Republicans assemble oddly insulting set of 2024 candidates with Senate control on the line

Vrbo

There are lots of people you might want to share a VrbO with. You may want to do a romantic getaway, enjoy a beach house with friends, or book a trip for the whole family. But one person you'll never want to share your stay with is the host. When you book a Vrbo, the host doesn't stay with you, so the only people you'll share the space with are your people. VrBO private vacation rentals.

Relax. You booked a Vrbo.

Rachel Maddow

Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Really happy to have you here. Have you ever seen Veep? It aired for seven seasons on HBO. It's Julia Louis Dreyfus.

She won a whole slew of emmys for it. She won like six consecutive emmys for it or something. She plays vice president Selena Meyer, who's just this instantly iconic american tv political figure. If you've ever seen, even if you haven't, you probably know about the character. She's really ambitious.

She really wants to be president. Not just vice president, but she's also just a total disaster. She's this craven and calculating political animal, but she spends all her time having to put out fires of her own making, fires of her staff's own making. She's just a disaster. And one of the sort of signature production things in the show, one of the things that the show does to great effect is that they use every last second of the show during the end credits of each episode.

The image on the right side of the screen kind of squishes down a little bit, and they highlight in this part, while the credits are rolling at the end, they highlight these campaign screw ups and their various pr disasters. So the end credits are like the best thing in the show. The end credits in one episode might be her ranting to her staff after a puff piece television interview turned out to be substantive, or her awkwardly trying to connect with high school students who are visiting the vice president's office. If you've seen the show, you know about this excellent trick, basically, that they do at the end. Here's kind of a perfect example of a Veep end credit.

This is her greeting people at a party at the vice president's official residence.

So you want to mingle? Yeah, let's go mingle the out of them. Ernest Langeberry, lifeboat association. He's got a glass eye. I am so happy you're here.

Jenny Armitage, disabled sports of America, just had triplets. Oh, triplets. Wow, that must have hurt. Unless you had a c section. Carrie Stringer, center for Social Action.

Jerry Kornfield

He's a triathlete. No, he's not. Hello. Liam Miller, NASA. Okay, that's an acronym for National Aeronautics.

Stop it. Good. The Reverend Terrence Clark, church of the living Christ. He's a baker. Oh, Christ is risen.

Can you leave?

Rachel Maddow

He's a baker. Christ has risen. He's a triathlete. No, he's not.

Selena Meyer, absolutely iconic american television figure from the great show Veep. Now this is a person who is not a tv character. His name is Hovd. Eric Hovdy. H O V D E.

He is an actual person, not a tv person who is running for an actual United States Senate seat in Wisconsin. He is trying to unseat democratic US Senator Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin. And in Wisconsin politics circles right now, Eric Hovdy's recent attempt to say the pledge of allegiance really emphatically, to make a big show out of really emphatically and like, confrontationally saying the pledge of allegiance has been set to the closing credits of Veep. Because once you see it, it's impossible to not think of it that way. Watch him try to make it through the pledge here.

I'm proud to be in America. I love my country. So let's say the pledge of allegiance together.

I pledge the allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Amen. God bless America. Go slinger speedway.

Rachel Maddow

Thanks, Eric.

We're also blessed to be part of the greatest country in the history of mankind, America.

Rachel Maddow

Is he waiting to the end of the marching band? Like he's maybe the part where he also belatedly realizes to put his hand on his, on his heart.

The republican party really desperately wants to take that Senate seat in Wisconsin again. That is the seat currently held by democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin. They want that seat. They really want to unseat her. The problem is that they have chosen this man as their candidate to try to do it, and he has succeeded in making national headlines as the republican Senate candidate for Wisconsin.

That's not necessarily an easy thing to do, but again, the problem is that he's made those headlines for things like this. Well, if you're in a nursing home, you only have five, six month life expectancy. Almost nobody in a nursing home is in a point to vote. Now, I am no political expert, but even someone who has never heard of the United States Senate before could probably suss out that that's probably not a great political strategy. Yeah, old people shouldn't vote.

Old people in nursing homes, they shouldn't be allowed. Most nursing home residents, not at a point to vote after that made headlines across Wisconsin and indeed across the country. Mister Hovdy tried to make this all go away as a news story, but he did it again as if this was an episode of veep. Quote, in recent days, Mister Hovdy has tried to clarify his comments. This week, he reiterated his belief that, quote, percentage of nursing home residents, quote, are not in the mental capacity to vote.

Now that's cleaning it up. Now, when I said old people in nursing homes shouldn't be allowed to vote, everybody made that sound so bad. Let me clarify. What I meant was that a large percentage of old people in nursing homes shouldn't be allowed to vote because they don't have the mental capacity for it. There, is that better?

Now I should mention that description of the worlds most inept effort to clean up a political disaster.

That account of that that is quoted from is me quoting from a national story, a New York Times story, where I think the headline helps understand Mister Hovdys situation even better, because the headline on that story is lawsuit puts fresh focus on Eric Hovdys comments about older voters. What is this lawsuit you say? Ah, turns out that at the same time that he has been questioning the mental capacity of nursing home residents to vote, he is also the head of a bank that is a co defendant in a California lawsuit that accuses a senior living facility of elder abuse, negligence, and wrongful death. He is a co defendant in that lawsuit. His bank is a co defendant because it turns out that Eric Hovdy, in addition to running for Senate in Wisconsin, he runs a bank that owns a nursing home that in California has given rise to a fairly gruesome elder abuse and wrongful death lawsuit.

At which point you're thinking, wow, maddow, that puts a way worse, way darker spin on his already inexplicable repeated comments about how we shouldn't allow people in nursing homes to vote because how dare they even try, right? But you're also thinking, wait, why did you say California? I thought he was running for Senate in Wisconsin. Ah, yes, yes. This is another problem that the local news in Wisconsin has been trying to tell people about this guy from the very beginning, back in May 2023, quote, Eric Hovdy may run for Senate in Wisconsin, but he's living large in Laguna Beach, California.

He lives in California. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, basically running the red flag all the way up the flagpole for the Republican Party about this guy before they picked him. I mean, and the detail on it just makes it worse. Hey, look. Eric Hovdy was named by the Orange County Business Journal as one of its 500 most influential people in Orange county in 2020.

In Orange County, California, where he lives in Laguna beach, which is 2000 miles away from Wisconsin, he does run a bank. It is a Utah based bank. He runs it from where he lives in Laguna Beach, California, where indeed his bank is named a co defendant in a nursing home abuse lawsuit. And he is running for Senate in Wisconsin, where 18% of the population is over the age of 65. He's running there by saying repeatedly that people in nursing homes shouldn't be allowed to vote because, hey, it's not like they have it together.

At most, they've got six months to live. Why should they be voting? Amen. Go slinger speedway. Okay, Eric, and I should underscore here how badly the republican party wants to win this Senate seat away from democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin.

They really want to win this seat, but inexplicably, this is the guy they picked. And it's not just Wisconsin. This is a live dynamic right now in the republican party in way more places than you would think. Here, for example, is the AP headline on the Republicans. US Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, David McCormick is gearing up for a Senate run in Pennsylvania, but he lives in Connecticut.

That seems bad. I mean, if you think about a Pennsylvania Senate race, right? You will recall it wasn't that long ago that Republicans lost a shot at a winnable US Senate seat last time around, last election cycle when they ran republican candidate Mehmet Oz, right? Republicans ran Mehmet Oz. Doctor Oz for that seat in Pennsylvania.

And Democrats needled him relentlessly about the fact that he kind of lived in New Jersey. And so what's he doing running in Pennsylvania? Well, now the Republicans are going to try again in Pennsylvania, except this time they're running a guy who lives in Connecticut to try to maybe head off the same thing happening again, like what happened with Doctor Mehmet Oz. They have developed a backstory for their candidate this time around who lives in Connecticut. They've decided that he's going to describe himself as someone who started with nothing, who grew up on a family farm in Pennsylvania.

Did he start with nothing? Did he grow up on a family farm in Pennsylvania? What do you think? Quote, Mister McCormick has explicitly said that he grew up on a farm. He claimed that he had, quote, started with nothing and that he, quote, didn't have anything.

He and his campaign have recently described his parents as schoolteachers. In fact, Mister McCormick is the son of a well regarded college president who later became chancellor of higher education systems in Pennsylvania. And in Minnesota, David McCormick largely grew up at what is now Bloomsburg University in the president's sprawling hilltop residence, which students called the president's mansion. Or he started with nothing and grew up on a family farm.

So in Wisconsin, Republicans are running a Selena Meyer understudy who is from California, whose bank is being sued for elder abuse, and who says, don't let people in nursing homes vote. In Pennsylvania, Republicans are running a guy who lives in Connecticut, who grew up in a literal president's mansion and says it was a family farm where he was so poor. But wait, there's more. In Montana, Republicans really, really, really want to take the US Senate seat there that is currently held by popular democratic senator John Tester. One of the things that makes John Tester really popular in a largely rural state like Montana is that Senator Tester is for real, a real farmer, drives the tractor and everything.

Republicans have decided to run somewhat against Senator John Tester in Montana, who is a person from Minnesota who grew up in the suburbs of St. Paul. Since he has been running against John Tester, though, he has made a big deal of saying that he grew up near farmland. Turns out there was maybe farmland near the multimillion dollar lake house he grew up in in suburban St. Paul.

So that's pretty much just like being a farmer. This follows another quite unusual controversy for this Montana Senate candidate in which he either dropped a loaded gun in a parking lot at Glacier National park and the gun went off when it hit the ground, and he thereby shot himself in the arm, or he didn't really shoot himself in the arm by dropping a gun in the parking lot at Glacier National park, but he nevertheless went to the hospital anyway. And while he did tell a us park ranger that he dropped a gun in that parking lot and shot himself that day, he was actually lying about that to the ranger because really he was trying to conceal the secret truth that he had an unreported war wound that he didn't want anybody to know about.

But whatever happened, it was definitely near farmland. There was very near. You could smell it nearby in the vicinity. Can I tell you? There's another one.

Michigan. Michigan Republicans are thrilled that democratic US Senator Debbie Stabenow is retiring in that state. They would love to take that Senate seat in Michigan. And so cue the headlines out of Michigan. Quote, Michigan Republican candidate caught living in Florida.

This is about republican Michigan US Senate candidate Mike Rogers. His name is Mike Rogers. This confluence of where he lives. And his name led the Michigan advance to build the perfect headline for this story, which is, quote, where is Mister Rogers neighborhood? Mike Rogers again wants to be the senator from Michigan, but he does appear to be registered to vote in Florida at his very nice house in Cape Coral, Florida, where he is registered with the Republican Party of Florida.

Voter status active. Where is Mister Rogers neighborhood? Indeed, in Arizona, the Senate seat, there is another one that Republicans would absolutely love to pick up with. Kirsten Sinema retiring the Republican Senate candidate in Arizona, Kerry Lake, she does appear to live in Arizona, which is a big plus for this crop of republican Senate candidates. Kind of a notable distinction, in fact.

But in the case of Arizona, you're going to need more than that because this, for example, is the new ad that the democratic Senate campaign committee just put out on Kerry Lake as a Senate candidate in Arizona and the issue of abortion rights in that state.

Kerry Lake

I'm incredibly thrilled that we are going to have a great law that's already on the books. I believe it's ARS 13360 three. So it will prohibit abortion in Arizona, paving the way and setting course for other states to follow.

This law passed. The Arizona Supreme Court said this is the law of Arizona. But unfortunately, the people running our state have said we're not going to enforce it. So it's really political theater. We don't have that law as much as many of us wish we did.

She's not enforcing the law. So we don't have that law. The only people who can enforce that. Law are our sheriffs. And we need to start asking the.

Kerry Lake

Sheriff'S why I haven't changed. Actually, no.

Rachel Maddow

Kerry Lake is the Republican Party's best idea of who they should run for the United States Senate seat that they really want to take this year in Arizona. But I mean, clock the context that the specifics that she was offering there in that clip. She wants individual sheriffs in Arizona to start enforcing the state's 1864 abortion ban. Sheriffs and sheriff deputies, get out there, get to it, get out on the streets, find out who's pregnant. We want the sheriffs enforcing this.

Watch when you cross county lines.

Theres a lot going on in the Republican Party right now. And I know that the partys presidential nominee, their most recent former President Donald Trump, I know he sucks up all the oxygen in the room and for obvious reason, he gets all the coverage, he gets all the commentary. But note what is going on in the Republican Party in the Trump era apart from him. I mean, just look at Arizona for a second. In Arizona, they are not only running Kerry Lake for Senate this weekend, Arizona Republicans just chose their state's representatives to the national Republican Party.

You know, it's called the, you know, it's called the RNC, the Republican National Committee. It is actually a committee. Every state sends two people to be part of the committee that makes up the RNC, that makes up the national Republican Party. Every state gets two choices. This weekend, Arizona Republicans picked their two choices.

They decided their two choices would be this person who was literally expelled from the state legislature recently after only being there for about three months. Here's how that was described in the Arizona Republic. Quote, she was expelled from the republican controlled House just three months into her term, this after she staged an all day live streamed legislative hearing at which her witnesses talked about the many ways in which our elections were supposedly stolen. The highlight was a Scottsdale insurance agent who slimed dozens of posts, public officials and private citizens, making preposterous, evidence free accusations that they all accepted bribes from the Sinaloa drug cartel. The House Ethics committee unanimously concluded that the state legislator not only knew what that insurance agent was likely to say during that hearing, but that the legislator actually took steps to hide the details from House leadership.

Then she lied about it to the ethics panel. Now shes a top ranking official in the Republican Party. Shes one of Arizonas two representatives to the Republican National Committee chosen this weekend by the Arizona Republican Party. But remember, they get to pick, too. The second representative Arizona Republicans just chose to represent their state at the RNC is this person who is a very special variety of Arizona Republican state senator.

Heres how Laurie Roberts at the Arizona Republic describes him today. Quote, meet Jake Hoffman, Arizona's new Republican National Committee man. This Queen Creek Republican burst into public view in 2020 when he ran an Internet troll farm, paying teenagers to post conservative talking points and baseless conspiracy theories on social media, all aimed at getting then President Donald Trump re elected. The Washington Post in September 2020 exposed Hoffman's rally forge, a digital marketing firm where his job was to pay teenagers, some of the minors, to set up fake Personas and blanket social media with thousands of nearly identical posts aimed at undermining confidence in the validity of the election and downplaying the impact of COVID-19 in other words, Jake Hoffman wanted to fool you into thinking these were real people spontaneously expressing deeply held conservative beliefs instead of what they were, a group of kids he was paying to deceive you. The posts cast doubt on the integrity of mail in ballots and said that Joe Biden is quote, being controlled by behind the scenes individuals who want to take America down the dangerous path toward socialism, quote, its the kind of thing you might expect to come out of Russia.

Instead, it came out of Phoenix, or more specifically, Jake Hoffmans secret cell of paid teenage trolls.

That troll farm in Phoenix was exposed in September of 2020. The same gentleman went on in December of 2020 to be one of the fake electors from Arizona for Trump. He, in fact, is one of the fake electors who was just criminally indicted in Arizona for his alleged role in that scheme. So he was indicted last week and named Republican National Committee man for the state of Arizona just days later. So it's not like they didn't know he'd been indicted.

They knew he was indicted, then they picked him afterwards.

There are at least 53 people who have now been criminally charged with participating in the effort to keep Trump in power after he lost reelection in 2020. And I'm not talking about the people who physically attacked Congress to try to intimidate and physically stop Congress from certifying the vote count on January 6. I mean, you can hive all of those hundreds of people off. There are still at least 50 republican party officials and lawyers and activists who are facing felony criminal counts other than Donald Trump himself.

And this is, this is sort of, this is me making my case to you. I think it is an underappreciated part of the politics of the Republican Party in the Trump era. I think it is an underappreciated part of politics in our country right now, as Trump is trying to return to the presidency again, that not only is he in the dock facing felony criminal charges as he tries to return to the White House, but also in the dock are the chair or former chair of the state republican parties in Arizona and Michigan and Georgia and Nevada, and serving republican elected officials in all of those states, and they are all swing states.

Trump adviser Peter Navarro is in jail right now. Today, the US Supreme Court again rejected another request from him to get out of prison. He is currently serving time in prison for refusing to testify about his role in Trumps efforts to overthrow the government. Trump attorney Jeff Clark just learned today that in his disbarment proceedings in California, the disciplinary counsel for the state bar association is arguing to the court that there is no sanction other than disbarment that is suitable for Jeff Clark. Given what he did, it would be inconsistent with our duty to the disciplinary system and to the profession to even suggest that a sanction other than disbarment should be contemplated by attempting to violate the rules of professional conduct.

Jeffrey Clark, quote, betrayed those oaths. And in doing so, his country, lawyers who betray their country must be disbarred.

And I know that the former president himself, former president and republican presidential nominee, I know him being on trial for multiple felonies is an amazing and unprecedented and frankly, astonishing spectacle. But stick a pin in that idea of astonishing right, because the crime he is alleged to have quarterbacked to try to keep himself in power despite losing reelection, that crime is now a sprawling nationwide scandal that has resulted in dozens of republican officials, almost in almost all the swing states being criminally charged and in all of the prominent lawyers involved in that effort, either being criminally charged or having their law licenses put at risk, or both. And yes, Trump himself will be back in court tomorrow, and there's stuff to know about that. We're going to get to that tonight. But no matter what happens to him in his own felony cases and in his own political trajectory, do not lose sight of what is happening to the Republican Party while they have been drafting off him in the lead, because it is an astonishing story on its own.

And if all that is not enough, I might have something else that tops all of it. Even if, you know, Mister Veep back there flubbing the pledge of allegiance at the top of his lungs in Wisconsin, I might have something that tops even that. And that story we've got for you here next. Stay with us.

Today and every day, Planned Parenthood is committed to ensuring that everyone has the information and resources they need to make their own decisions about their bodies, including abortion care. Lawmakers who oppose abortion are attacking Planned Parenthood, which means affordable, high quality, basic health care for more than 2 million people is at stake. The right to control our bodies and get the health care we need has been stolen from us. And now politicians in nearly every state have introduced bills that would block people from getting the sexual and reproductive care they need. Planned Parenthood believes everyone deserves health care.

It's a human right. Thats why they fight every day to push for common sense policies that protect our right to control our own bodies and against policies that interfere with decisions between patients and their doctor. Planned Parenthood needs your support now more than ever. With supporters like you, we can reclaim our rights and protect and expand access to abortion care. Visit plannedparenthood.org future.

Thats plannedparenthood.org future.

Rachel Maddow

So the governor of the great state of Washington, excuse me, is Jay Inslee. He's a Democrat. He's currently serving his third term as Washington governor. The people of that state have elected him governor three times, each time by a wider margin than the last time. In 2020, Jay Inslee walloped his republican challenger by more than 13 points.

But even though he might very well have been able to win a fourth term as governor, Jay Inslee decided it was time to step aside. He's not running again. Since this year's race for governor of Washington state, it's wide open. It may be the Republicans best shot in years to win that office. And so Washington state republicans have just gathered for their state party convention to endorse their candidates for state office, including governor.

How'd that go?

Disorder and disarray. That's why gubernatorial candidate Dave Reichert says he no longer wants an endorsement from the GOP. We will not be endorsing a governor at this convention. As you can hear, booze rang out. At the Spokane, Gob convention after the party's vice chair announced they will not.

Be endorsing a candidate for governor. It went that well, huh? This being a republican state convention in the age of republican politics under Donald Trump. The event, of course, ended up riven by infighting and factional disputes and dysfunction. Delegates ultimately did decide to endorse the trumpiest sort of most extreme candidate, but the other candidate says that he'll still run in this summer's republican primary.

Rachel Maddow

All of that chaos was what got all the headlines last weekend. But then, once all the gubernatorial nominee hubbub died down, something slightly nuttier than that happened. The assembled delegates decided that they would craft their party platform for this year. After dealing with the gubernatorial nomination, they decided they would add something new to their platform. They decided that as the Washington state Republican Party, they would this year take a stand against democracy.

And I do not mean this as a metaphor. I am not performing political analysis. I am literally describing what they literally did. We do not want to be a democracy. Originally, congressmen were elected by a direct democracy.

Senators were elected by their state legislatures, and presidents are elected by the electoral college. We are devolving into a democracy because now congressmen and senators are elected by the same pool, a direct democracy. And with the national popular vote coming, we're going to be electing our president by a direct democracy, too. Bad idea. Bad idea.

We are devolving into a democracy. We do not want to be a democracy. Okay. As Danny Westnead at the Seattle Times reported, delegates of the Washington state republican convention then stood up one by one to argue that the US should repeal the 17th Amendment, which allows us to vote for our United States senators. After that resolution passed, they went bigger.

They voted to put this language into their platform. Quote, we encourage Republicans to substitute the words republic and republicanism, where previously they have used the word democracy. Every time the word democracy is used favorably, it serves to promote the principles of the democratic party, the principles of which we ardently oppose. Quote, we oppose legislation which makes our nation more democratic in nature. We oppose legislation which makes our nation more democratic in nature.

So say Washington state republicans officially in writing in their party platform. What's going on here? Joining us now is Jerry Kornfield, a politics reporter with the Washington state Standard. He was at the republican convention in Spokane. Mister Karfield, I really appreciate you taking the time.

Thanks for being here. Well, thanks for having me. So looking in from the outside, from a national perspective, I'm describing what jumped out at me from the coverage of the convention. But I know you've been covering politics in your state for a long time. You were there in person.

What struck you? What do you think is most important about what happened there? Well, I think what happened there was through the platform, which we know platforms won't elect the next governor or any of the statewide officials. It did say that Republicans seem to be a little bit out of touch with the electorate in this state. And maybe that's an understatement.

Jerry Kornfield

There's no Republicans in statewide office. There hasn't been a republican governor since Mount St. Helens blue in the eighties. And this till ground, they actually voted not to endorse a sitting congressman, Dan Newhouse, part because he voted to impeach the former president in 2021. So I think the resolution reflected the passions of those on the floor.

Not sure it represented the passions or even the thoughts of most Washingtonians, even maybe most in the Republican Party. I was going to ask you about the difference between who was in that room, who's an activist in the Washington Republican Party right now, and the sort of median Republican Party voter in Washington. What's the makeup of the delegates? What was the atmosphere like at the convention? And how many folks is this that are making these decisions?

Well, there's 1800 people were there and easily two thirds were what aligned themselves with we the people or America first. You didn't hear Donald Trump mentioned a lot. You heard America first mentioned a bit. And so, I mean, it was, 70% of them endorsed the candidate, you know, that you mentioned before, the conservative candidate, semi bird. They didn't endorse the former congressman, Dave Reichert, a former sheriff.

So I mean, they represent the grassroots in Washington, but the question is, will they be there if their candidates don't win in the primary in August. And I think that's really the big question for Republicans in Washington state. Democrats are on the verge. They're confident they can get to a super majority of control in the House and the Senate and the state legislature. And so when they start writing and talking about these things in their platform, you know, it's just going to scare off voters in the middle, the independents who might like some of their ideas.

They're going to wonder if they elect people, if they're going to carry out any part of that platform. Yeah, taking an overt antidemocracy stance kind of with an exclamation point is, among other things, going to get you national headlines. It's interesting to have one. They had one line left in that resolution which says they oppose all efforts to use american military might to spread democracy around the world, which we're hearing that folks don't want the Americas military to be the police person of the world. And so it's interesting they would put that in the same resolution.

Rachel Maddow

America first, indeed. Jerry Kornfield of the Washington state standard. Jerry, I really appreciate you being here. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, we've got much more to come here tonight. Stay with us.

From free comics radio, a new series about a role model we didn't know we needed. So many crazy things really did happen to him. The physicist Richard Feynman was one of the most brilliant scientists of his generation, but he was also a troublemaker, an obsessive, and a man who spoke truth to power. Along the way, he created a blueprint for how to lead a life of honest inquiry. He was a brilliant theoretical physicist, but.

Rachel Maddow

What really made him stand out was his humanity. The curious, brilliant vanishing Mister Feynman on freakonomics radio.

Netsuite

Why are smart businesses graduating to Netsuite by Oracle? Because Netsuite eliminates the expense of multiple business systems by consolidating your operations together into one. Netsuite is the number one cloud financial system, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform and one source of truth. Netsuite reduces it costs because it lives in the cloud with no hardware required, so you can access it from anywhere. You cut the cost and headaches of maintaining multiple systems because youve cut one unified business management suite.

Bringing all your major business processes into one platform improves efficiency, slashing manual tasks and errors. Over 37,000 companies have already made the move. So do the math. Youll see how youll profit with Netsuite, too. And now, by popular demand, Netsuite has extended its one of a kind, flexible financing program for a few more weeks.

Just go to netsuite.com podcast 25 for more information. That's Netsuite.com podcast 25.

Rachel Maddow

So, January 22, there's speculation that he is facing potential criminal charges. So he says in January 22, quote, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had. Then a few months later that fall, he said if he was indicted, the United States would face problems the likes of which perhaps we've never seen. Then March 2023, he's indeed preparing to be indicted in New York. And he just sounds the clarion call.

This is it. All capital letters. He says, quote, protests take our nation back. It's time. We just can't allow this anymore.

We must save America. Protest, protest, protest. He says three times with three exclamation points. When Trump was indeed, then indicted, when he was indeed then arraigned, these were all the people who came out to protest, protest, protest in favor of him. This was the biggest crowd he's had from any of these things.

This was it. Probably not enough to take the country back, certainly not with three exclamation points, but that was the biggest he ever got. Two months later, another indictment, this time in the classified documents case in Florida. Again, he demanded that his supporters rally for him in person, quote, all caps. See you in Miami.

On Tuesday, local law enforcement prepared for crowds of up to 50,000 people after he said that the actual crowd was closer to 500 people, not 50,000 people. Then last week, ahead of opening statements in his New York criminal trial, Trump tried cranking the handle again. 72 hours until all hell breaks loose. If we fail to have a massive outpouring of peaceful patriotic support right here, right now, all hell will break loose. All hell did not break loose.

It was Rudy Giuliani's adult son and a smattering of other people, and that was it. Trump has actually tried claiming that big throngs of people have been showing up to protest and show their support for him in New York, or at least that people have showed up trying to protest. But he says police have been keeping them away. He's tried claiming on social media that the area outside the court was, quote, completely closed down. He said, quote, thousands of people were turned away from the courthouse in lower Manhattan by steel stanchions and police.

And again, it's just not true. People are not, police are not turning people away. There are no steel stanchions that are blocking his supporters from turning up and walking around them, you can walk right up there. But by Thursday, the third day of testimony in the trial this past week, it was just this one dude named Gary, and that was kind of it. And so because he has not just been predicting protests on his behalf, he has been commanding his followers to protest for him.

It is a little humiliating for Trump that this is happening, that he can't seem to summon a crowd. It's also just an interesting data point, broadly speaking, as to whether or not Trump can command an angry mob at this point in his political trajectory, or are those days behind him? I think the other way that this functions, though, is that it's an important reminder that he's not getting what he wants in terms of daily stimulation, right? He's not getting crowds of people lining the streets or standing outside the courtroom chanting for him. Nobody's out there for him.

The courtroom where his trial is taking place is old and dingy. It kind of smells weird. And so starting tomorrow, he's heading into another week of long, detailed testimony. We can expect that he will be disappointed, angry, and perhaps delusional about the reasons that there are not people outside protesting for him inside the trial. If passed his prologue, hes likely to be bored and unhappy while not receiving the kind of response and adoration from the people.

He expects to deliver that to him. Maggie Haberman at the New York Times recently put it this way. She said, quote, it is hard to recall any other time Trump has been forced to be bored for so long. The shared sense among many of his advisors is that the process may damage him as much as a guilty verdict. The process, they believe, is its own punishment.

If the process is the punishment here, what should we expect from what these next few days are likely to be like? With likely no more protesters and testimony that we can sort of see coming around the corner that seems like it might be more boring than anything that's yet happened. How much worse is this about to get for him? And can he pull the ripcord to get out of it? That's next.

The criminal trial of republican presidential presumptive nominee Donald Trump resumes tomorrow. Court should start at 930 Eastern Sharp. The former president will once again be forced to sit in silence in a most unglamorous old courtroom, trying to stay focused and engaged for a whole day's proceedings, just to have to do it again and again and again and again and again in coming weeks. And I have to tell you, I have kind of a wild take on this. And it is this.

If I were Trump, I would plead guilty. I would try to plead it on down to a single count if I could pay the fines, take the business punishment or whatever, do the five minutes of jail time, call yourself a martyr for it, raise a lot of money. Youll have Secret Service in there, youll be fine. But if you did that, you could make this thing come to an end. You could shorten this process.

You could get out of that courtroom and get back on the campaign trail. You could avoid the punishment of having to show up for court every day. This is likely the only one of his trials thats happening before election day. If he gets out and campaigns and runs the campaign, he wants to hell be president in November as of hell be president elect as of November, and then all the trials will go away anyway. I know it's a wild take, but if he doesn't pull that ripcord, if he doesn't change his plea to guilty, if he sticks it out at trial, this is going to be another six weeks more.

How much worse is this going to get for him? Joining us now is MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin. She's been following every step of the trial from inside the courtroom. Lisa, it's great to see you. Thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me. I know that we disagree on this, and I know that you understand these things better than I do. So please tell me why Trump should not plead guilty or like, or why he's unlikely to plead guilty. Well, I think part of that is that it necessitates the participation of the prosecutors and their permission. And I don't see the Manhattan DA's office, given where we are right now, allowing Trump to plead down from 34 felony counts to one.

The other problem, Rachel, is that if he were to plead guilty, Judge Mersham would want to sentence him immediately. I can't see a situation in which he, she would agree to postpone the sentencing and remanding of Trump to after the election. And Trump would want that to happen because these are felonies that are punishable not just by a few months, but from two to four years in jail for each count. So if, even if he is going to be found guilty in this trial, he can still count on the likelihood that his sentencing could be delayed until after the election and presumably obviated once he's elected, if he does in fact succeed in his reelection effort. Well, if he sticks with the trial, the prospect that he can appeal his sentence would allow him theoretically to be able to stay that verdict and stay the sentencing through the duration of his appeal.

If he pleads guilty, on the other hand, he loses control of that timing. Lisa, in terms of the process being the punishment for him, we've both been in court. We've seen the way that he's reacting physically to the strains of these long days in court. What are you expecting? What are you going to be watching for in terms of what it's like in the courtroom for this next week, say this next week or two?

Rachel Maddow

What kind of testimony are we going to be looking forward to? Is this going to be something that's even more egregiously tiring for him? I think it could be because if past his prologue, Rachel, the last two witnesses we've seen post David Pecker were primarily there to help admit documents for the prosecution. It is not the most scintillating testimony to listen to, to say it mildly. And that means for former President Trump, the ability to stay awake and engage may be even more challenged than it's been.

It's one thing to remain at attention when everybody is talking about you and about salacious, gossipy, pulpy detailing bills like David Pecker had to offer. It's another thing when somebody is going through the minutiae of bank records, for example, or your outlook contacts. And so if we continue to see testimony primarily with the goal of admitting documents that the prosecutors need to connect the dots, count on Donald Trump to have a hard time staying engaged and to return to that big stack of papers he's been carrying with him, which I think are mostly cherry picked articles that say good things about him to hold his attention. A little stack of dopamine for him. Papers of MC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin.

Rachel Maddow

I know you'll be back in the courtroom tomorrow. Good luck tomorrow. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. I'll be right back.

Stay with us.

Two quick things before I go. I had so much fun the other day with joy Reid at the historic Apollo Theater in Harlem. We were talking about her new book, Medgar and Merle. We filmed that. And so this Saturday, May 4, you can see Joy Reed and Rachel Maddow live at the Apollo on MSNBC 09:00 p.m.

Eastern this Saturday night. Very excited about that. It's going to stream on Peacock as well. Also, if you do want to see me live this weekend, there are a few tickets left for an event I'm doing for my book prequel. It's this Saturday night in Kingston, New York.

All the details and tickets online. Msnbc.com prequel. Again, a few tickets left in Kingston, New York for Saturday May 4. That's gonna do it for me. For now.

Vrbo

When booking with other vacation rental apps. Sounds like this. This place doesn't look like the pictures. Come on. The doors are on back.

Is there a door behind all those spiders?

Vrbo

It's time to try one. That sounds more like a vacation. Look at how many spiders there aren't. Where should we lie down for eight consecutive hours? First?

Rachel Maddow

Relax. You booked a Vrbo.

Vrbo

You booked a Vrbo.

Republicans assemble oddly insulting set of 2024 candidates with Senate control on the line

Primary Topic

Episode Summary

Main Takeaways

Episode Chapters

1: Introduction

2: Eric Hovde's Campaign

3: State of the Republican Candidates

4: Broader Republican Issues

Actionable Advice

About This Episode

People

Companies

Books

Guest Name(s):

Content Warnings:

Transcript