Legal snowball rolls over Trump as judge reinstates gag order 41:13

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Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. The great Rachel Maddow is obviously not here right now. She is healing up after a round of COVID, and we hope she will be back here at her usual time next Monday because we all need you, Rachel. Feel better. Now, tonight, we start in Gaza, where the Israeli military is deep into what it is calling the second stage of its war with Hamas.

Israeli soldiers and tanks are slowly advancing deeper into Gaza. The New York Times and the Washington Post are reporting this evening that the Israeli military has now reached the outskirts of Gaza City. It remains unclear if these movements are the much-anticipated ground invasion or a preview of that invasion or whether Israel may yet decide against a full-scale invasion.

The Biden administration, for its part, is reportedly urging Israel not to invade and occupy Gaza. But in a rare news conference earlier, Prime Minister Netanyahu made clear that his country's operations and military operations will continue, casting the fight against Hamas as a battle between good and evil. NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel is on the Israeli-Gaza border, and he filed this report tonight.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, under fire for not taking responsibility for being unprepared for Hamas's surprise attack, says there will be no ceasefire, that Israel must retaliate for the 1,400 Israelis killed. Just as the United States would not agree to a ceasefire after the bombing of Pearl Harbor or after the terrorist attack of 9-11, Israel will not agree to a cessation of hostilities with Hamas after the horrific attacks of October 7th.

This is a time for war. In Gaza, more than two million civilians are suffering because of a war they didn't start, can't escape, and which is escalating by the day. According to the health ministry run by Hamas, more than 8,000 Palestinians have been killed so far. Hospitals have become refugee centers for the newly homeless. "They destroyed our house on top of us," this man screams. Israel says there's a safe haven in the south

but it's bombing in southern Gaza too.

From southern Gaza, we here on this show have heard from Aboud Okal, an American trapped there with his wife and year-old son. They were visiting his wife's parents in Gaza when the war broke out. These two photos of Aboud and his son were taken in Gaza in the days before the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel. Aboud tells us his family is now sheltering with 40 other people, including 10 Americans, in a small house as Israeli bombs drop nearby.

The filtration plant where they have been lining up for water each day has run out of fuel because Israel will not allow fuel into Gaza. Hamas reportedly has stockpiles, including fuel, food and water. Abood and his family have had no water since yesterday. And at this point, he doesn't know when or if his family and other Americans trapped in Gaza will be able to get out. So that is the situation for the millions still trapped in Gaza.

As to the hostages who remain in the region, Hamas today released a video featuring three female hostages who are still being held captive. One of the women in the video, presumably under duress, criticized Netanyahu's management of the crisis, and the prime minister later called the video cruel propaganda.

There was, however, one piece of good news on this front today. Israel announced that it had rescued Army Private Ori Magidish, who was captured on October 7th, along with several others. Twelve of her fellow soldiers at her post were killed. Israel says that

still leaves nearly 240 hostages held in Gaza. Meanwhile, hanging over all of this are a lot of uncomfortable questions about the Israeli government itself and its leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Those questions are laid out in a deeply reported piece by New York Times reporters Ronan Bergman, Mark Mazzetti, and Maria Abi Habib titled, How Years of Israeli Failures on Hamas Led to a Devastating Attack.

The most powerful military force in the Middle East had not only completely underestimated the magnitude of the attack, it had totally failed in its intelligence-gathering efforts, mostly due to hubris and the mistaken assumption that Hamas was a threat contained. Overall arrogance among Israeli political and security officials convinced them that the country's military and technological superiority to Hamas would keep the terrorist group in check.

And even now, three weeks into this war, it is not clear that Israel's leader has figured out how to talk to his country about how and why Israel's vaunted sense of invincibility has been so suddenly shattered. Many senior officials have accepted responsibility, but Mr. Netanyahu has not.

At 1 a.m. Sunday in Israel, after his office was asked for comment on this article, he posted a message on X, formerly Twitter, that repeated remarks he made to The New York Times and blamed the military and intelligence services for failing to provide him with any warning on Hamas.

The blowback to the prime minister's blame shifting was so swift and so overwhelming that he deleted that post and subsequently apologized, something basically unheard of for the hard-charging prime minister.

Joining me now is Mark Mazzetti, a Washington investigative correspondent for The New York Times. Mark, thank you for being here. I found this account deeply distressing, but also riveting. It sounds like there was a cascade of failures that led to October 7th. And I'm sure you have thoughts on which was the most sizable. But one of one of the ones that stuck out to me was the idea that.

that the Israeli defense forces stopped monitoring Hamas radio traffic and that at the outset of this attack, nobody thought it was serious enough to wake the prime minister. Can you talk a little bit about the decisions that led to the stoppage, effectively, of monitoring important methods of communications for this attack in particular?

Sure. So what we found is that this is not just a matter of if there was one warning they could have heeded in the weeks or days before the attack, maybe it could have been headed off. In fact, it was a series of bad decisions over the years that basically came down to the conclusion that Hamas was not

capable of attacking Israel, that Hamas was not interested in attacking Israel, and therefore the Israeli security resources should be devoted elsewhere. They should be devoted toward particularly Iran, Hezbollah, the powerful Iranian proxy force, but Hamas was not considered a serious threat. So when you bring up the fact that they were not listening to radio traffic, that was just one example of, well, this was radio communication of low-level Hamas fighters. What's the purpose? What

what good would it do them, they thought, to monitor this traffic. Again, this belief was that Hamas was deterred and Hamas was not interested in attacking. So it was all sort of this mosaic of bad decision-making that led to the attacks on October 7th. And it sounds like Israel disregarded the good intelligence they did have. I mean, the warnings that were issued forth

internally or even externally from countries like Jordan, effectively went ignored. Is that right? Yes, that's right. The Jordanians were warning. And even Israeli generals for months were going to political leaders and making a broader point. They were saying that the political agenda that Benjamin Netanyahu was pursuing, which was this what they call judicial reform, was in fact

seizing power from the judiciary, which was creating mass protests in Israel, the assessment of the intelligence community was that this was weakening the country and emboldening Israel's enemies. So they were warning that there might be an attack coming,

And Mr. Netanyahu ignored it. In fact, in our story, we point out that he refused to even meet a Cedar general in July who wanted to deliver that warning. But the generals themselves didn't quite get the exact attack right. They thought something was coming, but they didn't think it was going to be from Hamas, from Gaza. So it really was a case where there was blame all around for not really understanding the big picture.

And then there is the sort of role that Hamas was playing in Netanyahu's broader struggles with the Palestinian Authority. Can you talk a little bit about that dynamic and how it factored into this attack?

Sure. Well, so Netanyahu has for years talked tough about Hamas, about how they're going to wipe out Hamas. And remember, Hamas has been effectively governing the Gaza Strip for more than a decade. And in that vein, actually, the Netanyahu government over the years, in fact, pursued a policy of

propping up Hamas, sort of counterbalancing the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank with money to Hamas. The strategy was, in effect, to kind of divide and conquer. If you prop up Hamas, it weakens the Palestinian Authority, and it gave

Netanyahu this sort of case to say, "Listen, I have no credible partners here." And so, therefore, they sort of slow-rolled the peace process. So that is now pretty well documented, that despite the rhetoric, Netanyahu over the years and ministers in Israel, in effect, empowered Hamas with giving them a lot—by giving them a lot of money. And so that's sort of part of the picture as well. I think you're right to call it a sort of mosaic of failures, because

The errors were omnidirectional, it sounds like, Mark. How has Netanyahu managed the moment and effectively communicating with the Israeli public about this cascade of failures? I mean, we mentioned that he deleted that tweet that absolved himself of any failures. How is he dealing with it now? What does a domestic political landscape look like for him in the context of these attacks?

Well, it was quite strange over the weekend when we were finishing up the story. We put questions to his office, the prime minister's office, about what we were going to report. He responded with that response that he then tweeted out.

And then the next day, it created this controversy, this really firestorm of people saying he was passing the buck. He deleted the tweet, but we still had his statement. And that was sort of showing that he was not ready to accept blame. Several senior Israeli intelligence officials, military officials and others have said, effectively, you know, we were to blame. We will resign when this is over, but we're going to fight this war first.

Netanyahu hadn't done that. So what we saw today with the press conference was a little bit of, in essence, a move at damage control. But, you know, clearly Netanyahu is fighting for his political life as a result of this. Mark Mazzetti, it's a really, really, really important story, especially right now. Thank you for joining me tonight. Really appreciate it. Thank you.

Now let's turn to Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a member of the Armed Services Committee who recently returned from a trip to the Middle East. Senator Blumenthal, thanks for joining me this evening. I know that you were part of a bipartisan delegation of 10 senators who went to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Could you give us a sense of what regional partners are saying about this conflict as we sit now on day 24?

Alex, this trip was really deeply emotional and moving. I have family as well as friends in Israel, a cousin who is in the IDF at the front, and many of us in America have friends and family who are affected. And the message that we brought to Israel was one of solidarity. Israel has a right to defend itself.

against Hamas, a terrorist organization that has as its single-minded goal to destroy Israel and annihilate the Jewish people. And in the region, there is no love for Hamas, just the opposite. The nations of the region know that Hamas is a force for instability and conflict. They want

stability and peace because they want their economies to prosper. And so I think a glimmer of hope that the Saudis see a future here in continuing the talks toward normalizing relations with Israel, not right away, but once this conflict is concluded. And the Egyptians, likewise, we visited there as well, would like to see the conflict contained. And I think deterring Iran

from opening another front through its proxy, Hezbollah, has to be one of the administration's major goals. And to his credit, President Biden is making it a priority.

I'm curious about your statement that Arab regional partners have no love for Hamas. What of the civilians in Gaza? There are varying estimates, but we have been told up to 8,000 people have been killed, I think a third of them children. Is that a concern for regional states near Israel?

Absolutely, it is a concern for them. It is a concern for anyone with a sense of decency. Israel has to defend itself, and we emphasize to Israel that it has to provide more humanitarian relief in food, fuel, water, try to contain the conflict, minimize civilian casualties, provide safe corridors for Americans to escape. And as a priority,

to enable hostages to be freed. And that's why the president, to his credit, is asking for a humanitarian pause. So they and our government all have a concern about providing more humanitarian relief. And frankly, the Israelis can do it, and they are moving toward doing it.

The Washington Post has some reporting this evening about the Biden administration being very concerned about Israel's movements, its deployment of soldiers and the bombing campaign in Gaza, and that behind the scenes, the administration has been urging Israel to take more precautionary measures. Has that been communicated to you? And if not, what do you think about the Biden administration's apparent evolution on this conflict in particular?

I've been in touch with the administration, the White House, diplomats who represent our government abroad and all believe that the Israeli military has to be extremely careful about its tactics here and avoid repeating, quite honestly, the mistakes we made in Afghanistan and Iraq, where there were a lot of civilian casualties that, in fact, fueled the

the rise of other terrorist groups. When innocent civilians are killed, it is likely to simply create more adolescents who tend toward terrorism and create difficulties in the future. And so I think the administration is

advising as a friend, providing that kind of advice about the options that will minimize civilian casualties, provide more humanitarian relief, and deter Iran, which is the reason why we've sent two aircraft carriers and other assets to the region, so that it will not give the green light to Hezbollah on the northern front as it did to Hamas on the southwest.

Yeah, there is a lot of concern about this spilling into a regional conflict. Senator Blumenthal, we will we'd love to have you back. We have to leave it there. Thanks for your thoughts tonight. Thank you. Coming up, Mike Pence drops out of the presidential race while a ringleader of the effort to overturn the 2020 election now sits in the speaker's chair. What it takes to make it in today's GOP. But first.

After he was given a gag order in his January 6th case, Trump today went after the judge and a possible witness and Joe Biden. Again, that is after the gag order. The latest on Trump's legal jeopardy is next. There are some football feelings you can only get with BetMGM Sportsbook. That's right. Not just the highs, the ohs, or the no, no, no's.

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On Sunday, the federal judge overseeing the case surrounding Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Judge Tanya Chutkin, she reinstated a gag order on Mr. Trump. Judge Chutkin first issued a limited gag order exactly two weeks ago today on October 16th. But she paused the gag order at the request of Trump's lawyers who are in the process of appealing it.

And then there was a nine day pause in which the special counsel's team later argued that Trump wasted no time in attacking federal prosecutors and potential key witnesses, including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows. With yesterday's ruling, the former president is now barred again from making any remarks targeting witnesses, prosecutors or court staff.

To be clear, this gag order is separate and apart from the one imposed in his New York civil fraud case in which Trump has been fined $15,000 for violating it not once, but twice. Maybe it's a pattern. Because after Judge Chudkin imposed the gag order today, Trump again went on the attack, going after former Attorney General Bill Barr, a potential key witness in this case. He called the judge a, quote, Trump hater, and he threatened President Biden with payback.

Almost all of which might be a violation of said gag order. With gag orders like this, who needs gag orders? Joining me now is Joyce Vance, former district attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. Joyce, thank you for being here. Please help me understand whether we are barreling towards a stress test of bail conditions. Is it our judges going to have to take up in earnest the question of whether they need to jail a former president ahead of a trial?

So I think as reluctant as the judges will be to do anything that would look like interference in the election, ultimately Donald Trump seems intent on pushing these buttons. He's had a lot of opportunity to walk it back.

Instead, he continues to advance his conduct. For instance, Alex, just leaving up some of these earlier posts, the post about Mark Meadows, which the last time I looked at Truth Social was still up and had not been taken down. That would be a violation of the gag order at this point. So Trump is not going to make life easy for any of the judges here.

So today the DOJ announced that they were indicting an Alabama man for transmitting interstate threats. He had left threatening phone messages for D.A. Fonny Willis. Do you think the DOJ is trying to convey its seriousness in terms of threatening behavior in and around this case? And is that a subtle message to Donald Trump?

I don't think that there's anything subtle about it. DOJ has always taken an aggressive stance about protecting witness safety in every case. This is the sort of issue, and I can tell you on the handful of cases that I was involved in where there were threats to witnesses, people in a U.S. attorney's office drop everything. They put their heads together. They figure out how to protect the witness, whether they need to go back into court or

These matters are taken very seriously. And so the U.S. attorney in Atlanta took a look at this threat, went ahead and indicted the case very quickly. We'll pursue it very vigorously. Donald Trump needs to understand that there is a line that you cannot cross over here and that he has become perilously close to it.

The other Trumps will be talking in court next week, I believe. Sorry, this week. On Wednesday, Donald Trump Jr. will be testifying in the New York civil case brought by AG Letitia James. On Thursday, Eric Trump testifies. Next Monday, Donald Trump himself. And next Wednesday, Ivanka Trump, who was originally scheduled for this Friday. Joyce, what is your expectation with these Trumps? Are they going to be

pleading the fifth as they have in previous depositions? Or could they actually testify with some material information that would be useful to the AG? So they'll have an interesting decision point here because they're being called by Letitia James as part of her case in chief, the case the government is putting on to justify the award of damages, in essence, that it's seeking from Trump and the Trump organization.

If they're not forthcoming in their testimony, you know, when you have a witness on direct, you have to ask them who, what, when, where, why kinds of questions. You can't lead them to the answer that you want. But if the witnesses aren't forthcoming, then James can ask for permission to treat them as hostile witnesses.

She will almost certainly have to do that here. And she can ask them more pointed questions, questions that really divulge the information she's interested in. Isn't it true that you were present when this conversation occurred? That sort of a thing. And so very quickly, these witnesses get to the point where they'll have to decide whether they'll be forthcoming and tell the truth.

whether they will try to dissemble and plead a failure of memory or whether they will go ahead and assert the Fifth Amendment, which, of course, is dangerous in a civil case because it means in this case, Justice Engeron will be able to draw adverse inferences from asserting the Fifth. And it could even be come a consideration down the road if any additional action is necessary in the criminal justice system as a result of the civil case.

Yeah. And given Judge Ngaran's position thus far as vis-a-vis Trump, he is likely to draw adverse inferences from the Trump children should they plead the fifth. I got to ask you, Joyce, because this case is sort of making its way through the courts. It is the first hearing today was the first hearing in a lawsuit filed by six Colorado voters who, with help from outside groups, including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, are seeking to prevent Trump from getting on the ballot.

using the 14th Amendment, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Minnesota, I think, is going to be hearing a similar case. We've sort of danced around this topic and touched on it a little bit in previous months, but I wonder what you make of it as a viable lawsuit that could work its way up to potentially the highest court in the land or not.

And it does seem it's headed that way. For one thing, if there are different decisions in Colorado and in Minnesota, you could end up with a split that would make this sort of an attractive issue on appeal. It will be something that the court will consider seriously in any event because of its importance.

And this is an issue that I think people can be reasonably conflicted about because the 14th Amendment, Section 3, says what it says. It says that if someone who's taken an oath of loyalty to the United States participates in an insurrection, then they're ineligible to hold future office.

Period. End of story. And for the strict constructionists among us, that would typically be conservatives in this country. The language is relatively clear. There are some legal issues about whether or not the president of the United States qualifies. There's some technical legal language about an officer of the United States qualifies.

But setting that aside, even if there is a good faith belief that this statute applies and should keep Trump off of the ballot, then there are the political consequences of that legal decision. And whether this isn't a decision that's better off left to voters, whether removing Trump without permitting the voters to speak might do more damage than it would do constitutional good.

Well, we do know on that on that note that Donald Trump is already trying to fundraise off of that Colorado case today. Joyce Vance, thank you again for your time, thoughts and expertise. I appreciate it. Coming up later this hour, what happens when the man described as the most important architect of 2020 Electoral College objections? What happens when that man holds the speaker's gavel in 2024?

At first, former Vice President Mike Pence is bowing out of the 2024 race. Are we on the eve of the great Republican consolidation? That is next. Stay with us. There are some football feelings you can only get with BetMGM Sportsbook. That's right. Not just the highs, the ohs, or the no, no, no's. It's the feeling that comes with being taken care of every down of the football season.

The feeling that comes with getting MGM rewards benefits or earning bonus bets. So, whether you're drawing up a same-game parlay in your playbook or betting the over on your favorite team...

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- MSNBC Live Democracy 2024, Saturday, September 7th in Brooklyn, New York. Join your favorite MSNBC hosts at our premier live audience event. Visit msnbc.com/democracy2024 to buy your tickets today. - This is not my time. So after much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to suspend my campaign for president effective today. - Mike Pence has officially dropped out of the 2024 presidential race.

This is not a shock to many Republican primary voters, including Mike Pence supporters. But consider this for the moment. The most recent Republican vice president of the United States did not even make it to the first primary contest, which is a sign of the times.

That development comes as a new NBC News Des Moines Register poll shows Donald Trump still holding a commanding lead of nearly 30 points over the rest of the primary field among likely Republican caucus goers in Iowa. Now, this poll was taken before Mike Pence's announcement, so it remains to be seen who will pick up Pence's whopping 2 percent of the Iowa primary electorate.

But right now, Donald Trump remains the frontrunner with 43 percent, one point up from where he was in August. Former Governor Nikki Haley has risen 10 points since August, putting her at 16 percent. But that only means that she is now tied for second place with Governor Ron DeSantis, whose campaign continues to hemorrhage support. He is down three points from August.

Joining me now is Mark Leibovich, staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Thank You for Your Servitude, Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission. Mark, what does it say that Vivek Ramaswamy outlasted the former vice president of the United States?

I mean, you know, it's as you said, it's not a surprise at all. I mean, this is not Mike Pence's time. I'm not convinced it's Vivek Ramaswamy's time either. But I mean, I think this has been I mean, it's been kind of in the works for a long time. I mean, Mike Pence, ironically, and I think this says all you really need to know about the Republican Party today. I mean, he did one, you know, quite heroic and courageous deed, which was his job, which was to certify the election for Joe Biden. And that was

you know, almost in a just on that day disqualified him for a member being president or the nominee of the Republican Party. So, yeah, I mean, this has all sort of been moving to this. I think what was almost perverse is that he tried it to begin with. I don't know if he ever thought he could get traction, but but it was pretty clear early on that that this would ultimately be the result of the campaign. You know, I think that the the yawns or the kind of the relative indifference people have felt

responded to this news with, tell you all you know about where his candidacy was and what potential it had or didn't have. Well, and you make note of the sort of one thing Mike Pence did, which he then found himself so at odds with on the campaign trail, tying himself up into sort of knots

trying to make an issue of the courage he displayed that day, but also not impugning the history and the behavior of Donald Trump, which was an impossible position for him to find himself in. Similarly speaking, in terms of confounding positions, is that of Ron DeSantis, Mark. Ron DeSantis has at this point lost ground with both anti-Trump voters and

and the MAGA base. It did not take a rocket scientist to see this coming. And yet, apparently, this was always the strategy all along from the DeSantis campaign.

It's unclear. I mean, his campaign has just been a disaster. I mean, it has not—I mean, it had—it was at its best when it was sort of speculative after he had won reelection in Florida last year. He hadn't gotten in yet. People were sort of anointing him without him really doing anything. He raised a ton of money. And he just sort of got out there, and he was on one day sort of Trump-lite. He kind of sporadically hit back at Trump. He never really found a voice. And, you know, he's still trying.

It just seems like he's losing a lot of traction as he goes along. And I guess the person who seems to be benefiting most is Nikki Haley these days. I think Haley is a viable alternative to Trump in the long run. I mean, there is a sense that the Republican electorate, some slice of it, wants an alternative despite Trump's apparent consolidation of the field.

Is that person Nikki Haley, if there is to be someone else, anyone else in the Republican primary process? I would say she has a very compelling profile. But I think, you know, her biggest adversary is not just Trump. It's math. I mean, I think if she had the field to herself, if there was no Ron DeSantis, if there was no Tim Scott and, you know, who knows what's going to become of the other campaigns, Chris Christie, Vivek, I mean, boom.

go down the list. I mean, I think if she had a one-on-one shot against Trump, she would, she would be a very formidable candidate because she actually, unlike DeSantis has actually found a voice in being critical with Trump, but also, you know, being somewhat, um, having some credibility with, with the MAGA base in some degree. So, I mean, yeah, but I think until like there is some consolidation, uh, she really doesn't, I mean, she, she's just sort of a,

Flavor of the Month, sort of mini, you know, lowercase f and all the other letters in that. And we really don't, you know, I don't think we would ever see her full potential. But again, if she were to have the field to herself, she would, I think, you know, could really make some difference. Well, you would think that Republicans might have learned at least one lesson from the 2016 cycle, which is if you have a million people in there, it's to Trump's benefit.

Do you think that the consolidation may happen earlier than it did in previous cycles, especially with Trump's looming criminal trials on the horizon?

I mean, no, because I don't think the Republican Party has shown itself terribly adept at learning lessons, at sort of pivoting in any direction. I mean, this is the same kind of avoidance strategy and just sort of bowing down to Donald Trump that has been the overriding dynamic of this party for the last almost eight years now. So I don't see that changing. I mean, I think, you know, in fairness, these are

this is not a monolithic entity. These are individual candidates with individual egos, some very, very big. And, you know, Ron DeSantis doesn't strike me as someone who is going to selflessly, you know, take himself out of the race and then sort of give all of his support to or endorse Nikki Haley. I mean, I think

just as likely he would endorse Donald Trump and sort of, you know, maybe hang around for four years from now. But no, look, this is not a party that has any sort of that has shown any kind of proclivity for course correction. And, you know, barring some dramatic developments, it looks like they're heading in the same sort of Trump centric direction for the next election. The words selfless and Ron DeSantis don't often

collide in a sentence together. I thank you for trying, Mark Leibovich. It's always good to see you, my friend. Thanks for your thoughts tonight. Coming up, Trump's efforts to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election ultimately failed. But what happens in 2024 with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson? How much of a threat is the man House Democrats are now calling MAGA Mike? That is next.

From 1999 to 2013, the president of Venezuela was this man, Hugo Chavez. He was a controversial leader whose legacy had a big impact on the American relationship with Venezuela. But for our purposes this evening, none of that actually matters. To understand what I'm about to tell you, you really only need to know one thing, and that is Hugo Chavez is dead.

He has been dead for over a decade after succumbing to cancer in 2013, which is why one of the most bonkers moments in the period right after the 2020 election was when right wing conspiracy theorists claimed that long dead Hugo Chavez was somehow part of a vast conspiracy to rig the election for Joe Biden.

In every election in American history, there's some small element of fraud, irregularity, error. But when you have it on a broad scale, when you have, you know, a software system that is used all around the country that is suspect because it came from Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, it begs to be litigated and investigated.

That was Mike Johnson, the man that Republicans have now elected to be Speaker of the House during a radio interview in November of 2020, actively promoting one of the most absurd election conspiracies out there. An election conspiracy that relied on dead South American leaders somehow tinkering with voting equipment seven years before the U.S. election took place.

But Mike Johnson wasn't just spreading wackadoo conspiracies. He was a key architect of the Republican-led efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Shortly after the 2020 election, with multiple Trump campaign legal challenges underway, Mike Johnson joined in on one of those lawsuits, and he wrongfully claimed that the election results in four swing states were invalid.

And then Mike Johnson whipped up more than 100 of his Republican colleagues in Congress to sign their names to it. Johnson told his fellow Republicans that Donald Trump was, quote, anxiously awaiting to see who in Congress was willing to step up and publicly defend him.

Now, ultimately, this effort failed. The courts did not agree with Mike Johnson and his hundred plus colleagues or the secretary of state who filed the lawsuit to begin with. But that early effort to overturn the election results, the effort organized by Mike Johnson.

It gave Donald Trump and his supporters a real jumping off point from which to launch their Stop the Steal campaign, including a handy list of 100 plus allies that the Trump campaign could lean on to support overturning the election results in Congress. For his troubles, Mike Johnson has been described as, quote, the most important architect of the 2020 scheme among Republicans in Congress to reject the results of the election.

Now, today, we are only about a year away from the 2024 presidential election. And this time, Mike Johnson will not be on the sidelines whipping votes against legitimate elections. This time, Mr. Johnson will have the full weight of the speakership behind him, which gives him enormous control over the certification of election results. And what happens if the guy with the gavel does not respect the results of the election?

The lawyer who led the response to Donald Trump's election challenges in 2020, Mark Elias, joins me next. Stay with us. On the morning of January 6th, he tweeted, we must fight for election integrity, the Constitution and the preservation of our republic. It will be my honor to help lead that fight in the Congress today. That was Congressman Mike Johnson, now the Speaker of the House, announcing that he would help lead the crusade to overturn the 2020 election.

When the state of Texas asked that the Supreme Court to throw out election results in four states, Mike Johnson led House Republicans in signing a legal brief in support of that challenge. As voting rights lawyer Mark Elias puts it, the newly elected speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is no ordinary Republican election denier. He was a ringleader in one of the most dangerous efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

He used his position as a lawyer and member of Congress to legitimize the fringe legal theory underpinning the big lie. Other than former President Donald Trump, he is arguably the most culpable federal elected official in what transpired on January 6, 2021.

Joining me now is Mark Elias. He is, of course, the powerhouse lawyer who won more than 60 different lawsuits against Republicans and the Trump campaign when they tried to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election. Mark is also the founder of Democracy Docket. Thanks for being here, Mark. I found...

You're writing on this to be stirring and distressing. And given the position of importance you assigned to Congressman Johnson, why has he avoided deep investigation and possible prosecution up until this point? Yeah, it's a great question, Alex. I wrote a piece for Democracy Docket on September 8th. This is before anyone knew who Mike Johnson was.

saying that the biggest omission from the Washington, D.C. federal indictment and the Georgia indictment was the role of the people involved in that Texas lawsuit. And there's no one more central to that lawsuit than Mike Johnson. Now, I speculated why that may have been left out. It might have been that the prosecutors felt like they had enough without it. They may have had enough lawyers. God knows they had enough Republican lawyers already in play.

Or it may have just been that that that they didn't want to involve the Supreme Court, which was obviously a part of where this brief was was filed. But I think it is very, very serious conduct that we saw. And as I said, there is no federally elected official who bears more culpability for January 6th than the now speaker.

What do you make of the fact that we are barreling towards another presidential election? The Speaker of the House is now Mike Johnson. In terms of election integrity efforts and the movement behind that, do you feel like it is stronger and that the sort of insurance policy is a better one this time around?

Look, I think you can see this both ways. On the one hand, you know, there were reforms made to the Electoral Count Act. That is a positive. That's the law that governs how these how the counting of electoral college votes are supposed to happen in the in the House in a joint session. But on the other hand, we know that the group of Republicans, including Mike Johnson, are lawless. So they probably won't care much what the law says.

And we have seen democracy under attack now for years by the likes of people like Donald Trump and Mike Johnson. And that system of democracy that relies so much on good faith has withered. And so what Republicans have done is they have essentially given John Eastman a gavel. Right. The difference between Mike Johnson and John Eastman are different fringe legal theories. And one got indicted and one got promoted.

Do you think there are other ways that people who are interested in having a free and fair election should be preparing or other systems that need to be strengthened ahead of 2024?

Yeah, look, there's a role for all of us. I think if you're in a state, you know, there are things you can do in your states to strengthen and harden democracy. You can make it harder for people to act as election vigilantes, which we saw right wing organizations do. You can you can hire more poll workers and make sure that election officials are doing their job. So if you're an ordinary citizen, you can frankly just stand up in your town square, whether it's your your

your online presence, your social media or your group of friends who grab a cup of coffee on the weekends and just educate them on what Republicans like Mike Johnson are planning. Because if we're all more educated and we all know what's happening, it'll be easier to combat.

Mark Elias, it is it is an important time to be understanding the depth of the work that Mike Johnson was engaged in to turn the results of the 2020 election over to Donald Trump. And it is even more important given his role today as speaker of the House. It's great to have you on the program. Thanks for thanks for taking some time tonight, Mark. Thank you. That is our show for this evening.

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