Summary
Alex Jones facing nearly $50 million in total damages for lying about Sandy Hook school shooting. President Biden`s adviser on job growth amid recession fears. Donald Trump is ignoring advice to top speaking with January 6 witnesses. Former Attorney General Eric Holder expects criminal charges for Donald Trump.
Transcript
KATIE PHANG, MSNBC HOST: Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. A jury in Texas right now coming in with an award for the Sandy Hook families in the amount of $45.2 million in punitive damages. A monster punishment for lying about the tragic Sandy Hook massacre and the defamation of the parents who lost their children during that incident.
In total, with the compensatory damages that were awarded to the plaintiffs yesterday, Alex Jones, must pay over $49 million for the hell that he put these grieving families through. The lawyer for Sandy Hook parents telling the jury this in closing arguments today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WESLEY BALL, ATTORNEY FOR SANDY HOOK PARENTS: The man is worth almost $270 million that we know of. Take an amount from him that punishes him and then take another amount that ensures that he never does this again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHANG: So the real question is, will something like this verdict end up making people like Alex Jones and others not do something like this again? A $49 million award coming after Sandy Hook parents confronted Alex Jones on what his lies did to them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEIL HESLIN, FATHER OF SANDY HOOK VICTIM: I can`t even describe the last nine and a half years of the living hell that I and others have had to endure because of the negligence and the recklessness of Alex Jones. What was said about me, and Sandy Hook itself. It resonates from around the world. My life has been threatened. I fear for my life. I feel for my safety.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHANG: Joining me now is Joyce Vance, former fellow prosecutor and United States attorney, and Will Sommer, politics reporter for the "Daily Beast" who has been all over this story from the beginning.
Joyce, let me start with you as an attorney. What is your response to this new punitive damages verdict that just came in?
JOYCE VANCE, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Well, this is a smart award for the punitive damages, combined with compensatory damages by this jury. Of course compensatory damages are designed to compensate victims and make them whole. But punitive damages, this new award today, that`s meant purely to punish a defendant. And typically, what defendants do after large awards like this, is that they will take an appeal and try to get an appellate court to either reduce the amount or to say that the award of punitive damages isn`t supported based on the facts.
So this measured award which is a significantly less than what the plaintiffs sought will be something that should be defensible on appeal given the evidence that the jury heard, and not so overbearing that a court might be tempted to reduce or deny it in whole.
PHANG: Will, as we mentioned a few minutes ago, you`ve been following this since the very beginning. We know that the parents in case, in this particular case because there`s one of three, they were looking for $150 million in compensatories and then the punitives, clearly yesterday $4.1 million was considerably less. What is your reaction to the fact that this jury said we`re going to do $45.2 million in punitives? We`re going to tag Alex Jones with that amount?
WILL SOMMER, THE DAILY BEAST POLITICS REPORTER: Sure, I mean, I think it still a very significant amount. I mean, I think often we know lawyers come in and a plaintiff`s attorneys request, you know, a very high number, in this case $150 million. Ultimately, counting compensatory and the punitive I think this jury believe that they were awarding roughly $50 million to the plaintiffs.
Unfortunately as the other guest mentioned, on appeal, this could be significantly lower than that. I believe there are some -- the judge mentioned just now that there are some Texas laws that I think will reduce the punitive damages significantly. It`s a little unclear right now what that`s going to amount to. But I think a positive side for people who are looking for Alex Jones to get some pushback here today is that this is a very significant verdict. And I think maybe in another state or another trial, these big damages to keep coming in.
PHANG: Yes, but, Joyce, we talked about this at the beginning of the show. The idea that punitive damages punish, but they`re also supposed to serve as a deterrent factor. It`s this idea that if you get tagged with a large enough verdict, that either it completely stops you in the tract, which is what exactly this plaintiff`s lawyer asked for the jury to do to make Alex Jones be so ineffective financially that he couldn`t do this again.
We see this sometimes in criminal cases where you get a very high sentence so you can deter others from doing this. Do you think this type of number will have the intended effect that the plaintiffs wanted in this case?
VANCE: So this sort of a significant jury verdict does act as a deterrent to the kinds of people who think rationally before they engage in the kind of conduct that Alex Jones engaged in. A lot of people in fact seem to be even more deterred by paying large clients, and this is a large fine, than they are by doing a short criminal sentence so that can become an interesting question in these sorts of situations.
[18:05:03]
The reality is that even if Jones` financial net worth is as high as the plaintiffs believe they`ve proved, it`s likely not entirely liquid. And so this judgment of just under $50 million will represent a real stress on his finances if it holds up in court. That`s the kind of headline that gets the attention of the other would-be wrongdoers or in this case people who like to propagate fake news. Hopefully it will serve a social good in addition to helping the Sandy Hook families.
PHANG: Will, to Joyce`s point, Alex Jones` InfoWars, the company, the parent company, though, for InfoWars filing for bankruptcy during the course of this damages phase of the trial. Is this actually going to be a recoverable verdict or is it more of what we would call a pyrrhic victory, this idea that perhaps he`s been tagged with this high verdict but maybe the families in and of themselves won`t be able to see the realization of any of the dollars in this case?
SOMMER: It`s a great question. I mean, I think even before this trial happened Alex Jones and InfoWars were doing a lot of kind of various schemes to hide its resources. The lawyers in both Texas and Connecticut in the Sandy Hook case there have I think argued pretty compellingly that he was acting in bad faith, that he was shifting money to essentially made-up companies controlled by his family members in an attempt to make InfoWars and its parent company, the shell companies look bankrupt so that, you know, ultimately if any verdict came out as it did today that it wouldn`t be recoverable.
So I think there`s kind of a long road ahead here for the lawyers in the Sandy Hook families still. On the other hand you know there still are two more cases to go and so even though this number scene may seem very big, obviously it`s going to be reduced, but ultimately I think there are more damages to come for Alex Jones and perhaps in a very significant way.
PHANG: Joyce, let`s shift gears just a little bit and talk about some of the evidentiary issues, excuse me, that comes out of this. Will mentioned that there are two other cases to go. It`s possible, right, Joyce, for the testimony that came out during this particular trial in Texas that Alex Jones said that that other people said including the corporate representative for the companies, that can be used in the other trials so it`s not like it`s a clean slate every time those plaintiffs` lawyers go at bat.
VANCE: Absolutely. This situation just keeps getting worse for Jones and in subsequent trials because of the availability of this evidence. Had this trial gone well for him then this might have been a good bellwether case for the future but it turns out it`s a bad omen.
PHANG: So, Will, here`s what the plaintiff`s attorneys said about Alex Jones claims about his own network today. Let`s take a quick listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BALL: We got a text message that says he made almost $4 million in one week years after he was kicked off of his platforms. You think he just randomly accidentally stumbled backwards into $4 million in one week? When he breathes, he lies. I stand here today and tell you that everything else Jones said on that stand that we didn`t make him say was a lie. He lied to make his money. And he`s lying to keep his money.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHANG: Will, the lawyer is saying he`s a liar. Was it necessary, Will, for -- do you think for this lawyer to tell this jury that Alex Jones is a liar and if so do you really think it kind of move the needle to get them to award the type of punitive damages they did today?
SOMMER: You know, I think it may have/ You know, I think a lot of us are reluctant to just say someone is a liar or just constantly say someone is just essentially every time he speaks he`s lying. But I think it really applies in the case of Alex Jones here particularly in this trial, you know there`s a reason he rolled up to this by authority of simply lost because he had violated the rules of court procedure, him and his lawyer so off that the judge declared him in default.
So, and this is someone who really has I think acted really flagrantly in this trial and look, I mean in terms of making jury mad it couldn`t help that he was going on his show and saying, you know, essentially this jury is a bunch of dufuses who are easily duped, to call them like very blue collar obviously implying that their dumb and uneducated. So the -- you know, he really was not exactly winning over the jury or the judge.
PHANG: You know, Will and Joyce, this family, we talk about how they`re still more to come for them that they may have to chase down and do collections on this judgment.
Joyce, quickly before we run out of limited time right now, do you think, though, that the families in this case are going to get the type of closure that they need after sustaining such a tragic loss of their children? Is this something that still is going to send a message for others that try to spread the type of blatant lies and disinformation and misinformation like the Alex Joneses of the world?
VANCE: Money will never compensate these families for their losses. They know that and of course we all know that but I think they can maintain some sense that they have vindicated their children and what they themselves have been through if they`re able to prevent it from happening to other families.
[18:10:11]
So this is part of the debate we`re having in this country about whether there is still truth and whether truth matters. Today this is a blow in favor of the truth. And this is the kind of thing that ultimately help the family if not get closure at least find a sense of purpose and move forward.
PHANG: Will Sommer, thank you for being on this story since the very beginning. We appreciate you being here.
Joyce, stay with me. Coming up in just 60 seconds we`ll go live to the White House on what some are calling the Biden boom economy. We`ll explain what`s wrong with this headline often on FOX News when we`re back in just 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Deal breakthrough. Senator Kyrsten Sinema no on board for the Democrats` massive economic package.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After months of negotiations Senate Democrats say they finally have the votes to pass a massive spending deal.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Senator Kyrsten Sinema, the lone Democratic holdout on the president`s major climate and economic bill, is now on board.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHANG: A huge boost for the Biden agenda, the last Democratic holdout, Senator Kyrsten Sinema now on board with the sweeping deal on climate change, healthcare, drug prices and raising taxes on multinational corporations, capping off a week of wins for Joe Biden. From the U.S. drone strike killing al Qaeda`s leader who planned the 9/11 attacks with bin Laden to progress domestically including bipartisan support for a bill helping veterans exposed to toxins from burn pits, while gas prices drop for the seventh straight week as well, and that was all before this news hit today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is a whopper 528,000. 528,000 basically double the expectations.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST, "MORNING JOE": Talk about a resilient economy, man. It keeps rolling.
WILLIE GEIST, MSNBC HOST, "MORNING JOE": If this is an incredible jobs number the July jobs report is in and much stronger than expected.
RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: 528,000 jobs in July. To put that in perspective that is twice what economists were expecting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHANG: This morning amid fears of a recession new jobs numbers are smashing expectations. Over 500,000 jobs added last month. The unemployment rate falling to a pre-pandemic level of just 3.5 percent.
Now that`s the economic side. In terms of the spin, watch how some of the folks over on FOX News struggled to make sense of it while reaching for something negative to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN LONSKI, THRU THE CYCLE PRESIDENT: What a shocker, my goodness. This is some recession. Just for some reason I`m still skeptical as to whether or not this is telling us much about where employment is going to be over the next several months.
STUART VARNEY, FOX NEWS: The economy is -- the jobs economy is pretty strong therefore the markets down on this.
STEPHEN MOORE, FORMER SENIOR ECONOMIC ADVISER TO DONALD TRUMP: You still have that problem of inflation running at 89 percent and wages according to the new report growing at just a little over 5 percent, and that means -- that`s what I call a cost of living reception where people are just feeling poor.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHANG: FOX even showing this banner on screen as it reported on surprising jobs numbers, quote, "White House misses the forecast on lower July jobs growth." Well, that`s one way to put it.
Joining me now is chief economic adviser for President Biden, Jared Bernstein.
Thanks for being here. Jared, Fox saying that your team, quote, "missed" on the jobs forecast. I`m guessing you guys are actually happy that you got this one wrong, right?
JARED BERNSTEIN, CHIEF ECONOMIC ADVISER FOR PRESIDENT BIDEN: Correct. This is a forecast one would be pleased to miss. 528,000 jobs, but you know, at the Council of Economic Advisers, we never over emphasize one particular month because these data go up and down.
[18:15:08]
Over the past three months we`ve added got a close to 470,000 jobs per month. Since the president got here 9.5 million jobs, an historical record, and now we clawed back all of the jobs lost since the pandemic induced recession. Unemployment down to 3.5 percent tied for a 53-year low. All of these numbers, and I can keep going, but I`ll spare you, all of these numbers simply mean an extremely welcoming labor market.
And this, the president believes is such an important backdrop, such an important buffer for people who are facing the challenge of high prices. Having this labor market at their back makes a big difference.
PHANG: OK. Jared, today one of Obama`s former economic advisers, though, Jason Furman, he called this jobs report, quote, "uncomfortably hot." He said what worries him is the impact of this jobs number on inflation. Does he have a point? I mean slower job creation with wage and price growth means lower inflation, but the Fed has raised interest rates four times this year already.
BERNSTEIN: So we have to do two things at once. This is really very much walk and chew gum when it comes to jobs and inflation. We have to maintain the tightest labor market in generations, providing essential backdrop for people as they try to deal with these challenging prices. But at the same time we have to do all we can to ease those price pressures. We`ve done a lot but we have to do a lot more.
You referenced the declining gas prices down $0.90 a gallon. There are a lot of things that go into the global gas price but one of them is the release of 240 million barrels of oil that President Biden oversaw. That`s in the mix. So we`re doing all we can without Congress but also with Congress, and that takes us right to the Inflation Reduction Act. Here is something, and I know Jason agrees with me on this, because he`s been a strong supporter of the Inflation Reduction Act, here is something that can lower costs for families, prescription drug costs, the cost of healthcare coverage, the cost of clean energy.
So this is an essential complement to the goal of maintaining a strong job market while easing price pressures.
PHANG: So, Jared, Republicans are saying that that deal, the inflation act, that it will raise taxes. Let`s take a really quick listen to the following sound.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Look, the Democrats control the House, the Senate, and the White House. They`re the ones who brought us inflation.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): The Democrats have decided to spend hundreds of billions of dollars of the people`s money on a bill that laughs at the people`s priorities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHANG: Jared, what`s your response to those Republican naysayers?
BERNSTEIN: You know that`s just a very predictable and a very incorrect take on what`s going on. President Biden has been absolutely consistent about his goal when it comes to tax policy and that`s injecting much needed fairness into this tax code.
Now if the folks here we`re just hearing from don`t believe that people who owe taxes should pay them, yes, maybe they`ll oppose the fact that this bill gives the IRS some of the funding it needs so that it can actually ensure that people pay what they owe, closing what`s called the tax gap, the difference between what people owe and what they pay.
And let`s face it, most W-2 earners, that is most people get a paycheck, they pay what they owe. Most of that tax gap is accounted for at the very top of the scale so when you underfund the IRS that`s a shadow tax cut for tax evaders. President Biden is against that. When you ask corporations with over $1 billion in profit to pay a minimum tax of 15 percent, when you close that and other loopholes, you`re injecting fairness into the tax code and you`re also reducing the budget deficit by $300 billion. Not only is that good fiscal policy, it`s disinflationary. It helps on the inflation side as well.
PHANG: Jared, talking about loopholes though, Kyrsten Sinema, she was holding out on this particular act because she was interested in making sure that the carried interest loophole provision was eliminated. It sounds like it`s out from what we`ve heard from Chuck Schumer. You know there`s that saying don`t let the perfect be the enemy of good but is this something that President Biden is going to say, OK, fine, we`ll take it without that particular loophole? It was almost like $14 billion that would have been realized if it`d stayed in.
BERNSTEIN: President Biden, ever since he was campaigning, has talked about closing all of the loopholes that in his view are unfair to working families who keep their heads down, do their jobs and pay their fair taxes. Instead of the carried interest loophole Senator Sinema has introduced a tax on stock buybacks.
[18:20:03]
As far as I`ve seen the score so far that actually brings in more revenue than the carried interest loophole, so in context of lowering the budget deficit and helping to ameliorate some of our price pressures through that mechanism a tax on stock buybacks is a good replacement.
Now look, the key thing here, because this has been another big debate all week long, is that no family under $400,000 pays a penny more on their tax form based on everything we`ve talked about so far, whether we`re talking about the minimum tax, whether we`re talking about share buyback, nothing under $400,000. If you are in that top half of the top 1 percent, yes, we`re going to inject more fairness into the tax code on behalf of deficit reduction, disinflation and fairness. If you`re below 400K, you are held harmless.
PHANG: Well, that`s welcome news for many families obviously. Jared, we`re going to keep a close eye on this. Goes to the Senate tomorrow on the weekend. Let`s make them work on the weekend, right, Jared? Thanks again for being here.
Jared Bernstein, we appreciate it.
BERNSTEIN: My pleasure.
PHANG: Coming up, the GOP is now scrambling amid a national backlash to the Roe decision. Also what is going on here at this conservative conference? You have to see this. But first former attorney general Eric Holder thinks Donald Trump will be indicted. New reporting on the criminal probe coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:26:11]
PHANG: We are back with the criminal January 6th investigation by the Department of Justice and it`s intensifying. Trump`s lawyers reportedly in conversations with the DOJ over executive privilege, with Trump trying to block access to conversations with his former top aides, and Trump reportedly ignoring counsel`s advice to stop talking to former aides including Mark Meadows.
It comes as his top White House lawyer who warned of, quote, "every crime imaginable" was subpoenaed. Now a very blunt take from former attorney general Eric Holder.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC HOLDER, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: I think that what`s going to happen here is that more evidence is going to be elicited, you will see people start to cut deals. My guess is that by the end of this process, you`re going to see indictments involving high-level people in the White House. You`re going to see indictments against people outside the White House who were advising them with regard to the attempt to steal the election. And I think ultimately you`re probably going to see the president -- former president of the United States indicted as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHANG: Joining me now Eugene Robinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for "The Washington Post" and back with us, my friend Joyce Vance, former federal prosecutor and U. S. attorney.
Thank you, guys, for being here. Joyce, Trump lawyers talking to the DOJ allegedly discussing parameters inclusive of executive privilege issues. That`s just not normal, Joyce. So what does this mean for Donald Trump?
VANCE: Well, of course, executive privilege applies to just a very narrow subset of people so we don`t see this go on with any regularity, but the reality here is that the Trump lawyers are trying to keep anything that they can out of the hands of the Justice Department and the Justice Department will have a little bit but not very much incentive to at least explore some options here, because the one thing that the Trump lawyers have on their side is the ability to delay grand jury proceedings by taking the executive privilege issue to court.
But even if they do that, the outcome is almost certain to be against them. Other courts including the Supreme Court have made it clear that there`s not much scope for executive privilege in a case like this where the national security depends on having access to information about what happened on January 6th, so I suspect at some point DOJ will tell Trump`s lawyers to fish or cut bait, either make it up most of what they`re asking for available and relinquishing claims to executive privilege, or DOJ will just go to court and get the rulings that they need to move ahead.
PHANG: Eugene, I suspect former Attorney General Eric Holder, no friend of Donald Trump, he knows what he`s doing when he says that he`s expecting Trump to be indicted so what do you make about the very public forward facing statement that`s made by Eric Holder about the future of Donald Trump?
EUGENE ROBINSON, THE WASHINGTON POST COLUMNIST: I think that`s pretty significant. I mean Eric Holder, I know him pretty well, and he`s very cautious in his words, in predicting something like that. So I kind of listened on his views on this very subject with former president like Donald Trump ever be indicted and his views, and it`s all on the public record, have evolved on that question to where he`s at this point.
[18:30:00]
And I think he`s seeing what the rest of us are seeing. We`re now seeing that there has been a more active and I believe more wide-ranging Justice Department investigation underway for some time that`s reaching up into those high levels. Hasn`t gotten all the way there yet, but -- you know, Merrick Garland has not been sleeping this.
And anybody thought he was, I think, has to realize now that they were wrong. And, you know, the wheels of justice do sometimes grind slowly but they are -- they are grinding and they`re awfully hard to stop once they get going.
PHANG: Eugene, just let`s talk about this for a second, though. I mean, Trump`s hubris, always getting him into trouble civil or criminal. Trump reportedly, in this case, not listening to his counsel, ignoring advice from advisors, and actually speaking with possible witnesses, including his former chief of staff Mark Meadows.
I mean, Eugene, some things are so obvious, and yet the obvious always seems to escape Donald Trump. What do you think about the fact that there are these continuing dialogues that are happening between somebody like Mark Meadows who has exceptional exposure all on his own and his former boss, Donald Trump?
ROBINSON: Well, you know, Joyce would know more than I about the specific legal ramifications of that. But I don`t think anyone should be surprised about Donald Trump not doing what sensible, sober people, presumably have advised him to do, which would certainly be not -- to have -- try to have these sorts of conversations with people who are -- who are potential witnesses or targets of an investigation.
But you know, that`s -- he thinks on some level that he`s untouchable, I suspect. He -- I suspect, I certainly don`t know, but I suspect he believes that he`s going to with his putative run for president in 2024. I think he`s going to announce, and I think he`s going to see that as providing him with some sort of protection so he can say it`s all political, they`re, they`re persecuting a political opponent. And he hopes that we`ll give him some sort of cover, I believe.
PHANG: Joyce, before we have to go, political which heart or not -- that does not stop the wheels of justice. We know that Fani Willis, the Fulton County DA, she has been particularly aggressive in her own investigation. We heard that quote from Eric Holder where he said that he expects Donald Trump to be indicted in Georgia as well as with this DOJ.
I`ve always maintained that the Fulton County investigation is the Achilles heel for Donald Trump. Any thoughts on whether or not there`s going to be an order in terms of indictments of Donald Trump?
VANCE: So, it`s an interesting question, right, who will go first? Fani Willis is certainly further down the road than the Justice Department is and she has a smaller universe of complaints that she has to investigate. Her concerns will be limited to Georgia and most likely to these concerns that were raised when Donald Trump reached out to Georgia officials to ask them to just find him the exact number of votes he needed to win.
So, if I was getting a crystal ball here, Katie, I would say that we`ll see action from Fani Willis first. But of course, anything is possible, including the fact that these investigations could ultimately come together. And state and federal prosecutors could work with each other.
But Attorney General Holder said something that I think we should focus on here. And it`s important to remember, he started his DOJ career as a line prosecutor working in the public integrity section at DOJ doing just these kinds of cases. And what he says is he expects that some of these folks who are currently targets or subjects of investigation will flip along the way and they will become cooperating witnesses.
And that`s what gets these sorts of investigations all the way to the top to the people who are the most culpable for planning events around trying to interfere with certification of the vote. I think he`s dead on the money here and whether those witnesses flip in Georgia or in front of the federal grand jury. Ultimately, those are the kinds of cases that get us closer to truth and accountability.
PHANG: Or whether those witnesses have already flipped, past tense. I guess we`ll have to see. Joyce Vance, thanks for sticking around. And Eugene Robinson, thanks for being here this evening. I appreciate both of you.
Ahead, new fears for Mitch McConnell watching the backlash in Kansas to abortion bans. But first, a wild conservative gathering, election lies, conspiracy theories, and a fake jailed rioter? What at all means next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:35:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE BANNON, TRUMP ADVISER: Is Joe Biden the legitimate President of the United States?
CROWD: No.
BANNON: Are we going to work every day to decertify those electors?
CROWD: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHANG: Recently convicted Steve Bannon riling up the crowd at the conservative conference CPAC where he`ll be speaking tonight, a wild gathering of right-wing activists, MAGA ringleaders, and Republican of Officials in full propaganda mood. Imagery of Trump`s face superimposed on the body of Rambo and this inexplicable theatrical display of a live person in a mock jail cell, pretending to be a jailed January 6 rioter sitting with a MAGA hat and crying as if he were the victim.
On stage today, conspiracy theorists like the My Pillow Guy and the QAnon rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, mixed in with prominent Republicans like Senator Ted Cruz.
[18:40:09]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE LINDELL, CEO, MY PILLOW: Over 54 countries have now been taken by the machines or are getting taken by the machines. And you never get to go back. Venezuela, Australia, they`re gone.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): It occurs to me that the Biden FBI believes this is a room of dangerous radicals. And you know what? They`re right. It`s so bad Antifa can`t afford bricks.
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR-GREENE (R-GA): When I said that I`m a Christian nationalist, I have nothing to be ashamed of, because that`s what most Americans are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHANG: The Q rep echoing ideas from the most controversial speaker at CPAC so far, Hungary`s far-right leader Viktor Orban. You see or about there with Donald Trump who will be headlining the event and speaking tomorrow. Orban causing a firestorm before the conference after saying Hungary should not be a "mixed race country," causing his own advisor to resign and to condemn the remarks as echoing Nazi propaganda. CPAC invited him anyway, with attendees eating up his MAGA-like speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VIKTOR ORBAN, PRIME MINISTER, HUNGARY: I am an old-fashioned freedom fighter. Politics, my friend, are not enough. This war is a culture war. Don`t worry, a Christian politician cannot be racist. Hungry shall protect the institution of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The globalist can all go to hell. I have come to Texas.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHANG: Joining me now is my friend Kurt Bardella who actually used to work with Steve Bannon at Breitbart. He is now an adviser to the DNC and the DCCC. Kurt, what does that disgusting display of somebody like Viktor Orban on domestic U.S. soil telling you about the state of the GOP?
KURT BARDELLA, ADVISOR, DNC AND DCCC: What you are seeing, Katie, is the Republican Party wrapped their arms around autocratic, white nationalist ideals and cementing that as the platform of their party going forward. Make no mistake about it right now. There is no divorcing the Republican Party from racism. Every single candidate that is on the ballot with an R next to their name in November, you own this.
Your refusal to speak out against it, your participation in it, the fact that you cater and pander to the audience of this at CPAC that is cheering on these very dangerous and disgusting ideals, you own this. It would not be hard for any member of the Republican Party to denounce what we`re hearing right now. Things that are repulsive, repugnant, have no place in the 21st century, yet they`re not going to do that.
They`re going to hide. They`re going to embrace. They`re going to high- five. They`re going to cheer it on, because to them the White America that we`re hearing these speakers talk about is exactly what they want to do to this country. They`re not trying to hide it. I mean, they basically have taken off their hoods and just expose themselves for what they are.
PHANG: You know, Kurt, notably, we`re not hearing from the "establishment Republicans," people like Mitch McConnell, right? They`re not condemning what happens at CPAC. I want to show you also this video of a man pretending to be a jailed January 6 rioter. I mean, where does something like this fit into the right-wing`s attempt to basically rewrite January 6 and the insurrection?
BARDELLA: I mean, it is -- it is the prelude to more violence, Katie. These are people who have gone out of their way to somehow lift up, elevate, and make martyr status people who committed a domestic terrorist act, people who attacked our Capitol, who attacked law enforcement. CONGRESSMAN Eric Swalwell is very fond of saying, you can`t be pro-cop and pro-coup at the same time and that`s exactly what they`re trying to do.
And the end result of all of this is going to be more violence. They are institutionalizing violence. They are justifying it, making it OK, giving excuses to this audience. You heard Ted Cruz right there saying that there are radicals, that the law enforcement, and then he said the FBI are right to be concerned about what these people will do because we learned after January 6, Katie, that it`s not just empty rhetoric.
It`s not just word. It`s not just performative. They are willing to rise up and use violent means to overturn a free and fair country. And that is a very terrifying aspect. And the fact that people -- the so-called establishment doesn`t say -- listen, this is the establishment now. There`s no hiding from that. This is the establishment. The Republican Party want to be autocrat white nationalists.
PHANG: So, quickly, Kurt, before I have to let you go, I want to quickly listen to some more of that wild rhetoric that`s been going around at CPAC. Let`s take a quick listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH PALIN, FORMER GOVERNOR, ALASKA: It`s like Lincoln said, we`re not going to be destroyed from foreign forces coming on in.
[18:45:03]
SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): The militant left of America are the modern-day version of book-burners, woke government-run healthcare, woke government- run media, woke government-run everything.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHANG: Kurt, do these people go to CPAC, espouse this type of rhetoric, and then turn around and go home to people who look like you and me, right, their minority friends and pretend like none of this actually happened?
BARDELLA: Yes, I mean, that`s the irony of it all, right? They still want to suggest and pander and try to get votes from communities of color. They want to get votes from women despite taking away all of their rights. You know, they want to have their cake and eat it too. And I think that what we`re seeing right now is an awakening by this country that hey, that`s not going to fly anymore. You can`t have both sides of this. And there aren`t really both sides anymore.
Republicans and Democrats aren`t two sides of the same coin of democracy. One side is trying to hijack the other and take everything away that we hold dear. And we`ve got to stop them.
PHANG: Well, it`s terrifying that the outliers that we used to look at, the QAnons, the extremists, the White Nationalists, they`ve now become the mainstream. Kurt Bardella, thank you so much for being here and for your insight. I appreciate it.
Ahead, the stunning win for women`s rights in Kansas has the GOP scrambling. That story is up next.
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[18:50:00]
PHANG: Republican candidates are now facing their worst-case scenario. Abortion rights will be a key motivator in November. The New York Times reporting that GOP candidates are grappling with the National backlash to abortion bans, especially after that stunning rejection of an abortion ban in Kansas.
A recent poll showing that 64 percent of Democrats are more motivated to vote after the Roe decision. That`s compared to just 20 percent of Republicans. It seems like all the energy is on one side. And that`s not what GOP leaders were predicting just a few months ago. Listen to what Mitch McConnell said back in May versus what he said after the Kansas vote.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): I think it`s probably going to be a wash. It`ll be playing out all year. And I don`t think we really know until the end of the year.
BRET BAIER, HOST, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: Do you think Kansas tells you something about that?
MCCONNELL: It tells us that there were a lot of people interested in the issue in Kansas. There`s no question about that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHANG: Well, that`s a non-answer. The problem is Republicans have already chosen a slate of extreme anti-choice candidates. Tudor Dixon is the GOP candidate for governor in Michigan. He opposes exceptions for rape and incest. And the nominee for governor in Pennsylvania is Doug Mastriano who has said he opposes any exceptions, including to save the life of the mother.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Mastriano, can you define your position and would you support abortion exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother?
DOUG MASTRIANO (R-PA), GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I am a pro-life. It`s the number one issue. I don`t give away for exceptions either.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHANG: Joining me now is Liz Plank, the author of For The Love Of Men, a book on toxic masculinity and the host of The Recount Live. Liz, it`s always a pleasure to have you with me. Do Republicans really -- do they really, Liz, have an appreciation for how much the abortion rights issue is motivating Democrats to vote right now?
LIZ PLANK, HOST, THE RECOUNT LIVE: Be careful what you wish for, because what you wish for might not be what you actually wanted. I think that for years, the conversation around abortion has always been very figurative. It`s always been ironically led by a lot of men, but very emotional, right? We sort of tend to think that women are the emotional gender.
It`s a very emotional conversation to compare abortion to murder, right? What does that mean? What does that imply? You know, and I`ve talked to -- I`ve gone to pro-life conventions, I`ve gone to Trump rallies. And even if you go there today, if you ask people who are staunchly pro-life and identify that way and vote that way, if you -- if you really ask them about rape and incest, of course, they want to make exceptions for rape and incest.
And so, this is not even in line with the most sort of radical factions of the people that they`re trying to really sort of cater to. And so, what we`re seeing, you know, Democrats often have difficulty portraying the positive vision that their policies can sort of go create. And what they`re getting is actually the contrary that`s -- or sort of a political gift from the right which is the nightmare that it presents if their policies aren`t being passed.
PHANG: So, back in May, GOP Senator Ron Johnson said, "I just don`t think this is going to be the big political issue. Everybody thinks it is. Obviously, that was wishful thinking on his part. That`s the benefit of hindsight, right, Liz? That is 2020. But does that discount the GOP women, the women in the GOP that actually don`t want somebody telling them what they can and cannot do with their bodies?
PLANK: Yes. Another sort of myth that`s out there is that there`s a gender gap when it comes to support for abortion rights. I think there`s a gap when it comes to who speaks out about abortion rights. And we hear a lot of again, men say that they`re against it. We hear a lot of women speak -- say that they`re for it. But there`s actually virtually no gender gap.
So, there`s actually a lot of women on both sides of the aisle who really want to have bodily autonomy. And what they`re realizing is they`ve been told by right-wing politicians, you know, all we want to do is, is make sure that people aren`t aiding and evading abortion. But what they`re realizing is, these far right politicians are kind of aiding and evading rapists. They`re helping child molesters. They`re helping, you know, predators, really not just, you know, sort of go off and do what they want to do.
But also, you know, there`s three million women who get pregnant from rape, and in 20 percent of those cases, it`s not an unintended consequence to get pregnant. It is on purpose. The women who is -- who are raped report that, you know, that this was done as another core set of right, reproductive course of method as part of the assault.
So, this isn`t just something that happens once in a while. It`s actually a huge part of sexual assault, is that reproductive coercion. And so, what I`m seeing is more opportunities for us to talk about this, more people being aware of how frequent this happens, and how important it is to protect women, protect girls, protect people who can give birth and making sure that they`re safe.
[18:55:46]
PHANG: You know, Liz, I have called Kansas that political canary in the coal mine. I know that people were watching it carefully, and they`re also watching some of the other critical states that this is an issue. So, I appreciate you taking the time tonight to be here on the show to talk about what you think of this major issue.
Liz Plank, thanks for being here.
PLANK: Thank you.
PHANG: And we`ll be right back.
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PHANG: That does it for me. You can also catch me on the "KATIE PHANG SHOW" weekend mornings at 7:00 a.m. Eastern right here on MSNBC and stream new original episodes of "THE KATIE PHANG SHOW" on the MSNBC hob on Peacock as well. "THE REIDOUT WITH JOY REID" is up next.