before we go tonight, i have exciting news. my brand-new book, say more, is coming out -- i can sure tonight i will hit the ground running that week. i will be in new york city on may 8th. i will be visiting many cities and having conversations with some of my favorite people who you also probably know. i will be sure to share all of the information with the shows social media channel for everyone interested in attending. i look forward to seeing you out there on the road and taking questions due to. that does it for me. rachel maddow show starts now. >> tell me the title. >> the book is called, say more. i will bring you a copy when i see you in new york. it's all about how to communicate. i wish i had this book years ago. for you, i have some books about dealing with bullies like the kremlin, for example.

in today's news, here is something that is t less of a party trick, more of a dirty trick. have you ever heard the term spoofing? people can use hacking techniques so they can buy software that spoofs their phone number. so the way that might appear in your lifear is you get a call oa land line, if you still have a land line, or more likely on

your cell phone. either one, if there is caller id, when you get that call, the caller id says something that i not true. if somebody has spoofed their number, the caller id will make it look like they're calling from somewhere they're not calling from. it will make it look like it's a local number when they're not calling from somewhere e local. or they'll makein it look like it's somebody who you know that is calling you when in fact it is not. for one financial company that gotna busted for doing this, th would sometimes make their calls to theirso customers look like they were coming from one of your relatives. so, like, your cell phone wouldl ring, you would look at the screen and say mom is calling oi dad is calling. you answer, and it's not your mom, not your dad. it's actually a debt collector from this company. the company that got busted doing this would make it look like it was people's relatives who were callingt them. they would also sometimes spoof their phone number to make it

look like this particularly nasty trick. they'd call you and spoof their number so it looked like they were a florist, a flower company, they have a flower delivery for you. they would pretend to be that kind of a business when in fact you answer the callment or alternatively, they'd have the on your phone like they were a pizza place. they pretend to be a pizza place calling you. they tell youca they had a delivery for you.ry somebody wants to send you a pizza, or somebody wants to send you flowers. they were given your number because they need to complete your delivery. they just need to know where you are so they can drop off this gift, drop off this o delivery. who doesn't want a pizza sent from awa friend? who doesn't want some flowers sent from a friend? the reason this financial company would do that kind of spoofing, that kind of scam, that kind of trick is so they could find out where you are. and then once you told them where you are, because you're expecting the pizza or the

flowers or whatever, then what they would actually send to your door where you were at that moment are the debt collectors. or they'd send out a repo man to that location to come break into your car and take it. this was a financial company doing this. not justny like an organized cre gang or something doing. this was a registered american financial institution that was doing this.s and in 2015 during the obama administration, they finally got in trouble forni it. that scamle where they used fak phone numbers to trick people into picking up their phone or giving up their location, they were accused of working that scheme more than 137,000 times. they also made other kinds of th threats. they falsely threatened people that they were going to be criminally charged. now thisal financial company ha no four bring criminal charges against anyone, but when they came afteryo you, one of the things they would do repeatedly is they would threaten that they could get you locked up, that they could get you arrested.

and they wouldn't just call you and make threats like this.hr they would call your relatives. they would call your actual mom. they would callur your friends. they'd call your landlord. they'd call your boss. that was one of their favorite h techniques, apparently, calling people's, place of employment, making these threats about you, the employee at this company, telling your boss how much trouble that you are in. how is that going to go over for you at work? the sameat company was also fou to have changed the terms of people's loans without notifying their customers that they were making those changes. they just make the change on their own, c presumably to thei own benefit, and then they would chase you for it without you having had anyit notification tt your loan was now under different terms. they were doing all of these different things all at once, and they a finally got in troub for some of it in 2015.an citing, quote, illegal threats and deception from this financial company.

the consumer financial protection bureau made them pay more than $48 million in fines during the obama administration. more than $48 million in fines and restitution, i should say to their customers. after the cfpb went after them for using techniques like this. so the basic business of this company was loans. it was super high interest loans, car loans specifically, to people who didn't have good credit. so you need a car. everybody -- almost everybody needs a car. you need a car, but you've got bad credit for some reason. i'm sorry about that. that's too bad. the good news is there is this one place t that will still giv you a car loan, even though you have bad credit.u the bad news is that it's this place. this place that is going to call your mom, call your grandma and harass them about your car loan. going to call your boss to harass you about your car loan. they're going to threaten to arrest you and threaten to lock you up and use weird phone

number spoofing tricks to get youpo to inadvertently give up your location so they can go get after youy in person. right? and even if it all goes well, they're still going to charge you like 20% interest on that terrible loan.es even if they're not hounding you yet and threatening you to the point where they have toat pay nearly $50 million in fines and restitution for their sins. how badly do you need that car? the same car loan company was also sued by the u.s. department of justice for illegally repossessing cars from active duty members of the united states military.il nice. also for gouging active duty u.s. service members with interest rates, with illegally high interest rates that this company was not legally allowed to charge to service members. they paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle that part of how they were doing business with the u.s. justice department.ow it's terrible, right?

but the guy who ran the companies that did those things became very wealthy doing those things, a billionaire many times over. he became also the largest shareholder of a weird bank in southern california, a bank that initially called itself -- i did not-- make this logo myself at home on an etch a sketch, no. they really did initially call themselves bankit of internet u. that wask their name. somebody lost at mad libs. bank of internet usa. this bank with the car loan guy as one of their biggest shareholders and ultimately their largest shareholder, this bank sort oft expanded that gus horizons into other headline-grabbing business practices, like, say, the dug boat operator in alabama who ended up with a business loan from that bank at 127% interest.

or how about the mom and pop distribution business in woburn, massachusetts. their business loan ended up at 92% interest and required daily payments. how about a restaurant? a great, well reviewed, excellent super cute restaurant in new york city. they needed a $67,000 business loan to$6 do a renovation. they ended up with that loan at 268% interest. 268% interest. oh, and if you like to get out from under that and pay it off at once, because who can pay 268% interest, sorry, they're not interested in that either therest is a 30% penalty. you have to pay just for the privilege of paying that loan off. by the end of the obama administration, this entity was also under investigation by the s.e.c.

bank of internet under investigation by the s.e.c. aig whistle-blower who is suppod to be some sort of internal auditor s at the company had co forward and made allegations that the arbank's clients includ criminals and,cl quote, notorio criminals, and, quote, very high level foreign officials from major oil producing countries and war odzones. the whistle-blower made allegations about the bank alleging tax evasion and money laundering and lying to the s.e.c. so they were under s.e.c. investigation. and for whatever reason, that s.e.c. investigation appears to have poofed. itha appears to have gone away once donald trump became president in 2017. when donald trump became president in 2017, he also took the consumer financial protection bureauan off the boa entirely. his administration disempowered the agency, that same agency that had forced these car loan companies to pay more than $48 million in fines and

restitution, donald trump very conveniently for thoseal compans and that billionaireho who ran those companies, very conveniently made that agency go away. while trump was in office, this guy's bank started making big surpriseg loans to jared kushner's family real estate fa business. at leastea three major multimillion-dollar real estate-related loans and transactions benefitting jared's family businessng while jared w working in thed trump white t house, while the trump white house was doing things that werh very beneficial to this bank and to its senior shareholders. i wonder if they ever thought about calling jared's family members to harass themd' about loans or if they ever called him pretending to be a florist. so they can find out where he wasut and send the repo man outo get him. >> wonder if they ever used those techniques on him. the story of this super high interest car loan company threatening its customers and getting in trouble all over the place for doing it, that story has crossed over now from the

business news and from the news of fraud and crime into national politics news. because this is the source of funds now that is supporting the man whos has a very good shot being the next president of the united states. this is now the major source of funds for former president donald trump as he prepares to sit as a defendant in his first felony criminal trial which starts oneri week from today whe he simultaneously is running for president as the presumptive nominee of the republican party. the bank in question here, it really did use to be called bank of internet usa. it has now changed its name to axos bank. when donald trump left office in 2021, normal banks and businesses, at leastan for a whe purported to be shocked and horrified by him using mob violence to attack the u.s. capitol to try to stay in power by violence, despite losing the election. that was a particularly acute

financial problem for him right when he left office, because in 2021, as he left office, he was facing looming deadlines to pay back huge loans on both his trump tower property in new york and his golf club in south florida. those loans were coming due when normal banks wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. but not every bank it turns out is normal, because this bank, axos bank bailed him out of both of those huge loans. they came out of nowhere, provided $225 million to trump just before5 the deadline by which he needed to pay off those loans. they absolutely rescued him.to he also at the time wanted to get out of one of his big money losings ventures, the trump branded d.c. hotel. while trump was president, that hotel was of course a convenient place to accept effectively small bribes. any place a customer wanted to put money, any customer who

wanted to put money in the sitting president's pocket could inen effect do so by spending money at that hotel either on rooms or at the restaurants or what have you. while i'm sure that was a great source of pleasure and flattery to the former president while he was president, even with that weird secondary motivation for people to do business there, the hotel overall was a big economic loser. while trump was president, that hotel lost $70 million.wh so he wanted to unload it. and then this weird thing happened, because it's a money-losing property. but nevertheless, after he left office, when he put it up for sale, hep was able to get a surprisingly high price for it. whyly was that? well, in part because the same bank, axos bank provided $190 million to grease the deal. now, is that a lot of money for them to put into it? i don't know.fo but trump and i his companies

pocketed nearly half that amount whenha the deal was done. so it seems like maybe that was plenty enough moneyay to put in that deal to make it a sweet deal for him. so this one entity, this financial entity linked to this usurious car loans guy, they've already dumped over $400 million on trump since he left office. not counting the tense of millions ofng dollars they dump on jared while jared was in the trump white house and after. and now it's these same folks who have come back and offered yet more. in the fraud trial against a trump's real estate business, he was told by the court to put up a bond for $464 million to cover the huge judgment against him in that fraudt trial. trump's lawyers, you will remember, told the court they'd approached 30 different firms about providing that bond. all thet firms they said said . they said everybody they went to said no.ey

because of that, they said they had proven in practical terms it's an impossibility to get a bond that big. no one will do it. we've gone to 30 different firms. it's impossible. we would have to put up real estate to be the collateral for a bond that big. nobodyt willing to consider a bond that big will accept real estate as a collateral, real estate as collateral. it cannot be done. it turns out, eh, maybe that wasn't true. it turns out could have been done, because this same guy, the car loans guy, the pretend you're the pizza play super high interest call your boss, call your mom car loan guy, the biggest shareholder in the bank that one after another been paying off all of trump's debts for himum since he left office, this same guy says actually, he'd be happy to put up the bond. he says that he told trump's lawyers he would put up that bond. u and, yeah, explicitly, he'd take

real estate as collateral. that was no problem for him. trump's lawyers apparently never told the court that this guy had offeredha to post the bond. in fact,os they told the court that no one would post this bond. thest appeals court apparently believing that no one would post the bond then lowered the bond, lowered it down to $175 million, which ta-da, was then covered by this guy, who had already offered to put up the much larger amount. even though the court was told by trump's lawyers that no one would do that. what did trump have to do to be the recipient of such generosity from a manof who, after all, is not that generous? a man who, after all, would threatenwo illegally to lock yo up for missing a car payment, according to the consumer financial t protection bureau, whose bank charged a harlem soul food restaurant 268% interest on their business loan.

a guy whoa demanded daily payments from a small business in massachusetts that he was charging over 90% interest to, right. this is not seem like a guy who is involved in a lot of super generous business dealings. what's he charging trump for this $175 million favor? reuters, quote, don hankey, the billionaireey businessman whose company provided the $175 million bond that trump posted in his new york city civil fraud case told reuters that the fee his firm charge former president trump for the bond was, quote, low. hankey declined to disclose the fee. lawyers say surety companies typically charge between ni1% a 2%. meaning it should have been between 1.75 and $3 million. hankey says he now feels his company did not charge trump enough. why does he feel that way?

quote, because of the new york attorney general's subsequent scrutiny of the bond as well as all of the media attention around it. hankey said in an interview with reuters, quote, we probably didn't charge enough. didn't charge him enough for the $175 million. you know what you do? you could call trump and pretend to be a pizza place, ask him where he is so he can get his free pizza and go send a repo man to go take it from him, or something.hi so none of this is a secret or hard to find, right. there has been incredible reporting on this story. juston tonight, we've used reporting from nbc news and "the new york times" and the and rolling ess stone and propublica. that incredible quote i mentioned is from reuters. this stuffut is known, and the y who is behind all of these hundreds ofal millions of dolla beingio shoveled to trump in hi time of need has been happy to do interviews about how happy he is to do this.to

and certainly there is a disturbance in the cosmos to have a man whose company was sued by the justice department for charging illegally high interest rates to active duty members of the u.s. military and illegally repossessing soldiers' cars so he could become a billionaire, there is a disturbance in the cosmos that that same guy is now volunteering to a news organization, yeah, it was a real low fee i charged him for this mosted recent $175 million favor i posted for him. after i already shoveled him, after mesh and these entities wh which i am associated already shoveled himss more than $400 million before this. t yeah, i didn't charge him much. why should i? maybe have should charged him a little s more. there is something that blots out the sun in that story, except not in a way that makes you appreciate the wonders of the universe. itrs makes you want to pound nas into something with your forehead, if you're like me. but as mentioned there in that

reuters story, this is also not just a news story, it is a legal story and a legal question, because this bond, this remarkable gift from this incredible company is how trump is avoiding potential bankruptcy. it's how trump is avoiding potentially having to sign over his bank accounts and his brokerage accounts.s and selling off his assets, just one week before he becomes a defendant in his first criminal trial. the new york attorney general's office hasne called for the cou to scrutinize this gift, this bond and has called on the company that provided it to justify it. just cosmically, ethically, thia is a heck of an on-ramp to the next would-be presidential administration. legally, though, will it stand? and how will that be determinedg joining us now is former new

york assistant attorney general adam pollack. that title means he used to work in the new york district attorney's office. it's nice to have you with us. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me on. >> let me first just ask you in my a explaining that, did i explain any of it the wrong way around or put the wrong cast on it? i feel likeg i'm not a lawyer d all of us are learning about sureties and bonds and bonding agencies by the seat of our pants as weth try to follow thi politician through the pinball machine that he's put us all in. >> i think you've got it perfectly. and i think it raise as lot of questions, both as you said from a political and regulatory standpoint, and also from a legal standpoint. have an hen you interesting hearing inou court this coming up on the 22nd. >> what are the legal issues that standga out to you from th reporting that we've had on this issue this far? >> so this bond, as you said, allows trump to stave off enforcement, stops the attorney

general from seizing hiss asset, seizing his bank accounts, seizing his real estate. and the bond is supposed to secure the judgment, or at least secure the $175 million portion. and this bond fails to do that. it didn't come from those 30 new york f insurers that he mention. it came out oft left field, or as the reporting you described. >> y in terms of who is allowedo do these sort of things and under what terms, how will this company have to justify the bond, according to the demandst of the new york attorney general, and how will the court evaluate whether it's kosher? >> so a couple of things. first, procedurally, these bonds by law must be written by a new york insurer. this insurer, knight insurer, is not a new york insurer.w so just from the get-go, it is not a valid bond in new york. that's the first thing. t even if you look beyond the

procedural requirements, an insurer has 20 have enough capital, enough20 money to make good. if i went out and started writing car insurance, i'd very quickly run out of money, right, if i went out on to the street and wrote car insurance. similarly, the law insures, 2 new york law ensures that a insurer has to have ten times as much capital as any given policy or any given bond. here they have very far from 10 x, and they say conveniently, well, the new york law doesn't apply to yous. we're not bound by the 10 x requirement because we're t not new york insurer. it's awfully circular. >> yeah. we're not bound by those rules because we're not a new york insurer. but they're not a new york insurer -- yeah. let me just ask you about a point about how the court was communicated with on this point. it seems, i don't know, it just seems wrong inkn a layman's sen that trump's lawyers told the

appeals court we can't have a $464 million bond, nobody will pay it. an the gentleman who put up these funds now says openly to numerous news corporations oh, i offered to pay the $464 million, and i made that offer before the court ruled that the bond amount should be lowered. now the court didn't explain the reason that it was going to lower the ruling. but presumably, it bore on their decision that they'd been advised that nobody could put up ad bond that big. should trump and his lawyers have advised the court that they did in fact have somebody on the line who was willing to pay the larger bond amount before the court rulednt that that bond amount would be reduced? >> they absolutely should have advised the court. they absolutely should have told the court we think that we have somebody. we have somebody on the line. not a new york insurer, but we think we have somebody on the line who cane guarantee the fu amount and will do what's necessary to getnt licensed, mae

retroactively, but will come into new york and get licensed. they didn't say that. and justice engoron, who ruled onho trump's financial chicaner in the first place is going to be holding a i hearing on this. and these kind of fun and games is going to come out at that hearing. >> former new york city assistant attorney general adam pollock, thanks for making time. thanks for clarifying this story. >> thank you. all right. we have much more to come tonight. it's a busy night here. stay with us.righ h us it's tough to breathe and tough to keep wondering if this is as good as it gets. but trelegy has shown me that there's still beauty and breath to be had. because with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy keeps my airways open and prevents future flare-ups. and with one dose a day, trelegy improves lung function so i can breathe more freely all day and night.

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early in my term, i announced a major plan to provide more than 40 million working and middle class americans student debt relief. tens of millions. tens of millions of people's debt was literally about to get canceled, but then some of my republican friends and elected officials and special interests sued us, and the supreme court blocked us. but that didn't -- well, that didn't stop us. today i'm proud to announce five major actions to continue to relieve student debt from more than 30 million americans. >> president biden speaking in wisconsin today, announcing a new plan to lower student loan payments for tens of michigans of americans who have student loans. the substance of this is straight forward, right? help people who are drowning under big student loan payments. our country wants people to go to college. so our country should reduce the

disincentive to go to college by making it less economically disastrous to do so. people who are having trouble with their student loans, relieve that economic pain, make it easier on them. the substance of it is straight forward. the politics of it is straight forward too, right? here is the president going to a critical swing state, unveiling a program that he hopes will be particularly popular with young people, young people of course particularly crucial for his bid for reelection. so the substance is straight forward and important. the politics are straight forward and important for president biden. but just as important are the politics on the other side. republicans already sued and successfully blocked one of president biden's plans for forgiving student loans after president biden pivoted to use a different program to forgive more student loans, republicans sued to stop that one too. now president biden has announced this latest plan today in wisconsin. and so new republican lawsuits against that one are expected any minute as well.

and just think about what that means, step back from that for a second. republicans are suing over and over again in multiple states, republicans are suing to make sure that americans have to pay more in student loans, to make sure that you have to pay more interest to banks on your student loans. that is what they're offering america in this election year. isn't that what america most needs for banks to make more money off people who took out loans to go to college? isn't that really morally -- isn't that a real justice issue for america? everything is so personality driven in the way we talk about politics, it sometimes doesn't get covered. but what the republicans are offering in terms of policy right now, what they're actually doing in places where they have power, it's all stuff like this. they really are trying desperately in a concerted effort across multiple republican-controlled states, they're trying as hard as they

can to make you pay more to the banks for your student loans. in states where they are in power, they are repealing child labor laws because, yeah, american voters are desperate for a solution to our long national nightmare of children not being allowed to work overnights in super dangerous jobs. the most influential group of republicans in the u.s. house of representatives just officially proposed raising the retirement age for social security, because surely it's a huge problem in america that we're not forcing our elderly to work into more of their senior most years before they can collect their social security. raising the retirement age. they're also still crusading against in vitro fertilization. the republican study group in the house still pushing against ivf, and still pushing for a national abortion ban, even in the blue states, right, on top of the draconian state bans that they've already put into place

in almost every state in the country where republicans are in control. this is not a popular suite of policy proposals and policy options from the republican party. the things that republicans are setting themselves up against are reported by 70, 80, 90% of americans in some cases. so, yeah, if i were them, i'd prefer personality-driven politics coverage as well. even so, their leader, donald trump, really did try to change his press coverage on one of those agenda items. on one of the agenda items on which republicans are pursuing their most unpopular policy choices, and that is on the issue of abortion, and that is an issue that has a new very, very jagged political edge that is just emerging from a very unexpected place, and we have that story coming up here next. stay with us. stay with us

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get started today at customink.com. here's how "the new york times" put it in a headline today. "trump says abortion restrictions should be left to the states." after months of mixed signals, donald trump said that whatever states decide must be the law of the land. hmm. similar headline over at "the washington post." "in new video, trump says abortion policy should be left to states."

reuters had effectively the same takeaway. abortion laws should be decided by u.s. states. similar in the guardian. trump says each u.s. state should determine different abortion laws. same thing over "the wall street journal." they gave theirs aly flourish. trump says states should chart their own paths on abortion. today donald trump did put out a video statement in which he did indeed say that restrictions on abortions are things that should be decided by individual states. looking at these headlines, you might get the impression that that was somehow trump moderating his position on abortion. these headlines are exactly what donald trump wanted after delivering his remarks on abortion today. sadly, that is exactly what he got. even though the actual content of donald trump's remarks today indicated something very different than what was in those headlines. the substantive new and

important thing articulated by donald trump today was that he has now abandoned any criticism he once had for the strictest abortion bans that are now in effect or under consideration. and i love me some "new york times," and i love "the washington post," and i love reuters, and i love the guardian and i love "the wall street journal." i cannot do 98% of what i do without reporting from institutions like these to give us the facts on which we base everything that we do in the news business. but the headline spin today from multiple excellent news agencies about what trump did was just absolutely at odds with the importance of what he said. i mean, florida has a total ban on abortion, a six-week ban on abortion that is set to go into effect on may 1st. trump, until now, was critical of strict abortion bans.

he used to call abortion bans like that too severe. he called the florida abortion ban a, quote, terrible mistake. today trump eliminated that from his vocabulary. he voice nod concern whatsoever with florida's abortion ban or any other abortion restriction any state might want to impose. trump used to be a critic of six-week bans. now he is apparently fine with them. trump was also silent on the issue of a national abortion ban, which his own party has been relentlessly pushing. a national ban is something he himself reportedly said he supports as recently as a few weeks ago. trump today also, for what it's worth, 2358sfalsely accused dems of executing children. that's what he said democrats abortion policies are, which is to execute children, which has a nice qanon flavor to it, in addition to it being completely, completely false. and so perhaps a more accurate headline about donald trump's

remarks today might have been something like, you know, channeling qanon conspiracy theory, donald trump falsely accuses democrats of executing children. or trump abandons previous criticism of strictest abortion bans. trump avoids mention of republican proposals for national restrictions. or maybe try something like this. "donald trump also said today that he is, quote, proudly the person responsible for the ending of the constitutional right to an abortion." "proudly the person responsible for the overturning of roe v. wade." he did explicitly say that today. and that would have made for a great headline. trump takes personal credit for ending the constitutional right to abortion in america. ableds criticism of most draconian abortion bans, right. short, snappy, accurate, rightfully spotlighting the issue that roe v. wade has gone, and it's because of him. it's not how it got covered today, which i'm sure trump is

delighted with. but the substance of the matter here gets darker from here, because when the supreme court overturned roe v. wade, thanks to trump, we didn't just lose the roe v. wade ruling and thereby the constitutional protection of the right to an abortion. we also got something new, right. the case that overturned roe v. wade was called dobbs. that decision created a brand-new legal standard, one that would provide a precedent for taking away civil liberties of all kinds. one that could be applied not just to abortion, but also to, say, the rights of gay people. i mention that because we're seeing ripple effects from that decision not only now in our own country, but far, far away from us, a continent away. in the nation of uganda, activists there have been fighting a radical deadly new law that effectively hunts gay people. this new law in uganda punishes people just for being gay. it punishes them with life in

prison in some cases. in some cases, it punishes being gay with the death penalty. death penalty is the penalty for homosexuality. the second highest court in uganda just upheld most of that law, including the death penalty part of it. in their ruling, the court in uganda cited dobbs, cited the american supreme court decision that overturned roe v. wade. they cited dobbs as the justification for why the kill the gays bill is legally sound. we didn't just get the overturning of roe v. wade thanks to donald trump. we got the new standard that replaces it, this dobbs standard that is now being cited internationally as evidence that even in america, nobody has a right to bodily autonomy, not to get an abortion, and not to survive your own government if they decide to kill you for being gay. joining us now is melissa murray, law professor at new york university. melissa, thanks very much for being here. it's really nice to see you. >> great to be here. >> i -- despite appearances, do

not love doing media criticism. it's not my forte. i'm also not a lawyer, but i did feel like the legal or the headline coverage today, the media coverage today of trump's statements sort of missed the nut of what it is that he actually said and the implications of his statement. as a lawyer, as a close observer of these things, do you agree? >> i think that's right. donald trump has sort of tacked back on issues of reproductive freedom. he had said that he was in favor of a ban on abortion at perhaps 15 weeks, 20 weeks that would still be quite a significant development. it really shows how much the overton window has shifted since dobbs, a 15-week ban, a 20-week ban would have been patently unconstitutional under roe v. wade and planned parenthood versus casey. so we've really moved far beyond that again, this has been an issue with him and with his party. they keep moving farther and farther to the right.

it seems he is willing to go there. as you say, it's not just questions of reproductive freedom in this country. dobbs has unsettled a whole body of guarantees, privacy, dignity, and bodily autonomy for all individuals. and it has ripple effects in other areas like marriage, like consensual sex. and we are seeing that not here in the united states just yet, but in other places. and it's very clear that we could also feel those reverberations in this country as well. >> what do you make of this court in uganda citing dobbs as essentially as a way to hold up america as a country that also believes there is no bodily autonomy, that the state is right to encroach on your bodily autonomy in this case, including to institute the death penalty for certain offenses associated with homosexuality. what do you make of them citing us in that way for that purpose? >> well, i mean, dobbs is an authoritarian opinion. and that is a decision that promotes the kind of

authoritarianism we thought we had said goodbye to in this country when bowers versus hardwick was overruled in 2003 decriminalizing same-sex sex. but it's not just that the ugandan court said that dobbs eliminated any right to bodily autonomy in the united states. what they said specifically was that this was a question that was reserved for the people and was being returned to the people. and the people were debating this. and essentially, it's just a claim that majority will can and should prevail, even over basic protections for minorities and protections for fundamental rights. so it is essentially a call for mob rule. and we're seeing it in uganda, and we could certainly see it here. people forget that justice thomas' concurrence in dobbs was basically an invitation to begin litigating a range of different protections like protections for contraceptions, protection for intimate life, like same-sex sex and same-sex marriage. all of those are on the table now that roe has fallen and dobbs is the law of the land.

>> melissa murray, law professor at new york university. melissa, thank you so much for being here. this is -- it's not complex, it's just dark, and your clarity on it is really helpful for us understanding it. thank you. >> enough. >> all right. we'll be right back. stay with us. if advanced lung cancer

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we're living in a dickens novel whether or not you want to be. we now really do have republican governors all over the country repealing child labor laws, repealing laws designed to protect kids from dangerous kinds of work. and the repeals generally start with republican legislatures like, say, the one in wisconsin, where republicans recently voted to do away with work permits and parental permission for 14-year-old kids. however, in wisconsin, after the republican legislature did that, their bill went not to a republican governor to get signed. their bill went to a democratic governor, wisconsin governor tony evers. and today wisconsin governor tony evers vetoed that bill, saying, quote, asking more kids to work is not a serious plan or solution to address our statewide workforce issues. where as one democratic state assemblywoman in wisconsin put it, quote, the answer to

wisconsin's worker shortage is not shorter workers. i did not make that up. she actually said that. she's the one who wins. watch this space. ling asleep... ...so he takes zzzquil. the world's #1 sleep aid brand. and wakes up feeling like himself. get the rest to be your best with non-habit forming zzzquil. ♪ ♪

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