The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell - May 8 | Audio Only

0:01 The last word with Ally Veli in for Lawrence starts right now.

0:05 Hey Ally.

0:05 Humor does sustain us during difficult times.

0:07 And and there's something you do and I don't know whether you do it for all

0:11 of your audience or you do it for me because you know I enjoy it.

0:14 But often on Friday nights u you will you will play that video of uh Christine

0:19 Gnome in that remarkably well produced series of commercials

0:21 that she did that got her probably fired.

0:24 Um, and I I love that you do that.

0:26 And I wonder whether there's someone on your staff who loves it as much as I do,

0:29 who just takes any opportunity to say, "You know what?

0:31 There's an opportunity for us to to play that video

0:34 again because it's it's fun." I first of all, as we've discussed many times, uh,

0:38 I feel so fortunate to work with the smartest producers.

0:41 We have producer named Sam on our team who I call like the corruption,

0:46 uh, you know, fierce fighter as everyone is who finds all these stories.

0:52 Um, and I I'm grateful for that because, you know,

0:54 we need humor and we also need to follow

0:56 what they're doing and make sure people know about it.

0:58 I think you're absolutely right.

0:59 You did a fantastic job of it tonight as you always do.

1:01 Thank you, my friend.

1:02 Have a great weekend.

1:03 Thanks, Ally.

1:03 Have a great show.

1:04 It is day 69 of Donald Trump's war in Iran.

1:07 And there's one thing we can now say for certain.

1:10 Donald Trump is nonsense and his words mean nothing.

1:14 This is what his unnecessary and illegal war

1:17 in Iran has further revealed to the American people.

1:21 and importantly to America's allies and adversaries around the world.

1:24 Here's what we know.

1:26 Whatever the ceasefire is supposed to be is not holding because Iran and the US

1:31 exchanged fire in the Straight of Hormuz for the second day in a row.

1:35 The New York Times reports, quote, "The United States said it had fired on two

1:39 Iranian flagged oil tankers on Friday as Iran's

1:41 foreign minister accused Washington of a reckless military adventure

1:44 and of undermining diplomatic efforts to end the war.

1:47 The latest strikes came a day after the US

1:50 military and Iran exchanged fire in the street of Hormuz.

1:53 Fighting that the Iranian military said was triggered

1:56 by an earlier US attack on another Iranian tanker.

1:59 The US attacked Iranian military sites yesterday

2:02 in response to Iranian strikes on US Navy ships.

2:06 And here is Donald Trump today saying words.

2:10 They trifled with us today.

2:13 We blew them away.

2:15 They trifled.

2:15 I call that a trifle.

2:17 I'll let you know when there's no cease.

2:19 You won't have to know.

2:20 If there's no ceasefire, you're not going to have to know.

2:22 You're just going to have to look at one big glow coming out of Iran.

2:28 And they better sign their agreement fast.

2:31 If those words don't make sense to you, don't worry.

2:34 It's not you, it's him.

2:36 Because those words are nonsense.

2:38 That answer is just a roulette wheel of words

2:40 strung together devoid of meaning or connection to reality.

2:43 The Trump administration is supposedly waiting

2:46 for Iran to respond to their latest proposal

2:48 to reopen the straight of Hormuz and end the fighting as peace talks resume.

2:53 Four people familiar with the document tell the Washington Post

2:56 that a confidential CIA analysis delivered

2:59 to the administration policymakers this week

3:01 concludes that Iran can survive the US naval blockade for at least

3:07 3 to four months before facing more severe economic hardship.

3:11 a finding that appears to raise new questions

3:14 about President Donald Trump's optimism about ending the war.

3:17 And there's new reporting in the Atlantic today

3:21 that Donald Trump is bored of his war in Iran.

3:24 Trump is tired of the war, which has proved far more difficult and lasted

3:27 far longer than he expect he had expected.

3:30 His party's wearily watching rising gas prices and falling poll numbers.

3:33 He doesn't want to be bogged down in a Middle

3:35 East conflict that some of his predecessors were.

3:37 He doesn't want it to upend his highstakes summit next week in China.

3:42 He's ready to move on.

3:43 One outside adviser who speaks with him regularly told

3:46 the president told me the president is bored with the war.

3:50 Let that sink in for a second.

3:53 Donald Trump is bored with his illegal war

3:56 in Iran that is incredibly unpopular with 66%

3:59 of Americans disapproving of his handling of Iran

4:02 barely in its third month of war.

4:04 A war that's costing Americans every day.

4:07 The national average for gas prices, $455 a gallon,

4:10 surging more than 50% since before the war started,

4:14 as expected because oil went up by that much.

4:17 In many states, the price is higher.

4:18 In Pennsylvania, it's $4.69 a gallon.

4:21 The war-driven inflation is also

4:24 understandably crushing crushing consumer confidence.

4:27 CNBC reports that surging gas prices due to the Iran war sent

4:32 consumer sentiment to a new low in the early part of May.

4:36 According to a University of Michigan survey on Friday,

4:38 and companies are feeling the economic pressure as well,

4:42 Whirlpool's shares plunged more than 20% after the company said that consumer

4:47 confidence has fallen to recession level lows because of the Iran war,

4:52 tanking demand for big appliances.

4:54 And even though the Pentagon claimed to Congress

4:57 that Trump's war in Iran only cost $25 billion,

5:00 the economics professor Justin Wolfers writes in a New York Times op-ed

5:05 that that figure doesn't come close to the true cost to the American people.

5:10 Quote, "By my calculations,

5:12 the bill for a typical American household likely runs

5:15 to thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars.

5:19 The toll from this upheaval must be counted in lives disrupted, jobs lost,

5:24 companies shut down, sea spirit airlines, and the income and output sacrificed.

5:29 The less easily quantified costs, death, disability, and mental health,

5:34 could become much more dramatic should

5:36 President Trump trans send troops into Iran, which still can't be ruled out.

5:41 The best any economist can do right now is get the order of magnitude right.

5:45 And my math suggests the Iran war will cost

5:48 hundreds of billions of dollars and very possibly trillions.

5:52 It's not just that Donald Trump doesn't know

5:56 or understand the cost of war for Americans.

5:59 Do you not know?

6:01 You had no one do the analysis of what the increased cost

6:04 of gas and food on the American people are going to be.

6:06 What is the cost of Iran holding that straight at issue with nuclear weapons?

6:10 It's $631 billion, which means it's an increase

6:15 of $5,000 a year for American households.

6:18 Now, let me give you this point.

6:21 You're saying that your operation is preventing a nuclear Iran.

6:24 Will you acknowledge that there is an economic cost to the American

6:28 people for doing what you believe is necessary to make Iran uh denuclear?

6:33 Will you acknowledge the economic cost?

6:35 We have an incredible economic team that's managing this better

6:39 than what the previous administration did to our economy.

6:43 The previous admin You don't even know what the average American is paying.

6:47 You don't know what we paid in terms

6:49 of the missiles that hit the Iranian school.

6:51 You don't know what we're paying in terms of gas.

6:53 You don't know what we're paying in terms of food.

6:55 Your 25 billion number is totally off.

6:58 It's the incompetence.

6:59 And amid all those costs, now the American taxpayers are on the hook

7:06 for a billion dollars for Trump's ballroom.

7:09 I'm paying for it.

7:10 I'm paying for it.

7:12 The country is not.

7:13 And that's an expensive ballroom.

7:15 These are all uh private individuals that put

7:18 up a lot of money to build a ballroom.

7:20 Not one penny is being used from the federal government.

7:22 We're giving them myself and donors are giving them free of charge for nothing.

7:27 So we did this no charge to the taxpayer whatsoever.

7:32 We have no taxpayer putting up 10 cents.

7:36 Okay.

7:37 Well, that vanity project ballroom that taxpayers quote

7:39 won't pay a dime for, not 10 cents, now has a billion dollar price tag

7:44 in the reconciliation bill because Republican lawmakers in Congress

7:48 are now fully convinced that the only way

7:52 to protect the American president is with a ballroom.

7:57 the ballroom will will be a solution for this.

7:59 We need a place.

8:00 We have needed a place like that and the president keeps pointing it out.

8:04 The sooner we get the ballroom built,

8:07 the more hardened it is, the better for the country.

8:10 I support Trump building a ballroom.

8:12 Yes, of course.

8:13 Especially after this weekend,

8:14 I'm working on legislation to uh ensure that we are getting the ballroom funded.

8:19 It's obviously a national security uh element to that and it needs to be done.

8:24 This has to be addressed.

8:25 At a minimum, we have to have a safe

8:28 place to protect the president of the United States.

8:32 Trump's stupid ballroom will make none of us safer.

8:35 It will make none of us lives better.

8:37 And worst of all, Trump has already wrecked the White House

8:40 ground so that even if he doesn't succeed at building the ballroom,

8:43 we're stuck with the hole that he's created,

8:45 which is a metaphor for America right now.

8:47 We, the American people, will have to fill the vacuum he's created,

8:50 rebuild what he has torn down.

8:51 sort of the same thing as a straight of Hormuz.

8:54 I was there during the negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal during 2015,

8:58 but most people I know never gave the thing much thought.

9:02 I'm guessing you never had much reason

9:04 to think about this random waterway halfway

9:06 around the world before because it was open to everyone to use for free.

9:10 But Donald Trump has wrecked it.

9:12 And no matter what deal he comes up with with Iran,

9:15 if he comes up with any deal at all,

9:17 things will never go back to the way they were by because Iran now knows

9:20 that it can close the straight of Hormuz

9:22 whenever it chooses and disrupt the global economy.

9:25 So Donald Trump basically helped Iran get a new weapon.

9:29 Today also marks eight years, eight years since Donald Trump ripped up the Iran

9:34 nuclear deal that was negotiated under the Obama administration.

9:38 A deal that was working.

9:40 And now Donald Trump is desperately trying to get

9:42 Iran to make a deal again and end his war that we are all paying for every

9:47 day and will be paying for for years to come.

9:50 Leading off our discussion tonight is

9:52 the Democratic Congressman Brendan Bole of Pennsylvania.

9:54 He's the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.

9:56 He's a member of the Ways and Means Committee.

9:58 Congressman, good to see you.

9:59 Um I I I whatever one thinks of this war

10:02 or the reasons for it or the justifications

10:05 for it which are highly problematic uh to get to the bottom of it ain't cheap.

10:09 This is costing us a lot of money and you are in a district where you see this.

10:14 You can't gaslight people about the fact

10:16 that their costs are higher because of this war.

10:18 Yeah.

10:19 Great to be with you and as you know Ally,

10:22 since you know the Philadelphia area so well,

10:24 I represent about half of the city.

10:26 I represent a a largely workingclass district where the majority

10:30 of the constituents I represent live paycheck to paycheck.

10:34 So they are really hurting when they see higher gas prices.

10:38 Prices today are more than 50% higher than where they were just two months ago.

10:44 They are being hurt when they see higher outofcontrol food costs.

10:48 They are being hurt in terms of their health care premiums going up.

10:53 And what is the Republican Reconciliation 2.0 bill going

10:56 to do to help any of what I just talked about?

11:01 Absolutely nothing.

11:02 Right?

11:03 But they have $1 billion for Trump's big, beautiful ballroom.

11:08 It is in many ways the perfect illustration of Republican priorities.

11:13 It's a billion for the ballroom.

11:15 It's a trillion for the military, which is,

11:17 I think, more than the next 44 countries combined.

11:20 uh much of which is going toward this war.

11:24 There's a remarkable story in the New York Times uh by Eli Sasslo.

11:28 It was called the last days of Butter Ridge and it's about a uh a farmer.

11:32 I want to just read you from that story.

11:35 The costs of running a family farm had skyrocketed by as much as 500%.

11:39 Brad had supported Donald Trump in 2024 in part because Trump promised

11:44 to change all that by becoming the most pro-farmer president you've ever had.

11:49 Instead, new tariffs have cut into Brad's potential export market,

11:52 and the emerging war in Iran had sent gas

11:54 and fertilizer prices surging by as much as 70%.

11:57 He was losing thousands of dollars each month and falling behind on his feed

12:01 bill until he made the call he'd been dreading his whole career.

12:05 He dialed up an auction house to arrange

12:07 the Watson family's final dairy sale last month.

12:10 I wish, Congressman, this were an isolated story, but it's not.

12:14 You know, I read that story and and was profoundly uh shook afterwards.

12:19 It's about a family.

12:20 You you read an excerpt there.

12:23 I encourage everyone to read it.

12:24 They're in the northern tier of Pennsylvania,

12:26 right on the border of New York State.

12:28 The family for five generations had run

12:31 that farm and been in the dairy business.

12:34 And now Trump's tariff taxes combined with other policies are finally

12:39 driving that fivegeneration family off their farm and out of business.

12:44 So it's one story that represents so many families out there.

12:47 It's a reason why just this past month

12:50 in the latest University of Michigan consumer sentiment data,

12:53 we hit an all-time low for consumer sentiment.

12:56 This survey, mind you, goes back all the way to 1952.

13:00 So, not even in the Great Recession, as bad as that was,

13:04 were people as pessimistic about the economy as they are today.

13:07 But the reason for that, Congress,

13:09 I've been I've been thinking about this for a few days,

13:12 and I think the reason why in prior recessions,

13:14 including the Great Recession, people didn't feel as pessimistic,

13:17 is because you felt like you were all in this fight together,

13:20 including your government.

13:21 Your government was helping you.

13:22 They understood that there was a recession.

13:24 They were trying to do the things necessary, whether they were right or wrong,

13:27 they were trying to do the things necessary to get out of it.

13:30 here the things that affected Brad's family and Brad's farm and people's gas

13:34 prices and people's tariffs and people's

13:35 food prices is imposed by the government.

13:38 Yeah.

13:38 You know, there is a part of the presidency that is um you know,

13:43 they used to tease Bill Clinton a little bit about this because he would say,

13:45 "I feel your pain." Um but you know,

13:48 whether it was Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan or or George W.

13:51 Bush or Barack Obama,

13:53 past presidents had the ability to convey empathy for the American people and be

13:59 out there and actually show that they were attempting uh to help the situation.

14:03 Donald Trump so clearly doesn't care and give one wit.

14:07 He easily transmits that and all he

14:10 talks about every single day is his ballroom.

14:13 He doesn't talk at all about prices except when he does,

14:16 he calls it the affordability hoax.

14:18 Are you surprised that the borrow is suddenly going to at least

14:22 a portion of it is going to be paid for by taxpayers?

14:25 Now, there is nothing in the Trump era that will surprise me uh anymore.

14:30 Um I I can't believe though that Republicans

14:33 who are in tough seats would actually be

14:36 politically stupid enough to vote for a billion

14:38 dollars of taxpayer money to go to a ballroom.

14:41 That I can't which which may keep the president safer.

14:43 I don't know.

14:44 It's a stupid idea because the president actually has to leave the White House.

14:48 Like building stuff around the White House

14:49 because it's safe is doesn't make any sense.

14:51 But it makes zero sense for the rest of us, right?

14:53 I'm never going to be in that ballroom.

14:55 I imagine you're probably never going to be in that ballroom.

14:57 Yeah.

14:57 And let's uh not forget that the whole security line now is total BS.

15:02 When the ballroom project was announced,

15:04 nowhere in there did they mention one word about security.

15:08 For months and months, the president hasn't talked about security.

15:11 Only after the attempted or the shooting at the White

15:15 House correspondents dinner uh did he rather shamefully

15:18 latch on to this as a new excuse

15:20 for his big ballroom and and Republicans went along with it.

15:24 Congressman, good to see you as always.

15:25 Thank you for being with us today.

15:27 The Pennsylvania Congressman Brendan Bole is

15:28 the ranking member of the budget committee.

15:30 All right, coming up today,

15:31 the Virginia Supreme Court threw out the new congressional map

15:34 that voters just approved in a referendum a couple of weeks ago.

15:38 Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court has cleared the path for southern

15:41 Republicans to draw majority black

15:43 congressional districts entirely out of existence.

15:46 There is no cavalry coming to save American democracy.

15:49 The only people who can save American democracy are you,

15:53 the voters, on mass in the November midterms.

15:57 And it can't stop there.

15:59 I'm coming up next with Professor Melissa Murray.

16:08 Tonight, there's a stunning twist in the redistricting

16:10 arms race that was started by a president

16:13 with a 60% disapproval rating who's desperately trying

16:15 to hold on to power any way he can.

16:19 Today, the Virginia Supreme Court overturned a congressional redistricting map

16:23 that was approved by Virginia voters in a statewide referendum.

16:27 The New York Times reports in its 4 to3 opinion,

16:30 the Virginia Supreme Court wrote that the problem was

16:32 that the first vote on the amendment in the General Assembly,

16:36 which would authorize Democrats to redraw the map,

16:40 occurred days before last fall's legislative elections.

16:44 Meaning that some Virginiaians who cast their ballots early did so

16:49 without knowing how their state lawmakers would vote on the new map.

16:54 that the justices wrote violated the process laid out in the state constitution.

17:01 Constitutional process matters.

17:02 Following the law matters.

17:03 We care about that.

17:05 Courts are supposed to care about that.

17:07 But context matters, too.

17:09 And it is completely justified for voters to feel

17:13 that our democratic institutions are not meeting the moment that we're in.

17:17 There is a gross asymmetry in our politics right now.

17:21 In 2025, Virginia voters elected a Democratic governor by a whopping 15 points.

17:26 In 2025, Virginia voters expanded the Democratic

17:29 majority in the House of Delegates,

17:32 giving Democrats complete control of the trifecta of state government.

17:36 And in 2025, according to the Virginia Public Access Project,

17:40 the majority of early ballots were from likely Democratic voters.

17:44 Was some early voter in Virginia denied votechanging information?

17:49 Quite possibly.

17:50 But all Virginia voters had the chance 17 days ago to vote directly

17:55 on the map issue and a clear majority of them voted for it.

18:00 And now the Virginia Supreme Court has

18:03 invalidated all 1.6 million of those votes.

18:07 It has invalidated the clear preference for democratic governance in Virginia

18:11 that Virginia voters have voted for loud and clear since November 2025.

18:16 Two times.

18:17 Meanwhile, Republicans in southern states are

18:20 aggressively drawing black majority congressional districts

18:23 out of existence after the conservative

18:26 Supreme Court weakened key voting rights protections.

18:29 Yesterday in Tennessee, Democratic lawmakers attempted to filibuster and disrupt

18:33 proceedings as Republicans pushed through a map

18:37 that would effectively erase the last Democratic

18:40 held congressional district in the entire state.

18:43 That district, which is a majority black district, is now being carved apart

18:48 and divided into multiple Republican leaning districts.

18:51 The new map is designed not to reflect those voters, but to outmaneuver them,

18:56 to render them powerless to elect a leader of their choice.

19:00 Here's the Tennessee state senator London Lamar talking about this yesterday.

19:06 This is a deliberate um plan to take away the black vote.

19:10 Uh black people aren't Democrat and Republican.

19:13 We vote our issues and so far the black people in Memphis vote

19:17 their issues and to see them act like they don't know what they're

19:21 doing and deliberately take away our ability to have a solid voting power

19:25 and representation in Congress is one

19:28 of the most egregious acts since reconstruction.

19:30 Our ancestors died.

19:31 They are bodies all across fields

19:33 and in rivers across this country because they marched,

19:36 they were lynched, they were beat just to advocate for the right to vote.

19:39 And to see them do this in 2026 is a direct insult on the black community.

19:44 Everything that we contribute to the Tennessee, all our tax dollars,

19:47 what we do to make this state the state that it is,

19:50 they are deliberately taking our voice away.

19:53 And it's appalling.

19:54 And today, Republicans in South Carolina advanced legislation

19:58 to delay that state's congressional primaries for two

20:01 months while they draw out of existence

20:04 the only district represented by a black house member.

20:08 of the Democratic Congressman James Klyurn.

20:10 This man, the same James Klyurn who marched

20:14 for civil rights in the segregated psych south.

20:17 The same James Klyurn who was arrested protesting segregation in the 1960s.

20:22 In a series of posts on X, Congressman Klyber wrote,

20:26 "Republicans are trying to break apart South Carolina's sixth district,

20:30 not because voters demanded it,

20:32 but because Donald Trump requested it." This fight is bigger than one district.

20:36 It's about whether our democracy belongs to the people or to the politicians

20:40 who change the rules when they don't like the results.

20:44 We cannot let them succeed.

20:46 So, here's the questions that many Americans are asking tonight.

20:49 If Virginia voters can directly approve

20:51 something and still see it overturned while

20:54 lawmakers in other states can impose maps with no public input at all,

20:59 who who exactly is this system protecting?

21:02 Who's it for?

21:04 This asymmetry is why so many Americans are angry

21:07 and feel like their dem democratic institutions are failing them.

21:10 The conservative Supreme Court handed Donald

21:13 Trump broad presidential immunity in 2024,

21:16 clearing the path for his return to power despite his criminal

21:20 conviction in New York and multiple federal criminal charges against him,

21:24 including for conspiracy against the United States.

21:27 And now in state after state courts

21:31 and legislators legislators are creating conditions where a president

21:36 with approval ratings hovering near 30% could maintain political

21:41 power through engineered congressional

21:43 maps and weakened electoral accountability.

21:45 Which is why this conversation is way bigger than re redistricting.

21:50 It's about whether democratic systems can still respond to public will.

21:54 And it may be why this moment feels so unsettling

21:57 to so many people because Americans have seen this before.

22:00 The truth is democracy in this country was not realized in 1776 or 1787.

22:06 It only started to be fully realized during reconstruction starting in 1865

22:13 after the Civil War when black Americans could fully participate in public life.

22:18 And for a brief period 12 years or so that democracy worked.

22:22 Black Americans voted across the South in massive numbers.

22:26 They ran for office.

22:27 They won elections.

22:28 Between 1870 and 1901, 22 black Americans served in Congress.

22:33 And then piece by piece, it was dismantled.

22:37 In 1901, North Carolina Congressman George Henry White,

22:41 the last black member of Congress during the post reconstruction period,

22:45 knew what was coming.

22:46 He stood on the floor of Congress and he said farewell

22:49 not just for himself but for an entire era of equality,

22:52 representation and possibility.

22:54 He said quote this, Mr.

22:56 Chairman is perhaps the Negro's temporary farewell to the American Congress,

23:00 but Phoenix like he will rise up someday and come again.

23:05 End quote.

23:06 And he was right.

23:08 Black political representation did rise again through

23:11 a generation of organizing and bloody protests

23:13 and arrests that ultimately triumphed with the passage

23:15 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

23:18 But now, after years of the Supreme Court weakening those protections,

23:22 we're entering a dangerous period of democratic backsliding.

23:25 The challenge now, how we rise up again in this era,

23:30 and what we will demand of our democracy.

23:33 Joining us now is Melissa Murray,

23:35 professor of law at New York University and MS Now Legal Analyst.

23:38 She's the author of the brand new and very, very, very important book,

23:41 The US Constitution, a comprehensive and annotated guide for the modern reader.

23:45 Uh, Professor Murray, thank you.

23:47 You and I had some of this conversation in a commercial break last week,

23:50 and I've been I've been dying to have the rest of this conversation with you,

23:55 and the Virginia decision made it imperative.

23:58 It's not I I don't know whether to take

24:00 issue with the Virginia Supreme Court or not.

24:02 I think the bigger issue is that we are slipping

24:04 into a place that took a long time to get to.

24:08 A place of democracy and fairness that took a long time to get to.

24:11 It's it's slipping away from us at this point.

24:14 Yeah, I think that's exactly right, Ali.

24:16 And again, it's not one actor, but rather a confluence of actors.

24:20 It's not just the Virginia Supreme Court today,

24:23 but the Virginia Supreme Court acting at the behest of the Republican party,

24:27 it would seem, uh, to consolidate partisan advantage in that state.

24:31 uh the Republicans across the country consolidating their political

24:35 power by wiping black electorates off the map

24:38 at the behest of Donald Trump who began

24:41 all of this by insisting upon midcycle redistricting.

24:44 As we've said before,

24:47 when legislators sit down to draw their congressional maps,

24:50 they do so after the dissual census.

24:53 That already happened.

24:54 We are midway through this decade.

24:56 This isn't supposed to happen until after 2030.

24:59 It's happening because Donald Trump knows that his control over the Congress

25:03 is going to wayne in the course of this midterm elections.

25:06 And if he can't win, then he's going to change these elections,

25:10 change the map so that they give him a win.

25:13 And we're all seeing it.

25:14 So, he's gotten a major assist from the Supreme Court of Virginia.

25:18 He got a major assist last week from the United States Supreme Court.

25:22 Um, they too have been deviating from accepted procedures.

25:26 They usually take 32 days to certify

25:28 a decision like their decision in Louisiana versus Cala.

25:32 Instead, here they basically decided to allow that decision

25:35 to go into immediate effect so Louisiana could begin

25:38 the process of wiping majority black districts off

25:40 the map and they have done so with stunning elacrity.

25:44 Yeah, they've canceled they delayed their primary.

25:46 South Carolina is delaying its p

25:47 like they're really they're upending the system.

25:49 Um, how do you get people to care about something that sort of nerdy data

25:54 people like me look at and we we we track these maps all the time.

25:57 How do you connect this to the fact that this isn't really about black people?

26:01 It it it it definitely is like the undoing of reconstruction.

26:04 This is about a democracy that took us a long

26:06 time to kind of make into a fair thing, right?

26:08 after the Civil War, after the 19th Amendment,

26:11 after the Civil Rights uh movement, and we finally mostly got there,

26:16 and that it is dangerous for us all to to not go there,

26:20 to not be to not have everybody's vote count equally.

26:23 So, black people are usually the canary

26:26 in the coal mine for these sorts of things.

26:29 It happens first within that community.

26:31 But it definitely doesn't stop there.

26:33 And I think we have to emphasize for those who are inclined

26:36 to think that this doesn't matter for them that our fates are linked.

26:40 Um this is a president, a party that is bent on consolidating political

26:46 advantage for a small sector of the electorate.

26:49 And the rest of us, we're either going

26:52 to rise together or we're going to fall together.

26:54 We may not fall at the same time, but we will all fall inevitably.

26:57 And that's important to remember.

26:59 Um, you know, right now the New York Times is being pressured

27:03 into a like there's a lawsuit against the New York Times by the EEOC.

27:07 The whole question there is whether the New York Times

27:10 and seeking to diversify its newsroom discriminated against white men.

27:14 The goal of that lawsuit isn't necessarily to win.

27:18 I don't think it's likely that the law

27:20 is on the side of the administration here,

27:23 but the lawsuit's intent is to simply intimidate newsrooms in general,

27:27 whether it's the New York Times or smaller newsrooms with less resources,

27:30 to bring all newsrooms back to the status quo

27:33 that it was before we were focused on those goals.

27:35 And that's the same play that they're doing

27:37 in the context of voting rights to take us back

27:39 to where we were before the voting rights act

27:42 to take us back to where we were before 1965.

27:44 We have only been a multi-racial democracy since 1965,

27:47 like since the Voting Rights Act.

27:50 Um, we've never had the full promise of full democracy, as you say.

27:55 and they're trying to pull it back and they're doing it in every level.

27:59 Whether it's attacking DEI,

28:01 whether it's limiting the economic availability and economic resources

28:06 that are available to all of us by promoting

28:09 this ridiculous war in Iran to simply rolling back

28:12 the map so that we can't participate in our government.

28:16 This isn't government for, of the people, and we all need to recognize that.

28:20 We are about 60 years into being a a full democracy.

28:24 Uh so it it is well within

28:26 the lifetime of many people watching our show tonight.

28:29 We don't want to go back to where we were before.

28:31 Melissa, thanks as always.

28:32 MS now legal analyst Melissa Murray whose

28:34 new important book is called the US Constitution,

28:37 a comprehensive and annotated guide for the modern reader.

28:40 By the way, it's a very accurate description.

28:41 It is an annotated guide to the US Constitution.

28:43 Everybody needs one of these.

28:45 Thanks for joining us tonight.

28:46 All right, coming up,

28:47 we're going to cover news out of Pennsylvania today involving Republican

28:50 state legislatores legislators and a bill about housing for whites only.

28:55 You heard that right.

28:56 It's 2026 and there's a bill before

29:01 the Pennsylvania legislature about whites only housing.

29:08 That's next.

29:10 Here's one of those headlines that stops you in your tracks.

29:14 bill banning whitesonly housing passes Pennsylvania House by one vote.

29:18 So, first, whites only housing is apparently a thing in 2026.

29:22 And second, it passed by one vote, which can only mean one thing.

29:27 A bill banning whitesonly housing passed the Pennsylvania House

29:30 last Tuesday despite not a single Republican supporting the measure.

29:34 Not a single Republican wanted to be

29:37 on the record against whitesonly housing in Pennsylvania in 2026.

29:42 The legislation came after a white nationalist group called Return

29:46 to the Land figured out a loophole in discrimination laws.

29:50 Instead of publicly selling homes or land,

29:52 they formed a private membership association to establish

29:56 a 160 acre whites only community in Arkansas.

29:59 State Representative Ben Waxman, who introduced the bill after those white

30:03 nationalists expressed interest in expanding to other states,

30:07 including the Keystone State, said this.

30:09 It was even more concern more concerning to learn that this organization

30:14 had identified Pennsylvania as a possible place for expansion and that they

30:18 were looking to build more of these developments across the country

30:22 and specifically they thought that they could do it here in this state.

30:27 And so this bill um the original bill says absolutely no.

30:32 There is no room for that here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

30:37 And so I rise just to ask my colleagues to support this bill and support

30:42 it in its new expanded form which

30:45 further protects people all over this commonwealth.

30:48 Okay.

30:48 So what he said at the end there, that bit about the the expanded form is

30:53 apparently the fig leaf that Republicans were hiding behind.

30:56 The Republicans pinned their refusal to vote

31:00 against whitesonly housing on trans people.

31:03 Republicans say they're worried the bill that doesn't

31:06 allow segregated housing could lead to nonsegregated bathrooms.

31:10 Joining us now is the Democratic

31:12 Speaker of the Pennsylvania House, Joanna McClinton.

31:15 Uh Representative McClinton, nice to see you again.

31:17 Thank you for being with us this evening.

31:19 Thank you.

31:19 Can you help me make sense of this, please?

31:22 I I mean, a lot of people didn't even know there was a this is a thing.

31:25 It's like this is a thing.

31:26 There's somebody trying to make whites only housing in 2026 in Pennsylvania

31:30 and Republicans couldn't muster the ability to to to vote that down.

31:33 I want to say it's not a thing.

31:36 I want to say I can help you make make it make sense.

31:39 But the truth is we can't make it make sense.

31:43 It's 2026.

31:43 I've been tuned in.

31:45 Republicans are doing the worst things out loud in front

31:48 of the entire world to watch as they strip away civil rights,

31:53 try to silence black voices all throughout

31:55 the South by doing this last minute redistricting effort.

31:59 And yes, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which is considered the North,

32:04 there was a bill that we passed just last week and the main focus of the bill

32:08 was to make sure we never have

32:11 to see segregation in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania happening.

32:14 And yes, my colleague, Representative Ben Waxman,

32:17 found out about this, advanced the bill.

32:19 My other colleague, Representative Malcolm Kinyatta,

32:21 added a few lines to the bill to also make sure that no

32:25 matter who you love or how you show up in the world,

32:29 you too can't be discriminated against.

32:30 Now, mind you, that same bill passed last session with Republican votes.

32:35 So why suddenly they decided they couldn't vote for it last week,

32:40 I can't make it make sense.

32:42 I the average American would be forgiven for thinking

32:46 that under the law you can't actually have segregated housing.

32:50 I mean, how does this work?

32:52 Is this are we missing a big piece of the story here?

32:56 Because clearly uh this group did do this.

32:58 They bought up private land.

32:59 We've known about this kind of thing for for decades.

33:02 I just didn't think this was this was this is happening again.

33:06 Well, I start a lot of speeches by saying

33:09 my actual mother grew up in segregation in segregated North Carolina.

33:13 That the town where my grandmother raised her, my grandmother

33:16 had areas in the town she could not buy a house.

33:19 She could not move literally was crossing of a tracks.

33:22 Now, I'm happy to say that years later,

33:25 she could cross the tracks because we changed the law because we got rid

33:29 of that with good decisions from the previous

33:32 Supreme Courts of the United States.

33:34 and fighting together for civil rights and equal protection under the law.

33:38 But here we are again finding ourselves back at a terrible place in American

33:43 history with the whole world watching us

33:46 as our democracy is literally on life support.

33:48 And here we go fighting these crazy battles not

33:52 only about race but outwardly saying you're not welcome.

33:54 Yeah, this feels like a story I I could have been doing as a newscaster in 1964.

33:59 Like this is just this is wild that we're doing it.

34:01 Uh, I appreciate that it passed by one vote,

34:04 but what that message that sends to everybody in America

34:06 and every voter is that your work is not done.

34:09 Thanks for joining us tonight.

34:10 We appreciate having you here, the Pennsylvania House Speaker, Joanna McClinton.

34:13 All right, coming up,

34:14 Vladimir Putin is already being humiliated by Russia's victory day,

34:20 and it hasn't even happened yet.

34:24 That's next.

34:26 Tomorrow is Victory Day in Moscow,

34:28 and Vladimir Putin is already being humiliated.

34:30 Victory Day is the annual commemoration of Soviet Russia's defeat

34:34 of Nazi Germany in World War II and more recently has

34:37 been an opportunity for Vladimir Putin to put on one

34:40 of those dictator military parades that Donald Trump is so fond of.

34:44 But not this year.

34:45 The Kev Independent reports for the first

34:47 time in Vladimir Putin's Russia, no missiles,

34:50 tanks, or armored vehicles are expected to appear on Saturday in Red Square.

34:54 Although the Kremlin offered no explanation for the dramatic scale back,

34:58 recent Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russian territory have suggested that even

35:03 Putin's military showcase may longer may no longer be beyond reach.

35:07 The recent reports by a consortium of international media alleged

35:11 that the Russian president has become increasingly scared of a coup.

35:15 Politico ads.

35:16 Across more than two decades in power,

35:18 President Vladimir Putin has worked to turn Russia's historic World War II

35:22 memorial event into a celebration of future military glory and global clout.

35:26 But this year's Victory Day Jamberee only underscores his failure to deliver.

35:31 It will be the strangest victory day of the Putin era.

35:35 Exiled Russian journalist Dmitri Kalev remarked in a recent podcast,

35:39 "The world will be watching now to see the Russian

35:42 strongman exposed as weak and as Politico put it, failing to deliver." However,

35:46 the fear of an actual attack on the Victory Day parade is real.

35:50 So today, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zalinsky announced that he

35:53 has agreed to a 3-day ceasefire deal starting on Saturday,

35:57 which includes a prisoner exchange.

35:59 Zilinsky saying on social media, quote,

36:01 "Red square is less important to us than the lives

36:04 of Ukrainian prisoners who can be brought home." End quote.

36:07 Joining us now is Michael McFall, former US ambassador to Russia.

36:11 He's the author of Autocrats versus Democrats:

36:13 China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder.

36:15 Uh, ambassador, great to see you again.

36:18 What an interesting thing.

36:19 Everybody's saying the quiet part out loud that, okay,

36:21 we'll make we'll have a ceasefire for 3 days.

36:24 we can get prisoners back because you're actually scared that there might be

36:28 a a a Ukrainian attack in Moscow on this uh victory day parade.

36:32 That's quite a thing for Russia that was supposed to win this war within a week.

36:37 It's quite a thing on so many different levels.

36:40 Uh as you just said,

36:41 this used to be the biggest celebration of of Russian power, Soviet power.

36:46 I attended this meeting when I was a US ambassador, as did all ambassadors.

36:50 Usually, heads of state used to come too.

36:53 Uh, and now it's just going to be this tiny little se ceremony.

36:57 Allegedly, they took out 9,000 seats.

36:59 It's going to be a very modest affair.

37:02 But Putin was paranoid.

37:03 He was afraid that they might be attacked.

37:06 And and from what I understand, he ple he pleaded with the Trump

37:10 administration to try to get this this ceasefire

37:13 for 3 days that Zalinsky agreed to so that he wouldn't have to worry about that.

37:18 But just a few hours ago,

37:20 he uh Zalinski trolled him in such a brilliant, humorous way.

37:23 He put out a a presidential decree saying,

37:26 "I'm allowing a parade on Red Square." And he marked out the parameters.

37:31 Uh but he said, "Only soldiers, no tanks," or something like that.

37:35 Uh just to to to get back at Putin just a little bit more.

37:39 In the early days of the uh of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,

37:43 we used to think about victory day as a very dangerous day for Ukraine.

37:47 That this would be a day on which Russia would would

37:49 want to either finish the job or show how powerful they are.

37:52 How the tide has turned.

37:54 What is this talk about Putin being concerned about a coup?

37:57 Well, there was some uh excellent reporting.

38:00 There are people I know, Russians in exile,

38:04 that that saw allegedly an intelligence document

38:07 for eur European capitals talking about a coup.

38:11 Um, allegedly, I keep I want to keep saying

38:14 that word because I can't verify any of it.

38:16 Um, Mr.

38:17 Shyu, his former defense minister or security council head was behind it.

38:21 I I'm not sure of the validity of this.

38:24 I've seen many of these kind of reports for years and years.

38:27 But the fact that it's being floated, the fact that there's nervousness,

38:31 there's division amongst elites inside Russia.

38:33 Uh there's an exhaustion with the war inside Russia.

38:37 Everybody focuses on Ukrainian exhaustion.

38:39 We forget that the exhaustion is on the other side as well.

38:42 And I got to tell you, I talk to Ukrainians almost every single day.

38:47 Um, I am struck by their confidence right now

38:51 that they feel like time is now on their side,

38:54 particularly with what they've been able to do with these long

38:58 range fires deep inside Russia and with the drone breakthrough,

39:02 the technological breakthrough that some of their drone

39:05 companies have done in recent months.

39:08 They sound very confident.

39:09 You read the Russian press, you don't see or hear any confidence there at all,

39:15 including from Vladimir Putin.

39:17 It's remarkable how uh this has turned

39:19 in a way that we were all very worried about.

39:22 Uh that might turn the other way.

39:24 We'll continue to cover it as we have uh for years.

39:26 Thank you uh Ambassador.

39:27 I'm I'm sorry to say that we've been covering this for years, but we have been.

39:30 Former United States ambassador to Russia, Michael McFall.

39:36 All right, tonight's last word is next.

39:41 What's actually happening in the Straight of Hormuz?

39:43 We know we can't take Trump's word for it,

39:45 but there are roughly 20,000 people on the ships that have been trapped

39:48 in the strait who have a front row seat to Donald Trump's war.

39:51 And what they've seen is wild.

39:53 Here's MS Now's Inesta Quitara with more.

39:56 Venega has spent years working on oil tankers,

40:00 but his latest voyage became his most perilous yet.

40:05 From now on, all navigating through the straight of Hormuz is formidable.

40:12 Iran's revolutionary guard announcing the beginning of the war just

40:15 as his ship was about to cross the straight of Hormuz.

40:18 And as the world's shipping vessels became sitting targets,

40:21 we thought that okay, this is a war.

40:24 Maybe uh within few days it will you know end.

40:28 And we didn't know that this is going to affect us so badly.

40:32 So we are not prepared for this.

40:35 Venet telling us the blockade caused him and his team

40:37 to be stranded for 7 weeks near the straight as he

40:40 became one of an estimated 20,000 seafares on roughly 2,000

40:44 ships still stranded at sea

40:46 according to the International Maritime Organization.

40:49 In the night we could see uh the missiles getting intercepted.

40:54 Uh in the daytime we could see the naval vessels, we could see uh the aircrafts.

41:00 Yes.

41:00 Uh we were frightened.

41:02 We were very afraid.

41:03 Footage obtained by MS Now and shot by seafarers stranded

41:06 in the region show vessels burning in the night after an apparent strike.

41:11 Huge plumes of smoke rising in the sky.

41:14 CCTV video from one ship shows a blast near

41:16 the bridge as a crew member runs for cover.

41:19 The UN's maritime agency says at least 10 seafarers have been killed so far.

41:25 Iran's Revolutionary Guard even seizing some merchant

41:27 vessels and laying mines along the straight.

41:30 This crew repatriated to India last week after spending

41:33 weeks at sea described seeing hundreds of drones and missiles,

41:37 some dangerously close to their ship while running out of food.

41:41 We all time calling Captain Noa have food, captain no rice.

41:46 Venet did finally get home talking in Saudi

41:50 Arabia before flying home to India where

41:52 he's urging the world not to forget about the people still stuck on those ships.

41:57 Everybody is talking about the nations fighting each other, the ships trapped,

42:03 the global supply is disturbed,

42:04 but nobody is actually talking about the sailors.

42:07 Think about the seafarers.

42:09 They also have families.

42:11 In deutera, MS now London.

42:13 And a programming note,

42:15 tomorrow's band book club feature was first published in 2007,

42:18 but it's a story that really resonates today.

42:20 Brother, I'm Dying is the award-winning memoir by Edwage

42:24 Danticott that intertwines her own story as a Haitian immigrant,

42:27 with the stories of her father, also an immigrant,

42:30 and her uncle, a charismatic Haitian pastor

42:32 who was swept up by American immigration officials

42:35 while he was running for his life

42:37 from the Haitian government and from gang violence.

42:39 Don't miss my conversation with Edge Danticott tomorrow at 10:00 a.m.

42:44 Eastern.

42:45 That is tonight's last word.