained" -- unquote.
[19:05:10]
Trump has shown just how protective he is about classified national security information. There was a time in 2017, when he was getting briefed on the public dining area -- in the public dining area of Mar-a-Lago about a North Korean missile test alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for all the paying members to see and overhear.
Trump aides were using cell phone lights pointed towards sensitive documents to openly discuss how they should respond. And all of this happen before Trump decided to use his resort as a de facto Trump national archive.
As "The New York Times" reports, in total, more than 300 documents with classified markings have been recovered so far from Mar-a-Lago, according to multiple people briefed on the matter.
So, just think about what it could have meant if someone snuck into Mar-a- Lago since Trump left the White House. They could have made their way to any -- to any one of the classified documents just sitting around the resort. And according to "The Times," it`s not like Trump was unaware of what was there.
Multiple people briefed on the matter tell "The Times" the former president personally went through the boxes in late 2021 before handing over the first batch in January. NBC News has also reached out to federal authorities and the Trump team for comment, but has not received a response.
Joining me now, Javed Ali, former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council and associate professor at the University of Michigan`s Ford School of Public Policy, Barbara McQuade, former U.S. attorney and professor at the University of Michigan Law School, and Antonio Fins, politics editor at "The Palm Beach Post."
Thank you all for being here.
I do want to go back, and I want to start off -- and I`m going to start with you, Mr. Fins, just about Mar-a-Lago itself. We know it`s a bit of a circus down there. It`s got a golf club. It`s Donald Trump`s little playground for celebrities and for his friends.
This is one of the headlines here. And this is from your reporting. And it says: "`Since Trump won the presidency, Mar-a-Lago was always a national security red flag. When you have a location like the White House or the Texas ranch, 99 percent of the people that are coming in and out are known, fully vetted individuals, depending on their clearances and access,` said Ross Thompson, a long time hand in private security who`s now CEO of COVAC Global in West Palm Beach.
"Mar-a-Lago is a private club, with potentially hundreds of guests and staff present throughout much of a 24-hour day during Palm Beach`s social season that runs from October to mid-May. So that makes the vetting challenge harder."
Talk about Mar-a-Lago. How open is it? How easy? I mean, it`s obviously easy to get on.
ANTONIO FINS, "THE PALM BEACH POST": Well, and we reported that.
You mentioned the 18-year-old that walked through a tunnel that connects the main club to the beach club, and he just walked in because he wanted to see how far he could get. And then we had the two Chinese nationals.
But the fact of the matter is that this is a club that is -- it`s unlike any other residence used by a previous president, because it is a business. It is where hundreds of people have access to, and not just the members, but their guests, their friends, whoever they might bring in."
REID: Did this change at all, Mr. Fins, once Donald Trump was president of the United States? Have they changed their security protocols other than having Secret Service there, from what I recall in the reporting, renting golf carts to drive them around?
Other than that, did they change anything about security?
FINS: No, I mean, you basically -- I went to events there. But, I mean, I gave them my driver`s license. They did a background check to the extent that they did.
Then I walked onto the property. And then I was basically I could do -- I had things to do, but I could have meandered around like any other guest there.
REID: Javed Ali, it seems obvious what a threat to national security that could be.
But walk us through -- just give us -- scaring is caring. That`s one of the little sayings we have on the show. How dangerous would it be to have highly secret national security documents in a place like that?
JAVED ALI, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Joy, great to be with you and great to be with my colleague Barbara too from Michigan.
But getting to your question, yes, this is extremely concerning. As someone who is a former intelligence professional, like myself and then spent a year in the White House, when you`re handling this type of information, whether it`s coming to you in written form with documents or even what information you get orally, it has to be -- these conversations and the documents have to be contained in what are called special compartmented information facility, so a SCIF.
And you can`t discuss or disclose anything outside the four walls of those kinds of facilities. So the fact that there were hundreds of pages or dozens of documents, to include very sensitive documents, in Mar-a-Lago for quite some period of time, and not in a SCIF, as an intelligence professional, that, to me, is highly alarming.
REID: Can you explain in some way or conceive in your mind how it could be possible that highly secretive documents could have even left the White House without somebody knowing that it happened?
[19:10:07]
ALI: Well, this must have happened in the process of President Trump leaving the White House. And why there wasn`t a more thorough examination of documents that were being transferred out of the White House into -- into his possession, that is an open question. We don`t have an answer to that.
But it shouldn`t have happened. I mean, every time a president leaves, there should be a very methodical and deliberate search to make sure that someone, even unintentionally, doesn`t walk away with these kinds of documents. But that doesn`t appear to have been the case.
REID: Clearly not.
Barbara, let`s go to what happened with the actual process of the government saying, no, give us this back.
So, Christina Bobb. In June, a gentleman named Jay Bratt, who`s the chief of the counterintel -- of the counterespionage section at the DOJ, went to Mar-a-Lago to meet with two Trump lawyers, Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb, and retrieve any remaining classified material for subpoena.
Mr. Bratt and the agents, according to the reporting from "New York Times," who joined him were given a sheaf of classified material, according to two people familiar with the meeting. Mr. Corcoran then drafted a statement, which Ms. Bobb, who was said to be the custodian of the documents, signed.
It asserted that, to the best of her knowledge, all classified material was there, had been returned, according to people familiar with the statement.
That clearly is not true. Could Christina Bobb, since she was the custodian these documents, be in some trouble?
BARBARA MCQUADE, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, absolutely.
Now, it would have to be that she knew that she was making a false statement. It may be that she relied in good faith on misrepresentations made by other lawyers or even Donald Trump himself.
But one of the really interesting things about that chronology is, it shows the efforts by the Justice Department to get these documents back and by the National Archives. It starts with a request for voluntary compliance.
And they say, in January, here you go, 15 boxes, all set. And they realize in May that that`s not all of it. Come on. Hand it over. Here`s a subpoena this time. We mean it.This is backed by a court order. Turn it over. Empty your pockets. Give us everything. And they give a sheaf of documents.
And then it turns out there`s 26 more boxes. It takes a search warrant to get it back. And so I know there have been some accusations that the Justice Department and the FBI have engaged in overreach here by using the search warrant to get these documents back.
If anything, I think it`s been under-reach. They have treated Donald Trump with such kid gloves. And as you have just heard from Javed, these are the nation`s crown jewels of secrets that had been kept off site in a very vulnerable place for months and months and months.
I would like to see a Justice Department, frankly, that acted a little more aggressively to safeguard our nation`s secrets.
REID: Javed Ali, if I was to have documents that should have been in a SCIF and they were highly classified and they were at my house, how might I have been treated differently than how Trump was?
Because Trump is making it sound, as Barb just said, as if he was treated like a common criminal, which it sounds like he might be.
ALI: If you were in possession of those, trust me, you would have FBI agents knocking on your doors. And the same would have applied to myself and Barb when we were leaving government.
Had we knowingly and willingly walked away with very sensitive documents, and then not turned them back over, even if somehow there was a mistake in the process, yes, the FBI would have come knocking as well. So I don`t think this was an example of FBI overreach. I say that as a former FBI official too.
But I just think it was the bureau, as Barb said, exhausting -- or DOJ and the FBI exhausting all these different options, and then using the last tool they had to get this information back in the government`s hands.
REID: Honestly, they would have licked in the door -- they would have kicked down the door and come in and gotten those documents.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: Barb, just to go back to this filing that Donald Trump put in, this was the judge`s response, ordering Trump to give details about the Mar-a- Lago search warrant lawsuit.
So this is in response to the Trump lawsuit yesterday asking a federal judge to appoint a special master to review the documents that were seized and give back anything that`s not relevant.
Judge Aileen Cannon, who`s a Trump appointee, sets a Friday deadline that they need to address the multiple issues. Most importantly, what is the jurisdiction that the court has in this matter? Like, what do you want from me? Exactly what relief they`re seeking from the judge, including whether they`re seeking an injunction, and what effect this filing has on existing proceedings in a sealed search warrant case before the magistrate judge?
What -- in plain English, in non-lawyer English, what does that mean?
MCQUADE: I think she`s issuing an order saying, what the hell is this?
(LAUGHTER)
MCQUADE: It`s procedurally just a mess. It`s a brand-new lawsuit. It states no cause of action. It is unclear why this wasn`t filed with the magistrate judge who already has jurisdiction over this case and who has been deciding it.
And she has asked some very obvious, pointed questions. I think it would have been within her right to simply dismiss it as improvidently filed, but she`s giving him the benefit of the doubt, on a short leash, to explain, what is it you`re asking for? Why have you filed it here? And how is it that I have jurisdiction?
Why aren`t you going to ask the magistrate for this? So I think that`s what she`s asking for, that sort of clarity. It`s really unclear to me why lawyers would have signed their names to this document. It is really just a long rant by Donald Trump talking about how he`s yet again a victim here.
[19:15:08]
Substantively, asking for a special master is not unheard of. Sometimes, it is done in cases where there is likely to be a privileged documentation, attorney-client privilege. For example, Michael Cohen, when his office was searched, a special master was appointed there to review the material as a filter to make sure that anything that was protected by attorney-client privilege didn`t get turned over.
That would make some sense. Here though, the basis for this request is executive privilege. And you can`t supersede privilege by the very executive who owns it. And that is the executive branch, which is actually seeking these documents back.
So it`s a bit of a mess. I expect it to go nowhere. But the judge has given him courtesy of asking these questions to see if there`s any basis for giving him any sort of relief here.
REID: He is getting more courtesy than David Petraeus, who was a military -- he served this country, put his body on the line for the United States, General David Petraeus.
He`s -- Trump, who -- Mr. Bone Spurs, who might have thieved classified materials, is being treated better than David Petraeus. Make that makes sense.
Javed Ali, Barbara McQuade, Antonio Fins, thank you all very much.
Up next: It is primary night, with democracy on the line in Florida. And incumbent Democrats are duking it out in New York against each other.
The REIDOUT continues after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:21:05]
REID: It`s another big primary day, with voters in two of America`s largest states, New York and Florida, headed to the polls.
Now, in New York, redistricting has led to multiple intraparty battles for Democrats. And then there`s Florida, where Congressman and former Governor Charlie Crist and Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried are locked in a tight battle to take on current Governor Ron DeSantis.
Let`s start with MSNBC national political correspondent Steve Kornacki at the Big Board.
And I know polls have just recently closed. But we know they got the Panhandle coming in at 8:00, but the bulk of them have closed. So, Steve, what are we looking at?
STEVE KORNACKI, NBC NEWS NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and we`re looking at a blowout, Joy.
I mean, you can see there`s just a slice of the state here. You mentioned part of the Panhandle, it won`t close until 8:00 Eastern time, but it`s a small sliver in terms of the overall vote. And Florida is one of those states, they count it very, very quickly.
So, you can see we have basically got two-thirds of the vote already counted up here in the Democratic race, and all you see is that Charlie Crist blew throughout the state.
REID: Wow.
KORNACKI: One exception there. That`s where Gainesville, that`s where the University of Florida is. That`s where Nikki Fried`s winning by a couple of points.
But these are just massive margins that you`re seeing Crist rack up around the state. His base, his congressional district that he currently represents will be right here in the sort of Tampa area, but take a look at a place like Orange County. Yes, this is where Orlando is. He`s running near 60 percent of the vote.
The big counties here in South Florida, Broward County, better than 2-1, Miami-Dade basically 2-1, Palm Beach basically 2-1. So, because the state doesn`t all close until 8:00, NBC won`t make an official characterization of this race until 8:00 p.m. Eastern.
But, again, you can see that`s only because a very small sliver here, both geographically and in terms of the electorate, in the Democratic primary, a very small sliver won`t close until 8:00.
REID: Yes.
KORNACKI: But I think you can clearly get the picture here that Charlie Crist already is having an extremely good night in his Democratic primary in Florida.
And, again, winner of this Democratic primary gets Ron DeSantis in the fall. If this is indeed Charlie Crist, Charlie Crist was the Republican governor from 2006 to 2010. He ran as the Democratic nominee for governor in 2014 and lost in a close one to Rick Scott. This would be his third time running for governor, second time as a Democrat.
REID: Yes, real quick, before I let you go, Steve, because just so -- want people to understand, because people have come to think of Florida as like the worst voting state, where people, they don`t know what they`re doing.
Just to explain to folks who are not familiar with it, as you and I are, why Florida finishes so quickly, why they -- why we get numbers so fast.
KORNACKI: Yes. Yes. No, it`s a great point, because we all remember 2000 in Florida.
REID: Yes.
KORNACKI: And it was the site of the worst disaster for election reporting that we can remember two decades ago, but they made changes in the wake of that.
And, basically, Florida has extensive mail-in voting. It has extensive early voting, and it has same day voting. And they allow the processing of all those early votes, the processing of the mail-in votes long before polls close on election night.
And, in fact, the rule is counties have -- the first 30 minutes after polls close...
REID: Yes.
KORNACKI: ... counties must report out all of the early vote they have in all of the mail vote they have.
So what it means is, at 7:00 Eastern time -- that`s why every election -- and this will be true this fall, by the way, a little preview...
REID: Yes.
KORNACKI: ... for folks -- 7:00 p.m. Eastern time this fall, we`re going to spend a lot of time looking at Florida, because we`re just going to get the most results from Florida.
REID: Yes.
KORNACKI: It lights up like a Christmas tree in those first 30 minutes.
REID: Oh, I remember it well.
Steve Kornacki, the Kornackster, thank you very much, my friend. I really appreciate you.
KORNACKI: You got it.
REID: OK, now for his part, Ron DeSantis, he is already looking way past November, running the world`s most transparent and in some ways most hilarious 2024 campaign.
Look no further than his Top Gun-themed ad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is your governor speaking.
Today`s training evolution, dogfighting, taking on the corporate media. The rules of engagement are as follows. Number one, don`t fire unless fired upon. But when they fire, you fire back with overwhelming force.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[19:25:03]
(LAUGHTER)
REID: Sorry.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: Whew, lord, baby, find somebody who loves you enough to never, ever, ever let you look like ridiculous on video. Come on now.
I mean, what`s his call name going to be, I Hate Drag Brunch? Lord have mercy.
Joining me...
(LAUGHTER)
REID: Joining me now is former Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri.
She is an MSNBC political analyst and hopefully will get me together, our Ali Vitali, who is sitting next to me, NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent and author of the new book "Electable: Why America Hasn`t Put a Woman in the White House... Yet." It`s out today. Go and pick it up.
Here it is. I got my copy. I`m going to get it signed before I let this lady leave here.
ALI VITALI, NBC NEWS CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, you got it.
REID: Oh, but, listen, I got to come to you, my sister.
The Top Gun ad...
VITALI: What woman would ever put an ad out like that?
(LAUGHTER)
REID: His wife tweeted it out. I mean, it`s one of those things where you -- where nobody who loves you should ever say that`s a good idea. Somebody should have intervened.
But that kind of ad -- and I think it gets to kind of what you`re talking about here. The macho factor of trying to sort of make yourself Tom Cruise.
VITALI: Yes.
REID: When you clearly ain`t Tom Cruise.
VITALI: Well, it doesn`t get more masculine than Top Gun.
And if you`re in an executive role, you want to be as masculine as possible. And in Republican politics, you want to be extra as masculine as possible, right?
REID: Yes. Yes.
But that gave me the Dukakis with a big helmet vibe.
VITALI: A little bit, but it`s also like in Arizona. When he was with Kari Lake, she said BDE, right?
REID: Yes. Yes.
VITALI: Big DeSantis energy. This is all kind of part and parcel to what they`re trying to build as an image.
REID: And he has a lot of things. BDE ain`t one of them. BDE not -- it`s not one of them.
Let`s go on to Nikki....
VITALI: Look, I think it`s outside my purview.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: Yes. Let`s go to Nikki Fried.
He gives some energy, but that ain`t the energy.
Let`s talk about Nikki Fried. Now, that blowout is significant.
VITALI: Yes.
REID: Now, I presumed -- and I have to be honest -- that that was going to be the outcome, that, in this state, even though Nikki Fried is statewide- elected...
VITALI: Yes.
REID: ... you and I both know, Florida is not a state that loves to elect women.
VITALI: Well, look, we all remember 2018, when Gwen Graham trying to make that argument.
REID: Yes.
VITALI: And Andrew Gillum got the nomination. That was a race that I covered extensively.
And Florida really did think that they might have been on the cusp of not just electing a woman to run for that seat, but for electing their first female governor. And we all remember the ways that that shook out.
And I think that kind of speaks to the broader landscape of what I talk about in the book, frankly, which is, like, how do you run as a woman for positions where we haven`t seen women successfully run before?
REID: That`s right.
VITALI: And that specter hangs over Florida too.
REID: Well, but, Claire, let me bring you in here, because you now have Val Demings, who I would argue is the single strongest individual candidate, male or female, that they could have come up with to run statewide. She`s just that person.
She`s got the right kind of down the road, on that Harley energy. She`s liked by everybody that knows her down there. Talk about her prospects, then, running in a state like Florida that has had an allergy to electing women statewide, other than a few people. Alex Sink and Nikki Fried are the exceptions. And I think they have had an A.G.
CLAIRE MCCASKILL, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I mean, it probably helps Val Demings does love to ride motorcycles and is a police chief, not a sergeant, not a lieutenant, not a commissioner. She was the boss.
REID: Yes.
MCCASKILL: And that`s very unusual to -- I mean, it`s becoming more common now. But it`s only been in the last 10 years that you saw women as police chiefs in major metropolitan areas.
And Orlando is certainly a big area for someone to run the police department. So she`s got the kind of bona fides that, frankly, help with the problem that Ali is alluding to. And that is, there are still people out there that think, if a woman is so strong to do it, then she`s too strong, and I don`t like her.
And I think Val Demings has got that great combination of strength, but she`s normal and likable and can laugh at herself and smiles a lot. I think Marco Rubio is in trouble. I know we`re not talking about Florida as often as we`re talking about Pennsylvania, or...
REID: Yes.
MCCASKILL: But let me just put a marker down here. I think Marco Rubio is in trouble.
REID: Yes.
And I think, Ali, Florida has a way of feeling predictable and predictably -- you`re -- it`s starting to look like it`s becoming a red state.
VITALI: Yes. It`s trending Ohio.
REID: But it is still a state that the results are narrow.
VITALI: Yes.
REID: Let`s not forget that Ron DeSantis barely beat Andrew Gillum.
VITALI: Well, yes. I was there for those recounts. And, by the way, they trigger automatically at 0.5 percent and 0.25 percent.
REID: Yes.
VITALI: So that`s part of...
(CROSSTALK)
REID: And Nelson, it was close too. The Nelson race was close as both as well.
VITALI: Exactly, both of those. Exactly.
And so I think that`s one of the realities of Florida is, it is always going to be a swingy swing state, even when those swings end up on the red side of the spectrum.
REID: Yes.
VITALI: I also think, though, with Val Demings, one of the reasons that she`s such a powerful presence in this Senate race, yes, it`s because of her own profile that she brings to the table.
But it`s also a result of the Biden veepstakes, where they had as many women in that veepstakes more than ever before, because he laid that mile marker. But the goal of it, from my conversations with people who were running it, was to elevate as many of these women to the national consciousness in a positive way as possible.
[19:30:02]
You can kind of argue that the whole ambition, is she too ambitious news cycle detracted from that. But, by and large, people like Val Demings, Tammy Duckworth, Gretchen Whitmer, all of these names that are big names now in politics and, frankly, will be going forward in the Democratic Party...
REID: Sure.
VITALI: ... are elevated by that process, because Biden laid that mile marker.
REID: Absolutely.
And, Claire, I have to it -- it would be -- I`d be remiss in not asking, in the end, how do you think this X-factor of Roe v. Wade being gone changes the prospects for -- there are a lot of women candidates. You got Cheri Beasley in North Carolina. You have got Val Demings. You have got multiple women candidates.
Does this change the dynamic?
MCCASKILL: Yes, Maggie Hassan, Catherine Cortez Masto.
REID: Yes.
MCCASKILL: There are a bunch of women that are running.
But, more importantly, I think what it has done -- typically, the midterms, always, Joy, it`s a problem of getting voters motivated. Trust me, women are motivated after the Dobbs decision.
REID: Yes.
MCCASKILL: We saw it in Kansas.
REID: Yes.
MCCASKILL: The suburban women of America. And Marco Rubio is one of many candidates who thinks the government should force birth on a victim of incest.
That is not going to fly with American women. And I think they`re going to turn out. And I think it made this election into something other than a red wave election, that singular Supreme Court decision, and the fact that all these Republican legislatures are trying to go to the ultimate extreme position in terms of how they are now legislating abortion rights in their states.
REID: I agree with you 100 percent. I think our analysis is exactly the same on this. We will see how that turns out.
Claire McCaskill, thank you very much, as always.
Ali Vitali, who dressed to match her book, which I thoroughly respect, fashion, sartorial choices very, very respected here.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: Thank you very much, Ali, and best of luck with the book.
All right, Beto O`Rourke. Coming up, Beto O`Rourke is running for Texas governor. And we have a lot, a lot to talk with him about, from extreme weather to the big lie and what it all means for Texas and for the country.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:36:43]
REID: It doesn`t take a genius to figure out that Texas has become one of the front-line states facing the very real consequences of the climate crisis.
From Sunday evening into midday Monday, the skies opened up on the Dallas/Fort Worth area, where thunderstorms dropped massive amounts of rain, inundating streets, flooding homes and forcing drivers to abandon their cars.
One woman was killed after her car was swept away by floodwaters. While rainfall in Dallas was enough to break a one-day record, it was not enough to end the state`s worst drought since 2011. Almost the entire state was under some sort of severe level drought.
It`s been so bad that cattle ranchers have been forced to sell off their cows because pastureland is dried up and hay is too expensive. Parts of South Texas served by reservoirs across the Rio Grande -- the Rio Grande -- are facing water shortage problems. And the excruciatingly high temperatures have put increased pressure on an already fragile electrical grid.
Governor Greg Abbott, who earlier today refused to even utter the words climate change, has made Texas the poster child for fighting climate- focused legislation, directing state agencies to challenge any, any federal action.
Naturally, he opposes the Inflation Reduction Act, even though Texas will be a major beneficiary, since Texas produces more wind energy than any other state. And it`s second only to California in clean energy jobs.
But that`s not the only storm that`s brewing in Texas.
Joining me now is the Democratic nominee for Texas governor, former Congressman Beto O`Rourke, he`s the author of the new book "We`ve Got to Try: How the Fight for Voting Rights Makes Everything Else Possible."
And I definitely -- voting is -- it is my thing. It`s my favorite thing to talk about. So I definitely want to get to that with you.
But I want to start by talking about this situation in Texas, because it feels like, in some fundamental ways, this massive state that could be a little country has utterly failed to account for what climate change will do to it.
BETO O`ROURKE (D), TEXAS GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: First of all, we just want to urge everyone in North Texas to follow the precautions laid out by public leaders like Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.
Also make sure that you`re getting in your damage reports for FEMA reimbursement. We`re there for those who are undergoing the worst flooding and the worst rainfall that we have seen in 1,000 years in this part of Texas.
But, Joy, to your point, these are the consequences of our emissions, our inaction in the face of the consequences of climate change, and our inability to take the right steps, the action necessary to confront this before it`s too late.
No state contributes more to climate change than Texas. No state suffers the consequences more than the state of Texas. But the upside of this is, no state could do more to change this than the state of Texas. We`re the energy leader of the world today, primarily through oil and gas, and we`re grateful for that.
But let`s expand that leadership to include more renewable energy, wind and solar and hydrogen and geothermal. The jobs that come along with that, we want those here in Texas, and we want to do our part before it`s too late.
Dallas, Mesquite, these communities understand it today. Houston understood it in 2017. And, as you mentioned, much of the state is going through an historic drought that is just hammering these farmers and ranchers throughout Texas. It`s time for us to act.
[19:40:10]
REID: And Texas, because of its scale, because of its size, it really has become sort of an experiment, like a laboratory, unfortunately, for some of the worst things that have happened in the United States in terms of our culture.
In terms of voting rights, it led the way in making it incredibly hard for people to vote, focused on Houston, that area, Harris County, on abortion, stripping women of the right to choose and then putting bounties on their heads, in terms of textbooks, refusing to even have Texas history properly taught in schools, which impacts textbooks all over the country.
How do you change that?
O`ROURKE: It`s all connected.
I don`t think we get these results, like a total ban on abortion, with no exception for rape or incest, that Greg Abbott signed into law, I don`t think you get the attacks on public school educators, who are so grossly underpaid and under constant attack from their governor and their state government, you don`t get this if we have a true functioning democracy where the right to vote is respected.
But today in Texas, it`s harder to vote, it`s hard to register to vote here than in any other state. And it`s by design. And some Texans are more the focus of that suppression than are others. When you have 750 polling place closures in our state, twice the number of the next closest state, and most of them concentrated in the fastest-growing black and brown neighborhoods in the state of Texas, then you understand exactly what`s happening.
The only answer to this is more democracy, getting on the doors of those who are the targets of suppression and intimidation, making sure that we help to turn them out, so that they provide the margin of victory on the night of November 8.
That`s what this book "We`ve Got to Try" is about. We have been up against the odds before, greater odds, and have overcome them. So not only is this possible. We have done it before.
Lawrence Nixon, I try to tell his story in the book, an El Paso physician, founded the first chapter of the NAACP in the state of Texas. And when Texas outlawed voting by African-Americans in 1923, he fought it for 21 years, won two signal Supreme Court victories, integrated our elections in 1944, and set the ground for LBJ to sign the Voting Rights Act in `65.
Those victories came from Texas. So this is the home to that suppression and this extremism that you`re describing. But it`s also the home to people who meet the moment. And that`s what we`re going to do in this election.
REID: Last thing. I would be remiss if I didn`t ask you about Uvalde, the tragedy there, and the many other gun massacres that have broken the hearts of the entire country, if not the world.
It`s one of the things that you have been strongest on. You had a little F- bomb moment recently that I think a lot of people were hell-yeah-ing you for.
Why is it so difficult to pass gun reform in Texas, when you could do it in Florida, where Marion Hammer is the de facto governor?
O`ROURKE: It`s because of Greg Abbott, our current governor, who is more beholden to the NRA, the special interests, the gun manufacturers than he is to the very people he`s supposed to serve, especially our kids.
It`s been 13 weeks since those 19 kids and our two teachers were taken from us, 13 weeks where he`s failed to call a special session, even though he`s called them for CRT, and going after trans kids, and weakening the right to vote in the state of Texas. Won`t call it to save the lives of our children.
And now they`re all starting this next school year, Joy, without any new protections to prevent them from experiencing the same exact fate that those kids in Uvalde or Santa Fe High School before them or El Paso, Midland, Odessa, Sutherland Springs. Five of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history have taken place in this state in the last five years.
REID: Yes.
O`ROURKE: We need action, and we need change, and we need it now.
REID: Beto O`Rourke, thank you so much for being here. And best of luck with the book. I hope everybody will check it out and read it. It`s so important. It`s about voting. And that is so important.
Best of luck in your campaign, Beto O`Rourke. Appreciate you.
All right, and coming up next: a reality -- the reality of a post-Roe America is here. And, like many people feared, it too closely resembles "The Handmaid`s Tale."
Stay with us.
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[19:48:55]
REID: The end of federally protected abortion rights, thanks to the Supreme Court`s far right majority, has quickly eroded and fragmented our health care system.
We hear these stories daily, and they are truly awful and dystopian. The pregnant Louisiana woman who must either carry a fetus that has no skull to term or cross state lines to obtain safe abortion care. The woman undergoing a miscarriage sent home from the hospital, instructed to return when blood filled a diaper more than once an hour. And a Florida court ruling that a parentless 16-year-old seeking an abortion was not mature enough to determine whether to terminate her pregnancy, but apparently mature enough to be a mother by force.
The anti-abortion crusade, they call themselves pro-life, but that`s just another term created to gaslight America. They don`t value life at all. They don`t value your health, your privacy or your bodily autonomy or your humanitarian right to live freely and fully.
These horrific headlines about people and their lives is their vision for America. One Republican lawmaker in South Carolina now understands the consequences of his actions, after learning about a 19-year-old woman whose water broke after just 15 weeks of pregnancy.
[19:50:03]
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STATE REP. NEAL COLLINS (R-SC): The attorneys told the doctors that, because of the fetal heartbeat bill, because that 15-week old had a heartbeat, the doctors could not extract. There`s a 50 percent chance, greater than 50 percent chance that she`s going to lose her uterus.
There`s a 10 percent chance that she will develop sepsis and herself die. That weighs on me. I voted for that bill. These are affecting people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: No kidding.
Well, we don`t expect the rest of the party to see the light, and we certainly don`t have time to spare. Right now, one in three American women has already lost abortion access. It is an astonishing statistic, also a murky one, based on a chaotic and confusing landscape, where abortion trigger bans are in effect, while other forced-birth laws are tied up in the courts.
But one thing is for certain. The post-Roe landscape is here, and it is merciless, which is why Planned Parenthood is pouring a record $50 million into this year`s midterm elections in an effort to elect abortion rights supporters across the country.
Alexis McGill Johnson, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, joins me next.
Stay right there.
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[19:55:13]
REID: The future of women`s reproductive rights in post-Roe America absolutely, hands down depends on who gets elected this November, point blank, period, and who controls the Congress and the state legislatures, which is why Planned Parenthood is spending a record $50 million in a bid to galvanize voters.
Joining me now, Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood.
Let`s talk about this $50 million. The states that I have on my list here in front of me are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. What`s the plan? And, in your view, what is at stake?
ALEXIS MCGILL JOHNSON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, PLANNED PARENTHOOD: Joy, look, as you described in your intro, like, what is at stake is the fact that abortion rights, we know, are going to play a defining role in the `22 midterms.
Because people are experiencing the reality of what these bans have meant to them currently, and what they have always been designed to do, which is to harm health care, which is to harm patients, which is to challenge providers and people who have taken oaths to save lives and to protect people, and putting them in really challenging circumstances, to your example of making people choose how they are going to address a challenge with an intended pregnancy that they can no longer provide access to abortion with when it`s no longer viable.
That`s why Planned Parenthood Advocacy and Political Organizations are running our largest ever electoral program in 2022, because people are enraged. They are completely recognizing the fact that there are electeds all over this country that are responsible for the mess that they were in, and we`re going to hold them accountable.
REID: Yes, we`re talking about give -- forcing women to give birth essentially to a corpse, which could cause sepsis, and kill the woman that is carrying this dead fetal -- this dead fetus. That`s what they`re saying the laws say you have to do it.
What do you make of these lawmakers, like the one gentleman who suddenly, after they vote for it, then they realize that what they passed could result in a teenager dying because she can`t terminate a pregnancy that is not viable?
MCGILL JOHNSON: Look, it`s the proverbial dog who caught the car, right?
Like, they -- it`s this person who, like, had this goal that they had been hell-bent on trying to make sure that they were banning access to abortion, with not really understanding fully the implications for what it means when you take away control from people to govern their bodies, when you take away the ability for actual providers to make decisions for their patients in ways that help them save their lives.
And so I think that that`s what`s actually happening with many of these folks, that they didn`t really understand the full implications. And we also see the number of politicians and electeds who are introducing laws that would further constrain the right, introducing bills to criminalize what it means to travel across state lines to get access to care, further putting fear in -- and a chilling effect on what it means to get access to care.
All of these things, I think, are what people who are running for office now have to look at and be able to answer, and it`s what Planned Parenthood Advocacy Organizations and other partners are going to be holding them accountable to.
REID: And, specifically, what`s the plan for these funds? Is this about funding individual candidates? Is it about funding state parties? What is the specific plan?
MCGILL JOHNSON: It`s about mobilization.
Look, I mean, what we have seen in the immediate aftermath of Roe v. Wade, right, is that we saw these anti-abortion candidates continue to double down and pursue a deeply radical, extreme, unpopular agenda around continuing to constrain access to care.
And I think that what we have done is basically just show people what their choices are. You can vote for the people who are really extreme on these issues, or you could actually vote to govern your own body with people who actually support your access to choice.
Just look at Kansas, right? Abortion rights were literally on the ballot. And we saw Kansas come out in droves to support the right to choose. And so I think that`s really incredibly important. The majority of Americans do support access to abortion in every single state.
And when they really look at what`s happening, they look at the number of states that have done these restrictions, it`s also actually helping us understand how gerrymandered these states have become, how it is possible that you can have a state where there is majority support, but you actually can`t have the laws that you want because you have these politicians who have been safely put into these seats.
And so I actually think, as my colleague at NARAL Mini Timmaraju likes to say, abortion is actually going to save democracy, because, if we can go state by state, and we can actually transform the way in which people understand not just what it means to fight for abortion access, but what it means to actually transform how we vote in each state and vote locally to ensure that protection...
REID: Yes.
MCGILL JOHNSON: ... that`s what`s at stake right now.
REID: And, by the way, hopefully, the message is being communicated. It`s control of state legislatures that determines who controls your body at this point.
MCGILL JOHNSON: Right.
REID: State legislatures and governors.
Planned Parenthood Action Fund president Alexis McGill Johnson, thank you very much for all you do.
And that is tonight`s REIDOUT.
"ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now.