"What this is really all about"

Hi, it's Sierra Miller. I can't wait for you to check out my new collection of shoes and accessories at Designer Shoe Warehouse. If you love shoes as much as I do, then trust me, I got you. From cute sneak arenas to the perfect flip-flops to stunning heels. These shoes are all style, no drama. It's a girls' girl's summer, and DSW has just the shoes. Shop the Sierra Miller collection right now at your DSW store or DSW.com. An undisturbed sleep is a beautiful thing. That's why a beauty rest mattress is designed to give you unparalleled motion separation. Isolating movement with our pocketed coil technology to help you sleep soundly no matter what's moving on the other side of the bed. While providing individualized support for every sleeping position. People at their best get their beauty rest for 100 years. I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bull and I didn't want to be a part of it. And that's one of the reasons that went into me deciding to leave when I did. Once you take that oath to uphold and defend the Constitution from threats foreign and domestic, it's hard to walk away from that. And if I can reinforce or confirm for one person, that the vote was secure, the election was secure, then I feel like I've done my job. So look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more that we have, because we won the state. Guess who else knew he really lost. Hi again, everybody. It's 5 o'clock in New York. We begin this hour with a reality check, a level set. There was no widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election that would have changed the outcome, period, and everyone knew it. Lifelong conservative Republican Bill Barr knew it. Donald Trump's Attorney General. Chris Krebs, lifelong Republican, Chris Krebs knew it. Donald Trump knew it. That's why he knew exactly how many votes he needed to change his defeat. We are happy to say it over and over again, and it's important because Donald Trump is still peddling those lies about the election. He's still looking for those 11,780 votes. Trump posted this last night, quote, crooked elections cannot be allowed in the United States of America, President DJT. And key political voices in Georgia urges state to take over Fulton County elections after FBI raid. That last post is a call for the state of Georgia. to take over elections in Fulton County, Georgia. Fulton County has been a target of Donald Trump's election conspiracies for years now. And it's where the FBI raided the elections offices late last month to take the records related to the 2020 election. Our reporter, Ebony Davis, is reporting now that Fulton County officials are fighting back in a new court filing. They point out that a former Trump campaign lawyer, Kurt Olson, was revealed to be the person behind the search and seizure of the county's 2020 election materials.

and was the person to accuse the FBI of putting forth a, quote, flagrantly misleading narrative to obtain a search warrant for the Georgia County's 2020 election records last month. From their filing, quote, the affidavit admits that the entire criminal investigation originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olson, but it conceals the fact that multiple courts have sanctioned Kurt Olson for his unsubstantiated speculative claims about elections, the filing reads. Quote, the affidavit does nothing more. then describe the types of human errors that its own sources confirm occur in almost every election without any intentional wrongdoing whatsoever. Fulton County and Trump's election defeat in Georgia has remained a complete... rather pathetic obsession of Donald Trump's for more than five years now. Recall that notorious phone call we played you with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, again where Trump is demanding that Rappensberger find those votes and investigate the vote count in, wait for it, Fulton County to, quote, find those votes. Trump needed to overturn Joe Biden's clear victory. It's not the only place that Trump is focused on today. Earlier this month, Donald Trump made false claims of voter fraud in states all across our country, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia. Now his allies in swing states are working overtime to try to fabricate those delusions and back them up. including in the state of Arizona, where Republicans in the state legislature appear to have received Trump's message loud and clear. The Arizona Mirror is recording this, quote, Arizona Republicans want to require ICE officers to be stationed at polling places this year. The Arizona Senate will take up a proposal to force all 15 of the state's counties to sign an agreement with ICE to provide for a federal immigration law enforcement presence at each location within the state where ballots are cast or deposited. And breaking just this afternoon, brand new reporting in the New York Times that ICE is now getting involved in Trump's search for voter fraud from that reporting, quote, Homeland Security officials at the direction of the White House are intensifying efforts to investigate voting by non-citizens in pursuit of President Trump's baseless claim that illegal voting by undocumented immigrants is rampant and an insidious threat. Homeland Security Investigations, an arm of immigration and customs enforcement, recently issued a two-page memo requiring its employees to, quote, review all open and closed voter fraud cases involving immigrants who registered to vote or actually voted before they became naturalized U.S. citizens. Trump's brazen attempts to weaponize his own lives in order to potentially seize control of our elections is where we start the hour with some of our favorite experts and friends. Boating Rights Attorney and founder of Democracy Docket, Mark Elias, is here. Also joining us, New York Times reporter Nick Corsenetti and Media Matters President Angelo Carousone. Mark, I feel like there are big bodies of public-facing evidence.

of what this looks like that the January 6th Select Committee gave us, the officials in Arizona who were harassed and targeted and called pedophiles on trucks with moving billboards to do what Donald Trump is trying to do now, six years later. The attacks and threats of violence against Georgia officials that were so dire that one of Brad Raffensperger's deputies gave Sterling went to the microphones and was the first to say before. I think before January 6, quote, somebody's going to die. Brian Kemp, who, you know, this is a Trump, these are Trump Republicans. You're Maga Republicans in Brad Raffensperger and Camp in Georgia who's certified the results of that election there. And it's Rappensburg on the other end of the call where Trump's asking him to steal 11,780 votes. Yeah, look, the thing about the Trump administration. this go around and Donald Trump is that there is no quiet part. You know, so oftentimes we are looking for the quiet part to be set out loud in a kind of a blurting fashion or we're looking for the thing that's being covered up. What Donald Trump is saying here is he's saying quite loudly. Like you put on the screen, the most recent social media posts, you know, the affidavit that you pointed out. in Fulton County was signed by Kurt Olson. I mean, Kurt Olson was behind Texas' effort to throw out the election results in four states trying to get the Supreme Court to do that, and that failed. He was involved in several cases in Arizona, including an effort to overturn. the gubernatorial race there that my law firm, uh, represented Katie Hobbs, the, the, uh, the, uh, the winner. And as you point out, you know, Colonel's not only lost, but he was ultimately sanctioned, uh, by the, by the state courts there. And yet they put him forward, you know, not hiding it, putting him forward as the person, uh, where all of this, uh, originates. They, they are and, you know, of course you have. you know, the Arizona legislature calling for ICE to be deployed at polls and the wonderful New York Times reporting, which is really adding an essential context to all of this. They're not hiding this. They're saying they're going to try to interfere with the 2026 elections. They are saying that they are going to, that they will seize ballots. They are saying Donald Trump is saying that he thinks Republicans need to take over the voting in 15 places, 15 states or cities. And, you know, and so. We all need to understand that this is what is being planned by the other side. No, it doesn't mean they're going to succeed. It doesn't mean we won't defeat them in court. My law firm and I, we're fighting them in more than 80 places right now. So it doesn't mean that all is lost, but it also means that we shouldn't go hide, we shouldn't go looking for what's hiding in the corners and listening for the whispers. We should be listening to what they're saying very loudly out front. Yeah, so let me deal with what is. I feel like there's this thing with covering Trump, where the most insidious thing is the election denier still lying about 2020, who is behind this push. Somehow got a magistrate judge to authorize the rate of the election office. After that, that sort of most dangerous ring, is it the next ring, this lie about...

people in this country who are not naturalized voting. So again, don't believe me, let's look at the Trump administration's investigation into that question, which is a lie. The concerns of a larger number of people, I think, than even the lies about the outcome of the 2020 election. This is also from the New York Times. Administration targets non-citizen voting, despite finding it rare. Quote, the push comes as an analysis of immigrant voting commissioned by Donald Trump has provided no evidence of widespread or even significant voter fraud, according to interviews with government officials and documents reviewed by the New York Times. Officials referred about 10,000 of 49.5 million voter registrations to Homeland Security Investigations. That's the same branch being called into action based on today's reporting. Roughly 0.02% of the names processed required for their investigations. And of those, there's no evidence that they found anybody. Do you know why we know that, Mark Elias, because we would have heard about it. Donald Trump would have addressed the nation. If he found one, voter fraud, I mean, Dewey Carter and James Baker look at it after the 2000 recount. I mean, voter fraud is not a crime committed in this country, and when it is, we have laws to prosecute it. What is just plainly the actual motive of stationing ice outside polling places? Yeah, and I just want to clarify one quick thing there. That's looking at people who are registered, right? Those are not people who voted, right? So, like, even that overstates the amount of irregularity. I won't even call it fraud, which is people who erroneously get registered to vote, who are not eligible. But that doesn't mean they then show up to vote. That number is, as far as we can tell, approaching zero. And so, you know, there's, when you talk about voter fraud. That is, frankly, when it comes to non-citizens, almost completely without any basis at all. Now, why are they doing this? They're doing it for two reasons. Number one, because they want to connect two narratives. They want to create the narrative. They want to connect the narrative of the demonization that they are doing of migrants and of... of people who are in this country legally or otherly or not legally, who they are trying to demonize it. The second, though, and everyone needs to pay attention to this, because this is actually in some ways more important, is they are trying to lay the predicate for when they say that the states can't be trusted to count their own balance. They want to lay down the predicate today, as Donald Trump said. He believes the states are the agents of the federal government in counting and tabulating ballots. He thinks Republicans should take over that process. And so what he wants to be able to say is in November, when it looks like they've lost, look, we need the federal government to take over the counting here because we have the immigration records. We have ICE. We have DHS. We have all this information.

And we will do the counting. And if you want to find 11,800-some-odd votes that don't exist, the only way you do it is by taking over the counting. And that is what Donald Trump really wants. And, Angela, this gets at something that is so central to Trump's success. The narrative control over the lie that his own administration debunks. So these are not, this is not an NBC investigation. This is not a New York Times investigation. This is not a DNC investigation. This is a Trump's second term as president investigation that the New York Times reports. finds there is essentially no voter fraud that took place. 0.02% of the names process, which as Mark points out, those are registered voters, not actual voters. So they are now seating doubt for actions that are unconstitutional predicated on the same big lie. That's right. And I think that, you know, Mark sort of laid out some of the pieces, you know, by referencing, you know, Kurt Olson, who was a player in the past that sort of reemerged, but he's not the only one. There are others all across the government. They're not just on the inside, but on the outside, that are helping reinforce and buttress that narrative from official purchase. People like Heather Honey, other 2020 election deniers suddenly have special government employee status so that they can help work on these investigations that are now taking place elsewhere. So that's the first piece. They have the ability now to operationalize threads of that narrative from an official position. And then the second part that helps sort of... you know, connected together is that, and this is the part that I think is very scary and concerning. It's alarming because it ties into the narrative piece, which is that they have a constellation. of these sort of investigative type creators, people that were doing things like what Genzo Keith used to do, who are going out there and putting together these exposés, these reports, of the scandal. They're manufacturing the evidence through this intrigue, and then they use those official positions and their larger right-wing echo chamber to then pluck it up and make a big thing about it. What happened in Minnesota recently was an example of that cycle. It was a test run. A video guy goes out there. He does a video about all this. You know, all of this Somali fraud. They then make a big thing about it. And they say, we have to send a ice to crack down. Look how big it is. Well, that same person is out there right now and just many others that are doing similar types of sort of videos in California and elsewhere. And then, so they're going to help fuel that narrative as time goes on. And then the third piece, and Mark said this as well. They're not saying it quite. They're saying it very blatantly out loud. There are 20-20 election deniers that are talking about their relationship with the White House right now who are teeing up what they're doing in Arizona and nine other states. They're bragging about it on right-wing media because that is how the loop gets completed. There is this connective tissue between these fantastic storytellers, this larger right-wing echo chamber, and the Trump administration. And the proposition is sort of win-win.

from their perspective. Either you can gin up enough effort on the front end to create obstacles to voting and sort of essentially have sort of a position where you end up winning, or you suppress the vote enough that you win some places or you diminish some victories for Democrats, or at the other hand, you create so much chaos and confusion afterwards and so much undermining of the election that the only thing that's left in all that chaos is the strong man. And that's the Trump administration. And that it all ties into the narrative power that he's demonstrated again and again and again. So, Nick, I think we've adequately set up the danger in the worst case scenario. I mean, enter the heroes of our times, election workers. And the last election we had in November was a democratic wipeout. Republicans were literally wiped out everywhere they were contested, and that was all across the country. There have been state legislative races in deep red pockets of deep red states. Democrats have swung. 20, 30, 40 points. So there's all sorts of predicate now for big swings toward the Democrats. You've also got judges that have been pretty solid. But how do you sort of evaluate based on your now years-long body of reporting the state of play ahead of the midterms? Well, I mean, it's clear that in most midterms, historically, right? They go against the incumbent president, especially in the first term. So history would just point that Democrats are poised for a big year and Trump's poll numbers indicate that it could be even bigger. So there's been a lot of moves to try and mitigate that by the Trump administration. I think the most public and clear one that they're just blatant about is the National Redistricting Wars. They say this is for partisan gain. We're trying to get more seats to help us maintain control of Congress. And Trump has said, I need to keep both chambers because if I don't, you know, my administration's over. They'll investigate me. They'll stymie my priorities. They might even impeach me. So he's made very clear just how critical control of the house is. And then all of these steps kind of tie together as part of a massive strategy to keep it. His administration officials are not shy by saying redistricting is part of that strategy. But I think as we look at some of these other moves regarding voting, you start to see a strategy as well. And whether it's, you know, some of the worst case scenarios that, you know, Mark talked about earlier or even just... sowing distrust and basically create an atmosphere where no one's going to trust the election, right? His base has been conditioned that if Republicans lose, it was because of fraud. But there's a lot of Democrats now who are so alarmed that there could be movements behind the scenes by Republicans or by the Trump administration that maybe if they win, it could be because of some weird machinations behind the scene. So all in all, this contributes to a massive lack of confidence in our elections.

that is coming from actions, you know, mostly by the White House, that also, I think, contributes to a strategy and sets up for what could be a very messy 2026 midterms. Yeah, like they do better than expected, and because they've made so many public efforts at cheating, no one trusts that, and they get wiped out, but because they've spent eight years now sewing doubt about the quality of caliber and security of our elections, no one trusts that. No one's going anywhere. We'll have much more in the story. I want to swing back to Fulton County and show you what Senator Jon Ossoff had to say about why Fulton County. Also ahead for us eight months. After gunmen shot and wounded state Senator John Hoffman and killed Senator Melissa Hortman and her husband and the family dog, state legislators in Minnesota paid tribute with Hoffman delivering a message about keeping democracy alive. Just that moment. And later in the broadcast, Stephen Colbert is firing back at his parent company firing back, at him firing back after they denied that they ever tried to stop Stephen Colbert from interviewing Texas Democrat James Talarico. We'll play for you what he said and we'll keep you updated on that story. Then White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. Normally in these ads, you expect somebody to ask you to buy something. But this is something different. I'm Julian Barnes, and I'm a reporter for the New York Times. I'm a national security reporter, and that means I'm reporting on military operations. These are fast-paced, quickly-moving situations. What exactly is happening on the ground is often shrouded in mystery. But we turn to trusted sources, satellite imagery, and expertise built up over years in order to ferret out the facts that wouldn't otherwise come to light. I'm here to ask you to seek out a news source that does firsthand fact-based reporting. If it's your local paper, great. If it's the Times, thank you. Because where you go for your information matters. Hi, it's Sierra Miller. I can't wait for you to check out my new collection of shoes and accessories at Designer Shoe Warehouse. If you love shoes as much as I do, then trust me, I got you. From cute sneakerinas to the perfect flip-flops to stunning heels. These shoes are all style, no drama. It's a girls' girl's summer, and DSW has just the shoes. Shop the Sierra Miller collection right now at your DSW store or DSW.com.

when there's a law pass to ban food and water providing to people waiting in line. They don't understand why that law is necessary. Well, the people who understand why it's necessary are the people who are waiting nearly an hour on average. And I could replicate that across a lot of different states and across a lot of different types of laws. In North Carolina, we just saw the Republicans ban early voting sites on college campuses. But they didn't just pick all the college campuses. They picked one that is the largest. historically black college in the country. They targeted that one. And again, that's not the kind of thing that makes national news. So when you hear, you know, people in the media say, well, you know, there are these fights over these election rules this way or that, unless it involves redistricting where people do intuitively get it, they don't understand that these rules that are being targeted, these laws that are being passed, are targeting black voters with near surgical precision. That's the words that a federal judge used in 2013 to describe what Republicans were doing to black voters. targeting them with near surgical precision. Well, if you believe the Republican Party of Mitt Romney was doing that, what do you think the Republican Party of Donald Trump is doing? I mean, Nick, you've been chronicling this with your reporting since the hours after the dust settled in 2020. And it is where Joe Biden was inaugurated as our president, but the lie lived on and did so much damage in terms of cutting off access to the right to vote. Yeah, you know, there was a big spade of laws in 2021 immediately after the election that reduced access, you know, whether it was mail ballots, whether it was voter registration requirements that were in Georgia, that was in Texas, it was in Florida, a bunch of red states, some swing states. And it often would be felt the most in cities. And that has continued. You know, there was a lot of attention. I mean, Major League Baseball moved their All-Star game. out in protest of the new voting law in Georgia in 2021. That kind of response hasn't necessarily kept up. But a lot of the voting changes continue and they're continuing this year. But it also goes back to what we were talking about before the break. Almost every one of these bills says that they're designed to restore confidence in elections, right? Or they're designed to shore up election integrity. And so much that had confidence was eroded in the attempts to overturn the 2020 election and everything that's come out of it. So it's almost manufacturing a reason for then these new laws to exist. You see it in the preamble of so many. And the president has kind of made clear that the cities are where he wants to focus. You know, when he was talking earlier this month about a desire to nationalize elections, he picked three cities that he that he focused on. It was Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. Three major cities, three cities with a ton of Democratic voters and a massive concentration of black voters. So we see the patterns have come, you know, pretty much since 2021. And Angela, what's interesting is the effort to suppress the vote in diverse cities and locales is sort of knows no boundary. I mean, he won all three of those states in 2024. Yeah.

Yeah, it ties into one of the stories here that is part of the right. I mean, if you think back to the Unite the Right rally during Trump's first term, one of the things they chanted was Jews will not replace us. And what they were referring to was white genocide, a concept that has only gotten more traction in the Maga and Right Wing universe, not less since then. And it's this idea that not only is white culture being eroded and shrunk and diminished, but the second part directly ties in with the voting part. because it says that democrats are liberals or in some parts of the market media think it's jews they're importing all of these immigrants you know, legal and otherwise, so that they can flood the ballot boxes so that they can keep permanent power, so that they can build a permanent constituency. That is where one of the biggest tie-ins between sort of all this immigration and anti-immigrant sentiment, there's idea of white genocide that Trump has not only tapped into that cauldron unanimous, but has really channeled it, and all these voting rules. that they've been implementing. And, you know, it obviously is racist, but it also, you know, that's where a lot of the fuel comes from. They are really using that story to say, this is our response to something that you've been sold. And all the outgrowths about their attacks on DEI and otherwise, they all sort of stem from this underlying thing of white genocide, which is fundamentally a grievance and race issue. Unbelievable. Mark Elias, Nick Corsinati. Thank you so much for starting us off on this. We'll stay on top of these stories. Angela sticks around. Coming up for us, the survivor of a horrific act of political violence that shocked the nation, is out today with a message about how we keep our democracy intact. We'll bring you that story next.

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Eight months after a horrific act of political violence claimed the lives of two people and injured another and shocked the entire nation. The survivor of that tragedy in Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman returned on Tuesday to that state's legislative chamber for the first day of the state's legislative session. Hoffman Shooter also took the lives of his colleague, State Representative Melissa Hortman, her husband, Mark, and their golden retriever Gilbert. After being shot, Hoffman had to learn how to walk again, so he was escorted up the steps by the law enforcement officers who kept watch of him and his family during his recovery. The chamber also held a tribute honoring Melissa Hortman's life and service led by Governor Tim Walz. Senator Hoffman also spoke and addressed his colleagues. Take a listen. The people of Minnesota are not asking us to be harsher. They're asking us to be steady. They're not asking us to win debates. They're asking us to solve problems. They're not asking us to make the best speeches or get the most clicks. They're asking us to lead. Members, let's rise above the noise and let us govern with humility and let us prove through our actions, not just words that democracy is stronger than fear. I want to bring into our coverage, Minnesota State Representative Aisha Gomez. She served alongside Melissa Hortman. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. Can I play a little bit of what Melissa Hortman's son said about his mom? Please, yeah. How would your mom be approaching this moment as session starts, especially after? ice raids, immigration operations, and the issues that it left behind. Sure. I think ideally she would bust out the prayer that she carried with her everywhere, prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. And it begins with, Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. And I think that there's a lot of really good language in there. And she would try to bring the energy of that poem. It's just when we... I'm thinking a lot about like how to say it, but it's like when we silence grief, we silence empathy too. And in that, we're like removing the connection from each other. It's so beautiful. And it's so hard to sit in one's grief. It's such a profound way to put it. Yeah, I think that. You know, Colin and Mark and Melissa's daughter, Sophie, have just been such a beacon for us and have embodied, you know, Mark and Melissa's spirit message and how they live their lives since their death. And we're just grateful for them and for that really insightful statement by Colin yesterday. What is it like to come back to a chamber where your colleagues are? Not missing because they retired. She's not missing because of disease or illness. She's missing from the most terrifying thing that can happen to anyone in the public arena, this horrific act of political violence. Has that shattered any sense of security for you?

I mean, of course, yesterday was so sad. It's, you know, our leader pointed out that there's one member of the legislature serving right now who has been there longer than Melissa had been. She'd been in the legislature for 20 years. You know, I think that the, I mean, Melissa and Mark and Gilbert were killed by. a Christian nationalist and anti-abortion zealot in their home in the middle of the night by somebody impersonating a police officer is just an unthinkable tragedy. And certainly it's, I think, anybody who's in public service and doing this exact job, it's hard for us to imagine, you know, moving about our lives in the same way that we would before. But it was... also is really beautiful to be together and, you know, to just be in that building that's so full of her and her work and her spirit and what she brought to the institution of the House of Representatives, what she brought to our state and to, you know, the chamber orchestra was there playing music and we had sort of remembrance from the leaders of our caucuses. We all laid flowers on her seat. And she was a gardener. She loved flowers and trees. And she was our fearless leader and our beloved colleague. And we miss her and Mark so much. What would she think about the whole country and the whole world and Bruce Springsteen writing songs about Minneapolis and Minnesota right now because of the way the people of your state are taking care of each other? Yeah, I mean, I think of, you know, Melissa was like, she wasn't a flashy person. She was a humble kind of, you know, get it done woman. She was. hilarious and kind of a smack talker in her private life. But, you know, we have a, we're the land of Hubert Humphrey, right? And he had this, uh, politics of joy thing. And she would joke that she's about the politics of drudgery, right? Because she understood that the work of the people is not like flashy, it's not romantic. It's like she was down in spreadsheets. She wanted to make sure that programs worked for the people who they were designed to work for. You never met a harder campaigner. She She, you know, got her first majority in 2019 based on her will and her hard work and nobody knocked more doors than her and nobody raised more money than her and nobody instilled in their members like this work ethic around campaigning more than her. But when we got in the building, like she understood that the work is to deliver for the people of Minnesota. And in so many ways, I think about this kind of like,

humble, just like get things done, ethic of really deeply caring for our neighbors, which is the thing that we saw on display in Minnesota. We've seen on display over the last 11, 12 weeks of Trump's incursion as something that was just like how Melissa lived her life. So when you see that kind of like everyday courage and everyday just commitment to doing. the things that need to be done for each other, that that's what Melissa brought to her work and what Melissa and Mark brought to their lives. And we miss our friends so much. I imagine it is so hard to talk about it, but we really appreciate your help in remembering her and honoring her today. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, and thank you for talking about Mark and Melissa today. Appreciate it. This is my privilege. Thank you. State Representative Aisha Gomez. Thank you. After the break, Stephen Colbert takes on CBS again. We'll play for you what he had to say last night.

They know damn well that every word of my script last night was approved by CBS's lawyers. Who, for the record, approve every script that goes on the air? I got called backstage to get more notes from these lawyers, something that had never, ever happened before. And they told us the language they wanted me to use to describe that equal time exception. And I used that language. So I don't know what this is about. That was Stephen Colbert last night, taking CBS to task after CBS made a big deal about denying that it gave into pressure from Donald Trump and his FCC chair, Brendan Carr, and blocked Stephen Colbert from broadcasting an interview with Texas State Representative James Talarico. Stephen Colbert's team posted the interview on YouTube instead. where it has received more than 6 million views and counting. CBS said that instead of barring Stephen Colbert's interview, it had, quote, presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled. Here's what Stephen Colbert said about that last night. I am well aware that we can book other guests. I didn't need to be presented with that option. I've had Jasmine Crockett on my show twice. I could prove that to you. I could prove that to you, but the network won't let me show you her picture without including her opponents. So I'll just, I'll have to show you this picture of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein instead. Now, this is a surprisingly small piece of paper considering how many butts it's trying to cover. I don't even know what to do with this crap. Hold on.

Angela, this feels like the wrong fight to pick. One, nothing enrages Donald Trump more than being laughed at. Two, nothing projects weakness more than your heavies, having to muscle in the person getting under your skin. And three, Stephen Colbert just keeps going up, up, up, up into the stratosphere in terms of his reach and his courage. Yeah, I mean, it's a weird to pick, but it's an important story here. And I think what Stephen Colbert has done is help identify something a lot bigger than just what's happening at his show, because it's just a couple of weeks ago that the FCC changed a rule that was designed to sort of start to create these kinds of disruptions. I mean, they basically said, They're going to get rid of a waiver and an exception that has been in place for more than 20 years and that they're going to get to decide. They didn't issue any guidance about definitions or who's in and who's out. They said they're going to get to decide when that exception applies now in this new sort of weird terrain. And they've already used it, by the way. I think everybody keeps forgetting that. But a few weeks after they changed that rule, they went after the view with an investigation for, coincidentally enough, a James Talarico interview. And so I think this is the new normal here. And so that's to me the big part of what Stephen Colbert was doing was not just protecting his own program in this case. And obviously illustrated what was going on at CBS, which we all know, but also something much bigger, which is that they've now, you know, created the conditions where they get to disrupt the way that the media has helped tell stories for more than 20 years. And I think, you know, I'm affirming to the idea that, you know, and believe that when there's a will, there's a way. And I think it's a reminder that they've made all the tweaks. They know where all the levers are to implement the kinds of changes that they've intended. And that's what we talked about, Project 2025. And sometimes they seem like a bummer, but it's worth knowing that that will works in reverse. That we can fix things too, and we just have to be mindful of that. Well, and I think the problem that they have right now politically is that Donald Trump is his popularity is sinking like a stone. And for all the coalitions that glommed on to him to project him to victory, they are most repelled by the assault on the First Amendment. Also, at a personal level, Joe Rogan is a guy that said to James Talarico, quote, why don't you run for president? You're a good person, end quote. What threat is it that James Talarico represents to the Trump coalition? That's right. And that's, you know, look, you know, when we talk about narrative dominance and these things, you know, one of the few things that tends to break through are some of these very prominent national satirists. And satirists at their core, part of the reason they resonate, they have such a strong reaction from recipients is because they're truth tellers. They are telling a truth about something that people feel, but instead of speaking to people's heads or their hearts, they're speaking to people's guts. And that is usually why they have such traction. Stephen Colbert is a uniquely gifted satirist who can not just diminish and sort of portray Trump to belittle him for no reason, but actually to portray Trump for what he actually is, to strip away the veneer and the facade of a strong man or somebody that's in control, and actually just demonstrate the desperation that's really, that's sort of swirl underneath it.

Yeah, the thin skin guy behind the curtain. Angela, always awesome to have you. Thank you very much. Quick break for us. We'll be right back. The one and only Bruce Springsteen just announced a new U.S. tour for the spring. He's calling it the Land of Hope and Dreams Tour, meant to be in part, a show of defiance against the quote, wannabe king, Donald Trump. Watch. We are living through dark, disturbing, and dangerous times, but do not despair. The cavalry is coming. We will be rocking your town in celebration and in defense of America, American democracy, American freedom, our American Constitution, and our sacred American dream, all of which are under attack by our wannabe king and his rogue government in Washington, D.C. Everyone, regardless of where you stand or what you believe in, is welcome. The cavalry is coming on a moment too soon. This comes after Bruce Springsteen released an anti-ice anti-Trump anthem of sorts called Streets of Minneapolis and dedicated a performance of the promised land to Renee Nicole Good, one of two U.S. citizens killed by federal immigration agents this year. One more break. We'll be right back.

This week's episode of The Best People is with Scott Galloway. In our conversation, we talk about everything, including his call for everyone to resist and unsubscribe. It's a campaign aimed at harnessing the power of people to pressure the companies enabling the Trump administration in the most direct ways. But we covered a lot more than that. Take a listen. We have had very dark moments, and every time Americans have come back and our democracy has been stronger for it. And I'd like to think we're on the verge of that, recognizing that a legitimate Department of Justice, that the Constitution matters, that we need co-equal branches of government, that we need people with higher character making decisions on behalf of other people, that we have taken a lot of our institutions for granted and a lot of our freedoms for granted. And it requires more investment for many of those who have not been asked to invest. To watch the entire conversation, you scan the QR code on your screen. It's available now on YouTube, or you can listen to it wherever you get your podcast. That does it for us tonight. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes. We are grateful. Have you ever wanted to share your opinions with MSNow about our TV programs, podcasts, live events, and more? Now's your chance to have your voice heard. Join the MSNow Insights community at MS.com.