"Trump has made mail in voting his boogeyman"

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Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating. I call it mail-in cheating. And we got to do something about it all. I'm president of the United States. And because of the fact that I'm president of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida because I felt I should be here. Do as I say, not what I do. Hi again, everybody. It's 5 o'clock in New York. I kid you not. Those two clips were not from years apart or like one when he was president, one when he was just a reality TV guy. They were three days apart. Mail-in-voting is, of course, safe and secure, even for Donald Trump, just not any of the rest of us, especially anyone who might want to vote against him in a battleground state. In this massive effort to undermine our elections in America, Donald Trump has made mail-in voting, his new delusional, phony boogeyman. He's railed against it for years now, saying without any evidence that it is ripe with fraud and is taking steps to undermine it severely. Back in March, he signed an executive order creating a national list of voting eligible citizens. Now the United States Postal Service, a federal agency, but one that is supposed to be independent, is making a move in line with that EO. New York Times reports this, quote, The U.S. Postal Service has proposed a new rule that would allow it to refuse to deliver mail ballots in states that do not turn over voter rolls to the federal government. The rule proposed last week is vaguely written, but appears to establish broad authority. for the agency to intervene in the mail voting process. It calls on states to compile lists of mail voters that Postal Service employees would use to screen ballots for eligibility. If states refuse to comply, the agency could refuse to send their mail ballots. As for the significance of this new rule, the New York Times adds this reporting, quote, screening mail ballots for voter eligibility, meanwhile, would amount to an unprecedented and potentially unconstitutional involvement of the federal government in the administration of elections. This being just one piece of the Trump administration's larger effort to exert more federal control over elections. As we spoke about in the first hour of this program, Donald Trump has his Justice Department showing deep distrust in the voting process and inserting itself where it isn't allowed to be. He installed election deniers in positions of power in his second cabinet. He championed Republicans to redraw their congressional maps. And last week, he claimed without evidence that there's fraud in California's elections. The defenders of democracy are not...

Giving up this fight, lawsuit after lawsuit has been filed against these efforts. And just yesterday, quote, a federal appeals court expedited a bid to block Trump's sweeping attack on mail-in voting, a hopeful procedural sign for voters as the administration pushes ahead with plans that could upend how mail ballots are cast for the 2026 midterms. The Trump administration's attempts to interfere in our elections. is where we begin the hour with some of our most favorite reporters and friends. National Voting Rights correspondent from Mother Jay Jones. Ari Berman is back with us. Also joining us, Voting Rights Attorney and founder of Democracy Docket, Mark Elias, is back. And with me for the hour, political analysts, host of the Bullwork podcast, Kim Miller, is back with us. Mark Elias, I know you're on the front lines. legally fighting all of these efforts like whack them all. Just tell us about this. This feels like an audacious move even for them. Just take me inside the post office piece of this. Yeah, so that case that's expedited to the D.C. Circuit, that's actually my lawsuit. And look, there are two things going on simultaneously. The first is that Donald Trump and the Department of Justice are trying to get access to every state's complete voter file. Okay. The second thing going on is that they are trying to use the Postal Service to say that if states don't preclear with them. who it is that they want to send mail-in ballots to, then the Postal Service won't send the ballots to them. So in other words, on the one hand, the Department of Justice says, give us all your data. On the other end, or not on the other hand, in addition, they are saying, if you don't share in advance who you want to give mail-in ballots to, and we don't look at that list and remove anyone who we don't think should be on it, then we will not mail anyone in your state a mail-in ballot, and anyone not on that list. won't get a mail-in ballot. This is not, as the New York Times reported, potentially unconstitutional. This is wildly unconstitutional. I mean, the fact is that Congress has or the Constitution gives the states the power to set the time, place, and manner of elections. It lets Congress override that by legislation. This is not legislation. This is Donald Trump and a pen and a piece of paper masquerading as an executive order that is just a screed of a press release. claiming powers he does not have. In addition to that, Nicole, the U.S. Postal Service is in the U.S. Constitution, and it is not under the control of the Commerce Department, which Donald Trump also seems to have not realized. So, like, everything about this is cock-eyed. Everything about this is wrong. It's unconstitutional. He's not going to get away with it. But in the meantime, he is sowing a lot of confusion, and he is laying the groundwork for when he loses. to claim it was all fraud. If that sounds familiar, it's because it's what he does every time. He does something, he claims a position that's not legal, he loses in court, and then he uses the fact that he's lost in court as somehow evidence to then go a step further.

Mark, he's also saying the political piece out loud, not that you need any help with any of your legal briefs, but he's admitted this. This is in the New York Times. There are vanishingly few instances of illegal non-citizen voting. Democrats have repeatedly accused the president of trying to give Republicans an electoral advantage in the name of improving election security, and Trump has not denied it. At a gathering of Republican lawmakers in March, he framed support for legislation that would, in part, crackdown on mail-in voting as a way to hold the GOP majority in Congress. Quote, it'll guarantee the midterms, he told them, warning that failure would bring big trouble. I mean, he's saying that without fraud, he wants to do these extraordinary and unconstitutional things to tip the scales in the midterms and the Republicans. advantage. How do you take that and stomp out all of these maneuvers in court? Yeah, this is kind of the interesting thing, is that, you know, the Republicans went from the, this is all about fraud to this is all about winning. I mean, you know, Ronald Trump also said something essentially to the effect of, well, Steve Hilton won the second slot in the California race because I made a fuss and therefore I changed the outcome. Like, I'm sorry, what? The President of the United States is claiming, I mean, it's a lie, obviously, but he thinks he can just decide who wins or loses elections by his own decree. I mean, but that's what Donald Trump's always been about. Like, Donald Trump has not been about a fair process. He just wants the outcome he wants. I mean, you know, when he was caught on tape in 2020, he didn't say, find lawful votes. He was just like, go find me 11,000 votes one way or another, and I'll take care of the rest. And that is how he views all of these things. None of this is about making sure there's not fraud. None of this is making sure people can vote. None of this is about making sure that the rules are followed. This is all outcome determinative. And that is why he is attacking California because... He wants to go to California for the same reason Willie Sutton went to Rob Banks, which is that that's where the seats are. And so he is setting up a structure where he can decide that when he is eight or ten seats short of a majority in Congress, he can say, oh, you know where I found eight or ten Democratic seats? California. How do you, we haven't talked to you in a couple days. I'm sorry to hit you with all these headlines, but how do you take the FBI raid or investigation into pro-democracy and civil rights, leaders and organizations in Ohio, the refusal to put in writing that they are killing the $1.8 billion slush fund for the foot soldiers of January 6 up to an including the violent insurrectionists? The constant, constant talking about fraud in California, not just from Trump, but from Jay Clayton, the new Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. attorney out there in California. I mean, just, I mean, if they're related, how do you see that relation?

Yeah, on the Jay Clayton thing, I mean, he was just auditioning. I mean, it's now clear what was going on. All of a sudden, Jay Clayton, a federal prosecutor winds up on CNBC in the morning talking about the possibility of fraud in California. And originally, I was like, what the hell is that? And now I get it. Like, he needed to clear one last hurdle to get his job as the DNI. And it was making sure he was a made man on election denialism. So I think that's like off to itself. I think, Nicole, you know, it's interesting. I was on with you. I happened to be in the studio, the day of the Letitia James indictment in Virginia. And I think one of the things that has happened is that we have tended to view the weaponization of government. through the prism of going after high-profile opponents of Donald Trump, people like James Comey, to people like Letitia James. And that's important. I mean, that's an important story to cover. But what's been going on beneath the surface, whether it's this situation in Ohio, whether it's the U.S. attorneys, you say, in California, saying that, you know, they're going to try to find some evidence of fraud and prosecute, whether it's, frankly, the prosecution of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Like, what's going on is a different kind of way. And it doesn't involve these high-profile individuals. So it doesn't necessarily rise to the top of everyone's attention. But there are two ways to destroy an opposition movement. One is to abuse political power to go after high-profile leaders. The other is to abuse political power to go after the organizations actually doing the work on the ground. And I think that it is important that we pay as much attention to that second weaponization as we do the first. Ari, you do a good job, a better job than I do, keeping those two things in balance. The second, though, these are not the people who are going to set up legal defense funds and have millions of dollars to protect them. These are not necessarily beneath the leadership positions, folks with the ability to recruit, the former top lawyers who worked in normal justice departments to defend them. These are people who could be... not intimidated away from the work, but perhaps intimidated in a manner where they don't necessarily complain about the subtle acts of intimidation. And I wonder if you could speak to Mark Elias's point about harassing the sort of infrastructure of our democracy. Well, thank you for having me back, Nicole. And you're absolutely right. I mean, this is a now. broadening power grab. And the FBI raid in Ohio is so disturbing because it directly relates to groups that are doing work on this election. I mean, the raid in Fulton County, Georgia, where they took 700 boxes of ballots for 2020, was extremely disturbing. And yes, it was aimed at much about this election as the 2020 election, which is the ballots they wanted to seek. But now they are directly going after groups that are working on the midterm elections, groups that are doing voter registration work. groups that are doing get-out-the-vote activities, groups that are opposing gerrymandering and other things that the president is trying to do. And so it sends a signal that they are going to directly interfere in the election system and even more tangible ways. And they're going to go after groups that may not be able to defend themselves in the same kind of ways, but may actually be having a more tangible impact on people's ability to vote. And there's a lot we still don't know about this investigation. But, I mean, Ohio is a major battle.

He offered if they lose by 8 or 10, maybe they'll find 8 or 10 districts. Who knows? So they lose by 20. There are 20 districts in California. They're 50, right? So it kind of doesn't matter how close it is. You can try to challenge the California mail ballots. And I just think that this is a blaring red light that everybody needs to look at. I personally think California should just change the rules for how they count votes, not because they're doing anything wrong, but because it creates this long period for bad actors to do shenanigans. If you don't believe that, there have to be other. you know, preparations, which I know Mark and others are working on, you know, to think about how to combat this. Because, like, this is what's coming. Like, the fact that the head of the DNI went on to make a fabricated claim about California. You know, is because they know what's going to happen in November and they know that California is a place where they can try to make it seem like there's fraud. And then who knows how that, what happens then? Maybe Mike Johnson decides not to seat the California delegation. I mean, we could speculate. Yeah. But, you know, that is. He did that. He did that to stop. Those are the things that they're at least thinking about. And it's all right in front of our eyes right now. Right. And anyone who thinks that Mike Johnson wouldn't do that, he did it to stop the vote on the release of the Epstein files, which is a bipartisan vote. I mean, he'd already lost Thomas Massie. So the idea that, like, he's going to be some, like, bulwark of story. And after Prop 50, I mean, like, the California maps, like. To the points all of you are making, that's where the seats will be. All right, no one's going anywhere. For better or worse, there's a lot more on the story to tell you about. Also ahead, why Donald Trump thinks he has to steal the midterm elections in the first place? It has a lot to do with how, frankly, pissed off his own voters are at him. just 15 months after electing the guy. Many of them are saying out loud and in front of TV cameras enough. We'll show you what that sounds like and why Trump's lame duck phase of his presidency is already very much here. Plus, it's being described as vulgar, violent, commercial, grandiose, and tacky, and something that dishonors a place once thought worthy of care and respect. We're not just talking about... Trump, but about the birthday party he's hosting this weekend and the incredibly crass and tasteless move he's making tonight to get it underway. We'll explain all that later in the hour, and we're keeping an eye on the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center, where workers are preparing to remove Donald Trump's name from the side of the building. We'll bring you live pictures when his name starts coming down. Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

Watch Disclosure Day at Home Now with exclusive bonus features. If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you? Would that frighten you? Well, now the truth belongs to 7 billion people in an original event film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Kep starring Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Coleman Domingo. Find Disclosure Day on major digital platforms now with no subscription required, also in theaters. Monday AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com. So they see the full picture. My work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff, knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Hey, everyone, it's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast, Wise is happening. What really happened with the border during the Biden administration? Asylum at the border needs to be changed. And that was part of the legislation supported by President Biden. And that's what got killed by Donald Trump because he wanted the crisis to live for political benefit. So what has happened is there are many fewer migrants presenting themselves of the border. The Supreme Court just basically shut that down and allowed the administration to do what it wants. That's this week on Wise. is happening. Search for Wise is happening wherever you're listening right now and follow. We are all back. Mark Elias, your account says that you're tracking 157 active voting rights cases, 41 active redistricting cases, 79 active anti-voting cases, 74 pro-voting cases, and 32 DOJ lawsuits. It's a veritable anti-democracy circus with, you know, five rings. What do you need to prevail on the pro-democracy side ahead of November? So look, I think that the biggest number in that list that people should pay attention to. I mean, the one that jumps out at a lot of people are the redistricting numbers, which are bunkers given where we are in the middle of the election cycle. But the one I want to focus people on is that there are more active anti-voting cases right now than pro-voting cases. Now, this is an important distinction because if you ask yourself, if all of those cases prevailed or all of those cases lost, what would the net effect be? The net effect would be bad, right? And this is a historic. There has not been an election cycle where we have ever seen there be more use of the courts to restrict voting rights than to empower voting rights. Historically, there were no anti-voting cases. If I had been on your show 10 years ago and I said that there were anti-voting cases, you might very well have said, Mark, can you give me an example of what that is?

Right, because like nobody litigated to make voting harder. Now, anti-voting litigation is a staple, not just of the Republican Party, not just of a vast right-wing network, but also of the Department of Justice. So the reason why that number is so big relative to the past is that for the first time. We have the Department of Justice bringing anti-voting litigation. And that has never happened before. It didn't happen under George Bush. It didn't happen under the first George Bush. It didn't happen under Ronald Reagan. It didn't happen under Richard Nixon. That just, like, wasn't a thing. But it is decidedly now. So what do we need? Look, we need more people to be in this fight, particularly as big law has retreated from this fight. We need more people to be in it. We need more attention brought to it. We need more. lawyers willing to stand up. We need more journalists to be willing to shine a spotlight on it. You know, we need more podcasters and YouTube superstars like Tim to have people like me and Ariane to shine a spotlight on it. Like we just need more of everything. You know, what's interesting, though, is that voters have a way of understanding this. I mean, you see it in Hungary, right? It took 16 years. Heaven help us if it takes us 16 years. But there is a thing where if people think you're trying to take something away, it is a voter incentive in and of itself. And it should never come to that. I mean, that's the asymmetry, something that I think has been a feature of the 11 years of Trump in the first place. But Ari, when you look at the efforts to combat this, There is an asymmetrical fervor around what Mark Elias is talking about. I mean, there is no fraud, right? Bill Barr was more than willing to go look for it. He didn't find any, and it culminated in him calling it bullshit and quitting because he wouldn't fabricate fraud. But he was happy to go look for it. He didn't find any. After the 2000 election, Jim Baker and former president Jimmy Carter went and looked for it. There wasn't any then. either. Voting fraud isn't a crime that happens and when it does the criminal justice system deals with it. But there are now voter suppression laws, hundreds of them in 48, 49 states, I think, predicated on the lie. How do we clean out all of the corrupt conduct predicated on something that isn't even real, the lie about fraud? Well I think the people who are doing the vote suppression, the people that are doing the illegal gerrymandering, they need to be held to account. And it's very clear that the system is unfair right now. I mean, we would have no debate. over whether Democrats would take back the House right now, if not for the unprecedented mid-decade gerrymandering done by Trump, the Supreme Court's destruction of the Voting Rights Act, and Republican-dominated state Supreme Courts putting their thumb on the scale to approve maps in places like Virginia where Democrats not only pass them, but voters approve them, but then allowing discriminatory maps in places like Florida and Missouri and Ohio that blatantly violate state constitution. So we know the system is unfair, but it was also unfair in Hungary and voters over

came it. There were 50,000 election monitors in Hungary on the ground to make sure that Viktor Orban's party didn't steal the election. I just saw a poll today that black voters named the Supreme Court as their number one threat to democracy. even ahead of Donald Trump. So that's evidence to me. The destruction of the Voting Rights Act is motivating people, particularly black voters that are outraged about the revival of Jim Crow to make sure their votes matter, to make sure their votes count. And so it's terrible what's going on in terms of the voter suppression, in terms of the gerrymandering. But I do think it could have a backlash effect. I do think that people are paying attention. And I do that we could see people say, I'm so mad about the efforts to restrict voting rights. I want to make sure that I vote in record numbers like never before in this midterm election. All right. Well, we're going to put the two of you on notice that we need you. Let's continue having this conversation. Ari Berman, Mark Elias, thank you so much for starting us off this hour. Tim sticks around. When we come back, hosted Republican Senator John Cornyn says Donald Trump's in for, quote, miserable two years. This once loyal voters have turned on him, there must-see rebukes of the president they voted for after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

I voted for Trump all three terms. To be honest with you, I'm not a big supporter of them at this point. Due to the economy and due to gas prices, due to Epstein files and some other things. You said you'd bring down the grocery prices. Literally, I must be the most angry person when a grocery shop because I buy the same things every week. And I see... It jump every week. If you could pick one word to describe the economy right now, what would that one word be? The gutter. The gutter. It's in the gutter. If you could talk to President Trump directly right now, what would you tell him? Should you want me to really say it on air? I say, fuck you. F you and your economy is in the gutter. Those are not. My words, those are not the words of anyone with a Biden or a Harris lawn sign in their yards over the last 10 years. Those were people who voted for Donald Trump 18 months ago. And it is not a good sign when your very recent voters and your political base starts to sound angrier than anyone who. Thought Democrats should have impeached you. I must now, Alex Tabett, spoke to now ex-supporters of Donald Trump's. As anger continues to grow over Donald Trump's second term as president, it's not just his base. It's angry, though. Elective Republicans are increasingly finding the... I don't know, spine or something else, to break with him publicly over his handling of the economy and his handling of the war in Iran and his handling of the Epstein files and his insistence on backing candidates in Republican primaries who seem very unlikely to win in November's midterms. Texas Senator John Cornyn sat down with the New York Times after losing the Texas Republican Senate primary. Donald Trump backed his embattled, to put it, politely, challenger in that race, Texas's Attorney General, Ken Paxton. John Cornyn told the New York Times this, quote, if that's the way friends treat you, you wonder about his enemies. Adding, quote, I think it's going to be a pretty bumpy ride for the next seven months. I don't say that with any sort of desire for vengeance. I just think that's the way it's going to be. He's going to have the most miserable two years of his life in the last two years of his term, I think, because I think November is going to be a disaster. Joining our coverage. Media Matters for America, President Angelo Carousone. Tim is still here. Tim. I have to sort of put a pin in all my disgust with all these people who were saying now, what a lot of us have been saying for a decade, I'll deal with that in therapy. But you do see elected Republicans in public interviews articulating the true political reality, which is sort of the other half of the rigging of the elections that...

I think is important because you have to get in front of Trump's own voters that he's cheating because Republicans are telling him he's going to lose in a catastrophic political way. Yeah. Well, I'm going to do something nice for you here. It's a Friday. I don't think you've got to put a pin in your disgust for John Cornyn. I think that you can embrace that and you can embrace and enjoy the shot in Freud, and you can continue to mock him. For the voters, I get it. I think that's smart and prudent because it's important to win people over. But John Cornyn hasn't said he's going to oppose Trump. In that same interview, he was blunt about how Trump's going to have... a bad two years though i don't know i think maybe john corin's misassessing don't trump and what he cares about don't trump might have a fine two years, just golfing and redesigning the East Wing and building a big arch. And I don't know. We'll see. He's going to have a bad two years in the traditional political sense, things that people John Corning care about. Like they're not going to pass anything in Congress. He's going to get investigated. He won't get impeached again. So I just, I thought it was pretty striking in that John Cornyn interview, though, that he says basically, well, you know, now I have a little bit more freedom. But the nice thing about being an ex-Senator, I'm paraphrasing, but he says this, is that ex- senators make more money. And it's just like, it's just so gross. You can see these guys. And now they can like say a little bit of truth, right? And they're like, I can get a little bit of distance for Trump. I can pick a couple things now where I can finally be my own man instead of just being Trump's doormat. But I can't do too much still because I want to be able to lobby when it's over. I want to be able to make money still after it's over. And it's just you can understand why Donald Trump so easily ran over the like husk of the establishment Republican Party. Look, I think that there's a lot of anger out there. I think there's a lot of things that voters that, you know, Democrats should be able to channel all the voters. I mean, you've got Donald Trump's buddy, you become the first trillionaire today, Elon Musk. You know, they're going to have the birthday party forum on the lawn. And like all of this out of touch French Revolution style behavior from Donald Trump, I think will be a manna for the Democrats politically. But, you know, I'm not expecting much heroism from John Cornyn. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for that, my friend. That's why we're trying. You see me. Angelo, let's go back to the voters. F you, I'm so conflicted about...

bleeping out and sanitizing anything when it comes to Trump. Right. The conversation inside his coalition is never sanitized inside sort of MAGA media. But for anyone with kids at home, we believe that. It's obvious what he was saying. And his own voter describing himself as a three-time Trump voter, which means he voted for him 15 months ago saying the economy is in the gutter, asked to sort of stand by that. He comes back and says, yeah, it's in the gutter. So this is the reality, this is the lived reality for people Trump used to care about his own voters. You know, he was in a sort of monogamous communication loop with them in the first term and throughout his four years out of office. He has broken that covenant, right? And it seems that the only people he's in a chat with now are people like the guy NPR reported on the convicted child molester who somehow knew before. Todd Blanche says he knew about a $1.8 billion slush fund for the insurrectionists. How do you assess the intimacy, which used to be really sort of a political phenomenon, which has turned into distance between Trump and his voters? Yeah, I mean, that was a source of his strength. I mean, obviously the apparatus around him that he could use, the media apparatus that he could use to amplify. But his connection to that zeitgeist allowed him to then amplify stories and messages and sort of capture that gut feeling that then enabled him to build power. on what used to be considered the fringes, and also pulling people that maybe, you know, wouldn't have been there in the first place. So you're right. That is a really important part of this story, and it sort of speaks a lot to what is political power is going to be going forward. And then there's the larger question, which is what does this mean? And the first thing I'll start with is, and this is, and this is where the tension comes into these discussions, is that, or at least it's true. The regrets are piling up amongst Trump's voters. They are just consistently piling up. And we're hearing this in some places of talk radio, a little bit here and there, obviously, in focus groups and But regrets don't equal defections. And I think sometimes people will say, well, then that it doesn't matter. But it does. Because they don't have to defect. They don't have to become Democratic voters for it to make a difference. They just have to be to not participate and continue to politically support Trump and those that are enabling Trump. And that's an important part of regrets. It makes a really big difference. The other thing that makes a big difference is that is the narrative. That is another piece of Trump's thing. We talked about this a lot, his narrative dominance. And when you have so much regret amongst Trump voters, amongst MAGA voters, amongst MAGA audience, MAGA media doesn't have a plan. They don't know how to deal with regretful Trump voters. So what they end up doing is ignoring them. And that gets back to the core of your question, which is, what does that do? Well, if you're being ignored, you just get more mad. And then everything that gets said gets further and further detached. That gap becomes wider and wider. This is a trend we've seen going all the way back to the way they handled the Epstein stuff at first. They turned a crack into a full-bone frisier. And that's the feedback loop that he's in now with his audience. And so these cracks then, these regrets with the audience, they get more mad because Fox and the host, they just ignore them. They make them mad, and so does Trump. But then the effect is it just continues to brew up.

And then the personalities have to start to slowly start to shift. You heard Jesse Waters say something negative about Trump this week. That is insane. That's incredible. That never happens. I'm not going to give him any credit. That's a big deal, though. You know, he's like the sycophant's the sycophant. I mean, it's incredible. I mean, the fact that he was saying something critical and not caveat on it is a big deal because it is a small reflection of that audience. Because when Trump's going on, what was it? What was it about? He was criticized him about Iran, just like Mark Havana is doing it. And Benny Johnson said the same thing. A month ago, 30 days. Benny Johnson said, don't worry, gas prices are going to be $2 by the midterms. He was heralding Trump's power and his success and his skills this week, 30 days later. He's saying that he's good, that it's a, he was sort of lamenting how bad everything is and saying that, you know, if gas prices do not return to pre-war levels as we get closer to the midterms, he's going to be angry and very upset and fearful. That is a big shift to happen in 30 days. Now, it's just a one off. These comments themselves don't add up to a lot, but it does have an effect on the larger story that Trump is telling. Angela, I love that you monitor Jesse Waters so that I don't ever have to. I feel seen by both of you today. Angela, thank you for joining us for this. When we come back, it's one of the most sacred places in our country, certainly in Washington, D.C. It's the very site where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic, I Have a Dream speech. And we'll tell you what's happening there tonight. Donald Trump is transforming the Lincoln Memorial. into something pretty gross. I'll tell you about it next.

This is a Monday.com ad. The same Monday.com helping people worldwide getting work done faster and better. The same Monday.com designed for every team and every industry. The same Monday.com with built-in AI, scaling your work from day one. The same Monday.com that your team will actually love using. The same Monday.com with an easy and intuitive setup. Go to Monday.com and try it for free. Yes, the same Monday.com. Hey, everyone, it's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast, Why is this happening? What really happened with the border during the Biden administration? Asylum at the border needs to be changed. And that was part of the legislation supported by President Biden. And that's what got killed by Donald Trump because he wanted the crisis to live for political benefit. So what has happened? is there are many fewer migrants presenting themselves at the border. The Supreme Court just basically shut that down and allow the administration to do what it wants. That's this week on Why Is This Happening? Search for Why Is This Happening wherever you're listening right now and follow. This weekend will Marco Rubio brand new low for America in the eyes of the world. Also marks a new lobe for Donald Trump and has now well-documented record of showing disrespect and glee for destroying the country's most iconic and historic symbols and pretty much everything the country has stood for. Trump is hosting a tragically tacky UFC cage match on a massive stage that he constructed on the south lawn of the White House. We've reported that here on this show. Late today, federal judge is allowing the fight to proceed. Tonight, Donald Trump is kicking things off with a UFC press event. And tomorrow, an official way in where the fighters have to get on a scale, I guess, to make sure they make weight. And that'll happen in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s iconic I have a dream speech in one of our nation's most hallowed and storied and visited locations. Well, Crystal writes this in the bulwark today about Trump's UFC fight, quote, I do think it's an event that captures something about this moment in our history. After all, it's vulgar, it is violent, it is commercial, it's grandiose, it's tacky, and it dishonors a place once thoughtworthy of care and respect. In other words, it's Donald Trump. I want to bring in staff writer for the Atlantic, Sally Jenkins. She's covered the importance of sports in American life for the magazine's issue on the country's 250th anniversary. Tim is still with us. Sally, what do you make and what are Americans to make of this event? Well, about 30 million Americans watch ultimate fighting. You know, it's an enormously popular. I wouldn't call it a sport. I'm not sure it's a sport when the rules allow for choking an opponent to the point of blackout. You know, one of the things Donald Trump has said about why he likes it so much is because of the element of punishment. And I think that there's something bigger than mere dishonor going on here. I mean, I think that...

Unfortunately, there's a taste for this stuff. And I think that one of the things that the Trump administration likes to do is to sort of raise the threshold over and over and over again. And so, you know, it's a tried and true sports strategy to commit so many fouls that the referees can't call them all. And that's a little bit of what we're seeing here, I think. Tim, it is like every chapter of the Trump story. He goes to UFC fights, and a lot of people are happy to see him there. But he takes everything to sort of the perverted extreme in erecting a cage match, a cage, an octagon. I still don't understand exactly what it is that he's built on the south end of the White House and sort of perverting all of these spaces that used to represent the whole country with something that's very specific to his taste. Yeah, it's the claw, I think. It used to be the beta stage and at a music event, and something to that effect. I think that's appropriate. Look, Bill's article at the bulwark this morning, I asked people to read because he was so good on this, and he brings in the historical perspective and the manner in which this is vulgar and the manner with which this insults all the... you know, public servants and leaders have come before it. And, you know, I'm not sure how much more I can add to that. It's gross. And I think it's corrupt, I guess, would be the thing that I would add to it. Like, it's not just the vulgarity, but it's the corruption. Dana White, the head of UFC, was a supporter of Trump's, got to speak at the convention. This is unbelievable publicity. There are brand sponsors on the White House lawn. And, you know, all of it is a perfect sign, a perfect encapsulation of the Trump era with the corruption and the vulgarity. I would add one caveat, I think, though, to my Democratic friends, I do want to say this, which is you would never do things exactly like Trump, and I would never call for it. But I do think it's important to have fun in politics. And I think that sometimes, as we head into a weekend, I'm going into Pride weekend here, New Orleans. I'm going to go have fun after this. And I think that we can criticize them and mock them. But sometimes I think they can veer into wagging your finger at people and saying, don't have fun. And I don't think that's served the pro-democracy movement that well. I think that I hold those two thoughts together while fearing for the direction of our democracy. Well, here in New York, everyone is off to watch the Knicks this weekend. I mean, Sally, I guess it's important, and I should have been more specific. It's not just about a sporting event at the White House. It's about the completely corrupt nature of this one. I mean, this is for profit. Donald Trump didn't pay for it out of his personal riches and invite the country's under privilege who happen to UFC fans. He is grifting off the entire event. Right. I mean, there's crypto.com literally on the steps mounting up to the stage. Their sponsor logos all over the claw and the stage itself. And yes, Tim is right. Dana White is an old, old, old ally. Going back to the 1980s when Donald Trump was running casinos, Donald Trump was hosting ultimate fighting events at a time when they were illegal in most states and John McCain was trying to have them federally outlawed. And yes, the question of whether the.

President is profiting off of this event is a big one that needs some getting to the bottom up for certain. I also, you know, um, This is an event that's based on no rules, okay? And so the appropriateness of that is one question. Certainly there don't seem to be any economic rules with this White House. You know, and to pick up on one thing Tim said, there have been hijinks on the south lawn of the White House before. I mean, the Lincoln boys, you know, ran pet goats all over the place and George W. Bush had horseshoes and t-ball games out there. I mean, it is supposed to be a place. to have some fun at the White House. That is true. I was there for the tea ball. Nobody sold sponsorships and nobody had the military measure their bicep to waist ratio or whatever ridiculous body type had to be met for the military to attend. Sally Jenkins, thank you for joining our conversation. Tim Miller, thank you for spending the hour with us. One more break. We'll be right back.

My guest on this week's episode of The Best People podcast is independent journalist Don Lemon. This is one of my favorite conversations I've had since we launched the podcast exactly one year ago. We talked about everything in extremely blunt terms, including the future of CNN. Bari Weiss's potential leadership of it, striking out on his own as an independent journalist, and how he sees the Trump story and the people around Donald Trump right now. You can listen to the whole episode right now if you are a premium subscriber. It drops tonight. You scan the QR code to sign up for full access. The episode will be available to everybody first thing Monday morning. One more break. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes for another week of shows. We are so grateful. You better eat your Wheaties today because there's a lot of news to cover. Money. Time for the business. All eyes on the new Fed chair. The economic fallout from the war is a temporary power. The president is now a major crypto industry operator. Is this White House for sale? Is there an energy to respond to this aggressive gerrymandering? It has never been more important to be informed and engaged. Moneypower politics with Stephanie Rule. Weekdays at 9 a.m. Easter on MS Now.