ladies and gentlemen, we now

please welcome to the stage. congressman adam kinzinger reince priebus, karl rove with ari melber. thank you. it's good to be back. yes, ma'am. all all. good afternoon. how's everyone doing? good afternoon. welcome. come on and sit down.

if you're still getting settled. my name is ari melber. i'm an anchor at msnbc news and we a really special panel. everyone here has been a writer and a thinker. but first and foremost, they're known for really being at the helm of government, the national political parties both and so in that sense, we're going to get a really inside here reince priebus was president trump's chief of staff, and before that, the rnc chairman for many years. adam kinzinger, a military veteran who was member of congress in the party, cast many noteworthy votes which we can discuss and served on the january six committee. and then you all know bush's brain right, karl rove has had a very distinguished career in politics, including serving both in the campaign apparatus at the highest levels of the white house. for president george w bush. please welcome our esteemed panel. hey.

i like to be very transparent. so here's what going to do with our time. i think we're going to start with up politics. we have some very knowledgeable people here, and you're going to us about political things. then i wanted to talk about the direction the party and then finally the crisis of democracy versus in our country where there may or may not be more disagreement. we'll find out, but starting with politics. karl rove what do you coming down the pike in the presidential and for both parties, who do you see as the nominee that they would be most afraid of? yeah. well, first of all, thanks for having me. and yes, once again, you insulted george w bush by suggesting he hated exterior brain. he's a yale history major and a harvard mba. and i graduated from college. so whose brain is one? so, look, this is going to be the most presidential election. i think, ever seen, because neither one of these people i mean, they're the two most unpopular people ever to run for president. and that's a fact.

i mean, go back to the 1936, which is the earliest date we really have polling on presidential candidates and no parties, frontrunners been as unpopular as these two men are. and the real politics average, i think it was day yesterday, biden was 55.8% unfavorable rating. and donald trump was 55.3, the most words used to associate they're associated the joe biden in people's minds are old not to it and the most common phrase used to depict trump as corrupt and criminal. so these are not exactly the warm and fuzzy people we had and a result you know they're both they're both the person who could lose to the other and you know we're going to end up having the election decided people who don't like both of them and they decide who's the lesser of evils and as a result third parties are going to play an outsized role to 1.8% of the electorate voted for third party

in the last election, and the votes won by the libertarian candidate in arizona, georgia and wisconsin are bigger than donald trump's losing margin. and in the previous election, 6% of the electorate voted for a third party candidate and the green numbers in wisconsin and pennsylvania are bigger than hillary losing margin and four, potentially 4/3 party candidates running. we may come close to having eight or 10% of the electorate as a vote for a third party candidate. this time around. and how that falls out is anybody's everything. both of these men and they're likely to be the two nominees unless unless nature intrudes or lightning strikes. you how they conduct themselves is going to affect how people vote. and the question of a debate, if we have a debate, it will be the most concerned credential debate since 1980, when we had one and we had a large number of undecided voters and after that debate in which ronald reagan

handled himself well, the undecideds moved his direction. if we have a debate that debate will have huge consequence for the outcome of the election. and if we have a debate how the american react to the absence one and who they blame for it could also have consequences. that's a great overview that i won't repeat, but party chairman welcome to a few as party chairman what i really want to stress here is how the campaign apparatus looks at an election. this election is not a national election. it's election where 100,000 people in five or six states are going to decide the outcome of this election. to carl's point in 2016, donald trump won wisconsin by about 22,000 votes. jill and green party candidate

got about 25,000 votes. so these tiny margins make a difference. so back to the 20,000 in wisconsin last time. i think we had 11,000. and in in michigan or excuse me in georgia, we know everything about every person in those states. so we're in pennsylvania we would know what beer you drink, car you drive, how many kids you have with your mortgages. right, set up or upside down, what color your truck. and after a thousand points, a consumer data and every one of your heads, we're going to message to you. and so we're going to find out what you believe, why you believe it. knock on your door if you look like you're a voter for us, we're going to give you a form fill out so that you send it in to the clerk and sign an absentee ballot at early vote. and we're going to knock on your to make sure you turned it in.

and once you turn it in, we're going to go to the next person. the point is, is that when you think about the of dollars that are raised in an election like this, it's not billions of dollars thrown around all over the place. it's of dollars spent six states to influence the outcome of 100,000 people. your pool is a little than that, but it's 100,000 that are going to make or break you. so the question then is not so much whether you like trump you love trump, you like biden hate biden. what really matters is what are those people in the middle there that were targeted in thinking so today the battleground polls show that would beat biden in every battleground. between three and eight points. if you believe these polls. but it really doesn't matter because what matters is what are people going to do after that

level of targeting, turnout, persuasion and $6 billion drops on top of their head. and so that's what the parties are doing, that's the campaigns are doing. and so it matters. yes are you better off today than you were four years ago? right now, independents say, no, they're not off today than they were four years ago, but they're down to the candidates and this is anyone's guess where it's going to come down to. i do think and i agree, karl, that the democrats want to make this about donald trump. and i would say that is. but it also comes with an enormous risk because when you introduce choose third parties so you get donald joe biden and joe biden's message are to be i'm not for trump. we don't want trump.

we can't have the chaos of trump. he's going to be here and up over and over and over. and there's a lot of out there that would go for that. but they also look at joe biden and say, yeah, but the economy not good enough. crime everywhere. the border is out of control. the world's falling apart or whatever it is. maybe they think he's too old, whatever it may be, he's he has some unpopularity. my point is then you have other choices. once you have said no to trump and you can't buy biden. well, what about cornell west? what about jill stein? what about our are kennedy jr? what about no labels? so when you dilute yourself, the democrats are opening up to an enormous infrastructure failure i think and how they're what they're allowing to have happen around them.

i don't need to add anything because i think they hit that well but let me just say this like as i'm listening to this, i agree with being said, i'm just like, how did a country of 340 million people end up here? like, how is it that we are not happy with our candidates and and how is it that you know really 100,000 people are going to pick our president and i think from a long term perspective, that's something we ought to think through because the only way democracy survives is if everybody feels like they have a voice in. and when people start, this is why the election narrative was so dangerous is you're convincing a third of the country up to half of the that the election system doesn't work well self-governance does not survive if people believe their vote doesn't count because will speak out. that's what i about long time long term i think the analysis is 100% correct and it's coming down to six states in 100,000 people and let me worry about that. and carl, you ducked the first question because you're good at what you do or didn't think was a good question. but i was curious. i bet a lot of people maybe

maybe i didn't hear the a lot of people would want to know for the democrats who you think they should fear most. and for the republicans, who should they fear most? in other words, yeah, people in the room. we wonder if biden whatever reason was the nominee got it real quick. one, one, one thing to follow up on what adam said, the battleground states change from election to election in 2000, the battleground states were kentucky, tennessee, west virginia, which at last voted a republican in an open race for the presidency in 1928, as well as colorado, oregon, new mexico, missouri. no. yes. so my point is, is every election the critical elements change. george and arizona were not battleground states until the 2016 or 2020. so, you know, things change. virginia used to be a reliably republican state until 2008. so, yes, these elections be narrowly settled. but we have a strictly been in a

period in periods where every election is close. nobody in in the last quarter century, of the eight of the 1800s gets 50% of the vote. and we have three elections out of that in which margin between the two candidates is less than 1%. so close elections changing battleground states, that's a fact of life. now, as to the question of who they should fear, which party figures out that a new face is their candidate is the that gets an advantage to take these polls matching. and nikki haley who's the -- out of him why because people are desperate for a new face. they say we may not know much about her, but she seems to handle herself. and i don't want biden. similarly, if if we had polls on the on the other side and, we had trump versus whitmer or polis or murphy or cooper or mitch landrieu or klobuchar or

booker. maybe not newsom. maybe not pritzker. but we would have the democrat ahead, particularly somebody like gretchen whitmer. congressman, same question. oh, yeah. i mean, i 100% agree. i mean, i think i think 2024 is going to be and i'm not bitter. i actually texted rove earlier like just see, now i'm going to be the bitter one up there. he goes. oh, be optimistic. i'm like i actually am long optimistic. in the short term, i'm a little pessimistic. but so i think 24 is going to be rough. 28, i actually think has the real potential to be an amazing year in this country because both parties will have new faces and new as long as the fake ramaswamy not in it. that's the only thing. but like. so i think any of those i agree with what karl got any new face. thank god have somebody standing up against the great debt threat that our country faces. taylor i mean, thank you. so ryan's you love numbers very hard to give anyone on this panel numbers they don't know but there was a numerical

positive for donald in the 2020 results among. people who had voted before the existing electorate it was actually dead even at 4949, as you may recall. and in 2020, if you just rerack 16, it would be very similar but practically tied as you as you know. and i'm curious for you to apply this to 24 and your former bosses challenge. even if donald trump becomes the nominee, 14% of that electorate were first time voters. it's big and they broke 64% for biden. you're your view of that and is it key donald trump to not just hold whatever that losing electorate was, but to find some compact with new or first time voters this if he's the nominee? well, i mean, aside from the mechanics in not getting blown out in early vote and absentee ballot voting, i think covid was wild in 2020 and presented a lot

of new opportunities for voters that were not available in 2016. and and that dynamic, i think, changes a lot as compared to 2020 and 2016. just the level of first time participation. what could change, i think biden's popularity i mean, was 20 points higher on the on and the approval rating in 2020 than he is today. that's number one. number two, independents. by 47 to 29 on average say that they were better off under trump than they were under biden. and and they said that the world was a safer place under trump. biden so the other thing to keep mind is that, you know, i, i think that 2024 is a replay of the electorate's mood.

more similar to 2016 than it was in 2020. i, you know, trump was in he was fresh to the electorate. the know to some people they didn't like his tactics. biden was going to be the guy to bring us all together things were going to go back to normal but it didn't happen. their thing, i tell you, is that, you know, people are angry out there. people are upset. and as i describe donald trump in 2016, he was the biggest middle finger that the american people could find. and they found it. and i actually think people are more angry today than they were in 2016 for some of the things i listed before about crime about the border, about where they're at the economy and you name it. and so i just think and then you add the third parties in where you're talking about tiny margins.

i think all of that together means we've got a tossup means that no one can tell us really definitively, obviously, how going to turn out until it turns out and we'll get into kind of maybe why mood is like that around the country later i would love talk about that my opinion on but things will be different i think voting will be down and the options will be more plentiful. i'm going go to carl and i have some numbers for you and then to the congressman on democracy. there are some things that you've been very right about and and a lot that i've been very wrong. i need to make confession. i gave money to adam, and shortly thereafter his career ended. i'm sorry, i contributed. reagan reiner. congressman, do you have a response? yeah. yeah, they got their rhino on me. yeah, well, this is what you said, which overlaps with this part of the discussion. reading from from you a few

years back, you wrote trump didn't win because he expanded the gop but because clinton lost significant chunk of the obama coalition and you compared her 16 to obama reelect. she dropped wrote 1.8 million african americans 1 million voters age under 29. 1.8 million voters aged under 44. 2.6 million catholics. and nearly point 5 million voters in. families that make under 300,000 excuse me, under $30,000. families that are struggling and you document all of that, how does that apply today and to what ryan's would say? yeah, well, both candidates faced the likelihood of losing part of what they had last time around. there are two ways that you that think shift. one is i go from being for somebody to being against same person or for somebody else. and the other way is i don't show or i show up on biden's

side. he's got a problem in that he, first of all, is lacking enthusiasm among black, hispanic and young voters. a 1% decline in african-american turnout in georgia. and he loses georgia, a 7% decline in voters under the of 35. and turnout in arizona, even if he gets the same overwhelming, he loses arizona. so the lack of enthusiasm is problematic for him and. for trump, the problem is is that last time around, he lost percent of republicans and it was 7 million votes short in the popular in june on the national opinion research council for ap did a survey said, do you think are the four indictments? do you think they're legitimate? not 16% of voters said that. at least one of those or more of the indictments were legitimate. 16% of republicans. and they also said, you know, do you think they're legitimate? legitimate, but politically motivated? not legitimate.

do you not have enough information order to form an opinion. 24 to 31% of republicans said, i don't have enough information to tell you whether or not i got an opinion about new york business case. jack smith georgia or classified documents -- what was happening was they were saying i'm talking to somebody don't know represent an organization never heard of and i'm a republican and they're asking me to say something bad about the leader of my party in a travel moment. and i don't feel comfortable saying that. so i'm going to take the easy way out and say, i don't have enough information. well, let me counter you and i'll let you finish. one out of five voters in the republican primaries in these first two states say if he's convicted and they view that as disqualifying. yeah look, that's the that's the next thing. i mean, if you got if you got 60%, are you saying was legitimate and another 24 to 31% who say, i'm not going to tell you where i fall down on this thing, i can believe that that number is accurate. so if he is found guilty in something, even if the new york

business case, it's to have an effect. so let let's bring robinson and then and then the congressman promised rights. you served the highest level for this individual when he was president. there are investigations that the second highest the guy who was in charge of the twitter feed was the highest ranking. so you say and there were investigate sessions that did not find wrongdoing. donald trump, in fairness, the mueller probe was a long running investigation. it found a lot of wrongdoing, had a lot of fair convictions by people's juries of their peers. but bob did not find wrongdoing that the president, while president other than the arguments around obstruction, which they didn't view as indictable under the rules. having said that, in fairness, as you know, these cases have a ton of evidence. we heard from cassidy hutchinson a couple of rooms over today about it and mr. rove just walk through how much criminal evidence that could result in a conviction. what is your response to that? both politically, which is this panel? and morally, if you if you care

to weigh in? well, mean so far it hasn't played a role if anything at least temporarily within republican primary it's helped the president solidify his support, solidify his base. certainly i think a conviction without a doubt would be certainly not helpful and certainly problems attic. but i think that the way things are going it doesn't look like of these cases are going to get resolved before the election it's anyone's guess whether they will or they won't. if i didn't i'll let you finish. but if he's innocent, would it be better to have i mean, if he gets acquitted on one of these things? i mean, this is as high stakes poker as it gets i mean, i think if the president gets acquitted on one of these items, i think it's going to be even his chances of winning going to be even greater. i mean, the risk both enormous on the upside and the downside, but, you know, i that the the

way that this all started when i walked into the white house on the first day the fbi interviewed michael down the hallway second day sally refused to enforce the executive order. we had to replace her a couple of weeks and mccabe in my office and said, hey, can i talk to you alone? i said, sure. in spite of the fact you always hear from and everyone that you never talk to. the fbi alone walked in my office. the door. we remind him it was the acting director at the time who mccabe was. yagnik cabe? no, he was deputy deputy at the time. deputy director at the time. he walked in my office, sat close the door and he said, hey, you know that new york times story? and by now, you know, we're getting blown up 24 hours a day that says that trump campaign had constant contact with the russians.

i said, yeah, i'm getting killed. and he says, well, i just want you to know it's total --. it's over stated and it's not true. and i'm thinking to myself i'm going to be the hero of west wing because i've got the deputy director of the fbi telling me that story that i'm getting killed with is wrong. so i said danny mccabe sandy, is there anything you can do about it. i mean can you guys issues statement can you say that this is i tell you what, i'll go back to my office, call me in a couple hours. so i'm thinking, oh, my god, i'm going kill this story. so a couple hours later, i call andy mccabe, this is all you know, i tried to talk about it. i it up the flagpole. we can't anything about it because if i start commenting on stories then every other day i'm going to be writing i say, wait a second, you into my office, you close the door, you tell me, you want to talk to me, you tell me the stories --.

you tell me to call you 2 hours later and i do. i never met andy mchale. i didn't know who he was and. okay, fine. there's a couple other little twist to the story. i'll spare you the details. so week later, i'm standing in my office and there i see on the tv and a kyra on cnn, white house chief of staff pressures the fbi to recant the new york times story. i said, but hang on it's a call. sam feist from cnn. sam, what's going on here? i mean, what are you talking about? because all we're reporting is that you called the fbi the story. i said, yeah, but i didn't pressure. he came in my office talk. we're not saying you did anything wrong. we're just saying that you called the fbi about the new york times story. this is how things started. and 30 some hours later in front of bob mueller, look the trump campaign wasn't coordinating

with the republic in national committee, let alone the russians. but what i'm illustrating you is that there is a certain malaise and in in many cases a certain anger and pushback within the republican party for this concept drumbeat about donald trump and all the things he does wrong and all that because it's been going on from day one. so let me let me bring the very good, interesting story. i want to bring the congressman who's been patiently waiting, but he looks like a teapot, slowly swelling with steam. and congressman you did vote for the impeachment of president trump and you did vote for the creation of the january six committee. and the insurrection that only because then president trump, everyone in washington and then was told they had weapons. as we've heard from evidence.

and then they stormed the capitol and then there's credible reports he wanted to physically join that insurrection, secret service, intervene, all of that was not an fbi phone call you know that story. and so i give you the floor for any response, larger comment you want to make. i mean, look, here's i understand that because like there is i can tell, you know, in the political environment there are so many times like what you did and calling gets twisted into whatever somebody's political agenda is now all that aside, six months later, donald trump standing next to vladimir putin telling him, you trust him more than you trust your own intelligence services. so the question of like, is donald in the pocket of the russians? i mean, there's a reason we were asking that question because he was like loved vladimir putin for reason. there was an email with don jr is basically saying, great, let's see what information they have when they're talking about the fact that these supposed russians have information against hillary clinton. but regardless what happened january 6th is the thing that to me i don't you know look i don't

care what my job a former congressman now is like these guys his job is to look at the numbers and talk about okay here's who's going to go here and here my job to look at the failure of leadership in republican elected officials that i think could have turn this around a corner i think after january 6th had everybody that republicans trust on that debate stage for instance, stood there in milwaukee, great city by the way stood up there in milwaukee. and when asked, do you believe what you support donald trump even if he's convicted of felonies and almost all of them raise their hands, what does that do? it takes a republican voter that looking at donald trump as their chief influence. but there's also a tier two of influencers. those tier two are the people that are on that stage. if everybody on that stage would said, hell, no, i would not him. if he is found guilty by a jury of his peers in this fair justice system, they could have drug republicans to that side.

but when every one of them, tim scott, for god's sakes, stands up there and i don't care, i'm to still support him. what that says every republican that's watching like look up and say, well, evidently this is witch hunt by the justice department because these other people i trust say it is and they're running against him. i mean, they ran acted like donald trump wasn't even on the stage. so i agree. the russian investigation stuff went i mean there's a lot to unpack we probably spent a couple of hours and the end reince knows more about it than i do. january six was a game changer because that was a straight 487 minutes. donald trump, for the first time in his life, resisted peer pressure to act for the first time in his life. and he watched to see if this would succeed. and only when law enforcement turned the tide, only at that moment that he begrudgingly put out a statement that said, you know, let's be peaceful or so yeah i'm a little bitter about that. and the problem is the failure

not it's not in the politico is politicos you know they're important on numbers it's with the people that got elected by republicans and swore an oath to the constitution that refused to tell the truth. so i'm not shocked that 87% of republicans think january six wasn't a big deal because everybody they watch on tv tells them it wasn't. we. just doing my job. we only have 15 minutes left. i'm going to go. karl. and then right back to your original question, look, we're going to have sue two things that aren't going to be, quote, guilty verdicts. in my opinion, the equivalent of one is going to be the new york documents, which absolutely will happen. in fact, it may happen today or tomorrow. and the president, in all likelihood, it's already been found to have engaged in inappropriate activity. and the question is, how many millions of dollars is he going to have to pay and will he be to

conduct business activities or not? this is going to be the equivalent in people's mind of a, quote, guilty verdict. and as a result, i think it's going to have an impact. how big? we don't know. the second one is going to be this claim that any president has unlimited immunity. he could order seal team six to go kill a political opponent. and it depends on the context. we're going to see this because this issue at the court, the d.c. circuit is going to go to the supreme court. i bet you there is a908172 decision by the supreme court saying no president has unlimited immunity. and that's going to be that's going to now rights, his right rights his right to this point. this is energized. it said, you know, we're in a tribal moment. you're attacking the leader of my tribe. i got to rally to his support. and it's the deep state and it's and they're piling on and it didn't help that the first one is filed by the manhattan d.a. later withdrawn. does it help that there's now a lot of smoke and probably fire

about the georgia indictment with the hiring boyfriend and blah blah blah. but nonetheless, it has caused people say this is unfair and it helped him. but it's why among republicans and the election cannot be won merely among republicans. now, what it has hurt him is with independents and it's laid the groundwork for a bunch of republicans to say, you know what, i'm not voting for the guy because he was found, quote, guilty. maybe it's not classified documents, rights. and i were in the white house. i was there for seven years. i had a classification. i had security clearance. if i'd what he did, we'd be having in the visitor's room at fort leavenworth. so and that but that case is not to be resolved until after the election. i don't know if kinzinger would even visit you might call it like kinzinger, he he's not forgiven me for having contributed to as you can imagine, i did to his reputation right. well, i think everyone cared about trump's documents until

they found documents in biden's house and pence's house now and then and then, hey. and then. and then. and they look over here at cheney's bible room, right? yeah. from the white house. she writes with all due respect, yes, there were documents. i didn't know that, but it's not the same. those were accidental. both pence's and biden's and and when were and when they discovered there were documents there they invited people come in and inspect the documents to find their difference between that and spending a uk saying no and and all i'm going to moderate now ryan's gets time right and all of this will be figured out by the courts and if you think that trump being found guilty by the attorney generals investigation in new york is going to sway the the independent voters wisconsin and pennsylvania and north carolina,

good luck, because i don't think is i think people are much hardened than you all might want to accept. i think that there are most people don't care about any of these issues. i think you want them to i think you wish they would not. but this is not the i'm going to let this go this is not the 1990s electorate. this is 2024 where division is profit and unity, a loser where if you're dividing and you're and your gossip thing and you're ripping people apart, you can make a lot of this is the reality that we live in people on one side believe nothing of the person on the other side, they go online and they read. they scroll through their phones

and everything they believe is getting. 50 times a day. if you have you know what i mean? you're telling me thinking maybe i'm nagging my kid too much. but, you know, if every one time you're nagging your kid, they're seeing 50 things that are selling them the opposite. by the time you come back to them between the media between social media, between our politics, i know you want to believe that all of this matters more than i believe that it does. the reason i'm hardened is because i see the electorate every day knocking on doors, calculating and at data reading polls. and i think it registers. so so let me but i think congressman respond to that i know carl wanted to get in i just want to keep every one time. go ahead, sir. i mean i mean, anything really to add on. and i just i again, it's it's the numbers may be right, but

it's because of a complete lack of leadership. it's a failure of leadership. and i think our founding fathers assumed that once you took an oath to the constitution, you take that pretty seriously and you put things above yourself and leaders haven't done that, i think. i agree with carl, if he is convicted and no matter what it is think it may not devastate people. i always say to me, well, do you are you upset? the january six committee didn't change everything the dynamics in the gop? i'm like, no i mean, i wish it did. of course i'm not. i'm not pretending i didn't. but we set the history books straight. my kid is going to read the truth. he's not going to read a bunch of b.s. that it was somebody that it wasn't. and i don't think in ten years there's a single person that's going to ever meet. they supported donald trump. i'll be honest with you. that's what i think. and when these cases are put in front of the public and people see the truth and see the evidence, it will be very difficult to say. i don't believe you. i think that was deep state.

you see trump's own words. you see trump's own chief of staff, not him. mark meadows testifying against him, maybe even mike pence. that's going to be a much different moment. let me take it. all right. i'm going to go back to carl, then you. i'm just trying to keep it going, carl. let let let go ahead, sir. and nothing i just said, if that if that trial ever happens. okay, so, carl, this is my question. we only have about 7 minutes left here. the the proof that the truth is how much politicians lie? because afraid of the truth. if if the truth didn't matter, if everything that went down, up through and on january sixth wasn't bad for. donald trump among a lot of people in america, they wouldn't have to blame first. blame it on antifa and maybe didn't want to do it. then maybe it was a good thing that now they're talking about pardons. so i want to read and this is the last quote i have. and i think it's striking because the congressman just made a point that this is not just a passive thing that's happening out here. you've made this point a couple of times today, and it is the whole point.

the leadership of the people who have a platform whatever it may be, who have the ability to many people have a responsible if we are going to be a democracy under rule of law. i thought it was striking that wrote this and then everyone will get a closing moment, which is why you call there were several protesters who used force to disrupt congress's constitutional duty to certify the vote. some with that purpose in mind. others were swept up in the moment. savagery led astray by wills with dangerous motives. the leaders of this group were intent on committing violence, some planning for weeks. many wore tactical gear, some to arm with chemical agents, flagpoles, batons and sticks. they broke through barricades. they assaulted approximately hundred 40 police officers. in some cases the officer's own shield and gear. they smashed doors and windows. they illegally entered the capitol, ransacked offices. they searched for leaders of congress and made dire threats about what they would do if they found them. where a writer's festival, you wrote that for a reason. and the written record and the evidentiary record and the

facts, all this can matter. we try to make they do. so i wanted your thoughts on why it was important to you and the audience have to say that and how that squares with what reince which is that because and i don't want to overestimate what you said but that because some of this has been overblown because of the environment we're in it may not matter as much as people think it should. you know, first of all, i do want to agree with ryan in one thing and is that to a lot of people, this is nothing members of my party say it's nothing. just like say hunter biden is nothing. but those people the hard core of each party are not going to decide this election. this election is going to be by people who say, i don't like the choice being given to me and i'm up the air as to how i ought to vote. and in my mind and i this in my column today, i think it's a mistake for the democrats to say that that that donald trump represents a threat to democracy

because look some of the things that ryan's about republicans look at and say the fbi in a deep state and blah, blah, blah those are a threat to democracy. so if they're out there saying, donald trump is a threat to democracy. a lot of republicans are going to say so's crowd smarter for them. if they were smart, they'd take the january six and go hard at it and they would say he wants to pardon these people who attacked our capital i worked in that building as a young man to me the congress of the united states is one of the great examples of the strength our of our democracy and a jewel of the constitution and what those people did when they violently attacked the capitol in order to stop a constitutionally mandated meeting of the congress to accept the results of the electoral college is a on our history. and every one of those sons of -- who did that we ought to find them not try them and send them to jail and and if it if and of

the critical mistakes made in this campaign is that donald trump has now said i'm going to pardon those people because they're are hostages no, they're not. they're thugs. they were people. some of them had automatic weapons at a hotel in virginia to be able to be called up. we had people saying, where's nancy pelosi? we had people who were, you know, taking sitting at the desk of the speaker of the house and attempting to, you know, find people in order to bring them to justice and saying to the yelling at the police, kill them, kill them all. and so why trump has done this is beyond me. if he had said, you know what, i trust our jury system, trust law enforcement, anybody who assaulted the capitol ought to be. i mean, he said it once or twice. but now he's got he's appearing in a video with people who assaulted officers with an intent to take the capitol by force so, you know, look, i'm a republican. i don't want to have a democrat president. i want to have a republican president. but we're facing as a country a decision. and everybody gets to make it as

to what kind of leadership we're going to have. and to me, it is a on the part of the trump campaign to allow the president's impulses to identify himself with the people who assaulted the capitol rather than people stand for law and order. what final remarks from both of you, please. so to make the make it clear, i don't disagree that every one of these idiots in and domestic terrorists that stormed the capitol shouldn't prosecuted they should be. you broke the law. you ought to be prosecuted be in a lot of trouble for doing what you did, breaking when, of course, i'm not insane. i haven't lost my mind. but what i'm arguing is different and maybe more to you, all is that i don't think it's resonating. i think that the voter in warsaw wisconsin is more upset by. the fact that the government dumped $40 billion in the economy between thousand and

eight and 2016 to bail out a bunch of people that created a housing and they paid for on the back of the working people and the only people who actually made money and did better in that time were all the people that created the system. they got rich off of. that's what people are -- off about. so the left wing populism is going to win or right wing is going to win. but i can tell you one thing that's not going to win is not the 1990s. that's going to win. so we are in a place in the electorate where a small amount of people are going to decide it's said young people are turned off hispanic voters are turned off, black are turned off. it's anyone's guess what's going to happen. but what matters. i think people is whether they've got money in the bank, food on the table. they can a normal life retire

and worry about their kids. that's what people care about and that's what's going to decide this election. yeah, i mean, look, i don't i don't actually disagree think it's a i think that's i mean, i think one of the one of the democrats biggest vulnerability right now is border. that said, if democrats can unite in terms of going after the gop on the issue now that they have put a compromise in theory on the floor and donald trump has said, no, no, i want that as a campaign. we keep in mind four months ago they said we're going to hold up ukraine begrudgingly because, you know, we have to have a policy change. so all of a sudden they get a policy change and it's like, oh, no, the president can do on his own. he doesn't need a policy change. the american people are smart enough to see what that is. i think it's going to be important. you're not going to flip the scripts on the flip the script completely on the republicans on the on the border issue. but there can be some differences made. but when it comes to the things

like just the preservation of democracy, it gets back to the issue of leadership. yeah, maybe people don't care about it they should and they should care about it because there be leaders that are telling people the danger we're legitimately in like. if you watch fox news, you're not going to see. but if you were if i was a republican member of congress i would be telling the 700,000 people i remember. i mean, take 30, however many what, ten soldier, 20 soldiers fields and you take all the people there and you pull one person out and that's you. you represent 700,000 people and you're dare going to say that i care about my reelection more than i care about the truth about this country. that's i mean, that's as you can tell. yes. people don't care about it. but i think it's because of a failure of leadership to actually put what the stakes are out there. i hope you'll join me thanking our input and show strong willed people in the arena on a frank