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tv   The Last Word With Lawrence O Donnell  MSNBC  May 17, 2024 7:00pm-8:00pm PDT

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a high-profile commencement speech that articulates all of those values, in a time when the movement is so clearly at odds with public sentiment on all of these issues. how much does it matter for a movement that is largely intended on doing things that have no public support in the name of putting america in reverse?>> i hope it matters to the extent that it convinces people to go out and vote, many people are starting to falsely equate the political parties and resigning themselves to stay at home because there's no difference. that cannot be further from the truth and that commencement address combined with all the other things in the works, whether it is reviving the federal ban on abortion or many of the other things like dismantling no-fault divorce laws, these are all real choices that the american public faces in the upcoming election.>> it's always great to hear from you, thank you for your time this friday night.
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that is our show for tonight, now it is time for the last word with my friend, good evening. >> excellent show, nice to see you and have yourself an excellent weekend. thanks, alex. men at sometimes are masters of their fate, the fault is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings. if you are a lover of shakespeare, that passage from julius caesar might be on your mind right now because this week we saw mega faithful republicans make the latest trump pilgrimage, at the trial of a man accused of making hush money payments to the former star, stormy daniels to stop her from going public with their affair during the 2016 election. and we saw these republicans indoctrinated by trump, do this not once, not even twice, but
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three times. three times. monday, tuesday and yesterday, three different groups of the brigade, most of the members of the legislative branch of our federal government skipped out on their day jobs to do donald trump spitting and attacked this nation's criminal justice system. we have never seen anything like this. and while this display is a lot of things, unethical, antidemocratic, demoralizing and just really cringe he, is -- it is also weird, it is phenomenally bizarre. imagine trying to explain what is happening right now, this week to yourself from 10 years ago. remember 2014 before donald trump came down the escalator and began his one-man mission of destroying every norm he possibly could in american politics? imagine telling that version of
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yourself from 10 years ago that the guy from the reality show has rendered the republican party into a bunch of servile fans willing to attack the criminal justice system for a guy on criminal trial in a cover-up scandal involving a star. the party of lincoln, they call it, the law and order party. and these are members of congress making this track including the speaker of the house of representatives, people elected by voters like you and me. people whose salaries are paid for with our taxes, yours and mine. these lackeys are playing hooky from their day jobs to parade before reporters at the behest of their dear leader who has conditioned them into this madness. this is the boiling frog experiment on steroids. imagine if you told your boss you were going to miss tomorrow's appointment because you had it -- a friend who is
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not really a friend on trial for something like this. they did not go unnoticed on capitol hill this week, that was especially true in republican-led house committee hearings where those republicans are attacking his campaign rival, president biden and his attorney general, merrick garland. >> it is nice to see that some of my colleagues on the other side could make it today, i don't know if that means there weren't enough seats in the courtroom but i know that the oversight committee cancel the hearing that was supposed to happen right now on this matter so they could be at the presidents trial and some members will miss this vote because they want to be at the presidents trial and i don't think that anything could animate the phrase, do-nothing congress more than missing votes and canceling hearings to go up and be a spectator at your cult leaders trial. that is the definition of do-
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nothing congress.>> these hearings are investigations themselves in search of a crime. late last night, when the aforementioned committee meeting did finally happen, republicans started even more chaos.>> do you know what we are here for? i don't think you know what we are here for. i think your fake eyelashes are messing everything up.>> order. order.>> i would like to move to take down miss greene's words. that is absolutely unacceptable, how dare you talk about the appearance of somebody else, oh, girl, baby girl, don't even play.>> i'm just curious, to better understand your ruling, if somebody on this committee, as far as talking about somebody's bleach blonde, bad built body,
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that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?>> of what now? i don't think that is part of the -- >> i'm trying to find clarification of -- >> i have no idea what you just said.>> we are not going to do this.>> you just voted to do this.>> that is what got all the attention, what didn't the attention are moments like this from congresswoman crockett who will join us in a moment. >> this idea of lacking all decorum, decency has left the building when the stench of donald trump showed up. so, we have seen constantly from him how he mocks people, we have seen in this committee how different members want to mock other members and that is all this is about. if this was so important as it relates to whether or not the
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president of the united states has done something so wrong, then why is it that we couldn't have our hearing at 11:00 this morning instead of members being in a criminal courthouse with the twice impeached over 88 count indicted, sexual abuser, instead of being here to do the work of the american people if this was serious.>> it wasn't just democrats calling out the caravan of republicans groveling to trump, earlier this week, lisa murkowski said do we have something to do around here other than watch a stupid trial? this is ridiculous. it is a fair question, because the answer is yes. members of congress do have a lot more things to do except that is not what republicans do anymore, they don't work with democrats to find common ground and pass laws to make life better for americans like you and me. like the frogs in the boiling pot, trump has conditioned them
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to spread the american carnage that he talked about in his very first moments as president on his inauguration day. the number of republicans who remain unwilling to bend the knee is growing smaller and smaller. this week of insanity was finished with the new york times reporting yet another trump induced controversy. after the 2020 presidential election, as some supporters falsely claimed that president biden had stolen the office, many of them displayed a startling symbol outside their homes on their cars, and online posts. an upside down american flag. one of the homes flying inadvertent flags during the time was the residence of supreme court justice samuel alito in alexandria, virginia. according to photographs and interviews with neighbors. we will have more on that story later this hour, but first we begin our conversation with jasmine crockett, democrat of
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texas. and a member of the house oversight committee, also civil rights and criminal defense attorney whom we have known for some time, we knew her when she was in the texas legislature and observer back then, would have realized that if somebody picks a fight with you, one has to expect it will get a fight back.>> absolutely, and thank you so much for showing that i was trying to engage in something of substance in the committee hearing as well because unfortunately the drama is the only thing that anyone knows about what happened yesterday. but when we talk about whether or not republicans are serious about doing the work of the people, you have to juxtapose the fact that the speaker of the house specifically disinvited the president of kenya for a joint address to congress because he said we are just too busy, we have too many things to do. and these people don't even show up for work and instead,
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by the time they come in, all they do is reek chaotic havoc.>> let's talk about this concept of that oversight hearing, the things that are getting discussed as we described it, it is an investigation in search of a crime. there is a crime that is being tried in a court but this congress seems fixated on doing things about and around donald trump. at some point when you go back to your district, people must be telling you this can't be what they expect congress to be doing.>> absolutely not. my district wants me to work on real issues such as my constituent, eugene gates who worked for the postal service and died under terrible working conditions, they want us to investigate that and come up with things to make sure we can save lives. but, this particular committee has decided because they have engaged in failure after failure, that now we want to point to ag garland and because
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we weren't able to get the homeland security secretary and because we weren't able to get the president, now let's decide we are going to go after the attorney general and instead say hold him in contempt. another thing that wasn't highlighted, they talked about throwing him in jail. imagine this, they want to throw him in jail because they say we did get the audio recordings of the voluntary statement that was given by the president of the united states. we have the transcripts and you heard james comer say last night, i've got two hearing aids, i cannot hear . so why he needs the audio, i'm still confused. but nevertheless, they want to put him in jail for that yet they want to defend trump for something so much more egregious and act like he should not be in jail at all. that is who these people are.>> but isn't that the problem, because at one point, mike johnson said this about
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impeachment, once you start going down this road, everybody does it to everybody. they are distracting from donald trump's alleged criminality by turning our policy issues, if you don't like what the homeland security secretary is doing, that is a policy issue. if you don't like what the attorney general is doing, it is the same thing, they are turning policy disputes into something that is meant to look like criminality. >> absolutely, because they want to make it seem as if everyone is on the same level as trump and the reality is, trump is in the basement. the rest of us are residing above the basement and you think about this, what are we dealing with right now with the supreme court? we are dealing with lawyers that are saying he needs to have a pass to commit crimes while he is president and the supreme court is listening and weighing in on this as if it is anything to think about. this is what we have devolved in, this is why we saw all of
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the chaos yesterday with marjorie taylor greene. this is why we saw chaos last week. so there is no both sides are equally bad, that is not the truth. the reality is that once marjorie broke the rules yesterday, james comer decided he wasn't going to enforce the rules and i decided that i didn't sign up to come to congress to be anybody's doormat, so therefore i was not going to violate the rules but because i understand the rules, i decided to just ask the parliament inquiry.>> i want to ask you about your state of texas because an interesting thing happened, for people following the story, with the governor of texas is saying is not what actually happened, a man was found guilty last year of shooting and murdering gary foster, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. governor abbott said at the
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time that if the board of pardons and parole's would pardon him, he would pardon perry and that is exactly what happened. daniel perry shot a man, he had a gun as he was licensed to have in texas, he was not aiming it at anybody. and your governor in texas claims that this is a stand your ground case.>> yeah, he decided that, it is disrespectful to the judicial system yet again, it is a matter of when they talk about a two-tier justice system, this is what we see because you had a white officer that ended up killing a black man and because he was supposedly associated with black lives matter, the governor feels as if you can go out and kill them. there was more outrage when we started talking about kristi noem and her killing a dog than what we did when people kill actual people and yes, black folk in this country are people as well and this is what we get
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when we decide, you know what, i'm not racist but i'm going to vote for him because i like his tax policies. let me tell you, you are supporting racism when you allow these types of people to go ahead and ascend to the highest level of power and let me tell you the real two-tiered justice system is the one that says this guy gets out of jail for taking a life while this other guy is not even facing three of the four indictments that are pending as he is currently trying to ascend to the most powerful position that we have in this country and ultimately potentially wreak the same level of havoc because we know that he was also letting his criminal friends out of prison when he had the power as well.>> and he said he will do so again if he gets the presidency again. good to see you, thank you for joining us. we appreciate your time as always. coming up, most
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republicans are actively embracing donald trump's attack on the rule of law and of the criminal justice system, it is a scary escalation when combined with donald trump asking the supreme court for immunity for any and all crimes he may have committed as president. stuart stevens joins us next. ut but this is my story. ( ♪♪ ) and with once-daily trelegy, it can still be beautiful. because with 3 medicines in 1 inhaler, trelegy keeps my airways open for a full 24 hours and prevents future flare-ups. trelegy also improves lung function, so i can breathe more freely all day and night. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis.
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another effective donald trump and carnage seeping into our lives, he says increasingly crazy stuff and nobody pays attention to it, for example, this past saturday during a rally in new jersey, he memorialized somebody who is not a real person, is a serial killer, and is a cannibal.>> the late great hannibal lector is a wonderful man, he would often times have a friend for dinner. i'm about to have a friend for
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dinner, but congratulations, the late great hannibal lecter.>> if another candidate said anything like that, you would never hear the end of it. our existing ways of understanding politics cannot adequately make sense of something that bunkers coming out of the mouth of a major presidential candidate and hundreds of people cheered and kept listening to him, seems like it needs a psychiatrist to analyze it, it is incomprehensible, so the news moves on because donald trump is also on trial in criminal court. also a new rock-bottom for a former american president. this week he complained outside the courtroom about the legal jeopardy he has created for himself saying things that are complete and total lies.>> everyone is laughing, major companies with tremendous taxpayer dollars and employers
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of millions of people literally, people are leaving, they are taking their companies and their own lives in this case.>> what is he talking about? first and foremost, that is a blatant lie, it is also a ridiculous thing to say. it reminds me of that moment in austin powers when dr. evil says this.>> my father would woman eyes, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. joining us now is stuart stevens . senior adviser at the lincoln project and partner at resolute square, pro-democracy media platform, he's the author of "it was all a lie." it is obscure that we would be on tv talking about a silly austin powers quote, the hannibal lecter stuff, but he
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just says it and i'm not entirely sure what we should do, what you do when a former president starts talking about hannibal lecter, do you move on or do you say this is to crazy to comprehend? >> if you look at donald trump eight years ago, he sounds like a very different person, he was mean, he was racist, he was sexist, but he wasn't in the cognitive decline that he is in now. this is a guy who is on a fast track to dementia and we should talk about that because it is extraordinarily dangerous that he becomes president of the united states. do you want to give nuclear weapons to somebody that is up there talking about hannibal lecter as if he is a real person? this is just a man who is in
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decline and he should never be president.>> but there is a right and left and there are people that have opinions as they should across the political spectrum and i would think that this is a great time for some of those people to do what people like you have done and said whatever my beliefs are, wherever i like on the ideological spectrum, it is not getting achieved with this guy. we are not furthering our debate in american politics with this guy and yet they lineup, they have no business going there, and yet they go.>> you know, i'm ashamed, it was a useful instrument in civil society. you know, this is why i call this book, it was all a lie because i don't know what conclusion you can come to. and this party, this was the
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party, they are dressed as some sort of a.i.d.s. in a boy band reunion, and talking about a guy that wants to be the president of the united states, who is accused of having sex with a porn star. when i worked for bush, the single most powerful message we had in the campaign, restore the honor of the white house, it worked better than anything else because it resonated with people. i still think that the republican party is out of step in america and i think it's one of the reasons that joe biden is going to win resoundingly in the fall.>> we will leave it on that note, that is positive, good to see you as always, thank you for joining us. coming up, we already knew the
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wife of clarence thomas was at the trump rally before the attack on the capital and was rapidly urging mark meadows to overturn the election results. now the new york times is reporting that days after the january 6 attack, an american flag was flown upside down at the home of supreme court justice samuel alito, a symbol that was used as an indication of support for donald trump's attempt to overturn the election. those two justices are considering whether to give donald trump immunity for the crimes he allegedly committed including up to and on january 6. that story is next. is next.
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tonight, we have two question the impartiality of two supreme court justices as it relates to cases before them involving the january 6 insurrection, including whether donald trump has absolute immunity from prosecution for trying to steal the election. the new york times is reporting that for days following the january 6 attack at the capital, neighbors saw that the american flag displayed outside the home of the conservative justice, samuel alito had been turned upside down. inverting the american flag has been used by some trunk supporters including at the capital, who believe his lies that the 2020 election was stolen. in an emailed statement to the new york times, samuel alito
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said i had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag, it was briefly placed by mrs. alito in response to a neighbor's use of personally insulting language on yard signs. today, samuel alito offered this justification to fox, who posted, he told me a neighbor on their street had an f trump sign that was 50 feet from a school bus stop. and the neighbor put up a sign personally addressing mrs. alito and blaming her for the january 6 attacks. the justice said he and his wife were walking in the neighborhood and there were words between mrs. alito and a male at the home with the sign. the man engaged in vulgar language. following the exchange, she was distraught and hung the flag
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upside down for a short time. justice alito said some neighbors on his street are very political and acknowledges that it was a very heated time. let's consider what samuel alito did not say in any of those explanations. samuel alito did not explain why his wife's reaction to the trump sign and being insulted was to hang an american flag upside down in the days after january 6. the host of the daily goes even further, writing crucially, alito doesn't deny the flag was flying upside down , doesn't deny its meaning, doesn't express any disapproval for it and doesn't disavow it. and the new york times reports that given the timing and starkness of the symbol, neighbors interpreted the
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inverted flag as a political statement by the couple. so now we have not one but two supreme court justices who appear to be at least openly and in support of one political candidate and neither samuel alito nor clarence thomas have recused themselves of statements decided by this court, right now directly influencing how donald trump and other generally six defendants can be prosecuted for their alleged crimes. democrats are calling on samuel alito to recuse himself immediately including the chairman who said flying an upside down american flag is a symbol of the so-called stop the steel movement, clearly creating the appearance of bias. justice alito should recuse himself immediately from the cases related to the 2020 election and the january 6 insurrection, including immunity. the court is an ethical crisis of its own making and justice
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alito and the rest of the court should be doing everything in their power to regain public trust. joining us now is the democratic congressman, eric swalwell, he is suing donald trump over the january 6 right. and a former united states attorney and professor at university of alabama school of law and nbc legal analyst and senior fellow at the center for justice at nyu law. thank you for being with us. let me start with you on the political side of this, because as i read this, and i had this conversation with my executive producer, i think we should wait to see whether alito has a reasonable explanation for this, whatever, there might have been a reasonable explanation and yet he offered an explanation and at no point did he say shouldn't have done
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that, didn't mean that to be a symbol of stop the steel. he just left it hanging for us to understand, that yeah he hung it upside down, or at least his wife did.>> justice alito 's excuse, it is not a reason, is as upside down as the flag that he and his wife flew outside their house and by the way, for democrats, this is a flashing warning sign for us that the supreme court matters and if we don't tie the presidency as we go into this election, are we talking about it activates or at the convention, and how we talk about it to voters, we are going to pay the price for decades for having extreme judges on the bench. one other point, and i'm sure joyce would make this point, too. i can tell you, the most important attribute for any
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judge that presides over any case is judicial temperament. so, even if you weren't buying his excuse, what does it say about a justice that he and his wife are so easily baited by a disagreement on the clock that their response would be to just completely throw out the window any perception of independence that he should have, that means to me that he certainly should not be presiding over the most serious cases that come before the court, and certainly should not preside over any case that has to do with january 6.>> let's dig into this because there are two very distinct points, there is a point in the story that justice alito gives to this reporter of fox, that i get, there was a fight, people whether they are justices or judges or lawyers or regular people have a right to be miffed by something a neighbor might have said. how it got from there to an
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upside down flag and what that is supposed to mean is one matter that i would like you to talk about and the second one is how we deal with the fact that there is a case before justice alito and his colleagues having to do with donald trump and his behavior related to the election and january 6. >> you know, this shouldn't be a difficult situation to deal with, if this was a democratic supreme court justice who had done it, i think we know what the answer would be. this is a situation that happens in the wake of january 6, the inauguration of joe biden has not yet happened and the upside down flag has become a symbol of the stop the steal movement. and the flag is up for a couple of days, we don't know exactly for how long, the justice drives in and out of his home during those days, my husband was just a state court judge, but if one of our kids did
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something like that, he would have immediately taken it down and reminded the kids, that he had the obligation to preserve the appearance of absolute neutrality and to live that. that is your obligation as a judge, to be a fair judge and neutral. it is even higher obligation for supreme court justice and the problem is, we have a supreme court that it is up to each justice to decide what their own behavior should look like, so i think congressman swalwell is absolutely right when he says we have to put this on the ballot , this is something that democrats have done very successfully, from the federalist society for decades. the president appoints the supreme court justices and that is a very important policy, and we need to see that that happens on both sides of the aisle and if democrats believe in these principles, then they
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need to make sure that people in their party understand the impact of appointing supreme court justices.>> and we do have agency and we do have the vote and all of that can be achieved if americans understand what the stakes are and of course you combine that with all the other stakes including reproductive freedoms and the climate and the situation in the world around us. that should be obvious. except there's a lot of time between now and the election and any one of these days we are expecting to hear from that supreme court on this matter of donald trump's immunity and neither justice alito or justice thomas have shown any interest in hearing the concerns and complaints of people who think they may have been affected by their spouses involvement or their own views on this matter.>> i think we need to do two things, one, the public sentiment should persist, that is powerful, so your viewers have agency as well to express their outrage
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and belief, and thomas should recuse. but in congress, we should make it clear, in the democratic majority when we achieve that in november, that we will seek to put a code of ethics in place and jeffries put out a statement today saying that in the majority we will seek to do that. i have long resisted being a part of the effort to call for that and maybe it's because i had some high-minded concept that the supreme court would be able to police themselves but justice thomas and alito have shown that they can't, even if chief justice roberts wants that to happen , and his genuine efforts to bring them to that, they are not going to do it unless congress puts it into law and has penalties for any violations.>> is that likely, is that something that is likely to happen in our super polarized world?>> it is a tough lift, there's questions about whether it is constitutional but i regretfully come to the same
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conclusion. and when you think about it, these rules exist on a mandatory basis for all of the judges in the lower courts, the courts of appeals, federal district court judges across the country are bound by ethical guidelines and the problem here is that the supreme court justices have repeatedly proven that voluntary guidelines don't work. there has to be something more. it is not a straight jump. every judge isn't forced to recuse for the infraction but there is this notion of accountability and if judges and justices are asking all of us to be accountable under the law then we should expect the same from them.>> thank you to both of you, i appreciate your analysis tonight, congressman eric swalwell and joyce vance, thank you. coming up, the stock market is at record highs, good news for many people invested in the stock market, how does the biden team talk about the positives while still hearing
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the first ever record close above 30,000, 10 seconds till the end of a wonderful trading week. >> it is news even fox could not deny, the stocks are
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soaring under president biden, today for the first time in history, the dow jones closed above 40,000. in the very last second of trading, the dow set a lid -- settled at about 40,039, all optimistic on the stock front.>> i have been an economic reporter since before the dow crossed 40,000 for the first time, and i never loved leaning too far into the stock orchid as the most important of economic measures, and i have shared the view that presidents get too much blame and credit for the performance of the stock market, not everybody agrees with me, including the former president of the united states, the stark stock market is donald trump's absolute favorite metric. and this is breaking his brain a bit as you see here. >> the biden team can say well, if things are so bad, how come the stock market is on a roll?>> because they think i'm going to be elected.>> joining
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us now, robert rice, i'm not sure if even he can explain what donald trump is saying, he is cofounder of any quality media is going to become relevant in this conversation because whenever we talk about the stock market, the question of inequality does come up, let's just talk about it for a moment. we have on macros, we have wages that are rising faster than inflation, we've got inflation that has cooled to some degree, but not as much as the fed would have liked. we have a strong gdp, a lot of people involved in the economy, under 4% unemployment. talk to me about the stock market and how viewers should be thinking about it tonight. >> first of all, as you indicated, let me just underscore that the stock market is not the economy and inequality does play a big role in analyzing how important the stock market is, the richest 1%
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of americans own about 52% of all of the shares of stocks americans own. and the richest 10% own about 93% of all the shares. so if the stock market does very well, that is great, but it's not helping most americans.>> good, let's dispense of it for a moment, because the things that do help americans our jobs, wages and affordability. if you are locked into a mortgage, at 3% or something for 30 years, you are doing fine. if you are renting today in major american cities, and that is a long-term infrastructure, things are tough. are tough major american cities, and that's a long-term infrastructure problem on our part, things are tough. your inflation rate looks very different than mine does. >> exactly, and high interest rates, olle, are something that are not talked about very much
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in terms of lower income people and their effect on lower income people, but the fact of b the matter is it's not only mortgages and rents, the higher interest rates affect but also auto loans and all the bank credit cards and credit card fees and a load of really low income people are being hurt co badly by high interest rates. >> so bob, here is the problem. people want joe biden and his administration to go out and talk about the actual things that airmac doing in the economy that are good for the long- term. there is a lot of infrastructure building, a lot of chips, things like that and some of these short term gains but in particular, progressives wanted to be recognized that we still have remarkable inequality. we still have some people for whom inflation is hard to control. how do you message that? what is the message right now that what is biden doing that's good and what is it, you tell
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people that are dissatisfied with him? i'm not talking about the critics who just carry on about biden's failed economy. i'm talking about real evil who say this is still an unequal society. >> you say yes it is unequal society and joe biden is the first president in years, in fact arguably the first resident since franklin d roosevelt who has really taken on the structure of the economyu in terms of using antitrust law to break up some of the biggest monopolies, making the labor laws really work for people, making it easier for workers to organize unions but increasing the number of people who get time and a half over time, and we could go through the list, and it's also meaning a lot of new manufacturing jobs. the chips act and the other major investments that joe biden has made really are very much about building the middle class in this country. it's going to take time. this
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is not something that can be done overnight and it's not ne going to be very persuasive to people that are cynical about op the economy and feel they are not getting it, to say you're doing very, very well that doesn't work. you've got to say well here is the direction the economy is taking under joe biden, here is why biden is doing it and here is why you are, and your children are going to be much better off in the years ahead. >> i'm going to leave it at that because anything else i at say is only going to spoil that very articulate message. bob oliver good to see you as always. robert price joining us al tonight. tonight's last word is next. or. hahaha. and if you have cut rate car insurance, odds are you'll be paying for that yourself. so, get allstate. well i was on my regular route, when i find this note... bring rings to beach wedding? fedex presents tall tales of true deliveries. so i grabbed the rings and hustled down the beach. who has the rings? i do... i mean, i do.
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shell renewable race fuel. reducing emissions by 60%. ♪♪ we're moving forward with indycar. because we're moving forward with everybody. shell. powering progress. this sunday in atlanta president biden will deliver the commencement address at morehouse college, an historically black college that counts the reverend dr. martin luther king jr. mack is one of its graduates. ahead of the speech, president biden spoke to an atlanta radio station yesterday about what his administration has done for black georgia residents. >> we created 15 million new
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jobs. we built black wealth backup. black wealth is up 60% since the pandemic. black ownership is built. i'm fighting back against racial bias and home appraisal. nearly 1 million new business applications after investing hundreds of millions of dollars in small businesses in the state. saved 76,000 black homeowners more than 800 bucks a month, i promised to relieve student dad and i did. $150 billion in student loan debt and nearly 4.6 million borrowers including many black growers in georgia. >> president biden will return to atlanta on june 27 to debate former president donald trump for the first debate of the 2024 presidential campaign. in the 2020 election, president biden won georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes. a new msnbc film debuting this sunday tells the story of how democrats turned georgia blue in 2020, overcoming a history of voter suppression to do it. >> grassroots organizers have
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played an enormous role in getting georgia to a rate of 95% of all age eligible georgians registered to vote. 95% >> what kind of letter did you get? >> it said unregistered. >> are you registered in ohio? >> i don't live there. i was three years ago. >> well they're doing a list and i want to make sure you were not taken off the rolls here. >> i'm inspired of the resolve that i see with people waiting out there for two or three hours and there's something about people really being grounded in a form of resistance. we know, yeah, we should be out here waiting and yes, there are a whole lot of things i could probably be doing in these hours but now i want to stay in this space. >> former vice president joe biden has been elected
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president of the united states. >> the people of this nation have spoken. they delivered us a clear victory. >> we were not surprised by the election. we were not surprised by the results. we are not surprised that georgia is at the center of the universe and flipping this whole country because a number of us have done the work and built the base that made it possible. >> you can watch battleground georgia sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. i'll see you tomorrow morning on vele she. if you're in the chicago area i might see you in person. i'll be at the chicago humanities festival tomorrow along with my friend and colleague, jen psaki. i'll be at herman hall at 3:00 p.m. for a conversation about the responsibilities of citizenship and social justice and my small book, small acts of courage. for tickets go to chicago humanities.org. hope to see you tomorrow.