Trump, Republican allies make plan to concentrate power in Trump's hands: NYTimes 39:15

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. Hey!

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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. - Good evening and thanks for being with us tonight. It's very good to have you here.

Former President Donald Trump petitioned the state Supreme Court of Georgia last week, the state of Georgia, to try to shut down the investigation that could result in his indictment in that state for his efforts to overturn the election results in that state. Well, the Georgia state Supreme Court has just ruled tonight against him. They will do no such thing. They will not quash that investigation. The investigation will proceed. The prosecutor is not removed.

A grand jury that may be asked to return an indictment against former President Trump has been impaneled in Georgia as of last week. So that is all going ahead. His effort to derail that investigation and potential prosecution failed tonight in Georgia Supreme Court.

I will also say I'm sort of self-conscious about giving you an update like that because I feel like you have to run over to your personal whiteboard or your corkboard with like thumbtacks and strings on it in order to keep track of these things. If you are starting to feel like all these stories about Trump facing charges are all blending together, if you're having a hard time keeping straight all the jurisdictions in which former President Trump is being put on trial on criminal charges or might be,

First of all, you do not have to feel embarrassed about that. You are not alone. It is getting hard to keep track. And second of all, we're going to have a little bit more on that later on in the show tonight. Help, hopefully, with just disentangling all his various indictments and potential indictments and how some of them may affect whether others of them may go forward or not.

We'll have a little disentangling help, a little disambiguation help with that coming up later on this hour tonight. We're also tonight going to be talking with Pennsylvania's governor, Josh Shapiro. Josh Shapiro, as Pennsylvania governor, has just pulled off like a carnival feat of strength. It's the gubernatorial equivalent of bench pressing a car.

or winning a tug of war with an elephant or something. Governor Josh Shapiro just did something that nobody thought was possible in his home state of Pennsylvania. He's going to be joining us live here in just a moment to talk about that. But we start tonight with an update on something that we've been covering for a couple of weeks now, something that I'm telling you is going to be the political sleeper hit of the summer.

You might have seen there's this big New York Times story today, big story, very important story about how the leading Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, and Republicans more broadly, have this plan that they want to put in place if the Republican Party wins the presidency in 2024. They're calling it Project 2025 because this is a plan that's supposed to go into effect once,

Upon the inauguration of Donald Trump in 2025, either Trump or some other Republican president gets inaugurated in January of 2025 and Project 2025 thereby goes into effect. This plan is being coordinated by a right-wing think tank called the Heritage Foundation, and it is a plan to radically change the form of governance that we have in the United States.

so as to concentrate all the power of the government in the hands of a single leader. Quote, our current executive branch was conceived of by liberals. What's necessary is a complete system overhaul. Quote, what we're trying to do is identify the pockets of independence inside the U.S. government and seize them.

seize them so there won't be any more pockets of independent power outside the pockets, outside the power that is held by the president. Now as I said, they want this to be Donald Trump. They want him to be the guy in whose hands all this power is concentrated. But they say they would plan to do this with any Republican president. The plan is to change the structure of the U.S. government so the next president, the next Republican president will take direct control of all state power.

He would, for example, take over all federal law enforcement and run that directly for his own benefit through the DOJ. There would be no more independence of federal law enforcement. The next president would take control of private business in this country for his own benefit through the powers of the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission.

The next president would revive an old and, I should say, illegal practice called impoundment, which would basically take away the fundamental powers of Congress and put that power, too, in Trump's hands. Again, identify the pockets of independence and seize them. So instead of checks and balances and limited government, we'd have more of a strongman system of government. We'd have a single leader with all the power of the state personally arrogated to him.

No other part of the government, no other thing in the country at all would be allowed to constrain him. That sounds nice. It at least sounds simple. That said, it is obviously fundamentally opposite to the whole idea of why we exist as a country in the first place.

And I think it's no surprise to see an article like this, to see reporting like this in the Times today. I think everybody sort of knows that this is where the American political right, where the Republican Party has been heading in the Trump era. But still, I think the reason this reporting today is getting so much attention and causing so much consternation is because however much this might be the dream of the Trump era right wing in American politics—

For the most part, the American people really don't want this. And so it's one thing to like sort of see it hinted at or to feel like this is the kind of system they'd like to replace our system with. It's another thing to see it in black letter print, right? To find out that they've put a name on it, that it's a project that has an implementation date and they're getting it ready.

I mean, in general, by and large, the American people don't want to live under a single leader who has concentrated all power in his own hands and nothing constrains him and nothing else matters other than his own whims and preferences and grudges. You don't want to live in a country under a leader like that who's a good guy, let alone a leader like that who's a bad guy. I mean, you don't have to be a civics dork to know that you don't want that. And I think by and large, the American people really don't.

Here's the thing: While that is the vision at the top for the American political right in the Trump era—that's what they want for their national leader, that's what they want the American presidency to become—

It's also their broader project for what they think of governance. If you just go down a step or two from their strongman vision for the guy at the very top, they're also getting very big ideas about what to do with their power in the states right now. This is not something they need a Project 2025 for. This is not something they have to, you know, wait until they hope they can oust President Biden and swear in a Trump or another Republican president in 2025. This is something they're doing now.

And this is why I say I think this is the political sleeper issue of the summer. Just one week ago here on the show, we reported that the Republican attorney general of Tennessee was seizing private, unredacted medical records of people in Tennessee. So you go to the doctor, you have an expectation that your health care experience is private, that your medical records are confidential.

But in Tennessee, families recently got a notice from the Vanderbilt University Medical Center telling them that their personal, unredacted individual medical records had been taken by the state attorney general. These records were seized without the consent of these patients, without any way to opt out. He just took them. And his office still has them. It's had them for months.

Now, in Tennessee, like in every state where Republicans are in power, Republicans in that state have been going after trans people. And the medical records the Tennessee Republican Attorney General confiscated were from trans people and other people who had attended a clinic in Tennessee that provides gender-affirming care. Now, at this point, some of you watching me right now are thinking, oh, that's what this is. Like, oh, this is one of those things about trans, you know, gender-affirming care.

You know, that's probably thinking, "Oh, that's too bad for trans people in Tennessee. I wouldn't wish that on anyone." But yeah, we know the Republicans are really coming after those people, so, you know, that's bad for them, but it's not really a surprise. This is kind of a niche story. Alas. Actually, it turns out that once you've convinced yourself that you have the right to go take the private medical records of people, you've decided are bad people.

Once you've decided that you have the right to go take the private medical records of people because you think they don't actually have the right to make their own decisions for their own lives and their own healthcare, and so therefore they don't have any legitimate expectation of privacy. They don't have any legitimate expectation of protection from you. Once you've decided that you've got that kind of power, you've got those kind of rights, well, it's amazing how far and how fast those feelings will take you.

So it was just a week ago we covered Tennessee's Republican Attorney General seizing the private medical records of trans people in that state. Well, here's the lead in a breaking news story in the Tennessean newspaper tonight. Tennessee's Attorney General wants the state to be able to investigate and compel information on out-of-state abortions. These are your private medical records.

They are taking them already from trans people in Tennessee. Now they want to take them from any Tennessee woman who has had an abortion in another state. In another state? Yeah. If you live in Tennessee and you need to get an abortion, well, Republicans have instituted an abortion ban in Tennessee. So you can't get one in Tennessee anymore. You will need to travel out of state. But Tennessee's Republican attorney general now says he intends to effectively follow you out of state.

to get your medical records to see if you got an abortion somewhere else, even in a state where it's legal. That's the Tennessean tonight. And oh look, it's also in Kentucky. Tonight in the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Kentucky Attorney General wants Kentuckians' out-of-state abortion records to be available to authorities.

Oh, it's not just Tennessee, it's also Kentucky. Oh, and look, here it is in Arkansas, too. Today, in the Arkansas Times, Arkansas Attorney General wants to know about your out-of-state abortion. It's happening with the Republican Attorney General in Arkansas, too. Oh, and look, here tonight, here it is in Georgia, Georgia Attorney General, and here it is in Mississippi, Mississippi's Attorney General. This is from Mississippi Today, a nonprofit news organization.

which was actually first to break this story with this headline, Mississippi's Attorney General wants to make info on out-of-state abortions available to Mississippi authorities. Mississippi has banned abortion. There is no abortion clinic left in Mississippi.

So if you live in Mississippi and you need to get an abortion, you will need to figure out how to get yourself out of Mississippi and into a state where you can legally get one. But the Republicans and state government in Mississippi say they will effectively follow you out of the state. By virtue of the fact that you are a Mississippi resident, sorry, they now claim the right to seize your medical records from like a clinic in New York.

or in Illinois, or wherever else you go. They claim the right to follow you there and take your private medical records from there for their own law enforcement purposes. And I just showed you headlines from Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia, but it is actually 19 different states where Republican officials are going for this now.

19 Republican attorney generals in 19 states have signed on to a letter to the Biden administration saying they want the right to go after women's private medical records anywhere in the country, including in all the states where abortion is legal. They want to follow their residents all over the country to see.

If that woman might be getting an abortion or some other kind of reproductive care anywhere, they want the records and they claim the right to go get them. Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah. Republican attorneys general in all of those states have sent this letter to the Biden administration.

about their right, as they see it, to get your private medical records. And they mean it for women getting an abortion or potentially fertility treatment or any kind of reproductive care, potentially contraception. And yes, also gender-affirming care of any kind. They claim the right to go take your private medical records to see what you're up to with that kind of care, no matter where you have gone to get it.

How can you get away from something like this? I mean, if this is what they say they want to do, and it is, how do you get away from it? The reason they've written to the Biden administration saying they claim this right is because the Biden administration says they should not have the right to do this. The Biden administration is trying to assert federally that attorneys general from states where abortion is banned can't follow their residents to other states to see if they're getting banned care from someplace where it's legal.

Beyond those efforts to protect this at the federal level from the Biden administration, you've also started to see blue states, places like New York and Washington state that have also passed state laws saying that nobody should be able to get private medical records like this. Just because you've banned abortion in your state doesn't mean you can effectively enforce it in mine. But here's 19 Republican states, 19 Republican state attorney generals saying they're going for it. And maybe they already are.

When reporter Joe Sonka from the Louisville Courier-Journal today asked the Kentucky Attorney General's Office if they have already pursued private medical records from Kentucky women who've had medical treatment in other states, the Attorney General's Office didn't give Joe Sonka an answer. He says he has still not heard back from the Attorney General's Office about this, which leaves open the possibility that maybe they are already doing this. Maybe they are already trying or getting these medical records.

They used to say that the Republican Party was the party of limited government. This is a lot of things, but this is not that. Joining us now is Minnie Timuraju. She's president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. Ms. Timuraju, it's really great to see you. Thanks very much for being here. Thanks for having me.

So, I want to start with this letter from these 19 Republican attorneys general. They're writing to the Biden administration. Why? Why have they said that—why have they taken this on as a matter that they need to take up with the federal government? You know, the Republican AGs have been increasingly extremists. They're some of the most egregious offenders of attacks over our fundamental freedoms, from right—from the freedom to vote to reproductive freedom.

It's not shocking that as they're losing the public opinion war on abortion, they're pivoting and trying to conflate gender-affirming care attacks with abortion care. You know, we know that the opponents for reproductive freedom and abortion access are

are the same as the opponents of gender-affirming care and the LGBTQ+ and trans communities. We know this because we know where the dark money is coming from. We know who the organizers are behind this. There's model legislation. This all kind of started with SB 8 in Texas, actually, my home state, which established this vigilante mechanism, right, and really encouraged citizens of the state to spy and report

Texans who left the state to have abortions. And when you have organized entities with extremist organizations like, you know, Heritage Society, Christian, Right to Life, they are literally disseminating model legislation and tactics within the AGs and between the legislature. So it's not shocking. Our sense of this is they're losing the public opinion war on abortion. They are desperate to win back

win-back power. And in Mississippi, we know we have folks—the AG is currently up for reelection, and she's going to be in a tough race. So, this is them fearmongering against some of the most vulnerable Americans to try to score points in their increasingly desperate base. AMY GOODMAN: So, we started covering this story when we learned about it in Tennessee, when families in Tennessee got notified by Vanderbilt University Medical Center that

Sort of much to their chagrin, the medical center felt compelled to hand over people's medical records when the attorney general demanded them. Families didn't find out that the medical records had actually gone to the AG's office until months after they'd already been handed over, which I think was very distressing to a lot of these families.

But it raises very practical questions immediately. One is what can medical providers do to protect the privacy of their patients, both in Republican-controlled states where there may be bans on the kinds of health care that we're talking about here, but also in blue states where these things are legal and people should be able to

obtain this kind of medical care without government intrusion. But what can people themselves do to try to protect themselves if attorneys general in all of these states, I mean 19 states, are saying they think that people's private medical information like this is fair game?

So I think you alluded to it before. The Biden administration, HHS, proposed this rule in response to an active, you know, public comment period. But also the White House, led by Vice President Harris and the Gender Policy Council, has done everything.

Forty-plus meetings with abortion providers, activists, patients in tough states like Idaho and Missouri. They've been soliciting feedback from legislators, AGs. They've known for a long time that this is what states were trying to do. The reporting you gave, they've been tracking this, which is also why the U.S. Senate last year, Catherine Cortez Masto, led by Catherine Cortez Masto, also tried to pass legislation that would protect providers and patients from crossing state lines.

Now, what can folks do in the states where these AGs are threatening their bodily autonomy and their freedom? They have to, frankly, the best choice is to fight back at the ballot box. We have to get more activists about removing extremist AGs. You know, some of the most—

forward-thinking attorneys general are now the governors in states that are doing the most advanced work on reproductive care you're talking about. You're going to have Governor Shapiro on. He's a former AG. Maura Healey, former AG. I hate to make it political, but it is political. We have to organize reproductive freedom voters, to your point earlier in the show, Rachel. Reproductive freedom voters have to become supporters of the broad range of freedoms

for everybody, for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. The other course of action folks can take is to challenge these bills and these laws in the courts. And a lot of our colleagues at ACLU, Center for Rupert Rights, are working on litigation. Manny Timuraju is president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. Ms. Timuraju, thanks very much for making time this evening. This is a story that I think is going to get more attention in days ahead. It's helpful to have you here.

Thank you. All right. I should say when, you know, when the Biden administration announced this rule to try to prevent effectively Republican attorneys general and Republican controlled states from chasing their residents around the state going after their medical from chasing their residents around the country going after their medical records.

NARAL Poor Choice America put out a statement saying, your conversations with your doctor and your decisions about reproductive health care, including abortion care, are your own business, no one else's. And I remember when they put out that statement at the time, I remember thinking at the time like, yes, yes, clearly that's the obvious bottom line from which we all proceed here. It's not the obvious bottom line from which at least 19 Republican states are proceeding now. It's incredible that this is contested ground, but boy, is it.

All right, much more ahead here tonight. 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, nos. 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. Hey!

The BetMGM app is the best place to bet on football. You only get that feeling at BetMGM, the sportsbook born in Vegas, now live across the DMV. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. See BetMGM.com for terms. 21 plus only, DC only, subject to eligibility requirements. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.

MSNBC Live Democracy 2024 Saturday, September 7th in Brooklyn, New York. Join your favorite MSNBC hosts at our premiere live audience event. Visit msnbc.com slash democracy 2024 to buy your tickets today.

On the MSNBC podcast, How to Win 2024, former Senator Claire McCaskill is joined by fellow political experts and insiders to examine the campaign strategies unfolding in this all-important election. We have emerged with the teacher, the coach, the veteran, the governor, Tim Walz. I always think it's better to have somebody on the ticket that has actually won in a state that's hard. Search for How to Win 2024 wherever you get your podcasts and follow. New episodes every Thursday.

Whether you like him or you don't, Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has a presidential campaign that I think everybody acknowledges is not going very well. A couple of months and many millions of dollars into this thing already, he is right now trailing former President Donald Trump by over 30 points in the polls. He did not think it was going to go that way, or maybe he wouldn't have gotten in in the first place.

And now that the first fundraising numbers are in for his campaign, the headlines for DeSantis just keep getting worse by the day. Like these. DeSantis campaign sheds staff amid cash crunch. DeSantis campaign finances have some flashing warning signs. DeSantis fires roughly a dozen staffers in campaign shakeup. But while his presidential campaign is going poorly, spare a thought for the governor as to his day job, which is arguably going worse than his presidential campaign.

And his day job, being governor of Florida, that has been going poorly on stuff that's sort of lower profile but perhaps more unnerving. Take, for example, the fact that Florida is experiencing its first cases of malaria in a couple of decades.

Under DeSantis, the top relevant jobs are vacant in the public health agency that's responsible for detecting and preventing the spread of diseases like malaria. So that's a bad time for their newly-to-be malaria in Florida.

There's also an exodus of insurance companies from Florida, which means an increasing number of that state's residents are losing very basic things like car insurance and home insurance. It's not just because of natural disasters. It's also because of state policies related to insurance that insurance companies say are forcing them out. Democratic lawmakers in the state say they've been trying to get DeSantis to focus on a solution to try to keep insurance companies in the state and to keep...

insurance premiums from skyrocketing. They say he is too distracted by his war on woke and by his failing presidential bid to do much of anything about it.

There's also DeSantis' weird recent effort to create his own militia, something called the Florida State Guard, which is different than the National Guard, which can be called up federally. The Florida State Guard would answer only to him. The Miami Herald has some amazing new reporting about the Guard's leaders and recruits quitting in disgust, including one recruit describing it as a, quote, military fantasy camp.

And then there's the stuff DeSantis is doing where you really can't improve on the headline, like this one. DeSantis signs Florida bill allowing radioactive roads made of potentially cancer-causing mining waste. What could go wrong? Yeah, if that's the headline that's read about you at home as governor, is the next thing the people of your state think? Like, want him in charge of the whole country too.

Even the big political stunts that Ron DeSantis has been so excited about, so eager to promote, those have been not turning out well for him recently either. Like, for example, his much-heralded fight against Disney. However much he likes to crow about that, that has now resulted in a major lawsuit against him by Disney, which is the state's largest employer.

And of course, there's his ongoing series of stunts in which he sends undocumented immigrants by the plane load or by the bus load to liberal cities and towns, dropping these people off without any plan, without any resources, without any preparation for their arrival. Because, ha ha, that'll show those northern liberals.

Ron DeSantis is the one who started this last year by sending flights full of people to Martha's Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts. Flights filled with migrants and asylum seekers. He went actually and found them in Texas and then paid millions of dollars to put them on charter flights at taxpayer expense to send them up to Massachusetts. Since then, Florida Republican lawmakers have given DeSantis over $20 million more to do more of this.

And Ron DeSantis is clearly gleeful about doing this to these poor people. He thinks this is an awesome political stunt, but there's reason to believe it may not turn out well for him either.

In the Texas county where DeSantis had those folks picked up and sent to Martha's Vineyard, the sheriff in that county has filed criminal charges with a local district attorney. Now, the sheriff has not said who he is recommending to be charged, but the case does include felony counts for the coercion of the men, women, and children who were lied to in order to get them onto those planes. The other reason this may not turn out well for DeSantis is that stunts like this never turn out well.

And we know this because he's not the first person to have done this. Today, we just posted an episode of Deja News, our new podcast.

about this exact same stunt being tried by conservatives in the South in the early 1960s. Then it was Southern segregationists who were mad at Northern liberals for advocating for civil rights. And the Southern segregationists decide that they would teach those Northern elites a lesson by putting people on buses, putting poor African Americans on buses,

and driving them up north, dropping them on liberals' doorsteps in places like Massachusetts and in New York, sending people up there by lying to them, sending them up there with no money, no resources, no plan, and no warning for the place they were due to arrive. Now, the reason many of us have not heard this story about what Southern conservatives did in 1962

is that the whole thing was so cruel and so shameful that even in the civil rights cauldron of cruelty in those fights in 1962, these stunts were seen as too cruel. It collapsed under the weight of public denunciations, even from the white South. And everybody wanted to forget about it as soon as possible, and so the whole thing was memory hold. In other words, it went very poorly for the guys who did this before Ron DeSantis did it. I'm guessing he might not know that.

But it's in this week's episode of Dajon News, which is out now. If you want to listen to it, you can scan this code on your screen. Just use your phone camera and click the little box and it'll take you right to it. Or you can search it wherever you get your podcasts. It's called Rachel Maddow Presents Dajon News. Free to listen everywhere. We'll be right back. 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, nos. No!

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. Cheers!

The BetMGM app is the best place to bet on football. You only get that feeling at BetMGM. The sportsbook born in Vegas, now live across the DMV. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. See BetMGM.com for terms. 21 plus only, DC only, subject to eligibility requirements. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell. When I was working in the Senate, I didn't realize that it's the perfect training for the job that I have now. Covering government, covering politics, the complexity of it all. Mastering the detail is crucial to being able to present anything.

that happens in Senate buildings or any of the other news centers that we have to focus on every day. The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, weeknights at 10 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC.

Go beyond the what to understand the why.

Download the app now at msnbc.com slash app. The clip I'm about to show you is of a high-profile, very far-right Republican congresswoman whose name is Marjorie Taylor Greene. And this is her speaking at a conservative political conference this weekend. The clip I'm about to show you is unedited. It is not doctored in any way.

Lyndon B. Johnson is very similar to Joe Biden. How are they the same? They're both Democrat Socialists. Lyndon B. Johnson was the majority leader in the Senate. Does that sound familiar? He was vice president to Kennedy. Joe was vice president to Obama. He was appointed as the president after JFK was assassinated, then he was elected. His big socialist programs were the Great Society.

The Great Society were big government programs to address education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, transportation, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and welfare. The Office of Economic Opportunity and big labor and labor unions. Now,

LBJ had the Great Society, but Joe Biden had Build Back Better, and he still is working on it. The largest public investment in social infrastructure and environmental programs that is actually finishing what FDR started that LBJ expanded on and Joe Biden is attempting to complete.

My favorite part about all of this is it seems like she has just learned that there is this guy named Lyndon Johnson. Wait till you hear about this guy. Wait till she hears how well that guy did in the 1964 election when he was running and all that great society stuff. Literally won the largest percentage of the popular vote in the history of American presidential elections.

by all that dastardly trying to address problems related to education and poverty and medical care. What a terrible guy. Also, Lyndon B. Johnson was the majority leader in the Senate. Does that sound familiar? Joe Biden was not the majority leader in the Senate. Congresswoman Greene spent this weekend trying to horrify her audience by telling them that Democrats, like they always have...

want to do practical, popular things to improve people's lives. The horror. Her pitch there was so unintentionally perfect that the White House today tweeted out her remarks saying, quote, caught us! President Biden is working to make life easier for hardworking families.

The Biden administration is like clicking their heels together, delighted with this very high profile member of the Republican Party attacking President Biden and Democrats for doing so much to give practical help to the American people, particularly stuff they really want help with.

If there is a theme, a sort of common playbook in Democratic governance right now, I think it is both defense against what Republicans are trying to do and offense on the world's most practical things. The kinds of things Joe Biden really wants to be known for. The kinds of things that I think today's Biden-era Democratic Party is putting up on the marquee. The idea of, you know, what government can do that helps everyone.

We saw it today in a big way in Illinois. Illinois Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker just announcing the biggest infrastructure investment in that state's history. The largest multi-year infrastructure repair program in Illinois history. It's expected to improve every aspect of transportation in that state. Roads and bridges and aviation and railway and everything.

It's something we've also seen in very dramatic form in the state of Pennsylvania, where the new Democratic governor of that state, Josh Shapiro, has earned not just bragging rights but crowing rights after dealing with a catastrophic, unforeseen collapse on one of the busiest highways in the whole country. You might remember this was just last month, a section of I-95 right in Philly

right in Philadelphia, was taken out after a big accident involving a gasoline tanker truck. Now, at the time, this is I-95. Experts said it would take months to reopen I-95. Essentially, this major East Coast artery that serves more than 160,000 vehicles a day would be shut for months. In the end, it did not take months to repair.

Under Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, it took 12 days

It was a massive undertaking. It is nearly inconceivable that Pennsylvania pulled it off, but less than two weeks after a whole section of interstate was cratered, officials had the roadway back up and running. In a new op-ed for the Washington Post, Governor Shapiro says, the playbook we developed shows that Americans can do big things again. Joining us now is the Democratic governor of the great state of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro. Governor Shapiro, it's really nice to have you here. Thanks. Great to be back with you. Thanks, Rachel.

When this collapse happened, obviously there was the worry about the immediate damage and the danger and the people who were hurt by this. There was the worry about what it was going to take to put it together. But I think there was broad-based concern.

near universal perception that this was going to take months, that there was no end run around this to do it faster. How were you able to do it so much faster than literally everybody expected?

Yeah, all the experts said months. And I could tell you, Rachel, it started after our first responders and law enforcement did an incredible job of putting out the fire and saving all but one life, the trucker whose truck caught fire. They did an incredible job. And once that fire was out, I actually went above the site in a helicopter, looked down, and immediately, working with my team, came up with a plan to, in effect, put

fill the hole that existed in order to repave 95 over the top. It sounds simple, but it was a creative solution that allowed us to move quickly, move collaboratively,

and get this done, get the 160,000 cars and the 14,000 trucks that navigate that roadway every single day moving quickly again. So we were able to move quickly by virtue of creative thinking. And that sort of came to us in those initial moments we were on the scene after the fire was put out.

You wrote an op-ed today, or an op-ed this weekend for the Washington Post in which you said, you know, here are our lessons for U.S. infrastructure. Number one, empower strong leadership. Number two, speed up the bureaucracy. Number three, encourage creativity. And number four, work together. I was really interested in that fourth point because I think, particularly from a national perspective, we're used to thinking of

Americans as being incapable of working together, particularly in a political environment. I mean, you yourself had a really divisive gubernatorial campaign to get the job that you have now. And you've got Republicans who are in control of the state Senate. Tell me about political divides and working together and how you can get something like this done when you do have split power.

Look, there is too much division in our politics today, and it holds us back. And I think what the American people want is people to actually come together and get stuff done for them. And when you have a catastrophe like we had on '95, we recognized everyone needed to come together—every politician, the private sector, our state government, and importantly, our unions in Pennsylvania—to make sure that we could do that rebuild effort.

We had to collaborate to make sure we got the funding. And I want to thank the president for making sure that all the funding we needed was going to be there. We had to collaborate with engineers and lawyers and others to create the plan. And importantly, we had to collaborate with the Philadelphia building trades who committed to me that they would work 24 seven in order to get this job done. Collaboration was key. And unfortunately, we don't have too much of that in our politics today. I hope

this can be an example of the good practical things that can happen when people collaborate, when they come together. Collaboration also has an outgrowth of that, and that is that people feel empowered, empowered to demonstrate real leadership. So we had the foreman and the four women who were on that road doing the work. They were empowered to make big choices or big decisions.

We had real creativity when it came to the solutions that were going to be necessary to open our roadway up again. That collaboration led to creativity. The collaboration showed the bureaucracy that they could move quicker, that we were going to have their back.

and that we were going to be able to get through this together. So collaboration was key, and it's going to be key if we're going to rebuild America's infrastructure. It's going to be key to lay broadband. It's going to be key to cap wells and stop the leak of methane, which is really leading to more and more climate change every single day. We're going to need to collaborate in this country again and think big and bold and be creative and demonstrate real leadership.

That's what we did here in Pennsylvania. When the eyes of the nation were on us, we stepped up and we delivered, demonstrating that the union way of life can deliver, demonstrating that government can still do big things. And we showed that here in Pennsylvania.

It's one thing to say it. It's another thing to show it. And yet another thing to have people driving on it months before they thought they ever would be able to. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, congratulations on this, sir. Thank you for telling the country that it's happened so that we can help tell the story. But congratulations also on getting it done. Thank you so much, Rachel. All right. We'll be right back. Stay with us. All right. That's going to do it for me tonight.

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