MSNBC prime time post election analysis special

Summary

Detailed Summary of "The Rachel Maddow Show" – MSNBC Prime Time Post-Election Analysis Special

Overview

In this special post-election episode of The Rachel Maddow Show, host Rachel Maddow and a panel of MSNBC experts conduct an in-depth analysis of the November 7, 2024, election results. The episode explores the potential shift toward authoritarianism, the significant role of Latino voters, implications for American democracy, international reactions, and strategies for resisting threats to democratic institutions. Featuring insights from guests like Paula Ramos, David Remnick, Sherilyn Ifill, and Ezra Levin, the discussion emphasizes the urgent need for civic engagement and strategic opposition in the face of alarming electoral outcomes.

Key Themes and Discussions

1. Election Outcome and Threats to Democracy

   Sara Rafferty initiates the conversation by framing the election as a critical choice between preserving the American democratic system or transitioning to an authoritarian regime under a strongman leader. She asserts, “[00:48] Patrick Adams: Share behind the scenes stories, and talk.” Rafferty emphasizes the urgency for American citizens to mobilize and defend democratic norms, stating:

   "If this was an election that was not just a choice between two candidates, but it was a choice between keeping the American system of government or trading it in for a strongman authoritarian system instead, then the decisive result of this election gives us not just an answer to the question as to what Americans want along those lines, it also gives us a really big to-do list as Americans."
   [01:09]

   She further warns that once authoritarian ground is taken, it becomes exceedingly difficult to reclaim, highlighting historical precedents from other nations undergoing similar transitions.

2. Latino Voters and Immigration Concerns

   Rachel Maddow brings attention to the significant support Donald Trump received from Latino voters, particularly Latino men, and the ensuing fears surrounding immigration policies. She introduces Paola Ramos, author of The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America, to discuss the real-time concerns of mixed-status families in Phoenix, Arizona.

   Paola Ramos shares poignant stories from immigrant families contemplating self-deportation and facing the threat of mass deportations and family separations:

   "At the end of the night, though, they understood that this is a country that chose mass deportations, which has become the core of Trumpism, a country that chose to separate families like them."
   [15:32]

   Maddow probes the potential implementation of these harsh immigration measures, questioning the judiciary's role in upholding constitutional protections against such policies.

3. International Implications and Global Reactions

   David Remnick, editor-in-chief of The New Yorker, discusses the international consequences of a renewed Trump administration. He highlights reactions from leaders like Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, suggesting that Trump's leadership style aligns closely with authoritarian figures worldwide.

   Remnick emphasizes the dangers of Trump's unpredictable foreign policies and lack of adherence to democratic principles:

   "Trump is the kind of leader Vladimir Putin believes in. ... We are going to be slaves to the impulses of Donald Trump."
   [34:01]

   He warns that Trump's approach could lead to destabilizing global alliances and exacerbate conflicts, particularly referencing the ongoing tensions in Ukraine.

4. Analysis of American Institutions and Media Accountability

   Sherilyn Ifill, founding director of Howard University's 14th Amendment Center for Law and Democracy, critiques the role of American institutions in enabling Trump's rise. She points to persistent issues of racism and white supremacy as foundational vulnerabilities that Trump exploited:

   "We have to engage in a forensic examination of how we got here... ongoing racism and white supremacy... media failed to set moral boundaries."
   [59:35]

   Ifill calls for a comprehensive reassessment of media practices and institutional ethics to restore the moral compass essential for safeguarding democracy.

5. Civil Society's Response and Strategic Opposition

   Ezra Levin from the grassroots organization Indivisible outlines immediate and long-term strategies to counteract Trump's policies. He emphasizes community support, strategic planning, and rebuilding coalitions to defend democratic values:

   "We have to rebuild a winning coalition. We have to... And that starts at the local level. If you are in blue states, red states, purple states, it doesn't matter. There is a role for you. We need you out there."
   [85:08]

   Levin highlights the importance of grassroots mobilization and sustained civic engagement as critical components in resisting authoritarian shifts.

Notable Quotes

• Sara Rafferty

  "Now is when the rubber really hits the road... We don't just flip a switch and the American system of government is gone."
  [01:30]

• Paola Ramos

  "This is the moment when Trump's vision for America... starts to feel real now, not January 20th."
  [15:32]

• David Remnick

  "Trump is the kind of leader Vladimir Putin believes in... We are going to be slaves to the impulses of Donald Trump."
  [34:01]

• Sherilyn Ifill

  "Trump couldn't have come to power without it, without making appeals to our ongoing flirtation, encounter, embrace of racism and white supremacist ideology."
  [59:35]

• Ezra Levin

  "If you are in blue states, red states, purple states, it doesn't matter. There is a role for you. We need you out there."
  [85:08]

Conclusions and Takeaways

The episode underscores a profoundly precarious moment for American democracy, as discussed by Rachel Maddow and her panel. The potential for an authoritarian shift under a second Trump term raises significant concerns about the integrity of democratic institutions, the protection of minority communities, and the United States' role on the global stage. Key takeaways include:

• Urgent Mobilization: Immediate and sustained civic engagement is essential to defend democratic norms and resist authoritarian policies.

• Strategic Opposition: Organizations like Indivisible are pivotal in organizing grassroots opposition, emphasizing community building and strategic planning.

• Institutional Accountability: A critical reassessment of media practices and institutional ethics is necessary to prevent the erosion of democratic safeguards.

• Understanding Demographic Shifts: Analyzing the electoral behavior of Latino voters is crucial in addressing underlying social issues and mitigating divisive policies.

• Global Implications: The alignment of American and international authoritarian leaders poses risks to global stability and democratic alliances.

The panel concludes with a resolute call to action, urging American citizens to stay engaged, protect democratic institutions, and actively work towards preserving the nation's foundational values.

Transcript

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[Patrick Adams]

Hi, my name's Patrick Adams. You may know me as Mike Ross on the TV series Suits and I'm.

[Sara Rafferty]

Sara Rafferty and I play Donna Paulson on Suits.

[Podcast Host]

And we have a podcast called Sidebar.

[Patrick Adams]

Where every week we watch and discuss an episode of the show.

[Sara Rafferty]

Because here's the thing, neither of us have really watched it.

[Patrick Adams]

That's true.

[Sara Rafferty]

At least until now. So we're gonna cover all nine seasons.

[Patrick Adams]

Share behind the scenes stories, and talk.

[Sara Rafferty]

To our co stars and friends like.

[Gina Torres]

Gina Torres and Aaron Korsh.

[Patrick Adams]

So look, if you love Suits Amazing, this podcast is for you.

[Sara Rafferty]

And if you've never watched Suits, also Amazing, you can join us and we'll watch it together.

[Patrick Adams]

I think we're going to have a lot of fun.

[Rachel Maddow]

Listen to sidebar wherever you get your.

[Kia Commercial Narrator]

Podcasts and don't forget to follow the.

[Podcast Host]

Show so you never miss an episode.

[Sara Rafferty]

All right, you guys, we were made for this. We were made for this. This is what we train for. Have you taken your deep breaths? Have you in fact hydrated? Have you had any sleep? I know you didn't. We didn't either. But you know, we now have got stuff to do. We really were, in some important ways, as Americans, made for this. If this was an election that was not just a choice between two candidates, but it was a choice between keeping the American system of government or trading it in for a strongman authoritarian system instead, then the decisive result of this election gives us not just an answer to the question as to what Americans want to along those lines, it also gives us a really big to do list as Americans. If you are an American citizen who does not want to ashcan the American system of government, who doesn't want a strongman authoritarian system where the whole government is one guy and everything else just exists to serve him. If that is not the kind of country that you want, then yesterday's election means you have more to do for your country than you have ever done before. Because now is when the rubber really hits the road, right? We don't just flip a switch and The American system of government is gone. Democracy is gone. It doesn't work like that. I mean, not to be boring here for a second, but just getting very real. We now are just another one in the list of countries that has decided to, you know, hey, what the heck, let's try the strongman thing. Let's let democracy go. Let's put in an all powerful guy instead, see how it goes. There are many more countries in the world governed by that kind of a system than there are governed by ours. We are the only 248 year old multiracial, pluralistic democracy in the world. And shall we keep it? A lot of our fellow Americans say we shouldn't. Now we know, now we know for sure. But a lot of Americans, tens of millions of Americans say we should keep that system. Which means time to fight for it. And yes, Americans did fight for it by working on this election, by trying to get the candidate elected who was both the Democrat and the small D Democrat. She didn't win. The strongman candidate won instead. But now history doesn't end, time doesn't stop. Now we have the benefit of knowing how this has gone in every other country that has been through a democracy to authoritarian transition. And sadly there are a lot of them. We have the benefit of seeing what's happened in those other countries though. And what we know is that the more ground the authoritarian takes, the harder it is to ever get that ground back. And so the first order of business is to stop them from taking any uncontested ground right from the outset when it comes to what our system of government is and what our democracy is. We know from other countries experiences that quickly. I mean now in the next few weeks, if not the next few days, they are going to start pushing to see how far the country is gonna let them go without pushback, without protest. And part of this is because it's just psychologically advantageous for them to do this now, right? They're counting on the half the country that voted against them, the half the country that doesn't want to give up our system of government. They're counting on all those tens of millions of Americans to be despondent, to feel powerless, to check out. Which of course would mean letting them do what they want, letting them run the table. What they really don't want is for the half the country that voted against them, the half the country that wants to keep our democracy. What they really don't want is for those tens of millions of Americans to wake up tomorrow feeling scrappy as Hell, hell. Feeling sure regretful about the election outcome, but also frankly freed up from having to spend all of our time working on the election. So now we can work full time on being fricking pirates, on being a thorn in the side to anyone who now intends to try to turn this country into some tin pot tyranny. What they want least of all is to realize that half the country went to bed sad tonight, but then woke up tomorrow fired up with a new sense of purpose, knowing that apparently this is what we're on this earth to do as American citizens in this generation. Because history did not just end, time did not just stop. We just got marching orders from the universe and the electoral College that as of today, American citizens who do want to hold on to democracy. We know exactly what we're going to be spending the next days and weeks and likely years of our life working on. And the strategic first moves come into focus quickly when you think about what other countries have shown us, about how hard it is to regain democratic ground once an authoritarian leader has taken that ground. And the work has to be done now, the work that has to be done now, it has to happen in sort of every aspect, every corner of our society. The US Military needs to give the American people binding assurances that they will not deploy US military force against the civilian population in this country. They can give those assurances, and now they should. The free press needs to give the people of this country assurances that they will not become State tv, that they will stand and fight together. They will put aside rivalries and petty professional differences. They will stand and fight together as the free press, as the the Fourth Estate, as an institution that is a pillar of our democracy. As these guys on the other side inevitably start picking off individual journalists, individual publishers, individual news organizations to try ultimately to turn us all into some American accented version of RT. If the Democratic Party takes the House, expect Article 1 of the Constitution to come under attack. By which I mean expect efforts to hollow out the power of Congress to make Congress a just for show institution. Right? There's a reason actions of the Russian Duma never make news. Right? Expect efforts to attack Article 1 to make it a just for show institution that has had its real powers taken over by the Executive, by the Dear Leader. We are going to need a plan and some steel spine inserts among elected officials in Washington to head that off. We're going to need the whole country to recognize that risk in advance, to call it what it is when they try it, and to actively resist it. Depending on whether the courts can provide a check on this administration, expect Article 3 of the Constitution to come under attack as well. It is already a fetish and a laugh line on the right to brag about how court orders really mean nothing, and physical force and violence is what ultimately really decides what's allowed. Well, we have to decide if that laugh line from them is going to become our reality or whether we're going to resist that. We need a plan and some steel spine inserts among members of the judiciary to head that off. We're going to need the whole country to recognize that risk in advance. We're going to need every lawyer in the country to recognize it as their calling to fight it. We're going to need to call it what it is when it inevitably happens, and we're going to have to actively resist it. And then there's civil society. Is there a more boring term in the world that doesn't include the word committee or budget? No, there isn't. Civil society, though, is kind of where the rest of us are at, right? Civil society is one of the things that I think of as soft food for authoritarians. They often don't even have to bite that hard to crush it. All the organizations, membership groups, advocacy groups, professional associations, every voluntary group of every kind in the country, everything in organized American life and culture that is not business and not the government either. That is civil society. And authoritarians need to crush that because it's not about them. Strongmen leaders have a tendency to become not just leaders of the government, not just dictators, but totalitarians, because they can't have anything going on in the country that isn't about them or for them. And a strong civil society, therefore must be crushed. Right? If you have a strong civil society that gives people breathing room to think for themselves, to organize in their own interests, to speak with the power of more than just one person. We need assurances from civil society leaders today that they're not going anywhere and that they will fight for our democracy too. And frankly, it's not just the leaders. We all need to participate in more civil society things than we have before to make sure that we are taking up space that otherwise they're going to try to take for the government and the dear leader. And what I mean by this, in short, is join something. Doesn't really matter what it is, but you want right now to be connected to other Americans and not isolated on your own. So deep breaths, hydrate. Maybe time to get back in shape. Do you have any burned bridges in your past, unburn them. Reconnect with people, whether it's your family or the people on your block or in your town, your old friends from school, that book club, that indivisible group. Maybe reconnect or connect for the first time. Join something. Join something. If this election was about one candidate who stood for the American form of government and another who stood for getting rid of that, because America's a garbage can and I alone can fix it. Just give me all the power and I'll do it all. If that was the choice in this election, then the aftermath of the American people making the choice they did in this election is not just the end, right? It's not just, oh, it's over. It means we're now entering into a contest. It will now be an effort on his side to put that into practice, right? To put strongman authoritarian government into practice. And it will be an effort on the other side, an ongoing, continuing, and now newly urgent effort on the other side to let him know that it's not going to be easy these next few days and weeks if they really are going to try to dismantle the American form of government, including firing all federal employees, right? Including rounding up their enemies, including opening internment camps to hold millions of people threatening military force against their perceived enemies. If they really are going to try to undermine the American system of government, which is what they've made this campaign about, then in the next days and weeks, they are going to be testing to see what they can get away with without pushback. They are going to do the things they can do easily, and they will have to put off the things that turn out to be hard. So what's going to be hard for them? That's where the American people come in. We do not only work for our country and for our democracy in elections, we work for our country and for our democracy against anyone, anywhere, anytime, who seeks to do it harm. And so there's a lot to do. Time doesn't stop. History doesn't stop. We have stuff to do. Millions of Americans woke up today to the realization that although you worked as hard as you could to try to bring about the election outcome you wanted, you did not get the election outcome you wanted. And so now what that means is that there is a whole new raft of stuff to do. Hope you are feeling scrappy, hope you are tapping into your inner pirate energy. Because it is one thing to be a defender of the realm, it is another thing to be in opposition. And opposition can be a lot of things. It can be dangerous. It can also be fun. It would have been nice to win the election.

[Joy Reid]

Didn't.

[Sara Rafferty]

Okay, time to save the country.

[Rachel Maddow]

And no pressure at all.

[Sara Rafferty]

None at all.

[Rachel Maddow]

Once you are hydrated, you need to connect with the fact that a defining feature of Trump 2.0 is the promise to decimate American communities by targeting immigrants for mass deportations. Now, this could amount to the expulsion of millions, millions of people who are already contributing members of our society and who live here with their families. On election night, MSNBC's Paola Ramos joined mixed status families in Phoenix, Arizona to monitor the outcomes and to listen to their fears and concerns. And here is what some of them had to say. Now, having heard that, it must be said that Donald Trump made major gains with Latino voters, particularly Latino male voters, last night. And joining me now from Phoenix to unpack all of that is MSNBC contributor Paola Ramos. She is the author of the Rise of the Latino Far Right and what It Means for America. The perfect person to talk to on this point, Paola, talk about the family that you were with. They talked, talked about some of their fears. Say a little bit more about that and what they're expecting to happen starting next January.

[Kia Commercial Narrator]

This is when it feels real, right? I spent the night with those families that we just saw, mixed status families that I have to say at the beginning of the night were holding on to some form of hope, believing that this country maybe for a minute would reject Donald Trump's vision for America. At the end of the night, though, they understood that this is a country that chose mass deportations, which has become the core of Trumpism, a country that chose to separate families like them. And so I think this is the moment when things start to feel real joy. These words, these visions, these things that Donald Trump has said it's real now, not January 20th, because this is the moment when Renata and Regina, those two young girls that you saw right now as we're speaking, her parents are actively thinking about self deporting to Mexico. Fidel, the young Latino man that you saw, his mom, who is undocumented, is completely overwhelmed with fear. Today, I spoke to immigrant families. A woman called Lupita who's thinking about who is going to have custody of her child, of her daughter. And so I think what's important to stress here is that this isn't just another reality in a place like Arizona. There are over 22 million people in this country that live in mixed status families. We're talking about over 10 million U.S. citizens. And so what is happening is that we have pushed a new chapter in American history that may see. May see a chapter where we will see mass deportations, mass family separations of American people.

[Rachel Maddow]

And we've seen that a spokesperson for Donald Trump says the incoming administration will, in fact, begin the largest mass deportation effort in history. They said it was a promise that Donald Trump made to his constituents, and so they're going to do it. So this is not a theoretical thing at this point. So you have talked to people in Border Patrol who have said to you it won't be racial profiling, how it's going to be done. Walk us through what that would actually look like if a family like the one that you spoke with was subject to this.

[Kia Commercial Narrator]

Look, I think we don't know many things, but we do know what you just said. They will try. They will try no matter what. And I think what's important to realize, particularly giving this idea that over 40% of Latinos voted for someone like him, we have to realize the following. If you're a black and brown person in this country right now, inevitably, inevitably, we will all be part of the racial profiling that will inevitably ensue. If these mass deportations unleash, we don't know who will be sort of deemed American enough in the eyes of Trump's America.

[Joy Reid]

Right?

[Kia Commercial Narrator]

This is the moment when Trump gets to look at us and decide who is American looking enough. History has already taught us something. You and I have talked about this, Joy. Operation Wetback taught us that they didn't just deport over 1 million Mexican immigrants. Part of those over 1 million people that were deported also included U.S. citizens. Why? Because it was an administration that literally targeted people that were Mexican looking. And so now we are staring at the real possibility, this real question that we've been talking to for many, many, many months at this point, which is who looks undocumented, who looks like an immigrant? And we don't know that the answer to that question, but we do know, to Rachel's point, that this is a time to organize, to resist, and to do what people in Arizona have done for a really long time, which is protect their immigrant communities. This is not new for them.

[Rachel Maddow]

One of the things in terms of this mass deportation, and they were talking about up to 11 million people. Donald Trump just during the campaign has talked about expanding workplace raids to identify and apprehend undocumented immigrants, meaning small business owners could see their business rate it to see who is documented and who is not invoking. And Donald Trump has said this himself, invoking the 1798, Alien Enemies act to declare an invasion. And that was the law that was used to intern Japanese Americans during World War II. So we're talking about something for which there's already law on the books and building new detention camps. I was in South Texas, in Tornillo, and I saw that they know how to do this. Like they've built detention camps before. So this is not theoretical. This happened when the child separation policies happened. And so given all of that, you wrote the book and I am reading Defense. And in many ways it's quite depressing to think that Latinos would be in favor of this. But some are, and you've spoken with some of them. A majority of Latino men voted for Donald Trump. In your view, did they vote for him thinking that somehow he didn't mean them? Because some of them likely live in mixed status families too?

[Kia Commercial Narrator]

Absolutely. Look, I think this is a story that has yet to be determined. We don't know many things, and that is the answer, right? We don't know the story of the Latino vote. But here's what we do know. We do know that Trump was able to tap into, to your point, very real racial and ethnic grievances. He was able to tap into a very real moral panic. He was able to tap into sort of this romanticized version that we have with authoritarianism. And I don't know that these are things that sort of.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Kia Commercial Narrator]

Worship, I do not know, Joy. These are things that we can explain just through politics, right? Just through Trumpism. I think we may have to dig deeper, dig deeper to our culture, to our history, to sort of the weight of colonialism, understand the way that sort of this racial baggage that we carry from Latin America, perhaps that explains some of the anti immigrant narratives that have suddenly become so embedded within us. Perhaps the sort of traditionalism, the weight that that has had on our moral values, perhaps that helps explain why this anti trans message really resonated with Latino men. Perhaps our own very complicated history with authoritarianism. Maybe that helps explain why some people do sort of find strongman rule appealing. And so I think what we do have to do is kind of take a step back and understand that we don't know a lot of these answers. We don't know what is happening. And it is okay to understand that we are not a monolith, that Latino voters today have sent a very, very, very different message, and we need to understand what that means.

[Rachel Maddow]

Indeed. Paulo Ramos, an excellent, exceptional journalist. And we know that you will be one of the people doing the groundwork of journalism that we're going to need in this moment. Paula, think. Thank you very much. Much appreciated, Rachel.

[Gina Torres]

Thank you.

[Sara Rafferty]

Paolo. I will say Paolo's book on the appeal of the far right to Latinos in this era, in this political moment. Jen, you just said in the break that it's going to be. Or Chris, you just said in the break that it's going to be the. What's the matter with Kansas for this election? That I think it is going to be seen as a little bit of a Rosetta Stone for people to try to understand the biggest electoral, the biggest single crosstab. Right. The biggest electoral shock in terms of the polling and understanding the shift in the electorate.

[Joy Reid]

Yeah, I think one, one of the things Paolo was on my podcast a few weeks ago, actually. We had long conversations, the run up, and I think all this stuff is complicated. And I just like when we're doing this, always just to remember that we're talking at these enormous demographic groups of millions of people across all sorts of different places. And when we start doing the analysis, we like a bunch of different people's aggregated decisions. It is very clear there is a big shift of Latino voters towards Donald Trump. We can see that in the actual, not just exit data, but like the physical data, like the precincts in areas like, we know this happened. It's not a mirage, a bigger shift.

[Sara Rafferty]

Than any other individual. Definite shift that we can have Latino.

[Joy Reid]

Men, although it also appears that Latino women moved towards him, but not as much. Right. The reasons that happened are like complex and overdetermined. And one of the things I just want to always be careful of in sort of post election analysis is like a little bit of these sort of like thinking about like demographic electoral colleges, like, well, you won Minnesota and you won Kentucky. And it's like all this stuff is margins. Like there's millions of people and people are weird and strange and they move in all sorts of different ways. There are real trends happening here. And one of the things I, one of the last things I would say, and Paolo and I talked about this in my podcast, is people sometimes view Trump's comments about immigrants through the lens of race. And that's 100% understandable because it is a racial appeal. But people across the world, demagogues, have had a lot of success with xenophobia against people that were not racially different than them. There are huge demagogic political movements in Colombia about the Venezuelans who are from next door. Pakistan just kicked out a whole bunch of Afghan refugees. Like this idea of the foreigners are coming does not necessarily appeal to people's racial solidarity if they see the foreigner as different. And that is something that is potent politics across the world in all kinds of different places, from Asia to Africa to Latin America to Europe, the U.S.

[Rachel Maddow]

But can I just say that coming from an immigrant family, there is this sort of trying to be super American total when people come here, because I know some African immigrants who are all the way Trump. And it's this idea of I wanna be with the side that's waving the biggest flag. I wanna fit in. And there is a huge element, to be honest, of anti blackness in a lot of this anti black Americanness specifically, and Paola and I have talked about this, that there is a part of that, that anti blackness is a piece of it. Even though Enrique Tarrio, who's the head of the Proud Boys, is a black Latino, but he's down with white supremacists, down with them. And there's this idea that I'm black, but I'm not black. I may look black to you, I may be black if I'm walking through Bloomingdale's and get followed around, but in my mind I'm identifying with whiteness because whiteness means privilege and it means not being a black American. This has to be unpacked because this shift among Latino men is significant and it says something about where we're going in this country, about whether we can create an appeal. There's also the last thing I will throw in is this a the creation of the idea that everything that Vice President Harris was proposing is communism, is communism. That is a potent argument for a lot of Latinos. And it worked.

[Ezra Levin]

I was just going to add, I mean, I think we were just talking before the break about kind of this moment, and everybody wants an answer because you want a solution. And if you have an answer, then you can fix what just happened last night. And I think this moment calls for a lot of humility and maybe not over concluding, right. What every big demographic group, why they moved in a certain way. And so your point on communism, if you talk to Latinos in Florida and all Latinos are of course not monolithic, communism, socialism, to some, abortion, it's not the agenda that they want to align themselves with. Right. So as I was listening to Kyla, which is it's horrible to hear everything she was just saying, this is something we should be talking about. Donald Trump is telling us what he's going to do, but I also think we don't yet know exactly why each of These groups voted for Donald Trump, and we need to listen, we need to not overly conclude, and we need to be humble about what we don't know in this moment.

[Sara Rafferty]

And I think Paola, I think to her credit is saying that and saying, like, listen, this is what I've been studying. This is what I just wrote my book about. And now, as a country, if we really want to understand this, there's so much more work that needs to be done completely in order to unpack it. I just feel like her honesty on that is really.

[David Remnick]

Well, let me take the humility note and begin with, I don't know what Donald Trump's going to do. I have no idea what he's going to do. And I especially don't know what he's going to do just because he says he's going to do something. So is mass deportation going to become repeal Obamacare? I don't know. What I do know is it was not in his speech last night. What I do know is in that moment when he had the country's attention, there were only two words in the speech that were policy, and that was cutting taxes. That is what he did do before, that is what I'm willing to bet he will do this time, is cut taxes. But, you know, Donald Trump knows he saw that vote, right?

[Joy Reid]

The Republican Party saw that vote, that.

[David Remnick]

Very significant Latino male vote. Do they then want to go attack that community? Do they then want to go into the homes of those voters and their cousins and start to try to extract people from that bedroom and leave the others in that bedroom? Just as a political matter, just as politicians, a Republican Party of politicians, do they want to do that? The way I'm gonna cover this is when they do it, I'll report to you what they say, but I will not believe what Donald Trump says is what Donald Trump's going to do except cutting tax.

[Podcast Host]

Cutting taxes.

[Sara Rafferty]

If there is one mantra that I considered having tattooed on myself at the end of the first Trump term, it was watch what they do, not what they say. And I do feel like we sort of coined that out of necessity in the moment. And I have never, never, ever, ever felt like anything was more truly derived from a news environment than that.

[Joy Reid]

And just one footnote.

[David Remnick]

Sorry, one footnote to mass deportation. And this is something we can all do and will be doing in our shows. The logistics of this. Let's report on the logistics of this. What would it take to move 11 million people out of the country? How many personnel in law enforcement? They don't exist. In this country. How many would it take to get 1 million people moved out of this country? We will get into reporting the logistics of this and you're going to see we do not have the law enforcement personnel who can possibly do that. And you're not going to be able to say to state police forces in California or elsewhere, hey, we'd like you to do this job for us.

[Sara Rafferty]

Yeah.

[Rachel Maddow]

And if you're going to do it, the only people who inappropriate the money is the House. And if Hakeem Jeffries is Speaker of the House, that would be a roadblock.

[Kia Commercial Narrator]

Yeah.

[Sara Rafferty]

What I'm interested in here is not what it would take to do it, but what it would take to stop it.

[Rachel Maddow]

That's it too.

[Sara Rafferty]

Coming up next, someone I'm very excited to talk about in this moment, Editor in chief of the New Yorker magazine, David Remnick is going to be here on set with us. Stay with us.

[Gina Torres]

Unhcr, the UN refugee agency, responds to.

[Sara Rafferty]

Emergencies and provides long term solutions for refugees in more than 130 countries, including Ukraine, Syria and Afghanistan.

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UNHCR supports people forced to flee from war, violence and persecution at their greatest moment of need. During the winter, people forced to flee are faced with increased hardships and costs.

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As temperatures drop, families struggle to meet.

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Basic needs like heating their shelters, buying warm clothes and cooking hot meals.

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Refugees and displaced people are struggling to.

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Survive like never before.

[Sara Rafferty]

Funding shortfalls and rising food prices forced.

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UNHCR to dial back its life saving.

[Sara Rafferty]

Aid to vulnerable families around the world. Donor support is crucial to address the need for essentials for millions of families. Without sufficient funding, lifesaving assistance will be.

[Gina Torres]

Threatened, cutting off a vital lifeline for refugees and displaced people.

[Sara Rafferty]

This is a tremendous challenge for people forced to Flee. Donate to USA for UNHCR by visiting.

[Gina Torres]

Unrefugees.Org winter all gifts before December 31st are automatically matched.

[Sara Rafferty]

This podcast is supported by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Planned Parenthood Federation of America exists so all people can get access to the sexual and reproductive care and education they need. Planned Parenthood organizations advocate for health equity and policies that allow people the freedom to control their own bodies, lives and futures.

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[Sara Rafferty]

So you're absorbing the news today. You woke up and you thought, oh yeah, this is real, this is happening. And then as you're going about doing your stuff that you got to do over the course of the day, individual realizations keep stopping you in your tracks. The names being floated to potentially take top positions in Donald Trump's second administration. Anti vaccine conspiracy theorist and chemtrails villain. RFK Jr in charge of public health. Eccentric far right billionaire Elon Musk, promising a massive austerity program that he is explicitly warning will create, quote, hardship for American families. Rick Grenell, best known for traveling the world on Trump's behalf, offending and angering all of our allies, bringing them to sputtering rage. How about him for Secretary of State? What a world. Right wing authoritarian leaders around the world celebrating Trump's win as a validation of their own visions. The president of Ukraine. Ukraine now in its third year of fighting a Russian invasion. Posting a note of congratulations to Trump. That doubled as effectively a desperate plea for Trump not to cut off Ukraine, to not have the United States effectively switch sides to Russia's side in that war, as Trump is widely expected to try to do. It's a lot. What to make of all this? We have the man who you might most want to ask if he had the choice. David Remnick, for over a quarter century has been the editor in chief of the preeminent English language magazine in the world, the New Yorker. David, thanks for being here.

[David Remnick]

It's great to be here.

[Sara Rafferty]

I think, I think what is I.

[David Remnick]

Saw RFK Jr. S name and I just worry not only about vaccines. Am I going to have to go to France to get toothpaste to smuggle in because it has fluoride? This is, it's not funny at all, but it is Bizarro world. And the possibilities are endless. Grenell is secretary of state or national security advisor. This is it's upside down world.

[Sara Rafferty]

I want to talk about America in the world and the reaction from world leaders. And I'm sure you saw that social media post from, from Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine. Imagining a world in which America is allied, for example, in that war not with Ukraine, but with Russia. Imagining a world in which Elon Musk, who's apparently being given like the job of being in charge of the government, is having ongoing secret communications with Putin, including turning on and off his satellite network to benefit Russian troops and hurt Ukraine troops. I mean, it's a profoundly different world. It doesn't make the world spin differently on its axis, but it might mean that we're in the axis instead of in the allies this time. How do you see it?

[David Remnick]

Well, it's hard to imagine somehow the spectacle of Vladimir Putin laughing, but I guarantee you that was his expression and that was his reaction and his glee when he received the news of this, not only Trump's victory, but resounding victory. This is everything he hoped for and imagined when he went to the Munich Security Conference and basically declared not just opposition to the west, but a kind of waging a kind of new Cold war against the West. And you know, he Trump is his fondest dream. It's not just a matter of he's going to go to Zelensky, Trump is going to go to Zelensky and say, enough already and time to give over the Donbas in Crimea and call it a day. Trump's presence on the scene, his rhetoric, his lack of any fealty to the truth is exactly what Putin believes in. Putin is the ultimate relativist. He tells you that there is no democracy, there's only hypocrisy. So therefore, any pretense to global leadership or human rights, it's all a farce. And this is at the center of Trump and Trumpism as well. And it's going to have even more tragic consequences, I fear, this time around than last time. David, I think Washington for generations has defined the world in terms of serious countries and the less serious or hard, and that one of the definitions of the serious country is the serious people who have the serious jobs. And so when Vladimir Putin hears the list that Rachel just recited about who could be in this government, who might be Secretary of State, with your experience in Moscow, what is his reaction to that? And was he ever trying to assemble a group of clowns or did he think, no, I want my best foreign minister I can get? Well, he has this sense that he can do it all himself, first of all, that all important decisions he can make. He has not a great deal of interest in information and fact and learning or history. Trump is a very skillful demagogue. He's a very skillful autocrat. We found out to our pain. But there's no respect for regard for or interest in a sense of what's right or a sense of history. And I think Putin, who is, alas, very intelligent and is very skillful, just sees him as a dupe. We saw this in Helsinki. We saw this over and over again, and that's not going to change. So all the people today who are giving us moral instruction on how we should calm down and who are saying that the reason this all happened is because of woke or the 16 other reasons that we've been laid out in front of us, ought to wake the hell up and realize that the consequences that are going to be exacted on the global scene, human consequences, whether it's in the Far east or in Ukraine or Russia itself, are going to be grave. Assuming that everything he. You said watch what people do, not what they say. I actually think, with respect, I think one should listen very carefully to what Trump says. I think he's the guy that comes out and says this stuff that's on my teleprompter. Don't pay attention, listen to what I'm saying. And I think he's usually pretty good on that. I think he reveals himself and he acts on it. He acts on impulse completely. And that's where I think foreign affairs is going. We're slave to the impulses of Donald Trump. Do you see more potential damage in foreign policy than domestic policy? Do I have to choose? No, you don't. No, you don't. How do you begin to compare them? You just had a guest on who was astonishing, describing the possibility of mass deportation, the cruelty of that, the politics of that, the divisiveness of that, the cost, the human cost of that. You know, on the other hand, I was talking to Ukrainian journalists in a kind of zoom literary festival. This is all they wanted to know. What will Trump mean for us? A look of terrible desperation on their face. And they've been through hell. And they have held up the banner for independence and liberty and sovereignty, everything we supposedly believe in now for a couple of years, at tremendous human cost to their country, tremendous material cost to their country, and now suddenly, it could turn on a Dime and get horrifically worse.

[Joy Reid]

I want to ask about one other world leader who was celebrating last night, which is Benjamin Netanyahu, clearly who's been in constant contact with Donald Trump and who engineered a series of maneuvers in the last week, clearly timed the American election, which involved implementing the so called general's plan, which was essentially a kind of full evacuation and pummeling of northern Gaza. It has now been declared like I don't know what the, you know, evacuated. This is very controversial in Israel. He then fired the very popular Defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who has been part of the unity government, who's hardly semi. He's a Likud nick.

[David Remnick]

Right.

[Joy Reid]

This has provoked protests in the country. And I think my interpretation of this from abroad is that Netanyahu is sort of waiting to see who won, to see what he was going to do and whether he was going to resettle Gaza.

[David Remnick]

Essentially he fired him on the day of the election. It's not a.

[Joy Reid]

What do you think the implications are?

[David Remnick]

The communists used to say, not by chance.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Joy Reid]

What do you think the implications are of Trump's election for that?

[David Remnick]

Trump's message to Netanyahu is do what you have to do, do what you have to do. Now, I think it's incredibly complex to me. Gaza and the obliteration of Gaza and the tens of thousands of death stare is one set of moral questions, and I think it's horrific. There is also the question of the very true encirclement of Israel by Hezbollah, by Iran, and what's to be done there. That's another set of questions to me. But this requires people with a sense of strategy and tactics and intelligence and patience and the deployment of American power. I can't say by any stretch of the imagination that the Biden administration deployed its influence in an optimal way. I mean, at great human cost. I think that argument can be made and I would make it. But it is a deeply complex set of questions that, you know, I don't think that Donald Trump has the slightest interest in, say for the mercenary interest. And one topic that hasn't come up, I think in the last 20 minutes, but it probably will, is the depths of corruption that come along with an autocrat like this, you know, the family's own enrichment, the enrichment of the oligarchs that surround Donald Trump is going to be spectacular. To hear that Elon Musk is going to be in charge of an austerity.

[Sara Rafferty]

Plan, it's really wild.

[David Remnick]

I mean, you can't make this up.

[Sara Rafferty]

Yeah, an austerity plan David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker. It is kind of you to break away from your labors to be here with us today.

[David Remnick]

It's a privilege.

[Sara Rafferty]

It's good to have you here.

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[Joy Reid]

Hey, I'm journalist Sam Sanders.

[Sara Rafferty]

I'm poet Syed Jones.

[Rachel Maddow]

And I'm producer Zach Stafford.

[Sara Rafferty]

And we are the host of a podcast called Vibe Check.

[Joy Reid]

On Vibe Check, we talk about everything.

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That's right, we talk about any and.

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And that barely scratches the surface.

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Yes, indeed, and it doesn't stop there.

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We have got a lot to say, so join our group, chat, come to.

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Parents, did you know that only 50% of US adults are financially literate? Millions of people don't fully understand how.

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Sign up for Greenlight [e-mail] podcast. That's Greenlight.com podcast. If you are the governor of a state that pretty publicly pretty emphatically disagrees with Donald Trump and his professed agenda, your job as a governor just got much, much, much more important to the country and potentially to the world. One of those governors is going to join us next here live. Stay with us. So the last time he was president, Donald Trump picked a lot of fights with blue state leaders. He deliberately withheld disaster relief funds from places like California and Washington. He slow rolled Covid aid to places like New York and New Jersey. He threatened to unleash the National Guard on protesters in blue states. In that time, Democratic leaders in the states emerged as a check on Trump's instincts and on his power in Massachusetts, to name just one state, then attorney general, now Governor Maura Healey, took then President Trump to court dozens of times on issues ranging from environmental policy to insurance coverage for contraception. Now that Trump is coming back, are the blue state governors ready? Are they more ready than they were the last time?

[David Remnick]

Lawrence well, joining us now is the governor of Massachusetts, Maura Healey. Governor, thank you very much for joining us on this, this important night. As you know, Donald Trump has lost in Massachusetts three times in a row. You know that you have citizens of Massachusetts who are afraid of what is coming in a Trump presidency. What can the people of Massachusetts and what can people of other states expect from their governors? What can people of Massachusetts expect from you in this Trump administration in situations where you might find yourself opposed to the Trump administration?

[Kia Commercial Narrator]

Yeah. Well, good evening, Lawrence. And look, this is a challenging time for our country. And, you know, I will say it quite simply, and that is we're going to show up and do our job. Tomorrow I'll be traveling out to Holyoke, Massachusetts, to open a new veterans home. You know, as we celebrate, commemorate Veterans Day next week. I think it's really important. And what you'll see from my colleagues is we're going to show up and continue to work on the issues that really matter to constituents in our state. I'm a state of 7 million people, 36% of them voted for Donald Trump. So, you know, while Massachusetts went blue, I also am a governor for everyone. And I think that's how we all look to serve. I can tell you, though, that what you have been talking about, what Trump laid out, he's given us the playbook. Whether he looks to implement or make good on it, we will see. But we know what the playbook is. And I can assure you that I will work closely with my colleagues, and you will see state governors, attorneys general, other elected officials, mayors, working together to hold the line once again on the rule of law, on democracy, and on looking out for residents in our states. And that includes protecting rights and freedoms that we hold dear.

[David Remnick]

If the Trump administration requests it, would the Massachusetts state Police assist in mass deportations?

[Kia Commercial Narrator]

No, absolutely not. But, you know, let me say this. I do think it's important that we all recognize that there's going to be a lot of pressure on states and state officials. And I can assure you we're going to work really hard to deliver. Some realities also need to be, you know, noted, and that is in 2016, we had a very different situation in the courts. And while I'm sure There may be litigation ahead. You know, there's a lot of other ways that people are going to act and need to act for the sake of their states and their residents. There's regulatory authority and executive powers and the like. There's legislation also within our states. So I think that the key here is that, you know, every tool in the toolbox has got to be used to protect our citizens, to protect our residents and protect our states, and certainly to hold the line on democracy and the rule of law as a basic principle. Right. The other thing, though, Lawrence, I just want to encourage people at home listening tonight, we need to do as the vice president said today, which is get engaged, stay engaged. You know, elections happen every year in our country. They happen for school committee, for city council, for state legislature. It's super important that people not get checked out, that they actually work for, continue to work for the kind of government and representation that we want. You know, I don't believe that that Trump supporters and voters actually wanted to elect a king. I don't believe that Trump voters wanted to elect an authoritarian. And, you know, I think that's important. I think the Democratic Party, we have work to do and we need to learn the lessons from this election when, you know, so many Americans, well over 60% are living paycheck to paycheck. I believe that the Democratic policies are actually the ones that deliver for people on higher wages, on healthcare, on better access to education and opportunity. So we've got a communication issue as well. But, you know, it's going to take work by all of us, not just those with the privilege of serving in office, but also those out there who are at home and are wondering what to do. Get involved, go to meetings, write your post, write your paper, run for office, or support those who are running for office in local and state elections. And, you know, I do think we see glimmers of hope. And what is, I will say, knowing Donald Trump very, very well and knowing what he did for four years in this country to so many people that really took us backwards and hurt so many. I will say there are glimmers of hope. You know, in North Carolina, two Democrats were elected in statewide office as governor and as attorney General. We had 10 abortion initiative ballot initiatives on and around the country. The vast majority of those were successful in protecting women's access to reproductive healthcare and abortion. And that's something that I know I will fight for and work to maintain here in Massachusetts, and my Democratic colleagues will as well. We also had Wisconsin credit to Governor Tony Tony evers You know, he fought hard for fair redistricting maps. And as a result, the Wisconsin state legislature changed and Democrats, you know, picked up a number of seats. So, you know, look for the glimmers of hope. Let's continue to do the work. I'm certainly going to fight hard to hold the line and to protect people here in our states and to meet people where they are, particularly around affordability. You know, I know when I lowered taxes last year, I know when I was able to pass a bill that's going to create a lot more housing in our state, drive down costs that means something to people. You know, we've, we've worked to lower health care costs in the state. We've got to, we've got to continue.

[David Remnick]

On that front of Massachusetts. Thank you very much for joining us.

[Kia Commercial Narrator]

Good to be with you, Rachel.

[Sara Rafferty]

It's good to have her here. Good to hear what she's actually got. Just living in Massachusetts. I know a lot of what, know a lot about a lot of what she's talking about. It's good to hear it. Civil rights lawyer Sherilyn Ifill is going to join us at the top of the hour. Stay with us.

[Joy Reid]

Welcome back to our second hour of our special election coverage. Everyone today, I think is making sense to the extent it's possible of what happened last night. Fair to say that most of the people watching right now, all of the people I think up here on this panel, I think it was a very bad outcome for the country. I certainly do. But there's a question of why it happened and what comes next. And I do actually think it's really important to be as clear eyed as possible about why it happened and what happened. Donald Trump won a majority of votes in the Electoral College. And for the first time in his three presidential runs, he appears poised to win the national popular vote. But if you look at why he won, I also think it's clear it was primarily the driver, a rejection of the status quo. In a period where many voters feel alienated from their leaders and squeezed by high prices. The right track, wrong track numbers were 2 to 1 people saying the country's on the wrong track. And here's the thing that's really important. They feel that way across the Western world where incumbent parties left, right and center have met the exact same electoral fate post Covid in an era of exploding inflation that no one had experienced in 30 years, years. This was an election defined by a rejection of a status quo that big majorities did not like. Even people that voted for Kamala Harris now, the thing about this is Trump and Republicans have an interest, vested interest, in interpreting this as a mandate for all of their worst governing impulses. All the Stephen Miller Style Project 2025, Dark Fantasies of smashing the administrative state. But those ideas were never popular. Remember, we've been through this. They were polling at 6%. Trump tried to distance himself every chance he had from them because they polled so terribly. When you wrote down what they wanted to do, people didn't like it. That was not the source of this victory. You can see it all over America in last night's results. You can see what happened. Down ballot In North Carolina, voters picked Trump by a slight margin. At the same time, they elected Democrats as governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, school superintendent. They may have flipped enough legislative seats to take away the Republican supermajority in veto power. And you can see it in referenda around the country. And in seven states, including the Trump states of Arizona, Missouri and Montana, voters approved measures enshrining abortion rights. Voters in deep red. Missouri and Alaska also approved raises in the minimum wage. They joined Nebraska in mandating paid sick leave to workers. Just to add to all that, New Jersey elected its first Asian American senator. Maryland elected its first black and female US Senator. So did Delaware, meaning the US Will have two black female senators. For the very first time in its history, Delaware has given Congress its first openly trans member. What I want to say is that this is onto the, that because of last night has suddenly signed on wholesale to the far right agenda of MAGA and Trump and their polygamy party. But we know they are going to interpret this election as a mandate for precisely that, for full magaism. And we also know they have a plan. It really is a destructive plan to the American Constitution, to American democracy, most importantly to so many of our fellow Americans, mixed status families, trans folks, women, working class voters who are going to take it on the chin from tariffs and gutting labor law. And we also know Donald Trump is an aspiring authoritarian. I mean, the guy does not have a democratic bone in his body. Body. He tried to overthrow the constitutional order with violence. We all saw it happen on national television. He celebrated, talked about using political violence repeatedly in his campaigns. And because of all that, we know they're going to try to do things to subvert and alter the constitutional order. But the most important thing to those of us who are committed to stopping them is to remember their success is not foreordained in any way. They're going to try and there are going to be a Lot of people who try to stop them. And the outcome of that is as yet undetermined. And I'm not saying this from some place of airy hope. We've been covering Trump since 2015. We covered his first term. He tried to do lots of bad things and failed to do them because he is completely distractible and inconstant, because he's a vortex of chaos, because he cannot be stopped from doing stupid, self destructive things all the time. None of that changed because he won an election. They're all the same people. He's the same guy. Are Republicans better prepared this time? Are they more loyal? Is the judiciary more in their favor? Yes, yes and yes. But does that mean the outcome is foreordained? No. The reason I say that is that public opinion, mass opinion, it's not a fixed thing. It's a real force and it changes and it flows and it reacts to events. And even Donald Trump has backed down when he found himself on the wrong side of it. He has tried to move away from his most extreme anti abortion position. He's tried to distance himself. He understands it's unpopular because there was mobilization against it. One of the most monstrous things he did in his first term, as documented in my colleague Jacob Soboroff's incredible documentary and book, Separated, was to essentially kidnap migrant children from their families. And as the press reported this and as the courts reviewed it, it became clear this was both cruel and illegal. And while it was a federal judge that first blocked it, freezing it, the thing that ended child separation was a full rejection by the Democratic Party. Thanks to organizing and mobilization and protest, Americans across the spectrum rightly came to see it as monstrous, rejected it loudly. In the end, Trump signed the executive order ending the practice and then, then, classic, tried to take credit for getting rid of the heinous policy he had implemented. But in the end, they had to abandon it because it was so unpopular. That's just one example. There will likely be things he doesn't abandon, but in the face of that, it really is important not to concede in advance that politics don't matter. They do. Public opinion still matters. Politics didn't go away in America because three out of 100 people switched their presidential vote, which is to be clear, what happened last night between 2020 and 2024. And politics depends on the work of organizing and mobilizing and persuading our fellow Americans. None of those tools have gone anywhere. In fact, all of them are even more important this time around. We have to pick them up and we can't let anyone pry them from our hands.

[Sara Rafferty]

Rachel, God bless you, Chris. I really wanted to hear that from you tonight. Thank you. Because this will be Trump's second go round in the White House. One of the things we might profitably look to when trying to make the kinds of strategic decisions Chris is talking about here, when trying to mount effective opposition, when trying not to concede in advance that he'll get away with things because he wants them. One of the things we might profitably look to is the roster of people who made tracks and who made a mark countering him the first time around. Among them is our next guest, Sherilyn Ifill, founding director of Howard University's 14th Amendment center for Law and Democracy, former president and director, counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Sherilyn Ifill joins us now here. Sherilyn, it's really nice to have you here. Thank you for coming in.

[Gina Torres]

I wish it were under different circumstances, but glad to be here.

[Sara Rafferty]

Me, too. But given the circumstances, you're one of the people I met most want to talk to. Let me just first ask you to respond to some of what you've been hearing around this table, some of what you just heard from Chris and what we've been talking about in the last hour, and ask if you think we're getting any of this the wrong way around or if you really see any of this fundamentally differently.

[Gina Torres]

You know, I agree with much of what you all have said. The only piece that I think is missing is what I think is essential for us to figure out how to manage this period, which is we have to engage in a forensic examination of how we got here. And that forensic examination compels us to confront issues that we progressive people and also just people who support democracy have not sufficiently dealt with and confronted. Obviously, you know, for me, one of them is ongoing racism and white supremacy, which is such a part of this country. And it has been kind of the gateway drug. Trump couldn't have come to power without it, without making appeals to our ongoing flirtation, encounter, embrace of racism and white supremacist ideology. And every time he wasn't stopped, every time we treat this as though it is not a deal breaker for leadership in this country, we open up the door to the danger that Trump has represented. When Trump said that Judge Manuel Curiel could not vote and be impartial because he was Mexican, there was no response, for example, from our United States Supreme Court. But everyone lauded the Supreme Court. When Chief Justice Roberts said there's no such thing as Obama, judges And Trump judges. But why didn't he say, there's no such thing as Mexican judges on our federal courts? And people just let that go. And we let Trump flirt with David Duke and flirt with the proud boys until we got to Charlottesville. And that was kind of a moment. And then this campaign has been filled with racist vitriol, filled with misogyny, and none of those things have been deal breakers. I lay a lot of this at the feet of the press, not because Americans can't make up their own minds, but because the press is the curator. This was to help us understand what makes sense and what doesn't make sense. Sense. Not everyone is a nerdy politico like you and me. And, you know, I've been watching conventions since 1972. You know, everyone's not like that. We count on the media to sift it for us and tell us, like, this is out of the mainstream, this is out of bounds. And we didn't get enough of that. We got a lot of stenography, and it didn't help people understand what was off the rails here. And so I think without that forensic. Without understanding why Americans were vulnerable. I mean, Trump is truly a vulgarian. You know, everything about him is repulsive in the sense in which we think about people who make good politicians and simply saying, he's appealing and he's entertaining. Why were we so vulnerable to someone who basically runs a campaign as though it's a reality show? And I don't think we've sufficiently examined ourselves to understand the places we're weak and the reason why they. It's important is because I believe we are weaker now than we were in 2016 or 2015 then. We still had our sense of what the rules were. We had some sense of norms and some sense of ethics. I hate to use this word, but Trump has groomed us. He has allowed us to accept more and more things that are off the table to the point that we've actually shifted. And I don't mean just the people who support him or the MAGA people. We've all shifted because we've been compelled to accept things that would have been unacceptable. Does anyone remember when Trent Lott had to step down from being head Senate Majority Leader because he said that, you know, maybe if Strum Thurmond's way had been the way, we would all be better off? That was literally what he said. One sentence, and he had to step down. He understood he had to step down as Senate Majority Leader. Does anybody think that would happen today? We've moved the line ourselves. And so we're not the same people, myself included, who were able to stop many of the things that Trump did in that first term because the line has moved in terms of what judges think is unacceptable, what people who would sit on juries think is unacceptable, what that public popular opinion will be. And if we don't recognize that, we will think that we have more strength than we have to counter him in the way that we need to. And, you know, we can maybe get started on talking about the rule of law also, which we all like to say held the line, but mostly it failed. So we have to really take stock. We only have a very little bit of time to take stock of what we got wrong and where we went off the rails and try to create some guardrails for ourselves to understand that and begin to re educate ourselves. And American institutions, the media business, the press, faith institutions, all of whom have allowed their moral compass to be set by Donald Trump. This is a dangerous time.

[Sara Rafferty]

How do we get that compass pointing back to north? How do you think we do reset? I mean, understanding that we've let ourselves, as you say, be shifted to no longer be shocked by things that would have shocked us even a short number of years ago. I mean, it's a very compelling case. Do you make. But what do you imagine would be literally the mechanism by which we reset our sense of propriety, our sense of what's appropriate in this country and our expectations in terms of norms and the rule of law? Yeah.

[Gina Torres]

I'm writing about this in my book Is this America? But I've already begun doing some of this work. And I will say one thing I'm heartened about is my own profession. I have been railing about the legal profession and how we, we allowed ourselves to experience these excesses. And we have seen our profession. You saw, you talked about the letter from various bar associations this week that went out talking about what the job of lawyers should be in a contested election. I sit on a task force on the American Bar association, co chaired by former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and by Michael Ludig, a task force on democracy that has been talking about lawyers and what we should do, what it means to take an oath. Who are we as officers of the court? So we are. There are pockets that are trying to reset us. And my belief is that particularly in different fields, it's important that you do it yourself. The media should be able to do it themselves. And every time we push at the media, they get very defensive. The media itself I think I don't want to impose on you any more than I want you imposing it on my profession. I think the media should be able to sit itself and engage in this forensic. I've been talking with faith leaders and participated in a conference called the Test of Faith. Where have you been? You know, faith institutions are democratic institutions, but when you have leaders standing up saying, we're white Christian nationalists, where are all the other Christians? Where's my church? Where's the black church? Where's the. Why aren't people saying that's not a thing, you know, and saying it strongly and saying that is contrary to my faith. So my hope is that within our own separate institutions, the institutions that undergird healthy democracies, yes, we can begin to have these conversations ourselves so that we will be strong and equipped and ready. Otherwise, we're just all over the place. And he will set us even further down the road.

[Sara Rafferty]

Right. Not only does it make those institutions weak to not have that self awareness and that appreciation, but it also takes us off the table in terms of us standing up for the country. Sherrilyn Ifill, every time I talk to you, I get smarter. I really appreciate you being here with us today.

[David Remnick]

Thank you.

[Sara Rafferty]

Thank you. I want to read you guys a little bit of what Sherilyn wrote today in her newsletter, her substack newsletter. She lists five things. Forgive me, read this in your voice. That she believes people should prioritize. Now, this is item number four that she says, quote, our spirits will be assaulted in the coming months by coarse and crude language, by open displays of violence, of privilege and of unchecked power. We may feel as if we are occupied by a hostile force. This feeling will combine with our grief to weaken and exhaust us. We must hold onto the things that refresh our spirits. Time with family, music, art, nature, hobbies, food. We must protect our core. I will say, having lived through the first time America elected Donald Trump and having lived past this last few hours, boy, does that resonate for me. Sherrilyn, I feel. Thank you for reminding us, among other things, to take care of ourselves.

[Gina Torres]

Thank you, Rachel.

[Sara Rafferty]

We'll be right back. Stay with us. We still do not know which party is going to control the U.S. house of Representatives come January. At the Moment, Republicans have 207 seats in the House. Democrats have 187. But there are 41 races still uncalled. Now, the magic number for control is 218. It could be days, it could be potentially many days before we know the results. A lot of these uncalled seats are in California, which notoriously counts its votes slowly. And they don't want to hear about it. They're very happy with it. Thank you. We do know that Republicans will retake control of the Senate next year. Next week, Republican senators will elect their new leader. Remember, Mitch McConnell is giving up that role. So who's going to be the new head of the Republican Party? The head of the Senate. This could get interesting. The two main candidates for the top job are Senator John Thune of South Dakota and Senator John Cornyn of Texas. John versus John. But last night, after winning reelection by a decisive margin, Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott announced that he will also throw his hat in the ring. He has tried this in the past and failed. But we will see if that contest gets a little spicy next week. Steph, I don't know if you've been following, following internecine Republican warfare along this front, but what are you expecting in Congress? Listen, what we're about to see, we don't know, there's obviously races, right, in Pennsylvania. Tons of people here are looking at Bob Casey and David McCormick, you know, the people who I cover on Wall street, what do they love? A divided government. You know, as much as people might be enthused to see Donald Trump in the White House, if you look at the market today, it's through the roof over this idea that we'll be done with Lena Khan, we'll be done with Gary Gensler. And they love this idea in the short term that there'll be no rules, right? There'll be less regulation, of course, until there's a blowup. And then it will be a disaster. And it'll be an absolute disaster. But, you know, they still have this idea, well, there's going to be some guys there to rein in Donald Trump. And, you know, just today I saw a list. Honestly, people think that they make that argument. They make that argument. But just today, I saw a list of names of potential big, as they say, real guys who could potentially join the Trump administration. And I'm amazed because it's very successful, smart people who in the last administration didn't vote for Trump. But it's incredible to me that they're still like that. I could change that guy. I know he's the worst boyfriend ever, but I'm gonna change him. And it'll be amazing if we see it happen again, because Trump has basically blown up and burned every single person that he's come in contact with. So it's gonna be extraordinary to see who now surrounds him.

[Joy Reid]

Can I offer a contrarian take?

[Sara Rafferty]

Please.

[Joy Reid]

I, in 2016 was like, you should not go in and work in the Trump administration. I think I feel differently now.

[Sara Rafferty]

What? Yeah, tell us. Well, it seems he's leaving. I know.

[Joy Reid]

I mean, I don't mean that. I mean, I guess I mean this for sort of Republicans. One of the things that really hit home to me in the January 6 committee's work was like, but for a bunch of people inside that operation, they would have done the coup, like Mike.

[Sara Rafferty]

Pence, doing good works, hiding out, waiting for the moral crucible, whereupon they revealed themselves. It was just that they did 10 million terrible things. And then the 10 million. And first one they were like, eh, that one I can't.

[Joy Reid]

Right. But wouldn't you want, like, would it be better if. Even more like, if you rerun January 6th and you take the people who are willing to do all the bad stuff but not the last bad thing, and you replace them with people who are willing to do all the bad stuff and also the bad things, wouldn't that be worse?

[Rachel Maddow]

Marco Rubio used to be that guy. We used to describe Marco Rubio as. Oh, you know, he seems to be the kind of Republican that wants a future in mainstream America. He's willing to do all the things, all the coup. Lindsey Graham, who everybody pretty much understands, despises Donald TRUMP Personally, Mitch McConnell. Those kinds of Republicans exist other than the people who are on some of our shows. And those people aren't gonna be hired by Donald Trump. It's gonna be all the extremists. It's gonna be all the people who are willing to hire.

[Joy Reid]

I don't think they have enough.

[Sara Rafferty]

I think he has a way of folding people in such a way that they, that whatever morals, moral croups, whatever morals they go in there with, they don't.

[Rachel Maddow]

It's gone.

[Sara Rafferty]

Howard Ludnick.

[Joy Reid]

I think that's true.

[Sara Rafferty]

Howard Lutnick, who's running the transition team, has said the number one thing that you have to have is loyalty to Donald J. Trump. Personal.

[Joy Reid]

I just, I feel like the staffing, the government is a big job, an important job, and it needs a lot of people. And I guess my feeling is like, do I want the absolute dregs, worst of the worst, or do I want, like. Honestly, that's the question, right?

[Rachel Maddow]

It's what you're gonna get.

[Joy Reid]

Do I want people with any conscience in there?

[Sara Rafferty]

I feel like they're the ones with consciences. I think there'll be a screening process for those folks this time around, saying, It's a big government, Ari. On the issue of Senate and House control, obviously the Republicans have control of the Senate. It's an open question as to whether or not the Democrats have control of the House. If they do, what do you expect in terms of a Hakeem Jeffries in the middle of a second Trump presidential term?

[Lee Gelernt]

That's the big question. And the thing that's obviously hanging over from last night, who leads the Democratic Party up and through the summer, it was President Biden. We all saw that shift to the vice president. She conceded rather graciously today and talked about continuing a longer fight. But we talk about realignments and how much do you credit, how much happened, how much of it was about a desire for Trump versus a rejection of incumbents, as Chris pointed out in an excellent breakdown of how many places has happened around the world. But for the Democrats, if you take the House, you have one remaining opposition leader in Hakeem Jeffries. If they don't take the House, he's of course the minority leader. But there will be big questions about how the larger team of Democrats, and you can count the president, the defeated vice president, like it or not, Senator Schumer defeated in the Senate with a tough hand to play, and the assorted other Democratic elites who oversaw everything this year, given this outcome, I don't think most of them will be the first choice to re up from their caucuses in the terms of the Senate and the, the wider Democratic conversation. So that's something to watch that'll be really interesting, which is how do you take this message from the voters, even if you sift it out and knowledgeably look at macroeconomic factors, international factors and other things, but still say the Democratic Party has some growing to do and might need some new leadership.

[Sara Rafferty]

Yeah. In terms of the practicalities of it, I mean, imagining Hakeem Jeffries in Washington, part of it is going to be what can get funded. As you were pointing out earlier, Joy, there's no expectation that the Democratic Party, if they were in control of the House, would go along with anything that needed to be funded in terms of the Trump administration. But then I think the second order of business then is protecting the Congress from effectively being abolished by a new president, would be authoritarian leader who doesn't have any respect for the tripartite system of government that we've got.

[Rachel Maddow]

And knowing that we've got a Supreme Court majority that are full of monarch, that are monarchists, and that who've already stated that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is inoperative when it comes to Donald Trump and that the parts of the Constitution that they would enforce if a Democrat was in office are inoperable. When it's Donald Trump and that they've said they need him to have bold action. That was one of the things that was very important to John Roberts. He can be bold. So if Congress tries to stand up against him, know that they will curb them. I mean, and know that, by the way, had Vice President Harris succeeded and become president, they would have tried to be her board of directors and curbed her. So, I mean, the problem that we have now is that Donald Trump not only is an autocrat, but that the people who are supposed to be the checks and balances on him are autocrats and the Liz Cheneys of the world are out of power. There's nobody like that in the House. Everyone in the House are the Matt Gaetz types. So it's gonna be an adventure.

[Lee Gelernt]

And one brief point on that is I think everyone understands how vital it is to hold the line. These are called co equal branches of government for a reason. And everybody takes an oath to uphold the Constitution. As Chris was just discussing, not everyone followed it in the Trump executive branch. But the Democrats also have to do more than just rerun the past oversight committees. Now with a very defiant executive branch and Jan.6 committee and assorted other investigations, they have to do that, and they took an oath to do that. But they also have to figure out through policy and more importantly, a story, a clear, simple story about what they want to do for the American people going forward. That's really important. And you could do two smart things. You could do both. But there might be a lesson here in the Trump era of how many campaigns and how many governing periods have been seen as largely responding to Trump and criticizing Trump. You can do both, but you need a story for the American public. I actually think Hakeem Jeffries is someone who's really talented at that and cares a lot about middle class families and working people and has a philosophy. And maybe we'll learn more about that. But it can't just be with no shade. It can't just be Jamie Raskin saying, we've issued a sternly worded letter about Donald Trump and that's what we're doing.

[Sara Rafferty]

It can't be anything about Donald Trump. It has to be changing the narrative off of him. All right, much more ahead, including a key figure who successfully battled one of the worst and most morally offensive policies of the first Trump administration, Lee Gelernt of the aclu on his plans for a second Trump term. Right here when we come back.

[Rachel Maddow]

Donald Trump has vowed to completely upend the immigration system in this country. His plans would include conducting the largest deportation operation in US History through the use of mass raids as well as detention camps for undocumented migrants. We could see a return to the inhumane child separation policies from his first administration, which President Biden is still trying to clean up and reunite those families. Trump has also announced that he will not only reimplement his travel ban that focused on Muslim majority countries, but expand the number of countries that it would cover. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed more than 400 legal challenges against Trump's first administration, have been busy this year preparing plans to respond in case Trump was successful in his presidential bid. And I'm joined now by Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrant Immigrants Rights Project lead. Thank you so much for being here. So let's start with mass deportation. Donald Trump has vowed to use an 18th century law that is on the books still that he would. That would allow him to do it. I think it's the Alien Enemies Act. The Alien Enemies Act. So that's on the books. How would you stop him?

[Podcast Host]

So we think it would be illegal to use it for immigration. The law is very clear that it has to be a foreign government doing an invasion. That's not what's involved in immigration. So we have been preparing since the wintertime for this challenge if he actually does go ahead and use it. And so we will say that there's no foreign government attacking us, there's no invasion. These are immigrants looking for safety, looking for a better life. This is not what it was intended to do. This is a law that was used during Japanese internment and only declared wars. It's really unthinkable to try and use it for immigration. Will the courts uphold it? That's the question exactly. But we will be challenging it.

[Rachel Maddow]

The way that Donald Trump has characterized the immigration system in the country is an invasion. He's been using that term probably pretty deliberately. He's not some genius. I'm sure that Stephen Miller and other people who are interested in making sure they can do mass deportation have been telling him that's the way to characterize it. They're saying it is an invasion. What makes you think that John Roberts and Samuel Ali and Clarence Thomas wouldn't simply reinterpret the law to say that it means exactly whatever Trump says it means.

[Podcast Host]

Right. So I don't want to predict where the court will go I mean, I think we all have to be clear eyed that all these legal battles are going to be tricky. But I think there's a difference, and I think the courts will recognize a difference between his rhetoric on the campaign trail and what the law actually means. And I think the court is sensitive to how a law has been interpreted over time. And it was used in 1812 and the two world wars. Those were declared wars. So I think this is very different. We're going to just remain hopeful that the courts put their foot down on this.

[Rachel Maddow]

One of the other things that Donald Trump, you know, theoretically could do would be to prosecute people who he feels speak against him in the government. Right. Whistleblowers, things like that. It doesn't feel like there'd be a ton of protection there because they're trying to get rid of the civil service protections that currently protect those who were for the government. What would you do about those?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I think that's, you know, other people at the ACLU are preparing for that, I think, but we are, from my standpoint, we are worried about non citizens being targeted for their political speech, you know, and for protesting different policies. And I think just generally what we're hearing from our clients is now they're going to be worried.

[Rachel Maddow]

We're talking about the pro Palestinian protesters have already been threatened with deportation.

[Joy Reid]

Right.

[Podcast Host]

And so the non citizens, I think, who are entitled to benefits, like the families who are separated under Trump, we have a settlement now that allows them to apply for asylum and get other benefits, reunite with their children. We are very worried that they are all going to be attacked for trying to secure those benefits. I think we're looking at things that are going to be really draconian. And I just want to pick up on one thing that you all were talking about. The American people, I think, want some reform of immigration. We want some reform of immigration, but I don't think that translates into anything goes. And I think the model for us is family separation. I think that Trump at the first term thought he had desensitized the American public to immigrants to such an extent that they would go for little children being ripped away from their families. And we saw people take to the streets. I think if we see the military in the streets or family separation again or any of these really draconian policies, I think people will push back and say, well, wait, that's not what we meant by reform border policy. And that's going to be critical. I think any civil rights lawyer will tell you it can't just be done through the courts. There has to be that public pushback. So I hope people will not take this election to be well, anything goes now on immigration. I don't think the American public on both sides of the aisle will stand for something like family separation again.

[Lee Gelernt]

But if we're really going to talk about this, there were aspects of the legal efforts against the first trial administration that worked and there were aspects that didn't work. And so I think the ACLU and other groups kind of owe it to everybody to figure that out and not just rerun the same playbook or do a whole blitz where you and other groups are always filing on everything and appealing on everything and fundraising, quite frankly, on everything. So the Democrats have to look at what worked and didn't and the legal groups do. Otherwise, you guys have kind of a race to the bottom. I mean, too specific examples is knowing what you know now. I don't think you'd run the immunity appeal all the way to the Supreme Court because you ended up getting bad law. I don't think you'd run the ballot bans up to the Supreme Court because you had different groups, Colorado and others go after Trump in a way that didn't achieve their stated goal and created another precedent for him and spent all this public time with more than one fight. So I'm curious, this is a hard question. I don't, I don't know if you have the answer tonight and you're one group among many, but if people watching agree with some of your goals but are concerned about the past playbook, are you aware of or will there be a discussion about improving that, learning from the things that didn't work and quite candidly, not filing everything everywhere to bring it up to the Supreme Court, that, as Joy, I think very, very clearly pointed out, isn't always gonna give you the precedent you want in the first place.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I mean, so obviously those two cases that you mentioned came out bad. They weren't ACLU cases. But I think we're hoping to be strategic. We always try and be strategic. And I think you're right. You can't move on every single case. But there's a difficult considerations because there are clients on the ground. And so you always have to measure that. And I think the other thing that we're going to be looking at is what constitutes a win. So even if we ultimately don't win, but we delay a policy for years and that means people are not sent back to danger, Is that a win? Even if we ultimately lose, is there.

[Lee Gelernt]

Anything you'd do different.

[Podcast Host]

Well, I think, I think we're going to do things different just because this is going to be a different playbook by them. I think they're going to be more prepared. And so we're going to have to be much more strategic in how we go about it. I think we're going to have to coordinate among groups. That's a very difficult situation when there's a lot of groups with different clients. And your point is a fair one. And I think we are going to be trying to be strategic and we have to be clear eyed about what we can win and what we can't win. And I think that's one of the reasons why I want to stress to people we need you in the streets because the courts will not always do everything for us.

[Sara Rafferty]

But is there more public acceptance or tolerance of severe immigration actions? Look at yesterday's election. Right, Right. It was two years ago that we.

[Kia Commercial Narrator]

All sat here when we watched Greg.

[Sara Rafferty]

Abbott and Ron DeSantis take migrants and bus them to other cities and said this is illegal. This shouldn't be done. But politically it worked for them and it went from being a border crisis to a migrant crisis around the country. And Donald Trump has gained more support from not Republicans who aren't saying I'm down with child separation, but who are saying I'm not comfortable with this in my city and so has he gained more support. So there's the red risk less people.

[Kia Commercial Narrator]

Could take to the streets this time.

[Sara Rafferty]

Because they have a more severe view.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I mean, that's fair. And I don't want to be Pollyannish about it, but I do think there's going to be a breaking point. I think it's one thing during the election when everyone says we want to do something about and we don't want, but there hopefully are going to be really common sense solutions that we can push back on. But I do think there are going to be lines. You're right. Has the line moved to little bit? It may very well have. And that's one of the things that keeps us up at night. I mean the legal arguments we do all the time, but how to break through and remind people that these are people fighting for their lives. And this abstract idea that Trump has about everyone's a criminal coming here and everyone's looking to take jobs, that's really the challenge for us is to get through and break through that narrative. And that's what keeps us up at night.

[Sara Rafferty]

That cruelty and desensitization decision.

[Rachel Maddow]

Yeah, indeed. We're all up with you, if that makes you feel any better. None of us are either league and learn. Thank you very much.

[Podcast Host]

Thanks for having me, Liam.

[Sara Rafferty]

Cheers. Great to have you here. Good luck to you. Yeah. Vice President Kamala Harris, in her concession speech today, made an impassioned case to continue fighting for democracy even after her defeat in this presidential race. We're going to talk about what that fight might look like in very practical terms with one of the first people to order organize the first practical opposition to the incoming Trump administration. He joins us next. Stay with us.

[Kia Commercial Narrator]

To everyone who is watching, do not despair. This is not a time to throw up our hands.

[Gina Torres]

This is a time to roll up our sleeves.

[Kia Commercial Narrator]

This is a time to organize, to mobilize, and to stay engaged.

[Ezra Levin]

Do you remember when Donald Trump was elected president the first time around, he promised to get rid of the Affordable Care act and take health insurance away from millions of people. But he couldn't exactly do that all by himself. He needed Congress to go along with it. And so when he was sworn in, the grassroots group Indivisible got to work absolutely hounding Republican members of Congress, not just in D.C. but at home in their distress, making it incredibly clear that they would immediately vote them out of office if they went along with Donald Trump's plan to kill the aca. And their efforts were a part of a larger pressure campaign that worked. Donald Trump could not persuade enough Republicans to vote for taking health insurance away from millions of Americans. Now that Donald Trump has been elected president a second time, Indivisible is gearing up for another fight. Tomorrow. They are holding a call for progressive organizers, not just from Indivisible, but from hundreds of groups across the country to start figuring out what their response to the next Trump administration will look like. No time like the present. And Ezra Levin joins us now. Ezra, thank you so much for taking the time. I'm very impressed that you're already doing this call tomorrow. So let me start with that and I want to dig into that. But first I want to ask you, you sent out an email today summarizing where things stand that included this line which really stuck out me so much that I just talked about this language a little bit earlier. You said, I believe a loss of this nature requires humility and exploration, not finger pointing. There's a whole lot of finger pointing going on. There will be more. But as you look to the challenges ahead, which is what's most important, what lessons so far are you taking away from the outcome and how are you applying them as you look to organizing people in opposition to Trump.

[Patrick Adams]

Yeah, Jen, well, thanks for having me. I wish it was under better circumstances, but I do think it's important for us to take this loss, look at it and figure out how we can do better going forward. If you look at what happened around the country, there was about a six point swing from the last election, a six point swing away from us. And one takeaway that I don't want people to have. If you are watching this and you knocked on doors or you made calls or you sent postcards or you text to get out the vote, what we saw in the battleground states where we were trying to get out the vote, most of all, we saw just a three point swing. We made up about three points through that work. Our work mattered, even if it didn't have the outcome that we wanted it to have. And so what that tells me is we just got to roll up our sleeves. Like the vice president said, we have to roll up our sleeves and do the work because that's what's going to make this democracy keep on working.

[Ezra Levin]

It's so important to hear. I mean, one of the things Yamichel Sindor was reporting from, talking to Harry folks yesterday is that a number of them were already thinking about how can they start organizing. And you are not delaying. You're not wasting any time at all. You have this call tomorrow with hundreds of progressive organizers I just mentioned, we've been discussing kind of over the last 90 minutes the range of threats that Trump poses from mass deportation to nominating RFK Jr. To siding with Russia and the war with Ukraine. I'm not even listing all the things we've been talking about. But as you approach this call, you want to hear from people. I know, but what is at the top of your list to discuss tomorrow that you feel is kind of a most immediate threat?

[Patrick Adams]

Look, I think about this in terms of short term, medium term and long term. In the short term, folks are going through the stages of grief. I'm going through the stages of grief. I think a lot of folks are. And it's important to feel those feelings and work through that. We should be in community with one another. First and foremost. There are a lot of folks around this country who are feeling very alone right now. They're feeling very scared. They're feeling like their families, their communities, their democracy is under threat. And we need to make sure that they don't feel alone. There are people in your community who feel the same way. I'm going to hop off of this and join A call with thousands of indivisible groups who are talking about how they can bring their communities together. I was on the phone with folks in Georgia who are stinging from this loss and are bringing people together for a bonfire tonight. That's important. So, first of all, we should be bringing people together, but in the medium term. Yeah, we need a plan. We need a plan. We need goals, we need strategies and tactics. So next week, Indivisible is going to be releasing a new guide with those strategies, tactics to make sure that we're fighting this anti democratic movement every step of the way. And that's the long term. Look, we have to rebuild a winning coalition. We have to. We have to. And that starts at the local level. If you are in blue states, red states, purple states, it doesn't matter. There is a role for you. We need you out there. So take your time. By all means, grieve. But build that community right now. That's the top thing on my list as I look ahead to 2025.

[Ezra Levin]

Ezra, I don't know how you're so energetic right now, but we're all grateful for it. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us.

[Sara Rafferty]

Rachel, master of practical politics, seriously. All right, we'll be right back. Stay with us.

[Rachel Maddow]

Donald Trump has vowed to completely upend the immigration system in this country. His plans would include conducting the largest deportation operation in US History through the use of mass raids as well as detention camps for undocumented migrants. We could see a return to the inhumane child separation policies from his first and administration, which President Biden is still trying to clean up and reunite those families. Trump has also announced that he will not only reimplement his travel ban that focused on Muslim majority countries, but expand the number of countries that it would cover. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed more than 400 legal challenges against Trump's first administration, have been busy this year preparing plans to respond in case Trump was successful in his presidential bid. And I'm joined now by Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants Rights Project lead. Thank you so much for being here. So let's start with mass deportation. Donald Trump has vowed to use an 18th century law that is on the books still, that he would. That would allow him to do it. I think it's the Alien Enemies Act. The Alien Enemies Act. So that's on the book. How would you stop him?

[Podcast Host]

So we think it would be illegal to use it for immigration. The law is very clear that it has to be a foreign government Doing an invasion. That's not what's involved in immigration. So we have been preparing since the wintertime for this challenge. If he actually does, go ahead and use it. And so we will say that there's no foreign government attacking us, there's no invasion. These are immigrants looking for safety, looking for a better life. This is not what it was intended to do. This is a law that was used during Japanese internment and only declared wars. It's really unthinkable to try and use it for immigration. Will the courts uphold it? That's the question exactly. But we will be challenging it.

[Rachel Maddow]

The way that Donald Trump has characterized the immigration system in the country isn't invasive. He's been using that term probably pretty deliberately. He's not some genius. I'm sure that Stephen Miller and other people who are interested in making sure they can do mass deportation have been telling him that's the way to characterize it. They're saying it is an invasion. What makes you think that John Roberts and Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas wouldn't simply reinterpret the law to say that it means exactly whatever Trump says it means?

[Podcast Host]

Right. So I don't want to predict where the court will go. I mean, I think we all have to be clear eyed that all these legal battles are going to be tricky. But I think there's a difference and I think the courts will recognize the difference between his rhetoric on the campaign trail and what the law actually means. And I think the court is sensitive to how a law has been interpreted over time. And it was used in 1812 in the two world wars. Those were declared wars. So I think this is very different. We're going to just remain hopeful that the courts put their foot down on this.

[Rachel Maddow]

One of the other things that Donald Trump, you know, theoretically could do would be to prosecute people who he feels speak against him in the government. Right. Whistleblowers, things like that. It doesn't feel like there'd be a ton of protection there because they're trying to get rid of the civil service protections that currently protect those who work for the government. What would you do about those?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I think that's, you know, other people at the ACLU are preparing for that, I think, but we are, from my standpoint, we are worried about non citizens being targeted for their political speech, you know, and for protesting different policies. And I think just generally what we're hearing from our clients is now they're going to be worried.

[Rachel Maddow]

We're talking about the pro Palestinian protesters have already been threatened with deportation.

[Sara Rafferty]

Right.

[Podcast Host]

And so it's a non citizens, I think, who are entitled to benefits like the families were separated under Trump. We have a settlement now that allows them to apply for asylum and get other, other benefits, reunite with their children. We are very worried that they are all going to be attacked for trying to secure those benefits. I think we're looking at things that are going to be really draconian. And I just want to pick up on one thing that you all were talking about. The American people, I think, want some reform of immigration. We want some reform of immigration, but I don't think that translates into anything goes. And I think the model for us is family separation. I think that Trump, the first term, thought he had desensitized the American public to immigrants to such an extent that they would go for little children being ripped away, away from their families. And we saw people take to the streets. I think if we see the military in the streets or family separation again, or any of these really draconian policies, I think people will push back and say, well, wait, that's not what we meant by reforming border policy. And that's going to be critical. I think any civil rights lawyer will tell you it can't just be done through the courts. There has to be that public pushback. So I hope people will not take this election to be, well, anything goes now on immigration. I don't think the American public on both sides of the aisle will stand for something like family separation again.

[Lee Gelernt]

But if we're really going to talk about this, there were aspects of the legal efforts against the first Trump administration that worked, and there were aspects that didn't work. And so I think the ACLU and other groups kind of owe it to everybody to figure that out and not just rerun the same playbook or do a whole blitz where you and other groups are always filing on everything and appealing on everything and fundraising, quite frankly, on everything. So the Democrats have to look at what worked and didn't, and the legal groups do. Otherwise, you guys have kind of a race to the bottom. I mean, two specific examples is, knowing what you know now, I don't think you'd run the immunity appeal all the way to the Supreme Court because you ended up getting bad law. I don't think you'd run the ballot bans up to the Supreme Court court, because he had different groups, Colorado and others go after Trump in a way that didn't achieve their stated goal and created another precedent for him and spent all this public time with more than one fight. So I'm curious. This is a hard question. I don't know if you have the answer tonight and you're one group among many, but if people watching agree with some of your goals but are concerned about the past playbook, are you aware of or will there be a discussion about improving that learning, learning from the things that didn't work and quite candidly, not filing everything everywhere to bring it up to the Supreme Court, that, as Joy, I think very, very clearly pointed out, isn't always going to give you the precedent you want in the first place.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I mean, so obviously those two cases that you mentioned came out bad. They weren't ACLU cases. But I think we're hoping to be strategic. We always try and be strategic. And I think you're right. You can't move on every single case. But there's a difficult considerations because there are clients on the ground. And so you always have to measure that. And I think the other thing that we're going to be looking at is what constitutes a win. So even if we ultimately don't win, but we delay a policy for years and that means people are not sent back to danger, is that a win? Even if we ultimately lose, is there.

[Lee Gelernt]

Anything you'd do different?

[Podcast Host]

Well, I think, I think we're going to do things different just because this is going to be a different playbook by them. I think they're going to be more prepared. And so we're going to have to be much more strategic in how we go about it. I think we're going to have to coordinate among groups. That's a very difficult situation when there's a lot of groups with different clients. Your point is a fair one. And I think we are going to be trying to be strategic and we have to be clear eyed about what we can win and what we can't win. And I think that's one of the reasons why I want to stress to people we need you in the streets because the courts will not always do everything for us.

[Sara Rafferty]

But is there more public acceptance or tolerance of severe immigration actions? Look at yesterday's election.

[Podcast Host]

Right?

[Sara Rafferty]

Right. It was two years ago that we.

[Kia Commercial Narrator]

All sat here when we watched Greg.

[Sara Rafferty]

Abbott and Ron DeSantis take migrants and bust them to other cities and said this is illegal, this shouldn't be done. But politically it worked for them and it went from being a border crisis to a migrant crisis around the country. And Donald Trump has gained more support from not Republicans who aren't saying I'm down with child separation, but who are saying I'm not comfortable with this in my city. And so has he gained more support? So there's the risk less people could.

[Kia Commercial Narrator]

Take to the streets this time because.

[Sara Rafferty]

They have a more severe view.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I mean, that's fair. And I don't want to be Pollyanna ish about it, but I do think there's going to be a breaking point. I think it's one thing during the election when everyone says we want to do something about and we don't want, but there hopefully are going to be really common sense solutions that we can push back on. But I do think there are going to be lines. You're right. Has the line moved a little bit? It may very well have. And that's one of the things that keeps us up at night. I mean, the legal arguments we do all the time, but how to break through and remind people that these are people fighting for their lives. And this abstract idea that Trump has about everyone's a criminal coming, coming here, and everyone's looking to take jobs, that's really the challenge for us, is to get through and break through that narrative. And that's what keeps us up at.

[Sara Rafferty]

Night, that cruelty and desensitization.

[Rachel Maddow]

Yeah, indeed. We're all up with you, if that makes you feel any better. None of us are either. League and learn. Thank you very much.

[Podcast Host]

Thanks for having me, Liam.

[Sara Rafferty]

Cheers. Great to have you here. Good luck to you. Yeah. Vice President Kamala Harris, in her concession speech today, made an impassioned case to continue fighting for democracy even after her defeat in this presidential race. We're going to talk about what that fight might look like in very practical terms with one of the first people to organize the first practical opposition to the incoming Trump administration. He joins us next. Stay with us.

[Kia Commercial Narrator]

To everyone who is watching, do not despair. This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves. This is a time to organize, to mobilize, and to stay engaged.

[Ezra Levin]

Do you remember when Donald Trump was elected president? The first time around, he promised to get rid of the Affordable Care act and take health insurance away from millions of people. But he couldn't exactly do that all by himself. He needed Congress to go along with it. And so when he was sworn in, the grassroots group Indivisible got to work absolutely hounding Republican members of Congress, not just in D.C. but at home in their districts, making it incredibly clear that they would immediately vote them out of office if they went along with Donald Trump's plan to kill the ACA and their efforts were a part of a larger pressure campaign that worked. Donald Trump could not persuade enough Republicans to vote for taking health insurance away from millions of Americans. Now that Donald Trump has been elected president a second time, Indivisible is gearing up for another fight tomorrow. They are holding a call for progressive organizers, not just from Indivisible, but from hundreds of groups across the country to start figuring out what their response to the next Trump administration will look like. No time like the present. And Ezra Levin joins us now. Ezra, thank you so much for taking the time. I'm very impressed that you're already doing this call tomorrow. So let me start with that and I want to dig into that. But first I want to ask you, you sent out an email today summarizing where things stand that included this line which really stuck out to me so much that I just talked about this language a little bit earlier. You said, I believe a loss of this nature requires humility and exploration, not finger pointing. There's a whole lot of finger pointing going on. There will be more. But as you look to the challenges ahead, which is what's most important, what lessons so far are you taking away from the outcome and how are you applying them as you look to organizing people in opposition to Trump?

[Patrick Adams]

Yeah, Jen, well, thanks for having me. I wish it was under better circumstances, but I do think it's important for us to take this loss, look at it and figure out how we can do better going forward. If you look at what happened around the country, there was about a six point swing from the last election, a six point swing away from us. And one takeaway that I don't want people to have. If you are watching this and you knocked on doors or you made calls or you sent postcards or you sent texts to get out the vote, what we saw in the battleground states where we were trying to get out the vote, most of all, we saw just a three point swing. We made up about three points through that work. Our work mattered even if it didn't have the outcome that we wanted it to have. And so what that tells me is we just got to roll up our sleeves. Like the vice president said, we have to roll up our sleeves and do the work because that's what's going to make this democracy keep on working.

[Ezra Levin]

It's so important to hear. I mean, one of the things you, Michele Sandor was reporting from, talking to Harris folks yesterday, is that a number of them were already thinking about how can they start organizing? And you are not delaying. You're not Waiting and wasting any time at all. You have this call tomorrow with hundreds of progressive organizers I just mentioned we've been discussing kind of over the last 90 minutes the range of threats that Trump poses, from mass deportation to nominating RFK Jr. To siding with Russia in the war with Ukraine. I'm not even listing all the things we've been talking about. But as you approach this call, you want to hear from people. I know. But what is at the top of your list to discuss tomorrow that you feel is kind of a most immediate threat?

[Patrick Adams]

Look, I think about this in terms of short term, medium term, and long term. In the short term, folks are going through the stages of grief. I'm going through the stages of grief. I think a lot of folks are. And it's important to feel those feelings and work through that. We should be in community with one another. First and foremost. There are a lot of folks around this country who are feeling very alone right now. They're feeling very scared. They're feeling like their families, their communities, their democracy is under threat. And we need to make sure that they don't feel alone. There are people in your community who feel the same way. I'm going to hop off of this and join a call with thousands of indivisible groups who are talking about how they can bring their communities together. I was on the phone with folks in Georgia who are stinging from this loss and are bringing people together for a bonfire tonight. That's important. So, first of all, we should be bringing people together, but in the medium term. Yeah, we need a plan. We need a plan. We need goals. We need strategies and tactics. So next week, Indivisible is going to be releasing a new guide with those strategies, tactics, politics, to make sure that we're fighting this anti democratic movement every step of the way. And that's the long term. Look, we have to rebuild a winning coalition. We have to. We have to. And that starts at the local level. If you are in blue states, red states, purple states, it doesn't matter. There is a role for you. We need you out there. So take your time. By all means, grieve. But build that community. Right now, that's the top thing on my list as I look ahead to 2025.

[Ezra Levin]

Ezra, I don't know how you're so energetic right now, but we're all grateful for it. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us.

[Sara Rafferty]

Rachel, master of practical politics, seriously. All right, we'll be right back.

[Joy Reid]

Stay with us.

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