Summary
Insanity is hard to measure. Is it more insane to say Mexico will pay for the wall or reinstate me as president? Donald Trump has said both and every sane person listening to those statements knows how far beyond stupid and into the realm of insanity they are. Elizabeth Warren was the last woman candidate standing in the last presidential election, and so the challenge remains. Biden rebukes MAGA GOP for threats against FBI. Interview with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).
Transcript
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Alex.
And of course we are awaiting this filing by the Justice Department that we suspect may occur during this hour. In the meantime, I have a few things to report about Lindsey Graham including the lies he told on Fox tonight about what he said on Fox the last time he was on Fox.
ALEX WAGNER, MSNBC HOST, "ALEX WAGNER TONIGHT": That is the modern Republican Party selective amnesia part -- deletion party. Basically anything they said they could land him in trouble, like it never happened.
O`DONNELL: He tried to make it disappear tonight. I don`t think that`s going to work.
WAGNER: You`re going to keep him honest, and I will be waiting for those 40 pages of explanation by the DOJ right alongside you, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: We`ll be reading it together. You`re going to see some live reading on TV I think.
WAGNER: I love it. America loves it.
O`DONNELL: Thanks, Alex.
WAGNER: Have a great show.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
Well, Lindsey Graham is now afraid of himself, a quisling afraid of a shadow. And Lindsey Graham proved that tonight by going on Fox to lie about what he said on the Fox propaganda channel. Lindsey Graham is now afraid of his own words, afraid to repeat them, so he lied about them tonight.
Lindsey Graham did not dare to repeat what he said. Didn`t dare repeat it tonight after two days of relentless criticism of Lindsey Graham including on this program last night and culminating at the end of the day today with Joe Biden of all people attacking Lindsey Graham for saying that if Donald Trump is indicted, there will be rioting in the streets.
And I say Joe Biden of all people because the very last thing Joe Biden wants to do is attack a United States senator. And Joe Biden`s Senate and the Senate where I worked in the 1990s, not just was not done.
But no one in the United States Senate in those days reached the peak of indecency that Lindsey Graham reached Sunday night when he said there will be rioting in the streets. Not even Strom Thurmond.
Lindsey Graham is a United States senator because Strom Thurmond could not live forever, even though he tried. South Carolina`s very senior Senator Strom Thurmond chose not to run for reelection for the Senate when he was 100 years old, thereby creating the opportunity for Congressman`s Lindsey Graham to move up in 2002 in that election. The next year, Strom Thurmond died at the age of 101.
Six months later, we discover that Strom Thurmond had a secret, a big one. Strom Thurmond had a daughter who he never publicly acknowledged. She was born before Strom Thurmond was married. He was 23, 23 years old and the teenage girl he got pregnant who was working in his parents` home was 16 years old.
Strom Thurmond`s first child, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, who died in 2013, was Black. Strom Thurmond always knowing that he had a Black daughter, built his political career on racism and segregation, and South Carolina`s white voters rewarded him for his racist segregationist policies and for the filibusters against civil rights legislation that he joined on the Senate floor.
Like Lindsey Graham, Strom Thurmond never apologized for anything. But even Strom Thurmond never said if the leader of my party is indicted, there will be rioting in the streets. No senator has ever said that.
When a special prosecutor was investigating Republican President Richard Nixon, Republican Senator Strom Thurmond did not say if Nixon is charged with crimes or impeached, there will be rioting in the streets. Even Strom Thurmond knew that the United States Senate should never say that, never.
What explains Lindsey Graham? His weakness and fawning over Donald Trump is something we had never seen in a senator before Donald Trump invaded and conquered the Republican Party. Whatever explains Lindsey Graham we may never know. Perhaps we will learn more about him six months after his death as we did with Strom Thurmond.
Maybe in a peculiar South Carolina Republican Senate tradition, Lindsey Graham has a secret. And the person Lindsey Graham knows who loves secrets the most is Donald Trump. We know now know that Donald Trump has been happily riding around golf carts in Florida knowing that in the basement he had a government document identified in the FBI inventory of the FBI search but said infiltrate, president of France.
Donald Trump showed Lindsey Graham what he is capable of in the 2016 presidential campaign when Lindsey Graham was still campaigning against Donald Trump and accurately criticizing Donald Trump. And then this happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: He gave me his number and I found the card. I wrote the number down. I don`t know if it`s the right number. Let`s try it, 202-228-0292. I don`t know. Maybe it`s, it`s three or four years, ago maybe it`s an old number, 202-228-0292. So, I don`t know, give it a shot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: It was Lindsey Graham`s phone number. Donald Trump gave a Lindsey Graham`s private cell phone number on TV. Imagine the fear Lindsey Graham has lived with since then. The fear of Donald Trump, the fear of what Donald Trump could reveal about him.
Lindsey Graham knows that Donald Trump is a pathological liar, so Donald Trump knows it Lindsey Graham knows that Donald Trump could say something about them that is false. Or say something about Lindsey Graham that Donald Trump couldn`t prove.
That conscious question, what are you going to tell your children or grandchildren to stop Donald Trump does not apply to Lindsey Graham. Unlike Strom Thurmond, Lindsey Graham does not have children and is not suspected of having children that we don`t know about. Never been married, doesn`t even have a dog.
He has by outward appearance no one and nothing to love more than the title of senator. And that probably explains Lindsey Graham probably as well as anything can. He will do anything and say anything to hold on to the title of senator, a title he knows Donald Trump could rip away from him by endorsing another Republican to run against Lindsey Graham and South Carolina.
If that is the explanation of Senator Lindsey Graham, think of the hollowness of that man. Think of the emptiness where conscience is supposed to reside in him. The two most miserable politicians in America tonight are Lindsey Graham and the man he serves, Donald Trump, both fighting criminal investigations of their conduct.
When Lindsey Graham went on Fox tonight, he was not asked a single question about the subpoena for him to testify to a Georgia grand jury about his and Donald Trump`s attempts to overturn the presidential election in Georgia. But the host did show Lindsey Graham what Joe Biden said about him today and invited Lindsey Graham to lie his way out of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOST: But, Senator, he did bring you up, not specifically, but he brought up a comment you made on Sunday. Let`s listen.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Yeah.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The idea you turn on a television and see senior senators and congressman saying if such and such happens, they`ll be blood in the street. Where the hell are we?
HOST: Senator, he`s referring to you. What is he talking about? I guess it`s a comment made Sunday when asked if President Trump is interested or indicted.
GRAHAM: Yeah. So what I said Sunday was America`s reject, I reject violence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: That`s a lie. He never said that on Sunday. Lindsey Graham never said that Americans reject violent, and he never said I reject violence.
Here`s the rest of Lindsey Graham`s answer tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRAHAM: But I also reject the double standard here. So if they try to prosecute President Trump from mishandling classified information, after the Clinton debacle from when she was secretary of state, people in this country will lose faith in law enforcement.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: That is another Lindsey Graham lie. That is not what Lindsey Graham said. On Sunday, Lindsey Graham did not say if president Trump is prosecuted, people in this country will lose faith and law enforcement.
[22:10:06]
Here are the words that Lindsey Graham actually said on Fox on Sunday that he is now so afraid of he dares not to say them again.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRAHAM: And I`ll say this, if there is a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information after the Clinton debacle which he presided over and did a hell of a good job, there will be riots in the streets.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Fox owns that a video. Fox owns the video of Lindsey Graham saying they`ll be riots in the streets. Fox could`ve shown that video to Lindsey Graham tonight, but Fox will not show that video again. That`s not the way Rupert Murdoch does business.
There will be riots in the streets. That was Sunday night. Tonight, Lindsey Graham changes that to people in this country will lose faith in law enforcement.
Lindsey Graham turned Republicans into the "riots in the streets" party this week and now he`s trying to run away from what he said. And today, Joe Biden made sure that people understand what`s Lindsey Graham was talking about when he was predicting eradicating riots in the streets.
President Biden talked about the Trump riot that already happened on January six, at the United States capital.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Cops attacked and assaulted, speared with flagpoles, sprayed with mace, stomped on, dragged, brutalized. Police lost their lives as a result of the day. Police lost their lives.
When officer said, it was worse than anything he had experienced in war in Iraq. Let me say to this to my MAGA Republican friends in Congress, don`t tell me you support law enforcement if you won`t condemn what happened on the 6th. Don`t tell me!
(APPLAUSE)
You can`t do it! For god`s sake, whose side are you on! Whose side are you on?
Look, you are either on the side of the mob or the side of the police. You can`t be pro-law enforcement and pro-insurrection. You can`t be a party of law and order and call the people who attacked the police on January 6th patriots. You can`t do it!
What are we teaching our children? It`s just that simple.
And now, it`s sickening to see the new attacks on the FBI, threatening life of law enforcement agents and their families for simply carrying out the law and doing their job.
Look, I want to say this as clear as I can. There`s no place in this country, no place for endangering the lives of law enforcement. No place! None, never, period.
I`m opposed to defining the police. I`m also opposed to defunding the FBI.
The idea that you turn on a television and see senior senators and congressmen saying if such and such happens, they`ll be blood in the street. Where the hell are we?
(END VIEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Joining us now is Peter Strzok, adjunct professor at Georgetown University School of former and former deputy of the FBI`s counterintelligence division. He is the author of "Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump".
Also with us, Bradley Moss, national security attorney, and Harry Litman, deputy assistant general under President Clinton. He`s now legal affairs columnist for "The Los Angeles Times".
Peter Strzok, let me begin with you on that point Joe Biden just made about the Republicans now being in favor of defund the FBI. Did you think and you`ve been watching a Republican change in attitude to put it mildly over the Trump years towards the FBI.
Did you think it was coming to this that they would actually be the "defund the FBI" party?
PETER STRZOK, FORMER FBI OFFICIAL: Well, Lawrence if you asked me that prior to 2016, having watched grown up in a Republican house, having watched the party, having watched the values that they stood for in terms of national security and support for the military and law enforcement, my answer would be never in 1,000 years.
But watching with Trump did over the course of this administration, the constant demonization of a lot of different elements of the executive branch, but certainly in particular the FBI and anything the FBI might do that might go against him.
[22:15:14]
Unfortunately seeing that in motion, this was the inevitable result. And I -- it`s not something in my opinion that we are going to be able to turn around quickly at all. It`s a sad day for the Republican Party. It`s a sad day for anyone in America who is talking about at the end of the day strip away all the rhetoric, these folks are calling for when they say defund the FBI, is Trump is above the law.
Do not investigate him, let alone prosecute him. There is nothing that he can do that merits even an investigation. And that`s what they`re saying here at the end of the day.
O`DONNELL: Harry Litman, as I said last night, one of the components of what Lindsey Graham has to say is it`s profoundly insulting to the 74 million Trump voters who absolutely I have never rioted in the street and never will and absolutely will not do that, no matter what happens to Donald Trump. But how is that kind of language from United States center who serves on the judiciary committee received in the Justice Department?
HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: It`s really despicable, but he has this sort of teeth bared anger that you can almost at the Kavanaugh hearings he can rev up into this. There`s an artificial feel about it for me. I don`t think people in the Department of Justice are shaking in a boots or anything like that. I think they`re more rolling their eyes, here`s another sign of the times.
But they certainly take stock that unelected senior senator in the United States senator is saying this kind of thing, and of course the real worry is what it could unleash among the MAGA crazies, so there is some reason to fear.
But I think DOJ, you know, it doesn`t deter them from their job or anything like that, but it makes them think, wow, another sign of the times, how do we get here, kind of like Peter says.
O`DONNELL: And, Bradley Moss, tonight is the night where we will be getting the next court filing from the Department of Justice. This in response to the Trump filing asking for, among other things, a special master to get into the documents that were seized by the FBI had Donald Trump`s home, to try to sort of, I don`t think it`s clear with the special master supposed to sort out, but what do you -- what are you expecting from the Justice Department tonight?
BRADLEY MOSS, NATIONAL SECURITY ATTORNEY: Lawrence, I`m expecting a couple of things in part of it is expecting, and part of it is hoping. I`m hoping a lot of more of it is facts. We`ve seen some details come out, whether it`s media reporting or some of the official pleadings whether it`s in court documents or, what were or not released. We`ve gotten a bit of a picture of the chronology.
But by large is what we truly know is what was provided by the Trump team in their documents, which were very flattering to Donald Trump. So I`m hoping to get some real context here. Clarification on the entire chronology, how this went down, dating back to 2021, and exactly how they came to believe there were more documents. It kept finding ways to determine their or more.
We saw that reference in the probable cause affidavit, I`m hoping we get some more context here, so I think that would go a long way to reinforcing the transparency around this and giving clarity to what`s really went down.
O`DONNELL: Peter Strzok, will they have to reveal, the Justice Department have to reveal more evidence to make their points to the judge or is that something -- are they going to have to do this without revealing any more evidence?
STRZOK: I think the goal is to identify as little classified information as necessary to achieve what they need. Look, the fact of the matter is that the courts of are being very -- when executive makes claims for the national defense. This is not a case of its generations of Trump putting tax fraud allegedly at the Trump tower. This is involves hiding classified material which poses an ongoing threat right now.
So I would expect the government to make an argument that we need access to this information because we have to work with the U.S. intelligence committee community to determine whether there are sources and methods to see that there applicability is implied right now. Waiting a week, a month a year is unacceptable because of a place U.S. national security in jeopardy. I think you will see the government making that argument. I think they will do that.
But I too am very interested one additional information and detail we make it in the filing tonight.
O`DONNELL: Harry Litman, trying to make sense of what we have read from the Trump side so far.
[22:20:04]
The position seems to be either it wasn`t classified or if it was classified, Donald Trump has an absolute right to possess classified information after his presidency and that there is some somehow some set of privileges that apply to that that we have never seen written anywhere?
LITMAN: They are my privilege.
Look, the ball to really keep our eye on in this filing is executive privilege. It`s a very cagey document by Trump. It talks about privilege.
Special masters including all the cases he cites, they come up for attorney client privilege, and it`s possible, in fact we now know that the DOJ scooped up a few of those papers. There is an absolute easy way to now figure out call balls and strikes, it`s set out in the affidavit, no reason why district judge can`t do it.
Now for some reason Judge Cannon wants to meddle in that, no great tragedy. The real worry would be that she somehow credits or revises this argument by Trump that this is an executive privilege. That would upend everything about the search, everything about the potential prosecution and contradict every level of the federal judiciary up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
So I expect there may be some facts, I agree by the way with Brad, Trump`s lead with his chin, and given an opportunity to say here`s what really happened. But the real double barreled thrust of the filing will be to say there is no executive privilege within a mile affair for many reasons. Don`t even think about a special master for that reason. And by the way, we don`t need one anyway and there`s nothing for you to do here.
O`DONNELL: Peter Strzok, Bradley Moss and Harry Litman, thank you very much for starting off our discussion tonight. We are going to go to a commercial break now. This document -- this filing could be handed over to us at any moment including this commercial break. We will come right back if it does.
And when we do come back, Donald Trump`s favorite Secret Service agent has quit, quit today. Congressman Adam Schiff will join us next. We might have the filing from the Justice Department.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:27:02]
O`DONNELL: Today, Donald Trump`s favorite Secret Service agent quit. In a statement to NBC News, Tony Ornato said: I did retire today to pursue a career in the private sector. I retired from the U.S. Secret Service after more than 25 years of faithful service to my country, including serving the past five presidents. I long planned to retire and have been planning this transition for more than a year. Although I retired from the United States Secret Service, I plan to continue cooperating with the Department of Homeland Security`s Office of Inspector General`s investigation. My counsel have been in touch with the inspector general and they discussed but have not yet settled on a mutually convenient date for us to speak.
Tony Ornato is the only Secret Service agent who was chosen by a president to serve on the White House staff. Donald Trump made Tony Ornato the deputy chief of staff. Tony Ornato has been described as one of Donald Trump`s, quote, greatest yes man, end quote, by Carol Leonnig, who wrote a book about the Secret Service.
Cassidy Hutchinson told the January 6th Committee that on January 6, Tony Ornato told her what happened in the private presidential vehicle when Donald Trump wanted to go to the capital.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CASSIDY HUTCHINSON, FORMER AIDE TO WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF MARK MEADOWS: Tony described him as being irate. The president said something to the effect of, I am the f`ing president, take me up to the Capitol now, to which Bobby responded, sir, we have to go back to the West Wing.
The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm and said, sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We`re going back to the West Wing. We are not going to the Capitol.
Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel and when Mr. Ornato had recounted the story to me, he had motioned towards his clavicles.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff of California. He`s chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He`s a member of the January 6th Select Committee, and served as a lead impeachment manager in the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump in the Senate.
The paperback addition of his book "Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could" is now available.
And Congressman Schiff is joining us now.
Thank you very much for joining us.
This news today about Tony Ornato brings back to mind the issue that the committee, the January 6 Committee, was pursuing and discovered about this loss of Secret Service texts on January 6th and January 5th.
Is that something we`re going to hear more about when the committee resumes public hearings?
[22:29:33]
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): It is something the public will learn more about. I don`t know that I can say there will be a specific hearing on this topic or that. We haven`t -- we`re not prepared to make any announcements.
But we continue to vigorously investigate what was going on with the Secret Service. We continue every day to receive additional records from the Secret Service, and something doesn`t add up. There are just too many conflicts and what people have said, what the documentary evidence has shown, what other witnesses have said.
So we want to get to the ground truth, and we will. And if it requires bringing witnesses back in, we will bring them back in, but we are going to expose what was going on within a Secret Service as well as whether there was any deliberate effort to impede our investigation and that or that of the Justice Department.
O`DONNELL: You saw President Biden today in his speech talk about this Republican movement now to defund the FBI. There are people running to be members of the House of Representative Republicans saying they want to defund the FBI. Some saying they want to abolish it, just get rid of it, not replace it with anything, not some other version of it, nothing.
What does it mean to the future of how you govern in the House of Representatives if you have members of one party who believe that there should be no federal enforcement of federal laws?
SCHIFF: Well I mean it`s completely disabling. I think if our form of government if you have members of one party who out of a blind obedience to their party leader want to essentially tear down law enforcement, turn down the Justice Department because their party leader may have engaged in criminal activity and they don`t want to investigate it.
And I think you are absolutely right in your characterization of Senator Graham and the dangerous irresponsibility of what he is saying.
And you know, for that matter, of course, what Donald Trump is doing in saying, which announced to basically if they come after me, I will pull the whole house down around me.
And to have more members of Congress who share, you know, that lack of commitment to our constitution, to our institutions, you know, is a terrifying prospect.
O`DONNELL: One of the things we see with Lindsey Graham tonight is he is now afraid of what he said on Fox the last time he was on Fox. He`s refusing to say it again. And that may be a distinction between Lindsey Graham and say Marjorie Taylor Greene who seems to be on a mission every time to say something more outrageous and crazy than she said the last time she spoke.
That`s one difference is that when Lindsey Graham and those words are thrown in front of him and he`s criticized over for two days, he himself becomes afraid of what he has said.
SCHIFF: I think that`s true. I think with Lindsey Graham you see some fleeting signs of conscience flare up from time to time that are quickly extinguished. Others, and I wouldn`t would put Marjorie Taylor Greene in this category, are just kind of negative, bile-filled performance artists.
And you know, happily at the moment, there`s a small number in Congress, but there are a lot more where she came from, who are running -- who have won Republican primaries in very red districts who appear to be poised to join the congress.
And you know, it`s just such a staggering turn of events in the country but also when you take the long view and you think about some of the giants who once served in the Congress. People of principle like John Lewis and so many others. And now you see sort of the crackpot caucus growing within the GOP conference, what a terrible turn of events it is for the country.
O`DONNELL: Can you tell us when you expect the next public hearing of the January 6th committee to occur?
SCHIFF: You know, certainly when we get into the fall, so September, October, we will definitely I think have a hearing or hearings on our recommendations about how to keep the country safe going forward.
We may also have a hearing or hearings of a factual nature of the kind that we have had in the past. But we want to make sure that whatever hearing we do is as meaty and substantive as the ones we have done and we don`t want to have hearings simply to have hearings.
So we are at hard work gathering new evidence and contemplating what our next public presentation ought to be.
O`DONNELL: Congressman Adam Schiff, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
SCHIFF: Thank you Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
And coming up. Donald Trump is in full panic mode and he proved that today. That`s next.
[22:34:52]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: Insanity is hard to measure. Is it more insane to say Mexico will pay for the wall or reinstate me as president? Donald Trump has said both and every sane person listening to those statements knows how far beyond stupid and into the realm of insanity they are.
[22:39:51]
O`DONNELL: One thing that we have been able to track over time is that the more worried or panicked Donald Trump is, the more insane his public pronouncements become. First on Twitter in the earlier years until he was banned, and now on his own social media platform.
Today, Donald Trump`s biggest outburst of public madness on his platform in a while took Place, including the former president of the United States actually presenting the QAnon conspiracy theory poison that no sane person has ever believed. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse who usually ignores this stuff found today disturbing.
He said the former president is starting conspiracy theories and have inspired political violence and falsely called the legitimacy of the government into question. We cannot ignore the dangers of this extremism.
Joining us now Stuart Stevens, a veteran of five Republican presidential campaigns. He`s the author of "It Was All A Lie and How the Republican Party became Donald Trump." Also with us Tim O`Brien, senior executive editor for Bloomberg Opinion and author of "Trump Nation". He is an MSNBC political analyst.
And Stuart, Senator Whitehouse says that what we are getting from Donald Trump now is dangerous. The public statements are dangerous. They include - - I just want to share with the audience, Donald Trump re-posting a picture of Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with the words, "your enemy is not in Russia", written in black bars over their eyes." We`re not putting that up there right now.
So Stuart, what do you make of this? How would you rank the danger level?
STUART STEVENS, FORMER REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, I think it`s tremendously dangerous. We have seen this, but it`s part of a pattern that the Republican Party that I was part of, we always used to say and maybe it was self gratifying but we seemed to believe it at the time that we believed in law enforcement. That was a key premise in the entire party, and now it is really become an anti-law enforcement party.
You know, at the root of this Lawrence is, will you assert that Donald Trump lost a free and fair election? And it`s not just Donald Trump who doesn`t assert that, the vast majority of Republican officeholders will not say that Joe Biden was a legally elected president.
So if you just kind of unpack that for a second what does that mean? That means that we don`t have a legal government. That means that Joe Biden is an occupier, not an elected president. And if you believe that, then it`s a short walk to believe that you have not only a justification to do whatever it takes to get rid of this person occupying the White House illegally, you might have a moral obligation.
And out of that come these threats of violence. And it`s endemic to the whole Republican Party that is at war with government and with the idea of democracy.
O`DONNELL: Tim O`Brien, you have studied Donald Trump closer than any of us. You know him. I theorize about him from afar. My sense is you can tell how panicked he is by how crazy these public statements are. Is that a fair interpretation?
TIM O`BRIEN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: That is absolutely spot on Lawrence. You know, I think we have talked about this before but I think there are usually two lenses that you can understand Donald Trump`s behavior through. It is either self aggrandizement or self preservation. And he is clearly in self preservation mode.
You know, he was -- prior to his presidency, he was only in a place like this once before in the early 1990s when he was in danger of going personally bankrupt and he was going through a series of corporate bankruptcies and he lashed out at everyone around him. Family members, bankers, the media, anybody who is critical of his ability to survive and the fact that he was the author of his own mess.
He got past that. He ended up sort of damaged and an even larger cartoon figure than he was prior to that debacle.
When he came into the presidency, I think there were various moments where he felt cornered. I think he felt cornered by the Robert Mueller investigation and he lashed out in a very similar way to the way he`s lashing out now.
During two impeachments, I think he lashed out in a similar way because he was scared. The January 6th Committee has scared him. And this Justice Department investigation is scaring him and he is very aware that he is being abandoned. He is being abandoned by the party. He`s abandoned by the people who usually run interference for him, though not enough of the party is detaching from him.
[22:44:54]
O`BRIEN: And you have people like Lindsey Graham wading into similar waters in defense of Trump. And he has a legal team that is wildly in over its head while they are the target of a very methodic and well-founded federal prosecution. And so of course, he is scared. And so he is reaching for any kind of defense he can muster.
And if the consequences weren`t so great, because he is fomenting violence. There is a high likelihood there is going to be violence in the streets because of his behavior and it would simply be tragic (INAUDIBLE) but because of the influence and the power he wields, we are in a very delicate moment here and it`s time for Republicans to step up en masse and disown him.
O`DONNELL: Tim O`Brien and Stuart Stevens, thank you both very much for joining our discussion.
STEVENS: Thank you Lawrence.
O`BRIEN: Thank you Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: We`re going to squeeze in a break here, we may get that filing from the Justice Department during the commercial break. If we do, we will come right back, we will break into that commercial break with it. It could be any minute now. We will be right back.
[22:46:05]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: Remember this?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): So I announced this morning that I am suspending my campaign for president. I say this with a deep sense of gratitude for every single person who got in this fight, every single person who tried on a new idea, every single person who just moved a little in their notion of what a president of the United States should look like.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Elizabeth Warren was the last woman candidate standing in the last presidential election, and so the challenge remains. What do we say to our daughters? To our sons, we might be able to say, you can grow up to be anything you want to be. But do we tell our daughters, that if they want to be president, they would have a better chance if they were growing up in Israel or Pakistan or the United Kingdom, Finland, New Zealand and many other countries that elected their first woman head of state, many decades ago?
Joining us now is NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ali Vitali. She is the author of the new book "Electable: Why America Hasn`t Put A Woman in The White House Yet". Ali, thank you for joining us tonight. This is the book that I`ve been waiting for, I need this answer, what do we tell our daughters?
ALI VITALI, NBC NEWS CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT: We tell our daughters that it is coming. Because truly, after going on this exploration for this book, from the moment that I stood in that crowd outside of Elizabeth Warren`s house in that clip that you just showed, all the way through the moment that I actually put this book into production, I do feel optimistic that this country is closer than ever before in large part, because both parties have finally caught up in filling a pipeline with potential candidates, who are qualified and who can win.
It`s why the title of the book is "Electable", because frankly, for all of these women running, they are electable if you vote to elect them. And frankly that`s the last hurdle that we have to overcome. Simpler said than done, but I do think that we`re closer than ever.
O`DONNELL: You know, when Hillary Clinton was running, I used to listen to people say, you know, I just had a problem with her. And the problem could be Bill Clinton. It could be something that was peculiar to that candidate.
Then those same people, when Elizabeth Warren was running, and Amy Klobuchar was running, I was hearing the same thing from them. And there was no other -- there was no pre-existing condition for them to, you know, in any way, dislike about these women candidates. And it actually -- it left me less hopeful than before.
VITALI: Yes, it`s funny how that happens, right? I talk about this idea of there being just something about them that we often hear from voters and other people in this orbit as women candidates run. It was especially striking in 2020 I have to say, because of the way that you look at 2016, when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, I know that`s not the way we elect presidents in this country, but it certainly is a metric of figuring out if the country was ready to elect a female president. Certainly they were in 2016.
And then you look at other polling data from 2018, after the blue wave and then you look at it in 2019, it looks like the moment was ripe for female candidacies.
But then you started putting names on the line, and political personalities behind them and all of a sudden people started finding things that they just didn`t like about these female candidates.
And part of the reason that I detail these moments in the book of female candidates somehow falling into the invisible traps of just campaigning for president the way that men have done for decades. Part of the reason why I call these moments out is because, once you see them as sexist engendered, it`s very easy to disrupt the narrative.
And by disrupting the narratives, it levels the playing fields a lot more. And so the thinking being, when you go into 2024, 28, and all of these upcoming cycles, it will allow a more level playing field for these women who are running, and they will be running.
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VITALI: And so I think that that`s a really important metric for us, because in the way that we hear there`s something about her for female candidates, one of the parallels that I lay out in the book is when you look at people like Beto O`Rourke or Pete Buttigieg, talented politicians, but certainly voters always used to talk to me about some intangible just something about them quality in a positive way. And it`s hard not to see that phrase as indicative of a larger structure here that`s tilted against female candidates.
O`DONNELL: Ali Vitali, I`ve been waiting for this book. This tells us -- teaches us more about this subject than anything else I`ve read.
Thank you very much for joining us tonight. The book is "Electable: Why America Hasn`t Put a Woman in The White House Yet".
We will be right back. Thank you, Ali.
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: Tonight`s LAST WORD is "electable", the title of Ali Vitali`s book.
"THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE" starts now.