← The Rachel Maddow Show
The Rachel Maddow Show
Maddow: 'History is calling' as pivotal election season winds down
00:44:41
Plus, Yulia Navlanaya, widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is Rachel Maddow's special guest.
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- [00:00]
Rachel Maddow
Really happy to have you here. So we are two weeks out from election day. It's two weeks from tomorrow. Well over 10 million Americans have already cast their ballots, myself included. It feels great to have voted. I highly recommend it. No feeling quite like it, but now we are getting close to the point where we are out of time for anything but voting. Whatever you want to be able to say you did in this year's election, whatever you want to be able to brag about someday in the future, whatever you want to say you're proud you did when your country needed you, what you want your answer to be, when somebody someday asks you what you did in 2024 when you were alive and American and fully aware that this was the highest stakes American election since 1940 and 1860. Whatever you want to be able to brag about in terms of your contribution to this moment in American history, your contribution to this election, this election in which we are being asked to choose not just between one candidate and the other, we are being asked to choose between one system of government and another. Whatever you want your family lore about you to be for future generations of your family, when your family in future holidays, right, future family reunions, family get togethers, when members of your family, generations yet to come, talk about you and what you did in the election that decided whether or not America was going to switch to a strongman authoritarian state instead of the system we were born to and grew up in. Whatever you are going to do, it's what you're going to do now and in these next two weeks. History is calling. So what are you going to do? Whether it's calling voters in swing states, volunteering to knock on doors, volunteering to drive people to the polls, showing up at the local campaign office of your candidate or your cause, and offering to do whatever needs doing at this late date, just on your own, calling or texting everyone in your contact list, in your phone, asking everyone you know if they are registered to vote, if they need any help getting to a polling place to cast that ballot and can you please help them? I mean, whatever you want your bragging rights to be about, doing your part, this is the last two weeks to do any of it. Voting is the bare minimum. You don't even get to brag about that. What else are you going to do on top of voting to help bring about the outcome that you want in this election? The answer to that question is whatever you sign up to do tonight and tomorrow. Because we are otherwise out of time. Watching TV doesn't count. Worrying about polls doesn't count. Scrolling through your phone and doing nothing other than absorbing information does not count. It's time to actually do something. And really, it's now or never. One of the things that strongman leaders do when they do get control of a country is they shut down independent media, they make it a crime, or they make it otherwise impossible for anybody to report or say or broadcast anything that is independent of the strongman or that is critical of the strongman. And that, of course, is not how the American system of government works with our robust First Amendment and freedom of the press protections. That's not at all how we are set up as a government and as a country. But again, what's on the table from Republicans in this election is scrapping our system of government and instead doing it the strongman way instead.
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Donald Trump
You say CBS should lose its license. Why? Sure. Well, I've never seen anything like it. The head of the FCC says we would never yank a license. Really? Because a politician didn't like his or her coverage. Well, this isn't a politician. This is nothing. Wait a minute. Now, what we're doing is we're going to subpoena Their records. 60 minutes. No, I think 60 minutes. I think it should be taken off the air, frankly.
- [04:18]
Rachel Maddow
Frankly, I think it should be taken off the air. We're going to subpoena the records of this news organization and we're going to take them off the air. This comes in the wake of that same candidate, Donald Trump, saying that ABC News should also have its broadcast license revoked. And it comes in the wake of that same candidate saying that this network, MSNBC and NBC News should have its broadcast license revoked. And it comes on the heels of him saying that the head of Facebook should be put in prison. And it comes on the heels of him saying, just you wait. Just you wait to see what he's going to do to the New York Times. Wait until you see what I'm going to do to them. This is not normal American stuff. This isn't American at all. This is strongman, authoritarian form of government stuff, which our Constitution protects us from explicitly. But he wants to get rid of all that. And he is saying if you vote for him, he will get rid of all that. Tonight, I'm really honored to say that we're going to be joined here in studio by the wife, the widow of Alexei Navalny. Alexei Navalny is somebody who we have covered a lot here on this program after Alexei Navalny was locked up and then killed by Vladimir Putin's government in Russia. His wife, Yulia has stepped up following her husband's death to herself lead the opposition to that country's strongman leader to that country's dictator. She says she will defeat Vladimir Putin. She will step into her husband's shoes and lead the Russian opposition against that dictatorship. No small feat in a country where every single person known to be in opposition to Putin has been killed or imprisoned or exiled. Her husband was killed in February. Now Putin has put out a warrant for her arrest as well. But she is here with us here tonight. We're going to speak with Yulia Navalny tonight about the challenge of standing in opposition in leading opposition efforts in a country where the independent media has been eliminated. I mean, what Trump is proposing to do here in America to the media is what Putin, of course, has already done in Russia. In Russia, it is state controlled media only. And that's the case everywhere. You've got an authoritarian in charge. That's the case everywhere. You've got a dictatorship. That's the case everywhere. In most cases you've got a monarchy. Any place you've got authoritarian leadership. In Saudi Arabia, the state controlled media there includes Al Arabiya tv. You get a handy reminder of the fact that it's state controlled media if you watch any of their clips online. Trump loves Saudi Arabia, right? One of the many underreported things in the presidential campaign this year, I think, was that in the midst of our presidential campaign just this summer, Trump signed a deal to build Trump Tower, Saudi Arabia in Jeddah. In Saudi Arabia. That is a huge real estate deal. That is the Saudi government doling out a huge financial favor to Trump while he is in the middle of his presidential campaign. They are expecting, presumably that if he does get back into the White House, that huge personal financial favor they just did him will still be fresh in his mind when it comes to making American policy, American government policy towards Saudi Arabia. The Saudi royal family, you will recall, also stuffed $2 billion billion with a B, $2 billion into the Pocke of Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner as soon as he left the White House. The New York Times recently reporting that the Saudis have seen precisely zero return on that supposed investment in Jared Kushner. He's just kept all the money and skimmed out over $100 million in fees for himself while returning nothing to them, at least so far. But presumably that's because they're not expecting to be paid back by him. They're expecting to be paid back by the White House, by the American people, the Saudis don't seem to be all that eager to get any of that money back from old Jared because they know they'll get it back another way from us, from policy, at our expense, to pay back the people who have paid him. So the Trump relationship with Saudi Arabia is very well oiled. Honestly, if you wanted to create like a kindergarten level textbook, one of those, like those books where the pages are cards, right? Cardstock. If you wanted to create a kindergarten level textbook to explain to a kindergartner what corruption is, right. This is how you might spell it out. Now imagine your friend is running for president. Somebody gives your friend a huge sweet business deal while he's running for president. And that same someone then gives your friend's family billions of dollars while he's running for president. C is for corruption. Your friend is corrupt. Right. And then if it was like a good children's book, it would say, oh, but don't worry, this could never happened in the United States of America. Yeah, we'd have to update that textbook. But anyway, today Al Arabiya, Saudi state controlled media posted a new interview with Donald Trump. And this new interview with Donald Trump, it was just published today, it got basically zero pickup in the United States, which is kind of amazing, right? A presidential candidate interview gets zero pickup two weeks before election day. But I think the reason this interview didn't get any pickup might be because of the headline that Saudi state controlled Al Arabia slapped on the video when they posted it. Look at the headline they put on this quote, Trump says Middle east peace possible if elected. Oh yes, that's what we're all expecting, right? Elect Donald Trump. What's going to happen? Well, for starters, you'll get peace in the Middle East. It's evaded the geniuses of many generations, but that six dimensional chess player, I'll be able to sort it out. Yeah, Trump will bring about peace in the Middle east if he's elected. You will be surprised to learn that that was not the actual newsworthy takeaway from that interview with Saudi state controlled media. What is the actual newsworthy takeaway from that interview is that in that interview Trump just flat out said that there aren't hostages being held by Hamas. He says they're all dead. Imagine if you're the family member of one of these hostages who's been held for a year now by Hamas and a presidential candidate in the United States comes out and says, yeah, well they're pretty much all dead. Most of them are dead. Ah, well, that is what he said. Today, that is what he said.
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Donald Trump
Now still you have hostages, but many of them have been killed and I'm sure many of them are dead. I think even early on, I think a lot of those hostages were dead. I think they were dead.
- [11:38]
Rachel Maddow
Imagine the cruelty of that. Right. If you're the family of a hostage in Gaza, you've been working for a year now desperately to get your loved one out of there. Imagine you're the family of an American hostage held in Gaza and you are counting among other things on the American government to do all it can to get your brother or your mother or your daughter out alive as hostage. And here's a man running to be president of the United States saying, yeah, I'm sure, you know, I'm sure they're all dead. I'm sure they're all dead. Trump also said in his Al Arabiya Saudi state controlled media interview today that he would have done a deal with Hamas, that if Hamas wanted to do something like October 7th, Trump would have stepped in and done a deal with them. Right. So if you liked it when Trump invited the Taliban to come to Camp David, well now here he is two weeks before the presidential election saying if he were president again he'd make deals with Hamas and that's how he would have solved the October 7th problem.
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Donald Trump
I would have made a deal with them and they wouldn't have done October 7th.
- [12:53]
Rachel Maddow
You know, Michael Dukakis presidential campaign cratered because he put on a helmet that made his head look like a little bean, made his face look short. Donald Trump pretended to work at a McDonald's this weekend while wearing this lovely ensemble. And then the next day he said all the hostages are dead and I want to do a deal with Hamas. But our election is 50 50. This is our election this year. Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned today in Pennsylvania and in Michigan and in Wisconsin with Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who was among the highest profile cross party endorsers and supporters of Kamala Harris. Vice President Harris was also just endorsed by Republican Susan Ford. Bayles middle name is important there. She is the daughter of former Republican President Gerald Ford and a lifelong Republican on mainstream economic issues, which pundit world is always telling us is the bedrock of all normal election politicking. Last week we talked about the Economist magazine going large this past week with its special report on the ripple roaring economy that the Biden Harris administration is leaving in its wake. The Economist calling it literally the envy of the world, the US Economy. After four years of Biden and Harris outpacing every other major industrialized economy in the world blowing all economic expectations out of the water on growth, on the job market, on taming inflation, on wages, on manufacturing jobs, on household wealth for average American households. On top of that, entities like the Wall Street Journal now reporting on the fairly devastating economic expectations from Trump's policies. Economists telling the Journal in overwhelming numbers that Trump's policies will be terrible for inflation, terrible for the deficit, terrible for interest rates. Today you can add Social Security to that list. A new report from a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group setting off the alarm that what Trump is proposing economically will destroy Social Security within six years, Will end Social Security within six years, by the end of the decade. So the Harris Walls campaign is doing normal things with a little more pizzazz than I'd say is usual. But normal campaigning, touring swing states with Republicans who are telling moderates and independents and even Republicans that they should cross over and vote not for the Republican but for the Democratic candidate. This year, they've been doing campaign events with a list celebrities like Lizzo and Usher and Stevie Wonder and they're doing interviews with every media outlet you have ever heard of in your life. Kamala Harris running mate Tim Walls sat down with the ladies of the View today. He's doing the Daily show on Comedy Central tonight. What's Trump doing? He's telling rally audiences about the penis size of a famous golfer, announcing how he's going to shut down American news organizations. He's canceling almost all of his interviews with American news organizations and instead is talking to Saudi Arabian state controlled media to whom he has just announced that he wants to do a deal with Hamas while also telling American families waiting for the return of their loved ones who are being held hostages who are being held hostage, that, yeah, as far as he's concerned, all those hostages are probably dead. Don't bother. This is not a normal election between two normal candidates. If you want to know how this one is going to end, this is the time for you to make a difference as to how it is going to end. This is it, now or never. We'll be right back in 2013. So 11 years ago, Donald Trump posted on Twitter about hosting the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. He said online, quote, do you think Putin will go to the pageant? If so, will he become my new best friend? What was that about? What grown man talks that way about anyone, let alone the president of Russia. But that was 2013. Two years later, Donald Trump entered the Republican primary contest for president. On the night of the third presidential primary debate, we later learned that that same night he secretly signed a letter of intent to build Trump Tower Moscow, which would have been the biggest real estate project of his entire life. He lied about that and kept that secret throughout the campaign. We didn't learn about it until after he had been elected elected president. While he was president, he insisted on meeting one on one with Vladimir Putin without any American staff present. And he did so on at least five different occasions. In at least one of those instances, in a 2017 meeting in Germany, Trump personally confiscated the notes that had been taken at that meeting by his own interpreter. Since leaving the presidency, Bob Woodward now reports that Trump has continued to have secret one on one communications with Vladimir Putin, not not only refusing to report his communications to the US Government, which is arguably illegal anyway, but he's also not been allowing even his own staff to be nearby when he speaks with Putin. What about his communications with Putin needs to be so secret? Putin's government, of course, interfered in the US election in 2016 to try to help Trump get elected. In the 2020 election, they ran a robust foreign influence operation to try to prevent Joe Biden from becoming Trump's Democratic opponent. Now in 2024, Russia is just flat out paying pro Trump conservative commentators in the United States as part of yet another large Russian state sponsored effort to try to help Donald Trump's campaign. We have a hard time in the United States calling whatever is going on with Donald Trump and the Republican Party. We have a hard time calling it authoritarianism. We get nervous about the word, the idea of authoritarianism. We get nervous about what that might mean here in a domestic context. But we can all at least agree that Trump does have some kind of weird freaking relationship, a servile, almost worshipful relationship with somebody who everyone in America can agree is an authoritarian, if not a fascist dictator, Vladimir Putin. And that admiration that Trump has for Putin is as inexplicable as ever. It's undimmed by the passing of years. And more explicitly now than ever before, it extends not just to Trump personally wanting Putin to like him personally, seemingly Trump wanting to be like Putin, but now it explicitly seems to extend to Trump wanting our country, the United States, to be more like Russia is under Putin's control. So in this campaign for president, what we hear from Trump is that news organizations should not be allowed to air criticism of him or to air interviews with his opponents. He will shut those news organizations down when he is back in power. We hear from him that Democratic politicians should not be allowed to run against him. And they're all criminals. We hear from him that portions of the US Constitution should be terminated. We hear from him that businesses that don't do what he wants will be crushed when he is back in power. He says, let's withdraw from NATO. Let's let Russia do whatever the hell it wants to our allies. Let's use the military against American civilians who dare to protest against him. Vladimir Putin has been in power in Russia for 25 years. Russia is the largest country in the world. It has almost infinite economic potential, particularly during this last 25 years. It is a country of fantastic natural resources, an almost unparalleled legacy of cultural and scientific achievement. A country whose enemies, frankly, mostly dissolved with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The horizons were endless, possibilities limitless. But under Vladimir Putin, Russia again. A country that covers a tenth of the world's landmass. Russia has an economy smaller than Italy's. Russia's per capita GDP is lower than Bulgaria, lower than Mexico, lower than Guyana. And why is that? Well, while Russia languishes as a country, its criminal elite connected to Putin, they buy up luxury real estate and yachts and private jets and vineyards and resorts and private islands all over the world, including here. And Putin himself, long rumored to be the world's richest man, he builds himself palaces like this one on the Black Sea. Authoritarianism isn't just a textbook term in political science, and it isn't just dystopian. Right? It isn't just cruel and repressive. It is also always corrupt and therefore pitiful. And everyone in the world deserves better. And in a better world, it would not be Vladimir Putin right now. It would be this man who would be the President of Russia, the head of the Anti Corruption Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Russia. A man who made that video that I just showed you showing Putin's secret palace on the Black Sea, along with so many other damning and incredibly newsworthy and incredibly well researched investigative reports on the secret wealth of Putin and his henchmen who have spent the last 25 years robbing that country blind. His name is Alexei Navalny, and he is the most effective and inspiring opposition figure of modern Russia. And Alexei Navalny's leadership has been characterized by a refusal to be afraid, a relentless sense of humor, and an even more relentless commitment to the certainty that Putin's regime will end, that there will be a Russia without Putin, that it's inevitable, that the lies will collapse in on themselves, that the party of crooks and thieves, Putin's party, will finally be thrown out. The inevitable certainty that Democracy is coming. They started arresting Alexei Navalny in 2011, and they never really stopped. They tried to blind him in chemical attacks twice. They banned him from running for office. They banned his organization. They ultimately gave it the same classification as Al Qaeda and isis. They arrested and imprisoned his younger brother. They arrested his colleagues. They arrested even his lawyers. And then this year, this February, they killed him in prison. His wife, Yulia, survives him. They've now put out an arrest warrant for her as well. She lives in exile because she has to. Alexei Navalny was the man who should be the president of a free, democratic Russia right now in 2024, after his death. Now, instead, it should be his wife. In some ways, it is his wife, Yulia Navalnya, continuing the investigations into the corruption of the authoritarian regime that still rules her country, leading not yet a government, but for now, the people of that country who aren't just yearning to be free from that stupid kleptocratic dictatorship, but leading the people who are actively working to get free and to prepare to live in a democracy instead. Because the certainty remains that it is coming. And for us, for people all around the world, including here in the United States, who aren't trying to overthrow a dictatorship, who instead are trying to stop the authoritarian takeover of our existing democratic system. Well, this woman, this Yulia Navalny, seems like one of the most important people in the world who we could meet at the crossroads. Yulia Navalny is a Russian opposition leader. She is the wife, now the widow of Alexei Navalny. Navalny's secret prison diaries and his memoir are somehow miraculously being published this week. The book is called A Memoir. I read every word of the book. I could not put it down. Yulia Navalnya, it is a real honor to have you here. Thank you.
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Yulia Navalny
Hello, Rachel. Thank you for having me. It's a great honor. And thank you for your kind words. It means a lot.
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Rachel Maddow
I will tell you, we're in the midst of a very heated election season in this country, as you know. And my confession to you is that I did not intend to read all of the book. I thought, I am not going to have time. I'm really busy. I'm going to read the beginning and the end, have other people read it and tell me what it's about. I read every word of it. I couldn't stop reading it. I found it incredibly moving.
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Yulia Navalny
Thank you.
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Rachel Maddow
Can you tell me a little bit about what it took to get the book into print? I imagine that you had to have a hand in editing the manuscript. I imagine there may have been some hard decisions for you in terms of things that felt personal, that you might have want to keep between you and your husband, that you nevertheless put in the book. What was it like to bring it to fruition?
- [27:01]
Yulia Navalny
It's very important for me, this book is memory of my husband, his legacy. And that's why it was difficult in some ways to put some parts together. But I would say to you that we didn't cut, you know, a lot in editing. No, I think that everything what was in this book, it was true. And I wanted to keep Alexei's voice to sound loud and to sound open and his voice to bring the truth.
- [27:43]
Rachel Maddow
One of the things he writes about that's very moving is how much your support meant to him and how much it made him more capable as a leader and as an activist to know that you were with him, that you agreed with him, that you already agreed with him before he'd ever had a chance to talk to you about it. He talks about it very movingly when he's been poisoned with a nerve agent. He's got nearly three weeks in a coma in Germany. They very nearly kill him. And he writes movingly about how your presence was a neurobiological miracle. It was the only thing that brought him back. And the thing that I thought about that preparing to talk to you today, is that in many ways, you've stepped into his shoes. You're the leader of the Russian opposition, because he can't be anymore. But who can be that role for you? Who can support you the way that he support the way that you supported him?
- [28:42]
Yulia Navalny
Thank you. Everything. What you are saying is a compliment, and it's very nice to hear it. I think you call me the leader of opposition a little bit in advance. I would call myself a young politician, probably in some ways. Of course, I knew about politics a lot because I've been living with the leader, a real leader of opposition, for many years. But I promise I will do my best. And it's very important for me in many reasons and for my country and for my family and for my children and for Alexis Memory who support me. I think that it's the main problem because, of course, we supported each other. And it was very easy for him and very easy for him for me in some very difficult moments, because, you know, after all these searches, we can go to lie down on the bed, just touching our hands, and it was, like, very helpful. And I miss it a lot. And I am doing all these interviews, meetings and everything, and everyone. What I wish A lot. To come back home every evening and to discuss everything with him, or even when he was in prison, to write him a letter telling what's going on in my life. But still, I think that love to him, love to country. All the supporters who supported Alexei and who support me now, they give me power. And I appreciate all these kind words. A lot of letters of support from many, many people.
- [30:47]
Rachel Maddow
Alexei writes in the book that when the regime started arresting him and imprisoning him, he says they had two aims, and the first was to hurt his ability to work. He says, when you're in prison, it's hard to get your work done, and even when you're under house arrest, it's hard to get your work done. And when he was obviously a very committed candidate for office, I found it very moving that he wrote about not wanting to be a protest or symbolic candidate. He wanted to be a candidate who would win. He believed in democracy and, and wanted to make people's votes really count for something. So it's to stop his work. The other reason for arresting him and charging him with the things they charged him with was to undercut his message. He's obviously an anti corruption crusader, so they would charge him with things that made him seem like, oh, he's the corrupt one. It seems to me, though, that the other reason that they were. There's a third aim in arresting him and imprisoning him, which is to break down other people's will, to make an example of him, so that what happened to him would scare other people. Especially after what has happened to him and what has happened to the media and what has happened to the opposition and what has happened with Russia during the Ukraine war, which has made everything worse. Do you still believe that the collapse of the regime is inevitable and that Russia will be democratic one day?
- [32:10]
Yulia Navalny
Of course. How could I not believe Alexei sacrificed all his life for this? And I feel like I must continue his work. I feel like I must continue what he did for many, many years. It's very important for me, and I believe that, you know, all these changes, they very often happen in one day. It doesn't mean that we need to sit down and chair and to wait them one day to another day. Of course we need to do something, but it doesn't mean that we need to expect from people, like to do every day, like huge things, just to do everything every day, something small, to encourage people, to motivate people, to show them that we are all together against this regime, against war, against Putin especially, and we are together in this aim.
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Rachel Maddow
I apologize for asking you an American centered question, but we have this big, very high stakes election right now and I know you're aware.
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Yulia Navalny
I'm aware of it.
- [33:29]
Rachel Maddow
I do think that the relationship, the sort of admiration that the Republican candidate Donald Trump has for Putin is inexplicable and it's undimmed. It hasn't changed at all. I do think that he is proposing that the United States should drop our form of government and adopt something more like what Putin has done to Russia. And if we choose him as our president, that means that America has freely and of our own free will, electively chosen. That kind of a change for us as a country and we might do it. I don't know what's going to happen in this election. From your vantage point, do you? How does that strike you? What do you think about the fact that America may choose that as its future?
- [34:14]
Yulia Navalny
I hope that America will do the right choice and I believe in democratic institutions. I still that I know that you have a lot of conversations if they still work or not. But comparing to Russia, I can be just jealous that you are having such things like independent court, independent media, you can criticize candidates on tv. And so I'm sure that America will do the right choice and everything will be fine.
- [34:54]
Rachel Maddow
You've had some interaction, I know, in particular with Vice President Kamala Harris. When you were named one of the world's most influential people by Time magazine, she wrote the write up about you. What have your interactions with her been like? And do you feel like she understands the stakes of what you're fighting for?
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Yulia Navalny
Last time I spoke with her on 1st of August by phone, it was she called me out prisoner swap, which happened between America, Germany and Russia. And I really appreciate it. It was very warm, very private and personal talk. And she told me that she remember what my husband and my family did and are doing to make Russia democratic country. And of course, I very appreciate that. Exactly at this day she called me and it means for me a lot.
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Rachel Maddow
Last question for you. I think it means a lot to the world that patriot a memoir, Alexei's prison diaries and also his memoir are out now. It's a remarkable book. As I said, I did not intend to read all of it. I did not have time. You really messed me up. But it took a lot to get this out into the world. A lot of risk and a lot of effort and it is a remarkable document. What do you want? What do you want people to take away from this? What do you think is the most important thing for people to know about.
- [36:32]
Yulia Navalny
This book, there are two parts. I want people to be encouraged by this book not to give up, not continue fight, because as you know, now in the world there are more and more authoritarian regimes. And Alexei is great example that people never give up, even in prison, even in torturing conditions. They continue their fight, even fight, because he was fighting, even from prison. But also, of course, people will know my husband, that he was a great man, that he was very kind, very funny and very beloved person.
- [37:21]
Rachel Maddow
His sense of humor and his creativity, even under duress to me is inspiring. And I don't know other resistance leaders of my generation, of my time that bring that to it in a way that really made me think in a completely different way about what it means to stand up for freedom. Stand up for freedom of choice. Yulia Navalnya, it is a real honor to have you here and I wish all the best for you. I just hope doors open for you everywhere and I wish all the best for you.
- [37:52]
Yulia Navalny
Thank you.
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Rachel Maddow
Thank you so much.
- [37:53]
Yulia Navalny
Thank you.
- [37:54]
Rachel Maddow
We'll be right back. Stay with us. So Tim Miller used to be a really big deal in Republican politics. He was the spokesman for the RNC for the national Republican Party. You now know him as an MSNBC analyst. He hosts a podcast at the Bulwark. And Tim Miller recently unearthed this tape that he published at the Bulwark. This is a Republican donor and rich guy named David Sachs and two other Silicon Valley zillionaires talking on their podcast two days after January 6th. Two days after the Trump mob attack on Congress on January 6th. Watch.
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Tim Miller
I don't hear anybody defending the storming of the Capitol. Is Trump responsible? Yes. I mean, clearly.
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Rachel Maddow
100%.
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Tim Miller
100%, yes. If you want to see this mob as a gun, I think he loaded the gun, he pointed it in a certain direction, and I even think he's.
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Rachel Maddow
At the end of his political career.
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Tim Miller
I think he's. I think he's disqualified himself from being a candidate at a national level.
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Rachel Maddow
I would rather take every single person arrested and give them zero days in jail and add it all up and give it to Trump. It was just perverted by this scumbag. Yep. He is a complete piece of scumbag. He's garbage. Wow, that's satisfying. Two days after January 6, Trump has disqualified himself from being a candidate, says David Sacks. He should get all the prison time that anybody's going to get for that riot. He's a computer, complete piece of swear word, swear word scumbag. He's garbage. So that was two days after January 6th. That was 2021, not that long ago now. This year, two of those same guys hosted a lavish fundraiser for Trump in San Francisco and have since become two of Trump's biggest boosters in the 2024 election. From the business and tech world leaders of a group of super, super wealthy, eccentric right wing Silicon Valley guys who have just poured money into getting Trump back into the White House. Right. It's a real turn in a very short amount of time from Trump is disqualified. He should be jailed indefinitely as a scumbag. He's garbage to multimillion dollar fundraisers at my house and constant praise. And they're all in to get Trump back into the White House. The tech billionaire class is really distinguishing itself in terms of its principles at this time in American history. But none more so than this one tonight. The Washington Post reporting that multiple Republican officials have just written to the US Justice Department asking for help with this guy. Former Republican lawmakers, advisers and Justice Department officials have called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate tech billionaire Elon Musk for awarding cash prizes to voters in swing states as part of his support for Trump's candidacy. Immigrant from South Africa, defense contractor, world's richest man, Elon Musk is so committed to getting Trump reelected, he's basically funding and running Trump's get out the vote operation in swing states to decidedly mixed reviews thus far. Now there are questions as to whether Elon Musk, in his eagerness, may have crossed the line into law breaking. Musk is offering a daily prize of $1 million that he says is available only to registered voters in battleground states. If you register to vote in a swing state and you sign a meaningless, non binding Elon Musk petition that makes you eligible for Elon Musk to give you a million dollars, which which he says he's going to do to someone every day until the election as part of supporting Trump's campaign. The problem is very explicit, very simple. Federal law prohibits paying or offering to pay anyone to vote or paying or offering to pay somebody to register to vote. Lots of election law experts are now saying what Elon Musk is doing here is pretty blatantly illegal. Breaking this particular federal law supposed to get you five years in prison. Thus far, the U.S. justice Department is declining to say whether it is investigating or not. But he is doing this every day now. TikTok, watch this space. Imagine being a US Senator and having all your state's biggest newspapers come out against you basically all at once. While you're running for reelection. That is the dream that Senator Ted Cruz has been living over the past few days. As of this weekend, all five of the biggest newspapers in Texas have endorsed Ted Cruz's Democratic opponent, Colin Allred. And we could call that the biggest embarrassment suffered by a senator at the hands of his home state newspapers in some time, but there's stiff competition for that right now. Last week in Missouri, for example, Republican Senator Josh Hawley not only saw the St. Louis Post dispatch endorse his challenger, Democratic candidate Lucas Coons, but Senator Hawley managed to flunk that endorsement with distinction. The Post Dispatch wrote, quote, for reasons above and beyond any partisan considerations, Josh Hawley is quite possibly the worst sitting senator in America right now. That's the biggest paper in Josh Hawley's home state. This is supposed to be a year when Republicans are favored to take over the Senate. But this is also a year when Republicans are running a string of beleaguered, scandal ridden and unpopular candidates in states they need to win. While Democrats are showing they've got a chance in some very unlikely places. One of the best hopes for a Democratic upset is in Texas. Colin Allred, fresh off that string of blockbuster endorsements from all the biggest papers in Texas. He's going to be on the Last word with Lawrence O'Donnell right after this show. Watch this space. Two quick things before I go. First of all, there is much more of my interview with Yulia Navalnya than we were able to show you tonight. We're going to put the whole thing on YouTube, including her very pointed message to the US about what we're doing wrong when it comes to Vladimir Putin. If you go to mattoblog.com you can find that again, the whole thing posted Uncut on YouTube. Also tomorrow night, Alex Wagner is doing a special from Philly. She's been talking with black voters. She's been following Senator John Fetterman as he campaigns for Harris in Pennsylvania Republican strongholds. It's going to be really Good Tomorrow night, 9:00pm Eastern right here on MSNBC. All right, that does it for me for now.