But we begin tonight with the remarkable split screen this
week from the two major parties presidential candidates.
On Tuesday, while Donald Trump was in a Manhattan courtroom
for the second day of his criminal trial,
President Biden was in his childhood hometown of Scranton,
PA, campaigning like a normal candidate,
laying out his tax plan That includes ending Trump's tax
cut for billionaires and tax relief and economic boosts for
regular Americans.
During her stay in court,
the presumptive Republican nominee spent his time looking agitated and
getting admonished by the judge for intimidating A juror.
Later in the day, he transitioned to campaigning,
visiting a New York City bodega.
Which, you know, seems totally normal for a campaign,
right? Oh yeah. It was one where years ago,
an employee killed a man
during an altercation. The bodega visit was organized by the
New York Young Republicans Club,
which you might remember as the group that hosted A
gala featuring white nationalists in
2022, and whose leader Gavin Wax,
who was also at the bodega campaign stop,
infamously told supporters at an event attended by Trump last
last December.
And I quote once President Trump is back in office,
we won't be playing nice anymore.
It will be a time for retribution.
All those responsible for destroying our once great country will
be held to account after baseless years of investigations and
government lies and media lies against this man.
To which Trump said Gavin,
that was an excellent speech.
Today we had another remarkable split,
a remarkable split screen. President Biden was in Pittsburgh talking
about the economy
under my predecessor, who's busy right now,
Pennsylvania lost
275,000 jobs. I mean, let's let's look at the facts
on my watch. Unemployment hasn't been this low for this
long in 50 years.
And where's Trump? Well, he's using his one day off
from court this week to have dinner tonight with the
right wing president of Poland,
Andres Duda. Duda is a semi autocrat who,
much like Trump's favorite European autocrat,
Hungary's Viktor Orban, has clamped down on the press and
judiciary and feuded with the European Union.
He also once proposed naming a Polish military base sport
Trump prompting much mockery in Poland.
But unlike Orban, Duda is a staunch supporter of Ukraine
in its war with Russia.
Last month, after being hosted by Trump at Mar a
Lago,
Orban crowed about how Trump would end the war in
Ukraine by refusing to give them a penny if he's
reelected.
Donald Trump. Palling around with European strong men in what
little free time he has these days is a good
reminder of what he's done to the Republican Party,
making it pro autocrat and pro Putin.
Even the issue at the heart of what Trump is
on trial for now,
touches on this. I'm sure you remember this,
Russia. If you're listening, I hope you're able to find
the
30,000 emails that are missing.
Well, turns out Russia was listening because we eventually learned
that that was the day that they started hacking the
Democratic and the Republican National Committees.
And a couple of months later,
on October 7th, the Obama administration formally accused Russia of
interfering in the 2016 election by hacking into the emails
of both the DNC and the RNC.
And on that very same day,
the Access Hollywood tape at the heart of Trump's hush
money case was released,
erasing news coverage of the Russian attack.
Putting Republicans on the spot about how their nominee was
a sex pest rather than how Russia was openly trying
to re elect or trying to elect their pro Putin
pro Russian nominee. Because around the same time he was
calling on Russia for Hillary Clinton's emails,
his campaign was gutting language in the Republican Party platform
calling for the US to provide lethal defensive weapons
to the Ukrainian government, which at the time sparked outrage
among Republican foreign policy Hawks.
And the Washington Post reported that as the Obama White
House enlist tried to enlist Congress to warn the public
about the threat to election systems in the summer of
2016, Republicans resisted, arguing that to warn the public that
the election was under attack would further Russia's aim of
sapping confidence in the system.
Senate Majority Leader at the time,
Mitch McConnell went further, officials said,
voicing skepticism that the underlying intelligence truly supported the White
House's claims.
In fact, additional reporting from the Post found that McConnell
made clear to the administration that he would consider any
effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly
an act of partisan politics.
McConnell did eventually sign on to a bipartisan letter about
election security that literally did not mention the word Russia.
But eight years after conveniently dismissing the threat of Russia
to get a
pro corporate tax cut Republican elected to president who also
would deliver Mitch's dream of a right wing Supreme Court
majority,
McConnell is back to playing party of Reagan and pushing
hard for USA to Ukraine.
Others in the Republican Party,
however, now fully enthralled to Trump,
are still trying to protect Putin.
The Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee,
Mike Turner, said his Republican colleagues are even spreading Russian
propaganda on the House floor when discussing the Russia Ukraine
war,
while two Republicans, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massey of
Georgia,
are threatening to oust their latest speaker,
Mike Johnson, if he poses a bill to provide supplemental
aid to Ukraine.
Joining me now is Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland who
was a member of the House January 6th Select Committee.
Congressman Raskin, it is truly stunning to watch this turn
around in Republicans from being the party of Reagan who
said,
you know, who was very much standing up to the
USSR
to essentially stumping for Russia on the House floor.
How do you read it?
Well, Marjorie Taylor Green, for example,
has been recycling direct Russian propaganda.
She says that our tax dollars are going to support
Ukrainian Nazis and that is a a Putin line,
that he's a de Nazifying
Ukraine and that it's a Nazi state.
Of course it is a liberal democracy committed to equal
rights for everybody and human rights,
and it has the only Jewish president
in the world outside of Israel.
So calling it a Nazi state is such an affront
and an insult
to the Ukrainian people, and it's just a lie.
And yet we're hearing a lot of that coming from
various Republican members and different sources to the point where
you're getting now Republican chairman,
finally, of committees like the Foreign Affairs Committee saying that
Russian propaganda has invaded the ranks of the Republican Party.
Let me play what? There are a lot of them,
But this might be one of the most
embarrassing and shameful moments in the Trump presidency.
Let me play This was Trump in Helsinki
in July 2018. All I can do is ask the
question.
My people came to me.
Dan Coats came to me and some others.
They said they think it's Russia.
I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia.
I will say this, I don't see any reason why
it would be.
I have great confidence in my
intelligence people. But I will tell you that President Putin
was extremely strong and powerful
in his denial today,
and that was on whether or not Russia was interfering
in our election.
And Congressman Raskin at the time,
that produced gasps even among Republicans.
How did we get to the point where Republicans went
from fighting that to be a new tray and unacceptable
comment,
Even rush, even Republicans thinking that to essentially that being
the bottom line,
Putin is innocent, Ukraine is guilty,
and essentially effectively. I guess what Mike
Johnson's caucus is saying is that the United States must
back off and allow Putin to take over Ukraine.
Well, Donald Trump has cemented his alliance with Vladimir Putin
and Putin's filthy imperialist invasion
of Ukraine, an attack on Ukrainian democracy.
It is splitting the Republican Party right now because
some of the, I don't know what to call them,
the more conservative institutionalists who at least maintain some memory
of an earlier Republican Party,
are not willing to throw themselves completely into the Putin
she autocrats camp.
But of course then you've got the the Matt Gaetz
and the
Marjorie Taylor Greene and Chip Roy,
the hardcore mega faction which will follow Donald Trump in
that direction.
We'll see this week whether or not
the Democrats are going to be able to
convince Mike Johnson to hold out and to put Ukraine
funding on the floor because
this is the central battlefield between democracy and freedom on
one side and tyranny and autocratic corruption on the other.
So we just want a clean up or down vote.
We know we've got a majority in the House that
will support $61 billion
for our besieged Ukrainian allies,
but it is a desperate situation over there right now.
And I, you know, I don't know whether or not
Trump's obsession with Putin is psychological or emotional or economic
or financial or political
or ideological. It doesn't really make any difference anymore.
It's very clear that he stands on the side of
Vladimir Putin.
And so the struggle between democracy and autocracy is not
just between
our country and other countries.
It is happening within America right now,
and it's happening on the floor of the US Congress.