The Rachel Maddow Show [9PM] 9/12/2024 | 🅼🆂🅽🅱️🅲 BREAKING NEWS Today September 12,2024

I've been told I'm a good debater I I think it was one of my better debates maybe my best debate we won the debate according to every poll every single poll I think that uh are we going to do a rematch I just don't know when you win you don't really necessarily have to do it a second time so we'll see whatever Donald Trump thinks about his debate performance multiple instant polls showed vice president Harris won the debate by a large margin including this one that shows her beating Trump 63 to 37% even 30% of trump supporters said Harris won the night a figure Donald Trump may not be all that familiar with joining me now is Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren Senator Warren I'm eager to hear I mean just your initial reaction to what transpired on that debate stage last night I I know you were watching it what did you think kamla Harris will be president of the United States that's what we saw last night she stred out on that stage like a president like a leader she took his hand she owned Donald Trump from literally the first seconds of the debate and she did everything but you know snap a leash on him and walk that old dog around the stage but but what you really saw was kamla Harris as president um she's the one I watched her as she did this and I thought boy I'm ready for her to take on you know Republican crazies in Congress I'm ready for her to stand up and really lean in On The Wall Street CEOs who think they can run everything I'm ready for her to take on Vladimir Putin and to take on Kim Jong o i mean that's that's what she showed she showed that kind of of strength and presence that wasn't forced it wasn't like I need to look like this it's that it came from within she was strong she was composed she she was presidential I I wonder you know because you guys were Senate colleagues I was reminded of some of her almost prosecutorial lines of questioning during Senate confirmation hearings and I kind of wonder if you saw flashes of that you know the con Harris worked within the Senate on the stage last night and whether that's kind of the new playbook for dealing with Donald Trump I I did and it's something actually you know I've known kamla 14 years now it's something I actually watched when she would get into it back when she was attorney general for California and you may remember it's after the financial crash and here she is trying to help the families that these banks have cheated and now the banks are trying to take away their homes and I watched her as we went through some of these negot NE iations I was trying to set up the cfpb at the same time she she gets a calmness and a focus and it's it it shows she knows what she's doing she's well prepared and most of all she knows who she's fighting for I thought that was a big contrast last night Donald Trump once again all about Donald Trump KLA Harris was all about your family all about what's happening to America's Working Families to America's middle class what's happening to women who are now what one in three in America lives in a state that effectively bans abortion one in three live in a state where when they walk into a hospital in the middle of a miscarriage are examined doctor knows what needs to be done but says sorry you're not close enough to death yet for me to give you the medical care you need go out to the parking lot in Hemorrhage for a few more hours that doctors are in these states are afraid of being criminally prosecuted that you see kamla Harris as the person who will lead us and say this is not the America we want to be and it is not the America we will be there is exactly one way to protect our daughters and our granddaughters going forward and that is a federal law to put Row versus Wade in place and that's what KLA Harris is going to sign into law that's the kind of thing we saw last night that that leadership that she is strong she is determined and she will fight for us and she knows how to trigger Donald Trump better than anybody else in American politics you know and that's the part we have to remember 55 days we have to approach this with joy with entertainment passing around the memes having a good time but doing the work for 55 days and that means volunteering and knocking on doors and texting and making sure that your cousins have all registered to vote and that everyone has a plan to vote and we early vote wherever is possible we've got 55 days to deliver this we have the right candidate at the right moment it's up to the rest of us now let's do the work Senator Elizabeth Warren thanks so much for your time really appreciate it thank you still ahead tonight Donald Trump's great service his words not mine his great service to the American public in overturning Ro v Wade mini Tim maraju joins me to talk about that coming up next last night's debate When Donald Trump was asked about his role in overturning Ro V way Trump essentially told America you're welcome I did a great service in doing it it took courage to do it and the Supreme Court had great courage in doing it we've gotten what everybody wanted Democrats Republicans and everybody else and every legal scholar wanted it to be brought back into the states here's how vice president Harris responded to that you want to talk about this is what people wanted pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term suffering from a miscarriage being denied care they don't want that joining me now is nnie taraju president and CEO of reproductive freedom for all Minnie thank you for joining me tonight um so Amanda Becker is a reporter for the 19th and she tweeted yesterday night that go a Google analytics had email that she received showed that abortion was the top searched issue in every single state other than Ohio where Trump said they're eating cats and dogs uh during the debate that to me says the abortion thing resonated in last night's debate I mean yeah look Trump took a completely straightforward question and turned it into a completely unhinged rant uh I tried to go back and watch it over and over again today to make sure I could understand what he was saying and let's be CED it was very hard to understand what he was saying but what I thought was really smart vice president is she was able to sort of dissect this is the misinformation this is the hate this is where you don't show compassion and then let me shame you and then let me talk directly to the American people and that's when you see the Google analytics I'm so glad Amanda tweeted it we know this issue is Salient the New York Times just wrote a report based on their polling that for women 40 and under it's becoming the top issue over the economy and it's trending across all demographics so you're seeing the analytics you're seeing the data you're seeing the polling the important thing that need that happened last night was kamla Harris needed to nail him on this and she needed to draw the contrast and she did it she did something and I totally agree with Jessica fente on this who's like the best you know abortion journalist such as it what it is in the country and she made this point she said Harris did something that would have been Unthinkable two years ago she reclaimed family values on abortion when Harris spoke about the real people impacted by these laws it wasn't just a refusal to allow Trump to frame the conversation but a reminder that we as in the the Democrats are the ones protecting American families it's been a long time maybe nesson never that you could frame the issue of choice with family values and I thought she did it masterful I don't know that we've ever seen this like a full 10 minutes on you know national television on abortion and reproductive freedom and she brought those stories to the National stage and this is something it's an untold story about KLA Harris since the dobs decision she spent the last two years traveling this country meeting with these women meeting with their doctors the first vice president to visit a Planned Parenthood you know digging in deep with state and local legislators and Attorneys General to figure this out rolling up her sleeves and it all paid off last night I got to ask because you know we're looking at this polling every the day the day after the debate question is is it going to make a difference what happens now we were talking about undecided voters you know Simon Rosenberg uh the Democratic strategist says you know the S these polls are tight yeah but the differen is doobs the difference is the fact that roie Wade was overturned that changed the Dynamics of the 2022 midterms the polling has consistently overvalued Republican votes undervalued Progressive Democratic support and motivation I mean when you look at like the state of Pennsylvania where there's like you know Donald Trump was behind Joe Biden by 4.3 points in 2020 he and KLA Harris are neck and neck this year right do you do you think abortion is the Difference Maker for Democrats who are nervous about this election ction cycle being you know already much tighter than 2020 yeah I mean look even when Joe Biden was at the top of the ticket we were saying abortion was going to be the Difference Maker we did research that showed for voters who were very frustrated with Joe Biden particularly on the Middle East uh we were able to motivate them and move them on abortion that included 18 to 35 year olds and women so and what's interesting um our friend Tom bner who works a lot with Simon has been really tracking voter registration numbers and has been talking about a surge in voter registration data with women but particularly younger women and women of color and we're seeing really record numbers in these Battleground States so yeah I mean I think the issue gets more Salient the longer these bands are in place but with kamla Harris you have uh an authenticity But A Renewed Energy around it and you have a shrinking of the believability gap of what Democrats can and will do about it right totally and it it's helped by Donald Trump going through a list of states that have had abortion referenda on their ballots Ohio Kansas a little too liberal for him in Ohio just reminding people that these are issues that are being decided at the state level and oh by the way when they're decided Democrats usually win I mean that's still occurring and will be occurring this November too 10 states I want to mention something he said though that I think I actually want to dig into a little bit more um with my team he kept talking about how we don't need Congress for this we don't she's not going to get Congress for this look at project 2025 they plan to get a National Abortion ban through without Congress I thought it was a huge slip up for him it was it was basically admitting a national television yes I'm excited that I did this and by the way I don't need Congress and she doesn't need Congress we're going to do this by enforcing the comto act so I mean it was a big tell for us in so far as you could decipher anything I mean I watched it like five times it might have broken my brain that's your but that's your job my friend mini to maraju it's great to hear your perspective on all this really appreciate your time it's great to see you in person to see it was full of important and defining moments almost every second of that debate showed just an unbelievable cont between Donald Trump and KLA Harris so much so that choosing just one moment to focus on is sort of impossible but if you had to pick one moment to show an undecided voter it might be it might be this question to Donald Trump on the issue of healthcare nine years after you first started running do you have a plan and can you tell us what it is Obamacare was lousy healthc care always was it's not very good today so just to yes or know you still do not have a plan I have concepts of a plan concepts of a plan it's kind of like when you ask a high school student if they started their book report and they tell you uh they have an idea of how they're going to write it the difference between a high schooler and Donald Trump is of course that Donald Trump has been attacking the Affordable Care Act for nearly a decade now but he still has no idea what he wants to replace it with a decade later that alone is really something especially when you consider the double standard that that has existed and still exists for these two candidates heading into last night's debate for weeks these have been the headlines written about vice president Harris Harris's early campaign heavy on Buzz Light on policy KLA Harris has Good Vibes time for some good policies KLA Harris campaign is light on policy but that's helped her transform the race now the reality is that since she entered the race about I don't know five minutes ago KLA Harris has laid out a series of policy proposals and speeches and on her website economic policies on housing and price gouging Health Care policies on restoring reproductive freedom and lowering drug prices family policies on affordable child care so if that is the definition of light on policy then the Trump campaign is I don't know what is less than zero the policy page for the Trump website lists a series of vague campaign promises which are not policies like end inflation and seal the border with no explanation as to how Trump plans to accomplish any of it in fact the only detailed policy proposal Trump's allies have put forward is Project 2025 and Trump spent most of this campaign running away from that plan here he was last night as you know and as she knows better than anyone I have nothing to do with project 2025 uh that's out there I haven't read it I don't want to read it purposely I'm not going to read it going into this debate the onus was on kamla Harris to deliver specifics even though Donald Trump has spent much of this campaign just talking about sharks and the late great Hannibal Lector who was never actually alive to begin with but as it turned out last night Donald Trump did not have the luxury of just glossing over what he might actually do if he becomes president again and that led to a series of very revealing moments like this question on abortion would you veto a national abortion ban if it but if I could just get a yes or no because your running mate J JD Vance has said that you would veto if it did come to your desk well I didn't discuss it with JD in all fairness Trump just refused to say whether he would veto a National Abortion ban a question he had to know was coming in this debate it was the same thing on foreign policy like when Trump was asked this question about which side he supports in the war in Ukraine I want to ask you a very simple question tonight do you want Ukraine to win this War I want the war to stop I want to save lives just to clarify in the question do you believe it's in the US best interest for Ukraine to win this war yes or no I think it's the US best interest to get this war finished and just get it done by contrast vice president Harris spent the night on one hand baiting Trump while also letting people know where she stands on key issues here she is explaining her position on abortion I absolutely support reinstating the protections of roie Wade and as you rightly mentioned nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and an an asking for an abortion that is not happening it's insulting to the women of America and understand what has been happening under Donald Trump's abortion bans couples who pray and and and and dream of having a family are being denied IVF treatments what is happening in our country here is Harris responding to Trump on Ukraine while also making a direct appeal to critical swing state voters if Donald Trump were President Putin would be sitting in keev right now and why don't you tell the 800,000 polish Americans right here in Pennsylvania how quickly you would give up for the sake of favor and what you think is a friendship with what is known to be a dictator who would eat you for lunch the choice between Donald Trump and kamla Harris could not have been clearer and now the question is did last night have any impact on the voters who are going to decide this election and especially those of them who said going into this debate that they wanted to hear more specifics from kamla Harris this debate may be the first and last time voters see these two candidates debate side by side in a national Forum so what did they think you're sure you're gonna vote for Trump raise your hand sure is a strong word if I had have vote now right now today I'd vote for Trump okay same thing here okay Harris if you had to vote today raise your hand and you just want to know more bnie I want to know more and Nicole's not going to vote for either who do you think won by show of hands former president Trump two I'll give it four but tentative two over there what about vice president Harris more hands is there anything you heard here that you thought oh yeah I could go for that policy I could stand with that candidate not really for me I think kamla had a good debate I'm feel more favorably towards her than to Donald but I'm not still I'm still not still not sure not not 100% you're wiing me now our George Conway attorney and staff writer for the Atlantic Tim Alberta his latest piece for the magazine is entitled why Mike Lee folded and we are going to get into the Republican Party in the fold um George let me start with you first just about your impressions about this debate and the degree to which you think it really shaped the the Dynamics of the the closing days of this election well I think it I think it can't help but do that because I think we're going to keep seeing clips of Donald Trump saying the absurd things that he was saying yesterday I mean there's just so much that he does that is just a wall of words a random uh waterfall of just verbiage that that there were so many things in there that he said that are just completely absurd not just just the cats and the the people eating cats in Ohio allegedly I mean he said that he was um a leader in fertilization what what is that what is he even talking about there I mean it was just I mean the the montages that I think people are going to be put that the campaign will be able to put together and other people can be able to put together about all the foolish things and the exaggerated things and the the apocalyptic things that he was saying I mean the more he was pressured the more he talked about how it's the end of the world if I'm not and this will happen and and and the exaggeration just make make him look silly and if you stack them all together and I think that's that's what we're going to that's what people are going to remember um it's going to be brutal for him I do Wonder Tim you know it's not of course just Donald Trump who's going to have to answer for some of the things he said last night whether that's potentially siding with Vladimir Putin in the war in Ukraine maybe enacting a National Abortion ban I mean this is stuff that any a republican on a ticket in November is going to have to talk about and your magnum opus in the Atlantic talks about the concessions that formerly skeptical members of the party have made in order to gain power and relevance within the today's you know Trump owned GOP I sort of Wonder you know as you as you tell the story of Mike Lee how you think that story you know changes or doesn't change based on a performance like the one last night from Donald Trump and just you know how how difficult it is for those Republicans who still have a conscience but haven't disavowed Trump well Alex it's interesting uh I I spent the day talking with a number of people uh close to Trump close to the campaign and you know the way that they sort of play this off is well um we're sort of back to where we were a year ago which is that this is a coin flip and uh it's going to come down to you know 100,000 voters spread across maybe 12 counties in three or four states and and that's that's that but if you compare that to where the Trump campaign was just three months ago which is they were uh I think pretty comfortably closing in on 320 3 25 electoral votes and Democrats down the ballot in Michigan Wisconsin Pennsylvania Arizona Georgia elsewhere were in serious trouble um this feels like an entirely new campaign It Feels Like A Tale of Two campaigns in many ways and so it's interesting that uh when we were in Milwaukee this summer when really if it felt like this was the high watermark for Trump for the Republican party they were all sort of on cruise control and on Cloud9 feeling like this was turning into a wave of election for them uh you felt this uh Unity it was it was a party that for the first time really in a decade felt entirely coales around Donald Trump No Reservations no denters it was all magga all the time and what's interesting is that now when you're dealing with this sort of reset that we're that we're seeing specific to not just last night but specific to I'd say the last two or three weeks of the campaign with the numbers really leveling out and the Trump campaign showing some real signs of fatigue here some of those same Republicans who felt really good a couple of months ago and who were all on board they are not anymore and and you can hear it in their voice you can sense that they recognize that even if Trump's numbers don't suffer much or don't even suffer at all I mean look we're living in a very polarized electorate and as bad as he was last night I think there's a very realistic possibility that uh the numbers stay pretty steady in the days to come but that's because of Trump's perceived strengths and weak weaknesses already being so baked into the minds of so many millions of Voters but what about those down bound ballot Republicans do they suffer as a result of this and I think that that is the fear among a lot of Republicans that Trump's numbers are going to remain pretty stable no matter what but that among moderates among Independents that they suffer when he has a performance like the one he did last night yeah I it seemed to me George I don't know if you saw it this way but K Harris was trying to embarrass Trump not just for the benefit of Democrats to rile them up and get them to the polls but also embarrassing him in the eyes of moderate voters and maybe even moderate Republicans Jonathan V last uh writes in the Atlant in on the bull workk the degree to which she just was laser FOC fed on issues that resonate with those sort of Old Guard Republican centrists um from the opening question Harris talked about her support for family formation which is a conservative talking point her recognition of the importance of small businesses a key Republican constituency she emphasized tax cuts she was hawkish on Russia and China she offered unwavering commitment to Israel she talked about being a gun owner you know the list goes on I I thought that was pretty targeted messaging do you think it resonates George yeah I think it does because I think the the the the only substant of argument when Trump makes it is that somehow K Harris is too liberal for the country that that's the only substantive argument he has and he you know he try to bring in Immigration or taxes and things like that and she just tacked right to the center and she basically took was the same thing that happened in the convention where they basically took over the flag I mean Donald Trump spends all his time trashing on America not offering a vision for future um it's a very negative dystopian view of the country and she is know she's speaking positively about the country and not not about the government but about the people in the country about the ability of people with maybe With a Little Help from the government or with with a little less interference from the government um being able to to to accomplish things for themselves and for their families and small businesses and so on this this is this classic American um presidential politics it's normal and that's the that's the contrast that she was trying to and successfully Drew with Donald Trump and then he and then she'd say and then watch the other guy's rallies where he talks about Hannibal lecor and of course you know he goes off and chases the rabbit um you know it was it was beautiful the the transitions that she made back and forth between putting putting together a positive Vision introducing herself to the public that who hasn't that that haven't focused on her and then contrasting herself with him and then just giving those the side eye was so powerful okay she didn't overdo it she just looked at this man the way we all look at him it's like what is his freaking problem um what what is he what's he even talking about and but she did it in such a controlled fashion I mean it was it was the split screen I think at the end of the day um that that that destroyed Trump uh not just the words that he used and the words that she used because we we know what they we heard them say a lot of these things before but the split screen you know and that's what actually hurt Biden last time the split screen was him he had a this blank look on his face it mattered a lot Tim you know I agree with both of you guys that a that was kind of a master class in debating on the part of KLA Harris and that at the same time who knows whether it actually moves the people it needs to move right we played that sound from those undecided voters because it's kind of this mixed bag of people who are like yeah maybe I'm still for Trump or I think I'm for Harris and there's so much indecision and you have to wonder you know is the reluctance to vote for Harris when you see such a contrast because of her policy or is it something deeper and more personal like the fact that she is a woman or that she is a mixed race you know woman of color is it something cultural is it something personal that she herself can't actually manage that she can't message that no ad will fix no debate will fix but it's a it's a decision that these voters have to come to on their own well look it's hard to say I I think the one thing that we have to recognize is that the fundamentals of this campaign largely remain unchanged despite everything else in this campaign being turned on its head right we've had an assassination attempt we've had the incumbent president pushed out of the way and his his vice president elevated to the top of the ticket in a historic sort of int party maneuver And yet when you look at the polling from 18 months ago when you look at from 12 months ago six months ago to today most of the core concerns voters have remain pretty much unchanged and so if voters were punishing Joe Biden for the perception of being weak on the economy if they were public punishing Joe Biden for the perception of being weak on immigration uh and crime if they were punishing Joe Biden for uh the idea that the you know geopolitics is a mess and that the country the world rather is burning all around us well then it sort of makes sense that some of those same concerns some of those same criticisms would translate to his vice president now clearly not all of them have because she's polling significantly better than Biden was but you know I live in the midwest I live a Battleground state I'm traveling constantly to Wisconsin to PA talking to people in Michigan a lot of what you pick up and also when you talk to party officials on both sides what you pick up is that like she's an improvement from Biden just in the fact that she is younger she's telegenic she's articulate she can put a sentence together but she's still such an unknown Alex and I think one debate doesn't necessarily address that and it's not to minimize the issues you raising because we know that those issues are real and they are resonant with voters and that they move the needle to some degree I also just think that you know she campaigned as Joe Biden's vice president during the co election where you know the campaign was sort of Under Wraps she never really had a true introduction to the American people and then the beginning of her term as vice president was pretty Rocky and they sort of they kind of reeled her back in so really this is someone who is still doing the hard work of introducing herself to a lot of Voters and I think the good news for Democrats is that to the degree that she has become better known her favorables have gone up but I think the bad news for Democrats is that this is still a very condensed window in which trying to make that introduction and at the end of the day what we're seeing from some voters is look we can't stand Donald Trump uh he he he's repellent and yet I think he's going to be better on these two or three core issues I care about therefore I will vote for him again right his economic policy and I'm not even sure what the other they're eating the dogs the people that came in they're eating the cats maybe Donald Trump's most offensive and also disgusting lie last night was about Haitian immigrants in the town of Springfield Ohio I just want to CL I here you br up Springfield Ohio and ABC News did reach out to the city manager there uh he told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed injured or abused by individuals within the Immigrant Community people on telion let me just say here this is people on television say my dog was taken and used for food so maybe he said that and maybe that's a good thing to say for a city manager I'm not taking this from T telion dog was eaten by the people that went there again the Springfield City manager says there's no evidence of that vice president the claims that Trump is making about Springfield Ohio are provably false but he and his running mate Ohio Senator JD Vance are lying anyway Now lies are not good to begin with but there is a particularly pernicious aspect to these ones they these are real people that they are lying about the child that JD Vance claims was murdered by a Haitian immigrant we've blurred the photos here but the gist is that the Trump campaign is using the accidental death of an 11-year-old in a car accident to try and claim that Haitian immigrants are killers here was the father of that 11-year-old speaking to the Springfield City Council yesterday I wish that my son Aidan Clark was killed by a 60-year-old white man I bet you never thought anyone would ever say something so blunt but if that guy killed my 11-year-old son the incessant group of hatte spewing people would leave us alone we have to get up here and beg them to stop using Aiden as a political tool is to say the least reprehensible for any political purpose and speaking of morally bankrupt politicians Bernie Moreno chip Roy JD Vance and Donald Trump they have spoken my son's name and used his death for political gain this needs to stop now there is a massive disconnect between the story that Trump Advance are telling about spring field and what's happening in Springfield in reality the truth is that for decades Springfield was a city in Decline manufacturing plants shuttered the population plummeted and so the city tried to attract new businesses and workers and that effort worked new jobs and cheap rents attracted thousands of new workers including thousands of Haitian immigrants and to be certain a large influx of people comes with real challenges both for the immigrants and the city that welcomes them but by most accounts the influx of Haitians to Springfield has been a pretty positive thing the Haitians that I know these Haitians right here in this middle row my people that I've known for five years four years going on they're beautiful wonderful people they're Engineers electrical they're they're Highly Educated people their own businesses my colleague yamish Al synor sat down with the president of Springfield's Haitian community center today and here is how he described how that Community is feeling right now they scared for their lives some of them are asking me